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recurring-polynya · 4 years

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@trulytaka asked: um i’ve always dreamt about a tattoo artist!renji falling for a client AU. it’s okay if you can’t come up with anything, just a suggestion!

How is it even possible that I have never read a Tattoo Artist! Renji AU?? (If there is one, please, send it to me immediately). Anyway, I got way too enamored of this idea, this is not even remotely a drabble, it is 4400 words and it is incredibly self-indulgent, I am absolutely not sorry.

It takes place in America and everyone is Japanese-American, because I am way more comfortable writing about American tattoo culture. I have never actually read a Tattoo Artist AU, I don’t know how they are supposed to go, this is just based on my own experiences getting inked. It’s mostly a story about Rukia and Renji being incredible nerfballs, there are not nearly enough stories about Rukia being a nerfball around Renji.

Read on ao3 or ff.net

💀 🛹 💕

Izuru Kira found Renji Abarai in the break room, simultaneously trying to cram a burrito into his face and read a Hellboy comic. He was holding the comic open with his elbow in an attempt to avoid spilling guacamole on Abe Sapien.

“Your two o’clock is here,” Izuru informed his distinguished colleague.

“Oh, great!” Renji replied, creasing the foil wrapper into a spout so that he could pour the last of the salsa drippings into his mouth.

“She’s waiting in the consult room,” Izuru went on, watching Renji toss the crumpled foil ball across the room, completely missing the trash can. “Look, have you met her before? A Miss Kuchiki?”

“Just exchanged a few emails,” Renji replied, as he scrubbed his hands at the sink. “Why? Is she scary?”

“Not in the usual way of Abarai clients,” Izuru replied. “I was just… wondering if she was... in the right place.”

“Her request was very specific,” Renji replied, scooping up his comic and the manila folder underneath it. “In fact, I am quite proud of what I came up with for her.” He whipped the folder open.

Izuru stared at it for a moment. “That is so specific.”

“I honestly think this is one of the best tatts I have ever designed. I hope she’s a real weirdo, because not just anyone deserves a masterpiece of this caliber.”

“Mmm,” Izuru agreed. “Yeah. Anyway, if there’s been a, uh, miscommunication, see if you can just… redirect her. Both Momo and I are in today, okay?”

Renji scoffed and stuffed his comic in Izuru’s hand as he marched down the hall toward the consult room. A miscommunication. Renji wondered what was wrong with her. She was probably mousy and wore glasses. Izuru always assumed girls like that would rather have a sad poem about the sea or a sprig of herbs inked on her wrist (conveniently, his specialties). Plenty of mousy girls with glasses would rather rock some fangs or dripping daggers, in Renji’s professional experience.

“Knock knock!” he announced, as he slid the door open. He took one step into the room and stopped dead.

Rukia Kuchiki was not mousy. She did not wear glasses.

Renji didn’t know much about suits. He did not happen to own one himself. But he guessed that Rukia Kuchiki’s suit was expensive, in part because it fit her perfectly, despite her tiny frame. It was jet black, and didn’t have a single speck of lint or cat hair on it. Her perfectly manicured hands were folded neatly on top of her crossed legs. She was wearing very tall, very pointy heels. Their soles were bright red, which Renji had learned from television meant that they were super expensive. He realized that he probably shouldn’t be looking at her legs, even though they were very nice to look at. His eyes snapped up to her face, but that honestly wasn’t any better.

Renji wasn’t often attracted to women, but she had probably the most interesting face he had ever seen-- heart-shaped, with big, dark eyes, a sharp chin, the cutest little nose. Her make-up was subtle and professional, and her hair was swept up with a clip, although it must be fairly short, because a few pieces hung down in front of her ears, and a thick lock dangled between her eyes.

She looked like a mean lawyer from a movie, one that would drive a fancy sportscar like an act of violence. Scary, for sure. But not in the usual way of Abarai clients, who tended toward the large and beefy, not that sharp and sharklike.

That nose, though.

Suddenly, her face split into a big grin. “Hi,” she announced brightly. “I’m Rukia Kuchiki.” She had a deep voice, a very beautiful voice. “You must be Renji Abarai.” Her eyes flicked to his arms. “I mean, of course you are, who else would have those arms? They’re so cool.”

“My arms?” Renji said stupidly. “Are they… famous?”

Rukia’s cheeks flushed. “Oh, well, I follow you on Instagram, and you don’t have any pictures of your face, but your arms are in a lot of the shots and they’re, well, they’re kinda distinctive. Do you think, um, would you mind if I looked at them?”

Renji’s eyebrows shot up. It’s not like he wasn’t used to having his arms checked out, but most people were more… subtle about it. Oh, well, it was her dime. “I didn’t do them myself, obviously,” he pointed out, rolling up the sleeves of his t-shirt so she could see the baboon skull on his left shoulder. A skeletal arm traced down the rest of that arm, complete with an outline of his own hand bones. On the right side, a snake spine coiled around his bicep, ending with a hissing skull. “I mean, it was my design, but my friends-- the other three tattoo artists here-- all helped ink me up.” He plopped down in the chair that sat catty corner to the couch where Rukia was sitting, and held his arms out. “We’re sort of a full-service studio. I’m the skeletons and monsters guy. Izuru, the guy you met on desk duty today-- is good at calligraphy and watercolors and little, itty bitty tattoos. Momo is our nature girl, she specializes in flowers and animals, and she’s great with bright colors. The snake skull was all her. Shuuhei is really into classic tattoo art-- you need a hula girl or a heart with an arrow through it, he’s your man. He’s also incredibly talented at revamping old regret tattoos, there’s good money in that.”

“Mm,” Rukia agreed, finally tearing her eyes away from his forearms to look up at his face, and abruptly turned even pinker. A lot of people fantasized about getting a tattoo and then got a bad case of nerves when it was time to make the leap. Maybe all this was way out of her comfort zone. Renji was trying his best to be friendly and chatty, which usually helped, but he was not used to dealing with this class of lady. He hoped he wasn’t coming off as too familiar.

“Actually,” Rukia went on, pulling on her fingers nervously. “I picked this place specifically because of you. For your work, I mean. I’m kind of a big fan. I saw some of your paintings at an exhibition over at the Fine Arts College, and I just, you know, fell in love. I’d always thought I’d like to get a tattoo someday, and when I found out that you were a tattoo artist, I knew it had to be you. I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time, and I’m babbling and I’m really sorry, I’m just very excited.”

Renji blinked. “You’re not babbling,” he replied slowly. He was sort of hoping she might say some more things about how much she liked his art in her beautiful voice. “Wait, an exhibition at the art school? That must have been at least three years ago, when I was doing my MFA.”

“Er, right,” Rukia looked a little sheepish. “A friend of mine had some work in the same exhibit, you probably don’t know her. My favorite one of your paintings was the one with the Black Lagoon creatures eating hamburgers at a diner, but I also really liked the one that was like a huge monster with a big bone mask stalking through a city, the way you did the shadows was just incredible.”

That particular painting was currently wrapped in brown paper and stuffed behind Renji’s couch. His last boyfriend had told him it was “creepy.”

“Uh, glad you liked it,” Renji managed. “Who was your friend?”

“Her name is Inoue. Orihime Inoue.”

“Oh, the robot girl!” Renji exclaimed. “Er, I mean she drew robots. Constantly. For every assignment. I didn’t mean to imply she was… robotic. In any way.” Jeez, Abarai, pull it together, he chided himself. “Yeah, I remember her. I didn’t know her well, but she sure could draw some tight robots. Is, she, uh, doing well?”

“She’s doing storyboards for a stop-motion animation studio,” Rukia replied.

Renji smiled. “That sounds perfect for her.”

Rukia bit her bottom lip and Renji’s throat went dry.

“So, um, you said in your email that you would have a design for me to look at?”

Renji realized that he was gripping the folder like a doofus. “Right! I did a couple of variations,” he explained, passing it from one hand to the other. “But you explained the concept pretty clearly, and I’m really happy with how the first one came out. I mean, obviously, it’s your tattoo! Please give me any feedback you have, you won’t offend me, even if you hate it! Tattoo designs often take a few iterations, it’s very normal, don’t hold back.”

She was staring at him, those big eyes wide and sparkling. “Can I… see it?”

“Oh! Right!” He shoved the folder at her.

Rukia opened it up and gasped.

“I especially love the way you draw skeletons,” Rukia’s email had read. “Do you think you could tattoo a grim reaper doing a sick kickflip on a skateboard onto my outer bicep? I do lift, so I am pretty jacked, if that makes a difference.”

“It’s perfect,” Rukia sighed in a tiny voice.

“Um, in the first variation (that’s page 2) I added some sunglasses, and in the second one, the grim reaper is flipping the bird and also its head is on fire. I guess I thought that grim reapers should be gender neutral but now I’m wondering if you would have preferred more of a… lady grim reaper?” Renji yammered absently.

“Oh, no,” Rukia murmured softly, flipping through the pages. Renji wasn’t even sure she had listened to a word he had said. “These are amazing. I love the sunglasses, but I also like the way you put little flames in the eye sockets in the first one…” She waved a hand absently. “Oh, and don’t worry, I like a non-binary skeleton.”

A small problem had just occurred to Renji. “Hey, um, please don’t take this the wrong way, but I… may have overestimated the size of your arms.”

“Oh?” Rukia asked, and abruptly shucked off her expensive suit jacket. She was wearing a pale purple sleeveless silk blouse underneath. She held one arm out experimentally, and then flexed. The muscle definition on her bicep made Renji take an involuntary swallow, but the fact that she was wicked cut did not buy him much in the way of real estate.

“I’ll just shrink it down maybe 25%,” he reassured her. “I’ll have to simplify some of the detail on--”

“No,” Rukia frowned, her eyebrows drawing together. “Don’t do that.” She thought for a moment. “I’m not committed to having it on my arm.” She uncrossed her legs and hefted one high-heeled foot onto the coffee table in front of her. “What do you think? Is my thigh big enough?”

Renji tried to make words come out, but it just wasn’t happening.

“Er… sorry,” Rukia said slowly, tugging at her hem. “I forgot I was wearing a skirt today.”

“Huh?” Renji scrambled to recover. He needed to say something. She looked really embarrassed. Say something! Say something professional about her leg! “Sorry, I was, uh, thinking!” Good, good, now keep going. “Don’t be self-conscious, I see people’s bodies all the time. Bodies are no big deal, we all got ‘em, right?” This was true in the abstract sense, but he knew these were blatant lies as they exited his mouth. Most people’s bodies were no big deal. He had only known her for five minutes, but was certain that Rukia Kuchiki’s thighs were a very big deal. He studied her leg, stroking his chin, like he was some kind of anthropologist of thigh tattoos. Mostly he was trying to figure out what would seem like an appropriate amount of time to look at a person’s thigh, a person who was your professional client that you most definitely did not have the hots for. “There’s certainly plenty of room,” he declared. “But, you know, people are going to see it less. Which is a selling point for some people! It’s just a personal decision that you’ll have to make. It sounds like you had a big vision.”

Rukia gingerly placed her foot back on the floor. “I had actually been wondering if maybe the upper arm was too public, anyway,” she admitted. “The fact is, I just got full access to my trust fund, and this is sort of a celebration, but I may have been a little overeager to piss off my big brother. He’s very stodgy.” She contemplated the area of her leg that was covered by her pencil skirt. “But so are a lot of people in my field. I can wait until I’m running my own company before I get started on the full sleeve of my dreams, right?”

“Worked for me,” Renji replied, utterly lost by whatever she was talking about. “What… field are you in?”

“Oh, finance,” she dismissed.

Finance. Of course. Renji tried to shoo away the weight of disappointment that was settling in his stomach. He was talking to a friendly client who was clearly loaded, loved his work, and was contemplating thousands of dollars worth of future business. He should be thrilled. He should probably be trying to sell her one of his old paintings-- they were only gathering dust, anyway. Renji would never break the studio policy about hitting on clients. The fact that she would surely laugh at him if he asked her to his favorite burger joint ought to make things easier, right?

“This is so hard!” Rukia declared, and Renji was shaken from his reverie. She was just contemplating his draft designs again, though, flipping back and forth between them.

“You don’t have to decide right now,” he reassured her. “You can think about it and email me. If you’re happy enough, we can schedule your session, and we’ll work out the details between now and then. Chat it over with your pal MechaHime, she’s got good opinions.” He paused. Momo always said he was too nice during consults, they were running a business, but he couldn’t help it. “Or you can just call back when you’re ready. No pressure.”

Rukia slammed her fist down on her knee. “No! Let’s schedule it! Do I pay now?”

“20% deposit. Let’s go out front, Izuru will ring it up.”

“Perfect.” She looked longingly at the drawings again. “Can I take these with me? You’re absolutely right, Orihime will know what to do.”

Renji wrinkled his nose. “It’s actually against studio policy but…”

Rukia’s face suddenly became very serious. “Then it’s against policy.” She winked at him and smiled. “You should take care of your intellectual property, Mr. Abarai.”

“I never get over to this part of town, to be honest,” Rukia admitted as they walked back up to the front. “Is the taco place across the street any good?”

“Oh, yeah, it’s great,” Renji agreed. “Momo and I painted a huge mural on their wall, so they give us free churros.”

“Are tacos a good post-tattoo celebratory meal?” Rukia asked curiously.

“Well, you actually want to eat beforehand,” Renji pointed out. “It’s important to keep your energy up. I don’t estimate yours should take very long, I’m gonna book you a two-hour slot.”

“Ah, okay,” Rukia agreed, and Renji realized belatedly that...maybe… she had been asking him out? No. Surely not. His brain scrabbled for a response, but then he stepped into the reception area and his brain shut down entirely.

“It’s DONE!” Shuuhei bellowed. “Behold my work, ye mighty, and despair!”

Tetsuzaemon Iba, serial client, yakuza enthusiast, and assistant manager at a doggie day care, was flexing. He was not wearing a shirt.

From behind the reception desk, Kira was wearing a dour frown and shaking his head.

“It’s a masterpiece,” Renji declared. “I admit I was skeptical, but it looks fantastic, man. You happy with it?”

“It” was a massive tattoo, covering the wide landscape of Iba’s broad back. It featured a lucky cat, grinning maniacally, its paw held high. It was on fire. The kanji for “lucky charm” was incorporated somehow. It was a disaster. It was perfect.

“How could I not be?” Iba boomed.

“Whoa,” a tiny voice behind Renji said.

Iba’s face went pale when he realized that he was being Peak Iba in front of an elegant, professional woman whose shoes probably cost more than his entire net worth. “Gimme me my shirt!” he demanded of Shuuhei.

“That’s… amazing!” Rukia exclaimed, her face lighting up. “Wow, how long did that take?”

Shuuhei blinked slowly as he passed Iba his shirt. “Five sessions.”

“Well, it’s so cute!” Rukia announced. “You must love cats.”

Iba lifted at the same gym as Renji and watched Momo’s Pomeranian on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He was a regular fixture at the tattoo studio, and all four of them liked to drag him, but no one, none of them, had ever roasted him this hard. Renji cursed that no-asking-out-clients rule, because he wanted to buy Rukia Kuchiki her own body weight in tacos and then ask her to be his wife.

“He’s more of a dog person,” Shuuhei supplied.

“Great with dogs,” Izuru added.

“Shut up, you jerks, I am a lover of all animals,” Iba grumbled as he pulled his Hawaiian shirt over his shoulders. “Is this your lawyer, Abarai? Did you finally get arrested for that hairstyle?”

“I have an MBA, actually, not a JD,” Rukia replied matter-of-factly. “And I am his client. Can you show that large man my tattoo design? Is that allowed?”

Renji chuckled, and pulled out his drawing.

“That,” Iba declared, “is a wicked tatt.”

“Oh, you showed me that email!” Shuuhei recalled. “It came out great.” He regarded Rukia. “He was really excited about that one, you made his day.”

Rukia just beamed proudly.

“Are we booking a session, then?” Izuru asked hopefully.

“Yeah, two hours,” Renji nodded.

“Let me just finish ringing up Iba, and I’ll see when you’ve got an opening,” Izuru replied.

“This your first one?” Shuuhei asked Rukia conversationally.

“Mm-hmm,” Rukia nodded.

“Well, you made a good choice. Clean design, mostly black with just a few color pops, should go on quick and easy, and it’ll hold up really well, too.”

“This is Shuuhei, the one I was telling you about, who fixes a lot of bad tattoos.”

“I have never had to fix an Abarai tattoo,” Shuuhei declared. “He’s great with first timers. Very gentle. I’ve fallen asleep while he was inking me.” Shuuhei pointed to the pair of crossed scythes gracing his upper arm. “This is one of his.”

“Oooh, neat!” Rukia agreed.

“You’re being embarrassing,” Renji informed his friend.

“Always,” Shuuhei agreed. “Nice to meet you! I hope I get to see the finished product.” He waved to Iba as he headed off toward the back. “Don’t forget to moisturize!”

“Everyone’s so friendly here,” Rukia said softly to Renji. “This isn’t at all like I pictured it.”

Renji stretched his arms behind his head. “Nah, we’re just a bunch of goofballs who like drawin’ on people. Very lowkey.”

“I guess I’ve thought a lot about the getting tattooed part of getting tattooed, but I never thought of it as… a job. That people have.”

“It’s a great job,” Renji replied. “I love it. I’m just lucky that Izuru over there has enough business sense to keep the other three of us from running it into the ground.”

“That’s certainly the truth,” Izuru agreed, as Iba headed out the door. “Two hours, you said? Renji’s got a 4-6pm block open on a Wednesday, three weeks from now. The 24th, how does that work for you, Ms. Kuchiki?”

“Do you think that’s enough time to settle on a design?” Renji asked. “If you come up with changes, it should only take me a day or two to incorporate them.”

“Oh! Yes, three weeks should be fine. I thought… it might be a little sooner,” Rukia replied, sounding a tad disappointed.

“Abarai’s a busy man, three weeks is actually pretty quick,” Izuru explained.

“Right, of course!” Rukia nodded. “Yes, I’ll take the 24th!”

She then paid her deposit, a process which involved her taking approximately ten thousand items out of her purse, including a full-sized drawing pad, a single fingerless glove, and a Pez dispenser with a duck head. She was the most contradictory person Renji had ever met, and he just wanted to know everything about her. But instead, they were going to exchange a couple of emails about a grim reaper on a skateboard, he was going to spend an hour and a half two inches from her naked thigh in a state of intense, non-sexual concentration, and then he would likely never see her again.

“Okay, I guess that’s it!” Rukia said, stuffing the last of her worldly belongings back into the purse. “Three weeks, then!”

“Three weeks it is,” Renji agreed. “Unless we happen to run into each other at the taco place.”

Rukia blinked. “Oh!” she exclaimed. “Right. Ha, ha, of course!” She’d been walking backwards toward the door, an impressive feat in those heels, and she spun suddenly to pull it open.

“It’s a push,” Renji and Izuru chorused together.

“Ha, ha, of course it is!” Rukia laughed nervously, and ducked out.

Izuru stared pointedly at Renji. “Wow,” he said.

“I don’t know what you have against her,” Renji scowled. “So she’s professional. She was really nice. She’s a big fan of my work.”

Izuru cocked his head. “She’s clearly also a big fan of you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Renji said.

“Look, I’m sorry I implied that a person who drives a Lotus Exige would not be interested in having your weird skeleton doodles permanently placed on her body,” Izuru held up his hands, “but did you really not notice the little hearts and singing birds floating around her head every time she gazed longingly at you?”

“Since when do you know anything about cars?” Renji snapped.

“It looked fancy and I asked Shuuhei what it was, okay!”

On cue, Shuuhei burst back into the reception area, Momo close on his tail. “Are we talking about the hot client who has a crush on Abarai?”

“Did you ask her out?” Momo asked breathlessly.

“She’s not really his type,” Izuru mused. “Very corporate.”

Renji frowned. Did he have a type? If his type excluded people like Rukia Kuchiki, he might need to get a new type.

“Who cares, she was adorable!” Momo insisted. “I woulda asked her out.”

“Renji, if you go out with her, can you get me a ride in the Exige?” Shuuhei added.

“I’m not gonna ask her out!” Renji protested. “What happened to the no-hitting-on-clients rule?”

“The rule is no creeping on clients,” Shuuhei correctly. “This is different. She’s clearly into you, big time.”

“Also, she seems non-terrible, unlike the questionable human beings you usually take up with,” Izuru pointed out. “We could relax the rule if it netted you an actually decent partner for a change.”

Renji scowled judgmentally at Izuru, as if his own dating history had been remotely better before he and Shuuhei finally hooked up.

“Oh!” Momo waved her phone. “Speaking of which, I googled her, like you told me to, Izuru--”

“Izuru!” Renji protested.

“--and you were right! She’s not just one of the Kuchikis, she’s the granddaughter!” Momo thrust her phone in Renji’s face. It was some article about some fancy charity event, complete with a picture that was clearly Rukia, dressed in a dramatic black and gold evening gown.

Renji wanted to push Momo’s hand away, but he also didn’t want to stop looking at Rukia in that dress. “The who?” he asked.

Izuru and Momo sighed dramatically in synchronized exasperation.

“Embarrassingly rich old money family? I don’t know what they actually do, but they’re always in the newspapers, donating money for something or other--”

“Billionaire philanthropists,” Shuuhei intoned in a fake deep voice.

“--I heard they’re descended from some famous clan of samurai back in Japan,” Momo ignored him. She jerked her phone back and started tapping at it frantically. “I’m sure you’ve seen pictures of the grandson-- Rukia’s brother, I guess. He always makes those lists of top ten hottest bachelors.”

“He’s dreamy,” Shuuhei seconded.

“Impossibly dreamy,” Izuru thirded.

Momo flipped her phone around again, to reveal a picture of a very serious, and very handsome man in a classic three-piece wool suit. Renji supposed “impossibly dreamy” was not an inaccurate description.

“Yeah, I think I’ve seen pictures of that guy before,” Renji shrugged. “He’s okay. Rukia has a more interesting face, I think.”

Momo and Shuuhei exchanged raised eyebrows.

“You do like her, then?” Izuru asked, his face brightening. “You’re wrong, by the way, Byakuya Kuchiki has the face of an angel.”

“Rukia says he’s stuffy,” Renji shrugged. “And fine. I like her. She’s cute and nice and had good taste in tattoos. What’s not to like?”

“Are you gonna ask her out, then?” Momo pressed.

“Absolutely not,” Renji replied. “She’s my client. Besides, as you just pointed out, she’s loaded. What’s she want with a scumbag like me?”

All three of his friends groaned.

“You have good delts and sexy hair,” Izuru pointed out.

“You give amazing hugs!” Momo declared.

“You draw fantastic skeletons,” Shuuhei added. “Which, apparently, is relevant to her interests, and not a thing you usually find on Tindr.”

“Also, we’ve already established that she does like you, regardless of whether she has a valid reason for doing so,” Izuru concluded. “So, if you’re at all interested, you really shouldn’t let that stop you.”

“I think you should go for it,” Momo encouraged.

“Me, too,” Shuuhei agreed.

Renji grimaced. She was an amazing girl, too good to be true probably. If she had any sense at all, she would certainly turn him down. But maybe… just maybe… she didn’t have any sense. “Okay,” he grudgingly agreed. “I’ll do it. But not until I’m finished the damn tattoo!”

#my writing #wacky au requests #god i want to read 100k worth of this #i just don't want to *write* it #insert dog no write! only read! meme #special thanks to mr p for coming up with rukia's car for me #we spent about a month once discussed which 80s sportscar each of the vice-captains would drive #it is the best bleach conversation we have ever had

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justlookfrightened · 4 years

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How hard could it be? Part 12

Start from the beginning

Part 11

Bitty barricaded himself in the guest room — his room for the foreseeable future — after supper.

He was showered and dressed in a clean T-shirt and shorts, he was well-fed with MooMaw’s chicken and dumplings, and he was as comfortable as he was going to get.

He had managed some work on his thesis before dinner, taking the time to be immensely grateful to both Nursey and Dex. His paragraphs seemed to flow together better now, and he knew some punctuation and word choices had changed, but he couldn’t identify anything he didn’t write.

Tomorrow he could submit, he thought, although he would really have preferred to be able to include samples from some of the best recipes he found. Maybe some of the worst, too: soybean loaf and “Burning Bush” canapés made with cream cheese and shredded dried beef came to mind.

His paper mentioned a recipe for something called German cookies made with baking ammonia, which was used as a leavening agent before baking powder became widely available, and he kind of wished he could try it, but he had no idea where to find such a thing these days,

There were “recipes” that were just combinations of products: “Ice cream dessert,” from Iowa, called for layering vanilla wafers in a baking dish, covering them with a thick layer of softened ice cream, spreading chocolate sauce over that, and then topping it all with another layer of vanilla wafers. The dish was to be frozen and cut like a sheet cake.

But there were also tasty recipes for dozens of variations of spinach dip, delicate Mexican wedding cookies, variations of fudge made with marshmallow fluff and with sweetened condensed milk.

Yes, Bitty had tried making many of these recipes, maybe too many, even the Coca-Cola cake and the Ritz cracker faux apple pie. But some of them might have improved his chance of approval from the committee.

“You don’t need it,” Nursey told him after sending the edited file back. “It’s a decent paper. It meets the requirements for sources and length, and you back up your arguments. You’re golden, I promise.”

Dex was more pragmatic in his encouragement. “They’re not going to fail a senior during the pandemic unless you totally blew off the requirements. Especially not you, the first out NCAA men’s hockey captain.”

Right. Hockey.

He opened the vlog’s email and looked at Jack’s email again, then at the response he’d started.

Hi, Jack, he’d typed after he came in from the yard.

Of course you’re not being a bother. I’m happy to help answer any questions you have.

He paused before adding about baking.

Even though Jack hadn’t really asked about baking in his last email. He’d kind of asked permission to keep writing to Bitty, if that wasn’t too old-fashioned of a concept. Bitty was happy to encourage him.

You really kind of jumped in at the deep end with pies. Most home bakers start with cookies and muffins and things that are a little more forgiving. It’s not that I’m discouraging you from making pies — not at all! — but I’d also be happy to help with other baking projects if you want to take a rest and do something easier.

But what I said before is still true. The more you make pie, the easier it will get. You just get a feel for what the texture of the dough should be like when it’s ready to chill and roll out, and what the proper pressure is when rolling, and when it’s thin enough to use.

I should stop now, in case this sounds too complicated.

Of course, you can also experiment with fillings and flavorings, whether that’s modifying it by using different varieties of apples or different spices, or going wild and making a cherry pie. Or even a lemon meringue!

To me, that’s the beauty of pie. At its foundation, it’s the same base, but you can build so many different things off of it. You can even do a savory pie with meat and vegetables, although my specialty is sweet dessert pie.

That was where Bitty stopped earlier, unsure of how to proceed. He half hoped his correspondent was Jack Zimmermann, Stanley Cup-winning center for the Providence Falconers and subject of at least a half-dozen posters Bitty had seen in various rooms of the Haus. That would be so … the only word for it was cool, to have a professional athlete and celebrity asking for baking advice. But he also wanted this Jack Zimmermann to turn out to be a regular guy, someone who just wanted to bake to impress his girlfriend or boyfriend, someone Bitty might actually end up being friends with.

Well. Best to rip the Band-Aid off and find out what he was dealing with.

Sorry — I kind of go on about pie, I know.

I am curious about your interest in hockey. If you’re a fan, I’m sure you know there’s a Jack Zimmermann who plays for the Falconers. He’s one of my old teammate’s favorite player! I know it’s a common name, though, so I don’t really expect you’re him. So if you’re not, how are you involved in hockey? I didn’t play at all until I was in high school, but now I love it. I’m really going to miss playing.

But back to baking. You didn’t tell me the most important thing about your pie: How did it taste?

Eric

(Or Bitty. That’s what my team all calls me)

Part 13

#omgcheckplease #omg check please #pre-zimbits #my fic

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birlcholtz · 4 years

Note

do you remember that week n a half when everyone cared about bittyjohnson? can we bring that back?

bitty/johnson.... the forbidden jeric ship

lol yes i do remember that it was a weird fucking time let's bring it back!!!! side note this turned into... well i'll just let you read it. can one really write about johnson without it turning into an ethical debate and a philosophical crisis rolled into one weird metaphysical narrative? i finished this after midnight which also explains the whole ethical philosophical crisis thing

johnson, as someone who is fully aware of This Whole Fictional Narrative thing before it even starts, is also an expert on eric bittle. he knows all of bitty's strengths and his cute idiosyncratic flaws and his deeper issues that are the result of childhood trauma

you can't know that much about someone without loving them at least a little. and johnson, for all his fictionality, is a person, imbued with the same liveliness and sense of self as all of the other characters in the comic, and he meets bitty and thinks oh, shit.

does john johnson know i'm writing this right now

and bitty's like wow. another intimidatingly attractive teammate. his name is john johnson. weird but okay. and he's a goalie which means he's weird too. cool i can handle this

for a while johnson wrestles with the ethics of being in love with bitty??? like bitty hasn't made the choice to share any of this information with him and he KNOWS they're fictional characters and as a result autonomy is more of a high ideal than something that's actually put into practice but isn't it best to at least give bitty a semblance of choice?

so, he plays his part. he does not reveal any information that he should not know— well, that his character should not know— johnson knows all. he knows the conversations that happen behind the scenes too, the ones that get transcribed on twitter or referred to in ask a wellies. he thinks maybe he'll get a twitter someday, if that's something he can do in-universe. just to see what it's like for himself and not have this weird extrasensory knowledge of it.

but he can't stay away from bitty, especially not when bitty seems so determined to like him (johnson knows it's probably because he's not Aggressively Hetero like ransom and holster or rude like jack or in-your-face like shitty. it's a process of elimination. but still)

and he knows that they're in a story, and he knows that the story must have some sort of goal, and bitty swings by his room one sunny afternoon and complains about unsolicited early morning checking practice with jack and johnson thinks, oh. so that's how it's going to go.

he plays his part, commiserates, encourages bitty, all with a bad taste in his mouth

and johnson expects bitty to peel away, and spend more time with jack, and open up to the rest of the team. and he does open up to everyone, but he keeps coming back to johnson, and part of johnson wants to tell him no, i'm just a filler, the team needed a goalie, don't waste your time and part of him just wants to enjoy it while he can

johnson is on the swallow's 50 most beautiful again. four years running. his face isn't in the photo. he knows he has a face, because he sees it in the mirror whenever he goes to brush his teeth, but he can never remember what it looks like. apparently these cartoon cameras can't either. and that's johnson. destined to be there while you look and gone when you turn away.

and he knows bitty sees it because holster snags a copy somewhere and reads aloud the list at team breakfast. ransom sits on holster's right and bitty sits on holster's left, and johnson sits on bitty's left and wonders where he'll be a year from now

but he will remember how bitty takes the copy of the swallow holster hands him, opened to the page with johnson's photo, and lingers on it for just a moment before passing it on, and johnson will remember that for the rest of his existence, however long that might be. especially because jack is in there too. johnson knows jack is in there too. holster has already provided his thoughts on the rankings of johnson, jack, and ransom within the 50 most, loudly and at length. but bitty doesn't flip to it. he doesn't flip through at all. just lingers on that one page and then passes it along, almost as if he doesn't care about the others

bitty likes johnson. he's weird, but he's never overbearing, he asks bitty questions about his life and actually listens to the answers, really listens, and he is thoughtful. he's also beautiful but like half the team is that doesn't make johnson special

and bitty likes how when he talks to johnson he never feels like he's out of place. he never feels like he doesn't fit in. because johnson is weird as fuck but his unabashedly *being* weird as fuck gives bitty license to be who he is, even if that's not who the rest of the team are. johnson is a paragon of not being like the rest of the team and he gets away with it and bitty doesn't know if he wants him or wants to be him but then johnson smiles at him after his game winner at family weekend and says 'congrats', hair wet, eyes sincere, and bitty knows.

johnson doesn't know.

because here's the thing about johnson. he knows everything that has happened. he knows bitty is scared of checking because he knows the history. he knows bitty is gay from the moment he mutters 'men' to his camera in first semester. but he cannot predict the future. he's a character in the story as much as anyone else is and knowing that he's fictional doesn't tell him what's coming next. and he cannot read bitty's mind.

but the second bitty admits it to himself out loud, johnson knows, and even though he feels like this can't be the intended narrative he has the urge to just say 'fuck it' and do what he wants. seize his own free will. ignore what he thinks was supposed to happen.

and that's what he does.

bitty and johnson are an odd couple, to all observers. johnson is just so weird and bitty is just so sweet and nobody can fathom how or why they are together.

but they defend each other. johnson chirps the other team loud enough on the ice that they focus on the annoying goalie instead of the tiny, vulnerable-looking forward. bitty summons up his chilliest southern politeness for the people who talk with raised eyebrows about whether johnson is actually sane behind his back, and he never tells johnson about these people but johnson knows anyway because it happened, and he loves bitty more for it.

they love each other, too, gravitate towards each other whenever they can, and johnson's room in the haus turns into a haven. he helps bitty navigate haus parties and he knows the cup of beer in his hand is fictional but he can taste it anyway and he starts to wonder why it matters if it technically doesn't exist in the real world. does it matter if johnson is a fictional character? does it matter if bitty is a fictional character? they're real enough to each other and this is the only world they will ever know.

johnson is weird. he faces existential crises every day he wakes up from a dreamless sleep, and he can't always keep himself from breaking the fourth wall— although who he's talking to out there, he doesn't know.

but he feels like a real person. bitty had asked, early on, what he was majoring in, and johnson hadn't had an answer, but then he had blinked and said 'philosophy' and it was as if it had been the case all along. he knew what classes he had taken, which professors he had had, the grades he got, the papers he wrote, what he's writing his thesis on. it felt real. it *was* real, to him and to everyone who matters.

he can look at his face in the mirror and hold on to its memory for a little longer. he knows what his mouth looks like now, and he has a vague idea about his nose. he's hoping he'll learn more about himself. it's easier to remember when bitty's reflection is in the mirror next to his own.

johnson knows his favorite flavor of pie is peach now. not because of how it tastes but because he'd helped bitty make it once, smiling and laughing together in the kitchen, and the golden, rosy memory is an anchor for him to when he decided he was real enough to matter.

he graduates and gives his dibs to bitty because who else would he give them to? he was probably supposed to give them to bitty. he knows bitty is protagonist material. but johnson gives his dibs to bitty because bitty is the person he wants to give them to. he receives his diploma on graduation day and knows that leaving samwell does not confine him to an endless future of nothing. he is a character but that gives him power. every word he says becomes canonical. everything he does is something real.

and he paves his own way into the future, a thought and a word at a time— he's hiking the appalachians, but he miraculously has cell service the entire way because that's what he tells bitty when he asks, and he calls bitty with that cell service and thinks that maybe he could be happy. he gets a twitter. the appalachians have wifi too now, because johnson decreed it. he follows bitty and bitty follows him back.

on the day he finishes his hike and returns to visit samwell, he finds bitty in the kitchen, pulling a peach pie out of the oven just in time for johnson's arrival, because he knew johnson was coming, because they planned this together. and johnson glances at his reflection in the window and notices the color of his eyes, and when he turns to look at bitty, he doesn't forget them.

bitty/johnson.... the forbidden jeric ship

does john johnson know i'm writing this right now

and bitty's like wow. another intimidatingly attractive teammate. his name is john johnson. weird but okay. and he's a goalie which means he's weird too. cool i can handle this

he plays his part, commiserates, encourages bitty, all with a bad taste in his mouth

johnson doesn't know.

and that's what he does.

bitty and johnson are an odd couple, to all observers. johnson is just so weird and bitty is just so sweet and nobody can fathom how or why they are together.

#johnson the metaphysical goalie #omgcp #fun with rarepairs #a little bit meta #<- that's my bitty/johnson tag that i found in my tags spreadsheet

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bittysvalentines · 5 years

Text

Only if You Want To

From @bitty-smol

To @pastelle-pvnk

Rating: Teen (for swearing)

Hey pastelle-pvnk! I hope you like your gift, because I had a lot of fun writing it for you! (P.S. we should totes become friends because we have a lot of the same interests, so hit me up <3)

That being said, he was sure of at least one thing: he was in love with his coworker, Derek Malik Nurse.

He was not necessarily a willing participant in this. The revelation came as a shock to him and once the thought crossed his mind, it wouldn’t leave. No matter how many times Dex tried to forget about his unfortunate unrequited love, it would just come back full force.

It came like this: Nursey chirping him in the middle of a shift and then proceeding to eat shit while hopping the counter.

how am i in love with a man who can barely stand on his own two feet?

oh shit.

If anything, that should’ve helped the whole “in-love-with-your-completely-idiotic-coworker” thing, since Nurse was forced to take paid leave for a good month while his leg healed. Dex thought that not seeing him would lessen whatever he was feeling, but in retrospect it made it so much worse.

He missed Nursey. Like, a lot. Like, more than you should hypothetically miss a coworker, regardless of the crush you have on them.

That’s why, when Nursey finally returned, he couldn’t help the small tug he felt in his chest or the urge he felt to step out from behind the counter and hug Nursey as soon as he got close enough.

“Woah, Poindexter. Did you really miss me that much?” Nursey muttered against Dex’s shoulder.

Dex’s heart hurt.

“No, but I did miss you at register. Johnson kept telling the customers that he was only taking over until the main love interest gets back, whatever that means.” Dex folded his arms and looked over at Johnson who was currently staring at him and Nursey as if he knew something they didn’t.

“Yeah, well I’m glad to be back,” Nursey stepped back from Dex, “I didn’t think I would miss going home smelling like pastries, but turns out it grew on me. I’m gonna go say hi to Bitty and clock in.” Nursey turned towards Bitty’s office and started walking away.

“Um, Nursey!” Dex shouted, his hand coming up to the back of his neck as if he could cover the blush that was creeping up. Nursey turned slowly, his face blank.

“Yes, Poindexter?”

“I, um,” Dex met Nursey’s eyes with his own.”I did. Uh, miss you, that is.”

Dex’s blush couldn’t help but crawl up his cheeks as he saw the smile that spread across Nursey’s face.

“I missed you too, Dexy.” Nursey said, turning his back and heading back towards Bitty’s office.

Before Dex could let the “I missed you too” comment take over him he managed to call back “Don’t call me that, Nurse!”

Nursey couldn’t help but smile.

_X_

Nursey is in love. But then again, he always is.

Derek Nurse cannot remember a time in the immediate past where he was not waxing poetic about some person or another. His sister called him a “disaster bi” and like, yeah, he could agree with that. But something about Dex was different.

His dreams were filled with fiery red hair and pale, freckled skin. More often than not, he found himself writing poetry about a muse that hardly even gave him the time of day and when he did, it was to chirp him.

Maybe he was a glutton for punishment or maybe he was in that purgatory where life is just slightly shitty. Like, yeah, you can be in close proximity with the one you love, but they will never give you an ounce of reciprocation.

That’s why when he finally came back to work after the counter incident (“Nurse, the counter lifts up for a reason.” “Now that wouldn’t be any fun, would it, Dexy.”) he couldn’t help but take the hug that Dex was offering.

Fuck, he missed him.

And then Dex had said that he had missed him and-

Fuck, he was fucked.

After the hug, he found himself walking to Bitty’s office in a sort of daze, opening the door to find Bitty chatting away on the phone.

“Oh, I’ve gotta go, sweetpea. Nursey just walked back into the office,” Nursey took a seat in front of Bitty’s desk as he finished up the call. “Yeah, honey, I love you too. Bye.”

“So, how’s Jack?” Nursey asked, with a smirk on his face.

“He’s great. He just finished up teaching a class, so he called me before his office hours began to talk about dinner with his parents tonight.” Bitty said, smiling as he did.

Seeing Bitty and Jack’s relationship gave Nursey genuine hope for his future love life, as well as a model for how a healthy relationship should look. They had been together for at least three years now and on their way to many more.

“That’s great, Bitty.” Nursey smiled.

“Well, I know you didn’t come in here to talk about me. How’s your leg?” Bitty asked, standing up to walk around his desk and get a better look.

“Good as new,” Nursey said, bending his knee back and forth as if to prove his point.

“Oh thank goodness! You had me worried there for a second, Derek.” Bitty paused. “So uh, have you seen Dex yet?”

So, here’s the thing about being friends with your boss: they know far more than a boss should at any given time.

It also doesn’t help that a few work outings ago, when Bitty was watching a drunk Nursey (a job, lovingly titled Nursey duty), he ended spilling his guts to Bitty. It was quite cute, really, aside from the vomit that ended up on his shoes for his troubles.

“I have. Uh, seen him, that is.” Nursey stopped and looked at Bitty from across the desk. “He gave me a hug. It was… really nice.”

“That’s sweet, Nursey,” Bitty smiled, a small grin tugging at his lips.

Bitty finished giving Nursey the rundown of new recipes and products, but he couldn’t help but think that work at the bakery was about to get a whole lot more interesting.

_X_

Eric Bittle was no stranger to pining. Nor was he a stranger to emotionally constipated boys. He knew how to spot said boys from a mile away and he has made it one of his personal missions to help them as much as he possibly can.

Bitty’s love life had been rocky to say the least. He moved out of Georgia and straight to Providence, Rhode Island to pursue his baking career. He’s not exactly sure why he chose Providence, but as he stared at a map one day it just seemed… right (that and when he threw a dart at the map, that's where it landed). So there he was, enough cash in his pocket to rent out an old restaurant space and a whole lot of motivation.

Not a month after he had opened, Bitty had already become a staple business in the community. He had a solid group of regulars and found himself making more than enough to sustain his business and set himself up in a nice apartment.

He loved his employees, his customers, his job. He really just loved his life. So when all of a sudden Mr. Tall and Handsome walked into the bakery, Bitty knew he was gonna have a problem. He knew as soon as he had seen those bright blue eyes and, oh lord, that <i>butt</i>, that he had to get to know that beautiful man.

And so it turned out that his name was Jack Zimmermann. He was a history professor at the local university and an avid runner, as Bitty would come to find out.

He came in almost every morning during his runs and often times after teaching classes to grade papers and answer emails. It was in times like these where Bitty made it his mission to befriend Jack. Before long, he found himself talking with Jack longer and longer and even took it upon himself to make Jack his favorite pie after a particularly hard week at school.

It wasn’t until Dex brought it up that Bitty had even realized what was happening.

“So, like, are you ever gonna actually ask him on a date?” Dex had asked the day after Bitty had presented Jack with his pie.

“I don’t think I understand what you mean, William.” Bitty said, playing coy. He knew exactly what he wanted to do with Jack, but he wasn’t about to make one of his favorite customers (and people, in general) uncomfortable if everything went south.

“Dude, are you kidding me?” Dex said. “He’s smitten with you, I just don’t think he realizes it yet.”

So one confession and an ice skating date later, they were official. It didn’t feel like some big event though, it just felt like something had clicked into place. Like this was exactly how his life was meant to be.

And he just wanted Nursey and Dex to feel that too.

_X_

Once Nursey fully returned to work things got back to normal. Or as normal as they could be, he guesses.

He found himself working with Dex more and more often, whether it be opening or closing with him. It’s kind of nice, if he’s being honest. He couldn't remember a time when work was so fun.

Not to mention that he and Dex become a lot closer than before and dare he say it- friends, even. Sometimes after they closed they’d go out for drinks and when they’d open Dex would make Nursey his favorite salted caramel latte before the early birds arrived. They didn’t fight about dumb shit anymore, only the important things, like if pineapple belongs on pizza or not (Derek totally thinks it does).

While all of this is all well and good, Nursey’s feelings are only growing. He found himself staring at Dex more and more often and can't help but try to make him laugh every chance he gets.

Dex has a really nice laugh.

But that's besides the point. They're friends now and Nursey does not want to ruin that. Even if it does mean suffering through work or staying out much later before opening shifts than he should, just so he can spend more time with Dex. He can handle a little self-control.

Or at least he hopes he can.

_X_

Jack Zimmermann was a lucky man and he knew it. He had a job that he loved, teaching at a well-established university. He had amazing students who wanted to learn. He had a devastatingly handsome boyfriend (soon to be fiancé, if he plays his cards right) who loved him.

That being said, he knows exactly the kind of person Bitty is. He's got a big heart, sometimes to a fault. He wants to see everyone happy and Jack can’t be mad at that.

Which is why when Bitty tells him all about the plan he comes up with, he can’t help but go along with it.

He sends out an email to his students to let them know that class on the 13th is cancelled due to an “unforeseen emergency” and heads to the bakery per Bitty’s request.

It’s going to be a long night.

_X_

Unsurprisingly, Valentine’s day was one of the busiest days of the year at the bakery. They always ended up selling out of their chocolate strawberry creme pies and heart-shaped sugar cookies. Nursey and Dex started their shifts at the same time, as had become normal, neither looking forward to the rush that would inevitably come.

Nursey was taking orders and dishing up pastries, while Dex was making the drinks. They made a solid team and time seemed to pass so much faster when they worked together. When Jack came in around seven Dex was shocked to find that he had almost been working a full seven hours already, the hours flying by. He finally stopped to look at Nursey, who looked about as tired as he felt. His heart fluttered at the little smile Nursey gave him, before he turned back to take another customer's order.

“Jack, honey, what are you doing here?” Bitty said, as he came out of the kitchen. He was a mess, covered in flour from head to toe and smelling of chocolate from baking with it all day.

“Bits, I told you that I had made a dinner reservation for us at 8, didn’t I?” Jack said, coming around the corner to press a kiss to Bitty’s forehead.

As he said that Bitty couldn't help the look of shock that crossed his face.

“Oh sweet pea, I can't believe I forgot! I'm supposed to close tonight.”

Nursey and Dex exchanged a look between the two of them, before Dex made a resigned sigh and mumbled, “We can close if you need us to Bitty.”

With that, Bitty turned to the both of them with a smile wider than they had ever seen.

“Y'all would really do that for me?” Bitty was still looking at them with shining eyes.

“Of course, brah. It's chill.” Nursey spoke up, after a moment. “We want you to have your romantic date night so that we can live vicariously through you.”

“The night is still young,” Bitty sang as he brushed past the both of them, “I'll go grab my stuff from my office and then we can leave, honey.”

“So, euh, thanks for doing this you guys,” Jack said, rubbing the back of his neck as he did so.

“No problem, Jack,” Nursey said, “Bitty deserves a break anyways. He said he stayed late last night working on something.”

“Uhm, yeah, about that-” Jack started.

“Alright, sugar, let’s go,” Bitty said, as he came back from the office. He laid a hand on Jack’s arm and looked right at Nursey. “Close the doors right at nine and make sure to take the money back into my office. Don’t bother counting it tonight, I’ll do it in the morning.”

“Ready, Bits?” Jack asked, smirking and cocking an eyebrow at his boyfriend.

“As I’ll ever be, Mr. Zimmermann,” Bitty said, turning back to Nursey and Dex. “Thank you boys, have fun!”

“Yeah, we’ll try,” Dex mumbled, bumping into Nursey’s shoulder as he turned back to the espresso machine to make a drink.

_X_

Luckily, the rest of their shift went by pretty quickly. All of the customers had cleared out around 8:45, presumably to spend the night with their significant others. They had cleaned the cafe area and were finishing up the kitchen, when Nursey went to the front to begin collecting the money and closing out the register.

“Lame Valentine’s day, right?” Dex said, walking up behind Nursey as he was putting the cash in the bank bag.

“Eh, it wasn’t too bad,” Nursey said softly, as he glanced back quickly to look at Dex. “There isn’t anywhere else I’d rather be.” He whispered, turning around fully to face Dex.

“Derek…” Their eyes met and they stayed that way for a few moments, before Nursey broke the trance.

“C’mon, let’s take the money to the back so we can get out of here,” Nursey mumbled, brushing past Dex. He’s not sure if he’s getting warm because he’s embarrassed or nervous. It had sounded as though Dex was going to respond to his advance, but instead he just… hadn’t.

Nursey had been thinking so deeply about the encounter they had just had that he hadn’t noticed the giant red heart on the outside of Bitty’s office door. He did, however, notice that the normally plain office now looked as though Cupid himself had thrown up all over it.

There was a round table in the middle of the room, where Bitty’s desk usually sat, covered in a rich red table cloth, roses, champagne, and of course a strawberry chocolate cream pie. Next the the pie sat a note that read:

Dear Nursey and Dex,

It was clear to me that neither of you were going to make the first move, so let this be it. The way you look at each other reminds me of the way that Jack and I used to look at each other. How we still look at each other. Y’all have something so special and I just want you both to be happy. Happy Valentine’s Day.

Love,

Bitty

“Hey, what’s- oh holy shit.” Nursey turned to find Dex staring at the office with wide eyes. He looked like a wild animal trying to decide whether he should run away or not. “What the fuck is all this?”

“Well,” Nursey started, “It’s Bitty’s Valentine’s Day present to us.” He finished, chancing a glance at the other boy as he moved to take the note from Nursey’s hand to read it. Dex read the note, before taking a seat at one of the chairs seated at the table.

“Am I that fucking obvious?” Dex asked, running his hands through his hair.

Which is… Not exactly what Nursey was expecting to hear.

“What are you talking about?” Nursey could feel his forehead scrunching as he asked the question. He was really fucking lost.

“Oh c’mon Nurse, there’s a reason that Bitty did this. Apparently I’m shit at hiding my feelings and he wanted to pity me by giving me a little hope today.” Dex sighed, “You don’t have to go along with this Derek, I understand it makes you uncomfortable.”

Nursey just sat there dumbfounded, because- what?

“Dex, are you fucking kidding me?” Dex’s head shot up at that. “Did you even read the note?”

Nursey couldn’t help but to laugh. How is this his life? He crossed the room to stand in front of Dex, whose expression was still blank.

“He did this for the both of us, you idiot,” Nursey couldn’t stop the smile spreading on his face. “Apparently neither of us have been very good at hiding our feelings. Although in my defense, I was drunk when I confessed to Bitty. You’re just always in awe of my beauty, apparently.” That final jab was the one to snap Dex back to reality.

“Don’t flatter yourself too much Nurse,” Dex mumbled, crossing his arms and refusing to meet Nursey’s gaze.

“It’s okay Dex. I’m always in awe of you too.” At this, Dex finally looked up at Nursey, who was slowly uncrossing Dex’s arms. “Kinda hard not to be.” He whispered, taking Dex’s hands into his. They stared at each other for a few moments, both men afraid to look away.

“Did our boss just fucking matchmake us?” Dex whispered, rubbing his thumbs back and forth on Nursey’s knuckles. Nursey couldn’t help but laugh.

“I guess he did,” Nursey said, flicking his eyes down to Dex’s mouth. “So like, I know we both just became aware of this whole thing, but can I kiss you? I’ve waited so fucking long.”

Dex’s eyes widened and he began shaking his head.

“Fuck yes,” Dex said, stretching up to meet Derek’s mouth and covering it with his own. By the time they finished kissing they were both breathless.

“Okay, so,” Dex started, “I know that Bitty planned this whole thing for us, but-”

“You wanna take this elsewhere?” Derek finished.

“Only if you want to,” Dex said, looking happier than Derek had seen him all night.

“That’s alI want,” Nursey whispered.

With that, Derek couldn’t help but think that work at the bakery was about to get a whole lot more interesting.

#bv2020 #bitty's valentines #dexnursey #omg check please!

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doggernaut · 6 years

Text

fic: the story of us

Jack has just finished carrying the last of the boxes labeled “bedroom” upstairs and is in the middle of pouring two glasses of iced tea — regular for himself, sweet for Bittle — when the doorbell rings.

“Can you get that, hon?” Bittle asks. He’s in the same room but his voice sounds far away. “I’m up to my elbows cleanin’ these cabinets before I dare put anything in them. I don’t think the insides of these have seen a sponge in three decades.”

Jack makes a face, one Bittle completely misses because the upper half of his body has been swallowed by the cabinet below the sink. “That’s what we get for buying an old house, eh?” The doorbell rings again. “I’ve got it,” he reassures Bittle, who grunts in response.

Jack is well aware he is, as Bitty says, “a sight.” However, the pizza delivery person probably doesn’t care that he’s dressed in paint-stained basketball shorts and slightly-too-tight (it’s Bittle’s, and is apparently “a good look” on him) SMH shirt, and covered in a sheen of sweat. Someday, when their personal lives aren’t dictated by the NHL’s schedule, they’ll be able to move in the winter. For now, it is what it is.

When he opens the door he is surprised to see, instead of a pizza delivery driver, a young girl. Her long brown hair is done up in two pigtails and she’s carrying a notebook and pen. When she smiles, she shows off a mouth full of braces and Jack is briefly reminded of Chris Chow.

There’s a woman standing at the end of the driveway. She catches Jack’s eye and smiles.

“Hi,” Jack greets her. “Can I help you?”

The girl takes a visible breath. “My name is Mary Sullivan-Torres. I’m 11 years old. I’m the editor and reporter for What’s Going On?, the official neighborhood newspaper for Maple Street. My mom, Kara Sullivan-Torres —” she waves her hand in the direction of the woman on the driveway “— is my assistant. I’d like to be the first to welcome you to our neighborhood. Do you have any news for our next issue?”

Something about the slightly stiff, obviously rehearsed way Mary recites her speech endears her to Jack.

“I’m Jack,” he says, smiling in a way he hopes will put her at ease. “We just moved in so, I guess that’s news. Bits!” he calls. “We have a visitor.”

There’s a thump in the kitchen, followed by an “oh!” and a clatter. Bittle pads into the room, a hand pressed to the back of his head. “No pizza?”

“This is Mary,” Jack says. “She wants to know if we have any news. For the neighborhood newspaper,” he clarifies, when he catches Bittle’s puzzled look.

Bittle instantly understands and smiles brightly at Mary. Jack loves this about him. “Well, hi, Miss Mary. I’m Eric. What kind of news are you looking for?”

Mary opens her notebook and pulls out a single sheet of paper, which she hands to Bittle. Reading over his shoulder, Jack sees it’s the most recent edition of What’s Going On? It includes five paragraph-long stories and two photos. Jack quickly scans the page. There’s a story about a mysterious sign that was found in the street, another about a neighbor who wrote a book. Brownie, who lives in “the two-story on the corner,” is the recipient of the “Dog of the Week” award, which apparently includes her photo in the paper and a box of dog biscuits.

Bittle nods seriously. “Well, I’m not sure we’re as exciting as a mysterious sign, but you can write something about how Jack and I are new to the neighborhood and we’re happy to be here.”

Mary begins scribbling in her notebook. “Do you and Mr. Jack have jobs?”

“Well, I work at a television station doing social media things and I’m also writing a book. And Jack —”

“—I play hockey for the Providence Falconers.”

Mary keeps writing. “Why did you decide to move to Maple Street?” she asks.

“The windows,” Bittle says at the same time Jack says, “The tree.”

They glance at each other. Mary just stares at them, waiting.

“I really liked the windows in the kitchen,” Bittle explains. “I like to bake and when we first looked at this house I could imagine myself baking in that kitchen, looking out at the neighborhood while I bake.”

“I, uh, thought the tree in the backyard would be perfect for a treehouse,” Jack tells her. He isn’t surprised, really, when Bittle finds his hand and gives it a little squeeze. They bought the house hoping, of course, that they won’t be the only ones to fill it. But Jack has never told him about the tree.

“That’s good,” Mary proclaims. She snaps her notebook shut. “Thank you. The paper publishes on Wednesdays. Would you like me to drop it off?”

“We’d love it,” Bittle says. “We may even have some cookies for you and your mama. If your mama says it’s okay, of course.” He raises a hand in greeting to Kara, still waiting on the driveway. She smiles and waves in acknowledgement.

“Thank you, Mary,” Jack says. “I’m looking forward to seeing your story.”

Mary smiles a little shyly and looks Jack in the eye. To Jack, it looks like she’s making an effort to do both. “Thank you, Mr. Jack and Mr. Eric. It was very nice to meet you.” Then she’s off, running down the driveway to meet her mother.

“She was sweet,” Bittle says when they’ve closed the door.

“She was,” Jack agrees.

The next day, Jack and Bittle run into Kara Sullivan-Torres while on an after-dinner walk around their new neighborhood. She’s walking a dog on the other side of the street but motions for them to wait and crosses to greet them.

“Thank you, for your patience with Mary yesterday,” she says after introducing herself. “She really loves writing, and her therapist thought the newspaper would be a good way to work on her social skills.”

“I understand,” Jack says. “It’s not always easy for me, either. Your daughter is a lot braver than I was at her age.”

“She’s a sweet girl,” Bittle adds. “Tell her she’s welcome to stop by any time.”

“Oh, I’m sure she will,” Kara says with a laugh. “She was quite taken with the two of you. And she said something about cookies next time?”

“In our house,” Bittle says, “we always have cookies.”

“Do you have any news for me today?”

It’s been two months since they moved in, and Mary has come by every Tuesday without fail, looking for news. Jack enjoys her visits; he doesn’t always have news to share but sometimes Mary will give him an early scoop. Last week, she excitedly told him there had been a break in the case of the mysterious sign. Apparently, she spotted a similar sign advertising a band’s appearance on a bulletin board at a nearby coffee shop.

“I don’t have any news this week,” Jack tells her, “but Bittle has some exciting news. He’s not here right now, but I don’t think he’d mind my telling you that the book he’s been writing is going to be published sometime next year.”

“What kind of book is it?” Mary asks, pen at the ready.

“It’s a cookbook, actually.”

She frowns. “Mr. Atkins wrote a cookbook, too. Do you think it’s weird that two of our neighbors wrote cookbooks?”

“I think people like Bittle and Mr. Atkins, who are good at cooking and baking, like to write cookbooks to help other people learn to be better cooks.”

“Oh. Okay.” Mary makes a couple of notes in her book.

“I’m very proud of him,” Jack adds. “Bittle’s wanted to publish a cookbook for a long time.

She looks up at Jack. “Why do you call him ‘Bittle’ if his name is Eric?”

“Euh …” This isn’t the first time somebody has asked Jack this question, but Mary, in her typically blunt way, has managed to catch Jack off guard. “Well, when Bittle — Eric — and I met, we were teammates on our college hockey team. Sometimes, when you’re on a team, you call your teammates by their last name, or a nickname. A lot of our friends called him ‘Bitty’ but most people call him ‘Eric’ now.”

“I see,” Mary murmurs. “Do you have a nickname?”

“Eric,” Jack says, “likes to call me Sweetpea. But that’s not a hockey nickname.”

“I think I have what I need,” Mary says. “Thank you.”

The next day, Jack gets home from practice to find What’s Going On? tucked under the doormat. Tucked in between “Ghost or Windy Day?” and “Mysterious Sign Update!” (“I wrote to the email address on the sign and got a response from Alex, who plays the bass in a band called Raccoon Handshake. He doesn’t know how his band’s sign ended up on Mrs. Lieu’s lawn.”) is the story announcing Bittle’s book:

Maple Street resident to publish cookbook Mr. Eric Bittle, who lives in the yellow house with the porch swing, has just written a cookbook. It’s going to be published sometime next year, said his husband, Mr. Jack Zimmermann, who is “very proud.”

Jack reads the story aloud to Bittle when he gets home from his social media job. “Good job, Sweetpea,” Bittle says. “Should I hire you as my official publicist?” “Ah, maybe not,” Jack says. “But maybe we should give Mary the scoop on all of our breaking news.”

“Jack got a hat trick in his game against the Schooners last night,” Bittle tells Mary in late March. “And a broken wrist,” he adds sourly.

“It’s not even that bad,” Jack says, holding up his wrist. Yes, the cast is cumbersome. Yes, it means he’s out for the rest of the season. That’s not what Bittle’s worried about, he knows.

“It’s not exactly great,” Bittle says.

“It’ll heal,” Jack says, all false optimism.

“Does it hurt?” Mary asks.

“Some,” Jack says. “Have you ever broken anything?”

“My older sister broke her arm last summer when she fell out of a tree. She cried a lot because it hurt so much.”

“Well, my doctors are taking good care of me,” Jack reassures her.

“Jack only cried a little,” Bittle chirps.

“Bits kissed it better.”

Mary’s eyes dart nervously from Bittle to Jack. “Can I write that?”

“You can say it hurts but I had a lot of help from my doctors and Bittle.”

“What happens when you get your cast off?” she asks.

“Well, I’ll probably have to do some exercises every day to strengthen it. I’ll be able to play again by the time pre-season conditioning begins.”

“Can I take a picture of your hand?”

“Sure, why not?” Jack waits while Mary runs to the end of the driveway to talk to Kara. They return together, Kara fiddling with the settings on her camera.

Jack poses, pointing to the injured hand with his good hand. When Mary is satisfied, she nods her head decisively and ends the interview with her customary “Thank you, Mr. Jack and Mr. Eric.”

INJURY! Providence Falconer Jack Zimmermann out for season Our neighbor, Mr. Jack Zimmermann, broke his right wrist playing in a hockey game against the Seattle Schooners. He said it hurts, but he’s getting a lot of help from his doctors and his husband, Mr. Eric Bittle. Best wishes to Mr. Zimmermann for a speedy recovery!

“This is big,” Bittle says, reading over Jack’s shoulder. “She never writes subheads.”

“Bigger than Molly the goldendoodle’s birthday party?”

“Molly’s an angel,” Bittle says, “but her birthday wasn’t mentioned on Sports Center.” He reads the three-sentence story to Jack and smirks. “She was a lot easier on you than ESPN was.”

“She didn’t even ask if I might be getting too old for this,” Jack says bitterly.

“Honey. Stop talking like that. You’ve still got some years left in you. This is just a setback.” Bittle’s been repeating this for three days, long enough that it’s finally started to drown out the talking heads on Sports Center. “Do I need to spend more time kissing it better?”

“Maybe,” Jack says, playing to his husband’s emotions. “After I take my next dose of pain killers. And maybe a cookie?”

Bittle laughs sweetly. “Come on, you big baby. Let’s get you fixed up.”

“We have a scoop for you,” Jack says when Mary comes to the door one afternoon in mid-June. “Do you want an exclusive before everyone else finds out?”

“Is it big news?”

“You and your mom should come inside,” Jack says quietly. “Does she have her camera?” He motions for Kara to join them and waits until they’re both inside to close the door behind them and walk them into the living room.

Bittle, who is seated on the couch, stands when they arrive. He’s holding a small bundle, their daughter Ellie, who is all of 72 hours old. So far, they’ve managed to keep this news a secret from the media. They’d both agreed Mary should be the first to report it. (Bittle had sniffled a little and wiped a tear away when Jack suggested it. Jack may have cried a little too. It’s been an emotional three days.)

“Miss Mary, meet Miss Ellie,” Bittle says, adjusting the receiving blanket Ellie is swaddled in so Mary and Kara can see her little face. “She’s our daughter.”

“She’s so tiny,” Mary breathes. “Can I touch her?”

Jack nods, and watches as Mary carefully presses a finger to Ellie’s soft cheek. Kara watches with a bemused little smile. “Congratulations, you two. Do you need anything?”

“Maybe just another set of hands,” Bittle jokes. “Thank the lord Jack got that cast off and didn’t require any extra rehab.”

“It was not,” Jack admits, “the best time for an injury.”

“It all worked out,” Bittle says, bumping Jack a little more gently than usual with his hip. They’re still getting used to doing things with a baby in their arms.

“If you sit together on the couch right there,” Kara says, “I think I can get a good picture.” She waits as Jack and Bittle sit next to each other and adjust Ellie so her face is visible.

“All right, I’ll take a few. Smile,” Kara commands as Mary looks on, taking notes.

They don’t even have to be told, really. Their smiles haven’t left their faces for three days.

New Neighbor! Mr. Jack Zimmermann and Mr. Eric Bittle welcomed their daughter, Ellie, into the world on June 15. She has dark hair and blue eyes, but Mr. Zimmermann said they “might change.” So far, said Mr. Bittle, “Ellie sleeps a lot and cries a little.” Congratulations to the Bittle-Zimmermann family!

“I just signed a new book contract,” Bittle tells Mary and Kara over cake. “This one is for desserts.”

“Wasn’t your last books about desserts?” Mary asks, confused.

“Well, this one is about desserts that aren’t pie,” he amends.

“I like your cookies,” Mary says. Jack smiles. Every time Bittle makes a batch of cookies, he carefully wraps five in plastic wrap and delivers them to the Sullivan-Torres home. Kara says she takes them in her school lunches.

“I’ll definitely have some cookie recipes in there,” Bittle says with a wink. “But I think the real crowd pleaser is my Aunt Judy’s Kahlua Cake. It’s a great choice when you want to serve a decadent dessert but you don’t have time to make a cake from scratch.”

“It’s true,” Jack says. “It was the first thing to go at our holiday party last year.”

“Maybe you can share the recipe with our neighbors,” Mary suggests.

Desserts by Eric

Our neighbor, Mr. Eric Bittle, has signed a contract for a new cookbook. This cookbook will feature dessert recipes. Mr. Bittle is sharing his Kahlua cake recipe with us today.1 package chocolate cake mix

1 package instant chocolate pudding mix

2 cups sour cream

4 eggs

3/4 cup canola oil

1/2 cup Kahlua

1 bag of mini semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine cake mix, pudding mix, sour cream, eggs, oil and Kahlua, using an electric mixer. Stir in chocolate pieces. 2. Pour into a greased Bundt pan. Bake for approximately 45 minutes. Cool in pan for 10 minutes.

Jack can measure time by the issues of What’s Going On? The story of their life on Maple Street — from the week they moved in (“New Neighbors!”) to the news announcing the birth of their daughter to Bittle’s “exclusive” recipes — is collected in a binder they keep in the bookcase.

Mary looks a little sad today. “It’s been a good three years, but I’m going to high school in the fall and I probably won’t have time to publish What’s Going On? regularly,” she informs them. “Next week’s issue will be the last. It will be bigger than usual because I want to get a story from all of our neighbors. Do you have any news for me?”

As they’ve done so many times in the three years since Mary began asking them this question, Jack and Bittle exchange a look and have a silent conversation. Bittle raises an eyebrow. Jack nods.

“We talked about it,” Bittle says carefully, “ and we — well, Jack, really — have one last scoop for you.” He gestures for Mary and Kara to follow them inside.

“Nobody knows about this yet,” Jack says once they’re seated around the kitchen table, “but tomorrow night, after our first home game, I plan to announce my retirement from the NHL. A lot of news outlets have been guessing I’m going to say something, but I want you to be the first to officially break the news.”

Kara catches Jack’s eye. “Are you sure—”

“Mary has always reported our news respectfully and accurately,” Jack says. “I’ll make an official statement at the press conference tomorrow, but I’d really like somebody other than Sports Center to be the first to report this.” Jack is maybe still a little bitter about some of the things the mainstream sports media has said about him over the years. Maybe. “Would you like to tell the story, Mary?”

At their feet, Ellie arranges an assortment of colorful wooden sushi and desserts on plastic plates.

“Okay,” Mary says, opening her notebook and taking out her pen. “I have a few questions.”

Jack Zimmermann to retire from NHL Our neighbor, Mr. Jack Zimmermann, announced he’ll be retiring from the NHL at the end of the current season. He has played for the Providence Falconers since he graduated from Samwell University. When asked what he plans to do when he’s retired, Mr. Zimmermann said he’s looking forward to working with local charities and being a stay-at-home father.

Also on ao3

#omgcp fic #check please fic #eric bittle #jack zimmermann #future fic #my fic #recipe included #why does tumblr mess up the formatting?

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multsicorn · 7 years

Text

fic: how do you make it for real (zimbits, 1/5)

for @queersherlockian, the first chapter of my much-belated @fandomtrumpshateaction fic this chapter is ~5k words, rated g, but there’s much more, and porn, to come. also here on ao3.

Jack Zimmermann's an adjunct history professor at Samwell University. Bitty works at Annie's, at the start of what's now his second year after graduation.

And they both want more than what they have. Not love, but a step up that ladder to professional success that sometimes seems hard to even find....

They'll take love, though, if it comes.

Jack Zimmermann's life is built from routines. People think that he's boring, but he likes it, the way that each block of his day slots neatly into the next. He appreciates predictability, he hates to be left at loose ends, and even though he hasn't played a game of hockey in years, he'll probably live by the locker-room code of habit and superstition for the rest of his life.

Samwell University seems nice. Professor Atley, the newly-appointed head of the History Department, is brisk but genuinely welcoming in what's now their second time meeting. As an adjunct at Samwell, she tells him, he'll be teaching three lower-level classes. She hopes that he'll also find some time to get started on his first book, the time that he couldn't (he'd confessed to the committee) seem to find or make last year in Virginia, which he knows for both threat and encouragement. He's grateful, always, for the welcome, and still worried that he'll come up short.

The grounds are pleasant, relaxing, all red brick and green lawns and wide paths. They look like nothing more than a brochure come to life, and Jack would move into the center of a glossy paper tri-fold if only he could work towards a tenure-track position there.

His schedule, gridded out, shows a clear block between 3:00 and 4:30. If he can find somewhere to sit and work and maybe eat, he should be able to use that block of time to make progress on writing a book a little bit every day. Crossing the street that separates campus from a straggling gap-toothed line of restaurants and stores, he fetches up in front of a cozy coffee shop. The sign in the window says it's called Annie's, and the door promises that it's open till 8 p.m. every night.

_X_

Within the first few weeks of the semester, Annie's has definitively become Jack's favorite place to work, ever. His office is amazing because it's all his, the best place to squirrel away books and papers, but there's always a danger of distraction when he tries to get work done there. Camilla, the smartest adjunct in the department, stops by several times a day for quick breaks to chat about nothing. Chris Chow appears at at all times of day and night just in case, he says, Jack's there, and Jack's never learned how to turn away a student who actually wants to learn. But he has other work he needs to get done. And Annie's has decent coffee, and a daily rotating selection of the best pies he's ever tasted, anywhere, in his life, and, most importantly, no one who ever wants to talk to him. He buries himself there in the writings of the war in peace.

Or, when he's stuck, he can look around. Just every once in a while, he'll catalog the pairs of girls in glossy high ponytails talking to each another, the gray-haired men and women who've claimed the few armchairs in the shop with their paperbacks, the laptop users, the phone-players-with, the interview that's always in progress. The population, though its characteristics remain stable, changes in individual composition from day to day. Only two people (besides himself) are consistently present: a petite Asian girl with an awesome sidecut, who's always either drawing or painting, and Cute Blond Boy.

He'd worried at first that the girl was drawing the coffee shop's patrons. It seems like the obvious reason to draw there, to take advantage of all the subjects to sketch, so Jack couldn't have blamed her in fairness. But he skulks around behind the back of her table enough times, anyway, to see that her artwork is abstract. So then he's relieved, and just a bit guilty at feeling that now he's the one who's overstepped.

Cute Blond Boy is more of a problem. He could almost just be another of the phone-players-with, except that more often than not he's sitting at the coffee shop's long wooden bar, and chatting in between customers with whoever's working behind the counter that day. Jack couldn't figure out what he talks about over the general level of ambient noise, even if he were eavesdropping, which he'd never do. Sometimes Cute Blond Boy even sits at same table as the girl who does the paintings, and Jack doesn't know if they know each other from anywhere besides this coffee shop. Which is to say: Jack doesn't know whether to hope or to fear that any day now Cute Blond Boy will sit his cute ass down next to him, and just start talking as if they're friends.

_X_

It's in the middle of October when the trees are putting on Samwell red and the first round of midterms is busy kicking just about everyone's ass that Jack arrives at Annie's and orders his customary large light roast coffee 'and a slice of today's special pie' before he notices that Cute Blond Boy is manning the register.

"That'll be $8.31," Eric says. His name is Eric, his nametag says.

"So you work here now?" Jack says, brilliantly. Eric keeps holding out his hand, which - right. Credit card. Jack can't believe he forgot something so basic.

Eric takes it with a lift of his perfectly groomed eyebrows. "I've been working here for years," he says. "Usually I'm in the back. I'm just filling in for my friend Dex today, 'cause he says that his project won't compile - don't even ask me what that means, I don't know - but he's usually here on Wednesdays. And, hold on a sec, can you sign this."

Jack does so without comment.

"So, you like pie?" Eric maneuvers a slice out of the pan and slides onto a clean white plate, all the while keeping the layers of apple stacked neatly on top of each other.

"Yes," Jack says. "Well, not always. But the pie here, it's just, so good. Like." He leans over the counter in his enthusiasm, its edge biting into the pudge of his stomach. "If you could propose to a baked good, I'd be getting down on one knee right now."

"Oh, my goodness," Eric says, fanning his face with his hand theatrically. Jack's made him blush. "Wow. Really?"

"Not literally," Jack says. He shrugs, awkwardly. Eric can't see it, anyway, his back is turned now as he's getting Jack's coffee. "But, yeah, they really are that good."

"I don't even know what to say to that." Eric puts Jack's plate and his mug down together on the counter; his hands are steady, not affected at all. But the smile on his face looks… shy? It's not a look Jack's seen on him before - not that he's been secretly watching Eric eat lunch for the last few weeks or anything. "But thanks."

"Er, yeah," Jack says. "I mean. It's just a job anyway, right?"

"Just a job!?" Eric glares. "No more pie for you, mister. My pies are my flesh and blood, my beloved children, the lights of my life - "

"Your pies?" Jack interrupts the tumbling avalanche of words. "I thought… they were, um, 'Annie's' pies."

"Yes, my pies," Eric says. He puffs himself up with indignation like a peacock. "I told you, I work in the back. I make 'em. I make all the pastries, actually, but the pies are my own recipes."

"Oh," Jack says. "That's cool." He blinks. Cute Blond Boy is also an amazing pie-baker. "Um. That's really cool. Could you tell me about it?"

"Of course," Eric says, and now he's leaning over the counter. "Just try and get me to stop once I've started. Gosh. But, wait, a customer," he continues, stepping back from the counter and straightening up. Jack's pleased that he's not a customer, apparently. "Just a minute," Eric says, as Jack takes his food and shifts it over to the side of the counter to make space for the girl who steps up in front of the register.

"Yeah. I should get some work done, too," Jack says, to Eric, who's not listening any more. Now, where did the sugar go? He should know, since he's been coming here for weeks now. And he shouldn't have introduced himself by saying he loves pie, either. Now Eric probably thinks he's fat because he likes eating too much; he was hockey's new hope as a kid, just as fat, there's no way Eric knows that.

Not that he should care what Eric thinks, anyway.

"Ask me anytime, okay?" Eric says. "Another day, when I'm not on shift."

"Sure," Jack says. He's fumbling with the milk thermos: it doesn't want to open today, either.

To his right, he hears Eric say, "Sorry about that, honey. Now. How can I help you?" Of course Eric would be that guy who calls everyone honey; it doesn't mean anything, one way or the other.

And Jack won't get to talk to him again. He wants to, of course he does. But he knows himself, and he knows that it's just not going to happen.

_X_

What happens instead is that when he walks into Annie's the next day, planning to sit by himself, like usual, Eric waves at him with a smile. Jack can take that much of a hint. He returns the greeting, and after he's bought his coffee and a splice of today's special pie - it's apple nut brittle, which sounds promising, from the guy behind the counter with the intriguing cloud and small puff-cloud of hair, name of Derek, he goes to sit down at the table that Eric's already sitting at.

"Hi, Eric," he says. He occupies himself in settling his food on the table, and the bag with his papers in it under his feet, which is all he can think of to do.

"Hi," Eric says, with a smile. "Call me Bitty. All my friends do. And you're - ?"

"Oh," Jack says. He'd felt like they knew each other, after yesterday; he'd forgotten that he hadn't even told Eric - Bitty - his name. "I'm Jack." His instinct is to follow every introduction with a handshake, but Bitty's hands stay comfortably wrapped around his coffee cup, and so Jack shoves his back into his pockets instead.

"Jack," Bitty nods. "Hi, again."

"So…" Jack casts around, tries to remember why he'd thought that he could do this, yesterday. "You make pies?"

"Pies, pastries, sometimes bread. Or quick breads - it all depends. But the pies are my recipes, not Annies', so that's why they're my favorites."

Jack digs into his pie then, the shiny nut-studded surface crackling under the pressure of the fork's tines. He gets some of it onto the fork along with apples and a layer of crust. "By the way, this is delicious," he says, a bit of intensely appreciative chewing later. It's crunchy and chewy and sweet and even a little bit savory, too. "This is - " a pause to chew some more. "So much better than delicious. But I don't know what word means that."

"Flattery gets you nowhere," Bitty says, but he's blushing.

It makes Jack desperate, and dumb. "So, how did you start doing this?"

"Well, what happened is this. I started working here my sophomore year of college. I had a scholarship, freshman year, but I lost it, and so I needed to make money for books and stuff somehow. And at holiday time I brought in cookies to share with my co-workers, because that's just something I, alright? But Annie, she was so impressed with these simple little sugar cookies that she insisted that I switch to working in the back, making the baked goods. Well! You should know that it doesn't take insisting to get me to bake things! I love baking, and I was so excited to have a job doing it... but I still had to finish school, which was more of a struggle. And by the time I figured out that I wanted to do this, but in my own way, well, it turns out that having a degree in American Studies, even one with a concentration in Food Culture, doesn't help for having a bakery."

Jack scrapes the tines of his fork through the syrup that's slowly spreading across his plate. "I know what you mean," he says.

"You do?" Bitty puts down his sandwich, and pushes the plate far enough away that he can rest his hands flat on the table. "People always tell me that having a degree is better than having none, but sometimes I wonder if culinary school would've been a better choice."

"Ha, yeah. Maybe." Jack chews on his inner lip. "I teach history, and I enjoy it," the stresses of how and whether he can find a way to advance in the field aside, "but I spent, uh… many years. Training to be something completely different, and it is frustrating, to feel like all those years of work and getting better weren't good for anything in the end."

Bitty nods. "I wouldn't say not good for anything, because my friends from college are still with me, but… I get what you're saying, too. Definitely."

Jack eats a couple more bites of his pie before he continues, "It's challenging to switch tracks, I'm not saying it's not. But it's doable, and - " he gestures at what's left of his pie with his fork, though honestly he'd believe in Bitty even without its evidence " - I'm sure you can do it."

Bitty eats a little bit more of his sandwich, too, looking thoughtful. "I hope so," he says. "I think it just feels so difficult, because… I don't even know what I don't know. My normal M.O. is to bake people pie, but - how do you get your own bakery? And do I even want to start my own as an owner, like Annie did with this place, or is there, like, a job I can get? Because I don't think I need all that financial stress, if I could run the bakery of a place that someone else owned, but the way I bake is too Southern and nowhere near French enough to be a proper pastry chef, so..." Bitty trails off, and shoves the last remaining bit of his sandwich into his mouth with both hands.

Jack clamps down, hard, on this unhelpful and probably unwanted urge to volunteer - my parents are rich. I bet I could find enough money for whatever you need. Instead he says, "I don't know about any of this. But I wish I could help."

Bitty wipes the crumbs from his face. "You are helping. It's so nice just to talk about this. And to someone who understands how I feel! Saying don't get discouraged is all well and good, but sometimes I do get discouraged, you know?"

Jack leans forward. "I do know." And he manages, barely, to keep the coffee cup his arm had knocked into from falling over. "I feel like nothing I do is ever good enough."

"Exactly! I try and try - "

"And apply to every open position I find, but what do I do when they tell me, sorry, you're a very strong candidate, but you're just not a good fit for us."

"Ugh," Bitty says, "that's the worst. And I could say, well, at least you have positions to apply to, but, I don't know. Is that really better? I feel like I'd find it equally frustrating, just differently."

"It's hard to compare," Jack agrees. "And the thing is that I've always tried to be better, at everything I do. So there's nothing more frustrating than when I can't, and - " Jack suddenly remembers something. "What time is it, again?"

Bitty's phone responds before Jack's even succeeded in finding his own. "Five to four."

Jack swears in his head, uncreatively. "How did that happen." He's packing the papers that he hasn't looked at even once this afternoon, back into his bag quickly as he says, "I need to go now, the staff meeting's at four, but we'll talk later, right," and he's gone before Bitty has a chance to answer.

_X_

Jack's barely found himself a table at Annie's the next day when Bitty bounces over from the direction of the bar and plops down in the seat opposite.

"Jack! What are you doing here?" His coffee sloshes dangerously, cup too full to withstand the force of his enthusiasm.

"Work," Jack says. "Obviously."

"So? What kind of work do you do?"

Jack sighs. "You don't want to know. It's not interesting to people outside the field." Which he's reminded of every time he does answer such a question, and is rewarded for his efforts with glazed-over eyes or people hastily backing away.

"I wouldn't ask if I didn't want to know," Bitty says. "And, besides, now you've got me curious."

"Uh," Jack says. He's had years of practice giving elevator pitches in conference halls; this shouldn't be too hard. "I'm studying the process of negotiation and reconciliation of contradictory identities among American and Canadian soldiers in World War II, specifically in the context of the intensely homosocial environment of a military unit within the ever-present homophobia of midcentury North American culture, how these contexts work together to construct a unique set of expectations for masculinity, and exploring the ways in which homosexual desires and behaviors were understood and expressed by men in these conditions."

Bitty's nodding like a bobblehead. It's too much nodding, probably.

"Is that good?"

"Hm," Bitty says. "Something about World War II and - homosexuality?"

"Basically, yeah." Jack wipes his palms surreptitiously on his knees.

"Interesting," Bitty says. The i's of the word stretch out like taffy. "Do you mind if I ask you why?"

"Well," Jack says, "I've been fascinated by World War II since I was a kid. When I was little I wanted to go and fight in it - ha. I didn't have a real clear idea of how history worked, back then. And then, later, the more I learned about it, the more I learned about why that might not have been the best idea." Jack shrugs. "But I found all the things I was learning so interesting that I kept wanting to find out more and more, so here I am." Jack pauses for breath, and also to eat a bite of the pie that he'd been neglecting shamefully. The meringue on the top of it is pillowy, a shocking contrast to the firmness of the lightly-cooked apple chunks right underneath; and underlying it all, the rich crumbly shortbread crust completes a wide-ranging palette of textures. "And," Jack says, swallowing and taking another bite and doing it all over again, "I'm bi."

"I did wonder, when you said 'homosexual.'" Bitty doesn't have food today, but he sips his coffee slowly, brow furrowed in thought. "It's not that I think there's anything wrong with straight people studying our history, but I'm still not sure how I feel about it."

"Our," Jack says. He thinks that he was supposed to catch that. "Are you bi too, or…?"

Bitty laughs. "I think you're literally the first person who's ever asked me that. No, I'm gay. But I'm sure you're not surprised."

"Not exactly surprised." Jack eats a bit more of his pie. It's so good, he's in a constant state of surprise at just how good it can be. "But I didn't want to assume, either."

"I appreciate the sentiment! I used to wish that people wouldn't… but I don't mind, now. It can be useful, and besides, it's not like I don't want people to know."

Jack nods. "That makes sense, I guess. I've just always hated it when people assume they know things about me, whether they're true or not."

"Speaking of which," Bitty says. "You said that you teach history... is it here? I mean, at Samwell? Are you a professor, or what?"

Jack drinks his coffee, this time. It's lukewarm already: unpleasant, but he swallows it anyway. "Only an adjunct." Then he cuts his remaining pie precisely. "But, technically, yeah."

"That's cool, though," Bitty says. "And what are you working on right now? Specifically?"

"Do you mean, what am I supposed to be working on right now?" Jack asks.

He means it to be teasing, but Bitty seems to take the riposte seriously. "No, that wasn't what I meant," he says. "But if you really should be, then sorry for distracting you. I'll stop now."

"I really should," Jack agrees. There's regret there, but - he'll never make progress if he spend all his dedicated research hours chatting instead, no matter how tempting it is.

"We'll talk more tomorrow?" Bitty asks.

"We will," Jack says, and already, he believes it when he says it. That they will. That it's likely, and not impossible. It's a nice feeling to have.

_X_

A few days later, when Jack's relaxing into the rhythm of his and Bitty's conversations - which is irregular, and mostly consists of him listening to Bitty go on and on, which, as he says when Bitty asks him, he does like, very much - Bitty says, "Oh, and you have to meet Lardo."

"Who's Lardo?"

"See the girl painting in the corner behind you?"

Jack twists around in his chair, and he sees - oh. It's the Coffee Shop Artist Girl. He turns back towards Bitty, and nods. It's so strange, though, to think that just over a week ago, she and Bitty were equally strangers to him.

"I've barely talked to her all week," Bitty continues, "Because I've been so busy talking to you. So, come on over, I'll introduce you."

"Now?" Jack asks, but Bitty's already getting up, picking up his coffee and his sandwich, too, which preemptively puts to rest any questions as to whether he might be coming back. Jack frowns, but there's nothing for him to do but follow Bitty to Lardo's table.

"Mind if we sit here?" Bitty asks.

Lardo looks up from the canvas she's painting with an expression of concentration that dissolves instantly into a smile when she registers who's asking. "Bits! Of course. But who's this guy?"

Bitty steps to the side, which isn't necessary. Jack's too tall to be able to hide effectively behind him, anyway. "This is Jack. He teaches history here at Samwell."

"Nice to meet you," Jack says, though he's not sure if it's technically a lie or not. He puts out his hand to shake, anyway.

Lardo's answering grip is firm, but fleeting. As she takes her hand back she looks Jack over quickly, appraisingly, and he wishes he could guess at what she sees. "Cool," she says. "Name's Lardo. Artist."

The table's scattered all over with papers, brushes, tubes of paint, so on, and so forth, but Lardo quickly moves them into piles so that Jack and Bitty can set their food down.

"Are you a professional artist?" Jack asks, sliding into the seat just vacated by a bulky bag of mysterious contents that's been relocated to the floor. "Or is it just a hobby?"

"I sell paintings," Lardo says. She's staring, currently, at the swoops and intersecting triangles of red and purple and black on the canvas in front of her, as if they hold the answers to the mysteries of the universe. "Not enough to live on."

"What Lardo means," Bitty says, "is that she is an artist. A real artist. Because art's about whether you love what you do, not about how much money you're paid."

"Thanks, Bits." Lardo's stirring her brush in the water, washing off the purple. The curlicues it makes as it finishes the process of disappearing fascinate Jack.

"And Lardo loves art," Bitty continues, passionately, seeming oblivious to the fact that Jack's making no move to disagree with him.

"The way you love baking pies," Lardo murmurs. The flawless back-and-forth catch of conversational passes makes Jack wonder if this is a defense they've run together before.

"Yeah," Bitty says.

"Are you sure, though?" Jack asks. Lardo lifts her head, and they both stare daggers at him.

"We could still ask you to leave this table." Bitty, apparently, has a way of making the nicest-seeming sentence threatening.

"I mean," Jack stumbles, hastening to clarify. "Not about being a real artist. But about loving it. How do you know? How are you sure?" The daggers disappear - thank goodness - only to be replaced by matching looks of disbelief.

"You just do," Lardo says. And that argument done, she selects a hair-thin brush and loads it up with blue paint, ready to illustrate her words with action. Or pictures, for all Jack knows.

"I don't think either of us could stop if we tried to," Bitty says. He looks significantly at the piece of pie that, come to think of it, Jack can't believe he's left untouched for so long in front of him. He takes a bite. It's pecan today, with a hint of some spice that makes the flavor of the nuts pop like Jack's never tasted. It's so good he actually has to bite back on a moan.

When it comes to what Bitty said, though. "Huh." Jack's not sure what to make of it. "What would you do, though, if you didn't have anything like that?"

Lardo and Bitty look at each other. "Something easier," they answer in unison.

"Or at least something that pays better," Bitty continues as Lardo carries on with her work. "You teach at a university. I bet you get a salary, and benefits."

"Ha. You'd think," Jack says. "My parents still have to help me out. And... I try? But they gave me three intro courses this year, and ninety percent of my lectures are composed of freshmen who don't seem to want to learn anything. It's a good feeling, though, when I do get someone interested in the material."

"I tutor for so many things," Lardo says. Her paintbrush continues on its movements, not missing a beat. My parents keep offering to support me so I can make art full time. But - I don't wanna."

When Bitty speaks up, his voice is bitter in exactly the way his pie isn't, and Jack realizes that he hasn't said anything for more than a minute. "My parents say they don't understand why I'm still working the same job I had while they were paying for my college degree. As if I didn't want something better!"

"That's rough," Jack says. "I feel incredibly lucky that my parents have been so supportive. Even when I realized midway through one career path that I wanted to change course, they never pressured me one way or the other."

"That's nice," Bitty says, though his smile seems brittle around the edges, like the pie's dark chocolate-drizzled crust. "But - excuse me. What exactly do you mean by 'change course'?"

"I'd rather not talk about it." If that's possible.

"Oh," Bitty says. "Of course. Sorry." He darts a look sideways to Lardo, as if for help, but she's studying her canvas, tongue sticking out the side of her mouth. As Jack watches Bitty watch her, she narrows her eyes at it suspiciously and tries another swipe of color. "So…" Bitty says. "Did you catch the Pats game the other night?"

Jack makes a face. "I don't follow football."

"And Bitty doesn't root for the Patriots." Lardo's eyes don't leave the blue and purple paint that she's now mixing with a small, blunt knife.

"Well," Bitty says. "I'm not gonna try to start a conversation about the Falcons in Boston."

"It'd be like asking about the Habs down here," Jack agrees. Bitty looks at him curiously, then, but thankfully doesn't follow up the look with any questions.

_X_

At the end of October, Jack walks into Annie's and headfirst into a swag of brilliant green tinsel. He looks around and sees more tinsel swinging in uneven loops from one side of the ceiling to the other and back, giant fuzzy glittering purple spiders climbing up the wall and over the bakery case, and behind him, in the window, a pair of clockwork man-like contraptions with pumpkins for heads.

"Wow," he says, sinking down automatically into his now-usual seat next to Bitty and Lardo.

"I know, right?" Bitty says. "'swawesome decorations."

"I'm so impressed," Jack agrees. He steals a bite of pie from the plate that's sitting unguarded in front of Bitty.

"I think they're okay," Lardo puts in, and Jack almost chokes on his pie. It would be a real pity if he had, a desecration of the pumpkin pie that has an almost cream-like texture and a more mellow flavor than he's used to.

"You don't like them?" he asks, when he recovers.

"She made them for us," Bitty explains. "Annie wanted a change of scenery. And I, for one, am very thankful, no matter how creepy they are," and now Jack can make sense of the smirk that's been lurking at the edge of Lardo's expression. She gives up on suppressing it, then, and she and Bitty bump fists.

"Ah. Okay."

"So," Bitty says. "Do either of you two have plans for Halloween?"

"As if," Lardo says. "My costume is 'swawesome, but I don't know any place worthy of it."

"I was thinking of staying home to give out candy," Jack says. "But my apartment building's mostly grad students. I don't think there'll be many kids."

"What are you, ninety?" Lardo asks. "Give up on the kids, anyway."

But - "That's perfect," Bitty says, leaning forward with the telltale gleam of enthusiasm bright in his eye. "Not your lack of plans, no offense, guys. But because y'all are definitely both coming to my friend Adam's Halloween party."

"I'm in," Lardo says.

"And especially you, Jack. I know you'd probably be working like always, but that's exactly why I think you need to try just loosening up for once. A party would do you good."

"Okay," Jack says. He can't think of a reason, at that moment, to refuse.

_X_

Only later do several problems with this plan occur to him:

First, he doesn't have an appropriate costume. Last time he dressed as Leo Major, no one even recognized the name after he told them who he was supposed to be. He needs something better, but he doesn't know what.

Second… it's a college party. There will be drinks. He's been avoiding parties for the last decade or so of his life, and he's not sure what temporary loss of grip on reality made him think he should go to this one.

(Oh, yes, he is.)

Which brings him to the third and last problem. Which isn't one, actually. Since Bitty didn't intend this to be a date, which he didn't, that's obvious from the way that he invited Jack and Lardo together and equally. It's not a date, it's nothing like one, so that's a problem avoided, there, because Jack's even worse at dating than he is at parties. And he wouldn't want to be on a date with Bitty even if he could.

#a: my fic #zimbits #zimbits fic #omgcheckplease #mults fic #anyway i... hope people like it... i worked so hard on this otl

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gentle--riot · 7 years

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writer questions!

Since I am but a little bitty baby blog and my brain doesn’t feel like coming up with something original tonight, I’m gonna do this long af list of writer questions:

1. Right- or left-handed?

I’m technically ambidextrous, but I prefer the right.

2. Pencil or keyboard?

I use both at different times and for different projects. Planning is almost always done on paper, but I do the bulk of my writing on my computer.

3. Favorite genre to write in?

As a general rule, I write realistic romantic fiction, though I have ideas that branch through several other genres.

4. Least favorite genre to write in?

I don’t do sci-fi well, I don’t think.

5. When did you start writing?

I wrote my first story when I was 6, and I pretty much just kept writing stories.

6. What was your first story about?

It was about a boy named Sky Racer who liked a girl in his class, and everyone made fun of him for liking a girl. Her name was Lacy Daffodil.

7. How do you plan/outline your stories?

I’m planning on doing a full post about this, but I’ll give you the short version. I can create magnificent outlines, but I often struggle to stick to them. I still need a plan, though, so I make a list of things that need to happen and then set them in order and write them.

8. Where do you get story inspiration from?

I’m planning a full post about this, too, but generally the shower or from watching tv. I’ll hear a cool name and see a cool thing that a person does, and then I’ll put those together, create a full character, and send them on adventures.

9. Would you ever write fanfiction?

I love fanfiction, actually. I’m currently finishing my first one! I’ve read some gorgeous fanfictions as well as some horrible ones, the same as with every other genre of fiction.

10. Have you ever gotten a story/idea from a dream?

I haven’t! My dreams are generally such a mix of trivial and bizarre that it seems silly to write a story from them.

11. Who is/are your favorite writer(s)?

I’m a huge fan of the classics, though I think Austen is a little overrated *dodges the incoming projectiles*. I love Hemingway’s short stories, every single Bronte, Shakespeare’s poetry, Dickens, Dickinson, Neruda, and e.e. cummings. I also really love children’s poetry books. I adore Shel Silverstein.

12. What is your favorite book?

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte :)

13. Have you ever had fanart drawn of one of your original creations?

I don’t think I have! I don’t have much I’ve shared, though, so I feel like it’s maybe only a matter of time.

14. At which time of day do you write best?

I like late afternoon and nighttime.

15. What are your writing strengths?

I’ve been told that I have a distinctive voice -- that my own distinctive way of putting words together can be felt across academic, blogging, fiction, and even poetry. I’m also pretty good at writing emotional scenes and kissing.

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

I’m REALLY bad at dialogue by nature, but I’m getting better. I also struggle with sort of... not skirting the big things that need to be addressed.

17. Have you ever submitted your manuscript to a publisher?

I have not.

18. Have you finished a novel?

Sort of. I set out to write a novel, but it turned out to be the length of a novella instead.

19. What is your highest word-count?

The project I’m finishing for Camp NaNoWriMo, Tied, is nearly 80,000 words long, and it’s my longest project.

20. What is/are your favorite word(s) to use in writing?

As a fandom in-joke, I like to use #soon in my fics, and I really dig the phrase “endlessly and entirely”, so I have to work really hard to not use it constantly.

21. Who is your favorite character that you’ve created?

My main character, Chessa Barrow, from my novel 18 Years.

22. What are some of the main themes in your writing?

Disability empowerment is a big theme throughout my work. I also emphasize imperfections and universal acceptance.

23. Have you ever been critiqued by a professional?

Only by my professor in college, who was published. He would often tell me that I am a gifted writer and have a distinctive, inimitable way with language. That kept me writing, because he doesn’t just hand out compliments.

24. Have you taken writing courses?

I did! I took exactly one. Before I changed my college major from English to counseling psychology, I took a course in creative fiction.

25. How would you describe a good writer?

I don’t like this question. A good writer, in my humble opinion, has educated themself about writing and been diligent enough to make their work readable and enjoyable. I truly don’t feel the need to go further than that for the simple reason that... I have no authority here.

26. What are you planning to write in the future?

IT’S A REALLY LONG LIST: a fairy tale trilogy, a fanfic about knights and wizards and stuff, a story with angels and demons and swords, another fanfic where Kevin is president and Avi is vice president, and... I know there are more, but I don’t have my list closeby.

27.What advice do you have for aspiring writers?

Keep aspiring. Keep doing your best to make the best work you can make.

28. What is the last sentence you wrote?

It was a sad song, but it was still a song.

29. What is your favorite quote from a story you’ve written?

“I swear to Ina Garten, if this is a dream, I’m suing my subconscious.”

30. What is the title of the last story you were writing?

Tied

31. Have/would you self-publish?

I plan on self-publishing.

32. What is the longest amount of time you’ve gone without writing?

I probably took two years off of doing fiction when I was finishing my psych degree.

33. Have you ever written a Mary Sue/Gary Stu?

I actually have a story called “moments ♡” where the main characters do not have distinguishing features, and I often put myself in the girl’s position, though she is not perfect, and I sure as heck don’t want her man.

34. What made you want to start writing?

Well, I don’t remember why I started making up stories as a kid, but as an adult, I had an accident in my wheelchair where I was seriously injured. I had a conversation with Avi Kaplan’s mom, Shelly (I like her more than Avi), and she told me that I must be full of stories.

I took up writing full-time shortly thereafter.

35. Have you ever turned real-life people into characters?

Yes. Often. I do generally change them a little bit, but in my upcoming trilogy, many of my friends make appearances :)

36. Describe your protagonist in three words:

Brave. Sassy. Strong.

37. Describe your antagonist in three words:

Bigoted. Douchey. Argumentative.

38. Do you know anyone else who writes?

I do! Many of my online friends are writers, and most of my interaction is online ;)

39. What’s you favorite writing snack/drink?

I love puff corn and Faygo cola more than most family members.

40. Have you ever made a cover for your story?

Yes. I have several works on Wattpad or ones that are going there, and I have made all the covers myself.

41. Would you ever consider being a ghostwriter?

I would if I needed the work.

42. Has your writing won any competitions?

Yep! I won several essay and poetry competitions in high school.

43. Has your writing ever made anyone cry?

It’s a recurring theme, I’m afraid.

44. Do you share your writing with your friends/family?

I do! I use Wattpad to share fanfiction with whoever wants to see on Wattpad, and two of my friends are reading chapters of my novel as I finish them.

45. What are some of the heavier topics you’ve written about?

What haven’t I covered? Emotional, physical, and sexual abuse, anxiety, ableism, sexism, self-harm, illicit drug use, alcohol abuse, death of loved ones... I haven’t written on suicide, but that doesn’t mean I won’t.

46. Do you prefer happy or sad endings?

I’m a firm believer in happily ever after :)

47. What is a line of your writing that sounds weird out of context?

“I don’t think I would like an ass salad.”

48. What is a first line from one of your stories that you really enjoy?

“I am a badass.” from my novel, 18 Years.

49. How diverse/well-represented are your characters?

Oh boy! My fics are inherently diverse considering how diverse the subject of them is. My novel is already very diverse and growing more diverse by the day :)

50. Have you ever written about a country you’ve never been in?

I tried when I was a teenager, but it didn’t go well.

51. Have you ever written a LGBTQIA+ character who wasn’t lesbian/gay?

Yes! The protagonist in my novel is demisexual, and one of her closest friends is a nonbinary pansexual.

52. Has your work ever been compared to famous writers/works?

Yep! I have been called the next J.K. Rowling just because of who I am as a person, but my work has been compared to John Green on a few ocasions.

53. What are three of the best character names you’ve come up with?

Chesapeake Dawne Barrow, Jack Everett Mason, Jesse Oliver Hamlin

54. Has a single event in your life ever sparked a story idea/character?

Well, one of my best friends likes to call me a badass because I am in constant pain, but I keep living. I don’t see myself as a badass at all, so I decided to write a character living with my issues who is a badass... and Chessa was born.

55. Do you believe in writer’s block?

Not necessarily. I believe we can get into a creative funk and struggle to get ideas out, but if you plan well and take care of your mental health, that doesn’t happen so often.

56. How do you get rid of writer’s block?

I just take in art. I’m a big fan of contemporary dance, so I like to watch some Travis Wall choreography when I’m feeling blank.

57. Do you prefer realistic or non-realistic (paranormal, fantasy, etc.) writing?

I’m more realistic, though I do enjoy more non-realistic things.

58. Which of your characters would you (A) Hug? (B) Date? (C) Kill?

I’d hug Chessa from 18 Years, date Kevin from Tied, and kill Nate from Tied.

59. Have you ever killed off a favorite character?

I’ve never killed off a character. I’m too soft :(

60. How did you kill off a character in a previous story?

^^^

61. What’s the most tragic backstory you’ve given a character?

*if you’re interested in reading Tied, don’t read this* My love interest was molested by her father, and then she was in a very abusive relationship in college. I’m not telling more. Bye.

62. Do you enjoy writing happy or sad scenes more?

HAPPY. I love happy scenes. I wrote about a week of sad ones, and my anxiety yelled at me all week.

63. What’s the best feedback you’ve ever gotten on a story?

“You went there. Gorgeously.”

64. What is the weirdest Google search you’ve conducted for a story?

“hairless dog breeds”

65. Have you ever lost sleep over a character?

Yep.

66. Have you ever written a sex scene?

Yep! *runs away demisexually*

67. What do you love and hate about your protagonist?

I love her passion. I hate her fighting to not feel things in her personal life.

68. Have you ever written a chapter that mentally and physically drained you?

Yes! This month!

69. Do your parents/family approve of you being a writer?

The opinions tend to be quite mixed.

70. Write a story in six words or less.

She was happy. It mattered.

#writer #writeblr #do this #please #fiction #writelr #author #questions #tag #writer questions #ideas #novelist

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