Archive of Our Own ^beta

The pill bottle is the same lurid, transparent orange that Jack remembers, and it catches the warm light in the Haus’ kitchen to throw a square of orange on the floor, and he thinks again how strange it is that something so dangerous can make something so beautiful. 

He’s leaning against the counter, back to it with one palm on the surface and head bent over the medicine. He tilts the bottle backwards and the pills make a soft clacking sound. They’re not too big, as pills go. Little white ovals with a diamond-shaped dent in the middle and some kind of serial number etched into the ends. 

He doesn’t feel too good. Jack swallows. On the back of his tongue there’s a bitter taste. Thirty minutes earlier, he’d been upstairs in his and Shitty’s suite bathroom, with a paper cup of water and trying to swallow. 

He couldn’t do it. Jack’s still feeling the looming panic when he’d realized he couldn’t do it. He’d sat the pill on his tongue and taken a gulp of water but just couldn’t get his brain to cooperate, work with him on this, let him do what he needed to do to get the pill down his throat, and no, he wasn’t going to choke on it, it wasn’t that big, but he couldn’t. 

Half the pill ended up dissolving into a bitter chalky slurry while he stood there frozen until he’d coughed and spat the whole thing out. 

It was something about the sink, probably. Shiny white porcelain and new lightbulbs above the mirror that were harsher and blue. I’d been like that too, when he’d taken all his medication. Bright well-lit room in the middle of the night. Stupid place to pass out, really. He’d dug into that transparent orange bottle over and over feeding himself pill after pill and then some, with barely a sip or two of shaky water to get it all down, and now. Now he can’t do it at all.

Jack hasn’t taken any kind of medication in over five years. He’s avoided it, but it’s been five years. When the team physician had handed him this bottle he’d thought-- he knew how to do this. Nobody forgets how to do something as simple as swallow pills. 

The front door slams. 

Jack jumps, taken out of it just in time for Bitty to come wheeling into the kitchen, slinging off his backpack to set down near the table. He obligingly shuffles away from the oven, figuring Bitty wants to get at whatever he’s been baking, and is soon proven correct by Bitty grabbing the oven mitts. Jack had wandered into the kitchen in the first place off the smell.

Bitty slides out a tray of what look like tiny pies, but not mini-pies, like… scone… pies… and shouts, “Hah!”

Jack peers over him. “Everything okay?”

“Yes it is, Jack, these’ll win over Dex and Nursey. You know what those boys brought into this Haus?” Bitty grits his teeth and gets the kind of maniacal gleam to his eyes that has Jack smiling involuntarily. “Hostess pies.”

Like the cheap convenience store ones? Jack’s seen those, had a few even, on the road. They taste like ash. “Oh. Did you kill them?”

“Now that’s what Dex will try to tell you, but believe it or not I believe in positive reinforcement around here,” says Bitty, self-satisfied as he stands on his toes to get a platter from the top shelf. “They’re tart cherry. Found a special recipe from my aunt, too.”

Jack smiles further and takes advantage of Bitty’s rooting around to lean over the tray and see if he can un-stick one. Bitty manages to slap his hand away even with one knee up on the counter. 

“What’s gotten into you, stealing from the frogs?” Bitty laughs, as Jack puts his hands up with a guilty grin. “Mr., ‘I have to stick to my’…” he trails off. 

Jack follows his line of sight. Slowly, he puts the bottle down, the pills clacking once more as they’re set on the counter. 

Honestly, he’d forgotten he was holding them. 

“Oh. Hey, Jack, what’s…?” Bitty asks, softer, then cuts himself off.

Jack shrugs, then remembers he shouldn’t be doing that, then gestures awkwardly to his shoulder. “Painkillers. Coaches want me taking them.” He’s not sure what else to say. 

“Is it still bothering you?” asks Bitty. 

Yeah. Last game at Faber a right winger had slammed right into Jack’s side against the boards and nearly thrown his whole shoulder out of the cuff. But it had turned out fine, and-- he’s used to it. Jack doesn’t tell anyone but he’s used to the pain. He doesn’t want drugs. He doesn’t want to ask for them and see the hesitancy on anyone’s face. 

Five years.

“It’s not too bad,” says Jack. “Nothing I haven’t handled before.”

Bitty gives him an under-the-lashes dubious look. It makes a kind of cold shame that Jack doesn’t understand drip into his chest. It’s bad enough that a teammate’s looking at him that way, bad enough that a friend is, bad enough that Bitty is.

Bitty tidies up the tray a little, turning off the oven, and carefully avoids looking at Jack. “Have you been taking them?”

The cold turns to winter water. Jack doesn’t know why it’s so important that Bitty isn’t upset with him. 

His silence speaks for itself. Jack rolls over the pill bottle in his hand, again, back to bracing himself against the counter while Bitty takes a bowl of icing from the fridge. He has no idea what Bitty’s thinking. He knows that he, well, knows about Jack’s past. Everyone even tangentially interested in hockey knows about the great fall of Jack Zimmermann and he thought he was over the humiliation by now, but it keeps finding ways to creep up on him. 

The sun’s shifted, and now light glares off the child safety diagram on the top of the bottle. Jack doesn’t know how much time has passed, but he blinks when Bitty, tentatively, places next to him a glass of water. 

“If I’m overstepping you have to tell me,” says Bitty. “But you do enough already, Jack, you don’t have to add pain to that list.”

His throat swells. Jack breathes out and takes a sip of water, nodding, grateful that Bitty goes right back to applying icing like nothing’s amiss. After a minute he shakes himself and twists off the cap, popping out one of the pills into his palm, and then he takes a decisive extra sip. He brings the pill to his mouth. Quick is the right way to do it. Before his brain can even have a say in the matter, just do it on reflex, like it’s a piece of candy, just do it, just do it, Zimmermann. What’s wrong with him? 

He swallows the water. “I couldn’t get it down,” Jack whispers.

“Hm?”

“This morning. I tried.” Jack stares at the floor. “I couldn’t get it down.” 

He sneaks a glance over. Bitty is icing his last row of pies, a slight furrow to his brow in the same way Jack’s seen when they’re down a goal and have to make up the difference. Bitty stops, biting his lip, then sets down his brush and reaches over to snag a paper towel from the holder. As Jack watches, he carefully pries up one of the mini scone-pie things from the tray. 

“Did I ever tell you I was sick a lot as a kid?” Bitty says suddenly. He transfers the pie from the tray to his towel. “Couldn’t go a single winter without getting the flu or strep throat or something. Drove Mama crazy. And I hated the meds I’d have to take ‘cause we didn’t have a pill splitter, so I kept asking for kids gummies and stuff. And, um.” Bitty goes quiet for a second. “Coach had something to say about that.”

He tests the coolness of the pie with a knuckle against the pastry shell and apparently finds it worthy, spinning to face Jack. “Then I figured, y’know, no doctor’s ever said to me you have to take ‘em with water. Eat.”

“What?” says Jack.

“Eat,” says Bitty, handing over the pie to Jack, and Jack does.

He feels like he’s in a trance, standing this close, watching Bittle watch him. “Wait ‘til you’re just ready to swallow and stop,” instructs Bitty. Jack chews, following instructions, not sure what’s happening but absolutely along for the ride. He stops. The lump of sweet pastry sits heavy on his tongue.

Bitty takes the pill right out of his hand and lifts it up. At the very last second he seems to realize what he’s doing, eyes widening in panic, but Jack takes the pass like they’re on the ice. He chews once more and places the pill right in the mush and swallows. 

It goes down fine. He can’t even tell. 

“That’s really good,” says Jack automatically.

“Uh,” chokes Bitty.

“The pie,” Jack clarifies. “Like.” His heart’s racing. “Dex and Nursey will definitely love it. Uh.” He returns to the safe haven of leaning against the counter. “Thanks, Bittle.”

“Oh! Oh, it’s nothing, just an old recipe. Neat trick, too,” Bitty rambles. “Not a problem at all, glad I could help. Lord, I’m sorry, I have got to get the rest of these things into a tin before…”

His words fade out, and Jack wishes he could hear them better, but his racing heart is starting to take over. He tries to smile to show Bitty they’re alright but he needs both palms, now, to steady himself on the counter, the kitchen swaying slightly before his eyes. It’s fine. He bows his head. It’s just an anxiety crash, he’s had a million of these before. It doesn’t help the knowledge that he did take that pill and it’s dissolving in him right now, that it’s too late, that whatever happens now he has to deal with the consequences. 

Somewhere he hears his name. Now a lot of stupid thoughts are flooding his brain, panic thoughts, that Jack knows aren’t real. But they’re so loud.

“I’m not going to die,” he manages.

“No, you’re not.”

Jack lifts his head. Bitty is right there. Bitty is right in front of him, squeezing his forearm, smiling. 

“It’s not going to do a thing but make you feel better,” says Bitty. “And, Jack? Even if something did happen you have a whole Haus of friends here that wouldn’t let anything happen to you. You know that.”

He can’t look away. Bitty’s already let go but Jack really, really wants to hug him. He can’t believe that Bitty is even saying what he’s saying-- before Samwell, Jack hadn’t known a hockey bro in the world who understood this kind of emotion. Does Bitty even realize how incredible he is? How self-confident he must be?

“Thanks,” he whispers, again, and Bitty beams at him.

They let each other be until the world re-steadies under Jack’s feet. He wipes his brow, ashamed that he’s been sweating. When he finally catches up with what’s been happening, Bitty has assembled half of what looks like an antique three-tier silver serving tray, cursing as he fits the last layer together, some shouted commotion from outside announcing the arrival of the frogs. 

Jack, needing to express what he feels, goes to help.