Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The door creaks.

Downstairs, Bee can still hear the steadily rising voices of his parents in a heated argument, which means—

“Scooch,” says Hilary say, kneeling so that she can peek under the bed. Bee’s stretched out, flat on his belly, watching the central air make the weird bottom part of his sheets move to and fro. He wiggles back and to the side—Hilary starts high school in a few weeks, and she’s tall, so the fit is just barely possible.

“You okay?” she says, once they’re settled together, shoulders touching.

He shrugs. He starts sixth grade soon. It’s supposed to be a big deal, but he can’t help but feel like the fights his parents have been having are, too.

Hilary sighs, and it makes the sheets surrounding them rustle.

“I know,” she says, even though Bee hasn’t said anything the entire time she’s been there, “street hockey tomorrow? I need to practice.”

“No, you don’t,” Bee says, but grins anyway. Playing with Hilary is the best.

She shifts so he can see the face she’s making.

“Don’t worry, Bee,” she says, and he knows she’s not just talking about hockey, “I’ll turn you into an NCAA forward in no time.”

Chapter Text

George didn’t mean to find them. Really.

But, as the person who scouted Jack Zimmermann, it’s in everyone’s best interest that she searches the internet of anything Jack didn’t want public. It was almost laughably easy; the kid (and, yes, he was a kid to George, and he probably always would be) had zero internet presence. She found a bunch of fake twitter accounts but nothing actually endorsed by the rising star.

(She, admittedly, found herself wheezing at some of the parody accounts. She’s only human).

And then the vlog pops up.

She doesn’t even know how she finds it—she had moved passed all things “Jack Zimmermann” and might have, in fact, been on YouTube looking for some music. Either way, a certain series called “Check, Please!” ends up on her screen, and when she glances at the thumbnail she does a double take. She knows that blond.

She’d forgotten how strong his accent was, and somehow loses an hour to watching him bake various pastries. He’s amazing, and George is equal parts impressed and wondering if asking Jack for his information is inappropriate. And then it happens.

“Three clues: he is French-Canadian, lives ‘cross the hall, and draws hockey plays in his notes,” says Eric Bittle, and then, afterwards, voice cracking, “Never fall for a straight boy.”

Her stomach drops. “Oh, Bittle,” she says, surprised to find her tone wistful, and again: “Oh…Bittle.”

“George?” someone calls, and she jumps in her seat, “You still here?”

When she glances at the clock she realizes she’s been off the clock for twenty minutes. She sighs.

“Yeah,” she answers, not too worried about who it is, “on my way out.”

At least she knows the drive from Providence to Samwell isn’t too bad. Hopefully Eric Bittle realizes that, too.

Chapter Text

“Fuck!”

“Derek!” Mom screeches, and throws a hand up to cover her eyes, “for the love of God—”

“Oh my God, Mom,” Derek says, frantically shoving his laptop off the bed and the covers up to his chin, “this is so not ch—”

“Finish that sentence,” she says, the hand not covering her face coming up to point at him, “I dare you.”

“Mom,” he says, trying to scold her but utterly failing with how high his voice has gone.

“Jesus,” she says, “God, okay, are you decent? Is that damn screen closed? You better not be charging that shit to your credit card, young man, because if you are—”

“Mom, oh my God,” Derek says, “yes, God, I’m decent, it’s gone, can you lea—”

“Derek Stokely Nurse,” she says, hand still over her eyes, “we are going to have a talk.”

“Are you—”

“Five minutes,” she says, voice going shrill like Derek’s did. She pauses, clears her throat.  “I will meet you at the kitchen island,” she says with as much dignity as she can muster. Derek is almost impressed.

She spins on her heel and bumps her shoulder on the doorway. He lets his head hit the pillow.

Those five minutes are the longest of his life. He debates whether running away would be a better idea, but he knows his mother would find him. There’s no escaping this.

He gets to the kitchen with thirty seconds to spare. Mom has tea on the counter for them.

Death would be kinder.

“Derek,” she says, looking pointedly over his shoulder.

“Mother,” he returns, and finally she looks him in the eye to properly express her lack of amusement. He takes a seat. Sniffs the tea. It’s rose.

There’s silence for a long moment.

“You know,” she finally says, “you never used to like redheads—”

“Nope.”

Her eyebrows rise; “Derek—”

“No,” Derek says. Stands up. “This is not happening.”

“Derek,” she says again, “honey. You came out years ago. And you brought Dex home last month.”

“That’s not—this isn’t,” he stops. He takes a step. “I have to go.”

“That good of a video, huh,” she says wryly. “You know, pulling pigtails didn’t work for your father, either.”

“Oh my God,” he says, and flees.

Chapter Text

“Bro,” Holster says “bro. I’m not going to remember this.”

“Bro,” Ransom says, “c’mon. It’s not that hard.”

“You just gave me the names of like, forty people, Rans.”

“Thirty-seven,” Ransom corrects him, and nudges him in apology. Holster’s got his glasses on for the day, and a light blue shirt that matches his eyes a little too well. They’re still in Ransom’s room, side-by-side on his bed. By all accounts they should be downstairs mingling already, but—

“I don’t wanna mess this up,” Holster says, turning to look at Ransom. He can feel his face do that Thing where it gets all soft and adoring. Sometimes he really hates his feelings.

“Holtzy,” he says, “when in doubt, just say Auntie. Trust me.”

Holster sighs dramatically, “That’s not genuine.”

“Who cares,” he says, “I only see them a couple times a year, they won’t mind.”

“Rans…” Holster says, tapering off. Ransom bumps their shoulders together and stands, one hand offered to the other.

“Ready?” he asks.

Another sigh. “Ready,” Holster says, and when he takes Ransom’s hand and stands, the scant distance between them disappears.

“Holster?”

“Bro,” he says, leaning into Ransom’s space, “it’s practically tradition. Kiss for good luck?”

“Bro,” Ransom says, and obliges.

Chapter Text

The drive back from the airport feels impossibly long. Eric hadn’t even been able to walk in with Jack—the risk of recognition was too high, and he wasn’t willing to put Jack through that. They kissed goodbye over the gear shift, and when he watched Jack disappear into the airport it was to a feeling in his chest as light as it was heavy.

Jack had said, “My parents, ah, want to know if you want to go to a game with them, sometime, if you want,” and Eric’s world hadn’t careened into the sun, but it was a close thing.

Because Jack’s parents knew and…and they were okay with it. They were happy for Jack.

And Eric wanted that. He wanted that, but there was that lingering sense of terror at the idea of having to tell his mother. Of having to telling his father.

Driving back home he has a realization: he’s never going to feel completely ready. And that’s okay. But it’s also not going to hold him back. So he makes a decision.

“Dicky!” his mother says when he walks into the kitchen, “You’re back already? No traffic, then, huh?”

“No, Mama,” Eric says, “it was a real nice drive.”

“That’s good,” she says. Eric takes a seat at the table, watches her set some meat to marinate. He should tell her. He’s going to tell her.

“Mama,” he says, “come sit with me.”

She blinks at him. Grabs a paper towel to dry her freshly-washed hands.

“Sure, baby,” she says, and he can hear the way it lilts, confused, “what’s on your mind?”

It’s all or nothing.

He hears himself say, “Mama, I love him.”

No backing out. No sugar coating things. He watches her expression change—confusion, realization, surprise, and some other one he can’t name. Not pity. One of those looks that only mothers get, something like love and acceptance and that achy, raw emotion you get after hearing news you weren’t expecting.

He doesn’t have to say Jack’s name. He knows it’s true, and he knows his mother knows this, too.

“Oh, Dicky,” she says, reaching out to him. She touches his hands, his face.

“Honey,” she says, and her voice is shaky, “oh, my baby, I love you so much.”

He leans into her touch, and when she gets her arms around him, the smell of rosemary and lavender fills his senses, the long sweep of her hair obscuring his vision. For the moment, the way she and Jack look at him is the only thing that matters.

Chapter Text

Chino meets Zaira at the very end of the two week “shopping session” that is apparently the beginning of every Samwell semester. He’s finally settled his schedule—Calc II, US History: The American West to 1850, and General Chemistry III, which is a combo course that condenses the other two classes (Gen Chem I and Gen Chem II) into a single semester. He almost added an English course to the list but Holster (blond captain) had sat him down on that weird green couch in the house-called-Haus and told him he could only manage one nervous wreck a semester and that Ransom (cheekbones captain) was fulfilling that quota for an indeterminate amount of time.

“Fourteen credits,” Lardo had said when he’d brought it up to her; “you will need to sleep at some point. No more classes.” And that was that.

He wasn’t sure what the big deal was—he had liked chemistry in high school, had done well enough on the AP exam to test right into the course he’d signed up for. Same thing with calculus. The history course just seemed interesting.

“You sweet summer child,” Bitty had said when he’d shared the feeling, and had gone back to pouring over pan dulce recipes even though Chino had (awkwardly) offered to ask his mom for hers. Bitty was adamant in concocting his own though, so.

But it’s at the end of those first two weeks that Chino finally meets Zaira.

When he walks into the Haus it’s to find it smelling like maduros. His stomach grumbles immediately; he hasn’t had fried plantains (or really, fried anything) in months, what with it being hockey season. It’s like a siren song, and when he gets into the kitchen it’s to find a girl with fire engine red hair sitting on the counter and chatting animatedly with Bitty.

“I’m an awful cook,” she says amiably, “but I have a great memory, so any recipes you need I’ve probably seen cooked a couple different ways.”

“Don’t ever leave,” Bitty says, and when he turns from watching the pan of oil and plantains he catches sight of Chino.

“Chino!” he says, accent warbling the vowels in a way that doesn’t grate on Chino like other’s mispronunciations usually do, “Have you ever had fried plantains?”

In his periphery, he can tell that the girl is sizing him up. “Maduros are the shit,” he says, and can immediately see the way their apparent guest straightens.

“You speak Spanish?” she says, and barely lets him finish nodding his head before she’s off on a tangent about there being no good food places on campus and how she can’t cook and how, even if she could, it’s not like the dorms have a kitchen although it looks like this one is well used, doesn’t it?

“We use it pretty often,” he answers in English; his next sentence switches over to Spanish, “Where you from?” She had cut her ’s’s and her ‘r’s had turned to ‘l's—Caribbean Spanish, but hers didn’t sound like Nursey’s.

“Florida,” she says, “Tallahassee. My mom’s from Mariel, though.” Chino nodded; Cuban, then, and recent immigrants.

“Durango,” he offers, well aware that it might not mean anything to anyone but him, “by way of Chicago.”

“You have the accent!” she says brightly, “My friend Maria is from Chicago, too, but she’s off doing her own thing right now.”

“Cool,” Chino says, for lack of anything else to say, and sits down at the table. He wonders if he should maybe pull some homework out, or if that would be rude. At the stove, Bitty is humming and slicing more plantains; he didn’t know you could buy them this far north.

“How do you like Samwell, Zaira?” Bitty says when he’s finished with the cutting board; it goes straight into the sink, knife immediately washed.

“It’s cold,” she says immediately, and shares Bitty’s grin, “really, and the humidity is just weird. I’m used to the ocean and there’s none of that here.”

“Dex used to say that,” Bitty says, “spends a lot of time on the ocean.”

“Does he?” Zaira, apparently, is intrigued by the idea of it. It reminds Chino of his sisters whenever they’re digging for more information on—oh. Well. That explains why she’s over. “He didn’t mention that,” she says.

“Y'all are taking an ethnic studies course together,” Bitty says, and Chino can hear the amusement in his voice, “something tells me y'all have other things to be discussing in class.”

“It’s an intro to Latin-ex history in the States,” she says to Chino instead of taking Bitty’s bait, “I think they offer it every semester, check it out sometime, yeah?”

““Nice,” he says, and then, “What’s Latin-ex?”

“L-a-t-i-n-x,” she spells out in Spanish, “some people say latines, o latine. Like Latino, but inclusive of all genders.”

“Huh,” Chino says, “I didn’t know Spanish did that.”

“It doesn’t,” Zaira says, and smiles.

“Zaira,” Bitty says after a moment, long-suffering like Chino’s never heard him, “please get off my counter. I can’t tell if these are done.”

“Two minutes,” she says automatically, “what time did you say Dex was done with class?”

“Good Lord,” Bitty mutters, and then louder,  “I have no idea. He might not even come over here afterwards.”

“Nah,” Chino says, even if he knows he should maybe not be encouraging the exchange, “your food is legendary—and I’ve only been here two weeks.”

“Is everyone else as nice as Eric?” Zaira says, which throws Chino off until he remembers that, right, that’s Bitty’s actual name.

“Nope,” he says with relish, ‘p’ popping, “Bitty’s the exception.”

She wrinkles her nose, “I don’t understand these nicknames. Chino makes sense, your hair is to die for, but Bitty? That just seems mean.”

“My last name is Bittle,” Bitty reminds her, and then, “did the two of y'all even introduce yourselves? I couldn’t follow along when you switched to Spanish.”

“I mean, what else is there to know?” she says, but hops off the counter to offer Chino a handshake where he’s sitting at the table. “Zaira Persaud, Trinidadian and Afro-Cubana, baby. How you doin’?”

Chino grins despite his own reservations at meeting new people (and, in particular, loud ones): “Joaquin Chavez. Chicago. Call me Chino.”

“Does everyone use your ethnic name?” Zaira says, and he grimaces; so it isn’t just him that’s noticed the team make-up.

“Sometimes Chinny,” he says, “like shinny.”

“I don’t know what that means,” she says, falling into the seat that lets her best look at both Chino and Bitty, “but I hear there’s a Latinx department on campus, is that true, Bitty?”

“You’re asking the wrong person,” he says, apologetic, “Nursey might know though, one of his moms is, uh, Chicana? I think?”

“Nice,” she says, “y'all’ll need to introduce me to everyone.”

Chino sees Bitty’s eyebrow quirk upwards. “Of course,” he says magnanimously, “I’m sure they’ll love you.”

Chino hides his grin while ducking for his homework. He wonders which one of them will scare her off—or, if she’ll pull something like his sisters do and wriggle her way into Samwell Men’s Hockey Team permanently. He’s betting on the latter.

“Those plantains should be good by now,” Zaira adds as an afterthought, and Bitty says, “Shit!” before hurriedly looking for a strainer.

“This is gonna be so good,” Zaira says to Chino; “don’t worry, we’ll teach them a thing or two about real food in no time.”

He’s not sure how he feels about that.

Zaira is sitting at one of the picnic tables on the Lake Quad with one of her friends from Black Student Union when the team finds her.

The “team” meaning Haus-occupants and Chino. He’s mostly there because they said they were heading to Founders and he has some stuff he needs to scan for his lab partner.

Lardo and Bitty are discussing something about Halloween costumes, Chowder next to them occasionally suggesting things that are only slightly less outlandish than what the other two are mentioning, with both captains debating whether a Halloween kegster needs to be a weekend event or not. Chino is more than content to trail behind them and enjoy the walk.

Someone—Holster most, likely—catches sight of Zaira first, and shouts out a booming, “Hey!” that carries across the Quad. Her hair is very slowly going orange, but she can’t seem to decide on what color to dye it next and so keeps putting it off. She has it tucked into a low bun and has her glasses on, along with a green off the shoulder dress and sandals that Chino can only describe as reminding him of 300. She looks up and catches sight of them, expression brightening.

She waves at them, probably expecting them to go on their way, but Lardo and Bitty make the executive decision to go say hi.

“Z!” Lardo says, at the same time Ransom says, “What’s up, Zaaah?” because no one liked the way “zeee” got caught between their teeth.

“Hi,” Zaira says, glancing at her friend, “this is Amalia. We’re just going over some lines.”

“Lines?” Holster says—Chino would be worried about his obsession with all things media-related if it weren’t for Queralt’s obsession with all things method, which is why she still lives at home and does theater on weekends. Holster’s love for song and dance wasn’t a new experience, and Chino was actually surprised he wasn’t already leaning over Zaira’s shoulder to look at what she was revising.

“Show this week,” says her friend, “Zaira’s performing, you know?”

“Whaaat,” the group collectively choruses. Chowder looks positively thrilled; Ransom insulted that he hasn’t been told sooner.

“You’re going to act?” he says, incredulous, and Zaira makes a face.

“Sing,” she corrects, “I’m on SoundCloud, remember?”

“Nursey loves your stuff,” Chowder tells her.

“What a sweet lie,” Zaira says. Lardo, where no one but Chino can see, nods grimly.

“When is it?” Ransom demands, “What time?”

“Ugh,” Zaira says; her friend answers instead.

“Thursday,” she says, pops her gum; “seven-thirty. Student center.”

“I like you,” says Ransom.

“You look just like Nia Long,” Holster says to her, “Fresh Prince Nia Long, I mean.”

“Thanks,” says Zaira’s friend, “I get that a lot. We’re both Trini.”

“Me too,” Zaira says, unimpressed, and then, “did y’all actually need something from me, or?”

“No,” Ransom says brightly, “we just saw you here and wanted to interrupt. And now we have plans for Thursday night!”

“Why,” she says, though it’s unclear who she’s talking to.

Bitty says, “Will y’all need snacks?” and Zaira sighs.

“Yes,” and she sounds almost sad to say it.

“You the one who made the pones?” her friend says to Bitty, eyes narrowed in suspicion. He blinks.

“Yes?” he tries. She nods at him, still serious. Her hair is cut short, around the ears, and she’s wearing silver hoops and a sleeveless cream-colored v-neck. Chino doesn’t think her expression has changed the entire time they’ve been there.

“Tasted like home,” she offers, which must be a compliment from the considering look on Zaira and Bitty’s faces.

“Thank you,” he says to her, “I’ll make some more for Thursday.”

She grins, “Sounds good, doux.”

five (former) smh players zaira persaud was linked to (and the girl no one saw coming) (pt. i)

It starts off like this:

No one ever really leaves the group chat. Sure, when numbers change or members leave the country there exists a tiny hole in the heart of whoever knew that player best, but for those that truly loved Samwell and, to a lesser extent, the assholes that made up Samwell Men’s Hockey team, staying in the group chat usually led to some fun conversations (primarily due to chirping material).  Sometimes people get caught up in real life—the med students, the scientists, anyone who decides that pursuing “business” is a plausible thing to do—it isn’t always conductive to a semi-inebriated group chat that is in a constant cycling of new and old players.

This is not to say, of course, that people don’t stay. As is convenient, however, according to Johnson at least, is that the only remaining upperclassman from Eric Bittle’s first year of university are the aforementioned goalie, Shitty Knight, and Jack Zimmermann.

Zaira Persaud does not meet Jack Zimmermann until the morning of Spring C. She’s wearing Lardo’s workout shorts and a Sharks tee that is definitely not hers. She just wants to eat some whipped raspberry Yoplait yogurt, because she was up all night finishing tonality exercises simply so she could spend the rest of the weekend drunk and/or hungover. On the plus side, she has work through the first half of the week done; on the downside, she needs a nap at barely nine in the morning.

The container in her hand nearly pops open when a deep, lilting voice says, “Those have a lot of sugar,” as she turns to walk back out to the porch and maybe fall back asleep out there. For a second she’s sure her heart has stopped.

“What the fuck,” she says, cringing, and when she turns sees the blurry figure that is the average man when she’s not wearing any sort of visual aid. She senses disappointment from him, which is weird, because—“Uh, who are you?”

She can vaguely make out some blinking on his end.

“Eh,” he says, and shrugs, “I’m Jack?”

She returns the blinking. “Jack,” she repeats, because she knows this name, although she’s not sure she knows the face—“oh,” she says, jerking into the best posture she can manage, which is weird and a purely instinctual reaction, “Bitty’s Jack! Oh, man. Shit. Uh.”

“Bitty’s Jack?” presumably-Bitty’s-Jack says, voice softer and kinder and teasing, which Zaira was not expecting, and then they’re interrupted—

“Jack, there you are, I was just goin’ to ask—oh, Zaira, you’re up! It’s early, weren’t you up late?”

“I hate music,” she responds automatically, grinning at the blurry blond blob that is Eric R. Bittle, and then, “I found your man.”

The two blurs must share a look, because Bitty says, real soft, “That you did,” and Zaira realizes she should get out of the kitchen.

“Anyway,” she says, and starts to back out of the kitchen, her feet sticking very slightly to the floor, “I’m, uh, gonna…go.” And sits out back to eat her Yoplait despite Jack Zimmerman’s “That’s really not good for you,” following her out.

The following occurs, albeit in a longer time than is used to report it:

a.      Zaira puts her hair up in cute little half-pig tails, with Holster trying to figure out which purple haired fairy she most looks like, because there has got to be a specific one, come on, Z.

b.     Vague homework-doing occurs. Mostly Zaira watches makeup tutorials and waits for Chino to show up.

c.      Upon showing up, Zaira makes Chino cuddle with her. She hears vague questions from Jack about it, with Bitty’s firm, “Oh no, that’s not a thing,” making her smile

d.     There are…a lot of shots. So many shots. Jello shots in particular, but also Ransom made vodka gummies which she ate too many of, of course.

e.      Chino, the backstabber, after holding her hand (truly to make sure she did not get lost) hooks up with Alec from her Freshman Music Colloquium and later does not give her deets, what the hell, Chino.

f.      She fucking kills Ghost/Colors by Halsey, seriously, put that shit on YouTube, y’all.

And,

g.     At some point, before they leave the Haus, Jack Zimmermann snaps a picture of her looking up (interpreted by His Highness and the entirety of SMH as “gazing lovingly”) at her second-favorite defenseman (the first being Chino), Will Poindexter.

Which he then chose to distribute to the entire group chat, of which she is a member of due to being assistant manager. He is standing in front of her, and she is perched on the top step of the front porch, and smiling slightly at something he said that she has now forgotten because she drank a lot. It was strictly platonic though. His caption, looking good, makes her want to scream, and it’s worse because he doesn’t send it until after he’s left for Providence and, presumably, is at the gas station filling up. She gets the first notification—ping!—and two minutes later the chirps come in.

Ping! Ping! Ping!

“What,” Zaira says to her phone, where she’s lying face down in her bed. Her roommate is at the library, she thinks, however she’s still a little hungover and kind of worried she might die. She really hopes she didn’t have any gluten the day before, but she’s not positive.

When she checks the chat she sees that there are twenty-two—twenty-three—twenty-seven?

“What?” she says again, and scrolls back to the top to see what she’s missed. She sees the photo. She feels nauseas. “Oh my god,” she says, voice shrill.

Oh my god, she sends to the group, and is immediately hounded by Ransom and Holster. She ats Jack. Zimmermann, it says, you don’t even know me like that ??? what is this

Nursey says, yo this might be the one time i’m not chill

Dex says, you are literally never chill but OK

Nursey: babe

Zaira: AJCK

          JACK

           WHY

Holtzy: ngl you look p good there dex

Ransom: 2 true def the best looking peeps on this team

               After me obvi

Lardo: P sure that’s Chino and Bits

Ransom: Chino’s still with his hookup he doesn’t count rn

Zaira: YALL

Eric: I think it’s cute!

Jack: Haha. Nice meeting you, Zaira.

Zaira: who put you up to this. who.

Nursey doesn’t let her live it down for weeks. Dex doesn’t seem to care. Chino was too busy getting it on with Alec from the Colloquium to give her the massive amounts of attention she demanded in the aftermath (though he usually pulled a classic Big-Brother-Chino and dealt with her as he would his sisters, i.e. sit there and do his own thing while she jabbered on. It was a good set-up).

Regardless, Zaira’s no longer existent crush on Dex was brought up for weeks and it was incredibly uncalled for. So of course she made up for it by parading around Jacksonville and later, Chicago (on a visit to Chino) in bikinis and also an ill-advised hookup with her worst ex, Maya. Chino yelled at her for that one.

Rest assured that the photo was eventually forgotten except for in extreme cases when Nursey and Dex were arguing and Holster wanted to paint Zaira has the other woman. She was ready to fight Holster if it weren’t for the fact that he was now in New York.

And then, Jack Zimmermann outdid himself.

He outdid himself, and Zaira cried, and then there were photos of them on the internet not unlike the one of him and Bitty, except American society is a white supremacist heteropatriarchy, which means the gossip mags started talking.

It goes like this:

Jack invites them down for a fundraiser. He does not say what it is for, but Eric, his frogs, and his tadpoles go down, with Shitty and Lardo there as a surprise, and Holster and Ransom too busy with post-graduate things (and possibly each other) to make it out that weekend, which is fine, because Holster does not doubt Zaira’s ability to kick his ass.

So they get to an otherwise plain building with a group of people milling about, and there are refreshments, and Zaira’s hair is an atrocious shade of oompa loompa green that Chowder adores, and Jack says, “I didn’t apologize for that picture, did I?”

Which leads everyone to start making fun of Zaira again. They’re standing in the parking lot of some generic nice area of Providence. She pouts. Jack laughs.

“I wanted to make it up to you,” he says, and he’s so earnest she wants to smack his beautiful face. And stroke his cheekbones.

“Uh,” she says, and tugs at the jean skirt she’s wearing. She cross-stitched ZAIRA PERSAUD along the sides. Her jacket was produced in ’92 and is one of her favorite items. She does not trust Jack Zimmermann, except in making Bitty happy (and she says this all very fondly, it’s true).

“I heard you liked dogs,” he says, but he veers up a little at the end, like he’s unsure. His eyebrows are furrowed; next to him, Bitty beams.

“You know,” Zaira says, lips barely moving as she looks at Bitty, realization dawning suddenly, “you know why we’re here.”

“You are going to cry,” he says, confidently, and Jack turns to him, worried.

“Why—”

“What is it?” Shitty demands, grinning, “Brah. You can’t say that and not tell us.”

“Oh,” Jack says. He looks at Zaira, hard, for a second. She’s weirdly into it.

“There are dogs here,” he finally says. Zaira’s ears start ringing.

“What,” she says.

“Puppies,” Bitty says, sage.

Zaira steps away from them, towards the building. She can hear them now. Yips. Yowls. Can see the faint fluff of a Pomeranian, and someone is holding a baby Husky, oh my god.

“Oh my god,” she says, and turns to look at them, “oh my god? Oh my god.”

“I can’t believe you went out of your way for her,” someone says, “you chirp us all the time and we don’t get presents.”

Someone else: “Does this mean you’re in love with Z, too?”

Zaira has started crying. “I love dogs,” she says, grasping wildly at anything. Chino looks like he might step forward, but Nursey stops him with a hand to his chest, laughing. Eric pushes Jack forward, who is smiling a bit bewilderedly but takes her in his strong, well-toned arms anyway.

“Oh my god,” she says again.

“It wasn’t like that,” Jack says, “Bitty thought dogs would cheer everyone up before midterms.” He pauses. “I didn’t realize he wanted Zaira to cry.”

His chest is firm. His shirt is rapidly being ruined.

“Oh my god,” she says again, and clings.

The next day, Deadspin publishes an article called, Jack Zimmermann Does Not Have a Type, full of pictures of Zaira crying on him and playing with puppies. Someone prints out a poster and tapes it to Bitty’s locker. People start asking Zaira about his dick.

Jack Zimmermann, she sends, i literally!!! don’t!!! know you like that!!!

five (former) smh players zaira persaud was linked to (and the girl no one saw coming) (pt. ii)

Joaquin “Chino” Chavez, light of Zaira’s life, can be a real asshole to her sometimes.

She loves it, rest assured. It’s like having the brother she would have preferred to have had (no disrespect to the one she has; this is mostly because one does not get along with their siblings until after they leave the home). The day they meet is the day that Zaira, freshman that she is at the time, manages to tag along with Dex to the Haus and stay there even after he escapes back to class. Chino, as the potential third-line D-man, is there because he likes working in the kitchen while Bitty bakes.

Regardless, their commiserating over the lack of good Latinx food places quickly spirals into a relationship that will culminate (but not end with) Chino naming his daughter “Citlali Ziv” as in homage to Zaira’s name having Arabic roots meaning “radiance”, just like “Ziv.” She cries when this happens.

But, Zaira grew up in cheer and also Latina, meaning that physical affection among loved ones was the norm and something she was unwilling to give up regardless of social setting or how it may look to those not within her circle. Similarly, Chino grew up with four sisters who used to do his hair and makeup when they were bored (which Zaira has gleefully taken over since becoming friends with him). The touchiness, the crawling all over each other, the ease with which they slip into each other’s space—it’s natural to them, unthinking, but for the rest of the team (and general Samwell student populace)? Well, that’s a bit different.

They start questioning it during the first big Haus party of the year. Someone has put Bow Wow on, apparently, and Zaira shrieks a little when the song comes on.

“Oh my god!” she exclaims, and starts turning her head wildly, like she’s looking for someone, red curls majestic in their freneticism, “this is my song!”

“I have heard her say that at least four times already,” Holster says to Ransom, where they’re waiting for the next round of flip-cup a few feet from her. She ignores them.

“Chino!” she calls, “Chino, yo, babe, dance with me!”

He emerges like a sea is parting. The co-captains are impressed.

“What?” he says, over the din of the Haus, and she tugs him further into the living room, making space for them closer to the wall than the couch. Like Bitty, she doesn’t trust it. They’re holding hands, which is a not-uncommon sight.

“It’s Bow Wow. Omarion,” she shouts, and Chino tilts his head backwards slightly before nodding his agreement.

“Good song,” he offers.

“Best song,” she says, “greatest love song of the 2000’s R&B era. Trust me.”

“Okay,” he says, and she laughs, throws her arms around his neck. He quirks an eyebrow but settles his hands somewhere between her hips and waist anyway. Nursey, hovering near the staircase, watches them curiously. No one notices.

“All I’m asking for you to do is let me hold you,” she mouths, and they sway together before the chorus comes on and everyone is leaning in close. They shift into one another naturally, and it would be sweet if Ransom hadn’t seen her fraternizing with Kwesi, one of the new laxbros this year, earlier when he’d stopped by for a few minutes.

Suffice to say, most people were confused. Are confused. It’s an ongoing thing. Mostly they dealt with it separately. Case in point:

RANSOM: yo
ZAIRA: ye
RANSOM: i….have a question
ZAIRA: interesting
RANSOM: will you be willing to answer it?
ZAIRA: assuming youre not asking about kwesi, yes
RANSOM: first of all, we are going to have a talk about that
                  secondly, ok.
                  what’s up with you and Chino?
ZAIRA: ?
           oh my god
RANSOM: don’t get mad
ZAIRA: i s2g
           literally
           why is everyone asking me this
RANSOM: define everyone
ZAIRA: ugh
           no
           that’s nto a thing!
           not***
           get your heteronormativity OUT of my face
RANSOM: you 2 have literally woken up spooning on the back porch
                  there are pictures
ZAIRA: it was cold
           don’t you sleep with holster sometimes?
RANSOM: …..
                  i have to go
ZAIRA: ???
           don’t ask me this again !!

Chino, meanwhile, had some pretty straightforward questioning from his fellow d-men. Or d-man, in this case.

“Yo, Chino,” Nursey says one day, dropping into the seat opposite of the table Chino has temporarily made his study nook, “quick question.”

“Shoot, man,” Chino says, marking his spot in his chemistry textbook with a finger; they’re working with organic molecules for the next few weeks, which is weird because it’s an introductory course, but it’s whatever. He likes chemistry.

“You and Z,” Nursey says, wiggling his eyebrows; he’s wearing a slouchy purple sweater and a beanie, like always. Nursey has a significant amount of stubble going on for no-shave November, and Chino is 100% sure he saw a certain redhead with some mad beard burn. Being less petty than said assistant manager, he keeps this to himself when Nursey says, “Is that a thing?”

“Is what a thing,” Chino responds automatically; he can admit he likes to make people squirm.

“Dude,” Nursey says, and rolls his eyes dramatically. When Chino raises an eyebrow he sighs gustily.

“Are you and Zaira a thing?” Nursey says, “Like, romantically. Or something. It’s chill either way.”

“Asking me that is definitely not chill,” Chino says.

“Chill,” Nursey says, “you know we wouldn’t care. I’m just curious.”

“Everyone wants to know,” Chino corrects him, and shrugs. “But nah, man, that’s not a thing at all. She’s like, the best friend I have out here.”

“You met three months ago,” Nursey says. Chino shrugs again.

“Best friend,” he repeats, and goes back to his chemistry homework.

It’s an ongoing joke:

“Alternate universe where we’re dating each other,” Chino says once, after a weird visit from the team’s old goalie. Zaira throws her arms around his neck, only this time she swoons dramatically.

“Oh, Chino!” she says, “You say that like you don’t already love me.”

“True,” he says, monstrous hands around her waist.

Another time, while in the middle of arguing with each other about something but still embracing each other goodbye:

“Come with me,” Zaira says, “Trinidad would look so good on you!”

“No,” Chino says flatly. His hand slips from her arm to her waist. Lingers at her ribs. Her eyebrows shoot up.

“Are you feeling me up—” her voice goes high.

“You’ve been eating gluten,” he accuses, and catches her by the wrist when she spins on her heel in a poor effort to escape his castigation. “Z, for fuck’s sake, you have Celiac’s!” (From inside the Haus, after he’s carried her inside, “We both know you avoid eating after having gluten and we both know that’s unhealthy, I swear to God—”)

Photographic evidence, described as follows:

a.      Zaira on Chino’s shoulders at RuidoFest in Chicago. She’s in a string bikini and mesh crop top, and most likely tiny shorts (as they are not quite visible in the picture). Chino looks long-suffering.

b.     Zaira getting a piggyback from Chino at their second Spring C. There appears to be crooning going on from her end to Chino. He appears nonplussed.

c.      Chino with an arm around Zaira’s shoulders, pulling her in to kiss her temple. She’s got Monroe-esque hair and a formal blue dress on, likely at an important Fall semester show. Chino wears a matching tie.

d.     Chino, armful of crying Zaira on the day of their graduation from Samwell, Class of 2019. Her hair is bright red again, and he looks bemused. (This is his default expression when it comes to Zaira.)

At some point in the future, at some awards show or another, when Shanti is busy and Caro deigns allow Chino out of the house (Zaira’s words, of course), they show up on the red carpet together, Zaira brown-haired and  in a flowing black dress that Chino helped her pick out. He’s wearing deep blue and has a single gold hoop shining in his ear, stubble maintained and looking like a Golden Age cinema star. Zaira is beaming.

“And who is this?” one of the interviewers asks, and Zaira tosses her hair back.

“This is Chino,” she says, fixing the camera with a publicity-smile, and then Chino with something more genuine, “he’s my best friend.”

Chapter Text

“It matches your hair.”

“That joke’s old, you know.” Dex doesn’t look up, because he knows Nursey will be making that quivering lip look that he’s fond of, and which he knows always gets Dex, even if it’s not serious, like this pumpkin-fueled conversation clearly isn’t. He’s carefully looking over the batch of pumpkins, because he’d like an easier time than last year’s carving efforts, when Nursey managed to scrape his pumpkin so thin that it glowed like a real lightbulb while his quickly crumpled to nothing after the wet winter they had.

“We should get matching ones.”

“I’m thinking of experimenting.”

“With a white pumpkin? Be serious.”

Dex looks at him, exasperated, but Nursey’s grinning. Dex says, “What if I want it to look like a ghost?”

“Is that our couple’s costume?”

“We never do couple’s costumes,” Dex says, just barely not a whine, which is how they both know that Nursey is winning this conversation. Dex isn’t sure how it’s still like this, with silly competitions after knowing each other so long, but he also knows it’ll probably stay this way forever.

“I want to experiment,” Nursey says, sotto voce, and Dex’s ears burn.

“Nurse,” Dex hisses, and Nursey’s eyes light up.

“We can do sexy nurse and patient,” he says, “oh, or sexy nurse and sexy doctor. Actually, we should be House and Wilson.”

“That man committed crimes,” Dex says, but when Nursey leers he lets him, the same way he lets him grab his hand, the same way he lets him plant an enthusiastic kiss on his cheekbone. “Do you want your pumpkin or not?”

“As long as you’ll help me carve it, pumpkin,” Nursey says, and when Dex smiles this time it’s genuine, cheeks burning.

“Whatever you say,” he says, and squeezes Nursey’s hand right back.