soholsom

[soholsom]

to be myself again

Because people seemed interested after this snippet version, the parts that were actually written of the Nurseydex post-canon where Dex inherits a house back in Maine.

Dex

Dex stared at the letter, then squinted suspiciously at the letterhead. If this was some elaborate joke, someone was certainly going out of their way with it, because that was definitely the local law firm his family used. Even so, he still looked their phone number up on Google instead of trusting the one on the letter.

Ten minutes later, he lowered the phone and stared at the letter again. He had a house. His great-aunt Dorothea had left him her house.

Still at a loss, he called his mother.

“Was she ill? I didn’t know, no one told me, I could have come up…”

“No, sweetheart, she was just old. It was her time.”

“Did they… did they already have the funeral?”

“Well now,” and here his mother sounded distinctly uncomfortable, “she didn’t really want one. You know how she was about religion. Her instructions said to cremate her and scatter her ashes at sea.”

Of course that’s what she would have wanted. He blinked a few times, then cleared his throat. “Have they done it yet? Dad and them?”

“No, not yet. The season’s been real busy…”

“No, that’s fine, that’s good. I want to be there. I know,” he paused to clear his throat again, “I know what she would want from Beatrice’s garden. They told me.”

“Of course, honey. I’ll tell them to wait.”

“I’ll be there this weekend.”

Keep reading

#nurseydex #hell yeah #I’m so glad we got more! #even though it just made me want more more

[soholsom]

“this can’t be love”, Nursey/Dex, OMGCP, for @gayowulf

This is a snippet of a speedrun edition of a very long fic that lives in my head and is probably never going to get fully written the way I intended, in which Dex inherits a house from his great-aunt several years after graduation.

I can’t WRITE here, Nursey texted the group chat in extreme frustration. He’d been trying not to complain, because his parents were basically giving a free sabbatical year to work on his book while they were working overseas (again) and he didn’t want to seem ungrateful, but it’d been a week since he produced real words and he was starting to go out of his mind.

Chowder: Oh no! You can do it!!!

Bitty: Do you need inspirational baked goods? What kind of theme are you going for? I can pop a box in the mail to you tomorrow!

Jack: *link to an internet-blocking timer app*

He sighed and tossed the phone on the couch before he could find out what kind of spreadsheet solution Ransom & Holster would come up with. At least they all cared.

His phone buzzed again and he picked it up, frowning at lack of obvious new message in the chat until he realized it was a text direct from Dex. An address in Maine, nothing else.

Nurse: ???

Dex: You can’t write because your place is too empty and quiet. I have a guest room. I can guarantee it won’t be too quiet here. Obvious solution.

Nurse: Weren’t you living in Boston tho???

Dex: Long story, tl;dr now I live in Maine again.

Dex: Are you coming or not?

Nurse: Do you mean it?

He regretted that last text as soon as he sent it. After all these years, he knew full well Dex didn’t make offers like this unless he meant them. But he did also remember the last time they’d tried living in the same place. Dex’s response made it clear he knew exactly where Nursey’s thoughts had gone.

Dex: It’s not like we’d be living in the same room, and I’m definitely not putting my life on hold to host you or whatever. You can just come for the weekend and see if it helps.

Nurse: Okay.

Nursey sat on the couch staring at Dex’s final thumbs up emoji for a while, wondering what just happened.

~*~*~

(Further things I know about this fic: Dex quit his soulless corporate IT job when he inherited the house. He ends up with a bunch of random odd jobs around town: handyman on call through his uncles’ repair shop, bartender at the bar now owned by a high school friend, unofficial after-school tutor for half the neighborhood kids in his kitchen/dining room. The room Nursey is using was the guest room and then more permanent bedroom of Dex’s great-aunt’s Boston marriage partner after her health declined, and is full of her garden journals, giving him a lot of feelings about really noticing the passage of time and seasons. Nursey stays a lot longer than a weekend, and the suggested title line comes into play when he looks around and realizes that Dex doing very concrete and practical things for the people in his life is how he shows he cares.)

#no one writes nurseydex like rhysiana #this sounds lovely #nurseydex

[soholsom]

Something that’s so funny to as a concept is that Jack, Chowder, Dex, and Whiskey all going to the NHL and reaching NHL stardom but and so they do a joint little interview segment, and Chowder is going on and on about how much Jack was a great captain, and so the moderator asks “I guess Jack was your best cattain in college, huh?”

And Chowder just immediately goes “Oh no Bitty was much better” and the moderator does a spit take

Dex is like “Bitty had a certain air about him when he was captain. He was commanding, but understanding and really lived up to the whole ‘Got your back.’ …also, not gonna lie, it was kinda hot”

Whiskey just stares for a minute and goes “Jack was a great captain and did really good by the team.” [A pause] “But Bitty didn’t make us wake up for practice at 5am even for optional skate”

Jack is just looking at them all with a giant smile on his face and trying not to laugh as the other three chirp him

[soholsom]

jack: as I was telling the guys it’s just superficial, really, it wasn’t that hard of a check, I know the bruise looks scary and it’s really sore, but I was able to play through it, I’m totally fine.

bitty: aw. do you want me to kiss it better?

jack: yeah okay :(

[soholsom]

i think the absolute funniest thing ever would be if before bitty even got to samwell, holster, ransom, and shitty started the trend of cellying in just the most extreme homoerotic ways they could pull off as kind of a fuck you to the toxic masculinity in hockey. and bitty shows up and after that first goal holster skates up and just full frontal kisses him on the lips. and then later bitty has to explain when coming out to shitty that no, holster was NOT the one to make him realize he was gay. but holster has to explain to ransom that yes, bitty was the one to make him realize he was bi.

[soholsom]

listen, bitty living in one of those fancy apartment buildings in providence after having published two successful books and he’s trying to sleep one night and he can’t because of the footsteps and the baby crying upstairs and unlike other nights it just won’t stop. so he puts on the nearest slippers and get upstairs and knocks on the door and this dad replies, tall, with a five-day beard and dark circles for ages, with a tiny yelling baby in his arms, and he’s kind of pissed off but also profusely apologizing for the noise when bitty asks “do you need a hand?”

later on jack will think he has hallucinated the angel that comes in in his apartment that night to relieve him of éléonore for a few minutes while he’s able to prepare her bottle and change his tee-shirt and he’s not fully keen on going to shower even if he stinks a little because he doesn’t want her to leave his sight too much, but when he comes back to the living room, the stranger is standing (élé hates to sit down, hence the walking around) babbling at her, and she’s finally quiet. not to disturb her too much, the stranger accepts to bottlefeed her, and then they put her back into her cot and she falls asleep peacefully.

in the morning, bitty gets a note under his door, because jack had been so sleep-deprived that he forgot to ask his name. 

[soholsom]

saw this wedding photographer’s post about a group of groomsmen who insisted on doing a first look photo shoot with the groom and honestly? big smh vibes

[soholsom]

He brushes two fingers gently across the sunburn on Jack’s cheek. Feels the skin heat beneath his fingers as the pink darkens. He looks at Jack, says, “You shoulda put on more sunscreen when I told you to.”

He means I love you.

Jack lifts Bitty’s hand off his cheek, and presses a kiss to the tips of those two fingers. Clasps the hand in his own, and pulls them to rest over his heart.

“I’ll listen to you next, time, ok?”

Bitty wonders if that means I love you too.

He looks at the way Jack’s eyes are looking at him, soft, and sparkling in the afternoon sun.

It might.

[soholsom]

I love zimbits baby fics, but I also kind of feel like they could be that couple who gets married, and is like “Oh we love kids, of course we’re going to have kids!” And then just…don’t take any steps towards making that happen.

And their friends start having kids and they love playing uncle, and they’re still planning to have kids, but they’re busy, and they’re happy as is, and it isn’t the right time and–

And then Jack retires and he and Bitty are in their 40s, and they’re still like “Of course we’re gonna have kids, it’ll happen when it happens!” Except a baby isn’t just going to happen to them the way it did to their friends.

But then Jack is coaching at some summer sports camp and meets a 13 year old girl who is thrilled to be there, and her 10 year old brother who would rather be anywhere else, and they take a liking to Jack. And then circumstances change, and suddenly Jack and Bitty find themselves as the guardians of a teen girl and her little brother, and it’s 10 years late, and not how they originally planned, but it feels right.

[soholsom]

bitty trails his index finger over jack’s pec. that body, lord. that body kept him awake all night and he’s not even mad. he’s got a medal to win today and he’s going to do it.

“so, what sport do you play again?” he asks.

jack smirks. “guess.”

all right, then. “with that ass and those thighs? I’d guess hockey.”

jack’s smile widens. “wrong.”

“uh, snowboarding?”

“nope.”

“oh!” bitty gasps. “cross-country skiing, of course.”

“... nope.”

bitty stares. “all right, I give up,” he says, nudging jack’s bare shoulder with his head.

jack chuckles. “it’s curling.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

it’s just... that body? for curling? a bit of an overkill right?

“uh, you don’t have to take that tone. curling has been a part of the olympics since 1998 and canada is leading with 6 gold medals, the most impressive win being—”

#zimbits #olympics au

[soholsom]

Holster goes into Samwell thinking he’s gonna hate Jack because Jack’s soooo talented at hockey and soooo well connected and soooo rich but he actually hates Jack because Holster mentioned SNL and Jack was like “Oh. Is that … a class”

[soholsom]

bodyswap zimbits au where jack gets to experience how scary it is to be checked into the boards being the smallest on the ice while bitty spends the whole day staring at his ass in the mirror 

[soholsom]

journalist: my question is for jack zimmermann. does being in a gay relationship ever affect your play?

jack: why would it?

journalist: I mean, being in a sexual gay relationship.

jack: I don’t know. does having a sore right hand all the time affect your job as a journalist? it’s a lot of writing.

*cold silence*

tater, leaning into the mike: I know question not for me but I’m have butt and girlfriend and I’m feel just fine.

[soholsom]

holster rly was just like......hey rans ur the smartest person i know and i think u could change the world for the better if you wanted to.....and rans rly was just like.....hey holster i don't know about that, all i know is that i'd rather spend my time with you and figure the rest out by your side......and i'm supposed to feel NORMAL about it?

[soholsom]

bitty is having a pretty normal day at work until he notices that cute dad is back again, sitting in one of the armchairs in the corner of the bakery. and of course, along with cute dad, the cutest three-year-old on earth, with her eternally messy black hair, huge blue eyes, little jeans and well-worn sneakers. 

he can’t stare too much, because that’s not very polite and beside, he’s got actual work to do, so he goes on about his day until he steps in front of the counter to fetch some dirty dishes, and nearly collides with the little lady.

she’s holding a colorful book – the one they were reading earlier, snuggled in the armchair. she looks up at him, expectantly, and then back at her dad. cute dad just nods, and points his chin at bitty, encouraging her.

when she looks back at bitty, she raises her book, and mumbles something quietly and in french, too fast for bitty to quite understand.

“that’s a nice book!” he tells her, leaning in a bit.

she looks back at her dad, who raises his voice for them to hear at this end of the bakery, “en anglais, ma puce, in english.”

she then precariously lifts the book over her head, as high as it will go, showing bitty the cover that depicts a knight on a horse, with short, blonde hair. 

“you?” she asks.

bitty gasps. it does look like him. “oh my, you’ve guessed my little secret, haven’t you?!”

[soholsom]

What if since meeting your soulmate is the best thing to happen to you, they get teleported to the site of the worst thing that’s happened to you?

or: my take on this AU by @shitty-check-please-aus

Jack skates through the crowd of his teammates who are currently mobbing the small blonde freshman who brought pie of all things into his practice.  He’s kind of intending to ask the kid what the hell he thinks he’s doing feeding these guys before they have to go run drills, anyway.  Like seriously, does he want a rink full of projectile-vomiting jocks?  Cuz that’s an ugly scene that he does not want to explain to the ice crew.  But he’s the captain, and so when guys on his team act like morons, Jack is always the one who has to go apologize on behalf of the Samwell Men’s Hockey Team.

He’s more than ready to lay into the new guy, but when the crowd parts, and new guy looks up, he smiles this nervous little smile and says,

“Hi!  I’m Eric -” and then everything goes black.  

Coach Bittle got into the habit of always checking the janitor’s closet on his way out of the building every night.  After what happened to Junior, he ended up just sort of gravitating there.  The first time he’d had the urge to check inside, he’d ignored it and spent the rest of the night tossing and turning, imagining a tiny freshman, plopped on a bucket and crying their eyes out.  When the custodian showed up at 5, Coach was already waiting in his truck with a cup of coffee.  Now he just gives in.  Figures that as far as compulsive, guilty urges go, it’s not that bad.  Only takes him another minute out of his way, and now he goes home and sleeps like a baby.

Luckily, depite making it part of his nightly routine for the past few years, nobody’s actually been locked in there.  Well.  Locked in.  There were certainly a few encounters he interrupted.  Those times he was delayed more than a minute having to make uncomfortable phone calls to parents.  

The first and only time that Coach Bittle rescues someone from the janitor’s closet is actually not even during the school year, and he isn’t actually checking for anyone.  He’d just come in to do some paperwork for preseason and spilled coffee on his desk, and when he goes to get the actually absorbent paper towels from the closet, he finds a very large, very confused man in full hockey gear.

“AHHHH!” They both scream and jolt back, Coach stumbling and catching himself on the drinking foundtain, the large hockey man, being not so lucky and still wearing skates, sits in a mop bucket.  His only solace seems to be that it’s currently empty.

“What in the sam hell!?” Coach yells, regaining his footing.  Hockey man flinches and his eyes dart around like a cornered racoon.

“Where am I?” he chokes out.  “What’s - what’s going on?”  He looks up and meets Coach’s eyes.  Coach looks down at hockey man’s jersey.  Samwell Men’s Hockey.  And he is not a stupid man by any stretch of the imagination, so it takes only a few stunned seconds to realize that this must me Junior’s soulmate.  Why else would one of his teammates have been catapulted down to Georgia?

“You’re in Madison, Georgia, son.  Looks like you just met your soulmate.”

“My - but I - I was at practice?”  Hockey man looks up at him, and from way down there, looking so goddamn confused, he finally looks young enough to be playing with Dicky’s team.

“And now you’re here.  So what does that tell you?”  Coach raises an eyebrow.

“That…I…met my soulmate?”

“Sounds about right.  Also sounds like you probably need to be getting on your way back, don’t it?”

“Um, yes.  That would be.  I should.  Um.  Go.”

“Might want to start with taking off the skates first.”

“Oh, I.  Yes.”  Hockey man awkwardly lifts his legs one by one and scrunches up to untie his laces.  Coach helps him pull the skates off, and then offers a hand up out of the bucket.

“Thank you, sir.”

“No trouble.”

“Jack Zimmermann,” he introduces himself and holds his hand out to shake.  “Nice to meet you.”

“Eric Bittle Senior,” Coach tells him, trying not to feel a little pleased when the boy’s face goes pale in recognition.  “Come on, I’ll give you a ride back where y’all belong.”

“But I - That’s Massachusetts.”

“I know what I said.  Hussle, you’ve got another practice tomorrow mornin’ I bet.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then we oughtta hope traffic’s on our side.”

Meanwhile, Bob Zimmermann nearly cuts his ear off shaving when he hears a loud thump followed by a sqeuak behind him.  He turns to find a strange young man in a Samwell Men’s Hockey jersey sprawled across his bathroom floor, clutching a pecan pie to his chest.

“Chrisse!” He yells, razor clattering to the sink.  He manages to catch his towel before it falls, luckily, but his yelling seems to have startled the poor kid even more.  He’s shaking a little as he sets the pie down gently and sits up. The blades of his skates clink against the tile.

“I - Um - Oh dear, I am so sorry!  I don’t - I don’t know what happened!  I was at practice and then - I mean - I’ll just be going.”

“Non!”  Bob rushes to assure the boy it’s fine, but when he steps forward, it startles him all over again.  Clearing his throat, Bob steps back and switches to English.  “I mean, there’s no need to apologize.  I know why you’re here, I just - wasn’t expecting you at this particular moment.”

“You…were expecting me?”

“Well…not you exactly, but…the…concept? of you?  Jack’s soulmate.  We - His mother and I, we knew when he met them, they would show up here.”

“Oh…I…guess that makes sense?”

“I’m sorry we had to meet like this.  I feel terribly underdressed.”  The boy stares at him blankly until Bob cracks a smile.  Then, he breaks out into loud pleals of laughter.  His eyes are a warm brown and crinkle at the corners, his nose scrunches.  He looks like such a happy person.  Maybe happy enough that some of it will rub off on Jack.

Hockey boy stands up and shakes the hand that isn’t holding Bob’s towel up.  “Eric Bittle, pleasure to meet you.”

“Bob Zimmermann, nice to meet you too.”  Another good (although strange, very strange) sign: there isn’t a trace of recognition in the boy’s face at hearing the name “Bob Zimmermann”.  Of course Jack’s soulmate would be the only hockey player alive who had no clue who the fuck his father is.  

Eric hobbles out of the bathroom and sits against the wall in the hallway to take his skates off before making his way downstairs to the kitchen where Bob had said his wife Alicia was probably hanging out.  Sure enough, when he found the (gorgeous.  stunning.  drool-worthy.) kitchen, there was a  tall, blonde woman sitting cross-legged on one of the barstools, a cup of coffee in one hand and the other propping open a book.

“Hello,” he announces himself quietly.  She’s still startled, though not nearly as much as her husband had been.  When she turns and gets a look at him, she puts the coffee down and lets the pages of the book flop freely, unfolding herself from the seat.

“Hello.  You must be…”

“Eric.  Eric Bittle.”

“Right.  And -”

“Jack’s soulmate.  Yes ma’am, it would seem so.”  He smiles timidly, and is most definitely not expecting to be enveloped in a hug.

“It’s so nice to meet you.”

“The pleasure’s all mine, Mrs. Zimmermann.”

“Well,” Alicia steps back and puts her hands on her hips, regarding Eric with a motherly smile.  “Can I get you a cup of coffee while we wait for Bob?”

Jack and Coach switch drivers every state.  Coach insists that each time, they take a photo in front of the Welcome sign.  Jack snaps a few pictures on his phone when he’s in the passenger seat.  When it’s his turn to drive, he tries to educate Coach on the finer points of hockey and the top NCAA teams, and Coach in turn tries to explain how the hell football works.

The Zimmermanns put Eric on a plane back to Massachusetts that night with his hockey gear stuffed in a duffel and wearing the least obviously early 2000s clothes they could find in Jack’s old dresser.  

“We wish we could go with you,” Alicia tells him, seeming genuinely sad to be sending him off alone.

“But Jack probably wouldn’t appreciate…intruding.  He likes to keep his life at school seperate from his life back home, you know?”  

“Of course, don’t worry a bit.  It was so nice meeting y’all.”

When the airport shuttle leaves Eric in front of his dorm, he’s exhausted from the trip and starting to stress out about seeing Jack.  His soulmate.  Who he’d barely seen in the first place, only a quick impression of tall and eyes before he’d been wormholed to Montreal.  He thinks he has to be seeing things when he first catches sight of his father’s old blue truck pulled up against the curb.  

He shakes himself and starts for the building, but from behind him, Coach’s voice calls,

“Dicky!  Er- Eric!”  Eric’s head spins a little with how fast he turns around.  Because there’s no way.  His dad hadn’t been able to get away from preseason long enough to drive Eric up to school in the first place.  There’s no way he’s - But the there’s Jack, sliding out of the passenger seat.  Because Coach had driven him.  All the way from Georgia.  Because he’s Eric’s soulmate.  Coach is hand-delivering the love of Eric’s life and he just…cannot with this day anymore.

So he focuses on the one tiny part that he can wrap his travel-weary brain around.  He walks up to Jack, who’s watching him raptly, eyes darting everywhere like he’s trying to make sure he memorizes everything before he disappears again, and says,

“I don’t think we managed to introduce ourselves properly last time.”

Jack laughs.

[soholsom]

They are definitely like “peace out”. That’s what grandparents are for.

okay but it becomes a tradition, right? jack will be 32 and bitty will be 27 and a cousin’s wife will ask suzanne just before the fireworks start if it’s true that jack zimmermann comes here for the 4th and could she be introduced? and suzanne will sigh and reply that they took the truck and went out, knowing full well that her son is off somewhere getting involved in a field