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jamiesfootball · 1 year

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CONGRATULATIONS. YOU ARE THE LUCKY WINNER OF THE LONGEST RESPONSE. I'M SO SORRY.

Welcome to my Jamie can have more than 1 2 3 4 best friends agenda starring Isaac McAdoo From Isaac’s perspective See the one thing Isaac always had a thing about is people seeing him on his own merits. He knows all too well that his image fits a stereotype—there’s nothing he can do to change that—but what he can do is put the effort in to make sure the other parts of him shine through. So he studies up: on fashion, on kinesics, on Shakespeare. Anything he’s interested in, he puts the effort in. So it’s not enough for Roy to give him the captain’s band- he has to earn it. He has to put the effort in, or it doesn’t count as his.

Then there’s Colin. Colin came to Richmond during the same transfer period as Isaac, and from day one they've been getting scolded for talking during video review. Colin is easy; they share a wavelength. A silliness. Colin is judgy and a bit hot tempered, but also completely easy-going with whatever Isaac suggests. He’s never had to try hard with Colin. When Jamie shows up at Richmond the first time there’s a bit of that too. He’s got some of their silliness and humor, though it’s shrouded in dickish overtones. He’s more willing than Colin is to push back if he doesn’t like something, but there isn’t much he isn’t willing to go along with when Isaac suggests it. Plus Jamie thinks it’s funny when Colin gets into a proper bitch session (Isaac agrees). But Isaac thought Jamie appreciated him for the other stuff. He never came at Isaac the way he came at Sam about the football stuff, so he always assumed that Jamie could see that Isaac was putting the work in. That he respected the effort of trying to do well on a team that wasn’t doing well, but was certainly trying to do better. That he respected Isaac. Then Isaac was throwing a chair through a tv, and more fool on Isaac then- Jamie never respected any of them at all. But Roy gave him the captain's band and Isaac McAdoo always earns what he’s given, so when Jamie comes back to Richmond he knows it’s on him to set an example.

He lets the other lads take the lead, but mentally Isaac’s prepared to have it out if he needs to show Jamie who’s in charge this time around. It doesn’t come to that. Jamie comes sulking back in like a puppy who’s new and nervous to play with the big dogs. He stands there and apologizes. He takes it when the lads throw at him the same complaints that Isaac’s been fielding since he took on the armband- from the valid (Sam’s stewing anger) to the less valid (Richard deserved it) to the….Isaac isn’t sure (‘he unfollowed all of us on Twitter, Dani. It wasn’t just you’).

Jamie never challenges Isaac’s claim to leadership. It irks something awful, and something in Isaac suspects that Jamie still doesn’t respect him.

Then the gaffer goes mental one day, yelling at them like a Loony Tunes character, and Jamie’s the only one of them to say anything about it. Isaac should’ve said something. Someone needed to call the coach out and he should’ve done it. He keeps telling himself to do better as a captain, but then these situations crop up and he doesn’t know what to do until after the thing has happened.

But Jamie didn’t look at him after like he was trying to steal Isaac’s lead. If anything he looked confused, bewildered when the team gave him props for standing up for them. No, it wasn’t a power move on his part. He was just doing the right thing. The right thing that Isaac should’ve done.

Isaac games it out with Colin, the Jamie mess. Colin reassures him that it was a funky situation and that the lads knows Isaac is trying his best. Colin wouldn’t lie to him.

So Isaac figures ‘you get what you give’ right? If Jamie’s going to make an effort, then so is he. If he wants Jamie’s respect, he’ll give a little first. Isaac makes an effort to grease the way on Jamie coming back into the fold. He’s got a handshake with everybody on the team and he makes of point of showing everyone on the pitch that Jamie’s got one too (had one before the rest of them, if he’s being honest; had one since back when they used to hit the clubs together). It’s easier than he thought it’d be, folding Jamie back in to club nights, movie nights, the occasional cheat day brunch.

One morning they’re sipping on cheat-day mimosas at Colin’s (and watching the highlights from the game from the night before in a time-honored tradition of not even pretending they don’t have egos) and Colin finally cracks and tells Jamie his stupid gelled back hair last year made him look like a luge runner. Isaac is proud—that’s the longest Colin’s ever kept his opinion to himself. Jamie snorts orange juice on himself; Colin yells about his couch. Jamie tells them that he was just revisiting old haunts and the mood struck him, yeah? Swear I won’t do it again.

Isaac tells him he better not. Reflects poorly on him as captain if one of his crew shows up looking like a twat. He throws it out without thinking. It’s the first time he’s given voice to the new hierarchy between them and he’s not sure how Jamie will respond.

Jamie responds by complaining that the orange juice burned his nose. Then by texting Isaac the next morning, a photo of himself in the mirror rocking one of those puffy vests he likes and a stiff collared button-up shirt Isaac wouldn’t be caught dead in. His hair is gelled back, but it doesn’t look too awful with the halfway decent fade he sports these days (Isaac could do better, he’s just saying).

The text says, “all good cap??”

Isaac texts back a photo of himself. “needs work bruv”

He’s not sure if its respect, but it’s something good. Something that makes him crack jokes, and hang off of Sam’s shoulders, and defend Isaac’s artistry with the razor to Jan like it’s his own honor at stake. (This in spite of the fact that Jamie has never, not once cashed in his free yearly haircut).

It’s all good and then Wembley happens and Isaac thinks that maybe the real issue is that Jamie’s never seen what respect looks like in his life. Maybe the flaw was never in Isaac as a captain or a player, if this was the man who should’ve taught him what it looked like in the first place.

He tests the waters when Jamie comes to him and Colin panicked after the funeral and tells them he pulled some stupid shit with Keeley (‘the funeral got to me. I don’t know why I said that—Roy’s going to murder me’). Jamie’s got himself all worked up that Roy’s going to talk to the gaffer and they’re going to send him packing—as if—and Isaac tells him full stop that the only way through it is to be responsible for his actions. Tell Roy the truth. Tell him you didn’t mean to step on his relationship, and that you respect him.

Because Jamie does respect Roy. Isaac knows that much. He can see it in the way Jamie followed him around like a lost duckling when Roy first came back to coach. Now that he knows what he’s looking for, he can see it a lot in how Jamie looks at Ted when Ted is doing one of his Ted-talks. He can see it in how Jamie looks at Sam when Sam talks about how Twitter still won’t lay off about the Dubai Air thing but he refuses to let them treat him with disrespect but he also refuses to stoop to their level. Jamie’s respect looks a lot like awe and wonder with just a hint of confusion. Jamie never looks at Isaac like that.

Jamie does take his advice though, and by the end of the season him and Roy seem square. Isaac’ll take the win.

Colin complains that when Roy headbutted him, he got a concussion, but when Jamie gets headbutted he gets a hug.

Isaac and Jamie both go in for a very sarcastic hug at the same time. Maximum silliness reinstated. All is right in the world.

Zava arrives and Isaac, for a while, finds himself swayed and forgetting his purpose as a captain. It’s something he’ll look back at and regret, like the Loony Tunes situation, how he got so caught up in the flow of things that he forgot to ask himself what he should be doing as a captain.

Zava sticks around and Colin gets moved to second string. That, Isaac notices. He may not be the captain he should be, but he knows how to be there for his best friend.

Zava leaves. Isaac, faced with his shortcomings, doesn’t handle it well. He over-corrects and insists on everybody bonding in Amsterdam. He keeps half an eye on the hotel door so he can flag Jamie over when Roy’s done with him, but the night comes and goes and the two of them never show up. When they catch the bus the next morning, the two of them seem better, settled and relaxed the way Roy hasn’t looked all year. Isaac puts that down as another thing to learn: bonding ain’t just about the team. Sometimes the coaches need it too. A year ago he might’ve been worried about Jamie stepping on his heels. He hasn't worried about that in a while.

When Total Football goes awry, he over-corrects again but in the opposite way. Lashes out at Jamie for not scoring goals at his end of the pitch, while Isaac hasn't been holding up his half of the job either. But Jamie's the one with the strategy, and he explains it in a way that makes it seem so obvious to Isaac afterwards.

Jamie has respect now. From the team. From the coaches. From Isaac.

And there's Isaac, and he's still missing shit that should be so obvious.

“I told you boyo. You’re seeing things that aren’t there. You don’t have nothing to worry about,” Colin tells him one week.

The next week finds Isaac footing it after his best friend because Colin's a judgmental arsehole when he wants to be, but this time he's off the mark. The ladies who sent photos to their fellas didn't do anything wrong. Whatever girls sent photos to Colin, Isaac will sort it out. He's not happy that this is the side that Colin’s come down on, but they’ll work it out. He’s his best friend; they’ll work it out. He doesn’t have anything to worry about.

It takes holding Colin's phone in his hand for Isaac to realize he's never seen his best friend with a girl.

It’s like he’s the epicenter of an atom bomb, the way the world fizzles away to nothing in his ears, thoughts blown far from the radius until all he could do is hand the phone back and walk away.

Another one of those things he should’ve noticed, but didn’t. Except worse.

He tells Colin everything, and it feels like Colin’s lied about everything.

It hurts. It’s a ball of rage so deep it takes him out at the knees, and it makes him want to do worse than throw a chair at the TV.

For the next month there’s no cheat-day mimosas. There’s no impromptu late-night FIFA matches and avoiding Roy’s wrath when he catches them yawning the next morning. Colin slinks around him in the locker room and makes jokes with the other lads and looks to Isaac for a sign of a smile like this is just a tiff. Like any day now Isaac’s going to roll his eyes and say ‘okay I’m over it we’re square now.’

Isaac doesn’t know how to be over it. He feels himself tearing up just thinking too hard about it. When he doesn’t say anything back and Colin looks away in disappointment, Isaac wants to do worse than throw chairs.

Isaac’s always tried to make sure he gets what he deserves, but he doesn’t know what he did to deserve this.

If this were anybody else it wouldn’t be happening, he’d call Colin and game plan that shit. But it is Colin, and given the potentially sensitive nature, what Isaac really needs is someone who won’t ask too many questions.

That’s what he tells himself when he hits up Jamie to see if he can carve out some time to grab a drink with Isaac, between Roy’s insane extra workouts and the team’s new everyday insane workouts.

He needn’t have worried about spilling any secrets. Jamie wasn't Colin. Colin had an unassuming way of under-reacting that makes you feel like you could tell him anything and he wouldn’t bat an eye. Which is false—what he actually does is he lets you pour your heart out and then tells you you’re being an idiot (judgmental prick).

Jamie on the other hand finds a bone to pick and then natters you into fighting over it, and before Isaac knows it they’ve spent two hours arguing about the end of Inception and he hasn’t once thought about Colin and the huge, stupid secret Isaac’s got locked inside his chest.

Isaac invites Jamie out again two nights later, when the breathing gets tough. Then again on the weekend, when its starting to dawn on Isaac how a Colin-less life makes a calendar feel like an empty hallway after the party’s over.

He spends a month patching over the Colin-holes with Jamie-shaped gauze.

For a shit month, it's pretty enjoyable.

Around week two they go on a shopping spree. An honest to god break out the champagne full fucking wardrobe shopping spree. (Colin doesn’t really like shopping; Jamie isn’t Colin). When they finish ransacking the first store, Jamie lays down his card and tells the shop assistants, "It’s on me." Isaac gets the tab at the next place. He talks Jamie into expanding his pallet to include more summer colors – sneaks a sky blue hoodie into the pile when Jamie isn’t looking – and in return Jamie hypes him up to hell and back, saying he looks mad fit every time he comes out of the dressing room while daring Isaac into trying some basic color blocks ("Not everything needs a print, mate"). He even finds Isaac a pair of pink-tinted sunglasses that are surprisingly tasteful.

The thing is it's become a habit, Jamie hyping him up. Going on a year later, most days him and Jamie are still swapping pictures of their outfits each day. Slowly but surely, Jamie's style has stopped looking like ‘DSQUARED2 but only the lame parts.' His style now is fresher, more dialed in. Occasionally, Isaac will admit, he looks fucking fly. Not as fly as Isaac, but the effort's there.

(Colin’s fashion choices are atrocious—if he ever complimented him, Isaac would burn the outfit on the spot.)

When they finally split afterwards, Jamie pulls him into a tight hug and thanks him like Isaac’s the one who’s done him the big favor, instead of Jamie being the one anchoring Isaac to sanity.

After a month he's mad at Colin, and he’s mad at himself for still being mad at Colin. He doesn't know how to fix it.

But no one, absolutely no one, is allowed to throw hate at Colin.

The damn breaks when Isaac isn’t ready, and then Roy's pulling him back and he's in the locker room yelling and all the unfairness and the anger and the guilt and the missing-Colin boils to the surface, and Isaac is gonna cry if he doesn’t get out of there.

Isaac isn’t so far gone that he forgets about the armband, the weight of the thing he’s earned but certainly doesn’t deserve right now. He leaves with Sam, with his steadiness and grace and discernment. He'll either keep it safe or give it back, depending on which way the scales tip for Isaac when he leaves the room.

Roy sets him straight. A year ago Roy’s lessons were sharper, lessons under streetlamps that you had to fight through yourself. Since Amsterdam, he’s been as soft with the team as Isaac’s ever seen him. He doesn’t know what Jamie did to bring that out, but he feels a similar softness in himself when Jamie corners him after the game to tell him what went down in the locker room after he left.

Colin came out to the team.

Colin came out to the team for Isaac.

“Everyone was really supportive about it,” Jamie reassures him. He’s tugging his ear, an awkward tick he’s picked up from Sam, and he’s not quite looking Isaac in the eye but Isaac can’t look anybody in the eye right now either so that checks out. “About him, but also about you, in case it were you too.”

That'd be a new level of drama even for this team. Isaac snorts. “Nah, it wasn’t me.”

Jamie huffs, “Yeah. Didn’t think so.” Then he pauses for a second and adds, “But if it ever was something, you could let us know, yeah? We’re here for Colin. We’d be here for you too. If you're upset about something, you can just tell us. You don't got to spend a month making excuses to hang out.”

It’s Isaac’s turn to instigate one of those crushing hugs. Jamie hugs back just as tight.

There’s too much going on for one day, a red card and Roy Kent telling him to calm down and sort himself out and Colin—fuck he’s got to talk to Colin—but one of these days—

—it’s been poking at the back of his mind, the way that Jamie sometimes is a bit like a can of Lynx. It smells like Lynx and it looks like Lynx but sometimes Isaac suspects he only thinks that because he saw the label first. Another one of those things that he learns that'll make more sense after Isaac figures it out, he’s sure. That's for another day.

For now Colin hears him out. Colin lets him talk. Colin says something about one-percent uncertainty feeling like ninety-nine percent terror, and it strikes a chord, harmonizing with the uncertainty he’d felt over the idea that if Colin lied about one thing, then Colin lied about everything.

Colin doesn’t lie to him. Isaac should’ve remembered that. He should’ve let the ninety-nine percent truth bury out the one-percent lie.

Colin does that thing where he lets Isaac talk himself into numerous dumb dead-ends and only sort of mocks him for it afterwards. Judgmental prick. Lighthearted arsehole. Isaac missed him.

He’s so fucking grateful for the return of Colin-time that a good month goes by. Issac doesn't clock the fact that he’s not hung out with Jamie for a while until fucking Roy Kent side-swipes him with it out of nowhere. Roy had been looking for Jamie, and Isaac quips without thinking, "why would I know where he is? I thought you two were attached at the hip these days?"

Roy grits his teeth and says, "Would’ve thought you’d know, you being best friends and all."

He says it with emphasis, like he’s quoting something. Someone. Jamie. Like he’s quoting Jamie.

He says it as if it’s not news to Isaac’s ears.

He says it and Isaac feels like a fucking idiot. He'd replaced his actual best friend with Jamie for like a month, and Jamie had let him even though Jamie knew Isaac was full of shit and making excuses to hang out. And Jamie was being supportive, stepping back and skipping out on cheat-day mimosas while Colin and Isaac re-navigated years’ worth of late-night conversations, now with the pronouns flipped over.

Colin was Isaac’s best friend. But if Jamie thought Isaac was his best friend—

Well.

Isaac wasn’t in the habit of keeping things he hadn’t earned. If Jamie thought Isaac was his best friend, then Isaac was going to earn it.

Maybe he could convince him to start with a haircut.

#this began as me explaining a very stupid headcanon - they swap outfit pics in the mornings #and after that it turned into 'wait but have i mentioned this wait how about this'#i credit the combined forces of proximity to isaac mcadoo and distance from his dad for Jamie's level up in swag in season three #might edit for clarity later - this spilled out of me so i hope it makes sense #anyways they're both so special to me #isaac mcadoo #jamie tartt #colin hughes #ask box is always open #ask game

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countrymusiclover · 4 months

Text

1 - Professor Reid

Part 2

Detective Stabler’s Daughter

Here's the first chapter and as always if you have anything you'd like to see. I always leave my stories open for suggestions.

“Are you sure you have your pepper spray?” My father Elliot asked me like the tenth question in the car driving me from our house to my college where my younger sister Kathleen was going to be attending this year.

Sending my dad a glance he was panicking far too much about this, especially since it was my senior year there and nothing bad has ever happened. “Dad, please calm down.”

“You know if anything goes wrong, call 911.” He added another point not hearing me.

I sighed, slumping my shoulders. “Dad! It’s my senior year. I will be perfectly fine.”

“I deal with the worst people in the city, honey. I just don’t want something to happen to you when I’m not there to protect you.” He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel waiting for the light to change green.

We finally pulled up in the parking lot outside the building of my first class. We had already moved my stuff in my dorm but my parents also said if I wanted to come home for a while I could. Getting out of the car I went around and hugged my father when he got out of the car. “Don't worry so much. Besides I'll have my sister here to have my back.”

“Y/n. Dad!” We turned our heads seeing my sister running towards us across the parking lot.

I broke the embrace from him, engulfing her in a tight hug. “Kathleen!”

“I've missed you.” I squeezed her tightly back even though we had only been apart a week since she moved in a week earlier being a freshman.

We finally broke our hug turning to face our father. He was standing in front of us simply just staring at us. He was always overprotective of every single one of his children. “You two need to stay in constant contact with each other. If you can’t reach the other, tell me or your mother immediately.”

“We know dad.” I grumbled loving him but this was a tad much.

Kathleen walked up to him, hugging him. “Dad, stop being such a worrier. Y/n and I will be fine without you breathing down our necks.”

“I love you both - uh I better get to work.” His phone vibrated in his pocket when he broke the hug with her. He began walking away from us pointing his index finger at us rounding the corner out of our sights. “Be responsible. Both of you.”

Kathleen and I said in unison, looping arms with each other heading off in the direction of our first class of the school year. “Love you dad.”

My sister and I entered the building seeing that the room was shaped like theater seating that were slightly surrounding the professor desk and large white board. We decided to sit in the second row seating in the middle for the best view, but where we didn't come off as so eager to learn. Reaching inside my backpack I drew out a light green notebook. “So do you have your sights on getting a boyfriend before you leave here?”

“What no.” I whipped my head around at my sisters question.

She huffed. “Why not?”

“Because I have been perfectly happy doing my college years without a boyfriend and I'm quite sure I can finish out my last one without one.” I explained to her sitting some pencils beside my notebook.

My sister clicked her tongue. “That's my goal for you this year. To get you a boyfriend.”

“How about you focus on your studies.” I reminded her.

The rest of the classroom began filling up with people before a different door was opened and closed behind the person who walked in. The guy that I assumed could only be our professor sat down on a satchel on the long desk. “Good afternoon class. My name is Dr. Spencer Reid. You can call me Professor Reid.”

“He’s cute.” I heard one of the girls in front of us.

I picked up my pencil marking notes for myself across the syllabus we had to have printed out before the first day of class and already read over it. “Awe.” Another girl rested her chin in the palm of her hands.

“I assume you all have read the syllabus but if you have any questions feel free to ask.” The professor explained brushing his hands over his clothes. He was wearing a gray shirt underneath a black suit jacket and some brown dress shoes.

Kathleen tapped my shoulder trying to talk to me. “They are right. He is rather cute.”

“Sssh Kath.” I warned her wanting to pay attention instead of gossiping.

“Okay let’s take a moment now to discuss the difference between a trigger and a stressor.” Professor Reid began the lecture for our first day of class. “A trigger is a sensory event experienced by an offender that precipitates subsequent behavior whereas a stressor is a longer term pattern of behavior or circumstances which pushes a person into behaving differently than they normally would.”

Some of the other girls in the class began twirling their hair and giving him the doe eyes, clearly not paying attention to what he was saying. “You’re probably gonna wanna write this down. I shouldn’t be telling you this but I’m definitely putting this on the final.”

“I’m only auditioning this class.” My pencil moved across the page taking down detailed notes until a girl with long black hair raised her hand in the air.

Our professor raised a brow. “Is anyone else auditioning this class?”

“Oh man. He’s definitely cute.” Kathleen mumbled under my breath.

I rolled my eyes at her statement seeing most of the girls in the class raise their hands answering his question. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Okay - unfortunately that is all the time we have for today. Thank you guys, class dismissed.” He paused, eyeing his wrist watch and dismissing the class earlier than the end time that was listed.

Kathleen began putting her stuff away getting to her feet to leave like most people were. “Cool. Out of class early on the first day. Can you show me around the campus?”

“Yeah sure.” I answered her.

I heard our professor’s voice call out to me suddenly. “Excuse me, miss. Can I talk with you for a second?”

“Uh me?” I turned my body around, eyeing him standing down by his desk.

He nodded yes to me. “Yes.”

“Oooh already in trouble on day one.” Kathleen teased.

I glared at her, waving her off and gathering my stuff to go meet him down at his desk. My sister slipped out the double doors into the hallway. “I’ll find you later. Hi Professor Reid, you wanted to speak with me.”

“I noticed you and your friend were the only ones really paying attention in my lecture today.”

I made a simple noise at his point. “Oh.”

“I just wanted to say thank you. It was kinda embarrassing to learn that the majority of girls in here are auditing my class.”

Hugging my notebook closer to my chest I sent him a kind smile not expecting him to admit that it affected him. “Well uh - thank you for saying that, Professor.”

“Call me Spencer - um only if you want to - if we’re talking like this. Never mind, I shouldn't have said that. That was very unprofessional of me Ms.-“ He stuttered on his words, shifting from foot to foot.

I felt my face turn red at what he had just said until I shook my head pushing whatever I was feeling away since I was a student and he was a professor. “Stabler, Y/n Stabler. I’ll - uh see you tomorrow Professor Reid.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Ms. Stabler.” He replied watching me exit the classroom while I peaked over my shoulder sparing him one glance before I was out of sight.

Comments really appreciated ❤️

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