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Roy walks through the door, chucking his keys into the bowl by the door and kicking his shoes off without care where they land.
It was one thing after another today at work. Mod was on his ass about being too strict—Roy was a fucking coach; no shit he was strict. Hale was being his prick self again and reminded him of someone at home that he dearly missed, and Barney, captain for a fucking day, let it go to his head already, with fists flying on the training field earlier; the reports were stacking every fucking hour with those three. Garett and Jason were the oldest players there and always pulled their seniority card when they got in trouble; the fuckers were a decade younger than Roy. Fuck them. The rest of the team was just as silly and rowdy as his old lads at Richmond.
Did Roy regret leaving AFC Richmond to coach Chelsea? On days like this, the answer would be maybe, at best. He had power at Richmond, knowing everyone from the years he played and worked there, and being close with the boss was a plus. When a Chelsea contract slid his way, how could he decline his lifelong dream?
Roy transferred into the job with fresh faces, new policies, and a new outlook on life. It was a stressful fucking month, and only now was he finally settling in and getting the respect from the team.
Trudging through the dark halls, feet shuffling, Roy grumbles to himself about Hale and his stupid hair clogging the drains again; Mod and his stupid nasally voice; Barney hitting people and forcing the team to do his bidding; Lucas breaking shit; and the kitman, Goodwill, always forgetting Jason’s allergy to a specific detergent and having to redo the whole fucking laundry again or else Jason could fucking die. One thing after the fucking other, and Roy just wanted to relax and forget about this day.
Inhaling deeply, Roy takes in various scents of his comfort: the smell of his family lingering around, the new home he's slowly building with them, and something else that he couldn’t put his finger on. Following the scent that itched a part of his brain, Roy found himself in the kitchen with the lights off.
Flicking them on, his eyes take a moment to adjust to a normal scene of things put away in their spot, the tiles shiny, and the sink empty. When his eyes pause at the table, they go wide. Before he could react, two bodies jumped up from behind the table—set with all his favourite dishes and a large, messy, tilting three-tier cake in the middle—with their arms stretched out and their lips blowing on colourful party whistles.
“Surprise!” Jamie and Phoebe shout out, their fingers wiggling and bodies shaking. “Happy Birthday!”
Roy stands there in shock, forgetting it was his birthday, like he forgot it was Valentine's Day the day before. Jamie had forgiven him, knowing how stressful it had been for Roy the last couple of weeks, and they shared a moment in bed and cuddled for the romantic night. This was a complete surprise, and it was making Roy tear up.
“Fuck, I—come here,” Roy huffs out, walking over with his arms outstretched to them. The two are quick to rush over and tackle Roy in a tight hug, their arms looping around him and their heads pressed against him. Roy nuzzles his head in the crook of Jamie's neck—craned and submitting—and takes in his omega's scent deeply, and it melts his stress away. It fills him with the warmth he's been dying for all day, and the smell he's trying to figure out is right under his nose. He isn't sure what it is — sweet fruit bowls and fresh linens? — but it makes him fucking happy and somewhat overprotective. It had been so faint the past week that he assumed it was Jamie's new shampoo mingling with his scent.
“Welcome home, babes,” Jamie says under his breath, rubbing his nose on Roy's neck and almost purring from his alpha's dark musk. “Happy birthday. Missed yeh so much.”
“Welcome home, Uncle Roy!” Phoebe giggled, hanging off his legs. “Did you forget it's your birthday?” She was a smart cookie who could see his confusion the moment he saw them jump up, only registering it when they shouted it out.
“Maybe,” Roy chuckles, a little embarrassed. “Could have fooled me and said it was your uncle's big day.” Roy gives Jamie a dipped kiss right after, and Phoebe headbutts his leg for a smooch too. The couple break apart, and Roy lifts Phoebe with a toss in the air.
“Weee!” Phoebe laughs, landing in Roy's hands. He gives her a big lip smack on her forehead, and she returns one on his cheek, her little arms wrapping around his neck for a hug. Jamie joins in, and Roy's held by his two favourite people in the world.
Slowly, Jamie starts to drag them over towards the table in small shuffles, all three still holding onto one another.
“Made yeh favourites and made yeh a cake. Nothing burned this time around,” Jamie says proudly. “Looks bad, but trust meh when I say everything is delicious.”
“I helped mix it,” Phoebe pipes up, pointing at the cake that drips frosting around the edges. “Uncle Jay let me put it in the oven and take it out too!”
“My, my, I have two chefs at home. Can't wait for a slice.” Roy looks over at the table again, his mouth watering. Only now had Roy realized how starved he was, having a small lunch and a coffee for the whole day. He couldn't sit down to enjoy it anyway, not with Jason and Garett causing a fire from their unlit cigarettes in the outside trash—again. He skipped breakfast when he slept past his alarm from how tired he was from these lads dragging him up a fucking wall, and Jamie had tried to wake him, but his growls kept him away.
“Let me wash up first, and we can dig in,” Roy says, setting Phoebe down, patting her head, and giving Jamie one more kiss before going off. Around the corner, the urge to turn around and stay to keep guard struck him suddenly. The smell of fruit and fresh linen was stuck in his nose, and it was driving him mad to know why Jamie smelled the way he did. It wasn’t his sprays nor fancy fragrances, but his own pheromones.
Roy could hear the two quietly whisper about a surprise when he's gone, and he's assuming it has something to do with his birthday and a present they have for him. He hurries to wash up, wears a nice shirt and trousers for the occasion, and puts on that cologne Jamie got him last Christmas. They put this effort in for him and had been supportive of the move, leaving everything behind so Roy could work his dream job.
The least Roy could do was look presentable.
Whistling and taking his time getting down the stairs, the excited murmurs die down when they hear him approach, and the sound of the chairs scraping on the tiles breaks out. Roy pops in to see them twiddling their thumbs at the table.
"Hm, I see two suspicious people at the table," Roy jokes and sits in his usual spot, the middle, with Jamie to his right and Phoebe to his left.
"I don't see anyone suspcious here... Do yeh, pebbles?" Jamie whistles an innocent tune.
"Nope!" Phoebe says and they both wink right in front of Roy, who rolls his eyes at them.
“Fine. Be that way. I'm fucking starved, and I don’t know where to begin,” Roy says, a bit overwhelmed by the amount of food they made. Jamie really didn’t hold back: toad in a hole, roast, Cornish pasty, beans and sausages, mash, shepherd's pie, fish and chips—so much fucking food!
“Just for yeh, babes.” Jamie hands him the utensils to grab at the food, and Roy takes a bit of everything. Phoebe doesn’t care to wait and uses her hands to pick at things, and Jamie slaps her little paws away with a stern look and a small lecture about waiting and germs. They innocently bicker, tongues poking at one another, while passing dishes around. Roy watches amused, digging into the food his family made for him. Everything tastes fucking delicious, and Roy’s plate is empty within minutes. Jamie was never an awful cook, just bad at plating and presentation; even if it did taste like shite, Roy would eat anything his omega made him with a smile on his face. Roy takes seconds, and Jamie is hiding his shy smile behind his napkin, watching Roy enjoy himself.
“S’good?” Jamie pokes at him with a foot. “Not too salty or bland?”
“Absolutely fucking delicious. You outdid yourself, love.”
“Oh, fuck off, yer teasing." Jamie can’t hide his blush. “Phoebe helped too. Right, pebbles?”
“Mhm!” Phoebe can’t talk, nodding her head with a spoon in her mouth, her pigtails bouncing around her face.
“I'm excited about the cake.” Roy's been eyeing it the whole time. It's probably the ugliest thing on the table, with its icing thin from the cake being too hot when they applied it and the random splashes of food colouring and food-safe glitter making it look inedible. The tilt was a bit worrying; would it fall?
“Meh too! It's definitely not boxed… Homemade, one hundred percent.” Jamie side-eyes Phoebe, who side-eyes him back, both in a silent conversation. Roy pretends not to see the cake box in the trash, taking their word that they made it from scratch.
They chat and laugh, and Roy enjoys a glass of wine, Jamie opting out for water, much to Roy’s surprise. Phoebe sips Roy's cup after begging for a full minute, making a face at the sour taste.
“Ew, it tastes disgusting! How can adults enjoy this?” Phoebe pushes away the wine glass. The adults have a laugh, all saying the same thing when they were young.
“When yer older, it'll taste sweeter than juice, pebbles." Jamie winks at her, but Phoebe can never imagine such a thing; juice is too good!
Roy finishes his glass, and Jamie starts to clear the table before chanting happy birthday. Phoebe helps, and soon, it's the cake and a few dessert dishes out. Roy wanted to help, but the two would force him down with an angry huff.
When everything is set in place, Jamie lights the candles, and Phoebe runs to turn off the light. Roy sits in the warm glow of the candles, their flames dancing from the small winds of his breath, his eyes shining with heavy waters that made them twinkle behind his lashes. A simple dinner with his family on a night he wouldn't have cared about years ago, was now a night worth celebrating, thanks to them. They reminded him why he was here, what makes him special, and, best of all, made him feel loved.
Jamie and Phoebe sing "Happy Birthday" to him; Jamie is perfect in pitch and tone, and Phoebe is off-tune. They clap and count up to his age quickly, but Jamie teases he's always 8, and Roy cracks up at it—an inside joke between the football players—and Phoebe wishes she knew what it meant!
“Hurry! Make a wish!” Jamie gestured to the cake, the candles dropping wax and hardening on the sticky surface. Roy looks at Jamie, his soulmate who said yes to this defective alpha and something Roy will never understand, and over at Phoebe, both losing someone close to them but forever thankful to have one another. He thinks about how he's coaching Chelsea and how fucking lucky he was to be offered the position out of hundreds who applied; he didn't even try, and they sought him personally. Roy looks around the dark kitchen, and his mind walks through the house he has yet to learn the layout of, but knows it's his home—their home.
Roy feels he has everything he's ever wanted and could have. Taking a deep breath, Roy blows out the candle for something that he knows is impossible because of his defective genes and keeps the wish to himself, much to Phoebe's disappointment.
“Won’t come true if I told you, Phoebe," Roy jokes, and Phoebe runs over to turn on the lights. Jamie places a kiss on Roy's cheek. Roy's nose flares at that fucking scent Jamie's carrying on his skin, and he wants to ask about it, but that would come off as rude. His omega might be going through a hormonal change—though those tended to smell a bit like sour honey and milk, and his heats were thick-scented of black licorice and vanilla, intoxicating Roy with such sweetness, so sweet it spiked his fucking sugar levels.
“I think I know what it is." Jamie snickers, squeezing Roy’s shoulder and planting a kiss right on it. Roy can’t look at him, eyes on the waxy candles, ashamed for never giving Jamie what he really wanted; they tried and tried and always failed in the end. Jamie never blamed him and was wasting his eggs with an alpha like Roy, whose own were too weak to penetrate anything. They had Phoebe, and she was enough—yet, the longing for his own litter was always going to be on his mind, no matter what.
“Don’t look so glum, Roy. One day.” Jamie knows the look when Roy’s deep in thought about it. “Yer the only one fer meh.” Jamie rubs his nose on Roy’s cheek and hands him the knife to cut the cake. Roy rubs his back, and Phoebe is chanting about the cake and to hurry it up. Roy cuts the slices thick and in slow motion, making the sound effects. Phoebe makes them too, and both are trying to one-up the other with their sound effect noises. When Roy's done, he gives the first piece to Phoebe, who is over the moon to be given the first slice. Jamie is given the second slice, and Roy gives himself the largest piece, still hungry.
“Mmm, this is good!” Phoebe messily eats her cake, getting frosting on everything: her hands, mouth, arms, and hair. Jamie tsk’s, wiping what he could with a lick and gentle rub of his thumb.
They eat the cake, and Jamie eats plate after plate and blames it on his oncoming heat, but Roy's not daft; if it were true, he'd be able to know from a single whiff. Roy keeps it to himself, regardless. Whatever Jamie had to lie about eating most of the cake, leaving crumbs for him and Phoebe, was his reason to keep it.
“Tea?” Jamie asks after his fifth plate, and the table nods. “Phoebe, set the kettle, please?”
Phoebe, their best little helper, goes to fill the electric kettle as Jamie clears the table. Roy would smoke, itching for it, but Phoebe was around, and he hated smoking in her proximity. Instead, he goes to help with the dishes.
“Fine weather, innit?” Jamie makes small talk. Roy shrugs, drying the plates off and setting them aside.
“Could be colder,” Roy mumbles. “The lads were drenched from today's training. Enya was an excellent coach but too soft on them.”
“No mutiny yet?” Jamie snickers. “Better be careful, babes.”
“I'd kill them if they tried that,” Roy laughed. When Jamie leans over to grab something off his side, that fucking smell blows up in Roy’s face, and it makes him growl, not aggressively or possessively. Something was off with his omega, and it wasn’t an unpleasant scent either; Jamie smelled divine.
Jamie is quick to expose his neck to Roy with a small whimper from the growl despite it being nothing; he can’t help it, it’s in their code. Roy kisses the neck to calm Jamie down, taking in what bothers him.
“Fuck, sorry. You smell fucking fantastic, but it's making me, fuck, I don’t know. Crazy? Overprotective? It’s weird. Are you trying something for...?” It could be a new treatment Jamie was on. What else could it be?
“Hmmm, been taking those supplements fer the past few days. Have yeh been taking yers?”
Roy pulls away, guilty. They weren't going to work with his infertility issue, and as much as Jamie gave him hope, disappointment was always behind the door.
Jamie gives him a look, eyes narrowed and mouth going straight. “Hmph,” Jamie flicks his head away, thinking it’s not worth hassling Roy about it on his birthday, and works on the rest of the dishes. “About done here. How's the kettle, Phoebe?”
Phoebe gives a thumbs up and continues to keep an eye on it.
“Perfect. I'll set the table. Roy, I have a bun in the oven. Could you?” Jamie nudged him, and Roy dramatically sighed with a hand going over his head. “Stop being a little wanker!”
Roy gives Jamie a tap on his ass and goes over. He noticed the oven was off, and the timer was never set. When he opens it, it’s cold, and there’s a single tin in the middle, covered by a white tea cloth. Roy looks over, and Jamie’s giving him a look he can’t distinguish: happy, sad, scared, nervous? Phoebe herself is eyeing him with a smile, the corners of her mouth almost touching her ears.
Roy clears his throat, trying to keep his composure. “They’re cold. Should we heat them?” Roy asks, and Jamie just shakes his head, hand up to his mouth and eyes shimmering. Whatever Jamie was feeling was making Roy feel funny. He was sensing a bit of distress coming from his omega, and the overwhelming stench of fruit and linen was mingling with the various scents in the room. It was making Roy anxious, and before he could ask what was wrong, Phoebe’s voice chimed in, throwing his focus onto her.
“Take the tin out, Uncle Roy,” Phoebe says, bringing the kettle to the table. “Be careful with it! Uncle Jay worked really hard thanks to you.”
Jamie nods, looking away from Roy with a hiccup.
Confused, Roy grabs the tin, and to his surprise, it’s light—too light for a bun. Removing the tea cloth, Roy takes a moment to stare at a single white stick at the bottom of the tin.
“What…” Roy blinks because the thing in the tin can’t be what he thinks it is, but his eyes are looking at a pregnancy test that’s fucking positive. He turns to Jamie in shock, and Jamie lets out a small gasp, hands on his stomach.
”Jamie, what—is this a fucking joke? No—are you? Oh, my fucking god—” Roy can’t process all the emotions he’s feeling and Jamie’s own and stands there frozen.
“Got a bun in meh oven, Roy,” Jamie says, half choked. “Baking ‘em right now.”
Roy lets the tin slip from his hand and slowly makes his way towards Jamie, their eyes locked. When he’s close, his trembling hands go up to Jamie’s toned abs, hovering because he is so fucking scared to touch what will balloon in the following months of their creation—was this even real? The signs were right there too from the very beginning and Roy was too busy with work to notice them fully.
”Jamie, y-you’re… pregnant with my litter?” Roy can’t believe the words coming out of his mouth. He was told he was infertile by too many doctors, and the hope they had in the beginning gradually became an acceptance.
No more, it seemed.
Jamie nods frantically, lips quivering.
“We fucking did it.” Jamie takes Roy’s hands into his and presses them hard onto his stomach. “First ultrasound in a few weeks. See how many pups I’m carrying.”
“Fucking happy with just one,” Roy whispers, blinking away the water. In all his life, Roy wanted to be a father. It wasn’t a dream; it was a need, a want, a goal in life that he could never get, always missing the shot. He never had a father growing up—bless his grandpa—and swore he’d always be there for his pups. When he found out he was infertile, a mate was impossible. Keeley was close, giving him a chance, but they clashed. She didn’t want pups, and if she got pregnant by chance, she would terminate the moment she found out; Roy did, and they fought constantly about it and never bonded.
Then Jamie gave him a chance; he wanted pups, wanted Roy as his alpha, and still wanted a life together if pups didn’t come. They took Phoebe under their wing after his sister passed, and she was enough for them. Adoption was a choice, but they never looked into it because Jamie always gave him hope each heat cycle.
And here they were.
In the kitchen.
His omega, his soulmate, the love of his life, is carrying his litter.
His niece, his little girl, one of his biggest fans, is going to be a big sister.
When it finally hits him—Roy Kent is going to be a dad—he wraps his arms around Jamie and lifts him with a jump and shout, and Jamie yelps and laughs, hands on Roy’s shoulder to boost himself up.
“We’re fucking pregnant!” Jamie roars down on him, excitement swimming in all three of them.
“Fucking Christ, I’m going to be a fucking dad! Fucking hell!” Roy roars back, and he’s laughing a laugh that hurts his stomach and shakes the house and the whole fucking world. He presses his face into Jamie’s toned stomach and kisses it a hundred times, all while sobbing, unable to contain himself. Phoebe joins their excitement with her own little screams of being a big sister, and it was her plan for the tin in the oven, and she latches herself onto Roy’s waist, hanging off like a little monkey.
They holler and laugh and jump and shout till they tire out, but their spirits are still up and burning, the future brighter.
Jamie cups Roy's face, and the two bring their faces close, lips sealing. Phoebe makes gagging noises, clapping her hands in celebration.
While it was scary to think about the risks that would come with this pregnancy and the dreadful talk of one of them dropping their careers to look after the pups, Roy would drop Chelsea in a fucking heartbeat if Jamie wanted to keep playing. Roy's own father couldn’t set aside his career for him, and Roy wasn’t going to follow in that bastard's footsteps.
Nothing else mattered to Roy but being there for his pups and being a father.
“Wish come true?” Jamie says when he breaks apart, voice tight and joyful. Roy can only nod, his voice stuck in his chest. This was more than a wish come true.
Finally, Roy Kent scored his winning goal.