Chapter Text
“You can come back inside once you learn some fucking manners you ungrateful fucking brat.”
The click of the deadbolt turning echoed deafeningly in the quiet night. Jamie hadn’t meant to talk back. He hadn’t even really done that; he just scoffed when Dad commented on him not scoring, as if the old man could’ve done any better. His cheek was still burned from the slap, but the cold air offered some slight relief after the oppressing heat of Dad’s flat and its radiator with the broken dial.
Still, Jamie wished Dad had given him his coat, or at the very least, his shoes before shoving him outside into the cold January night. His palms stung as he carefully picked the gravel out of them and then rubbed them together to try and keep warm. It had only been a few minutes, but alternating rubbing his hands together and up and down his bare arms was no match for low single-digit temperatures.
Bouncing from socked foot to socked foot to try and keep the cold pavement from seeping through him, he counted in his head as a distraction and waited for Dad to decide he had learned his lesson. This wasn’t the first time he’d be locked out for that purpose, but this was the first time it had been this cold. Or this long.
Jamie waited as long as possible while he debated knocking, knowing the lesson would likely continue but at least he would be inside for it. When his body began to tremble, he finally wrapped his knuckles against the wooden door, first, gently and then with increasing urgency. There was no response, no sound from the other side of the door, no hint of his father coming to tell him off again. Pounding his fist on the door again, Jamie stood on his tiptoes to try and peer through the window at the top of the door but was too short to see anything but a view of the ceiling.
“I’m sorry, Dad,” Jamie said, pounding on the door so hard that his fist began to ache. “I’m sorry, Dad, please, just let me in.”
Jamie ignored the pitch of his voice and the pain of his hand, rising with each plea. Desperation finally got the better of him, and he threw his shoulder against the door like he’s seen cops do on the telly. Bruising pain exploded down his arm with the contact, and the door remained stubbornly locked and closed. Jamie could try to break in the back door or pry open the bathroom window, but if he caused any permanent damage, Jamie had no doubt Dad would repay the favour in kind.
Eventually, Jamie decided he couldn’t wait until dad decided his lesson was over, he was too cold, too tired, the exhaustion sunk into his bones with the cold. Mummy’s flat was only a few blocks away, he didn’t have his key or his phone but Mummy was always a light sleeper, if he rang the bell she would hear it and let him in. Jamie almost pitied his dad for the wrath his mum would unleash on him once she found out he locked Jamie out purposely.
Jamie jogged the distance to Mummy’s flat, the cold seeping through his socks and making his feet burn with the cold. He tried the back door first, but it was locked. Limping around to the front door, Jamie found that locked, too. Cursing under his breath, he pushed the bell, feeling poorly about waking Georgie, but it couldn’t be helped. Shifting anxiously from foot to foot, Jamie waited for his mum to open the door. He tried again, and as the pit in his stomach grew heavier.
Fuck he was cold. Cold and tired. His eyes kept drifting closed as if he could fall asleep leaning on the door. By the fourth ring of the bell, realisation struck him like a fist.
Mummy wasn’t home.
He pounded desperately on the door again, fear chilling him more than even the cold. Jamie beat his fist against the door until he was convinced it would splinter under the force, but the only thing that happened was his hand ached with the twinge that promised a future bruise. Jamie threw his shoulder into the door in a last moment of desperation, uncaring the pain it caused when he attempted it at his father’s flat.
All fight, seeped from his bones, Jamie slid bonelessly along the door to the ground, the tears he had held back so long flowed down his face, freezing with the snot flowing freely from his nose from the cold. Wiping desperately at his face with the backs of his hands, Jamie fought to keep his breathing to a normal level.
Pushing his aching body to stand, Jamie knew he only had one option, and mummy wouldn't like it, but she would like him freezing to death even less. His sock-covered feet burned as he limped around to the back door again. Sliding his arm back inside his t-shirt, he slammed his elbow into the small pane of glass closest to the door knob. His elbow vibrated with pain, his right arm sore from shoulder to fingertip after all his attempts to open doors earlier, but the glass broke under the force.
He hit away as much glass as he could before sliding a shaking hand through the broken door and unlocking the deadbolt and knob on the other side. Once Jamie pushed the door open, he carefully stepped around the glass shards to the closet with the dustpan. He dropped the pan as he got closer to the mess, his hands suddenly clumsy, his right arm aching in the impending bruise that would cover its entirety soon, his shoulder on fire, though it didn’t keep him warm.
Slowly kneeling, Jamie managed to clean up to mess with trembling hands, using his left for the majority of the work. Dumping the shards into the bin, Jamie returned the dustpan and duct-taped a trash bag over the broken window pane, his entire body now wracked with shakes. Mummy would be mad, but he had some money saved, so he could use it to fix it.
The shivering was relentless now that Jamie was inside. He thought he would feel warmer inside, but it was as if his body wasn’t trembling when he thought he might have to spend the night outside and he was suddenly more tired than he had ever felt, more tired even than after that weekend tournament where he had played two matches with extra time. Each tremble of his body was painful, as if his muscles contracted with it, but nothing worse than the throb in his shoulder and shooting down his arm.
Jamie debated stopping and resting on the couch, but he knew if he stopped now, he would fall asleep and need to explain to his mum when she got home. At least, maybe tomorrow it will be easier. He’d be less tired tomorrow, less cold, and he could explain better. Dad might even apologise and offer to pay for the window.
The walk up the stairs was as laborious as it was long, and Jamie barely managed to pull warm clothes from his drawers before collapsing onto his bed. Slowly and clumsily, he removed his socks first, wincing at the redness of the soles of his feet. But the new socks felt like the most comfortable thing he had ever worn.
He would just close his eyes for a few minutes, then change the rest of his damp and frozen clothes. Just a few minutes.
The door downstairs opening startled him, and Jamie realised he had fallen asleep, half tilted onto the bed, his neck sore from the awkward angle, his pinned right arm pulsating in a white hot agony as he moved and the blood rushed back to the battered limb.
Jamie heard Mummy laughing and smiled until he heard another voice, followed by more laughter. The stairs creaked, and Jamie panicked suddenly that Dad was with his mum– angry that he had opened the door to find Jamie no longer waiting outside like he told him to, that Jamie had escaped his punishment before James had deemed it served.
Panic stabbed into his stomach, hot and painful as he looked desperately around the room for a means to escape, but before he could even will his body to move from the bed, mummy appeared in his doorway.
“Jamie? What’re you doing at home? Are you alright?” she asked, the smile dropping at the sorry state he must be in.
Fine, Mummy, just a bit cold, he wanted to say but a slurred sound left his lips instead.
“Jamie!” Mummy yelled and rushed to him, dropping to her knees in front of him.
His vision grew darker as he tried again to tell his mum he was okay, but no words would form.
“Simon, call for an ambulance,” was the last thing Jamie heard before the darkness consumed him entirely.