Chapter Text
Shitty chooses Samwell over Harvard and Yale for a couple of reasons. The biggest, and the reason he tells the rest of the guys, is because of Andover. Andover, which was essentially a fast track into the world of business and law and rich, white privilege. Andover, with its halls full of trust fund babies and gossip about who was vacationing where on which island at whose family home. Shitty’s taddy tour at Samwell had been a breath of fresh fucking air, and the hockey team was decent, and they had a swawesome Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality department, and Shitty was sold almost immediately.
So really, the main reason he chooses Samwell is because he needs to get the hell away from the atmosphere of Andover. Sure, he relishes the fact that it pisses off his father to no end. And despite the fact that he couldn’t triple major, the fact that he gets to study Poli-Sci and WGS is serious leaps and bounds away from the business degree he’d be getting at Harvard.
He gets to play hockey on a somewhat decent hockey team, too, which is nice. The two sophomores (frogs?) he’d met on the tour, Storey and Johnson, both seemed like decent dudes, and he’s ready to spend the next four years there as soon as he steps into Faber during his tour.
The day Shitty moves in, there’s barely anyone on campus. The hockey team has early move-in because they have practices three weeks before class begins, and the only other people around are the women’s soccer team, whose season runs on the same schedule. Shitty honestly doesn’t expect to run into anyone as he wheels his bright yellow move-in cart down the hall, piled high with suitcases and boxes and his hockey gear, but as he’s attempting to shove the thing through his tiny doorway, he hears voices coming from the room across from his.
If he correctly remembers the dorm layout map he’d been looking at ten minutes ago, room 151 is a single. He’s tempted to knock on the door to say hello, maybe meet his new neighbor before he leaves for practice, but as he’s debating with himself the cart finally pops through the doorway and he barely manages to catch himself before faceplanting on the disgusting carpet that covers the floor.
He unpacks until he has to go to Faber for the team’s first practice, and as he leaves the room he realizes that there’s a very small chance that it will ever be quite this neat again, so he snaps a quick picture from the doorway before pocketing his phone, turning around and –
Bumping straight into another guy, who is, apparently, built like a fucking brick wall and doesn’t even stumble. Shitty, on the other hand, staggers back, the weight of his hockey bag over one shoulder pulling him off balance, and it’s only the guy he bumped into catching the strap of his bag that keeps him from doing something embarrassing, like falling into the wall.
“Shit, sorry,” Shitty starts, “totally didn’t see you there.”
“No, it’s,” the guy shakes his head, “it’s my fault, sorry.”
There’s something about the way he pronounces sorry, the ‘o’ sound elongated and the hint of a French accent, that has Shitty grinning. “Canadian, eh?”
Blue eyes meet his, and whoa, if Shitty weren’t 95% straight he thinks he could seriously be into this guy. “Um, yeah, I.” Blue Eyes nods and looks away, “Yeah.”
He seems awfully tense, and his hands start twisting into the hockey bag Shitty finally notices hanging over his own shoulder. He won’t meet Shitty’s eyes, and while Shitty has never really experienced first-day jitters before, he understands that the first day on a brand new team can be stressful as shit. He reaches out to gently punch the guy’s shoulder before swinging an arm up around his shoulders and starting the walk down the hallway. “You play hockey, huh? Shit, my dude, if the rest of the taddies are as buff as you are I might need to quit the team.” They stop when they reach the elevators, and while Blue Eyes hasn’t exactly gotten any less tense, at least he hasn’t outright shoved Shitty’s arm off of him. “I’m Shitty, by the way.” He says, stepping away and holding out a hand.
He can see the hesitation in Blue Eyes’ face before he reaches out to shake Shitty’s hand. “Hi.” There’s something almost calculating in his face as he shakes Shitty’s hand, but the elevator doors open and they shuffle inside and by the time they’ve figured out a way to fit both themselves and their giant bags into the small space, they’ve passed the stage where Blue Eyes would offer his own name, so the conversation moves on.
Shitty keeps up a constant stream of chatter as they walk to Faber when he notices that Blue Eyes doesn’t seem inclined to participate in conversation. He talks about his taddy tour and about the guys he’d met, talks about what classes he’s signed up for, and by the time they reach the rink, all he’s learned about Blue Eyes is that they’re both in the introductory level English seminar together and that he’s from Montreal.
It had seemed like Blue Eyes had become less and less stressed as they walked towards the rink, but as soon as they stop in front of the locker room, his back is ramrod straight and he looks like he’s gearing up for a fight.
“Dude,” Shitty says as they push the door open, “you okay?”
Blue Eyes doesn’t even respond, just keeps his eyes on the floor as they walk into the room. Shitty feels eyes on them almost immediately, and, chalking it up to being the new guys, simply finds his stall and tosses his stuff into it. He’s next to Storey, who he’d met on his tour, and he’s welcomed with a fist bump that quickly turns into a headlock and a facewash that has both of them laughing.
“We’re waiting for Murray and Hall,” Storey explains when he releases Shitty, settling back into his stall and picking up the tape he’d dropped when he’d grabbed Shitty “then we’ve got about an hour and a half on the ice. It’s usually longer, but it’s first practice, so.”
Shitty nods, grateful for the info, and busies himself with unpacking his gear. Soon after that a guy wearing the C walks up to Shitty, introduces himself as Bergy, and claps Shitty on the shoulder before walking away again. As far as first introductions go, Shitty thinks it could be worse. He’s fully prepared for the hazing and teasing that comes along with being a tadpole, almost excited for it, and he’s trying to look around the room while not seeming like he’s looking around the room when he realizes that Blue Eyes is all but hiding in his stall, not interacting with anyone as he meticulously tapes his stick. He makes his way over and claps Blue Eyes on the shoulder, reminiscent of the way Bergy had greeted him, and makes metal note of the way the guy all but jumps out of his skin.
“Dude, how’s it going?”
“Um, fine?” He says it like a question, eyes flicking from the floor to Shitty’s face and back to the floor.
“Come here, lemme introduce you to Storey, I met him on my taddy tour.” He doesn’t miss the way Blue Eyes hesitates to stand, and it’s at that moment the coaches walk through the locker room doors and the room finally falls quiet.
“Afternoon, boys,” Hall says, taking his glasses off of his nose and sliding them into a pocket. “Welcome back, hope you had a good summer, etcetera. Before we get on the ice I want to do a round of introductions for the new boys, and I’m gonna give you the lines we want to try before we head out.” Shitty tries to discreetly pick his way back to his stall without drawing too much attention to himself while Hall motions towards the stall on the left end that belongs to Johnson, whose goalie pads are strewn about on the floor. “Johnson, start. Name, year, position, where you’re from.”
The introductions continue until they reach Blue Eyes, which is when it suddenly seems like every hockey player in the room is holding their breath. “Um.” His jaw looks like it’s locked in place and it’s a miracle any words get out at all. “Jack Zimmermann. First-year, forward. From Montreal.”
And holy shit. Holy shit. Shitty has been chatting it up with Jack Fucking Zimmermann for the last half an hour.
There’s a noticeable pause, where the kid after Jack just kinda gapes at him like a fish until he realizes that he’s supposed to speak up next, and he stammers out an introduction, but there is still very much a gigantic fucking elephant in the room.
The rest of the introductions move fairly quickly after that, at least in Shitty’s opinion, even after he introduces himself as “Shitty Knight, first-year, winger, from Boston” and no one so much as blinks at his name.
Hall reads off their lineups and they lace up, finally, and Shitty tries to catch Jack before they make it out onto the ice, but Jack keeps his head down and is out of the locker room in record time, so no dice.
By the time Shitty steps out onto the ice, Jack is handling a puck as he skates in circles and quite frankly, he looks like he was born to be there, stick in his hand and blades on his feet. He’s jolted out of his daze by Johnson, knocking into him and chucking as he skates out to take his position between the post, but he’s pretty sure most of the other guys are watching Jack skate of the corner of their eyes.
~~~
After practice, Shitty has to go on a hunt for his clothes, which he eventually finds scattered across the bleachers. By the time he’s dressed and ready to go back to his dorm, the rest of the boys have cleared out and the athletic facility is pretty quiet, which is how he overhears the quiet mumblings of Hall talking to Jack.
And listen – Shitty knows all about Jack Zimmermann. Sure, he’d never purposefully googled him or anything, but anyone and everyone who had cared the slightest bit about hockey had heard all about what happened to the kid. Shitty hadn’t watched the draft that year, and after hearing about the overdose he had never really followed Jack Zimmermann’s life. He’d heard that Zimmermann was planning on going to college, it was impossible to not know, but.
Hockey. From Montreal. Didn’t even introduce himself to Shitty like a normal human being until he was forced to. Shit. How did he not put two and two together?
God, he’s going to be a shitty lawyer. Pun unintended.
He’s just passing the coaching offices when Hall’s door opens and Jack steps out, halting in his tracks when he sees Shitty, whose heart breaks when he sees the uncertain look on Jack’s face, and he makes a split-second decision.
“Jackabelle!” he crows, punching Jack in the arm. “Heading out?”
Jack’s face does something funny and Shitty can see him relax a little. “Yeah. Um.”
“Swawesome, those fuckers threw my clothes all over Faber, so I’m late to dinner too. Walk with you to the dining hall?”
Jack is slow to reply, but he nods and Shitty grins at him and they start walking again, and Shitty realizes the key to getting Jack talking is to ask him about hockey.
He still doesn’t talk much, but the topic of hockey seems to relax him, and goddamn it, Shitty is going to make this man as happy as possible, so they talk about hockey. Shitty talks about his background before Samwell, and when it becomes extremely obvious that Jack won’t do the same, he talks about the practice they’d just left, which elicits a few responses from Jack and Shitty counts that as a win.
They’re nearing the dining hall when Jack stops and says, “I… just realized I left something in the dorm. Um. I’m gonna run and get it.”
“Okay,” Shitty says, “I’ll save you a seat, man.”
Jack regards him for a moment and says “Thanks.” Then he’s gone, and Shitty is left with the realization that Jack Zimmermann probably hasn’t left anything in his room and would probably rather not sit through a dinner with 20 other guys who would treat him like a museum exhibit.
He heads into the dining hall and makes two take-out plates as he fields off chirps from the teammates who had hidden his clothes. As he’s leaving, one of the juniors stops him with poorly concealed curiosity written across his features, “Hey, where’s Zimmermann?”
“I dunno,” Shitty says, fully aware of the way more than half the team perks up at the mention of Jack’s name. “He’s not here?”
“Nah, Hall called him in after practice. You didn’t see him?”
Shitty shakes his head, “Sorry, brah.”
Someone further down the table snorts and shakes his head. “He’s too good to come eat with us, dude, I told you.”
“His robot programming doesn’t process meals.” Someone else says, earning a quiet laugh from some of the boys.
Shitty, who would very much like to drop kick some human fucking decency into these dickwads, merely shakes his head and heads for the door, overly conscious of the fact that this is his first day with the team and that if he were to make a scene it would do more harm than good.
~~~
He knocks on Jack’s door when he gets back to the dorm, and it takes a few seconds before the door opens. Jack’s wearing sweats and a t-shirt, and he looks exhausted. “Oh. Hey, Shitty.”
Shitty holds up the take-out box like a peace offering. “Figured you could use something to eat, I thought I’d drop it off.”
For a moment, Jack looks surprised, like he seriously thought he could get away with the ‘I forgot something’ excuse and that no one would notice if he’d just… skipped dinner. “Oh. Thanks, man.”
“Don’t mention it.” Shitty grins at him and hands off the box before giving Jack an awkward little wave and crossing the hall to his own door, which he has half-open before Jack makes a noise at him.
“Wait.” Shitty turns. “Do you maybe want to. Come in?”
It sounds like it took a whole bunch of effort for Jack to ask, so Shitty turns with his arms spread wide and a smile stretched across his face. “Jackabelle! I’d love to.”
Jack takes note of the take-out container in Shitty’s hand and grimaces. “I didn’t mean for you to miss dinner on my account.”
“Please.” Shitty rolls his eyes and plops down on Jack’s floor. “No biggie, my dude. I wasn’t really feeling it myself, to be honest. Move-in and practice and team dinner all on the same day? I’m about ready to tap out.”
There’s a pause as Jack shifts awkwardly in the middle of his room, and Shitty adds, “Plus, I think I need to work up a tolerance to some of those guys.”
Jack hums noncommittally and sits down at his desk as Shitty takes a bite of chicken.
“I’m sure they aren’t all asshats, I mean, I met Johnson and Storey and they both seemed pretty cool? Plus, like, brah. We go to Samwell. You’d think they’d be… better?”
Jack eyes him and says, “I think I know what you mean.” And takes a bite of his own chicken, effectively shutting himself up.
It’s hard to find a topic that opens Jack up like hockey, so that’s what Shitty sticks with, and after a while, it pays off. Jack’s been talking about the strengths and weaknesses of the team for the last ten minutes, going off of only what he’d seen in practice that day and it’s… honestly, it’s amazing. This is someone who can step onto the ice and pick apart a team in minutes, someone who has been living and breathing hockey for as long as he’s been alive. Shitty is in awe.
When Jack realizes that Shitty has been staring at him for the last five minutes and not saying a word, he cuts himself off mid-sentence with a quiet, “Sorry.”
“Brah, what the fuck do you have to be sorry for?”
“I talk about hockey too much sometimes.” Jack says with the air of a person who has been told to stop talking about hockey. “You can just tell me to shut up, next time. It’s fine.”
“Jack.” Shitty puts a hand on Jack’s knee and stares into his eyes as sincerely as possible. “That was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. You’ve known these guys for what, three hours? How the fuck do you know all this stuff?”
Jack shrugs. “I watched tape before I got here.”
“You –” Shitty scoffs and shakes his head, “You are a fucking thing of wonder, Jack Zimmermann, did you know that?”
Jack just raises an eyebrow in his direction and continues eating his chicken, and they sit in silence for a beat before Shitty chokes on a walnut and Jack offers him water through stifled laughter and it’s the most relaxed Shitty has seen him all day.
He leaves Jack’s room that night with the concrete knowledge that they’re going to be best friends. He doesn’t know if Jack has realized it yet, but Shitty is going to make goddamn sure that Jack Zimmermann will be happy at Samwell, whether he wants to or not.