Work Text:
"The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —"
- Emily Dickinson
.***.
Limping into the locker room.
Dani knew he wasn't the only Greyhound whose eyes snapped up when Jamie staggered into the locker room. Again. While most of the team said the usual hellos, Dani's eyes met Colin's as they both looked at Jamie.
"Did anyone stay up for the end of the Chelsea match night?" Jamie asked the room as he popped open his locker. Dani noticed the other striker kept his ankle elevated, propping it up on the bench as he stripped out of his street clothes. "I woke up to randos popping off in me DMs."
"Arlo kept bringing up your goal," Bumbercatch said.
"I think he is sweet on you," Jan chimed in. Snickers all around. A single finger from Jamie, who winced as he took off his trainer, then his sock.
Dani cleared his throat. "Oy muchacho? You were injured in training yesterday?"
Colin was shaking his head but what was Dani supposed to do? Not ask?
Jamie rolled his now-bare ankle. "Nah. Tripped outta the shower this morning."
"Well, we all know what that's like, don't we?" a soft twangy voice. Coach Ted entering the locker room, the cue for everyone who was changing to hurry along. "Do you want to get it checked out before practice?"
"Nah, coach. Contract's up next year, innit? Who wants a spaz on their team?" Jamie laughed. The rest of the team laughed. Ted's smile got wider.
Colin and Dani frowned.
A bloody nose.
Of course it was mid-season and the Greyhounds were all members of the walking wounded. Concussions, especially those sustained in-game, were treated with a maddening level of oversight that only got worse when a head-trauma-traumatized American took over. But the rest of it? Sam had a bruised rib from a fair but messy tackle. Richard sported two broken fingers, hastily taped together mid-match. Zoreaux had misjudged a dive and popped his shoulder clear from the socket. Coach Beard had fixed it was frankly alarming alacrity, but the keeper went to the A&E to be told to wear a sling for at least eight weeks. He played in the next week's match.
Their muscles ached. A pulled hamstring. A spasm. Bruises were a point of pride and awe. Isaac, after a game, had gone for a dunk in the ice bath and came out looking like a Rorschach test. They all prodded his mottled side as the captain watched, bemused. "I don't remember getting any of these, mates."
"Swear down?" Jamie asked, his finger hovering over the mottled mass on Isaac's thigh.
"Swear. Didn't feel them at all on the pitch."
"Thank your stars for that," Zoreaux muttered darkly. He was still in the ice bath, his shoulder swollen.
"What about you, Jamie?" Colin piped up.
Dani could have kicked him, but he was on the other side of the locker room and, really, he and Colin hadn't said anything. Not to each other and certainly not to Jamie. They just—they just watched. They kept tabs. The whole team limped through their drills but Dani had seen Zoreaux lunge into the goal post. Had winced as Richard fell hard, fingers pointed down. That crunch. It was awful but he knew where it was from. Even Isaac's bruises could be catalogued, would be catalogued when they watched the game tape tomorrow. The whole team would whoop, would count falls and tackles, and the tapestry of bruises would make sense, have an origin story.
But Jamie didn't leave practice with scrapes—he came into the locker room with them. Brought in from home or from—somewhere. Sometimes he'd offer an explanation, usually a misstep, a fall. Once he'd even said, with a straight face and a black eye, that he'd run into a door.
Did the rest of the team notice? Did the coaches? All their bodies declined through the season. They got toned and muscled, sure, but the schedule was punishing, the travel a pain, the expectation set for late nights and early mornings and lean meats and missing life events, dates, births, weddings, all in pursuit of a game. A game they were all prepared to break their bodies to excel at.
So why was Jamie breaking his before the game even started?
Colin's question hung in the air only to be drowned out by Bumbercatch brandishing his phone with some proof of his latest conspiracy theory, and the locker room moved on. It reminded Dani of sitting at the family table with all his tias, the aunties always loud, drowning out each other, a conversation topic offered only to be forgotten the next minute.
But wait! Dani wanted to say. Let's go back to that!
Bumbercatch showed him the video of what was probably not a UFO and by the time Dani looked up Jamie had put on his sunglasses and hood and was going, going, gone.
Rope burns around the waist.
"Penny for your thoughts?" Colin asked. He was barely panting. Damn him.
They were running laps. Ted was telling a story about a person not built for football who played football anyway. It may be a story about American football. It may be a movie plot. Dani had stopped listening. He loved football but hated running laps without at least a ball to dribble.
Colin, on the other hand, was easily the fastest on the team. For him to drift back in the pack had to be intentional.
"A what?" Dani was definitely panting. "A pinny?"
"A penny—like a pence?—Never mind. You've been keeping an eye on Jamie?"
"Si, of course." Dani had to pay attention to his fellow strikers. The game wouldn't work otherwise.
Colin shook his head. His next words were almost snatched away by the wind. "His injuries."
"Si."
"Those bruises today."
"He said—"
Dani couldn't see Colin but could hear him rolling his eyes. "I know what he said. But either he's having sex wrong or his partner hates him because I don't know anyone who's kink is let me tie a rope around your waist."
"Do you think it is a partner?" Dani asked.
"He's not seeing anyone, not since Keeley."
They ran past the coaches in silence, collecting popsicle sticks from Coach Beard. A stick every lap. Four sticks and they were done with the drill. They could keep count but the sticks were better and sometimes Ted would trade popsicle sticks for DJ rights. The man really had missed his calling teaching kindergarten. Or maybe professional footballers were simply easy to please.
Colin already had four popsicle sticks but he kept running anyway. "Maybe he's seeing someone he doesn't want the team to know about?"
Dani mulled it over. "Like someone famous?"
Colin shrugged and seemed to collapse in on himself. "Just someone secret."
Dani had never met Colin's partners. He was pretty sure he knew why. Yes, there were some secrets worth keeping, if you didn't want slurs taking over your social media mentions.
But this was about Jamie. Jamie, who was bruised again. "And this secret is giving him bruises?"
Colin shrugged. They rounded the last lap and turned in their popsicle sticks. Because Colin had five he could choose their next song. He tried not to look directly at Jamie when he picked "Brave."
"Sara Bareilles, huh?" Coach Ted grinned, adding it into the queue. "She's like a musical therapist with a sprinkle of sugar and a whole lotta grit."
Falling asleep in strange places.
Twelve weeks into the season they were on fumes. Workouts, practices, media, drills, updating their socials, participating in a charity match, trying to date, trying to be seen dating, trying not to be seen dating, more workouts, talking endlessly about the food they weren't eating. Half the team had formed a book club, led by Ted and Trent, so the ellipticals sprouted paperback copies of To Kill A Mockingbird and discussions of racial injustice. They were expected to party but not too much, to make the right noises about the right causes but never have too much of an opinion, take too much of a side. They were supposed to be intriguing but not scandalous, smart but still accessible to the working men who followed them. They were expected to be fit, engaged, athletic, charming.
And so by week twelve they were all exhausted.
Jamie perfected the art of sleeping. Leave him alone for ten minutes and he'd be snoozing sitting up. He'd lay down on the bench in front of his locker and close his eyes. He didn't snore, didn't move a muscle, just dropped into sleep like a stone sinking into water: a plunge with an uneasy settling at the bottom.
"It's a gift," Dani declared after nudging him awake on the bus. "Myself, I am always thinking too much to fall asleep."
"Same, mate," Jamie mumbled, looking sleep-mussed and young.
"Nah, muchacho, you sleep so good!"
"This is the secret method called 'wake up at four am for training.'" Jamie's yawn was so wide Dani could hear his jaw click.
"Four am?" Dani frowned. "Not with Coach Kent? Was that not a joke?"
"Mate, I thought it was. Then he wakes me up with this fucking strobe light." Jamie glanced at the window. "We almost there?"
Dani didn't know how to judge distances. He'd played in Mexico and the United States. Americans thought nothing of driving two hours to get dinner, but in the U.K. he'd found a low tolerance for the road. He remembered his first weeks on the team, talking to Isaac about homesickness. Yeah, the captain had said, I hear you mate. My granddad's far. I only get to see him on holidays.
Oh! Dani didn't know Isaac had family abroad. Where does he live?
Out in Doncaster. Almost an hour away.
Near and far were apparently cultural concepts. Ones he could adapt to—one of the blessings of playing such an international sport was the ribbing received about one's culture. Stereotypes, sure, but based in general truths. The Dutch were direct, the Latinos affectionate, the Italians late, the French judgy, the English reserved.
And tired of driving.
"We have some time left," Dani said, the only truth he knew off the top of his head.
Jamie put his head on Dani's shoulder and dropped back into his stone-throw sleep. His shirt pulled above his hip. That rope burn was still there.
Ordering food he doesn't eat.
After a match against Wolverhampton Ted insisted on stopping on the way home.
"For pints?" Zoreaux asked hopefully. They'd lost the match 1-0 on a penalty kick. The keeper had stood in the shower for almost half an hour. Coach Kent had hauled him out, explaining with uncommon gentleness that drowning was a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
"I'd prefer burgers but we'll take whatever's on tap," Ted said. "Y'all got diners over here, right?"
And off the highway they found the English equivalent of an American diner. It was a dive, it was staffed by people who looked both wary and suspicious of being invaded by several busses worth of team and supporters. The food was greasy and far outside of anyone's meal plans. But they did feel better when they all sat around sticky tables. Because Trent had come on the road with the team he and Ted put several tables together to have their impromptu book club meeting. It got harder to concentrate on the loss with Sam leading a discussion about coming-of-age stories and Coach Beard contributing insights about the mid-twentieth-century American South.
Dani wasn't in the book club, even though Richard had offered to pick up a Spanish edition of the book when at the international store he bought his own French copy in. It wouldn't matter. Words in every language jumbled on the page. Colin and Jamie had begged out, citing a general disinterest in and distrust for reading, and the three of them sat at a table watching the book club with amusement and no small amount of pride.
"Would love for the paps to see this," Colin sighed wistfully.
"They will when Trent's book comes out." Jamie nodded to the reporter who was indeed jotting down notes in his omnipresent notebook.
"Maybe I'll join in on the next book," Colin said in the way that such sentences tumble out. I'll watch that movie, I'll read that article, maybe next, maybe. More wish than promise. "I don't know if I've ever read something cover to cover."
"I tried to read that one the gaffer gave me last year," Jamie said. "When I was booted back to Man City."
"Upgraded to Man City you mean," Colin chipped in. Earlier in the season this might have been said ominously, the team still bitter about their relegation. Now it was more of a rallying point, with Jamie drooping over his tepid cup of tea.
Jamie shrugged. "Didn't get very far. I read Roy's book, though. Wrinkle in Time. 'S got magic and everything."
"Is this table slagging off A Wrinkle in Time?" Coach Kent pulled his chair up to their tottering four-top, his shoulders alone making Dani scoot into a corner. "That's a masterpiece of literature."
"Isn't it a kid's book?" Colin asked.
Jamie groaned. "Run while you still can, Colin."
"Stuff for kids can still be solid gold," Roy grunted. "What man here can say he never cried during a Disney movie?"
"It was the Lion King for me," Dani said. "When the little lion tries to wake up the big daddy."
"Coco," Jamie said, "but I think it's made to make you cry."
Colin held up his hands, "Don't look at me. The other night I was weeping during a car commercial."
"It's the time of year," Roy said. The lads couldn't quite think of their ex-captain as Coach Kent, though they usually remembered the title during matches. "I read Phoebe a book about fairies and had to stop when the little one got left out in the cold."
Dani put his hand on Roy's back and smiled at the sight of trays of food emerging from the kitchen. "Finally. Let's dig in, muchachos."
Plates dropped onto the tables. French fries, wraps, a steak, a soggy quesadilla. The menu had been bafflingly immense. Roy intercepted a burger mid-air. "This isn't on your meal plan, Tartt."
Jamie blinked, his small mug of tea cupped between his palms. "French fries aren't on Colin's meal plan!"
"Colin didn't miss two shots on goal today."
"Dani did! And he gets to eat in peace!"
"I only missed one shot," Dani said, a piece of cheese stringing from his mouth down to his very English take on a quesadilla. "The second was supposed to be an assist for you."
"Either way it didn't work!"
"You're not eating that." Roy put the burger on his own plate and picked out some pieces of lettuce and cooked meat from his gyro. "And drink some water, that caffeine will keep you up."
"We can't be training tomorrow!"
"Why not?"
"It's half midnight! I'll be dead at four am."
"You can be dead at nine am when you're done with your training and I have to be in with the coaches watching this pathetic game tape."
Jamie frowned at his plate and Dani and Colin locked eyes. Jamie liked to pout prettily, put on a show, rile up the team and the coaches and especially Roy with increasingly petty complaints, but this was different. If he was wilting earlier he was crumbling now, shoulders slumped and eyes down on his mug.
Roy's hand darted out, smacking the cup out of the player's hands. "I told you to switch to water."
Jamie's shoulders were up around his ears as he mumbled a sure, Coach into his collar.
Roy ate and Jamie drank water and Colin fumbled around for a topic even as he kept thinking about the unexplained injuries, and how could Roy Kent could see Jamie every day, know his eating habits, control his eating habits, and not notice—not care—unless—
Unless—
Bruises on his torso. Deep, dark boot prints.
They won their match against Crystal Palace. Jamie led with two goals and Colin had gotten the third, not quite a mid-field shot but close. The two of them flanked Ted at the post-game interview, Jamie flirting with the lady in the front row and passing almost every question off to Colin who beamed through it all, couldn't stop smiling. After the interview Jamie hooted over the reporter's phone number and Colin was walking on air.
"Want to share a ride, mate?" Colin could barely swipe his phone open. It kept buzzing in his hand with mentions and messages. "I'll call us a car."
"I dunno." Jamie stuffed the phone number in his locker. "Got training tomorrow."
"Come on, no we don't."
"Four am, baby."
Colin grabbed his towel. "Tell Coach Kent to fuck off. You were good tonight!"
"Could have had a third goal."
"Maybe you need a night out with your mates. And no alarm." The rest of the locker room had cleared out, only Will whistling as he tidied up the room. Colin steered Jamie towards the showers. "Wash up, put on one of those awful outfits I know you keep in your locker."
"Hey, I look fit in those!" But Jamie was finally smiling, tossing his pinny into Will's laundry basket with a showy flare.
Will raised his hands. "Nothing but net for the—oh, wow. Oh, Jamie."
Colin was already in the showers but stuck his head back out to see what had made Will's voice climb in surprise.
Jamie stood between the lockers and the showers, arms wrapped protectively around his stomach. The rope marks had faded, or perhaps just faded into the background because his whole stomach and chest were covered in bruises. Black, deep bruises. Not from turf or a jabbed elbow. Jamie looked like he'd been kicked. Or beaten.
"Are those from the game?" Will frowned. "Let me get—I think Coach Kent is still here—"
"No!" Colin and Jamie snapped at the same time.
Jamie glanced at Colin, then back at Will. "It's fine—I forgot—it's fine, really."
"The medics—"
"Forget about it," Jamie said. He reached into the dirty laundry basket, looking determined to pull his shirt back on. To cover it all up.
"Get in the shower, Jamie," Colin said. He wanted to pull the striker under the steam but didn't know how to grab Jamie without hurting him. The bruises continued over his shoulders, onto his back.
The black eye, the rope burns, sleeping everywhere but his own bed, the 4 am trainings one-on-one with the same Coach who controlled his wake-ups and practices and food intake. The same Coach who'd once come to a club just to head-butt Colin, hard. The same Coach whose beef with Jamie Tartt was so legendary they'd once bawled in the middle of a game.
Jamie followed Colin. And Will slipped out of the room.
"Warm water or cold?" Colin asked, averting his eyes as Jamie slipped out of the rest of his clothes.
"Hate cold water. Can't do ice baths even when I'm hurt."
"You are hurt."
Jamie wrapped his arms around his torso. He'd lost weight this season, thighs and shoulders strong but waist tapered, stomach concave, abs obscured completely by those obscene bruises. "Not too bad, though. Played good minutes today, didn't I?"
"How?" Colin adjusted the temperature until it was warm but not hot. It wasn't the question he wanted to ask but the others just wouldn't come. Like: Why? And most importantly, Who?
"Doesn't hurt," Jamie lied. Colin knew it was a lie because when he stepped forward into the steamy shower he untensed, his jaw loosening, shoulders sagging. A man with a burden that he was allowed to unload, just for a moment, just for now.
"Jamie—"
"Don't," Jamie turned his back on Colin and it didn't help there were still so many bruises, the striker's back like the topography of a dark kingdom. "If you say one kind thing to me I'll fall to pieces." And he would. He was cracking already. Colin wished Dani were here instead. Dani would hug Jamie and whisper to him and let him crack. Dani was allowed. Colin was only himself. He'd made a living out of not reaching out to other men in the showers.
So he didn't say anything. He turned up the steam. He wished he was Dani or Coach Ted or Keeley or anyone, anyone else.
"Tartt!"
Anyone but that.
Colin watched Jamie's whole expression collapse at the sound of Coach Kent coming nearer and what could Colin do? He wasn't Isaac, wasn't the one on the team who would put his body between danger and the team ten times out of ten. But he'd been watching this whole season, waiting for something to be pushed too far—
Colin left Jamie huddled under the spray and blocked the door to the showers before Roy Kent could burst through.
"The fuck is this?" Roy Kent never did anything but growl. Colin stayed locked in place anyway.
"Jamie's just seeing to his injuries," Colin said, crossing his arms over his chest and wishing he could fill out a doorway the way Coach Kent could. Damnit, he was naked, and here was Roy Kent, big as a mountain. He could just push Colin aside and get to Jamie and—and—
"Will said," Roy jerked a thumb over his shoulder. The kitman looked stricken, hovering near his laundry with wide eyes. "What injuries? What happened?"
Colin wished he was in a good suit and not dripping wet but he drew himself up as big as he could anyway and said. "You tell me."
"What?" Roy lifted a hand like he was going to brush Colin to the side but Colin smacked it away.
"Late waking up?" Colin guessed. "Not sticking to the schedule?"
Roy was craning his neck over Colin's shoulder. "What are you talking about? Where is he?"
Now he really did try to brush Colin aside and, great, this is where he got trying to stand up for people. Earning Jamie even more punishment.
Roy shouldered his way past him and marched over to the shower. He turned of the spray—Jamie wasn't showering anyway, was just standing in the steam, his torso swirling in those midnight blacks and blues.
"Grab a towel, Hughes. And bring me some of his clothes. Will!" Roy raised his voice for the kitman and Jamie flinched. "Get the medics! I don't care if they've already left."
"I'm fine," Jamie protested.
"You're not—what is—why didn't you tell me?" Roy sounded heartbroken.
"You didn't know?" Colin blurted out. "But—"
"But what, Hughes?"
Jamie just looked between them, eyes bright and glassy, like he was on the edge of a fever.
"But—he's been like this all season! The black eye, and the ankle, and the rope burns. He hasn't been sleeping or eating, not in weeks, because you—"
Roy turned his glower onto Jamie. "Rope burns?"
"You been staring at me again, Colin?" Jamie snapped. At least he didn't sound like he was on the verge of tears anymore. He sounded annoyed. Annoyed enough that he might mention the first time Colin had watched him so carefully, when they were both in an under-18s match and Colin had mistook Jamie's flamboyance for something else. Jamie had never mentioned Colin's awkward pass at him in a bathroom and when they'd ended up on the same team again Colin had to just hope that the striker didn't remember almost being snogged by a cocky Welsh teenager.
Colin folded a little. Then rallied. So what? Jamie could drop whatever old lore he wanted, it wouldn't matter, wouldn't change the fact that Jamie shouldn't be standing let alone playing with those injuries.
"Don't you wake him up every morning?" Colin demanded, glaring at Coach Kent. "Don't you know?"
"Rope burns?" Roy asked again. He sounded inexplicably sad. "Jamie…"
"It was before—I didn't even notice until the next day. 'S not a big deal."
"It obviously is if your teammates think—"
"Who gives fuck all what they think!"
"Get dressed," Roy Kent sounded every year his age. He looked like he'd looked at the end of the match last season, when he'd busted his leg and they all knew he'd never be on a pitch again. He looked old. "Hughes, you too. The medics will be here. You'll need pants or you'll embarrass them."
Colin wanted to go. He was getting cold now. But he also wanted—needed—Dani would kill him if he didn't at least ask—"Are you sure you're alright, Jamie?"
The smile that flickered across Jamie's face was almost macabre above the patchwork of atrocities. "Feel stupid for stripping off like that. Probably gave Will a fright."
"Gave us all a fright."
Jamie nodded. "You can keep an eye on me. I didn't mean to—I don't care—" Jamie blew out a breath. "It's good of you to notice."
"That you've been getting roughed up?" Colin snorted. "Fat lot of good I did. Didn't say anything. I just—"
"Noticed." Jamie shrugged. "But no one's ever noticed before."
Colin wanted to say something more, that he hadn't been the only one, that Dani had logged every injury, that Isaac's eyes narrowed whenever Jamie came into the locker room with some new fragment taken out of his skin, that Richard pulled his tackles and Bumbercatch was the one who rolled pinneys into pillows for all those times Jamie fell into his stone-throw sleep. That they were a team. That this was the bare minimum. They lived in each other's pockets for half the year. They knew each other's sisters names, and favored sex positions, and allergies, and favorite football matches. That Jamie was a prick but he was their prick and why didn't he come to them and who had hurt him so bad and what if it had gone further and they'd all seen but hadn't said—
"Tell us next time," Colin said. Pleaded.
Jamie smiled above the scars and led the way out of the locker room.