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Let’s just say, for the sake of things, that Cristiano Ronaldo didn’t come to the 2007 Ballon d’Or ceremonies. Let’s pretend he’d fallen ill with a particularly nasty case of pneumonia and had to miss it, and he sent his regards to Kaka from a hospital bed in Manchester. Let’s say, for the sake of things, that Cristiano Ronaldo’s first meeting with the superstar they called Lionel Messi was on 23 April 2008 in front of the Camp Nou…
…
No one knows exactly how it works, but when you meet your soulmate, you glow. Leo’s seen it happen in front of him. When he was a kid, he saw two people crash into each other--literally, crash--and then they went up in lights. He thought for a second her chest might burst open like a firework, that’s how bright it was. He was only four years old, but it was beautiful. He dreamed that it’d happen to him someday.
He’s had a lot of dreams over the years of how it’d happen. Sometimes, it’d be in the streets of Barcelona. Sometimes, it’d be everywhere else in Spain, from Madrid amongst the enemy to Valencia to Bilbao. It’d be on a bus, on a train, flying back to Argentina. The dreams are never the same, not once, and he’s had so many of them that they all begin to run together. The person in his dream, however, always looks the same.
They are a shadow.
He’s never seen a face on his dreamed soulmate. He’s asked his teammates repeatedly, “what do you think it all means?” and they never have an answer. None of them ever had dreams like Leo‘s. Maybe, he thinks, it’s because he wants one so badly that it’s begun to meddle his brain.
“You’ll be okay,” Iniesta had told him, clapping him on the shoulder. “These things take time. They aren’t instant.” But Leo doesn’t feel like waiting anymore. He wants it to happen soon, and when he wanders out in public he sometimes thinks about whether or not it might happen that day. When he takes pictures with Barcelona fans, he wonders.
When he isn’t thinking about football, all he really does is wonder.
…
Cristiano doesn’t have a clue who his soulmate might be, but when he does think about it he hopes she can keep up with him about football. He hopes he’s beautiful, a Manchester United fan, and funny. Funny is good.
He’s never actually seen two soulmates glow. He saw a recreation of it some animator created for the sake of education. He saw someone compare the sparklers he lit on Guy Fawkes’ Night to the lights of two soulmates coming together. He doesn’t understand what’s so cool about it, honestly, and if it’s going to happen he only hopes it isn’t someone he hates.
He can’t help but hope every time a new player arrives at United that it’ll happen then, and he won’t have to feel weird about rivalries and stuff, but it never does. There’s not much he can be certain of with soulmates, but he feels pretty confident that it’ll at least be a guy in his case. If it’s not, honestly, he doesn’t really care.
He isn’t that desperate for a soulmate, after all, he just kinda wants to get it over with.
Everyone tells him there’s nothing he can do but wait. Nani tells him to be careful what he wishes for. He tries to ignore the flutter of nervousness in his chest whenever he talks to someone new. His teammate’s right. He shouldn’t be so desperate, so he isn’t.
He just ignores it.
…
23 April 2008
“The Camp Nou is so loud,” Nani whines.
Cristiano stares at himself a few times in the mirror, adjusting his uniform so it fits just right, and tries to ignore the din outside. Nani’s right, the noise is deafening.
“As long as we win,” Cristiano mumbles. Nani snorts.
“What have we got to worry about?” he says. “Besides, you know, that mob out there. What a group.”
Cristiano rolls his eyes. “As long as I don’t have to defend anything.”
“Tell Rio to keep those bastards in line,” comes Carrick’s clever remark, and Nani chuckles. Cristiano just tries to fix his hair.
“Why are you so nervous?” Nani asks. “You’re a superstar. Better than some FC Barcelona. Forget about them. Glory, glory, Man United, and all that.”
Cristiano laughs. “I’ve never played somewhere like this is all,” he says. He doesn’t know why his palms feel so sweaty, but he tries to reason the best he can that it’s the very atmosphere of the Camp Nou that has him on his toes. It’s true, he’s never played anywhere quite like this before. He puts on his game face. Smile so big they think he’s arrogant. Go out, and win.
“Seriously, Cris, don’t be so nervous,” Nani says, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “You don’t need to stress. There’s nothing to worry about, we know you can do fine. We’re all just as ready to win as you are, don’t feel like you need to score because everyone expects you to.”
“But I’m Cristiano Ronaldo,” he chirps, “frontrunner for the Ballon d’Or.” Both of them laugh, but it barely eases Cristiano’s unexplainable nervousness, and all Cristiano can think is why?
“You’ll score more than enough this year for some golden ball,” Nani says. “Like you even need it to prove how good you are. Enough of that mess, really.”
The rest of the players are slowly leaving the locker room, and it’s just the two of them left staring at Cristiano in the mirror. Cristiano takes a deep breath and smile.
“I have this,” he says. Nani nods his head in approval.
“Of course you do,” he says, “dumbass. Now, let’s go out there and get them.”
…
Leo is being carried around the dressing room like a baby, and if it weren’t Andres and Xavi he’d probably protest a lot louder. Instead, he’s resigned himself to being passed about like a toy, as long as they promise not to drop him or anything. He can hear Puyol laughing while trying to talk to the younger players about not being nervous, and it eases his nerves.
Something about this game has his confidence up.
The game’s not set to start for another few minutes, but he’s already fully dressed from his kit to his shoes. He’s not wasting any time today, because he’s ready to go out and win.
“You’ll score, won’t you, Leo?” Andres asks, walking around the room with Leo in his arms. He greets a few of the younger players as he walks, and Leo laughs.
“I’ll do my best,” he says. “For the glory of Barcelona.”
“Good, good,” Andres says. He keeps walking, almost in circles, and clicks his teeth thoughtfully. “Leo Messi for Ballon d’Or.”
Leo blushes. “No, stop that,” he grumbles. “I didn’t even come close to winning.”
“Behind the rather dashing Kaka and that kid we’re playing today,” Xavi interrupts, scooping Leo out of Andres’ arms and tossing him over his shoulder. Leo’s head smacks against Xavi’s back with a whoomph as the air rushes out of him and he protests weakly with a moan.
“Lionel Messi for Ballon d’Or,” he declares.
“You’re going to drop me on my face,” Leo says. His tone is unrepentantly whiny. “Come on, Xavi, this is rude.”
Carles is finally kind enough to intervene.
“Don’t hold him like that, you’ll hurt him,” he says, smacking Xavi on the back of the head. Leo tries to look up and seem grateful but he can’t see because his face is smushed into Xavi’s back.
Someone grabs him again and, after a moment of vertigo, he’s steady on his feet again. Carles is the one who saved him. He smiles gratefully at him and tries to adjust his uniform again. He’s got the same pre-match jitters as always, but today feels confident. He’s got faith in himself and his team.
As always.
“You ready, Leo?” Andres asks, and the forward in question just nods.
They walk into the tunnel.
…
They all file out onto the field as normal, line up, wait for the handshakes. He’d gotten a lecture on being less nervous twice already from Sir Alex, and again from Nani in the tunnel. His teammates seem to have picked up on his jitters, and they all keep sending him reassuring--if a bit teasing--glances as they pass him by. He admits, it helps, but the roaring in the background is still a bit distracting for him.
“The Camp Nou is so loud,” he mouths to Nani, who nods.
Then Tevez pushes him and they’re moving down the line to shake hands.
The Spain players all smile kindly at him. He can see that kid from the Ballon d’Or ceremony towards the end, smiling like he has no sense, and he wonders if the kid will beat him for the award this year. He almost wishes he could have met the guy at the ceremony, but illness is a bitch.
He snickers, and goes to shake his hand, and something weird happens.
It feels for a moment like a bubbling in his chest, like something rippling, and he looks down into the startled eyes of this kid and realizes that he’s just as startled, and he sees Messi’s eyes lock on his chest before something explodes.
There’s light, everywhere, and something comes back to him--it’ll look like that sparkler you’re holding, you know: bright and glowing and bursting out of you before you’re even aware of what’s going on. The line has stopped, the Camp Nou has gone entirely silent, and he’s staring into the eyes of a startled Barcelona player who doesn’t seem to have fully comprehended what’s happening.
Light is dancing from Lionel Messi’s chest just like a firework, and Cristiano doesn’t have to look down to know the same’s happening to him. The light is so bright, and he can’t stop staring. Messi looks stunned. Cristiano almost wants to laugh.
He’s soulmates with Lionel fucking Messi.
Then it clicks with him that this just happened in front of the cameras, in front of the entire Camp Nou, which went silent so quickly that he almost forgot they were there. The light’s beginning to dim from a bright, flashing mess to a warm glow. Messi reaches out for the light like he doesn’t understand why it’s there. Cristiano almost flinches away, but he forces himself not to. Messi’s just as stunned as he is, clearly.
“Lionel Messi,” Cristiano says. “I’m Cristiano Ronaldo.”
Messi’s face is expressionless. “I know.”
…
When Leo starts going through the line, shaking hands, smiling, he doesn’t even think about the soulmates thing. Why would he? It was almost game time. There wasn’t any time to think about anything but football--anything but Barcelona. So when he touches Cristiano Ronaldo, he wonders for a moment if he’s daydreaming.
There’s a bubble in his chest and suddenly this pretty boy Portuguese forward standing in front of him just bursts into beaming light--so bright he wonders if it’s even real.
And then he remembers when he was four, back in Argentina, and he knows there’s no way on earth that what he’s witnessing isn’t real.
His soulmate is a guy, and not just any guy but Cristiano Ronaldo, and in five minutes he’ll be expected to face him in a competitive match. In all the years he’d dreamed of finding his soulmate, it’d never once happened like this.
The entire stadium is quiet. He feels so self-conscious of everything that he wonders if he might explode due to sudden embarrassment, so he locks his eyes on Ronaldo’s chest. That beaming light.
For a moment, he wonders if it’s even what he wanted, but then he stops. He realizes, this is my other half, and his heartbeat speeds up. Even if it is Cristiano Ronaldo.
Then the light fades to a glow, and before he can stop himself he reaches out to touch it before it disappears, and Ronaldo lets him. There they are, certainly a sight to see, glowing in front of the entire world, and Leo wants to laugh because it certainly wasn’t as climactic as he perhaps expected it to be.
Ronaldo shuffles a little awkwardly, and the stadium fills with shocked chatter, and no one else on either team seems to know exactly what to do.
“Lionel Messi,” says Ronaldo. “I’m Cristiano Ronaldo.”
Leo refuses to change his expression. He doesn’t know how to feel about this, honestly. He just murmurs the only thing he knows how to say.
“I know.”
That’s when Carles finally gets brave enough to do something, to break the awkward tension that everyone on the pitch is feeling right now, and claps his hand on Ronaldo’s shoulder. All the confidence Leo was feeling five minutes ago has melted into shock. So much for being confident, he thinks.
“Um,” Ronaldo says. “I’m sorry, I think we caused a crisis.” He looks at Leo with a small smile, and offers his hand again. Leo feels weird taking it, as if they’re beyond handshakes already, but he’s glad that Ronaldo doesn’t try anything funny. He doesn’t think he could handle much more without fainting.
“Could I borrow him for a second?” Carles asks, and it takes Leo a moment to realize he’s the one being asked, and he nods wordlessly. Messi steps back, not really wanting to but needing to breathe, and looks around for Andres or Xavi. Both of them come over together.
“Are you…are you good, Leo?” Andres asks. “You look…in pain.”
“This is all I ever wanted,” Leo whispers. “Besides Barcelona. I never expected it to happen like this.”
“Of course you didn’t,” Xavi says. “No one ever expects this soulmates shit. You’ll be okay, Leo, think about it. Now you have someone you can talk to about football.”
Leo frowns. “I didn’t even realize I liked men,” he whispered.
Andres gives him a thumbs up. “Well, congratulations on being gay!” he says jokingly, and Leo tries to level him with a stare. It doesn’t work. Xavi starts laughing, too.
“Come on, Leo,” he says. “He’s your soulmate. You’ll be happy.”
Leo sighs. “I can only hope.”
…
When Puyol grabs him, Cristiano is half-expecting to get his ass kicked. Instead, he sees Puyol speak to Messi in the kindest tone he’s ever heard, and he sees Messi step back. Iniesta and Xavi run over to him, start talking to him, and the little Argentine forward looks like he’s going to fall out.
“You’ll take good care of him,” Puyol says. “Right?”
Cristiano nods, resisting any urge to be a smartass, because Puyol hasn’t kicked his ass yet and he’d rather it stay that way.
“And,” he continues. “You’ll love him, right?”
Cristiano blinks a few times. Messi is his soulmate. He knows the full implications of that.
“He’s my soulmate,” Cristiano murmurs, repeating his own thoughts, and he smiles. “I’ll love him.”
Puyol seems happy with this answer. “I’ll give you to your teammates,” he says. “They’re looking ready to intervene.” Cristiano looks over his shoulder and tries to smile reassuredly at all the nervous, uncertain faces.
“This match must go on,” Cristiano yells. “Scholesy?”
Scholes grins. “Of course, Ronny,” he says. “Glory, glory, Man United.”
Cristiano looks back at Messi, who’s still looking a bit shellshocked, and smiles. Messi smiles back, finally looking less than unhappy with the situation, and Cristiano finally feels ready to play this match. He won’t let a bit of soulmate drama keep him from playing his best, and he hopes Messi can do the same thing. He hopes that, afterwards, they’ll have real time to talk.
The managers, Iniesta, and Carrick are talking to the refs now, and the rest of the teams are trying to salvage the situation. He already knows Nani will go back to England and laugh about how Barcelona gave them the strangest handshake he’s ever experienced.
Cristiano will probably hit him a few times before the end of it all.
…
The game ends 0-0 and at the end of it, Cristiano finds Messi in the center of the pitch and kisses him dead on the lips before his courage goes away and he can’t bring himself to do it. Messi freezes for a moment and Cristiano pulls away, looking for something other than nervous resignation in Messi’s eyes. Messi looks confused.
“We just met,” he says, looking frantic, “I--”
“We’re soulmates,” Cristiano says, shrugging. “I wanted to see how it felt.”
Messi goes silent, looking down in thought, and when he looks up again he seems more determined somehow.
“We’re soulmates,” he says, smiling. “You’re right. We’ll have to learn about each other eventually, right?”
Cristiano smiles. “Yeah, we will,” he says. “So call me Cristiano. Or give me some dumb nickname, like my idiot teammates.”
Messi laughs. “You mean, like Ronny?”
Cristiano rolls his eyes. “That.”
“I’ll call you Cristiano,” Messi says, “but you have to call me Leo.”
Cristiano nods. “Deal.”
And he knows he probably shouldn’t, because they’ve only just met, but he can’t help but to kiss Leo again.