Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s not actually the first time that Roy has been in Jamie’s house, far from it actually. Early morning training was cut back to once or twice a fortnight due to their new hectic schedule of Roy being the manager and their first go in the champions league, but they had dinner together a lot more regularly. Sure it was mainly at Roy’s house, but he’s definitely been to Jamie’s enough to notice things.

Although with the sight he’s currently staring at through the massive glass panels of Jamie’s home, he’s clearly not been paying that much attention to his surroundings.

Roy didn’t even know Jamie had pets of any kind, let alone pet fucking ducks. But he’s looking at them so they’re definitely there, paddling about in a pond without a care in the world. Completely oblivious to the utter confusion they’re causing inside Roy’s head.

One of them has a fucking bow around its neck

He finally turns his head and looks at his, (yes, Phoebe, you were right. Whatever) best friend who was stretching out his legs after their light evening jog.

“Jamie?”

Jamie looks up from where he was staring intently at the floor,

“Yeah?” he answers

Roy points outside to where the offending creatures were bobbing about, “Why is there a duck with a fucking bow on in a pond?”

Jamie’s face instantly lights up with a grin, “Oh, that’s quackers. Me duck” he states, like it’s obvious and Roy should know this already. Should he?

He momentarily loses focus at Jamie saying the word ‘duck’ because he can’t help but find those ‘u’ sounds in that accent of his so incredibly cute.

He tunes back in, “what the fuck do you mean by that?” Roy asks because he doesn’t understand what the fuck is going on still

Jamie’s grin falters, confusion now registering with him too, “I have a duck? She’s called quackers?”. His head even tilts slightly like a damn dog and his stupidly pretty hair flops over one of his eyes before he brushes it back with his fingers, “I have more than one duck to be fair though”

Like that was the issue, and not the simple existence of them in the first few place.

“And why do you have a fucking duck exactly?”

Jamie just shrugs and gets to his feet with far too much grace, and quite frankly it makes Roy want to glare at him for a whole new reason

“Favourite animal innit? Did have two of that breed, you’re supposed to keep em in pairs like, but Cheese died of old age a few weeks back - ”

“- Cheese and Quackers?” Roy cuts him off

“Yeah” Jamie continues “so I got another one a few days after to keep Quackers company, she’s called Paddle”

Roy just looks at him again for a few seconds

“Jamie”

He blinks at him with his big Disney eyes, the sun making them shine, “..Roy?”

“Jamie how has you owning ducks never fucking come up before, I’ve been here multiple fucking times and this is the first I’ve ever seen of them”

Jamie shrugs again and starts stripping off his shirt, the way he always does when they finish a work out and he wants to cool down faster. Roy doesn’t get why he always feels the urge to look at his sculpted body but he decides to put it down to admiring his hard work. He helped make that body, sue him if he has a peak here or there. Nothing weird about it. Nothing to do with the weird squiggly feeling he feels. Nothing at all.

“Dunno, mate. They’ve always been there yeah? Cheese and Quacks came with me when I was on loan too, guess it just never came up in conversation” He’s moved closer to where Roy was standing to unlock the door to the garden

“Need to feed em actually, do you wanna help?” He asks

And fuck, Roy does. He really does because clearly these feathered little bastards mean a lot to Jamie if he’s moved them with him not once but twice all the way from Manchester to London.

He nods and waits for Jamie to bring him a bag of frozen peas that he hands over as soon as he’s within touching distance, “these are more like a treat rather than their actual food but I make that up in the shed so just toss ‘em a few handfuls in their pond and they’ll be well happy”.

Jamie looks at him like he’s telling Roy the secret to making him the happiest man on earth rather than just allowing him to give his pet ducks a little treat of bloody peas. But maybe that’s the same thing.

Jamie opens the door and Roy steps out whilst Jamie fucks about in the kitchen with getting god knows what else. Roy makes the short distance between the patio and the surprisingly large pond where the two ducks are still making their way through the water in random patterns.

He expects a bit of commotion. A few quacks or something at the sight of a person coming up to them.

Nothing.

The ducks barely look at him, their beady little eyes don’t even blink. Can ducks blink? Fuck knows. Phoebe would know.

He shakes the peas a bit, their heads move to his direction and their paddling slows down. They glide over and look at him, but soon decide he’s clearly not worth their time when he doesn’t immediately start lobbing fistfuls of peas at them.

Roy glares at them. Offended, somehow, but not sure why. They’re ducks.

But they’re Jamie’s ducks

And god help him he wants them to like him.

“Oi”. Nothing.

“Oi ducks, I have your fucking, peas and shit”

He chucks a handful at the water and they both glide over to start pecking at the water, presumably getting the peas at the same time. Satisfied, Roy launches another handful in, even if they don’t even give him one quack in thanks, the pricks.

It’s quite nice actually, standing out in the private garden and watching the ducks eat their treat. He gets why Jamie likes them. The one with the bow, Quackers (fucking ridiculous name if you ask him but oh well) is a shiny little thing, it’s feathers a mix of sleek black with glittering dark blue and greens throughout their entire body. He wonders if Cheese (what the fuck, Jamie?) was a similar looking bird or if they were more like Paddles (still weird).

Paddles wasn’t shiny like Quckers, she was cream and brown with varying shades throughout. No bow, maybe she wasn’t as enthusiastic about it as her other feathered friend. And owner.

But the peaceful swooshing of their beaks in the water was soon disturbed when they both started quacking like they were fucking possessed. Roy nearly shat himself at the loudness of it all, practically giving himself whiplash to turn his head and follow to see what had them scrambling out of the pond and running up the garden.

His heartbeat slowed when he could see it wasn’t a fucking urban fox come to eat them and make Roy need to risk his knee popping out of place in an attempt to rescue them.
It was Jamie coming out with a few bowls and some packets in his hands, grinning like a loon as his ducks waddled towards him, quacking like they had too much to say and so little time to do it.

“Hey my duckies! Are you enjoying your treats from Royo?” He asked like they’d answer.

And answer they did.

Jamie made his way over to the little shed in the corner behind the pond, a duck on each side happily yapping away and once again ignoring Roy even as he chucked more peas in water to stop himself doing something stupid like throwing them at Jamie’s head and naked back. All tanned and toned as he unlocked the shed and stepped inside to make up their food.

Whatever. They clearly just knew it was dinner time or something.

Jamie came back out with the bowls and the ducks still following him, but their quacking had less volume than before. Roy watched as he set the bowls down and stood back up straight, “okay babies, enjoy dinner”

The ducks looked at the bowls and then back up to Jamie before quacking away again at him. Jamie smiled and sat down cross legged on the grass making both birds scramble to get in his lap.

Roy knew he was staring with his mouth open and eyebrows drawn in together, but he couldn’t help it. The fucking ducks wanted a cuddle before they wanted their dinner and Roy was utterly flabbergasted.

“The fuck?” He muttered under his breath

As soon as each duck had enough love from Jamie, each of them being squished to his chest and kissed on their silky little heads, they went to their bowls and chowed down on whatever it was that ducks ate.

What. The. Fuck.

Chapter Text

Roy can’t stop himself from telling the other coaches about what he experienced at Jamie’s the day before. He almost thinks he dreamt it or simply hallucinated it from a bad trip on Beard’s shitty mushroom tea. But he hasn’t touched that fucking awful stuff since he accidentally drank some thinking it was a piss poor looking whisky at Ted and Beard’s (really just Ted’s, it turned out) leaving do and swore never to touch the stuff again

He couldn’t fucking walk for an hour after drinking it for fear of either throwing up or face planting into the ground from the lack of feeling in his feet. Weird shit. Jamie had insisted on babysitting him until he got used to the sensations enough to stomach getting a taxi home.

Jamie had insisted, Roy would say. It wasn’t that Jamie was the only one that was able to calm Roy down enough to get him to trust that he wouldn’t be dead in the next 5 minutes. Nothing like that at all.

Back in the present time, the lads were starting to trickle in but all the coaches were already gathered in the office to talk over some new idea Nate had, and Roy had been zoned out long enough thinking about Jamie that when Nate turned to ask him what he thought, Roy had to manually refocus his eyes to look at him and grunt. Fuck knows what he’d agreed to but it was fine, Beard could deal with it.

“Okay great!” Nate said cheerily, hopping down from his perch on the sideboard, “anything else to discuss or shall I get Will to get the cones ready?”

Roy ignored his question but did say something else finally, “Jamie has ducks”.

There was silence for a moment, Beard looked at him dead in the eye whilst Nate just looked more confused than ever.

“That’s..nice?” Nate eventually stammered out

Roy grunted at him again, “fucking weird is what it is, they’re like, obsessed with him”

No one speaks again so Roy continues. “I was at his yesterday after a run and they were just there in a fucking pond in his garden!” He waved his hands around like that would get his point across better

“Never seen them before either, didn’t even know they existed yet he’s had pets ducks practically his whole adult life! Brought them down during his loan period and everything”

“Oh-“ Nate begins

Roy cuts him off - “and yesterday when I went out there to give them frozen peas as a fucking treat which Jamie said they go mad for, they didn’t even react! Couldn’t give less of a shit that I was there, but as soon as he came out they lost their minds”

Beard narrowed his eyes further but Roy carried on, he’s not taken nearly enough breath in as he continues to rant so he’s going a bit high pitch and squeaky, “the bloody things just quacked and quacked at him! Followed him about and then ignored their food until he sat on the floor and gave them each a cuddle!”

It’s silent again aside from Roy catching his breath.

“I can’t tell if you’re jealous of the ducks for having Jamie’s attention, or jealous of Jamie because his ducks like him more than you” Beard said as Roy is sat there, panting in rage.

“Or both” Nate chimed in with a shrug

Roy glared at them both. “Fuck off, I’m not fucking jealous”

“What aren’t you jealous of?” Higgins said as he entered the office through what used to be Roy and Trent’s old area, “not jealous of anything” Roy grumbled

Beard shook his head, “he’s jealous of Jamie’s ducks, and of Jamie himself. Because of the ducks”

“Jamie has ducks? Oh how lovely!” Higgins exclaimed. “I didn’t know he had ducks”

Roy pointed at him “fucking thank you! Who the fuck keeps ducks!”

“Oh” Higgins said, his face grim. “You are jealous”

“I will fucking kill you” Roy glared at him as hard as he could.

“Do they have names?” Nate eventually asked

Roy nodded, “Paddles and Quackers, he had another called Cheese but it died not too long ago. Had to get another because they’re better off with company”

“Cheese and Quackers, nice” Beard muttered under his breath but Higgins gasped suddenly, “that must be why he was so upset last month! I didn’t like to ask, he was very down. I saw him crying in his car before came into the building”

“What the fuck? I don’t remember him being upset” Roy grunted

“You were at a course thing” Beard said with a dismissive wave of his hand

They’re interrupted by Dani knocking on the door and sticking his head in, “we are all ready if you are coaches” the ever present sunny smile dimpling his cheeks.

Roy nodded at him and they all got to work for the day.

——————

He’s back in the office at the end of the day when he hears Nate ask Jamie about his ducks, which therefore sends the entire changing room into chaos. Dani sounds genuinely offended as he asks why he didn’t know Jamie had ducks. Roy can sympathise.

“What type of ducks are they Jamie?” He hears Sam ask as he takes Jamie’s phone to look at the photos Jamie forced Roy to take of him and his ducks the previous day.

“Oh wow” Sam says with a grin before Jamie can answer him, swiping through the photos, “Coach Roy, you are glaring extra hard at Jamie’s ducks in this one. What did they do to you?”

Roy perked up at that because what the fuck? When did Jamie take his fucking picture?

He grumbles to himself as the lads all peer over Sam’s shoulder to look at the photos. “This is not fair!” Dani whinges, “Coach got to meet Jamie’s mother and step-dad and we did not and now he is the first to meet his ducks!”

The lads all start their whinging up again but Jamie’s voice cuts through all the noise.
“Oi you can meet the ducks whenever you want Dani” Jamie rolls his eyes but he looks pleased that the others are interested in his pets, “and mummy would come down if I asked”

Dani nodded rapidly, to which scenario who knew, but it was probably both.

“Anyways” Jamie continued, “Quackers is the black and blue shiny one with the bow, she’s a Cayuga duck which is an American breed. Cheese was a Cayuga too but she passed away recently, the beige one is Paddle and she’s a Khaki Campbell duck” he explained

“They are nice to look at, but ducks are an odd pet choice” Jan said, wincing when Bumbercatch stomped on his foot to shut him up

Jamie just glared at him like he’d insulted his mother, “ducks are well good, they’re very loving like! I got them from a special farm that you can only adopt ducks from and all, had em’ for years ain’t I”

“The fuck bruv? You’ve had ducks for years and didn’t tell us” Isaac looks gutted but Jamie shrugs, “didn’t think you’d want to really, definitely not when I was being a right dick on the loan too”

“Well I think they look very cute Jamie, we would love to meet them”
Sam couldn’t look more genuine if he tried, giving Jamie his phone back

Roy got up from his desk and made his way to lean against the door frame between the office and locker room. “They are fucking cute”

Everyone turned to look at him, Jamie seemed to instantly lighten up at Roy defending his ducks.

Fuck.

“See! Coach knows” Jamie said happily. Roy huffed his agreement but didn’t say anything else on the matter.

“When can we meet the ducks bruv” Isaac asked and Roy watched as Jamie thought for a second before speaking. “This weekend? Can’t do tonight or tomorrow”

Roy was secretly happy that Jamie wasn’t going to let the team invade in their evening plans. Not that it mattered, it was only dinner and a film night. Not like it was that special or anything.

The fact that watching Dani sit so close to Jamie on the bench now that the conversation had tapered off to watch videos of Jamie’s ducks on his phone was making him want to rip Dani away was fine. He wasn’t jealous that they were practically on top each other, all cuddled up and giggling together. Not jealous at all.

It was like the fucking ducks all again.

—————————

Later that night when he was in bed, scrolling through the videos Jamie had sent him of his ducks when he was feeding them after he got home from their dinner, he reasoned that he should perhaps talk to Jamie about this certain - feeling - he was having in the regards to their relationship. Or lack thereof.

He’d do it tomorrow.

Maybe.

Chapter Text

“So.. is there like, a reason why you’re always glaring at my ducks like you want to blow them up into a pile of feathers?” Jamie asks out of the blue a few weeks later when he’s at Jamie’s house again.

Roy may or may not (definitely may) have chickened out of talking with Jamie about his ever growing feelings for him. He hadn’t the faintest idea of how to actually approach the whole situation, so he decided that ignoring it forever would be his best bet.

Roy was currently letting Quackers and Paddle eat cut up strawberries out of his palms, their beaks nibbling away at his hands was an odd combination of pinch-y and ticklish.

“I don’t want them to blow up” he grumbled. Jamie looked unimpressed from where he was waist deep in the middle of the pond, wearing some weird fucking fishing overalls to keep dry. No shirt, as per usual.

“You don’t deny the glaring then?” He asked, one eyebrow raised.

Roy stared at him dead on and scooped out another handful of strawberry cubes for the ducks. “That’s just my normal facial expression”

Jamie snorted, “yeah, okay, that is true”. He shook his head with a little smile and went back to cleaning out the pond or whatever the fuck it was that he was doing in there. Roy wasn’t actually sure, all he was told was that he needed to keep the ducks occupied and out the water.

The team had been by a few times now, random groups of the lads would show up demanding to play with the ducks who really didn’t give two fucks about them. It was quite satisfying to see that it wasn’t just Roy who they were ignoring unless given food. It seemed they really did only have an interest in having attention from Jamie.

Colin had tried to pick Quackers up and had gotten her wings flapped so hard in his face that he swore she was trying to flap his eyes out.

Jamie had been a bit pissed with him considering he dropped her, into the water luckily, but he had made sure that no one else made an attempt to grab the ducks and startle them.

So far the only people who had yet to meet the ducks were Cockburn (deathly afraid for some reason that will probably remain unknown given the distant look that always comes over him when asked) and Dixon (allergic but not deathly, just itchy and sneezy).

Keeley had lost her mind when she found out about Jamie’s ducks, how she didn’t already know about them was beyond Roy, but she had insisted that they become part of Richmonds PR focus. The team had a mini photoshoot with the ducks and the photos were plastered all over their socials with the rescue where Jamie got them from being advertised too. Jamie was thrilled. Roy was less grumpy about it than anticipated but that was probably due to him neglecting to read all the comments from Jamie’s fangirls cooing over him and his pets.

As he sat cross legged on the grass watching Jamie splash about in the pond, he found himself absentmindedly stroking the ducks heads with his free hand. They were very soft, it felt nice just to pet them and bask in the warmth from the sun.

Eventually the strawberries ran out and Roy was about to ask Jamie what to do next to keep them occupied when he was stopped by the feeling of their flat feet slapping into his lap. Both ducks scrambled to make themselves comfy in the middle of his crossed legs, tucking their wings in and sitting together like two little book ends.

“Uhh, Jamie” he called out without raising his voice too much in an attempt to not startle them and get wing slapped to the face. “What the fu-“

“Oh my god” Jamie practically gasped. “Oh my god, oh my god, do not move”. Roy froze and watched as Jamie pushed his way out of the water, “wait wait wait just - shit fuck where is-” he was patting around the grass like a right twat on his hands and knees, “Roy don’t you dare fucking move - yes!”

He whipped around, phone in hand and Roy heard the camera shutter clicking wildly. Roy tilted his head slightly, his face undoubtedly frowning. “Jamie I will fucking kill you if you post those anywhere”

“Oh but Royyy! You look so fucking cute right now” Jamie was smiling so wide his mouth was open, his perfect top row of teeth shining away as Roy watched him.

Roy sighed, his face feeling warm, and looked down at the ducks in his lap. They seemed perfectly content, sitting there with their eyes closed like they were taking a nap.

“Warm little fuckers with all those feathers aren’t you” he mumbled, running the backs of his knuckles along the smooth neck of each duck. He looked up again to see that Jamie had knee shuffled his way over and was much closer to Roy’s face than he’d expected. His phone had been abandoned again in the grass and he was watching Roy talk to his ducks with a soft look on his pretty face.

“What?” Roy asked and Jamie grinned again.

“Nothin’, jus’, I thought you hated them or something” he shrugged slightly, sitting back on his heels with his hands resting on his thighs, “but it’s the opposite innit? You fuckin’ love ‘em” he said and Roy couldn’t help himself from smiling back at him.

“Fuckin’ love you”

He felt his heart fucking drop and skip a beat or two. Shit, that was not what he wanted to say.

Jamie’s mouth dropped open slightly, a short in take of his breath cutting off Roy’s inner panic. “I-what?” He stuttered out eventually

“Nothing, sorry, I - shit I didn’t mean to fucking say that Jamie”

“But did you mean it? In like, an actually I love you kinda way or a friend I love you kinda way?” Jamie asked, seeming almost frantic as his hands gripped hold of one of Roy’s forearms.

Roy could lie, could say he only meant it as a friend but fuck it. Why not just confess and get the rejection over with. He’d put this off for long enough already.

“In a like I really fucking love you kind of way” Roy said, his voice coming out more gravely than usual with his nerves.

Jamie huffed out a little breath of air, his smile returning. “Fuck” he laughed softly, “I really fucking love you too”. He launched himself forwards, the ducks quacking and flapping themselves off of Roy’s lap as Jamie knocks them both to the ground, Roy flat on his back with Jamie half on top of him and grabbing at his face with both hands.

He’s never been kissed so fiercely in his life. Roy kissed Jamie back like he would die if he didn’t, grabbing at his hair with one hand and cupping the back of his neck with the other.

He could hardly suck in enough air to not pass out as they snogged like teenagers on the grass, parting for barely a few seconds before coming back to each other. He once heard Jamie complain that he thought kissing with tongue was gross, but he clearly didn’t have that opinion anymore with the way he was licking into Roy’s mouth like he couldn’t get enough.

Eventually their kisses slowed, turning into drawn out pecks that Roy could see himself becoming addicted to the sound and feel of. They had to stop once Jamie was smiling too much to be able to kiss Roy back, but Roy kissed his smile once too, for luck.

“You love me?” Jamie asked

“Yeah, I fucking do” he paused, “and I tolerate your fucking ducks”

Jamie laughed and rolled off him to lay on his back next him, his arm pressed up against Roy’s.

—————————

A few more weeks later…

“Look”

Roy leaned over the back of the sofa to look at Jamie’s laptop screen. “...What in the fresh fuck is that?”

Jamie pointed to the screen, tissue still in hand. “I’ve photoshopped Quackers flying about on a wotsit”

Roy stared at the screen, taking in the picture, he wanted crisps now. “You need to get back to work” he said instead

Jamie slapped the lid shut on his laptop before throwing his arms up to cover both his eyes in the crooks of his elbows. “Your fault I’ve got this cold mate” he grumbled at him

“No it fucking isn’t. I told you not to kiss me when I had it last week and you were the one that insisted you don’t get colds” Roy scolded him, repeating himself what for felt like the 20th time in an hour.

Jamie scoffed, still covering his eyes. “You’ve got like, super germs or some shit babes. I never get fuckin’ ill”

“You keep telling yourself that” Roy as he walked out of the living room, turning around just in time to see Jamie flip him off over the top of the sofa.

Chapter Text

“Why are you filming me?” Roy grumbles, ringing out the sponge into the bucket of soapy water he has next to him. Jamie comes closer, phone still recording Roy.

“Cus you look dead fit babes, you’re wearing a white t-shirt and cleaning the doors with water. Like a white shirt contest innit?” He sticks his tongue between his teeth as he says it, zooming in on Roy’s unimpressed face then down to his chest.

“I’m also wearing fucking marigolds, find them sexy too?” The sarcasm is palpable in Roy’s voice

Jamie scoffs, zooming out again. “Obviously, you’re my sexy little cleaner”

Roy rolls his eyes and gets back to sponging down the French doors. “Why am I the one cleaning the glass when it’s your fucking duck that shat all up it anyway?”

“Because you’re a very nice boyfriend who’s so handsome and nice and who loves me very much?” Jamie tries, still bloody filming.

Roy growls in his throat, “if this wasn’t covered in duck shit I’d throw it at your face, pretty boy”

He watches as Jamie double taps the screen to record his own face, “he thinks I’m pretty” he pouts lips but his cheeks are rounded into a smile and makes kissy noises at Roy.

Roy throws the sponge at him just to hear him squawk, duck shit be damned.