CocoEclipse

Cliff Marlow was an enigma in the Bears locker room. He was their Assisting Captain, their Captain’s ride or die right hand man. He was big enough and tough enough to be their best defenceman with a strength and speed some would call ‘Almost supernatural’. 

He had nice handwriting. A very flowery and old fashioned, some of the rookies said, on the rare occasions he was forced to write on the white boards during their team meetings, even if his spelling could be kindly called ‘creative’ at times. At other times, some of the players would grumble that Marley 'couldn't fucking spell' as they tried to decipher a word.

He ran practices like they were military drills, to the point that it was more common then not for one or more players to throw up with fatigue and the team doctor hated his guts for it. The Bears were the fittest team in the League, even if their injury rate was through the roof. 

He seemed to live a predominantly nocturnal life and was rarely seen outdoors during the day. Yes, he attended all practices and team meetings and games but no one could remember him coming to any of the charity events or publicity stunts in the mornings. 

He barely attended team functions, especially the ones held during the day and a few of the guys had noted, when he did hang out at bars or clubs, he didn’t drink, or if he did, not around them. 

He kept a large mirror in his stall in the locker room, the gold decor of which was, frankly, terrifying and no one had managed to convince him to get rid of it. Hell, it had become somewhat of a hazing for the rookies, making them look into the mirror for three minutes or as long as they could stand (No one had lasted more than 90 seconds and those poor bastards had always come away shaken, with stories of witnessing their own images twisting into dead bodies, of visions of bloodied battlefields and traumatic accidents. Of the smell and taste of iron and dirt. The horror images only tended to last for a few days so in the end, they all just chalked it up to Marley being weird and having a weird mirror and went to find the next unsuspecting person to dare to do it)

He called Ilya Rozanov, their Captain, ‘My Liege’ when he was stressed. Again, no one could figure out why, even Ilya who, when asked, thought it was a standard American thing and just moved on. 

He couldn’t spell his own name. Connor Connors had taken to keeping a list of all the times Cliff had mis-spelt his own name, including Marlow, Marlo, Marleau, Marlou, Merle, Marlault and even one weird time, Morlaix. When he and Victor St Simon had decided to ask the guy how the hell to actually spell his name, Marley had just told them they were all correct. 

He called his hockey stick his sword and every time he broke one, he would mourn loudly, as if his very life had depended on that piece of wood and plastic and always seemed offended when someone passed him a new one. 

He had a weird vendetta against Scott Hunter, not that anyone knew why. Hunter was well known and liked, despite being on another team. He was a gentleman and barely got into fights, let alone bullied anyone. Yet more often than not, when facing the Admirals, Cliff would target Hunter on the ice and after, would go on a passionate rant about the man. Sometimes he got creative, talking about being stabbed in the back by the man. No one took him seriously when he went on these rants, simply because they were so fantastical, mentioning battlefields and wars. No one really knew the beef between the two but they had a running theory that the two must have played junior level together at some point and the man had a very flowery way of describing their feud.

He had been busted once, calling Shane Hollander an ‘Oriental’ and had been smacked down for his racist take. He had actually looked mortified at that, stuttering something about meeting the guy in the 80’s (At least that’s what they thought he had said, which made no sense since Hollander was a Millennial) but he had been apologetic and hadn’t done it again so everyone forgave him, even if he did tend to watch Hollander like a hawk, a frown on his face every time they were near each other, as if he expected the man to suddenly disappear.

He had also called Hayden Pike, Shane Hollanders Assisting Captain, the ‘Witches’ Mouse’, which, to be honest, was hilarious. Pike definitely had a mousey appearance about him. 

Put frankly, Cliff Marlow was a weird guy. But in Boston, weirdos were common and loved and Marley, however weird he was, he was the team's weirdo and they loved him. Even if occasionally, they liked to joke that he was a vampire.

-----

Done.