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Eric hated horror movies. He had watched Scream in middle school because it was seen as some sort of rite of passage; he was more than a little ashamed to admit that he had actually screamed. Luckily, the silver lining in not being invited to very many sleepovers was that he was never pressured into anything. He could honestly say that he hadn’t watched another horror movie since; whenever Coach watched anything even vaguely scary he retreated to the kitchen to cook with Mama, or hid up in his room with headphones in.
To be honest, he didn’t even understand the point of them. Why would someone voluntarily want to be scared? Weren’t there enough scary things in real life, like natural disasters, and war, and math tests? This logic, naturally, had no effect on Holster.
“But Bittyyy” he wined from where he was ignoring his textbook at the kitchen table; “everyone’s seen Saw!”
“I don’t care if everyone’s seen Saw, Saw 2, Saw 3, and Saw 26. I’m not interested in wasting an afternoon watching people get covered in fake blood.” Eric retorted, waving his mixing spoon in front of Holster’s face for emphasis.
He ignored the remarks about there not being a Saw 26 – although he would not be surprised— and spooned muffin batter into the flowery paper cups Shitty had bought.
“What about Friday the Thirteenth?”
“No.”
“Freddie Kruger?”
“Nope.”
“The Sixth Sense?”
“No.”
“Cabin in the Woods?”
“Never even heard of it.”
“Aww come on Bits, let me show you at least one horror movie! They’re not all gore; The Sixth Sense is actually very classy.”
Eric rolled his eyes as he slid the pan into the oven, leveling a pointed look at Holster before setting a timer and leaving the kitchen for the relative peace of his room.
If he lived with normal, sensible people, that would have been the end of it. Instead, he lived with hyperactive college kids with too much time on their hands. Soon enough, everyone who entered the Haus regularly knew about Eric’s aversion—not fear— of horror movies.
Chowder had come into the kitchen the very next morning to “console” him.
“My little brother is terrified of horror movies! He wet his pants when he watched Monster House, and that’s not even a scary movie you know.”
Eric wasn’t sure if this was to comforting or degrading, but since it was Chowder he just smiled and served him his pancakes.
Nursey gave Eric a rather dizzying lecture on the heteronormative and antiprogressive female representations common with most horror tropes, only to be interrupted by Dex’s assertion that horror movies were a necessary way to relieve stress. He retreated from the room before anything escalated when Nursey decisively told Dex that the only reason anyone watched horror movies at all was from some sense of maintaining masculinity.
Whiskey had only shaken his head, telling Eric that he was truly missing out by never seeing the masterpiece that was As Above, So Below.
Tango had, of course, wanted to know everything about why Eric didn’t like horror movies. Did he have a past traumatic experience? Had he ever seen one? What did he consider horror? What about TV shows with scary content?
Jack, at least, agreed with him in the sense that he didn’t watch movies, so horror movies made no particular exception to this.
“Why don’t you just watch one with Holster to make him leave you alone, eh?” he said during their skype session that night.
“Oh, Honey, you know from experience that it’s not that simple. If I agree to watch one he’ll prepare a spreadsheet to compare the merits of every horror film in existence and then insist I watch all of them.”
“That’s true, but he’d probably get bored eventually.”
Eric shrugged and burrowed down deeper into his blankets; “I don’t want to risk it.”
It was the tilt to the corner of his mouth that let Eric know what was coming a second before he said it; “are you scared, Bitty?”
He groaned over the sound of Jack’s chuckles.
“Why does everyone keep saying that? Can’t someone not like horror movies without being afraid?”
“For someone who just ‘doesn’t like them’, you seem pretty keen on avoiding them.”
“Oh good lord, Jack. If you’re gonna start chirpin me too when I know for a fact that you have never watched a horror movie in your life I will not be saving any of the snickerdoodle cookies I just baked for your visit.”
Jack laughed and, thankfully, allowed Eric to change the subject to his mother’s recent success in French disserts.
Besides movie nights featuring a higher amount of films with “kill” in the name— movie nights which Eric did not attend for reasons like homework and baking, thank you very much— interest in Eric’s movie preferences died down pretty quickly. He had even allowed himself to think, for the briefest of moments, that the matter had been dropped entirely. This was in part because he was too excited about Jack visiting that weekend to dwell on it.
It was one of those rare occasions where he had Sunday and Saturday off, letting him drive down late on Friday and spend the entire weekend there before driving back up for morning practice on Monday. Eric was productively filtering his excitement through baking everything that he could put maple syrup in, a list that had increased exponentially since meeting Jack. Between that and the constant teasing by his team members about his boyfriend, he didn’t even consider the fact that it was movie night this Friday.
He was sprinkling powdered sugar on his latest pie late Friday night when he heard the distinctive sound of Jack’s sports car pulling up in front of the Haus. Brushing his hands off on his apron, he grinned when he saw Holster and Ransom crouching by the door, ready to spring. Jack hadn’t even gotten inside the threshold when he found himself under a pile of hockey players that grew bigger as the shouts of “JACK” flowed through the Haus.
Eric waited patiently for Jack to wrestle his way free, lifting Chowder completely off of his feet and setting him down a bit away from him, much to his delight, before he took his turn. He let himself be pulled into a bone crushing but satisfying embrace, rolling his eyes at the wolf whistles they got when they kissed and swatting at where Ransom and Holster were dancing around behind them.
After putting Jack’s bag in his room, a process which involved a fair amount of groping, they went down to the living room for what Ransom and Holster were calling “Later than Usual Movie Night Ft. Jack.”
“You’ll never guess what we have in store for you guys tonight!” Holster exclaimed, levelling what was a frankly concerning wink at Eric.
“Let me guess,” said Lardo from her place on the floor; “You’re gonna make Bitty watch a horror movie.”
“I’m gonna make Bitty watch a horror movie! And you can’t puss out this time without abandoning your hot NHL boyfriend!”
Eric groaned and decidedly ignored Jack’s snickering from behind him.
“I could still leave, ya’ll.” He said unconvincingly.
“Bro, if you don’t sit in Jack’s lap Chowder definitely will.” Ransom said, making Chowder flush ten different shades of red.
Eric rolled his eyes when Jack pulled him over to the couch and down onto his lap, holding on for dear life as both Ransom and Holster shook the entire couch collapsing onto it. Nursey, Dex, Whisky, Tango, Chowder, and Lardo all took various spots on the floor. It shouldn’t be scary at all, right? Not when he’s surrounded by so many people. Besides, he could just spend the entire time on his phone. He could totally be here without paying any attention to the movie.
Holster must have seen that coming, though, because when he surreptitiously pulled his phone out of his pocket to tweet about his misfortune as the title Paranormal Activity flashed on the screen he found it snatched out of his hands.
“Come on, Bits, we picked a tame one just for you.” Holster whispered when Eric protested.
He grumbled and leaned back into Jack’s chest, sighing as strong arms wrapped around him. This couldn’t be all bad, right? I mean, who was to say he would even be afraid? Having nightmares for years after watching a movie in middle school didn’t necessarily indicate anything about watching one now.
The movie had actually started out fairly boring. The unrealistic scenario of two college kids living in a nice suburban mansion together aside, it wasn’t even bad. It was almost more of a mystery movie trying to solve the problem of paranormal activity in their house than a horror movie. That is, until stuff started actually happening. He knew that the music change indicated something paranormal was about to happen, which should make it easier to prepare himself. Instead, it made him tense up, staring at the screen with wide eyes and trying his level best not to put his hands over his face. He had jumped at almost every opportunity. Random loud noise? He jumps. Blanket pulled off of someone by nothing? He jumps. Chandelier starts swinging wildly? He jumps.
Sadly, from his position in Jack’s lap it was impossible for him not to be aware of this. Eric knew that he was going to be chirped mercilessly later, but at least for now the chin on top of his head and arms around his waist were more helpful than anything. If anyone else noticed him startling they didn’t say anything, which was a veritable guarantee that they hadn’t noticed.
He was actually rather proud of himself. He knew that the plot was reaching its climax, but he had managed to keep his cool so far. He had mumbled ‘oh lord’ when they found out the demon had been living in the attic of their house, smacking Holster when he snickered, but that didn’t mean he was scared.
How no one else in the entire room seemed to be effected was beyond him. He knew that Holster had seen it before, and probably a fair amount of the rest of them as well since he was pretty sure it was a few years old. Jack hadn’t seen it, obviously, and Chowder had mentioned not having seen it, but every time he paid attention to either of them they showed no reaction. Jack seemed bored, and Eric was almost certain he had fallen asleep for a few minutes between loud noises. Chowder was enthralled, but not any differently than when he was enthralled with Sports Center. He was almost positive that he had herd Lardo giggling at some of the scariest moments, but that wasn’t surprising.
All things considered, this was not an enjoyable experience. He was just thinking of how to tell Holster that he hated the movie without mentioning anything about fear when the main character, now possessed by a demon, jumped at the camera.
Even he had to admit that his scream was rather high pitched. Holster, of course, immediately burst into laughter. It was just his luck that the final jump scare would be the last thing to happen in the movie; now there was nothing to distract them from chirping him. He put his face in his hands and groaned when Lardo started mimicking his scream. Jack was laughing so hard he almost fell off of his lap, and Chowder concernedly asking if he was alright was definitely not helping the situation.
“None of ya’ll are getting any pie for a week!” he shouted, swatting at Nursey’s hands as he offered to comfortingly embrace him.
Clearly his threats weren’t taken seriously enough. Jack, thankfully, diffused the situation by dragging him upstairs, though that was probably due more to his own obvious exhaustion than any desire to save Eric.
“Don’t worry, Bits! Jack will protect you from the ghosts!” Ransom shouted up the stairs after him, ignoring Eric’s answering middle finger.
“Not one word, Mr. Zimmerman.” He said, pointing a finger accusingly at Jack once they were both in his room.
“I didn’t say anything.” Jack said, raising his hands in a gesture of apparent innocence.
Eric crossed his arms over his chest and glared, unimpressed.
“Alright, I laughed, but you can’t really blame me for laughing. Besides, I could have told them about all of those jump scares.” He said with an endearing tilt to his mouth.
“Oh yes” Eric said, rolling his eyes; “you’re just A+ boyfriend material.”
Jack laughed and kissed him, and Eric was weak enough to let him.
Taking pity on the clearly exhausted man, he changed and pulled back the covers of his bed, scooting back into Jack’s arms when he laid down next to him.
“It’s technically my turn to be little spoon, but seeing as how I’m meant to be protecting yo-“
He wisely didn’t finish that sentence after Eric swatted at him.
He definitely didn’t like horror movies, but at least he could take this opportunity for some extra snuggling. He wasn’t about to waste the chance to prove how sincere his threats were, either.