Chapter Text
The first time Bitty met Parse, the rain was pouring. Looking back, Bitty should have known this was signifying how it was going to end— it was a dark and stormy night and so forth. But at the time, Bitty thought it was funny. Parse came in, dripping water all over Bitty’s bakery, his hair plastered to his skull and his clothes practically see-through.
“Forgot to take an umbrella,” Parse had said, flashing a sheepish grin.
“The rain was in the forecast,” Bitty said because he couldn’t think of anything else.
Parse shrugged. “I’m not very good at planning ahead,” he said.
Bitty rested his cheek in his hand, elbows propped on the display. “Well,” he said, because a customer was a customer and Bitty was always bored out of his mind on rainy days, “you might as well buy something while you’re here, hon.”
Parse had laughed, his eyes crinkling at the corners and one dimple appearing on the side of his lopsided smile. And Bitty just looked at him, unable to think of anything other than, Oh, no.
Now, in the morning, Bitty wakes up next to Kent Parson, the first few rays of sunlight hitting his messy blonde hair. Through an aching head made only worse by his dry mouth, all Bitty can think is, Oh, no.
History does not repeat itself. Rather, the future creates caricatures of the past.
.
Jack sits at the edge of his bed, knotting his tie as he talks to Shitty over speakerphone.
“Look, I’m not saying you’re cheating on Bitty,” Shitty says, “but also—you’re kind of cheating on Bitty, brah.”
“I am not—I am not cheating on Bitty!” Jack says, a little too high for comfort. He can’t help it, though—Shitty’s words, however lighthearted they are, sink into Jack’s skin like slivers of glass. “It’s not a date.”
“It’s a date with Marissa from Communications,” Shitty says in a horrible imitation of Bitty’s Southern accent
“It’s not a date,” Jack repeats. “We’re discussing my paper.”
“Your paper on baked goods,” Shitty says dryly.
Jack can picture Shitty’s shit-eating grin. If Shitty were here right now, he would no doubt be sticking his face way too close to Jack’s, the bristles of his mustache brushing against Jack’s nose.
“People like baked goods,” Jack says defensively.
“People like eating baked goods, not reading academic papers on them.”
Jack looks down at his tie and curses. The lengths are uneven. He restarts, doing his best not to focus too hard on what Shitty is saying. It’s blurring together a bit too much, and his hands won’t stop shaking. He wishes that Shitty would stop asking and arguing and probing for once in his life. It’s all well and good to be a lawyer, but it’s as if Shitty doesn’t know how to turn it off.
“Does Bitty know?” Shitty asks.
Jack’s hands freeze for a moment. He closes his eyes for a moment, pressing his hands against his neck for a few seconds. He needs stability. He needs something to hold his throat together as he tries to breathe.
It’s times like this when he misses Bitty so much that it hurts. Bitty was always good at this kind of thing. Jack felt like he was constantly holding himself up, handing the broken pieces for Bitty to take away, and watching as Bitty put them back together again.
He’s not thinking about it. He isn’t going to start obsessing again. He and Bitty are fine—they’re taking a break is all. Jack asked for this.
“He doesn’t have to know because it’s not a date,” Jack says shortly.
“Brah—”
Jack hangs up the phone and buries his face in his palms.
.
Really, it’s all Shitty’s fault this whole mess began. Jack can still remember it perfectly: Shitty, an easy grin on his face as he dragged Jack off to a bar, proclaiming that Jack hadn't gone out in forever, not even to hang out with his best friend.
"You're gonna work yourself to death," Shitty said, still smiling, still acting like it was all a joke.
Jack knew it wasn't a joke. He may have just gotten over a major depressive episode and shut a lot of his loved ones out of his life. It wasn't a big deal.
Except Jack missed his friends so much that the loneliness ached a little, like someone had taken a knife and scraped him raw. He never meant to push his friends away. It was just too much, and he felt like he was drowning under the panicky thoughts that kept fluttering around him like they never really liked you and no one in their right mind would want to be your friend and you're bad for them, they're better off without you, they should have gotten rid of you years ago. In the end, it was easier to pretend that they were bad for Jack instead of the other way around. And so Jack locked them out of his life.
Shitty was one of the few friends who actively fought against that. He wouldn't be pleased with Jack for thinking this way, but Jack couldn't put the thought out of his mind that he owed Shitty for that. Not everyone chose to stay, and Jack never blamed them. How could he?
So Jack let Shitty drag him to a shitty bar and clutched a glass of beer tightly in both hands. He wasn't sure where Shitty was, which wasn't the direct cause of Jack wanting to throw up but definitely a contributing factor. The entire point of this endeavor was to hang out with Shitty, not sit alone at a bar.
He took a sip of beer, grimaced, and sternly promised himself never to come back.
A blur of flannel and blonde hair fell into the chair beside him, and for a split second, Kenny whispered across his mind. Jack closed his eyes, his breath a little shallow, as he forced Kent out of his mind.
"Lord," Bitty had said, and when Jack peeked, he saw exhaustion in Bitty's eyes, "remind me to never go shopping with Dex and Nursey ever again. Those boys."
His voice was a Southern drawl, and he looked like sunshine, despite the dark circles under his eyes. Jack wanted to hear him talk more. A part of him, which only made his desire to throw up worse, wanted to touch Bitty’s hair.
Normally, Jack would have ignored both wishes, stuffing every part wistful and optimistic down. However, he had just nearly ruined his life because he let his anxiety and depression control his every move, so he figured, what the hell? He might as well come out swinging.
"Okay," Jack had said, turning to face Bitty fully for the first time, "don't go shopping with Dex and Nursey again."
Sometimes the image still follows Jack: when he sees a flash of blonde hair, when he caves into all the want and scrolls through photos on his phone, when he closes his eyes under the light of the sun. Bitty had turned, startled slightly, and bit his lip when he caught sight of Jack.
Jack didn't know it at the time, but Bitty was biting back a smile. (And oh, when Bitty smiled—Jack had come to cherish those moments, often as they came, filing them away with the same care that most used for catching a glimpse of sunrise.) All Jack knew at the time was that the stranger in front of him was meeting his eyes with a spark of mischief. And that was enough for him.
“Think you’re pretty smooth, mister?” Bitty asked, rather loftily in Jack’s opinion. He didn’t mind. The way Jack saw it, someone who looked like Bitty could afford to think highly of himself.
“Never,” Jack said, taking a sip of beer and resisting the urge to spit it out right away. “Just . . . doing as bidden and whatnot.”
Bitty had let himself smile at last, and then Jack was gone.
.
It’s not a date.
Jack and Marissa are colleagues, and colleagues go out for lunch together, especially if they’re on good terms. He and Marissa are on good terms, usually. He thinks they might be friends.
Jack takes a bite of salad. It’s crunchy and loud, and he imagines that he looks like a rabbit. He thinks he might just die. He’s going to get lettuce stuck in his teeth, and then every time Marissa sees him in the future, she’ll think of the lettuce, and Jack will never have any professional credibility in her eyes ever again.
“So how have you been lately?” Marissa asks, as if she doesn’t see him almost every day.
“Good,” Jack says. He considers praying for death. “And you?”
“Oh, you know,” Marissa says. Her eyes are bright, and Jack’s pretty sure she’s wearing lipstick. “My students are a handful. Sometimes I forget I’m teaching college students with the way they act.”
Jack nods, even though he doesn’t relate. He read a book once on how displaying engagement during conversations helps people feel heard and loved. He doesn’t think he and Marissa are good enough friends for him to call this love, but he does think he should at least try to put up a good front. People like to believe everyone loves them, even those they’re so much as casual acquaintances with.
A brief lull in the conversation pervades. Once Jack is sure Marissa isn’t going to elaborate on her non-college college students, he says, “For the article, I was thinking—”
“Let’s not talk about the article,” Marissa blurts out.
Jack frowns, his forehead wrinkling. “But I thought—”
“Yet,” Marissa says. She swallows, and Jack can see how strained she is, all taut lines in her neck and face. With some effort, she smiles. “Let’s not talk about it yet. I mean, we’ve barely talked lately, you and I. We’re both so busy. Let’s . . . talk about ourselves. For now.”
She looks ever so sincere, ever so kind, as she says this. Jack thinks he might throw up.
It’s not a date. He and Bitty are still together, even though they’re not. Everything is fine, and Marissa’s perfume is the same kind that Alicia always wore when she and Bob went dancing.
“Marissa.” Jack swallows again, resisting the urge to fix his tie. Logically, he knows his tie is not tight enough to strangle him, but he can’t help feeling like he’s about to choke. “Are you—I’m sorry, but is this a date?”
Marissa looks at him for a few seconds, so very still and wide-eyed. Then, as if she has come to a decision, she squares her shoulders and nods.
Shitty points and laughs in the back of Jack’s mind’s eye, even though he knows Shitty would never treat him like that.
“Marissa, I have a boyfriend,” Jack says as gently as possible.
As still as she was before, she has only grown more rigid. She is a tree, solid and immovable, the only stirring from a rustle in the leaves.
“You told me,” Marissa says, then stops for a breath. “You told me you broke up.”
Jack’s brow furrows.
“I said we were taking a break,” Jack says slowly.
“You said you moved out,” Marissa corrects him.
“Because I did.”
Her eyes wide with irritation, Marissa opens her mouth as if to argue with him. Then her face closes off, and she picks up her purse.
“Whatever,” she says flatly. “Sorry for assuming, I guess. I’ll see you on Monday.”
She slings her bag over her shoulder and leaves, the tap of her heels on the floor grating on Jack’s ears.
He thinks he might be dying. He takes a bite of salad. He spits it out into his napkin because he can’t force himself to swallow.
He didn’t break up with Bitty. He knows he didn’t because he was there.
“I need some time,” Jack said, “to work things out. I don’t think—I don’t think we’re good for each other.”
I don’t think I’m good for you.
Jack must have made a sound or perhaps a face because the waiter is giving him a concerned look. He can’t bring himself to care.
After paying with numb fingers, Jack slides into his car and clenches the steering wheel tightly. His skin feels like it’s crawling around him, as if any moment it might tear from his muscles and walk away.
Marissa was right. He broke up with Bitty.
He’s an idiot.
.
At Walmart, Bitty stares at the package of briefs for a few seconds before throwing it into the cart.
“So no judgment,” Dex says in a judgmental tone, “but why are we buying Parse underwear?”
“He doesn’t have any.”
“What, did his house burn down or something?”
Before Bitty can answer, his phone dings.
Jack: Can we talk?
Bitty stares at his phone. Talk. Talk about what? Is Jack sick? Is he going to tell Bitty he never wants to see Bitty again? Is Jack going to fall to his knees and scatter Bitty’s bed with rose petals and beg to get back together?
“Bitty?” Dex prompts.
“Oh, yeah,” Bitty says absentmindedly. “Something like that.”
He stuffs his phone back into his pocket and grabs a package of socks.
He can always message Jack later. Jack probably just forgot something at Bitty’s house and chose an inappropriately ominous way to start a conversation. He does that at times.
“That’s awful,” Dex says, his eyes softening. “Is he okay?”
Bitty mulls it over for a few seconds.
There are times, like when Parse is cooking or watching a movie, when it seems like this is normal, like Parse is at Bitty’s house as a choice and not a last resort. Other times, it’s like Parse isn’t there at all, his eyes fixed on an invisible point, his shoulders tense but never hunched. Bitty doesn't know where Parse goes in those moments, but he thinks of the house he drove Parse away from, and his stomach churns.
“I don’t know,” Bitty says.
Dex doesn’t reply, and for that Bitty is grateful. He’s running out of words to say.
.
The doorbell rings.
For a moment, all Kent can think is Jared. It's ridiculous. It's idiotic. Jared doesn't know where Kent is—he probably doesn't give a fuck whether or not Kent comes back. Jared is probably relieved Kent is gone because Kent brought nothing to the table whenever he entered a relationship.
Dead weight, parasite, you fucking leech—
Kent grips his thighs tightly, his nails digging into his skin. The doorbell rings again, and he thinks he's running out of air.
This is so fucking stupid. He needs to get a grip. It's a doorbell, not the harbinger of doom, but also Jared is right in Kent's face, clenching a handful of Kent's shirt and slamming him against the wall. He's going to die. Jared is going to kill him, and he'll never see his cat again, and he thinks he's going to start crying. He can't cry. He can't cry. He can't—
His phone dings.
Smartass Southern Pie Fucker: Can you unlock the door? I forgot my keys
Kent inhales sharply, his head falling back against the wall. He's on the floor with his back to the wall, and he has no idea how he got there. He doesn't know if he can get up—he can't stop shaking, and his vision is blurry with tears.
Smartass Southern Pie Fucker: Parse? You there?
Kent pushes himself to his feet. He forces himself to walk to the door and unlocks it. After opening the door, he quickly tucks his hands into his pockets to hide the trembling.
Bittle stands on the other side, his arms full of grey sacks.
"Sorry," he says sheepishly. "I don't know what I was thinking." He peers at Kent as he comes into the house, frowning slightly, most likely because Kent looks like a wreck. "You okay, sugar?"
"Fine," Kent says roughly.
He glances at the sacks as he shuts the door. He can't see much, but he can tell they're clothes.
"What's all this?" Kent asks.
"Clothes," Bittle says. "For you. I mean. Since you don't have any right now."
Kent's throat feels unexpectedly tight. Bittle is fidgeting with one of the sacks, not meeting Kent's eyes, and the room suddenly feels too small.
"I'll pay you back," Kent says.
"You don't have to," Bittle blurts out.
Kent isn’t sure why this bothers him so much. It would be bad enough if Bittle agreed to let Kent pay him back, but he’s so—
Kent isn’t sure if it’s Southern hospitality or what, but he doesn’t like it. There have to be strings attached; there are always strings attached. If there’s one thing Kent hates, it’s owing. Gifts are never truly gifts. They are debts in pretty packaging, and Kent doesn’t know how to begin paying them off.
Bittle looks so tense when he offers Kent the plastic shopping bags filled with clothes from Walmart, though, and Kent has no idea how to put his feelings about gifts into words. So he thanks Bittle and takes the bags into the guest bedroom to cut off the tags.
In the end, that’s all Kent can do, time after time: say thank you and take it.
(He can still remember falling apart on Andrew’s couch, gasping out thank you I’m sorry I’m sorry thank you I’m sorry, until it all blurred together and none of his words made sense anymore.)
Sitting on the bed, Kent has soft T-shirts in random colors on his lap with the tags still on, and it is so very hard to breathe. He wants to thank Bittle again. He wants to apologize. He wants to scream and curse at Bittle and spit at his feet.
It’s absurd, but Kent can’t stop thinking about what Jack would think. (Does Jack miss him? Does Jack ever remember the good moments, or is it all silent treatment and screaming matches and unanswered calls in Jack’s mind?) A part of him worries that Jack will think he is taking advantage of Bittle. A part of Kent worries that Jack would be right.
Kent’s hands tighten around the tags, the plastic and stiff paper digging into his palms.
He lets go of the tags and pushes the shirts off his lap onto the floor. Swoops would say Kent shouldn’t be trusted around scissors right now. Swoops is usually right about these kinds of things, annoying as he is.
He’ll get a job. He’ll pay Bittle back. Everything will be fine, and Kent will be able to move on with his life.
.
That night, Bitty calls Dex, the phone tucked under his cheek as he pulls cookie sheets out from the oven.
“Jack texted me,” Bitty whispers, mindful that it’s two in the morning and Parse is sound asleep. He shuts the oven door and starts to place the cookies on a cooling rack.
For a brief moment, all Bitty can hear is Dex’s breathing, and he can all but picture the furrowed brow. Dex is going to get vicious wrinkle lines there someday, and Nursey will never let him live it down.
“Isn’t that a good thing?” Dex asks. “I mean, it’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”
Bitty thinks of Jack, of the quiet way he smiled, like his smiles were for Bitty and Bitty alone, the way Jack was almost always able to tell when Bitty needed a hug, the way he touched Bitty ever so cautiously at first—as if afraid his touch would burn Bitty’s skin away. God, Bitty misses him.
“I don’t know,” says Bitty.
“That’s gotta be weird with Parse there,” Dex says.
Bitty winces. “Right,” he says lowly. “Um . . . hon? Can I tell ya something kinda silly?”
“You’ve listened to me rant about Nursey enough times—no way I can refuse.”
Bitty snorts. Dex has a bit of an . . . obsession when it comes to Nursey. He and Chowder have started placing bets on when Dex and Nursey will figure it out.
“It’s about Parse.”
“Oh,” Dex says. Bitty can hear him swallowing. “Go for it.”
Bitty glances around, despite the fact that he knows Parse is already in bed. Now would be the time Parse chooses to get a late night glass of water. Once he’s satisfied he’s alone, he whispers, “I think . . . I think I’m startin’ to like him.”
A slight pause.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Dex says.
“I know,” Bitty says miserably.
“What are you gonna do?”
“No idea,” Bitty says.
He breaks off a crumbling bit of cookie and pops it in his mouth. It’s not a good day. But it’s not a bad day, either. He has a feeling, though, that the ambiguity is going to collapse in on itself soon, and not in a good way.
“Well, good luck,” Dex says in a tone of voice that implies he’s pretty sure Bitty is doomed.
“Yeah,” Bitty says, rubbing his face. He’s pretty sure, too.
.
The next day, Kent does laundry.
Life is built on rituals and routines, and Kent believes he has found his. Have a mental breakdown one day; do basic household chores the next.
He transfers the load of lights into the dryer, then dumps the darks into the washing machine. Normally, he just washes them all together, but he has a feeling Bittle would be a little peeved if the new white shirts turned pink.
He can tell he’s close to another mental breakdown right now. Pressure is building along his temples, and the back of his eyes are this close to burning. But it’s fine. Now that he’s thinking things through with a clear head, he’s pretty sure Bittle gave him the clothes as a weird guilt thing for drunkenly crying into Kent’s chest and falling asleep in his arms. Bittle has quite noticeably avoided addressing this, which—
Kent isn’t sure how that makes him feel. Not good would probably be high on the list. He doesn’t exactly want a super awkward conversation, but he wishes they could just get it over with.
(Bittle had smelled like sweat and alcohol, which normally makes Kent gag. He kissed Bittle’s hair instead, stroking his back until they fell asleep.)
Kent has just finished putting soap in when the doorbell rings. God. He can’t believe Bittle forgot his keys again. So much for being the responsible one.
Kent glances at the clock. It’s a little early for Bittle to be home, but he just hired some new kid, so maybe the kid is finally practiced enough to close up shop.
Kent starts the washing machine, then walks to the door. He pulls it open, fully prepared to rib Bittle for forgetting his keys the second day in a row, when the words die on his lips.
Jack stands on the porch with a vase full of flowers.
Fuck.