Jack can hear humming from the kitchen. He smiles as he comes downstairs, dressed for a run, T-shirt and sweatpants. Must be Bittle. Kid's at it especially early this morning. Psyched for the game later, maybe, or just in one of his indomitable good moods. At least he isn't going full blast in the shower again.
Even with the shower singing, though, Jack's come to the conclusion that having Bittle in the Haus is a net positive. He brings something, a new flavor of sorts. Not that anything was missing, but even so. There's a kind of charge in the air when he's around, like he's always got a thousand ideas. It's exciting, even if it makes it a little harder to relax.
Jack sneaks carefully across the floorboards, hoping not to disturb him. He'll sneak out the door before Bittle's even noticed anyone's gone by. Knowing him, he's got his earbuds so deep in his head he can't hear anything, anyway. One step past the downstairs bathroom, two steps to the kitchen doorway.
And Jack stops.
It's a flash of skin that halts him at first. Bittle's shirt is too tight, and it rides up as he reaches up to grab a mixing bowl from a high cabinet. Jack sees the small of his back bared, then his waist as he turns slightly.
Just skin, nothing he hasn't seen before, but it feels like a illicit peek somehow, and Jack feels a flush rising in his cheeks. Stop looking, he tells himself. Go for your run.
He's just managing to tear himself away when Bittle cocks his hips hard and sings in a breathy gasp, "Why?"
God help him, but at that moment Jack is locked right back into staring. The angle of those hips. They're scandalous. Jack's not even sure how. They just are.
A moment later Bittle's easing back, mixing bowl in hand, and finding his way to the table that sits at the center of the kitchen. As he goes, he sways, singing to himself ("...this, this, this") and smiling like he's got some kind of a secret, and merde, Jack's still there, still watching.
But the twitches of Bittle's hips are hypnotizing, and Jack can't feel his feet anymore. All the blood's in his head, a dull throb of self-consciousness as he watches himself watch Bitty move and yells at himself to go running and still doesn't.
"Got me on my tip toes," Bittle sings, pulling spices and flour from various cabinets, arranging them on the table in a neat semicircle. He clicks the measuring spoons together like a castanet, and does that thing with his hips again. To one side they go, then the other, like a pendulum improbably stopping at the edges of its arc.
Jack needs to stop staring at Bittle's hips. He forces his gaze upwards, following the long lines of Bittle's arms as he reaches for an ingredient. Bittle's fingers move in tiny increments to pour and measure and level off and pour again, and Jack squints, trying not to miss a single motion.
"Away we'll go," Bittle sings, and Jack's gaze flies to his mouth, the upturned corners of his lips. The gentle flush in his cheeks. His features are so delicate, bright thin lines delineating brows and eyes and dimples. Abruptly, Jack pictures them in black and white, frozen in a photograph. The morning sun catching just so on his cheek. Time slows, and he watches dozens of moments go by that only a shutter could properly capture. Furtively, he looks up, actually considering running back upstairs to grab his camera.
Running. He's supposed to be running.
But Bittle is gliding across the kitchen floor, pulling a wooden spoon from a drawer, and singing "bye, bye, bye." He plants the spoon in his mixture and stirs, the muscles in his forearms taut as he cradles the bowl in one arm, mixes with the other. The sunlight glints across the web of tiny fine blond hairs on his arms. There's a freckle near his wrist that Jack's never noticed before. Jack lifts his fingers to touch the same spot on his own arm. Like he can touch Bittle indirectly that way.
Which is a strange thought. Not a helpful one. And it's not helpful, now, to wonder how else he would touch Bittle, if he got the chance. If, in some dream, he could come in without fearing the consequences. If he could grip those swinging hips. Run a thumb up the flat line of Bittle's stomach. Entangle their fingers. Cup his jaw, turn those lips toward his own.
"Hey," Bittle says, but he's just singing along to his music -- something Jack doesn't realize until after an answering "hey" has blurted out of his own mouth.
Bittle jumps and turns. His earbuds fall from his ears. Quickly, he grabs his phone and pauses his music; the tinny sound halts and leaves the kitchen quiet. A smile leaps to his face. "Good morning, Jack! I didn't even hear you come downstairs."
Jack squashes all those errant thoughts into a little box in the corner of his mind. They struggle mightily against being suppressed, but he sits on them. "I didn't want to wake anyone. Just going for a run."
"Good!" Bittle looks around, then stage-whispers, "I didn't wake you up, did I? I thought I'd surprise everyone with game-day pancakes."
"Nah." Jack stands there, looking for something to say, but that box of thoughts in his mind is making a damn racket. He doesn't trust himself not to say something about the way Bittle was dancing. Or the way he looks right now, pleasant and blinking and so goddamn enticing.
He steps back and takes a measured breath. "I'll just go run now."
"Have a good time! Come back hungry!" Bittle waves and puts in one of his earbuds again. He turns his attention back to mixing, singing a soft "whoa-oh-oh." And luckily, he doesn't see that Jack stands there another moment, staring, before he finds the strength to go.
(song is Tip Toes by Jayme Dee, which I never heard before today but love. Thank you @ericandjack for the song and the concept and for being amazing in general.)
