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Bitty woke up alone, which he’d expected given Jack’s photography lab. With all the sneaking around they did, it was nice to just be in Jack’s space, even if Jack wasn’t in it. Although the sneaking was kind of fun, especially since Bitty was 99% sure that Shitty was onto them and that Jack was only insisting they keep it up so he didn’t have to put up with Shitty making even more innuendos than he already did.
The clock on Jack’s nightstand said he had enough time to shower before anyone should be back at the Haus. In fact, he had time to use Jack’s shower, something he secretly liked to do, both because the bathroom he shared with Rans and Holster always smelled like bananas for some reason, and because this way he could use Jack’s shampoo and watch Jack’s face as he realized that Bitty smelled like him.
The thought was enough to get him out of bed smiling.
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“Should we all be sitting here?” Chowder asked, almost nervously.
“What else would we be doing?” Dex asked around a mouthful of cookie.
“We could go and pretend we hadn’t heard this,” Chowder asked, looking towards the door.
“Calm down and take a seat, young frog,” Shitty said, shooing him towards his bed where Nursey and Lardo were already lounging facing the bathroom door. “This will be too good to miss.”
Behind the door, Bitty’s voice changed key as he really got into his performance. From where they were leaning against Shitty’s desk, Rans and Holster were quietly arguing about who this meant had won the betting pool.
“I wouldn’t want to embarrass Bitty,” Chowder said uncertainly. “He’s so nice. And they think they’re being so sneaky…”
“Bitty’s gonna be fine,” Shitty assured him. “It’s when Jack gets back from his photog lab in a few minutes that it’ll get really fun. Besides, if they really wanted to be sneaky, Jack shouldn’t have let Bitty convince him to do most of their fooling around in Jack’s room.” He grinned and nodded towards the bathroom door. “He doesn’t always shut the door all the way on his side.”
Chowder wrinkled his nose, and Shitty clapped him on the back. “You’ll soon learn that prime chirping material like this must be taken advantage of, Chowds.”
The front door opened, and the room abruptly hushed except for the slightly muted sound of Bitty’s singing. Shitty was practically vibrating next to Chowder as they listened to Jack clomping up the stairs. He stopped at the top as he took in everyone crowded into the Shitty’s room, and Chowder could see the moment when he realized Bitty’s singing was coming from the wrong bathroom because he stilled and his head came up alertly. If he had been on the ice, Chowder would have braced himself. He could see Shitty giving Jack a huge, cheesy grin and two thumbs up, and then Jack scowled, flipped them all off, and stomped into his room.
Everyone leaned forward with interest as they could hear the other door to the bathroom open, followed by the screech of a shower curtain being violently shoved to the side and Bitty’s song abruptly cutting off. There was an intense but unintelligible conversation, and then Bitty, dripping wet and clutching a towel, opened the door a crack and peeped through.
“Uh, hey guys,” he said, blushing as Rans and Holster whistled and held up scorecards.
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Aside from the first time, soon after he moved in, Jack wasn’t taken to violently bursting in on Bitty in the shower. Also, he was supposed to be in class. So Bitty maybe jumped when Jack suddenly tore back the shower curtain.
“Jack?” Bitty asked, reaching behind himself to turn the water off so it wouldn’t keep spraying Jack, not that Jack seemed to care at the moment.
“Bitty.” Jack had a strange, almost resigned look on his face. “Did you maybe get in the wrong shower?”
“No, I—“ Bitty could feel himself blushing even though he was probably already flushed from the hot water. “You know I like to use your soap,” he hissed, reaching for a towel, since Jack was apparently just going to keep standing there like a giant weirdo. “Aren’t you supposed to be in class?”
“You know it gets out at four!”
“Yeah, so that means I have time to shower before—oh.” Bitty looked at the display on Jack’s phone, which clearly read after four, and then looked wildly towards Jack’s room. “But I thought—and that means.”
“Everyone’s in Shitty’s room,” Jack said, starting to flush himself.
“They had to know anyway,” Bitty pointed out. “Some of them. And we were planning to tell them eventually.”
Jack groaned and shook his head, staring up at the ceiling.
Bitty rolled his eyes, wrapped his towel tighter, and went to crack the door to Shitty’s room. He was confident that there wasn’t anything here that Shitty talking Jack around and some pie wouldn’t fix.
“Uh, hey guys,” he said, when he noticed that not only did “everyone” include the actual Haus residents of Shitty, Rans, and Holster, but also Lardo and the frogs. Rans and Holster were giving him thumbs up and 10/10 scorecards. “Shitty, come deal with Jack while I get dressed. Everyone else, there’s cheesecake in the refrigerator.”
You could always count on cheesecake to clear a room, he thought at the resultant stampede. “Save some for us,” he bellowed after them.
Behind him, Shitty was already telling Jack, “You know, if you’d just lasted until next month, I would have won the pool.”
“Are you upset that they know now, or are you upset that no one was fooled by your poorly planned sneaking around?” he asked Jack, turning around. Jack was beginning to look less flummoxed and more just annoyed in general, but not like he was freaking out, so Bitty just flapped his hands at both of them. “Exactly. Now go save me a piece of cheesecake.”
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“Man, Bitty can sing whatever he wants in the shower if he keeps making this,” Holster said, shoveling cheesecake into his mouth.
“The first week he moved in, Jack banned him from shower singing before noon,” Ransom told the frogs. “There was an incident involving him bursting in on Bitty in the shower. There was pie then too.”
“But less of Jack and Bitty banging,” Holster pointed out. Chowder looked interested, while Dex and Nursey were more interested in their cheesecake.
“Oh yeah, they hadn’t started that yet,” Ransom said. “That was probably the first time Jack saw Bitty’s bits outside the locker room though, so maybe that started it.”
Dex flushed. “Please don’t ever refer to them as Bitty’s bits ever again,” he pleaded, bite of cheesecake halfway to his mouth. He almost dropped it when Shitty and Jack came in.
The heckling had just started when Bitty burst into the kitchen and threw something at Jack.
“Jack Zimmerman,” he said as Jack caught it. “If you don’t want me to out us to the Haus, then maybe you should set your clock to normal time instead of whatever you had it set with.”
Jack stared down at the clock in bewilderment, and then his expression cleared. “Oh, I don’t think,” he almost stuttered. “I think I didn’t reset it for daylight savings,” he admitted sheepishly. “I don’t even really look at it anymore.”
Shitty shook his head sadly. “Your esteemed captain,” he said to the frogs, while Bitty just sighed and dished himself up a piece of cheesecake.
“So Bitty,” Holster said, mouth full of cheesecake. “Did you seduce Zimmerman with pie, or was he overcome with lust for your bits the first time he interrupted your shower singing?”
Beside Bitty, Jack groaned and put his head down on the table
Bitty pointed at everyone as sternly as he could. “Do you want to give Jack a hard time, or do you want more cheesecake ever?” he threatened, which had the effect of making everyone spend the next ten minutes plying him with compliments while he ate his own cheesecake and petted Jack’s hair soothingly.