Chapter Text
“Zimmboni! You are being late for practise! What is taking this long?”
Jack looked up from the screen of his laptop and sighed. “I’m just trying to find that…that stupid recipe…” He continued to scroll through the history, but he couldn’t remember the name of the site. “I should have bookmarked it.”
A large body thwumped to a seat next to him, and an overlarge hand dropped on his shoulder. “As Captain I say get on ice. Mean captain now, nice captain later. I help you find, okay?”
Jack rolled his eyes, nudging Tater. “Yeah, fine.” He snapped the laptop shut and rose, grabbing his stick which was leant against the bench. He ignored Tater’s blabbering on about how he didn’t mean to be a hard-ass and how they could look up cupcake recipes later if Jack really wanted.
It was a stupid idea, anyway, but Jack wanted to do something nice for once, and it made him feel a little more human to do something like bake a damn cupcake. Lardo had told him about the site, said it was impossible to fail if he followed the directions, and if there was one thing Jack Zimmermann was decent at, it was following directions.
“Come on, get hat trick during practise, I let you leave ten minutes early,” Tater said, hip-checking him onto the ice.
Jack turned and grinned. “Deal.”
Jack got his hat trick, and flipped off his booing team members as he skated off. “Fuck you all, then. No cupcakes for anyone!”
“That’s fine,” Snowy called out as he leant against Tater. “We don’t want to die anyway.”
Jack eased out of his skates, then hit the showers before grabbing his things and heading out. As he slid into his car, he sent a text off to Lardo. Lost that link you sent, and really want to make the cupcakes. Help.
He threw his phone onto the seat, and made the drive home in less than ten. By the time he’d changed into joggers and a t-shirt, and got his computer set up at the kitchen island, his phone had three texts.
Bro, you embarrass yourself.
Here it is again.
Actually wait, use this one. It’s a youtube tutorial. It has subtitles.
Jack rolled his eyes at his phone as though she could see him. My English is fine thank you very much. But the video might actually help. Thanks.
He saved the link in an email, then wandered into his lounge. The sofa was comfy, the sun warm through the large window as he curled up with his laptop, and he opened the link. He wouldn’t bake them today. Today he planned to enjoy his Saturday—off early from practise. Maybe a little lonely, but at least content enough in his life that he could be on his own without worrying. His life wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t so bad, either.
Clicking the video, welcome music started up, and before Jack could react to anything, the most adorable, small blonde appeared. His hair flopped over his forehead, and in big, captioned letters at the bottom of the screen it read, Hey, y’all. Without even realising it, Jack was already lost in big, dark eyes.
***
Bitty sighed, rolling onto his side as he felt another wave of coughing coming on. The oxygen pushed up against his nose was starting to get irritating, and he could tell already his skin would probably be raw—if not an open sore at least on the left side.
He threw his elbow over his mouth and unleashed, feeling the icky, wet globs in his lungs struggling to get free as his body was wracked in half. It carried on a while, and when he pulled his arm away, he was grateful not to see any blood tinge on his lips.
That was brought him in in the first place, and what had kept him here for a week now. There were moments he didn’t mind. He really didn’t want to die—there was a lot he wanted to get done in his life, even if he knew that his time on earth was probably shorter than a lot of people’s. But he’d be damned if he didn’t at least try to hang on.
He was a good candidate for the transplants, really. It was just a waiting game.
And a game of not catching pneumonia, and not letting the infections in his body ravage him too hard.
So yeah, maybe he hated hospital days, but he could appreciate that they were keeping him alive. He just didn’t have to entirely like it. He sighed, flopping back against the uncomfortable pillows and stared at the tv for a while. He hadn’t worn his hearing aids since he was admitted, so he had no idea of the volume was on or not, but since no one had complained so far, he didn’t exactly care. Hospital tv was the worst though. Half the time their caption features didn’t work, and really, who watched TV these days?
If the wifi hadn’t been the worst, he’d have watched at least three full series on Netflix by now.
He shifted, kicked his feet, felt a little bit like a child for his restlessness, then grabbed his phone.
Lardooooooo. I’m so bored. He sent an entire page of emojis at her, simply because he knew it would irritate her.
Five minutes later her text came back. Bittyyyyyy. When are they letting you go? I still have a cold so you and your doctor would literally eviscerate me if I tried to visit. Oh but guess what I did today.
Is that rhetorical or am I actually guessing?
Fuck u. It’s rhetorical. Remember how I told you I have that super hot friend in the NHL?
I guess??
I sent him a link to your cupcake tutorial. He’s making them for one of his teammate’s kid’s like dance recital or smthn, idk but I thought it was cute. And a famous person is going to be making your cupcakes.
Bitty stared at the screen, not sure how, exactly, he even felt about that. His youtube channel, which had become oddly successful over the last year, was a mishmash of cooking tutorials, rambling about cystic fibrosis woes, long rants about Beyonce, being queer, and the occasional commentary on figure skating championships—when the season came round. Bitty couldn’t really be sure why people liked him. He knew he was charismatic, but he never quite figured out how that was enough to make him popular.
But for all that he’d been doing this a while, he’d never had the attention of a celebrity before.
He knew about Lardo’s connection to the Falconer’s. Shitty had become the head of their legal team a few years back after one of his former college hockey teammates was drafted. But Bitty never really thought twice about it. He spent a single semester in high school playing on the co-ed team before his lungs decided they’d be having none of that, and he spent his entire senior year finishing his diploma from the increasingly stale air of his bedroom.
He attempted college after that, lasting one whole semester before the shared germs of Freshman dorms sent him into a spiral which lasted so long, he and his parents both weren’t sure he’d come out of it. So now he worked at home as online tech support to pay for his tiny-ass apartment, and spent the rest of his days trying to amuse himself with baking, and well…not die from the disease slowly suffocating him from the inside out.
Okay if you’re gonna embarrass me, at least make sure he tweets the channel so when I die, this can be my legacy.
Your drama knows no bounds. Why don’t you just tweet him. @jayzimmsNHL
Bitty stared at the name for a while, and his thumb hovered over his twitter icon. He had a decent twitter following—he was no Misha Collins but a hundred thousand wasn’t anything to sniff at. But what the hell was he supposed to say to this guy who probably had a rabid, very sport-centric, very straight guy, following?
Bitty’s bio itself read: Hella gay. I’m a bad bitch, no muzzle, let’s go. He couldn’t imagine some straight dude being super cool with that. Though, he realised, if the guy was good enough friends with Lardo and Shitty for casual texting, he couldn’t imagine the guy being homophobic.
He sighed, then tapped out a tweet.
@omgbittybakes- just heard @jayzimmsNHL is about to try my cupcake recipe. Post pics! #omgcupcakes
He set his phone down after that, not wanting to wait round to just be ignored. The boredom was really getting to him, he decided. It was like some bad horror movie about cabin fever slowly eating away at your brain until you were some zombie-like shell of your former self. Only he had an actual fever, and frankly there were times he wouldn’t mind being nothing more than a shell of a human body.
He turned to the side violently as he began to cough again, this attack so intense it triggered a headache. With a sigh, he pushed the nurse’s button and knew he’d be waiting until they got one of the few on the floor who could sign.
Sure enough, it was fifteen minutes before one wandered in, though he softened at her easy smile. ‘What’s up?’ she asked, her fingers dragging up her chest.
‘Headache,’ Bitty signed with a grimace. ‘Meds? Please?’
She checked his chart, then his vitals, then gave his arm a pat. ‘I’ll get you something. Give me ten minutes.’
Fifteen minutes—and he tried not to be bitter about the extra five—later he was slipping into an easy doze as the medication flooded from the IV and into his veins. He floated and sighed happily as the nurse turned up his oxygen, then covered him with the blanket.
It wasn’t ideal, but he was alive. And he was starting to feel a little better.
He was just a little too dazed to see the blinking notification on his phone.
***
Jack, who was not an expert twitter user, stared at the notification. He got a lot of them, but this one caught his eye and it took him a few minutes to realise the account was from the youtuber. BittyBits had been his screen name on the video, and Jack had been entranced by it.
He most definitely hadn’t learnt to make the cupcakes. He’d been startled by the fact that the entire video was conducted in sign language, except the occasional times when Bitty’s hands were covered in goop to which he would say, “Lemme wash up, y’all.” His voice was thick, heavy with a southern drawl which was oddly fitting in spite of him not looking like he’d come from the south at all.
He was petite and probably short, Jack assumed. His hair was a soft, sunny blonde, his eyes wide and dark, his cheeks rosy. He had a smattering of freckles and one of the best smiles Jack had ever seen in his life. Though Jack didn’t know more than a handful of cursory signs—please, thank you, hello, good bye—he found himself enraptured by the quick way Bitty’s fingers flew. He’d never given the language much thought, but found himself opening up tabs to sign dictionaries and lessons and wondering how long it might actually take him to become proficient in conversation.
Of course that was a lofty goal, considering Jack’s days were usually consumed by Hockey and the obligations of being signed with an NHL team. But it was the off-season and…
Well that’s when the text came in, and he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to actually do about it. Bitty was asking for a photo of the cupcakes he had not made, and Jack wasn’t exactly sure he wanted the world to see the mockery he’d end up making of the treats Bitty had finished up in the video.
Bitty’s, of course, had not only come out perfect, but they had been decorated with frosting and rainbow sprinkles because, ‘Every cupcake should be at least a little gay,’ the captions read.
Jack’s face flushed at that. He was out. He’d been out now for the last three years when Parse had decided he wanted to come forward. Jack had waffled on the idea for a while, but as Kent pointed out, “Look man, I support you keeping quiet, but if people dig too deep after my announcement, it could be bad for you. You should have some say in it.”
He’d been right. Jack waited exactly one month after Kent and Tater had announced their relationship to the world to make his own statement. His PR team advised him to take to twitter, considering that’s where most people got their news these days.
“You’re not in a relationship, so it won’t be dangerous for anyone,” George had advised him in her no-nonsense way.
Jack agreed, so then tweeted his support for Kent and Tater, then announced to the internet he was bisexual, single, and ready to stand by any player who wanted a safe space to be who they were.
The splash was relatively small—which Jack thought Kent was more disappointed about than anything. But it died down and people stopped talking about it, and only the really terrible publications made comments about whether or not their sexuality affected their gameplay.
Considering the Aces won the cup that year, Jack had to say no, it really made no difference.
Swallowing thickly, Jack eventually pulled up his keyboard and tapped out, @jayzimmsNHL- @omgbittybakes: doubt they’ll be good as urs but I’ll give it a try. #omgcupcakes
Ten minutes later he got a text from Lardo. Oh my god you’re gonna fall in love. I can’t wait for this. Make the cupcakes. This is like…real life and I’m making inhuman noises right now. Shitty wants to know what’s going on. I’m telling him everything.
Jack sighed at his friend, put his phone away, then decided he’d watch the video and give the cupcakes a go.
For what it was worth, they didn’t come out too bad considering it was his first time, and that Bitty was so damn distracting. Jack found himself getting so lost in Bitty’s smile, so much so he over-stirred the batter, and almost dumped the cup of sugar on the counter instead of into the mixing bowl.
But there were no disasters, and after the cupcakes had baked—only two baked over the paper cups—and they had cooled, he frosted, then snapped a photo of himself holding one next to his cheek. He hadn’t quite mastered the selfie. The lighting was terrible and he had chocolate smeared on his cheek but…whatever.
He posted the pic to twitter, in spite of Bitty having not replied to the first message. @jayzimmsNHL: I think I’d call this a success. Just don’t call me for cupcake wars @omgbittybakes #omgcupcakes.
His tweet was favourited and retweeted over and over, but by bedtime, Jack still hadn’t heard from Bitty. He took his laptop into the bedroom, trying to quash down the vague disappointment and he flipped back to Bitty’s youtube channel. He began to scroll, then stopped dead when he saw one that looked like it was being filmed on a hospital bed.
It was entirely in sign, so Jack’s eyes scanned the captions as they rolled across the screen.
Hey y’all. As you can tell I’m in hospital again. Bane of my existence, really. It’s like the Universe is testing me. Beyonce give me strength. Infection in my lungs again, and they’re moving me up on the transplant list so here’s hoping. Wouldn’t mind some fingers and toes crossed. Anyway, let’s take a minute to distract myself from this white-walled, sterile purgatory and talk about Lemonade. Because y’all…I think I may have ascended…
Jack felt a faint buzzing in his fingertips as he reached for his phone and pulled up Lardo’s name. Instead of texting, he hit call, and waited four rings before her tired voice picked up.
“What’s up, man?”
“Is Bitty dying?”
There as a long silence. “Um. What do you mean?”
Jack swallowed. “I’m…I started watching some of his other videos. He’s talking about lung transplants and being in hospital. Crisse, Lardo. Is he…”
“Well everyone’s dying,” Lardo said, and when Jack made an impatient noise, she sighed and relented. “Fine okay. Look, he’s got cystic fibrosis, okay? He talks a lot about it in the vids, if you keep scrolling back. It’s…right now he’s doing okay, but it’s something that’s just…well you just never know.”
“Crisse,” Jack whispered again. It was strange. He’d never even met the guy and his heart felt like it was crumbling. “I…”
“Don’t let it get to you, alright? He hates that shit. Did you even talk to him?”
“No,” Jack said. “I tweeted him the cupcake picture but he didn’t reply.”
“Don’t worry about that, he’s a twitter fiend. He’s probably just medicated right now and sleeping.”
Jack pinched the bridge of his nose. “Lardo, is he…in hospital right now?”
Her pause told him the answer.
“How bad is it?”
“Not bad,” she said quickly. “I wanted to go visit but I’ve got this cold and they won’t let anyone near him like that. But he said he’d probably be out in a few days. Just chill, okay? Send him a DM or something, he likes those. And he’s going to be over the fucking moon that you made those stupid cupcakes. Cute pic by the way, Shitty just showed me. You are such a fucking dweeb.”
“You’ve been hanging out with Shitty too long,” Jack said, but he was smiling. “And um. Thanks. I’ll…send that DM thingie.”
“Oh god. DM thingie. This is a disaster. Just remember, keep it private. No scandals. I gotta go.”
“By Lards,” he said, and waited for her to ring off.
He didn’t send the DM that night. Instead he went through Bitty’s channel, watching until his eyes ached and he was forced to go to sleep. He didn’t dream of anything, but when he woke, his mind was instantly on the vlogger.
Grabbing his phone, he opened up his notifications and there it was. A private message.
@omgbittybakes- Hey! Nice pic! You have all your teeth! I thought like missing one was a hockey rite of passage or something. Anyway let me know how they turned out. BTW your tweet got me like four thousand new followers so thanks for that.
Jack laid his head back on the pillow and smiled.