#also bitty’s story abt his mom and the article? based entirely off my own experience :)

[heeyjuuuude]

so i’m finally posting some of my writing!! any feedback is welcome — it’s been years since i’ve posted anything, and my writing style has changed quite a bit. (this is so much longer and more intense than i had planned good lord.)

a couple things real quick! in this, there are some thinly-veiled references to nsfw happenings and some decidedly less thinly-veiled internalized homophobia, some of which comes from bitty’s experience with religion, and general homophobia. there’s also a passing mention of past canon-typical underage alcohol consumption. please read with caution, and if you have any concerns or think i missed a tag, please please please contact me!! going by ao3 standards, this is rated mature.

edit: this is now posted on ao3! you’re not allowed to judge me for my old fics lmao

(we’ll take it slow and) grow as we go

The thing is, Eric does want this. In the weeks between three stolen kisses in an empty bedroom and Jack joining him in Madison, he spent nights alone except for the ghost of Jack’s lips on his, and in his mind those lips press under the corner of his jaw and then over the swell of his Adam’s apple and then into the dip of his collarbone, and maybe they go lower and lower and lower.

In the privacy of his room, late enough at night that Mama and Coach have long ago knocked their goodnights on his closed bedroom door, this is safe to imagine, and it’s not quite anything new to him. He’s known without any doubt he prefers boys since he was fifteen and fumbling with the computer mouse on days when the house was empty but for a small teenager with red cheeks and wide eyes. He spent many nights with videos of men dressed in nothing burned into the backs of his eyelids, bottom lip tucked between his teeth and one hand tucked under the elastic lining the top of his boxers. And for exactly the same number of nights of that, there was a half hour spent in tears or near it, wondering if there was something wrong with him and wondering if Father Wilson was right in his homily last week and wondering how long he needs to pretend to think of girls with long wavy hair instead of boys with callused hands.

So no, it isn’t new and hasn’t been for years, but it feels like it is. There are similarities between then and now — Coach is down at the school, busy running his football players into the ground under the blazing summer sun, and Mama is on a front porch miles away, busy sipping sweet tea with her church friends under the brim of a baseball cap, and Eric’s cheeks are burning bright. The differences, though, are more important. He has his body curled into Jack’s, his lips pressed to Jack’s, his fingers tangled around Jack’s. They’re trading sweet, lazy kisses, laying on their sides with Eric’s dark teal duvet pulled around their shoulders so that the warmth of their bodies is trapped around them. He finds he doesn’t much mind the heat, and he supposes the fan whirring and clicking above their heads helps, but there’s just something blooming in the air between them — not that there’s much air there — and he isn’t sure whether it’s love or lust but he is sure that some part of him is aching for it in a way he isn’t used to.

He tells himself that it’s okay to want this, as Jack’s lips part against his. He tells himself that the heat simmering low in his stomach is okay when Jack slots one leg through both of his, and when his boyfriend’s leg presses higher, he tells himself that rocking his hips against the pressure is okay. There have been times when he forgot, and years of living in a conservative, Southern, and Christian house catch up to him. The first time Jack kissed him — and the second time that had followed immediately, and the third — had left him with a whirling mind and tight chest and a lip gnawed into red and pain by his own teeth, like that would sting the gentle pressure of Jack’s lips back into reality. The kissing he isn’t a stranger to, not really, but somehow, irrationally, there is a world of difference between being maybe a step past tipsy, clumsily making out with his Winter Screw date as rough, strong fingers curled around the back of his neck, and being in his childhood home, room, bed with his boyfriend and pressing open-mouthed kisses to eager, soft lips as his hips grind, lazy and slow, to seek the sweet pleasure being offered to him.

Eric tells himself it’s okay, but when Jack’s fingers lower from his shoulders to his waist to below the band of his boxers, he forgets.

There’s a moment where he doesn’t quite realize what’s happening, and then their lips separate and a Is this okay is offered to him on a breath and a silver platter. In the same moment that he recognizes the hard line nudging at his thigh, Eric is pushing at Jack’s chest, suddenly needing space that he doesn’t have. He’s mumbling words like hang on and wait, even as Jack manages an awkward roll-scoot combination that has him nearly hanging off the edge of the bed. And then they’re staring at each other, equally wide-eyed and flushed, and Eric clamps his mouth shut. He’s sure that opening it would be condemning, sure that words would tip over the edge of his tongue and tumble, rough and unplanned, into the fragile silence that separates them. He’s also sure that he doesn’t really want that to happen.

“Bits,” Jack finally says, simply, after a full minute has disappeared. His voice is gentle but unsure, cautious and caring. It’s what Eric is waiting for, apparently, because he slumps forward like a puppet with its strings abruptly snipped, and in between one moment and the next he finds himself with his forehead tucked into the corner of Jack’s neck and shoulder. He feels Jack begin to reach for him, automatically, and then he pauses; Eric nods, and one hand wraps around the back of his neck, a thumb stroking slowly, and the other arm winds around his waist to pull him forward a little. “Bitty, it’s okay. I mean — is something wrong?”

When a slightly helpless laugh flies from his mouth, Eric just shakes his head, and chases the noise with words. “No, honey. Just ... old mindsets die hard, y’know?” It takes one, two, three heartbeats, but he feels the second Jack understands, because the thumb rubbing at his hairline where it lies on the base of his skill pauses, and the rest of his fingers twitch like they want to tighten and only get that they shouldn’t a moment too late. Eric heaves a heavy sigh. “I just — it’s so frustrating,” he admits to Jack’s shirt. “I mean, I tell others that it’s okay to be queer all the time. All the time! But with me it’s just sort of ... different. I still, um. I still can’t handle ....” He trails off and pulls away a little, keeping his head tilted down and his eyes trained on Jack’s shirt. There’s a piece of fuzz clinging to it; he pulls it off and wriggles his fingers over the edge of the bed until it falls to the ground. “The idea of me being intimate with a guy is kinda ... off.”

A beat. And then — “Are you asexual?” 

“Oh, I — no, I don’t think so.” He’s considered it, briefly, in the past, especially after Shitty’s talk about how someone can be asexual and still enjoy sex, but he’s positive he still feels that sort of attraction. Lord help him, he’s beyond sure.

“It’s okay if you are, Bits. We don’t ever have to —”

“Jack, you sweet boy. I really appreciate that, I do, but I’m not. I do want to — to be intimate with you. I just ... I don’t know, there’s no explaining it. But I think it’s just the mindset I grew up in and it’s harder to shake than I thought.” Eric pauses for a second, considering his own words, and then looks up to see if Jack’s expression will somehow help him.

It’s a mistake. The look on Jack’s face is — it’s not really pitying, but it’s ... sorrowful, he realizes. Sorrowful is the word. It makes Eric’s heart constrict a little, and then he finds himself smiling a little, almost against his will. Before Jack can say whatever is on the tip of his tongue, Eric leans in to brush a quick, chaste kiss against his lips, and then pulls back to tilt his head in until their foreheads and then noses connect. He waits a moment before saying anything, still mindful of how Jack had seemed to be wanting to speak up, but after the clock on the other side of the room has carefully counted out seven seconds of quiet, he exhales, and the noise is definitely either a hum or a sigh.

“I hate that I can’t — can’t practice what I preach,” Eric confesses finally, the words reaching out to bridge the little distance there is left between them, like they can make up for the fact that they’re no longer as entwined as they had been just a minute or so ago. “I feel so hypocritical, being so out and proud at Samwell and so ... so afraid to actually be proud of myse — no, that’s not right.” He whines, frustrated, and his eyes, already closed, tighten. He can feel the way it makes his forehead wrinkled against Jack’s. “I am proud of myself. But sometimes it’s like my brain doesn’t really know that. My heart does, and my — my body, but my brain’s just sorta like ‘No, that’s okay!’ And I guess it’s just because I’ve ... well, I’ve been told that it isn’t okay my entire life. Did you know my mama’s first conversation with me about the queer community involved her showing me an article about a man who decided to never date or anythin’ because he was gay and wanted to be able to dedicate his life to God? And, I mean, it’s his decision, I guess, but then she said all this stuff about how that was exactly what gay people should do. Which was just so hard to hear, because at the time I was maybe thirteen an’ startin’ to realize I wasn’t straight an’ that kinda stuck with me all these years an’ — and —” Another high pitched whine marks the end of the sentence, and he begins thunking his head lightly against Jack’s shoulder — at some point he shifted — until a hand curls into his hair, holding him firmly and effectively immobilizing him.

“Whatever you feel is valid,” Jack starts, slow but steady, “but that doesn’t make it right. You aren’t broken for wanting this. And I know you know this, so don’t look at me like that, but you need to hear it again sometimes.”

It isn’t until he hears those words that he is struck with how much he needed them, and then Eric is struck with such an overwhelming wave of fondness — because Jack knew, just like he always did, exactly what Eric had needed — that all he can do is squirm closer and promise himself that he’ll finally give in and make that nutritionist-approved version of the pie Jack’s been asking for.

After a stretched out silence, Jack’s arms find their way around his waist again and Eric is pulled close, and he feels more than hears when there’s an inhalation that seems to be leaning into a sentence. He waits patiently when none follows immediately, and soon after —

“What do you need from me, bud?” Jack asks, the words quietly pleading and cracking but so, so grounding. Eric sort of sinks into them, huffing a warm, maybe-slightly-wet laugh into the soft fabric of Jack’s shirt, and takes the time to consider the question.

“I — at some point we should ... well, I think there’s a little more to talk about,” he admits, and Jack nods his agreement with an encouraging hum. The next sentence is loosed before he really thinks about it, but in its release and freedom he finds it true. “But, um, for now, I think I’m done. Can we just stay here until Mama and Coach get home?”

“Of course, Bits, yeah. Whatever you need.” Without another word, they begin to move around again, shifting until they’re molded together, secure and warm and perfect. Eventually they find themselves in a mimicry of their position from the beginning, curled up on their sides and facing each other with their legs and fingers tangled, but Eric keeps his face in the safety of Jack’s chest, and Jack cranes his neck to whisper kisses into the hair on the crown of his head.

“Thank you,” Eric offers, in between grazing two kisses on the exposed skin of Jack’s collar. He can sense the head tilt that receives this, so he clarifies, “Thank you for being so ...” only to come to the conclusion that he doesn’t know the words that will summarize the feeling in his chest. Luckily, it seems like he doesn’t need to.”

“Yeah, Bits. Anytime. Anything.”

And with that, Eric lets his eyes close and gently separates his fingers from Jack’s only to clutch at his shirt instead, and he reaches up with his face to find his boyfriend waiting for him. He smiles as their lips meet.

#annie writes #eric bittle #jack zimmermann #zimbits #zimbits fic #check please! #missing scene #check please missing scene #madison visit #this is CONSIDERABLY longer than i had wanted it to be. ugh #i just really love writing bitty though #plus this fic was Very Personal to me? #as a southern and catholic and queer person #also this is my 100th post!! which is super exciting!! #how many ways can i say ‘it was quiet’? let’s find out shall we #excessive use of hyphens #excessive use of commas #also bitty’s story abt his mom and the article? based entirely off my own experience :) #so is the way i wrote his accent lmao like i definitely drop off some Gs from -ing verbs and the D in and when i’m having Feelings #i literally don’t know how to end fics #i know i said this was too long but it’s also too short #like i was aiming for under 1k and it’s hovering around 2k ... #but also i have a lot more to say about this and i’m not sure i got across what i was trying to #i just can’t do the words anymore #god i’ve been working on this for like a week and i still!! don’t really love it!! #oop i just edited and it is now over 2k #✌️✌️✌️