Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Ken only has a great day if Barbie looks at him.”  ~Dame Helen Mirren

The head full of peroxide did sting a little—ok, a lot— but the team hair reveal is worth it. It’s the moment Jamie lives for.

He’s never a fan of speculation on how his train wreck personal life prompted the change, but oh well. That’ll come soon enough.

The roar in the dressing room is fire, with Montlaur starting it off. “Le blondissime!”

Dani is delighted. ”Jamie! I have had the bluest balls waiting for your new hair era!”

“I’m not sure you mean that, Dani, but spaff away, the wait is over.”

Moe nods in approval. “It’s about time someone made a bold statement to demand a Guy’s Kitchen in London.”

Issac lays a supportive arm around him. “You’re killing me, bruv, but ‘least I get to die side by side with an elf!”

“Yeah, yeah. What, no Blade Runner anyone?”

“I’m gonna refrain from the pop culture refs and be real,” Thierry shrugs. “It clashes with your warm skin tone, washes you out, and makes your once inviting features harsh.”    (Various mumbles rise with the gist of “Way to kill the vibe Van Damme.”)

“Eh? I’m a cool neutral! The walnut mist was the clashy one, that.”

“I like it, mate,” Jan Maas says, “just don’t make a Viking lineage claim like every other northern white dude, it’s all I ask.”

“Er, you’ve done that, Jan Maas?” Jamie chuckles.

“No I didn’t!”

“It was just last week!”

Beard waltzes in and everyone waits with baited breath for what he’s got. He stands before Jamie, holds up a finger. He’s buffering, buffering.  “Jamie…you’re Kenough.”

The boys groan. “Oh come on, the Barbie movie?” Jamie says. “I thought you’d have something way more niche than that, Coach.”

“Well, I was gonna go with silent era Jean Harlow, but you’ve got way too much eyebrow and you talk too much. And while that leaves us wide open for a Roy joke, everybody has more eyebrow than Jean Harlow. Every.Body.” He points at them all with wide eyes.

Still, Jamie is forever the opportunist.  “But you know, you lot, that plush Ken hoodie would be a great Christmas gift if anyone’s got their notes open, yeah? Where the fuck’s Roy, by the way?”

“He doesn’t know about the hair, Rocky Horror? I figured he was the mad scientist who dyed it for you,” Declan says. 

“That is very intimate,” Richard croons. “I could honestly cry from it. But I understand your preference for Roy’s shock and awe, Jamie. You need this like air. It fuels you.”

Jamie fiddles with his kit. “Does not.” 

The fidgeting intensifies as the time ticks by. One minute, two…

Finally, Roy walks right by and into his office with a curt “Morning” to everyone.

All the boys’ spirits sink, a hushed chorus of “Oblivious!” “How could he not notice?” “Is it already on Twitter?”  ”His arse was right clenched.” But no one looks more dejected than Jamie.

“Are you gonna take that shit?” Issac says.

Jamie shakes his head with a pouty lip and storms to Roy’s office, standing in the doorframe as his grumbly back is toward him.  “Ahem?”

Roy doesn’t turn around. 

“I eh. I heard blondes have more fun, so?”

Roy is still rearranging papers on his desk.

“Sooo…?” Jamie baits hard.

“I called you three times last night.” Roy’s head flicks back and when the sight of Jamie’s hair floods his periphery, a violent double take is what does him in. An audible crunch. He grabs his neck. “Ouuugh fucking cervicalfuck!!”

“Oh my God, Roy!” Jamie cringes, rushing to his side. “Somebody get the medic!” 

The only one Jamie confided in about his plan for his hair is Sam.  He takes out his “Blonde Jamie Bingo Card” and while “Guy Fieri joke” and “Obscure Beard response,” are X’d out, sadly there’s no “Roy injures himself” square.

Roy grits his teeth as they wait for the medic in his office. Nurse Jamie decides to be late for training today, as the team sadly waves to their fallen gaffer on the way to the pitch. 

Roy is growl-groaning like Jamie’s never heard before. “I can’t turn my head, I think it’s sprained.”

“You can’t sprain your head, Fart, just slowly ease your neck back, c’mon then.”

“Believe me, I’d love to not look at you if I could,” Roy grumbles, still frozen in his direction. “Just go to training.”

“Never. I’m needed here. Roy, you poor little dove, you really done it now.”

“I did? Your hair startled me, plain and simple. Kiefer Sutherland in The Lost Boys scared the shit out of me as a kid.”

“It’s just a movie. Don’t you like how it looks on me? I really thought you’d like it.”

Roy’s long lashes flutter open miserably.  “You look like my grandad’s dry yellow toothbrush that’s still by Mum’s sink.”

”Aw, Roy. I know that anything of his is special. Thank you!”

The physio’s verdict: yes, it’s badly sprained. Neck brace for a week. She continues her examination of Roy, stethoscope to his heart. “Deep breath there.” 

"You best be doing what she says, Cranky.”

Collared and in a world of pain, Roy opens his eyes and looks at Jamie’s stupid head. His stupid, radioactive Barbarella fucking head. A long breath is strangely helpful as his eyes dart up and down the golden, shimmering—

“Your pulse is very high,” the physio says.

“I’m very fucking agitated, please get the fuck out of here, Wish-Dot-Com Elsa!”

The physio gathers up her things as Roy rests in the medical room. “He’s a notorious pain medication refuser for his knee, so this must be bad. He was fully compliant.”

“Well,” Jamie observes, “a neck is like a knee for your face. Much worse.”

“I…suppose.”

When the physio leaves, Jamie slouches in the office with Beard, Issac and Colin. ”I can’t stand around like this, I gotta see him.”

“Haven’t, you, done enough?” Beard stares. “Nah, just kidding, go harass him.”

“Eh, where’s the lie tho, I should let him be. Can I tell you all something in confidence…?”

“Like as in non-disclosure or to tell us like a boss?” Issac asks.

Jamie sighs. “If only it were the latter. I just…I feel like something’s changed with Roy. For a while now. Since Amsterdam.”

“We kinda figured when you rolled up riding double on a bike in the same clothes from the night before,” Issac says.

“Oh, stop it, I told you, we just saw a windmill.”

“I, for one, always took it literally,” Beard says. “Roy moves very slowly with these matters. It took him forever to get with Keeley because he said he couldn’t get you out of his head.”

Jamie’s jaw cracks. “Wait what?”

“I think you’re taking that out of context, Coach,” Colin says.

Pacing, Jamie rakes his fingers through his hair, and it sticks up even more. “What other context is there? I swear he’s been on the verge of telling me something like that, but something’s been holding him back. Thought maybe it was me boring walnut hair.”

“Your…hair?” Colin squeaks. “Not the fact that he’s an insecure, repressed, middle-aged, clocked straight International figure and also your manager? Your hair.”

“Well? I thought about how all Roy’s relationships have been with blondes. Keeley, Amy Pohler, Kiera Knightley, the heroin chic bird who stole his watch…”

“Nah, what about Gina Gershon? Theory’s sunk.”

“Wrong-o, Macadoe,” Beard jumps in. “They dated in 2013 when she played Donatella Versace. He told her to keep the wig on. As did I.”

“Ohh, the lore!” Issac nods. “It’s settled then. Roy Kent only dates blondes. It explains why he got nicer and nicer to you as you got more highlights, Jamie.”

Colin groans and says something in Welsh with a lot of consonants.

Jamie’s face lights up. “Fuck, I seriously didn’t even think of that!”

They see Roy coming down the hall in his neck brace, but looking much less stiff, his arms loose at his sides. 

Beard’s eyes pop. “Hoh boy, he’s definitely on something good.”

Roy definitely is, his face locked in an uncharacteristic grin. His voice sounds completely normal, with no gruffness at all. “Rutger Haauer you doing, Tartt?”

Jamie wants to look into his gooey eyes, but they’re too much. Too fantastical. He looks away. “Good. And you look…grand.”

“I needs a ride home in a flying car from a cyberpunk,” Roy manages, half-lidded.

“Erm. Alright..” As they walk away, Beard gives him a thumbs up but Jamie slashes across his neck. “He’s goin’ straight to bed!” he whispers.

Beard looks at Issac and Colin delightedly with steepled hands. “Wow, he was definitely full of shit when he said he hates Blade Runner.“

Issac sighs. “Aye. Roy is batty for Roy Batty.”

Chapter Text

Fine. Roy has a thing for blondes. 

It probably started with Cybil Shepherd when he watched Moonlighting with Grandad. She was always in a soft lens that made Bruce Willis look frightfully ordinary. “You absolute berk, just fuck her already!” Grandad used to snap at the TV. 

And Grandad loved his Nan so much, his Blondie who put blurry Cybil to shame.  They were the inseparable example of how Roy believed things should be.

It really was something how much that loving, unhinged man had influenced his young mind.

And yes, the ideals written in Roy’s internal wiring were pretty rigid.

Mostly, with the exception of one Jamie F. Tartt—always in a starry filter no matter how hard Roy tried to focus.

He wanted him when his hair was brown and pointy, too. Slicked back and shiny. Longer, frosted, nutty.

And now, with Jamie being such a brilliant boy on the pitch, half way to a quadruple this season, the angelic golden hair is just enough to push Roy over the edge. 

The pain meds have him so daft, it’s hard for Jamie to drive. The Aston Martin swerves when Roy calls him a bombshell.

Well mint, but not real, he reminds himself. Roy could never be this free. 

He’s planked sideways in his seat, his neck brace looking like it could swallow his face. He’s in a jumbled world of strange feelings and blonde characters of media past, gazing at Jamie as he drives him to his penthouse in Mayfair. 

“I want to be blonde too,”  Roy grins in his new soft-spoken voice. “We can have a bleach off.”

“Roy, that would be mad. Your roots would grow in so fast, you’d look like a foamy dark lager by three o’clock.”

Roy giggles without a care in the world, completely defenseless. “Thirsty, are you?” He reaches for the nape of Jamie’s neck where the blonde begins, scritching innocently in a way that’s more dangerous to Jamie than road head.  

Jamie’s not certain if anyone's touched him there before, or if Roy has activated a fingerprint lock only tuned for him.  “Roy….”  It sounds more like Ro-hee. Closing his eyes would be really bad, but his lids feel wired to the touch. “Unh...I-I can’t get us in a smash when you’re already hurt.”

“The real smash is tonight at mine, Angel Face. I wanna destroy something beautiful.”

Jamie curses team movie nights.  “Ah, ah, Roy? You’re breakin’ the first rule of Fight Club—“

“Oh shit–?” Roy sighs through his haze, pulling away. “Omigod, I blew it on the first day.” 

When the contact breaks, Jamie gasps as if the car is being extracted from the Thames. He still drives like shit the rest of the way. He’s fucked alright.

Roy’s penthouse looks like the set of an 80’s sitcom about suburban people somehow rich enough to have a butler.  Lots of glass, grandfather clocks, a swinging kitchen door—whatever looked rich to a boy in Southend in the 80’s.

Jamie is under his arm, supporting him on his whoopsy stroll inside. “Oi, I know it’s only noon, but off to bed.”  He leads him into the main suite on this storey. “Probably best to lie down on your back.”

“Nyeah. You top me in your platforms, Baby Spice, I agree…” Roy slurs. “I’ve thought it out.”

Jamie shivers down to his marrow. “H-have you? God, you’re killing me,” he whines. He would die for such a thing, but Roy is in no condition to do so. 

But God. To gently rock his hips, fixed on Roy’s dark, heavy expressions. A fucking gift beyond 40 yard goals and real windmills. 

But no, no, no, not like this.  Jamie wonders what he did to deserve such torture. “Here, change out of your trackies,” he says, turning around to squash what’s brewing in the front of  his trackies.

He needs to distract himself. He pulls out his phone for news on his hair—surely the paps caught them on the way out of Nelson.

“...‘Won’t the Real Slim Jamie please tan up?’  —fuck, maybe Van Damme was right about it washing me out?“ He keeps scrolling. “Aw, ‘a caked up dandelion,’  that’s sweet. Wait…Joshua Jackson tweeted “I rocked it better in Cruel Intentions?’ Ugh, any opportunity for some has-been to bring the topic back to themselves!”

“I got a problem, Jame.”

He looks up and Roy is a sight, standing there in his pants. He tried to take his shirt off and it got stuck on his neck brace, the fabric draped over his shoulders like a cape. 

“Jesus, Roy, what am I gonna do with you?”

“I have a very long, comedically long scroll of suggestions, Blondejamie…”

“Got a longer one, me.” He gets the brace off for a moment to pull the black t-shirt off, supports his chin with a gentle hand, then clasps the brace back on, leaning their foreheads miserably together. “Here, just lie down in your pants. Nice and cool when you got a big foam scarf, yeah?”

Jamie eases onto the bed with him, budging him over.  Roy is getting very tired now.

“..not sure why I want you to fuck me,” Roy fizzles, eyes closed. “You’re the one with all the cushion.”

 ”Scuse me, a little stereotypical, ain’t it?”  he sighs.  “Either way…I can’t do anything you won’t remember tomorrow.”

“It’s okay if you’re the only one who does.”

“No. I want you to, Roy. I want you to remember everything. You just rest now.”

Roy does as he’s told, breathing evenly. “...you’re stunning.”

“Literally. I’m sorry I fucked up your neck…”

“It was worth it. Your gorgeous head. Want to fucking roll in it.”

“Maybe my hair can heal you.  Like in Tangled. That’s one of your favourites, ain’t it?”

“Fuck yeah.” 

“Here,”  He cradles him against his hair, wanting to caress his nape if not for the collar. He wonders if it’s as sensitive as his own, and rubs his bare shoulder.   “Flower gleam and glow, let your power shine,” he sings softly. “Make the clock reverse, bring back what once was mine.”

“…that’s the fucking velvet voice under your regular stupid voice?”

“I could say the same to you. It’s nothin’.”

“S’everything....” Roy mumbles, eyes closed, struggling to stay awake.  “...willyou fuckingmarryme….?”

Jamie closes his eyes, swallowing hard. Losing all his air.  The ultimate thing that Roy will say half-past never. “You ain’t supposed to ask that in bed, or with salty language, love. But yes. Of course.”

Jamie wakes up at five in the afternoon. He slips out from under Roy’s arm.  “Goodbye, Loopy Roy,” he whispers. “I’ll miss you.”

The sky is getting dark as he drives away, the sports car handling as poorly as ever with him behind the wheel—just from thinking about no 4am training tomorrow, let alone everything else.  Bring back what once was mine, indeed.

The next morning, Jamie is hunched in front of his cubby as the boys are bullshitting away.

“Hey,” Colin nudges him aside. “Y'alright, Naruto? What happened yesterday?”

“I erm. Nothin’. Took Roy home. He was horny out his mind. Couldn’t take advantage of him like that. Put him to bed all proper-like, sang a Disney princess song and…he asked me to. Marry him.”

“Jiw. I guess Beard was wrong. Roy moves pretty fast.”

“And on downers of all things.” He pats Colin’s shoulder as they have a quiet chuckle.

“Are you going to…say anything about it? Like. Jog his memory?”

“Nah. Ain’t fair. It weren’t real.”

“Him near breaking his neck to look at you certainly was.”

“Ah, I’ll let him keep his stupid Lost Boys explanation. It’s for the best. For both of us.”

Colin flinches. “That’s what I used to tell Michael, y’know.”

“Colin. You said it yourself.  Roy’s repressed and old school and insecure and that. He’s never going to admit to nowt in public.”

“If this worm could, there’s hope for anyone.”

Roy shuffles into the room quickly in his collar, looking at the floor like he’s in some kind of dog cone of shame.  He zips into his office, says something growly and unintelligible. 

Colin waves Jamie on.

He sticks his head in the office door. “Hello, Roy.”

He doesn’t turn around this time either, at first. Well, technically he can’t, so he waddles his whole body in a circle to him. “Grnh.”

“You sleep well?”

“No. When my head sweats I feel like a wet phone buried in rice. But…thank you. For taking me home.”

“Eddie Money y’all,” he grins anxiously with a Midwestern twang. “Er. What exactly do you…” He chews his cuticle. “…remember?”

“Not really sure. I’m sorry if I was a stubborn prick.”

“No. Not at all, you…” All the courage in Jamie’s chest plunks down and exits somewhere out of his boots. “A-anyway, I’m the one who should be sorry for not pickin’ up the phone the other night. Had the bleach all over my head. Probably left it in too long, then had to do the purple rinse and all the things.”

“You did it yourself?” Roy says. “And somehow you’re not bald?” he smiles a bit.

“Ah, fuck off.  Don’t need a colorist. Felt spontaneous. Wanted to surprise you.”

“Well, you did. Like a cast iron pan to the face. For now just keep the surprises on the pitch.”

“Yes, Coach.”

Jamie goes about his day during training, locked in as ever. 

Until. 

Fuck. 

Rapunzel. Rapunzel had a frying pan.

Roy fucking remembers. Maybe not on a conscious level, but—

Pavlovian!

A ball hits Jamie square in the forehead and he falls dazedly to the ground.

He stares up from his blissful spot as multiple faces fill his vision. Roy squeezes them all aside. “Fucking hell, Jamie.”

“You do remember…” he beams in a tiny voice.

“Remember what?”

“Well not really but it’s jaanglin' around somewhere in there. And someday you’ll jolt awake and remember you love my singing and you want me to top you!”

”Dear fucking GOD, get the medic to check him for a concussion, now!” Roy shouts. “He’s talking crazy.”

The team looks at each other well exhausted, as they should be. Nothing can knock Jamie down from this, however, bonkers as it is, and this thing with Roy is going to progress as maddeningly slowly as ever. Jamie is here for it. His golden hair did heal Roy, even if he doesn’t know it yet.