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The first time Jack Zimmermann meets Eric Bittle, it’s nearing the end of a mild September day. It’s not a day he registers as anything special—it feels like just another pebble skimming on the ocean. He breathes in, and then out. Shallowly. Waves crashing on the beach.
He’s cohosting a party.
That suggests that he should be downstairs with everyone else, making sure nobody’s pissing on the cheap couches they pinched off the curbside at the beginning of the year (to this day he doesn’t know why they did that, he can afford new co- sorry, sofas) and picking too-drunk freshers off the floor. He’s the president of the Ice Hockey Society - not to be confused with the Men’s Hockey Club, which he often had to remind people because that was field hockey - this is the first event of the year, and technically, he’s got a duty. He should be downstairs.
He’s not, though. He’s sat on his bed, sinking into the too-thin mattress, and desperately trying to summon up the will or the courage (they’re the same thing sometimes) to leave his room.
There’s music buzzing into his bedroom (Ransom), the latent smell of bad weed drifting through the windows (Shitty) and their house is full of fucking freshers. He’s sitting on his bed, trying to ground himself, and he can’t quite manage it because the music is so loud . He bites at the inside of his cheek until he tastes the sharp ivory pinch of blood.
It doesn’t do an awful lot to quell the growing anxiety in the apex of his chest, but it grounds him. Somewhat. Enough to stand up and stretch. He glances briefly at the can of lukewarm Fosters that Shitty left him - just in case, Jackabelle- and turns away. It’s not like he doesn’t ever drink; he just likes to be in a smaller group, only people he trusts when he does. The first HocSoc social of the year was decidedly not that.
(Okay. he really hates the name HocSoc - that was very much Shitty’s idea, he had nothing to do with it - but he will admit that it’s catchy. Easy to remember. Shitty had also suggested IceHocSoc and he’d had to veto it because it was way too much of a mouthful. Being president, thankfully, meant he could veto stuff. Otherwise, he thinks he would have quit long ago.)
He lingers at the top of the stairs, carefully avoiding the one creaky step - not that anybody would hear him over the noise - and makes his way down. He holds the rail close, feels the grain of the wood under his fingers, and it helps. The slip of it under his palm, the affirming rigidity of it. It helps, just not quite enough.
He wonders that in another life, he’d be this awkward about going to a fucking party. One in his own house, no less. Because he’s - anxious, the horrible over-bubbling kind, the kind that makes him feel the need to dig little half-moon circles into the skin of his palms, the kind that means he was seriously debating leaving the house for the entire night and sitting by the beach instead.
(He likes it there, by the beach. It reminds him of back home - the good parts, not the parts that make his skin itch. It’s never quiet, never exactly peaceful, but he can watch the waves lap over the sand and look at the skeletal form of the west pier out at sea. It makes him feel achingly lonely, the burnt-out framework, peaking through the mist.)
(...maybe he doesn’t like the beach that much.)
Then he steps into the kitchen and any thoughts of anxiety or other lives or fire-damaged piers fly out the window to be replaced with sheer confusion.
Because there’s a fresher in his kitchen, crouched next to the big old-fashioned oven that he’s only ever shoved ready meals into. He’s fixing it with a look of - Jack thinks it’s affection. He’s also wearing a Sheffield Steelers jersey that hangs almost down to his knees. And he’s talking to the oven. That’s the weirdest bit, actually. Oven (or Steelers) adoration aside. He’s got an odd lilt to his accent - Jack can’t quite place it. Some of his words come out sweet and syrupy with a quiet Yorkshire accent, the others sound - he’d guess southern American. It’s an odd mix that really really shouldn’t work but somehow it does. All sloping missing ys and winding lifts at the end of his sentences.
“You,” he’s saying, and he’s actually stroking the door. Jack thinks maybe he should leave. It feels like he’s intruding. “Are way, way too pretty to be wasted here, my, my, I have half a mind to unplug you and cart you off, maybe, maybe- if I get a trolley - oh yes, that’s a fantastic idea. You’d fit into my room, wouldn’t you, sweetheart, I don’t think anybody would notice you missing, either-“
Jack clears his throat. “Excuse me.”
The guy whirls around. Jack is expecting like - an apology, at the least. An explanation for whatever the fuck it is that he’s doing. Instead, he rises to his feet and jabs a finger at Jack’s chest. Jack just stares at him, because - what.
“Is this your oven?” He’s asking.
“Yes?” Jack’s voice pitches up at the end, like it’s a question. It’s not. He knows this is his oven. What he doesn’t know is why this random fresher has gone all my-precious mode over it. (He could do movie references, thank you, Shitty.) “Yes. My oven.” Technically it’s the whole of the HocSoc’s oven - the ones who lived in the Haus - but - well. They weren’t there. (Where were they, he wonders, briefly. There’s nobody else in the kitchen. They couldn’t all possibly be crammed into the garden. It’s nowhere near big enough.)
“You don’t deserve her.” The fresher tells him, entirely seriously. He’s drunk. Jack doesn’t know why it took him that long to gather that. There’s a bottle of rosé open on the side. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen wine in the Haus before. “You will never deserve her. Just look at her. She’s -”
“It’s an oven,” he replies, dumbly, “I- what.”
“She’s not an it.” He looks genuinely offended. Arms crossed, his chin raised like he’s about to square up to him. He just about comes up to Jack’s shoulder. He feels like a stereotype as he thinks it but, man, freshers really do just get shorter each year. “She’s a beautiful, beautiful specimen, and - oh my gosh I really do hate to think of the things you’ve cooked in this. She could be-” he turns, again, and strokes the oven’s door. Jack swallows. “She could be making - I have a list. There’s a whole list of things she could be making, and you’re - she’s going to go unfulfilled. I bet she’s sad.”
“She’s an oven,” he replies, “She can’t be sad.” He realises, retroactively, that he’s referred to the oven as ‘she.’ Shitty, he thinks, would go on some tangent about assigning gender roles to inanimate objects if he was here, something about why is an oven a she? Would you call a - let’s say, a kettle a she? Or would that be given more masculine pronouns? It’s something to think about, Jack. Think about it. But Shitty isn’t here and nobody else is so he’s been left to deal with this would-be oven thief on his own.
“She really can,” he says, sagely, “I bet like, half of what you cook in here comes out - depressing. That’s ‘cause she’s sad. If you let me cook like, one batch of scones, she’ll - I don’t know. It’ll be an improvement. I can tell ya that much for free.”
Oh. He doesn’t want to steal the oven. He just wants to cook with it. A weird choice for a party, Jack thinks, but - you know what, it’s better than dealing with the other option. At least this way they get to keep the oven. Plus - food! He hasn’t eaten since everybody arrived at six. He hadn’t wanted to go downstairs into the whirling mix of new faces. There’s only so much social interaction he can take in a day. “Oh. You can make scones.” The other boys would probably like that, actually. He wouldn’t. He doesn’t like scones - not enough protein. (Actually, tell a lie - he likes cheese scones. But he gets the feeling this fresher makes ‘em piled high with clotted cream and strawberry jam.) Though he is hungry, so scones it is, he decides.
His eyes actually light up. Like, they shine. Jack’s never seen that happen to anyone in real life before. It’s a weird experience. “Really?”
Jack nods, distractedly. “Knock yourself out.”
“Oh my goodness,” he rubs his hands together, “Right!” Then all of a sudden this fresher is whirling around his kitchen, peering into cupboards. Jack stares at him.
“What are you doing?”
“You said I could make scones,” says the fresher in almost a sing-song voice, “So! I need to get the ingredients for that, you silly goose. Oooo, gosh, you have a really nice set of scales.”
Jack frowns. “Wait, you’re making them now?”
The fresher turns around suddenly, holding a rolling pin - Jack has no idea where that came from, it’s not his - brow raised, hand on his hip. “Yes?” He replies, waving the rolling pin. “I promise, I won’t be long at all. If that’s what you’re worried about! Lord knows you need this kitchen back eventually, I’m not gonna hog it for long, I swear! I can whip up a batch of scones in fifteen minutes flat. Baking is a science I have mastered. Much more than, like, actual science. Now, that’s a very different kettle of fish. Actually! Kettle. You have any tea, mister? ‘Cause you can’t be having scones without tea, that would be terrible.” He finally pauses to breathe. “Goodness. Sorry, I’m rambling.”
“There’s some chamomile in the back of the cupboard,” is the first thing Jack says. It’s his. He drinks it when he can’t get to sleep. Shitty chirps him for it, near endlessly, but - well. It helps.
“Haha. Very funny,” the fresher says, and then pauses, and pouts. “You’re not joking, are you.”
“No?” Jack replies, brow furrowed, “It’s behind - there’s a bag of sugar. And it’s behind that. Can you not - reach it?” It’s not meant to be a jab at the fresher’s height, but he looked distinctly affronted at it.
“Firstly you disrespect Betsy-” Jack isn’t even going to try and process that, “-by - not cleaning her and only cookin’ oven chips in her, and now you tell me the tea you’ve got for scones is chamomile.” He crosses his arms.
“Er,” he’s beginning to regret ever coming downstairs. He would have been a bit of an antisocial loser staying in his room, sure, but he would have been an antisocial loser who had avoided this. (Though, actually - this is hardly the worst thing to happen to him at one of these events.) “It’s the tea I have?”
“Better no tea at all than something that doesn’t pair.” The fresher tells him. Then he abruptly turns around and swings open the fridge. Jack watches him, slightly slackjawed.
“Sorry,” he says, once he thinks he’s recovered just enough wits to hold an actual conversation rather than simply making occasional noises of bemusement. “Who are you?”
He doesn’t get an answer, not straight away. Instead the fresher turns around, holding his margarine spread in one hand. “You’ve got no butter. No butter. What in the heavens do you put on your toast.”
“That,” Jack says.
“Oh, you poor man,” he holds a hand to the back of his head, “Right. We’re fixing that.” Then he pauses, looking for the briefest moment, shakingly insecure. “Oh, I’m - this is HocSoc, right?”
“Please don’t call it that.”
“The fella with the moustache and the mighty strange name told me that was what this is called.”
“Shitty doesn’t like listening to me,” Jack tells him, “It’s - The University of Brighton Ice Hockey Society. Though that’s a bit of a mouthful.” He pulls a face.
This is the most he’s talked in a few days. He always takes a little bit to get used to like, actually being around other people whenever he comes back from home. At home, it’s well-meaning questions and do you think you’ll be ready after you graduate and I got a call from the Aces the other day and - it’s a lot. Here, nobody cares about that, nobody knows about the Draft, nobody knows about what a disappointment it is that he’s sat in a Political-History-Ideology lecture and not in the Playoffs. The people who do care are part of HocSoc, and the majority of freshers who recognise him have been threatened into not asking questions by the committee. He knows they do that for them, and it feels his chest with a warm pleasant buzz, but he can’t thank them cause that feels ever-so-slightly weak and he doesn’t do weak.
But, here - for the most part, he can just be a Contemporary History student who just so happens to also be president of HocSoc. He’s known for petitioning the council about the lack of a decent icerink and for waking up half of the residents of the Haus at 5am when he goes for his morning run. Not for anything else. Nobody knows the name Kent Parson. Nobody knows about-
Yeah, he’s not gonna think about that right now.
He turns his attention back to the fresher, who has his head tilted to the side, contemplatively. “Yeah, I like HocSoc,” he says, and he smiles, “It’s got a nice ring to it! Anyways. I’m-“ he smooths out his jersey, “I’m - here. For that. I’m Eric. Eric Bittle. Though some of y’all earlier were calling me Bitty so that also suits me just fine, it’s nice to be included. Big old city, this. Feels very lonely. You ever get that? Like you’re a little fish in a -“ he stretches his hands wide, still holding the margarine, “Massive pond.”
Jack’s mind latches onto his last name, because he’s always kinda preferred that, especially with people he’s only just met. It feels more impersonal, he guesses. “Bittle,” he repeats again, “I-“
“Goodness, where are my manners,” Bittle says, abruptly, “You haven’t even introduced yourself to me! And this is your kitchen.”
Jack swallows. “Jack. Uh. Zimmermann.”
He waits for recognition to pass over Bittle’s expression. It doesn’t happen often, not here, but if it were going to he imagines it would be at a society event. There’s the faintest hint of - something, and he braces himself. “Ohhh. So you’re the president,” is what he gets instead, “Makes sense. This being your house and all. Anyway. Good to meet you. I’m going to get butter.”
And then he’s putting on a coat. Jack stares at him dimly until his mind reboots and something other than mild confusion takes over his senses. “What,” he says, “ Now?”
“Yes, now,” Bittle replies, humming something to himself as he pulls the oversized hood of the coat over his head. The tippy motion of doing so makes him sway on his feet. Jack raises a brow. “I’m not making scones with margarine, Mr Zimmermann. My mama raised me better than that.”
“No, it’s just-” he looks up at the battered clock on the wall. “It’s midnight. You’re going -” He’s going to have to go with him, he realises. It takes him a lot to not groan out loud at the prospect. He hates the local Tesco. There’s always an ominous puddle outside the front of the shop and the security guard gives him the evils when he swings by to do Shitty’s munchies run at 3 am. “You’re going to get butter at midnight?”
“And clotted cream,” Bittle says, helpfully, “Not jam, though. I bought some with me. It’s blackberry. Actually, maybe I will need to get jam. I thought I had my basis covered, but - no, blackberry jam and scones, I don’t think that goes. But, ugh, strawberry jam from Tesco is so gross. It’s so! Sweet. I know jam is supposed to be sweet, but it’s just allll sugar. Maybe I could just make some.”
“Blackberry jam sounds fine,” Jack faintly replies, “You brought jam with you? Here?”
Bittle winks at him. Jack doesn’t know how to feel about that. “I like to be prepared,” he says.
“I don’t know any instance where you’d need jam.” Jack pauses. “Except for, well. Now, I guess.”
“Then I was right to be prepared,” Bittle winks at him again. It’s disarming. “Anyway! Where’s your front door? I know I came in through it, but in all the excitement, I seem to have forgotten where it is. Then I’ll be back in a jiffy. You won’t even notice that I’ve been gone.”
“Oh, no,” Jack shakes his head, “I’ll come with you. Little -” he swallows, “Midnight excursion, eh? I haven’t left the house yet today.” Or yesterday, either, he thinks with a flick of his gaze to the clock.
“Neither have I!” Bittle says brightly and laughs at his own joke. “Are you sure, though? I’d hate to take you away from - well, I’d say the party, but I dunno where everyone is.”
“Not really my thing,” he replies, and goes to get his coat, “I only came downstairs to make sure everything was okay.”
Bittle nods, at that. “I like ‘em,” he says, eventually, “Though y’all need to work on your playlist. I’ve been here for two hours and I have not heard a single Beyoncé song. How’s a boy supposed to dance without some Queen Bey? Actually, have you got a suggestions box? ‘Cause if you do, that’s my first one.”
Jack’s beginning to wonder just how drunk Bittle is. Maybe, he briefly wonders, he’s just like this. Like a well-shaken bottle of Pepsi. Bright, fizzy. Then he wrinkles up his nose at his own metaphor and tells himself to snap out of it.
“I’ll pass it on,” he promises, “Not my forte.”
“What, playlists?”
“Music, I guess,” he shrugs on his coat and goes to get the door. Bittle follows out after him, and then they’re out in the street. It’s cold. The streetlight's glow only makes Bittle’s hair look even more golden in the light, and Jack feels slightly sick because he’s registered that fact. “I don’t - actually know who you’re talking about.”
“Oh, Gosh,” Bittle stops in his tracks. Jack thinks for a moment that he’s hurt himself or something, but he just looks shocked. “Music really isn’t your forte.”
“No,” Jack replies, shoving his hands deep into his pockets, “It isn’t.” He pauses at the door to lock up, and decides against it. They’ll be back in ten minutes. He severely doubts that there’s anything worth stealing in the Haus, anyway. (Aside from the oven, apparently. Actually-) “Wait. Can I, uh. Ask you something?”
“About Beyoncé?” Bittle replies, spinning around to grin at him. “Because you certainly can do that. I’m like a walking, talking Beyoncé encyclopaedia. What do you want to ask about? Best music video? Because it’s-”
“Eh, no, maybe another time,” Jack says quickly, “No, I wanted to ask - about the oven? You were talking about -” he wracks his brains to think of Bittle’s exact phasing, “Getting a trolley and taking it. Er. Her.”
“She’s wasted in that house,” Bittle tells him solemnly, “I’m tellin’ ya. It’s a travesty.”
“No, I mean - do you not have an oven? Like. I’m assuming you’re a fresher, yeah? So you’re in halls.”
Bittle blinks at him. “I have one,” he says, “It’s just - ugh. I like to bake, okay?”
“Oh, really. I had no idea.” Jack says, deadpan. Bittle bursts out laughing. It’s a - it’s a nice laugh. If Jack lets himself think about it any more than that he doesn’t know where his mind will drag so he leaves it at that.
“Oh my goodness, I am trying to tell a story here,” Bittle says, “So don’t chirp me! Anyways, I like to bake. I - I make recipe videos, like, online. Like, a vlog?”
“I do know what Youtube is, if that’s what you mean,” Jack says, though he mostly only knows because sometimes people reupload documentaries about obscure WW2 aircraft that he really likes, or this one channel that did a deep-dive into Brighton’s long-dead ice hockey team, back from the 1960s.
“Hush, you. You didn’t know who Beyoncé is, don’t blame me for having low expectations,” Bittle says, a smile playing at the corners of his lips, “I just can’t film my vlog in my kitchen. Or bake, really. My flatmates are always there. They never leave! I poke my head round the corner, it could be bang on 6am, and someone will be there.”
“Do you… not get along with them?” Jack asks, careful, just in case it’s a sore subject. He had made the decision to get a studio flat for his first year, he could afford it, and he didn’t want to deal with having to share space with people. He feels like maybe he missed out on a core part of the experience, but at the same time, he’s surely had some of that experience living in the Haus. And he chose to live with them - he wouldn’t have with random first-year flatmates.
Bittle makes a face. “I’m sure they’re all lovely people!” He says, before anything else. “But, bless their hearts - they do not know how to clean. I do not trust that oven. Or that they’ll be nice if I start prattling about pie lattices at 3am.”
“How was our oven acceptable, then?” He asks, genuinely curious, because - well. It’s filthy. He actually doubts that it’s been cleaned since the house was built. He’s never cleaned it. But then again, not a lot of them actually use it. Johnson bought them a communal air-fryer - the plot demands it , was the explanation - so they just use that, instead.
“Jack,” Bittle says, sincerely,“They exploded potatoes in that oven. I didn’t even know you could explode a potato, but they managed to do it. Anything is better than that.”
He laughs, abruptly. “Right. Yeah, I can see how ours is maybe an improvement,” then he rounds the corner and grimaces at the sight of the Tesco. One of the Os on the light-up sign has stopped working so instead it just flashes with TESC. He nods at Bittle, and gestures to the doors. “Butter, eh?”
“And clotted cream and jam,” Bittle reminds him, “Wait, ooo, time me. I betcha I can do it in-” he cricks his neck, “Two minutes.”
Jack frowns at him, sighs, and rolls down his sleeve, tapping at his watch. He leans back against the wall, careful to avoid the suspicious-looking stains - and the security guard, staring daggers at him. “Whenever you’re ready,” he says, and then thinks for a moment, because - well, maybe he should go in with Bittle, make sure he doesn’t, like, knock bottles off the shelves or something, but before he can vocalise that thought Bittle is off like a shot.
“They’re playing Taylor Swift!” He hears Bittle shout, delightedly before the doors slide close, “Cut that down to a minute and a half!”
He doesn’t know how that impacts - anything, really, but he finds himself smiling again. Even though he’s spent the past - God, has it really been half an hour? - in a fuzzy state of confusion with every other thing to come out of Bittle’s mouth, he’s almost enjoyed himself. Which he rarely does, at events like this.
He likes the (very infrequent) group skates because that feels close enough to normalcy that he can pretend it’s just warm-ups or something, even though there’s no actual game afterwards. He’s liked the odd time they’ve gotten the train to watch EIHL games, when they’ve gone off to watch the Cardiff Devils. He doesn’t mind sitting in the lounge of the Haus to watch illegally-streamed NHL games, though when the camera pans to Parson he kinda shrinks into himself, just a little bit. He’s just a footnote, now, though, which is better than he thinks it would be if he’d stayed there.
He doesn’t like the social events that they painstakingly plan where they go to student bars and he tries to ignore the sticky tackiness of the floorboards, and he doesn’t like how he can’t skate properly, not in a game, because the rink at the Pavillion only opens in October and it’s no good for games, anyway. He likes running the society because it gives him something to do - he likes the admin of it, the spreadsheets and the event planning and the slight sense of purpose it gives him, but he doesn’t like the fact he feels somewhat unfulfilled by it, because it’s not quite what it could be.
He sometimes gets an itch under his skin about it. Which is where the petitions come in. But then he feels like he’s throwing the weight of his name about and that keeps him from enjoying that, so he’s - stuck.
He doesn’t usually like nights like this. But he’s enjoying tonight.
He doesn’t want to think for too long about what that means.
He checks his watch. It’s been a minute and twenty-eight seconds, and Bittle comes spinning out of Tesco with a pack of butter in one hand and a jar of strawberry jam and a pot of clotted cream in the other, panting, and singing something softly under his breath about shaking it off. Jack raises a brow at him, feeling suitably impressed.
“How was that,” says Bittle, grinning at him.
And Jack, despite himself, finds himself smiling back. “You did good,” he replies, and then turns his gaze back towards the streetlights, “So - do you want me to time you for the scones?”
“Oh, you are on, Mr Zimmermann,” Bittle tells him, and turns back to the Haus. Jack follows after him, and doggedly pretends that he’s not just using his stopwatch and ‘timing’ as an excuse to spend more time with Bittle, and fails horribly.
For once, it’s something he doesn’t mind failing at.