Work Text:
Aftermath
There was nothing but silence waiting for them. He tried to think back—a few hours ago, he was leaning against the wall, slightly tipsy but not quite—through the haze he could make out piercing blue pools. Bittle couldn’t remember much, because he had been so entranced, by this conversation that, for once, had nothing to do about hockey, or drafts, or just, school.
And those eyes. The way when he blinked, the tips of his eyelashes brushed against high cheekbones. A smile that—
Well, he couldn’t remember what it looked like. Not when now, he was sitting outside Jack’s room, wondering whether he should knock or not. Not when now, he couldn’t even remember what Jack Zimmerman looked like when he smiled. Not when now, the only expression he could remember Jack Zimmerman’s face ever having was that lost, empty expression that he had when Parse had left his room.
Well—Bittle couldn’t remember anything except those blue pools. Anything to see… He stood up, raised his hand in a fist to knock.
There was nothing but silence. His hand shook. The sharp intakes of breath, the slight whimpers, the occasional thump, as if Jack was knocking against his wall (for an answer that would never come), had ceased long ago. Bittle felt a little ashamed for listening and not doing anything about it, but what was he to do? Go find Shitty? That may have been a good idea, on second thought. Try to talk to him? It felt intrusive.
Intrusive—wasn’t that exactly what he was doing right now? He was about to lower his hand when all of a sudden, the door opened.
Both Jack and Bittle stumbled backwards away from each other.
“I—I... I’m sorry, Jack, um… I just…” He lowered his hand and caught himself on the door across the hall, his door.
Jack looked… well, Jack looked like hell. As close to hell as Jack Zimmerman could look, anyways. The familiar blue was glassy and the surrounding whites were more pink-ish than red. Jaw clenched, eyebrows drawn.
Bittle half expected Jack to cut him and say something, anything, but he only looked away so that Bittle could only see his profile.
“I just… checking… checking practice?” Bittle squeaked, voice ridiculously high pitched and accented more than usual.
Jack still wouldn’t meet his eyes, feet turned slightly away from the door. “Six tomorrow.”
Letting out a shaky breath, Bittle stepped forward. “Jack, I. Hi. You know everyone here… we all lo—like you here. You mean so much to… us. Okay? Whatever Parse said… it…”
“Whatever Parse said is that it doesn’t matter.” Jack slammed the door.
Bittle stood in a few moments of shock. That was the first time since high school that a door was slammed in Bittle’s face. He was used to being shoved into lockers and locked in janitor closets, but somehow… somehow, this hurt more.
Automatically, he made his way to the kitchen, producing several pies that seemed to disappear as easily he produced them (“good hustle, Bitty!”… that was Shitty, who returned seconds later to look at him uneasily).
“Stress baking, Bitty?” This time it was Lardo, who moved past Shitty who hovered worriedly in the doorway.
“Gracious, of course not!” Bittle licked his lips, which tasted like flour, as his eyes darted around the room. He placed the third pie on the counter. No matter how much activity he could preoccupy himself with, he just couldn’t forget it. He just couldn’t forget the stony blue eyes, creased with laughter just a few hours before, and now, just a few moments ago, them not meeting his at all, closed behind unanswerable doors.
Out of the corner of his vision, he saw Shitty and Lardo exchange glances. “Right… so what is it?”
He wanted to tell them that it was… that it was… that it did not matter, according to Kent Parse and according to Jack Zimmerman. He wanted to say that there were pair of blue eyes, the color of a forgiving Georgian sky, or maybe the color of forget-me-nots, the kind that lovers tuck in each other’s hair in the movies. He wanted to say that there were a pair of blue eyes that stared out of the stop signs in the roads and the caution tape around a crime scene, but they were the kind that made him want to never stop and never be cautious and gosh darn it—be selfish once in a while. He wanted to say that there were a pair of eyes that were locked behind closed doors and—now had appeared next to Shitty and Lardo in the doorway.
He dropped the cup of flour he had been holding and it scattered like fresh snow across the floor.
“What’s wrong? What’s—,” At this point, Shitty noticed Jack behind him. He looked back to Bitty, back at Jack. Back at Bitty, back at Jack. “Ah.”
Lardo was already dragging him out of the kitchen. There was a slight commotion outside as they prevented Chowder from joining the scene as well (“I just want some pie!” “Do you want pie or do you want to keep your life?”).
“I’m just leaving,” Bittle said. He had meant for it to sound light and cheerful. Maybe salvage some type of friendship from what seemed to be broken and dying at the bottom of the cliff face. Instead, it came out cold and distant, even to his own ears, and despite berating himself to apologize, he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
He just wanted to be selfish about those eyes, gosh darn everything.
He hurried about cleaning the flour, and Jack joined after a few minutes of watching wordlessly.
“I just wanted… Well, when you were there, at my door.”
“Yes?” Bittle scooped the last remaining bits of flour into the trash before returning to one of the cooling pies, back facing Jack.
“I wasn’t in the right… I wasn’t in the right state of mind.”
“Okay.” Bittle took the pie and a fork and placed it on the table. Didn’t look at Jack. The Epikegster continued outside. Big parties… big parties were always so private… these moments, stowed away, in tiny kitchens. He remembered reading that from somewhere. “Well, I hope you are now.” But he was suddenly very angry.
Jack ignored his statement, hands shoved into pockets, head dropped at the perfect angle to catch the light in his eyelashes and create dark streaks of shadow across his cheekbones. “I…”
He could feel the heat rising, his ears burning. Now that the door seemed about to open, he was too scared, too cautious, too unselfish to want to hear more. “Jack, I’m. I’m going to go sleep now. I’m very tired and I can’t think.” All he could think of was that door closing again.
“No, listen to me, listen to me, Bitty.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Jack looked stricken. But Bitty had already left. Curled into his bed and wondering how he could ever get past that. Alcohol lingered on his tongue. Gosh darn everything, you selfish Southern boy, he chastised himself.
But all he could think of was the door closing. How he had sat there, for an hour, trying to answer Jack’s knocks, but knowing there was no comfort to be offered... from either end. How could there be comfort? What did Jack have to offer Bitty? What did Bitty have to offer Jack? And how, it didn’t matter. He may be good friends with Jack now, on much better terms than he was with him last year, but it didn’t matter. That door would always be tentatively locked, checked twice, against him. And those gosh darn slip ups and how he was never allowed to be selfish. Not one day of his entire life. Not when he was gay, and Jack Zimmerman was straight, and Bittle thought they were friends, but in the end—Jack Zimmerman had chosen Kent Parse, because who wanted a little, Southern, gay boy who flinched at physical contact?
The answer was that it didn’t matter, because it was no one. Not his coaches, not his dad, and certainly, not Jack Zimmerman.
Could he not be selfish? Maybe this would be the last night. He apologized to his mother, mouthing the words “I’m sorry” over and over again, wondering how he would explain how he got kicked off the team and the athletic scholarship just because he was hurt over not being able to comfort someone during the time they needed someone—anyone the most? How Bitty was incompetent, in everything physical and emotional.
Bittle couldn’t sleep.
***
He woke, if waking counts when you’re barely asleep to begin with. It was six fifteen.
Checking.
He highly doubted Jack would’ve still gone to the rink, but nonetheless, he straggled out the Haus with his gear. Maybe listening to Beyonce while skating circles alone would be helpful anyways. Anyways, it may be the last time he was able to skate there anyways.
When he got to Faber, he was surprised to see that someone was already circling the rink, smooth and calculated. Jack.
He was almost tempted to leave, but today was a new day. Slightly hungover, but nonetheless—not drunk. Definitely an improvement from yesterday. He definitely got more emotional when drunk, but he had not known the anger that could arise from it. By that small trigger—that gosh darn door. It was something an English or philosophy classroom would debate about in some kind of sappy novel or something (he could almost hear Shitty shouting his protests in his thoughts).
Bittle quickly laced his skates, embarrassed to have shown up so late—thirty minutes, and then stepped onto the ice. Jack nearly tripped when he saw Bittle, skidding shortly only a few feet away from him.
His face dusted pink, whether from skating or not, looked downward at Bitty’s skates. “Figure skates?”
“Sorry…,” Bittle fidgeted. “I didn’t think that you were actually going to come out to practice checking with me today.”
Jack’s knuckles whitened, then relaxed. Softly, he spoke. “I promised you.”
Bittle fidgeted some more, couldn’t stand Jack’s gaze, turned around to skate a lap before returning to him. “I’m sorry. I was… Jack, I was drunk and that’s no excuse. I was just upset about things and—and I know! I know you were having the worst time yesterday, heavens, a thousand million times worse than I could probably understand! Jack, I am so sorry. I was selfish.”
“What were you upset about?” Jack was unreadable. They were a few inches away.
“Well…,” Bittle stared down at the ice before returning his eyes to the blue eyes he couldn’t get out of his head yesterday. “As you said, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter, and that’s what upsets me. Because, no matter what I do, it won’t matter. Not to you, not to me, not to anyone. And I’m tired of having doors shut in my face and having to keep my door open—goodness, I hope this isn’t offending you—,” Jack shook his head. “But it just seems like, I want to be selfish sometimes. And I hate that… that I couldn’t comfort you… and that, I know this is selfish but—the fact that you didn’t need me to comfort you either.”
Jack kept shaking his head. “Bitty.” His eyes flickered across his face. “You deserve to be selfish.”
Everything was quiet. Jack was positively red now, but he continued.
“You… I mean, you… Eric Bittle. I mean, you’re the type of person who makes pies when you’re upset. Pies. That other people eat. You, Eric Bittle, are the least selfish person I could and will ever know. I think that you deserve to be selfish, every once in a while. And, I’m sorry about everything yesterday. Just sorry about everything. You comforted—you comfort me more than you can know.”
“Okay, Jack Zimmerman,” Bittle took a deep breath, stared up at him. “Okay. Can I ask you something then?”
He nodded, a short little bob.
“Can I be selfish right now?”
When Jack nodded, Bittle reached up to kiss him. It was if he had already known what kind of fate he had signed on to, because Jack was already halfway there. It was chaste, and it might’ve seemed like it didn’t matter, but everything mattered, and it wasn’t in a half-bad way.
It seemed ages before they parted again, breaths misting in front of them, ears red. Blue on blue.
“Mr. Zimmerman, I thought you were straight.”
“You learn new things every day… like the fact that Eric Bittle is a good kisser.”
There were a lot of questions left over, and the silence was still there—but it wasn’t unpleasant, and it was okay. The door opened, on that crisp day, and it seemed like any door could open. Or maybe, it had been open all along, and they had just never tried it.