Chapter Text
Roy corners him in the dressing room right after Jamie has emerged from the showers, one towel slung loose around his waist, a second wound in his sopping hair, patting it dry. “You’re coming tonight, right?” he says, directly next to Jamie’s right ear, and Jamie, who’d been facing his cubby, busy humming the tune to the old Autoglass advert and searching with the hand not wrapped up in the towel for his hair comb, nearly leaps out of his skin.
“Fucking hell, Roy, why can’t you ever loudly stomp over to me, like a normal angry person? Shit.” The dressing room has mostly emptied, but on the bench immediately to their right, Zoreaux and Bumbercatch start to snicker. Jamie chooses to ignore them. “It’s fucking weird when you sneak up on me like that, man.”
Roy doesn’t say a word, just rolls his eyes and crosses his arms over his chest, then scans Jamie slowly up and down, eyes trailing for too long over the expanse of Jamie’s chest, still flushed slightly pink and glistening from the hot water and moisture of his shower. It feels like a weird kind of assessment he’s currently in the middle of losing, and Jamie shivers despite not being cold. He can feel the prickle of goose pimples, peppering his exposed skin, and swallows down a sudden lump in his throat.
The smart thing to do would be to tell Roy to fuck right off before he’s having to spend the next stretch of his time awkwardly batting down a half chub in the middle of the dressing room. Unfortunately, though, with Roy’s gaze pinning him down like that, Jamie has never been capable of saying much at all. He breathes a sigh of relief when the man’s eyes finally flicker away from him and onto the pink and green graffiti hoodie currently crumbled at the base of Jamie’s locker. “Get dressed, and then hurry home and find something better to wear, because you can’t show up like that. Ruth wants us there by half five.”
Jamie blinks at him, attempting to reorient himself enough to remember what he’s got planned with Ruth O’Sullivan tonight at half five. He’s pretty sure he’d remember if he got another call from Roy’s sister. She was a very memorable woman the first go, cheerful but straight down to business. And anyway, she’d put Phoebe on the phone soon after getting him on the line, and Jamie would obviously remember if he’d heard from Phoebe. When she’d excitedly invited him to Uncle’s Day, Jamie hadn’t had any choice but to immediately say yes, had he? Then Ruth came back on the other end to give him her address and tell him he didn’t actually have to bring anything, let alone a gift for Roy like Phoebe had told him he should, and that was that.
There’s been a few interspersed texts from her in the months since, mostly variations of, hi Jamie, could you please tell Roy to check his fucking phone? xx during their morning or evening trainings. Ruth’s never bothered to ask first if Jamie is actually with Roy on any of these occasions. Nine times out of ten, she knows he is. They’ve spoken to each other a few times directly, too. Mostly when Ruth is dropping Phoebe off or picking her up at Roy’s. It’s actually quite nice being on speaking terms with her, but he’s fairly positive he hasn’t been given any reason to return to her house.
“What’s at half five?” Jamie finally asks, giving up the effort of remembering something he’s pretty sure didn’t happen in the first place. Roy’s still watching him though, and if it can be a bit unnerving when the man’s standing this close at any time, it's considerably worse when Jamie's half naked. Coach is doing that thing again where he doesn’t even seem to blink or breathe. Or maybe it’s just that he’s blinking exactly as Jamie does, every time, so that Jamie’s never able to catch him at it.
“We’re celebrating,” Roy says simply, as if this much should be more than obvious, given the total absence of a smile on his face and his generally unsettling demeanor. Jamie screws his face up and squints over at the day calendar Cockburn’s got pinned up in his locker. It’s only 6th December.
“What, Christmas? It’s a bit early, innit?”
“No,” Roy growls out impatiently. “Perchtenlaufen.”
“Perton-la…what? The fuck is that, mate?”
Only then does Roy’s forehead crinkle. He’s apparently realized, at last, that Jamie isn’t putting one on, he just genuinely doesn’t know what the fuck is happening here. “Didn’t Phoebe tell you?”
Jamie shakes his head. Roy stares. “Well…” Jamie starts, feeling a sudden urge to defend Roy's niece, “she probably just called Keeley instead, didn’t she?” He shrugs, trying to pretend the thought of it doesn’t sting. Now that all three of them are friends, properly, he wouldn’t be surprised if Phoebe thinks of Keeley as Roy’s top best friend, while Jamie’s sort of been pushed down the ladder, only a residual contender. It happens, don’t it? After all, Phoebe knew Keeley first, and longer. Also she was Keeley, so of course she had the advantage.
Roy’s face is doing that thing again, the one where he’s struggling to process a thought and he’s sort of flatlined before being switched back online again, eyebrows doing weird contortions like they need to malfunction a little before they’ll be capable of working properly again. “You think I’m only allowed to bring one person along with me to my sister’s house?”
He hesitates. “Her table’s only got four chairs.”
“And you think,” Roy’s voice is low and stunted, “That we’d choose Keeley over you? Phoebe…and me…we’d want to invite her but not you?”
“Well…yes?”
Roy blinks. “Fuck. Wait here,” he instructs firmly, and then he turns around and stalks back off again to his office. This time, Jamie can hear the stomping.
Jamie, indeed, waits there, watching his coach’s retreating back for several extended seconds before he suddenly becomes too aware that all the other lads have trickled out by now and it’s just him left standing there like a complete tosser, still in his towel. By now, all the extra water has dripped down to pool at his feet, and one hand run through it tells him his hair is a right mess as well, half dry already and not even combed. Fucking Roy.
He's fully dressed again with his phone propped up and the front camera on as a makeshift mirror, trying to make his center part semi-presentable in the state it’s in and wishing he had his roots oil on him, when Roy comes back. “Phoebe says you should have gotten a formal invite.”
“Wait, you called Phoebe to ask if I was invited?”
“Yes. Didn’t you get the invitation?”
“…Like, in the post?”
“No, delivered by the fucking carrier pigeon. Yes Jamie, in the fucking post. Did you get it or not?”
Jamie shrugs. “Never check the box, do I? Who the fuck gets letters and shit ‘cept like, grandmothers and war veterans? Anyway, that’s why we’ve got these now, old man,” and he waggles his mobile in Roy’s direction until the spirit has gone out of the man’s dark eyes and he’s got a thumb pressed into the bridge of his nose, a promising sign of mild to moderate frustration. It’s always delightful getting that sort of noticeable rise out of him, and this time, it sort of feels like deserved payback for whatever he was trying to pull earlier with all his fucking staring. Jamie grins.
“Just check it when you go home to change, you bellend. She put a lot of fucking time into them. So I’ve heard.”
Jamie’s grin widens still further. “Aha! So you haven’t checked for yours, either. That explains so much. ”
Roy frowns, opens his mouth all affronted-like, then seems to come up short of something good to say, because he just shuts it again.
Jamie claps him on the back, gathering up his kit bag and tilting his head towards the door, and Roy follows his lead, keeping pace as they exit the club into the car park. Jamie expects him to veer off, but instead Roy follows him all the way to his Aston Martin, reaching a hand out to stop Jamie right before he gets inside. “Don’t be late, Tartt.”
“You got it, Coach.” Just this afternoon, the most exciting thing on his evening schedule had been the two rounds of FIFA he was going to let himself play before bed. “Wait, Roy!” he calls back suddenly, remembering what he’d said about the hoodie as he pulls open his car door, “What am I supposed to wear for this…what was it again? Pret loaf garden...? This party.”
Roy shrugs at him from his position halfway across the cark park. “How the fuck would I know?” and then he’s sliding into his own monstrous vehicle and driving off, not a word said further.
Jamie shakes his head and climbs into his driver’s seat, pausing a moment to check the time on his dash and consider just how long he has to get ready if he wants to make it to Ruth and Phoebe’s with enough time to spare. He’ll still have to rush a bit on his hair, sure, but it will definitely be worth it. A night with Roy, and Roy’s family, and Keeley? Yeah, that’s enough to keep him floating the entire journey home.
***
Jamie arrives at the O’Sullivan house at quarter past the hour, just to be safe, wearing his best black hoodie with the skull elbow patches and a simple pair of black trackies, plus his favourite silver chain and his cross earring—just in case this is like, a religious thing—to accessorize.
The vibe of this holiday, from the look of Phoebe’s handmade invitation—which Jamie had dutifully recovered from his postal box less than an hour ago—and one quick Google search, seems like, pretty demonic. The Wikipedia page featured a creepy, horned, furry creature that looked like it would be more than capable of biting his head off with one chomp. Phoebe had gone and drawn the thing on the front of her invitation, and then outlined it in silver glitter and drawn it its own party hat. Anyway, Jamie figured if he wore black, it was sort of on the theme, and also that Roy wouldn’t be able to judge him for it, one way or another.
He's still waiting on Ruth’s front stoop, having just rung the front doorbell, when Roy and Keeley come bounding up behind him. Keeley bounds, anyway, while Roy does his usual stunted lurch. Both of them greet him with a smile, and then Keeley's throwing her arm around him and tugging him towards her, close enough to press a kiss against his cheek. The spot on his skin tingles even after she’s pulled away again. “Hi,” Jamie greets, feeling slightly more at ease with her shoulder pressed against his. He’s quite glad he’s not the only one here. The last time he saw Ruth, at Roy’s place, her casual questions had somehow felt more like an interrogation.
The two of them must’ve come together, he thinks vaguely, Keeley still leaning into him as Roy rings the doorbell a second time and then third time. For whatever reason, the thought doesn’t tug at Jamie’s chest the same way it might have, even two months ago. Roy and Keeley aren’t together, not any more than he and Keeley are, or he and Roy, for that matter. They’re all trying out just being friends. It’s not such a bad way to be, really, even if the fluttering feeling he gets whenever he’s around them has only seemed to worsen with their joint friendships, when he’s pretty sure the goal should actually be squashing all feelings down in the opposite direction.
He focuses on Keeley’s outfit to avoid having to think about that further. She’s got on a gray dress with a black, puffy jacket. Plus there’s a black hairbow on the top of her head, adorned with little white pearls. He’s pretty sure she wore the bow to Rebecca’s father’s funeral. It’s a comforting sight, honestly. It means he must be on track with his own wardrobe.
Ruth finally swings open her front door, looking tired but excited to see them. At least, her expression definitely brightens at the sight of them all lined up there. “My, aren’t you three a sore sight. Were you stopping by the graveyard on your way over here, or…?”
“Funeral does sound better than this,” Roy grunts, pushing his way in past her with his lasagna dish.
His sister rolls her eyes at his turned back. Sometimes, she looks so much like Roy around the eyes that it’s a little disconcerting. “Be nice, Roy. Remember Phoe is excited for this,” she calls after him.
Keeley removes her arm from Jamie to fling it around Roy’s sister instead. “Ruth!” she squeals, with all of her usual Keeley-ness, “Fuck, it’s been far too long!”
“Hmm, and who’s fault could that be?” Ruth chuckles, enveloping Keeley back into a hug and making sure her voice is loud enough for Roy to hear in the next room over. It returns to a normal volume as she says, “It’s great to see you, Keeley. Anyway, my brother isn’t a complete dolt, is he? He did manage to pick up this one in the interim.” She nods cheerfully in his direction. “Hello, Jamie.”
“Hi, Ruth.”
He steps over the threshold just as Phoebe comes stomping down the stairs, beaming and wearing…bright yellow. Fucking figures. “You’re all here!” she says excitedly, flinging her little arms around Keeley’s waist, first. Roy returns from the kitchen at the sound of her voice, and she tackles him next, then Jamie, who lifts her up and gives her a little spin, just to set her laughing. Once she’s gotten her hugs in, though, she steps back to frown between them with immense disapproval, first at him and Keeley, and then an accusatory final glare directed at Roy alone. “You’re all dressed in boring colors, did Uncle Roy tell you to come like that?”
“Um,” Jamie begins, about to say yes, absolutely, chalk it all up to your Uncle Roy—but he’s stopped abruptly by the look Roy lobs at him from across the entranceway, sharp enough to kill.
Luckily, Phoebe has already moved on to the next thing, rounding on Keeley anew. “Did you at least bring the bells?”
To her endless credit, Keeley doesn’t stumble. “’Course I brought the bells! I wouldn’t let you down, would I?” she says quickly, regaining much of her lost steam from the admittedly sizable blow of being chastised over her wardrobe. She gives the tote bag Jamie hadn’t noticed she’d been carrying a wag, and it rings with the collective clammer of what appears to be enough bells to fill a small cathedral.
Phoebe nods approvingly, dismisses her, then finally steps in front of Jamie for his own appraisal. He can’t help but squirm under the weight of a nine-year-old’s version of the Roy Kent glare. Luckily, Phoebe breaks into a smile, revealing a missing front tooth. “You didn’t have to bring gifts, silly!”
Jamie swallows, gaze snapping down to his hands, which are clasped around four identical scarlet gift bags. “Oh, erm. I weren’t actually sure what this holiday was? So I sort of panic-bought these on the way over here just in case there was going to be some sort of an exchange.” He’d gotten all of two streets down from his home before remembering that time he brought nothing to the Christmas exchange at the club, and he’d immediately taken a detour back to the shops. He hadn’t had very long, and it were just a Boots anyway, so the gifts weren’t his best effort. Just hair accessories for the girls and that disgusting two-in-one shampoo for Roy, which it had physically pained him to purchase.
Phoebe laughs, grabbing the bags out of one of his hands and fitting their free palms together. “I learned about Perchtenlaufen last year, because we had to pick a holiday to present as school. Everyone else was choosing boring ones like Christmas or Passover, but I found—”
Jamie lets her words wash over him as she pulls him towards the kitchen. Keeley and Ruth are already sat around the table, which now has a fifth chair, and Roy’s occupied with putting his lasagna into the oven. He looks over when they step into the room, nodding once at Jamie. “You want a beer?”
There’s still a match before the break, and Jamie mostly follows Roy’s extra training rules for him even though he doesn’t technically have to anymore. Probably never did, really. But this doesn’t seem like it’s a test, so he nods back and doesn’t wait for Roy to respond one way or another, instead helping himself to one from Ruth’s fridge, and grabbing a second to toss over to Roy. “Keeley, Ruth, can I get you gorgeous ladies anything to drink?” Roy shoots him a warning look, but it’s more fond than anything, and Jamie laughs at him, raising his bottle in cheers.
***
Perchtenlaufen, as it turns out, is very complicated. First, Jamie has to bring up another folding chair from Ruth’s basement to squeeze around the kitchen table, because Phoebe insists an additional place be set for the Perchten to join them for dinner. Jamie still has very little clue what that means, but he’s gathered from Phoebe’s ramblings that it’s a sort of evil spirit, and he certainly hopes it won’t be present to share in Roy’s lasagna. Still, he dutifully follows the girl’s instructions, and Keeley sets an extra plate down, and Phoebe arranges the little gold bells Keeley brought at each placemat. There’s a bundle of what look like regular twigs, tied together with twine, as a centerpiece, that he decides it's best not to bother asking about it.
All in all, it's a cracker way to spend a weeknight. They all laugh at his makeshift gifts, but in a nice way, and Keeley slides the jeweled bobby-pins he bought for her right into her hair. Then Roy brings him over a second beer to have with the food, which for Roy is very thoughtful, and proceeds to spend the meal nudging Jamie’s thigh beneath the table whenever he wants to raise an conspiratorial eyebrow at him, in place of a laugh, during Phoebe’s elaborate retellings of the dramas of a Year 5 playground, so that’s all right then.
“So Phoebs,” Keeley chirps, her face genuinely enthusiastic as they dig into their lasagna, “This is my first Perchten. I read that I’m supposed to ask you whether you’ve been bad or good this year? I haven’t got any horns to scare you with, but I did bring sweets!” Keeley, Jamie thinks, is having way too much fun with this. Roy touches his knee to Jamie’s thigh again, and Jamie watches as the corners of his eyes crinkle, that hint of a smile he can't help but love.
“Wrong holiday,” Ruth warns from the corner of her mouth, seconds before Phoebe declares, “Wrong holiday!” and folds her little arms across her chest, pouting across the table at them and looking personally affronted that none of them seem to know what they’re doing here.
“Everyone gets it wrong, but Krampusnacht is something else completely! They just celebrate them on the same day sometimes so that the cities don’t have to put on their parades twice, which I think is lazy. The Perchten don’t have anything to do with Christmas. They ward winter away by roaming the streets.”
“Phoebe…” Roy says carefully, leaning forward uncertainly, his voice a very fun mixture of deep reluctance, anticipatory dread, and predetermined acceptance, “You aren’t going to make us roam the—”
***
That, in fact, is exactly what Phoebe is planning to do. After dinner, they’re all ushered back into their jackets and then outside for a walk through the O’Sullivans’ very posh neighbourhood, undoubtedly full of doctors like Ruth and lawyers and other rich twats. Worst of all, Phoebe makes them bring along their bells. “It’s the noise that helps scare off winter,” she insists over her uncle’s many protests, “We’ve got to take the bells!”
“Yes, Uncle Roy,” Jamie murmurs into his ear, walking alongside him, “the bells are completely necessary. Might even want to take two.” Roy elbows him in the gut.
It’s definitely one of the weirder evenings of Jamie’s life. The bells Keeley purchased are, quite unfortunately, in tip-top working order, and they ring out loud and tinny into the deepening evening sky. Jamie sort of wishes he’d bought earplugs at the shop instead of presents.
Still, it all goes better than expected, in the end. They only get yelled at once, by a middle-aged, balding man who stands on his front steps and glares down at them as they approach. He registers Ruth first. “Dr. O’Sullivan,” he starts, voice cold, “Don’t you think it’s a bit late for…”
“Oh lighten up, Charles!” Roy’s sister says, brightly and undeterred, “It’s a holiday!” The man’s face doesn’t soften, even when Phoebe shoots him her most charming smile and wave. Fucking cold-hearted prick, Jamie thinks. “It really is a holiday,” Ruth continues, “Even my dear brother Roy came out to celebrate.” It’s only then that the man bothers to look past her to the three of them, standing in a line behind the O’Sullivan girls. His eyes immediately land on Roy, and then immediately shoot up to his lack of a hairline. Jamie internally groans.
“Roy Kent? Bloody hell, is it an honour to meet you, mate. Big fan of yours, me and the wife both. Jean!” he shouts back into his house, and his demeanor now is practically giddy, “Roy Kent’s at our front door! No, the Roy Kent! The actual one!” Fucking wanker.
They have to stand around for twenty minutes while Roy takes photos with Charles and Jean, and then with just Charles and just Jean so they can each use them separately as profile pictures on their respective Facebook pages and not have to do any cropping. Then they force Roy to sign an old Chelsea kit that suddenly materializes from inside of Charles’ house, and also to take a another photograph with the dog.
Neither Charles nor Jean look at Jamie. They don’t even seem to know who he is. Before the sourness of this can fully set in, though, Keeley’s looped her arm around his and busies herself with running her fingertips soothingly up and down his bicep. So it’s mostly all right.
At long last, Charles and Jean retreat back into their home, and Roy walks back down the pavement, flipping off his sister on the way. Roy bypasses Ruth completing, grumpily muttering something about parading him around like a show animal that makes her smirk, and rejoins Jamie and Keeley behind them.
The bell tied around Roy’s belt loop jangles shrilly as they begin to loop back around towards the house, and his eyes shut painfully closed. “You know, this feels like a real fucking bastardization of this holiday,” Roy murmurs, “Next year I’m dragging the lot of you to Austria to watch the fucking parade, and calling it a day.”
Somehow, even several paces ahead of them in step with her mother, Phoebe manages to overhear this, and she swivels around in great excitement to shout, “Yes please Uncle Roy!”
Roy grumbles some more, and Keeley grabs him with her other arm and walks with the both of them dangling off her elbows. “Oh stop, Royo,” she says playfully, nudging his side. “We all know you loved the attention back there. Roy Kent!” she mimics, putting on her best impression of Charles, her voice straining to dip down to its lowest octave, “on my front porch! Jean, get the camera, we’ve got a legend on our hands!”
Jamie pitches his voice to achieve Jean’s jarringly shrill tone, “Ooh, but this’ll be one to tell the grandkids. Here Mr. Kent, pose with Mary Puppins!”
They laugh so hard that it must be heard over the bells, because this time it’s Ruth who looks back at him, shaking her head, “You three having too much fun back there?”
“Oh, loads,” Jamie echoes back on behalf of all three of them, which earns him a tug in closer from Keeley and another exasperated, fond look from Roy. “Seriously though,” he continues just to the two of them, once Ruth’s turned away again. He’s feeling braver now that it’s dark out, the two beers from earlier settled pleasantly in his gut and the streetlights casting a rainbow glow along the wet pavement in front of them. It’s just enough to make him light and giggly and honest, whether or not he's supposed to think of them as just friends. “This is the best night I’ve had all month.”
Roy raises a skeptical brow at him. “You can’t be serious.”
“Swear down!” Jamie insists, and he drops his arm from Keeley’s elbow to reach down and pick up her hand instead, interlacing their fingers together. She doesn’t pull away. Even better, she drops her other arm from around Roy’s and grabs ahold of his hand, too. Something about it feels so right, walking with them in the cooling moonlight, jangling bells and Phoebe skipping ahead of them, Ruth shooting them repeated, deeply amused looks. “Course, any night with you two’s the best of it,” he admits simply.
Keeley beams at him, and Roy just sort of stares, first at Jamie—contemplative and wide-eyed and long enough for him to start to feel a little uncomfortable again—then off into space, working his jaw. There’s an off-kilter sort of tint to him this time that makes Jamie think he’s successfully caught him off guard for once. He wishes he could capture it, the unfiltered, stunned expression on the man’s face, and bottle it for future. Settles, instead, for grinning happily to himself, though he’s pretty sure Keeley catches it.
“You know boys,” she declares as they round the corner, ending up back in front of Ruth and Phoebe’s front door. “I think this scaring-off-winter business might actually be working.”
“Now I know you're definitely full of shit,” Roy says, face settling into its laughter lines.
Jamie looks at her ludicrously, too, the bells still ringing in his ears, but Keeley’s smile only widens. “What? I’m feeling rather warm and fuzzy myself, aren’t you? Not a cold spell in sight.” And she gives their hands a squeeze and pulls them up the steps behind Phoebe and Ruth.