#chowderweek

Bitty woke up when Jack climbed out of the bed, way too early in the morning. The sun had not risen yet, and Bitty wanted to groan. Especially with all the exertion last night, he was too tired to be awake at this ungodly hour.

Thinking about it, being reminded about his first time having sex last night, his first time, made him blush. He wiggled and stuffed his face into his pillow, as if to hide his blush, and Jack noticed. He pressed a few kisses into Bitty’s hair, murmuring soft “I love you”s and promising to be back in 10 days after his roadie, that he’ll miss Bitty and call as much as he can.

Jack had packed last night, just needing to do a quick morning wash and then head off to the arena where their bus was waiting. Bitty nestled himself, wrapping the blanket around his back, already missing the warmth from Jack pressing against him.

When Jack re-emerged from the bathroom ready to go, he came back to kiss Bitty on the lips, soft and chaste, a reminder of their love. Even though Bitty could not manage to fully open his eyes, Jack’s ministrations sent heat down his chest, and an "I love you, Jack” left his lips with a smile. He felt a warm hand caress his cheek, run through his hair, and then lift off, leaving him a cold ghost of a memory before sinking back into sleep again.

Series on AO3

Day 1: Full Moon

Shared Across A Thousand Miles [AO3]

Whenever Chris can't fall asleep at night, he goes to a window and looks for the moon. The reason Chris looks for the moon, though, is because he would catch his father doing the same. Occasionally, his father would have some tea out, steeping in the teapot.

Day 2: Family Dinner

Bitty Doesn’t Know How To Use Chopsticks [AO3]

It all started with almost-Christmas. According to Holster, Christmas means Chinese food (gotta love that Holster logic), so almost-Christmas means SMH family dinner at the Chinese restaurant off campus. And then Bitty did The Thing, he did That. He asked for a spoon and fork.

Day 3: Future

“What are you gonna do when you graduate?” [AO3]

and everyone always thinks to have a five year plan: “I see myself being—”

nostalgic for the future when daydreams run me through my life to come, I think maybe I’ll be a goalie for the NHL coder at Google or a startup father with a wife more of the same

Day 4: Frogs

let the rain fall down, i’m coming clean [AO3]

Thank goodness it was a Sunday with no practice, no games, no upcoming midterms, no homework due soon. Chris could lounge about all day and do whatever he wanted. And whatever he wanted was to sleep the damn day away because of his goddamn flu, that’s what he wanted. It was miserable, cold November winds blowing outside, and he had been sneezing his throat raw.

Day 5: Sharks

Chris Just Really Loves Sharks, OK? [AO3]

Chris loves shark fin soup. It’s so unfortunate that he does, because he craves it sometimes, and he knows he can’t have it. Because sharks are so awesomecool and deserve to live.

But they taste so good.

Day 6: Ships

Make Your Own Wind [AO3]

It’s not like you to get lost. You’ve always found your way, despite feeling lost. You’ve always taken to heart that your ship will return, battered but not broken. It will float right up to home port and straighten itself out, lining up to caress the docks, letting you land onto solid ground, stable beneath your feet. Whenever you’re lost, your ship will never forget how to it always wants to be found, wants to be guided back home.

Day 7: Birthday

He Want That Cake [AO3]

Chris Chow 2:44pm Hey Dex! Are you free today after class? I need a favor Can you drive me to RRY? I wanna get something

Me 2:58pm Let me check? I think Bitty wanted me to help him in the kitchen

Bonus Questions

Q&A #4 ChowChow destroys the NHL [AO3]

Hey hey what’s up Chowchows? This is your boy Chris Chow and I recently asked for questions and here it is, our Q&A with the main ChowChow55. Are ya ready kids? [‘aye aye Captain!’ from Spongebob sound effect]

Make Your Own Wind

It's not like you to get lost. You’ve always found your way, despite feeling lost, you’ve always managed to look to the moon, the stars, and point yourself home.

Maybe it’s because this time, you’re lost about where home is.

You’ve always taken to heart that your ship will return, battered but not broken. It will float right up to home port and straighten itself out, lining up to caress the docks, letting you land onto solid ground, stable beneath your feet. Whenever you’re lost, your ship will never forget how to it always wants to be found, wants to be guided back home.

It still remembers. But now you notice, after being away from home for not long enough, that the docks are smaller than how you imagined. It’s still the same size. That post still touches the 3rd porthole while the other post touches the 1st. The ship remembers its dock, but you feel like it’s too small, like they’re just toys in a bathtub bobbing, plastic, full of meaning but also that the meaning was not important.

But it is important. This ship has guided you home! Time and again you have trusted it to pull you back, and it has. It has. It has pulled you back and this time it doesn’t feel like home, not fully, not anymore.

There is a ship called Chris, that sailed to the new port of Samwell. You spent 4 years there, building, waiting. It felt like how home used to feel. You ship lines up well to the docks there too, even when you know all these ships are just here for upgrades, like yours. This is no place to stay forever. So you build, and wait.

Home is that way. Home is not here.

You’ve built and built and time’s up. You don’t feel prepared enough. There’s everything needed, but where’s the wind? Where is the wind to set your sails out to new seas? Where is the breeze that always came up to push you on a tailwind? Where is the tugging on your hair to point you to the new direction you were meant to head down?

The clock is ticking. Which way are you headed? The clock is ticking closer. Which way? Hurry. The clock is ticking and will strike soon. Thunder and lightning will strike soon. The ports are being cleared, you need to leave. Which way? 360 degrees and you only need to choose one. Hurry. Hurry. Find your own trail to burn or one will be burnt for you, and then you won’t be able to say “I chose these scars”.

Too late. The port recedes by itself, and you are thrust out to sea. No Helens to set forth towards, no Ithaca to return to, no winds to set you adrift, and still you are adrift. The seaweed ensnares you, the barnacles grasp on, and you feel yourself slowly gaining weight, slowly sinking. Did you forget how to point home? Home is that way. Or is it that way? Where are the stars, the moon? There are no clouds but you can’t see the sky, only the sails standing silently waiting to rise or die.

That’s it then. Break them down. You tear off the sails and pull down the masts, carve them into oars to row your way, any way, to find a new home. You can make your own wind, you just have to walk fast enough, row fast enough.

The sky shows itself in the clear black night. The eye of the moon blinks its slow blink, watching. This time, you can see where you want to head, even if you don’t know what’s there. You know that no matter what, wherever you land, your ship always remembers how to line up to the docks, glide in slow, wind in the sails or no, you can make your own. Home is that way, because you decide it to be.

[Also on AO3]

If it isn't clear, Chowder moves to Samwell and feels a bit lost, then graduates and feels very adrift, until he decides to carve his own path.

Inspired by 3 specific Chinese proverbs:

船到桥头自然直: A ship will naturally straighten out when approaching a dock. Meaning things will work out in the end.

万事俱备，只欠东风: Everything is all set, except there is no wind. Meaning you have everything prepared, awaiting the crucial starting signal or final element.

Chris Just Really Loves Sharks, OK?

You know how in Moby Dick it just goes on about whales and their anatomy and how to hunt and process them? Yeah, this is gonna be like that.

Chris loves shark fin soup. It’s so unfortunate that he does, because he craves it sometimes, and he knows he can’t have it. Because sharks are so awesomecool and deserve to live.

But they taste so good.

Actually, they don’t really taste that good. They’re kinda bland, and have this strange texture. Like gloopy, is the best word for it really.

His uncle showed him the whole process once. He managed to get real shark fin, like the scales and skin was still on and everything. And he spent days processing it.

Real shark skin is really really rough. Like tear-up-your-skin rough. Chris learned this the hard way. Shark scales aren’t really scales. They’re denticles, literally teeth on the skin. They have ridges and help guide water and make them swim faster, but those ridges are sharp and can cut you up. Chris learned to respect sharks and keep his distance from their skin since he tried to touch that fin his uncle brought home.

It smelled like any piece of seafood, really. Salty, briny, kinda stinky. His uncle scraped off all the scales and soaked the shark fin for days. Actually, he boiled it for hours and soaked it, changed the water, and repeated it until it was soft and slippery, which took many days in total. Then he picked off the skin and harder basal cartilage until the softer fin cartilage remained.

Sharks are incredible. They’ve been practically unchanged since before bony fish even appeared. Osseous fish, the ones with bones, and everything else with bones, came after sharks, which have no bones, only cartilage. They have been so successful in their aeons of history, only to be wiped out by people eating their fins for soup. Soup! It’s preposterous.

In the soup, the softened fin cartilage is boiled with ginger and stock to remove it’s ocean odor, and after a few hours is drained and you get this tasteless, odorless, gloopy pile of fin. His uncle said that the special thing about it is the texture, nothing you can get from the imitation with glass noodles and starch. Like how birds nest is so unique. And Chris gets it. The one his uncle made was the best he ever had. EVER. He’s been disappointed ever since, at every wedding. It’s just not the same.

But god he doesn’t want to kill anymore sharks.

People think he loves the San Jose Sharks because he’s from the Bay Area. That’s only half true. The real reason is because they’re sharks. He’s been writing to them for years, saying how they could help with shark preservation if they just gave a damn about their mascot animal.

Sharks are dying horrifically. Chris has seen the videos. They’re hauled up on deck, their fins sawed off, and the rolled off back into the water. Where they sink because they can no longer swim. And not only that, they suffocate because many sharks are ramjet breathers, meaning if they don’t keep swimming, they can’t run water over their gills and die. Either they starve, or suffocate. It’s cruel! When Chris found out, he cried so hard. Both because of the suffering of the sharks but also because now he can’t have any shark fin soup anymore.

Now, every Shark Week, he just turns off all the media because have you seen it? It’s ridiculous! Sharks kill fewer people worldwide per year than sitting under falling coconuts for god’s sake! And yet TV and movies keep trying to make sharks this deadly killing machine, which ok it is, but not to humans! It pisses Chris off so bad.

He campaigns for Shark Week every year in school. They always expect some overexcited dumb surfer dude kid to talk about how dangerous sharks are the first time, but Chris always surprises them with passionate speeches about oceanic conservation and the importance of apex predators. Did they know that without sharks, coral eating fish are contributing to the demise of coral reefs? No! Of course not. Saving sharks saves coral reefs, but all they think about is “SHARK = DANGER”.

Somehow, every year, it also devolves into “Set Sharks Free, Shut SeaWorld Down”. So many sharks have died trying to be captured for show, and still they keep trying. Reef sharks are fine, they can be kept in artificial reefs, but people always want to see the big open-sea sharks. Chris would love to see them too, if it weren’t for the fact that they keep bumping their noses into the tank walls and injuring themselves and eventually dying of cabin fever. Aquarium fever. They need space! Miles and miles of space just to swim and stay healthy.

At least the Aquarium of the Bay doesn’t try to keep big open-sea sharks and their Shark Week is pretty good and not scare mongering. Chris would have volunteered at AotB each summer, if his parents didn’t send him to smart kid camp to do math and science and things like that. Maybe this summer, he can go back and intern on their media team, or web dev team, or even DBM, data input, whatever! Chris just wants to save the sharks. Better yet, get on the SJS intern team and fix their godawful SharkWeek promos, work with the AotB and finally get his favorite team to put their voices behind their favorite animal. That would be ‘swasome.

He Want That Cake

Chris Chow 2:44pm Hey Dex! Are you free today after class? I need a favor Can you drive me to RRY? I wanna get something

Me 2:58pm Let me check? I think Bitty wanted me to help him in the kitchen

Chris Chow 3:01pm No problem! Let me know!! Also I wanna use the kitchen too If you could ask when he’s gonna be done with it, that’ll be great! Thanks!

Me 3:03pm Bitty! Chowder asked me to drive him to RRY after class Said he wanted to get something and needs to use the kitchen? What do we do?!?

Eric Bittle 3:35pm !!! [shocked emoji] [shocked emoji] [shocked emoji] I have to use it when we planned, no other time works!

Me 3:42pm Do you think you can get someone else to help you?

Eric Bittle 3:43pm You’re the only one who’s good enough I’ve been training you for times like this

Me 3:44pm I knew it!

Eric Bittle 3:44pm Can somebody else drive him? Get Nursey?

Me 3:45pm You want Nursey. To drive MY car.

Eric Bittle 3:47pm Lord what was I thinking That is a disaster waiting to happen

Chris Chow 3:47pm Hey Dex! Just to let you know Alex from AAA offered to drive me Ze was gonna head there too, so no worries!

Me 3:48pm He got a ride from his friend Alex So I don’t need to drive him and can help you

Eric Bittle 3:48pm But he still needs the kitchen? We need him out of the kitchen! At least until 8!

Me 3:51pm We need something to distract him until then, can we still deploy Plan Original?

On AO3 here.

“Is it even cold there?” Nursey asks.  Chowder watches through his computer screen as Nursey adjusts his beanie absently, squishing down more of his curls flat against his head.

Chris snorts, because they’ve played this game before.  “I live in California” translates for Nursey into “I have never experienced a day of cold weather in my pre-Samwell life”, no matter how many times Chris reminds Nursey that he lives in the Bay Area, not LA.

“Of course it is,” Chris says.  “It’s night, and I live in Northern California, Nurse.”

“Google says your average temps. are between 44 and 59 degrees Fahrenheit in December.”  Nursey has said it so many times that he has the numbers memorized.  It’s only a little bit embarrassing.  “Your minimum temperature is our maximum temperature.”

“Cold is relative,” Chris reminds him.  “Not all of us want our cities drowning in white stuff.”

“Nah man,” Nursey says.  “If you think a single inch of snow in New York City is white, you’ve clearly never been there.  It’s gross and dirty from the people and the cars within like.  A day, tops.”

Chris Chow is ready to leave San Francisco and get a fresh start. He hopes that Samwell University is the place where he can do that.

Bitty's sophomore year, from Chowder's point of view.

Read from the beginning here.

@chowderweek | day 7: birthday 

the name on the back (jerseys in real time) [ao3]

Chris stands alone in the tunnel, shifting back and forth on his skates to work off the nervous energy that’s followed him from the dressing room. He knows from years, years, of experience that he won’t feel settled until he’s skated around his crease and gotten comfortable between the pipes. The movement helps a little bit though.

He closes his eyes and breathes deeply, taking comfort in the artificial ice smell that all arenas he’s ever played in have. The sound is different here though. The roar of the crowd is muffled but loud, almost drowning out the music and the announcer’s voice. It wraps itself around him, tightly enough that the rest of the walk down the tunnel feels like a dream.

“…and now, your 2022-2023 San Jose Sharks starting goaltender. From San Francisco California, CHRISTOPHER CHOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.”

Chris steps on to the ice and it’s like the volume of the crowd has been turned up all the way finally. He raises his stick in acknowledgement, does the half lap that he was told to do, and skates over to join his teammates where they’re lined up at the blueline after their home opener introductions. Chris bumps shoulders with Petrov, his backup, who grins and knocks his blocker into Chris’s helmet, knocking the mask down. Chris rolls his eyes and push it back up. Petrov elbows him again. This time when Chris looks over, Petrov jerks his chin towards the jumbotron so Chris looks up, and his breath catches in his throat.

The cameras pan over the crowd. Chris remembers being in that sea of turquoise, white, and black when he was a kid, but it’s even more impressive from this end. He never saw people wearing a #55 San Jose Sharks jersey though. Chris can’t keep count of how many he sees now. Like the one he’s wearing, CHOW is stretched across the shoulders of the jersey, and everyone wearing it looks as proud as Chris is to be wearing it on home ice in the Shark Tank.

Chris tears his eyes away from the screen and looks out through the glass, wanting to see the jerseys in real time just to make sure they’re real. He’s distracted trying to spot one that he doesn’t hear it at first, but after he spots a young girl wearing a Chow jersey and right against the glass, what he thought was just thousands of voices shouting to their own tunes comes together in one cohesive sound.

“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you,” the crowd sings.

Chris’s jaw drops.  

“Happy birthday dear Ch-ow, happy birthday to you!” They finish with another loud cheer and Chris’s teammates all bang their sticks on the ice, hooting and hollering and adding to the cacophony. Chris knows there’s a camera on his face, and knows that it’s probably picking up the tears that have sprung to his eyes.

He doesn’t care.

Chris raises his stick again, this time in thanks, and he didn’t think it was possible for the crowd to get louder, but they do.

It’s a hell of a birthday gift.