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~~~
There’s raised voices coming from the locker room. Roy misses when that was rare.
They’re slightly muffled by the closed door to the Manager’s office, but not enough that the words aren’t clear. That Roy can’t hear this spat, the latest in a growing line.
"Man just fuck off alright! Why the fuck are you even asking huh?"
“Jamie, I was just-“
“Nah don’t act like this isn’t the best fucking thing that’s ever happened in your sad fuckin' career Robbie- the only way you could ever make starting line up is if I’m not fucking playing.”
Roberts has clearly become the latest victim of Jamie’s recent return to peak prickish form. It wasn’t Robbies fault. He’d been brilliant lately, stepping in to fill Jamie’s spot in the starting line up when he couldn’t. He wasn’t Jamie, wasn’t the ‘team’s talisman’, their star conductor. But he’d done his job, played his role like they’d needed him to. Robbie wasn’t what Jamie was really mad about.
“Jamie, I didn’t-“
“Actually, fuck, the only reason you’re a chance of getting a new fucking contract is because I’ve been out. You just want to know if my fuckin’ leg’s getting better because you’re worried about your fuckin’ pathetic minutes. So just fuck off about it okay. You worry about your tragic fucking football and I’ll worry about my leg.”
It had only been a week ago that Roy had stood in the doorway of the treatment room, arms crossed and brow furrowed as he’d looked over at Jamie, sitting bowed in front of the physios. Only a week ago when he’d watched them hold up fresh scans to the mounted light. Watched them assess the strength and mobility of Jamie’s right leg.
Watched as they stood before the player, voices gentle, words devastating. That was when it really went wrong.
Nearly a month before, Jamie had torn a hamstring in injury time of a losing match.
At first he’d maintained his characteristically high spirits, refusing to be upset by the meaninglessness of the injury, by the futility of the sprint that had resulted in it. Roy had been unable to quash his growing sense of pride as he’d witnessed Jamie stay stubbornly determined to positively contribute to the team, even while he couldn’t play. As he’d witnessed Jamie throw himself into physical therapy with that same seemingly endless determination.
But weeks of sitting out training, of working in near isolation with the physios, of watching matches from a distance, had left Jamie irritable and withdrawn. Only the promise of being cleared to play holding his rapidly fraying composure together.
And that most recent assessment, being told ’not healing as expected… at least two weeks until you can start to run again’ had pushed him from irritable and withdrawn to furious and defensive.
Roy had hoped they’d be able to wait Jamie out. That those two weeks could at least be endured if not enjoyed. But they’re only at the halfway point, and Jamie’s just proved him wrong.
The locker room door slams.
Across from him, Beard raises his eyes from the book propped in his lap to stare meaningfully at Roy. Neither of them have ever needed many words to make themselves be understood, and even now as they settle into the shifted dynamic of the Manager’s office without Ted, that at least hasn’t changed.
Beard holds eye contact, raises one eyebrow.
Roy sighs briefly, thinks ‘I’m trying’. Says, “Yeah, I’ve got it.”
~~~
Ever since Ted Fucking Lasso had come along and made all these little idiots care about each, the locker room has been a focal point for chaos. Ground zero for a bomb made up of flying Lynx cans, FIFA tournaments, easy affection and whatever the fuck was going on with Isaac’s ritualistic haircuts.
Though he’d never admit it to them, Roy had enjoyed being a part of that chaos as their teammate. Enjoyed watching it as their coach. Now as their Manager he’d do anything to have it back.
But not even the meanest of voices in his head can lay the blame for this solely at his feet. The locker room hasn’t been like this all season. This is recent.
Less than half of the players are still in the room.
A handful of them have gathered close to Roberts, looking unsettled. Isaac is closest, his gaze is intense and he has a firm hand on Robbie’s shoulder. He’s murmuring words too low for Roy to hear.
The last few players are scattered, standing alone, facing their cubbies.
With the hurried way they’re shoving their things into bags, they resemble nothing so much as schoolboys instead of the professional athletes they actually are. The adults they allegedly are.
Roy looks at them and wonders when all the players got so fucking young. Wonders when he got old. Roy wants to talk to them, but he needs to talk to Jamie.
He catches Isaac’s eye and nods. Good lad. Steps toward the exit, squares his already tight shoulders, takes a deep breath and walks though.
The Muppet can’t have gotten far.
~~~
The Muppet hasn’t gotten far. At all.
Roy finds Jamie by the water fountain. He’s dropping a freshly filled water bottle into his cross-body bag and glowering at anyone that walks by him, hackles raised, clearly more than ready to strike out. Everything about his body language screams don’t talk to me or else, but Roy’s been on the receiving end of Jamie’s vitriol before, for reasons far less important than this. He’ll take his chances. Roy stands in front of Jamie, lets him make the first move.
“What the fuck do you want, Grandad?”
Once, that brattish tone was infuriating. Once, that name was a spike. A sharp hot thing piercing his chest and whiting out his thoughts, ’I’ll fucking kill you!’
Once, he would’ve been quick to anger, let the feeling well up inside him until he saw red, would’ve lunged. Now, he identifies the emotion, decides it’s not helpful, stops the aggressive behaviour before it can start. Shoves the anger aside.
The source of that old familiar anger right now isn’t a sharp hot thing, isn’t a spike. It’s concern. Because this isn’t like Jamie, hasn’t been for a long time now. So Roy is worried about him. As his Manager, as his friend. He promises himself that no matter what Jamie throws at him, he’ll be patient. That he won’t let Jamie push him away.
“Coach, if you’re about to ask me if I’m okay, I swear-“
“I’m not gonna ask you if you’re okay because you’re clearly fucking not.”
He'd rather not have this conversation where anyone can hear it. Looks around briefly and discovers he need not have worried. Between Roy’s apparently psychotic eyebrows and Jamie’s increasingly hostile glares, they’ve managed to exude enough fuck off energy to clear the hallway.
“I am gonna ask you what the fuck is going on in your head though.”
Jamie stares at the floor. His face screws up, he raises both hands in front of him and starts shaking them out like he’s trying to ward something away.
Roy thinks of ‘I’m just tired’, thinks of ‘because what’s the fuckin’ point’ and stops breathing.
But Jamie doesn’t break down, doesn’t start rambling about conditioner and pushing rocks up hills. Doesn’t even hop around in a circle.
(For the best really. The physios would probably have both their heads if he’d tried.)
He just stands, frantically flapping hands, now curling into tight fists. Knuckles going white.
“I don’t know, alright! I don’t fuckin’ know, is that what you wanna fucking hear?”
He’s angry, not depressed. “I don’t know!”
Frustrated, not devastated. “I’m just mad, okay!”
“My stupid fuckin’ leg won’t heal even though I’m doing all the right things. I am fucking doing all the things the physios are telling me to do! But it’s not fucking gettin’ better and I don’t know how to make it.”
Jamie looks up at him, his eyes are blazing where they meet Roy’s.
“I just want it to get better but it isn’t, and it’s making me so fucking angry that I- I just want to fuckin’ scream. And everyone keeps tryna help, yeah? But it’s making it fuckin’ worse because they don’t fuckin’ get it and they won’t leave me alone.”
Roy resists the urge to remind Jamie that the team isn’t leaving him alone because they care about him. Because they’re worried. Because they do get it. Injuries happen all the time in this sport and recovery isn’t always easy. Dani had spent months in rehabilitation with his knee before ever playing a single match as a Greyhound. O’Brien’s own hamstring troubles had been so persistent that they’d gone from a four-week problem to costing him his place in the starting line up.
He resists the urge to remind Jamie that Roy absolutely gets it. Not being kept out of the game for a few weeks, but being kept out forever. What was once just an ache in his knee became a time bomb. The explosion of which has left behind a chronic pain that will only keep getting worse. ‘You can’t walk up stairs!’ Maybe one day he won’t be able to walk at all.
So the team does get it. Roy gets it. But reminding Jamie of that won’t help right now.
“I’m just angry, Roy, and I don’t know how to make it stop.”
Jamie clearly needs an outlet. Needs to get out of his own head. But he can’t take Jamie to the community pitch where he grew up, can’t take Jamie on some spontaneous bike ride to find a fucking windmill. Jamie can’t fucking run.
“I think I have an idea.” He’s lying. He has no clue what to do.
Jamie ducks his head, scowls at the floor and tangles his hands together in one tight knot. His knuckles are still white.
“Fine.”
Jamie believes him anyway.
~~~
Beard fixes him with a piercing look as he closes the office door. Raises an eyebrow.
“Yeah, I’ve got it handled.”
Beard raises the other eyebrow. Doesn’t believe him.
Roy grunts. Beard understands; he turns back to his book.
Roy makes his way across the office before gingerly lowering himself into his chair, perpetually sore knee making every bad day worse. He gazes around at the papers on his desk, the files open on his laptop. Every single one of them need his attention, but he can’t give it to them right now. He props his elbows on the papers, folds his hands together and tips his head back instead.
The gym behind him is abandoned. Where there’d normally be a few stragglers, players making use of access to the weights and machinery, instead there’s only still equipment and vaguely stale air. The locker room in front of him is similarly quiet, a few subdued voices calling their goodbyes. No muppet-y banter, no shouted half-baked plans to meet up on each others fucking Animal Crossing islands, no grown men hanging off each other like children swinging from climbing frames.
None of the players are eager to stick around the club. It’s been like that for almost the whole week now. The air fraught with tension and unease, the players walking on eggshells ever since Jamie had rolled out the prick extraordinaire behaviour they haven’t properly seen from him off the pitch in years. Ever since Jamie was told he couldn’t run yet.
The team is confused. They don’t understand why Jamie’s acting the way he is. Roy doesn’t think even Jamie understands. Without the ability to run, to play, to compete, Jamie’s curdling emotions have had no where to go. No way to be expressed. It’s making him defensive and snappish and cruel. What Jamie had just said to Roberts was cruel. He’d already refused to go see Dr Sharon when all of this had started, ’wrong kinda Doctor old man, the problem’s with my fuckin’ leg not my head’, and Roy doesn’t know how to help him.
He sighs, drops his chin forward into his folded hands, looks across the desks at Beard. Thinks about Ted and wonders how many times Ted had sat at this desk, staring at his friend, searching for answers. Staring past his friend into the locker room, at a collection of young men looking to him for the same thing.
Once Roy would’ve said that this all must have come easily to Ted. The man always seemed to have quick access to all the answers. Falling from his lips in a steady stream, wrapped in a folksy fucking anecdote.
But then it was, ‘when I left the match against Tottenham, it, uh, it wasn’t ‘cause my stomach was bothering me’, and Roy could never have imagined what he would say next, what he’d been hiding. So maybe answers didn’t come to Ted as easily or as quickly as Roy had thought.
And now Ted’s gone. So his answers and his folksy fucking anecdotes can’t help either way.
Roy turns his head, presses his knuckles into his right temple. He can’t keep looking at Beard. Looks at his old desk instead. A part of him misses being an assistant coach, being involved but not in charge, knowing it didn’t all land on his shoulders. Knowing that someone else was there, in front of him, above him. To make sure he didn’t get it all wrong.
But ’it has to be me, it can’t be anyone else’ has haunted him since he first read it. Surrounded by fairy lights, Phoebe pressed into his side, her face shifting between the pages and his face. Looking to Roy for guidance. For advice. For reassurance and safety.
’It has to be me.’
So there’s another part of him that doesn’t miss being an assistant coach. There’s a part of him that relishes being the leader. Knows that if he fucks up as Manager he could do untold harm. But if he can somehow, somehow get it right… He can help, is the point. He just wants to help.
’It can’t be anyone else.’
Nate’s sitting at that desk now. Maybe he’d know what to do about Jamie. They’ve both changed dramatically in the time Roy’s known them. The Nate of now is so different from the quiet kit-man he’d once been. It’s not just that his hair is grey; he’s steadier, speaks louder, walks taller. Roy had missed him when he was gone, had worried that Nate’s decent into self-destruction was somehow his fault. That he should’ve done more to help him, should’ve noticed that he needed help. Missed his tactical super brain too, had worried that he wouldn’t be enough to fill the void Nate had left behind.
Roy had always thought there was something more to Nate, had noticed the moments when his eyes would go sharp, where he’d frantically scribble notes onto ripped paper, then give a tiny smile and stuff the scraps back into his pocket.
But the first time Roy had known there was something more to him was in Liverpool, sitting with his team in the away rooms at Everton.
Roy remembers standing in front of him. Remembers how unsettled Nate had been, how quietly he’d started to speak. The way Nate had shrunk into himself as he’d looked up at him. ‘Go on. Say what you’re gonna say.’
Roy hadn’t been trying to scare him. Not really. It’s not his fault his face looks like this.
(Maybe the way he’d snatched and thrown Nate’s notes was a little his fault. Maybe he was trying to scare him. Just a bit.)
‘Your speed and your smarts were never what made you who you are. It’s your anger. That’s your superpower.’
‘But I haven’t seen it on the pitch at all this season, Roy. I mean you used to run like you were angry at the grass.’
‘But that anger doesn’t come out anymore when you play. But it’s still in there, and I’m afraid of what it’s gonna do to you if you just keep it all for yourself.’
He remembers thinking, ‘good lad, well said’, as he’d turned away from Nate’s vaguely terrified face. Remembers tearing the wooden bench he’d been sitting on free from it’s bolts, deadpanning ‘let’s go get these fuckers’, then playing out of his skin and finally delivering a Richmond victory against Everton. Remembers climbing on to another of those wooden benches afterward, pulling Keeley up to stand next to him and feeling more alive, more himself, than he had in years.
‘What it’s gonna do to you.’
Bottled up and shut tightly inside, Roy’s anger had ultimately emptied him out, left him hollow. Had taken him from a legend and a leader to less of an actual captain than a caricature of one. Still furious at the grass, yes, but even more furious at his knee, furious at Cartrick, furious at football. Furious at himself.
He can’t let that happen to Jamie.
Can’t let Jamie’s anger settle and solidify. Can’t let it consume him.
Maybe Nate would know what to do about Jamie.
But, maybe now Roy does too.
~~~
Roy picks Jamie up from his home the very next day, unlike all of the times they’ve set off together in the dark, either unspeakably early morning or sleepy meant-to-be-lazy evenings, the sun is high in the sky, just starting to peek through England's perpetual clouds. Jamie is waiting on his porch, hands shoved deep in the pockets of his sweatpants and increasingly all too familiar scowl already attached to his face. He paces intently over to the G-Wagon, clearly resisting the desire to stomp only in deference to his troublesome right hamstring.
“All right Grandad, what’s your brilliant plan to fix me then?” he drawls as he yanks open the door and slides in.
Roy valiantly fights down the urge to roll his eyes at the childish antics even as Jamie slams the door closed, reminds himself he’s decided to be patient with the little idiot and resist calling him names.
“It’s not about fixing you, you Muppet-” Roy has never claimed to be perfect, “-it’s about letting your fuckin’ anger out in a way that doesn’t leave your teammates in pieces.” That doesn’t leave you hollow.
Jamie glower falters minutely, no doubt recalling Robbie’s stricken face.
Roy watches him for a moment longer before restarting the car and pulling back onto the road.
~~~
Roy really wishes he could say that he’s thought this through, but the truth is he’s panicking a bit.
The problem isn’t that Roy has no experience with being around Jamie when he’s behaving like this. Jamie had more than earned the title ‘The Prince Prick of all Pricks’ during his loan at Richmond.
No, the problem is that Roy knows Jamie now. He’s watched the lad do burpees until he’s been bent in half losing his breakfast, he’s followed him through Amsterdam’s winding cobblestone streets on a bike he could barely control, he’s held him in his arms while he wailed about losing his wings; Roy knows Jamie. He knows how hard he works, knows his capacity for kindness, knows his hurts. And sometimes knowing is awful.
Because knowing means understanding that ‘The Prince Prick of all Pricks’ was never just an irredeemable ’little bitch prima donna’. That the prick behaviour was never all there is to him. No, under all of that Jamie was always someone Roy now calls a friend. They just didn’t know it yet.
So it’s not that Roy hasn’t dealt with this behaviour from Jamie Fucking Tartt before, it’s that Roy hasn’t dealt with this behaviour from his friend before. The Roy of now can’t imagine attacking Jamie, verbally or otherwise, the way he so often wanted to as the Roy of then. The Roy of now knows that Jamie is more complicated and messy and good than the Roy of then had ever thought he was capable of being.
So, Roy’s panicking a bit, because the truth is he really hasn’t thought this through.
~~~
It’s not long before Jamie speaks again, more sincerely this time he asks, “Okay, but really, what are we doin’?”
Roy glances at him, notes the defensively crossed arms, the bouncing left knee. Takes a deep breath in, pulls the air all the way down to his lungs, and tries.
“Look, it’s- I’ve got a lot of experience with having more anger than I know what to do with-”
Jamie turns, opening his mouth like he’s about to interrupt.
“No, don’t do that, you just asked me to explain.”
His mouth snaps closed.
“I’ve tried a bunch of different shit over the years, alright. Some shit that works, some shit that doesn’t.” Yoga has worked better than anything else, but Roy isn’t prepared to share that vulnerable truth with Jamie when he’s spent the last week spitting acid at everyone around him. “You can’t fucking run right now and it’s clearly doing your head in, so we’re going somewhere you can actually express your fucking anger and-”
“Wait, hang on, is your brilliant bloody idea exercise? What the fuck do you think I’ve been doing at the club?”
“No! Just- will you let me fucking speak?” Roy quickly softens his voice, remembers the promise to be patient. “Please?”
Jamie’s jaw clenches and his chin jerks once. Yes.
“The ‘brilliant bloody idea’ is a rage room.”
“A rage room?”
“A rage room.”
“What the fuck is a ‘rage room’?”
“It’s a room full of shit that you can fucking break.”
“The fuck?”
“Look, you can’t fucking run, you’re frustrated as fuck and you’re taking it out on everyone around you. Fucking exercise clearly isn’t cutting it, so we’re trying something else. We’re gonna go to this fucking place, swing some fucking bats and break some fucking shit.”
The look Jamie throws Roy is filled with heavy skepticism, it pulls down his mouth and tangles his brows until he vaguely resembles one of the muppets Roy so often accuses him of being. At least he’s not glaring anymore.
~~~
“So you really just stay in this room and break shit?”
They’re standing facing each other, Roy has somehow managed to wrangle Jamie into wearing the personal protective equipment provided, despite protests of ’Coveralls are for grandads, Grandad’ and ‘No, them goggles’ll mess me hair up!’
“Yes Jamie, we really just stay in this room and break shit.”
Jamie takes a moment to consider the aluminium baseball bats they’re both holding. Squints. “How d’you reckon these people make any money? Like do the tickets gettin‘ in cover all the broken shit they gotta buy?”
Roy blinks at him, pushes away the last feelings of panic. Jamie is still Jamie, even like this. Jamie is still someone Roy knows. Someone he can help.
“Does it matter?”
Jamie huffs, loosely juggles the bat between his hands and casts an evaluating look at the half shattered junk scattered around them, mimes taking a swing at a three-legged table. Smirks, then cocks his head.
“S’pose not.”
~~~
Roy has a lot of memories of Wembley stadium.
He remembers being small, sitting curled in front of the TV in a cramped South London flat, watching The Three Lions race across the pitch at Old Wembley as the ball skates between them.
Remembers running out at New Wembley, the England emblem no longer tiny and pixelated through a screen but bold and proud, heavy against his chest.
Remembers wearing the Chelsea crest like a badge of honour, like a suit of armour, lifting the FA Cup towards the arch, royal blue ribbons falling against his arms. Then again, then again, until the memories and the trophies blur together.
Hell, he remembers standing on the covered pitch, shoulder to shoulder with his sister, her first night out since her living-piece-of-shit ex fucked off out of her life, watching Robbie Fucking Williams shout ‘bless you Taylor’ into the night sky.
But there’s one thing he doesn’t just remember. There’s one thing he can’t forget.
Because Roy remembers not being surprised when Jamie had swung at this father, had laid him flat on the ground with only one punch. Remembers then being surprised at the way Jamie’s face had cracked open afterward, looking confused and scared. Remembers Jamie, standing there in his socks, looking far smaller than a professional footballer has any business looking.
Because Roy remembers that in a room filled with teammates; teammates who’d gone from apparently only grudgingly accepting Jamie back to quickly welcoming him into the pre-match handshakes and post-match celebrations, a room filled with teammates who’d grown to care about him after finally meeting the person behind the prick, a room filled with teammates who would have readily put themselves between Jamie and his father if only he’d asked; remembers that in that room, Jamie had looked utterly alone.
Because Roy remembers walking to Jamie, remembers Jamie flinching as he crushed him to his chest. But he can’t forget being almost floored by the realisation that had spurred him into action.
Jamie had never swung at his father like that before.
~~~
Jamie swings now.
The bat in his hands goes sailing through the air with a ferocity that in any other context would alarm Roy. Now though he feels a quiet sense of satisfaction, earlier panic sliding away. Roy knows he’s made mistakes when it comes to Jamie, holds himself more accountable for those than he probably should. Has been genuinely trying to make up for them since ’where the fuck are my wings, Roy?’ Since far earlier than that if he’s being honest with himself. He’s trying to make up for them now.
Roy keeps half an eye on the mess in front of him, he’s taking the opportunity to go to town on a particularly ugly, yet strangely familiar, gun-shaped lampshade, but almost all of his attention is focused on Jamie. He watches the way Jamie furiously puts his weight into the swing, brutally careens his bat into the broken chair in front of him, nearly smashes the bat right down to the ground with the power of his follow through. His eyes are bright with the same vicious glee that’s lit them the past week as he’s torn into anyone and everyone around him.
Jamie looks as if all thought has left his head; his hamstring long forgotten, the isolation of physical rehabilitation long forgotten, the verdict ’not healing as expected… at least two weeks until you can start to run again’ long forgotten.
Roy’s sense of satisfaction grows stronger. He can help.
From his periphery he watches as Jamie reduces the broken chair to splinters, then spins to face his next target. His face is red, his nostrils flared. He’s shaking slightly. Jamie moves, heedless of the weakness in his right leg, heedless of his damaged hamstring, heedless of his seemingly endless physical therapy. Heedless of the wood chips still flying from the aluminium bat.
Roy watches as Jamie raises the weapon high above his head, then crashes it down with a violent roar of pent up rage, directly into the body of a large upright clock.
Roy gives up all pretence of not observing Jamie. Instead, he stills, his own bat falling to rest against his leg. Jamie doesn’t cry out anymore but he does continue to raise the bat, bringing it down again and again, faster and faster and faster still. As he does his breath quickens, turns ragged and sounds almost painful as it tears out of him. The clocks shatters. The glass face becomes shards, the delicate hands fly free, the face splits in two and the gears are launched into the air; all met with a force they had no hope of withstanding.
Roy’s satisfaction slowly drains away, replaced instead with a disquieting sense of dread.
He really hasn’t thought this through.
He watches as Jamie’s swings slow and stop, watches as Jamie pants, as his bat gradually lowers, the top of it just brushing the ground, still held in a white knuckle grasp.
Roy doesn’t understand what’s just happened.
He can only stand, can only watch as Jamie’s hurried breaths turn shallow, as he slowly turns toward him. Jamie’s face is just as confused as it had been at Wembley, looking vaguely nauseous and refusing to make eye contact.
He just wants to help.
Roy can only watch as Jamie raises his white knuckles, presents the bat toward Roy. Can only watch his own hand rise to take it.
Can only realise with sickening clarity that there’s something happening here he hasn’t considered.
He really hasn’t thought this through.
Can only watch as Jamie hurries through the door. Can only look at his own hands, two fists clenched around two bats. Can only stare at the remnants of the upright clock. A grandfather clock a tiny traitorous part of his brain unhelpfully supplies. ‘I’m trying’ he thinks desperately, facing the wreck of it.
Roy can only stare at the door Jamie’s just disappeared behind.
He wishes he could take back the last hour. Wishes he could take back whatever ugly thing has just risen up in Jamie. Wishes he could take away every ugly thing in Jamie, could take away every ugly thing Jamie has been through. Wishes he’d moved quicker when Jamie’s Dad was spitting in his face. Wishes he’d had the right words when Jamie was falling apart in front of him; at Wembley, at Nelson Road, at ’when I were fourteen’. Roy wishes he’d never hurt him, never threatened him. Wishes he was more than a poster on a wall.
Wishes he had thought this through.
Because Roy knows Jamie. He knows his friend.
Thinks maybe he does understand what’s just happened.
Desperately hopes he’s wrong.
~~~
Here’s the thing. Roy never wanted kids.
Never really considered them if he’s being honest. Football was everything he thought he needed. Everything he thought he was allowed to need.
For so long it was all he thought that he’d ever have.
(There was a moment. With Keeley. Where he thought maybe. But that’s gone now.)
Because, he’s nine years old and he’s curled around blankie, cold in a car while his grandfather hums next to him. He’s nine years old and he’s curled around blankie, far from home for the first time. He’s nine years old and he’s curled around blankie, alone on the first night of Chanukah. Then he’s not nine years old. He’s older than he ever planned on being, with more aches than he ever thought he’d have, but he’s still curled around blankie. He’s trying to justify what he’s about to do, trying to justify casting the worn cloth into fire. Trying to rationalise this sacrifice. Hoping it’ll be worth it.
So, it’s always been football. The coldness and the loneliness and the aches have all been for football. It has to be worth it.
And kids had never factored in.
But there was Phoebe.
And she wasn’t his kid, but she was his. In every way that mattered. In every way he never thought he’d care about.
There was Phoebe, tiny and vulnerable, his family, his responsibility.
Roy doesn’t think of Jamie the same way he thinks of Phoebe. Phoebe idolises him. He knows that. There’s a picture of them both on her bedside table, she’ll happily follow him to fucking pediatrist appointments, listens to him about not having ice cream for dinner just as readily as she argues with her Mum about it.
But there’s that fucking poster. Still there, plastered on the wall of a bedroom turned time capsule, four hours away in a council estate in North Manchester. There was Jamie, in front of him as he runs, headlight bouncing along the pavement, ’let’s go coach’ echoing in his ears. There was Jamie, ’I know you have my best interests at heart… or the club’s anyway’. There was Jamie, eyes sincere, beer bottle angled toward Roy ‘real talk man, thank you’.
There was Jamie, his player, his friend, his responsibility.
So maybe Roy’s two muppets aren’t that different.
Phoebe holds a special place in Roy’s heart. No one could ever match it or replace it. Her place there is her’s. It always will be.
Maybe Jamie has a place there too.
Because Jamie idolises him. He knows that.
And like fuck he’ll ever think of Jamie as his kid. But Jamie is still and also his.
~~~
Roy pulls off the PPE. Hands the bats in. Settles the bill. Doesn’t smile at the workers behind the front desk but doesn’t frown either. Steps back onto the pavement under England’s overcast skies, searches for the earlier hints of sun. He doesn’t find it. It’s started drizzling. Typical.
From where he’s standing on the pavement, still trying to deny what he thinks he didn’t think of, what he thinks he might possibly be beginning to understand, he can’t see Jamie.
He can see the G-Wagon. Massive. Black. Imposing. Empty.
The Muppet can’t have gotten far.
Roy slowly turns his head, scans his surroundings. Looks. Listens. Tries not to think, desperately hopes he’s wrong.
There’s an alley, skinny and stinking, not far from the exit to the rage room’s building. He walks in.
The Muppet hasn’t gotten far. At all.
Because there’s Jamie, looking far smaller than a professional football player has any business looking. There’s Jamie, sat directly on the filthy ground, legs pulled to his chest. There’s Jamie, elbows on his knees, staring at his clenched fists lightly shaking in front of him.
There’s Jamie, knuckles white.
There’s Jamie, right where Roy has landed him.
~~~
Roy stands in front of Jamie, lets him make the first move. But unlike the day before there’s no brattish, biting retort, no raised hackles, no fuck off energy. No energy at all.
Jamie just sits, pale and crumpled in front of him. He’s managed to discard the PPE, must have still had the presence of mind to strip it off and leave it inside while Roy was stood useless, staring at a clock. He tries to draw solace from that, hears the wet note to Jamie’s breathing, and can’t.
“Hey.” Roy keeps his voice soft, works to remove the growl. Refuses to be an angry man looming over Jamie. Again.
“…Hey.” That wet note to his breathing is in his voice as well. It cracks something open inside Roy’s chest. Something that sounds like ‘I’m still the same fucking idiot I’ve always been’. Something that whispers ‘I’ve been infecting you with the worst parts of me’.
“Are you okay?”
Jamie huffs. “Thought you knew better than to ask me that?”
“Yeah. Yeah I do.”
Jamie’s refusing to raise his eyes from where they’re staring at his own tight fists. Roy carefully bends to perch in front of him, leaves his own hands loose, palms up. Pushes aside the pain in his knee. He knows he’ll pay for it later, but he’s busy paying for something else right now.
“So are you gonna tell me what’s going on in your head?”
Jamie shrugs.
“Are you still feeling- Did it not work?” Desperately hopes he’s wrong. “I won’t be mad at you if you didn’t like it, Jamie.”
Jamie shakes his head. He still looks nauseous. “That’s not it.”
“Then why are you upset?”
Roy needs Jamie to say it. Can’t offer his guess at what Jamie’s thinking. Can’t put the idea in Jamie’s head if he’s wrong. Can’t ever let Jamie know that Roy’s had this thought, even if it turns out he was right.
“Because I did like it Roy. I didn’t think I would but I really, really liked it. Liked hitting something. Liked breaking it. It felt good.” Jamie pauses, shakily breathes in. “And if there’s a part of me that liked that, that likes doing that, then that means that I’m- that that part-”
He was right. Wishes he wasn’t.
“-That means I’m just like him. Like me Dad.”
Jamie turns to face him, he’s pale, his eyes are glassy, reflecting the cloudy sky back at Roy. They’re pleading for something. Something Roy can only try and give him. He can help.
Jamie whispers, “I don’t want to be.”
As Manager he could do untold harm. As Jamie’s friend he could-
Roy shifts, turns and collapses until his back is pressed firmly against the wall, slides down the last few inches until he’s sitting in the dirt with Jamie. Raises his left arm and hooks it around him. Pulls him close. Tries to think this through. He just wants to help.
“You’re not, Jay. You’re nothing like him.”
“How do you know?”
He knows Jamie.
“Because I know you.”
Jamie sighs, drops his head to Roy’s shoulder and mumbles, “But you don’t know him- he ain’t really- he weren’t always like that. Ya know?”
“Jamie-”, takes a deep breath in, pulls the air all the way down to his lungs, and tries. “I know enough.”
Roy thinks of ‘calling me soft if I didn’t- dominate’ and ‘I actually fuckin’ hated that’. Thinks of a still locker room, shaking hands clutching at his back and hitching sobs in his ear. Thinks of ‘when I were fourteen’ and ‘I don’t remember’. Wonders if Jamie understands what that means. Understands what had actually happened to him, what he’d confessed to Roy. Understands what his Dad is really capable of.
“You’re worried, because you did something violent and you liked it, right?”
Jamie nods.
“So you’re worried that means you’re like your Dad, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Because he’s violent?”
Nods again.
"And he likes being violent?”
And again.
“How do you know he likes being violent?”
“What?”
“How do you know? Did you ever ask him?”
“No, I didn’t ask. I know because he- ‘cause he always- he has to like it, he’s gotta. I don’t- It’s- He’s just like that. He does it all the time. He did it to-“
They both know what Jamie isn’t saying. What he’s refusing to say. Why James Tartt Sr. has to enjoy violence. ‘He did it to-‘ me.
“Jamie, that’s how I know. That’s the difference.”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you seriously think your bastard of a father has ever felt a fraction of the shit you’re feeling now? Do you actually think he’s ever felt half as awful about hitting you, as you’re feeling about hitting a broken clock?"
Roy knows he’s made mistakes when it comes to Jamie.
”You’re not him Jamie, because you’re so worried about being like him. Someone like that, like your Dad. He wouldn’t care, Jay. He doesn’t care.”
Wishes he could take away every ugly thing in Jamie, could take away every ugly thing Jamie has been through.
“Smashing up junk is different to hurting a person. I know you Jamie, so if I ask you, ‘would you enjoy being violent to a person?’, and you say yes, I’ll know you’re lying to me.”
Wishes he was more than a poster on a wall.
“So. Jamie. Would you enjoy being violent to a person? Would it make you feel good?”
Jamie’s voice is nothing more than a murmur. “No.”
He’s trying to make up for them now.
“Didn’t quite catch that Jay.”
Louder. “No. No, I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“Does that sound like something your Dad would say?”
“No.”
“So are you like him? Like your Dad?”
“…No.”
Jamie breaths it out as if it’s a confession. Like something terrible he’s carried around, weighed down by the burden of it. Like something he can let go of now, something that can’t touch him again. Jamie breaths it out as if it’s a relief.
Roy lets that sit for a moment, thinks ‘Jamie Tartt is a muppet’, wonders when exactly the feeling behind that changed.
“You know what else?”
“What?”
“I wouldn’t give a single fucking shit about someone like your Dad. Wouldn’t care about them if my fuckin’ life depended on it.”
Roy brushes his hand down then up Jamie’s arm, lightly leans his cheek against the crown of Jamie’s head.
‘I care about you’ goes unsaid.
Jamie hears it anyway. Huffs lightly.
Roy stays there for a few seconds longer. Firmly presses his head once into Jamie’s hair, then straightens back up.
"Are you still feeling angry?”
Jamie breathes in, seems to consider it. Breathes out. “Yeah, yeah a bit.”
“Okay, I might have another idea.”
“Roy, I really don’t want to hit-”
“No. No, I know Jay. It’s alright. Forget violence. Fuck violence.” Holds him tighter. “You’ve probably had enough of it, hey.”
Jamie rolls his eyes up to meet Roy’s. Big and sad and slightly damp. Looking to Roy for guidance. For advice. For reassurance and safety.
Roy wishes he had thought this through from the start.
Because he knows Jamie.
Jamie, who is his friend, his responsibility.
Jamie, who isn’t his, but is his.
Jamie, who idolises him. He knows that.
Jamie needs an outlet, but Jamie never needed violence. Jamie actively shied away from it. Jamie had never swung at his father like that before.
“Let’s go make something, yeah?”
Jamie’s head is warm and heavy against his shoulder. His knees are sharp where they’re leaning against Roy’s. Jamie’s pointy elbow will undoubtedly cause bruises if it spends much longer lodged against Roy’s ribcage.
Jamie smiles. Heedless of the weakness in his right leg, heedless of his damaged hamstring, heedless of his seemingly endless physical therapy. His hands are loose where they hang in front of him, his knuckles relaxed. Jamie looks up at Roy. His eyes have cleared. Bright and happy and finally calm.
Roy looks down at Jamie. Thinks ‘I’m trying’, lets himself trust that it’ll be enough. He can help. Lets himself believe it.
“C’mon you Muppet, what are we doing sitting in the fucking dirt?”
Struggles to his feet, ignores his knee. Reaches down to pull Jamie to his, careful of his hamstring.
“Some poor fuck is out there working a weeks wages for the cost of your stupid clothes.”
The drizzle stops. But the sun doesn’t break through the clouds. Yet.
~~~
“…Fuck, I need to say sorry to everyone. To Robbie.”
“Yeah, yeah I think you do Jay.”
“…Do you think they’ll forgive me?”
“Of course they will. They’ve been worried about you.”
“…Not sure I deserve them.”
“You do Jamie. You do.”
~~~
Roy books them spots in a pottery class. They arrive in shades and hats, desperately trying to avoid being recognised. The class is working on ceramic elephants. The class is an advanced class. Roy did not realise this when he booked it.
Their elephants are misshapen disasters. They gift them to Phoebe. She treasures them.
Jamie’s hamstring heals.
Jamie heals.
So does Roy.
~~~