Zimbits pining? Pre relationship idk
Pining is fun! Hope you enjoy!
It’s happening again. When it happened with Kenny, Jack didn’t know what was going on at first. They were both young, and Jack hadn’t had many crushes before (though, in hindsight, being thirteen and miserable in history class because his assigned seat was between the alarmingly pretty Sara and the scarily adorable Connor should have clued him in).
He didn’t know why he wanted to be near Kenny all the time. Kent, he had told himself fiercely, his name is Kent, but the nickname kept creeping into his thoughts, soft and fond whenever he thought about the other boy. Add to the fact that - he isn’t proud of this - Jack had literally jerked off to the memory of Kent’s hockey (it’s beautiful, he thinks, so fuck it) - and Jack really should have gotten it sooner.
Then Kent started…to react back. He sat next to Jack on the bus and let their knees knock together. He touched him, wrestling Jack for the last waffle and breakfast, brushing his hand on Jack’s shoulder as he walked behind him. Looking, so that when Jack looked, he finally realized Kenny was looking back at him.
Of course, that all came crashing down when Jack overdosed.
He’s doing better now. Objectively, he knows this. Scouts come to his games again. He still obsesses over his hockey stats, but the numbers don’t lie: he’s playing well. And Bad Bob is careful, more careful than he’s ever been before: “I want to be at your game, to support you, but I won’t come if it’s going to stress you out.”
Which is why - he doesn’t notice at first that it’s happening again.
If he had to summarize his reactions to freshman year Bittle, they would be annoyance. He’s incompetent, he’s going to make them lose, he’s going to pull them all down and drag Jack with him. It’s not until he complains to his father that he realizes. “I guess…he has problems with physicality?” Jack says, slowly, thinking through Bittle’s reactions out loud. “He’s small.” His father makes a thinking noise. Jack continues, “He’s a really good baker. He brought this pecan pie to our first practice of the season…”
And so his thoughts of Bittle become problem to be solved. He doesn’t expect the early morning sunlight in Faber shining on Bittle’s yellow hair. He doesn’t expect “Call me Bitty - everyone else does except you.”
“Itty Bitty,” Jack says, and scrubs his hand through Bittle’s hair. “So little,” he coos.
Bittle laughs and wrestles himself away from him. “Go to your room, Jack!”
It happens so gradually he isn’t aware of it. Bittle is a teammate, then he’s a friend, then they’re in the kitchen cooking together for their shared class.
Jack lifts the pie crust like it’s made of glass. “I’m going to fuck this up,” he tells Bittle.
“You aren’t,” Bittle says. “You dusted it with plenty of flour. Just pick it up.”
And Jack does. He fits the pie crust into the pie plate.
Bitty claps his floury hands together. “Well done!” And Jack thinks of not being at Samwell next year and feels a sharp stab of something a lot like grief.
When he signs with the Falconers, one of the first things he does is map the driving distance from Providence to Samwell. Forty five minutes in good traffic is doable. He doesn’t let himself think too much about why it needs to be a reasonable distance. The team, I want to keep in touch…but it’s not just the team.
When Bittle puts his arms around Jack, hiding his teary face in the shoulder of Jack’s graduation robe, Jack hugs him back a little harder than necessary. “I’m going to miss playing with you,” he says, and wonders why he feels that old sharp stab in the center of his chest. He doesn’t know for sure.
