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bittysvalentines · 5 years

Text

Love in the Morning

From: @ivecarvedawoodenheart

To: @amessnamedwidogast

Rating: Teen & Up

Word Count: 2461

I hope you like it!! I had a really good time with this :) Happy Valentine’s Day!!

Summary:

“Don’t you dare, you had better not, I’ll call your dad and the press, I’ll tell ‘em—” “I think ‘Jack Zimmermann helps out teammate with checking drills’ would be a good headline, actually. I give you my blessing.” “Not when you’re threatening to pour water all over me you big ole—” “‘Big ole’ what, exactly?” ___________________________

Zimbits, from Bitty’s POV. Focusing primarily on waking up in the morning.

(AO3)

Someone throws a pillow at his face. Bitty jolts upright, looking around wildly, almost falling out of bed. It better not be — oh Lord, he’s gonna murder him —

“Bon matin, Bittle.”

Bitty check his watch and screams internally.

“Jack, were you dropped as a child? Is that why you feel the need to force me out of bed at four in the morning?”

He thinks Jack raises his eyebrows. It’s hard to be sure when it’s so dark in here, but the vaguely Jack-sized blob in the doorway gives off a distinctly amused vibe.

“My uncle Wayne did, actually,” Jack says. “My parents forbade him from holding me until I could do backwards crossovers.”

“Mmph.” Bitty closes his eyes and pulls his blankets up under his chin. “Go bother Shitty, Mr. I’m-Friends-With-NHL-All-Stars. I have a test today.”

Jack says, “That was yesterday, Bittle.”

“I could have another one today, Zimmermann.”

“You, having a test and not tweeting about it? Impossible.”

Bitty cracks open an eye at that. “It’s too early for you to be chirpin’ this much,” he says, but he swings his legs out of bed and lets Jack bundle him off to the bathroom to brush his teeth and wake up somewhat. They’re on their way to the rink, Bitty in an oversized Pens sweatshirt because he couldn’t find one of his in the dark, before he realizes that means Jack reads his tweets.

____________

“I’m asleep, my eyes are closed, go away Jack, can’t you see I’m sleeping—”

“You’d be much more convincing if you weren’t talking, Bittle. You’ll have time after to take a nap, let’s get at it—”

“Oh my god . ‘Let’s get at it’? Are you actually eighty years old—”

“Yes, okay, Old Man Zimmermann, ha ha, that hasn’t been played out. If you really want to make fun of me you’ll get your butt to the rink, that’ll really show me.”

Bitty scowls at him when they get to the locker room. Jack laughs, just once, and it’s so surprised and quick a sound that Bitty almost misses it. He wants to hear it again.

____________

Midnight, and there’s a knock at his door. Bitty presses Señor Bun tighter to his chest and wipes his eyes hastily, catching his French book before it slides to the floor. “Yeah?”

“Can I … can I come in?”

The door makes it difficult to hear, but he thinks it’s Jack. He squeezes his eyes shut, biting his lip. Then he forces himself to perk up as best he can.

“Of course! Why’re you up? It’s so late.”

Jack eases the door open and shut behind him. Bitty watches him scan the room, taking in the flashcards strewn across his bedspread and his laptop. He wishes he hadn’t left it open on Google Translate.

Jack rubs the back of his neck. A little sliver of his shirt rides up, and Bitty knows this shouldn’t be anything — they’ve all seen too much of each other in the locker room — but it’s almost too much on top of everything. His hair sticks up in all directions. Bitty holds Señor Bun tighter to keep from crossing the room and making his hair even wilder.

“Your light’s still on,” Jack says. He looks so unsure of himself here. Bitty’s not sure he’s ever been in his room outside of waking him at godforsaken times in the morning. “I wanted to, euh. Make sure everything’s okay.”

“I’m fine,” Bitty says quickly. Jack shoots him an unimpressed look, first nodding to Bitty’s flashcards, then raising his eyebrows at the clock. “Well. Not quite okay, but. I will be fine, which is what matters.”

Jack still doesn’t look like he believes him, but when he crosses the room to sit on the bed, his face softens. He picks up a flashcard with le fromage written on it. “You’re learning food words?”

“Oui,” Bitty says. Even that has such a pronounced twang to it. He sighs. “I’ll be honest, it’s not going great.”

He’s fiddling with the card now, flipping it back and forth, playing with the corners. Bitty watches him gather the rest of the flashcards in a neat stack and shuffle them.

Jack says, “I can quiz you,” and Bitty’s about to cry again.

He wipes his eyes. “You don’t have to.”

It must catch in his voice, because Jack looks up then. His eyebrows crease. “I mean — I don’t want to overstep, but. I do speak French, so.”

“Oh do you?” Bitty asks, and Jack rolls his eyes. He tosses a card at him and le jus hits him in the Adam’s apple. Bitty swallows reflexively.

He doesn’t think he imagines how Jack watches him.

Jack bumps their knees together. “If you want,” Jack says softly. “I don’t mind.”

“Okay,” Bitty whispers. He clears his throat. “If you’re fine with how badly I’m going to pronounce these words, that is.”

“I’ll live,” Jack says.

Bitty smacks him with his pillow, and he laughs quietly. A little thrill runs through Bitty at the sound.

“Okay, Bittle,” Jack says. “Let’s do this.”

____________

In the morning, Jack yawns loudly in the faint morning light and says, “Up and at ‘em, let’s go—”

“You can’t be serious,” Bitty says, grumpy. “We were up the whole night doing flashcards and you took up the whole bed, I didn’t get to sleep for a second.”

“That’s a lie, you snored the whole time, I didn’t—”

“You and your big ass stole all the blankets, I couldn’t’ve snored because I have to be asleep for that—”

“Couldn’t’ve? Are you joking—”

Jack goes on a rant about how difficult it is to understand him, and then how hard it must be to understand either of them, and then segues into a scheme to confuse everyone next time they come back from a break and their accents are stronger. Bitty chimes in now and then. Mostly, though, he drinks in how this feels: Jack in his bed, flashcards still everywhere — there’s one stuck to Jack’s cheek now, he thinks it’s les fraises — and his eyes still sleep heavy.

Bitty wants this so badly he outright gasps in the middle of Jack’s sentence.

“You okay, Bitty?”

“Fine,” he says, trying to push the feeling aside. “You’re kidding though, right? About checking practice today?”

Jack holds out a hand in a may I? gesture that Bitty doesn’t understand until he pouts, glancing at Señor Bun. Bitty hands him over tentatively. Jack tucks Señor Bun neatly under his chin, cuddling him with his eyes closed, and this all but knocks the air out of Bitty.

“‘M joking,” Jack says. Beneath the covers, Bitty feels him gently nudge his side with an elbow. “‘M tired. Bonne nuit.”

“No French when I’m trying to sleep, Mr. Zimmermann,” he says softly. Jack nudges him again.

He drifts off. In his dreams, he sees Jack holding Señor Bun like he’s something precious.

____________

Bitty has Canadian bacon on the stove when Jack stumbles downstairs. He quietly pours himself some orange juice, then Bitty feels rather than sees him join him at the stove.

“There’re some eggs in the fridge,” Bitty says, “if you wanna do somethin’ with them.”

He bumps his shoulder against Jack’s chest just to touch him and prove to himself that they’re standing here, together. Jack’s golden in the dewy morning sun.

“Your checks are getting better,” he says then, and Bitty says, “Oh, shush, you.”

Jack scrambles some eggs and fries some, and it’s peaceful between them.

____________

“Don’t you dare, you had better not, I’ll call your dad and the press, I’ll tell ‘em—”

“I think ‘Jack Zimmermann helps out teammate with checking drills’ would be a good headline, actually. I give you my blessing.”

“Not when you’re threatening to pour water all over me you big ole—”

“‘Big ole’ what, exactly?”

“I — it’s early, okay? My mouth hasn’t woken up yet.”

“Seems like it has to me.”

Bitty crawls out of his blankets at that, cheeks burning. “You tryin’ to tell me I talk too much?”

Jack takes a sip of water. “No, I’m trying to tell you to get your ass out of bed so we can go to Faber before the early skate. Do you think I enjoy being up at four?”

“Yes.”

“Well.” He tilts his head to the side. “Look, it’s prime running time—”

Bitty narrows his eyes. “Jack Laurent Zimmermann, you could get mugged—”

“—not if I’m running faster than my mugger, which is what I was about to say when I was so rudely interrupted, and how else am I to outrun a mugger than to practice running?”

He looks so pleased with his logic. Bitty says, “People like you are what’s wrong with this country,” and he grins broadly.

“I’m Canadian, remember?”

Bitty beats him for the first time in their end of practice race.

____________

Bitty’s alarm wakes him for the first time in ages, which of course means Jack died or something because no way in hell would he miss an opportunity to push him into the boards for an hour and a half.

Lord. He wouldn’t mind being pushed against the boards.

He’s had enough dreams that end up against the boards, for various reasons, and … he shouldn’t be thinking this, now, but.

He checks the weather and his school email and then, shivering, pads across the hall.

“Jack?” An answering mmph gives him the okay to open the door, so he does. He blinks to adjust to the darkness. Jack peeks blearily out from his blankets. “They’ve called classes for the day, it’s too cold out.”

Jack says, “Mmph,” and Bitty connects the dots. “You knew that already, I’m sorry! I’ll just—”

“Bittle.”

Bitty stops midway to the door.

“Yeah?”

Jack jerks his head toward the bed, peeling back his blankets. “It’s cold,” he mumbles, “c’mon.”

Bitty’s heart about stops. His mouth moves wordlessly for a few seconds before his mind catches up from where it stopped on Jack’s asking me to get in bed with him .

“Are you sure?” he asks, and Jack nods.

“No point losing more body heat,” he says sleepily. “Besides. My bed’s bigger than yours, we’ll fit fine.”

“Chirp chirp.”

So Bitty does. He climbs into his bed carefully, trying not to jostle Jack too much. Jack clumsily tucks the blankets around them and when Bitty tugs on the covers himself, their hands brush. Jack squeezes his briefly, then lets go. Bitty shivers again, but not from the cold.

“Oh — here —” Jack shifts his pillow and then presses a balled up sweatshirt into Bitty’s hands. “If you want.”

It’s the Pens sweatshirt he’d borrowed months ago. It still smells like him. The fact of Jack, sleeping with this so close to his face, breaks so sweetly in Bitty’s chest. He pulls it on.

“Thanks,” he whispers.

Jack says, “Mmph,” but Bitty can see him smiling slightly.

____________

Bitty wakes up after graduation to two texts. They’re timestamped 4:02 AM.

They say,

I’m sorry if it’s too early to say this , but I’ve been wanting to tell you for awhile now

I think I fell in love with you in the morning

He touches his lips with his fingertips and wonders when it was he got so stupid lucky.

________________________

A pillow lands on his face, yanking him out of a stress dream about playoffs.

Something in their bedroom smells delicious. He opens his eyes and blinks to be sure he isn’t dreaming.

Jack’s filled their nightstands with plates and plates of food. There’s a heap of pancakes stacked high and half buried under blueberries and strawberries and what smells like 100% Canadian syrup on one of them, and toast shining beautifully with butter stacked next to eggs cooked every which way of the other. Jack himself is sitting at Bitty’s feet, wearing the Schooners shirt Bitty had gotten as a signing perk two years back. It still looks so, so good on him. Bitty’s never gotten over the thrill at seeing Jack in a shirt with his last name on it.

“Oh sweetheart,” Bitty says, yawning. “How did you—”

“I have my ways,” Jack says, handing him a plate and Bitty smiles.

“It all smells so good.”

“That’s only because you missed about an hour of me burning everything on the stove.”

Bitty throws up his hands in mock exasperation. “This boy.”

Jack crawls next to him and leans against the headboard. He rests his arm around Bitty, pulling him gently against his side, and presses a kiss to the side of his head. “Your boy, you mean,” he says, and Bitty about melts.

“For half a second there I thought you were wakin’ me up for checking practice again,” Bitty tells him, after they’ve kissed a little.

Jack says, “I still could,” and Bitty kisses him some more to distract him. From the way he huffs a laugh, he knows Jack knows what he’s doing. “Though you don’t really need it now.”

“Yeah, I had a really good, really strict captain for that.”

They’re quiet a moment while they eat. Bitty sneaks peeks at Jack now and then, liking the way the sun still loves him. Jack catches him a few times and chirps him softly.

“I don’t think I ever told you,” Bitty says, when they’ve stacked all their dishes out of the way. “It was when you said you read my tweets, for me. Or with Señor Bun that first night in my bed, when you looked at him like he was a new bucket of pucks.”

“When…” Jack starts, frowning a little. Bitty waits for him to puzzle it out, leaning fully against him now. He sees the realization before Jack says it. “Oh,” Jack says. “When you…”

“When I fell in love with you,” Bitty says simply. “That was when.”

Jack tips his chin up with two fingers and Bitty savors this kiss more than any other they’ve had, except for the one after that one, and the one after that.

“I love you,” Jack says afterward. He presses their foreheads together.

Bitty says, “I love you no matter how many eggs you burn,” and Jack laughs another quick, surprised laugh. Hearing now is even better than the first time.

Jack helps him out of bed and they wash the dishes together, stopping now and then to bump into each other and kiss softly and be at home here, together in their kitchen with the sun just coming up. Even after all this time, this feels like the start of something.

Bitty takes Jack’s hand as the radio plays. They stay like this, dancing their way through cleaning up, well past when the sun rises fully in the sky.

________________________

#bittyjack #fanfiction #bittysvalentines #bv2019 #omgcp #submission

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