Cheerlead some smut?

[staranise]

Hi people, can I get some encouragment? I'm working on a Bittyparse thing. Well, Bitty/Parse kegster hookup in context of pining unrequited Bitty/Jack. A fair summary might be, "Bob didn't say anything at graduation. Jack moved to Providence. Bitty's moving on. And Kent Parson, unexpectedly is a foodie." Warnings for Kent Parson being his usual self-sabotaging trash baby self.

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Graduation is not the last time he ever sees Jack Zimmermann in person and all the words he never got to say don’t actually burn his throat to ash. Bitty copes. Jack actually comes down to the Georgia for the Fourth of July and Bitty will never tell anyone how he almost passed out from heatstroke his first full day. He cooks with Bitty’s mom and talks football with Bitty’s dad and it’s not all the things it could have been but–

Sometimes he wants to chase Jack down and pound on his chest and say, Do you not realize all the things you’re passing up in me? I love you, I get it, I’m not going to ask you to choose me over hockey. I could be there to Skype with after the game when you’re on a roadie and I could make your fucking high-protein meals for lunch when you get home after morning practice and I can still skate circles around you and do you just realize how good I could be for you?

He doesn’t, because you know what? Eric R Bittle is a gosh-darned grownup, and he’s not going to whine when he doesn’t get what he wants. He sends Jack off with six frozen meat pies in his luggage, their condensation beading the plastic bag that holds them in the Georgia morning, and a little box of thumbprint cookies, and he smiles bright and wide in public and licks his wounds behind closed doors.

He’s thought it over very carefully and gotten a lot of advice from his Youtube commenters and he knows what he’s going to do, which is stop acting like Jack was his only shot at love, some big doomed unrequited romance that will scar him forever. He’s going back to Samwell without Jack and Samwell, let it be remembered, is one of the most LGBTQ-friendly campuses in the nation, so this year, he tells himself, he’ll make friends outside the hockey team, go to mixers, meet other gay men who haven’t been thoroughly and disastrously vetted already by the duo of Ransom and Holster.

It hurts, of course, when Jack comes up before training camp to see them all, turning down the beer and the pie on the front stoop because he’s got a limited diet for carbs. It hurts when the team goes down to Providence for the Falconers’ first preseason game and celebrates with Jack in a bar near his apartment. It hurts whenever his heart goes twang at the sight of Jack’s face, at the smiling gentleness he uses to rib Bitty, at everything about him. But he lets it hurt and reminds himself: This is not the end. He is not everything. There are other people in the world than him.

And the hockey team, thanks for asking, is doing fine without their old captain. It would be easier to miss Jack this much if people, from Coach to the frogs to the Swallow, would stop fretting about how rough this season is gonna be with their star player gone, even after they win three out of their first four games.

For the Halloween party Lardo, Ransom, and Holster sit Bitty down with spreadsheets and slice off an even bigger portion of the team’s beer money than usual to spend on more wholesome things; it’s a continuation of last year’s policy, when Jack insisted on reimbursing Bitty for the flats of water bottles he laid in beforehand, and the food everyone used to soak up the alcohol. After much careful thought Bitty temporarily acquires a water cooler from Faber, and more legitimately acquires twenty refill jugs and stores them in a nearby closet, because the thousand people they’re inviting may be strangers but they are still guests; he spends three weeks preparing cookies that probably should have been dedicated to midterms instead.

He doesn’t actually get out much, but the kitchen and the authority he wields within it is a bulwark against heartache. The new frogs spend the Wednesday night before the party helping him grease medicine cups to hold Jello shots, since Lardo talked him into helping with them by proposing that they be tricolour orange-black-orange. He misses Shitty fiercely, but since the people he can really talk to about it are Jack and Lardo he stays mum on the subject, except to his vlog when he shows off the Jello shots. Jack has texted the group to beg off coming up for the party, citing some special NHL business even though Providence isn’t playing that weekend. The party day itself finds him stalking through the Haus in a skimpy bunny jumpsuit, a sturdy apron, rubber gloves, and a surly expression, and Chowder helps him put baby locks on the kitchen cupboards and a polyurethane sheet on the couch.

“I will give you anything you want,” Ransom says, pressing a beer on him after dinner, “if you just fucking relax, Bittles.”

College is supposed to be fun, he reminds himself, drinking it. You’re supposed to get out and meet new people. Do fun things. Expand your horizons.

After his third beer he’s leaning against a wall with the party swirling around him, keeping an eye on the water cooler levels, when somebody says, “It’s Check Please man!” and a figure in a Samwell jersey who turns out to be Kent Parson leans against the wall next to him. "Hey, bro,” he says, tilting his Solo cup at Bitty.

"I… beg pardon?” Bitty asks, badly shaken to hear his name from another universe in the mouth of a hockey player at a Haus party. He instinctively wants to dislike this guy, for no other reason than that he had a fight with Jack once. He's found a lot of those things this semester: little opinions and preferences and attitudes he's picked up from Jack by osmosis that he's started questioning and picking apart. If he doesn't watch it he'll be the guy who's 24/7 with Jack says and Jack thinks and Jack's of the opinion that. Not to mention, on this subject in particular: Jack was spotted having a very amicable lunch with Kent Parson in Las Vegas two weeks ago, the day after their game there.

“Found your vlog a while back, brah,” Kent says. "Was looking for tutorials on Youtube and I saw the thing you did on cake mixes? Like, don’t tell the world, but my teammate’s baby girl had this first birthday party? I brought cupcakes. The melted butter trick was a godsend, they’ve been trying to make me give up my source ever since.”

Bitty’s actually gawking at him, trying to put all the thoughts together in his head. A defense of Betty Crocker and Kent Parson?  That is, it makes sense in a certain way; hockey players, the odd robot aside, do have lives outside of hockey and do eat things on a non-nutritionist-approved diet plan, and that video was more of a hands-on tutorial than most. "I’m–I’m glad it helped,” he stammers.

“Seriously, have you thought of going into hospitality or advertising or something?” Kent asks, and then somebody stops him for a selfie, which gives Bitty time to re-engage his jaw and finish off the beer he’s holding. The jersey, he’s relieved to see, is Ransom’s; in the beginning he’d had the deeply unnerving conviction that it was Jack’s.

“Samwell doesn’t have Hospitality or Domestic Sciences or anything,” he explains, and Parson actually leans down to hear him over the din of the party. "Too practical and vocational for them. I’m doing American Studies and focusing on food and culture in the South.”

"Like foodways and stuff,” Parson suggests, at a low bellow in Bitty's ear. He doesn't have Bitty's theatre trick of speaking from his diaphragm. But Bitty gets it, and he grins up at Kent, since not even everyone on the Samwell team wants to hear him talk about the social implications of processed food.

“My god, yeah! Absolutely. If you could get a degree for being a foodie, I’d want it. You’re into this stuff?”

“Oh, yeah!” Parson rummages under the jersey, as though in a kangaroo pocket, and pulls out a plastic bag. Bitty eyes it suspiciously, but the Ziploc is actually full of–cookies?

“Brought these from home,” Parson says, opening the bag and proffering its mouth to Bitty. "I made them. Try one, tell me what you think?”

Bitty gapes at him, then leans in. "You made these?" He looks down at the bag dubiously. "Anything special in them?”

“Butter. Brown sugar.” Someone has brought a keg out in the corner of the room and Parson has to lean in close, his breath hot on Bitty’s neck and ear. "These grapes from the Mojave that are sun-ripened and dried on the vine, it makes them really moist. They’re awesome, if I do say so myself."

Bitty still hesitates with his hand reaching out to the bag. "I'll take one, but I'm not sure you want the whole foodie clinic on them."

Parson shrugs, the bag still on offer, so Bitty takes one. Parson hollers, "Wanna move to the back porch? I can’t hear myself think in here.”

"Yeah, one sec,” Bitty hollers back, and pops the cookie in his mouth almost just to free up his hands while he opens the cupboard behind him.

The cookie’s startling, though, moist and crumbly and meltingly sweet, oatmeal and just a hint of nutmeg, and he’s so startled by the flavour that Parson totally beats him to the cupboard contents, hauling out one of the big Culligan jugs. "Just change this, yeah?” he yells, and Bitty nods, a little dazed.

The raisins are plump and juicy and amazing, so perfect he just wants to roll them around on his tongue. He takes the empty jug when Parson hands it to him, tries to shove it onto the cupboard’s top shelf, and blushes a little when Parson takes it back so he can use his extra couple inches of height to slot it in. 5'7” is not short by any usual measure, dammit.

They’re only a couple steps towards the back porch when a new wave of sound hits them and Bitty stops and turns around again with a repressed sigh. "Flip cup on the back porch,” he half-shouts into Parson’s ear. "Come with me.” He leads the way up the stairs, reaching back pre-emptorily for another cookie before he ducks under the CAUTION tape at their head. Parson doesn’t comment on their destination, though he glances curiously at what used to be Jack’s door, which is now covered with San Jose sharks.

The party noise is a bit muffled when Bitty’s door is locked behind them and Bitty takes another thoughtful bite of the cookie. Parson grabs a seat on the rolling computer chair and Bitty sits on the bed. "Am I tasting almond in this?” he asks.

"Yeah.” Parson tilts his head a little. He’s sitting on the chair backwards, his arms crossed across the top of the backrest. "I didn’t want to mess with the texture too much, but there’s a bit of almond essence in there.”

Bitty chuckles ruefully. "You’re lucky I’m not allergic.”

“Nobody on your team is. I know that from your vlog, brah.”

With that finger pointed at him Bitty feels exposed and vulnerable, so he finishes off the cookie. Parson wheels forward enough to extend the bag again, so he takes another. Before he tries it he looks at Parson and asks, “Is this about Jack?”

Parson laughs. "Has he got anything to do with your baking?”

"Not much at all anymore,” Bitty confirms.

“Then how the fuck does he matter?”

Bitty shrugs, accedes the point, takes a bite.

“Pretty good,” he says around it as he chews. "Kind of thing I’d serve with lemonade, or–” And he kind of pauses on the or, because while he was being thoughtful and trying to come up with an actual critique that chair wheeled closer and Kent Parson’s head is hanging way into his personal space.

"Or?” Parson says softly.

Eric summons up saliva, swallows the cookie down. His heart’s beating fast, and he feels like a frightened rabbit before he remembers he’s in that stupid bunny jumpsuit with the briefest shorts and the vee opening down his chest and Kent Parson is looking at him like a watchful and hungry coyote.

“They’re good,” he whispers, absolutely paralyzed for the moment it takes for Parson to lean forward and kiss him.

It is a slow, meticulous, and thorough kiss, and when Parson breaks it a noise comes out from between Bitty’s parted lips after him, almost like a moan, and he grabs a fistful of red Samwell jersey from off Parson’s shoulder.

You construct intricate rituals that allow you to touch the skin of other men, he remembers something saying, because there’s an electrifying difference between the casual physical contact of hockey players, simultaneously the most homophobic and most homoerotic sports subculture out there according to B. “Shitty” Knight, and being touched with intent. Parson’s hands on the sides of his head are brushing his cheekbones and temples, pushing against the bunny suit’s hood, burying their fingers in the short sides of Bitty’s Samwell crop, and he is ghosting his face against Bitty’s, nose and forehead almost touching. Bitty breathes into their shared space, the music of the party more a vibration through his bones than an actual noise, his bedroom lit by the soft glow of little LEDs and reflected flood lighting outside, and when the hands on his head tilt his face up his open mouth fits itself exactly to Parson’s.

He's catching little edges of sensation; as their lips brush and nestle he finds little places that electrify and tingle on contact, places his tongue wants to explore, places he is sure he wants to be kissed again. He loops an arm around Kent's neck to help bridge a bit of the difficulty of the height difference between the bed and the computer chair. Kent grins at him when he gasps air in, rubbing his thumb against Bitty's jaw.

"It's really true you still don't have a boyfriend?"

"Nobody's submitted an application thus far," Bitty says.

"How," Kent asks, lustful and fond, playfully cradling Bitty's head in his hands, "did anybody pass you by? I mean, I'm just here for the night but if I went to this stupid school I'd be here for way more than that."

Bitty wants to swallow, and answer, and disclaim, and look away, and what actually happens is that a blush erupts on his face with incredible, helpless violence. The thought that actually curls words around his tongue is that old cliche: Take me now. But after he stutters out a noiseless breath what he actually says, voice shaking, is, "So what are you gonna do tonight?"

Kent grins, swinging off the chair and shedding the jersey and the hat and shirt inside it onto the floor. He and his marvellous torso step in and swing up and launch over so that he lands on the bed behind Bitty, his arms stretched out as though saying, "Behold!" He cocks a leg up for good measure.

"Shoes off my bed," Bitty chides, laughing while he does so and toeing his own shoes off. He turns and scoots and maneuvers himself, on all fours, above Kent, who reaches out for him gladly.

Comments

[staranise]

Bitty makes Kent assemble the quiche while he retrieves chilled dough from the refrigerator and hits it lightly with a rolling pin. "Okay, Parson, what kind of pie do you want?"

"Do you have any bacon?" Kent says dreamily, looking at the oven long after he's put the quiche in it. "I want bacon."

"You want bacon pie?"

Kent swings his head around, blinks. "What?"

"I asked you what kind of pie you wanted. You said bacon."

Kent shakes his head, blinks groggily. "No, man. I just want bacon. On its own. Breakfast needs bacon."

He looks so dopey and adorable, and the morning sun lights up his cowlick, and Bitty relents about the pie for a minute. "Go open that cabinet down by the stove. Pull out the electric frying pan on the top shelf. The power cord should be inside. Set it to 8." He gets a roll of bacon out of the freezer.

"Whoa," Kent breathes, as Bitty unrolls the Saran wrap to drop the bacon out, slice by frozen slice, clacking onto the pan like a Jacob's ladder. "That is cool."

"Don't know why I bother, since around here we eat bacon by the rasher," Bitty grouses. "Want an apron? You're on bacon duty."

He leaves one of the simple cookbooks with big, bright photographs at Kent's elbow in case he needs help deciding on a pie, but Kent keeps digging through the utensil drawer even after he's found the bacon tongs. "Oh my god," he says fondly, holding up a cookie cutter shaped like a hockey stick. "Where did you get this? I want one."

"Shitty bought a pack of them," Bitty says, kind of fondly exasperated. He cuts out his pie crusts, knowing their shape by heart. "I'm about to chill these for ten minutes and then they can go in the oven, so you've got to state a preference right now or you're getting chocolate pecan."

"Can we use this?" Kent says, holding up the cookie cutter.

Bitty squints at him, the beginnings of a grin tugging at his mouth. "Mr. Parson," he drawls, "are you possibly still drunk?"

"Maybe," Kent grumbles, leaning back far enough to see the sunglasses tucked into the neck of his shirt. He pulls them out and puts them on. Bitty laughs at him and starts the pie filling.

A couple minutes later Chowder comes bounding down the stairs and into the kitchen. "Coffee! Bacon! Oh my gosh hi! Kent Parson!"

Kent salutes him, looking stoic in his shades, and stirs the bacon.

"Morning, Chowder," Bitty says fondly. "Kettle's on." He flipped it on when he heard the first footfall on the stairs; Chris Chow is this full of sunshine without caffeine because he "tried drinking coffee when I was 14 and it was terrible, Bitty, I got all shaky and I got headaches without it" and drinks herbal tea.

Lardo oozes in just as the first batch of bacon is going onto the paper towel. "Nemesis," Kent greets her solemnly.

"Cha," she agrees from behind her own pair of sunglasses, and they stand there looking at each other warily for a minute before she breaks. "Can I get some bacon?"

"Parson, give her bacon," Bitty commands immediately. (Lardo and Parson absolutely ignored Chowder swarming up under Parson's bent arm to steal five pieces during their standoff.) Kent gathers up three strips in his tongs and holds it out to Lardo, who, without plate or mug, grasps them in her fist like straws and bites off the ends. She and Kent don't break eye contact until Chowder says, "Oh! We can make hockey stick cookies!" as he looks at the cookie cutter on the table.

"They don't make good cookies," Bitty says, as Kent looks and Lardo goes to pour herself coffee. "Burn too fast. But I left out the crust scraps and you can put them on the top of the pecans for decoration."

"Awesome," Kent says, then corrects himself. "Swawesome." He pours the fat in the pan into the bacon grease jar at Bitty's direction, then joins Chowder into trying to cut as many hockey sticks as possible out of the remaining dough.

[azurelunatic]

Chowder is a perfect cinnamon roll.

[staranise]

But he could definitely actually kill you.

[azurelunatic]

Totally definitely actually. Truly.

[kaberett]

CHOWDER HAVING CAFFEINE HYPERSENSITIVITY IS JUST SO FUCKIN' PERFECT.

[staranise]

I don't even think he had an especially strong reaction? He just drank five cups of coffee once and was like WHOA I FEEL FUNNY and that's it, he'd rather just be strong and pure and Chow.