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Macklin Celebrini often liked to think of himself as a composed person. In fact, he had managed to make a career out of it. Of course he got angry at times, upset at poor gameplay: his own or others, it never really mattered all that much.
The point is, however, that his anger is often like a conduit— he can channel it into scoring a goal. Or some seriously intense power play. His anger is always momentary. Yes, it can be bright and audacious, but easily burnt out.
Despite his occasional mood swing, Mack likes to think that he is mature. That he can be composed, and often is whenever it’s truly needed.
Mack can keep a good game face on. He knows how to dull his words until they’re placid, to twist his cadence into something disinterested and wholly uncaring.
And up until this morning, Mack would have continued on being entirely confident in his game face, his composure.
If only something hadn’t happened.
Something that caused the smile to fall right off his face, while his eyes widened in legitimate confusion.
Something, alright.
Because Will showed up to practice with a bruise.
—
Hockey is a physical sport. Violence is so normalised that leaving a game without your body aching or having spit recrimination upon recrimination towards any opposing player seems, in an oddly profound way, to be an offence itself.
You get bruised easily in hockey. Great big, blooming bruises that come in shades of ocher and vivid splatters of colours.
Yellow. Green. Blue. Purple—
Purple.
The ribs are usually the most tender whenever hit. But your ankles and legs can take a good beating, too, and often even feel better for it. Suddenly, pain becomes an old friend.
This is to say that blocked shots, stick impacts, being boarded and having the breathe kicked out of you is wholly normal.
A hockey bruise is distinguishable, however. You can’t miss the telltale signs of one. The pigmentation, how the person afflicted usually shows it off.
Look, their body language screams, I played hard and my body can show it.
When you’re familiar with being hurt, the mind can ignore the pain and replace it with relief. Mack can’t remember a time when being hurt wasn’t an almost comforting, present factor of his life.
Which is why he’s confused when Will shows up to practice with a bruise and doesn’t make it’s presence known. Or when he cringes whilst tentatively putting on his under armour. There’s a near crazed look on his face. Mack can’t decipher it at first, then realises it’s the simple— almost childlike— disappointment at being hurt.
Like a kicked puppy who just wanted to play, and now will never play with the same enthusiasm again.
Mack doesn’t quite understand why his brain went to that specific comparison straight away.
Though mainly he doesn’t like how seamlessly it fits with what he’s seeing, either.
He doesn’t like it at all.
—
For the entire practice, Mack is distracted. Not so much that his gameplay is affected, but enough for him to feel off kilter.
The entire situation just seemed so stupid.
Because: why was he so focused on a bruise? It was such a normal injury. Everyone got bruises. It would be more strange for Will’s skin to have been blemish free. Nothing was amiss, and yet Mack couldn’t stop thinking about it.
He was sure of one thing, though. Will hadn’t wanted anyone to see. He’d purposefully angled his body away from prying eyes. And if he hadn’t wanted anyone to see, then it had to be something bad.
Asking him about it wouldn’t do any good. Will loved hearing about other people’s secrets, Mack’s especially, but never divulged his own.
He wouldn’t tell Mack if asked, nor would he willingly say anything either.
It wasn’t a hockey bruise. It wasn’t even a normal bruise. He was making himself small and obscuring the mark. But why? The behaviour was so abnormal.
Then, finally, Mack’s brain connects what he had seen with what his mind— deep down— already knew. It wasn’t a hockey bruise. He knew that. Will was hurt, he had been hurt, and he was hiding the hurt as though he deserved it.
The bruise was deep and fading. It was low on Will’s hip bone, wrapped around in an atypical angle. The sort of injury you get not from a brief force of some great magnitude but simple, consistent pressure with the intent of causing pain. Of leaving a mark.
Mack flubs a goal exercise and Will pushes in against his side, mutters a thrilled: ‘Better like next time, Celly!”
Will’s smile is wide and boyish filled with long, white teeth. He looks so innocent, so happy to be on the ice.
Someone hurt him on purpose, Mack suddenly thinks.
His throat constricts. He almost cries right then and there.
For the first time ever, Mack has to school his emotions around Will.
—
“You have a real stunner,” Mack says later on when Will is half naked and bending over to grab a shirt.
He’s not entirely comfortable with the words, but doesn’t know how else to phrase his concern. They’re hockey players, after all. They don’t do emotions.
The closest he and Will ever get towards intimacy is talking about their very acceptable fears. Becoming old and decrepit and no longer able to play so well.
Always a vulnerability that’s still intrinsically masculine.
They don’t talk about feelings, though, not really.
Certainly never in depth.
If they do, then it’s like this: skirting the edge of concern.
“Uh.” Will replies, surprised. He looks genuinely confused, too. “I do?”
Mack forces a smile onto his face. “The bruise.” He gestures at the general area, heartbeat loud in his ears.
There’s a moment of awkward silence. Will stares at Mack with absolutely nothing behind his eyes. No surprise. Nothing. Only then he looks down and flushes: a harsh purple is peeking out from the band of his boxers.
When they fix eye contact again, Will’s pupils are blown wide and there’s a flush high on his cheeks. He looks younger than ever.
The expression is heartbreaking, in some abstract way Mack doesn’t have the emotional maturity to stipulate. It’s the silence. Will has never been so silent before, not like this.
Will shakes his head— a slow side to side, right and left, before stopping dead centre— his fingers fumble at the band of his boxers. He finally manages to get a good grip, and clumsily pulls them up higher. The bruise was now hidden again. He winced while doing it, like even the pressure of a size large article of clothing was too much.
“Yeah, Mack.” He then began, voice hollow, producing an impish smile. “A real stunner alright. And you wanna know the best thing?”
The dismissal. The joking. The desperate clutch for humour.
Mack doesn’t get to reply. Mario drops his duffel bag beside them, talking about god knows what.
—
They practice and play games, score goals and miss opportunities, visit coffee shops, talk to the media and room together as normal.
Then they have a stretch back home, and Will has another bruise.
Fingerprints. On his right shoulder. All five of them splayed out. Exactly where somebody had evidently grabbed onto Will. Hard. And did not let go, or do so gently. Will wastes no time in throwing on a shirt afterwards. His skin still damp from the showers.
Mack holds his composure well, he does. Really. An honest effort. Yet his mind keeps replaying how it looked— the deepness of colour, the bloom against tan skin.
Until finally, he thinks: the size.
A man had done it— he hadn’t thought it was a girl, not truthfully, but now he knows for sure— some intrinsically mean person had hurt Will. They didn’t have a name. No face either. Mack didn’t have any conduit to direct his anger to this time. And Will wasn’t telling Mack, he wasn’t doing anything.
The bruises. Purple on the hip bone. Purple on the shoulder. He grows delirious, trying to parse the significance of those places. Trying and trying.
Hip bone. Shoulder. Waist. Near the neck. Will was hurt. Will was actively being hurt. He wasn’t telling Mack. Why was he not asking Mack for help?
In the end, Mack can only hold his composure to a certain extent.
Eventually he excuses himself to the nearest toilet and promptly throws up the contents of his stomach while lamenting, inanely, how this will mess up his macros for the day.
—
Later that night Mack was back in bed, waiting for a sleep that would not come.
His eyes refused to shut. They felt dry and heavy, but in spite of that he could not fall asleep.
Lying still didn’t usually bother him. Though now it did. Mack’s hands kept twitching at his sides as discomfort overtook him. Finally, he gave up and switched position. The bed was empty save for him, but at this angle he could pretend Will was behind him, closer to the door.
Every few seconds his mind formulated the same mantra, over and over again.
Will was being hurt. He’s not telling Mack. He’s hiding it from me. And if he isn’t even telling me, then surely, he isn’t telling anyone else. Will has decided to isolate this pain. But why?
Sometimes when you witness something you can’t make sense of, a specific part of the brain makes the decision to forget it. A protective mechanism. To keep things moving on.
But all it takes is for that memory to be cranked, the corners briefly thumbed at, and everything filters through.
He remembers the shapes and colours of the bruises in bursts of images. Like some fucked up stop motion film. Then sentences fall into his mind; trying to describe how Will looked, the things he reminded Mack of. These observations are dry and numb.
Then Mack does one final crank: he remembers the odd look of nothingness that had clouded over Will’s usually expressive face. And that’s it.
That’s it.
Mack can’t sit by and do nothing. His lack of action is pathetic. His Dada would already be so disappointed at him for this, for ignoring everything until so late a point.
God, he’s lying in bed while Will could be getting injured again.
And abruptly, Mack feels winded. He can’t breathe properly. No amount of oxygen is enough for the sudden ache he’s feeling, a growing tension right behind his left eyebrow. He presses the crook of his elbow tightly against his eyes. Desperately searching for concentration.
He misses the days before Will showed up with bruises in places that were all wrong.
When Will felt comfortable enough with his body to undress freely. When even the darkest of his fears were to do with hockey, his insecurity in the NHL.
Most of all when Mack could relate to every part of him, and not be so left in the dark.
—
“He’s so pretty,” Mack says in an obnoxious dreamy voice, staring at Will. Copying what some puck bunny had told her friend earlier, failing to whisper.
They’re at a bar, and doing what guys their age usually do: poke fun at each other.
“Knock it off.” Will says, laughing. His necklace glimmers against pale skin. A vein is visible.
Mack wonders what colours the fingerprints would be now. How faded they’ve become, whether it’s still so garish. Probably, they’re more or less gone at this point. Hopefully.
“You are pretty, though.” Mack mutters, surprising himself.
The fact of Will being pretty has always been exactly that— a fact. The guys joke about it. Perfect locker room ammunition for chirping.
But Will is pretty. Even more, he’s beautiful, Mack swallows and hopes the click of his throat isn’t audible.
Will is so objectively beautiful. He’s sweet. Not to mention earnest. Great on the ice, too, always managing to be exactly where Mack needs him.
Currently, Will is staring at him: face flushed a high red, embarrassed maybe. His mouth is open again, tongue pink and glistening. The shades are dizzying.
“I’m going to get drinks,” Mack declares awkwardly, while thinking: who hurt you?
Mack has never been one for emotional complexity, but he understands this fixation on Will’s small nose and plush lips isn’t normal. Not even for their specific brand of codependency.
The way he’s actively fighting the urge to cup Will’s face with both hands, to pull him closer and demand to know who else has been allowed to touch him, to hurt him outside of sport, is probably not an entirely heterosexual way of thinking either.
Yeah.
Mack is so fucked.
—
After that, Mack settles his composure and makes up his mind.
Then, it’s the little steps.
He starts buying Will more and more things. At first he chooses small stuff: a coffee, extra sugar. Maybe even a pastry when Will is looking especially lean. Way too fragile for a hockey player, in Mack’s eyes.
And every time, Will is surprised. He gets this pleased, shy expression working its way onto his face. Happy. Because of Mack.
Sometime during all those sleepless nights, Mack had decided on a plan. He knows it isn’t perfect. Although he’s managed to make it inconspicuous, and he’s pleased with every single part. Once that’s done, the confidence so familiar to him takes over.
Yes, he’s protective over Will. A recent development. He wants to buy him things and keep him close. To keep him away from the bad people of the world. The type of mean that had hurt him originally.
Next is this: trips. Drinks together. Raya deleted— that, he knows, gives a certain impression, but he needs zero distractions. Coffee shops. PS5. The cinema at dark.
Making Will break his diet occasionally, letting himself forget about carbs and protein intake, just to see that surprised and pleased expression again.
He keeps this going.
Everything is perfect. They’re practically inextricable from each other. Progress is being made, finally.
Until there’s another bruise. And this time—
This time, Mack loses his composure.
—
It’s strange, how sometimes you can hate a person purely because you love them.
The composure is gone. Vanished. Will has another bruise. Two of them on each hip bone. Twisted right around the soft and angular parts of him. The colours faded.
That’s the worst part, actually, how the bruises are clearly old.
How many trips had they’d done, nights spent with their sides pressed against each other, stupid jokes exchanged, whilst Will’s body wore that splash of dull fucking purple.
This is the incentive, Mack realises. This is the exact moment he gives up— he’s achingly tired, and so hurt, he feels fragile all of the sudden. His body fully twisted in knots. This is the incentive. The moment he says something.
Thankfully, they’re alone. Privacy is needed for this. He won’t find the guts to speak otherwise.
“What the fuck is that?” Mack asks. His cadence comes out strangled: lilting up towards the end, voice high pitched and earnest.
Will gets confused. Then looks down— the deja vu hits Mack like he’s been boarded, hard— seeing where his shirt had ridden up, exposing two near identical injuries. The colour briefly drains out of his face before a flush blooms upon his cheeks. Again. He’s embarrassed. Perhaps dreadfully so.
“Mack—” He begins, then stops. Unsure of what to say. Speechless.
“Tell me what it is. Tell me right now, Will.” Distantly, Mack knows he sounds practically hysterical. “I need to know.”
Even to him, the reaction seems dramatic. But this has caught him by surprise. There was no warning.
“You weren’t meant to see.” Will attempts weakly.
“What the fuck,” Mack says. And suddenly he has a conduit: Will. It’s terrible, he feels terrible. “What the fuck.” He intones dismally, breathing harder.
“It’s nothing,” Will replies, and Mack knows he’s lying.
Because ’It’s nothing’ is what you say when someone bumps into you by mistake. Not when— not when your skin is purple, and blue eyes panicked.
“You’re— Holy fuck.” He’s gasping, each word stilted and forced out. In this moment, he hates himself so much. “Smitty. You’re such an idiot.”
Will inhales sharply and turns away. His shoulders bunch forward in defeat. And still he doesn’t defend himself. He says nothing to correct Mack. Somehow that’s worse.
“Someones hurting you.” Mack pants. “Someone is leaving you with bruises. Fucking purple bruises. I don’t understand. Someones hurting you and, and you’re— letting them.”
The initial anger is fading away. Now, all he feels is regretful: the same sorry set of emotions that have followed him since that first realisation. The first time. He notices the ever so tightly set line of Will’s shoulders. His eyes are tired. Resigned, perhaps.
“Smitty,” he finally says, tired and frustrated, “I want to help you.” I love you, he does not tack on.
There’s silence. Broken by the sound of their breathing only. Then.
“Whatever you think this is, you’re probably wrong.”
“Tell me,” Mack pleads.
Will’s voice is wet when he speaks. “I— I deserve it. The things I want and like are different from what I should have. Mack, I just don’t want you to look at me any different.”
He continues. “It’s sex, okay? The bruises are from sex. They’re from a— a guy. And he’s safe, you know? He won’t tell the media, he’ll give me most of what I need. Maybe he is rough. Maybe I don’t like all of it, okay? I’m ashamed. If that’s what you want me to admit. Then yeah, sure. I hate myself for wanting it. And for letting him do that. But I deserve the mean things. I deserve them because of who I am.”
There it is. The truth. As close to it as possible. The explanation. Will having sex with a man. Thinking he deserved to be punished for it. When really, he never needed to be.
“You don’t deserve that.” Mack says, nearly whispering. God. “You deserve better.”
Will stares and stares, until his eyes cloud over and tears fall out.
—
The bruises stop from then onwards. Mack checks whenever he can. He tries to do so secretively, but knows it to be a useless effort.
Although the skin remains devoid of purple, and Will always seemed pleased at the fact Mack cares. His lack of judgement.
He had watched as Will blocked the guy: an older, closeted man who obviously had some major projection issues.
Afterwards Mack placed his hand beside Will’s. Their pinkies touched.
Maybe they both get to be innocent again with each other. All these opportunities have opened up.
—
It’s a Saturday night and Will is strewn against the couch, his feet pushed on Mack’s lap and dozing off as highlight reels play on the TV. His ankles are small and delicate for an athlete. Mack fingers at the bone.
There’s been no confession, no specific moment of change between them. But there has been change. Without a doubt. They can both feel it.
Within every glance, every word spoken and silence shared, is something more than friendship.
In Mack’s periphery, he sees Will bite his lip. The urge to thumb at it, to trace the shape hits him. And the amazing thing is that he can. They’re both allowed this simple pleasure. So he does.
When they do kiss it’s unlike anything he’s ever experienced. Will tastes of sugar and of home. The life they’ve shaped together. His lips soft and undeniably perfect.
Mack hopes that Will understands what he has come to know. Nobody has to be perfect, not really. They only have to live.
—
“How can people ever think you’re mature,” Will comments later on with his head pillowed against Mack’s chest, laughing at a terrible punchline.
Meanwhile, Mack has a hand on Will’s waist. He won’t press harder, he won’t hurt: he wants only to touch, to remember.
“It’s easy.” Mack says. He even grins. “I have great composure.”