zimbits-my-love

[zimbits-my-love]

I still hate coloring 🫠

[zimbits-my-love]

Jack Zimmermann ✳ hockey ✳ chicken tenders ✳ eric bittle ✳ history ✳ photography ✳ canada ✳ golf ✳ peanut butter and jelly sandwiches ✳

[zimbits-my-love]

bitty voice: sometimes i forget you're gay

jack: you stopped kissing me to say this

[zimbits-my-love]

[zimbits-my-love]

i listened to final round by we are trees on loop while drawing this

[zimbits-my-love]

Indie Comics Ships

Final

[zimbits-my-love]

My Check Please Fic Masterpost! 🏒✍🏻

👉🏻 Find me on ao3 at nostalgicplant!

Season of the Witch

Zimbits | 2k | Magical Realism AU | Complete

Bitty has three major problems: First, he is in love with his best friend. Second, he is magic. Third, he has no idea how to address either of those. A not-too-serious magic AU.

Sloshed With Gold

Zimbits | 14k | NHL!Bitty and Photographer!Jack | Complete

Lardo calls in a favor. It involves Boston Pride, photography, and a certain blonde-haired NHL player that Jack can’t get out of his head.

ᴇxᴛʀᴀꜱ

Podfic read and mixed by @chaoskiro

"boston pride hq playlist" by @ohyoufool

Creation Myth

Cowritten with @montrealmadison

Zimbits | 24k | Canon Divergence | Complete

Jack Zimmermann overdoses the night before the draft and becomes the face of the Aces anyway. It goes about as well as you would expect.

ᴇxᴛʀᴀꜱ

"what happens in Vegas" Official Playlist by @ohyoufool and @montrealmadison

Fic Binding Video by @ohyoufool

Call of the Champions

Lardo/Camilla, Zimbits | 13k | 2002 Winter Olympics AU | Complete

“Couldn’t find a mini American flag. Ran into an angel in the hallway. Don’t worry about it.” She shrugs her jacket tighter around her neck. Shitty blinks. “That’s a lot. I was doing shots with the bobsled team in the bathroom.” In the middle of a medal hunt during the 2002 Winter Olympics, Lardo manages to find something else she wants just as bad as the gold.

ᴇxᴛʀᴀꜱ

"Call of the Champions: A Lamilla Winter Olympics AU" Playlist by @jubileesbian

Official art by @virgoscringe

Austin

Zimbits | 18k | Canon Divergence | Complete

Bitty: a lesson in bitterness. “Say please,” Bitty breathes, something swelling inside his chest. Jack looks dazed, drunk at the sight of Bitty above him. “I’ll do anything you ask." He fills the space between them with his offer. “If you beg.”

ᴇxᴛʀᴀꜱ

"austin" Official Playlist by @ohyoufool

Little Beast

Zimbits | 5k | Whump | Complete

The scientific formula for calculating impact force goes as follows: Force produced when two items collide = Change in momentum / time period  All 190 pounds of Jack go into the boards in this order: right skate blade, forehead, left knee, which spins him around, and then, dizzied, the back of his head again.

Meet Me in the Air

Zimbits | 12k | Band AU | Complete

Bitty's nervous, but he isn’t stupid. Before he agreed to meet a random internet stranger, he definitely scrolled through Boot Guy's Facebook profile for a minute to make sure he wasn’t a serial killer. And ‘Jack Z’ had a relatively normal, if sparse profile. A profile photo that was a distant photo of a motorcycle. A few tagged photos. A spattering of routine birthday messages. Nothing to tip Bitty off about being potentially murdered. Also, nothing to tip Bitty off this guy is fucking hot.

BONUS: the tumblr post that started it all

Need You, Want You

Zimbits | 16k | BioBDSM | Complete

“Are you okay?” Bitty offers, and Jack’s head snaps up. His cheeks are red, a blush high on his cheekbones. His eyes are big and a little watery, his pupils unfocused in the way that subs get when they’re starting to drop. Eric Bittle presented as a Dominant when he was 16.

[zimbits-my-love]

Okay. How about Bitty with a tattoo.

It starts because of a game of ‘I’ve never.’

They’ve gone a few rounds, Dex and Nursey are mostly targeting each other. Dex goes for an obvious one ‘I’ve never gotten a tattoo,’ and of course Nursey drinks, but the surprising thing is that Bitty does it as well. Trying to be discreet about it and failing miserably.

They all stare at him.

Ransom and Holster smell blood. Shitty passes an arm around him before he can try to escape. Lardo cackles in the background. Jack is completely silent. Chowder is losing it and asking million questions a minute. Dex and Nursey are distracted by the small slap fight they have going on.

Bitty is completely closed down about the subject, and when the guys points out that if he had a tattoo they would have seen it already. Bitty just shrugs and doesn’t say anything.

They switch tactics and continue the game, purposely targeting Bitty.

Loads of alcohol later, Bitty confesses he uses make up to cover it up because he got the tattoo at 16 and if his mother ever found out, he’ll be killed and now he keeps doing it out of habit. Won’t say anything else about it and eventually just passes out against Chowder.

Shitty notices Jack’s trying too hard to be casual.

They pounce on him like the hungry pack of wild dogs they are. Turns out Jack saw it when he went to yell at Bitty in the shower, but he’s sworn to secrecy. Jack won’t say anything else on the subject, nor would he fall for their cheap tricks.

(Mostly, he’s in denial here about how often he has fantasied about that damn tattoo. He’s definitely not thinking about the things he would do given half a chance. He’s going to hell.)

Jack uses the excuse of carrying Bitty to his room to escape. He puts Bitty on the bed and can’t help tracing his thumb over Bitty’s hip bone, where he knows the tattoo is. Bitty opens his eyes. He’s actually not that drunk, just tipsy but faked the pass out to avoid more questions.

Horrified Jack about to apologize, but Bitty just quirks an eyebrow and well, let’s just say Jack gets to do some of the things he really wanted to do to that tattoo.

Also, he is completely unsubtle about it, can’t keep himself from staring and so everybody figures out the next day the location of the tattoo before coffee.

Jack is still the only one who knows what it is, and it’s very possessive about it.

For more of my headcanons here: X

For my edits here: X

[zimbits-my-love]

Jack and Bitty hugging after their big wins

Stanley Cup // National Championship

[zimbits-my-love]

cant dm my mutuals like a normal person so i have to think of ridiculous things to post so i can maybe get an Interaction from them passivestyle

[zimbits-my-love]

It’s been a bit but I finally made more! Now I just need to incorporate Chowder somehow…

Jack and Bitty

Jack and Kent

[zimbits-my-love]

at arm's length

a Four Nations Face-Off AU. For those not aware, the US played Canada in Montreal last week. There were three fights within the first nine seconds, after Canadian crowds booed the US national anthem.

Jack Zimmermann is in the starting lineup for Canada. No sooner does the puck drop against the US then half his teammates drop the gloves and multiple fights are underway. Jack is a skill player and not a tough guy. He stands back and lets it happen and doesn’t get involved.

Except—

—except the next thing he knows a US player roughly the size of a thimble is trying to punch him in the face.

“No offense,” says forward Eric Bittle as he tries and fails to land blows. “It’s for my country, you know?”

It’s fairly easy to hold Bittle at arm’s length. “What are you doing?” Jack asks him, because he’s genuinely curious. “You’re not a fighter.”

“Fight me back and you’ll find out, sweetheart,” Bittle says. Even his voice isn’t tough — a wavering tenor.

“Yeah,” Jack says, “I don’t think so.” He tries not to laugh as he keeps Bittle at arm’s length, and Bittle keeps trying and failing to punch him.

They end up in their respective, crowded penalty boxes anyway. Jack watches, amused, as Bittle’s teammates congratulate him heartily on being such a tough guy.

“You’re a good sport, Mr. Zimmermann,” Bittle hollers at him over the space between the boxes. He takes off his helmet and shakes his hair free of sweat. With his short-cropped hair framing his face, Jack realizes, he’s really, really cute.

“Nice try, Bittle,” he calls back, unable to keep from poking fun.

Bittle’s cheeks, already rosy from the ice and the exertion, flush a bit more. Damn, he really is cute. Jack has no business mooning after the enemy but he can’t help imagining Bittle in his arms. In his bed.

Jack doesn’t think about sex a ton, as a rule. His mind is usually all hockey, all day. But something about this Bittle teases out that usually dormant part of him. There was something in the air when they fought, or attempted to fight. And even now he keeps stealing glances over during the interminable five minutes for fighting.

It’s a not-very-well-kept secret in the NHL that folks who are in penalty boxes don’t always scream at each other through the duration of the penalty. In facet, conversation between the two participants in a fight can get downright friendly at times. Somehow, between the three guys in his penalty box and the three guys in theirs, a get-together over beers gets planned and a suitable location here in Montreal hammered out. And then they get out of the box and go on to play an actual game of hockey.

The US wins. Handily. It’s an embarrassment, and while the Americans are jubilant, Jack sits with Nathan MacKinnon the locker room and sulks a little. “We’ll get ‘em in the title game, eh?” Jack offers. Nathan shrugs and gives a noncommittal yeah. Other guys are less gloomy, but overall the mood in the locker room is not the greatest. Jack is suddenly really looking forward to that drink.

Un the car on the way to the bar, he asks his car computer to tell him about Eric Bittle. He’s a Boston Bruin, about two years younger than Jack, from the unlikely-to-spawn-a-hockey-player state of Georgia. Turns out he attended the same college Jack did, but a few years behind, since he played in the minor leagues a bit between highschool and college. Jack was already graduated by the time Bittle came to school.

He rolls up at the bar and discovers he’s the last of the six to arrive. Bittle and the Tkachuk brothers are already in an argument with Jack’s countrymen over, from what Jack gleans, the Canadians booing the US national anthem. “The way I see it,” Bittle says, “y’all brought this on yourselves.”

“We weren’t booing,” Hagel says. “The crowd was booing.”

“You were enjoying it,” says a Tkachuk (which one is which?).

“It’s disrespectful,” Bittle says, and he turns up his nose, and oh damn, he’s still cute.

Jack saunters over. “Some people say you’ve lost that respect. By electing him.”

The Tkachuks look like they’re ready to throw down. Bittle speaks up quickly, as much to placate them as to argue, Jack suspects. “However you feel about him, a country’s bigger than just a president, don’t you think? You can’t all tar us with the same brush.” His nose wrinkles. “Tar us? Tar and feather us? No, that seems wrong…”

Jack smiles despite himself. “Fair point.”

Bittle gives him a smile back, and it is such a winning expression that Jack’s heart thumps in his chest. “Anyway, it’s all well and good now, right? We got the anger out. Also, we clobbered you, so there’s that.”

“Wait till the title game,” Jack returns easily.

“You assume you’ll be in the title game,” Tkachuk 2 says. (Jack’s resorted to numbering them at this point.)

“We’ll be in the title game,” says Bennett, and the argument erupts anew.

Somewhere in the fray, Bittle touches Jack’s hand gently and nods in a certain direction, a come with me. Jack follows.

Bittle sets his mug of beer down on a table in the corner. “Listen. I feel the same way about that guy you do,” he says. “To tell you the truth, the atmosphere’s awful lately.”

“That’s what I hear,” Jack says. A couple of guys on the Falconers have expressed similar sentiments.

“Still. We get caught up.” Bittle sighs. “I’m sorry I came at you like that.”

The idea of apologizing for a hockey fight, especially from someone whose arms are so short he can’t even land a decent punch, strikes Jack as funny, and also endearing. “It’s hockey,” he says. “You don’t have to say sorry, Bittle.”

“Consider it the Canadian in me,” Bittle says. “Call me Bitty. Everyone does.”

Bitty suits him so perfectly. Jack’s honestly enthralled. “Bitty, then. Nice to meet you.” He holds out a hand to shake and Bitty takes it. His palm is cool from the touch of the beer mug. “That was a nice goal there, at the end.” It was one of the prettiest goals Jack’s ever seen, but he doesn’t want to lay it on too thick. His heart is already being unruly, just sitting here at a table for two with this attractive guy.

“Thanks,” says Bitty. “Anyway, yeah. The atmosphere is rough. Especially for guys like me, especially in sports. You know what I mean?”

Bitty looks straight into his eyes at that, and yes, Jack knows exactly what he means.

“Do they know?” he asks.

“Those guys? No way.” Bitty laughs ruefully. “I’d be hanging from the top of a locker by my underpants. Some of my teammates back in Boston, though. Brad knows.”

“Yeah. It’s the same here.” It doesn’t feel like coming out, necessarily. He has the feeling Bitty already knows. “A couple of my teammates. But no one on staff, nobody else. Doesn’t really matter, since they call me hockeysexual to begin with.”

“Hockeysexual!” Bitty laughs louder this time. The smile on his face is like the sun.

“Yeah.” Jack can’t help an answering smile. “My friend came up with that a while back and it stuck. Always felt pretty accurate.”

“But you’re not, right?” Bitty says. “Hockeysexual, I mean.” His eyes have gone half-lidded. In the low light of the bar, his lips look so soft. Jack longs to touch them.

“No.” Jack feels like he’s under some kind of spell. He looks into Bitty’s eyes and lets the feeling wash over him. “Not all the time.”

Bitty puts his hand on Jack’s. It’s warmer now. “Jack,” he says softly, “if I asked you to come back to my room, would you still hold me at arm’s length then?”

* * *

The Canadians do, in fact, make it to the title game. It’s held in Boston. 

Jack and Bitty leave Bitty’s apartment together and drive to TD Garden. When they get there, Bitty ushers them into a dark corner.

“Good luck, Mr. Zimmermann,” Bitty murmurs as Jack takes him in his arms.

“Same to you, Bitty,” Jack says softly against Bitty’s lips.

They share a long, lingering kiss and promise to meet later. Then they head off to their separate locker rooms and prepare to do battle one more time.

[zimbits-my-love]

no one on the smh (not even rans believe it or not) knows that holster’s been in theater like almost the entire time he’s been at samwell. and absolutely not a soul from the drama club knows he’s on the hockey team. so imagine his surprise when he’s studying for finals in his room and he hears a very familiar “CALL TIME IS AT 4 SHARP” and he perks up and is then filled with dread at the realization that denice ford is about to blow his cover to bits

[zimbits-my-love]

Was looking through my "to-draw" list the other day and idk when/if I'll have the time/inclination for this one but I figured I'd share with y'all.

(Many thanks to my partner for the comment that they could imagine this. My partner whose only real experience with Check Please was reading thru the whole thing in order to paint me more accurate fanart as a birthday present years ago when I was In the Thick Of It [TheFandom])

[zimbits-my-love]

A Comprehensive List Of Jack's Canon Chirps

"Bittle, HEADS UP!" [Bitty passes out] "…Or get into fetal position at central ice. That's also an option."

"You've never seen the sun rise from a rink, eh? Thought you were a figure skating champion."

Bitty: "A fist bump! I didn't know you did those." Jack: "Ha - you gotta work for them."

"The sad thing is, I can tell he's lying not because of the library part? But because he'd never leave a pie unattended."

"Oh and Bittle, before I forget. This summer? Eat more protein."

"When you get Youtube famous don't go out and chirp me all over the internet, eh? 'Night."

"How many of those tweets do you start with oh my god y'all?"

"It's way too easy to make you laugh. Make sure you tweet that." [looks over Bitty's shoulder to make sure he tweets that]

[texts Bitty a smiley face] [follows up with:] "Sorry that was a typo."

"You only tweeted twice while we were working, Bittle. That's a record."

[Bitty gets knocked over] "I guess you're looking for extra checking practice, eh, Bittle?"

"We should get going and let Bittle here text about his walk to class."

Bitty: "E-excuse you, but my kitchen is no place for checking!" Jack: "…Your kitchen?" Bitty: "Well, the kitchen! Now move your big -- uhm." Jack: "My big…?"

[At Thanksgiving] "All that turkey's gonna make you slow for tomorrow, Chowder."

[To a kid wearing a Brad Marchand jersey while asking for Jack's autograph] "You know this isn't me, right?"

"17." [At Bitty's confusion:] "That's the number of pies you baked in September. In case you were wondering where your time went."

"I'm sure you'd be done [with your history essay] too if you had tweeted it. Is that an option?"

[looks at Bitty's tweets] "I said where'd you get that camera not is that the camera you use. Come on, Bittle."

[finds Bitty's surprise cookies] "I'm surprised your cookies got through costumes Bittle."

"I told my mom about all your tweeting? She says you're not following her. I'm more surprised than offended, Bittle."

"Shitty, don't you think I should get a tweet transcript or something since he quotes me so much? For legal purposes."

"Hey, Bittle. That Daily reporter didn't rope you into an interview after that jump?"

[after meeting Farmer] "She was nice, eh? Cute. …I bet you're texting about our lunch now."

[Nursey accidentally hits a kid in the face with his hockey bag] "Nice check, Nurse."

[in the middle of the night] "I figured you'd be up baking a pie or three."

[Bitty gets shoe-checked] "Hey, it's no shoes, no shirt, no service, Bittle."

"Whose shoulders are you going to sit on at Spring C, Bittle?"

[Shitty tears up while kissing the ice] "Crying a bit there, eh?"

[SMH buy Bitty a new oven] Bitty: "I need to bake something right this second!" Jack: "Stop crying first."

"If we move the kitchen table out, you can bring your bed in."

[About graduating] "The biggest change is probably my diet. Less pie."

"And hey, it's a bit different than you and Lardo, eh? Since everyone knew you were in love with her since sophomore year."

[during Falcs Faceoff] Teammate: "Heard you've never lost one a these, I'm scared." Jack: "Yeah, you should be."

[Gets chirped for dating Bitty] "This is a Samwell hockey record. Chirps lasting longer than the ones re: Holster & Esther S." Holster: "…Jack." Jack: ":)"

Nursey: "Yo, Bitty do you remember any French?" Jack: "No." Bitty: "I can speak for myself, Mr. Zimmermann." Jack: "Well. Not in French."

[To Marty & Thirdy] "Hauling your kids around on a sled just about wore you guys out, eh?"

[To Tater] "Potato champ needs more sleep, eh?"

"Bitty? Hey, bud, come on, say something -" [Bitty passes out] "Or you can pass out at center ice. I'm getting deja vu."

[zimbits-my-love]

I made it

[zimbits-my-love]

It’s been a bit but I finally made more! Now I just need to incorporate Chowder somehow…

Jack and Bitty

Jack and Kent