Chapter Text
Jamie can feel a breakdown coming on.
He has felt an inkling of anxiety and dread ever since he stepped off the bus to Wembley Stadium for the FA Cup semi-final against Man City.
Jamie wouldn’t consider himself a nervous player, having played football professionally for as long as he has. Yes, maybe for the first few months after his debut, he would experience consecutive breakdown episodes minutes before getting on the field. But that hasn’t happened for a very long time.
Mostly because, early in his career, he learned that in order for his breakdowns to stop occurring as often as they did, he just had to push his brain into overdrive, to dissociate himself from all his most human emotions. So that, in his mind, the only drive moving him along the field is the desire to score, to win…
Yes, it is unhealthy. Jamie might not be the brightest bulb in the shed, but he still has some sense of self-awareness. And he has been meeting Dr. Fieldstone to talk about it, even if the progress of getting him out of this habit is slow, given how long he has relied on this coping mechanism to regulate his emotions.
Now, however, after a disappointing 5–nil match against Man City, as the team starts to leave the Wembley field, Jamie can feel his chest tighten as it gets harder to breathe. He can feel his clothes sticking to his skin like a second, uncomfortable, disorienting flesh suit. The smells of sweat and grass that he had failed to notice earlier - when they arrived at the stadium and during the match - now hit him in waves of discomfort.
Roy comes up beside him, a hand on his shoulder as he asks if Jamie is okay, which, under normal conditions, would be extremely out of character for Roy. At least, to other people.
Yes, they used to headbutt each other all the time - in the locker room, on the field, during parties. Roy and Jamie seemed to find any reason possible just to push at each other’s buttons. Roy would call him a pain in his arse and a thorn in his eye, while Jamie just liked the feeling of being one of the few who could rile up THE Roy Kent - Chelsea’s legendary midfielder and Jamie’s childhood hero (and also long-time sexual awakening).
Nowadays, Jamie finds that the hostility Roy specifically used to hold for him has turned into something less antagonistic, less combative. Something along the lines of care - subtle, but still noticeable, if Jamie didn’t know any better. Jamie would argue that he was so used to baiting Roy into yelling at him, giving him just a molecule of attention - something Roy usually reserved for other teammates during his time as captain and during the first few weeks of being AFC Richmond’s official coach - that now, whenever Roy comes to him after every training session with a water bottle and towels in hand (which he used to happily let be Will’s responsibility, and doesn’t seem to do for anyone else), or when he claps Jamie on the back with a low grunt of affirmation after an especially good training match where Jamie is able to score more goals than he normally would, or whenever Jamie finds Roy’s eyes locked on him after he finishes dissociating from whatever turmoil is gnawing at him on the inside, Jamie finds it a bit jarring how, just a few months ago, Roy was instantaneously ready to get his pay docked just so he could get Jamie out of his coaching responsibility.
Not that Jamie is complaining - he likes the attention, very much so when the source of it is Roy.
Right now, however, such attention does not help, as the only thing he really wants to do is go away, lock himself in a room, and cry, either until his body runs out of energy and he faints from exhaustion and days of sleep deprivation, or until a nosy journalist who managed to sneak past security pushes a mic to his face and starts asking him personal questions that he would rather punch them for than answer.
Jamie unconsciously registers that having a breakdown right here, right after their loss to Man City, in front of old teammates and current friends - and especially in front of his father (although Jamie failed to see him in the stadium, he is sure that James Tartt Sr. is here, given how big of a Man City fan the man is) - would not only be excruciatingly embarrassing and humiliating; he would definitely never hear the end of it from his father.
(Jamie isn’t sure if he should be concerned by the fact that the image of his father’s disappointed face horrifies him more than the possibility of being labeled a “crybaby” in any sports tabloid that has or will ever exist. He categorizes the information at the back of his mind to bring it up later to Dr. Fieldstone.)
Thus, he pushes his brain into dissociation, waves Roy away with a hushed “I’m fine,” as he drags his feet along everyone else into the AFC Richmond-reserved changing room.
Jamie fails to notice the confusion in Roy’s facial expression as his eyebrows scrunch up and his jaw tightens.