Chapter Text
They haven’t been together for very long, but it’s been enough time that Bitty is over the shell-shock that used to rock him every time he remembered Jack is his boyfriend. He still gets a squirming bellyful of sheer joy whenever Jack is in the room; every flickering look or sweep of Jack’s hand on his skin takes his breath away just like it always has. Three weeks in, though, Eric finally accepts this is real and Jack is his as much as anyone can ever belong to anyone else.
So, knowing it’s not a figment of his imagination and that the boy of his dreams really does spend his nights tangled in the sheets with him, Bitty starts to get antsy.
Jack is courteous, but as much as Eric preens under his cautious attentions — as wonderful as it is to be adored and cradled with obvious care — he wants Jack to let loose. Sex isn’t as fun when you spend half the night after working the kinks out of your boyfriend’s muscles. Jack’s given himself cramps everywhere from supporting all his weight when he’s on top of Bitty.
They have talked about it a little, in roundabout ways. Bitty hasn’t complained, but some nights when they’re cuddled under Eric’s comforter with Jack’s heartbeat echoing in his chest it comes up.
“I’m so worried I’m going to break you sometimes,” Jack confesses into the curls at the crown of Bitty’s head. “You’re young, and you’re so sweet. I know you’re not a blushing virgin or anything, but I’d never forgive myself if I… If I changed you, I guess.”
“You don’t need to protect me, honey,” Bitty assures him with light kisses to his collarbone. “Telling me what you want isn’t gonna ruin me like I’m some kind of debutante.”
“I know,” Jack says. Completely unconvinced.
“And besides,” Bitty adds, catching the peak of Jack’s nipple with only the barest pressure from his teeth. “I think I might surprise you if you give me the chance.”
Jack’s jaw drops like he has a rebuttal, but it fades under the cresting swell of a moan low in his throat.
It doesn’t get through to his giant Canadian sweetheart then, but Bitty’s not out of plays just yet. If he can’t use his words to sway Jack, he’s just going to rely on old-fashioned body language.
“Ice pops!” Bitty hollers up the staircase after he pulls the rack of molds out from the freezer. There’s been an early October heat wave that would’ve had Bitty considering switching back to his shorts in Georgia, but the other boys in the Haus are fit to perish if their moaning is anything to go by. Bitty took pity on them and whipped up an autumn berry syrup to break in his silicone popsicle forms. Lardo was kind enough to sacrifice two dozen of the economy sized-pack of sticks she’d stolen from the art department.
“You are a literal life saver, Bits,” Shitty says, peeling himself off from the linoleum tile floor of the kitchen, squelching where his abundance of bare skin was plastered down. He extends a pathetic, limp hand toward Bitty in an entreaty. “The tile isn’t cutting it anymore — we reached our fucking equilibrium.”
As the other three clamber down into the kitchen from their rooms with varying degrees of dignity, Eric eyeballs Shitty.
“I know you’re not gonna like it, but I think you’ll feel a lot better if you put some briefs on.” Bitty hands him the tray and tries not to smirk at the betrayed scowl hiding under Shitty’s stache. “I’m serious. It’ll keep your behind from sticking.”
Shitty bites the tip off his pop and sighs.
“Compromise can be a beautiful thing, but sometimes a brah’s just gotta stand up for what he believes in.”
It’s moving, sentimental, and Bitty nearly cries laughing.
In Bitty’s experience, there are fewer things more homoerotic than a house full of muscle-bound boys — one of them stark nude and spread-eagle on the floor — hanging around in his kitchen sucking on popsicles. He’s sure he’s had dreams like this, but even in his dreams, Jack wasn’t lounging at the table in just his jogging shorts and chuckling at Ransom’s blowjob technique.
“How the hell am I the worst?” Ransom cries, a thin path of drool slipping down his chin, tinted deep red. “Shitty bit his! Unless you’ve been hiding a pretty nasty kink, I’m pretty sure he’s the actual worst.”
“Bro,” Holster says, “don’t you dare kinkshame me in my own home.”
“Nah, Rans is right; I can’t suck cock for shit. Hair trigger gag reflex.”
Ransom folds his arms across his chest and grins, popsicle trailing unnoticed against the skin of his shoulder.
“Suck on that, Holster. Like you can do better anyway.”
Which, of course, begins a competition no one really wanted but one that Bitty can’t seem to look away from. It’s like dueling banjos with more, heinously misapplied teeth as Rans and Holster try to one-up each other with ridiculous maneuvers. It only proves to Eric that neither of these boys has ever touched another man’s dick before.
“How are y’all so bad at this?” Bitty asks after Ransom’s coughing fit ends. He really shouldn’t have tried swallowing so soon out of the gate. “Haven’t you ever paid attention when a girl’s done it for you?”
“Bro, there’s like. So much hair,” Holster says, Ransom spluttering in the background about being distracted.
“That’s just…” There’s only so much straight nonsense he can handle.
“Promise me you’ll research before you ever decide to try this again.”
Jack laps at a trickle of ice melt rolling down his wrist, and Bitty’s belly tightens.
“Matter of fact, why don’t you just watch and learn?”
The boys sit in a row in front of him, eager to drink from the well of knowledge. All Eric can see is the way the blood rushes to Jack’s cheeks so they nearly match his lips, dyed dark by the berries. Bitty watches him shift in his seat, catches the tiny swell at his crotch, and smiles.
He’s barely touched his ice pop yet, absorbed by the contest as it unfolded, so it’s still completely intact, if a little sticky with condensation.
He doesn’t let his eyes flicker away from Jack’s when he parts his lip and lets the tip glide across his bottom lip first, then in a second sweep against the top.
“ Bor ing. This is like, HBO After Dark quality porn, Bits.”
He doesn’t let Holster’s teasing faze him, just dips the blunt edge in and out of his pout in shallow drags. He sucks enough so there’s a tiny pop at each withdrawal and his lips slacken. Jack stares like Tiny Tim on Christmas Eve.
“Keep your eyes on me,” Bitty says, letting his lips catch on the raspberry syrup as he speaks. He licks it off before dropping his chin a little lower and resting the first few inches of his popsicle against the flat of his tongue. Eric draws it out slowly, letting himself savor the sweetness but sure to drag the shaft to tug against his lower lip.
Jack has stopped breathing, it seems, and new sweat beads on his temples.
“Fuck me up the ass,” Shitty coughs. “Ransom, I need to borrow your shorts.”
When Bitty smiles, his lips seal, and at least two of the guys gasp.
“I need these. Own your boner like a man.”
“That’s some cissexist bullcrap. My boner has jack shit to do with my manhood.”
“Would you shut the fuck up?” Holtzy barks. Bitty hums a little, the sound echoing because he’s still only working the tip and his mouth is mostly empty. The chatter stops, and Jack turns in his chair, lap and legs obscured by the tabletop.
“You’re gonna want to get it wet as you can next,” Eric tells them. “Not everyone likes it sloppy though, so don’t use too much spit when you’re starting out.”
He dampens his tongue and tips his jaw toward his chest, and then he licks along the popsicle from its base, tilting his head up as he comes toward the head. At the tip, he suckles for a second and swallows some of the berry juice. He twists the stick in his fingers a quarter of the way and makes a second strip exactly the same as the first.
The blackberries and raspberries were just a touch overripe, and their sweetness coats Eric’s throat with every mouthful.
“Now, y’all’ll use your hands here if you ever try for yourselves, but I think you’ll get the idea.”
Mouth parted, Bitty winks at Jack, who’s slumped so low in his chair he’s almost falling out, and he notices that while one of Jack’s hands has the seat’s edge in a white-knuckle grip, the other is nowhere Bitty can see.
He starts off easy, putting his ice pop only two-thirds of the way in before closing his mouth around it and sucking for real. His cheeks flatten with the vacuum of his mouth, and he swivels his tongue against the pop’s side.
It drags slowly when he pulls it away the first time, the cold sticking in little tugs against the skin of his lips, and he lets his mouth part again when he pops it in deeper than the last go.
After three or four passes, when he can see the depression of Jack biting the inside of his cheek, Bitty slides his popsicle back until his fist is a hairsbreadth from his jaw. The ice cools the back of his throat, just tapping behind his soft palate, and he starts to pump it in and out. His hand is making half the effort, but his steady pressure pulls the pop back in reliably the second Eric lets up on the resistance. It bobs fluidly, like a buoy on a lake, and it only gets faster the slicker it gets — Bitty’s fingers and chin are sticky.
He sees Jack tense up, shoulders squaring and the tendon of his neck popping taut, and Eric would recognize that look anywhere. He slides the popsicle out and lets it rest damply outside his mouth, cool against the flushed skin around Bitty’s mouth. He hopes that in the seconds that Jack peaks he gets his point across, watching without doing anything more than holding the edge of his tongue against the very tip.
“ Holy — “
“Jesus friggin Christ, Bitty, you — “
“Girls do it wrong. I want that on record.”
“Did you learn something today?” Eric chirps, pulse raging under his skin when he eyes the row of gentlemen at his feet.
He’s definitely had dreams like this.
Holster clacks his teeth together and swallows.
“Yeah — I finally understand why I didn’t score a zero on that Kinsey thing Shits made me take.”
It says a lot about the state of the men’s hockey team that Rans, Holtzy, and Shitty are sitting next to each other, each with an erection. It says more about the team that this isn’t the first time Eric’s seen Shitty completely naked and hard.
“Alright, go take care of yourselves,” Bitty waves them off.
Holster and Ransom help each other up, but when they offer Shitty a hand on either side, he shakes his head.
“You’re my brothers, and I love you, but I don’t think I can handle human touch without dishonoring my entire goddamn lineage.”
He’s solemn, padding to his room; Holster and Ransom standing aside soberly.
“I call our room,” Holster announces.
“Do it,” Rans mutters. “I think Bits just ruined masturbating for me.”
And suddenly, Eric is alone with Jack.
He puts what’s left of his ice pop in the sink and stalks to the kitchen table.
He’s a little taller than Jack when he’s standing and Jack’s sitting down, so he smirks down and slips the fingers of his clean hand through Jack’s hair.
“What about you, honey?”
Jack looks at Bitty like he’s speaking Greek.
“Did you learn anything?”
He’s a little worried he broke his boyfriend when Jack still stares at him with huge, blown open blue eyes.
“Jack?” He asks again, absently sucking the syrup off his index finger while he checks for signs of life.
“You ruined my shorts,” Jack mutters.
“Technically you did that.”
Bitty isn’t really sure he wanted to push Jack to the point of rutting on the floor, but Jack launches into him, sending them both toppling to the ground. He can’t find it in him to be sorry when Jack covers Bitty with his body and rolls hips into the inviting spread of Eric’s legs.