okay but have you considered an omgcp/big eden au
with bitty as henry, the country boy who moved to new york and found success (as professional vlogger or on the food network etc), then when Coach falls ill, he goes back for the summer to help his mom take care of him.
jack as pike, the taciturn recluse having moved the area after bitty had already left following a failed hockey career. maybe his overdose came later, after he’d been playing in the NHL for a few years, and he decided to move to a random town in the south where no one reacts to the name ‘zimmerman’.
then he meets bitty, this bright, vibrant, full of light and unashamed happiness and he catches himself wanting. wanting to do everything for him, wanting to make him happy.
obviously the cooking thing doesn’t happen, but maybe bitty mentions that the sink is leaking etc, and jack offers to fix it before he realises what he’s saying. he calls his dad in panic, and bob talks him through basic plumbing, trying not to laugh. anything else and he can’t help him, so jack takes out books, reads up online
and then he keeps noticing things around the house that he can fix, basically becoming a DIY expert in the process, and bitty is super confused why the absurdly hot french-candian guy who lives in town, who is straight anyway, keeps fixing things bitty didn’t even know needed fixing, but who runs away whenever bitty approaches
of course jack is super obvious in his crush to everyone but bitty, but he’s managed to win the whole town over in the time he’s been living there, and they keep trying to get them together in increasingly unsubtle ways - the group of guys who spend their whole time in the store drinking coffee and are your stereotypical rednecks, but care about their relationship more than anything and keep trying to pushing them together. and don’t get me started on how hard mama bittle would ship them.
and bitty’s trying to decide whether to stay or go back to new york, and he resigns himself to going because jack can’t possibly like him in that way. and jack pulls away because he thinks bitty’s leaving and can’t bear for it to hurt anymore. so bitty leaves, bitter and unhappy because he thought, despite it all, they were friends. jack realises too late what he was missing, and when he gets to airport, bitty’s plane has already left.
because when he gets back to the store there bitty is, and he’s staying, and he’s smiling, and jack can only smile, helplessly, back. and then the dance happens and coach doesn’t die and bitty opens a bakery and they move in together the end.
BASICALLY OMGCP AND BIG EDEN I MEAN COME ON, JUST FOR THIS LINE ALONE YOU CAN HEAR JACK SAYING IT, SO SADLY, WITH THE DROOPIEST OF DROOPY EYES:
“i just want things to be nice for him”
