Work Text:
Evil doesn’t like chicken tenders
He doesn’t know how it happened. Love snuck up on him.
Literally.
“What are you doing in here?”
Shitty turns on his heel, vision swimming in reds and greys as he spins towards the voice.
“Woah fucking warn a guy before you sneak up on him.” He laughs down at the compact dark haired female with curious glinting eyes.
The girl tips back on her heels, not a retreat, just a pull back to better give him a slow suspicious once over.
Shitty fidgets under her stare. “I came for a cup.”
“A cup?”
Shitty shifts his weight from left to right. “Yeah ya know…for my junk.”
A small twitch of her lips, barely a smile but still it transforms her face into something that makes Shitty wants to blush. He does blush.
“Yeah dude I didn’t think you’d wanna drink out of it.”
“Not after last time.” He exhales.
“Last time?”
“Holster made me drink out of his after a practice because I couldn’t score against Johnson. Like, the dudes a brick wall and I was hanging like a pair of cheap fucking drapes but I’m not one to back out of a bet.” He shudders, “It was horrifying. But it didn’t taste that awful once you got over the smell of crotch sweat.”
She grins, and if the quirk had been a thing this was a whole other thing. “You’re on the team?”
“Yeah.”
She cocks her head to the side, “You’re a little short.”
This is a sore spot for Shitty who is not the shortest person on the team but with the way the guys go on about it you’d think he was an Oompa Loompa. “I’m 5”10!”
“Yeah but the others.-“
“I will not be held to the outdated stereotypical jock expectations of masculinity. I make my own way in the body I was born with and I will not be called short but someone who barely grazes my shoulder. Besides it’s rude to ask a dude his height when he doesn’t even know your name.”
The girl, unfazed, quirks an amused, perfectly shaped brow. She really is gorgeous. “It is?”
“Societal rules dictate an exchange of monikers.”
“Larissa.”
Shitty sticks out his hand to shake hers. “Pleased to meet you I’m B-“
“Shitty!”
Holsters voice booms down the hall, “Come on! There’re chicken tenders in the dining hall and Jack’s getting antsy.”
There’s a muffled reply and then a bark of laughter.
Ransom stops in the doorway. “Dude that’s tacky. Hooking up in the closet? What are you, in high school?”
Shitty flushes. “Just meeting the new manager.” He scratches the back of his neck cos is it getting warmer in here or is it just him?
“Oh yeah Jack told me to find you. We’re going for chicken tenders you gotta come. Team bonding.”
She grins. “Sweet.”
Shitty’s had crushes before, never so instantaneous, but he can hold his own when it comes to wheelin’ and wooing chicks. But Larissa has him wondering what the heck he used to do because the idea of sharing a meal with her has him breaking out in an excited and nervous cold sweat. She’s their manager which is an automatic hands off but that only puts her in that awful forbidden fruit area that means he’s going to be watching himself so closely around her that everyone will know what’s up. Ransom will be the first to clock it because he’s freakishly intuitive and Holster will tell everyone because he’s a chirpy asshole.
“Shitty?”
“Yeah?” He ruses. Have they been staring at him that way for very long?
“You ready bro?”
Larissa turns around and hands him a cup. “For your junk.” She smirks.
“Dude.” Ransom snorts.
Larissa locks the store cupboard before they take off down the hall towards where everyone’s waiting. Some more impatiently than others.
“Jack loves only three things that I know of for sure.” Ransom explains as they walk. “Hockey, history and chicken tenders.”
“Pretty sure it’s a crime not to like chicken tenders.” Larissa says.
Shitty seconds her, “Only, fucking, terrorists or baby killers don’t like chicken tenders.”
“Hate to say it but I think even they like chicken tenders.”
Shitty makes a wounded sound. “I mean,” he grasps for words so moved by the outrage that thinking evil enjoys a snack that a man as pure as Jack Zimmermann enjoys, “sure they eat them but they don’t really enjoy them. There’s no way. Jack back me up!”
Up ahead the players, freshly showered after a vigorous practice, gather. Holster is roughhousing with Jack. When Jack looks up to answer Holster takes advantage of his distraction and hooks a foot around his ankle. He grabs Jack before he falls but it’s a clear victory.
“Foul!” One of the players shouts. “Distraction.”
“There are no fouls in parking lot wrestling!” Holster declares.
Jack grins carding his fingers through his damp curling hair, pushing it back to reveal those blue eyes that have the writers at the Swallow furiously looking up synonyms for piercing. “S’up Shits.”
“Back me up bro.”
Jack looks at him questioningly.
“Evil does not truly enjoy chicken tenders.”
Jack considers it then says seriously, “In an ideal world.”
Shitty’s hands begin to move signalling that he’s gearing up for an explanation the length and energy of which may suck all the oxygen from the atmosphere around them. “Man just think about how you feel eating chicken tenders,” when Jack doesn’t immediately start thinking Shitty pauses staring meaningfully. “Well?”
Jack tries his best to look like he’s thinking about it.
Satisfied Shitty continues. “Joy right? Pure unadulterated fucking joy at eating the tenderest of chicken strips. I know you live for these days Zimmermann.”
“Seeing as you know I live for them can we walk faster before the lax bros get there?”
“See what I mean?” He looks at Larissa who nods like she knows exactly what he means. “Only a man who feels that kind of joy would hurry eighteen fatigued Hockey players to the dining hall without apology.”
Without breaking stride – a very brisk stride- Jack sighs shortly, “Shits.”
“You are the purest man I know and you love chicken tenders do not fuck with my tenuous grip on reality and enthusiastic childlike faith in humanity by telling me evil enjoys chicken tenders, like really enjoys them.”
Jack doesn’t answer. Shitty decides it’s because he’s thinking it over, realising that he’s right and that only good people can enjoy their food.
Beside him Larissa says thoughtfully, “If you go with the science that says evil people are born that way because their brains are wired differently then it’s not wrong to say that they wouldn’t experience joy the same way someone else would. Then again people don’t always experience things the same way. Who’s to say there isn’t a good person out there who hates chicken tenders?”
Shitty shakes his head emphatically. “I can’t go down that road man. That’s a dark fucking road. If there is a person on this planet who is good who doesn’t like chicken tenders then I cannot know them.”
A pained look changes her face and she slows. “I guess this is a bad time to tell you I don’t like chicken tenders then huh?”
All the boys stop.
Even Jack.
Eventually Jack, because of course it’s him, the chicken tender king, says, “What?”
“No there’s no way.” Holster sounds haunted.
“Everyone likes chicken tenders.” Ransom says.
“Even serial killers.” Holster whispers.
Shitty would glower at him if he wasn’t so busy gaping at Larissa and wondering how he can still be so into a woman who has just admitted she doesn’t like the tastiest of foods.
“Dude.” Her face breaks and she sniggers pointing at them. “You should see your faces.”
Holster exhales in loud relief. “Do not play a bro like that.”
“How could you say that with such a straight face?” Ransom looks at her with terrified wonder.
Shitty blinks at her, once, twice, three times. “I almost believed you.”
Larissa snorts “Dude as if. Only terrorists and baby killers don’t like chicken tenders.”