We just do stupid shit, right?

The thoughts are spinning, and spinning, and churning, and flying, and killing him and burying him, they’re burying him he needs to get out- needs to get out of his head- out before he dies- to get the thoughts out-

“Aus?” he says into the darkness.

“Hmh?” half asleep. Fuck, Mitch shouldn’t have said anything. Another thing to add to the list of stuff that makes him irredeemable. Can’t even let Auston sleep in peace.

“I don’t think I’m a very good person,” he says anyways, because it was too late already. Nothing he’s done has been particularly ‘good’. Not for himself, not for Auston, the team, his parents. Steph. He’s not delusional, not anymore at least. Mitch knows it’s not good, it’s all he can think of sometimes. But he just keeps doing it. What kind of person acts like that and doesn’t even care to stop it?

“Baby,” he sounds tired. Exasperated. He’s trying to be comforting anyways, and the word feels like a slit to the wrist, “what makes you say that?”

Mitch feels like he’s about to cry. “Nothing I do is fair, not to me or you, or anyone. And I don’t know how to stop it.”

Auston strokes his hair, once, “you’re still a good person. You’ve been through a lot and you’re trying your best,” he says. He doesn’t get it Mitch thinks.

He whispers “I think if that were true I wouldn’t be in your bed right now,” a cruel sort of laugh-sob threatening to break through his words.

Auston inhales deeply, and then the only response he gets is a kiss. Chaste, on the forehead, solid, and far too sweet for what Mitch is. A second kiss, on the lips this time, deep and oh so loving. Auston strokes Mitch’s hair again and pulls him in impossibly closer. “I don’t think you’re a bad person. Maybe not good either. I think you’re confused, and you’re scared, and I think I love you anyways. Get some rest, Mitchy,” he whispers into his hair.