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“This is it then, yeah?”
Even in the dreariness of Heathrow, Jamie’s smile manages to make the space around them light up like a beacon, but something behind his eyes shimmers with just a tinge of sadness. Despite himself, Roy manages to do something that could be smiling back at him, even if it feels a little wobbly around the edges. Duffel bag slung over one shoulder, Jamie shuffles awkwardly between his feet, hands buried deep inside the front pocket of a truly garish fucking hoodie. Beyond the security border to their left, paparazzi clamor and shout for Jamie to acknowledge them, all of them yelling questions like Jamie, how does it feel to be leaving Richmond? Are you ready for Real Madrid , like he hasn’t answered each of them time and time again.
Still, each time he did, there was always a hypothetical nature to it, a coming soon rather than a here and now. But here they are, now, just a few more minutes before Jamie will have to get on a plane to Spain and leave England behind.
Leave Richmond behind.
Leave Roy behind.
Roy shakes his head, like that will be enough to dislodge the thought from his mind, shed the sinking feeling low in his belly at the idea of Jamie really, actually leaving.
“You’re not fucking dying,” Roy says instead. “You’re going to love it.”
“Yeah?” Jamie says, blinking up at Roy a little shyly. “I’m nervous, Coach.”
“You’re going to be fucking great, Tartt,” Roy says. “I’m proud of you. You should be, too.”
Jamie’s responding grin is fucking incandescent, but there’s barely time for Roy to appreciate it before Jamie is throwing himself onto him, his arms a vice around Roy’s neck and his bag bumping against them awkwardly. Even with the press right beside them, snapping endless photos that will inevitably be circulated on Twitter and the most annoying rags known to man, Roy finds himself hugging back, wrapping his arms around Jamie’s waist and giving him a solid squeeze. He’s a warm weight, familiar, and his hair tickles softly against Roy’s nose, all rosewater shampoo and overpriced conditioner.
“Thank you for driving me,” Jamie murmurs when he pulls away, still not quite letting him go. “And for everything else, Coach. Wouldn’t be doing this without you.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Roy grumbles, but his chest warms at the praise all the same. “You’ve got to get going now, you fucking muppet.”
“I’ll call you, yeah?” Jamie says, voice overly hopeful, tugging himself away from Roy and repositioning his bag over his shoulder. “We’ll FaceTime or something.”
“Sure,” Roy says. “Now going fucking kill ‘em.”
There’s a moment, however brief, where they just stare at each other. Roy thinks vaguely that he could probably count every last lash framing Jamie’s eyes, could probably name each of his freckles if he had to, which would be a fucking stupid thing to do, but is true nonetheless. He won’t say it, but he likes to think Jamie knows: life’s going to be strange with him gone, with all the places he’s grown to take up space in Roy’s life and home and day to day over the last two years suddenly left empty. But Real Madrid isn’t a team to turn down, not when Jamie’s outgrowing every Richmond at too rapid a pace.
Roy, simply, has nothing left to teach him, and the thought makes him ache and beam in equal measure.
“See you later, Royo,” Jamie says, hitching his bag on his shoulder once more and turning to head into the terminal properly. “Try not to miss me too much, yeah?”
Roy rolls his eyes but nods as Jamie turns and makes his way through security and onto the plane, onto bigger and better things. He won’t miss him.
Not too much, anyway.
–
When his phone lights up with Jamie Tart wants FaceTime , Roy can’t help the way he smirks before grabbing his phone to answer. He knew full well that the little prick wouldn’t be able to keep himself from calling first; the biggest surprise is that it’s taken him nearly three days to do it. Roy certainly hasn’t been itching to grab his phone and do it himself, or jumping out of his skin every time he felt the ghost of a vibration in his pocket; unlike Jamie, he has something called self restraint.
Still, when he clicks accept, he can’t help the way something like relief flood his chest at seeing Jamie’s face on the other side of the screen, all bunched up in frustration, brow crinkled above his nose.
“It’s fucking hot here!” Jamie whines in lieu of greeting, and Roy can’t suppress the way his eyes roll to the back of his skull.
“It’s fucking Spain in the summer, idiot,” he reminds him, making Jamie scoff. “It gets hot.”
“Yeah, but it’s hot as balls, Roy,” Jamie says. “Like the devil’s balls. Sweaty balls. Like the kind -”
“Right,” Roy interrupts, more than happy to not think about the tangent Jamie is certainly headed down if he lets him. “Aren’t you a millionaire or some shit? Can’t you get an aircon unit?”
At that, Jamie lets out an annoyed little huff, and there’s movement on the phone screen as he flops back into what Roy assumes is his bed, holding his phone up above him like he’s angling for a good selfie, an action Roy is all too painfully familiar with.
“It’s all building codes and this and that and people speaking Spanish that goes right over me head,” Jamie grouses. “Nowhere in Madrid does aircon. It’s inhumane, it is.”
“Nowhere in England does it either,” Roy says, like Jamie doesn’t know; he earns an eyeroll for his efforts. “You just got spoiled during your time in Richmond.”
“You’re right,” Jamie admits finally, but he doesn’t stop frowning. “I miss it already.”
He doesn’t say it, but somewhere in the back of Roy’s head, an annoying little voice whispers he misses you . And Roy’s not going to be the one to say it, especially because it’s only been three days, and it’s fucking pathetic if he sits there stewing about it, but he misses the little muppet on his phone screen, too. Somewhere between Jamie getting to Richmond and being the literal bane of Roy’s existence and now, there’s a Manc shaped space in Roy’s life that’s left gone empty now that Jamie’s all the way in Madrid.
“How’re the lads on the team?” Roy asks, changing the subject. “They treating you alright?”
“They’re mint, yeah,” Jamie says, perking up. “Was dead good of Dani to teach me some Spanish before I came, this one bloke…”
Jamie launches into a story about the goings on of the dressing room and Roy can’t help but find himself smiling along, laughing in the right places and being fully entertained by the wait Jamie gestures wildly describing his new teammates and manager, making the phone screen shake and move around to the point in nearly makes Roy dizzy. He tells Roy about the cute new cafe he’s found down the road from his temporary flat, but not to worry, he’s staying away from all the pastries, however tempting they may look, and he’s still doing the same conditioning plan Roy set up for him when they stopped doing the daily one-on-one trainings every morning.
“I miss that, though,” Jamie says absently, finally settled and picking at his nails. “Think you could send me some more training plans for the mornings?”
“What, so you can run circles around us when we play you in the Champions League?” Roy grunts, rolling his eyes. “But yeah, sure. I’ll think of something.”
“Thanks, Coach,” Jamie beams at him from the phone, and Roy’s heart palpitates wildly in his chest. He can feel the way his pulse thrums beneath his skin, and the seconds stretch on too long, just Jamie smiling softly at him and Roy staring back, unable to keep his eyes from darting down to the pretty stretch of Jamie’s lips.
“How’s Phoebe?” Jamie asks suddenly. “She alright?”
“Yeah,” Roy says, mouth suddenly dry. “Yeah, I’ve got to head out in a minute and pick her up from fucking…play training.”
“Rehearsal, Roy,” Jamie sighs, dramatic as ever, and Roy grunts his thanks for the correction. “I’ll let you go then, can’t keep a leading lady waiting. Send me photos of the play when it’s on, yeah? I know she’s going to fucking smash it.”
Roy agrees, and they disconnect. He stays staring at his phone, as if he can will Jamie back onto it, as if he can will Jamie back here, to England, to his house where there’s still traces of him all around: a sweater in the coat closet, his favorite moisturizer in Roy’s medicine cabinet. But he really does need to go pick up Phoebe, and so with another rough shake of his head, he pockets the phone and makes his way out the door.
–
“You’re really telling me you couldn’t look up how to do this yourself?”
On his iPad propped up against a stack of cookbooks, Jamie rolls his eyes, again.
“I’ve already told you, none of those websites looked right!” he complains, again. “I need you to show me how to make it. It was all dead good when you made if for me and I’m fucking craving it.”
“It’s a fucking stir fry,” Roy grumbles, but he continues pulling out his spices and sauces, placing each one in sight of the camera so Jamie can see them. “It’s not rocket science, Tartt.”
“I burnt the rice the other day, Roy,” Jamie whines. “I need you to just come here and make it for me.”
Roy can’t help but snort a laugh. “Right, I’ll abandon training and come down to Spain to cook for you, princess.”
“Cheers!” Jamie grins, a toothy thing. Roy likes FaceTiming on the iPad, he thinks idly; he can see more of him this way. “The lads’ll understand, and you’ll fucking love my new place, Roy, swear down, it’s dead nice.”
“Sure,” Roy mutters, still smiling despite himself. “Right, here’s how you do this.”
He talks Jamie through every step, the little idiot even going so far as to take notes as he watches Roy move about the kitchen. Roy repositions the iPad nearer to the hob as he gets to work, glancing down to it every now and then to explain to Jamie why he’s adding this or that at each step. It’s an easy fucking recipe, and reasonably there’s no reason why Jamie couldn’t throw it together himself, but something in Roy purrs pleasantly at the idea that Jamie didn’t just go round to some half rate Chinese place and ask for them to make it, or take the first internet recipe he found and run with it: he called Roy and asked - well, demanded - he show him how to do it, and it’s not like he’s around to make too many demands of Roy these days, anyway, and besides, Roy also needs to eat dinner, so there isn’t any harm in teaching him, is there.
At some point, Jamie abandoned his note taking, and is now propping his head up on both hands, jaw cradled in his own large palms, idly watching as Roy continues cooking.
“Are you even listening?” Roy asks, and it seems to startle Jamie out of whatever reverie he found himself in, instead offering an impish little grin.
“Sorry,” he says sheepishly. “Just got distracted watching you.”
Heat floods into Roy’s cheeks, undoubtedly turning him an ugly shade of pink, but he blames it on turning up the heat on the hob and prays that the camera won’t be able to pick it up in a way that Jamie will notice.
“You’re an idiot,” he says, and Jamie snickers on the other end.
“Go back to the last step,” he says, and Roy cuts him a look, like he can fucking walk back the cooking process like that.
But he’s a fucking sucker, isn’t he, so he pauses what he’s doing and leans down to be better eye level with Jamie, and walks him through the last two steps the idiot’s gone and miss by being all moony eyed at him.
When they hang up this time, the disappointment of the blank screen hangs around Roy’s neck like a noose, and he ignores the voice in the back of his head telling him he might be, just a little bit, fucked.
–
Jamie cuts away from the defender marking him, sliding the ball neatly between his legs and twisting around him to plant it back between his own feet before making a beautiful cross over to one of his own teammates, who makes a fucking gorgeous run down the pitch and sinks the ball into the back of the net. The crowd loses its collective fucking mind, a roar erupting around the stadium, and Roy can’t bite back the grin overwhelming his face as the camera zooms in on Jamie leaping onto his teammate’s back, ruffling his hair and shouting. There’s only a minute of stoppage time left, and Madrid have all but clenched their 2-1 victory, and it’s all thanks to fucking Tartt, gorgeous as ever as he runs circles around everyone else down on the pitch.
Roy sinks back into his sofa, taking another sip of his beer and still grinning as the final whistle blows, officially sealing the game. It’s a sad day when he finds himself cheering for Real Madrid, but it’s impossible not to, not with the way Jamie is sprinting around like a madman celebrating with his team. Even though he’s only been there a short time, it’s clear - from both the footage itself and the commentary - that he’s already found his rightful place as their central cog, in the middle of each dogpile and huddle, and all his false humility during their Facetime calls aside, Roy knows it’s the same off camera, too.
Pride swells from deep in his belly, even as the game footage ends and they cut back to the fucking pundits with their desks and suits, analyzing every last one of the seconds from the match.
“Another stellar performance from Tartt,” one of them says, and Roy nods right along - goddamn right it was.
“He’s really come into his own since leaving Richmond,” another says. “He was a leader in the Premier League, but he’s a force to be reckoned with in Madrid.”
“You can tell he’s still heavily influenced by Roy Kent,” the first one says, and smugness fills in the gaps of Roy’s smile. “Look at the way he runs - it’s like he’s got a vendetta against the grass.”
They keep going, cutting in and out of footage of Jamie’s play that has Roy right back on the edge of his seat, like he hasn’t spent the entire afternoon captivated by the exact same plays he’s now rewatching. Jamie moves on the pitch like a machine - no, not like a machine. He moves around the pitch like it’s an art form, like that’s his canvas and each game is going to be his masterpiece. He’s gorgeous to watch, fluid movement and brilliant mind seeing four moves ahead of everyone else out there, even his coaches, who look just as delighted and baffled at every sign of brilliance. Not Roy, though - he can see the play Jamie means to execute as soon as he moves to do it, their intertwined psyches no less strong for being thousands of miles apart.
The TV cuts to an image of Jamie being swallowed by the arms of his teammates, each itching to get one of their hands on him, wanting to touch him, as if by doing so they can soak in just a little bit of that sunshine he radiates from every last one his pores.
Taking another sip of his beer, Roy thinks he might understand the feeling all too well.
–
“Grandad, it’s the middle of the fucking night. Are you finally dying?”
Roy grunts, and Jamie lets out a sleepy little laugh. There’s fumbling on his end of the line, and then warm light floods the camera for a moment before Jamie comes into view. He’s taken to sleeping completely naked - a fact Roy has not been hyperfixating on since Jamie let it slip when complaining about the heat, again, thanks - so his chest seems to glow golden in the lamplight, his artificial tans replaced by the kind of smooth color that only comes from working hard in the sun, day in and day out.
“Why’re you calling, anyway?” Jamie mumbles, swiping a fist across his tired eyes. “You alright?”
Roy’s throat has gone try and he opens and closes his mouth a handful of times, trying to think of any reasonable justification as to why he would have called Jamie in the middle of the night, knowing fully well they both have training in the morning. I miss you is too honest, even if the thought spends more time than not crowding in Roy’s brain, taking up space that should be used for other things. It’s overwhelming, the way Roy’s grown to miss the idiot, the way all these months and weeks later he still looks for him jogging out on the Richmond green, or cuts his gaze over to the corner cubby in the dressing room to check in on Tartt only to realize he’s not there. No one is coming over to his house unannounced anymore, or nattering on endlessly in the car beside him, and it’s all…different. Strange. Sad.
Empty, maybe.
But Roy doesn’t say any of that, because it would be an insane thing to say, wouldn’t it? I miss you so much that sometimes it physically hurts. I miss you being everywhere, all the time, and I’m scared to tell you that .
Instead he says, “I couldn’t sleep.”
Jamie snorts, but it’s half muffled by the way his face is shoved back into his pillow. He must have propped his phone up on his nightstand, because both of his arms are nestled underneath his chin, getting him comfortable once again.
“Take a sleeping pill,” Jamie mutters, but he smiles as he says it, and some of the tension melts out of Roy’s body at the sight. “Got a lot on your mind, Coach?”
“No,” Roy croaks, unable to stop staring down at his phone, watching the way Jamie’s body gently rises as falls with each sleepy breath. “No, not really.”
“What’re you reading these days, then?” Jamie asks. “Have you figured out who’s done it yet?”
“My sister’s got me on fucking Lisa Jewell,” Roy says, looking at the book clutched in his other hand, which he’d been attempting to read before the urge to call Jamie, hear his voice, had overtaken him like an errant ball to the head. “She’s a bit shit, but I can’t figure it out just yet.”
“Don’t sound shit then,” Jamie murmurs. “Go on then, read it to me.”
“What?”
“I said read it to me ,” Jamie cracks one eye open to slyly grin at Roy. “Don’t tell me your hearing’s gone now. That’d be a tragedy, wouldn’t it?”
“Fuck off,” Roy grumbles, but he untucks his thumb from where it’d been holding his place and flips the book open to his page. “Do you want me to tell you what’s been going on?”
“Nah,” Jamie yawns, that pink, pink tongue lolling out of his mouth. “‘M sure I can figure it out. Dead smart, me.”
“Whatever,” Roy rolls his eyes, fondness threatening to overtake the entirety of his chest, but he begins reading from the sentence he’d left off with. He keeps his voice low, soft, the same way he does when he reads a story to Phoebe to help her sleep, and he glances down to the phone every so often, nearly losing his place each time he catches sight of Jamie, smiling sleepily into his pillow and humming along to Roy’s words. His heart pounds wildly in his chest at just the nearly still image of him, hair unstyled and falling softly across his forehead. He looks gorgeous, a fucking angel in the low light, and Roy’s fingers itch - no, burn - with the want to reach through his fucking phone screen and sweep the hair out of his face, run him thumb across one of those jutting cheekbones.
But he can’t, so he keeps his hands and his stupid urges to himself, and by the time he finishes the chapter, he realizes Jamie’s gone and fallen back asleep. That’s good, he figures. Lad needs his rest.
If he stays staring at Jamie for a few more minutes, just watching the way he goes so soft and sweet in his sleep, there’s no one around to know.
–
“ Roy!”
Jamie draws out the ‘o’ of his name a little too long, and Roy knows immediately that he’s on the other side of tipsy on that alone. Combined with his rosy cheeks and the lopsidedness of his grin, Roy bites back a command for him to go drink some fucking water and get some electrolytes in him now . He’s not Jamie’s coach anymore, he reminds himself, and even if he were, he’s just gone and won the Spanish league, so if he wants to get a bit pissed with his mates - far be it from Roy to stop him.
He seems to have just separated from his friends, Roy would guess, based on the darkness around him and the faint glow of a neon sign just out of distance. Obnoxious bass music thuds through his speakers, a faint echo of how loud it must be for Jamie down in Madrid.
“You alright?” Roy says, smiling despite himself, cocking an eyebrow. Jamie bares his teeth in a grin back at him.
“Am I alright?!” he hollers. “Am I fucking alright? Roy, we just fucking won! ”
“You did,” Roy says, mild. “I saw.”
“You were watching the match?” Jamie asks, his eyes folding into little half moons as he somehow stretches his lips even wider, so far up his cheeks Roy worries he’ll snap his pretty little face clean in half.
“Course I was,” Roy says. “Watch all your matches, don’t I?”
He did, in fact, rush home from watching Phoebe as soon as his sister came home from surgery, not even sticking around for her offered cup of tea so he could settle in on his sofa and whoop and holler as loud as he wanted to while watching Jamie play his final match of the season. It seems almost impossible that he’s not seen Jamie since last summer at Heathrow; his hair’s longer now, and based on his photos - both the ones online and the ones he sends Roy almost daily - he looks even broader, too, more muscle bulking his frame.
“How fuckin’ sexy was I?” Jamie asks, voice slurred. “How fuckin sexy was I?”
“Very sexy, Jamie,” Roy says. His voice stays teasing, but god - Jamie was, and is, dead sexy. Sweat gathers around his hair line, and Roy can see that the silky material of his shirt is unbuttoned a frankly indecent amount, likely down to his navel if Roy knows him at all, which - he does. “You looked fucking gorgeous out there.”
“You think I’m gorgeous?” Jamie asks, and his drunk voice sounds too real, too earnest, and Roy feels the tips of his ears warm.
“Course I do,” Roy says, surprising himself. “You’re fucking beautiful, on and off the pitch.”
“D’you wanna know a secret?” Jamie faux whispers, leaning in closer to the camera, till almost just his lips are visible.
A laugh bubbles out of Roy’s throat. “Sure.”
“I know you think I’m pretty,” Jamie says. “Thought for sure you were gonna fuckin’ do something about it before I left.”
“What do you mean?” Roy asks, embarrassment curling up in his gut. He feels like a school boy whose crush has just been found out, all awkward limbs and suddenly unsure of what to do with his hands, choosing to just hold his phone tighter.
“Thought you were gonna fuckin’ kiss me!” Jamie cries, too loud. “Why didn’t you fucking kiss me at the airport, Roy?”
Roy opens and shuts his mouth a few times, every word in the English language suddenly gone from his mind. It’s not that he didn’t think about it, not that he didn’t want it and still does. But there were cameras, and eyes, and, if Roy’s most honest with himself, the thought of actually doing something like kissing Jamie fucking terrifies him, because if Jamie wants it too, it means this feeling - this thing - between them, isn’t just in Roy’s head, and that means he can fuck it up.
But his silence may be fucking it up for him, because as quickly as it came the smile slips off Jamie’s face and he stares blankly at his phone. If it weren’t for the lights pulsing in the distance, Roy would wonder if the phone screen blanked out, but no.
“Roy,” Jamie says, almost too soft to hear. “Do you…did you want to kiss me?”
“You’re drunk, Jamie,” Roy says, but it’s not a complete sentence, is it? Jamie, you’re drunk, and I want to make sure you mean it. Jamie, you’re drunk, and if you want me to kiss you, I want you to remember it. But he doesn’t say any of that, doesn’t have the chance to, because Jamie is clearing his throat, loudly, audible even above the music in the background.
“Right, I were bein’ stupid,” he slurs. “I’ll let you go, Roy.”
The line disconnects before Roy can say anything, and not for the first time, he finds himself staring straight down at the blank, screen, wishing Jamie to come back. Fear niggles at the back of his mind, wondering, hoping, that Jamie doesn’t mean he’s going to let him go for good.
–
Jamie’s not answering his calls, and it’s driving Roy fucking insane.
He knows from the idiot’s social media that he’s back in England for the off season, but since the night of their fateful call, he’s been impossible to reach. For Roy, anyway. He knows some of the boys are still chatting with him, because Dani sent a selfie of the two of them up in Manchester in the Richmond groupchat, much to the delight of the rest of the team. Declan’s mentioned plans for the two of them to grab dinner sometime soon. Even fucking Jeff seems able to get ahold of him.
But Roy? No calls, no texts, not so much as a fucking smoke signal to indicate that the twat’s not fallen off the face of the Earth.
He replays the call over and over again in his head, the disappointed fall of Jamie’s face, the way he asked, despondent, if Roy wanted to kiss him. If Roy weren’t an idiot, if he were a braver kind of man, he’d have said yes, he wants to kiss him so fucking bad it makes him feel stupid, and he hates that he feels like he’s missed his chance, that he falls asleep thinking of Jamie and wakes up naively hopeful he’ll get to see him that day, even if its through the fucking phone.
By the time they reach a week of no contact, Roy thinks he might just lose his goddamn mind.
He’s in his car before he fully realizes what he’s doing. The Richmond rumour mill tells him that Jamie is here , he’s finally fucking home, and it’s fucking criminal that Roy wasn’t at the airport to pick him up, hasn’t seen him yet, has wasted so much fucking time moping about in his own house. There’s a high chance that Jamie won’t even open the door when he sees who’s knocking, but Roy’s trying to be better , isn’t he, so he floors the fucking pedal when he hits the road, unmindful of who or what he may have to mow down to reach his destination, not when there’s a beautiful boy in Richmond, sitting around, believing for half a second that Roy would ever be stupid enough to not want to kiss him.
Once he’s reached Jamie’s house, the one he insisted on keeping because it was finally feeling like home , innit , Roy’s shaking with nerves. Jamie’s a proud man, not one to forget feeling slighted, and Roy hopes that at minimum, at least, he’s willing to hear what he has to say. He reaches up a fist to start banging on the door, break it down if he has to, but before he has the chance, a voice behind him nearly makes him jump out of his fucking skin.
“Roy?”
Time slows to a near standstill as Roy lowers his fist back down to his side, turning on his heel to face the voice from behind him. There, on the pavement, sweaty from a run he must just be getting back from, is Jamie. Roy thinks, stupidly, that he’s even more handsome than he remembers, his hair longer, naturally brightened by his time spent in the sun over the last year. His lips are parted in surprise, as stupid pink as ever, and his eyes, while bright, are clouded over by suspicion, as if he’s not really sure why, exactly, Roy might be there.
“How,” Roy tries, taking a step closer to him. His throat clogs and he sucks in one deep, shuddering breath, squeezing his eyes shut tight for a moment. He opens them, swallowing around his nerves, and tries again, taking another step closer. “How could you think,” he says. Another step. “That I didn’t want to kiss you?”
Confusion lines Jamie’s face for half a second before color begins to flood into it. He’s an ugly blusher, Jamie is, all red splotches like he’s breaking out in hives, and Roy, god help him, is endlessly charmed by it.
“I,” Jamie stammers, pulling out his earbuds and shoving them deep in a pocket. He stays frozen in place as Roy steps forward once more, each step slow, like he’s approaching animal who might run away if he comes too quickly.
He can’t handle Jamie running away from him again.
“I were drunk,” Jamie manages finally, when Roy is no more than a breath away from him. He looks up from underneath his lashes, his bottom lip clenched between his teeth.
“So you don’t want me to kiss you, then?” Roy asks, voice quiet, reaching one hand out to rest on Jamie’s waist and the other up again the smooth skin of his jaw.
“Didn’t say that,” Jamie whispers, hope dancing behind the blues of his eyes, a wild ocean Roy would be happy to let himself drown in.
“So you do want it, then?” Roy asks, lips twitching upward, enjoying the flush on Jamie’s cheeks and the familiar way he squirms at the gentle teasing.
“Yeah,” Jamie breathes, too earnest once more, and the feeling of having him here - really, actually here, where Roy can touch him and breathe him in and feels the heat rolling in waves off of his body - is overwhelming, and Roy can’t last a single second more before his lips are crashing down against Jamie’s.
Electricity shoots from the top of Roy’s head down into his toes and back up again at the soft feeling of Jamie’s mouth against his. A gentle moan reverbates from Jamie’s throat against Roy’s tongue and it feels like music running through him, a symphony with each sweep of their lips against each other. Jamie’s hands move to grip his jacket, pulling them closer and closer together, their bodies one perfectly line against each other, soft curves and hard muscles pressing together. Jamie tastes sweet, his bottom lips as juicy and swollen as a ripe fruit when Roy bites down on it, his teeth sinking in and making their home in the indent they leave behind. The world could burn down around them, in this moment, and Roy wouldn’t notice, wouldn’t care, would only be able to tighten his grip on Jamie to keep him closer. If he could, Roy would crack open his own ribcage, offer Jamie a place to stay there permanently, but he can’t, so instead he just kisses him harder, until his head feels like its spinning, until he forgets entirely about the need to breathe.
The hole that’s been inside of him since Jamie stepped on the plane feels filled all at once, a tidal wave crashing back into him at each press of Jamie’s tongue against his own. Each small whimper he coaxes out of Jamie feels better than lifting any trophy, better than any fine wine or earthly pleasure. He has no idea how he’s lasted so fucking long without doing this, or how he’s meant to do anything besides kiss Jamie Tartt for the rest of his life, but with the way Jamie’s hand scramble against him, grabbing and pulling at every part of him they can reach to keep him close, he thinks that maybe, just maybe, he might not have to.
Eventually, they pull apart, gasping, but Roy clasps his fingers around the back of Jamie’s neck, pressing their foreheads together and keeping him close. They stay like that, panting, sucking down each others’ air. They ought to move, go inside, where nosy neighbors with Twitter feeds won’t see them, but Roy doesn’t care, not now, not after the months of yearning and regret and should-have-dones have finally lead him right here, where he wants to be more than anywhere else in the world.
“Fuck,” Jamie whispers, pressing a slow kiss to the corner of Roy’s mouth. “I’ve been thinking about that for a long time, mate.”
“Should’ve said something sooner,” Roy says, stroking his fingers through the short hair at the base of Jamie’s skull. “Wouldn’t have waited so long.”
“Roy,” Jamie says, voice serious, He looks up at him, face stoney. “I want you to kiss me.”
And Roy - for all his flaws - isn’t one for repeating the same mistakes over again, and now that Jamie’s in his arms, he’s no intention of ever letting him go, so he hauls a laughing, giggling Jamie straight back to him, and kisses him all over again.