Work Text:
"So, are you into bondage, or what?" Jamie says with a laugh. Roy is tying him to a bicycle, for some reason, and Jamie can’t help himself.
Roy doesn't even give the noncommittal grunt that Jamie expects, and Jamie looks over to find Roy just staring out from under his fucking giant muppet eyebrows, like he's waiting for Jamie to say more.
He doesn't know what else to say. He flushes under Roy’s gaze and laughs again at the strangeness of the whole thing.
The moment passes.
*
The morning after the practice where their dicks are tied together, he of course pokes Roy about it again. "So you must really enjoy tying blokes up, yeah?"
Again, he’s laughing about it. Again, he gets no response from Roy other than a long stare.
Jamie shakes his head and scoffs. Fucking hell, it's not that difficult a question. Why doesn't Roy just say, "Fuck, no," or, "You fucking wish, Tartt." That would put it firmly out of Jamie's mind.
*
Because even for Richmond that was weird, yeah? Every coach preaches teamwork, coordination, awareness, agility. But nobody Jamie has ever heard of has tried a tactic like tying up the players’ genitals. He's not going to let Roy get away with pretending it was normal training.
He thinks about what exactly he will say to needle Roy next time he brings out rope. And he wonders what Roy might tie him to next time.
*
But then, no rope. For vast stretches of days and then weeks. It’s fucking disappointing after all the effort Jamie’s put into developing good quips.
*
Jamie buys some brightly colored rope. It looks similar to the kind they used in practice, except it’s a pink that matches the outfit he wore when Roy tied him to the bike. He answers the door with it in his hand when Roy comes by at 4am. “Got you something I think you’ll like,” he says with a grin. He’s nearly vibrating awaiting Roy’s response.
Roy looks at the rope hank expressionlessly, aside from his default glower. Then he jerks his head for Jamie to follow him out into the dark for a run. Jamie, deflated, puts down the rope and does so.
*
The rope sits between them on an otherwise empty table as they sip post-training tea. Is Jamie imagining it, or does Roy have a hint of a smirk as he looks at it?
Roy’s eyes meet his, and he forgets the clever remark he was planning to make (some rope-based punnery that Coach Lasso would have been proud of, but designed to make Roy scowl). They drink and stare at one another.
“Tell me you’re not into it,” he hears himself say, and it comes out like a serious challenge, when surely he meant it as just another joke at Roy’s expense.
Roy keeps looking at him and barely lifts one eyebrow, like it was just fucking eyebrow day at the gym and that’s all he can manage. They keep drinking, and he keeps fucking saying nothing at all.
Jamie notices his leg is bouncing up and down, and he makes it stop. Finally, he sets down his empty mug with a bang. "What the fuck, Roy," he says, hearing his voice crack stupidly. He’s not sure when it got so hot in here. He gets up abruptly, walks into the loo, and splashes cold water on his face, not even bothering to shut the door.
Suddenly Roy is there too, crowding in behind him in the tight space. Jamie straightens and stares at him in the mirror, fully intending to make a remark about whether Roy needs a map to one of the other toilets in the house. But he stills as Roy meets his reflected gaze and growls into his ear, "Ask for what you fucking want."
Jamie swallows, but it's more difficult than he expects. "I just want," he says slowly, forcing himself to keep meeting Roy’s eyes, "for you to admit that you're into it?" His tone creeps up at the last moment, and the demand becomes an accidental question.
"Into what." The fact that Roy manages to make something that should be a question into a statement is salt in the wound.
"Oh, come on," Jamie insists indignantly. "You know." When Roy just blinks in response, Jamie rolls his eyes. “You like tying people up. For, like, pervy reasons," he adds defiantly.
Roy stares at him for a long moment. "I do enjoy tying people up," he says, finally. Jamie gets ready to crow, but he’s not done. "And I sometimes employ rope for sexual purposes."
Jamie's face heats, but he nods triumphantly. "Knew it."
"Is that all you want from me?" Roy's lips are nearly brushing Jamie's ear, but his growl somehow hits lower, like a punch in the gut.
"I –?" is all Jamie manages to force out. What else is there? He got Roy to admit it. He’s won.
Roy stares at him for what feels like a long time more, then nods and leaves, closing the door behind him. When Jamie emerges a few minutes later, Roy is gone. “Fuck,” Jamie says, without knowing why. He laughs shakily.
*
So Jamie has his answer. Roy is some kind of rope pervert. It should be more satisfying.
It’s not like there’s anything wrong with being that way, of course. People should get off however they get off, as long as they have consent and all that. But it’s a bit funny, isn’t it—big, angry footballer Roy getting off on decorating people’s bodies with some bits of thread? A good image to think about whenever he needs a laugh.
*
He wonders about it, too. Like what is it, in particular, that gets Roy off?
*
Not that he thinks about it all the time, or anything. But it's an interesting kind of fact to know about someone, isn’t it? Sometimes at night, when he’s not focused on training, and he’s just trying to sleep, Jamie ponders the different kinds of perv that Roy might be.
He remembers the odd feeling of tying the rope to his own dick. His uncertainty about whether he was doing it with the right amount of tightness, or using the best knot, or fastening it in the best place—but also desperately trying to keep his eyes on his own work.
He may have been trying not to look elsewhere, but he wonders if Roy might have been watching him that day, perving on him or the rest of Richmond. If so, which aspects did he focus on the most? Or was it not so much about anything in the locker room at all—was it more about what happened afterward, out on the field?
He could always tease Roy some more. So did you wank thinking about the lads tying ropes around their cocks? But when he imagines asking, he’s for some reason staring into Roy’s eyes in the mirror again, feeling his body pressed against him from behind as he speaks. And his stomach does something odd.
He kicks his covers halfway off and sighs. Enough of this foolishness; 4am will be here all too soon. He’s half-hard, likely because he usually wanks when he’s having trouble sleeping. He starts wanking now.
*
On the other hand, he wonders whether Roy maybe likes it better when he’s doing the tying himself. Like when he tied Jamie up before having him tow the bike. Roy actually did it twice; the first time, he looped the rope carefully around Jamie’s torso multiple times, taking his time, making it firm but not too tight. At the time Roy was doing it, Jamie had felt like he should be impatient or bored. But he wasn’t. He felt interested in the process. And the feeling was kind of pleasant. And, well, the close attention from Roy hadn’t been half bad.
(Then Jamie’d had to go and make a crack about whether Roy was turning him into a friendship bracelet, and Roy had undone all his fancy work and thrown a simple loop around Jamie instead, while Jamie continued to joke about it. And christ if that hadn’t chafed, even through his training gear. Jamie has more empathy now for the cows and horses that have to deal with Coach Lasso’s namesake.)
Had Roy been getting off on that? He tries to remember whether Roy gave any sign of arousal at the time. He doesn’t think so. But who even knows what Roy's like when he's turned on? It probably doesn't involve any movements or expressions; maybe some kind of micro-eyebrow twitches or something.
He suddenly hears Roy’s voice growling into his ear: Is that all you want from me? He shivers.
He’s hard again, and once again, it’s past time to sleep. He puts Roy firmly out of his mind and starts to stroke himself.
He tries, anyway. But the thought of Roy looking approvingly at his own rope handiwork wrapped around Jamie’s torso jumps into his mind at an inopportune moment. Jamie spills into his hand suddenly.
Shit. Well, that’s embarrassing timing, Jamie has a few moments to think before he drifts out of consciousness.
*
It turns out to only get more embarrassing the more nights it happens. And the more internet research he ends up doing on what kinds of things turn on people like Roy.
“Fuck,” he mutters to himself in the mirror one morning as he shaves, “reckon I might be some kind of rope pervert, too.”
*
He assumes he’ll get another chance to test that idea out soon. But training—both alone with Roy and with all of Richmond—stays frustratingly mundane. For ages. In spite of all the creative ways Jamie finds to leave rope lying around.
(And it's not that Jamie couldn't just use the rope he's bought on himself. Not even that he hasn't tried, a little bit. But that doesn't seem to do it for him as much as thinking about someone else—someone who usually happens to look like Roy—using it on him.)
Finally, Jamie asks Roy: “We ever going to do that bicycle exercise again? Bet I’ve gotten better at it.”
Roy raises an eyebrow three millimeters. “Is that what you want?”
It’s a little too close to a question Jamie spends a lot of time remembering Roy asking him in the mirror, and he suddenly stutters. “Yeah, what, no? I.” Yes. He shakes his head. “Whatever you think, Coach.” Roy thinks he should run all morning, apparently.
*
A few mornings later, Jamie is terribly distracted, and Roy stops him after his third bungled drill to call an end to the session.
“What’s got under your skin today?” Roy asks as he follows Jamie into his house.
Jamie sighs and leans back against a wall of the entryway. “Need to ask you something.”
“Oh?”
Jamie hesitates under Roy’s sharp gaze. What if he’s got it all wrong, though? What if Roy has no interest in doing weird pervy rope things with Jamie? What if he laughs in Jamie's face?
But what’s he going to do—lose sleep wondering about it for who knows how many more nights? Anyway, that’s stupid; he’s Jamie fucking Tartt. Who wouldn't want to do pervy things to him? He takes a deep breath and presses on.
“I want you to tie me up.”
Roy studies him so long that Jamie’s heart rate goes way up, and he starts searching for a joke that will let him back out. Then Roy says, “Tie you up how?”
Jamie gapes. He didn’t think Roy was quite old enough for dementia. “With rope."
Roy rolls his eyes. “Where do you want the rope to go?”
Oh. Jamie considers it, his heart still pounding. Where doesn’t he want the rope to go, to be honest? But he chooses a particular idea that’s been featuring in a lot of his nightly wank sessions recently and isn't quite as out there as some of the thoughts he's had. “Around my arms.”
“Mmm,” Roy rumbles. “Behind or in front of you?”
“Behind.”
“Just your arms?”
“Yeah.” He licks his lips, then adds, “For now.”
“And if I do this for you,” Roy says. “What will you do for me?”
Jamie didn’t see that coming, and an incredulous laugh bursts out of him. “You’re the fucking rope pervert, mate. Isn’t that enough for you?”
Roy shakes his head and says, “No,” very abruptly. He turns and starts to walk out of Jamie’s house.
“Wait!” It comes out all ragged.
Roy turns around, looks at him, then slowly returns. Jamie, moving on instinct now, walks over close, touches his forehead to Roy’s like they’re about to fight, and stares him in the eyes. “Tie me up,” he pleads, “and…” Dozens of scenarios that he’s been envisioning during recent late nights flash through his head.
“And?” Roy prompts.
“And I’ll do whatever you want.” He holds his breath.
Roy backs up a little, shaking his head. “No.” Jamie’s afraid he’ll turn and leave again.
Fuck. He feels lightheaded as he rasps out, “I’ll suck your cock.”
Roy’s own breath catches. He stares at Jamie an unbearably long time, while Jamie’s heart journeys through a whole marathon. “Is that what you want?” Roy finally asks. “Or what you think I want?”
“Yes.” The word explodes out of him. “Both, but me especially. Please, Roy. May I suck your cock?” He tries to put all of the craving built up over months of wank sessions into his eyes.
Roy doesn’t answer directly, but he’s stopped looking like he’s about to leave. Jamie feels like he’s passed some kind of test, especially when Roy says, “Clothes on or off?”
“Me? Off,” Jamie says, slightly embarrassed even though they’ve see each other undressed just about every single fucking day. Roy just nods.
“Kneeling or seated or lying down?”
All of it, he wants to say, but he knows now that this requires him to be specific. “Kneeling. Floor.”
“Gentle, or…?”
Jamie feels heat flooding through him, though he’s not sure why this is the hardest one to answer yet. He looks down, but Roy reaches out and grabs his chin and tilts it back up so Jamie’s meeting his eyes again. It’s fucking impossible to swallow. Jamie croaks out, “Not… no.”
Roy lets go, and he starts to walk around Jamie in a slow circle. Jamie feels laid bare, even though he’s still wearing all his training gear. “So, just to make sure I have this right,” Roy says. “You want to kneel naked on the floor in front of me, your arms bound tight behind you, your chest thrust out and showing off your pretty little nipples.” Jamie lets out a startled laugh. “Your cock hard and bobbing against your stomach, probably leaking all over your nice floor.” Jamie wonders whether Roy can see that he’s hard now, just listening to this. He considers amending his request to include one of the half-dozen ways he's been researching to tie up his cock and balls. But that feels like maybe a second date activity.
Jamie starts to open his mouth, but Roy’s not done. “And then you want me to fuck your face?” Oh god. “To push deep into your throat, when your arms are all tied up and you have no way to stop me?” Oh fuck. Oh god. Oh fuck.
Jamie’s cheeks are on fire as he forces himself to meet Roy’s eyes. “Yeah. Yes. Please, Roy.”
“Bring the rope,” Roy says.
Jamie rushes to grab it from his bedside drawer and then head back, mentally giving himself near-perfect marks for his agility, awareness, and speed.
Roy takes the rope. Then he sticks it in his pocket and smirks at Jamie. "Tomorrow. If you're very, very good during training."
Jamie whines, indignant. “Roy!”
Roy grins wider. “Good lad, though, asking for what you want.” He boxes Jamie up against the wall and pins his wrists against the vertical surface, down by Jamie’s waist. Then he leans in and nips Jamie on the upper rim of his ear. And ever so briefly, he grinds against Jamie’s cock with his upper thigh. “You filthy little rope pervert,” he growls in his ear. Then he steps back and releases him. With one last smirk, he rudely turns and leaves.
Fucking hell.