Work Text:
If Jamie had been asked to describe what he thought Roy’s place might look like three years ago, he’d have described some kind of gothic vampire mansion. A dark, gloomy (and maybe kind of sexy) place full of uncomfortable furniture and BDSM equipment that was probably used for torture more than fun. He wouldn’t have added that he’d have very much liked to find out for himself.
He was a wiser man now though, and in the privileged position to be spending all the time he pleased at Roy’s place these days.
How he had fumbled his way into a relationship with Roy was still one of the greatest mysteries of his life, but he fucking loved every second of it.
Roy’s place, it turned out, was nothing like he had imagined. There was something incredibly warm about the place, something soulful and homey that Jamie couldn’t help but want to be surrounded by. It had felt odd coming back to his own place after spending time at Roy’s when they had first started dating. His own home felt like it was staged for a viewing in comparison to Roy’s lived-in sanctuary.
A part of him really hoped Roy was going to ask him to move in, not just because he and Jamie already spent every waking minute, and sometimes every sleeping minute too, with each other, but because it was becoming seriously difficult to keep making it look like he wasn’t moving himself in already.
Roy had offered him space in his closet early on. It had just made sense for Jamie to have some clothes at his place so they could go right to work after Jamie slept over. The issue was … Roy didn’t have that many clothes. Solid staples, beautiful stuff, but not that much in terms of volume. He barely took up a quarter of his own walk-in closet.
And Jamie- well, Jamie really liked clothes.
He really liked stuff, period, which boiled down to Jamie’s wardrobe already taking up more space in Roy’s closet than Roy’s own stuff did.
The second sink in the bathroom had suffered a similar fate. While Roy had his products in a neat little basket by his sink, the sink Jamie couldn’t help but think of as his was overflowing with products. So yeah, he was pretty much moved in and had no idea when he had last slept in his own bed, actually.
He wasn’t even carrying the key to his house around on a daily basis anymore, opting to just bring the keys to Roy’s place in his daily bag. If Roy didn’t ask him to make it permanent soon, he wouldn’t have anything else to move over anymore when moving day came. What did he even have left in his house. The big blanket his mum had made from his baby clothes, and a couple of suitcases worth of clothes that weren’t in his main rotation. The shoes. That was it.
He wasn’t the only one who loved Roy’s place either.
One of the biggest perks of dating Roy was his family. Jamie fucking loved his sister and niece. He’d never had or wanted a sibling, but having them around was fucking amazing. They had a standing appointment for one meal a week, the date of which varied depending on Roy’s sister’s shift schedule and their own game schedules, but there was always one big family meal, no matter what. And it was usually held at Roy’s place.
It was so nice, watching Roy go all out, making a full roast with all the sides and trimmings. Jamie wasn’t much of a cook, never had been, but Roy let Jamie sit at the breakfast bar with a cup of tea, keep him company and taste-test when called upon.
Phoebe didn’t come by just for that one meal a week though.
With her mum’s schedule at the hospital, her routine usually consisted of coming home to Roy’s place first thing after school, to do her homework and have dinner with them most days before they drove her home. She had her own room upstairs too, where she slept over if her mum had a full night shift, or just needed a day for herself.
Though he didn’t have kid relative of his own, Jamie spent enough time volunteering at the children’s hospital and letting himself get dragged into guest-coaching the kids of AFC Richmond’s Football Academy to know what a special kid Phoebe was. It was just fun having her over. She was clever, hilarious and really driven when it came to her hobbies. One of which, footie, Jamie had no trouble relating to. They never ran out of stuff to talk about on that. Kicking a ball about in Roy’s garden, heading out to the Richmond Green on the weekend, taking her to games, it was fucking great. With the way Roy was coaching her, Jamie had no doubt she had every chance at going pro if she chose to.
But another passion had started overtaking her focus lately.
Phoebe being an artist was the first thing Jamie had ever learned about her. Roy had been so proud to show off her pictures, back when she had still been in her ‘capturing the essence of female beauty’ phase. Jamie had refrained from any potential future rainbow interpretations of her work, but the point was, her drawings had already been shockingly good back then. So good, in fact, that Roy had paid for her to get private lessons once a week from a proper art tutor.
To say they were paying off was an understatement.
If it were up to Phoebe, she’d be drawing 24/7. She had recently been introduced to red chalk, and it was all she wanted to spend time on. So homework these days consisted of making sure the art supplies stayed in the cupboard until everything else was done.
The drawings that poured out of her were absolutely stunning. Phoebe would pour over paintings in her library books for hours, studying anatomy books to get the human shape just right.
Jamie couldn’t blame her for resenting having to spend time on anything else. He’d never felt a rush like the one he could see in her for anything other than football before. On a whim, he had driven into town a couple of weeks ago, to a proper art supply store to stock up on materials for her. And he’d found one of those wooden human figures with articulated joints that artists could use to model poses. It was as tall as his forearm, and Phoebe had damn near cried with joy when he had shown it to her.
That was how they found themselves at the kitchen table now, with Phoebe’s maths homework in front of them, and her eyes darting towards the cupboard where her art supplies lived while not in use.
“Come on, lass, just one more and we’re done,” Jamie tried to encourage her.
From where he was sitting, he could see a small smile flit over Roy’s face where he was curled up on the sofa, reading and trying not to look like he was listening in on them doing Phoebe's homework in the kitchen, to make sure Phoebe didn’t cajole Jamie into an art break.
“I just don’t like it …,” she whispered quietly, half to herself and half to Jamie, but at least the prospect of getting it over with seemed to fuel her a little.
Jamie watched as she copied down the key inputs onto her page.
“Yeah, I know, but at least you’re gonna know for sure that you’re getting paid the correct percentage for every painting that you’re gonna sell?”
“Isn’t that what accountants are for?” Phoebe asked.
“Kind of, it’s still good to have an overview of your own finances though.”
She sighed from the bottom of her heart. “Because there is too much corruption in the world.”
Jamie had to bite back a laugh.
“Yeah, that. And also sometimes people just fuck up.”
Phoebe didn’t need to prompt him, he pulled a £1 coin from his pocket and slid it into the piggy bank that sat in the centre of the table.
He glanced over at her page to see if she was on the right track, already dreading the day when her curriculum moved past the stuff he knew how to do.
Roy’s phone rang, and he took one glance at the caller ID before getting up to head to his office. That was happening a lot right now. Contract negotiations, scouting follow-ups, new kit designs for the next season. Jamie didn’t envy Roy’s job.
“Does that look right?” Phoebe asked, drawing Jamie out of his stare into the middle distance.
“Let’s have a look.” He read through the instructions and checked her calculations.
“Here, this bit? You gotta write that step out or they’ll dock your points in the exam. I know you can do it in your head, they just need to know that too.” He pointed out the section in question.
Phoebe sighed, and Jamie could only squeeze her shoulder in sympathy. They had been over this with her teacher too, Phoebe was just a bit too advanced and a bit too fast in her own head. It often cost her that perfect grade, not showing how she arrived at the solutions. As far as Jamie was concerned, there were worse problems to have than being too good at doing calculations in your own head, but no one asked him.
It took her less than a minute to fix the issue and Jamie offered her his hand for a high five. She lit up, smacking her palm against his.
“Can I get the art stuff out?” Where she had bordered on listless a minute ago, her eyes shone with excitement now.
“Yeah, go on, let’s put all this away first though?” They cleared the table together, neatly stacking her books and pens back into her backpack for tomorrow and stowing it away in the hallway so it wouldn’t be forgotten later tonight.
Within minutes, the kitchen table was transformed, from homework hell to artsy heaven.
“So what are you and Linda working on?” He asked, putting the kettle on to make them some tea while Phoebe laid out her supplies the way she wanted them.
Linda was a friend of one of Roy’s friends from yoga, a local artist who was probably too successful to be teaching a ten year old, but Jamie had no doubt Roy had made her an offer she couldn’t refuse for teaching Phoebe. As far as Phoebe was concerned, Linda might as well have hung the moon.
“We’ve started exploring portraiture last week!” Phoebe told him excitedly.
“Portrait-?“
She pulled out her current work in progress from her folder, showing it to Jamie proudly. His breath caught.
There, on the A3 page of ridiculously expensive art paper, Roy looked back at him, drawn in red chalk and so perfectly captured, Jamie couldn’t look away from him.
“Holy smokes, that’s amazing, that is!” He came to stand closer, taking in her work. It wasn’t a surprise, Roy was a frequent subject of her paintings, but this one was exceptional, even for Phoebe.
It was absolutely stunning. He could only stare, his mind trying to puzzle out how it was so very Roy. He couldn’t though.
“Seriously, Phee, I don’t know how you did that, but that’s … fucking hell …”
He was so drawn in, Phoebe had to tap the piggy bank.
“Yeah, right on.” He dropped a coin in, without looking away.
“It’s really not so difficult once you know how to deconstruct a face. I think almost anyone can do it with some practice and a good teacher,” she frowned at the picture with such scrutiny Jamie could only shake his head.
The kettle boiled and he poured the hot water into three mugs, bringing two over to the kitchen table.
“Yeah, not me though. I can’t draw a stick figure right.”
Phoebe had picked up her red chalk pencil to continue her work, but looked back up at Jamie.
“Do you want me to teach you?” She asked, and there was a gleam in her eyes that made Jamie feel like he was about to step into a trap.
He settled back into his seat next to hers, his mug in his hands.
“Nah, I’d rather buy yours when it’s done.”
And that should have been that, this was the part where he pulled up his text messages and caught up with his mum, relaxing while Phoebe did her thing and periodically showed him her progress. Instead, he could see gears turning in her head.
“Okay, you can buy it when it’s done,” Phoebe told him. “But the only payment I can accept for it is another portrait of Roy.”
Jamie’s jaw dropped a little. “You- me?! You want me to try and draw Roy?”
“If you want this one,” Phoebe shrugged in a deliberately nonchalant way, as if to tell him to suit himself, it wasn’t her concern, she had named her price.
Holy shit. It wasn’t exactly news that Phoebe had him wrapped around her little finger, but this was bold even for her.
“It’s gonna be shi- bad though, if I make it,” Jamie protested. He hadn’t drawn anything since he’d been seven, or something like that. The last time he’d tried had been when he’d drawn a shitty heart at the bottom of a sticky note for Roy.
“It won’t be bad if you let me teach you how to do it right,” Phoebe sounded utterly convinced that she could. “And just so you know, I’m not going to trade my good portrait for a bad one. So you really have to try.”
Before he could protest, Phoebe was separating a fresh page of blank paper from her stack and laying it out on the table in front of him. She put a spare red chalk pencil down next to it.
“Come on, Uncle Jamie, it’ll be fun!”
Uncle Jamie. A wave of affection washed through his chest like a tidal wave. She had never called him that before.
He sat up out of his slouch and Phoebe gave him a beaming smile.
“You can work with a reference. Go find your favourite picture of Uncle Roy,” she instructed him, her little hand waving towards his cellphone.
“Right, yeah!” He pulled up his photo album on his phone, careful not to let her see his Camera Roll as he scrolled. The moment she had said ‘favourite picture’ he had had one particular image spring to the forefront of his mind, and he pulled it up now.
It had been taken at Ola’s after they had won a home game against Arsenal, Sam had sent it to him the next day. Roy and Jamie had ended up at the bar together, talking, and the photograph had captured Roy’s half-profile in a smile, bright and fond, and looking at Jamie.
Sam had captioned it with ‘undeniable heart-eyes’. It still made Jamie’s own heart beat faster, just looking at it.
“How’s that?” He asked, zooming in to only Roy’s part of the photo was visible on the screen.
“That’s perfect,” Phoebe told him.
And then, for the next five minutes, she proceeded to deconstruct Roy’s face into circles and squares and triangles in a way that made Jamie’s head spin.
“Is that … is that how you see everything?” He asked, half in awe and half-frightened when she pushed the pencil into his hand.
“Most of the time.” Phoebe shrugged. “Go on, you can do it!”
Jamie had a vague memory of doing charcoal drawings in school at some point in his life, and he knew he’d been shit at it. He stared at his phone.
“I like to start with tip of the nose, so I can figure out where on the page to start, but you can start with the chin or forehead too.”
It felt weirdly nerve-wrecking, putting the pencil tip down on the paper. With only the lightest of strokes he tried to figure out how to translate the small picture on his phone onto A3, where what part of Roy should start and end. The chalk smudged away easily with how lightly he placed it, making it easy to erase the very thing light lines if he didn’t place them right. Using his reference, he figured out the basic shapes he had to capture. He focused on nothing but the shapes, just like Phoebe instructed him to, until the worry about doing it right faded a little bit. Jamie wasn’t under any delusions that he might be able to capture the essence of that picture.
Hell, in his book, if it was recognisable as Roy, he’d count it as a win.
Except something happened to his brain as he worked, something that usually happened half an hour into a run, that strange focus that usually only overtook him when he was meant to go to sleep but instead found himself 50 pages deep into wikipedia. Time slipped, his mind only vaguely aware of Phoebe’s pencil strokes making the softest noises on her own paper and Roy’s voice on the phone, muffled through a couple of doors in the distance.
They didn’t interrupt each other, didn’t pause, their teas going cold.
Jamie was so absorbed, he didn’t even hear Roy’s footsteps as he approached the kitchen.
“What are you two up to?” He asked, his voice like a record scratch, bringing Jamie’s wandering mind to a halt.
“Nothing!!” If he’d been thinking, he would have said it calmly, wouldn’t have thrown his arm over the picture to block Roy from seeing it, like he was a teenager getting caught with a dirty magazine.
Roy blinked, clearly also not having expected quite such a vivid reaction.
“Yeah alright,” he huffed a little disbelieving laugh, and instead of heading back over to the sofa to find his book again, he approached the kitchen table.
“Are you drawing tit-“ Roy’s voice trailed off as he caught a glimpse of their works, Phoebe’s a fully fleshed out gorgeous portrait and Jamie’s attempt, with the reference picture displayed on his phone, the shape of his face and features replicated onto paper, though the depth was still missing.
“Me?” Roy asked, and Jamie pulled his arm back to let him look properly, his cheeks flushing with embarrassment, like he’d been caught doodling R + J into the margins of his notes.
Roy’s hand came to rest on his shoulder, warm and affectionate when he squeezed Jamie.
“I didn’t know you could draw,” he said, and Jamie looked up to meet his gaze, finding a shockingly fond expression waiting for him.
“I really can’t,” it came out in a nervous chuckle.
“I told him everyone can. Jamie is a very good student,” Phoebe supplied.
“Don’t I know it.” Roy bent down and pressed a kiss to the top of Jamie’s head and Jamie couldn’t help but wrap his arm around Roy’s middle, leaning his head into Roy’s side as he straightened up.
“Don’t let him stop til he gets 100%, yeah?” Roy instructed Phoebe.
“You got it!” Phoebe agreed, immediately delighted with the authority granted to her.
“There’s a tea on the counter for you,” Jamie told him, earning himself an affectionate rub of his upper back.
“Thank you. Go on then, don’t let me disturb you.”
Roy left them to it, finding his tea and settling back in on his spot on the sofa. Jamie couldn’t get the heat in his cheeks to subside for a good long while though, even as he picked his pencil back up to get back to work.
Phoebe really was a good teacher. Once he was done with his outlines, she instructed him on shading and lighting, deconstructing his reference photo with him and giving him tips on how to create depth and how to handle hair without making it look stringy.
As he worked and felt the Roy on his paper come to life, he couldn’t help but marvel at her. Not only was this his the first worthwhile picture he had ever produced, but thanks to Phoebe catching his mistakes before he could get bogged down in them, it was actually shaping up to be something he wasn’t going to crumple up and throw into the trash.
Roy started cooking at some point, Jamie didn’t even notice it until the room started to smell absolutely amazing.
“Alright, no starving artists in my house. Come one, take a break, you lot.”
Jamie’s hand was smudged in red and aching, but his mind was tingling and pleasantly alert in a way he wasn’t really used to outside of playing football.
“Thanks, Phoebe, really.” He told her at the sink when they were washing their hands. “This is proper fun.”
“I told you you’d like it.” Phoebe beamed happily.
Neither of their portraits got finished that day, though they spent another hour or so after dinner working on their respective pictures.
“What do you think?” He couldn’t help but ask Roy proudly once it was time to pack up Phoebe’s things and drive her home.
It was weird, this sense of pride in his chest. It was usually reserved for the pitch, but he found himself really wanting Roy to like what he’d made.
Roy came to sit with him, taking up the chair next to Jamie’s to have a proper look. It was nowhere near as amazing as Phoebe’s, but it was so very distinctly Roy, and most importantly, somehow that fondness from the reference photo had found its way into Roy’s drawn eyes.
When Jamie looked at Roy, he found an expression not far off from the one he’d spent all day trying to capture.
“I love it,” Roy nodded, his voice quiet and fond. He wrapped an arm around Jamie’s middle, tugging him a little closer into his side.
“Guess it’s a good thing you can look at my ugly mug all day and not get tired of it.”
It was a joke, but it made Jamie lean in closer and press his lips to Roy’s, a fond rush seeping from his very core into the tips of his aching fingers.
“I can’t even get enough of you, I don’t think tired is gonna be an issue,” Jamie mused.
To have enough of Roy to get tired of any part of him, he should be so lucky.
He held Roy’s gaze, even as Roy shook his head fondly, lost for words.
“You’re something else, you know that?” Roy asked, reigniting the flush in Jamie’s cheeks.
“You two are being gross again,” Phoebe complained.
Jamie laughed, burying his face in Roy’s shoulder.
“Sorry!”
He wasn’t sorry, he was far too happy for that.
The portraits weren’t finished until the next weekend.
It took some negotiating, finding homes for them. Jamie wanted Phoebe’s portrait, Phoebe wanted Jamie’s in exchange, which Roy wasn’t willing to part with. Roy also wasn’t exactly keen on having his own face on the wall though.
So a custody agreement was struck, in which Phoebe’s portrait went up in Jamie’s cubby and Jamie’s portrait found a home at Roy’s sister’s place where they could visit it.
It wasn't Jamie's last work, but it was his proudest.