Chapter Text
Context is probably the best thing to start with. That said, Auston knows every fucking second of his life backwards and forwards and still, being where he is right now feels unbelievable. Inexplicable, even. But however insane it might be, however much he keeps trying to shut his eyes tight until they hurt with the hope of re-opening them and finding a different fate – the reality is still true and real and staring him back in the face and ordering him to keep living it. Somehow he’s gotten himself to this point.
But anyways. Context.
First off: Auston’s family isn’t homophobic, per say. His sisters made a point of supporting their schools’ LGBTQ fundraisers (for a solid week twice a year rainbows were everywhere). His Mom always smiled when one of their neighbours down the road dropped by with his long-term boyfriend to ask for milk or return a set of borrowed gardening tools (but her face always seemed to fall slightly after the door closed, like the warm expression was only there due to her own effort). His Dad still makes no secret of not understanding “the whole gay thing”, shaking his head is a mixture of disinterest or exasperation whenever his sisters try to explain it to him (“not my problem anyway”, he usually mutters, changing the subject quickly).
But no one goes to rallies, no one prays in Church that the homosexuals will burn in Hell (they barely pray anyway), no one plans to desecrate graves of fallen gay soldiers. It’s just the occasional subtle comments, hidden discomfort, overcompensations to appear tolerant – the little things that set this underlying expectation of deviance, or an “us” and “them” mentality that mostly come from his parents. They’ll sometimes toss out the famous “that was just how I grew up” excuse, Alexandria especially calling bullshit on that one (sometimes even using those words, usually resulting in extra chores and a stern lecture about language).
After the PULSE nightclub shooting, his Dad was flipping through the newspaper like an old man, and absentmindedly commented “I don’t know why all those gays would gather in one place like that. Especially at night. People like that, something bad is bound to happen eventually.”
After a long, tense moment of silence, his sisters were down his Dad’s throat with adamant protests, even his Mom admonishing quietly, “Brian, some of them were practically children!”
Even Auston knew he’d gone way over the line with that remark, something heavy settling in the bottom of his stomach like a lead ball with a significance he didn’t really understand – or at least, tried not to understand. He remembers schooling his reaction to show absolutely nothing; silence and emptiness. It was just about how he felt.
His Dad had looked up to see his wife and daughters’ faces along with Auston’s especially blank expression, and sighed. When he apologized, it actually sounded genuine, agreeing to watch the tribute video released about the victims that Breyana had been asking him to see.
Auston didn’t stay for that though. He went to the gym and pushed himself unless he was sweating and shaking and the trainer at the gym asked firmly if he should take a break for five minutes to catch his breath. The room spun when he stepped off the machine, and he finished his bottle of water in long swallows, heading to the changeroom without another word. He figured his mind had probably shut up from the over-exertion long enough to allow him to actually get some sleep.
He got five and half hours that night and called it a win.
xx
It came up during his years in lower-level hockey sometimes, a certain six-letter f-word tossed around regularly with no sign of regulation by the coaches or parents who happen to overhear. One older kid name Jace in particular would really try to get under another guy’s skin in the locker room or after practice, mainly because his Mom left his Dad for another woman.
“It’s in your blood,” he would hiss, getting up in his face with a disgusted expression. “You’re infected now too.”
Jace maintained that the other kid had to change in the closed stalls “so he wouldn’t get any ideas around the rest of us”. He liked to think of himself as the team’s “protector from the homos” or some shit like that. Sometimes the kid would cry and try to hide it when the jabs got particularly nasty, but that only made it worse.
“You even cry like a girl,” Jace would laugh, the room filling with chuckles and snorts. Auston watched silently and did nothing.
Somehow the kid’s Dad found out about it, stalking into the locker room after practice one day, and for a split second Jace’s face looked white as a sheet when he immediately stood above him on the bench with tightly crossed arms.
“Toughen him up,” was all the kid’s Dad said before turning around and walking out. Jace sat frozen for a moment, one skate on, one skate off. And then he grinned with dark eyes in a way that made Auston swallow hard.
Nothing malicious ever came from that visit though. Another guy’s Mother overheard the conversation and reported it to head office. The kid never came back for another game; he and his Dad moving far West soon after with Child Services right on their heels (if the plentiful gossip was to be believed).
Auston didn’t give a shit. He was 12 and always hungry and just wanted to play hockey. It did teach him one thing though. If he wanted to make it big in the NHL, anything other than wolf-whistling at women and talking about boobs was unacceptable when discussing sex or dating.
And that was fine, probably. Hockey always came first. If that’s what he needed to do, he could do that. He could make sure his head stayed on track.
And so he did.
xx
Classes were virtually silent about homosexuality, not that Auston really paid attention to school anyway. His friends and teammates all ignored or quietly mocked the ‘Rainbow Parade’ held twice a year in support of LGBT rights during high school, and Auston usually kept his mouth shut, claiming he “had to pretend to not hate it because of his sisters”. Every so often though he’d drop a scathing line in his best friend’s ear or snicker rudely at the dudes walking around in skirts just to avoid suspicion.
In his Junior year he was shoved into being lookout while a few buddies unplugged the mics that would be used for a presentation and drew giant dicks on a huge “support lesbians” poster. Turns out the mics were already fully charged by the time they got to them, but an eruption of laughter rocked the crowd when the poster was unveiled.
Honestly? It felt good. Safe; just letting the hate and disdain blanket anything that was already too confusing to even consider looking at, and flooding his mind with the electricity of doing something that was probably pretty shitty and gaining steady “normal” points in the eyes of his friends. His teammates. They never hurt anyone; just fucked around a bit, had a few laughs, made a couple memories, helped solidify their status as a ride-or-die crew to the playoffs.
But quietly mocking or taking passing jabs at gays turned dangerously quickly from something he occasionally did to blend in and stay involved with the team into a full-on coping strategy for pushing down any thoughts that he knew would be unacceptable. Auston saw a guy who’s smile looked kind of beautiful, he made a chirp to his friend about how his outfit looked girly. His best friend found his Dad’s recent issue of Playboy with images of women that made Auston wish the bodies looked entirely different, he dropped a one-liner a few hours later about how a girl in their class dressed like a butch. A guy Auston was trying not have a crush on got turned down for an upcoming dance, he pushed down the jealously by chirping that the girl probably wasn’t capable of handling dick anyway. It wasn’t something he sat down and thought about, channeling the energy and thoughts that way, nor an activity he took particular joy in doing. Regardless, somewhere along the line, it happened.
It was for hockey, Auston told himself late at night, lying in bed with uncomfortable memories and questions about morality gnawing at his brain. Always for hockey. And if it maybe helped him shove down thoughts he didn’t want to be thinking about in the first place? All the better.
One day in his Senior year his friends were playing a game of pick up on Auston’s street, and on a quick water break, his teammate Ryan mentioned how he just found out a girl he knew really well from his old school “was sent to this camp where she was starved and locked in a room to try and take the dyke out of her”.
“Dude, I heard about that,” his friend Liam added seriously, nodding. “She almost died or some shit. Crazy.”
Auston stick handled that ball impatiently, popping it up in the air. “Yeah, but did it work?” he asked distractedly. When the ball dropped, he looked up to see Liam staring at him. “What?” he pressed, looking around at the uncomfortable expressions and a couple averted eyes.
“Fuck, Matthews,” his linemate Taylor commented with a raised eyebrow, unimpressed. “Bit much, don’t you think?”
“She was my girlfriend before all this went down, you fucking asshole,” Ryan informed him with glare.
Auston tried not to think too much, shrugged his shoulders, talked before he knew what he was saying. “So were you the one who turned her queer then, or what?” he asked, focusing his attention on trying to get the ball up in the air again.
The fist hit him clean in the nose before he could even register he’d been tackled to the pavement. He could feel blood dripping from his face as Ryan was pulled off of him with great effort by his friends who were cussing and yelling with contradictory frantic attempts at calming everyone down filling the hot, dry air. Ryan spit viciously at him before Taylor led the fuming winger away by his shoulders, talking low and firm. The sticks and net were left in the street as everyone stood around not looking at each other, completely forgotten until a car honked rudely in a staccato rhythm until Liam kicked the equipment out of the way while presenting a prominent middle finger to the impatient driver.
Hockey – maybe for the first time in Auston’s life – seemed a little irrelevant.
That was the day when Auston learned there was a limit. A difference between quietly chirping and spouting words that genuinely hurt people. He didn’t like making someone look the way Ryan did as he stared down with angry tears threatening, getting out a shaky “you don’t talk about her,” before being yanked away. Didn’t like picturing the broken expression on his friend’s face when he thought about how he’d affected people in his life. Didn’t like the knowledge that he had the capacity to shatter someone that deep.
He hated it. Fucking despised it.
So immediately after that day, he started turning off all the slurs and hate and brutal observations he said externally and shoved all of it internally. Inside of his own head.
And it works. It’s disturbingly effective, actually. It’s really hard to even think about another dude in a sexual capacity if the disgust gets in the way before the thought can even form. He’s been using it ever since that pick-up hockey game on the street outside his house on a blistering hot day in Scottsdale, Arizona. A wonderful reminder of home – and what damage letting that side of him take control can really do.
That system has been the only thing that’s kept his head in the game and gotten him to where he is now: drafted, accepted, and playing for what are probably the most insane fans in the greatest hockey city the NHL has to offer. And he adores it. Every second feels like he’s living the dream he wasn’t sure was truly possible. Flying into Toronto, his little mental issue he struggles with was probably the last thing on his mind. And why wouldn’t it be? He had it under control, under wraps, almost non-existent – exactly as it should be.
And then Mitch Marner happened.
xx
There had always been something there, ever since that first day of training camp when they shattered the glass and the eternal grin Mitch always seemed to wear grew just a little bit wider. Auston remembers exactly looking at his face and being hypnotised by the way the blue eyes seemed to glitter under the harsh lights of the rink. When Mitch skated over and held out his hand for a fist bump and commented happily “I think we’re gonna be a thing now”, that was the true moment when Auston knew he was fucked. Not because they might get billed for the replacement glass, but because the idea of the two of them being “a thing” made his chest jump and twist and spark in a way he’d never before felt so intensely.
It took him a long time to realize that feeling was desire.
He tried to stop it. He really did. But then they both made the team and started to carpool and they just-
They work. Really, really well. Even with all the differences in their personalities and music tastes and energy levels, they work. Patty told them once that they compliment each other, and Auston’s pretty sure that’s the perfect way to put it. When Mitch is rash, Auston slows him down. When Auston’s apathetic, Mitch never fails to make him smile and pump him up. They read each other probably better than anyone else in the world (family included). When one of them has a bad game, the other will intuitively know if they need to sit down and watch tape and strategize, or just say “fuck it” and drink a shitton of beer and marathon Game of Thrones. And yeah, they bicker “like a goddamned old married couple” (according to JVR), but the banter is a part of their friendship; a give and take that they’ve nailed to perfection.
What really gets Auston is how absurdly easy it is to slip into being best friends with Mitch. It’s absolutely effortless. He can say whatever, do whatever, be whatever – and it’s all good. Mitch will chirp, yeah, but in reality, he’s one of the least judgemental people Auston’s ever met. Honestly though, one of the biggest indications that their relationship would click is how they’ve always treated silence. Considering how much time they spend together, there’s often random gaps in conversation, but thankfully theirs is one of the few relationships he’s ever had where the spontaneous bits of silence aren’t awkward. Sometimes they fill it with music and sometimes they leave the quiet to just be quiet together, dicking around on their phones in the same room.
They don’t fight, at least – not like, really fight. The closest they had was when an idiotic argument about a shitty game near the end of their first season snowballed into picking apart each other’s plays (something agreed a long time ago never to do when they were pissed), evolving into an almost three-day period where they barely spoke and were hideously cordial during practice; both too stupidly proud to admit the feud was asinine. The team watched it all happened with wide eyes and horrified expressions, scared to intervene, but eventually tricking them into a locked room to sort their crap out. It was all of three seconds of silence and staring at each other before Mitch muttered “This is fucking bullshit” and wrapped Auston in a massive bear hug. Auston snorted at the surrender, but the way his arms pulled his best friend against him sort of counter-acted that façade of nonchalance.
They chilled later that night at Auston’s place for a Game of Thrones binge, and at some point he looked up to see Mitch staring at nothing with a lost expression on his face, but still somehow appearing content. Auston poked him gently with his foot and waited until Mitch blinked a few times and refocused his eyes before asking quietly “Where’d you go?”
Mitch gave him a tiny smile and sunk deeper into the soft pillows on the couch, exhaling in a way that sounded like a long-held release. “I think I just needed this,” he finally said into the calm air, voice careful, as if he was feeling something out.
Auston felt his chest do a weird thing he tried to ignore and returned the small smile, letting the genuine relief of them hanging out again seep through his expression. “Yeah,” he admitted, not needing an elaboration on what exactly the ‘this’ Mitch was talking about. “Me too.”
They barely spoke for the rest of that evening, but Auston couldn’t have asked for a more perfect night.
Overall, it’s a ridiculously comfortable friendship, and Auston never once takes that for granted. The problem arises, however, when half of his brain is happy just shoving and laughing and chirping and being close teammates, and the other half…
The other can’t exist, really. It just can’t happen.
Except it does.
Exist, that is. Louder than he’s ever heard it before.
It exists when Mitch dances shirtless around the dressing room to music playing from his phone with droplets of water rolling down the muscles on his chest. It exists when they have late-night Netflix marathons and the light from the TV flickers on the angles of his cheekbones in the otherwise darkened room. It exists when Mitch falls asleep on the plane and his head slowly falls over onto Auston’s shoulder with a contented sigh. It exists when Auston says something especially dry and humorous and Mitch will just stare at him and shake his head with eyes glinting with unashamed affection. It exists when Mitch gives him a hug and they stay locked together for a little too long for ‘just bros’; breathing and pretending to not enjoy the warmth. It exists when Auston realizes that the unnecessary eye contact he sometimes shares with Mitch is far too extended and way too fucking captivating to be something he’d want to have with anyone else in his life. It exists when Auston feels a burning handprint imprinted onto his lower back, or right shoulder, or left thigh whenever Mitch touches him there. It exists when Willy chirps them about dancing around each other and Auston snaps at him harder than appropriate just to attempt to counteract the jumping spark in his chest at the prospect.
And, okay. So. Here’s the thing. Auston never meant for any of this to happen. He had a fucking plan for his life and his career and it never once looked anything remotely close to how it’s currently taking a hairpin turn and threatening to spin out of control. He never meant to end up wanting things he can’t stand to even think about without feeling sick, never meant to deviate from the safe path he’s created for himself, never meant to mix hockey – the only thing he’s sure of in life – with the one thing he’s sure he’ll always despise, never meant to look at a person he felt like he’s known forever and suddenly be struck with the realization he’s never really understood them at all.
But here he is. Remembering all the goddamned context and watching the events pass by, feeling himself careen down a path he’s run away from his entire life and for whatever reason not finding the will or strength to stop it. He thought he could handle whatever the hell kind of new havoc Mitch was bringing into his life – see it strictly as temptation without slipping, without breaking the rules.
And you know something else? He was a fucking idiot.
xx
The first time it happens they're both drunk – like really drunk – because of course they are. There’s something about the night, the club, the laughter, the absurdly expensive shots that just feel dangerous, reckless; wonderfully so. The alcohol isn’t the only thing intoxicating him under the cascading lights in the dark room. Even so, Auston thought he'd have enough warning flags planted deep inside his brain to keep himself in check; wouldn't let Mitch drag him into the dance floor, wouldn't give in the pounding music, wouldn't let his hands settle against Mitch's hips as they move instinctively with the ebbing crowd, wouldn't get lost in the moment and the thrill of a good win, wouldn’t permit strong arms to wind loosely around his neck, wouldn't feel anything less that repulsed when they brush up together in a move that is probably more like grind and feels something hard poking into his thigh, wouldn’t understand what that means and do anything except immediately walk away.
But no, with a toxic amount of alcohol rushing through his veins and barrelling down his mental barriers, Auston pulls him closer, slamming their hips together with the drop of the bass, revealing all too clearly that Mitch's "problem" is apparently a two-way street.
Wide eyes stare back at him, a little sobering, but not nearly enough stop the insatiable need from growing and growing until the fizzing and crackling want spills over.
They’ve been fucked since the first time their gazes met, and they’re sure as hell fucked now.
"C'mon," Auston mutters in his ear, heart racing and brain struggling to catch up. He pulls Mitch through the crowd, at least having the presence of mind to scan around for his teammates watching, but they’re all otherwise occupied either drinking or dancing to notice. They finally get to the downstairs bathroom, miraculously empty, and he throws the lock shut with a heavy click.
"Tell me if you don't want this now," he warns, stalking toward where Mitch is pressed against the wall, ears still ringing with the echoes of a pounding beat.
"Fuck that," is all he says, grinning widely, and pulls Auston the rest of the way in.
It’s messy and rushed and should probably be disgusting, going at it in the dirty bathroom of a club. But somehow it’s better than all of the sex Auston’s had with his random female hookups combined. He doesn’t let the kisses become anything more than sloppy and wet, cutting himself off from anything that could be considered careful or meaningful. It’s just as well anyway; the amount of alcohol flooding his bloodstream making anything requiring any sort of finesse impossible. But even those hurried brushes of tongue are setting his body on fire, aching for something he’s never once allowed himself, the danger adding another layer to the desire.
Mitch’s hands are resting low on his ass, pulling him in so their hips are forced against each other again. Auston moves instinctively, not having anything else to go on, thrusting up a little, and Mitch whines into his mouth at the friction, fingers digging in.
The sound is like an explosion, and Auston’s whole mind shuts down for a split second when he feels the vibration of it on his tongue. He reaches for Mitch’s jeans, unbuttoning with no idea what the fuck he’s planning on doing next, but needing to do it all the same. He’s never been one to half-ass anything – even the shit that’s fated to end in disaster.
“Holy fuck, are we actually doing this?” Mitch asks breathlessly, head pressed back against the wall.
Auston doesn’t think he can actually talk right now, so he just nods, swallowing hard and pushing Mitch’s jeans down over his hips. He can hear the voices in the back of his mind screaming to turn around and run, but the combination of too many drinks and Mitch’s close proximity have made them muted and unimportant, his entire safety grid temporarily offline.
Mitch quickly gets Auston’s jeans undone and out of the way as well, wetting his lips with hovering hands and looking up like he’s asking permission.
The words get caught in his throat, the fuck, please, for the love of God just touch me buried thankfully somewhere he can’t reach, so he closes his eyes, trying to dig out whatever he can through all the dozens of roadblocks he’s created for himself over the years. In the end, all that comes out is a strained, “Yeah”, but that’s all it takes for Mitch to reach inside his boxers and give him a long, firm stroke.
Lighting. It fucking feels like lighting; every pull, every teasing rub over the head, every tight slide through Mitch’s slicked fingers. Auston’s biting hard onto his mouth and tongue and whatever it takes to not make the sounds bursting in his chest escape into the air. It’s just so much.
He moves without even thinking, taking Mitch’s dick in his hand and trying to mirror the actions being done to him, trying to cause even a fraction of the euphoria lighting up his body and commanding his existence. He’s doing a decent job if the breathy “fuck, fuck, fuck” he’s hearing tells him anything. There’s a banging on the door at one point, but they’re both too far gone to even give a shit, speeding up their movements in tandem until their foreheads are pressed together and they’re breathing into each other’s mouths and thrusting up into it like nothing else could ever matter.
Mitch lets out a quiet moan as a warning before Auston feels wet on his hand, taking a split second to understand that he did that, and the flashing realization along with a wicked twist of Mitch’s wrist is enough to push him right over the edge. Fireworks explode behind his closed eyelids and he tastes blood on his tongue as he swallows the scream that wants to be let out into the hot and sticky air, body vibrating with the convulsions of what is probably the strongest orgasm of his life.
For a good second Auston’s terrified he might collapse of the spot after that, legs wobbly and head heavy. He feels Mitch lean forward and press his lips onto his jaw as they come down, lingering and gentle and caring and-
Wrong. Wrong. This is-
No. Fucking- What the actual fuck did he just-
No. No. There’s a reason why he can’t, and now… Now-
Auston backs away abruptly, all the old thoughts creeping in, and it’s like whiplash feeling them come back so sharp and strong. He keeps his head down, catching his breath and reaching into the closest stall to grab a roll of unattached toilet paper. He cleans Mitch’s come off his hands and wipes off the little bit on his thighs. He thinks a little hysterically that he doesn’t even know who the sticky substance coating his skin belongs to, but tries to shove that panic aside and wordlessly throws Mitch the leftover clean toilet paper. He does his jeans back up in a familiar motion, zipping the fly, a million thoughts running through his head until he can break in down into three main categories.
Number one is that this was a mistake. A lapse in judgement. A stupid decision made in a haze of alcoholic insanity that he now has to live with. That they have to live with.
Number two isn’t even a thought, really; just blistering disappointment in himself. Auston doesn’t linger too long on that one.
Number three, the strongest one, is simply an overwhelming urge to fix this. Limit the damage. Stop it before it gets impossibly worse that it already is.
Mitch finishes cleaning himself up and tosses the toilet paper in the trash before ditching the roll in another stall. He hasn’t said anything either, but the look on his face when Auston glances over definitely means he wants to.
So he’ll just have to get there first.
"One time thing," Auston says firmly, stepping over to wash his hands at the sink, unable to resist stealing a glimpse up into the mirror to see the reaction.
Mitch blinks, like he's internally switching gears, but after a moment he nods, meeting Auston’s gaze in the glass. "One time thing,” he agrees, a ghost of a smile trying to grace his partly swollen lips.
Except it's not.