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“Loo break,” Jamie announces unceremoniously and hits stop from where he is buried in the depths of the couch cushions. Beer bottles, now mostly empty, litter the coffee table. On the TV the movie is frozen at a close-up of one of the terrible CGI aliens wreaking havoc on Albert Dock. Why they spent hours finding the one (admittedly terrible) movie where the aliens attack Liverpool instead of London or New York is beyond Robbie. He’s sort of just accepted it as a side effect of organizing movie nights with Macca.
Jamie stands up with an unnecessary ‘alright lads, I’ll be right back,’--what else is he going to do, flee the house?--and tosses his phone on the couch. Robbie’s eyes widen as he stares at the blue green glow of its screen. He’s been waiting for this moment for years. “Macca,” he whispers, still not quite able to believe the treasure chest in front of his eyes. Jamie is usually super paranoid about his phone around the two of them, and for good reason too. “Macca it’s unlocked.”
Macca meets his eye and cracks a grin--a moment of genuine bonding between them--before they scramble to Jamie’s side of the couch get their hands on the phone in time.
“10 quid says the last text is to Stevie,” Macca chimes happily.
Robbie has his doubts. He’s seen the way Jamie looks that Manc fellow or the way he changes the subject each time the conversation touches on him. He thinks Jamie is trying to be subtle about it but really he is as subtle as Macca was that one time he showed up to the opera in a pink and blue Hawaiian shirt.
“Nah, I bet you it’s Neville.”
“Who, Phil?” Macca asks as he navigates to texts. (And God Macca can be daft sometimes.)
“No idiot, the other one--the one he plays handsie with on national TV week in week out.”
“Oh,” Macca reads, “Gary N. you are right. And they are talking about--” he scrolls up and a frown replaces his mischievous grin, “whether chips go better with gravy or with curry sauce? Is Jamie alright? What is this--a code of some kind?”
Robbie looks over Macca’s shoulder at the screen.
G. Neville: Don’t know what they teach in Liverpool but we know that gravy is the proper Northern choice.
They taught us to not to be stuck in our tiny bubble in Liverpool is what they did. :S
G. Neville: thick and creamy yeah? With a little bit of cheese too.. mmm
G. Neville: Just think about that hot, juicy gravy being poured over the chips and melting the cheese onto them Jamie and tell me you don’t want it.
Yeah, imagine the same but with flavor and actual spices. Imagine how hot the chips are they slowly dissolve in your mouth, Neville.
Robbie shakes his head. Really he might die from the second hand embarrassment just looking at the awkward flirting alone.
Then again.
“So, Twitter?” Macca asks, fingers deftly navigating to the home screen, aware of time ticking down before they must complete their mission. “Should we announce he is coming out of retirement to play in China or something?”
“No his mates at the boxing club did that already. I have an idea though. Give me.”
Macca hands him the phone willingly. Macca never hands such a promising opportunity over willingly. Robbie is touched at the implicit trust in his pranking abilities.
He clicks on the little Twitter icon.
Once the application has launched Jamie’s Twitter makes Robbie’s job even easier than he thought. A follower for one has sent in a picture of him with jeans that are suspiciously tight in a certain compromising area, demanding an explanation. Just what Robbie needed. As he types a very plausible explanation indeed he is proud of the sheer amount he has achieved in one of the most efficient Twitter heists of all time. In less than 45 seconds he has nudged his friend’s terrible flirting skills in the right direction, turned off notifications so that Jamie doesn’t cotton on and hopefully provided the country with some high grade entertainment in the process.
Robbie is a fucking genius.
“Nice one, mate” Macca says acknowledging this fact and grins at him as they put the phone right where they found it and settle into their own seats as though nothing has happened.
“Can we watch Star Wars or something the next time around?” Jamie asks when he comes back, none the wiser and Robbie smiles at him sweetly. “Then again you don’t see aliens covered in glitter everyday do you? Gotta hand it to this movie.”
As he presses play Robbie thinks that sometimes Jamie doesn’t hear himself. He probably wouldn’t be flirting over chips if he did. Then again Robbie fixed it for them, hopefully, assuming that Neville is less of an idiot than their Carra.
~~3 hours later at the Carragher residence~~
Jamie has just fallen into a soft and beautiful sleep when the doorbell wakes him up with a start. He groans and looks at the clock on his bed table.
1:03
Jamie gets up and shuffles downstairs quickly, a sense of unease already blooming in his chest. It’s not like anyone he knows to come at such an hour unannounced, unless--
He’s not sure he wants to complete that thought. The doorbell rings again, shrill and insistent.
Jamie opens the door. In his doorstep Gary stands as though he has seen a ghost.
“Gary?” Jamie says, moving out of the way so that Gary can step into the house and out of the bitter cold. “Is everything alright?”
“Yeah,” Gary answers but Jamie isn’t convinced, judging by the way the word tumbles out of his mouth, scared and incomplete.
He is about to say come sit, I’ll make tea when Gary freezes him in place with a question.
“Did you mean it,” he says, as though the fate of the whole wide world is resting on the answer that will come out of Jamie’s mouth. “The last thing you wrote, was that just banter or did you mean it?”
Jamie stops and regards his friend in the dim light of the hallway. The question makes no sense--the last thing they talked about was whether chips went better with gravy or curry sauce--but Gary is clearly distressed and if this is what he needs to talk about right now Jamie won’t let him down.
“Yeah,” he says, as gently as possible, “of course I did, Gary.” And so he did. Why would he humanly lie about how much he likes his chips with curry sauce when it is clearly the better alternative over gravy, he doesn’t know.
“Right.” Gary runs a hand over his face and lets out a shallow breath. Jamie wants to hold him, wants Gary to tell him what’s wrong so he can make it alright. Anything, to not to see Gary like this. Not again.
Gary continues, “so was it an accidental one time thing or--” He looks at Jamie as though he is searching for the right words and failing to find them.
Again, how one’s love for curry sauce could be a one time thing or accidental is beyond Jamie. It makes no sense, and yet he answers with a face as straight as though Gary asked the most reasonable question in the world.
Jamie you see was brought up in a family that had an inordinate dislike for curry sauce when it came to chips. Even when they went to the local chippy his mum would shake her head disapprovingly and say not curry sauce, Jamie, that’s not what we eat. Then once it became clear that Jamie’s future lay on the green football fields chips disappeared from his diet altogether (unlike say Gary’s). And so Jamie didn’t realize the wonders the added spice worked for the chips until after he retired and joined Sky.
“I was brought up to think it was wrong to be honest, and it never occurred to me even as a possibility for as long as I was still playing but things change when you retire, don’t they. And once I got a taste, I just I knew I wanted more you know.”
Something softens in Gary’s expression and the corners of his mouth tilt into a weak smile.
“Then why didn’t you say anything, Jamie?”
Gary looks open--vulnerable, though Jamie still has no idea why, and oh so beautiful here in Jamie’s house in the middle of the night. As he opens his mouth to answer Jamie wishes he could lift his hand and caress Gary’s chin, his lips, slow and reverent.
He wonders, as he often does, how nice it would be to hear Gary utter that very sentence but over him instead of over chips.
I love you too Jamie, you hear? Why didn’t you say anything if that’s how you felt too?
Jamie will gather his courage and say something one of these days. Invite Gary over for pints or something. Just...not tonight. Tonight they are talking about chips.
“I mean, it never came up, did it? Never thought it mattered, and you obviously don’t feel the same way but--”
Gary cuts him off before he can finish his sentence. He seems offended almost, so high is the passion in his voice when he speaks. “I don’t feel the same, Carra? I drove all the way to bleeding Liverpool at 1 am over a reply and you think I don’t feel the same. I have felt the same since Spain at the very least if not before.”
Didn’t know curry sauce was a big thing in Spain when they don’t even have proper chippies Jamie wants to say, in addition to then why did you argue the merits of gravy over curry on text for an hour if you like it too? but he never gets the chance. Because in the next moment Gary closes the distance between them and clasping his hands behind Jamie’s neck crushes their lips together.
What the actual flying fuck? Jamie’s brain supplies as he tries not to lose his head, his entire being, in Gary and in the arms that envelop him.
He pulls back with great difficulty after a moment, his muscles going against every instinct and desire coursing through his body. “Gary,” he asks for the second time that night, “are you alright?” No matter what he wants, no matter how much he wants, Jamie can’t do this to Gary if his friend isn’t in his right mind.
And considering that they went from an intense discussion over chippies to making out in the drop of a hat Jamie really isn’t so sure. “Are you,” he stammers, putting a hand on Gary’s forehead at the same time “are you sure this is what you want? Because we don’t-- We never--”
“How are you still talking?” Gary sounds incredulous. He also doesn’t feel particularly warm. “Which part of the yes I am very much into you too did you not understand you useless thickheaded Scouse plonker?”
“You are into...me?” Jamie asks, mostly to confirm, because that sounds too good to be true, even after the impromptu kiss--Gary Neville liking him in his right mind. (And also because maybe he really likes the sound of it.)
“Yes.” Gary is now essentially shouting. “James Lee Duncan Carragher I like you, okay? I like you more than any self-respecting Manc should ever like a bloody Scouser. What more do you want me to say? That I need you like flowers need the sun, like the sand needs the sea? Because I’ll say it. Or do you want a notarized report on your desk first thing Monday morning declaring my love? We wasted so much time as is and I don’t know what you are playing at but I’ll do it damnit.”
Jamie can only stand there slack mouthed as Gary goes through his little speech and splutters Jamie with spit in the process.
like the flowers need the sun he said, this man Jamie hasn’t so much as heard listening to a love song in the four years he’s known him, like the sand needs the sea.
Gary likes Jamie. He’s come all the way to Liverpool in the middle of the night to tell Jamie that he likes him. Not once before has being shouted at filled Jamie with so much joy and warmth.
Maybe, Jamie decides as he walks up to Gary and shushes him with a kiss, Gary has one of those weird food fetishes and their long discussion on chips was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Knowing Gary’s relationship with food it wouldn’t be that surprising.
Gary melts into the kiss and Jamie’s lips are sure this time, free to pull and push and explore every bit of Gary’s mouth, his lips, and Jamie decides he is fine with it. As Gary moans against his mouth Jamie knows he’ll gladly bring a whole platter of chips and curry sauce to their bedroom if that’s what Gary is into.
***
Jamie uses the little break in action as Gary draws back to take off his shirt to sit up on bed. “Hang on,” he says, between pants, “I have chips in the freezer and I can whip up some curry sauce pretty quickly.” He wants, after all, for everything to be right for Gary. He wants Gary to know that he isn’t offended or weirded out by the food thing. And it could, you know, be fun if Gary was taking the lead.
“And people usually accuse me of getting hungry during sex,” Gary growls as he pushes Jamie back down on the bed, a wicked, dark look in his eyes.
But Jamie isn’t letting this one go just yet.
“I just want you to feel comfortable, you know. Since it was chips that brought you here.”
“Chips?” Gary asks, looking down on him from where he is sitting half-straddling Jamie and quite annoyed at the interruption, “what on earth are you talking about?”
Jamie feels a bit embarrassed at having to spell everything out.
“You know. I wrote ‘no Gary I really do think curry sauce is the hotter alternative’ and you had a revelation about your feelings for me? Came over to Liverpool? I’m just saying if you find chips sexy we can work that into the bedroom. It’s not weird.”
Gary looks at him as though he’s grown a third ear, the furrow between his eyes as deep as the Grand Canyon. “Are you out of your mind, Jamie” he says slowly, “I came over because of your tweet. What chips?”
“My tweet over Lampard’s retirement?” That’s the last thing Jamie remembers tweeting about before they started the movie. Tonight is getting weirder and weirder. Bringing chips and curry sauce into sex is one thing but...Lampard. That would be quite the project.
(Not that Jamie is incredibly opposed to that either, but.)
“No, you idiot,” Gary gets off the bed in a huff to fish out his phone from inside his jacket. He looks inordinately attractive, strutting around Jamie’s bedroom in nothing but his boxers, even as (or maybe because) he seems so put off. “Here,” he shoves the phone into Jamie’s face and taps on the screen, “that tweet.”
Jamie looks at the screen, slowly registering the words and taking in the picture and remembers Robbie’s overly-saccharine smile as he came back from the bathroom--the smile that gave him goosebumps. He’ll have to kill either or both of them in the morning.
“Right,” he says, “that tweet I definitely wrote. So when you said ‘since Spain’ you really weren’t talking about Spain’s lack of proper chippies, were you?”