Chapter Text
“Maybe I should make cookies too?” Eric looks down at the raspberry-peach pie cooling on the rack. “What if one of them has a fruit allergy. You did really ask about allergies, didn’t you?”
“Bits!” Jack comes back out of the bedroom where he’s been rummaging around for an acceptable shirt to wear to dinner at the Martins’. Eric can hear the eye-roll even without looking up. “For the third time, yes, I did actually ask George on Monday whether she or Joelle or Emmy have allergies and the answer is no, they do not. They keep a vegetarian household, and -- I further clarified when you asked me to -- they do eat dairy, eggs and honey. But no allergies.”
“Okay, yes, right. You’re right,” Eric twists the towel in his hands and tries to stop himself from getting out a mixing bowl to start a batch of vegan gluten-free, nut-free date bars just in case.
“Hey,” Jack says, crossing to where Eric is standing next to the counter immobilized by conflicting impulses. “Hey, Éric. What is it?” He lays a hand on Eric's arm.
Eric rolls his eyes and swats Jack with the towel. “Don’t you try to sweet-talk me with your Québécois, young man, I am onto your tricks.”
“I know,” Jack smiles, putting his hands on Eric’s hips and pulling him in for a kiss. “But you’re gonna let me get away with it anyway. So tell me what’s bugging you. I could feel the tension from the back corner of the closet.”
“Ugh,” Eric drops his forehead against Jack’s shoulder. “It’s nothing it’s stupid.”
“Uh-huh,” Jack says. And then the fucker waits.
“What if your boss doesn’t like me?” Eric finally, reluctantly mutters. “What if her wife doesn’t like me? What if their kid -- who apparently thinks the sun rises and sets in your general direction -- takes one look at me and starts bawling?”
Jack has the gall to laugh, which Eric thinks is monumentally unfair. But he follows the laugh up with, “Why wouldn’t they like you?” like he honestly can’t think of a reason so Eric finds it hard to hold a grudge.
He leans back in Jack’s arms to glare anyway, just for form’s sake. “Don’t tease me, mister,” he says, reprovingly. “George is scary. And her wife is Southern. She’ll see right through me, know all my weaknesses, all my horrible secrets.”
Jack grins and leans down to give Eric another kiss. “I’m pretty sure they both already think we’re the most adorable couple they’ve ever met. I’ve never felt so much like I had older sisters. Go on. Change into that shirt you wanted to wear so we can get going. I know you don't want to be late.”
The Martins live a ten minute walk from Jack’s apartment, on a quiet street off East Avenue with mature trees and modest homes built in the early decades of the twentieth century. George and Joelle’s home is a two-story bungalow with a generous and inviting front porch, half-hidden under the low-hanging branches of a twisting cherry tree. There’s a porch swing, Eric notes approvingly as they climb the steps to the screen door.
“Hello?” Jack calls, rapping on the wood frame of the door.
“Come on in,” a woman’s voice calls from somewhere beyond Eric’s line of vision. It doesn’t sound like a voice he’s heard before so it must be Joelle.
They step into a front room that looks to be a living room -- probably originally a parlor -- with overstuffed armchairs, a coffee table, and a sofa surrounded by an assemblage of bookcases and family photos and framed artwork on the walls. Eric takes all this in at a glance as they step over the scatter of infant toys and pass through the dining room with its formal table covered with a scatter of papers and stacks of folders and an open laptop. Jack’s been here several times since June -- to meet with George and once to take care of Emmy so George and Joelle could go to a PawSox game -- so Eric lets him lead the way into the kitchen.
Joelle’s at the stove tending what looks and smells to be a lovely rice pilaf. She half turns when they enter, to wave a hand in greeting. “Jack, so good to see you! And you just be Eric--” Eric steps around the central island to offer his hand. He realizes as soon as he hears it how he’s been waiting for the Atlanta drawl. And even though it’s tempered by her years in New England feels the way his body relaxes at the sound of home.
“It’s a real pleasure,” he says, warmly. “I’ve heard so much about you.” And he has, too, in the bits and pieces Jacks tends to share about his days.
Joelle laughs, and winks. “Well,” she says, “I do hope it’s been complimentary.”
“I wouldn’t dare,” Jack responds mildly. And Eric realizes with genuine pleasure and gratitude that Jack’s presence and body language is as relaxed as Eric has seen him in Pawtucket outside of their apartment. He must really feel among friends.
“Jack!” George calls from outside, through the back door, where Eric can see her setting the picnic table with its red-and-white check cloth. There’s a small child on the grass near her feet, dressed in a bright yellow romper and white hat to keep off the sun, waving some sort of plastic toy in the air. “Come help me move the table into the shade.”
Jack puts the pie he’s been holding on the counter and goes out into the yard.
“Need any help?” Eric asks the chef, because it’s always polite to ask, but Joelle’s already waving away the offer.
“Go on,” she says. “You’re our guests tonight. Go sit and enjoy yourself. There’s a pitcher of sweet tea on the table.”
“Now things are gettin’ serious,” Eric says with a grin, following Jack out the door.
In the end, it’s Eric who ends up helping George move the picnic table because Jack’s been waylayed by Emmy demanding to be picked up -- squawking her outrage at being ignored and rocking forward on her chubby little legs with her arms raised.
“But Emmy,” Jack says to her seriously, lifting her up and swinging her gently until she squeals with delight. “Your mama asked me to help with the table.”
“I got it,” Eric says, skirting Jack crooning at Emmy to join George at the table. “Where do you want to move it?”
George nods over her shoulder at the shade under two large maple trees that hang low over the back fence and they silently one-two-three-lift the lawn furniture across the yard with the dishes and cutlery and jug of sweet tea balanced neatly on top.
“Thank you,” George says, brushing off her hands on her shorts. “Now, can I pour you some tea? And it’s nice to see you again, Eric. We don’t usually put our guests to work quite so quickly in this house. But you can see there’s no hope for it once Emmy’s got her hands on Jack.”
Eric accepts the tumbler of ice-cold tea -- brewed to perfection, he notes with the first sip, bless Joelle’s heart -- and turns to look at Jack who’s now tossing Emmy up in the air above his head accompanied by her little shrieks of delight.
Jack catches him looking and pauses, smiling. “What?”
Eric shakes his head. “How do you know what to do?” He asks, half amused and half genuinely curious.
“Babies seem to love you,” he elaborates, when the crease in Jack’s brow deepens. “I mean, when we were down in Georgia in July, Caroline fell asleep on you almost instantly. And now Emmy. How do you do it?”
Jack laughs, “But kids are easy.”
Eric laughs himself, in surprise, nearly choking on a mouthful to tea. “Kids are not easy!” He looks to George for support, but she just shakes her head with a smile, slipping her hands into the pockets of her shorts and leaning back against the end of the picnic table, clearly amused by the exchange. “How are kids easy?”
Jack looks at him with a baffled expression. “Don’t you have something like three times as many cousins as I do?”
Eric rolls his eyes. “Being around them is no guarantee that I understand them.”
Jack shrugs. “Kids...the things they want are pretty self-explanatory, eh? They want you to hug ‘em and make sure they have food when they’re hungry and pay attention when they want to show you something. I can do all of that. It’s...uncomplicated.”
Eric, who’s never thought of children as uncomplicated -- who has, in fact, thought of them as vaguely terrifying and mystifying, full of needs he has no idea how to begin meeting -- finds himself half-convinced by the force of Jack’s own convictions. He stares at Jack, suddenly, realizing they’ve never talked about children. About whether either of them wants to have children. Oh, god, he has no fucking idea whether or not he ever wants to have children. What if Jack already knows he wants to be a dad? What if --
“Dinner’s served!” Joelle interrupts Eric's incipient panic by coming out of the house with a dish of rice pilaf topped with grilled portobello mushrooms.
Jack carries Emmy over to the table and puts her in the infant seat like he’s done this a hundred times before, and Eric tries to focus on the ease of Jack’s spine and the comfortable set of his shoulders. Something about the Martin’s household is putting Jack at ease and maybe it’s kids but it could also just be Emmy specifically. Or maybe knowing that everyone at the table tonight knows they’re together and is happy for them (or, in Emmy’s case, is simply too young to care). Maybe Emmy reminds Jack of Charlotte and Helena when they were younger. Maybe Jack isn’t any more certain about what he wants for the future than Eric is. Maybe that’s something they can figure out together.
“Take a seat, Eric,” Joelle is saying, and Jack is patting the bench next to where he’s already seated. So Eric swings a leg over and slides in next to Jack so they’re sitting side by side -- a matched pair across from Georgia and Joelle like this is normal. Like they're all grown ups leading unremarkable grown-up lives and there's nothing remarkable about the fact that Emmy has two moms and Jack has a boyfriend and they're all about to have dinner together.
"So tell me, Eric," Joelle says, passing him the bowl of garlic-roasted chard, "how's my alma mater treating you? What classes are you taking this semester?"
George and Joelle are good people, Eric thinks. Good people to have in their corner.
Eric realizes, as he slides into bed next to Jack that night, that he wants to ask Jack for something.
And asking Jack for this particular something is hard. Hard because he’s been trying to be so good and brave about starting his junior year and moving back into the Haus and part of him is really excited about his classes and starting pre-season training and seeing all of his friends again … and part of him is curled up tight in a fierce little ball of denial that this is the last night of this that he has: the last night of really living here together with Jack, sharing a daily routine, until...until probably next summer. And even then, circumstances could change. He could need to get a job or take an internship somewhere too far away to commute.
There are so many unknowns.
And to be honest, he’s feeling a little nauseated with all of the stress of rapid change and not wanting to lose this togetherness before its even barely started. This isn't even going back to last year's status quo because last year Jack was on campus, across the hall, in the library, walking him to class and coffee, falling asleep next to him on the bus -- Jack was everywhere and unattainable. Now Jack is his and will soon be much further away much more of the time than he's been during the school year since Eric started at Samwell. Since before Eric realized how much he paid attention to the whereness of Jack.
“...Jack?” He asks, rolling over on his side and sliding a hand over Jack’s bare stomach. Jack lowers the book he’s reading and turns his head to look at Eric through his reading glasses, blinking endearingly as he focuses.
“Mmm?”
“I was wondering --” Eric chews on his lip, running his thumb across and around the dip of Jack's bellybutton, enjoying the slight swell of Jack's belly and the soft dusting of hair above the waistband of his boxers.
“Yeah?” Jack prompts when Eric doesn’t complete the sentence. He twists to put the book on his nightstand, not bothering to stick in a bookmark, and rolls back to focus his attention on Eric. Eric lets his hand ride with him, enjoying the bunch and release of muscles as Jack moves. Mine, he thinks happily. Mine, mine, mine.
“What is it, Bits?”
“It’s just...I was wondering if maybe you’d like to stay at the Haus tomorrow night.” Jack is driving him up to Samwell with his suitcases, the things he isn’t leaving here. He’s definitely leaving some things here. But he suddenly can't bear the thought of Jack dropping him off and just ... leaving.
“I thought...” Jack hesitates, then says carefully, “I thought you might like some time to settle in?”
Eric slides his hand up to Jack’s chest, feels the steady, reassuring thump-a thump-a of Jack’s heart beneath his ribcage. He takes a breath and forces himself to rephrase the question the way he actually meant it: “I’d really...I’d really like it if you could stay. Tomorrow night. This feels...hard. It’s hard to have this and then have to go back. Except without you there. It feels...it feels like --” he blinks away the tears that prickle at the back of his nose and the corner of his eyes, damn it, “-- it feels like going backward. And I just want -- I think I just need you there. At least for the first night?” He hates how needy his voice sounds. Hates how much he hates the need in his voice, knowing as he does that Jack won’t be angry at him for asking.
“I’d like that,” Jack says, softly, immediately, without the slightest hesitation, and Eric looks up to see the relief in Jack’s eyes. Maybe he wanted this, too, but wasn’t certain how to ask. Thought he shouldn’t ask.
They’ll get better at this.
“Okay,” Eric agrees, nodding against the pillow. “That’d be -- thank you.”
“I’ll stay as often as I can and -- and you want me to,” Jack says, seriously, and Eric feels something in his chest loosen. They can do this. They can hold on and someday it’ll stop being quite this complicated, maybe, and instead just be easy. What they wake up and do everyday. Be together.
He sighs and closes his eyes and Jack turns out the light and pulls Eric into the circle of his arms. Eric’s pretty sure he could get used to that. He’s pretty sure he already has.