Chapter Text
Marcelo was unsure at first about what drew him to the newest addition to their team. The midfielder, freshly transferred from a moderately successful English club, had yet to make a name for himself in Spain, and his first impression of the guy was dictated by his heavy accent which made it almost impossible for Marcelo to understand him. He was also rather quiet and seemed to live a solitary life, keeping things private and his life to himself. But above all, Luka Modrić was small.
The Brazilian had a weakness for small things, and he thought he had found the source of his growing obsession as time went on. It was true that Marcelo wasn´t the tallest tree in the forest, but this guy still seemed impossibly delicate next to him, and even more so compared to the rest of the team. It made Marcelo want to keep a close eye on him, to keep him safe from potential harm, but the most frustrating thing was that Modrić never seemed to need the protection. He was quick to intercept attacks and even quicker to evade them, and the defender´s protective hovering seemed to irritate him more than anything else. Still, their constant proximity lead to an increasing rate of communication between them, and it didn´t take Marcelo long to realise that he had begun to think of the other man as a good friend, and from there it was a tiny step towards the next stage.
Marcelo knew he was screwed on the day Luka jumped at him to celebrate Isco´s latest goal, vibrant and laughing despite his exhaustion. He experienced a brief moment of terror because he had not been ready for the additional weight, but Luka was a wiry little thing, wrapping slender arms around his shoulders and squeezing them for all he was worth, and Marcelo wanted to keep him there, wanted to hold his friend close and shield him from the world. The moment was over as soon as it came, but Marcelo could not forget that feeling.
He refused to panic. He told himself that he had neglected his love life, and the lack of women had begun to affect him. That the Croat with his slim stature and longish hair just fit into the picture a little better than his other team mates, and that the feeling would go away over time.
It did not, but by the time Marcelo acknowledged this, he had reached a point beyond caring. However, he needed to make sure the feeling hadn´t been a one-timer, born from their shared moment of triumph.
“Swap jerseys with Case”, he told Luka at half-time of their friendly. A Croatian player whose name escaped him threw him a strange look, and Luka shrugged.
“Sure. Any particular reason?”
“Let´s call it an experiment.”
True to his word, Luka approached Casemiro after the match, and the stocky Brazilian obliged him. It took some less than subtle hints from Marcelo about how not wearing the thing would be an insult to their friend to get him to slip the shirt over his head. Marcelo´s hard work had paid off, and as the sight of Luka in a jersey that almost went down to his knees filled him with a rush of amazement, another emotion started to filter in. Belatedly, Marcelo identified it as possessiveness.
“Are you alright?” Luka asked him, tugging at the collar of his shirt to cover more of his exposed collar bone. Marcelo stared at the stretch of pale skin, and his eyes must have given him away, because Luka was already squinting again, something he always did when he was irritated. “Marcelo?”
“Yup, no, everything´s fine. Peachy, yeah.”
The midfielder´s squint intensified, but Marcelo was too busy ogling him to react in a more reassuring way.
Marcelo had his confirmation, but he could not bring himself to actively do something about it until Gareth Bale joined their team. Bale, coming from Luka´s ex-club and having played with him for several years, could be constantly found at the Croat´s side, and jealousy soared within Marcelo every time he had to listen to them happily conversing in their wretched English. They looked good together as well, Bale with his strong, handsome features and Luka, sharp and elfin.
“You don´t really like Gareth” Luka observed during one of their afternoon training sessions. “Why?”
Marcelo was not ready to answer that question honestly. “What? No, I like him alright.”
“Is that so?” Luka looked doubtful, reaching out to steady himself on Marcelo for a stretching exercise, and the defender suppressed a shiver when a slim hand landed on his shoulder. “You never talk to him.”
“Hey, it´s not like he speaks Spanish, not to mention Portuguese” Marcelo defended himself.
“So what, you suddenly forgot how to talk in English?” Luka frowned, obviously not buying Marcelo´s excuse. “That´s not like you.”
“Alright, I may have-… some reservations about your friend Bale.”
“Gareth.”
“Gareth. But I´d rather not talk about it. In any case, I´ll work on it. I´m-… sorry, I´m sure he´s a great guy.”
“If you say so.”
And Marcelo actually made a conscious effort to exchange a few friendly words with the Welshman every time they crossed paths, which happened quite often considering he regularly sought out Luka. To his surprise, the sting of seeing them together lessened as he got to know Gareth, but it never completely faded.
He decided that he finally had to talk to someone about his problem. There were not many people he trusted with this particular issue, Pepe being the most likely candidate to keep it to himself, so Marcelo went to him to spill his guts.
“I don´t know” Marcelo complained over an inch of tequila, “Luka is… Luka is one of the most amazing people I´ve ever met. The way he plays, he´s so calm and precise, I could watch him all day. And he´s just… so small, y´know? I just wanna-… hug him and keep him safe and maybe mess up his hair and spend all my time with him, right?”
“Sounds like you´ve got a crush” Pepe said slowly.
“I know, that´s the strangest part. I´m not gay, at least I don´t think so. But Luka, I don´t know.”
“Well, it´s not that much of a stretch” his friend grinned. “He looks like a girl anyway, so your honour is saved.”
“He does! Think about how far he´s come in the football business looking like that! How badass is that?”
“Right.”
Marcelo waved his hand impatiently. “But what do I do about him? Should I tell him what I just told you?”
“Maybe not in these exact words-…”
“No, I probably shouldn´t. It would ruin our team dynamic.”
“Stop thinking about the team for a second and listen.” Pepe set down his glass carefully. “You´ve been having these feelings for, what, four years now? Five? Dude, there comes a time when a man´s gotta own up. You don´t want to be miserable forever, right? And you should start thinking about your own happiness for a change. I know how much you´ve given for the team. We can handle it. Not that there would be much to handle. You two would be so disgustingly cute.”
“You could be right” Marcelo sighed. “But he is also my friend, and I don´t want to ruin what we already have.”
“I think you should take that risk” his friend told him. “I can´t imagine Luka ending your friendship just because you have a little crush. Or a large one, but no need to mention that until you make headway.”
“Headway.” Marcelo snorted helplessly and then put down his glass, deciding that he probably had enough. “That´s hilarious, dude.”
Despite his lingering doubts, their talk had given him the push he needed to take the next step. He started off small, put extra effort in his jokes to make Luka smile, which was a difficult thing to achieve. His default expression was reminiscent of a traumatized deer, and when he was not frowning at the world´s general antics, he assumed a look of careful alertness. Marcelo almost wished he had fallen for a more cheerful man, not that there was much he could do about it now. But as he also enjoyed a challenge, Marcelo counted every smile as a victory. The foundation had been laid out over the years, and now it was time to build upon it.
He had thought thoroughly about his approach, but he couldn´t have predicted Luka´s reaction towards the next step of his plan to win him over. It was just a little note neatly folded and placed in his friend´s shoe where he was sure to find it. They were due to another training session that day, all of them gathered in the changing room, and Marcelo carefully cultivated a neutral expression when Luka picked up his stuff and the note fell out. He picked it up and unfolded it, face blanching as he read the scribbled lines. Hastily crunching the note, Luka stuffed it in his pocket, shoulders hunched and lips pressed together in a thin line.
Whatever Marcelo had been hoping for, it certainly wasn´t this. “Quick” he slapped Sergio´s shoulder to get his attention, “ask Luka what´s wrong.”
“What, why?”
“Dude, just-… help me out here.”
“Hey, Lukita, you alright?” Sergio called out before Luka could flee the locker room.
“Yes” the Croat nodded, still with a haunted look in his eyes that Marcelo desperately wanted to erase, “it´s fine.” He hurriedly left, and the defenders stared after him.
“O… kay?” Sergio shrugged and turned to Marcelo. “There you have it.”
“You-… Argh.” Marcelo stumbled after Luka, still trying to look innocuous. He should have picked Nacho to ask instead. The man could really pry information out of a guy.
“Luka, wait!” When he caught up to his friend, Luka had already put his trademark look of polite confusion back on his face. “What was that just now?”
“Hm?”
“You didn´t look so good.”
“I don´t know what you´re talking about” Luka said stubbornly, and Marcelo cursed him for his lack of cooperation. It was one of the reasons why he knew so little of his colleague even after so many years. The man knew how to build a wall.
“Come on, man” Marcelo practically begged, “just tell me. I´m kinda worried here.”
Luka stared at him for a moment, and whatever calculation went on inside his head, it must have turned out in Marcelo´s favour, because he drew the note out of his pocket and offered it to his friend. Marcelo took it carefully. “What´s this?” he asked, pretending not to know about the message.
“It was in my locker. Read it.”
Marcelo smoothed the worst crinkles from the paper and let his eyes wander over the lines. “Okay. Someone wanted to wish you a good day. That´s not so bad, is it?”
The midfielder´s hands were clenching and unclenching anxiously, and Marcelo really started to get nervous as well. “Is it?”
“I have-…” Luka´s mouth snapped shut when Casemiro passed them in the hallway, nodding a greeting before advancing towards the training grounds. “Not here.” He tugged him towards an empty room a few doors down, letting the door fall shut behind them. It was very quiet all of a sudden, until Luka decided to speak up.
“I get… things sometimes. Letters, pictures, like that. I don´t know who is sending them, so I cannot really stop it.”
“Letters? What do they say?” Marcelo asked, curiosity winning over his growing dread.
Luka smiled thinly. “They´re not usually so nice as this”, he gestured towards the note in Marcelo´s hand. “But at least they don´t appear in my locker, either. My agent usually passes the stuff along to me.”
“What do you mean, not so nice?” Marcelo insisted, unable to comprehend Luka´s claim. “Is somebody hurling insults at you? I´ve gotten a letter like that once. Some crazy Barca fan, I´ll bet.”
“No, it´s not that. They´re not insults. In a way, they´re… compliments?”
“Like what?”
The Croat reluctantly fished his phone from his pocket. “If I show you what I mean, will you keep it to yourself? I´d like to keep this quiet.”
“Of course.” Marcelo nodded instantly.
“I took some pictures for the police, right-… Here´s one.” He shrugged when Marcelo looked up at him at the mention of the police with shock written on his face, almost forgetting to take the phone from Luka.
Luka had snapped several shots of different pages and objects that Marcelo couldn´t identify on the tiny screen, but the letter Luka selected with a tap on the display was written in neutral black script. In Spanish as well, and Marcelo was grateful he didn´t have to fight his way through English or, God forbid, ask Luka for a translation of some obscure Croatian message.
“This just says-… I like the way you play. Seems nice enough… Hang on-… I want to play with you?” Marcelo lifted an eyebrow as he scrolled through the text, the other one following immediately, his voice getting higher by the second. “I could watch you all day, but what about the night? Dude, that´s-… I can make you scream-… He-… She? Wants to what?”
“It´s a man” Luka said with terrifying certainty, “I´m sure. The other letters are more, how do you say? Explicit.”
“That´s terrible. That´s disgusting! Who-… That´s sick!” Marcelo ruffled his hair in stunned disbelief.
“Because it is a man who sends this?”
“No! No, I mean, it would still mean the same coming from a woman. But who in their right mind would do that to a stranger? Unless you´re into it-… which you´ve made pretty clear you aren´t” Marcelo hurried to add when Luka slapped the back of his head. “How long has this been happening?”
“Maybe two months, or a little more.”
“Hang on, two months? You´ve had a stalker for two months and you didn´t tell me?” Marcelo felt like all the aggravation he had missed by not knowing about the situation was catching up to him all at once.
“I don´t like to gossip about my private life” Luka was getting agitated as well, and in Marcelo´s opinion he was directing his anger at the wrong person.
“That´s not gossiping, that´s-… I need to know about these things. We all do! You could be in serious danger. If that guy decides to do something about this, this obsession, then we´ll need to be prepared. I don´t know, you need personal security, or-… or a weapon maybe-…”
“I´m not carrying around any weapons” the midfielder told him.
“But you might-…”
“No.”
Marcelo wanted to argue, but then he remembered a conversation from a while back. They had been talking about the days before their careers took flight, and while Marcelo´s childhood hadn´t precisely been easy, it seemed like paradise compared to what Luka had gone through in his war-torn home country. If you grew up watching what weapons could do to your people, your family, you either took up arms yourself or swore off them, and Luka was peaceful by nature.
“I still think it might help to have a means of defending yourself” the defender mumbled sulkily but had to concede that it would probably better not to add that particular variable to the gaping mess of a situation. Still, the worst-case scenario could mean that Luka had to face the potential threat alone, and suddenly Marcelo wished his friend was taller, bigger, so that he would have a better chance to escape unscathed.
“But this is new” Luka said, waving the note in his hand as a demonstration, “he´s never done that before.” Marcelo flinched as his friend turned to him with desperate eyes. “Isn´t there some kind of security system in this building? Aren´t they supposed to prevent people from entering without permission?”
“Luka.” Marcelo knew it was time to own up. “That note didn´t come from your stalker.”
“How do you know that?” Luka asked suspiciously.
“I wrote it.”
The Croat looked taken aback. “You? Why would you write me a note like that?”
Marcelo´s brain went into overdrive. After what Luka had revealed to him, Marcelo knew that the last thing he needed was probably another guy with the hots for him. However, he didn´t want to lie about the whole thing, not after Luka had been so honest. “Dude, I think this is the worst possible time to explain that. You´ve got a crazy person harassing you and shit, I don´t think you need to hear that right now.”
“Okay, now I´m really curious” Luka said with half a smile, but his eyes had widened.
“I´d really rather wait-…”
“Marcelo.” Luka stared at him, and Marcelo knew he had lost before he could even begin to fight. “Please.”
“I really like you” he blurted out. “And no, not just in a friend-likes-friend kinda way. I was trying to get you used to the idea slowly, hence that note. I didn´t know how fucked up that plan really was. I mean, really, a stalker? Who are we, Beyoncé and friends? Who´d even-… Never mind. The point is, I like you-… I already said that, didn´t I? But I don´t want you to hate me just because of that, because I also like us being friends.”
Luka was quiet for a moment. “You were right”, he said eventually, “that probably wasn´t the best moment to tell me. It´s kind of weird now.”
“Hey now” Marcelo protested, “you were the one begging me to tell you with your… I don´t know, with your face.”
“With my face.” That didn´t seem to impress Luka terribly.
“Yes. Your face is its own kind of weapon.”
“… Was that supposed to be a compliment?”
“… Yes.”
“You should practise more.”
“Ugh, I will-… Wait, what?” Marcelo gaped at him. If he had correctly interpreted Luka´s advice… “Like, practise on you?”
“You might.” Luka seemed more amused than anything, but Marcelo knew him well enough to notice the hints of insecurity in his expression, from the way his fingers drummed against his thigh to the nervous wrinkle between his eyebrows.
“Does that mean… You don´t hate me because I have a crush on you?” Marcelo asked, not quite able to believe that it should be so easy.
“Of course not. You are a good man, Marcelo, and a good friend as well. I feel… honoured by your interest.” Luka picked his words carefully, but his reaction did not seem like an upcoming rejection to Marcelo, especially not after the next few sentences that actually made him clear his throat in giddy embarrassment. “And you are very handsome as well. I wouldn´t mind having a closer relationship with you. But you have to bear in mind…”
He started to wring his hands together, fingertips still dancing madly. “I might not be able to make the best decisions right now. I don´t know how the situation with the letter person will develop, and the last thing I want is for you to get hurt in the process. If we get together, you could become a target, and if all goes well and he is stopped, I could still be too insecure for you to want to be around as someone who´ll have to be the support.”
“Luka, you have to know that even if it wouldn´t work out, I´d still be there for you as a friend. What, do you seriously think I´d abandon you in all of this? I´d abandon anyone? You´re shaking your head, but you have to ask yourself whether you mean it. Do you really trust me to be that support? Because I will be, if you let me.” It was probably the most heartfelt speech Marcelo had delivered in a while, and while he would have laughed if the dialogue had played out in front of him on a screen, it all seemed deadly serious now. “Besides, it´d pain me just as much if you got hurt, and that´s not something you can avoid by not letting this-… us… happen.”
The Croat opened his mouth, but whatever he had been about to say was interrupted by the door slamming open. Both men flinched at the noise, and Isco stuck his head through the doorway.
“There you are. Half the team is looking for you. What´s taking you so long?”
“Alright, alright, we´ll be right there” Luka told him, taking his phone back from Marcelo who realised he was still clutching it. “Thank you, Marcelo, you´ve given me a lot to think about. I´ll get back to you. I promise.” He followed Isco through the door, and Marcelo was left standing alone in an empty room with renewed hope and a heap of worries.