#chowder you could save the san jose sharks.

[likeshipsonthesea]

I just saw that post about what would you do if you became disgustingly rich and the one indulgence, but can you imagine that sort of conversation taking place between the frogs? Or even the house occupants? I feel like it would be an interesting avenue for a character study! Especially since recently you mentioned the whole low income to ivy league feels you can get out of Bitty and Dex!

{hey so sorry i took so long to respond to this! work got crazy andthen i moved my entire life back home in a nissan ultima that did not have enough room and then i spent theremaining time cuddling my cats.. so yeah, just watched kingsman for the firsttime, am IN LOVE, and ready to respond to an ask.. i don’t understand my braineither}

the above? written three days ago.. to you and to everyone who’s sent in asks/prompts, please know that i DO want to respond, but my brain has been half-dead recently and i’ve started a bunch of things but can’t seem to finish them (my drafts are unfortunately filling up and my desktop has like seven starts of wips and i am Tired) so i am going to do my best here to respond to this ask now

(also the link for the post referenced above is here and for my amended thoughts on bitty’s relationship to wealth see this add on to the post you mentioned in this ask)

i was going to write out a whole fic but it’s going to have to be a fic outline kind of thing because my brain is not in the Make Words mode rn so this is what we get..

i think the conversation starts on a random night when all the boys are in the haus, let’s set it during bitty’s softie year (so zimbits and shardo are not yet together, frogs are still in their first year, jack is still captain, you get it) and let’s make it a random night where they’re all hanging out but it’s not a kegster

maybe it’s the night after a kegster, a weekend, no game or anything, and there’s leftover tubjuice to get rid of so they cut it with some orange juice (a Bad Idea) and sit on the floor of the living room and just, like,, talk for hours. the kind of meandering, heavy-and-then-not kind of talks, where you feel comfortable and languid and forget what time is, for a bit. maybe you break out into showtunes for a while, maybe you play truth or dare. who knows. it’s great. and when you notice the sun has risen and you’re well and truly fucked, well. at least you have the memories to get you through the following day

so it’s one of those nights, yeah, and it hasn’t reached morning quite yet but it’s late, sometime after yesterday (”it doesn’t count as tomorrow until you fall asleep” shitty asserts, at six a.m., leaning heavily between jack and nursey with a joint hanging out of his mouth) and they’re all sitting around, in somewhat of a lull in conversation, where everyone’s relaxing somewhat into their seats and thinking about the last topic of conversation (top hats) or maybe the one before that (family dinners) and emotions are flowing strangely and nothing seems exactly real

and then someone, we don’t know who, puts it out there, says, “what do you think you’d do if you were rich?” and yeah we’ve got a bunch of college students in this economy in the room but, well, we’ve also got a room full of ivy kids (we know, at least, that shitty and nursey and jack are not strangers to this concept) so when people blink at the asker all, ‘i dunno man’ they clarify and say, “if you were stupidly rich, like, what would be the ridiculous thing you’d do? that the tabloids would report on, people would be outraged about, you know?”

and, well, that takes a moment.

after some thinking, bitty decides he’d want a ridiculously decked out kitchen, with a rotating pantry that’s always fully stocked (either by magic or a 24/7 team of shoppers, he hasn’t decided yet)

jack frowns for a long time (probably busy storing bitty’s idea for an anniversary present at a latter date, though he doesn’t know he’s in love with bits at the time) but eventually comes up with his own private hockey rink, except the ice is made of maple syrup.

(”how would that even work,” holster asks incredulously. ransom just fist-bumps jack solemnly. o’canada plays vaguely in the background)

holster decides he’d want to be carried everywhere (”what about the dudes from wall-e bro?” ransom asks, wide-eyed, and holster pats his shoulder. “i’d come down for leg day, bro, don’t worry.” dex is ignored in the background, throwing his hands up, utterly done)

ransom wants a smart-house, completely decked out with ai, and when shitty points out that movies say that ends with the house murdering him, ransom says that if he didn’t do everything a movie told him was bad, how would he ever have any fun in life? shitty frowns for a moment, confused, but eventually proceeds without questioning too hard.

shitty, on the other hand, wants his entire house to be a library. “i don’t know exactly how i’d organize it yet,” he says, “hopefully something clever, like shit books in the bathroom or something, but i have time to work out a system.” books would be stored in ridiculous places, like the microwave, or inside the couch, and finding them would be either a delightful surprise or a frustrating adventure. dex laments to no one in the background while nursey fist-bumps shitty in solidarity.

lardo says she’d buy housing developments, lower the rents to next-to-nothing, and paint ridiculously sized murals all over the walls, make sculptures out of skylines and left-behind furniture. (”hey that sounds nice, i thought the rules were we had to be ridiculous,” ransom protests. lardo grins. “let me finish”) she would eventually amass so much wealth and real estate that she would eventually buy entire countries, until she could rule the world as a benevolent dictator.

everyone in the room shivers, because they know it’s a possibility.

nursey, mellowing the tone, says he’d get a jetpack. he hates flying but he thinks he’d be okay knowing he’s in control, and he could travel anywhere he wanted without going through the hassle of an airport. “all i’d have to pay for is the fuel,” he says, grinning, and dex rolls his eyes. “yeah, and all the inevitably property damage resulting from you operating a flying machine.” nursey, very maturely, sticks his tongue out at dex in response.

dex, for his part, doesn’t really know what he’d do. he can’t imagine having enough money to spend it irresponsibly, at least not to that degree. securing his family, with houses and cars and savings accounts, securing himself. maybe going on some fun trips. buy a nice pair of shoes. “come on poindexter, one thing.” nursey pokes dex in the side and he squirms. “if you could pick one stupid, ridiculous thing to do with your money, what would it be?”

dex thinks, trying to be outrageous but also something he thinks he would enjoy. after a series of long moments, he decides. “i’d have a swimming pool installed in my house so i could swim from room to room without having to get out once.”

the room blinks. nursey grins and pats dex on the shoulder. “there ya go, you nerd.” dex smiles, pleased, and also now wanting exactly that.

chowder, who’s been waiting patiently the entire time, finally bursts out, very quickly, “i would buy the san jose sharks and an aquarium and once a year i would make them switch places.”

“how would that even…” ransom shakes his head. chowder is beaming too much to dim his spirits.

“on that note, y’all, i think it’s time to head to bed.”

the night sky is steadily lightening and a series of yawns disperse across the room. and then the team, like their author, rises from their spots, stretches, and leaves to find their bed, dreams of stupid wealth dancing in their heads.

thank you, and good night. ;)

[shitty-check-please-aus]

What do you think about an “i picked up your bag at the airport but i can’t find your number so i’m about to embark on the largest scavenger hunt of all time by using your strange belongings to track you down” au with charmer or nurseydex or zimbits or something??

Well, I don’t know if you expected three mini fics, and I didn’t fully follow the prompt, but here we are.

1. Charmer

Look, Chris knew it was dumb. He knew that everyone on earth had a plain black suitcase, he knew he should have double-checked the luggage tag, he knew it was important to be sure abut these things. But knowing what he should have done couldn’t help him when he finally got his suitcase home and opened it up to find mostly yoga pants and sundresses. 

Fuck.

He zipped the bag back up and flipped open the luggage tag. It was cute, pink with some metallic lettering saying “I’m outta here!” in a handwritten font. Chris blamed jetlag and the redeye flight for making him miss the fact that it wasn’t his Sharks tag. He blamed the bag’s owner for not filling out any of the information on the tag.

Dammit.

Well, sorry random girl, he thought. He opened the suitcase up again to try to see if he could find anything that would give him a clue as to who the suitcase owner was. He moved a makeup bag aside, and hit gold immediately. Well, Samwell red. A Women’s Volleyball tshirt– mystery suitcase girl had to be on the volleyball team.

“Hey Ransom!” he yelled. “You’re facebook friends with all the volleyball team right?”

“He’s friends with everyone on campus!” Holster yelled back.

“Ask their captain if anyone flew in from the Bay Area and lost their luggage!”

_X_

“Is Justin here? My captain said he’s got my suitcase.” Chris overheard her at the door. He grabbed the bag and started hauling it downstairs. As he set it down at the bottom and caught sight of the girl in the doorway, he froze. She was pretty. Like, really pretty. 

“Um, hi,” he said.

“So you’re Justin? Oh my god, I’m so glad it wasn’t some total rando who got my bag.” 

“I’m actually Chris, Justin was just the one who was friends with your captain. Um, I’m sorry, but I kind of had to look through your stuff? Your luggage tag wasn’t filled out.” The girl laughed.

“Yours wasn’t either! Me and my teammates were like one minute away from googling the record holder for most San Jose Sharks merch, but it totally makes sense that you’re on the hockey team.” 

“Since we both forgot to write our numbers down, maybe we should do that now?” Chris suggested. The girl grinned, grabbed his phone out of his hand, and opened up a new contact. She punched in a number, and when she handed it back he saw a text of several random emojis addressed to the new contact of “Caitlin Farmer” with a girl farmer emoji and a volleyball emoji.

“Text me sometime, and maybe we can get dinner?” she said, and she was gone with her suitcase. 

Chris collapsed on the couch, a dreamy look in his eyes.

“Chowder? You get your suitcase back?” Bitty called out from the kitchen.

“Yeah! and I think I’m in love now!”

2. Nurseydex

“Cheryl, I’m telling you, I had a ton of inspiration on the plane and I wrote some great stuff for act three. No. No, it wasn’t just me thinking it’s great because I popped some melatonin and got really sleepy. It’s like, legit. Yeah, I’ll send it over as soon as I get home and–”

Derek slammed into something. If he’d been holding his phone in his hand (bluetooth is a blessing when you drop stuff easily) it would have launched across the airport. As it was, his post-flight latte was soaking through the nice white shirt of the handsome stranger in front of him.

“Shit,” the stranger said, looking down to survey the damage.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have trusted myself to make a phone call and not be clumsy after such a long flight,” Derek said. He set his briefcase down and pulled a wad of napkins out of the outside pocket. The guy took a deep breath, going from murderous to calm in a few seconds. 

“I wasn’t looking where I was going either, it’s not your fault,” the guy said, setting down his own briefcase and accepting the napkins. He blotted at his shirt.

“Let me pay for the dry cleaning. Or a replacement,” Derek offered. The man shook his head.

“It’s fine, it probably needed to go to the cleaners anyways.” He checked his watch. “If I run, I can probably get a new one before my meeting.” He wadded the napkins into one big ball, picked up his briefcase, and walked towards the exit with a terse nod. Derek, feeling terrible about the whole thing, picked up his own briefcase and walked to baggage claim.

By the time he was reunited with his home office, a cozy bookshelf-lined room in his brownstone, he had almost forgotten about the coffee incident. He was focused on sending the manuscript to Cheryl. Unfortunately, that was going to be difficult, considering he pulled a PC laptop out of the bag instead of his Mac.

Derek stared at the computer for a full minute. He almost couldn’t believe that this was happening to him. Hesitantly, he opened the laptop. On one side of the keyboard there was a weird thing that a few seconds of phone googling told him was a fingerprint scanner. Shit. He hit the space bar experimentally. Something flashed on the screen, and then was replaced with just a plain black screen with red text: ACCESS DENIED

Derek swore. He started to look through the rest of what was in the briefcase, but was disappointed to find it empty except for the laptop’s charger, three packs of gum, and receipts from a lobster shack in Maine. Shit. Nothing in here would tell him anything about the redhead he’d launched a latte at. 

He closed the laptop dejectedly, ignored his editor’s text messages, and went into the kitchen to make himself lunch and feel sorry for himself. This was the universe punishing him for covering a cute guy with coffee. If he had just kept his focus and waited to call his editor later, he could have sent the draft along and saved it and not be desperately trying to remember his inspiration.

Just as the self-pity spiral was really taking off, the doorbell rang. Derek sighed, put down his tea, and walked to the door. When he opened it, it wasn’t Girl Scouts or Jehovah’s Witnesses, but the guy from the airport.

“Cancel whatever you’re doing today, I need to teach you the most basic principles of digital security,” the guy said, pushing past Derek into the dining room. He shoved a stack of papers onto a chair and pulled Derek’s laptop out.

“I’m Will, by the way, I make software that’s hopefully a step ahead of viruses.”

“Is the draft still there?”

“The draft of what?” The guy looked confused.

“My third act breakthrough. I’m a novelist, I need to get it to my editor and I couldn’t remember if I saved it,” Derek explained.

“You know you can set up an auto-save every five minutes or so, right?” Will asked.

“This might be surprising to you, but I’ve never had a cute guy storm into my house and yell at me about computers before.” Will looked up from Derek’s computer, blushing.

“I haven’t had a cute guy dump a gallon of coffee all over me and steal my laptop before, either, but here we are.”

“Maybe you can yell about computers over lunch with me?”

3. Zimbits

Button downs. Tank tops. Slacks. Shorts. Three rolling pins. A pie tin. A half-emptied multipack of sharpies.

No lucky puck. No clothes in his size. No jerseys.

Jack sighed. It would just be too much to ask for anything to go well today. He picked up his phone to call someone with the Falconers, in the hope that they could talk to the airline and sort all this out. At the same time, his phone lit up with Tater’s face.

“Zimmboni! Look on twitter. Small internet baker has your suitcase!” Tater hung up before he could reply, so Jack just opened twitter instead. 

omgcheckplease: A bunch of pucks, some dirty jerseys, and a history textbook. Either I’m back in college or this isn’t my suitcase.

omgcheckplease: .@falcsofficial please tell your #1 player to DM me and come get his shit

omgcheckplease: and @falcsofficial tell him to give me my shit back. my hockey days are in the past, I need rolling pins, not a mouthguard

Jack smiled and laughed in the way a person laughs when they’re alone, just blowing more air than normal out of his nose. He looked through the twitter for a minute– the guy, Eric Bittle, was a Providence-based chef, whose latest tweets were mostly greetings to the various cities he’d been visiting on tour. Jack clicked the media tab on the account, and looked through the pictures. Bittle was cute. He wrote a reply.

zimmboni: .@omgcheckplease how do I send u a DM

omgcheckplease: .@zimmboni you don’t deserve to be verified, oh my god #verifybittle2k17

A few seconds later another notification popped up, and he tapped it to be brought to a DM window.

omgcheckplease: hey! sorry about the mixup. I can only imagine how confused you were to find all my book tour stuff.

zimmboni: Probably as confused as you were finding hockey stuff?

omgcheckplease: I wasn’t joking in my tweets, I did play hockey before I got into the whole cookbook/food show thing

zimmboni: Exactly, I did a book tour last year in the off-season :-)

omgcheckplease: oh my gosh, isn’t it the best and the worst?

zimmboni: I know. It’s great to meet people and talk about your work, but it’s exhausting.

omgcheckplease: that’s why I’m so excited to be back in Providence! at least until the next cookbook.

zimmboni: Well we should probably meet up to trade suitcases. Want to meet somewhere for dinner?

omgcheckplease: don’t trust me to learn where your house is?

zimmboni: I mean, if dinner goes well enough…

omgcheckplease: OH. okay, then, Mr. Zimmermann, it’s a date.

Jack smiled to himself, and got ready for his date.