Archive of Our Own ^beta

Happiness is somewhere I have been before

A blurry photograph that I have since ignored

I'll carefully adjust the aperture once more

Until I set the record straight

I'll brush aside the dim, make room for the bright

I'll be an editor, no, curator of light

I'll let my better angels always set me right

Until I even out the score

Until I even out the score

- Sleeping at Last, "Aperture"

The thing is, Sam had really thought that Jamie was past this sort of thing. He had genuinely, honestly believed that. Sure, Jamie is always going to be a… specific kind of person, and that kind of person was a bit of an obnoxious and arrogant kind, but he’s a lot of other things too. He’s a lot of things, many of them good, and he’s grown into someone that Sam is proud to know. Or, that’s what Sam had thought, at least. It’s weird, really, he finds himself musing, how it had bothered him so much less the first time that this happened. 

Looking back on the fallout of the time that Ted had benched Jamie mid-game, when he’d thrown that obstinate fit and faked being hurt to miss training, Sam hadn’t really been upset about it. He’d been annoyed, yeah. And frustrated. He’d been pretty fed up with Jamie’s bullshit, but that was more or less his default setting when it came to Jamie at that point. That particular event had been filed away in Sam’s mind as a childish, self-centred waste of everybody’s time.

This time… This time, it doesn’t feel like that. 

This time, watching Jamie swan around with a challenge in the tilt of his chin and the glint of his eyes, still in street clothes even as everyone else got dressed for training, is a sight that stings to see. Listening to him blow off training, announcing that he’s hurt in that same lofty, smug tone is like ice water down his neck.

Sam is taken aback by how personally he takes it - watching Jamie brush off Ted just like he had that first time, hands casually tucked in his jacket pockets, ignoring his teammates like things haven’t changed. It feels a little like getting the rug pulled out from under him. 

Just the other night, Jamie had stayed at Sam’s restaurant with him past closing as he dealt with a few administrative things that needed seeing to. He hadn’t realized how late it had gotten until they were leaving, until he was turning to lock up and Jamie was still there, rambling about whatever same thing he’d been on about inside, not taking a moment’s notice of having whittled away his entire evening there or giving an indication that he had better things to do. Reconciling that person, the one in his restaurant, the one who didn’t read himself but listened with fascinated attention to Sam animatedly recounting his own reading while he paced circles around Jamie’s living room, with the person in front of him now… It’s impossible. Trying to make them fit together makes Sam’s head and chest hurt at the same time.

Looking away, Sam focuses on picking invisible bits of lint off of his own kit. He tries his best to ignore what’s happening behind him, though it makes it in around the edges anyway. Ted talking to Jamie, asking him increasingly frustrated questions that he answers in short, flippant dismissals. Roy walking in, Beard quietly briefing him on what’s going on. Roy turning on Jamie and Ted, interrupting immediately. Loudly.

“The fuck are you doing? No, don’t roll your eyes and walk away from me, we’re gonna talk about this. You’re gonna fucking explain yourself.”

“Already said. I’m hurt, Coach. Can’t do training.” The mocking sneer on Jamie’s face is audible in his voice, and Sam grits his teeth. 

Listening to this is awful. It’s confusing and upsetting and Sam wants to get away from this unwelcome step into the past as soon as possible. The laces on one of his boots snapped when he was trying to tie it, though, and threading the spare lace is taking forever.

“I don’t know what the fuck’s got into you, Tartt, but-”

“Roy.” Beard cuts in before Roy’s volume can continue to escalate, and Sam is grateful for it. “Over here, please.”

Players are leaving the locker room as quickly as possible, making a break for the training pitch as soon as they’re ready. Sam wants to join them, but there seem to be about twice as many holes in his boot than there were the last time he’d needed to replace a lace. He stares at the shoe rather than looking up, despite the drama taking place around him. The last thing Sam wants to see is the looks on any of their faces. Imagining them is bad enough.

“Alright, you know what, Jamie, I don’t even know what to do with you right now so just…” Ted sounds exhausted and resigned, and Sam doesn’t blame him. “You remember the routine from last time, I’m sure. Cones are by the door.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Footsteps shuffle across the floor, and there’s the swish of fabric as Jamie picks up the mesh bag of cones. When the door outside swings open and then closes again, it’s clear that he’s gone.

A sigh finally makes Sam look up, just to the side to see his coach. Ted hadn’t yelled this time, at least. Didn’t snap. The way he looks matches the way he had sounded - just as confused and wounded by the bizarre turn of events as Sam feels. Maybe even more so, which makes sense. He’s the one who’d actually had to deal with this sudden revert back to the version of Jamie that he had worked so hard to move on from. 

After a few moments of leaning against a wall looking tired, Ted sighs again and straightens up. He walks across to where Beard and Roy are standing by the door to the hall, shrugging helplessly when they look at him. The three coaches take up a low exchange, probably talking about what’s just happened, and Sam hurries to finish tying his laces and head outside. He doesn’t want to sit there and soak in the atmosphere in that room for any longer than necessary.

Once outside, though, beginning to go through some warm-up stretches, things start coming together in Sam’s mind. There’s something odd about the whole situation, and it isn’t just the fact that it’s happened at all. The more he thinks about it, the more things just don’t make sense.

Moving sluggishly through stretches he doesn’t even have to think about to perform correctly, Sam watches Jamie out of the corner of his eye as he mulls it all over. What he’s looking for, he’s not really sure, just that there’s something here that isn’t adding up. 

The lone figure cuts an odd shape against the distant background of the fencing around the training pitch. Everyone is giving Jamie a wide berth as he carries a mesh bag of bright orange cones around, dropping them in a familiar formation - the one for a dribbling drill that Ted is fond of running. His behaviour seems careless and flippant. Jamie isn’t even leaning down to place the cones on the ground, he’s just dropping them and letting them land at more or less even intervals.

Sam’s frown deepens, a sense of foreboding creeping further up his spine. He gets up off of the grass and pulls an arm over his head, feeling the pull of muscles stretching all the way down his shoulder and side, going through the motions and not really paying attention to them, too focused on Jamie. Everyone else is minding their own business, even Dani likely too uncomfortable with the whole situation to watch him like Sam is doing. This is why, when it happens, Sam is the only one who notices.

Jamie drops a cone to the ground at the same time that the mild breeze shivering through the grass decides to up its game and let loose a particularly stiff gust. The cone, light as it is with its insubstantial plastic, flutters to the side, markedly out of pace with the rest of them. Jamie stands there and stares at it for a beat, shoulders slumped and an oddly intense exhaustion radiating from his body language, and then he stoops to pick it up. 

When he bends over, though, Jamie does so at just the right angle for Sam to see his face. More specifically, to see the unmistakable, bright expression of pain that contorts his features. He drops the cone back into the proper place but stays hunched over even after it’s been moved. One of his hands comes up to press against his side, his fingers digging into the material of his light jacket while his shoulders heave in short, hard breaths. Jamie’s eyes are closed and his mouth twisted, heavy wrinkles marring his forehead where his brows are drawn. He’s shaking badly enough that Sam can see it, and when he sways a little where he stands, it suddenly seems like he might be about to fall.

Completely abandoning any pretence of stretching or warming up, Sam takes off at a brisk pace just short of a run. Everything else is gone from his mind. Suddenly, the only important thing left is getting to Jamie as quickly as possible.

“Hey,” he says when he gets close enough to not have to shout. “Hey. Jamie.”

Despite the fact that Sam hasn’t shouted, Jamie startles at the sound of his name, straightening up immediately. It was obviously a more abrupt movement than he should have made, given the way his face crumples further into a deeply pained grimace and he hunches a bit, guarding his left side. The reaction only lasts for a moment, though. Just as quickly as it had changed, Jamie’s expression smoothes out into a sort of icily neutral challenge. It’s the kind of look that Sam used to be accustomed to seeing from him. Given what he had just seen come before it, it doesn’t have quite the same effect as it once did.

“What are you doing? Why are you out here setting up cones?” Sam asks when no response to his greeting is forthcoming. They’re stupid questions, but he can’t seem to come up with anything better than that. A hundred different things are racing through his mind, but he can’t muster the words to get any of them out side from that simple, dumbfounded expression of incomprehension. 

Jamie arches one eyebrow and snorts. “Uh, I was told to, mate.” He sounds like he’s wondering if Sam is a bit of an idiot, or maybe trying to make some kind of bad joke at his expense. The corner of his mouth twitches into a faint, anemic smirk. “How’d you manage to miss that one? Was rather loud and public. Coach was pissed.”

By the time Jamie is halfway through the attempted dismissal, Sam is already shaking his head. 

“I saw you,” he insists. His voice sounds loud to his own ears, but he’s not sure if it’s just stress heightening his hearing or if he actually is raising his voice. Jamie doesn’t react, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything - he can go unnervingly blank sometimes, especially when someone is getting loud right in front of him. Swallowing, Sam does his best to speak evenly. It’s hard. Anxiety is making his hands feel colder than today’s weather justifies, and his heart is thudding heavily inside his chest. “You bent down to move that cone and you looked like you were going to pass out. I saw you. You’re still holding your side.”

The hand drops immediately away from Jamie’s side, though it’s not as if that does anything to assuage Sam’s concern. The damage is done, and it can’t be undone. 

“Yeah?” Jamie says. His expression is unnervingly nonchalant and his right shoulder rises and falls in a casual shrug. “And? Already said I was hurt, didn’t I?”

That leaves Sam genuinely speechless, unable to come up with a way to respond to it that would accurately encompass how completely ludicrous this entire interaction is. It started out bizarre and has only gotten worse, and Sam is in over his head. Realizing now that he’s wildly out of his depth and he needs someone to step in and tell him what he’s supposed to do now, Sam tears his eyes away from Jamie for long enough to cast them around the training field. 

None of their coaches are outside yet. They’re probably still in the locker room debating what to do about Jamie’s little display - which has turned out to be a much larger problem than they had any way of knowing that it would. Without any of them available, the next best option is…

When he catches sight of Isaac, relief makes Sam feel momentarily dizzy. Isaac. Isaac is the captain, his captain. Jamie’s captain. Isaac can handle this, or at the very least, he’ll know what to do about it.

Isaac jogs over when Sam calls out to him and waves a clear summons. Behind him, more and more of the team is catching notice of the fact that something is happening with Sam and Jamie. Getting Isaac’s attention has come at the cost of getting the attention of several other people as well, but it’s a price Sam is willing to pay. 

“Oh come on,” Jamie says as Isaac approaches. The irritation in his voice is brittle and thin, not managing to disguise the unease beneath it. “You don’t need to-”

“Something’s wrong with Jamie,” Sam interrupts, the moment Isaac is close enough to hear him. Ignoring Jamie’s second attempt to dismiss the escalating concern, Sam continues. Now that there’s someone else involved, someone who can do more about this than Sam can, he can feel his worry getting harder to keep pushed down and quiet. “He’s injured, I don’t know how bad, but when he bent down to move one of the cones he was in a lot of pain. I thought he might pass out.”

Jamie has given up on arguing and is now standing with his hands jammed in his pockets, jaw gritted and staring off away from both of his teammates. The sight of him and the way he so obviously would love for this to not be happening and for everyone to go back to what they were doing before any attention was called to him makes Sam feel guilty. Just a bit, though. The idea of letting it go when Jamie is so obviously hurt and no one has any idea how or how badly isn’t one that Sam can live with.

Very quickly, Isaac comes to the same conclusion that Sam had - this is above his pay grade, and they need to call someone else in. Thankfully, Isaac handles that realization with more of an action plan than Sam had managed to come up with on his own.

“Right. Okay. You,” Isaac points at Jamie, “sit the fuck down. You,” this time he points over at Colin, who has meandered closer along with most of the rest of the team, within earshot to know what was going on, “make sure he stays put. You,” and now he points to Sam, “come with me.”

All reasonable instructions as far as Sam is concerned. Jamie doesn’t seem to agree with him, though. He’s stopped staring off at the far fence with that stubborn look on his face and seems resigned to not being able to get out of whatever’s coming next, but there’s anxious reluctance in his face and his body language now, and he’s hummed a disagreement before anyone could start acting on Isaac’s orders. Isaac looks at Jamie with the same kind of expectant dread that Sam feels.

“What?” Isaac asks, when it doesn’t seem like he’s going to volunteer what the issue is on his own.

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not. Sit down, I mean. Just that getting up off the ground again is a little tough when you’re all, ah…” Jamie waves generally at his side. There’s an awkward air about him now, the cross attitude gone. It’s a sudden change, and Sam’s thrown by the shift in his behaviour.

Isaac seems just as speechless as Sam is. After a long, silent few moments where they both stare at Jamie and Jamie stares down at his own shoes, he says, “…Sure. Whatever. Just- Just stay put, yeah? Colin, look after him.”

Colin nods, crossing the distance separating them while Jamie scoffs and repeats ‘look after him?’ like he takes offence at the idea. He gestures vaguely around at the pitch as if to ask what sort of trouble he could possibly get into on the training field - like that’s anything close to the point of why Isaac had asked Colin to take care of him while they were gone. That thought makes Sam grit his teeth and shake his head to clear it, turning and following Isaac back inside.

When they reach the trio of coaches, standing in a huddle deep in discussion, their arrival brings an immediate halt to whatever sort of conversation it is. Heads turn and grave expressions become confused and questioning one by one. Once they have Ted, Beard, and Roy’s attention, Isaac wastes no time.

“Jamie’s hurt,” he announces.

Roy rolls his eyes and scoffs. “Yeah, we know. Primadonna bruised his ego.”

“No,” Isaac says. The immediacy of his response and the steel in his voice catches Roy off guard. While Isaac pauses, jaw clenched and eyes off somewhere behind Roy’s shoulder like he’s trying to summon up the words to clarify what’s happened, Sam watches Roy’s face freeze into an unsteady mask. The irritation is still there but it wobbles, like it’s about to become something else. “No, I mean he’s really- Look, Sam, just tell ‘em.”

Taking a steadying breath, Sam launches into an explanation, describing what he’d seen that had alarmed him so badly. He tries to speak with certainty, keep his words strong and level, but he can feel the little tremor in his fingers that he’s sure they can hear rising up in his body until it shivers out in his voice. In a horrible self-feeding cycle, that just makes him more anxious. Sam needs them to hear him and take him seriously. He needs them to understand what’s got him so bothered, that it’s not just the physical injury implied by what he’d seen happen when Jamie bent down. It’s about everything else that sight had implied too. It’s about how Jamie had lied to all of them - lied to them by making sure they would think he was lying when he wasn’t, which makes Sam’s head spin when he thinks about it. 

Why would he have done that? Why hide that he was hurt at all, and why do it that way? It wasn’t like Jamie didn’t know he’d be excused from training if he told the truth, and things would’ve gone much better for him if he’d just done that. Something is wrong and Sam needs to make them see that and not dismiss it.

The longer he goes on, the more serious the tone in the room gets. There’s a grim comfort to be found in that for him - at least now maybe someone will figure out what they’re supposed to do about this.

—

As Sam talks, Roy feels the intense annoyance that has his shoulders bunched up in knots start to melt away. It should be a relief - he’d felt practically fossilized with tension since he first walked in and got wind of today’s drama. And it had been such a good day before that, too. The rain that had been battering the city all week in truly ‘any minute now someone’s going to need to make Noah wake up and get on that Ark’ proportions finally let up. Keeley surprised him with coffee, having special-ordered a bag of beans from a roaster that ought to be on the front page of every newspaper for what they’d managed to achieve with coffee beans. He hit every green light on the way to work, and when he got there nobody stopped him in the hall to make small talk or ask for directions or whatever else people stop him for on what seems like a daily basis. 

Yeah, it really had been a great fucking day, right until Roy set foot in the locker room, saw Jamie in his street clothes, and proceeded to watch history repeat itself in front of his fucking eyes. He’s felt a lot of things about Jamie since the kid came back from Manchester with a new attitude, since Roy came onboard to coach for Richmond, since they had it out with each other and moved forward into a reality where they were, dare he say it, friends. Irritation, amusement, concern, frustration, protectiveness, pride, worry, more affection than he’d generally be willing to admit.

Resentment, though? That deep, angry annoyance that made Roy’s face get hot and his voice loud? He hasn’t felt that in a long time. And the disappointment, that’s new altogether. Disappointment, surprise, confusion, the sting of hurt - there are a lot of things Roy is feeling about Jamie’s sudden reversion to his former self that he’s unfamiliar with and would rather not have muddying the waters. 

And then, well. Then he gets his wish, doesn’t he? That isn’t what Roy’s feeling any more now - except for the confusion. That’s stronger than ever, and by the time Sam finishes describing what had happened with the cone and everything that came after he approached Jamie about it, there’s so much pent up in Roy’s chest that he has to do something about it, now, before the pressure of it collapses a lung. When he starts off for the door, headed outside without explaining where he was going or why, the others thankfully catch on fast. To Roy’s even greater relief, both of his fellow coaches and both of his players follow after him and they don’t ask any questions.

Once outside, it is immediately obvious that something has disrupted training, and everyone is caught up in it. Sure, the lads are goofing off, a few of them messing about in some sort of game that looks like a version of schoolyard tag, jostling and laughing, but there’s something strained in their behaviour. The laughter is a little stilted, a little forced. The rest of them mill around watching the scuffling game like they’re riveted to it, when it would’ve been barely notable on an average day. And then there’s… then there’s Jamie.

No one can quite keep their eyes off of him for long, glancing over every so often when the hold of the weak distraction slips. Jamie is stood off to the side a little, looking awkward but relieved and a little embarrassed as he watches the show. It’s clear someone had thoughtfully but obviously started messing about to get the attention off of him, give him some breathing room. One of his hands is out of sight under the side of his jacket. Probably pressed to his ribs, just like Sam had described, which is a thought that makes Roy’s stomach flip. Next to Jamie is Colin, looking very much the image of a small Welsh bodyguard, what with the way he has his arms crossed and is glaring around at the world in general.

As soon as the presence of their coaches as well as Isaac and Sam’s return registers, the halfhearted game comes to a stuttering halt. They were stalling, taking up empty space, and now that what they’ve been waiting for has arrived, there’s no need to keep up the charade. 

“Okay,” Ted says, sounding like he’s talking to himself more than anyone else. He seems taken aback when everyone turns to look at him, owl-eyed and pinned by the force of all that sudden attention focused on him. His composure returns quickly, though, and Ted raises his voice a little, continuing, “Okay, now, I think it’s pretty clear to everyone that there’s been some kind of miscommunication here, yeah?”

No one volunteers an actual answer, but Ted doesn’t seem to be expecting one. 

“Right,” he mutters under his breath. “Right.” He turns to Beard, who’s standing next to him, and says something that’s too quiet for Roy to make it out. When Beard nods, Ted turns back to the team. “Okay, Coach Beard here is gonna get y’all started while Roy and I just have a real quick word with Jamie inside, see if we can get things all straightened out. I know everybody probably feels a little off-kilter, but just do your best to refocus and see if we can get some work done before Aston Villa on Saturday.”

A murmur of agreement ripples through the crowd - some of them sounding more reluctant, some more relieved. Beard starts towards the players and starts ushering them over in the direction of the far goal net. Sam follows after him, giving Roy a tight, grateful smile as he goes. Roy touches his back as he passes, a silent expression of his own gratitude as well as hopefully some measure of comfort to the clearly still disturbed young man. While Beard starts calling out instructions in his familiar, even-keeled voice, Ted motions for Jamie. After a moment of pause, hesitance ringing loud and clear from every inch of him, Jamie begins to obey. 

Dani, who has lingered back from the rest of the team, starts this way as well. He’s watching Jamie with a worried frown, his open, expressive face broadcasting protectiveness. Roy would hazard a guess that Dani doesn’t even realize what he’s doing, starting to follow after where Jamie is being taken on instinct. 

Ted notices, holding up a hand and stopping him. “It’s okay, Dani, we got this one. He’ll be okay. Promise.” He says it in that gentle tone that he seems to slip into with such ease, the one that gets people to not just listen to him but believe what he’s saying. It’s a tone Roy is jealous of, if he’s honest - he can’t seem to figure out how do that himself, and lately, since coaching, he’s been trying.

However Ted does it, that tone works now and Dani nods, shooting another look at Jamie before starting off after the rest of his teammates. Jamie is steadfastly refusing to look at anyone, and Roy can’t get a read on the expression he wears. It’s hard to tell if he’s taken the ‘he’ll be okay’ comment personally, but Roy has to assume that he probably did. Probably thought it implied they thought he was weak, or something equally as ridiculous.

The journey inside the building doesn’t reach its destination before it’s interrupted again. Only a few steps later, someone else stops them.

“I’m coming with,” Isaac says. It looks like Ted is about to tell him to stay back, just like he’d done with Dani, but Isaac is shaking his head before he gets the chance. “I’m his captain, ain’t I? I need to be here for this.”

Roy has lost a lot of hours over the course of his life, thinking back on and picking apart his decisions, scrutinizing them in an attempt to figure out whether or not he made the right call. The one choice he has never questioned, not once, is the moment that he handed the captain’s band to Isaac McAdoo. Satisfaction blooms in Roy’s chest, not for the first time, watching his successor live up to the role and knowing that he picked right. If he’s honest about it, Isaac is ten times the captain that he’d ever been himself.

The main coaching office has an eerily quiet stillness to it when there’s no one in the locker room. Roy has never liked being in there when none of the lads are milling around or banging through the doors, and it’s even worse now. He stands behind Ted’s desk, off to the side a bit from where the man is sitting, leaning against the wall and trying valiantly to achieve some kind of Beard-like neutral expression. Isaac is mirroring Roy’s posture, back to the window beside the door - next to the door but not blocking it. The focus of their attention is perched on the edge of that low shelf on the other side of the door from Isaac, body shuttered in on itself. Compared to the arrogant strutting of earlier, Jamie seems like a completely different person. His arms are crossed, and one hand is still out of sight, tucked up against his side under his jacket. 

First things first, they need to get an idea of exactly how bad it is. Since Sam first made it clear that Jamie actually is hurt, he’s not faking, Roy has been trying valiantly to avoid picturing it. It pops into his mind in flashes anyway. He blinks and sees imagined horror stories behind his eyelids - broken bones, blood seeping through hastily taped gauze, layers of welts. Roy has always had an active imagination.

Jamie doesn’t put up a fight when Ted asks if he’ll let them see. That would be more of a relief if it weren’t so unsettling to see him with his head down, looking somewhere at the wall past Ted’s desk, fidgeting with the hem of his shirt before he pulls it up. When the damage is exposed, it’s better than Roy feared but worse than he had hoped. Fuck, he thinks. Fucking- Fuck.

The bruising starts just above Jamie’s hip, a massive patch of livid reds and purples. There’s a near-black stripe where the blood has pooled the thickest, obviously the concentration of whatever force left this mark behind, running up the centre in an odd diagonal track up his side. It’s huge and it looks brutally painful. Lifting his arms to get his shirt on that morning must have been torturous. Even reclining against the shelf like that has to hurt. Jamie’s hand, holding up his shirt, is shaking just a bit, juddering with faint tremors until he decides they’ve seen enough and pulls it back down again. He eases the jacket back up over his shoulder with a wince and a bitten-off hiss, tugging it back into place to hide the bruises with another layer of fabric. The whole time, he steadfastly refuses to look at any of them.

No one knows how to react. Ted says nothing, his face frozen in a mask of polite concern, the same careful look he’s been wearing since they got outside. Isaac is similarly silent, though that’s his default state. His frown has grown deep and thunderous though, the flexed muscle in his jaw showing how his teeth are gritted. And Roy… Roy has to look away.

Roy has to look away because if he doesn’t - if he watches Jamie guard his side with that hand stuck back under his jacket again, knowing what it is he’s guarding, seeing him sitting there with that wounded posture that he’d hid so completely until he’d been called directly on the lie - then he is going to start cussing the sky blue. That’s not going to help anyone. The last thing Roy wants to do is yell at Jamie right now, because he knows it’ll just make things worse. He also doesn’t want to punch or throw anything, because that would be even worse than yelling. So he looks away. He balls up his fists and goes through a deep breathing exercise and looks away.

It’s Jamie who breaks the tension first, though what he says is so completely incomprehensible to Roy that he breaks off mid-deep breath and his head snaps over, looking back at him so fast his neck hurts.

“Excuse me?” Roy asks. Thankfully, he’s too struck dumb to snap or yell. It comes out incredulous but not angry.

“I said,” Jamie says, an almost exasperated tone creeping into his voice, “see, I’m fine. I don’t know why everyone is making such a big fucking deal, it’s not like anything’s even broken.”

“Jamie, you’re seriously injured.” It sounds like Ted’s having as hard of a time processing any of this as Roy is.

Clearly unimpressed by this characterization, Jamie snorts. “I’m not gonna die or whatever. Won’t even miss our next match. Fucking hurts, yeah, but it’ll be pretty much alright in a couple’a days. I’ll be good to go before Saturday.”

There’s a throb of pain in Roy’s chest like he’s got a bruise of his own to match Jamie’s, and he feels a little lightheaded. As if that’s what the issue is. As if that’s why they’ve pulled him in here, to figure out whether they needed to plan around missing him from the lineup against Aston Villa. Like Jamie had just planned to keep all of this secret, and since he’d be able to play in that match, no one would notice. 

The bruising is deep. It’s bad, and even if he’s able to play - if, because Roy is not convinced of that - it’s going to hurt him. Jamie would be in pain during that match, pain which he’d just been planning to play through without a word, apparently, and that raises a whole slew of questions Roy doesn’t want to think about.

Questions like, Have you played hurt before and not told anyone?  

Questions like, Would I have noticed if you had?

With a quiet sigh, Ted shifts in his chair and rubs a hand down his face. “Please tell me you know that because you sought medical attention in a timely fashion.” When Jamie just makes a face like the suggestion is ridiculous, Ted nods. “Right. Of course not.”

Now Jamie’s expression takes on a different shape. It sharpens, grows resentful as he asks, “D’you think I don’t know what broken ribs feel like? No, this ain’t that. I’ll be fine. So, now that we’ve all made a- a stupidly huge deal out of this, can we call it settled and do literally anything else?”

It’s clear from the way he’s acting that Jamie doesn’t understand what’s going on here, and the feeling is starting to make him combative. The longer it goes on, the more obvious it becomes that they’re not just going to accept what he’s said and drop the matter entirely, the more confused he’s becoming.

That’s just- That’s not the point, is the thing. Whether or not any of his ribs are fully broken, whether or not Jamie is going to miss any time, that’s important to know, sure, but it’s not the fucking point. The point is that Jamie is hurt. He’s hurt and it’s pretty fucking bad and he didn’t tell anyone. Okay, well, he did, but he told them in such a way that it was obviously going to lead them to conclude that he was making it up, and then he did nothing at all to correct that assumption when it was made. As a result, they’d all, Roy included, treated Jamie like a misbehaving teenager caught skipping school and not an injured player. 

Which he knew would happen, because if he had been faking hurt, that would have been the natural consequence - had been the natural consequence the first time he’d done it. But Jamie wasn’t faking this time. And he’d let that be the standing belief anyway, he’d played it the same way he would if he were acting up and skiving off. Roy twists it over and over in his head, lines the pieces up next to each other, and can’t figure it out. He has some ideas about why Jamie may have done that, some theories, but he doesn’t want to believe any of them. 

“How’d that happen, anyway?” Ted’s question is accompanied by a dip of his chin, nodding towards Jamie’s side. It’s a calm, carefully constructed inquiry, not pushing too hard or giving an indication of why he’s really asking. What he’s really asking.

And while Jamie looks like he doesn’t know either of those things, Roy does. He knows immediately what Ted’s angle is, and he has to look away again and start that deep breathing trick all over again from the top. 

The thought’s been on Roy’s mind. Of course it has been. It’s on all of their minds, Roy would stake just about anything on it. He knows the horrifying conclusion that he’s drawn, even if he’s refused to consciously acknowledge it until now, about what’s probably happened to leave that huge, ugly mark on Jamie’s body. Judging by the looks on their faces, Roy knows that Ted and Isaac are thinking the same thing now, and so had Beard and Sam before, Dani, Colin, just about everyone who’d been there in the locker room at Wembley.

“What’s it matter to you?” Jamie asks, a defensive edge to the words.

And Roy is this fucking close. He really is, he’s about to snap the fuck would you say that for you idiot, how could it not matter to us if your fucking father has gone and-

“We’re just trying to understand the situation, that’s all,” Ted says, cutting into Roy’s train of thought, thankfully before any of it manages to make it out of his mouth. Though Ted has managed to keep that same calm voice, Beard-like in its near tonelessness, his eyes are intent, focused on Jamie and missing nothing. 

Ted looks at Jamie and Jamie looks back at Ted, and for a long moment it seems like he’s about to keep fighting, refusing to answer the questions purely on principle. Then something in Jamie’s resolve snaps and he looks down at his own hands. They’re twisted together in front of him, fidgeting, picking at his cuticles. His lips press together and he obviously doesn’t want to say it. The clear reluctance drives Roy’s suspicious dread even higher, to the point that he’s exercising active effort to keep from demanding the truth, demanding to know what-

“I fell,” Jamie grinds out. Just two short words, but the way he says them makes them into a hard, defensive challenge. “Night before last. Were slippery as all fuck, raining like it were trying to drown the whole country, I was texting, looking at my phone like- like those panels you see on telly, talking about how my whole fucking generation’s addicted to the fucking things, and I fell. On the steps, going up to my front door. About bashed my ribs in, ‘cause I was an idiot. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

Something in Roy loosens and stops holding its breath. Relief makes his hands tremble, just a little bit, and he folds his arms to make them stop. At least, and it’s quite a big at least, whatever else they’re dealing with, this hasn’t happened because Jamie’s piece of shit father left those vivid bruises behind as a calling card.

(Not this time, anyway. Roy would actually place quite a lot on the bet that this whole mess is, at its root, the fault of that man precisely. That’s a broader, more abstract concept, though. More of a long-term project than the immediate problem.)

The same relief that Roy feels doesn’t seem to have sunk in for Ted. He’s nodding but there’s something reserved in his expression. Ted doesn’t seem quite ready to accept the explanation, to take on face value that Jamie’s injury is from a fall on rain-slick stairs and not an angry, violent drunk. It’s hard to tell whether Isaac believes it or not. Roy wishes he could. It would be easier to bolster his own belief if he had someone else’s to prop it against.

“Well that’s quite the unfortunate accident,” Ted says. “One slip did all that, huh? Why didn’t you just say, if that’s all it was?”

“What, that not embarrassing enough for you? I absolutely ate shit on my own front porch because I was too busy looking at my phone to watch where I was going, and I didn’t fancy explaining that to my fucking teammates. Bad enough I had to get a new phone and everything, what more do you want?”

Actually, now that it’s been mentioned, Roy had noticed the phone. He had seen it in the locker room, sitting there in Jamie’s stall, clearly brand new, and he hadn’t thought much of it. Honestly, he had curled his lip at the sight of it, looking at the piece of heinously shiny over-expensive garbage and listening to Ted and Beard discuss what they should do about Jamie’s little bitch-fit. 

‘Jamie’s little bitch-fit.’ His words, not theirs. The phrase is soured with guilt as Roy thinks back on it, overlaid with Jamie’s bruised side, the pain visible in his posture now that he’s dropped the act. God, the way Roy had talked to him, had yelled at him…

“That’s not what this is about, Jamie, we don’t ‘want’ anything. We just…” Ted seems like he’s having a hard time figuring out how to articulate what he’s thinking, and Roy can relate. He doesn’t know what he’d say if he tried, and he’s sure that it wouldn’t be anything helpful. “We need to know these things. We need to actually know when you’re not okay, so that we know what the appropriate reaction to the situation is. We need to know so that we can make sure you’re taken care of.”

It seemed like Jamie was receptive to it, listening to what Ted was saying like he was really hearing and processing it, right up until that last part. That’s when his face twisted into a sharp, offended expression, lip curled and eyes bright. “Fuck do you mean ‘taken care of,’ I can take care of myself.” The reaction is quick and sharp, like a reflex. 

Roy opens his mouth, definitely having something to say about that claim, and he can see Isaac doing the same, but Ted holds up a hand, stopping them both.

“Okay, we’re just gonna accept for argument’s sake that that’s true.” (Roy would very much like to say something about that, too, but Ted doesn’t give him the chance.) “The point is, you shouldn’t, and you don’t have to.”

With a stuttering breathe-in, breathe-out, Jamie seems to deflate a bit. His chin loses that challenging jut and he looks away from Ted, back down at his own hands. They’re squeezed together so tightly that the skin is blanched. There’s an odd sense about Jamie that he’s teetering between two different settings, part of him wanting to fight and part of him wanting to accept what he’s being told. Roy knows which one he wants Jamie to pick, which one all three of them want him to pick, but it’s not that easy. 

The decision isn’t made in a second, over and done with. Jamie just keeps teetering.

“’S what a team is for, bruv.” The rumble of Isaac’s voice is softened in a way it would be hard to pick up on for someone who hadn’t known him as long as Roy has. “This ain’t a solo sport.”

It’s clear that he isn’t just talking about the actual game they play. Jamie twitches a bit and takes a harsh breath in, which means that he picked up on that too. The quiet stretches on, sitting heavy and undisturbed in the office while Jamie sits with what’s been said and they just let him. Roy wishes he had something to contribute himself, but he doesn’t know what would happen if he tried to speak. Probably nothing good. Jamie still looks like he’s trying to decide if he should keep fighting them or not, and Roy… Roy doesn’t have a good record on that front. 

“Alright,” Ted says after a while. He says it a little louder than he’d been talking before, still gentle and kind but less careful. It’s the ‘let’s get a move on’ tone, the one that promises to stop trying to guide whoever he’s speaking to through some kind of difficult emotional terrain and has a ready-made action item to refocus on. Roy’s had it directed at himself a few times, enough to recognize it. “You can stick around and watch practice if you want, or you can take off home, whatever you like. But, while I’m glad to hear you expect to be in ship shape by Aston Villa, I want a piece of paper from the team doctor saying it’s safe before your boots touch grass again, ‘kay?”

 That has the kind of effect that Roy had been worried he would have if he said anything, and it seems like Jamie’s going to pick ‘fight.’ 

“What, don’t you trust me?” he asks, bristling. His shoulders are up again, but they don’t stay that way. Not once Ted goes on.

“Are you kiddin’ me?” Ted snorts, shaking his head. “No, of course not. I don’t trust any one of you with that sort of thing. This ain’t my first coaching rodeo, remember? You don’t spend any amount of time at all coaching a bunch of college kids playing American football without learning real good that any injured athlete at any level saying ‘I’m good to go’ is not to be believed without the verified opinion of at least one credentialed medical professional backing it up. Heck, I wouldn’t let Roy here come back to work after an accident like that without a doctor’s note.”

“Hey!” Roy can’t help the affronted slip, but Ted dragging him into it - unnecessarily, if you asked Roy - turns out to be worth it. Isaac makes an exaggerated he has a point expression and Jamie laughs. It’s faint, and hardly more than a particularly audible exhale, but it’s a laugh.

“The point is,” Ted redirects, mild humour in his voice and in the almost-smile crinkling the corners of his eyes, “that I’m gonna need a personalized autograph from someone in a nice white coat before you hit the pitch again, but you don’t need a doctor’s note to stick around and watch practice, if you feel like it. You’re welcome to head home, too, but if you want to…”

“No, I’ll stay.” The answer is easy and quick, the second time Ted makes the offer. “I want to stay.”

The expression on Ted’s face stays that same friendly, uninvolved look that was clearly supposed to impose no influence on Jamie’s choice as he nods and says, “Well, alright then.” Roy knows better, though. He knows that Ted is just as relieved as he is by the decision Jamie has made. He didn’t want Jamie out of his sight any more than Roy does. It’s obvious in his hands - they pull out of where they’d been jammed into his windbreaker pockets, palms smoothing down his thighs a few times like Ted is trying to physically wipe the stress away.

Ted, his tense fists hidden in his pockets, flattening his palms against the fabric of his trousers. Jamie, fingers in a woven tangle, fiddling with a ring he’s taken to wearing, twisting the interlocking silver bands of it. They have the same tell. Roy wonders if they’ve ever noticed that, or if the resemblance has managed to escape them both.

—

When Ted asks him again whether he wants to stay or go, Jamie hadn’t even needed to think about it. The last thing he wants to do is go home to his empty house while all of his favourite people in the world are either here on this training pitch or wherever it is that Keeley’s at today. He’s been getting better at that lately - spending time by himself, at least in temporary doses - but today is just not the day for it. Not with his side throbbing in a quiet drumbeat keeping pace in the background of a really depressing song. Not with the way his plan, which had seemed brilliant when he’d come up with it, has blown up in his face so spectacularly.

Jamie keeps twisting his ring after he says he’s going to stay, watching the light glint off polished metal. He doesn’t want to see their faces, not right now. What, exactly, he’s afraid of seeing there, he isn’t sure, and he doesn’t want to dwell on it. Instead, he just keeps twisting that ring. 

“Have you taken anything for that in the last couple of hours?” 

It’s Roy asking, and it’s hard to tell if he’s actually as exasperated as he sounds or if Jamie is reading into things. The therapist Dr. Sharon referred him to before she left has been working with him on that - the way he scours interactions for the slightest hint that someone is pissed at or disappointed in him is, apparently, a maladaptive coping mechanism. (And boy is she going to have a field day with this whole mess when Jamie tells her about it. Maybe that’s a step he should add into his decision making process: Am I going to feel like a complete fucking idiot when I tell Dr. Wright about this?) 

Anyways. Roy. Question.

“No,” Jamie admits, still looking at the ring. He tells himself it’s so that he doesn’t pinch the side of his finger between the silver layers. Honestly, the pain in his side has been getting worse and worse, which means that he probably should have remembered to take something, because he knows how to deal with this shit. Got out of practice handling things himself, and now look at what’s happened. “Sorry.” He’s not sure what compels him to add that part, but it slips out before he can totally think it through. 

Nobody says anything about it, which is probably for the best. Whatever their faces are doing, Jamie doesn’t see them. Even when Ted starts doling out instructions, telling Roy to come with him to the medical staff’s office and Isaac that he can head back out to the pitch, Jamie keeps his eyes down. 

A plan takes shape. Ted’s going to get some over-the-counter painkillers from whoever’s on site today. Why he needs Roy with him to do that when it seems like a pretty easy job for one person is anybody’s guess, but he’s going with. Isaac is going back out to rejoin the team, since they’re just about done here. Everyone has somewhere to go, something to do, and Jamie’s just going to sit in this office and wait.

“Alright, Isaac, we’ll see you out there. Roy, let’s- Jamie, you good?”

Quiet, for a few moments. The shuffling orchestra of footsteps as everyone began to move stills into an expectant silence. 

“Jamie?”

“Hm?” He looks up sharply, suddenly realizing that they’re all waiting on him. “What?” The question clarifies a moment later, and Jamie feels his face get hot. “Oh, yeah. Fine. Go ahead, I’ll… I’ll just be here, I guess.”

None of them look particularly reassured by his answer, but they don’t ask any more questions, either. They turn away from Jamie with varying levels of reluctance, and the attention is off of him, for now at least. 

Roy and Ted leave first. They don’t talk until they’re out of the room and down the hall, and the way that their voices pick up in an indistinct buzz only once they’re far enough that none of what they say is distinguishable isn’t subtle. Jamie tries not to imagine what they’re saying, whether it’s about him. (Which is just stupid, really. Fucking of course it’s about him. That’s not even up for debate.)

After their coaches are gone, that’s Isaac’s cue to take off as well. Eventually, after lingering there presumably watching Roy and Ted disappear down the hall, he starts to walk through the open door. Before he can take more than a step beyond the threshold into the locker room, though, Isaac stops. He turns on his heel and walks back to stand beside Jamie and frowns heavily for a few long, silent moments. Then, all at once, he takes a deep breath and asks a baffling question.

“Can I tell the lads how it happened?”

Jamie lets his confusion show on his face and Isaac sighs. He shuffles awkwardly, obviously not sure what to say, and Jamie can sympathize with that. He doesn’t know what to say himself, half the time. Isaac frowns off into the wall behind Jamie’s shoulder for a long time, then continues. 

“Look,” he says. “It’s your business. You don’t want ‘em knowing, it’s whatever. But they’re- They’re gonna think someone’s hurt you.” Though he doesn’t say it, Isaac’s face adds the follow-up for him. Before you told us what it was, I thought someone had hurt you. “Might be easier on everyone if they knew the truth straight up.”

Oh. Oh, right. If Jamie is honest with himself, he’d probably pieced it together earlier - what they thought had happened, why they were asking the questions they were, the way that Ted clearly wasn’t ready to take the truth for what it was. He hasn’t looked right at it until now, though, at the conclusion they’d jumped to on instinct. It wasn’t a ridiculous thing to think, really. It easily could’ve been, if this had been a different day, in a different place, and the thought sits heavy in Jamie’s stomach. 

The idea that they know that, now, that they have a window right into this heavy, ugly part of Jamie’s world is hard to live with. The thought of the way they looked at him when they believed that was the case, though… They were worried. They weren’t disgusted, or ashamed of him, or too embarrassed to look at him directly. And that’s hard to live with, too.

Eventually, knowing he has to give some kind of answer, Jamie finds himself nodding. It’s slow and reluctant but it’s honest, at least, when he says, “Yeah. Yeah, sure. Alright.”

Isaac nods back, seeming satisfied with the response. He turns to go for the second time. Just like the first, he stops before he gets across the threshold, hand on the doorframe, then pushing off to turn around. This time, when he walks back over, he moves more slowly. When Isaac comes to a stop next to Jamie he doesn’t lean against the shelf next to him, he stays standing.

“You’re not hurt anywhere else?” Isaac asks.

Mystified, Jamie shakes his head. He has no idea where this is going, and it makes him a little nervous. Not as nervous as he might’ve been, once upon a time, but still nervous.

“Right. Okay, good.” 

With a determined dip of his chin, Isaac holds out a hand. Jamie doesn’t hesitate to take it, following an instinct he hadn’t fully realized he’d been developing until it was there. His world has shifted, and Jamie hadn’t noticed quite how much until sometimes hands - their hands, at least theirs - didn’t mean threat and pain so much as they meant safety and grab on, don’t let go. He lets Isaac pull him to his feet and into a hug.

While Isaac is careful to avoid the tender place where the bruise sits under Jamie’s shirt, he doesn’t shy away from the embrace, holding on tight. Jamie feels some of the tension that’s wound up inside of his body get momentarily louder and then ease, sapped away by the pressure. That’s one of the best things about Isaac - he’s a good hugger. Doesn’t half-ass it. Even now, he doesn’t treat Jamie like he’s too fragile to be interacted with normally.

“Don’t pull shit like this again, you hear?” 

It’s a low, serious rumble next to Jamie’s ear but he stays relaxed. He knows Isaac’s voice too well to read anger into it where there isn’t any. Some people think he always sounds angry, but Jamie knows that’s bullshit, and he isn’t angry now. One of Isaac’s hands slides up his back to the nape of his neck and squeezes just this side of hard, his calloused palm warm and steady.

“I’m the captain of this team,” he says. “You’re hurt, you tell me.”

Jamie nods wordlessly against Isaac’s shoulder. Guilt rattles around in his chest like one of those old arcade games with the ball and the levers. He stifles it and nods again. 

“Could’ve called one of us the other night, when it happened,” Isaac adds. “Could’ve called me. Should’ve.”

“’Cause you’re my captain,” Jamie says, half a question. He wants to be sure he’s hearing this right, because it seems important, it feels important, but he’s not quite sure that he gets it. Not really. Isaac takes his position very seriously, and he’s a good captain, but that fall hadn’t happened on the pitch. It wasn’t during training, or at some team event, or anything at all relevant to his spot with Richmond. It was completely a personal thing, and a personal thing that barely mattered at that. That’s more than even the best team captain could be expected to take responsibility for, surely.

“‘Cause I’m your fucking friend,” Isaac corrects, insistent and specific.

Oh. Right. Jamie swallows and grits his teeth, his fingers digging into the back of Isaac’s training kit. Right. He wants to dismiss it, to ask what, precisely, Isaac thinks he’d have been able to do about this when it happened, but he shoves it all down. None of it is fit to say, and all of it would be wildly disrespectful to what he’s just been reminded of, and he won’t do that. He’s had Isaac’s friendship once before, and he’d wasted it, spent it on stupid, mean jokes and loud clubs, always keeping Isaac and Colin both at arm’s length. He’s not about to do that again.

“Okay,” Jamie agrees, so low it’s almost a whisper.

Isaac’s grip gets briefly tighter, and then lets go. 

This time, when Isaac leaves, he actually makes it all the way out of the office. Jamie listens to his footsteps until they fade out of earshot and the door outside swishes like a burst of distant static. He waits in the empty quiet of the coaches’ bubble, feeling his side ache in a throbbing pattern that keeps time with his pulse, and wondering what’s going to happen when Ted and Roy get back. It can’t just be as easy as ‘here’s some Panadol, cheers.’ If it was just going to be that, they’d have sent him in to talk to one of the trainers or brought him with to their offices. At the very least, they wouldn’t have both gone, with the promise that they would both be coming back. The thought, wondering what’s going to happen when they return, is enough to put Jamie on edge. 

By the time they actually get back, he’s this close to just getting up and walking out. In an effort to combat that feeling, Jamie had sat down at some point, pulling the chair from Beard’s desk out to where he can sit beside Ted’s. He regrets having done that when Ted and Roy walk in and look down at him, their uneven ground blatantly evident in the way they tower over him. There’s an uneven moment where Jamie looks up and they look down, his heart rate starting to spike and his side growing hot. Then Ted either figures out that Jamie is starting to panic just a bit or he’s uncomfortable with the awkward angle himself, and he shakes out of the strange, frozen stillness they’d lapsed into. He lurches into movement - Jamie suppresses a flinch - and whacks Roy’s arm lightly with the back of his hand. 

“C’mon,” he says, gesturing vaguely around at the rest of the office and taking a seat at his own desk. Roy does as he’s indirectly been told and perches on the shelves by the door. “Oh, Jamie, here.” Ted’s got something in his hand and he gets right back up again, leaning over to drop it on the surface of the desk right next to Jamie. 

It’s a section of one of those sheets of pills, two little white tablets individually sealed in bubbles of clear plastic backed by thick silver foil. Jamie picks it up and fiddles with it while Ted passes over a bottle of water as well. There’s a sharp edge on the plastic where it’s been cut away from the rest of the sheet with scissors or a knife. He picks at that edge with his thumbnail until a jagged bit catches his skin and nearly cuts him, which he takes as a sign to get on with it already. The coating on the pills is sweet in a chalky way. Jamie can still taste it at the back of his throat, even after he’s tried to wash it down with half the water bottle. 

“Look, I gotta ask,” Ted says suddenly. 

He sounds nervous, but Jamie’s just relieved. At least now they’re talking about it. Whatever it is. 

“Last year. Dani’s first day, I gotta ask-”

“No.” Jamie gives the answer before Ted can so much as finish the question. Maybe it’s the lingering pill-taste, but he feels abruptly nauseated, and the shame burning its way up his neck and across his face isn’t helping. “No, that was actually bullshit. I was skiving off, it wasn’t anything.”

“Well. Good, I suppose.” Ted still sounds nervous, and uncomfortable, like he’s not really sure what to say and just said the first thing he could come up with. 

Thinking about that day, and about the way he’d acted then and the way he’s acted today, panic lurches to life in Jamie’s chest. “I’m not like that any more, honest.” He hadn’t thought it through, had he? This plan? He didn’t think about what it would seem like to them, the way they’d match today up with Dani’s first day and think he was still that person. They’d hated that person. They’d been right to. “I wouldn’t do that. I know what it means to be here, I wouldn’t throw that away. This away.” 

Jamie had really thought that it would be rough today, but it would blow over, they’d be frustrated and annoyed with him and then it would pass and everything would go back to normal. But now that he’s really thinking about it, and not just of the rushed, stressed question of how to get out of training without anyone prying into why… 

“Okay, yeah, obviously, but you have to understand how what you did today was worse , right?” Roy doesn’t even really sound pissed, is the thing. He sounds… Well, he sounds confused. Shocked, almost. Like he actually does think that what he’s saying makes sense, that it’s obvious. 

Which it isn’t. It isn’t obvious and it doesn’t make sense, and the more Jamie tries to puzzle through it the more he drives up his own anxiety. Anxious might not even be a sufficient word to describe his current state any more, actually. Panic is closer to the mark. Jamie is starting to feel panicky because he doesn’t have the first idea what Roy meant, and if he’s fucked up today worse than the time he faked hurt to skip training… That fuck-up got him sent back to Manchester. 

“I-” Jamie tries. He needs to say something, anything. His breathing is speeding up, making his bruised side throb harder. “What- Worse, I-”

“You do get that the shit you’ve just pulled today is worse, don’t you?” The question is louder the second time, and now Roy is starting to sound pissed. 

“Fuck you.” That’s instinct, old instinct coming back and snapping out of Jamie’s mouth before he can think better of it. Roy sounds like he used to sound when they went ten rounds with each other practically every other day as teammates, and Jamie feels like he’s been catapulted straight back there. His heart jumps and pounds in his chest, and he makes the split second decision that angry is easier to cope with than scared, so. “You didn’t need to waste all this time in here with me, I didn’t make you do that, any of you. Nobody needed to make a huge production out of this, and if I knew you were gonna fucking-”

“No, Jamie, stop it. Shut up. That’s not it.” 

The way Roy sounds now is unsettling, and Jamie closes his mouth immediately, falling silent. Despite what he’d said - no, stop it, shut up - the angry that had started seeping through is gone. It was loud, but the tone was different, and he’d said Jamie not Tartt or anything else. Roy’s brows are furrowed and his arms are crossed and he’s staring intently right at Jamie but he’s not mad, or if he is, he’s reeled it in and hid it somewhere. Jamie doesn’t know what to do. He just sits there next to the desk, acutely aware of Ted’s presence off to the side, and looks at Roy with what he’s sure is a wide-eyed, cornered expression. 

“Skiving off training is a shitty, childish move that you should know better than to do.” Roy holds up a hand, stilling Jamie’s response before he can so much as finish coming up with one. “Before you start, you say you do know better now, and I believe you, but that’s not- Today, you showed up hurt. And then you deliberately made us think that you weren’t, and the way you did that pissed everyone off at the same time, which was also deliberate, so that we wouldn’t ask any questions. Am I right?”

The only thing that Jamie can do is give a short, wordless nod. It’s true. Roy is right. Jamie did do that, and he did do it on purpose. He can’t deny any of it, no matter how much he wants to find a reason to defend himself from what feels like an accusation of… something. Maybe that’s the more stressful part: the fact that Jamie doesn’t even know what he’s done. Well, aside from sort-of-not-exactly-lying, but somehow that doesn’t seem like the main issue. 

“Right. Exactly. So we all fucking thought you were being a little brat, and we reacted accordingly, when you actually were fucking injured. Do you get it yet?”

No. No, Jamie does not get it, and he doesn’t want to admit that he doesn’t get it either, because that feels like the wrong answer, and the longer he doesn’t get it and can’t admit it the more anxious he gets. His breathing is getting faster again, because Roy’s voice is rising and he’s starting to sound pissed off again and Jamie doesn’t- He just doesn’t-

“Okay, alright,” Ted says, stepping in before Jamie can even get close to coming up with something to say. “Roy, I think you should take a walk or something, maybe head on out to help Coach Beard with the guys, how’s that sound? This conversation might go better one-on-one.”

It seems like Roy’s going to argue. He gets up like he’s going to argue, his chin tilts like he’s going to argue, his eyes flash like he’s going to argue, and then- And then Jamie’s body reacts without his mind’s permission, going so still so suddenly that it’s undisguisably a flinch and Roy deflates. He’s watching Jamie, not Ted, so he’s clearly caught the reaction, and before the humiliation of that can kick in, Jamie sees the look on Roy’s face. Alarmed. Guilty. Ashamed.

“We talked about this, remember?” Ted adds, in a low tone, like he doesn’t really want to be saying it. “If you-”

“Yeah.” Roy doesn’t argue. He nods shortly, still watching Jamie with that sickened expression that Jamie can’t quite figure out. “Right, no, I’ll- I’ll go. Just… Just, can you please-”

“Yeah,” Ted agrees, before the request is even finished. This time he sounds soft, understanding. “I’ve got it.”

With another nod, Roy gets up off the shelves and heads for the door. He stops at the threshold just like Isaac had, glancing back at Ted and Jamie, looking from one to the other. He doesn’t want to leave, that much is clear. Still, he does. After another moment’s pause, Roy takes a deep breath, turns away, and walks out of the office. 

Watching him go, Jamie doesn’t know what he’s feeling. It’s something, churning in his chest and making him feel fucking awful, but he can’t quite put a name to it. He turns helplessly to Ted, opening his mouth and closing it a few times like that mechanical fish clock Ted showed him a video of one time before he manages to find something to say.

“Sorry.” It’s the first coherent thing that came to mind, and anyway, it’s increasingly seeming like that’s a good place to start just, at a default. “I didn’t mean to… He didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t have to kick him out, I’m not… I’m not scared of him.” Anymore. Most of the time. And when I am it’s not real, it’s just my stupid fucking brain freaking out when it shouldn’t. “Anyway. Sorry.”

“No, that’s alright. I know that, I know you’re not. He knows you’re not.” Hopefully that’s true. “And it wasn’t about him doing anything wrong, Roy was just a little too worked up to have a productive conversation.” Ted stops and sighs. He looks up at the ceiling, away from Jamie, and stares at it, head bobbling slowly back and forth like it does sometimes when he’s trying to figure out how to say something. “He’s feeling pretty bad about how he handled things today. Honestly, we all are, but we talked on the way to the trainer’s office and while someone’s gotta talk to you about all this, he knows he’s gotta step away if he can’t keep his cool. That’s it.”

That really doesn’t make Jamie feel any better about it. He doesn’t get half of what Ted just said, but he doesn’t want to make it worse, so he keeps quiet. Keeps quiet and just watches, not sure at all about where this is going. Roy had been saying all that baffling shit before Ted kicked him out, and now it seems like Ted’s point is that he’d been right, he’d just been going about it the wrong way, and Jamie can’t seem to get his head around it.

“Am I right in guessing you weren’t really picking up what Roy was laying down, there?” Ted asks. There’s no judgement in his face or words, they’re easy and patient in a way that always manages to cut through whatever bullshit Jamie is putting up to keep him at a distance. 

Still, Jamie doesn’t want to answer him. He doesn’t want to admit that no, he wasn’t picking it up, not even close, but he won’t lie to Ted, either. The silence stretches on, clearly left open and waiting for him to answer, and he finally forces himself to shake his head. He can’t say it, but that’s answer enough, and Ted sees it for what it means. 

“Right. Okay. I’m gonna try to explain it, then. When you made everyone think that you were just faking today, that got everyone pretty upset with you. And now that we know you’re hurt, I speak for myself as well as I’m pretty sure everyone else when I say that it makes me feel mighty guilty and upset at myself . Because I was frustrated and harsh with you, I snapped at you and I sent you out to set up for drills, and I never would’ve done that if I’d known you were hurt. Knowing that I did do that is a pretty horrible feeling. Do you get me?”

The explanation is slow and straightforward. It might feel like being talked down to if Jamie didn’t so badly need this to be explained, in terms he might have a hope of understanding. The sound of Ted’s voice so measured and gentle that it’s startling when the miniature speech comes to an end. The question leaves Jamie reeling, thinking back through what he’s just been told. ‘In terms he might have a hope of understanding.’ Does he?

I don’t know, Jamie thinks. I don’t know. His breaths are quick and he can feel his heartbeat in his throat. The pain in his side feels like it’s getting bigger, though that has to be a figment of his imagination. It’s not like the damage can be getting worse. He tries to slow his breathing, calm himself with a deep inhale, but it doesn’t work. It hitches halfway in, bruised muscle punishing him for the effort. 

“We care about you,” Ted says, and Jamie takes another, sharper breath in. 

“I know.” The reply is automatic, a barely audible little mumble as Jamie turns his eyes down and away, unable to stand seeing the way that Ted is looking at him a second longer. His eyes are crinkled at the corners in an almost-smile, worried warmth in the slight, wrinkled raise of his brow. It’s intolerable. Jamie can’t bear it. And Ted still isn’t done.

“So then maybe it’s not so much of a stretch that we care about whether or not you’re okay. And then, just take that a little farther, and maybe you can see how the idea of treating you like that when you’re hurt is- is painful and awful. Thinking about how I talked to you, I feel horrible. I’m… Well, I’m just sick about it. That’s what Roy meant when he said this was worse. That’s all we’re trying to get you to understand.” Ted pauses, waits for it to sink in. 

And sink in it does. Jamie feels it seeping in through the cracks, the weight of the stupid choice he’s made and what it’s led to pressing down on his shoulders. His hands are balled up into fists in his lap and there’s a pain in his chest that’s different than the pain from his fall on the steps. It’s deeper somehow, in his lungs, radiating out through his system. 

“That time you skipped training because you were throwing a fit, that was a crummy move, yeah, and if you’d done that again I’d be mighty disappointed, and pretty confused, and, yeah, I’d be hurt. But doing what you did today? That wasn’t a neutral choice.” There’s a faint tremor in Ted’s voice now, a wavering thread of instability. “That wasn’t no harm no foul, chalk it up to a bad day and a bad attitude and that’s it. Putting people who love you in that kind of a position… That hurts a sight worse, Jamie. Because we care about you. Because the thought that we’d been harsh to you when you were already in pain matters, one whole heck of a lot.”

All Jamie hears after that is the sound of his own breathing. His eyes burn and when he raises a hand to scrub at them, he sees the way his own fingers tremble so violently he’s a little concerned he might blind himself if he touched his face. So he doesn’t. Jamie bows his head and watches his shaking hands.

“I…” he tries, the sentence dying before it can get past that single letter. 

The same shaking in his hands is in his mouth too, in his voice, but Jamie doesn’t really care. Who gives a shit if Ted sees him like this. A frantic, knee-jerk attempt to protect himself from other people noticing his vulnerabilities has already led him so much deeper into the shit than just letting them see the bruise would have. Never mind that people knowing you’re hurt makes you a liability at best and hangs a big, glaring sign over an obvious weak point at worst. Jamie wishes fiercely that he hadn’t tried to hide it. He wishes he’d just let them see it, fuck the consequences. Not thinking about the consequences of hiding it in the first way that popped into his head has gone too wrong to be worth it at all.

“I’m sorry.” This time it makes it out all the way, at least, and it’s at least comprehensible. The only bad thing is that now that he’s started, Jamie doesn’t know how to stop. “I didn’t- I never meant to- It felt safer to, but I didn’t want- I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

The burning in Jamie’s eyes gets worse and his vision blurs over. It clears when he blinks, the tears that spatter onto his wrist chilled immediately by the air. He tries to apologize again, a dozen more times, however many times it will take until it’s clear how fucking sorry he is, but that was apparently the limit of his ability to speak. When he clears his throat and tries again, Jamie is horrified by the faint, jolting little sob that he hears, distant like it’s coming from someone else.

There’s a shuffling sound as Ted pushes the chair back from his desk, footfalls signalling his journey around the side to perch at the edge right next to Jamie’s shoulder. Jamie can’t try to speak again for fear that another sob is all that will come out, so he just shakes his head, helpless and silent. Ted takes it in stride. He reaches out and lays a hand on Jamie’s shoulder, gentle and steady and suddenly the only thing that’s keeping Jamie from going under.

“I don’t want you to beat yourself up over this,” Ted murmurs in a quiet tone. It’s like he can hear what’s going on inside Jamie’s head, read it in his slumped posture and feel it in his hitching back. “I didn’t tell you any of that to punish you. Nobody wants that, and nobody wants you to punish yourself, neither, not even in there.” The comment is accompanied by the hand on Jamie’s shoulder raising just long enough to nudge knuckles against the side of his head. It’s a whisper of pressure, nothing even close to suggesting violence. Then Ted’s hand closes back on his shoulder, squeezing and settling. “I’m not mad. None of us are mad, not really. We’re just sad and hurt, and we’ll get over it, and hopefully next time you’ll know better.”

There’s a short pause while Jamie processes that, interrupted when Ted snorts.

“Well,” he adds. “Maybe Roy is a little mad.” Now Jamie has to snort too, almost, a sad, damp little sound. “But it’s only because he cares about you, and it hurts him to see you hurt, and to see you think he wouldn’t care about that, and he tends to feel that sorta thing in a ‘mad’ sorta way.”

Jamie shakes his head in lieu of responding verbally, and that gets an actual laugh out of Ted. It’s short and unenthusiastic, but it’s genuine.

“Yeah, it confuses me too. Love the guy, I do, but I do not get him half the time.”

The worst of the feeling that had surged up and gripped Jamie is seeping away now, calmed and soothed by Ted’s reassurance and his fond joking at Roy’s expense. In its wake, Jamie feels shaky and brittle. The aftermath of particularly intense emotion always hits him like this - like an adrenaline crash or the comedown from a long, hard run. Too tired and strung out to overthink it, Jamie slumps forward, feeling his body slip towards Ted and not bothering to do anything to control it. His head hits Ted’s side, his temple pressing into the fabric of the man’s jumper. 

Ted handles this with the same understated grace he seems to deploy whenever someone is vulnerable in front of him. Jamie has grown to appreciate this quality fiercely, and he takes shameless advantage of it now. He lets himself rest against Ted’s solid, judgement-free support and refuses to let shame force him to pull himself away from it. A hand settles against the back of his head, blunt nails scratching lightly at his scalp in a way that makes him shiver. 

“You’re alright,” is all Ted says, and then they’re quiet again. 

There’s no hurry, just Ted leaning against the desk and holding Jamie up while he breathes and shakes through the tail end of his almost-breakdown, getting his nerves back under control. They’re there for a long time, probably. Jamie’s not really sure. It’s hard to keep track of time from there, unable to see the clock on the wall, his new phone still in his locker. It’s at least several minutes before he stops worrying he might burst into tears all over again at any moment. Eventually, Jamie takes a deep breath, manages to actually get it all the way in without gasping or hitching, and pulls - a bit reluctantly - away.

“You good to head out there?” Ted asks when he leans back. He clearly noticed the way that Jamie grimaced when the movement aggravated his bruised side.

It almost goes bad again. Jamie almost bristles at it, until he stops and takes a moment, evaluating the words for what they are. It’s a genuine question about how he’s feeling, not some kind of veiled double-speak trick. Ted isn’t trying to hint that he has better things to do - even though he does - or trying to imply that Jamie has already taken more of his time than he is entitled to take - even though he has. It’s just a question.

Reminding himself of things like that is hard, but Jamie’s been trying. He really has. So he pauses, tells himself that Ted of all people doesn’t speak with ulterior motives hiding under his words, and nods. Dr. Wright would be proud.

“Yeah,” Jamie agrees. “I’m good.” It comes out softer and more tired than he’d meant it to, missing the confident brush-off he’d been aiming for by miles. Ted frowns at him the same way he’d done when Jamie first explained how he got the bruise and he puts on his most convincing face, reiterating, “Yeah, I’m ready. Let’s go, come on.”

The last thing he wants is Ted deciding that he’s not telling the truth and overruling his decision to stick around and watch training. Thankfully, Ted seems satisfied. After a moment of shuffling around, making sure he has a bottle of water and the ice pack from the trainer’s office, wrapped in a towel, they head out to the training pitch together.

Ted directs him off to the side, to a bench by the edge of the grass, where he’ll be able to see everything going on even if he can’t participate, and sees him off with a smile and a pat on the back. On the way over, Jamie hears Roy’s voice, loud enough that it’s crystal clear - “There, see? Go and say hello, then maybe we can get back to business, yeah?”

Looking over in that direction, Jamie sees Dani heading towards him, Roy at his side. Behind them the rest of the team pauses in the drill they’re running, a few of them waving. There are a lot of smiles that Jamie returns, though they send an embarrassed flush over his cheeks. He turns his attention back to the two approaching just in time to see Dani jog the last few yards and arrive with a bright grin.

Dani has hardly come to a stop in front of him before he’s taken hold of Jamie’s shoulders. His eyes sweep up and down, surveying Jamie like he’s looking for something. What he’s looking for isn’t totally clear. Signs of pain, maybe, something indescribable that will betray whatever Jamie might be hiding.

The sneer that forms on Jamie’s face, the way his eyes roll, the just narrowly suppressed urge to throw Dani’s hands off of him with a sharp insult - it’s all instinct. Muscle memory. “I’m fine,” he says. Only barely doesn’t snap. 

When confronted with Jamie’s demeanour, Dani doesn’t waver. He doesn’t seem remotely phased, actually, no hint of anything in his face that might show he’s been affected by the chilly welcome. Jamie feels a brief flash of both embarrassment and guilt, and forces his features into what he hopes is a less confrontational expression.

“That’s what Coach Beard said,” Dani replies. “And Isaac. I wanted to see you for myself, though.” There’s a sheepishness in his smile now, if only barely, and he glances over at Roy who arches one eyebrow back at him. “I was a little… A little distracted. They were going to let me go inside for a minute if you decided to go home.”

The explanation is simple and a little amusing to think about - Dani being so occupied with fretting about Jamie that he couldn’t focus on what looks like a pretty simple drill - and Jamie doesn’t know what to do with it. He doesn’t know how to articulate the way that it makes him feel to hear it. It’s not just the explanation either, it’s the way Dani was so forthright with it, so he willing to say exactly what was going on without hesitation. He’s so entirely unembarrassed of his feelings, his completely needless worry.

There’s a lump in Jamie’s throat, the some one that he’d felt earlier, in the office with Ted. He has to swallow hard and cough a little to clear it, and when he speaks, he does his best to keep his voice steady. 

“Well, now you’ve seen me, so get back out there,” he says, jerking his chin at where the drill has resumed. “Pick up some of my slack, yeah? Show these amateurs what’s what.”

Now it’s Dani’s turn to roll his eyes, though his smile gets somehow wider and brighter at the same time. He squeezes Jamie’s shoulders, then turns around to head back to training. The space left behind where his hands had been feels cold, immediately chilled by the loss of the touch and the breeze stirring the grass. 

In order to take his mind off the silly and childish wish that Dani would come right back over, maybe drape an arm around Jamie and let him lean on him for a while, Jamie focuses on the bench he’d been directed to. He drops the towel-wrapped ice pack onto it and then sets about levering himself carefully down beside the pile of fabric and chilled blue gel pack. It disturbs his side, pulling at bruised muscle, and he winces. Once seated, he turns to face the grass, ready to settle in for a while. The Panadol Ted gave him has kicked in by now, dulling the pain in his ribs enough that it’s not grabbing at his focus anymore, which is nice.

Something else is distracting him now, though. While Dani has rejoined the drill, Roy hasn’t. He’s stayed standing by the bench, ambling over until he’s right next to Jamie, even after training fully resumes, with Dani participating. There’s no indication of why he’s still here, what he could want that’s keeping him from returning to his usual place with Beard and Ted. 

Noticing Jamie peering up at him, Roy scowls. “Got a better angle from here,” he says, in a tone that implies that Jamie is the one who’s actually doing something odd and in need of an explanation. “It’s like watching match tape.” When Jamie doesn’t immediately accept the explanation, he scowls deeper and mutters, “Shut up,” then returns his attention back out to the pitch. There’s not even a hint of actual annoyance or frustration in the words, and the corner of Jamie’s mouth twitches, almost smiling.

They watch training from there for a while. It goes on for long enough that Jamie is able to conclude that yes, Roy actually is planning to stay exactly where he is for quite a while at least. It’s amusing, and only the fact that he’s willing to admit, just to himself, that he doesn’t want Roy to leave is preventing Jamie from using it for immediate mocking fodder.

Apparently, sticking around next to him and watching training from the bench is not the only confusing choice that Roy was planning on making this afternoon. The sound of a sigh gets Jamie’s attention after a few minutes, and then Roy’s voice follows it, a soft rumble that Jamie can’t process.

“What?” he asks after a beat, and Roy’s solemn intent is betrayed by the way he doesn’t brush it off or make some withering comment about Jamie’s attention span. He just stiffly repeats himself, very slightly louder.

“I’m sorry.”

Jamie doesn’t know how to respond. He doesn’t know what to say to that, what to do. His throat feels dry and tight and there’s a strange ache in his chest that has nothing to do with his side. 

It’s not really clear what, exactly, Roy is apologizing for. Maybe the way he’d reacted when he first got to the locker room earlier, what feels like a hundred years ago. Maybe losing his cool in the office, spooking Jamie and being told to leave. It could be either of those things, or something else entirely. 

Regardless, there’s a lot that Jamie wants to say. He wants to tell Roy that there’d been no way for him to know what was going on in the locker room, that Jamie had made sure there was no way for him to know. He wants to repeat what he’d told Ted after Roy left - that Jamie isn’t scared of him. (That even if he is a little bit, sometimes, it’s not actually because he thinks there’s a chance in hell Roy would actually hurt him.) A million different things run through his mind, but he can’t say any of them. There’s going to be very little chance for him to say anything at all right now, he knows it, and there’s one thing that’s more important than anything else, one thing Jamie needs to get out.

“I’m sorry too,” he says. 

There’s a lot more that he could add - what he’s sorry for, promises that he’s trying, that he gets it now, he really does, he gets why this was worse than last time - but he doesn’t say any of it. Jamie forces himself to stay quiet. He gets the sense that Roy has a lot on his mind as well, a lot that he wants to say, or wishes he had the words for. Now is not the time, though. 

All Roy says in return is, “Okay.” A simple acceptance of the apology, an awkward I forgive you tucked underneath it.

“Okay,” Jamie echoes back to him in the same tone. I forgive you, too.

They both go silent after that. When Roy starts to move a few minutes later, he’s standing so close that Jamie sees him uncross his arms clearly out of the corner of his eye. His peripheral vision tracks Roy lowering them to his sides, then shifting a bit and lifting the hand now hanging between them, by Jamie’s upper arm. It’s enough warning that, when that hand settles on the back of his neck, Jamie is expecting it.

Instinct and old habit chorus together and Jamie almost bristles, almost shoves him immediately off. With less effort than he might have expected it to take, Jamie suppresses the urge, because he’s trying not to expect the worst of people, and because he knows what he’s reacting to isn’t actually here. He holds very still and breathes very slowly and explains to himself that he doesn’t need to be scared. He’s at Nelson, he’s out on the training pitch, and he isn’t in any danger. Sure there’s the distant pain of deep bruising gripping his side, and there’s a man that he looks up to standing over him, touching him, but he isn’t being hurt. Jamie is in absolutely no danger of being hurt right now.

Actually, there are probably very, very few circumstances under which Jamie is less likely to be hurt. Sitting here on this bench, Roy Kent’s hand gripping the back of his neck with unmistakably light caution, is likely one of the safest places in the world. Jamie relaxes in increments, holding onto this thought. He even risks pushing back a bit, settling more solidly against Roy’s palm. Roy’s hold on him gets tighter in response, losing the sense that he’s ready to pull away at any moment, should Jamie show that’s what he wants.

It’s nice. It’s comforting and protective and Jamie feels stupid all over again for ever thinking what he’d done today was a good idea. He should have known that nothing bad would happen if he let them know that he was hurt. Instead, he’d arrived in the guise of a person he didn’t even want to be anymore, armed to the teeth to fight a threat that just wasn’t there. Still, things had turned out alright in the end somehow. Wonders may truly never cease.

The team’s been split, now, moving on from drills into scrimmaging. Half of them are wearing yellow mesh over the top of their regular training kits, and Jamie wants nothing more than to be over there with them rather than here on this bench. It’s a little strange to identify the feeling, the way it’s the same thing he’d felt the day that he’d faked hurt to skive off, at the same time that it’s completely different. Jamie had wanted to be in the thick of things then, too, wished fiercely that he was participating rather than standing off to the sidelines in jeans and a jacket. It had been a bitter, jealous feeling, though. Resentful. This time, it’s unburdened and clean. It’s just those are my people, and my place is with them. It’s like homesickness, which is ridiculous, because he’s right here.

Roy’s voice pulls Jamie out of his reverie, casually commenting, “I’m about to yell at them real quick, so cover your ears for a moment.” 

As he talks, Roy pulls his hand away, and Jamie does everything he can not to lose his balance. He hadn’t realized he’d been leaning that hard. The thought is embarrassing enough that it’s distracting, and he doesn’t at all respond to or address what Roy had actually said.

“Come on, I don’t have all day. Cover ‘em.”

Mystified, Jamie does as he’s told, slowly raising his palms to press down over his ears. Once satisfied that he’s been obeyed, Roy turns away towards the scrimmage and, as promised, yells out at the group of running players. They stop when they hear him, turning towards the bench to listen. It’s something about Richard’s dribbling and Dani’s feint. The specifics are muffled, and Jamie’s more focused on something else, anyways. 

Clearly not being directly addressed, Sam is looking right at Jamie rather than Roy. He’s smiling and he waves a little when he sees Jamie looking back, subtle enough to likely escape the notice of anyone not looking directly at him. Remembering the way that events unfolded, Jamie seizes on the opportunity, steeling his nerve and forcing himself to act before he loses the chance.

‘Thank you,’ he mouths at Sam. He tries to exaggerate the shape of the words but he still isn’t sure the short message was clear. At least, not until Sam’s hand comes up and taps the front of his own chest, right over his heart. It’s such a painfully sincere, painfully Sam thing to do that Jamie’s breath catches and his eyes sting a bit and he has to look away. 

The scrimmage resumes. Roy’s rather loud feedback now concluded, his hand settles back into its former place at Jamie’s neck, and Jamie’s able to pull his own away from his ears and watch normally again. He watches his teammates run, listening to them call to one another and feeling more okay than he has in days, at least since he’d slipped on the steps. Jamie feels warmer than he has since then, too, which is probably something to do with the meds he’d taken. At least, he doesn’t know enough about over-the-counter painkillers to know that isn’t what it is. 

Beside him, Roy shifts a bit, his thumb idly moving back and forth a few times across the vertebrae of Jamie’s neck before stilling again. Across the grass, Ted looks over and grins, touching the brim of his hat in a mock-salute. 

Yeah , Jamie thinks, the tips of his ears burning and his face flushed. Definitely just the meds.