Chapter Text
Alejandra slams her phone down on the tiny kitchen’s granite countertop, her eyes flashing.
“It’s so fucking embarrassing, don’t you get it?” She asks, raising her voice. “I don't wanna see you two together again, distance yourself from him or something, I really don’t care how you do it, just do it.”
Pedri purses his lips then sighs, running a hand through his hair.
“Alright, fine, don’t get mad,” he says, trying to coax her into letting go of the argument. “I won’t hang out with him anymore.”
It’s Ale’s turn to sigh now, turning away from her boyfriend. “I’m sorry for yelling, but please, understand me?”
He nods, pulling her closer. Pedri pushes a stray strand of her hair away from her face. He tries to smile, but something about the action hurts.
“I do,” he whispers in her ear, kissing her cheek. Ale smiles back and nods. She grabs her bag from the chair and slips on her heels.
“I’ll see you later before the match?” She asks. “I’m going back to Barcelona tonight.”
Pedri considers it for a beat wondering if he should cancel and make up some excuse, but finally decides against it, not wanting to cause another argument.
“For sure.” His heart aches.
Ale smiles again and waves bye, closing the door behind her. Pedri stares at his hotel room’s door for longer than he’d admit. He drops his head in his hands.
–
At training, with the team’s photographers capturing every angle and moment, Pedri avoids Ferran like the plague.
Before they got on the field, he’d greeted Ferran with a simple “Hi” and nothing else. He’d walked away quickly, busying himself with a fake phone call. He’d tried not to imagine the confused and dejected expression on Ferran’s face and forced himself to think of Ale instead.
Now, he runs and jokes around with Unai, the hot sun shining down on them. Unai was more than happy to spend warmups with him, so Pedri convinces himself it’s a win-win even as he keeps sneaking glances at Ferran. Ferran watches them from afar and he doesn’t say anything, focusing on his stretching.
But Pedri knows him well enough to recognize when he’s upset—his shoulders droop and he keeps his chats short with their other teammates.
Pedri looks back to Unai who’s saying something to him and Pedri suddenly bursts out laughing loudly and doubles over, after taking a second to make sense of the goalkeeper’s dirty joke. Unai laughs as well, his arm landing on Pedri’s shoulder pulling him close. Pedri can’t help himself when his eyes wander back over to Ferran, who’s now watching them, not with the feigned indifference from before but with a hurt glare. Immediately, Pedri quiets down and turns away.
He completes the rest of training in a tense silence.
–
“The match starts in a few hours, our only acceptable result is a win—it doesn’t matter by how many goals, we just need the win!” Coach Fuente hypes up the group as they drink their protein smoothies, not wanting a big meal to affect their performance on the pitch later. “So,” he claps his hands, “I want you all to focus. When you step foot on the grass, you lock in, you create chances, you pass the ball to your teammates, you defend, you stay vigilant, if there's an unmarked opposing player, you go and mark them! Don’t be selfish and waste a perfect goal because you wanted the stats. We move together as one person, if one of us scores, we all score, understand?!”
Everyone yells in agreement, raising their smoothie cups in the air. Fuente, satisfied, takes his own smoothie and chugs it, as per their tradition. When he’s done, he squeezes his cup and everyone cheers and whoops. The team’s morale is high and Pedri feels more than confident in them. They’re carrying their nation’s coat of arms on their hearts today—there’s no option but to win.
Pedri chugs the rest of his drink, and peers over at Unai who’s taking his time. Unai looks up from his phone and notices the smoothie’s residue on the corner of Pedri’s mouth. He smiles and reaches up to swipe it away, then licks it off his finger. Pedri makes a silly face at his friend.
As he gets up to throw away the cup, he sees Ferran eyeing them, sitting alone by the large window, a scowl on his face.
Pedri quickly looks away and tries to ignore the urge to run up to him to mend his expression and explain himself. The urge to tell Ferran how much he misses sitting next to him during these moments, how much he misses fooling around at training to make it bearable as the sun beats down on them, and most of all, he wishes he can tell Ferran how much he misses his hands on him.
Deep in his mind, he finally indulges himself, and privately thinks of Ferran’s large hands as they pull him back into his broad chest, how small and secure that makes him feel. How much he enjoys being within Ferran’s presence. So close to him that he can smell his natural scent mixed with his sports cologne.
He suddenly realized this forced distance has only made his feelings towards his teammate explode when before they were just a comfortable simmer. It’s barely been one day of this, and already Pedri has made realizations he’d never admit out loud. He must be going insane. He can’t imagine what will happen in a week if it has to stay this way.
“Oi, Pedri!”
Pedri jumps, finally coming back to himself. He must’ve been standing like a statue next to the trash can. A blush creeps up on his face, and he figures he probably looked stupid zoning out. He scans their hotel lobby for one specific person, but he’s not there. Sighing, he drops the empty cup into the trash and decides to head to his room.
The match is in a few hours and he really needs to focus.
–
Pedri stretches like a cat in the sheets of his bed, wanting to calm his mind. He’d stripped off his shirt, opting to stay only in his sweatpants. They hang low on his hips.
He rubs his eyes hard as he stores away thoughts that don’t pertain to the upcoming match. He thinks of the strategies Coach Fuente explained to them earlier, what to do in certain scenarios on the pitch, how to keep possession of the ball. He slowly clears his mind as he recites to himself the feedback he’d received from the assistant coach when they’d finished training.
Finally, with nothing on his conscience except soccer, Pedri relaxes. There’s no time for a nap, so he just keeps his eyes closed as the sun rays bake him through the window. He feels warm and cozy and the moment is so perfect, he absently thinks maybe sleep wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe Coach won’t mind a quick power nap–
A sharp knock on his door startles him completely awake.
He yawns and gets up to shake himself, getting rid of the last dregs of sleepiness as he walks over. Without checking who it is, he unlocks and opens the door.
An unhappy Ferran stands at the threshold.
Pedri’s eyes widen.
“F-ferran,” he stutters dumbly. Did he fall asleep earlier and this is the dream?
“Yeah. It’s me,” he says, pushing the door open wider and stepping inside. The loud slam of it closing brings Pedri back to reality.
“Uh–what’re you doing here?” He asks, trying to keep his voice sounding normal and not nervously weird.
“What? I can’t hang out in my friend’s room?”
“No, you can! Of course you can,” Pedri clears his throat. “Sorry. I’m glad you’re here, I almost fell asleep,” he tells him.
Ferran takes a seat on the bed and gives Pedri a curious look. He tilts his head up at him, studying his face, then agonizingly slowly his eyes fall to his shirtless chest. Pedri squirms at the attention, feels himself getting hot.
“What?” He whispers, breathless, dizzy.
Ferran stands up suddenly and pulls Pedri into a hug. Needing a second or two to realize what had transpired, Pedri finally melts into the embrace, his knees giving out. And Ferran quickly takes control. He runs his hands down Pedri’s bare back, squeezing his sides, his hips, his waist. One of Ferran’s hands moves up to tug at the hair on the back of Pedri’s head, and it is just everything he’s been so deeply missing and daydreaming about. His eyes fall half-lidded at the sensations and he involuntarily lets an illicit moan escape him.
Pedri freezes, then shoves Ferran off of him, a severe blush painting his face.
“What? What’s wrong?” Ferran asks, concerned. Confusion etched into his features.
Pedri, flustered and embarrassed and caught so off guard, stupidly blurts the first thing that comes into his mind.
“This! This is why I’ve been trying to get away from you! You keep touching me and hugging me, and it’s making me all confused!” He yells, breathing heavily, his chest heaving. His head far too hot to focus on his words. How they might make Ferran feel.
“Pedri—”
“I have a girlfriend, you know! I’m not into men and I’m not a disgusting homo like you!” Pedri lies through his teeth and immediately regrets his words, hating the shrill of his voice as he spoke them aloud. He dares to look at Ferran who has the most heart breaking look on his face. He seems as though he was struck, clearly affected by Pedri’s cutting words.
Ferran clears his throat after a rigid moment, looks at the wall, at the ground.
“Well, I apologize. I didn’t know that was how you felt.” His words are so formal and detached that Pedri’s guilt swells tenfold. Ferran moves past him to leave the room.
“Wait, ah Fer—”
But he ignores him, letting the sound of the door closing behind him echo against the walls. Pedri stares at the door for a long while, quiet tears blurring his vision. He drops his head in his hands once again.