Disclaimer: The characters and setting belong to Ngozi Ukazu.

A/N: All the thanks to cricketnationrise for basically plotting the second half of this for me when I got stuck. Title from Taylor Swift's "Hey Stephen."

Jack's talking to Ransom about the relative merits of the fast food options in Canada versus the US, Lardo is telling Shitty and Holster about her plans for her junior art show, and Bittle is on his phone, probably tweeting. Bittle always seems to be tweeting, these days. Jack isn't sure why Bittle's in this line at all—he doesn't seem to share the rest of the team's enthusiasm for chicken tenders, and it's a long line. The dining hall always gets ridiculous when there are chicken tenders.

Since Bittle's been standing right next to Jack since they got into line about ten minutes ago, Jack is vaguely aware that Bittle's doing something with his feet. Okay, maybe more than vaguely aware. Whatever, Jack's awareness of Bittle's movements is an asset on the ice, so there's no need to analyze it. Right? Right.

Anyway, Bittle's bringing his heels together with his feet turned out, and then extending one leg until that foot is maybe a foot and a half away from the foot that stayed still, waiting a second, bringing the extended foot back in until its heel touches the stationary foot's arch, waiting a second, extending the mobile leg until that foot is in front of the other by a foot or so, waiting a second, bringing the mobile foot back toward the stationary foot until the heel of the mobile foot is against the toe of the stationary foot, waiting a second, and then resuming the starting position with the heels touching before switching which leg is mobile and which is stationary and doing the whole thing again on the other side. The whole time Bittle does this, his feet stay turned out in a way that honestly looks a little unnatural to Jack. Bittle's been doing it for nearly ten minutes, though, the whole sequence just over and over again, and he doesn't seem to be in pain, so maybe his feet are just like that.

A voice behind them says, "Excuse me, sorry, do you do ballet?"

Jack and Bittle both look over their shoulders, Jack completely losing the thread of what Ransom's saying, and then Bittle says, "Oh, goodness, not anymore. I used to, though, back when I was a figure skater. I play hockey now."

The girl flicks her brown hair out of her face. "You play hockey? I mean, I figured they did"—she gestures to Jack, Holster, and Ransom—"but you?"

"He's a starting winger," Jack says, before Bittle has time to say anything. "Really excellent player."

"Jack, stop, you flatter me," Bittle whines, blushing. He looks back at the girl and says, "I am a starter, though. That part is true."

"How do you get from ballet to being a starter on a D1 hockey team?"

Bittle shrugs. "I was primarily a figure skater. The ballet was mostly in support of that. I switched from figure skating to hockey in high school, and I guess the skating skills were pretty transferable? I got good at stickhandling pretty quickly, which might have to do with all the hand-eye coordination from throwing the football around with my father as a kid—he's a football coach—and I got recruited by a couple D1 schools. I was absolutely awful at taking a check, though, until this one"—he points at Jack—"got me up at four a.m. to work with me on it." Bittle smiles at Jack for a second, and then turns back to the girl and says, "Sorry, where are my manners? Just babbling on about myself—my mamma raised me better than that, I swear. Were you asking because you dance?"

"Yeah, I'm a dance major, actually," she says. "I grew up on ballet, but I didn't get into any ballet conservatories, and Samwell's dance program is . . . pretty modern? It's been a change of pace for sure. I like it a lot, though. I'm actually one of the facilitators for the contact improvisation class's improv jams, if you ever have time to join. They're all one-offs, just an hour of moving, you know? So it's not a commitment, really. You just come dressed to dance and improvise with other dancers."

"That sounds like checking practice two-point-oh, eh, Bittle?" Jack jokes.

Bittle gives him a look Jack can't parse. "Yeah, okay, what time is the next one?"

"We've got one next Thursday at five," the girl says. "Can I get your email? If I add you to our listserv then you'll get the email before each one. There's usually a jam every two to three weeks."

"Cool," Bittle says. "We have practice in the morning on Thursdays and my classes end before five, so I might be able to make it. My email is ebittle01 ."

The girl types something in her phone and then says, "Okay, I just added you to the email list. I hope you can make it next Thursday!"

"Yeah, so do I!" says Bittle.

The line finally moves forward then, and Jack and Bittle pass their plates over the glass casing that covers the food, and the dining hall employees serve them chicken tenders. Once they reach their usual table, Jack says, "How could she tell you did ballet? Was it that thing you were doing with your feet?"

Bittle rolls his eyes. "Yes, it was 'that thing' I was doing with my feet. I was going through the positions. I didn't even quite realize it until she pointed it out, but I'm pretty sure I do that when I'm bored."

"How do your feet turn out so far? Isn't it painful?" Jack asks.

"Practice," Bittle says, "and no, it's not painful. It's not very good for my feet, though, and I put way too much weight on my arches because of how far I tend to turn my feet out, so I have to wear inserts in my shoes and do physical therapy exercises because of it."

"Oh," says Jack. He's not sure what else to say.

"I mean, that's pretty common for ballet dancers," Bittle says.

"I didn't realize dance could, like, fuck up your body."

Bittle whacks Jack lightly on the arm. "Jack Zimmermann, dance is just as much of a sport as hockey is. Just because people don't wear pads and purposely run into each other doesn't mean it isn't physically demanding, and it doesn't mean there isn't a risk of injury."

"Noted," says Jack. "Did you ever get injured, dancing?"

Bittle tips his head back and forth. "I pulled some muscles, definitely. I didn't, like, break any bones or lose any teeth or whatever. And more of my injuries in that time period came from figure skating than ballet, though that's partially because I was skating more than I was dancing. Well, and . . ."

When it becomes clear that Bittle isn't going to finish his sentence, Jack asks, "And what?"

"Nothing," Bittle mutters.

"No, come on," Jack coaxes. "Please, what were you going to say?"

Bittle sighs. "Just. Yeah, I got injured dancing, and skating for that matter, but most of my injuries at that age were from . . . people at school."

For a moment, Jack doesn't get it, and then, horribly, he does. "Oh God, Bittle."

Bittle shrugs and gives a brittle laugh. "Oh, you know how it is. Boys will be boys and all that."

Jack's chest tightens. "Bittle. Please tell me that you know that's not how things are supposed to work. Please tell me you know it wasn't okay for them to hurt you."

Bittle's quiet for a long moment, and then he says, voice barely louder than a whisper, "I think if I let myself start being angry I'm never going to stop."

Jack wants to say that Bittle shouldn't have to stop being angry about people hurting him, but Jack's been there, full of pent-up fury that went far too long without an outlet. He knows how scary it can be to stare that down. And most people in his life—at least, the ones who really mattered—had been doing their best. Bittle doesn't talk about his parents all that often, but Jack has a feeling they haven't tried nearly as hard for Bittle as Jack's parents have tried for Jack. And feeling that kind of anger toward a parent, especially when you have to go home for breaks and make nice—Jack gets it. So all he says is, "I'm sorry."

"None of this is your fault, Jack," Bittle replies.

"Checking," Jack says, putting it together as he says it. "You needed the practice, but I should have been more patient with you. You have your reasons to be scared of physical attacks."

"Jack, no," says Bittle. "You got me through my block. Twice. I couldn't possibly ask for more from you."

"I think you need to start asking for more. From me, yeah, but also from life in general. You're not a burden and it's not your job to settle for things that are bad, okay?"

Bittle looks down, takes a big bite of chicken tender, and doesn't respond. It's quiet at their corner of the table for a minute—Jack doesn't know how to revive the conversation—and then Shitty calls down something about his law school applications and the whole table gets involved in opining about where Shitty should go if he gets in everywhere he applied.

On the walk back to the Haus, though, Bitty falls into step with Jack and says, "Thanks. For what you said."

"Bittle, of course. You deserve every good thing on the planet." Fuck, Jack hadn't meant to say quite that much.

"Why are you being so nice to me?"

Jack's stomach drops. "Am I not normally nice to you?" he asks, trying to sound like he's chirping rather than terrified of Bittle's answer.

"Of course you are," says Bittle, and Jack can breathe again. "But usually it's regular-nice. This is beyond that."

"You deserve good things," Jack says. "You deserve to not be hurt."

"Thanks," says Bittle quietly.

Jack doesn't know what to say next, and seemingly neither does Bittle. Jack wishes he at least knew whether Bittle was blushing, but it's after seven p.m. and it's winter in Massachusetts, so the sun set like two hours ago and the streetlamps—where there are streetlamps—just wash everything in yellow. So they keep walking in silence for a couple of minutes, and that leaves Jack time to think.

He's feeling . . . well, he's not sure how to put words to it, but there's a lot of it. Okay. His therapist always tells him to take it one thing at a time—one shift of a game, or one assignment, one test, one strand of emotion. One thing at a time. So: Jack feels relieved that Bittle's okay now, that he held it together enough to make it to Samwell and that he's been able to come out now that he's here. Jack feels angry that Bittle had to go through all that bullshit in Georgia before he could make it to Samwell and be able to come out on his own terms. Jack feels sad that Bittle still isn't really angry on his own behalf. Jack feels—affectionate? Protective? Something—toward Bittle and wants to keep people from hurting him ever again, which is ridiculous because they both still play hockey and getting hurt is part of the game. But there's something else, something bigger than the combination of relief and anger and sadness and friendly affection.

Wait, is that . . . ?

Oh.

Oh.

Jack's in love.

Which, now that it hits him, of course he's in love. Bittle's wonderful and kind and good at hockey and patient with him and absolutely his type.

For a moment, the realization fills Jack with warmth, but then cold douses over him as he realizes that he has far more reasons to love Bittle than Bittle has to love him. Where Bittle is warm and kind and patient, Jack is cold and rude and standoffish. Sure, he's tried to be better in the past year, for the whole team but especially (now that he thinks about it) for Bittle, but that doesn't mean he's worthy of Bittle yet, or ever will be. How can he ever redeem himself from telling Bittle it was a "lucky shot" last year during Family Weekend? How can he redeem himself from putting Bittle in the path of a concussion at the end of last season? How can he make up for yelling at Bittle to stop singing in the shower? If he didn't even think he earned Bittle's vote for the captaincy, how can he possibly want to be Bittle's boyfriend?

Last semester, Jack thought he and Bittle were getting closer, taking that food class together and everything. But then Epikegster happened, and Jack avoided Bittle between then and flying home for break the following afternoon, and since they got back to campus for spring semester Bittle's been this weird mix of familiar and guarded, hovering near Jack while glued to his phone, closeby but not interacting, more often than not. Jack doesn't know what to make of it, but it's not the easy companionship they had in November.

"Jack?" Bittle says, and his tone makes Jack wonder if he's said it a few times in a row.

"Yeah?" Jack replies, trying not to look like he's just realized he's unrequitedly in love with the very person he's talking to.

"I think I'm going to make peanut butter cookies when we get back to the Haus. Would you want to help? I mean, you can definitely say no, and I'm sure you have homework—sorry, that was a silly request; I just—"

"Yes," Jack breaks in. "If you're serious, Bittle, then yes, of course."

"If I'm serious? Jack, why wouldn't I be serious? You know I don't joke about baked goods."

"Yeah, but you never ask me to help, either." Now that Jack realizes he's in love, his bitterness over this fact makes so much more sense. Of course it annoys him that Bittle asks Shitty, Ransom, Holster, Nursey, Chowder, and Dex to help bake, but never asks him—he's jealous. Not, he hopes, in a controlling way—he knows Bittle can bake with whomever he wants; he just wants Bittle to want to spend time with him sometimes.

"Because you hate sweets," Bittle explains, "and you hate that I bake, or at least you used to."

"I don't—Bittle, I couldn't hate that you bake. Not anymore. I used to, yeah, because I was an asshole last year, and I'm sorry about that. But baking—it's part of who you are, and you're wonderful, and I couldn't hate that now that I know you."

"Oh," says Bittle very quietly, and Jack realizes he may be coming on too strong.

"Sorry," Jack mutters. "That was . . . weird. I'll shut up now."

"You don't have to," says Bittle, still quiet. "Why would I mind any of what you just said? You're being nice to me."

"As I keep trying to tell you, you deserve good things. I should be nice to you, and I'm sorry for all the times I've failed in that."

"You have nothing to apologize for," Bittle insists.

They've reached the Haus now, and Jack holds the door for Bittle before following him inside. As they begin to take off their coats and hats, Jack says, as quietly as he can, "I have so much to apologize for, with you."

"Jack—"

"Bittle. Let me. Please?" Jack can hear in his own tone that he's begging, but that feels appropriate given so much of what happened last year. Honestly, he feels like he should be apologizing for being in love with Bittle more than for anything else, but he thinks mentioning that would make everything worse. So instead, when Bittle nods and enters the kitchen, Jack follows him and says, "I'm sorry for underestimating you so much at the beginning, for making you feel like you didn't belong when you already had so many other pressures telling you that. I'm sorry for saying it was a lucky shot when you scored in the Family Weekend game last year. I'm sorry for getting mad about your baking. I'm sorry for asking you to trust me and then putting you in the path of a concussion. I'm sorry for yelling at you for singing in the shower. And please, if I've missed anything, please let me know."

They both washed their hands while Jack was talking, and Bittle's been pulling ingredients down from the cupboards, but now he faces Jack. "Jack, you silly, lovely boy, why would I do that? You've been wonderful to me for the past few months. Last year doesn't matter."

"So you're not mad at me?" Jack asks, more of his nerves seeping into his voice than he wanted.

"Mad at you? Jack, sweetheart, of course not," says Bittle, clearly unaware of the effect the pet name has on Jack. "What makes you think that?"

"You—ever since Epikegster, you've been around but not really interacting. Did I—"

"Oh, Jack." Bittle looks distraught. "You noticed. I'm so sorry. No, that has nothing to do with you, sugar."

Jack feels like a self-obsessed fuckwad. "Did someone else—if you're having trouble with someone on the team, Bittle, I hope you feel like you can talk to me—"

"No!" Bittle yelps. "No, I'm the problem. Oh, Lord, I've made a mess of this."

" . . . Bittle?" is all Jack can manage to say.

"I didn't want to take advantage of how close we were getting," Bittle says, looking at the ingredients he's mixing together rather than looking at Jack.

"Why—how—what do you mean?"

"I—oh Lord, Jack," Bittle says, turning away from Jack. "I . . . I like you. More than I should. And I'm sorry for avoiding you. I just didn't know how to act normal around you and I—"

"You like me, Bittle?" Jack interrupts, breathless.

"I'm so sorry, Jack," Bittle murmurs, still facing away from Jack.

"Bittle, please, yes or no?"

"Yes. But I know you're straight and I promise I won't make things awkward and I'm sorry for bringing it up and for avoiding you—"

"I'm bi," Jack breaks in.

Finally, Bittle turns to face him, something like wonder on his face. "You're what?"

"I'm bi," Jack repeats. "I thought you knew. How did you not—I thought you overheard Kent—"

"Oh," Bittle breathes. "I thought that was wishful thinking."

"Bittle," says Jack, and suddenly it's not enough. "Bits. Can I kiss you?"

Bittle glances toward the door and asks, "Here?"

"Point," says Jack. "Can we finish the cookies and then can I kiss you in my room?"

And that's what they do.