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“Jackkyyy boyyyy,” Jack is halfway through dozing off when the voice swings in through his door, and he almost is tempted to pull his pillow over his head like a petulant child. He doesn’t and instead forces himself to sit upright. Shitty’s stood in his doorway wearing a quite frankly terrible open hawaiian shirt and black shorts.
Jack squints at him. It’s October, he thinks, and bites his tongue because he’s mostly just glad Shitty’s wearing clothes. Even if the colours make his head hurt.
“What,” he answers groggily, still firmly under his covers. He should have locked his door. He isn’t usually the type to nap, so he hadn’t bothered. But he’s been working on his assignment for quite hours - he gets a kind of single-minded focus when it comes to essays, as a rule refusing to stop working until he’d finished, edited, and submitted. Plus - it had been interesting! That was mainly because he’d gotten over-consumed with the background reading, and- eh. He could save those thoughts for the bibliography.
Shitty makes his way into his room because he hasn’t ever known a man with less boundaries. He sits on Jack’s bed, perching somewhere on his shin. Jack makes a soft noise of indignation. “It’s shit-shirt day,” he says, “And - I know fashion isn’t a strong suit of yours, and I mean, that’s not a good shirt, don’t get me wrong. But it’s not a shit-shirt. Where are the patterns, Jack. If it doesn’t clash with your hair, I’m not letting you leave the house with it.”
“Hang on,” Jack says, “Shit-shirt day is Thursday.”
“Got moved to Tuesday,” Shitty tells him, “Didn’t you see the groupchat?”
The HocSoc groupchat had alerted him to a message almost every five seconds, he swore, since some of the freshers had joined. (Well, one fresher in particular. But - that was something he was utilising his standard method of dealing with Things on, and not thinking about.) He’d muted it on Sunday.
“I have it muted.”
“Dumbass,” Shitty tells him. “You’re missing out, man. I sent my Spoons table number the other day. You could’ve sent me peas. One of the freshers sent milk, the glorious little shit. Never do a fuckin’ tequila and milk shot, word of advice for you.” He pauses. “Anyways. It’s Tuesday, now.”
“Today’s Tuesday,” Jack says. He frowns. He feels like maybe he should have been told about this, outside of the groupchat, but - then again, he rarely goes to these events. Just the first couple of the year due to being, like, the president, and - ugh, this event was one of the first of the year. Which means that he probably has to go, if only to stand in the corner and glower at Shitty doing obscene amounts of Jaegarbombs. “Why was it changed?”
“Like, half the freshers can’t do Thursday ‘cause they’re -” he paused, looked at his phone, and looked back up again, “That’s when the Football Club social is. Of fucking course it is. Wankers. Oh! And one of them is going to the Lacrosse Club social.” Shitty pauses, swallows, takes a deep breath. “ Fuck the Lax Club.”
He says it loudly enough that his voice carries through the thin-walls, and he hears, vaguely, Ransom and Holster’s shouted agreement. It’s something the Haus feel very passionately about, so he clears his throat, and nods. “Yeah, fuck the Lax Club.”
“Good man.” Shitty looks at him approvingly. “But - yeah. We had to reorganise.”
“Oh. Right,” Jack doesn’t quite understand that explanation or Shitty’s hatred towards the Football Club comes from (which he keeps mentally referring to as soccer, he’s been in this country for just over two years, now, he really needs to get out of that habit) but he nods anyway. Then he pauses, tilting his head to the side. “Wait, is that what the hawaiian shirt’s about?”
“Actually,” Shitty grins at him, “This was my birthday president from Lardo. S’got my face on it. See, look, here? It’s superimposed over a coconut. Sick as fuck,” Shitty says, spinning around so Jack can see said Shitty-coconut. It was quite impressively done. Jack briefly debated asking Lardo if he could have one, then felt slightly ridiculous. “But - yes. That’s the main reason. Not that I wouldn’t wear this baby in public on a normal Tuesday.”
Jack frowns. He doesn’t want to go on the HocSoc social - not today, not now. It’s a Tuesday night. He’d been ready for Thursday. Not for Tuesday.
“When are you leaving?” He asks, trying to tiptoe around him having to be there.
“Don’t you mean we?” Shitty says. “You can’t not come, Jackabelle. Second event of the year!”
“There’s no hockey at the club,” he says, because it’s the truth. There’s no hockey at the club because that would be, like, worth about 70 risk assessments and he doesn’t like admin that much.
There had apparently been hockey at the first social (in the garden with broken broomsticks so Jack was deciding that didn’t count), though he’d been in the kitchen throughout. So he hadn’t seen it. Instead, he’d spent an hour watching a drunken fresher whir around the kitchen like a blur. He’d made two batches of scones, let Jack try one, made another batch to ‘get my flatmates to like me’, and then disappeared. It had been one of the most entertaining hours of the year so far, in all honesty, and far preferable to bastardised garden hockey, but it had also left him with a confusing mix of feelings that he’d been unable to shake, especially in the morning when he’d had a buttered scone as pre workout.
But anyway, there was no hockey at the club, so Jack didn’t entirely see the point of going. That wasn’t what the society was, not for him.
“Oh, we’re not going to the club, so don’t worry. Honestly. There’s no hockey at the club.” Shitty says, firmly rolling his eyes, “We’re going to the beach. Oh, yeah. That was the other reason it’s on Tuesday; some guy said he was gonna balance on a surfboard and eat a whole jar of wotsits. That’s way more fucking entertaining than a UV party in Pryzm.”
“Are you the guy on the surfboard with the wotsits,” Jack jokes. Shitty laughs straight away, a jagged kind of laugh that reminds him of a seal. He likes Shitty because he gets his jokes like that, the deadpan deliveries that some people just stare straight through him for.
“Ha, you wish, Zimmermann. God knows I’ll be too powerful on a surfboard. Wait - oh my fucking shitballs, I’m gonna be a millionaire. Idea of the century: surf hockey.”
Jack peers at him. “You’re high, aren’t you.”
“As the i360 Tower, yes,” Shitty says, springing to his feet from the bed, and ducking into a little bow. “Anyways. Shit-shirt on, kitchen in ten minutes. Gotcha?”
Jack gives him a mock salute and forces himself to clamber out of bed. Before he thinks better of it, he pauses, clearing his throat. “Which, uh, freshers are going to be there?”
“Hmm,” says Shitty, looking down at his phone, “Most of ‘em. You didn’t meet any of them, though, so. Not worth listing.”
“I met the guy who made the scones,” blurts out Jack before he thinks any more of it, “Uh. Briefly.”
Shitty’s eyes glaze over. “Oh my fucking God, you met him? You know who it was?”
“You didn’t?”
“No, dude. I woke up, went downstairs, and someone had cleaned the kitchen and made the - I don’t even have words for how good they were. You had some, right?” Jack quickly nods. “Good. Well, not good, I wanted more of those fuckers for myself, but - God. They were so good. Anyways. Who the fuck made those. They’re - we should let them move in. You can probably share with Holster, right? Or on the sofa.”
Jack thinks about the sofa. It’s a horrible shade of green and it’s somehow the comfiest thing he’s ever sat on, but at the same time they got it from the side of the road so he’s not sleeping on it.
“I’m not doing either of those things,” Jack says, “But - uh. It was the guy in the Steelers jersey? Short. He’s like,” he measures vaguely with his hand, roughly around Bittle’s height, “He bought jam with him. Uh, Bittle?”
“ Bittle made the scones?” Shitty says. “When the fuck did he have time to do that?”
“He did them in ten minutes flat,” Jack rummages through his drawer for something resembling a shit-shirt. He finds a truly awful shirt that he’d gotten from a charity shop—it looks like a bowling alley carpet—not his style at all. He doesn’t know what he was thinking. “Why? What else was he doing?”
“Running rings around me in garden hockey,” Shitty replies.
“That really isn’t that impressive,” Jack says, trying to adopt a teasing tone, “It’s garden hockey.”
“Another idea I should be getting a multi-million deal for, but, alas,” Shitty stretches, and inches back to the doorframe. “Anyways. Oh my God, Bitty. We’re calling him Bitty, by the way. The council voted.” He frowns back down at his phone. “He’s going to the social. God, I hope he brings scones.”
Jack squints at him - he’s unsure why Shitty refers to the committee as the council. Then he frowns. “I wasn’t there. I didn’t vote.”
“Ah, but the majority did.”
Jack doesn’t quite know what to say to that, so he just shrugs and accepts defeat - he’s going to stick with Bittle, though. “Uh. Anyways. Yeah. He made the scones.”
“I’m going to offer him my first-born son. Or daughter. Oh, shit, child, even.” Shitty tells him with complete sincerity. “I think that’s a good enough trade for unlimited scones.”
“I think he just wants the oven,” Jack murmurs. “Not, like, forever. Just - when he wants.”
Shitty grins at him. “I’ll give him my key, then. This is the best day ever. Easy trade, that - breaking the leasing agreement for those fucking scones. ”
That would mean Bittle being around a lot more often, then. He doesn’t entirely know how to feel about that.
“Anyways,” Shitty continues, “See ya in ten.” He nods, and leaves the room. He moonwalks backwards as he leaves, then closes the door. Jack rolls his eyes after him.
Fifteen minutes later, he’s wearing the awful, horribly clashy shirt, and they’re meandering down to the beach. There are plans to collect the freshers—only four of them ended up being able to come, in the end—from their accommodations and then stroll down the seafront until the beach becomes clearer, less populated. Jack tugs at the shirt's sleeves—it’s slightly too tight for him.
He glances up ahead. They’re stood in front of one of the larger accommodation buildings, part of the selection of three flats or so scattered around The Level. They’re waiting for some of the freshers to join them - there’s two that live here. We’re calling ‘em Dex and Nursey, Shitty had told him on the way up. Wait, that’s right, yeah? And then Holster and Ransom had shouted from somewhere up ahead where they were pushing a shopping caddy around, piled with sixpacks, that those names were correct. Apart from the fact that they didn’t much seem to like each other, but arrived at the same time, I dunno, man, he knew little else about them.
He nods at them as they pile out of the reception, bickering about something even as they join up with the rest of the group. Nursey gives him a cool kind of once-over, nods, and goes back to calling Dex an overprivileged fuck for getting the lift down only one floor. They don’t talk to him which he feels oddly grateful for, he’s still trying to settle into both the uncomfortable shirt and the fact that he has to be social tonight.
It’s only a short walk to the next accommodation which he fills with talking quietly to Lardo. She gives him a bit of a look as he falls into step beside her and then, narrowed-eyed, asks, “Do you think Shitty’s actually the guy on the surfboard?”
It takes Jack a moment to remember what they were actually heading towards. When he does, he gives a quick bark of laughter and nods. “Y’know,” he says, “I actually said the same thing.”
Lardo tilts her head. “I haven’t seen any wotsits,” she muses, “Or - there’s no surfboard.”
“Johnson’s meeting us there,” Jack says - though he hadn’t actually been told that by Johnson himself - he’d just left a note on the fridge. (Come to think about it, he hasn’t seen Johnson in days. Huh.) “Maybe he’s bringing them.”
“You think he’d do be in on that? Nah,” Lardo shakes her head. “It’ll be Ransom. Or Holster. Actually, who the fuck am I kidding, it would be the both of them.”
“We’d know, if it was them,” Jack says, “One of them would have said something.” He frowns at the street they’re turning down - he can’t remember which fresher they’re supposed to be collecting from this accommodation.
“Eh, either way, it’s definitely him.” Lardo replies. “I can’t wait. It’s either going to be the most insane accomplishment ever, I’ll have to make like, a commemorative statue, or he’s going to drown in wotsit dust.”
Jack snorts at that, but before he can reply, he’s caught off-guard by the sight of Eric Bittle, his hair mused by the evening wind. He’s wearing a truly terrible novelty shirt - there's a doodle of cookie dough, the slogan proclaiming ‘BAKE ME UP BEFORE YOU DOUGH DOUGH’, and he's grinning sheepishly. Jack looks down at his own bowling-alley-carpet monstrosity of a shirt and shakes his head slowly.
“Sorry, y’all,” he says, walking up to them, “I don’t know if this is acceptable as a shit-shirt, but it’s my only choice.”
“Where’d you even get that,” Shitty asks.
“My Moomaw got it for me as a going away present,” Bittle explains, “It’s - I dunno where else I was going to wear it, but I’m glad it could finally debut because it sure is something.” He poses, briefly, one hand on his hip.
Jack swallows, closes his eyes and tells himself to be normal . He does a pretty good job of doing until Bittle sidles up to him somewhere between collecting the next fresher (dubbed Chowder, who seemed to think that the dead jellyfish he’d almost stepped on was ‘swawesome) and the beach. “I am so sorry,” he says in a quiet rush.
“Um,” says Jack, “What for?”
“For - oh my gosh, for the other week. You know. With the - scones? I’m so, so sorry, I do not make a habit of hauling sweet boys letting me bake in their kitchens to Tesco at midnight.”
“Oh,” Jack frowns down at his shoes, “Don’t apologise. It was - fine.”
“No, I really am sorry. I drank way too much. And - I used up your flour! And your milk!”
Jack shakes his head. “Really. It was fine. I - you made the party better.” What is he even saying, he thinks.
Bittle smiles at him, for that. “Well, if you say so. But! Gosh, I’ve gotta do some baking to make up for that.”
Jack swallows, but before he can say anything, Shitty shouts from ahead of them, “Come round whenever you want, Bitty, I will literally do anything for another scone.”
“Really?” Jack can hear the way Bittle’s voice just lifts at that. “Are you sure?”
“I’ll give you a key, I’m that sure.”
Bittle grins. He turns to Jack, who says without thinking much of it, “I guess I’ll be seeing you more, then.”
“Oh, I’m sure you will, Mr. Zimmermann,” Bittle’s smile just spreads. “Now, you’ll have to keep butter in your fridge.”
This is fine, Jack thinks, things are fine.
“Haha,” he says, like an idiot, “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Thankfully, he’s saved by their arrival at the section of the beach that allows BBQs. They round the corner to a sizable group of people surrounding a BBQ—the rest of society has arrived separately. There are also a few other smatterings of small groups—Jack frowns at them. Then he remembers that the surfboard-wotsit-thing had been publicly posted about. Maybe that’s something to do with it. Still, the beach feels busy.
It’s good in a way; he can disappear into the soft hum of conversation as they start to set things up. Ransom and Holster crouch over the BBQ until they can get a fire going, and once the hint of smoke fogs through the crowd, they fistbump. He stands out of the way as Lardo unpacks the shopping caddy, passing cans around. He shakes his head as Shitty offers him one, and Shitty doesn’t say anything. It’s another thing he’s grateful to Shitty for - they’d gone to a pub the first time they’d hung out outside of lectures (which Shitty hadn’t even been supposed to be in, but that was a whole other thing), and he’d just had a diet coke. Shitty hadn’t said a word then, even as he’d sipped his Guinness, and he hadn’t said anything beyond a “ that’s cool, man, good for you” when Jack had explained why he rarely drank.
He sits down on the picnic blanket, trying to keep his hands from touching the roughly knitted fabric. It’s a weird texture that always feels odd under his palms. It’s better than the sand, though, he decides. The texture of the beach is a strange slushy mixture of gravelly sand and pebbles and he dislikes it.
He’s so focused on keeping his hands in his lap and away from the scratchy fabric that he doesn’t notice Bittle coming to sit down next to him. He’s got a plastic Tupperware box in his hand, which he holds out to Jack, like an offering. He peers down at it. It’s filled with shortbread fingers, speckled with - pink, it looks like. Strawberry, maybe?
“What’s… this?” He asks, gesturing towards the shortbread.
“Shortbread,” Bittle tells him, smiling, “Strawberry and white-choc-chip flavour. I gave some around already to everyone else, so this is yours.”
Jack nods. “I thought you couldn’t bake at yours,” he says. “You stealing somebody else’s oven, eh?”
“Hush, you,” Bittle says and scoots up on the picnic blanket. He takes one of his own cookies out of the Tupperware and bites into it. “I’ll have you know I used my own! I cleaned it, and all. It won’t last long. I’ll give it a day before it’s a pigsty again. But - I woke up at 5 a.m. to make these without interruption, Mr., so you better have one.”
“You - why did you do that?” Jack asks, but he reaches for a cookie anyway. He takes a bite and Goddamn, they’re just as good as the scones. Maybe better. He didn’t notice before, not in the dim light of the stuttering fire, but there’s a light layer of cream cheese frosting on some of them. With freeze-dried strawberries sprinkled on the top.
“Like I said, it’s pretty much the only time when there’s nobody in there. And I like my privacy! Especially when it comes to baking, I’ve been told that I ramble an awful lot, but, y’know, I think it’s the only way to do it.” He pauses. “Are they any good?”
“They’re good,” Jack replies, “I like the, uh, strawberry.”
It’s a very weak compliment, he knows that, but Bittle’s face lights up anyway. “Aww, thank you! I felt bad for giving y’all scones with that fake jam the other week; I thought I better show you how I usually use strawberries.”
“The scones were also good,” he says softly, “I had one in the morning.”
Bittle’s expression shifts, something more sombre. “I really am sorry for that, y’know.”
“Don’t be. Honestly,” Jack shrugs, stretches, and winces when his hands catch briefly in the sand. “It was fine. I mean, if you’d actually stolen the oven - that wouldn’t have been so good. But I, uh, don’t think you could have done that sober, anyways.”
“I threatened to steal your oven?” Bittle repeats. “Goodness. I don’t remember that. You’re gonna have to keep me away from rosé with a ten-foot pole if that’s what it leads to.”
“Something about carting it off in a trolley?” Jack prompts, and Bittle wrinkles his nose.
“Oh, gosh,” he says, “Yeah. Now I remember. Well! Think I’m gonna have to make more scones, then. To make up for that.”
“Well, you can use the Haus for that,” Jack glances back at Shitty. “You’re getting a key, aren’t you?”
“If - Shitty’s sure, then I am!” Bittle winces only a little at Shitty’s name. “Did y’all decide to move together before or after starting HocSoc?” He asks.
“Oh, uh,” Jack has to think for a moment. “I think we signed the lease, and then like, two weeks later started setting up the society? I don’t know. It was a while ago.” He does know, and he does want to talk about it, but once he starts, he’s not too sure if he’ll be able to stop. And he doesn’t know if Bittle wants to hear him ramble about admin and reviving dead societies and AGM processes.
“That’s so neat. That y’all get to live together, I mean. And, y’know, everything! I was so stoked when I saw y’all existed at freshers, like - I joined a dozen societies that day, ‘cause I think you’ve gotta try everything at least once, but this is the only one I’ve actually done anything for. Though us not being able to like, play games is a bummer. Wait, you do play, right? You look like you do.”
Jack had thought that Bittle’s ability to talk at a mile-a-minute was something strictly reserved for him drinking. Apparently, it isn’t. He takes a moment to process the you look like you do comment and focuses on replying to the bits he can relate solely back to hockey. “It does suck,” he says, before anything else, “Not being able to play. We might be able to during the winter, but it’ll have to be a game without checking ‘cause we’re having to beg the icerink to book it out for one scrimmage the whole of winter.”
That, he thinks, is the only reason he doesn’t like Brighton. He misses hockey, not in the way he thought he’d miss it - he’d thought it would be all-consuming. He’d thought he wouldn’t have been able to think of anything else. But he can. He still misses it, though, misses the simplicity of it. On the ice, it had been easy. Simple. He had known where he was with it.
Off the ice, it hadn’t been.
“Oh, I won’t mind, that,” Bittle says, “No checking, I mean. I’m - not the best with it.”
Jack pauses, and catalogues that for later. “Well, we don’t have that booking confirmed yet, so,” he stretches. “And - uh. Yeah, I play. Haven’t in a while, though.”
Bittle nods. “Ooo, cool,” he says, and leaves it at that, “How’d you become president, then-“ he starts to ask, but a loud shout cuts him off from the wave line of the beach. It’s Shitty, standing with a surfboard under one armpit and a jar of wotsits under the other, sweeping into a low fumbling bow.
“Ladies, gentlemen, and - others,” he says, “You’ve gathered here today to witness a truly fuckin’ astronomical feat. One never seen before.”
Jack exchanges a Look with Lardo. Bittle, beside him, looks transfixed.
“Hold your horses,” he says, “Shitty’s the guy we’re here to see?”
“Apparently,” Jack looks down to the sea. The waves don’t roll in with any particular kind of ferocity - indeed, the sea is settled, this time of night, so Shitty’s able to board the surfboard without any trouble. Jack watches, narrow-eyed, as he unscrews the jar of wotsits. “It’s funny that you’re surprised,” he adds, without thinking much of it, “Shits does this kinda thing all the time.”
“This? Specifically?” Bittle gestures to the surfboard. “Cause I find that sorta hard to believe. But, actually? Now that I think about it, that makes perfect sense.”
Jack nods. Shitty’s now tossing the wotsits into his mouth, one at a time. He doesn’t think it’s the best strategy for what he’s trying to do, but then again, he’s never exactly attempted - that. He wonders if Shitty bothered to practise, or if he just assumed he’d be able to do it. He thinks both would make sense.
“Lards!!” Shitty yells. “Come pour the rest of the jar into my mouth, it’s a bitch trying to balance!”
Lardo rolls her eyes. “Record doesn’t count if you’ve got help!”
“It’s not a fuckin’ record, it’s a personal achievement!”
“Yeah, exactly, personal. You’re on your own.”
“I’ll help,” says Ransom, standing up, Holster following after him. Lardo ushers them back down to sitting.
“Leave him to it,” she says, “He’ll work it out.”
Shitty, somehow, does. He bites down on the plastic rim of the jar and throws his head back, gulping wotsits down in a manner that reminds Jack uncannily of a seagull. He’s a tad worried that his prediction about Shitty drowning in wotsit dust might ring truer than he wants, but with one last mildly impressive gulp, the jar is emptied.
Shitty drops the jar into the sea (Jack knows he’ll chase after it later, Shitty’s the kind of guy to go to litter-picking patrols along the seafront) and spreads his arms wide. It’s the only prompt that the majority of the group needs before they go hurtling down to the seafront, tackling Shitty with enough ferocity that his surfboard goes sliding from under him and he goes tumbling down into the sea.
Jack laughs, loud, and stands up to join in with the huddle of chanting society members. Bittle goes skittering to his feet after him, and with a contemplative tilt of his head to the side, Jack starts running. He ignores the seaweed at his feet (he thinks he’d be told it’s an improvement on his trainers, anyway) and hauls Shitty out of the ocean into a one-handed hug. Shitty’s awful hawaiian shirt is drenched.
“You’re a terrible liar,” Jack tells him. Shitty just grins at him.
“Would it kill you to congratulate me, Zimmermann?” He says, and then looks around. His eyes narrow. “Hey, all of the freshers are here.”
Jack nods, though he’s not too sure what he’s getting at. “Yeah?”
“So…” Shitty gestures around, “ Initiation.”
His whisper sets things off. He spots Holster chasing Bittle around with a stringy section of seaweed, and Lardo dunking Chowder delicately into the freezing-cold seawater. ‘Initiation’ isn’t something he’s seen before - he hadn’t been there the previous year, for the first set of freshers, he’d had the flu. He gets the feeling the definition of it changes based on the day or the person. Still, he’s very glad he’s not part of this. It’s amusing to watch, though.
He laughs, but it’s short-lived because Shitty turns to him, quizzically.
“Jack-o,” he says, “You weren’t here last year, were you?”
“Uh,” he should run, maybe, “No?”
“Hmm,” Shitty replies, and then flings a lump of seaweed at him. Jack scowls, pulls it out of the back of his shirt, and tosses it back. The action of it starts something akin to all-out seaweed tossing war - it’s the kind of thing Jack would usually sit out of, but he can’t, because technically he started it. Besides, he doesn’t really want to - the groups that had assembled to watch the surfboard-wotsit feat have disappeared, so it’s just the HocSoc bunch.
There’s a warm wind rolling in from the east, and he can hear laughter, and somehow he’s laughing too. He feels utterly ridiculous but there’s a warm starburst right in his chest and he thinks that maybe maybe this year, he might be okay.