Chapter Text
Jamie had been shifty all day. It was the off season so there was no need for Roy and Jamie to be spending every waking moment together. Yet here they were, in Roy’s kitchen with Roy making pancakes for tea just because Jamie rocked up and whined about how he hadn’t had pancakes all season and he deserved a reward for Roy’s first season as manager ending with them in the Europa League spots. Despite demanding his weight in batter, Jamie was remarkably quiet. Quiet in a way that only Jamie ever was and only somebody familiar with the idiot would notice, which meant he was talking about anything and everything but quietly and kept pausing every so often and looking distant before just starting the conversation again. “Right you’ve got your fucking pancakes, what’s wrong?” Roy pushed the plate over the table before falling into his seat across from Jamie.
“Nothing wrong,” Jamie grumbled, inhaling the pancakes in front of him in a way that Roy’s gut protested in sympathy.
“Christ Jamie breathe between mouthfuls. There’s something wrong so spit it out,” Roy exclaimed. Jamie did thankfully slow down but the manic eating was replaced with pushing the pieces of pancake around his plate like a toddler trying to avoid eating his peas. In this situation it was a 26 year old toddler trying to avoid talking to his best friend.
“Nothing wrong,” Jamie repeated. Roy growled back, effectively letting Jamie know what he thought of that. “Fine. My agent thinks I should capitalise on my Lust Conquers All reality tv buzz and do another show,” he finally confessed.
“Fuck no,” Roy blurted out before his mind caught up with what Jamie was saying. Last time Jamie went on a reality tv show it was to implode his own life and it worked very well for that even though the kind heart of Ted Lasso saved him in the end. Roy couldn’t comprehend why Jamie might be thinking of blowing up his career again. Things were going well … weren’t they? Why did Jamie want to leave when he was playing the best football of his career. And he was washing his hair with conditioner and everything.
“I mean. She says it would be good for my brand and it’d be for charity but I, well, it’s for two people,” Jamie rambled, gesticulating with his pancake filled fork.
“For charity, for your fucking brand! Think of your career,” Roy shouted, pushing his plate away from him so hard the fork went skidding towards Jamie. Silence hung over them as they both stared at the offending fork at the end of the trail of maple syrup it had carried on its flight. They looked at it like he would hold all the answers of what each other was thinking. But the fork didn’t hold any of the answers as to why Roy didn’t see this declaration coming. After what felt like an hour, Jamie looked up. His brow was wrinkled and eyes squinted in frustrated confusion.
“Fuck you on about?” Jamie grumbled. His fork was still half way to his mouth and the lemon and sugar mixture slowly plopping down onto the plate.
“You going on reality TV when things are going so well. We’re fucking winning. Is this because you don’t want to play for Richmond anymore? You were turning down offers just last week. Now you want to do this,” Roy rambled. He didn’t know what to do. Of course he knew that Jamie would move on without him one day but now, he wasn’t expecting it to be now. Juve had called, and Ajax and other premier league teams, and Jamie had turned down all of them saying that he was seeing it out at Richmond at least for another year. Well, Jamie hadn’t said at least another year. He had just said he was staying at Richmond but Jamie was bigger than Richmond. Jamie wouldn’t be staying with Richmond forever. He wouldn’t be staying with Roy forever. He had thought he had another season though. Ajax wouldn’t have moved on and Jamie loved Amsterdam. He could go there instead of imploding his life again. The cogs behind Jamie’s eyes whirred and something clicked. His eyes widened and mouth shifted into a little shocked O.
“Christ Roy, I’m not quitting the team. I’m trying to ask you to go on a little stupid reality thing for two weeks during the off season,” Jamie stated.
“Fuck no,” Roy replied on instinct again but this time it was a lighter, less deeply terrified fuck no.
“You didn’t even let me explain what the show is!” Jamie exclaimed in the same tone as a petulant child who had been told no ice cream. At least his displeasure stopped him seeing the bone deep tension that still hung over him at the thought of Jamie bailing on them. Roy was able to wiggle his fingers and remove them from the white knuckle grip on the table as Jamie returned his attention to his pancakes, albeit with less enthusiasm than before. He could dig the newly freed fingers into the muscles of his knee where it had automatically tensed when he accidentally launched the fork.
“I’m not doing reality TV,” Roy stated, once he was as free from stress as he could be a few minutes after having nearly been given a heart attack by his star player.
“It’s not real reality tv. It’s two weeks, for Stand up to Cancer. It’s that Hunted thing where like celebs go on the run and try and hide out for two weeks as they are hunted by bounty hunters. So like it’d be fun and I wouldn’t have to get my top off or anything,” Jamie rambled, a strange amount of emphasis on the ‘have’ in that last point.
“Why is that on tv?” Roy muttered, leaning over to retrieve his fork. They’d clean the table later.
“It’s just silly like,” Jamie shrugged. “But it’s money for charity and Betty thinks that it would be good for my image to have something other than ditsy sex mad footballer on my resume.” One of the first things that Keeley had insisted upon when Jamie was negotiating his Richmond contract was that he ditch his current agency and go with an up and coming one that she had worked with. Betty was an absolute godsend when it came to managing Jamie’s image and his sponsorships now that Keeley was very busy. She also could keep up and rein back Jamie when he set off with an idea in mind. So if Betty was suggesting this then maybe it wasn’t the worst idea.
“You are a ditsy sex mad footballer,” Roy smiled back, unable to resist the dig opportunity.
“Fuck you, asshole,” Jamie grumbled, “I contain multitudes.”
“Sure you do,” Roy chuckled as Jamie flipped him off. A beat of quiet where the only sound was the scraping of knives cutting into pancakes.
“Why do you even want to do this?” Roy circled back around to the whole point of this conversation.
“Because I could fucking win,” Jamie replied like it was the most obvious thing ever. And that did make the most sense out of anything Jamie had said today. Jamie was ultra competitive and he had clearly believed he could win Lust Conquers All, but he didn’t, and so wouldn’t want to join another competition show without the strong chance he would win. “So what do you think?”
“I think you are stupid to get back involved in reality tv but I can’t stop you and it better not impact on preseason,” Roy grumbled.
“That’s not what I was asking,” Jamie groaned dramatically. “I’m doing it because Betty says so, it looks fun, I like being on tv, and it won’t affect Richmond. I’m asking you to be my teammate idiot.”
Oh yeah. Roy had forgotten about that bit of this insanity.
“We’re a killer team and it needs to be someone that I won’t want to murder being basically alone with for two weeks, because we ain’t getting caught, and we already spend legit all the time together. And you know shit,” Jamie started counting the reasons out on his fingers.
“You’ve thought about this,” Roy cut him off.
“Yeah, a lot. Knew you were going to say no at first, so got Phoebe to help with using persuasive language,” Jamie shrugged.
“You got my niece to help you with persuasive language?” Roy questioned, slowing pronouncing each word to make sure that it was what Jamie had just said.
“Um yeah, she’s doing it at school and she’s well good,” Jamie huffed, again like that was obvious and not completely insane. “I didn’t follow the script though,” Jamie’s nose crinkled in displeasure.
“The script.” Roy was working on his parrot expression today it seemed.
Jamie pulled a little bit of light blue notepaper from Phoebe’s space notebook out of his pocket and started to unfold it.
"Oh, for fucks sake," Roy mutters under his breath as Jamie straightened out the crinkled piece of paper like he was about to make an announcement in front of parliament, not read a speech written by a muppet and a ten year old.
"Roy, I wish you to join me in taking part in this year's season of Celebrity Hunted. I understand you may have some reservations about this idea, but I would appreciate you hearing me out on my reasoning for wanting to pursue this opportunity and why I think it would also be a beneficial endeavour for you," Jamie began, eyes flickering up at Roy and then back down at the paper repeatedly.
"How long is this?" Roy sighed. There would be no stopping the lad now. He sounded like he had swallowed a thesaurus.
"It'll be longer if you keep interrupting me," Jamie glowered until Roy mimed zipping his lips and then the nervous smile returned. Roy shuffled down in his seat and prepared to be here for the long haul.
“I have already decided that I will be taking part in the show. Betty, my agent whose professional advice I value greatly, has recommended that this off season is a great opportunity to revitalise my brand, and a charity show is the best way to do this. I also will be taking part because it seems like a fun use of my time and it will raise money for a good cause. It will not impact my training as it does not run into pre-season even when I make it to the end. In support of this argument, it also will involve a lot of running and being on the move and so will help me keep up my fitness. For these reasons I will not be accepting any criticism of my decision to take part in the show.”
Roy was listening to the speech, but he was more watching Jamie instead of listening to a KS2 persuasive language word mat personified. Maybe Roy should send this speech to Miss Linnett as proof Phoebe had been listening in lessons. He did look genuinely nervous. His foot was tapping and at each pause he dragged his teeth over his lip and took a settling breath. This meant a lot to Jamie. He was putting himself out there, back into the tv environment that he was in at his lowest point, and even though the show looked fun that would be difficult for him. Oh fuck … Roy had just confessed the show looked fun.
“The reason why I am talking to you today is because as my best friend I would like you to join me as my partner on the show. There are many reasons as to why I believe this is a good idea. Firstly, we work very well together as displayed by you being my coach. This means that we already know how each other operates which will be beneficial in the high stress environments we may encounter on the show. As an example, we have the prick signal. This shows that we have effective lines of communication.”
Roy was definitely sending this to Ruth and to Phoebe’s teacher. It was a masterpiece of explanatory writing buzz words. Jamie was making frequent eye contact and the look of a little puppy wanting to go on a walk was working in tandem with the script to take chunks out of the wall of his resolve. He was going to end up on this damn show wasn’t he.
“Secondly, Betty also thinks it would be good for your brand as well as mine. You are not the most open and approachable individual,” Jamie continued with the understatement of the year and tactically ignored the huff it received. “Something like this where you are doing something fun means that the public can see you for you. In addition to my previous comments I believe it would be good for you as well. You get very bored and lonely when I am not around and if I do this I would not be around for two weeks!”
“Bullshit you twat,” Roy blurted out and was levelled with a proper glare from Jamie.
“You zipped your lips,” he grumbled. “And it’s true. If you don’t think that you are delusional. We text every day and see each other every day. I went away to do that photo shoot in Iceland — bad plan do not recommend it was fucking cold. But when I went away you went mad, cleaned the whole of both of our houses top to bottom.”
“Fuck you I can survive on my own,” Roy growled, crossing his arms over his chest.
“But if we do this you won’t have to!” Jamie beamed, before clearing his throat and returning his attention to his script. “As well as the negative emotional side effects of a lack of my presence,” Jamie was not deterred by the glare Roy was levelling at him. He had always been immune to the patented Roy Kent intimidation, the little shit. “Myself, Phoebe and medical professionals we consulted…” of course Ruth was involved in this, traitor, “believe it will be good for your mental health to have a challenge that you do not engage with in your day to day life. This will involve planning, tactics, problem solving and potentially crime!” Jamie was way too excited about the potential crime aspect of this.
“We won’t be committing crimes,” Roy rolled his eyes. Jamie’s smile grew ten times brighter, consuming his whole face and lighting up the kitchen.
“One, of course we will. It’s a crime show, it’s publicly endorsed crimes. And two … you just said we,” Jamie exclaimed.
Fuck.
Despite the traitorous behaviour of his best friend, niece and sister, this did actually sound like it might not be torturous. When he thought of reality TV his mind instantly went to Jamie with his shirt off on sex island. But this wasn’t Jamie with his shirt off on sex island. This was a mental and physical challenge that you could win through skill and planning. Roy did like to win. Surely it couldn’t be too hard to evade some bounty hunters for two weeks.
Why was he considering this? He had done that stupid charity song that haunted him, mostly due to the fact it was Jamie’s ring tone, and had sworn to himself that next time someone rocked up and asked him to do something embarrassing for charity he’d just donate a huge lump sum instead. Yet the idea was rotating in his mind like a rotisserie chicken on the spit. Because it didn’t sound embarrassing. It would be a challenge, and Jamie was an idiot but he would never try to force Roy into doing something he would seriously regret, little regrets in the aim of a fun night were game, but not massive career regrets. Jamie also wouldn’t want to be embarrassed like that. The nerves were subtle, but now Roy was pausing to think he could see the little signs everywhere. His hands were constantly moving in little motions, either creasing or smoothing out the speech in his hands, as his shoulders inched up and then were rolled out to try and look casual. Of course Jamie would be worried about this. His last adventure into the reality tv world still had people shouting “slut!” at him in the street and berating him for his treatment of Amy. This was a chance to go back into that sphere and try and fix it, but to do that he had to go back into that sphere.
“Well, then in conclusion,” Jamie began again, in that stupid slow and well enunciated pitch voice that Roy never wanted to hear again, when it looked like Roy was not going to speak.
"Ok if I am going to do this, which is very much under duress," Roy held his hand up to shush Jamie but his mouth had already slammed shut. His grin was Cheshire Cat like and he certainly had got the cream. "Then we have some ground rules." Jamie did his best bobblehead impression with his head nodding so fast he must have been giving himself whiplash. "I get to watch the show first before I sign on. You follow my lead. I don't share anything that I don't want to. And most importantly, we win at any cost."
A flash of prick Jamie flickered across his smile. There was something almost predatory about his toothy smile and his eyes fixed on Roy's. "Of fucking course we're gonna win."
They did watch the show, stayed up all night watching as Jamie had to give his response by the end of the week. He said he needed Roy to decide quickly as if Roy was going to be a coward then he needed to find a new partner. Jamie's words there of course, nearly doing the job they were intended to by riling up Roy to say yes then and there. Roy would not be so easily manipulated … this time. Every time a contestant made a sloppy error or a mistake Roy couldn’t stop himself from commenting. He knew this was supposed to be the charity version and these were celebrities not actual criminals, but come on now, who seriously hid somewhere then left in someone who worked there’s car to that guy’s house? That’s such an easy trail to follow. With every shouted comment from Roy, Jamie relaxed further into the settee and muttered his own responses contently. Roy found himself planning. They weren’t serious plans, not yet anyway, but they were plans. He wouldn’t be planning if he had no intention of joining Jamie on the show. There was just so much they could do. Roy groaned and let his head slump back against the back of the settee. “Not falling asleep on me are we grandad?” Jamie chuckled, kicking his feet up onto Roy’s lap now they were both relaxed and becoming one with the settee.
“Fine, I’ll do your fucking show,” Roy groaned, mostly jokingly until Jamie kicked him in the ribs while scrambling upright in his excitement.
“You won’t regret it Roy. We’re gonna fucking smash it!” Jamie jumped around like a chipmunk on caffeine in his palpable joy.
“If we’re going to smash it then we need a plan.”
“Let’s get to it then coach. I’ll just call Betty and confirm us,” Jamie flitted until Roy snapped out a hand around his wrist.
“It’s 2am, maybe wait and call during waking hours,” Roy sighed, wiping at his own eyes tiredly.
Jamie looked up at the large clock on the wall, blinked a few times slowly and then nodded. “Yeah, good shout.”
Roy pulled out a large drawing flipchart of Phoebe’s, spreading it out on the dining table and handed Jamie a pack of felt tips. Jamie couldn’t spell for shit but at least his handwriting was legible. “Ok what do you know about the show?” Roy leant over the back of one of the chairs as Jamie started to scribble.
“It’s two weeks. The first like, 12 days are just survival. You just need to stay out of the way of the hunters with all their cameras and reach and tapping phones and cards and shit,” Jamie explained as he focused on writing down the key points.
“So they’ll have close family and friends under watch then. Which counts out help from the team, your mum, and Ruth,” Roy mused and Jamie nodded.
“But we both have extended networks we can call upon and, well we’re fucking loaded so that will help,” Jamie shrugged.
“Can’t use cards though,” Roy’s brow crinkled as he thought.
Jamie’s face fell. “Yeah we’ll have to get cash out and stash it somewhere. But we know where we are starting so we can find someone nearby to stash for us to collect.”
“I’ve got a guy.” It was a simple statement from Roy. But yet it seemed to shock Jamie.
“What do you mean, ‘I’ve got a guy?’” Jamie asked, mimicking Roy’s gruff tones. Now it was Roy’s turn to be confused.
“I mean I’ve got a guy. What’s not clear about that?” Roy growled. “Everyone has a guy. The person who you call when you need something no questions asked. They’re slightly shady but get the job done. A guy!” Roy explained, waving his hand dismissively.
“Has he helped you hide a body?” Jamie hissed, pen discarded and now smudging a dark blue ink stain into the paper.
“Of course he hasn’t, Jesus Jamie,” Roy groaned.
“It sounds illegal but not like petty theft illegal. Cause everyone has done petty theft right so you don’t need a guy for that,” Jamie rambled. It was Roy’s turn to just stare at him.
“Not everyone has done petty theft Jamie. That’s not a universal experience.”
“Really? It’s fun, you should try it,” Jamie huffed.
“So you’ll steal but you won’t have a shady guy in your phone for emergencies,” Roy scoffed, shaking his head.
“I mean I have a boat guy?”
Roy massaged his temples in exasperation. Roy had practically co-parented Phoebe. He knew exactly what happened when you asked someone for clarification of a truly absurd statement. Despite that, he really wanted to know what on earth was happening in Jamie’s mind right now. “What do you mean you have a boat guy?”
“I have a guy, who can secure me a boat on short notice, no questions asked. You never know when you might need a boat Roy,” Jamie grinned.
“I think I do. And I think it’s never, I don’t think I will ever be in dire need of a boat,” Roy dug the hole deeper and deeper. This is why you don’t humour stupid comments from infants.
Jamie rolled his eyes, “that’s what everyone says but I promise you one day will come and you will need a boat and your mysterious guy won’t be able to get you a boat and you’ll think, wow Jamie was talking some real sense back then.”
“I will never think you are talking sense. That’s a mythical situation.”
“Agree to disagree,” Jamie beamed. He leant over to pick up the pen off the stained paper but recoiled with a cry as if he was physically pained.
“Jamie!” Roy exclaimed, startling forward.
“There’s something sticky on my hoodie,” he squawked, holding up his elbow and turning himself cross eyed. “Ew no, I’ll have to get it dry cleaned,” he continued to whine. Roy breathed out deeply and let his heart rate drop from the pounding in his chest. The syrup from earlier. He never had cleaned it off. As Jamie looked physically disgusted at the table and then his elbow again, Roy couldn’t stop the cackle from building in his chest. Oh this was going to go well wasn’t it. Jamie living out on the run when he had a full on tantrum over a stain on his hoodie. “Roy stop, this isn’t funny. It's Versace and that’s going to stain!” Jamie squeaked but that just caused Roy to laugh harder.
This was going to be a shit show.