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Roy had been acting… off, to say the least.
The moment he had come in this morning Beard had raised an eyebrow at him and Nate had asked if he was okay. Neither got an explanation, and the team was left equally as clueless. Despite the lack of anything told to them, everyone was shooting concerned glances at eachother when he wasn’t looking. He hadn’t snapped at anyone over asking about something not work related, just excused the questioning with a grunt before turning to the whiteboard.
Everyone tried to pay attention to him, put their concerns in the back of their mind like he clearly was, but it was difficult when his coaching wasn’t easy to pay attention to. It was erratic, stops and starts sprinkled into incomplete thoughts like it was supposed to make sense. On top of the incomprehensible coaching, he didn’t swear for what must’ve been a record of a straight five minutes before ‘fuck’ quickly became every other word as if he just remember it existed.
Many glances were thrown his direction as they made their way out to the pitch, but on the pitch, they finally had something to distract them from whatever the hell was happening with their coach. Some stray glances still made their way over to where him and the other coaches were standing, but once that whistle was blown, all eyes were locked onto the ball.
Halftime was a quick reminder that he was acting weird. Instead of his usual aggressive pep-talk, strategy changes and advice, he was in his office massaging his knee. Most of the team connected his odd behavior to what must be the injury acting up, but some knew better. Jamie had seen him in pain, his knee fucked with him every time they ran, and he didn’t act like that. He swore, and limped, and hated everyone. That was Roy in pain. This, this pale-faced, lost, weird Roy wasn’t that.
Jamie abruptly stood in the middle of Beard talking, a hush falling over the locker room. He stalked over to the coach, whispering that he was going to check on Roy and barging into the office without a reply.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” He demanded. In a different time, it would be accusatory, but now it was just concerned.
“Get out and join your team,” Roy responded, and it sounded strained. Like he was speaking with something interrupting it.
“Not until you tell me why you’re being fuckin’ weird,” he snapped, throwing himself into Beard’s chair. “Are you getting sick?”
“I think so,” Roy said, still not looking up from his knee. It explained the pale complexion and sheen of sweat even in the chilly office, but there wasn’t a feverish flush to his cheeks, no excess heat when Jamie sprang up and pressed the back of his hand to the coaches forehead, not a single cough, sneeze or instance of being sick. “So get out. I don’t want you sick.”
He wanted to argue. Say it was clearly something else, that either he wasn’t sick and something else must’ve been happening or whatever sickness he had was acting fucking weird, but as he opened his mouth the locker room erupted in cheering. Beard’s halftime speech was over and close to follow was halftime itself. Reluctantly, he clicked his mouth closed, tapped the back of his hand to the man’s forehead one more time incase it had changed to being boiling hot instead of a concerning cold sweat, and left the office.
Before moving joining the others out on the pitch, he stopped by Nate. “Keep an eye on him, yeah?”
He nodded and gave him a reassuring pat on the back, lightly pushing him toward the tail end of players. He finally jogged off, the office door opening as Nate and Beard went to follow.
“You sure you don’t want to go home?” Nate asked as he came up next to them. Roy grunted and walked past the two. They glanced at one another, concern more obvious on Nate’s face though it still found its way onto Beard’s, before following him out to the pitch.
Nate did his duty of keeping an eye on him, and it wasn’t looking great. He kept rubbing at his chest like it hurt, wiping off the sweat on his face despite the colder weather not giving a reason for there to be any, and staring at the field like he was paying attention but startling when the crowds noise increased after a play or either coach tried to talk to him. Nate was about to ask if he was sure about not going home when he suddenly grabbed the front of his shirt, panting like he had been running with the team.
Beard tried to remember everything he had read about panic attacks and how to help someone through one. He not sure that’s what this is, but Ted had told him it felt like he had run a panic-marathon and this seemed to fit. First thing that came to mind was distraction, surprising them with temperature or noise or absurd questions to shock them out of a spiral. Loud noises was off the table, the crowd did enough of that and it wasn’t garnering a reaction at all anymore, and there was very little he thinks he could ask Roy that would surprise him enough to focus on more than whatever he was. There wasn’t a ton he could do with temperate, he didn’t suddenly have an ice cube in his pocket because it would’ve been convenient, but he’d always been told his fingers were ‘cold as ice’ after a handshake. Throwing his self preservation to the wind, he reached over and pressed his hand to the back of Roy’s neck.
The man barely flinched, but his shallow breaths seemed to speed up. Nate shook him by the shoulder, for once hoping to get yelled at or head butt, but nothing happened. Something clicked together in the back of his mind. He had seen someone look like this before, act like this before, right before getting sent to the hospital and getting treatment for—
“Are you having a heart attack?”
Both expected him to snap that he wasn’t that old and to fuck off, but the only response was a barely imperceptible nod. Beard quickly grabbed him as his balance started to fail, practically holding him up as he gestured at Nate to do something.
“Medic! MEDIC!”
Jamie pushed down the urge to look until after he’d passed the ball up to Dani. No whistle had been blown, and as he looked around the field, nobody was laid out on the grass. He looked over to the coaches, opening his mouth to ask Nate what he was on about, when he saw it. Roy’s arm slung over Beard’s shoulder, the other clutching desperately at his chest. He felt rooted to the spot, watching as Roy, who had never in his life left on a stretcher, was loaded onto one.
The game was completely forgotten as he sprinted across the field, passing teammates, passing the refs, the coaches, until he caught up with the medics in the tunnel. They didn’t say anything, at least not to him, as he followed them off the pitch and eventually into an ambulance. Conversations were being had around him, someone was trying to talk to him he thinks, but nobody pushed him out. The ambulance door closed and the sirens were activated and they were moving and he isn’t sure when he interlinked his hand with Roy’s but it was there now and he wasn’t being yelled at to let go so there it was staying. His fingers migrated down until they rested over his pulse, and he had never been much of a religious man but right now he prayed that the thrum under his fingers never went away.
They had lost. Bad. But everyone knew the locker rooms somber atmosphere wasn’t because of that. None of the players had showered, spoken or hardly even thought of going home in the hour after the game. Will had tried to encourage them to at least shower and change if they were going to stay, but Isaac had shook his head when asked and that was that.
“Should we tell them to go home?” Nate asked in the silence of the office.
“They’re not leaving,” Beard said immediately, pencil still flying over reports. “Not until they hear something.”
“Wouldn’t we be called first?” Higgins asked, glancing at the phone on the desk.
“He might call the captain,” Trent suggested, inclining his head to where Isaac was sitting. “But they do have to know anyone would update them the second they hear something, in person or not.”
Everyone nodded in agreement and after a moment, Nate opened the door and stepped out of the office. “You, you guys can go home,” he said, everyone’s eyes immediately on him. “Not that you have to! But I, or whoever else is called, probably someone else, I don’t know why it’d be me, can text the team chat—”
“No!” Isaac interrupted as some of the players started shifting like they were considering it. “We ain’t hearing if Coach is okay or not through a text.”
There was general agreement through the team and Nate retreated to the office. “Yeah they’re staying.”
“Didn’t know what you expected,” Beard replied, nose now in a book instead of paperwork.
Another half hour passed like that. Beard trying to read a book, only turning a page every ten or so minutes. Nate trying to strategize on the whiteboard but only really moving the magnets around trying to distract himself. Trent scrolling through the news clicking on every article about it hoping one would magically have an update. Higgins responding to everyone’s texts asking about Roy trying to reassure them.
Finally, finally, Beard’s phone rings. He picks it up instantly, not even checking the caller. “Roy? Are you okay?”
“Hey,” Jamie responded, sounding exhausted and choked up. “Sorry, I meant to call you after I stopped crying, yeah, but I just—” he inhaled sharply “sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Beard tried to reassure, putting him on speaker as everyone crowded the quiet phone trying to hear. “Is Roy alright?”
“Yeah,” he responded and everyone visibly deflated in relief. “Yeah, doctor said it’s pretty likely he’s gonna be fine. He alive right now, but…” he trails off and they hear a familiar voice in the background and him trying his hardest not to cry. “He, Roy, fuck… he has a fucking DNR. And— and if he’s not okay, they can’t help him, and he’s only okay because the ambulance helped him without knowing about it and—”
“Jamie,” Trent interrupted. “Breathe. He’s okay, it’s very likely he will continue to be okay, that’s all you need to focus on.”
The voice they now recognize is Keeley says something too quiet for the phone to pick it up, but it seems to help Jamie calm down a bit more.
“I’ll, I’ll call if anything happens yeah?” He said before bidding them a goodbye and hanging up.
The second the phone was back on the desk the office door was rattling and Nate quickly opened it before the players could break it. Questions were flung at them rapidly and it took a long time until everyone calmed down enough to Beard to speak.
“He’s okay,” he said simply and it was quickly back to chaos, everyone cheering and jumping about. Nate nearly blew up everyone’s eardrums blowing his whistle to get them to quiet down. “It’s very likely he’s gonna be completely fine.”
Higgins choked as nobody said the other piece of information they got from Jamie, but thankfully the players were too focused on getting ready to leave to notice. The four retreated to the office as players finally started going home.
“Are you planning to tell them?” Trent asked, nodding towards Higgins.
“Roy will tell them if he wants them to know,” Beard replied.
“Which he’s not going to,” Higgins said. “I have his medical records and I didn’t even know about it.”
“Do we need a Diamond Dogs meeting?” Nate asked.
“We’ll call one when he gets back,” Beard said. “I’ll let Ted know.”
“Tell him about it, the DNR,” Trent instructed. “So he’s up to speed. And if anyone can get him to remove it, it’s Ted.”
“Not Jamie?” Nate asked.
“Not Jamie, not Keeley,” he answered. “He might tell them he will, but nobody is getting him to actually file for its removal besides Ted.”
“He’s gonna hate that,” Beard said, already pulling up his messages to the man.
“Oh he’ll be furious.”
Roy came back a week later, though he sent their Diamond Dogs group chat a message that he was fine the day after and he was only out because Rebecca had forced him on medical leave. Jamie sent everyone a video of him arguing with her over the phone about it, Phoebe showing the camera a tally of his swearing at the end. The team was relieved to see he was back to his normal self, everyone leaving their brand of a laughing emoji on the video.
It was early, but all the members of the Diamond Dogs were already in the office, sans Ted who had already sent a text that he was awake and ready to woof.
They tried to wait for Roy to ask for a meeting but he seems content with reading through the paperwork and refusing to acknowledge everyone staring at him. Eventually Higgins caved and called it himself, barking quickly filling the office.
“Ruff,” Roy finished the barking unenthusiastically, pushing the paperwork away from him.
“So what’s troubling our trusty dog Leslie Higgins?” Ted asked, far too awake for what time it must’ve been for him.
He hesitated as everyone turned their attention toward him, mutely begging him to bring up the elephant in the room, while Roy was practically daring him to say it risking his retaliation.
“So… uh, how are you feeling, Roy?”
“Oh for fucks sake,” he sighed. “I had a heart attack. In fucking fine. Big whoop.”
“Hey, no, uh-uh,” Ted said immediately, Beard raising his volume so they could hear him better. “You do not get to say ‘big whoop’ after almost dying.”
“I’ve almost died everyone other fucking year since I was nine,” he snarked. “It’s not a big fucking deal.”
“Then why are we only learning now that you have an order against resuscitation?” Trent asked bluntly.
The question made a hush fall over the room. It was disgustingly tense, and half of them expected Roy to rock Trent’s shit for asking.
“Who fucking told you?” He snapped, glaring at everyone in the room. Nate gulped audibly, Higgins stared at the floor, Trent was still staring at Roy daring him to answer the question, Ted debated saying something before Beard spoke.
“Jamie did,” he said, everyone’s anxiety shooting up as Roy growled and looked ready to go find the player himself. “He called us, crying, worried about you. Scared you would die because you won’t accept help.”
Roy wanted to talk back, say anything to get them off his case that was none of their fucking business, but the mental image of Jamie crying over the phone worried about him seemed to block any other thoughts from passing through. He knew that he had been upset, Jamie, Keeley, Phoebe and Ruth had all been in the hospitals waiting room when he was discharged, but whatever joy there was to be had seeing him walk away from it mostly unscathed must’ve been enough to stop him seeing Jamie Tartt cry for a third time. But he had. He had cried because of Roy, and the lecture he had gotten from his sister about taking his DNR order off paled in comparison to the desire to make sure Jamie never worried again.
“Phoebe’s been worried too,” Higgins said. “She has been texting Rebecca a lot this morning, asking if you’re okay, if she can check on you, and if you would get hurt again.”
He felt sick. He thought Phoebe had recovered from it, he spent practically all of his sick leave with her, making sure she knew he was fine. She had seemed okay, only expressing fear and worry the first couple days afterwards. She must’ve been doing what he had at her age, putting on a brave face no matter what had happened and dealing with the consequences later.
“People care about you, Roy,” Ted said, like that fact wasn’t currently dragging him through the mud by his heart strings. “And you may think this was another one of your run-of-the-mill brushes with death, another injury you can walk away from, but your life is catching up with you. If anything like this happens again, God-forbid, you might not be able to get back up without the help you’re refusing.”
Everyone was staring at him now, waiting for him to say something. “I didn’t, fuck, it wasn’t there because I didn’t want fucking help,” he said reluctantly but honestly. “I fucking… forgot about it. I got it after my debut, because I thought if I had to be fucking resuscitated, I was gonna be too injured to play, and— and I didn’t know what fucking else I was supposed to do besides football. I didn’t want to be a washed up disabled player and look where that fucking got me.”
“You’ve had a DNR since seventeen?”
Heads whipped between Trent and Roy, the latter of which nodding without making eye contact. “They tried to tell me not to. But I was a fucking stubborn prick and had only been focusing on football for eight years and didn’t see myself doing anything else, so I got it anyway.”
He hated how everyone looked at him, the same stupid sympathy face he got after breaking up with Keeley. He didn’t want their pity, he made his own fucking decisions with their own fucking consequences; he didn’t need people to feel bad for him about it.
“I’ll remove it,” he tried to reassure, but the sympathy turned skeptical. “I don’t fucking need it anymore, do I? Already a disabled retiree without being brought back from the fucking dead, might as well stick it out.”
They all nodded, though there was still a dose of skepticism around the room. “Thank you Roy,” Ted said. “I’m sure Jamie and Phoebe will be happy to hear that.”
Yeah, he’s sure they will be. He imagines he’ll have to take Phoebe out to icecream to celebrate, Jamie tagging along because of course he will, and they’re stop worrying he’s going to leave him before they absolutely have to.
“Diamond Dogs meeting adjourned,” Roy said. Everyone started barking and yipping, Ted waving goodbye before disconnecting the call.
Higgins went back up to his office, Trent went back to his office now shared with Nate to finish editing Colin’s part of the team’s autobiography, Nate threw himself into analyzing the star player on the team they were playing next, Beard returned to reading his book and Roy finished up paperwork.
The team started filtering in, all of them perking up when they see Roy through the window.
“You gonna lecture them about the loss last week?” Beard asked, slipping a bookmark into his page and tossing it on the table.
“Of fucking course I am,” he said, a ghost of a smile on his lips. “I’m gonna threaten you have another one if they fuck up that badly again.”
“Isn’t… isn’t it a bit too soon to be joking about it?” Nate asked. “They were all really scared too.”
“I think they’ll just be happy Roy’s back,” Trent said, hovering in the doorway. “Then they’ll get to training and wish he had been on medical leave a bit longer.”
“You think he can push them hard enough to overshadow them being glad he’s back?” Nate questioned skeptically.
“Of fucking course I can,” Roy answered before opening the office door. “Oi! Are you always gonna play that fucking shit when I’m not there?” There was a tense silence, the players glancing around at each other, a couple mouthing ‘is he serious’ at eachother. “If I see you pricks blow a fucking three nil lead again, I’m gonna stop my heart myself.”
A beat. Two. Then—
Outrage. Laughter. Far too much energy in one place. It was exactly what a locker room should be, and Roy couldn’t be happier to be there.