Being a casual drug user's best friend is the opposite of going to meetings.

"Dude," said Holster, his eyes huge, "that's so sad. We gotta get them together." "This isn't a romcom, Holtzy, " Ransom said, patting his arm. "I'm sure that's not what Shitty had in mind." "Actually," said Shitty, "that's exactly what I had in mind. And I've got a plan."

There are many things on Jack's mind. Namely: hockey, hockey, Bitty, hockey, anxiety, hockey, hockey, anxiety, Bitty, hockey, hockey, anxiety, and hockey.

Bitty comes out to his dad, comes back from the summer, is afraid of being on the rink, and thinks that tabloids need to fucking stop. Jack comes back from summer break to a slightly different Bitty, new stupid feelings, and thinks that the tabloids need to fucking stop. Shitty is an understanding friend and will honest to God burn down every tabloid office in the United States (and Canada) if it meant that Bitty and Jack could have some fucking peace, ya feel? Chowder doesn't really get what's going on and isn't really sure if he wants to know (?) but he does know that the captain and his favorite pie maker have something that definitely needs fixing. Lardo knows exactly what's going on, hates the tabloids on principle, and believes that her hockey team deserves to be happy.

Bitty comes out to Johnson in the Haus kitchen after baking four pies in a row. Bitty bakes when he’s nervous, but he also bakes when he’s happy, when he’s tired, when he’s irritated, and when it’s Tuesday, so it’s hard to draw conclusions. Unless you peeked ahead to the last panel first to check for cliffhangers, but Johnson would never do that.

Eric’s never had a postgame breakdown of sex before, but he’s not particularly surprised when, before they’ve even caught their breath, Jack says, “Tell me how I can do better.”

“BRO!” Bitty glances up from the kitchen - that’s a new voice - just in time to see Shitty fling himself across the room at a tall brunette girl. “Hils! Fucking shit, man, so great to see you! You didn’t say you were coming!” OR: The one in which Hilary Knight is Shitty's big sister.

Bitty uses emojis like a second language, one that Jack's slowly starting to become fluent in.

Settling his grip just above the muted curve of Bitty's hips, Jack squeezes. "Better." Bitty coughs out a laugh. "Glad you're satisfied." "Almost satisfied," Jack says. "I still have my shirt and socks on." "Good," Bitty says, and he leans to press them together, forehead to forehead, chest to chest with only cotton worn thin between them. "I like you like this. It's cute."

Bitty's maple-sugar baking experiment goes even better than he planned: a 'swawesome afternoon at the Haus. (Bitty thinks about letting go of Jack, but then he asks himself what Beyoncé would do. She would not, he decides, back down.)

"Bits, you live tweeting this?" Shitty asks.

Jack opens a door he hasn't walked through in a long time. Bitty holds his hand.

A chirp (and not even a very good one) leads to coming out to his teammates.

Settling his grip just above the muted curve of Bitty's hips, Jack squeezes. "Better." Bitty coughs out a laugh. "Glad you're satisfied." "Almost satisfied," Jack says. "I still have my shirt and socks on." "Good," Bitty says, and he leans to press them together, forehead to forehead, chest to chest with only cotton worn thin between them. "I like you like this. It's cute."

Bitty glances up from the kitchen - that’s a new voice - just in time to see Shitty fling himself across the room at a tall brunette girl. “Hils! Fucking shit, man, so great to see you! You didn’t say you were coming!” OR: The one in which Hilary Knight is Shitty's big sister.

“BRO!” Bitty glances up from the kitchen - that’s a new voice - just in time to see Shitty fling himself across the room at a tall brunette girl. “Hils! Fucking shit, man, so great to see you! You didn’t say you were coming!” OR: The one in which Hilary Knight is Shitty's big sister.

Left to his own devices, Jack wouldn’t ever choose texting as a form of communication.

Five times Jack Zimmermann came out of the closet.

A wicked smile slowly spreads across Kent’s face, and he turns to Jack. “What do you say, should I show your boy how to make you cry?”

Jack's just taking pictures whenever he sees something worth photographing, something that seems to fit what he's being told in class, about line and shape and color and beauty. It's like the camera knew before Jack did.

Long-distance relationships are rough, but it's nothing everybody's favorite tiny, southern, pie-baking hockey player can't handle. When Bitty’s phone rings, a reverent silence passes over the Haus. Dex and Nursey stop fighting over a video game controller; Chowder sticks his headphones into the laptop that’s streaming his Sharks game; even the oven that Bitty’s filled up with apple pies does not dare sound its high-pitched alarm.

A wicked smile slowly spreads across Kent’s face, and he turns to Jack. “What do you say, should I show your boy how to make you cry?”

“Shit, man, you’ve got your eye on someone? Who is it? Do I know her? What’s the hold up?” Shitty asks. Jack furrows his brow, confused. “Uh, what? Shitty, no, there’s no girl-” “A guy?” Shitty interrupts, clearly having entirely missed the point. Jack opens his mouth to point his out, but Shitty beats him to it. “Oh, shit. Bitty?”

Favors requested, favors rejected, the wrong people impressed, etc.

Good friends share. Lardo and Bitty are good friends.

Some further events of Hazeapalooza '14. Shitty wants Bitty to see that hazing can be fun even without sweaters and pie. Jack helps.

The empty nest sure is empty sometimes.

When Bittle first showed up at a meeting with management, sitting next to Sara with wide, scared eyes, Jack didn't think he had a chance in hell. Sara hired new assistants all the time, most of whom barely made it through a season.

Sometimes Bitty sleeps in Jack's bed. It's not a thing, until it is.

There are reasons he doesn't usually come down for the parties: people, mostly, and alcohol. But there's a reason he has, this time, and that reason made four dozen cookies earlier and is currently pressed up against his side.

“You don’t have to tell them it was me. I mean, you don’t have to do anything. I’ll stop leaving marks if you want me to. Just..." He lifts up Jack’s shirt and touches one of the hickeys. When he looks back up, his eyes have gone dark. “I really, really like it. Do you mind?”

"Okay," Eric says, "but you've got to be quiet, sweetheart. You know how thin these walls are."

The theory of extrapolative synchronization of the mirror neurons was debunked back when he was still in his teens, so Jack is reluctant to mention that he can smell Bitty's pies baking from across campus.

Eric’s never had a postgame breakdown of sex before, but he’s not particularly surprised when, before they’ve even caught their breath, Jack says, “Tell me how I can do better.”

Jack's just taking pictures whenever he sees something worth photographing, something that seems to fit what he's being told in class, about line and shape and color and beauty. It's like the camera knew before Jack did.

Jack has everything he's always wanted. Sort of.

Shitty Knight takes a post-graduation road trip. Four friends, six thousand miles, two tents, several embarrassing photos, a giant rabbit, three cops, and a bear.

No, Jack Zimmermann did not need or want a soulmate. And then this little shit came along.

When Bittle first showed up at a meeting with management, sitting next to Sara with wide, scared eyes, Jack didn't think he had a chance in hell. Sara hired new assistants all the time, most of whom barely made it through a season.

Jack has everything he's always wanted. Sort of.

The first time Sidney met Jack Zimmermann, it was mid July and he was sitting at the kitchen table of his parent’s house in Montreal. It wasn't until more than two years later that he realised Jack was in love with a boy called Eric. EDIT: extra chapter added 21/03/2017. Jack wins the cup, comes out, and Sid Reacts™

The grainy cellphone photo on the cover of the magazine is of his own back, his red Samwell t-shirt. He's got a forearm braced on the wall, his other hand holding the face of someone small and blond, mostly blocked from view, who has his hands on Jack's chest and a blue hoodie tied around his waist. Emblazoned across the bottom of the cover are the words IS JACK ZIMMERMANN GAY? and it feels like someone just punched him in the stomach.

Jack looks at her and then puts her luggage down and leans in, grabs her into a full-body hug, right there on the sidewalk, holding her so close. She can’t remember when he last hugged her this hard. “He told his parents. About being gay. About us,” he says into her shoulder. “They were awful.”

When Dan Erikson is assigned to write an article about Jack Zimmermann's years in college, he thinks he knows what he's getting into. Then he meets Professor Simpson, Jack's photography professor. [also known as: Good Guy Reporter Dan Erikson]

The ESPN hockey anchors take a cheap shot. Bitty takes one back.

Bitty is in Annie’s, bent over his textbooks and wondering, not for the first time, why he decided to take French as a language (oh yes, it’s because so many old recipes are written in French, he’s going abroad there to study food history, can’t wait for the summer; half of fall and then winter semester until he goes, but that doesn’t help him now does it) , when he hears someone clear their throat. “Excuse me, is this seat taken?” Oh boy. Eric doesn’t even bother lifting up his head. “Sorry, not a girl and not interested.”

Jack thought his first year in the NHL would be 100% about hockey, but the reality is so much more complicated. (AU where the Goodbye for the Summer comics didn’t happen, because I had already written 80K words of this. But just because it’s canon doesn’t mean we can’t still enjoy long, angsty, get-together stories, amirite?) Alternate summary, courtesy of Dracavia: What if Bad Bob didn't say anything at graduation?

Jack invites Bitty up for a visit while he's training in Toronto over the summer. To the utter surprise of nobody who's ever met him, Bitty spends a lot of time baking.

“Tater thinks I’m pretty,” Eric blurts out, and Jack chokes as he’s taking a sip of his drink. “Maybe wrong word,” Alexei tries, reaching out to squeeze Eric’s shoulder, “You handsome, but face is soft. Is nice face. Uh, you okay, Zimmboni?” “Yeah,” Jack coughs. His eyes are watering. “You’re right. Bitty is pretty.” “Is rhyme!” Alexei yells, excitedly, and offers his champagne bottle to Jack. “Drink for rhyme.”

This started with @whoacanada‘s wholly addictive NHL Bitty fics - one of which was an AU where Bitty didn’t go to the Seattle Schooners but the Pittsburgh Penguins. I hadn’t actually intended to write anything because (1) I don’t really write much these days and (2) I have weird, twitchy feelings about RPF (parts of which are completely hypocritical given I have read RPF before). If I had to attribute blame, though, it’s because of @itsybittle whose original reply was the one that made think of an actual story and sequence of events rather than just funny tags. In any case, here is a story about Eric Bittle and the Pittsburgh Penguins. I’m hoping you enjoy it and that none of the ‘you’ here involves anybody actually in this incredibly fictional (and no doubt out of character) depiction of real people (if it does, I apologise pre-emptively and would like to wish you luck in game 6!). PS. @itsybittle, hope you enjoy ;) PPS. yes, some of the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins mentioned are completely made up.