#anyway. JUSTICE FOR KEELEY JONES.

[rachelgellergreen]

[its-time-to-write]

Omg I would love a Jamie Tartt x reader where the readers ex boyfriend was a footballer maybe a goalie and Jamie has to play against him in a match. I know it’s very vague but I’d love to see what you’d do! No pressure!! :))

I loved this request! Hope I did it justice

would hit him in a heartbeat now

You do not have a thing for footballers you swear. It just happens. You’ve been in exactly three and a half relationships, and only one of them was not a footballer.

He was a coach.

Anyway.

You would describe your type as lovable asshole, but your friends would leave out the lovable. Because of that, none of your splits have been exactly… amicable. Well, that’s not true. Your situationship had been sweet but wrong timing, and though it hurt, there were no hard feelings. 

Really, you were both in your late teens and he was scouted early on, so it was never going to work out. You always keep up with his career though, a part of you secretly cheering him on even if he plays against your boyfriend’s team. From time to time, you think about texting him to see if he has the same number, but the next day you see him splashed in a tabloid, making out with Keeley Jones, so you leave it. 

Six months later, you’re in a relationship with a West Ham goalie named Aleksander.

Seven months after that, he’s broken your heart by telling you you weren’t the right material for a footballer’s girlfriend.

Over text.

While you are at an away game.

Against AFC Richmond.

Eight minutes later you turn off the part of your brain that cares, dig out Jamie Tartt’s old number, and write, hey! not sure if this is still your number, but I’ll be at your game today and wanted to wish you luck. - the original number 9.

Your house number had been 9 when you first met Jamie. He’d write you notes addressed to 9. For example:

9 -

Meet me at our spot at 8?

10 <3

(He called himself a 10/10).

Ten hours later, you are sitting across from Jamie in a pub, laughing about growing up and whatever, all thoughts of Aleksander firmly gone from your head. 

He asks you out after flirting for eleven days.

—

You and Jamie have a certain level of comfortability that comes with knowing someone for so long. Neither of you feel like you have to pretend. You just live with each other, and it is the best. 

You’re on your fifth date, and second one at his house when, as you get up to go, he catches your hand and says, “Stay,” in a voice made gravelly by kisses.

You let him pull you back on the couch, and you do.

You end up staying a lot.

You’re together for a year, when, sitting on that same couch, Jamie says, “Playin’ West Ham next week.”

The marker in your hand slips from where you were coloring his tattoo. “What?”

“We go against West Ham next week. Wanna come?” Jamie asks, oblivious.

You trace the design on his right forearm. “I do, it’s just- Aleksander’s gonna be there. As their goalie. And I’d rather not be there to hear what he has to say to me.” You look up at Jamie. “It’s not because I don’t want to be there for you. It’s that- well, he, he always has things to say about his exes. And it’s not kind. I don’t really think I can handle it right now, you know?”

Jamie looks at you thoughtfully and nods, slipping his hand into yours. 

“D’you want to stay here while I’m gone? ’Stead of hanging around your flatmate. Might be nice to have a break.”

You smile, squeeze his hand and reply, “Sure!” grateful that he’s not pushing it.

Jamie grins back. “Good, I hate coming home to an empty house. Always hearing sounds like there’s ghosts or some shit.”

You laugh and shove his arm playfully. “And here I thought you were being completely selfless.”

—

It’s the day of the West Ham game. You’ve stolen one of Jamie’s jerseys from his closet and are on the couch with the largest bowl of popcorn known to mankind. You’re a little nervous to see Aleksander on the screen, but it’s overshadowed by your excitement to see Jamie play.

A quarter into the game, Jamie starts making his move. The team gets the ball near the goal, he shoots and-

He’s blocked by Aleksander.

Aleksander goes up to Jamie, and from your screen you see him ask a question and then make a lewd gesture.

Jamie’s face goes bright red and in an instant, Colin is holding him back from hitting Aleksander.

You see Jamie be pulled away, then watch him jog over to the coaches. Here’s what you don’t see:

“Permission to be a prick, coach,” Jamie says, still seeing red. How dare that dickhead say something so disgusting about you.

“Fuck no,” Roy says in a tone that says no arguing. 

“Coach,” Jamie says, because he’s never been one for self-preservation, “if you don’t tell me to be a prick, I’m going to be one all by meself, so I really think it’s better if you just give me permission.”

Ted, Beard, and Roy look at each other. Ted nods. “Alright Jamie, if you think that’s best then I guess, uh,” he holds up his middle finger behind his jacket. Roy and Beard follow suit, and Jamie smiles.

The game’s back on and you watch Jamie get going again. He kicks the ball and it hits Aleksander in the worst possible spot.

“Ooh!” You cover your mouth with your hands. That looks like an accident, but you know it’s not. There was a closeup of Jamie, and you can see that glint in his eye. He’s being a little prick.

He goes up to Aleksander to “check on him,” and whispers something in his ear. Aleksander, still doubled over in pain, nods. Jamie slaps him on the back a little too forcefully, then swaggers away, tongue out. 

You’re going to ask him about it when he gets home.

—

Richmond loses, and when Jamie walks into his house you’re on him in a moment. His hands are tangled in your hair and you’re tugging on his shirt and it’s not till three hours later, as you’re laying in bed playing with his hair, that he says, “I don’t regret it.”

It takes you a moment. “What?”

Jamie’s laying on top of you so he pushes himself up a bit to meet your eyes. “I don’t regret kicking that ball into that dickhead’s dick. I just wish I could have kicked him harder.”

“What happened out there, Jaim? You were mad-mad.”

He shakes his head slightly. “What do you think? That fuckin prick asked me a dirty question about you, and I lost it. Didn’t care about the game anymore. Didn’t want him to think he could fuckin get away with it.”

He looks so distraught and sincere that you can’t help it, you have to kiss that look off his face.

“I love you, Jamie Tartt,” you whisper. His face turns devilish.

“Mind showing me just how much?” he asks and you dissolve in a fit of giggles as he begins to pepper kisses along your neck.

[lunar-years]

S1 Keeley with a boyfriend she genuinely likes and has fun with (the first one in ages) and is maybe even starting to love, even though she hadn’t ever planned on falling in love with him, and this was only supposed to be PR, right (probably), and he isn’t even the right material for a longterm thing anyway (unless he could be?) only for him to go and break their carefully woven trust and demonstrate that he really is more the arsehole everyone else keeps telling her he is, rather than the person he's been to her (the one who, sure, has an ego through the roof, but who's also funny and kind and ambitious and brave) in one fell swoop. To have to wonder if she’s been blind this whole time to who he really is, and to be made to feel like a total idiot because of how he treated her, and then to decide firmly that no, he is good and he is trying, and then to make the choice to continue to be there for him and help him when he asks...

Late S1/S2 Keeley with a different boyfriend, and this one she's certain she loves, and he could most definitely be longterm material with only a little polishing, in fact she's pretty sure this is it, and she's going to see this man through to his shine, because he's worth it. Even as he spirals in retirement and even as they hurt each other in small ways that eventually start to add up into something bigger, she keeps believing things will get better and they both will do better, because the little life they've been building is worth it. Or it has been, up until he goes and breaks up with her and doesn't even give her the courtesy of presenting something passable as a reason, even as he's turned into a stranger before he's fully out the door. And then they're barely talking and she's heartbroken and she knows she probably went wrong somewhere in there, too, but he never told her how and she's too tired to pick apart all the whys, and she's mad at him but it's difficult to even hold space for that anger because she misses him....

S3 Keeley Jones who stumbles into another new thing, and it's not going to be anything serious (unless it could be), and she's still grieving the last one (maybe the last two?) (but this will be different, really) and Rebecca's telling her she isn't certain this is a good thing (but Rebecca never liked Jamie, either, and Jamie's turned out all right, hasn't he). Her new girlfriend flying her on extravagant dates and flooding her with extravagant gifts and making Keeley feel appreciated, like all the time she's put in is finally being recognized, makes her feel worthy of love (she only wants to be loved. she wants people to stop leaving.) Even as her new girlfriend announces their relationship to the entire office (and sure, it's a little sticky, being that her girlfriend is also her boss, and it makes Keeley feel a little uncomfortable, actually, having all those eyes on her, her employees, but she pushes it aside because Jack isn't afraid to acknowledge her, to make it known that she likes her, to stick with her, and that's something). It's something until it isn't, anyway. Until she only acknowledges Keeley where she wants to, to the people she wants to. Until she leaves, too, and takes Keeley's funding with her. And then Keeley is left to feel like the clueless one again, the idiot for not spotting it coming all along.

And she's making stupid decisions again (sleeping with exes just to get the chance to feel someone), and Jamie and Roy are weirdly close now, and isn't that just flipping great. somehow she missed that, too. And she's the one who made them both better!! they never would have turned out like this if she hadn't been pushing them towards it all along, and now they're there without her, which really doesn't seem fucking fair and definitely sucks. And she's maybe still a little (a lot) in love with both of them, but then they're demanding she choose between them like quarreling stupid schoolboys, and she doesn't even want to choose and she wants both of them at the same time she wants neither of them and then there's still the sticky business of rebuilding her firm with what Jack did still sitting so raw in her chest (and it was never that serious anyway, so why does it bother her so much? why does everything bother her so much?)

(im gnawing at my enclosure)