Chapter Text
Oh there is no red in Manchester! the away fans are singing, loud enough to raise the dead, standing arm in arm, their faces red with the cold and the dizzying ecstasy of the win. The tunnel carries their song to the dressing room, and carries the team away with it. It’s only home to Man City! They are so bloody proud, their speck of sky blue engulfed in a sea of red. Joe’s heart swells with pride in response too, to know that he is one reason among eleven that every single one of them get to wear their color to work and to school tomorrow, knowing they own the city, knowing the world will be talking about today for years to come.
“Did you know this is the worst they’ve been trashed at home since 1955?” David is shouting to have his voice heard over the din in the room, his eyes still on his phone and a devilish grin on his face. “19 bloody 55.”
Aleks has an arm around Edin, whom he is calling his hero for the world to hear and Edin is laughing, melting in his arms. Kun is talking to five people all at once, just as much with his hands and body as his voice. Mario has already put some music on and turned it all the way up to make sure the United dressing room hears. Joe doesn’t consider himself a mean or petty man, but with the leftover adrenaline still coursing through his veins, the thought of their bitter rivals’ heads hung low in quiet disappointment is too good, too delicious to resist. “We did it,” he says to Milly, as he takes his jersey off, “we fucking showed them how it’s done.”
Milly can’t seem to stop grinning either. None of them can. He gives Joe a hearty pat on the back.
“You bet we did Charlie.”
Time blurs together for a while after that. There is a team picture and a lot of off-key singing. Someone brings out champagne. Joe doesn’t know if even winning the league with City will taste this sweet. (And in that moment, standing in United’s away dressing room, Joe knows that they will, like he knows his own name.) It might just as well be hours before they head to the showers. Joe’s voice is already hoarse by the time they do and he wouldn’t have it any other way.
He is laughing as he dries himself off, his mouth still refusing to exist in any form but a grin. They all seem to be in similar shape, like the high from the game will last them a lifetime. Across from him Kun looks absolutely gorgeous, his skin a lovely shade of light brown, taut over his well defined muscles. Little drops of water cling to his chest and abs, teasing just above the line of the towel wrapped around his waist. He leans over to pick up something from the floor, and the towel is too small really, small enough to expose the backside of a thick, muscular thigh all the way to Kun’s perfect round ass. Joe bites on his bottom lip, mesmerized, desire surging through his body and swirling in with the post-game euphoria.
“Wait a second,” a shrill voice says next to him. “Did you just lick your lips at Aguero’s booty? How fucking gay are you?”
With it Joe comes crashing back to the present. His head whips around to locate the source of the voice, the words ringing in his ears. Tevez is staring at him, pointing an accusing finger, face drawn in an incredulous sneer.
“I--what, no. Of course not.” The words jumble in Joe’s throat, panic rising through his chest.
“You fucking did mate. I know what I saw. You wanna fuck him or what?”
Joe opens his mouth to say something, to deny the accusation in any way he can, but his lungs seem to be collapsing in on themselves, not enough air in the room left for him to breathe. In what feels like a lightyear away he is aware of his burning cheeks, of the quiet that’s descended onto the room, Mario has turned down the music with a frown, a dozen set of eyes are fixing Joe to his spot.
Someone, Milly maybe, chuckles and says something like look at that ass who wouldn’t? but it falls flat, fizzles away in the oppressive silence of the room.
Joe looks around for a crutch--for anything to anchor him, to stop the world from spinning around him at a dizzying speed. “I--I don’t” he starts, just as his eyes land on Kun. Kun who is staring at him, his face drawn in absolute disgust, like he’s seen something that is making him sick. But it’s not just that. There is betrayal in there too, and raw hurt. His whole body seems to scream I fucking trusted you, without him uttering a single word.
“Fucking homo,” Tevez spits next to him, his every word laced with a deadly venom, “to think you were hiding among us for years.”
They leave after that, the team, without a word. “No,” Joe mutters, “no, please no.” Milly stays back, but only for a moment, puts a gentle hand on his arm. Joe leans his head against the tile wall and presses against his eyes with the base of his palms. They come back wet, though he isn’t aware of crying. He shivers as a wave of nausea rocks his body. He is too cold and too hot at once.
Finished.
Alone.
***
The first time Joe sees Kun play he falls in love a little. Kun is new, a little out of his element and the grass still catches on fire every time he has the ball at his feet. Joe knows good, he’s trained with the best for years for club and country and still from the get go Kun is a cut above everyone else. He is raw talent and dedication and demands you stop and pay attention.
Training against him keeps Joe on his toes, forces his game to be better from the first day. When they play together it’s a joy to watch the fear he strikes in their opponent’s eyes.
Off the pitch he is easy with a smile, gesticulating with his hands in wide motions as he cracks up the Spanish speaking contingent of the team with another joke. He seems like one of those people who can draw anyone out of their shell, bring life to any event. Like a man Joe would buy a drink for in a different world and chase the taste of alcohol on his lips.
Joe catches him a few times though, early on. Frowning at the gray clouds that has left the city in a state of perpetual mist for three days in a row, or sighing a little too deeply after he hangs up on the phone. “Family?” Joe asks with a gentle smile, hoping he isn’t intruding and Kun blinks, as if just alerted to Joe’s presence. He smiles, the twinge of melancholy in the lines on his face is impossible to miss, “no. Messi.” Joe wishes there was something he could do beyond a nod and a smile, but he doesn’t speak Spanish, Kun doesn’t speak English and so that’s that.
*
And then Milly goes camping.
Not just a gentle day’s hike through the woods either but a real camping trip, where he misses doing his weekly laundry and stays in a proper tent he puts up with Amy.
The team forms a half circle around him at training the next day, all questions and incredulity. “You actually took the train to the Lake District, with backpacks and stayed the night, like?” Vince asks, eyes wide with surprise.
“Who put up the tents?” Aleks adds.
“Why?” David says.
“Did Amy make you do it?” Yaya chimes in.
Joe is standing a bit outside the semicircle with the other two goalkeepers, still warming up. Milly looks exasperated. Before he can address one question another one comes flying in. “What is this?” he says in the end, throwing up his hands in the air in frustration, “the Spanish Inquisition?”
Milly literally says Spanish Inquisition. Joe doesn’t have much choice in the matter even if he wanted to stop (and he doesn’t.) And so he gallops over to where the rest of his teammates are standing and says what the circumstances demand in his loudest, most dramatic voice.
“Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!”
A collective groan goes up from the group. “Oh for fuck’s sake,” Aleks tells him, “not that again” but Joe is too busy grinning with delight at the excellent timing of his act to care.
Somewhere towards the edge of the circle Kun pulls on David’s sleeve with a deep frown on his face, speaking quickly. Joe only notices when David points at him and calls at their translator, Nick, from the sidelines before disappearing with a you explain.
“Um,” Nick says, still too new to the job, “Mr. Aguero wants to know what you said just now.”
Joe’s eyes dart between Kun’s eager face and Nick’s scared one. “You mean ‘nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition’?”
Kun nods happily, catching onto the words. Joe rubs at the back of his neck wondering how one explains Monty Python to someone who hasn’t been in the country for three months. “It’s a joke?” he tells Nick, who translates. A joke? Kun replies via Nick, but how? frowning and quite unconvinced.
It’s only the coach yelling at them to get into position that breaks the involved discussion that ensues. They pick it right back up again, afterwards, Kun jogging over Joe’s way and signalling to Nick. Joe elaborates further, talking about surreal comedy and absurdism, as large beads of sweat accumulate on Nick’s forehead. Kun asks, for the fifth time, how the Spanish Inquisition of all things could be funny or unexpected.
“Watch with me?” Joe offers as a last resort, doesn’t know what else he can do to explain. Kun nods, curious if still a bit skeptical.
Right, Joe thinks as he heads to the showers. A cute as hell Argentine who doesn’t speak English and has as many questions as stars in the sky in his house watching Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
He can do this.
***
Joe’s house feels warm and welcoming in the way only places that are lived in and well loved do. In the way Kun’s house doesn’t, yet. Picture frames dot the walls, Joe in various ages, laughing with his teammates, on a night out with friends, knee high with a ball at his feet. The living room offers a refuge from the dreary evening outside with its soft yellow lighting and the walls panelled in dark wood. The couch is soft and plushy and draws Kun right in when he finally sits down.
Joe is a calm guy normally, as far as Kun can tell, easy with a smile and laid back but he hasn’t stopped bustling around tonight ever since Kun set foot in the door.
“Milk?” Joe asks, when he finally appears with a tea tray, complete with delicate china cups and milk. He is so careful with the word and his pronunciation is so terrible that Kun has to bite the inside of his cheek to not to laugh. He nods and watches Joe set the tray on the coffee table.
“Right.” Joe dashes out of the room again, leaving Kun to stare at the DVD menu on the TV. Kun shifts where he’s seated and wonders whether it’s too early to pour the tea into the cups. Like the common cold he can feel himself catching Joe’s anxiety and he wishes Joe would just stop and sit. The same animation sequence is playing for the tenth time on the TV. The menu song is nice at least, upbeat and cheerful.
Joe has a gigantic book in his hands when he returns a couple of minutes later. Kun feels his eyebrows shoot up to the sky. Why on earth-- Joe sets it down on the coffee table and Kun reads the gold lettering on the black faux-leather cover. English-Español.
A dictionary.
An old school, hard cover, brand new dictionary that is at least a thousand pages long. An ancient relic that Kun had believed--hoped--had gone extinct by now with the proliferation of technology and one that brings memories rushing back from days long gone by.
Kun is ten and he is stuck in an oppressive grey concrete box of a building when he can hear the old field with its patches of dried grass calling to him. His feet, his whole being, itches for a ball. He is dreaming about growing wings and escaping through the narrow window, when the teacher--an older woman with thick glasses--whips out a brick of a book, with ominous black covers and drops it onto Kun’s desk. Right then Sergio, she says, a mean streak in her beady little eyes like she knows exactly what Kun was thinking why don’t you start looking up the words for our assignment. You can’t leave until you’ve found them all.
A bead of cold sweat runs across Kun’s back at the memory, the dictionary refusing to cooperate, stubborn as a brick, daylight slowly fading away outside just like Kun’s will to live.
“No.” He gestures at Joe, and resists the urge to cross himself, but just barely. Really, what age does Joe live in--what age does he think Kun lives in, this man, coming in with a hardcover dictionary to a movie night.
Joe takes a step back, rubs at the back of his neck, still holding onto the evil artifact with the other arm. His pale face scrunches up in that rather adorable way it does whenever he is confused.
“Dictionary?” he offers, a bit unsure. Kun shakes his head again, pushing the cursed object as far away on the coffee table as humanly possible, and despite his efforts to be covert, earns himself a laugh from Joe.
*
Kun doesn’t remember much from the show in the end, just that it’s odd and that there are probably a couple dozen references that have gone right over his head. He does remember the way Joe reacts to it though, the way his expressive face melts from a grin to a chuckle to a sideways glance at Kun to urge him to look at the TV instead of at Joe. The first time the Cardinals burst into the room, Joe turns to him and says, very seriously, nobody expects the spanish inquisition as if it’s the key to life’s greatest mysteries. Kun nods in return and puts on his best face of wise understanding, the very one that kept scores of teachers from cold calling him through the years after the incident with the dictionary.
Joe sees him to the door, lingers. His eyebrows knit together in concentration and he looks so serious Kun half expects him to get down on one knee and propose.
He says adiós instead, with much care, dragging the ó so it sounds like adiooooos instead.
Kun doesn’t mean to burst out laughing. But it’s quite possibly the simplest, most universal word the Spanish language has to offer and the monumental effort and sheer awfulness of Joe’s butchering is too much. He leans on the nearest wall to keep upright as laughter shakes his entire body and his eyes tear up.
When he calms down and wipes at the corners of his eyes, Joe looks...somewhere between offended and like a puppy who has been kicked. It is a horrible, horrible sight and one that makes Kun regret his reaction immediately. He apologizes and offers the correct pronunciation with a smile, hoping that it’s enough. Joe repeats after him, still slow and serious, but butchering it a bit less this time. He waves at Kun as he leaves, a small smile back on his lips. A tiny part of Kun’s mind wonders whether he’s managed to really upset Joe, after he’s been nothing but a lovely host.