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"Initiate Zimmermann," Shitty says loftily, "Fetch me another beer."
Jack rolls his eyes but ambles in the direction of the cooler. Pretty much everyone else is still off watching the frogs in the contests of strength and skill - Jack had lost immediately, without even trying to make it look like an accident - so there's no one obstructing the view of him bending over to fish out a can. It's a magnificent view.
Shitty glances over at Bitty in the lawn chair next to him. His jaw is a little agape.
Jack comes back with the beer and presents it to Shitty with a little flourish of his other hand.
Shitty makes a face. "What is this swill," he says, not taking the offered can. "Natty? I know I snuck a couple bottles of Harpoon in there."
"Maybe Holster got them," Jack says blandly.
Shitty raises his eyebrows. "Should I check, Initiate Zimmermann?"
"Allow me," Jack says grandiosely, rolling his eyes again and sweeping back to the cooler. He's bent over further for longer this time while he rummages around. Bitty looks positively glassy-eyed. Shitty gets an impulse, the kind that, professional shit-stirrer that he is, he's just got to follow.
Jack comes back this time with a dripping brown bottle.
"Actually I think Bitty needs it more," Shitty says, nodding over at him. Bitty gives a little squeak, like he'd thought maybe they had forgotten he was there.
Jack's lashes lower and he's almost demure as he hands Bitty the beer.
"Thank you," Bitty says politely. Shitty can't tell if their fingers brush or not, but he thinks he sees Jack shiver minutely.
"Pop quiz," Shitty says. "Initiate Zimmermann: what goes with beer?"
Jack straightens. "... hockey?"
"Pretzels," Shitty says, mock-despairing. "I can't believe you expect poor Bitty here to drink on an empty stomach, that's for frogs and weak-ass seniors. Well?" he says, as Jack continues to stand there. "Chop chop!"
"Oh, no, I'm fine!" Bitty says, but Jack is already heading to the table where they've got pretzels and peanuts and what's left of Bitty's pie. "Oh," Bitty says guiltily, "He shouldn't have to do that."
"How often do you fetch someone something from the Haus kitchen," Shitty says, elbowing him in the arm. "Average number of times per night."
"Well it's no trouble for me," Bitty says, blushing a little.
"So let it not be trouble for him. Isn't that right, Jack?" he asks, raising his voice as Jack comes back with a solo cup. "You don't mind taking care of Bitty here."
"No," Jack says, voice low and a little rough. He keeps his eyes downcast as he holds the cup out to Bitty. "I don't mind."
"Great!" Shitty says. He swipes the cup of pretzels. "Because I spoke too soon. Bitty's a Georgia boy, he wants peanuts, not pretzels. What was I thinking."
"No problem," Jack says, and heads off to the table again. Bitty is flushed; Shitty watches him press the bottle of beer to his cheek, to the side of his neck.
"Here you go," Jack says. He's back with a cup of peanuts.
"Thank you," Bitty says. He takes a breath. "But, Jack, sweetheart, I don't see how you're expecting me to drink this lovely beer through this here bottle cap." He taps the cap with his finger and looks up at Jack expectantly.
"Silly me," Jack says dryly. He trades Bitty the peanuts for the beer and then looks around at a bit of a loss. Pretty much everyone else has been drinking from cans, so there's no church key at hand. Shitty has a swiss army knife in his pocket precisely for this reason but it's much more fun to keep quiet and watch Jack look down at himself like a bottle opener might materialize in his boxer shorts.
Jack grimaces a little like he might be considering the teeth option, and then leans forward and pries off the bottle-top against the arm of Bitty's lawn chair. It puts the top of his head practically in Bitty's face. He can probably feel Bitty's breath in his hair. The bottle cap clinks to the Faber floor - not the ice, Lardo had nixed snack food on the ice after last year's cleanup - and Jack backs off enough that he can hand it to Bitty without risk of head-butting him.
"Thanks," Bitty says, "Here, you can hold these for me," and gives Jack back the cup of peanuts. "And quit looming," he adds, blushing again and not meeting Jack's eyes, making an airy little "down, down" hand gesture at odds with his face in its ease.
Jack swallows and sinks down to his knees. Bitty gives him a little pat on the wrist of the hand holding the cup, and snags a peanut, chasing it with a long sip of the beer, Jack's eyes following the motion of his throat. Shitty wants to beam with surprised pride at both of them, and stuffs a pretzel in his mouth before he says anything too obnoxious.
They all become aware of the tent in Jack's boxers at about the same moment, a quick mutual flicker of eyes down; unfortunately it's the same moment that Shitty hears shouting suggesting a victor has finally been anointed in the contests. Shitty worries for a second that someone is going to go all mortified but the three-way glance exchanged is almost conspiratorial instead, like, so far so good, now what do we do about this. Wry little smiles at the bad timing.
"Sit," Bitty commands, Jack doing so with comical immediacy. "I can't imagine why I've still got these damn sweaters," Bitty says, and transfers them from his lap to Jack's just as the crowd of hockey players descends like locusts onto the cooler and table. Chowder runs over seeking Bitty's praise for his strength and skills, and by the time Jack is hauled up for the traditional kick line to "Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting)", the tension, and his erection, have dissipated and he's back to laughing at all of Samwell Hockey's most sacrosanct rites.
*
It's much later when they stagger back to the Haus, but Shitty still feels buzzed rather than schwasted; buzzing, in fact, twitchy and sorry to be done with his last Hazeapalooza.
He and Jack and Bitty have all stopped at their respective doors in the hall; Holster and Ransom are thumping around in the attic, indistinctly singing.
"You know," Shitty says thoughtfully, inspiration striking for the second time that evening, "I feel that Initiate Zimmermann here owes us some interest, properly speaking."
"Interest," Jack says dubiously. Bitty has his hand on his doorknob, key in hand, but is looking back and forth between them.
"You dodged your hazing for three years," Shitty says, "I ask you, how is that fair? How is that fair to every frog who manned up and served his time on time."
"Oh, I see," Bitty says, a little giggly from drinking most of Shitty's Harpoon. "Like a late-payment penalty."
"Yes," Shitty says, patient and generous with it, pleased that Bitty isn't immediately trying to put a sweater on this. "Like a late-payment penalty, exactly."
"Oh," Jack says. Shitty waits. "Seriously?" he says. "You want me to, what. Rub your majesties' feet? Do your taxes? Peel you a grape?"
"Jack, don't be ridiculous," Bitty says. "We don't have any grapes. Although I could put them on the shopping list."
Shitty sighs. "Let an initiate put their clothes back on and they get uppity," he says, wiping away an imaginary tear. "Are you really going to let Bitty here think you're a penalty-dodger?"
"Oh," Jack says again, a little more realization in his voice this time. "Oh, well. I would, uh. I would hate for you to have that impression," he says to Bitty, rushed and a little shaky.
Bitty lets go of his doorknob and takes a step towards Jack. "Hmmm," he hums, looking Jack up and down. "Ain't hardly a fixed impression yet." His eyelashes flutter a little. "You gonna work to change my mind?"
"Yeah," Jack says, taking a step towards him, so they're standing close in the middle of the hall. "I'm, uh, I'm at your service. What can I do for you?"
Neither of them is looking at Shitty, down at the other end of the hall, and Shitty realizes he's reached a decision point: he can fade away gracefully into his own room, and let Bitty and Jack take it from here, or he can... not do that. Speak up, remind them he's there and he started this, make helpful suggestions, watch.
Bitty theatrically drops his key. "Oops," he says, deliberately wide-eyed.
Jack looks a little wide-eyed too, but he takes a deep breath, drops to his knees, and offers the key back to Bitty with first one and then both hands.
Stupid, Shitty thinks, watching the key tremble on Jack's fingertips, If you pocket it and claim you can't find it in the dark he'll have to wait with you until the moon rises. Although that would probably work better if the hall light wasn't on. Technology undermining romance as usual, although the tradeoff is that nobody dies of consumption and he doesn't have to shave his mustache and sell his overcoat, and, distracted by this train of thought, he's almost missed Bitty taking his key back and bending down to kiss Jack on the cheek. Or maybe he's whispering in his ear, Shitty can't really tell from where he's standing.
Bitty turns to get his door open, and the look on Jack's face softens to unbearably fond.
In or out, Shitty thinks, Hazeapalooza energy still singing in his veins. Jack looks back over his shoulder. Shitty decides.