Archive of Our Own

“I’d be careful with that if I were you,” says a voice from behind him.

Eric jumps and spins around. He avoids slamming the back of his calf into the edge of the oven door, but it’s a near thing.

“I was just looking!” he says quickly. He’s embarrassed. He’s been in the Haus for all of two minutes, and he’s already been separated from his tour group and caught snooping. It’s not exactly the first impression he wanted to make. But… an oven! He had to check out the oven.

“Wow. You really got some air there,” says the man - boy? - who interrupted him. He’s good-looking, with sharp features and mussed hair. But the effect is slightly ruined by the oversized blue bathrobe he’s wearing. And his right arm is caught up in what looks like a fairly complicated sling.

“Oh!” says Eric. His face goes hot. “I used to figure skate.”

“That’s cool,” says the guy. He nods at the oven. “And I just meant be careful with the oven. I think the last time it was used, Shitty made brownies that got the team high for, like, a week. It needs to be fucking fumigated.”

“I knew it’d only been used for pot brownies,” says Eric darkly. He sighs and gently closes the door.

“Poor thing,” he adds, patting the stove.

“Ha,” says the guy. He pauses, then says, with a little bit of a question shading his voice, “I’m Kent, by the way.”

Eric smiles politely. “Eric,” he says. “Though the guys have started calling me Bitty? I guess. It’s like a hockey name?”

Kent studies him for a second, eyes unreadable, and then he smiles. “Nice to meet ya, Bitty.”

Kent turns and starts opening cupboards with his good hand -- sriracha bottles and protein powder as far as the eye can see. Eric despairs. Eventually, Kent finds a box of Cheerios, and, after a little more rummaging, a… frisbee? He places it on the counter and looks at it grimly. Then, with admirable dexterity for someone with only one working arm, he opens the cereal and pours it directly into the frisbee.

Eric can’t help it. He squeaks.

“Problem?”

“No! I - uh. You’re really going to eat out of the frisbee?”

Kent turns and makes an exaggerated gesture at the kitchen. “I don’t see a clean bowl, dude.”

“Oh - well, let me,” says Eric. He looks at the sink. It’s empty. And then, with some trepidation, the dishwasher. He can’t even begin to imagine how long the team has just been letting half-rinsed - if that! - dishes lie in their filth in the dank belly of the machine.

“Dude,” says Kent. “This isn’t your house. You don’t have to - ”

“I don’t mind!” says Eric though he’s flustered now. Kent’s right -- it’s not his house, but it’s not like he could let some poor injured soul eat out of a frisbee. The thought steels him.

He opens the dishwasher door. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Kent recoil from the wave of stench that engulfs them. Just in time, Eric thinks better of taking a deep breath -- it’s already too late. He plunges his hands inside and grabs the first item he can find on the lower rack. A rim, and -- a curve!

He jerks the bowl out as quickly as he can and kicks the door up, bumps it closed with his hip. He presents the bowl to Kent with a flourish, as if he were ending a skate.

Kent smiles the tiniest bit, but he crinkles his nose at the same time. Eric feels suddenly, even more self-conscious. It was -- well, it’s not exactly a normal way to behave. But everyone he’s met on the team so far has been so friendly, even if they’re a little… coarse, and Eric hasn’t corralled himself as much as he was expecting. But Kent is new. Kent he hasn’t met yet. And who knows how Kent would react to… well.

Eric turns around and starts washing the bowl. There’s a scum of dried milk at the bottom of it, but it’s not too bad, all things considered. And there is a reasonably clean sponge and some dish soap in the sink. So the Haus isn’t a total garbage heap.

“Someone should really run the dishwasher,” he says breezily, scrubbing.

Kent leans against the counter next to him; he’s still smiling.

“Yeah, I’ll make Jack do it,” he says.

Eric stops to stare at him.

“What?” says Kent.

“I just,” says Eric faintly. “Jack? You mean the captain? Jack Zimmermann? I can’t imagine anyone making Jack do something.”

Kent laughs. “Oh, so you’ve met him.”

“He was…. Nice.”

“No, he wasn’t,” says Kent, with another mysterious smile. Eric is, to be quite honest, starting to feel like Alice talking to the Cheshire Cat. Though that could just be the fumes from the oven. Or the still lingering reek from the dishwasher. He hums something noncommittal and finds a couple Chipotle napkins to dry the bowl with. Then, with an ever-growing trepidation, he opens the fridge. There’s a gallon of milk on the bottom shelf, with an expiration date still a week out. Thank god.

“So, Bitty,” says Kent, as he watches Eric transfer the cereal from frisbee to bowl. “How much do you know about hockey?”

“I know enough to play,” says Eric defensively. Kent laughs.

“Sorry,” he says. “I just meant - do you have a favorite team? Favorite player?”

Eric pauses, long enough that Kent grins.

“Well, if you asked me about football, I could tell you about that!” snaps Eric. He slams the bowl down in front of Kent.

“Jesus, no,” says Kent. “My team’s the Bills. I don’t want to talk about football.”

“The Bills? Oh, honey…”

“What can I say?” says Kent ruefully. He grabs a spoon from a drawer, and Eric makes a mental note that the cutlery needs to be organized. “You can’t help where you’re born. Who’s your football team, then?”

“My daddy’s a huge Falcons fan,” says Eric with a sigh. Kent’s mouth twitches slightly at Falcons, but he doesn’t say anything about it.

“Just your dad? Not you?”

“Oh, goodness, I mean,” says Eric, flustered again. He gets up from the table, itchy to do something. “I could tell you everything about them, but it’s not -- football’s not really my sport, no.”

“Probably not a very popular opinion down south,” says Kent. “How’d you get into hockey?”

Eric feels embarrassed by the story. He doesn’t think Kent would be too impressed with his past as a figure skater or as captain of a no-contact hockey league. The look Jack had given him that morning when he found out - like he’d just bitten down on a lemon slice - is still burned into Eric’s mind.

“I’ve just always really liked being on the ice,” he says, which is true enough. He starts opening cabinets, even though Kent opened most of them earlier. But it gives him something to do. “Y’all wouldn’t have the ingredients for a pie, would you?”

“No, I don’t think so,” says Kent, slightly bewildered now. He opens his mouth to say something else, but he’s interrupted by a very loud, now familiar voice.

“There you are!”

Shitty strides into the kitchen. He’s lost his shirt and the other freshman - the other frogs - since the beginning of the tour.

But he’s gained Jack.

“Sorry!” says Eric. “I didn’t mean to leave! I just wanted to check out the oven, and then -- ”

“And then he was kind enough to give me a hand,” says Kent smoothly.

“Dude, no worries.” Shitty flings himself into the chair next to Kent. “I was just worried you’d like, I don’t know, gotten stuck to the floor or fallen through to the basement or the couch had eaten you.”

“Are those things… possible?” says Eric faintly.

“Probably not,” says Jack, so flat Eric can’t tell if he’s joking or not. Kent’s snort doesn’t really help. Though Shitty’s guffaw makes Eric lean towards thinking Jack is joking.

Jack frowns at Kent. “That’s my robe. You spilled milk on it.”

Kent smirks. “Is it? Guess you’re going to have to take it off me then.”

Shitty guffaws again, but Jack’s face goes dark, and Eric feels himself freeze, his heart leaping suddenly like a rabbit from the bushes. In his experience, guys like Jack don’t normally take well to jokes like that. But he guesses, if Kent and Jack are friends… And that’s something Eric’s never really been able to crack, what friendship will and won’t let you get away with other boys. Other men, he tells himself. He’s not a kid any more.

“Oh, chill,” says Kent. He and Jack look at each other for a long moment, and then Jack shrugs. Kent looks away, smiling like he’s won something. To Eric he says, “Don’t worry about Zimms. He’s just grumpy because he’s been sleeping on the floor while I’m visiting.”

“You’re just visiting?” says Eric, confused. He’d assumed Kent was one of the upperclassmen who lived at the Haus.

Kent shrugs, an ungainly gesture with his sling. “As you may have noticed, it’s hard for me to do shit one-handed -- “ Shitty helpfully interjects with a jerk-off motion and a “not that hard” and Kent laughs - “So I figured I’d recover in comfort here.”

“Fucking psycho,” says Shitty. “I’d just hire somebody.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” says Jack calmly, just as Kent smiles at Jack and says, “Why hire someone when I’ve got Jack. Speaking of, Zimms, dude, someone needs to run the dishwasher.”

Jack grunts, but does it with no fuss, even as Shitty dives dramatically out of the way, hands held over his nose.

“So you’re staying in Jack’s bed, and he’s sleeping on the floor?” asks Eric. It seems so stupid, he thinks, exasperated. Boys are so stupid. It’s not like Kent and Jack would become gay just because they shared a bed. But he knows better than to share that thought.

“Yeah,” says Kent, grinning, “Jack’s a real sweetheart like that.”

Shitty snorts, and Eric has the horrible, though familiar, feeling of being on the outside of a joke. He glances at Jack for some kind of hint of what he’s missing, even as he knows that’s a hopeless prospect.

Sure enough, Jack completely ignores his pleading look. He’s frowning at Kent’s cereal bowl instead.

“You need to eat more protein,” says Jack. “Keep your weight up.”

He takes the bowl from Kent, and, from the cupboard, pulls out a canister of strawberry flavored protein powder, then dumps a couple spoonfuls into Kent’s cereal and stirs. Eric could gag, but Kent just grins.

“Are you gonna start cooking for me?”

Jack smiles very, very faintly. “I can bring you some chicken tenders from the dining hall.”

“Okay,” says Shitty, leaping to his feet. “You guys are making me sick. Bits, let’s finish that tour.”

**

“So you met the famous Kent Parson and totally acquitted yourself as a chill dude,” says Shitty admiringly, once they’re in the hall and out of earshot. “Not many frogs could do that.”

“Oh!” says Eric. He’s embarrassed, again. He knows he should have done more research on Samwell’s hockey program before applying. But it’s not like he ever really expected to get in, especially not with a hockey scholarship. And then after he’d gotten accepted… Somehow, reading about the team had just made him anxious, like he wasn’t really good enough, or like thinking about it would make it true, would make him want to be there, when surely his acceptance had been a mistake, something Samwell would realize any day and then rescind his scholarship, his acceptance, his whole plan of getting out of Georgia….

“Dude,” says Shitty, waving his hand in front of Eric’s face. “You still there?”

“Yes!” says Eric quickly. He makes himself smile, bright and cheerful. “So is Kent really good then?”

“Is Kent really good?” repeats Shitty. He laughs, delighted. “Fuck, that’s fucking amazing. I can’t wait to tell Ransom and Holster you said that.”

**

There’s a party at the Haus a couple nights later. Classes haven’t started yet, so it’s mainly attended by other student athletes who have also already begun training. Eric shows up too early with two pies he made in the questionable dormitory oven. They’re not his finest work, but Suzanne Bittle would never countenance showing up to a party without a gift.

“Oh,” says Eric, when he sees that no one else is there besides the team members who already live there. Devastating. The party was supposed to start at 9. The oven timer says 8:04, but he’s already figured out it’s an hour behind.

The boys don’t seem to mind though.

“Swawesome!” says Holster, grabbing the pies from Eric. “Pie!”

Eric lets the pies go reluctantly. He remembers what they did to the last one.

“Cherry and blackberry,” Eric tells him, though Holster’s already taken a literal fistful of the blackberry. “I was thinking, you know, it’s not much longer they’ll be in season, but then, the cherries are from Washington and the berries are from Mexico, so I guess it doesn’t really matter - ” He remembers, with a wistful pang, the pick-your-own orchards he and Meemaw used to go to, and how proud he felt climbing the trees to bring her down buckets of cherries or peaches for pies and ice cream and freezing for the winter, or stooping to pick berries - “But I heard the dorm does a big apple picking trip every fall, so I’ll be able to get some good baking apples then (as long as it doesn’t interfere with a game of course!) and who doesn’t like apple pie? I have a recipe from - ”

“Dude!” says Holster, clearly not listening. He waves a purple-smeared fist at Ransom, who’s helping Shitty carry a concerningly stained bathtub out of the basement and onto the porch, “Bitty brought more pie!”

“Dude!” says Ransom, dropping his end of the tub. Shitty swears and just avoids dropping the other end onto his foot.

“Jack’s gonna kill you if this keeps up,” Ransom informs him happily, thirty seconds later, a fistful of pie now gone from the cherry, too. “He already thinks we eat like shit.”

“Oh,” says Eric, flustered. “If he doesn’t - I don’t have to - ”

“Don’t listen to him,” advises Holster, now, at least, waving a fork. (He’d discovered with delight that the dishes in the dishwasher were clean.) “Jack’s a fucking tyrant, especially at the beginning of the season. And especially this year.”

“You’d think with Parson here - ”

“Nah, man, it’s because of Parson. Jack’s pissed about the injury - ”

“How did Kent get injured?” interjects Eric timidly and immediately regrets asking, because both Ransom and Holster fix him with expressions of wolflike interest.

“Dude!” says Ransom, breathing in deeply. “You don’t know?”

“Er,” says Eric. He considers fleeing the conversation to go help Shitty, who is currently cursing Ransom and every generation of his family, but he’s pretty sure he would end up being equally humiliated by his lack of strength, so he submits instead to Ransom and Holster’s incredulity.

“If he knew, he wouldn’t ask,” says Holster. He stabs his fork into the air. A piece of pie flies off and slaps wetly against the counter, but neither Holster nor Ransom notice.

“So it was playoffs,” he says.

“Conference final,” adds Ransom, mournfully. Eric nods like that means something to him, and hopes to God he’s convincing. “Game seven, if you can believe it. Series tied three-three. This was the game.”

“And Parson’d had a hell of a season - like, better than his rookie season good and that’s good - ”

“But he’d picked up this knock on his knee in the first round. Like, nothing too serious, but more than an ice bath and some compression tape was gonna take care of you, you know? So he’d missed a couple games in the conference semis.”

“And he was mostly better, but you could tell he was a little slower, and by game seven he was starting to drag. He shouldn’t have played that many minutes but…”

“But when you’ve got Kent fucking Parson on your team, and it’s game seven of the conference finals - you gotta play him.”

“You gotta play him!”

“So the game’s deadlocked, zero-zero, Mashkov’s sitting out on a major - ” Eric tries desperately to remember which of his teammates is Mashkov and then just assumes he must have been a senior last year - “so Kent should’ve been taken off anyway.”

“And maybe they were gonna, and they just took too long to make the decision. But Parson’s gone deep in the defensive zone, trying to get the puck back. He’s a speedy little guy - kinda like you, Bitty.”

“But he’s definitely overextended himself. On the replays, you can see his knee go - just a little bit. He sorta… drops.”

“And Miller barrels in full speed! Stick up! And catches him,” Holster pats a point between his shoulder and his throat, “right here.”

“Hits him so hard he lifts Parson clear off his feet and into the glass.”

“The whole stadium heard his collarbone snap. Swear to god. And then - ” Holster at this point actually looks a little perturbed. Eric feels faint.

“All the air got sucked out of the room,” says Ransom. “Parson crumpled.”

“And you just hear this, like, keen of pain,” says Holster, voice dropping to a loud whisper.

“And then Kent just cut off. The crowd went ballistic.”

“You should’ve seen Jack. It’s a good thing he wasn’t there, because I think he would have stormed the ice.”

“Wait,” says Eric, confused now. “Why wasn’t Jack there?”

But at that moment the door swings open and half the women’s volleyball team laugh their way into the hall, shiny ponytails swinging, hands full of fruit-flavored vodka. Ransom and Holster push the now demolished pie tins away and rise to their feet as one.

“Thanks for the pie, Bits,” says Holster, wiping at his mouth absently. “Enjoy the party.”

They leave Eric sitting at the table, eyes wide, one palm pressed to his own collarbone in an echo of pain.

**

He doesn’t stay at the table long. Shitty finally gets the tub onto the porch and then drags Eric out there as well to teach him how to make “tub juice”.

“I don’t think I want to - ” Eric begins dubiously but Shitty cuts him off with a slap to his back.

“Nonsense! Bits, it’s part of your culinary education.”

It ends up not being as bad, actually, as he feared - “It doesn’t even taste that much like alcohol! Or tub!” he tells Shitty - and he finds himself midway through his second solo cup of the stuff, sitting on the porch railing and giggling while Shitty (already shirtless) doles the juice out to an ever-growing crowd. So it’s not what Eric daydreamed his first college party would be like, but it’s not bad either. Shitty seems to like his company well enough that Eric doesn’t feel like he’s being babysat. The night has that late summer feeling of being no temperature at all, that Georgia nights don’t ever seem to get until approximately October, and there are fireflies bobbing lazily out in the overgrown field the Haus calls a lawn. Eric watches them with an immense and benevolent feeling of peace.

And then he hears the shrieks from inside. He almost topples off the railing.

“Huh. Kent musta come down,” says Shitty, cocking his head. “I was wondering if he would.”

Eric pokes his head inside, curious, and sure enough - Kent’s standing a third of the way up the stairs, in a flannel and snapback, his arm still in its sling as what looks like a selfie-line spontaneously forms beneath him. Dang, thinks Eric nervously, he didn’t realize hockey was this popular at Samwell.

Eventually, though, Kent makes his way through the selfie line and sidles over towards the speakers. There are eddies of movement around him as he walks, people turning to touch his shoulder or speak with him. Eric watches with a mild jealousy as Kent navigates these interactions. They’re brief, but he somehow always leaves the other person smiling. Finally, he makes it to the speakers and leans against the wall, like he’s trying to blend in with it.

Eric creeps up to him.

“You’re popular,” he tells Kent. And then laughs, surprised, at his own boldness. It must be the tub juice.

Kent starts a little and then grins at Eric.

“Oh, Bits, hey. Enjoying the party?”

Eric nods fervently. This close to the speaker, he has to yell a bit to be heard over the music. “Shitty gave me tub juice!”

Kent laughs. “Jesus, I can tell.” He pauses, then cocks his head at the speakers. “What do you think of this song?”

“Uh,” says Eric. He listens for a few seconds and then offers. “It’s loud!”

Eric thinks he must be tipsy, because Kent’s eyes seem to literally sparkle with mischief in response. Like an elf. Like an injured, hockey-playing elf.

“Yeah? What kind of music do you like, Bitty?”

“Beyonce!” yells Eric enthusiastically now. Kent’s produced his phone from his pocket and is eyeing the aux cord with serious intent.

“She’s pretty good,” says Kent, nodding in acknowledgement. He crouches down by the open laptop Holster’s running his playlist from. “I’m more into her Destiny’s Child era, though.”

“She’s the single most influential pop star of our era!” Eric yells. Then, nervously: “What are you doing?”

“Rans and Holster are friggin’ anal about curating their party playlists,” says Kent, in what would be a conversational tone, if he didn’t have to shout to be heard. “But, eh.”

He unplugs the aux cord from Holster’s laptop and inserts it into his phone; there’s a loud swell of distress from the crowd: “Fuck ‘em.”

He hits play, and there’s a loud “WOO!” as ‘Oops!... I Did It Again’ begins to play. Eric giggles; half-horrified, half-thrilled.

Kent grins, knife-like, as he stands up. “Ransom and Holster would pull more if they played more shit like this anyway. You know freshman year Holster once put ‘When You’re Good to Mama’ on a party playlist? Madness.”

At Eric’s blank look, Kent adds, “It’s, like, from a Broadway musical.” He frowns and adds, a little strained, “You don’t know Broadway musicals?”

Eric feels heat creep up the back of his neck and his face. He knows he’s bad at passing as straight, but, well, it’s not his fault he’s not very good at being gay yet, either!

“It’s fine!” says Kent quickly, at Eric’s expression. “I just assumed. It’s not like I - ” his mouth quirks in an odd, sardonic smile. “Well. It’s not like Holster is gay, right? And he knows all that shit. Takes all kinds, I guess.”

“I’m not,” starts Eric timidly. Kent just looks at him, and Eric shuts up. The knowledge that Kent knows sits between them queasily. Or maybe it’s just Eric who’s queasy. Probably he shouldn’t have had so much tub juice.

“Is Jack going to come down?” he asks finally, if only to break the tension.

“Not really his scene,” says Kent. He looks down at his phone and skips to “Genie in a Bottle.” Someone in the crowd groans.

“Bitty! Get that away from him!” shouts Ransom.

Kent cackles and shoves his phone back into his pocket, cutting the music off to even louder groans.

“See ya,” he says to Eric with a wink, and he disappears back upstairs.

**

Eric doesn’t see Kent for the rest of the party. It’s fine though. He drinks another Solo cup of tub juice, and then ‘All the Single Ladies’ comes on and he ends up dancing to it with the volleyball girls, and then Holster makes him try something called a ‘pickleback,’ and he’s getting the taste of that out of his mouth with another Solo cup of tub juice when Shitty claps him hard on the back and nearly sends him sprawling into the grass.

“I’m cutting you off, Bits,” he says.

“I’m fine!” wails Eric, but he lowers himself slowly to the grass anyway and lies there. Gravity was a good idea, and there are a lot of stars.

Shitty looms over him, laughing.

“Brah, I’m sending you home, unless you want to crash here.”

“No! I’m afraid of the couch!” Eric makes himself sit up. His head is spinning.

“All right then,” says Shitty. “Come on. Let’s get you back on your feet then. I won’t be responsible for another frosted frog incident.”

“It’s too early for frost,” Eric tells Shitty, though he’s not entirely sure. What hardiness zone is Samwell in? Madison had been an 8. Still, he lets Shitty pull him back up to his feet. He stands there, wobbly and dubious. Shitty pats him on the butt in a consoling, heterosexual way. Hockey boys, Eric thinks, not for the first time, and not for the first time in despair.

“You need anyone to walk you back?” asks Shitty. His own eyes are glassy and his breath smells like overripe fruit. Eric takes a step back.

“I’m okay!” Eric assures him. And he really does think he is okay. It’s not a long walk back to his dorm room anyway.

“All right,” says Shitty. “Text me when you make it back. I won’t be responsible for another missing munchkin incident.”

“I don’t think that one happened,” Eric says. “But thank you very much for all the tub juice and for inviting me to your party. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your night.”

Shitty grins at him. “I like drunk Bitty,” he says. “And seriously. Text me when you make it back.”

Eric nods and starts wobbling off. Behind him, Shitty starts to loudly roust other guests. He has no idea what time it is. Time feels fuzzy and expansive. Then, he hears someone shouting.

“Bitty! Hey! Bits!”

Eric looks around. It makes him a little dizzy, and he giggles, has to catch himself against the lampost.

“Bitty!! Look up!”

He looks up, and he almost has to sit down he’s so surprised. Kent and Jack are both on the roof. He’s seen Shitty up there a time or two already, but it’s not someplace he ever would have expected to see Jack. Kent must have talked him into it. Or just put Jack into the position of being on the roof with him or risk Kent tumbling off. Because, sure enough, Kent has clambered to the edge and is balanced precariously on his good arm. Jack is holding onto the back of his flannel, and, though Eric can’t really make out his expression from here, he’s sure it must be a long suffering one.

Eric waves.

“What are you boys doing up there?” he calls.

Kent tries to wave back with his injured arm, but, with his sling, it mainly looks like he’s a one-winged bird, flapping. Eric giggles again and waves back harder.

“Just talking!” yells Kent. “Are you going?”

Eric nods, and another wave of dizziness washes over him. He leans against the lamppost harder.

“You’re drunk,” says Kent. He sounds delighted. “Zimms, walk him home. He’s too little to be on his own.”

“Oh, no!” says Eric. He makes himself stand up straight. “No, that is. Not necessary! Thank you very much though. But. I am fine.”

He says the words very carefully, but he must not be convincing, because Kent just laughs.

“You’re drunk!” repeats Kent. “Stay there. Jack.”

Eric can see the way Jack’s shoulders rise and fall in a sigh, and then Jack calls down.

“Stay there, Bittle. I’ll be down in a minute.”

Eric sighs too and slumps back against the lamppost. He keeps sliding downward until he’s balanced in a squat. It takes Jack significantly longer than a minute to make it out of the Haus, and when he does, he’s wearing Kent’s flannel. The collar is flipped up on one side.

“Ready?” says Jack, looking down at Eric.

Eric frowns at the shirt.

“What?” says Jack.

“Isn’t that Kent’s shirt?”

“It’s my shirt.”

“Wasn’t Kent just wearing it?”

“He was cold,” says Jack. “Are we going or what?”

“Yes,” says Eric primly. He waits for Jack to offer his hand to help him up. But Jack just continues to stare down at him. Eric huffs, and, slowly, starts to leverage himself back to his feet.

“Your collar,” he informs Jack, “is askew.”

Jack doesn’t react. Eric is pretty sure Jack hasn’t blinked the whole time he’s been looking at Eric. Actually, has Eric ever seen Jack blink? He’s suddenly not sure.

“Okay,” says Jack. “Where’s your dorm?”

Eric tells him, and Jack nods and strides off. Eric has to take two steps to every one of Jack’s just to keep up. He doesn’t slow down even though Eric stumbles a couple times, off balance from the alcohol.

“I can walk back myself!” says Eric, indignant, after he nearly falls a third time and Jack neither offers his hand nor asks if he’s okay.

Jack stops. He turns and looks at Eric with an annoyed expression, and Eric braces himself for a sneering comment. But Jack just shrugs.

“Okay,” he says, and he walks back towards the Haus, leaving Eric wobbly and alone in the dark. And, oh, Eric is so going to tell his vlog about this later!

**

Despite what Eric privately (and not so privately; he does tell his vlog about it) christens the Big Ditch, things go pretty well. He finds that his teammates (with the exception, of course, of Jack) are, for all their rough edges, genuinely welcoming, and Kent at least manages to be both welcoming and reasonably civilized, which makes his injury all the more of a personal disappointment. Shitty does his best to protect Eric from Jack’s bad temper in the locker room, but Eric can’t help but think Kent would be much better at it.

Still, August blurs into September, and September brings with it a string of perfect, golden days. Seventy-five degrees all day and brisk at night. And Eric starts to feel like he’s getting the rhythm of college life down. It’s odd - he has more free time than he expected, more free time than he’s ever had, for all he’s taking a full course-load of classes and is a D1 athlete playing a fall sport. He suspects he should be using his long stretches of unscheduled time to hit the gym or study, but it’s so much easier to hang out with Shitty on the porch or bake in the Haus kitchen.

He sees a lot of Kent when he’s at the Haus.

“I’m taking the semester off,” Kent tells Eric when he asks one day. It’s raining, fall just starting to overtake summer, and the whole Haus smells like cleaning supplies (Eric’s finally gotten the kitchen into shape) and apple pie, and they’ve been arguing good naturedly about Britney versus Beyonce for the past half hour. (Shitty’s contribution, when he’d wandered through, that it "was problematic to pit two incredibly successful and talented women against each other" had been met with a precision missile of half a stick of butter straight to the head, which was how Eric learned Kent was ambidextrous.)

Eric’s eyes widen. “Because of your - ” he lowers his voice “injury?”

Kent nods. “Gotta focus on rehab, you know?”

“Wow,” says Eric, feeling a little sick. He knows hockey is the only reason he’s even at Samwell. He’d hate it for it to be the reason he has to stop attending.

“If you, um, I know it’s rude to ask,” he starts, after a moment. Kent looks up at him curiously. “But you didn’t - if you have a hockey scholarship, well, if you get injured and can’t play any more, does that stop the scholarship?”

Kent just looks at him, frowning slightly. Then he says: “I don’t have a hockey scholarship, Bitty.”

“Oh, so you wouldn’t know,” says Eric. “I mean! That’s great! That you don’t have to worry about a scholarship.”

“Yeah,” says Kent, looking a little uncomfortable now, and Eric should have known better than to bring up such a sensitive topic. But then Kent gets up.

“Hey,” he says, joining Eric at the counter. “Can I help with this?”

“Uh…” says Eric. “You can…” He looks around for a task he trusts Kent with, and, to be fair to Kent, Eric does trust him more than the average Haus denizen, but…

Kent laughs, and holds up his good hand in a gesture of peace. “I’ll handle the playlist.”

Eric chokes back a noise of protest because he has a baking playlist, thanks! But Kent’s already flipping through his iPod. ABBA starts to play.

“Is this the Mamma Mia soundtrack?” asks Eric, after a moment.

Kent grins and winks, then grabs one of the wooden spoons Eric bought the Haus to use a mock microphone. He shimmies his hips. Eric laughs.

“I always thought,” says Eric, “that people don’t give Colin Firth enough credit as a comedian, and that movie really shows why.”

“Second best Mr. Darcy, though,” says Kent, breaking off from his lip syncing.

“What!?” screeches Eric. He nearly drops his spatula.

Kent grimaces at him. “Don’t tell me you like that miniseries shit.”

“You mean the superior version!?” He takes a deep breath through his nose. “When he comes out of the lake?”

“But in the Keira Knightley version - that moment in the rain,” says Kent, almost dreamily. “And he’s just such a dick, you know?”

“If you’re into that, I guess,” says Eric skeptically. Kent smirks.

“Oh, I’m into it.”

Eric pauses in his stirring. He looks at Kent, and Kent looks blandly back. Eric frowns. He can’t tell if Kent is just joking or if he, well, if he means it. There’s a winking breeziness he’s noticed some of the bros around the Haus have with homosexuality, but which doesn’t seem to mean anything. He’s sure Shitty could explain the nuances to him.

“You good?” asks Kent, leaning against the counter, and something about the way his voice drops a little, the way his shoulders square makes Eric think probably Kent didn’t mean it.

“Yes,” says Eric, aiming to keep his tone light. “I just can’t believe you prefer what’s-his-face over Colin Firth.”

Kent laughs loudly, opens his mouth to defend himself.

“What’s going on in here?”

Jack stands in the kitchen doorway. He narrows his eyes at Kent. “You should be resting.”

Kent grins at Eric conspiratorially. “Busted.” He slips out of the kitchen, darting past Jack.

Jack’s eyes track Kent briefly and then land heavily on Eric. He crosses his arms over his chest and frowns. Eric’s torn between putting his hands on his hips or holding up his baking tin as a shield. He settles for agitated stirring.

“He needs to rest,” Jack says disapprovingly. And then he unfolds his arms and follows Kent out of the kitchen.

**

A few days later, Eric’s in the Haus living room, making a half-hearted attempt at getting through the reading for his Science for Jocks class. Kent and Jack are on the couch watching a hockey game, Kent with his back against the arm rest and his feet against Jack’s thigh. Jack has a book open on his lap, but he keeps looking up to watch. It’s hard not to be distracted, as loudly as Kent is carrying on.

“Fucking fuck, Tater!” yells Kent. He punches the back of the couch. “You blind fucking asshole!”

Eric rolls his eyes to himself. Boys are so weird about sports, he thinks. They act like they personally know the players.

“It’s preseason, Kenny,” says Jack mildly.

“Yeah, and no one on there looks like they’ve ever fucking worn a pair of skates before, Jack!” Kent snarls.

Jack closes his book and frowns at Kent. “What’s your pain level right now?”

“Three,” says Kent, eyes sliding away like a sulky dog. Jack snorts.

“Sure,” he says. He tilts his head back and yells, “Shitty!”

“Brah?!” shouts Shitty back, his voice booming from his second floor bedroom.

“You could just teeext,” mutters Kent, and, privately, Eric agrees.

“Pills!” shouts Jack.

Shitty makes a kind of yelling affirmative noise that makes Eric wince, and, a few seconds later, very nicely, tromps down from his room, bottle of pills in hand. Eric half-expects Shitty to chuck it at Jack, but he unscrews the bottle and hands the pills over to Kent himself. He even brings a small glass of water with him. Eric’s not sure even he would have been that nice. It’s not like Jack’s doing anything.

“I’m fine,” Kent protests, but it’s a token attempt, and he swallows the pills and water with a grimace, then hands the glass back to Shitty.

“We’ll see how you’re feeling in four hours,” says Jack flatly, setting a timer on his phone.

“I’ll be asleep in four hours,” says Kent. There’s a little bit of a whine to his voice that Jack ignores. He doesn’t have the most sympathetic bedside manner Eric’s ever seen.

“Good,” says Jack, and he goes back to his book.

Kent keeps swearing at the TV, but his body language eventually goes soft and wobbly, like his spine’s unspooled, and he falls asleep against Jack’s shoulder, his mouth open. Jack keeps reading his book, though his eyes flicker up occasionally to watch the game.

Eric’s not sure why he’s hung around this long. Maybe it’s just that Jack is the only person on the team who still doesn’t like him and he really does like to be liked. He knows that one way to make people like you is to ask them about things you know they like… And as far as Eric can tell, Jack likes two things: hockey and Kent.

“Kent really cares about this team, huh?” he says, nodding at the TV.

Jack glances at him, his eyebrows moving together in a frightening, thunderous way over the chill blue of his eyes.

“Yeah, they’re his team.”

“Oh!” says Eric. He checks the TV to confirm the team’s name. “Is Kent from.. Providence?”

“What?” says Jack, eyebrows still together but now drawing upwards. It’s the most expressive Eric thinks he’s ever seen him. “No, Parse is from Buffalo.”

“Oh, right, that’s why he likes the Bills,” says Eric. “Oh, but, then why does he like Providence for hockey?”

“Because,” says Jack slowly, “they’re his team.”

“Right, of course, right,” says Eric, miserable now, and he lapses into silence. Clearly this is yet another guy thing Eric never got the memo on. Jack continues to stare at him with a hostile confusion, until, at the next commercial break, Eric gets up and leaves.

**

Practice the next day is their worst one yet. At least, for once, it’s not just Eric that’s the problem. Wicks and Ollie disappear for a good twenty minutes. Ransom and Holster are distracted on every play. Johnson keeps asking everyone if they believe in alternate universes. And Shitty seems like he might actually be high.

And Eric - well, Eric spends half the session curled up on the ice.

“Brah,” says Shitty, in what he probably thinks is a whisper, as he tries to help Eric to his feet for the seventh time. “If you need something to help you calm down, my buddy got some wicked edibles from Colo - ”

“Knight!” snarls Jack, skating up to them. He reaches past Shitty and grabs Eric’s arm, yanks him roughly to his feet. “If you wanted to play high, you should have gone to a D3! You’re certainly playing like you’re on one!”

“Brah,” says Shitty, with a hurt expression.

Jack ignores him. He wheels on the rest of the team, who have raggedly gathered to watch Shitty’s telling off and now stand paralyzed in Jack’s glare. “Not that the rest of you are playing any better! We’re switching to suicides – and if any of you complain,” he adds sharply, mainly to Holster, “remember playing on the team is a privilege.”

Holster sneers, but even he’s not brave enough to say anything. The team slinks away, which is impressive given they’re all on skates, except for Eric, who’s still clutched in Jack’s grasp. Jack seems to realize that, because he looks at Eric suddenly, his mouth thinning out in disgust.

“And you,” he says. “You. I don’t understand why you’re here at all.”

He drops Eric’s arm and skates off.

**

“You all right?” asks Kent after they all get back to the Haus and then disperse. “Everyone seems pretty, uh. Traumatized?”

“Jack was, um, in a mood,” says Eric. He lowers his voice, as one does in a house of grief.

“A mood?” says Kent. He sounds amused. “Yeah, I think I know the one.”

“Is he always like this? Is it always this bad to play with him?”

Kent’s expression turns serious. “Playing on the same line as Jack is my favorite thing I’ve ever done.”

Eric’s taken aback. But then - maybe he should have realized that the reason Jack seems to like Kent so much is that they’re equally insane about hockey.

“Do you think - ” Eric hesitates. He likes Kent a lot, and he trusts him, but he also knows Jack is Kent’s best friend.

“Do I think what?” says Kent, bemused.

Eric spits it out all at once. “DoyouthinkmaybeJack’shomophobic?”

Kent chokes. “What?”

“I just!” cries Eric, his voice pitching embarrassingly high. He flaps his hands. “He doesn’t like me! And I don’t know if it’s because - I know I’m not the straightest seeming…”

“Not everyone is going to like you,” says Kent, cutting him off. “And there’s no way Zimms dislikes you because you’re gay. Zimms wouldn’t care about that.”

“But he does dislike me?” says Eric, his voice cracking in the middle of the sentence. The confirmation hurts more than he expected it to.

“I don’t think - ” Kent sighs. “You have to know how Zimms’ mind works. He doesn’t have enough, like, emotional energy to like or dislike people for the most part. It’s not relevant to his worldview. But it does bother him that you can’t take a check.”

“Because that is relevant?”

“Well, yeah,” says Kent. “It’s hockey.”

**

Jack wakes him at four the next morning. Kent is also there, half-asleep against Jack’s shoulder.

“It was his idea,” he tells Eric, cocking his head at Jack.

“No. It was your idea to do this,” says Jack calmly.

“Yeah, but - not at 4 am!”

“What are we doing?” says Eric, despairing.

“You’re going to practice checking,” Jack informs him.

“And I’m here to make sure Jack doesn’t kill you,” mutters Kent darkly.

“You told Jack we should practice checking?” Eric asks Kent, alarmed and, frankly, betrayed.

Kent shrugs pathetically. “I suggested you two spend some time practicing on the ice together. I did not specifically say, ‘Jack, wake up the small freshman at four in the morning and terrify him within an inch of his life.’”

“He’ll be fine,” says Jack. He sounds cheerful. He even smiles at Eric. It is, in fact, terrifying. “You’ll be fine.”

**

He is fine, but that doesn’t make the whole experience any less terrible. He freezes and falls to the ice the first time Jack rushes him. Jack manages to not run him over, but it’s a near thing and Jack’s blades flash inches from his face as Jack steers himself into the barrier instead. Or, at least, it feels like inches.

Kent laughs loudly, so Eric shoots him a dirty look as Jack drags him back to his feet. Despite Kent’s earlier complaints about the earliness of the hour, he looks wide awake now, his eyes bright and hard as a bird’s. He also looks disgustingly cozy, with Jack’s jacket draped over his shoulders, and a steaming thermos in his good hand.

“You’ll be okay,” he tells Eric, in response to Eric’s glare. “I mean it. I was about your size when I started playing with Jack, and look at me now.”

Eric looks pointedly at Kent’s sling. “That’s not really the encouragement you seem to think it is.”

“Ignore him,” Jack tells Eric, before Kent can respond. “And brace yourself. We’re trying again.”

This time, Eric stays on his feet – but he still loses his nerve at the last moment and dashes out of Jack’s path. Jack makes a frustrated noise in his throat and swings sharply to face Eric.

“I’m sorry!” wails Eric, flapping his hands. “I panicked! I - ”

Jack crashes into him. Time seems to slow, and Eric has the distinct thought of, ‘Oh, I’m getting good air,’ before he crashes, butt-first, onto the ice. He sits there in stunned silence for several seconds.

“See? You survived,” says Jack, skating up to him. He offers his hand for Eric to take. But Eric ignores him and looks over to Kent. He keeps expecting Kent to say something, to call Jack out, but Kent’s still watching him with that hard, sharp expression. It hits Eric then that for all the ways he and Kent are alike, there are more ways that Kent and Jack are alike. Kent’s spent the last who-knows-how-many years of his life getting thrown to the ground in the name of sport and told it was good for him. And it doesn’t seem like a little thing like a snapped collar bone’s changed his opinion.

“Bittle?” says Jack, with a hint of concern now in his voice. “Are you okay? I didn’t think I hit you that hard…”

“I’m fine,” snaps Eric. He ignores Jack’s hand and rises unsteadily to his feet. “I used to take worse falls in figure skating.”

Jack’s face scrunches in confusion. “So if you’re used to the pain…”

“It’s not the pain!” says Eric, his voice rising. And it isn’t - though it’s not like he’s crazy about the pain, either. “It’s - Well, in figure skating, you fall and get hurt because you’re trying to get better. Here it’s because someone is trying to hurt you.”

He’s shaking, he realizes.

Neither Jack nor Kent say anything in response to that. They both look at Eric and then at each other.

“That’s just the game, Bits,” says Kent eventually. “Like, do you wanna play hockey or not?”

Jack nods in agreement, but he also, it seems to Eric, frowns at Kent’s sling before he does so.

“I know,” says Eric. “I know it’s the game. I just…”

He trails off into a long moment of silence.

“Well, do you want to go again?” asks Jack dubiously.

“Hold on, Zimms,” says Kent. “Bitty, come here?”

He says it kindly, like someone talking to a spooked creature, which only rankles Eric more. But he skates over. Kent leans forward in his seat, steadying himself with his good hand on the barrier and looks Eric over.

“You’re sure you’re good? Not hurt?”

“I’m sure,” huffs Eric, and at least his anger means he’s not panicking, he guesses.

“Okay, good.” Kent leans forward more, and Eric worries he might end up toppling out of his seat completely. His voice gets softer, too. “You can still do all those figure skating spins and jumps, right?”

“Yes…” says Eric.

Kent nods. He glances once, quickly, at Jack, and then looks at Eric with a devil’s smile that makes Eric feel, for a second, like he’d be willing to serve Kent in Hell.

“Next time Jack tries to hit ya, just spin away, yeah?”

“Oh,” says Eric. “Yeah. Okay.”

They try again, and, this time, Eric does exactly as Kent suggested, and he pirouettes away. Jack goes slamming into the boards, and Kent nearly doubles over in laughter.

Jack swears loudly as he rights himself, and Eric’s stomach knots up with anxiety, his own laugh stuck in his throat. But Jack doesn’t turn on him. Instead, he wheels on Kent.

“The point is for him to learn how to take a hit, Parse!”

“Yeah, but that was fucking funny!” says Kent, straightening up. He wipes a tear from the corner of his eye. “And it could be useful. No one’d expect it.”

“This isn’t a joke,” snaps Jack.

Kent snorts. “It’s college hockey, Jack.”

Jack’s face goes red and ugly at that, and Kent freezes, his eyes wide, like someone who’s just realized he’s made a terrible mistake.

“I didn’t…” starts Kent. His eyes cut to Eric guiltily and then he stops. He looks tired suddenly. “Look, forget I said that, okay?”

Jack doesn’t say anything. Eric takes the opportunity to slip off the ice and pull off his skates. Neither Kent nor Jack say anything for a long moment, and then Jack says:

“Maybe you should take lessons from Bittle.”

“About what?” says Kent. “Are you insulting my baking, dude?”

Eric laughs, hoping maybe they’re back on safe ground, but Jack’s face keeps its robotic stillness.

“About how to avoid a hit.”

Kent’s eyebrows fly up. “I can take a hit, Jack,” he snaps.

Jack’s face - somehow - gets harder. Eric gets his shoes on quickly.

“I said avoid, Parse. You take too many risks.”

His gaze lingers on Kent’s sling, and Kent’s expression tightens in a way Eric hasn’t seen before.

“I take risks that mean we win.”

“Is that why you’re missing the first month of the season? Is that helping your team win?”

“Fuck off, Zimmermann,” spits Kent. “You’re not my - ”

“I thought you’d died.”

Kent cuts off. His face goes flat and hard and mean. Then, he smiles.

“No, you didn’t. You don’t know what that feels like.”

“Is that the time?” says Eric loudly. It’s not even six in the morning. “Wow! I’m going to be late for…”

He doesn’t finish. Neither Kent nor Jack give any indication of hearing him. They stare at each other, hard enough that Eric honestly does expect to see sparks fly between them.

He gets all the way out of Faber before he realizes he forgot his backpack. He dithers for a moment. Maybe if he waits long enough, Kent and Jack will come back outside. But he knows there’s some kind of youth figure skating exhibit later, and the thought of getting by all those moms and coaches to get to his bag… He doesn’t want to cut it too close.

And also he has his humanities seminar this morning, he remembers. He needs his bag for that.

He goes back in.

It at least doesn’t sound like Kent and Jack are still arguing. He creeps back towards the rink, and sticks his head out of the locker room, wary, but not as wary as he thought he’d be. He left his backpack nearby, he’s sure, probably where Jack and Kent –

He spots them where he left them. Jack is still in his skates on the ice, and Kent is still on the other side of the boards. And Jack has - Jack has -- It takes longer than it should for Eric to realize what he’s seeing. It’s like his brain keeps looking at the two of them, deciding what he’s seeing can’t be true, and stalling out while it searches for a better explanation. Because it’s not possible, it just doesn’t seem possible, that Kent and Jack are - well, Jack has his hands on Kent’s face, is in, fact, cupping Kent’s face very tenderly - so maybe it’s not just possible, but probable that Jack and Kent are, in fact, well -- kissing.

They’re kissing.

And not in the sloppy, wet way Eric’s used to seeing in the high school hallway or at Haus parties, and not the brief, perfunctory kiss his parents might give each other to say goodbye or hello, but in a way that Eric’s not sure he’s ever seen anyone kiss before. They’re kissing like no one is watching them, slow and careful, with long pauses as they break apart to murmur at each other, though Jack never lets Kent’s face go, just as neither of them ever seek to close the gap further. Kent’s good hand grips the board about an inch from Jack’s hip and Eric doesn’t think he’s ever seen anything as fraught as that inch in his entire life.

He knows he shouldn’t stare. He knows this can’t be something either Jack or Kent would want getting out. But he’s also never seen a boy kiss another boy like this. And it feels – it doesn’t feel the way getting into Samwell felt, but it feels similar. It’s that same sense of possibility presenting itself, of finding a path you were told about but were starting to believe didn’t really exist.

Jack says something then, against Kent’s ear, and Kent laughs softly, but it’s so silent in the rink that the noise still carries. Kent ducks his head against Jack’s shoulder, but he also raises his hand to palm Jack’s hip.

That breaks the spell. Eric realizes how weird he’s being -- and there’s no way, absolutely no way in this blessed world, that he is going to interrupt them for his backpack now. For the second time in five minutes, he flees. He can text Kent about his backpack on the walk back.

**

It makes sense, he realizes later, in the middle of class when he really should be giving his thoughts on post-colonial feminist literature, the jokes make sense, the way Kent can tease and boss Jack around, the way Jack seems to bend, even if just minutely, around Kent and the tiny acts of tenderness. The fact that they’re sharing a room. He should have realized it before, except… How could he have known? You don’t see what you’ve been trained to believe doesn’t exist.

**

“I saw you and Jack kissing at the Faber,” he confesses to Kent, basically immediately, that afternoon. They’re in Jack’s room, Kent splayed out on Jack’s bed, which is made with a military precision, and Eric in a chair by the door.

“I didn’t mean to!” he adds, hastily, as Kent’s eyes go saucer-wide. “You two started fighting, so I left, but I forgot my backpack, and when I went back to get it, I - I - I - ”

“Bitty! Bittle!” says Kent, cutting him off. He starts to laugh, and that, somehow, makes Eric feel worse. “Jesus, Bitty, calm down!”

Eric goes quiet. Inwardly, he’s cringing.

Kent frowns at him. He runs his hand through his hair, only succeeding in making it messier. And then he sighs.

“Okay, so, obviously that was not your fault and that was Jack and me being really, extremely fucking dumb.”

Eric doesn’t say anything in response to that. He doesn’t think the appropriate move would be to agree that Kent and Jack were “fucking dumb.”

“If you could just keep it between us though,” says Kent, casually and neutrally now, “that’d be chill. Some of the guys - well, Shitty knows. So just don’t go… making it a thing.”

“I’d never!” says Eric, horrified that Kent would even suspect him possible of such a thing. “I won’t say a thing!”

Even if he did tell, though, he’s not sure anyone would believe him. Even with his suspicions about Kent, even with how noticeably weird Kent and Jack are around each other, Eric doesn’t think he would have believed they were an honest-to-goodness couple unless he’d seen them in the throes of intimacy in the Faber.

“Thanks,” says Kent, subdued.

“How long?” asks Eric, after a pensive moment passes.

“What?” says Kent.

“Um, I meant, how long have you and Jack been together?”

Kent gives him yet another one of his long, unreadable looks, and then he smiles and seems to visibly relax.

“God, ages. Since we were sixteen? Seventeen?” He sits up and plucks a framed photo from off Jack’s desk and tosses it to Eric. Eric catches and looks at it.

It’s Kent and Jack. Both look a lot younger, Jack especially. His jaw is rounder, his hair long. He’s smiling, and he’s looking at Kent. Kent’s cheek is pressed against Jack’s, one eye slightly scrunched from the contact. He’s flashing a peace sign. He looks like he’s been laughing.

“I didn’t know you’d known each other that long,” says Eric, surprised.

“Yeah,” says Kent.

Eric frowns, trying to put it together. “But you’re American and Jack’s....” He looks up at the Canadian flag tacked to Jack’s wall.

Kent laughs. “We played hockey together.”

Eric feels his eyes widen. He clutches the photo to his chest. “And then you ended up here together? That’s so romantic!”

Kent laughs again. “Something like that.”

He holds his hand out for the photo, and Eric tosses it back to him. Kent holds it up and looks at it. He’s smiling.

“We hit some rough spots, and we weren’t speaking for a while. But, yeah. We found our way back. So that’s pretty romantic, I guess.”

“Wow,” says Eric. He tries to wrap his head around the idea of dating Jack Zimmermann and, privately, thinks maybe Kent could do better. “Do you love him?”

Kent winks at him. “Yeah, but don’t let him know.”

The door swings open then, and Jack, as if summoned, steps into the room. He doesn’t notice Eric, tucked as he is in the corner chair, but Eric can see a quarter of Jack’s face from his angle. And when Jack looks at Kent, it seems to Eric as if that quarter of Jack’s face goes very soft, and some of the permanent rigidity seems to leak out of his shoulders. Kent sits up.

“Hey,” says Jack, smiling at Kent.

“Hey,” says Kent, smiling back.

Jack closes the door behind him and crosses the room to Kent in one swift step. He leans down, catches Kent’s face in his hand and kisses him tenderly. Eric’s heart is in his mouth and for a second, he can see how maybe, someone could find something appealing about Jack Zimmermann.

And then Jack finally notices Eric, and he just about jumps out of his skin.

“What are you doing here?” demands Jack. His face goes rigid and angry again, as stern as that eagle Muppet who loves America, and Eric’s brief moment of understanding evaporates completely.

“Babe,” says Kent quickly, grabbing Jack’s hand. “Babe, it’s okay.”

Jack turns away reluctantly from Eric to quirk his eyebrow at Kent. Kent quirks his own right back.

“He saw you kissing me at the Faber,” says Kent drily. “After checking practice.”

There’s a very long pause and then Jack just says, “...Oh.”

“Yeah,” says Kent, laughing a little now. He tugs Jack’s arm, and Jack sits down on the bed next to him.

“Sorry, for uh…” says Jack to Eric. He trails off. His body is still tense, shoulders up high close to his ears. Eric thinks he gets it. It would be a nasty shock to be unexpectedly outed like that.

“You’re fine!” says Eric quickly.

Jack nods, like that’s all settled then, and tugs Kent against his side, looping his arm around Kent’s waist. He’s careful about Kent’s arm, though, and moves Kent gently, then rests his chin on Kent’s shoulder. The tip of his nose presses against Kent’s jaw. Kent smiles like a cat, his eyes a shimmering green.

“You mind, Bits?” asks Kent, nodding towards the door.

“Oh!” Eric jumps to his feet. “Oh! Yep! Bye!”

**

He understands now why Kent was so certain Jack wasn’t homophobic. Even so, he’s not a hundred percent sure Kent is right. Jack doesn’t seem gay at all, and Kent’s too much of a chameleon to seem like much of anything. Neither of them comes across the way, well, neither of them seems like anyone ever took one look at them and hurled the word “queer.” And maybe it’s that Eric is so much more, well, obviously gay that bugs Jack so much.

So he corners Jack after breakfast the next day while Jack’s trying to get to some upperclassman history seminar he’s obsessed with.

“Bits,” says Jack with absent recognition when Eric jogs up alongside him.

“Jack!” says Eric, beaming like they just happened to run into each other. “How are you? On your way to class?”

“Uh,” says Jack, now looking faintly perturbed, like he suspects Eric is asking him a trick question. “Yes?”

“Mind if I walk with you?”

Jack makes a noise that is somehow delivered in the exact same tone that Coach says, “It’s a free country,” when disapproving of someone’s choice. Eric ignores it.

“How have you been?” he asks brightly.

“Fine?” says Jack.

“Great! I’ve been good, too! I’ve just been thinking about what happened yesterday!”

“Oh,” says Jack. “Shitty told me I have to tell you don’t worry about it. It’s only pre-season.”

“That’s not - ” Eric breathes in deeply. “I meant - I don’t mean the checking, Jack! I meant...” He gives Jack a meaningful look. “With Kent?”

“Oh,” says Jack, completely flat.

“Right,” says Eric, turning around to face Jack. He has to lightly jog backward to keep up. “I just wanted to say, just so you know, you’ve got nothing to worry about from me. Because… I understand what it’s like.” He takes a deep breath and steels himself. He glances around quickly and confirms they’re out of earshot of anyone else. Still, he lowers his voice. “I’m gay, too.”

“Okay,” says Jack.

Eric stops jogging, and Jack nearly bumps into him. “That’s it?” he says, before he can stop himself. “That’s all you have to say?”

They stare at each other for a very long time, in the middle of the campus sidewalk. Jack’s face remains locked in a grimace: eyebrows down, eyes narrowed, mouth a thin line. He’s processing, Eric realizes, the poor robot man.

Then, finally, Jack says, “I’m glad you feel safe enough to trust me with this information.” There’s another long pause. Eric waits to see if he’s going to say any more. “You are still a valuable member of the team and my friend.”

“Oh my god,” says Eric, too indignant to check himself. “Jack Zimmermann - you sound like you’re reading a manual!”

“I’m being validating!” says Jack.

Eric waves his hands dismissively. “Shouldn’t you be better at this?” he demands. “You’re -- ” He’s actually not sure, he realizes, how Jack identifies, and he lowers his voice again, this time to a strident whisper, “-- with Kent!”

Jack grimaces, and he grabs Eric by the arm and pulls him off the path.

“That’s different!” he says, quiet but harsh.

“How is it different?” Eric puts his hands on his hips.

“It’s a relationship,” says Jack, mulish.

“Well, yes, but if you’re in a relationship with another boy, that means – ”

“ – I know what it means!”

“So why – ”

“Because we can’t be out!”

“Oh.”

There’s a long pause. Jack won’t meet Eric’s eyes. “Our careers…” he mutters.

“Right,” says Eric. His heart hurts. Goodness knows he’s out to barely two people, but he’s going to be out to everyone some day. He can’t imagine going into a career where he could never do that without blowing everything up. He could never imagine loving something more than you love your freedom. And he’s going to have that freedom someday. He’s going to be safe enough, secure enough it won’t matter who he tells or who knows. Otherwise, what’s the point?

He can’t say any of that to Jack though. He wants to ask if it’s worth it, but he doesn’t think he can ask that either. He just takes Jack’s hand and squeezes it. Jack looks startled.

“I’m sorry,” says Eric.

“It’s fine,” says Jack. He frowns. “Shouldn’t I be the one, uh, comforting you?”

“I think we can comfort each other,” says Eric carefully, and then he decides to go for broke. He launches himself at Jack and hugs him. Jack tenses up, the way Eric does when someone tries to check him, but then, with a sigh, Jack relaxes. He pats Eric on the head.

“Okay, Bittle,” he says, not unkindly. “That’s enough for now.”

**

“I came out to Jack,” he tells Kent, later. Kent’s doing one-armed push ups with his good arm. It is, frankly, incredibly impressive, but Eric also vaguely feels like maybe he should put a stop to it. But Kent’s never chirped him for not studying, so Eric nobly decides Kent knows best when it comes to his own recovery.

“Huh,” grunts Kent. “How’d he take it?”

“Good,” says Eric. “I think. He was… affirming.”

Kent snorts. “Right.”

“But he seemed upset that you guys couldn’t… That you’re not, you know, out.”

“He said that?” says Kent, paused, now, at the top of his movement.

“Sort of,” says Eric.

Kent lowers himself slowly to the floor and rolls onto his back as Eric hastily reiterates his conversation with Jack. Kent doesn’t react. He puts his good arm under his head and looks at the ceiling, his eyes blue and inscrutable in the wavy, rainy light.

“He’s not wrong,” says Kent, when Eric’s done. He sighs and sits up, resting his chin on his knees.

“I just wish, you know,” he continues, “that it didn’t have to be a thing, right? I just don’t want to be the gay one. I want it not to matter.”

“Yes!” says Eric. He’s never heard someone articulate that way before, not in real life, not someone he was actually talking to. He nods fervently, like his mother in church, he thinks, and the irony’s not lost on him. “Yes, that’s it exactly!”

Kent’s eyes darken. “And even the guys like Shitty, who I love, don’t get me wrong, who say it doesn’t matter – like it does fucking matter! It’s not his ass on the line.”

Eric nods fervently again. He saw some girls snapping in one of his classes when their friend said something they agreed with and he considers doing that, but then Kent keeps going and it’s clearly too late to do more than keep nodding.

“I’m just glad I have Zimms, at least,” says Kent. He shakes his head. “I don’t know if I could do it alone.” He grins at Eric. “Though I guess I’ve got you too, now.” He laughs. “Isn’t that wild? I’ve never had a gay friend before.”

Eric’s chest fills with warmth. He beams. “Me neither.”

They sit there in glowing, companionable silence, and then Eric asks. “Can I ask, uh, how did you and Jack…”

“Are you asking how I came out to Jack?” asks Kent.

“Something like that,” says Eric.

Kent smirks. “I kissed him back.”

**

Checking practice continues. Sometimes Kent comes; sometimes he doesn’t. He goes to Boston more for rehab, and the evening before their first game, comes back to the Haus with his sling off.

He moves his arm tenderly in the warm light of the kitchen, while Eric bakes a “You got your sling off!” pie. It’s cherry.

“Are you coming to the game tomorrow?” asks Eric.

Kent looks at Eric and then up at the ceiling. He’s frowning in a way that Eric can’t really interpret.

“I think I’ll just stream it,” says Kent to the ceiling.

“Oh,” says Eric. “Okay.”

Kent nods distractedly and leans against the kitchen counter. His eyes wander unhappily over the room. Eric doesn’t expect him to spit out whatever’s bugging him. As prickly as Jack is, at least his mood shifts normally make sense. Kent’s just mercurial. Eventually, Kent says, “Are you seriously listening to Beyoncé again?”

Eric feels his eyes turn black. “What else would I listen to?” he asks coolly. Kent shrugs.

“I don’t know? Taylor Swift?”

“Taylor Swift?” shrieks Eric, and he realizes immediately he’s made a mistake because Kent’s eyes light up with the realization that he’s found something he can needle Eric about. He smiles slowly.

“Yeah, what’s wrong with Taylor Swift, Bits?” he asks, full-on shit-eating grin now in place. And Eric, God help him, though he knows he’s walking into a trap, tells Kent.

They’re twenty minutes into their argument over Taylor Swift when Eric pauses, mid-invective, to ask: “Do you argue about this kind of thing with the guys?”

“What?” says Kent, then, “Sure. I mean, Holster has a whole powerpoint on the best TSwift songs by era. I told him he was an idiot for ranking Fearless above Red.”

“Okay, but you’re not as…” Eric tries to find the right word. A word other than “gay.” He ends up just swishing his hand. “You know? Around them.”

“Swishy?” says Kent incredulously. “Are you asking why I’m not as swishy around them?”

Eric’s face heats up. “No! I didn’t say swishy! I meant - ”

“You meant gay,” says Kent. His face goes hard, a little blank. “Why when I’m around them I’m not such a – ”

“I don’t like that word,” says Eric sharply, before Kent can finish the sentence. “It’s just – I don’t know. Don’t you ever feel like you’re being fake?”

“Fake?” repeats Kent, in the same sneering tone of incredulity. “It’s not fake, Bitty. People are just - who you’re around different people is different. Like, have you ever seen Shitty around his folks?”

“No…” says Eric. His face feels hot. He’s jealous. There isn’t really a different Eric, he realizes. He can’t front. Not the way Kent can, and he’s jealous that he has to go through life with a target on his back. That Kent doesn’t have to, not if he doesn’t want to.

It’s not a nice feeling to have.

“Besides,” says Kent, “you’re one to talk.”

“What?”

Kent raises his eyebrow, haughty. “You’re always hiding behind being nice. All that ‘bless your heart’ shit?”

Eric sniffs. “Well, Mama always says kindness doesn’t cost a thing.”

“And how would your mom react if you came out to her?”

Eric doesn’t say anything. He gets that hollowed out feeling that pops up whenever he thinks about coming out to his parents. He doesn’t think they’d mind – not really, but… He doesn’t really want to find out either. Not yet. Not when he can just pretend he’s normal and everything is fine. It’s much nicer to just pretend everything is fine.

Besides, Mama is so involved in her church, and he wouldn’t want to put her in a tight spot – having to choose between him and her church.

Though maybe Coach would welcome the excuse to stop attending. Eric’s pretty sure he only goes to make Mama happy.

Kent smirks at Eric’s long silence. “Okay, so it seems like you don’t think she’d be kind enough to accept you?”

“Shut up!” snarls Eric, and then immediately claps his hand over his mouth, shocked at his own volume.

“Dudes?” shouts Shitty from somewhere in the depths of the house. They both ignore him.

Kent’s smirk actually drops from his face for a second, replaced by a clear surprise. But he recovers quickly and smiles. “Well, at least I distracted you from the game tomorrow, huh?”

Eric just looks at him for a long moment. He lowers his hand.

“You can take the pie out in twenty minutes,” he says primly. “But it will need to cool before you cut into it.” And then, with as much dignity as he can muster, he takes off his apron and leaves the kitchen.

**

He finds Shitty in his room, naked and trying to hit a golf ball into a red solo cup with his hockey stick. So he’s pretty high, even for Shitty. Still, he’s Shitty, so he’s sympathetic.

“Why is Kent such a dick!?” Eric blurts out, before Shitty can even get a full sentence out.

“Are you – so you guys were arguing.” Shitty adjusts the angle of his hockey stick and gently taps the golf ball. It misses the solo cup by several inches.

“Yes,” says Eric miserably. He wrings his hands and wails. “I don’t even really know what we were arguing about!”

“Mmm,” says Shitty, teeing up again. “Did he do that thing where he pissed you off and then acted like he was helping?”

“Yes!”

Shitty nods sagely. “He did that to Jack all the time when we were freshmen.”

“Oh,” says Eric. “What did – how did they resolve it?”

Shitty just gives him a look. A look of a man who has heard and possibly seen things no roommate ever wants to hear or see. A look of a man who has suffered.

“Oh!” says Eric, laughing. He covers his mouth with his hand. Shitty sighs. “Well, I can’t do that!”

“Parson’s usually, like, mildly better than Jack at realizing when he’s got his head shoved up his own ass, man. Just give him some time. And focus on the game tomorrow.”

Eric faceplants forward onto Shitty’s bed.

“The game,” he groans. “I don’t want to think about the game!”

He dimly registers Shitty patting him consolingly with the hockey stick.

“It’s gonna be fine,” he says with a confidence Eric can’t help but resent. “Really.”

**

It is fine. Mostly. Though it also feels a lot like the first time he tried to merge onto the freeway. Only, then, the other cars weren’t also trying to hit him. Mostly.

He doesn’t scream, at any rate, and he doesn’t get hit, and he doesn’t spend any time curled up in fetal position on the ice. He also doesn’t really make any positive contributions to the team. But at least they still win, on a thunderclap of a goal from Jack in the second and then some defensive heroics from Ransom and Holster to keep the lead.

No one seems super happy afterwards, but the general mood is much lighter as they all head to the locker room after the game. They played the first game, and they won. The world isn’t ending, and Jack won’t kill them all in their sleep.

Eric stops short when he sees Kent waiting by the locker room door. He has a hoodie on with the hood pulled up and he’s slouched against the wall like a particularly morose teenager. To Eric’s surprise, he and Jack just nod at each other, and then Jack keeps heading straight to the showers. Eric’s even more surprised when Kent peels himself away from the wall and steps in front of Eric.

“Hey,” he says, looking a little uncomfortable.

“Hi,” says Eric back automatically. He and Kent haven’t spoken really since their argument, though there hasn’t really been time.

“Good game,” says Kent after the silence goes on between them a beat too long. “Thought you nearly had a goal in the third.”

Eric laughs in spite of himself. “You’re acting like Jack right now,” he says.

Kent laughs too – loud and startled.

“Yeah,” he says, grimacing. He pushes his hood off his head and runs his hand through his hair. His mouth thins out unhappily. “Shitty said I was a dick to you.”

Eric flinches. “I didn’t –I didn’t tell Shitty because I thought he would say something to you! I – ”

“Bitty!” says Kent, holding up a hand for him to stop. “I’m not here to bitch you out! You deserve to bitch me out. I was being a dick. Even Jack said so.”

“You told Jack what happened?”

Kent smiles faintly. “Yeah, well, Jack and I have a lot of experience in telling when the other one’s being a dick.”

Eric laughs politely in response. Kent shifts his feet awkwardly. Kent is less of an anti-social mess than most of the other hockey bros Eric has met, but it still sometimes feels like he was raised in an environment where no one ever taught him to say “please” or “thank you” or “I’m sorry.”

“Is that all you have to say for yourself?” says Eric, if nothing else, to put Kent out of his misery.

Kent groans. “No.” He sighs, but he meets Eric’s eyes. “I’m sorry. Really. I shouldn’t have made that comment about your mom. Or called you fake.”

Eric waits for a second to see if Kent will say anything else – an explanation or an excuse or an elaboration. But Kent just continues to look at him unhappily. He’s anxious, Eric realizes. He actually cares whether or not Eric forgives him, and that, more than the actual apology, is what finally loosens the tight knot of anger in Eric’s chest.

“It’s okay,” he says. He smiles. “I shouldn’t have called you fake either.”

Kent smiles. His shoulders straighten a little. “Don’t even worry about it, Bitty. And, hey – let me make it up to you. Not just apologize. Now that I have two working arms, I can drive you to Stop n Shop. I’ll even pay.”

The knot in Eric’s just disappears completely. “That would be nice,” he says honestly. “Thank you.”

“Cool,” says Kent. He claps Eric on the shoulder and then lets go. “Now I gotta go find Jack.” He smirks. “Congratulate him on that goal, you know?”

**

Kent’s not able to make good on his promise immediately. He’s out of town again for a few days – Eric suspects more rehab in Boston, though it seems odd to him that the more Kent recovers, the more time he spends away from the Haus. He’s gone for the better part of a week, during which fall suddenly descends with unseemly haste, as if realizing it’s late. He shows back up on a Monday afternoon that’s black with pouring rain and is drenched by the time he makes the dash from his car to the Haus.

“Can’t you afford an umbrella?” asks Eric, wrinkling his nose as Kent shakes his wet hair out in the hall. “I’m pretty sure you can afford an umbrella.”

“Haha,” says Kent, straightening up. “I’ll just steal Jack’s.” He fixes Eric with a bright blue eye. “Are you doing anything? Did you want to go to Stop n Shop?”

“Oh,” says Eric. “I, well - I’m supposed to be studying. Midterms… But… I am low on butter…”

“Can’t make pies without butter,” points out Kent.

“You’re a bad influence,” says Eric with a sigh, but he’s already reaching for his raincoat. Kent grins. True to his word, he steals an umbrella that’s been shoved behind the coat rack, though Eric is pretty sure it’s actually Holster’s.

**

Kent slouches around the Stop n Shop like he’s a famous person lying low, with his ball cap pulled forward over his face and the collar of his jacket popped, even though it’s early afternoon on a Monday and no one’s there.

Kent also spends a good ten minutes standing morosely in the chips aisle.

“Is everything okay?” asks Eric, done with his own shopping.

“Yeah,” says Kent, with a slight start. “I was just – sometimes they have the All-Dressed Ruffles, you know?” At Eric’s blank look, he adds, “They’re popular in Canada. Zimms and I used to eat them all the time.”

Eric pats him on the arm. “Well, I’m sure in that case his parents can send him some if he really wants them.”

“Yeah,” says Kent, pulling his arm away with an agitation that Eric is starting to realize is a mask for his melancholy.

Kent’s quiet and distracted through the check out and ride back to the Haus. Eric expects him to disappear up to Jack’s room as soon as they’re back inside, but he lingers in the kitchen, helping Eric unload the groceries, but still with the same withdrawn and moody air. Finally, Eric snaps at him:

“You’re moping!”

That startles Kent briefly out of his mood, but then he immediately turns sulky. “No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are,” says Eric, brandishing a box of butter at him. “Is rehab not going well or something?”

“It’s going great!” snaps Kent defensively, but that only seems to make him unhappier. He crosses his arms over his chest and hunches a bit.

“Then what is your problem!”

Kent pouts more, lower lip pushing out dangerously, but then he relents.

“I just, like, miss Jack.”

“Oh,” says Eric, and he suddenly feels a little bad for being so snappish. He adds, kindly, “I think he misses you, too. He’s been particularly bitchy this week.”

Kent smiles, briefly but genuinely. “Yeah, that sounds like him.” The smile fades. “But, like, I’m glad I’m getting better, but it means I’m gonna see less of him. Zimms keeps saying, you know, if it’s easier for me to stay at home, I should, but… like, I fucking miss him during the season, you know?”

“What?” says Eric, confused. “But isn’t he right here?”

Kent looks at him, also confused, and then, his face relaxes. “Yeah. He’s right here.” He rubs his jaw, his eyes cutting away from Eric and towards the living room. Eric gets that sense again that there’s something Kent’s not telling him.

“Hey,” says Kent, voice suddenly bright and casual, “I was thinking of taking some of the boys to a professional hockey game soon, down in Providence. My treat. You wanna come?”

“Oh! Sure!”

“Cool,” says Kent. He checks his watch and changes the subject. “Zimms has that study group, doesn’t he?” he asks. Which, Eric hopes, is a rhetorical question, because he has no idea what Jack’s non-games and practice schedule is like, other than the inked in terroristic weekly 4am checking practices. But thankfully Kent doesn’t seem to expect a response. He nods to himself and wanders casually off into the living room and turns the TV on. By the time Eric finishes unloading and follows him into the living room, Kent’s asleep: arms crossed over his chest and hat covering his face.

Eric sighs. If the Haus had anything resembling a throw blanket, he would toss it over Kent, but he leaves him be and settles down in the sagging armchair to another studying attempt. It’s peaceful, with the wind and rain tossing against the windows and the low, generic hum of sports commentary from the TV.

Eventually, the front door crashes open, and Ransom and Holster bound through, talking at their normal volume. Which is, of course, basically a yell. On the couch, Kent flinches. Eric pokes his head up over the back of the armchair to glare. He catches Ransom’s eye and lifts his finger to his mouth. Ransom freezes.

“SHHHH!” hisses Eric sternly. He jabs his finger at Kent. “Kent is sleeping.”

Holster freezes too at the shush, and both he and Ransom nod, frantic and apologetic, and start to creep up the stairs. Though, at the top, Eric unmistakably hears Holster say, “Wait. Why are we being quiet? Neither of them even live here!”

“HOLTZY, HE SAID SHHH,” whispers Ransom back, and they are, blessedly, silent after that.

It’s quiet for a while after that. Eric uses his death glare on Johnson as well when he comes wandering in from off-page, but it doesn’t turn out to be necessary because all Johnson does is wink at Eric on his way out the door. And who knows what that means.

Then, just as Eric is thinking of abandoning his studying for the dinner hall, Jack comes home. He stands silently in the entryway to the living room, frowning. He looks at Kent and then slowly turns his pale eyes to Eric. There’s a faint questioning line in between his eyebrows. He stares at Eric for what feels like an eternity.

“Just,” says Eric, quailing, even though he hasn’t done anything wrong. There’s just something priest-like and severe about Jack sometimes which makes Eric feel like he needs to confess all his sins. And he’s not even Catholic. “He seemed so tired. I didn’t want to disturb him! Sometimes when I wake up in the middle of the night, I just, well, I have such a hard time getting back to – ”

“Okay, Bittle,” says Jack, cutting him off. He nods, curt and short, and then his face, almost imperceptibly, softens. “Thank you for looking out for him.”

Eric’s surprised. He’s not sure Jack’s ever actually thanked him for anything before, beyond, perhaps, a curt acknowledgement for passing the salt at the dining table. He feels a warm swell of pride in his chest.

“Oh, it’s no problem! Really, Kent’s been such a – he’s really helped me out a lot so far, and I just feel so terrible he’s been injured. It’s the least I can do. Really.”

“Okay. Well.” Jack purses his mouth, but not, Eric thinks, like he’s mad, but like he’s uncertain what to say next. Not for the first time, it occurs to Eric that Jack might be awkward as much as he’s just plain rude.

Jack doesn’t finish the thought, if there ever were a thought. Instead, he turns to Kent and crouches down. He touches his knuckles gently against Kent’s face.

“Kenny,” he says, in a soft, clear voice, calling Kent awake. Kent stirs, blinking and stretching, and Jack smiles down at him, private and fond. “Let’s get you to bed.”

Eric blinks rapidly. He’s jealous, he realizes, not of Kent or Jack exactly, but of what they have. He wants someone to put his hand on Eric’s face and call his name in a soft, clear voice. He wants that.

But, goodness, how amazing to realize that it’s possible to happen at all.

**

As promised, Kent takes a group of them out to see the Falconers play a week or so later. Eric almost considers begging off. The season’s in full swing now and he’s still in the thick of midterms. It’s a shorter drive than Eric expected – New England states are so small – but it’s still an annoyingly long time to be stuck in the back row of a minivan between Ransom and Holster.

“Uh, Bitty,” says Kent, drawing him away slightly as they leave the parking garage. “There’s something I need to tell you before we go into the stadium.”

“What’s that?” says Eric, suddenly nervous. Is he getting kicked off the team? He’s not sure why Kent would be the one to deliver that message and not one of the coaches or even Jack, or maybe it was supposed to be Jack, but he deputized to Kent because he knew Kent would be nicer about it…

“Bits?” says Kent. Eric flushes.

“Sorry,” he mutters. “What was it you wanted to tell me?”

Kent takes a deep breath and then, with a rueful laugh, says: “I don’t actually play for Samwell. I, uh, play for this team actually. The Falconers.”

Eric stares at him politely for three seconds.

“I’m sorry. What was that?”

“I play for the Falconers,” repeats Kent. “I play hockey professionally. I’m just, uh, dating Jack. Like… look, that’s me on that banner there.”

Eric turns, and sure enough, there’s a large banner in the lead up to the front gate, of three hockey players, one of whom, with a C on his chest, is unmistakably Kent.

“What?” says Eric again. He wheels on Kent, angry and confused. “Why would you – The whole time you knew I didn’t know and you didn’t say anything!”

Kent winces and he holds his hands up. “I know. I know. I’m sorry. I just – I liked that you didn’t know. You thought I was normal.”

“Well, I don’t any more!” shouts Eric. Behind Kent, he sees Jack turn around, frowning. Kent waves his hands a little wildly, like he’s trying to signal to Eric to quiet down.

“I wasn’t trying to trick you! Also, I kinda figured someone would have told you or you would have figured it out by now!”

“So this is my fault?” demands Eric, and while normally he doesn’t really mind being on the shorter side, it’s time like this he wishes he were tall, so when he draws himself up to his full height it would at least be kind of intimidating. As it is, he’s mostly just grateful Kent’s not very tall himself.

“No!” says Kent. “It’s – it’s my fault, I guess. I should have told you! Before now. But.” Kent gives him a big-eyed, pleading look. Eric wonders how often that’s worked on Jack. Probably a lot.

Unfortunately, it’s also working on Eric.

“I really liked just having a normal friend,” adds Kent quietly. Plaintively, even.

Eric is quiet for a long moment. He mentally scans through the last couple months – and, well, it makes a lot of things make more sense.

“How long have you played for them?” he asks finally.

Kent’s eyebrows crinkle a little, like he’s confused by the question. “Since I was drafted?” he says. “Uh, like five years ago.”

“And you’ve been… hanging out at Samwell all that time?”

“No!” says Kent quietly. “Just since – since Zimms started attending. We, like, reconnected once he was no longer in Canada and living closer by.”

Eric looks at him blankly, and Kent sighs. “Sorry, Bits. There’s just, like, a whole tragic backstory thing we never told you about.”

“Is that supposed to make me more sympathetic?” asks Eric suspiciously. Kent makes a face.

“No. I’ll just – I’ll tell you all about it later, all right? The parts that are mine to tell at least.” He glances over his shoulder at Jack, who is still hovering about twenty feet away. The rest of the guys have disappeared.

Finally, Eric huffs. “You’re on thin ice, mister,” he tells Kent.

Slowly, Kent starts to smile. He puts his hands together like he’s praying and points them at Eric.

“Okay. Okay! That’s fair.” He grins more widely. “I’m going to buy you so much fucking butter, Bitty.”

“You’re going to sabotage my team,” says Jack, now joining them, as if the change of Kent’s body language was all he needed to feel safe to approach. He looks between them, frowning. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” says Kent, still smiling. He knocks his shoulder against Jack’s. “Everything’s okay.”

Jack nods seriously. “Good. We should go in. Game starts soon.”

“Yeah,” says Kent, and then, “Oh, shit, they’re not gonna let the guys in unless I’m there.” He darts off, calling over his shoulder as he goes, “Bits! I’ll introduce you to the team later. You’re gonna love Tater.”

“Tater?” mouths Eric quietly to himself.

Jack smiles fondly after Kent.

“You’re going to miss him when he’s better, aren’t you?” says Eric.

Jack’s eyes cut to Eric, startled, like he forgot Eric was there.

“Yeah,” says Jack after a pause. He smiles fondly again. “I always miss him."

Then he frowns, and he turns to Eric. “But. Wait, did you really think Kent was playing for Samwell? He’s the most famous player in the league.”

“Uh...” says Eric. And he comes up with nothing. He pats Jack on the arm and smiles feebly. “Why don’t we just go watch the game?”

And so they do.

End.