Summary: "Is—is that a hickey I see?" Shitty smirked.
"Uhhh. It's not—I didn't—," Jack stammered and all the words he'd ever learned somehow had disappeared from his brain. That was not the response he was expecting. He was expecting a chirp, not—well, that.
A/N: So um hey, this is my first work I've ever written for Check, Please! I've been writing a long time, but this webcomic actually is probably what I've been most excited to write for in a while, so I hope this turned out okay...
This fic is loosely based off an fic I wrote a couple months ago for Jude and Connor on The Fosters, called that I thought would be easily adaptable.
Unbeta-ed...apologies for any mistakes.
Also, sorry the title sucks, titles aren't really my strong suit.
Please leave your thoughts on how you thought I captured the characters and any ideas you might have for future fics. I hope that y'all will be seeing me around a lot more after this :)
Originally published on AO3 and tumblr December 8, 2015
Originally posted on as an individual fic, but now moved to this combined oneshot fic posting
Okay, so this may have been the first morning it had ever happened, but Jack was fairly certain that he was never going to tire of waking up to a headful of blond hair in his face. Or the hand tangled in his. Or the warmth cuddled up against him, the curves of Bitty's small body fitting against his own like they were perfectly made for each other.
Jack sighed contentedly, thinking about how the night before had played out like a dream. Well, it was really mostly a blur, lost somewhere in the haze of a couple beers, but what he did remember was having Bitty lean up close to him, laughing at some lame chirp Jack had thrown at him, followed by his body reacting before his brain could have time to think about it or question the action. His lips connected with Bitty's and everything fell into place from there, the plane finally coming in for a landing after nearly two years of circling. That was the part that he knew for sure had played out like a dream. The rest, he assumed, had to have gone at least as well because here he was, waking up in Bitty's bed instead of his own.
"Morning," Bitty mumbled, breaking Jack from his thoughts as he loosened Jack's arms and turned over so they were face to face. Jack gave a low "hmm" in reply, brushing Bitty's hair off his forehead and leaning in to gently kiss him, reveling into how Bitty hummed and leaned into the touch, smiling into the kiss.
"I'm not dreaming, right?" Bitty asked, groggily opening his eyes to look at Jack and pinching the skin on his arm for good measure. Jack cocked his eyebrows and chuckled.
"You're the one who just pinched their arm, you tell me," Jack grinned, chuckling more heartily when Bitty groaned and rolled his eyes.
"If you ever want this to happen again Mr. Zimmermann, there is going to have be a rule against you chirping me when I'm barely awake."
"Okay fine," Jack said, throwing a hand up in mock surrender and tossing the blankets off them in the process. Bitty grumbled and grabbed his wrist, pulling it back down and guiding Jack to snake his arm around his torso again. Jack caught a flash of a small red mark where Bitty's neck and shoulder met, but then Bitty was burying his head into the crook of Jack's neck and the thought quickly slipped away.
They lay there for a while longer, but Jack started feeling restless. The longer he stayed, the greater the risk that the rest of the Haus would catch them. Not that Jack intended to keep this from them for very long, he just wanted time to work this out with Bitty first before the rest of the guys would inevitably, obnoxiously, intrude.
Carefully, Jack extracted his limbs from Bitty and moved to stand up.
"Jaaaaaaack," Bitty whined, pawing at Jack in an attempt to pull him back onto the bed.
"I'll see you in the kitchen," Jack whispered, placed a gentle kiss on Bitty's forehead and headed out into the hallway, tiptoeing his way around the creaky floorboards so as not alert anyone he was up.
Jack padded into the kitchen, setting to work making a cup of coffee. It was a Saturday, and the fact that he was up before noon (or at least, he assumed it was before noon; he hadn't checked the time before he came down) already assured that he was the only one in the Haus awake, something he was glad for on this morning of all mornings. So when Jack turned around to find Shitty standing in the kitchen entryway, he nearly had a heart attack.
"Morning Jack," Shitty mumbled, pawing around the cupboards for a mug to pour some coffee into when the pot finished brewing. "Haven't you ever considered sleeping in on a Saturday for once?"
Today was the first time I've considered it in a long time, Jack mused to himself.
"Not really," was how he actually answered Shitty, sliding into a chair as he waited for the coffee maker to finish.
"You and your old man sleeping schedule," Shitty yawned, shaking his head exasperatedly. "You need to fucking learn to live a little."
"You say as you happen to be up at the same time as me," Jack chirped. Jack watched as Shitty searched his brain for a comeback, groaning internally when his eyes went wide. Whatever Shitty was going to chirp in reply, Jack probably didn't have a retort. He was too tired and hadn't had enough coffee yet.
"Is—is that a hickey I see?" Shitty smirked.
"Uhhh. It's not—I didn't—," Jack stammered and all the words he'd ever learned somehow had disappeared from his brain. That was not the response he was expecting. He was expecting a chirp, not—well, that.
"So that's where you disappeared to, you motherfucker!" Shitty shouted, walking over and clapping Jack on the back. "I knew you wouldn't skip the party to celebrate our fucking NCAA championship without good reason!"
So he had a hickey, one that Bitty definitely gave him. They were definitely going to have to talk about that (not because Jack didn't like it; in fact just thinking about it made him shiver), as in the future, walking around with hickeys was going to force Jack to face a lot of questions he'd rather avoid. But there was nothing he could do now except damage control and run interference to keep them from suspecting Bitty had any part in it.
"Woah, bro, is that a hickey?" Ransom asked, sauntering into the kitchen with Holster right behind him, breaking a moment of silence where Shitty had been staring at him with a smug smile.
"Bro, I think Jack got some action last night," Holster grinned, settling down into a chair on one side of Jack while Ransom took sat down on the other side.
"And without any help from us," Ransom continued.
"I don't need your help, I'm not completely incompetent," Jack mumbled, burying his head into his hands to hide his creeping blush, hoping that they would all ignore the burning tips of his ears.
"Brah," Shitty chided, chortling softly and patting Jack's shoulder condescendingly.
"What? I can, and I d—have," Jack retorted quietly, cursing his slip-up. They all looked at him wide-eyed, looking like they were ready to pounce on him, when thankfully he was saved by Lardo's sudden appearance.
"Nice hickey Jack," she commented casually as she strolled past and stood next to Shitty.
"It's not a hickey!" Jack blurted out.
"Who doesn't have a hickey?" Dex questioned as he and the other frogs entered the kitchen.
"Jack," everyone replied in unison.
Jack sighed, as almost the entire team was in the kitchen with him. He just prayed that Bitty stayed upstairs. They both were going to be done for if he did.
"So if it's not a hickey, where did you get that?" Shitty asked, staring Jack down with a twinkle in his eye, as if he knew what was going on (and, if the way he was staring at Jack when Ransom and Holster came in was any indication, he probably actually did).
"It was uh—," Jack paused as he racked his brain for things that made marks on skin similar to hickeys. His mental catalogue was coming up painfully empty though. He couldn't come up with a single explanation that might possibly save him.
"It could be like a bug bite or something," Chowder suggested innocently.
"Bless your sweet baby heart," Jack could almost hear Bitty saying in the back of his mind (because that was exactly what Bitty would've said if he were there).
"Nah bro, that's way to big to be a bug bite," Holster countered. Chowder shrugged as if to say "I tried" and Jack nodded, flashing him a pained smile.
"So Jack, who's the lucky la—," Ransom began, pausing when Shitty narrowed his eyes at him. "Who's the lucky person?"
Jack pursed his lips and shook his head.
"I'm telling you, there isn't anyone. It's a bug bite, just like Chowder said," Jack said firmly in his captain's voice, hoping that his stern tone would get them all to stop talking about this.
"Uh huh, sure," half the kitchen replied with disbelief.
"Lord, if I had know y'all were down here having a meeting—"
"Bitty!" Ransom and Holster exclaimed, jumping up and settling in on either side of Bitty, placing a hand on each shoulder as they guided him in. Jack's head hung low, staring down at his shoes and avoiding Bitty's eyes.
"Surely he must have told you," Ransom began.
"So enlighten us Bitty; who is Jack getting action from?" Holster added, gently shoving Bitty down into one of the chairs beside Jack.
"I-I swear I don't know what y'all are talkin' about," Bitty stuttered, keeping his eyes averted from Jack, his drawl more pronounced than usual due to sleepiness and nerves. If the entire hockey team wasn't interrogating them, Jack would've found it incredibly cute.
"Oh come on Bits," Shitty urged.
"So are we all just going to ignore the fact that Bitty is wearing one of Jack's shirts?" Dex piped up from the corner of the kitchen.
"Oh g-goodness!" Bitty squeaked, nervously adjusting the oversized shirt. "There must've been a laundry mishap Jack, I'm so sorry!"
"Orrrrr, I have a better explanation," Shitty grinned, his eyes gravitating to Bitty's neck. Jack turned and saw the red mark on Bitty's neck (one that had been hidden under the shirt's collar before Bitty had adjusted it) at the same time Bitty saw the one on Jack's jaw. They met each other's eyes, staring at each other for a few seconds before the entire kitchen erupted into chaos as everyone put the pieces together.
Jack and Bitty both turned bright red, reaching for each other's hands under the table. Around them, they could see that Ransom was handing Holster a twenty, Shitty was mumbling something about how he never should've let Lardo talk him into $100 stakes, and both Dex and Nursey were both shoving bills into a smug Chowder's hands.
"Well, that wasn't how I had pictured us tellin' them," Bitty whispered.
Jack shrugged. "It could've been worse. We were going to have to tell them eventually. This was probably the least painful way to do it."
"Oh, by the way Bitty, did you notice that your bed squeaks?" Lardo inquired as she walked past, causing them both of them to blush bright red again as the team wheeled around to start chirping them.