Work Text:
They’re interrupted by the door to the media room opening, all eyes going towards the sudden noise to find Jamie standing in the threshold, looking more frumpy and less confident than they’re used to. He is still in his clothes from yesterday and a lance of annoyance goes through Roy at the sight. Of course the prick got drunk and had to do the walk of shame from his hook up’s house and he barely has the decency to be a little bit smaller than his usual self for being late.
“Hiya there, Jamie,” Ted greets cheerily, because he doesn’t have the fucking self respect to be upset at Jamie blatantly disregarding his authority at every fucking turn. “We’re studying Man City tape for our match next week and, wowie, is it’s going to be a doozy! That team of yours sure is something.”
“Oh, yeah, they are, yeah,” Jamie says, still at the doorway, still looking uncomfortable. Roy doesn’t know what he’d expected, but it would be more prick-ish and cocky than whatever this fucking shit is and he doesn’t like it.
Ted, however, doesn’t seem to notice or care, happily going on: “Well, I hope you can give us a bit of the dirty inside details, get us a bit of an advantage maybe.” He gestures for Jamie to come join them, since he’s still at the fucking door.
“Yeah, no, ‘course, coach,” Jamie replies, still sounding off kilter in a way that raises Roy’s hackles more and more, not moving from the door but straightening up slightly. Jamie cards a hand through his hair – which is disheveled instead of styled – then says: “Look, coach, I uh- I ain’t gonna be at the match next week, alright?”
“I know that,” Ted assures him. “They’re your team, so you can’t play against them, but you’re still part of Richmond right now. We still expect you on that bench with us cheering for the team.”
As much as Roy hates to admit it, this is Ted’s strength. The quiet, compassionate confidence that others will also want to do the right thing and stating it in a way that sounds like he’s agreeing with you, while still telling you how it is. It fucking worked on Roy too, the wanker.
However, Jamie is not Roy and he isn’t swayed, the fucking prick. No, he just shuffles in place and says: “I get tha’, coach, but I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
Roy wants to fucking throttle him for that answer, because who the fuck does this prick think he is, not wanting to come to cheer on his own bloody team? Roy knows he’s an egotistical little shit, but he’d hoped there’d at least be some fucking sportsmanship in there, but of course that would be too much to ask from Jamie.
He growls at him, but before he can speak his mind, Ted is already talking again. With a concerned furrowed brow, he repeats: “Not a good idea?” making Roy’s brain catch on the phrasing as well. It is a weird way to say it.
Curiously, he looks over to Jamie along with the other lads, studying him. He’d noticed before that Jamie looked disheveled, but he’d written it off as careless disregard of the work they’re trying to do here, but now a niggling voice of doubt eats at him. Especially when Jamie tucks his hands under his shirt, hunches in on himself and suddenly finds any other place than someone’s face, the most interesting part of the room.
“It’s a long story, gaffer, don’t worry ‘bout it,” Jamie’s cheeks flush as he deflects. Clearly deflects. I mean, it’s so fucking obvious it’s laughable and Roy isn’t sure what the fuck to make of it, but he knows he doesn’t fucking like it.
“And you’re planning on missing a fucking match about it, so fucking spill,” Roy pushes, before he’s even aware he’s going to do it. He just knows that it sits wrong in his stomach somehow and he’s going to itch out of his skin if he doesn’t get more information soon.
Jamie scowls at him for a second, arms coming back out so he can cross them, before he grits: “Me dad’s got fucking ticket seasons, yeah. Had them before I were even born and if I go to this match, while I’m not even playing, he’ll get arrested for coming and that’s jus’ dead fucking rude, innit.”
He’s trying very hard to make this all sound like it’s not a big deal, but the words can’t really be undersold, because that’s fucking concerning and Roy has to mentally rearrange way too fucking much about Jamie right now to be capable of anything other than gaping.
Unfortunately, the other lads don’t have that inhibition, because Bumbercatch asks: “Wait, you got a restraining order against your dad?”
Now Jamie scowls at him and he bites out: “No, those are like serious and shit. You have to go in and ask for one with evidence and it’s whole thing, this is just fucking stupid,” which isn’t clearing the situation up in any capacity and is making Roy more worried regardless of Jamie’s attitude, because he sounds like he knows a bit too much about this.
“Then why the fuck would he get arrested?” Isaac frowns confused.
“I dunno, but it were a different thing. Temporary,” Jamie shrugs. “The police called it a- a- a” -he snaps his fingers a few times- “POVD or some shit.”
At his words, a cold bucket of water gets splashed over Roy and he freezes. He knows what Jamie means, very well. In fact, he has some very vivid memories of standing at a police station trying to convince some shithead in a uniform to do something to keep his sister safe. “You mean a DVPO?” he asks, through gritted teeth.
Jamie blinks in surprise, then nods. “Yeah, tha’,” he says, before continuing on, oblivious to the recalibration of his whole persona that he’s forcing on Roy. “My neighbor called the fucking buzzies, ‘cause he were making a ruckus before I got home. Since Man City won an’ all. She’s like a lawyer and shit, dunno what she fucking told them, but they’re no longer fucking listening to be ‘bout it, even though it’ my dad, y’know? I’ve been at the police station all fucking night trying to convince them she’s outta her mind and to let ‘im go. It’s why I’m late.”
Everyone looks at him for a moment, letting the information wash over them. Jamie scuffs his shoe over the floor, hands having migrated to his pockets as he tries too hard to look casual, like it doesn’t bug him to have said all that in front of everyone. Like it’s not horrible to have spend all night at a police station, because your dad is a piece of shit.
Part of Roy can’t believe Jamie actually just said all that and it’s not a hallucination, another part of him can’t help but wonder if he did, because Roy pushed, because Roy asked him to justify himself for missing a game. Wonders if he could have seen this sooner. Wonders how badly he fucked it.
Of course it’s fucking Lasso, who finds the composure to say something first. “Well, Jamie, that sure sounds like a busy night and I’m glad you told us. Family can be hard. If you wanna look after your pops then you should.”
A look of surprise flashes over Jamie’s face at the words, like he can’t believe he got away with all this that easily, like he hadn’t expected his excuses for his dad to be bought like that. All around the room, the other lads are looking at each other then back at Ted uncertainly, as if asking the room if this is really going to be the end of the conversation.
It’s fucking not.
Roy doesn’t know what the fuck is wrong with Ted, but he’s seeing red at the thought of Jamie slinking between them, allowing him to stuff this all away and sending him back out at the end of the day to go back to that fucking police station to go help his shitstain of a sperm donor.
Before he can even think about it, he kills the way the room is slowly letting this go before it can even start, getting up from his seat as he loudly cuts through it with a: “Are you hurt?”
“What?” Jamie laughs, but the laugh is all wrong.
Undeterred, Roy repeats: “Are you hurt?”
“Mate, what are you on about? Why would I be hurt?” Jamie tries to deflect, but Roy can see the way his hands are gripping the bottom of his shirt.
Roy can’t help the scowl, even if he knows Jamie is being defensive. Still, because he’s Roy and Jamie’s Jamie, he can’t help but point out: “Maybe because you got a fucking Domestic Violence Protective Order that’s so fucking bad the pigs are actually taking it fucking seriously.”
His words suck the air out of the room all over again and Jamie becomes bright red and wide eyed in a way that tells Roy he hadn’t known what those letters stood for when he told everyone about it. Though he doesn’t waste much time gathering himself, quickly pivoting: “It were jus’ a misunderstanding tha’s all, nowt even happened. He were only making a ruckus. Me neighbor has a camera on her porch, catches me drive way. She must ‘ave too much fucking free time with the conclusions she jumped to.”
He’s not helping his case, honestly, because his neighbor being worried enough to save up evidence to build a case means she had been seriously worried. Her being a lawyer also adds to her credibility as being something other than a neighborhood snoop.
“If it’s all a misunderstanding, why are they not letting you bail him out? Must be pretty convincing,” he pushes, feeling like an arsehole for cornering Jamie like this in front of everyone after the harrowing night he’s had, but knowing that if he lets it go now, Jamie will find a way to weasel out of this and shut down and he can’t let that happen.
“Drunk ‘n disorderly and assaulting an officer and, like-” Jamie cuts himself off. “It were nothing, he barely even touched me,” he deflects again with a different excuse, hunching in on himself as if trying to disappear.
“But he touched you?” Roy checks, honing in on the small slip Jamie made.
Jamie cards a stressed hand through his hair, before scoffing: “Fucking ‘ell, you make it sound like he battered me or some shit.”
Roy doesn’t know if Jamie expects him to drop it by playing into his masculinity, making it sound like he’s overreacting, but it’s not going to work. Roy doesn’t give a fuck if someone thinks he’s manly, he’s Roy fucking Kent. So he doesn’t back down and simply replies: “Has he? You still haven’t told me if you’re fucking hurt.”
Everyone around them is staring at the interaction with wide eyes, not interfering but not encouraging either. Much like with Ted’s dismissal earlier, none of them likely know what to think or do. Everyone gets awkward in the face of abuse, Roy used to be and it almost cost him his sister. He gets it, but it’s infuriating anyway.
Of course, Roy is not the only one who feels the eyes, Jamie does too and it’s clear he wants them to stop and look elsewhere, because he switches it up yet again when that doesn’t work. His hands come up all placatingly and he assuring in his intonation when he speaks: “Roy, I’m fine, swear down. I jus’ tripped, yeah, nowt to do wi’ ‘im, were being clumsy, tha’s all.”
And Roy hates this even more. He hates it with a passion, because Jamie doesn’t call him Roy. He calls him granddad, old man, arsehole and any other rude thing under the sun, but never his fucking name. It reminds him too much of Sarah, who’d said ‘I just bumped my head, Roy. It was nothing. Baby brain is making me clumsy,’ even though she always called him Roy-o or Royston to annoy him, even though she was never clumsy. Not before the pregnancy, not during and not after.
Hates it, because the sickening knowledge that he’s being managed. Jamie has tried to not answer, tried to undersell, tried to make Roy sound ridiculous, tried to make him bristle and let it go, and now he’s trying to placate him. That Jamie is trying not to make him mad in the hope that bearing his throat will mean that Roy will let it go and there won’t be any consequences for Jamie.
What he hates most, is that he wants to assure Jamie that he did nothing wrong, wants to reassure him right back and make this all less horrible for him… but he can’t. This is serious and Jamie needs help and he can’t let him stuff his head in the sand when Roy is capable of doing something. Of fixing this.
“So he pushed you,” he says flatly, trying not to let the rage that is swirling around his bloodstream show, because he knows Jamie will think he’s mad at him, not his dickbag of a dad.
“Jesus Christ,” Jamie mutters, before he says: “I told you that I tripped. Me. Not him. Nowt for you to worry ‘bout, skip.”
Skip. Not an insult, but a title. One that Jamie has never called him before. One that is meant to stroke his ego into letting down his guard and letting Jamie go.
“Yeah, we’re letting a medic be the judge of that,” Roy says, shutting it down. He knows enough and Jamie isn’t going to relax enough to tell him more with everyone gawking at him.
He walks forward to lead Jamie to a treatment room so he can get checked out for real and soothe some of Roy’s frayed nerves, as well as maybe open up more outside of prying eyes. He has to fight not to react to the way Jamie flinches away slightly from the hand he places on his back to lead them away. He makes sure that Jamie could easily shake him off and the grip is not too tight, while still firmly leading him away from everyone.
Jamie goes a lot more easily than he would have expected and it’s not until they’re already halfway there that he snaps out of it. “This isn’t necessary, man. I ain’t hurt. I’m fine.”
“You got pushed.”
“I tripped.”
Roy stops walking for a moment and Jamie does the same and Roy turns to him. He straightens his spine somewhat, trying to draw himself up and sound confident as he says: “This is unnecessary, skipper. I ain’t even hurt, I don’t need a medic, yeah?”
Again with the skipper, a title instead of an insult, or even Roy’s fucking name. He’s still fucking placating Roy. Fucking shit. “No. You got pushed.”
“I didn’t get pushed,” Jamie retorts, looking annoyed, which is good. Him visibly being annoyed with Roy means he’s not entirely afraid of pissing him off after everything that has gone down.
Despite, his flaws, Roy is very aware of the fact that he can be an angry man – something he’s had to work on after he took in his sister while she was going through her divorce – so he understands Jamie being cautious around him. However, Jamie has never been afraid to get into his face before and the thought of losing that, sat weirdly in his chest. Roy never thought he’d see the day where he’s glad that Jamie might insult him again.
Still, just because he’s glad that Jamie hasn’t entirely shut down around him, doesn’t mean he’s letting him get away with deflecting and minimizing here. So he takes a breath and looks at Jamie, who has done the same with nervous apprehension clear on his face.
“Oi, you might be fucking uncomfortable right now and feel the need to fucking defend that piece of shit for some fucking reason, but don’t insult either of our intelligence by pretending he didn’t fucking push you,” Roy says.
That stills Jamie, who looks at the floor, stuffing his hands under his shirt. His cheeks are red and there’s a small frown on his face. He looks to young for this. All the twats around this facility feel too young for all of this to Roy now.
In the end, Jamie says: “It weren’t a hard push. More an accidental tap, really.”
Roy has to blink at him for a second at that, before he heaves a deep sigh as he grunts: “Sure, he fucking tapped you and you fell. You’re a fully grown footballer, who I’ve tackled a thousand times and it takes a lot of fucking force, but he sneezed to hard and accidentally bowled you over.”
It actually causes Jamie to scowl at him, which Roy is taking as a fucking win, because that was a shitty thing to say, even if it’s true.
However, Jamie doesn’t say anything in response – probably because they both know Roy is right and he doesn’t want to try and figure out how to defend his old man – and meekly follows after Roy when he starts leading him down the hall again.
Gail is there when they enter and looks surprised when the two of them come in together, but she knows better than to say shit when Roy comes in and she doesn’t blink when Roy pushes Jamie forward and grunts: “He’s hurt and refusing to tell me about it. Check him out.”
“Jesus Christ, you make it sound like me leg needs to be fucking amputated,” Jamie grouses and it makes Roy feel slimy inside to watch Jamie put on a smile to Gail and easily work around reality with a: “I jus’ had a bit of a fall,” like him crashing to the floor mysteriously happened to him. “It’s a bit of a scrape, tha’s all really, swear down.”
“Well, let’s have a look anyway. Don’t want it to get infected,” Gail smiles back, unaware of the bullshit she is buying into.
A growl escapes Roy at the situation but he packs it the fuck away, before it can become a thing. He is allowed to hate all of this, but it’s not fucking about him and he’s not doing shit to fuck this up for Jamie when he’s not blatantly refusing to go through with having a medical professional take a look at him.
“Me driveway has like those gravel tiles, you get me? So it looks worse than it is,” Jamie prefaces as he shrugs out of his graffiti jacket, which isn’t filling Roy with confidence that it’s fine.
And he’s proven right by that when Jamie reveals his arm, which is scraped to all hell from wrist to elbow, as if he tried to catch himself without using his hands. There’s even some scraping on his shoulder, from which Roy gathers he was pushed with enough force to have to roll to catch himself. The sight only serves to make him angrier.
From the corner of his eye, Jamie sends Roy a glance, but he studiously avoids locking eyes, instead choosing to fiddle with the hem of his shirt. He looks small like this. Aware of what Roy knows about his injury and shrinking under the visibility of everything he’s hidden for so long.
“That is quite the abrasion,” Gail hisses sympathetically, oblivious to the tension in the room as she goes to clean the scraped up skin, even needing to pick out some bits of gravel with tweezers.
“Oh, uhm, yeah, I s’ppose,” Jamie shrugs politely. “Think I caught meself wrong.”
Throughout the whole process of cleaning, Jamie looks straight ahead, his jaw twitching slightly is the only indication he can feel the sting. Roy hates how stoic he is. Before today, he would have guessed Jamie’d be a diva about getting injured and make a whole production out of it, like he does when he gets fouled, but he doesn’t. He makes himself as unobtrusive as possible, tries to disappear so Gail won’t think too much about it or ask him questions.
“Did you catch yourself anywhere else when you fell?” Gail asks when she’s done with his arm and Roy sits with her saying ‘you fell’ like Jamie had anything to do with it.
It’s obvious that Jamie thinks the same, because he sends Roy a quick, nervous look, scared for Roy interjecting. When Roy manages to bite his tongue for the sake of Jamie’s well being, Jamie turns back to Gail and charmingly smiles: “Jus’ me knees, it weren’t owt bad, though.”
“Well, let’s take a look anyway,” Gail tells him motioning for him to strip out of his jeans.
Roy wonders how the fuck he missed that the knees of Jamie’s trousers were all fucked up before now, until he sees Jamie has put on some compression knee braces under that are the same shade, making it look less noticeable. It’s the kind he sometimes wears, just like his compression shirt that he often wears and Roy had seen poking out of his bag earlier. Roy has the sickening realization that if they hadn’t pushed more, Jamie probably would have kept them on and none of them would have ever realized something happened to him.
Then he has to wonder how the fuck Jamie managed to squeeze back into those skinny jeans he wears when he peels off the knee braces to reveal his knees, which aren’t just bloody, but bruised and swollen too.
Now Gail is finally looking more concerned than she had been before and she carefully runs through his range of motion with Jamie and palpates the bruising to check up on Jamie’s knee caps. In the end, it’s thankfully not that serious, but she still tells him to keep up light movement and not aggravate the injury more.
“I already weren’t playing next match wi’ it bein’ Man City, don’t worry,” Jamie assures her with a practiced smile. “I’ll take it easy during training, swear down.”
“That’s good to hear,” Gail smiles, more assured than she’d been before and letting Jamie go without questioning him.
Roy tries not to glare at her when she leaves to go put it in his chart and update everything, instead focusing back on Jamie, who’s still sitting on the examination room in his pants and a tshirt. When their eyes meet, Jamie hunches in on himself and scowls at Roy. “See? I’m fucking fine. Like I said. Not even gonna scar if I keep it hydrated.”
Because of course Jamie would know how to prevent stuff from scarring, because he’s vain and this happens often enough for him to worry about stuff like that. Makes Roy wonder what he would look like if he hadn’t worried about scarring.
He doesn’t say any of that, however. This isn’t like with his sister where they were close enough for him to be as overbearing as he wanted to be, where he knew her so well he knew she’d welcome him in her space, in her life, even if she hated him right now. Where she didn’t like him poking at her tender spots, but knew it would be better in the long run to bear a bit of pain right now.
When Roy continues to watch Jamie in silence as he tries to figure out where to go from here, because he didn’t think further than making sure Jamie wasn’t hiding any internal bleeding or some shit, Jamie shifts under his gaze until he finally snaps: “You don’t have to fucking catalog me, you prick. The buzzies already took fucking piccies for fucking documentation and shit.”
“That’s good,” Roy grunts, because as much as he doesn’t trust the cops, Jamie is affluent enough that they might actually be trying to do something.
“No! It’s not fucking good,” Jamie seethes, getting up from the bench to get in his face. “It’s fucking shit, Roy. They want me to press charges for fucking actual bodily harm, ‘cause he broke the skin. Like proper assault charges.”
“’Cause he fucking assaulted you,” Roy points out in a probably not so smart move.
Again Jamie cards a stressed hand through his hair and waves his hand dismissively. “He barely fucking touched me. All it’s doing is make this whole thing fucking worse.” He rubs a hand over his face, seeming to age twenty years as he sighs: “He’s gonna be fucking pissed when he gets out.”
It’s not often that Roy finds himself in a place where he doesn’t know what to do, but he doesn’t know what to do here. Jamie is opening up to him, but he doesn’t want to do anything about changing his situation. When he’d helped Sarah, she’d wanted to get out for herself and for unborn Phoebe. That he’d known how to do.
“He’s not going to get to you,” is what he finally says, because at the end of the day that is what he wants for Jamie right now. To be safe. Because clearly he’s not fucking safe and Roy refuses to stand by and let it happen. He already swore he would never miss such a thing again and he already did, he’s not going to fuck it up more.
“What?” Jamie chokes out, sounding genuinely shocked.
“He’s not going to get to you,” Roy repeats, making sure to keep his eyes locked onto the Jamie’s to make sure he understands that Roy means it. “We can sit down with lawyers see what you can do without having to come near him again, you can stay with me when he gets out so he can’t find you, I can beat the crap out of him, whatever you need, yeah? But he’s not gonna touch you again. I’ll make sure of it.”
For a beat Jamie blinks at him uncomprehendingly, before he frowns: “What the fuck, mate? You don’t even fucking like meh, what are you on about?” and despite the general attitude, there is a tint to his voice that breaks Roy’s heart.
“I don’t like you,” he agrees. “I think you’re a prick and a fucking bully, who needs to get his fucking head out of his arse and learn how to not be a huge fucking twat to everyone, before your fucking attitude undermines the talent you have and fucks up your career, but that doesn’t fucking matter.” He makes sure to meet Jamie’s hurt eyes after his harsh words, hating how Jamie takes in on the chin, even though they cut, because he’s probably used to it. Softer, Roy repeats: “It doesn’t fucking matter. You can be a huge cunt and still not deserve whatever it is that your dad’s doing to you. No one does. You deserve fucking help, Jamie. You deserve to not have to defend the fucker. You deserve better.”
The brave face falters in the face of genuine compassion and Jamie gapes for a second, tears coming to his eyes, before he swallows them down and looks away. He clears his throat and says: “Fucking hell, lad, no need to be dramatic.”
“Jamie… don’t do this,” Roy interrupts sadly, before Jamie can defend his dad again.
It does stop Jamie, who shrinks into himself, looking so very vulnerable in his pants and shirt. Too young and yet too weary as he mutters: “I can deal with it.”
“I don’t doubt that you can,” Roy replies, which seems to surprise Jamie enough that he looks back at Roy and Roy tries very hard to pull an expression of compassion that he is usually only able to do with Phoebe as he adds: “But you don’t fucking have to.”
“Family’s hard,” Jamie protests feebly. “Dad’s always been a bit of a dick, but I can deal wi’ ‘im.”
“Fuck Ted, don’t fucking listen to that wanker,” Roy seethes at the repeated words. “I don’t know what his fucking problem is, but he’s fucking wrong. And your dad shouldn’t be a fucking dick to you. And a bit of a dick doesn’t involve him hurting you.”
“I don’t know what you want me to do ‘ere,” Jamie says helplessly at that. “I can’t jus’ leave ‘im. He’s me dad. I don’t got a lot of people left.”
And Roy would love nothing more than to rip Jamie away from his dad, tell him fuck you, you don’t know what’s good for you and make this choice for him… but that won’t work. What he can do, however, is give Jamie support so that when he’s ready to go, it won’t be so scary. That he’ll have people other than his dad and it’ll be easier to toss him on his fucking arse and leave him in the dirt.
“I want you to let me fucking help you, yeah?” Roy says, pushing aside his own discomfort to get these words out, because they’re important. “I’ve been a shit fucking captain to you and I’m trying to do… better.” G-d, this is all painful to say. “So let me.”
“What can you even do?” Jamie says, cautious as he eyes Roy but with an edge of hope in his voice that Roy clings to.
Honestly, Roy answers: “I don’t fucking know, but we can figure it out. You can stay at mine, disappear for a bit. Tell your dad your hands were fucking tied with the DVPO and you’d make it worse by continuing to harass people about letting him out when you resurface.”
Maybe if Jamie accepts, he can convince Sarah to come over for dinner and let her work her magic. It would probably mean more to be assured from someone who’s done the same as you might want and escaped their abuse, instead of from Roy, who has only ever been on the outside of it. Maybe it’d do Jamie some good to meet Phoebe and see how bright she is without her dad’s presence hanging over her head at every turn. Maybe that lawyer he got to help Sarah out still hasn’t retired yet and he can contact her again to help. Maybe that neighbor of Jamie who undertook action in the first place would be a good person to reach out to as well.
But Jamie will have to want his help.
Admitting it sucked, but it’s true. When Jamie first got him, Roy hated him for being talented and still in his prime, instead of being old and injured like Roy. Hated him for replacing Roy as the best on the team when Roy came to Richmond to live his final years on the pitch as the best on a shitty team. Hated him, because he hated everything.
It was unfair. It was so fucking unfair and if Roy had just gotten his fucking act together, maybe he would have fucking noticed before Jamie showed up all banged up with a DVPO imposed on him, because his neighbor had to force it on him out of worry for his safety. He should have been better and he should have fucking noticed. And he gets it if Jamie doesn’t trust him to do shit after Roy failed him so spectacularly this season.
Jamie contemplates his words for a moment, gnawing on his lip as he does. He looks torn and Roy doesn’t know if he wants to and is too scared to say it, or if he’s too intimidated by Roy to reject him. He gives him as much space as he can, tries to be nonthreatening and just waits with patience.
After what feels like forever, Jamie stuffs his hands under his shirt and goes for nonchalant as he shrugs: “Sure, if it’ll get your panties all untwisted, be free, or whatever.”
Roy doesn’t call out that Jamie is trying to make this not a big deal when it is and just goes along with it, giving him a curt nod. “Good lad,” he says, before turning to the door. “Now toss those trousers out and get in your kit. And I don’t want to see that fucking compression, shit, yeah? You gotta let that shit breathe. And you’re not coming near any drills or scrimmages where you can get tackles, you fucking hear me?”
“Yeah, yeah, you bossy twat,” Jamie grouches, though there is an edge of relief in his voice that tells Roy he made the right choice in not pushing. Then Jamie calls out after him: “Wait, what are you gonna do then?” when Roy goes to leave after he’s been right next to Jamie the entire time up until now.
It warms something in his chest that his presence has been appreciated enough by Jamie for him to be worried that Roy is leaving now and that he didn’t entirely strong arm Jamie into all this. He calls back over his shoulder: “To tell Ted he’s a fucking wanker and to keep his nose out of it. Now, mush, Tartt. I will still charge you that late fee if you’re not on the pitch in ten fucking minutes.”
“Aye, aye, granddad,” Jamie rolls his eyes, sarcastically adding: “Want me to do owt else, huh?”
“Yeah, think about what you want for dinner,” Roy tells him, taking the question seriously just because he fucking can.
He has to be honest that he hadn’t expected his morning to end up like this when Jamie came stumbling in late looking worse for wear, but he’ll take it. As much as Ted needs to hear that he’s fucking wrong about Jamie and his dad and to butt out, he’s also right about the fact that Roy needed to change. That they all need to change and do better. And Roy is going to do it.