Archive of Our Own

Jamie stirs under his heavily weighted sheets when something awakens him from his dream. It's a familiar sound — a buzzing chime of some sort in small bursts — and it strikes him to instinctively go to it, but he does not move from his spot.

He lifts his head in a sleep-deprived daze, lolling, trying to listen to what awoke him—see if the sound was what it really was or just a waking dream.

There's a silence at first, minus the throbbing of his ears and his breathing and the little things around him; from the swishing of car tires on wet concrete to the whirling fan of his bathroom and the drips of his kitchen sink that need tightening, the buzzing chime is but an echo in his spaced mind. He opens one eye to squint at the clock that tells him it's 12:39 am, and assumes what he heard was a false alarm.

He plops his head back in the dip of his pillow, relaxing his body and exhaling in contentment, falling back to his awaited slumber.

The doorbell goes off, and this time around, he hears it loud and clear.

First, it's the confusion that comes in and forces one to sit up and sober up from their dazed state. Who could be ringing his doorbell this time of night?

Second is the dread that trickles in like an hourglass, gradually weighing him down with a thin voice. Why is someone ringing his doorbell at this time of night?

Third is the survival instincts that pump adrenaline and force him to his feet. He's breathing just enough to keep his mind and body going, but they're shallow and pause every other inhale. Who could be ringing his doorbell at this time of night?

Fourth, it's up to Jamie what to do next.

Stay and let whoever is at his door alone, or go and inspect who it is. His mind pops up various faces of friends and family to strangers wanting to break in and see if he was home. He's only been in this situation once when he was a lad, and his mum hid him in his cramped closet and made him swear to “shut the fuck up and wait for me" and only come out when she said it was safe to.

It had been his dad, drunk after a few too many pints at the pub, and livid he'd been kicked out for hitting him. He broke into their home by smashing the window. Jamie didn't know it was him, and that night was the most terrifying moment in his life, being forced to hear his mum screaming and things breaking and sharp slaps of both of them going at it.

The trauma of that night never left him, but he reminded himself he was 24, fit, and had a bat under his bed. He was well equipped to handle anything behind his door if he was smart and played it safe — if it was someone dangerous.

The doorbell rings again, each press cutting off the last ring from someone hounding it with what Jamie imagined was their long, gloved finger and a face obscured by a mask of malice or worry. It could be his mum, Simon, Keeley, a teammate, a neighbour, or a friend escaping from a situation and finding solace at his place.

Or it was someone looking for trouble.

Deciding it was best to take a peek, Jamie slips on a muscle tee and grabs the bat from under his bed; friend or foe, he learned to never let your guard down no matter who smiles at you.

Carefully walking through the dark house to avoid the creaks that would indicate his presence, he made his way up to the door and leaned into the fish-eye hole with a squint of his eye. Who he sees is the last person he'd ever expect to be ringing his doorbell at 12 am.

It wasn't a friend nor a stranger, but it was certainly a person he'd never wanted to speak to, let alone see. They were once ‌close friends of his, too close, and overstepped a boundary that haunts him to this day.

What stood at his door was a fucking foe.

Snarling, Jamie bangs on his door, fist tight in a ball, voice loud and croaking. He will not entertain whatever they have to say to him.

“Go away, Bex.” Jamie watches her jump in surprise, her brow furrowed and mouth opening to spill out her excuses. She was a bit far, and he couldn't really see what was on her shadowed face. His eyes were still adjusting to waking up, and the lights outside were too dimmed to make out anything. Excessive makeup?

“Jamie!” Her voice was panicked, muffled by the door between them. She peeks over her shoulder with caution as if she were being followed and shifts what she holds to her other hand. It looked to be heavy from how her arms were pulled by its gravity, and he couldn't tell exactly what it was from how low it hung to the ground. “We need to talk.” Bex pleaded, and he would laugh if he weren't so fucking angry and hurt by the sight of her.

“Nope. Told you to fuck off. Need another reminder? Well, ‘ere it is. Fuck off.” Jamie wants to walk away and leave her standing there in the cold; he could see the little wisps of air from her gasping, red mouth and her petite frame trembling, but something keeps him in place. Her entire demeanour seemed off, and the closer she got, the clearer it became that the spots on her face weren't makeup.

“Please.” Bex gets close to the eyehole, and Jamie swallows when he can see the dark purples of damaged tissue on her right eye, both cheeks streaked with her black mascara, and her fillered lips busted open.

"Please—please, Jamie. I-I'm sorry how things ended, b-but we need to talk.” The more she spoke, her words cracking and stumbling over one another, the clearer he could hear the strain of her voice and her clogged sinuses trying to filter air through.

Jamie sighs.

Regardless of what they did to him in the past, he was a man who felt remorse for those in trouble. Many loved to believe he was an asshole, and he was to a degree, but seeing Bex out in the cold, shaking and clearly distressed, tugged at his heartstrings.

Moving away from the eyehole, he taps his head on the door, bat tight in his hand. He knows he needs to do the right thing and let her in and hear her bullshit out.

But the part that's ugly and moulded to his soul, thanks to her, screams at him to leave her out there and go back to bed and forget this ever happened.

No. Jamie was better than that, better than her.

Setting the bat aside, he unlocked the door but left the deadbolt in place. He opens it as wide as the deadbolt allows him to, and Bex pushes his face close to the gap of warmth.

“Jamie! Jamie, please open the door—it’s cold—”

“What the fuck do you want? Why ye' here?” He cuts her off. He doesn't want to hear her little pleas nor a whole sob story, just the facts on why she was standing in front of his door at 12 am with a battered face — it's obvious, innit? A woman with that face already said what needed to be said. But this was Bex, and deep down, he knew she was playing her cards right to get him to open the door.

Jamie was terrified of her in a way because of it.

“Look, let me inside and I'll explain… Please, Jamie. It's cold and…” Bex hiccups, and her eyes drop down to the object she keeps shifting from one hand to the other. Jamie follows her gaze, and his eyes go wide.

“Ye' brought the fucking baby?” Jamie is quick to close the door and unlock his deadbolt in under a second to let her in, eyes glued to the baby carrier as she passes him in a hurry.

'Of course, she'd bring the baby, Jamie.' No mother who loves their children would leave their bundles in the dangers they're escaping from, and his own mum was proof of that.

Scanning outside his front yard, his eyes trailing along the dimly lit streets lined with parked cars and through the gaps between houses and bushes, he shut the door when danger was nowhere in sight.

He takes a deep breath to psych himself up before he turns to stare at the woman who single-handedly broke him and tainted his fucking soul with hers, both forever entangled.

“Jamie. Thank you.” Bex smiles at him and waits for him to escort her somewhere warmer. He would love to escort her back outside if it weren’t for the baby she brought with her — possibly that was her plan all along. Use the baby as bait to soften Jamie up if her face didn’t do the trick.

Clicking his tongue in annoyance, he swallowed his hatred for her and made his way to the kitchen without a word. She was probably thirsty and needed to clean the blood off her face that was dried and caked along the ridges of her fake lips and chin, and her hands were stiff and stuck in a claw shape. He would laugh at her and ask if Ruppert kissed her face with a fist, but he wasn’t his father.

“Make yer'self at fucking home,” Jamie says monotonously when he steps in the kitchen, flicking on the island counter lights and heading to the dripping sink for a glass of water.

Bex shuffles from behind, shoulders hunched and body still shaking from the cold. Jamie takes his time to fill her cup, his mind fogging over like the glass and his fingers tingling and going numb. He was keeping down a panic by taking long inhales through his nose and slow exhales through his mouth, having picked up some breathing exercises from online articles and videos that helped temporarily, but he needed professional help to deal with the stains on him.

It was hard to trust anyone with his piling issues. People loved to talk, and that was human nature itself; he was a fucking yapper himself and gossiped his heart out. Therapists were just fancy bartenders who listened to you for a price and giggled behind your back to their friends and family.

Jamie’s dirty laundry was his own to handle.

“Jamie, I know you’re upset with me.” Bex starts from behind him, and he tenses up at her voice. “We ended badly, but… hear me out.”

Jamie blinks, forgetting he was filling her cup at the sink, and the cold water spills over his hands, throwing him out of his thoughts. She wasn’t near him or close enough to touch him, but her phantom nails were clawing his chest, and her pleasured moans echoed in his head like a metronome, back and forth, back and forth: Oooh, Jamie, Oooh, Jamie.

Composing himself, he gets a tea towel to dampen it and gives both items to her by sliding them over the counter, retracting his hand the moment she reaches over for them. Her thank you is genuine, and it makes him disgusted to hear it. He sits at the other end of the island counter, ready to entertain what she has to say.

He’ll hear her out and pretend they're okay and friends and not a victim with their assailant.

Waiting, he drums his numbing fingers against the marble to bring back feeling and watches her fidget and take small sips of her glass nervously. When she hisses from the cold water meeting the cut of her lip, it sparks a little joy in him.

Bex finishes the glass, setting it aside and wiping away the crusted blood from her face and dabbing her lip and eye gently with the damp cloth. She's hiccuping and sniffling like she's a victim — she technically is, and Jamie should feel ashamed for even thinking she couldn't be a victim despite their past.

'Jamie, you're allowed to think the worst about someone like her, mate,’ he reminds himself because his emotions and experiences are just as valid.

“I'm just going straight to the point,” Bex starts after collecting herself, her focus going from him to the baby carrier when a tiny voice pierces through the quiet. She fumbles with the blanket, and when she whips it over to reveal the baby, her face lights up instantly.

There's a noise of suckles and a whine that's cooking up a cry. Jamie purses his lips to chew the back of his cheeks and tries to remember the baby's name. He only saw it once at the funeral, and he wouldn't lie; it hurt to see Bex start a family and move on from what she did to him without an ounce of remorse.

It was one reason it made him so fucking emotional that day — it didn't help that he had shoes tighter than his fancy trousers and his collared button-up suffocating — and said what he said to Keeley, because Keeley was a woman who didn't use or hurt him.

“There she is,” Bex coos, and she's scrunching her nose. “Mummy's here, sweetie.”

“Bex,” Jamie's growing impatient. He wanted her out now, and if he had to sit there and listen to a baby cry, he would lose it. “Say what you need to and leave.”

She ignores him to hush her little one, who's getting fussy. Jamie rolls his eyes and waits for the baby to stop doing what babies do, forcing himself to hold back his anger. When the noises die down to low hums, Bex looks to him, pained, with tears at the corners of her dark blue eyes that captivated him long ago.

“Jamie—” Bex looks up, holding back her tears. “I came here for help, and you need to say yes. No is not an option for this,” she says and acts like she knows he'll do it no matter what.

Jamie stares at her as if she had two heads.

The tension makes itself known by thickening over his skin like rotten honey, clinging and drowning his lungs with its sick sweetness; he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, he can’t fucking breathe — he staggers a hard breath through his teeth when his brain reminds him, "Hey, we need oxygen, buddy, or you're going to fucking faint," and it makes her flinch when his hand goes up suddenly to wipe his face.

“I—Rupert hit me when he found out.” She's doing that thing where she avoids getting to the point after stating she would, adding little sad pieces along the way to garner sympathy before she asks for his help; warm him up a bit.

He wants to slam his fist on the counter and scream at her till he's red and get the fuck out, or else he'd force her, and he would. Hollering through the halls as both she and the baby cried — he closes his eyes, trying to calm himself down.

Hear her out, then holler.

“Jamie,” Bex locks eyes with him, and he's back on her bed, body moving in a rhythm she brought down on him that felt so fucking good in his paralyzed state from an attack that squeezed his heart when she squeezed him. Jamie pinches the top of his thigh to ground himself and focus on his surroundings; he's in his kitchen, sitting at a barstool with his body far from claws, and there is a baby between them on the counter island. Nothing bad was going to happen when a baby was present if both people were sane.

Well, Jamie was sane enough to know putting your hands on someone was wrong. Bex knew that, but she never took no as an answer.

“This is Diane.” Bex turns the carrier ‌to face Jamie. He sees a little head poke out, but from where he sits, it's a small, pale thing under pink blankets. Bex smacks her lips, letting her tears fall, her voice lost.

“She's your daughter. You need to take her.”

Jamie chokes.

Something snaps inside him like a pencil in bare hands, and its jagged ends scrape his inner walls of soft muscle, oozing out his rage. He's seeing red at the edge of his vision, and all he can think of is that day she took advantage of him when he came to her for help.

No one knew.

How could he even tell anyone?

Now this? The words she spoke didn't sound real to his fuzzy ears. Bex was a cruel woman who loved to stir the pot and never lied because all her lies had truths to them.

This baby, being his daughter, could be the hard truth or a sick joke.

“Fuck no? Take her to a fucking shelter. You need to leave.” Jamie knows he's breathing when he feels the air go in and out through his flared nose, but they aren't deep enough, leaving him breathless and lightheaded. His mind races with the sex education video he watched in school and how babies are created, how the female body just did that incredible thing where it carried a living thing for 9 months, how a mummy and daddy were preparing for it during those said months, how a baby comes out headfirst or else it's a C-section, and how this can't be his fucking daughter because it can't be.

It just can't be.

“Jamie, please—I tried to tell you, but you blocked me everywhere!” Bex starts the finger-pointing game, and it's somehow Jamie's fault he blocked and threatened to call the police on his assaulter. Yes, shame on him indeed, trying to feel safe and heal in the dark corners of a box she forced him into.

“Rebecca. Get. Out." He’s trying so fucking hard to hold back screaming and throwing a fit — he’s 24, not 4 — so much so he has to bite his tongue till he tastes blood.

“Rupert found out it wasn't his when the math didn't add up,” Bex cries, covering her mouth.

Jamie's jaw tightens; the pained noises she made did the opposite of what one should feel when they hear them. Instead of the supposedly hard-wired sympathy and pity that humans were supposed to exhibit in these moments, it made him angrier and angrier and fucking angrier. It was her fake cry he knew too well, and she even pulled off her fancy nails to add to the scene.

“And he fucking lost it... Told me if I came back with her, he'd ship her off somewhere—I love her and can’t allow that.” Bex pulls the carrier close, her hand dipping inside to fix baby Diane's blanket. “You’re the next choice. I know you’ll take care of her and I know she’s safe with you.”

“I don't fucking care what he did, Rebecca. You take yer arse and that fucking baby out of me fucking house. I—she is not me fucking daughter.” Jamie wishes he could say it without a crack or pause, but it all comes out broken and in stutters, and he's fucking breaking down the longer she's here, and her words are sinking in.

Jamie wasn't ready to be a father.

“She is!” Bex's voice comes out strong and makes Diane whine and hiccup. This time, she lets the baby have a fuss.

“She's your daughter! I found out after I got together with Rupert a month after… us. You’re the last guy…" Her eyes dart away from him when she said it, and Jamie wanted to laugh at how she had the audacity to feign a guilty look.

“Tell me how she's me daughter.” Jamie crosses his arms and leans in, tilting his head to the side. “Because I was freshly single and a fucking mess at the time, Rebecca. So, tell me. How did this baby happen when I never agreed to fuck you?”

Bex stares at him, face stern, and there's a small pool of hate swimming in her deep blues, and it could be towards him or the situation forced upon her by her own fucking hands. He stares back, his hate evident with the shadows clouding his own vision, unblinking. He's challenging her to say it and pop the balloon and acknowledge how this baby came to be if it was, in fact, his daughter.

And that so-called daughter was now starting to cry softly, not yet a voluminous shriek that would warn all around that it needed to be attended to.

Bex folds when her eyes go to Diane, hands rocking the carrier. “We slept together when you showed up to my fucking door drunk, James. That’s how babies are made, or are you that fucking daft?”

“No, we didn't," Jamie growls out harshly. "You took advantage of meh, Rebecca. Called rape, innit?” Jamie says it loud and without shame, and it cuts through the tension in the room. Diane's whines start to pick up, and Bex rocks faster, her tears drying and her face hardening to its true mask.

“You asked me to, did you not?” Her voice is dangerously low, and the apologetic and weeping maiden is gone, and it was the real Rebecca showing her true colours. She was manipulative and always got what she wanted. Never cared for the man she held on to, but for the wealth they brought in his wallet and pockets.

To ever think he considered her his close friend was idiotic of him when the signs were always there: forcing him to keep their friendship a secret because Keeley would get jealous of her; forcing him to cuddle when it made him uncomfortable; forcing him to delete posts that got too much attention from other women; forcing him to rethink his identity and worth when he was at his lowest.

Jamie’s fault for being young and desperate for attention and love.

“I–” Jamie wiped his eyes, hand resting over them — he wasn't going to fucking cry, he wasn't going to cry, he wasn't going to fucking cry about this. He should have known she was going to blame him for everything in her fucking life.

“I asked for a gentle hand. Not a shag.”

“Same thing, innit? You didn't stop me. You always want to act like the fucking victim, James.” Bex sighs with a roll of her eyes.

“I was having a fucking panic attack. I couldn't breathe and pretty fuckin' sure I fainted midway!” He gets up quickly, and the bar stool tips, and he lets it fall. It's the crashing noise of metal and kitchen tiles meeting that finally makes Diane's soft cries rise to a screeching wail, her little arms and legs weakly flailing in the carrier. She was afraid of all the loud noises, and Bex's rocking wasn’t going to stop it.

“You,” Jamie points a trembling finger at her, his rage about to pop off. Diane wasn't helping, but she was a baby, and he could handle her cries for a minute more before he kicked them out. “Got on me and I said no... and you jus’ fuckin' laughed. Get out now and never fucking come back, you fucking bitch.”

Bex just laughs over her daughter's distressed cries, and Jamie shrinks, his rage a tail between his legs. No matter how much of a brave facade he put on or used his stature to try to intimidate her, Bex would also loom over him.

“Okay. If you say so,” Bex stops her rocking, her head going down to kiss Diane on the head. It's a beautiful moment between a mother and her daughter, and Jamie wishes he had never seen such tenderness under all that fake plastic. It showed she was capable of loving someone, and the love she gave Jamie long ago was of greed and lust.

“Mummy will always love you, always. Daddy will take good care of you, okay? Promise he won't hurt you.” Bex cries real tears for once, and Jamie prays she doesn't mean what she's saying because no way in hell the baby was his and was staying in his house.

And to his surprise, that's exactly what she does — he shouldn't be this surprised; it's fucking Bex.

Bex is out of the kitchen without the carrier and making her way to the door within the blink of an eye. Scrambling from his spot and taking the crying baby off the counter, making Diane cry harder and louder, he rushes towards Bex, who's already walking out his front door. Ahead, he can see headlights beam brightly, and they blind him when he's close to the door. Where the car came from didn’t matter to Jamie. He needed Bex to take this baby and leave him alone forever.

“Bex! Yer fucking baby—she's not—take her! REBECCA! I can't!” He's a professional football player who can outrun half of London, but a woman half his size and walking briskly was able to slip away into a car, her head down low and shoulders hunched; it's the carrier slowing him down, and he has to avoid bumping it around corners and furniture.

Jamie's outside at the front, the cold air nipping him and the warmth of his home pulling him back from overstepping to the cold stones of his pathway. He can’t see her properly anymore, nor the person in the car when his vision is of pure white light, but he can hear his tearing screams through the still night along with Diane's.

The car rolls out of his driveway, and Jamie sprints over, ignoring the cold stone his bare feet slap on and the carrier swinging wildly in his crushing grip. Diane pauses her cries when the cold hits her, and it's a guttural scream when it's registered in her little head that it's too cold and she's too dizzy and wants her mum.

Jamie's up to the passenger side, and while his eyes have bright spots, he can see her clearly through the tinted glass. He bangs on the window madly, hoping it fucking breaks on her and risks losing a hand for it, and possibly something he would come to regret when his rage settled and he was level-headed again.

Bex ignores him, her head forward and eyes closed.

“Rebecca! Yer fucking baby! She isn't mine—Rebecca! Take her! Or else!” Jamie screams out at her, and his reflection yells back at him, following the car out to the street and trying to open the car door. Diane's carrier hits against the car, making her screams shake and vibrate with every little bump; Jamie was trying his best to prevent that, holding her around his waist, but it’s fucking hard.

The car keeps driving, and Jamie holds onto the car handle, following it with the pads of his soles scraping on the rough asphalt.

“Please—just take her! Bex, Bex, Bex—No, no, no, no!” Jamie's rage flips to a panicked state when the car picks up speed, and he's jogging now, the carrier getting heavier and dragging from behind. He wants to let go of it and bang on the window, but that's a risk of getting the poor thing run over.

Jamie grunts when he steps on sharp pebbles and possibly glass when there's something embedded in his left heel. He pushes past the pain and the dizziness from the lack of oxygen, holding everything in: the car handle, the carrier, his breath, and the fucking pain of seeing her — he runs and runs and lets go when his ankle twists and he falls forward. His instinct at that moment is to think about Diane and her safety and nothing else. He twists to his side before he lands, his bare arm eating the concrete with a dry slide, and the carrier held up, safe from the collision. He cries from the erupting pain of what he knows is his skin separating from the muscles and nerves, the smell of blood strong and overwhelming.

Diane cries through it all, unaware of the situation neither she or Jamie asked for.

“Beeeexxxxxx!” Jamie roars, his throat shredding and ripping, out into the cold, dead night. He lifts himself to his trembling legs, using the carrier as support, grunting and groaning as he does. The car drives away slowly as if to taunt him, and that thought alone sends him over ‌the edge.

With a burst of the rage he'd held in for too long, giving him newfound strength, Jamie lifts the carrier above his head.

“TAKE YER FUCKING BABY!” He was going to throw this baby at the car; he really was. This ear-piercing little piece-of-shit machine wasn't his, and Bex wasn’t going to do this to him, wasn’t going to leave a part of her with him as a reminder.

His arms shake.
Throw it.
His chest heaves.
Throw it.
His arms twitch.
Throw. The. Baby.
The car’s so far now.

Diane cries her deafening song above him, and it makes his heart hurt, and he's suddenly a little boy in the middle of the road, holding up the heaviest thing in the world. They're both in a situation forced by this fucking woman who took everything.

Jamie was free. He was doing great, moved on, and now there's this.

This wasn’t going to be his problem.

THROW THE FUCKING BABY!

Jamie gasps out a broken sob, his vision blurred by the pools clinging to his eyes, and watches the red shimmering lights turn a corner and disappear out of sight. He drops to his knees, tipping the carrier as he does, but puts her on the ground beside him before it fully falls over. Diane stops, choking on her drool, spitting out what she can, and continues her fucking screaming.

Jamie just blankly stares ahead, unblinking.

…

Jamie paces around his kitchen with a phone in hand, dialling the emergency number. He needs to call the police. This is child abandonment on Bex's part, and there wasn’t any proof that the baby was his.

They might have done the deed — forced — and she might have tricked everyone into thinking she was sweet and kind and weak, but Jamie saw past that. Bex didn’t leave any instructions and packed a small bag with some formula, a few nappies, and the baby's documents.

Diane’s on the counter still crying, and Jamie’s crying with her because he’s stressed to the nines and experiencing the most painful thing he’s ever felt in his whole life. His left arm got shredded from the tumble, from his elbow to his shoulder, with parts of his skin peeling off. He took a towel soaked with rubbing alcohol and wrapped it around the wound, and he’s trying not to faint from the pain.

Probably ask the dispatcher to send an ambulance when they’re at it.

Hesitating, Jamie presses the call button to end it quickly. Was he sure about this? Was that baby really his? The documents had her name attached to the Mannions, her birthdate and location, and her gender. Nothing indicated she was of his seed. He could take a look at her and see any key features, but he was trying his best to avoid that, or else he might create a connection with her.

He didn’t want a fucking reminder of what happened to him.

He didn’t want to resent someone for existing because of what had happened to him.

He had a full-time career and gigs he needed to focus on, enjoyed the lavish single lifestyle, and loved coming home, his safe place, to escape the stresses of life.

Children were not in his plan. He couldn’t, even if he wanted to. His father left too much of his rottenness in him, and to have a child, he’d just rub off that rottenness onto them.

Jamie sighed, eyes avoiding Diane, who was calling out for any source of comfort. Her cries were starting to get to him and make him anxious by the second, striking that primal instinct to help her.

Deciding it was best for someone else to take it, Jamie dials the emergency number. The phone rings, and he’s wondering why it’s taking so fucking long for them to answer.

Waiting, he makes the mistake of peeking into the carrier, his eyes catching hers.

Diane stops crying when she sees his hazels, her hiccups soft, lips puckered, cheeks puffed, and short, thickening brows furrowing.

Jamie wants to laugh because this little shit wasn’t pouting at him. Her eyes are deep blue with bits of green around the edges, and her cheeks are full and flushed. She’s a fat, pale baby, her arms chubby and moving around. Her hair is wisps of brown, and her little ears are unpierced. Around her neck, covered under her fat chin, was a gold necklace with the letter D encrusted with diamonds.

The more he stared at her, the more pieces of himself he found.

The shape of her mouth curved like his.

The stubborn crease between her brows mirrored to his own.

The specks of his hazels in her mothers drowning, deep blues.

There was something familiar buried beneath all that baby fat, and Jamie hated it.

But he didn't fight it.

Suddenly, a spark flickered in his chest, and it hit him hard: a connection a parent must feel when they see their baby for the first time, forever bound by something he couldn't explain — a soul made of the same cloth, perhaps. He imagines her entire future, all laid out in multiple paths that twist and turn: her first word, first step, first bike, first crush, first breakdown, first everything, and he's there by her side through it all.

Jamie swallows, hand reaching in. Diane's tiny hands grab one of his finger, and she kicks her legs, giggling. It confirms what he was dreading, and that same dread blossoms into a dazzling warmth of a pureness that melts his rotten core.

This is his daughter, and she’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen in his life.

Not an ounce of her cruel mother was found in her — but her blue eyes — and he thinks he loves her and would die for her. Rupert must have seen this, probably, and started questioning his supposed heir and done the math after.

Fuck that old fuck-face, man.

This was Jamie’s baby. A beautiful but cruel reminder, and he will never resent her for it.

“Hello? What is your emergency?” A voice rings out from the phone. He forgot for a split second that he had called the emergency line.

Jamie has a choice now. Report this and let her get whisked away, or do what his heart’s telling him to do.

Diane blows a spit bubble at him and brings his finger into her mouth, sucking on it.

“Hello, are you okay—“

“Sorry, wrong number. I'm dyslexic.” Jamie hangs up on the operator and lets the phone slip out of his grip and onto the floor. He takes her out of her carrier carefully, his hands shaking uncontrollably.

He’s never held a baby properly, only holding them up for a quick picture, and he thinks he’s doing it right when Diane doesn’t react negatively to the grip that he thinks is too tight. She’s heavy in his arms, and her head rests on his bare chest, her drool spilling over and sliding down. She flaps her arms against him and kicks him with her chubby knees, and he rasps a laugh. This feels right, and when he dips his head down to give her a kiss on her little head, his lips meeting her softness, he cries into her, hugging her close.

“Da…Daddy's…here?" he whispers to her, unsure of the words. It’s a foreign language to him because this was never an option for him before. How the fuck was Jamie Tartt going to take care of a baby, let alone juggle his career, gigs, and his lifestyle? He knew shit about taking care of living creatures, and if he were being honest, he might end up killing her with his stupidity.

Yet he didn’t want to give her up when she was his own flesh and blood — maybe. He needed to do a blood test to set it in stone — and to do so would be a history repeating itself in the family, and Jamie didn’t want to continue that cycle; he was better than his father. He wanted to be there for his children and for Diane and be something he had only dreamed of.

But, fuck, he didn’t want people to know he had a baby with his assailant, let alone talk about it; asking friends and family for help was out of the question. That would be opening up old wounds that had scabbed over.

Who would believe Jamie if he said a woman did it?

No one would.

Leaning on the counter and sliding down to the floor, Jamie holds Diane close to him. She’s gone quiet, her babbling ceasing, and he’s scared he’s held her too tight and suffocated her. When her snores reach his fuzzy ears, he sighs in relief.

“I…” Jamie rolls the words in his mouth. “I love you? I don't know, it's complicated.”

Diane makes a small noise, and he hears her voice clearly.

“Yes, I’m yer daddy. Crazy, innit? Jamie Tartt's a daddy.” Jamie barely chuckles, throat closing. It’s growing on him a little each time he says it and wants to shout it out to the world.

“It’s you, me, just us two. Got it, sport?” Jamie sniffles and closes his eyes, humming a lullaby his mum used to sing to him when he was a baby, hugging what he knows is the best thing he’s done in his life.

It was Jamie and Diane versus the world.

Roy cleans his nails with the edge of a pen cap, waiting for the late muppets that file in inconsistently. He gives them a look of disappointment when they walk in, and it makes him giddy when they look away with shame.

The lads who were already seated waited with him, bored and huffing about it. Roy ignores them because, unlike them, he's responsible if someone doesn't show up and would need to drag their arses to his office and ask why they skipped a fucking mandatory meeting.

Then he would be forced to give them a generalized summary of what they missed and waste his fucking time. He wanted to do this once and be done with it.

“Who are we missing now?” Isaac calls out from the back when Moe walks in with his head down in shame. “Looks like everyone’s here now.”

Roy looks up, his eyes going across each row. When he’s at the last lad, Moe taking his seat, he shakes his head. They wouldn’t notice he was gone because they were all too focused on themselves to tell, but Roy knew.

“One more now. Give it ten minutes.” Roy goes back to cleaning his already groomed nails, and Beard yawns beside him, kicking his leg to get his attention.

“Who’s missing? I know Ted’s coming back this week and Nate’s off for the month.” Beard’s trying to figure it out, but with so many people in one room, it was hard to tell who was missing exactly.

“Take a wild fucking guess,” Roy mumbles, knowing exactly who’s missing. “Don’t overthink it.”

“Ummm, Colin?” Beard guesses, and Colin throws his hands up from the back with a scoff.

“Oi! I was the first one here, coach! You even greeted me!” Colin states his defense. “You even said I deserved a sticker for being a good lad on time.”

“Sorry. You’re a little forgettable.” Beard jokes, and Colin flicks him off from behind Jan Maas.

Roy tsk’s. “I said don’t overthink it.”

Beard hums, eyes scanning the sea of men. “Isaac?”

“Hey, now I know you’re joking, coach," Isaac laughs from the back, feet kicked up on an empty chair. “Or are you serious?”

“When have I ever joked?” Beard chuckles; Isaac was too easy to fool. “Jeff?”

Jeff claps his knees loudly and huffs. “We shook hands, coach! He is fucking with us.”

“Dani Rojas is here, amigos!” Dani shouts from his spot in case Beard forgot he was here. "Estoy aquí!”

“Me too, right over here, coach,” Arlo waves, and soon each player is stating their attendance, and it turns into a squabble about who’s missing. Beard tries to keep up and turns to Roy with a frown, blocking out the rowdy men.

“I lost track.”

“I said don’t fucking overthink it.” Roy pops the end of a pen into his mouth, sucking on it, and continues to clean the rest of his nails.

Beard ah’s and it’s clear as day who it was. “Oh. Wow. I am stupid. Jamie.”

“Bingo." Roy cracks a side smile without looking away from his task. “Fucking prick is always late. Probably going to walk in and give us a show.”

But ten minutes rolled into twenty, and it was clear to the coaches then that Jamie was a no-show. It wasn’t unusual for him to skip a meeting, but the prick never missed a mandatory one, and he would at most give a heads-up.

Roy sighs, dusting off his hands when it reaches the thirty-minute mark, and his brain is making up the silliest to worst-case scenarios. The team jumps in their seat, straightening themselves out and going quiet to listen to what the coach has to say.

“Oi, do you all know where ‌Tartt is?” Roy asks the group of men. One must have an idea of where he was. When the sea of heads shakes no, Roy rolls his eyes. He’s pretending not to care, because why would he?

It’s fucking Jamie Tartt.

And if Jamie Tartt wants to skip this meeting, then he could. He was an adult capable of making stupid decisions, and this decision was going to lead him to Roy’s office where a lecture awaited him.

So, these caring and worrying little feelings for the prick needed to fucking stop and show themselves out of Roy. He refused to allow him to live rent-free in his mind and couldn’t be bothered… but he fucking was, and that bothered him too — bothered by being bothered by something fucking stupid.

Swallowing it all down, Roy begins the meeting with one less player and a head clouded.

…

Another day goes by. No Jamie. No biggie.

Roy watches the men run their laps, chewing the end of his pen in thought. The meeting went well yesterday, and it was about the new policies and benefits coming to the Premier League. Everyone needed to update their contracts by next Thursday, and those who missed this meeting — just one player — would need to be told as soon as possible. He’s debating on emailing or messaging Jamie about it because his ass isn’t here and how he’ll word it and so on. Or let him show up the next coming workday and suffer the consequences in Roy’s office.

Beard nudges him, and his thoughts scatter away as if they’re naughty and hide away in the folds of his mind. He looks over, and Beard’s eyes are looking over the top rims of his sunglasses.

”Something on your mind? Haven’t yelled for the slackers in the back,” Beard nods over, and a few lads are walking briskly and chatting amongst one another in a huddle. Roy scowls, preparing his bark until Beard places a hand on his shoulder.

”Let them relax a little. You look like you need to relax a bit yourself.”

”Hm,” Roy rolls his gaze away from Beard, focusing back on the team. He follows Dani up to Colin, then to Sam and Jeff, and over to Isaac, all muppets who were closest to Jamie. If they didn’t know where he was, then no one did but the guy upstairs.

…

Another day goes by in a flash. Still no Jamie. A little biggie, but it’s not his to worry about.

Roy eats his lunch alone in his office, staring at the unsent message on his phone.

“You weren't there for the fucking meeting, slacker, and it was mandatory. Where the fuck are you? Get off your arse and get to work. Now.”

Roy really thought Jamie would come in today. He even made an extra lunch in case Jamie tried to take a bite of his food — Jamie loved curry on rice, and that’s what Roy brought in today — and it sat cold in the bottom of his cooler bag, untouched.

He was close to chucking it out or giving it to someone like Beard, who was eyeing it. But he decides he'll have it for dinner because he spent too much time on it to give it to anyone but the intended person.

Beard lightly kicks him from under the desk, and it makes him growl. Half the day this fucking American twat was bothering him with little-known side glances and hints about the missing player. Was it obvious Roy was thinking of him?

But thank God Roy had something else to focus on at the moment.

"What?" Roy asks, chewing his food, glaring.

“Going to eat what you got there?” Beard’s eyes drop to the open cooler bag by Roy’s foot. “Looks really tasty.”

“It is, and it’s dinner.” Roy gives him a smirk and a bite of his food: rice with coconut curry and shrimp, his is extra spicy, and the one in the cooler bag is mild.

“So fucking good.”

“I hate you.” Beard pouts, and it reminds him of Jamie and his stupid pouty face whenever Roy tells him no. "Why did you bring two lunches in the first place?"

It’s bait. Beard was baiting him to say it out loud that it was for the missing prick. Roy was smart and already had an excuse — why would he need to lie about something a little silly on his part? He didn’t hate Jamie; they were okay, and making lunch for someone else wasn’t remotely weird. Though… Roy making lunch specifically for Jamie was definitely weird and would have heads turning his way.

“Going over to my sister's. Packed an extra in case I stayed late. Tired of fucking pizza.” He lies, and it was a shitty one.

'Why are you going through so much trouble to give him food?'' Roy's little voice in his head laughs at him. 'You’re fooling no one but yourself.'

Beard chuckles. “So not for the baby shark that’s missing among our reef?”

'Told you.'

Roy should have known better than to lie to someone he considered a close friend. That included Keeley and Ted; hell, even Trent was slowly inching himself into his circle. Nate was easy to trick, believing anything he said or pretended to, as to steer away from his anger.

“Shut the fuck up.” Roy takes a spoonful of his food, his glare warning ‌Beard to back off.

Beard twirls in his chair with a long whistle. “Okay, lover boy. Probably has a little note with a heart and a lipstick kiss,” he says when he is facing Roy again, winking.

Roy makes a sudden motion to scare Beard, and it works when the man scrambles from his spot and runs off when he’s poked the bear too hard.

Watching him go, Roy sighed and sat back down in his seat. He continued to eat his food in silence, wondering if he should press send.

Roy sends the message on their second break.

“Hi. You missed an important meeting and have been MIA for three days. Where are you?”

Roy goes home and to bed without a reply.

…

Another day passed, and Jamie was nowhere in sight.

Still no fucking heads-up.

Roy can’t get a hold of Jamie’s useless agents, and his emergency contact was just as useless when Jamie put himself as one. Keeley was out of the country for a gig, and Roy didn’t know Jamie’s inner circle of friends outside of work.

The messages sent by the lads go unread and unanswered.

The team is worried, their buzzing gossip slowly getting under his skin. Beard puts an end to the gossip by blowing his steel whistle to get work started.

Roy doesn't care

It’s Jamie after all.

They carry on, and the day goes on, stopping for no one.

A knock comes at his office door in light taps.

Roy looks up from his desk, eyes beady and tired. It’s Colin and Dani standing, both side by side. They look at him worriedly, and he can’t blame them. The tension is thicker in Roy’s office than out where the lads solemnly change.

“What?” Roy takes off his reading glasses, seeing them clearly now.

“Um,” Colin wasn’t expecting a response, used to the growls and looks of ‘get the fuck out, now.’ He fidgets in his spot nervously, and Roy already knows what he wants to say. Dani is biting his inner cheek, just as nervous as Colin and quiet of his usual quips and yips.

Roy looks back down at his reports. “I know you two are worried. He’s fine. Nothing on the news.”

Colin gives him a look, and Dani gulps, wide-eyed, and Roy has to admit what he just said was fucking rude and outright disrespectful. This wasn’t a time to joke about a missing player and he's about to apologize, but Colin beats him to it.

“I know he would laugh at that. Fucking would,” Colin cracks a smile, tapping the door frame. “Even without his arse here, he’s a prick.”

“Si! He’s very prickly. Very strong. Like a cactus!” Dani adds, and the tension deflates a smidge from their confidence and assuring smiles. It was clear to everyone around him that they knew he was worried becsuse Roy Kent sulking in his office meant two things; a loss or an upcoming brief. 

Roy gives them a nod, unable to smile back. “Good lads. Now, carry on.”

Colin and Dani nod back and both walk off to continue switching gear, chatting among the lads, their whispers indistinguishable from each other's. They glance at Roy through the double-glassed window, most of their expressions smudged by the grease of various fingers.

The gossip was too far for Roy to hear, and he didn’t need to know what they were whispering about when their mouths shaped his name perfectly.

…

Another day, no Jamie.

Roy sent another message during training, resting on the benches. 

“Hi, fuckface. You’ve been away for a while. Where are you? Let me know if you’re coming to work tomorrow.”

It took him a good 5 minutes to type the stupid message because he was sweating through every pore, and his heart was hammering after running a single fucking lap with the team. He shouldn’t have done that, and Beard warned him physio was a far walk from the field. 

The fucker was right, and Roy was too stubborn to ask Will to grab him an ice pack from the cooler. The limp of shame to the bench was already enough to hurt his dignity and pride.

Will sees his discomfort and gives him an ice pack, anyway. Roy accepts it after cursing for a good minute about how he was fine and fucking dandy.

“Coach,” Will starts up a conversation, standing beside him, watching the team doing warm-ups. “All is well?”

“Fuck off,” Roy hisses at the press of the cold plastic into his swollen knee. “Not you too.” Everyone had been coming up to him and giving him their condolences for their missing star player. Fuckers were treating it like Jamie had died, going as far as to place bits and bobs at his cubby.

“Just checking in.” Will says with a cheery tone and he was the complete opposite of Nate: bashfully confident. The fucker was always sneaking around the corners and had dirt on every single one of the lads, Roy included.

“Go away, Will.” Roy will chuck this ice pack the moment it became lukewarm at him. “The tables are empty of bottles. Get to it.’

“All right, coach. Just wanted to mention if you've tried calling him. He tends to answer faster that way.‌ I would know." Will is gone the moment Roy turns to look at him with a glare, the space empty.

Roy thought about it and that's what a boss would do. He's been holding off because he knows he won’t get an answer.

Home time comes and no response from Jamie.

Roy calls him when he gets home and after a few shots of hard liquor. He just wants to hear that voice that grinds his gears and warms his heart up.

The first call is ten rings straight and a voicemail.

The second call, same thing, and it makes fucking sad and tear up because why isn't Jamie answering?

The third, straight to voicemail after one.
Roy gives up when he gets the message that Jamie doesn't want to talk and goes to bed angry and hurt.

He doesn’t care.
He doesn’t.
Really.
Yup.

Roy stays awake in bed, worried.

…

Another day.

No Jamie.

They all suspect he's dead.

The team is unsettled and eerily quiet, their stares unnerving to Roy, like baby fucking owls. They want an answer, and Roy doesn’t have one. Beard's the stern one for once, and Ted's back, confused about why everyone's so glum.

Roy ignores it all and tells them what their next play is.

They have more important things to do than worry about a careless player.

“Soooooo,” Ted eyes the two coaches in their shared office. “Jamie's missing for a week now?” He doesn't sound too happy, but isn't too upset.

Beard nods. “Mhm, and lover boy here is all tight about it.” He turns to look at Roy, his brows flashing up and down. “Look at him. So sad and angry. Sadgry.”

Roy glares, and it's a deadly one. Seriously, where did Beard get the idea Roy cared about Jamie beyond a coach looking out for their player?

“I will kill you. I fucking will with my bare hands if you don't stop calling me that.” Roy growls, blushing and biting the pen he held in his mouth hard, cracking it. “If you want to call someone a lover boy, Richard's outside.”

Richard looks over through the window when he hears his name. All three coaches give him a small wave, and Ted drops the blinds right after and kicks the door closed.

“Look, Beard and lover boy, this sounds like a player who's severely in need of a check-in.” Ted says, ignoring Roy's growing growls. “Best for someone to go over and make sure he’s alive!”

They both look at Roy, and Roy’s crossing his arms in an X position over his chest. No way in hell is he going to do that!

“Don't you fucking dare!” Roy did his part. He messaged, called, and spent an hour writing a stupid email that was never going to be read.

Ted puts up a finger, and it makes Roy shut up and hold himself back from biting the wanker's pointer off.

“You're the closest to him!” Ted says, and the finger is now pointing at Beard. “Right?”

Beard snaps his fingers in agreement. “And you still have your cooler bag in the fridge with that tasty and probably rock-hard food. Bring that and the contract to his house, and boom, a little meeting date.”

“Plus, you can leave the premises and still get paid… right? Anyway, we’ll stay here and hold down the fort.” Ted adds, and Beard nods with a thumbs-up.

“Shut up. Shut up. Shut up! Shut up! Shut the fuck up!” Roy says over them, his voice increasing when they keep yapping. “I am not going to his fucking house because he wants to be depressed!” Yes, he does, but that would be admitting he cares about the prick beyond a coach-player relationship.

Did players make coaches' hearts pulse with warmth and fluttering butterflies? Roy would not like the answer to that.

“C'mon!” Ted gives him that smile and flick of his head to the door. “You're the best for this. He really looks up to you. A lot.”

Roy sighs, frustrated and slowly giving in when his own restless thoughts are getting to him. “Why can't either of you fucking do it? I'm,” Roy grabs his stapler and clicks it at them, “busy.”

“If he opened the door, he'd expect you or Keeley. He’d close the door on us if he were in a mood.” Beard says, and Ted agrees.

"Plus, you know where he lives, and you two hang out more than Beard and I ever have. Now, get to it! We'll take care of the fellas.” Ted winks and is gone in the blink of an eye. Roy would protest to Beard, but the fuckers ducks out too, and it's just him in his office, alone with his piling thoughts of the prick embedded in his fucking head.

…

Roy taps the steering wheel of the car parked a few houses away from Jamie's.

Jamie was home, from the looks of it; his car was parked off to the side, and a light was on upstairs. Fucker was holed up at home this whole time and didn't have the decency to let people know.

In his head, it seemed logical: bring the meeting to Jamie's and give him the new contract for his lawyers to look through. This way he wouldn't waste time hounding someone about missing mandatory meetings and failing to give notice at work and could focus on training.

Yup, that was it exactly. Not because the message he sent went unread, not because he chewed through an entire pack of pens, and definitely not because he was worried.

And Ted's and Beard’s words rang with some truth as well. Someone needed to see if the prick was breathing, and Roy was the one who had to do it.

'Yippe.'

'Fuck.'

The urge to smoke hits him suddenly, and he’s quick to take a fresh pen from the package and chew on it, sucking it desperately. Dating Keeley got him addicted to those thick sticks; her stress relief was contagious.

The issue was that Roy was always ‌stressed and craved it 24/7. He was trying to quit but still smoked from time to time, and he didn't have the willpower to fully let go.

Sighing through the pen, Roy exits his car when he's done brooding and takes his cooler bag because why the fuck not give the prick the food that’s probably stale.

He strolls along an unfamiliar path, having been here thrice to drop off Keeley and never going inside; why would he at the time?

Jamie's invited him over once for a little get-together, and he'd been too stubborn to attend it. Too shy, really. What would he do? Talk to people? He was a wallflower who drank himself until he tipped over. Especially the people Jamie invited — pricks and twats, the lot of them — and Roy couldn't be a part of that circle just yet.

Nearing the door, the pen flicks between his lips erratically, and he purposefully drags his feet to prolong coming face-to-face with Jamie. When he’s close, a few steps ahead, he swears he hears someone crying.

'A baby?'

He pauses ‌at the door and listens closely, ear leaning against the wooden frame. The wind whooshes and whirls through him, and he thinks he’s hearing things when he can’t hear the crying anymore. It was probably the neighbour.

Gathering the courage, he rings the doorbell, rehearsing his little speech in his head.

“Fuck you, where have you been, prick? You missed a fucking important meeting for what exactly? You know we have a therapist at Nelson, right?”

”Hey prick. Where the fuck have you been? You should be fucking happy I’m wasting my precious time dropping this off for you. Fucking prick.”

“Oi! You had the team fucking worried. Stop thinking about yourself and text properly. Here’s the fucking contract. Read it yourself and come in tomorrow or else!”

”Jamie, I was really worried. Are you okay? Want to talk? Here for you if you need someone to listen to. I brought you food if you haven't eaten, and we can go over the contract together."

Roy blinks and realizes it’s been a few minutes, and nothing stirred on the other side. He sighs and rings the doorbell again, five times in a row, and waits.

And waits.

And fucking waits.

Nothing.

Roy growls, rumbling from his chest up to his throat, ringing the doorbell frantically now. He swears if he has to call 999 and sees a body being wheeled out, he’s pissing on the prick's grave.

“Oi! I know you’re in there! Open this fucking door, Jamie!” Roy shouts, pen falling out his mouth, and when there’s a thud on the other side, he stops.

Someone fumbles with the locks, and Roy takes a step back, his confidence diminishing abruptly. Now that Jamie was right on the other side, a foreboding dread was weaving through Roy, his palms clammy and his hairline holding beads of sweat.

The door cracks open, and an eye squints out.

“R-Roy?” an agitated voice spoke out.

It took Roy a second to realize the faint, rasped voice was Jamie’s; he sounded as if he were sick and coughed up a lung. The eye that stared through the gap was heavy-lidded and carrying the darkest bags he’s seen on a person. There was a sour and tangy smell ‌wafting by Roy, and it was all too familiar: unwashed skin and a buildup of sweat and grime.

”J-Jamie?” Roy tilts his head to get a better look at him. It’s hard when it’s a peek, but he can see how bad he looked.

“A-Are you okay?” Roy regretted thinking so harshly about him, but he couldn’t help it. Jamie was a weird man who did weird things and made Roy feel weird.

Like now. He was being a fucking weirdo by staring at Roy, unmoving and unblinking. It deeply unsettled him; this wasn’t Jamie, and if he knew it was this bad, he would have come sooner.

“Jamie, can I come in?” Roy asks, “You missed a very important meeting four days ago, and it’s the fifth day. It was mandatory. I brought you the contact since your arse hasn't answered and… food.” Roy adds the last part, mumbling

Jamie's single eye widens at the mention of food, almost sparkling

“I… You can just leave it on the ground…” Jamie croaks, and Roy shakes his head, growling.

Roy was not playing this fucking game. Whatever the prick was hiding, he’s seen and been through it all.

But anger won’t make Jamie open the door. If Keeley were here, she knew what to say and do. She was great at words, being kind, and all that bullshit. Hell, even Ted or any of the lads would have been a better candidate to cheer someone up other than Roy.

Any patience Roy had was saved for his niece, and she barely escaped his anger.

”What? No, let me in, fucker. I have to go through this contract properly. I would prefer to do it face to face. Your agents and emergency contact is fucking useless, by the way.”

Jamie shifts, and Roy hears him sniffle from behind the door. There’s another sound, and it’s that baby crying from earlier. Confusion strikes Roy because it sounds like it’s coming from inside Jamie’s house.

“Jamie.” Roy pushes on the door, but the deadbolt prevents him from opening it wider. “Let me in. Now.”

“Please go away..." The voice is so fucking small and weak, and Roy wants to break this door down to scoop him in his arms.

“Open this fucking door, Jamie.”

“Please…” Jamie cries and tries to close the door, but Roy’s putting his entire weight on it, preventing that. He sticks his foot between the gap too, in case the prick decides to body slam the door shut; Roy would risk a broken foot.

The crying from inside increases, and Jamie’s crying along with it.

Did Jamie have a fucking baby in the house?

'What?
The?
Fuck?'

“Jamie…” Roy thinks and picks up every little word Keeley, Ted, Rachel, and anyone who carried an ounce of empathy had said to him at his lowest, but he throws that out the fucking window when it sounds fake and dishonest.

'Just say what you feel, Roy. He looks up to you.'

“Jamie,” Roy starts, clearing his throat. “I’m worried about you—I, um, I’m here for you… bro.” Roy’s going to make the Diamond Dogs lose a lung if they find out he called Jamie his bro, and he didn’t mean to. He was going to say something else entirely and panicked.

Jamie’s cries stop, and there's a few seconds of a silent pause. Soon, a hoarse chuckle comes out that tickles ears. It’s a relief he can make the prick laugh.

”D-did you just call me bro?” Jamie asks, and his eye is back at the gap, squinting.

Roy’s red, redder than the cherry tomatoes he packed in the cooler, redder than the blood that pumps through him, redder than what people colour hearts, his own throbbing madly.

“That I did. You’re…” Roy swallows, taking a deep breath. His words are from his stone-cold heart, and that’s what matters, right? If he’s honest, then that’s all that matters.

It was just Jamie.

“Yes, I called you fucking bro. You're my friend, and I’m here for you.  I’ve been worried about you for days now, and it…” Roy pauses, unsure if he should say the next part. It’s too personal to say it to a door. He doesn’t have a pen in his mouth to keep his mouth occupied, and Jamie’s waiting for him to finish. He’s already embarrassed himself, and it was just the two of them.

No one was around to hear Roy’s mushy words.

Roy’s face drops to a soft one, eyes filled with a tender worry. ”It hurts me when you’re suffering alone, Jamie. Why not suffer on a shoulder that’s offered to you? Please, let me help you.”

Jamie’s gone quiet, the gaze through the gap searching for an ounce of a lie in him. The eerie stillness behind the door was making Roy anxious, and the cold was making his fingers cramp painfully, adding to his discomfort.

A kick comes out of nowhere at Roy’s ankle, and it makes him jerk backwards. The door slams shut, and before he can start banging on the door, demanding to be let in, he hears the slide of the deadbolt, and the swing of the door follows.

Roy keeps his face neutral. The last thing Jamie needed was someone to ogle his vulnerable state.

Jamie fidgets, knowing he doesn’t look nor smell the best. He has the darkest bags under his red-rimmed eyes that are just peeking through the slits of his heavy lids; his hair, once lush and full, is now limp and greasy; his tank top and joggers are stained with various substances; and the worst is his left arm that is layered with days-old dressing, the blood browned and hardened. Behind him, Roy could see the disaster his house was, with garbage scattered about the place.

The smell was stronger now, and it made Roy tear up a bit. The baby’s cries have stopped again, and he’s still trying to figure out if Jamie has a baby or not in the house. It could have been a show he had playing in the back, yet it sounded too clear for Roy’s clogged ears.

”Hey, handsome. You look like shite.” Roy lightly jokes, cracking a smile at him when the tension starts to creep in — not on his fucking watch.

Jamie cracks one back, but it’s lopsided and falls quickly, having no strength to keep it up.

“Y-yeah,” Jamie wipes his tired eyes with dirty hands, his face dragged down by what Roy knows is sleep deprivation.

”Um… The house is…” Jamie slowly turns around, shoulders hunched. “The house is… bad, Roy.”

“I’m not here to judge you. I’m here to help,” Roy assures. He’s been through it too and had Keeley pull him up from his shambling pits of despair.

“I’m here for you as a friend, not an arsehole.”

Jamie scoffs. “I, um… Roy. Maybe come tomorrow? I um…” Jamie sways in his spot, grasping the sides of the doorframe to keep himself up. He’s having a hard time standing, and Roy’s ready to catch him any moment.

“S-sorry. I… I don’t feel so good.”

“When’s the last time you slept?” Roy’s inching towards him, slowly like he’s approaching a stray cat that spooks easily, and slinging the cooler over his torso, tucking the contract under his arm.

“Seriously, I think you’re about to pass out.”

Jamie blinks. ”Um… What day is it?”

“It’s Thursday. The schedules changed, and we went back to work on Sunday. You’ve been gone for five days. The next day off is tomorrow.”

”Oooooooo. I thought it… was Saturday. That’s the last time… Proper sleep before…Yea.” Jamie nods off and doesn’t stop, and it seems he’s trying to keep himself awake. “S-sorry coach. C-Come in tomorrow.” His head lolls, tapping the sides of the doorframe until it rests on his right side, eyes dropping shut.

“We’re off tomorrow.” Roy gently reminds him.

Jamie blinks and nods. “Okay… c-come… in… today, yea?”

Roy sighs. It was no use fighting with someone out of it. It was clear Jamie hadn’t slept for days, and it was taking its toll. He thought he'd seen him at his lowest, hair groomed and smelling like daisies, and here was the prick, at the lowest he’s been.

And Roy was someone he trusted enough to open the door and show him.

“It’s okay. Let me in, and I’ll help you to your bed, and we can talk after you wake up.” Roy’s up to him, and when his hand comes into contact with his shoulder, it wakes Jamie up in an instant and makes him flinch away from the touch, eyes growing wide and pupils dilating big, so big Roy can only see the black edge around the iris.

”ROY! What are you—what?” Jamie’s stuttering, hands flying up and slapping him away. Okay, this was getting out of hand. Prick was feral, and Roy was done patiently waiting in the fucking cold.

Forcing himself past someone who could barely stand was easy, especially when he had a few inches on them. Roy shut the front door and made his way through the house, and it was a little sad — and fucking hilarious — to feel Jamie’s arms around his waist and drop to his knees, only to be dragged along his messy halls.

“Jamie, stop being fucking ridiculous. You have a messy house and haven’t showered. Let me help.” Roy would roll his eyes, kicking a few boxes and clothes out of the way.

“No, no, no, no, please." Jamie’s hysterical, trying to deadweight in hopes it will hold Roy back; news flash, it doesn’t. He was a feather to Roy and was still being dragged.

“Please, get o-out.”

“Shut up, you. I've seen worse.”

“Nooooooooo,” Jamie whines softly, both turning into the kitchen now.

The kitchen is a disaster. Dirty dishes and pots stacked high in the sink; the counters and dining table covered in various takeout containers and garbage; things out of their spot and objects in places they never belonged in; tiny socks hanging off counter handles; clothes stuffed in the utensils drawers; fridge magnets holding up dirty napkins and important papers in the trash; and the sink running freely.

Roy stares on, straight-faced and tight-lipped.

Jamie cries behind him, arms tightening around his waist.

Roy sighs. “Let's get you some water and food." He makes space on the table, stacking pizza boxes and knocking things on the floor; he'll clean it up after. Setting the cooler down and the contract aside, Roy rips Jamie's arms from his waist and forces him up to sit at the table.

“Stay,” Roy warns, taking out the food and going over to the microwave to heat it up.

Jamie slumps in his seat, falling forward and letting his head slam on the table. Roy goes to get him a cup of water, struggling to find a clean one when the cabinets are overflowing with crap like toys and dirty laundry.

What the fuck was Jamie doing for the past week to get to this point? Even the house’s state was a bit overkill. Leaving his thoughts to float for now, he finds one just when the microwave dings. Cup filled with tap water and hot food in both his hands, Roy sets it in front of Jamie. He's about to grab the utensils and some napkins, but Jamie springs to life when the steam of authentic food hits his nostrils and dives in.

Jamie devours the food like a hungry dog, with his bare hands and mouth unhinging to fit all five fingers, uncaring how hot it is. To the majority, it might be disgusting to see such a sloppy fucking mess, but to Roy, it makes his heart gush through its cage and flood his insides. Jamie was eating his food and enjoying it.

Or starved enough to eat anything in his line of vision.

Either way, Roy was just happy to see him move around and get some energy back.

“Mmmm,” Jamie moans at the flavours exploding on his tongue, sucking his fingers off of the mild curry. “This is so fucking good, Roy.”

Roy is silent, unsure how to respond to the compliment. Jamie swallows the lump of half-chewed food, struggling to push it down his esophagus, and goes to wipe his mouth but stops. He looked at his hands that were covered in specks of loose rice and smeared with curry. Roy knows if he weren't standing there, watching, Jamie would wipe it off his tank top or joggers.

“I'm disgusting,” Jamie whispers, hands shaking when he registers what he’s doing. “F-fucks wrong with me?”

“Jamie,” Roy can see a cry coming, and he’s quick to place a comforting hand on Jamie’s shoulder. There was no judgment on Roy's end, and he hopes Jamie can see that.

“You're fine. Lots of people eat with their hands. Keep at it, you're almost done.” Roy would rather see a sloppy eater than someone go hungry. It was clear Jamie wasn't getting ‌proper nutrients nor taking care of himself overall.

Jamie sniffles and nods, digging back into the food. He starts with a few nibbles and suckles, still embarrassed, but gives in and is inhaling every last grain of rice and lapping up every drop of curry. He eats the shrimp with their tails, crunching loudly between his grinding, unbrushed teeth, and washes it all down with the tall glass of cold water.

Roy pats Jamie's back when he's done, and Jamie burps and excuses himself.

“Good?” Roy asks, and Jamie smiles tiredly at him.

“Fucking delicious… Best meal in… days….” Jamie yawns, the small burst of energy already extinguished. His head keeps dipping and his body leans back and forth.

“Take a nap, Jamie. I'll help you to bed, and you can wash up after.”

“N-no,” Jamie fights through his deprivation and stands to only plop back down.

“Fuck sakes, Jamie. Just an hour will do you good. Need help getting to bed?”

“Fuck you, I don’t need help! C-can take csre of me'self!”

Roy gestures to the dirty kitchen and to Jamie himself. “Are you fucking sure? Help you piss and wipe your arse too when I'm here."

“Oh, now I know yer fucking with me,” Jamie laughs, then coughs and gasps. “S-seriously. I'm fine.”

"No, you're not.” Roy keeps his anger at bay and grabs the cup to refill it. “It's okay to ask for help, Jamie.”

Jamie takes a deep breath, and Roy's coming back around with a full cup of water. Jamie takes it and gulps it down without a pause, choking some out. If there was a magic word to make the prick listen, Roy would love to know now.

"Seriously, James, what's wrong?" Roy uses his legal name, and only Jamie's mum ever used it when he was in trouble. Jamie glares up at him but doesn't bite his head off about it; only few were allowed to call him such.

“No, just… contract, hurry—oh.” Jamie slams the table hard when his body goes down, his own force knocking himself back into his chair and tipping it. The chair leans too far back, and Jamie’s too weak to react.

Roy is quick to grab ‌Jamie’s arms, pulling him up before he hits the floor, and hoists him up to his chest, his arms comfortably hooked under his pits. Jamie slumps against him, going limp, and his head flings back. He makes a gasping noise, his words lost somewhere in his tight throat, and finally closes his eyes.

Roy holds him tight. When nothing stirs, he gives Jamie a shake to get a snore in response. Roy wants to slap him awake for scaring him like that. Of course this prick had to be overdramatic in everything he did.

Sighing, Roy drags him around into the living room he passed earlier and lays Jamie down on the couch with a pillow under his head. Roy tucks the messy walnut strands away from the sleeping face and cups the hollowing cheek, his thumb swabbing across the dark bags under Jamie’s eyes. It breaks his heart that Jamie had been suffering these days alone.

He should have come sooner. Was the loss that devastating? They were early in the season, and they won their last match. Why was this one tearing Jamie apart?

With so many questions and plenty of time, Roy would send Ted a message and take off the day to help the prick out. The house was a mess, just like its owner, and Roy wasn’t going to let him out of his sight for the next few hours.

“…” Jamie mumbles something in his sleep, and Roy leans in, faces close, with the tips of their noses grazing.

“R-Roy…”

It's a moan of his fucking name, and it makes him freeze and wake up the nipping butterflies in his stomach. It could be nothing, or it could be everything, but to Roy, it was making his heart tighten.

Was Jamie dreaming of him? Or was he semi-conscious and aware of his presence?

”Jamie…” Roy whispers back, right on Jamie’s lips. They’re close, so close, and if Roy were to kiss and taste those sour lips that teased and poked at him many times before, would he see the fireworks people talked about?

“Roy…” Jamie calls out for him. Those chapped, plump lips that are right fucking there, whispering Roy’s name out and making him feel weird. He leans in, tilting his head to hear Jamie better — a baby shrieks from the distance, and like a switch, Jamie’s eyes shoot open, and he flings forward, smacking his forehead into Roy’s.

Roy yells out, falling back and clipping the coffee table with his legs. Jamie is off the couch and, like a drone, runs out of the living room, his body madly flinging its limbs around and grabbing onto things to support himself. Roy thinks it is a marionette on tangled strings, and it's jarring to see Jamie move the way he did so urgently.

“Fuck! J-Jamie?!” Roy shouts out and gets up quickly to follow him, pushing past the throbbing bump on his head and the flare-up in his knee. The baby's cries are real, and that means Jamie has a fucking baby somewhere in this house. Jamie never mentioned having one over; was he babysitting?

No, Jamie would never waste time and hire a nanny.

Roy loses sight of him but follows the cries. It leads him upstairs, down a messy hallway, and through a room that was once an office, now coming together as a nursery. There are unopened boxes of baby furniture and shopping bags with various baby items. In the middle of the room is Jamie, hovering over what Roy believes is a makeshift crib: a large plastic bin with blankets.

“D-daddy’s here…” Jamie coos, and his trembling arms are lifting the source of the cries. It’s a baby in dirty clothes, its skin red, and its cries are ear-shattering. The back of the onesie was sagging from the nappy at full capacity, and the body language told Roy they were at a breaking point, their tiny limbs shaking.

Roy’s taken care of Phoebe when she was a wee one and can tell when a baby is desperate for food.

Jamie — no offense to him — didn’t seem to know how to take care of anything but a rock.

"What the fuck." Did Roy say that out loud? Because what the fuck was right. He looks on, bemused, as Jamie cradles the infant in his arms all wrong, the head hanging off his elbow and arms squishing the poor thing against him.

When the situation caught up to him fully, a new reality crashed on him.

Jamie had a baby.

Jamie was a father.

Never had Jamie mentioned knocking someone up, nor was there any gossip in the tabloids about it, like Roy ever checked those. Fuck vultures.

”Shhhh, shhhh,” Jamie shushes the baby, swaying his body in a rocking motion. “Goooo… sleep…”

The guilt eats at Roy at the sight, its fangs embedded and tugging at his inner turmoil. It snaps him out of a trance, and he can see another faint spell coming onto Jamie.

“Jamie,” Roy slowly approaches him, hands out. “Let me.”

Jamie blinks, looking up at Roy, confused. “R-Roy…?”

“The baby. Give me the baby. I will handle it. Go to sleep.”

“No!” Jamie whips his body away from Roy and hunches over, and the baby shrieks from the sudden motion. The prick looked like a fucking gremlin. “Mine!”

“Christ, calm down! You’re fucking feral and running on no energy! You could kill it!” Roy is trying to keep his cool and stay calm. His priority was getting the little shit stain out of Jamie’s hands before he dropped it when he fainted.

The baby gags on its spit, its head rolling; it’s too heavy for the poor thing to lift. Their body weakly flails on Jamie’s chest, unable to tell him that he’s squeezing them too hard.

”K-kill?” Jamie looks down at what he’s holding, his eyebrows furrowing and eyes dropping globs of his tears onto the baby’s face. “D-daddy would…. Never…”

“You will in this fucking state. Let me, Jamie. I’m here to help, remember?” Roy says, and he’s beside him, making sure there’s a gap between them. “Give it here. I promise I won’t hurt it.”

”R-Roy…”

Roy can see how Jamie is conflicted; he trusts Roy, but that is his baby crying for him. Rachel was always happy to hand Phoebe over whenever she had her crying fits, letting someone else deal with it. Roy was confident in his caretaking skills thanks to those moments.

“I took care of my niece. I know what to do. Trust me.”

Jamie sways, head knocking into Roy’s legs, and rests it there. Roy bends down, and Jamie lets him take the crying baby and cradles it properly in his arms. He rocks it slowly, cooing and whispering gentle words. The cries die down to whimpers, the little face yawning.

The baby blinks at Roy and puckers its lips at him, brows furrowed, and face hardening.

Was this fucker pouting at Roy?

“What’s the name?” Roy asks quietly, wiping the baby’s mouth. It was definitely Jamie’s baby; the way its face was too much like Jamie's and the eyes sparked a recognition. The wee thing was cute, fat, and felt right in his arms.

“Diane…” Jamie yawns, hugging Roy’s legs and cuddling them. “Call ‘er… Didi…” and he faints, slumping against Roy's legs and arms falling back down to his side.

“What?” Roy swears he’s heard that name before. Looking at Diane closely, it comes to him that this is the baby at Rebecca’s father’s funeral.

What was Jamie doing with Rupert and Becky? Betsy? Becca? Box’s baby? Jamie was not the type to kidnap someone’s child. Or was he? When someone was sleep-deprived, crimes were an afterthought.

Millions of questions were coming at Roy, and they were going to have to wait because the only person who could answer them had passed out.

Sighing, he had two babies to take care of

“Okay, listen up, you little shite ball. I’m going to wash you, change you, and feed you. The less of a fuss, the faster you eat. Got it?” Roy tells Diane, and she opens her mouth as if to cry but closes it. Her eyes narrowed at him, and it was a silent agreement: she was starving, and her daddy was a clueless man who was doing his best.

Roy chuckles, giving her a small bounce. She smiles at him for a second and frowns quickly, her little face scowling. If Roy needed any more proof that Jamie helped create this thing, this was it. She looked at him the same way Jamie did when they were rivals, and it seemed to be genetic to dislike Roy off the bat.

“Now, why don't we help your daddy get to bed first?”

Diane makes a popping noise, spitting at him. Yes, get daddy to bed first.

Putting her back in the plastic bin, they both looked at the sleeping man snoring up a storm.

Jamie’s eyes flutter open.

His eyes see his bare ceiling and the lines of sunlight peeking through the slits of his blinds first. The surrounding air smells clean, and his skin doesn't itch. The blanket holds him down with its warmth, and the sounds of his humidifier add to the room's ambience.

Jamie sighs happily, relaxing back into his long rest. He had been so tired for the last week, messing up his house and forgetting to take care of himself. His stomach was fine now, but it had been struggling to hold down the junk food he's been consuming after he ran out of pots and pans.

Smacking his lips, the taste of a milky curry and shrimp lingered on his tongue, and he was trying to remember what exactly he had bought last that tasted this good, making him crave more of it.

Easing his tensions away, his mind trickled in the last thing he did while finding its way back to a long-awaited slumber. Just when he hits his REM sleep, that one grain of the utmost importance touches the spot on his brain—Diane.

Jamie flies out of bed, legs moving on their own before his mind syncs up. Diane! His baby! He last remembered she was crying, and he was so tired that he fainted.

What happened from that moment to now, when he woke up in the bed?

Why was it so quiet?

In a panic, he stumbles down the hall and into his office, something he was converting into a nursery, and rushes up to the plastic bin, reaching down to pick up—what?

The bin was empty.

Jamie turns pale, and his blood freezes. The gnawing dread tears through him, and his thoughts run to the worst case scenarios.

Did he do the laundry?
Did he bake a chicken?
Did he make popcorn?
Did he set the tub?
Did he throw out the trash?

'Jamie, what did you do last?'

An anguished wail erupts from him as he crawls to get up, racing out of the room, through clean halls, and downstairs towards the garbage bins outside the back.

Now Jamie knows how his mum felt when he went missing for ten minutes at Tesco. He was laughing at her funny, puffy, red face, and here he was, about to have his own funny, puffy, red face, missing a baby that couldn’t fucking walk, and he didn’t know where he put her.

This was by far the worst feeling he’s ever felt in his life, and he’s been through some awful shit.

He would scream her name if she could respond to it. She was a smart baby, but that’s what she was.

A baby.

His responsibility, his whole life. Knew her for the days he had her and kept falling in love all over again. If Diane died by his own selfish hand, he’d take a knife and end it.

Dashing past his living room, his eye caught something on the couch. He stops, his bare feet sliding a few inches forward.

“Hey, fucker, over here.” A voice called out to him. It was a familiar one, too, gruff and annoyed and tired of his bullshit. It triggers the memories, sharpening and widening the picture in Jamie’s head.

He remembers everything now.

Roy was over.

Jamie inches his way to the living room and stops at the sight on the couch.

Roy nods at him in the frilly apron Simon gifted him for Father's Day; he wanted to match with his stepson, and Jamie never wore it, much to his regret now.

In Roy’s arms was Diane, drinking from a bottle Roy held up to her. She was clean, in fresh clothes, and swaddled in a blanket, hands curled up to her chest. She was so small in the muscular arms and drowning in those dark hairs.

“D-Didi,” Jamie gasped out in relief, wobbling over to them.

Roy glares, but there isn't any anger nor annoyance behind the dark brows obscuring his eyes.

“Thanks for telling me you had a fucking baby. How was the nap?”

“Great… until I remember I had a baby." Jamie plops himself beside Roy, hands up to Diane. Seeing her alive and well made him relax instantly, leaving the panic to tingle through his body. “Yer okay…”

“No shit, she’s okay.” Roy chuckles. “You’re fucking welcome for the nappy change. Fucking monstrous."

“You know how to change nappies?” He tried to, but he was a novice parent, and videos were hard to follow. He started ordering everything she would need but spent countless hours trying to calm her down. She was a temperamental baby, used to her needs being met instantly, and Jamie was just as temperamental, escaping to the bathroom to have a cry and scream. His sanity tanked, and he started to go crazy, messing up the house.

Jamie caresses Diane’s blissful face, and she stirs at his touch, her eyes opening and darting straight at him. He smiles at her warmly, shaking his head at her, his eyes squinting in pure joy.

“There’s me girl… There’s daddy's little girl,” he coos at her, wagging his finger at her, and she grabs it, her tiny fingers coming around.

“Changed Phoebe when she was a baby. I know a few tricks up my sleeve. Changed that arm of yours, too. My sister says it’s not infected, judging from the picture I sent her, but you need a doctor. No, I did not tell her about the baby." Roy says, adding the last part quickly when Jamie’s breath hitched at the mention of his sister.

Jamie looks himself over; he’s only in clean boxers, and his arm is neatly wrapped in a fresh dressing. It hurt less now, the new dressing soft on his moisturized skin — did Roy lotion him up too? Gaffer knew what was up — and he felt less feverish.

But where the fuck were his clothes?

“Oi! Where me clothes?!” Jamie shouldn’t be too shocked. Roy was said to be a bit of a pervert. In his induced parent-panic state, he didn’t notice he was this bare or how clean the halls were and the air was citrusy and sweet.

“It was easier to give someone a whore bath when you're naked. I couldn’t find any clean casual clothes. Be weird to sleep in fancy trousers and suits. You seriously need to do your laundry, which I started up for you already–" Roy can read Jamie’s mind and shuts down the allegations swimming in his head and continues to lecture him about house etiquette, being daft for not calling for help, eating junk food, and not sleeping the proper hours.

“And let me fucking tell you! This poor wee lass was holding on by a thread. You’re lucky I showed up when I did—”

Jamie pouts at the lecture, tired eyes rolling in circles. “We are not having this conversation right now in front of me baby!”

Roy scoffs and ends his rambling, moving on. “Want to hold her now?”

Jamie wants to take her from him, but he’s too weak and tired to hold her properly. She was already settled in Roy’s arms, and to take her away from that warmth would be cruel. Instead, he wraps one arm around Roy’s that holds the bottle, and the other goes over the one that supports Diane. Together, they held her close.

They stay like that for a bit, breathing at the same pace and bodies moulding together.

After a moment and when he's calmed down from the rush of adrenaline, he tugs at Roy, both their gazes finding each other.

“Roy, promise you won’t tell anyone, okay?” Jamie says quietly. He could see the millions, if not billions, of questions Roy had for him about his absence, his arm, the state of his house and mind, and especially about Diane. They were all curious ones too, and not a single one was judging the situation he was in. Roy was waiting for him to start the conversation about this, and Jamie’s fucking grateful for that because he’s not ready to talk about it.

“Already messaged Trent. It’s over for you.” Roy says casually, and Jamie knows he’s joking. Roy’s an asshole, prick, and massive pain in the ass plenty of times in the past, but he would never betray Jamie like this, especially with that dashing smile. Roy knew what to do in any situation; he had that weird power about him when he was around. His presence brought a peace of mind, no matter how scary he came off.

Even Diane herself wasn’t intimidated by Roy’s so-called mean mug, and it proved Jamie’s theory that Roy was a giant, fuzzy teddy bear.

“Har, har…” Jamie rubs his thumb over Roy’s hand that holds Diane. This moment between the three of them, Roy holding his baby the way he did, was doing something to Jamie, and he wished it could last a lifetime. He yawns loudly and hard, top teeth peeking out; he’s crashing again, and this time he knows he can slip away peacefully when Roy is here to take care of everything and Diane is safe in his hands.

"I'm gonna nap…" Jamie closes his eyes, curling up on Roy. He never told Roy how amazing his hugs were, how nice his body was, and how he felt safe in his arms.

Roy growls at him, and it doesn’t stop him from resting his head on his chest. He should be cold from the lack of layers, yet he’s warm, pressed on Roy like this.

“Hmmm,” Jamie dozes off, and Roy doesn’t attempt to bark at him for it.

“Enjoy the nap, prick.”

“Hm..” Jamie wants to thank him for being here and helping out, and he does so in his head. Roy should know because he was a mind reader, always knowing what ran across his mind.

And it works because he feels a press of lips on his forehead, and he smiles, hoping Roy hears the little It's you, me, just us three under it all.

What did Roy get himself into?

Roy pulls away and lets Jamie sleep on him, and it’s a nice, hefty feeling on his chest. He was unsure why he did that, kissing Jamie on the forehead the way he did, and if he were being honest, he liked doing it. It was as if it were an instinct to show a little intimacy, and holding the baby didn’t help; it made him all gooey inside.

What was the word that Keeley told him he lacked after they broke up?

'Affection.'

Roy wanted to be affectionate at this very moment, and that scared him a bit. He came here to help Jamie and ended up with more than he could chew. He needn’t get this involved, but there was no way in hell Roy was going to let Jamie take care of this baby on his own, not after today. Jamie was, unfortunately, too disorganized and immature for such an enormous responsibility.

Roy moves the bottle away from Diane when the foaming bubbles of milk spill from the corners of her mouth. He places it between his legs, unable to move his arm around, not with Jamie sleeping on him. Staring at Jamie’s content face, bags less heavy and cheeks flushed with colour, the guilt was an ache on his steady, rising chest. He wonders what the fuck happened the past five days he should have checked. He was close to asking Jamie and held back from the respect he had for him. It wasn’t Roy’s business to ask, and he knows Jamie will tell him when he’s ready.

At most, he knew that the woman from the funeral was the baby's mother. The same woman from the gala that Jamie went home with.

Diane stirs, spitting out more milk, and it pools along Roy’s arm and soaks into his arm hair. He wipes what he can with his shirt carefully so as ‌not to wake them up. Jamie mumbles in his sleep, squishing his cheek firmly on Roy's chest and drooling, his arms wrapping tighter.

Roy looks between the two lovely faces of the same structure that force him to stay in place. He can’t help but smile at them; even their snores are synced.

How they’ll juggle this season, training, and their lives while keeping this baby under ‌wraps ‌was beyond Roy, and Jamie was expecting him to know the answer. It was a bit unrealistic in a sense, but he had yet to find out the whole truth of this situation.

Roy sighs, throwing his head back, lost in his messy thoughts. He’ll figure something out, and when Jamie comes through, they’ll have a proper talk about everything, and maybe he’ll know Diane’s little lore and how this all came to be.

Leaving it for now, Roy gets comfortable in his spot. These two pricks were going to be the death of him…

Closing his eyes, Roy lets his mind wander the paths of a life where all three are happy.