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It's a bitterly cold morning not long after they've returned from winter break. Most of the lads are moaning, which Roy has already yelled at them for. They have quietened, but not completely stopped as they've been warming up. Roy doesn't know why they're not as scared of him anymore, but he thinks he blames fucking therapy.
Lots of the lads have come out in the long trousers of the training kit and were wearing hoodies that they've slowly shed as training has gone on. Roy hasn't made a fuss, because he doesn't give a shit as long as they're fucking working hard. And he also feels like a bit of a hypocrite in his coaching gear. But when they're about to start scrimmage, there remains only one player who has yet to lose the jumper.
It's Jamie.
Of course it's Jamie.
When they were doing their training in the winter, Roy had only detected a genuine reluctance to step out of the door when it was... Well. Honestly, sometimes when it was not that fucking cold. At the time, he'd made a joke about northern lads being meant to be a bit harder than this. It's only fair, he remembers getting enough shit up in Sunderland. And Jamie's face had got tight, but he had stopped acting like the cold was fucking torturing him. Only Roy had then had to notice that on cold days, Jamie talked (even more) incessantly. He thinks he was trying to exercise his mouth more. But there was a drop off point (Roy put it at about -2) and then Jamie started getting very, very quiet.
A state which Roy did not like to admit he actually hated more.
It had been after one of these training sessions, where Jamie had done everything he was asked and barely said a fucking word, that Roy had snapped, "For fuck's sake, get your hands out of your sleeves. They can't be that fucking cold after all that."
And Jamie's eyes had flashed in anger and he'd pushed his hands out of his sleeves and pressed one of them against Roy's neck.
"Fucking hell!" Roy had said, ducking away because they were actually blocks of fucking ice. "What the- why are they that fucking cold?"
Jamie had shrugged. "Dunno. They've always been like that. Ever since I were a sexy little baby. Mum used to get me to wear extra gloves, had to wear 'em in the house sometimes in the winter, ‘specially when the meter had run out."
Roy had nodded. He remembers winters where they couldn't turn the fucking heating on as well. "'ve you ever seen a fucking doctor? Or talked to the fucking physios about it?" Roy had asked.
Jamie had shrugged. "No. 's'like I said, I get cold upstairs."
Roy supposes that, logically, Jamie's survived so far, although, sometimes he really wonders how. It had been whilst Roy was still working out his response, that Jamie had rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Are we done here, coach? I want to get inside."
Normally, they'd ended trainings with Roy making Jamie breakfast, but Roy had sensed that had not been on the table that day. So he'd jerked his head and Jamie had beaten a quick retreat.
The next day, they'd trained as normal. It was cold and Jamie had been quiet. Roy had come up with a few extra exercises that had more focus on cardio. Jamie had started to make some attempts at his usual chatter towards the end, so when they'd finished, it had felt a bit lighter than the day before.
After the cool down, which Roy had kept short, he said, “Hands out.”
Jamie had frowned but complied, holding his palms out. Roy had bent down to his bag. “Er,” Jamie had said. “What are you getting?”
Roy had rolled his eyes. Honestly, what was Jamie even worried about? He didn’t reply, but found what he was looking for, snapped them and then placed them one by one on Jamie’s hands.
“Oh,” Jamie had said, his hands grasping round the small hand warmers. “That’s- thanks.”
Roy had sighed. “I’m sorry for being a dick yesterday,”
“That’s all right,” Jamie had said. “You’re a dick most days.”
Roy had rolled his eyes. “Still think you need to see a fucking doctor.”
That time, Roy had then gone to make Jamie breakfast, after which, he’d set the now cooled hand warmers to boil so Jamie could re-use them and he’d started carrying him around in the training bag.
Anyway, of course Jamie was the one not to have taken off his hoodie and it had officially come past the time where Roy could fucking ignore it. Beard is shooting him looks and in a moment he thinks Nate might try and say something, which… well. Roy isn’t too sure how that would go. So he jerks his head at Beard, who starts breaking the players up for the scrimmage whilst he goes and beckons Jamie.
“Hoodie,” is all he says. Jamie deflates a little.
“Yes, coach,” he says, and takes it off, hiding the shiver that overtakes him when he does none too successfully.
“Three laps before scrimmage to warm up,” Roy says.
There’s a moment when Jamie clearly thinks about arguing, which would be purely show, but Roy doesn’t have the time or energy for it today.
“Do you want to make it ten?”
Jamie takes off running.
Scrimmage seems to work fine and if Roy leaves most of the actual direction to Nate, and keeps more than half his eye on their star player… well. Someone’s got to.
Jamie’s playing with a little less outward… oh fuck it. He doesn’t look as fucking happy as he normally fucking does. But he’s working as hard as usual, making more passes than goals. Roy makes a mental note because if that goes on for too long, he needs to check in, but that’s on the backburner for now.
They break for two minutes, and Roy spots Jamie pulling at the sleeves of his compression shirt. He casts a glance towards the hoodie that Roy has draped over his own bag, but there wouldn’t be any point in putting it on. Roy’s about to head over, when Dani (thank god for Dani) goes over and says something to Jamie, which he nods in response to, his face fucking lighting up and then they’re off fucking racing across the pitch, whilst the rest of the players look at them both in astonishment, because they’ve all been doing the same fucking practice and it’s been a fucking nightmare (Roy is quite proud of this) so certain people should be a bit fucking tired by now.
The rest of training passes without much incident, and when Roy calls it, the players all file back through the tunnel with no small amount of relief.
“Not you, Tartt,” Roy shouts as they do. Jamie glances up. Most of the players barely glance up. Roy jerks his head. “Over here.” Jamie gets a few sympathetic shoulder squeezes as he jogs over. Sam shakes his head at them both. However, Isaac does jog over ahead of Jamie.
“Roy,” he says, shooting a glance at Jamie. “Maybe not today, yeah?”
Isaac is a fucking good captain. Most of the time, Roy is proud about that fact. “Don’t worry about it,” Roy says. “We’ll just be a minute.”
Isaac does cast a concerned look at both of them, before jogging out. Roy hadn’t really thought about that fact that it would look like he was keeping Jamie out in the cold when he was clearly struggling. He just couldn’t think of another way to do this in private. He tells Jamie to do burpees whilst the rest of the lad file out.
“All right,” he says. “Stop there.”
Jamie does, but starts twisting his hips in the little jumps. Roy bends over to his bag, chucks his hoodie at him, then keeps rummaging for the hand warmers he’s still carrying around. He cracks them and hands them to Jamie, just as his head comes out of the hoodie.
“Oh,” Jamie says, same grateful tone at the warmth. “Thanks, coach.”
“’ve you been bringing the ones I gave you?”
Jamie shifts. “Keep forgetting to get ‘em ready.”
Roy rolls his eyes. “Give those back to me when they’ve cooled down, then.” He’s got a few, but he could do without Jamie rendering them all useless. “Warm up in the dressing room before you get in the showers,” he says.
“Why?”
“Because sudden temperature change is fucking bad for you. You need to do it fucking gradually.”
“OK, coach,” Jamie says.
“And I want you wearing gloves next training.”
Jamie’s head shoots up. Roy had sort of hoped that Jamie would agree – at least for now – just to get out of the fucking cold. Roy knows that if he touched Jamie’s hands, they’d be fucking freezing. And he can see the red nose and cheeks that show he’s not exactly warm anywhere else either. But he has clearly underestimated Jamie’s stubbornness.
“No,” he says. Roy raises his eyebrows at him. “No one else fucking wears gloves.”
“Zorro does. O’Brien does.”
“They’re fucking goalkeepers!”
Roy folds his arms.
Jamie looks mutinous. “You can’t fucking make me.”
“Look,” Roy says, in what he thinks is a perfectly reasonable tone. “You can either wear gloves to next training or we can have an argument in front of the team about why you should be wearing gloves.”
He knows he’s won there, because Jamie looks actually furious. Then his expression drops. “Roy, please mate, I don’t need ‘em. I’m just… I’m just being dramatic about it. I’m fine.” He seems to cast around for an argument. “And look, I played well, yeah? It don’t affect nothing.”
It affects you, Roy thinks. “You’re not as focused,” he says, which is only a little bit true and really not enough for him to be intervening. “And you’re not-” he sighs. “You’re not being dramatic. I think you’ve actually got fucking medically bad circulation or some shit.”
Jamie’s silent.
“Lots of players wear gloves.”
“I’m not wearing them for fucking matches.”
You will if I fucking tell you to, Roy thinks. But that fight can happen another day. In fact, so can this one. Or, at least, it can happen inside.
“Come to the boot room after you’ve changed,” Roy says.
“I-” Jamie casts a glance at the tunnel. “Fine.” He turns to go inside. Roy shakes his head and then follows.
--
Roy sees Jamie head to the boot room from his desk. Jamie looks significantly at him as he does so, so Roy hopes he doesn’t think he is being subtle.
Roy clears his throat. “Be back in a bit,” he says. As he leaves, he hears Beard say: “Jamie,” to Nate who says “Oh,” in understanding and honestly fuck the pair of them.
He makes a stop on the way and when he gets to the boot room, the first thing he does is hand Jamie a mug.
“What the fuck’s this?” he says, taking a sip.
“Tea,” Roy says. “The fucking rooibos one.”
“Oh,” Jamie says. “Thanks.”
“I spoke to Ruth about your circulation thing,” Roy says.
“Roy,” Jamie says. “Seriously?”
“And she says you’ve got all the symptoms of Raynaud’s disease. So you’re not being fucking dramatic. Apart from how you are being fucking dramatic about being asked to wear gloves.”
“What’s Raymond’s disease?” Jamie asks.
“Raynaud’s,” Roy says. Because he could see that causing problems down the line. Jamie’s brow furrows as he tries to mouth it. “I’ll write it down. Anyway. It’s like… fucking bad circulation and it means you need to keep your hands warm.”
“I’m not- I’m fine.”
Roy rolls his eyes for what feels like the fiftieth time that fucking day. “Just wear the fucking gloves. If any of the lads give you shit, say I’m making you do it.”
“They’ll give me more shit about that.”
Roy is brought up short at that. “What do they give you shit about to do with me?”
Jamie looks at the ground. His grip tightens around the mug. “Nothing. I don’t care about that. It’s just- I’m not fucking soft. I can train like everybody else. I’ve done it for years. It’s fine.”
“You can train just as well in gloves.” Jamie opens his mouth, but before he can say anything else, Roy says, “It’s only like strapping an ankle when someone’s injured.”
“I’m not injured and I don’t have a fucking disease and I can train like everybody else.” Jamie takes a breath. “Please, Roy. Don’t make this a thing.”
I can train like everybody else. Roy has an idea. Oh, he’s definitely making this a fucking thing.
“Fine,” he says. Then for good measure, “If you’re going to be such a little prick about it.”
If Jamie thinks he’s given up easily, he’s relieved enough that he doesn’t question it. He beats a quick retreat.
“You let him off kind of easy.”
“Oh, mind your own business, Will.”
--
Really, Jamie should have known better than to think Roy would leave it alone.
But. Well. Jamie thought that his superior reasoning skills had won out and that Roy – for once in his life – wouldn’t be such a fucking dick about everything.
It’s not immediately apparent, of course. Roy doesn’t say anything to him the next day. Jamie makes sure to bring the handwarmers himself in case Roy doesn’t because he’s pissed off at him, but he gives no sign of it, grunting as usual to all the players.
It’s when they’re all pretty much changed that Jamie hears: “I like those, Dani.”
Sam announces it across the room, so Jamie – along with a few others – glance up. Dani holds up his hands. His gloved hands. They are nice gloves, to be fair, green with embroidery on the fingers. It would almost be quite natural that Sam has commented on them. Almost.
“Ah, thank you, mi amigo,” Dani says. “Training was very cold yesterday, so I thought I’d bring them in.”
“Huh,” says Sam. “I thought the same thing.” And then Sam pulls on his own black gloves.
“Yeah,” Isaac says, getting his own gloves out. “Good thinking, bruv.”
Jamie looks around as… yep. Every single member of AFC Richmond produces a pair of gloves and puts them on. Lots of them look fucking identical.
He glances across at Cockburn, pulling his on and glares at him. Cockburn smiles back.
“You don’t mind, do you coach?” fucking Colin asks, as though it’s not part of a co-ordinated… table or whatever.
“I don’t give a shit as long as you’re all out there in the next thirty seconds,” Roy says. Jamie whips round to see him standing in the door to the office. “MOVE!”
Jamie does not move. He waits until the dressing room clears, remarkably quickly after that. Beard and Nate have followed the team out, leaving just him and Roy.
“You’re a fucking bastard, you know that?” Jamie says.
Roy holds up a pair of gloves. “Train like the rest of the team, Tartt.”
Jamie rolls his eyes. He supposes it's not as though it matters for one practice. It would look weirder at this point if he didn't wear them. Even though he can tell that there's been some scheming behind his back (the fucking traitors) so if he goes out wearing them it'll be obvious to the lads that Roy's won, even if they don't know exactly what the battle was about. But. Also. It would disappoint Dani if it doesn't work. And Sam. And Jamie hates seeing their disappointed faces even if they are scheming traitors.
It's probably been too long to even pretend to be casual about this. He looks at Roy for a moment, whose smug expression has faded a little.
"Jamie," he says. "Please."
Roy never says please. And, fuck it, his hands are cold. He lets Roy press the gloves into his hands, then jogs out to join the team.