Chapter 1
James
“Oh, fuck”, James cried out. He hit the ground with his fist over and over again. The pain that radiated from his left knee was excruciating. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
He tried moving his leg and adjusting, trying to make the pain stop pulsing through his leg. He could not have injured himself. It could not be something that takes him time to recover. It had to be okay.
“You alright?”, Sirius crouched next to him on the field, a look of concern painted on his face.
James couldn’t do anything other than shake his head. Shit, he really wasn’t okay. His leg hurt so bad. The match had just started about ten minutes ago, and now he felt as if he couldn’t keep going. He should have played the whole 90 minutes. He needed to play the whole 90 minutes.
He tried pushing himself up, but the pain only increased even more, and he sacked back down onto his back. Sirius eyed him for another second, before waving and shouting: “We need the medical team. Now.”
James covered his eyes with his arm. He simply accepted his fate and tried to shut out the screaming fans in the stands and the other players on the pitch. He was aware of Sirius talking to him, but he was so mad at his body and at the situation and at the fucking pain still shooting from his knee, that he tried to only concentrate on his breathing and not on all his other feelings right now. He would just have to endure the pain for now. He could worry about what that would mean for the rest of his season later. Later, when he had more information and when he was not lying on the fucking field of Chelsea’s stadium surrounded by forty thousand fans.
The medical team arrived at his side, already carrying a stretcher to get him off the field.
“What is hurting?”, the team doctor asked him.
“Knee”, James gritted through his teeth. “The left one.”
The doctor started palpating and pushing on his knee and probably trying to figure out if he could feel something obviously wrong.
He pushed pills in James’ hand. “Take these painkillers.”
One of the physio therapists gave him a water bottle and so James swallowed down the two pills. At least that way, he would not have to keep feeling the pulsing in his knee.
“Okay, we will get you off the field now. I don’t think that you can keep playing”, the doctor stated, matter-of-factly.
The stretcher was positioned next to him and he scooched over and on top of it. James knew his knee was fucked, but he did not have to go through the humiliation of being pushed on top of the stretcher.
Sirius was still crouching next to him, and he swiftly touched James’ forehead with his own. The touch was at least somewhat comforting. Sirius and him had met at the youth academy when they were just 12 years old and both so hyped to be playing for a club as big as Arsenal. A lot of the boys back then had felt like competition and even though they were all friends in at least some way, Sirius had always been different for him. They had clicked and together they were simply amazing. And so they climbed the ranks together, and now they were already playing in their third professional season together and had finally both made the starting line. Well, that was fucked for James now, he guessed.
“It will be alright, you hear me?”, Sirius whispered, “We will figure it out, and I will fucking win this game for you.”
James just huffed out a breath and tried to smile through the pain to reassure Sirius. Sirius would do it for both of them.
“Sirius”, the medic called out. “Could you let us take care of him now?”
“Sure”, he said lightly. Sirius sent a last smile towards James before pushing to his feet and giving him a nod.
“Win that fucking game for me”, James said while the medical team already carried him off the field while the fans in the stands clapped and cheered for him. They also knew how bad an injury like this could be in a career, especially one that had just started, but James tried not to focus on that now.
He cleared his throat and spoke up: “What is the plan now?”
“We will get you to the hospital so we can get scans of your knee asap and find out what exactly is wrong with it.”, the doctor explained.
James guessed that would make sense. He tried to stay positive this whole time. He tried to stay positive on the field to make Sirius not freak out too much and also to not make himself freak out too much, but right now the panic started catching up with him. So, he tried to keep it at bay the best he could. Having all information would mean he could concentrate on the facts and not make up the worst possible scenarios in his head.
While he was put into an ambulance that waited for them, he asked the doctor: “What do you think is wrong with my knee? Do I have to worry right now?”
“Let’s not worry right this second”, he answered, giving him a reassuring smile. “It could be a few different things at this point, might be a problem with a muscle, maybe a tear, could also be your ACL or even your meniscus. We will know more when you get to the hospital and the doctors there will take over and get your scans.”
James swallowed, that could all be bad. Still, he tried not to overthink. Tried to think about other things than his career being put on hold for a few months. Tried not to focus on the fact that he would lose so much progress he had made. Tried not to overthink the fact that there were already even younger players waiting to take over his position.
“How bad is your pain right now?” The doctor asked James.
“Practically gone, only some numb pulsing, I guess.”
“Sounds good, then we will not get you to the nearest hospital, but to the one closest to our stadium. That way, we can make sure you get the best care the moment you walk in there.” The medic explained. “I am not going to go with you, because I have to stay here, but Ezra is going to come with you.” He gestured towards the physio therapist that James had seen at the Arsenal facilities before. James should probably try to make a better job at remembering people’s names.
James nodded, he guessed that also made sense. And he liked the medical staff that worked at the hospital. He had been there before for their health checks and always felt welcome and cared for.
The drive actually didn’t take as long as he had expected and as he was carted out of the ambulance he was brought right to one of the rooms on the orthopedic ward, where a nurse welcomed him.
“Hello Mr. Potter”, she smiled at him, “I am nurse Poppy. We got you a room even though we hope that you won’t have to stay overnight, but that will be decided by the doctors.”
“Please”, James smiled at the nurse. “Call me James.”
She returned the smile, and it made him feel a little warmer already. Poppy showed him inside and looked him over. He was still in his full football jersey and uniform. “Do you have a change of clothes with you? It cannot be comfortable to stay like this the whole time.”
James looked searchingly at the physio therapist. He did not have time to go to the locker room and get anything - actually, he didn’t even have the ability to do so at the moment.
“Yes, we brought something”, the physio therapist answered, holding up a bag.
“Great”, Poppy smiled again. “Do you need help changing?”
“No”, James said at the same time that Ezra said: “Yes”
Their eyes met and James’ gaze was pleading. He really did not want to be dependent on help by the nice nurse. He could undress himself.
The physio therapist cleared his throat and glanced at James questioningly. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, I am very sure”, James declared with a definitive tone. He can dress himself, thank you very much.
Ezra just shrugged his shoulders. “Your choice, man.”
Turns out, it was the wrong choice to make. His upper body was really no problem to take care of, but taking off his cleats, shin guards and socks and then his shorts turned out to be a much bigger problem, because he had to lean over the whole time and that put uncomfortable pressure on his knee.
So, it took him much longer than James would like to admit. Which would not have been a problem, had he just had enough time to put on clothes afterwards, but right when he was in the process of pulling up the dark blue Arsenal sweats, he heard somebody clearing their throat behind him.
He turned around on his healthy leg, still without a shirt over his bare torso to make out the source of the noise, when his eyes landed on a doctor that stood in the room glaring at him. James gaze wandered from his body up to his face. He was dressed in scrubs and a white coat that was stuffed full of different things like pens, some papers, cards, a stethoscope. When James eyes focused on his face, he felt like the air was pushed out of his lungs just to be pumped back into him in a way that made him think that he could breathe for the first time in his life. The guy was so fucking gorgeous.
His pale face was framed by brown curls, giving his complexion a sharp contrast. The cheek bones and the jaw line of the guy were so sharp that James could swear if he would touch him he would cut himself.
But the most hauntingly beautiful thing about him were his eyes. The colour was nothing like anything he had ever seen before. It was a sort of blue? But it wasn’t as much blue as it was a light grey that made him think of the ocean on a cloudy night when the wind was amazing, and you could feel alive by simply existing in the moment.
“Mr Potter?”, the guy asked. “Did you hear what I said?” The sound of the pretty boy speaking pulled him out of his thoughts. And, oh god, his voice was even more perfect. It was a lot deeper than he would have guessed by the smaller frame of the doctor, and it made the hair on James’ whole body stand up.
“Ehm, sorry”, James said sheepishly, feeling a blush creep up his neck, while something in his pants also started begging for attention. His hands slit in front of his crotch, trying not to be too obvious about the movement but also not wanting for the guy to have to see his obvious arousal right now. “I, ehm, I did not get what you said. I am sorry, I was… ehm, it did not compute in my head right now, I am sorry.” James stumbled through his sentence.
God, this was horrible. Usually, James was so smooth, flirting left and right and having people obsess over him. But no, right now he was embarrassing himself. In front of the only person that he had ever cared about making a good impression on.
“Okay, Mr. Potter,” the doctor said without a lot of emotions in his voice.
Before pretty boy could go on repeating what he had said, James blurted out: “James, my dad is Mr. Potter, please, call me James.” That actually made the guy smile and - god, James was doomed - his smile lid up the entire fucking world and, even worse, it started a fire within him that made him feel more alive than anything had ever made him feel before - not even shooting his first goal as a professional football player. And considering James’ whole world was football, that really fucking meant something.
“Okay, James. I am Regulus Black and I am a fourth year med student doing my rotation on this unit and I have been assigned to personally take care of what you need as long as Dr. Iqbal is still in surgery. I would…”
“After that you won’t be part of my team any more?”, James interrupted the pretty boy - Regulus - rather impolitely. But - he had to be honest - him only being here for a few hours actually really scared him. He had just found out how exhilarating breathing could be, so why would he give that up so soon?
Regulus actually laughed at that statement. He laughed out loud and if his grin had made James feel stupid for his reaction, his laugh made even his healthy knee weak, and he just decided that it was his favourite sound in the world.
“No, I will still be part of your team”, Regulus corrected James, who let out a breath he didn’t even notice holding. “Thank god”, he muttered.
That statement made another blush spread up his neck, but it also gave James the amazing sound of Regulus’ laugh again and so his embarrassment wasn’t even as bad. If he made Regulus laugh, he would be okay with being embarrassed or laughed at.
Regulus cleared his throat after he had stopped laughing, his eyes on James. “So, do you actually want to know what I was saying?”
That made James blush again. He scratched his neck embarrassed and now it was his turn to clear his throat. “Of course, I care really much about what you have to say. So please, keep going.”
“Okay, so I would like to do some tests on your knee and then I will take you to get an MRI done so we have the right scans to see what is wrong with your knee. Then Dr. Iqbal is going to have a look at the scans and we will go from there. Does that sound good?”
“Yes, sure, as long as you say it, everything sounds good”, James smiled at Regulus and he was so happy that he had found at least some of his confidence and could start flirting with the pretty med student in front of him. He was especially happy, because Regulus pale cheeks turned a tasty shade of pink when he heard James obvious come on. And that was the best effect on anyone that James had ever had.
Regulus’ hands went up to his hair and pushed them back, seemingly nervous.
“Okay”, he said a little flustered, but taking his composure back rather fast. “So, for the tests it would be best for you to be laying on the bed and also, you need to take off your pants.”
A grin spread over James’ face. “Oh, so we have just met and you already wanna get me out of my pants? Shouldn’t we go and get dinner first? And then you can take off my pants as much as you want.”
Regulus eyed him and while disinfecting his hands simply said: “First, considering you are a patient and I am working on your case, that would be highly inappropriate. Secondly, if I were you, I would worry more about the fact that it took you about ten minutes to get into the pants, so I do not really want to know how long it will take you to get out of them.”
James’ face fell at that statement. Regulus was right, it had taken him so long to put them on and even before that he wasn’t really able to take off his football clothes, so how was he supposed to do that with any grace in front of the pretty, pretty med student?
Then James’ thoughts stopped at one thing: “Wait, where do you know that it took me so long to get into my pants? Were you watching me?”
Regulus cheeks turned that amazing pink again. “You know, considering that I knocked on the door and then entered, it is really your fault that you did not hear me coming in and watching you be too proud to ask for help was actually really entertaining for me.” James laughed out loud again. He really, really fucking liked Regulus. He was so snarky. He gave him shit. James really, really liked that.
“Actually, as you are already here, it is really difficult for me to take off my pants with my very serious knee injury and, you know, seen as it is your job, I would be so grateful to you, if you would help me get my pants off.” James smiled, pretending innocently to not just want to see what Regulus would do. To his surprise, Regulus actually walked closer to him.
“You know, I have helped so many patients get undressed, this is just a regular Friday at work for me.”
“But you have never helped me get undressed.”
“Yes, and it will be a once in a lifetime experience, so please enjoy it while you can.” Regulus seemed to be serious, but he also sounded flirty at the same time.
“You know”, James smiled, “I really do like a challenge.”
“Not a challenge”, Regulus said. “And before I help you get undressed, I would actually help you get dressed, okay? You can wear a shirt while we do this, and I also think you would like to wear one when we get down to get the MRI. So, put this on.”
The pretty boy handed him the shirt that was laying folded on the bed, and James actually put it on. “I have taken my shirt off on national television before, so I really do not care about people seeing me. Actually, I think it is a blessing for everyone to see me shirtless, but I will do whatever you say.” And also because he was freezing and he needed something to at least partially hide the small problem in his pants. But he did not say these last things out loud.
Regulus let this last comment go without a response, but James took that as a good sign as well.
“Do you really want me to help you take off your pants?” Regulus asked James now with a serious tone in his voice. “If so, I will do that now, yes?”
James nodded, a smile on his face. “Please, go ahead.”
“Okay, so if you need to hold onto something, you can balance yourself on my shoulders for the moment being.” Regulus stated and actually reached with his hands to the waistband of James’ sweats. And as soon as his hands landed on James’ hips, he feels small tingles where the cold hands make contact with him. He had never considered that cold fingers could actually feel good, because shouldn’t it feel uncomfortable? But it didn’t feel uncomfortable, it felt amazing. Like his body was always way too warm, and he just needed to feel these cold fingers against his skin to feel grounded and back on earth.
Regulus actually took off James’ pants in a really professional manner, which James was rather sad about, but also made a lot of sense, and so he would not complain about that right now. When James was settled on the bed and only wearing his shirt and the boxer briefs, he was ready to feel Regulus hands on him again.
“So, James, I will do the tests now. I already had a look over the footage of the injury and judging by the pattern of movement right before your fall, I would guess that you tore your ACL, so I would do some tests to test that specifically, but I will also test for other things, just to make sure. Is that alright?”
“Of course”, James smiled again. “The way I see it, the more tests you have to do, the longer I have your hands on my body, so please take your time.”
Regulus laughed at that again. “You really do not have any shame, do you?”
“Nah, I don’t believe in that kind of thing.”
“So, you do not care that you are a professional football player at the beginning of your career and you coming onto a bloke could really, realistically endanger your career, seen as there is not a single openly gay player that outed himself in the beginning of his career and that went well?”
Regulus words actually put sombre thoughts in his head. James had never thought about that. He had not really been interested in guys before. He liked people, and people could also be male, so why should it matter? But Regulus actually had a real and important point, being queer as a football player wasn’t really an option on the table.
When James didn’t say anything to Regulus for quite some time, Regulus spoke again: “You never thought about that, have you?”
“No, I haven’t”, James admitted, “Never really had to before.”
“Nobody will hear anything from me”, Regulus said, an expression on his face that seemed encouraging, but somehow also a little disappointed maybe? But James discarded the ladder thought pretty much immediately.
“Thank you”, James smiled, actually sad about that. He was not really the type of person to hide anything about himself. And now that he wasn’t completely taken over by the possibility of Regulus, because if he was honest with himself, maybe he wasn’t actually a real possibility, the thoughts about his career crept into his head again. An ACL tear would mean surgery and months of physio therapy and months of his career stagnating. It might not be career ending, but it could be. And he really did not want to deal with that. So, he tried to concentrate on Regulus, who had silently started doing tests on his leg and only giving him instructions on how to hold his leg and to tell him, if anything hurt.
“Ehm, can I ask you something?” James cleared his throat after a few minutes of these tests.
“Yeah, sure.”
“You said you could tell by the way I moved before I fell, that it was most likely an ACL tear, how can you tell that?”
“Ah”, Regulus chuckled, “Do you really want to know?”
“Yes, I like hearing you talk”, James smiled and flirted. And well, that was all of his self-restraint gone again. He could apparently not keep his mouth shut, even if it endangered his career. But he told himself that Regulus actually did not care, and he already knew and so it shouldn’t be a big problem, so he could also just continue flirting.
“Okay, just ignoring that”, Regulus smiled, “So, the ACL is one of two ligaments that connect your femur to your tibia. They connect them diagonally, so when you look at a certain angle at them, they appear as a cross - that is what the c stands for, it means cruciate which means cross. These ligaments are rather small and help your joint to not over turn or over extent. If you now put your leg down and your foot is stable on the ground, and you turn with enough force and without moving your foot, the two bones rotate and this leads to one or in extreme cases both of the ligaments tearing. And athletes, especially football players, are prone to this injury because you do a lot of standing on one leg while turning and thus over rotating your joint. Oh, and the ACL is the ligament in front - so the A stands for anterior - and just statistically speaking it tears more often than the posterior ligament.”
“You are really fucking smart”, James states in awe of what Regulus just said to him.
“Ha, I am not, believe me”, Regulus smiled, “You really only have to learn things by heart and then you know things like that. That has nothing to do with being smart.”
James shook his head. “Nah, I think that is really fucking smart.”
Regulus laughed again, but kept doing more tests. “So, I did all tests except for the one testing your ACL and PCL. I will do that now, but it might potentially hurt, so as soon as it does, you have to tell me and I will stop.”
James nods and braces himself for the potential pain that is about to come. However, first he is surprised that Regulus starts at his right leg even though his left one is the injured one. And then, he is also surprised when Regulus pulls his knee up and puts his foot down and basically sits down on his foot.
“Why are you sitting on my foot?”, James asks curiously. “And why are you doing it on my right leg?”
Regulus started doing some pushing and pulling movement on his knee, while laughing again. He was laughing so much and it made James’ heart swell that he could make the pretty boy laugh this much.
“So, I am sitting on your foot, because this specific test calls for it. And secondly, I have to test your healthy side first, because I need to see the comparison between healthy and injured, since the flexibility in joints is different for every person, but it should be about the same for one person in the two joints. Also, I have been doing it the whole time with all the other tests before.”
“Yeah, well, with the other tests I was simply happy being touched by you, but now I was bracing myself for pain, so I paid a little more attention”, James started justifying.
Regulus chuckled at that again and his cheeks turned pink once more, and James was really in heaven on earth. However, the pretty boy stood up and walked to the other side of the bed to do it on the other, injured side.
James watched him while doing it. His hands felt so nice on his knee, even though it was still throbbing because of the dull pain. He watched how the hair fell in front of his face because he turned his head down, and the urge to push the strand back behind Regulus’ ear was nearly impossible to overcome.
“Go out with me”, James blurted out suddenly. That was dumb, right? He should probably not have asked that. Why would he ask that?
Regulus looked up suddenly, still with his hands on James’ injured knee. His gray eyes bore into James’ as if he was searching for something. He seemed to be calculating in his head and his answer came way too late and every passing second led to an unsettling feeling to grow in the pit of James’ stomach. He had fucked it up, right?
“Ehm”, Regulus cleared his throat. “As I said before, that is highly inappropriate, considering that you are a patient.”
The pit in James’ stomach seemed to overtake his whole body, spreading through every fibre of his being. It was inappropriate, wasn’t it?
“I am not your patient forever”, James clarified - clinging to the hope that fact brought him. He wouldn’t be Regulus’ patient forever, so he could just wait and take it from there. “You know, I can be patient for you.” James waggled his eyebrows. “You see what I did there?” He laughed at his own stupid pun.
“Yes”, Regulus laughed as well, sitting back and taking his hands from James’ knee. “I see what you did there. But, you see, I don’t do relationships either way.”
“Why?” James blurted out. Apparently, he was excellent at simply saying the first thing that came to his mind when he was in the presence of the pretty med student.
“That is a really personal question”, Regulus used as a way of omission, but he did not seem offended, so James thought it wasn’t as bad. As long as he did not make Regulus uncomfortable, he could continue, right?
“As I would like to know you personally, that makes a lot of sense.”
Regulus just shrugged his shoulders. “Seeing as you are not going to, I think I do not need to answer you then.”
“Hm”, James hummed, “I think I can change your mind about relationships.”
“Nah, I don’t think so”, Regulus laughed. A grin spread over James’ whole face. He could deal with that. As long as Regulus was laughing the way he just was, he was not uncomfortable, and that also meant that James could continue. It also meant that the pit in James’ stomach had disappeared and the feeling of anticipation spread through him. It felt just the way it had, when he had decided to be a professional football player and he had loved the chase to get there. Hell, he still liked the chase. So, he would like this chase just as much. Maybe, potentially even more.
James smiled at the most gorgeous person he had ever laid his eyes on and shrugged his shoulders, feigning nonchalance. “You know, I told you I like a good challenge.”