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rustedhearts · 10 days

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since it’s pretty much officially autumn, i’d like to recap the worst summer of my life so that if anyone tries to say something stupid to me, you’ll understand why i’m hanging on by the thinnest thread

to begin:

may

• ooh yay i graduated college! after 4 years of hard work i finally obtained my degree! woo!

i have all this free time and nothing to do, it’s so fun! i’m going to garden and make the house cute and relax.

• my fucking car brakes shit out on me in the middle of traffic. my foot is all the way to the floor at a red light so i can stop the car and not plow into the car in front of me. (the car is 15 years old and basically everything needs replaced)

• my money is also starting to run out bc i got my last paycheck from work (i worked at my university) and i don’t have another job.

• my basement floods because my sister’s an idiot. it takes 3 giant fans and 2 weeks of cleaning to get the wet litter smell out because that’s where we keep one of the litter boxes….which got wet

june

• basement floods again. this time it’s a sewer floor. i spend a whole day cleaning up literal shit in the laundry room. it went UNDER the washer and all the way to the other side of the room + under the stairs. i had to clean this all up myself.

city had to come out and snake the sewer pipe in our front yard.

• i have my first date in forever. woo!

he ghosts me (after turning around on the road to come back and kiss me and telling me he’d love to see me again)

• i’m going to job interviews that don’t call me back.

• my ethel cain concert in pittsburgh, which was my college graduation present and the first time my sister and i were going to see ethel cain in person after waiting for 2 years, is canceled.

july

• my laptop breaks. the book i worked on for 2 years (which has a very particular formatting) is now sitting untouched. i planned to send it to publishers this summer but cannot.

• i have literally no money.

• random gluten allergy pops up. i can’t eat gluten without experiencing symptoms so painful that i literally considered calling an ambulance one night.

august

• jobs continue to ghost me. i’m applying to dozens every day.

• i haven’t purchased anything by myself since may.

• i haven’t had my own way around since may and have been virtually stuck in my house unless i can get a ride from someone else.

• i get a small, red dry spot on my forehead.

• by the end of the month the small red spot is spreading across my forehead.

september

• the small red spot has spread all over my face and now i have extremely dry, painful, blistery skin after crystal clear skin since april. i still have no fucking clue what this is and i still have it right now.

• i interview for an art school that i really wanted to work with. spent hours researching and reading the entire student handbook to familiarize myself with the curriculum. the interview is with 6 different people and takes almost 2 hours.

• art school is ghosting me. still have not heard from them. (sent 2 follow-ups)

• i have to go back to retail, and the only retail place that i could get an interview at is 25 minutes away. ubers are $20 each way. i requested up to 30 hours, and if i work 5 days a week, that’s $200 in uber charges.

no i can’t fucking walk, no i can’t bike or scooter. i live in an area that isn’t really accessible unless you have all the time in the world to wait for bus routes and walk between stops, or you have a car. my area frequently reports shootings, robberies, and jumpings. as a young girl, i don’t feel safe out at night in these areas by myself on foot.

so, i’ll essentially be going to work to pay to go to work unless i can get a car somehow. i have -$8.63, my credit card is now overdrafted and late.

so. that’s where i’m at right now. i’m finding it difficult to wake up these days, don’t feel productive. i have nothing joyful in my life and i’m extremely depressed. the stress has also triggered my ocd a lot and i’ve been struggling with very intense obsessive thoughts.

ta-da. my wonderful summer.

#rolly!

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alphacrone · 7 years

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bitty dates anonther falconer au

so the graduation kiss doesn’t happen

and bitty tries to move on and jack goes onto join the falconers

and there’s some falcs family get-together early on in the pre-season and bob and alicia can’t make it for Reasons

so jack invites his other family

which -- is sort of a terrible idea bc Tater’s flying solo so he adopts Ransom and Holster and shenanigans happen immediately

(think Tater and Bitty doing lifts on the ice but with ransom and holster and alcohol)

and shitty’s hanging all over jack because they haven’t seen each other in weeks and he introduces himself to everyone as jack’s brother -- “but not like a lame- ass biological brother, a brother of the heart” -- and lardo’s somehow got all these falcs rookies following her around like little ducklings

so bits is kind of off by himself, hovering near the refreshments to monitor which pies are most popular

(he might be distancing himself from jack on purpose. he might be trying to move on. it might be really hard.)

one of the rookies (is it poots? probably) comes up to grab a HUGE ASS slice from the peach pie and makes really inappropriate noises while shoveling it down

“dude this shit is SO GOOD,” he says, then realizes he’s talking to a really cute guy and tries to remember what manners are. “um, hey, i’m ian”

“b- eric. and thank you, i worked hard on that pie”

and ian’s all DUDE NO SHIT REALLY and, again, remembers he’s talking to a really cute guy who probably is attracted to normal human beings and adds, “so, you here with zimmermann’s crew?”

and b’s all, “yeah, jack’s one of my best friends, we were so excited he asked us to come, blah blah blah”

so meanwhile jack’s been feeling weird all afternoon and it’s not just because shitty’s been forced to keep his clothes on. he realizes, sort of belatedly, it’s because he’s barely seen bittle all day. he doesn’t Like That.

jack drops shitty off with lardo (who is regaling all these wide-eyed teenage guys with stories of her kegster victories while george looks on, impressed)

and he wanders over to find bittle in stitches as ian tells him some story from juniors

and jack’s not jealous. why would he be? bittle makes friends the way other people breathe -- constantly and naturally. jack is a little sad bittle would rather talk to some rando than him, but he tries not to think about that.

the samwell crew crashes at jack’s “’swawesome bachelor pad” that night, shitty in jack’s bed, bitty and lardo in the guest room, ransom and holster on the pull-out in the living room

except- shitty disappears early on into the evening and bittle slips into jack’s room before midnight, incredibly cranky, and flops onto the empty side of jack’s bed, half-asleep

“i’ve been sexiled,” he grumbles, shoving his phone onto the bedside table and sighing loudly. “burn your guest room sheets in the morning.”

jack laughs and turns over to face bittle, whose eyes keep fluttering open and shut, nose scrunched up in annoyance. it’s the cutest fucking thing jack’s ever seen.

bittle’s phone lights up and bittle grabs at it blindly, huffing in laughter as he reads the message.

“ian,” he clarifies, when jack asks who would be texting him at this hour. “we exchanged numbers before he went home”

again, nothing jack should be jealous of. he and bittle text all the time. but they had to build up to that, when they first actually became friends, texting only for class- and practice-related things, then when bittle was drunk, then on roadies when they were at separate ends of the bus, eventually reaching their best friend-level of texting-

jack wasn’t jealous that a stranger was already at the midnight-texting friendship level with bittle. why would he be jealous?

before he can ask about it, though, bittle’s asleep, on top of the covers and clutching his phone. jack bites his lip and sets bittle’s phone aside and very, very carefully pulls the throw blanket from down by his feet over bittle, so he doesn’t get cold in the middle of the night.

in the morning, when the samwell crew leaves, jack hugs bittle just a little tighter than normal, a little bit longer. he’s not sure why. it just feels right.

so flash forward, and bittle starts coming down to providence pretty frequently. sometimes it’s to visit a cousin at brown (freshman, right outta georgia, not adapting as quickly as bittle did, needs a familiar face every now and then) and sometimes it’s to visit jack. he hangs out with ian quite a bit, which jack thinks is weird and isn’t jealous of at all.

but he loves having bittle around, no matter the reason, so jack doesn’t look this gift horse too closely in the mouth.

towards the end of the semester, bittle starts to get really stressed-looking. jack doesn’t see him as much, as busy as they both are, but he texts bittle constantly with little reminders throughout the day: drink plenty of water, try to get a little sleep, ransom does yoga at the fitness center on wednesdays you should join him, take a break from baking to go over your flashcards, call me if you want me to quiz you on french i’m free for a bit, etc. etc.

there’s one evening in particular where jack’s getting off the plane after a series of away games and ian’s listening to an upset voicemail from bittle and is visibly upset himself.

and jack can hear him saying something like “eric, please talk to me... can i come down tomorrow? i think we need to talk.”

and, still visibly upset, ian gets in his car to go home and jack gets in his to do the same but he- he can’t stop thinking about bittle. bittle never gets upset enough about anything to call someone. ever.

so jack “110% even at friendship” zimmermann speeds up to samwell and sneaks into the (unlocked) haus, dripping wet, and knocks quietly on bittle’s door.

and bittle is fucking floored and jack’s only real explanation was “ian said you were upset about something” and he’s absolutely tackled into a full-on bittle bear hug. (tiny bear hug. koala bear hug)

(and lord is jack making it hard not to be in love with him.)

he still crashes in bittle bed that night, in a pair of holster’s sweatpants bittle stole from the laundry, and bittle doesn’t tell him specifically what’s wrong but he cries a little, mostly over jack being there, and falls asleep with his head on jack’s shoulder so jack thinks he probably did something right.

and then.

he and bittle are hanging out one evening not long after that and there’s a knock on the door and it’s ian and, okay, jack likes the guy, he’s a team player and works really hard, even if he isn’t the most skilled rookie, but this is jack’s time with bittle, why is he here?

but bittle suddenly has this really nervous look on his face and ian is practically shaking and they sit down on the couch next to jack and ian says, “s-so, um, jack. me and eric- we’re um. we’re dating. have been for a while. we wanted you to be the first to know, knew we could trust you with this.”

and OH. jack’s sort of thrown for a loop, so it takes him a minute to respond, and ian’s getting paler and paler and bittle looks like he’s going to bite through his own lip and jack manages to say something supportive and bland, just to get bittle to smile in relief.

and he is supportive. he’s always been supportive of bittle’s dating misadventures. and he understands why they’ve kept it a secret it all semester, even if it’s clearly the thing that upset bittle so much.

but he’s also jealous. and it’s pretty hard to deny any more. but ian’s a decent dude and clearly cares about bittle so jack tries to tamp down those ugly feelings and claps them both on the back and thanks them for trusting him.

ian chooses not to come out to any other falcs only george. he’s mostly friends with the other rookies and they’re all young and cocky and...well, the ones making most of the questionable jokes in the locker room.

(i imagine there’s a fun moment when ian’s coming out to george where she’s all “oh, bittle? speedy little guy” and ian has no idea Why or How she knows that until he remembers that she would’ve watched his boyfriend’s tapes pretty closely while recruiting zimmboni)

(i also imagine a SUPER FUN moment when he comes out to her where he sort of chokes on his words and accidentally says “i’m dating zimmermann...’s friend, eric” and for a terrifying second george has to prepare herself for two of her boys dating each other)

and because ian doesn’t know the samwell crew, bittle doesn’t tell them about it at all. jack is his only friend with whom he can talk about ian.

so jack hears it all, the good, the bad. (luckily, not the gory details. southern gentlemen do not [REDACTED] and tell)

in the spring, things seem to get worse between ian and bittle. they’re both busier and there’s a lot of phone tag and missed connections and jack can see ian getting visibly frustrated with it. there are a few times he sees ian, when they’re out with the guys, straight-up declining bittle’s calls.

he tries to stay out of it. jack’s an adult, he doesn’t meddle or intervene in other people’s business. but. but. this is bittle. bittle’s happiness is more important to jack than almost anything.

(and wow that’s a lot for a guy who only recently realized he wanted to be bittle’s secret NHL boyfriend. but he’s an all-in kind of guy.)

around february (valentine’s day??) they have two off days in a row and jack’s pretty exhausted so he opts to spend it on his couch with microwaved pad thai and netflix documentaries. that is, until there’s a knock on his door.

and bittle’s there, tears on his cheeks, looking smaller and more vulnerable than jack’s ever seen him, babbling on and on incoherently. jack ushers him in and gets him tissues and a beer and manages to put together that ian broke up with bittle.

(which??? what a fucking idiot??? who even does that?? he’s bittle???)

and jack more or less says that. “why would he break up with you?” he genuinely asks. “you’re amazing.”

and bittle cries again and says something about the stress of hiding their relationship and not making their schedules line up and all jack can think is that if he had the chance with bittle, he’d do the fucking work to make that relationship solid, to make it work. he’s now rethinking his opinions on ian’s work ethic.

and pretty much jack plies bittle with beer and microwaved food and television and lets him rest his head in jack’s lap and strokes his hair all evening and tells him he’s way too good for ian.

(his mother was in a series of hit teen romances back in her day and jack maybe learned too much about dealing with boys and breakups from watching them as a child.)

part of jack thinks that this breakup will be the end of bittle coming down to providence every free weekend. but it isn’t, and he certainly doesn’t question it the next time bittle shows up at his place rambling on about wanting to check out a new patisserie downtown.

they eat too much and wander around the city talking about everything. that evening they take out indian food for dinner and jack runs through flash cards with bittle, then drives him home in time to join a party going on in their living room.

(jack crashes in bittle’s bed again. but it’s different, now that they’re both single and jack knows he’s in love. but it’s too soon and bittle probably not interested, so he falls asleep watching the rise and falls of bittle’s chest.)

things continue on like this all semester. sometimes jack brings tater to hang out at the haus. sometimes lardo comes with bittle to visit jack. luckily, ian isn’t a star player, so his name isn’t brought up too often around the haus to upset bittle (and how could it when there’s a literal shrine to mashkov being built in the living room, over the TV)

so the falcs are playing [insert team] here during the cup play offs or whatever (lol they play hockey in this comic what?) and jack gets checked mega hard, real bad, there’s blood and shit, definitely a concussion, maybe broken ribs and all that jazz. bad enough that everyone takes a knee and jack’s taken to the hospital.

(is that a thing in hockey? in lacrosse you gotta take a knee when someone’s really hurt but that sounds hard on skates idk)

ANYWAY jack’s out for the game (season?) and like he’s gonna be fine but there’s blood and bitty loses his shit

i’m talking, he’s fucking calling ian to make sure jack’s okay, ian whom he hasn’t spoken to since the breakup. luckily, they’re playing close by (providence? boston? idk how playoffs work, if they play in their home arenas or not) ANYWAY close enough that the samwell crew packs into holster’s mom-van and roadtrips to the hospital

they try to convince the nurses they’re jack’s family but like...no

shitty meets them there and is on the phone with bob, the only person who is at all calm because he knows these types of injuries well

and george is in the lobby and she sees bittle and has heard enough from both jack and ian that she likes the kid and manages to get him back to see jack (without his loud and huge cohort, unfortunately)

and bits cries the moment he sees jack in that hospital bed, even though he’s totally fine, bittle, don’t worry about it, just some cracked ribs and a concu-

he’s cut off by bittle kissing him, more out of relief than anything, because if jack is chirping him then he’s not dying and before bittle can realize what he’s done jack is reaching up and pulling him back in, kissing him as soundly as one with a moderate to severe concussion can.

and so since jack’s out for the rest of playoffs (and the falcs don’t make it much further without their lead scorer) he spends quite a bit of time, um, recuperating in bittle’s bed at samwell, and then in providence as bittle finds a last minute internship there for the summer.

so it starts about a year later, but it’s still the zimbits we know and love. but they’re a little more prepared. (jack has a fucking gameplan, based on everything that went wrong with ian. he’s got schedules for their skype dates. he’s ready to make this thing work forever)

(and it does.)

#zimbits #check please!#otp: hit me like a ray of sun #anna writes things

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