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The first, and most important lesson Roy Kent ever learned was that being alone sucks. The second, and probably more important lesson was that it sucks worse if people leave you, and then you're alone.
He's 9, and he's been scouted by Sunderland and it's honestly the best day of his entire life, because it's fucking Sunderland , and he was just Roy Kent, and now he got to be Roy Kent playing football for Sunderland, and really, it was all his 9 year old dreams fulfilled in one phone call. And yeah, maybe it did sting a bit how little his parents seemed to be phased by the fact that he was just leaving. But he got to play for Sunderland, so it was alright.
Except, his mother didn't cry when she hugged him goodbye, and his father didn't want to drive him up, and didn't even hug him goodbye at all, just kind of nodded, like he was a soldier going off to war. His sister gave him some of her books to read, but he figured she wouldn't miss him much either -- she had loads of friends, and he was always the 4-year-younger thorn in her side that never stopped pestering.
His grandad seemed to be the only one who truly cared, and he drove him all the way up, and hugged him for a long time (too long, really. Roy was too old for long hugs), and gave him a blanket, "To keep him warm and to remind him of home".
(Grandad died a few months later, before Roy ever got to say goodbye, or thank you, or any fucking thing.)
He's 11, and didn't get to come home for his birthday, and his parents were working so there wasn't really a point anyways. His sister sends him a gift – the newest book of a series he'd mentioned loving when he was home last month, and it's sweet, really. It's just that Roy has already borrowed and read that book, and all the gift really does is show him just how much of his life his family is missing completely.
He's 13, and he's crying silently but so aggressively that he throws up in the bathrooms because he just feels so empty , and so, so, so, alone.
He doesn't hate his life, he really doesn't, and he doesn't want to seem ungrateful. He knows so many people would kill to be in his place.
He just wishes he had someone who'd stick around, occasionally, and that he'd stop feeling so empty.
He's 14, and he’s just broken some kids nose, because the twat said something (he can’t even remember what started it, just that all of a sudden his vision was fucking red and he needed to hurt someone, because his skin was fucking itching, like there were a million ants trying to get free, and he needed it to stop, so he just punched the other boy, and it was finally fucking quiet under his skin, and the ants finally stopped for a while). They send him to see the sports psychologist after that, something about him having “anger issues” and needing to “chill the actual fuck out”. The psychologist is tall, and always wears socks with bright patterns on them, and always offers Roy tea. He tells Roy a lot of things, including that anger isn’t actually an emotion, but a self defense mechanism. And that’a fucking stupid, innit? The therapist had just offered him an understanding smile when he said so, and said that it was just a way for the brain to process hurt. Well, brilliant, Roy thinks. If being angry means he won’t feel so fucking empty all the time, then that’s fucking brilliant.
Eventually he stops going, and even apologizes to the boy who’s nose he broke (the kid spits in his face. Roy thinks he deserves a fucking medal for not reacting).
He's 15, and like, fucking great. He's the best on every pitch, and it doesn't matter that he loses his temper and socks other people in the jaw occasionally, because he's like, fucking great. Eventually, his anger is a trademark. Some people use humor as a coping mechanism to keep people at arms length – Roy uses anger. He's angry, and he's a dickhead, and he's a prick to everyone, and no one wants to get close to him, and it's like, fucking great, because as long as no one loves him no one can leave him. And okay, maybe he feels a twinge of loneliness occasionally, but at least hes solely responsible, right? At least he doesn't have to feel the heart constricting betrayal of another person leaving him behind.
He's 16, and staring at the ceiling somewhere after two am when he realizes he hasn't really had a real friend in years. Sure, he's had teammates, and coaches, and he talks to his sister sometimes, but he hasn't had friends, not really. Most people are just scared of him, or think he's a wanker. He probably is. The realization fills him with a dull aching in his chest, like there's a hole there. The hole is usually filled with anger. Sometimes he thinks the ants are gone, and sometimes they leave from crawling under his skin to eat a hole in his chest.
He decides that 2am isn't a reliable time to think about feelings, and rolls over to go to sleep.
(He doesn't sleep.)
He's 17, and he hadn't cried in years.
He's 22, at a pub after his team won a match, and everyone is drunk and buzzing and smiling and happy, and Roy is too, really. It's just that he's watching a teammate sling a drunk arm around his girlfriend and kiss her cheek sloppily while she throws her head back and laughs, and he's watching two mates debating about something really fucking stupid ("If you drink half an energy drink, you'll have half the energy." "No, you fuckwit, you'll just have energy for half the time. Christ alive”), and they're yelling, but Roy can tell it's good natured and that they're just intoxicated and mates.
And all of a sudden the ants are back, and they're swarming under his skin, and they're gnawing at the sides of the hole in his chest, stretching it out at the edges so it grows bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and he needs to be out because everything is just really overwhelming and he doesn't hate his life really he just wishes someone would fucking stay for once and he wouldn't be so lonely all the fucking time.
He's not crying, because he hasn't cried in years (honestly at this point he thinks his tear ducts are broken or something), but he can't fucking breathe and his chest feels tight and empty and–
Then he's outside, and he's in his car, head leaning on the steering wheel (and when did he get in his car?) and he knows he can't drive because he's so extremely fucking drunk so he gets out, and throws up everything he had in his stomach, and calls an uber to take him back to his empty flat.
He no longer feels nauseous, and the ants are quieter, but there's still a hole in his chest where they left.
He's 27, and meeting his sisters new boyfriend for the first time, and he's a prick. Roy tells her, afterwards, and she looks at him with her eyebrows pinched together like this makes her sad. He wants to tell her that maybe she should try being angry at him instead. Roy is fine with people being angry at him, but the I’m-dissapointed-in-you-look makes the hole in his chest throb uncomfortably.
A voice in his head tells him that maybe he only wants the prick boyfriend to piss off because he's scared his sister will start a new family and cut ties. Maybe he really is that selfish and pathetic.
He's 32, and him and his sister (who’s also maybe his best friend at this point, not that he'd ever admit that) are screaming at each other in her kitchen, over the prick asshole who's obviously doing nothing but hurting his sister and why wouldn't she fucking wake up and see that. And Phoebe (newborn and so innocent) is waking up and crying, and his sister is telling him that, "maybe you should just fucking go, Roy”, and hes driving and screaming his throat raw in an abandoned parking lot somewhere several miles later.
And he's 38, and hugging Jamie fucking Tartt, and he doesn't even know how the fuck he got there, but Jamie looks so alone and so empty , and all of a sudden he looked like Roy looked when he glanced in the mirror and he was 32 and screaming at his sister, and 27 and selfish, and 22 and not able to breathe, and 17 and numb, and 16 and friendless, and 15 and like, fucking great, and 14 and breaking some twats nose, and 13 and throwing up in the bathroom, and 11 and spending his birthday alone, and 9 and not being hugged goodbye.
And really, him and Jamie aren't similar in the slightest (maybe they are a bit), since Jamie is a little bitch primadonna who thinks he's better than everyone else (exactly like Roy when he was that age), and Roy is nothing like that (maybe he was though), but Roy realizes that, in that moment, Jamie Tartt is fucking alone, in the same way he's all too familiar with. So he's hugging him, and fucking christ, Jamie is crying , and Roy realizes they're both kind of shaking, and that his hands are fists on Jamie's back, and that the ants are so, so, so , loud under his skin, and that he needs to hit someone, something, somewhere, because he needs them to stop.
Instead, he breathes through his nose, counts down from 10, and flattens his fist out into a palm on Jamie's back.
Anger is a defence mechanism, but right now, Roy thinks he needs to not be angry.
(Somehow, the ants are quiet for a while.)
***
Roy Kent had a lot of experience with being alone, but he was trying really hard not to have anymore experience with being left, and then being alone.
He doesn't know how he ends up talking to fucking Ted Lasso of all people, but all of a sudden he's telling him why he left Chelsea, because if they kicked him to the curb once they realized he really wasn't all that fucking fantastic anymore, and he was really just an angry twat who could kick a decent ball occasionally, then that would absolutely fucking shatter him.
Everyone keeps looking at him like he's a kicked puppy after he leaves Keeley, and he hates it. Absolutely fucking hates it. Every time someone asks him "why the fuck did you leave her?" he just growls at them, because that's much, much easier than saying that, if she told him, all doe eyes and apologies that, "I'm sorry, babe, I'm just too busy" then that would absolutely fucking shatter him.
Lot of folks think it's better to be quit than be fired. Yeah, maybe that does apply to Roy. Anger is a defense mechanism, and if that means he has to be angry at himself, then fuck it. It'll do. All relationships end in sadness , someone had told him once. Even if you love them forever, and they love you forever, life is not eternal, and it'll end eventually.
Roy likes to be in control of that sadness.
It's easier to be a fucking idiot and to push away people who care than it is to wait till they notice that he really isn't all that fucking great. He's just an angry kid, with ants under his skin. It's easier to sit alone and drown himself in gin and shitty tv and books than it is to be tortured by hope that maybe someone won't leave. It's easier.
Roy Kent is alone, but at least it's his own fucking fault, and somewhere, deep down, that makes him feel better.