Chapter Text
The stadium still rocked with sound, the leftover fans lingering to soak in a win that had wrapped up nearly thirty minutes earlier under the afternoon sun, but Luka only had one thing on his mind. God, it's almost time for the babies' nap time. He shook his head, glancing over at his husband Iker, who seemed unbothered by anything except the glow of his post-match interview, despite the game being nothing more than a friendly. Rolling his eyes, Luka started making his way out on his own, the only reason he'd come at all was that their PR agent insisted it would look good for them to present a united front. Not that it mattered when your husband was going to tear it all down by cheating again. Luka could only hope the next one didn't end up pregnant.
Finally making it down to the players' area, he could hear Casillas fielding more questions. "How important was it to have a part of your family here to witness your team's success?" Spotting Luka, Iker knew he had to score some brownie points. "We wouldn't have won if the love of my life wasn't here." The slimy smirk on his face disgusted Modric if it weren't for the two boys they shared, he would've wished for God to strike the goalkeeper down on the spot. Taking one last look, he spun on his heel and decided he'd rather wait in the car.
Making it to the car, he sat and waited for his other half. All of a sudden, his phone buzzed with a message from Iker: hanging out with the boys, be back tonight. Letting out a forced chuckle, Luka could only imagine the headache of headlines his husband was about to make. Throwing his phone aside, he leaned his head against the window and prayed for better days to come. Remembering his children were still at home with his mother, he quickly told the driver to take him home. As he closed his eyes once more, he couldn't help but catch a few words from the radio: "Real Madrid have officially completed the blockbuster transfer of the summer, securing the signature of the nineteen-year-old sensation on a massive eight-year deal."
Making it home in the early afternoon light, he unlocked the door and was met with sweet silence. He dropped his bag and made his way through the house, stepping around the toys and debris Nikola always left in his wake. "Mama," Luka called softly, careful not to wake the eighteen-month-old and the four-year-old. Turning the corner, he was met with a hand pressed gently to his mouth. "Shh, I finally got them both down for a nap, don't disturb them." Making eye contact with his mother was a sight for sore eyes. He rested his head on her shoulder as her hand rubbed slow circles on his back. "How was the game, my dušo moja?" She took in his disheveled appearance, lifting his chin with her fingers so he couldn't lie to her, no matter how badly he wanted to. "They won't have anything to report there. Iker gloated, then decided hanging out with his club was more important than spending the rest of the day and night with his family." At the mention of her son-in-law's name, Luka's mother's jaw tightened, and she fought to keep her face neutral even as her disdain for the man threatened to take over. "Well, maybe he'll be here for bedtime." She always tried to give Iker the benefit of the doubt, if only to soothe Luka. Without answering, he slipped out of her arms and made his way to the couch, dropping his full weight onto the soft cushions. He peppered her with questions about everything the boys had done while he was gone, smiling softly every time she mentioned some new little thing they'd learned. As the TV played softly in the background, he couldn't help but catch the words drifting from whatever channel his mother had on: "Joining us live after a summer move that has completely shaken up the Spanish capital, let's welcome the nineteen-year-old phenom everyone's talking about."
Two hours later, Luka started to hear soft cries. He made his way to Marko's crib, picked up the eighteen-month-old, and cradled him sweetly, letting the baby suck on his finger to soothe him. "Shh, grandma's gone, but papa's here." He carried the baby to the kitchen and mixed a bottle with one hand. Once it was ready, he settled little Marko into the swing and finally gave him what he'd been waiting for. Feeling a sudden tug at his pants, he looked down to find a freshly woken Nikola rubbing his eyes and clutching his favorite stuffed animal. Cooing softly, Luka scooped up his toddler and kissed him all over his face, laughing when Nikola dissolved into giggles. "Stop it, papa, stop it," Nikola got out between kisses, squirming as Luka tickled him. "Give your papa some love." Luka laughed along, and even Marko let go of his bottle to join in the giggling.
"Where's daddy, papa?" Suddenly it felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room as Luka's smile dropped, and he quickly tried to paste a fake one back on. "At training, sweetheart. The players have to work so hard, even after a match." He was quick on his feet with the excuse. "Will he be here for bedtime stories?" Nikola asked, wide-eyed and curious, looking up at his papa. "Maybe, baby, but no matter what, I'll be here." Luka smiled softly at his son, finally setting him down and glancing once more at Marko as his older brother started entertaining him. He began preparations for dinner, pausing to make Nikola a late lunch, reveling in the playful sounds of his kids and the steady rhythm of the knife against the cutting board.
As the rest of the day went by, to no one's surprise, Iker didn't make it home for dinner or bedtime stories, leaving Luka to handle everything once again. After putting each boy to bed, he used the quiet time to clean up and prepare for the upcoming week, keeping up a steady stream of conversation with his mother over the phone. He glanced at the clock more than once, feeling that familiar knot tighten in his stomach with every passing hour, the same one he always got when Iker went silent for too long.
It was well past ten when he heard the front door swing open, flinching at the sound of it meeting the wall. He would have been terrified if he hadn't recognized the drunken slur of his husband's voice. "Fuck, shh, we gotta be quiet; the boys are asleep," Iker said to someone Luka couldn't see or hear from his spot in the laundry room. Moving closer, his husband came into view, arm slung around some stranger's shoulder. Luka folded his arms, willing himself to stay calm, at least until he knew what he was dealing with. "You couldn't have called? Text me? Anything?" he asked, keeping his voice low so it wouldn't carry down the hall. Iker waved him off, stumbling slightly as he tried to steady himself against the wall. "I'm here now, aren't I? Relax."
"Relax," Luka repeated flatly, glancing past him at the man still lingering awkwardly by the door. "Who is this?" Iker blinked, as if he'd forgotten the other man was even there, then grinned wide, the way he always did when he thought charm might smooth things over. "New signing, joined this week. Great kid." The kid in question gave Luka a small, uncertain wave, clearly picking up on the tension thick enough to choke on. Luka studied him for a moment, unimpressed, though something about the way the boy's eyes kept flicking between them, careful and watchful, made him pause. "It's late, Iker. Why is he here at all?"
"Does everything have to be an interrogation with you?" Iker snapped, though there was less heat in it than usual, more the slur of exhaustion and drink. "We got dinner, had a few drinks, and he offered to drop me off on the way. Sue us for being good teammates." Luka's jaw tightened. "A good teammate. Right. Because that's usually the excuse right before some girl calls the house asking why her boyfriend won't answer his phone." The words slipped out before he could stop them, sharper than he meant, but he was too tired to care anymore. Iker's face flickered, something like guilt passing through it before it hardened again. "Don't start this in front of him."
"I'm not the one who brought him into our house at two in the morning," Luka shot back, voice climbing despite himself. "Do you have any idea what it looks like? What will people say if this gets out? You already embarrass me enough with your interviews, pretending you're some devoted husband while you're out God knows where doing God knows what." Sergio shifted his weight, clearly wishing he could disappear into the wall, though his eyes lingered on Luka a beat too long, taking in the flush high on his cheeks, the way exhaustion didn't dull the sharp lines of his face so much as soften them. He looked, Sergio thought, like a man who'd been holding something together for far too long, and something in that quiet fatigue tugged at him more than he expected.
"You want to talk about embarrassment?" Iker's voice rose now too, the drink loosening whatever restraint he had left. "Try being married to someone who acts like a granny, who can't even be bothered to show up looking decent for one match. I have an image to keep up, Luka, and you make that impossible." The words landed like a slap, and for a moment Luka just stared at him, stunned into silence. Sergio's brow furrowed, glancing between the two of them, clearly uncomfortable with where this was heading but unsure whether it was his place to say anything yet.
"Get out," Luka said, low and even, the kind of calm that came only after the shouting had burned itself hollow. "Or lower your voice. The boys are asleep, Iker, in case you'd forgotten you have children."
Iker's jaw worked, something ugly still simmering behind his eyes, but he didn't push it further. He grabbed his jacket off the back of a chair with more force than necessary, muttered something under his breath that Luka didn't bother to catch, and was gone, the front door slamming behind him hard enough to rattle the glass in the cabinets. He didn't so much as glance at the boy on his way out, leaving him standing awkwardly in the kitchen like an inconvenience Iker had forgotten to dispose of properly.
The slam was still echoing when a thin, frightened cry rose from down the hall. Luka closed his eyes for half a second, gathering himself, before he was already moving. "One minute," he said to the guest, though he wasn't sure why he bothered explaining himself to a stranger standing in his kitchen, and disappeared toward Nikola's room.
It took closer to fifteen. Nikola had worked himself into hiccupping sobs, small fists clutching at Luka's shirt as he asked why Daddy was yelling, if Daddy was mad at him. Luka smoothed his hair back and murmured every reassurance he could think of, humming the same tune he'd hummed since Nikola was an infant, until the small body finally went slack against him and he could lay him back down, tucking the blanket beneath his chin.
When Luka came back out to the kitchen, he expected to find it empty, Sergio having slipped out the way anyone with sense would have. Instead , he found him standing near the counter, quiet and still , looking at the framed photo of the four of them Luka, Iker, Nikola, Marko just born , that sat propped against the wall. Sergio didn't say anything when Luka appeared in the doorway. He just looked at him, something unreadable in his expression.
"Is he always like that?" Sergio asked, his voice careful and gentle, not accusatory. "The shouting, I mean. The-" He gestured vaguely, searching for the right words. "The cruelty."
Luka felt something in his chest tighten. He could have lied, could have made excuses, but there was something in his expression genuine concern, not judgment that made him answer honestly.
"Often enough," Luka said quietly. "Not always this bad, but... yes. Often enough."
Sergio nodded slowly, as if he were processing this information, weighing it. "I didn't mean to pry," he said carefully. "I just wanted to know if tonight was... if that was normal for him, or if something else was going on."
"It's normal," Luka said, and the words felt like admitting defeat. "This is just what it looks like."
Luka let out a breath that was almost a laugh, humorless and tired. "That's what I thought." He studied Sergio for a moment, really looking at him for the first time since he'd walked through the door hours ago. "We never actually introduced ourselves. I'm Luka."
"Sergio." He offered a small, apologetic smile. "New signing. Started training with the team a few weeks ago. Iker's been—" he paused, choosing his words, "—showing me around, I guess."
"I know who you are," Luka said. "The whole city's been talking about you since the transfer went through." He glanced at the clock above the stove, then back at Sergio, who looked younger somehow in the kitchen light, all sharp cheekbones and tired eyes. "Have you eaten? It's late, and I doubt he fed you anything besides whatever you had at the bar."
Sergio looked briefly caught off guard by the offer, like it wasn't one he expected to receive standing in the ruins of someone else's argument. "You don't have to—"
"I know I don't have to." Luka was already pulling bread and cheese from the fridge, moving with the automatic efficiency of someone who'd fed people through worse nights than this one. "Sit down. It's nothing fancy."
Sergio sat, watching him work in a silence that felt easier than it had any right to, given everything that had just happened in this same room. They talked while Luka assembled something simple about the transfer, about how overwhelming the city still felt, about nothing in particular, and somewhere in the low hum of conversation, the tightness in Luka's chest eased for the first time all night.
By the time Sergio stood to leave, it was well past three, the plate empty, his jacket back over his shoulders. At the door, he turned, and before Luka quite understood what was happening, Sergio leaned in and pressed a light kiss to his cheek, brief and warm.
"Thank you for the food," Sergio said. "Get some rest, if you can."
Then he was gone, his footsteps fading down the front walk, and Luka stood frozen in the doorway with his fingers rising slowly to the spot on his cheek where Sergio's lips had been.
He didn't get some rest at all. Every time he closed his eyes, the way the younger man had looked at the family photo with something softer, something that made Luka feel seen in a way he hadn't in years. He's nineteen, Luka reminded himself, staring at the ceiling. He's Iker's teammate. He's a child, practically. But the reminder did nothing to quiet the warmth that had settled low in his stomach, unfamiliar and impossible to ignore.
Iker came home well before noon the next day, earlier than Luka expected, looking hollowed out rather than merely hungover. He didn't launch straight into excuses the way he usually did. Instead, he stood in the kitchen doorway for a long moment, watching Luka slice fruit for Nikola's lunch, before he finally spoke.
"I'm sorry," he said, and the words sounded foreign in his mouth, clumsy in a way that told Luka he hadn't practiced them. "Last night. Bringing him here like that, the way I talked to you. It was too much." He rubbed a hand over his face, not quite meeting Luka's eyes. "I know I scared Nikola. I heard him crying before I left, and I didn't know what to do with that, so I left instead of fixing it. That was wrong."
Luka set the knife down, caught off guard by the admission. He'd braced himself for deflection, for the usual excuses dressed up as reasons, but this small, awkward apology was somehow harder to sit with. "You did scare him," he said carefully. "He asked me where his daddy was."
Something flickered across Iker's face, guilt, gone as quickly as it appeared. "Can I see him?" It wasn't a demand, not this time. It came out almost hesitant, like he expected to be told no.
Luka nodded toward the living room, where Nikola sat surrounded by scattered toy cars, and watched his husband cross the room and lower himself onto the floor without a word of complaint about his expensive jeans. "Hey, buddy," Iker said softly, and Nikola looked up, startled, before breaking into the kind of smile only small children could give so freely, without condition or memory of the night before. "Daddy!" He crawled into Iker's lap immediately, and for a moment Luka watched his husband go still, as if he hadn't expected to be forgiven so easily, as if he didn't quite know what to do with it.
Iker spent the better part of an hour on that floor, building towers out of blocks only to let Nikola knock them down, laughing in a way Luka hadn't heard in months, genuine and unguarded. He even let Marko gum at his fingers without flinching, something he rarely had the patience for. Watching from the kitchen doorway, Luka felt his chest tighten with something of gratitude and resentment tangled together so closely he couldn't separate one from the other. This is who he could be, he thought, if he tried even half this hard the rest of the time. But he knew better than to mistake an hour for a pattern.
By the time Iker wandered back into the kitchen, sleeves rolled up, a smudge of marker on his forearm, some of the softness had already begun to fade from his face, replaced by the familiar tightness Luka recognized as the start of a retreat. "I talked to him," Iker said, as if that settled something, as if an hour of blocks could undo months of empty chairs at dinner. "He seems fine now."
"He's four, Iker. Of course he seems fine now. That's not the same as fine." Luka went back to slicing fruit, unwilling to let one good hour erase the conversation they still needed to have. "You can't keep disappearing and then showing up for an hour and calling it even."
Iker's jaw tightened, the softness gone now entirely. "I said I was sorry. What more do you want from me?" He turned away, busying himself with the coffee maker, and when he spoke again, his voice had shifted back into something more familiar, more guarded.
The days that followed fell back into their familiar rhythm, the one Luka had grown to expect no matter how badly he wished it would break. Iker left early for training and came home late, if he came home at all, his excuses growing thinner even as his effort to disguise them grew lazier. Luka stopped waiting up. He stopped setting a plate aside at dinner. He filled the hours with the boys instead, with bath time and bedtime stories and the small, steady tasks that made a house feel like a home even when it didn't feel like a marriage.
By the third day, he'd almost convinced himself that the night with Sergio had been some strange, isolated blip, a moment born of chaos that wouldn't repeat itself. He told himself that as he folded laundry, as he wiped applesauce off Marko's chin, as he caught himself checking his phone a little too often for no reason he wanted to name.
The knock came just after four in the afternoon, while Nikola was parked in front of a cartoon and Marko napped upstairs. Luka wiped his hands on a dish towel before opening the door, and there stood Sergio, duffel bag slung over one shoulder, looking like he'd rehearsed his excuse the whole drive over and still hadn't quite settled on it.
"Iker asked me to drop off his training bag," Sergio said, holding it up as if it were evidence. "He left it at the facility. Figured I'd swing by since I was in the area."
Luka raised an eyebrow, glancing at the bag, then back at Sergio's face, which had gone slightly pink under the weight of its own transparency. "Iker's training bag. The one he usually carries himself, every single day, without fail."
"Maybe he forgot it on purpose." Sergio's mouth twitched, caught somewhere between a smile and an apology. "Or maybe I just wanted an excuse."
The honesty of it disarmed Luka more than any smooth lie could have. He should have sent him away, should have shut the door on whatever this was before it became something he couldn't undo, but instead he found himself stepping back, holding the door wider. "Well, you might as well come in, then, since you drove all this way for a bag Iker doesn't even need until tomorrow."
Sergio's smile deepened as he stepped past him into the front hall, and Luka caught the faint scent of cologne, warm and clean, so different from the stale smoke and liquor he'd grown used to breathing in from his husband. He looked tired even now, Sergio noticed, tired in the kind of way that clung to a person after years, not days, but there was still something soft in his face, something that hadn't hardened yet despite everything trying to harden it. Sergio found himself wanting to smooth away that tiredness with his hands, an impulse so sudden and foreign that it startled him.
"You didn't have to let me in," Sergio said quietly, setting the bag down by the door where it would sit forgotten for days. "I know how this looks."
"It looks like you brought a bag Iker doesn't need," Luka said, though the corner of his mouth curved despite himself. "That's all it looks like. Unless you're planning on making it look like something else."
Before Sergio could answer, small footsteps thundered down the hall, and Nikola rounded the corner at full speed, stuttering to a stop when he spotted the stranger standing in his living room. He looked between his papa and Sergio with wide, curious eyes, clutching his stuffed animal a little tighter. "Who's that?"
Sergio crouched immediately, meeting the boy at his level, all traces of nerves smoothing into something warm and easy. "I'm Sergio. I play football with your daddy." He held out a hand, solemn as if greeting an equal. "What's your name?"
"Nikola," the boy said, shyness melting fast under the attention, and he shook Sergio's hand with the exaggerated seriousness only a four-year-old could manage. "Are you gonna play with my daddy today?"
"Not today," Sergio said gently, glancing up at Luka for half a second before returning his attention to the boy. "Today I think I'm just visiting."
Nikola seemed to accept this without question, already reaching out to show Sergio the toy car clutched in his other hand, launching into an explanation of its various features with the kind of enthusiasm only small children possessed. Sergio listened with genuine patience, asking questions in all the right places, and Luka stood in the doorway watching the two of them, feeling something warm unfurl in his chest, something he had no business feeling at all.
Eventually, Nikola grew distracted by his trucks in the living room, abandoning Sergio in favor of a more interesting toy, and Marko's babbling drifted in from the nearby playpen. Luka busied himself in the kitchen, if only to give his hands something to do besides reach for things he had no business reaching for. He was married. He had two children. The man sitting patiently on his living room floor, letting Nikola show him every single one of his stuffed animals with theatrical patience, was young barely out of childhood himself, fresh off signing a contract that would define the rest of his career, standing on the precipice of a life Luka's husband had already lived and squandered. It was worse than madness to feel this, whatever this was entirely too easy, like something he'd been missing for so long he'd forgotten its name.
"You didn't actually come here for a training bag," Luka said finally, setting a cup of coffee in front of him.
Sergio had the grace to look sheepish. "No. I wanted to check that you were okay. And the boys." He glanced toward the living room, where Nikola sat lost in his toy trucks. "That whole thing the other night didn't sit right with me. Leaving, I mean. Not knowing."
"You didn't have to worry about us."
"I know I didn't have to." Sergio met his eyes, steady in a way that made Luka's breath catch. "I wanted to."
The words settled between them, heavier than they should have been for something so simple. Luka looked away first, throat tight, painfully aware of how long it had been since anyone had wanted anything from him besides what he could provide: meals, comfort, a united front for the cameras. He thought of Iker's careless dismissal, you worry too much, and the way it had never once occurred to his husband to ask if Luka himself was okay.
"You should probably head out soon," Luka said quietly, though he didn't move to usher him out. "I'm married, Sergio. And you're young. Whatever this is, it can't be anything."
Sergio didn't argue, didn't push, just nodded slowly, like he'd already known that and had simply been waiting to hear Luka say it out loud. "I know," he said. "I'm not trying to be anything to you that I shouldn't be. I just wanted you to know somebody noticed. That's all."
"Is there something to notice?" Luka asked, and there was no real challenge in it, just tiredness, the kind that came from years of pretending everything was fine.
"I think you're exhausted," Sergio said. "And I think you deserve better than what you're getting. That doesn't mean I expect anything from you. It just means I see it."
Something in Luka's chest ached at the plainness of it, at how easily Sergio offered kindness without asking for anything in return, so unlike the careful, transactional affection he'd grown used to from Iker. He didn't know how to respond to that, so he didn't try. He nodded, grateful and unsettled in equal measure, and let the silence stretch until it felt less dangerous.
Sergio stayed another twenty minutes, mostly on the floor with Nikola, building a tower out of blocks only to watch it collapse into giggles, before he finally stood and stretched, glancing at the clock on the wall. "I should let you get back to your evening," he said, and there was no reluctance in it just easy acceptance of the boundary Luka had drawn.
He ruffled Nikola's hair on his way out, promising to bring him a jersey the next time he visited, said so casually, like there was no question there would be one. Luka stood in the doorway and watched him go, watched the easy, unhurried way he walked to his car, and thought, with a kind of quiet despair he hadn't let himself feel in years, I am in so much trouble.
That night, after the boys were finally down and the house had settled into its familiar quiet, Luka sat on the edge of the bed he still technically shared with his husband and stared at the space beside him. Iker wouldn't be home again tonight some other excuse, some other absence he wouldn't bother explaining. And for the first time since the wedding, since the vows and the promises and the two children they'd made together, Luka found himself thinking clearly, calmly, without the usual flood of guilt that normally accompanied the thought that maybe this marriage had already ended a long time ago. Maybe all that was left now was deciding who would be brave enough to admit it first.
His phone buzzed on the nightstand. A text from an unknown number, though he already knew who it was before he opened it.
Its Sergio snuck your number from Iker's Phone ;) made it home safe tell Nikola I said goodnight and tell yourself the same, even if no one else will.
Luka read it twice, then a third time, his thumb hovering over the keyboard for a long moment before he finally set the phone facedown on the nightstand, unanswered, not because he didn't want to reply, but because he was terrified of what he might say if he let himself.