Okay so hockey is like, rife with superstitions and
ritual.
Each player has their own pre-game rituals, which are
honestly on par with religious sacraments.
You do not fuck with a man’s
pre-game ritual. Also, the inability to
practice one’s pre-game ritual is deeply emotionally destabilizing. Like, we’re talking serious repercussions
here. If a player is unable to complete their
sacred ritual, there will be hell to pay.
Just as famous as Crosby’s famous pre-game plate of spaghetti,
or Jack Zimmerman’s pre-game PB&J, is Snowy’s pre-game application of eyeliner. It is not only essential to his game play; it
is essential to the current alignment of our space-time continuum.
Which brings us to Snowy, currently in the throes of an
emotional breakdown, in seat 15C on the Falc’s bus, clutching desperately to
his last remaining tube of La Nuit, Nior
de Nior eyeliner as though it were the cooling body of his only son.
I see your friends
with benefits fics and raise you friends with kids.
A/N: So this started out as a list fic and then turned into 5,000 words. (Ao3)
For your
consideration. Picture Holster as a coach for peewee hockey and there’s this
little girl, let’s call her Piper, and she’s super cute and her parents are
literally always late to pick her up from practice. Once Holster had to
call them and remind them to come pick her up cause practice had ended an hour
ago – and just, this girl is so awesome and loves hockey even though she kind
of sucks at it and she carries this little Dora the Explorer backpack with her
everywhere.
So whenever she’s
waiting for her parents to pick her up she’ll grab a book or toy or coloring
book out of her back pack and at first she’d just play quietly while
waiting, but then Holster tells the other coaches they can go on ahead (cause
they’re always anxious to leave once practice is done since it’s unpaid
volunteer work) and he starts talking to her. Eventually one day after practice
she just sort of climbs up into Holster’s lap while they’re waiting in the
lobby and gives him her book to read to her and his heart just? melts a little
honestly
And he legit always
comes home to Ransom – they’re roommates, again because Holster tried the whole
nine to five thing three states away from Ransom and he would rather be barely
making ends meet by working at the local hockey rink than making six figures if
it means he gets to spend every day with his best friend – but that’s a whole
other story. But anyway he is always talking about how smart Piper is and
what funny thing she did that day. Ransom even feels like he kind of knows her
because Holster talks about her so much.
One day when they have
a game on a day that Ransom has off from the hospital he surprises Holster by
showing up. He talks to the other parents in the stands and quickly figures out
which kid is Piper, because when they come out onto the ice Holster is
practically carrying her and it takes almost a full three minutes of coaxing
before she lets go of him and skates over to her spot on the ice.
Ransom thinks that’s
like the cutest thing ever. He asks the parents who are sitting near him
whose kid she is and all the parents are saying she isn’t theirs and
Ransom is confused before one of the moms sitting nearby asks who he’s talking
about again. He points to number three on the ice and the mom tells him that
Piper is in foster care and the parents – “are a steaming pile of shit.”
where is my very soft time traveling fic featuring zimbits where they meet their grown-up selves with 2.5 kids via stanley cup magic just so I can read a scene like this:
Shitty (coming downstairs to kitchen for breakfast): oh hey Bob. I didn’t know you were visiting us. Nice flow, when’d you get it? Who’s the cute blonde dad behind you? Also why are there children in the haus– Older Jack (juggling his toddler, who is playing with his hair): …I’m Jack. Shitty: haha okay–(focuses on Jack’s face, spits out coffee)–holy–
who is going to write this so i can read another scene with Older Bitty meeting Younger Jack and telling his husband, “Oh, honey, look at you! Jack, sweetheart, you’re practically a baby! Can you believe I fell in love with this face 15 years ago? Gosh, it’s been so long.” and Younger Jack is just like….oh God Dad Bitty is hot what do i do while Older Jack kind of narrows his eyes at his younger self in a way that’s obviously saying ‘dont even think about touching my husband’ but then he’s like wait, Younger Jack is still technically himself so now he’s just confused
Younger Bitty meeting his older self and family and thinks the Hans is playing a huge joke cus hes like??? Jacks straght??? Right??? And older Bitty just like handing over their younest son/daughter into younger Bittys arms and just whispering in younger Bittys ear “No, no Dicky, no, no” just like what their Mama used to say to them when they where about to do or say something wrong, and younger Bitty just looking at the bundle of joy in his arms and going… “we gonna have like 4 of these right?” And older Bitty is just like “and 3 dogs plus a bunny and 2 cats, thinking about a bird next” and they just hit it off as the best of friends.
Older Jack: “We only talked about the bird last week Bits… and 4?” *enter nervous Jack already juggling 2 toddler in arms*
Younger Jack: *internally screaming for sooo many reasons* *Externally- cant. Stop. Looking. At. Bitty. Like. What? And, Please.*
And then like Older Jack and Younger Jack have like a moment to themselves and Older Jack just turns to Younger and all he says is “Im so damn happy.” And younger Jack is just FLOORED cus like he hasn’t seen himself smile like that in YEARS. And just Jack and Jack HAVING A MOMENT. (Untill 2 crazy happy toddlers wanna play horsey and Older Jack is just like “you need practice, here”)
Chowder would be so excited becuse his hockey Dad and Hockey mom got together and have given him siblings!!!! and Dex and Nursey following Chowder cus hey? Dex gets to have sibling when they’re still at that wounderful, non-annoying age plus his Hockey parents are happy so he’s happy. Then Nursey is just! So unchill cus he finally HAS SIBLING and there cute and amazing and “Dex i want some too, Plz” before running off to be the best big brother anyone could have. Leaving Dex red and hart pounding in the dust to be taken care of by 2 very knowing Bittys.
Lardo would walk into the room and become the BEST AUNTIE EVER with out so much as blink. “Jack, fatherhood got you good man, glad to see the lagacy lives” then just turning to the two Bittys “i need to make art for this moment”
Ransom and Holster would be so disappointed in themselves cus HOW DID THEY NOT SEE THIS COMING??? I had EXCEL on my side Holster!! And it lead me s o wrong!. Yeah dro i know but its ok, i got this, we’ll be ok. *Que Dramatic Bro Hug and Confort*
And then there was Shitty. “IM A GODFATHER RIGHT?? I SHALL ACCEPT FUCKING NOTHING LESS FROM YOU GLORIOUS BEAUTIFUL FUCKING FAMILY”
• Captain Jack Zimmermann, son of Governor Robert Zimmermann has always been told that his Mother was dead, killed by Pirates in a raid when he was just born
• He is following in his father’s footsteps. A career in the Royal Navy. He just got Captaincy over his first ship, the Samwell years after his best friend/lover/rival Kent Parson had gotten his. His crew are very loyal and he is very successfull but one day they get kapered by pirates.
• The crew of the Samwell put up a fair fight but ultimately they’re beat. He asks to speak the Captain and Big Surprise!!! it turns out his mother wasn’t dead after all.
• Alicia is one of the most well known and feared pirate captains of her time known as
“ Bad Al”. She met Bob while she was on shore leave and they fell in love and had a son but when the Navy found out she was Bad Al she had to flee and left her child behind to protect him.
• I don’t have this part completely figured out but Stuff Happens and Jack begins to DoubtTM the navy. Long story short he becomes a pirate and his crew gladly follow him
• Anyway one day they raid the ship of rich southern merchand Richard Bittle. Jack’s a really Honourable Pirate TM and they rarely kill people they don’t have to. The Bittles surrender fairly quickly and the Samwell crew take everything they can find and kidnap the couple’s only son Eric for ransom (te-heee)
• At first Eric is very afraid but after a while he starts to notice that the Pirates treat him very nicely and are actually not that threatening.
• They’re on a ship and Eric’s completely outnumbered so there’s not really a threat of him fleeing so they let him walk around the ship freely. He begins to help out on deck and when he bakes his first pie the crew immediately fall in love with him.well, all but the stoic Captain who seems vaguely annoyed by Bitty’s presence on board. The crew seem to kind of.. .. forget they were actually sulposed to demand a ransom.
•Bitty actually to relishes in the sense of adventure and the freedom and though he misses his family he begins to forget that this isn’t where he is supposed to be. He feels like he can truly be himself here on the ocean, not like in the stuck up high society circles of his parents. Even the Captain is starting to warm up to him.
• But Jack is still really uncomfortable because he thinks that Bitty wants to return to his family and actually feels quite guilty about the kidnapping and even guiltier because he’s starting to really like Bitty and doesn’t want him to go. Still he sends a letter to the Bittles demanding a relatively smalm ransom and ensuring them their son will be returned safely.
• They start the long journey towards Bittys home. On the way, adventures are had, mermaids encountered, battles are fought. Captain Jack and Bitty grow closer …
• They reach home and the Samwell crew let Bitty go with tears and hugs and it’s basically the graduation scene where Jack returns to his father and reunites with him and tells him of his adventures. Talking to his father about Bitty makes him RealiseTM and he just up and sails all the way back to Bitty and the Kiss on the shore with wind in their hair at sunset and it’s all very romantic
jack won’t watch a british show without french subtitles because it’s too hard to understand their accents, but he also watches foreign movies with english subtitles even though the french option is right there??? jack????
unclear on how his own name is pronounced. his parents don’t seem very sure either. he is afraid to ask.
jack hates english punctuation so much. so much. why is it always cramping his style.
shitty can tell when jack’s writing a paper in English because his texts get increasingly capital-F French
shitty replies with “hello jack . when are we going to annie ‘ s . lardo says << i ‘ m hungry >> .”
The Autocorrect Struggle
autocorrect is also cramping his style
marty texts to ask about the game schedule the next day and jack, being half asleep, forgets to change his language settings and replies “Devonshire entire la a 17 heiress pour lo dinner”
marty always replies to these texts with “thanks, jacques, that was helpful”
he is a jerk.
jack’s slowly teaching his english autocorrect to speak french; shitty claims that if you yell “hey siri – FUCK NO” when it corrects to the wrong word it’ll learn faster
autocorrect knows to leave tabarnak alone, because jack is a great teacher.
speaking of siri – why does she not understand anything jack says ever, any of the time. jack and siri Are Not Friends. they are not bros and jack does not like her.
absolutely refuses to watch disney movies in english. that is not the language of disney. he’s seen a whole ten minutes of the english version of the lion king; all of the voices were Wrong
he thinks bilingual puns are so funny!!!! he only gets say them every once in a while but they’re hilarious!!!!!!!
jack once called ransom, with an actual honest to god phone call, just to tell him a great pun that bitty didn’t react to strongly enough
(a key part of rans’ impression of jack is the phrase “i just told bitty this one but he didn’t laugh”)
he takes german for his language credit freshman year (shitty: HAVE YOU NOT DONE ENOUGH) and fails a test on possessives because he never learned how to use apostrophes in english and he can’t figure out how to translate plural possessives. he may be the first person to fail a german test because his english isn’t good enough.
just?? random gaps everywhere in his english knowledge, honestly. he can write a paper but he doesn’t know what an adverb is. he missed two spelling tests in high school because of a concussion and he still just lets spellcheck tell him how to write “occurred”
jack knows history vocabulary but he learned a lot of it out of books and he doesn’t actually know how to pronounce any of it in english
he does presentations with his Absolute Most French Accent just so everyone is really clear that he doesn’t know what he’s doing
has no idea about science words and won’t discuss it with anyone in english, no thank you
someone claims that jack once implied that petroleum comes from exploding fish bones; every time they try to ask jack about it he dodges the question and then runs away.
“Ooooh, don’t you look so handsome!” Suzanne cooed, ushering them to the foot of the staircase with a camera in her hand. “Go on, let me take some pictures!”
“Mama,” Bitty grumbled, his face adorably pink, “We’re not going to the dang prom. It’s just a high school reunion.”
“Well I didn’t get to take any prom photos, did I?” Suzanne shot back. She grabbed Jack by the elbows and forcibly positioned him slightly behind Bitty with a frankly shocking amount of strength, and Jack made his living being slammed into the boards by men twice her size.
“Mama, who was gonna take the little gay boy to the prom in Georgia?” Bitty demanded as Jack wrapped his arms around his waist in classic prom pose, which made Suzanne grin excitedly and snap about ten pictures in rapid succession.
“Stop encouraging her,” Bitty pouted, shoving his elbow into Jack’s gut, making him laugh.
“You coulda gone stag, Dicky,” Suzanne pointed out, snapping another photo. “Or with one of the girls on your hockey team.”
“Mama, none of those girls had any interest in being my beard and I had no interest in spending my Saturday night packed in a cheap venue with kids who didn’t like me!” Bitty insisted.
“Well,” Suzanne sniffed as Jack poked and prodded Bitty into a more natural position beside him, draping his arm around Bitty’s shoulders. Bitty automatically responded by sliding his arm around Jack’s waist in return.
“I’m just saying, I never got to show off prom pictures to all the ladies at church,” Suzanne sniffed. “And your Aunt kept posting pictures of your cousin all over Facebook like it was her dang job, rubbing it in my face…”
“Mama,” Bitty sighed.
“And anyway!” Suzanne exclaimed, snapping another picture even though Bitty was in the middle of rolling his eyes and Jack had given up on smiling. “Why are you even going to this reunion if you don’t want to see any of these people, huh?”
“Because I want them to see us,” Bitty explained, patting his free hand against Jack’s chest smugly. “Those kids terrorized me for years, calling me names and spreading rumors that I was gay. Now I’m gonna show them they were absolutely right, and that I’m good at it!”
“Good at being gay?” Jack asked, grinning in amusement because he’d heard Bitty’s reasoning nearly a thousand times since the invitation had arrived in the mail.
“The best at being gay!” Bitty declared. “You’ll see, I’ll have the most beautiful man in the room on my arm and I hope Jason Cranston is there so I can see the look on his big dumb face when he realizes how much better my life is than his!”
The grin on Bitty’s face was almost manic, but Suzanne snapped another picture with a triumphant cry and hurried away with her camera, like she thought maybe Bitty might try and take it from her.
“All right, you ready to go show my classmates that I won at life?” Bitty asked.
what i do is not up to you 