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"What do you want this to be?"
There's no judgment or expectation in Bitty's face, lit by the ever-changing pyrotechnic glow as he gazes up at Jack. It's an honest question, not a test, not some kind of gotcha.
Jack manages not to blurt out the first answer that comes to mind: Permanent.
Obviously, he's not ready to get down on one knee and propose. Skypeing with Bitty every night may have made the past few weeks some of the best days of his entire life, but he knows they're still figuring out who they are together. He can't possibly say for sure that he wants to spend the rest of the life with the land mine of compact muscle currently wrapped in his arms—deceptively placid as they sit here curled in the back of Coach Bittle's pickup truck, but, Jack knows, capable of erupting in a spark-shower of passion at the slightest provocation.
Maybe he can't say yet that it's what he wants, but there is no doubt in his mind that he wants it to be what he wants. Eventually.
In a couple of years, once Bitty's out of school, he wants to be in a place where they can move in together. Hopefully, by then Jack will have established himself well enough that coming out won't be complete career suicide; if not, he can always play it off as helping out an old college friend who needs a place to stay, buy them a couple more years that way. Or something. If they can make it through the next two years of the monolithic cockblock that is the NHL, he will come up with some god damned excuse to wake up with Eric Bittle in his bed every morning.
And if for some reason it turns out Jack's career is never in a place where he can comfortably come out? If they work at this for years and it all starts to wear on them and he can't stomach taking one more busty starlet to a party? Hell, he can actually see himself reaching a point where he would happily choose Bitty with no regrets. It's not a choice he's willing to make right now, but if he has to, somewhere down the line… yeah, if they make it that far, he'll be ready.
It's sort of blindsided him, this certainty.
Falling in love with Bittle, that snuck up on him when he wasn't looking. Even long after dislike had turned to grudging respect and then to friendship, Jack had still been convinced that Bitty wasn't his type. Sure, the guy was hot, but every guy Jack had had a real crush on had been more of a… bro. He'd assumed he was more likely to fall for Ransom or Holster or basically any straight dude in the Haus than a baking figure skater with Georgia slang to match his accent.
So he'd ignored all the signs. Of course he wanted to spend more time with Bitty, they were in a class together that happened to be smack in Bitty's area of expertise. Of course he took a lot of photos of Bitty for his project. In addition to being a good friend and an important part of the team, Bitty was attractive and charismatic; he made an excellent photographic subject. Of course he kept having to remind himself he'd be less than an hour away next year… Well, that was sort of what finally clued him in, when he realized he was worrying more about how far he'd be from Bitty than from Shitty.
So that had taken him by surprise, but that was only because he'd managed to stay in denial long enough that his feelings had dug themselves in pretty deep before he got his head out of his ass.
But even once he'd gotten that worked out, even after they'd kissed and started talking over text and phone and Skype almost constantly, he hadn't expected this. Hell, he hadn't expected to feel like this about anyone for a good long time, certainly not until he'd focused on his career for a few years, minimum.
But here it is. Warm and solid, lodged inside of him like it was always meant to be there. This simple knowledge that he could build a life with this person, that he wants to do the work necessary to make that happen.
It's so different from the puppy love he'd had with Kenny… Kent. They'd been barely more than kids, and loved like it. Oh, they were going to spend the rest of their lives together. Of course. They were going to sign with the same team—they'd both have their pick, after all, right? Sure, they couldn't be out and proud, but that didn't matter that much. They'd pretend to date hot women and no one would notice they were sucking each other's dicks on the road.
Somehow, as much as he'd thought he and Kent were in love, that's as far as their thinking ever got. Hockey was the first priority, sex was second, and everything else would work itself out. Jack had never considered the emotional work involved in keeping a relationship going, let alone keeping it healthy. Never considered whether Kenny could be there for him off the ice as well as on. Never considered that there might come a time when it hurt that he couldn't hold his boyfriend's hand in public, so long as he could put his hands in other places in private. They talked about brilliant ways to keep it a secret, but never about what it would take to actually come out eventually so they could have a real life together.
And then everything fell apart. And in the aftermath, what hurt the most wasn't watching the love of his life follow their dreams just like they'd planned, but alone—it was seeing the pity in Kent's eyes. Not love, not sympathy, sure as hell not empathy. Just pity.
Bitty may not have known Jack at his lowest, but he's seen enough of Jack's low points in the past two years. And pity isn't something he's ever offered.
Jack manages not to blurt out the first thing that comes to mind, but the effort he puts into that lets the second thing that comes to mind slip right out:
"I love you."
One corner of Bittle's mouth turns up, his expression soft in the aura of the fireworks display. He slides one hand up to the back of Jack's head and pulls him down into a kiss.
"I love you, too," he murmurs into Jack's mouth, then pulls back just a little more. "But that doesn't really answer my question, Mr. Zimmerman."
Jack opens his mouth, closes it again. It should be a simple question, but the answers that come to mind aren't really answers. He turns his gaze up to the lights in the sky.
"I want this to be…" Everything. Forever. Real. He looks back down at Bitty. "I want to be yours."
The smile that breaks out over Bitty's face is more radiant than anything Jack could be watching in the sky right now.
They've talked so much, about so many things that aren't hockey, which is also new for Jack. Most dates he's been on, he doesn't bother to resist his natural tendency to focus on sports. He's always figured, if he's going to date someone, they'd better be okay with that. Why change on a first date, if it's just going to lead to someone being annoyed with him five dates down the road? But at the same time, the conversation is always so surface-level, even dating other athletes. It's hard for Jack to stay interested because the other person never wants to get into the nitty-gritty details with him, and hard for his dates to stay interested because he resists their attempts to steer the conversation elsewhere.
With Bittle, though, it's easy. When they do talk hockey, it is about the nitty-gritty details. They've worked together so closely for two years, things like training regimens and strategy are a natural part of their conversation. And somehow, getting into that frees up Jack's brain for other topics. He can spend a half an hour telling Bitty about the strengths and weaknesses of one of his new teammates and going back and forth with him about how his own strengths and weaknesses mesh or don't mesh with that… and he feels satisfied. The hockey conversation is real and substantial and Bitty cares about it, and suddenly Jack finds himself wanting to talk about other things. That's never happened before.
So Jack knows all of Bitty's fears about coming out to his parents. How close he is to them, especially his mom, how he knows they love him, and how terrified he is to lose any of that. They've been on their best behavior the past two days, although Jack can't help but wonder if the Bittles have noticed how hard he works not to stare at their son. They had about an hour to themselves yesterday when Bitty's parents went to the grocery store—one glorious hour, during which Jack soaked up every detail he could absorb of Bitty's naked body, of the way his face contorted in ecstasy. The way he looked with Jack's come splashed across his chest. By the time the Bittles came home, they were clean—but not too clean, no showers, no changed clothes—and watching a movie in the den with a respectable (and hastily inserted) two feet of space between them.
And Bitty, of course, knows that Jack can't come out publicly—but also that he's out to his parents, who knew about him and Kent. And that his dad has no problem with it… as long as it doesn't interfere with his career. Jack's many neuroses around disappointing his father are probably obvious to anyone who's so much as glanced at him, but this is one that maybe nobody on earth other than Bitty is privy to. But at least when Jack brings Bitty home, they won't have to sneak around. Not behind the closed doors of his parents' home, at least.
With all of the relationship-adjacent topics they've discussed, sometimes it feels like they're talking around the issue of defining their relationship. And the fact is, they have been. But it's never been because Jack doesn't want one. He just needed them both to understand the context first, their current limitations. Bitty needed that, too—maybe even more than Jack. He'd been… well, understandably confused by Jack's actions at first, and he needed clarity. So they've talked and talked and talked, but never quite about what exactly this is.
Honestly, it's not a conversation Jack wanted to have over Skype. And the words he just said, he didn't want those to come out for the first time over the phone.
Sitting here, curled up together, faces inches apart. That's more like it.
"Sounds like a plan, then," Bitty says, and then snuggles in tight under Jack's arm.