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It’s silent on the drive home.
Austons hands are gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles are white and his fingers hurt, but it’s all he can do to keep himself grounded to there, in the car, and not back to the bar, with the man spitting at him and calling him a wetback.
He’s not even really angry about that, if he’s honest. It’s not the worst he’s heard- on ice, people aren’t so kind with their words, but most guys don’t really mean it, it’s just part of the game.
Plus, with growing up in Arizona then playing overseas, there were certainly people who said worse things and meant them.
Those times, he was angry. He was enraged, really, because they reminded him of the things people used to whisper about his dad, and blatantly gossip about his mom.
This time-
This time his hands are so tight that the steering wheel might turn to dust, and the seat isn’t right for him, his knees are nearly touching the steering column and the brakes are too touchy, and Mitch is sitting in the passenger seat instead of driving, because for some stupid reason , he decided-
Maybe for as long as Auston is going to live, and probably for all of eternity, he’s going to have the image of Mitch on the floor, bloody and moaning in pain, burned into his head. It’ll be right there for him during every second of every day to remind himself what exactly he could’ve lost.
“You missed the turn.” A soft, rasping voice flutters through the air past cracked, bleeding lips. Auston reminds himself to breath and flicks on the turn signal, getting into the left lane to make a u-turn.
It’s the only thing either of them says, and ten minutes later finds the car parked, and Auston rushing around to the passenger side to help his boyfriend. Mitch’s got the door open and the seat belt unbuckled, but is having a hard time turning in his seat to get out.
He’s breathing heavily through his nose, which is somehow not very clogged despite the previous bleed, and his face is nearly dead white, but he’s conscious and responsive enough that Auston doesn’t feel the need to take him to the hospital. The trainers can check him out tomorrow at morning skate.
The color of his skin is alarming enough, but it also provides wonderful contrast to the dark color of the blood, and once again Auston is finding his hands curling into fists, this time his brain helpfully supplying a rerun of the first right hook that hit Mitch’s temple to send him to the ground and opening up the skin because the bastard wore a ring.
“Aus-“
Matty blinks and lunges forward just in time to catch Mitch before he face plants on the pavement. The smaller forward moans into his shoulder, Austons hands having reached for anything he could grab, meaning he ended up chest to chest with Marns, one hand fisted in his soiled sweatshirt, the other pressing right up against the side of his chest.
“Shit.” He whispers, mentally berating himself for not paying attention. And adding to his current run for the shitty boyfriend award, Mitch just watched him run over to the passenger side and then stand there not helping at all while Mitchy tried to get out of the truck that even on a good day he can’t disembark without stumbling.
“Shit, shit Marns, I- hey can you stand?” He shrugs his shoulder to jolt Mitchy’s head a bit, and it seems to get him back to reality for a bit. Mitch gets his feet under him, leaning into Austons side, while he shuts the door and locks the car. Once they’re both situated comfortably enough they walk, and suddenly he find himself staring in dread at the stairs.
“Elevators right there Aus.” Mitch mumbles. He looks down to see a small smile on his face, and it loosens something in his chest.
Not by much though. Mitch is looking very much like he needs to sit down, or he’s gonna fall down, so Auston slams a hand on the button and holds onto Marns with white knuckles when the box lifts them to the right floor.
They stumble down the hall together, and Matty curses himself as he fumbles with the keys. Mitchy is sagging into his side, groaning softly when Auston doesn’t get the right key. Again. By the time he gets the door open, he’s gotta keep one hand fisted in the front of Marns’ shirt and the other gripping the waist of his jeans just to keep them both upright.
“Stay awake Mitchy, just a little bit farther.” He says hurriedly, struggling to take the weight and move them into the apartment.
“M awake Matt’s,” His boyfriend mumbles. “Just need to... sit ‘own.”
He kicks the door shut behind him before realizing the keys are still in it. Resisting the urge to stare at the ceiling and start screaming, he basically drags Mitch straight to the couch, and does his best to gently get him sitting down. Judging by the expression on Mitchy’s face afterwards, he didn’t do the best job.
“Sorry, I’m sorry.” He apologizes, holding his hands out but not quite touching him. Mitchy just waves him off, and Auston goes into a flurry of activity, getting the keys and locking the door, texting Patty and Mo, and running about the bedroom. He knows Mitchy wants to crash, but he needs to clean him up, and then he doesn’t want to have to fumble around with anything afterwards.
Which turns out to be pretty smart, as it takes at least fifteen minutes for him to pry Mitch off of the couch, and then shuffle him into the bathroom.
He sits him down on the closed toilet seat, then slowly peels off his jacket, tossing it in the hamper in the bedroom before returning to start taking off his shoes.
Auston doesn’t look up at Mitch the entire time, and Mitch doesn’t say a word to him. The atmosphere in bathroom is horribly tense. It’s so quiet, he can hear is the rubbing of fabric on skin as he takes off the shoes and socks. Mitch’s breathing, interrupted only by a few small sniffles, is much louder than it should be.
It’s hell.
Finally, once he’s tossed the shoes and everything else into the bedroom, he straightens but doesn’t stand. On his knees in front of Mitch, they’re almost even eye to eye. He can see the blood and forming bruises in incredible clarity. It makes it hard to breath, how angry he is.
“Look at me.”
Mitchy doesn’t raise his head at all, and keeps staring at his knees while totally avoiding Auston.
“Mitchy please look at me.” He whispers, raising his hand up to Mitch’s face.
Mitch raises his eyes to look at Auston and he gently holds his face in his hands, thumbing away the tears there.
“I’m here. I’m right here Mitchy, and I love you so much.” He blinks, and the memory of Mitch getting hit- hitting the floor- not getting up- flashes fast and violent behind his eyes. All the air in his lungs leaves in a sharp whoosh and he leans forward to hug Mitch without a second thought.
Mitch makes a pained noise at first, so he loosens his hold a little. There was a reason why he didn’t even bother letting Mitch try and take off his shoes himself - he saw the guy land several hard kicks to Mitch’s ribs.
When his shirt starts getting wet, he adjusts his footing to get onto one knee, and rubs his hands up and down Marns back.
“I’m sorry Matty-“
“Shhh, shut up Mitch. It’s okay. I’m- it’s okay.” He swallows, closes his eyes for a second before opening them to look up at the ceiling. He’s angry, he’s so angry, but not at Mitch. Never at Mitch.
Mitch mumbles something into his shoulder that has Auston tensing. He stares at the ceiling, and counts to ten and tries to use every calming technique that he can to not start yelling.
“You’re mad.”
Finally he grits out “ Yes ”, the word sharp and biting into the air. It makes Marns pulls back, inhaling shakily. “Matts-“
“No.” He interrupts. “I’m not- I’m not mad at you. Do I wish you didn’t go after him? Yeah, maybe. But I’m not mad at you.” He thinks about Mitch’s tears for a few seconds, and then it clicks.
He really hates how the people around Mitch treated him while he was growing up.
“You’re not weak.”
Mitch’s eyes drop from his face to the ground again. “Aus-“
“You’re not .” He snaps. “You aren’t weak. I don’t ever want to see you hurt, okay? That’s why I didn’t want you to fight. Because even if you beat that guys ass - and you would’ve, had his buddy not cracks his knuckles on your temple - you’d still have gotten hurt either way.” Auston leans forward to press his lips to Mitch’s forehead. “I love you.” He mumbles into the skin. “I don’t want to see you hurt because of me.”
Mitch tenses under his hands, and he pulls back to see his Mitch - his brave, courageous, protective Mitch - flashing in his eyes, replacing the shock and hurt that’s been there. “Isn’t your fault that asshole doesn’t know how to keep his mouth shut.” He snarls, and Auston manages a smile. Mitch flicks his gaze up to Matt’s face. “This isn’t any different from those times you got angry at what people said about me.”
Auston pauses to glance at Mitch, hands halfway through peeling open a few packets of gauze he found under his sink. “I didn’t punch those guys in the face. And they weren’t drunk.”
“You saying you wouldn’t have done what I did?”
“I’m saying I would’ve really, really wanted to, but that my motivation not to go to jail was slightly greater than my urge to pummel them into a coma. And I knew it would hurt you a lot more if I got hurt defending you, when you don’t need to be defended.”
He glances up to see Marns face turning red, and feels the sudden urge to smash his head into the nearest hard surface. Jesus he’s fucking this up.
“I didn’t mean to make you feel bad, Mitchy-“
“No, no it’s fine, I’m glad I got the shit beaten out of me defending my boyfriend to some drunk piece of shit only to be reminded that hey, guess what, he wouldn’t have done the same for me.” Mitch stands- or struggles to, anyway, he gets to his feet, but he’s standing on shaking legs, arms bracing himself on the sink.
“No, no hey, Mitchy that’s not what I- oh my god please sit down.” He jumps up to grab Mitch’s elbows, and guides him back to a sitting position. “I’m sorry, I sorry, that’s not what I meant.”
“Then what the fuck did you mean, Matty, because I really just want to sleep and-“
“I meant , that I understand how angry you were, and I understand why you did what you did, and I’m...proud of you for doing it.”
Mitchy just raises an eyebrow at him, but seems to accept the explanation. “You know I was on the floor most of the time right?” He replies, completely contradicting his previous argument, but Auston knows.
“Hush, I saw you biting that guys ankle.” He smiles to himself as he pops open the bottle of hydrogen peroxide.
“He was mean.” Mitch grumbles.
“Angry Mitchy Mouse is a viscous Mitchy Mouse.” He quips, (mostly quoting Stromer with that one, but whatever). He turns to face Mitch and squints a bit. “Tilt your head back I need the light.”
He spends the next hour slowly cleaning up Marns’ face, gently wiping away the dried blood with a warm face cloth and dabbing at the cuts if they open up again. Some are relatively small - a nick on his chin and a cut his jaw that he sticks some bandaids on, and the rest are bruises or scrapes minor enough not to need anything more than some antiseptic.
There is one particular cut that has him worried, a gash that was caused by the first punch, wide open and oozing blood down his face still. Auston ends up messily sticking a piece of gauze on the thing and using way to much tape to keep it down. He knows how to wrap Marn’s knuckles at least, since he’s had to do it the few times he’s used the punching bag.
Can’t be much different right?
Biting his lip, he carefully wraps Mitch’s hand, softly turning it and flexing his fingers to weave the gauze in and out. Some part of him feels a weird mixture of satisfaction and pride at the split knuckles, knowing Mitchy landed a punch that hard . It’s drowned by the sick feeling his stomach gets at the sight of his boyfriend bleeding.
Mitch is blinking slowly by the time he’s done, completely exhausted. Auston pokes around his ribs but only finds discoloration and tenderness, and decides that while the cut might need stitches and his ribs some x-rays, Mitch is gonna be fine for tonight.
“Okay.” He breathes, and starts shoving stuff back under the sink or in the trash. “Are you ready?” Mitch blinks up at him, more asleep than awake, and Auston can’t help but lean forward and kiss him softly. “Alright baby here we go.” Standing up, he tucks his arms under Marns’, and together they slowly shuffle their way out into the bedroom.
Mitchy makes a broken nose when he finally gets into bed, almost like he could sob at the relief of it. Considering their night, he probably would have if he wasn’t so exhausted. Auston shuts off the light in the bathroom and grabs his phone, which has no less than thirty messages between Patty and Mo. Which - he guess that’s fair, since all he did was tell them that Mitchy and him got in a bar fight and Mitchy was shaken up.
The problem is he’s too tired to try and explain it all to either of them. He knows he should, and he knows he needs to, but Mitch was out the second his head hit the pillow, and Auston wants nothing more than to lay down next to him. So instead of doing the responsible thing (because if he was really all about being an adult, he would’ve taken Mitchy to the hospital and talked to the police and a million other things) he texts Mo and Patty that he’s fine, they both are, and he’ll talk to them tomorrow.
He shuts off his phone, fully aware of the time that they’ll need to be awake in the morning but expecting to be up anyway. Mitch may be asleep now, but at some point the pain is going to beat out the exhaustion, and Aus is going to have to get some pain meds into him.
Crawling into bed, he snuggles around Mitchy, careful to drape his arm across his hips instead of his waist or chest. Mitch mumbles something, turning his head towards Auston’s and heaving a stuttering breath that sets his teeth on edge before his breathing evens out again.
He can’t fall asleep for a while, too caught up in the memory of what was barely a few hours ago. His skin crawls, the aftermath of adrenaline mixing with exhaustion and fear, keeping him wired. Staring at Mitch’s face, he can almost convince himself he’s watching the bruises get worse.
When he finally does fall asleep, it’s with strict instruction at himself to do so. He doesn’t expect to get a good night’s sleep - what with how pent up he is, and the fear that still is sitting sharp and rigid in his chest - his rest is going to be far from decent. But for now, he’s happy to get as close to Mitch as he can and breath in his scent, just to feel him all around him.
Safe. Alive. His .
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