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Roy hated being sick. Like, really fucking hated it.
With his first season as manager well underway, he really did not have time to be fucking sick. So he wasn't. A cold wasn’t sick, it was barely ill. A cold was a mild fucking inconvenience, a waste of tissues. A cold wasn’t an excuse, not when they had a match against Everton in forty-eight fucking hours.
Rummaging through his bathroom cabinets, Roy washed down all the cold medicine and painkillers he could without overdosing and drove to training. His head felt like someone had wrapped it in cotton, and someone was stabbing his sinuses with an ice pick. He sat heavily at the desk, hoping Beard wouldn't put his book down and comment.
“Coach, you look like death.”
Leave it to Jamie to immediately see through the facade he attempted to build.
“Fuck off, Tartt. I'm busy.”
It was a lie; the only thing he was busy doing was trying not to cough. Roy did his best to ignore his friend, opening his laptop hoping Jamie would take the hint. But Jamie was never one to be forgotten and wouldn’t have gotten this hint if it punched him in the face. But worse, he now had Beard’s attention as well.
“As much as I hate to admit it, Jamie’s not wrong,” Beard said over his book.
A smug look crossed Jamie’s face as he rocked back and forth on his heels. Fucking great.
“You want me to get something from the physio for you?” Jamie asked.
“I already took something, I'm fucking fine. Now, get changed. You'll be late for training,” Roy barked.
The kicked-puppy look on Jamie’s face stopped him short. What good was trying to be better if you weren't actually better?
“Fuck. Sorry,” Roy offered quickly before Jamie fled. “I took something earlier. But, thank you.”
Jamie nodded and turned to the changing room. Beard stared at him a beat longer before raising the book back to block his face. Roy pinched the bridge of his nose and wished he could actually breathe through his nose properly. His head was pounding, he was sweating, it was going to be a long fucking day.
The only thing Roy was grateful for was that he wasn’t actually participating in training the same way he would have been if he had been a player. Beard and Nate took pity on him, running most of the practice, but every whistle he yelled was nails on a chalkboard to his pounding head.
When the team filtered to the weight room in the afternoon, Roy was in a fog of phlegm and pain. Beard and Nate had both left, but Roy still had scouting reports related to the upcoming transfer window to look through, along with the last of the physio reports for the upcoming match.
After reading the same sentence three times in a row, Roy decided he would be better off reading everything at home where he could at least read it from his couch, maybe after a nap. He piled everything into his bag, then stood too quickly and immediately had to sit down again, stars filtering across his vision in an unwelcome dance.
“Roy? You alright?” Jamie snapped his fingers in front of his face.
He hadn’t even noticed his friend enter his office as he concentrated on willing the room to stop spinning.
“Alright, lad, let's get you home.”
His limbs were too heavy to argue, the vice around his head too tight to allow any objection. Jamie shouldered Roy’s bag and hoisted him to his feet, an arm around his waist holding him steady as he swayed slightly.
Roy opened his mouth to object, and his body ached to shake Jamie off, but his tired body was not enough to help fight his wounded pride. He put up less struggle than a newborn kitten as Jamie deposited him in the passenger seat of his car, and Roy rested his head on the cool window for the ride home.
A small level of energy was restored on the drive, and Roy pushed himself from the car once Jamie parked. He was determined to reach his front door under his own power. Jamie wisely didn’t object but still beat Roy to his door, unlocking it with his own key.
“Bed for you, lad,” Jamie said, pointing towards Roy’s bedroom.
Roy didn’t argue, which was a testament to how truly awful he felt as he attempted to stifle a cough and then a sneeze in quick succession.
Jamie appeared once Roy was climbing under the covers in a loose pair of joggers and a t-shirt.
“When’s the last time you took something?”
“This morning,” Roy admitted.
Jamie made a noise of disapproval before popping a set of pills from its package and handing them to Roy, followed by a glass of water.
“Thank you,” Roy said after swallowing the pills. “For all this.”
“That’s what friends are for, yeah, mate?”
Roy wanted to say more, but all he managed was another sneeze.
Jamie patted him a blanket-covered leg and quietly closed the door behind him. An exhausted Roy succumbed to sleep.
It was morning when Roy next fully woke. His mind hazy with half-remembered memories of Jamie handing him a sandwich and more pills, and Roy unsuccessfully attempted to convince his friend to leave. There was a note by his bedside indicating the next dose of medication, and Roy read it as he blew his still-too-stuffed nose. If training yesterday were tough, today would be a nightmare, and he needed to thank Jamie again for making sure he even made it home properly.
Roy dragged himself to the shower, peeling off his pyjamas and turning the water up as high as it would go. The steam helped with his sinuses but not his lightheadedness, and he found himself having to sit for the majority of the shower.
He skipped the jeans, dressing straight into clothes for training and prepared to drag himself from the room. Roy idly wondering where Jamie was until he heard someone puttering in the kitchen and hoped the Manchurian had turned the kettle on. He broke down in a coughing fit before he could leave the bedroom and found himself exhausted from the effort of the shower. Maybe he would just lie down on the bed briefly and hope Jamie read his mind and brought him a cuppa.
Roy’s prayers were answered as he heard the door to the bedroom open. Roy kept his eyes shut as he heard Jamie cross the room directly to the bathroom and shut the door. Roy slowly pried his eyes open and let out a scream when he was greeted with his sister’s face peering down at him.
“Ruth, what the fuck are you doing here?” Roy asked as he sat up, narrowly missing accidentally headbutting her and willing his heart rate to slow down to a normal rhythm.
The bathroom door burst open, and Jamie ran out frantically.
“Is he dying?” Jamie asked, looking back and forth between the Kent siblings, his voice high with concern.
“No, I just startled him,” Ruth explained, sitting down at the end of the bed.
“Jamie, why are you naked?”
The Mancunian looked down as if only then realising, then glanced nervously at Ruth, quickly covering himself with his hands.
“I thought you were dying,” Jamie answered, straightening himself, leaving one hand covering himself and the other on his hip.
“I know why you came out. Why are you naked?”
“Gonna shower, weren’t I? Just because you slept in doesn’t mean I could skip my morning workout, could I?”
“You both can go the fuck home. I’m fine,” Roy said and broke off coughing.
“Stop fucking looking at him,” Roy said, throwing a pillow at his sister, attempting to distract her from Jamie.
“What?” she asked, throwing it back at him. “It’s not like I haven’t seen Jamie naked before.”
“What? When?” Roy asked, incredulous.
“Yeah, when?” Jamie echoed, confusion marring his features.
“You made me watch his season of Lust Conquers All.”
“You watched me on Lust Conquers All?” Jamie questioned with a smirk.
“Okay, Jamie, I’m fucking fine,” Roy said, sneezed, and then ignored twin looks from Jamie and Ruth. “Why don’t you shower?
Jamie glanced at Ruth for permission, and Roy barely refrained from rolling his eyes only because he could feel his headache returning.
“Go ahead. I’ll take care of our patient,” Ruth assured him.
Eventually, Jamie turned and returned to the bathroom. Ruth watched him and let out a slight sigh as he closed the bathroom door.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
These two were making his head hurt even more than it was because of the cold.
“What?” Ruth asked, turning back to Roy. “He is fit. I’m divorced. I’m not dead.”
“Don’t make me threaten to cut your eyes out,” Roy said. “I’m too fucking tired.”
Ruth rolled her eyes instead, “I’m a doctor. I’ve seen plenty of naked men, before.”
“Again, what the fuck are you doing here?” he asked.
“Nice to see you too, Roy,” she deadpanned, then plastered on a shit-eating grin she usually had to take the piss out of him. “Oh, you’re welcome for coming over. I am a bloody great sister; you’re so right. How nice of you to say.”
“Fuck off.”
Ruth rolled her eyes again and rose from the bed, briefly leaving the room before returning with a cup of tea and a duffel bag.
“Jamie called me.”
“I figured that. Why?” Roy asked, staring at the bathroom door so he could strangle him once he finished showering.
“Because you look like death.”
“I'm going to fucking kill him,” he said, trying to stand.
The threat would have been more convincing if Ruth hadn't held him down with a single finger.
“He was just worried about you, and he’s not wrong,” Ruth said, opening her bag.
His sister walked him through an exam, checking his throat, ears, eyes, and lymph nodes. Roy was unsure he would ever become accustomed to seeing his sister in professional mode. Half the time, he saw her still as a frizzy-haired teenager with braces; it was hard to believe she was both a doctor and a mother to an almost ten-year-old.
“What’s the prognosis, doc?” Jamie asked, stepping from the bathroom, towel around his waist, another drying his hair.
“Upper respiratory infection,” Ruth answered, returning his supplies to her bag.
“Fuck is that bad? Is he really dying?”
“It’s a cold, you twat,” Roy said.
“Oh well, that's not too bad, innit,” Jamie grinned, pulling on a t-shirt before disappearing back into the ensuite.
“He is dehydrated, though,” Ruth explained when Jamie returned wearing a pair of joggers, pulling socks on one at a time, and Ruth handed Roy back to the cup of tea. “Keep drinking fluids; Jamie kindly made you soup. My orders are for you to do whatever he says. And no training for you. You can nap while Jamie is gone.”
“But–”
“Doctor’s orders,” Ruth said in a sing-songy tone.
“We have a match tomorrow,” Roy replied incredulously. He wasn’t staying home for a fucking cold.
“Which you will also not be going to.”
“Like fuck I won’t,” Roy argued.
“Yes, by all means, go. And then when the entire team is sick in a week, and you can’t field a squad, do not come to me to complain.”
She had a point. Roy hated it when she had a point.
“Be good for Jamie,” Ruth said, kissing him on the top of his head. “He’ll take good care of you. I have to go to work.”
Roy knew better than to argue with his sister when she was like this, even if he wouldn’t admit with words that she was right. So Roy did as he was told and let Jamie take care of him. His soup was shit, but it was the thought that counts.