write a story about how you became the world’s most powerfull person… by accident.
- You learn about the butterfly effect in school. The concept is interesting, but not so interesting that you don’t fall asleep partway through the movie. You hear something distantly about a butterfly beating its wings and hurricanes. You think it will never apply to you.
- You know now (not then) that power comes through and from favors.
- If you had known that then you would probably not have done so many.
(This is where it starts.)
One.
There is a strange creature crossing the road behind the lecture hall. You stop on your bike and frown at it. It looks a little like a turtle, but it’s limbs are longer than any turtle you’ve ever seen. It’s stretched out on the hot asphalt, long, pale limbs clawing forward towards the small stream that runs on the other side.
You hop off your bike and gently pick the creature up, hands under the belly of the shell like you learned from the internet.
Imagine your surprise when the shell slides off the creature instead, dropping a tiny woman onto the asphalt.
“Water,” she croaks, tiny eyes screwed shut. Her eyelids are the size of yours which means they’re huge on her. “Please.”
(You will not know until later what exactly please means to the fae.)
You feel yourself move through your shock. You pick her up and take her to the water’s edge. She slips under the surface, pale skin flashing like the scales of a fish, and she’s gone.
You’d wonder if your roommate slipped you something this morning if she wasn’t back a moment later, pushing a small rock into your hands.
“A boon,” she says. Her eyes are large and black, suited for her underwater world. “For a favor.” She smiles, showing teeth jagged and sharp like a piranha.
When you blink, she’s gone.
You stare at the rock in your left hand. It’s smooth and worn from years in water, an interesting swirl of granite and quartz. “I wish I knew,” you tell it.
The rock ices over so fast that you don’t have time to drop it. The frost swirls across your skin, burning you where it touches, and you watch in horror as your skin turns a mottled black and blue.
You fall to your knees from the pain and choke on a scream as the stone sinks into you, touching your bones and sending more ice through your marrow. It climbs up your arm and touches your eye, changing you vision so now that you’re see double, a strange, blue world juxtaposed next to the one you know and love.
Tag: fic
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.
By Your Own Admission
He hates this.
There, he said it.
He hates his courses and he hates his major and he hates this competition and he hates this pressure and he hates med school. There, he said it. He hates med school. He doesn’t want to go to med school.
Each morning he wakes up and dreads going to class, each night he trudges to the library and dreads opening his books. Biology used to be fun, he thinks, but not like this. Not like this.
He feels stuck.
It was never a question of if he would go to med school, really, but rather where he would go to med school. Med school was the constant. His parents wanted a doctor for a child. He wanted to make them proud.
Eric R. Bittle, First Openly Gay NHL Player
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!
But
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
GettysburgAddress 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
pecanwrong! 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.
The more Jack drinks, the more his accent goes from Letang to Fleury…until he’s just steadily rambling in French and no one in the Haus can understand a word he’s saying.
#this is good #say this is on Jack’s birthday and he’s like #well one drink wont hurt #so he’s not blackout shitshow drunk #he’s just pleasantly buzzed #and at one point he’s just holding on to Bitty and kissing him and saying #‘This is my future husband! he’s but future husband! He’s so beautiful and I’m gonna marry him one day’ #‘he’s the best thing to ever happen to me I want three children with this man and two dogs’ #all in French #and no one in the Haus knows what’s happening #but they take a video #sends it to the group chat #shitty sends it to bad bob because he’s like #‘hey your son is rambling whats he trying to say #and bob is just like #this is the most amazing thing ive ever seen
@nomorelonelydays has the best tags, bye
“Bro.”
Holster looks up from where he’s flicking through photos. “What’s up?”
“Bro.” Ransom elbows him, then nods his head to the ugly orange recliner where Jack has Bittle in his lap. He’s drunk, swaying a little, a crooked, green, sparkly party had perched sideways on his head, and he’s mumbling into Bitty’s neck.
Bitty’s just laughing and patting him and saying things like, “Okay sweetheart, whatever you say.”
And it’s not like they can pass this moment up, right? Because it’s Jack and not only will this be years of chirping material–which Holster thinks is only fair coughEstherScough–but also they could probably afford another two recliners with the fines they can charge when Jack’s sober.
So.
Holster fires up the camera and steps closer, only to sigh because Jack’s at the drunk stage where he’s not even speaking English anymore.
“Bittle…Je…” *hiccup* “Je t’aime. Il…il est…” *hiccup* He looks up and sees Holster there with the camera. Bitty’s still engrossed in his conversation with Chowder, but Jack doesn’t seem to care as he grabs Holster’s arm and drags him in closer. “Tu ne comprends pas! Tu…ne. Je l’aime. Je l’aime,” he lets out a noise suspiciously like a sob, and Holster turns to Ransom.
“Uh…”
Ransom shrugs.
“Il est mon futur mari. Il est trop beau.” He lets out a louder sob, releasing Holster’s arm so he can cling to Bitty. “Mon coeur bat pour lui.”
Bitty finally looks down, shakes his head with a grin, and pets Jack’s hair who goes quiet, smiling as he kisses Bitty’s neck over and over.
Holster, with wide eyes, turns back to Ransom. “Did you like…understand any of that?”
Ransom snorts. “Dude, no. But you know who Shitty invited to the group chat last week?”
Holster eyes him. “Oh shit. Bad Bob.”
Ransom nods. “Small enough to upload?”
Holster quickly edits the video, then clicks on Bob’s name, and starts up a private chat, typing: ‘Uh so how much chirping material do we have here, Mr Zimmermann? For science.’
Neither of them expect Bob to be awake, but the message comes in not five minutes later. ‘Tell Jack I expect invitations by the end of the Hockey season. This was a true gift. I’ll get you rink-side seats to any game you want, just say the word, boys.’
The pair look at each other, then Ransom scrambles for his own phone. “Fuck it. Google translate.” He types it in as best he can remember, and it pulls up, and the pair stare at each other.
“Bro,” Ransom whispers.
Holster just nods. “Bro.”
(dedicated to @nomorelonelydays for her tags. This is all your fault!)
*SLAMS FISTS ON TABLE*
WHERE is the Zimbits version of the man who forgot who his wife was after he had surgery, and hit on her, and was totally incredulous that he was mARRIED to someone SO BEAUTIFUL???
OKAY SO:
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.“
Mel why aren’t there more NHL!Bitty fics? I mean, boy made first line of a D1 team, as a freshman, went to the Frozen Four twice, and all this after a few years of co-ed hockey. (Now I want scouts at the games, and people making guesses they’re there for everyone BUT Bitty.) But of course there’s only ever one team he actually wants to play for. :D
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
Fantasy AU where Nursey is the prophesied hero on a quest to finally take down the tyrannical rule of the Chads. Dex is a fisherman who gets roped into sailing Nursey across a sea for his quest and unwillingly becoming the salty sidekick on the adventure
Some more on this AU
- Bad Bob was the loving, kind king before the Chads took over
- Bob, his wife Alicia, and his son Jack were like, the cutest family ever everyone loved them
- The Chads were able to take over because they somehow got their hands on something that gave them ice powers
- When the Chads take over, the Zimmermanns take refuge with the Bittles, a family of bakers a few towns over from the capitol.
(This got really long so the rest is under the cut)
There’s a space of two inches on Bitty’s neck that is the most sensitive part of his body. Jack has catalogued the second most sensitive (earlobe) and third (the inside of his wrist), but pressing mouth to neck pulls Bitty’s bones right out of him, turns him all melted in Jack’s arms. Bitty is–surprisingly–quiet when they’re alone and together like this, his hands and body eager but his throat filled with little whimpers and sighs instead of what Jack expected, which was…words.
It makes him wonder why Bitty is so quiet in this when he’s never quiet in anything. What’s made him so silent in intimate moments like this, the few minutes they have in his room while pretending to wash up for dinner? Through the half-open window in Bitty’s room, Jack can smell the barbecue Coach has on the grill, and he thinks, Oh. That’s probably why.
“You feel good,” Jack tries, his hand on Bitty’s hip, fingers slipped just under his tank to find his sweat-damp skin. Georgia is hot, but Bitty’s skin is even hotter.
Bitty makes another soft noise at that, and when Jack pulls back just enough to look at him, his eyes are glazed, his mouth pink and slack. Jack kisses him. How can he not.
Suzanne Bittle’s voice carries sweetly up the stairs, calling them boys and asking them down for dinner. Bitty goes still in Jack’s arms. Jack can tell by the way Bitty’s chest heaves that his heart is fluttering behind his ribcage.
These stolen moments aren’t enough, and Jack wants nothing more than to explore the summer stretch of Bitty’s body where he can take his time and learn and appreciate. He doesn’t want to be rushed. Doesn’t want to stop.
“Come with me to Providence,” he says, mouth falling into those two inches of his neck. Bitty clutches at him. Jack exhales.
"When?“
“When I leave. Let me get your ticket. Come with me.”
“Jack…"
"Come with me."
Bitty’s fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck feels like he’s had them there for a long time, the movement so easy and practiced. Bitty shakes out a breath. "Yes. Okay. I will.”
nurseydex hc where dex finds nursey’s poetry?
Dex was not raised in a barn. He has manners. He has respect. He has a general sense of right and wrong. He says ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and ‘excuse me.’ He gives up his seat on the bus for elderly people. He holds the door open for people behind him. He doesn’t steal or cheat, and he tries not to lie. And he knows it’s not okay to read someone’s work unless they want you to. He wasn’t one of the kids who always tried to read his classmates’ personal essays in class. He never pushes his friends to share the things they’re working on. Heck, he grew up living in the same room as his older brother, who definitely kept a journal under his mattress, and never even considered touching it.
So he knows Nursey’s poetry is off limits. It’s tempting, sure, to peek at the words Nursey spends hours and hours pouring over, scribbling down and scratching out and erasing and rewriting until his fingers cramp up. He doesn’t look, though. If Nursey wants to share his poetry with Dex he will. Dex doesn’t have the right to go snooping for it.
just moving along like everyone else 