#ssshhh it's still the fourth on the West Coast

[battleofthebits]

Day 4 of @softkent ‘s fic-a-thon: Love Spells!

Eric’s always known he has magic; growing up in the South, he had to repress it just like his figure skating and sexuality. His moo-maw always warned him about the dangers of making things happen that he ain’t never meant, about accidentally poisoning somebody you hated or influencing the outcome of an important competition. It was much better, according to her, to never feel too openly or want too much, because you might change the world without knowing it.

Eric has, for the most part, followed her instructions. He’s been perfectly sweet and nice and bottled-up for the better part of his life, at this point, and he likes to think that keeping his magic under control has been old hat. Or rather, had been.

Something is wrong, now. Something on the SMH is off, and Bitty has a sinking feeling it’s his own fault. Because Eric is pretty sure that Jack Zimmermann likes him. Not the way he’s bros with Shitty or holds a pact of Canadian solidarity with Ransom, but… likes him, likes him. Jack keeps being nice, and friendly, and actually emoting, and sometimes Jack’s eyes go soft around Eric in a way that he’s never seen with anyone else. None of it is familiar. None of it is normal.

Eric must be doing something inadvertently, casting a love spell with nothing but his own misguided crush. And he might not know much about magic, but Eric’s pretty sure that that doesn’t fall under Shitty’s “uncoerced, enthusiastic consent” rules. 

He has to put a stop to this, whatever “this” is. Even if it means Jack goes back to the way he was when they first met, even if Jack never looks at him like he matters or gives him an encouraging fist bump or chirps him about his procrastination.

Eric tries everything he can think of, eliminating variables the way he learned in high-school chemistry. The obvious place to start is with the pies.“Made with love” isn’t just a phrase, sometimes. But refusing to give Jack pie for a week “on account of your diet” just gets Eric an approving nod the first time. Worse, when he keeps deliberately withholding pie, Jack starts smiling, as if the two of them have an inside joke now. It’s a quiet little grin that makes Eric’s knees a little wobbly.

So, obviously, the pie was a bust, and Eric is reinstating Jack’s baked-good privileges immediately.

The next thing to eliminate is spending time together. Eric ignores Jack as best he can when they study, talks to other people in Professor Atley’s class, and goes to as many alcohol-based events as possible. Jack’s eyes look a little droopier, but they don’t lose that softness when he’s looking at Eric. Worse, Eric’s fixating on Jack’s sad, soft, droopy eyes, and that can’t be good for either of them.  

Now, Eric didn’t want to screw with their on-ice chemistry, nor refuse help he actually needs, but the next logical step is to eliminate physical contact. And that, above all else, means no more checking practice. No early mornings waking up and hating Jack’s entire being for a few minutes. No getting slammed into the boards and trying to skate through his sudden panic, but then again, no watching the sunrise from inside Faber. No being with Jack, plain and simple.

And worst of all, he’ll have to straight-up tell Jack that he doesn’t want to do practice anymore.

“So, Jack,” Eric says, “I think I’ve improved a lot as a player, and since you’ve got so many responsibilities this year, I think it would be better for me not to waste your time with practice that you’re not getting anything out of. What do you think?”

Señor Bunny flops a little from where Eric had placed him as a trial audience.

Eric is so screwed.

He avoids the situation for a good week, finding ways to just plain not be around when Jack is at the Haus, and barely responding during skates. Eric’s pretty sure the other players have figured out something’s going on, but nobody’s said anything to his face about it yet.

Finally, the day before checking practice rolls around. Eric corners Jack in the kitchen while Lardo has class and the boys are out on a beer run.

“So,” he says, “I’ve been thinking, and it’d probably be better if we stopped doing checking practice. I mean,” he adds a little frantically, as Jack’s expression darkens, “you’ve got so much on your plate this semester, and I’ve improved as a player, I really have, I’m not even sure I need it anymore! So it’s probably best for both of us if we just… don’t go?”

“What’s going on, Bittle?” Jack says.

“What do you mean, what’s going on?”

Jack makes a vague gesture. “This thing you do. You smile and tell a nicer version of the truth, sometimes even lies, whenever you talk about yourself. I don’t know why, but you’re bullshitting right now, and I’d rather you not.”

“..I…” Eric doesn’t really have anything to say to that.

“If you’re gonna lie, I don’t want to hear it.”

Eric sighs. Might as well let it all out. “You know how I can just make pies sort of appear? And how I can do a perfect axel in hockey skates, and how I cleaned up the Haus so fast? I kind of have magic. And, well, there’s no good way to say this, but. I may, accidentally, have used it. A little. On you.”

“But I don’t feel any different,” Jack says, frowning. “I knew a guy in juniors who turned into a cat once, and he said he was all pins and needles the day before.”

“It has to be magic, though.” Eric tells him. “Things like this don’t just happen!”

“Things like what?”

“Like you going from hating my guts to respecting me as a linemate. Like you breaking your diet for my pie whenever I give you a piece. Like you, I don’t know, liking me?” Eric finishes, feeling distinctly awkward.

Jack’s frowning again. “You thought that I only like you because you did something with magic that you can’t even explain?”

“Not… not just liking me,” Eric replies. In case his intentions do matter, he’s praying that the floor will swallow him up before he finishes the statement. “Like-liking me.”

“Oh,” Jack says. “Huh.”

Eric waits a moment, in case the floor was listening. “Yeah,” he says, miserably, and turns to go. He gets all the way to his room and shuts himself in, preparing a playlist that’s really just the sad parts of The Pinkprint, before there’s a clatter on the stairs and a voice at the door.

“Bittle? Would you please let me in?”

And against his better judgment, Eric does, because he’d bet anything Jack is giving him the soft droopy eyes on the other side of the door. He’s so weak.

Jack crosses the room and comes right up to Eric, gazing at him with eyes that are not only droopy but determined. “I hadn’t thought about you that way before, but that doesn’t mean I can’t. It’s just that we’re teammates, and the captaincy gives me some authority over you. It could’ve gotten weird, you know?”

Bitty knows with every fiber of his being how weird things have gotten. He manages a nod.

“But now I’m not going to be here much longer, I know you much better, and I think… well. I might just like-like you. Not because of any magic you have, but because of you. And if you’re up for it, someday we might progress to full-on love-love.”

There’s a new smile on Jack’s face, earnest and warm, and it’s so dazzling that Eric almost doesn’t realize he’s just been chirped.