Chapter Text
“We’re renting the place from Evil Dead? No shit.” Auston smirks and punches his shoulder. “Is this the part where I get branch-fucked by a tree?”
Mitch glances back at him while he continues to fumble with the key in the cabin door’s lock. “Don’t know, never seen it,” he says, then swears when he still struggles to get the door open. “Did they give me the wrong…”
“Dude, you’ve never seen Evil Dead?”
Mitch doesn’t respond, too focused on the task at hand. Auston stares at him for a moment, then drops his bags and gently nudges him out of the way to take over the whole door situation. “I got it, man, c’mon.”
Auston unlocks the door easily. He looks up at Mitch, tongue-in-cheek. “Soft hands?”
Mitch frowns. He goes to grab his bags, but Auston picks them up instead, balancing his own bags on his opposite shoulder. “Uh, I can get those…” Mitch says, feeling slightly useless.
“Already got ‘em.” Auston inches his way through the threshold while he tries to avoid smacking the shit out of the doorframe with their heavy luggage. Mitch can see the tension that sits in his shoulders and the hard set of his jaw, and he desperately wants to fix it. He knows, though, that it will take time. That’s why they’re here.
Auston surveys the living room. “Not too shabby.” He twists backwards to aim a quick smile at Mitch. “Good pick.”
“Thanks,” he replies. It’s a log cabin with a large living room, a smaller sized kitchen with cheap-looking tile floors that appear to have last been updated in the 90s, a small dining area, and a staircase leading to an upper floor. Mitch found it on a rental website at the last minute, so he just hopes it’s not a total dud.
“I think the rooms are upstairs.” Mitch gives Auston a friendly pat on the back. “C’mon, I’ll even let you have dibs on the room you like.”
The upper floor of the cabin has tall ceilings and a wide hallway that leads to multiple rooms. Mitch peeks in the first door and finds the one that is obviously the master. “You want the bigger bedroom?”
Instead of answering, Auston scoots past him with a hand on his lower back and tosses Mitch’s bags onto the houndstooth-covered bed. “It’s yours,” he says with finality.
Mitch presses his lips together. “You sure, man? Because I don’t-“
“Mitch,” Auston half-laughs, walking closer to him. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but you don’t have to, like…” he waves his hand in front of himself briefly. “Attend to me, or whatever. I’m okay.”
Mitch knows that. He does. But: “I just want you to be comfortable, man.”
Auston nods. “I am. Okay? But you should be, too.”
Mitch crosses his arms over his chest, leans against the doorframe. “Right.”
Auston shakes his head. “I’m not gonna snap and go full Menendez brothers because I get the smaller bedroom. Does that work?”
Mitch smirks. “That works. You chill, I’ll make dinner.” Auston opens his mouth. “Because!” Mitch starts, interrupting whatever he was about to protest with. “Because I know you’ll fuck it up, not because I’m attending to you. Does that work?”
Auston laughs. “Yeah, that works.”
They stopped at a grocery store a few miles before the place to stock up on food and alcohol, so Mitch has plenty to work with as far as ingredients go. He thinks for a while about what to make, and then remembers that one time in an interview they did together when Auston said his comfort food was meatloaf. He pauses for a second, feeling like maybe Auston would think it’s weird that he remembers that, but then he tells himself to get a fucking grip and make the meatloaf because it’s not that serious.
Auston was mostly quiet on the way up, scrolling through his phone or sleeping with his baseball cap pulled over his face when he wasn’t taking his turn driving. Mitch could feel his frustration- could smell it in his scent, even, since they were in such close proximity- but he didn’t mention it. He’s known Auston for long enough to understand the way that he tries to hide it when he’s anything but happy, the way he goes radio silent and stops joking around, how he loses that comfortable, easy-going demeanor that Mitch admires so much. He’s seen him like this before, but never for this long. That’s what worries him. That’s why he asked him if he wanted to get away for a few days, go off the grid.
But if Auston doesn’t want him to push, he won’t push. Probably.
“Smells good,” Auston comments as he comes down the stairs. He looks soft and comfortable, dressed in sweatpants and a crewneck sweatshirt.
Mitch turns around to hide his smile. This might be exactly what both of them need to scab the fresh wound. “Be patient.”
He hears Auston lean up against the counter behind him.“What can I help you with?”
Mitch uses the back of his wrist to push his hair off his forehead, his hands covered in ground beef and breadcrumbs. “Get out of my kitchen,” he teases. Auston snorts and shuffles away, and Mitch hears him sit heavily on the couch.
He joins him when he finally gets it in the oven, stretching his legs out over top of Auston’s legs. They’re always kind of touchy-feely with each other, but Mitch has been turning up the volume today – maybe a little more than he should, but he feels vaguely lonely. He watches Auston stare at his phone. “Are you even getting service?”
“Mm, not really.” Auston tosses his phone onto the carpeted floor carelessly. “Wanna watch something?”
“Uhmmm…” Mitch pokes around in the couch cushions behind him, under his ass, between his legs, until he finally comes up with the remote. “Sure.” He forks it over.
Auston settles on some home renovation show, which is…pretty out of character, and it only makes Mitch worry even more. But he seems content, so Mitch leaves it alone. There’s no one else that Mitch is so tuned-in to. It’s as if he’s plugged right into Auston’s neurons, like he has a permanent Auston mood ring attached to his finger, but he has no idea why. It’s actually sort of exhausting. It can’t just be an omega thing, because Mitch hasn’t felt like this about anyone…ever, let alone anyone on their team. But Mitch is literally the only omega on the team, so who knows? Maybe it’s normal, but he has no clue if it goes both ways, if Auston feels the same thing.
The timer on Mitch’s phone goes off. “Dinner bell,” he says.
Auston perks up while they eat. Mitch starts to feel calm and relaxed, so he knows Auston must feel calm and relaxed, and the entire room gets a little less tense.
“So fuckin’ good,” Auston says after a little while when his mouth is full. Mitch laughs at him.
“You’re supposed to actually chew your food.”
Auston doesn’t even look up from his plate. “No way? I’ve been doing it wrong this whole time.”
Mitch is done, so he gets up and slides his plate into the sink. Yeah, Auston is definitely feeling better. The room is buzzing with pleasure and warmth. Mitch doesn’t know how to explain it, it’s just…tangible. Maybe he just needed some food in him.
“I love when you cook,” Auston admits suddenly, having the nerve to look sheepish about that statement.
Mitch blinks. “Really?”
Auston nods. “It’s always good. You’re a talented chef, Marns.”
Something uninvited and prideful creeps up Mitch’s chest, right next to a warmth in his lower belly.
Well. That’s new.
“Thank you,” he replies. “I could, uh. I mean, there’s a lot more left, if you want.”
Auston thinks about it for a second. “I shouldn’t.”
“Okay. I’ll put it away-“
“Yo!” Auston interrupts. “I said I shouldn’t, not that I wouldn’t. Lay it on me.”
He smiles. “You got it.” He accepts Auston’s plate as he holds it out for him and loads a huge section of meatloaf onto the plate. Jeez, that’s – kind of a lot. He wants to see if Auston will actually finish it.
“You want something to drink while I’m up? Auston doesn’t comment on the amount of food, Mitch notices.
“Maybe milk?”
Milk, wow. Of course Auston is a freak who would want a glass of milk with dinner. But Mitch doesn’t want to sour the mood by ribbing him, so he fills a tall glass for him and sets it next to his plate.
Auston smiles up at him, fork and knife in hand. “Thanks.” He takes a huge bite of the meatloaf and shakes his head. “Seriously, Mitchy, you’re a beauty with the whisk.”
Mitch tries his best to hide his blush and busies himself with cleaning up. “You don’t use a whisk to make meatloaf, dipshit.” He turns the sink on and starts washing his plate.
“Whatever,” Auston says. “I’m saying it’s A1, you’d make a helluva housewife.”
Mitch drops the plate into the metal sink and cringes as the glass clangs loudly and heavily against the bottom, staying intact by some miracle. Fuck.
“Jesus, you good?”
Mitch waves his arm behind himself dismissively, not even wanting to turn around and make eye contact. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” he insists, forcing himself to stand up straight so Auston won’t worry. “My hand slipped.” It was a joke. Mitch knows it was a joke. Auston teases him all the time, why did that bother him so much?
But Auston brushes it off thankfully, tucking back into his second helping of dinner. Mitch makes sure to distract himself with the dishes until Auston is done, thoroughly drying every single inch of his cooking tools, fully dialed in on the task until he hears Auston’s fork scrape the plate.
He clears his throat and turns around, finally making eye contact with Auston – which is sort of a bad idea, apparently, because Mitch’s veins are suddenly thrumming with a heavy dose of satisfaction, full and expansive and sweet, Auston leaning back in his chair with heavy eyes and an empty plate. Holy shit, he finished everything. That same warmth in his lower belly returns, making him pause. Even the milk is gone, drained completely from the glass.
“You done?” Mitch asks, which is a stupid question because, well. Obviously. But it’s the only thing he can think to say.
Auston stretches his arms over his head and moans a little bit, which also does funny things to Mitch’s stomach. “Couldn’t eat another bite, I don’t think. Honestly, all I wanna do right now is slip into a food coma.”
Mitch wipes his hands on his pants and shrugs. “So do it. Go rest for a while and I’ll clean up.”
Auston scoffs and stands up, wincing a little. “I’m not just gonna let you cook and clean without help.”
“I don’t mind, dude. You deserve a break.”
Auston gives him a soft, unreadable look, then walks over and pulls Mitch in for a hug that’s probably been a long time coming. “So do you,” he mumbles sincerely after a moment. Whatever connection they have is ten times stronger when they’re touching unless Mitch ignores it, and right now all he can do is relax into Auston’s scent while his warm hands push contentment right into Mitch’s spine. Mitch starts to feel slow and full and tired, all the way down to the tips of his fingers. If they hold onto each other a little longer than buddies probably should, well – no one is around to say anything about it.
Auston rocks on his heels. “Don’t let me sleep too much, okay? I wanna watch the sunset.”
“Soft,” Mitch teases, which earns him a shove backwards before Auston makes his way upstairs.
Mitch goes into cleaning mode and sort of loses track of time, doing his best to make sure the place is somewhat livable for them. He can tell when Auston falls asleep because his own heart rate slows down and his breathing goes rhythmic while he works. Mitch isn’t sure if there’s like…a range on this thing, but it doesn’t seem to work over the phone, so a reasonable proximity seems like a requirement. He can interpret changes in Auston’s tone on calls or over text, but he can do that with everyone – it’s not the same as this grand, rich, emotional and physical concordance that happens when they’re close.
So when they lost in game 7 and Mitch was too distracted and upset to wall himself off from Auston, he had to hightail it into the bathroom and puke the second his skates were off. Mitch hadn’t even felt sick. It was just a gut-wrenching shove of loss and disappointment and frustration that swooped in all at once when Auston touched him on his bare shoulder in the locker room.
So. It isn’t nothing. It’s certainly isn’t nothing.
Mitch isn’t sure how long he spends straightening things out, but he gets engrossed in a book about the history of bread of all things when he snoops through the bookshelf, and he gets completely startled when Auston walks up behind him.
“Hey – shit, sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“All good.” Mitch closes the book and lets it fall onto the couch.
“You let me sleep for a long time,” Auston says, but he doesn’t seem upset. He rests his arms over the back of the couch and messes with his hair, leaning his head to the side to crack his neck, and then freezes. “No shot you were reading a book called ‘Bread.’”
Mitch furrows his eyebrows. “Uh…yeah, I guess.”
Auston looks at him. “Bread,” he says pointedly. “Just…Bread? That’s it?”
“Yeah, and?”
Auston looks at him with disbelief. “C’mon, dude, that’s fake. There’s not a book just called Bread-“
“It’s a real book!” Mitch protests, cutting him off. “My phone has no service and the wifi is shitty-“
“What’s it about, then?”
Mitch shakes his head. “Fucking bread! What else would it be about?”
Auston bursts out laughing, pressing his face into his hands the way he does when he really gets going, and Mitch’s chest swells up with elation.
Mitch can’t stop himself from laughing, too. “It’s not that funny, what-”
“It’s about fucking bread or it’s about fucking bread?” Auston says, and then they both really lose it, silent-laughing until their ribs hurt.
“You’re so stupid,” Mitch says when he finally catches his breath and clears his throat. “Jesus.”
“Dude, you’re the one reading about how to fuck bread.” Mitch feels immeasurably content, loose-limbed and safe and refreshed. He could lay here and soak in this feeling forever. “You wanna go check out the sunset?”
Mitch stretches his arms above his head. “No homo?”
Auston mimes the sign of the cross. “No homo.”
“Then I’m down.”
Auston reaches his hand out to help him up, but when Mitch grips Auston’s hand and they’re skin-to-skin, it’s like…
It’s like a sharp, unbridled twist of sunshine and fresh air and Christmas kicks him straight in the chest – a thick shot of happiness injected right into his bloodstream, so sudden and disarming that he embarrassingly trips right into Auston when he gets on his feet. And he registers somewhere in his mind that Auston is happy, like really happy, and Mitch is having his face shoved right into it without any sensory distractors.
“Whoa.” Auston steadies him with a hand on his lower back, which only serves to make things worse. “Mitch-“
“I’m okay,” Mitch says quickly and probably unconvincingly, steadying himself on the couch. God, he needs to get control of himself. He takes a deep breath, closing his eyes for a second while he tries to force Auston out of his senses.
“You’re freaking me out,” Auston says, ducking his head down to try to get a look at Mitch’s face. Mitch tilts his head up, forcing himself to make eye contact. “Are you feeling sick, or…” He lifts his arm up and presses the back of his hand right against Mitch’s forehead, feeling his temperature. Except then Mitch actually does feel sick, but with worry instead of illness, a cold jump of fear and concern that gives him so much whiplash that he uses the last of his sanity to grip Auston’s wrist and gently move his arm away.
“No, I’m good, man, I just stood up too fast, I think.” He aims for nonchalant, shrugging and backing away a little bit, trying to get the reins back on this shit. Auston is confused, that much is obvious in his face – Mitch doesn’t need any of his weird bullshit sense magic to figure that out.
“I’m good,” he insists again when Auston keeps looking at him with his brows furrowed. Needing some space, he steps around Auston and puts his back to him, books it over to the kitchen. The refrigerator is cold and grounding, and Mitch is grateful for the respite it provides when he opens it and pretends to look inside. This doesn’t make sense. None of this has caused any issues before – at least, not to this extent – and he feels like he can’t even keep his head on straight. The only thing that Mitch can come up with is that there’s no distractions this time. No one else is here, no noise, no other smells, nothing important to focus on: just Auston and his scent and his feelings that bleed through into Mitch’s consciousness, somehow.
“You want a beer?”
He feels a little better when there’s some distance between them. Auston might still be suspicious, but Mitch isn’t about to poke around in his feelings and try to find out. If he is, he at least doesn’t show it.
“Yeah, I’ll take one,” he answers. They leave it at that.
Mitch decides to make himself a drink. Specifically, a Jack and coke. He needs something to cull all of these big emotions Auston seems to be having today. He joins Auston on the front porch swing, a little wary about sitting so close to him but feeling like it would raise red flags if he made a point to sit further away. The sun is melting red-orange into the tree line, and Mitch takes a huge breath in and out.
Auston takes a drink of his beer. “Good idea.”
“What, breathing?”
Auston smirks. He uses the hand that’s holding the bottle to gesture to Mitch’s glass. “The whiskey.”
Mitch nods slowly. “Gotta celebrate somehow, right?” Which is not at all why he’s drinking, but it seems like a reasonable excuse.
Auston huffs a laugh. Shakes his head. “Not much to celebrate, man,” he says quietly, and yeah, there it is. The admission of disappointment that Mitch was waiting for. And Mitch knows the disappointment isn’t directed toward him in particular, but it still burns right through his chest while they’re shoulder-to-shoulder, dripping down his ribs insidiously. It’s hard for Mitch to determine how much of those feelings are his and how much of them are Auston’s. That seems to be a recurring theme, lately.
Either way, Mitch points out: “That’s bullshit.”
Auston turns his head, looking sort of surprised at that. “You think?”
Mitch takes a drink. “I do.” Auston looks at him for a few seconds without responding. His expression is unreadable, but Mitch can feel that his interest is piqued. So he continues: “You have a lot to be proud of, Matts.” He challenges himself to hold eye contact, keeping his tone even, and then doubles down with, “a lot.” No room for buddy-buddy shit, just unadulterated sincerity.
And Mitch feels…warm. Not temperature-warm, but warm in the same way that his drink makes him feel. Auston thumbs at the paper label on his beer bottle, soggy from the condensation. “You do, too,” he says, pressing his bare knee against Mitch’s, and Mitch is flooded with affection and respect so deep he could drown in it. Mitch can’t help but to smile. “I mean,” Auston starts, his tone turning mischievous, “you’re no 60-goal scorer, but…”
“You’ll tip over if your head gets any fuckin’ bigger.”
They have breakfast in town the next morning at some kitschy little pancake joint a few miles down the road that has way too many things hanging on the walls. The downtown area is quaint and unassuming, which is exactly what Mitch was looking for with this trip. No one recognizes them up here. There are a few shops that line the street and a couple of restaurants that are probably of questionable quality, but Auston likes it here so far. Mitch can feel that –the way he’s settling in and finding peace. It’s nice to be on the receiving end of those feelings.
Auston reaches across the table and steals a piece of Mitch’s blueberry muffin. “What’s the plan for today?”
It’s warm outside, but it isn’t unbearable. The sky is overcast, and there’s a comfortable breeze that keeps rolling through. They hadn’t planned on doing anything in particular when they decided to come up here. Mitch booked the place, offered Auston an opportunity to clear his head, and they packed their bags the next day. So Mitch spent a little bit of time on his phone last night googling things for them to do so they wouldn’t be completely bored to tears.
Mitch flicks Auston’s hand away. “I was thinking golf.”
Auston raises his eyebrows. “There’s a course up here?”
“Um…mini golf?” Mitch says sheepishly, shrugging. “That’s the best I could find.”
Auston smirks and steals another piece of his muffin, the fucker. “Taking me on a little putt-putt date, Marns? If I let you win, will you let me cop a feel over or under your bra?” He chirps, and Mitch-
That joke shouldn’t make him flush from his forehead down to his chest the way that it does, but. Here he is, trying to look annoyed instead of struck stupid by it.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to insult your idea,” Auston says when Mitch doesn’t respond after a second, and Mitch can feel the uncertainty rolling off of him. He can tell that Auston is unsettled because Mitch normally gives it to him just as much as he gets it and is no stranger to an equally mean response, but he’s too busy trying to figure out what’s wrong with himself to come up with a clever rebuttal.
“No, you’re good.” He waves him off and forces himself to take a sip of water. “I’m just gonna…I gotta piss, I’ll be right back and then we can go,” he says, ignoring Auston’s eyes on him as he stands up.
He splashes water on his face when he gets to the tiny restroom, trying to cool his cheeks down. He has never struggled with control like this, not in his entire life. He’s always been proud of his self-discipline, because it’s the only thing that has gotten him this far in his career. Omegas almost never play in the NHL. It’s unprecedented that he’s even here, and the last thing he’s going to do is let his fucking…hormones, or whatever, destroy a position in sports that omegas only dream of and a friendship that has only ever done him good. He also refuses to have a life crisis in a bathroom covered with seahorse wallpaper, so he sucks it up.
Their plates are gone when he gets back to the table, and Auston scoots out of the booth when he sees him. Mitch digs his wallet out of his back pocket. “Do we pay up front, or?”
Auston shakes his head. “I covered it.”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“No sweat,” Auston says, giving Mitch a friendly pat on the back while they leave the restaurant.
Mitch feels a little better once they get outside, like the fresh air and the buildings and people on the sidewalk give him something to focus on that isn’t Auston. He still feels rattled, like he’s balancing on a high beam above the grand canyon and trying not to look down, but – he keeps walking.
“Can you GPS the addy for me?” Mitch asks a few minutes later when they make it back to the car. “I have no service.”
“I gotchu,” Auston responds. Mitch can’t really tell how he’s feeling right now, but he’s being sort of reserved. He decides to stop preoccupying himself with Auston’s emotions since they’re the entire reason he keeps losing his grip on reality, and he pulls out into the narrow street.
Auston squints down at his phone. “Left at the next crossroads.” After a beat of silence, he says, “Hey, um…I’m sorry for being a dick. Mini golf sounds really fun.”
Fucking Auston. Too soft-spoken and observant for his own good. Mitch can feel his tension, so he elbows him gently in the shoulder, says, “Stop being so polite. You have to be kind of douchey once in a while.”
The tension fades away as quickly as it came, and Auston smirks. “Yeah, they did write that into my contract.”
They’re on a hole that has a bright-pink, neon tiger with chipping paint on top of an artificial hill when Auston chunks his ball into the nearby bushes. The sun is beaming down like hellfire on the black t-shirt Mitch is wearing, and he’s reminded why he would usually be three or four drinks deep on a normal golf course at this point.
“Fuck me,” Auston gripes, readjusting his baseball cap. He sets his club down. “I’ll be right back.”
Mitches uses his shirt to fan himself. “You’re supposed to aim for the hole.”
“That’s what she said,” Auston calls in the distance, and a woman with two young kids at the next hole over glares at him. Mitch snorts and looks away. Auston’s club is too short for him, and it’s been sort of entertaining watching him try to hunch over and use it. It’s like the time Mitch cut one of Auston’s sticks a couple of inches too short right before practice just to fuck with him and watched him get frustrated for the next 10 minutes while he tried to figure out why it didn’t feel right. Classic.
Mitch is inadvertently smiling over that memory when he suddenly doubles over in a shock of pain that shoots up his right calf and forces him down to one knee. He grips his leg as he hits the ground, lifting his hand to his face and checking for blood because it felt like something stabbed him. Like a needle, or something – but when he examines his leg quickly, there’s nothing there. Not a single mark.
“Are you okay?” The woman nearby asks warily, holding her kids close to her.
Mitch glances up. “Huh? Yeah, oh yeah, I’m fine.” He waves her on, feeling kind of stupid. “All good.”
She raises her eyebrow and moves along, pulling her kids behind her. The pain is mostly gone, now – almost like a dull ache instead, and it’s then that Mitch registers the fact that Auston is taking way too long to retrieve his ball.
“Aus?” He shouts, looking toward the bushes, but the sun is too goddamn bright for him to see anything from this angle, so he stands up. He’s about to walk over there and look for him, but Auston appears from out of the bushes and jogs back over before Mitch can start to get worried. “You get lost back there?”
Auston shakes his head and picks up his golf club, but he’s wincing. “Dude, I got stung by a bee.”
Mitch’s stomach flips. He swallows. “Where?”
Auston looks at him for a beat. “In the bushes-“
“No, I know, I mean – where, on your body,” he explains, feeling sort of insane.
It’s almost like it happens in slow motion when Auston reaches down with his right arm and touches his leg, twisting around so Mitch can see the red, swollen spot exactly where-
Exactly where Mitch felt pain.
Oh.
“Oh,” he says. Auston turns back around. Mitch takes a step toward him. “Um, how do you feel?” He asks, as if he doesn’t apparently already know all of the time.
Auston shrugs. “I’ll live.”
Mitch nods. “Great.”
Great.
‘freaking out call me,’ Mitch texts Dylan when they get back in the car, which – in hindsight, probably wasn’t the best thing to do at a time when he has limited service. When they get back to the place and Mitch’s phone catches the wifi, he sees that he has 2 missed calls and 6 unread messages from Dylan. Oops.
“Hey, I’m gonna call Stromer really quick,” he says, making his way toward the back door to find that spot in the yard with the best cell service.
“Oh, okay,” he hears Auston say behind him, but Mitch already has the phone pulled up and ringing in his ear. Dylan answers just as he steps outside.
“Hello?!” He sounds sort of pissed.
“Hey, uh- sorry about that, bud.”
“Hello?” Dylan says again, sounding increasingly concerned. “Are you there?”
“Goddammit,” Mitch says, apparently to himself. He jogs to the other end of the yard. “Can you hear me?”
Dylan sighs on the other end. “Yeah, I can hear you. You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m okay. Sorry about that,” Mitch repeats. “No service up here.”
“Clearly. Is that why you’re freaking out?”
Mitch shakes his head, then remembers Dylan can’t see him. “I wish. I think I’m seriously losing my shit, here.”
“Full blown cabin fever already? I was gonna give it a few more days.”
“No dude, I’m being real, I actually don’t know what’s going on with me.”
“Okay, alright,” Dylan says, voice a little softer. “What’s wrong?”
Mitch paces for a second. “Okay, like I said, I might just be going insane, and I used to think that it was just me being really good at reading people, but. It’s just Auston. It’s like a…I don’t know,” he sighs. “I don’t know how to describe it.”
Mitch feels stupid, now, like maybe he should have just kept this to himself or tried to ignore it. He didn’t really plan what he was going to say, and now none of it sounds sane coming out of his mouth.
“Well, try to.”
Mitch chews his lip. “Okay. At first it was little things. He would be upset or annoyed or happy and I could always tell. Not just tell, but like…feel it. As if it was me that was feeling it. And I always thought that was weird, but it was fine, I guess. But now that we’re up here, it’s…” Mitch looks for the right word. “Stronger, I guess? It’s not something I can really ignore. I feel like I have no control over it. And today…” Mitch swallows and lowers his voice. “Today he got stung by a bee, and I felt it. I fucking felt it, Stromer. Physically. I know it sounds like bullshit, but it’s true.”
There’s a pause on the end of the line, and then it goes dead. Three beeps.
“Fuck!” He frantically pulls up Dylan’s contact again and hits the call button. Dylan answers after the 5th ring. “Dude, the call dropped,” Mitch says.
Dylan laughs a little bit. “No, it didn’t drop. I hung up.”
Mitch pulls his phone away from his ear for a second and looks at it, affronted, as if Dylan can see his expression. “What? Why? Did you hear me?”
“Oh, I heard you. Very funny, Marns. Thanks for wasting like 20 minutes of my day making me actually worry about you, douchebag. I’ll see you when you get back-“
“Wait, wait,” Mitch scrambles, feeling extremely confused. “I’m not trying to be funny, what? Dylan, I’m fucking serious,” he emphasizes, hearing his own voice embarrassingly break a little bit with desperation. “I don’t know what to do, I can’t-“
“Whoa, okay,” Dylan interrupts. Mitch hears him sit down on something, hears him pushing stuff around on the other end of the line. “Um, okay, buddy, hang on. You’re serious?”
Mitch throws his free hand up in the air. “Yes!”
He can hear Dylan breathing faster on the other end. “Holy shit,” he exhales on a heavy breath.
“What?”
“If what you’re telling me is true…” he starts, trailing off like he’s thinking, or maybe hesitating. Mitch can’t tell. “If that’s all true, then we’re talking about some seriously fucked up shit, here.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Wow, you really did skip most of highschool, huh? You don’t know what this sounds like?”
Mitch sits down in the grass. “Clearly not.”
Mitch hears him shift around, probably re-adjusting the phone against his ear. “Mitchy, you’re describing a soul bond.” He says it almost like he’s apologizing, as if he feels bad for even saying the words out loud. That can’t be a good sign.
“I’m afraid to ask you to explain.”
Dylan pauses again. “It’s pretty much what it sounds like. But I thought you were fucking with me, because they’re so rare. And the way you described it was just…textbook. Down to the transference and everything.”
“Transference? Isn’t that some psychology thing?”
“Oh, okay, so you paid attention in some classes,” he mumbles. “No, that’s something else. This is about the soul bond. It’s one of the main things that sets it apart from other bonds.”
Mitch takes a deep breath in and out, trying to ground himself. He grabs a fistful of grass and yanks it out of the ground.
“Soul bonds are super rare, dude. I can’t say that enough. They didn’t really used to be, but they are now. Back in, uh…ancient times, or whatever, they used to be useful.”
Mitch scoffs. “Useful how?” Up until this point, he’s been pretending that they’re talking about somebody other than himself so that he won’t freak out, but: “this hasn’t been useful. How am I supposed to play hockey if I get hurt when Auston gets hurt?”
Dylan sighs, pitiful. “It used to be useful for survival reasons. If one partner gets hurt, the other partner knows there might be danger. Either for themselves, or for their-“ Dylan clears his throat. “Uh, for their children.” Mitch flushes a little. “That? The physical transference? That goes both ways.” Well. That answers the question that Mitch had. Apparently, Auston has been physically feeling whatever Mitch has been feeling, too. “But,” Dylan says, “the emotional connection…that doesn’t go both ways. It’s a one-way street from alpha to omega, which is why you’ve been feeling like shit. Auston probably has no idea he’s even doing it.”
“How come that one doesn’t go both ways?”
Dylan laughs, humorless. “You’re not gonna like my answer.”
Mitch grips the clump full of grass a little tighter in his fist. “Just tell me, man.”
“It’s kind of…” he sighs. “It’s about, uh. Subservience.”
Mitch lets go of the clump of grass, watches it sprinkle onto the ground underneath him. “Ah.”
“It’s supposed to keep you completely dialed in to your alpha’s mood. So that you can, like…”
“Attend to them? Make sure they’re happy, make sure they’re satisfied?”
“Right, yeah, I guess,” Dylan agrees.
Mitch takes a moment to digest that. And everything sort of…falls into place. How he’s been feeling, the way he’s been acting like a freak around Auston lately. How everything has been turned up to 11. But the real question is-
“Why now?” He watches Auston mill around the kitchen through the window, probably making himself something to eat. And the worst part is that some obvious and compelling part of Mitch can feel his hunger, that raw emptiness expanding under his ribs. He tells himself to chill. “I’ve been around him for years, why is this just now starting to affect me?”
“Mm, that’s a good question. I’m no expert in this shit, so I’m not sure, but uh - have you changed anything lately? Just spitballing, here.”
Mitch forces himself to think, ignoring the ache in his belly. He closes his eyes and breathes in, trying to catalogue his movements over the last few weeks, rack his brain for any significant changes in routine, but there’s nothing-
“Oh!” He opens his eyes again. “My, um, my suppressants.”
Dylan makes a little noise, sort of like an inhale through his nose. “Your suppressants? You were on suppressants? And you, what, you stopped them?”
“Yeah, I had to be. But my doctor told me to take a break during the offseason to let my body re-adjust. Do you think that could, like-“
“Yeah,” Dylan interrupts, “definitely. That could definitely be the cause.”
Jesus. If Mitch knew…if someone had warned him that this could happen, he would have stayed on the fucking things, health be damned. This is a mess, especially considering the fact that he didn’t bring any on the trip. His heat isn’t due for a couple of months, so he should be fine, but – he needs to talk to Auston about all of this at some point, as uncomfortable as that will be.
“Is there any way to – I don’t know, reverse it?”
Dylan hesitates. “I don’t know. But I can look into it for you, if you want? Give you a chance to talk to Matts and do a little research?” When Mitch doesn’t respond right away, Dylan continues, tentative, “You’re gonna talk to Matts about this, right?”
“At some point, yeah.” He just has to figure out how to bring it up. Hey dude, can you pass the salt? Oh, by the way, I’m pretty sure we’re soul-bonded. Anyways, you wanna watch a movie later?
“Thank you, Dyl,” Mitch says.
“It’s gonna be okay.” Dylan’s voice is a little quieter than before. “We’ll figure this out.”
Mitch really wants to believe that.
When Mitch returns, Auston is splayed out on the couch focusing intently on his Switch while he plays what sounds like Mario Kart. “Hey,” he says, glancing up at Mitch and pausing the game. “Stromer all good?”
Mitch takes a seat next to him, pulling his own knees up to his chest and making himself small. “Yeah, he’s fine.” Best to leave it at that.
Auston un-pauses his game, looking back down at his screen. “You guys talked for a long time,” he comments, which normally wouldn’t be anything but an observation, but Mitch can feel…jealousy. Sour and unmistakable, even as Auston acts nonchalant. Now that he knows what he’s looking for, it’s hard to miss.
Huh.
He decides to take it a step further, just for the sake of experimentation. “Yeah, we kinda did,” he says, heart rate picking up. “I just miss him.”
“Already?” Auston is smiling, the way he does when he teases, but jealousy is burning white-hot through Mitch’s chest, blazing a trail down into a pit in his belly. But he presses on: “Yeah, well. He’s just nice to talk to when you have something on your mind.” And –fuck. He didn’t mean to say all that.
Like a shark tasting blood in the water, Auston looks up at him for a second before pretending to focus back on his game. “Is, uh…is something on your mind?” Whatever Auston is projecting fades somewhere from jealousy to curiosity, light and airy.
“No,” Mitch backtracks, unfolding his legs. “I just mean, like. Whenever people do, he’s, like, good about that stuff.”
Auston nods slowly, pursing his lips. “Yeah.” He shrugs, apparently deciding to drop it. He sets his Switch down on the table and then nudges Mitch with his foot. “You know you can tell me if something’s up, right?”
Mitch smiles. “I know. You’re a good listener, too.”
It feels like a warm blanket of affection wraps him up tight from his shoulders down to his knees.
Mitch will tell him in due time. He will.
He isn’t sure how long they’ve been sharing tactile sensations, but he takes care to be less clumsy than he normally is just so that Auston won’t catch on any faster than Mitch wants him to. He almost bangs his knee on the coffee table at one point, but practically throws himself onto the couch to avoid it. Little things are okay, he figures – like when he nicks himself shaving in the morning, a quick little sting of pain that Auston will probably just ignore.
If he feels it, that is. That’s the thing – Mitch is only taking Dylan’s word for all of this. For all he knows Auston could feel nothing at all, and it could be completely one-sided. So, of course, Mitch decides to run another experiment when they take the canoe out to go fishing.
“You have to hook the bait better,” he chides, stealing the fishing pole out of Auston’s hand. “They’ll slip off if you only put it through the end.” He fixes the line and hands it back to him.
“Never really fished growing up.”
He figured. He watches him cast his line into the distance and follows suit, letting his go a little further than Auston’s.
They’ve been sharing a 40, passing it back and forth like they’re in middle school or something, but Mitch’s lips have been buzzing every time he gets his mouth on the bottle after Auston.
“Don’t go thinking I forgot about our agreement,” Auston says out of the blue after he takes a swig of beer, sliding it over to Mitch.
“Agreement?”
Auston shakes his head. “Don’t play dumb. You promised to watch all of the original Jurassic Park movies with me.” Mitch groans, remembering. “Every single one. And we’re starting tonight.”
Mitch takes a drink. “One day I’ll learn that you have the memory of an elephant.”
Auston taps the side of his head, smirking. When he turns back toward the water, Mitch decides that now is as good of a time as any and bites down hard on the inside of his own cheek just to see if Auston will react. And from the corner of his eye, he watches Auston reach his right hand up and touch it to that same cheek, brows furrowed.
Well. That’s that, then.
Mitch makes a plan to tell him after the movie. He’s not sure exactly why he’s even putting off telling him aside from the prospect of awkwardness during the rest of their trip, so…tonight. After the movie, when they can both have some time to sleep on it and think of solutions, including Dylan.
He rifles through his still-unpacked suitcase for a clean outfit and makes a frustrated noise when he realizes that most of his stuff is still in the dryer. All he has left is oversized sweatshirts and shorts – which kind of sucks, because it’s supposed to be chilly tonight, but there’s plenty of blankets downstairs. He throws on one of his old all-star sweatshirts and some old running shorts and makes his way to the living room, feeling like an absolute goof.
Auston is standing in front of the TV scrolling through Netflix instead of just sitting on the couch and doing it like a normal person, which is a total dad move.
He glances at Mitch and almost does a comical double-take when he sees his outfit. “Where’s the flood?” He chirps, smiling like an asshole, and Mitch flips him off. “You lose your pants?”
Mitch circles the couch and smacks the remote right out of Auston’s hand. “Left ‘em at your mom’s.” It’s the fastest thing he can come up with, an oldie but a goodie. He sits down heavily on the couch and stretches his legs out, folding his arms behind his head. “You can sit on the floor, I’m good right here.” The movement of his arms makes his sweatshirt ride up his belly a little bit, revealing the hem of his black shorts wrapped tight around his thighs. Auston’s eyes are drawn to it, gone quicker than Mitch can blink, but it certainly didn’t go unnoticed by him. The room suddenly feels small, all of the air pushed right out of Mitch’s chest, and he realizes that it’s nervousness that Auston is feeling, tight and oppressive. Mitch isn’t sure what he did to prompt that, but he feels sort of guilty about it.
“You’re so nice,” Auston responds sarcastically, but his heart isn’t in it. He’s not even looking at Mitch, opting instead to focus all of his attention on the TV. “You want some wine?”
Mitch laughs. “Wine and Jurassic Park. What a combo, eh?”
Auston nods, setting the remote down on the table after he locates the movie. “Like peanut butter and jelly,” he says, walking over to the kitchen and pouring two glasses of red. “Like Lennon and McCartney, like ham and cheese…” he hands Mitch his glass, and Mitch scoots over to make room for him.
“Press play, get this over with.”
Watching the movie is sort of exhausting, Mitch discovers, because every single emotion that Auston experiences while he’s watching finds its way to him. By the second act, Mitch feels incredibly drained and pulls out his phone to text Dylan ‘fuck this.’ He goes to set his phone back down on the arm of the couch, but it slides off the edge right onto the floor.
“Good,” Auston says, glancing over. “Phones down, can’t miss this part.”
Mitch is trying to stretch his leg far enough to grab it with his foot, but he’s failing. He groans frustratedly and tips forward until both of his hands are on the ground, bending over and reaching with his knees propped up on the couch until he can grab it. As he’s hand-walking back into an upright position, he’s nearly bowled over again with a gut-punch of arousal, warm and full in his lower belly. It’s like he just did a brutal round of crunches, that feeling afterwards when the soreness ebbs and the makes his muscles feel malleable and weak, and it slides all the way down to his toes.
He sits up quickly and gets eyes on Auston, who’s half-turned toward him on the couch, trying way too hard to pretend he’s still paying attention to the movie, and Mitch realizes – that was because of him. Because Mitch – holy shit. But the feeling still hangs around him, heavy and insistent, and now he can smell Auston getting turned on, can see the way he’s white-knuckling the couch cushion despite how subtle it is and Mitch can’t – he has to leave, like now.
“Actually, uh-“ he says, drawing Auston’s attention to him, “I’m not feeling so hot, man. I’m gonna go lay down.”
Auston pauses the movie. “Okay, that’s it. We’re going to an urgent care.”
“No, it’s-“ he protests quickly, scooting back like a scared animal, but Auston grabs his forearm gently and Mitch makes the most embarrassing noise he’s probably ever made in his life, hit hard with a tornado mix of arousal and protectiveness that has him soaking his shorts and tipping his throat back, overwhelmed.
Auston tightens his grip in shock, inhaling quickly as his pupils blow huge and black, probably from the smell of Mitch’s slick – and Mitch crosses his thighs, squeezes them together in shame even though every instinct is clicking in the back of his skull to spread his legs and show his belly. Jesus.
“Aus-“ he chokes out through the thick cloud of pheromones, his last ditch attempt at bailing out of this, and Auston seems to snap out of it and drops his arm, taking a huge step backwards and breathing heavily.
“I’m so sorry,” he says, pushing his face into his hands, obviously trying to block Mitch’s scent. “Fuck, I don’t – I don’t know.”
Mitch is about to tell him that it’s okay, that it was his fault for presenting in front of an alpha on accident, but Auston is already speed-walking upstairs, holding his nose.
So much for fixing this.
After sedating himself with Benadryl, Mitch wakes up the next morning feeling groggy and fuzzy, still exhausted despite sleeping for – he checks his phone – ten hours.
He also has a text from Dylan that says ‘hang in there.’
Mitch knows that he has to tell Auston now. It wouldn’t be fair to keep him in the dark any longer, and on a more selfish note, Mitch absolutely needs Auston to figure out how to control his emotions and keep them out of his fucking head. He needs to figure this out before next season starts or risk getting dragged off in a straitjacket.
He puts on a sweatshirt and sweatpants, not even an ankle showing to tempt Auston, and goes downstairs. He finds him sitting on the porch outside, and he jumps a little bit when Mitch opens the door. It’s obvious that he’s on edge, not just from the way Mitch can feel it but from his body language as well. He looks uncomfortable in his seat, hands squeezing his knees while he tries to decide if he should make eye contact with Mitch or not. Mitch kind of hates that. The last thing he wants is for this bullshit to change their friendship.
“Hey.” Auston says. He’s not even bothering to hide his apprehension. Mitch can feel shame and guilt rolling off him in waves.
Mitch sits across from him, chewing on his bottom lip. “Hey.”
“You knocked out pretty good last night, huh?”
Mitch purses his lips and nods. “The power of medication.”
“Season just finished and he’s already back on the Bennys.” He shakes his head. “I can’t believe you went back to those things after what they did to you.”
Mitch snorts. “I slept through practice once.”
“Step one of fixing a problem is admitting you have a problem.” Mitch can feel that he’s a little less uneasy now, which is good.
“About that,” Mitch starts, switching his tone to serious. Auston looks at him. Okay. He can do this. “There’s something we need to talk about, but I think it’s better if I just show you.”
“Okay…” Auston responds.
“Okay.” Mitch leans to the side and picks up a dead stick off the ground, snaps it in half so he has a sharp end. “Just…trust me. Okay? And pay attention.”
Auston nods, obediently laser-focused on Mitch, and watches as Mitch pokes the stick right into his upper thigh. Just as the wood indents his skin, Auston opens his mouth and rushes his palm down onto his own leg, confusion and fear flooding the air around Mitch.
“What?” He says, voice small, and Mitch picks up the stick again, this time rolling his sleeve up and grinding it right into his inner wrist, making sure there’s enough pressure to outweigh coincidence. Auston winces, shaking his arm, but reaches toward Mitch and yanks the stick out of his hand instead, preventing him from doing any further damage to himself.
“Stop, Mitch, jesus. What the hell?”
“Do you understand?” Mitch asks seriously, standing up out of his chair, looking up at Auston. “You feel what I feel. I feel what you feel.”
Auston steps back, eyes wide. It’s almost satisfying to Mitch, watching the revelation play across his face, knowing that he’s finally not alone in this thing anymore. But then his heart sinks when he feels how upset Auston is, how much disappointment he’s broadcasting straight into Mitch’s brain.
He swallows. “I understand,” he says finally, looking down. “We’re soul-bonded.”
Oh. He knows. Mitch isn’t sure if that’s better or worse.
“Okay,” Mitch says a few slightly awkward minutes later once they both have a much-needed mug of coffee in their hands, sitting cross-legged on the couch. “This is the part where you fill me in, because I just learned about these today.”
Auston gives up a soft smile, staring down at his coffee. “My grandparents were soul-bonded.”
Mitch’s eyebrows fly up. “Seriously?”
Auston nods. “Seriously. They were together for 60 years. Totally inseparable.”
“I never knew that.”
He shrugs. “I never really told anyone. I knew it was rare, but I didn’t realize how rare it was until…” he pauses, the air going stale. “Until my mom explained it to me. After they died.” Auston looks up at Mitch meaningfully. “A few minutes apart. My grandpa had a massive stroke, and then my grandma…” he trails off.
Mitch’s stomach drops as he takes that in. It makes sense, then, why Auston was so disappointed when he realized what they were working with. There’s a potential for this thing to be dangerous.
“Shit,” Mitch says, not really knowing what else to say. He takes a sip of his coffee a little too quickly, burning his tongue, and Auston frowns at him.
“Your coffee’s too hot, slow down. That hurt.”
Mitch gives him a look. “Sorry, princess.”
Auston sets his mug down, rubbing his hands together nervously. “So, um…I remember, with my grandparents…besides the physical thing, there’s another part.”
“Transference,” Mitch confirms. When Auston gives him a confused look, Mitch elaborates: “Dylan explained it to me. It’s a one-way street. When you’re happy, I feel it. When you’re pissed off, I feel it.” Mitch winces. “And when you’re randy-“
“Marns-“
“I feel that, too. But you don’t get anything back unless there’s a physical component to it.”
Auston shakes his head, looking down at his lap again. “I am so fucking sorry, man. Last night…you know you’re my brother-“
“I know,” Mitch cuts him off. He reaches out and grabs Auston’s hand, trying to cull the shame that he can feel from him. “It’s not your fault.” Auston gives him a quick smile, thankful. “I actually…I have a theory about that.”
Auston chuckles. “A theory?”
Mitch squeezes his hand, letting it drop. “I think that yesterday, we created like a…” he waves his hands around. “A feedback loop.” He squints at Auston, thinking. “Whenever we have, like, similar feelings, that seems to happen.” Mitch stands up. “Think about it. You feel it, so then I feel it, so then you feel it…and so on and so forth.” He takes another drink of his coffee, then sets in on the table. “Which is exactly why we need to figure out how to fix this thing. Because-“
“Hockey,” Auston finishes, coming to the same devastating realization that Mitch had come to.
“Right,” Mitch says. “Because of hockey.”
Auston stands up, interlacing his hands on top of his head and sighing. “Fuck. Fuck!” Mitch can feel how frustrated he is – it shivers down his spine and settles in his bones. This is getting real. If the organization finds out about this, one or both of them could get traded or worse. He doesn’t even want to think about it, especially since he would most likely get the short end of the stick. He’s enough of a burden as-is, if it weren’t for how good he is at delivering on the ice.
Auston must see his internal conflict because his face softens and he puts his hands down, walking back over to Mitch and squeezing his shoulder, giving him an empathetic look. Mitch breathes into the touch, experiencing whatever Auston is giving him. It’s weird – it’s like Mitch can still feel Auston’s anger and frustration under the surface, but it’s coated in calm. Sort of like when you bang your elbow and then rub it furiously – the pain is still unmistakably there, but there’s another sensation masking it. A positive distractor.
“You trying to calm me down?” Mitch asks fondly, giving up a half-hearted smile.
Auston grins back sheepishly. “Is it working?”
Mitch catalogues his emotions. He feels okay, for the most part. “Yeah, kind of.”
Auston scratches at his beard. “Is it, um…is it better when we’re touching?”
“It’s a lot stronger,” Mitch admits. It’s like a direct line, or something, where it’s usually two tin cans connected with a string.
Auston guides him closer, then – pulls him in until Mitch’s face is pressed into his chest and his arms are placed on Mitch’s upper back, warm and strong. Mitch takes a deep breath, finding comfort in his scent, and feels the calm wash over him, radiating under his skin. He’s ready for it this time, though, so it doesn’t knock him on his ass like before.
“This okay?” Auston mumbles against the top of his head. Mitch wraps his arms around Auston’s middle, relaxing into his hold.
“This works.”