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Can you even explain crushing anxiety to a person who's never experienced a day of self-doubt in their whole blessed life?
Jack Zimmermann sighed long and deep and rolled over, the bed springs creaking beneath his weight. That was the kind of meandering thought that taunted him on the darker nights, when the Haus was quiet, and he'd had another roundabout conversation with his father hours before. Maybe it had been about Samwell's next match, about graduation, or the inevitable draft that would follow. Or it could have covered what he'd fed himself for dinner and how many steps he walked that day according to his phone, and whatever else his father pried out of him; the whole exchange tinged with a muted undercurrent of concern and win, win, win.
Mundane, harmless, harrowing to Jack.
Mon dieu, he knew Bob tried. He really did. And once upon a time there had been months of family therapy. Of Jack trying desperately, drowningly, to explain what it felt like--what it feels like--to want to be numb, to be gone, to shut it all the hell down and be done with it. It being feelings. But his papa, his papa couldn't wrap his head around that. It wasn't Bob's fault, that his only point of entry was pre-game jitters, held off staunchly by ritual and will.
Jack wished it could be half as simple for him. But it wasn't. He had the cards he was dealt and he played them, and he'd played them at Samwell, where luck had turned steadily in his favor. But it was on the darker nights, when the Haus was quiet, that Jack felt the old imposter illusions slink back in, form from the dust bunnies in his mostly healed mind, and start to take up more space than they were worth. The worst of it, was that he knew better.
He wasn't much for talking about his feelings with his teammates, preferring his stoic warrior demeanor as Shitty put it. And even his bi-weekly therapy sessions didn't always help him get the words out. But in the pitchy black of his bedroom he could find them. He could say aloud what he refused to say to anyone else. Sometimes he prayed: half in Quebecois and half in English, with an awkward smattering of Hebrew thrown in and barely remembered from his Bar Mitzvah (which was only a blur between his triple A Batam league practice). Other times he just nattered on to himself, quiet and senseless.
Other times still, he cried. Those nights were the worst. But also, and he hated himself a little for it, the best.
Jack was 24 years old. He was too old for tears, but for a while, he'd been too numb to have them. So he let them come and relished in them. He let himself cry like some people let themselves have an extra round during happy hour or a slice of decadent cheesecake after a big dinner. Crying felt like a luxury, one he could afford. Tonight was a crying night and he felt it deep in his bones, stirring up in him, his chest tightening, his eyes prickling and prepping for tears. It was cathartic, that's what his therapist said. Like any kind of release would be. And it was safe. As long as no one knew Jack could cry to his heart's content about whatever the hell he wanted and if sometimes. If sometimes the sobbing gave way to choked off gasps as he reached into his boxers and let himself go completely, then so be it. Release, he told himself. Release.
After Kent, after his hospitalization, he had stopped thinking something about him was wrong, and decided he'd rather just hide it then stifle it. A combination of pills carefully monitored and never prescribed in a large enough quantity to overdose kept him even during the day and usually calm at night. Kept the wolves at bay, was how he'd once described it to his papa, but that hadn't gone over too well. The drugs messed with his sex drive which was just fine by him because he wasn't sure he wanted those feelings anyway, especially because they were decidedly queer and he was already notches below other potential professional hockey players on the "draft this kid" roster. He didn't need another box filled on the list of reasons he was less than.
But the crying, the release of tension, that was what always let him feel it, he supposed: the tramped down attraction to boys he saw around campus, to his bespectacled thesis advisor who always had ink smudged fingers. Crying let him slip back to being a teenager, before he fell apart. Tears eased the way back to when he and Kent were young gods, untouchable, and wreathed in glory. Jack didn't feel any shame (for once) that he thought of himself and Kent back then as some of kind of modern day Achilles and Patroclus. Sure neither of them had died...well, he almost did, and like Achilles, he suspected his fall was what urged Kent on even harder, like he was doing it for both of them. Hindsight was the saddest sense, Jack thought. He couldn't see it like that at all back then. He wished he had.
Thinking about Kent always made him stir, about as much as actively fantasizing did. He was rubbing one hand along the top of his boxers, toying with the band, tempting himself, and his cheeks were dampening, his face heating up, when a shadow stepped into the permanent hallway light that cast beneath his door. Jack glanced at the clock; it was late, past 3AM, certainly too late for Bittle to be coming home. A vaguely protective urge rippled through him, confounding his arousal. He almost threw back the covers to find out what the situation was when the shadow knocked. Jack startled in spite of himself. He cleared his throat of phlegm, rubbed the heels of his palms across his eyes, arranged the covers over his erection, and said, "who's there?"
"It's me," said Eric Bittle's soft, unmistakable drawl. "Can I come in?"
Jack cleared his throat again. "Sure," he called. "It's unlocked." His stupid choice meter ticked up to 100% right along with an increase in his heart rate.
Bittle took forever to turn the knob. Jack could have sworn that time slowed down like the molasses in one of Bittle's pies. Then the door was open, and Bittle was through it. Jack blinked in the sudden bright until Bittle shut the door they were both covered in darkness.
"Um," said Bittle, who just stood there fidgeting in front of Jack's vintage (signed!) Wayne Gretsky poster.
"Hey," Jack said, casually as he could and nodded. He'd brought his hands out where Bittle could see them, and he was propping himself up in bed with his hands behind him.
"It's kinda dark in here." Bittle's big eyes widened a little, like that would help him see better.
"Want me to turn a light on?"
"Nah." Jack could make out the rise and fall of Bittle's shoulders as he shrugged. They didn't do this. Show up in each other's rooms. Some times he crashed out in Shitty's, but Bittle didn't cross his threshold very often.
"What's going on, Bittle?" Casual, real casual.
"I heard. I thought I heard..." Bittle swiped a hand over his face. "Aw, darn. I'm sorry. I really am, I just. I thought I heard you crying."
Jack didn't say anything for a long moment, but he was grateful for the dark, because in all honesty, he still was.
"I'm sorry," Bittle repeated. "I know you're not. I know you don't need my help." He hiccuped and swayed a little. Jack perked up.
"Are you a little shwaysted, Bits?" The extra-extra diminutive slipped out easily.
Bittle shrugged again, inelegant. "What do they call it? You know."
"Know what?"
"Dutch courage," Bittle said, and smiled, pleased with himself.
"What do you need that for?"
"Knocking on your door well past the witching hour. Takes a lot of courage, to check on the captain."
"C'mere," Jack said, touched. Bittle was sweet. He'd known that from the start. He patted the bed down by his feet, a safe distance from his unflagging erection. Bittle coming closer did nothing to help; the moonlight through the blinds showed his flushed face clearly, his red mouth.
"Got myself a little bit toasty," he explained, lowering himself onto the mattress. "Chowder wanted to try saki bombs."
Jack raised an eyebrow.
"I am the soul of regret." Bittle groaned. Then he remembered himself. "So you're not crying?"
To hell with it. "Might've been," Jack said.
Bittle's forehead creased up in concern and his mouth parted, a gap visible between his lips that was far too alluring.
"Can I help? I've got mini pies downstairs. Tourtière, your favorite."
"Nah, too late to eat. You know better than that."
Bittle fell forward onto his elbows, his head in his palms, too close to Jack's knees. "Extenuating circumstances."
They really were.
Jack bit his lower lip and looked down the bed at Bittle who looked up at him beneath his long lashes, half coy, which Jack was certain was the saki bombs at work. Or maybe not.
"Jack?"
"Hmmmm?" he said, absent.
"You sure you don't need anything? Because I'm probably going to fall asleep in a minute if I don't skedaddle."
"Come up here, Bits," Jack said, serving up an extra side of stupid. But he heard Bittle's breath pick up, knew its hurried cadence from time on the line.
Bittle hesitated and then he crawled up the bed on all fours like something out of one of Jack's rare fantasies. Jack hadn't specified, so Bittle wound up straddling his lap, hands on Jack's shoulders, warm through his threadbare sleep shirt.
"Hi," Bittle said. He was on his knees, one on either side of Jack's thighs, and like this they could see eye to eye perfectly. Bittle's were sleepy, but present.
"Hi," said Jack. "On a scale of one to ten, how drunk are you?"
"Well. M'not tub juice drunk, that's for sure."
"Good," Jack said, then, "Bits?" and hoped the question was obvious enough. Bittle swiped his tongue over his lower lip and didn't look away.
Then Jack put his hands on either side of Bittle's hips, and pulled him down. They both gasped, and Bittle wrapped his muscular little thighs around Jack's waist, his ankles crossed at the small of Jack's back. He linked his hands behind Jack's head and rocked foward, dragging his behind over Jack's tented shorts.
It had been 1000 years, Jack realized. He hadn't done this since antiquity.
His hands were still holding Bittle's hips, clutching at them really, and Bittle swayed towards him, bringing their foreheads together.
"I do declare, Mr. Zimmermann," he said, his accent teasingly thick, "I am...surprised."
"Don't be," Jack said. "Can I kiss you?"
"Dear lord, yes," Bittle said, and did the kissing himself.
It became frantic quickly, which he wasn't expecting.
At first he was sliding his lips over Bittle's gentle, gentle. Then Bittle was slipping his tongue urgently into Jack's mouth, confident and wonderfully sloppy. Sloppy just like Jack remembered, and he clung to Bittle and kissed him back to conquer. Cupped the back of his head, and slid his other hand up Bittle's pressed blue Oxford over his hot skin, and let it stay flat against his lower back, holding him in place, and leaving his hips free to move as they wished. Jack felt suddenly, acutely, how much bigger he was than Bittle. Which he knew, but didn't really know until he could feel almost the whole expanse of Bittle's lower back beneath his hand. It felt good. He wanted to see just how much of Bittle he could cover with his hands, if he could circle one of Bittle's thighs with his fingers, or wrap his arms around him tight enough to grip his own elbows. He wanted to cover Bittle's whole body with his own and the need he felt... It was so long dormant that it felt volcanic in him, dangerous and hot.
"Jack," Bittle said, pulling away breathless. "Jack, you do know I like you, right?"
Jack knew. He wasn't stupid. He felt it too. Had felt it from the moment Bittle started to irk him last year and he knew with inedible certainty exactly why that was.
"I know," he said, equally breathless. "I wouldn't be..." He didn't finish, because Bittle was kissing him again with serious fervor and he was grinding down on Jack's dick, and rubbing himself against Jack's stomach in the process and it was just. It was a lot. It was sensation he barely knew how to process. He just let it swirl around him, make him dizzy. He was distantly aware that he was moaning into Bittle's mouth, and saying Bits, Bitsy, Eric, maybe too many times each time they broke apart for air.
But Bittle kept saying, "yeah, yeah Jack, God I'm just. I never, I..." He pulled away to kiss along Jack's ear and neck, his hands pulling on Jack's short hair, and that nearly finished him. Before he could stop himself Bittle was beneath him, bent nearly in two, and Jack had a hand down his pants between them, while Bittle pulled down Jack's boxers, bringing them together skin to skin. Another tandem gasp when Jack was delighted to find that one of his hands could fit around them both. Jack finished first and without thinking used his semen as slick to bring Bittle off the rest of the way.
He came with a quiet, breathy cry against Jack's ear, and his back arched clear off the bed, incredibly athletic and lilthe. Bittle was going to be a world of trouble, Jack could already tell, and knew for sure when he took Jack's palm and licked a hot stripe up it. Jack shuddered.
"Holy shit."
Bittle looked nothing short of smug.
"So you did need something."
Jack flopped off of him to the side, careful not to crush his ribs or anything. He propped his head up on his hand and regarded Bittle sleepily. Suddenly exhausted.
"Guess so, Bits."
Bittle curled onto his side and into Jack's chest. Neither one of them moved to get cleaned up.
"Stay here," Jack said.
"Already am," Bittle mumbled, and tucked his soft head under Jack's chin like he belonged there for good.
Jack figured that maybe he did.