Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Bittle. I need to see you after practice."

He freezes where he is, the world going slow around him. That is a loaded statement leading towards a dreaded conversation about a predictable subject matter. And he wants nothing more than to avoid it. As he struggles to shake off the effects of whatever fainting spell he’d just experienced, Bitty does what he does best: he makes a pie. In his head.

Why Can’t I Be Nudged Without Fainting On The Ice Pie ― wait, no, he could never call it that. Start over, Bits.

Going To Get Kicked Off The Team Pie. A chocolate crust for a touch of the bittersweet.

The talk goes by in a haze. Bitty knows what to expect. He knows what’s coming, and he isn’t surprised. But what he can’t do ― what he absolutely cannot do, no matter what ― is cry in front of his coaches. Over something other than a major loss, no less. That would be unforgivable. That is to say, Bitty would be unable to forgive himself. To keep the tears from forming, he works out recipes in his head.

Grab the darkest berries you know ― blackberries and blueberries, maybe a touch of passion fruit or plum ― and smash them into the crust. It’s free therapy, Mama always said. All your frustrations are no longer internalized. If you assign them to fruit, they can’t hurt you anymore.

“Okay,” is what he says, voice quiet and understanding.

There’s nothing more to say, so he gets up and leaves, the weight of the entire world pressing on his heart. Then, and only then, is he allowed to cry. Out of eyesight, out of hearing range, in the same spot he’d caught Jack on the phone with his father before one of their first games together. It was a spot for seclusion, and that’s what he needed before he entered the Haus again. Someplace quiet where he could cry in peace. And then he could get up and bake his feelings.

Once it’s done cooking, add a dusting of powdered sugar. You deserve something sweet.

Chapter Text

There is a problem with Jack Zimmermann.

Specifically, Eric Richard Bittle has a problem with Jack Laurent Zimmermann, and that problem is called constantly talking about leaving. Sure, Bitty knows that Jack’s going to leave. They all will, eventually. But, seriously? He has to talk about it while they're in the kitchen cooking together, the one place that Jack knows Bitty considers sacred?

Specifically, he has to talk about potentially joining teams across the country while cooking with Bitty? Really, he should have seen the pie coming. They both should have. It was common knowledge that Bitty cooked his feelings into pie, and if you caught him off-guard and surrounded by ingredients, what were you really expecting?

He doesn’t really intend to make the pie. It’s just something that happens on the side, with the leftover fruits and excess dough (Jack had tried to eyeball things the way Bitty did, which didn’t exactly work out as flawlessly as it did when Bits was the baker. When Jack’s back was turned, Eric had added more flour to the mixture so it was less watery. Which saved their pie, but meant they had extra crust ― just enough for a miniature one).

“So, of course, I do like the idea of the Falconers. They’re more local and I know I’ll get playing time, but I have a friend who’s telling me I should look more at the west coast teams. The Aces are giving me a decent offer, but I think that’s just because they know I’ll have a good dynamic going in…”

Bitty’s grabbing ingredients before he even knows it.

Fit what you can in the pie, so long as it’s red. Grab all the cranberries you have and intersperse them with cherries and raspberries.

“And what exactly are the factors going into these decisions, Mr. Zimmermann?” He feels like he’s conducting an interview, but Jack doesn’t have his Interview Voice on. It’s just Bitty asking about Jack. He’s allowed to ask, right?

Take a half cup raspberries, set on simmer with a quarter cup water in a saucepan until raspberries soften, drain and add cornstarch and more water until it turns into a sauce. Coat all the fruit in it. Add some sugar and just a pinch of salt to bring the flavors out and together.

Except, just as he asks, Jack runs a wet hand down his face, trying to get all the baking ingredients he hadn’t gotten in the pie off his face (Bitty still has no idea how he managed that. At most, he ends up with a bit of flour on his cheek. What was Jack doing, smearing it on his cheekbones?). There’s still a piece of sticky dough stuck to Jack’s cheek. Instinctively, Bitty licks his thumb and rubs at the spot until it’s gone, the same way his mother used to when he came home with dirt on his face. Normally, he’d never think anything of it, but he can feel the beginnings of Jack’s stubble brushing against his knuckles, and it’s Jack, so Bitty never really knows what’s too far.

“Um,” Bitty says, hand falling back to his side. They fall into a comfortable silence while Betsey preheats.

He looks down at the pie and realizes exactly what kind of pie it is. A Falling For You Pie.

Bitty looks up at Jack and hopes it isn’t obvious.

Chapter Text

Bitty has never seen Jack Zimmermann at an epikegster. Actually, scratch that. Bitty has never seen Jack Zimmermann at a party, period. And the first one he’s at, he’s talking to Bitty. Only Bitty. It’s all they do, all night.

It makes Bitty’s heart do weird fluttery things. But he knows Jack doesn’t have feelings for him ― he’s straight, at least as far as Bitty can tell. Well, actually, people thought Bitty was straight, too, for some weird reason… But, no, the NHL was rarely accepting of the LGBT community. Jack couldn’t be, and even if he was, he’d have to hide it.

Just then, Jack laughs at something Bitty said and casually (accidentally?) brushes the back of his hand against Bitty’s forearm. Eric Bittle is a professional when it comes to flirting, and that was a blatant sign of it as far as he could tell.

Boy With Sad Eyes Is Sending Me Mixed Signals Pie.

The thought pops into his head before he can stop it. Jack goes quiet for a moment, giving Bitty an opportunity to think about what exactly that pie would entail. He’s a little drunk, so his thoughts aren’t exactly matching up, but if there’s one thing he could do in his sleep, it’s make pies.

Vanilla custard ― whip it, but not so much that it becomes a mousse texture, let it set ― no, wait. Cinnamon spice custard. With vanilla? Maybe chocolate, a flavor you wouldn’t expect? Yes, marbled! Cinnamon spice custard, with chocolate marbling.

A familiar figure has approached, and Bitty supposes that’s why Jack’s gone quiet. He assumes it’s just another one of the people he sees everyday, but when he turns and his peripheral vision goes central, his mind stutters.

Kent Parson. Captain of the Las Vegas Aces. A hockey star in the NHL. Come to Samwell.

Bitty knew he was here; he’d gotten a selfie earlier and figured he’d left early. The way any normal guy would. But now he was here, giving Bitty his undivided attention ― well, actually, he was staring at Jack, which made a little more sense, and ―

“Didja miss me?”

And just like that, Bitty is excluded from the conversation. “Um, I’ll go check on- I mean, I think Shitty was saying something about tub juice, I’m gonna go get a refill…”

Jack barely even nods in his direction, completely focused on Kent. He doesn’t look particularly pleased, and Bitty wants no part of that. Instead, he sets off to find Shitty, just like he said he would. Shitty, who knew Jack better than anyone and would tell Bitty anything on a need-to-know basis. Mostly, he follows the trail of the most inebriated people backwards until he finds Shitty. On the way there, he makes a Kent Parson Is At Samwell Pie, but it ends up just being a good old fashioned apple crumble. Sweet, if not a little messy.

Shitty, always the reliable friend, explains Kent and Jack’s history to Bitty. The part you can’t Google.

“He’s a humble bro, you know? But the way Jack treated him… Man, it was brutal. Cold-fucking-hearted. I mean, I know and love Jack, he’s my best bro, but apparently so was Kent. Like, if I woke up one day and Jack started treating me like that, you can bet your sweet peach ass I would not be taking that shit. I’d be out that door before you could put together a to-go box of whatever that morning’s breakfast was.”

Bitty shivers. He wonders if he could make a pie out of that, but the only thing he thinks of when he thinks of Jack are sweet flavors. Never anything that would fit what Shitty was telling him. He pulls his phone out to look up a recipe he’d maybe forgotten about, or hadn’t tried before, something for this ―

“Bits.”

He looks up at Shitty, who is giving him a surprisingly hard and sober stare. “Don’t share a word I just said.”

“Oh, no, I wasn’t…” he tries, but Shitty’s right. The more Bitty drinks, the more likely he is to tweet something regrettable. “Actually, I’m gonna put this upstairs. Just in case.”

Shitty nods in approval, and Bitty’s excused from the conversation to start making his way towards the staircase. Except, when he finally pushes through the throng of people and manages to duck under the caution tape Ransom and Holster put up (to keep partygoers out), he hears voices. Familiar ones. Well, one of them’s familiar. And he kind of has to pass them to get to his room.

Now, if you were a small, drama-loving Southern boy who was hearing a conversation behind closed doors between an NHL legend in the making and the team captain who may or may not have your heart, what would you do?

So Bitty hesitates outside his door, pretending not to listen and telling himself he’ll unlock his door any minute now.

“I can pull strings for you! You don’t have to be here, you know. And if I talk to some people I know, play all the cards I’ve gotten over the years, you can get a fantastic deal. You can be a starter. It’ll be like old times.”

“I don’t want it to be like old times.”

That was a tone Bitty knew well. That was the same tone Jack had used when he’d Bitty he’d made a “lucky shot.” It was full of pure venom and something cold, and Bitty hated being on the receiving end of it. Whatever Kent Parson had done must’ve been bad.

Their conversation quickly turns into an argument with raised voices, and Bitty fumbles with his key. He’d be able to hear them even with his own door unlocked, so long as he didn’t close it all the way. The Haus doors weren’t exactly sturdy.

It’s almost in the lock when Kent lowers his voice. “I miss you. There. Is that what you want to hear? I miss you.”

Bitty never would’ve been able to hear that if he’d been in his room. He doesn’t look at where his key is when Jack replies, “You always say that.”

The key misses the lock. He tries to grab it before it hits the ground and interrupts their conversation, but it bounces out of his hands repeatedly. His reflexes aren’t exactly great what with the alcohol in him, but he’s trying, at least, and his hand is closing around the key, and ―

― and the door opens. Kent Parson is looking down at Bitty with a mixture of shock and disgust, but Bitty doesn’t think he caused the disgust. And besides, the NHL-legend-in-the-making picks himself up and disguises his emotions so quickly, Bitty isn’t even sure he saw his face properly. He exits with grace and Jack slams the door, leaving Bits alone in the hallway with a broken captain on one side of the wall and a thumping bassline under his feet.

Somewhere in the distance, he can hear a girl shriek with laughter. Ironic, he thinks, how that’s the last sound that would ever fit this scenario.

Everything about the last five minutes feels profoundly wrong in a way that leaves Bitty’s heart and stomach unsettled (though the latter could have been the tub juice). He can’t think clearly enough to make a pie, so after several unsuccessful attempts he sits alone in the dark of his room, door propped open in case Jack emerged. It makes him feel better just to be nearby.

Chapter Text

Ransom stumbles into the kitchen bleary-eyed, asking if there’s pancakes or if he should reheat the ones in the freezer (Bitty hates the ones in the freezer ― they always reheat weird, so that the edges are soggy and the middle’s still frozen, and that is simply not how a pancake should be). Bitty points to the freezer anyways. He has a pie to make.

Chowder is already wide-awake, somehow immune to the effects of a hangover, and is trying to keep the living room from looking too terribly trashed. He picks up a solo cup. “So, pretty cool that Kent Parson showed up last night, right?”

There is one way out of this situation, and one way only.

Sugar. Butter. Flour.

Bitty makes a noncommittal noise as he grabs the ingredients for a pie he hasn’t named yet. Something mean, that’s what. He grabs the green apples because it’s the most tart ingredient he has on hand and he doesn’t know how to make a pie that doesn’t taste good, if not sweet.

Peel the apples and ― Bitty, you know how to make an apple pie. You don’t need an internal monologue for this one.

And, okay, his internal monologue sounds a lot like John Johnson sometimes, but that’s what happens in a fictional world being written by someone who didn’t create said fictional world.

“I mean, the guy’s a hockey star! From Las Vegas! Why was he here? I mean, we know why he was here, but, I mean- wow!”

Bitty hasn’t got the heart or the ability to tell Chowder to please be quiet. He keeps his hands busy with the apples so they don’t ball into fists. “Yeah, it was definitely… unexpected.” He’s never good at hiding his true feelings, and judging by the way Ransom side-eyes him, no one’s fooled by his tone. And that gives Bitty the perfect name for his pie.

I Promise Not to Be Too Passive Aggressive Towards My Captain’s Ex-Teammate Pie. Make sure to soak the apple slices in lemon juice. Actually, soak them in a little too much lemon juice. A little extra tartness never hurt anybody.

As it’s baking, Bitty nearly laughs at the irony of how he’d thought Kent Parson was a classic apple crumble. Messy, yes. Messy was one trait that was consistent, though whether or not he only leaves messes in his wake is still up for debate. Not that Bitty really cares.

He feels better watching Ransom wolf down his frustrations. At least they’re on someone else’s plate for once.

Chapter Text

Baking, like Mama always said, is therapeutic. Ransom once told Bitty he should become a scientist. Lab protocols aren’t so different from recipes: you add the right ingredients in the right order at the right times and the right temperatures, and some techniques are more tricky than others but it almost always pays off in the end. Bitty told Ransom he wouldn’t enter a STEM field even if he knew he held the cure to cancer in his head. After all, he’s got enough on his mind as it is. The last thing he needs is to be taking Organic Chemistry.

In fact, he has midterms in only a week or so and Bitty’s still not studying the way he should be. The way Ransom (and, by extension, Holster) is. He’s got a lot to think about. Midterms, of course, and the Frozen Four, his classes for next year, what he’s doing over the summer, the Frozen Four, declaring a major, pushing graduation out of his mind, Jack Zimmermann, hockey practices, the Frozen Four… It’s a lot, and he combats it the way he combats anything. He bakes.

“Bitty, do you ever do your homework?” It’s Chowder, who wandered in while Bitty gathered the primary pie-making ingredients.

Sugar. Butter. Flour.

Bitty lifts his chin and very pointedly does not look at Chowder. “I do not need this from you right now,” he says, with just enough warmth.

Apple is a classic aromatherapy stress reliever, but… perhaps a harder twist? Something to take the edge off. Give it a bite.

Bitty opens the fridge and grabs the hard cider he knows Shitty keeps there for tub juice concoctions. A hard apple cider pie is the perfect thing for the approach of finals.

“Bro’s gotta maintain a good enough GPA to stay on the team.” This time, the voice comes from the disgusting green couch where Lardo, who was always coming to Bitty’s rescue, sat.“Don’t worry about it, Chowds. He’s already gotten by the last two years. I think he can handle this one.”

It wasn’t just a rescue attempt, despite Bitty’s slightly-self-righteous, “There, see? Listen to Lardo. She’s usually right.” It also served as a simple reminder that if he didn’t make the grade, he wouldn’t be a part of the team, which meant he wouldn’t get his scholarship, which meant he wouldn’t be returning. He looks down at the ingredients gathered around him.

Stressed About Stress That Will Occur Later Because I’m Procrastinatin’ Now Instead of Studying Pie.

He adds in the hard cider, and then he takes a long swig of it before replacing it in the fridge. Nobody ever said that when you cooked with alcohol, it all had to go in the food.

Chapter Text

Sugar. Butter. Flour.

Sugar. Butter. Flour.

Sugar… Butter… Flour… what next? What next, Bittle?

He can’t think of anything. No one says a word. The only sounds are the familiar ones that accompany packing up. Zippers, jerseys being removed, pads clacking against each other and the benches. No one says a word, not even the coaches. No one dares to.

Jack is missing.

It takes Bitty a moment to notice, but he realizes once he’s changed that he doesn’t know when he last saw his captain. The loss must’ve been hard on him. Of course it must’ve.

He slips out of the locker room and doesn’t tell anyone where he’s going, in part because he’s not sure where he’s going.

Sugar. Butter. Flour.

He can’t think. He can’t think of anything, not even baking, and that’s when he realizes just how hard this has hit him. Shitty and Jack’s final game, and they couldn’t win it. Although, he supposes, the other team also had seniors, also had people for whom this was their final game, and it won’t be Jack’s last game, not by a long shot, but still…

He finds Jack in a hallway he would’ve walked right past if it weren’t for the Zimmermann jersey draped on whatever equipment was in there. Clearly, this was an area the average person was never meant to see or be in, but Jack wasn’t an average person. Bitty didn’t think anyone would get upset if they found him here. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a little voice tells Bitty that now Jack knows of a hiding spot, so if/when he joins the Falconers he’ll already know where he can escape to if he needs it. Bitty shuts that voice down as soon as he can, feeling badly just for thinking it.

Sugar. Butter. Flour.

Jack looks up at him. His eyes are darker than they should be and filled with water, and at first he tenses up. Bitty knows he's intruded on Jack’s quiet space, interrupted his personal time. He doesn’t want to be a bother. He doesn’t want to be someplace where he isn’t welcomed. But then Jack’s shoulders soften, like he just doesn’t care anymore, and it’s Bitty — he’s seen Bitty cry before, many times, so it wasn’t like he was one to judge — and Bitty is allowed in here now.

There’s nothing to say, so he says nothing. He just hops up onto the palettes and seats himself next to Jack, arms already outstretched and wrapping around this boy. All he can do— all he knows how to do — is be there for Jack right now.

He figures out why he couldn’t make a pie in his head. Doing so comforted him, and he couldn’t be comforted. He wasn’t the one who needed it.

Sugar. Butter. Be here. Flour.

Chapter Text

Eric Richard Bittle is phenomenal at not letting himself think about things. It’s pretty easy, actually, what with the way his mind is constantly thinking about a million different things, like what he's going to bake for the Madison Fair this summer or what the secret ingredient he'd dreamt about that one time was or what team Jack was going to sign onto.

Which means, of course, that when Bitty discovers Jack did sign — the Falconers, which means he'll be in Providence, which is a trip Bitty think he can handle relatively regularly — it's kind of all he can think about.

See, the thing he'd pushed out of his mind, the thing he'd tried to forget, was that Jack and Shitty were graduating. As in, not-going-to-be-at-Samwell graduating. As in, no-more-four-a.m.-practices graduating. As in, someone-new-across-the-hall graduating. He never thought he'd say it, but he was going to miss finding Shitty's clothes discarded in unusual places throughout the Haus (once, he'd found a t-shirt that had been tossed on top of the refrigerator and yelled at Shitty to come pick it up. He said it was because Shitty had to learn to clean up after himself, but it was due in part to the fact that Bitty couldn't reach the top of the fridge without having to reach and he didn't want to look ridiculous).

He's happy for his teammates — goodness gracious, he's downright thrilled that they're going places, that they're going to be successful — but he's always been one to get attached and he doesn't want to have to say goodbye. Goodbyes were always the worst part.

Pile on the bittersweet. A chocolate crust and a dark chocolate filling, but put down the sugar and don't sweeten that chocolate into something palatable.

The way he saw it, if he cried now, he wouldn't cry later. That's how it always worked with him. Let out one good, sincere, entirely-too-emotional cry, and then at the actual event it'll be nothing but a few stray tears that are easily wiped away.

He can hear Jack upstairs. He always can. Jack doesn't walk lightly on his feet — can't, really; he's kind of too big for it, and why would he anyways? — and Bitty knows how to distinguish his footfalls from Ransom's and Shitty's and Holster's. Well, actually, he learned how to tell who was walking around from within the dull roar of a shower (so he knows to stop singing if Jack approaches), but he can still tell whose footfalls were whose.

Right now, Jack's probably pacing while talking to his dad or Georgia or someone else about the public news of his signing, and how it was being received. People did that sort of thing, and Jack had an image to resurrect. An image he'd be maintaining almost an hour away from Samwell.

If you're going to cry into your pie about the loss of your teammate and now-hopeless crush, you'd better make it intentional. Crank in the salt, and after it’s chilled, add cream dollops along the edges and generous amounts of chunky sea salt on top.

Bitty's going to miss the quiet days in the Haus like this on. Days when most of the boys are studying and he can hear the movement of his captain and know what's happening without ever seeing him; when Bitty can cook downstairs and hum softly to himself, letting the notes float upstairs as a gentle reminder that he's still there; when Jack hangs up the phone and walks downstairs and sits on the green couch within Bitty's line of sight, reading quietly just to enjoy being near him.

It's not anything Bitty ever would have dreamed of or hoped for, but sometimes, days like these are the closest thing to perfect that he can think of.

Chapter Text

“I’ll text you.”

Jack has never not followed through on his promises, but Bitty’s still in too much shock to register anything that’s happening or what Jack’s saying. All he knows is that Jack — Jack, still in his suit and his graduation robe — showed up out of breath behind Bitty, who didn’t hear him come in over the sound of Beyoncé in his ears (and the sound of his own tears).

Everything else after that is kind of fuzzy.

His lips buzz softly, so he’s pretty sure that he did not imagine the way Jack, at the very last minute possible, had raced in and kissed him with only minor hesitation. He’s pretty sure he didn’t imagine the softness of his lips or the way it felt like neither of them were quite expecting it. He’s pretty sure he didn’t imagine letting go when Jack said he had to leave, only to pull him close again.

He’s pretty sure those things actually happened. But he could be wrong.

Strawberries.

It’s what pops into his head as he slowly sits down on the chair in his room, fingers reaching up to touch his lips as though doing so could tell him the story of what just happened. Of course, as he’s trying to process something very important and potentially life-changing, all he can think about is strawberries .

Carve triangles into the tops so that they look more like hearts when you slice them up thinly.

His phone buzzes before he’s done thinking. A text from Jack. An adorable, unlike-any-other-text-from-Jack text from Jack. Bitty can’t help the grin that spreads on his face as it slowly, slowly hits him that the boy he’s had a seemingly hopeless crush on for all this time apparently had one on him, as well.

Layer along the edges of a vanilla custard, pointing towards the center. Keep it simple and sweet and just what you need. Don’t overthink it, don’t overcomplicate it.

He knew he was lucky just to be at Samwell and be a member of the hockey team, to be able to train with Jack Zimmermann and live in a Haus and have the friends he has, but this might be the first time he truly feels as lucky as he knows he is.

It’s going to be a long summer.

Chapter Text

Bitty takes a deep breath, steadies himself, and goes over the events of the night before in his head.

Making out with Jack secretly while a party raged below, being able to hold him again after what felt like a lifetime but was closer to a week, being able to be open again, if only within the confines of a bedroom. A dream come true for all of twenty minutes, before they knew they were being missed.

Jack left first, since he was the one everyone would be looking for anyways. The room was quiet without him. Bitty checked himself in a mirror and ran his fingers through his messy hair, smoothed out his rumpled shirt. Normal, quiet, secretive things.

Then he’d gone downstairs.

Shitty was markedly different from the last time Bitty had seen him. Last time, he was able to hold his liquor and maintain a respectably sober appearance regardless of how much alcohol was in him, and he could still think at least a little bit clearly. Enough to know where there was a line and when he shouldn’t cross it. So why he felt the need to verbally assault Jack, asking about a girlfriend, Bitty didn’t know.

Butter. Sugar. Flour.

Wait, that’s not the right order.

Jack nearly outright lied to Shitty. “Shits, I’m not dating— I don’t have a girlfriend.”

Good save, Jack Zimmermann. Good save. So why didn’t it feel like one? Why did Bitty still feel like he was lying to his best friends, when he wasn’t even the one who said it in the first place?

Um. Um. Pecan crust. Make a pecan crust. Because you’ll think about the way Jack says “pecan,” and you’ll smile because it’s so ridiculously wrong.

He’d walked away, a bad feeling in his gut like he might throw up without even having a single Solo-cupful of tub juice. A cup of which he desperately needed if he wanted to make it through the night without overanalyzing what Jack had said and what it meant.

As he worked his way across the room, looking for someone to make small talk with, he heard Lardo shutting Shitty down, telling him that law school made him weak and proceeding to make Shitty sob. Lardo was always coming to Bitty’s rescue. But Lardo was also observant — more observant than Jack, and definitely more observant than pretty much everyone else on the team. If anyone could pick up on the fact that Jack and Bitty were dating, it was Lardo.

He supposes he’s lucky that she’s also the very last person to ever tell a soul what she knows. Lardo could keep a secret, and Bitty loves her for that.

He almost makes a mental note to ask Jack if he can tell Lardo — it is Lardo, after all, and she’d know how to silence anyone on the team if they brought up girlfriends and Jack in the same sentence — but he decides against it. This is Jack’s career they’re preserving. Bitty’s already seen Jack get hit on the ice enough times to last a lifetime, and that’s just because he’s Bad Bob’s son (and a few other political reasons, none of which were Jack’s fault). Pile the fact that he’s dating another man on top of that, and he’d probably become one of the most targeted players on the ice.

Bitty shudders at the realization. It’s not just Jack’s career they’re preserving.

Make the filling pumpkin pie, something reminiscent of Halloween, because you’re pretty sure the world is playing an elaborate, sadistic joke on you. Roasted pumpkin seeds along the edges for design.

Scared My Teammates Will Discover I’m Dating Our Ex-Captain Pie. Hope For The Best Pie.

Chapter Text

Samwell Men’s Hockey Group Chat: 2014 Edition (RIP Jack and Shitty)

Jack:
I know we don’t really use this chat anymore, but can someone please check on bitty?

Dex:
What happened?

Jack:
dunno. he seemed angry on the phone last night.

Ransom:
dude. LEMONADE.

Holster:
shiiiiiiiiiiiit

Holster:
do you think we’ll get pie out of this?

Lardo:
haha. prolly.

It’s barely seven in the morning, a time when Bitty should have never been awake were it a normal day. Lucky for him, today is not a normal day. No, it’s the day after Beyoncé aired music videos for her visual album, and Eric Richard Bittle stayed up all night to watch them. And then to get into debates on Twitter about whether or not it meant Jay-Z cheated on her, and so on and so forth. He did his research when it mattered, and he did it thoroughly.

A lemon-meringue pie, obviously. Add tiny, ultra-thin slices of lemon along the edges, two layers.

He’s had a pie in his head for hours, and he’s itching to bake. The only problem is the Haus: people are sleeping at three in the morning, so — of course — he’s forced to wait until the sun peeks over the horizon. It’s one of their few days off, meaning they didn’t have to be awake at five, meaning most everybody was going to be sleeping in. Bitty should have been one of them, but today, he was most definitely not.

The videos haven't been out for a full day and Bitty knows the words already. The Haus wakes up to Sorry at full volume, with a small Georgian baker singing along with a slightly southern twang. A small Georgian baker who, bless his very white heart, censors the song into something more appropriate for him to be singing.

(It isn't until Daddy Issues comes on that Ransom and Holster realize just how good said southern twang could sound when paired with Beyoncé’s music. It helps that Bitty’s exaggerating for the sake of the song.)

When Lardo walks downstairs, the second thing she hears — beyond Bitty and Beyoncé’s harmonizing — is angry whisking. It’s not a sound she’s intimately familiar with, but she knows what normal whisking sounds like, and she knows what anger being let out in a (relatively) healthy way sounds like, and this is definitely a combination of the two.

“Hey, Lardo!” Bitty sounds entirely too cheerful for both the time and the angry whisking. “Mornin’!”

Lardo, meanwhile, is barely capable of opening up both eyes. She’s still in a pair of boxers and an oversized shirsey (it had once belonged to Shitty, but he made the mistake of letting her wear it once and now he’s never getting it back), clearly having woken up to the sound of Bitty cooking.

“Hey, Bits,” she mumbles with something markedly less than enthusiasm. “Whatcha making there?”

He smiles too widely, all teeth. It’s vaguely threatening. “A Jay-Z Cheated On Beyoncé Pie , of course.”

Lardo nods as though this is a perfectly reasonable thing for people to be doing at seven in the morning. “’Kay. Have fun, Bits.” She turns to head back up the stairs whence she came, preparing to put the industrial-strength earbuds Shitty had gotten her when she moved in (“Lards, seriously, you do not wanna hear the way Holster snores”) to good use.

She’s halfway up the stairs when she sleepily calls out, “For the record, I think Beyoncé would appreciate what you’re doing in her honor.”

She can’t see his reaction, of course, but the angry whisking stops for a moment. When it starts up again, it sounds a bit closer to normal whisking.

Lardo:
the boy’s fine. let him have his moment.

Holster:
are we gettin pie out of this or not? rans has a quiz today and needs his beauty sleep

Ransom:
or a pie.

Holster:
or a pie, yeah

Lardo:
we’re getting a pie out of this.

Holster:
FUCK yes

Ransom:
thank you, beyoncé, for bestowing upon us the gift of eric bittle’s baking.

Bitty:
Y’all know I’m in this group, right?

Chapter Text

It’s a familiar feeling. He’s been expecting it to emerge at some point now. More than that, he’s been waiting for it with a rolling pin, a sack of flour, and a lot of chocolate. This year, he was not going to be caught off guard. This year, he had a plan, and he was ready.

This year, his [X and X] are Graduating Pie is not something he makes out of desperation. Yes, making pies was an outlet for him, but if he could anticipate the emotions he was feeling, it made it easier to create something tasty. It also made it easier to deal with the event. It wasn’t like Bitty enjoyed experiencing such a rush of emotion that the only way he knew how to cope was to make a pie.

Mostly, he makes the pie because he knows Ransom and Holster and Lardo are expecting one this year. It’s their turn to graduate, and he knows this, but he’s not as torn up over it. Probably because he’s already dealt with some of his favorite people graduating, and now he knows they will never really be out of his life. He can keep in touch with people even when they don’t want to keep in touch with him, a skill he didn’t know he had until the past year. There’s a multitude of reasons why Bitty doesn’t feel the emotional need to bake a pie, but he doesn’t try to overanalyze them. Maybe it was a good thing, after all.

Regardless, he owes them a pie, and he’s going to make it good. He thinks of them as he bakes it, a variation of Jack and Shitty are Graduating Pie from a year ago. This time, he sweetens the chocolate. It doesn’t need to be bitter, not this time.

And maybe he does cry while baking it, but he’s emotional and he’s listening to Lana Del Rey to match the feel of the hazy afternoon. And it’s not like he won’t miss them: Holster storming downstairs when Ransom locked him out of the room, Lardo’s quiet company that reminded Bitty of Jack’s sometimes, Ransom’s screams echoing down the stairwell when he finds more evidence of the ghosts. At least Nursey and Dex seem to be getting along better; he’d heard Ransom and Holster discussing who to give their dibs to, and it seemed as though the new D-men were the most likely candidates. But the last thing Bitty wanted was to be kept up or woken up by loud arguments and something being thrown only a few feet above his bed.

Lardo, for her part, had joked about giving her dibs to whoever the next team manager was, even if they were a frog. Whiskey hadn’t seemed to care (did he care about anything?), but Tango asked if that was even allowed. They had to take him downstairs and show him the bylaws (for the record, they just say the receiver of dibs has to be a student and a part of the men’s hockey team. There was no age limit).

Bitty’s going to have those moments alone next year. Of course, he’ll have people to share them with, but it won’t be the same. Oh, it’l be just as good, and he knows it, but it won’t be the same.

So maybe he sheds a few tears while a smoky-voiced singer croons I got that summertime, summertime sadness in the background. He smothers the entire pie in salted caramel to give it a sweeter finish.

It’s going to be bearable. He’s going to miss them, and it’s going to be okay.

Chapter Text

A slow song plays in the background, Frank Sinatra or Bing Crosby or Nat King Cole — Bitty can only tell the difference if he’s paying attention, and right now, he’s not. His arms are around Jack’s neck, and Jack’s hands are resting on his waist, and they’re swaying to the beat. Bitty knows a little bit about how to dance — how to dance formally, that is — but he doesn’t need to use it.

It’s comfortable, and it’s nice, and he can’t stop looking up at Jack. A slow, lazy smile spreads across his face. All this is his. He’s a lucky, lucky man.

“What?” Jack asks, and he doesn’t quite smile back, but Bitty can see it in his eyes.

“Nothing,” Bitty replies simply. “Just thinking about how lucky I am to have you.”

Jack chuckles softly, the sound coming more from his chest than his throat. “You have me as long as you want me.”

Bitty’s eyebrow raises. “So, forever.”

Jack just smiles. There’s a moment of hesitation, then: the pregnant pause that comes when someone’s holding the words they want to say in their mouth but won’t say them yet. Bitty thinks nothing of it; moments like these happen sometimes. He pulls himself closer to Jack until their bodies are flush against each other, his cheek resting on Jack’s chest. Jack kisses his hair. He can hear a steady heartbeat thumping away.

“Forever,” Jack says, and it sounds like a promise.

Bitty hums happily against his heart. They stay like that for a little while, comfortable in each other’s arms.

“If forever’s really what you want, we should probably exchange vows at some point.”

It takes Bitty a moment to understand what Jack’s said. His mind is kind of fuzzy with happiness, and it wasn’t like this was coming out of the blue, but it was the first they’d spoken of it.

He pulls back, chin digging into Jack’s chest, and stares up at him. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah. Okay.”

Jack lets out a soft laugh. “That was easier than I’d imagined.”

“I don’t want to now, though,” Bitty clarifies. “I mean, potentially, in the future, I’d love to become engaged to you and eventually marry you, but… Jack, I love you, but I don’t want to be ‘Jack Zimmermann’s husband,’ nor do I have any desire to get lumped in with the WAGs. I want to make a name for myself. Or at least finish up my senior year of college first.”

Jack’s not surprised; he’s older than Bitty, and he knows this, but sometimes he forgets that they’re at different points in their lives. He’s ready to settle down with a stable career and maybe a family, but he couldn’t expect Bitty to drop everything and do the same. “Of course. I understand.”

Bitty exhales a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. “I knew you would. Plus, good Lord, my parents would be more upset than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Actually, maybe we should get engaged now, so the fact that I’m too young overshadows the fact that I’m actually marrying another man and that this isn’t a phase.”

Jack laughs and wraps his arms tighter around Bitty. “We’ll do it when you’re ready. All I wanted to do was put the idea in your head.”

Somewhere in the background, someone croons you’ll never know how many dreams I dreamed about you . Bitty thinks he knows how they feel. He hasn’t made a pie in his head in months — over six, if his estimations are correct, which means he’s been dating Jack for over a year. He thinks that’s healthy, that the absence of emotional pastries is a sign of growing up and learning how to deal with his feelings like an adult. That is to say, in a more comprehensive and less caloric manner.

But while slow dancing in Jack’s living room and Jack’s arms, Bitty doesn’t know how else to contain the sheer amount of bliss inside him. So, quickly, quietly, he mentally goes through the steps to create a simple peach pie. It’s not fancy, but it’s sweet and irresistible and perfectly captures the way he feels like sunshine is pouring through him. I’m Going to Marry That Boy Pie.

“Hey,” he mumbles. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”