Chapter Text
Jack is on his way to the grocery store when he gets a call from Georgia.
“Zimmermann, I need you in my office as soon as possible. Preferably 20 minutes ago,” she snaps down the phone and then hangs up.
Jack looks at the phone in his hand, concerned. George didn't usually need to see him, just rang him and emailed him jobs and then they had non-work related coffee at least once a month when her schedule allowed it. It was out of character for her to summon him. But Jack had always been good at following through given the right motivation and George’s wrath at people not doing what she said was damn good motivation.
“So, we’re prepping for the next of end year, top ten bullshit for the supplement but the new management wants to put their own mark in it. They want you to shoot all of it. They like your eye.” George looks smug.
“How many are we talking? How long?”
George flicks through her notes. “10 subjects, print deadline is start of October, which gives you . . .”
“Four months?! That's a huge amount of lead time.” Not that it's not welcome, it just makes it feel like there must be some catch.
George grins at him, looking more predatory than ever. “Tana says he needs it to be ‘special’, he wants to take the publication in a different direction, pseudo-high end, lots of cheekbones and non-sensical props.”
Jack sighs. It’s going to make more than people looking sad while sitting amongst a sea of teddy bears - ironically, apparently - to help reinvigorate what boils down to an advertising supplement.
George looks at him appraisingly. “Cover and a very decent paycheck, Zimms.”
Jack sighs again and tries to look as put upon as possible. “I’m an artist, George. I’m not swayed by things like money.”
George raises her eyebrows at him. “We both know that’s not true. Now, go and take a some polaroids of minor Rhode Island personalities.”
“There is slightly more to it than that, Ms Martin.”
-
Jack was halfway through his third season, wearing the A for the Las Vegas Aces when everything was torn away from him. Jack could tell as he hit the ice that this wasn’t the sort of injury that it’d be easy to come back from.
In the end it wasn’t the struggle of trying to getting back to form after the surgery or the increase in his anxiety, it was the oxycodone. Well, that and Jack’s attempts to self-medicate through a cocktail of oxy, anxiety meds and liquor. It hadn’t gone well.
(When Jack has regained consciousness in the hospital, Parse was napping in the chair at the end of his bed. Jack isn’t proud of the fact that he pretended to sleep until Parse had to fly back to Alberta for his next game. At that point, Jack didn’t understand why anyone would fly for over 2 hours to just see that he was still alive.)
-
Jack finds himself at Shitty’s place looking over the Gazette ’s brief and feeling dread begin to curl in his stomach.
“Ugh, ‘face of fall? That literally makes no sense. I hope you stick leaves all over this one’s face, that’d teach them for giving us such a stupid list.” Shitty wrinkles his nose at the piece of paper like it has personally offended him.
“Agreed. The titles are pretty shit but the job itself is good. And we get to work together for a change.”
Shitty holds his fist out. “Pound it, bro. God bless editors and their desire for ‘color’ in the writing.”
He and Shitty spend the rest of the day emailing and chatting with subjects, assistants and locations until they have a pretty clear schedule set out for the next two months that gives them ample time to do this job properly and still have a chance to do other, less naff work.
-
After rehab, Jack decided to purposely fail at something for the first time in his life. He worked hard to leave hockey behind while listening to what felt like thousands of people explaining to anyone why he both needed to go back and play and why he shouldn’t be trusted to stay clean. There was no possibility of staying in Vegas which didn’t bother Jack that much - it’s not like he chose to live there or had ever had anytime to actually know the place.
Photography and RISD felt as removed for the NHL as Jack could imagine.
-
Jack first meets Eric Bittle on a hot and humid day in July. His hair is curling over his forehead and his nose is covered with freckles. He is cheerfully pulling a pie out of the sweltering oven when Jack and Shitty arrive.
“Hi, I’m the face of vlogging, apparently.” Bittle grimaces in distaste.
Jack is pretty certain he’s fucked from the get go.
-
Bittle - “Call me Eric, Jack, please! Or Bitty. I cannot deal with you calling me ‘Mr Bittle’, it makes me sound like I’m one hundred years old and play competitive shuffleboard.” - is charming and gregarious and makes great fucking pie and he and Shitty are practically best friends after twenty minutes. He doesn’t seem to mind that Jack has him move from one spot in his, ugh, utterly delightful and photogenic kitchen to another as he tries out composition and lighting and can actually follow direction unlike every other person they’ve profiled for this piece. Jack wants to hate him a little bit.
(“He’s wearing a bowtie,” Jack mutters to Shitty as Bitty goes into the other room to take a phone call.
Shitty squints at him. “Did you not do any prep for this job? It’s his thing - some sort of Southern Gentlemen vibe which, I’m hoping, is vaguely ironic.”)
It’s a testament to all three of them that Jack and Shitty are done within two hours and Eric waves them off with containers full of pie and cookies. Jack can feel the warmth rising in his cheeks as they say goodbye.
He lasts half a block before he turns to look at Shitty.
Shitty is grinning at him and eating a cookie. “Bro.”
Jack turns back around and marches off to his car. “Don’t even start, Shits.”
-
“Motherfucker! Bits!”
“Holy shit! Was that . . . ?!”
Eric gets to the top of the landing to find Adam and Justin losing their shit. They continue to rant as he holds his door open for them.
“Bits, why was my number one NHL crush and, let’s be honest, general life crush leaving your apartment?” Holster looks a bit like he wants to cry.
“Please tell me he signed or, in fact, even touched something.” Justin glances around, possessed. “This?” he asks holding up a water glass. “Or this?!” A spatula.
“Gentlemen, I have literally no idea what you are talking about.”
Ransom and Holster stare at each other wide-eyed. Twin filthy grins dawn.
“Oh my fucking god. Get it, Bits!”
They encompass him in the most epic hug Eric has ever been party to and manage to high five each other at the same time.
“Oh my, no! You two! Stop it.” Eric sidles out of the hug and cuts the two of them pie. “This was just that thing, the newspaper thing. The two of them were very nice.”
“Bits, you can’t refer to the number one draft pick and love of my life as nice. He’s Jack fucking Zimmermann.” Ransom nods along as Holster gesticulates with his fork. “Calder winner, he won a fucking Arty in his second season. He’s Jack Zimmermann.”
“And,” Ransom chimes in, “his parents. Sure, Bob with his four, four Stanley Cups is impressive but his mom, Bitty.” They both sigh. “Ms Alicia Lane, pundit turned political media powerhouse and cocktail enthusiast. Apart from being hella smart, she hosts a podcast about bourbon.”
Eric shrugs. “I mean, her, I’ve heard of but I didn’t know Jack was her son.”
Ransom and Holster look at him like they’ve been betrayed. “We were so close to appearing on ‘The Mash Tub’ and you let us down, Bits. It’s like we don’t even know you anymore.”
-
When Eric first moved to Providence, he tried to steer clear of his neighbours, Justin and Adam. They reminded him too much of the boys who’d made his life in high school hell - snapbacks, overuse of the word ‘bro’, the whole works. Eric wasn’t rude, of course - his mama would have driven the sixteen hours to look at him disapprovingly if he had been - but he tried to keep out of their way. It wasn’t too hard, with what seemed like the incomprehensible and irregular shifts they worked as paramedics. Eric found that either he could hear them yelling at each other whilst playing video games at two in the morning or he didn’t hear anything for days on end.
The change from casual nods in the hallway to being so firmly enmeshed in each other’s lives came two months after Eric had arrived. Some asshole had roughed him up and stolen his wallet on top of a particularly shitty day making the same fucking dough for six hours, followed by a five hour shift at the coffee shop. Eric had almost made it home when he literally bumped into Justin and Adam in the hallway and had promptly lost his shit and tried to fight them. To this day, Eric isn’t sure if he was trying to punch one or both of them and is unceasingly thankful that instead following his lead, they took him to their apartment (where it became clear to Eric that they, in fact, weren’t just roommates), cleaned up his cuts and scrapes and then got him incredibly drunk. Ransom and Holster were the thing that kept him in Providence, their friendship was reason enough to tough out that first year of college, that shitty job and the ongoing homesickness.
Sure, Eric could do without their terrible matchmaking but he also hates to ruin their fun.
-
It’s mid-August and Jack finds himself in Georgia’s office again. She’s ignoring him while she flicks through the a non-descript file. Jack is about to get his phone out for something to do.
“An apron and oven mitts, Jack? Really?” She looks up at him, resigned. “I literally could have sent any hipster with a DSLR over there to take these shots.”
Jack tries to limit his reaction but he knows he hasn’t been successful when Georgia’s face softens.
“They aren’t bad shots, Jack. They’re sweet. They just aren’t what Tana and the rest of management are looking for. They list of words that got emailed to me were, ugh, ‘dangerous’, ‘sexy’, ‘unique’ and ‘interesting’. Jesus, that is literally the worst list ever.”
Jack gives a small smile. “I’ll do better.”