Twelve Days of Ficmas

Summary: What Christmas Eve looks like for Jack and Bitty. Lots of kissing. Written for @12daysofficmas. Also on AO3

—

Christmas Eve morning, Eric woke up slowly. The bed was warm, his pajama pants were soft against his legs, his fiancé was snuggled around him.

He rolled over, gently kissing Jack’s cheek and snuggling into his neck. 

Eric woke up again a little while later, Jack kissing along his cheek and jaw and neck.

“G’mornin’, honey,” Eric whispered, leaning close to kiss Jack’s lips.

For the @12daysofficmas prompt: “It’s too cold to get out of bed.”

On AO3 Here

Happy 12 Days of Ficmas! 

I just opened the last window on my own Jamvent calendar, so I felt it was fitting to rec this one today.

Summary: Jack recalls eating Chinese Food on the 25th with his family as a child. Written for the @12daysofficmas. Also on AO3 with additional notes and links.

“We got one chicken chow mein.”

“That's mine,” Alicia said.

“Some egg rolls, no shrimp. A beef chop suey, sesame chicken, a chicken fried rice, two orders of spicy garlic green beans, egg foo young, and who ordered the vegetable fried rice with extra mushrooms.”

Jack smiled.

“I did, papa! Me!”

Bob grinned and ruffled Jack's hair.

“Here you go, Jacky.”

While Bob and Alicia made their rounds to various Christmas parties each year (NHL commitments and fundraisers they couldn't get out of), their true "Christmas" celebration was ordering a ton of food from Mr. Wong's and watching Star Wars. With Hanukkah behind them, and the rest of the city practically closed, the Zimmermanns enjoyed their yearly Chinese food, and Star Wars blow out every 25th of December.

Welcome to the 12 Days of Ficmas!  This is a low-pressure, choose-your-own-adventure-style fandom event celebrating Check, Please and its content creators.

There is no fic minimum!  While holiday-themed works are encouraged, they are not required.  What we’re stressing is a fun event that anyone can participate in.

If you don’t write or create artwork, you can still participate! Share your favorite Check, Please fics in a fic rec post, create a playlist, make a post about your Check, Please holiday head canons.  The event’s goal is to share transformative works, inspire creativity, and show appreciation for our community and all things Check, Please.

Writers and artists may choose from our prompt list (it's the same one as last year) or come up with one of their own.

There’s no first-come, first-serve, simply choose your prompt and create! Post your creation anytime between December 24, 2021 and January 6, 2022 using the hashtag #omgcp12days so we can reblog on the official 12 Days of Ficmas Tumblr.

Welcome to the 12 Days of Ficmas!  This is a low-pressure, choose-your-own-adventure-style fandom event celebrating Check, Please and its content creators.

There is no fic minimum!  While holiday-themed works are encouraged, they are not required.  What we’re stressing is a fun event that anyone can participate in.

If you don’t write or create artwork, you can still participate! Share your favorite Check, Please fics in a fic rec post, create a playlist, make a post about your Check, Please holiday head canons.  The event’s goal is to share transformative works, inspire creativity, and show appreciation for our community and all things Check, Please.

Writers and artists may choose from our prompt list (it's the same one as last year) or come up with one of their own.

There’s no first-come, first-serve, simply choose your prompt and create! Post your creation anytime between December 24, 2021 and January 6, 2022 using the hashtag #omgcp12days so we can reblog on the official 12 Days of Ficmas Tumblr.

Here’s the first chapter of my fic for @12daysofficmas​ !! I plan to update this every day until New Year’s Day, so chapter 2 is coming tomorrow! :)

Chapters: 1/6 Fandom: Check Please! (Webcomic) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Eric “Bitty” Bittle/Jack Zimmermann, Adam “Holster” Birkholtz/Justin “Ransom” Oluransi, Larissa “Lardo” Duan/Shitty Knight Characters: Eric “Bitty” Bittle, Jack Zimmermann, Justin “Ransom” Oluransi, Adam “Holster” Birkholtz, Larissa “Lardo” Duan, Shitty Knight Additional Tags: ski resort, Jack Zimmermann Didn’t Go to Samwell, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Meet-Cute, Ski instructor Jack Zimmermann, Winter Break 2015, Awkward Flirting, New Year’s Eve, New Years, Jack Zimmermann Doesn’t Play Hockey, First Kiss, POV Eric “Bitty” Bittle

Summary:

Eric isn’t made for the cold. He’s most definitely not made to spend the last week of 2015 at a ski resort in Canada. Hell, he doesn’t even know how to ski!

but with Ransom, Holster, and Lardo all graduating next spring, it’s not like he’s about to pass up the opportunity to spend more time with his friends before everything changes.

One of my favorite tropes in AUs is when a couple misses their chance and gets together later. Don’t get me wrong, I love the way Bitty and Jack get together in Check, Please! In fact, I married my college boyfriend, so many elements of their story ring very true to me.

But as a writer, and a reader, I am often drawn to stories about other ways they might have gotten together, if the graduation kiss had never happened. Or, maybe the kiss did happen but things just didn’t work out. These stories are always hard to read, but so much sweeter when they finally do figure things out. 

Because they are similar tropes, I’m sharing my friends-to-lovers and second chance romance fic recs in the same list.

Friends-to-lovers (or, The Kiss Never Happened)

until your father’s at the table by the_one_that_fell

Rating: M

Summary: Ten years after Samwell, Eric Bittle runs into Jack Zimmermann in a sports bar in Boston and rediscovers the most important relationship of his life.

My notes: This whole series is simply lovely. It doesn’t shy away from the baggage that comes with beginning a relationship when you’re both a little older and wiser, yet there’s never any doubt that these two are so in love.

You Got the Keys by @porcupine-girl 

Rating: M

Summary: In 2009, while Jack Zimmermann was curled into a ball on his bed in the most expensive rehab center in Montreal, the Seattle Schooners hired talent scout (and former Olympian) Georgia Martin as their new Assistant General Manager. The Falconers had made her an offer, but they clearly viewed her as a token “diversity hire” where the Schooners truly valued the perspective a woman of color could bring to their organization.

In 2015, she signed Jack Zimmermann, and the day after he graduated, Jack moved the 3,000 miles from Samwell to Seattle.

Now it’s 2020, and Jack is happy. He loves his team. He only has one regret, one reason why part of him will always wish he’d signed somewhere on the east coast…

It’s 2020, and the social media firm Bitty works for just transferred him to Seattle.

My notes: I love a good road trip fic. I love it when Jack knows he’s in love with Bitty and just has to make his move. I loved all the side characters in this that were so well integrated into Jack and Bitty’s story.

Man Oh Man, You’re My Best Friend  by @the-lincyclopedia

Rating: T

Summary: The graduation kiss never happened. Midway through Jack’s rookie season with the Falcs, he and Bittle go to a bar after a win, get drunk, and are photographed being affectionate, leading to Jack being outed by the press. Jack realizes trying to get back into the closet will be messy, so he suggests he and Bittle pretend to date until the media storm dies down. This would be easier if it weren’t for Jack’s crush on Bittle.

My notes: Have I mentioned I love AUs where Bitty and Jack are best friends with feelings? I really do. And @the-lincyclopedia always writes these Samwell-set pieces so well. 

safest sounds by @zimmerhomme

Rating: M

Summary: It’s been roughly a year since Bitty flew across the country to California to pursue a modeling career. It’s been a rough year since Bitty flew across the country to California to pursue a modeling career.

OR: The one where Bitty lives in LA and Jack lives in Providence and they’re very good friends. Just friends, though.

My notes: The yearning in this is off-the-charts. And again, the Jack and Bitty friendship here is so believable. @zimmerhomme’s fics always read like mini movies. 

Second chance romance

This Unsheltered Place by @thewesternredcedar

Rating: E

Summary: “So… you want to kiss other people?” Jack asks, before he’s really thought about what the words mean. Bitty looks at him so hard, like his gaze is trying to pierce through him. “I guess… yeah. I do.” Bitty’s admission hangs over the table. “Oh.” Jack feels like he’s floating in midair, in the long stillness before he starts to fall. “Jack?” Suddenly, everything slots into place. Oh god. “You’re leaving me.”

Or, what happens when Bitty needs time and doesn’t ask Jack to wait.

And Jack doesn’t.

My notes: This is maybe the most painful Check, Please! fic I have ever read. (It pained me just to copy and paste that summary.) It also also one of my favorite fics of all time, period. It is as much a Jack character study as it is a story about Jack and Bitty finding their way back to each other. One of the things I love the most about this fic is that we always see Bitty through Jack’s eyes and while he’s not perfect, we understand exactly why Jack is in love with him. There is an essential sweetness to Bitty’s character in canon that @thewesternredcedar captures so well. This fic breaks my heart and puts it back together every. single. time.

Back To You by @porcupine-girl

Rating: T

Summary: When Jack kissed him at graduation over a year and a half ago, Eric had been too shocked to really think about what it might mean, long-term. They’d talked constantly over the next six weeks, enough for him to feel confident that Jack felt the same way he did, and to start to imagine what those far-off futures might look like together.

And then Jack came to Madison for the Fourth of July, and Eric made the stupidest mistake of his life: He let himself and Jack talk themselves out of it.

My notes: This is what happens when the kiss happens but Jack and Bitty somehow don’t. But once they figure it out, oh boy. 

one day (we’ll get this right) by @whoacanada

Rating: E

Summary: Fifteen years ago, Jack was traded to Winnipeg for a first round draft pick; a move that cost him far more than the ‘A’ on his sweater when the distance proved too much for his partner to handle. 

Now, two years into his new job as the Schooner’s Assistant General Manager, a chance encounter offers Jack a chance to rebuild the life he was always meant to have with Eric Bittle.

Prompt: Jack and Bitty were never quite able to make a relationship work. They reconnect in their 40s.

Here is my second submission to the 12 days of fic mas event hosted by @12daysofficmas We have a post grad Lardo taking a break from painting a big ass commissioned canvas. I also made another playlist for when she’s painting, drawing, or brainstorming her art. Basically a playlist for when she wants to turn off Hockey Men and Beer Pong in her brain and turn on color theory, composition, and general art chaos. It’s a def a playlist she uses to tune out Shitty when studying or doing anything ever. Below is the playlist and the link to it on Spotify.

Here’s the first chapter of my fic for @12daysofficmas​ !! I plan to update this every day until New Year’s Day, so chapter 2 is coming tomorrow! :)

Chapters: 1/6 Fandom: Check Please! (Webcomic) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Eric “Bitty” Bittle/Jack Zimmermann, Adam “Holster” Birkholtz/Justin “Ransom” Oluransi, Larissa “Lardo” Duan/Shitty Knight Characters: Eric “Bitty” Bittle, Jack Zimmermann, Justin “Ransom” Oluransi, Adam “Holster” Birkholtz, Larissa “Lardo” Duan, Shitty Knight Additional Tags: ski resort, Jack Zimmermann Didn’t Go to Samwell, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Meet-Cute, Ski instructor Jack Zimmermann, Winter Break 2015, Awkward Flirting, New Year’s Eve, New Years, Jack Zimmermann Doesn’t Play Hockey, First Kiss, POV Eric “Bitty” Bittle

Summary:

Eric isn’t made for the cold. He’s most definitely not made to spend the last week of 2015 at a ski resort in Canada. Hell, he doesn’t even know how to ski!

but with Ransom, Holster, and Lardo all graduating next spring, it’s not like he’s about to pass up the opportunity to spend more time with his friends before everything changes.

Summary:  Food writer, Eric Bittle, interviews local superstar butcher, Jack Zimmermann. However, much to Eric’s dismay, it seems like they already know each other from somewhere.  Written for @12daysofficmas​.  @doggernaut​ called this a “meat cute.” :D

Fine, it was only 40 degrees but could you blame Eric for being sore about it? Back home, 40-degree weather was cause to start shutting stuff down. Eric recalled the time he had a snow day in Georgia because of a light dusting of snow on the ground that barely stuck. It made perfect sense to 8-year-old Eric, and it made perfect sense to 28-year-old Eric. He hated winter, so sue him. Heck, it was barely the first week of December; it was only winter-adjacent. He pulled his beanie over his head and huffed as he walked out his door.

Eric pulled his messenger bag up higher and made his way to his car. Ugh, of course, the windows were frosted over. Of course.

He opened his car, plopped his bag on the front seat, walked around, opened the driver’s side door, hopped in, and instantly pressed the seat warmer the moment he started the car.

Eric punched the heat up to 75, flipped on the rear window defroster, and sat for a bit as he gripped the steering wheel. His view of the outside was obstructed by frost.

“Sweet Mary,” he groaned. “Let’s get this nonsense over with.”

Eric reached over and pulled out his window scraper from the back seat, then exited the car. His long-suffering groan seemed almost obnoxious even to him, but he convinced himself it was warranted.

He was halfway through the front windshield when he saw someone exit the house two doors down. It was his neighbor, and the fool was wearing shorts, a beanie, and a hoodie.

His neighbor remote-started his SUV, opened the back door, pulled out a scraper, and began scraping his windshield, a million miles an hour, looking like some sort of crazed squirrel.

Eric felt such irrational annoyance as he stared for a moment.

His neighbor paused, turned to look at Eric, and offered a brilliant smile as he waved. Sure, the guy was gorgeous with incredible calves (God, honestly? He looked like he’s built like a brick shit house) and eyes as blue as the sky, but Eric was 100% done.

He decided right then and there that he hated that guy—and his stupid yellow gym shoes—no matter how hot he was.

Eric scowled and returned to window scraping.

Afterward, Eric got in his car and slammed the door shut. He could see his neighbor getting into his SUV as Eric drove away in a huff.