My name is Aaron and my obsession with Check Please over ran my main blog so I made a side one! Likes and Follows come from my main blog: Aaronsnailboy
Jack opened the window and leaned out to see what -- who -- made the thumping noise against the wall.
Bittle was bundled into the comforter from his bed, blond curls covered by a toque, staring off into the night sky.
Jack could see little puffs of vapor in the light from the streetlamp when Bittle exhaled.
Jack stood for a moment, watching Bittle, maybe unconsciously counting his breaths. They were slow and regular … almost too slow and regular for someone who didn’t look especially relaxed, the way he was all huddled together.
But Bittle didn’t seem to be in any actual distress or danger, and if he wanted to spend some time alone with his thoughts, who was Jack to intrude?
It wasn’t like Jack was any good with people.
Jack stepped back to close the window, but the motion caught Bittle’s eye.
“Jack?” he said, his head popping out of the mound of blanket like a periscope. “Why are you awake?”
“I could be asking you the same thing,” Jack said. “I was working on my thesis, and I heard noise out here.”
Bittle let his head fall back against the wall -- there was that thumping sound -- and said, “Sorry.”
Bittle huffed a laugh.
“That’s probably your line too,” he said. “You’re the over-polite Canadian.”
“What?” Jack said, emerging from the hoodie he was pulling over his head.
“Never mind,” Bittle said. “Go back to sleep, Jack.”
“I wasn’t sleeping.”
“Then get back to work,” Bittle said.
“I need a break,” Jack said, clambering over the windowsill and out onto the reading room.
“Jack, I mean it,” Bittle said. “You’ll catch your death out here.”
“I doubt it,” Jack said, settling against the wall, shoulder to shoulder with Bittle. “Want to tell me about it?”
“Just feeling like I’m alone in the universe,” Bittle said. “I guess it’s easy to feel that way when you look up at the stars in the middle of the night and there’s no one around. Insignificant, I guess. Like a speck of dust.”
“Bittle, you’re not —“
“Hush,” Bittle said. “You’re making it difficult for me to wallow in my insignificance.”
“Does it make you feel better?” Jack said.
“The wallowing?”
“The insignificance,” Jack said. “Sometimes when I get anxious, it helps to think that I’m not so important, so it’s okay if I don’t do everything the way people expect.”
“People?” Bitte asked.
“”Yeah,” Jack said. “Or, you know, me. It’s like Humphrey Bogart says at the end of Casablanca, about the problems of three little people not amounting to a hill of beans in this world.”
“Casblanca? That’s not a documentary, is it?” Bittle said. “You mean you watched a regular movie?”
“It’s a classic,” Jack said. “But we weren’t talking about me. Does it make you feel better?”
Bittle shrugged.
“A little, I guess. Lonely, too, though.”
“You’re not alone,” Jack said. “We’ve got your back. All of us.”
“I know,” Bittle said. “Y’all have been great. But when I was home for break, I felt like I was a lying to my mother the whole time.”
“Yeah?” Jack said.
Bittle must have noticed Jack shiver a just a little, because he sat up, loosened his blankets and offered and end to Jack to wrap around his shoulders. He pulled it tight, shifting so he was right next to Bittle.
“Y’all know I’m not out at home, right?” Bittle said.
Jack nodded.
“That never felt dishonest before,” Bittle said. “It was just … why should I say anything, not if it was going to hurt them, especially if there’s nothing really to tell anyway? It’s not like I’m dating anyone or anything.”
“It’s up to you to decide when you want to come out to anyone,” Jack said. “At least it should be.”
Not that it had been for Jack with his parents, but an almost fatal overdose had dragged a lot of things into the open,
“I know that,” Bittle said. “And I guess, until I was here, and I could be open with people about being, you know, gay, I didn’t really understand how much of myself I was hiding.”
“I get it,” Jack said.
“Do you?”
Jack shrugged. “Now that you know what it’s like to be out, it’s hard to be back in the closet.”
“It’s that, but …” Bittle considered. “I used to say my mama was my best friend. But can I say that anymore, if there’s this piece of me that she doesn’t know about, and everyone here does? But she still thinks she’s my best friend. And I want her to be, but if I told her, I don’t know if she would still feel the same way.”
“That … that kind of sucks,” Jack said. “That you have to worry about that. But she might surprise you. I didn’t know how parents would be after my overdose, and I thought I ruined everything, but it got better.”
“But you can’t say my folks will be the same,” Bittle said. “You don’t know that.”
“No,” Jack acknowledged. “But I do know that they would be crazy not to love you and value you the way you are.”
Bittle snorted.
“Charmer. Who are you and what have you done with Jack Zimmermann?”
“I --”
“Hush,” Bittle said. “It’s sweet of you to try to make me feel better. And you did help. I think I’m gonna head in and go to bed.”
*
Bitty rolled over onto an empty half of the bed.
Jack wasn’t there. Bathroom, maybe?
As Bitty opened his eyes all the way, he saw the door to the ensuite was open. But so was the sliding door to the balcony.
He wrapped the duvet around his shoulders, pulling it from the bed as he headed toward the balcony.
Jack was there on the lounge chair, looking at the lights of Providence.
“Budge up,” Bitty said, forcing Jack to move back as he settled between Jack’s legs and leaned back against Jack’s chest.
Jack’s arms wrapped around Bitty’s waist and pulled him close.
“Why are you awake?” Bitty asked.
“Thinking,” Jack said.
“I figured that much out, sweet pea. About what?”
“Was it worth it?” Jack asked.
Bitty turned to give Jack an inquiring look.
“When we kissed in the ice,” Jack said. “It was a hell of a way to come out.”
Bitty sucked in a breath and blew it out.
“Are you worried about next season?” he asked. Because there was no doubt Jack would have an even bigger target on his back.
“What?” Jack said. “No. I mean, I know there’ll be some rough games, but the team’s got my back. No, I mean with your parents. Maybe I shouldn’t have kissed you like that. Given you a little more time to figure out how to tell them.”
“It’s okay,” Bitty said. “I didn’t figure it out in my first 21 years. Not sure when I could have come up with the words.”
“But it’s been tough,” Jack said. “I know it has. You don’t stay on the phone for hours with your mom anymore, and you’ve barely talked to your dad.”
“They’re working on it,” Bitty said. “They’re trying. I’m not sure which is worse for them -- that I’m gay or that I didn’t tell them. But it’ll be okay.”
“You sure about that?”
“No,” Bitty said. “But I’m sure it wasn’t okay before. I burned a pie while I was talking to Mama, Jack. I knew I had to tell them, and I couldn’t figure out how. Now they know. It was like ripping the Band-Aid off.”
“If you say so,” Jack said.
“I do,” Bitty said. “And even if it doesn’t all work out, it’s not your fault. I told you to kiss me. I should be apologizing to you for making your life harder.”
Lardo knew first. She just did. She knew before they did. She knew Jack too well not to notice the way he looked at Bitty 24/7. Shitty may have noticed too, if he wasn’t drowning on Harvard applications. And dear god she wanted to lock those two in a room to make them talk about their feelings sometimes, but then she reminded herself: they will do it at their own pace.
Once they came back from the summer break it was even more obvious. Bitty never letting go of his phone, casually dropping Falconers knowledge, the endless Skype calls she could hear muffled through the wall. She was waiting for Bitty to tell her to ask for deets, but she reminded herself: they will do it at their own pace.
And then there was Shitty at the Kegster and she had to step in before he fucked up big time. And then she had to hear him rant for an hour about Jack not trusting him anymore. She tried to drop gender-neutral things that when Jack was ready to tell him about the person he was seeing: he would do it at his own pace.
Lardo got a call at 3 am on a Tuesday night from a very stressed out and very sleep deprived Shitty. He was angry-watching commentators go on and on about Jack and Kent’s past when he’d spotted the heart eyes and he had seen them before and that was the way he looked at Bitty and Bitty had always been in love with Jack and now Jack was in a relationship and “omg lards I was a fucking heteronormative asshole”. And she has to calm him down and she says she already knew and she reminds him: they will tell them at their own pace.
Holster and Ransom find out, as they do so many things, together. It’s very much an accident. They are talking about their friends and getting incredibly drunk on a saturday night and suddenly Ransom starts going off about how Jack keeps leading Bitty on. And “yeah that’s like super mean” and “he keeps coming by and hanging all this time with him” and “he just goes up to his room like whatever” and “they are skyping all the time” and- realization hits them both and they go silent. “Shit. You don’t think-” “Oh my god!” Of course their first reaction is to ask Bitty, but he’s luckily not in the house and Lardo intercepts them as they tripping down the stairs and sits them down and reminds them: they will tell us at their own pace.
So they wait and it is unnerving. They turn the blind eye every time Bitty disappears for a weekend to visit the Falconers with some lame excuse. They turn the blind eye at the long Skype conversations and Jack coming to visit and spending too much time in Bitty’s room… but they can’t turn the blind eye to the stress Bitty is under. He’s breaking right in front of them and they have to tell themselves: he will tell us at his own pace.
Waiting for Bitty and Jack to be ready and comfortable to tell them is getting to them. They are counting the days. They can’t just watch and not help anymore. Lardo tells them to relax, she’s willing to bet good money on them not waiting until Winter Break to tell them. Shits bets it’s going to be on a weekend when Jack comes to visit. Holster thinks they will wait until spring. Ransom says until the hockey season is over. It helps them wait. They will tell us at their own pace.
And then Bitty is suffering on Jack’s behalf after a game and Lardo can’t properly cheer him up because how much can she say but okay he will tell us at his own pace.
And then Bitty is not sleeping and Holster has to remind himself he will tell us at his own pace.
And then Bitty is exhausted and stressed and Ransom, god help him, tries to drop hints that it’s okay if he wants to tell them but god dammit he will tell us at his own pace.
And then Bitty drops a pie and Shitty gets elbowed on the ribs by Lardo and wants to swallow his own fucking shoe and go upstairs and lengthily apologize to Bitty but fucking he will tell them at his own pace.
And when the brunch invitation comes and Shitty sees Jack’s car parked outside and he wants to scream fucking finally but he keeps it cool and keeps walking on his way to get coffee and Ransom and Holster and Lardo keep making stupid brunch small talk to distract Ransom who almost blurts out the thing twice and they get there and the two stupidly in love love birds look so happy and thank goodness they waited because they look so happy and relieved to tell them…
And then comes money collecting time because if they let Jack and Bitty know how worried about them they’ve been they might feel bad but hey at least now we can finally talk about it. And Shitty starts reciting this lengthy apology he’s been working on for months but Jack shuts him up with a quiet hug and Shitty cries and Ransom and Holster ask Bitty for deets to make him blush and squirm and Lardo just smiles, because Lardo knew, they would do it at their own pace.
oh man. we know shitty has a terrible (or, more likely, nonexistent) relationship with his dad, so like………bad bob really stepping into the role of surrogate dad for shitty. shitty going to the zimmermanns’ house for canadian thanksgiving. bad bob being the first person shitty called after he found out he got into harvard and told the team. bad bob casually calling shitty “son” and shitty cries a little about it later. bad bob being the one shitty takes photos with at graduation, the one who texts him when he gets to harvard asking if he’s settled in all right. yeah.
ok but also alicia and bob always wanted more kids but alicia’s pregnancy had its complications and seeing what jack had to go through as a baby they decided to not put another kid through that again and so they sadly put that dream to rest. so when shitty comes into their sons lives and is there for him and makes their son open up and be happy they already like the kid. however when bob and shitty actually meet in person and shitty asks bob for advice and doesnt treat bob as “bad bob” but more like a father they practically fall in lov with him and shitty becomes the second son they never had but always wanted
annaxmalina
gummygunk
jacobvanloon
vaporwave
