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wetwellie · 5 years ago

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Back to the Future AU (Ye be warned this is a pretty long one):

The Samwell Hockey team has become used to finding their eccentric alumnus, Dr. Justin Oluransi, hiding out in their attic quite often. He is an 84 year old man, you can’t really scold him for busting out of the nearby retirement home to tinker with experiments and inventions that never work. He never bothered anyone, and no one bothered him. Then Shitty moved in and was freakin stoked for their guest.

“Hey pops, what did they call you on the team?” “…Ransom” “Awesome. Hey. You’re super good at science right? Could you help me brew up something in the tub?”

Dr Ransom was then initiated as the grandpa of the team. He helped with the recipe for tub juice, and they dragged out a bed for him to sleep on when he’s running from the Home.

Dr Ransom also helped with homework from time to time in exchange for said person becoming Ransom’s personal assistant for half an hour or so.

(“Bro why do you have 17 hickeys all over your back?” “Doc put a lot of suction cup things on me last night in exchange for his graphing calculator.”)

Of course, there was a man who never indulged in speaking with the man who even thought about spending time with their Attic friend, and that was Jack Zimmermann. They were sort of pushed into each other’s acquaintance during an epikegster in Jack’s second year. Jack had locked himself upstairs for the night. He hadn’t had the best game performance and kept thinking about everything he could have done better--should have done better. It was overwhelming him and every noise, every movement, every thought had been pretty daunting. He had been curled up on his bed when he noticed that the tapping he’d heard wasn’t from the party. It was from an elderly old man in a labcoat knocking on his window.

It was nearly 10 below (Celsius), so he couldn’t just let him out. Jack unlocked his window and helped Ransom in.

“Sorry about that, pal.” Ransom had said as he plopped himself onto Jack’s bed “Two cats were already...pretty ocupado in the attic when I went to work for tonight. Remind me to wash those sheets thoroughly.” “Is there anything I can do to help you out?”

“Unless you’re comfortable with kicking those people out of my attic. I’m afraid I can only ask for company.”

“I don’t think I would be very good company” Jack said, trying his best to politely refuse.

“I’m sure you’ll do just fine, once you’re comfortable. What’s your name again?” “Jack” “Nice to meet you man! I’ve seen you around, but you always seemed to be focused on one thing or another. I haven’t made it out to any of your games, but I’ve heard from the others that you are very dedicated to hockey” “Well...isn’t everyone on the team?” “I suppose you’re right. But everyone on the team isn’t a hardass captain.” “They called me a hardass?”

“Only during the preseason” Ransom chirped. Jack didn’t laugh.

“I suppose I could’ve been more of a hardass when I was captain of the team.” “You were captain?” Jack asked, trying his hardest to sound like he was interested.

“Co-captain, actually.” Ransom said, with an expression that was unreadable.

“Wait!” Jack threw up his hand and pulled open his laptop. In the google search bar he googled “Google” and THEN started typing a phrase he knew familiar, clicked on a purple link to a bare bones site with barely any bells and whistles. There were only links to years. “What year did you graduate?” “Undergrad?” “Of course.” “1955″

Jack scrolled down to that number and hit click. The page that loaded was filled with scanned articles, and paragraphs of stats and commentary. Ransom only looked at him.

“The coaches wanted someone to go through all of the old stuff and digitize it. The manager who had been working on it before graduated last year, and I volunteered in their place” He then made a noise and clicked at the screen a couple more times. He turned it to face Ransom and pointed at an old photograph from the newspaper. The clipping had removed all of the article below it. In the photo was two young men in their hockey uniforms on the ice. They were holding each other close and raising a large jug in the air that had the words “SIN BIN” written in big red letters.

Jack pointed to one of them “Is this you?”

Ransom didn’t answer. His attention was fully on the photograph being projected on that blue-white screen. If Jack had been paying more attention, he might have seen Ransom’s throat hitch as he gulped, or tears starting to form and just barely being held back. But sadly, his attention wasn’t so focused. He did, however, notice when the doctor let out a howling laugh and pointed at the jug.

“The sin bin! God that takes me back. Do you still have one of those?” “No” “Get one! Every captain needs one.” Ransom explained. “We used that money to buy cheap booze and pricey butter.” “Butter?” “It’s a long story.” Ransom said “But that’s not the point. You put money in the sin bin, and the whole team benefits from it. Your hardassery will have some sort of benefit.”

The two then melt into a conversation about hockey, captaining,the past, and even science for a bit. Albeit, Jack only wanted to know how legit “Breaking Bad” was. “I’ve never made any drugs, believe it or not. But I’m sure the science checks out”

Every once in a while, when talking about the past, Ransom would quickly change the subject. Jack would do the same. They danced around the things they didn’t want to speak of, and usually fell back on chirping each other about their technological ineptness.

It was 4am when Jack heard the party start to die down. Jack was discussing the merits of having the Internet as a research tool as a student. Ransom shook his head. “I know from this side that it is helpful, but it would have been awful during my studies. There would have been so many outlets and so many distractions. I had enough panic attacks as it is, that would have surely worsened it.”

There was a rather pregnant pause before Jack tentatively said “Panic Attacks?” “Yeah. There was a lot of stuff to panic about back then.” he said. He looked at Jack, fiddlling with the loose strings on his shirt, and added “I guess there’s a lot to panic about right now, too. Life can be a bitch.” Jack let out a hollow laugh. The silence never really ended, however. Instead, Ransom took that as his cue. “I should check to see if the lovebirds are post-coital by now. But remembering college, I doubt it.” Jack stared at Ransom dubiously. “And I shouldn’t have said that. Don’t want to scar you with any mental images! Anyways. I should get going”

He ended up walking to the door before being compelled to add “And if you ever need to talk, you can always see me when I’m in the attic. I’ve got a lot of life experience and surprisingly good ears for my age.”

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Jack should have been more surprised at how often he found himself with Ransom for the rest of the semester. Whenever he wasn’t practicing or studying or keeping up with Shitty, he was in the attic. Mostly he helped lift heavy things that Ransom needed to tinker with, while the Doctor chattered on and on about “Important Shit!” that he’s learned in his life that will help Jack.

“Is there anything that has stayed more or less consistent over the past 60 years?” Jack asked one day.

“Hockey Butts are still as toned as ever.” He replied without missing a beat. “And they take years to erode. They are truly God’s gift”

Jack actually laughed at that and said “Amen”.

In the months that came to pass, Jack would grow to call Ransom a friend as well as mentor. However, he couldn’t help the feeling that he never truly knew him. Jack had confessed many things to him: about his pressure to always be better, about the overdose, about Parse. And while Ransom didn’t have the magical words to make those hurts all better, he listened without judgement. That was all he needed.

Winter turned to Spring without much of a struggle that year. Ransom spent most of his time searching online for the best places to purchase rare ores that he simply has to have, while he mumbles something about a gigawatt. Jack usually spent his time talking about Hockey or the new thing he had seen on this documentary a couple nights before, or Shitty being Shitty. He found himself a lot more empty-handed in the attic in the months before. Jack heard a lot less “fill this cylinder up with exactly 5.74 ml of hydrochloric acid” and a lot more “carry this new clock and hang it up in the attic. Mamrie Cartwright is having an estate sale and this was 2 dollars”.

Soon he found himself packing up his room for the summer, and popping up to check on Ransom before seeing him off. A few days before, the graduating members of the team had given him a “World’s best Grandpa” T-Shirt, with a “dr” scribbled in between the lines in sloppy marker. Ransom had given them all a bottle of Tub Juice to remember the Haus by.

Jack was surprised to open the door to the attic to see Ransom packing a suitcase.

“Headed somewhere?” “You think I don’t deserve a vacation too?” “I never said you didn’t. Where are you headed?” “I’ve met an old friend up at Niagra falls every summer for 60 years, so I’m gonna do that. And then I have to visit a science convention or two” “Sounds like a busy summer. You take care of yourself.” “I should say the same! If I come back and any of you cats have flat asses, I swear I’ll die on you. So eat some protein for my sake.”

“Will do”

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It’s July 4th when Jack recieved a call from an unknown number. “Allo?” he answered.

“Jack! You brilliant bastard! It’s me.” “Ransom?” “The one and only. Listen. I don’t have a lot of time. Do you know where the mall called “Le Boulevard” is?”

“I don’t know, it sounds kind of familiar?”

“That’s good enough. Would you be kind enough to meet up with me on the 7th at precisely 3:15am?”

“What? Why?” “I can’t tell you right now, but it’s a matter of great importance. And I know that you will understand when I explain, but I can’t explain now.” “I don’t know how I’ll get there” “Please, Jack! I can’t lone this one.” Jack paused for a long while before saying “I’ll think about it” and hanging up the phone.

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Jack’s mother came into the room the moment that the call ended. She asked who it was, and Jack answered. Explaining the whole deal about the man who had been hiding in their attic for the better part of two years. She seemed very worried until he mentioned how he was the captain back in the fifties.

“In the fifties? Do you think he knows about the fire?” “Fire?”

“Yeah. When I was going there, one of my English professors mentioned it. The old hockey house, before yours and that sorority. It burned to the ground. 2 people died.”

“Ransom never mentioned a fire” “It might have been after his time then” said Alicia. “It still seems like such a shame”

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It’s 2:45am and Jack has gotten no sleep whatsoever. His group text is blowing up with pictures and videos of ongoing celebrations in the states. It’s times like these that he truly wished he knew how to turn off notifications. He scrolled through the chat and stopped at canadian teammates responses. It’s a picture of him wearing the flag as a cape and eating what seemed to be really old timbits. It’s captioned “Happy 3 days after Canada day”. Jack laughed, so he responded “haha”. Immideately after the response, Jack’s phone starts vibrating like crazy. Ransom is calling him.

“Jackie my man! Are you ready???” “Ready for what?”

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