this is where I live and die.

Trying to dump Shitty into the pile of leafs ends up with both of them flailing around in it, because Shitty managed to grab Jack by the belt at the worst possible time, and there is only so much Jack can do against gravity.

They're still rolling around in it, groaning and cracking up as they bang elbows and knees together in an effort to untangle themselves, when Bitty comes back out, sighing at them.

Jack hides a grin against Shitty's biceps before heaving himself upright, just about managing to evade Shitty grabbing him again. Bitty's eyeing him worriedly, the corners of his mouth so very much trying to stay stern and not allow a smile.

"You need your rest," Bitty says, smoothing a hand down Jack's chest, and Jack squeezes his fingers for a moment.

"I know," he says, submitting to Bitty fussing at him, plucking leafs off his shoulders and out of his hair before shooing Jack up the stairs.

He's making noises about Jack throwing out his back one day by heaving Shitty around and hollering down the stairs for the boys to settle down before y’all bring down the Haus, and Jack -- He turns around once they're through the door of Bitty's room, shoving it close behind Bitty with one hand and pressing closer until he has Bitty up against it. Bitty blinks at him, surprised, his hands settling tentatively on Jack's hips. Like he's unsure of what Jack wants from him.

Bitty tastes like coffee and the pancakes he stole from Jack's plate, and he surges up against Jack without hesitation, his hands loosing their timidity.

"You -- nap," Bitty says on a gasp, his head falling back against the door when Jack noses along the line of his jaw.

"In a minute," Jack breathes, pushing off the door and taking Bitty with him, directing him towards the bed. "Just another minute, Bits."

tell me more........

started to write this today, and halfway through I realized that this does kinda fit @omgcp-tropechallenge‘s prompt of social media. so here we are: zimbits future!fic featuring the offspring, basically ~500 words of schmoop.

 [video posted to Twitter on 04/05/2027 at 9:32 a.m. with the following caption: look who's home #familytime ]

[the video opens to a close-up of Eric Bittle's face. over his shoulder, there are hints of a red-painted front door, a porch littered with toy cars, bikes, and a doll's pram.]

"Mornin', y'all," Eric says, keeping his voice low, "it's 6:02, which, lord, is way too early to be up if you ask me, but a certain young man woke up at four and then decided that sleep is for losers."

[the camera pans down, showing a toddler sitting in Bittle's lap. the boy's bundled up in a blanket and blinks up at the camera with wide blue eyes. he frowns before pushing the pacifier out of his mouth, making a questioning noise.]

"Say hi to the internet, Sammy," Bittle says. "Tell them just how mad you were at me earlier when I tried to put you down again."

"So mad he woke all of us up."

[the camera lifts to show two girls playing at the foot of the porch steps Bittle is sitting on. both children are dressed in nightgowns and are barefoot but they wear matching zipped up fleece jackets. the older girl is holding a child-sized hockey stick and twirling. the younger one is scowling at the camera from where she's crouched on the ground, Legos scattered around her.]

"You did that all the time when you were a baby," the older girl says, tapping the stick hard onto the ground. "You were loud."

"I was not."

[because I never can resist the magic prompts: 1.2k of zimbits (pg) for @omgcp-tropechallenge​]

 Jack kisses Eric, and he --

He gets his first kiss, and he can feel the warmth of Jack's body against his, the softness of Jack's lips and the callouses on his hands, smell his cologne, and deep down, where his magic lives, he clenches up tight. Now's not the time to lose his grip on it and blow out the town's power grid.

After -- Jack leaves. Jack leaves and texts him what feels like only a moment later, and Eric reads his words, reads that --

His magic rises fast and undeniable in him, passes through him and out of him, and Eric's embraced in leathery wings for a split second, hot sulfur-y breath ghosting over his head and ruffling his hair. Then Simon pushes away with a laugh that ends in a whoop, and he phases through the wall and outside before Eric can rein him back in. Eric should. He should -- but this is why Simon exists. He's the manifestation of Eric's magic, wild and free but ultimately harmless. The safest way for him to expend magic before he blows a fuse and accidentally does some damage.

Eric laughs too, giddy because Jack can't wait to kiss him again, and stumbles to the window, watches Simon somersaulting through the air in joy, unseen by anyone but Eric.

...

Back when his mother's family got serious about teaching Eric Magic 101, Great-aunt Samantha cupped his face and looked into his eyes for a long moment. He'd barely been six, and she kept looking and looking, making him squirm under her regard, his fingers sparking white-hot against her skin when he reached up to touch her wrists to make her stop.

"Oh, my darling," she'd laughed while shaking out her hands, "you are holding one heck of a tiger by the tail."

Turns out, she was right. Only it was more of a dragon than tiger.

y’know what’s one of my favorite omgcheckplease canon things?

the zimmermann parental unit calling shitty shitty.

[for @omgcp-tropechallenge: independence day/canada day, zimbits, ~3.2k, future!fic, kid!fic; pg; cw: homophobia. super late for this one, but life keeps getting in the way of everything lately. I put a content warning on this story for homophobia because there’s an undercurrent of it running through it. it’s one of the things I’d rather be overcautious with than fuck things up for someone.]

 On July 4th, Eric wakes up in his old room in his parents' house at 4:30 in the morning, blindly poking at his phone to turn the alarm off.

Flopping over onto his back, he starfishes out for a second, limbs searching for the cooler spots in the sheets.

An ache blooms behind his breastbone, heavy and suffocating, when he realizes that yeah, he's alone in bed. Of course he is.

Jack and the baby are back at their hotel, getting a good night's rest because soon his aunts and cousins will start pouring into the house to help with the food prep and baking, and Eric would like anyone to try and sleep through that ruckus. While their schedule ensures that Johnny is used to travelling, to sleeping in unknown places, he's one cranky baby if he doesn't get enough sleep. And neither of them wants to deal with the disapproval of Eric's extended family, the implied well, it sure shows that the poor darling boy doesn't have a mama.

Closing his eyes again, he breathes in the quiet of the house, the slight musty, unused smell of his room, takes his time to soak in the feeling of belonging now that no one's around to make him feel like he doesn't.

see, sometimes I think that Bitty turned himself into such an excellent, pocket-sized support system because it’s something he never really had. so yeah, he’s going to make damn sure Jack Zimmermann knows he’s loved and appreciated. that there is someone out there who unquestioningly believes in him. I mean, he does it with everyone? but he really turns it up to 11 for Jack.

those two took their shoes off. which means

a) Bitty totally made Jack take his shoes off, and

b) they totes were in that bed for a while.

of course Jack talks hockey in bed. of course.

[[read check, please! here.]]

[zimbits for @omgcp-tropechallenge : soulbonds, ~1k, pg-13.]

That first summer back in Georgia, Bitty doesn't notice that he and Jack had bonded at some point during the semester, no. He's spending the first few weeks home hiding in his room anyway, a cool washcloth over his eyes while the fan does its best to make any kind of breeze happen. By the time he's out and about again, counseling the kids at camp, the headaches and dizzy spells, the permanent light nausea, don't even really register beyond a vague feeling of Jack was right, I gotta take it easy. Separation sickness doesn't even enter his mind.

[zimbits, ~500 words. nsfw.]

It’s American Thanksgiving and Jack’s got a two day break between games he couldn’t give less of a fuck about. What he also has is this: Bitty spread out naked in his bed in the Haus, Bitty’s thighs trembling around his head while he bites his way up one and down the other, and Jack? Jack very much cares about that.

so I’m rereading CP stuff because i’m having a blah day and feelings are stupid but then there was this little gem:

and how about NO.

I’m so here for it.

I can’t -- one person can’t carry another, y’know? Bitty being Bitty and loving Jack won’t make Jack struggle any less. he’ll help. he’ll help SO MUCH, but he can’t ease all of it. can’t make it all go away. and he doesn’t have to. ‘cause Jack’s got a lot of people who WANT to have his back and it just? means so much?

in the end, Jack has to do the work. Jack. but no one is an island and IT MEANS SO MUCH to me that he’s got a support system.

they got him.

Jack’s future’s for him to decide, to realize, but he doesn’t have to do it on his own.

jack zimmermann's ten-year plan, or: how to keep your hands steady

[jack-centric, 2.1k. cw: anxiety, substance abuse, mention of canonical overdose]

So Jack's got a pair of steady hands. He's sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, and you can dump three dozen pucks onto the ice, he'll dangle his way through them, no sweat. You can send him down the ice in the dying minutes of a game and they'll be steady, steady, steady as his mind calculates all the possible angles in a split-second, his body shifting so he can get the shot off just right. Jack’s entire life is built on the steadiness of his hands.

He's sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, and his hands aren't steady when

[future!fic, 1.5k, zimbits. cw: non-permanent injury]

So Bitty gets the C his senior year, and the team goes all the way to the Frozen Four, the final, and they're down two in the second period, but they’ve got time. All the time in the world. Bitty knows his guys, his team, and they got this. They do.

Only then Myers hooks him in the dying minute of the second, and Bitty feels something in his ankle pop, pain lancing up his leg.