Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“How have you never been to a pumpkin patch?”

Dani blinked. “Though the Mexican climate is one of the most suited to growing pumpkins, my family was always more focused on preparing for Dia de los Muertos.”

“While I have grown to appreciate your culture’s acceptance and destigmatization of death, still!” Jamie gesticulated madly. “Going to the pumpkin patch every year was the best! Me mum always made it fun, and she knew how to find the ones that were almost rotten, but not quite, so we’d get them for cheap, but they wouldn’t go bad immediately. It’s a fall rite of passage!” He was pacing at this point, unusually distressed at the thought of his teammate and friend having never experienced something that had brought his younger self so much joy.

Dani patted his shoulder, concern evident in his deep brown eyes. “If it is truly such a life changing event, why don't you take me?”

Jamie’s eyes lit up, and he blushed slightly. “Well, I mean, sure, mate!” he cleared his throat, “I mean, if that’s what you really want an’ all.” Jamie was positively giddy, but point blank refused to show it. Or at least he point blank refused to give his body any more unconscious autonomy over his reactions to a certain teammate. Jamie looked around for something to make this less intimate of a moment.

“Erm, Colin, Isaac, d’ya hear what Rojas just suggested?”

Dani piped up, “Oh, it was Jamie’s good idea.”

Fuck, the blushing was back.

After a few moments of silence that felt more like a few minutes, Colin, the patron saint of gay panic, cleared his throat and got the attention of the whole team. “So, er, what were you saying, Jamie?”

“Yep. Um, well, Rojas here has never been to a pumpkin patch ‘cause apparently he didn’t do that in Mexico- dunno why, it’s a fucking blast,” Jamie remarked sullenly, before realizing he said that out loud and continuing, “Um, and so, I, erm, suggested that maybe, well, if you guys want to, we could, erm, go… to a pumpkin patch… together.”

The team wasted no time in shouting their approval and aggressive consent to this plan. Dani beamed like a literal fucking ray of sunshine while Jamie pretended to not both notice and love it.

And that's how the entirety of AFC Richmond ended up taking the Greyhound Bus (a turn of phrase that pleased Coach Lasso to no end, although no one could figure out why) to the pumpkin patch Jamie had gone to every year as a kid.

As the players stepped off the bus, having exchanged their trainers for rain boots, the mud squelched satisfyingly under their shoes as they all set off to find some pumpkins.

...

They all had different goals for their day at the pumpkin patch: yes, some players were there to get some pumpkins, but some were there for the hot apple cider, some wanted the freshly baked pastries, and some were there to try their hand at making it out alive of the confounding corn maze.

The team decided to split up and go their separate ways- they all had their own priorities, and they decided as a group that if they travelled in a pack as the entirety of a Premier League Football Club, some poor fan might have an aneurysm.

Jamie made it his mission to give Dani the full pumpkin patch experience. Carving, cider, corn mazes, the whole shebang. Dani had declared that their first and real priority was to find the perfect pumpkins for the team carving contest because that was somehow a thing that had been orchestrated once they’d decided to come to the patch.

The two navigated their way around the muddy field with a level of sincerity that would have made the Great Pumpkin proud. (What? Jamie watched Peanuts. He was cultured and shit.)

Dani let out a triumphant laugh, grabbed Jamie’s arm, and dragged him off in the direction of what he proclaimed to be “THE pumpkins for us.” Jamie smiled a little at his use of the pronoun and grudgingly allowed himself to be dragged.

Dani parked them in front of two of the saddest looking pumpkins Jamie had ever seen. They weren’t rotten, thank god, but they were very small and browning and unlikely to win them the carving contest. When Jamie looked over at his friend’s face to see if this was some kind of joke, Dani’s grin was as big as ever.

“So? What do you think?”

Jamie paused in confusion. On one hand, he could lie, which didn't feel great but would guarantee Dani wouldn't get mad at him. Or he could tell the truth and subsequently clear his conscience, but almost certainly end up with Dani mad at him. To solve this complex moral dilemma, Jamie turned to the tried and true question that always lingered in the back of his mind: WWLD- What Would Lasso Do?

He could almost hear Ted’s voice in the back of his mind telling him that “if they get mad atcha for telling them the hard truths, well now, they probably weren’t worth knowing in the first place.”

Although that one doesn’t work as well when it’s Dani-fucking-literal-ray-of-sunshine-Rojas and- when he really thinks about it- Jamie’s more worried about hurting his fucking feelings than him actually getting mad. That’s one of the downsides of having a crush- I mean, a friend.

Before Jamie can go into full ethical quandary/romantic feelings crisis mode, he realizes that Dani has taken a step towards him. His adrenaline spokes a bit, but it’s fine, he tells himself. Nope, nothing unusual there.

“¿Estás bien, Jamie?” He spots a pair of concerned brown eyes peering into his own at a distance just close enough to push him out of his denial about his own rapidly increasing heart rate.

“Oh, erm, yep, I am just fine. Peachy, even.” He winced. Dammit, Coach Lasso really did have full control of his subconscious, now, didn’t he?

“Okay.” Things did not seem okay. “So… what are your thoughts on the pumpkins?”

Oh fuck.

In the heat of the moment, somehow, Jamie’s subconscious took the wheel and decided what he’d say. So much for an intense ethical quandary.

“Mate, those are some sad-looking pumpkins, I do want to give them a good home and water them- which I don’t even know if you’re supposed to do with fucking pumpkins- but I really, really don’t think they’ll win us the contest.” Jamie internally screamed at himself for using the word ‘us’ in relation to himself and Dani when he’d undoubtedly just pissed off the loveliest fucking human being possible, and, ugh, could he even be more of an utter asshole? He wouldn’t be surprised if Dani just never talked to him again after this-

All of a sudden, he was startled out of his growing spiral by an unexpected dose of pressure on his shoulders. Dani’s eyes, dark and steady, were mere inches away from him, but Jamie didn’t think he’d be able to close that gap if he tried. He was frozen in place.

“Jamie. Escuchame.” Dani’s voice was level and smooth- focused, but not lacking its usual warmth. “They’re just pumpkins.”

“They’re just… pumpkins,” Jamie echoed, slow and steady. Even after all this, he didn’t want Dani to hear his voice hitch.

“Yes, they’re just pumpkins.” And with that, Dani sat himself down next to Jamie onto the wet, muddy pumpkin patch field. And, as if he could sense Jamie’s lingering distress, he grabbed his hand and rubbed his thumb in circles over Jamie’s knuckles.

“I’m sorry.”

Dani smiled but his eyes were sad. Not just sad; pitying. Jamie hated it.

“Don’t be.” A small pause and then a murmur. “Please don’t be.”

At some point, they stood up, hands still intertwined, though neither of them acknowledged it. Wordlessly, Jamie reached down to grab the sad, browning pumpkins with his free hand and passed one to Dani.

Dani smiled, more openly this time. “They’re just pumpkins.”

“Exactly. They’re just pumpkins.”

…

After partaking in every last one of Jamie’s childhood pumpkin patch memories, the two found the team again, and, shockingly, everyone looked unharmed.

Richard was carrying the hugest fucking pumpkin Jamie had ever seen, with Zoreaux carting two medium sized ones around in a wheelbarrow (a much more reasonable solution) behind him. The two were chatting animatedly in French about who-knows-what (Jamie certainly didn’t).

Colin and Isaac returned as conquering heroes, having reigned victorious against the corn maze and were treated as such by everyone. They were telling the team all about it when Dani and Jamie returned.

“And we wouldn’t have gotten out of there otherwise- oh, hey, boyos! How’d it go with you two?”

Pretty much everybody noticed the two of them holding hands, but nobody really cared.

“Very well!” Dani grinned. “We found some nice pumpkins”- an extra hand squeeze came Jamie’s way- “tried some really good apple cider, tried some even better hot chocolate, and even took a tour of the farm!”

The others were confused.

“I didn’t see that advertised,” said Zoreaux.

“Oh, it wasn’t.” Dani’s smile grew bigger. “I helped an elderly couple load their pumpkins into their car, and it turns out, they are the owners of the farm! And to thank us, they offered us a tour!”

Jamie smiled. It had been the sweetest thing to watch, Dani just helping other people, opening himself up in a way that Jamie had forgotten was possible for so long.

The team watched all this and internally began composing a wager as to when they would officially become a couple- if they hadn’t already.

(Isaac: “Oi, c’mon, it already happened!”

Sam: “No, I think they’ll take their time. Probably around Valentine’s Day. No one can resist that much romance.”

Jan: “I don’t think this is the kind of thing that can just be predicted. And besides, isn't it invasive and bordering on rude to make bets about coworkers' love lives?”

Everyone: “Oh, shut up, Jan Maas.”)

Back at the pumpkin patch, Richard gasped with the enthusiasm of a kid opening presents at Christmas.

“Promenade en foin!” He promptly plopped his pumpkin onto Zoreaux’s wheelbarrow, and ran to a nearby ticket seller.

“Hayride,” the aggrieved Canadian in particular explained. A collective noise of understanding followed.

“Ooh, that sounds fun,” said Bumbercatch.

Isaac nodded and took stock of his teammates’ agreement before yelling, not unlike a schoolteacher on a field trip, “Raise your hand if you want to go on the hayride?”

Every hand flew up. Isaac nodded again and kept yelling.

“Alright, we’ll each pay for our ticket, yeah?”

Everyone agreed, and migrated towards the shocked ticket collector, who evidently was a football fan.

Their tickets were dispensed and, in a few minutes, it was time for a hayride!

Chapter Text

When the hayride pulled up, all the footballers were like little kids waiting in line, but this time for something much better than a handsy Father Christmas. There was just something about a hayride on a crisp fall day to bring back all the fond memories of childhood, and Jamie was no exception to that rule.

Dani swore he could spot a few stray tears in his friend’s eyes, but he knew they weren’t sad- just nostalgic. He hadn’t been in the room, but Colin had told him all about Jamie’s indoor-fire-side confessions about his parents once the player in question was long gone back to Manchester City. Dani had thought he was being covert in his inquiries, but looking back on the knowing look in Colin’s eyes, he wondered if the other player hadn’t seen this very moment coming. Although, what this moment in question meant, well, Dani wasn’t quite sure.

He’d always considered himself pretty in tune with his emotions, and had known for a while that he was probably ‘not straight,’ but he’d never quite been able to figure out what more specifically.

But, those thoughts all disappeared as the hayride pulled up and Jamie tugged on Dani’s hand to pull him into the wagon. It was almost worrying how quickly Dani’s brain abandoned all prior reasonable thought and became occupied by Jamie whenever the man in question was near. Well, almost.

The team’s excitement was palpable- Dani could almost feel the hum of electricity emanating off of Richard, but everyone else was clearly overjoyed, too. Isaac was trying to catch falling leaves in a moving wagon, which was hilarious, but also a little worrying. Though it couldn’t be too perilous of an exploit if Colin- who was widely renowned to be Richmond’s number-one mother hen- was not-so-covertly filming it all on his phone.

Sam was swapping life stories with the driver and chatting with him in the way that only he could do where you knew he’d just made a friend for life. Bumbercatch and Zoreaux were taking apple cider shots, but, upon closer inspection, they were not in fact the alcoholic type of apple cider- which, even still, why would you take shots of any type of beer?

But all that was unimportant.

What was absolutely important was how Jamie’s knee would brush the inside of Dani’s own whenever Jamie turned a bit in his seat to point out some random plant that he loved the smell of, or a type of tree that he climbed all the time as a kid, and how the corners of his eyes crinkled whenever he was actually smiling at something, and how it was infinitely better when that something was Dani.

Dani was caught fully unawares when, all of a sudden, Jamie asked him a question and he didn’t hear a word of it.

“Sorry, Jamie Tartt,” He fell back on his old habit of calling Jamie by his first name in the hopes that it would stop him from being mad. “What did you say?”

“Nothing life-or-death.” Jamie shrugged.

“Well, I still want to hear it.”

That got him a smile. “I was just wondering if you climbed trees as a kid, or if you were one of those building fairy houses out of tree roots kids.”

Dani grinned. “Who says I can not be both?”

“Right on,” Colin piped up.

Jan tilted his head. “I am intrigued by your use of present tense, Dani.”

Dani’s grin got bigger somehow. “Oh, if I were given the chance right now, I would definitely jump out of this moving wagon to build a fairy house.”

He caught a glimpse of Jamie’s smile and ‘dancing eyes,’ as his mother would have put it and smiled right back.

“Okay, but, now I have to know: who’s a tree climbing kid, who’s a fairy house kid, and who’s a little bit of both?” Zoreaux asked. “Call me a cat ‘cause I’m pretty damn curious.”

They all chuckled a bit at his folksy Ted-ism before genuinely considering the question.

Isaac answered first. “Fairy houses are the shit, bruv.”

Colin clapped him on the back. “Seconded.”

“I cannot choose,” said Sam. “I love them both equally. They just hold different memories and mean different things to me.”

“Well, alright, then, Socrates,” Jamie teased, but there was no real bite to it. “I think I’m more of a tree-climber meself, but, no shade to the fairy house folks.”

“None taken,” replied Colin.

“Y’know, I think I have to agree with Jamie,” Zoreaux said incredulously. “Never thought that would happen.”

“Haha,” said Jamie sarcastically, but he was smiling.

Richard shook his head passionately. “Non. Maisons de fées are ze best, sans aucun doute.”

“Might not have understood all o’ that, but I'll just put you down for fairy houses, mate.”

Richard nodded resolutely, and Jamie patted his shoulder.

Jan purses his lips, clearly confused. “I still don’t understand. Climbing trees is such a freeing experience. How does building fairy houses even compare?”

Jamie and Dani exchanged glances. “Jan Maas, have you ever built a fairy house?”

“No.”

“Exactly. How would you know if you like them if you’ve never even made one?”

Jamie made a decent point, and Jan’s eyebrows knitted together as he considered this deep theoretical quandary. (Well- he thought it was theoretical. The rest of the team were definitely going to drag him away from his cozy bed absurdly early on a weekend and force him to make fairy houses at some point in the near future.)

…

The rest of the hayride was full of friendly debates, laughter, and other familial-esque behaviors. Because that’s what they were. A family. The realization sparked a wistful smile on Dani’s face, a smile he hadn’t even realized had happened until Jamie tapped him on his shoulder.

“You good, Rojas?” Jamie’s eyes were scrunched in a concerned fashion, and it was so cute, Dani almost fainted. Or maybe that just meant he had to eat something.

“Oh, yes, I’m fine. Just thinking. In a good way.”

Jamie nodded and studied his face a bit more before apparently letting it drop.

A few more minutes passed, and Dani noticed a change in Jamie. He stared straight ahead, brows furrowed, but unmoving. This made Dani a little concerned, but just as he was going to ask the other man if he was good, Jamie’s head was suddenly on his shoulder. And if he thought he was going to faint before, well, Santa Maria, eye scrunches had nothing on this.

And, as though their bodies were jumbled up puzzle pieces just waiting to be slotted into place, Dani’s head rested perfectly on Jamie’s. He hadn’t realized how tired he was until he was halfway into slumber and felt a shot of unseasonable warmth run through his body. He was too tired to think anything of it at the time, but, looking back, he would always say it was the first time he felt true love.

…

When they finally woke up, the team all had bemused smiles on their faces, but were courteous enough to not say anything too blunt.

The hayride pulled up back where they started by the pumpkin patch, and Jamie offered Dani his hand to step down from the wagon. In that moment, they could have focused on anything else going on around them, but they chose each other. They grabbed their pumpkins and got out.

They were all walking back to the team bus when Colin got a devilish grin and whispered something in Isaac’s ear. Isaac gave a nod of assent, and Colin giggled, before clearing his throat and attempting a straight face.

“So, erm, Jan…” Jan looked up, surprised to be mentioned. “What are your thoughts on a group fairy-house-construction field trip before we return to boring footballer life?”

“Does it really matter what I say?”

“Not really.”

“In that case, how could I say no?”

Chapter Text

The next weekend, they all gathered at Isaac’s place for team pumpkin carving.

Over the past week, they had been deliberating as a group how to keep the fall adventure train chugging along, when Colin suggested they use the already-collected resources at their disposal.

“The key is in the pumpkins, boyos! We’ve already got ‘em, so why not do something with ‘em?”

“But the pumpkins are still full of their insides. How is there a key in them?”

“Shut up, Jan Maas,” replied Jamie affectionately.

And, so, after the differences in idioms between various languages had been discussed at length, Isaac offered to host the team’s pumpkin carving gathering, and they all gladly accepted.

…

Isaac definitely had the coolest house. He had probably been the one who settled into his newfound wealth as a Premier League footballer the most sensibly and not completely lost his shit. The others, well, not so much. (Just look at Colin’s bright green Lamborghini.)

But Isaac’s house was a cute but modest mid-century modern, with a lot of earthy toned walls and comfortable furniture. They had all been over there at some point or another individually, but never as a group, so they all knew various rooms, but when they combined their knowledge, they were able to navigate the whole place.

While the rest of the team grabbed the little cans of seltzer water Isaac had piled up in his fridge and ran through the random hallways and secret passageways that, of course, were in Isaac’s house (the man was truly an enigma), Jamie and Dani helped Isaac set up the pumpkin carving stations.

“I also got caramel apples and a shit ton of candy corn, and I figured we could watch Hocus Pocus,” Isaac said, before unceremoniously dumping his bag of groceries on his kitchen counter and going into the next room for who-knows-what.

Jamie and Dani worked in silence for a little bit, sorting out whose pumpkin was whose and giving everyone a cutting kit and stencils (in case the creative juices had a hard time flowing), before Jamie finally felt like the silence was too much to bear.

“Erm, do you… like Hocus Pocus?”

They hadn’t really talked much since the day at the pumpkin patch. Well, they had, but it was just small talk and some big talk, but not the big talk they probably should have been talking about.

Dani looked up in surprise. “I’m still not sure what that is. Is it a movie?” His eyebrows were all scrunched together, and Jamie thought it might have been the cutest thing he’d ever seen. And Keeley still sent him all the cute cat videos she could find, even though they were broken up.

Jamie smiled. “Yeah, it’s a movie.”

They returned contentedly to their silence, each sneaking glances at the other and blushing when they made eye contact. The rest of the team looked on from their various locations in affectionate bemusement, and they were all wondering when they’d just “cut the crap” (as either of their assistant coaches might put it) and admit their feelings for each other!

“You can’t rush a thing like this!” Zoreaux translated for a frantic Richard, who had crowned himself the Love Master- solely and entirely because he was French.

“But it’s downright annoying to see them waddle around like puppies instead of bloody talking to each other!” Colin moaned.

“Why would puppies waddle? Do you mean ducks?” That was Jan, obviously. Who else would it be?

Colin sulked momentarily, “Yes. I mean ducks.”

“Well, whatever Colin meant, we are not interfering.” Isaac stuck his finger in the faces of every person in the makeshift huddle that had been formed outside his upstairs bathroom. “D’you hear me?”

A chorus of yeses followed and Isaac nodded, apparently satisfied.

“Erm, lads…” Jamie stuck his head around the corner, and took a step back when he saw the scene in front of him. “Y’know what, I’m not gonna ask. I believe we’ve got some pumpkins to carve downstairs, so…” He made some vague beckoning movements with his hands, but ended up just running down the stairs. It was peak physical comedy.

The huddle burst into mild chaos.

“Oh, no, do you think he heard us?” Sam’s eyes were wide as saucers, although the man himself had protested multiple times that if extraterrestrial life did exist, it probably wasn’t in the form of a cartoonish plate-like spacecraft filled with little green men.

“Most likely.”

“Shut up, Jan Maas!” So many different voices, united in one cry.

Jan shrugged and mumbled, “I mean, am I wrong?”

“No,” Colin leaned over to him and bumped him in the chest with his shoulder, “But that’s not the point.”

…

They abandoned any competition aspect in the carving pretty early on as it became clear that no one really cared about winning, more about who could make the most accurate carving of Coach Lasso’s mustache. Bumbercatch won that one.

It turns out that everyone had really been looking forward to the pumpkin carving and had taken it pretty seriously because all the stencils were quickly discarded in favor of original concepts.

Dani and Jamie set up their carving stations next to each other, though, when slyly asked about it by a smirking Colin, they just blushed and shrugged it off as a crazy coincidence. And at the sight of Isaac’s protective glare, Colin backed off. Though he wanted it known that he did so under duress.

Dani was attempting to carve the insignia in the center of the Mexican flag, a damn near impossible endeavor. Jamie correctly assumed that if he knew more Spanish, he’d be stunned as to how sailor-like Dani could be when duly provoked.

Jamie had settled on what he thought was a simpler design- a football. However, he forgot all about the pain in the fucking ass that was curved lines, and, as a result, his football was looking more and more like a square with wonky leopard spots.

They all worked in silence for a while, lost in concentration. Their only interruptions were Dani and Jamie occasionally telling each other stupid Halloween jokes.

“Oi, Rojas, why was the robot couple’s anniversary in the fall? Because they were autumn-mated!”

“Jamie Tartt: why did the scarecrow win the Nobel Prize? Because he was out-standing in his field!”

But gradually their jokes got a wee bit more flirty. And by flirty, I mean painfully corny in a cute way that only they could pull off.

“How do you fix a broken pumpkin? With a pumpkin patch.” They shared blushy smiles at that one.

“What did the leaf say to the tree? I’m falling for you.” The tips of Jamie’s ears were the same shade of red as a tomato.

What they didn’t see was Zoreaux’s beleaguered sigh, Jan’s eyeroll, and Colin’s fake gag. Not to mention Richard swooning over the live rom-com playing out in front of him and attempting to sneak into Isaac’s kitchen to grab a bag of microwavable popcorn. Isaac simply stuck out his sculpted arm and gave the Frenchman a stern look, and Richard scowled, but obeyed, sulking his way back into the living room.

After watching half an hour more of Dani and Jamie’s sickeningly sweet flirtation and cautious dancing around each other, the team had thoroughly revised their stance on interfering. Because despite the fact that the two should obviously get together, whether they would was another matter entirely. A quite understandable one, given the level of homophobia in professional sports, especially football, but that didn’t change the fact that Dani and Jamie needed to talk or kiss or fuck or do something to pop the persistent bubble of unspoken feelings between them.

So, the team subtly (as a freight train, frankly, but the two lovebirds were so consumed with giving each other pumpkin carving tips while paying more attention to the lips giving the advice than the advice itself) snuck up to Isaac’s bedroom to resume their earlier discussion.

“Do you see what we were talking about now, Isaac?” Colin’s tone ranged from vaguely accusatory to frantic.

“Yeah, yeah.”

“So, then, do you agree we should do… something?” Sam asked cautiously.

“Yeah, alright.”

As soon as their captain gave the affirmative, the team leapt into action. The idea list ranged from locking them in a broom closet to catfishing both of them or one of them or nobody at all- they still weren’t sure about that idea. They’d all seen too many rom-coms/read too many YA novels where that ended up being more of a hindrance than a help.

They went back and forth on potential solutions for another fifteen minutes or so- “no, Richard, we can’t force them to work on your goat farm for a week on their own. I think that’s technically slavery, and even if we pay them, it’s still kidnapping”- and they still couldn’t agree on a single good course.

Feeling a little let down by the rom-communism gods, they tromped down the stairs one by one before Bumbercatch, the first one down the stairs, stopped dead in his tracks.

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. Guys, guysguysguysguys.” He frantically poked the shoulders of everyone behind him, until they all eventually stopped walking.

Mutters of “holy shit”, “rom-communism!”, and “oh my fucking god YES!” arose from the mass of players crammed on the stairs behind Bumbercatch himself, who was grinning in a Dani-Rojas-worthy way.

Before them, Jamie and Dani were holding their respective ginormous glass bowls full of scooped out pumpkin guts, running around the room like little kids, and throwing the innards at each other. In other words, it was a Halloween Miracle. Bumbercatch quickly rethought his stance on the rom-communism gods betraying them and sent off a quick thank-you.

“Well, if we aren’t the luckiest ducks in the whole damn pond.” Zoreaux murmured, spouting yet another painfully wise Ted-ism.

Jan spoke up. “Yes, and, therefore, we should probably make like ducks and leave them the fuck alone.”

Colin smirked. “Is that really what ducks are known for?”

“Oh, shut up, Colin,” Jan teased. Or at least they hoped it was teasing. He was Dutch, so they were solidly fifty percent sure, but fifty was still a while off from a hundred.

“But, um, yeah, we should probably leave them alone.” At that wise reminder from Zoreaux, they all scampered off to Isaac’s lavish second floor, giggling the whole way.

…

Back in the living room, Dani and Jamie were negotiating a truce between gasps for breath. As they sat next to each other behind Isaac’s fake leather couch, they hooked their pinkies together to seal the deal (a pinkie promise, as Coach Lasso once put it), but kept their hands intertwined even after the truce was formally ratified and everything.

They couldn’t quite tell you how the pumpkin guts fight came about. One second, Jamie was making an astute observation that, given the amount of pumpkin guts that had been spilled on Isaac’s hardwood floors, he probably should have invested in some newspaper or some shitty towels or something to catch all the mess, and all of a sudden Dani had grabbed a pumpkin seed and placed it on the tip of Jamie’s nose.

Jamie laughed, smeared a bit of pumpkin gut onto Dani’s forehead, thereby escalating the conflict, and it just kept going from there until they were both so blissfully exhausted that they didn’t quite care enough to keep up the guise of play-fighting. They just allowed themselves to have the intimacy.

But, at some point, they reasoned, they should probably get cleaned up.

…

Isaac’s bathroom was the most ridiculously polished thing they’d ever seen. It was full of bathroom necessities, yes, but it also had two bowls of ornamental seashells on the sink and so many different types of towels they were scared to use any of them for fear that they’d secretly be ornamental or one-of-a-kind and ruined forever at the first sight of water.

However, in order to clean all of the orange goop off of their clothes and bodies, they needed to use something. Jamie grabbed two soft pale blue towels and passed one to Dani.

“So, Rojas, how are you feeling about Halloween now?” Jamie smiled.

“It has many more traditions and customs than I originally thought. I knew it was stolen from a pagan religion, but I thought the Western version was just candy and scary movies,” Dani replied. “Though I do love both of those things.”

They laughed together and once their laughter had died and been replaced by contented smiles, Jamie’s eyes came to rest on Dani’s lips. Dani tilted his head, startling Jamie out of his reverie, and he tried to cover it up.

“Erm, you’ve, er, got some gunk on your-”

Dani pulled him in and met Jamie’s parted lips with his own.

Fizzy warmth spread like wildfire through Jamie’s body, the kind of feeling that he used to associate with worry and sometimes still did, but, at this very moment, he just associated it with Dani and- why the fuck was he still thinking?

He allowed his brain to shut the fuck up for once in his life and lost himself in Dani’s kiss. He wound his fingers in Dani’s soft, soft hair and time seemed to slow down or speed up or both because before he knew it, the kiss was over.

Somehow in all of that, Dani had grabbed his hand, and Jamie made no attempt to drop it.

…

They quickly got cleaned up, kissed a little more, and exited the bathroom hand-in-hand. They looked around the room for the rest of their teammates, but they were nowhere to be found.

Dani was the one who put the pieces together. His mouth quirked. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we have not seen the others in almost an hour.”

“Whaddya mean?”

“Knowing them, they decided to leave us on our own, probably hoping for this exact purpose.”

“We weren’t that obvious, were we?” Jamie puzzled,

“Mm, I do not think we are the best ones to judge that.”

“Fair enough.”

They pivoted to face each other.

“So,” Jamie began, “What do we want to do now?”

Dani chuckled. “Well, at this point, I think we have been abandoned, so I don’t think we’re required to stay.”

“Cool. How would you feel about taking a field trip to a fro-yo place I know ‘round the corner?”

“I’ve never actually experienced the apparent wonder that is frozen yogurt.”

“Oh, babe, you haven’t lived!”

Dani blushed at the pet name, Jamie blushed at the blush, and Dani paused. “I think this is why they may have gotten tired of us.”

“Speak for yourself. I’m an absolute delight.”

Dani full-on belly laughed at that one.

“Vamos, Jamie Tartt. Let’s eat some frozen yogurt.”

Chapter Text

For the next two weeks, the team spent their time doing one of two things- watching Jamie and Dani unsuccessfully attempt to conceal their new relationship and planning their final fall activity. There was only so long they could keep the ball rolling before it got stale (and you can bet Jan Maas objected to that sloppily constructed metaphor), and they wanted to go out with a bang.

The idea came to Jan, himself, of all people, with Colin and Isaac left kicking themselves for not coming up with it first.

“For the last time, we are not going back to that godforsaken corn maze!” Colin said.

“We could always-”

“We are not making our own.”

Richard pouted, “Why not?”

Colin looked like he was about to pass out. “I suppose I could go for any number of reasons, really. The fact that it’s already October and corn needs months to grow for one. Should I continue?”

Richard sulked but relinquished the idea.

In the momentary silence that followed, Jan’s quiet voice rose up from the corner of the locker room. “Haunted houses are always fun.” His voice was casual, and he was picking at his fingernails, as if he had just commented on the unseasonable October weather instead of blowing the team’s collective mind.

“Fucking hell.”

“I take it that’s a yes to my idea?” Jan smirked.

…

Jamie spent his morning, not for the first time that week, in Dani Rojas’s flat.

He would usually never admit anything of that sort so freely, but there was something about waking up with someone he lov- genuinely enjoyed being with- that made him that bit more sentimental.

His sleeping companion in question was currently starfished over the entirety of his queen-sized bed, face in his pillows, fast asleep. Jamie watched Dani’s back rise and fall with every breath and debated getting back under the covers solely so he could wedge himself under Dani’s right arm as though it were a weighted blanket. Jamie knew that would really helped distract himself from the fact that they had to be at training in an hour.
Jamie let Dani sleep in for another five minutes before opening the blinds and letting the bright light of morning wake him up. The only issue with that was that it was October in London, so the “bright light of morning” was really a mass of clouds so gray that Jamie could feel his spirits falling by the second.

However, it did the job because within a minute, Dani was blearily stumbling into the shower, patting Jamie’s shoulder affectionately as he passed by. Jamie blushed and smiled at such an unguarded show of casual affection, before shaking his head and downing the rest of his morning coffee.

He and Dani were stuck in the same dilemma, only two steps further in their relationship. They still hadn’t really talked.

During fro-yo, they’d made jokes and talked about their families and their teenage years and a lot of inconsequential first date shit. Which still didn’t make much sense because they’d never formally clarified if it was really a date or if it was just two mates who’d just kissed going to get fro-yo. (No one had the heart to tell Jamie that that’s what a first date was.)

Afterwards, they’d kissed a little more and made plans to watch some stupid rom-com the next night after training, both of them shaking off their usual plans to go to the club with the team.

That next night, they’d gotten way too into the movie, cried at the ending (and during some parts in the middle), kissed a lot more, and spent the night together. And that had become the typical ending of all the days that followed.

Jamie couldn’t deny it was the happiest he’d been in a while, but on another very conscious level, it was freaking him the fuck out. It wasn’t Dani or the prospect of dating a man or anything like that- Jamie may have been a bit of an oblivious dipshit (to put it one very Roy-Kent-ish way) when it came to other people, but he knew who he was and he’d made his peace with his bisexuality and his football career coexisting- it was more the immediate domesticity of it. Even he and Keeley had taken the whole watch-a-movie-and-cry-over-it-together thing a bit more slowly, and, on some level, he was putting on an act when he’d been with her. He’d just been lucky she saw right through it and was okay with being around it- around him, for so long.

And, usually, when he thought things like that, when he picked on himself like he used to pick on Nate, when he thought he wasn’t worthy of other peoples’ time or love, he called Dr. Sharon. But he knew for a fact that she was vacationing with her new girlfriend up in Bath, and he didn’t glance twice at the business card she’d given him in their last session for an emergency replacement- some “perfectly fine” therapist who she’d respected for years. It was one thing with Dr. Sharon, he didn’t want anyone else seeing him like this. Especially not Dani.

And so, when the man in question was showered and dressed and plopped a sweet kiss on Jamie’s lips before they parted ways- Dani exiting out the front door, Jamie out the back- Jamie took some deep breaths, smiled an unconvincing smile into the mirror just for the fun of it, and formally began his day, his anxiety just as bad, just pushed to the back of his brain.

…

When Dani woke up that morning, he could tell something was off.

He didn’t think Jamie was mad at him, or particularly mad at anyone. No, that's not accurate. Jamie was very good at being mad at himself. But, today, something seemed different.

They ate their breakfast in near silence, no music, no chatting, just a contemplative lack of noise. Which normally would have been just fine for Dani, but Jamie just looked really… scared.

And when Dani attempted to ascertain Jamie’s mood and subtly remind him of his presence with an overly intentional goodbye kiss, Jamie just smiled wistfully, as if he was mourning a kiss that he would never again experience. It was all very worrying.

But, alas, they both had jobs (which always felt like a strange was to refer to football) and for the next few hours, Dani fell into the familiar routine of training. His worries and concerns disappeared and were replaced by focus and concentration- his gaze honing, his mind buzzing but not distracting him with such pesky matters as coherent thought.

When training was over, Coach Lasso pulled him over.

“Well color me- well, not impressed, more gosh darn proud. That’s some darn great football you were playing in training today. You got some sort’a secret sauce spicing up your already-yummy recipe this fine afternoon?” Coach Lasso looked genuinely interested in what Dani was going to say.

Dani thought this over and there was really only one potential answer, counterintuitive as it may appear. “I believe it is worry, Coach.”

Coach Lasso’s face fell. “Well, shoot, Dani. That’s a tough one. Anything I can help with?”

“I don’t think so, Coach, but thank you!” Dani tried for one of his usual sunny smiles, and while that didn’t seem to fully satisfy Coach, his mustache did lose its concerned scrunch.

However, as soon as Dani exited the shower into the locker room, his worry thoughts about Jamie returned in full force.

He was toweling himself off and changing into some warm clothes when Isaac mentioned the team’s final pick for a fall activity.

“Oi, Rojas, Tartt, we’re gonna be going to Richmond Secondary’s haunted house this weekend.” Isaac almost smiled when he said the next bit, little bits of emphasis scattered throughout his words. “Since you two were both late to trainin’, we picked for you.”
Dani blushed a bit at the blatant call-out and resisted the urge to look over at Jamie. When he finally gave in and did a once-over around the room in an attempt to make it less obvious that he only cared about seeing one person, Jamie was staring straight at him, one corner of his lip caught between his teeth. He was looking in Dani’s direction, but his eyes were lost in thought and Dani could tell he wasn’t really seeing him.

All of a sudden, he registered their teammates' stares- full of worry, but not an ounce of surprise.

Who’s to say if that inspired Dani’s next choice or if it was pure instinct, but Dani felt an almost involuntary pull towards Jamie. He didn’t fight it, instead choosing to grab Jamie’s arm and drag him out of the locker room and into the clubhouse halls.

Dani very intentionally hadn’t looked at Jamie’s face as they walked out, and only did so when they were face to face in the hallway. Jamie’s soft eyes made him want to cry.

“Jamie, cariño, ¿qué está pasando contigo?” Dani murmured to himself, not registering that it was said aloud. It was a testament to how much time Jamie had spent around him that he knew what he was saying.

“I’m fine, ba- Dani, really.”

Dani knew that was nonsense, but didn’t know how to say it or even feel it without seeming clingy or overbearing. That was what he’d been accused of most in past relationships, and it had always hurt the most. He decided to change the subject completely.

“So… how are you feeling about the haunted house this weekend?” Dani aimed for a supportive smile, but settled for the panicked grin he saw reflected on Jamie’s face.

Jamie nodded nonchalantly. “I mean, I’m a bit scared.”

At this point, Dani's brain was desperate for any potential explanation, so he latched onto this easy way out with the blind fervor of a puppy with a chew toy. Even if that chew toy was full of so many holes it could have been the subject of a Louis Sachar book.

“Ah! Is this why you have not been… you… recently?”

Jamie’s face fell imperceptibly, but just enough for Dani to be able to tell that he’d somehow just made things worse.

“Yeah… that’s it.” Jamie fiddled with his fingers for a few seconds before clearing his throat and gesturing to the locker room. “Erm, but I was thinking I’d, erm, go to the club tonight just to… y’know, keep up appearances… and shit, so, yeah.”

And with that, Jamie turned and fled.
Dani didn’t feel the tears streaming down his cheeks until his face was red and sticky and his eyes were all crusted up.

…

For the next few days, Dani and Jamie were each stuck in their own versions of hell. Jamie was convinced his fear of emotional intimacy and self-sabotaging nature would inevitably fuck up whatever he and Dani had (ironic given the fact that that very voice inside Jamie’s head telling him that was that very same self-sabotaging nature), while Dani paced and stressed and worried that somehow he’d messed everything up without even knowing it.

They spent a noticeably less amount of time together and the time they did spend together was full of awkward silences and overthinking, their casual intimacy lost in the overheated hardware of their minds.

The worst part of it all was that they were each so preoccupied with all the fictitious ways they might have been hurting each other that they didn’t notice the tangible ones right in front of them.

But eventually, Saturday arrived and with it their excursion to the haunted house.

Richmond Secondary had done a stunning job with their haunted house- it legitimately looked terrifying.

“Ohhhh, why the fuck did we decide to do this?” Colin muttered.

Jan’s eyes gleamed. “I’m excited.” That was all he said.

Colin and Isaac exchanged a quick non-verbal conversation wherein they debated the likelihood of Jan Maas being a serial killer. They decided to keep that theory on the back burner.

Jamie and Dani arrived at the same time, albeit separately. The team went to tease them about it, before backing off at the awkwardness in front of them. And it wasn’t the same kind of awkwardness Jamie and Dani had had that made them all smile and wish they had that kind of love- it was full of things unsaid and feelings unshared. The team just unconsciously knew not to tease them.

Soon, nightfall came and it was time to enter the haunted house. Everyone was more than a little apprehensive. See, on the one hand, everyone knew that the ghosts and ghouls lying in wait for them in the gymnasium were just pimply teenagers a good five years younger than themselves, but, on the other hand, haunted houses are pretty much guaranteed to be terrifying.

Jamie was lurking at the back of the line of jittery footballers, and Dani casually waited for him.
Dani cocked his head and smiled hesitantly, then gestured for Jamie to go in ahead of him. Jamie shook his head and held his arm out as if to say ‘after you.’ Dani just shrugged and admitted defeat. But he still stayed close to Jamie.

The first wave of sweaty teenagers, bless their hearts, were pretty pathetic. The Richmond players weren’t the first group to go through, so the kids’ throats were already pretty ragged from yelling as an attempt at blunt intimidation.

The second wave however was a bit much. There was a lot of locker slamming and low lighting to make you unsure of where you were going. Dani nearly tripped over one kid before running away as quickly as possible when the poor soul attempted to stand up with Dani standing over him. Dani swore he spotted Jamie glaring at the kid after he’d passed.

The third wave was the worst. At this point, it was clear the children hadn’t been given any instructions, so they had given up terrorizing from afar- they were getting a little too up close and personal. Which wasn’t in their best interest when the people they were aggravating were professional athletes who had practically been trained in the art of physical intimidation.

Dani made no attempt to stifle his giggles at Isaac squaring off with a scrawny kid in a ripped rugby uniform, nor at Zoreaux fending off (fake) bloodied eyeballs as easily as fending off predictably-aimed penalties.

But as he was watching his teammates having a surprising amount of fun, there was a tug on his heartstrings. Call it fate, an invisible string, whatever. But he felt the need to look at Jamie. And what he saw scared the shit out of him.

…

Jamie loved seeing Dani happy.

From the day they met- although he sure as hell wouldn’t have admitted it then- there was something so infectious and all-consuming about Dani’s joy. The way his eyes crinkled at the corners, the way his smile so unguardedly broke across his face, the way that smile got just that little bit more affectionate when it was directed at Jamie.

But as he watched the man he- fuck it- yes, loved, smile and laugh and have the time of his fucking life, something inside of Jamie broke. He had been doing a pretty stellar job of ignoring his swirling typhoon of feelings for the past week or so, doing his best to repress in equal measure how Dani’s face fell every time Jamie resisted a pointed opportunity to open up. To be honest.

Because that’s all he was, really- a fucking liar. He could never give Dani honesty, he was too fucked up for that. He could never give him the peace and tranquility and happiness he so desperately hopelessly surely deserved.
He couldn’t do it, couldn’t do that, couldn’t do what he wanted- needed- to do, couldn’t do anything- his dad was right, his shitty father was right about something for once in his miserable life- he was too weak, too soft, not enough, never enough-

A familiar calloused thumb grazed the dimple in his chin, and, all of a sudden, Jamie fell back to earth. He began hyperventilating- or had he always been?- gradually becoming aware of his racing pulse and the tears clouding his vision. His ears were ringing; he couldn’t hear anything aside from the rapid ins and outs of his own breathing.

It was only until he’d unconsciously shifted into internal crisis mode and done an appropriate amount of box breathing to bring him down from his adrenaline haze that he registered the languid circles being traced on his back.

He let himself collapse onto the familiar shoulder next to him. Somehow, Dani had sat down without him noticing. He let out a shaky breath, nowhere close to fine, but getting there.

…

Dani spent the next fifteen minutes or so rubbing comforting circles on Jamie’s back. He watched as Jamie’s shoulders settled and his breathing returned to normal.

At this point, the teenagers just left them alone. Several other groups had come and gone, grumbling about the lack of scares in that section, but the kids didn’t seem to care. One girl even got Jamie a glass of what she called “ water fountain shit, but it’s somethin’, innit?” Dani thanked her profusely. Humanity certainly was a miracle.

Jamie had scared him half to death. He couldn’t explain the instinct that shocked him out of his own resulting panic and had led him over to Jamie’s side, his body calmly taking over the situation his mind didn’t know how to handle.

Back in the present, Jamie nudged Dani’s shoulder with his nose. “Hi.”

“Hola, cariño.” Dani smiled softly. “How are you feeling?”

Jamie shrugged. “Not great, but… better.”

“Good.” Dani didn’t quite know how to broach the next topic. “Do you think you can talk a little more?”

“Depends,” Jamie did his best to grin. It sort of worked. “Are you gonna dump me when I’ve just ‘panic-attacked’ all over you? ‘Cause if so, I might need to rest a bit longer.”

“I would find that funnier if I could be sure you weren’t actually worried about that.”
Jamie sighed. “Yeah. Fair enough.”

Dani waited, letting his love take his time.

Jamie looked down and fiddled with his fingers as he began to speak. “I’ve never been good with emotional intimacy. Trusting people has never been my strongest suit, and I’ve been known to fuck up a good thing or two in my time, and I’ve started to find a pattern. Once I get too comfortable, too dependable, too used to having a good thing in my life- a good person in particular- I can usually be trusted to blow it all up pretty damn quickly. And you might just be the best thing I’ve had in a while, Rojas, and I couldn’t stand the idea of messing this up. So, obviously-” the intended sarcasm was evident “-the reasonable thing to do in that situation was distance myself from you on my own terms instead of wising up and just talking to you.” Jamie let out a long sigh. As scary as it was leaving all his cards on the table like that, it still felt good to get it all off his chest.

Dani contemplated how best to respond to such a personal confession. He decided it could only be with one of his own. “Since my first romantic relationship, I have been scared of coming on too strong or telling the other person how I feel too soon. Now that I think about it, just being too much in general. Which often means that I’m either too scared to trust my own judgment, or I ignore it entirely and end up alone. Which also means that I can tell when people are pushing me away, and I let them. That happened here, and I really don’t want it to happen again.”

Jamie let out a short chuckle. “Holy shit. This really could’ve all been solved if we’d just bloody talked to each other, couldn’t it?”

“I guess so.” Dani paused, chuckling a bit at his morbid mind. “Then, what does that say about us, Jamie Tartt?”

“Honestly? That we are in desperate need of therapy.”

“Are you in therapy, Jamie Tartt?”

“Yeah. Haven’t had an appointment in a few weeks, though, ‘cause Doc’s on vacation.”

Dani murmured supportively, still lost in thought. “I will admit, aside from when Dr. Sharon helped me with my case of the yips, I’d never considered therapy. I think I should reconsider it.”

Jamie smiled. For real this time. “It never hurts to try.”

“Exactamente. And if it helped with Earl, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t help with… whatever else I may need.”

Neither of them talked for a few seconds before Jamie burst out laughing. “Fucking hell, are we really going to be healthier people for each other? That’s like going from zero to a hundred for both of our issues.”
“Hmm. I guess it is. But I guess once we’ve monologued to each other in a secondary school haunted house, going to therapy doesn’t seem like as big of a deal.”

“Funny how that works, innit?”