Chapter Text
The day everything goes to shit for Jamie, they're playing Tottenham away in a driving rain and really the game should've been canceled. It's their last match of the season anyway, a consolation game after dropping the quarterfinals 3-2 to Arsenal last Sunday. Ted and Roy and Beard gave him the prick signal in, like, the fifteenth minute, because Tottenham's defenders are pricks too, but Jamie, Jamie's the prince prick of all pricks. This game doesn't matter, their first season back in the Premier League ending in crushing disappointment, so Jamie relishes the opportunity to be a true dickhead before the long, lonely summer stretching out ahead of him.
His mark is some French twat named Montier. There's six minutes left, Richmond leading 2-1. Jamie's going for a hat trick. The last time he had a hat trick was his second game at Man City, against some shit team. Man City didn't care if he was a prick or not, they just let him run all over the field the few minutes he was on the pitch, and Jamie still thinks it's weird how much it hurts that no one cared if he was a good man or not.
Jamie's fucking with Montier, working him into a right state when Colin knocks the ball loose from one of the Spurs strikers and boots it upfield. Isaac controls it, sends it skidding toward Jamie. He digs his boots in and sprints. Montier chases after him. The ball is skipping on the grass. Jamie's hot on it, eyes locked and focused. He's got the prick signal. He gets up to it, lines up, and boots the ball at the net just as Montier dives and takes Jamie's knees out from under him. Jamie flies into the air. A spray of water comes up from Tottenham's pitch. It's a dirty fucking play. The Richmond faithful roar. Beard screams for a referee. Roy does the same, except his plea is laced with a stream of obscenities. Jamie tumbles onto his back, rain stinging his eyes, tries to catch himself, but his arms slide back on the damp and then there's a sickening crack and a lightning bolt of pain crawling up his arm. Jamie yells, or maybe that's Montier when he gets to his feet and sees Jamie's left arm.
Sam and Colin are standing over him. Colin gets one look at Jamie and takes off to the sideline, screaming for Ted, a medic, or anyone. Sam kneels down and takes Jamie's right hand and smiles at him. There’s something behind Sam’s grin that makes Jamie think there might be a problem. Dani and Isaac skid over, faces going pale.
The pain swells. Jamie rolls to his right, throws up, and then tries to stand. Cause he's not a pussy, is he, he's tough, like his dad wants him to be. He's Jamie Fucking Tartt, Richmond #9, and he's about to have a hat trick, cause if that goal didn’t go in, he’s gonna have to take a penalty. He's not going to let - whatever's going on with his arm - stop him from scoring. Except when he tries to get up, the pain swells, white hot, unbearable, and he's brought up short. Sam puts a hand on his chest, Dani reaches for him, both saying no, Jamie.
"Jamie, lie back, son," a voice says.
Jamie squints. He thinks there's blood in his eyes. It's Ted, kneeling next to him. Eyes tight with concern. Hands jammed deep in his jacket pockets.
"Did I score?" Jamie asks, because this is important. He got the signal, and he has to score when he gets the signal, or else he's just a selfish prick for no reason. And the last time he was just a prick, he got sent away, to Manchester and to his dad, and he'd die if that happens again, he'll just fall over and die, probably at the feet of his father.
"Don't worry about that," Ted replies gently. "Just relax."
"'M fine."
Ted shakes his head, a tiny smile playing loosely on his pinched face. "Lie back, Jamie."
Jamie lies back, 'cause he's trying to be a better man, and it's polite to listen to people when they tell you to do something, ain't it. He swallows, and it tastes like metal. He thinks maybe Montier’s boots got him when they tumbled over each other. When he reaches up to touch the cut, Ted's hand grabs his, and puts it back down by his side.
"Don't,' Ted says.
"Coach," Jamie mumbles. "Coach, I think I fucked up."
* * *
As soon as he sees Jamie down, Ted is racing out onto the pitch. His Nikes slip and slide, and he thinks that even his toughest old bastard football coach wouldn't have let his team play in these conditions. Colin runs by him, to the Richmond bench, howling for a doctor, for anyone. Ted picks up the pace, vision blurring with fear. He can hear Beard verbally assaulting the ref, and he breathes, knowing someone's got his boys while he gets Jamie. Roy is behind Beard, swearing up and down at the Tottenham coaches and players, rage written on his face.
When he gets to Jamie's side, the kid is trying to get up, mumbling something about his dad that makes Ted want to turn himself inside out. His face is bloody, a deep cut opened above his eyebrow, and oh God, his arm. Ted doesn't know how he's conscious. There's bone, and blood, and the white yellow of muscle. It's the worst break Ted's ever seen, and he was a college football coach for almost fifteen years.
He tells Jamie to lie back, and relax, and Jamie does, reluctantly. He asks if he scores, if he made his hat trick, and when Ted squints through the driving rain, the scoreboard reads three goals for Richmond.
"Did I score? I was gonna have a hat trick," Jamie slurs, bright and beautiful and wild with pain.
"Yeah," Ted rasps, because that's his boy bleeding on the grass, and who is Ted to deny him this one comfort. "Yeah, you scored, son."
Jamie grins, blood on his teeth, and blacks out.
The medics finally surround them, and Ted is left staring blankly as Jamie is carted off the field. Roy gives Ted a look. Ted nods, and Roy takes off after the stretcher, fear plain in his dark eyes. Beard is back, a steady hand on his shoulder. Their team is looking at them anxiously, eyes wide. The referee, thoroughly chastised by Beard, tells them quietly that the game's been called on account of weather. Ted doesn’t respond.
"Hey," he says to his guys. "Hey, game's over. I'm real proud of you boys, all right? Real proud. And hey, Jamie's gonna be just fine. Roy went with him, and I'm going now. Y'all go on with Beard, go home, get dry. It's gonna be all right."
Colin swallows. "We want to see him, Coach."
"He's going to have to have surgery, Colin. Y'all won't be able to see him for a while. I'll keep you updated, all of you. As soon as he's up for it, you're there."
Isaac gathers the team and with Beard, herds them into the locker room. Ted gets Rebecca on the phone, manages to punch in the number even with uncontrollably shaking hands, tells her yeah, Roy’s with him, bring Keeley to the car park, we're gonna Uber to the hospital.
* * *
Jamie's barely twenty-three, Ted realizes. Only a year older than some of his players at Wichita State. He thinks about this sometimes, how some of his Greyhounds are all barely older than some of his Shockers. He'd seen plenty of them sprawled on the Kansas turf; American football isn’t gentle with its young men. But while he's waiting in the hospital with Roy and Keeley and Rebecca, Ted thinks of one boy.
He thinks of Scotty Hayes, his smallest and bravest receiver, a farmer's boy who came to Wichita because it was the only school that wanted him. He's twenty-two, with an easy smile and a ready joke. He's from rural Minnesota, the pride of his hometown, and a role model to his four little brothers.
Ted thinks of the game against Minot, in North Dakota, late October the year of the national championship, Ted's finest season and his last in Kansas. Wichita is up 42-7 late in the fourth quarter when Ted sends Scotty into the game. Scotty is desperate to score - his family is at this game, and they go batshit when they see little #19 trot onto the field, back straight and head high like he's Rudy at Notre Dame.
The offensive coordinator calls in the play. The quarterback shrugs and relays it to his players. Even from the sideline, Ted can see the sharp grin on Scotty's face. His gut twists. Wichita's deep in Minot's territory, and the clock is ticking down. They don't need this touchdown, don't need to make Minot any angrier than they already are. Ted's stomach hurts. He closes his eyes.
The quarterback drops back to throw. Scotty takes off like a shot. He reaches up, straining, and the ball drops softly into his hands. A perfect throw. Ted watches, anxiously. Scotty turns, dead set on the end zone, the promised land, gleaming in front of him. He's two yards away when a Minot defender - steam practically flooding from his ears - dives low, dirty, and takes Scotty Hayes out at the knees. Scotty flips, tumbles head over heels into the end zone, a touchdown by the grace of God, and lands so, so devastatingly wrong. The referees signal for a touchdown and then for a doctor.
Ted can hear the crunch of bone, even twenty-five yards away. The stadium sucks in his breath. Someone screams "Scotty!" It sounds like a young man, like one of Scotty's beloved brothers.
"Mother fuck," Ted's offensive coordinator yells. The quarterback is pointing frantically at where the Shockers are huddled around Scotty.
Ted's dizzy, head spinning, breath coming short. He spits once on the ground and should it be this warm in North Dakota in late October? He doesn't know he's sprinted to Scotty's side until he's bent by his player, clipboard left forgotten on the turf. He tries to keep calm when he sees Scotty's ankle, twisted and poking bone.
"Get everyone away," Ted murmurs to the quarterback, the captain. The quarterback gathers his boys, and they trot obediently off the field, faces pale and stricken. Their teammates hug them tight when they get back to the sideline, and they kneel and watch the trainers work on Scotty.
The scoreboard changes, almost like an afterthought. 48-7, Wichita State.
"Coach," Scotty gasps out. He's clutching at the turf blindly. "Coach, I fucked my foot."
"You're all right, Scotty." Ted reaches out, unsnaps the buckles and slides Scotty's helmet off.
"Hurts," Scotty says, arm punching the field.
"I know," Ted murmurs, brushing some of the blond curls off Scotty's forehead.
"Did I score?" Scotty Hayes, barely twenty-two, asks, blue eyes glazed over with pain.
"Sure did," Ted answers. "You got your touchdown, Scott."
* * *
It's different and it's the same, Scotty Hayes and Jamie Tartt. Both just boys, really, so young, splayed out on the green grass, victims of a situation Ted put them in. Keeley and Rebecca both tell him it's not his fault, but isn't it? He let his offensive coordinator call the play, and he gave Jamie the prick signal. And it's almost the same, it's football in North Dakota and football in England, and it's Scotty writhing on the turf and Jamie vomiting on the pitch.
Scotty's ankle for a touchdown they didn't need. Jamie's arm and face for a goal that didn't matter. What kind of a coach does that make him, that he lets his boys get hurt for a zero sum? It killed him in Minot and it breaks him at Tottenham.
"I'm sorry," he says in the waiting room. He hates hospitals. Rebecca squeezes his hand. He squeezes back, hard.
"No," Roy says. "Fuck off," Roy says, like an absolution, a forgiveness of sins he can't possibly know about. Ted grimaces. Scotty’s agonized face fades from his thoughts, replaced with Jamie’s bloody and swollen smile.
They wait in silence, then, Keeley’s head on Roy’s shoulder and Ted’s hand in Rebecca’s.