title: what he deserves
summary: "If you want to learn what someone fears losing, watch what they photograph." (Or Lardo critiques Jack's photography project and saves the day, yet again.)
"Okay, I know I said I'd critique your photography project but… I'm sorry, but this is just pictures of Bitty at a bunch of different angles." Every single photo has Bitty in it except for one picture of a goose, which was followed by a picture of Bitty with the goose. "Jack, bro, you can't submit this. There's no theme. It's literally just twenty pictures of Bits doing random shit."
"Not all of the pictures are of Bittle." He points out a photo. "This one is of Shitty—"
"And Bitty."
"But tha—"
"You're not gonna win this one, bro. Show me the rejects."
Jack's not about to argue. Lardo's usually right about, well, everything. He leans in so she can see his camera screen as he scrolls through pictures. She points out a couple of good ones, asks some questions about a few of the shots, but mostly Lardo just stays quiet and motions for him to move to the next picture. Once Jack's gona through all of the pictures, she sighs.
"How many pictures have you taken?"
He glances at his camera and then replies, "A hundred and twenty-four."
"How many of those have the boys in them?"
"Half of them..?"
"Try a hundred and two." Lardo's holding Jack's camera now, flipping through the pictures again, voice quiet in hopes that Jack doesn't take this as an accusation. "And ninety of them have Bits somewhere in the shot. About sixty of these are shots of him alone."
"That can't be—"
"Bro, I literally just counted. Sixty-one solo pics of Bitty, eighty-three of the team pictures include him and the most of the rest look like lighting tests. Or Shits stealing your camera to take selfies." Jack doesn't know what to say to that. He just likes to take photos of his teammates, his friends. Lardo passes Jack's camera back to him and asks, "Have you thought about why you take so many pictures of Bitty?"
Jack knows he can't lie to Lardo. She'll see right through it and she won't be impressed by his excuses. She won't care that he's spent a year carefully avoiding this topic, lying to himself and refusing to examine his feelings. So he simply says, "Yes."
"You're in love with him?" Lardo goes back to the sketch she was working on when Jack knocked on her door this afternoon. She sounds so nonchalant, like she's asking him about training menus.
"I think so."
"You need to talk to him, Jack."
"Lardo, I… I can't be out in the NHL. Not now. And he deserves better than that."
"So what? Maybe he does deserve better but who cares what he deserves, you're what he wants." What Lardo wants to say and doesn't is that Bitty is an adult who can make his own fucking choices and Jack definitely shouldn't be deciding this on his own. She repeats, "You need to talk to him."
"Oh." He stares down at the camera in his hands and then says abruptly, "I'm going to go talk to Bittle."
Lardo just rolls her eyes and gestures to the door.
…
"Lardo, brah. Sorry I'm late, was gonna get here earlier but you guys looked serious and I didn't want to interrupt." Shitty closes the door behind him and sprawls across her bed. "What were you talking about?"
Lardo just smirks, and Shitty fucking loves that expression. It usually means she's just done something completely 'swawesome, or they're about to have some really mind-blowing sex. "I may have just given Jack the push he needs to get off his ass and do something about Bitty."
"You beautiful fucker. Get over here, that deserves the manliest of hugs."
…
And if later, Shitty walks into Jack's room and Jack watching a history documentary with Bitty sleeping next to him… Well, no one needs to know, right? (Yeah, no. Shitty immediately left so he could go find Ransom and Holster and Lardo. They all crowded into Jack and Shitty's bathroom to chirp him, while Jack blushed and whispered threats of extra practice that no one takes seriously.)
1. jack always goes to lardo for an unbiased opinion on his photos. mostly bc he lives w/ hockey bros and they'll be like "oh hey nice pic" and that's not exactly useful feedback. but lardo can discuss the composition, lighting, and all that artsy nonsense that ik nothing about.
2. everyone in this comic is so married? bitty and jack are like, the dorky newlyweds. shitty and lardo are the best friends who got married for tax benefits and also bc they can merge their movie collections together. rans and holster are those ppl that have been married for so long that you swear they have telepathy or smth bc they communicate thru glances and shit and it's weird and also sorta freaky. dex and nursey are the couple verging on divorce who rly rly want this relationship to work out but they can't stop fighting and should probs try marriage counselling. (d-men counselling? is that a thing? it should be.) and that's everyone except chowder, but chowder's like. it feels like he's twelve or smth. tiny goalie child. he'd probs be in the dorky newlyweds category w/ jack and bits.
3. during her time acting as a team manager, lardo has learned to take absolutely no shit. the boys go to shitty for sympathy and distraction from their problems (and also anything related to gender politics and stuff goes to him), they go to lardo when they actually want to SOLVE their problem. lardo doesn't mince words, she doesn't buy into their excuses, she kinda bullies them into solving their problems...
an: title is a quote by unknown. also this is my 1st foray into the omgcp fandom. these charas are hilariously difficult to work w/ but i still love them. ALSO. i can't believe ffn doesn't have any omgcp fanfic apparently. so, doubtless this fic will get lost among the other fics in the misc comics category. oh well. it's still on ao3. and hey, sry, ik most of my followers are here for the kaishin and here i am diving into a completely different mostly unknown fandom. but this idea's been floating around in my head for a while and i wanted to get it out. so, idk, early xmas present from me. to have you discover 'check, please!'. it's fucking great and you should read it.