#night before a big exam quick post s3 critical feelings dump thinly veiled as a fanfiction

[jamietxrtt]

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It wasn’t until the phone was already ringing that Roy thought through the logistics of his plan. Whether he should call Ted or not wasn’t even a question-- he had to get an explanation for this, right now-- but the time difference wasn’t something Roy had considered. It was probably around three in the morning in Kansas right now. Ted might not even pick up the phone at all-- and if he did, he’d be in bed, eyes blinking open and hair askew. The mental image of Ted being woken up by his call almost made Roy feel guilty for a second, but he was too fucking pissed off to feel bad for very long.

Eventually, Ted did pick up the phone, a croaked “Roy?” sounding tinny through Roy’s phone.

“What the fuck did you do?” Roy demanded immediately. “What did you say to him?”

“What’d I-- what?” Ted sounded bleary and unfocused, his voice still hoarse. “W’happened?”

“Jamie. You fucking said something to him.”

“I-- I did?”

Roy’s teeth ground together with an unpleasant squeak. “About his father.”

The line was silent for a moment.

“Oh.”

“You said something to him, about-- forgiveness?! Forgiveness, Ted?” Roy shook his head in disbelief, though he knew Ted couldn’t see it over the phone. “You fucking told him to forgive his father.”

“Yeah, well, I thought it might--”

“Fuck whatever you thought it might do,” Roy growled. “He’s fucking bleeding right now, because of you.”

“He-- what?!” Now Ted sounded more awake. “Wait, Jamie? What happened? Is he okay?”

“No thanks to you.” Roy squeezed the wooden railing of his porch, glaring into the night sky above. “Because of your little fucking pep talk, he ended up letting his father start fucking living with him, and now I’ve had to just spend the past hour talking him down from a fucking panic attack and cleaning the fucking blood off his fucking face and-- fuck, Ted! Did you even think at all about what you were fucking saying?” Roy shook his head again, trying his best to keep his volume under control-- Jamie was just on the other side of a glass door, after all. “Why would you fucking say that to him?”

“I…” There was an indistinct shuffling from the other side of the phone, like Ted was scrambling to get out of bed. “I didn’t tell him to do any of that, I just said--”

“You said to forgive him.”

“No-- well, I--”

“Yes. Jamie said that’s the word you used.”

“But that’s not what I meant.”

“I don’t give a flying fuck what you fucking meant, Lasso. Whatever you meant to say, what he got from it was that he has to bend over fucking backwards to accommodate his father, give him a second chance-- no, not a second chance, a fucking thousand-and-second chance-- or else Ted is going to be disappointed in him.”

There was another moment of quiet, where Ted let out a long, controlled breath. Part of Roy’s brain supplemented a memory of Ted before a game, closing his eyes and performing breathing exercises into cupped palms, but the rest of Roy rejected it outright. He was too fucking blazing mad to be feeling any sort of understanding for Ted at the moment.

“I do think forgiveness is a-- a virtue we should all strive towards,” Ted said finally, calmly, and Roy barked out a laugh.

“You think that fucking matters right now? Your fucking Lasso philosophy? He’s bleeding, Ted.”

“Well, I didn’t know that was how this would end up!” Ted’s voice shot back, suddenly defensive in a way Roy had never heard him before. “Everyone can change, Roy, you know I believe that--”

“Jesus, Ted, you weren’t thinking for a fucking second about the consequences of what you said to him, were you? You saw fucking Wembley! Jamie is terrified of that man! He’s sent him to the fucking hospital before! Sure, maybe he can fucking change, I don’t fucking know.” Roy ran his hands through his hair. “But you really think it’s worth the risk of letting Jamie get hurt again, on the off-chance that this is the time things are different? When that man sends him into hysterics every time he’s around? When Jamie’s still got scars from him? I mean, this is the man that had him fucking raped at fourteen, Jesus, Ted--”

“He-- what?!” Ted squawked over the line, but Roy was too fired up to stop.

“You think it’s worth the fucking risk just to-- just ‘cause he could change this time? What if he fucking doesn’t? Or doesn’t yet? Even if he does change, it’s not gonna be instantaneous. You willing to just let him keep hurting Jamie for another-- year, two years, ten years, until he’s finally changed? That’s worth it? Just ‘cause forgiveness is a fucking virtue?”

Roy stopped to breathe, his cheeks hot with anger as he heaved in one breath after another.

When Ted spoke again, he sounded terrified. “I didn’t-- now, Roy, a lot of that stuff I didn’t even know about--”

“Bullshit,” Roy spat. “Bullshit, bullshit. You were there at Wembley. You saw enough. You saw.” Roy dug his fingernails into the wooden railing. The wood was soft from the rain last night. “And even if you’re right-- even if that man could change, did change-- even if he never hurt Jamie again, you still think-- you know what he said to me? He said, ‘I thought it’s what I had to do to be a good person.’ That’s what he said. Because of what you fucking told him, he thought he’d be a bad person if he just deleted his dad’s fucking number and went the fuck on with his life like I told him to do.”

“That’s not what I said to him. I was just giving advice, I didn’t say that not following it would make him a bad person--”

“Jesus, Ted, that doesn’t fucking matter! The boys look up to you, they--” Roy growled, slamming his fist down on the railing. “How many times have you given me this exact same fucking talk? ‘Careful what you say to them, Roy, you know how they look up to you. You say jump, they say how high.’ Yeah? Didn’t you fucking say that to me?”

“Roy--”

“You tell them that something is the right thing to do, of course they’re gonna assume it’s the fucking-- universal truth of it. Of course they’re gonna wanna do what you say, ‘cause Ted’s the best person, so if he says this is what’s right then it must be what I have to do to be good too, yeah? Of course they’re gonna fucking listen to you. Christ, Ted. Surely you know the effect you have on people.”

Ted was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke again, his voice wasn’t shrill or defensive-- it was just soft. “Well, I didn’t mean…”

“Yeah, whatever,” Roy huffed. He turned to peer through the glass door back into the house, but Jamie wasn’t in his line of sight. He should probably get back in there-- Jamie had been alone for a while now. But he turned back toward the backyard, back toward the night sky, to address Ted one last time. “I’m fucking pissed at you, Ted. I’m pissed that you fucked this up so massively and then just fucking left. I’m pissed that it’s my job now to pick up the pieces of the thing you broke. Why do I have to be the one to clean up your fucking mess?”

Ted said nothing.

“Whatever. I have to go take care of my fucking player.”

“Hold on, now. Roy--”

Roy hung up.

After tucking his phone back into his pocket with shaking hands, Roy gripped the railing tight, bending forward to shut his eyes and breathe down into the floor. He couldn’t go back in there like this, still flushed red and shaking with rage, not when Jamie was still so fragile. He gave himself a minute to breathe, counting to ten and taking deep breaths and thinking of Phoebe and all the things Fieldstone had told him to do when he got too angry. And he tried not to feel any kind of way about the fact that his phone in his pocket hadn’t buzzed again once.

Eventually, he was calm enough to go back inside.