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Bitty doesn’t seem to notice anyone in the Haus when he comes in and grabs a bag of peas from the freezer, but they all notice him. They notice him so hard that they forget to say anything about it from where they’re sitting around the table digging into a pie.
Bitty, for his part, seems perfectly content to get what he needs and leave the room, leaving them all in silence.
“Uh,” Shitty says ever so eloquently, shooting Jack a panicked look.
“Was that-?” Ransom adds.
“Did Bitty have-?” From Holster.
“I’m going to go talk to him.” Jack stands up from the table and throws his fork down before taking the stairs two at a time. For all his rush, when he reaches Bitty’s door, he pauses with his fist raised. Should he knock? Should he just go in? What is up with Bitty?
Luckily for him, the door opens, and there’s Bitty, bag of peas pressed to his forehead and smirk in place. “Come on, you big lug. Come inside.”
Bitty seems perfectly fine and cheerful, which makes this whole thing feel even more like Jack has stepped sideways into an alternate universe. He sits on Bitty’s bed and pulls his legs up to sit criss-cross applesauce. “Is that blood?”
Bitty huffs and flops down on his back next to Jack, bag still pressed to his head. He’s got a cut high on his left cheek and black eye blooming on the same side, as well as a split lower lip that’s already scabbing. It’s a devastatingly good look. “Sure is. You should see the other guy.”
Any other time, Jack would assume it was a joke, that Bitty fell and hit his face or something, but Bitty’s knuckles are also sporting bruises and blood and Jack has no idea what happened but this cannot be Eric Bittle. “Uh, care to explain?”
Bitty huffs again and frowns at the ceiling. “Was walking home from the library. Some guy was talking to this young girl, I think she’s a professor’s kid, and I got a bad feeling about it.”
Jack frowns. He can picture exactly what Bitty’s talking about, has seen it too many times.
“She looked so scared, couldn’t have been more than fourteen, so I asked if everything was alright. He didn’t like that too much, asked if I was a cop,” Bitty practically growls out.
“So I asked him if I should call one, and he lunged at me, like,” Bitty jerks his body up in an approximation of an asshole trying to intimidate someone, “and I don’t know what came over me, but I just punched him.”
“You punched first?” Jack is shocked, to say the least. Of all the ways he was expecting that to play out…
“Well I had to! He was an asshole and a creep and if I had just done my fainting goat impression, who knows what he would have done to her! And he got a hit or two in, but I wasn’t gonna let him win that one.”
“You just kept fighting him?”
“Adrenaline is one hell of a drug.”
“Did you win?”
Bitty chuffs out a laugh and shakes his head, wincing slightly at the movement. “Nah. A campus police officer noticed us and the asshole ran. We gave statements, and the officer just thanked me and let me go. That poor girl was so scared, so I walked her home and made sure her parents knew what had happened and told them she should have pepper spray.”
“Wow.” Jack can hardly believe it, but he can picture it. He can picture perfectly an Eric Bittle who sweeps in to help someone and overcomes his fear of physical altercation to help someone. He can picture him walking her home and charming her parents.
The image is enough for Jack to understand the concept of swooning. “That’s amazing. Let me get you some bandaids.”
Before Bitty can answer, Jack is up and shuffling over to his room to grab his first aid kit and give himself a pep talk. If he can’t tell Bitty how amazing he is tonight, he never will.
Bitty is sitting up, leaning against the wall and smiling when Jack comes back in. “My personal paramedic.”
Jack cracks a smile and kneels on the bed beside Bitty. He pulls out what he needs, laughs when Bitty hisses at the disinfectant pads, and in a few minutes, he’s done patching him up, hands hovering close to Bitty’s stunningly handsome face, and feeling like some kind of gay Canadian Lydia Bennett.
The cuts and bruises and bandages have only served to make him look rugged and more masculine and Jack is a weak, weak man.
“What, do I have something on my face?” Bitty cracks and grins.
Jack puts his hands on either side of Bitty’s jaw, fingers spreading up to his cheekbones, and down onto his neck. The smile drops off of the smaller man’s face until it’s a slack look of shock. “Jack…”
Jack kisses him, and it tastes like blood, sweat, and adrenaline, even if that last one is just him. Bitty for his part reacts quickly and enthusiastically, wrapping his arms around Jack’s neck and practically crawling into his lap.
“Woah,” Jack breathes out when they break apart. Bitty grins, broad and bright. “I know I started it but…”
“What can I say? I’m feeling brave tonight.”