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senditcolton · 2 years

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won’t you stay til the a.m.?

summary: New Year’s Eve. A time for celebration of another a fresh start, of new beginnings. But for you, it was just another reminder of all the time you felt like you wasted. And when you share a heart-to-heart with your childhood best friend Mitch, someone who you fell for years ago but never told, will the both of you let another moment pass you by? [written for Demi’s (@antoineroussel) Winter Fic Exchange. to Quinn (@fear-of-flyers) with love.]

playlist word count: 3.3k warnings: alcohol consumption, self-doubt, general fears about the passage of time.

The sky above you is clear, not even a whisper of a cloud in the darkness. You inhale the cold winter air, the sting of it entering your lungs a welcome feeling. Through the open window, you can hear the New Year’s Eve party drifting up the staircase of Mitch Marner’s childhood home; cheers, laughter, and music.

You know should be down there, celebrating with your family and your friends both old and new. Celebrating the ending of a year and the excitement of a new beginning. But that thought made a different chill sneak into your bones.

Another year come and gone. Another sign of time passing. Another painful reminder of how the world was moving on, whether you wanted it to or not.

Perhaps that was the reason you snuck upstairs with your jacket into Mitch’s old bedroom and took the screen out of the window before climbing onto the roof; your only company the stars.

You wish you could see more of them.

Another deep exhale escapes as you take another swig of your drink from the cliché red solo cup before turning your face back towards the sky. You are so lost in thought that you barely notice the sounds of someone else behind you until a gentle curse breaks the winter silence. It is only then does your attention turn towards the open window to see Mitch climbing through the frame, a champagne bottle in one hand and the other rubbing the back of his head.

“Having trouble there Mitchy?” you tease, the nickname rolling off your tongue with ease.

“I’m getting too old for this,” comes his reply as he sneaks across the shingles before lowering himself next to you with a groan.

“Don’t say that. You’re only 25.”

“Exactly. That’s ancient, depending on who you ask.”

A dry chuckle escapes you. Wasn’t that the truth? You weren’t elderly by any means but still… Time has a funny way of fucking you over.

You take another sip from your cup before extending it out towards Mitch. He reads your silent request and fills the cup before taking a drink of his own from the bottle.

The two of you sit there in the quiet before you finally speak.

“How’d you know I was out here?”

“Intuition,” he replies and you turn to look at him, an eyebrow raised in question.

“Pretty big word for a man who can’t say ‘encyclopedia’.”

“Call it a new year’s resolution,” he jokes and you can’t stop the genuine laugh that falls from you, recognizing that teasing tone laced through his words. “Nah, I just knew you’d be out here because it was our spot. Back when we were kids.”

You smile at the memories, a part of you happy to know that they still existed in his mind after all these years. The two of you hiding up here when you didn’t want to go home, or whenever Mitch’s older brother Chris was being annoying, or just when the two of you wanted to be alone.

“It’s still a good place to be alone,” you muse aloud, eyes returning to the stars. Mitch is quiet besides you but you can feel his gaze trained on your form.

“Do you want to be alone?” he asks, his gentle voice pulling your attention back to him. Even in the darkness, you can see his baby blue eyes reflecting the moonlight and your breath catches in your throat at the sight.

It was beyond cliché, falling for him. But as the two of you grew, so did your feelings. You never told him, believing that it was just an innocent childhood crush that would fade with time. When he got drafted, you thought the new distance between the two of you would prove your assumption true. But even with his hectic NHL schedule, he still managed to visit frequently and every time you saw him again, those feelings came back twice as strong. But you still made no attempt to become anything more than friends, scared of ruining what you had with him already.

However, there were moments: moments in your shared past and moments like these – when he looked at you like you were made of starlight – that made you think that maybe, just maybe, he might feel the same.

“You can stay,” you whisper, his eyes still connected to yours. “Besides,” you say, turning away, “this was our spot. Seems pretty rude to kick you out of our spot, especially since it’s on the roof of your house.”

“Well, you were the one to figure out how to take the screen out of the window. So, I guess it’s technically your spot since you discovered it,” he rebuts.

“It was your idea though.”

“It was just a stupid suggestion,” he says and the self-deprecating edge to his voice catches you off-guard, demanding your attention once more. Mitch is now leaning back on one hand, taking another hearty drink from the bottle of champagne.

“It was the best suggestion,” you say softly, your own voice pulling his eyes back to you. The two of you appraise each other for a moment before that loveable grin appears on his face.

“So we’ll just call it even?”

“Sounds good to me.”

The silence falls between the two of you once more, a comfortable silence as you both sip the chilled champagne. Your eyes have turned back towards the sky, assessing the dim twinkle of the few stars above you, tracing the shapes of the constellations that you could make out.

“What are you doing out here?” Mitch asks, his voice once again echoing through the night.

Your initial reply is a shrug, accompanied by another gulp of alcohol as your eyes stay fixed on the horizon. Mitch doesn’t press you for information, content to let you sit. You knew that he would wait for you to talk. Or, even if you never did, he would still sit beside you to keep you company.

That was one of the things you loved about him.

“What are you doing up here?” you flip the question back to him. “Shouldn’t you be downstairs? It’s your party after all. I thought you would be hanging out on the couch with your friends.”

“Eh, they can survive without me,” comes his noncommittal reply. “Besides, you weren’t there, so...”

His voice trails off and you can’t stop that small yet persistent flame of hope in your chest from leaping at the lingering unsaid statement. You force yourself to keep your gaze forward, to keep your voice as neutral as possible.

“So?”

“So,” Mitch pauses and out of the corner of your eye, you see him raise the bottle to his lips before he lightly rolls his shoulders and darts his eyes back towards you. “You still haven’t told me what you’re doing out here.”

“Trying to stop time,” you answer, the words out of your mouth before you could really think them over. There is a slight tilt of Mitch’s head as he analyzes your words, a brief moment of quiet contemplation until he speaks again.

“How are you going to do that?”

“Unsuccessfully,” you reply, the scathing edge to your voice as sharp as the winter chill. The red cup lifts to your lips as you down the remaining liquid.

“Why do you want time to stop?” Mitch questions, his voice gentle in response to your clear frustration.

The answer doesn’t come freely at first. Instead, you repeat the earlier motion of wordlessly holding out your empty cup towards him. He pours more of the sparkling champagne without hesitation and you take another long drink, taking the moment to gather your thoughts.

“Because I feel like I’m running out of it,” you murmur, eyes now sinking down towards your lap, as your fingers play with the plastic edge of your cup. “I know it’s stupid for me to feel that way. I’m young – I have plenty of time. But still, I feel like I’m falling behind. And time isn’t waiting for me to catch up.”

Another drink of champagne, another heavy sigh.

“I don’t know, maybe it’s the night: New Year’s Eve. An entire holiday devoted to the fact that another year has come and gone. Or maybe it’s this party.”

“Am I really that bad of a host?” Mitch chirps and you know he is trying to inject some of that light-hearted energy into the conversation. Your head turns to him, a smile on your face as you knock your shoulder against him in jest.

“You know that’s not what I meant,” the words escaping in an airy laugh and the smile stays on your lips when you hear Mitch’s quiet chuckle. “I mean, everyone downstairs is here to celebrate what’s next for them. And when the morning comes, they will all disappear back to their lives in cities far away from here with excitement for the future. Yet here I am, in the same place as before with nothing planned.”

The silence comes again, settling over the two of you like the blanket of untouched fallen snow in the yard beneath your perch.

“I get it,” Mitch says, his voice once again being the first to shatter the nighttime quiet. It was your turn to look over towards him, eyebrows furrowed in question.

“You got out though.”

“Yeah, I guess I did.”

You can hear the resignation in his voice, your eyes following the path of the champagne bottle as he raises it to his lips, taking another large drink.

“But?” you ask, your voice a gentle prodding.

“But what?”

“Nothing,” you spit out, tearing your gaze away from him. “It just sounded like there was more to that sentence.”

The silence falls again between the two of you. But this time, it is sharp and brittle, like the thin ice that frosted the puddles that formed in your backyard every spring. You don’t want to look over to Mitch, half expecting to hear him crawling back into the house, leaving you alone in the winter night once more. But that isn’t what he does.

Instead, you feel the nudge of a shoulder against yours. You turn your attention back to him and are somewhat surprised to see the soft smile on his face.

“You think I would’ve learned that I can’t hide anything from you,” he murmurs, that smile still tugging at his lips and there it is again, that pang in your heart, the one that feels like you’re being called back down to earth after being lost in the atmosphere for too long.

Mitch continues to look at you and you can see the sadness that painted his features. You don’t know exactly what to say but your body thinks for you as you scoot closer to him until you can feel the warmth of his body seeping into your own.

“Tell me,” you whisper. Mitch sighs and you can’t stop the trill in your heart as his body leans closer to yours.

“I also feel like I’m running out of time,” he says. You stay silent, letting him get his thoughts in order, knowing that what he needs right now is a listening ear.

“You know how I said that 25 is ancient to some people?” he asks, looking to you and you nod your head in confirmation. “It really feels like that when it comes to hockey. I mean it honestly seems that once you’ve hit your late twenties, your done for. Or at the very least, you aren’t the player people focus on. And – I don’t know – maybe it’s the fact that most players do retire in their thirties and I’m slowly getting closer to that age. The end just feels like it’s creeping up on me.”

Mitch takes another pause, turning his own face towards the sky.

“I sometimes feel like I’m losing people’s attention. And I know that maybe sounds selfish – “

“It’s not.”

“But I want to know people care about me as a player. But if I’m not good enough for them, why would they still want me?”

“Mitch,” you speak, your words sounding like a plea. “You just broke a franchise record; you are still one of the names people associate with the current Toronto Maple Leafs. People know who you are, Mitchy,” you try to encourage him. “People love you.”

“Until I disappoint them,” he mutters and you knew exactly where that anger that tinged his words came from; the cascading criticism that fell during last year’s playoffs.

Mitch’s hand raises, ready to take another drink, content to let the alcohol dull the edges of his emotions. You once again move without thinking, your hand flying out and stopping the bottle before it reaches his lips. Mitch looks over to you, the surprise in his eyes.

“Then don’t listen to them,” you say, your voice now taking on a harsher tone. “Especially those people who act like you’re a penny that they can discard when you no longer shine. You have people who do, and will, love you. People who will always be proud of you and support you, no matter what you do. Remember that.”

Mitch is staring at you again, those pale blue eyes sinking into you, pulling you in, as if he created his own gravity that you were helplessly caught in.

“You have always been a star.”

Neither of your move, your eyes still locked together as you sit with your thighs pressed against each other. It isn’t until you see a grin tug at the corner of Mitch’s lips that you relax.

“So you think belong up there?” he asks with a small nod of his head, gesturing to the sky above. A smile appears on your own face before you lay back, your spine connecting with the shingles, gaze turned upwards once more.

“Wouldn’t it be easier? Being a star?” you muse. “A million miles away from everything, having no other purpose but to shine, to burn bright and beautiful.”

Mitch gently takes your cup from you and out of the corner of your eye, you glimpse him stretching out to place it and the almost empty champagne bottle on the windowsill before copying your movements, coming to recline next to you on the rooftop.

“It would be nice,” Mitch acknowledges, his own eyes trained to the few glimmers of light dotting the ink-black midnight. “I wish we could see more of them,” he hums and you can’t stop your head from turning towards him, his own words echoing the exact thought that crossed through your mind earlier that very night.

Your eyes stay locked to him, his profile dimly illuminated by the streetlights below, the gentle rise and fall of his chest. It is a moment before you turn your gaze to the sky again, another sigh falling from your own lips.

The two of you rest there in silence, eyes trained on the stars, before a memory tugs at the corners of your mind.

“Do you remember when we used to lay on the trampoline in your backyard and stare up at the sky?”

“And you would point out constellations to me?”

Another gentle smile pulls at your lips as you recall those moments; moments that were so similar yet so different to the one that you currently found yourself in.

“I wish we could go back to then, when we young and everything was simple. Before we knew what we know now. But we just can’t.”

“No reason we can’t pretend for a little while though,” Mitch replies and a small jolt rushes through you when you feel Mitch’s knuckles knock against your own, his skin impossibly warm. “What do you see?”

You raise your left hand towards the sky, the action inadvertently turning your body towards Mitch, nestling deeper into his side.

“Right there is Orion. He’s always pretty easy to spot because of his belt: those three stars lined up next to each other.” Your finger traces the invisible path of the stars, following the shape of Orion’s arm.

“Above Orion’s shield is Taurus – your zodiac sign,” you say, nudging Mitch gently. “The way you can spot that constellation is to look for the small cluster of stars that form the base of the V shape that makes up Taurus.” You keep your pointer finger trained upwards, backtracking to Orion and over the constellations raised arm.”

“To the left of Orion is Gemini. Their feet are first and if you continue to look that way, you’ll eventually see Castor and Pollux. Those are the heads of the twins. Castor is the brighter of the two.”

“Well, that’s mean to say,” Mitch interrupts. “Who’s to say Potluck isn’t smarter than his brother?”

The laughter that erupts from your chest is the first authentic laugh you’ve uttered since the night began; one that wasn’t laced with sarcasm or depreciation, nor was it used to hide your sadness and fear. This was the laughter that only Mitch could pull so easily from you.

“No, the star is brighter, like visually. And it’s Pollux not Potluck. You aren’t paying attention at all,” you say, glancing over at him to tease him further but feel the laughter catch in your throat.

Because those blue eyes are once again staring into the depths of you. Mitch is looking at you with such infinite tenderness, like you were the one that hung every star you named in the sky.

“Then it’s just like old times,” he whispers and it takes a minute for your mind to comprehend the words he’s just spoken.

“What do you mean?” you ask, your voice quiet as if you were afraid that if you spoke any louder you would awaken in from this impossible dream.

“Because whenever you talked about the stars, I always found myself looking at you.”

“Why?”

In the dim light you can see Mitch’s eyes take in your bewildered expression, a look that remains on your features even as that sweet smile appears on his lips.

“For someone who can see everything so clearly, it’s amazing how hard it is for you to realize what’s right in front of you,” he whispers and your breath catches again when you feel his hand graze against yours again before he continues to move, fingers lacing in between yours.

“Haven’t you heard me calling to you?” he asks, his free hand reaching out to rest against your jawline, thumb brushing over your cheek. “I’ve been calling out to you from the start.”

“But…” you start to say, the disbelief of this moment still running through your mind. “I’m just me.”

There is another small pause as you continue to stare into Mitch’s blue eyes, the sincerity of his gaze never faltering even against your doubt.

“That’s the most perfect thing about you.”

His words cause that ache to echo through your chest again, that inexplicable feeling that always appeared when you were around him. The desperate need to be close to him, to be next to him. And now, you think you understood what it was.

Not infatuation, not some fleeting feeling that would eventually burn out, just like every single pinprick of light above you. It was so much more.

The two of you move towards each other, hands still intertwined, guided by the pull in your chest, the pull of him. It was gravity, powerful and inescapable and this time, you don’t fight against it.

And when your lips meet his, the feeling settles. Because for the first time in a long you, you felt like you were exactly where you were meant to be.