#b1ttle

Jack sends a ‘Good morning Bittle, good luck on the American History final today’ text when he heads out for his morning run at 7:00am. When he hasn’t gotten a response back by 10:00am, he’s not worried per se but he is a little perturbed. By 11:00am, after he’s met up with some of the other Falconers in the kitchen area to grab a snack before his practice warm-up, he’s checking his phone to make sure the text actually went through.

Hey Bud, how’d the test go?

He finally gets a response when he’s walking down to the rink, but it’s not really an actual response. It looks to be a few crying faces followed by the face with X’s over the eyes and then a final face that looks like it’s spitting out some kind of speech bubble or water drop? Jack’s not entirely sure how to interpret that, but he doesn’t think it’s good.

You studied hard for that one, I’m sure you did great, Bits. Skype after practice today?

Jack doesn’t get a text back before he runs into Marty and Guy, and they all head to the locker rooms to change into their practice gear.

After practice, Jack finishes his shower and checks his phone, shouldering his bag to bring it back to his car. There’s a reply from Bittle to his earlier offer of a Skype call asking if they can reschedule, because he’s feeling like turning in for an early night. Jack sees that it’s not even 2:00pm and gets a little worried.

He asks around to the other guys and has a long chat with the coaches before he packs his bag and hops into his car.

~

Bitty is having the most absolute horrible, no good, very bad, terrible fucking day from hell. He overslept through his alarm and almost missed his exam. Then, he got so panicked about the exam itself that he completely forgot everything that he had studied so hard for. Ransom had even made him flashcards for it. Jack had been softly quizzing him over skype calls for the past month. He feels the frustration in the form of hot pinpricks of tears beginning to form in the corners of his eyes. Why can’t he remember these answers!

He walks out of the lecture room in a daze. When he finally makes it back to the Haus, he finds the frogs in the kitchen. Chowder and Nursey freeze when he walks in, and Bitty focuses on Dex sitting in front of Betsy 2.0 with an apologetic expression.

“Power outage this morning, Cap,” Nursey states.

Chowder wrings his hands nervously. “Some of the electronics never came back on on their own, so Dex is trying to get the oven working first,” Chowder continues without even pausing for breath. “We were trying to get her ready for you because we knew you had that big test today and we wanted to cheer you up!”

Dex sighs, “-But I think a fuse or two was blown and we’ll have to go out and find a replacement in order to get the oven and the living room TV back online. Shitty should be back soon with Lardo and they’re bringing transport to take us to the shop to get more fuses.”

Bitty plasters a serene, slightly manic smile on his face and nods. “Wow, thank you for,” he clears his throat, “Thank you for trying so hard on my behalf.” He adjusts his bag’s strap on his shoulder and angles his head towards the stairs. “I’m just gonna head up to my room for a bit, let me know if you need anything.”

The frogs don’t look appeased by his attempt to stay cheerful, exchanging nervous glances amongst themselves, but Bitty would really love to lay down on the floor and curl up into a ball right now so this is the best they’re going to get from him for now.

Bitty finally makes it back to his room and shuts the door behind himself, dropping his bag carelessly near his desk, and flops onto his bed face first. He pulls his phone out of his sweatshirt pocket and sees the text he got from Jack earlier, asking about his exam, which sends him into another emotional tailspin. He sends back a few devastated emojis in reply and tosses his phone off the side of the bed petulantly. He feels bad about that pretty much immediately, but it takes some time before he’s finally able to roll off the bed long enough to kick off his shoes and the sweatshirt he’s starting to overheat in after returning to the warmth of the Haus.

He grabs his discarded phone as he crawls back up into bed and reads Jack’s supportive text with growing disappointment. He’s in a definite funk today and he’s not sure he’ll be able to fake enough cheer to be a good conversationalist during their usual Skype date. Bitty sends a short text asking if it’d be ok if they rescheduled their Skype date to another time, but he doesn’t get a response back from Jack before he curls up and closes his eyes.

~

Bitty’s eyes fly open as he’s jarred out of his nap. He’s not sure, immediately, what had awoken him so suddenly.

“Bitty!!”

Bitty straightens up and startles when Shitty bursts through his bedroom door.

“You got a motherfucking guest, bro! Get that sweet ass out of bed and come downstairs to the kitchen, ASAP!”

Bitty groans and slides off the edge of his mattress, grudgingly adjusting his sweatshirt and ignoring his phone where it still sits on his mattress. He walks out of his room and follows Shitty’s retreating form down the hallway to the stairs so he can make his way into the kitchen and greet this ‘guest’ apparently. He tries to flatten out the hair that’s sticking up at the back of his head and run his fingers through his fringe for some semblance of neatness when he turns the corner and stops in his tracks.

“Hey, Bits.”

Jack Zimmermann is standing in the middle of the Haus kitchen while Shitty and Lardo stand behind him with presentational jazz hands. Bitty spies the frogs in his peripheral vision, huddling together near the pantry and watching intently.

Bitty, mortifyingly, feels tears begin to well up in his eyes. “Jack? What are you – how did you – what are you doing here, silly boy?” He takes a halting step forward and crashes bodily into his boyfriend when Jack raises his arms to hug him.

Jack leans down and nuzzles into the top of Bitty’s head, placing a soft kiss near his hairline. “You seemed like you were having a bad day, bud, I decided to come down for a visit.”

“But you have hockey practice!”

“I talked it out with the coaches and the guys, they can handle tomorrow’s optional skate without me. No mandatory practice until Monday, so I’ve decided to spend the weekend cheering up my sad boyfriend,” Jack smiles down at Bitty when he pulls away to meet his gaze, “If that’s ok with him, of course.”

Bitty chokes out an indignant scoff. “Of course! Of course, oh, you sweet boy!” Bitty shoves his face back into Jack’s chest and pulls him closer with a tight squeeze. “Oh, thank you, Jack. I needed this.”

Neither Bitty nor Jack notice when the frogs, Lardo, and Shitty all make their way silently out of the kitchen one-by-one during the lovers’ conversation.