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Offer Me an Empathetic Ear 1

Chapter 1 out of 5

Jamie Tartt is hard of hearing due to a few too many knocks to the head when he was growing up. He doesn’t realize this until coming back to Richmond after LCA, where he doesn’t just have to navigate becoming a better person, but accepting that needing accommodations isn’t soft. This journey follows from childhood, then all through canon up until the end of season 3.

AKA: HoH!Jamie Tartt canon compliant rewrite AU

On ao3.

Ships: RoyJamieKeeley (background, end-game)

Warnings: child abuse, period accurate sexism and homophobia, ableism (also internalized), bullying, exclusion, warped negative self image, anxiety, alcoholism

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Chapter 1: I just Need to Keep Going

Little Jamie has never been good at paying attention, even as a small child he’s fidgeting all the time much to the frustration of teachers. His head is just all the way over there while the teacher is over here. He can recall clearly being eight and mulling over Roy Kent stats for the current football season in his mind when- “Jamie, 5 times 7.”

He blinks up at his teacher, Miss Bloom as his brain is still catching up with the words, before he stutters out a confused: “What?”

“5 times 7, Jamie. Quickly,” Miss Bloom says impatiently, clearly fed up with having to repeat herself, because Jamie wasn’t paying attention.

“Oh, 35,” Jamie beams, because he actually knows that one. Numbers make sense to him, it’s the words that twist up in themselves.

Miss Bloom appraises him for a moment, then hums. “Correct. But pay attention next time Jamie. You won’t always know the answer and you can’t make people repeat themselves over and over.” As she says it, Jamie can hear that she doesn’t think he will pay attention next time, he never does, even if he truly does try. And he manages sometimes too. It’s just hard for him when there are so many other more interesting things to focus on.

Dutifully, however, he promises: “I will, Miss Bloom,” because Jamie is a good lad, mummy says so, therefore he will try, even if school is boring and footie is much more fun.

A year later he no longer is.

Miss Bloom already didn’t believe that Jamie would be able to pay attention, none of the teachers do. He is an active child, who’d rather run around chasing a ball than sit in the classroom. He isn’t the strongest academically either and mum is difficult to reach and always at work. When he starts paying attention less and less, they don’t question that there could be another reason why. He has been branded a trouble child for being active and there is nothing more to it than that for him, even if in reality, Jamie starts losing his hearing from age nine onward.

When he is nine, his dad comes back into his life. He won’t be scouted for Man City’s academy until a year later, but for now only whispers of the possibility have lured James Tartt Sr. back into the lives of his son and ex-girlfriend.

Jamie’s dad has decided that he is the man, who will pull Jamie to new heights and make his dreams of becoming a pro a reality, to make sure that Jamie will get scouted and make James proud like he is supposed to.

And Jamie? Jamie is just thrilled to have a dad that comes to his matches and wants him to succeed and gets involved to get him there. Sure, dad is pushy and a bit rude sometimes and mummy wouldn’t approve of some of the things he does and lets Jamie do, but it’s exciting! Jamie likes the idea of having a dad, so he’s not complaining too much about the one he has.

Because of this, he tells himself it’s not a big deal when dad starts getting worse and worse and the excitement turns into discomfort and dread. When dad goes from yelling from the sidelines to roughly grabbing Jamie after games, rancid breath wafting into Jamie’s little face as he berates him about how badly he played, fingers leaving bruises on Jamie’s arm when he lets go, before that escalates too.

Jamie has become an unwilling and unknowing frog in a boiling pot of violence from his father, a place no person should have been put in. There he learns to hide and push through injuries and continue on like he is fine. To push on, maybe if he really shouldn’t, because that is just what life is.

Right before he gets scouted, they play a miserable game. Jamie tried his best, but the boys on the opposing team were all huge and Tim was out sick, so they were stuck with Charlie, who kind of sucks, but they all pass to him anyway, because it’s the nice thing to do. Jamie tries not to though, dad doesn’t like it when he does.

However, Charlie had been practically wide open and Jamie was up to his armpits in defenders, so he’d made the pass… and Charlie had fucked it.

After the match, dad finds him once he’s out of the locker room and he already tenses up slightly at the sight of him barreling towards him. He’d been talking to coach earlier, all pleasant smiles and laughs, but Jamie can see how those fists and jaw are clenched.

He grabs Jamie by the scruff of his neck, gritting out: “Tell you little friends bye, Jamie,” in a way that doesn’t sound friendly to Jamie at all. Quickly squeaking out a bye, Jamie lets himself get dragged away from the pitch.

Out of sight, James spins around and grabs Jamie roughly by the ear, demanding: “Wanna tell me what the fuck that was, Junior?”

“Uh, I- I dunno, da,” Jamie stutters back, because he rarely knows. He’s real thick like, dad always says so and Jamie hasn’t found any proof to the contrary. The only person who calls him smart is mummy, but she is supposed to lie about stuff like that and believing her is soft pussy shit and Tartt men ain’t pussies.

“He doesn’t know?” dad repeats with a scoff. “Course you don’t, you daft runt.” He cuffs the back of Jamie’s head. “Why the fuck did you pass?”

“’Cause Charlie was open an’ I weren’t,” Jamie says carefully, still in a place where he tries to explain himself like his father will see reason.

Instead, he is met with a backhand, head snapping back at the impact. Dad doesn’t punch, not his face, because nothing good comes from making private shit public like that. “Charlie is a little fairy, who don’t know how to kick a ball even if it fucked him up the arse. You’re fucking better than that, Jamie,” dad spits at him.

Dazed Jamie blinks up at dad, not comprehending a word he’s saying. He’s getting better at taking the hits, but they still leave him disorientated.

“Fucking hell,” James curses, before slowly and condescendingly explaining: “Charlie is a soft pussy, who is never going to amount to owt, you hear me. And unless you start dominating on that pitch, instead of being a little toddling wuss, neither are you. You’re going to be a fucking failure like Charlie if you don’t start playing like a man.”

He is proper spitting mad and Jamie can smell the alcohol, which is bound to be a recipe for disaster. A prenotion that is proven correct when he receives another punch for not responding quick enough. This time one of James’s rings catches on his brow and Jamie stumbles backwards, clutching his forehead, blood seeping over his face. The scar on his right brow will be there for the rest of his life.

“Did you hear me, Jamie?” dad demands once more.

“Yes, dad,” Jamie quickly says, even though he couldn’t hear owt over the ringing in his ears, but he figures agreeing with whatever dad is saying can’t make the situation worse.

“Better,” dad says, sounding satisfied with himself. “Come on, Junior, let’s go to mine. No need for your mum to see that and have a fit about a tiny scrape, yeah. You’re a tough lad.”

Again, Jamie dutifully says: “Yes, dad,” even though he wants nothing more than to go home and have a cuddle with mummy. However, he does know better than to say that. He’s a man, not some soft mummy’s boy and he doesn’t need her fussing or help. He never tells her anything ‘bout what him and dad get up to together. It’s better like this. It’s men’s business anyway, she wouldn’t get it.

“Good, we can talk about how you played some more and make sure you don’t play like shit when the scouts come looking. Can’t have you disgracing my name like that, now can I,” James says as he leads Jamie away, his hand heavy on the back of Jamie’s neck.

The night isn’t over for Jamie yet. He’ll get some more punches and slaps, as well as a beer bottle thrown to his head that he thankfully manages to duck this time. As it happens, he tells himself that dad is just trying to help, make him better. He cares. He wants Jamie to do well.

Besides, he’s not some soft ickle baby, who complains about every little scrape. None of the other lads on his team do and as far as Jamie knows, every dad does this. It’s just private, a family matter.

When morning comes, he scrapes himself off the uncomfortable couch, since he don’t have a bed at his dad’s house. He’s sore all over and bruised everywhere, but he is going to play better next time and then he’ll make it big. He’s a Tartt, he’s tough as nails. Dad is helping.

Still, he is glad that he won’t have to see any coaches or teachers today, instead he will spend the day running himself ragged through drills his dad came up with and doing header after header, because he needs to be able to do them and as U11s they’re not allowed to train those yet, while dad yells at him to go faster and do it again, no matter how much Jamie wants to curl up into a ball and die. His head hurts.

It’s not the last time his head hurts either. His dad continues to ‘knock some sense into his thick skull’ and makes Jamie do headers until he can’t see straight. Jamie pulls himself back up every time, even when his ears are ringing and he’s dizzy. He doesn’t notice that at some point the ringing starts sticking around and his hearing becomes worse and worse, especially in his right ear.

He is just glad that his head hurts a little less badly after a while and the headache is not as piercing as it used to be. Glad that he’s getting used to playing through the headaches his dad gives him and that he’s getting better. That he’s flying over the pitch like never before and dad is proud when he gets off it.

When dad is proud, there won’t be a new headache today. Even if his yelling from the sidelines had been a bit more dull than it had been before.

And slowly, Jamie loses his hearing.

At school, he has long since been labeled a trouble maker and teachers don’t bother when he stops following along in class. He’s Jamie Tartt, a nuisance, who doesn’t do his work, of course he isn’t paying attention.

There is no more Miss Bloom, who gently scolds, even if she is reaching the end of her rope and never believed that wiggly Jamie would ever change. Instead there is a stern woman named Mrs. Jacobs, whose shrill: “Jamie Tartt, lower your volume right now,” rings through the classroom daily.

The first few times, Jamie wants to sink into the floor of embarrassment. He never wants to make trouble and he didn’t notice he were being loud, swear down.

However, he can’t stop himself from being loud and he won’t let himself get knocked down like this, Jamie hates being embarrassed. So he leans into it. Gives Mrs. Jacob a cocky smirk and some half baked line that has the lads around him snickering and Mrs. Jacob huffing with annoyance. He is just glad she’s annoyed with him, it’s better than her being disappointed, it’s better than her paying attention to him.

At home, his dad prefers to think Jamie is being a little bitch or a daft runt that needs to be taught a lesson in respect. Jamie learns it is best to agree with dad, even if he doesn’t know what he is agreeing to. He ends up a yes-man to his dad to keep himself safe, forever scared to let it slip that he didn’t catch something out of fear how anyone will take it.

Meanwhile mummy is so busy, they barely share the house when he’s staying with her. And as time goes on, their relationship crumbles under the shadow of James.

“Jamie love, I’m home, wanna have a bit of chat before you gotta leave for practice? What was your day like?” Georgie calls out when she comes through the door. She has rushed home after her shift to catch Jamie before he’s off to football practice. She has been too late all week and she’s so glad she made it today.

However, there is no call back, no excited ‘hi, mum!’ – because mummy is already in the past now – and no quick footsteps coming to greet her. She stands there waiting for a moment, but nothing comes. Again she tentatively calls: “Jamie?” and again there is nothing.

A part of her wants to go to Jamie’s room and knock on the door to maybe see if he wants to hang. If it had been five years ago and James hadn’t been back in their lives again, she would have. Now, though, she stands there in the doorway, momentarily adrift and unsure how to proceed.

In the end, she decides he must be ignoring her on purpose. Their relationship is too badly damaged for her to dare to push, afraid that each push might be the last one and Jamie will leave forever to be fully consumed in James’s hold. Especially now that she wants nothing to do with him anymore.

When Jamie comes out his room to rush through the small flat, collecting his stuff and double checking everything, he drops a quick kiss on mum’s cheek before he rushes out the door. He will never know she was home early and he missed time he so desperately wanted with her, instead there is just another fissure in their relationship that will one day break off as they drift apart, despite neither of them ever wanting it to happen.

The only person, who might have been able to take notice is Jamie’s coaches, since paying attention there is important to Jamie and he makes the effort even when it is hard.

Unfortunately, the coach he had before he was scouted and knew him before his hearing started to get worse, wasn’t around anymore when it got to a point where it would catch the attention of someone who had known him before. Instead he was send off to Man City, where he was one of many, before he became someone to take note off as one of the few that would actually have a career after 18. And by that point, no one had ever known him any differently.

At the academy, Jamie knows this is his only chance to have a life differently from anything his family has ever known and he has to try his best to keep it. For years, he works twice as hard as everyone else, not just on the pitch, but in the locker room too. He strains to follow instructions, learns to recognize the set ups of every drill by sight and lingers behind to never have to be the first one up.

Coaches know him to be diligent, even if he needs a repetition from time to time. How he’ll get laser focused on something and it just isn’t always the instructions. Jamie’s talent offsets his rougher edges in what he is like to work with and most of the coaches can live with the more solo-dominating style of play Jamie adheres to, which is mostly due to the results it gets.

Alongside that, he further develops his little shit, the devil-may-care attitude that he uses as a shield as he cultivates it further, twisting it into the image of a somewhat vain airhead. He walks off the comments people make and snipes back when it hits too close for comfort. He becomes charming to offset the fact he doesn’t follow everything and tries not to feel too isolated when he can’t.

In some way, he is lucky that his locker is placed on the right side for the entire time he’s at Man City. Due to that, his left ear, which has the most hearing left, is always directed to the coach. Without that, he might have gone under entirely, instead of clinging at the edge of burn out and making himself at home there, because there ain’t no other option for him, now is there?

A noisy locker room is far from a perfect situation for him, but he tries to make it work. He’s never been good at having friends in the first place, always too busy with footie for it. Missing so much of what is happening, doesn’t make that easier. And Jamie notices.

It’s always like there is this barrier between him and the other lads and no matter how hard he works, he cannot seem to break it. They’re all friendly, of course, but he never manages to take it beyond a locker room camaraderie. He misses the inside jokes, always hears too late when something is happening and he is plainly too exhausted at the end of the day to even think of hanging out outside of practice.

As he grows older, he gets into the habit of going to the club once a week with the lads, because that’s the kind of social interaction that he finds he manages best. In loud clubs, Jamie walks away from the evening, feeling more like he had the same experience as the others. They all scream and yell in there and Jamie is a handsome lad, he does well with the birds, which automatically gives him some clout.

He convinces himself that this lifestyle works out best for him. He’s not as close with the others outside of footie, because he’s too busy being better than them. They all hang out and that’s why they’re soft pussies, who are never going to amount to owt. And Jamie knows how to dominate in football. He is king of the pitch and king of the locker room, when they go out, he reigns there too. He just doesn’t waste time on stupid shit like emotional talks. All the fun conversations in the locker room are the loud ones anyway, so he’s not missing out on anything.

Jamie builds himself up to be someone, who is above everyone else. He becomes the person, who doesn’t care when people’s birthdays are or what’s going on in their private life. It’s better to be a person that never cared in the first place than someone who attempted basic friendship and failed. That’s just humiliating, innit? And Jamie hates feeling humiliated.

Over time, Jamie truly stops caring. He has a career to focus on and dad to appease. Now that he is actually making it, dad’s on his case constantly and he’s too busy with that to be able to worry about playing nice with the other lads. Caring is pussy shit anyway.

“Jamie Tartt! Jamie Tartt!” a journo is getting Jamie’s attention. Jamie can see his mouth move, but misses the question.

“Uhm, sorreh, can you repeat tha’?” he asks. Jamie is a ball of nerves, even though he isn’t trying to show it. This was his very first time on the pitch for Man City proper. And yeah, it were just a friendly and it were just the last fifteen minutes, but he did it. He actually did it. He debuted.

The journo blinks with amused surprise and Jamie’s nerves skyrocket at what he might have just asked this journo to repeat. Paying close attention, he now hears the man say: “First debut and an assist, you must be proud. Fishing for the repeat of the complement, are you?”

Embarrassment flushes through Jamie and he quickly plasters on a smirk, hoping to hide it. If he weren’t riding such a high, he might have been angry at the tease, but currently he feels on top of the world. Plus, he is very aware that he is a public figure now. This is his first post-match interview for the main Man City team. What he does here, will follow him for the rest of his career.

So he turns his smirk cocky and replies: “I dunno what you mean, mate, just basking. Can’t help that I did great out there, now can I? Were dead nice how that play worked out. Hendrick shot that goal in beautifully. Felt good to be a part of tha’.”

Dad is less pleased with Jamie for passing the ball, though the thrill of having Jamie on that grass will largely overshadow that for tonight. And right now, Jamie is still away from that, subtly holding his breath as he waits for the journo’s reaction.

After a beat, the journo huffs out a laugh and smiles: “Can’t say I blame you. Great start to your career. Can we expect to see you on the pitch more often?”

Gratefully, Jamie continues the interview, taking care to play close attention as to not fuck up like that again.

He takes that first interview with him for the rest of his career, always focusing on the ones he knows will say the nicer stuff and making himself out to be vain as he gets them to repeat themselves, as well as angling his head as he jokes for everyone to get his good side, never realizing it’s about more than looks for him. He learns how to anticipate what the questions will be and perfects the art of a good quick soundbite, so that he can manipulate the interview in such a way that he knows what will be discussed. With the right clippable quip, the journos will fuck off, either to hound someone else for a juicy story or explode into such a loud clamor that he can set the situation to his hand and talk about whatever he just set up, instead of trying to follow along to some random round of questions.

Maybe if Jamie had been allowed to grow up differently, he would have noticed that he cannot hear as well as everyone else anymore. That the lads around him don’t have to work as hard as him to hear the coach, to hear each other, to hear the journos. That he ain’t struggling because he’s always been a thick lad or a daft runt, but that he has a disability.

However, Jamie didn’t get to grow up differently. He didn’t get to grow up in a way where he was allowed to trust himself when it comes to his perception of the world and the relationship he has with his own body.

Experience might have taught him what pain he can play through and when it would become dangerous for his career. He has learned to walk the balance between keeping himself healthy enough to play and dad appeased enough to not make him angry. But he has a host of team physicians keeping an eye on that for him. Outside of footie, he doesn’t have that.

No, outside of football, he had dad, who is always so hot and cold with his rules that Jamie has never once managed to keep up. A thing that was okay yesterday, might not be okay anymore today and it would change at the drop of a hat. He just couldn’t trust that he knew the rules, or that something that should be fine, would suddenly be punishable. He couldn’t trust that he knew what was happening, he couldn’t trust that his world was okay or not.

And instead, he had mummy, who always double checked if he were truly hungry or cold when he were a sexy little baby, because they had limited food to share and the heating was expensive. He saw how she struggled, no matter how much she tried to hide it, because the extend of their situation could not be hidden. So he started to doubt the signals his body would send him until he barely noticed his body did it anymore.

All his life, Jamie has never been allowed to trust his own discomfort, has never been allowed to know when it was okay to be upset or if he were overreacting.

His body has never been his own, instead it has always been shaped and molded by others.

So as an adult, Jamie simply cannot tell if how he lives is normal or not. He has always been unable to pay attention, he can still remember Miss Bloom not believing he’d pay attention next time, so it’s just who he is, he figures. He can’t remember owt else. Hell, he barely remembers most of his childhood.

He just has never had opportunity to be able to even begin to think that he is struggling in a way that has nowt to do with something he did. In his mind, there is something innately wrong with him and it is his fault when he can’t keep up. Dad always told him to push more, work harder, to not be such a fucking pussy and just man up and do it. Punished Jamie for every perceived slight against him. It has never been something that Jamie couldn’t help.

How can he question years of that, when falling in line and internalizing the fact that he is a daft runt, who is doing something wrong, has always just been the truth? How can he even think about voicing any concern about himself, when that has always been punished? How can he push, when falling in line has always been rewarded by a lack of punishment? How can he do any of that when he can still convince himself he’s managing? Because he is managing, even he’s hanging on by a thread. He is fine.

He’s fucking fine.

Jamie is great, actually. The best. He’s practically on top the fucking world. I mean, he’s a Premier footie player, a rising star, rich and famous. What’s not to want?

This image of his life he clings to, makes it feel like a much bigger slap in the face when he is loaned out to fucking AFC Richmond of all fucking places. Even Roy Kent being there doesn’t remove that sting at all, especially when he turns out to be a massive cunt.

The only bright spot of London is Keeley (and maybe the distance from his dad), but mostly Keeley.

Keeley is fucking aces. She’s great. She is loud and knows what she wants and Jamie loves the shit out of her. Her shows don’t have the weird sound mixing where half of them are whispering half the time and during sex, she just tells him what she wants clearly, instead of small half moans. She also is mint when it comes to social interactions and don’t mind Jamie’s… quirks.

“Babe, I know you didn’t wanna come to brunch, but you gotta stop talking over everyone, yeah?” she says as they walk out the restaurant.

“Oi, I was proper nice to everyone, even though your friends are like wickedly boring,” Jamie protests.

Keeley sends him a look, then cracks a smile as she rolls her eyes. “Fine, they are kind of boring, but they’re networking friends. It’s important. You gotta play nice, not start talking the second they’re about to.”

“How the fuck am I supposed to know they’re about to do that?” Jamie asks offended, because that sounds just ridiculous. He’s not a mind reader, now is he?

Keeley rolls her eyes and says: “Because they go-” she makes an exaggerated face as she takes in a breath while Jamie watches her with a raised brow, then she explains: “They take a breath, before they’re about to speak. Focus on that.”

That sounds even more fucking ridiculous to Jamie, who the fuck has time to watch everyone all the time just in case they breathe? Fucking Keeley apparently. No wonder she’s aces at her job if she can find the energy to do that all the time. Jamie knows that he for sure hasn’t. Still he goes: “I’ll try next time,” and actually means it. He has always meant it. Especially when it’s for Keeley. For her, he can definitely try to not fuck it up for her with her important networking friends, try and not being a prick and all tha’.

“Thank you, Jamie,” she beams, unbothered by the fact Jamie hadn’t this time and just pleased he is taking her feedback. Like Jamie said, Keeley is brill.

She’s also mostly game about watching shitty reality telly with Jamie, even if he misses half the names and resorts to using nicknames and often misses half of the drama. She more than happily also uses his nicknames for everyone so he knows who she is talking about and catches him up when he can’t follow a storyline.

However, it don’t matter how nice she is about watching stuff with Jamie. He can feel proper stupid about not being able to keep up with reality telly of all things, so he quickly leaves her be on nights she watches her shows. He can use the extra work out anyway, no good in becoming a lazy good for nowt, who’ll never amount to Jack shit. Dad would agree.

At training, it’s absolutely miserable. Catrick is basically a shit coach and the team is already a shit team, so it’s boring and feels frustrating. Jamie came here to be better, so he can return to Man City ready to be a starter, not try to carry everyone with no direction.

Cartrick’s strategy is basically: get the ball to Jamie and Jamie will get the ball in the net.

On the whole, Jamie can’t really find much fault with that strategy. He is miles better than all the other lads and at least it’s not some confusing, complex thing that he needs explained ten times, before he catches on to what the coach means when he blabbers on, pointing at colored magnets, while Jamie has no clue which magnet he’s supposed to be.

He just wishes that this year would teach him more. That he’d get some direction from Catrick, or maybe even Roy. But Roy seems to only want to be a bitter old cunt and Catrick is useless, so Jamie sticks around bitterly, deciding to just not bother with anyone anyway, since he’ll be gone in a year, so why the fuck should he care? Much better things to spend his energy on, like, Keeley and actual training. Who cares if they all think he’s a prick, who can’t be arsed to learn a thing about any of them? He knows Colin’s name and Isaac’s, that should count for something.

Then Ted happens.

The work out room is very rowdy and Jamie refuses to care, but even without being able to hear the wanker, he can see that that press conference is a fucking disaster from start to end. It’s practically tragic how he’s fumbling. Jamie knows what good media training looks like and this guy don’t got it.

And then Ted actually get to the locker room and out comes some stupid American Yankee-doodle-doo accent word soup that Jamie follows exactly nothing of.

An uncomfortable tightness grips Jamie’s throat as he grabs his phone to fiddle with in a vain attempt to distract himself from how his breathing is becoming shallower. Footie has always been the one thing Jamie could understand. Sure, it might be hard, but he always got it. Not getting it was dangerous, but Jamie has always managed. Until now. Until this Yankee fuck that just got here and who has the nerve to pull Jamie’s world out from under him.

He is so incredibly relieved when Keeley shows up, her theatrical and expressive self is exactly the soothing balm he needed right now and he gratefully takes the out she gives him, determined to get away from that locker room as quickly as he can.

They say first impressions tend to stick around and Ted’s has certainly stuck. It’s glued to Jamie’s brain and he is unable to dislodge it, his thoughts continuing to bump into it every single time.

It drives him crazy.

In a way, Ted scares him. He scares him half to death. Jamie hates it, he hates it so much; the fear. He has been afraid for so long and he has never known what to do with the fear. He can’t ever escape it, most he can do is deflect or piss people off enough that they get mad at him, because at least then he doesn’t have to sit with that fear in his chest, doesn’t have to sit with the waiting, waiting for that other shoe to finally drop.

So, when he returns the next day for work, he returns with the express purpose of being as annoying and prick-ish as possible. This Ted wanker ain’t some saint, he’ll have a breaking point, Jamie will just have to find where it is and then he’ll know where the borders of good behavior are, which lines he can operate in.

Besides, it’s not as if Jamie knows what the bloke’s on about anyway. Ted don’t know shit about footie, so Jamie has zero hand holds to help him here. With Ted there are no familiar drills that Jamie can recognize, so it’s no longer okay that he missed half the instructions. With Ted there is no yelling and screaming, no angry coach that is unpleasant, but at least normal and easy to follow. With Ted there is no well worn strategy that Jamie at least knows the most of basics off, so he can build on that. There is nowt of that with Ted.

At least, not for Jamie. All the other lads seem to follow whatever explanation had been in the middle of Ted’s babbling. All the other lads seem to know what Ted wants from them and how to do it. All the other lads are just fine and dandy.

Maybe if Jamie had read that stupid book, he would too. But reading has never been his thing and he don’t follow along to those podcast-books either. He avoids a lot of media if he’s honest, mostly keeping up with the important cultural bits through twitter memes. And the only important bit for him is footie anyway and you only need eyes to follow that.

Still, right now he wishes he weren’t such a daft runt and could also follow along like all the other lads, the feeling morphing into resentment towards Ted for being so confusing, for making Jamie scared. For being a wanker who can’t just say shit normally. For making Jamie feel stupid and weak, like he’s still a sniffling pathetic little mummy’s boy that needs to toughen up. For being afraid of what will happen when Ted figures out that Jamie ain’t following along with any of his shit.

Jamie wants to try. Fuck, does he want to try. Football is the one thing he has always taken seriously and the one thing he has tried for.

He has run himself into the ground and picked himself back up, clawed people down to reach the top, stepped over those that stumbled to get here. Jamie is a battler and he has proven himself. He is here at Richmond to get another step up in his career. To fly even higher once more. New management won’t change that for him. Ted won’t change that for him

However, Ted was a joke before he even got there and it is clear to Jamie that whatever he is trying, is not working for Jamie. He might have already known he was thicker than the other lads and followed along with more difficulties, but it feels like Ted is fucking with him specifically. That he has it out for Jamie. That he is figuring out how to get everyone on his side, while Jamie fumbles.

All of it makes his skin crawl and the only thing he knows how to do with all this, is be angry and lash out at everyone. There isn’t a singular cell in his body that would ever consider telling Ted that he can’t follow him and doesn’t understand. Not for a moment can he even entertain the thought that he’ll let himself be soft enough to admit he needs help. Tartt men aren’t pussies like that and Jamie ain’t inviting Ted’s anger by admitting that. He can figure it out himself. He always has.

And when he can’t. When he keeps stumbling into wall after wall, he is stuck there. There is no one for him to ask if he could have ever brought himself to. It’s fucking humiliating.

The humiliation fuels him further as everyone around him starts pulling away and Jamie becomes more and more isolated. He is supposed to be better than all of them, so why is standing all by himself and are they all together?

It all makes him burn. Makes him sharpen his edges more, which causes him to get more isolated, until he’s standing there, spitting and screaming from behind that wall of barbed wire that he put up all by himself, because pushing others away is easier than getting rejected. Jamie isn’t lonely, Jamie isn’t off to the side, Jamie is ahead and they’re all too far behind to see it.

He clings on to that belief with all he has, because it’s the only thing keeping him sane. Until he gets benched, until Ted takes football from him. And he has no clue what he did to make Ted angry with him like that. No clue what he missed that would have explained all this.

Abandoned and alone, he finds himself standing in front of Keeley – yet another person he pushed away, another person he didn’t manage to connect with how he thought he had, how he wanted to – asking her what the fuck Ted’s problem is, because asking her what he did wrong feels too vulnerable and exposing… too much like soft pussy shit. Too much like inviting a hit.

And when Keeley talks with her familiar accent and expressive face, no mustache encroaching on her speech and no weird metaphors, Jamie understands. Finally, he gets it. Finally it clicks that Ted is making up for his lack of footie knowledge by trying to make them all such a well oiled machine that they are a unit out in the field, perfectly played into each other.

In a way, it’s not unlike what Pep tries to do with his players, though he doesn’t try to do that whole corporate American ‘we’re all family’-thing, but has the football down enough to manage it professionally. The realization makes Jamie want to kick himself. Ted actually knows what he’s doing, he isn’t singling Jamie out or asking something impossible of him. Jamie could have just done that if he had understood.

It’s a relief he didn’t know he needed. After Watford, after finally pushing enough to make Ted snap, all Jamie wants is peace and footie. Armed with the knowledge Keeley had just granted him, he can get that back. He can play footie once more without it being the confusing mess it has been ever since Ted stepped foot into their locker room and introduced himself.

So, Jamie goes to that curse fire and has fun for the first time in weeks, a load sliding off his shoulders as he screams and yells with the rest of the lads.

It’s just plain fun, innit? Everyone knew he’d missed most of the stories, so no one expects him to know owt, they’re all pleasantly surprised he’s there, piss drunk and missing half like him, yelling loudly when they talk.

The next morning it all comes crashing down again, because nothing was every fucking easy for Jamie and it has never mattered how hard he tried and how much effort he put in, the rug always gets pulled out from under him and once more he has no clue what he missed.

And Jamie is sure he must have missed something, he always does. If his stupid brain could just pay fucking attention, then maybe he wouldn’t be back in Manchester again, maybe then Ted wouldn’t have send him away.

Because being in Manchester fucking sucks.

After so long away from dad, Jamie had almost forgotten how much it sucked. Dad can’t get up in his face like he does here when it’s over the phone and he had fucked off most of the time too, not bothered enough to come down to visit.

However, now Jamie is back home and on dad’s favorite team, so dad’s everywhere. Jamie is suffocating in dad’s alcoholic, smokers’ breath when dad hisses at him, drowning in the wall of sour sweat that comes from dad when he pulls Jamie close, and dying slowly of a thousand small barbs and well aimed punches that will never see the light of day, but Jamie carries on his skin nonetheless.

And a part of him hates Ted, even though it’s his own fault he got send away…

But he’d just got it. Jamie finally fucking got it. If only Ted had given him more time to try, then Jamie could have been fucking aces. He could have played nice with the lads, been a power duo of strikers with Dani, pass to Sam because maybe Sam was open a lot and not as shit as Charlie had been. He would have done it all, swear down.

However, Ted didn’t let him try, no, he’d cast Jamie aside like it was easy, like it weren’t all fucking mind games with him and he ain’t still playing with Jamie’s head because he’s a massive cunt. Like, who the fuck does he think he is, playing all nice on telly like he didn’t give Jamie the boot? Who does he think he is, saying that Jamie knew what they wanted from him when he fucking didn’t.

It’s almost all-encompassing; the desperation. Jamie has tried. He tried so fucking hard and it wasn’t good enough. It’s never good enough. He’s never good enough. It’s unfair. It’s fucking unfair and Jamie wants to punch everyone’s face in, his dad first on the list.

But he doesn’t dare. Punching dad doesn’t end well for him, never has. He needs distance. He needs to get the fuck out of there.

The urge to get the fuck out before he goes under drives him to sign up for that stupid show where he apparently misses that half the people there fucking hate him and are talking shit and everyone thinks he’s an uninterested, uncaring arsehole. He were just trying to play the game, how the fuck was he supposed to know they were all whispering behind his back?

Jamie isn’t uncaring or uninterested, he just misses stuff sometimes and he ain’t much good at paying attention. Besides, he’s not running towards fame and fortune as so many of the other contestants around him. Jamie is running away, as far away as his legs can carry him – and Jamie’s legs have always carried him far.

In the end, Jamie doesn’t stop running, until he is standing in the middle of the ruins that were once his life, having just walked out of his agent’s office with no team to return to.

Stalking Keeley might not be his brightest idea, but Jamie never thought of himself as bright anyway and he deleted her number in his anger when he was destroying his own life, so stalking it is. And it’s the correct move in the end anyway.

As always, Keeley knows how to make the world make sense to Jamie again. He is such a fucking idiot for fucking up with her and losing her and he is so grateful that despite how much of a fuck up he is, she still wants to be his friend. Jamie doesn’t know where he would be without Keeley as his friend.

Because Keeley tells him to talk to Ted and – after an agonizing day of thinking he ruined that forever too, that Ted truly had it out for him and the wanker with the biggest stiffy for giving people second chances, would not give one to Jamie – Ted calls and Ted tells him he is back on the team. Jamie has football in his life once more.

At first, he thinks he must have heard wrong, makes Ted repeat it three times and double checks, before contacting Higgins to send him the time he has to be there again in writing, because he wants to make triply sure that he was paying enough attention. He has to make sure he doesn’t miss anything this time.

Coming back to Richmond is… hard. It’s really fucking hard.

Jamie is determined to try. To do better. To be better. He wants this so fucking bad, there is nowt in his life that is more important to him than footie. He needs this to go well. Footie has always been the only thing he could do right and he nearly fucked it up for himself permanently anyway, he cannot afford to fuck up this chance Ted has given him.

However, Richmond has always been more difficult for Jamie than he’s willing to admit as he lingers around his cubby that is now on the other side of the room. He has loved footie the most since he was a kid there, but it is also the hardest it has ever been for him. And he’s dreading that first day, still remembering the way Ted’s first day has clung to him.

And he is proven right in his worries when he gets there. Clearly, no one is happy to see him aside from Ted, who is always happy to see everyone. From the moment he steps foot onto that grass, he feels the isolation creep back in.

A part of him doesn’t know what is worse; the constant doubt that they’re talking about him behind his back like they did on that stupid show and he’s missing it, or that everyone is staunchly not talking to him at all. He can’t tell and it stresses him out.

It’s almost a relief when he tries to make it better – which does not work, ‘cause now everyone’s yelling at him, don’t they – but at least it is not that oppressive silence. Jamie hates that silence. He can’t make out owt from all the yelling either, but he’s no longer on his little island, drifting alongside where the other people are. He’s a part of Richmond now… for better or worse, could go either way with how this is going.

Jamie takes the anger – it’s what he used to, what he is capable of doing – and tries to become a part of this team the others have made. This soft team that is kind and has no arseholes, the kind of team that actually cares about one another.

And Jamie remembers why he ever stopped trying.

“Oi, Jamie. Where are you off to, mate?” Goodman gets his attention right as he’s about to walk through the door.

Tomorrow will be his first match back at Richmond and he’s pretty nervous, not just about the reception of the fans, but how the others will play with him as well. Thus far, none of the attempts he’s made to connect have landed and he isn’t gliding as easily into the whole ‘everyone pays attention to small stuff with each other and has these interactions where they remember stuff about each other and care’-culture.

It’s just hard for him. He can’t do these sort of conversations a lot and he always seems to miss half or the important bits and shit. So, he’s just been staying out of the way instead, like he had planned on doing tonight. Better to invisible.

At Goodman’s words, he pauses, turns to the rest of the room to see everyone looking at him expectantly and blinks in confusion. “Wha’d’ya mean?”

Goodman sends him a look as if he can’t believe Jamie is asking that. “It’s team movie night,” he says with a tone that indicates ‘duh, you should know this’, when no light dawns in Jamie’s eyes, he says: “We do this before every game. Ted literally just mentioned it.”

“Like Jamie ever pays any fucking attention to Ted,” Colin says as he walks past, sending Jamie a dirty look as he goes.

Jamie can feel that awful feeling crawl around in his stomach and settling there. He was paying attention to Ted, swear down. This match is very important to him – all of them are of course, but this one especially – and Jamie is trying. He is. So he were paying attention. Thought he caught everything too, but apparently not.

“Don’t mind him,” Goodman tells Jamie, though he seems awkward about it. Out of everyone Goodman is the only one that hasn’t iced Jamie out completely and Jamie is incredibly grateful to him for it. He really hopes his fuck up here didn’t mess that up.

“’s alright,” he mumbles with a shrugs. “Guess I weren’t payin’ as much attention as I thought I were. Head’s always up in the sky, innit? Probably a ball too many to the head, eh.” He jokes, hoping the self deprecation will get Goodman to soften around the whole thing and forgive him.

Thankfully Goodman cracks a smile at that and shakes his head fondly. He pulls Jamie along as he says something. Jamie doesn’t hear what, but the grip is soft enough that it can’t have been that bad, so he’s content to just let it go.

After his hiccup of missing that there even is movie night, Jamie vows to pay extra close attention to the movie itself. If Ted picked it out for all of them to watch before the match, then it must be important.

Ted starts: “Alright, fellas, tonight we will be watching Lion King 2. I assume y’all know Lion King 1, but I am checking anyway, ‘cause you know what they say about assume, ain’t that right, coach?”

Beard nods.

Jamie has never seen Lion King, 1 or 2. He knows it vaguely that it’s all sad, like. But when they had money to get tapes second hand there had always been other movies to pick to watch with mummy, and picking a children’s movie with dad was out of the question.

However, everyone around him is nodding that they have, so he stays quiet. He don’t want to pull attention to the fact that he missed this thing that seemingly everyone else has caught growing up. It fucks with your head sometime, how growing up poor makes you miss out on stuff that everyone thinks is a common thing. Jamie don’t want to go through that right now. It’s a children’s movie, can’t be that difficult to follow, right?

… Wrong.

The lions look fun and Jamie bops along to some of the musical numbers, but that’s because the melodies are fun. Honestly, Jamie has no clue what most of the lyrics are. He never does. It don’t matter much with normal music, but it’s important here.

Still, even if he does try, he ain’t really following any of the plot. He usually watches people speak, but, while they’re all expressive, drawn lion lips ain’t exactly the same as human lips, now are they? He thinks he gets the general gist of it, but he can’t be sure, y’know.

Once the credits roll, Ted looks at them all expectantly and going off the way there are fond eye rolls going around at it, Jamie supposes this is a regular thing. “Well?” Ted invites.

“I thought the lions were very fun, coach!” Dani smiles brightly in that usual way of his, getting some nods from the other lads. Jamie quickly follows, because if nowt else, he did also think that the lions were fun.

“Little on the nose, coach, but it is a good movie,” Sam says. He’s been quiet since working out earlier and it’s clear everyone’s glad he’s not shutting down entirely.

Jamie’s plan had been to keep his fucking mouth shut and his head down. Just smile and wave and continue on. He didn’t get the movie, so what? It’s just a dumb fucking movie, he doesn’t need to get it to be a part of the team bonding activity. He can google it later and maybe figure it out if it bothers him that much, watch it again on his own. No need to make a fool of himself now.

However, Sam is one of the one people Jamie is so desperate to get to like him and Jamie doesn’t like how everyone snorts and agrees with that, while he’s sat dumb on the side. He wants to know what Sam saw, what they all saw. And before he knows it, his dumb fucking mouth is saying: “What’s on the nose?”

It’s probably loud too – Jamie is always louder than he intends to be – and everyone turns to him with ‘are you kidding’-looks on their face. Immediately, Jamie wants to shrink out of existence.

To not have to look at them, he looks at Ted. Mistake. Ted still looking pleasant, but there is a disappointed edge to his expression. Jamie always knows when people are disappointed in him and the sight makes him want to vomit.

Richard falls back dramatically in his seat and groans: “Of course Jamie didn’t get it,” followed by a muttered agreement going around the room.

“Hey now, fellas, let’s be kind,” Ted puts a stop to it, but it feels a bit like Miss Bloom telling him to pay attention next time as he speaks. “Jamie, I know you’re trying, yeah, kiddo. So I want you to think about the movie tonight and take what you find into the match tomorrow.”

“Uh, yeah, ‘course, coach,” Jamie quickly says, even though he has no clue what Ted is on about and what that instruction even means. However, he has already fucked up enough for today and he’s eager for any way out of this shit. It’s never a good thing when you have to admit you didn’t get it. People always get angry when you do, stupid of him to forget that.

“Good,” Ted smiles again and this time that disappointment fades a little. Thank fucking fuck. “Now, go have a good night’s sleep, y’all. Another match to play tomorrow and I want you out there on that field as fit as a fiddle ready to play the night away, alright?”

It’s all word soup to Jamie, but everyone around him cheers so he just sorta follows the herd and hopes for the best.

Outside, he has to wait for an uber. He don’t have his car anymore, since he left it in Manchester with his dad when he went on LCA, so it’s as good as gone. He really should be organizing a new one, but fuck, he loved that car. To do that is to accept it’s gone and dad fucked up yet another thing for him. And Jamie hasn’t had the time or energy for that.

So, instead he’s standing on the curb and reading up about Lion King 2, because even if he don’t get Ted’s instructions, he’s still going to fucking try, don’t he.

He startles out of his fucking skin when there is suddenly a voice next to him asking: “What are you doing?”

Jamie jumps about a meter in the air, clutching his chest as he goes: “Holy fucking shit, mate, you are way too fucking quiet, what the fuck!”

“Oh, I am sorry, I did not realize you didn’t hear me coming. I wasn’t trying to be quiet,” Sam says earnestly, because Sam always is earnest.

“Fuck, sorry, I know tha’, don’t worry ‘bout it,” Jamie quickly course corrects. He doesn’t want to be cursing at Sam. “Just up in me own head. I just weren’t paying attention. What’d you say?”

“I asked what you were doing?” Sam asks.

Jamie flushes a little in embarrassment, then admits: “Reading ‘bout the movie while I wait for my ride to get ‘ere. Jus’ tryin’ to figure out what I missed, I s’ppose.”

Sam studies him for a moment and Jamie fidgets a little. He doesn’t know what Sam is looking for, but he hopes that what it is, he is satisfied by what he finds. Jamie truly ain’t trying to take the piss or nowt, he truly just didn’t get it. He often doesn’t get things, but people always think he’s making fun, even if he’s completely genuine.

After a beat that feels like it lasts too long, Sam finally says. “It’s a movie about an outsider from an opposing camp struggling to be accepted when he wants to switch sides, because he isn’t trusted, even if he is trying. And while he makes his own mistakes.”

“Oh, uh, th- thanks,” Jamie says, swallowing hard. Now that Sam lays it out for him, he can see why that would be on the nose. And he did semi-guess something like that, he just weren’t too sure.

“You’re welcome,” Sam replies. “I’ll see you tomorrow for the match.”

“I’ll be there,” Jamie says like a fucking idiot, before embarrassing himself more by awkwardly adding: “Goodnight, and all tha’.”

Sam gives him a bemused look and responds in kind, “Goodnight, Jamie,” before walking off to his own car and driving away.

If he’s honest, he also doesn’t know entirely what just happened there, but it is one of the better interactions he’s had with any of his teammates since his return and it is Sam of all people, so he is definitely going to take it.

Because Jamie is trying to be accepted by Richmond, despite the fact that Richmond doesn’t trust him. He is even more desperate to prove himself now that Sam has commented on it. When Sam has pointed out Jamie made his own mistakes too.

Like today. He missed that is was movie night, just like he has missed all sort of small life updates that good friends would care about. Jamie wants Sam to see that Jamie isn’t just trying, but that he is succeeding too. He can do better and he is determined to prove it.

His opportunity comes faster than he would have thought. The very next day in fact. Sam reached out to him after Jamie didn’t get something, now Jamie can reach out to Sam when he is trying to make the lads understand something too.

Sam has a good voice, could be a great leader one day if he stops letting the defense waltz all over him and stops overthinking. He speaks powerfully and Jamie knows that the lads would have listened to him regardless, but it feels nice to be among the first few to step up and follow Sam’s lead.

Jamie has always been taught to be the leader, the best, the one standing out. However, in that moment, he is following, a part of the flock, instead of the herder. And honestly, it isn’t the end of the world like he had always imagined. All this time away from Manchester makes him realize how wrong his dad had always been, how he didn’t know shit. And here, Jamie doesn’t have to listen to him. It is a great feeling.

Standing up like this had just been about supporting Sam, but Jamie cannot complain about being brought into the fold more afterwards. People actually direct themselves towards him when they’re speaking and Jamie ends up catching a lot more stuff. It’s fucking mint.

Obviously, something has to send his carefully balanced jenga tower wobbling and, obviously, that something has to be Roy. Jamie doesn’t think he’ll ever lose the shadow of Roy that has always hung over his footie career.

It has gone from a comforting place to hide, to a darkness that is suffocating, and now, Jamie doesn’t know what it will be like. All he knows is that the blackly clad silhouette is standing among the coaches now and he’ll have to see how it goes.

And having Roy as a coach is both great and awful at the same time.

You see, Roy as a coach is fucking perfect and exactly what Richmond has been missing. Unlike the other coaches, he actually knows what playing footie is like and he doesn’t muck around. Every day, he is on the sidelines loudly yelling a short tidbit that causes everything to make sense. He’s practically the best coach Jamie has ever had.

…Or at least, he would be, were he actually coaching Jamie, which he ain’t. And, like, Jamie knows he fucked up and was an arsehole, but it’s still unfair. He’s proving himself to be better, making a proper effort. All the lads think so! Roy should totally also coach Jamie.

‘Cause Jamie knows he’s been playing worse. Practically shit really. And he knows he can play so much better, but he just don’t know how. The whole team player style of playing isn’t fully clicking for him yet and nowt the coaches have said has made sense yet. If Roy would just coach him, even if it were only for two seconds, Jamie knows he could be aces. Richmond needs aces. But Roy is being a stubborn twat about it!

“This man refuses to coach me!” he exclaims, ready to burst out of his skin in frustration. He did everything everyone asked of him and everyone can see Jamie is good now. Except Roy fucking Kent, who always wants to see the fucking worse in Jamie even when he didn’t even do anything.

“This man refuses to stop being an arsehole,” Roy counters, like a lying dickhead, because Jamie is very much stopping being an arsehole.

And surprisingly, but fortunately, Ted comes to Jamie’s defense at that, stepping in with a: “Okay, Roy, you’re not going to like this, but, right now, Jamie here is being the mature one.”

“It’s true. I’m being super mature, you big, dumb, hairy baby twat!” Jamie jumps in, needing Roy to know that he is super mature and already did the thing.

Though Ted is probably approaching the whole situation more tactfully – but it’s whatever, Jamie has been trying and dealing with Roy’s nonsense for way longer and he’s been so nice about it, while Roy was just being dead rude, so it’s deserved – because Ted actually gets Roy to finally – finally! – coach Jamie, like actually coach him.

When he explains that Jamie being a prick is actually helpful, a bit of hope uncurls. For a while it truly felt like he’d spend his entirely life learning a style of footie that he should have never been playing and now had to start at the beginning again. To have it actually be helpful – just not all the time – is such a fucking relief and exactly why he wanted Roy’s input, instead of Mr. Sunshine and Rainbows Ted.

If it had been any of the other coaches on the team, Jamie would have pushed for more clarification about whatever the signal would be, afraid he wouldn’t get it. However, he trusts Roy. Despite all the bullshit between them all these years and all the expectations and hero worship and crushed hope and antagonizing, Jamie still finds himself looking at The Roy Fucking Kent with trust.

That trust is not misplaced.

The signal Roy comes up with is fucking mint and as clear as a fucking bell (which is a stupid saying, bells are fucking metal, ain’t they? Not much to see through there, but whatever) and Jamie fucking demolishes Tottenham Hotspur.

After that, Roy finally is coaching Jamie and Jamie can feel himself actually getting better, instead of hanging around mediocrity, waiting for the other lads to catch up with him. It feels nice to be running ahead of the herd again. Jamie loves footie like this; wind in his hair, ball under his foot, team around him, mind both blissfully empty and running a mile a minute.

So Jamie is actually feeling pretty good about himself when his whole perception of the world gets turned upside down.

Ted is talking all of them through some strategy that Nate has come up with and Jamie is trying really hard to pay attention from where he’s sitting in front of his cubby. He hadn’t realized how much energy it took to listen to Ted since he came back, but something about actually trying makes it more difficult.

He can barely hear Ted as he explains, having to really focus to make words out. The thing he can hear well are Isaac and Colin giggling about something from across the benches. It’s so frustrating that Ted’s voice is getting drowned out by the general noisiness of a locker room. It nearly makes him burst out in tears, but he pushes that instinct down. He’s not some pussy, he can do this. It’s just listening. He can fucking listen, he ain’t some daft runt.

But at this point his attention keeps slipping until he is just focusing on the noise and Ted’s words have completely disappeared behind his mustache and metaphors. He’s pretty sure Beard is talking now, but the man is facing away from them as he moves the magnets and Jamie has no clue which magnet he is supposed to be anymore… as fucking always.

Colin lets out an especially noisy snort and Jamie looks their way, the noise from the front of the room disappearing to the background even more. He must admit both are great at pretending they’re paying attention and speaking a language only they know, because from what Jamie can see, they’re just looking at each other and that’s hilarious. He’s seen memes about that sorta stuff, but Jamie has never had friends like that.

A small stab of jealousy goes through him at the sight. He’s getting better at being a part of the lads and forging actual friendships with them. He’s certain that Dani is his friend and he’s pretty sure he’s on his way with everyone else. But the shadow of who he used to be still lurks in the corners and Jamie yearns to also have this.

He is snapped out of his thoughts by Roy’s voice loudly cutting through the white noise: “Oi, Tartt!”

Instantly Jamie’s head whips back around, heart jack rabbiting in his throat as he does. That did not sound like a coach pleased, and after achieving the fragile peace with him, the last thing Jamie wants to do is piss Roy off again. “Sorreh, coach,” he quickly throws out, hoping to salvage this. You can never let anyone know you didn’t hear them before. Letting that slip is dangerous, this, Jamie knows well.

Now that he’s looking, he can see Ted looking mighty disappointed next to Roy, his stomach sinks and his heart continues to race anxiously; whatever he did, it didn’t just piss off Roy.

“Thank you, Jamie,” Ted says in a voice that doesn’t sound very grateful. “I am glad you and Roy found your equilibrium together and that y’all are getting along, alright? I sure do, I promise. But you gotta pay attention all your coaches, yeah?”

“I- I do,” Jamie says, feeling more cornered and off kilter with how this conversation is going. He expected a short ‘pay attention’ and maybe a bit of a shit feeling. He had hoped he could play this off as he has always done and the other shoe would not yet drop. That he wouldn’t destroy what he has built here once again, that he could stay within the borders of acceptable behavior for Ted. That he wouldn’t have to face whatever punishment would come his way now.

The dread claws up his throat as Ted gives him a ‘come on now, bud’-look that has Jamie hunching into himself even more. “Jamie, I called your name three times before Roy here stepped in. I know I don’t know football like he does, nor does Beard here, but we are your coaches too. I see how you’ve been trying, so I am a little disappointed in you lying to me like this, kid.”

It feels like Jamie’s insides have drained away, this desperate and hopeless confused feeling overtaking him, bowling him over really. It’s a feeling that has haunted him for so long, a feeling he hasn’t truly felt like this since high school, since he stopped trying. Since he started building so many walls, just to avoid having to feel like this. Like he is so small and everyone can see how much he has always fallen short of what everyone hoped he could be. How he’s a disappointment. A failure. A lazy good for nowt, who’ll never amount to Jack shit.

Jamie has been working so hard to be accepted, to show these people that he isn’t like that. That he is a better version of himself now. That he is trying and doesn’t deserve to be punished. To please let him get off easy.

To now feel tiny under everyone’s disappointed gazes leaves him feeling like he wants to gnaw his own leg off.

“I were paying attention!” he exclaims, voice a bit too shrill and definitely too defensive, ‘cause Jamie knows he’d gotten distracted for a bit there, but he bluffed himself through so much of his life, he prays he can escape one more. That all this effort he’s been putting in will be enough to soften Ted. That Ted will see how hard he’s been trying. Because he must see how hard he tries, right?

“Now, Jamie-” Ted starts again and Jamie can hear by the tone of his voice that Ted ain’t going to let him off the hook. Ted knows and Jamie has to salvage this as much as possible. Has to minimize the damage as much as he can. He wants to play next match. He wants to stay here.

Around him, the room starts getting smaller and he the urge to explain himself bubbles up, to try and make them understand so that they won’t kick him to the curb. To show them that he is trying, that he meant it when he promised to pay attention, even if no one from Miss Bloom onward has ever fucking believed him.

He knows it’s stupid, that trying to defend or explain himself doesn’t work. It has never worked, but maybe he is a daft runt anyway, maybe everyone has always been right about him – maybe dad has always been right about him – because the words spill out anyway.

“No!” He’s on his feet now, not even dad’s harsh words about what kind of person he looks like when he flaps his hands stopping him from doing it as he paces and rants. “I am listening. Maybe I wasn’t just now, but I am. I try an’ listen to all of you’se, swear down.”

Everyone is staring at him now in shocked silence – finally enough fucking silence that he could have fucking paid attention if they’d just done this all the time – and Jamie knows he looks like he’s losing it, but he can’t stop now, the verbal diarrhea just getting vomited out after it’s been stuck behind his teeth for god knows how long. The desperate plea to finally, for once, be fucking heard.

“It’s just fucking hard, innit? ‘Cause like you and Beard got your accents and there’s nowt wrong with that, but your mouths move weirdly when you talk, so some words just look fucking weird when you say them,” Jamie continues, voice getting higher and higher as he does, probably louder too. He’s always too loud. And he knows he’s fucking up, but he cannot seem to make himself stop.

“And on top of that, you-” he points at Ted “-got that fucking mustache and your metaphors and make it hard to make out anythin’ like, an’ Beard-” he’s gesturing at Beard now “-always turns to the fucking board when he speaks, so you can hear fuck all there, while Nate-” a nod to where Nate is trying to make himself invisible “-is mumbling half the time an’ stuttering over every other fucking word for the rest, which don’t make it easy to make out what the fuck he’s sayin’ either.”

Jamie is pretty sure he’s yelling at this point, but he’s never been able to tell when he’s getting loud, so he doesn’t even know, which is only adding to his upset, ‘cause he’s actively fighting the tears at this point, all the isolation and frustration of all these years catching up to him as he reaches his breaking point.

He doesn’t know why this is the thing that gets to him, but it has, and he hopes that maybe Ted is the kind of weird person who will actually believe him when he says he’s trying, even if that’s a terrifying prospect at the same time. Jamie doesn’t know what will happen if someone believes him. It has never happened before. Except maybe with mummy, but he never had to explain himself to her, she had always simply gotten him without that.

“And there is just noise. Everywhere. And it drowns out everything tha’s happening on that side of the room, like there’s something wrong with the act-lostics of this room, swear down, ‘cause it sounds all different on tha’ side. And Roy is the only one, who just talks like a fucking normal person, so it’s not that I ain’t payin’ attention to all of you’se, he’s jus’ the only one I can fucking hear!”

With that final outburst he falls silent, his breathing heavy and embarrassment immediately hot on his cheeks as he braces himself for the blow back that is surely coming now.

Jamie has always tried to keep everything buttoned up deep inside him and never let people know what he’s really thinking or feeling, except for when he’s flying high. He’s always been too uncomfortable with being genuinely seen, afraid of what people might do with the pieces. And now he’s gone and made a right spectacle over himself, just ‘cause his ickle feelings got hurt? Fuck.

Now Ted will take all these pieces and crush them, knock some sense into Jamie if he’s lucky. Send him away again if he’s not. What the fuck had he been thinking?

He is about to take it all back, apologize and book it the fuck out of there before it can all crumble, when Ted suddenly finds his voice, stepping forward like he’s approaching an injured animal, hands up soothingly. Jamie is both deathly afraid and unable to stop himself from feeling hopeful as he waits for Ted to start talking.

Finally, Ted says: “Jamie, kiddo, can I- do you- Am I understanding you right when I say that you can’t… hear us?”

The way he says it makes Jamie feel seen in a way he doesn’t understand and doesn’t find comfortable in the slightest. Everyone is looking at him with these eyes and, look, Jamie usually loves attention, but he’d really like for all of them to fuck off and look away from him now, ta.

“I mean, I can ‘ear you. I’m responding, ain’t I?” he says defensively, his hands now tucked under his shirt, before they can get away from him again. He’s done with embarrassing himself and would like this moment to stop now, please, before they all remember there should be consequences to what he has just done. To what he confessed.

“Jamie, I just want to understand you. It’s clear you’re upset and, heck, I’m upset too. ‘Cause it doesn’t sound like you’ve been having a great time and I want to help you if you’re struggling,” Ted tells him in that sympathetic way of his that Jamie doesn’t know what to fucking do with when it’s directed at him, even when he yearns for it too.

In a last ditch attempt, he lies: “I’m not struggling,” because Jamie has never been allowed to struggle since he was a wee lad and dad made him run extra laps, ‘cause he wasn’t gonna amount to owt if he kept lazing around like tha’.

“Fucking hell,” Roy breaks the interaction that thus far had just been between him and Ted.

“What?” Jamie snaps, because snapping at Roy is something he knows well. It’ll make Roy mad, then Roy will fight him, everyone will be annoyed and focus on that and forget all about whatever mental breakdown Jamie just had, so he can put all of this in a box and never look at or think about any of it ever again. Perfect.

However, Roy is a fucking annoying twat, who doesn’t get mad at him, because why the fuck would he do what Jamie wants? He just crosses his arms and says: “It’s okay to be fucking struggling if your hearing’s fucked, Tartt.”

“My hearing’s not fucked,” Jamie retorts, hands subconsciously coming up to touch his ears as he frowns, heart rate picking up even more. His hearing can’t be fucked. He’d know that, right?

Roy raises a brow at Jamie, then looks at Ted and Beard to see if they’re also hearing this. Around him, he can see others pulling similar expressions, before, finally, Jan says: “It is not impossible for you to be hard of hearing. Lots of people are. And you talk as if seeing someone’s face is an important part of hearing when it really is not.”

Jamie is pretty sure that’s a fucking lie, it’s fucking hard to hear shit when the conditions aren’t exactly right or when when someone ain’t looking your way. That’s just basic knowledge. You just gotta try and piece together what people said based on, like, context clues and shit.

However, then Isaac agrees: “Yeah, bruv, it does kind of sound like your hearing’s fucked.”

And when Jamie looks around, he can see more people agreeing with it. Even fucking Sam, who is too honest to become part of an unspoken pact to take the piss, which Jamie half thought had been happening. It makes a lump appear in his throat, a fear at what this means for him and for what everyone will do now that they’ve seen a part of him that isn’t perfect. Jamie always has to be perfect.

“Hey, now, Jamie, it’s okay,” Ted takes the reigns of the conversation again. “It’s a good thing we know now, so we can get you checked out, see what’s up and accommodate. I’m sorry for not realizing sooner, as your coach, I definitely should have and I’m gonna do right by you now, okay, bud? We all are.”

And Jamie can no longer be here now. No, thank you. He needs to leave.

So that is what he does, he turns on his heel and straight up walks out of there and pretends he doesn’t hear the yelling start up – a thing he can apparently do, since everyone thinks his hearing is fucked – and breaks out in a run before anyone can gather the wits to chase after him.

He might feel like a fucking baby as he gets into his car, most of his stuff still left behind in the locker room, but he had to get out of there. He doesn’t even fully realize why, but he just has to. He just couldn’t take being in a room where that was a reality.

Jamie does not want to get checked out. Jamie does not want to see what is up. And Jamie definitely does not want to get accommodated.

Getting accommodated is something soft pussies do, because they’re not strong enough to make it on their own and need someone to hold their ickle hands. The pricks. That is definitely not Jamie Tartt. His dad would have his head for that. He shudders at the thought of dad ever finding out that Jamie ever found himself in a position where others would even suggest that he should go visit a doctor, when he definitely could have just toughed it out like a proper man.

Besides, Jamie doesn’t need to get checked out. There is nothing wrong with his hearing. There can’t be anything wrong with his hearing. Jamie refuses to believe that that is the case. He’s been hearing just fine his entire life. He would have fucking known if he were fucking deaf, okay?

He ain’t deaf, he just sucks at paying attention, he has always sucked at paying attention. It were his own fault he were a daft runt, nowt to do about that. That’s just how it is. Jamie is just a thick lad, who don’t know better and that is the reason he gets punished. Because after all this time, he should know better. Be better.

Jamie is better now. Better than he’s ever been. He just needs to try more and then he’ll be the best and he’ll have changed himself enough to be good enough and everything will be alright. He just has to try harder, there is nowt wrong with him.

Because if there is something wrong with him, if his hearing is fucked like everyone seems insistent on thinking back there, then he can’t change that about himself. Then he can’t become so good that no one will ever be upset with him again.

And if there is something wrong with Jamie’s ears and he can’t change that, then maybe- maybe he also couldn’t have helped it. Then maybe he hasn’t just sucked his whole life and maybe dad were wrong to always be so upset with him for not listening. Then maybe it weren’t all Jamie’s fault.

Jamie doesn’t know what to do with himself if it ain’t his fault…

He’s in his fucking twenties and he doesn’t know what he’ll do if he has to face the reality that all those times people have been disappointed and didn’t believe that he was trying, or thought that he was being rude. That all of that weren’t on him for being a horrible person, who had a rot in his chest that he would never be able to escape. That actually, he couldn’t help that no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t do what they were asking of him.

Everything has always been his fault, he can’t bear the possibility of some doctor telling him it’s not, even if moments ago a part of him did want Ted to tell him it was alright and not his fault. That it was never his fault.

‘Cause, like, if it weren’t his fault and he couldn’t help it, then why had he been punished all his life? If there wasn’t something that was Jamie’s fault, why did his dad treat him like that? Why was everyone always so disappointed in him? Why did no one help him? Jamie doesn’t like the emotions that come with those questions, they aren’t ones Jamie likes to feel, so he just ignores them as he drives home with probably less attention paid to the road than is safe.

Ignorance is bliss and shit, right? If he just doesn’t think about it, then he’s fine. It’s all fine. This is just how life is. How Jamie’s life is. And Jamie is fine. He’s just fine.

~~

A/N:

I myself am not hard of hearing, I tried to research it the best I could for this fic, but I know that I probably cannot capture all the nuances of that experience, so do take this fic with a grain of salt and I apologize if there is anything in here that comes across disrespectful, that was very much not my intent and if you have the spoons, please, do let me know

Btw this was meant to just focus on HoH!Jamie but it became a full on character study, whoopsie xp, promise there will be more focus on the premise of this fic next chapter. The character study was important contextualization, that is my defense xp

The chapters are going to be hefty in length, so the plan is to post every Wednesday until all five chapters are up. I know that deviates from my usual two chapters a week schedule, but 30k-ish in updates seems like a bit much and as fast as I write, I am not that fast rip

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