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jamiesfootball · 26 days

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Moe stared face to face with the one-eyed rat and contemplated the unfairness of a society wherein your existence relied on caveats.

Sure it’s a rat, but this one’s nice.

Sure it’s a rat, but this one lives indoors all the time and never interferes with anyone else.

Sure it’s a rat, but have you ever considered it has rat friends who really love it?

Keeping it indoors must really help with overpopulation.

No one wanted rats, not really.

Sure, the rights of rats had never been more boldly understood. They were pets like any other, and the people who had them cared for them the same way you would any other pets. But there was a difference between a pet rat, one that lived in a family, and a non-domesticated rat, one that roamed the streets without any intention of settling down.

The metaphor may have gotten away from him.

That was fine.

This rat technically had both its eyes, but the right one was milked over. The presence of functional without any of the appearance. A portion of the world obscured, extra effort needed to make sense of it.

Moe stared face to face with the one-eyed rat and wondered if any of its little rat friends ever conflated something missing with something wrong.

The lads were talking about the Bantr promo ads.

Or they had been, but now the lads were talking about girls.

Used to be that if the topic of girls came up, Moe could rely on Colin to shift the subject, always interrupting the flow of conversation to ask if someone had a comb or some socks or a can of Lynx he could borrow.

After years of being a professional footballer, he should really have basic hygiene dialed in by now, but that was Colin for you.

Also used to be that if it weren’t Colin, Jamie would inevitably derail the conversation. Moe wasn’t sure if it was missing socialisation cues or problems with learning socialisation in general, but Jamie had missed the usual lessons that girls were a topic ‘men’ should enjoy discussing, and were therefore worth discussing for all of the some time until Moe wanted to put his head through a wall.

Used to be that you couldn’t pay Jamie to stay on topic.

One second it was girls, then it was the girls on Lust Conquers All, then it was lads on Lust Conquers All, then it was breakfast-themed alcoholic beverages, then breakfast cereals, then some new snack he’d seen when he was getting petrol and had anyone else tried it yet, then it was what kind of fabrics everyone preferred in their cars, then he was off on whether or not he should get tested for allergies because after he’d switched to a new detergent, his sheets were making him itchy.

That had been the time Moe insisted on helping him test for bed bugs. Jamie had taken him up on his answer because as insensible as he could be, he took hygiene seriously, and also because Isaac had threatened to kick him out of the dressing room forever if it turned out Jamie was infected with tiny creepy crawlies.

As soon as they arrived at Jamie’s house, Big Ben – a fat orange cat with a grumpy face and a Gucci collar – came up to say hello, yowling in their faces until Jamie bent down to give him ear scratches.

Both cat and owner followed Moe room to room. Moe diligently laid down the test strips while Big Ben twined around his legs. Jamie talked his ear off about Jurgen Klopp’s Gegenpress tactics and whether it was a strategy Ted might be open to trying.

(He even pronounced all the words correctly; he must really be serious.)

That was the other thing he’d noticed lately – it used to be that no conversation left around Jamie could go long without returning to football. When they’d signed Zava, Isaac had actually called a team-minus-Jamie meeting to discuss how best to prevent Jamie from cornering the legend himself with aggressively pointed questions about obscure matches no one remembered.

To Moe’s knowledge, that hadn’t happened yet. Without being asked, Jamie respected Zava’s space far more than he respected anyone else’s, and he hadn’t gone on a proper football rant in a while.

Now it spewed out of him like a dam unleashed.

Equally demanding of attention was Big Ben, who threw himself at Moe’s feet with his paws curled up in front of his chest in a false act of supplication that Moe wasn’t going to fall for.

When Moe stepped around him, the cat repeated the gesture, adding a plaintive mewl for good measure. After his third attempt at gaining Moe’s attention, Jamie scooped the cat up – an impressive feat, considering it was the size of a small blimp.

Jamie cooed at the gargantuan ball of hair, “Cut that out. He’s trying to help us out, King.”

The cat purred in contentment, already satisfied.

That was the difference between cats and rats. The cat could have what it wanted, because its needs were understood.

A big acceptable tomcat; a man amongst men.

A man, full stop.

In the end, Jamie didn’t have bedbugs. Just delicate skin and bad taste in overpriced household products.

After educating Jamie on how the phosphates found in laundry detergent had devastated oceanic ecosystems around the globe, Jamie and his cat solemnly promised to look up Moe’s recommendations. Both wore matching, befuddled expressions and a sort of distracted interest, as if Moe was a creature that, once gone, would cease to be more than a novelty. A one-time interruption in a life that would spin rather much the same once he was gone as it had before he arrived.

Or he’d let the metaphor get away from him again.

That was fine.

Moe went home.

Remy had a cage for when Moe was away. The first thing he did whenever he returned was open the door to his rat’s home. Together they roamed the flat, clueless in communication but free to do whatever they wanted.

What Remy wanted to do the most was curl up on Moe’s shoulder, making a nest between him and the couch cushions while he dozed into a peaceful rat nap.

Moe might not matter to the world, but Remy mattered to Moe.

With Remy for company, Moe had everything he wanted.

No one’s making the rat participate.

In no way was Bantr a worse option as a sponsor than Cerithium Oil. Not in a million years. The damage Cerithium Oil had done to the planet would stretch on forever – there would never again be people in the world not affected by their disregard.

But at least Cerithium Oil had never given a damn whether Moe Bumbercatch was ‘single.’

He hadn’t wanted to be a part of the new Bantr promo in the first place, but group advertising didn’t work on an opt-in basis. Everyone at the club did their bit knowing that somewhere down the line someone else would do the same for them. The team relied on each other that way. For every Sam Obisanya and Dani Rojas and Jamie Tartt who racked in money for the children at the annual gala, there were a dozen smaller PR stunts that could be handled by one of the any-players.

Moe didn’t mind being one of the any-players. What he minded was the arbitrary nature by which his participation had been decided. He disliked the sensation of being ‘singled’ out.

Moe put up with dozens of small slights every day.

Like the ‘mens’ label on the toilets by the dressing room, even though they were the only team that used this part of the stadium and therefore had no reason for the specificity. The culturally acceptable amount of sexual innuendos surrounding men’s fitness whenever it came time to do interviews. Team movie night, which purported to be about emotional release but usually revolved around rom-coms or media geared towards children (many of which also featured romance.) Most days these weren’t more than a prick against the skin, a bristle of discomfort that lingered more in memory than in lasting hurt.

Richmond was a good club, with a disproportionate amount of good people and a host of benefits to make up for it.

One of said benefits of Richmond: the talk around the dressing rooms tended to be more palatable than what he’d dealt with in past dressing rooms.

How unfortunate that past performance was not an indicator of future results.

Zoreaux held up his hands to fend off the jeering. “All I’m saying is that when this shirt comes off? There’s no need for words. I let my body do the talking.”

He invited booing, really. Only Dani approved, nodding sagely as if this was great advice (which made a certain amount of sense; Moe couldn’t imagine any advice would make Dani less successful at winning people over.)

Once towels had been thrown and collected, the attention turned to the next victim in line.

Isaac elbowed Colin. “How about you? What’s your pitch for getting a woman to stick out a date after she’s taken a spin in your car?”

Colin took the good-natured jab with a corner kick smile. “Keep it simple. Go for drinks, catch a film, and if the movie sucks, I’ll pay for your Uber home.”

This was treated to a round of chuckles and a few outcries of ‘lame!’

Personally, Moe appreciated his teammate’s brand of dry self-deprecation. Colin gave off the sense that he was someone who knew himself well enough to make a joke of it—a quality Moe certainly couldn’t say he’d cultivated.

Hard to cultivate in sand when you were meant to have soil.

“Hey Jamie, what about you?” Colin asked, making a grabby motion towards the Lynx cupboard. “Did you think of something to say for the ads? Or are you just going to take your shirt off?”

A can of Lynx was tossed across the room with little regard to aim. Colin fumbled the catch.

Languid with his knees pulled up on the bench, Jamie’s smirk did nothing to dissuade Moe’s notion that he was a large, acceptable feline in his natural habitat. That said, his answer came surprisingly devoid of the self-congratulatory manner with which they were all accustomed.

“Date’s not about me, is it?” he said simply. “I’m not doing it for me. I’m just there to show her a good time.”

Some thoughtful hums and considering ‘good points’ went up around the room. Personally Moe thought that sounded lonely. His own experiences in dating were limited, but he was pretty sure that fun was the point.

Hence why he’d stopped doing it.

As if sensing his dissatisfaction, Jamie narrowed in on him. “Moe, how about you? What wisdom are you bringing to the women of Bantr?”

Sometimes, he had to remind himself that he was used to slights.

Moe shrugged into his jacket. “Haven’t decided.”

Some of the joking demeanour slid off Jamie’s shoulders. His uneven eyebrows puckered together, the slit on the right making the effect of his expression more severe. “What d’you mean you haven’t decided? We film tomorrow.”

“Means I haven’t decided on anything I want to say to help our corporate overlords squeeze more money out of our increasingly impoverished society.”

“Ah, we can help you figure something out!” Dani offered. He seemed excited by the prospect. “What do you like to do on dates?”

A tingling sensation spread into his hands. “I don’t like dates.”

Colin tried to share a smile with him. “Too capitalist for you, boyo?”

“Who the fuck doesn’t like dates?” asked Zoreaux, perplexed and usually kind and now-

Moe sidestepped the scrutiny. “It doesn’t matter, because we’re not looking for real dates. We’re just selling the idea that we could be looking for dates. It’s an illusion.”

“He’s right,” Colin added. Heads swivelled his way. “It’s not real. If one of us was seeing someone, this wouldn’t even be considered cheating. It’s just doing a job.”

Moe raised an eyebrow; Colin was hardly someone he’d describe as cynical, but that response was practically dripping with- with-

With something he couldn’t place. He’d come back to it later.

“Is that the problem then?” Goodman asked, throwing an arm around Moe’s shoulders. He sounded positively chuffed. “Finally found someone and you don’t want to share?”

“No.”

“Ooh, I think we hit a nerve,” O’Brien chortled.

Moe pushed Goodman’s arm away. “Sure did.”

Once again, Jamie’s confusion was a mirror image of his cluelessness kitty cat’s when Moe refused to follow the script. “Hey, man, we were just messing around.”

He reminded himself that the slights didn’t matter, because it wasn’t like he’d told anyone that he was being slighted.

He also reminded himself that the rat can do whatever it wants.

Because Moe didn’t want to make an exception of himself. He didn’t want an exceptional place, a place he carried around with him where people would edit their words in his presence and continue unfiltered the moment he left. He wanted a life free of caveats. A normal life, in a normal place. He wanted the place he was already in to not have been de facto claimed by the majority. He didn’t want to speak up only to defend himself against accusations that he was spoiling their fun; he just wanted somewhere where his inclusion could be felt without the stinging sensation that he was being patronised – that the world had built around him a pocket, instead of letting him choose to crawl inside.

He wanted to be more than a rat in a pocket.

The rat wanted a home too.

He fled the dressing room.

Call that rat behaviour.

The way Moe figured it, he’d developed an aura of mystery enough that his exit would either be seen with a classy amount of intrigue or with a neon sign glaring on his back. There was no in-between.

“Moe, wait up!”

The approaching canter of Jamie indicated that the answer lay towards the option cast in a garish light.

Jamie slowed to an awkward stop. “Hey, man.”

Some hits happened so often he hardly noticed anymore; today wasn’t one of those days.

“Sorry if we were prying too much. Didn’t mean anything by it you know,” Jamie explained, in a tone so sharpened with sincerity and glass that it pierced Moe sharply between his ribs.

He liked Jamie, really. He loved everybody on the team. It was the world he didn’t like, and hardly their fault that the world extended beyond what their eyes could see.

“Yeah, I get that,” he sighed. His hands still felt tingly, and he pinched his nose. “Just not up for it today, alright?” Or any day.

Jamie bobbed his head in agreement – only to stop suddenly, his head tilting as he studied Moe. With growing wariness, Moe watched his hands slip under the front of his shirt, twisting the fabric around his fist. It was a motion Moe had caught himself mirroring a few times, usually when he needed a little extra oomph to push through some discomfort.

Anxiety creeped into his chest.

With entirely too much focus, Jamie spoke carefully, “I’m just saying, it’s none of our business if you’re seeing a girl. Or anyone.”

He added the last bit in a hushed voice.

The missile missed its target by miles. Nevertheless, Moe felt dizzy from how close it’d come to contact.

“No,” he answered. Because what?

The confused tomcat expression returned to Jamie’s face. Without giving Moe a second to catch up, he changed topics completely.

“You know those two girls Dani was seeing?”

Moe nodded, feeling very much like a trap was being laid before him.

Jamie bounced on his toes, full of nervous energy as his eyes flitted around. “And you know he’s still seeing them, yeah? Like, the three of them are still together.”

Moe did not know that. Why just that morning, Dani had leaned up against Zoreaux, phone in hand, bemoaning how much more successfully his friend’s Bantr profile attracted matches (an opinion that only belonged to Dani.)

Jamie shrugged. “Just saying, we already got an extra non-single guy signed up. Seems fair then that one of the single guys should get to sit this one out.”

If he was dizzy before, now he found himself fighting back a wave of nausea. For someone swatting through the dark, Jamie had gotten remarkably close at hitting the heart of the matter.

Heart cowering in his throat, he let the tail of the truth slip loose:

“Not single.”

For once, Jamie didn’t press. He went unusually still, and he blinked slowly at Moe like-

The fuck, was he intentionally copying his cat?

Moe sighed. His own hands fisted into the front of his shirt, where they could tremble instead of his voice. “Single implies the existence of a double. Or a triple. Or any further number of consenting adults, I presume.” He shrugged. “Point is I don’t see myself like that.”

It was the closest he’d ever come to wriggling into the light.

“Oh,” Jamie said, an odd hint of wonder slipping under his tone.

Moe looked at him.

Really looked.

Beneath Jamie’s shocked expression, something understanding crawled beneath the floorboards.

The rat stared back at the cat, confused at how the trap had snapped on them both.

The cat stared back, perhaps not even realising they were stuck in a trap.

Perhaps in looking for a mirror, he’d ignored any signs of familiarity.

Moe found himself saying, “You know that time we all went to that pet sanctuary? When Isaac got Bun-Bun?”

“When Sam got tricked into getting two snakes?”

Moe nodded. “I went back later and adopted a rat.”

Jamie perked up, tossing contemplation and personal space aside in favour of crowding up close like he intended to twine himself around Moe’s legs. “Can I see it?”

Moe retreated. “I don’t have it on me?”

“No shit.” Jamie rolled his eyes. “But you got pictures, don’t you?”

He said it with the self-assurance of someone who believed that taking thousands of photos of your pets every day was normal activity.

Moe shrugged and took out his phone. He did take a lot of pictures.

Heart in hand, he showed Jamie his phone. “This is Remy.”

In a remarkable display of restraint, Jamie lasted about five adorable rat photos before whipping out pictures of his cat.

One by one, the team filed out of the dressing room while Jamie sat next to him on a bench in the hallway, the two of them swiping through their favourite pictures. Jamie kept insisting he make Remy his own Insta so that he could show him off to the world.

Cat behaviour.

Isaac gave them an approving nod as he passed. Colin watched curiously but didn’t say anything. Goodman and O’Brien attempted some apologetic sign language, the success of which somehow captured the meaning, ‘Sorry for our impudence and thoughtlessness. Next team dinner, first round’s on us, yeah?’

That’s how you won rats over: you offered them cheese. You placated them with drinks. You won them over by dangling something they wanted in front of them, and then when they crawled out of hiding, you picked them up and held them to the light.

Jamie blew out a breath and flicked off his phone. “Alright. I better get going, or this one’s going to scratch my eyes out for dinner being late. How bout you and this ad then? If you want, I can tell them you couldn’t make it.”

Moe tested the light. “Depends on what kind of excuse you’re going to give.”

“Nothing, I suppose.” Jamie shrugged like it was that simple. “Unless you want me to?”

“Not really,” Moe confessed. “But they’ll probably ask anyway. Like it’s their business.”

“It is a business, mate,” Jamie pointed out – for a second time that day, one of Moe’s teammates demonstrating an uncharacteristic amount of cynicism. “How about….”

He chewed on his lip, feline attention turned to a rodent’s problem.

“…How about I tell ‘em you had a rat emergency?”

“A what?”

“It’ll confuse them, won’t it? ‘Cause no one knows what it means. Sounds exotic and shit. Could mean anything from ‘my rat’s escaped’ to ‘my rat’s got off it’s leash and into the petunias and it won’t come out’ to ‘my rat’s got a sexy photoshoot coming up and I need to knit him a tiny outfit.’”

Sounded like a good life, the version Jamie made up in his head.

Then again, Moe had never had the opportunity to break out his size 14 knitting needles.

Jamie waited for his answer with all the eager impatience of a cat with its paws curled up against its chest. Attention-seeking behaviour. False supplication.

Something that had needs easier to understand, yet every bit as trapped in a cage.

Moe supposed you drew cats out the same way you would any creature. You offered them care, respect, affection when they needed it – space when they wanted it. You offered them freedom.

Maybe you offered to sit in the trap next to them, because it was unfair to make them do it alone.

The metaphor may have gotten away from him.

It really was fine.

“Might show up anyways. It’s for the team, isn’t it?” Moe decided. He nudged Jamie in the side. “Besides, this way if I change my mind halfway through, I can lie and say I need your help with the rat emergency.”

Never one to stay on topic, Jamie turned to Moe with bright eyes and asked, “Have you ever thought of dressing him up?”

“What? Remy?”

“Yeah! Saw this picture online the other day of a little rat dressed up for the tropics. It had sunglasses and a tiki cup, and it was chowing down on a peanut that barely fit in its hands. I’m telling you, you’ve never seen a rat so happy.”

Moe should not have expected better from someone who dressed his cat in Gucci.

But he didn’t hate the thought.

The rat was not alone.

#if this feels a little all over the place and rushed that's because it is!#i started this yesterday morning #I had to get it out of my brain so here we are #aromantic moe bumbercatch #aromantic jamie tartt #aromantic asexual agender moe bumbercatch #to be specific #the greater richmond pet acquisition #moe bumbercatch #jamie tartt #excessive metaphors about cats and rats #writing snippet #except it's the whole thing #ted lasso fic

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