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Jamie is quiet today. He comes in without saying much and heads to his cubby to go change without swinging by some of the other lads to have an asinine fucking conversation. It’s not like he's never been quiet before, Roy doesn’t even know why it rubs him so wrong.
Maybe it is because he is the head gaffer now. Maybe it is because Ted is no longer here to do the touchy feely stuff. Maybe it is because despite it all, he cares about the fucking Muppet.
Whatever the case may be, he stands at the door of the office watching Jamie like a hawk. Sees how he pulls his kit out of his locker and puts it on, before freezing, eyes locked onto one of the pictures he got hanging up.
His mum did a big summer clean up of the house – Roy knows this because Jamie went over to help and he got a live update on all the weird shit Jamie found from when he was a lad over text – and Jamie came out of it with a box of mementos and pictures. Some of which he’d gotten copies made of, so he could put them in his locker, not wanting to risk the originals.
Most of them were of his mum and Simon, a few of Jamie as a lad, but Roy hasn’t studied them enough to know which one Jamie is looking at now. Can’t remember if there’s one of his dad up there. Itches to go over and find out. If that shitstain had fallen off the wagon or did something to Jamie, Roy is going to find him and kill him.
Right as he’s about to storm over and demand what happened, Jamie snaps back into motion. Staccato hand reaching out to trail over one of the pictures. It looks sad, but not sad as how Jamie looked at Wembley or in Manchester when Roy and Keeley tagged along to his mum’s place. It looks… aching ….Grieving.
Now, Roy is very far from adjusted when it comes to grief. It’s been over 30 years and he’s still choked up about his granddad’s passing. So having to support someone else when they’re grieving is out of his wheelhouse, just ask Keeley about how much of an arse he made of himself when Rebecca’s father died.
Still, it’s Jamie, who despite Roy’s attempts not to play favorites as head coach, is his favorite. He’s lucky everyone else just jokes about it, glad not to be his favorite because he’s fucking sadistic about training Jamie.
However, Jamie doesn’t care. He loves it, actually, takes to it like a duck to fucking water. Flourishes under whatever bullshit Roy throws at him.
Jamie is his best friend, damn you Phoebe for speaking it into reality. And Jamie needs his best friend right now. He looks so lost in thought, a mixture of pain and fondness on his face.
Others are noticing too. Roy’s pretty sure Sam is about to ask if he’s okay. Sam’s a good lad for that, Roy is glad he’s not alone in worrying about Jamie, because he has no fucking clue what he’s doing and Sam’s at least good at compassion and shit.
Still, it’s Roy's job too, so he forces himself to move, slowly making his way over to Jamie as to not startle him.
Jamie doesn’t even look up, eyes still locked onto the picture.
Over his shoulder, Roy finally sees which one he’s looking at, hopefully getting an insight into what’s twisting him up inside. In the picture are four lads, all of them no older than fourteen with shaggy hair and hand me down clothes. They’re posing for the picture, arms slung around each other with grins and eye rolls on their faces. Jamie is in the middle on the right, ducking away from a hand that is aiming for his hair. He’s the smallest kid there.
Sam is also looking and speaks first: “I haven’t seen that one before, who are they?”
Now Jamie startles, before looking back, seeing both Roy and Sam there. He bites his lip for a moment, hesitating. Jamie never hesitates before sharing. Roy know the concern only gets more visible on his face. Fuck, he hopes Jamie doesn’t shut down. He’s too fucking good at hiding sometimes.
After a moment that lasts too long, Jamie finally says: “They were me best mates,” as he glances back to the picture. “Dunno why I even put it up. It’s stupid.”
“Oi, no calling yourself stupid,” Roy says, because he has to say fucking something, don’t he?
“Yes, it’s not stupid,” Sam agrees. “We are all sentimental, it can be good to think about friends we used to have, even if we grow apart.”
Jamie snorts bitterly at that and the alarm bells start ringing louder in Roy’s ears. “That’s one way to fucking say tha’,” Jamie mutters, grabbing the picture, almost as if to throw it away. More to himself, he says: “I hadn’t even thought ‘bout it till I put this up. Stupid fucking reminder.”
“What’s it a reminder off?” Roy asks, needing to know what the fuck is wrong with Jamie, needing to fix this.
“Nothing,” Jamie sighs, putting the picture back up after a moment of consideration. “Just an anniversary.” With wry smile he adds: “You know, we made a pact to always be there for each other, made it like two weeks before this piccy too. But…” he sighs again, swallowing thickly, “this is the last time we were actually all together.”
That sounds bad, Roy thinks, sharing a look with Sam who thinks the same. The whole locker room is quiet around them, listening in to the conversation that has caught everyone’s attention. For as much as Jamie overshares, they know very little about his life growing up. Most can gather why with his dad, so they don’t pry, but they’re all curious. Roy is. He’s particularly really fucking curious about these three fuckers in the picture with Jamie, who are making him so upset now.
Sam takes lead, thankfully, delicately asking the difficult question: “Did- Did something happen?”
It seems that maybe Jamie wanted to talk about it more than he himself even expected. He does that sometimes, where he gets quiet and in his head until you ask and then all that shit that’s built up, comes spilling out. It’s the same now, because Jamie bitterly scowls: “Yeah, something fucking happened, Sam. Ricky right ‘ere fucking killed himself a few days after this got taken.”
He points at the lad most to the left. It’s strange to look at photo of a kid, just a lanky teen, who is smiling into the lens, and know he committed suicide soon after. That he stopped existing as a person and was only a memory. It’s jarring.
Jamie continue talking: “I mean we all knew his mum were a cunt, she was a right mean lady. He used to hide out at ours a lot, before dad came back…” he trails off for a moment, guiltily and pained, as if it’s his fault his own father is a cunt too (the urge to go find the man and kill him returns). Jamie shakes it off. “He stabbed himself, slit his own throat. Fucking brutal way to go. If it weren’t for the letter, I think we all would’ve thought she’d done it. Maybe she did. Who fucking knows.”
He deflates a little now that the story is out.
Roy can’t imagine how that was for him. To lose a friend like that, so violently and young. Especially with his own home life. Must have made that threat hanging over his head so much more real. If it’s the anniversary of the death, no wonder he’s fucked over it.
Reaching out, he places a hand on Jamie’s shoulder, ready to offer him comfort. Absentmindedly, Jamie reaches over to place his own hand over Roy’s, but he doesn’t do more than that, just keeps looking at the picture.
Next to him, Sam also takes a step closer, looking overwhelmed unsure of what to say after that revelation. No one does. A solemn atmosphere hanging over all of them.
Jamie doesn’t seem to notice, though, still caught up in his head, in the memories. After a moment, he simply speaks again: “We were fourteen ‘ere. Well, I were thirteen, but almost fourteen. Was me birthday, actually.”
Fucking hell.
“Joey-” he points at the lad standing between Jamie and Ricky- “was proper fucked up ‘bout the whole thing. He had a crush on Ricky, never told anyone. People always fucking talked ‘bout him, y’know, rumors and shit. How he were soft. Fell in with a bad crowd to get away from it. Pulled him into drug peddling first, then doing them.”
The more he talks, the more the sense of dread grows in Roy and he gets the feeling that Ricky is not the only tragedy in that picture.
“Got picked up by the Bizzies, did a few months in juvie for possession when we were seventeen, which were dead rude. He were just trying to look out for his mum and sisters. I send them money after I signed with Man City. Joey said he were grateful. I just wanted to do right by ‘im. He always looked out for all of us, y’know?” Jamie says, voice getting small at the end as tears prick in his eyes.
Jamie takes a shaky breath and wipes at his face. “Arsehole OD’ed when we were eighteen. Pressure got too much, or his own skin. Liked this other lad, got beaten up when he tried something, suppose he snapped wi’ that.”
Roy knows he cannot control events that have already passed just by hoping really hard, but he still hopes with all he has that the third lad in the picture with Jamie is okay. That he's alive. That it’s not Jamie surrounded by dead boys.
“Me and Jimmy tried seeing each other more after Joey died too,” Jamie says quietly, eyes glazing over again. “We’d all grown apart, y’know, after Ricky. Weren’t the same. And I’d been-” He stops himself, clears his throat and says: “Footie came first. Wanted to make it out.”
It’s not what he’d wanted to say, Roy is certain of it. Jamie had been thirteen, almost fourteen when it happened. Almost fourteen. Almost his birthday. The birthday when his piece of shit dad took him to Amsterdam to lose his virginity to those ladies behind the window. Took him to get raped. It makes Roy fucking sick.
All the bad shit happened one after the other and Jamie never could have processed it all, especially not in that age, in that house. Hell, Jamie has probably never gotten a break after his dad came back into the picture. Not until recently, maybe not even until last fucking year.
But it’s not his place to bring it up, no matter how angry it all makes him, so he stays quiet and lets Jamie talk about a photo filled with ghosts, only gripping his shoulder a little tighter to remind him he’s there. That he’s not going anywhere.
“He were always such a fucking motor mouth,” Jamie laughs for a moment, caught up in the memories. Then it falls: “He were quiet, though, that last time. Should have known, but I thought it’d had just been ‘cause his gran died. He did the care for her, y’know. Turned out it were just goodbye. Stayed alive for her and now didn’t ‘ave to anymore, but wanted to say bye proper. Not that he told me that’s what it were. Hung himself the same night, right after I left. Fucker.”
The angry sudden curse takes them all by surprise and Roy can’t help the way his hand spasms. Jamie hasn’t sounded anything but melancholic and sad about any of the deaths he has talked about thus far, even when he called Joey an arsehole. Nothing to show he’s angry about any of it.
Roy’s hand spasming makes Jamie look around and meet his eyes. They don’t look right. They look angry, but the kind of rage that has nowhere to go but inwards, because the outward cause can no longer be reached. It’s an anger Roy knows well. It’s an anger that consumes. That takes.
He knows concern shines bright in his own eyes and he watches in real time as Jamie registers it and deflates. Jamie isn’t an angry man. Not the way Roy is… or his dad is. Roy is glad for that. Jamie is better like this. Soft. Kind.
But right now, he just looks haunted and guilty. “I knew he were fucking off,” he whispers. “I could feel it. I should have known.”
“What happened, Jamie?” Roy asks, voice low and devoid of anything besides compassion. He just wants Jamie to talk to him, to stop blaming himself for any of these deaths.
“I went back,” Jamie says so quietly it’s almost inaudible. “I made it all the way back to mummy’s, but it didn’t feel right. Felt fucking… I don’t know? Wrong. So I went back.” Roy knows it is coming, but braces himself for the hushed whisper regardless. “He were already hanging when I got there. I was too late.”
Fuck.
Without thinking, Roy pulls him into a hug again, holding him tightly as Jamie falls into him. Over the top of his head, the four teenagers from the picture stare back, only one of them still here.
There are no words to say. No words to comfort Jamie about the fact that from his childhood mates, he’s the only one that’s still here. Hell, he might be the only one that made it to fucking twenty. Nobody can explain that. No one can make that right.
All that he has just unloaded seems to catch up with Jamie and he’s crying again. Right in Roy’s arms. It sometimes feels like that is the only place he ever feels comfortable enough to cry.
“’s been fucking years and I- I still see ‘im sometimes. Outta the corner of me eye and shit,” Jamie confesses between the sobs. “I thought I’d fucking left it behind me, but that- that fucking picture.”
“It’s awful, lad,” Roy tells him, helpless to do anything else.
He gestures for Beard to lead the other lads out for training. Jamie’s grief and pain doesn’t need to become a spectacle. (It wouldn’t with these lads, they’re good people like that, but Jamie will be uncomfortable when he becomes aware again).
As they all leave, Roy holds Jamie, unable to help feeling so very glad Jamie hasn’t joined his friends. That despite all the shit, Jamie held out long enough for Roy to meet him, to become his friend. That he kept on going long enough to get to a place where he is happy and content.
“I hate them,” Jamie whispers suddenly.
Then, as if emboldened by his own confession, he repeats: “I hate them. I hate that they fucking left me behind there. I hate that all I got are a buncha fuckin’ letters. I hate that they just decided to quit.”
Roy holds him tighter once more, grunting compassionately. He doesn’t begrudge Jamie his anger – because it is anger not hatred. It’s another anger that Roy knows well. The anger that is simpler to feel than all the other shit.
“Why did they leave?” Jamie asks, anger gone for desperate confusion, pulling back far enough to look at Roy with red rimmed eyes. “I knew it were all fucked, but we were gonna stick together, y’know? Made a pact and everything.”
“I don’t know,” Roy says, feeling useless. “I don’t know, Jamie. And I’m sorry they did. They deserved better. You deserved better.”
Jamie sniffles again and averts his eyes, plucking at Roy’s shirt. He leans his forehead against his sternum and softly says: “I wish we’d all gotten better. It’s so fucking unfair.”
“It is fucking unfair,” Roy agrees, because agreeing with Janie as he holds him is the only thing he can do.
“Maybe if dad hadn’t come back ‘round-” Jamie starts.
“Don’t. Don’t do that to yourself,” Roy cuts him off before he can pick up steam, before he can make all this unfortunate fucking bullshit his fault. “You can’t fucking know that. It happened, can’t be changed and you can’t predict how that would have changed shit. So don’t even start. It’ll kill you.”
“Would complete the set,” Jamie mutters bitterly, freezing the blood in Roy’s veins.
He pulls back, so he can cup Jamie’s cheeks in his hands and angle his face so that he’s looking at Roy, instead of hiding away. “Don’t say that. Don’t you fucking say that. Don’t-” He chokes up without finishing the sentence.
Jamie stares at him with wide, shocked eyes. “I’m sorreh,” he finally says, voice filled with so much more.
“Thank you,” Roy tells him, letting go of his face again to hold him. This time it’s not for Jamie’s sake, but for his own. He needs to feel Jamie’s chest expanding under his arms, has to feel his breaths against his next, feel his heartbeat against his own.
Fuck, this is not what he expected of today when he woke up. I mean, how the fuck could he? Despite knowing Jamie for years, he’s never noticed anything about today and Jamie never said. He always holds everything so close to his chest, plays at openness to hide a lake of sadness.
They stand there quietly for a moment, before Jamie confesses: “I thought ‘bout it sometimes. After Ricky especially. Thought, maybe he has the right idea, y’know? Kept, fucking, pissing the bed and shit, nightmares. And… dad, jus’ there all the time.”
Roy squeezes his eyes closed and takes a breath, letting the agony of a truth he had already known, but not wanted to face wash over him. Then he gently says: “I’m glad you didn’t.”
“Me too,” Jamie says, burrowing his nose in Roy’s chest again.
“And I’m sorry you had to go through that,” Roy says again, because he doesn’t want Jamie to think that it didn’t suck. “It were fucking shit. Your own shit and them pulling that. It were shit. It fucking sucked. And you’re so brave for going on.”
Jamie doesn’t respond to that, but Roy can feel his fingers clutching him tighter and a fresh wave of tears soaks through his shirt.
After another moment, Jamie says: “Today didn’t used to hit me, like this.” A beat. “We made the pact today. The one that said we’d have each other’s backs. No one even died today. It’s so stupid.”
“It’s not stupid,” Roy assures him again. And because Jamie won’t believe him, he evens the playing field by admitting: “I cry every year on the day my granddad drove me to Sunderland. Never the day he died, but always that day. ‘Cause I’d thought he’d be there then, and he would never be.”
He doesn’t meet Jamie’s eyes, can’t look at him after being so vulnerable, despite how vulnerable Jamie himself has been this whole conversation. That’s different. Fuck, Dr. Sharon for making him in touch with his emotions, it’s humiliating.
However, he tries not to feel too exposed and embarrassed when Jamie speaks again and he can hear the awe in his voice. “Yeah. Yeah, that, exactly. They’d be here, but they’re not.”
“I get it, lad,” Roy says, cupping the back of Jamie’s head. Jamie seems fine enough to let go, but Roy doesn’t want to. He feels strangely scared for Jamie’s sake after all he has confessed today, afraid that Jamie will slip through his grasp if he doesn’t keep him close.
Fortunately, Jamie is the most tactile person alive, who will never shy away from physical comfort unless he has to. So, he makes himself comfortable against Roy, more than willing to be there for as long as Roy will allow. The Muppet, Roy thinks fondly.
After an indeterminable amount of time that Roy is not going to look into, Jamie suddenly says: “Coach, I don’t feel like training today.”
“You don’t have to,” Roy assures him immediately. “Here, I’ll take you home. You can even have ice cream and take out if you want. I won’t say shit.”
Jamie flashes him a smile – an actual proper smile – as he pulls back to face Roy, still too close, but whatever. He says: “I wanna go to Manchester. Visit their graves. They’re all buried together. Might see mummy too.”
Roy barely thinks about it for a second – he doesn’t want to let Jamie out of his sight if he can help it – so he hears himself offer: “I’ll drive.”
“You’ll come with?” Jamie asks after a blink, his voice fragile with hope.
“Yeah, of course,” he replies gruffly, praying to G-d that Jamie won’t prod or tease, because he cannot handle that right now.
Thankfully, Jamie seems the same, so he just smiles again and gathers his stuff. He’s still in his kit, but he doesn’t seem to care as he grabs Roy’s hand and drags him out of there. Roy doesn’t care either. It will never be the worst way he’s been papped.
Despite the drive being four hours long, they barely talk. The radio is on low and neither of them listen, both alone with their thoughts.
The graveyard Jamie directs him to is small and less maintained than Roy had expected. Though, maybe he should have. Most of these kids were buried before Jamie made it big and had means – and no one else did – and he supposes Jamie would have wanted the three of them to be together. Jimmy staying alive for his gran, doesn’t bode well for there being other family involved, nor does Jamie being the only one for his final goodbye.
He follows Jamie as he makes his way through the rows until they are in front of Jamie’s old mates, the dates on their stone a tragedy in their own regard. Roy had been right; Jamie is the only one to have made it to twenty.
“Sorreh I haven’t been to visit,” Jamie tells them. “Been trying not to think about you’se, ‘bout any of the shit before I got out of this place. That were mean. We were gonna stick together. Seeing as you lads are not pulling your weight, I should ‘ave. And I will.”
Jamie is quiet for a moment, then he adds: “I miss you fuckers. You were stupid twats and made me blood boil sometimes… but it were good. We were good. Best part of growing up ‘round ‘ere. I’d been trying to forget how awful it were that I also forgot how good it could be. Remember when we ran away from home for a day and then had to go back, ‘cause I missed mummy too much? You all took the piss so fucking much, I wanted to explode of embarrassment. But we had that movie night instead and all of you stayed. That were mint.”
Twelve years ago today, four boys stood and made a pact to be there. Now there is only one of them left, but he is finally coming back, keeping his promise, even if it hurts.
Roy watches as Jamie talks to the graves of his friends, recounting memories only he can carry on. An insight into the way Jamie grew up. The way he learned the pain and tucked it away. He hates that Jamie had to grow up like that. That he had to leave this place before it took him. How it eats at him that he got out when they didn’t.
But he can’t fix it. Can’t fix any of the dead boys that haunt this place with a future they robbed themselves off, because it looked too bleak.
However, he can stand here with Jamie and fade into the background as a quiet support while Jamie, for the first time, has the space to grieve, to process that he lost his friends. That he had people that were close to him and they left him. That everyone was hurting here and not everyone could go on.
He hopes Jamie knows the people he has now won’t do that to him again, that he can let himself be close to them without being so afraid. He remembers Zava and how Jamie reacted by isolating himself, before he could get rejected. How Roy called him a prima donna over it. He was wrong then.
And he’s glad he offered to train Jamie, that he held out his hand. That he befriended Jamie, got to know him well enough to notice that he was too quiet when he came in today. That he can be here with Jamie, instead of letting him join his friends.