Chapter Text
"I'm pretty sure I used a condom"
Those were the first words of Cristiano; He didn't look forward, but seemed very busy trying to decipher the answers in the palms of his hands.
Paulo shrugged his shoulders, diverting his eyes to the kitchen. He would have expected a smile at least. A sweet tone of voice that made him feel less guilty for something he didn't do alone.
"Well, no, you didn't"
Cristiano remained silent for a time that seemed infinite to Paulo. Reclining on the couch, his eyes were closed and his hands were on his face, moving his lips without letting a single phrase come out of them. Paulo watched him closely; he thought if he had also reacted like that when Georgina told him she was pregnant with Alana Martina.
"What am I going to do when everyone knows? And Georgina... when Georgina finds out she's going to go and take Alana, I'm going to lose everything"
"It's not easy for me either" Paulo tried, but Cristiano raised his voice suddenly, leaving him speechless.
"You're not the one who is married and has a family, Paulo. You don't owe explanations to anyone, you can do the shit you want! Do you understand what this means? Do you understand what your pregnancy is going to do to both of us?"
If Paulo had kept secret and tiny hopes that Cristiano's unpleasant bravado had been only premature and the product of nervousness, his speech took them like the wind. He realized that he was there in his house alone again and that although Cristiano and his smell invaded his furniture and his bed and his heart, that could only be a mirage. Cristiano's eyes were penetrating his face, but Paulo saw no support or sweetness or love in them and had to beat his eyelashes quickly, to keep frowning without wavering.
"You don't want it. You don't want this baby"
Cristiano wasn't able to deny it and just kept watching him, with his lips sealed and tight. He didn't realize that his eyes were full of tears, until Cristiano stood up and seemed to get close with pity and tenderness, whispering near him.
"Please don't cry"
"No, no, I get it" Paulo shook his head, taking a couple of steps back. He sought a distance between him and Cristiano that would also allow him to cope with the forced separation that the alpha was imposing with cruelty. "This baby doesn't fit in your life"
"Neither in yours, Paulo. Look, your career is just beginning and you've been doing so far so well. Without that baby, you wouldn't have to leave the club. You shouldn't stop doing what you love"
Paulo heard it silently, without a single word.
"How many weeks do you have? A month, a month and a half? It's still early... it's still a fetus, not a baby" Cristiano stopped for a few seconds, cleared his throat and then looked into his eyes. Paulo believed that at some point he wanted to take his hands, but he didn't dare. "Later you'll be able to have more children, when you have finished your career and you'll be able to raise them and you'll have an alpha, now it's simply not the right time"
Pipita's words move around his head and hit it again and again and again, like the worst warning. Paulo's chest tightens and his soul hurts and his voice sounds very hoarse and very trembling when he decides to ask what he'd never have thought to hear.
"You're saying I should kill my baby?"
Cristiano has red eyes.
"I'm saying that you're still very young, that you're beginning your career and that a child now would mean finishing it. Your chances are never going to be the same again, no club will hire you and you'll lose yourself only on a whim... "
"Why?" Paulo interrupted without meeting his eyes.
The words that now he heard coming out of Cristiano's mouth, before seemed so distant. Flirting in training, meetings in secret, the sweet kisses they shared when no one could... everything that ever made him feel that the opportunity to reach happiness was at the distance of a "yes", was crumbling with too much cruelty. He realized that he had been living a mirage, believing that one day it could become a reality. With the painful security of actually finding himself living in a desert, Paulo sighed deeply and took the strength to face Cristiano's gaze. His lips trembled, when he asked sadly.
"Why do I have to abort my child? Why do I have to do something so horrible? So that you feel good? So that your picture of perfect father and your happy family don't get stained? Why do I have to sacrifice my child so you can be happy? "
At times, Cristiano seems cloudy throughout his speech, but that only lasts for seconds. He instantly clears his throat and straightens up, trying to get close, but Paulo shakes his head so many times that he feels dizzy and disgusted.
"Paulo, I'm not a selfish bastard and I don't ask this of you just for me. I am thinking about you and your career, about your life in Juventus"
"Is that what you told Georgina when she told you she was pregnant? That was better not to have Alana in order to not ruin the future of you two?"
"No, but that's different. Alana is my kid"
Paulo wanted to cry and whimper, he wanted to get into bed and cover his head with the sheets and never leave the house again.
"And this one that I carry inside is not yours? Is it just a fetus?"
"That's not what I meant" Cristiano argues and takes his arm, but Paulo moves away as if the touch of Ronaldo burned. "Paulo, it's not that I don't want that child or that I don't want to take care of it, it's that I can't. You knew that I was married and had a daughter and still you accepted me. You knew that I couldn't offer you anything else"
You could if you wanted, Paulo thinks. You could.
"I expected you to do it," he confessed shyly. "I was hoping you would try."
For the first time, Cristiano evades his gaze.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry"
"You need to leave" Paulo let go. He walked with too much dignity, without looking back if Cristiano was following his step. He stood waiting, watching the coming and going of the minute hand of his silver watch hanging on the wall.
"Paulo, I promise you that if I could..."
"Go away!"
Paulo's scream made Cristiano finally move. When he passed by him, he could feel his smell and heat and had to close his eyes just to imagine that everything Cristiano had told him there in the center of the room was the product of his imagination.
"Call me if you need anything"
Without further ado, Ronaldo disappeared from the house. Paulo slammed the door, then dragged his feet to the bedroom and threw himself on the bed, crying in dismay.
-
Football had always had stories, small and big rumors that spread among the players faster than they all really wanted. There were stories of all kinds that touched even the most recognized and important stars of the environment. Footballers always had to take care of themselves and be attentive to what the world was thinking about. They should choose their friendships carefully, open their mouths only with the right people. Suddenly, some forbidden secret could be filtered. This alpha male also likes alphas male, this player cheats on his wife, this guy had a child out of his marriage, this alpha hits his poor omega.
When the omegas were accepted in the main teams, it abounded all kinds of gossip. In such a closed and prejudiced world, it was difficult to make way. Some omegas had a bad time. Paulo remembers having heard raw stories that left him without sleep during some nights, didn't you know that that player raped his omega team mate? Everyone found out! It was worse when the omegas acted like omegas inside the field and also inside the club. They simply couldn't; if they did, they became vulnerable.
Many tried to blend in with the alphas and betas and dispense with the qualities that one time prevented them from participating in the world they loved. Football welcomed them, but it required them to adopt its rules. A fair deal for the opportunity to shine and earn money. Some omegas adapted quickly, others suffered the consequences of faking for so long. So many boys had suddenly simply abandoned football, because they had fallen in love, because they had gotten pregnant or because they couldn't stand the pressure of perfection.
Paulo remembers hearing, when he just started playing with the first team of Juventus, about Alexis Sánchez. Chilean, talented and with a very sad story, he was a world-renowned footballer. And also an omega. But, as some other stars had also chosen to do, Alexis desperately sought the acceptance and attention of the world at the cost of becoming the man he wasn't. He ended up charming the critics because on the field he behaved like an alpha more, just like his teammates, but outside of it he returned to embrace for himself everything people would expect from an omega and was reserved, funny, shy and smiling. The perfect combination.
Then he got the success, the money and the attention of all the big teams in the world. He arrived at Arsenal of England and became the star, but it was also there where he had to sacrifice his heart. Paulo followed their romance in secret, seeking in some way to find a justification and an example. All the press said that they both looked just in love. Lukas Podolski wasn't ashamed to kiss Alexis during training sessions or upload photos of the two to his Instagram with endearing phrases. The golden rule of football for omegas, not involving publicly with their alpha team mates, was being forgotten and Alexis and Podolski became the fighting flag of all the omegas in love. It was as if, in a strange way, Alexis showed the world that he could be the scorer and the star of his team and at the same time the partner and lover of an alpha.
But one day the end came, when Paulo least expected it and knowing it turned his heart. Lukas had decided to leave Arsenal and the rumors, he would later know, were true: Lukas hadn't been able to tolerate Alexis' refusal to start a family, marry and have children. Suddenly, it was as if all the little achievements that the omegas had obtained through this perfect couple of the football world had been broken into pieces. Paulo remembers feeling sorry when he found out, because the breaking of Alexis Sánchez and Lukas Podolski showed that omegas could only survive in football if they gave up their very essence.
From then on, the attention on Alexis never went with force to his football performance, but the press was commissioned to portray with malice his insistence for refusing to give birth and to create a home. Some time later, it was learned that Alexis had started a relationship with another of his teammates, Olivier Giroud. The entertainment journalists always commented, mockingly, that both were united by contempt for stable and traditional relationships. They seemed to love each other, but it didn't last long. They separated when Alexis signed with Manchester United and Olivier with Chelsea. Some claim that, in secret, they still see each other. Alexis always looked sad on the field or confused or exhausted and his talent at Manchester United never appeared as it had at Arsenal.
Paulo wondered, sometimes, if at the end of everything Alexis was happy.
He continued playing for Manchester United, under the direction of a talented coach and dedicated his life completely to football. He earned tons of money and was known all over the world. He had no children, no mate, no love. He was completely alone.
Will Alexis have repented sometime? Has he thought "maybe I should have told Lukas yes?" Has he regretted having decided not to give children to an alpha who loved and respected him?
Would he himself regret, someday, to give birth to Cristiano's child?
Would Cristiano ever regret his words?
Cristiano didn't ask if he had already done an ultrasound. Nor did he ask him to see his tummy under his clothes. He didn't want to know if he tolerated nausea, if his body hurt, if he wanted to cry every day. He only left with an offer that Paulo knew were empty words.
The bedroom in which he is reclining is, as it always was anyway, once again a solitary nest.
Paulo clings to the idea that when the baby inside is born, his house and his room will never be empty again and he'll never have to be alone again. With a little faith, the pain he now feels will cease and Cristiano will regret having asked him to kill Paulo's only opportunity to feel truly complete and happy.