#the only thing that kills immersion is the idea that bitty wouldn't forge ahead with baking despite new dietary restrictions

[asbestosghost-blog]

Oh wow, I sure did this. Based on @61below ‘s prompt to @shitty-check-please-aus (”AU where Bitty is gluten-free and Jack is diabetic”). Reposting because I think I botched the tags the first time around. Enjoy all this dessert angst pls~~

Save Room

It was a hard road for both of them, but definitely tougher on Bitty than Jack. Jack would probably eat garbage without complaining if his coaches told him to, but Bitty… he felt responsible. Still feels that way. Jack kept telling him, type 1 is usually genetic - it’s his pancreas, possibly even his parents, but not the pie.

The whole team found out before Jack. He had mentioned having trouble breathing earlier that day, and Ransom had noticed he smelled sweet (chalked it up to pie), but it wasn’t until Jack collapsed unexpectedly on the ice that they put two and two together. Full-blown DKA was the worst symptom of type 1 diabetes, but there it was, and there they were, hauling him into Holster’s car like idiots because the hospital was close enough that they thought they’d beat an ambulance. Bitty cried the entire time, some thick voice in the back of his head repeating over and over again, You did this. You did this to him.

Even after the doctors told him he wasn’t the cause, Bitty still stayed at the hospital until Jack woke up three days later. When his eyes finally started to focus, Bittle was the first thing he saw - crumpled into a plastic chair, static splaying his hair all over the armrest, uncomfortably asleep. Eric seemed to feel the attention and rustled awake, going from grumpy to guilty in the time it took him to lock eyes with Jack. He’s on new levels of ugly cry, still so convinced it’s his fault that he doesn’t even care about how he instantly goes to hold Jack’s hand. It’s sweet, it’s overwhelming, it’s almost a little ridiculous.

“This beats the last time I woke up in a hospital bed,” Jack croaks, cracking a weak smile. He rubs his thumb over Bitty’s palm, and it seems to calm the golden boy down. Bitty leans his forehead on their together-fist, and his sobs quiet into shuddering breaths, then even out to long, meditative breezes over Jack’s knuckles.

“Lord,” he says quietly, a small laugh trembling up his exhausted diaphragm, “save this Canadian fool.”

It takes a week for Jack to get the all-clear to leave the hospital, with a bag full of pamphlets and an insulin pump attached to his stomach. He and Bitty start dating a week later.

Bitty slows down on baking. While his brain understands that Jack is self-control world champion and I did not give him diabetes, he can’t find a way to forgive himself. It doesn’t make sense - of course it doesn’t. But he goes outside his recipes, and it lets him forget. He starts using darker chocolate, uses less sugar in general, indulges in the savory, hunts down non-American desserts.

While Jack appreciates the gesture, he can’t help but notice how tired Bitty looks. The purplish shadow under his eyes seems to get darker every week. During checking practice, it takes less and less force to push him into the boards—he peeks at the scale afterwards, and echoes Bitty’s worried face. “Ten pounds lighter,” he murmurs, and with resignation he hopes aloud that it’s just that he’s baking less.

But then Jack comes home early from class once, and hears Bittle groaning from upstairs. He tracks down his voice—he’s in the bathroom, and he sounds like he’s in real pain. And the smell.

“Jesus, Bits, what did you eat?”

He gets a groan in response. “Pie,” he moans. “Just a little pie, and then this.” Jack can make out the telltale whimpers of Bitty crying; he leans on the bathroom door, despite the smell (beyond asparagus; beyond wine hangover; Jack had never before undergone such an assault). “As if it couldn’t get any worse. I thought it would be done by now…”

Jack’s attention spikes. “Thought what would be done?”

“It’s… it’s nothing, sweetheart, you don’t need to stay here, please…”

“Bits.” He hears a sigh; defeat is what saves him, Jack thinks. “Thought what would be done.”

“I, um…” Starts talking, stops, starts again. “Diarrhea?” he squeaks, embarrassed. “It’s been a week and a half.”

Jack starts dialing his doctor. “Is your insurance card in your wallet?”

“Jack, no!”

“I’m taking you to the hospital. I’ll pick up your co-pay. This isn’t normal,” he says, wandering into Bitty’s room to grab his coat.

An hour later, they’re in the doctor’s office. Jack’s there when the doctor does the physical, when Bitty rattles off his symptoms, trying to laugh through pain so it looks normal. He’s holding Bitty’s hand when they head downstairs to the lab for blood work, and keeps him distracted while the nurse fills three vials from Bitty’s arm. He’s there when the call comes, when Bitty’s face goes white and he stumbles through scheduling an endoscopy. Jack takes him to the hospital for the biopsy, flips through an issue of HGTV without reading it in the waiting room, drives them home, keeps Bitty company while the sedatives wear off.

And when that last call comes, Jack’s not there. He gets a text from Bitty mid-class, and his mind blanks for the rest of the lecture.

They said I have celiac disease.

They’re both in Bitty’s bed, a little worse for wear. Jack kisses Bitty’s head, but the smaller boy is far too trapped in his brain to detect its gentleness. “It’s all gone now,” he sobs. “Have you ever tasted gluten-free desserts?”

Jack kisses away his tears. “I’d eat it if you made it, Bits.”

“Wet sand,” he hisses. “It all just falls apart without flour.” He covers his eyes to try and hold back a new wave of tears. Eric gets that he might be overreacting—bodies are weird, it’s probably genetic, he knows—but it just makes him feel worse about the pie complex he gave himself after Jack’s coma.

Jack just holds him tighter, kissing random spots all over his face. “Put it in perspective. If you hadn’t given me diabetes”—he has to pause to wrestle Bittle, who just belted an incredulous WHAT right in Jack’s face and is definitely attempting to illegally exit this cuddle—“with your dangerous, sugary pies, I wouldn’t be here right now.” He has to pin Bitty’s wrists to the bed to get a good look at his face. “We wouldn’t be here right now. Hell, I could be on some other team, or not in college. It could have happened anywhere. I could have died.”

“Mr. Zimmerman, you are in so much trouble when I get my hands back—“

“And maybe you have to give up wheat flour, but at least you’ve got me, eh?” he says, kissing a soft line down his neck. Bitty reluctantly lets him lace their fingers together, the flesh willing, but the spirit all full of fight.

“And maybe we can go back to the doctor and he’ll let me trade you back in for some, for all the good it does me!” he shouts, high-pitched and trying really really hard not to smile. He bucks his head up far enough to grab Jack’s ear with his teeth, and drags him back into smoochin’ range. Jack never thought someone could kiss petulantly, but that’s the word comes to mind.

“I think I’d let you sell me for flour that doesn’t make you shit yourself. I think I love you that much,” he whispers.

“And maybe I should start making POLENTA with all this CORN YOU’VE GOT—”

“Saints, I wish I had the room to eat it all over again,” Bitty whines.

It’s a month into fall semester, and they’re celebrating both the Falcs win and their sixth-ish-month anniversary. Jack picked the place—a hellishly fancy restaurant in Providence, the kind with just one prix fixe menu a night and no price listed.

The waiter comes around again. “Are we ready for the dessert course? More wine?”

Bitty looks at Jack hesitantly at the word “dessert.” Baking had to take a back seat this year anyway, but he’s lost so much steam (and so many subscribers) fighting a losing battle with gluten-free baking that he declared a moratorium on desserts. It was his lowest moment—he’d never felt less like himself—and the Haus has felt a little hollow ever since. He’s hoping to get I thought we weren’t doing this across with just his eyes, but Jack just smiles back… smugly?

The waiter rattles off the dessert courses as he puts each on the table—a tart, an impossibly thin pie slice, a deconstructed whatsit doused in chocolate shavings. Bitty’s working through his plan to just eat the shavings, when the waiter drops the bomb. “And all gluten-free, as requested.” He turns to Jack and starts commenting on how Chef so appreciates the challenge, but Bitty can’t pay attention anymore.

The tart is in front of him. The tart is in front of him, and it’s a gastrointestinal safe haven. Paradise, possibly. Bitty picks up the dessert fork. Hesitates. Dips it down—the lemon curd (he thinks?) cleaves so neatly, he almost can’t continue. Crust at the bottom—perfect resistance. Spears the sliver with his fork, remembers he’s somewhere nice, barely manages to keep from careening it into his mouth. He sighs.

Jack reaches across the table and strokes his face. “Bits. Are you crying?”

The waiter smiles.

The other half of the surprise comes when Bittle remembers how to talk. “How did you… how is this so…” he gestures at the plate, trying to remember any adjectives. Any descriptors that aren’t “good.”

“Good?” the waiter offers. Bitty sighs, nods, and the waiter laughs. “When you are done, you are invited back to the kitchen.”

Jack laughs as Bitty’s jaw drops, laughs a little harder when Bitty turns to give him an incredulous look that looks like you will be dead when I am done with you, and turns back to the waiter. “Sorry, what?”

“Chef tested out a wide variety of different flours and flour substitutes for tonight’s menu—for the breads, the soup stock, the crust, the desserts themselves, nothing has been wheat. Your dining partner asked for this specifically, and Chef would like to show you what works, and what doesn’t.”

Bitty manages to get his jaw back in line. “Sweetheart. What did you say your name was?”

“Benjamin, sir.”

Bitty stands up, and claps his hand on the waiter’s shoulders. “Benjamin, I am going to send you so much jam.” He pulls Jack up to his feet and drags “his dining partner” with him as Benjamin leads the way into the kitchen.

“How much did you spend to make this happen?” he hisses at Jack, unable to school the smile off his face.

“Thank me later,” Jack whispers, kissing Bitty’s ear. “I’ll save room.”

#omgcp-fanfic #zimbits #check please #check please au #shitty-check-please-aus #eric bittle #jack zimmerman #the only thing that kills immersion is the idea that bitty wouldn't forge ahead with baking despite new dietary restrictions #but yaknow