Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jamie and Roy get in a fight. Then, Jamie fucks off and tears his ACL.

People would have Jamie believe these things are unrelated. People, read: Sam, and Dani, and Colin and Isaac and Bumbercatch and, uh, pretty much everyone.

Jamie is highly unconvinced. I mean, he’s on crutches , for fuck’s sake. Who would want that more than stupid dumb big ugly mean Roy Kent? Crutches are dumb . He looks dumb .

“I think they’re cool!” Dani had said before Roy and Rebecca had carted him off to his post-MRI appointment. Jamie had mimed throwing one at him and almost fallen over. Roy had caught him under the armpits, and Jamie had very purposefully pressed the heel of said crutch onto the top of Roy’s toes.

“Whoops,” he’d said. “My bad, gaffer.”

Roy had glared, and Jamie had given his best I’d never purposefully do anything wrong ever look. Roy clearly hadn’t bought it, grumbling all the way to the front seat while Rebecca relegated herself to shotgun.

Now the doctor’s pointing at charts and MRI images and wheeling around on his little wheeley stool and Jamie’s bored out of his fucking mind. “She’s torn, right and proper,” the guy had led the little meeting with. Roy had winced, and Rebecca’s lips had pursed, tight and unhappy. Jamie had imagined flinging himself out of the window. How would that go down, huh? Would Roy be fast enough to stop him?

Probably not. Grandpa bones, ‘n all.

“Point is,” the doctor continues. He’s been continuing for a while now, with occasional pointed questions from Rebecca, who is, like, taking notes? Classy. She’s so cool. Meanwhile, Roy’s been staring daggers at Jamie, who’s been staring daggers at the window. The one that’s part of his little flinging plan. “Point is ,” the doctor restarts, like he realizes Jamie’s not really paying attention, “there’s nothing to do for it but heal up. PT. Surgery. I’m sorry, son, but you’re probably not seeing most of the season.”

Ha. These people are funny. Jamie’s having a great time, actually.

“Scalpel,” Jamie says, and the doctor blinks. He can practically feel Roy’s radiating mad mad mad. “Nah, not for you mate. For me. I’m amputating the fucking thing.”

So, he’s sent to Time Out. Time Out involves sitting just outside while Rebecca manages the finer details: documents and treatment plans and projections and all the annoying things Jamie’s always hated most about doctors. Ugh. They’re annoying pricks, the lot of them.

“Tartt.”

The season’s only just started, really. Not only has it just started, it’s their first season without Ted. It’s their first season with Roy at the helm. It’s their first season with Jamie feeling like he understands who Football Player Jamie Tartt is: motivated by himself, and his teammates, and progress. He’d been doing well. It’d been stupid, a non-contact fucking injury that shouldn’t have amounted to anything at all, let alone him and Roy Boy stuck in a stupid, white, smelly - 

“Jamie.”

“Wanna help with the amputation then, Coach?” he snaps. Oh, well then. Jamie’s upset, apparently.

“ Jamie .”

Jamie looks at Roy. Roy, for his part, looks at Jamie. He’s still angry-looking. Jaw-clenched, fingers wrapped into little Roy fists. Does Roy know about mewing? Is Roy mewing at him?

“ Roy ,” Jamie repeats, careful to make it all mocking-like. He knows it’ll grind Roy’s gears up, and sure enough, the angry Roy fists get a bit fist-ier. He’s so easy to bother. It’s nice, and simple, at a time like this. The waiting room smells like alcohol wipes and baby throw up. Who’s been letting babies in here, anyway? Let alone pukey ones. It’s a bougie establishment, to say the least, what his footballer salary could afford, and what Rebecca had sworn by.

“We’ll get the best of the best, Jamie,” she’d said after that game, her hand pressed on his knee, the knee on the good leg, manicured nails tap tapping on the bone. It’d been before any sort of diagnosis, but even then, it was like they’d all known. Jamie had felt it, anyways. That abrupt tug, and the sudden feeling like he couldn’t walk. 

Roy’d gotten to him first, somehow. Or maybe he hadn’t, but he was the first person Jamie’d realized was there. Big, warm hands on his chest, tilting him back down.

“Lay down, Jamie,” he’d said. “Just, fucking, lay down, ok?”

He blinks, and Roy’s still talking to him. Present-day Roy. The mewing one, remember?

“-with you while it gets better. You know that.”

Jamie blinks again. It’s possible he’s pouting. He feels it tugging at his lip and storming in his chest. He wants to scream. He wants to harpoon the vending machine with his crutch. He wants to blame someone other than himself and the fake turf. 

“You’re not getting the scalpel, then?” Jamie says.

Roy snorts. He moves his hand like he wants to, maybe, put it in Jamie’s hair? Or something? He stops midway through the gesture, shuffles around pointlessly instead, so Jamie tells him.

“I think it’s your fault.”

Roy looks positively gobsmacked. Ha. It’s a funny look on him. He’s an idiot. Roy’s an idiot, really, he is. Jamie really, seriously doesn’t like him.

“My fucking fault?” he says after a moment. “How exactly do you manage that, eh?”

“You, yelling at me ‘n such.”

Roy’s face pinches, and he looks honest to god guilty for a moment. Shit. Is Jamie right? Roy’d be the type to be able to cast a curse, throw a little magic here ‘n there. Surely all his rage goes someplace semi-productive, even if it’s to splitting Jamie’s ligaments in two.

“I didn’t -”

“Nah, mate, you really did.”

Roy had yelled, because he’d been mad, and when he’s mad he’s loud, and that’s just that. He doesn’t push anymore, or get up in Jamie’s space, or shove hard at his shoulders. Jamie’s not sure why, but he’d mentioned it once, and Roy’d gotten all twitchy, said something ‘bout “don’t deserve to be treated like that.” He’s a dramatic guy, their Roy.

“Look,” Jamie says, because he can tell Roy’s really thinking about it now. See? Dramatic. “‘s a joke. I know you didn’t fucking,” say it, “tear my ACL.”

“If you were in your head about it -”

“I wasn’t in my head about shit. I was out me head. I was playing, ya know. Don’t think much when I’m doing that.”

“But -”

“ Jesus , Roy, it was a joke, I said. Besides, I get it.” He looks away, mimes being all interested in the vending machine again. “Why you were yelling, that is.”

Roy was yelling because Jamie had been trying to get him to; he’d been pushing Roy’s buttons, like always, because he could. He’d played dumb about putting in extra training time, and played dumb about staying up late to help Sam with renovation plans, and played dumb about visiting his dad again. He’d played dumb, and Roy’d gotten upset about him “jeopardizing himself.”

Whatever the fuck that means.

Roy seems to be thinking about it too, anyways. Jamie taps Roy’s shin with the crutch, just a light tap though, he’s a benevolent guy.

“Stop being annoying,” he says. “It’s not about you.”

Roy reddens, and his glare returns. “I never said -”

“A joke ,” Jamie says for, like, the billionth time. Roy’s glare softens. His shoulders relax. He’s carrying around approximately ten tons of extra stress. That’s Jamie’s diagnosis, anyways. But he’s no doctor , thank fucking Christ . 

Rebecca comes back out. She’s in a bright blue getup that’s generally too happy for Jamie’s current state of mind. 

“Paperwork’s all sorted,” she says, then rests a hand on Jamie’s shoulder. She’s pretty good at the whole solemn-hand-rest thing. “We’re looking at surgery options, but that’s not on the table for a few weeks still, until the swelling’s gone down.”

Surgery. Right. That’s what they’d told him to expect. He feels his throat shrink. 

“Cool,” he says around said shrinking. Rebecca’s face is uncharacteristically soft.

“Jamie,” she says, “I’m sorry. It’s important that you know you have the club’s full support. We’ll ride this thing out with you. Higgins and I will see what mental health resources we can -”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” He drops eye contact again. “Thanks. I, uh. Can I go home?”

He doesn’t see her expression, but he hears it in her voice. “Of course Jamie.”

.

They drop Rebecca off at the club. Jamie does the rounds. Full disclosure, it’s pure hug-bait. He needs one right now, ok? Dani hugs him. Sam hugs him. Isaac hugs him. Jan Maas hugs him. Higgins hugs him. Generally, he gets a lot of hugs, and during this process, Roy hovers with arms over his chest like a bodyguard.

“Alright,” he says when people start going in for round-two. Dani’s wearing a face like he’d hug Jamie for a good hour if his schedule would allow. Roy must see this too, because his nose crinkles as he says, “Let’s wrap this up.”

Dani sneaks another one in regardless. Jamie appreciates it.

Roy is nice enough to keep pace with him while they walk back to the car. Roy collapses his crutches for him. Roy holds his arm and helps lower him into the shotgun spot. Roy closes the door for him, and walks around, and slides into the driver’s seat. Roy’d dropped him off here, first thing in the morning, because they’d told Jamie while he could drive, the injury was fresh, and in his dominant leg. Better not, if it was avoidable.

“It’s avoidable,” Roy had said, and failed to expound on exactly what he meant by it.

They drive in quiet. Some old man grandpa song plays from Roy’s bluetooth. Or, better yet, it’s probably a CD. Roy seems the CD type. 

When they get to Jamie’s house, Roy does the routine in reverse. Gets out. Opens Jamie’s door. Un-collapses Jamie’s crutches. Holds Jamie’s forearm. Helps Jamie tottle to the door, unlock the door, close the door. 

His house is a needle that goes right for the bubble Jamie’s been floating in. It pops, and he sinks onto the couch, and everything fuzzes out while Roy says something behind him, heads to busy himself in the kitchen or something . Jamie’s not sure. He’s a little preoccupied, wincing as he tucks his legs in front of him and presses his face to the bone of his bad knee and tries really, really hard not to cry.

Not hard enough, it seems. By the time Roy’s back, he can feel snot in his nose and heat in his cheeks and wet all over his face.

“Oh, Jamie ,” Roy says, and then says nothing at all. He puts down whatever food or drink he’d scrabbled together and sits beside Jamie instead. A hand on his spine, tipping him closer, and then Jamie’s not crying on his own legs (a win!) because he’s too busy crying on Roy’s shoulder instead (definitely a loss). It’s a novel thing.

When Jamie’s all cried out, Roy passes him what he’d been busying around for. A bowl of soup, apparently. It’s a very Roy thing to do: decide Jamie’s in distress and make him soup to fix it. Simple. Straightforward. It kinda works though, weirdly enough. Jamie recognizes it as the butternut stuff he keeps stocked in his freezer for cold days, but it does the trick today too, warm and soothing. It makes him tired, though. Roy puts something on the telly. Jamie finishes half the bowl before he thinks he’s gonna nod the fuck off and spill it down his chest.

“Sorry,” he says, closing his eyes, leaning his head back against the back of the couch. His voice sounds funny, probably because his nose is plugged all the way up into his fucking brain. His eyes are so puffy they hurt, no, actually hurt . He needs one of Keeley’s little eye cooling masks. He needs a lot , maybe.

“What’re you saying that for, idiot?” Roy says. It’s gruff, but warm. Fond, if Jamie lets his imagination run. “Go to sleep. Don’t be dumb.”

“‘m not dumb.”

“I know you’re not.”

“No you don’t.”

“I do. Promise.”

Doubtful. Jamie doesn’t miss the subtle way Roy scoots in, the silent offer. Jamie lets himself list sideways, and falls asleep with most of his weight on Roy’s side. 

.

He wakes up and Roy’s gone. The house is dark. There’s a note he skims, something about dinner and PT and days off and blah blah blah. Jamie’s not known for his critical reading skills, anyways. He showers, and washes his face, and goes the fuck to sleep. 

.

He wakes up to loud knocking on his door.

It’s Roy. He looks vaguely dishevled and a little pissy. So, like himself.

“Um, can’t exactly do morning training, now can I,” Jamie says. Had Roy forgotten? Is he that version of old already?

Roy rolls his eyes. “I know . Did you read my note?”

“Uh, sorta?”

“What the fuck’s that mean, sorta ?”

Jamie shrugs. “I sorta read it.”

“You’re sorta a dumbass.”

Jamie makes a grin. It’s not as hard as he thought it’d be after 12 hours of intermittent weeping. “Only sorta?”

Roy scoffs, and lets himself in. “You have PT today,” he says. “You’d know that if you’d read my note.”

“I did read it,” Jamie says.

“Sorta doesn’t count.”

“Ok.” He waits, as Roy seems to take stock of his space as a way of taking stock of Jamie. It’d been, like, twelve hours though. Not much to see here. “Did you have breakfast?”

“You woke me up.”

“We’ll grab something at the club.”

“Don’t wanna.”

“Too bad. Go get changed.”

“Ugh.”

Jamie goes and gets changed, but into his most pajama-adjacent clothes possible. A sweatshirt and sweatpants, both gifts from Adidas. Jamie likes free things, free clothes especially. Free clothes that make him look fit especially the most .

“Where are your crutches?” Roy calls from somewhere. “You know you should be using them all the time still.”

“Dunno. Somewhere in the living room? Wherever you put ‘em last.”

“Figures.”

Roy drives them there. The PT lady explains that their goal for now is just increased mobility, reducing some inflammation before surgery. Apparently makes things easier for the doctors. Whatever makes the doctors’ lives easier, Jamie’s all for. Really. He means it.

It’s pretty much entirely knee extensions. Which means, half an hour of straightening and unstraightening his leg in various positions. He’s bored out his fucking mind. He glances at the window, debating the merits yet again of a good outwards fling.

Roy’d be mad. He’d get all red and frustrated. Could be worth it.

Keeley barges in during his last 5 minutes.

“I’m so sorry,” she says, but not to Jamie, to the PT lady. PT lady - Charlie, she’d introduced herself with a settling sort of smile - just shrugs.

“No worries,” she says, “he can finish these while you talk.”

Jamie sticks out his tongue at her for denying him an easy bail out. She just smiles back, unbothered. It’s a rare reaction for someone’s day one. Impressive.

“Ooh,” Keeley says, clearly clocking the same thing. “I like you,” she decides, and Charlie smiles, happier looking this time.

“Oh my god , just flirt over my corpse then, why don’t you,” Jamie complains. Keeley laughs, turning to give him her full attention. 

“ Never , babes, I don’t do corpses.” She lays down beside him, because yeah, he’s currently on his back, just, ya know. Extending his fucking leg. She tilts to her side so she can watch him as he does just that.

“Does it hurt?” she asks.

“A bit.”

“It looks better.”

“Go tell Roy, maybe he’ll put me in next game.”

“I already saw him.” She whistles. “You’ve done a number on him.”

Jamie blinks. “Me?”

“Yeah. The stick up his ass is stick-ier than usual.”

“It’s ‘cause he’s been me personal chauffeur recently.”

“It’s because you’re hurt, and he cares.”

“Ew.”

“If he won’t grow balls enough to say it, I will.” She goes fully onto her back again, watches him for a second, and then moves her leg alongside his. From anyone else, it might seem mocking; with Keeley, it feels weirdly like solidarity, doing dumb little leg lifts together. “I’ve got plenty of balls.”

“You telling me like I don’t know that?”

She grins, pleased by this accurate understanding of her character. Keeley has more balls than the whole of Richmond combined. For a moment, Jamie attempts the math - how many balls is that exactly ? - but decides he’d rather not know. Unsettling line of thinking, that one.

She’d been there too, immediately after the game. Jamie’s got a touch memory more than anything, of her familiar, tiny, cold hands in his, wrapped up like they’d been glued there as the physio team attempted a few rotations, prodded a few times, made a few initial assessments. Her hand had squeezed, tight and automatic, when they’d mentioned the ACL thing.

She’d known what it meant as well as he did; it was not something you popped back up from, as good as Jamie was at popping back up from all sorts of injuries. 

Not this time , a voice had said in his head, and it’d sounded awfully like his dad’s.

“What’re you thinking?” she asks, and he refocuses. Now-Keeley is softer than mewing Now-Roy. Her expression is open, and her eyes are watery. Jamie’s pain was always her pain, but not in a way that bugged him; in a way that genuinely made it a bit easier to bear.

“I’m thinking this shit’s stupid,” he says, “and I wanna play.”

“I know,” she says. “I can’t imagine.” She cuts herself short, squeezes her lips together and blinks owlishly at him, like she can’t find the words for your whole life is being a footballer and now you can’t be a footballer.

It’s daunting. Jamie decides not to look at it quite yet. 

“Whatever,” he says instead. “How long do I have left?” he asks, louder, so Charlie knows he’s talking to her.

“Four.”

“Wanna do four minutes of this shit with me?” he directs to Keeley. She nods, steadfast.

“I’d be bloody honored.” 

He smiles.

.

Charlie lets him break for lunch, and then after, shows him a few more work outs he needs to be cycling through. They’ll PT together every morning, so she can track his progress, but he needs to do the full round of exercises at least three more times every day. God. Exhausting. He tells her as much, and she just smiles some more.

“Just put on a podcast or something,” she suggests. “Make it fun.”

“It’s not fun.”

“That’s why you gotta make it fun.”

“Nothing will make it fun.”

“Alright then.”

Jamie’s dad used to call him petulant . It’s a big word to throw around, but he likes using it sometimes. Like, reclaiming it, ha. He feels very petulant right now. He relishes in it, just a bit, maybe because Charlie doesn’t seem to mind.

“I’ll track your progress with Coach Kent, too.”

“Ugh. You have to talk to him?”

She makes a face. “I work for the physio team. Of course I have to talk to him.”

“How come I’ve never seen you then?”

“New hire.”

“Suspicious.”

“I have specific training in -”

“You’re, like, an ACL guru,” Jamie translates. She smiles and nods.

“Something like that.”

“How’s mine rank, then? You’ve seen a lot, I guess.”

“Of ACL injuries?”

“I just meant, like, knees. Like, do I have good knees sorta thing.”

Her laugh is wide; he’s finally caught her unsuspecting. It’s a win he relishes, because they’re few and far between these days. “Wow, yeah,” she says. “The best , truly. And I don’t say that lightly.”

He decides he likes this Charlie lady. Besides, it gives him something to tell Roy on the drive back. He’d hobbled himself out on the pitch for a second while the boys were training, but they’d all abandoned their drill to immediately mob him. Sure, he’d enjoyed it, but Richmond’s gotta continue absolutely annihilating while he’s off, ya know, stretching . Point is, their training’s important. Jamie’d waved them off and told them to get back to it, and Roy’d turned around with narrowing eyes and asked if he wanted to hang around or go home. 

“Go home,” Jamie had said, despite it kinda feeling like the wrong decision. Anyway, Roy’d tossed the training into Nate and Beard’s capable hands, just to drive Jamie’s sorry ass back to his place.

“That lady you hired said I had real sexy knees, by the way,” Jamie says after he’s bored of Roy’s music. So, like, two minutes in.

Roy’s eyebrows arch, but he doesn’t look away from the road. “Who’d I hire?”

Jamie shrugs. “Guess Rebecca hired her, technically. New PT lady, ACL expert or something.”

“Right. And she said you have - nice knees?”

“No, not nice, the best knees she’s ever seen.”

“Wow. That’s a real fucking title. You must feel like a lucky guy.”

“‘s not luck, mate. I worked hard on those things.”

Roy snorts.

“What if surgery goes badly?” Jamie asks, because he’s been thinking it pretty much non-stop since this whole thing started. 

Roy still doesn’t look his way. He says, “What if.”

“Then I never play again.”

“Of course you play again.”

“Unless surgery goes badly. Then I won’t.”

“It won’t go badly. Rebecca’s got the best specialists lined up. Next week, we’re gonna have an appointment, pick a date. There’s no way -”

“Murry’s Law.”

Roy finally glances over, a half thing that quickly returns to the road. He’s a diligent driver, yet another one of his grandpa qualities. The shit’s stacking up alarmingly fast. “What?” he says after a moment. 

“Murry’s Law. If shit can happen, shit will happen. I learned that in -”

“It’s Murphey’s Law, dumbass.”

“Whatever! Same shit! If my knee can explode it will explode. It’s, like, a scientific fact.”

Roy sighs, long and even and purposeful. “That’s not gonna happen, Jamie.”

Jamie sinks back into his chair, crosses his arms over his chest. He’s irritated, all at once. “It could,” he insists, because it’s true. Roy doesn’t answer him, just keeps driving. Only when he seems convinced that Jamie’s settled and generally ok on the couch does he bring it up again.

“ If that happens - and it won’t - but if it does.” He pauses. He’s squatted down in Jamie’s living room. His eyes are real-intense like. He’s awful close to Jamie’s face. Their knees are bumping; bad knee against bad knee, ha. It’s kinda funny, actually. 

“If it does?” Jamie prompts. Roy’s eyes search all over his face, then he nods, once, tight.

“If it does, then it does. It sucks - trust me, I know, it sucks - but you move on. You keep going. You figure it out.”

“Uh, how?”

“Whaddya mean, how?”

“Roy, uh, not to be morbid ‘n all, but I’m a footballer.”

Roy’s back to glaring. “I know that, Jamie.”

“It’s me job.”

“Of course it’s your -”

“But not just that, it’s like.” Jamie gestures to himself at large, like this’ll get his point across. “It’s me. It’s all I am. If I can’t, ya know. Do it. Then Jamie Tartt is, well.” He mimes something exploding, and Roy’s glare deepens.

“You’re not just football,” he says.

Jamie laughs, actually laughs. What? It’s funny! Roy doesn’t seem to agree.

“Mate, sorry to burst your bubble ‘n all, but I’m definitely just football. And, like, maybe sex.” He mulls it over, then nods. “Yeah, that sounds ‘bout right. Football and sex. That’s me, baby.”

Roy pinches the bridge of his nose and closes his eyes. “I’m not built for this shit.”

“Oh, gee, sorry to inconvenience you with my sad, depressing reality.”

Roy opens his eyes, then opens his mouth, then closes his mouth but leaves his eyes open. He looks at Jamie, hard and serious.

“You actually think that,” he says. Doesn’t ask, states . Um, duh? Jamie just said it, yeah? Is Roy going deaf too, on top of it all? God, but aging sounds hellish.

“Yeah?” Jamie says, but it doesn’t seem to be the right answer. Roy gets up, and rifles around in his kitchen again, and returns with a notebook Jamie’s not convinced he actually owns. Roy’s using his magic again, conjuring shit outta thin air.

“I have to go back to the club,” he says, “but you’re gonna sit here and write all the shit you like. Everything. I don’t give a fuck. All of it, shit you like to do or see or eat or learn or whatever, I don’t fuckin’ know. But it can’t be football shit, ok?”

Jamie squints, says, “This smells like Dr. Sharon busy work,” because it does.

“Maybe it is,” Roy says, in a way that Jamie thinks betrays more than he intends to. Jamie remembers, all at once, that Roy’s sorta been here before. Roy’s retired. Roy’s looked down the barrel of the gun and realized that he can’t play anymore. Roy’s had to find a life outside of the player.

Only for Roy, that had meant being a little leagues coach for Phoebe, and then being a pundit, and then being an assistant coach, and then being a head coach. It’s a rich speech, coming from the guy who never really left football to begin with.

“I’ll do what I want,” Jamie says after this little deliberation leaves a sour taste in his mouth.

“You’ll do this,” Roy says, “and then you’ll do what you want.”

“We’ll see.”

“We’ll see you fucking doing it is what we’ll see.”

Roy leaves and then returns with a pen Jamie’s also not sure he’s ever seen in his house before, presumably for said little journaling activity he’s definitely not going to do. He leaves a second time and returns with a sandwich - the fuck? - and then puts Jamie’s crutches within reach and turns on the telly and says, “Call if you need.”

Then, he’s gone. It’s midday, and Jamie can’t train, and Jamie can’t workout, and Jamie can’t do anything he’d normally like to do right now. Better yet, he also can’t do anything about it.

Fuck, but it’s some bleak shit.

.

Half the team comes over for dinner a few nights later. He hides the notebook where they can’t see it. It’s empty, anyways, but he’s scared they’ll see it and lobby questions at him, and then he’ll have to ask them if they have lives outside of this, to which they’ll say, yes, in fact, they do. Colin’s got a boyfriend. Sam’s got a restaurant. Dani’s got no less than a billion meaningful hobbies, and Isaac’s got his cousins and parents and sister and generally just a shitton of nearby family.

Jamie’s got Jamie. Or, well. He’s got his mom, who he isn’t great at making time to visit, who lives all the way in Manchester, and he’s got his dad, who’s traded beating up on him for making stilted conversation at rehab, a first few visits that went well followed by the last two, which reeked of you make me feel guilty, I’d prefer if you stayed out of my life. Gee, dad, if that’s how you really feel.

Other than that, well. He ain’t got much in the way of meaningful interests. Meaningful hobbies. Meaningful relationships, outside of people who exist in the orbit of the team. The Team, Richmond, which Jamie won’t be a part of if he can’t play - which he’s technically a part of now, sure, but is he really ? Less than a benchwarmer, if they’re being honest, sitting patiently on Injury Reserve until they get sick of him. He’s done the reading, and even after his surgery, it’ll be months before he can play.

Season-ending injury , the headlines had called it. His twitter’s mad full of real thoughtful condolences, but all they do is rub his face in it: indefinitely out, until circumstances change.

In other words. Indefinitely not Jamie Tartt, until he maybe gets a chance to be Jamie Tartt again. 

The food from Sam’s place tastes abruptly like chalk in his mouth. The boys are loud and boisterous to make up for the sinking silence of Jamie’s reality, and he appreciates it, really, but still. He feigns exhaustion a few hours in, and they clap his shoulder and make sure he’s set up well for the night before heading back to their own places.

Dani lingers a second longer. “Amigo,” he says, solemn. “At any time, I’ll come over. Really. You call me, listo . I mean it.”

Jamie smiles. “I know.” Dani’s a puppy, overbearing in every good way, and he pulls Jamie in for his ten trillionth hug of the past week. 

Still. His trademark words ring more like a curse than a mantra as Jamie watches his car pull out of the neighborhood. 

Football is life!

Oh, but if only it weren’t true.

.

After that, Jamie kinda, sorta, maybe lets things slip. Only, like, the tiniest bit though! Really! He goes to PT. He does his exercises. He tag-teams rides to work with Roy, Colin, Richard, anyone. His name falls out of the news again. Things regain a sense of normalcy around him, even as his own shit stays shitty. It’s fine. It’s whatever. It’s honestly, really, so chill.

True to their word, they schedule a surgery appointment a handful of monotonous, bleeding-together days later. It’s in four weeks, to allow ample time for his knee to be weight-bearing and mobile before reconstruction. They say four weeks like it’s not the same as a month. A month , of lowering and raising his leg like a fucking loser before surgery, and then - “a positive estimate,” the doctor’s new surgery friend informs him - multiple months after surgery before he can maybe be back to playing. 

Sue him if he doesn’t wake up with the sun shining out his fucking asshole every morning.

Either way, he’s a month out from surgery, two weeks out from the injury itself. He still hasn’t thought much about it; actually, he doesn’t think about much of anything, because, yes, you guessed it! He’s trying real fucking hard not to.

A foolproof plan that backfires as soon as Roy comes knock-knock-knocking again. Like the big bad wolf, only bigger. And badder. And probably hairier too, if those locker room days are anything to go by.

Jamie’s been rewatching all of Bake Off, no, really, all of it. He’s in the middle of the series with, bless his heart, fucking sweet angel Rahul when someone knocks on his door.

He ignores them.

“Oi, Tartt!”

Only Roy would shout through a solid wooden fucking obstacle like it was a feasible strategy.

“I know you hear me, you prepubescent fucking moron. Let me in!”

Jamie is none of those things. Baseless accusations. He turns up the volume as Paul rips one of the contestants he can’t remember the name of - five or six series in, you start to lose track of these things - a new one. 

Roy must notice this too, because he starts shouting. Too bad Jamie can’t understand him. Check and fucking mate.

Then, he hears keys clattering in his doorknob. He swings his head around in time to see Roy Kent striding into his fucking entryway.

“The fuck?” he demands. “How the fuck do you have keys?”

“Keeley.”

Traitor. Jamie should’ve taken those back years ago.

“This is breaking ‘n entering.”

“Fucking sure it is, see if it fucking stops me.”

Uh oh. Jamie had miscalculated earlier. Roy’s not mad. Roy’s furious . He doesn't immediately stomp up to Jamie, though. He does his little Roy analysis, which he seems so incredibly fond of. He glances eyes over Jamie’s kitchen, like the details here will paint the gory picture all by themselves. He looks in the empty fridge, at dishes scattered across the counter, cups and plates, bags and boxes of takeout. He looks at the shelves, empty save for a fine layer of dust. He looks at the living room, messy and bare, save for Jamie, sitting there like an imbecile.

Jamie sees it freshly with Roy’s eyes. Whoops. He’s been living in squalor! The horror!

Roy grumbles something under his breath. Jamie looks quickly back at the TV and turns the volume even louder on the off-chance he might hear whatever judgement Roy’s casting.

“Tartt,” Roy says, louder, closer, so Jamie can’t ignore him.

“You know, I used to have a crush on Paul Hollywood, way back in me little tike years. Those icy blues, ya know, they really -”

“I don’t wanna fucking hear it.”

“Ok, homophobia’s not a good look on you, Roy. Or did you not -”

“Can it, asshole.”

Can it. It feels abruptly like an American thing to say, a little Ted-ism left behind. Jamie, suddenly and desperately, aches for Ted. Now that the man’s long gone it’s safer to admit that he was more a dad than maybe anyone else in Jamie’s life had ever been to him.

Ha. Awkward!

All at once, the remote’s being snatched out of Jamie’s hand. Normally, he can sense when this kinda thing is coming, but it honest to god takes him by surprise; he hadn’t even realized Roy was at the couch yet, had thought he was still meandering around in the kitchen like a particularly unhelpful Roomba. He’s not sure if this is more telling of Roy’s anger or Jamie’s general, uh. State.

Roy pauses the TV, and when this doesn’t seem to satisfy him, turns it off altogether. Jamie groans.

“Man, they were, like, mid-judging the technical. Have some respect, Coach.”

“‘m not your Coach right now.”

Huh? Jamie looks up, and oh, yeah. Roy’s furious alright. His beard’s grown in more than Jamie’s seen it in a bit; his face looks drawn, distressed. Tired. Almost like he’s the one with the fucked up knee, only, wait, he is! How fun, to be in this little miserable club together.

“Did you quit?” Jamie blurts. Roy’s eyes burn fire.

“No, I did not quit,” he grinds out. “I mean I’m not here as fucking Coach . I’m here as Roy.”

“Ok?”

“And as Roy, I’m telling you you’re being a fucking absolute dipshit.”

Ugh, this again? “Great, message received. Can you go now? I was kinda enjoying -”

“No, I can’t go now. Jamie, the fuck is this?”

He gestures to Jamie’s entire person and living space and life at large. Ok, rude?

“It’s me place,” Jamie says. He goes dumb on purpose to see how it lands, how it peels back the layers of Roy’s skin, leaving an angry, pulsing thing behind. It feels like stepping under the shower, like hot water in his face. Jamie’s lived the same day every day for weeks now: the volatile nature of Roy is refreshing in comparison, and Jamie chases it like he’s always been so, so good at doing.

“No, it’s. Jamie, did you even - where’s the fucking notebook.”

He blinks, widens his eyes. “What notebook, Roy ?”

“You fucking piece of -”

Roy’s stance is threatening, but he directs none of it at Jamie, even as he might deeply, secretly want to. Instead, he lifts up pillows. He lifts up couch cushions. He finds the thing squashed in the opposite armchair, hidden in the crack between cushion and chair frame.

He shoots a glare at Jamie, then opens it. Flips a few pages. Flips some more pages. Jamie knows what he’ll find, all of them empty.

Jig’s up.

He expects more yelling. He expects the notebook thrown at the wall. He expects that hot feeling in his face and prickling down his spine, like his body’s preparing for a danger he knows he won’t receive.

Instead, Roy closes his eyes and visibly counts to ten. 

“When’s the last time you left this shithole?” he asks.

“This shithole costs more than -”

“ When , Jamie.”

“This morning, if you must know, I go to PT with Charlie every single -”

“When’s the last time you left this shithole outside of the physical therapy you’re contractually obligated to complete?”

Jamie tilts his head. “Wait, is that real? Will they fire me if I stop going?”

“I don’t know, Jamie, just answer the fucking - actually, nevermind. Go put on something decent.”

Jamie looks down at himself. He’s in a crewneck and joggers. It’s decent adjacent, so he pushes. “This is decent.”

“Suit your fucking self.” Roy grabs his crutches.

“Charlie said I don’t need those to walk anymore.”

Roy looks like he’s a second away from cracking them in his grip, but he deposits them very, very slowly against the wall instead. 

“Fine,” he manages. “Then put on your shoes. We’re going out for lunch.”

“I don’t wanna -”

“We. Are going out. For lunch.”

“I said I don’t -”

Roy tosses his hands in the air, his count-to-ten zen evaporating like it’d never existed. “Jesus, Jamie, what will it be then! You’re just gonna fucking, waste away in here, huh? Is it that bad? You could be coming to the club, staying at -”

“Yes, it’s that bad, actually. I’m -”

He treads too close to the line that’s been biting at his tongue: I’m pointless , because he is. What’s the point of a Jamie Tartt that can’t do the one thing he’s good at? ‘s like a car that won’t drive, or a Happy Meal with no toy inside. Waste of everyone’s good time. 

Roy must hear some of it anyway, all the pieces Jamie keeps just behind his teeth. His expression darkens, unreasonably so.

“You’re so fucking obtuse sometimes, it’s actually worrying,” he says.

“You and my dad would get along.”

His expression darkens, reasonably so. “Don’t fucking try it.”

“I’m not -”

“No, you are. You’re saying shit to piss me off.”

Is he? Oh no, how unfortunate.

“Too bad,” Roy continues. “I’m already pissed off. Not much more you can do.”

Oh, there certainly is. Jamie’s about to say as much, but then Roy’s grabbing his trainers and walking them over to Jamie, like he’s an invalid. “Put these on,” he says, and Jamie goes to argue, again , but then Roy does something he hasn’t calculated for, something Jamie’s anger normally forces into the far corner: he puts his hand on the rigid knot of Jamie’s shoulder - when did he get so fucking tense? - and squeezes. Moves his hand up, circles it around the back of Jamie’s neck. Holds it there, like he knows how nice it feels. To be supported by someone. 

No . To be supported by Roy Kent, who is unwavering in his words and actions and single-minded gaze. “We’re going out,” he repeats.

Jamie doesn’t disagree again.

.

Out turns out to be code for Roy’s favorite kebab place. Jamie should’ve guessed as much.

Roy pays for both of them, then forces Jamie into the booth. Jamie can feel the incoming session of good cop, bad cop. Roy’s alarmingly proficient at playing both. What Jamie doesn’t expect is the rarely seen strategy of just icing him out entirely. It’s a game of chicken: loser talks first. 

The guy brings over their kebabs. “Here ya go, Mr. Kent,” he says, like Roy comes here all the time, because he does. 

“Thank you, Yusuf.”

They would be on a first name basis. Yusuf, apparently, eyes the two of them warily. Couldn’t cut this tension even with your big ass gyro knife, buddy.

Yusuf seems to come to the same conclusion. He swallows and walks away, and Roy takes his kebab, then takes a huge bite out of it. He maintains eye contact the whole time. It’s mad creepy.

Jamie fears that taking a bite of his own kebab will be interpreted as admitting defeat. But, he’s also pretty hungry. He thinks back to the last time he had a good, proper meal, and comes up short. Oh. That’s slightly worrying, come to think of it.

Roy watches him fiddle with these thoughts. Sometimes, Jamie thinks Roy can read minds, or, more accurately, read Jamie’s mind. He’s scared that what he betrays to himself will be betrayed to Roy too. He stops thinking, but it’s too late. Roy’s eyes knife through the skin, cut straight to bone.

The kebab looks really, so good, and Roy’s wearing an expression that means he could do this all day.

Fuck it, then.

“Fine, I’m a stupid fucking idiot waste of space who can’t take care of himself,” Jamie says, getting it over with all at once. It’ll hopefully shorten Roy’s gloating period. Hopefully. “I’m being a baby and I should be handling me shit and I’m only increasing the likelihood of getting meself fired and me kitchen’s dirty. There. Are you happy now?”

Jamie reaches forward, grabs his kebab, and takes a bite that matches, if not dwarfs, Roy’s. Fuck, but it’s so fucking good. Roy really knows how to pick ‘em.

“Do I look happy?” Roy demands through a mouthful of food.

“You never look happy.”

“Not true.”

“Whatever.”

“I don’t think you’re being a baby.”

Jamie doesn’t need to hear this, only, apparently, that’s a lie. He feels his cheeks burn the hot, familiar red of someone saying that thing he thought no one had caught onto, that innermost, childish desire he totes around in different fonts for different situations:

I’m overreacting again, aren’t I.

“I’m definitely being a baby,” he argues, but his voice sounds suddenly strange and uncertain. “I know I’m being a baby.” He’s not crying in a kebab shop, no fucking way.

“You’re not,” Roy repeats. He also seems to have noticed how his words have hit home, with alarmingly little work done on his part. He leans forward, actually puts down his kebab. Swallows his food before he speaks again. “What happened is fucked. Being injured is fucked. Not being able to train and play and do your job - what you love - is fucked. I.” He swallows again, his gaze skittering at the vulnerability of it all. The two of them, they don’t do vulnerable, until they fucking do, sudden and out there and irreversible. 

“I’m sorry it happened at all,” he says after a moment of nervous deliberation. “All I wanna do is help you get through it.”

Jamie looks at the table, plays with his french fries. It feels like getting scolded, even though he knows that’s not what’s happening.

“I shouldn’t need help,” he lands on after a minute.

Roy snorts. “Says who?”

Everyone in Jamie’s life who’s ever told him it’s his job to get over his shit on his own. 

His dad’s hand, flush with his cheek, and the angry bruise he’d eyed in the mirror one time, then another, then another.

“I wouldn’t have gotten through mine if it weren’t for Keeley,” Roy adds, like this will convince Jamie.

“It’s embarrassing,” Jamie says, but he can tell his heart isn’t in it.

“It’s not,” Roy counters immediately.

“It’s just a knee.”

“It’s more than that. To you, it’s more than that.”

“I’m a grown ass adult, I don’t need to be, like. Toddled and shit.”

“Coddled.”

“Yeah, that. I’m. This is - I’m sorry, Roy, it’s dumb.” He blows a breath out through his nose and decides. “I’m sorry you had to come out here and - I, ok, I get it. Message received. I’ll tighten shit up on my end, I’m sorry you had to see -”

Roy grunts, but it’s an irritated grunt of irritation. Jamie risks a look back up. What’s Roy pissed about now? He goes to ask as much, but Roy bulldozes ahead of him.

“You’re missing the fucking point, Jamie,” he growls. His hands grip the table. His eyes are doing that intense looking thing again. “I’m not telling you to lock your shit in. I don’t expect that. It’s only been a few weeks, you’re fresh off of, you know. All of it. The injury, and the timeline, and you’re processing, ok, that’s normal. What I’m saying is, there are people here who wanna be with you through that. You don’t gotta do it all on your own.”

Yes you do , the voice sneers. It bites at the hand. Back to the wall, it fights with all its got.

Jamie has been doing his best not to listen to it recently, but, he thinks abruptly, maybe that’s not really true either. 

“Ok,” he hears himself say, then deflates. The thing bares its teeth. He’s tired of fighting it. “Ok, ok. Fine. I, alright.” He puts his elbow on the table and his face in his hands, breathes in, breathes out. His knee throbs vaguely under the table. “What would you have me do then?”

Roy considers, and when Jamie looks up, whatever expression he was wearing clears instantly. Suspicious.

“I. Ok, listen, it doesn’t have to be me, I’m just extending the offer because I really don’t mind, you know. If it is me.”

Jamie rewinds and replays that in his own head to make sure he’s not the crazy one. Nope. Doesn’t make sense.

“Huh?”

“I think you should stay with someone,” Roy says in a rush, like he’s gotta get it all out now while he still can. “And like I said, don’t gotta be me, but if it is, that’s. That’s cool. That’s fine. I just, I don’t love the idea of you cooped up there by yourself with all this, shit. Messing with your head.”

“Me head’s not injured. It’s just the ACL.”

Roy does another little breath-counting ritual. “I know that, Jamie. I just meant. Actually, it doesn’t matter. I just think it’s better for you, right now, if you’re not alone.”

He has a sudden flash to a conversation with Keeley, years ago: how long’s a man supposed to be alone for?

It’s ironic, in hindsight. He’s been alone for a while now.

“Oh,” he says.

“You don’t gotta make a decision now, just, ya know.” Roy shrugs like it’s not a big deal, which they both know isn’t true. “Think about it.”

“Ok,” Jamie says, slowly. He’s not sure. He watches Roy a moment longer, then turns back to his kebab. Can’t be letting the thing go cold now, can he.

They don’t really say much else. Jamie eats, and Roy eats, and then Roy asks if he wants to head to the club with him. Jamie should, but he feels a bit too exposed, like a nerve that’s jumped skin-surface. Roy must understand, because he doesn’t push it. He drops Jamie off, and asks if Jamie wants help cleaning up, and no, thank you, Jamie can handle it. Roy nods, looks uncertain and out of place now in a way he didn’t last time he was here.

“Just, fucking, tell me when you decide,” he says, and then he’s gone with a grunt and a gentle shutting of the door.

Jamie sits in his mess for a bit longer, and finishes the episode Roy had rudely interrupted. Then, he cleans his kitchen. He cleans his bedroom. He pulls out his phone, thinks, and sends a text before he can second guess it.

.

Roy turns up a few hours after work to drive him over. How disgustingly awful even the notion of it is. Roy Kent as a fucking roommate.

Fucking hell .

He thinks of the poster still on his wall and almost calls the whole thing off. Roy’s already on his way over though. He'd hate to be rude.

“Oi,” Roy says upon arrival. “Why are you bringing so much shit?”

He eyes Jamie’s luggage like he’s hidden a puppy in there or something.

“For your information, I packed light.” He sniffs. “I mean, no offense, but I’m not exactly going to use your conditioner.”

“I don't own conditioner.”

“Exactly.”

Roy hums, but seems to respect this point at least. He takes the larger of the two suitcases - two, ok, it's hardly obscene - and tells Jamie to wait a sec. When he's back, he takes the other one too.

“Roy, I can roll a suitcase.”

“Rather you didn't.”

“There's a lotta shit I’d rather you didn't do, but see, I just stomach it like a proper, respectable person.”

“How's that going for you?”

“Shit, actually.”

Jamie just barely catches his grin as he takes the suitcase out into the night. Jamie locks up, and tries to ignore the distressing feeling of finality skating under his shoes. 

Roy plays more old man tunes on the way to his place, like he’s starting the indoctrination slow. Jesus, if Jamie comes out of this in only charcoal heather , he’ll have earned the ACL thing entirely.

He does his best to sit still, not play with the window button. He feels scattered, a bit, at the newness of the situation. His fingers dance on his legs.

“Are we gonna have dinner?” he asks, because he’s gotta ask something .

Roy does the glance over while driving thing. “Oh? You suddenly have an appetite again?”

Jamie skirts the subject. “Anyway, do you live pretty far? I forgot, I’ve only been there once, you know.” He points this out because it’s distinctly unfair, and he’s felt this way for a while. Roy’s been to his house an obscene amount of times, especially in the height of their fuck-you-Zava morning workouts. 

“Not that far,” Roy says, ignoring the bait.

“How much longer?”

“Why don’t you start counting now and we can find out together?”

Asshole. Jamie feels the pouting face again, and angles it out the car window.

Jamie doesn’t actually count, but it can’t be more than fifteen minutes or so. Roy’s house looks exactly how Jamie’s remembered it: homey, warm, touches of Keeley still evident in some of the decor. It doesn’t mesh with the version of Roy Jamie had known at first. It makes more sense now, years later.

“There’s a guest room on this floor.”

“Cool.”

“My room’s upstairs.”

“Awesome.”

Roy rolls his eyes, wheeling both of Jamie’s suitcases behind him. “You might as well unpack now.”

“Why? I’ve got all day tomorrow.” Roy shrugs like good point . “At least I’ll take out the necessities. Like quality conditioner .”

“You’re priorities are seriously fucked, mate.”

“Tell that to me, and this is a direct quote, mind you, ‘movie perfect locks.’”

Roy’s face shows clear disgust. “And who wrote that?”

“ The Sun .”

“Figures.”

A pause.

“The guest bathroom’s got just the shower, so, you know,” Roy shrugs. “If you wanted a bath, that’ll be upstairs.”

Oh, right. Taking a bath in Roy Kent’s house. Maybe not a night one thing.

“Maybe later, a shower’s fine for today.”

“Ok, great, just.” He looks around, like he’ll find a good excuse to leave somewhere on the walls. When he doesn’t, his shoulders sag. “Just holler if you need anything, I’m gonna heat up some dinner.”

“Ok.”

“For both of us.”

“Ok.”

Jamie unpacks his skincare and his soap and his shampoo and his conditioner and his shea + cocoa butter lotion; again, the necessities. He opens his other suitcase for a clean pair of pajamas - and shorts, he’s not sure sleeping commando is a good guest practice - and plans for a quick shower that ends up lingering past its planned runtime. The day’s been weird, and long, and Jamie lets it soak off of him until his skin feels like putty and his limbs like jello. He slathers himself in lotion and speedruns his skin and hair care and then wanders out into the living space in PJs and the dog slippers Isaac had got him for Secret Santa last year.

Roy’s eyes about bug out of his head.

“What?”

“You just look.”

Strange. Dumb. Small and helpless and like Roy would rather him not be here, actually, can he just head back to his place? Sure, Roy, of course, it's no problem!

“Sexy?” Jamie guesses, wiggling his eyebrows. 

It does the trick. Roy scoffs, rolls his eyes. He turns back to the stove, stirring something, and Jamie watches.

“Cozy.”

Jamie blinks. “Huh?”

“You look cozy.”

Why does this make Jamie’s face burn. “I am?”

“Good. I’m, uh. I’m glad.”

Fuck is this conversation? “Look, if you’re gonna be a weirdo freak I’m not gonna live here.”

Roy half-laughs, half-coughs. “Is that what I was being?”

“Pretty much.”

“Ok, sure. Do you have a shellfish allergy I don’t know about?”

“Um?”

They have shrimp alfredo for dinner. Jamie should’ve guessed Roy could cook, because it falls under the general category of old man activities. He probably smokes a cigar and reads the newspaper in the morning. Jamie legitimately can’t wait to find out.

“This is good,” Jamie says. If he’s under Roy’s roof, he can only be a semi-asshole. Or, well, he can be a total asshole, but he’s gotta break it up occasionally. 

Roy seems to appreciate the comment, anyway. He grunts an affirmation, but Jamie catches the way it twitches at the side of his lips. He’s pleased. Hm.

“Where’d you learn to cook?”

So Roy tells him about his grandpa, who was a lifetime chef, in and out of kitchens since he was 17 years old. He tells him about learning the basics from him, then picking it up as a hobby after his grandpa died, then hosting team dinners at Chelsea.

“Why didn’t you ever do that at Richmond?”

Roy’s suddenly very interested in the pasta. Jamie’s not sure why, until he realizes -

“Oh, you did. I just wasn’t invited.”

Roy winces, actually looks kinda guilty. “You were an asshole,” he says, like Jamie needs the reminder. He doesn’t. He’s well aware it’s his neutral state, to be a dick to the people around him. He’s gotta put the work in to be anything else.

“You should start it up again.”

“Hm?”

“The team dinners. I know Sam’s kinda got the monopoly on it now, with the restaurant and everything, but I think the boys would like it. Some good ‘ole fashioned team bonding.”

Now that Ted’s gone . It echoes, unspoken between them, but Roy gets the gist. They miss him like a limb half the time, and it’s not a slight on any of the other coaches or players, it’s just, well. Ted . The only way Jamie’s learned to breathe around it is to spread that Ted magic wherever he can; team dinners seems like just the sorta shit he’d be into.

“Sure,” Roy agrees easily enough.

“Don’t just agree because you feel bad for snubbing me earlier.”

“I don’t feel bad.”

“Well you should, asshole.”

Roy just hums. Jamie finishes his pasta, and offers to clean up. Roy lets him help, but only a bit. He shoos Jamie to the living room instead. Jamie abuses Roy’s Netflix account to pick up right where he left off in Bake Off. Roy gives him a disapproving look, but sits on the other end of the couch and pulls out a book from his asshole, apparently. Either Roy’s got a background in sleight-of-hand or the magic theory’s sticking.

Jamie doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he does remember Roy’s voice, rough and quiet, shaking him awake.

“C’mon, Jamie, you’re gonna wake up sore.”

“‘m not sore.”

“You will be.”

“Mm. Mmkay.”

“No it’s not, come on.”

The guest bedroom’s close, which is no small blessing. Roy somehow convinces him to brush his teeth, thank fuck. Hygiene is paramount. It’s sorta his life motto. 

“I got it from here,” Jamie says as Roy opens the door for him. He’s tired, but not so tired that he misses the way Roy hangs there in the doorway, hands up like he wants to help but has been expressly forbidden by Jamie himself. 

He’s so strange. It’s annoying.

“Holler if you need,” Roy says for the second time of the day. Here’s shooting for lucky number three.

“Will do.”

He doesn't say anything as horrendous as goodnight or sweet dreams , but it’s a close thing. The door clicks shut. Jamie’s out in a minute max.

.

Jamie dreams of the time he busted his chin on the pavement when he was eleven. It wasn’t even anyone’s fault this time, no well-timed push from his dad or boot to the face from an upset opponent. It was Jamie trying to skateboard and instantly regretting it, chin clamping on the road so hard his teeth rattled in his skull.

In the dream, he bleeds and bleeds and bleeds, much more than he could’ve in real life. The trail of it follows him around the house as he calls for his dad, his mom, over and over and over. No one hears him. He bleeds until he’s swimming in it, until the perspective of the dream suddenly becomes third person. Jamie’s outside looking in at his house as it pools over with blood. The structure of it groans. A second later, the windows buckle and shatter, and the house explodes from the inside out as blood swallows Jamie whole.

.

He jolts awake. His panic lasts all of a second. He sniffs. It smells like bacon.

He washes his face, brushes his teeth, pulls on pajama bottoms - ok, he’d been wearing pants, so not nude, give a guy a break - and tries to look casual as he walks into the living room and hooks his elbow over a kitchen chair.

“Don’t get used to this,” Roy says in lieu of a goodmorning.

“Oh, I will.”

“I always make breakfast for myself, just thought I'd double everything up.”

“Course.”

“Stop being annoying.”

“I'm not even doing anything!”

Roy’s already dressed for work. A step closer, Jamie can smell fresh, piney cologne and sweet, minty toothpaste. There's a steaming mug of tea next to him, and an empty one by the kettle.

“I wasn’t sure how you took it.”

Jamie has the decency to backpedal away from the sex joke. See? He can be mature too.

“Little milk, little sugar.”

“Knock yourself out.”

So Jamie does, and then they - fucking dystopian as it seems - eat breakfast. Roy stands on one side of the counter and Jamie sits on the other. He’d made to stand too, but Roy’d narrowed his eyes at Jamie’s leg.

“It’s standing, Coach. It’s not gonna do nothing.”

“Please sit.”

So Jamie had sat, against his better judgement. It’s eggs and toast and bacon. Simple, straightforward. Again, very Roy.

Jamie feels antsy and ineffective by comparison. His fingers dance over what jumper to wear, and his eyes hop around the mirror like they’re scared of looking at themselves. He shouldn’t be here. Why was being at his own place so hard, anyway? 

It’s dumb. He’s being dumb. Again , ugh.

“We’re gonna be late,” Roy calls, so Jamie finishes brushing his teeth and follows Roy through Roy’s entryway out Roy’s door into Roy’s car to Roy’s place of work.

No one questions their arriving together because they’ve been doing it for the better part of a few weeks now. It’s not a secret, anyways. It’s not weird, that Jamie’s hanging at Roy’s place now. It’s, like, normal player-Coach antics and shit.

Right.

“You’re being strange,” Charlie tells him.

“Am not.”

“You are.” She pins him with a look, but then tilts her head, curious. She asks him for the ten hundredth time: “Are you doing ok?”

“Yes, Jesus, who set you up to this? Keeley?”

Charlie snorts, but there’s a feather dusting of pink on her cheeks. Interesting. Jamie makes note of it and debates when to use it as leverage.

Soon, probably. He’s never been the patient type.

He hangs around for longer than in recent days. He organizes his locker space. He stares longingly at a cart of balls. He bothers Higgins, and then bothers Will, and then debates bothering Rebecca before deciding she might not react well to bothering.

Ted certainly bothered her, but Jamie ain’t Ted. For better or for fucking worse.

The boys break from training for lunch, and then Jamie bothers them too. He doesn’t miss the poorly-concealed relief at his presence. Sam wraps an arm around his waist.

“We’ve missed seeing your face around, Jamie,” he says, the kind of sincere only Sam can pull off.

“Who wouldn’t?”

Sam grins.

They talk about the previous game. Jamie’s been in attendance for all of them, of course, just sitting there, wasting away on the bench. The first game had been awful; Jamie may or may not have carted himself off to puke in the bathroom before halftime. He’s still not sure why. It’d been dizzying, watching the boys, unable to help. Unable to do anything.

Anyway, games have gotten better since. People have stopped gawking at poor, injured, sad Jamie Tartt and chosen to just watch the fucking match like they should’ve been doing the whole time. Roy still drops back every couple minutes, standing a bit closer like he wants Jamie to know he’s there. Obviously he’s there, he’s the fucking coach. Loser.

Point is, they debrief last weekend’s game against Chelsea. Jamie shares some pointers he’s been clocking from the sidelines. They listen with rapt attention, and then slowly start peeling off to various activities: most of them hit the weight room, Richard heading to physio for an old ankle injury that’s been giving him trouble, Dani, Sam, and Zoreaux out for shooting drills.

“Wanna come watch?” Zoreaux offers.

“Nah, man, thanks.”

Being here doesn’t really make Jamie feel better, but it doesn’t leave him feeling much worse either. It’s nice, maybe, to be around football still. Like hanging around a girlfriend you’re supposedly “taking a break” from. Nice in that forbidden, unpredictable kinda way.

He fits in another PT session, and Rebecca comes in to chat for a sec about the upcoming - weeks away - surgery, and ask after Jamie’s general health, and wellbeing, and status.

“Be gentle with yourself,” she says. The hand on the shoulder! She’s a natural. “If you need to talk, my door is always open. You know that.”

Jamie does know that; there’s no way he’s taking her up on that offer though. She kinda scares the shit outta him.

After that, he’s ready to go home. He doesn’t wanna keep inconveniencing Roy though, so he discreetly calls for an Uber to drop him off adjacent to Roy’s neighborhood. The guy is obviously shitting bricks that he’s driving around Jamie Tartt. Jamie doesn’t really care. He’s not in the greatest of moods, but he tips the guy big.

“Cheers, mate.”

“Holy shit .”

It’s a ten, fifteen minute walk back. Nothing strenuous, but by the end of it, he feels a bit winded. His knee aches - doesn’t hurt, per se, but feels like it’s been worked enough for the day. Looks like couch time after all.

Roy’d shown him where he keeps the backup key. Again, grandad behavior. It’s poorly hidden under a potted plant. This is extremely worrisome to Jamie. Anyone could break in, and then what would Jamie do? Chuck a crutch at them?

He has been dying to throw a crutch at someone, though, so maybe it’s for the best.

It’s weird, being in Roy’s house without Roy. He wanders the entire downstairs, because he feels like  heading upstairs is maybe pushing it a bit. He explores the contents of Roy’s cabinets, and fridge. His living room, his little study, crammed with bookshelves and weird odds and ends. An old Chelsea jersey. A stein with his own face painted on it. Some pictures, of Roy and Keeley, Roy and Ted, Roy and his sister and Phoebe. A young Roy and an old, Roy-ish looking man, probably his grandpa, smiling, shoulder to shoulder, in front of a house Jamie doesn’t recognize. 

Jamie thinks of his own space, mostly bare. No happy father-son pictures or clever little mementos of a life well-lived. He feels abruptly and starkly bland.

You are not just football .

Jamie’s reminded yet again that Roy hadn’t done his research when he’d said it. If he’d taken a look around Jamie’s house, inside the creaky rafters of Jamie’s brain, he might have come to a different conclusion.

After that, Jamie does his favorite activity: stops thinking about it. Something is fluttering around in his chest, cold and scared, and he shoos it away with three episodes of Bake Off. They’re in the semi-finals when Roy returns.

“You here?” he says as the door opens. 

“Yeah,” Jamie says. 

“Why didn’t you ask for a ride back?”

“Didn’t wanna bug ya.”

“Jamie, I told you I don’t mind.”

“I know.”

“You Ubered straight here?”

Jamie pauses the show to shoot Roy a glare over his shoulder. He realizes the sun’s setting outside. He realizes he’s been sitting here for hours. He realizes this much is probably obvious, and feels something hot and sticky, something like shame, settle behind his eyes.

“No, I’m not a knobend ,” he says. “I Ubered a ways away and walked back. Jesus. I’m not out to dox you, you know.”

Roy doesn’t seem to like this either though. “So you walked back? On your torn fucking ACL ?”

“‘s not like it was a marathon, Roy.”

“Fucking hell,” Roy says, and rubs at his face again. Jamie senses the opportunity; he’s in the mood for a fight again.

“I knew this was stupid,” he says, and Roy looks at him through his fingers. “Just, nevermind. Imma go back to mine, ok? I shouldn’t have -”

“Why, because I don’t want you walking home?”

“No, because - because it’s dumb! I shouldn’t be -”

“Jesus, Jamie, it’s been a day , can you just -”

“Besides, this is clearly some weird pity thing, ok, if you don’t want me here -”

“When the fuck did I say I didn’t want you here?”

“You don’t gotta! Let me just -”

“Jamie, fucking hell, stop for a second, would you?”

Jamie hadn’t even done anything either. He’d snooped and then sat around and moped; hadn’t cooked dinner for Roy. Hadn’t straightened up to show his thanks. Hadn’t hidden a wad of cash in his drawers. He’d just plopped down and taken it all for granted. He’s unforgivably useless. He thinks of his dad’s fist, striking hard against his cheekbone.

“-been sitting around all day like a goddamn fucking vegetable, go fucking make yourself useful, wouldya? The nerve, to fucking-”

Jamie blinks. Roy’s kneeling in front of him. He must’ve popped his knee something special to do it. Jamie feels that intoxicating rush of shame again, burning its way into his eyes, scratching at his lungs.

“Just, stop,” Roy says, much quieter than before. He’s got hands on Jamie’s wrists, holding them all gentle-like. Jamie realizes he’s been gripping his own face, fingers arched to claws, pressed hard into his forehead. Roy tugs a bit, and Jamie’s hands lower, until Roy presses them flat against the couch cushions.

“You gotta relax,” Roy says. Jamie doesn’t look at him; looks down at his lap instead. “You’ve been strung up for weeks now, Jamie. You gotta let it go, some of it, at least.”

“I’m fine.”

“You should talk about it.”

“I don’t wanna.”

“Ok. Alright. Just. Just breathe, then, ok? Think of something, happy, cute, I don’t know.”

“Like what?”

“Puppies? I dunno. Puppies in little boots?”

Jamie risks a glance. Roy looks solid, but on the verge of desperate.

“In little boots?” Jamie echoes.

Roy nods. He tries for a smile that looks wilty and sad. “Yeah. That shit’s fucking cute as hell.”

“Ok. Ok, sure.”

Jamie thinks of puppies in boots. He thinks of Roy’s fingers, still circling the bone of his wrists. He thinks of the fluttery feeling that’s maybe been running nonstop in the background since this whole thing started. He thinks of Roy cooking him fancy fucking pasta.

“This is so weird,” he says.

“I know,” Roy says, then laughs a wry, genuine thing. “Trust me, I know.”

“I’m sorry I’m so annoying.”

“I don’t mind it.”

“You’re supposed to say, no, Jamie, you’re not annoying .”

“I told Keeley I’d stop lying to people.”

“Rich.”

They sit like that for a bit longer, until the flutter-flutter fades to more of a rhythmic hum, something Jamie can better work with. He goes to tell Roy that he’s better, that he’s gonna order dinner for them as thanks, that Roy can get up, can leave him be, but what comes out instead is:

“I looked at all your stuff.” It comes out as a breath, one long word, but Roy seems to decipher it easily enough. His eyebrows dip a bit. He’s still scruffy looking. Jamie wants to touch his beard, wants to rub his cheek against it.

Oh?

“What stuff?” Roy asks. Jamie blinks.

“Just the downstairs stuff.”

Roy looks confused. “Ok?”

“And you have all these pictures and grandpa knick knacks and books and - like, this whole life of shit and I, just.” Jamie shakes his head, and feels it gathering behind his eyes. Not the fluttery feeling, just pure and honest sadness. He’s sad, Jamie realizes. That’s what this is. 

“Jamie -”

“I mean, you’ve got Phoebe. Your sister. I - I dunno about your parents or nothing, but, I mean. You cook. You’ve got all these dumbass books, and - and friends, and your yoga ladies, and, just - I get it, football’s still the main thing, but there’s all this, other shit, that, just.”

Jamie’s a bit breathless. He’s not sure he’s making sense. He’s not sure he can see himself beyond the scope of it, the planet he’s been orbiting since he was six years old and his mom realized he had a knack for kicking balls at shit. He hasn’t stopped once since then, or, well, he’s stoped only once, to shoot the stupid fucking reality TV show, and even that was just a fuck you to his dad, a bullet that misfired and hit him instead, because he’d been left desperate and alone and if he didn’t have football, he was nothing, no, really, nothing . Man City dumped him and he’d come crawling back to Ted, foot in his mouth, pathetic and embarrassing and -

“Jesus, Jamie,” Roy says, and shifts. Jamie looks up again, but his vision’s all watery. Human-Roy looks more like a Painting-Roy, blurry around the edges, a watercolor thing that stands up with a hiss and a grunt, sits down beside Jamie, and says, “I’m coming in.”

“Wha - huh?”

Again, you’d do well to remember Jamie’s gotten four billion hugs since the start of this whole thing. And he’s slept on Roy’s shoulder and cried on Roy’s shoulder and apparently embarrassed himself to totality on Roy’s shoulder, but this is different. This is the Manchester locker room, all at once. Roy tugs him close, sure, simple, straightforward Roy, and Jamie’s fingers scrabble in childish desperation until they find purchase on his shirt and twist .

So. Roy hugs Jamie, and Jamie hugs Roy, for a long time. He’s not proud of this moment. He cries some more - Jesus, but the crying thing’s a bad look recently - and buries his face into the spot where Roy’s shoulder meets Roy’s neck. It’s warm there. Smells like Roy’s cologne, Roy’s skin, Roy’s’ day. Roy doesn’t push him away. Actually, Roy just pulls him closer, his own hand rubbing wide, steady circles over the breadth of Jamie’s back. 

At some point, Jamie’s knee starts aching from the halfway position. Roy’s must too. Jamie’s not quite finished yet, though. He’s a selfish thing, at the end of the day. He only readjusts, swivels so he’s criss-crossed on the couch, facing Roy entirely. He moves his face from Roy’s neck-shoulder into the space under his chin, crushing his nose against the gap of Roy’s collarbone. He can feel Roy’s heartbeat against his eyelids, quick but certain. It’s oddly reassuring.

Time passes. No one knows how much, and that’s definitely for the best. This one’s getting cut from the history books, Jamie can say that much at least.

Eventually, though, the crying stops. Jamie’s too exhausted to keep it up, anyway. He feels hollow in the face of it, an ice cream carton someone’s scooped the last, freezer-burnt dregs of. His face feels puffy, swollen and ugly. He knows he looks a right fucking state .

Roy makes a soft, laughing sound. “Stop frowning like that, it’s too sad.”

Jamie sniffles. “I’m ugly .”

Roy laughs again, lower this time. It’s comforting instead of teasing. Jamie kinda wants to hug him some more. “You’re not ugly, Jamie.” There’s a thumb on Jamie’s face, trailing the swollen gap under his left eye. “You’re proper cried out, though, I’ll give you that.”

“Let me order takeaway,” he demands. His voice is still watery and weak. His eyelids hurt. His throat feels sandy and raw.

“If you can even open your eyes enough to see your phone screen, sure. You can order takeaway.”

It’s a challenge Jamie is happy to accept. He squints his way around a curry menu, orders for the both of them under his fake Uber Eats alias, makes sure to change his address to Roy’s, writes in for them to just leave it at the door. Again, it’s mission Don’t Dox Roy. He’s doing ok, so far. 

They eat in the living room, even though Jamie’s anxious that he’ll spill on the couch. Roy tells him that it’s fine if he does. Jamie kinda doubts it, but he’s got approximately 0% fuel to argue with right now. They watch up to the Bake Off final, and Rahul wins because fucking obviously, and Roy says, “Show me your PT?” 

It’s a clever way to make sure he gets in another full round of exercises, doctor’s orders. He and Roy lay on the carpet and extend their legs together, back and forth. Sit and extend their legs. Stand and extend their legs. Extend their legs every way possible, and then laugh at how stupid the whole thing is. Jamie forces Roy to let him clean up, and Roy actually agrees, as Jamie rinses out to-go containers, sorts them into trash and recycling. When he finishes, he looks over. Roy’s been watching. He’s got an odd look on his face. Just like last time, it vanishes as soon as Roy realizes Jamie’s looking.

“You should get cleaned up.”

“Because I’m ugly?”

Roy snorts. “Because you should get cleaned up. Sure you don’t want a bath?”

Jamie is coerced into a bath, if only to satisfy Roy and his apparently endless desire to dote. He’s halfway to falling asleep in the tub when Roy knocks. 

“Did you drown in there?”

“I wish.”

He drains the tub and gets changed. He finally looks himself in the mirror. As expected, his face is puffy and awful-looking. Generally, though, even ignoring the crying thing, he thinks he looks a little rough. Maybe he really hasn’t been eating great, or seeing so much as a speck of sun. He thinks he looks wan and kidlike in the mirror. He gets why Charlie’s been asking after him.

“Thanks, ya know,” he manages before heading back downstairs. Roy’s in pajamas already; he must’ve used the guest bathroom while Jamie was taking his good ‘ole time. Bedtime Roy is a welcome sight. He looks soft and warm, in a - you guessed it! - black t-shirt and sweats. He smells fresh, like lotion and bar soap. Jamie wants to press his face into his skin again, see how the scent’s changed. For scientific purposes and such, obviously.

“Don’t worry ‘bout it,” Roy says. He hesitates, like he has more to say, but then seems to think better of it. Later, Jamie sees him decide, thank fucking Christ himself. Jamie’s got no more discussion left in him. “Sleep well, ok?”

“Will do.”

Jamie doesn’t, not really, but who’s keeping score? Roy, probably, creepy old fuck. 

When he does eventually fall asleep though, it’s with the faint, half-forgotten feeling of Roy’s fingers, searching in the spaces under his eyes, the both of them, fish outta fucking water.

Chapter Text

The next morning, Jamie still looks obviously like he’d spent the night crying. He convinces Roy to let him do all his PT at home.

“I swear I’ll do it,” he says. He’d woken up before Roy, prepped both of their tea, because unlike Roy, he knows exactly how the other man likes it. No sugar, pinch of milk. He doesn’t know why he knows this, only that he does. Roy’s salting the hard-boiled eggs he’d sliced up and arranged on some toast with the leftover bacon from the day before. He’s preparing two plates; fucking feeder. He doesn’t look particularly pleased with Jamie’s proposition, but he nods.

“I’ll know if you don’t,” he says.

Jamie snorts. “No, you won’t.”

Roy looks up, deadly serious. “Oh, I will.”

Jamie swallows. Creepy Roy is, well. Creepy.

He heads off to work, and Jamie does what he should’ve done yesterday. He straightens up the slight mess of Roy’s living space. He organizes his pantry for optimal efficiency. He straightens the photos and reminders and strange crap Roy’s got magnet-ed to his fridge. He digs in cupboards until he finds a candle, then lights it up. Opens the curtains, lets the overcast gray of the day in. Pops open the kitchen window to clear out some of the egg-bacon-toast smell. 

Jamie’s good at wallowing, if given the chance. Thing is, he’s almost never given the chance, so when it comes, it’s like every part of him latches onto it. He’s sure there’s a reason for this, maybe the lack of wallowing allowed in his childhood, or the fact that when he did wallow, it usually ended up in a split lip and twisted arm. Now that he can, he indulges in the wallow maybe a little too hard.

Point is, he’s done. The wallowing’s got him nowhere, and while wallowing in his own house is one thing - tempting, and deliciously awful - wallowing in Roy’s is just flat out embarrassing. 

After his little productivity-burst, he makes himself some more tea, and sits down in the living room again. Instead of more Bake Off, he finds a good classical music stream on YouTube, and goes to grab his laptop from his luggage in the guest room.

God, the guest room. It’s in a state, too. Sidelined, he ends up cleaning things here too, fully unpacking his suitcases and folding his clothes into the cupboards, hanging what there’s room for on the few spare hangers Roy’s got in the dresser. He opens the window here too, and some of the stagnant build-up that had accumulated over just a day- see? Jamie’s wallowing is not a thing to be trifled with - seeps out into the crispy October morning.

With the guest room handled, he goes back into the living room. Opens up his laptop. Reads all that he can about ACL recovery time, possible complications, additional exercises. Watches videos of ACL surgeries, morbidly curious. Reads a handful of positive, bounce-back recovery stories and then a handful of career ending, never-the-same-as-before stories too. Just for the sake of data collection, and all. He thinks it’s best to go into this as realistically informed as possible.

Then, he thinks of his dilemma. His secondary dilemma, possibly the bigger of the two, that his torn ACL has happily shone a light on: the whole Jamie Tartt Identity Crisis. It feels similar to the one he’d had about his dad, back at the end of last season. Realizing his motivation was tied to either seeking validation or pissing the guy off, he’d felt rudderless and lost. Ted had turned it around for him, and while thing’s aren’t perfect on that end - he thinks again of his last visit to rehab, his dad giving every nonverbal cue possible that Jamie’s presence was starting to undermine his newfound sense of self - they’re at least better than before. 

This crisis is less about his dad and more about, just, Jamie, apparently. Maybe it’s been a long time coming, a mounting issue that’s been gathering dust in the recesses of his consciousness, suddenly accelerating into a full-blown issue with the lack of his usual football programming to distract from it.

Jamie’s not sure who Jamie is, apparently. Jamie Tartt he knows through and through by now; knows what makes him tick, knows his preferred playing style, knows how he interacts with his fans, his teammates, his coaches, his opponents. How he directs them on the field, channeling energy through his offense until he’s forced into the attack, quick and ruthless and precise. He knows the Jamie Tartt that the rest of the world knows too; and he likes the guy, ya know? Jamie Tartt’s efficient, good at his job. Sexy, least they somehow leave that part out.

He’s been neglecting the Jamie of it all, though. Apparently. So it would seem. It’s obvious, in hindsight, but there’s never been a moment to consider it before.

He finds the notebook that Roy had very pointedly brought from Jamie’s house to his own, and then finds a pen. Writes on the top of one page: Things Jamie Likes. 

God, but it’s some fourth grade, icebreaker bullshit.

Flips a few pages, and writes on another one: Things Jamie Wants to Try. 

For some reason, both pages are unprecedentedly daunting. He stops trying to pull out answers out of his actual ass and instead cycles through his exercises, then goes to make lunch and realizes Roy’s reaching the point of being a bit understocked. Jamie doesn’t know the neighborhood, but he’s bound to hit a market eventually.

He does, not even ten minutes away, a little ma and pop’s thing that sells everything he might need: he grabs turkey, eggs, cheese. Milk, protein powder, orange juice. On a whim, a small carton of black cherries, and a bag of mini dark chocolate bars.

The lady - a weathered, kind face and curly, white hair - greets him with an open smile and no indication that she knows who he is. She sees him eyeing the small assortment of fresh flowers near the check-out and says, “Go on, hun. Free of charge, for being such a polite young man.”

He basks in her accurate opinion of him and chooses the orange chrysanthemums. 

Back at Roy’s place, he carefully unloads and organizes the groceries, finds a vase-adjacent glass to put the flowers in. He makes himself a quick turkey, cheese, lettuce, mustard sandwich - Roy’s bread is fancy, a rich, dark brown - and snacks on a few of the spicy pickles he’d found earlier in the recesses of Roy’s fridge. Then, he sits down. His knee fucking smarts, but it’s an accomplished kind of pain, like the sore after a good practice. He does another round of leg extensions, times twenty minutes like Charlie’d told him too, and after that, he’s wiped. He checks the time. 2:45. A little nap won’t kill him.

He wakes up to the sound of a car pulling into the car port. He rubs at his eyes. The windows are all still open, letting in a whisper of chill and the sound of a light drizzle. He’d relit the candle when he’d gotten back, and the wax has all liquified as the flame continues chugging away at it; the classical music stream has paused, and a little message glows at the bottom of the screen: still watching?

The door opens, and Roy walks in. He looks around, and Jamie watches him blink, then blink again.

“The fuck?”

“Hey!”

Roy jumps like he’s been spooked, and Jamie pushes himself off of the couch. The nap was nice; instead of the expected groggy, he feels awake again, like, really awake. For the first time in a while, maybe. The house smells great, like cinnamon vanilla. It’s a good candle, anyways. 

“What is this shit?”

“What shit?”

“Did you. Clean?”

Jamie shrugs off the question. “More just straightened up sorta thing. Have you been to that market like, a walk thataways? The lady that works there is aces , mate.”

“Matilda?” Roy asks, but he sounds distracted. He’s looking at the perfect lines of the fridge art, and the unassuming glass of flowers.

“Sure, Matilda. Anyways, she’s my new favorite person. You know if she’s married?”

“I - what?”

Then, Roy looks at Jamie. Jamie smiles. He feels pretty good, actually, and then thinks how fickle and dramatic a thing he is; less than 24-hours ago, he was weeping into Roy’s open arms. Now, though, there’s a feeling like motion under his skin, the good kind. Jamie wants to tell Roy about his day, and, better yet, he wants Roy to tell Jamie about his.

“Did you go shopping?” Roy asks.

“Yep. You had no protein powder.”

“Yeah, I don’t use it.”

“But I do. And the flowers were free, because I’m dashingly handsome.”

Roy snorts, but still looks vaguely floored by the whole thing. “Why’s it smell so good?”

“Your candle.”

“That was mine?”

“Yeah, I found it in there,” he says, pointing to the little set of drawers in question. Roy nods, slow, like he doesn’t realize he’s doing it.

“How were the boys?” Jamie prompts.

So Roy tells him about training as he puts down his bag, takes off his shoes, eyes Jamie like he’s unsure of his motive. Jamie’s unsure of his motive too, just knows it feels good, to do something other than sit in the judgey quiet of himself. Jamie notices Roy notice the notebook, but he doesn’t ask. He lets it rest, which, for Roy, must be damned near impossible to do.

Roy’s still got some of the pasta base from the other night, but instead of shrimp, he cuts up some chicken breast this time, adds some fresh herbs to “wake the sauce back up.” He tells Jamie to pick a type of pasta, and, wow. Roy’s got a lot of noodle options, some of them with names Jamie’s never heard before.

He picks the little bowtie ones. 

“Farfalle,” Roy tells him.

“Nah, mate, that’s bowtie pasta.”

“Same thing.”

“Ok, sure. Whatever you say.”

The pasta’s just as good tonight; Jamie prefers chicken to shrimp, anyway. They eat, and chat, and don’t mention Jamie’s crying fit from the night before. How civil, thanks Roy! That being said, Jamie is vaguely desperate for another hug. Or, well. Touch. Of some kind. It’s his love language, alright! He’s a self-aware guy, really, and he sees the way Roy almost ruffles a hand through his hair when he stands up to get seconds before thinking better of it.

Lame. Self-restraint is so overhyped.

They clean up together, and Jamie decides he’s over Bake Off. Instead, he scrolls through Netflix while Roy reads, not committing to anything, just watching those little Netflix previews. Roy makes comments between his reading: “That looks like shit,” or “I know that actor,” or “Keeley watched that one.”

It’s disarmingly domestic. But then it’s nighttime, and it’s a Thursday, which means tomorrow’s a Friday, and there’s a game on Saturday. The two of them, booked and busy.

“Night,” Roy says.

“Goodnight!”

Roy hums, and heads upstairs. Jamie goes to sleep.

.

They win the game. The celebration is uproarious, and it’s a home game, so the boys go out on the town afterwards. Jamie would normally be leading the charge, but the idea of a night out’s worth of walking and talking and cheering and, undoubtedly, the questions when they’d bump into fans - what’s your prognosis, how does it feel, when will you be back - is daunting. He catches Roy’s eye over the mess of them and can see Roy’s assumed as much.

“You boys have fun,” he says, and claps Isaac on the shoulder. Beard’s watching the two of them with a narrow-eyed look. Jamie shoots him a grin and a wave. The narrow-eyed look narrows further. 

Without Ted as his translator, Beard’s inner thoughts are food for the imagination alone.

Jamie gives them all a last, celebratory hug, and Dani plants a smooch on the side of his cheek, and Jamie laughs, happy, despite not having played a second’s worth of game. It hadn’t been so bad this time, to sit on the pitch, cheer ‘em on. The boys played clean, and looked to Jamie after every goal. Made him a part of it, still, despite it all.

“Let’s go,” Roy says, quiet, behind his right shoulder. Jamie nods, and doesn’t miss Keeley’s trailing look either, a question in the tilt of her eyebrows.

Jamie mouths later . Keeley nods. Charlie’s down there with them too, and Jamie doesn’t miss the way she never strays far from Keeley’s side.

Yeah, they need a lunch date debrief, pronto.

Roy plays that old man music, and Jamie doesn’t mind it so much. It’s dark, and Jamie expects them to go back home, but then Roy glances his way. “Wanna grab dinner?”

Oh. “Sure.”

It’s a fancy little Pakistani place, with warm yellow lighting and cozy, dark green walls. Jamie gets chicken karahi, and Roy gets mutton korma. They split some kheer for dessert, the sweet pudding coating his tongue, hot and comforting. 

“I like this place,” Jamie says. “Never been here before.”

“The owner’s a Richmond fan.”

“The best people are.”

Roy grins. “Usually, he tries to get me drunk. He’s holding back since you’re here, I guess.”

“Why? I wouldn’t mind being drunk.”

“Do you want a drink?”

Jamie considers. He doesn’t drink often, out of fear, of, well. Whatever the fuck it always did to his dad. But he’s not his dad, he reminds himself. He can have a drink with Roy, as friends. 

It’s not like he has a game anytime soon to stay fit for. Ha.

They each get a glass of sweet red wine, and the owner comes out to chat with Roy for a sec, congratulate him on the win and shake hands, enthusiastic and rough, with Jamie. His smile crinkles in his eyes. His name is Bilal. He’s got a round, trustworthy sort of face. He offers them another glass, on the house. Roy says no, he’s driving. Jamie says sure, he’s unemployed.

This makes Bilal laugh and Roy roll his eyes, fond fond fond. Jamie feels it bubbling up in his chest, fizzy and content. 

The wine makes him feel like Painting-Roy had looked, back when Jamie was having his really attractive breakdown on Roy’s couch: blurry and soft around the edges. A little bit sleepy, a little bit not real. 

“Let’s get you home,” Roy says. Jamie agrees easily, and keeps his face against the cool weight of the passenger’s side window, letting the lights blur as they drive by.

“I should bring me car here,” he says. “So I can drive around when you’re at work.”

“Sure,” Roy says, followed by an immediate, “You’re allowed to drive?”

“Charlie said ‘s ok, long as it doesn’t hurt. Been long enough, since. Ya know.”

Turf-smell, and a copper taste on the back of his tongue as he’d looked up at the spinning heads of the whole fucking team and realized shit, this is bad. Dani, eyes full and wet, his hands wrapped up in Jamie’s while Roy’s stayed firm on the ridge of his collarbone. 

Roy hums, but must agree, because after a moment he says, “We can swing by and grab it tomorrow. You won’t be driving after surgery though.”

“‘s not for another two weeks. Ish.”

“Ish.”

“Never had surgery before.”

Roy driver-glances over. “Never? Not even, like, fucking wisdom teeth or something?”

“Mine never came in.” He laughs at himself. “Da said it’s ‘cause I ain’t got wisdom to spare.”

“Hilarious,” Roy says, clearly not thinking as much.

“What’s it like?”

He turns his face from the window to look at Roy. To stare at Roy. The lines of his arms, the tendons in his hands, curled around the steering wheel. 

Jamie swallows.

“It’s not so bad,” Roy says after a moment. He’s not looking at Jamie anymore, but it’s the kind of not-looking that feels deliberate. “Once they get the anesthesia in you, it’s just like sleeping. You don’t remember closing your eyes, and then you’re waking up. You won’t remember any of it, or feel any of it.”

“I better not.”

“You won’t.”

“I hope my surgeon’s hot.”

“You’ve already met him.”

Jamie crinkles his nose. Oh, right. The doctor’s surgery friend guy. Hm. Not hot, but not ugly. “He’s passable,” he decides, and Roy snorts.

“Again, your priorities are astounding.”

“I only.” He hiccups. “I only fraternize with hot people.”

“Who taught you that word?”

“Hm? Hot?”

“Fraternize.”

“Learned it all by meself.”

“Sure you did.”

“Anyway, everyone on the team’s hot. Rebecca’s hot. Higgins is hot in like that cool, accomplished dad way. You’re hot. Keeley’s hot. I can’t go and ruin it with a sad, decrepit surgeon.”

He looks out the window again, recognizes the trailing lights of Roy’s neighborhood. When he looks back at Roy, there’s red creeping up the neckline of his shirt and into his ears.

“What?” Jamie demands.

“Nothing. We’re home.”

Sure enough, they are indeed home. Well. At Roy’s home. It’s been four days, Jamie’s not thinking ‘bout it as his home yet. Please. That’d be crazy.

They put their leftovers in the fridge, and it’s not that late, only, like, nine or something. Nine-thirty. Jamie wants to watch a movie.

“Do you wanna watch a movie?”

Roy twitches. “Sure. Go shower first.”

“Ugh. Ok.”

Jamie showers. Roy showers. They sit on the sofa with an unacceptable amount of space between them. This is highly annoying. Jamie makes sure to project his opinion with all of the nonverbal cues he possibly can, until halfway through Ratatouille , when Roy reaches for the remote and pauses the movie.

“What crawled up your asshole and died?” he demands.

“Nothing.”

“Then why are you being all scowly and fidgety? You love Remy.”

“Yes, I do love Remy.”

“Then what is it?”

“Nothing. Can you play the movie, please?”

Roy grumbles something under his breath, but does as he’s asked. Jamie feigns needing to piss, telling Roy not to worry about pausing it. He stands in the bathroom for a few long seconds, then flushes the toilet for show, washes his hands. When he returns, he sits very, very pointedly as far away from Roy as possible.

Roy makes a scoffing sort of sound in the back of his throat and turns an incredulous look at Jamie. Linguini and Collette are flirting on screen, and Remy is sporting a long-suffering look under Linguini’s tall chef’s hat.

“ That’s what you’re pissy about? Jesus, Jamie, use your words.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Jamie lies, pitching his tone as innocent as possible. When he looks over, Roy’s eyebrows are all folded in on themselves. The red is creeping up to his face again, bunching high in the corners of his ears. Cute. It’s actually quite cute.

“Come on, then,” he says. “You’re a needy little shit, you know that?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, but when Roy pats the open space beside him, Jamie doesn’t waste a second in scooting over, pulling the blanket with him, tossing it over them both. Roy is warm and solid beside him; Jamie is still a little fuzzy, and maybe that’s why he holds no pretenses. He lets the side of his right thigh press flush with the side of Roy’s left, and then, for good measure, folds his legs so he can press cold toes into the crook of Roy’s knee. Roy’s wearing sweatpants, so really, he has nothing to complain about.

“You’re ridiculous,” Roy says, even as he adjusts his own posture, tosses an arm thoughtlessly - or, maybe, very thoughtfully actually - over Jamie’s shoulder. Jamie lets the back of his head tilt against it. Roy’s a little furnace, probably runs hot because of all the rage he has to suppress all day long. Poor guy. It’s convenient for Jamie, though, who’s always run cold.

“We’re roommates,” Jamie says around a yawn. “Get used to it.”

Roy hums, but says nothing else. Jamie presses as close as he reasonably can, and it’s nice. He likes Roy. He likes touching Roy. He likes being near Roy. He likes Roy. Had he mentioned it already?

He doesn’t fall asleep, but it’s a close thing. The movie ends, and while they stand up, get themselves sorted, Jamie almost asks what he’s being dying to ask: their bedrooms really feel so far apart, it’s, like, a personal affront. Jamie likes a snuggle, platonic or no. Roy’s his friend, he’d said as much: he made the offer as Roy, not as Coach Kent. It’s not overstepping then, right?

He doesn’t have the balls for it though. Roy looks at him, eyes bright in the darkness, and says, “Goodnight, Jamie.”

“Night. Good game.”

He smiles, a tilted, wry thing. “Good game.”

Jamie sleeps through the night.

.

He has a lunch date with Keeley on Tuesday of the following week. They meet at the club, after his scheduled appointment with Charlie, and then dart off to her favorite health-bowl-quinoa-salad-chickpea whatever place. It’s actually pretty good.

He grills her about Charlie, out the gate. “She’s definitely into you, like. I can smell that shit from a mile away.”

Keeley flushes bright, Keeley pink. She giggles, actually giggles, high and nervous. Something like this would’ve upset him years ago, when he still viewed her as someone he’d lost, not someone he’d just changed with instead.

“You think so?” she says. She presses small fingers to her small, heart-shaped face and takes a small, hopeful breath. “I mean, she’s proper fit, right? And, like, really funny and shit. Christ, but I gotta church-state this shit.”

“You don’t work for Richmond anymore, technically,” he says around his mouthful of gruel. “She’s not a colleague.”

“Yeah, but Richmond’s a client.”

“Is Charlie specifically a client?”

“I guess not.”

“I mean, of the work-relationships you’ve had, this feels the least, you know. Work-y.”

Keeley groans, but can’t hide the excitement. “I guess I did date my boss.”

“That you did.”

“Could be worse.”

“Could definitely be worse.” He widens his eyes to emphasize his point. “Go after it, Keeley. Come on. I’m sick of watching her drool over you.”

Her face flames pinker still. “She’s not drooling .”

“Fine, then watching you drool over her.”

“I’m not drooling!” She grabs her fork, points it at him like a weapon. “You’re one to talk.”

He feels a pit open in his stomach, immediate and all-encompassing. Uh oh. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, don’t you? I saw your poster, Jamie. Like, actually saw it, flesh and blood.”

“What? The poster of you? I told you about -”

She goes all squinty. “No, Jamie, not of me . Of.” She looks around. The place is literally empty, but she lowers her voice anyway. “Of Roy .”

They are not having this conversation.

“I dunno what you mean.”

“And chirp chirp from the grapevine is that you two are,” she pitches her voice low again, but it peeks high and breathy anyway, like this is breaking news, “ living together !”

Jamie wills away the burn in his cheeks. “We’re not living together, he’s just, ya know. Like, sponsoring me ass, so I don’t go ‘n off meself in the meantime.”

This upsets her really quickly. Poor choice of phrasing, whoops. “I didn’t mean it,” he backtracks immediately.

“If you did, that’s. That’s fine, Jamie.” She reaches out, puts a tiny hand on his. “But you gotta talk to someone ‘bout it, I know I’m busy, but, really, I will always make time to -”

“Ew, no, I was joking. I mean, it’s rough, but, like.” He swallows. “Not like that, I was. Anyway, look, you’re missing the point. He just doesn’t want me camping out alone, feeling sorry for meself ‘n shit.”

She doesn’t seem eager to drop the whole depreciating-mental-health thing, but she does it anyway. “Ok,” she says slowly, then goes impish again, smiling all small and evil. “So you’re sharing a bed?”

“No, Keeley, fucking hell, we’re just -”

“You know, if you asked, he’d say yes.”

“I’m not asking -”

“I’m just saying -”

“It’s not like -”

“Oh, but it is,” she says, and plays him with his own trick, widening her eyes to make a point. Her eyeshadow today is sparkly and pink. He stares at it as she talks. “Hate to play dirty here, but he’s been in a weirdly good mood recently.”

“Oh?”

“Oh is correct. Rebecca told me he’s been, like, skipping round the club and shit.”

“Roy Kent doesn’t skip.”

“Oh, he most definitely does.”

She’d know better than most.

“Anyway, don’t think it’s a conflict of interest for me or anything, babes. Actually,” and she tilts her head here, inquisitive and sincere, “I’ve thought about it for a while now. I mean, I’ve, you know, been with both of you. I know what you two are like, and, well.” She thinks a bit more, then shrugs, straightens. “You kinda compliment each other.”

“Ew.”

“What! He’s a smotherer, and you, well, you know. Like to be smothered.”

It’s another way of calling him a greedy, touchy attention-whore, which, in essence, is the truth of the situation. 

“One of our bigger fights,” she continues, “was because I needed space, and it wasn’t natural for him to give it.” She points the fork at him again, and he feels pinned in its crosshairs. “I don’t think I’ve once in my life, ever heard you ask for space.”

“What, have you been scheming this shit or something?”

She puts the fork down, but her grin is triumphant as she straightens her napkin, fixes her blouse. “No, but that doesn’t mean I’m not right.”

“You’re insane.”

“I’m intuitive, and I’m smart. And when have I ever been wrong?”

He can’t really remember a time. It doesn’t bode well for him, generally.

“Now,” he says anyway. “You’re wrong.”

“Sure, I’m wrong, ok,” she says, in a tone that suggests she doesn’t actually believe this. “You owe me ten quid if this ends the way I think it’s gonna.”

“And how’s that?”

She shrugs, mysterious, and drops it. She continues eating like nothing happened, then asks about his surgery, and he takes the conversation switch like a lifeline, holy hell.

.

The next day, he starts his new secondary objective. His primary objective is: Recover from ACL Tear So He Doesn’t Actually Become Unemployed. His secondary objective is: Figure Out Who Jamie Is.

He’s not sure how to do this, because no one’s ever really showed him how. He thinks of that conversation with Roy, forever ago, about what he liked to do. He’s not sure, so he figures this means he’s in some sort of trial period; might as well throw shit at the wall, see what sticks. 

He finds the notebook and flips to the Things Jamie Wants to Try page. He jots down a few preliminary ideas. What are good hobbies for a first timer? He googles it, and writes down the top examples. Drawing. Gardening. Baking. Knitting. Painting. Writing. Playing an instrument. 

Playing a sport.

Ha. Funny, WikiHow.

Roy’s got a decent yard, but gardening sounds like a lot of kneeling down and getting up. Not ideal. Baking’s great, but it requires a lot of Tools. He’s always wanted to learn the piano, but Roy’s got no instruments to speak of in his place. So. That’s a lot knocked off the table.

He shoots for something relatively low-maintenance instead. Drawing. That’s simple, right? All you need is a pencil and paper. Any old idiot can draw.

When Roy returns, Jamie’s in, as Roy calls it, a “mood.”

“What happened to you?”

“This, Roy. This shit happened.” He shows Roy one of the eleven attempted sketches of the fucking just-starting-to-droop chrysanthemums. Each drawing’s somehow worse than the last, sizes and shapes and shading all wrong. The article had said sketch something in your direct vicinity , and Jamie had worked himself into a fit because of it.

“Looks like me nan’s hair in rollers,” he grumbles.

“It looks like a flower,” Roy disagrees.

“It does not look like a flower.”

Roy shrugs, and looks like he’s trying hard to sympathize, really, but is halfway to laughing instead. Jamie notices and points a finger at him, accusatory.

“It’s not funny!”

“I know, I know!”

“I spent the whole day on this shit!”

“It’s not like you’re gonna be perfect from the start, Jamie.”

He was with football. He’s not really known how to fail, not in a while, at least. Roy pats his shoulder, and Jamie leans into it.

“Relax. It’s not a big deal. You can try something different.”

Jamie sniffs and stews as he attempts one last sketch. This time, of Roy’s dumb angry face. He exaggerates the eyebrows and frown lines and adds a little message bubble: I’m Roy Kent, fucking hell! He crumples it up and throws it at Roy’s back where he’s cooking. Roy picks it up and laughs, uncrumples it and pins it to the fridge. Jamie flicks him off and storms away to the guest room, only coming out when Roy calls him for dinner.

.

So no drawing, then. He’s eleven days out from surgery. It’s fine. That’s totally fine, unalarming information.

He attempts baking at Roy’s gentle suggestion. “You love Bake Off,” he says, off-handed one afternoon. “Why not try your hand at that? Feel free to use the kitchen.”

Jamie will just feel free, then.

His car’s here too now, so he drives to Matilda’s this time. Driving doesn’t involve much knee-motion, but it still feels a little strange. He decides to do it as little as possible, just in case. He and Matilda chat for a bit, about the weather, and herbs, and what flowers he should get next. The chrysanthemums had a bit of life left, but looking at them was starting to piss Jamie off, so he’d tossed them in favor of something different.

He heads home with flour and sugar and baking powder and buttermilk and red dahlias.

He starts with something simple. Hard to fuck up. Scones. Who doesn’t love scones?

The first batch of dough comes out clumpy and strange. He’s pretty sure it ain’t right, but he tosses them in the oven anyway. They look a fucking mess when they come out. He tries one. Bleh.

Round two is a bit better. The dough feels more like he expects it to. He follows the recipe more carefully, keeps the measurements more exact. He’s proud, until he gets distracted and scorches the things in the oven. The bite he attempts is burnt and crumbly in his mouth.

Ok. Nothing to get upset over. He’s moving quickly by batch three, annoyed at this point and ready to be done. He must fuck up a measurement somewhere, because instead of forming any recognizable shape, the dough is gloopy and wet and puddles out on the baking sheet. He tosses them in anyway, and when he checks in ten minutes, the ten little triangles he’d attempted to shape have all splooged together into one little lake of half-baked batter.

He bakes the fucking sheet through anyway, mostly out of spite, so he can smash the thing up and chuck the pieces in the bin when he’s finished. This is roughly when Roy gets back, and eyes the mess of the kitchen, and eyes Jamie, and approaches like there’s eggshells scattering the floor.

“So, how’d it go?”

“Can I have that scalpel now?”

“No, Jamie.”

They clean up together. Jamie tries really hard not to pout, but he doesn’t think it’s a success. He at least earns Roy’s warm, amused sympathy. He lets Jamie sit close, and bumps their knees together while he reads and Jamie scribbles angry lines in his list.

.

He stays at the club for all of Wednesday, shuffling to and from PT to chat with whoever is willing and able. Two of Higgins’ sons are at each other’s throats. Will’s extended family is debating flying in for the holidays. Sam’s looking to hire more wait staff. Isaac’s perfected his protein shake recipe. Colin’s boyfriend just got promoted. Nate’s girlfriend is coming to the next game.

Jamie wiggles his eyebrows. “Finally get to meet the lucky lady, eh?”

Nate burns red and stammers things about him being the lucky one, actually, Jade’s the best, really, you’ll love her, Jamie. Jamie hums. He’s sure he will. Still, he’s a little off-kilter. He realizes, plainly, he’s missed having a Jade. 

He thinks of his conversation with Keeley. He thinks about braining himself on Nate’s desk. He leaves the room, and bumps into Beard.

“Oh, hey, Beard!”

Beard gives him the narrow-eyed look again, like Jamie’s a thing he’s trying to figure out. Good luck, Beard. Braver men have tried.

“How are you, Jamie?”

“Aces, ya know.”

“The knee?”

“Annoying. But surgery’s soon.”

“In seven days.”

“Yeah, in seven days.” He’s surprised Beard’s been keeping track, and then realizes he shouldn’t be. Beard studies him a bit more intently, then nods.

“Roy will be there with you.”

Jamie blinks. “Oh? I wasn’t sure, we hadn’t really talked logistics and I assumed -”

“Oh, we haven’t talked logistics either,” Beard says simply. “But he’ll be there with you.”

Jamie swallows. “Oh. Ok. Interesting.”

“That it is,” Beard says, and tilts his head, just a little, before patting the side of Jamie’s arm.

“See you around, Jamie.”

“Uh, ok, yeah. See you around.”

Unnerving man, that one.

He sneaks in one last PT session with Charlie before they head back home. She’s in a good mood, talkative and smiley. He doesn’t even bring up Keeley; she does first, mentioning casually that they’d hung out the other day.

“Hung out, yeah, sure,” Jamie says, and she just grins. 

They eat out again that night, at the little Pakistani place. Bilal tries to get them drunk again. Jamie allows himself a glass. Roy talks his ear off about the game on Sunday. Jamie sits and lets him; it’s nice, listening to Roy, Jamie decides. A little too nice, maybe. All things considered, though, it’s a good day. Roy looks at him funny when they get home and Jamie grabs a book from his study.

“You’re literate?” he jokes.

“Ha ha,” Jamie answers, but finds a jazz music video on YouTube, sick of what Netflix has to offer. He’d chosen the book at random, because he liked the cover, and the title sounded badass. 

“Ted gave that to me,” Roy says after a moment, once Jamie’s settled into his spot.

Jamie flips the book over. A Wrinkle in Time . He hadn’t remembered it, too busy being pissed off at the time, but supposes it does look vaguely familiar. He opens the thing, and there’s a little inscription there in Ted’s familiar, messy scrawl.

hope you enjoy - shoot ‘em dead! ~ted

Jamie misses him again, with his full fucking chest. They’d talked on the phone a bit ago, when the news of Jamie’s injury had first come out. It’d been quick, because of the time zone, and Jamie’s bad mood, and Ted’s being needed at a parent teacher conference. Ted’s voice had been like butter, soft and smooth, country drawl thicker with his time away.

“You’ll get through this, son. Next time I’m there, I owe you a hug and a dinner, you hear me?”

Jamie had closed his eyes then, nauseous with the weight of it, the ambiguity of it. He wouldn’t be seeing Ted for a long time. They both knew that. Until then, it was up to Jamie to figure his shit out.

Or, well. Maybe not. Jamie glances over at Roy, and the heavy realization of it is awful: Jamie hadn’t figured his shit out, not on his own, not really. Roy had sidled up to his side and pulled him into his orbit, and now Jamie’s reading books on his couch. 

Hm. There’s a niggling thought, a thread he almost plucks at but decides to leave be. Instead, he says, “Did you like it?”

Roy nods, and his smile is quiet. “Yeah, I did.”

It’s recommendation enough, especially coming from Roy. Jamie gets started, and decides not to comment on the way Roy watches him reading for a second too long.

.

Five days out from surgery, and Jamie tries knitting. He visits Matilda just to chat, and then heads to the nearby arts and crafts place. It’s the kinda joint Jamie wouldn’t be caught dead in, except, well, here he is. He’d done a bit of preliminary reading. The needles he picks out are chique and wooden, and he finds a ball of yarn that’s a perfect, pretty periwinkle, and when heads to the check out he’s politely informed by the braces-and-freckles teenage staff that his needle size does not correspond with his yarn thickness.

Rookie mistake.

They spend a good half hour going through the aisles, because the shop’s dead save Jamie and his stupid amateur questions. The teenager in question - her hair is spiky red, and she’s chewing gum even though Jamie’s pretty sure you’re not supposed to do that with braces - shows him how needle numbers correspond to yarn weight, informs him of the pros and cons of wooden vs plastic vs metal needles, convinces him to buy a higher-quality yarn for a better finished product.

“I mean, sorry if this is rude, but you’re not hurting for cash, right?”

He’d thought maybe she didn’t recognize him. Oops. He nods, and she smiles. The rubber bands on her braces are neon green, and her nails are a chipped black. He likes her, he decides, and reads her nametag. Becky. She looks like a Becky.

After she gets him sorted, he leaves with a softer, nicer yarn in the same, smiling blue. He’s got longer, thicker needles, still classy and wooden and cool-looking like his first pair. He’s also got a little bubble of knowledge that wasn’t there at the start of the day. That’s pretty cool, ya know. Learning about shit, weird, obscure shit he’d never normally give a fuck about.

He watches seven YouTube tutorials on Roy’s TV before casting on. He fucks up the first time. Then he fucks up the second time. He pulls the yarn off his needle, then takes a break to make lunch, a protein shake of Isaac’s exact ratio.

Then, he tries again. Gets it right this time. Cool. All the videos tell him to go for a knit stitch first and shoot for something simple. He decides on a scarf, since it’s essentially just one long strip of knitting. Sounds like something he can work with.

When Roy arrives, he’s seven rows in.

“Check this shit out,” he says. Roy puts down his bag, heels off his shoes, and walks over. He’s standing over Jamie, who’s sitting on the couch, holding out his newest creation. A little line of rows, some tighter than others, some a little wonky looking, and no longer than his palm. Still. He’s obscenely proud of it.

“Looks great,” Roy says, and it doesn't even sound patronizing. “I like that color.”

“Me too. Becky helped me pick it up.”

“Who’s Becky?”

“Some teenage delinquent that works at the crafts store. She’s pretty cool.”

This makes Roy grin too. Jamie sees him debate ruffing Jamie’s hair, again , an instinct he never fucking acts on. Jamie knows that he’s about as subtle as a fist to the face, but he doesn’t care at the moment; he cranes his neck a bit forward, and Roy takes the hint with a full, around-the-world eyeroll. His hand lands at the top of Jamie’s head, and he scrunches his fingers once, twice. The short, dull prick of his nails on Jamie’s scalp is humiliatingly nice.

“Glad you’re making friends,” he jokes. Jamie thinks if he were a cat, he’d be purring. Roy must think the same thing, because his hand drifts. Experimentally, he tips it a bit lower, fingers scratching at the spot just above the nape of Jamie’s neck. Jamie tilts his head to give Roy better access, and Roy pulls his fingers away.

Boring.

“What do you want for dinner?” Roy says, and makes a hasty retreat. He’s no fun, really. Living with him sucks .

“Pasta, again,” Jamie says. He’s always eaten pasta as a means to an end, carbo-loading before heavy cardio days. Roy’s pasta is more than that; it’s delicate, and meant to be enjoyed, not scarfed down. He likes this about Roy, how many things in his life he’s curated for enjoyment alone. His food. His books. His living room. His mornings. Jamie thinks he has his own version of that, even if he hadn’t realized it before: his skincare, his haircare, his nighttime routine and his yummy smelling lotions. He likes Roy’s version too, though. Thinks he wants to borrow some of his tricks.

“I picked up some beef the other day,” he adds as an afterthought.

Roy snorts, surprised. “What for?”

“Dunno. In case you needed it to cook.”

“Sure, we can throw some beef in there. What cut did you get?”

Um. “Like, square?”

Roy makes an amused sort of sound. “Sure, square. The best cut, how’d you know?”

“You’re making fun of me.”

“Me? Never, Jamie.”

“Can you show me how?”

Roy looks back, blinks. “Show you how to cut beef?”

“Show me how to, ya know.” He gestures at Roy, and the kitchen. “Make it.”

“How to cook pasta?”

“How to cook this pasta.”

Roy’s face flushes, but his smile is wide and pleased, like he hadn’t expected Jamie to ask, or care, or want this to begin with. “Yeah, Jamie. Of course.”

.

Cooking is hard. Roy’s a surprisingly good teacher, which actually isn’t surprising at all, come to think of it. It’s like Coach Kent, but with less shouting and more careful precision. He shows Jamie how to hold a knife, and how to tell when pasta’s finished, and how to sear beef flank. He teaches him the basics of a good pasta sauce, where to start, what flavors make sense together. 

There’s a lot of “now you try” and “yeah, like that” and “great, that’s perfect.”

Jamie thinks he has an emotional hard-on, or something. The praise doesn’t even have to bypass skin or bone; it slinks straight into him and settles like a warm, satisfying blanket over his shoulders. He must be preening in the wake of it, because Roy’s eyes take on a careful sort of look. 

“Tastes great, Jamie,” he says when he samples the sauce they’ve just lowered to a simmer, so they can let it thicken for a bit. But he watches Jamie when he says it, and Jamie isn’t good enough to hide his reaction. He beams, and Roy’s face does that thing it does right before he makes it blank again: fills with an unreadable emotion, like he’s been keeping track of these moments and nuances and Jamie-isms for far longer than Jamie’s had time to realize it. Roy’s expression clears, and he smiles. 

The dinner is more satisfying now that Jamie’s taken part in its creation. Roy seems satisfied too. He talks more about his grandpa, not even needing prompting from Jamie, clearly reminiscing, clearly finding an unexpected satisfaction in teaching Jamie how to cook, the way he’d once been taught, years and years ago.

Later, Jamie finishes his book. He decides he likes reading. Like a movie in your brain, innit. He trails behind Roy as he leads them to the study to recommend a few that Jamie should try next. Jamie listens dutifully, really, he does, but he ends up grabbing Pride and Prejudice instead of any of Roy’s picks. 

Roy’s grin is lopsided.

“Keeley gave me that one,” he admits. “Said I remind her of Mr. Darcy.”

“Who’s Mr. Darcy?”

Roy gestures to the book. “You tell me.”

Jamie starts reading, but doesn’t get far. The day’s felt long. The words blur. He can’t focus, so he curls into his corner and knits for a bit instead, stretching his legs out and tucking his toes under Roy’s ankle. Roy doesn’t so much as twitch, too focused on his own book. A Tale of Two Cities . Sounds kinda boring, actually, if Jamie’s being honest. Pride and Prejudice has a much better ring to it.

He knits six more rows, and then puts the ball of yarn and needles down on the coffee table. He rests the side of his head against the cushion, and closes his eyes. Roy wakes him up, gentle and gruff like only Roy can be.

“Let’s get you to bed.”

Jamie’s already brushed his teeth this time, so all Roy’s gotta do is deposit him into the guest room. It’s lived in now, full of Jamie’s clothes and extra yarn and notebook and another handful of flowers Matilda’s forced onto him. There’s a mug of cold tea at the bedside table. Jamie almost knocks it over, but Roy steadies it easily.

“Whoops.”

“Go to sleep.”

“Ok.”

Roy’s fingers find his hair, one last time, and stay there. Jamie’s half-asleep, so he can’t tell for how long. When he opens his eyes again, Roy’s gone, a lingering patch of heat where he’d been standing.

.

“Your knee’s about as mobile as it’s gonna get,” Charlie says. “They timed the surgery well.”

It’s in three days. Jamie’s not nervous, only actually he is, so nervous that he feels it tightening his asshole every time his thoughts wander that way, which is approximately ten billion times a day.

It’s fine. He’s dealing. 

“Will it be ok?” Jamie blurts. Charlie looks up from where she’s prodding at his knee. Her hands still, squeeze, not enough to hurt, just enough to be reassuring.

“It’ll be fine.”

“And after? Fuckton more PT?”

She has a nice smile, and a good bedside manner. He can see why Keeley likes her. “A fuckton more PT,” she agrees. “Why? Are you sick of me already?”

“Nah, not yet. In a month? We’ll see.”

She laughs, and moves her hand away. “Besides, I’ll still see you,” Jamie says.

She cocks her head. “When?”

“After my PT’s all finished and I return to being superstar Richmond player Jamie Tartt.”

She raises an eyebrow. “And why’s that? Because I work in the same building as you?” she says, like she’s solved a really trickle riddle.

“I more meant because I’m friends with Keeley, and you’re, ya know.” He raises his eyebrow too. “ Friends with Keeley.”

The scarlet red is satisfying. Jamie grins as she splutters. He’s, like, a matchmaker or something. It’s really a goddamn talent.

.

They review the plan in Rebecca’s office. Roy will serve effectively as his next of kin; he’ll bring Jamie to surgery, and he’ll sit in the waiting room during surgery, and then he’ll bring Jamie back from surgery, and that’ll be that. Jamie’s already signed all the documents releasing his medical rights to Roy and such, agreeing to let the doctors collude with him if need be. He doesn’t mind Roy being privy to all his medical shit and such. Fuck knows he doesn’t want that responsibility, anyway.

“It shouldn’t be more than a few hours,” Rebecca tells him. They’re video calling his doctor, who couldn’t leave the office today but was happy to refresh logistics beforehand. He looks cartoonish in the small laptop screen, glasses bigger and rounder than they seem in real life. 

“Yes, two, two and some change,” the doctor echoes. “We’re not expecting any overnighting, but we’ll be prepared, just in case. You’ve got your ride home, and someone to look after you immediately after?”

Jamie glances over to Roy, who isn’t looking at him, full focus on the doctor.

“Yes,” Roy says. “Should I be looking for something that night, in case anything goes wrong?”

The doctor shakes his head. “We don’t anticipate it. He’ll have a post-op appointment the day after anyway, where we can catch any initial issues. But you can look for the usual things: fever, reddening, any signs of infection at the incision point.”

The incision point. Jamie’s stomach turns.

“Right. And medication?”

“Prescribed,” the doctor confirms. “Ready for pick-up today, actually.”

“Great, we’ll swing by and grab it.”

The conversation mostly happens over Jamie’s head. He’s not sure if he’s grateful for this or vaguely annoyed. He settles for vaguely annoyed, mainly because the fluttery feeling’s been coming back in the last few days, and he thinks he’d rather be frustrated than scared.

“What if I don’t wake up?” Jamie says. Everyone’s eyes - even little computer doctor’s - turn to look at him. He fidgets in his chair. “I mean, I read shit like that can happen, ‘n all. I dunno. I know some people have weird reactions with anesthesia, or, I mean, yeah, I read about it.” He fidgets some more, shoves his hands under his thighs to still them. “I’ve never had surgery,” he tacks on, like a quiet, sullen afterthought.

“Your anesthesiologist is a personal friend,” the doctor says. “I have full confidence there won’t be an error in that department.”

Sure, but the body’s weird. Weird things can happen. It’s a cold, slimy fear, this particular unknown. Being drugged, willingly. Waking up with a sliced open knee and a new fucking tissue graft , whatever that means. They’d talked about removing the old tendon, threading a new one in, a graft from his own fucking body or something, he’s not sure, he’d kinda zoned out. The body horror of it all had made him queasy. For someone who’s been hit and bruised and bleeding more times than he can count, he’s surprised by how much the physicality of the whole thing bothers him. 

“It’s normal to be nervous,” Rebecca says in the quiet that follows. “We can’t make that go away, but these are the best specialists in England. They’ve done this hundreds of times.” She doesn’t smile, but her look is steadfast and holds no room for doubt. “You’ll be ok.”

Roy is watching him now, with a look he doesn’t love.

“Ok,” Jamie says, but his heart isn’t in it. “Alright.”

He opts to go back home, and reads for the rest of the bleak, cloudy afternoon. The temperatures have started to dip. He has to close the window to escape the chill. His fingers buzz, so he switches from reading to knitting, and by the time Roy’s back, his meager seventeen or so rows has jumped to a good thirty-something.

“It looks good,” Roy says, nodding to the fraction of a scarf sitting on Jamie’s lap.

“I know.”

“Look, I know you’re -”

“I don’t wanna talk about it right now, actually,” he says. There’s the temptation to instigate a fight again, to get Roy to yell at him so he can yell back. He feels it, humming under his cheekbones, but he doesn’t wanna piss Roy off. Not really. That’s not to say he won’t do it anyway, but for now, he chooses another route. Roy hums an affirmative, and goes about cooking. Jamie lets him make a bit of progress before he sets down his knitting and walks over to help. He slices onions the way Roy showed him to. It calms some of the frazzled feeling in the ends of his fingertips.

.

Jamie doesn’t sleep well that night. He feels off-kilter all of the following day, opting to do his PT from home. Charlie had okay-ed him for it, anyway. He’s made enough progress, and things are about to ramp the fuck back up post-surgery. He’ll take this little break while he can.

It’s frustrating, like he’s just popped his head above the surface, just made meaningful progress, only for the bigger of the waves he’s dealt with so far to be cresting above him. He’s known from the start that all of this was just laying the groundwork for a good post-surgery recovery, but still. His heart tells him his knee’s better. Do they really need surgery? Shouldn’t he just try like this, see if he can make it work?

He knows it won’t, but it’s one thing to convince his brain, another entirely to convince the stirring anxiety in his chest. 

His fingers shake too much to knit. His brain hurries too much to read. He debates visiting Matilda, but he knows bad moods are contagious, and she doesn’t deserve that. Normally, this feeling would prompt a workout session, a jog around the neighborhood, a grueling date with some weights. He can’t exactly exercise right now, though. There’s nowhere to dispel the staticky, urgent sense that he needs to do something .

He develops cabin fever in a total of six hours. He’s gotta get out of here. It’s suddenly less of a desire and more of a burning, factual need . In forty-eight hours or so, he’s gonna be a lifeless slab on an operating table. The image of it worms into his head and refuses to leave.

He takes his car and heads to the park. He practically throws himself out of it once he’s there, wanders around the length of green, lets the cooling autumn breeze settle on his cheeks. He walks the same route over and over and over, until his knee starts to twinge, and then he knows he should stop. He finds a bench, overlooking a small pond in the middle of the reds and oranges. He wonders if it’s a real pond, or one of those man-made ones. It’s weird, right? That humans can make ponds and shit. Seems like something they should leave alone, but alas. Humans are greedy, always getting their hands into shit they have no business being involved in.

At some point, his phone rings. He ignores it. It rings again. He knows it’s Roy without having to look. God, but he doesn’t want to talk to Roy right now. He doesn’t want to talk to anyone.

He sends a text instead: i’m fine, just gimme a sec, k, mom? jesus.

He intends it to be mean, but Roy doesn’t rise to the bait: Ok, Jamie. Text me when you’re heading back.

Like Roy’s his fucking minder. Like Roy has any business being this involved in Jamie’s life. All at once, he’s pissed about it, pissed about all the things he’s been grateful for for weeks now: pissed at Roy’s generosity, and unsubtle nudges in certain directions, and intentional praise, and willingness to deal with Jamie’s bullshit. Pissed that Roy seems unperturbed even when Jamie’s been an asshole, and how he seems to think that gives him rights to Jamie’s time and space and medical information and feelings. 

And feelings , ugh.

He likes Roy. No, but, likes Roy. He thinks he has since he was twelve, until that like turned to bitter resentment when they finally shared a pitch and Roy made it obvious he wanted nothing to do with Jamie. It’s circled back now, full-fledged and different, the budding hero-worship crush spreading and deepening right under his nose, a fucking disease . Roy’s not entitled to this from Jamie, or, better yet, Jamie’s not entitled to this from Roy. Roy, his Coach. Roy, his friend. 

He feels like an awful person. He feels like Roy’s a dick for being so generous and unassuming about the whole thing. What’s his ulterior motive? To have something to hold over Jamie’s head, forever? To be able to remind him, at any point, that he’d nursed Jamie back from the brink, that he'd looked out for him in a way no one had ever looked out for Jamie before? Ever?

It’s horrific. He wants to peel his skin back, find where the feeling lives, rip it out of himself. He’s really, quite angry.

Time passes. The sky darkens. Everything gets colder. Jamie should’ve brought a coat. He watches some ducks bob on the water before they call it quits, heading somewhere warmer. Jamie should too, but he feels rooted to the spot. If he leaves, he’ll see Roy. He’ll have to explain himself. He’ll have to be told there’s no logical reason he should be so worked up about what’s a relatively routine surgery in the sports world. He’ll be told he’s being irrational, overreacting, like he always is.

“Jesus, Jamie, it was barely a slap, get the fuck off the ground before I -”

He’s stupid to call his dad.

James Tartt Sr. picks up on the fourth ring.

“Hello?” He sounds apprehensive.

“Hey, uh. It’s me. Jamie.”

“Right,” his dad says. A beat. “How are you?”

“I’m having surgery. I’m sure you saw, but I tore my ACL. A while ago.”

His dad must’ve seen the news, but he didn’t reach out to Jamie. Not once. 

“Right,” his dad repeats. “When?”

“In two days.”

“Ok.” There’s a long, stretchy silence. “What, am I your next of kin or summat?”

No. Not for a long time. Jamie swallows past the lump crawling up from his stomach. “No, no, I just thought you’d wanna know.”

Another flexible sort of silence. Jamie could end it, if he wanted, but he suddenly doesn’t have the nerve to. He wants his dad to speak first. He wants to Russian Roulette it, bet that it might be a blank.

His dad coughs, coughs again. “Well, if there’s nothing else,” he says.

Jamie would prefer open animosity like before, or that tiny, bubble-moment of light they’d had, when his dad had first checked into rehab. He’d been willing to hear Jamie out, to look at old baby photos, to reminisce about times when it wasn’t all bad. But then Jamie had brought up Amsterdam, eventually, and had brought up the abuse, eventually, and called it by name, and his dad hadn’t gotten mad and defensive, had just gotten quiet, and still. Jamie had received a call from the center a few days later, that James Tartt Sr. was still open to visits, but that Jamie’d have to get them signed off on beforehand. Jamie’d been taken off of whatever preapproved visitors list he’d been on before, or something. He hadn’t asked for the details. The outcome was the same: that budding sense that things could resolve cleanly, happily, had stuttered and died in his chest, and he’d visited one more time and then never again.

“There’s nothing else,” Jamie hears himself say.

“Right. I gotta go.” His dad hangs up before he can even reply.

Objectively, it’d been a thirty-second conversation. Subjectively, the night’s become impossibly cold within that time. Jamie aches in his bones . 

He drives back to Roy’s. The lights are on, making the house glow yellow and welcoming in the gathering dusk. Jamie doesn’t have to fish around for the hidden key; the door’s unlocked.

Roy’s in the kitchen, as Jamie expects him to be. He must’ve seen Jamie’s car pull in, though, because he’s already turned and facing Jamie when he walks in. He’s wearing his favorite apron, a little Kiss the Chef! one Jamie just knows Keeley bought for him. 

Jamie’s plan was to go in guns blazing, to satisfy that sick, twisted part of himself that he’d inherited from his dad, or curated for himself maybe, a homebrew variety of awful that he’s long turned to when he feels small, or insecure, or helpless, or lost. He opens his mouth, and the fight dies before he can even land his first swing.

“You’re cold,” Roy says, factually. 

Jamie shivers. His nose is numb. His fingertips, too. “Am not.”

“Look at your face and tell me you’re not cold.”

Jamie doesn’t wanna look at his face right now. He just stands there instead, mulish and dumb. Roy, as always, makes the first move. He closes most of the distance between them, but leaves the smallest, most tentative gap. Like he’s waiting for Jamie’s permission, or something.

The kitchen smells like ginger and garlic; warm and inviting and familiar.

“I talked to my dad,” Jamie admits. Roy stiffens. 

“Is that what this is about? Jamie -”

Jamie’s not sure what this is about. He thinks it’s about a lot of things, the surgery thing, and the Roy thing, and the Jamie Tartt thing, and the James Tartt Sr. thing, and all the weird things that sometimes coalesce and overlap into something so ugly Jamie can’t look at it head on. He’s not sure, so he shakes his head. He digs his fingers into the hem of his shirt, tugs at it, tries to put the energy somewhere .

“I don’t know,” he says, honestly. “I don’t know, Roy.”

Whatever Roy sees convinces him to bridge the final gap. He pulls Jamie in by the back of his head this time, last time, every time, and Jamie sees it coming but still wilts into it. He doesn’t cry, but it’s a close thing. He just stands there, hands digging into Roy’s back, the totality of him supported by the totality of Roy, until the soup Roy’s apparently making reaches a boil and bubbles over onto the burner.

“Shit,” Roy says. Jamie surprises himself with a wet-sounding laugh, but doesn’t let Roy gain much space. He plays the part of Roy’s shadow for the rest of the night, and Roy only draws the line at showering - “It’ll be two minutes, Jamie, I swear” - before letting Jamie press flush and desperate against him once they’re on the couch again. Jamie shakes a bit with anticipation of the coming days. Shakes a bit with something . Roy doesn’t comment on it, just throws the blanket over the both of them. Jamie doesn’t wanna watch a movie, or read, or knit, or do anything. He screws his eyes shut and Roy reads aloud until his voice sounds raw and overused. A few chapters in, he says, “Jamie, you need to sleep.”

“Ok,” Jamie says, resigned to the cold bed and the quiet of his room - no, Roy’s guest room - and the way his thoughts will echo around it, bounce and bounce and bounce and -

He’s halfway there already, not remembering getting up, when Roy grabs his wrist.

“Jamie,” he says. “Don’t be stupid.”

“Huh?”

Roy raises an eyebrow, then notches his head towards the staircase. He wants Jamie to… sleep under the stairs? Very Harry Potter, but ok, Jamie’s his guest after all, and he’s already taken advantage of -

“Fucking hell, Jamie,” he says, because remember? He can read Jamie’s mind. It’s very inconvenient, actually. “Just, come on.” 

He doesn’t let go of Jamie’s wrist, not as they trudge upstairs, not as he opens the door to his bedroom, not as Jamie pauses, realizes.

“Are you sure? Roy, I -”

“Don’t be weird about it, or else I’ll be weird about it. Ok? Just be normal, for once in your life.”

Ok. Jamie can do that. There’s not much that he thinks can cure his mood, but, well, sharing a bed with Roy Kent is about the closest to a fix he can imagine. He’s already brushed his teeth, but Roy hasn’t, so he sits respectfully on the edge of the bed until Roy flicks off his bathroom light and returns, looks at him, and groans.

“Why are you just, waiting for me?”

“I don’t know what side you sleep on!” Jamie says, and doesn’t mean to sound petulant - there’s that word again, petulant - but most definitely does.

“Doesn’t matter, it’s my bed, I sleep wherever I want.”

“Like, right in the middle?”

“Sure, if I want to.”

Jamie shudders, unrelated. “Freak,” he says. Roy rolls his eyes, and clambers into bed, ignoring the Jamie-sized anchor weighing down the bottom right corner. Once he settles - not in the middle, because he’s not as godless as he tries to seem - on the left side, Jamie unlodges himself and crawls over to the right. Doesn’t make a big deal of getting under the covers, or angling himself away from Roy, or tucking his body into a little ball. He hasn’t slept with someone, not even euphemism-y, just good ‘ole fashioned sharing a bed, in a really long time. He fidgets. He squirms. He turns to his left. He turns to his right. He tries his stomach, his back. He flips his pillow. He -

“Fucking hell, but you don’t make anything easy,” Roy says.

“Hey, you offered, if you’ll -”

Roy turns. He says, “Can I -” and Jamie says, “Yes, do something , geez, or else I’m gonna -”

Roy uses his big man hands to gently gently gently turn Jamie over, facing Roy. He glares at him in the darkness. “You’re so frustrating,” he says, and Jamie would protest if it weren’t for the way Roy drags him in, socked feet - he sleeps with socks on , apparently, the depravity - hooking Jamie’s ankle under the covers, pulling him closer still. In the span of three seconds, Jamie’s settled into the nooks of Roy. And he’s a greedy, selfish asshole, remember, so he doesn’t even feel bad about taking the obvious permission. He presses his face into that spot between Roy’s collarbones again, and like it’s nothing, Roy hooks his chin over the top of Jamie’s head, tucking him into the space, holding him there. Jamie squeezes closer, closer even than Roy should be ok with. It’s that needy thing thrumming in him, that thing that takes and takes and takes, and he thinks of what Keeley had said: that Roy’s a smotherer, and Jamie likes to be smothered. It’s never seemed truer than now, as Jamie eats away at all the gaps he can, and Roy lets him, until they're smashed together into one weird, contiguous blob.

Contiguous! Bet no one thought Jamie knew that one, did they.

Jamie takes a full breath for the first time in maybe days. Oxygen goes to his brain again. The flutter dies down a bit. Roy huffs a sound above him, and secures the placement of his arms around Jamie’s back.

“See?” Roy says. “Was that so hard?”

“Shut up.”

“You’re predictable.”

“You’re fucking mean.”

“Sure. Will you go to sleep now?”

Jamie has the best sleep he’s had in months. 

.

When he wakes up, Roy’s already outta bed. Jamie finds him downstairs, blending some green smoothie shit. It’s funny, how every breakfast is different. Roy’s both a creature of habit and also very much not.

“You kick, by the way,” Roy says, like this is a proper way to greet someone.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Tell that to my fucking kidney.”

“Oops.”

Jamie has in fact, on multiple occasions, by every fucking person he’s shared a bed with ever, sexy or otherwise, been told that he kicks and squirms and is generally a bit of a menace when he’s asleep. Roy, at least, doesn’t seem that irritated. He pours the smoothie into two glasses and slides one across the counter to Jamie. He stares as Jamie drinks, eyes narrowing like Beard’s until Jamie’s vibrating where he stands.

“What? Just say it, alright? Me ‘n suspense, ya know, we don’t mesh real well, and -”

“Why’d you call him?”

Oh. That. It’s almost a relief, compared to the conversation topics Jamie’d been expecting: that was a bad idea last night, you should probably leave my house, I don’t wanna drive you to your surgery anymore either, and also you’re kicked off the team.

“Dunno, really,” he says, because it’s true. “Just felt like I had ta.”

Roy hums, but doesn’t seem satisfied. “You don’t owe him shit, ya know.”

“I know, Roy.”

“Do you?”

Yes? No? Sometimes.

But Roy’s not finished. His fingers are pressed flat, white against his smoothie glass. He’s been chewing on this one for a minute, it seems. “What’d he say?”

Jamie snorts. “Goodbye, pretty much.” He laughs it off. It’s easier today than it was last night. Maybe it’s the sleeping in Roy’s bed effect. Maybe Jamie’s simple too, deep down, although he’d be loathe to admit it.

“Fuck him,” Roy growls, blunt and sincere. He makes sure Jamie’s looking. “It’s his fucking loss.”

“What, seeing me knee all cut open and shit?”

“Seeing you, point blank. You don’t need him, Jamie.”

Sure, but it’s easier a thing to say than to feel. Roy knows this too; it’s not the first time they’ve had this talk, which comes around like clockwork, anytime Jamie’s the type of antsy Roy apparently knows traces its tattered, zig-zaggy line back to his dad.

“You staying here?” Roy asks after a moment.

It’s the day before surgery. Tomorrow, he’s gotta wake up at 5am to get carted off to the thing, the first slot in their guy’s surgery schedule for the day. He’s deeply and utterly not looking forward to it.

“Yeah,” he says, “I’m staying here.”

Roy doesn’t linger much after that. Duty calls, ‘n all. Jamie pitters around for the day. He feels a bit better than he had yesterday, a bit more resigned to whatever happens. It’ll be fine. The doctor said it’d be fine. Rebecca said it’d be fine. Charlie, Keeley, the boys - Roy said it’d be fine.

If Roy - straightforward, immovable Roy - says he’ll be ok, well, shit. Jamie’s gotta put a little stock in that at least, right?

The day is agonizingly slow. He’s able to knit, though, and actually read a bit. He does his daily exercises. He has leftovers for lunch. He sits and drinks tea and watches another light drizzle through the windows, but can’t bring himself to do much else. By the time the sun starts tipping in the sky, he’s charged up again, that antsy feeling electric, lighting up all his poor little cells. He thinks about his cells, ya know, sometimes, wonders if they feel unlucky doing their damndest to keep a moron like Jamie alive.

Do his knee cells resent him for it, the slip-tumble-twist of boots on turf? He wonders if they can talk to each other. Do they know they’re cells? Are they self-aware; cellf- aware, ha! What if Jamie’s just been a cell this whole time, and Roy a slightly larger, angrier cell, and Richmond isn’t a team but someone’s body, and, like, getting relegated was like, getting a cold, and the cells had to band together to fight off the infection, and -

He blinks. The fuck is happening in his brain right now? He thinks he’s spending too much time alone. It’s doing things to him. 

Luckily, this is when Roy gets home.

“Jesus, Roy, I think ‘m losing me mind.”

“That thought just occurred to you, did it?”

Jamie glares.

Roy seems to see he needs a Task, though, so he sets Jamie loose, ordering him around the kitchen. Jamie darts from cutting board to pan to fridge and back, thankful to be doing something, anything , to stop having to think , at fucking last . They whip together mashed potatoes and peas and carrots and pork chops and a delicious, maple-y sort of gravy. Jamie takes a bath, and from the other side of the door, Roy reads him his pre-surgery ritual, on a handwritten note from the doctor, how quaint. He tells him how to wash his knee, and what soap to use. Apparently, Roy’s been busy: there’s a special, anti-bacterial soap already waiting for Jamie in the bathroom, still in its wrapping, sneaky little fuck.

Jamie’s not allowed to use his fancy lotion on his knee, which is a bust. Roy is certain he’ll live. Jamie, less so. He’s not allowed to drink or eat anything after midnight either, so he hydrates as much as he dares while the clock ticks towards ten, eleven. Jamie’s not sure he’ll be able to sleep. He tells Roy. Roy says he’s gonna try anyway. God. Boring.

But then Roy lingers at the base of the steps, clearly meaning that Jamie’s gonna try anyway in Roy’s bed . Fun! Exciting! Jamie follows him up the stairs feeling approximately five tons lighter. Roy takes the left, Jamie takes the right, and he wastes no time gluing himself to Roy and basking in his special brand of heat: Roy Kent, Human Furnace.

“Anyone ever tell you you run warm?” he asks. 

Roy grunts, affirmative. Jamie feels more than hears it.

“I have a theory,” he says.

“Oh?”

“It’s all the anger from the day, like, diffusing out of you.”

“How nice.”

“What if I don’t wake up?” Jamie poses again, just for fun, just because the thought’s been ricocheting in his skull all fucking day. All fucking month. “Ok, like, I know I will, but what if , Roy? Really, be honest. What would you do?”

Roy sighs, long and put upon. “I’d weep, hysterically, for days. Inconsolable. Then I’d take your ashes -”

“You’d fucking burn me?”

“-and I’d put them in a nice little flower pot, and I’d buy some flowers from Matilda, and I’d plant them, and I’d put you on my windowsill where you could just stand there, quiet , looking pretty all day.”

Jamie considers. He knows Roy’s joking, but, well, it’s not such a bad life. 

“So what I do already,” he jokes. Roy huffs, and Jamie grins in the dark.

“You’re unbelievable.”

“I know. It’s a gift of mine.”

“Some gift.”

“Thank you.”

“Go to sleep.”

“Sure thing, Coach.”

Roy apparently doesn’t like being called Coach while Jamie’s starfished to his body; he pokes his big toe into Jamie’s thigh, and Jamie laughs, backs off. Like, conversationally backs off. Not physically, nope. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t plan on moving.

But.

He also doesn’t sleep. Instead, he listens as Roy’s breathing evens out, turns into these soft, stupid little snores, and counts Roy’s heartbeats, one to a hundred, restarting at every hundred he hits. Jamie keeps his eyes screwed shut, keeps his hands fisted in the front of Roy’s shirt, but he doesn’t sleep. Not a wink.

.

He’s awake when Roy’s alarm goes off, because duh. Roy groans, sits up. Looks at him.

“Did you get any sleep?” he says. His voice is craggy and deep. Jamie thinks on any other day, it’d make him blush.

“Yeah,” he lies.

“Liar.”

Well.

He’s not allowed to eat, even though he’s fucking famished . Roy clearly takes this into consideration, and eats the quickest, most boring breakfast Jamie’s seen from him yet: a protein bar he pulls from his cabinet and devours in, like, two bites.

“You’re gonna barf that up later,” Jamie tells him. “‘s what happens when you eat too fast.” His teeth are chattering, not from the cold, but from this nervous, uncontrollable thing he sometimes feels before big games. There’s no accompanying excitement here, though. Only a constant, sticky fucking dread . 

“Are you cold?” Roy asks.

“I think I’m just nervous,” Jamie chatters back.

“Oh, right.”

“ Oh, right ,” Jamie parrots. “You ever heard of EQ?”

“Come on, let’s go.”

Jamie lets his teeth clack clack clack in Roy’s car. He lets his leg bounce approximately a million times. He lets his hand fidget with his big, loose shirt and his big, loose pants - “big and loose,” the doctor had told them when asked what to wear rolling up to the surgery center, and Jamie had acquiesced - and tries to think of anything but the one thing he’s actually still and only thinking about.

The surgery center is already busy, which seems improbable. There’s a bunch of people in the waiting room, some clearly patients, some clearly accompanying the patients in question, some who are sitting alone clearly waiting for said patients to reemerge from the hellish, surgical depths. Jamie imagines Roy, sitting, all lonesome and out of place, texting updates to the team, waiting on sweet, comatose Jamie to get a move on.

It cheers him up a bit.

They check in, and sit around some more. Then, it’s time for Jamie to head back. Roy’s still allowed with him, for now. They have their own sectioned off little zone, separated by curtains from all the other poor souls in hospital gowns and wheeley-beds. Jamie judges them until the nurse tells him to change into his hospital gown and lay down, please, in his wheeley-bed. Ugh. Awful.

“Don’t laugh at me,” he tells Roy.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

He can feel the chill of the hospital on his bare back, where nothing but a stringy little tie protects his decency. Jamie’s generally pro-nudity, but even this is a bit much.

“Ok,” he tells Roy once he’s settled, blankets pulled up to his chest. Roy turns to face him again, and, fuck the guy, grins.

“Shut up!” Jamie demands immediately.

“It’s sad, it’s making me sad,” Roy says, but he’s still smiling like it’s very much not. “But you look, kinda. I don’t know.”

“ Dumb ?” Jamie sneers.

“Cute,” Roy corrects, and doesn’t even seem deeply affronted with himself. It’s a weird day, ok, Jamie will let it slide.

The nurse comes and gives him an IV. He almost passes out a minute after it’s in, which feels both dramatic and in-character. They fan him a bit, and force him to sniff an alcohol wipe, and he’s back to himself a minute later.

Roy doesn’t seem to like this little moment, though. He hovers in the corner, jaw tight - mewing! again! - and when the nurses leave, he scoots closer to Jamie in his unfortunate, green plastic chair.

“My sister’s like that,” he says. “Even though she’s a fucking nurse, always passes out when there’s a needle in her.”

“Ha,” Jamie says, closing his eyes. He still feels a bit fuzzy, and tingly, and strange. They inform him that they’re just running fluids through the IV, and a tiny bit of something to “calm him down.” Jamie’s not sure it’s working, actually. Roy must agree, because he continues his hovering.

“You’re making me nervous,” Jamie tells him.

“You’re making me nervous,” Roy counters, and Jamie can see in his eyes it’s the truth.

“Aren’t you supposed to be, like, me pillar of strength right now?”

“You were, like, gray Jamie.”

“So what?”

“It was creepy.”

“Gee, thanks. I feel so reassured about my operation now!” His faux-cheer makes Roy glare, at least, so that’s a win.

Then, the surgery guy comes in. It kinda freaks him out that this guy is different from his doctor guy, but he is marginally more attractive, so he lets it slide. The guy takes out a fucking marker - “Is this normal?” Roy asks, and both Jamie and the surgeon give him a look - and draws some lines and shit up Jamie’s knee. Jamie doesn’t ask why, because he doesn’t really wanna know. The surgeon tells him it’ll probably be twenty, thirty minutes, and then they’re in. The anesthesiologist comes in, introduces herself quickly and is gone just as fast. The nursing staff buzz around, getting him ready. 

Jamie feels like he’s swallowed a live bomb, and it’s ticking to burst in his stomach.

But then he looks down. Amidst the bustle, Roy’s stood up, and he’s got his dumb-looking hand in Jamie’s noticeably less dumb-looking one. “Hey,” he says. “It’s gonna be fine. I promise.”

“Oh yeah? You the guy operating?”

“One and only.”

“My lucky day.”

Roy grins, and doesn’t try to hide any part of it like he might any other day; he lets it bleed, gruff and sincere and oh so terribly fond. 

Jamie’s stomach flips.

Then, they start running the anesthesia. As soon as they do this, they also start wheeling Jamie out of his little room. “Off to the operating room,” the nurse informs him, and Jamie’s got a slick, awful slide of panic. What if the anesthesia doesn’t work? Should he still be awake? The bed’s moving - shouldn’t he be asleep by now?

He sees Roy’s face, following until it’s unable to. He’s smiling. Ok. That’s good. Roy’s smiling at him, over the nurses’ heads. Roy’s there. It’s fine. “See you on the other side!” he calls, and Jamie thinks he’s gonna puke.

He’s led past a door, out of Roy’s view.

Then he’s in a hallway. He’s turning a corner. The lady pushing his wheeley-bed makes a joke; he thinks he flirts back. He’s not sure. His tongue is heavy, and then he’s gone.

Chapter Text

Jamie thinks that it’s not his first time waking up, but he’s not entirely sure.

People are talking over him. Someone’s saying his name, but like, not at him. Like, about him. Like, he’s being gossiped about, while he’s in the fucking room. Um, rude?

“Hey,” he manages. “‘op it.”

“Are you with us, Mr. Tartt?”

“‘ose talking shit?”

Someone laughs.

“No one’s talking.” A sniff. “ Shit , Mr. Tartt. How do you feel? Do you feel any pain?”

Maybe to his ego. He’s not sure where he is. He’s not sure why he feels so weird and floaty. There’s a snort, and even drugged up to his fucking gills, Jamie knows who it belongs to.

“‘uck is Roy doing ‘ere?”

“Welcome back, Sleeping Beauty,” Roy’s voice says. Jamie tries to pry open his eyelids, but they weigh a ton each. Too much to manage at the current juncture. He goes back to sleep, and when he wakes up again, someone’s still asking, “Do you feel any pain?”

Come to think of it, no. He feels pretty nice, all things considered.

“Nah, nah, ‘m. I’m good.”

“Try to stay awake.”

“Uh, try to stay awake, please ?”

A laugh. A Roy laugh. Roy’s here?

“Roy?”

“Yeah, Jamie, I’m here, you lunatic. I’m right here.”

There’s a hand he recognizes, circling immediately in his. Did Roy just call him a lunatic? That’s a new one.

“Fuck’s ‘appening here, then?”

“You had surgery.”

“Oh? What ‘n?”

“Your ACL.”

“ACL?”

“Yes.”

“And? Was it hot?”

He hears laughter, high and badly concealed, that doesn’t belong to Roy. Ok, so not hot then?

“Dunno, mate, we’ll have to ask the surgeon later,” Roy’s voice answers.

“Will you ask for me?”

“Sure, Jamie, I’ll ask. How long will he be like this?”

“Will who be like this?”

“You, Jamie, I’m talking to someone else, just, wait a sec.”

Even with his eyes closed and mostly-convinced he’s dreaming, Jamie knows how to pout. He arranges his face into the familiar shape, and Roy laughs again.

“Depends on the person,” a lady-voice answers. “He’ll probably be a bit tired and out of it for the rest of the day.” 

“Who will?” Jamie asks, refusing to be head-butted out of the conversation by Roy of all people.

“ You , Jamie,” Roy’s voice says.

“Oh.” He tries again to open his eyes and half-manages it, just enough to see the familiar shape of Roy beside him. His beard and eyebrows and outstretched arm. Jamie closes his eyes again once he’s satisfied he’s not actually alone, talking to himself. Then, ‘cause it’s a secret, he dips his voice down, conspiratorial. “Roy,” he says, “I don’t feel so great.”

“Are you in pain?” the lady voice chirps. Jamie gets the sense it’s not the first time.

He’s not in pain, per se, he just feels funny. Strange. Not entirely certain of what’s going on.

“When can we go home?” Roy asks. 

“Let us triple check his pain levels and vitals, and you should be set. Do you have a driver?”

“I’m the driver.”

“You can pull the car up, we’ll wheel him out.”

Roy’s hand squeezes in his. “Be right back. Don’t burn the place down.”

“What place?”

Jamie’s a bit more lucid by the time they’re moving him around; he remembers surgery. His ACL. That tangy, electric fear that’d been dancing in his chest all week. He can’t muster up the energy to keep being scared, though. He’s aware enough to know that surgery’s over with. He did it. He didn’t die on the table! Hoorah!

His eyes are open now, and he can see the hospital entryway rolling past him. Then, he’s outside, and the nurses and Roy work together to manhandle him into the passenger’s seat, which is angled nearly all the way down. He has a sudden, drastic fear that his ass is about to be out, but someone at some point had apparently changed him back into his clothes from before. He remembers: big and loose.

Roy’s saying thank you a bunch, and then the door’s closing, and Jamie can’t feel his leg, and things aren’t so bad, now that it’s just him and Roy and the old man music that starts up near-immediately.

“Whoa,” Jamie says.

“Yeah? You all there?”

“Dunno.”

“Are you in pain?”

“No.”

“How do you feel?”

How does he feel? “Kinda good?”

“Ok, nice. It shouldn’t be a long drive. Just, focus on resting.”

“K.” 

So Jamie focuses on resting, and soon enough they’re back. Jamie knows they have crutches in the car somewhere , but Roy somehow half-carries, half-drags him into the house instead. Jamie hopes he’ll remember this, because he's not sure logistically how Roy does it and really, really wants to ask him about it later.

Jamie blinks and he’s on the couch. His leg is stacked on two pillows, propped up on the coffee table. He’s got bandages wrapped around his knee, and ice packs secured on top of them, and a giant, black fucking brace that stretches up to his thigh and down to his calf. There’s a water bottle next to him, and the old-timey Robin Hood with the sexy foxes is playing on the TV.

There’s someone next to him. No. There’s Roy next to him.

“We’re back,” Jamie says, possibly dumbly. Roy looks over, and Jamie sees him fully for maybe the first time since he woke up. Roy looks a bit haggard, to be frank, but he’s smiling, obvious in his relief.

“Sure are,” he says. He puts his hand on the thigh of Jamie’s good leg, pats it twice. “You were great.”

Oh? Jamie feels the praise stuff itself into his heart, warm and cottony.

“Really? Did I do something?”

“You got the surgery.”

“But I was just, like, laying there, yeah?”

“Doesn’t matter. You did great.”

Oh. That’s nice to hear. Jamie smiles, and it must look loopy because it feels loopy. Roy smiles back, and his looks loopy too. He moves his hand up to Jamie’s cheek, runs a thumb under his eye. It’s not like he’s been crying, but the skin there feels puffy and swollen anyway, soothed under Roy’s gentle touch. Jamie remembers another moment like this, not too long ago, but can’t quite find it.

Instead, he yawns.

“Cool,” he says around the yawn. He lets his eyes go shut again. He rubs his cheek into Roy’s open palm, can feel himself still smiling. “Happy to be of service.”

“Sure you are,” Roy says, and Jamie watches through half-cracked eyelids as Roy’s hand moves, abandoning (!) him to adjust the ice packs on his knee. “Get some sleep, Jamie.”

“I just did.”

“Get some more.”

Jamie can’t argue. He’s already out.

.

It’s not all butterflies and roses and wee little baby laughs, though. Post-surgery, that is. The next time Jamie wakes up he feels hot and unsettled. It’s dark out, and he’s aware he’s been sleeping, like, all day. Why’s he still so tired?

Roy feeds him - ok, Jamie does the whole actually putting it in his mouth part, but for all intents and purposes, Roy’s his fucking nan - something simple, bland scrambled eggs on bland toast, and lots of water. 

“I don’t wanna be knocking into your knee, Jamie,” he explains. “And you can’t exactly be using the stairs.”

That’s the lame ass, frankly sadistic reason Jamie’s sent back to the guest bedroom. Horror of all horrors. It’s nice and all, but not big enough for Roy to squeeze in with him, and, as Roy mentions again - remember, the reading minds thing? - “I move around, too, and I don’t wanna accidentally hurt you.”

It’s insufferable. Jamie doesn’t complain though. He’s too tired for even that. Roy forces him to take some pills and swallow down some more water. 

“Yell when you wake up,” he says. “Don’t try to move around on your own.”

“Sure thing.”

Jamie wakes up stiff and sweaty in the middle of the night. He’s suddenly anxious. Like, really anxious. Maybe it’s being lucid again, fully lucid, like all the medical-fuzzy-feel-good-anaesthesia crap has been flushed out his system with the ten gallons of water Roy’d made him drink. Either way, he spends a good half hour staring at his knee, at the line of bandages, debating peeling them back, seeing what it looks like underneath. By the end of the half hour, the thing’s starting to hurt, a localized, hot sort of pain that starts from the center of his knee and pulses outwards. He wants to go to sleep, so he doesn’t have to feel it get worse. He’s got the sense that it’s gonna get worse, and it makes the anxious, squirmy feeling crawl further up his throat.

He squeezes his eyes shut, counts to ten then fifty then a hundred then five hundred then -

Next time he wakes up, there’s a hint of gray morning peeking in through the blinds. All his covers have been kicked onto the ground. His leg fucking hurts, like, seriously fucking hurts . He feels nauseous and overheated. Is it infected? Is his leg infected? What if he peels back the bandages to see blood, and pus, his bone sticking out, and -

He’s half stubborn enough to get up himself, but he’s too scared his leg will snap in half underneath him. He tries to call Roy and it sticks in his throat. Ew. Embarrassing. Let’s do that proper now, shall we?

“Roy?”

A good start, but definitely not loud enough to reach Roy’s lofty bedroom fortress, all the way upstairs, where Jamie’s not allowed anymore. Ugh. Annoying. His leg pulse-throbs-threatens to fall off. He swallows, and goes to attempt another yell when -

“You’re up?”

Oh. There’s Roy, at his bedroom door. Did he fucking sprint here? He’s still in pajamas, and it’s only - Jamie glances at the clock on the wall - six in the morning. Fuck’s he awake for?

“Obviously,” Jamie says. “Hey, is it normal that me leg is, like, on fire?”

Roy nods. “Unfortunately, yeah. You’re due for more pain meds.”

“I am?”

“Yep. You need’ta piss?”

He debates. Yeah, definitely. He nods. Roy nods, and says “here” instead of bringing Jamie his crutches. “Don’t put any weight on it.”

“Fucking duh .”

Roy wraps his hand tight around Jamie’s waist, and gets Jamie’s arm flung around his shoulder, and hobbles them to the guest bathroom. He turns his back while Jamie pisses - wow, what a gentleman! - and stands there, arms over his chest, while Jamie washes his face and does his skincare and brushes his teeth and fixes his hair and -

“Jesus, Jamie. It’s not like you’re leaving the house.”

“Oh, in that case, let me just feel disgusting and smelly all day, thanks, I hadn’t even thought of that!”

Roy grunts. 

“By the way, am I allowed to shower?” he asks, as Roy delivers him to the living room.

“No,” Roy says. “Not yet, anyway. Sponge baths.”

“ Sponge baths ?”

“Ya know, just, like. Your private parts and such.”

“Oh, a whore’s bath.”

Roy’s nose crinkles. “Don’t call it that.”

“Why not! That’s what me nan always called it. Ya know, in France -”

“No, I don’t know, and I don’t wanna. Fucking, wait here.”

So Jamie sits and waits as Roy recreates the little pillow tower from before and helps Jamie lift his heel onto it. Jamie’s trying really hard to ignore the whole knee hurting thing. Usually, ignoring pain is kinda his whole schtick. This is different, though, not just in that it hurts more, but in that it’s scary. Jamie knows a concussion, a punch, a busted cheek, a bruised rib. He doesn’t know what a sliced open knee and fucking tissue grafted ACL is supposed to feel like; is this normal? Is this not normal? Is the thing gonna have to be amputated after all? Should Jamie have just done it that first day in the office, when the scalpel had been so easily accessible?

Jamie looks around to distract himself from this little thought exercise, and notices the strewn out blankets next to him on the couch, and the pillow - not a couch pillow, a bed pillow - on the other end of the cushions. Wait a sec.

“Hey,” Jamie calls. “Did you sleep out here?”

Roy doesn’t hesitate. Sometimes, Jamie wishes he were a bit more humiliated by his own behavior. “Yes,” he says instead, not sounding bothered at all by this fact. “You might’ve needed me. Didn’t wanna be upstairs, just in case.”

Jamie is suddenly, deeply grateful that he’s facing the TV while Roy bustles away in the kitchen. His face goes as hot as his knee. Maybe there’s an infection there too.

When Roy returns, it’s with a plate of breakfast, big and hearty: eggs and toast and bacon and tomatoes and a big glass of water and a big glass of “Pedialyte mixed with orange juice, to get some electrolytes in your system.”

Ok, sure Roy, whatever you think is best. Jamie scarfs it down and Roy watches, looking a little too smug with how happily Jamie eats. Jamie’s face still hasn’t fully cooled down yet. It’s all kind of awful.

Roy passes over half a pill then. “They said to start as small a dose as possible, and if it still hurts, I can up it a bit or you can stagger with some Brufen.”

Jamie eyes the sad little cut in half pill. His knee throbs. “But did’ya really have to cut the thing, Roy? Seems a little, I don’t know. Neanderthal.”

Roy huffs a laugh. “You’re spending too much time with Bumbercatch.”

“Says who?”

“Says your vocabulary.” He leans a bit closer from where he’s standing at the arm of the couch. “Come on, if it still hurts in thirty minutes we’ll take more.”

Jamie glares, but does as he’s told. After that, the day blurs into itself. He can’t do his usual exercises, but Roy instructs him to lay flat on the couch, try to raise and lower his leg a few times. They get the crutches out, have Jamie walk around the house a bit until he’s exhausted and his knee is positively furious with him. Roy fixes them lunch, and gives Jamie some more medicine. Jamie cycles between nodding off on the side of the couch and staring at his bandage, terrified of what’s underneath. Roy must catch this too, because he hums.

“The doctor agreed to do a house visit, so we don’t gotta go out and all.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re Jamie Tartt.”

“That’s, like, doxing you though.” He frowns. “I’ve been trying not to dox you!”

Roy snorts. “He’s a doctor, and Rebecca vouches for him. He’s not gonna tweet out where I live, Jamie.”

“You never know.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Fine. Where’s all your strings and shit?”

So Roy brings him his yarn, and Jamie knits, and naps, and drinks more Pedialyte-orange juice, and when the doctor shows up, the man’s clad in his doctor-coat, smiling widely, and generally in too good a mood.

Jamie knows his name, but he’s tried really hard not to, out of spite for the whole situation. Mr. Doctor has a bag of weapons with him, and he sets it down as Jamie’s heart beats straight out his fucking chest.

“The pain’s manageable?” he asks Jamie. Roy’s hovering beside him, again .

“Yeah, it’s fine.”

“We upped from a half to a whole pill,” Roy says to his right. “Is that ok?”

The doctor nods, digging through his bag and pulling on gloves. “Perfectly fine! Between doses, you can supplement with -”

“Brufen,” Jamie interrupts. “Yeah, he told me.”

He looks over, and Roy glares at him. The doctor laughs.

“Glad you’re in such capable hands.” Ew, Jamie does not like that comment. “Alrightey, then, let’s take a look.”

It’s the slow, ominous build-up of a horror movie. Jamie’s knee, disfigured, grotesque, black, skin flaking off like snake-shed, irreversible damage, too gross to look at, and the doctor screams, and Roy pukes all over his own couch, and Jamie -

Jamie, well. Jamie blinks. The doctor’s hands dismantle and remove the knee brace, unwrap and unwrap and unwrap the bandage, and Jamie feels like he might faint, or vomit, or something, until the doctor says, “Looking good so far,” and Roy says, “Jamie, it’s not bad. You should look.”

Ok, fine, if everyone else is ogling his knee, he might as well. He swallows, grits his teeth, lets his gaze slither-slide over, and, well. 

It’s not winning any beauty pageants, but it isn’t so horrible either. With the bandages removed, there’s a red-puckered, angry looking line running vertically down his knee. The sutures holding it together are black and wiry looking. There’s tape on top of them that the doctor doesn’t mess with, and little smudging lines from the marker still left on his skin, and the overall puffy, red look of something swollen and upset. 

“No signs of infection, normal drainage,” the doctor’s saying, but Jamie’s too busy staring at his leg while Roy’s too busy staring at him. He can feel the eyes burning into the side of his temple. He glances over, and Roy’s expression says are you ok? 

Jamie nods. Yeah. He’s ok.

The doctor gives him fresh dressings, tells Jamie - or, more accurately, tells Roy - that he can take them off in two days, but not to mess with the steri-tape or sutures or anything else. No showering for another three days. Start straightening the knee, test his limits, but use crutches. Call if anything changes. The tape should fall off within the week or so, and the next post-op appointment is in twelve days, and blah blah blah. Jamie’s ready for him to leave. He’s got knitting to do, because his fingers itch to move in lieu of his legs being able to run.

The doctor talks to Roy in private by the door for a second, and Jamie doesn’t eavesdrop because he doesn’t wanna know, actually. By the time he’s gone, it’s nearing three. Jamie’s sleepy again.

“Why do I keep sleeping?”

“Because you just had surgery.”

“It’s so boring.”

“Yeah, that’s part of it. Did you finish Pride and Prejudice ?”

“No,” but Jamie nods his head at his pile of yarn. He’s clearly knitting right now and can’t exactly do both, now can he, Roy?

“When you finish, we can watch the movie.”

“There’s a movie?”

“Yeah. With Kiera Knightley.”

Oh, fuck yeah. 

Jamie knits a bit longer, then reads a bit, then sleeps a bit, then wakes up to Roy’s quiet voice. Pain pills and pasta. It’s quite the combo.

A few hours later, and he’s in the guest bathroom, Roy just outside. It’s embarrassing, sitting on the closed toilet, wash-ragging his dick and balls and armpits. Whore’s bath, indeed.

“Are you ok?” Roy sounds nervous.

“Yes.”

A bit of time passes. “You sure? If you need -”

“You’re not washing me asscrack, Roy, shut up.”

Even post-whore’s bath, Jamie feels stinky and grimy. He wants a shower, desperately. He misses smelling good, and feeling clean. What a thing.

Then, he’s in bed. “Call if you need,” Roy says for the dozenth time in this day alone. 

“Sure.”

.

Then, day two. Much of the same. Roy frets and cooks and spends an alarming amount of time circling in Jamie’s general area. Jamie wishes it bugged him, but of course, he’s Jamie, and Roy’s Roy , so, actually, Jamie kinda enjoys it. He almost slips heading into the bathroom and Roy goes white as a sheet before flush red, and Jamie gets to watch him look constipated for the next two hours while reminding him, over and fucking over, that he didn’t even actually fall. Roy’s got enough pressure under his skin that Jamie’s sure he’s making a pearl with it. It’s a funny though. Jamie’s amused, anyways.

Then, day three. The dressing the doctor put on comes off under Roy’s careful, washed-for-five-minutes hands. Some of the tape is starting to peel. The line is still puckered and puffy, but his knee as a whole looks a bit more like a knee and a bit less like an inflatable ball.

“It’s coming along,” Roy says, like he wants to make sure Jamie agrees. Jamie agrees, or something.

Then, day four. Saturday. Game day. It’s better that Jamie stay here, and imperative that Roy go. 

“You’ll be fine?” Roy asks, all anxious and peeky-sounding.

“Duh.”

Especially because Keeley decides to sit this one out and come visit with Jamie instead. She brings a bunch of flowers, way more than she feasibly should.

“They’re from the boys too,” she explains away. Then, after Roy’s taken his sour attitude to the game and left them alone, she adds, conspiratorially, “Roy’s expressly forbidden visitors until at least day five.”

“Me fucking minder,” Jamie grumbles. 

“Something about them being loud and too excited and accidently bumping into you or knocking you over or swiping your pain meds or something.”

“Or something,” Jamie echoes. “Hey, does Roy really remind you of Mr. Darcy?”

Keeley finishes setting up the last of the bouquets and sits down beside him, casting him a wide-eyed look. “Oh, what, the emotionally-constipated, almost-asshole who’s incapable of verbalizing the fact that he’s in love with Elizabeth, so just, ya know, throws nonverbal cues at her instead and assumes she’ll figure it out herself?” Her wide-eyeing intensifies. “Yeah, Jamie, he really fucking does.”

Um. She needs to cool it a bit. They gossip for a good hour, and she fills him in on the mood of the team - they’ve been texting him a bunch, and even without her first-hand account, he knows they’re antsy to see him - while he fills her in on how weird surgery is. He asks about Charlie, who he’s supposed to start seeing sometime in the next couple of days to reboot PT. 

“We’re actually getting brunch tomorrow,” she says, and her grin is small and brimming with a barely-restrained giddiness. “I really like her, Jams.”

“Ya think?”

“Here, I’ve got a couple outfit ideas, wanna help?”

So they scroll through her outfit pics, and he helps her narrow down a good first-date, but-still-totally-bangable look, and then she offers to wash his hair in the sink, and, actually, the doctor okayed him to shower today. 

“Well, fan-fucking-tastic!” she says, beaming, and has no qualms about sitting on the toilet he’d whore-bathed himself on earlier while he showers. It’s not like they haven’t both seen each other naked before, and it’s not like she’s watching. Maybe it’s weird in theory to platonically shower next to your best friend who used to be very much in love with and have had lots of very much fantastic sex with, but, well. It’s not to Jamie, and it doesn’t seem to be to Keeley, either. She tells him about the dude Rebecca’s been seeing, the elusive Dutch guy who gives “ major DILF vibes,” and Jamie lets the hot water trail down his face and soak into his hair and feels a bit more like a person than he has in days. At least, he knows he doesn’t stink now, and having fresh hair boosts his mood by approximately one trillion percent.

She helps him out of the shower, and then helps him towel dry when he’s a bit wobbly on his one good foot, and says yes, he can surely use his fancy yummy lotion, just not on his surgery leg. Win. His shampoo smells like vanilla and coconut, and his lotion smells like fucking bliss , and Jamie’s clean, and feels clean, and smells great, and looks better than he has in a while, and Keeley gets him to sit on the corner of the coffee table for a second as she tosses the blanket they’ve been using into the corner and procures a fresh one from the little wicker blanket basket, one of the decor pieces that lets him know she used to live here, too. 

Too . Yikes.

She lights a candle and half props a window open and gets him situated, re-reads the note of instructions Roy had left and gives him some medicine with a pre-prepared lunch.

“Fucking hell,” he hears her say in the kitchen. “Fucking whipped .”

Ha! He ignores it.

The living room smells good, like it hasn’t been occupied by sleeping Roy and stinky Jamie for the better part of a half-week now. The new blanket’s clean, and she’d sprayed some fabric detergent on the couch, and the candle’s the same cinnamon-vanilla one that he likes - he’d run through one already, but Roy had returned home from work one day with another, identical one, no comment - and Jamie feels good. His knee doesn’t even hurt that bad. He pulls the blanket up to his chin, and Keeley makes a happy little face down at him.

“You’re adorable,” she says. “I’m happy you’re through the worst of it, babes.”

“PT with your girlfriend ’s gonna be the worst of it,” he counters, but there’s no bite in it. “I gotta do it for months before they consider clearing me.”

“I know,” she says, and snuggles right under the blanket with him, tucks cold toes next to him and rests her chin on his shoulder. “Charlie said you’re a good little student, though.”

“Yuck.”

She laughs. “Wanna watch Mamma Mia ?”

“Fucking yes.”

Donna’s singing on the roof when Roy returns. Jamie should’ve been checking the game; weeks ago, it would’ve been the only thing he could think about, chewing his lip over it, that awful-stirring feeling of not being there squeezing his chest. But. Keeley, and Mamma Mia , and the cozy warm of Roy’s living room. His hair, air drying. His lotion. The candle. It’d been hard to be distressed, actually, as much as he might wanna be.

Either way, the door clicks open, and Roy walks in. Jamie doesn’t turn to look at him, but he can tell Roy’s doing his little gaze-sweeping analysis. He must see all the flowers, the clean blanket, the candle, the window. Jamie, clean! Nice, clean Jamie! 

“Did the boys win?” Jamie asks. Ok, he still really fucking cares, sue him.

“Tie,” Roy says, but doesn’t sound remotely upset. In a blink, he’s in front of Jamie, and Keeley, blocking the TV screen. If it were anyone else, Jamie’d kick them for interrupting Meryl Streep. But Jamie - god fucking horrendous as it is - has missed Roy, in this small chunk of his absence, and then realizes he hasn’t spent that much time without Roy in days . Realizes Roy hasn’t left his side since the surgery.

Oh.

He thinks of Mr. Darcy and winces. 

Oh .

“Hey,” Jamie says. He can feel Keeley watching them, suspiciously quiet.

“How do you feel?” Roy says. He smiles, soft and pleased. “You showered?”

“ And I got to use my nice lotion,” he says, proudly. “I don’t smell like a rotted corpse anymore.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Roy argues. Maybe not to Roy, who seems happier with filth than Jamie could ever be. “You got the Keeley treatment, then.”

Keeley pipes up. “Only the best,” she says. “Someone had to make sure he didn’t slip in the shower.” Jamie hears it, but he’s not sure Roy can: and fuck knows you don’t have the balls to .

Hm.

Roy either doesn’t notice, or doesn’t care. He puts his fingers in Jamie’s drying, clean - clean! - delicious-smelling hair, and scrunches. Nails on scalp, fond. It can be read as platonic. All their shit can be read as platonic, because it is platonic. Something about Keeley there, though, the way she watches, needle-gazed, makes Jamie suddenly unsure whether that’s really true or not.

“Wanna watch with us?” Jamie says.

So that’s how he ends up between Keeley and Roy, maybe his favorite place he could possibly be. Keeley’s got his hand in hers, massaging at his palm, and Roy’s shoulder’s pressed firm against his, holding him upright even as his head starts to sag. His chin dips, but he keeps popping his head back up. He loves this movie! He’s not missing it!

The third time this happens, Roy huffs. “Jamie,” he says, “just go to sleep.”

“Don’t wanna.”

But he does, or, well, he must. He realizes this when he starts to wake up. Roy’s not there. Keeley’s not there. The movie’s not finished, though. Donna’s on a mountain, singing her heart out. Where is everyone?

He hears them, just out of earshot. Something tells him to play it cool, but he’s not sure why. Some third sense, or sight, or something. He moves just slowly enough not to draw attention to himself, but through squinted eyes he catches a glimpse of them in the kitchen. Keeley’s holding a glass of wine. Roy’s nursing a mug of tea. The way she’s standing makes it clear they’re arguing; or, well, not arguing, because Roy’s not fighting back much. She’s fussing him, Jamie realizes. Roy’s in trouble, and the worst kind of trouble at that: Keeley Trouble.

He can only catch bites of sentences, most of them too quiet to rise above the TV. Keeley sounds irritated. “-confusing him! If you’re not gonna -”

“It’s not my intention to-”

“-matter! Fucking hell, Roy, you can’t just do the thing and not put a name on it! For Christ’s sake, it’s ridiculous! I just -”

“We’re not doing -”

“He’s living with you , Roy. You said you shared a bed . That’s -”

She gets quieter again here, like she realizes she’s been pushing a bit too loud. Bummer. Jamie only catches a few more snatches of the conversation, whispered and frustrated.

“-it’s not fair, to either of -”

“-not about that. I, this is, it’s unrelated, Keeley. Do you expect me to-”

“-No, but, Roy , you can’t keep on sending these signals and not-”

“-not trying to send signals, I’m -”

“-fucking do something about it, Jesus!”

A long pause. He thinks the conversation is over. Donna finishes singing. Then, Roy’s voice.

“So what, I should just man up and ask him to leave, then? Huh? I can’t do that to him, right now, Keeley, you should’ve seen, at the beginning.” There’s another pause. Keeley doesn’t respond. Jamie’s heart is quick in his throat. Donna joins Sophie in the chapel. Roy continues. “It doesn’t matter what I might want anyway, this is about Jamie, and if -”

Roy continues, too softly to hear now as the movie picks up steam again, but, oh.

Oh.

It sinks like a rock, heavy and cold. It’s as Jamie’s suspected, quietly, nervously, unable to voice it even to himself: that Roy’s sick of him. That this really has been a pity thing from the start, and Jamie’s eaten and eaten at all of Roy’s boundaries, and Roy’s let him, not because he’s a smotherer, like Keeley thought, but because he’s nice . Generous. Willing to stick it out for poor, hurt Jamie Tartt, not because he wants to, really, but out of a sense of obligation. Look at Jamie! He’s so hurt and sad! So what if it secretly makes Roy uncomfortable, he’ll do it anyway. He’s a stand up guy! He’s Roy Fucking Kent!

“I should just man up and ask him to leave, then?”

Jamie feels suddenly really, really bad.

Sophie’s calling off the wedding on-screen, and Jamie’s struggling a bit to breathe. He hears approaching footsteps, and he tries to seem like he’s sleeping.

“Hey, Jams, you up?” Keeley asks, a small, cool hand on his forehead. He pretends to be just waking up, blinking, yawning.

“Oh, yeah, hey. Whassup?”

“I gotta head back to mine, is that alright?”

Like he’s a kid. Has all their kindness been misplaced, thrown at him out of guilt? He tastes something sour, like sucking on a lemon.

“Course, Keeley, duh.” He forces a smile. “Thanks. For today.”

Her smile is warm. It seems sincere. It’s sincere, right? “Don’t thank me, babes. I’ll text you how tomorrow goes? Maybe we can get lunch next week?”

He searches her face, nods. “Sounds good.”

She kisses the top of his head and is off in a whirlwind. Roy must linger in the kitchen, because Jamie sits, alone on the couch, until the credits start to spin.

“You hungry?” 

Jamie looks up. Roy’s wandered back to the living room, is standing with his arms braced on the chair next to the couch. He looks freshly-scolded, eyes sliding around near the floor instead of meeting Jamie’s. His cheeks are red.

Uncomfortable , Jamie decides. He looks uncomfortable, and now Jamie knows why.

“Sure,” he says, but his heart isn’t in it. They eat in silence, and Jamie’s good mood has slunk into the corner. He’s clean, remember! He shouldn’t be so upset; he shouldn’t be wallowing .

Overreacting. He’s overreacting, always.

“You can sleep in your room, tonight, you know,” Jamie says after dinner. He’s wrapping up his book, and Roy’s doing the same. There’s a healthy space between them. It’s like that no man’s land, in World War something: Jamie’d be suicidal to try to cross it right now.

Roy looks up, something quizzical in his eyes. “Eh?”

“It’s been long enough, yeah? I’ve got me crutches, I’m moving better. No reason for you to sleep on a couch if ya don’t got to, ya know?”

Roy nods, but he still looks a bit lost. “Sure,” he says. “I don’t mind though, Jamie, it’s not -”

“Doesn’t matter if ya mind or not,” Jamie says, and it tastes hot on his tongue. It sounds bitter, coming out. Jamie doesn’t mean it to, but it does anyway. He takes a deep breath in, pushes a deep breath out.

“It’s your fucking room,” he says, after Roy apparently decides to wait for him. “You should sleep in it.”

Roy waits a moment longer before nodding, slow. “Ok. Sure. Fine, but if you need -”

“I’ll yell if I need,” Jamie finishes, and the smile feels dry on his face.

Roy tries to return it. “Good.”

In the guest room, in the twin-sized bed, Jamie lays down and stares at the ceiling. He’s gone and done exactly what he’d suspected he might do: taken advantage of it, all of it, creating something reciprocal in his mind because it’s what he’d wanted to believe. He’s always been oh so good at deluding himself to his own nature, the incurable, indulgent self-interest he’s always trying to beat back. Jamie Tartt’s a dumb, selfish asshole: apparently, some things never change.

.

The next day’s a Sunday. On Monday, Roy will go back to work. Jamie’s post-op appointment isn’t so long from now, and he’s been doing his ankle rotating and flat leg lifting, but Jamie knows that after the appointment starts the next rounds of PT. Everything’s about to shift into a new gear. It’s better that Jamie rip the bandaid off now, while everything else is changing anyway.

Not the surgery bandaid or anything, though. The metaphorical bandaid. He’s not that crazy.

On Sunday afternoon, after a day of stilted silences and confused looks from Roy, Jamie says, “I should get back to me own place, then.”

He doesn’t look at Roy’s face, terrified of the poorly-hidden relief he knows he’ll find there. Roy waits a long moment before talking, sounds carefully guarded when he does.

“Is that what you want?” he asks, slow and measured.

No. Not really. Jamie swallows, stares at his knitting. He’d fucked up the last three rows, had to unstitch them before attempting them again. The patch of scarf looks messy, unhappy. 

“Yes,” Jamie says, “It’s not like I’ve been paying rent.”

“I don’t want you paying rent, Jamie, I offered, in case you forgot.”

“I didn’t forget. I just.” Jamie tries to sit up a bit straighter, look a bit more sure of himself. He can tell Roy’s watching him, trying to read his thoughts again. “You’ve already done way more than you shoulda had to. I can do the rest of it, Roy.”

“You sure? I really don’t -”

Jamie laughs. “Jesus, Roy, I’m giving you an out!” He finally looks over, but Roy doesn’t look relieved or joyous or much of anything. He looks quiet, thoughtful, carefully blank. His beard’s neatly trimmed. His shirt’s a muted, quiet green, a color that still fits into the Roy Kent palette. He looks good. In comparison to Jamie, especially, who feels strung out and small, leg brace and baggy sweatshirt and all. Jamie realizes, all at once, that while his life’s stopped, point-blank reduced itself to weeks of nonactivity and moping, of waiting around for Roy, Roy’s life has continued: his work, his team, his friends, his yoga ladies, his hobbies, his cooking. Jamie’s life had crystallized around Roy, but Roy’s had kept spinning as normal, Jamie just a straggling planet desperate to orbit him whenever possible.

It’s a sick feeling in his stomach, especially knowing that Roy must know this too, was just humoring him until the string could be cut and Jamie knocked out of orbit again.

“I’m giving you an out,” Jamie repeats. He can’t look at Roy anymore. He tries to keep it casual, forcing humor into his voice. “Or have you got Stalkhome syndrome now?”

“Stockholm,” Roy corrects thoughtlessly. He seems on the verge of saying something, mulling over a thought so thoroughly Jamie can see it happening, the gears in his brain spin spin spinning. “Ok,” he says eventually. “Ok, Jamie. If you’re sure that’s what you want.”

“Yep.”

“I’ll still drive you to work though, they said it’d be about six weeks before -”

“Sam lives nearby,” Jamie blurts. It’s gotta be a clean cut, or what’s the point? “I can carpool with him.”

Roy’s eyebrows dip low over his eyes. They look thicker that way, grumpy. “How will you get back?”

“I’ll figure it out.”

“I think -”

“Or I’ll start doing PT at my place, save everyone the trouble.”

“It’s really not -”

“Ok, then that’s sorted.” Roy’s expression is stormy. Jamie can tell he wants to disagree, push the point, but something’s got him wrapped up around himself; he doesn’t argue, just nods, once, and goes back to reading.

Roy helps him pack, later. He doesn’t say much, just brings Jamie all the pieces of himself scattered around Roy’s place, and Jamie organizes them into neat little piles in his suitcase. There’s the two-car issue, but Roy says he’ll just drive Jamie’s car - and Jamie - to Jamie’s house, and then he’ll get Higgins to swing by on his way to the club.

“Great,” Jamie says.

Roy grunts. 

On Monday, that’s the plan they execute. Jamie crutches around, making sure he hasn’t left anything behind. Nope. All clear.

He feels like crying. 

Roy is nice enough to keep pace with him while they walk to the car, rolling his two suitcases behind him. Roy collapses his crutches for him. Roy holds his arm and helps lower him into the shotgun spot. Roy closes the door for him, and walks around, and slides into the driver’s seat. It echoes in the past, with a feeling like Jamie’s choking on sand. 

The drive to Jamie’s place is that same fifteen minutes or so long. Each minute mounts the tension, until Roy’s car is trapped in it, a little black hole of Jamie’s misery. 

His house looks cold, all the lights off. There’s a few days now ‘til Halloween, and all the other houses are sporting real fancy-type decorations. Skeletons and witches and gargoyles. Jamie’s house stands between them, quiet, easy to overlook.

“Home sweet home,” he says. Ha. He looks over, at the spot where Roy’s hands are flexing on the steering wheel. Roylooks like he wants to say something, but must think better of it. He slides into park, twists the keys out of the key port. The engine putters off, and Roy circles around to reverse the routine. Gets out. Opens Jamie’s door. Un-collapses Jamie’s crutches. Holds Jamie’s forearm. Helps Jamie tottle to the door, unlock the door, close the door. 

His house has never felt less like his own, the slap in the face reminder of: no family photos, no happy decor, no tilting bookshelves, no lived-in kitchen. Jamie tries not to let it get to him.

Roy brings his suitcases to his bedroom, lays them down, even unzips them for Jamie. Jamie watches the way Roy’s fingers dance over the zippers, then catch in his belt loop, a constant, uncharacteristic buzz in them.

Higgins calls; he’s on his way.

“Look, Jamie,” Roy says, hanging in the doorway. “If this is you trying to prove something, I don’t see the point.”

“What do I have to prove?”

“I don’t know! That’s my point, you don’t gotta go all masochist just because -”

“Fuck is a masochist?”

“Someone who likes pain, I don’t know.”

“I don’t like pain,” Jamie points out, helpfully.

“I’m just saying, if this is you tryna, I dunno, be tough about this whole thing, it’s like I said, there’s nothing to gain from it.”

“It’s not that,” Jamie says, but doesn’t wanna explain what it is; doesn’t wanna explain what he knows now, that at the root of it, Roy’s generosity was something he should’ve been good enough to stop accepting weeks ago.

“What is it then?”

“It’s, this is where I live Roy. It’s not like I was gonna stay there forever.” 

Of course not. It’s silly to even say it, because they’d never spoken it as a possibility, but suddenly, abruptly, he realizes that’s maybe why he’d never pushed it to begin with: it was so much nicer, being in Roy’s pocket, than being alone. Maybe if he didn’t say anything, it could stay that way.

Hm. Jamie’s kinda an idiot, isn’t he.

Roy opens his mouth to say something, starts to bridge the space between them, but his phone dings. Jamie knows with what: Higgins is here.

“Say hi to the boys for me?” Jamie says. Roy hesitates, nods, and in a rush of a moment, turns on his heel and leaves.

Jamie’s a humiliating, needy little thing, and he spends the rest of the day, you guessed it: wallowing.

.

The boys visit in groups of four. Jamie can tell someone - Roy - has told them to do as much, so as not to overwhelm Jamie, or something. Sam, Isaac, Dani, Colin. They bring reheatable dinners and more flowers, get-well-soon cards signed by the whole club. They ask questions and each examine his knee and watch him straighten and unstraighten the thing and tell him all about the last game, how training’s been, the general club gossip.

“It’s been boring without you,” Sam complains. “Hurry up, would you?”

“I’m trying,” Jamie says, glum, and Dani pulls him in for another hug.

“Roy’s been in a mood lately, too,” Colin says, but he says it with a pointed look at Jamie.

“Oh?” Jamie says, like he’s not deeply and intrinsically interested in this fact.

It’s a Wednesday, so it’s been a few days since the their little split. Like a wee divorced couple, they are.

“Yeah, since he came back to work after your surgery,” Colin continues. “We all thought it’d gone bad or something.”

Jamie shakes his head. “Nah, mate, I’m fine. Doc says I’m healing up all proper-like.”

“You were staying with him, right?” Isaac blurts. Sam and Dani and Colin all shoot him a glare that tells Jamie exactly what he needs to know; this has been the real club gossip while he’s been away.

“Uh,” he says, squirms. “Yeah, for a bit. I think he was nervous I was gonna off meself or something, ha.”

The boys nod in joint understanding. They’ve had injuries before, not to this extent, but still. A fellow player would understand it better than most, being forced off the field for this long.

“But you’re here now,” Colin points out.

“Yup.”

“Maybe that’s why he’s pissy,” he considers, and now it’s everyone else’s turn to shoot glares at him. “What! We’re all thinking it!”

“Nah, hardly, it’s probably because I left his place in a state.”

“No, I think Colin’s right,” Sam says, and with his Sam Sincerity, it’s indisputable. Great. Sam looks over all the other boys, who stare at him wide-eyed and uncertain in return, and apparently, that’s what he needs to decide to push the envelope.

“Were you two,” he starts, hesitates, and Jesus fucking hellish Christ above, Jamie’s not having this conversation.

“Fuck off,” Jamie says, but he can feel his own cheeks heating up at the same time that Colin says, “I called it! I called it, like, months ago, I know repressed sexual tension when I see it, and he’s been wanting to jump your bones for for ever now, and -”

“Jesus, Colin, what -” Isaac starts, as Dani says, “I mean, it’s no different than Sam and Rebecca, actually, if you -” and Sam says, “Ok, that was a little different,” and Jamie says -

“Guys, fucking hell, no, nothing happened.” Everyone shuts up and stares at him. Jamie waits, and waits, and, “Ok, that’s the truth though! He’s - we’re - doesn’t matter how I feel, he clearly doesn’t wanna -”

“But you do feel, then?” Colin pushes. “You like him, don’t you?”

Maybe it’s because it’s Colin, who’s been brave enough to bare himself to them, even when he still feared rejection. Jamie can’t exactly lie to him now, can he?

He puts his face in his hands, nods his head. “Fuck,” he says, and his voice comes out shaky. “Had his poster on me wall, right up there with Keeley’s.”

Isaac whistles, surprised or impressed, and Dani laughs, hysterical. “ Dios mio , it’s a novella!”

“Nah, it’s me stupid, ridiculous life,” Jamie groans. He presses his eyes into the heel of his palms. “‘s like, going after your teacher, innit? Fuck, I’m so embarrassing, this is - it’s awful , holy, someone just - someone shoot me, ok? Someone punch me, right in the knee, I’m sure I’ll pass out or something , anything but this.”

“No one’s punching your knee,” Sam says, like he has to make this clear. “Jamie, you’re both adults. None of us are in a place to judge.” He makes a self-depreciating little laughing sound. “Especially not me.”

Jamie looks back up. They’re all smiling, actually smiling, like this is funny, delightful news and not absolutely mortifying, life-crushing information. Jamie groans.

“Ok,” he says, “out with it then.”

They ask no less than a million questions, when did Jamie realize, is he positive Roy doesn’t feel the same way, was there really no hanky-pankying during that whole time, was bed sharing code for bed sharing , does Keeley know, oh my god, Keeley must find the whole thing hilarious, what’s Jamie gonna do about it?

“Nothing,” Jamie says, deflated. “I’m outta his hair, and I ain’t doing shit.”

They don’t seem to like this. “Lame,” Colin says.

“My life is not your, your entertainment!” Jamie protests, but even he sounds doubtful.

“Ok, ok,” Isaac says with a hand on his shoulder, the only one taking pity on him, “Wanna watch highlights from last match?”

So. They watch highlights from last match, and all hug him a few more times before leaving. Isaac puts one of the reheatable meals in the oven, sets a timer for him. They all have training tomorrow, so it’s an early night.

“You’re really gonna start doing PT from here?”

“Yeah,” Jamie says, “‘til I can drive meself around again.”

“And how long’s that?”

“Six weeks or so.”

“Fuck,” Colin says. “Sure you don’t wanna hitch a ride with someone?”

Jamie waves the offer off. “Nah, nah, I’ll be back bugging you assholes soon enough, don’t worry.”

Dani squeezes his shoulder. “We’re counting on it, amigo .”

The house is emptier when they leave. Jamie risks looking at it again: dark, dusty, generally sad. All at once, it pisses him off. This is his fucking house, ok? It doesn’t have to be this way! Jamie’s, ok, Jamie’s kinda a bit upset, sure, and missing Roy, sure, whatever, but he’s not an absolute and indisputable loser . He’s been doing the work. He knits now! He reads! He can cut onions and make a decent pasta sauce! This is his fucking house, and it doesn’t have to be this way.

On Thursday, he wakes up early. He flexes his knee for a bit, until it’s less stiff and painful. Then, he washes his face. Changes into something decent. Has a quick protein shake for breakfast, and then finds his notebook. He hasn’t added anything in a long time, but there’s the itching feeling that if he doesn’t now, he’s gonna regret it.

He flips to the Things Jamie Likes page. Furiously, he scribbles out a list.

• knitting
• cleaning
• reading
• cutting vegetables
• grocery shopping

He looks around his space, desperate.

• candles
• opening the windows
• his yummy lotion
• feeling clean
• fancy pastas

He thinks back.

• flowers
• jazz music
• hugs
• Becky
• Matilda

Ok, they’re people, not things. He scratches out their names, replaces them with:

• meeting new people
• talking with Keeley
• talking with friends
• tea with milk and sugar
• feeling useful
• feeling cozy
• having a cozy space

Jamie’s space is not cozy. In fact, Jamie’s life in Jamie’s space contains approximately none of the things he likes. At the moment, his windows are closed. His house smells stale. His fridge is near-empty, and there’s not a singular funny-named pasta in his cabinet. 

He needs to remedy this, or he’s going to lose his fucking mind.

He flips a few pages down, then a few more past the Things Jamie Wants to Try page. He starts a new list. He calls this one: To Do List for General Happiness.

He jots down a good handful of things, then begins the process of executing them.

First things first, he opens the window. Halloween had come and gone, and Jamie hadn’t even had candy for the trick-or-treaters, had just closed his blinds and pretended he wasn’t home.

He’s going to hell for that one, maybe.

Now, though, he pulls them aside and cracks open the window to let in the fresh, piney November chill. Cold air fills his lungs a bit. It’s nice, actually. He opens the windows in his kitchen, and in his living room, and in his bedroom. He almost risks going upstairs to open the ones up there too, but thinks of his knee and decides against it.

Besides, he has yet to attempt crutches on the stairs, and doesn’t think today’s the day.

Item one. Check.

He can’t fulfill item two because he doesn’t have any candles in his house. How is that possible? He debates calling Keeley, asking for a ride, but he squirms at relying on someone else so soon after the whole revelation from before; the sneaking fear that everyone’s kindness was another form of guilty obligation. He might be wrong about that. The boys had seemed happy just to be in his space, but, well, it’s a lingering insecurity he’s maybe harbored his whole life. So. He knows there’s a market nearby, right outside his fancy neighborhood, and he can crutch there and back, surely.

It’s exhausting. The old guy behind the register is no Matilda, to put it simply, but he definitely recognizes Jamie as Jamie Tartt. He gapes, eyes his knee with open, fatalistic curiosity.

“You’ll be back, right?” he asks.

“Fingers fucking crossed mate.” He pays for his things and shoves them in a backpack. The man helps him sling it on his back, maneuvering his crutches for him. 

“Cheers, bruv,” he says, and the man nods, open-mouthed and disbelieving.

Jamie is exhausted by the time he gets back home. He thinks he’s overworked his knee a bit, because it feels swollen and itchy again. He pops a Brufen and does some leg extensions and sits on the couch for a bit, but he’s too fired up to nap. He finds his yarn and knits a bit, then finds an empty wicker bin to put his extra yarn and needles in. Now he’s got a little knitting basket! Nice!

Once he feels a bit better, he unpacks and sorts his groceries. Milk, eggs, tomato paste, fresh herbs. Four types of pasta: farfalle, and penne, and linguini - Linguini, ha, that’s clever! - and pappardelle. The store had only had three candle options, so it hadn’t been much debate. He’d settled on Vanilla Coffee Bean, and it’s pretty close to perfect, actually. He lights it up and goes to check off item 2, and also items 5 and 6.

He makes a sandwich for lunch, cheddar he’d bought and turkey he’d bought on rye bread he’d bought. Jamie hadn’t known what rye bread was, but Roy stocked the thing like a madman, and he’s discovered he likes the almost sour, tangy taste. Especially paired with mustard, which he’d also bought.

There’s more he wants to do: clean everything, wash all his laundry, fully unpack, but he’s winded now. He can’t do much else but sit down and ice his knee and read, which is actually not so bad. He finishes reading Pride and Prejudice . Maybe Roy is kinda like Mr. Darcy. Food for thought.

Anyway, that’s Thursday. His post-op appointment is on Monday, and he doesn’t know who’s driving him there, although he’s got a pretty bad feeling it’s gonna be Roy. 

Sigh.

He doesn’t have the stamina to cook dinner, so he reheats one of the frozen meals instead. You’ve gotta pace these things, ya know?

Point is, Thursday becomes Friday - more visitors in the afternoon, Jan Maas and Zoreaux and Richard and Bumbercatch, and they all split a frozen lasagna that Rebecca apparently had cooked for him - and Jamie cheers them on as they play Fifa on his PS5. He’s too tired to play, and besides, it’s nice, sitting and rooting for the boys as they get loud and fussy around him. 

Jan Maas calls Richard a French, bourgeoise asshole. Richard doesn’t deny it. It’s entertaining, and all.

After they leave, Friday becomes Saturday. Keeley picks him up for brunch.

“Did you wanna leave, or did Roy ask you to?” she asks, not nearly enough time in. She’s good at skipping pleasantries, their Keeley. 

“I wanted to,” he says. It’s half-lie, half-truth. Keeley squints at him.

“And how’re you holding up?” she prompts.

“Fine, actually. I’m, uh.” How to phrase it? “I’ve been working. On meself.”

She nods, surprised, but grins a second later, wide and pleased. “Good. Good, Jamie. I’m happy.”

“You, uh.” How to ask. “You wanna be my friend, right? It’s not, like, some weird pity thing, for dumping me forever ago, and then kinda dumping me again, and then my ACL, and then -”

She reaches out, quicksilver and aghast. “Jamie, Jesus, of course I wanna be your friend.” She squeezes the bone of his wrist. “Why? What’ve you been thinking in that big head of yours?”

He’s not ready to say. “Nothing, really, just. I’ve just been thinking.”

She nods, slowly, but still seems a bit uneasy. “You wanna stay at my place for a bit?” she offers at the end of their meal. He laughs. God, but nothing good has ever started with that question. He’s smart to decline it this time.

“Nah, I’m good Keeley, really.” He smiles, squeezes her hand. It’s so much smaller than Roy’s, colder too. “Trust me.”

“Ok,” she says. She doesn’t sound convinced, but she lets him go nonetheless, dropping him off then heading to Charlie’s house .

Ugh, Charlie. After his Monday appointment, he’ll officially start up his new PT regime. How exciting!

After brunch, Jamie opens his windows again. Lights his candle again. He still hasn’t fully unpacked, and it’s grating at the corners of his brain. He’ll well-fed and caffeinated; there’s no time like the present. 

He throws his dirty clothes in the wash, then hangs his clean ones back up. Reorganizes all his skincare, and the inside of his shower. He has the sudden urge to wash his sheets too, so he strips his bed and pillowcases and throws those in after his clothes go into the drier. He adds some of the good-smelling, fancy detergent his mom had got him for his birthday; the same kind she used to his on her own bed when they were kids, smelling like rose and powder. 

He misses her, suddenly and achingly. They’ve talked in bits and pieces, pre-surgery, post-surgery, but not since he came back to his place. He facetimes her even though she’s certainly busy, but she answers.

“Jams! My love! What are you doing, busying around?”

“I’m fine, mum,” he laughs, and hears the smile in his own voice. “Just sorting me shit out. What are you and Simon up to, then?”

Simon’s making roast for dinner, apparently. Jamie’s mom is also doing laundry. It’s a very weekend sort of task, Jamie thinks. They talk for a good hour, until Jamie feels winded again. She promises to visit once she’s able, work’s been a bitch , weekends ‘n all, but the holidays are right around the corner, and then they’ll all be together.

Jamie wonders what Roy’s got planned for the holidays, and then leaves that train of thought behind before it starts to sting.

He can’t be bothered to fold his warm clothes yet, so he dumps them on one side of his couch and sits down on the other. He knits a few rows, and then his drier chimes that his bedding is done too. It’s a right disaster trying to remake his bed. He can’t quite get all four corners of his fitted sheet down, but is proper sweaty and irritated and gives up a good ten minutes in. Whatever. He can sleep on half a bed sheet until his knee’s bendable enough to attempt it again.

He does cook that night, the one thing he semi-knows how to. He imagines Roy’s big hands, holding the knife, showing him how. His praise that had buried itself right in the notches of Jamie’s spine: yeah, like that, good job, Jamie .

He misses Roy.

He cooks pasta, an easy sauce he’s watched Roy make a handful of times and helped with a handful more. It’s just cherry tomatoes, tomato paste, basil, a bit of oregano and parsley. Some olive oil and garlic. Easy. Boiled, simmered, thickened. He cooks his pasta for 9 minutes - linguini takes around 9 to be al dente, he reads, and Roy had said al dente tends to be what you’re shooting for - and then spoons it into a bowl with a heap of the sauce. He eats at his table, and wishes he had some of the wine from Bilal’s place, because he thinks they’d taste good together.

He’s not even on pain meds anymore, either! He could totally drink, if he wanted!

He cleans up after himself, and folds some of his clothes before deciding the rest are a tomorrow task. Remember: pacing. Besides, he has some more items to check off on his list: cook dinner, hang out with Keeley, leave the house outside of PT/work. Check check check.

He wants to read, but doesn’t own any other books. He remembers abruptly he has to return Pride and Prejudice to Roy eventually. And he remembers abruptly: his appointment’s in two days. And he remembers abruptly: he hasn’t seen Roy since Monday, and now it’s Saturday.

That’s the longest he’s been without seeing Roy since, like. At least since the season started, if not even before then. Whoa. That’s, um. Compelling information. 

He wonders if Roy’s growing his beard out. He wonders if he’ll do no shave November. He wonders if he’s really in as bad a mood as the boys made it sound. He wonders if Jamie’s played this whole thing wrong.

Man up and ask him to leave? 

He wonders and wonders and wonders. Then, he goes to sleep.

.

Sunday is easy and slow. Jamie sleeps in, has eggs for breakfast and then leftover pasta for lunch and dinner. He finishes folding his clothes. He looks up where’s a good place to buy art for his house. He finishes his scarf! But, he’s not sure how to cast off , as they call it, so he watches a good five videos before attempting it. Success! The scarf is clumpy, periwinkle as the November sky. Really, it’s just a long piece of fabric. No adornment, no fancy tassels. He kinda loves it, and is maybe disgustingly smug about that fact too. He makes the potentially rash decision to gift it to Roy. Possibly tomorrow, when he sees him again (!), as thanks for putting up with Jamie’s bullshit so heroically.

He can’t tell if he’s excited to see Roy or plainly nauseous at the reality of it. He lands somewhere in the middle, but goes to sleep with bugs crawling around in his stomach and under his skin and in the nooks and crannies of his ribcage. He’s only just reconciled his awful selfishness when it comes to Roy’s presence, right? He’s not supposed to want to see him! Roy should stay away! Really!

Then, he’s awake. Monday morning. He’s got a text from Roy already sitting on his phone.

Hey. It’s Roy.

What a loser. 

Your appointment’s at 11:30, not sure if you remember. I’ll pick you up at 11. 

He debates what emoji to respond with for seven minutes before just thumbs-upping the message. Cool and casual-like, because that’s what Jamie is. Cool and casual.

He’s not sure what to wear. What do you wear to a post-op appointment with your forbidden crush? He settles on a vintage Richmond sweatshirt and the baggy sweats; he fits his knee brace over them, not entirely positive he’s supposed to still be wearing the thing. Can’t do any harm, right? Recently, his incision’s been looking pretty good. All the tape’s gone and fallen off. He’s pretty sure he’s getting the sutures taken out today. Will that hurt? Hopefully not. He’s ready to stop looking at them and patting them dry after every shower. 

Will the cut just, slide open without them though? That’d be gnarly. He really hopes not. 

Roy is there at 10:57. Jamie’s been waiting in his living room since 10:45. He hears Roy’s car pull in, but still jolts at the knock knock at his door.

He crutches over as fast as he can and swings open the door.

Roy’s there. Warm, solid Roy. Unattainable Roy. He looks awkward. His beard’s fuzzy and thick. He’s in dark jeans and a dark shirt and a dark jacket. Jamie wants to hug him so badly that it’s a physical thing in his stomach, raw and desperate.

He stands there instead, shifting his weight on his crutches.

“Hi,” he says.

“Hi,” Roy says. He’s doing his scan of Jamie, likely looking for signs of: not eating, not sleeping, not leaving the house, not talking to anyone. Jamie makes himself stand a bit taller, to prove to Roy that none of these things have been happening. Or, rather, that none of these things have been happening again . Jamie’s not wallowing; he just misses Roy. It’s different, this time.

“You look good,” Roy says after his initial assessment. Jamie hates how it makes him melt, a warm shower down his spine.

“You look ok, I guess,” he says. Roy snorts, then looks over Jamie’s shoulder, like he can’t fully rule out that Jamie hasn’t been wasting away unless he sees his space. Jamie angles one crutch like an open invitation. “Be my guest.”

Roy snoops. Looks at his clean, well-stocked kitchen and his open blinds and his candle, still liquidy from being just blown out. He looks pleased with what he finds, especially the pasta.

“Nice selection,” he says, like it’s not a mirror of Roy’s own. Jamie feels his face heat up a bit.

“Thanks.”

“You ready to go?”

“Yeah. I’m ready.”

The post-op appointment is quick. Roy plays his old man music on the way there, and the doctor makes quick work of the sutures. It doesn’t really hurt, just feels strange more than anything. Roy hovers anyway, like he’s waiting for Jamie to reach out a nervous hand; to his credit, Jamie doesn’t, just steels his jaw and counts until the doctor’s finished.

“It looks good, son,” Mr. Doctor says after a cursory inspection. “How’s the weight bearing?”

“I’m still using crutches,” Jamie says, before realizing the doctor’d been asking Jamie but looking at Roy, waiting for Roy to answer instead. Oh. Ok. That’s, information to look at later. The doctor redirects his gaze like there’s nothing to it. “But it doesn’t hurt so bad,” Jamie continues dutifully. “Should I stop?”

“Slowly,” the doctor says. “We’ll keep the brace on for another couple of weeks, but you’ll start more intensive PT tomorrow. You shouldn’t need the crutches more than a week or so still. Nothing too strenuous, obviously, but we want you walking without them sooner rather than later.”

“Ok.”

“And the pain?”

“Really manageable like. Not even that bad at all.”

“Great. You’ve been just lifting her, right?”

“Yep, a few cycles a day.”

“Perfect. Your physical therapist will start adding more mobility movements in. We don’t wanna go too fast and strain the graft, so expect slow and steady to be the theme of the next few months.”

Next few months. Jamie had known this already. He’s almost two months out from the initial injury now, which is, well. Insane, really. He can manage a few more, although he thinks he’s gonna need a new knitting project, like, stat.

After the appointment, Jamie asks a favor. Not overstepping! Honestly! Just a favor. “I need more yarn,” he says. “Would you mind, uh.”

“Sure,” Roy says, agreeable enough despite his strange, thick silences. He’s doing a lot of thinking, and holding himself back. Jamie can tell.

Probably trying to find the right way to thank him for leaving, ha.

Still. He drives Jamie to the arts and crafts place closer to Roy’s neighborhood than his own. Becky’s there, which is exciting. He tells her he’s finished the scarf, and asks for suggestions on the next thing to tackle. She recommends - go figure - another scarf. 

“To really help you get the basics down,” she says. “I know you wanna speed onto something new, but trust me, with knitting, it’s more about -”

“Slow and steady,” he guesses. Pacing. Ironic. It’s kinda his new life motto, apparently.

He decides to use the same thickness so he can stick with the needles he’s already got, but he wants a new color. He lands on a rich, wine-colored burgundy. Again, he thinks of Bilal’s place. Would Roy wanna eat out again, sometime, ever? Or will Jamie be going there alone, explaining to Bilal the not-quite-fall-out of it all.

He doesn’t have the heart to ask. He’s toeing at the sack of yarn on the car floor when Roy says, abruptly, like he’s gotta blurt it or it’ll stay stuck in his throat, “Do you wanna stop by Matilda’s?” 

Jamie blinks. Roy’s… deliberately voicing an option that implies spending more time than him? Strange, unless it’s driven by guilt, which is possible, and Jamie -

“The grocery store. That lady you like,” Roy adds, like Jamie’s somehow forgotten Matilda. Please.

“Sure,” he says, but it sounds uncertain even to him. It’s nearby this side of town, Jamie supposes. Might as well.

Matilda hugs him. She smells like licorice, which is unexpected but kinda suiting. “And how was surgery, then? You seem to be on the up and up!” 

She listens to him patiently, with real curiosity, and he refuses the flowers on account of his house already being full of them. He’d only taken half, the rest still at Roy’s place, but half had been plenty.

“What about dark chocolate?” she says, wiggling her eyebrows like she remembers his first trip in. She probably does; he does, anyway. It feels years ago, now, stumbling and unsure.

He grins. “Ok, you got me,” he says. She laughs, and pawns two packs of the little gourmet chocolate balls off on him before pulling him in for another licorice-scented hug and patting at his cheek.

“You’re a good boy,” she says, then glares, whip-fast, at Roy. “You better be taking good care of him.”

Roy’s entire face turns scarlet red. “Oh, I’m not. He’s. Um.”

“We don’t live together.”

She narrows her eyes. “Is that why I haven’t been seeing you around recent?”

“Yeah, I live a bit away, actually. I was just, hanging around, ‘til surgery was finished with.”

She hums, but doesn’t seem fully convinced. Her look at Roy is still accusatory, but she nods when Jamie gives her his biggest, most charming of smiles.

“Fine,” she says, like she’s the final say on Jamie’s living situation. Maybe she is, who knows. “Well, don’t be a stranger, anyway,” she says, and Jamie promises he won’t, and then they’re back in the car.

“Fucking hell,” Roy says once they pull back onto the main road. “It’s like I haven’t been going there for years.”

“Sorry I’m so devilishly charming,” Jamie says. “I’ll tell her next time not to play favorites.”

Roy casts him a glare, and it’s a relief to see it on his face. “Please,” he says, desperate-sounding. Jamie laughs. It feels ok, all things considered.

Back at Jamie’s house, Jamie knows Roy needs to head back into work. He’s already chewed away at more of his time than he intended too. But.

I mean, Roy’d offered, with Matilda. That’s gotta be something, right?

“Could you come help me with something?” he asks. Roy’s fingers flex on the steering wheel, same as last time, but he nods.

Jamie takes and takes and takes.

“Sure,” Roy says.

So Jamie gets Roy to fix his fitted sheet. Roy rolls his eyes.

“You’ve just been sleeping with it like this?” he says, stretching over the length of Jamie’s bed with his fully capable and mobile body. Asshole.

“If you must know, yes.” Jamie sniffs. “You might remember I’m currently wounded .”

“Yeah, yeah, wounded my ass.” Jamie eyes him, only stares at his bum a bit . He’s not a total saint, ok?

Roy stands back up, brushes his hands on his knees.

“Anything else?”

“Yeah, I’ve got a leaky pipe I thought you might wanna look at?”

Roy blinks.

“A joke,” Jamie says. “God, you’re so serious.”

Roy glares some more. Jamie wants to press his lips to the narrowed crinkle of his eyes. Jamie wants to do a lot of things, actually, none of them particularly decent.

Roy makes his way back to the living room. “Actually, uh,” Jamie says, crutching along behind him. “There is one other thing.”

“Hm? Got a squeaky door hinge?”

“No. I. Um.” Jamie picks up the scarf. He’d debated wrapping it in some Christmas wrapping from last year, but it’d felt too painfully formal. Earnest. This is better.

He holds the thing out, in the space between him and Roy; Roy used to be so good at bridging those gaps, but today, he stands there, a bit guarded, a bit uncertain.

“You want me to look at it?” he asks.

“I want you to have it.” Jamie swallows. “It’s for you.”

Roy’s expression breaks a bit, bleeds something unreadable through the cracks. “Jamie,” Roy sighs. “You don’t owe me anything.”

It’s factually untrue, but Jamie decides not to argue this point, lest he reveal he’d been eavesdropping. He knows Roy won’t let him win, anyways. “I know,” he lies instead. “But I want you to have it. As thanks. For. Ya know.”

Everything. Housing him. Cooking for him. Medicating him. Listening to him. Taking care of him. Fucking, sharing a bed with him. Encouraging him to resolve the Jamie Tartt Identity Crisis, which, actually, he thinks he’s kind of actually doing. He might’ve gotten here on his own, eventually, without Roy, but he thinks Roy’s gentle pushing, gruff suggesting, got him here sooner than he would’ve if he’d been left to his own devices: to take-out and long, stretchy, pointless days in his own mess and upset.

Roy reads his mind. Roy frowns. Roy takes the scarf. They’re indoors, and it’s not a particularly cold day, but he wraps the disheveled, blue length of it around his neck. Against the black on black on black, it’s stark and funny-looking. Jamie thinks it looks good on him. He means to say this, but he laughs instead.

“What,” Roy says, “not my color?”

“No, actually, nah. I think it looks nice.”

“You made it. You’re biased.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m wounded, remember? You have to agree with me.”

Roy walks over to the nearest mirror to consider. Jamie catches him smiling, amused. “Sure, Jamie,” he says. “It looks good.”

Jamie grins. “See! Told you. Now go, you’re, like, employed still. Leave me alone.”

Roy doesn’t really look like he wants to leave though, is the thing. Interesting. And, surprise surprise! Jamie doesn’t really want him to. It’s with effort on his part that he crutch-walks Roy to the door, then out to his car.

“Thanks,” he says again.

“Stop thanking me, it’s weird.”

“That’s why I do it.”

“You’re sadistic.”

“You like it.”

Oops. It’s a bit too daring. Roy’s head tilts, inquisitive. A question sneaks into his eyes, but he doesn’t voice it. “You’re still not coming in for PT?” he says instead.

Jamie hears: just come in, we’re not supposed to stay apart like this.

Aren’t they, though?

He still doesn’t know if he’s doing it: if he’s looking for smothering where it’s not being extended. If Roy’s driven by compassion or pity or obligation or some secret fourth thing Jamie doesn’t dare convince himself of. That’s how he got into trouble in the first place. He’s flying too close to the sun, and he reminds himself of this by replaying the overheard conversation: Roy colluding with Keeley how best to break it to him, that he was ready for Jamie to go home; that Jamie was only still there because Roy felt bad for him.

The mood dampens. Jamie feels his smile slip-slide off of his face. He pushes it back there with force.

“No,” he says, “Charlie said she’d meet me here.”

“Ok.”

“Ok.”

“So, then, I’ll see you when I see you?”

It’s for the best, yes. “I’ll see you when I see you,” Jamie echoes.

Roy leaves, and Jamie feels cold all over again.

.

PT is worse this time around, maybe because his knee’s more like a newborn baby deer’s knee, not the knee of a professional, seasoned athlete.

“This is proper sad,” he says, as he winces through the exercises he’d been breezing past only a week or so ago. His knee protests every bend, and it scares him; he doesn’t wanna push it. He’s nervous that pushing it will mean breaking it will mean no more football. He thinks he’s done a good job, all things considered, of tackling the Identity Crisis of that revelation; he’s been working on himself, doing the things, trying to build a life outside of it. Still. Doesn’t mean he’s in any place to accept no more football ever . He’s itching to be out on the pitch again, to just run , for fuck’s sake. Instead, it’s careful, one-crutched walking, and more complicated knee bends. Gee! What news!

“Be patient,” Charlie says. She’s criss-crossed on his living room floor. Jamie thinks they’re friends now, too, but he’s not positive. He wants these things in writing, recently, solemn, blood oaths from everyone in his life that they like being around Jamie for just, Jamie. 

“I’m not really the patient type,” he says.

Charlie shoots him a look. “You think I don’t know that by now?”

“Are you gonna ask Keeley out?”

She is brave in the way she maintains perfect eye-contact. “We’ve already been on a few-”

“No, like, are you gonna pop the question. Make it official and such.”

Charlie raises an eyebrow. She’s got long, dark hair, long, dark lashes, but thin, perfect eyebrows. Keeley has informed him her parents are from Korea, and Charlie’s bilingual on top of it all, how sexy! 

Jamie never stood a chance.

“How is that your business?” she says.

“Uh, because I love Keeley, and if you fuck this up, I’m gonna have to find a new ACL guru lady.”

Charlie doesn’t hold the look for long; her face breaks in an amused little look. “Heard,” she says, then, a few minutes later, “Actually, I wanted to ask your advice on that. The whole, you know. Popping question thing.”

It’s happening it’s happening it’s happening it’s -

Play it cool, Jamie. Stick the landing. Jamie gives as much Keeley information as he can without compromising his friendship: how Keeley likes big gestures but not obnoxious ones, and on the tail of her relationship with Corporate Fucko Lady, it’s better to stray away from anything that reeks too love-bomby. So, actually, maybe simple’s the way forward this time. Sincere, easy, impossible to misinterpret.

“She already likes you, though,” Jamie says. “So it’ll be hard to fuck it up. Just be yourself.”

Charlie nods, but actually looks a little queasy thinking about it all. Jamie almost feels bad, but then he remembers this is Keeley she’s trying to win over: she better be nervous, because Keeley’s a fucking gem, and Jamie expects all people in her life to be anxious to please her, as they fucking should be. 

Charlie doesn’t stay long. She gives him a few papers on ACL rehabilitation, and tells him how often to cycle through which exercises, what to expect the next few weeks to look like. In fact, she gives him a breakdown on her entire three-month recovery plan for him, neat and organized, ramping up in intensity and denoted with little benchmark goals: when she wants him fully off crutches, fully off the brace, fully walking, then running, then attempting more intense movements required of his profession.

As a footballer. He’s a footballer, remember? Don’t be forgetting now, assholes.

“Are we friends?” Jamie blurts as she’s leaving. She laughs, exasperated.

“Yes, Jamie, of course.”

Oh. Nice. “Good,” he says. “But we won’t be if you fuck this thing with Keeley up.”

“Yeah, you’ve told me already,” she says, but doesn’t sound too worried. “I’ll see you tomorrow, ok Jamie?”

Ok. 

On a whim, he texts his dad. Surgery went well, making good progress with recovery. Hope you’re doing well.

He doesn’t get a reply, but he hadn’t really expected one. More than anything, he thinks he’d wanted to see how it would feel, how much it would still hurt.

It still hurts, but it’s a hurt he knows well now. Maybe that’s as good as these kinda things get. 

He unwraps the new yarn, the burgundy one, and casts on. Scarf number two, here we fucking come.

.

Time passes. Jamie doesn’t go to that Saturday’s game either, but Charlie says they’re going fully off-crutches by Monday, so he thinks he’ll maybe attempt next Saturday’s one. 

Sam brings him to a bookstore after Jamie makes an off-handed comment about wanting to read but having jack shit at his own place. He’d still forgotten to give Roy his book back. Whoops. The bookstore Sam takes him to is local, all reused books: very Sam. He buys four, two Jane Austen’s, one sci-fi, and one fantasy. Might as well see what other genres he likes. Sam buys five, but turns out one is a present for Jamie. It’s a cookbook.

“Actually,” Sam says, “Roy convinced me about it. He mentioned how you’ve been cooking recently, and I figured you might like it.”

Oh? “How’s Roy know that?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.” Sam wiggles his eyebrows. “Lover’s intuition.”

“Shut up.”

It’s a nice cookbook. Jamie goes straight for the pasta section, and finds one using a pasta he already owns: pappardelle, what a great name. If Jamie has kids, he’s naming one that. Bomb ass fucking name.

The recipe is for, and this is a direct quote, Slowly Braised Beef Short Rib Ragu.

Hello? Jamie can make the pasta, and the sauce. How the fuck is one to make slowly braised beef short ribs ?

It’s coincidence, really, total happenstance, that the one guy he knows who could fully do this is Roy. There’s no ulterior motive, Jamie swears! 

He texts a picture of the recipe to Roy.

is this easy or really hard??? 

Roy responds alarmingly fast, not even having the good grace to sit on the text for a bit, like any sane human would do.

Mid, intermediate maybe , he texts. Are you making it?

idk how to make, like, braised rib? what’s a short rib?? aren’t all ribs kinda long??? sos

Hook, line, sinker. He doesn’t even have to ask:

Dumbass, you don’t even have these ingredients . 

Then, in quick succession:

Can I come over? I’ll buy what you need. It’s not that hard. I’ll help.

Ok, well if Roy simply insists . Maybe Jamie is really the dramatic, fickle thing he pretends not to be: upset and then not, desperate to keep Roy at arm’s distance and then desperate to have him close again. This is platonic. Cooking with your friend is platonic. It is! Really!

It’s Sunday, anyway. What else is Roy doing, glaring at himself in the mirror?

He shows up with grocery bags and, like, a giant pot?

“I figured you don’t have a Dutch oven,” he says as greeting.

“What the fuck is a Dutch oven?” Jamie says, eyeing the giant pot. “Wait, is it this? Is this a Dutch oven?”

“You realize this is gonna take, like, three or so hours, right?”

Jamie had realized, in fact. He read the recipe, asshole. 

Means Roy’s stuck with him for that long too, ha. He’s too busy being excited to feel too shameful.

Jamie helps Roy unpack everything he’s brought: carrots and onions and herbs and meat from the butcher’s and yaddah yaddah yah. Lots of shit. They set everything out on Jamie’s fancy marble countertop, then Roy says, “Right,” and pulls on his apron.

He’s brought his apron. Jamie rolls his eyes. He’s really, so embarrassing.

Jamie has an apron too, stuffed somewhere in his pantry. He finds it pretty quickly; it’s a limited edition Jamie Tartt apron, meant to look like his jersey. Ha. Roy looks at it and snorts.

“Cooking’s kinda like football, actually,” Roy says after a second. “So it’s kinda fitting.”

“Of course it’s fitting. It’s got me fucking signature on it.”

It does, in fact, along the seam of the bottom pocket. Jamie grins. Roy huffs, and reddens, and starts telling him what to do.

Jamie cuts vegetables. A lot of vegetables: the carrots and celery and onions and garlic too. Roy cuts up the meat, and then starts browning it for a “good, healthy sear.” His words, not Jamie’s, please. After, take it out the pot - the Dutch oven - and set it aside. Add all the shit Jamie’s just cut, then eventually some oil, some tomato paste, some wine, some herbs, some stock, some other shit Jamie loses track of. It cooks and cooks, boils, then simmers, then Roy says, “Alright, move, wouldya?”

He takes the whole thing and puts it in Jamie’s oven. An unexpected turn of events!

“Is that oven safe?” Jamie asks. He’d read that some things aren’t oven safe.

“It’s a Dutch oven,” Roy says, like this is obvious.

“Ok?” A pause. “So is it oven safe, then?”

“Yes, Jamie, fucking hell.”

“And we just let it cook now?”

“I told you it’d be hours, what part of that didn’t you -”

“Well, what do we do for hours , then?”

Jamie’s got a few, creative ideas. He wonders if Roy can still read his mind, even though they haven’t been spending as much time together. He sincerely hopes not, because this creativity in particular might be frowned upon.

What! It’s not his fault! Roy looks good; his beard’s still all grown-out like, and he’s wearing his Kiss the Chef apron, and Jamie kinda wants Roy to take his big, chef’s hands and press Jamie across the counter with them and - 

He blinks. Roy’s glaring, but his face is red. “Let’s watch a movie,” he grits out. Oh great, Jamie’s gone and got him mewing again.

But, good news! Jamie’s finished the book, remember! So they can watch the movie!

Pride and Prejudice turns out to be a great fucking movie. Elizabeth - Lizzy - is earnest and feisty, a little rude, a little arrogant. Jamie loves her. In contrast, Mr. Darcy is stoic and unknowable, his confession seemingly out of nowhere, soaked in the rain, desperate and raw. Jamie’s sure some people watch the movie and wonder how could Elizabeth not know he felt this way! Jamie’s read the book, and Jamie feels he knows Elizabeth: there was no solid proof of Darcy’s love for her, and maybe she feared the same thing Jamie does - imagining affection where there is none.

Roy checks on the ragu a few times throughout the movie, but Jamie thinks he might see him here too: in the way Darcy flexes his hand, just the once, after helping Elizabeth onto the carriage.

He thinks of what Keeley had said. He’s full of doubt, and hope, and doubt again.

Roy talks to him about football for a bit after that, because Jamie’s desperate for a change of pace. Jamie listens, but doesn't really listen. He studies Roy instead, all of him, his knuckly hands and grizzly eyebrows, his frown lines that disappear when he smiles, big and genuine, at Jamie’s jokes and small stupidities and just, Jamie, in general.

Jamie wants to ask. Wants Roy to tell him. Wants the things he doesn’t dare want at all. 

The ragu is finished, so they cook the pasta. This, at least, Jamie can supply. Once the pasta’s good and al dente - “I think it’s al dente now,” Jamie says, and Roy grins, small and fond - they add it to the ragu and cook it for a bit longer, letting everything melt together. There’s some leftover red wine from the eight or so ounces they’d added earlier with the veggies. Roy reaches his wine glasses, taller, and better able to balance on one foot, and Jamie pours them each a hefty portion.

He plays jazz on his TV. He opens his window. He lights his candles. He looks over, and Roy’s watching in the dimming evening light, in Jamie’s space, which feels cozy and cooked-in and warm and closer to a thing Jamie likes rather than a thing he dreads returning to. 

Roy’s expression is unreadable.

“Let’s eat,” Jamie says, toasts, declares. Whatever. Roy grins and nods. 

Jamie watches him take a bite. Really, technically speaking, Roy did most of the heavy lifting, but it still shoots right into Jamie’s stomach when he groans, maybe a bit more than necessary, and says, “Fuck, Jamie, that’s fucking great .”

Remember that emotional boner Jamie had sported the last time Roy was this nice and genuine with him, praised him a little too much? Yeah, Jamie’s genuinely worried it might leave the realm of the emotional and enter the realm of the physical.

What the fuck is going on with him?

“Nice,” Jamie squeaks, actually squeaks. If Roy notices, he doesn’t say anything, just keeps eating. Jamie starts eating too, maybe just to save face, but he takes one bite and -

“Holy fuck ,” he says. It’s delicious, actually. Like, restaurant-quality so. They’d cooked this? Just now? In Jamie’s kitchen? It seems unlikely. He takes another bite, sighs, fuck that’s actually insane, and looks over at Roy, who’s staring. His cheeks are bright red. The tendons in his neck are standing out. His eyes are wide, pupils blown in the half-lit room. Jamie slurps up some pasta, uses his thumb to swipe at the sauce he can feel on the side of his lip and then sticks it into his mouth with a little sucking pop ! 

What! It’s too good to waste! 

Roy seems to agree, if the forcible way his eyes track the motion are anything to go by. “How’d we do this, Roy?” Jamie asks, genuinely perplexed.

“I don’t know,” Roy says, all gravelly-sounding. What’s gotten into him now, then? Oh well, not Jamie’s problem. He’s got pasta to eat, please and thank you.

Roy chugs half his wine in one go. Jamie, ever the sophisticated of the two, has nice little sips of his. They both go back for seconds, and then work together cleaning up, putting the rest into Jamie’s little glass tupperware. 

“You sure you don’t want some for the road?” he offers again. Roy’d insisted Jamie keep the leftovers, but really, it feels only democratic to split them.

“No, really. You’re good, Jamie.”

“Suit yourself.”

Jamie puts them in the fridge.

It’s nearing nine now. Late, and on a Sunday no less. Jamie’s got books to read, scarves to knit, showers to take. He’s indulged himself to some good ‘ole fashioned Roy time, food for the soul, but it’s probably best he send the guy on his way, before Jamie does something stupid like ask for a hug or ask for him to spend the night or ask to share a bed or ask to maybe, have a tiny, small, totally platonic makeout-sesh. See? Roy’s gotta go, now or never.

“Oh, here’s your book, by the way,” Jamie says, wobbling over to where Roy’s copy of Pride and Prejudice sits on one of his little shelves. 

“Keep it,” Roy says, immediate. “You like it, keep it.”

“But it’s yours?”

“I never read it, really.”

“You sure? I mean -”

“Jesus, Jamie, would you just listen, for once?”

Jamie’s secretly pleased; it’s the outcome he’s been hoping for, actually. Roy seems to see as much too, because he glares, but he seems secretly pleased to. He steps closer. Closer again. Jamie’s heart remembers itself all at once, starting a violent and sudden ricochet against his ribcage.

“I’m, uh.” Roy pauses, hesitates. Mulls over his words. Jamie is quiet, suddenly nervous. “We can do this again sometime?”

It’s a weirdly formal phrasing. Jamie wants to skitter away from it, but it’s Roy . He doesn’t know how to turn him down. Still. That nervous little thing from before, the thing that reminds him, over and over, that Roy’s intentions are not the same as Jamie’s intentions, that Roy’s intentions are mysterious, illusions, could be driven by any number of things other than actually wanting to spend time with Jamie - it creeps back up his spine, up his esophagus, into his mouth and out of it just as quickly.

“Do you actually like me?” he blurts. Huh. Roy’s eyebrows dip, surprised confusion.

“I mean,” Jamie clarifies, squirms, fidgets. His fingers dance on the ridge of his crutches; it’s been a lot of standing, and he’s too tired not to use them right now. “I mean, like, it’s not just some weird, obligation-pity thing, right?”

Roy blinks. He doesn’t look happy with this line of questioning. “Why would you think that, Jamie?”

Why wouldn’t Jamie think that? Growing up, people liked him for one thing: football. He’s had his fair share of not-really friends, who hung around because Jamie could kick a fucking ball, could get them season passes, could show them around the locker room, could have a quick fuck to brag to their mates about later: “Yeah, Jamie Tartt, met him on Bantr, isn’t that crazy?” And if it’s not that, it’s the things his dad’s put in his head, since the day he fucking turned up in Jamie’s life again: that Jamie’s a frustration, a bit useless, not worth his dad’s time outside of an occasional check, an occasional push-around, an occasional reminder that he’s not shit, not really, not outside of who he is on the pitch, and sometimes, even that doesn’t add up to anything special. 

He thinks of Roy and Keeley talking, frantic and low. Keeley, upset. Roy, guilty. Jamie’s certain he’s interpreted it correctly: certain Keeley’d told Roy he was fucking with Jamie’s head by being so nice, and if he was just being nice because he felt guilty, he might as well not be nice at all. Jamie didn’t grow up with complicated emotions - he grew up with his dad’s expected anger and his mom’s cloying love, fastened on either side of the spectrum for Jamie to bounce bounce bounce between, a ping pong match that left him dizzy and confused. He thinks it’s why he can’t read the finer things, doesn't have a stomach for them: he prefers straightforward, simple Roy, who acts how he wants to act, instead of acting in a way Jamie has to grapple for the source of. 

He’d rather Roy just be mean to him, actually. At least he can tell it’s from somewhere real. As soon as he’d suspected that nice Roy was just a version of guilty, put-upon, obligated Coach Kent - cooking for him, cleaning up after him, taking care of him - it’d all gotten too messy to sort through. 

He’s sick of his own confusion. He needs Roy to be point-blank, even if it’s brutal. Eavesdropping in the dark is not gonna cut it.

He blinks. Roy’s closer than he was before, but not quite touching him. Squirming like he wants to, but isn’t sure. Frustrating.

“Jamie,” he repeats. “Did I - did I do something, to make you -”

No, not really. Not at all. It’s just Jamie and his potentially fucked brain. And, well. That conversation, with Keeley. He tries to explain this, but lands on, well: “No, nah, Roy, ‘s just. I dunno, I thought. You and Keeley, talking or something, I dunno what, really, I couldn’t hear, but.” He swallows. Roy looks abruptly panicked. Has he been caught in the act then, fake-kindness revealed like the final trump card? “I didn’t hear much!” Jamie says, to reassure Roy, if not himself. Roy still looks panicked. His eyes are wide. They dance around Jamie’s face, shaky and uncertain.

“What did you hear, then?” he asks with a see-through calm.

“Just her telling you you should kick me out, I guess, or something,” Jamie says around a laugh. “That you were messing with me head. And then, all, yeah, Keeley, I know, but the poor guy’s so sad and hurt and down on his luck, he’ll probably go jump off a building if I cut him loose, and, sure, he’s just sitting around eating me food, but I’ll manage, ya know, not like I wanna do it, but then we’d be down a player, and think of the press, so yeah, I’ll -”

Jamie stops, not because Roy interrupts him, but because his expression does. He looks upset, and not just a little bit hurt.

“That’s what you think of me, then?” he says.

Huh?

“Huh?”

Roy laughs, but it’s bitter and unkind. “That clearly, I’m fucking incapable of just being a decent fucking human being. ‘Course, I’m only being nice ,” and Roy growls the word like they have a past, “because I feel bad for you. Can’t wait to wash my hands of it. It’s not like I’d just, you know, fucking wanna help you from the goodness of my fucking, nonexistent heart, yeah?”

Um? Jamie hadn’t anticipated this. Had it been mean, to interpret Roy’s actions that way? He doesn’t think so. He and Roy’s relationship has always been a bit, well. Hard to define. Volatile. Rocky. Besides, Jamie’s always thought about it more from his own perspective: who would want to entertain that version of Jamie, pathetic and whiney and hurt? Why would anyone do it? Certainly not just because they wanted to . No one’s ever wanted to be with Jamie like that, to pick him up, to dust him off, to set his head straight.

Still.

He looks at Roy’s stormy expression, and thinks somewhere along the way, there was an interpretation he skipped past. It’s possible he’s jumped to the wrong conclusion.

“I don’t think your heart is nonexistent,” Jamie says, because it’s the only detail he can glean properly at the moment. 

Roy glares. “And yet, nowhere in the fucking realm of possibility did you think I could just be, I don’t know. Doing something nice, for someone I care about?”

For someone I care about . It yo-yos around inside of him, then cuts itself loose, lost and unsure where to land. Roy’s mad, and Jamie can tell his words hit a nerve he didn't know was there. He rehashes what he’d said in his own head: he hadn’t meant to imply Roy was a heartless dick who didn’t give a shit about Jamie, only, well, it’s kinda what he’d said? It’s partly what he’d assumed - not the heartless dick part, but the secretly not giving a shit about Jamie part. He thinks Roy should know this, at least.

“I know you’re nice,” he says. “I know you do nice things, all the time. Like. For Phoebe. For the team. For Keeley. For Rebecca. I - you’re not an asshole, Roy, I. I didn’t mean it like that, but, uh, yeah, I.” He swallows. “I guess I didn’t realize you gave a shit. About me, that is. Um. That’s why I asked.” He swallows again. His throat is dry. “If you actually like me, that is. Uh. Sorry?”

Roy doesn’t look mad anymore; he looks kinda horrified, with himself or Jamie or the whole fucking situation, Jamie’s not sure. 

“You mean that,” he says. Doesn’t ask, states . It reminds Jamie of months ago, when Jamie’d said he was nothing outside of football: you mean that, Roy had said, and had spent the next month or so proving to Jamie otherwise.

Huh. Jamie might’ve actually fucked this whole thing up.

“Um,” Jamie says, and then says nothing at all. He doesn’t know where to go from here; he doesn’t think he’s done anything wrong, and Roy doesn’t look angry anymore, or, well, he looks a little angry, and bewildered and upset and apprehensive, but Jamie thinks the angry isn’t at Jamie anymore: it doesn't feel like it’s at Jamie, anyway. Maybe it never was. Maybe Roy’s got his own baggage, and warped lines of reasoning, and maybe Jamie’s never fully considered that before. 

He thinks of Roy. Cold, asshole Roy, who’s mean before he’s nice. Who’s callous before he’s friendly. Who’s gruff even when he’s being kind. Is it an insecurity of his? That people still look at him and think him incapable of anything other than being loud, and angry, and mean? He’s not. Well. He can be, but he’s not, really . Besides, Jamie likes that Roy too, likes all the Roy’s that have ever Roy’d: if he could just make Roy see that too, he’d realize - he’d see Jamie didn’t, Jamie’s never thought, Jamie -

“I’m sorry,” Roy blurts. “I’m sorry I’m - I’m such an asshole, even now, fucking yelling at you -”

“You’re not.”

“You don’t gotta sit around and let me treat you like shit,” he growls. He’s hurting. It’s suddenly plainly obvious, how much Roy’s hurting. How long has he been hurting for? How much of it has to do with Jamie? “I never - it wasn’t my intention, I just.” He huffs out a breath, looks finally at Jamie. It’s a look that feels awful to be on the receiving end of, like he’s shot a man while he’s down. “I wanted to help. I’m sorry I fucked it all up. I - I’m gonna leave, now. Ok?” 

He looks on the tip of saying it, what he’s always said, since the start: call, if you need . Yell if you need. Holler if you need. I’ll be here. I’ll be here for you, if you want it.

How had Jamie just, looked past all of that?

“Roy,” he tries, but the words fizzle out again. Roy’s put all sorts of space between them, and it’s frigid and unbreachable. He takes a few more steps back, readjusts the Dutch oven he’s been holding for the whole fucking conversation, god, they’re hopeless , the both of them.

“I’ll see you later, ok?”

And Roy’s gone. Jamie feels like a moron. He closes the door, locks the door. Knits for all of two minutes before he can’t even do that. He finishes the wine - ugh, he’s gonna be so stuffy tomorrow - and cries in the shower. Yuck. Rough. Embarrassing. Generally: not a good look.

Jamie sleeps and dreams of laying at the bottom of a Dutch oven in a bath of soupy pasta, unable to crawl his way back out. 

Chapter Text

So. That’s Sunday. Woof.

He’s riddled with bad vibes for the next four days. Charlie tells him as much. Even the happy news of her plan to ask Keeley to be her girlfriend doesn’t excite Jamie as much as it should.

“Are you ok?” she asks pointedly on Tuesday. “You seem. Not great.”

Jamie’s great, actually! The awful fluttery feeling he thought he’d mastered weeks ago has been dancing around non-stop in his chest. It’s fun! He’s decided he likes it! No, really!

“I’m chill,” Jamie says, and tries to seem chill while he says it. How to project chill-ness? He must not succeed, because Charlie gives him an unimpressed look.

“Ok,” she says, long and drawn out. “Your knee’s looking great, anyways. How’s walking been?”

“Aces.”

“Cool.”

“Cool.”

He keeps up his Jamie Habits as best he can. He starts reading Emma , because that has a movie too that he can watch once he’s finished. He keeps knitting his scarf. He does his exercises. He tries to make new meals. He makes sure to leave the house a bit everyday, even if it’s just to walk around the park. He checks things off his to-do list: cleaning and cooking and reading and knitting and going outside and calling his mom and hanging out with friends and lighting his candle and all of it, all of it . He’s doing the things! So why’s he still feel like an absolute fucking ass ?

He knows he’s gotta talk to Roy again, sooner rather than later. It’d been a mixup. Jamie hadn’t realized Roy would hear it as an attack on his character, probably because Jamie was too busy thinking it was an attack on his own character.

It’s possible they’re both really, emotionally stunted. Huh. Bodes well, right?

He makes his bed. He opens his window. He stretches his leg. He puts his crutches in the closet. He decides it’s time to find a secondary hobbing: knitting’s not cutting out. Is journaling a hobby? Could journaling be considered a hobby?

He’s not sure, but he starts anyway, in an old, leather-bound journal someone, maybe Keeley, had gifted him way back when with the intent of helping him sort out his thoughts.

Fat fucking help that’s been, eh?

He writes about what he’s done. Then, he writes about how he feels. What’s confusing him. What he’s not getting. He writes when he feels angry, and sad, and happy too. He’s got a lot of time to kill, alright? He has a good hair day on Wednesday, and he writes about this too, and then, on a whim, he decides he should probably, oh, I don’t know, let his adoring fanbase know he’s alive and well?

He snaps a selfie, and almost takes a picture of the nice, November view outside his window before remembering, yeah, doxing. Someone will geo-fucking-locate his ass if he’s not careful. So, just the selfie then. Well, and a picture of Emma , propped up on his knee while he reads.

healing up for richmond! keep killing it, boys! 

His phone blows the fuck up.

A third of the comments are well-wishes, a third desperate questions on his return status, a third exclamations that Jamie Tartt is literate (!) and is reading, yes, Jane Austen of all things.

the man of our dreams! someone comments. Yes, yes, the rumors are true. 

Still, it helps his mood a bit. He goes to the local park, wanders around some. Buys a scone because it looks tasty. Eats it. Tasty! Does his exercises, and signs some t-shirts when a gaggle of teens find him, and walks back without his crutches. 

He also thinks a lot about Roy. If Roy’s wearing his scarf. If Roy’s still upset. If it’s gonna be awkward, next time they see each other. If Jamie should quit Richmond now, to spare them any future drama.

Keeley informs him on a coffee date that, in fact, Roy’s been very grumpy.

“Not his usual grumpy, mind you,” she clarifies, sipping her latte. “This is a unique grumpy. He’s not even yelling. It’s like.” She thinks, thinks a bit more, takes another sip. “It’s almost like he’s pouting, actually.”

Jamie laughs. “Got that from me,” he says, and doesn’t mean to sound so smug.

She raises an eyebrow, in a very Charlie-like gesture. “What happened, then?”

“We argued.”

“About?”

Harder to answer. Jamie tries anyway. “About whether he likes me or not,” he says after a moment.

The other eyebrow joins the first. “Come again?”

“Not like like,” he says, like they’re in middle school. “Just good, normal like. Like, are we friends type of like.”

“Jamie,” she says. “Of course you’re friends.” She narrows her eyes. “Does this have to do with why you asked me the same thing, like, the other day?”

“Kinda, I guess. I just.” He sighs, puts down his own latte. Hazelnut and cinnamon, yum. “I overheard you guys, that night we watched Mamma Mia . I think I might’ve got things, uh, a bit wrong, but it sounded like he was ready for me to leave, but didn’t know how to break it to me? I’d figured, ya know, that we were on the same page, but then it was like, whoops! Guess I was wrong, and then I felt like an asshole for staying so long, and, like, poor Roy, looking after me, minding me moods, all this shit, and -”

Keeley puts her mug down, slow slow slow. Takes a careful breath in, and exhales just as slowly. “I need to pay on one of your payrolls, effective immediately,” she says.

“I don’t have a payroll?”

“Babes, listen, I.” She looks around like she’s scared she’ll get caught, then leans a bit closer over the table and continues in a half-whisper. “I’ve been, I dunno, double dipping, I guess?”

What the fuck does that mean? He takes a stab in the dark. “You two have been fucking again?”

She coughs, loud, and then laughs. “No, Jesus no. No, I mean.” She moves a bit in her chair, shifts her weight. “Ya know how I’ve been consulting you, like, with your Roy problems?”

“Ok, I wouldn’t call it consulting -”

“Well I’ve been consulting him too.” She widens her eyes way too much, leans in. “With his Jamie problems.”

His heart sinks. “So I was right! He does have issues with me! Fuck, he should’ve just said, I wouldn’t have -”

“ No , Jamie, his Jamie problems are the same as your Roy problems .”

Eh?

“Ok, sorry, maybe it’s the recent surgery thing, but I’m really not getting what you’re -”

“He likes you, Jamie!” And then, since, yes, apparently they are middle schoolers, “ Like likes you.”

Oh. Oh . Wait, huh?

“Excuse me?”

She rushes forward, suddenly scared-sounding, like she’s made a miscalculation in telling him. “I mean, it’s his place to tell you ‘n such, I told myself it was my little secret, yeah, and I haven’t told him shit about how you feel, ok, because that’s a breach of trust, and I get I’m also currently breaching his trust so you have no reason to believe me but believe me , he’s, shit. Jamie, the way he talks about you.”

His heart has gone eerily still in his chest. He thinks this is possibly what a heart attack feels like. It might be time to seek medical intervention.

“Are you -”

“If you ask me if I’m sure, Jamie, I swear to Christ above -”

“But - then why the fuck did we fight?”

“You tell me!”

“We - I mean, I guess it wasn’t even really fighting.” Jamie’s head is spinning. He doesn’t really think he believes her quite yet. He thinks he might be hallucinating, actually. Has this whole thing been an anesthesia-induced dream? Is he still under the knife, knee being slit to bone?

Still. Jamie tries to explain. “I, I asked why he did it all, and took care of me ‘n such, and said I’d heard you two talking, and him saying he didn’t know how to kick me out -”

“No,” Keeley says, firmly. “No, babes, you’re spinning webs.”

He swallows. Is he? 

“I told him he was sending you mixed fucking messages,” she says. “I told him it wasn’t fair to you or to him to be playing married without actually calling it what it was. I’d been letting it slide, but then he told me you’d been all panicky before surgery and he’d offer to share the bed -”

Yeah. That’d been nice. He misses that actually.

“ And ,” she says, glaring to keep his attention. Oh, right. “That’s where I told him he had to draw the fucking line. You can’t each be spooning the guy you’re fucking boning after and not say shit about it to each other. It’s ridiculous, Jamie, you know that.”

Yeah, maybe he does. 

“But I didn’t know!” he says. “I thought it was, like - platonic!”

Her eyes roll back into her skull. “Platonically cuddling the guy you’ve had a crush on since we were dating? While he platonically cuddles the guy he invited to fucking live with him ?”

Ok, well, yeah, when you put it that way. 

“ Anyway ,” she continues, on fire now, “I told him he either needed to come clean or cut the shit out. I didn’t want you to get confused, or him to get confused, or for there to be any confusion,” she says, with a look that says like we’re dealing with now . “And he was all well, Keeley, I can’t come clean because I’m tough Roy Kent and I can’t admit my feelings, and I also can’t kick him out because he’s just had surgery, looks like I have no choice! My hands are tied! ” She flicks a stray hair back into place. “To which I said he lacked any and all balls, and if he wanted to be your boyfriend without actually telling you that’s what he was being, then he was more emotionally obtuse than I thought.”

She finishes with a flair of her wrist and a huff, scooting back to the base of her chair, crossing her arms over her chest. It’s, well, it’s a lot to process. Jamie feels bad that Roy had to process it alone, actually, while he thought Jamie was snoozing in his living room.

“But,” Jamie says, like it’ll earn Roy some brownie points with her, “to be fair, I was playing boyfriend too, I guess.”

She frowns, and her switch from angry to compassionate is a very Keeley maneuver; she’s fast to cycle through her emotions, faster because she means all of them, wholeheartedly. He thinks it’s why they’ve always gotten along, even when they didn’t, really: he’s never had reason to question her sincerity, it was obvious in everything she did. How had he forgotten that, earlier?

“I know you were,” she says, and puts that small hand on his forearm. “But you’re Jamie . It’s harder for me to be mad at you for it.”

Safety by favoritism, yet again. He’ll fucking take it, actually.

She backs off a bit, seems to realize how impassioned she was and looks around, again, to make sure no one’s been listening. Everyone else is minding their own business, sipping their drinks. She sits a bit straighter, sips hers too, acts like nothing’s happened.

“Anyway,” she says, “I didn’t actually mean to say all of that. But, since I did.” She shrugs, swirls the dregs of her latte. “I hope it informs your next move.”

“What next move?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “But I intend to hear all about it.”

God, but it’s a bit on the bleak side. If he’d known this a week ago, they could’ve avoided the fucking mess altogether. Now, he’s gone and pissed Roy off, backed him into a corner, asserted, actually, that Roy doesn’t give a shit about him, despite all the ways he’d shown that that was resolutely untrue. Roy’s a man of action; Jamie knows this, and should’ve assumed it extended into how he expresses care too. But Jamie thinks he himself might be a man of words: he needs it verbalized, in writing, preferably, and uninterpretable.

A miscommunication. All that fucking strife, boiled down to a miscommunication. Fuck Jamie’s fucked assertions about people and their fucking intentions. Shows how much he knows.

“Anyway,” Keeley says, “my love life’s going positively swimmingly .”

He can’t even be mad. He sits and listens, and stews about all the ways to make things better. If Roy still likes him, that is - if Roy still likes him, eek! - and wants to hear him out. And wants to see him again. And wants wants wants.

Jamie’s latte’s gone cold. He orders a lavender lemonade instead. 

.

Jamie stares at himself in the mirror that night. He looks haggard, but in the space of his bathroom, he lets himself grin, giddy and excited. Even if Roy’s turned the corner on his feelings about Jamie, even if he hates him now, at some point , according to his most reliable of sources, Roy had liked him too. Had liked Jamie , despite Jamie being positively atrocious . It’s deliciously exciting information, and he turns it over and over in his hands and grins and laughs and kicks his legs like a teenage girl until his knee starts to twinge. He finishes Emma the book, and then watches Emma the movie, and grins so big he feels it in his cheeks as Mr. Knightley confesses, stark and honest.

If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more, he says. Jamie’s heart thump thump thumps well into the night.

.

It’s been three weeks, nearing on a month now, since surgery.

Jamie’s walking, crutch-free! Hey! Jamie’s up and about, and while he can’t drive yet - sad - he can do tons of other things. Nothing that involves, like, too much knee bending, but still. More than he could do before, anyways. He’s almost finished with his frozen gift meals, but that’s fine. He’s been cooking more often. He’s been incorporating very, very light stretch-type workouts into his routine alongside his normal PT stretches. He’s been reading. He’s been hanging out with the boys. He’s been journaling, oh has he been journaling. Keeley’s little info dump had earned a particularly long entry, and every one since then has circled pathetically back to the topic of Roy, and Roy - ha! - liking him back, and Jamie - awkward - not knowing what to do about it.

He thinks he’s a pretty smooth guy. Picking people up has never been an issue. But picking people up is different from picking up prickly, maybe-still-mad-at-him Roy Kent. That’s it’s own fucking beast of a thing.

Ted calls, and Jamie tells him , which is a factually insane thing to do. It just sorta slips out. Ted asks how he’s doing, and Jamie says, “I think I’m in love with Roy.”

He hears Ted spit something out of his mouth over the phone and winces. Whoops. Sorry!

“I - you - can you run that by me one more time, Jamie? I think I mighta -”

“Me. Roy. It’s a thing, Coach.”

“Jesus Mary Joseph, kid, you don’t do things by halves, do you?”

Whatever that means.

“Anyway, he doesn’t know I know, and, really, he might not like me anymore even, but Keeley said - actually, it’s a whole thing, you don’t want me getting into it.”

“Oh,” Ted says, deadly serious, “I most definitely do.”

So, Jamie kinda tells Ted everything. Staying with Roy. The cooking. The notebook. The working on himself. The argument. All of it. Ted hums and haws, has the appropriate reactions, whispers a few very American-approved phrases here and there - “Y’all really went the whole nine yards with it, huh,” he says, sure, ok - and is generally a very good listener. It’s Ted. Of course he is.

“Anyway,” Jamie finishes, “sorry for dumping it all on you.”

“Need you recall, I asked for more than the Sparknotes.” He huffs. “Jamie, son, I’m gonna tell it to you straight. This is a lot.”

“I know, I know, Ted, but.” He feels like a kid again, presses his eyes into his forearm like not being able to see will make it somehow better. “I really like him.”

Ted sighs. “God help me when Henry starts having girlfriends. Boyfriends. Any type of other-than-normal-friends friends. Look, I don’t know about the logistics of it all, but, I mean. On the field of love, I’m usually in support of the trump card.”

“What’s that?”

“Trump card? Well, in poker and the likes, it’s the best card in your hand, that can -”

“No, like, I know what a trump card is. What’s the trump card on the,” this sentence doesn’t even make sense, “field of love?”

Ted says, “Shooting your shot, I think. Sometimes there’s harm in being honest, saying what you gotta say, but if you don’t do it, you’re just sitting in that what-if, and, lemme tell you. Not much worse than the what-if.”

He’d expected more damage control, reminders that Roy’s still his coach, that this is still tied to his job. The lot of them have never been good at the work-life separation thing though. Maybe it was always bound to pan out this way.

“So, what, I go tell him?”

“Go throw pebbles at his window, see how it goes.” Ted laughs. “I don’t know, son, I’m hardly the master romancer. What’d Keeley say?”

“To figure my shit out, basically.”

“Hm. Looks like this one’s on you then, Jamie.” He laughs again, like this whole thing is very amusing. It probably is, to anyone other than Jamie, and possibly Roy. “Shoot ‘em dead, kid.”

He remembers the same words, scribbled on the cover of Roy’s copy of Wrinkle in Time . He wants a Ted-hug. Instead, he thanks him, and makes him promise to come visit soon, and hangs up.

The conversation with Ted, though, it leaves him with a weird sense of clarity. Ted’s got a knack for that kinda thing. He realizes he doesn’t care if Roy rejects him, or yells at him, or tells him he’s misread this whole thing. He’s gotta do something . There’s still months before he can even possibly play. At the very least, it’ll give him some drama to chew on for the time being.

He decides to start slow. He’ll, just, slowly reintegrate himself into Roy’s life. Decide where to go from there. Yeah. Keep it simple.

The next game, he gets Keeley to bring him to the club. He’s healed up enough to start showing his support again. It’s a home game, too, so as soon as he walks out onto the pitch - Nate had given him the go ahead, ok, he’s not totally insane - the crowd erupts. The fans’ Jamie Tartt song echoes across the stands, and Jamie tries not to smile too hard as he walks sidelines - without crutches! - to take his long-awaited spot on the bench.

Roy watches him the whole way down. His arms are bars across his chest. He notices Jamie noticing him noticing Jamie and looks dutifully away.

Nice try, Roy Boy.

“Coaches,” Jamie says once he gets there, nodding to Nate, to Beard, who both smile. Beard looks genuinely happy to see him, but the look he shoots at Roy is a bit more puzzling. Hm. He’s gotta talk to Beard about this, one day. He thinks it’d be an informative sort of conversation. 

“Good to have you back, Jamie,” Nate says, clapping him on the shoulder. His gray is grayer, but it looks good on him. Beard gives him a handshake, all professional like, and come on, Roy, there’s people watching . Someone’s gonna spread rumors that there’s a rift between them if Roy doesn’t buck up and -

Roy turns to face him, uncertain and stiff. He mimics Beard’s move, an outstretched handshake.

Jamie rolls his eyes. Really? Roy sees this and reddens, and when Jamie grabs his hand, shakes it twice, Roy surprises him, pulling him in for a hug.

Now that’s more like it! Jamie’s whole body melts. He’s maybe kinda sorta been waiting for this for a short, miserable eternity. 

It’s not like the locker room, or any of the other hugs they’ve had: it’s a bit brisker, more professional under the watchful eye of the entire Richmond stadium. But Roy says, gruff against Jamie’s ear, “Are we good?”

Jamie snorts. Boy, does he have a big storm coming. 

“We’re good,” Jamie says. Roy releases him, smiles a bit uncertain, and helps Jamie sit down at the bench. The fans are still singing the song. Jamie Tart doo doo do do do do. The match starts. The boys win. It’s a good Sunday.

.

Then, he texts Roy. 

i’m coming in for PT today, pick me up on your way?

There’s a million people Jamie could ask, and Roy must know this too, but he doesn’t call him on it.

Ok. 

Boring. Jamie sends an emoji that Roy doesn’t respond to. Boring .

But as promised, Roy is there at a crisp 7:45. 

“Goodmorning!” Jamie says, walking out to meet him.

Roy grunts.

“Not for you?” Jamie says.

“My morning’s fine,” Roy says.

“Sure, I’m convinced.”

Roy glares. 

“Anyway, did you know Keeley and Charlie are dating?”

Roy does know, actually. “Yeah,” he says, as Jamie slides in without help . “We had lunch the other day.”

“The three of you?” Jamie asks, feeling frankly left out. Roy gives him a look, reading his thoughts again. It’s nice. Jamie missed Roy rifling around in his brain.

“No, idiot, just me and Keeley. She told me all about it.”

“Oh,” Jamie says. Ok. Stick the landing. “We should all go get dinner sometime.”

“Sure, whatever.”

“Like, all four of us.”

Roy three-point-turns out of his driveway. “Yeah, I heard you, Jamie.”

“Like, a double date kinda thing.”

The car jerks a bit. Roy glances over, looking vaguely accosted. Jamie smiles at him.

“What?” he asks. Roy narrows his eyes in open suspicion.

“Nothing,” he decides eventually. He opens his mouth, closes it again. “Actually,” he says, seeming to change his mind. “I do have something to say.”

“Cool. Happy to listen.”

“I’m sorry for yelling at you, earlier. Forever ago. Not forever, but, you know when I’m talking about.”

Oh, wow. He’d planned to have this conversation at least a week or so into buttering Roy up again. He hadn’t expected Roy to beat him to it, so soon too.

Alright, well, he can roll with this.

“Sure,” he says. Dumbly. He didn't see it coming, ok?

“I already feel like a giant asshole most of the time, and I’ve.” He huffs, looks straight ahead. Such a studious driver, even when in emotional distress. “I’ve been working on it, not thinking everyone secretly thinks I’m the biggest walking dickhead in the world.”

As Jamie suspected.

“I didn’t hear you out. I just got mad, which, yeah, I’m tryna work on that too.” He huffs out a breath, winded, like he’s just run a marathon. An emotional marathon, in fact. Jamie’s willing to cut him some slack, anyway. “Point is, I didn’t mean to get upset. I wanted to apologize.”

“Ok,” Jamie says.

“Ok?”

“Yeah, ok. While we’re on that topic,” he says, scooting a bit closer. Roy shoots him another suspicious glance. “I’m sorry too. For not explaining meself well, I guess, or whatever. I didn’t wanna fight either. And, I may also, you know.” He scratches at the back of his head. “Have some weird insecurities laying around here and then.”

Roy raises an eyebrow.

“Not many, obviously,” Jamie powers on. “I have, like, no reason to be insecure about shit, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

“But I think, uh.” Come on Jamie! You can do it! “I think I sometimes think everyone secretly hates me,” he says, and it comes out all breathless and rushed. “Because I think everyone used to secretly hate me, or at least, not like me very much. And I know that’s mostly my fault, and maybe my dad’s, I don’t know, but there it is.” 

He feels bad for judging Roy’s winded, emotional-marathon breathing from before, because he’s definitely doing the same exact thing. His face feels hot. “Anyways, ya know, I didn’t mean it to be about you.”

“Ok,” Roy says.

“Ok? That’s it? I -” Jamie starts, then realizes Roy’s just teasing him, doing the same thing Jamie’d just done to him. The audacity. 

“I see how it is,” Jamie says, looking away, but maybe just to hide how secretly relieved he is. Then, because he’s genuinely impressed, “Wow. We’re proper good at emoting now, huh?”

Roy snorts. “Only took us three fucking years. Give or take.”

“Give or take,” Jamie echoes, and when he glances over, Roy’s smiling too.

So, they’re mostly back in each other’s good graces, then. See! Fickle and dramatic, the both of them. In a week’s time, the routine’s been rebuilt: Jamie comes into the club probably half of the time to do PT there, gossipping with Charlie, gossipping with the boys, gossipping with Higgins and Rebecca and Will and Nate and Beard and Roy and all of them. He likes bugging people, he decides, when he can tell they’re not actually bugged. He’s assured, maybe for the first time ever, that everyone at the club, at least, likes Jamie Tartt for Jamie. It’s just an added bonus that he’s mad fit and incredible at football.

Well, was incredible at football, anyways. There will be time for that later, though, Charlie assures him. They’re making great progress. The brace will come off next week.

Jamie finishes Dune , then finishes The Hobbit . He still likes Jane Austen best. Sam goes with him to the bookstore again, and Jamie grabs Sense and Sensibility and Persuasion and, for good measure, the first book in The Hunger Games series. He’s gotta diversify, right? Sam laughs at this trio.

“You like women authors, don’t you?”

Jamie shrugs. “What can I say, mate. I’m a feminist.”

Sam shakes his head, but he’s laughing as he pulls Jamie into an abrupt half-hug.

The next game is a tie. Roy’s frustrated. Jamie suggests they go eat at Bilal’s place. Roy agrees.

Bilal is happy to see them. Well, Jamie thinks he’s happier to see Jamie, personally, but who’s keeping count? (He is.) They get free kheer as dessert, the rice pudding rich and sweet, and Bilal attempts, again, to get them drunk. He half-succeeds with Jamie, who doesn’t mind exploring his relationship with alcohol when Roy’s there to keep him in check.

Two glasses in, and Roy says, “You’re a lightweight.”

Jamie hiccups. “I don’t really drink.”

“Footballer diet doesn’t exactly apply to you at the moment,” Roy points out. “You can if you want.”

“Nah, it’s more me -” He hiccups again, dammit. “Me dad. He always got pushy when he was drunk. I never wanted t’figure out if I’d be the same.”

Roy stiffens the way he does anytime Jamie brings up his dad. “Ok,” he says after a long moment, and Jamie doesn’t need him to have an answer, really. He just felt like saying it. It’s the truth, anyway. He’s sick of half-truthing with Roy. 

Either way, he doesn’t have any more wine after that. They think he’ll be able to drive in a week or two, but for now, Roy’s still his official chauffeur. Jamie almost pushes the point: Can’t I just stay at your place for the night?

Nope. He’s gotta time this thing right. He can’t be an ass about it. 

Roy drops him off, but doesn’t just drop him off. Roy walks him in, and Jamie realizes for all the times Roy’s picked him up, he hasn’t been inside Jamie’s place since the cursed ragu night. 

Roy steps in, and performs his analysis. Jamie stands and watches as Roy's eyes find the art Jamie’s bought, the new plants he’s been struggling to take care of, the photos he’s put up: of the team, of Jamie’s mom and Simon, a postcard Ted sent him from the Grand Canyon, a good luck letter from Sam when Jamie played in the international break, before Sam knew he’d chosen his jersey number. Jamie remembers when Roy had come in months ago and Jamie’d been ashamed to see his space the way he realized Roy must see it: empty and dirty and unloved. Like it was a strange, dizzying reflection of Jamie somehow.

Jamie looks around his house, and feels a little burst of pride. It’s his house! It’s nice it finally looks like it, too, pieces of Jamie evident everywhere, from the half-finished scarf to the nearly-finished candle. Don’t worry, he’s got a stockpile of them in the entryway drawers.

Roy turns to Jamie. He’s got a soft, happy look on his face, a little watery around his eyes. Pride, Jamie realizes. He’s proud of Jamie. Roy’s proud of Jamie.

Ha. What neutral knowledge that doesn’t make Jamie weak in the knees.

“It looks great in here,” Roy says. His voice is wobbly.

“Ew,” Jamie says, “Don’t cry, mate. That’s embarrassing.”

“It’s not -”

“No, not for you, for me . Was it really that bad before?”

“Yes, Jamie,” Roy says, sniffles. Oh boy, this is horrible. “It was - Jamie, I.” He sniffles some more. Actually, wait. All at once, the entire day looks up. It might be that Jamie still feels a bit fuzzy at the edges, but he thinks he senses a Roy Kent Hug coming on. 

“Go ahead,” Jamie says, waves his hands. “Get it over with. I was helpless before, and oh, so sad, living in me own, decrepit little pit of -”

“You weren’t helpless,” Roy corrects. He actually might cry. His hand reaches up, rubs at his eyes. He looks deeply, unnervingly relieved. “But, Jamie, to see it from the outside. You.” He rubs harder at his eyes. “You really weren’t doing well for a second there. It was. Worrying,” he says, and Jamie thinks he might be understating the whole thing. 

It almost feels too long ago to remember the full extent of now. It hadn’t felt such a big deal at the time, but maybe that’s because Jamie’d been the one waist-deep in it. Hard to see how desperate your situation is when you’re the drowning man, easier when you’re the guy throwing the little rescue tube thing. 

Nice metaphor! In which Jamie’s the drowning man, obviously, and Roy’s the obnoxiously attractive lifeguard. It seems like a story Jane Austen would write about, if they had lifeguards back in her day. Did they? Jamie’s not sure. 

Jamie says, “I think I’m doing better now,” because it’s true. He looks around. He looks at his kitchen. He looks at his living room. He looks at his knee, at the line of his scar, so small for all the fucking hell it caused, and then he looks at Roy.

“And I’m the one who’s been drinking,” Jamie tuts, and Roy laughs even as his face folds. “Who’s the idiot now?” he says as he opens his arms, and in a weird role reversal, he’s the one that pulls Roy in.

Still, it quickly becomes what it always is: Jamie surprised by how desperately he anchors onto Roy, and Roy, steady and solid despite the fact that Jamie’s the one comforting him , really! Roy sniffles, which makes Jamie sniffle.

“Don’t cry!” he tells Roy, even as he himself starts crying.

“I’m not!” Roy lies.

“‘s not funny!”

“I know, I told you, I’m not -”

“I can hear you, Roy! You definitely are! ”

“Well, I hear you too, asshole!”

So, they stand there crying for a bit. Jamie’s certainly not drunk, but he’s certainly not sober enough to handle this with his careful-gloves on either. Instead, when Roy goes to pull away, he insists, short and breathy, “Wait a sec.”

Roy, as always, obliges. Jamie pushes his face as hard as he can into that space, his favorite space, between Roy’s neck and his shoulder. That Jamie-sized nook he loves so much. He presses into it and inhales, loud and deep and unashamed. Roy smells like Roy. His cologne, his body wash, his cheap, embarrassingly off-brand lotion, the pitch, the locker room, the restaurant, Roy .

God, but Jamie’s really, quite far gone.

Roy laughs, pitched in a funny place. “Jesus, Jamie,” he says. “Fuck is this?”

“What? I’m not allowed to smell things now?”

“You’re not smelling things, moron, you’re smelling me.”

“So what?” Then, he pulls back, just a second, to glare at Roy with his whole fucking chest. “You gonna stop me?”

Roy says nothing, so, clearly not. Jamie presses his face there one more time, inhales again, because it calms him down, ok? He doesn’t have to explain his every fucking move, Jesus people.

When he pulls back again, lets go of Roy, Roy’s face is dusted pink and a little strangled, but he looks pleased too. Jamie thinks he hasn’t been imagining it this whole time after all: that look in Roy’s eyes is fond, and this time when the unnameable expression creeps into the twitch of his lips and the width of his eyes, Jamie can read it for what it is.

Oh , he thinks. I think he likes me too.

Somewhere, Keeley’s banging her head against a wall.

“I gotta go,” Roy blurts. He’s predictable in how lame he is.

“Course you do,” Jamie says, angles an irritated little look at him. Now Jamie has to sleep alone! The torture! Roy laughs, then looks surprised with himself.

“Fucking hell,” he says. “See you Monday?”

“Duh.”

“Sleep well.”

“I’ll try .”

Roy’s gone, quick as lightning. Jamie takes a long shower, and smiles through the whole thing.

.

He tells Colin, and Sam, and Dani, and Isaac. He hasn’t told anyone else yet - save Ted - because he knows it might be vaguely world-ending information for some of his teammates. But, the four of them already know, and he’s gotta spill to someone , please.

Isaac buries his face in his hands. “He cried ?”

“Sure did.”

“He’s right, though,” Sam says. “It was a scary time, for all of us.”

“It wasn’t that bad.”

All four of them give him a joint, eerily identical Look. “Ok, geez, it was that bad. Sorry, everyone.”

“Don’t apologize,” Dani says. “You were wounded.”

“I’m still wounded.”

“You were more wounded.”

“Ok, sure.”

“I’m glad you two at least made up, even if you’re not fucking yet,” Colin says. Isaac splutters, reddening. Colin ignores him. “It’s more fun when Coach Kent doesn’t have the stick shoved all the way up his ass, anyways.”

Jamie nods. It’s a fair point. “Whatever I can do for my teammates,” he grins. Sam smirks.

Jamie cooks them all dinner. Not ragu, please. Just a simple cream-based pasta with chicken. They scarf it down. It’s satisfying. Jamie’s satisfied.

“Hey,” Isaac jokes, “if your knee doesn’t work out, you can always go work at Sam’s restaurant!” 

Sam glares a quick warning, but Jamie just laughs. It feels better to laugh at it then to stay so miserably scared of it.

“I’d make that look good ,” he says. Dani claps his shoulder.

“ Sí, that’s right!”

Colin laughs. 

Anyway, Roy’s apparently been walking around the club with the sun shining out his ass, or something, the way the boys talk about it. Jamie spies on him a bit to find out, sneaking around the club, watching training through the window. Roy looks mostly the same, but a bit more at ease. His beard’s trimmed nicely, not clean shaven by any means, but less grizzly than it was for a second there. He stands with his shoulders back. He yells orders, but he compliments the boys when they’re deserving of it. He laughs at something Beard says, and pats Nate on the shoulder when Nate laughs too. 

Jamie grins.

He waltzes out, greets Roy with a hand at the small of his back.

“Sup, Coaches.”

“Hello, Jamie!” Nate says.

“To what do we owe the pleasure?” Beard says. Roy’s busy watching him, eyes tracking down to Jamie’s hand, which he lets linger for a sec.

“Just came to breathe the fresh air, see how me boys are doing.”

“You can stick around for the rest of training,” Roy blurts. Reddens. “If you want. Long as you don’t get yourself hit by a ball or something stupid.”

Jamie mimes running out onto the pitch, just to watch the murderous look that instantly takes its rightful place on Roy’s face.

“Gotcha,” Jamie says, then stretches his hands in the air. “Nah, no running from me yet. I’ll sit and watch, if it’s all the same with you.”

“Knock yourself out.”

“Oh, I plan to.”

“Fuck does that even mean?”

“ You’re the one who told me to do it!”

“Whatever.” Roy’s cheeks burn in the cold, late morning sun. “I’m trying to conduct some drills right now, actually, if you’d consider just watching fucking quietly .”

Jamie hums, props himself up on the gatorade tank, even as Will pulls up a chair for him. “I’ll consider it,” he says, then thanks Will and sits down.

Beard and Nate exchange a glance. Beard mimes gagging, and Nate laughs into his open hand. Interesting, and as Jamie had predicted. Roy turns to them, but their faces slip into perfect innocence before he can make a fuss about anything.

“Whistle! Whistle!” Roy yells, stomping away. Jamie smiles as he watches him. This is fun, he decides. He’ll do this more often.

He joins Roy for lunch the next day. Normally he sits with the boys, but he’s enjoying bugging Roy instead. He asks Roy about his day, about his breakfast, about morning training, about Phoebe, about his nurse sister, about his plans for the holidays. Roy answers until he’s red in the face.

“What’s the interrogation for?” he growls.

“Nothing,” Jamie says, wearing his most innocent-est of expressions. “I’m just curious.”

“About my holiday plans ?”

“About you, generally.”

Roy glares. “God, you’re a fucking nuisance.”

“Takes one to know one.”

“Don’t you have someone else to go bother?”

Jamie puts a hand on his chest, mock-offended. “No, Roy, of course not! I save that all for you!”

“Go fucking figure,” Roy mumbles under his breath, but Jamie knows real angry Roy from the bristly sort of Roy that is the result of, well, many different things, actually. When he’s embarrassed. When he’s overwhelmed. When he’s too happy. When someone calls him on his bullshit. When Jamie riles him up, because they both know he secretly enjoys it. 

Good news! Jamie secretly enjoys it too, although he might not be nearly as secret about it. 

The next two weeks progress like that. More complicated movements, light jogging - yes, it’s true! - and worming his way as viciously under Roy’s skin as he possibly can. He’s mostly certain Roy feels how he thinks he feels; it’s easier to tell, now that he’s looking for it, now that he knows Roy doesn’t actually hate him. It’s nice, knowing the people in your life aren’t all quietly against you, waiting for the moment to sink the knife in. It’s refreshing, actually. He thinks Dr. Sharon would like this update. He considers calling her, then writes it on his extensive to-do list when he gets home.

The point is, it’s, like, two months out from surgery, Jamie can drive, jog, and self-actualize, and they’re discussing what the next phase of rehab will look like when Keeley knock knocks on the door and lets herself in.

“Charlie! Jamie! My two favorite people!”

“Ouch,” Jamie says, grins, “don’t tell Roy.”

She winks.

“I’m at work,” Charlie says, like she minds, which she clearly doesn’t. Keeley walks up, puts a pink-manicured hand on her shoulder and a pink-lipsticked kiss on her cheek. Charlie flushes, but she smiles, open and happy.

Cute.

“I know,” Keeley says. “And you’re so cute when you’re all focused and medical! Really!”

Charlie rolls her eyes. She looks at Jamie like see? This is what I’m working with .

Jamie looks at her like you think I don’t know?

She shrugs. Fair.

“Actually,” Keeley says, “I’m here for Jamie.”

“Oh?” Jamie says. They’ve been focusing a lot on rebuilding up his leg strength recently: squats, step ups, hamstring curls, line jumps. He feels good. He feels pretty great, actually.

“Yes, oh, wow, Jamie, you really are making progress!” she says. She watches him for a second, then mimics his low squat. “Oi,” she says, “this is mad inappropriate to do in a skirt. Like, I feel the breeze inside me.”

Charlie wrinkles her nose. Jamie laughs. “Keeley, god,” he says. She grins, and straightens out with a little brush of her skirt.

“Anyway, me and Charlie have been talking , and we want to do a formal double date.”

“With?”

“You and Roy.”

He flushes, looks at Charlie, who looks at him. “Oh, uh, we’re not dating,” he says, and sounds dumb even to himself.

“Not yet ,” Keeley says, at the same time that Charlie says, “Look, Jamie, if you wanted privacy about this, then peacocking around the club was not the way to get it.”

He blinks. Huh? “Keeley told you or summat?” he asks.

“No, Jamie, I used my fucking eyes and an ounce of common sense. You’re not exactly subtle, and god knows Roy isn’t.”

“Right?” Keeley complains. “If I have to watch them do the whole eyeball-undressing thing to each other one more time -”

“Ok, ok, I get it,” Jamie interrupts. He feels very much caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Ok, so, does everyone know then? Hm. He’ll worry about that later.

“Point is,” Keeley continues, “I want us to all hang out! So you guys can, like, see us as Keeley-and-Charlie and not just,” she makes a karate chop motion into her own hand, to signify something , Jamie’s not sure, “Keeley and Charlie. You know?”

“Sure,” Jamie says. He doesn’t need an excuse to hang out with them. “Where do you wanna go?”

“Your pick?” she wagers. “Please, I’ve got, like, major executive dysfunction right now, don’t make me decide.”

He frowns. “Isn’t that when your penis don’t work?”

Charlie presses her head to the mat of the floor. “Erectile dysfunction, Jamie.”

Keeley nods. “Yeah, babes, different can of worms.”

“Right.” He thinks, decides immediately. “There’s this place we like, actually.” He winces at their double eyebrow raise. He wishes, abruptly, that the two of them had never met. “Well, that Roy likes, and he showed me, uh, once or twice.”

“Uh huh,” Charlie says, unconvinced. “They have veggie options?” 

“Charlie’s a vegetarian,” Keeley says, like Jamie doesn’t already know this.

Jamie says, “I know.” She grins. “Yeah, they do,” he directs at Charlie. “You like Pakistani food?”

Charlie shrugs. “Never had it.”

“All the more reason!” Keeley says, immediately sold on the idea of a new experience. “Perfect, let’s do it! Saturday? Post-game?”

“Is me schedule clear then, doc?” he asks Charlie.

“Yes, Jamie,” she says, flatly.

“Saturday it is!”

Keeley says, “It’s your job to tell Roy.”

“Great. I’ll let him down easy.”

She smirks. “Had a feeling you would.” 

.

Roy’s reaction is expected.

“Why do they keep insisting on calling it a double date ?” he complains.

“Dunno,” Jamie says, more focused on his book. He’d brought it to the club, as entertainment for when he’s not doing PT, snooping around, spying on Roy, or bothering people.

See! Booked and busy, he is. 

Roy grumbles some more, clicking through something at his computer. Jamie’s at the chair opposite of him, legs crossed, sparing him the occasional glance. Roy huffs. Huffs a bit louder.  

Jamie sighs, half-closes his book, “Why do you think they keep calling it a double date?”

Roy keeps grumbling, punching the keys of his keyboard with unprecedented force. 

“Hope you don't mind,” Jamie says, “I suggested Bilal’s place.”

Grumble grumble grumble.

“Pardon?” Jamie asks. He's really so civil in comparison.

“I said I don’t mind.”

“Great.” He reads some more, let's Roy stew and pout and generally make a show of it. “ I for one am excited,” he says after a while.

“Oi, you think I’m not?”

Jamie makes a face that successfully conveys look at yourself, mate.

Roy glares.

Anyway, Jamie calls and makes the reservation. It’s Bilal who picks up, and they chat for a bit. Roy watches over his computer monitor. If looks could kill, Jamie’d be on his ninth life by now.

“Is Bilal married?” Jamie asks after hanging up.

“Why do you want to know the marital status of all my people ?”

Jamie blinks. “Why? Have I asked before?”

“Yeah, 'bout Matilda.”

Oh, that's right. “Hey, you never answered me!”

Roy rolls his eyes. “Matilda’s got a husband, pretty great guy, and Bilal’s got a late wife.”

Jamie pauses. “Late, like, she never shows up for work, or -”

“Late as in dead, Jamie, fucking hell .”

“Well, I don't know! And I don't wanna assume things about -”

“Yeah, ‘cause you're not the type to misinterpret shit, clearly .” 

A low blow. Jamie feels abruptly like he thinks Roy must feel as he says it: “You’re just saying shit to piss me off now.”

Roy makes a face. “Not so fun on the other side of it, is it?”

Jamie considers. “Actually, ‘s kinda entertaining. You can go on, if you want.”

He picks his book back up, keeps reading. Roy grumbles all the way out of his office. Nate peaks his head in a bit later.

“You’re psychotic,” he whispers.

“Thanks!”

.

Roy offers to pick him up from his place, drive the both of them there, even though yes, Jamie can operate motor vehicles again. It's a morning game, so there should be plenty of time to get ready afterwards.

“Get ready?” Roy says. “It’s Bilal’s, no one’s going, like, black tie are they?”

Jamie decides to put the fear of god in him: “I dunno, Roy. But I’m not going to let Keeley down by looking a mess.”

Roy pales. Put Keeley’s emotional well-being on the line, and they're both bound to cave.

It’s the beginning of December, and it’s coming in a cold one. The Friday of that week is the first snow of the season, and it stretches into the Saturday morning, too. Feels like a good luck omen.

As they get ready to huddle, Jan Maas hits them with a frank and sudden, “ De engeltjes schudden hun kussens uit .”

He likes this sometimes, just dropping Dutch on them with no pretense. It’s a coin’s toss whether he explains what he’s just said.

Bumbercatch, jersey-half over his head, makes an appreciative nod. “Dutch is badass .”

Jan Maas smiles. “It is a common saying in my country, about the snow. You wouldn't know it, because none of you are Dutch.”

“As you love to remind us,” Richard glowers. “What's it mean, then?”

Jan Maas’ smile softens in a quiet, nostalgic sort of way. “The angels are fluffing their pillows.”

It feels to Jamie a beautiful way to describe it, the first snow. He pulls out his journal. Journaling at work is fun because he gets to see who tries to read over his shoulder, and sometimes he pretends to be speaking his words aloud while he writes, saying things like “Isaac looks mad fit today, god, I’m so lucky to have such sexy teammates” until they all snort and call bullshit. He pulls out the journal, and writes the phrase down to remember later. In English, anyways. He's not attempting the Dutch. Please.

Point is, he's in a good mood. It's snowy, cold and sharp in his lungs, and he walks out with the boys after Isaac calls a fourteen-second countdown. Same as last time, the stadium rings with Jamie Tartt doo doo do do do do , a battle cry as Jamie takes his victory walk to - whomp whomp - the bench. Whatever. It’s not so bad, but he’s really ready for the PT to inch its way closer to “yes, Jamie, you can play this season, we’re so proud of you for being so patient and wonderful and great!”

He dreams of it: pitch-smell in his lungs and wind in his ears, sprinting, passing, moving the pieces on the chess board, under his own fucking feet.

Instead, he watches. He’ll get there, alright? He's gotta let it breathe.

At halftime, they're tied 1-1. Roy gets ‘em all riled up with a slightly Ted-esque speech, if louder and more generally violent. Either way, they’re juiced for the second half. They head out chest-pounding and loud, Jamie half-jogging behind them until Roy catches him by the elbow, just before they leave the tunnel.

“Easy, asshole,” he says. “No running for you.”

“I can jog! I’ve been jogging!”

“What would Keeley say if you got hurt right before our double date ?”

Oh, playing the Keeley card. And the double date card! He’s ballsy, their Roy.

Jamie squints up at him. Not quite out of the tunnel, it's not like anyone would see them.

Still.

“Lame,” he says, instead of doing something much, much riskier.