Chapter Text
Jack had not, particularly, wanted to see his boss today - he wanted to see his trainer, and then he wanted to see the back of his eyelids for half an hour on the nook couch before he had to go back to editing his calisse de marde prelim paper - but he smiled at George anyway. “Hey. What’s up?”
“Gotta job for you,” she said, coming over to lean against the wall next to him. “There’s an NCAA player we’re trying to convince to sign. I’ve met with him, but he’s not sure about the NHL in general. I want you to go convince him.”
Jack did not let himself groan audibly. “Are you sure I’m the right guy for this? My NCAA experience wasn’t typical at all, and plus I’m not the best schmoozer of the A’s.”
“I haven’t told you the best part yet,” she said cheerfully. “He plays for Samwell.”
Jack raised his eyebrows. “Really? That’s great.”
George rolled her eyes. “I swear, all you Wellies are obsessed with that place.”
“You literally have a tattoo of a gopher on your shoulder, but okay. What’s his name?”
“Roronoa,” she says, handing him a folder. “Zoro Roronoa. Go work your magic.”
***
The whole drive up to Samwell, Jack tried not to get too lost in his memories, and to focus on his actual job. This Roronoa kid seemed ok from the emails they had exchanged - a little terse, but he’s a hockey player, so what else is new. He’d watched some tape of their games this season, too, and understood exactly what George saw in him. Roronoa was a fucking wall on defense, and could clear paths for the forwards to score through pretty much anything. He had played for Japan’s U18 and U20 teams until he aged out, might be recruited for the next Olympic team according to the gossip. But he hadn’t put his name in for the draft when he was eligible, and didn’t even have a proper agent - George had been going through Hall to set things up with him. Maybe he wanted to go back to Japan, or maybe he was just done with hockey, but George didn’t seem to think so. So off Jack went to sell him on moving to Providence and playing for the Falcs.
The Haus was still a shithole, but Jack will admit he was pretty nostalgic about that shithole. He’d only been out of here for eight years; how did it feel so long ago? But that’s how time works when it comes to college teams, he guesses. As he climbed the structurally unsound steps, he smiled at the broken couch on it. That was the one Bitty had trash picked to replace “that possessed green monstrosity.” Apparently it, too, had become possessed and monstrous - or at least they had something better to sit on indoors.
When Jack knocked, the door didn’t swing open, which was probably a good sign. He waited a minute, then knocked again. “Coming!” someone yelled, and he heard stomping. When the door opened, he was met not by Roronoa, but by a guy about Tater’s size with an impressive blue pompadour. The blue haired guy blinked. “Bro,” he said. “Are you Jack Zimmermann?”
Luckily, Jack was pretty good at dealing with starstruck hockey players. “Hey,” he said. “Yeah, I’m here to meet with Zoro Roronoa?”
“What the fuck,” blue hair said. “When Mossy said he had ‘some NHL guy’ coming over he buried the fucking lede.” He stepped aside. “Come in! Uh, this is the team’s house?”
“I know,” Jack said. When blue hair looked more confused, he reached over and tapped his face on the 2014-15 team picture. “I used to live upstairs.”
Blue hair looked between the photo and Jack’s face in shock. “HOW did I not know you were a Wellie? That’s the most super thing I’ve heard this month. You still in touch with any of those guys?”
Jack, who fought about the dishes with one of them yesterday, just smiled. “Yeah, man. Anyway, I’ve watched some tape, but I don’t think I recognize you?”
The guy laughed. “Franky. Or, uh, it’s Cutty on the jersey. I’m the goalie. Can I get you, like…” he glanced at the kitchen. “Well, I know we have beer and Gatorade? And some Red Bull, but Cap’s gonna be weird if we drink his stash.”
“I’ll just have some water,” Jack said.
Franky disappeared into the kitchen, and reappeared with a surprising clean glass filled with ice cold water. “So, I’m sorry to be rude, but my girl just texted me - she’s stuck in the library trying to finish something up and needs me to run her some books and coffee. Mossy had a meeting with his advisor and said it was running late, so he should be back soon. Are you cool to just chill?”
“Sure,” Jack said.
“Super,” Franky said, and grabbed a tote bag with what looked like twenty pounds of books in it. “And, uh, like. You’re here to try to get Mossy to sign? Right?”
“Just to talk to him about his options. I know it’s a tough decision whether to sign with the NHL or not. If I can help him make that decision, I’d like to.”
“Cool, cool. Just, uh. He’s not always the most…personable guy? But he’s rock solid. So if he kinda comes across as a dick, maybe just, like…try not to let it completely tank his chances of signing with the Falcs?”
Jack laughed. “Don’t worry, I get it.”
“Super. Anyway. I gotta head out. But nice meeting you!”
Jack watched him go, and wondered if he was grabbing his phone to text his girlfriend or to scream on the group chat about meeting Jack Zimmermann. It was possible the entire team was about to descend. Jack glanced into the living room - the couch in here was cleaner than the outside one but it still kinda smelled like a kegster- and then wandered into the kitchen.
Eight years later, and he could still remember standing at that sink doing dishes with Bitty. He smiled and went over to the oven. Still the same one he’d bought and Dex had installed, looking a little worse for wear but still pretty clean. He ran his hand over it and smiled.
“Who the fuck are you, and what are you doing in my shitty kitchen?”
Jack turned around. A blond guy was standing in the kitchen doorway, arms folded, staring daggers at him. If the guy wasn’t basically his size it would be like a very sweary frog Bitty was attacking him. “Oh, hey. I’m Jack. Franky let me in? I’m waiting for Roronoa.”
“Hmmph.” The blond guy pulled out his phone and started typing aggressively. “He should have been back from his appointment by now. He probably got lost somewhere in the half kilometer between here and there. Are you hungry?”
“Don’t feel obliged—“
“Sit down,” the blond guy said, and put his phone in the pocket and walked to the fridge. “Are you carb-loading for playoffs?”
“Not too much,” Jack said. With what their kitchen usually looked like, he didn’t have to make an effort with carbs. “I’m older now, I don’t burn the energy quite as fast as I used to.”
“Allergies? Intolerances? Irrational hatreds?”
“Vaguely kosher?”
Blond guy looked over his shoulder. “Explain.”
“No pork unless I’m at my in-laws and decide to forget to ask what’s in the greens, no cheeseburgers unless it’s been a really long roadie.”
“Got it.” he pulled out a Tupperware of something purpleish and a bottle of Kewpie mayo, closed the fridge, and set them on the counter. Next came two small cans - tuna, maybe - and a package of seaweed from the cabinet, and an avocado from the fruit bowl. He set himself up a mise - as meticulous as Bitty, from what Jack could see - and began mixing, chopping, stirring, shaping. “You’re Zimmermann, right? From the Falcs?”
“Yeah,” he said, watching the guy’s hands move, mixing the tuna with mayo, dicing the avocado, taking the purple stuff, which kind of looked like rice, and salting it. He thought he detected a familiar accent, so asked, “T’es québécois?”
“Ouais, de Quebec. Toi, t’es montréalais?”
“Ouais, d’Outremont.” He watched the shape the purple rice-stuff in his hand, fold the tuna and avocado inside, set perfect triangles on a plate. “C’est cool ça, tu fais quoi?”
The blond guy glanced over at him, a bit wary, maybe embarrassed. “Oh, uh, onigiri. Kind of. This isn’t the right rice - anyway. Just something fast and with the right macros.” He nodded at the plate, which had three of the rice balls on it. “Take these, I have to make another batch for Mosshead.”
Jack grabbed the plate and sat at the table, which wobbled slightly. “Thanks. I didn’t catch your name?”
“Sanji,” he said. “I’m Zoro’s d partner.”
“Nice,” Jack said, and took a bite. The food was delicious. “Are you graduating this year, too?”
“Yeah,” Sanji said, continuing to assemble more of the balls. “Just a month to go. It’s wild.”
“You headed home? Or sticking around here?”
Sanji made a face as he finished the last of the tuna onigiri, and turned back to the cabinet, pulling out a…can of Spam? “Not going back to Quebec City, that’s for damn sure.” His phone beeped, and he threw it a look. “Fuck’s sake.” Sanji stomped to the side door, threw it open, and stepped outside. “DO YOU NEED TO FUCKING ECHOLOCATE YOUR OWN FUCKING HOUSE?”
“SHUT UP, CURLY,” shouted back someone.
“That’s a yes,” Sanji muttered, watching with narrowed eyes as feet stomped up the porch. “I fed your guest, come be civilized,” he said in a more normal voice.
Zoro Roronoa followed him back into the house. He was a bigger guy than Jack expected, out of pads. His hair was dyed an intense green, and he had gold earrings dangling from one ear. “Sorry about that. My advisor was running late.”
“Mine did that all the time,” Jack said, standing to shake his hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“Sit,” Sanji said, putting another plate of the onigiri down, this time with a decorative fan of seaweed next to the balls. He ghosted a hand over Roronoa’s shoulder, pulling away at the last second.
“Did you have to use the purple stuff?” Roronoa grouched as he sat down. “We’re out of season, I don’t give a shit about macros.”
“I think that was for me, sorry,” Jack said.
Roronoa made a vaguely affirmative grunt, his mouth full of rice and seaweed. (Sanji, meanwhile, had sliced the spam, and was doing something with it and a frying pan. It smelled shockingly good.)
“Anyway, I’m glad we’re getting a chance to talk. I’ve seen some of your tape, and I understand why George wants you for the team. I’m basically just here to answer any questions you have, and see if there’s a way that we can convince you to come on board.”
Roronoa chewed for another minute, thinking, and then took a long drink from the open Gatorade that Sanji had set next to him before talking. “What is it actually like, going from college to the NHL?”
Jack blew out a breath and looked at the ceiling. “In some ways, exhausting. You’re going from 34 games in the regular season to seventy to eighty, whether you’re doing most of them in the AHL or NHL. The intensity is higher, the travel is longer, there’s more practice, more training, more media - more everything. There’s no school, which is good, because you don’t have to balance your time, and bad, because literally all you do during the season is play hockey. But at the same time, it’s…it’s really freeing, to be able to play at that level all the time. You’ve done IIHF, you know what it’s like - playing in the NHL is having everyone on your team be close to that level, every day. Having them all care that much.”
Roronoa regarded him carefully. “What are the Falcs like? Not just to play with, but.” He made an expansive hand gesture. Behind him, Sanji was assembling little packets of spam and purple rice and seaweed, and obviously listening to every word.
“Amazing,” Jack said. “The front office staff, the coaching staff, the medical staff, the players - it is truly the best team I could imagine. We’ve put in a lot of work to make it that way, to make sure we have a healthy culture all the way down.” He glanced between the two boys, suddenly wondering whether he was making this pitch to both of them. “You know, when I left Samwell, I wasn’t expecting to find another team that felt like family. I thought this was my one shot. And they are still my family - I mean, literally, I married my liney - but the Falcs, they have that same spirit. We really care about each other. It’s not a place where you’re going to have to worry about, I don’t know. Sharing a locker room with racist assholes or people who are out to kick you down to climb over you.” He took another bite of the rice balls. “These are really amazing, by the way.”
“Curly’s okay,” Roronoa muttered.
“I’m the best goddamn chef this team has ever had, you ingrate,” Sanji huffed.
Jack refrained from saying that Bitty was better, because this was a sales pitch, and maybe Sanji didn’t bake anyway. “What would you do if you didn’t play hockey next year?”
Roronoa grunted. “That’s kind of the problem. I don’t have any other good ideas, and getting a work visa is a pain in the ass. I’m a math major, so it’s not like I’m unemployable like Curly here—”
“Kiss my ass,” Sanji said, setting a tray of the spam things on the table by one of the empty chairs and placing a Red Bull next to it—
“But I don’t actually want to do that. I think I do want to play hockey, but I really, really don’t want to deal with all the bullshit.” Roronoa leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “And I don’t know how much bullshit I’m gonna get.”
Jack looked down at his hands and collected his thoughts. (Meanwhile, Sanji continued to place plates on the table - enchiladas with a sauce that smelled like a chemical weapon, brownies with whipped cream and strawberries, some kind of citrus salad with raspberry coulis. Drinks for each one, never the same.) “I got a lot of bullshit,” he said. “But I was famous when I showed up, and the commentators had a lot to say about my history and my dad. I also then became the first out queer player in the NHL after less than a year. So basically I had a target on me. You aren’t going to have to deal with that bullshit. You’ll have to deal with being a public figure to a certain extent, especially if you end up spending most of the season with us instead of being sent down. But you get to control what you share with the world about yourself. If all you want to do is talk about hockey, that’s all you have to do. Nobody will make you.”
“Hmm,” Roronoa said.
From the living room came a giant crash. “Is Zimmermann still here?” With a sliding noise, a lanky guy in a red vest slammed into the kitchen door. “Jack! Hi! I’m Luffy! Are you gonna take Zoro???”
This was the captain, Jack remembered from the media clips he’d watched. “I think that depends on him.”
“Zoro, you gotta go play with Jack. You’re amazing, he’s amazing, you gotta.” Luffy sat down at the table and stuffed a whole spam thing in his mouth. “And Sanji is amazing. Does your team need a cook? Sanji can’t be ours anymore but maybe he can be yours?”
“That’s not technically an area we’re recruiting for,” Jack said. “But we like having friends and family who cook around. My husband basically runs a jam smuggling ring for the team out of our kitchen.”
“See???” Luffy said, turning to Roronoa and Sanji. “An apartment in Providence isn’t as good as the attic, but still.”
“I’ve slept in bus shelters better than that attic,” Sanji said, and then threw a nervous glance at Jack. “And plus? Who’s to say I even want to be his shitty roommate once we’re no longer forced to be?”
Ok, definitely something going on there. “No, I get it,” he said, as neutrally as possible. “D-men come in pairs.”
The kitchen door opened, and somebody else came in, a kid who didn’t look older than sixteen. “Zoro. Zoro, I’m gonna diiiiiiiie.” He dragged himself to the table, sat down at the plate with the brownie, and flopped over onto Roronoa‘s shoulder. “I’m gonna fail out of college and die.”
“No you won’t,” Roronoa said, mouth full of rice. “You might, possibly, get an A- in linear algebra.”
“It’s not that!!!” the kid wailed. “I got an 87 on my orgo quiz! You can’t even help me with that!”
“Curly can,” Roronoa said.
“If I can’t even manage to do ok in my frog year how am I ever gonna make it through medical school?” the kid said miserably. He took a giant bite of the brownie, and suddenly noticed Jack. “Oh,” he said. “You’re Jack Zimmermann. Jack Zimmermann is in our kitchen and I’m failing orgo.”
“Pretty sure an 87 is a passing grade, bud,” Jack said.
“This is Chopper,” Roronoa said. “He’s gonna move up to first line D next season.”
“Stop it,” Chopper said, turning pink. “You can’t make me feel better by telling me I’m good at hockey.”
“Okay,” Roronoa said.
The next two people through the door were a red headed girl and a lanky guy with his curls tied back in a kerchief. “Zimmermann,” the girl said, all business. “I’m Nami, I manage these assholes.”
“Nice to meet you,” he said.
She sat down at the plate of citrus salad and folded her hands. “While we’ve got you here, I’m wondering if we could talk about some of the pressing issues we’re facing here at SMH. Particularly, issues that could be addressed through thoughtful donations from alumni.”
“Jesus Christ, Nams, you’ve been in the room thirty seconds and you’re already trying to contact him about his car’s extended warranty?” the other guy said, settling in at the enchiladas. Jack thought he recognized him - he was one of the captain’s wingers, and had a wicked slap shot, seemed like something of a sniper.
Another loud slam from the living room. “Bros!” yelled the blue-haired goalie from before. “I’m back! With Robin! Is Zimmermann still here?”
“Shit, I didn’t cook for them,” Sanji said, starting to walk over to the fridge.
Roronoa grabbed his hand. “They can feed themselves. Come sit.”
Sanji pulled his hand away. “Yeah, yeah, give me a minute. Robin, dearest,” he called out a little louder. “Coffee or tea?”
“I’m fine, Mr. Chef,” said a brown haired woman as she walked into the room. “Franky helpfully delivered me something from Annie’s earlier. But if you happened to have more of those scones?”
“Anything for you, my darling,” Sanji said.
“Curls,” Roronoa said.
Sanji flicked him hard on the forehead. “I said give me a minute.”
The kitchen got louder as Roronoa and Sanji argued while he made a plate up for the brown-haired woman. Franky and the kerchief guy - King was his last name, Jack thought, though Franky called him Sogeking- started arguing about something else, while the manager kept talking to him about equipment needs, and Jack smiled, because he was back in the kitchen of the Haus and it was utter fucking chaos. He almost missed it.
***
That night, Jack was on the couch with a book when Bitty crawled onto him. “He’s down?” He said, curling an arm around him.
“Finally. He needed me to find not one, not two, but three special pucks to sleep with. I’m drawing the line at sleeping with a stick.”
“You say that now,” Jack said. “You know he’s just going to get my dad to let him next time he babysits, and then we’re fucked.”
“You’re right and I don’t approve.” Bitty snuggled in closer. “Hey, how was the trip to Samwell? I’m almost jealous.”
“It was good. I think we’re gonna get Roronoa, he seemed like a good guy and I think I managed to convince him.” Jack set down his book - he wasn’t going to remember anything he read while snuggling with Bitty anyway. “Oh, I think he might be dating his d-partner?”
“What?” Bitty sat up. “Wait, tell me everything.”
“I don’t know, it was just a feeling I got. They share the attic, the captain assumed they’d be moving in together after graduating. Roronoa kept touching him, even though Sanji - that’s his partner’s name - kept flinching and glancing at me. Also they fight like Nursey and Dex, and we know how that turned out.”
“Oh my god,” Bitty said. “It’s like there’s some kind of, like, spirit that possesses every Samwell first-line d-pair and makes them fall in love.”
“I mean, I don’t know for sure,” Jack hedged. “It might just be…uh, what’s that initial thing you used to mutter about?”
“UST,” Bitty nodded. “OK, but there was touching? That feels post-love confession.”
“Just, like, poking and stuff. Could just be bros.”
“Hmmm.” Bitty narrowed his eyes. “OK. When he signs, I’m gonna have to figure this out.”
“You seem…very invested.”
“I spend my entire day every day trying to be cool on the internet and chasing a toddler. Let me live, Mr. Zimmermann.”