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It's slammed across all the newspapers and every tabloid. Bold letters, lewd headlines. They say the same thing- Olivier Giroud is out of the closet. Mathieu can hear Ludivine cutting carrots for the boys' lunch boxes in the kitchen and he lifts his cup numbly, the liquid sloshing down the side. He puts it down, swearing, sticks his burnt thumb in his mouth.
“Mathieu?” Ludivine calls. Manon thuds down the stairs, school uniform half buttoned up. Mathieu answers absently, lifts the coffee cup again. It had left a perfect dark ring around Olivier, in grainy print, his face half obscured by the man he was kissing.
-
5 weeks later and Mathieu is standing on the steps to Olivier's house. His hands tremble when he hits the doorbell, listening to the hollow ring.
Olivier pulls open the door, squints at him. It was a sunday after a match, and his hair stuck up around his head like he'd just rolled out of bed.
Mathieu licks his lips. “I saw the news. The picture. So I, I had to stay away for awhile, you know.”
Olivier scratches his side, Mathieu's eyes drawn to the patch of skin where his shirt lifts. “It's been what, a month?”
Mathieu finally looks up in to his eyes. Olivier's stare was flat, but he didn't seem as angry as Mathieu had anticipated. So Mathieu just holds out his hands, shoulders slumped, and he doesn't miss the way Olivier looks around for paparazzi before hooking two fingers under his waistband and pulling him inside.
-
Mathieu tugs at his collar. Under the sticky heat slicking his practice shirt to his chest are the teethmarks Olivier left on his collarbones. He'd woken up in the pale dawn, staggered to the bathroom and blinked under the too bright lights at the marks. Dragged his fingers across them. Oh. He'd thought, pressing a finger to a bite. So thats-
Olivier called him from the bed, sleep slurred and hoarse.
'Go back to sleep.' Mathieu said, didn't take his eyes off the mirror. He clicks off the lights when he leaves, though the images remain, lurid red and purple, burned in to the back of his eyelids as he slid back in to bed-
Laurent punches him on the arm in real life, none too gently. 'Wake up, Debuchy.' he says. Mathieu licks his lips, passes him the ball. Laurent flicks it gracefully to Mesut with a touch.
Later, Mathieu looks up in the middle of a pass, and Olivier is looking straight at him, smile on his lips, knowing.
-
“Do you even read the papers anymore?” Mathieu asks, reaching around Olivier to filch his phone off the dresser. Olivier was just staring at the ceiling, arms under his head.
“No. They haven't got anything to say that I want to read.”
“Good.” Mathieu says.
There were 2 missed calls from Ludivine from an hour ago. Mathieu leans over Olivier to put his phone back, then presses down and kisses Olivier till they're both panting. Olivier flips them both, and buries his head against Mathieu's neck, his hand reaching between them.
“What do you want, Debuchy?” Olivier whispers against him.
Mathieu doesn't think about it, just says, “Fuck me.”
Olivier looks at him, almost surprised. Then, his knowing lazy grin spread across his face, and Mathieu flushes, turns his head away.
Olivier holds his chin and tips his face back, gently, then reaches in to a drawer for the lube.
Of course Olivier talks dirty during sex, a running litany of filth and praise as he thrusts in to Mathieu, and Mathieu doesn't recognize the noises coming out of his own mouth. He lets his legs fall wider and Olivier's breath hitches. A little death.
Olivier flops on to him afterwards heedless of the mess between them, his nose wedged against Mathieu's neck. Mathieu runs his hands down Olivier's back, gentle.
-
They're two goals down in the 56th minute, unforgivable given their performance today. The Chelsea fans were a sea of contempt, and Mathieu feels like there are anchors tied to his legs as he runs up the pitch again.
They have a break- Olivier runs up to take the corner, and Mathieu gets a strange feeling in his chest, a buzz in his blood because theres something not right- not with the way the crowd is roaring and the jeers and catcalls- and he sees showers of objects getting thrown by the crowd landing around Olivier's feet. He takes in Olivier's set jaw, his narrow eyed concentration as he judges the distance, and then he see Olivier tilt his head strangely. His arm half comes up, before he crumples on to the ground.
Mathieu's throat feels raw, and he's running towards him before he can stop himself, before he sees Laurent's eyes, oddly hard and Laurent reaches out a hand to stop him, so he forces himself down to a walk-
The physios surrounded Olivier, and they're strapping an oxygen mask to his face, lifting him on the stretcher. Per bends to pick up something from the grass, hands it to Mathieu wordlessly. It was an empty glass bottle. his hand comes away with a slick of Olivier's blood.
Mathieu walks over to the stretcher, hands the referee the bottle. He asks, numb, the english words jarring in his mouth, “What is wrong with him? Is he ok?”
The physio looks at him unseeingly, mouth tense. “We'll have to see. Move- Move out the way-”
Mesut moves to take the corner instead, and Mathieu walks back to his position, looking down at the bloody half moons he'd made on the palms of his hands.
-
Mathieu goes to hospital with Laurent. They go right after practice 3 days after the match, Laurent driving, making stilted conversation over the radio. Mathieu's spoken more to Laurent than other people in the team, purely on the fact that they both share the same language.
The nurses lead them to the a room, and Laurent goes up to Olivier and clasps his hand, asks in a bright voice how much he'd improved. They talk about the team, Olivier's pale face getting more animated as they joked. Then Laurent glances over at Mathieu and excuses himself.
Then it's just Mathieu and Olivier, the silence falling between them in soft folds. Mathieu clears his throat, then goes to sit on the bed beside Olivier.
“How long till you get back?” He asks softly.
Olivier's hand twitches, and he smooths his hair back, looking away. “Soon, probably. They'll be releasing me at the end of the week. Then I'll have to talk to Wenger, so we'll see.”
“You know I.” Mathieu says. He stops there because he realizes he has no idea what he was going to say. What was he about to say? I love you? Instead he corrects it to “You have to be more careful, Olivier.' Even though it was not Olivier's fault, and cannot possibly have been prevented by anything Olivier did.
Olivier's looking at the ceiling. “ I know. Okay, Debuchy, i know.”
Mathieu sits forward, takes both of Olivier's hands in his, leans their foreheads together. He's missed Olivier's hands, and his smell, though right then he smelled faintly of antiseptic like everything in the hospital, the faint familiarity of him was enough to make Mathieu heady. He wanted, urgently, violently, to kiss Olivier then, even though Laurent's got to be coming back in soon-
'You don't have to come, you know-' Olivier whispers in to the space between them. 'I wouldn't have blamed you-'
Laurent comes back in without knocking, clears his throat when he sees them on the bed.
'Sorry- its just- the nurse says we have to leave now.' Mathieu gets up, unable to meet Laurent's eyes.
He walks out to the car park and waits for Laurent there, shivering against the side of the car and watching his breath cloud up the air.
-
I have a wife. He blurts when they're back in the car, driving to Mathieu's house. Laurent glances at him and doesn't speak. “Ludivine. And my boys Manon and Lucas -”
“I know.” Laurent says gently.
“Oh. Did we have dinner?” Mathieu says. He's wracking his brains trying to figure it out, but Laurent shakes his head.
“Not what I mean.” Mathieu crosses his arms and leans against the door, trying to get as far from Laurent as possible.
Laurent gives him a pitying look. “You two are the least subtle people I know.”
“Does the rest of the team-” Mathieu starts, and Laurent shrugs. Maybe, maybe not.
“Okay.” Mathieu says, and stares out of the window for the rest of the journey.
-
When Laurent drops him off, Mathieu asks, “What are you going to do?”
Laurent stares at him. “Nothing. This is between you two.” He hesitates, then says, “So was it you? In the picture?”
Mathieu stares at the ground between his shoes for a while. Then he nods, looking up to catch Laurent's eye.
“Alright.” Laurent says. “See you at practice tomorrow.”
Mathieu releases a breathe, and turns to trudge up the gravel path, hands shoved down in to his pockets but still cold, cold, cold.
-
“It wasn't even serious.” he says to Laurent later, passing him the ball. “It wasn't supposed to be anything, and then- then they took the picture and now its all. Complicated.”
Laurent doesn't say anything. The ball hits the side of his boot with a thwack, and Mathieu traps it as he sends it back again.
“I just don't want to do the wrong thing. I don't want to hurt anyone- my family...Olivier.”
“You don't have to do anything.” Laurent says. He pauses, “Whatever you do, you should talk to him.” Mathieu turns with the ball and hits it towards the goal. It flies over Szczęsny, who swears at him, then rebounds off the goalpost and rolls away.
-
A week after Olivier's released from hospital, Mathieu hears the doorbell ring when he's halfway through the dishes. Olivier's standing outside his door, a bandage still wrapped around his head. He scratches at it weird, makes a face.
“Will it leave a scar?” Mathieu asks as he leads him to the kitchen.
Olivier shrugs. “Probably.” He drinks the glass of water Mathieu hands him.
Mathieu rinses his plates, then dries them. He wipes his wet hands on his shirt, catching Olivier's raised eyebrows. Olivier puts the empty glass in the sink, a smile on his lips.
“I told Ludivine, and she's taking the boys back to Lille.” Mathieu says, quiet. Olivier turns to look at him, his eyes wide. Mathieu never thought about it, but his eyes were a specific sort of blue. Did he used to think they were green?
Olivier moves closer, until he's leaning against Mathieu. He drops his chin on Mathieu's shoulder, and says words so soft Mathieu almost doesn't catch them.
He runs his hand through Olivier's hair, breathes him in, deep.
“We'll be fine.” Mathieu says. Olivier smiles in to his neck, bites down gently on his jugular.
“Sure we will be.” He says, and pushes Mathieu down on the counter top.
-
They were goalless, still, and time ticks by till its the 80th minute. Frustration is clouding everything around them, just like the ceaseless, torrential rain. Santi crosses to Mesut, and Mesut sends it back towards Mathieu. Mathieu runs to win the header, and he does, and the Sunderland defender slides past him on the slippery turf. There are oceans of wide open space in front of him, and Mathieu runs.
He's running, hard, fireworks bursting in his heart, the pulse of his heart transformed to the pounding under his feet until he sees Olivier flash past the last defender, his arms coming up. Mathieu sends the ball his way, a breath in place of a prayer.
Olivier's right leg drawn back. The blur of white as the ball flies past the keeper's gloves. The crowd roaring, red on white. They were Arsenal in two heaving, rain soaked bodies. Olivier is running out to the corner, grin splitting his face, but he turns around as Mathieu jogs up to him, holding out his arms.
Mathieu pushes them aside.
Olivier's blue eyes. The freckles on his cheekbones. Water beaded on his eyelashes.
Then Mathieu is kissing him, and he feels Olivier wraps his hands around his face. The rain falls around them like soft sheets, drowning out the crowd.