Headcanon I’m working on now: Bitty is team captain in his senior year. He has nebulous “omg what to do when I graduate???” thoughts but his plans are mainly “move in with Jack in Rhode Island, get a job”
Then scouts for NHL feeder teams start showing up to his games. And practices. And taking him out for coffee. And asking him who his agent is. Because let’s get real, someone who can start playing a sport and end up at NCAA championship level five years later? Is a pretty special athlete.
When he gets the offers Bitty is originally like, but I don’t WANT to play pro hockey! I wanna be with my boyfriend!
The greatest part of this would be when Bitty and Jack have games against each other, because their competitiveness would get ranked up to a million, since the loser will basically get chirped non stop by friends, teammates, family and of course each other.
And maybe Jack and Bitty start making small harmless bets. It starts with winner picks what we eat for dinner and what we watch afterwards, but then they move to stuff like if Jack wins Bitty can’t use twitter for the whole weekend, or Jack will have to appear on his next vlog post etc.
(And of course there’s the private fun stuff they also bet on but will never tell anybody about winkwink)
So it’s always small silly stuff, but they take it super seriously. And then they start using the games to settle arguments like this:
“Y’all, we need to win. You don’t understand, we have to. If we don’t Jack is taking us to the most boring vacation in history. He wants to go to
Gettysburg,
Pennsylvania
to watch a reenactment of the battle and of the
Gettysburg
Address and if I have to go, you will see a grown man cry of boredom. I want to go to the beach. I deserve to go to the beach.”
“We agreed the winner will get to set the thermostat. Bitty always puts it too high and it’s annoying.”
“If we win Jack will finally admit he has been pronouncing
pecan
wrong! No you don’t understand, this is important, we have been arguing about this for years.”
“Bitty will stop breaking diet and I’m afraid if we don’t win this, his nutritionist will kill him.” (They don’t win this, because there is 0 chance you will get Bitty’s team to give up all the baked goods they have been getting since he joined the team.)
Also, it is absolutely impossible to get interviews afterwards with either of them, because turns out playing against each other is like the weirdest most intense form of foreplay ever.
Like they can’t see each other very often during game season, so by the end of their games they honestly couldn’t care less about anything other than making it to each others apartments, so they skedaddle
with 0 shame and sometimes just go straight to the car and shower at home.
George: Jack, you have interviews…
Jack: (speed walking away) No.
George: Jack!
Jack: (pretends not to hear her) Goodbye.
And well, George figures there’s some battles you can’t win and at least she’ll get an apology pie for this.
Jack lives alone, but Bitty has roommates. However they know better than to show their faces after a game, like we are talking complete pie ban for the whole team for a month here.
Also, if you think Jack Zimmermann is scary on the ice, you have never seen his face when you interrupt marathon sex after weeks of not seeing his boyfriend.
also can we talk about the height difference between jack and bitty? and how much jack would LOVE that?? like jack is all tall lines and hard planes, but bitty is small, soft curves next to him and he doesn’t understand how this sweet southern boy isn’t put off by his sharp edges, like how can he be so kind when Jack is so…much? And he thinks about it sometimes at night when his chest is pressed against bitty’s back, and his breath comes quicker and his vision blurs a little, but then bitty sighs and presses into his chest and jack’s heartbeat calms and he can breathe again, so he slings his arm over bitty’s side and kisses his neck and remembers it’s not up to him how much other people love him. and he’s happy.
pay for the boy’s froyo, really listen to his problems without mocking him, but when he stops being sad flirt with him to oblivion
did i forget: just sign your huge nhl contract but still take that boy out and listen to his oven woes.
#you know why jack hates when bitty starts tweeting#BECAUSE HE STARTS PAYING ATTENTION TO HIS PHONE AND STOPS PAYING ATTENTION TO JACK#“pay attention to meeeeee” jack says “look i’m chirping you! look at me! what’s so interesting?? you could be talking to me!!!!” (x@jacksbits)
Jack comes out of an outpatient knee surgery about 6-7 years into their marriage (maybe a decade after they get together) and like Bob, Alicia and Bitty are waiting in the family area. And like Bob and Alicia come and check on him after he’s been placed in a room to come of anesthesia but he isn’t awake yet so they go get food for all them while Bitty waits with him.
Jack comes around, blinking blearily and is like “Oh, hey.” with his heavy accent.
“Hi” Bitty says back grinning.
Jack tries to sit up.
“No no, sweetie, you need to stay put,” Bitty says gently pushing him back.
“Why?”
“Cause you just had knee surgery honey,” Bitty says.
At this point Bob and Alicia come back and Bob is so amused he starts filming. (apparently he also had some sort of corrective surgery at some point (he’s a pro- athlete after all) and he says some wacky shit but this was before people had recording devices in their pockets, but Alicia has Stories™)
“Hey there champ, how are you feeling?” Bob says patting his shoulder.
“Pretty good, especially since I have a cute nurse,” Jack stage whispers gesturing vaguely towards Bitty.
“That so? Do you want me to introduce you?” Bob says to him, laughter in his voice.
“Yeah, that’d be great,” Jack whispers louder this time, looking up at Bob seriously.
“Okay champ, this is Eric Bittle, your husband” Bob says grinning.
“Hey there Eri- Wait what?”
“Eric “Bitty” Bittle, your husband,” Alicia repeats.
“What?” Jack ruminates on this looking back at Bitty who is sitting on the foot of his bed facing him. “Woah”
“Really?” he asks.
“Really,” Bitty pipes up.
“Wow,” Jack ruminates on this some more. “When—How— How long have we been married?” Jack asks.
“Seven years, sweetheart, it’ll be eight in July,” Bitty says.
“Wow,” Jack says again. “You’re a looker though aren’t ya, eh?”
He gives a lopsided grin. Bitty gives a hearty laugh.
“But you’re the cutest guy I’ve ever seen.”
“Thanks, honey”Bitty smiles, blushing.
“Like, whoa, give me a spin,” Jack says, motioning with his hand with the cracker he’s been given, shaking a few crumbs everywhere.
“Jack!” Bitty blushes and laughs. “Let me go ask the nurse if you can have ice chips yet. Do you want some ice chips honey?” Bitty gets up to the door and turns to ask him.
“Woah, your glutes are perfect,” Jack answers. Alicia gives a high-pitched shout laugh and Bob guffaws.
“I’m gonna go get you ice chips sweetie, keep eating your crackers,” Bitty says, turning red and escaping out the door.
Jack turns to his dad. “I hit the jackpot.”
Bob smiles patting him on the shoulder again and says, “Yes you did son, yes you did.“
Bitty comes out to his parents but he doesn’t tell them about Jack, thinks it’s for the best, maybe to ease his parents into things or maybe to keep the pool of People Who Know as small as possible
and like yeah Ransom and Holster are super oblivious but Suzanne Bittle is not, not when it comes to her son, because she is a certified Nosy Southern Mother and she can see he’s been acting differently, happier but quieter, always on his phone and blushing when she asks about boys
and he talks about the team a LOT
Jack’s one of his best friends and he’s just started his NHL career, so of course Bitty’s never gonna shut up about Jack
(Same goes for Shitty and law school. And eventually Ransom and med school. Dicky is proud of his friends and wants everyone to know. He gets that trait from Suzanne, she understands)
but he keeps talking about this one Boy, how sweet he is and how his smile is like a sack of puppies and how bitty’s always making this boy do things with him like baking and getting froyo and going shopping and Suzanne is like. Yes. This must be Dicky’s secret boyfriend.
the next family weekend or whatever, Suzanne demands to meet this Chowder boy who’s stolen Bitty’s heart
oh man oh man i am so ready to see when jack introduces bitty to the entire providence team and they invite him to skate with them and he skates fucking spinorama CIRCLES around professional hockey players and when they actually get to playing hockey they realize that fuck he’s actually pretty fucking good for an amateur and he’s putting them to shame with his speed and *clap on shoulder* “you did good, zimmermann” and jack KNOWS, he KNOWS oh man i’m so ready
anon i do not know i really don’t!!!!!!! we gotta Remedy This but first we’re remedying it with some hcs bc i am SWAMPED with fics to write but like…. if anyone wants to write some nhl!bitty fics……. and like tag me……. that would be amazing
oooooookay so let’s establish that there are a lot of teammates in bitty’s year. we don’t KNOW any of them, but they’re there, trust me
so scouts start coming in bitty’s 4th year and there’s a whole POOL of people who they might be coming for so nobody knows (although everyone has their own opinions about who they’re there for)
samwell is going p far, they get to the frozen four and i have no idea whether they win or not idk not relevant rn BUT THEY GET TO THE FROZEN FOUR
i cannot decide if i think bitty would be captain or not? like he’d be a great captain but i could also see him not getting it, idk it depends. let’s compromise and say he’s an a and there’s a captain who is not him? but he gets a dolled up jersey so that’s fun
aNYWAY. most people think that the scouts are either there for the as-of-yet-unnamed captain or for chowder (who is pro material fight me) a year early (i don’t know how these things work but i’m pretty sure that’s possible)
aaaand maybe one of the scouts is there for the captain but like? most of them are there for bitty?
and a lot of the team is like ‘I KNEW IT’ or well, they didn’t but they’re not really surprised bc bitty is really good even though nobody (including him) has really envisioned him going pro after graduation
i’ve been thinking a lot about size differences and how jack is massive and bitty is not and i Need™ to talk about it more, because the black and white facts of this are very important to me as a writer and i’m weirdly defensive about it (athletic family, more knowledge about athletic bodies than an amateur should have, driving ferocity to be Accurate and Right all the time).
first off, there is the height thing to address: jack is 6′1″. bitty is 5′6.5″. it’s not a huge difference, sure. it’s only the length of a subway sandwich, which i think we can all agree is not super impressive. However. it is a noticeable difference, and a difference that both of them are obviously aware of. bitty is often shown reaching up to jack, or jack is shown bending down to bitty.
regardless of their marginal height difference, however, there is a Much More Important aspect to their size difference – and this one they are both very, very aware of. [clue: bitty’s an ex-figure skater, and jack’s a fuckin professional hockey player]
just moving along like everyone else 