#angel!bitty

Pairing: Zimbits

Summary: The NHL has a yearly retreat that’s a lazy cover for high ranking players to get drunk and try to command ice magic. Jack’s over it. Bob’s really over it. Until they finally manage to summon something.

“Hate these fucking things,” Bob sighs, lifting his hood enough to take a long pull from his beer. “Every damn year I have to watch; everyone knows the magic is in the ice, not in the players. Certainly not in the league front office.”

“Thank you again for dragging me into this,” Jack mumbles, adjusting his own smaller, less-obnoxious mask. There are no air holes and he keeps having to push the thing up so he can breathe.

“It’s tradition,” Bob argues. “A shitty, shitty tradition. You know one of these days we will actually manage to summon something and it’s going to end one of two ways: a bloodbath or an orgy. I’m hoping for the former, put me out of my misery so we never have to do one of these things again.”

A loud cheer goes up across the field, near the bonfire, and they both raise their hands reflexively.

“So say we all,”  Jack says in unison with his father.

It’s Jack’s second Ceremony since he signed with the Providence Falconers and he’s already bored, he can only imagine how his father feels pushing forty of these damn things. He wants to go home, he wants to be in bed with his boyfriend.

“What are they trying to summon this year?”

“An angel,” Bob sighs, finally pulling off his hood for a moment to reveal a mess of sweaty hair. “Or some kind of divine being. Last year it was a demon, a year before was a Sphinx for some reason. At this point, it seems like the front office is just drawing from a hat. We’ve never actually managed to —“

A whip-crack of thunder interrupts his father and Jack looks up at the clear night sky for any sign of a storm. There’s nothing.

“Huh. Well, that’s —“

Their attention is dragged back across the field where the bonfire has shifted from orange to a bright blue.

“Tabarnak,” Bob curses, tossing his bottle to the side and pulling his hood back on before taking off toward the commotion. “They finally managed to do something stupid!”

“Jack follows suit and runs after his father, outpacing the other rubbernecking stragglers, to find the upper echelons of current and past NHL talent huddled around . . . Something.

Someone in blue grabs Jack’s arm — another Falconer — and Jack hears Marty’s voice say, “You have to get him out of here.”

Jack shoves Marty out of the way and finds Bitty sitting on the ground in his shorts and Jack’s favorite Samwell tee, hugging his knees to his chest, trying to hide his face.

“Our Angel!” A man in gold yells, and the crowd roars.

Jack doesn’t look away from his shaking partner, the love of his life, or from the pair of small auburn wings arching delicately from his shoulder-blades.

Someone reaches out to touch Bitty and Jack jumps to smack the hand away. The crowd goes silent and Bitty still keeps his head down, clearly terrified.

“Hey! What the fuck is your problem!? We’ve been blessed we can do whatever we want to it.”

Jack can see Marty, his father, two men in black, one of whom must be Uncle Mario, and a smattering of color-coded allies watching closely and moving lesser ranking players out of the way. Jack can recognize an escape plan when he sees one.

He doesn’t waste any time falling to one knee to scoop Bitty up with one arm under his knees and the other around his chest; he struggles a bit at first, kicking, scratching, but Jack leans in and whispers, “Lapin, don’t be scared, it’s me, I’m taking you home.”