#in which bitty and jack think about each other or whatever

[parvuls]

omgcp characters + siblings headcanons

bitty - canonically an only child.

jack - canonically an only child.

shitty - I have this very specific headcanon about shitty's mom remarrying and shitty having a teenaged half-sister, who he fucking adores but who unfortunately thinks he's embarrassing as fuck. the only times she willingly has a conversation with him is when he brings lardo over (because lardo is cool).

lardo - has older brothers energy. you can't fight this. I'd say she has at least one older brother, and they get along pretty well. they don't talk much when she's at school, but they have an ongoing facebook chat exchange where they send each other dumb memes and funny cat videos.

ransom - according to the wiki, has two sisters. is most likely the eldest sibling and likes to lie to himself that he's their protective older brother, but honestly they could take him in a fight no problem. talks to his sisters the most out of the guys (his pregame routine includes facetiming them). EDITED: oops, it's actually canon he has one older sister and one younger one. I maintain that he still thinks he's their protective brother, and is still incredibly wrong about it.

holster - according to the wiki, has three sisters. gives off major middle child vibes, and no I will not take criticism on this. I would actually say he's a middle child and has a twin sister, if I didn't think he'd make having a twin sister his whole personality and mention her constantly.

chowder - canonically has a sister. I think he's the younger sibling and can most definitely be the annoying younger sibling when he's in the mood. does things like boast to his friends about how cool and accomplished his sister is and then go home and pull third-grade pranks on her all summer vacation. he's that "I can call her names because she's my sister but nobody else is allowed!!" brother.

nursey - has a much younger brother, like almost ten years younger. isn't and never was chill about this fact. when he goes home for breaks he's all like yeah whatever we'll probably have to do kid shit because of my baby bro but is then on the verge of tears when his brother tackle-hugs him as soon as he gets home. has one (1) picture in a full on elf costume from when he took his brother to the mall to see santa, and dex and chowder make sure everyone and their dog has seen that pic.

dex - canonically has a brother. probably has a whole bunch of brothers and sisters, like, at least four - so is the fourth out of five siblings, two of which are sisters and two are brothers. they all demand more attention than him, either because they're the perfect child or because they're the demon child, so he has that forgotten middle child syndrome. shared a bedroom with a sibling until he left for college and most definitely has hilarious life-long issues because of it.

[thistidalwave]

questions for fic writers

wow just noticed @softbrah tagged me in this....how fun! let's go!

How many works do you have on ao3?

120! that's since 2011.

What’s your total ao3 word count?

1,222,928. dear god.

What fandoms do you write for?

currently we deep in the k-pop trenches, collecting lil blorbos with compelling narratives and dynamics to smack together like dolls. specifically i've been writing for Seventeen lately, and previously for TXT and BTS, and because i am me, i write niche inter-band shit and collected a couple soloists to throw in for seasoning.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Addicted (to loving you) (Teen Wolf scott/stiles. no, idk either. please don't read it.)

pictures in frames of kisses on cheeks (checkpls bitty/jack/kent. pure fluff no substance the people love it)

love doesn't come in boxes (checkpls bitty/jack)

something good and right and real (hockey rpf benn/seguin, cowritten with @aperfect20)

drop everything now (hockey rpf bgally/agally, cowritten with @aperfect20. listen. these hockey fics are of their time and now they'll never leave the first page sorted by kudos.)

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

yes, all the time! it takes negligible time and brain power for me, and i like to let people know how much i appreciated hearing their thoughts, even when it was just a thank you and then we're in a lil awkward thanking circle.

What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

ok, i think it just has to be a tie between "only time is ours" and "34 Days", which are check please kent/jack fics about the same pre-canon break-up events, the first from jack's pov and the second from kent's (tho iirc they have different interpretations of events beyond the pov switch, too). they are inherently angsty bc absolutely nothing is good at the end of them.

What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

this is so hard to decide, bc i primarily write romcoms and by the end of them if your teeth aren't rotting i did it wrong. i will give a shoutout to "doesn't matter what we do", a bts jimin/j-hope that is all about just Letting Urself Be Soulmates and then grossing out ur bandmates about it.

Do you get hate on fics?

no, thank god.

Do you write smut?

yes i have been known to write filth. sometimes the romcom plot calls for it. i'm horrible at pwp bc i'm always giving it plot, but u kno, sometimes the spirit moves me and i manage it.

Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

crossovers of fandoms that have nothing to do with each other actually kind of squick me - i'm talking crossovers where characters who have never and will never meet are there for no reason (think superwholock tbh, tho i was uncharacteristically a lil into that at the time), not fusions or big universes with diff shows or whatever. it's just not for me!

but in terms of things where it's less drastic (crossing over bands in k-pop, for example) i am all over that, bc there's interesting stuff from real life there! my craziest example atm is a baekho/jun fic, and like, it's not that crazy!

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

i don't think so!

Have you ever had a fic translated?

yes, it's always so awesome that someone wants to take the time to do that.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

yessssss, my favourite way to create fic.

What’s your all-time favorite ship?

this is an extremely insensitive thing to ask a ship whore like me. there are some ships that REALLY set my brain on fire over the years, though. check pls kent/jack drives me insane to this day. harry styles/nick grimshaw was So compelling. 2012 oilers "kid line" (nugent-hopkins/hall/eberle) went off.

often fandom really makes these ships worth it to talk about and inspires me to contribute. i am often very compelled by one character in particular and just ship them with everyone possible so i can examine all their sides.

What’s a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

hmmmm if i WANT to finish it, i probably will. there are things that i ended up abandoning, though. one of those i'm still kinda sad about was a dylan/mitch/auston sequel to my connor/rystro.

What are your writing strengths?

i write realistic dialogue and i'm great at characterization (shoutout to the mean comment i got circa 2010 telling me to get good at characterization. i did. thanks.) my voice has always been strong, too.

What are your writing weaknesses?

i sometimes slack on depicting the interior emotions of characters. i'm not great with setting or exposition because the brand of fanfic i tend to write isn't a great place to practice those skills. i try to find places to do it, though!

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

it's the norm in k-pop fandom to drop in localization things like honorifics, and i like it because it can communicate relationships between the characters and so that it's not SO divorced from the context the idols actually live in. this is such a weirdly specific question, idk what else to say about it lmao

First fandom you wrote for?

twilight. bless her.

Favorite fic you’ve written?

choosing between my children? ok. at the moment i'm quite fond of too real to call it magic, a contemporary fantasy au where the main character is stuck in a dream. i felt really good about what i did with the themes and setting of the source material (a mv, so you're only 3mins and a quick google of the main characters' names away from reading this fic!) and the way i developed the relationship. it's underrated af bc it's a niche pairing.

i will tag @aperfect20 since i already tagged her in the text of the post. no pressure tho.

[appalamutte]

A bag is dropped in the chair across from Eric, and when he looks up from his phone and half-cold bowl of pasta, he finds Camilla Collins standing before him.

“Oh,” he says through a mouthful of penne, struggling to swallow it as quick as possible. It hurts a bit when he finally gets it down. “Hi, there!”

Camilla goes to sit down beside her bag and smiles sweetly over at him. “Hey. Eric, right?”

“Yup, though everyone really just calls me Bitty -- because of my last name, not my size.” Eric screams internally. “Anyway, you didn’t need to know that, sorry.”

Camilla just chuckles and props her elbows onto the table, resting her head on her fist. She’s staring at him like she knows something, but her gaze still looks a bit inquisitive. It’s disconcerting, really. Eric knows she’s Jack’s ex, or ex-hook up, or whatever. Holster and Ransom always mention her at Haus parties when Jack’s clockwork absence is noticed, drunkenly cheering about finally getting her back in bed, and Shitty has vaguely confirmed they were involved with each other on more than one occasion. But no one has ever given Eric a straight answer on Jack’s and Camilla’s history.

It’s not like he’s been able to ask about it much, though, either. Eric’s pretty sure Shitty’s starting to pick up on his hopeless schoolground crush with all the questions, and he can’t even look Lardo in the eye when Camilla’s name is brought up anymore. He can only say a silent prayer of relief that Holster and Ransom are too preoccupied with personal endeavors to notice anything, because he’s certain he’d never hear the end of it from them if they knew.

And no matter what, having said crush’s ex-something sitting before him makes the pasta Eric just swallowed sit uneasily in his stomach.

“Bitty, that’s cute,” Camilla says, and it’s not condescending in any way. “You’re on the hockey team, right? With Jack?”

Eric tries to give a humored smile. “What, do I not look the part?”

“Not at all,” Camilla easily smiles with him, “but I like that. There’s too many meatheads on that team. We’ve been needing someone like you for a long time.”

“Hah, yeah,” Eric says, absentmindedly twisting his fork in the pasta, “good thing I’m here then. Those boys finally have actual dinners rather than microwaved bagel bites. And that kitchen when I moved in? An absolute biohazard, lemme tell you. I think I spent a week scrubbing everything, and another full day just cleaning the inside of the fridge. There was also a cabinet solely for sriracha, and, like, really? I think they had at least thirty bottles of it.”

Eric knows he’s babbling on now, but Camilla has this sparkle in her eye and she’s listening so intently that Eric has to catch himself from letting more unnecessary words tumble out. “And now I’m just rambling,” he finishes with an awkward laugh, “sorry about that.”

“You don’t have to apologize so much,” Camilla tells him, “it’s cute. You’re cute.”

Eric blinks and, with the way she’s looking at him, blurts: “Are you hitting on me?”

“What?” Camilla sits back suddenly. They just stare at each other, both wide-eyed, before they both laugh loud enough for the tables around them to turn their heads. Eric laughs, and laughs, and he thinks at some point Camilla is still laughing just because he’s still laughing. He can’t stop, though. Her laugh is light and airy, a melodic sound that matches everything else about her. It’s nearly perfect. And Eric’s own sounds too shrill and uncontrolled, so he just laughs harder because his heart is plummeting and when he stops it’ll be all too real that he’ll never stand a chance with Jack -- especially if he really was with Camilla at some point.

Which is pathetic because Jack is straight. His ex sitting before Eric with blinding beauty is only adding insult to that injury.

Finally, after too long, Eric wipes at the tears in his eyes and takes a shaky breath. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to ask that,” he says when they’ve calmed down enough. “I don’t know why I even did.”

“I was coming on pretty strong, wasn’t I?” Camilla runs a hand through her hair, pushing it out of her face in the process. They have the same hair color. “I’m sorry for that.”

“No -- don’t apologize!”

She waves a hand dismissively, and Eric watches it, unable to stop from comparing his calloused ones to her soft-looking ones. “Anyway, I just wanted to come by and meet you for myself. Jack told me you’d be here.”

Eric nods and desperately tries not to blush. His cheeks heat up anyway. “Yeah, cold pasta always helps after bio lecture.”

“I bet,” Camilla says, and there’s that glint in her eyes again when she continues: “I’ve heard a lot about you, Bitty.”

“You have?”

“Yeah. He’d be stupid not to go for you.” At first, Eric thinks he wasn’t supposed to hear that with how quiet her voice fell. But then her gaze quickly drops down to his body, then to his hair, before meeting his eyes again, and he’s definitely meant to hear: “He really does have a type, too.”

Eric blinks, opens his mouth but finds he can’t say anything, and Camilla bids him farewell with a promise that he come by and watch a tennis match sometime. Maybe he waves, though he isn’t sure. He just watches her leave, winding through the tables until she’s out the door and there’s nothing but his rapidly beating heart and bright red cheeks left in her wake.

He has a type? 

Then, twisting up the cold pasta in his stomach one more time:

Who’s he?

[pridetape]

OK WHAT IF bitty takes a couple years to work and save money before starting college

in this scenario the frogs would actually be a year above bitty and !!!! im so excited by that! how would that dynamic be!! at this point i think bitty would have gained a lot of confidence compared to if he started college at 18, but if he was in madison for 2 years then its not as much growth as 2 years at samwell…

i want dex and bitty to Bond on an even deeper level i think that friendship could have SUCH an interesting story. like they are both so FIERY and we dont rly get to see them interact one on one in the comic!! they would probably date and be chaos boyfriends before totally blowing up the relationship and realising they work better as friends and then would absolutely be Those Gays. That One Ex-Couple who remain connected at the hip. you know the type we’re all friends with a gay ex-couple who are just Like That. their in-jokes have in-jokes and they wingman each other but then sometimes drunkenly make out with each other and its all very messy and intimidating. (nursey has a hell of a time trying to date dex with All That going on and is frankly relieved when bitty starts mooning over jack and stops acting fake flirty with dex)

and u know chowder would absolutely take bitty under his wing in the way bitty did with the frogs in the original timeline! chowder definitely arrived at samwell with a lot of enthusiasm and desire to fit in and be liked and i think would see the same in bitty when he arrived a year later. they would become Best Friends for sure. (also chowder would be captain. fight me)

i think bitty and nursey wouldn’t really know how to be friends at first like they wouldn’t dislike each other they just wouldn’t really click? (especially whilst dex and bitty are together and then not-together-but-still-intimidating as described above. because nursey has been holding a flame for dex since year 1) but then one time nursey shares a joint with bitty and they start talking about their experiences being queer, and bitty confesses his complicated feelings about dex and how he knows they arent good together romantically but they sometimes cling on to each other despite themselves because of insecurities… and nursey confesses he has a crush on dex….. and bitty confesses that dex has a crush on nursey!! and after that feel a lot more at ease with each other :))

lardo + ransom + holster would be in their final year when bitty is in first year in this timeline! i think their relationships would all be kind of the same just wouldn’t get as much time to develop

howEVER. l+r+h would talk about their friends shitty and jack a LOT. and would host watch parties at the haus for falconers games. but bitty is oblivious and doesn’t make the connection for WEEKS. UNTIL!!! jack and shitty come to watch an smh home game and then hang out after and bitty’s jaw hits the floor when he finally realises that “our friend jack” is jack ZIMMERMANN. and bitty has to go hide for a while cos he feels so stupid about it (rsd is a bitch) — but then… :) jack runs into him somehow idk details whatever and :)) starts talking to him about the game!! and hes all “that was a really good game, bittle” and “nice assist in the second” and “you’re pretty quick out there eh?” and “you uh, you have soft hands” and also oh dear lord jack is so hot up close and his voice is so deep and gentle and that accent could read bedtime stories bitty is bright red and just about ready to die from the combined embarrassment and ego boost

and then obviously jack becomes really invested in bitty’s playing. which is totally normal. its his old team. its totally normal, right? bittle plays good hockey. jack totally watches the other smh players with the same focus as he watches bitty. totally normal

and of course jack and bitty happen to be in the same smh group chat. so its totally normal when jack texts bitty to congratulate him after a game. his phone number was right there! and the way his stomach flips when bitty texts back is totally! normal! and its so normal when they start texting regularly and its like so not a big deal when jack starts to visit the haus regularly and its all completely normal and fine!

and when the falconers win the cup that year and jack invites smh to party with the team and they all wind up back at jacks apartment and jack and bitty end up kissing — well, actually, that’s pretty extraordinary

[montrealmadison]

drink deeply

or, as they say at samwell, “penitus potes.” shitty gives the toast at jack and bitty’s wedding. for @zimbitsweddingofficial and day two of zimbits wedding week: the wedding itself!

just for fun, a draft version of the beginning of this fic with lardo, ransom, and holster’s “helpful” edits can be found via google doc here. hope y’all enjoy! <3

Good evening, everyone! On behalf of Jack and Eric, thank you all so much for being here tonight, and welcome to what could very well be the most highly anticipated wedding reception of 2019. I mean, this party was planned by the likes of Suzanne Bittle and Alicia Zimmermann. We are in for a treat, folks.

Before we get to all that, I’d also like to extend a particular welcome to those in attendance who are part of the playing, coaching, and/or office staff of the Providence Falconers. Glad you could all make it this evening; I know this past week was a little bit busy for you guys.

[Insert appropriate pause and gesture to the punch bowl, which on closer inspection is actually—oh yeah—the Stanley Cup the Falcs won three days ago. Hold for inevitable applause, general hysteria, and/or hooting/hollering from Tater.]

For those of you who don’t know me, I’ve been trying to decide whether I should introduce myself by my first name, which will inevitably get me mocked by my friends until the end of time, or by my nickname, which will definitely scandalize anyone who has not spent a significant amount of time around twenty-year-old guys who play hockey. However, as I look around the room, I’m realizing that most of you probably either raised, spent significant time around, or were once a twenty-year-old guy who played hockey. To the rest of you, I am profoundly sorry.

So, hi! I’m Shitty, and I’m Jack’s best man.

read more below or on ao3

Being someone’s best man, as I’ve realized over the last few months, should really come with a playbook or an instruction manual or something, because it’s a task unlike any other you’ll ever take on. In addition to being a friend, you have to be a confidant, an expert at bachelor-party debauchery (I think my college resume definitely prepared me for this part) and someone who’s not afraid to step in to make last-minute decisions so the grooms don’t have to. You also have to do all of these things without getting fired from your job or stepping on anyone’s toes, up to and including: the couple getting married, the other people in the wedding party, the grooms’ parents, the wedding planner, and most importantly, Moomaw, whose word is law around here. 

(Seriously. She made the pie tonight, people. Bow down to her.)

But as much as the role can feel a little bit like you’re being thrown in at the deep end, it also definitely comes with its perks. Tonight, I have both the honor and the challenge of somehow summarizing how much I love Jack and Eric in a speech that is heartfelt and witty yet also brief so that we can get to the aforementioned pie as quickly as possible. If you’re still following me here, that is a tall order—but here goes nothing!

I met Jack Zimmermann on our first day of freshman year at Samwell, during the bright, hot summer of 2011. I was participating in the time-honored tradition of moving into a dorm on the third floor of a building with no elevator and no air conditioning in the middle of August. It builds character, or so the good folks in Samwell administration probably tell themselves. Anyway, athletes got to move in early for preseason, so I was expecting to be one of the only guys on the floor for at least a couple days. I was just carrying the last box into my room when the door next to mine opened and—well, you can probably guess who walked out.

Now, I grew up in Boston, which means I also grew up around hockey culture. I’d heard the news that Jack was coming to Samwell, so I knew who he was when he stepped into the hall in that same vague way that you kind of-sort of recognize celebrities hustling down the street or through the airport with their sunglasses on. And he gave me that same vibe—“I know you know who I am, and I’d very much like not to be bothered about it.”

Here is something that will not shock you if you know us: Jack was the first friend I made in college. Here is something that might shock you if you know us: That definitely doesn’t mean we were friends at first. By his own admission, Jack wasn’t at Samwell to make friends at all. He told me, much later, that he was only planning to go to play hockey, get his life back on track, and keep his head down as much as possible.

So in retrospect, maybe it was an unlucky thing for Jack that he ran into the one person who wasn’t going to let him do that.

Because no matter who you are or where you’re from, freshman year of college breeds a unique kind of terror I’ve never felt anywhere else. There’s a lot of pressure to completely remake yourself, to become the person you maybe never could have been in your hometown. By coming to Samwell, I wanted to be a different kind of kid than the one that Andover had raised. Jack wanted to be a different kind of kid than the one he’d spent twenty years telling himself he had to be. As much as neither of us wanted to admit it, we both wanted similar things out of our college experience, and we needed a support system to do that. And so, however begrudging the two of us were about it at first, we started to bond more and more.

It wasn’t always easy. For one thing, my idea of a good time was a lot louder than Jack’s—who enjoyed such scintillating pursuits as “watching golf” and “going to bed at a reasonable hour”, neither of which were quite in my vocabulary at the ripe old age of eighteen. Also, if it’s before six in the morning, he has a hard time remembering to speak English, which used to make for a lot of stilted conversations between the two of us as we walked to early morning practice. (On a completely unrelated note, the first and probably only thing I ever learned in Québécois is how to swear.)

I don’t remember the exact tipping point at which Jack and I really became friends; I think it was more of a quiet acknowledgment that we liked having each other around, that we balanced each other out in ways that neither of us initially knew we needed. What I do know is that, slowly but surely, I started to get glimpses of the Jack that exists off the ice. And so began one of the most extraordinary journeys of my life, because the only thing crazier than knowing Jack Zimmermann is actually knowing Jack.

Here are some things that I’ve learned in the process: He’s on his third pair of neon yellow running shoes, which he buys specifically because the color makes him happy. Before either of us tried Eric’s pies, the only thing that could make him cheat on a meal plan was a sleeve of Double Stuf Oreos. (Don’t ask him how to eat them correctly unless you’re interested in a twenty-minute speech on exactly how they have to be pulled apart.) And he loves Captain America, although it is the opinion of this best man that America’s ass has nothing on his hockey butt. Have you seen that thing? It has Internet fans in at least two different countries. 

But I digress.

In our sophomore year we lived next to each other again, by choice instead of by chance, in what I can only describe as the pinnacle of American college living: the Samwell Men’s Hockey Haus. We used to pull the comforter off of one of our beds and climb out onto the roof and clear off the snow so we could share the blanket, look up at the stars, and listen to the bass thumping through the wall of the house next door. On nights when other things felt confusing, this one part of my life was clear. There’s something about sitting out under the open sky that just makes it easier to talk to a guy, you know? 

Some nights the conversations we had were funny. Some nights they were serious. Some nights we said nothing at all, just sat secure in the knowledge that someone cared enough to exist alongside us for a little while. There was always an unspoken agreement between us on nights like these: I got your back. For me, Jack’s friendship became a rock, a refuge. It’s something that I came to depend on that year and still do to this day.

As for the content of those late-night conversations—well, some things do have to stay between friends. I’m sure Jack will agree, especially because he has so graciously allowed me to get up here and lovingly roast him just a little bit.

So let’s skip ahead again, to yet another August, the start of our junior year, and the arrival on the scene of one Eric Bittle. This kid burst into our ranks like a ray of Southern sunshine and turned pretty much everything upside down in the process. In the first five minutes of being in the Haus, he somehow made us a pie? Folks, I'm not kidding, it was the best thing I’ve ever eaten. We were a bunch of guys who didn’t know what we were missing until we had it, and let me tell you, it was one hell of a semester after that. In pretty short order we had curtains on the windows and baked goods on the counters, and Samwell Men’s Hockey started to become not only a team but a family.

That was off the ice, at least. On it, things were a little more complicated. As our dear friend and former goalie John Johnson said to me, Jack and Eric hadn’t gone through their character development yet—whatever that means. 

Take our third or fourth practice with the full team that year, for example. It had gone… uh. Poorly, would be a word. Later that night I heard some rustling on the roof outside, and God knows I was willing to do just about anything but my homework—so I stuck my head out the window and there was Jack, watching the stars. I asked him if he wanted a buddy, and he said alright, so I slid out and sat down next to him.

That was pretty usual for us at this point. What wasn’t usual was the topic of conversation. The first thing Jack said to me was, “Bittle’s gonna get eaten alive when our schedule starts.” (Remember, people, they’re married now!) The second was, “I want to help.”

Here’s another thing about Jack: Underneath the veneer is a guy who just cares so intensely it’d shock you if you knew nothing else about him. It shocked me a little that day. I think it even shocked him to admit it, to the point where I had to say, “Jack, it’s not a criminal offense to care about other people. Even if it feels like you’re doing it for yourself.”

So he helped. He offered an olive branch, and Bits took him up on it. I’d hear the two of them get up in the morning, hours before the rest of us had to be at Faber, for checking practice. None of the rest of us ever knew exactly what went down, but one thing was for sure—Eric put in a ton of work to overcome some of the fears that had followed him to college. He got better, and Jack relaxed. The two of them really started working as a team, and things started looking up from there.

The day that they told us they were dating was pretty amazing. Eric is so full of light no matter how bleak a situation may look, but that day he was literally almost glowing. And I’ve seen Jack in moments after victory and loss, at his best and at his worst. But I’ve never seen a Jack who was so happy, possessed of such confidence in a decision he’d made, as I saw him that day at brunch. And that’s when I knew this relationship was really special. 

From there, many of you know the story. You watched it play out on ESPN and social media and the front pages of every single gossip magazine on the supermarket shelves. But if you’re sitting here with us tonight, you also watched it play out between Jack and Eric themselves. You’ve watched them handle expectations as a united front. You’ve watched their unfailing dedication to each other while they navigate the pressure of being some pretty big firsts. You know that, behind the scenes, these are two incredibly genuine people who  bring out the best in each other and are dedicated to doing that every single day.

In the last four years, I’ve watched Eric become self-possessed and confident because he was given the space to do so. In the last six years, I’ve watched Jack grow from a kid with a chip on his shoulder and something to prove to a guy who finally believes that he deserves all the good things the world has given him and then some. If you take nothing else away from this speech, I want you to know this: I’m incredibly proud to call myself a friend to both of them.

Jack, Bits, you’re always gonna be my brothers, my best friends, and two of the finest damn men I’ve ever had the pleasure to know. I wish you both a long and happy marriage. Take care of each other, be good to each other, and never forget where you started—as a team.

So please join me in raising your glasses, everyone, and as they say at Samwell—penitus potes to Jack and Eric!

[we-are-inevitable]

okay i saw your post about jack drawing/painting on davey but i must ask. how did they start doing this?? did jack ask davey if he could draw on his hand, or did davey offer his hand to jack because he knew he needed it? what were the circumstances of this?

i feel like, if davey is really nervous, jack will start drawing on his hand and pretend its for him because he knows it calms davey down

anyway i LOVE this idea have a wonderful day jac

AHHHHHHHH I DIDN'T EVEN THINK OF THESE BUT NOW I AM

It all starts as a joke.

Originally, Jack just says, "Hey, give me your hand."

Davey does it of course, because he can't deny Jack anything- he's his best friend, after all.

So, Jack just draws a little smiley face on Davey’s thumb, then releases his hand and shoots him this proud little smile, and David is confused, but he smiles back.

At that point, they're sophomores, and the doodles only progress over the years.

Jack draws everything on Davey. Animals, stars, little comics, dicks ("Jack, what the fuck? That's sharpie!" "Just go get some hand sanitizer! I'm blessin' you with my artistic abilities, and you--" "I hate you."), inside jokes... everything.

As Jack gets older, and as everything around him gets more turbulent, his doodles soon turn into full drawings on Davey's hands/forearms.

And Davey let's it happen, because he sees that Jack needs an outlet, and it... it feels good, being so close to Jack all the time. So intimate, even when there are lunchtime conversations raging around them.

Plus, it helps him, too. Because when Jack is overwhelmed, then Davey is probably close behind him- and it's a good little thing for them both, because the only people that matter in those moments are each other.

When Jack finally asks Davey out, he does it by writing, "Will you go out with me?" in really pretty handwriting on the back of Davey’s hand.

Obviously it works, because this thing- the doodling- turns into their thing.

They start spending even more time around each other, which is where the makeup/painting sessions happen.

So, Davey will sit pretty for Jack and let Jack paint his back, his shoulders, his chest, his face- whatever Jack needs in order to execute his latest idea. That, in turn, also means that Davey is a pretty frequent face on Jack’s art account, alongside Katherine, Charlie, and Jack himself.

It's fun, it lets Jack practice his skills, it lets Jack dive into the world of photography and editing, it gives Davey some amazing photos of himself... and it's something that all started with a little bitty smiley face drawn on a thumb.

[camilliar]

recs for someone new to omgcp

[February 2021.]

Reading, or not reading, OMGCP fics has come up in a couple of conversations I’ve had recently with artists newish to the fandom (ie. @jovishark; @decafffff), who are making OMGCP art (!!!) but haven’t started exploring fic -- but maybe want to? Which of course reminded me that I’ve never bothered to make an actual, concrete recs list for this fandom. So, I mean. Here is one.

The approach is, what do I think about when I think about OMGCP fanfic? What comes to mind, what stands out to me? I have excluded some very popular fics. Some of these I just don’t think are very good, and others I do think are good, and/or I enjoy them, but I don’t see why you’d need me, specifically, to recommend them. I am thinking of a story like maybe i’m waking up, which I discuss below because I link to a podfic of it. It has a lot of merits, to be sure, but it’s the second-most-read fic in this fandom by hits, and it’s got thousands of comments, and it’s by an author whose work is relatively widely praised and circulated. I am not sure what telling you more about this fic will add to the conversation; if you want to find and read it, you inevitably will. I’m happy to, say, answer asks about these kinds of fics, or talk more generally about them via DM or whatever. Feel free.

Also, I don’t think there’s a point to pretending to be objective about fanfic; this list has a perspective and that perspective is mine. In this fandom I largely read stories that navigate the tension around Jack, Bitty, and Parse, in various permutations. This is not to say that I’ve never read fic about the frogs, or that I have no interest at all in other pairings, but I am by no means an expert on Dex/Nursey and can really only speak to the one fic about them that sticks out to me because it goes beyond being merely Dex/Nursey and does something else. This is just to say that I am sure there are great and interesting fics about other things and ideas--but I’m not the person to hear about those from.

Likewise, I’m not super interested in stories that really reproduce that which is already in OMGCP. I like Zimbits--albeit maybe not in the ways or for the reasons most fans would--but I do not really need to see endless iterations of the same story about them falling in love and being cute together. I don’t think these stories are bad or they shouldn’t exist or that they have no merit by default. Still, I don’t need fanfic to give me more OMGCP. I need fanfic to complicate, to comment on, and to transform OMGCP. Many people don’t work like this! Totally okay! But I can’t rec you fics that do that.

What I have noticed, however, is that over time there appears to have been a shift in how people do write fic for this fandom. (Other than, you know, increases and decreases in activity pending the status of the comic, pairings going in and out of vogue, and so on.) Early on, say during Y1 and Y2, the comic was about the group of friends having a cool time at college together; about whether the burgeoning attraction between Jack and Bitty would manifest and, if so, how; and, especially, Jack’s past coming into fuller view for Bitty and how it would have to be dealt with in order for a relationship between them to work. YMMV on how great the comic executed there, but as Y3 went on these themes increasingly disappeared from the story. I think this means a lot of fic written over 2015-2016 or 2017 has one kind of tone, and was written mostly around these questions; after that, it feels like a new crop of writers and a new crop of ideas started circulating, that is, either embracing Jack and Bitty’s canon relationship and accepting its relative straightforwardness in text--or deconstructing it, imagining what readers aren’t seeing, or how problems not dealt with in the comic would manifest later. People who have read my fic know which of these I’m mainly interested in exploring.

All of which is to say, looking at what I’m reccing here, when the fics were posted or when I first read them probably has a lot to do with why they stick out to me so much. Because there’s no real culture of fanfic criticism--and I mean that in the positivist sense of broad evaluation not explicitly for fault and merit but rather, for context--I think it’s really hard to keep this in mind. But I’m obnoxious and I can’t just be easy about things.

Fic recs

In alphabetical order, somewhat unsorted; if a stand-alone fic has a summary I’ve included it, but in other cases I’ve recced a couple of conceptually related fics or series, which I’ve tried to just describe or explain as opposed to copying the summary off AO3.

There are so many more fanfics I think are great and worth reading! In an ideal world I’d come back and add more later, or create a secondary list that’s more along the lines of “if you like this, read these,” or whatever. But, being realistic, this is a starter kit. I’m open to talking about fanfic.

- - - - - - - - - - -

7-0-2 by Idday; Friends in Low Places and Sorry for the Blood in Your Mouth; I Wish it was Mine by blue_rocket_frost | I’m not sure it would be correct to say that I don’t like Parse/Tater, or that I’m not interested in Parse/Tater. I’m not interested in Patater a priori; I think it could be interesting, with teeth. These fics stick out to me when I think about this pairing, because they feel different. Accusations of a preference for just linking any two white men who happen to be hanging around have validity, but because of what hockey is and how it works and who’s hanging around it, it’s not exactly a leap to imagine what kind of gritty spark the friction between two closeted NHL players would create. A little violence in your sex? A little sex in your violence.

A Sight Worth Seeing by sadtomato | A four-fic Jack/Bitty/Shitty/Lardo explicit BDSM series. Either you want that or you don’t. It’s nothing hardcore, and not properly a four-way, really; more properly a kind of voyeuristic round-robin. There’s a more open and egalitarian view of sex here than I really get from the characters in the back end of the comic. It’s an expansive, propulsive view of sex and relationships that’s really nice to see. I love Lardo's detached coolness, and Bitty as a smooth operator; if you’re looking for some kind of Dom/sub dynamics world, this really isn’t it, but it’s a lively exploration into the sexual dynamics in a group of friends that’s super close to the good-times vibe you get from Haus scenes in the first couple years of extras.

call me son (one more time) by Summerfrost, Verbyna, and blithelybonny | This is a series, incomplete, and you will love it or be massively put off by it. I mean that as a compliment. I love it. The premise is, Bob Zimmermann and Kent Parson have been having sex since Kent was, like, 19. Everyone in this story has been chewed up: by themselves, by each other, by hockey. Plainly, this is a pretty bleak view of what OMGCP, as a story, is supposedly offering. If you want fic that is dark and glamorous, treading the toxic melange of substance abuse, sex-as-sublimation, and so much money you can’t possibly throw all of it away without trying, this series has that sick-inducing shimmer to it. But, again, its strength is its examination of Kent Parson, textually and meta-textually, as someone to be projected onto. Bob, Alicia, Jack, and Bitty all impute certain feelings of their own onto him, displacing their own issues to a character who’s centralized in every fic but defies neat or total comprehension. Some critiques I’ve read of this series feel it’s too dark, and I’ve also seen it argued on FFA that an overwhelming amount of praise heaped onto these stories has made it tough for other writers to make headway in writing Bob/Kent fic. But I’m also not sure you could engage with Bob/Kent fic without going down this road at some point? I’m sure there are ways to scale it back, but ultimately it’s a story about how hockey’s violent, homophobic, old-guard gatekeeping has continued to set the terms for a younger and ostensibly less toxic culture. I fully embrace PWP fics that tread on the power dynamic without fully excavating it, but buried within any PWP is the fact that a 53-year-old man is ensnaring a 19-year-old, no matter how much the latter is, realistically, into it, and legally empowered to consent. Not to mention the dynamics of it being a 53-year-old man who is the father of the 19-year-old’s ex-boyfriend, and a 53-year-old man who is an eminence grise in the field the 19-year-old is trying to make a career in  The sexual element--the vaguely incestuous nature of it--is making textual the subtext of how hockey works, actually: objectification of teenage bodies as older men’s capital.

Coach Z by thistidalwave | Just before the 2009 NHL Entry Draft, tp prospect Jack Zimmermann overdoses on his anxiety medication and is admitted to rehab. His future turns from a clear-cut road to the top into an uncertain path filled with therapy appointments, ignored text messages, a group of boys who aren't there to teach him a lesson about himself, and, of course, hockey. | I keep reccing this fic because it has 360 comments on AO3 but nobody, as far as I can tell, has ever read it; it never appears on rec lists. This isn’t the kind of fanfic I usually go in for, but I can’t help being charmed by it. This is a character study in the truest sense, a kind of Mighty Ducks-but-better view on what Jack’s time coaching peewee hockey might have been like. I have no interest in kids and my own aesthetic is maybe a little darker than this, but I admire this story because it injects vibrancy into a period of Jack’s life that OMGCP has left largely unexplored, and so has the fandom. We know nothing about what made Jack want to go to college, nothing about how he spent his days in between juniors and Samwell. It posits a very sympathetic and patient Jack/Parse dynamic, showcasing the exact kind of ragged teenage push-and-pull that would have led to the circumstances we see in Parse I-III. The outside perspective Jack needs is largely present in an OFC who’s not a love interest. Super unique, somehow both engrossing and low-key.

#dirtbags by angularmomentum | A series that is a Kent Parson/Claude Giroux fuckfest with feelings. I’ve long suspected that Parse is popular in part because he is the character who most easily elides OMGCP with the actual NHL, or rather, NHL fandom; I think he made it appealing to write OMGCP fics where the NHL is a factor. Case in point, this series, which is basically “what if Kent Parson was a real hockey player and therefore part of NHL RPS”? I have only read some NHL RPS, so I’m not the person to assess accuracy, but what I do know is superstar IRL hockey players take turns here as the caricature fanfic versions of themselves, and since Kent Parson is already that, it’s great how seamlessly he integrates into their social fabric. Rambunctious energy peppered with regret and loss, but ultimately this series is farcical, and it doesn’t take its sentimental ending too seriously--which, good.

fated to pretend by nighimpossible | 5 Jack/Kent fics that Ransom and Holster dramatically reenact for the Haus + the truth. | As a fic format, 5+1 doesn’t usually work for me, but this one isn’t just front-loaded with five too-knowing vignettes; it then wraps up by using its +1 better than you might expect. Sometimes I talk about economy of fic, and this one exemplifies it. A zero-waste fic.

go ahead and move along by originally | "Leave, Parse," Jack says. Again. Or: Kent finds himself stuck in a time loop. | Kent Parson is trapped in a Groundhog Day scenario on the day of Epikegster. I’m sure you can imagine, just from that, what happens. And yet I think this fic is super entertaining, reserving some key surprises. What this story is doing is something a lot, and perhaps even the majority, of great Jack/Parse fic wants to do: digging into the question of just why this can’t work in comic canon. Most often this is approached from the past, by writing teenage Jack/Parse deep-dives that examine their lives mid-juniors, or by writing AUs where enough circumstances are shifted that it does work, or via future fics that posit enough growth has happened, and enough things have changed. But this fic makes Parse live the same bad day again and again, testing multiple theories about just how dependent on circumstance and incident real life actually is. Another day, another tone, 10 minutes sooner, not at all--you just can’t know why it didn’t work until you exhaust every possible variable. I worry that this rec has sucked the life out of the story, though--it’s so fun!

I Saw a Life and Strange Lovers by @bluegrasshole | Most AUs in this fandom seem to retell the story in a new setting or with some big detail change, following OMGCP’s rhythm beat-for-beat. I think of this as, “It’s the plot of Check, Please, but” -- they’re doing high school football? They’re acrobats? They’re a/b/o? They’re in a DIY punk band? And so on. These two stories are not that! They’re both 1950s AUs, each deeply felt, and yet hugely different from each other. I Saw a Life is about displacement and fragmentation, two sides of a similar but incongruent social critique; Strange Lovers is a finely wrought social drama about coal mining in Nova Scotia in the 1950s, centered around historical events. I suppose a theme on this rec list is something like, “I don’t even like this, but” -- yes, okay, I don’t even like Dex/Nursey, but--! This fic is so overwhelmingly complete, the AU laid out so carefully that the story breathes with all the background details informing the writing that aren’t actually, in the story; you just know they’re below the surface. (With the exception of one investigation of Jack’s character in a short, separate fic.) I Saw a Life, meanwhile, really tests the limits of the notion that Jack and Bitty are soulmates--not by calling it into question but by asking, rather innovatively, how the setting and place of the comic itself activates that.

Les Hivers de mon enfance by staranise | What do you do when hockey is the language of prayer for your soul, and also the toxic thing that almost killed you? 2009: Jack Zimmermann takes a mental health year. God knows he needs it. | Here’s a fic by someone who’s no longer around so much, but she felt ubiquitous in 2016-2019 OMGCP fandom. Before any of that, though, she wrote this one lovely fic about Jack’s pre-Samwell recovery. The author is Canadian and really irritated by hockey culture, and I think this fic benefits greatly because she is clear-eyed about Jack’s being caught in an exploitative system; it’s hockey he’s in recovery for, in a way. There’s an epistolary element that works for me, too. I read this early on in my time in OMGCP fandom and it really stuck with me.

Lysistrata? I Hardly Know Her! (by which I mean everything) by @tomatowrites | It feels somehow like cheating to recommend OMGCP fanfics by my OMGCP BFF with whom I make an OMGCP podcast where we talk about OMGCP. You know the fics I really want to rec, like truly the ones that speak to some kind of shared depravity, are the ones where Jack is miserably mpreg for the second time and accidentally lets his kid see Kent Parson’s Long John Silver’s shrimp scampi promo spot, which obviously would get twisted into a self-hating three-way. How many times do I have to rec this fic? As many as I need to, is my feeling. If you don’t know, Long John Silver’s is an American fast-food chain that sells, like, fried pollock sandwiches; it is nautical-themed; I have never eaten there; I don’t know where there is one; I don’t eat fried fish. (Shrimp, on the other hand?) All of which is to say that it takes a real genius to investigate a premise that far out. And while a lot of people almost certainly will start reading this humanity’s depths-themed sex scene and back the fuck out, readers with refined taste will note that Kent, the point-of-view character, is right there with you, despairing that he can’t help himself. And so long as you’re in that story collection, honestly, you’ll love petite gems like Jack is transmasc, Jack and Shitty play hockey in 18th-century England, and oh, right, he’s from Georgia. Tomato holds the distinction of being probably the gamest author I know in this fandom, just really like fearless in her pursuit of any range of concept she’s pushed to. (I can push her to?) See, for example, a sublime bandom AU; Bitty is cancelled for buying a maybe-unethically exported Roman fragment of a youth’s torso; or, god, the masterwork that is this future fic series where Jack keeps relapsing and Bitty exiles him to their guesthouse. Do I think you need to read a fic where Bitty is snide about the teen prostitute whose baby they’re adopting? Yes, I mean, he would be snide, don’t tell me he wouldn’t. I could go on, but my main thing here is, if I have to pick just one, I’m going to pick this Lysistrata fic. The premise, literally, is that Bitty reads the Lysistrata and it gives him ideas. Like most of Tomato’s OMGCP fic, it’s a stripping away of the comic’s polite fiction that Jack and Bitty could possibly attain the ideal it reaches in the comic without some kind of messy, efflusive breakdown. Life is like that, you see! Tricky. Like a lot of people, although it’s tough to say precisely how many, I have always intuited that maybe Bitty is kind of a natural top? But obviously when you meet him, as a literal virgin, it’s hard to see how he’d go from zero to self-actualization so neatly. This fic floats a theory, and it has a fun little side plot for Whiskey, something I never thought about or needed before Tomato built it out herein. In conclusion, BONUS: Dex’s gay lobster novel.

only fools rush in and the light of all lights by decinq | This person wrote of the nature of the wound, one of the early, formative Jack/Bitty fics that was oft-recced when I was getting into the fandom in 2016. It forms part of a larger series that deals deeply with how Jack has been shaped by his struggles (? I hate this word) with homophobia and his own mental health. It’s a picture of the character as you might have imagined him much earlier in the comic’s run. The formatting is atrocious and he author’s flair is what Tomato would call “AO3 house style.” It’s a voice that works great for her writing. I think it’s at its best in these shorter fics; the former is about Parse and Shitty stumbling into a relationship almost accidentally; the latter, an eerie PBJ vampire fic. I had begun writing a fic where Parse is a vampire early on in this fandom, only to read this and immediately quit, because you only need one, and this one’s all I need. The Parse/Shitty rare pair fic shares its exuberance with hockey RPS when it’s good: here’s how fun it can be when you’re young, rich, and jocular. And I don’t even like accidental marriage AUs, they’re usually boring, so that says a lot. By all means, read the wound fic; read the entire series. But these are highly unusual.

OVERDOSE and Oomph and a little spin-o-rama by jedusaur | None of these are long, or plotty, and they’re all a little experimental. OVERDOSE is an AU set in a world where you know how you’ll die, but no details; Oomph, a little fic where Jack hears hockey pucks talking to him. This is the kind of stuff I used to think I’d find in fandom forever, coming out of Lotrips lurking in the 2000s: short, zany bursts of energy that surprise and delight. a little spin-o-rama peers at Kent’s character through the grim reality of being the hypertalented superstar stuck on a dead-last team. All three are sparse and stylish in a way that’s really smart, practically economical.

Sowing Season by @agrossunderstatement | Parse and Zimms, Zimms and Parse. Kent Parson's life, from the Q, through his early years with the Aces, to Jack's senior year. Canon divergent. A story of love, loss, moving on, regressing, hockey, and found families of all kinds. | Effectively a novel, digging into Kent’s personal history, mostly concerning his life in juniors but expanding into his present, overlapping with the plot of OMGCP. I think there is room enough for endless speculations on what went down pre-canon; this one offers a fuller life for Kent than nearly any others, digging into him as a whole person rather than as a satellite to Jack or the plot of the comic. Which isn’t to say that the Kent/Jack stuff isn’t dealt with here; it explicitly is. But the fact of Kent Parson’s life, if we can begin to imagine it beyond mere text, would exist before, after, and alongside Jack; he gets to juniors without Jack, presumably, and he is the captain of a hockey team without Jack, and Pinkerton lays the foundation of Parse’s character within a junior hockey that Jack also inhabits, more so that Parse existing for Jack, so to speak. And I’m not implying this latter tactic is wrong; I have certainly employed it, and others have employed it to great impact and effect. But, still, the title of this series tells you what you ought to know: Kent and his story are the potentiality of OMGCP, up to a point; seeds being planted. Young hockey players, similarly. The question implied there is, what will be reaped? And the answer to the latter, in a sense, that reaping is a sort of violence. Which makes this series sound pretty heavy, but it’s not -- more like, realistic.

(tell everyone) you were a good wife by @queerofcups | The biggest problem with pretending that he doesn’t know that Kent Parson is fucking his husband is that Jack can’t tell Kent how grateful he is. | The ne plus ultra of PBJ triangulation; I’ve been squealing to the writer about how good it is since August, begging for behind-the-scenes insights, and I’d only do that if I really meant it. The precarious social fabric stretched across these three chapters is fraying before the reader’s eyes. The details are delicious, and I don’t want to spoil them, but they sing in chorus with the plot. My favorite OMGCP fics, honestly, remove the romance narrative guardrails that keep things in the comic itself humming along. I think Dann’s take is to ask who in this comic has power and what they would end up doing with it. (Or not doing, from another angle.) At one point, early on in its telling, OMGCP looked like it was going to be a story dealing with the compounded traumas of hockey’s discontents. Then, of course, it wasn’t. This is a fic that steps back and asks what the fallout of that oversight would be. But that’s just the moldering core of this fanfic; it’s actually embroidered, like I said, with glittering detail. The color of the suit Bitty wears to his wedding is burned into my brain. The gray manicure of a woman Jack knows. The ingredients in a cake. This is one of those fics I still haven’t reviewed because the thought of stacking everything I could say about it into mere AO3 comments is inadequate.

when you’re ready by megancrtr | The Aces’ director of communications gets the call at 3:13 a.m. Jack Zimmermann has withdrawn from the draft. | “What happened at the draft” is so mythological it gets asked in the comic proper, and I’ve never counted how many fics attempt to answer this question--from Kent’s point of view, even--but it’s gotta be, oh, hundreds. This story replays the situation from the perspective of an Aces staffer who just wants to do her job, and gets at the jarring discordance between the plot of OMGCP in its quest for social justice and the business of actual hockey. Important context is that this story was written around the time the comic was playing out the end of Y3 and start of Y4, and Bitty pointedly asked Jack the question, “why can’t we?” This story reframes the question as literal, rather than rhetorical. A sterling example of fanfic being a gloss on its source.

BONUS, podfics

hockeyed up | There are many things on Jack's mind. Namely: hockey, hockey, Bitty, hockey, anxiety, hockey, hockey, anxiety, Bitty, hockey, hockey, anxiety, and hockey. | A fic read aloud by its French-Canadian author. Also a relatively early OMGCP fanfic; composed while the first semester of Y2 was posting, the story suggests a version of OMGCP that was in some ways more and in other ways less complex than what it would turn into not long after. The real power of this podfic, however, is that it’s read by the writer, so you can hear the intended emphasis in every line. Also, because she’s French-Canadian, Sophie’s intonation is what I picture when I read or write dialogue for Jack.

maybe i’m waking up | It’s almost funny. All he ever wanted was to play hockey, to play in the NHL, to win the Cup. This—Samwell, the team, the Haus—was supposed to be just a detour, but now it feels more like a destination he failed to realize he’s already reached.(Or: Jack signs with the Falconers, graduates, and leaves. It's the hardest thing he's ever done. What comes after is even harder.) | Don’t get too excited; this isn’t finished. A podfic of probably the best-known, most-recced fic in OMGCP fandom. Striking for its use of metatext woven into the story, this is one of several early longform Jack/Bitty fics that posits that maybe Jack has a lot more development to undergo before he can really, truly, be okay--or be okay enough to be with Bitty? To be honest, this story strikes me now as too long, but the parts in it that work are effective beyond that which fanfic demands. Meanwhile, this audio version only covers six chapters, but it’s so slick, so well-realized, so true to the story. Podfic as art.

my own dear friends | Ever since the day he met Jack Zimmermann, Shitty has seen it as his solemn duty to aggressively love him. (He just didn't know how aggressive the love Jack needed would be.) | There’s previous little Jack/Shitty in this fandom and a lot less quality BDSM,

the city’s ours until the fall | Kent has been, historically, good at this—forgetting about things until suddenly he doesn’t, and then it’s like the scar has never been there in the first place, just the wound. (Or: Kent Parson lets himself be happy, after all this time.) | I’ve never read this fic and I never will. I cannot imagine how, no matter how good it is, it could compare to the version that lives in my head, with Kent’s voice so totally realized. Vocal fry and pathos, a languid energy that I still think about when I think about Parse.

the model home | It’s going to be better, and that’s great, but sometimes Jack thinks, why can’t it be good right now? | j/k j/k, this is a self-reminder to finally one day review this.

[shittys]

My (slightly NSFW) thoughts about Shitty’s “heterosexuality” below the line. And yes I do believe that Shitty and Jack hooked up their frosh year. (If you’d like to skip the NSFW, just skip the first paragraph.)

I am quite a big fan of the idea of Freshman Shitty and Freshman Jack having a late night, one-time-only make out sesh after parents’ weekend when they’re still getting to know each other, which ends with a young and completely straight (obviously) Shitty on Jack’s lap, humping Jack’s firm thigh, panting and whimpering into Jack’s neck while he shudders through an orgasm still fully clothed, his mustache tickling the skin just behind Jack’s ear.

Jack doesn’t cum, but he does feel really good about helping his new friend de-stress after watching him be ridiculed by his uptight father all throughout parents’ weekend. He feels useful, like he was able to finally do something right after the pressure of playing college-level hockey in front of his professional-level father. He smooths one hand down Shitty’s back over and over in the aftermath, the other hand still firmly gripping Shitty’s ass beneath his pants. There’s no stress in any of his actions when he’s with Shitty, no pressure in whispering quiet reassurances in Shitty’s ear and lending him a fresh pair of boxers (which Shitty does not put on) after his shower. They curl up in bed and fall asleep in each others’ arms for the first time that night.

They don’t talk about it the next day, or the next week, or the next few months, but they are noticeably closer (if that’s even possible.) And Shitty thinks he understands when Jack shuts him out for a few days after Kenny’s first visit. He doesn’t ask questions like their other teammates, just lets Jack come back to him on his own time and doesn’t push no matter how badly he wants to know. (In truth, he really doesn’t want to know.)

And Shitty thinks he understands when Jack starts washing his bedsheets more frequently after starting a checking clinic with the cute Blonde frog in their Junior year. Actively tries not to understand when Jack’s showers take too long in the morning, or when Jack starts locking his door on Shitty for the first time since they moved into the Haus. It’s a little bit like watching your teenage son declare independence, which is actually a pretty weird comparison considering that one night after parents’ weekend, but it rings true. 

For the longest time, Shitty had rationalized. He’s not queer, he’s just a damn good ally. He knows that he isn’t queer because he’s thought about it so much, and he would be fine with being queer, obviously, but he’s not. That night with Jack was a fluke. They hadn’t talked about it, and Jack hadn’t cum, so it wasn’t, like, sex. It was two soul-bonded best bro friends who were platonically comforting one another after a harrowing weekend with a sexual act which was not queer by nature, honestly, because it was so… platonic. Right? That orgasm was a vessel of bro-love that needed to be expressed in order to break down the heteronormative walls that were keeping them from reaching their full best-bro potential, obviously, and it filled its purpose! And never happened again. So obviously, no, Shitty is not queer. Because Jack is not queer, really. He’s just a bro who likes to help his best bros out on occasion. Like with Kent. 

And his sexual tension with Bits was easily explained away when you take into account the actual non-sexual tension that Jack shouldered in response to the perceived threat that Bitty was in Jack’s eyes. It was obviously just, like, a weird crossed wires moment of hormones and pent-up fears of failure and lost potential and whatever else was brewing in Jack’s head. So Jack couldn’t be queer, because if he was, then the night they spent together wasn’t just a bromance bonding moment but rather a thing, and Shitty doesn’t have things with other men because he’s straight. 

But then, Jerry’s happens. And now Jack and Bitty are out, and Shitty shuts down for a moment out of fear and confusion and Jack’s queer? Jack’s queer and I came on his leg. And I liked it? And then he’s just running on autopilot, doling out congratulations and support and kicking himself for being the very thing he’d been campaigning against for the past four years- a heteronormative dickwad. Why did he keep asking about Jack’s girlfriend? Seriously? After everything? Is he that fucking stupid? Oh God, he’s just like all the assholes he hated at Andover. He’s just like his dad. 

But Jack trusted him with this highly-confidential knowledge, and that has to count for something. Shitty can be a good friend. He knows how to do this, everyone comes out to him. He can make things right. 

Which might start with apologizing to his best friend. And being honest with himself.

[zimms]

(yet another ollie/wicks ficlet, but this one got slightly out of hand, clocking in at 1.3k for absolutely no reason, so there’s a line break. this is set during the november of bitty’s sophomore year.)

don’t treat him like a mind reader

It’s mid-November when Ollie and Wicky first notice.

They’re on their weekly coffee date at Annie’s, trading sips of each other’s drinks and proof-reading the other’s most recent paper, when Jack Zimmermann walks through the door. Ollie knows that he should probably be on a first name basis with Jack Zimmermann at this point, considering the fact that he’s their team captain and they’ve been attending the same weekly bonding sessions at the Haus since the beginning of freshman year. 

(However, it’s Jack Zimmermann, and Ollie doesn’t think he’ll ever get over the fact that he knows this guy in real life and that he’s met Bad Bob and he’s playing on the same team as someone that will be a shoe-in for next year’s Calder winner no matter which team he signs for and Ollie is an obnoxious fanboy, and this is why he largely steers clear of Jack Zimmermann, lest he embarrasses himself.)

Anyway, it’s a surprise that Jack Zimmermann is in Annie’s for 2 reasons.

Everyone knows that Jack hates paying money for coffee, when he just drinks it black (because he has no taste) and we have coffee at the Haus, why would I buy some extortionate cup of overly sweet sludge?

He’s just had his history class with Bitty, and everyone knows that Jack immediately goes back to the Haus to make his notes from lectures, because Jack Zimmermann works harder than God.

(Okay, so maybe not everyone knows these things, but Ollie absolutely does because these are crucial details in his plan to avoid Jack Zimmermann at all times.

Well maybe the coffee thing isn’t part of that plan; it’s more the fact that Jack complains loudly about it at Team Breakfast, despite the fact that he is a millionaire with more money than Ollie will ever see and can definitely afford an extortionate cup of overly sweet sludge.)

Ollie flicks Wicky’s forehead where he’s leaning over his most recent Econ essay. “Dude, what’s Jack doing here? Shouldn’t he be back at the Haus, making his obscenely perfect notes?” His eyes tracked Jack’s movements as he ordered two coffees and made his way to a table. “Hold on, is Hockey Robot Jack Zimmermann on a date?”

Wicky frowns at Ollie’s fingers as they come away from his forehead, and runs a hand through his hair. His eyes flick up to Jack’s table. “Nah, he’s probably waiting for Bitty; he’s tutoring him in French this semester.”

As if on cue, Bitty walks through the door, evidently having been challenged by Jack to a run across campus and evidently having lost, despite being the fastest guy on the team. Ollie watches as he grins at Jack and makes his way to the table, not looking at the barista once. 

“Huh,” he mutters, “you were right.”

Wicky’s head snaps up, affronted. “Why do you sound so surprised? I literally saw them here last Tuesday.”

“Why didn’t I know this then? I’m always here with you.”

Wicky rolls his eyes. “Dude, you were at that meeting with your Bio professor; the reason I was here is because I was literally waiting for you. They’d just left by the time you were done discussing carbohydrates or mitochondria or whatever it is you do in Bio.” Ollie grins at him; STEM professors always rub Wicky up the wrong way; it’s a side effect of being forced to go to a science specialist high school when you have no interest in STEM. “Anyway, I’m still trying to work out if they’re doing tutoring or tutoring.”

Ollie furrows his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

Wicky gestures not-so-discreetly at where Bitty and Jack are laughing over their French flashcards. “Look at Bitty; are you seriously telling me that he’s not in love with Jack?”

“No!” Ollie holds up his hands. “You know that I would never deny the fact that the straight boy that Bitty is pining for is Jack, but do you really think that Jack Zimmermann, Hockey Robot isn’t straight?” Ollie watches the aforementioned Hockey Robot grin down at Bitty, eyes softer than Ollie’s ever seen them. “Actually, you know what, Jack Zimmermann isn’t straight. He looks like a fucking movie star out of the 1950s with the way he’s trying to flirt with Bitty over there.”

Wicky stares at him. “That sentence was incomprehensible, but I think I get what you mean.” 

The two of them turn to face Jack and Bitty, as their hands brush together as they each reach for another flashcard. Ollie gapes openly at how Jack Zimmermann’s face flushes red at the contact. “Fuck it, I’m just gonna ask Bitty when we’re at the Haus tonight.”

o0O0o

The rhythm of Beyoncé throbs through the hallway of the Haus and his feet as Ollie knocks on the door of the kitchen. Bitty’s voice struggles to reach over the music as he shouts “Come in!”

Ollie opens the door tentatively and the music goes silent. “Hey, Bitty. I was wondering if I could ask you something?”

“Of course, honey!” Bitty whirls around from where he was faffing next to the oven. “What do you-? What on God’s green Earth are you wearing?” 

Ollie glances down at the orange and white striped outfit that Shitty’s making him wear for his dibs, including fins and a tail. “I honestly don’t know. I think it might have once been a tangential joke that Holster made about Ransom being a coral reef that eventually spiralled into this hell. Wicky’s dressed as Dory if it’s any consolation.”

Bitty removes his oven gloves and places them lovingly on the stove. “It is absolutely no consolation whatsoever, but it is quite entertaining.” His eyes roam up and down Ollie’s body (a move that Ollie would have thought was flirtatious if Bitty hadn’t been quite so in love with Jack Zimmermann) and he giggles in that way that only Bitty can. “Anyway, what did you need?”

A slice of pie appears in front of Ollie on a plate. He doesn’t question it; he’s learnt not to question how baked goods suddenly materialise around Bitty.

“Oh, yeah.” Ollie takes a mouthful of pie. “Me and Wicky were wondering if Jack was like tutoring you in French, like how Wicky tutors me in Philosophy?”

(Ollie and Wicky have long since established that they don’t want to be out to the whole team, so they came up with a code word for date night that they can use with the people that know about their relationship, which is basically just Shitty and Bitty, but whatever.)

Bitty nods enthusiastically. “Yeah, exactly like that!” He takes a bite of his own pie. “He’s such a great tutor; he’s so good at French!”

Ah, that clears that up then.

Ollie grins at Bitty. “You know, if you ever want to discuss tutoring, I’m always willing to listen, and I know Wicky is too.” He stands up, wipes his mouth, and claps Bitty on the back. “Good talk.”

“Oh, was that all you wanted to know?”

“Yeah, I’ve got to get back to reenacting scenes from Finding Nemo. Just keep swimming.”

o0O0o

“Yeah, they’re dating.”

“Oh, thank God, for a second I thought that they were just that oblivious.”

(A year later they get a text from Bitty announcing that he and Jack were dating. 

oily: thanks for letting us know officially bro! we were happy to keep it on the dl til u were ready to come out!

candle: thanks in return for keeping our relationship a secret! we knew that you could keep it a secret!

itsy bitsy baker: how did you guys know about us?? i never told you we were dating??

oily: yh, u did??

itsy bitsy baker: 

we didn’t get together until the summer after sophmore year??

also, did you guys say you were dating?!?

candle: yeah, we told you at the end of freshman year, bro. you literally caught us making out in your room??

itsy bitsy baker: i-?? what???)

part 1 part 2 part 3

[parvuls]

this is more me making sense of my thoughts than it is a proper post. i've been reading a lot of fic in the past six months, and recently i've noticed that i'm really squeamish about romanticising power imbalance.

i'm saying this is more thoughts than post because - different people, different opinions? everyone should do whatever the hell works for them, and some people could manage leaning more on their partner than others. but i, personally, see equality between partners and the independent growth of each partner outside of the relationship as a must have in an adult relationship.

this translates to personal hobbies, separate friends, alone time, etc. - but in fic, this mostly concerns money. and this got me thinking about omgcp.

i've seen a lot of jokes about bitty getting engaged to jack right out of college. i've seen a lot of jokes about how he doesn't have a real job and is a kept boy (i'm probably bitter because i think youtube is definitely a job, but maybe that's my inner 2014 youtube fandom member talking, lol). they were good-natured jokes, obviously, but it just. bugs me so much?

and now i wanna write so many future canonverse "fix it"s. snapshots of bitty and jack talking about money like adults. because jack - you know jack zimmermann. jack 110% zimmermman. jack "i'll buy my teammate an oven" zimmermann. jack has had money all his life, and he has his own money now, and he might, probably, definitely, be a little too inclined to spend it on bitty. he knows the value of money, he's not a big spender usually, but in his mind, what better way to spend his money than on the man he loves?

and bitty - look. bitty clearly likes gifts and jack's silly big romantic gestures; jack buying bitty the entire beyonce collection comes to mind. being too proud to accept expensive acts of affection is not one of his character traits. but bitty also, stubbornly, refuses to ask for help with his issues or admit he has them at all. and i just can't see him being comfortable with the easiness with which jack can just wave away every financial worry bitty might have.

in the long run, we already know it doesn't matter: ngozi has hinted many times that bitty becomes famous in his own right ("has a food empire"), which is probably around the time jack is nearing retirement. their positions will even out. but straight off the bat, bitty moving from a rundown frat house into an apartment he doesn't pay for, and only starting to negotiate his book deal and his channel and his career ambitions... i would like to see them talk about this. a mature, realistic obstacle in a relationship.

like, you know fics where jack buys bitty a bakery? ...exactly not that. i'd like to see fair arguments - jack bringing up joint accounts once they'd be married, and asking where does bitty draw the line; bitty realizing he is, indeed, not ready for them to be legally married just yet. bitty inviting jack to his vlog to relaunch the channel and announce his cookbook but then refusing to monetize jack's fame any further than that, instead choosing to build on his own community. jack and bitty trying to find a balance between bitty not actually needing to pay anything in his life with jack but wanting to, and how they find a common ground they're comfortable with.

TL;DR - i've got an adulting kink and i'd like to see jack and bitty be big boys in a healthy relationship who love each other and build their lives side by side, as equals ☺️

[omgericzimmermann]

Fist-bumps mean I love you

They meet on the Haus Tour freshman year. The tour is given by a guy with a glorious flow and the sickest moustache they’ve ever seen and he’s wearing a shirt of a Christmas tree smoking a joint. They independently decide that they will like it here.

They fistbump for the first time after their tour guide mentions the Haus parties that will be thrown, and introduce themselves after the tiniest freshman they’ve ever seen, who is somehow on the hockey team with them, has produced a pie from absolutely nowhere.

“I’m Ollie,” he says.

“Wicks,” he replies.

They start dating after the first kegster. What happens is, there is tub juice. They come across the sophomore d-men, Ransom and Holster, making out in a back room and witness Bitty doing a kegstand, and figure hey, what the hell. After all, it’s Samwell, might as well try it out. The trouble is – that ���college experimentation” thing turns out to be bullshit because this is not an experiment, this is the only thing that counts now.

They don’t tell anyone on the team. They’re not shy about it, they’re not embarrassed, and they don’t think they’ll be ill-received for it. After all, their team includes Bitty, and Ransom and Holster who have definitely hooked up more than once, and when they meet their manager after she gets back from Kenya, Lardo has a girlfriend for the first four months they know her. For whatever reason, Ollie and Wicks’ relationship status simply…doesn’t come up. They don’t bring it up, and neither does anyone else.

Ollie brings Wicks back to Vermont with him over the summer. Wicks meets Ollie’s mom and his siblings and they get along great. At no point is it mentioned that they’re dating, and at no point do they feel the need to bring it up. Here, it’s a defence mechanism because if Ollie’s mom knew they were dating, they would not be allowed to stay in the same room.

When they don’t get dibs on the Haus for sophomore year, they sign up to be roommates and spend their first few days of preseason rearranging their dorm to turn their shitty dorm beds into one large bed. A few of the guys from the team are conscripted to help, including one of the frosh who is good with tools but unsure about the legality of dismantling a school bed. They don’t explain, and he doesn’t ask, and things continue.

At Christmas sophomore year, things get complex. Wicks figures its his turn to introduce his boyfriend to his parents, and takes Ollie with him back to Manitoba. Unlike everyone else they know, Wicks’ parents do ask and they are upset. Not that Wicks is gay, which is the label he’s decided to wear comfortably, but that he’s living out of wedlock. Wicks’ parents give them an ultimatum. Either they marry by that summer or they’re writing to the school administration to demand they not be allowed to live together and will never speak to Wicks again.

After a month’s harried debate over the subject back at Samwell, they figure what the hell.

“After all, we can always get divorced,” Wicks points out.

“Right, exactly,” Ollie says.

They both think, unquestioningly, that this is not going to happen.

Ollie’s parents are taken aback by the whole situation, but they explain the benefits outweigh the problems. They’ve got cross-border status now, and avenues for the future in both countries are open to them forever; tuition is different for “non-traditional” undergrads which includes those who are married; they were probably going to get married anyway, so this just moves up the timeline.

They do small, a courthouse thing. They’ll do the big version, a party version, after graduation. Perhaps their teammates will have even figured out that they’re dating by then.

They don’t get dibs junior year either, but they do get non-traditional housing at least so they’ve got a suite and their own kitchen, not that either of them can cook. On the bright side, they can always pop by the Haus and pick up whatever Bitty’s made.

Ransom and Holster are the first to catch them making out in public. It’s at a kegster, no surprise, and tub juice makes them both handsy, and when Ransom and Holster encounter them, it’s with a sly wink and a nod and an assurance they won’t tell anyone about their drunken kegster fling.

“We should probably tell them we’re married,” Ollie points out when they’ve staggered drunkenly away.

“Nah, this is to the point of just being fucking funny now,” Wicks replies, and Ollie agrees.

The only indication Ransom or Holster gives that they had seen Ollie and Wicks with their hands down each other pants is that they offer them the attic as dibs. They take it, unquestionably, and get Dex’s help to do an HGTV worthy renovation off the place. When Dex says, unnerved, “again with the one bed?” they just shrug at him. What they want to ask is why he and Nursey have bunkbeds still, since they’re pretty sure Dex and Nursey are at the same level of intimacy as Ransom and Holster, but they don’t ask and Dex doesn’t offer and so they let it drop.

Their attic sparkles when the three of them are done with it and it feels more like playing house than the non-traditional dorm of junior year because this time they have close roommates. Between Nursey, Dex, Bitty, and Chowder, they’re sure that at least one of them will figure out they’re together. Add in the constant visits from Shitty and Lardo and Jack and Alexei Mashkov, surely, they think, surely. Besides even them, Ford and Tango and Whiskey are around often enough, and so are the waffles. There are constantly people in the Haus and yet.

And yet, somehow, somehow, the first person to figure out they’re together – not just hooking up, but together together – is Alexei Mashkov. He gets turned around at the last kegster of the year and winds up in the attic stairwell looking for the bathroom and discovers instead Ollie and Wicks making out.

“Oh! Am sorry,” Mashkov says. They think it’s odd that they know how drunk a professional NHL player is – who is not their former teammate – by how closely his English grammar gets to the original Russian. “Am thinking is toilet. No?”

“No,” they say. They don’t bother to pull away from each other more than it takes to speak.

“Will leave you alone on your date,” Mashkov says. He laughs and slips down a stair. “Seems I am needing to go to Samwell if I want dates.”

He starts to wander off and then pauses.

“Hmm, no,” he decides. “You are like Zimmboni and B, yes? Is not date, is…more?”

“Yeah,” they agree. He smiles, nods, and staggers away, more successfully reaching the bathroom this time.

They shrug, and go back to kissing each other.

It is after. It is after they kiss the ice and pack up their attic and toss their caps in the air. They hand out the invitations to the other members of the Samwell Men’s Hockey Team and their affiliated persons and are halfway to the next group of invitees before the earliest group figures out what’s in them.

“What the fuck?” Nursey shouts, impassioned, upon reading the invitation.

“This is, like, some kinda prank or something, right?” Dex asks.

“Nope!” they call back and hand invites to Jack and Mashkov.

“But how can y’all be getting married?” Bitty asks, squinting from the invitation to Ollie and Wicks and back.

“Oh,” Ollie says. “We’re not getting married. We got married two years ago.”

“This is just the reception,” Wicks says. “Now that we don’t have school.”

They hold hands as they wander away, leaving shocked gasps of realisation in their wake. They think to themselves, independently but at the same time, that the dumbfounded disbelief in everyone’s eyes at the reception really is the cherry on top.

[birlcholtz]

okay like. potentially controversial opinion here? but i’m honestly kinda glad that ngozi didn’t confirm nurseydex, and hear me out, because i’m a MASSIVE nurseydex shipper.

but here’s why i think this: nurseydex, as a ship, takes a TON of development. and because bitty’s the protagonist and has his own arc to get through, ngozi didn’t really have the space or ability to focus on nursey and dex to the extent that she would need to, in order to make it feel organic. and i don’t think that’s a bad thing! specifics under the cut because this got long

if we’re comparing it to zimbits, then both couples started out in a similar place of not liking each other. like. at all.

it took jack and bitty some time and a lot of work to get past that stage, and part of the reason that they *did* was because jack was a conscientious captain and decided to start checking clinics with bitty, so they spent a lot more time together working on fixing a problem that was kind of the central reason jack didn’t like bitty in the first place. and then they warmed up to each other. and it still took two years for their relationship to develop-- maybe it would have taken even longer if bad bob hadn’t said anything.

dex and nursey have spent a lot of time together from their first year, and they seem to kind of always be together within the team (like, they sit together on roadies, they play on the same line and have always played on the same line, they’re both friends with chowder so they spend tons of time with him, et cetera). and while that’s *helped* with their interpersonal problems, their personalities still grate on each other

like what we see in bitty’s y4 is that while nursey and dex’s relationship has improved a *lot* they’re not really at the point where the other person’s idiosyncrasies become amusing or neutral to them instead of irritating. to me, they very much look like two people who are still figuring their shit out (and it does seem like dex moving out helps their dynamic a LOT because living with someone is stressful!! like, that definitely helped)

also, specifically about will ‘character growth’ poindexter. if he even was conscious of not being straight his frog year, he would have definitely repressed the shit out of it. the bitty that we see first year is closeted, scared, and definitely isn’t 100% comfortable with himself, but at least he is honest with himself.

when ransom and holster start talking about screw, bitty does not consider going with a girl for one SECOND. and i think that dex, as we see him in his frog year, isn’t at that point yet (as we see from nursey offering/threatening to set him up with an andover girl-- dex doesn’t agree, but he doesn’t *disagree*, either, and that could definitely be read as ‘gay guy who’s not really comfortable with himself yet trying to get out of interacting with a girl in a romantic context without having to come out when he doesn’t feel ready to’)

bitty is also secure enough in his understanding of himself that he comes out to the team in his first year. dex, clearly, does not. i think he’s repressed as fuck and even though he’s definitely opened up a lot in his time at samwell, that’s the *first* step towards being able to have a healthy relationship, you know?

to make nurseydex canon and not have it feel like just pandering to us, ngozi would have to devote a LOT of time specifically to their arc, their relationship, and track how it grows, and that would have expanded the scale of the later years a ridiculous amount compared to y1 and y2. not to mention taking the focus waaaaay away from bitty-- and since the comic is from his pov, there’s only so many scenes without him ngozi could include.

the way we see nursey and dex at the end of y3 is, i believe, a way that makes a romantic relationship a very plausible event for them sometime in their senior year. i mean, i obviously read the comic with my nurseydex shipper glasses on, but they clearly care for each other a lot and their relationship has progressed to being an actual positive one. which is already a milestone considering how they started. if they’ve grown that much in three years, i don’t think a romantic relationship is out of the question at all.

and honestly? i appreciate ngozi leaving some things up to us. i know so many people in this fandom who feel so strongly about nursey and dex and have them so close to their hearts, and i kind of like that we can all see them in whatever way makes sense to us.

besides, ollie and wicks getting married right after graduation proves that bitty doesn’t know everything, so, you know, just because it’s not explicitly canon doesn’t mean it’s impossible

[hockey-prose]

Planning Blues

Summary: Bitty has trouble planning his dream wedding, especially when Jack doesn’t seem to give two hoots what he chooses. (Cross posted to AO3.)

Eric Bittle is nervous. More nervous than he’d been for almost anything in his entire life; besides maybe his very last hockey game at Samwell. That was easy. There were rules and a team. He had the backup of said team and a boyfriend behind him. Here, there was none of that.

Sure, Jack was here. But he was so... nonchalant about this. It was a little frustrating to be truthful.

“Honey, come look at this tie instead.”

Jack walked into the kitchen, Samwell sweats clashing with a Falconers hoodie. The brunet was nursing a cup of coffee.

On the table in front of Bitty, there were five ties. One had been the first tie he picked out, and they went down the line in recent purchases, ending with the last one. It was another shade of off white, a slight cream color making it almost exactly the same as all the rest of them.

“Bits, bud, any one of them you pick will be great. Which one feels the most right to you?”

Bitty literally lets his arms buckle from under him and allows his forehead to slam against the table. Not hard, but hard enough.

“Shit, Bits, are you okay?”

Bitty shoots up, his face crumpled in frustration.

“No, Jack Laurent Zimmermann, I am not okay. I feel like I have been single handedly been planning this wedding by myself. You seem to not care about anything regarding it! Whatever I think looks good, you do too. You don’t give your opinion. It makes me sad, honey. It’s your wedding as much as mine. Don’t you want it to look like what you want?”

What started as a rant trailed off until there was an awkward silence in the kitchen. Jack set his mug on the table, cleared his throat, and kneeled between Bitty’s legs.

“What on earth are you doing?”

Jack’s warm hands placed themselves on either of Bitty’s thighs. Crystal blue eyes locked with deep brown.

“Listen, Eric Richard Bittle (oh no that was really attractive). I don’t put much of a say in any of this wedding planning because I trust that you know what you’re doing. If you wanted me to help more, you could’ve just said the word. I think everything you’ve done so far is incredible. The last time I checked, you hadn’t gotten that far though, right?”

Bitty sighed, knocking his forehead into his fiancés gently.

“No. I got so scared about booking a venue that I decided to try and plan our outfits first. And, well, you can see how well that’s going.”

Jack suddenly had a glimmer in his eye.

“What?”

“I just had a crazy idea, Bits. You’re probably gonna hate it.”

Bitty’s eyebrow rose skeptically.

“How about we forget all this nonsense and just elope. You told me when we first got engaged that you wanted a dream Southern wedding. No shoes, outside somewhere, potluck or barbecue and pie. How about we do that instead?”

Bitty stared at Jack. It was long enough to make Jack shift with discomfort.

“Have I ever mentioned how smart you are?”

Jack Zimmermann falls to the floor in peals of laughter, his fiancé straddling his waist. Suddenly the thought of wedding planning got a whole lot easier.

******

Unsurprisingly, the family and friends of the couple were extremely happy with this turnout. Even Bitty’s mother was on board with this decision. It was no secret that she was worried about certain family member that might’ve caused trouble. There was nothing Suzanne Bittle wanted to do less than disown a family member on a day when it was supposed to be about her son. She would’ve done it, but it would’ve taken the special moment away from her baby.

So, the collective decision was to have the wedding at a local park in Georgia. Jack had somehow managed to pull some strings and rented out a section just for them. The guests included everyone from the Haus, all the way down to the waffles, the entire Falcs team, and the soon to be wed couples parents.

Chairs set up in rows created the isle. Tables littered the area behind the chairs. The alter was an arch with thick bunches of flowers and a hockey stick on each end.

The procession was short, along with the actual ceremony. Truth be told, Bitty barely remembered any of it, besides the fact that after the priest had announced “Mr. Jack and Eric Bittle”, Jack literally swept him off his feet. Good Lord! The way this man still made him feel.

The reception was nothing less than almost complete chaos. A combination of Samwell alumni, Falconers, and family was a recipe for disaster. At least Shitty had kept his clothes on until Eric’s Moomaw had left.

After everything was said and done, Bitty and Jack lay in their hotel bed. The newlyweds couldn’t help just looking at each other. They were married!

“Well, we’ve done it.”

“Yeah, we have. Are you happy, Bits?”

“Oh, so unbelievably happy, Jack. We’re married!”

“I hope Hawaii will make you even happier, Mr. Bittle.”

“Oh you. It should be pretty obvious by now that I’m happy wherever you are, Mr. Bittle.”

A comfortable silence blanketed them.

“But Hawaii will be a nice change of pace.”

Eric Richard Bittle felt his heart melt when he heard his husband laugh for the first time since they exchange vows.

[justlookfrightened]

How hard could it be? Part 16

Start from the beginning

Part 15

Bitty stared at the email on his laptop screen. Then he toggled to a new window, the one with the photo of Jack Zimmermann, number 1 on the Providence Falconers, raising the Stanley Cup in 2018.

Yep. Definitely the same guy. The hair was even about the same length, although the Jack Zimmermann in the pie photo was clean shaven. He was was wearing a Falconers blue polo shirt, and clearly holding the camera -- probably his phone -- at arms length. It was awkward and goofy and utterly adorable … and holy hell, Bitty had to stop thinking this way.

He knew better than to fall for a straight boy. And Jack Zimmermann, first-line center for the Providence Falconers, was straight. Definitely. Almost definitely.

Because sometimes it almost seemed like Jack Zimmermann, winner of the 2018 Conn Smythe trophy, was flirting. Or trying to flirt. With him. Eric Bittle. Formerly the first out NCAA men’s hockey captain, baker extraordinaire and now man-of-all-work for his beloved MooMaw.

Nah. Bitty had to have been reading him wrong. Bitty had seen a few of his post-game interviews and, much as he hated to say it, Jack Zimmermann was about as flat and affectless as they came. No matter how much passion he put into hockey (and that Game 7 had been a thing of beauty), it all seemed to get locked away once he stepped off the ice.

He must just be awkward and bad at people. Which was sad, for him, because he really seemed to want to try. Why else would he want to bake so badly? Baking was something people did to make other people happy, and maybe, in Bitty’s experience, to make other people like them. Also to get what they wanted, like a seat in Alice Atley’s senior seminar when then they were sophomores, but Bitty was fairly certain Jack Zimmerman wouldn’t need pie for that. He could just give the school enough money to put his name on a building or something.

To confirm his impression of Jack Zimmermann’s communication skills -- and if they were going to keep talking or writing or whatever, Bitty had to stop thinking of Jack Zimmerman by his full name -- he searched Jack Zimmerman NHL interview.

The first hit was a videoconference interview recorded and posted the day before with Jack Zi-- 

Jack and a few other stars.

Bitty’s first thought was that Jack seemed slightly less wooden than usual, maybe because Toews and Crosby were both sticking to the pr-approved script as well, and Jack seemed good by comparison. His second was that Jack and Kent Parson clearly knew each other, with the way Parson was ribbing him about his reading habit. The third was that Jack’s pie -- the very pie from the picture Jack sent -- was visible behind Jack.

Too bad nobody brought it up.

Maybe Jack didn’t want anyone to say anything, maybe they’d been warned? Jack wouldn’t want the whole world to know he was learning to bake from Bitty. Bitty had taken down the videos he’d done when he was younger, the ones where he mooned over his crush of the week, but most of his regular viewers knew he was gay. Jack had watched at least a few videos. And Bitty’s appointment as captain last spring got a mention on ESPN SportsCenter, to Bitty’s great surprise.

But if Jack was worried about that, why hadn’t he put the pie somewhere else?

It didn’t matter if Jack was a rich, famous, handsome straight guy, Bitty decided, or even if Bitty’s stomach made a little flip when he saw Jack’s name in the email inbox. He could be living in the next town and volunteering to lead the pride parade and, during this coronavirus quarantine, he would be just as unattainable. 

The important thing was he wanted to get better at baking a pie, and that was something Bitty could help with.

He went back to the email and read past the first paragraph in order to write back. He’d try to take his time and strike the right note.

Wait. Canned pie filling? What was he thinking?

He started typing.

Dear Jack,

Under no circumstances should you use canned pie filling, cherry or any other flavor. Fresh is best, and frozen cherries, blueberries and other fruits can be an acceptable substitute if fresh, in-season fruit is not available. Canned fruit -- not pie filling, butt actual fruit, packed in water -- is your last resort.

Promise me, Jack, or I can’t help you anymore.

Okay, now that that was out of the way, he could move on.

I’m not surprised you had a setback. That’s how progress works when you’re learning a new skill, right? You start and you have no idea what you’re doing, so your second effort is better than the first most of the time, but then sometimes it gets worse before it gets better. You have to make mistakes if you are going to learn from them.

The pie in the picture looks so much better than the first one you made, and I’m sure Tater (Mashkov? I think?) will like it. As for the pies in the freezer, I give you permission to trash the ones that don’t meet your standards. Don’t think of them as a waste of food or time, think of them as learning experiences. You want to save freezer space for things you want to eat.

I’m flattered you think so highly of my hockey skills. They’re nothing compared to yours, but are immensely better than they were when I arrived at Samwell and was so scared of being checked I’d collapse on the ice. My teammates and my coaches helped me through that, but that’s probably most of the reason I skate so fast. They couldn’t hit me if they couldn’t catch me!

I’m sure you’re busy even during the lockdown, but please feel free to let me know if I can help you. Maybe you could let me know if you are planning a new kind of pie so we can talk it through before you start?

Bitty

Part 17

Now posting on AO3

[stufftippywrote]

a pact

Prompt list is here Angst prompt #12: “Holding everything in doesn’t help, you know.”

"Yo, Bitty, Jack just gets real bitchy near the end of every preseason." - Ransom

He missed the puck by just that much.

Jack's on the ice with 4 seconds to go in the third. They're down by one, but they're on the power play, and Jack's at point, in a great position to set up Bergey for the one-timer. The puck shuffles back to him, a timing play that should leave the goal wide open for Bergey. Jack extends his stick for the puck--

--and misses. It goes rocketing down the ice where Johnson has to play it behind the net, and at once four seconds are gone and the game is over.

It was the simplest play. It's a play Jack's made over and over in the Q. And the puck just slid right by his stick.

The coach's words ring hollow to his ears. "Of course we wished for a different result, but you played a good team game," whatever. The fact is, Jack lost the game for them, and he gets to go into his first collegiate season with that hanging over his head.

He sits in his stall, head down, trying to calm the incessant voices in his head. Maybe this whole thing was a bad idea, they say. Maybe he's made yet another stupid mistake. Maybe he'll continue to fail for four years...

He doesn't notice the locker room emptying out. The next thing he knows is someone patting him on the top of the head and calling his name. "Zimmermann. Yo. Jack."

It's Knight. Shitty, he insists on being called. His whole existence is a puzzle to Jack. He's been around a lot of vulgar guys as part of his junior hockey career, but he's never met anyone quite like Shitty. Certainly, he's never met anyone who'd hang back in the locker room to check on him what he was in "one of his moods," like Ruddy used to say back in the day.

Jack lifts his head. "Sorry," he says, and he's not sure what he's apologizing for.

"What's got you so down?" Shitty asks. "Don't tell me you're back here beating yourself up over one missed pass. It's preseason, brah! It doesn't even count."

Jack is silent. How does this guy know that? And when did this room get so empty? They're the only two left.

Shitty sits himself down in the neighboring stall. "Come on," he urges, "talk to Uncle Shitty."

Jack lifts his head slightly and looks at him. Who the hell is this dude, with the wild hair and the fluffy mustache, to tell him what to do? How can he possibly understand what that one missed pass signifies, how Jack is pinning all his hopes on not making stupid mistakes like that? Why should he talk to anyone, much less anyone who identifies himself as Uncle Shitty? Anger flashes through him, and he glares, hoping his expression says leave me alone.

But Shitty's not that easily fazed. "Whoa, if looks could kill, bud. Put those daggers away before you hurt someone."

Jack lowers his head again. Maybe if he ignores him long enough, Shitty will go away.

"Seriously, buddy," Shitty goes on. "Holding everything in won't help. Look, you're new here, so am I. Why don't we make a pact? As bros. I'll be here for you, and you be there for me. Have each other's backs, you know what I mean?" The words string together at the end. Shitty holds out a hand.

Jack gets up and leaves the room.

The walk back to his dorm is annoying. His silence is punctured by everyone who walks by in conversation. Thank God his mother's connections were enough to get him a single his freshman year. He couldn't deal with an obnoxious roommate right now on top of everything.

He just wants to get back to his room and take a pill and be alone.

No. No more pills. Just his daily medicine. But the craving's there, it always is when he feels like this. God damn it, he thought he was going to stop feeling like this once he got back on the ice...

"Brah."

Shitty's sitting on the fence outside Jack's dorm.

How in the hell...

Shitty hops down from the fence and approaches him. "Look, Jack, I'm not trying to be a stalker, honest to God. But I'm worried about you. You looked like a fucking ghost back there."

Jack looks him over. At last, he gives a little sigh. "Come on up," he says, and lets Shitty follow him into the building.

They're silent on the walk upstairs, but Shitty's presence at his back is like a bur on his clothes. He can't help but be aware of it, and every so often, it itches. He finally lets Shitty into his room and takes a seat on his bed.

He doesn't expect Shitty to plonk right onto the bed next to him. "You need more light in here, brah," he comments. "You should get them to fix that overhead light. I guarantee you'll feel better."

"What do you want?" Jack asks.

"To help," Shitty says. "And maybe to make a friend. If you're cool with it."

"I'm not--" Jack takes a breath. Rational thought is returning, little by little, though tremors of anxiety keep wracking him. "Thanks."

"So what's going on?" Shitty crosses his legs on the bed and faces him. "Why do you look like you're about to pass out?"

Jack lifts a hand to his face. His cheek is cold. "I shouldn't have missed," he says slowly.

Shitty's eyebrows rocket upward. "Really? You're seriously worried about that one pass?"

"It's not just the one pass," Jack admits. "It's ... I can't play like that, I'm better than that. I can't..." Another tremor sends a chill across his skin. "I have to be better."

"Or what?" Shitty says carefully.

Jack can't believe the question. "Or else I'll... I won't be able to..." He plasters his palm against his forehead. "I just have to."

"Okay, so, first thing? You are better," Shitty says. "Dude, you don't think we haven't all been watching you with our goddamn jaws on the floor? You're on a whole different level than the rest of us. You're captain next year and I'd bet my best weed on that, man."

Captain... Jack hasn't even thought about that. He could, hypothetically, be captain. Captain of an NCAA team is a pretty good mark on his resume. If he's good enough, that would be a great position from which to...

"Heyyyy," Shitty drawls. "I swear to Jeebus I just saw you smile, Pissy Jack Zimmermann."

"I--" Jack immediately puts on the most neutral face he can manage. He's ashamed at the seed of hope Shitty's words planted in his heart. What right does he have hope?

Yet hope is what brought him here. Hope and hard work, and he has slain greater dragons than this.

"I don't know how to say it," he says, his voice soft in the too-dim room. His breaths are starting to calm. "It's just... my dad is... I'm trying to..."

"Your dad?" Shitty takes a moment. "Oh, riiight. Sorry, I forgot. Dude, you're not comparing yourself to him, are you? Of course you fucking are, that's Psych 101 material. Well, cut it out."

Jack blinks. Just cut it out? This guy thinks it's that simple?

"Yeah, you heard me," Shitty goes on. "Just cut it out. Yes, I know it's not that simple, but in a way it is, dude. You think your dad never made a mistake? You think he didn't deal with a rolling puck once in a while? Dude, unless he's got twenty Cups in a row, I'm pretty sure he's fucked up a couple times in his life. And don't tell me you've been perfect up till now either." He's got a head of steam going, and he jumps to his feet, starts pacing in front of the bed. "Look, don't fucking tell me it's part of a pattern or it means you're doomed to miss pucks forfuckingever because it's not, and YOU know it's not, and I know you know it, so tell the crappy thoughts to fuck off. Do you want to get high? Might help. I can bring some stuff over from my dorm. Or beer if alcohol's your poison of choice. But for God's sake stop hunching your shoulders like you're the hunchback of Notre fucking Dame."

Jack obediently straightens his shoulders. Is this a lecture? Is he being lectured? But Shitty's right. He's being a little ridiculous. Now that the shakes have stopped and his breathing's even, he needs to snap out of it.  

Shitty watches him warily, and finally sits back down on the bed. "Too much?" he asks, almost tentative.

Jack shakes his head. "Thanks," he tells Shitty. "I guess I got too much in my head."

"Brah." Shitty puts a hand on his shoulder, comforting warmth that grounds Jack. "Don't keep this kind of thing to yourself, okay? That is literally what a team is here for. We got you when you're down." He holds out his other hand. "So. How 'bout that pact? Bros for life."

Jack sighs. "Yeah," he says, and grasps Shitty's hand. "Sounds good."

Shitty yanks hard on Jack's hand, and Jack is pulled into a hug -- the first hug he's had here that didn't follow a goal on the ice. How long since he's been hugged by someone other than his parents? He doesn't remember. It feels nice. It feels like he belongs here. And that's just what he needed to feel right now -- like there's a meaning for him having chosen this path, that it wasn't another huge mistake.

It even almost feels like there's something for him here besides hockey, and that's a revolutionary thought.

Shitty lets him go, and Jack lets out the smile he'd held back. "Bros for life," he echoes.

[lobsterdex]

beach house living (part 2)

part 1

here’s some more beach au. the google doc is at like. 8k words. oops. but here is just some of it bc i want to share it but i also want to finish it before i post it on ao3. anyways. tagging some mutuals bc give me attention @birlcholtz @tonytangredis @pieplease @fasterthanthemoon @unfairlawyer

.

He’s back in his and Shitty’s room hanging his clothes up in his half of the closet when he hears a loud bang, followed by footsteps and a general commotion. 

“Holster,” someone says, “How many times have I said quit that, you’re going to dent the wall.” 

“Dex can fix it!”

“Fuck you, you can fix it yourself.”

The voices continue, along with what sounds like footsteps going up the stairs and another loud slam that Jack assumes is the front door being closed. A few minutes later after the noise dies down, someone knocks on the bedroom door, and it starts to open before he can answer. 

It’s Shitty, saying, “It’s me, hope you’re not naked.” He catches sight of Jack by the closet and grins. “Nice, yeah, make yourself at home.” 

Jack stares at him. “What if I had been naked?” 

Shitty laughs. “Then I would close my eyes out of respect for you and your beautiful body. We’re leaving in five to go grocery shop, just a heads up.” He starts pulling clothes out of the dresser, so Jack turns back to the closet and hangs up another shirt to give him privacy.

“You ready?” Shitty says behind him. Jack hangs up another shirt before turning around. He takes a moment to take it in. Shitty is wearing cutoff jean shorts and a neon pink tank top that’s so bright it almost hurts to look at. It says, “life’s a beach.” 

Jack remembers Shitty asked a question. “Yeah, let me get my wallet.”

Shitty heads for the door. “Pretty much everyone is in the den, I’ll introduce you before we leave.” 

Jack grabs his wallet from the night stand and follows him into the hall. He wonders how many people actually live here and if his father even knows. Bob had said it was a four bedroom house but not much else. 

In retrospect, Jack should’ve asked more questions.

Again, too late now. 

Shitty announces their arrival by cupping his hands around his mouth as a megaphone and screaming, “Silence!” 

The chatter dies down, and everyone in the room turns to look at them. 

Jack thinks, why. 

“This is our new roomie Jack Zimmermann,” Shitty says, gesturing at him. 

Jack tries not to cower behind him. He doesn’t know if they follow sports, or hockey, or if they know who exactly their landlord is, but no one seems to react to his name. Small miracles. 

“You met Lardo,” Shitty says, pointing. She nods at Jack. 

“That’s Ransom,” he points to a tall, dark skinned guy standing by Lardo, who is sitting on the kitchen counter. Ransom smiles at him. “That’s Chowder and Bitty,” he points to an Asian kid in a sharks tank top - so at least one person in this house follows hockey, fucking hell, who gives him a little wave, and a shorter, blond, white boy with freckles and a tan, who smiles brightly. 

“That tall bastard is Holster,” Shitty points to another blond white boy next to Bitty. Holster grins and nods.“And those two are Nursey and Dex,” he gestures to the brown skinned guy with a tattoo circling his bicep and a third white guy with freckles and bright orange hair. 

Why does no one have a normal name, Jack thinks. 

“Hi,” he says lamely. “I’m Jack.”

“Welcome, dude,” Nursey says. 

“Alright,” Shitty claps. “Anyone who wants to go to the store, up and at ‘em.” 

Jack has just enough time to hope it isn’t a long drive and that they won’t ask him about himself during it before five of them pile into a gold Subaru parked in the driveway. Shitty has the keys and Bitty calls shotgun, so Jack crams in the back with Ransom and Dex. He gets the middle seat, which Dex apologizes for. 

“Sorry we bitch seated you,” he says with a smile. “But since Bitty got shotty, you are the shortest.” 

Jack shrugs, or tries to. “It’s fine.” 

Shitty backs out of the driveway while Ransom and Bitty play rock-paper-scissors for the aux cord. Bitty wins it, plugs in his phone and starts playing pop music Jack doesn’t recognize. 

“Yo, Shits, guess what happened today,” Ransom says. 

Up front, Bitty twists around to face the backseat and rolls his eyes. “Are you going to tell everyone this, Rans?”

“Uh, yeah. I fucking am,” Ransom scoffs. Bitty rolls his eyes again and flashes a grin in Jack’s direction. 

“So this lady comes up to my chair, right. Total white suburban mom vibes, visor and, like, Ray Bans or Tiffany shades or whatever.”

“Oh boy,” Shitty says.

“Oh yes,” Ransom says. “So I’m like, okay, benefit of the doubt, maybe she has a reasonable question about riptides or our hours or sunscreen, I don’t know.”

To Jack’s right, Dex sighs. 

“But no,” Ransom continues. That would be too much to hope for. Instead, this woman--Shits. Guess what this woman asks me.”

“I cannot even begin to guess.” 

“She asks if it’s safe to go in the ocean even if you can’t swim.” 

“Bro,” Shitty says. 

“I know,” Ransom says. 

“Some fucking people,” Dex says. 

Bitty, still facing the backseat, rolls his eyes again. Jack snorts, which earns him a sideways glance and a grin from Ransom. 

“So I’m up there, leaning down to hear her better, and she says that, and for a sec I just fucking stare at her like I’m the idiot. Processing that. Thinking about how to phrase ‘no the fuck you can’t’ nicely. And then I go, ‘No, ma’am, I’m sorry, but it’s not safe to swim unless you know how to effectively stay afloat.’ And then she says, ‘I don’t mean swimming, I just mean going in the water.’”

Jack frowns, and Dex sighs again, shaking his head. 

Up front, Shitty just says, “What.” 

“Right? So I ask, ‘What do you mean by ‘just going in the water?’ and she fucking gives me this look, like I’m the dumbass. And she says ‘I mean just the shallow part, where the waves crash.’ And I try my very hardest not to look up at the sky and ask the gods for help. And I say, ‘I’m very sorry ma’am, but that’s also dangerous due to the currents. Rip tides can be very strong.’ Which like, okay, she might not be taken out by a riptide, but assuming she has kids and shit and no athletic ability herself, she shouldn’t chance it if she can’t even tread water.”

“Lot of assumptions you’re making there, Ransy babe,” Shitty warns. 

“I know, I know. But in terms of safety, I’m trying to play it safe, and she’s the one who told me she can’t fucking swim.” 

“Hm,” Shitty says. “Acceptable. Carry on.” 

“So she says, ‘But what about just the shallow part? Where the waves come up and go away?’ And yeah, okay, she’d be fine above the tide, but again, safety and liability and whatnot. I don’t want it to be on me if she pulls some shit. So I tell her again, no, it isn’t safe. And I fucking shit you not, this lady says, ‘Are you sure? Is there someone else I can speak to?’ This bitch really asked if she could speak to a manager. On the fucking beach.”

Up front, Shitty is laughing. Bitty is grinning and shaking his head. Dex snorts, and Jack finds himself smiling, because what. 

“So I fucking walkie beach patrol, and we wait 10 minutes for Ollie to roll up, and he tells her the same exact fucking thing, and she frowns and gets all huffy and has the audacity to ask us if we’re sure. Like, yeah, bitch, we’re pretty fucking sure. If you’d dug around in your brain a little bit for your common sense maybe you wouldn’t be so mad about it. Jesus Christ.” 

Shitty opens the front door, and Jack realizes they’ve arrived and parked. 

“What’d she do after that?” Shitty asks before getting out of the car.

Ransom opens the door and climbs out, saying, “Well, apparently, she walked to the other lifeguard stand and asked them the same fucking thing.” 

Jack climbs out after Ransom, finds himself saying, “You’re kidding.” 

“Bro, I wish,” Ransom says. “That lifeguard, I think it was April, also had to radio beach patrol, so Ollie went over there to check it out and had to call someone else from beach patrol ‘cause this bitch still didn’t like our answer. Ollie came back and told me about it, ‘cause he’s a bro.” 

“Ollie just loves to gossip,” Bitty says. 

“I said what I said. Guy’s a bro.” 

“I always get him confused with Wicks,” Dex says. 

Bitty grabs a cart from the front of the store. The automatic doors slide open, and they get blasted with air conditioning, which is a relief to Jack. Everyone splits up pretty much immediately, so Jack just trails behind Bitty because he has the cart and Jack has nobody’s phone number if he gets lost. 

Bitty notices Jack following him and flashes another smile. “Guess you’re with me! We’re doing the shopping for the next week or so. Or so we say. Someone always ends up going again during the week for snacks or butter or because they’re suddenly inspired by the food network.”

Jack nods, and Bitty steers them into the fridge aisle. 

“It gets a bit chaotic just because there’s so many of us. But we have a system now, of sorts, Shitty and Lardo shop for each other, Ransom and Holster shop for each other, lord knows they know each other well enough, and Dex or Chowder shops for the other and Nursey. Nursey, bless his heart, always forgets something.” 

It’s around this point that Jack notices Bitty has a southern accent. He also notices that Bitty has dumped about 10 packages of butter in the cart. 

He decides not to ask. 

“I shop for just me, myself, and I, but I also usually end up buying the most. Sometimes the other boys will make a store run for me though, which is nice of them, but they get some of the goods, so it balances out,” Bitty says. He’s talking really quickly. Jack has no idea what that last bit is supposed to mean. 

Bitty puts two cartons of eggs in the cart. Jack’s brain processes the “I shop for me statement” and he adds another carton for himself. 

“All the people that shop for each other have a texting system worked out, I believe. There are so many group chats, I can’t keep track. I know Chowder, Nursey, and Dex have one, which I think is how they cover everything grocery shopping. There’s a whiteboard on the fridge we add to, but it isn’t very consistent. Feel free to add anything you need to it, though, I always take a picture of it before we shop! Is there anything else you need in this aisle, Jack?”

“Oh, uh, no.” 

Bitty pushes the cart onwards, talking as they go. Jack isn’t really following, but Bitty doesn’t seem to be expecting answers, so Jack nods and smiles and adds things to the cart and eventually, Shitty reappears with his own basket full of groceries and he and Bitty settle into a comfortable sounding banter. 

Ransom and Dex find them near the checkout lanes, adding their groceries to the cart. 

The seating arrangement is the same for the ride back, except Ransom gets to play the music this time. He plays different pop music that Jack still doesn’t really recognize, but everyone - save Jack and Dex - is singing along. 

Jack helps unload the groceries. He’s about to escape back to his room when Holster says, “Hey, Jack, we’re grilling tonight, do you want chicken or a burger?” 

“Oh. Chicken is fine.” 

“Nice. We’ll start screaming when it’s ready.” 

Jack blinks at him.

“Or we can just come get you.”

“Oh. Uh, thanks.” Jack takes it for the dismissal that it is and heads back to his room. He finishes unpacking, does some sit ups in an attempt to get rid of nervous energy, and ends up lying in bed staring at the blank Safari tab on his phone. He opens his messages instead, lets his parents know he’s settled in. There’s a text from his therapist letting him know they can do phone sessions. He ignores it for now. 

There are no texts from Kent. Which makes sense. There haven’t been since they fought on the phone a few days after Jack got out of rehab.

Jack can’t decide whether or not he actually wants to hear from him. Can’t decide if he misses him or if he just misses hockey. 

A knock on the door stops that train of thought. 

“Food,” someone says. 

“Thanks,” Jack calls. 

Dinner is burgers, chicken, and grilled vegetables. It’s surprisingly good, better than Jack expected from a bunch of 20 somethings. They crowd around the glass dining table on the porch and it’s loud and cheerful, everyone talking over each other and laughing. He declines the offer of beer, but not everyone is drinking, so he doesn’t feel like the odd man out. He doesn’t say much, but he’s sandwiched between Holster and Shitty, the latter occasionally elbowing him and grinning.  They’re both loud and talkative, so he pretends he can’t get a word in and smiles whenever someone catches his eye.

At some point, Shitty and Holster are arguing over his head, and Jack catches Bitty looking at him. Bitty blushes, but offers a sympathetic smile and shakes his head. He says something that Jack doesn’t quite catch, so he leans forward and taps his ear. 

Bitty meets him halfway. “These boys,” he repeats, and he sounds incredibly fond. 

Jack goes to bed around ten. He lies awake for longer than he’d like to admit, but still falls asleep before Shitty returns to the room.