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Everything happens for a reason. Seth's mother, before she'd gone fuck-all crazy, had taught him that.
So when his face slammed into tarmac, Seth wondered what the reason for letting Aaron Minyard beat the shit out of him could be.
They weren't talking tonight. Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn't. Tonight they didn't. Tonight, Seth had gotten out of the showers after practice to find Aaron waiting on the benches for him in the locker room, the last one left. Seth locked up, followed Aaron into the parking lot of the stadium. Aaron pulled a roll of bandages from his pocket, and Seth figured it out. He pulled off his hoodie and left it in a pile on the kerb. Aaron methodically wrapped the bandages around his hands, flexing his fingers as he did, and Seth removed the chain from around his neck, took his earring out.
It was standard. Routine. Like a well oiled machine, the two of them fit into the motions, the preparation. Something settled into Seth's chest, some easy sense of readiness. In the months since waking from his coma, since Aaron's murder trial had been broadcast for the whole world to pick apart, this had been their safety net. Their constant. Almost every night after practice, they would end up alone together, undisturbed for several hours at a time. Never back at the dorms, though. It was too delicate to ever leave this parking lot; or on some nights, the backseat of Seth's car.
They'd been fighting more than they'd been fucking, lately. A few months of their routine had taught Seth to guess where Aaron's head was based on however they spent those hours. When Aaron was angry at Seth, they fucked. When Aaron was angry at himself, they fought.
Aaron had been angry at himself a lot lately.
Blood filled his mouth as his jaw clamped down on the inside of his cheek, and Seth spat it out into the gravel of the parking lot. He got to his feet, touching his hand to where more blood had begun to trickle from his bruised nose to his lips. Aaron's first hit had got him square in the face, and he hadn't pulled any other punches since, either. This time, however, he waited for Seth to stand again. He was holding the roll of bandages out in front of him.
"Wrap," he said.
Seth stared at him.
"What?"
"Your hands. I want you to hit me back."
Seth laughed. It might've been the adrenaline, but he laughed.
"That's not how this works."
"I'm aware. Wrap your hands."
Seth wasn't here to argue, so he took the bandages. Carefully, he started to unroll the thin white fabric, trying to replay Aaron's movements in his mind and copy them. Aaron didn't give him very long to try it before he snatched the roll back, catching hold of one of Seth's hands and ripping off a piece of bandage with his teeth before he started to wrap it, carefully, instructing Seth to move his fingers as he did so. Aaron kept his focus on Seth's hands as he worked, so Seth got to look at him without being caught. Aaron had a couple specks of blood staining his pale blond hair, and late summer had brought out the spatter of freckles over the bridge of his nose and under his eyes. Long lashes hid his hazel irises from view, but Seth had memorized the pattern weeks ago, enough to call it to mind when he chose.
Seth wasn't gay. To his knowledge, Aaron wasn't either. Aaron had dated Katelyn for almost two years, but judging by the gossip Allison had picked up, she couldn't deal with the trial, so she ditched. Leaving Aaron pent-up and in need of an outlet.
Once she knew he was alive and mostly okay, Allison had told Seth she wasn't coming back. She couldn't handle it again, and he got that. He never expected her to come back, so he watched her walk away and didn't fight it. Leaving him pent-up and in need of an outlet.
They'd only fucked a handful of times, and when they did, it was usually enough to let them avoid each other for about a week after the fact. Nobody on the team guessed a thing. To any outsider, Aaron kept to himself like usual, and Seth antagonized anyone who could've gotten close enough to guess anything had ever changed. It was remarkably easy to sneak around, actually. None of the Foxes were as perceptive as they liked to pretend they were, not even Andrew, who, as far as Seth could tell, was mostly distracted by his new mafia toy to pay attention to his brother's escapades.
Seth had missed a lot while he'd been asleep, but he didn't care enough to listen to Matt explain any of it. At the time, he'd been focused on the TV set, where Aaron was sat in a courtroom, dressed in a dark blue suit, blond hair unnaturally tame, expression entirely unreadable.
He'd been cleared of all charges, and barely reacted.
Maybe that was why Seth let him do this. Maybe there was something in violence perpetrated by a man who'd come so close to losing everything, who would now live the rest of his own life knowing what it took to take another.
Maybe there was some kind of understanding between a murderer and a victim.
Aaron flicked Seth in the chest to snap him out of his trance. He was finishing the wrappings on Seth's left hand– around the knuckles, between each finger, before he tightened the bandage one more time and tucked it secure. Seth curled his open hand into a fist, felt the bandages constrict his movement just enough.
Aaron stepped back.
"Go on. Hit me."
Seth raised his hands. Aaron didn't even flinch.
"Where?" Seth asked, last second. Aaron answered with a solid punch to the gut, so Seth took that to mean, anywhere.
It was a testament to their maybe-friendship that Seth was able to land a hit on Aaron at all. When this arrangement had started, it usually resulted in Seth looking like he'd gotten out of a car crash, and Aaron without a scratch on him. It wasn't that Seth couldn't throw a couple when he needed or wanted to. He just didn't.
Aaron was usually too fast, anyway.
It was, Seth knew, the most obvious indicator of what neither of them would ever admit out loud: Aaron liked causing pain and Seth liked feeling it.
Aaron put up with Seth for all of two whole punches– on the third swing, he caught Seth's arm in one hand, braced his shoulder with the other and flipped him over onto the grass beside them.
All the air rushed from Seth's lungs as he crashed to the ground back-first, head spinning and the floodlights above him almost blinding. The glare was blocked by Aaron's head moving into view, looking down at him.
"Still breathin'?"
There it was. The lowest blow of them all– that South Carolina drawl that Aaron usually did such a good job of masking, which he only seemed to slip into late at night, or when he thought nobody was around. Seth had caught him mumbling notes to himself at ungodly hours, hunched over a pile of textbooks, wireframe glasses barely staying on his face with how often he scrubbed his hands over his eyes. That accent.
Seth hated it so much he felt dizzy.
Could be the possible concussion, though.
"The fuck was that for?" he spat out, then actually rolled over and spat into the grass, just in case he choked on his own saliva while trying to regain feeling in his spine.
Aaron shrugged.
"I wanted to see if it would work."
"Little warnin' could'a been nice," Seth grumbled, shuddering through a long breath.
Aaron was shaking his head, and had now moved to crouch on the ground beside Seth.
"Would've been harder if you were anticipatin' it. Prob'ly would'a locked up, couldn't get enough momentum."
When he said it, it sounded like ma-mennum, and Seth almost thought he saw red.
Definitely concussed.
He rolled back onto his back, cursing his own existence, and Aaron stood up, offering a hand.
"Wanna get outta here?"
Seth stared up at him. Fifteen seconds ago, this five-foot-no-inches of nothing but compressed Monster Energy and attitude had flipped him so hard he'd nearly seen stars, and now Aaron was fishing his glasses out of his jacket pocket and offering Seth a hand up.
Offering to get out of here.
Mother would be so proud, Seth thought, grabbing Aaron's hand and letting himself be pulled to his feet. Aaron held on a couple seconds longer to let Seth get his balance, then reached into Seth's back jeans pocket to grab his car keys.
"I'll drive. Gonna patch up your face first, though."
Seth touched a dirty hand to his lip, and it came away unsurprisingly bloody. Aaron was already leading the way to the car, jacket slung over his shoulder, spinning Seth's key around his index finger.
He turned when he reached the driver's side, resting one arm on the open door.
"I ain't got all night, Gordon. You comin', or what?"
It was a Friday night, but games didn't start until late September, and Seth was pretty sure the monsters hadn't been to Columbia since Aaron had been acquitted for murder.
Which was to say, nobody cared where the two of them were or how long they were gone.
Seth stuffed his hands in his pockets and followed.