Bitty nervously gathers his friends one afternoon in the late winter to tell them that he and Jack are dating. Jack is planning on coming out at the end of the season, so Bitty wants to give them all some warning. They’re all happy for them of course, but a few are a little hurt Jack and Bitty had kept it from them for so long.
“I’m sorry, y’all. I hated lying to you, but it just wasn’t the time yet. I feel so bad about not telling you– something as big and as important as that!” Bitty wrings his hands and apologizes again. The rest of the team is nodding their forgiveness, but Dex looks more and more uncomfortable with each word.
“Anything you’d like to share with the class?” Lardo asks casually. Dex looks like he’s about to faint. She loves the kid, but heaven help her if he has a problem with Bitty and Jack…..
“Bitty’s right. It’s not something we should hide. And I’m sick of lying about it.”
“Wait, when did this happen?” Chowder asks, caught between astonishment and excitement (his natural state of being, but just stronger in this particular moment).
Dex flushes. “Like…..last year? After we lost the playoffs?”
“Right after,” Nursey confirms.
“Ah,” Holster says sagely. “Roadie magic. That’s when me and Rans first started hooking up.”
“WHAT?” squawks Bitty. Rans claps a hand on Holster’s shoulder. “Shit, bro, I think we forgot to tell them.”
“What else haven’t y’all been telling me?” Bitty demands, and after that, confessions start rolling in.
“I’ve had at least two drunken sexcapades with Shitty.”
“Lards, bro! Same!”
“Didn’t Johnson get it on with the other goalie that one time? Goalies are weird, man.”
“Hey, Ollie and Wicks are totally doing it, right?”
Then, amidst the increasingly loud and colorful tales of sexual exploits, Tango shouts, “I’ve thought about kissing Whiskey!”
The rest of the Haus falls silent, Ransom and Holster smothering giggles. Whiskey calmly looks Tango up and down. “Huh. Cool. Let’s do that sometime.”
–
That night when Jack asks Bitty how it went telling the team, Bitty sighs helplessly. “Honey, I don’t know where to begin.”
Entirely because of this post by @samwell-womens-hockey. Tango asks how long Bittle and Jack have been together.
He’s not trying to snoop, it’s just there. When he asked for a closer look at the Jack Zimmermann OYO figurine Bitty told him to feel free and turned back to folding his laundry, so now Tango is holding the figure up but he got distracted by the calendar. It’s right behind the mini Jack, so it’s not like he was looking for it, but all those hearts are pretty eye catching.
“Is this your boyfriend’s birthday?” He asks, pointing at the little cake drawing. It’s pretty cute, actually.
“My what now?” Bitty says, almost casual except that he’s stiffened up, fingers clutching into the sweater in his hands, and Tango really stepped in it this time. He’s always asking stupid questions and it’s not the first time he’s said the wrong thing and someone needs to put a sock in his mouth.
“Oh, uh, I-” he stutters “didn’t mean to assume that you’re… I just thought that-”
“Hush, Tango,” Bitty says, taking pity on him. He doesn’t look angry or upset, but his smile is definitely forced. “You didn’t assume wrong, ok? Now go downstairs and get those sheets from the dryer.”
So he goes, because now that he knows about dibs he’ll do anything if it means he doesn’t have to live in those smelly dorms next year, but as he’s struggling to fold the fitted sheet he wonders why Bitty avoided the question.
hey have we considered that dex is the next johnson and hes just mad about it
I acknowledge that this comment was not actually a call for fic, but have it anyway.
Dex knows what he’s in for as soon as he sets foot on the
Samwell campus.
Oh no, he thinks. I’ve found the main plot.
A little while later, he thinks, Shit.
He’s spent the better part of the last eighteen years
successfully avoiding the plot, just trying to stay in his happy little
non-existent bubble. He didn’t matter to the plot, so he didn’t exist, and he
was happier there.
But now.
He sees the bright, cheery blond boy handing around mini
pies and gift bags and he thinks it’s an odd literary device to have the
protagonist and POV character played by the team manager rather than one of the
players. But then he learns that Bitty is in fact actually a player on the
team, and there’s no hope.
“I’m leaning towards a state school,” he says when prompted.
But of course, he ends up at Samwell anyway.
Most people are content to ignore Dex, except for their old
goalie who throws him a mock salute before vanishing from the narrative. Dex
groans at that, but tries to get through it. If he’s forced to exist as part of
the story, he’ll just keep to himself. It almost works. But then there’s Nursey.
“Yo chill, Dex,” he says, just all the time. Dex can’t tell
him that he can’t chill because he wants to go back to non-existence rather
than existing here at Samwell with Nursey. Because Nursey’s got stupidly pretty
eyes and a stupidly pretty everything and it makes Dex want to be involved in
the storyline, even though that’s not his place.
It’s worse when he and Nursey bicker though, because Dex can
actually hear the people start shipping them. Not that he can tell Nursey that.
He can’t just say, “Hey, you’ve got to stop getting on my nerves. The people
who read this comic we’re in think we should date,” because then he’d have to
explain what the hell he’s talking about, and he’s not sure he actually can.
Dex is the first one who notices when Jack starts showing up
in just black t-shirts that are a little too small and jeans that somehow just
barely fit over his gigantic ass.
“And Jack has firmly taken on the role of hunky love
interest,” he mutters one day, accidentally where Nursey can hear him.
“To who?” Nursey asks.
Dex can’t respond, can’t tell Nursey that they’re only
secondary characters in a webcomic about college hockey in which Bitty, the southern
pie-baking figure-skating gay boy, is the narrator and he’s either about to end
up in a serious amount of gayngst with their hot as hell Canadian Adonis of a
captain, or end up in a fluffy ending akin to the 100k college AUs people write
RPF for of actual professional hockey players. Dex can’t tell Nursey that in
the real world, the Providence Falconers, Seattle Schooners, Vegas Aces, and
Houston Aeros don’t actually exist, that Kent Parson’s glorious hockey record
isn’t real, and that in the real world boys who look like Derek Nurse don’t
talk to boys who look like Dex, and in the real world this would never happen.
“Not to you, right?” Nursey asks, and suddenly he looks a
little nervous. “You’re not crushing on Jack, are you?”
“No,” Dex says, because that would be the least likely ship
he can think of for their entire team. He’s got a better chance of dating Kent
Parson. “No not for me.”
“Oh good,” Nursey says.
“Pretty sure he’s there for Bitty,” Dex says.
“Really?” Nursey asks. “I thought Jack was dating Camilla
Collins.”
Dex barks out a laugh. “You know for a writer you’re really
terrible at following the plot and picking up subtext.”
“What plot? It’s real life, man,” Nursey says, frowning at
him.
Dex smiles, sadly. The comic is going to end when Bitty
graduates, and he’ll never get to know if he and Nursey finish their fourth
year of school, or if they end up somewhere good, and maybe that’s kind of
okay. Because they’ve got the present, and that’s what matters. So Dex kisses
him, so softly, and says, “You’re lucky you’re pretty, Nurse.”
Nursey laughs, their strange conversation forgotten. “Nah, you’re lucky I’m pretty,” he replies.
And Dex is glad to pretend, for just a bit, that he can have this.
Idk why Nursey and Bitty think that there’s any possibility that Dex will move back on campus? 1. Getting a room on campus (or even off-campus in a diff house) halfway through a semester is difficult as hell. 2. Dex is stubborn af and believes he’s in the right and that he earned this (honestly I’m on Dex’s side there) 3. I don’t have a 3 but 1 and 2 still stand.
3. Living in student residence is fucking expensive and if you end up with a roommate you can’t stand but are paying half, if not less, what you would have otherwise, you suck it up and deal by spending more time in the library or common areas and waiting for next year.
4. Dex would literally rather string a hammock up in the basement than admit defeat.
the goose has a broken wing and can’t fly south for the winter so dex builds it a shed with an infrared heater and a kiddie pool pond and names it stephanie (the goose not the pond)
bitty: dex, jack and i are dating dex: CAN’T TALK HAVE A GOOSE bitty: dex plz dex: WE’RE GONNA HAVE EGGS FOR DAYS BITTY. EGGS. FOR. DAYS.
chowder: dex. where did you get a goose dex: WHO WANTS QUICHE nursey: it’s pronounced quickie*
au where i am the author of check please and there are 300% more gooses
-Sometimes I forget that Shitty’s one of Bitty’s best friends, too. (I get so tied up in his fantastic, usually-naked, friendship with Jack.) Add this to Ransom and Holster’s careful offers of help and Lardo’s worried looks: Bitty’s got a built-in support system, ready to help him through all these rough patches he’s been weathering alone.
-“I hate that I can’t be proud of you.” This though. We’re all used to the idea of having to hide our sadness on occasion, but it can be just as painful to hold back joy and pride and the desire to stand up on a chair and scream, “THAT NHL PRODIGY IS MY BOYFRIEND.” Bitty hasn’t…actually…been very good at restraining his excitement about Jack’s games and funny little stories about his teammates, but imagine what a bubbly mess of joy he’ll be when he can actually open up about it the way he wants to. I have a feeling he’s going to talk nonstop about Jack for several months. (Hopefully Chowder gets to be in on the secret, because Chowder is probably the one person who could talk more excitedly about how awesomely Jack’s doing. Or maybe Shitty, when he’s drunk and weepy.)
-Jack zeroing in on Bitty’s admission that being in this relationship makes him feel like he’s gone back in the closet. Jack absolutely refusing to let that stand, now that he knows how rough it’s been on Bitty.
-Jack immediately suggesting they tell their friends. Bitty’s reaction here makes me think that every other time the topic’s come up, Bitty went into bright, cheery, “everything’s just dandy” mode, and Jack took it at face value. Now that he knows Bitty’s not actually okay with keeping it a secret – that it’s actively hurting him, and he’s only doing it because he’s afraid of secrets leaking and hurting Jack’s career…
-Their entire argument is centered around the two of them arguing for each other. They’re fighting over who deserves to be happier and more comfortable, and then apologizing for getting upset about each others’ welfare.
-That split-screen panel, though, with Jack yelling at Bitty about not prioritizing his career over his happiness, and Bitty sobbing that Jack cannot ruin his entire life for Bitty.
-That’s the moment where it probably fully clicks for Jack. Hockey is his career. Bitty is his life.
-It’s another Graduation Bells moment: Jack was in love with Bitty for a good percentage of that year, but it took a final conversational push to make him realize, Oh. Oh that’s what I was feeling. And he’s probably been feeling this way about Bitty vs his career for a while now: he’s prioritized hockey over everything else in the past, even his own health, but the brightest part of his day now is coming home after a game, hearing Bitty’s voice, gently touching the affectionate, supportive notes Bitty writes for him, finally believing that someone cares about him, rather than about what he can do on the ice.
-Winning a game might feel good. But Bitty makes Jack happy, even on his worst days. Bitty is more important than anything else in Jack’s life.
-And 110% Jack fucking Zimmermann is going to make sure Bitty knows that.
-Can I just say how much I love that breaking up was never even on the table for a second. That entire conversation was – “this is really hard, but we’ll get through this; I’ll be stronger – you shouldn’t have to be; you told me to tell you when I needed you, and I just needed you this week; I needed you to know how I was feeling, because it hurts, but it hurts less when I’m with you.” There isn’t the slightest hint of considering ending things, because these boys love each other and are willing to do everything in their power to make it work.
-Jack isn’t a hockey prince anymore: he’s the king of big romantic gestures.
-Running across campus, out of breath and desperate to see Bitty, his graduation gown billowing behind him, wasn’t enough. Now he’s gotta walk through a storm to wrap Bitty up in his rain-soaked arms??
–This boy.
-“You fool” is my new favorite pet name, after “bud.”
-Jack’s worried face, his hair dripping, as Bitty flings himself angrily at him, crumpling his elegantly tailored suit and berating him for not thinking about the consequences of his actions. Why would you do this for me, when it could’ve hurt you?
-But Jack has thought about it. When he saw those missed calls, listened to the broken-voiced message he was supposed to delete, heard the tears Bitty was trying to choke back when they talked…he thought about what it’d mean to him, to Bitty, to their relationship, to keep hiding from everyone they know. He thought about what it was like before he knew Bitty, when he was quiet and harsh and anxious and dedicating all his energy into being the best possible hockey player. He thought about the warmth that filled his chest when he talked to Bitty, the light, bubbly feeling he got when he had Bitty in his arms.
-It wasn’t much of a choice, was it? Not when one option meant Bitty fighting back tears, turning into the terrified, anxiety-riddled person Jack has far too much experience being.
–“We’re a team.”
-Honestly, this is probably the most romantic thing Jack could ever say. It means loyalty, dedication, hard work, passion. It means having someone’s back, and trusting them to have yours. It means putting in the extra time and effort. It means being your best for the other person, even on the days when it’s too hard, when everything seems to go wrong. It’s an even bigger declaration than Jack asking Bitty to be his boyfriend. And Bitty knows it.
-Bitty’s stubborn chin, the defiant tilt of his head, and Jack’s quiet, soft expression as he waits to see if Bitty really does feel the same way.
-Bitty collapsing into Jack’s arms, and the tension melting out of both of them as Bitty buries his face in Jack’s chest, Jack curving his body around his boyfriend, pressing his face into Bitty’s hair, grateful to be holding him, to know that they’re going to be okay. Still hurting because he’d hurt Bitty without knowing it, but relieved that they’re going to fix it, now that they’re together.
-Jack smiling blissfully and chirping a tired, still emotional, but deeply affectionate Bitty as they head up the stairs. It’s them. It’s the perfect example of their comfortable, best friends and boyfriends dynamic.
-Bitty slipping easily back into pet names and stripping Jack out of his wet clothes. Jack thanking him for taking care of him – for letting Jack take care of him, too.
-“Let me in?” Jack asks, waiting on the porch, his heart on his throat. As though the answer would ever be anything but yes.
AAAAAGGGGGHHHHHH YES THIS
(Thanks for writing this all out so I don’t have to lol 😉 )
jack zimmermann: eric bittle??? yeah, he’s amazing [digs into jacket pocket] [pulls out hundreds of thousands of photos of bitty] he’s my boyfriend–just look at him [flips through them] i’m so proud of him [shoves photos in your face] see this? this is the first time he ever checked someone. god i love him so much.
Jack is not aware of how much Bitty is making him happy
Ngozi, making me cry in the middle of the stream (via bittybutt)
just moving along like everyone else 