Summary: Every NHL champion gets a single brush with ice magic. When Jack takes his first cup with the Falconers, he accidentally undoes the wish that brought him back from the brink of death in 2009, and Bitty becomes hell-bent on lifting the cup himself for a chance to set things right.
A/N: Finally posting some concepts I’ve played around with that aren’t 100% complete massive fics, but still pretty solid, just little things that might be enjoyed. Yet another cup-wish-gone-wrong-au with monkey-paw components. Also inspired by discord convos about canon!Jack meeting an older, veteran NHL!Bitty and having a lot of feelings. Also mentor/father-in-law!Bob trying to help Bitty navigate the NHL. There’s more to this floating around but this is the meat of it
Bob can sense when it happens. A shift of something monumental that he’s only felt on a handful of occasions his entire life. A quick glance across the ice finds a number of the celebrating Falconers looking around curiously, unsure of the sensation; for so many, it’s their first brush with ice magic. A pleasant novelty. The vets, though, they look to each other.
Bob turns and doesn’t have to look far to find his son, one hand clasped around the cup, the other around Eric Bittle’s waist, smiling from ear to ear. Something about the moment is wrong, but Bob can’t quite determine why as he’s overcome with a wave of nausea. The stadium lights are too bright and he blinks hard, face scrunching, trying to force whatever wrongness he’s feeling out of himself.
The moment passes. Bob’s vision clears. There, veiled in a shower of blue and gold confetti, is Eric; alone at center ice, face twisted in confusion as he looks around for the man who only moments earlier had been in his arms.
“You take the cup, you get one real wish,” the decades old, bourbon-lacquered voice of his first coach reminds him. “But only the one. Can be something small, like an empty cab in the rain, or it can be something big. World changing, even. The one thing, the most important thing — ”
“No,” Bob breathes. “Please, no.”
“— You never use your wish on another player.”
They don’t know exactly what Jack wished for, but the next time Bitty’s blades touch the ice, it’s as if he’s stepped into the body of a new man. No more slurs. No more targeted chirps. He’s just one of the boys.
He plays. He wins. Then, the offers start to come.
NHL teams looking for fast wingers, team players, leadership material; not one of them mentions diversity, or Eric’s status as the first out NCAA hockey captain. No one cares. No one remembers Jack, and no one cares about Eric.
The best and worst case scenarios rolled into one. If this is the reality Jack unknowingly traded his existence for, Bitty has no choice but to walk through the door his partner opened.
Bitty swallows, trying to force the words out on one of his now nightly calls with the man who would have been his father-in-law in another world, if the shared connection between them hadn’t been interred in a Montréal cemetery almost a decade prior.
“I think . . . I think he wished for acceptance.”
“No one remembers anymore.”
Eric scuffs his skate against this ice, building up a small pile of shavings before scattering them again, focusing on the soft white as if somehow he’ll be able to transport himself bodily to somewhere cool and quiet. Jackson Hole. Banff. Tremblant. Anywhere but here. Anywhen but now.
“Saw Tater last week at a press junket. Blank stares all around. Some days, most days, I wake up and I don’t know how I got here. I can go without thinking of him.”
Weeks. Eric doesn’t say aloud. Months. Those hideous mornings when he wakes up beside a warm body and forgets they aren’t him. They aren’t supposed to be him. Was there ever even a him.
Jack. Eric mouths silently, just to remind himself. His name is Jack.
The details always slip. The universe constantly trying to correct the fallacy of Eric Bittle remembering a man who died before they technically ever met. Faded photographs and corrupted memory cards. Selfies that used to have two people in frame. Vlog posts with cosmic ADR, swapping Jack’s name for someone else’s like a hastily rewritten script. Eventually, even Eric’s memories turn traitor. First times lost to reshoots and post-production magic. Blue eyes are brown. Black hair is blonde. Jack becomes Phillip. Eric’s first love recast. In desperation, he pulls a page from Memento, finds a tattoo parlor and has ‘Jack Laurent Zimmermann’ inked in dark, unmistakable letters on his inner thigh. Adds a cup, the Falconers’ crest, and the date they lost everything. It works well enough until the name fades; there are still days where a hook up will ask why Eric has a championship tattoo for a team he never played with.
“That’s why I’m here.” Bob reminds. “That’s why we talk.”
“But what happens if we don’t.”
Bob’s familiar assurances rumble through the phone. Constant. Refusing to acknowledge the harsh realities of the passing of time. The ever-present doomsday clock moving them both toward disaster — Bob aging, Eric aging out. He’s good, but he isn’t great, and the only offers coming his way are single-season contracts with teams that haven’t sniffed a championship in years. One day very soon, there will be no more chances for Eric to undo what’s been done. No more favors to ask of teammates that have long since forgotten a world where Jack Zimmermann was a college graduate and a rookie MVP. Not just an addict. Not just dead at nineteen.
Eric listens to Bob ramble, asks him to tell him a story, to tell him about the Jack that Eric never really got to know. The Jack he can barely remember. A man that Eric has dedicated his entire life to honoring, to bringing back — from where he cannot fathom — and Bob obliges in a soft tone Eric imagines is not dissimilar from how he must have spoken to his son as a child.
Eric ignores his teammates rushing around him — tossing chirps and gentle insults about his ‘Sugar Daddy’ — and focuses on the accented voice in his ear; grasping desperately at the memory of a man who doesn’t exist. Pretending. Hoping.
Across the ice, Eric sees Kent Parson watching him. When they lock eyes, the aging star glides toward him, under a guise of one amicable captain greeting another. He’s pushing 37, and while the years of competitive play are starting to show, he’s just as viciously handsome as the day they first met. At least, Eric thinks he is. He can’t imagine a life where Kent Parson strolled onto a college campus and played beer pong at a frat party, but there’s a folder of old photos on Eric’s computer. Jack is in none of them, but there’s one of himself and Kent. Smiling.
Eric can’t recall why the image bothers him so much.
Parson used his wish years ago on something that he’s never bothered to share — and Eric’s far too much a gentleman to ask a man who was once a rival what he wasted his golden ticket on — but now, he’s slowing down, and this is supposed to be his farewell season. Going out with a bang, riding the high of his fifth cup win. He’s worked hard, and he deserves to shove the Penguins back down into obscurity for another season. Deserves it far more than Eric, with his selfish, single-mindedness that’s ruined god knows how many careers in the last decade between his own ruthlessness and Bob’s meddling.
Except. . . this is also likely Eric’s last season. His last chance to undo the great tragedy of his life, and Parson knows it.
“How you feeling, Peaches? You ready?”
Eric hates the nickname in the same way he hates when his father calls him ‘Champ’.
Eric fights his own shame because he wants to be honest, say, ‘No, I’m not ready, I’ll never be ready,’ but Eric can’t ask for what he wants, anymore. He wants the Aces to balk on a power play. He wants Parson to flub a pass and throw the game — he even knows the man would probably do it, too — but Eric needs to come by a win honestly. They learned the hard way in 2022 when Eric hands were wrapped around the cup, wishing, praying, crying, pleading . . .
Clear eyes, full hearts, or some such bullshit.
Cheaters don’t get wishes.
“I can’t remember, anymore,” Eric admits as they square up across the face-off circle, the resigned terror of an inescapable end creeping upon him like the burn of an old injury ignored for far too long. “Kent. Please.” Parson leans down, rests his stick against the ice, and holds Eric’s gaze as if to say, I’m here. Trust me. Just play.
There’s someone watching him, young, handsome with dark hair and the kind of bright blue eyes that scream ‘notice me’ with all of the biological bluntness of neon plumage and a mating dance. The man weaves through the crowd, unnoticed by Eric’s teammates, and comes close enough that Eric can’t help but assume familiarity. He must be a fan, the way he’s flushed and excitable.
Eric’s drunk enough on the moment that he’s happy to indulge his baser instincts. He also literally can’t remember the last time he brought company home and if there’s ever been a night to get laid, it’s this one.
“Crisse, look at you, Bits.”
The man is caught between being awestruck and simply struck, reaching out to touch Eric’s arm but not quite making contact, like his depth perception is the tiniest bit off. He drops Eric’s old nickname so easily, so earnestly, that for a moment Eric thinks they might already know each other — but that’s impossible. Eric would remember someone so handsome, so very much his type.
“Only my friends call me ‘Bitty’.” Eric cautions, raising his half-empty champagne bottle in a mock toast and flashing his best ‘you’re coming home with me tonight’ smile. “But I’m more than happy to to get acquainted with you, Sugar.”
Eric isn’t usually this forward, this unrestrained. Tonight, it doesn’t matter, he’s celebrating: another championship, the end of a career, a life well lived. It’s to be expected. What isn’t expected is how the man’s relieved smile falters; as if Eric’s unbridled joy is somehow misplaced.
“And ‘me’ is called . . . ?”
On very few occasions in Eric’s life has he been able to witness true devastation first-hand; and those instances were related to deaths, hockey losses, or blackout morning afters.
“Jack.” The man says softly, face slack with surprise. “It’s. . . Jack. Bitty, you know me.”
“If we’ve met before, I’m sorry,” Eric apologizes, hating to see the kid look so defeated. “I meet so many people — ”
Over Jack’s shoulder, Eric catches sight of Bob Zimmermann and waves, delighting in the way Bob’s face lights up when he catches sight of Eric, practically going supernova when he notices Jack as well, crossing the ice like a man possessed; Bob moves to pull them both into a hug but Eric’s new friend holds up a defensive hand and Bob stops mid-gesture.
It’s extremely apparent something is off, and between the reporters, the confetti, the champagne, and the fans, Eric is missing all of the context clues.
“Just won my last cup,” Eric singsongs, gesturing with the bottle between his mentor and the man Eric would very much like to fuck — who look very similar now that Eric can see them side by side. “Everyone’s super excited, right? Yeah? So, what’s going on. Did someone die?”
“No.” Bob says quickly, eyes flicking between Jack and Eric warily. “No. Not . . . that.”
“Okay, then, we should be celebrating!” Eric throws his arms wide and nearly clocks a passing teammate. “No more party pooping, Bobbert. Speaking, this is my new friend, Jack. Jack, Bob, Bob, Jack. Though, I’m getting the feeling you two might know each other. Or might be . . . related.” Eric gasps and smacks his free palm against his forehead. “Oh my god, the Tremblant retreat? Is that where I know you from? Listen, I was fucked up on pain meds that whole weekend, I am so sorry if we’ve already met.”
Despite Eric’s continued attempts at clarifying their shared mystery past, Jack keeps looking at Bob with that same wounded expression and it’s really killing Eric’s buzz.
“Bob.” Eric redirects. “Help me, here. Cutie’s nervous.”
“Eric, this is my, ah, well,” Bob’s smile is so forced, so tense, it looks more like a grimace. “Well, this is my son, Jack.”
There is only one ‘Jack’ Eric has ever known in relation to Bob Zimmermann, and he is not someone to be mentioned in polite conversation.
“Your son?” Eric echoes slowly. “Your son, Jack.”
Bob realizes what Eric’s tiptoeing around and casts a furtive glance toward the younger man, lifting two fingers to his cheek conspiratorially to imply ‘it’s a long story, not meant for public ears’. Eric knows how to play along.
“Wow, okay, did not expect that, but now that you’re saying it, I can one-hundred-percent tell. You have the same, well, everything.”
Eric takes Jack’s hand for an obligatory shake, not missing the way Jack’s features twist up into something caught between flattery and misery, before staring down his pseudo-mentor.
“My question is this, where have you’ve been hiding him — because how long have I know you, Bobby? Shame.”
Jack’s tone is weighted with context Eric absolutely does not possess, but can definitely read into. Given the age difference and Alicia’s conspicuous lack of attendance this evening, Jack’s definitely a love child from some 90s Zimmergroupie. Or, original Jack didn’t actually OD and Bob spirited away his kid to keep away the prying eyes of the public; but that wouldn’t explain the age difference or the shared name.
“Couldn’t wheel him out too soon,” Bob jokes, but Eric can tell the man’s heart isn’t in it, reinforcing Eric’s suspicion.
“Well, I’m happy you did,” Eric says graciously, trying to smooth over the awkwardness. “He’s very handsome, when he isn’t doing this Eeyore impression.”
“Just like his father,” Bob says reflexively — defensively — as Jack goes pink. “Eric, will you excuse us for a moment? Back in five minutes, tops.”
Eric offers a gracious wave, gaze lingering on Jack’s retreating back — and backside, bless — watching Bob rest a firm hand on his son’s neck, gripping tightly to lean in and furiously whisper something. As Eric watches, Jack looks back over his shoulder; it’s not the fond glance of a potential paramour. Regret, maybe? Grief, definitely.
He must be as disappointed to be cock-blocked by his father as Eric is.
Across the ice, Kent Parson has rushed Jack, gathering him into a crushing embrace that the younger man returns easily — burying his face against Parson’s pads; pulling back only when Parson grabs Jack’s shoulders to push him away, taking a long look at him, holding his face between his hands briefly before pulling Jack back into his arms.
They don’t just look like old friends, it’s a reunion of desperation, like the videos his mother sends of soldiers coming home from war, but before Eric can think better of it, a teammate fists a hand in the collar of Eric’s sweater and pulls — away from Bob’s forlorn love child and forgotten first meetings — and the night goes on.
Bob doesn’t return. Neither does Jack.
Eric doesn’t even notice.
