Chapter Text
It’s not like Roy hadn’t known.
They’d all been briefed a number of times by the team’s medical staff about what to do in the event of one of Jamie’s seizures. He’d sat through the talk now as both a player and a coach, dutifully taking the information in about when to move Jamie, and what might happen, and who to call.
But Jamie’s on medication. He’s almost two years seizure free. It’s in his fucking file.
So he’s not actually prepared for it.
Not when he’s alone in the office after Ted and Beard have to leave early for some owner’s lunch with Rebecca, and he’s sitting enjoying the quiet of the space until Colin is sprinting in, door banging against the wall in his haste, eyes wide in panic.
“Something’s wrong with Jamie.”
Roy’s up and out of his chair in a second, and he follows the player back around the corner and into the locker room where the whole team are crowded around Jamie’s cubby.
Most of them are keeping their distance, but Isaac is crouching in front of Jamie and waving a hand back and forth in front of the man’s face, and Dani’s just off to his side, eyebrows knotted together in concern as he watches the interaction.
Jamie himself is staring at Isaac like he’s never seen the man before in his life, mouth opening and closing on repeat like a goldfish, in a way that Roy would usually find amusing if the player didn’t look so fucking lost.
“Oi. Jamie. Can you hear me? What the fuck's going on?” The coach immediately works his way closer to Jamie, filling the gap that Dani leaves for him once he sees that the older man has arrived.
“He started trying to say something but he just... sort of drifted.” Isaac’s lowered voice is the only giveaway that his usually calm demeanour is under any threat.
“Did he hit his head in training?” Roy directs the question at Isaac first, getting a negative shake of the head, before he turns to the other players to hear their responses, and is given the all clear by everybody standing there.
“Right. Okay. Good. Fine.” Roy nods to himself, somewhat reassured in the knowledge that Jamie’s not been sitting on a concussion for the last hour without any of them being aware of it, until it occurs to him that now he’s actually got no fucking idea what this is.
“Jamie? Can you hear me?”
Roy figures it’s at least worth a try at grabbing the boy’s attention again, even when it renders no results, and the player is still staring off, mouth bobbing up and down, only now he’s been like that for long enough that there’s a stream of saliva escaping one side of his mouth that only serves to make Roy more concerned.
“Right. Help me get him on the floor. I’ll have to call someone from medical.” Roy is silently cursing Ted for allowing the health team to leave as soon as the team had filtered off the pitch, healthy as ever, only forty minutes earlier.
Isaac however, is just glad for the instruction. He stands a little from where he’s crouching, taking one of Jamie’s arms gently in his hands, and using his other palm to guide the player off the bench by the base of his spine.
It’s easier than Roy had imagined, somehow. Cause Jamie might be unresponsive, but his arms and legs move like jelly when the pair work together to get him flat out on the floor.
And a few moments later, when Jamie finally makes a sort of strangled noise from the back of his throat, Roy thinks that maybe the move has helped, that it’s shaken Jamie from whatever trance he was in.
He doesn’t have the time to act on the relief that the thought offers, however, when Jamie’s left arm starts twitching. Followed by his left leg. And then his head is jolting repeatedly to one side. Until eventually, his whole body is in the throes of what is the first seizure Roy has ever seen in his life.
And it’s fucking terrifying.
All at once he’s aware of how close he is to Jamie’s body, and how close Jamie’s body is to the corner benches they’ve just moved him from. He’s staring at the pairs of haphazardly thrown aside boots, and the kit bag that’s close enough to Jamie’s arm that he’s skimming it with every movement.
He looks up from the fitting player and sees how the whole team are still crowded around, staring at Jamie with wide eyes and pallid faces, and they’re too fucking close.
“Right! Everyone back the fuck off! Isaac, get all this shit out of the way. Will, towel, now.” The words are loud enough to shake the room from it’s frozen state, the team backing away and fanning out through the wider space in the room, Isaac following them just a moment later with arms full of loose items of clothing and belongings that he’s scooped up from the ground.
Will is the only one that gets closer, rushing over with a stack of clean towels that he deposits on the bench before disappearing again to the back of the crowd.
Roy tugs the top two from the pile, cushioning Jamie’s head with them against the harshness of the linoleum floors, before he too backs away a few more inches, eyes fixed firmly on Jamie’s mouth and throat, checking for anything out of the ordinary there that might hint towards danger.
“Shit. Fuck. What time is it? We’re meant to fucking time them. Fuck!” The thought comes to Roy a minute too late, when he’s already been kneeling there with baited breath for at least 30 seconds, rifling through the medical staff’s information pamphlet in his mind as he waits for the seizure to be over.
“I’m doing it. He’s been down for about a minute and a half.” Jan pipes up from the centre of the distant crowd, eyes locked on his phone screen where a stopwatch is running, and Roy nods thankfully at the ever-calm Dutchman.
It’s another minute past that point when Jamie’s jerky movements finally seem to slow, and Roy feels at last that it’s safe to breathe again.
When Jamie’s body has stilled completely, Roy once again closes the distance between himself and the player, checking Jamie’s airways before rolling the younger man onto his side and into the recovery position, trying to pointedly ignore how the boy’s hips are sitting in a puddle of urine that’s soaked right through the fabric of his shorts.
“Right. He’s safe. Under five minutes is fine. You lot get off home, okay?”
There’s an immediate onslaught of arguments from everybody in the room, which Roy silences with a loud growl, glaring at the team.
“Oi! Listen. He’s gonna be fucking embarrassed enough without you lot fucking gawking at him. I’ll check he’s alright. I’ll get him home. You lot can see him later if he asks you to. But for now, fuck off home and let him be, alright?”
It seems to get the message across, cause the other players pack up their bags and start filtering out of the room one by one, offering Roy quiet goodbyes and well-wishes for Jamie, until it’s just Roy, Jamie and Dani left in the room, the latter standing awkwardly by the benches squeezing nervously at the strap of his bag.
“What the fuck did I just say, Rojas? He’s fine, alright? Go home.” Roy’s voice has none of its usual harshness, he can’t bring himself to really be angry when Dani’s usually unfailingly smiley face is still the image of terror.
“He’s staying at mine, coach. Jamie’s father has been- He’s staying in London with some friends and they have Jamie’s address. So he’s staying with me. Just until they’re gone.”
There’s so much that Dani leaves unsaid, but Roy nods in grim understanding, dragging a hand over his face and letting out a sigh for the boy on the floor, distantly remembering one of the team medics explaining to the coaches how increased emotional stress could up the likelihood of Jamie’s seizures.
“Do me a favour then and grab him a spare pair of shorts. Don’t want to go rifling through his fucking bag.” Dani nods and turns back to the main wall of lockers, digging around in his own to retrieve a clean pair of shorts.
It’s then that Jamie makes another noise, and his lips open and close a couple of times, and for one terrifying moment Roy wonders if it’s about to happen again.
But then the player’s eyes blink open slowly, and he swallows deeply a couple of times as he tries to focus his eyes on the coach in front of him.
“Wh’appened?” Jamie’s voice cracks halfway through the mumbled sentence, and he coughs to clear his throat, turning a little to lay flat on his back.
“You’ve had a seizure, mate. Give yourself a minute.”
Jamie screws his eyes shut against the lights in the room, shuffling a little to try and move into a sitting position, only to put his hand in the puddle around his midsection.
“Shit.” Jamie scrunches his nose up in disgust, shaking his hand off to one side.
“Not quite, mate.” Roy hopes the joke will land well, unsure of how to really deal with the situation, although he passes another towel to Jamie and averts his eyes as the man wipes off his hand before moving to sit on the material.
“You’re not fuckin’ funny, grandad.” Jamie finally glances up at Roy again, unimpressed, but he doesn’t appear to be too offended, and his speech is already stronger than it was, so Roy lets his shoulders relax a little.
“Did… Did the team see?” It’s the first time since Wembley that Roy’s seen genuine shame on Jamie’s face, the player casting his eyes down at his sodden shorts where he’s fiddling with the still-dry edges of the fabric.
“Yeah. They did. Sorry, mate.” Roy knows it’s not his fault, that he’s just telling the truth, but he feels unbearably guilty when Jamie’s head drops a little lower, and the boy nods silently without another word.
“They are just worried about you, amigo. Nobody thinks lesser of you for something that you cannot control.” Dani pipes up from across the room, and Jamie jumps a little at the introduction of a new voice, looking up with wide eyes as though he’s worried there might be a whole audience there waiting for him.
He calms a little after just a moment and nods, looking at least slightly less crestfallen, while Dani finally approaches the pair on the floor and hands Jamie the fresh shorts he’d been holding.
“Come on then. Let’s get you up.”
Roy stands from his place on the ground, warning the two teammates when he has to crack his bad knee back into place, before he leans back down and puts a hand under each of Jamie’s armpits to support him as he stands up on shaky legs from the floor.
“Is there anything else you need?”
“Just a drink, maybe. Get like, a weird taste in m’ mouth before it happens. Always takes a bit to go away.” Jamie explains quietly as he begins shuffling himself across the room to the showers to rinse off and change.
Roy nods and leaves the boy some privacy as he heads down the hall, returning a few minutes later with a bottle of lucozade sport, and his own bag and jacket thrown over his shoulder.
Jamie’s standing back by his locker now, in quiet conversation with Dani who’s holding both of their belongings, still resting a steadying hand on Jamie’s bicep.
“Right. Let’s get you home. You taking him back to yours, Dani?” Roy passes the drink to Jamie, who nods in thanks and takes a few sips, while Dani turns his attention to the coach in the room.
“Jamie drove us here this morning.” Roy rolls his eyes but nods nontheless, digging his car keys from the pocket of his jeans and beckoning for the players to follow him as he begins to head out of the room.
“Fine. Give me your address, I can drive you both home.”
Dani does as he’s told, and the three pile into Roy’s car, Dani sitting beside Jamie in the back seat. The pair are silent the whole way, and Dani still looks uncharacteristically nervous every time Roy glances into the rearview mirror, despite the fact that Jamie is gaining more colour in his cheeks with every passing minute.
Roy thinks he understands a little more though, when they pull up to the address that Dani’s given and walk Jamie up the path and inside, and Roy realises it’s a simple, one-bed flat. No spare room where Jamie could be staying, and no emergency set of bedding lying out on the sofa to suggest he’s camping out there either.
And Roy watches the way Dani is still carefully steadying Jamie with gentle hands as he gets the younger player settled on the settee, asking whether he wants a hot drink or needs anything to eat, and Jamie, even through his exhaustion, is smiling softly up at the Mexican player and offering up quiet reassurances, fingers curled around Dani's wrist to slow the fussing.
So he nods to himself, satisfied that Jamie’s in safe hands, suddenly feeling like maybe he’s intruding.
“I’ll tell Lasso and Beard what happened. So expect some fucking yankee-doodle bullshit about how he’s only a call away if you need him. I don’t want to see you at training tomorrow unless you’re feeling 100-fucking-percent, alright Tartt?”
Jamie nods again at the question, but his eyes are barely staying open, and he’s already curling himself into the corner of the couch, head resting on the back cushions, burrowing under a blanket that he’s pulled from the arm of the sofa.
So Roy says a quick goodbye to them both, before heading back outside and climbing into his car to head home.
And when he arrives at Nelson Road the next day, it’s to the sounds of Jamie’s Mancunian accent rippling through the hallway from the locker room, followed by a round of cheers and well-meaning laughter from the rest of the team, and he smiles to himself at the sound.