Chapter Text
Jamie is pretty sure he’s dreaming. He thinks he is anyway, because if he wasn’t then he’s pretty sure the universe is broken and / or he’s been possessed, which would be unfortunate. He’s in the locker room, sitting on the floor in front of a row of cubbies. Everyone’s there, all the lads and the coaches, even Ms Welton is hanging around somewhere, but no one is really doing anything. They’re just standing around having gibberish conversations Jamie can’t really understand. Colin’s been taking a box of cereal out of his cubby and putting it back on repeat since Jamie first realised he was dreaming.
The colours on the cubbies are wrong. Green and yellow, instead of blue and red, and he’s staring at the one across from him trying to figure out why it’s wrong. KENT 9. Roy isn’t a player anymore, so maybe that’s it? Roy shouldn’t have a cubby if he’s a coach. He’s not even a player in the dream, because he’s standing over at the front of the room talking with Beard in his usual coaching attire, though he’s wearing Ted’s hat for some reason. Roy looks dead weird with a hat on.
Anyway, the cubby was weird and Jamie couldn’t figure out why. KENT 9. Maybe it was spelt wrong? He can’t remember how to actually spell Roy’s last name at the minute, on account of being asleep and all. He isn’t sure how long he’s been sitting on the floor of the locker room just watching everybody else. He doesn’t think it’s been very long, but there’s no clock on the wall and time in dreams is weird. He’s pretty sure Roy’s name is spelt wrong. He thinks there’s another N in there, or maybe the E is supposed to be somewhere else. He doesn’t know for sure. Just looks weird.
He sits there for a while, not sure what else to do. Jamie’d always had weird dreams like this, where he was half aware and just watching everything happen around him like he was in a movie. He wasn’t sure how it happened, at some point he’d just think to himself “this is a dream” and suddenly he was aware of all the weird things he normally wouldn’t question. Back when he was little it used to scare him. Wandering around a weird, messed up version of your own life that sometimes featured giant spiders that wanted to eat you wasn’t that fun when you were six years old and wanted your mummy but couldn’t even dream her up. Aware enough to know none of it was real, but not aware enough to actually change anything in the dream. It was fucking freaky.
The more it happened, the more he got used too it. It stopped being scary and started just being weird. It was trippy, being able to walk down a street and know for sure you were the only real person on it, knowing that nothing you did or said mattered, because the only person around to witness it was you, and all the mini you’s wearing your friends faces that made up your brain.
It was also kind of boring. There was only so long he could listen to half conversations and watch Not-Colin play tug of war with his cubby and a box of cereal before he felt like he was actually about to go mad. The good news was, being aware that he’s dreaming means he can just leave. He does it loads. If a dream is boring, or scary, he just finds the nearest door and usually once he goes through it, a whole new dream starts. Keeps things interesting.
He pushes himself up off the floor. Keeping a wary eye on the imitations of his friends as he wanders towards to exit of the locker room. Sometimes they try to stop him, when he tries to change a dream. It’s proper fucking scary when they do that. They’ll jump out at him and start shouting about how he can’t leave or he’ll ruin everything. Used to wake up crying, thinking he’d done something wrong and feeling it all heavy like in his chest, but he got over that quick. It was just a dream, and only pussies cried because of a stupid dream. He makes for the door, and suddenly Will is there on the other side of it, smiling at him. Jamie liked Will, thought he was a good lad, but he was always kind of an arsehole in Jamie’s dreams for some reason.
“Don’t leave.” Will warns, still smiling at Jamie, and that’s well creepy isn’t it.
“It’s my dream,” Jamie huffs, never one for being told what to do even by his own head. “I can do what I like.”
“Don’t leave.” Will warns again, like maybe Jamie just hadn’t heard him, standing in the doorway blocking his exit. “You won’t like it if you leave.”
“Well, I don’t like it much now either.” Jamie pointed out with a roll of his eyes “You ain’t even real. What do you know?”
“You won’t like it.” Will replies, voice sounding a bit funny, not like Will’s. More like his da’s, but Jamie doesn’t like thinking about that so he ignores him, and keeps going. The dream changes, just like Jamie knew it would.
He’s in a park now. Sort of. It doesn’t look much like a park, but that’s what he knows it is the way you do in dreams. Something about it is unsettling, though Jamie can’t figure out what. Same as the cubby. There’s a man at the park, staggering along the path towards Jamie. Whoever they are, Jamie doesn’t recognise them. They’re coming closer to him, and Jamie can’t get himself to move.
He feels like he should, something in his chest rattles nervously, sending tingly alarming waves of nerves into his fingertips, adrenalin making its way through his body as the stranger got closer. They kind of looked like Roy, if Roy weren’t anything like himself. The beard was too long, hair was too scraggly, walk was too clumsy. but it was Roy, and he knew it the same way he knew the oddly shaped lump of dirt he was standing on was a park.
Not-Roy staggered in his path towards Jamie, and it wasn’t Roy’s walk. It was someone else’s. Jamie’s seen it plenty before, the tell-tale swaying of drunk anger cutting a jagged path towards him. He was in park, and a drunk, angry man was stumbling towards him wearing his favourite persons face like a cheap fucking Halloween mask.
Jamie felt panic clawing up his throat, his heart hammering away in his chest, a solid, resounding thumping in his ears, but he couldn’t move. He was stuck where he was, in the not-really-a-park watching the stranger get closer, closer, closer. The way he was going, he was going to run directly into Jamie. It was a practiced scene this was, a memory taken right from the deep recesses of Jamie’s brain that he’d shoved way way down so he’d not have to deal with it. It was a song Jamie had learnt the lyrics too entirely against his will, like a fucking ear worm radio song.
A drunk, angry man was heading for Jamie, his hands balled into fists and smelling like whiskey. His da didn’t smell like whiskey. His dad drank beer, too fucking cheap to have anything else unless someone else was paying. Roy did though. Roy didn’t drink like his dad did, but he drank whiskey. He and Jamie had an argument about it once. Big one, with screaming at each other like they used too. It was a stupid argument to have, Jamie knew Roy didn’t drink like his da did. Having whiskey in the house made him nervous anyway.
Not-Roy stops in front of Jamie, and things change again like Jamie’s in a fucking fun house or something. Not-Roy isn’t Not-Roy anymore. It’s his regular old Da, not the fucked up hybrid that was making Jamie feel like he was about to be sick on his imaginary shoes. He’s got a boot in hand, neon green with a black stripe on it. There’re walls now. Not much else. A door, with a little window. The boot room. This had happened before. Jamie sighs. He knows how this dream goes. It sucks, but he’s used to it. Ted made them watch Groundhog Day a few weeks ago. It was like that.
His Da would throw the boot, and Ted would be there, but then Ted would be gone, and when Jamie would try to leave, to follow Ted back to the locker room where he was supposed to be, with his friends and Roy and whoever else was in there that wasn’t his fucking Da with a neon green boot held in his hands like a deadly weapon, the door would be locked and he’d be trapped. It’s different this time. The room feels smaller, his da feels closer, it’s not Ted looking at him through the window.
It’s Roy. Just Roy, like the dream had split the fucked up amalgamation of his Da and Roy down the middle for this next part, like it knew that would somehow fuck Jamie up more to have Roy in Ted’s place instead of his Da’s. Because Jamie knew Roy would never hurt him, not for real, not with intention, the way his Da does even when he’s stumbling drunk. His Da always means it. Roy never does. Jamie can scoff at the idea of it, it doesn’t scare him to think of Roy hitting him. But when Jamie was a wee little thing, he used to day dream about Roy Kent coming to save him from his mean dad or bullies from school.
Roy was standing on the other side of the window, and Jamie’s tongue felt like sand paper in his mouth as Da threw the boot, in landing against the concrete shadow of a the wall with a sickening crack, flash of neon racing past Jamie’s eyes quick enough Jamie almost forgets to duck. Roy is standing there, and he’s looking at Jamie and his da and the boot, and he fucking walks away.
Jamie knows how this dream goes. He stands up anyway, doesn’t know when he sat down. Dreams were just like that. The door is locked when he tries to pull it open, the handle won’t budge. He can see Roy walking away. He hears himself begging him to come back, but it’s muffled and wrong. Far away like.
“He doesn’t want you lad.” his Da says. sneers, actually. Smells like beer instead of whiskey. That’s what he always says, when it’s Ted. But it’s different this time, it’s Roy this time. Jamie’s eyes are stinging. Roy had never walked away from Jamie before. Jamie smacked his hand against the glass, but it didn’t do anything. His Da laughs. It’s echoey and loud and makes Jamie feel like he’s fucking choking. Then Da’s hand is in Jamie’s hair, yanking him back from the door, Da pulls his arm back, ready to smack Jamie’s head into the wall just like he had the boot. Jamie doesn’t scream.
Jamie’s room was quiet when he wakes up. He doesn’t wake up screaming, or even with much of a start. One second he’s asleep, and the next he’s blinking himself awake with hot, wet eyes. His limbs feel heavy and his mouth feels disgusting as he shifts, his heart pounding away in his chest like he’d done a fucking marathon and his stomach twisted up uncomfortably as the remnants of the dream raced through his mind.
He breathed in deep through his nose, tried to will the gross feeling that always came with nightmares. Fear was sticky, it coated his lungs and his skin. Made his hands tingly and eyes sting. Jamie wasn’t an idiot; he knew he was a bit of a fucking cry baby. His dad used to get on him for it all the time, and his classmates when he was a wee little lad because he was the only who cried when his mummy dropped him off in the mornings. He’d grown out of it quick once he’d started school, by then he was old enough to know that crying was soft and pathetic and wouldn’t do him any favours. Or he fucking thought he had until he’d come back to Richmond and it had all started up again. He’d always thought he hid it well though, until Jan fucking Maas had pointed it out to everybody.
Crying about a nightmare wasn’t that out of the norm for Jamie, was the point. He had them plenty, would wake up already in tears or on the verge of tears, sticky fear clogging up his throat and nose like someone had poured syrup in them to give Jamie the hardest time breathing as possible. But usually, he could shake it off. He was good at calming himself down, knew all the ways to breathe and ground himself and get out of his head quick so he wouldn’t have a meltdown about some imaginary people being mean to him.
But something about this dream was sticking in his head, playing back in his mind, suffocating discomfort weighing heavy of his chest. Roy wouldn’t just leave him with his dad, Jamie fucking knew that. Roy never had, never would, just leave Jamie to fend for himself about anything. Fuck Jamie was sitting in his room in Roy’s house, tangled up in the sheets Roy had gotten for him while the man himself was probably asleep down the fucking hall. It wasn’t even an accurate fucking nightmare. Roy wouldn’t just leave. Jamie knew that. He was wrapped up in the indisputable proof of it.
It didn’t feel like enough, as he sits up in the dark. He reaches down to untangle his legs from his sheets, and it takes longer than it should because his hands are shaking. He feels cold, even though he knows it isn’t. His whole body is chattering like it’s freezing though, thrumming with nervous energy. The sheets are rough under his hand, grimy in a way they weren’t when Roy had tucked him under them earlier.
Roy was in his room. Jamie didn’t know that for sure, but he could assume so. Roy was an old man who put himself to bed not long after he put Jamie to bed, and it was a little past midnight according to Jamie’s alarm clock. Roy would be in his room, asleep. He should be. He wouldn’t have just left Jamie alone in the house. It was after all, Roy’s house. There wasn’t anywhere else for him to be but here. Jamie was pretty sure Roy would be in his room. He wouldn’t have just left Jamie. Still, Jamie needs some kind of proof of it.
The house was quiet, when Jamie threw off his covers and crept out into the hall. Roy had switched all the lights off and drawn all the curtains just like he did every night, leaving the hallway plunged in darkness and looking so much longer than Jamie knew it was. Roy’s room was right at the end, Jamie’s and Phoebes on either side of the hall leading down too it. It wasn’t actually that far away, but it felt like it as Jamie clung to his doorway, fearful of passing the threshold.
What he was fearful of, Jamie didn’t quite know. Maybe that there would be someone waiting for him when he stepped out, smelling like beer or whiskey. Or even worse, that there would be no one at all. That the house would be still and quiet, with only Jamie inside. If he just stayed in his room, he’d never know if Roy had left or not. He could pretend that the other man was asleep down the hall just like he usually was. But he wouldn’t know for sure, if he stayed in his room. Roy could be asleep, or he could be long gone. Jamie wouldn’t know, not unless he went and checked himself. It was like that blokes fucking cat that everyone was always going on about. Wouldn’t know until you checked on the thing.
Roy’s room really wasn’t that far away. Only a few steps, if he lengthened his stride as far as he could. It wasn’t like there would actually be someone hiding around the corners in the dark waiting to jump out at him. There was no such thing as monsters. at least not the kind that hid in cupboards or under beds. Roy’s room wasn’t that far away, and all he needed to do was check.
He just needed to check that Roy was still there. Jamie could only imagine how pissy Roy would get if Jamie woke him up, but he’d be quiet. All he needed to do was open the door and check. He doesn’t need to wake Roy up just to check if he’s still there. It would all be fine. Jamie would walk down the hall, quiet as mouse, pop his head into Roy’s room just to make sure the hairy twat really was asleep in bed and that he hadn’t left Jamie alone, then Jamie would go back to his own room and go back to sleep. Foolproof plan.
He keeps his hand on the wall, and feels a bit stupid about it. Feels a bit stupid about it all really, creeping around in the dark with barely dry tears stuck to his skin, making his face feel scratchy and wrong, his arms jittery and numb at the exact same time, something uncomfortable and heavy settled deep in his ribcage urging him forward. The floor is cold on Jamie’s bare feet, each step resounding with a soft thump in the otherwise silent night.
He’d never done this as a kid. He’d had bad dreams before of course, but he’d never had anyone to go crying too about them. mummy worked nights more often than not, and Jamie would have to have a death wish to go creeping into his dads’ room over anything let alone something as simple as a nightmare. Not that he was going crying to Roy about it either. He wasn’t going to wake Roy up; he was just going to check. That was all. He walks through the hall, one hand on the wall guiding him through the dark. He was just going to check on Roy, and then he’d go back to his own room.
Roy doesn’t really know what wakes him up at first. He’d always been a light sleeper, waking up at every bump in the night or particularly hard gust of wind rattling his windows. He’s used to blinking himself awake at random, far too fucking early hours, so it takes him a minute to realise the reason he woke up was because Jamie fucking Tartt was standing in his doorway at half past midnight.
It must have been the quiet creak of the door that woke Roy up, but that didn’t explain why Jamie was standing in the doorway fucking staring at him like a child of the fucking corn or some other equally as creepy shit. Phoebe used to do the same fucking thing, when she woke up in the middle of the night. She’d stand right in front of Roy and just stare until he woke up and fucking shit himself when the first thing he saw was her creepy fuck muppet face standing nose to nose with him.
Jamie isn’t that bad, compared to Phoebe, at least he’d kept a respectable distance instead of shoving his sticky child hands in Roy’s face, but it’s still fucking creepy waking up to someone staring at him in the middle of the fucking night.
“what the fuck are you doing?” Roy grumbled, still half asleep into his pillow, willing himself further into consciousness. If Jamie was in his room, it was probably for a reason. For as much of a prick as he was about going to bed, once he was down, he usually stayed down. Jamie makes a little surprised noise, like he wasn’t expecting Roy to have caught him.
“uh- nothing. you’re dreaming.” Jamie rushed out, blinking owlishly at him as Roy properly sat up and got a good look at him. It was dark, and Roy wasn’t the best at seeing in the dark these days, but it was easy enough to tell that something was wrong with him. His voice was thick, like he’d been crying. He was shifting from foot to foot, hand under his shirt twisting at the fabric the way he did when he got nervous.
“yeah, fucking right I’m dreaming.” Roy huffed, flicking on his bedside lamp and blinking as the light flooded the room. Like he’d suspected, Jamie looked… distraught. Not quite sad, or scared, but upset. His hair was a mess, tousled from sleep and his face was a blotchy red the way it got when he was about to cry or had just finished crying. Roy can even see the shiny remnants of tears clinging to his lashes. “what’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Jamie insists, scrubbing at his face quickly like he hadn’t realised Roy could see him now that the lights were on. His voice sounds wet, and the hand fisted in his shirt tightens ever so slightly. “I’m fine, everything’s fine.”
“yeah, because you look so fucking fine right now.” Roy sighs, running a hand over his face to wake himself up a bit more. The clock beside his bed told him it was 12:35 AM. too fucking early if you asked him. “what’re you doing in here? what’s wrong?”
“I told you- nothing.” Jamie repeated stubbornly, like Roy was going to believe him when he was standing at the foot of Roy’s bed in his rumpled pyjamas with dried tears on his face. “nothing’s wrong I was just- checking.”
“Checking?” Roy asked, unsure if he’d heard Jamie right. He doesn’t know what the fuck Jamie would need to be checking in Roy’s room at half past fucking twelve. “checking what?”
“Nothing.” Jamie replied, turning his face to stare at the wall instead of looking at Roy, face flushed with what Roy suspected was embarrassment and jaw set stubbornly.
“is that the only word you fucking know?” Roy groused.
“No.” Jamie pouted, toeing at the ground. He looked fucking miserable, which was probably the only reason Roy didn’t chuck him out for being a nitwit nuisance so early in the fucking morning. He was shivering like it was freezing, even though he was in warm pyjamas pants, because Roy had refused to let the fuck muppet go to bed in fucking boxers in the middle of winter even though he fucking whined about it for at least an hour. Roys house was warm, but it wasn’t that fucking warm.
“Alright then.” Roy sighed, shuffling to the side “did you find what you were fucking looking for?”
Jamie turned to him again, head tilted a bit too the side and looking at Roy appraisingly. Roy didn’t know what he was looking for exactly, but he knew the moment Jamie found it, his entire body relaxing, the hand twisted up in the fabric of his shirt loosening.
“Yeah.” Jamie mumbled, after the moment of silence. He still didn’t move. He doesn’t relax completely either. His shoulders are still hiked up halfway to his ears, and eyes trained to the ground now that he was no longer searching Roy’s face intently.
“are you going to go back to bed now?” Roy asks, not sure what else to do.
“…I guess.” Jamie sighed, but still didn’t move.
Even if he didn’t know what was wrong, and Jamie was being a stubborn little twat refusing to explain, Roy could tell there was something bothering the muppet. Jamie was a lot of things, but subtle wasn’t one of them. Roy blamed his years of dealing with Phoebe for the thought process behind what he does next.
“Do you want to sleep here tonight?”
Jamie’s eyes snap up towards Roy, bewilderment clear on his face.
“what?”
“Do you want to sleep here.” Roy repeated, less of a question this time and more of a statement.
“why would I-”
“You’re clearly upset about something Jamie- and I swear to god if you say nothings fucking wrong, I’ll fucking smack you- you don’t have to tell me what, but you don’t have to be miserable alone.”
“nothings-” Jamie cut himself off, lips pursed as he considered how serious Roy was about smacking him if he said it again. He shakes his head minutely, taking a stilted half step back. “It’s stupid. I can just go back to my own room, sorry for waking you up.”
“I didn’t ask if it was stupid, I asked if you wanted to stay here.”
“what- like in your bed?” Jamie asked, face scrunched up in confusion like it was a novel concept. Roy realises it might be.
“Yeah.”
“with you?”
“yes.”
“Isn’t that weird?”
“How’s it fucking weird?” Roy asked “I sit with you in your bed all the time.”
“well yeah, but you don’t fucking stay there do you?”
“what difference does it make?”
Jamie shrugged, clearly not able to come up with a sufficient enough answer for why exactly it would be weird for him to stay in Roy’s room for the night but still unsure if he actually should.
“Jamie, I promise, it’s not as big of a deal as you seem to fucking think it is.” Roy sighs “I share with Phoebe all the time when she’s upset.”
“I’m not Phoebe.”
“But you are upset.”
“It’s dumb.” Jamie mumbled again
“that’s still not what I fucking asked.” Roy said. “You don’t have to stay if you don’t want too. But I’m offering. If you don’t want to be alone right now, you can stay.”
“are you sure?” Jamie asked, looking so fucking small as he gazed at Roy with wide, half hopeful and half confused eyes. It was ridiculous, how fucking small Jamie could make himself seem, when he was nervous and unsure. Roy had resigned himself to it, but it was still fucking annoying the way it pulled at his chest.
“yes, I’m fucking sure.” he replied “now make up your fucking mind you muppet, I want to go back to sleep.”
Jamie blinked at him, bleary and wide eyed like a confused fucking puppy as Roy shuffled to the side to make room for Jamie. He didn’t know for sure if Jamie was going to stay, but he had a pretty good fucking idea of it. Jamie was clingy at the best of times, even more so when he was upset about something.
Sure enough, after another minute or so of Jamie shuffling from foot to foot at the end of Roy’s bed, he came shuffling around to the side. Jamie moves slow, kneeling on the mattress gingerly like he’s expecting Roy to turn around and tell him to fuck off instead. He stays like that for a moment, assessing how serious Roy actually is about letting him stay before ever so slowly pulling the covers back and clambering under them. He lays stiffly beside Roy, flat on his back with his arms crossed over his stomach like he’s a fucking mummy.
Roy rolled his eyes, reaching over to flick the lamp off, plunging the room back into darkness. Jamie’s breath hitches lightly as Roy lays back down beside him. It evens out again as Roy settles back into his mattress getting comfortable. Jamie kept laying there beside him, stiff as a fucking board like he had no idea what to do with himself.
Which was fucking ridiculous, since Roy knew for a fact the little twat was usually a human fucking barnacle, clinging tightly to whoever was beside him until he fell asleep. Roy had been on the receiving end of Jamie’s clinginess enough times to know the rigid way he was holding himself certainly wasn’t going to be putting him back to sleep any time fucking soon. Not to mention Roy wasn’t that keen on sleeping beside a fucking statue.
“oi,” Roy grumbled into the quiet darkness “calm the fuck down.”
“I am calm.” Jamie whispered back, sounding the very opposite of calm “I’m so calm.”
Roy snorted, reaching over and grabbing Jamie by the elbow, tugging the muppet closer to him, closing the gap that Jamie had left between them when he laid down as close to the edge of the mattress as possible like an idiot.
“what’re you doing?” Jamie asked quietly, though he allowed himself to be manoeuvred easily as Roy tucked him close to his chest, Jamie’s head resting on his collar bone.
“what’s it look like I’m doing?” Roy replied simply with a roll of his eyes, threading his hands through Jamie’s hair tightly, and suddenly Jamie was boneless against him. It’s a neat trick, that is.
“that’s cheating.” Jamie mumbled petulantly, as Roy scratches his fingers over Jamie’s scalp. Even as he says it, Jamie tries to move closer all the stiffness from before giving way to familiarity. Jamie’s hand moves up to cling to Roy’s shirt sleeve, his thumb rubbing little circles over the fabric rhythmically.
“shh, shut up.” Roy shushed. Jamie made an indignant little noise at being shushed.
“don’t tell me to shut up.” He huffed.
“go to fucking sleep brat.” Roy chided gently “it’s past your bedtime.”
Jamie sighs, put out at the gentle scolding. It doesn’t have much of an effect, when his breath is coming out in short, steady puffs against Roy’s neck, his eyes fluttering closed with each light scratch through his hair. Jamie was warm against Roy’s side, bony fucking skull heavy on Roy’s chest, and without much fanfare he throws his other arm over Roy’s middle, adding to the weight and clinging tightly, pulling himself impossibly closer. Roy wouldn’t be surprised if he woke up in the morning to Jamie laying fully on top of him. Roy was a little surprised that the thought didn’t bother him much.
They stay like that for a time. Roy doesn’t really keep track. He’s almost back to sleep when Jamie speaks up again, so quiet Roy almost doesn’t hear it.
“I had a bad dream.” he whispered, the hand clinging to Roy’s sleeve tightening. Roy grunted softly, a quiet prompt to continue, to show that he was listening. “my dad was there, and he was- he was being a dick, I guess. Nothing special really. But you were there too, and you were being fucking weird, and then you left. You just- you left.”
Roy stays quiet for a moment, taking it all in with no idea how to respond. It didn’t surprise Roy, that Jamie had dreams about his dad but it did surprise him a bit that he had them about Roy too. He waited, hoping that maybe Jamie would continue but he doesn’t. He stays utterly quiet, and Roy realises after a second that he’s holding his breath waiting for Roy to have something to say. At least this part was easy.
“I’m not going to leave you. Ever.” Roy promised, holding Jamie tightly, trying to make him feel just how much he meant it through the sheer force. Like maybe, if he held on hard enough Jamie would never have a reason to doubt it. “Unfortunately for you, you’re fucking stuck with me.” Roy feels more than he sees the ghost of a smile on Jamie’s face as he twists to bury his nose in Roy’s collar.
“’ts not that unfortunate.” Jamie mumbled, and Roy’s taken off guard by the soft sincerity of it all. Jamie buries himself in Roy’s arms as much as he can, rubbing his face on Roy’s shirt like a fucking cat, grinning against his neck. “Think it’s pretty mint, actually. There are worse people to be stuck with than a grumpy old twat like you.”
Roy doesn’t know what to say to that. Never had known how to handle open affection when it was directed at him even if he was pretty good at showing it to other people. Instead, he moves his hand up to smack Jamie on the back of the head ever so slightly.
“oi, watch who you’re calling old you little prick.” He grumbled lightly “now go back to fucking sleep. It’s too early for you to be running your mouth.”
Jamie scoffed, and Roy couldn’t see it but he could picture him rolling his eyes with all the dramatics of a fucking oscar winning actor.
“whatever grandad,” Jamie mumbled, sounding so very fucking amused with himself. It’s quiet for a moment, and then he pipes again, soft and sincere this time “Night, Roy.”
“Goodnight Jamie.”