Ted and Beard stepped out onto the training pitch just as the morning sun burned through the last of London's gray clouds.
A new day. A new job. A new hunting ground.
Somewhere in Richmond lurked a banshee working alongside a demon, and the trail had gone cold the second they'd landed in England. If Rupert Mannion was involved—as Bobby Singer's information suggested—then getting embedded with AFC Richmond was their best chance of finding answers.
That was almost a side quest.
As they walked, Beard was busy giving Ted a rapid-fire tutorial on the local dialect, smoothly bridging the linguistic gap between the Midwest and Greater London.
“It's training, not practice,” Beard muttered, his hands tucked deep into his coat pockets. “Kit instead of uniform. Trainers and boots instead of sneakers. Pitch instead of field. And if someone tells you to put on your jumper, they aren't asking you to leap off a bridge.”
“Noted, Coach. Linguistic localization in progress,” Ted replied with a cheerful nod, adjusting his visor. “It might take some rewriting.”
“They'll know you're American in about three words anyway.”
Ted grinned. “Well, that's comforting.”
They paused near the white-lined perimeter, watching the players tear across the turf in a blur of neon and sweat. Suddenly, a voice cut through the morning mist like a rusty sawblade.
“Jesus, Mary, and fuckface Joseph! Eyes on the man you’re marking! What are you doing, standing around like a pair of spare pricks at a wedding? Come on!”
Ted watched, blinking in mild astonishment, as one towering player viciously shoved another out of his path.
In that exact instant, something strange rippled through Ted. It felt like a sudden jolt of electricity or static electricity rolling beneath his skin, yet it carried an unfamiliar, lingering warmth. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but a peculiar sensation whispered in the back of his mind—he felt like he knew this man. Or, at the very least, he had crossed paths with him in a dream, a past life, or perhaps one of the intelligence files back home.
It was utterly bizarre, primarily because Ted was certain he would have remembered running into someone as tall, perpetually brooding, aggressively dark, loud, and exceedingly handsome as Roy Kent.
Which, unfortunately, was also a terribly distracting thought. After all, the entire reason he had dragged himself across the Atlantic Ocean was to save his marriage. Well, that, and hunt interdimensional monsters, and manage a professional English football club—but repairing his relationship with Michelle was supposed to be priority number one.
“Who in the wide world of sports is that?” Ted asked, his curiosity instantly sparking like a live wire.
“Roy Kent,” Beard answered instantly, his voice entirely flat. “Team captain. Classic old-school box-to-box midfielder. Legs are starting to go, though. Definitely lost a step or two.”
Ted figured they might actually get along swimmingly. They were probably hovering around the same age, both weathered by the brutal physical toll of professional sports. They spoke the universal language of old-school competitors. They could probably sit down over a beer—or a whiskey—and understand each other's point of view without even saying a word.
Before Ted could ponder Roy's potential supernatural aura further, Nate scurried over from the sidelines holding out a tray of disposable cups filled with a cloudy, shimmering liquid.
He still hadn't ruled Nate out entirely. Bobby had taught him years ago that monsters came in every personality imaginable. Loud. Quiet. Charming. Awkward. Being nervous didn't make someone innocent. But it also didn't make them guilty.
“But, you know, he’s an absolute legend,” Nate said, his eyes wide with hero-worship as he defended the team captain. “Won a Champions League title with Chelsea, you know.”
“Eight years ago,” Beard supplied dryly, refusing to let the hype overshadow the cold, hard statistics.
Someone had certainly done their homework. While Beard had spent the last three days meticulously cross-referencing lore with athletic rosters, Ted had spent that exact same timeframe consuming whiskey, sulking in his apartment, and trying to psych himself up for the realities of European soccer.
“Yeah,” and then Nate watched as Ted took as sip from the sports drink. He paused, his face twitching slightly. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, this is a mighty fine sports drink, young fella.”
It tasted distinctly salty—like someone had emptied half the contents of a salt shaker into a vat of lemon-lime Gatorade—but Ted figured having some extra electrolytes in his system couldn't hurt, especially if they ended up wrestling a shape-shifter before lunch.
“Here, Coach, try it,” Ted offered, passing a cup over to his silent partner.
Beard took the cup, raised it to his nose, and took a cautious sip. He swished the neon fluid around in his mouth with the clinical precision of a master sommelier. Beard possessed taste buds far more refined than Ted ever would; he could mentally catalog and name every single chemical compound, artificial dye, and electrolyte imbalance present in a beverage. Aside from the heavy, briny salt content, it was deemed chemically acceptable.
Slowly, deliberately, Beard tipped the cup in Nate’s direction in a silent nod of approval.
“That kind of praise does not come lightly from that fella, I’ll tell you that much,” Ted said, his face lighting up with genuine excitement. Not poison, apparently. That's a win. “You continue to impress us day in and day out, Nathan.”
“You... you remembered my name,” Nate said softly, a faint pink dusting his cheeks as he stared at the turf in disbelief.
And right then and there, all lingering thoughts of Nate being some sort of undercover goblin or cloaked demon vanished completely. The kid practically apologized when people bumped into him. He was just a profoundly shy kid who clearly didn't get noticed by anybody in this massive, intimidating facility.
Rule Number Four of hunting:
Trust people. Verify anyway.
Before Nate could bask in the praise too long, a sudden, explosive crack echoed across the pitch. Ted turned his head just in time to watch a player strike a football with terrifying velocity. The ball missed the goal entirely, but catapulted violently off the metal goalpost with a deafening CLANG that reverberated through the chilly morning air.
“Holy smokes! Did you see that?” Ted exclaimed, whistling low. “That fella looked like a kitty cat spooked by a cucumber. Who the heck is that guy?”
“Jamie Tartt," Beard stated without missing a beat. “Currently the top scorer on the team.”
True to form, Beard had already done his comprehensive homework on the entire roster. He had spent his nights pouring through digital player files, scouting reports, and countless hours of YouTube highlight reels. He had copied the player profiles, tactical formations, and his own wild supernatural theories into a thick, color-coded binder.
Then he'd called Bobby Singer.
Bobby had listened to Beard's theories in silence before finally sighing.
“Boy... either you're losing your damn mind... or you're onto something.”
Beard had promised him a bottle of expensive whiskey if Bobby dug through the Men of Letters archives for anything involving banshees operating alongside demons.
“Nate, my man, what’s he like?” Ted asked, leaning in slightly.
He wanted firsthand, unfiltered intelligence from someone who watched these complex personalities up close day in and day out, away from the PR cameras and glossy magazine profiles.
“Who, Jamie?” Nate asked, swallowing hard. “He’s brilliant... well, at football, anyway.”
“Yeah, I figured. I’ve worked with fellas cut from that exact same cloth all the time back home,” Ted murmured, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly.
Automatically a prime suspect. Good to know. Jamie moved one column higher on Ted's mental list of people worth keeping an eye on. Because he was an unknown. High skill, massive ego, and an underlying aura of chaotic energy—the holy trinity of demonic possession or fairy mischief or just a stereotypical 22 year old.
Nate noticed Ted studying someone else now.
A young man with an easy smile exchanged a laugh with another teammate before jogging back into position.
“That’s Sam Obisanya,” Nate pointed. “He’s a right back defender outta the Nigerian league.”
Ted tilted his head, letting the information wash over him as he watched Sam effortlessly juggle the ball with his feet, making it look like an extension of his own body.
“Nigeria? Like, Africa?” Ted mused aloud, a thoughtful grin spreading across his face. “Well, hot dog. These folks have flown in from all over the map, haven't they?”
Ted looked around the pitch.
Players from England. Nigeria. Wales. Mexico. Canada. France. Every corner of the world represented on one football club.
“Well,” Ted said quietly, “that's pretty wonderful.”
“Whole lotta different stories standing on one field.”
And, if hunting had taught him anything...
Different stories sometimes came with different folklore, different monsters, and different magic.
Which meant AFC Richmond was both a football club and possibly a crossroads.
But what they didn’t know was Ted Lasso was ready to coach, charm, and exorcise his way through every single one of them.
“Did you end up talking to him?” Sam asked as they jogged through warm-up laps.
Roy scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “No,” he muttered.
Roy sighed. “I fucking couldn't.”
Which wasn't exactly true.
Ted Lasso was somewhere in Richmond. Roy could feel that much.
His grace had recognized Ted's soul the second the American had stepped onto British soil.
Unfortunately, grace wasn't equipped with a bloody SATNAV.
It could point him in the general direction of souls he was deeply connected to. It could hear prayers whispered across oceans. It could detect demons, monsters, and celestial beings from miles away.
But one middle-aged football coach who had absolutely no idea he existed?
That was apparently asking too much.
Seeing as Ted wasn't praying to him—and likely wouldn't be anytime soon—Roy was left wandering Richmond like an idiot whenever he had free time, hoping he'd accidentally run into him.
He hated hoping, especially when it wasn't working.
Before Sam could press the matter further, Jamie Tartt came barreling across the turf with all the subtlety of a runaway freight train, crashing right into Roy’s side at full force. Roy stumbled half a step under the impact, but his feet planted deep into the grass, holding firm like an ancient oak.
“Try to keep up, Grandad!” Jamie chirped harshly over his shoulder, flashing a smug, infuriating grin as he jogged away.
His eyes flashed. Only for a heartbeat. A brilliant blue-white shimmer bled into his irises before vanishing again.
Roy pinched the bridge of his nose. “Bloody hell…”
And then, his gaze drifted past the midfielders.
He noticed that Ted had just arrived on the far sideline, casually chatting away with Nate as if he owned the place.
Roy immediately forced his face into a mask of pure, unadulterated stoicism. He didn’t blink. He didn't flinch.
But his breath caught sharply in his throat. His grace recognized him.
And his celestial wings, unfortunately, were an entirely different story.
While they remained safely tucked away in the invisible, ethereal plane where mortals couldn't spot them, the sudden surge of overwhelming emotion caused them to come completely undone.
Both enormous wings exploded open behind him. Eight meters from tip to tip. Pitch- black feathers caught the morning sunlight as they unfurled with breathtaking speed, stretching after what felt like centuries folded tight against his back.
Every feather quivered. Then fluttered. Then practically vibrated like they were trying to launch him across the bloody field.
Instantly, a heavy, unnatural gust of wind swept across the training pitch, whipping up loose blades of grass and dust.
“What the bloody hell?” Colin muttered, throwing a hand up to shield his eyes as he squinted at the sky. “I checked the weather app this morning. There wasn't supposed to be a gale.”
Roy’s face turned an alarming shade of bright crimson, which he immediately blamed on physical exertion rather than mortifying embarrassment. There was technically no reason to feel embarrassed when nobody could actually see the wings, and when absolutely zero mortals knew what—or who—he really was.
The wings had minds of their own.
They arched higher, feathers ruffling with enough force that another gust rolled over the training pitch.
Footballs wobbled and rolled away. Orange training cones tipped over one by one, clattering across the grass.
Isaac frowned at the sky. “The fuck?”
Beard, who had went inside and just wandered onto the pitch carrying a clipboard, looked upward. “Huh.”
Jamie stopped running too, turning in a slow circle with a scowl. “Why's it suddenly windy on just this side of the pitch?”
Roy clenched every muscle he had.
Instead of obeying, the left wing gave one delighted little twitch, like a cat spotting a laser pointer. The right followed suit immediately afterward, wagging back and forth like an excited dog's tail catching sight of its owner.
Across the pitch, Ted suddenly threw his head back and laughed heartily at something Nate said.
Roy heard it. Not because he had particularly sharp hearing—
Angels could listen in on prayers whispered from entirely different continents if they concentrated hard enough. Which meant tuning into Ted Lasso’s laugh from a mere thirty meters away wasn't exactly difficult. In fact, it was impossible to block out.
It was warm. It sounded precisely like how golden sunlight felt pressing against your face on the first truly hot day of spring.
His grace practically purred inside his chest, vibrating against his ribs. The invisible feathers along both of his sprawling wings puffed out in sheer contentment.
“I’m fine,” Roy barked, his voice dangerously low.
“I’m fucking exercising, Sam. Shut up and run.”
Sam narrowed his eyes. “You look...”
Roy shot him a glare that could have melted steel. “If you finish that sentence, I will personally throw you into the River Thames.”
“...happy,” Sam finished anyway, a knowing smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
Roy stared at him in horror, desperately trying to rein in the invisible hurricane raging behind his shoulder blades. “I’ll bench you. I swear to God, I will bench you for the rest of the season.”
Sam smiled innocently. “You smiled first.”
“I'll bench you twice,” Roy growled, spinning on his heel and storming away before his traitorous wings could do a victory lap.
Ted Lasso finally tore his gaze away from Nate, wiping the last chuckles of amusement from his face as he looked out across the pitch toward the team.
He scanned the cluster of players huffing and puffing through their drills, his warm, observant eyes sweeping over the group until they landed squarely on the brooding mass of muscle that was Roy Kent.
Just like that. Dead on. For exactly one singular, earth-shattering second.
Ted offered a smile. It was just a polite, friendly, welcoming smile directed toward one of his players, completely unaware of the cataclysmic effect it was having.
Roy forgot how breathing worked.
His lungs simply stopped expanding. The air locked in his chest, turning to dust.
And the wind surrounding him instantly doubled in intensity.
Across the pitch, the heavy metal whistles hanging safely around necks swung violently sideways, howling in the sudden gale. Plastic water bottles toppled over, rolling frantically across the grass as if fleeing a predator.
Bumbercatch clutched his hair, looking around in utter bewilderment. “Right, okay. This is meteorologically impossible. We're in southwest London, not the middle of a hurricane.”
Richard dramatically spread his arms. “I welcome nature's embrace.”
Right on cue, a stray neon training bib was whipped up by a mini-tornado of air currents, flying out of nowhere and slapping Jamie Tartt square across the face.
Jamie flailed, swatting blindly at the fabric. “Oi! What the bloody fuck is your problem?!”
Roy was internally screaming. Get. Back. In.
The wings completely ignored him. They didn't even pretend to listen. Instead, they stretched even wider, the invisible span expanding until it practically covered half the pitch. The impossibly dark, velvet feathers fanned out in a breathtaking display, catching light from a higher plane that no mortal eye could possibly perceive, refracting it into shimmering, silent rainbows across the ethereal ether.
And then, worse than the wind, worse than the twitching feathers—
His halo threatened to appear.
A faint, golden hum of pure, concentrated light flickered just above his messy dark hair, casting a warm, glowing halo against the grey London sky.
That had literally not happened in over two hundred years. Not since the last time a celestial being had experienced an emotion this violently destabilizing during the Industrial Revolution.
“Oh, don't you fucking dare.”
Instead of obeying its master, his divine grace just flared brighter in response, sending a rich, pulsing wave of warmth straight through his chest that felt suspiciously like a giggle.
Ted was determined that, supernatural investigation or not, he was going to give this team a proper pep talk after training.
He wasn't here just to hunt.
Those were two separate jobs, and if he started treating one like an excuse for the other, people would get hurt.
He'd promised himself that years ago after a hunt in Nebraska had distracted him from a championship game. They'd still caught the ghoul, but those kids had deserved better than a coach whose head had been somewhere else.
These players deserved someone who cared.
Besides, Ted had never coached a bad team.
Losing teams? Sure. Broken teams? More than a few. Teams full of arrogant hotshots who thought passing was a personal insult? Absolutely. But bad people?
He refused to believe they existed until they proved him wrong.
Even when it came time to return to Kansas—assuming he survived England, fixed his marriage, and stopped a demon and a banshee from tearing Richmond apart—he wanted to leave this club better than he'd found it.
That meant learning names. Learning stories. Learning who needed encouragement...
...and who needed a swift kick in the rear.
The team filed into the cramped, concrete-walled locker room in a disorganized mob, grumbling under their breath and carelessly dumping their heavy, sweat-soaked laundry right onto Nate’s arms without even glancing his way.
Not one of them looked at him. Ted watched Nate quietly collect everything without complaint. No eye rolls. No muttering. Just a small nod every time. Like he'd accepted that this was simply how the world worked.
Nate was ignored because people had somehow stopped noticing he was there.
Big, ominous, and aggressively shirtless, the veteran midfielder stalked toward his locker, shooting Ted a glare so intensely dark and searing it felt as though the man was trying to burn a hole straight into Ted’s soul, as if Ted had personally wronged his entire bloodline.
For Ted, it felt like staring into the middle of winter: cold, sharp, and ancient.
Ted couldn't explain why that last word popped into his head. Roy couldn't have been much younger or older than him. Maybe a couple years.
But there was something in those eyes...
Something exhausted. Something that looked like it had been carrying the weight of the world for far too long.
Ted’s breath hitched slightly. And once again, it felt overwhelmingly weird because that irrational, deep-seated sensation buzzed behind his ribs—he still felt like he knew him. Like Roy was someone important from a past life he couldn't quite place.
Roy looked away first and continued toward his locker.
“Yeesh,” Ted whispered under his breath, leaning slightly toward Beard. “Last time I saw eyes that cold, they belonged to a fella going head-to-head with Roy Schieder.”
“Nope, All That Jazz. And I once looked directly into the eyes of a grade-A wraith back in Missouri, and let me tell you—never again. I saw my entire life flash before my eyes, and it mostly consisted of eating cold Chef Boyardee.”
“So, do you think—?” Beard started, his eyes darting toward Roy’s locker.
The answer came so quickly it surprised both of them. Ted blinked.
Beard raised an eyebrow. “You've known him for...” he checked his watch, “...about forty-five minutes.”
“And you're clearing him?”
Ted rubbed the back of his neck. “...I'm not clearing him.”
“I said..." Ted hesitated. "...I don't think so.”
Ted frowned. “I don't know.”
That bothered him. Hunters survived because they trusted evidence. Patterns. Instincts. But never blind faith.
Everyone stayed on the suspect board until proven otherwise.
Yet every time Beard nudged Roy into the conversation...
Something inside Ted immediately pushed back. Like his instincts refused to entertain the possibility.
He didn't know the man. He'd exchanged exactly zero words with him.
“So what's different?” Beard asked quietly.
Ted looked across the room at Roy.
Roy was sitting alone now, wrapping athletic tape around one knee with practiced efficiency.
No talking. No joking. Just silent concentration.
“I don't know,” Ted admitted. “...We'll talk about it later. I’m gonna say something to the boys first. Establish some team chemistry.”
Beard accepted that with a nod.
Ted clapped his hands together. “Right!”
His voice echoed through the locker room. Several players looked up.
Some obeyed immediately. Others wandered over reluctantly. Jamie looked like someone had personally informed him Christmas was canceled. Roy remained seated for another moment before standing and joining the edge of the circle with his arms folded tightly across his chest.
Ted smiled anyway. “Now, I know we're all still getting acquainted here, and I know y'all probably think I'm about as useful as a screen door on a submarine—“
The locker room door burst open.
“Is everybody in here decent?”
A woman's voice rang through the room. She covered her eyes dramatically with one hand before immediately peeking between her fingers.
She slowly lowered her hand.
“...That's disappointing.”
It wasn't the absolute worst way to be interrupted, honestly. Ted had seen worse over the years. Why, he remembered when a player's formidable grandmother had once marched right into a locker room and dragged her grandson outside by his ear. Ted had rubbed his own ear in sympathy for a solid week afterward.
He had also once been interrupted mid-sentence by Dean Winchester halfway through reading a dusty occult passage on —ironically—banshees, complete with an obnoxious pop-culture reference and an immediate detour to a local diner for pie. Dean had been remarkably lucky that the slice of apple pie was fresh out of the oven, otherwise Ted would have willingly shoved Castiel’s celestial angel blade right up Dean’s ungrateful ass.
Ted’s internal warning bells started clanging, though. Siren. All the classic behavioral tells were right there. Beautiful enough. Confident enough. Could explain why every bloke in the room suddenly seemed interested.
Or perhaps a high-end vampire? Less likely, given the bright afternoon daylight filtering through the small high windows, but possible. Or maybe, she was just deeply off-putting to Ted on a purely human level.
Either way, he really needed to get his head back in the game before he accidentally caused another modern-day British witch hunt seeing as the last time he'd assumed someone was supernatural because they were unusually attractive, he'd spent three hours interrogating an accountant from Des Moines.
Turned out she was just really pretty.
Dean and Beard had laughed about that one for six months.
“Oh, shit, am I interrupting?” she asked, her eyes wide with faux innocence and an unmistakable streak of mischief. “Sorry about that, lads.”
“No, no, you’re fine, you’re fine,” Ted said nervously, clearing his throat and offering a polite, disarming smile. “How can we help you out today, ma’am?”
“Nah, I’m just here to pick up that one,” she said breezily, pointing a slender finger directly toward Jamie Tartt.
“Yeah, sorry I can’t stay for the pep talk, Coach,” Jamie said, not even bothering to turn around as he shoved a duffel bag over his shoulder. “She made me a salon appointment. I’m getting waxed. It’s more for the fans than it is for me, you know? Score a brilliant goal, you gotta take the shirt off to celebrate. And I certainly don’t want to look like Bigfoot standing out there.”
Across the room, Roy Kent glared at Jamie with an even darker, more murderous look than the one he had previously sent Ted. To be fair, Roy wasn’t actually mad at Ted; he was furious with his own traitorous, glowing grace and was currently taking out his existential self-loathing on everyone else in the vicinity.
“I can stay for the speech if you want, though, Boss. I can rebook the waxing,” Jamie offered casually, pausing by the door.
Roy’s eyes flicked over toward Ted. Even with all the cultural shifts and confusing new dynamics, Roy knew instinctively that Ted was a traditionalist—a coach who liked to stand his ground, command the room, and demand respect. He wouldn’t just let a star player walk out in the middle of a team meeting just because he didn't want to hurt feelings. He was a manager. He needed to show his absolute authority.
“No, that’s okay. Go ahead,” Ted said easily, offering an encouraging wave. “Gotta stay smooth for the fans, Jamie.”
Roy stood corrected, his jaw tightening as he watched the interaction in stunned silence.
Jamie's eyebrows lifted. “Seriously?”
“Absolutely.” Ted pointed at him. “But tomorrow?”
“You owe me one hundred percent.”
He disappeared out the door with the woman, who shot Ted an appreciative smile before following him.
The locker room fell quiet again. Roy stared at Ted for another long second.
Then, almost imperceptibly, one dark eyebrow lifted.
That... wasn't what Roy had expected at all. And he wasn’t sure how to feel about it.
It isn’t until you pack your bags and leave home that you truly realize how much of your soul you left behind.
Ted sat alone in the cramped office after training had wrapped up.
The building was quieter now. The showers still ran somewhere down the hall. Boots thudded against concrete. Laughter echoed faintly before fading as players headed home for the evening.
Beard had disappeared to finish unpacking boxes and looking over player files.
For the first time all day, Ted was alone.
He reached into his duffel bag, searching for his notebook.
Instead, his fingers brushed construction paper.
He paused. Slowly, he pulled it free.
The paper was folded twice down the middle, the edges bent from being opened too many times over the last few days.
He unfolded it carefully. A child's drawing in crayon with lopsided stick figures, one impossibly large yellow sun, and a blue sky that somehow existed below the sun because Henry had never cared much for realism.
And in uneven green letters—
Ted smiled. His eyes burned almost immediately. "Hey there, buddy."
His thumb brushed over the crayon marks. He could practically hear Henry's voice. "Daddy, I made your hair extra fluffy."
The laugh caught in his throat.
The office suddenly felt far too quiet. Too empty.
He'd been so focused on getting to England. On fixing his marriage to Michelle. On the hunt and saving the world. On pretending this coaching job wasn't also the strangest undercover assignment of his life.
He hadn't stopped to think what leaving would actually feel like.
Kansas wasn't perfect. God knew it wasn't.
His dad was buried there. Every road held memories. Every diner reminded him of someone he'd lost.
It was home. Henry was home.
He'd left the person he loved most in the world nearly four thousand miles away.
The distance suddenly felt impossible.
His thoughts spiraled before he could stop them.
Maybe Bobby should've sent someone else.
Someone younger, stronger, and faster. Someone who tracked banshees and demons on a regular, clockwork schedule, without a broken home dragging them down.
Hell, maybe Dean would've gone if Bobby had bribed him with enough pie.
Ted stared at Henry's drawing. Maybe he'd made the wrong choice. Maybe he should've told Bobby no.
Stayed in Kansas. Stayed close enough to hug Henry whenever he wanted.
Maybe another few months of therapy would've helped.
Maybe leaving his son behind had been selfish.
Maybe if he had stayed, the gaping hole in his chest wouldn’t feel quite so massive, cold, and permanent. The ache in his chest felt enormous. Like something had been scooped out and forgotten somewhere across the Atlantic.
Meanwhile, Roy was losing a battle with memories.
He walked toward the exit with his hands shoved into his jacket pockets, jaw clenched so tightly it hurt.
He hated thinking. Thinking led to remembering. Remembering led to regret. And there was plenty of that for a lifetime.
His grace shifted uneasily beneath his ribs.
You should've stayed in Heaven.
The thought came uninvited.
Roy had spent centuries obeying Heaven.
Then one human soul had looked at the world with enough kindness to make an angel question eternity.
He'd fallen. He'd chosen humanity. Chosen free will. Chosen Earth. Chosen... Ted.
Not that Ted had ever known. Or would ever know.
Maybe falling had been the beginning of all of this. Maybe Heaven had been right. Maybe angels weren't supposed to interfere.
Because once Roy's existence changed...
One choice becoming another. Another becoming ten. Another becoming a hundred.
Ted Lasso wasn't supposed to be coaching AFC Richmond.
He wasn't supposed to be in England. He wasn't supposed to be chasing demons across another continent.
Roy couldn't shake the feeling that he'd broken something.
That simply existing outside Heaven's plan had nudged Ted's life just enough for something else...
Maybe Ted would've lived an ordinary life. Maybe he'd still be happily married. Maybe Henry would've grown up with both parents. Maybe there would've never been monsters in Ted's story.
Maybe Roy never would've reached out and brushed a frightened man’s soul all those years ago.
Maybe he wouldn't have watched Ted grow. Wouldn't have watched him laugh. Cry. Fall in love. Become a father. Become a hunter. Maybe he wouldn't have spent decades silently loving someone who had never known his name. Maybe he wouldn’t be standing here right now, rotting in a mortal body.
Maybe if Roy had stayed up in heaven, been obedient, and kept his head down, Ted’s future wouldn’t be so irrevocably fucked up.
It was all too much to process. The guilt was a physical weight crushing his chest.
He couldn't keep walking in circles with thoughts that had no answers.
Roy, who had been slowly making his way toward the exit to head home for the evening, froze in the doorway. With a heavy sigh, he turned on his heel and stepped into Ted’s cramped office to get the mandatory post-practice conversation over with.
He couldn't even bring himself to look Ted directly in the eyes.
His hair had surrendered completely, sticking up in every direction like he'd run both hands through it a hundred times. The dark circles beneath his eyes weren't hidden by the smile he wore.
Roy knew that look. He'd seen it before.
After late-night hunts. After Henry was born. After Ted's father died.
Roy had witnessed every exhausted smile from a distance.
He shoved the thought away before it finished forming.
Some fantasies belonged nowhere near an angel. Or a former one.
The longing hit him so hard it felt like physical whiplash. He wanted to turn around and bolt from the room the exact second he entered it.
“Yeah, what do you want, Coach?” Roy questioned plainly, forcing his voice to remain a harsh, defensive growl.
“Well, it was just real fun watching you out there today,” Ted told him, offering a warm, unassuming smile. “The boys really respond to you out on that pitch. It doesn’t surprise me one bit, though. You’ve had a heck of a career, Roy. A real legacy.”
Roy almost laughed. A career.
Centuries of battles. Plagues that reigned havoc. Ancient empires rising and collapsing. Standing guard over souls before football had even been invented. Chelsea was hardly the most impressive thing on his résumé.
“...Thank you,” Roy said quietly.
Silence settled between them.
Ted didn't seem uncomfortable.
He needed to leave. Needed distance before his grace started doing something humiliating again.
Instead, the bitterness he'd been swallowing all afternoon finally surfaced.
“Never thought it'd end with me being coached by Ronald fucking McDonald.”
He was furious. He was angry at Ted for being his accidental downfall twice over. He was mad that Ted was stuck over here in cold, rainy England instead of living the good, quiet life in Kansas. He was mad that Ted wasn’t fucking immortal, and that every single day they shared on this earth was a ticking clock.
And above all, he was deeply, painfully mad that Ted still remained entirely out of reach.
Roy turned and left without offering another word. It was safer, cleaner, and infinitely easier to push Ted away and isolate himself than it was to even entertain the possibility of having a relationship that was anything more than strictly coach and player.
Ted watched him go, slowly shaking his head as he turned to look at his longtime partner in crime. “You’re gonna let him call you that?”
“I don’t think he was referring to me, Ted,” Beard replied flatly.
Beard had quietly observed the entire tense exchange from the corner of the room. Notably, Roy hadn’t even acknowledged Beard once during the interaction, nor had he deigned to look in Beard's direction.
He only had eyes for Ted and he had looked at Ted like Ted had personally ruined his entire existence.
“Yeah, well,” Ted said, a spark of stubborn optimism returning to his eyes as he leaned against the desk. “If he thinks he’s mad now, just wait until we win him over.”
The kettle whistled from the tiny kitchen.
Ted stared at it with the same level of distrust he'd normally reserve for cursed objects.
“I still don't understand why they don't own coffee pots.”
Beard carried two mugs over to the small table by the apartment window and set one in front of Ted.
The apartment still didn't feel lived in.
There were boxes stacked against one wall. A single framed picture of Henry rested face down on the counter because Ted hadn't decided where to put it yet. His duffel bag remained half-unpacked. The whole place smelled faintly of fresh paint and old wood.
Everything about it felt temporary.
Ted took a sip of the coffee. “Better.”
“That's because I made it.”
“I was trying to be nice.”
Outside, London traffic hummed beneath the evening rain.
For a few minutes, neither of them spoke.
They'd spent enough years hunting together to know silence wasn't awkward. Sometimes it was just thinking.
“So, what have we actually picked up so far on this little excursion?” Beard asked, leaning back against the cushions of Ted’s unfamiliar sofa.
“Well, for starters, that English tea is by far the worst culinary invention humanity has ever created, and apparently a multi-room living space is called a flat instead of an apartment,” Beard deadpanned, sitting directly across from him.
Beard held his expression completely unamused, staring through his tinted glasses as they settled into the quiet evening of Ted’s new Richmond flat.
“I know, I know, I’m just playing with ya,” Ted offered a disarming, teasing smile, tossing a crumpled piece of paper onto the coffee table. “Let’s tick some things off. For starters, Rebecca asked me if I believed in ghosts.”
That finally got Beard's attention. “And?”
Ted shrugged. “I told her I sure did.”
“And then I told her I believed more importantly that ghosts oughta believe in themselves.”
Beard closed his eyes. “...Ted.”
“Sometimes I genuinely wonder how you've survived this long.”
Beard sighed into his coffee. “I swear you met one Victorian-era teenage ghost who wanted to apologize to his family...”
“...and now you think every ghost deserves a therapy session.”
Ted leaned forward. “I think every creature deserves the chance to prove they're not the monster everyone assumes.”
“You watch way too much Ghost Whisperer reruns on late-night cable,” Beard muttered, shaking his head as he picked up his mug and downed the last of his black coffee. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand before getting down to business. “Alright. Did you notice anything truly unusual out there today?”
“Well, for one, I don’t think Nate is harboring any kind of dark supernatural pedigree,” Ted said, shrugging his shoulders as he leaned forward. “He’s simply too shy. Way too nice. And quite frankly, the poor kid looks like he’s afraid of his own shadow most of the time.”
“Could easily be a calculated ploy to keep up appearances,” Beard countered, narrowing his eyes. “Play the harmless underdog so nobody looks too closely at the basement.”
“Yeah, but it’s highly unlikely. He doesn't have the stomach for world domination, Beard.”
He thought back to the locker room. To the way nobody had looked at Nate while piling dirty laundry into his arms. To the quiet “you remembered my name.”
“No,” Ted said again softly. “I think he's just... lonely.”
Beard scribbled something in his notebook. “We'll keep him low priority.”
“Fair enough. Did you manage to put together a profile on everybody else yet?”
“Yeah, I’ve got preliminary notes. I’ll bring the physical files over during tomorrow’s lunch break.”
Ted laughed. “You're something else.”
Ted pointed at him. “One of these days I'm gonna get a compliment outta you.”
“Smartass. What do you think of Jamie?”
“An absolute total dick,” Beard deadpanned without missing a single beat.
Ted rolled his eyes, a soft chuckle escaping his lips. “And you weren’t a complete pain in the ass at his age?”
“I was strung out on cheap drugs at his age, Ted. Of course I was a total dick. I literally stole your station wagon back in '08 and was also doing enough drugs to tranquilize a horse.”
“And I still took up for you, put my neck on the line, and helped you clean up your act,” Ted pointed right toward him, holding his gaze over his own mug of coffee.
“And I am still profoundly grateful for that,” Beard acknowledged quietly. “Which is why I don’t think anything mystical or sinister is up with Jamie Tartt. I think he’s an arrogant little prick simply because he’s rich, incredibly talented, and famous at twenty-three. I don’t think it’s because he’s a skinwalker or a shape-shifter. He’s just young and spoiled.”
“Yeah, you know what? I thought the exact same thing,” Ted agreed, flipping open a leather-bound notebook resting on his knee. “Though, let’s be real—Keeley is definitely a siren. Did you see the way she walked into that locker room?”
“Ted,” Beard groaned, slamming his notebook shut with a loud slap that echoed off the apartment walls.
“Not every attractive blonde woman is a siren.”
Ted looked offended. “I never said every attractive blonde woman.”
“You accused four women last year.”
“The accountant doesn't count.”
“You interrogated her for three hours.”
“I bought her lunch afterwards.”
Ted sighed dramatically. “I apologized.”
“They were nice, expensive flowers.”
“I am begging you...” Beard pinched the bridge of his nose. “...stop assuming pretty women are supernatural.”
Ted crossed his arms. “And you think every hairy man is a werewolf.”
“You've also been wrong twenty-six times.”
“Statistics are against me.”
Ted grinned. “They sure are.”
“Which brings me neatly to Roy Kent,” Beard said, his tone turning sharply serious. “Because he is a different story. I don’t trust him.”
“Why’s that?” Ted asked curiously, his brow furrowing. He hadn't picked up any genuinely malicious or bad vibes from the team captain earlier—in fact, he kept remembering that bizarre, overwhelming wave of sudden warmth and inexplicable familiarity.
“Something is deeply off about him,” Beard muttered, his furrowed eyebrows knitting together in suspicion. “He doesn't fit standard human behavioral patterns.”
“I don’t know, man. I just... I feel like I know him from somewhere,” Ted confessed, rubbing the back of his neck. “And it’s bugging the hell out of me.”
“Yeah, well, he’s a world-famous professional footballer who has been plastered across European tabloids and television screens since he was nine years old, Ted. You’ve probably seen his face on a cereal box or a commercial flying over Kansas.”
“No, I mean...” Ted huffed a sigh, staring down at his hands. “I feel like we’ve actually met before. Face-to-face. But I’ve never set foot in England before this week. And I think I damn well would’ve remembered somebody built like a brick wall and looking as intense as him.”
“Focus, Ted. The mission,” Beard reminded him sharply, tapping a finger on the table.
“I know, I know,” Ted sighed, leaning back and running a hand down his face. “I just can’t figure Roy out. Setting him aside for a second, who do you actually think is our primary suspect for the demon or the banshee?”
“Oh, Rebecca, without a shadow of a doubt,” Beard stated confidently. “I’ve already dug up background information through Higgins that she recently went through a very messy, high-profile divorce because her billionaire husband cheated on her for years, and as part of the settlement, she somehow walked away owning his entire premier football club lock, stock, and barrel. That smells entirely like a classic crossroads demon deal timing up perfectly at the end of a ten-year contract.”
“Hell hath no fury like someone who unknowingly hires a demon.” Ted nodded thoughtfully. “Or knowingly.”
“Either way...” He tapped the table. “Pain makes people vulnerable.”
Ted nodded. “They're easier to manipulate.”
“And demons love desperate people.”
Ted thought back to Rebecca asking about ghosts. The sadness she'd tried to hide behind confidence. The anger just beneath the surface.
“I don't think she's a demon.”
“But... she could've made a deal.”
“Or someone made one involving her.”
Ted listened intently, tapping his pen against his knee. “And Higgins?”
“Higgins is entirely in the clear. Just a corporate middleman caught in the crossfire. But we’re going to have to dig a hell of a lot closer into the rest of the team and the senior club staff to be sure.”
“You’re really onto something there, Coach. Let’s call Bobby right now, wake him up if we have to, and tell him everything we’ve learned so far.”
The woman hummed as she wiped the blood from beneath her fingernails.
The alley behind the abandoned pub smelled of iron and rain, the latest body already cooling beside overflowing bins. The man's eyes were still open, frozen in terror, mouth twisted around the scream that had never quite escaped.
She had so enjoyed listening to it.
Heavy footsteps echoed against the brick.
Another figure emerged from the darkness. “You've gotten sloppy.”
Her smile widened. “No,” she corrected softly. “I've gotten hungry.”
The newcomer crouched beside the corpse, black eyes replacing human ones for only an instant before fading again. “Third one this week.”
“The woman in Camden doesn't count.”
The demon sighed. “Barely. She'll linger another day or two.”
Silence settled between them.
Far above, thunder rolled across London.
That finally drew the banshee's attention. “Oh?”
“The moment Theodore Lasso stepped onto the pitch.”
She laughed. “I wondered what that wind was.”
“He hasn't done that in centuries.”
Her grin sharpened. “So he's still attached.”
The demon straightened, brushing invisible dust from his coat.
“His grace nearly manifested.”
That made her pause. “Already?”
The banshee looked toward the city skyline.
The demon's expression darkened.
“Fate can insist all it likes.”
He looked toward Nelson Road, though miles separated them now.
“The hunter cannot remember.”
“The angel cannot tell him.”
“And every day they stay apart...”
The banshee tilted her head. “How many?”
The demon answered without hesitation. “Nine dead.”
“Two attempted possessions.”
“And the haunting in Whitechapel.”
She smiled with genuine satisfaction.
“The veil is getting thinner.”
“The crossroads are already opening.”
A cold wind swept through the alley. Not weather.
Something older. Something waking.
The banshee closed her eyes, listening. “So many voices. So many deaths waiting to happen.”
The demon's lips curled. “London has always been loud.”
“It'll be deafening soon.”
A phone buzzed in his pocket. He glanced at the screen.
“Keep an eye on the angel.”
“He'll keep finding the wrong monsters.”
A quiet laugh escaped her. “He already suspects the owner.”
“They'll waste weeks chasing shadows.”
It would already be too late.
The demon looked up at the clouds gathering over Richmond. “Let them keep looking.”
His black eyes flashed once more. “They'll never see the real enemy until we're ready for them.”
Somewhere across the city, a woman screamed.
The banshee smiled. “That's my cue.”
She vanished into the London night.
The demon lingered only a moment longer before disappearing with a whisper of sulfur, leaving the body cooling in the rain.
By morning, it would be the fifth unexplained death.
And only one of them had actually been feeding.
