Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

December 2016

“That was the first time,” Auston murmured, staring into his tea.

“The first time you thought…?” William Nylander prompted, his trademark black I’m-playing-team-therapist-today glasses askew.

“The first time that I thought…you know what,” Auston admitted with significant exasperation, casting a glance at the surrounding coffee shop patrons, “about you know who.”

Willie fixed his glasses absentmindedly with his left hand. “You mean, the first time you thought Mitch Marner was beautiful.”

Auston glared at Willie and hrmmfed, pleading his teammate for more subtlety. “Don’t say it like that!”

Willie raised his eyebrows and smirked as he sipped his tea.

“Fuck, Willie- I just don’t want the entire city of Toronto to know, okay?” Auston whispered, folding his arms into a more hostile stance. He’d known Willie a few months and figured he was reasonably trustworthy, but had hoped for more tact from his friend.

“So,” Willie pressed on, with a hint of fuckery in his eyes, “you had this affirmation while walking into the ACC for a game-“

“-not just any game, like one of the first few we ever played at home.”

“-right,” Nylander agreed, “when you’d known Mitch for all of like 21 days, and you were first becoming ‘serious bros’, or whatever-“

Auston nodded exasperatedly.

“And the conversation in which the revelation occurred was about that weird piano in your apartment that looks like it should have sank with the Titanic.”

“Exactly.” Auston affirmed. “I was talking about not knowing what the fuck to do with it- it had just come with the place- and Mitch was all ‘I don’t play but I’ve always wanted to learn so you should keep it and I’ll come over and play around with it like we’re in a fucking rom-com’-“

-“He didn’t actually say the rom-com thing…?” Willie interrupted with a sideways smile.

“Of course not, he just sort of stood there and smiled- like…really smiled at me- and it was golden hour so the light sort of fucking hit him right and his hair was blowing around and…it happened.” Auston finished rapidly with a palpable note of angst. “Before I could stop myself, I was thinking shit, is he beautiful? Like, I know he plays some beautiful fucking hockey but this was about…something else.”

Willie paused, taking in Auston (who looked several degrees more dishevelled than he had a moment earlier) and waiting for a server at the adjacent table to leave before continuing.

“I don’t get why you’re so worked up about it.” He proclaimed haughtily. “You’re allowed to think someone of the same gender is attractive, Matts.”

“Maybe, Willie, but not a fucking teammate. Not Mitch Marner.” Auston whispered quietly.

“And why not?” Nylander countered, sounding mildly offended- for which the hopeful, unfamiliar new side of Auston’s brain that was thinking things about Mitch was grateful.

Auston exhaled slowly, pressing his head into his hands. “I feel like I’m…poised…to become the face of the franchise or something. The face of the most illustrious hockey franchise in the world. And guys don’t, you know, like guys in this league. In the NHL.” He whispered very darkly.

Willie remained quiet and looked at Auston almost sympathetically. His expression was equal points disappointed and understanding.

The simultaneous truth and lie of the moment stung, and Auston immediately felt desperate to fill the silence.

“Everything we’re doing here-“ he started thoughtfully, “-bringing back the ‘glory days’ for a team that’s so fucking popular it’s scary, trying to earn the respect of the most boomer coach we’ve ever skated with, trying to be some of the literal best in the game; it’s all gone if anyone finds out I’m thinking these things about a teammate.” Auston reeled, his voice threatening to betray the rising stress and frustration that was bubbling in his chest.

Willie sighed. “I wish I could tell you with absolute certainty that you’re wrong.” He mused, taking a long dreg of his tea.

“Because of all that,” Auston continued tentatively, “I’ve been trying to forget about it, but the way I thought about him that one time is just not going away.” Auston complained, taking an irritated much-too-large sip of his tea and consequently nearly leaving burns in his mouth. It took long seconds for the scorching to subside.

Meanwhile, Willie cleared his throat and continued.

“From what you just said, Matts, I take it this…attraction has progressed well beyond you looking at Mitchy one day and thinking damn…-“

Auston raised an eyebrow at Willie but held his tongue, which was still throbbing unpleasantly from the scalding tea.

-“instead this has become more of a serious pining situation…”

“It’s like, the worst fucking crush I’ve ever had.” Auston decreed flatly. “I can’t stop thinking about it. I’m equal parts guilty, hopeful, and terrified. It’s extra brutal when we hang out…like, just me and him.”

“Which is all the fucking time.” Willie sniggered, “you two are attached at the hip. The most co-dependent teammates I think I’ve ever seen,” He decided.

Auston ignored the jab. “Even when we’re not together I find myself staring at my phone, waiting for his fucking name to appear on a text or snap or something.” he admitted with a groan. “I don’t know what the fuck to do, Willie.”

Nylander sighed and drained the last of his tea. “Normally this is where I’d tell you that love knows no bounds and you should stop the fucking pining and do something about it,” he admitted sheepishly, “but given that Mitch is currently in a relationship-“

“-with a girl.” Auston added unhappily.

“-yes, with a girl.” Willie reiterated, looking similarly displeased. “And given the fact that he has given us no indication that he isn’t a standard straight-as-a-fucking-board hockey player, I don’t know that there’s much we can do.”

Auston pressed his fingers to his temples, massaging the beginnings of a wicked headache. “Unrequited love fucking sucks.” He complained. “Almost as much as the status quo on diversity in our fucking profession.”

“If I was religious I’d say amen to that.” Willie muttered, glancing at a text on his phone.

Auston took a final sip of his tea, which was now noticeably cold. There was a long couple moments of quiet contemplation on both sides of the table.

“Thanks for listening, Will.” He muttered eventually. “And for not telling. You’re the only one that knows.”

Nylander shrugged, but the playful glint in his eyes betrayed how pleased he was to be beholden to his friend’s secrets. “What are teammates for?”

In yet another moment of interruption, Auston’s phone buzzed on the surface of the café table. A text from Mitch appeared on its screen, and Auston tried (and failed) to stifle the way his heartbeat quadrupled momentarily in intensity.

Mitch: dude I need to come to ur place

Mitch: i had a breakthrough on when the saints go marching in

Mitch: im coming in fifteen pls be there

Snatching up his phone, Matthews murmured “Apparently, they’re for loaning the use of your piano to, actually.”

“Mmmmhmmm.” Willie mused ponderously. “If we weren’t so convinced Mitch’s straight I’d have really enjoyed reading unnecessary meaning into that last text…”

“Shut up- don’t make me regret telling you.” Auston muttered, trying not to smile. He shifted in his seat, passing his empty mug from hand to hand absentmindedly. “But for real, I have to cut this short. I should really go let him in.”

“The pining continues.” Willie proclaimed, gathering his things.

Auston glared at him as he hauled on his coat. “See you tomorrow. Practice at…10?”

“9.” Willie corrected.

“Fuck- one day I’ll get that right.”

“We’re still new. Lots of time to figure that- and other things- out.” Nylander proclaimed as he and Matthews stepped out onto Queen Street. “Have fun with your beautiful man…or… boy? Not really sure which with Mitch.” He mused playfully as he prepared to part ways with Auston.

Auston mouthed one last fuck you at his friend as he walked away, which Nylander responded to by grinning coyly over his shoulder until he was swallowed up by the street.

***

As Auston rode the elevator up to his apartment, which occupied most of his building’s top floor, he was betrayed once more by his heartbeat, which was pounding aggressively at the prospect of imminently seeing Mitch.

As he’d been doing nearly every day of the past two months whenever such feelings surfaced, Matthews steeled himself with thoughts of a coach yelling at him in disgust. It was akin to throwing water on a fire; most of the time it was an efficient and effective way to sharpen his mind and angle his thoughts away from Mitch.

But sometimes the fire burned so aggressively that no amount of water did a fucking thing. Apparently today was one of those days, because as soon as the elevator doors opened and he clapped eyes on Mitch his pulse took off at a sprint.

His teammate was just standing by the door to his apartment- playing on a fucking 3DS because of course he was- and somehow Auston still found himself taking note of Mitch’s appearance in the distinct way one does a crush; his hair, (it was parting a bit left of where it usually did) his hands (there was a long, superficial scratch running from his wrist to his index finger on his right hand) and of his mouth, (it was scrunched to the side like it always was when Mitch was intently focused. He often did it at faceoffs during games, and coach probably wished he did it more during practice).

Auston subconsciously found himself wringing his hands as he marched up to Mitch.

“Hey,” Mitch exclaimed, glancing up from his game, and hitting Auston with a furtive look. “I tried to pick the lock but only for like 5 mins because I was complete ass at it-“ he rambled, causing Auston to smirk. “-but anyways I might have fucked up your keyhole.

Auston heard Willie’s voice screaming inside his head about dirty innuendos and forced himself to remain straight-faced.

“It’s fine, dude, as long as we’re not locked out,” he chided with a minute smile.

“If we are I’ll climb in from the outside like Spiderman.” Mitch declared without missing a beat. He appeared entirely serious.

As was the trend whenever he was around Mitch, Auston smiled as he unlocked the door. Mercifully, it opened like normal.

“Mitch-proof.” He muttered as they stepped over the threshold.

Mitch glared at him in mock irritation and sighed dramatically as he flopped himself onto Auston’s couch. “Guess that means you don’t want to come home to the lovely sound of me fucking around with your piano.”

Once again, Auston quieted Willie’s jeering in his head.

“I have to mentally prepare myself for the racket every time you come over,” He moaned in mock exasperation.

“It’s less racket-y now, I promise,” Mitch crooned, stretching like a cat as he sat up on Auston’s couch. “I finally remembered what the number sign beside some of the notes means and now it sounds like a real song- I’ll show you,”

Without hesitation, Mitch stood up and strode over to the rickety brown baby grand piano that was collecting dust by Auston’s living room window.

Auston had never touched the thing, but Mitch had been playing it a few times a week, trying to learn to play from absolute scratch. So, he kept it around.

It had been godawful to listen to for the first couple weeks, but at least now Mitch could string enough notes together to half-resemble a song. “When the Saints Go Marching In” was his latest trial.

Auston watched as Mitch took a seat on the piano’s mahogany stool, pulled the song up on his phone, and zoomed in on the tiny notes, squinting to try and figure out which lines they were on. Apparently, a dedicated elementary school music teacher had once taught his class to read music; even more remarkably, Mitch had paid just enough attention to now very slowly work out what the hell he was looking at. Auston had had no such training and thought the music looked like a bunch of blobs and lines.

So, he didn’t even pretend to be able to help. As was the usual routine, Auston set himself down on the squishy recliner that he’d dragged over to the piano’s side a few weeks ago and pulled out his phone. He liked to feign distraction so that his teammate wouldn’t feel self-conscious.

Mitch began to play, starting and stopping regularly to zoom in on the music with his phone, or to mutter “fuck” under his breath. It sounded a bit like a seven-year old was playing (and randomly muttering expletives), but it was nice.

After a few minutes, Auston realized his phone had turned off from lack of use. When the song ended, he realized he’d been staring at Mitch and clapped awkwardly as a shitty cover-up.

Mitch didn’t seem to notice, giving a dramatic seated half-bow and smirking. “See, I’m a legit piano-er now.”

“Pianist,” Auston corrected.

“Penis?” Mitch echoed, bewildered.

“Pee-ann-isst.” Auston annunciated very slowly, attempting to stifle a laugh.

“Bro, I still hear Penis-“ Mitch chortled.

“It’s a legit music thing, Marns, stop laughing.”

Mitch shot Auston some of the most serious side-eye he’d ever delivered. “Fine then, I’m a peen-ist.” He declared, straight-faced, “Now get up here and let me play it for you again but this time with you paying complete fucking attention.” He pressed, suppressing a smile.

Auston rolled his eyes, ignoring the involuntary acceleration that had started up in his chest, and sat himself beside Mitch on the stool, which creaked dangerously at their combined weight. He and Mitch both looked down simultaneously, as if daring the seat to break.

“It better not fucking give.” Auston muttered.

Mitch shrugged. “If it does we can blame my staggering size.”

Auston snorted, then regained his composure as he realized that his shoulder, arm and thigh were brushing against Mitch’s. He watched as his teammate cleared his throat, placed his pale fingers on the piano keys, fixed his eyes on the tiny phone screen, and resumed playing.

Auston watched Mitch’s blue irises dart around the tiny image of the music. He noted how the little scratch on his right hand bent and stretched as he played, and how the tendons below it flexed and released as he stretched to reach the notes of his rather childish song.

Auston felt as though he was watching something sacred, not staring at his friend play a broken rendition of a kid’s song on a piano that looked like it had been to hell and back.

When Mitch finished once more, he glanced expectantly at Matts, who nodded and attempted to look supremely impressed rather than hopelessly infatuated.

“You’ve, uh…learned lots.” He stammered stupidly.

“Soon I’ll be able to play All Star and then we’ll know I’ve made it.” He mused thoughtfully. “Anyways, wanna play Chel?”

“Sure.” Auston blurted, hoping he didn’t sound as desperate for Mitch to hang around as he felt.

They flopped down onto the permanent pile of pillows that lived in front of Auston’s TV and played NHL, and other games, until the sky darkened and lights began to flicker on throughout the city below. Auston, who was usually incredibly fucking competitive and did everything in his power to bury his teammates at video games, wasn’t even mad that Mitch won like two thirds of their games.

Eventually, Mitch glanced at his phone and groaned.

“Friggin’ girlfriend,” he murmured, scowling.

Auston felt something deflate in his chest and pointedly avoided looking at Mitch for a moment.

“Everything…okay?” he asked nonchalantly after a lengthy pause.

Mitch glanced at Auston with melancholy. “She wants me to come hang off her arm for another stupid party with her friends.”

“Oh.” Auston said flatly. He was tempted to add, ”Why don’t you just break up with her…” but restrained himself.

“Guess that’s it for me.” Mitch sighed unhappily, putting down his controller. “Give me a ride to practice tomorrow?”

“Of course.”

“Cool. Peace.”

“Bye,” Auston started, turning too slowly for one last glance at Mitch and realizing he was already halfway out the door. The click of the lock sent the apartment into a heavy silence.

He immediately felt Mitch’s absence like a hole in his chest.

***

The next morning dawned crisp and clear. Lake Ontario was a sparkling blue expanse out Auston’s bedroom window as he forced himself out of bed for practice.

He moved sluggishly through his pre-practice routine- showering, dressing and consuming a single bagel slathered with cream cheese- and by 7:45am he was in the car and on his way to pick up Mitch.

Marns, who was usually a bit zombie-like in the mornings, flopped down on Auston’s passenger seat wrapped in a hoodie. He seemed even more exhausted than usual; there were uncharacteristic bags under his eyes and he appeared frustrated about something.

Unsure what to do with that information, Auston mumbled a slightly awkward ”hey,” and received a muffled grunt from the mass of hoodie to his right in reply. The silence between them began to stretch, so Auston turned on the radio, causing Umbrella by Rihanna to come over the car’s speakers. He smiled, knowing that Mitch adored the song on an unhealthy level, but was disheartened when he realized his teammate hadn’t reacted in the slightest.

He exhaled slowly, then tentatively tested the waters. “Girlfriend kept you up?”

Mitch shifted in his seat as they pulled out onto a larger street. “Stupidfuckinggirlfriendparties.” he mumbled irritably.

“Do you want to, uh, talk about it?”

“Just gotta skate and I’ll be fine.”

Auston glanced at him, curled up in the adjacent seat looking thoroughly deflated, and debated how to continue. Mercifully, as they pulled up to a red he was saved from deciding what to say, because an urgent text from Willie appeared on his hands-free screen.

Willie: MY CAR WON’T START AUS

Willie: PLS PICK ME UP AND ILL BUY U STARBUCKS FR A MONTH

Grateful for a distraction, Auston muttered something to Mitch, who grunted quietly in response, and took a detour to collect Willie from his apartment building.

A couple moments later, the blond Swede slid into Auston’s car with a flourish. “Thank you thank you,” he stammered, much more flustered than usual.

It took all of two seconds for his eyes to find Mitch burrowing in Auston’s passenger seat. Willie raised his eyebrows. “Did you break Mitchell?”

Auston shook his head and muttered “he’s having girlfriend problems,” which caused Willie to meet his gaze in the rear-view mirror with aggressively widened eyes.

Mitch grumbled something unintelligible, then emerged, blinking, to shoot Nylander a wounded look.

“I have just the proposition to cheer you up,” Willie proposed brightly, flashing an impish smile. “I found us a New Year’s Eve party.”

“Auston’s already going back to Scottsdale for New Year’s.” Mitch countered flatly.

The displeasure in his tone made Auston’s heart clench. “Maybe not,” he assured his teammates immediately. “My friends back home are out of state and my parents are talking about visiting my great aunt’s place so I might need an out-“

“-Excellent,” Willie interrupted, “You can come hang with Mitch, Zach, Freddy and I at this Chalet my cousin owns by Blue Mountain.” He finished grandly.

Mitch snorted a bit. “You think Auston’s going to pass on seeing his family and friends back home for fucking Collingwood?” he exclaimed, the edges of his mouth creeping towards a smile. “Do you think I’m going to do that?”

Willie looked supremely offended. “It’s a very nice Chalet.”

“In fucking Collingwood,” Mitch chortled. “I mean, I’d do anything right now to avoid committing to another fucking party with my girlfriend’s friends for New Year’s Eve, but Aus-“

“I’ll come.” Auston mused quickly, legitimately feeling like a small house by some Ontario hills was bound to be an improvement over his current New Year’s circumstances, especially if Mitch was going to be there.

“Really?” Mitch blurted, his mouth hanging open for a second, which Auston immediately decided made him look cute.

“Yeah, really,” he uttered, still pleased with Mitch’s reaction.

Willie clapped his arms around his teammates’ back, chiding “It’s a date, then,” which nearly caused Auston to swerve into the oncoming traffic. He recovered quickly with a quiet exhale.

They pulled into the parking lot of the practice arena in Etobicoke a moment later, arriving unharmed and all significantly more cheerful than when they’d left their respective apartments earlier that morning.

***

That practice, and then Mitch and Auston’s inaugural season, lurched onwards with all the rapid fury of a coach whose team had suffered an 8-1 beating immediately followed by a blowout victory. In a flurry of drills, meetings, tape reviews, performance evaluations, cross-country flights and increasing fame, Mitch and Auston found their feet in the NHL.

In what seemed like half a heartbeat to Auston, December 31st arrived and he, Mitch, Willie and Freddy were piling into Zach Hyman’s car for the drive north to Willie’s cousin’s ridiculous Chalet beside Blue Mountain Ski Resort.

After a couple hours, they pulled onto the Chalet’s long, gravel driveway at the tail end of a huge snowstorm, which had buried the place under a thick coating of snow, a phenomenon that Auston was still not used to.

As soon as he emerged from the car, Auston stepped into a foot of snow and was disgusted to find that his teeth were chattering. His disgust was lessened slightly when Mitch observed that he was shaking, widened his eyes, and surrounded him in an exaggerated, sticky-sweet hug, crooning “Awwwwww do you miss your fucking desert?”

Aware of his teammates’ eyes on them, Auston decided that feigning disgust was his safest response.

“Would have said no until right this second.” He blurted, smirking. Thankfully, Mitch ignored him and squeezed him tighter, such that they awkwardly ambled a few attached steps towards the grand front entrance to the Chalet.

Mitch let go of Auston as they drew closer to the cottage so that he could get a proper look at the place, which was enormous, heavy on wood and windows, and thumped with all the sounds of a sizeable party.

“Who owns this place again?” Zach mused, observing an ornamental ice sculpture of a palm tree that had been placed beside the long path to the front door.

“My second cousin,” Willie admitted, “he owns a chain of fitness clubs and spends eleven months of the year in California, which is where all his friends come from, so no one here is likely to know who the fuck we are.”

“Perfect.” Mitch declared.

Auston and Freddy nodded in agreement, though Zach still looked skeptical. “Have you ever actually been here before, Will?”

“Nope.” Nylander mused nonchalantly, causing Zach to shoot him a furtive look.

As Auston and Mitch stepped onto the porch, Willie rang the doorbell, his breath clouding in the wintry air.

A guy with flaming ginger hair wearing an unbuttoned plaid shirt answered the door, blasting the quintet of Leafs with the sounds of the party.

Willie exclaimed happily at the dude in Swedish, making a wide gesture with his hands. The ginger guy grinned at them jovially, shouted a Swedish response, and gestured them inside. He appeared to invite Willie and company to help themselves to anything they wanted, but then immediately disappeared into the crowd of humanity in the adjacent room.

As soon as he was gone, Willie jerked his gaze over to his teammates, looking mildly shook. “I have no idea who the fuck that guy is-“ he reeled, running a hand through his hair nervously. “I decided to just go with it…”

Auston snickered and Mitch shrugged with a smile. “Works for me,” he decided, immediately removing his boots and tossing his jacket onto a mammoth coat pile in the neighbouring sitting room.

Auston and the others followed suit, then Freddy, Mitch and Zach immediately made a beeline for an enormous table of food that had been set up in the high-ceilinged Great room.

Willie and Auston wandered through a separate throng of people towards a towering stone fireplace, where they halted and took in the scene.

“So, we drove up here for a huge-ass party in which we don’t actually know anyone, not even the host.” Auston chided with a small laugh, taking the opportunity to snatch up a plastic cup of fruit punch from a nearby table. “Great decision-making on our part.”

“To be fair,” Willie exclaimed, I do know the host- I’ve met him like, twice-“ he insisted, smirking, “I just don’t know where the fuck he is.” He continued, suddenly eyeing Auston’s drink. “Although, on the topic of decision-making, maybe don’t drink that in case it’s laced with something the sports science department would skin us alive for consuming.”

“Fair point.” Auston admitted, casually pouring out the drink into the soil of a houseplant.

“At least it’s a good party.” Willie observed proudly.

Auston nodded, taking in the nearby smorgasbord of food, the dance floor (which featured strobe lights), and the small stage that had been erected at the other end of the Great room, where two girls were currently singing a terrible karaoke cover of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”.

Willie glanced at him inquisitively. “How are you doing, by the way, with your Marns obsession?” he inquired suddenly.

“Subtle, Willie.”

“For real, though! Yesterday you confessed to me that you’re agonizing over the turmoil of crushing on him, meanwhile he’s hugging you and shit…” he mused mournfully, “…that must suck ass.”

“I’m just shelving it, like I always do.” Auston suggested drily.

“Maybe you should think about trying to, like, branch out and date other…guys?” Willie tested, scanning Auston for his reaction.

Matthews glared at him flatly.

“Or girls?” Willie tried.

Auston shifted uncomfortably. “I’m better alone, I think.” He mused. “Too much hockey to think about.”

“I don’t think that’s true, Aus, but you’re fucking stubborn so I won’t try to change your mind.”

“Thanks.”

Willie stood up straighter. “Now,” he started, “we can keep moping around by this fireplace discussing your lack of a love life,”

Auston rolled his eyes.

“Or,” Willie offered, “we can dance!” he exclaimed, dragging Auston to the dance floor.

Auston obliged unhappily and spent the next hour trying not to look awkward as he and Willie traipsed across the dance floor, busting some shitty moves and occasionally making small talk with the other guests. He eventually admitted to himself that he was having a decent time. He had no idea what Mitch and the others were up to, but knowing Mitch he assumed they’d found something exciting do.

Meanwhile, Willie’s earlier prediction proved to be correct; they hadn’t been recognized by a single hockey fan yet, which was a remarkable occurrence within the province of Ontario. The party was a sea of blissful anonymity; looking back, Auston would never experience another event quite like it in the succeeding years.

Everything proceeded blissfully until Auston eventually stumbled into Mitch by the bathroom. He immediately sensed that something was off; Marns’ icy blue eyes seemed somehow brighter than usual, and he was talking very loudly, even for Mitch Marner.

“Auston!” He stammered brightly, beaming an almost disturbingly bright smile. “The toilet paper here is fucking wicked, you should see-“

Auston interrupted the toilet paper spiel by unapologetically taking Mitch’s head between his hands (to hold him still, as he was flitting about so much) and squinting to take a closer look at his pupils. They had to be four times their normal size.

“What the fuck did you take, Mitchy?” Auston mused, simultaneously concerned and stifling a strong desire to laugh.

“Nothing, I swear-“ Mitch assured him, sounding almost lucid, “the pink juice is really fucking good though,”

“Fuck, Willie was right about the punch.” Auston muttered, causing Mitch to cock his head sideways in confusion, grinning ridiculously once more.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about but we should fucking dance” Mitch declared quickly, half-hauling Auston towards the dance floor much more aggressively than Willie had earlier.

Auston obliged, mostly (he told himself) out of a desire to keep a close eye on Mitch. Truthfully, he found Mitch’s shitty dancing adorable and would have happily made any excuse to see it in action.

When their fifth song’s worth of dancing ended, Freddy appeared out of nowhere and tapped Mitch on the shoulder.

“Marns, you’re up on karaoke,” he insisted with a devious smile.

Auston opened his mouth to inform Freddy that Mitch had taken something and should definitely not be put on stage and given a microphone, but his two teammates were already weaving away through the crowd toward the stage by the time he could utter a word.

He marched after them and soon found himself at the front of a sea of spectators facing the stage; he was immediately flanked by Willie and Zach, who had materialized out of nowhere. Meanwhile, Freddy was depositing Mitch in front of the mic and shouting something to an adjacent person with a laptop, who was evidently finding people’s songs.

Auston tried not to worry too much about what Mitch might be about to sing, assuring himself half-assedly that Freddy wouldn’t let him do anything completely fucking foolish.

Up on stage, Mitch tried to grab the microphone and promptly dropped it, sending out a hideous feedback shriek that caused every person in the enormous Great room to cast their eyes in his direction.

Mitch grabbed the mic and the sound stopped, returning the room to a quiet din. He cleared his throat and proceeded to stare directly at Auston.

“This song,” Mitch muttered with a smirk, his eyes gleaming, “is for my best friend Auston, who fucking loves Rihanna.” He finished, throwing in a disgusting wink that shouldn’t have stirred up things in Auston’s chest like it did.

Zach elbowed Auston with a laugh. “Really?” he teased happily. “Rihanna?”

“We listened to it like, once on the way to practice,” Auston lied with an exaggerated groan. He couldn’t keep himself from smiling. Truthfully, Mitch was a huge Rihanna fan (especially Umbrella) and he had recently noticed that her songs seemed to always come on if they turned on the radio while driving to practice, so it had become a sort of dumb tradition for them to listen to her various albums whenever they were in the car together.

Willie must have observed his state of intense contemplation, because Auston noticed out of the corner of his eye that Nylander was shooting him a continuous stream of knowing looks.

At Willie’s side, Freddy let out a good-natured holler and Auston realized that the music had started.

The opening notes to “Love on the Brain” echoed in the Chalet’s Great Room, and Auston’s heart involuntarily started doing flips.

Mitch belted out a fantastically terrible rendition of Rihanna’s distinctive drawl, which elicited lots of whoops and cheers from the appreciative, highly tipsy audience. It was a ridiculously campy song for a nineteen-year old guy to be belting out to hundreds of strangers at a party, yet Mitch and his insane fucking charisma meant that he had the room wrapped around his finger despite his utter lack of singing ability.

As he stared at the surrounding strangers, who were clutching all manner of drinks as they swayed and sang along, Auston realized that he hadn’t consumed a drop of alcohol. He’d spent the whole night trying not to look awkward on the dance floor and attempting to supervise Mitch.

He decided that he wasn’t bothered by that fact, shrugged to himself, and refocused on the stage, watching as Marns shouted his way through the chorus and threw in a few token hair flips and the occasional dab.

Mitch suddenly fixed his eyes on Auston once more as he hit the final verse, and his heart constricted involuntarily; he found himself shuddering at how much he wished that Mitch was actually singing a love song to him.

When the song ended, Mitch screeched “Happy New Year’s Eve!” into the microphone and gave a ridiculous bow, which received thunderous applause. He traipsed off the stage, swaying slightly, and raced over to his teammates.

Hyman and Willie high-fived him, not bothering to hide their laughter. Mitch laughed with them, looking quite smug.

After his other teammates had had their fill of fawning over Mitch’s performance, Auston made his way over to Marns’ side.

Willie, seemingly possessing a sixth sense for Auston’s emotional needs, shot him a bemused look and immediately shepherded Hyman and Freddy over towards the makeshift bar in the kitchen. Mitch and Auston were left surprisingly secluded, walled off on all sides by strangers who paid them less than no attention.

“You slayed it!” Auston exclaimed, half-shouting as he gave Mitch an awkward high-five. He stared overlong at Marns’ face, trying to figure out whether he was still feeling the effects of whatever he had consumed earlier. It was difficult to tell.

Mitch smirked, “That one’s like, our song, Aus, so I tried really hard not to fuck it up!” He yelled back over the bustling crowd-sounds.

Auston smiled but scrunched up his face a bit in confusion; he wouldn’t have pegged a fucking Rihanna ballad as he and Mitch’s “song”, but he also wasn’t going to complain about Mitch’s choices in music while he was on…whatever the fuck he was on.

He was jerked out of his thoughts as Mitch grabbed his arm enthusiastically and motioned at an enormous clock on the Great room’s wall.

“Holy shit!” He exclaimed, wide-eyed. “It’s like, two minutes to midnight and we didn’t fucking notice!”

Taken aback, Auston blurted out, “yeah, I guess we didn’t”

He sensed an electric anticipation building within the crowd around he and Mitch as midnight, and the new year, crept closer. Mitch had yet to let go of Auston’s arm, and he found his attention honing in on their point of contact as the volume in the room heightened.

Mitch was beaming, his eyes shimmering with reflections of the colourful dance floor lights as he stared up at the clock. With each jerky movement of the second hand, the bedlam in the room around them grew closer to reaching a fever pitch.

As the final countdown arrived, Auston caught himself joining in, and felt Mitch vibrating with excitement at his side.

The crowd emitted a chaotic, “4!”

“Aus-“ Mitch blurted out sharply, his mouth a couple inches from Auston’s ear.

“3!”

“Yeah?” Auston shouted back.

“2!”

Mitch was staring at him wildly. “Can I fucking kiss you?”

“1!”

Before Auston could properly register Mitch’s words (and running mostly on adrenaline) he was nodding recklessly, and the explosion heralding the New Year erupted, and Mitch was kissing him.

In its half-aware, entirely amped state his brain was only expecting a ridiculous, comedic, Bro-approved smooch that would be over in half a second. One that they would laugh about later.

Instead, Mitch kissed Auston full on the lips and lingered for a second that might as well have been an eternity. The pair of them were numb to the pulsing crowd that was celebrating wildly around them. Auston’s brain seemed to literally short-circuit at the cacophony of sound that was assaulting his ears coupled with the insane, otherworldly exhilaration of Mitch actually fucking kissing him.

They pulled apart as a blaring rendition of Auld Lang Syne came over the Great room’s speakers. Everyone else at the party joined in a tumultuous singing of the New Year’s classic, but Auston and Mitch just stared at each other, their eyes seemingly locked together.

It was then that the consequences of he and Mitch’s impulsive act hit Auston with full force.

He had fucking kissed his best friend. His straight best friend. In public. It mattered fuck-all whether he’d liked it or not.

He’d done the opposite of shelve his treacherous thoughts about Mitch and instead gone way the fuck too far. Past the point of no return.

“Willie’s going to fucking murder me.” He breathed to himself, still staring at Mitch. Auld Lang Syne came to an end around them and Auston realized he was still rooted to the spot.

“I have to go-“ he muttered, loudly enough for Mitch to hear. Before Marns could say a word, Auston was off the dance floor and marching out of the Great room.

Maybe Mitch won’t remember it… He told himself anxiously, half hopeful and half crushed at the thought. He started to shake as he thought about what would happen if one of the dozens of strangers next to them had made the connection about who they were and decided to take a picture...

Auston knew they’d gone too far. It was time to salvage his pride, listen to Willie, shelve all his thoughts about Mitch forever, and go back to the way things were at the beginning. He’d have to make it so.

No more non-friend thoughts about Mitch and no more fucking pining. he told himself with dreadful finality. Time to move on..

Auston stumbled into the bathroom off the hall and pulled the door shut behind him.

Once inside, he leaned his back against the wall and allowed himself to slide down until he was seated on the floor. He let his head fall gently back against the wall and emitted perhaps the heaviest sigh of his life.

***

Mitch watched Auston walk away numbly. He couldn’t decide if he felt extremely dead inside or extremely alive. None of the many folks around him seemed to be paying him the slightest bit of attention. They had all resumed dancing.

Hesitantly, Mitch raised a shaking hand to his lips, unsure what he was expecting as he did so.

His head had been filled with a sort of unshakable fog all night, but kissing Auston had sharpened his thoughts to the clearest they’d been in hours.

“Fuck,” he whispered to himself.

Around him, the party rolled on.

Chapter Text

January 2020

The Maple Leafs’ private jet was probably about 30,000 feet in the air when Mitch Marner, in a fit of uncharacteristic glumness, detached himself from the game of Settlers of Catan that was transpiring in the fourth row and instead plunked himself down at the very front of the plane with only his wireless headphones and some rather loud video game soundtracks for company. He stared out the window at tops of the clouds that were scudding by far below and channeled his best moody high schooler in a music video energy, hoping it would buy him a few minutes of undisturbed moping.

It all started with that fucking kiss, Mitch reasoned. Up until he’d locked lips with Auston Matthews at the stroke of midnight three years ago, his life had been fucking dandy.

To be fair, his life at present was still dandier than he deserved, but he was certain it had been even more so before that fucking kiss.

Pre-kiss: Mitch Marner, hometown hero, selected by his childhood team and one third of the up-and-coming Torontonian three-headed monster of Matthews, Marner, and Nylander. Singer of Bon Jovi on the bench and secret up-and-coming pianist. Proud boyfriend to a girl he figured he’d grow old with. Proud owner of an above-average relationship with his dad.

Post-kiss: Mitch Marner, thrice unable to drag his team any further than a first-round playoff exit. Media-proclaimed “greedy kid” who wouldn’t take a hometown discount to play under a coach who preferred psychological warfare over psychological wellness. Ex-boyfriend to a girl he would not be growing old with after all. Proud owner of a father-son relationship that’s ready to fracture with his next goal drought. “Pianist” who hasn’t touched a piano in nearly two years.

Oh yeah, and don’t forget about the ~98% chance he’s caught feelings for his best friend. Can’t leave out that bit.

To be fair, the feelings hadn’t been ’caught’ immediately. After that night with the cursed pink juice in Willie’s ?cousin’s? chalet in fucking Collingwood, from which Mitch’s only concrete memory was the kiss itself (to this day he was convinced that the video Freddy possessed of him karaoke-ing Rihanna was doctored somehow) he’d gone into a sort of week-long spiral of questioning his sexuality and all of his life choices.

Back then, Mitch reflected, ignoring the affronted yelling that was taking place over his shoulder (someone had just stuck the robber on someone else’s hexagon) he and Auston had been on like, a comfortable level 7 on his self-proclaimed “10-tier friendship scale”. With 0 being people he felt a weird need to smile and make small-talk at but whose names he could never remember (like the barista at the Starbucks a block over from his apartment downtown) and 10 being people he’d legitimately take a Shea Weber slapshot for.

So yeah, even then he and Auston had been tight, despite only knowing each other for a few months. Even though Auston’s stone-cold apathy towards most things that weren’t hockey contrasted sharply with Mitch’s zeal for virtually everything. Even though Auston couldn’t stand pineapple on pizza (Mitch was working on getting him over that one). Even though he hardly ever sat beside Mitch on their plane rides (”because plane rides are for coffee and contemplation, not memes and Mitch.”)

Anyways, Mitch supposed that ~friendship~ had been to blame for his drunk/stoned/pink-juice-smashed self deciding to lay a kiss on Auston Matthews’ stubborn, gorgeous, hockey-god face just as the calendars rolled over to 2017.

He hadn’t counted on an aftermath that included the kiss implanting itself stubbornly in his brain forever.

His first half-delirious thought, which had formed as he’d watched Auston’s broad shoulders slip away hastily through the throngs of people on the chalet dance floor, had been something akin to ”shit, Matts is a better kisser than any girl I’ve ever made out with,” which was…unexpected. The kiss had been a fleet-of-the-moment, high-on-something-the-team-nutritionists-would-skin-me-for kind of thing.

But for weeks afterwards, Mitch wondered if he’d already been subconsciously hoarding feelings, or something. If maybe he’d been attracted to Auston Matthews from the first moment he’d shattered that glass at their first practice, but the rigid heteronormativity of his life had shielded him from said feelings. It was plausible.

Evidence was provided by the fact that not long after he had emerged from his aforementioned identity spiral in early January 2017, (which consisted of even more video games than usual, very little human contact, and a disturbing amount of tea lattes) he quickly caught himself noticing things about Auston. Very not-bro things.

Like how Matts always smelled a bit like that cucumber women’s antiperspirant he was obsessed with, even when he was sweaty after a game. How he cleaned himself up immaculately before their games but at home couldn’t even be bothered to run a comb through his hair. How he blushed and couldn’t meet people’s eyes after they shot him a compliment, even though he got them all the time.

How his eyes were the same shade of brown as the orange pekoe Mitch enjoyed most mornings (he’s working on his *~sophistication~* levels, thank you very much). How Auston’s six-pack peeked out from under his shoulder pads sometimes when he walked around jersey-less between periods. How, after hitting the showers, he wore a towel at the crook of his hip, right where the muscles-

As he said, not-bro things. It started small with smells and habits, but soon Mitch caught his heart thumping wildly at the contact between their thighs and shoulders if Auston sat beside him on the bench. And began having to remind himself regularly not to stare in the change room and showers. And got all fluttery if he stayed the night at Auston’s place, even if he was just sleeping on the couch.

Long story short, Mitch gradually came to terms with the fact that he had a guy crush. The painful, aching, unrequited kind of crush that he hadn’t experienced since the dark ages of early high school. And this was new territory- he’d never crushed on a guy, like…ever. And he’d certainly never been infatuated with his best friend. For the rest of that season he’d tried to convince himself it was the hockey- that he was in love with Auston’s elite generational brand of his favourite sport on the planet.

But then he’d caught himself thinking about Matts’ lips for about the 10,000th time and realized it was stupid to try and lie to himself.

Besides, Mitch reasoned, propping his knees up on the wall in front of him, he’d had absolute confidence back then that nothing was going to come of his unfortunate feelings. He’d been in a stable (if occasionally troubled) long term relationship with someone else. Someone female. And after the kiss, any doubts Mitch might have had about his friend’s sexuality were shattered by Auston embarking on a string of shallow, short-lived hetero relationships in the months that followed. It shouldn’t have been surprising- Mitch should never have placed so much stock on one (probably drunk) agreement from Matts to let Mitch kiss him. One kiss did not one’s sexuality make.

After all, Auston had clearly been weirded out by the whole thing, because for a good two months afterwards he and Mitch’s late-night hangouts and carpooling and deep chats and lounging together on couches sort of dried up. There was some serious post-friend-kiss awkwardness. The kind that comes from someone questioning kissing someone straight.

Mitch recalled with a smirk the night when, right before their run in the 2017 playoffs had started, he’d confronted Auston about how weird things had gotten, and had vowed to tell the media about his choice of cucumber antiperspirant if they didn’t both make efforts to resume their best friend status. Auston had snorted and said some shit like “I don’t hide my choice in antiperspirant. Tell whoever you want. But yeah, we can do the best friend thing again.” And they’d resumed their levelling up in Mitch’s 10-tier friend system just like that.

Mitch cast a glance back through the crack between the plane seats, eyeing the pair of heads (one blond, one hatted) at the back of the plane that surely belonged to William Nylander and Auston Matthews. As though sensing Mitch’s eyes on him, Matts lifted his chin and met Marns’ gaze. Auston stared back for a long second before winking - the fucker.

Mitch groaned and turned his gaze back to the darkening sky outside in an effort to free himself from Auston Matthews’ fucking winks and return to deep thought.

Yeah, they were besties. Probably a solid level 9 now on the scale. Their teammates proclaimed almost weekly that they were disgusted at Mitch and Auston’s perpetual co-dependence. And Mitch had become very good at keeping his non-bro thoughts about Auston Matthews deeply buried, with no one the wiser. No biggie. But that didn’t stop the fact that every so often there remained a measuredness to Auston’s interactions with him.

Exhibit A: Matts was known to stiffen up when he assumed his patented late-night movie-watching position, shamelessly burrowing into his friend’s enormous hoodie (shut up, Mitch liked to think he did that with everyone) and, Exhibit B: Auston loved to groan loudly about a personal bubble whenever Mitch violated it by skating up and draping his arms around his neck to hang off him during practice (standard Mitch stuff).

Mitch chalked it up to a measure of friendly teasing and Auston’s general dislike for affection and human contact, which had been a thing long before New Year’s 2017. And anyways, it was sort of water under the bridge at this point.

Heck, they were even linemates now, and despite all the post-goal hugging and near-constant bench contact things were all heteronormative in Leafland. Coach Keefe, who’d taken over a couple months back, often remarked that Auston and Mitch seemed so in sync it was like they’d shared a womb, which Mitch figured firmly cemented them as bros in the minds of the Leafs coaching staff.

The kiss had complicated things, but they’d survived. Their friendship had survived. The Leafs had survived the city’s wrath at repeated playoff exits (though the pressure was on for this year’s attempt). The players had survived the ousting of their old coach. Mitch had survived the break-up of his long-term relationship.

So yeah, things may have been slightly less dandy now, but Mitch couldn’t reasonably complain. His general unhappiness was uncalled for. Everything was fine. Time to focus on hockey.

(And not on the deeply buried but ever-smoldering pile of Auston Matthews-based feelings that resided permanently within his gut)

He opened his phone and switched the song in his headphones to Queen’s You’re My Best Friend with a sigh and a slight upturn of the corners of his lips.

“My “date”,” Auston muttered with a flat smile, putting an unhealthy amount of emphasis on the second word, “was a titanic disaster.”

Scrunched up in the airplane seat beside him, William Nylander was listening, enraptured, with his chin on his hands. He let out an affronted gasp at Auston’s words.

“I’ve been trying to convince you to put yourself out there for three fucking years and you finally get up the courage to go and it’s not even good??” Willie wailed.

Auston would have been concerned that their twenty or so teammates inhabiting the rest of the private Leafs jet might be listening in, but a good two-thirds of them were huddled near the front of the plane yelling at each other about a rousing ongoing game of Settlers of Catan. He and Willie were quietly crouched in the back row, happily not drawing attention to themselves.

Auston sighed at Nylander’s lamenting about his perpetual lack of a relationship status. “I swear I was really going to do it- I was going to meet the guy, but then I kind of got to the restaurant and, …well, choked.” He admitted awkwardly.

“Why?” Willie groaned, slapping an exasperated hand to his forehead. Auston didn’t immediately respond, so he shot him a barbed glance.

Auston rolled his eyes. “I dunno…I guess I’m still worried…about people knowing.”

“Your concerns are valid,” Willie admitted, resting his chin on his hand, “but the bar was also in Nashville. No one would have fucking recognized you.”

“Still not ready to be the first out guy in the NHL, Will.”

Willie immediately launched into yet another rant about the sad state of inclusivity in the NHL, but Auston wasn’t really listening, as he could feel someone’s eyes on him from across the plane. He searched for a heartbeat before locking eyes with Mitch, who appeared to have scrunched himself into a seat in the first row and was now peering back at him thoughtfully from the crack between the seats.

Unsure what to do with that realization, Auston stared back for a long second before shooting Mitch a wink without a second thought.

Willie halted mid-sentence and began craning his neck over the seat to see who had been on the receiving end of the wink. He made an offended sound when he caught sight of Mitch.

“Fuck- stop flirting with Mitchy!” He hissed, affronted. “We’re approaching the three-year anniversary of that shitshow getting under control, don’t stir it up now.”

“To make sure we’re on the same page,” Auston mumbled under his breath, “The shitshow you’re talking about is that time I almost wrecked my friendship with Mitchy but got everything under control by exercising control and restraint and moving on in a healthy way like an absolute stud?”

“More or less,” Willie admitted, “though I seem to recall there was also a period of impulsive hook-ups and a string of fake hetero relationships, which I wouldn’t call healthy-“

“Shut up, I was 19.”

“Of course, you could also just admit you never got over Mitch-“

Auston scoffed. “Does this look like the face of someone who would pine after the same unattainable person for three years?”

“Absolutely, you look like a love-sick idiot winking at the front row of the plane like that.”

Auston rolled his eyes. “I haven’t reciprocated one of Mitch’s hugs in like, three years. Everything is super fucking done and buried.” He muttered, shoving an airpod in one ear.

Willie raised an eyebrow at him. “What about on the ice every fucking time you two connect for a goal? You hug so hard I swear a puck bunny or two falls over every time.”

“Fine, off the ice I haven’t reciprocated anything.” He conceded, putting his other airpod in and almost effectively blocking Willie’s prodding out.

Except that Willie didn’t leave him alone.

“You’re still in love with Mitch Marner.” Willie chided, elbowing his shoulder.

“I will leave.” Auston deadpanned, eyeing Willie unhappily.

“Doesn’t make me wrong.” Nylander shrugged.

Auston huffed. “Just watch, everything will be super fucking normal. You’ll be bored.” He insisted, staring at Willie pointedly as he got up and marched towards the front of the plane. Dodging flying elbows and raised voices, he slid past the ongoing Catan game and arrived at the first row. He could feel Willie’s eyes on him as he slid into the seat beside Mitch and removed his airpods. A glance over at Marns’ phone screen told him his friend was listening to Queen. Mitch’s pick-me-up music.

Auston’s mental plan to prove to Willie how ordinary his current relationship with Mitch was dissolved immediately. Mitch Marner was very rarely less than cheerful.

He cleared his throat and offered a sympathetic, “No Rihanna…OT loss to Nashville got you that sad, huh?”

Mitch appeared to suddenly realize that Auston had arrived at his side and jolted from his squished seat position to a slightly-less-squished and slightly-more-upright one.

“Fuck- no, I mean, maybe…probably not.” Mitch muttered disjointedly, his blue eyes darting from his phone screen to Auston and back. “Anyways, I’m a man of the classics now. Freddie Mercury is my guy.”

Auston ignored the fact that Freddie Mercury had literally been his Halloween costume last October in favour of continuing. “I can tell something’s bugging you, Mitch. When have you ever not been right in the middle of an intense mid-flight board game?”

“I suck at Catan. Wasn’t in the mood to lose twice tonight.” Mitch muttered, though there was a vein of untruthfulness in his tone.

Auston raised an eyebrow at him. “I’ve never seen you lose that game.” He prompted, “Don’t you like, always get the fucking longest road or something?”

Mitch perked up a little. “I mean, it’s me or Dermy-“ he drawled.

“And don’t you have some crazy strategy with the rocks and logs-“

“Ore and lumber.” Mitch corrected. “And it’s not crazy, I got it off some professional players on Youtube-“

“There are professional Catan players?” Auston smirked.

“Of course.” Mitch returned, now smiling back, “They’re like the pioneers. They walked so the competitive video gamers could run-“

“ Speaking of,” Matts interjected, “want to play Chel once we’re back in Toronto? There’s skittles in my apartment.” He added, as if that last bit might make the difference. (Because with Mitch, it might)

Marns shrugged and nodded a bit. “Sure, but I can’t stay up late.”

“Why the hell not? We have the day off tomorrow.”

“I kind of signed up for something that starts at 7am. Dr. Bourque wants me to try it.”

Auston recoiled at the mention of the team’s Mental Health and Peak Performance specialist, puzzled that Mitch would ever willingly agree to try anything that early in the morning. “It must be a really good something for you to get up at the ass crack of dawn on an off day.”

“You’ll laugh at it.” Mitch smirked, giving Auston a shove.

“Will not.” Auston promised earnestly, fixing what he hoped was an irresistible, hopeful gaze on Mitch.

“Fuck, stop looking at me like that,” Mitch muttered, blushing. Auston internally reprimanded himself, but kept staring.

Mitch groaned. “It’s power yoga.”

Auston’s mouth fell open, just a little bit. “…Yoga?” he mused eventually.

Mitch crossed his arms as if daring him to argue. “Supposed to help my flexibility, range of motion, and mindfulness.” He argued, his mouth pressed flat. “And allegedly a bit of a workout, hence the ‘power’ bit.”

“Huh.”

“I can feel you judging me.” Mitch sneered.

“I’m not,” Auston insisted, “I’m just surprised.”

“You’re just jealous that I’m gutsy enough to work out with a bunch of hardcore fitness moms.”

“Can’t say my brain went there.” Auston mused.

“Fine, then you’re just jealous of my awe-inspiring motivation to try something new and really fucking early in the morning on one of our rare off days. Instead of lazing in my bed on my phone all day like you will be tomorrow.” Mitch teased with a smirk.

“I will not be-“ Auston started.

“-Prove it.”

“How?”

“Do yoga really fucking early in the morning with me.”

Auston snorted. “Maybe I will.”

“What? Really?”

“Fuck yeah, someone has to drag you out of bed when your 4 alarms inevitably don’t do the trick.”

“Alright,” Mitch assented, raising his eyebrows. He waved his phone in front of Auston’s face as if in warning. “You’d better be serious, because I’m about to message Dr. Bourque and tell her to sign you up so that it goes toward your Well-being activity quota, and she’ll be fucking terrifying if she finds out you were joking.”

“I’m serious.” Auston assured Mitch, grabbing his phone. “I’ll text her myself if you want.”

“No need.” Mitch retorted flatly, snatching his phone back. He fired off a rapid text and deftly slipped the phone into the pocket on the wall in front of him alongside the airline barf bag and safety brochure. “Done. You’re committed now, Matts.”

“Alright.” Auston chided, pleased. His tomorrow morning self was already screaming at him for agreeing to get up so early, but he couldn’t help but feel satisfied at how effectively he’d cheered Mitch up.

“Guess we’re doing yoga together.” Mitch snorted happily.

Auston shrugged. “I guess.”

He was distracted a second later by a text from Willie that read:

i can feel the cute frm back here stop it u 2

Auston ignored the tightening fear he felt in his chest at Willie’s words and immediately slid the phone into the pocket of his hoodie, as if the act of doing so might shut Willie up.

He was saved from having to explain his reaction to the text to Marns by the seatbelt sign coming on, accompanied by a quick announcement that they’d soon be landing in Toronto.

“Gonna head back to my seat.” He muttered quickly to Mitch.

“I’ll find you when we land?” Mitch proposed as he packed up his headphones.

Auston nodded before filing back to his seat past Zach, Travis, and Mo, who were now frantically trying to put away the Catan board.

He was met at his row by an incredibly knowing, shit-disturbing stare from William Nylander.

“What?” Auston admonished, sitting down and doing up his seatbelt with slightly more vigour than intended. “That was the most bro interaction in the history of the world.”

“Uh huh.” Willie mused disbelievingly. “And what bro thing did you say that made Marns go from looking like a kicked puppy to a kid who’s going to Disney World?”

“Nothing. We’re just hanging out tomorrow.”

“Doing what?”

“If you must know, we’re going to a Power Yoga class-“

“There it is.” Willie sighed, smiling smugly.

“Fuck off, Willie.” Auston murmured as he watched the CN tower and the lights of Toronto grow larger outside the plane’s window.

It was just yoga, after all. Just bro things.

Once their plane landed at Pearson, Mitch and Auston piled into Matts’ car as they always did. They blasted Rihanna as they zoomed down the 427, as usual. They ordered Thai as they rode the elevator up to Auston’s place, though the incoming order did not stop Mitch from immediately digging into Auston’s supply of Skittles as soon as they had dumped their bags in his living room, beside the old sealed-up piano that only really gathered dust these days.

And then they played Chel. And ate way too much Pad Thai. And trash-talked the Preds a bit, because the OT loss was still fresh in both their minds.

It was well north of midnight when the night took a rather unusual turn.

“Video game roulette.” Mitch mumbled, his voice half-smothered by the pile of pillows that he was splayed on in front of Matts’ TV as he read something on his phone.

“What?” Auston muttered from the kitchen, where he was actively brewing Mitch a decaf green tea, because he’s actively supporting Mitch’s “sophisticated tea” plan for some reason.

“Video game roulette.” Mitch repeated impatiently. “We should play. It’s not that late and Hymie sent me an app-“

“Last week he sent me an app that’s just a red button you’re supposed to press whenever you curse so that you beep yourself out in real life.” Auston countered, pulling the tea bag out of Mitch’s cup. “Just because Zach sends you an app does not mean it ever deserves to be opened.”

“No no, this one’s actually good!” Mitch insisted, materializing at Auston’s kitchen island with a wild, late-night look in his eyes. “Also, Hymie dared us so we officially cannot say no.”

“To what?”

“To video game roulette.”

Auston raised his eyebrows. “So, what, it gives us a game and we have to play it? Like, right now?”

“Exactly.” Mitch affirmed, beaming. He reached rather aggressively for the cup of steaming tea and caused a sizeable amount to slosh out the sides. Auston eyed the puddle that Mitch’s spill had generated dubiously, but Marns ignored it.

“I’m spinning us a game and we’re going to play.” He declared, simultaneously dicking around on his phone and attempting to sip the scalding green tea. Mitch apparently had a freakishly good heat/pain tolerance, because he hardly reacted to the recently boiling liquid as he took a long sip.

Auston sighed and didn’t press the game issue.

And that was how they ended up playing Until Dawn until well, not quite dawn, but until way too late considering they were supposed to be going to a fucking yoga class at sunrise.

Auston liked to think he had a decent tolerance for horror, but horror video games were really not his thing. And they were even less Mitch’s thing, because he was super fucking scare-able. But somehow they persevered and played the game for well over an hour, until Auston glanced at the clock, cursed colourfully, and threw the bag he knew contained Mitch’s pajamas at him.

“We’ve gotta fucking sleep, man.” He grumbled, his tone betraying the late hour.

Mitch eyed him with wide blue eyes. “No way I’m gonna be able to sleep after all those jump scares, dude.”

Auston groaned. “We are supposed to be at that yoga place in five hours, Mitch. Five fucking hours.”

Mitch sighed and threw his head back, eyeing the couch he was supposed to be sleeping on mournfully. They sat in silence for a moment, with only the muffled sounds of late-night traffic from the city street far below to fill Auston’s dark apartment.

Suddenly, Mitch glanced at Auston imploringly. “I have a proposition.”

Matts stared back at him, his eyelids heavy, already admitting to himself that he would probably say yes to whatever Mitch was about to ask on account of his overwhelming desire to sleep.

“Let me sleep with you.”

“Excuse me?” Auston mumbled drowsily. Despite his exhaustion, warning bells rang out in his head. Bed-sharing was exactly the kind of shit he’d been successfully avoiding with Mitch for the past few years. He had good reason for always rooming with Freddy on the road instead. No need to open Pandora’s box.

“Like, in your bed.” Mitch corrected quickly, likely realizing how his words had sounded. “Please, Aus. It’s the only way I’ll fucking sleep.” He stammered, twisting Auston’s fleecy Toronto Maple Leafs blanket in his hands. “If I sleep out here I’ll just keep opening my eyes and thinking your coatrack is a person-“

Auston regarded him with a look that screamed really, Mitch? You’re twenty-two years old and all it takes is one horror game and a fucking coatrack to give you insomnia?, but quickly found himself internally conceding. After all, debating the issue would only cost them both time and sleep. Auston was nothing if not a pragmatist.

“Fine.” He assented flatly, hauling himself into a standing position. He wandered into his bedroom, zombie-like, and heard Mitch follow, pulling on pajamas as he walked.

Only half-aware of the world at that point, Auston flopped onto his side of the bed, not even bothering to put on his own pajamas, and set an alarm for a time he would prefer not to think about. He was about to bellow at Mitch to hit the lights, but realized that he’d already done so.

Auston felt Mitch’s weight flop onto the king mattress beside him, but no longer possessed the wakefulness to give the matter serious thought. His final thought before he drifted into a stupor was that for once he was not cold while falling asleep in Toronto in winter.

Mitch had not been fucking lying about not being able to sleep if he’d been stuck on that couch. Horror shit had a way of replaying itself in his mind as he tried to succumb to sleep, much like missed plays, giveaways, and losses did after games.

His euphoria at Auston agreeing to let him sleep on the king had been entirely wholesome and well-intentioned. Or at least, almost entirely. It wasn’t his fault that his heart was tapping out a marching tune against his ribcage as he laid down opposite his friend.

Mitch watched as Auston fell asleep almost instantly, snoring lightly against his pillowcase, which, Mitch was thrilled to note, was white with little cacti on it. He marvelled at the gentle rise and fall of Auston’s hoodie-covered chest, which was bathed in a strip of moonlight from a gap in the adjacent blinds.

Mitch was tempted to stay awake and get in some uninterrupted staring at Auston Matthews, but decided that that would be too weird if Auston woke up. Reluctantly, he shut his eyes instead. His brain buzzed with the late hour, and intermittently filled with disturbing images born of he and Auston’s foray into Until Dawn.

But whenever the terror crept in, he inched closer to Auston’s warmth and felt it slip away. He woke up once or twice and found himself grasping at the sleeve of Auston’s black hoodie, which smelled distinctly cucumber-esque, but Matts didn’t seem to notice. The man slept like the dead.

And Mitch was grateful for that fact, because he fell asleep with his head in the crook of Auston’s arm.

The horrifying screech of his phone’s alarm dragged Auston into wakefulness that morning. He muttered a guttural, “Fuck.” And swiped a sleepy arm in the direction of his nightstand, which only succeeded in knocking the blaring phone to the floor.

It was then that he realized that Mitch Marner’s head was pinned steadfastly over his right arm. And that he was sleeping away blissfully despite the alarm, his eyes resolutely closed.

“Mitch.” Auston groaned, prodding Marns’ shoulder with his free arm. “Marns, wake up.”

Mitch emitted an exceedingly unhappy groan and burrowed his face deeper into Auston’s torso.

Matts sighed heavily as the alarm continued to sound from his floor. “Mitch-“ He tried again, giving Marns a more pointed shove in the ribs. The results were equally unsuccessful. “Mitch.” Auston groaned, now prodding Marns repeatedly.

The shoving and the alarm continued for way too many fucking seconds, until one particularly large heave actually sent Mitch slowly rolling off the far side of the bed.

Auston’s eyes widened as Mitch’s blanket-wrapped body thudded sleepily to the floor, and he immediately felt his senses heighten with sudden worry as he peered over the edge of his mattress, calling “Mitch?”

Marns blinked up at him sleepily from the floor, his hair thoroughly dishevelled. “What the fuck, bro.” He muttered with a titanic yawn. At least his eyes were finally open.

“Sorry.” Auston returned as the alarm continued to blare in the background. With a start, he finally reached down for his phone and silenced the thing.

He locked up all the thoughts his brain was now generating about Mitch having been sleeping against his torso, and proceeded to drag himself out of bed and initiate his morning routine.

Auston and Mitch blearily pulled on what they hoped were suitable yoga clothes, consumed a breakfast bar and a lime greek yogurt, respectively, and brushed their teeth before departing the apartment. Mitch didn’t acknowledge the whole burrowing thing. He was barely awake, so Auston figured his brain was still processing everything anyways.

A short drive in Auston’s car brought them to Cherry Tree, the downtown yoga studio where he supposed he and Marns were about to seriously embarrass themselves.

By about the ten-minute mark of the class Auston felt he’d already proven himself very right on the embarrassment front, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t enjoying himself.

The instructor, a nice but very strange older woman named Vivienne, walked them through downward-facing dogs, caturangas, chair poses and various warrior poses, all of which they were both objectively terrible at. Especially next to the dozen or so hardcore middle-aged fitness moms that rounded out the class.

Mitch kept sniggering at Auston from his adjacent mat, which was really thick considering he was somehow the less flexible of the two of them. Unfortunately, Mitch’s sniggers usually caused Auston to snigger back, which earned them dirty looks from the surrounding moms. Vivienne ignored how much Mitch and Auston were ruining the class dynamic and instead continuously reminded everyone to breathe abnormally and to focus on their chakras, whatever the fuck that meant.

At the end of the rather lengthy hour of held poses and weird breathing, they got to take a sort of meditation-nap, at least. Auston fought valiantly to stay awake, though Vivienne still had to nudge he and Mitch after a few minutes of them lying recumbent to inform them that class had concluded.

As soon as the glass doors of the studio had closed behind them, Mitch absolutely lost it, snorting with laughter (and possibly exhausted delirium) as they headed for Matts’ car.

“Okay, that-“ Mitch laughed between breaths, “was possibly the funniest hour of 2020 so far.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Marns,” Auston offered sarcastically with a minute smile. “I feel like I found my people…judgy middle-aged moms.”

“We looked like fucking idiots, Aus.” Mitch snorted, doubling over as they reached the car. “I don’t bend half the ways Vivienne just told us to arrange our bodies. I almost wish we had footage of it, except that the team would probably lord it over us until the end of time.”

“We’re not the first ones on the team to ever try yoga.” Auston stated calmly as he sat down in the driver’s seat. “I’m like, 95% certain Willie’s done it at some point.”

Mitch raised an eyebrow at him doubtfully.

“What?” Auston muttered, smirking, “he wears a fuck-ton of Lululemon.”

“I see.” Mitch replied with a chuckle, busying himself with selecting a song for the car ride. There was a weighty silence for a moment as Mitch evidently debated what he was about to say. Eventually, Marns cleared his throat and continued. “Listen, Aus,-” he began, in a very small and honest voice that made Matts’ heart constrict a little. “-Thanks for…last night. And for, cheering me up…in general.”

Auston smiled a bit despite himself. “Everyone gets sad sometimes, Marns. If I can ever do anything to help when it happens to you, I’ll do it.” He finished earnestly, casting his eyes towards Mitch, whose mouth was open a little, apparently a little shocked at Auston’s sincerity.

Mitch nodded a few times and cast his eyes out the opposite window for several long seconds before returning his attention to Matts, who patiently gave him the space to do so as he made a couple left turns.

Mitch eventually cleared his throat and gave a small smile. “Not all bros are cool enough to take the L and go to yoga at sunrise, though.” He mused, returning to his usual cheerful tone. “That’s next-level stuff. You might be at a tier 10 now, man.”

Auston smirked. “As long as we don’t have to do it again.”

But they did. A solid few times over the course of the rest of the season, in fact. Auston considered the Power Yoga to be the first of his Mitchell-related relapses. Especially because it sort of became a standard thing for Mitch to spend the night beforehand, and because more often than not his couch never got any overnight use. A routine got established: Order food, play Chel, video game roulette, bed-sharing (shut-up, Auston doesn’t always have to make good choices), stupid early wake-up, disappoint Vivienne at Cherry Tree with their utter lack of flexibility, repeat.

But it was fine. It was all fine. Until one practice a few weeks before the end of the season.

They were running through odd-man-rushes against the defensemen. Freddy was shutting the attempts down like a beast, Keefe was floating among the guys waiting to go with a clipboard in hand, talking about goal-setting or some shit like that, and Dermott and Holl were turning the team’s water bottles upside down and trying to get them to balance like that on the bench. Standard off-day practice stuff.

When it was Mitch and Auston’s turn they started the drill like clockwork, weaving into the zone against Mo with precision and intention. What they didn’t intend was for one of the fucking upside-down water bottles to roll onto the ice and need to be avoided, which caused Mitch to swerve unpredictably, his skate clipping Auston’s as they skated by.

The contact sent the pair of them sprawling, sliding as a unit towards the end boards, which they eventually collided with with a thud. Auston figured it was the fact that he was a bit winded that caused him to take a few long seconds to realize that they’d come to a halt with Mitch literally on top of him. Auston could feel Marns laughing as they laid there, entangled.

In the distance, coach seemed to be yelling at Derms and Holl about how they "could have sent both Auston and Mitch- the fucking backbone of the team- to the hospital with a water-bottle stint like the one they’d just pulled.".

Auston figured that was a bit dramatic, but, to be fair, the team had just observed he and Mitch taking a forty-foot slide and crashing onto the ice in a tangled heap. It was probably prudent that they signal to someone that they were both alive and unharmed.

Matts heard someone skating over as he detached Mitch’s arm from his own and took a knee. A cursory glance upward revealed Willie.

“Fuck, are you guys okay?” Nylander muttered, glancing back at the watching team.

“Peachy.” Mitch smirked at Auston’s side, his helmet askew but otherwise no worse for wear. “It looked way fucking more dramatic than it was.”

Willie looked visibly relieved. “Thank god,” he muttered, shooting a thumbs up back in the direction of all their concerned teammates. “Must be all that yoga, eh?

Auston froze where he kneeled before slowly turning to regard Willie. “What did you just say?”

Willie scrunched up his face in confusion. “Cherry Tree? Karen’s blog?” he offered. “Does any of that ring a bell?”

“Wait-“ Mitch stammered, open-mouthed. “Karen, like, chartreuse-pants Karen? That one mom who can’t do a fucking half-moon pose to save her life?” he muttered.

“No,” Auston murmured, suddenly finding his head to be pounding a bit. “No, no, no…a fucking blog?” he asked pointedly, his eyes boring into Nylander.

“I thought you knew?” Willie quipped with a shrug. “Karen posts a photo of you two every time she’s in a power yoga class with you. I guess she figured out who you are and decided to try and up her blog’s following.” He mused thoughtfully. “It’s gotten quite popular so I guess it’s working…it was Hymie who sent it to me in the first place- that paired downward dog from last week was sick, by the way-“

“Fucking Karen.” Mitch groaned, ignoring Willie. “Shit- she didn’t even ask permission! We should sue her ass.”

Willie halted mid-ramble and added “The MLSE suits would probably sue her for you if you asked them to-“

Auston shook his head at both of them. “Willie, how the fuck did you know about this for over a week and not say anything?”

Nylander shrugged. “I figured the yoga you do on your off-days is your business?”

“Thanks,” Matts replied tersely, “but does that mean the whole fucking team knows now?”

“More or less, it’s been making its way around.”

“Shit.” Mitch exclaimed quietly.

“It’s not a big deal,“ Willie assured him, “Kerfy does Zumba and Zach takes pottery classes and no one bugs them about it-“

They were interrupted as they realized that a squadron of Leafs medical staff was now making their way towards the ice, evidently not sufficiently convinced by Willie’s earlier thumbs-up.

Mitch sighed from Auston’s right. “I’ll go head them off.” He mused, rising and skating swiftly in the direction of the bench.

Auston stood beside Willie a moment, before shooting Matts his patented grin and raised eyebrows. “So. The yoga wasn’t just a one-time thing, huh?” he teased, which earned him a ribbing from Auston just as the team’s chief medical advisor began heading Matts’ way. Auston regarded Willie’s grin with disgust and reflected that ever since that day on the plane when he’d admitted his plans to try yoga with Marns, Nylander hadn’t badgered him once about “putting himself out there” and “dating other people”…whatever that meant.

A heartbeat later, the Maple Leafs medical staff were all over him, holding up penlights and asking him about a thousand questions. Auston waved off all the tests they suggested running, insisting that nothing on he or Marns was damaged. He promised multiple different people that there hadn’t been any head contact- with Mitch, the ice or the boards. Eventually, they begrudgingly left he and Mitch alone and practice resumed, albeit with a slightly terser coach Keefe.

There wasn’t any fallout with the team. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was the media scrum that followed.

Auston was, as usual, herded out to the media area after practice and plunked down at a table in front of more than a dozen cameras and mics. He reeled off a few canned answers about the Leafs’ prospects for the upcoming playoffs. He was asked to comment about he and Mitch’s on-ice chemistry, which had been heating up as of late, earning their line 15 points in five games. The problem arose in the form of an off-key question late in the scrum from some reporter he didn’t recognize in the back of the room.

“Auston-“ The guy called, struggling to make himself heard over the dozen or so other people trying to fling questions at him. The room quieted briefly as Auston gave the guy his attention.

The guy reeled in a nasally voice, “Shouldn’t you have bought Mitch Marner dinner before tangling up with him by the boards like that?” he finished smugly, evidently hoping to earn some snickers.

The response was immediate. There were a couple inappropriate chuckles, but the room fell deadly silent. Auston fixed the reporter with a weighted stare, his mouth a flat line. “I’m not going to dignify that one with a response.” He muttered, pulling the brim of his hat down slightly as he felt the weight of everyone in the room’s eyes resting on him. The awkwardness was palpable. Auston could only imagine the report headlines that were being scrawled down on notepads across the room.

He was grateful to note out of the corner of his eye that a pair of uniformed MLSE staffers were escorting the guy who’d posed the question from the room. Vaguely, he registered the resumption of questions from the remaining reporters, but he could hardly comprehend their words over how loud his heart was beating.

He soon muttered an apology under his breath and stood up, excusing himself from the room. Camera flashes followed him out the door.

The Toronto Maple Leafs’ culture wasn’t the problem. In fact, Auston didn’t receive a single poor-taste joke about the yoga or his unfortunate entanglement with Mitch from any of his teammates or anyone in the organization. And the whole team was made to sit through a course on inclusivity and tact literally that same afternoon, which was boring as hell but actually pretty informative. Auston was sat down personally by Dubas and Keefe before he could go home and assured that they would do everything in their power to keep people like that reporter well away from the Maple Leafs brand. And that the organization as a whole was a safe space for any and all lifestyles, faiths, sexualities, etc. (which Auston figured was a bold and probably unrealistic claim, but he nodded along anyways)

Regardless, it was the greater hockey culture that was the issue. Outside of MLSE, Auston was aware of the existence of several tasteless articles questioning everything from his scarf choices to how he hugged Mitch after goals, but that was nothing new. He was aware of the comments that peppered his Instagram posts here and there, but he was good at ignoring them. The frequency of chirps he received on the ice that should have been unsportsmanlike calls had been increasing as of late, but that wasn’t particularly surprising.

Hockey culture was a toxic, homophobic mess, but Auston was ashamed to admit he was used to it.

Normally, an incident like the scrum question would have scared him into lying low with his Mitch contact for a few days, purely as a precaution. (He had to honour his New Year’s 2017 promise occasionally, he figured).

He considered it Mitch relapse #2 that he didn’t bother this time around.

By that night Mitch was back at his apartment, attempting to help Auston make a lasagna as the Oilers-Flames game played in the background.

“So,” Mitch started as he laid a layer of tomato sauce across the bottom of a casserole dish. “That was a shitty question you got this morning in the scrum.” He muttered as he spattered Auston’s white cabinets with droplets of sauce.

Matts sighed, both at the mess and at Mitch’s inevitable broaching of the subject he’d been successfully avoiding all day.

“You shouldn’t have to put up with shit like that. No one in the league should.”

“No one should. Like, in general.” Auston mumbled in agreement as he laid strips of pasta down in the dish atop the sauce.

“People suck.” Mitch agreed. “But, I did find a way that we can make something good come out of this whole shitty experience.”

Auston stared at him curiously, offering a silent invitation for Mitch to go on.

“I got talking to Mindy- you know, the MLSE Diversity Advocate-“

“I know her.” Matts assured him, nodding.

“-Anyways,” Mitch continued, “her girlfriend is organizing a fundraiser for an LGBTQ2IA+ charity this spring-“

Auston smiled a little at Mitch’s use of the acronym they’d literally just learned in its entirety at the inclusivity session that afternoon.

“-and I thought we could get involved to, like, show support. Sort of like a grand fuck-you to toxic hockey culture.”

Auston raised his eyebrows in surprise. Mitch was a staunch charitable supporter, but every NHLer knew that supporting that kind of cause was a tricky tightrope to walk. Important, but with optics that could make for a tough aftermath with the media and on the ice. With rumours already flying, Auston was not certain he had the fortitude to add yet more fuel to the fire.

Mitch could evidently read his doubt on his face, because he immediately looked crestfallen. “I’m going to go,” he declared firmly, “but, I understand if you don’t want to-“

“No-“ Auston interjected immediately, “It’s a great idea, Marns, I’m just…” he paused to find the words. “Not sure I can commit to something like that…right now. Today was…a lot.”

“Right. Cool.” Mitch muttered rapidly. “I get it.” He offered earnestly, snatching up a tub of ricotta and picking a the lid, evidently for something to do with his hands. “But it’s kind of a talent show type deal, so I’m going to need to borrow your piano to practice, either way.” He added, almost like an afterthought.

“What, that one?” Auston countered, gesturing vaguely at the dusty monstrosity of wood and keys that was parked by his window.

“No, the one in your bathroom,” Mitch teased, rolling his eyes, “Yes, of course fucking that one.” He finished with a smirk.

“You have so much money.” Auston commented snarkly. “Why don’t you just buy a piano for your own place?”

“Because I like that one.” Mitch shrugged.

“You haven’t played it in like, years.”

“And you haven’t gotten rid of it.” Mitch remarked.

Auston paused, open-mouthed at that. He didn’t have any kind of reasonable explanation for why he’d kept the piano around. Mitch pounced on him as he floundered.

“Great, so- I’ll be by a few times a week to re-learn how to play that thing. And you will tell no one, because it’s a surprise.”

Auston scrunched up his face a bit. “For who?”

“For everyone.” Mitch crooned, his eyes sparkling a little.

Auston snorted but did not object. Which is how he opened the door for and as good as welcomed in for dinner Mitch-relapse #3.

(Which consisted of Auston allowing his relationship with Mitch to fall right back to the place it had been at three years ago, with Marns fucking around on the ancient piano in his apartment like they were in a fucking rom-com)

Mitch admitted that he had probably been pushing his luck asking Auston to go to the charity event after the events of that morning. The awkward boards-slide hadn’t been a huge deal (after all, hockey players fell on top of each other all the time without having their bro-status questioned) but the scrum grilling that followed had been, admittedly, pretty rough. He actually thought Auston had handled the whole thing pretty well, which was maybe why he tried to suck Matts into his master plan to actually do something about the whole toxic hockey culture issue.

It wasn’t a complicated plan. He was going to participate in a talent show and show his support for the LGBTQ2IA+ community. He was going to be a rare NHLer that would visibly support the cause. It was completely unrelated to his feelings for Auston Matthews.

Okay, maybe not quite completely, but mostly.

And if a side benefit was that he now had an excuse to spend even more time over at Auston’s apartment re-learning how to use that old piano, then so be it. Mitch would take what he could get.

Auston, meanwhile, wilfully forced all the stuff with Mitch from his mind and got to work, pouring his heart and soul into honing himself for the upcoming 2020 playoffs. They were into the final 15 games of the season and sitting in a playoff spot, though not comfortably. As a team, their performance had been all over the place for the past twenty or so games.

In response, Auston hit the gym more frequently and for longer visits than he ever had previously at the eleventh hour of the season that was early March. He actually adhered to all the nutritionists’ dietary rules, for once. He didn’t allow himself to get distracted by the regular sight of Mitch in his living room tinkering away on the fucking piano.

Everything was proceeding onwards in an orderly fashion within Auston’s life until game 68 in the middle of the Leafs’ California road trip. A match-up against the Kings that was disturbingly devoid of scoring, for a Leafs game. (Like, there was literally not a single goal in regulation).

There was, however, a lot of frustration on both sides of the ice. Frustration that lead to Mitch-relapse #4. The last and most dramatic of the bunch.

It all resulted from Auston breaking one of his cardinal rules: No reacting to Mitch getting bumped around on the ice.

A simple enough rule, though one that was occasionally very difficult to stick to, as Mitch’s small-ish size meant he sometimes took a beating in their grittier games. But he always bounced back up, which meant that when it happened Auston never usually had the time to react beyond a nervous exhalation of breath or a muttered curse.

This time was different. It was late in the third, and the game had taken a chippy turn. Earlier in the second, Auston had had a miniature heart attack as Mitch had dodged a dirty knee-on-knee play by mere inches. Now in the third, the boards seemed to be rattling every shift with one massive hit or another.

As he took to the ice for what would be one of his last shifts in regulation for the game, he couldn’t help but glance repeatedly over at Mitch, who seemed to be being tailed by a couple of the Kings’ larger forwards wherever he went. As they broke out of the defensive zone with just over a minute to go, Auston skated up centre alongside Marns, who was chasing a banked pass up the boards from Rielly.

Mitch absolutely flew, blowing past the Kings defender and stealing the puck for a crisp pass over to Auston, who might have absolutely buried it for the game winner (instead sending it off the crossbar and into the netting above) had he not been watching in horror as the defender absolutely bodied Mitch into the end boards.

Just as the refs blew down the play on account of the puck hitting the netting, Mitch hit the boards with a terrifying crunch, his body lifting clear off the ice from the impact, before crumpling to the ice with a heart-stopping stillness.

The crowd roared, many spectators taking to their feet. Auston’s brain short-circuited with panic. Mitch remained crouched on the ice with his knees tucked in and his head down, his positioning not unlike the Child’s Pose Vivienne always made them do at Cherry Tree, Auston noted deliriously.

Hang the rules. Matts screamed at himself internally, skating rapidly towards Mitch’s prone position and accidentally showering his back with snow as he slid to a stop. He dropped to his knees and placed a terrified hand on Mitch’s shoulder.

“Marns.” He exhaled hoarsely. “Please move or talk…or just…something…just please be okay-“

He felt Mitch’s shoulders shift beneath his glove.

“I’m fine.” Marns breathed, drawing shaky breaths as he slowly rose to a kneeling position. “Guy just fucking winded me with the handle of his stick.” He admitted with a grimace, placing a slow hand over the region of the bottom of his shoulder pads.

Auston exhaled an audible sign of tremendous relief, closing his eyes. “Thank fuck.”

“I’m tougher than I look, Aus, you know that.” Mitch offered with a hint of a smirk, though his expression remained pained.

Auston helped him up, realizing that a swarm of their teammates had formed a sort of semi-circle around the end boards.

“Atta boy, Mitchy,” Mo was muttering, taking up his other side as if worried he might topple over.

“Those fuckers.” Hyman was murmuring from Auston’s other side, his eyes fixed on a trio of Kings whispering to each other at the blue line.

In an instant, Matts clapped his own eyes on the three players and found himself seeing red. He must have dropped Mitch’s arm, because a heartbeat later he found himself skating furiously towards the three black and white jerseys. He wasn’t even sure which player had done it, but he was out for blood.

He was hauled back just short of launching himself at the nearest one by Rielly, who must have skated after him and grabbed his arm

“Let me fucking pummel him, Mo-“ Auston hissed through gritted teeth.

“Dude,” Mo exhaled, struggling to restrain Matts by one arm, “That’s a nope- they’re assholes but I’m not letting you get fucking suspended-“

Less than a metre away, the tallest of the three Kings, some AHL call-up whose name Auston couldn’t have even guessed at, actually laughed.

“What’s the matter, Matthews?” He snorted, baring a hideous smile that was devoid of several teeth, “Mad that your boyfriend can’t take a fucking hit?”

And suddenly, both Mo and Auston had catapulted themselves in the asshole’s direction and knocked him to the ice. The struggle attracted everyone else on the ice, including the refs, who were suddenly all over the situation, pulling apart black jerseys from blue and white ones and yelling at everyone to calm down.

But Auston wasn’t ready to fucking calm down. It was the absolute last straw. He’d never been so incensed during a hockey game. He half-registered Mo screaming at the ref in an attempt to explain what the asshole had said, but the ref seemed to be shrugging it off, insisting that he couldn’t call something he hadn’t heard.

Matts was just about ready to punch whatever next appeared in his field of vision, except that that thing was Mitch Marner.

Mitch appeared in front of him with wide cerulean eyes and placed a pair of steadying hands on Auston’s shoulders.

“Aus.” He muttered, as if they were the only ones on the ice and the air wasn’t threatening to split apart with the roar of the crowd and the shouts of players. “We need to finish the game.” He remarked simply. “There’s like, less than a minute.”

Auston emitted a few rapid inhales and exhales, but eventually nodded, staring straight at Mitch’s irises. He wondered if Mitch had heard what was said.

He wasn’t given too much room to think about it, because Mitch then herded him deftly towards the bench, where the other players and coaching staff stared at him like he was a ticking time bomb.

Somehow, the refs determined that there was nothing worth penalizing from that whole dramatic sequence. And somehow, Auston finished the game. But the Leafs lost in a shootout- final score 0-1. Because of-fucking-course.

And everyone treated Auston like he should have been wrapped in bubble wrap as they undressed, terrified that if they looked at him the wrong way he might try and attack them, or something. Mitch was uncharacteristically quiet in his adjacent stall.

Keefe pulled him aside after delivering a curt post-game speech and told him to take the night off from media, go back to the hotel, and decompress.

Auston nodded obediently, internally wondering how the fuck he was supposed to accomplish that after what had just transpired.

He felt like a planet that had been knocked off its axis. Like he’d been the one who’d taken a jarring stick to the diaphragm, not Mitch. It had just been a stupid, homophobic chirp, but it had rattled him to the core. It wasn’t true, so why was it tormenting him to hell and back, replaying in his mind like some cursed broken record?

Maybe because it had opened a wound. A wound that Auston had been totally convinced he had healed.

Because he’d broken the cardinal rule: No reacting when Mitch takes a hit.

Because this was just the latest in a long line of Mitch-related lapses in judgement for Auston. Lapses that had started with bed-sharing and yoga, and progressed to Matts very nearly fighting someone on live television for hurting Mitch during a game.

Because Auston was right back where he’d started from before all the restraint and reform following January 2017.

Because he’d fallen back in fucking love with Mitch Marner.

And because this time, unlike at that Collingwood New Year’s party, the NHL had whipped out its phone to film the whole thing.

When Mitch arrived back at the hotel post-game, he struggled to change shirts. The stick that had been rammed into his gut had left a bruise that seemed to be growing by the minute, so he opted for the largest, most forgiving shirt in his suitcase. It was a tie-dyed monstrosity that was probably Auston’s, but he pulled it over his head anyways and settled onto the bed with a groan.

Willie, who was his roommate this trip, had left to go meet a California relative in the bar downstairs (Mitch wondered if it was the one from that fucking New Year’s Party a few years ago, and resolved to ask Willie when he returned) which left Mitch alone with a bruised abdomen and nothing to do.

He sighed and whipped out his phone, scrolling through TikToks of dogs until he found one he thought Matts would like and sent it to him without a second thought.

Auston responded almost instantaneously, ignoring the dog video and instead typing can i come over?

Mitch typed a hasty sure, surprised that Auston was up for any kind of human contact after such a nightmare of a game.

He scrolled through more TikToks until he heard a single knock at the door- the patented subtle indication that Auston Matthews was about to walk through the doorway, which he had left open for Willie to save himself the trouble of having to get up again.

Mitch straightened up on the bed as Auston walked in, letting the door close behind him. He saw Matts give him a once-over and raise his eyebrows a bit at the tie-dye shirt, but say nothing.

“Hey.” Mitch tried, searching Auston’s guarded expression for a betrayal of how he was doing.

“Mitch, I’ve got to talk to you.” Auston muttered, his flat tone suggesting he was fighting his nerves.

Mitch shrugged in reply. “Sit.” He suggested, patting the bed beside him.

Auston proceeded to flop facedown onto Mitch’s bed, peering sideways at Mitch from inside the hood of his hoodie.

“You seem a bit broken.” Mitch observed tacitly.

“Rough day.” Auston mumbled.

“Want to talk about it?”

“Not really but I feel like I should.”

“I won’t make you.” Mitch assured him quietly. “But…remember when you said you’d always try to do something for me when I got sad?”

“Yeah.” Auston offered, muffled.

“This is me trying to help you back, if you think talking to me might help.”

“Wow.” Matts mused. “Sincerity.”

Mitch scrunched up his face a bit. “Shut up, I can be sincere.”

Auston finally sat upright, regarding Mitch thoughtfully. After a brief pause, he muttered, “You know, I’ve never tried to fight someone on the ice before.”

“That doesn’t particularly surprise me, Aus.”

“Like ever.”

“I know.” Mitch quipped. “So why did you almost sort of fight someone today just because they speared me in the gut?”

“Because you’re special, Marns.” Auston mused, adding in a low voice. “To me.”

“I like to think I’m special to everyone-” Mitch started, but he quickly toned back on the lightness when he saw how serious the look in Auston’s eyes was.

It was making something burn deep within his chest, the way Auston was looking at him. Like someone had started a fire right behind that stupid bruise on his abdomen.

Somehow, over the course of their last few words, he realized he’d drawn closer to Auston. Close enough to see the stubble on his chin, and to note that his chest seemed to be rising and falling a little faster than normal.

“What are you trying to say, Matts?” Mitch breathed eventually, locking his eyes onto Auston’s warm brown ones as if they might anchor his own fluttering heartbeat.

“The chirp today got to me because I wish it was true.”

Mitch frowned. “What do you mean?” The nature of the chirp in question had been divulged to him courtesy of Willie earlier, but he was still struggling to piece together what Auston meant.

It didn’t help that Auston was now close enough that Mitch could see specks of gold within his irises, and feel the warmth of his breath hitting his neck.

“Which part?” Mitch tried again, his voice coming out a bit broken. ”Me not being able to take a hit or…the other thing?”

“I know you can take a hit Marns.” Auston chided quietly, a smile parting his lips slightly. “So take a fucking guess.”

They stared at each other for a long few heartbeats, blue eyes locked on brown, before Auston leaned in somehow even closer, so that their lips were separated by just a few small inches of air.

“Can I kiss you?” he breathed, his shaking voice betraying how much it had cost him to let the question fall off his lips.

Mitch felt something burst open within himself. Like a dam breaking. Or a crowd exploding to their feet in reaction to the goal buzzer.

And he pressed his lips to Auston’s in answer.

Chapter Text

It’s fucking happening. Mitch thought rather blankly as his brain was wiped clean by the contact of his lips with Auston’s and his body was overtaken by the fire that had grown to a raging inferno behind his aching abdominal bruise.

Despite said fire, the kiss was tentative and exceedingly gentle, especially when contrasted with the chaotic drunken one Mitch had initiated at that party three years ago. Mitch could feel Auston holding back, nearly shaking with…nerves? Excitement? Pent-up anticipation?

He exhaled a shaky breath onto Matts’ lips.

“You’re smiling.” Auston observed, pulling away by mere millimetres to issue the remark, which was delivered so casually he might have been commenting on the weather.

“Fuck yeah I am.” Mitch whispered back, before slowly pressing their lips together once again.

Auston sighed against him, and Mitch drew a careful hand up behind his neck, where it tousled with the brown strands at the nape of his neck. He was halted a few seconds later as Auston drew back once more, this time with a puzzled look on his face.

“You don’t seem confused.” He noted, his sienna eyes fixed on Mitch’s.

“I mean, I’m a little confused,” Mitch admitted, smirking, “but I generally make a point of not letting confusion stop me from enjoying things.”

Auston actually smiled at that- a very genuine, anxious sort of thing that Mitch would have absolutely liked to have fucking bottled up and kept forever- and continued tentatively. “So…you don’t mind that we just-” He stammered awkwardly.

“No, Aus, I’m glad we fucking kissed.” Mitch mused, leaning in such that their foreheads were nearly touching. “I’ve wanted to do it again ever since like…ten seconds after the last one.”

Auston appeared slightly floored. “I wasn’t even sure you remembered that that the first kiss happened…the fucking pink juice-“

“-The kiss is like, the only thing I remember from that night.” Marns insisted, detachedly placing his arms on Auston’s shoulders as he kneeled before him on the bed. “Unfortunately, I also remember how we went down to, like, a three on the friend scale after it happened. For multiple months.”

“Those months were hell.” Auston admitted. “But I had to do it. Kissing my straight best friend made things kind of…complicated.” He muttered with a small shrug, which was immediately followed by a morphing of his expression to one of mild astonishment, “unless I made, like, the biggest fucking mis-call of the century, and you weren’t entirely…”

“To be fair,” Mitch interjected, “until that kiss I was pretty fucking sure I was straight, but as soon as it happened…not so much.”

Auston sighed heavily and sagged backwards, his head hitting the headboard with a thud. “I’ve wanted to kiss you- like, properly, with no fucking pink juice involved- since probably the day I met you.” He finished, his final words barely above a whisper.

Mitch regarded him with a look that was a mixture of coy and sympathetic. “We’re fucking idiots, Matts.”

“Yeah.” Auston agreed, closing his eyes.

“Why didn’t we have this conversation like…three years ago?”

Matts stared at him pensively for a long moment- and hell, if Mitch wasn’t about ready to self-combust under that piercing brown gaze- before adding “Maybe we weren’t ready.”

“Maybe.” Mitch mumbled quietly.

And he found himself leaning forward and coming to rest against Auston’s side, nestled between his arm and his torso the way they’d arranged themselves hundreds of times before. Only this time was different. Auston seemed to be shaking a bit, and Mitch found himself extra-fixated on the gentle resting of Matts’ hand over his hip. He grimaced a little as said hand came in contact with the edge of his bruise, and Auston noticed instantaneously.

“Fuck- sorry-“ He mumbled, drawing his hand away, “I forgot about the bruise.”

“It’s okay, it’s not that bad.” Mitch shrugged, nestling his head further into Auston’s hoodie.

Auston frowned and nonchalantly flung back the hem of Mitch’s humungous tie-dye shirt to expose the site. He felt Matts tense as he regarded the bruise.

“Good fucking lord, Mitch.” Auston muttered as his eyes scanned Mitch’s skin. “Are bruises supposed to have like…five different colours?”

Marns cast a hurried look at the spreading insult, which was, admittedly, sporting various new shades of green, blue, and purple, before deftly snatching the hem of his shirt from Auston’s hand and replacing it over his abdomen, covering the thing.

“It’s fine.” He repeated with a slight snort. “Better if I just pretend it isn’t there.”

“If Sports Science had seen that there’s no way they’d have given you the all-clear to slot in against the Ducks tomorrow.” Auston noted, narrowing his eyes.

“Some painkillers and a few extra Skittles and I’ll be good to go.” Mitch declared, trying exceedingly hard not to grimace as he shifted position slightly, draping his legs over Auston’s.

Matts sighed again and began absentmindedly twirling a finger through Mitch’s hair, which, Mitch decided quickly, was a rather fantastic and uncharacteristic display of affection from Auston. Marns tilted himself upwards (stifling a grimace of pain once more) so that they were face-to-face once again, intent on leaning in to place another kiss on Auston’s slightly reddened lips; however, he was distracted peripherally by a series of buzzings from his phone on the nightstand. A glance in that direction informed him that the team group chat had come alive.

Suddenly, he was reminded of just who it was he was about to kiss. Auston Matthews- Toronto hockey god and NHL darling. His best friend and co-assistant captain.

Mitch’s brain took a step back and observed that they were not just two people cuddling domestically and kissing on a bed, but a pair of exceedingly famous NHLers whose lives had potentially just gotten a whole hell of a lot more complicated.

“What do we do…about this?” Mitch caught himself stammering suddenly, his face still inches from Auston’s.

Auston shrugged in reply. “Does anything…need to be done?”

Mitch stared at him, perplexed. “I mean, like, what the fuck are we going to tell the NHL?” he muttered, adding with a gesture of his head towards his illuminated phone, “Or the guys?”

“It’s no one’s business.” Auston said coolly, slowly draping his arms around Mitch’s waist and drawing him closer. “We don’t have to tell them anything-“

Mitch’s heartbeat began to accelerate- both at Auston’s touch and at the unrestricted thoughts that were speeding by inside his head. “-Aus.” He exhaled, as Matts’ grip tightened. “I can’t fucking keep a secret, you know that-“

Auston shook his head minutely. “You’re not suggesting…”

“What- coming out to the NHL?” Mitch finished, absently tracing Auston’s collarbone with his fingers. “I mean- maybe, eventually-“

He felt Auston tense noticeably against him, his breathing increasing in tandem.

“Mitch-“ He started, with a hint of what Mitch hoped wasn’t panic. “I can’t-“

Marns placed a steadying hand on the side of Auston’s neck, locking his eyes on Matts’ wide brown ones. “It’s okay.” He stammered quickly. “Just like the concert thing. I get it.” He offered earnestly. “Forget I said anything.”

Auston exhaled, his relief palpable. He was quiet for a long moment, but them drew himself into Mitch so that he could press his face against his collarbone. Mitch swallowed and tentatively wrapped his own arms around Matts’ back in reply, figuring that this was what passed for a hug of gratitude from Auston.

“Don’t think I’m not stoked about…this” Auston whispered into Mitch’s neck, the last word tentative and his voice somewhat muffled. “I’m just not…” He finished, trailing off minutely.

“You don’t have to explain.” Mitch breathed.

They sat like that for a while, wrapped steadfastly around one another, until Mitch’s phone vibrated for probably the fiftieth time.

“I should probably see what the fuck the guys are on about.” Mitch admitted, hesitantly extracting himself from the hug.

Auston, his hair now slightly ruffled, watched Mitch patiently as he snatched his phone from the nightstand.

Mitch scanned the long line of texts, initially nonchalant, though as he read further down his expression grew serious.

Auston must have observed the change as Marns digested the contents of the messages, because he frowned and drew out his own phone.

“Huh.” He muttered, after the pair of them had read the messages quietly to themselves for several long seconds.

“Shit.” Mitch chided, by way of reply. “The Coronavirus stuff.”

“Shit is right.” Auston echoed, his own eyes glued to his phone screen. “I guess things are getting serious. The other leagues are shutting down.”

“But the NHL hasn’t followed yet.” Mitch observed hopefully.

“It won’t be long now that the NBA’s stopped.” Auston countered darkly. “I figured the virus would be under control long before society would have to consider something as drastic as cancelling sports. I never thought we’d actually get here.”

Mitch watched the serious, gobsmacked expression on Auston’s face as he spoke, his own worries mirroring Matts’ internally.

“What happens now?” Mitch sighed, realizing as soon as the words had left his mouth that the statement eerily echoed the question he’d posed to Auston after they’d kissed. Except that one string of texts had utterly transformed the question’s meaning. From Auston’s serious expression, he figured that his mind had also switched back over to hockey.

Auston appeared to steel himself, straightening his back as he sat against the headboard. “What happens now?” He echoed. “We play. We play until we can’t.”

Mitch stared at him, open-mouthed, and at that exact second, William Nylander returned to the room with a bang.

“Did you see this?” Willie called loudly, flinging the door open and strolling in, his hair wild as he flopped down on the bed beside Auston and Mitch without so much as a hello.

Auston and Mitch eyed Willie exasperatedly. Mitch sighed. “The chat’s been fucking buzzing, Will. Of course we saw.”

“I cannot fucking believe it.” Nylander groaned. “What the hell will we do without hockey?”

“It’s not cancelled yet-“ Mitch objected.

“-It will be.” Auston inserted drily.

Willie huffed, sending his bright orange beanie askew. “On an unrelated note- Mitch, is that Auston’s shirt?”

“I, uh-“ Mitch stammered, feeling his face redden, “this one?” he muttered, holding a chunk of tie-dye fabric. “No. I mean- yes…fuck.”

Willie was snickering like a hyena, and Auston was sighing heavily but smirking at Marns in a way that was making his heart do somersaults.

“Should I ask why you have it?” Auston deadpanned, his head still resting against the bed’s headboard.

“I was in a hurry one day in your apartment and it was the first thing I saw,” Mitch rambled, adding under his breath, “and it smells nice…like that fucking cucumber antiperspirant.”

“What was that you just said, Mitchy?” Willie prodded instantaneously, jerking upright in joyous disbelief.

“Nothing.” Mitch uttered hurriedly. A glance toward the head of the bed told him Auston was smiling.

We play until we can’t, Auston had decreed.

Until we can’t turned out to be two games later. The one against the Ducks the night after the disastrous Kings game, followed by a single home game that inadvertently became the last hurrah of the 2019-2020 Toronto Maple Leafs Season.

And the last few days before the season cancellation were an utter whirlwind. So much so that from the moment that Willie barged into that room, Mitch and Auston didn’t have a single moment alone with each other before the season was officially cancelled.

They got the news when they were back in Toronto and about to participate in a team fitness session. The news that the 2019-2020 season would officially be suspended on account of what was becoming a global pandemic.

In response, their training halted. The players went home to their families. There was a great rush to do so, especially for the non-Canadian players, due to the possibility that any day flights could be grounded or the borders could be slammed shut. For Auston, it meant heading back to Arizona while Mitch stayed in Toronto, a fact that triggered such an epically intense new level of moping that he inadvertently avoided Marns during his last day in Toronto. He slept in way too late, consumed no less than three cappuccinos, and stress-bought three new pairs of shoes online.

And suddenly, an MLSE representative was calling him to let him know he was booked to fly home to Arizona in less than five hours. So, he switched gears and frantically packed before heading to the airport.

And suddenly, Auston found himself sitting in Pearson, keeping a low profile as he waited for his flight in no visible leafs attire and with a black mask over most of his face. It had been just over a day since the official announcement that the season was being suspended. And it was there, as he watched a mom herding several masked children towards the boarding area, that he realized he hadn’t said goodbye to Mitch.

Immediately, he pulled his phone from his pocket and hastily found Marns’ name on his favourites list. He hit call before any doubts could begin to creep in.

The phone only rung once before Mitch answered.

”Aus-,” Mitch started, his voice tinny on the other end of the line as he completely bypassed any kind of greeting. ”I went by your apartment and you weren’t-“

Mitch paused, listening. Auston realized that an announcement had come over the airport loudspeakers on his end.

”You’re at the airport.” Mitch noted eventually. Auston’s heart constricted painfully at his crestfallen tone.

“Yeah.” Matts muttered unhappily into the phone. “MLSE sort of stuck me on the first plane back to Arizona. I’m sorry I didn’t come over to your place first- it happened so fast.”

His words were met with an uncharacteristic silence from Mitch’s end. The stifling, uncomfortable, weighty kind. They still hadn’t really talked about what had gone down in the hotel room in California.

Eventually, Mitch continued. ”So…it’s like it’s our summer break. But starting in March.””

“I’ll be back soon for playoffs-“

”If they even happen.” Mitch mused sadly. ”This fucking sucks.”

Auston couldn’t help but agree, but he decided that at least attempting to cheer Mitch up was important.

“Hey,” He offered, glancing over at his gate, where they had started the first call for boarding. “Marns, I need you to promise me something.”

He could practically hear Mitch listening alertly on the other end of the line.

“Go to my apartment sometimes and…keep practicing your songs. You still have your key, right?”

He thought he heard Mitch swallow, choking up a little on the other end. “Yeah.”He muttered. ”But it won’t be the same with you out of the fucking country, Aus.”

Auston sighed, unwilling to admit that he’d been having similar thoughts about his own situation.

“I’ll feel better knowing you’re in there sometimes.” He murmured, crossing his arms. “And anyways, I’m probably going to facetime you every fucking day, so you’re going to be sick of me long before I come back.”

”Not a chance, Matthews.”

Auston was pleased to note that Mitch sounded marginally less sullen. As he and Mitch’s conversation paused, he realized with a start that they were calling his number for boarding.

“Mitch, I gotta go.” He mused apologetically.

“What about California?” Marns added suddenly. ”We never decided what happens next. What happens with us.”

Auston grimaced. “Can we…decide when I’m back in Toronto?”

There was another weighted pause as he awaited Mitch’s answer.

”…yeah, sure.” Marns assented eventually.

Auston closed his eyes gratefully, drawing a hand to his forehead. “Cool.” He replied quickly, adding a beleaguered, “Thanks, Marns. I’ll call you when I land in Phoenix.”

”You’d better.”

Auston smiled a bit.

”And Aus?”

“Yeah?”

”I’m gonna really fucking miss you.”

“I’m gonna really fucking miss you too.” Auston muttered, sighing weightily before ending the call and making his way over to the boarding area.

For the first time ever while catching a plane home to see his family, Auston’s eyes stung slightly with tears.

It was a really long fucking few months. For Auston, the novelty of being around his family wore off after a few weeks; he started pining hard for Toronto around the time that his sister got super addicted to baking and almost single-handedly ruined his diet plan, his dad decided that they should challenge themselves to play every board game in their game closet (there were many), and his mom started pestering him about not folding his laundry properly.

The only things that kept Auston sane were working out obsessively, skating at the local ice pad, and facetiming Mitch daily.

Sometimes they had team calls or gaming sessions with a bunch of the guys, and it was nice to see everyone (even Willie, who chirped the hell out of him for being down in the viral hot zone that was the Southern United States) but it was his one-on-one time with Mitch that Auston really looked forward to.

Auston was shocked at how easily he and Mitch slid back into their old habits after what had gone down on the California road trip. They sort of glossed over the subject, and instead stayed up stupidly late gaming and talked for hours about absolutely nothing. Mitch even called in as a virtual participant in a bunch of the board games that Auston’s dad loved forcing the family to play.

Meanwhile, the months dragged on. Auston fucking missed hockey. And it was possible he missed Mitch even more.

Which was why he absolutely fucking screamed with joy when he finally got the news that the league was looking at a return to play for the playoffs in late summer. He cursed so loudly and colourfully that his mom shouted at him angrily in Spanish for ten minutes afterwards.

Worth it. He thought internally as he took the verbal punishment.

Images of hockey, of Toronto, and of Mitch filled his mind.

Mitch was never one to shrug off responsibility, so he probably used Auston’s piano over a hundred and fifty times in the few months between the season’s end and the beginning of playoffs in the bubble.

The first few visits were super fucking depressing in Auston’s Auston-less apartment , but he soon found a sort of inner fucking peace in sitting down at the old piano for a while and honing his skills.

And, Mitch was pleased to report, he was no longer shit at playing the piano. By about visit thirty he considered himself a passable piano amateur. By visit one hundred he was feeling pretty fucking proficient. At least, he was proficient at the like, three full two-handed songs he had taken on.

One was All Star, because Mitch had to respect the classics. Another was fucking Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven, because Hymie had dared him to learn it and playing it made his mom cry. And the last was a surprise for Auston.

Sometimes, Marns facetimed Auston while he was practicing (always keeping his third song a secret) just for the company. Matts threw a lot of shade at All Star but was always legitimately impressed by Mitch’s ability with the Sonata.

Regardless of whether Auston was being chirpy or supportive, Mitch continued to really fucking miss him. Had Matts asked he would have denied it, but he spent many a night sleeping in Auston’s bed and many a morning walking around in Auston’s too big (and often too tie-dyed) clothes. Sometimes he blasted Rihanna while he did so.

And Mitch counted down the days until the playoffs. He was way too excited to care that his environment was about to be restricted to one hotel and one rink.

When the day finally came to enter the bubble after a strict quarantine and abundant COVID testing, Auston did so with a spring in his step. Hockey was back. He was about to see his teammates. Mitch. Who he expected would be very happy to see him.

Auston did not expect Marns to absolutely body him with an all-encompassing hug in front of their entire team as he walked into the conference room where they were shortly going to be having their first official team meeting.

He resisted the urge to bury his nose in Mitch’s hair as he wrapped his arms around him for the first time in like four months.

“Hey.” Auston smiled breathlessly as Mitch took slightly shaky breaths in his arms. The sensation of actually touching him after such a long time apart was a thousand times better than he’d ever imagined.

“How come I never get a greeting like that, Mitchy?” Hyman interjected with a tsk, eyeing Mitch and Auston’s exchange from the leather couches where the rest of the team had assembled.

Auston immediately stiffened, and Mitch finally let go of his ribs, though he continued to shoot him such pronounced heart eyes that Matts worried the rest of the team, thick though they might be, might actually notice.

Meanwhile, the rest of the team was enthusiastically calling out greetings and chirps at him in equal measure.

“You’re just in time for the most important debate of the bubble.” Mo announced as Auston and Mitch took up seats at the end of one of the couches. “Goal songs.”

“They’re not…a thing, though?” Auston pointed out tentatively. “For us, at least?”

“Maybe not now,” Dermott admitted, “But I am working on management about it-“

“-We already discussed this.” Muzzin muttered with a snort. “If anyone has a hope of convincing MLSE to make individualized goal songs a thing, it’s Mitchy.”

“Or maybe Soup.” Mo added, glancing at Jack Campbell, who nodded appreciatively.

“Either way, it doesn’t change what Matts’ should be.” Mitch interjected smoothly, smirking at Auston out of the corner of his eye.

“And what is that?” Auston inquired calmly, glad for an excuse to stare at Mitch.

“The Bitch Is Back, by Elton John.” He replied with a shrug.

Auston snorted, smiling despite himself. “Fair enough- the Bitch Is Back now, so you’d all better watch your asses.” He decreed, raising his eyebrows at the room conspiratorially.

His teammates howled approvingly, and Willie gave him a warm-hearted pat on the back. “The Blue Jackets had better watch their asses.” Nylander observed, smirking. “They don’t know what’s coming for them.”

“Fucking Go Leafs Go.” Auston muttered smoothly, to which Willie raised his iced tea and winked.

Meanwhile, as the room broke into a debate about whether “Sweet Child O’ Mine” was a better goal song than “Dream On”, Mitch shifted subtly closer to Auston and very slowly began to entwine their fingers behind his back.

Auston’s breath caught in his throat, and he bit his lip to hide a smile.

“Are we even fucking allowed up here? Is this a health and safety risk?” Mitch hissed at Auston as they snuck along the dark upper hallways of the hotel later that night, which were unoccupied on account of the place being shut down for the housing of NHL teams in the bubble. Mitch was not entirely certain why he had agreed to such an unnecessary, potentially shit-disturbing plan, but he was prepared to put most of the blame on his desire to finally be alone with Auston.

“If it’s locked we’ll just go back to the room.” Auston whispered in reply, pulling his crispy white hotel towel more tightly around his shoulders. “We deserve this after that fucking three-hour protocol meeting.”

“I’ve never worked this hard for a stupid hot tub in my life.” Mitch muttered, glancing around a corner like they were in some idiotic spy thriller.

Auston narrowed his eyes. “It’s got to be around here somewhere.” He mused, marching along yet another carpeted hallway.

Mitch followed him with a groan, eyeing Auston’s feet unhappily and muttering “Why are your flip flops so fucking loud?”

Auston shrugged, then froze a second later as he sighted a steamy-looking window.

Mitch almost ran into him.

“Bingpot.” Auston declared smugly, gesturing at a sign that read Rooftop Pool.

“Was that a fucking Brooklyn Nine-Nine reference?” Mitch crooned fondly as Auston attempted to scan his room card.

“Fucking right.” Auston replied in tandem with the light turning green. He shot a devilish smirk in Mitch’s direction and pushed open the door.

The rooftop indoor pool was dimly lit and utterly devoid of people. Mitch wondered why the hell the door had been left open, but he wasn’t about to question their good fortune. He and Auston smiled deviously at each other as they shed their towels on a lounge chair, and Marns noted with a smirk that Auston was also in his boxers, because neither of them had figured they’d need a fucking bathing suit in the bubble.

“Twins.” He chortled, causing Auston to smirk over his shoulder as he wandered over to the hot tub, which was serendipitously positioned adjacent to a wide window that offered a stunning view of Downtown Toronto. The city was blanketed in late-night darkness broken up by innumerable twinkling lights and towering skyscrapers, which gleamed hauntingly beneath a full moon.

Ignoring Auston sliding into the hot tub with a contented groan beside him, Mitch regarded the cityscape with a smile.

“Not gonna join me?” Auston prompted, raising an eyebrow at Mitch.

“In a sec. Just trying to, you know, live in the fucking moment here.” Marns snickered.

“Do me a favour and come over here and live in the same fucking moment as me.” Auston proposed, splashing the frothing water around idly with his hands.

Mitch sighed and feigned ambling passively in the direction of the hot tub. When he was halfway there, he grinned and bolted into the thing at high speed, sloshing Auston with a tidal wave of steaming water as he submerged.

“Well, fuck me.” Auston laughed, lounging in a corner seat and wiping the aftermath of the wave from his eyes.

“You asked for it.” Mitch chided, sinking into the water to the level of his chin.

“I did.” He admitted, eyeing Mitch rather suggestively.

Marns morphed his smile into one that contained rather more slyness, and maneuvered himself in front of Auston, coming to rest straddling his hips.

Auston inhaled sharply and appeared to forget how to breathe for several long seconds as Mitch casually trailed a line across the beads of moisture on his chest with his finger.

“This might be the best fucking night of the last few months.” Auston muttered brokenly, his eyes following Mitch’s hands.

“Might?” Mitch countered, offering an offended smirk. He leaned forwards, closing the amount of water and air between them until their chests made contact and Auston’s lips were just a tilt of his head away.

“May I?” Mitch muttered against his lips as his arms encircled Matts’ neck.

“You may.” Auston breathed gutturally.

And they kissed. For the first time in over four months. In a hot tub at the top of the Royal York.

This, Mitch decided as he pressed his mouth insistently against Auston’s, must be what heaven fucking feels like.

And he suspected that Auston would have agreed, if the contented sounds he uttered as his fingers entangled in Mitch’s hair were any indication. Amidst the swirling steam and their total fixation on one another, they very nearly didn’t notice that they were about to have company.

Auston suddenly pulled away abruptly as footsteps sounded down the hall outside the pool deck, and Mitch’s heart nearly arrested as the figures of several of their teammates appeared beyond the steamed glass.

He sort of awkwardly rolled sideways off Auston’s lap as the pool deck door flew open and Mo, Willie, Freddy and Zach strode in boisterously.

“Two bros, chillin in a hot tuuuuub-“ Willie started, singsong, in a manner that caused Mitch to roll his eyes. “In the same seat because they don’t subscribe to toxic masculinityyyy-“ he finished, smirking, which caused Zach and Mo to shoot Nylander confused but not un-approving looks.

Mitch glanced down and realized he was still sort of squished into a corner seat with Auston- so, fair; point to Willie- but at least he hadn’t been fucking straddling him anymore when the guys walked in.

Peripherally, Mitch noted that Auston was blushing vividly, but that he recovered quickly enough to fling a chirp Willie’s way.

“I’d say those boxers don’t fall far from that tree either, Will.” Auston observed, gesturing at the offending shorts, which were hot pink with cartoon lattes all over them.

“I consider myself a champion for the cause, Matts.” Willie smirked, sliding into the opposite seat in the hot tub and adding, “When exactly were you two planning on letting the rest of us in on your illicit hot tub find?”

Mitch shrugged. “When we were psychologically prepared to share it with riff-raff like all of you. How did you guys find us, anyways?”

“Hymie was his usual observant self and noticed a sign for the pool on our floor.” Willie admitted. “And since no one’s heard from you two in like, an hour, and the hotel’s just not that fucking big, we deduced that you must be hiding up here.”

Zach shot Auston and Mitch a sheepish look. “It must have been a pretty long few months for you guys.” Zach offered from his seat, sounding genuinely sympathetic as he took in their squished-together forms.

“How so?” Mitch pressed, alarm bells sounding inside his head. He felt Auston stiffen against him on his right.

“I just mean because you two are always so attached at the hip.” Hyman clarified with a shrug. “Must have been hard to be in different countries.”

“Fucking unbearable, being away from this guy.” Auston snorted, gesturing at Mitch’s use of his thigh and shoulder as a lounge chair. His tone was teasing, but Mitch could also tell from the look that Matts gave him immediately afterwards that there was some raw honesty within the statement.

“Speaking of not being away,” Mo started, “Sounds like you two are lineys again against the Jackets.” He noted approvingly.

“I hope we can find some chemistry again.” Mitch mused, paying Auston back with a shit-disturbing glance of his own.

Auston rolled his eyes. “I hope the whole team can find some chemistry. Might be fucking hard after multiple months of not practicing together.”

“We will find a way.” Mo decreed simply, always the optimist.

Freddy, Meanwhile, finally piped up from his corner of the hot tub. “By the way,” he started, regarding both Mitch and Auston in turn, “We’re switching roomies for a few days. Willie claims he hasn’t had enough quality Fred-time, so Mitch is going to bunk with you, Matts, if that’s cool.”

Auston’s tried not to look dumbfounded at Freddy’s words, especially when Willie shot him a conspiratorial wink from the other side of the hot tub.

“I, uh-“ Auston started, before Mitch elbowed him subtly in the ribs. “I mean, yeah. Sure. No problem.”

“We cleared it already with management.” Freddy continued. “I’m about 80% convinced Will has some ulterior motive-“

Willie shot him an attempt at an innocent smile, which absolutely no one fucking bought.

“-and I’m not sure what the fuck it is.” Freddy continued, staring at Willie blankly. “I will figure it out, though.” He assured the Swede steadfastly, fixing Willie with a patented goalie intimidation stare. To his credit, Willie did not cower, or even remotely change his aloof expression.

Mitch smiled at the sight. He was, admittedly, grateful to Willie, but it was clear that on some level he seemed to be catching on to this…thing that he and Auston were starting. The thought was both terrifying and exhilarating. Personally, Mitch had no doubts that the team would be supportive of whatever he and Auston decided to share with them, but Auston had made it clear that he had serious reservations about going public with any of it.

So, Mitch stewed, trying to push away his worries and just enjoy the hot tub, the steadfastness of leaning against Auston, and the casual conversation.

He and Auston excused themselves a while later after Mitch noted that their fingers were ”starting to look like fucking prunes”. They snatched their towels and snuck back down to their rooms, ignoring the many prune-related chirps that followed them off the pool deck.

Upon returning to their floor, Mitch propped open the doors to he and Auston’s previously adjacent rooms and proceeded to haul all his things into Auston’s space, dumping them unceremoniously on one of the plush ivory beds.

“You know,” Auston ventured from over on the other bed, where he was recumbently swiping through Instagram on his phone. “I purposely chose Fred as a roommate after that one New Year’s because I thought it would be too painful to sleep a bed away from you all the time.”

“Lucky for you-“ Mitch returned, pulling a stray sock out from inside one of his pairs of shoes. “There is no fucking way I’m not seizing the hell out of this opportunity and sleeping right, pressed up against your ass-“

Mitch was interrupted by an awkward knock on their open door. It was Dave, one of their assistant coaches, clutching a clipboard. Mitch thought it looked like his mouth might have been caught open, but if it was he closed it awfully quickly.

“Matts. Marns.” Their coach muttered rather curtly. “Schedules and protocol- for the next few days leading into game one.” He finished, handing Mitch a few sheets of paper.

Mitch smiled awkwardly at him; he could see Auston facepalming on the bed out of the corner of his eye.

“Thanks…Dave.” Marns tried, still smiling rather stupidly as Dave nodded and continued down the hallway. As soon as he was on to the next room, Mitch abruptly shut the door.

“Holy fuck,” He snorted, laughing a bit as wandered back towards Auston. “How’s that for comedic timing-“

“It was really fucking close, is what it was.” Auston muttered, raising his eyebrows.

Mitch sighed. “I’m sorry. I know you don’t want anyone to know.”

Auston grimaced. “I just…want us to enjoy this-“ He mused, gesturing vaguely to the room that, thanks to a Nylander-related miracle, they were now sharing, “and play some good hockey without any…unnecessary complications.”

Mitch crossed his arms. “Is that all you think this-“ He muttered, pointing from Auston to himself and back, “Is? An unnecessary complication?”

“Fuck…no,” Auston corrected, closing his eyes in exasperation. “It’s just that…one of the only good things about being stuck in Arizona with just my family for company for the last few months was that all the fucking rumours actually stopped for a while. No stupid reporters or…homophobic chirps, or anything like that.”

Mitch frowned and sat down on the bed. “Ah. I see.”

His brain immediately started churning. It felt like Auston was already putting an expiry date on this blossoming thing they’d had going. Like circumstances were never going to change enough for them to actually be together beyond occasionally sharing beds and making out. It was a dark hole to fall into, and it must have been visible on Mitch’s face, because Auston immediately shuffled over to sit at his side.

“Hey,” He muttered, placing a tentative hand on the side of Mitch’s face. “Eventually I’ll be ready to tell absolutely everyone who will fucking listen how I feel about you-”

“-You’re just not there yet.” Mitch finished, shying away slightly from Auston’s touch, his face now firmly stuck in a frown.

“It doesn’t mean I don’t want to.” Auston assured him, his brown eyes pleading. “I’m just not ready to…face the music yet.”

Mitch regarded him with slightly more warmth. Even if this…whatever this was…was doomed, Mitch decided that wasting it moping around would be fucking stupid.

“So we’ll do what you said.” Mitch suggested suddenly, burying his own reservations. “We’ll enjoy this,” he muttered, placing a hand on Auston’s chest, “and play some good hockey.”

Auston smiled at him. “Damn right.” He muttered, placing a gentle, fleeting kiss on Mitch’s lips.

And, to be fair, they did play some good hockey in the days that followed. They also played some very messy hockey, pulling off possibly the greatest hockey comeback of the century and following it up with an elimination loss.

And that was it. They lost the series to the Blue Jackets in five games. The Leafs were eliminated before round one even got properly started. Their time in the bubble came to an end.

Mitch and Auston were devastated for more reason than one.

Sheldon Keefe liked to fancy that he knew the vast majority of what was going on with his players and staff.

He always took a friendly approach- reaching out to guys on their off days just to check in, supporting players through injuries and slumps, and generally keeping an open-door policy at all times. And he was usually rewarded for it; he was often the first one the players came to with any concerns, admittances, or complications.

Which was why the visit Sheldon received the day after the team’s unfortunate elimination from playoff contention absolutely threw him for a loop.

It was a visit from Dave, one of his assistant coaches, who cleared his throat and knocked at Keefe’s open door to announce his presence.

Sheldon ushered him in with a nod and a polite smile. The last twenty-four hours had been marked by intense media scrutiny and a heavy sense of bitter disappointment, but he was still glad to see his colleague.

“How can I help you?” He tried, gesturing politely for Dave to have a seat.

Dave closed the door behind him and then obliged, clearing his throat again and, Sheldon noticed with a sinking feeling deep within his gut, appearing rather nervous.

Nerves were never a good sign when his assistants paid him visits; Sheldon’s thoughts immediately dove headfirst into wondering who had contracted COVID, or been revealed to be badly injured, or gotten into trouble with the law.

He attempted to stamp such thoughts down as Dave began to speak.

“Sheldon, there’s something I think I need to tell you-and show you.” He offered rather cautiously. “I’ve been debating whether to do so for several days.”

Keefe’s interest piqued significantly, his worries still floating around in the back of his brain. He watched Dave intently, clasping his hands on his desk.

“It pertains to Matthews and Marner.” Dave continued, not meeting Sheldon’s gaze, which was highly unusual.

“Do tell.”

“It’s somewhat grey ethical territory…but I feel it’s in the interest of the team for you, as head coach, to know…”

Sheldon’s mouth flattened into a line behind his mask. “Put me out of my misery, Dave, my brain is running wild, here.”

Dave sighed heavily, evidently struggling to get the words out. “I have reason to believe,” he started eventually. “That the two have…feelings for each other.”

Sheldon raised an eyebrow at him. “Like, more than just attached-at-the-hip best friend feelings?”

Dave nodded slowly. “Feelings of a…romantic nature, sir.”

Keefe tried desperately to rein in his surely shocked expression. “You mean to tell me that you think my star players are…in love with each other?”

“There’s significant evidence for me to believe that is the case, yes.”

Sheldon was silent for a moment, rather stunned. He knew the two were close. For years they’d nurtured probably the closest relationship of any two players on the team. It wasn’t the believability of the thing that had him bewildered, it was the fact that if what Dave was suggesting was true, the organization and the league as a whole were about to enter highly untraveled territory. And that he’d been totally blind-sided.

He turned has gaze back on Dave. “Can I ask what led you to this conclusion?”

“There was an interaction.” He supplied carefully. Keefe gave him an encouraging look, and he continued, “In the bubble, I accidentally caught the tail-end of a conversation between Matthews and Marner while going door-to-door with the schedules. It was rather sensitive in nature; about sharing a bed.”

Sheldon shrugged. “They wouldn’t be the first hockey players to do so. And anyways, it’s the players’ business what they get up to off the ice.” He finished, raising an eyebrow at Dave once again. “Is that all?”

“No, sir.” Dave admitted, looking perhaps even more unsettled, which did nothing to settle Sheldon’s own sense of worry.

Dave withdrew a tablet from under his arm, booted it up, and placed it on Sheldon’s desk.

“The Royal York contacted our offices three days ago with a complaint. Apparently, while combing through security footage they found that several of our players were on the hotel pool deck during the first night of our stay, a place that was supposed to have been off-limits.”

“Did they ignore posted signs or something?” Sheldon pressed, perplexed.

“It sounds like nothing was posted, and the door had been left unlocked. So we apologized on the players’ behalf and offered to pay the hotel to drop the issue.”

“Then, what’s the problem? The hotel won’t take the money?”

Dave swallowed and turned his attention to the tablet. He pulled up a video and spun the screen around slowly to face Sheldon.

Keefe glanced at him for a moment in confusion, before turning his own attention to the screen and pressing play.

Security-camera footage of the hotel pool and hot tub began to play. After a few seconds, Mitch and Auston entered the field. He watched, bewildered as to what Dave could possibly mean by being so dramatic about the situation.

Matthews went in the hot tub. Marner joined him. It was utterly uninteresting for a few long seconds.

Until the kissing started.

Until Sheldon realized that Dave’s theory appeared to be entirely grounded in fact.

Until he realized that someone who was not MLSE was now in possession of a rather compromising video of his star players.

Until he realized that he was equal parts concerned at what might happen if the video leaked, confused about whether playing two guys who were in love with each other on the same line posed an ethical dilemma, and saddened by the fact that neither Auston nor Mitch had felt comfortable enough to divulge such a massive secret to he or the rest of the team.

Across the desk, Dave cleared his throat politely once again. “Sheldon…how would you like to proceed?”

“Who else knows about this video?” Sheldon inquired flatly in reply.

Dave shifted uncomfortably. “Myself, Dubas, a couple others in upper management, and the heads of security at the hotel.”

Keefe nodded stiffly. “We’re going to keep it that way. Do what you can to get all evidence of the video’s existence eliminated from the hotel’s records.”

Solemnly, Dave nodded and swept out of the room.

On the other side of the desk, Sheldon placed his head in his hands.

Chapter Text

Fall 2020

In hindsight, Auston reflected, the symbolic implosion of the hot tub situation had been a sort of beginning of an end.

He could still with vivid clarity recall the moment when, amidst the flurry of end-of-season meetings and debriefs in 2020, the Leafs’ coaching staff had deftly ushered he and Mitch away from the swarming Toronto reporters and into a room with Keefe, leaving he and Mitch curiously alone with their coach with the resounding click of the door. He recalled feeling school-aged again as he and Mitch sat across the desk within the full-blast zone of the troubled expression plastered upon their coach’s face. Auston recalled searching desperately for anything else within the office to fix his eyes on, and landing on both Sheldon’s venti black americano and the unrefreshed 2019 calendar on the back wall that had been, conspicuously, left on the December photo of Mitch mid-flight on the ice.

It had been a whirlwind few days, and Auston had had nothing resembling alone time with Mitch since they’d woken up together the morning after The Kiss, when they'd stirred with their limbs tangled and their minds blissfully free, at least for a short moment, of the recent sting of their loss to the Jackets. The Kiss would remain tragically but permanently etched on Auston’s brain not only for its brilliance, but for being the second and only fully executed kiss he would have with Mitch for a depressingly long time in the seasons that followed.

The sharp knocking that had echoed from their hotel room door had broken their elated bed-sharing spell and accelerated the onset of the post-season media frenzy that eventually led them into the dank office with the Mitch calendar.

As Auston stared at calendar-Mitch, he noted the roasted, earthy odor of Sheldon’s coffee and peripherally observed Mitch himself fussing idly at the swivel chair he’d been planted upon, until he accidentally pulled the side lever and dropped aggressively downwards with a swift whoosh, which was the only noise in the office until Keefe spoke.

“Guys, I’ve got something of a serious nature to talk to you about today.” He rumbled, his voice low and his tone uncharacteristically grim.

Mitch stilled and looked full to bursting with desire to interrupt but, mercifully, he held his tongue, and Keefe continued.

“It’s about the hot tub.” Was all he said, abruptly breaking the otherwise pristine eye contact he’d been making with his two star players.

There was a ten-ton silence that followed, in which Auston’s heartbeat became audible within his ears and Mitch sat, frozen and forward-facing, at his side.

Keefe waited an excruciating amount of time for either of Mitch or Auston to weigh in, but neither was forthcoming. Auston was preoccupied with trying to breathe normally and ignoring the dark spots that had appeared at the edges of his vision.

Keefe swallowed and continued. “There’s footage, boys. The kind that will set the NHL’s Media Cycle on fire if it leaks.”

The gravity of the situation was growing heavier on Auston’s shoulders, and he felt as though he was wading through mud in his brain trying to find some words to utter, so it was Mitch who spoke first.

“So it hasn’t?” Marns muttered, his tone light enough to suggest that they might be discussing whether a powerplay lineup was working or not, or some shit. “…leaked.”

Keefe shook his head, and his expression held a semblance of sympathy, but he wouldn’t meet Auston or Mitch’s eyes. There was a hollow, betrayal-like feeling blooming in Auston’s chest as their coach, who typically met their eyes with sincerity and utmost respect, avoided their faces as though they’d done something unspeakable.

“Where do we go from here.” Auston distantly heard Marns asking, though his voice registered as if Auston was overhearing him from a room over.

Again, Keefe seemed to hesitate a distractingly long time before continuing.

“Damage control to minimize the odds of a leak.” Was all he said.

Auston’s stomach tightened with increasing intensity. He felt the impact of those words like a physical knife to his abdomen. He was damaged. Mitch was damaged. They were damaged.

He vaguely registered Mitch conversing actively with Keefe. They were saying something about news outlets, and laying low, and discussing announcing something, or not. They were asking Auston something- perhaps if he agreed that keeping the video under wraps was what he wanted- and he felt his head nod.

And then Mitch was standing, and Auston was standing, and suddenly Keefe’s hand was on his shoulder.

“I want you to know that MLSE will support whichever direction you take with this.”

Mitch seemed to take this as a prompt, and Auston heard him ask, “What about playing piano at a benefit event for…this sort of thing?”

Keefe seemed taken aback, perhaps at the specificity of the request, and prompted Mitch for more information, but Auston muttered something about needing air, and was pulling open the office door before he heard more of the conversation.

He stood suddenly facing a multitude of microphones, and the reporters and the MLSE staff members that lined the hall were asking him questions, and everything was so very loud. The blackness was encroaching on his vision with unrelenting progress, and the room was threatening to sway, and then suddenly, behind his back, there was a hand clasping his own. A familiar hand. Mitch’s hand.

Mitch was pulling him away, away from the crowd, away from the noise. Soon they were in an empty hallway, then out a back door, then Mitch was leading them past security and towards his hulking fucking Land Rover, which Auston normally teased him to all hell for driving, but which currently looked like an appealing grey sanctuary. Auston’s vision sharpened again as he settled into the passenger seat.

Mitch managed to drive them back to their apartments largely one-handed, his hand still clutching Auston’s steadfastly as they merged with the Gardiner’s unrelenting traffic.

It took until Auston was seated in his own apartment on his couch, buried in a humongous black hoodie and holding (but not drinking) a cup of disgusting sencha tea that Marns had handed him, before his heart rate finally returned to its usual slow thud. He half-heartedly recalled conversations with the Leafs’ medical team about his remarkably slow heart rate, which apparently exceeded expectations even for a fit first-line NHL hockey player.

Mitch approached him as though he were a frightened animal, his movements slow and intentional, and he set himself down a polite but comforting distance from Auston on the couch.

“How are you…feeling?” Mitch prompted, hesitant.

Auston thought that this was a surprisingly supportive and emotionally in-tune response from Mitch, and felt compelled to, at last, say something.

“Numb,” He started transparently. “And like we finally did something for ourselves and now we’re at risk of being crucified by the entire hockey-watching public for it.”

“Aus,” Mitch offered gently, “I’m sure not everyone,-“

But Auston cut him short abruptly. “You saw how Keefe looked in that room.” He spat, his voice cracking a little as he met Marns’ icy blue eyes.

Mitch (who had, Auston reflected, the talent and curse of assuming best intentions when it came to other people) offered, “Like someone who will try to help us figure this out?”

Auston shook his head. “Like someone who has a mess to clean up. And it’s us.” He stumbled, gesturing between them. “We’re the mess.” He added, his heart unwillingly accelerating again. “And Keefe is supposed to be one of the good ones.”

The room went quiet except for the sound of both of their phones threatening to explode with a barrage of incoming text messages as they buzzed continuously on the coffee table. Auston fleetingly noted Willie’s name flash by on both phones, alongside several other teammates.

At Auston’s side, Mitch was finally starting to look as aggrieved as Auston already felt. “So, I’m hearing scared?” he tried, “You’re scared?”

“Yeah. You could say that.” Auston breathed.

Mitch was gradually scooting closer, and his knees were now pressed against Auston’s left thigh. “You think the neanderthal fans who would care about…us…are going to come after you? Or something?”

Auston pointedly decided to ignore his surprise that Mitch had the academic wherewithal to use the word neanderthal and pressed onwards, replying “I think it’s hitting me that if something leaks then the full force of the NHL fans and players’ internalized and externalized homophobia is about to hit us like a fucking tidal wave if…or when…any of this gets out.” He mused, staring at the tiny green ripples on the surface of his untouched tea. “And it’s us, not just me.” he added quickly. “I’m really worried about them coming after us.”

“What if we just said fuck them and carried on anyways.” Mitch proposed, a ghost of a smile dancing across his features. “What if we do what we always do when shit hits the fan here in Toronto and just put our heads down and play our hockey?”

“Because this isn’t like losing to the Blue Jackets, Marns.”

Mitch went quiet again. It was a strange look on him; Marns' mouth was slightly open but, for once, nothing in the way of words was threatening to spill out. Mitch remained quiet a while as he broke his eye contact with Matts to glance fleetingly out over Lake Ontario, which sparkled, incongruently bright and sun-bathed for their current situation, beyond the wide windows of Auston’s apartment. Marns cast his eyes eventually back to Auston’s typically warm, but currently icy brown ones.

“Don’t you love this…whatever this might be…” he mused, pointing once again between he and Auston, “more than you fear a little backlash from some lame-ass homophobes and...bigots?” and added a speedy “hopefully I just used bigots right?” and appeared momentarily lost in thought, evidently casting back to his memories of their recent diversity training day.

Auston couldn’t help the surge of fondness that broke through his moping as he saw how hard Mitch was trying to spin everything sunny-side-up. So, Matts nodded and affirmed that yeah, he was using the words right. But his fear remained.

In Mitch’s world, perhaps they could come clean to the NHL and all the homophobic slurs would stop getting flung around the ice, everyone would welcome they and their “new identities” with open arms, and hell- they might even get praised for being the first ones willing to break the mold for what an NHL hockey player’s personal life could look like. Perhaps no one’s family would raise any objections, and they could live out some beautiful Toronto hockey power couple fantasy where they played and performed during the day and went home to each other each night without any trouble.

But Auston’s brain didn’t work that way. Every homophobic slur, comment on his love of fashion, or jab about his lack of a dyed-blond girlfriend hanging off his arm was racing at lightspeed through his mind in that moment. He was imagining all of it, but amplified by a thousand if he and Mitch actually came out as some kind of…couple?

He realized that he was scared to even think that world, which naturally ushered in a flood of shame. He was about 90% sure he was wildly in love with Mitch; likely, he’d been in love with (or at least been actively working on falling in love with) Mitch for a very long time. And he wanted to believe there was nothing shameful about that. He wanted to believe in his own belief in “love is love”.

But there was one significant and possibly unsurmountable obstacle that he was now face-to-face with in his quest to acknowledge his feelings for Mitch, and that was the National Hockey League and every person who played in it, worked for it, followed it, or tweeted about it. The league was a conglomerate of beliefs, ideas, and traditions that left little (or possibly no) space for a non-straight male hockey player to exist.

Sure, there were adored liney pairings, cute GIF’ed hugs, and ass-slaps galore all around the league, but these were cute echoes of the idea that the NHL was ready for a non-hetero culture to exist. Their reality was an old white boys’ club with crippling levels of homophobia and toxic masculinity. There was a reason why when Auston tried to summon up an image of a gay hockey player in his mind, he found himself at a loss to do so. He pictured the comment that had been made about Mitch being his boyfriend during that Kings game, and instead of feeling righteous fury, or an adventurous urge to go ahead and prove the chirp correct just to see what kind of reaction they would get, he found himself circling back to hollowness and fear.

So, he looked at Mitch, who was bathed in a swathe of afternoon sunlight that highlighted his hair with arcs of gold and who looked beautifully, wholesomely lost in thought about the whole terminology thing, and his heart broke as he uttered. “I’m not sure.”

Mitch snapped out of his reverie, uttering “what, Aus?”

Matts bit his lip, wishing his hoodie could swallow him whole right there on the couch. “I’m not sure if I can take what they would throw at us. I’m not sure if I’m ready.” He uttered very quietly.

Mitch looked as if he was actively watching the sun go out. His mouth closed, and then he said “you mean, you don’t want to do this.”

Auston felt his heart floundering. “No…I mean, I do want to do this,” he stammered, thinking about the inferno that kissing Mitch had ignited, a burning so unlike anything he’d felt before “I want it so much it’s making me kind of freak out, but I don’t think I can do it now. Not yet. I don’t know when.”

“Ah.” Mitch supplied, subtly sinking away from Auston on the couch. “Right.”

Auston felt the absence of Mitch’s knees on his thigh as he realized that they were no longer touching.

“So, we suppress the hell out of the hot tub video.” Mitch whispered, “and we don’t go down that road again.” He finished, rising from the couch.

Auston expected to feel some kind of relief, some semblance of comfort with Mitch accepting that Auston wasn’t ready to tread the new ground of some kind of relationship-building, plus or minus the whole NHL knowing, but instead he felt a dissonant emptiness, like his heart was caving in upon itself as he looked at Mitch standing in the middle of his living room.

“I have to go.” Mitch interjected suddenly, turning heel and heading for the apartment door. Auston swiftly slammed his tea on the side table and followed, grabbing Mitch’s arm gently but insistently.

“Wait,” he started, unsure where he was heading with his current effort to speak. “Wait.” He repeated, more insistently.

To Auston’s immense gratitude, Mitch did pause, facing him and remaining quiet. His lips were pressed together, and his eyes had the glassy appearance of someone who, for several minutes now, had been fighting back tears. Auston couldn’t form a coherent thought, despite knowing that there were countless things he should probably be saying, and instead found his brain utterly stuck on how kissable Mitch looked in this moment. He wanted to press their lips together once again, to make sure he committed their every curve to his memory, as he got the sense that he’d just smashed something between the two of them, something that may or may not be reparable.

Auston realized that, once again, they were mere centimetres from lip-lip contact. He could see the moisture beading at the corners of Marns’ eyes, and the subtle flush of his cheeks.

“I want to kiss you so bad.” Auston muttered numbly, unable to piece together anything more astute or profound.

Mitch swallowed. “Then do it.”

Auston stared at Marns’ lips for what felt like an eternity. His every neuron was pushing him to close that final few centimetres between them. The flame of want for Mitch that had been doused by fear had reignited in his gut. But some invisible force seemed to hold Auston still, and instead he watched in slow motion as a veil of disappointment clouded Mitch’s eyes, followed by a shattering of their unmoving tableau as Marns turned once more and left the apartment, leaving Auston with only silence for company as the resounding slam of the door echoed and died.

The days that followed were like a stretched-out version of the moment when Auston couldn’t bring himself to kiss Mitch one last time. He felt frozen within his apartment, moving only for simple tasks like occasional nourishment and, every few days, a cold shower to aid in his burning need for maximum self-loathing.

Theoretically, his “summer break” (with a delayed pandemic timeline that made it more of a “fall break”) had begun, and he would normally be preparing for the trip back to Arizona, where golf and family time awaited him. Instead, he booked no flights. He felt the ache of the loss of hockey more acutely than any prior season. He avoided the internet like the plague, fearful of a particular compromising hot tub video making an unwanted appearance, and of news of the pandemic making him somehow feel worse than he already did in his current rock-bottom state. He ignored calls from his family and disregarded the myriad of texts that his teammates and friends in Toronto sent his way. The only name he was watching for with any intent to respond never appeared on his phone.

He felt the loss of Mitch like a phantom limb. It had been, like, three days, yet he realized how profoundly intertwined their lives had become when he noted the sheer size of the profound void that emerged at the onset of Mitch’s radio silence.

To absolutely no one’s surprise, it was William Nylander who was the first (and only) one to break through to Auston as he sat in his apartment on the fourth day, eating much more sugar than the Leafs’ nutrition department would have recommended, steeping green teas that he was fully aware he would never drink, and watching RuPaul’s Drag Race. (Which had started as an aggressive push to educate himself on queer culture and had progressed to genuine investment slash substitute for no social contact at all).

Willie knocked once before unlocking Auston’s front door himself with the “emergency key” that Auston had given him years earlier (in a weak moment after much badgering from Nylander that Matts was “borderline impossible to reliably reach by text” at times).

Willie entered unannounced, ignored Auston’s hoodie and sweatpants clad form on the couch, glanced fleetingly at the TV and remarked “Glad to see you’re alive. That’s not one of my favourite looks from Ru, if I’m honest,” by way of greeting, before plunking himself down in Auston’s armchair.

Willie helped himself to the peanut M&M’s that Auston had left, half-eaten, on the coffee table. Auston looked at him with mild disbelief, shocked at how odd it felt just to see another person in his apartment.

“So, you and Mitch.” Willie mused, flinging another M&M into his mouth.

“Yeah.” Auston replied tersely, surprised to find his voice still in working order.

Willie cocked his head and queried, “Can I call it a break-up?”

“No.”

“Not even just a…friend break-up?”

“No.” Auston repeated.

Willie pondered Auston’s unhelpful replies for a moment. “You know,” he started eventually, “I know what happened.”

At this, Auston finally deigned to make eye contact. “You do?”

“Mitch told me everything, bless his soft, broken heart.” He mused, finishing the statement with a hint of Auston-directed animosity. Matts did not challenge this, as internally he felt any animosity present was well-deserved.

“You see,” Willie continued, “unlike you, Marns actually replied to the two hundred or so texts directed at the both of you after your unceremonious exit at the rink, and within a day was kind enough to fill me in on everything when we had ourselves a little coffee date.”

Auston raised his eyebrows but allowed Nylander to continue.

“I’m not here to sugarcoat anything.” Willie offered, “it’s fucked up that there’s a threat of you two being outed against your will hanging over your heads. I’d probably hole up in my apartment given the circumstances too, pandemic or no pandemic.”

“Willie, I don’t”- Auston started, but Nylander held up a swift hand, successfully halting Auston mid-sentence.

“Regardless, there’s some serious loose ends in your communication with Marns on this subject, and you’ve had days of good moping time to get your act together. Days in which we all managed to give you an impressive amount of space.” Willie suggested, his tone uncharacteristically sympathetic but surprisingly sharp. “That beam of fucking sunshine- Mitchell Marner-” he added, as if there was any doubt who he was talking about, “is in a spiral, or a pit, or whatever you want to call it, just like whatever the hell is going on here.” He finished, his eyes passing over the food stains on Auston’s hoodie and, thankfully, not prompting additionally commentary.

“But despite all that,” Willie continued, after a long pause in which he shovelled an additional handful of M&Ms into his mouth, “Mitch is still carrying on with that benefit concert thingie tonight-“

This got Auston’s full attention, and he interjected, “He’s still playing at the concert? Tonight?”

“Yes, you loveable moron, because Mitch is a charitable godsend who doesn’t give a fuck about… optics, or whatever.”

Auston mulled over these words, impressed. Mentally, Matts imagined that Mitch had already found some tactful way out of the LGBTQ2IA+ benefit event and moved on to socializing with his other Toronto friends, or something. That was what Auston had been telling himself for the last four days.

It hit him like a truck that the event, which seemed like something he and Mitch had talked about a literal lifetime ago, was still happening. Despite the pandemic and all the turbulence behind the MLSE curtain.

Willie, to his credit, read Auston’s expressions well enough to recognize that a moment of silence was needed for this revelation to occur. He waited patiently until Auston met his eyes once again.

“Really?” Auston pressed.

“Really.”

“Why are you telling me this.” Auston inquired flatly. “I already feel like a piece of shit for telling him what I did.”

Willie gave a shallow half-smile. “Because before all this, you guys were- and hopefully still are- best friends. And he needs your support.”

“And what, you want me to go, or something?”

“Or something.” Willie agreed. “He’ll never ask you directly, but Marns wants you there. I’m going, so you can come with me, if you want.”

Auston sat still again, feeling gobsmacked. He could feel the pull again, the one that had been missing these last few days, the one that normally pushed him to get up and do things. It had awoken with a hopeful sniff of the air.

Willie was right, Auston realized; whatever they did next, he owed it to Mitch to go support him in his (possibly insane) concert endeavour. It wasn’t the same as coming out to the NHL, full stop, but it was something.

He rose from the couch, and an embarrassing amount of crumbs fell out of his black hoodie, causing Willie to snigger.

Auston cracked a small smile. “Shut up, Will.”

Auston managed to pull together a respectable suit look with Willie’s practiced assistance, and the two of them piled into a car and headed over to the benefit venue, which was a music hall at the local university. Ordinarily, Auston realized as they walked in, the place would have been packed with a disturbingly large audience (Matts’ respect for Marns’ musical confidence grew as he noted this), but COVID-19 had rendered it a shell of its usual occupancy, with very few clusters of occupied seats and numerous awkward plastic barriers set up throughout the space. He and Willie made their way to an empty cordoned off area near the back of the auditorium with a little rope and a sign that said “Marner” in rainbow letters.

They sat, and Auston worked out quickly that the event was evidently being live-streamed. There were a handful of masked AV-looking folks and reporter types hanging out by the stage, one of whom looked to be wearing an MLSE jacket, though Matts could not be sure. A sizeable camera was fixed on the performance area.

Around them within the auditorium, Auston identified the various performers and small groups of supporters, who were likely friends and family, that made up each island of people. There looked to be singers, musicians, and in a couple instances, drag queens (who, he was proud to admit, he readily identified thanks to his last few days’ foray into Drag Race).

Mitch himself was eventually identifiable near the stage. Willie elbowed Auston and smirked, “apparently, he asked to go first because- in Mitch’s own words- ‘he knows he will probably be ass at this and wants to not follow anyone who knows what they’re doing’.”

Auston couldn’t help but smile in reply, not remotely surprised by this behaviour. He was saved from further discussion by the dimming of the lights. Someone made a brief speech of thanks; evidently, all the performers today were regional celebrities who were donating their time for the concert, which people were paying to livestream from home, in order to raise money for several excellent LGBTQ charities within the city. Auston’s heart clenched tightly as the speaker offered a “special shout-out to Mitch Marner of the Toronto Maple Leafs,“ a statement that was met with a surprisingly loud chorus of cheers given the scant number of attendees physically in the building, “who is going to give a first-of-its-kind performance for this event.”

Evidently, Auston realized, no athlete from the National Hockey League had ever performed here, in what was essentially a distilled pride event. He wondered if an athlete from one of the “big four” North American sports leagues had ever performed here at all.

His wonderings halted as Mitch took to the cordoned-off stage. He was cheered as he did so, and gave a good-natured wave and salute, looking every inch his typical camera-friendly self. There was no sign on his face of the tears that Auston had studied so closely just a few days prior.

“Hey,” Mitch crooned, grabbing happily at the standing mic that had been erected onstage. Auston’s mind unwittingly flashed back to a certain New Year’s Eve in Collingwood as he did so. Mitch’s posture and demeanour were almost a carbon copy of his onstage self from that event, if slightly more sober this time around. He wore a simple dark shirt and pants; nothing flashy, and nothing that otherwise betrayed his status as a leading NHL player.

“I’m going to perform two songs for you today,” Mitch continued, throwing a charming smile at the diminished audience that made Auston exhale sharply. “First a fun one, and then,” Mitch paused here, his smile faltering, “an important one.”

The audience whooped and clapped, and Mitch grabbed the mic. For a moment, the room seemed to hold its breath as Marns stood solo and frozen on the cordoned-off stage, then the music played.

With one bar, Auston identified Umbrella, by Rihanna. Mitch began to dance, à la Tom Holland’s lip sync performance, except that Mitch’s dancing, while enthusiastic, was rather poor, and his mid-dance singing was somehow even poorer.

Immediately, Auston forgot about his four days of moping, and he remembered the last time they’d carpool karaoke’d to this song on their way to practice, which had been just about a week ago. He started to laugh, and then he couldn’t stop, and then he and Willie were laughing happily- almost maniacally- together as they watched their friend and teammate onstage.

“A plus for effort” Willie laughed between snorts.

The crowd was adoring Mitch, who was pouring his heart and soul into the performance. Halfway through, he was joined by two competent dancers, which both elevated the energy of the performance and highlighted Mitch’s incompetence.

It was good-spirited. It was fun. It made Auston forget everything that had been plaguing him the past few days.

When the song wrapped, the scant crowd members gave Mitch a standing ovation, and he gave a playful bow.

Auston made a lighthearted remark to Willie about how “Leafs Nation is going to run so fucking hard with this, aren’t they.”

Nylander chortled in reply and elbowed Auston playfully. “Prepare yourself for the Nutcracker situation all over again. But worse.”

Auston smiled, though internally noted that at least in that situation they’d been at it together. He felt a sudden guilt that, in addition to letting all communication between them go silent for the last few days, he’d let Mitch execute this event all by himself.

But again, his thoughts were silenced as he realized that Mitch had settled himself at a grand piano that was nestled in the shadows near the back of the stage. The lighting adjusted until a spotlight was aimed squarely at Mitch’s back. Distantly, the announcer explained that he was about to tackle a song called Circles.

He realized that he was holding his breath as Mitch began to play.

Auston didn’t know the song, which was shocking given that, as far as he knew, Mitch’s only piano access was the old dusty one in Auston’s apartment.

Mitch was playing his chords with a shocking amount of grace. He had no idea when Marns had gotten so good. He had no idea when he’d skidded past “When the Saints” and into “competent pianist” territory.

And then, Mitch began to sing.

You came like a cloud
Covered every doubt
Didn't even notice
That the sun was fading out

Auston’s abnormally slow heartbeat was, once again, not adhering to its normal.

Smiling
Will only save us for a while
And wishing
Won't hide what we're missing, yeah

It wasn’t like Marns had a great singing voice. Everyone in the auditorium knew that his hockey (and, apparently, piano) talents did not extend to singing.

Yeah, I love you
But I shouldn't have said it yet
And I know you feel it too
But I was never good at playing hard to get
If we can find a way to start the chase again
We might rediscover love when we circle 'round the bend

Yet they listened, enraptured, as Mitch poured a different piece of his soul into this song. He played and sang on.

Now we're facing a new year
But it's feeling older than it should
I don't want to pull back any further
But you're not letting me closer to make it good

Auston felt like he could disintegrate on the spot from the fiery combo of guilt, adoration, terror, hope, and pain that he was experiencing, but he couldn’t look away from Mitch, ablaze with spotlight as he sat at the piano.

Smiling
Will only save us for a while
And wishing
Won't hide what we're missing, yeah

Auston could feel Willie’s eyes and smirk on him and resisted the urge to playfully smack him. Instead, he continued to stare at Mitch, who even managed to look away from his fingers and towards the audience a few times as he sang the final verses.

Yeah, I love you
But I shouldn’t have said it yet
And I know you feel it too
But I was never good at playing hard to get
If we could find a way to start the chase again
We might rediscover love when we circle 'round the bend

Around the bend

Yeah, I love you
But I shouldn't have said it yet
And I know you feel it too
But I was never good at playing hard to get
Yeah, I love you
But I shouldn't have said it yet
And I know you feel it too
But I was never good at playing hard to get
If we can find a way to start the chase again
We might rediscover love when we circle 'round the bend
We might rediscover love when we circle 'round the bend

As Mitch played the closing chords and then lapsed into a pressing silence, Auston took an inordinate amount of time to breathe normally again. There was a slight delay as the audience seemed to collect themselves in the aftermath of Mitch’s surprisingly adept and raw performance, but then they cheered. They cheered with a shocking amount of volume.

Beside Auston, Willie was yelling himself hoarse. Auston clapped, his thoughts racing.

If Mitch had had the chance to study Auston’s eyes in the immediate aftermath of his performance, he could have seen the uncharacteristic tears that were glimmering there.

It was approximately sixteen hours (appropriately) following the conclusion of the benefit concert until Auston successfully initiated contact with Mitch again.

aus: i have xtra thai food

aus: if you wanna come over

mitchy: …

mitchy: kk

mitchy: :)

mitchy: would it have killed you to put the e on extra

aus: :)

It was like a ground zero reset. Mitch appeared at Auston’s apartment. Auston told him that he’d done a fantastic fucking job at the concert. Mitch was appropriately awed and appreciative that Auston had come; or, more aptly, that Willie had managed to drag him out of his apartment.

They stared each other a little too long before continuing with smalltalk. The stare served as a sort of wordless communication about how much the songs, especially the second one, had meant, as despite all progress that has perhaps been made, they were, of course, still emotionally constipated NHL hockey players. They didn’t know what the future held, and they didn’t dive into probing the fresh wound that was their last conversation.

But they were talking. They were eating Thai and playing Chel and talking about heading up to Marns’ cottage with some of the other Leafs guys next weekend, and for now that was enough.

Winter 2021

“I would like to award myself the friendship slash relationship salvager of the year award.” Willie mused to Auston as they sat together at the window seat of a Toronto café. “In hindsight, I am a real miracle worker. The entire city of Toronto owes me a debt for keeping you and Marns on speaking terms last Fall, despite hot tubs, and gay concerts, and-“

“Yeah, yeah, Will,” Auston interjected good-naturedly. “you’re a fucking gift from god, I know.” He muttered, sipping his latte and pulling his beanie lower over his forehead. “Say the gay part louder, will you?”

Willie raised an eyebrow and sipped his own drink conspiratorially. “Hush up whatever you want, but despite the miracle of no video leaks the internet is already on to you and Mitchy. In spite of whatever all the boomer NHL dads might want to believe, there are tumblr blogs and fanfictions across the internet that are nobly pedaling the truth-“

Matts scoffed. “What truth? We’re back to just friends.”

“Key words being back to,” Willie chided, smirking.

“Whatever.” Auston snorted. “Why do I humour you with these catch-ups that you use to relentlessly pester me, anyways?”

“Because you love me.” Willie crooned, adding in an undertone, “Almost as much as you love your Mitchy-“

“-Do not call him that-“

“-and besides, we have to have our traditions before the season starts.” Willie added, “even when said traditions get awkwardly bumped to January.” He finished, before pivoting, “speaking of shop talk, I almost feel like we should praise the team and perhaps the NHL as a whole for its shockingly positive response to Mitch’s performance.” He mused. “I don’t think a single pre-season interviewer has bothered him about it.”

“Shockingly, yes?” Auston conceded. He’d been pleasantly surprised to note that Mitch singing and dancing to Umbrella had been a well-loved viral internet moment for a week or so but not much more, and that, by and large, people seemed to chalk his rendition of Circles up to a ‘sentimental moment of pining for his ex-girlfriend’, or something.”

Somehow, miraculously, he and Mitch seemed to have avoided getting inadvertently outed, Marns had all but professed their love for each other publicly without anyone except William Nylander being the wiser for it (and if anything, he’d been praised as an ally and lauded by the press for doing so), and their biggest problem the past few months had been the usual Leafs media scrutiny for their lack of playoffs execution.

Auston was cautiously optimistic on both the hockey front and the Mitch front.

Fall 2021

The optimism Auston had held on the hockey front became as short-lived as the previous truncated season itself. The weight of the perennial Leafs-related pressure had crushed it just as the team itself had been crushed in the playoffs, but his optimism regenerated (predictably and on schedule) for the start of the following season.

As silver linings go, there had been a decent one in the form of a return to similar friendship levels for he and Mitch as the previous season had worn on. Auston felt fortunate that there had been minimal awkwardness- a overreaction to an otherwise certified bro-friendly touch here or a lingering dressing room stare there; otherwise, they rejuvenated their on-ice chemistry and nurtured a healthy friendship off-ice.

Keefe had also managed to treat he and Marns as he usually did once it became clear that the hot tub video seemed to be staying hidden, though Matts wondered if he would ever be able look at Sheldon the same was as he had prior to last fall. Auston wondered if Keefe had somehow been clued in to the dissolution of he and Mitch’s previous relationship trajectory.

If there was one weak point in Mitch and Auston’s day-to-day existence, it was a lack of further discussion regarding the near miss that was the previous fall. They seemed to have settled on ’the serenade was all the closure we needed, it just wasn’t meant to be, we’re better off as bros anyways’.

It was safe, but it was maddening. They’d ground their relationship to a standstill, just as Auston had technically thought he wanted, but that didn’t mean he had stopped wanting Mitch. Nor did he get the impression that Mitch had stopped wanting him.

On the eve of the start of the 2021 season, Auston was driving he and Mitch to their last practice before game 1 when, out of nowhere, Mitch proclaimed that he was going to get a cat.

That proclamation, in and of itself, was not news. Mitch had been talking about getting an animal of his own for months if not years, and he’d lately developed an obsession with Mo’s cat, a British Shorthair with the roundest, squishiest face Auston had ever seen.

Mitch was rambling on, extolling the virtues of cats in general- how they could sit on you like living lap warmers, how they played fetch like a dog sometimes but didn’t need walks, and how they shat in litterboxes ‘like good pros, Aus’- and Matts realized that he was doing it again. He was fixating on Mitch’s glowing blue eyes, on the ridiculous amount of hand gestures he was making within one speech, on the arching of his lips as he spoke, and on how he could get so excited about literally anything (it didn’t have to be a cat, though this was apparently a particularly exciting topic for him).

Auston sighed but smiled at the realization that he had circled back, yet again, to admiring Mitch Marner.

Winter 2022

Auston was sitting on the floor of Mitch’s apartment, watching Mo, Willie, John and Mitch interact with Mitch’s grey kitten, who had his amber eyes fixed on Mitch’s face. Auston watched Willie petting the little guy fucking backwards and felt he had to say something.

“Will, that isn’t how you pet a cat.” He muttered, narrowing his eyes at the cat’s backwards back fur in disgust.

Mo was the first to react, shooting a questioning glance at Auston. “Since when are you the fucking cat expert here?” he laughed, though he obliged Matts with a dutiful proper pet that set the cat’s fur correct again. Willie snorted and began to dangle a feather wand in front of the cat’s face. John watched him do so without comment, and a rare genuine smile crossed his features.

Mitch smiled as well, and it was a warm, glowing thing that utterly melted Auston’s insides. “I know what I want to call him.” He announced, looking smug.

“Do tell?” Willie prompted, eyebrows raised. Like all of them, he was likely expecting Marns, who had been debating what to call his cat for the better part of a week, to select a deep cut meme reference or something.

“Binoo.” Mitch declared proudly.

“Bean-eww?” Willie repeated, confused, “what is that- a vegan butter substitute?”

“Binoo is a cartoon character,” Mitch corrected, offended, “like Toopy and Binoo.”

“What the fuck is a Toopy?” Willie laughed.

John added a quiet, “And while we’re at it, what the hell is a Binoo?”

“Cute Canadian cartoon characters, boys,” Mitch mused, unrelenting.

Auston felt obligated to add a supportive, “So, I can call him…Bean?”

Mitch glowed. “Absolutely.”

Mo shot Auston another confused look. “Matts, did you not hate the fucking cat like, less than a week ago?”

“That was when he kept trying to climb my leg,” Auston corrected, staring at Binoo’s little gray tail, which was flicking back and forth like a windshield wiper. “We’ve come to an agreement since then.”

“What he’s not saying,” Mitch interjected, planting himself against Auston’s side as they leaned against Mitch’s couch, “is that all it took was for Binoo to sleep on him one time-“

“-incorrect,” Auston interrupted, “he also had to respect my pants-“

Mitch scoffed “I don’t think it’s a question of pants respect, Aus, everyone already respects those for holding in that ass of yours, my cat included-“

And from there they volleyed a few more choice fond insults, until Willie sighed audibly, muttering “look at those two, co-parenting a cat. A year and a half ago I never thought we’d get here.” Which caused John and Mo to snort.

Mitch and Auston’s playful bickering was only stopped when Binoo himself was distracted by Auston’s hoodie strings and smacked Auston in the chest a few times, which caused Mitch to concede his current point about “really, every single part of you is unreasonably massive, Matts-“ to coo at the cat instead.

Willie and Mo exchanged knowing glances.

Fall 2022

It was a seemingly innocuous preseason game against the Ottawa Senators, and, Auston noted, Brady Tkachuk was just being a pest, as usual.

Brady, in his unending quest to be an absolute menace against every team the Sens played, laid a sizeable hit on Mitch in the Leafs’ end, making the boards rattle with a resounding crunch. Standard stuff, unfortunately; Mitch was generally about 95% effective at avoiding bad hits, but like any player he missed occasionally, and this was one of those misses that sent Mitch sprawling.

These situations continued to always make Auston nervous, but his worries were usually stemmed quickly; at least, as long as he got quick confirmation that Mitch was okay.

It just so happened that in this particular case, Mitch didn’t go sprawling onto the ice, he went sprawling into Auston, who initiated a sort of awkward hug as he caught Mitch’s spinning form. They slammed into the side boards together, but both remained on their feet. The whistle blew a moment later (for a high stick, or a puck deflecting out of play, or something like that), but Auston barely registered the sound. Instead, he forgot to let go of Mitch and they just sort of stood there, well beyond the whistle blowing and the play dissolving, creating a moment that would get GIF’ed to all hell on various social media platforms as they both stood still (slightly stupidly, Auston might add- they got chided for it later by the coaching staff) and stared at each other for an unreasonably long time. Mitch had a goofy grin on his face, and was muttering how “that must have looked fucking ridiculous,” but all Auston could think about was Mitch’s eyes. They were glowing again, like a pair of icy blue suns. Auston couldn’t help but give a small smile back.

He vaguely registered a wolf-whistle from somewhere nearby. He couldn’t be sure if it was some kind of half-assed homophobic chirp or perhaps just one of their own teammates ribbing them, but Auston was surprised to note he didn’t actually care.

Who gave a fuck, really, he realized, when he got to enjoy a shameless moment of appreciation for Mitch, when the Leafs were up 3-1, and when Mitch was looking at him like that.

When Auston was asked about the impromptu hug in the media scrum after the game, he gave a sideways smile and remarked, “nothing wrong with showing a little love every once in a while” and stared down the reporter who’d had the balls to ask with the sort of confident death glare that he normally reserved for the defencemen and goalies he frequently scored on. Being a 60-goal scorer the previous season had definitely helped him perfect the look.

Even without breaking the stare, Auston could tell that Mitch was beaming at him from behind his own microphone on Matts’ right.

Summer 2023

It was mid-August on Lake Muskoka, and the bulk of the Leafs’ 2023 roster had gathered at Mitch’s cottage for a preseason hangout. A game of Catan had been cooked up on the wide table in Mitch’s dining room, and several of the guys were having a heated debate over the best grill technique for barbequing steak.

Mitch had excused himself from both the barbequing and the game, insisting that he needed to go make sure that everything was put away in the boathouse for the night, and Auston was quick to add that he would go along to help. They could still hear Mo and Willie shouting at each other about Longest Road from outside the cottage as they treaded down the lit flagstone path towards the lake.

Mitch was only paying half attention to where he was walking, as he was fixated on his phone, where he was watching a video of Binoo eating from the remote kibble feeder he’d purchased several months back.

Auston actually had to grab Mitch by the arm at one point during the walk in order to save him from stumbling sideways into some rocks.

When they got down to the boathouse, they did not head inside to mess around with the boat, the seadoos or the myriad of foam noodles that the guys had left sprawled everywhere as Auston had expected, but instead Mitch dragged them up the stairs to the second floor boathouse deck.

At the top, they were immediately bathed in the warm, golden light of sunset, and the breath left Auston’s lungs as he took in the last gasp of colour that was filling the August sky.

“So, we aren’t down here to do any boat shit.” Auston observed quietly.

Mitch, who had put away his phone to stare at the sunset, shook his head. They didn’t speak for a moment, instead walking right up to the edge of the deck, where an unlatched gate hung open. The whole team had been tossing themselves off the boathouse edge all afternoon, lining up to make the several metre plunge into the lake below and cheering each other to make further and further jumps as the hours wore on.

The Leafs’ sports science department would have probably skinned them all if they were here. Fortunately, they weren’t.

Auston stared, mesmerized, at the diamonds on the water’s surface that were shimmering with the last of the day’s light.

“Jump with me.” Mitch stated suddenly. Auston realized that Marns had also inched his hand closer to his own; their pinkies were like, less than an inch apart on the railing.

“We did already jump like, a dozen times today.” Auston mused, fully prepared to say yes anyways.

Mitch shrugged and pulled his shirt over his head, tossing it to the side. He stood there staring at Auston again (what was it with them and all the staring, Auston wondered). Mitch’s well-honed body- the primal part of Auston’s brain remarked before it could stop itself- looked very different in this context than it did after hockey games, when it was all sweaty and tired. He looked powerful, brimming with life, and excruciatingly tempting.

Before Auston could register much else in the way of thoughts, he had his own shirt off, and then they’d stripped down to boxers only. They stood on the threshold of the boathouse deck clutching the railing, and Mitch muttered a questioning “One?”

“Two,” Auston affirmed, staring at Mitch instead of the water sparkling below.

Mitch smiled, uttering “Three,” and then they let go together, free falling for a moment before submerging completely in lake bubbles and sunlight.

When they surfaced, Mitch’s hair was soaked and his face was flushed, but his smile was unmoving. They treaded water side-by-side for a moment, laughing a bit and basking in the glory of just existing, of having bottled a nearly perfect moment for their mutual enjoyment. They spent an extra moment playfully shoving and splashing until they were all over each other’s space, until their limbs were tangling below the water’s surface. Auston felt the sunlight upon his face growing dimmer, as the sun was moments from slipping below the treed horizon.

He felt a sudden urge, one that he’d been keeping successfully stowed for nearly three years, as he met Mitch’s familiar blue irises.

Before Auston’s brain could shortcut to a negative response, he blurted out, “Can I kiss you,” though he forgot to phrase it like a question, and he was too busy internally scolding himself for that fact to notice that Mitch didn’t apparently give a flying fuck, and had immediately surged forward, allowing their mouths to collide as they grasped for each other.

It was awkward, kissing while treading water, and it felt a bit like drowning, but in a good way. There was lake water in the kiss, and a lot of unspoken words. The water around them was warm but Auston’s core was warmer as it lit up with the exaltation of finally kissing Mitch again.

They kissed until they were both panting from the combined effort of keeping themselves afloat and keeping their mouths together.

When they finally separated, Auston realized that there were a couple rather enthusiastic cheers being directed at them from back up on the boathouse deck. Auston registered Willie and Mo hanging over the railing and staring down at them, whooping loudly with huge smiles plastered on both their faces.

“Fuck off” Mitch called up at them breathlessly, though his expression was fond. Auston grinned and tried to splash water up at the laughing duo, but it was way too far, and the droplets just showered he and Mitch instead.

Marns detangled from Auston and swam the short way to the ladder, where pulled himself onto the dock, dripping, and gave his hair an enormous and gratuitous shake before turning to hold out a hand for Auston, who accepted it gratefully.

As they were towelling off on the dock, Mitch suddenly paused, his eyes hungry, and seized Auston once again, pressing an even more insistent kiss on his lips and pushing the length of his body against Matts’ own in a way that made him inhale sharply.

Back at the shoreline, Willie’s voice could be heard echoing a loud “well it’s about damn time.”

Fall 2024

Auston swallowed rather anxiously. He and Mitch were on their way to have a meeting with both the team’s head Logistics Manager and their new head coach, Craig Berube, in which Matts was concerned they might be about to get interrogated about the fact that they, a pair of twenty-seven-year-olds, were living together. With no female partners in sight. It was costing Auston a lot of focus to keep he and Mitch’s car driving within the lines on the road.

It was a poorly kept MLSE “secret” that Marner and Matthews were living together. It was a reasonably well-kept secret within the inner Leafs circle that they were also sleeping with each other and co-parenting a cat.

It wouldn’t have taken a genius to observe that they constantly showed up to team functions in swapped clothing, that neither Leafs star had a girlfriend, and that their families now gathered for functions together whenever there was an excuse for Auston’s family to be in Toronto, but then again, the Maple Leafs community (and the greater hockey community as a whole) wasn’t always known for its intellect.

“Maybe,” Mitch proposed with a quiver of nerves tainting his voice, “we should just really lean into the cat side of things; we can tell him I got a cat but I have no idea what to do with it so I need you there so that Binoo doesn’t die-“

Auston snorted. “You think we should plead cat incompetence?”

Mitch shrugged, “I dunno; it’s either cat, cost of living, or you got evicted due to your own negligence and were just too lazy to find a place of your own, so-“

“I think we should just tell him, if we get asked.” Auston mused candidly.

Mitch halted abruptly, studying Matts’ expression. “You’re serious?”

Auston heard an audible glimmer of hope in Marns’ voice.

“Absolutely.” Auston replied.

Mitch absolutely beamed. The remainder of their car ride was the quietest they’d had in recent memory, as both Auston and Mitch remained deep in thought.

The meeting, as it turned out, was a very pleasant surprise.

“Thanks for updating your address, boys; now, make sure that emergency contact info is up to date-“ the head of Logistics, a guy named Louis, pressed kindly, handing Auston and Mitch each a clipboard. They had each listed the other as their primary emergency contact, and a parent as their secondary. They handed their boards back with blank expressions, wondering how Louis would react. He nodded and filed the clipboards in a bag.

Craig, a to-the-point, straight-shooting kind of guy, watched with his arms crossed, waiting patiently until Louis had clasped his briefcase shut. Eventually, he cleared his throat and began asking Mitch and Auston about their preferences for practice and travel schedules, like how much time they liked for personal video review, when they usually ate, and how far ahead of ice times they liked to be at the rink.

When the line of questioning ended, Mitch interjected with a perplexed, “Is that it?”

Berube, who had been trying to pull one last thing up on the iPad on his desk to show them, looked at them blankly. “Just about,” he muttered simply, returning his attention to the screen.

“You don’t have anything else to ask us?” Auston added, unwelcome images of Binoo flashing in his mind.

“Not particularly.” Craig muttered, “I’m supposed to confirm your goal song requests-“

“We put down the same address.” Mitch pressed, causing Auston to cast him significant side-eye for his lack of tact.

Berube looked up at them from behind the iPad, finally clueing in to what, exactly, Auston and Mitch were failing to ask him.

“Boys, I don’t care.”

“You don’t?” Mitch echoed, his brow furrowed.

Craig shook his head. “I don’t care what you get up to, who you live with, or…what animal you take care of together.” He mused, shooting Mitch a knowing look and a half-smile. “I have one priority, and that’s to bring the Cup back to Toronto. And I’m sure we can all align on that one?”

Auston and Mitch both nodded intently, trying to hide the degree of their surprise. Eventually, for lack of something better to say, Auston added a hasty “yes, sir.”

Berube gave a sharp nod. “Good. See you boys at practice tomorrow.”

Mitch and Auston sprung from their chairs, and Auston fought an odd urge to bow as they left the room.

As soon as they were outside, he and Mitch just sort of screeched and hugged each other, oblivious to Willie, who smirked and patted Auston on the back in a congratulatory sort of way as he walked by their intertwined forms to enter Berube’s office.

Spring 2025

It was a curious thing, the absence of fear that their personal lives were somehow at war with the sport they loved. And Mitch and Auston played all the better for it.

The Leafs were good. They’d always been good, but now they were really, really good. There was real fear to be had by teams who had them for a match-up.

Suddenly, they were betting favourites heading into the 2025 playoffs.

Suddenly, it was no laughing matter to talk about the first-round Leafs.

Suddenly, the jokes about Auston’s forehead or Mitch getting bounced around the ice like a bumper car dried right up.

Suddenly, the Leafs won a first round playoff matchup for only the second time since Auston and Mitch had joined the team.

Suddenly, they broke through their second round matchup for the first time since 2002, and they became the talk of North American sports.

Suddenly, they won round three of the Stanley Cup playoffs and the city of Toronto hit previously unseen levels of blue and white pride. There was already talk about a statue of Mitch and Auston going up at one of the intersections outside Scotiabank Arena.

A story circulated about how Marner and Matthews, who were smashing Toronto Maple Leafs records with seemingly each new game played, might be living together in some swanky downtown apartment. Supposedly, this was somehow linked with their hard-fought success. News circulated that they had a cat named Binoo, and he promptly went viral for being an even better good luck charm than Tavares’ magic amulet.

Suddenly, the Leafs were in game seven of the Stanley Cup final. They were sixteen minutes and thirty-four seconds into overtime when Auston dished Mitch a pass just over the enemy blue line, and Mitch’s shot hit the back of the net with a billow that, despite being soundless, unleashed the loudest exalted celebration in perhaps the entire history of hockey. It was a sound that had been building for fifty-eight years.

The sound was so loud that nothing heard was particularly comprehendible for many minutes following. Auston was the first to lift the Cup to a wall of white noise so loud that the very rafters of Scotiabank Arena seemed to tremble. That wall of noise continued when he passed it off to Mitch. Once Mitch passed along the cup to Willie, who raised the gleaming chalice to a continuous thunder of applause, Marns circled back towards Auston with one thought in mind.

He could read immediately in Auston’s flushed, glowing face that the same thought was echoing there. Auston gave the tiniest nod of assent, his eyes blazing as he did so. To the external observer, he and Mitch locked eyes for the barest instant before they locked lips, embracing at centre ice. Mitch’s mind was a void at that moment; there was only Auston and his lips, which Mitch now knew much better than the many people around them realized.

If the roar around them changed- whether it thundered still louder or quieted in reply- they didn’t notice.

The hockey world was perhaps at least a little torn asunder, watching two of its brightest stars join in such a manner amidst their arrival at hockey’s pinnacle of achievement.

But for Mitch and Auston themselves, there was no tearing involved. Everything had simply come full circle.