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It wasn’t Jamie’s idea to go into a charity shop for this. He would have taken this kid to Westfield and let him run wild, would have showered him in brand-new drip he wouldn’t be able to properly appreciate until he was a little older. The little lad’s aunt worked at the charity shop and it was his favourite place to go after school though, so Jamie had happily agreed to follow them there in his car.
“I get to go back to school in two weeks!” Oliver had told him excitedly, squeezing Jamie’s fingers with his tiny ones. He didn’t look anywhere near his 8 years of age, all small, cheeks sunken in and bald as he was. Jamie knew, because he regularly spent time with an 8 year old these days, what with Phoebe living with them a couple of days each week when her mum had night shifts. Almost 9 now, she’d correct him. Anyway, this kid looked half her size to Jamie.
Oliver had just beaten his cancer. The staff at the hospital were celebrating with him in the afternoon of Jamie’s volunteer day. He’d spent all day hanging out with the kids and playing a bit of footie with them in the hallway.
There had been cake for Oliver and his friends to celebrate with, and so when his mum picked him up, Jamie had taken her aside and asked if there was anything he could do for them. He had already donated to the hospital, brought toys for the kids, but something about Oliver had just reminded him of himself at that age. The kids were mostly in their own clothes or their own pyjamas, and so was Oliver. He looked tidy, clean and well-kept, and from the way he talked about his mum coming to get him later, Jamie had no doubt that he was well-loved at home.
It was just that he couldn’t help notice the little things that said there wasn’t that much money going around. The jeans that had been patched one too many times, the fact that he was one of the very few kids that didn’t have a phone to keep in touch with his family while he was there, the shirt with characters on them that Oliver didn’t even know, because it had been his older brother’s shirt. Jamie just couldn’t help it, he had to offer. In private, away from the nurses and the onlookers, he told Oliver’s mum that he’d grown up with very little for a while and that there wasn’t anything to it, his mum had always done right by him too, but that he liked to get Oliver anything he needed. And so it had turned out that Oliver really would like new clothes for going back to school, now that he was better. Jamie had crouched down to eye level and asked Oliver if he’d like to go shopping, and that had been that.
They had all left together and Jamie found himself back in a very familiar and nostalgic setting.
“I like your clothes,” the boy said, firmly holding onto Jamie’s hand as they strolled to the kids section. Jamie would have to ask his mum for their address. He’d send the kid some really nice stuff, but he wanted Oliver to have the experience he asked for, so here they were.
“Yeah? The colours or the graffiti?” Jamie asked, picking up a sweater with a very similar red to the one that accented his own sweater.
“The colours!” Oliver said. “And I like that it looks wild!”
“Wild, ey?” Jamie grinned, using his free hand to look through the rack for some suggestions while Oliver’s mum and his aunt chatted at the counter, keeping watch on them. “We’ll find you something wild, won’t rest until we do, you and I!” Jamie promised him.
This was grand. Oliver was excited and they had some really good stuff, just from what Jamie could see already. He loved shopping with Phoebe too, she was starting to develop a proper style for herself now, and she knew exactly what she liked. It was fun getting to look at all the clothes he wouldn’t have gotten to wear at her age, all the dresses and colours, Jamie loved it, while Roy pretended that he didn't.
“Maybe we’ll put on a show for your mum and auntie, yeah?” Jamie suggested, because Phoebe loved that, getting home and waiting for her mum to get off work before they all settled in the living room and waited for Phoebe to present her newest looks. “Put on some cool music, like a proper fashion show with a runway, right there!” Oliver nodded excitedly, and so they let go of each other and started really attacking the racks. Thankfully, Oliver’s mum had clued Jamie in on his size, because Jamie couldn’t have guessed it to save his life.
It took half an hour and much debating over the merits of cotton over synthetic fibres, but the changing room was finally overflowing with stuff that Oliver wanted to try on. Jamie pulled up two chairs for himself and Oliver’s aunt to sit in for the fashion show, while his mum went into the changing room to help him get some new fits on. Jamie had even been given free rein over the speaker system.
“Here you go!” Jamie accepted a drink in a mug from Oliver’s aunt that definitely wasn’t tea. He sniffed it, chuckling.
“Oh, you’re bad!” He grinned, clinking his cup to hers and having a sip of the cheeky prosecco she had opened.
“Are you ready?” Came Oliver’s mum’s voice from the changing room, and Jamie cheered as the little lad came out in new jeans and a dead cool hoodie that was just a bit too big for him, and would still fit him for a little while, even when he put some of the lost chemo weight back on.
Oliver looked so happy, doing his very best impression of a runway walk for them, before making them discuss whether they liked the outfit or not.
After a while, they had created a very respectable new wardrobe for him, plus a few items that wouldn’t fit him for a year or so, and Jamie turned the music back down to stop disturbing the other shoppers that occasionally popped in. At least none of them had had the gall to complain once they had seen the source of the commotion.
“You wanna go find some toys as well? Some plushies maybe?” Jamie asked as he carried the clothes they had chosen to the counter.
Oliver did and Jamie accompanied him to the section that seemed to have all kinds of soft stuff, plushies, decorative pillows, the works. He watched as Oliver went through the options, bonding with a plush dinosaur the second he laid eyes on it. Her, Oliver corrected.
It was on the way back to the counter that Jamie saw it. He stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of it and picked it up in disbelief.
There, among its peers of various other colours and textures, was a blanket that looked exactly like the one Roy had put into the curse fire three years ago.
Jamie picked it up. Where Roy’s blanket had been well-loved for thirty years (so what if Jamie had picked up ‘blankie’ for a moment and looked at it after he had helped Isaac carry the barrel out onto the pitch while the team all straggled along slowly), this one was new and pristine.
It was soft all over, where Roy’s had only been this soft on very few patches anymore, but it was the same, Jamie was sure of it. The same three rows of repeating light blue lines, one thick and three thin ones in each row of the pattern, ran along the edge of it. Soft fleece fabric, the high quality kind that would last long and feel lovely for years. Jamie smelled it and found nothing but the clean scent of a mild laundry detergent. He unfolded it to inspect it and found it to be without a single fault.
“Holy shit,” he whispered to himself, folding it again neatly and holding it close as if some other handful of shopper in the store might wrestle it from him.
Oliver broke the spell when he asked if he could have a Jenga tower, and Jamie gave him all his attention again so they could picked out toys for Oliver and his brothers.
Later, when Oliver’s aunt finished ringing them up and packing all of the new clothes and toys in bags for Oliver’s mum, Jamie held out the blanket to her.
“This one’s for me, if that’s alright?” He said.
“Then it’s my gift to you. For all that you’ve done for our Oliver today, I haven’t seen him smile like that in months,” Oliver’s aunt said softly, glancing over to the door where Oliver was talking to his mother excitedly, before packing the blanket into a bag for Jamie carefully and handing it to him.
Jamie put his hand to his chest and thanked her.
He loaded the bags into their car for them, hugging Oliver tightly and giving his number to Oliver’s mum, just in case their ever needed anything, and asked her to please send him their address.
As he waved them off, he clutched the bag handles tightly. Fuck, he hoped Roy would like it.
“Hey!”
“Hey yourself!” He found Roy already at home, resting his head on the back of the sofa to look at Jamie when he walked in, and not even protesting when Jamie Spider-man kissed him before heading into their ground floor bathroom to wash his hands and get some clean clothes on.
“How was it?” Roy asked when he returned, putting a bookmark into his latest thriller to keep his place and dropping it on the coffee table to give his full attention to Jamie.
Jamie let himself fall into the sofa, freshly changed and tired from the day, the charity shop bag still clutched to his chest.
“Yeah, no, it was good! Amazing really! Those kids were fucking adorable.”
He could see Roy’s eyes dart to the bag, but Roy didn’t interrupt him to ask about it.
“Made friends with this kid, Oliver, and he’s officially cancer-free. So I asked his mum if I could take him shopping, cos he’s going back to school now. And, you know, I figured no one’s gonna make fun of his bald head if he looks really cool.”
Roy smiled fondly, and Jamie leaned into Roy’s hand when he reached out and brushed it into Jamie’s hair. It made Roy scoot just a little closer so he could do it better, he was a good boyfriend like that. Once Roy had figured out that if it was up to Jamie, they’d be touching one way or another 24/7, he had really taken it as a call to action, and Jamie scooted a little closer in response, pressing their sides together and soaking up the warmth when Roy wrapped an arm around him.
“And because you’re a style icon, you decked him out?” Roy figured, the sarcasm only ever so slightly carrying in his voice, and Jamie rolled his eyes.
“That almost sounded like you meant it, well done, lad!” He told Roy, grinning. “Anyway, I just … I saw something, and I had to get it for you. It’s uhm … here.”
He looked at Roy who was looking at him, curious now.
Jamie handed over the bag, bouncing his leg nervously as Roy rearranged himself with an old man groan so he could use both hands to extract the contents of the bag, pulling the blanket out.
“It’s probably stupid, I just thought maybe you’d get a kick out of it because-“
Jamie cut himself off when Roy made as if to speak, but nothing came out.
Roy unfolded the blanket carefully, and Jamie held his breath. He watched as Roy’s lower lip wobbled, and the smallest sound came from his throat, making Jamie's heart ache.
“It looks … exactly like blan- like my blanket.” He caught himself.
“Yeah, it’s got the stripes and all, and it was real soft so I thought … you know ...”
Roy smelled it and carefully held the fabric up to his cheek.
“Fucking hell, Jamie …” It came out very softly and Roy turned to him, wrapping Jamie into a hug, the blanket pressed between their chests. Jamie went easily, climbing into Roy’s lap, mindful of the blanket, and wrapped himself around Roy who buried his face in Jamie’s neck and clutched him tightly.
“I can’t believe you. I can’t believe you found this.” Roy didn’t cry easily, and he didn’t now. Years of hazing, bullying and shouting having trained him out of it to the point where he could barely get there, even when he needed the catharsis. But his eyes were red when Jamie pulled back, and they both looked down at the blanket Roy was still clutching tightly against his chest.
“Thank you!” It came out from the bottom of Roy’s chest and Jamie sat back on his thighs, awash with satisfaction.
“I thought you might like it,” he said, feeling himself flush because Roy was looking at him in that intense way of his that he sometimes got. Jamie still didn’t know what that look on Roy meant, but he knew it was a good one.
“I love it!” Roy looked down at it, running his fingers over the fabric for a moment like he couldn’t believe what he was holding.
“And I really fucking love you!” He added happily, hooking his fingers into the collar of Jamie’s hoodie to pull him in for a kiss.
The new blankie found a home in Roy's nightstand, and while Jamie didn't see it often, it was usually out on the bed whenever Jamie hadn't been home for a couple of days.
He mentioned once, that he wouldn't mind if it became a permanent fixture. After all, Roy was cool with his teddy bear on the nightstand, even if it sometimes had to face the other way.
"No need." Roy had assured him, pressing a kiss to Jamie's temple the way he did when he was especially pleased with him. "I'm home when you are."