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For as long as Jack can remember, he’s awoken to a sweat-soaked shirt and a bed full of ice. It’s a paradox that encapsulates him, really, because his whole life has been about anxiety and the ice and the ways in which they intertwine. He slips into anxiety filled dreams and wakes up to sweat and ice. Hot and cold. His parents tell him that they used to have to wake him up constantly during the night to check he wasn’t hurt: sometimes he’d transport ice back in sheets and it would melt in his crib, creating enough water so that he could drown in it. Jack doesn’t like to think about that much. As he’s gotten older, he’s able to control it more, but he’s still bringing back shards of ice every time he wakes up. Some things will never change.
Bad Bob likes to tell the story of when Jack first brought back a hockey stick - one that looked exactly like Bad Bob’s, but shrunken down so that three year old Jack could hold and handle it. Jack wonders whether he ever started liking hockey or if his dreams started liking it for him. He also wonders whether there’s actually a clear distinction between the two. He’s liked hockey for as long as he can physically remember, and he’s blurred the lines between dreams and sleep for longer: they’re both just parts of him that he can never erase. It’s a chicken in the egg scenario in the same way that he questions: what came first, the anxiety or the dreams? Jack’s anxiety perhaps wasn’t obvious as early on, but anxiety doesn’t physically manifest ice every night. Then again, perhaps the anxiety was the sweat that came along with it. He’s not entirely sure, but some questions just don’t have answers and some things just don’t ever go away.
.
The junior league is when everything begins to change. Of course, it’s all the same at first: there’s ice and hockey and anxiety, that’s always going to be there. But then, Jack starts to make friends. Friends with Kent Parson, more specifically. It’s not a friendship for too long, though. Jack isn’t entirely sure how it starts but one minute they’re drinking beer on Jack’s bed and the next Kent’s cock is down Jack’s throat and Jack is letting Kent teach him things that he’s never even considered before. They’re not friends now, but they’re not boyfriends either. Jack pretends he’s content without a label.
Jack usually doesn’t let Kent stay the night, until he drinks too much and forgets about it.
Jack and Kent wake up together to a bed full of ice. It’s not Jack’s usual shards - there are sheets of it, lying across them, piled up on the floor. Jack’s first thought is that the hotel room carpet is going to get water damage. His second is that he should probably move the ice off the bed before they both get hypothermia.
“What the fuck, Zimms?” Kent says, still sprawled across the bed but eyeing up the ice that fills the room. “This your version of a wet dream? I knew you liked hockey, but...”
Jack tries hard to laugh but nothing comes out. “Kenny.” he says. He doesn’t know if he’s pleading or asking or telling, but he has to say it once more. “Kenny.”
“Hey, Zimms, it’s cool.” Kent says. “I know where they come from.”
Jack stares at him. No one can know where the ice comes from. No one should know that it’s even possible.
“You really thought you were the only hockey player who dreamt of ice and ice appeared?” Kent says. “Man.”
“Wait, you…?” Jack doesn’t know quite what he’s asking. He’s too hopeful - he can’t think that he’s not alone when, deep down, he knows that’s all he’ll ever be.
“I mean, I’m damn well better at controlling it, but, yeah.” Kent says.
“Teach me.” Jack says. “To control it.”
“Oh, you want me to teach you?” Kent says, wiggling his eyebrows. “I thought I already did.”
Jack doesn’t think about dreaming for a good hour after that.
.
Kent hands him a pill. “This’ll take you there.”
"There?” Jack questions, because he’s never quite sure. ‘There’ could mean a high, or a nasty trip, or… what he’s hoping for, the dream world.
“This is all business, Jack.” Kent smirks. “It’ll get you asleep and where you need to be fast. Once you’re in there, you grab something, you come back.”
“It doesn’t really work like that.” Jack says. “I don’t choose-”
“You do now, Zimms.” Kent replies. “You gotta start choosing.”
Jack tries to follow the advice. He doesn’t think about anxiety medication plus alcohol plus whatever these pills are. He never thought about it before when he took pills at parties. He knows he’s being irresponsible, but he also knows that he’s a teenager and he’s going to be fucking irresponsible if he wants to. It’s not fair if other people get to do things that he can’t.
Jack knows that it’s all bullshit and that he needs to be looking after himself, but Kent makes it seem natural and right and who is he to argue with his teammate?
.
Jack brings back a perfectly formed Stanley Cup with no team name on it. Instead, it has Jack Zimmermann and Kent Parson engraved upon it.
“You asshole,” Kent jokes, punching him lightly on the arm, “Ignoring the alphabet and putting Zimmermann first like you’re something special.”
It’s a joke, so Jack laughs.
They’re in a tangle of limbs later when Jack wonders whether he’ll ever come first. First in the draft, first in someone else’s life, first in his own eyes. I’ll come first in the draft , he thinks. Even if I can’t do anything else, I’ll do that.
He doesn’t.
.
It’s cliché, but it’s not until it’s too late that Jack realises that he’s in too deep. This is for multiple reasons, one of which being that he’s realised that an increased dosage of anxiety medication helps him control his dreams better. Another being that he’s started ignoring phone calls from his increasingly worried parents in favour of going to parties and drinking.
He knows he’s not being responsible. He knows that meds don’t mix with alcohol - he’s been told this by his parents, his therapist, the internet. But it doesn’t occur to him even once that something really, really bad might happen. He’s Jack Zimmermann - he’s skating in the juniors with his best friend in the whole world and at night he’s creating things that others would never even consider.
It’s another cliché, and that’s why Jack doesn’t consider it even for a second: those who climb the highest have the furthest to fall.
.
It seemed impossible at the time, but once it’s happened it seems as though it’s always been inevitable. How the mighty have fallen. How Jack Zimmermann, poised to be picked first in the draft, ended up barely being first in the cafeteria line at the rehab facility. Part of him thinks that maybe it makes sense for him to be here, maybe he doesn’t belong out in the real world, out on the ice.
He may have left hockey behind, but he doesn’t leave the ice. For the first time since Kent found out about his gift, he’s waking up amidst sheets of ice. His parents found a facility in which little questions would be asked, but Jack still tries to clean it up as best he can - he’s already a liability to so many other people, he doesn’t want to make a stranger clear up his messes as well.
Kent calls, but Jack doesn’t pick up. There’s a part of him that wants to blame Kent for all this - Kent gave him the pills - but he knows in his heart that there was never a situation where he couldn’t have said no. It was Jack wanting approval, wanting validation, wanting to be worth something, that caused this whole mess.
How the mighty have fallen, Jack thinks to himself every night before he goes to bed. After a couple of weeks, he starts to change it: be better , he thinks. Be better, be better, be better . Some people count sheep, others count promises.
He promises to be better. He tries to ignore the underlying message that he doesn’t believe that he’s ever been good enough for anyone.
.
Jack doesn’t so much consciously choose Samwell as his parents choose it for him. He agrees that college is the best route to take if he ever wants to make it to the NHL, or if he ever wants to make it anywhere in life at all. He has to do something, and college is that something. His Mom takes him on the tour, as she went there.
“You know, Samwell didn’t have a hockey team when I came here.” she tells him.
“Really?” Jack asks. Neither of his parents have yet brought up that all conversation consists of one word replies from Jack.
“There’s the rink - Faber.” She points it out, as they get a look at it from across the river. “That wasn’t there either.”
It feels like she’s leading up to something, but Jack doesn’t have the energy to ask any more questions.
“Your dad dreamed it.” she says. “I don’t think he even did it consciously. We were talking about kids, and I said that any kid of ours would go to Samwell. He said that any kid of ours would play hockey, so that couldn’t happen. Next time I looked up Samwell… it was there.”
Jack just gapes at her.
She continues. “We both just want the best for you, Jack. We both had our separate dreams for you, before you were born, but we want what you want.” She pauses again. “Do you want this, Jack?”
“Yeah.” Jack says. He’s not sure, but expressing that would take more than one word. “Yeah.” The repetition is done in an attempt to try and convince himself.
“Okay, let’s go check out the rink.”
.
After Kent, Jack didn’t think that he was going to have a best friend again. It doesn’t happen instantly, but, without Jack really realising it, Shitty is glued to his side for most of freshman year. Or maybe it’s the other way round, as Shitty seems to have the gravitational pull of a small planet: where he goes, people follow. People sometimes just being Jack. Shitty is the first person at college that he tells about his dreams.
“Oh, that’s cool, dude.” Shitty says in response. “Have you ever been hungry and brought yourself back that perfect snack?”
Jack shakes his head. He thinks about it, though, and from then on his pre-game pb&j comes from the dreamworld, and tastes even better than any he’d make himself.
.
Sophomore year brings new friendships, but it also brings a visit from Kent. When Jack spies Kent on the doorstep of the Haus, he isn’t exactly sure how to feel. It’s like the anxiety and the dreams and the ice all rise up at once, a volcano within him, threatening to erupt. It doesn’t.
He talks to Kent. Even calls him ‘Kenny’, once or twice, the old familiarity slipping past his tongue, almost like he didn’t almost die and then never spoke to Kent about it afterwards. Almost like he isn’t bitter, isn’t horribly jealous of Kent’s Calder Memorial Trophy, his Stanley Cup… It’s never going to be the same and Jack understands that, but he doesn’t know if Kent does.
Jack comes to the recognition that, just because Kent was bad for Jack, doesn’t mean Jack was bad for Kent.
He’s bitter and he’s angry but it doesn’t stop him from fucking Kent like the last three years haven’t happened. Then again, the sex doesn’t stop Jack from sending Kent away about an hour after it has happened. He doesn’t really want Kent to wake up in Jack’s bed and realise that Jack has never quite improved his control. He doesn’t want shards of ice to cut Kent like they cut Jack. Even if Kent was never good for him, Jack doesn’t want to hurt him any more than he has to.
.
The rest of sophomore year is better. He becomes friends with Ransom, Holster and Lardo. He doesn’t tell any of them about his dreams, but he gets the vibe that they all know something is different. What’s great about them, though, is that they never push for details.
They do, however, push him into being a better version of himself and are among those who elect him Captain for the next year.
Jack stops dreaming in sheets of ice and sometimes wakes up without even a single shard on his pillow.
.
Junior year brings Eric Bittle, a relapse in his anxiety, and a lot of pie. Only two are related. Even so, Jack’s mind can’t help but join the three together: he’s anxious and the new kid can’t get checked without fainting and there is pie all over his Haus. He maybe takes it out on the kid a little, which he maybe regrets but maybe feels too awkward to apologise for. Maybe.
The relapse doesn’t last forever, but it’s not an easy time when he’s waking up covered in sweat, his heart in his throat and his hands clenched in his sheets. He opens them to find blood pouring from his palms: the ice has melted away, but the evidence remains. Shitty tries to talk to him about it, but Jack doesn’t want to talk about it. He puts himself to sleep chanting be better, be better, be better and hopes against hope that there won’t be blood on his hands in the morning.
Sheets of ice were maybe better - at least they were big enough to avoid. Jack doesn’t know how to cope with his anxiety now it’s not the huge thing it was during juniors, during rehab. He can’t call for help, can’t ask for anything, because he was fine before when it was this bad, and he’s got through worse. He’s not allowed to ask for help, so he doesn’t.
Panic attacks weren’t the sign that everything was going wrong. It was only when he was having them every day that it was bad. Once a week isn’t enough to ask for help, so he won’t. He won’t, he won’t.
In the end, his bloodied hands make it hard to hold a stick, so he gives into his pride and asks for help. He talks to Shitty, calls his parents, gets a new therapist, a higher dosage of meds. He feels ashamed for giving in when the anxiety wasn’t even that bad, but he can’t say that he isn’t thankful when he doesn’t have to break his scabbed hands every morning to curl them around a hockey stick.
Once he’s got help, he starts treating the team better. He starts treating Bittle better. Be better , Jack thinks to himself. He may have improved, but it’s still not good enough.
.
“Checking practice.” Jack says to Bittle one morning over team breakfast. His hands are smooth.
“What?” Bittle says, through a mouthful of toast.
“Tomorrow, four am, checking practice.” Jack says, in his most captain-like voice.
“Okay.” Bittle agrees, before spreading what Jack thinks is an obscene amount of jam onto his third slice of toast. Not that Jack’s been keeping track - he’s just attentive.
.
Checking practice is a chance to spend time with Bittle without the other guys. Jack realises that he hasn’t really gotten to know Bittle, not in the way that the rest of the team has, so he filters conversation in between the checks.
Check . “So, where abouts in the South are you from?” Check . “What do you parents do?” Check . “Why hockey?”
Jack may not be the greatest conversationalist, but he wants to know more about this tiny blonde Southern baker. It’s funny, but with every sentence, Bittle seems to find his way inside of Jack, make Jack want to know even more.
For some reason, checking practice sometimes manages to press down the swell of anxiety in his chest. It doesn’t get rid of it, but it can prevent another outburst. For that, Jack is thankful.
.
He doesn’t always treat Bittle right, but he doesn’t always treat himself right, so it’s to be expected. He starts to grow fond of the kid, though - his insecurities and worries almost remind Jack of himself. There’s a surge of pride in his chest when Bittle begins to succeed, even though it’s often knocked down by his anxiety at his own failure.
“It was a lucky shot, Bittle.” he says, and regrets it. He doesn’t do well with apologies and so he doesn’t apologise, but he doesn’t stop feeling awful about it. Maybe he’s just an awful person.
.
Jack’s not sure if he really realises how much he cares about this new addition to his life until Bittle is properly, physically checked.
He doesn’t even know how he finishes the game, because his mind isn’t thinking ice, stick, puck , it’s thinking Bitty, Bitty, Bitty .
When he wakes up the next morning, the floor is covered in splintered ice. He makes the decision to not get out of bed until it has all melted away.
.
Senior year doesn’t really feel like it has any right to be Jack’s last year at Samwell. When he looks back at touring Samwell with his Mom, it seems unreal that he was unsure about even going to college. He wonders what his life would be like if he hadn’t gone to Samwell - but it’s almost too much to even consider. His life is so intrinsically made up of the Samwell Men’s Hockey Team and those who are a part of it: Shitty, Ransom, Holster, Lardo, Bitty - no, Bittle.
Every game feels like it has much more riding on it, and it causes a peak in his anxiety, but it also serves to force him to make the most of every minute. He’s laughing and joking more, sipping a beer when he could be locked up in his room. He’s having fun.
He’s starting to think about next year, about finally joining the NHL. It’s been his dream for as long as he can remember, but when he thinks about it now, all he wants to do is cling onto the remainder of his time at Samwell.
.
Jack takes a class with Bittle. When pressed by Shitty, he describes the experience as ‘nice’.
When Shitty asks, he’s running through the classes in his mind. He’s thinking about elbows touching as they both scribble down notes, fingers brushing on the walk to class, Bitty’s head on the desk being just a centimetre away from Jack’s hand… It’s a catalogue of experiences that Jack runs over and over in his head - he’s not entirely sure why. He thinks about cooking with Bitty, about the small Southern baker with his hands on his hips and a smile spreading across his face whilst he’s trying to act disapproving. He thinks about ‘studying’ at Annie’s and chirping Bitty about his pumpkin flavoured somethings, and Bitty chirping Jack back for thinking every single artist is Taylor Swift.
(Jack thinks about saying Taylor Swift every time just to get a reaction out of Bitty. Just to see how Bitty’s look of disapproval curls upwards into a smile against Bitty’s will. To hear him say ‘Mister Zimmermann’ in a scolding tone and punch him on the arm.)
He’s glad he has such a great friend.
.
Seeing Kent again is not necessarily ‘nice’. All Jack wants to do is spend time with his teammates, and his old teammate turns up out of the blue. And, okay, he’s not going to say that the nickname ‘Zimms’ doesn’t have an effect on him, because it does it’s just that… he doesn’t know if he wants Parse to affect him anymore.
They’re in Jack’s room, having a conversation that Jack doesn’t want to be having. Jack tells Kent he doesn’t have a clue where he’s going next year, but it’s not all of the truth. He knows he isn’t going to Las Vegas, knows he can’t play with the Aces. He loved Kent once but he knows he can’t ever love him again - not without hurting one or both of them. Jack’s survival instinct has got stronger since the overdose, he knows he has to look out for himself. Kent isn’t a bad person, but he’s not good for Jack either.
Kent kisses Jack. For a second, Jack kisses back, letting himself pretend they’re in the juniors again. He imagines that they’ve just won a game, that they’ve found a supply closet because they just couldn’t keep their hands off each other. For a second, Jack lets himself pretend that nothing has changed. Then he pulls away. For some reason, he thinks of a different blonde than the one he’s just been kissing.
“--Kenny. I can’t do this.” Jack says. For once, he’s not lying to Kent.
Kent looks almost desperate when he says, “...Jack, come on.”
Jack thinks about it, thinks about giving in and kissing Kent. It doesn’t take anything - it’s all in muscle memory, he can just sink back into it. But he knows he can’t. “No, I - um.” Jack doesn’t know what else to say.
Kent asks him to come to Las Vegas, and Jack knew it was coming but it still shocks him like a physical check. Jack tries to fight back, but Kent’s always been better with words than Jack and at one point it just gets easier to listen to Kent talk about how he cares and how Jack’s worthless in the same fucking breath.
“If you keep this up, the only ice you’re gonna be seeing is in your dreams, Jack.” Kent hisses.
Jack has to pluck up the courage to really tell Kent where to go. “Get out of my room. And stay… stay away from my team.”
“Why? Afraid I’ll tell them something?” Kent says. “Afraid I’ll tell them about your dre-”
Jack wrenches the door open and Bitty is on the other side. It seems to jar something in his brain, something that he doesn’t yet understand, but thinking of Kent and Bitty at the same time feels so, so messed up on a level he can’t yet comprehend.
Jack doesn’t want to slam the door on Bitty, but he also doesn’t want Bitty to see him like this.
He ends up with his back against the door, legs scrunched up to his chest, repeating one word over and over and over in his mind: worthless, worthless, worthless, worthless, worthless-
.
When Jack finds a bag of cookies in his bag over winter break, he can’t quite convince himself that he hasn’t dreamed them. He texts Bitty, and the reply means he wakes up in the morning with a clear room and a clear mind.
.
Jack’s writing a paper at the kitchen table whilst Bitty bakes. It’s a routine that he’s got into - he likes the background noise of Bitty singing along to Taylor Swift or Beyonce or… okay, that’s about the extent of his musical knowledge. He likes hearing the sounds of Bitty baking: flour being sprinkled over a surface, apples being sliced, the sound of the oven as it heats up. Jack’s found that his anxiety gets better when he can just focus on the sounds of Bitty baking. It’s probably something to do with all of his senses being gratified: the smell of baking, the sound of singing, the sight of the sunlight gleaming off Bitty’s blonde hair, the feel of… Okay, so maybe not all his senses.
Baking helps with Jack’s anxiety, but that’s exactly why he’s down at the kitchen table today. He woke up in the morning covered in shards of ice - they’ve not just cut his hands this time. He knows that there’s a scratch on his face and he knows that Bitty will ask about it sooner or later. He knows that Bitty cares. Eventually, he tries to preempt the question.
“Bittle, can I talk to you about something?” he says, aiming for casual. He says ‘Bittle’ because ‘Bitty’ is a label for his head, something that he isn’t quite sure why he can’t say out loud.
“Sure, Jack.” Bitty says without turning around. “Just give me two seconds and I’m all yours.”
Jack waits whilst Bitty puts his finishing touches on the lattice of a pie before putting it into the pre-heated oven and setting a timer. Bitty brushes his hands down on his apron, takes it off, folds it neatly on the surface before taking the chair next to Jack.
“So, I can take objects of out of my dreams.” Jack says, because he isn’t sure how else to phrase it.
Bitty stares at him. “Um.”
“Um.” Jack doesn’t know why he’s mirroring this boy, why everything he does seems to be a result of Bitty’s influence. It’s like the laws of cause and effect: they’re linked in some way that Jack doesn’t yet understand.
“Now, Mister, I think I’m the one with the ‘um’ing privileges in this conversation.” Bitty says. He doesn’t seem thrown, just slightly confused. “What kind of objects?”
“Hockey sticks.” Jack says. “Ice.”
Bitty gapes at him. “Okay.”
“That’s where the cut on my face came from.” Jack says.
Bitty moves his hand as if he’s about to rest it on Jack’s cheek, but he doesn't. Jack is disappointed, but he doesn’t know why. “Thank you for trusting me with this moment.” Bitty says carefully, like he doesn’t know what else to say.
“I already had this conversation with Shitty.” Jack says. “No need to parrot him, eh?”
Bitty laughs. “Y’all know Shitty coached all of us in reacting to important stuff like this. It’s what he said when I came out to him.”
Jack smiles. Probably at the thought of Shitty as a supportive friend, and not at his thought of how Bitty has changed from a quiet, closeted boy to a loud and proud almost-maybe man .
Jack and Bitty keep talking about Jack’s dreams. Bitty keeps quiet, responding at the appropriate points but mainly just listening to Jack. Jack spills almost everything out: how the dreams and anxiety are linked but he doesn’t know which one came first, how dreams are so much louder , so much more when he’s been drinking, and that’s why he doesn’t drink so much anymore. The timer on the oven beeps and Jack didn’t even realise that they’d been talking for so long. Bitty doesn’t stop listening as he gets up, turns the oven off and removes the pie.
“It’ll take a while to cool.” Bitty says.
Jack feels calmed by Bitty’s presence. He rests his head on the table, and the next thing he knows he’s drifting off into sleep.
That’s the minute that he stops being calm.
.
In Jack’s dream, he’s skating through Faber. There’s an insistent voice in the back of his mind, find Bitty , it tells him, find Bitty . He’s skating faster and faster, turning at a speed that should make him fall, but he doesn’t. His mind is now just a constant train of Bitty, Bitty, Bitty, Bitty, Bitty, Bitty -
There’s a blonde man in front of him, but it isn’t Bitty. “Didja miss me?” Kent asks. Jack can smell burning pie.
He wakes up to a kitchen full of ice.
.
Bitty is pressed up against the oven. There’s a semi-circle of clear floor around him, but other than that the entire kitchen is covered in ice. Sheets, shards, squares: in every form. Jack stares at Bitty, because he doesn’t know what he says. The pie on the kitchen table has a dozen shards of ice sticking out of it.
“Well, it’s a good thing I told you about my dreams, eh?” Jack says.
Bitty looks down at the floor. “My kitchen is covered in ice.”
Jack raises an eyebrow, "Your kitchen?”
Bitty steps closer, his shoes crunching on the ice. He swipes at Jack with a tea towel. “Y’all know I’m the only one who cooks in here anyway.”
“I’m sorry.” Jack says. “About the ice.” he clarifies.
“Nonsense.” Bitty says. “Y’all can’t control it. I can make another pie. You can clear up the kitchen.”
Jack nods. Jack sweeps and Bitty rolls pastry and it’s conversation, not singing, that fills the kitchen.
“You know,” Bitty says, “You don’t have to be brave all of the time, Jack. We all like you just fine as you are.”
Jack nods, doesn’t dare speak. He thinks that if he opens his mouth a grateful sob is more likely to come out than speech.
.
In Samwell’s next game, Jack scores a hat trick. He looks for Bitty first after each and every goal.
.
He doesn’t really realise the impact that Bitty has on his life until he wakes up with a pie on the bed next to him. He stares at it suspiciously for a few moments before climbing out of bed and walking through the bathroom into Shitty’s room. Shitty is fully awake and fully naked, only the former fact being of any surprise to Jack. Shitty looks up at Jack and greets him with a nod, budging over on his bed and making room for Jack to sit down, which he does.
“There’s a pie on my bed.” Jack says.
Shitty raises an eyebrow. “Why didn’t Bitty just leave it in the kitchen? That’s preferential treatment if ever I heard of it, dude.”
Jack looks at him. Shitty seems to understand. “Oh, shit, man. You don’t mean…?”
“I didn’t mean to bring it back.” Jack says. “It’s like I couldn’t help myself. I don’t know why.”
“Dude, are you seriously repressing your feelings so hard that you don’t even know it? This is toxic masculinity at its worst.”
Jack doesn’t want to ask, but he knows Shitty is trying to make a point that Jack is not understanding at all. “I don’t understand.”
“Nah, you don’t, do you?” Shitty says. “It’s not just a coincidence that Bitty is showing up in your dreams, it’s-”
“-Bittle is not a pie.” Jack cuts Shitty off.
“It’s not the pie, it’s the principle.” Jack sends Shitty a look that shows he’s lost. Shitty tries again. “The pie’s a symbol. You’re manifesting pie when, really, you want to be manifesting Bitty.”
“No.” Jack says. “I don’t want him anywhere near my dreams. I don’t want any of you near my dreams.” He doesn’t know how to communicate this in a way that it will make sense, but there’s a very real part of him that’s scared that if any of his friends saw the real him, they wouldn’t want to be friends with him any more.
“But Bitty is still there.” Shitty says. “That means something, Jack.”
“Sure.” Jack says, knowing that it’s easier to just agree. “You ready for next week’s game?” he asks.
“Aye, aye, Captain.” Shitty says. “Nice deflection, Jack.”
“It wasn’t-” Jack decides midway through his sentence to not bother arguing. “Are you going to bother to go to class today?”
“Nah.” Shitty says.
“Too much effort, eh?”
“Too much clothing.” Shitty responds.
Jack doesn’t protest.
.
Jack plays each game as hard as he can until there aren’t any games left to play. After that, his dreams stop bringing back pie and start bringing back ice.
He never ate the pie anyway - figured that even the dream world couldn’t make something as good as Bitty’s cooking. The ice isn’t exactly welcome, but he’s learnt how to deal with it over the years. Besides, now Bitty knows, it’s better. Bitty slips into Jack’s room in the morning with antiseptic and bandages, looking after Jack in the best way he knows how.
The volume of ice starts to decrease. Jack thinks he’s dealing with his anxiety better, but he’s not sure why.
.
Graduation happens too soon. One minute Jack’s kissing the ice with Shitty at his side and the next he’s standing in a cap and gown, clutching his diploma in his fist. He thinks of the different paths that he could have chosen and realises that this is his favourite one. It may be the result of anxiety and alcohol and drugs and an eventual overdose, but there’s part of him that thinks maybe he was meant to end up at Samwell. He doesn’t know how to put into words how much he’s going to miss the team.
“So, how are you?” his Dad asks. “I mean really , how are you, Jack?”
Jack thinks about it for a moment. His mental health is by no means perfect, but he’s coping better. “There’s been less ice.” Jack says.
“Who did that?” his Dad replies.
Jack thinks.
“Oh.” he says.
“Oh?” his Dad replies.
“I- I.” he stutters.
“I’ll cover for you.” his Dad winks. “I’ll apply the Zimmermann charm here while you go use it somewhere else, okay?”
Jack doesn’t wait for more permission, before he’s running. He remembers his dream in which his mind was screaming Bitty, Bitty, Bitty, Bitty . He’s thinking the name with the same urgency now, but he’s not afraid.
Bitty was never something that he had to be afraid of.
.
When he gets to the Haus, he ducks his head around the kitchen door, checking that Bitty isn’t fitting in one last goodbye pie. When he’s not there, he sprints up stairs, knocking on Bitty’s door. He stands there for a moment before he hears the sound of Bitty’s voice coming from Jack’s - no Chowder’s - room. Jack sees Bitty sorting out clothes and he smiles fondly. Of course Bitty is sorting out other people’s things, rather than getting ready for his airport shuttle. He listens closer to Bitty’s singing. He can’t quite pick out what song it is, but he thinks that that’s more because Bitty’s crying than because Jack doesn’t know it -
Bitty’s crying . Jack feels his heart lurch as he steps forwards, because the last thing on earth he wants is for Bitty to be upset.
“Bittle.” he says. He’s still not using the nickname. It’s almost as though he’s waiting for permission.
Bitty seems all kinds of shocked to see Jack there, protesting that he could have texted , that he looks like he ran all the way to the Haus. Jack couldn’t have texted, though. This isn’t something that he knows how to put into words. Jack thinks that maybe he’s always been about the physical: he knows how to move his body on the ice, how to make a perfect shot into a perfect goal. He even makes objects from the dream world physical. Jack’s never been very good with words, so he tells Bitty what he needs to the only way he knows how.
He places one hand on the small of Bitty’s back. He steps closer. He waits for a second or two, to give Bitty a chance to move away, if he wants to. Nobody moves. Jack moves in closer and kisses Bitty like he’s been waiting to for a year. Which, if he thinks about it, he really has.
He doesn’t know how long he’s wanted Bitty but in the moment that their lips touch, Jack thinks that he might never want anything else, as long as he has this. He pulls back, takes a look at Bitty’s face: his pink lips, his closed eyes. He kisses this boy again. He could probably kiss Bitty for the rest of his life.
Jack has to go, of course, and so does Bitty. Thanks for protecting me from myself , Jack thinks. He doesn’t know how to say that to Bitty yet, but when he thinks about it, he realises that there are going to be so many opportunities to tell Bitty exactly how much he means to him.
After he’s gone, he sends Bitty a text.
You made the ice go away