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“Oi Tartt”
Jamie looked up at the sound of Roy bellowing across the locker room, trying to work out what he’d done this time to make Roy grumpier than normal.
“What the fuck are you wearing?” Roy stopped in front of him, his ‘I don’t have time for this shit’ eyebrow at full tilt and his glare turned up to 11.
“What d’ya mean? I’m just wearing me trackies, ain’t I?” Jamie was confused, Roy had seen him wear the BoohooMan tracksuit loads of times before, it was one of Jamie’s favourites, the pink went well with his hair and the shorts made his legs look really good.
“I’m not talking about your stupid pink shorts, Tartt, I mean these.” Roy reached out, blocking out the lights a little as he loomed over Jamie in a way that made Jamie’s mind go to that place he tried really hard to ignore when he was in public.
But then Roy’s fingers brushed the wings sticking out from Jamie’s back and Jamie couldn’t help the shiver than ran through him and the little “uh” that escaped his lips.
Jamie shook his head, trying to dispel what felt like tiny electric shocks that were still zinging through him, looking up in time to see Roy take a step back, his eyebrows reconfigured from anger into confusion.
“What the fuck, Jamie, you’ve got wings.”
A quick glance round the locker room let Jamie know that the magic that kept the majority of people from seeing or even acknowledging anything about his wings was still working on the rest of the team.
“Um yeah, can we talk about this somewhere more private.”
Jamie stood up and pointed in the general direction of the boot room, moving towards the corridor when Roy nodded dumbly and motioned for Jamie to lead the way.
Once they were safely behind closed doors with the blinds drawn down on the windows, Jamie took a deep breath and tried to work out how to break the news to Roy about what him being able to see Jamie’s wings meant.
“Okay, right, so I’ve got wings because I am part fae on me mam’s side. Like, I can’t do magic or nothing, and I can’t really fly, but they look nice.” Jamie paused, looking at Roy and waiting for the inevitable questions to start.
Roy blinked a few times then shook his head like he was trying to clear it before saying, “So the other day when you were crying like a little baby about not being able to find your wings you were…” Roy tapered off.
“Yeah, I was talking literally and figuratively.” Jamie held in a smirk and mentally ticked ‘freak Roy out by using long words correctly’ off his daily Bingo card, as he watched Roy struggle with this new knowledge Jamie was dumping on him. “They can kind of vanish if I’m sad or sick or whatever.”
“Why can I see them all of a sudden? And why can’t anyone else?”
And there was the question that Jamie was sort of dreading answering. Because, well, it was a tricky subject to broach.
“I know I said I couldn’t do magic, but I kind of can, like I do something that means most people can’t see them and can’t even hear me talking about them. I don’t know how I do it, it’s natural, I just do.” Jamie paused, and took a deep breath. “There are two types of people who can see them. There’s other fae folk like my family, and then the other type of people are,” another pause and another deep breath, “me soulmates.”
Jamie watched as Roy’s eyebrows shot up until they nearly hit his hairline, practically dancing across his forehead as a whole range of emotions began to flicker across Roy’s face, it was kind of mesmerising.
“Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.” Roy sat down heavily on one of the benches, looking more confused than he did when Ted went off on one of his US pop culture rambles that only Coach Beard actually understood. Jamie wanted to reach out and sooth the angry knot that was forming in between those dancing eyebrows.
“Let me get this straight. You have wings because you’re part fairy.”
Jamie raised a hand to stop Roy talking. “We don’t use the F word. It has negative and often pejorative connotations. We use Fae. Which is also an F word, but, yeah, don’t use the other F word.”
Roy nodded in that way he tended to do when he was acknowledging some new piece of information and Jamie waved a hand to let him know it was okay to carry on.
“You have wings because you’re part… fae,” he looked at Jamie like he was checking he’d got it right which made Jamie smile for the first time since this had all started. “And I can see them because I’m your soulmate.”
“You’re one of my soulmates. Keeley can see them too.”
Roy’s eyebrows started dancing again and Jamie decided it was probably time to call in the cavalry.
“I’ll give Keeley a call, yeah, we can meet up at her place and talk this through some more, she’ll probably be better at explaining the soulmate thing than me, she’s good at, like. talking and shit.”
Roy nodded mutely so Jamie pulled out his phone and dialed Keeley’s number.
“Alright Keeley, you’ll never guess what’s happened. Roy can see me wings.”
Keeley’s happy squeal was so loud Jamie had to pull the phone away from his ear in fear that his eardrum would burst. He looked over at Roy who was smiling fondly, and rolled his eyes in a can you believe her kind of a way, grinning when Roy rolled his own eyes back.
Jamie took a breath and then let his wings stretch out to their full width, watching the way Roy tracked them with a look of wonder on his face. It felt like everything was going to be okay.