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Bitty groans and tugs his earbuds out. They’re no use against the din across the road.
He stomps across his room and flings open the door, hearing Ransom and Holster groaning to much the same purpose.
“Please tell me this volume level won’t become a regular thing?”
He nearly jumps in surprise when Jack’s bedroom door flies open.
“You hearing that too?” Jack asks, brow furrowed.
“Yes! I can’t even hear my own audio to edit my latest vlog and I’ve already gone two weeks without uploading and…”
Jack doesn’t wait for him to finish and marches with determination to the stairs. Seconds later, Shitty follows, zipping up a pair of jeans without putting underwear on. For some reason, the grim look on his face worries Bitty more than Jack’s had.
Scuttling back to his bed, Bitty kneels on it and watches anxiously from the window.
_X_
As Jack and Shitty approach the LAX house, a wiry kid with white blonde hair who seems to have fallen out of a Fred Perry catalogue walks out of the front door. He ambles onto the lawn, bellowing back at the house.
“You can hear it all the way out here! Fucking sweet!”
He turns and nearly stumbles into Jack’s looming form.
“Turn it down.”
The kid sneers and makes a show of taking in Jack’s old SMH t-shirt, worn sweatpants and bare feet.
“Fuck you, grandpa. It’s a Saturday. If you can’t handle partying then move to a retirement home.”
Behind Jack, Shitty drops his forehead into his hand.
“Come on, Jack, we’re wasting our time talking to Alt Right here.” His voice is light and joking but his stance is tense. “My cousin’s dad is a cop, he’ll shut these guys down for mere donuts.”
The LAX kid doesn’t take the cue to lighten up the situation.
“Go on, take your boyfriend back to F-g House! No one wants you two ass fucking in the street!”
Shitty laughs but it’s filled with venom. He takes a step closer.
“Oh, Chad! We can’t both do the ass fucking!” He moves his hands in lewd but precise gestures. “One of us does the fucking and one of us has the ass that gets the fucking. Or did they not teach you that at Camp Aryana?”
Jack remains eerily still, eyes still laser-focused on the kid. His voice seems disembodied, an unreal depth of pitch even for him.
“Don’t you ever use that word again.”
The kid blinks up at Jack, face twisting into ugly defiance.
“Suck my dick, you giant freakshow. I’ll say what I want.”
The kid goes in for a suckerpunch. Shitty yelps. Then the kid yelps, a pathetic whine of intense pain.
Jack brings the kid’s face inches from his own. His hand wraps so firmly around the kid’s wrist that his fingers and thumb are overlapping. The arm underneath them is already turning a blotchy pink-red and it’s shaking with an attempt to pull away.
“Take another swing,” Jack says evenly. “I need the other guys to think I had a good reason for putting you down.”
The kid is blanched at this point, but still defiant despite his feet scraping the grass as he’s tugged to Jack’s height.
“What the fuck are you talking about? Why?”
Jack quirks a ruthless smile. “Everyone already suspects I’m crazy. Can’t give ‘em any reason to know it’s true.”
He lets the kid drop and stands waiting in a clear invitation.
The guy Shitty and Jack recognize as the lacrosse captain, comes barrelling out of the front door, clearly having hastily dressed. A girl has followed him but stands waiting in the doorway, wearing only a large t-shirt and looking panicked. The rest of the team has their faces pressed against windows, likely mirroring the Haus across the street.
“Yo, Jack! I’m sorry dude, he’s new! Won’t happen again I promise!” The captain turns to hiss at the kid, “Get the fuck inside, Clay!”
Clay doesn’t exactly run but he definitely fast-walks his way back to the house, huffing awkwardly at the glare from the girl who looks as if she is considering not letting him back in.
“Music’s going off right now, Jack. Clay won’t be bothering you guys again, okay? We all cool, man? Yeah?” The captain holds one shaking hand up at Jack and shoves the other into his jeans pocket.
Shitty fills in the uncomfortable silence. “All cool, Chad. Just keep it down, okay?”
The captain doesn’t even dispute the name and smiles in relief, rushing back up the steps and gripping the kid by the neck. The uneasy silence allows his frantic, barely hushed voice to carry over to where Shitty and Jack stand.
“You’re here for all of five minutes and you’re pissing off Jack fucking Zimmermann? Dude, the guy is a raging cokehead and his dad is Bob Zimmermann.”
Clay looks nonplussed and the captain grits his teeth.
“You square up with him and they won’t find the body. Get it? Jesus Christ, get your shit and go.”
_X_
Inside the Haus, Ransom and Holster are woohoo-ing and banging on the kitchen counter at the display. They thump Jack and Shitty on the back and demand a replay of everything they couldn’t hear. The tone shifts momentarily when they discover the severity of lax bro’s crimes and are barely restrained by Shitty from barreling out the door themselves.
Upstairs, Bitty’s fingernails are digging into the windowsill and his whole body trembles. He doesn’t react even when Jack’s shadow stands in his doorway.
“Bittle? Show’s over, kid. What are you looking at?”
The jerky motions as Bitty turns to look back have Jack on immediate high alert.
“Bittle? Bits, you with me?”
He waves a hand gently and moves cautiously toward the bed. Bitty is still unnervingly quiet but pliant when Jack touches him, so he slips one arm under Bitty’s chest from behind and moves him to lie down on his side facing Jack.
“Hey, come on,” Jack coos in his softest tone, tugging the blankets from underneath Bitty and covering him up to the neck. A stuffed bunny has fallen to the side and Jack looks at it in curiosity before tucking it under the blanket as well, secured under Bitty’s chin.
This seems to make Bitty’s whole body shudder and then relax, his hands clearly gripping the bunny tight beneath the blankets.
“Monsieur Lapin helps?” Jack hopes his smile is reassuring as he squats down and stays close.
Bitty’s face relaxes at last, blinking more regularly now.
“Yeah, just. Don’t like fights. Really, really do not like fights.”
Ah, so that’s it. Jack dealt with this a lot with his peewee kids. The first time they all met Bad Bob after a class one day, all but three had cowered in awe. Jack had watched Bob kneel down on the dirty gym floor, waving his fists like a cartoon villain. “Who wants a piece of Bad Bob, then? Come on ya little so-and-so’s! I can take on all of ya single-handed!” The way the kids piled on top of him and his father’s laughing face, scarred from decades of on-ice violence, had taught Jack as much as a year of anger management in rehab had done.
He let his expression warm, and settles onto one knee.
“You’ve never seen my true alpha mode, as Shitty calls it, have you?”
Bitty shakes his head, blonde hair mussing against the pillow.
“Well, that’s what that was. I get that it looks pretty scary, but that’s kind of the point.”
Bitty frowns slightly but lets Jack continue.
“Bittle, you know the difference between on-ice chirping and actual fighting, yeah? Well, this is kinda the opposite. When I really need to go after someone who’s crossed a line, I never ever lose control. You don’t ever need to be scared of me losing my temper and lashing out. I know how to manage anger and how to harness it. You have my word on that, okay?”
Bitty’s face is awed but soft and wondering. It’s as if he’s seeing Jack for the very first time.
“What did he say to you? It… it seemed like he said somethin’ real bad that made you and Shitty get all tense.”
“Oh yeah, that. Heh, he kept saying I looked like a junkie. Specifically an old junkie,” Jack lies, effortlessly moving past the question.
Bitty takes the bait immediately, remaining tension dissolving into warm empathy and sweetness.
“Oh, honey!”
Jack waves a hand to quiet him. “Nothing a guy like that says about me is ever going to have any effect, trust me. Now… ”
He covers Bitty’s ear and yells out for Shitty, removing his hand when he hears Shits’ thudding footfalls. Thankfully he’s wearing full sleep clothes for once.
“Why don’t you sit back and watch something on my tablet with Shits, get your adrenaline down so you can sleep.”
He looks to Shitty who hustles in and out of Jack’s room, then clambers into bed behind Bitty.
“G’night, you two,” Jack stands and takes one last satisfied look at the bed, getting a wink from Shitty and a contented smile from Bitty.
_X_
Later that night, Bitty goes back through his Twitter feed and deletes five tweets, including the last two. He barely even remembers typing them, his eyes had seemed to stay glued on the scene across the street. He tweets once more, effectively rewriting the end of the confrontation.
Sighing, he puts his phone down on the floor and settles deeper into Shitty’s octopus-embrace. He feels a sleepy kiss against his hair and smiles.
He’s got the good house.