Chapter Text
“Hey, y’all! I’m baaaack! Some of my more adept followers may have noticed a change in location and are wondering what’s up—and I can finally tell you! Remember a few months ago when I was kinda worryin’ about a decision that I had to make? Well, I did it! I transferred to Samwell Arts Institute. Wow. Still feels unreal to say that. But they offered me a scholarship—can you believe it? Which one of y’all sent them a link to this vlog? I’m still in shock. Whoever it was, thank you. So much. Gotta admit, I was all shook up at first, when I got Samwell’s email just out of the blue like that. But y’all probably could tell that I wasn’t really all that happy there at GSU…so I took the plunge! Now here I am doing the whole new student thing again, with a new dorm room and new, well, everything. Gosh. I hope it works out better this time. On that note, here’s a cover y’all keep requesting…”
Eric picks up his violin and bow, takes a deep breath, and releases the jittery tension in his nerves into Vienna Teng’s Level Up. It’s hard not to hear the lyrics in his head as he plays, and he gives himself over, lets the music flow from the strings to his shoulders to his spine and lend him the steel and resolve he so desperately needs.
Call it any name you need.
Call it your 2.0, your rebirth, whatever—
So long as you can feel it all,
So long as all your doors are flung wide.
Call it your day number one in the rest of forever.
No more wimping out, Eric Richard Bittle, he reminds himself. Be braver this time.
No more wimping out, Eric realizes, is a fine thing to declare when the sun is shining on your gorgeous new college campus and you’re still riding on the high of your mama’s proud and excited chatter just before she hugs you goodbye. When you’re still charmed-slash-confused by the aggressively warm welcome from your new RA (a senior voice major who might have time traveled from the 80’s, mustache and all), distracted by fixing up your room, then immersed in an impromptu vlogging session, it’s easier to convince yourself of your own courage. But at nearly two in the morning, clutching his ragged little bunny to his chest while staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling from an unfamiliar bed, Eric Bittle feels that his new motto “be braver” sounds about as achievable as “be Beyoncé.”
“We’re gonna be okay, Señor Bun,” he murmurs into the quiet. When that only makes him feel ridiculous, he sighs and decides to get up. Anything is preferable to just lying there wallowing in his doubts. Shitty—lord, he is never gonna get used to calling his RA that—assured him that he had 24/7 access to the kitchen, but it had seemed rude to start inspecting all its nooks and crannies right then and there, so Eric had restrained himself during the tour. Now’s as good a time as any, Eric reasons, to check if the kitchen cabinets have room for his stuff. He’ll wait until tomorrow to take his boxes down, but it wouldn’t do any harm to look, right?
Slipping his keys into the pocket of his shorts, Eric fumbles for his slippers and quietly pads out into the dimly lit hallway and down the stairs. Shitty said he was the first to arrive, but that some other residents were also due that evening. Eric had been so engrossed in video editing with his headphones on that he might have missed any arrivals, but if they’re here, he doesn’t want to wake them up and be a nuisance on his first night. With room for only eight residents at a time, Spencer Hall is really more of a house than a dorm (“We just call it The Haus, brah, and you shall henceforth be known as a hausmate”), a renovated two-story residence where former university presidents used to live. So Eric can’t exactly escape notice like he’d tried to do back in his GSU dorm last year. Not that he had wanted to do that back then, no. His invisible man impression had been a matter of self-preservation and not desire...but there’s no need to dwell on the past now. Samwell is a fresh start, a fresh start that comes with a private room that he can afford because the scholarship made his tuition fund redundant, plus he has a kitchen. A kitchen that he’s going to explore if he can only remember the layout of the first floor with all the lights turned off, Eric thinks, when he gets to the bottom of the stairs.
Wishing that he had his phone with him for some illumination, Eric tries to recall Shitty’s (possibly stoned) tour. Had it included the location of any light switches? He’s so focused on groping along the nearest wall and willing his eyes to adjust to the darkness that it takes him a while to register that he’s hearing music. Soft piano music, low enough that he wouldn’t have heard it on the second floor, coming from somewhere in the darkness. For a second he wonders if he had stumbled into a ghost story, then scoffs at himself for being so silly. Didn’t Shitty mention a rehearsal room down here? Someone else must be having trouble sleeping, just like him.
Curious now, Eric follows the music to its source. The composition is unfamiliar to him, but there’s something compelling about it, impossible to ignore. He wanders closer and closer, pulled in by the melody, until he comes to a closed door with a bit of light shining out from under it. There’s a wide glass window in the adjacent wall, but tightly closed blinds keep him from seeing into the room, though he can hear the music clearly enough. Eric just stands there, transfixed.
The melody is captivating. Complex and contradicting, like it’s struggling against itself, asking questions that are only answered by more questions, with a thread of exhausted confusion weaving all throughout. Eric feels utterly unprepared for it, for the way the music catches and tugs at that place in his chest that clenches painfully each time he asks himself if he really deserves this second chance. It’s the same place that tightens in panic whenever he thinks of performing onstage, the same hurt he tries to appease by playing for his vlog which is fun in its own way but not enough, not ever enough. The music flows from behind the door into the cracks inside Eric that he came to Samwell to heal, and it hits too close to home, but Eric can’t tear himself away. It’s cathartic, somehow, the way the best kind of music always is. Maybe he can just sit here on the floor, just for a minute or two, make himself comfortable, listen just a bit longer. He can find the kitchen a little later—it's not going anywhere—but for now, the music's still playing, still holding him in its grip, so Eric decides to stay.
The first thing Eric is aware of upon suddenly waking up is a shocked voice coming from somewhere above him, cursing in a language that doesn't sound like English. The second thing he realizes is that said person is alarmed because he tripped over Eric--oh god--he tripped over Eric because Eric is lying curled up on the damn floor where he'd just fallen asleep (!!!) like a homeless person or a lost little kitten with no mama. Lord. Now would be a good time for the earth to open wide and swallow him up, seriously, he's already down here, it wouldn't take much.
“What—“
“I’m not homeless!” Eric yelps, still on the floor, looking up at the pale, shocked face illuminated by the glow from the now open room. He hurriedly gets up. “I mean, I know I seem like a homeless person, sleeping on the floor and all, but I live here, honest, my name is Eric Bittle, you can ask, um, the guy named Shitty? He said his name was Shitty, but that might be a joke? Or a prank, I don’t know, it just seems really strange. I just moved in, and I couldn’t sleep, so I went looking for the kitchen, because baking, I like to bake. I mean, I wasn’t planning on baking in the middle of the night, although I actually do that someti—but that’s not the point! The point is, I came down here, and I heard you playing, and I liked it, I really liked it a lot, so I wanted to listen some more, and then I fell asleep. On the floor. Like an idiot. I am so, so sorry. I hope I didn’t give you a heart attack. Not that you look like you could get a heart attack! I mean you’re obviously very, um…fit. Healthy! Oh dear lord. But really, I live here, I promise. My name is Eric. I guess I already said that. Sorry. Again.”
The guy just keeps staring at him for an endless moment until Eric starts to wonder if he should sit back down on the floor, given how all of his blood seems to have rushed to his face and he isn’t sure his legs will hold him up any longer. Then—
“It’s not a prank.”
“…Um. Beg your pardon?
“Shitty. That’s actually his name. Well. That’s what we call him.”
“Oh. Okay.” He doesn’t sound angry. Eric can breathe again. In fact, now that he can see that the guy doesn’t seem inclined to call campus security on him, Eric is distracted from his panic by a niggling sense of recognition for his slowly relaxing (actually kind of handsome) face. “Good. That it wasn’t a prank, I mean. He said it was Haus tradition, the nicknames. He said mine would be Bitty.”
“Do you…not want to be called Bitty?” The guy seems to be mostly over the shock by now, though still trying to catch up with the admittedly weird situation.
“No, no, I don’t mind at all!” Eric rushes to say, not wanting to chase away the hesitant friendliness from the guy’s (strangely familiar, really actually very handsome) face. "It’s kinda nice, to be honest, having a fun college nickname. In my old school…well. Never you mind. Do you have a nickname? What should I call you?”
“Uh, you can just call me—“
“Oh my god.” It suddenly clicks. “Oh my god, you’re Jack Zimmermann.”
@omgcheckplease: Is there something worse than putting your foot in your mouth? Maybe both feet, an entire leg? Bc lord help me, I may have done just that.
3:21 AM – 18 Aug 2014