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thetarttfuldickhead · 11 months ago

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It’s a little unclear, in the end, how the conversation gets there, because all in all the Richmond dressing room isn’t the site of that many sex jokes, not since Colin came out and no longer feels the need to make them. But they’re still lads, yeah, and young, mostly, so the jokes still happen, even if it’s just gentle ribbing, and silliness.

So: somehow, one morning halfway into Roy’s first year as head coach, the topic turns to sex, of the rougher variety. Roy’s only listening with half an ear, he’s busy sketching out the new trick plays Nate’s dreamed up on the whiteboard, and he doesn’t really catch the build-up, but when Jamie’s name is mentioned his ears perk up without him even really noticing. It’s become instinct at that point, keeping track of Jamie (even as Roy does his best to give all his players at least some semblance of equal attention).

“We know that Jamie likes it rough, though,” Zorro says, and the rest of the group oh:s and ah:s either knowingly or in surprised glee.

“Eh?” Jamie sounds startled by the assertion, but not particularly put off. (He never really is, as long as he gets attention, Roy thinks with an internal scoff that’s far fonder than he’d ever admit to.) “What makes you say that?”

“You told us!”

Out of the corner of his eye, Roy can see Jamie shake his head. “I don’t know what you’re on about, mate.” Still not bothered, but clearly not understanding what Zorro is getting at either.

Isaac throws him a disbelieving glance. “You don’t remember, bruv? It was when you first came here, before you started going out with Keeley.”

“Yeah,” Colin interjects, “You’d only been here for about two weeks, I think, but you came into training with these marks and bruises, and it turned out you’d hooked up with a girl the night before, but you hadn’t known she was a professional dominatrix before you got to her place.”

Hoots and titters at that, delighted and amused but not unkind.

“Exactly,” Zorro says. “And you told us you’d just gone with it because you have to try everything at least once, and it hadn’t been bad.”

Ah. Roy remembers now. He’d already been absolutely fed-up with Jamie’s attitude, the arrogance and selfishness and incessant need to put others down, and the striker’s total lack of shame and casual smugness about the marks had rubbed Roy entirely the wrong way. Not because people should be ashamed for liking that sort of stuff, of course (Roy wasn’t), but there was such a thing as common decency and unspoken rules about not parading around the dressing room like you were in a fucking porno or some shit and—

If Roy was honest about it, he’d mostly been pissed because it was Jamie, and everything Jaime did pissed him off back then (though, to be fair, most of what Jamie did back then was fucking shitty, so it’s not like Roy was wrong to be pissed. Most of the time).

“Oh.” Jamie’s voice is soft, suddenly. Small, in a way that has alarm bells going off like air raid sirens in Roy’s head. “Yeah. Um.”

The realisation hits Roy a second before it does the rest of the team, and his ears are already filling with a terrible ringing as the room falls silent behind him. He can feel himself grow rigid with rage, and with cold, curdling shame.

“Shit, man,” Isaac says eventually.

“Jamie, I’m so sorry.” It’s odd, the way Colin’s earnest, unhappy voice seems to be coming from so very far away.

“What?” Zorro, still not getting it, and then he does, and Roy, at a great distance, can hear his face crumpling. “Oh shit, Jamie, I didn’t mean—“

“No, don’t worry about it, man. It was a long time ago, yeah? It’s fine.” It’s a heroic attempt at sounding casual. Might have succeeded, too, back before they all knew Jamie as well as the do now.

Roy doesn’t stick around to hear the team offer their comfort and Jamie try to wave their concern away. He walks into the coaches’ office, and the only reason he doesn’t slam the door as hard as he can is because he doesn’t want to draw attention to himself.

“You all right there, Coach?” Beard looks up at him from behind his book, brow creased in quiet assessment.

“Oh my God, what happened?” Nate jumps down from the desk he’s been perched on. “Did someone die?”

And Roy wants to tell them to fuck off. Wants to punch the wall so hard it stops his mind from spinning. But he’s been talking with Dr. Fieldstone about that, hasn’t he, how his maladaptive coping strategies are tripping him up, and fucking over the people he cares about in the process.

So he takes a deep breath. And he doesn’t look at them when he starts talking. “Back before Ted came here Jamie came in with these bruises all over his chest and back one day, and he told us he’d had sex with a fucking dominatrix. And I believed him, okay? I just… I fucking believed him, even though it was weird fucking bruises for— That’s not the fucking point. But because I thought he was an arrogant fucking prick and I fucking hated his guts, I told him— “ He trails off, looking up at the ceiling. Uselessly, his cheeks are burning. Maybe his eyes are, too, if he’d let himself feel it. “I told him I’d be happy to pay to see someone give him a trashing. Give ‘em extra if they knocked a couple of his teeth out so he’d shut up for once.”

Beard doesn’t say anything, but he leans back in his chair with a look on his face that lets Roy know that, yeah, he’d fucked that one up good and proper.

“Oh,” Nate says. “So it was his dad who— That’s— But— I mean, that’s not good, obviously, that’s awful, but it’s… It wasn’t you who hurt him, Roy. And I mean, you and Jamie have said all sorts of thing to each other. Done all sorts of things.”

And that’s true, isn’t it. And mostly Roy is happy enough to write it off as tit-for-tat, old foolishness and bygones, Jamie a prick and Roy sometimes an idiot, and they’re both better now. And he doesn’t know how to explain to Nate and Beard how knowing that Jamie looked up to him ever since he was a kid, knowing that he never took that poster down, even after that, after everything, makes his casual cruelty and failure to protect Jamie all the harder to bear, even if he hadn’t known at the time that there was anything to protect Jamie from.

“Coach—“ Beard begins, but is interrupted by a knock on the door, and before Roy can tell whoever it is to fuck off, Jamie sticks his head into the office. Must have made his escape from the rest of the team, then. “Sorry, Coach, are we getting started or what? The lads— “ He catches sight of Roy’s face and his eyes widen. “Jesus, Roy, what happened? Are you all right, man?”

Under other circumstances, Roy might have found it remarkable how quickly and effortlessly Jamie makes the switch from Roy’s respectful star player to Roy’s friend, his entire demeanour changing as he moves into the room. As it is, Roy doesn’t say anything, but he must have made some sort of noise or moved some sort of way, because Jamie’s face twists in alarm, and then he’s across the floor and gently but firmly pulling Roy into a hug. “There, it’s all right, man, I’ve got you, lad, it’s all right.”

Roy blames all the fucking therapy he’d been doing for the past eight months for not pushing Jamie away but instead allowing the other to hold him, and allowing himself to hesitantly wrap his arms around him in turn. Fuck Nate. Fuck Beard. Fuck the team. Fuck anyone who thinks they get to have opinions on that.

He’s got an inch on Jamie, but Jamie’s broader, solid and strong. Steady, as he puts a hand on the back of Roy’s neck, murmuring nonsense that Roy knows is supposed to be soothing, and which maybe is. Mostly, it’s reassuring to have Jamie there, whole and hale and safe.

“What’s going on? Is Phoebe all right? Did something happen to your sister? Keeley?” Jamie is starting to sound a little freaked out, and Roy realises that he can’t just stand there mutely forever and let the fears grow in Jamie’s mind, he needs to fucking say something, explain.

He’d rather never say another word.

Tough fucking luck, Kent. “Do you remember what I told you when you said you’d had sex with a dominatrix?”

The way Jamie stiffens tells him that, yeah, Jamie does. “Roy—“

Roy tightens his grip, not wanting Jamie to pull away. “Don’t fucking tell me it was fine, because you were a nightmare for the rest of that day, you were absolutely fucking horrible to everyone.” Worse than usual, lashing out—not that Roy had known it at the time, or had thought it anything more than Jamie being a fucking prick for no other reason than to be a prick.

For a few moments, Jamie doesn’t say anything. Then he lets out a long sigh, relaxing into the embrace and pressing his face against Roy’s neck. “Yeah, okay,” he mutters, “it was all shit, mate. I mean, all of it was, it wasn’t just you— But, Roy, listen… “ And now Jamie does pull back, just enough so that he can look at Roy. His eyes are tired, but the set of his jaw determined. “You fucking hated me, right? Back then, I mean. You hated me, ‘cause I was a prick, and I hated you, ‘cause you were a bitter old cunt.”

There’s no fucking denying it, is there. Roy gives a sharp nod. “Yeah, but—“

“No, let me just— I’m not saying that makes it all right, yeah, I just— You hated me, okay. But, would you have said what you said if you’d known what really happened?”

Roy’s lips twist into snarl. “What? No! Of course I wouldn’t fucking have— “ He might have ached to put Jamie’s head through a wall several times a day, but he wouldn’t have stood by for Jamie’s piece of shit father—

“See?” The little twat has the audacity to look triumphant at that, as if he’d scored a particularly neat goal. “That’s what I’m saying, yeah? Even when you hated my guts, you wouldn’t have said that, if you’d known what was going on. But you didn’t know, ‘cause I didn’t want you to, or anyone to, and I’m an amazing actor, yeah? So, like, it’s not fine, but it’s… Don’t beat yourself up over it, man. You didn’t know.”

It’s absolution, the kind Roy doesn’t think he deserves and the Jamie is far too quick to offer. But Jamie is also right: Roy hadn’t known. Wallowing in guilt won’t do anything to change the past, or help Jamie now.

“All right,” Roy says. “But that was still a shit thing to say and I wish hadn’t done it. You never deserved any of what that arsehole did to you, and if… fuck it, when I made you feel like I thought otherwise, that was my fucking bad, and I’m sorry.”

Jamie nods. “Yeah, okay. Thanks, man.” And there’s a tremulousness to his faint smile that makes Roy think that for all his claims to the contrary, it had still been something Jamie needed to hear.

It does Roy’s fucking head in that Jamie’s been up to see his dad several times since he got word that James Tartt is in rehab. But they’ve argued about that already, bitterly, and Roy has very reluctantly admitted that it’s not his call. All he can do is offer Jamie whatever support he needs, whenever he wants it.

Clearing his throat, Roy gives Jaime an awkward pat on the shoulder before carefully extricating himself fully from the hug. “We’re still on for dinner with Keeley tonight?” He’ll make Jamie’s favourite dish, he decides. Throw in some dessert.

“Yeah, of course, yeah.”

“Good.” He jerks his head to the door. “Go on then, tell the lads to get on the pitch, and we’ll be there in a minute.”

“Yes, Coach.”

As the door shuts behind him, Roy turns on Beard and Nate who – wisely – don’t say anything.

“I don’t want to fucking talk about this,” he tells them sharply. “I don’t want you mentioning a fucking word of it ever again.” Because maybe he’s gotten to a point where having a fucking breakdown and hugging it out with Jamie in front of them isn’t the end of the world (even if it’s a near fucking thing), but if someone tries to make him discuss it, he’ll need to start head-butting people, and he’s been trying to stay off that since he became manager, because it just isn’t a good look, is it, and he’s trying to be better about that sort of thing.

Nate and Beard glance at each other. Roy doesn’t really care for the knowing look in their eyes, but they merely offer a nod and a yeah, yeah, of course, sure in reply, and that will have to do.

In this messed up world, a lot of things would have to fucking do.

“Right,” Roy says, already moving to follow Jamie. “I’ll see you on the fucking pitch.”

---

A/N: This was supposed to be the fourth of the stand alone ficlets I call The Locker Room Conversations, but it got quite a bit darker (and less team focused) than I usually do for those, so I’m not sure. I’ll sit on it for a bit, maybe fiddle a little, and see where I put it when it goes up on AO3 eventually.

If you like the idea of the team uncovering sad truths about Jamie’s past and are into heavier angst (and more of the team taking care of Jamie), I highly recommend checking out i should be the poster kid for this shit by anotherlongstoryshort / babytarttdoodoo

#well-intentioned ribbing lead to unhappy revelations #and references to earlier abuse #and roy having all the emotions about it #there’s also a very long hug because a girl’s gotta get her kicks somehow #james tartt sr is mentioned and his own warning #hurt/comfort #angst #roy kent #jamie tartt #roy & jamie #afc richmond #a team of himbos #who mean well even when they get it wrong #fic #my stuff

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