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Gary lies under a flimsy duvet in a flimsy hotel in Nevada, and tries to keep his teeth from chattering. How he ended up there is less important. There is a phone call from Sky--‘you and Carragher,’ thrown in at the end like an afterthought, echoes across Gary’s mind, the promise of a few summer weeks spent shooting across America leaving myriad colors and reflections in its wake.In a full-sized bed next to him, Jamie sleeps under a duvet just as flimsy, his breathing even. Next to Jamie is the window, the dust and the rain stains on the glass invisible in the dark, and beyond that a vast emptiness. Cracked earth, rugged low shrubs that are wired to survive even in the harshest of climates. The desert stretching as far as the eye can see until it reaches the pale silhouettes of the mountains far away. The thing about the desert you see, the thing Gary never anticipated, is how cold it gets at night and how dark.It probably doesn’t help that he’s managed to catch a cold. Nothing serious, just a slight temperature and the meds should kick in soon. But he also hasn’t packed any warm clothing, and between the lack of heating in the hotel, this sorry excuse of a duvet and his thin cotton jacket Gary feels like one trapped in a freezer. Like ice has seeped under his skin and sunk its claws into the very core of his bones, of his being. Like he’ll never feel warm again.Outside, just near the horizon, lights whiz past and disappear, white and red and orange, lonely cars on a lonely highway, mere specks in the dark.But the sky--it’s darkness as deep as the night and endless light and it makes Gary’s breath catch. He has never been one for pointless sentimentality, never one to lie dreamily on grass and stare at the night sky (he never had the time) but there is something about the desert. There is something about the sheer audacity of the stars here, the way they seem to whisper truths so old and profound that makes it makes you gaze up in wonder. That almost makes you forget the cold.Next to him Jamie stirs and wakes with a sigh. Gary tracks his silhouette as he shuffles to the bathroom. On the way back he stubs his toe on the edge of his suitcase and utters a muffled curse.The idiot.“Told you you’d trip over it,” Gary mutters under his duvet, a little smug, a smile tugging at his lips.Jamie jumps in the dark. He turns on the light and turns towards Gary. “Oh shit. Did I wake you? How are you feeling?”“I was already awake.” Gary doesn’t know why he takes mercy on Jamie when he could use it as ammunition for the rest of the documentary shooting. Maybe it’s the genuinely concerned scowl on Jamie’s face. He carries on. “Unimpressed with the bloody Americans is how I’m feeling. If they will stick me in the same room as a clumsy Scouser who snores the least they can do is to turn the heat on. It’s freezing.”“I do not snore,” Jamie objects (he really doesn’t, for the record, and he also has no way to prove it) but he’s already walking to the head of Gary’s bed and putting a hand on his forehead.Gary finds himself leaning into the touch, into the brief source of warmth, despite himself. He is just so so cold.“You don’t feel too warm at least.”He smiles at the other man’s fussing. “Took my meds too. Go back to sleep Jamie. You are obstructing my enjoyment of the quiet night sky.”“Since when--” Jamie starts but doesn’t finish, his scowl suddenly deeper, his voice higher. “Is your teeth chattering?”Gary grits his teeth, wills them into obedience. “No.” “Gary.”“Fine. Maybe a little. Do you want to be a gentleman and give me your duvet now that you know?”Got you, Gary thinks. No sane man, not even Jamie Carragher, mother of all mom friends, will give up his duvet in this cold.“You are freezing,” Jamie says in lieu of an answer.“And Liverpool hasn’t won the league in two decades, if we are listing facts now. Go to bed, James.”Jamie is silent for a while and it’s strange having to share a room with him, Gary realizes. Strange to look him in the eye with raised eyebrows so late in the night, neither wanting to back off from a challenge. Though Gary isn’t sure what the challenge exactly is this time.In the end it’s Jamie who breaks the silence. “Come join me?”“Excuse me?” Gary blurts out, not sure of what he just heard.“In bed. Come join me in bed. You’ll be much warmer and we can combine the duvets.”Right then. That knocks out the theory of the thermometer being broken and Gary imagining things due to fever.He snorts. “And also snap a picture for the Mail and caption it rivals in bed while we are at it, shall we? I’m sure they’d love that.”“Don’t be daft Gary, I’m serious. We are two grown men, it’s cold and tell me you have never snuggled with Beckham or Scholes?”Now that’s a low blow, bringing Becks and Scholesy in. Gary purses his lips and scowls right back.“I knew it!” Jamie says, triumphant, “like Beckham says in that car interview innit? ‘Cuddle up with Gary and watch a movie?’”Why are you hunting for old videos of Becks on YouTube? Gary wants to ask but it’s not like he’s never looked for Jamie’s old interviews and features with Gerrard too. Told himself it was for material he could use on his colleague, but there was an eerie magic to it, watching young Jamie, witnessing a Gerrard fierce and tender in turns for his best friend. Catching up on a whole life with its ups and downs and secrets and wounds as far as YouTube would allow him to go.Maybe there is an odd comfort to knowing it isn’t quite as one-sided as he thought.“You aren’t Becks,” Gary retorts instead, filing the new information quietly in a mental drawer he’s set aside for Jamie.He really isn’t though--Becks. And even Becks isn’t Becks these days. It feels like such a long time ago when David, his warmth, felt as much a part of Gary as himself. When he would slip into David’s bed in the dark before away games or they’d put a shitty movie on the telly and David would smile up at him, head on Gary’s chest, sleepy and content under his arm.That is simply not something retired players with creases on their faces that deepen by day do. Old men don’t share beds just because it’s a bit nippy. Jamie doesn’t relent though. “But Becks isn’t here is he? And you are freezing. You are freezing when there is no reason for you to be freezing.” He is a stubborn son of a bitch--maybe even enough to match Gary--always was.“I won’t go running to your United friends or Stevie in the morning if that’s what you are worried about,” Jamie continues. “I have a reputation to uphold too, you know.”Gary kicks off the duvet and sits up, ready to protest further. The shiver that runs through his spine at the loss of his thin cover convinces him otherwise though, the prospect of warmth, of double the number of duvets suddenly too overpowering.“Fine.” he says through gritted teeth like he is the one doing Jamie the favor.Jamie beams at him. His face soft and absolutely gorgeous in the half light of the room and it makes Gary already regret caving in; makes him want to go crawling back into the cold safety of his own bed.Together they combine the duvets and the pillows. As they work Gary tries to focus on not shivering, and bans his mind from wandering where it isn’t supposed to wander. He doesn’t succeed much on either front. When they are done Gary settles on the far side of the bed, just on the edge. If he lies still enough and keeps his eyes on the night sky he can even forget that there is another man--there is Jamie--lying in the same bed next to him.He is still miles away from being warm but with two duvets over him the cold feels a bit less invasive, his bones feel a bit less like they are covered in frost. Thanks, he murmurs into the dark room, gratitude settling in his chest.Jamie snorts. He isn’t asleep either then. (Good.) “It would work better you know, if you scooted over here instead of hanging onto the edge for dear life.”“What? Cuddle with you, like?” Gary’s voice comes out a little higher than he intends it to be, his heart suddenly beating too fast at what he thinks Jamie is suggesting. “It’s called body heat,” Jamie replies, like he can’t believe he has to spell it out. “Besides everyone who sleeps with me says I’m basically like a furnace.”Gary opens his mouth. He means to say something snarky at the innuendo or to protest or to assert that he is perfectly happy where he is. It’s also nighttime when there are no witnesses and he’s been lying awake for so long, shivering and alone. He really doesn’t mean to scoot over.Jamie closes the distance between them in an instant, without a word, and slots right up against Gary’s back like he was always meant to be there. A strong arm (how does it still manage to be so gentle?) envelops him, drawing him into a source of infinite warmth. Gary realizes then that Jamie’s stripped down to a mere t-shirt, that he must have chucked away his dear hoodie before they got into the bed. For this specific purpose. To be Gary’s furnace.Gary blinks. Something rises in his chest and tells him to run--to run out of the bed and out of the room, and to keep going until he has reached the middle of the open desert. Until he is once again, alone. Jamie surrounds him in all directions, Jamie who is kind and funny and deserves so much better than him and Gary is panicking a bit. “Couldn’t wait to get your hands on me, could you?” he says into the dark room to have said something--anything--to break the quiet. Banter has never failed him after all whenever the silences get too heavy.“You flatter yourself,” Jamie answers with a chuckle, close enough that Gary can feel his breath on his neck, can hear his laughter rumble through his own body. They are unbelievably close, no space whatsoever left in between. Jamie continues, and his voice is already heavy with sleep. “You are stiff as a corpse, your feet feel like icicles, and you talk too much.” Gary moves his feet away and shifts, a bit self-consciously. Behind him Jamie makes an unhappy noise before his feet come looking for Gary’s. “I didn’t tell you to move them away did I for Christ’s sake. Will you just relax and go to sleep already?”Easy for you to say, Gary wants to point out, a bit miffed at the rebuke. He would have gone to sleep a long time ago if he could, and that’s without accounting for the Scouser currently engulfing him like a many-armed octopus. A really soft and warm octopus. Jamie has no right really to feel this good against Gary. No right to make Gary want to lean into the touch, to sigh and press against him until he is thawed and content. In the dark, Gary sulks like a petulant child and refuses to let his shoulders relax. (He doesn’t say anything though, not when Jamie clearly needs his sleep.) Maybe Jamie will catch whatever virus Gary has and that will serve him right, and really that’s another excellent reason, if only Gary had thought of it in time, for why what they are doing makes no sense.He fights the weight that descends on his eyelids, and fights the hypnotic pull of Jamie’s even breathing. He’s just nearly convinced himself that he’d be better off on his own, in the frozen embrace of his now empty bed when he drifts off to sleep warm and content.
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*Two days later*Gary isn’t exactly sure what he is doing and has a sense that the moment he thinks about it he will stop and turn right back. So for once he just goes for it, a spring in his step, an eye out for any members of the crew that might be out on the hallway at this time of the evening.They are now in a nice proper hotel in California with proper climate control and large separate rooms for everyone in the crew. The way hotels are supposed to work.The elevator doors open with a ding! and Gary turns right. 1100, 1103, 1109--there. He takes a deep breath and knocks on the door. You are out of your sodding mind!, a helpful voice supplies in his head. Gary rolls his eyes at it. It’s not like he doesn’t know.The door opens. The hints of annoyance on Jamie’s face at being disturbed so late disappear. “Gary?” he asks with a surprised smile.Gary doesn’t stand on ceremony and barges right in. It’s all in or nothing at this point and he just missed the nothing option.Jamie follows after him, his hands in the pockets of his pajamas, a slight frown on his face. The room is the perfect temperature--cool enough to feel comfortable in a t-shirt but not cold. “Bloody Americans, don’t you think,” Gary says as he heads straight for the thermostat. ”I’m sick of their aggressive air conditioning,” he adjusts the temperature down to its lowest possible setting. “The rooms are too cold, the duvets are way too thin--” The dial for fan speed goes all the way up. “--and how do they expect us to fall asleep exactly? When we have a documentary to shoot in the morning?” Gary stops and looks Jamie in the eye. The fan above them comes to life and starts to blow gusts of frigid air onto them. Jamie’s eyes dart from Gary to the fan and then back to Gary again. His mouth hangs a little open.“Well.” Jamie says.That’s it, Gary thinks, that’s where you get kicked off you idiot.Jamie swallows, as if he doesn’t quite trust himself to speak. The fan is working with a vigor Manchester United hasn’t known in years and the room already feels a few degrees more chilly. Gary turns to see himself out. So much for that.And then--A hand on his shoulder. “It is a shame, isn’t it?” Gary turns around.Jamie seems to recover his ability to speak as he goes along. “We could try calling the lobby but I doubt they’d be helpful.”Gary’s heart does a flip in his chest. A very energetic and happy flip. “No, I doubt they would be,” he says, years of media training the only reason he manages to keep a straight face. “If only there was something we could do.” “Well,” Jamie says again and looks away, playing it coy. “You could sleep in my room but I don’t know. You are a nasty Manc.”“And you snore.”“What to do.” Jamie says.“What to do.” Gary echoes.They stand there for a moment, relishing the standstill, but they can only keep it up for so long before they break into huge matching grins.“We should send an official letter of complaint tomorrow,” Gary murmurs against Jamie’s ear as he settles against him, and drapes an arm around his middle. “Americans,” Jamie says and they shake their head in syncrony. Gary dimly registers Jamie getting up to re-adjust the thermostat at some point during the night but it doesn’t matter because he soon comes back and settles in Gary’s arms, the way he is meant to. Gary hasn’t thought it through yet, but he has a sense that he will turn Jamie around and kiss him first thing tomorrow. That’s all for the morning though. For now he is perfectly happy where he is, sleepy and warm and engulfed in a soft and pliant Jamie.