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His arms around Brahim feel like the warmth of the sun.
As a kid, he’d loved the sun, loved it to death, the way the light warmed his skin and prickled at his arms and the nape of his neck. The way it sucked the color out of his hair, chestnut to toffee, like someone had spilt milk into coffee. How it melted ice-cream down his arm and into his sleeve, raised miffs in his family because he’d stayed out too late (collecting dust in the streets), sprinkled freckles across the pert bridge of his nose.
How he’d wanted to stay in it forever.
Though he’s older now, more hardened towards the superficial pleasures of life, he finds he still does.
He presses closer, closer, somehow wanting to become one. Feels the way Theo breathes him in, the motion stuttering a bit with how tightly Brahim has him held – and surely nothing more, surely he isn’t crying, he never cries.
Theo throws his head back and laughs. It seems he does little else around Brahim.
He doesn’t mind.
(No, he loves it. He does it all to hear it over and over and over again.)
He doesn’t mind at all, not even when Theo’s surely laughing at him; not in amusement, but more so pity than anything else, shaking his head in a motion that Brahim really tries to see as fond.
The thing is, he doesn’t know, doesn’t know Theo enough to say for certain how he means it, doesn’t know the thought behind the action or the intent behind the words.
In fact, he barely knows him at all – he’s on loan, and whenever he visits it’s like he’s barely even there before he’s leaving all over again, a spirit of the club walking among them in white.
But he’s in cahoots with the big names. Everyone always seems to know who he is: their golden boy they claim to love (but still gave away in lieu of his weight’s worth in Sociedad’s gold. Football, Brahim thinks, is very unfair.)
Of course, he’s Lucas’ little brother; of course, Lucas from Atlético, they say, pat him on the back and kiss his cheek the French way.
San Sebastián is a long way from Madrid, all the way by the sea, all the way at the Biscay Bay. Closer to home.
(The other thing is, Brahim is maybe just a little jealous. Of what exactly, he doesn’t know.)
The white Madrid kit matches Theo’s teeth perfectly, bared in a grin that makes his eyes crinkle endearingly bright.
(Brahim has an embarrassing habit of sharing stories he’s fond of with people he’s fond of, and this is really no different, save for the fact that he has little reason to be.)
“Sorry,” Brahim says. He ducks his head sheepishly. “I talk too much.”
(Brahim also has an embarrassing habit of apologizing when he doesn’t have or mean to, and this is really no different, not even for the fact that he has little reason to be.)
“I like hearing your stories.”
Brahim can’t help but feel naive at how quickly he hears the honesty in his words, but remembers them anyway.
His arms are starting to go blissfully numb from their spot around Theo’s ribs and stomach. He can hear his heart, stammering in his chest, every unsaid word and sentiment filling it so that Brahim can nearly feel it overflow, like the plastic-yellow bucket he and his cousins had used to build sandcastles beneath the Spanish sky. If he closes his eyes and imagines (remembers?) hard enough, he can still feel the caress of the wind against his face, the feel of dry sand slipping through his fingers like an hour-glass.
It’s strange to see him again.
He looks older, evident in the serious furrow of his brows and the tight line of his lips, the broadness of his shoulders and the strength of his thighs. But then, he sees Brahim, and his face breaks into the same daft grin, like the sun blooming suddenly from between roiling, gray clouds, and Brahim suddenly sees him as he was all those years ago.
(The boyish fullness of his cheeks still stays, as well as the sparkle or mirth in his eyes. Brahim, truthfully, is very glad to find he still knows him somewhat, that he kept the parts of his old self that he’d thought he’d known. The moment he steps onto the turf of Milanello, he’s met with an armful of Theo and a force nearly enough to tip him over.)
He’s happier here, the heart of the team (“Family, Brahim, family”) – they welcome him well, and, for once in his life, Brahim doesn’t feel the bitterness of disbelonging.
It’s a strange accustomation. Now, Theo’s worth just as much as he thinks, has lost that endearing, cocky streak to him that initially drew Brahim in. The turn is evident. Fool’s gold to the real thing, hardened and cold, but, at the very same time, pliable if done right.
(Brahim is determined to do it right.)
He’s scared to move, scared to breathe, to shatter the moment into a million tiny shards at their feet.
He doesn’t know when they’d become who they were now – probably not overnight, not even spread out over a weekend, per se.
What he does know is that it well and truly crept up on him – yet it’s as easy as breathing, only so natural that he hadn’t even really noticed.
Weeks, months of molding themselves and each other to best fit, until they were much less two people than two sides of a whole.
(It works well. Stellar, on and off the pitch. Full moon and eclipse. He’s not sure which is which.)
When he’d finally, finally faced just how subject they’d become to each other, he’d cried himself to sleep, caught up in the tragedy and vast expanse of it all.
(He’s not scared now, finally able to lift Theo from the pedestal his young self had stuck him on; he’d been out of place there then, (and, ironically, belongs on one now, yet now Brahim knows him like the palm of his hand, each crease holding a different aspect to Theo; he can’t bring himself to idolize him now, at least not in that sense.) too lanky to fit and not shiny enough, rough and unpolished.)
Theo rests his chin on the top of his head.
“We did it,” Theo says, the golden trophy reflecting in his eyes as they lean in to kiss it. “We did it, Brahimino.”
Lips meet cool metal, hands meet hands.
The sticky, sweet smell of champagne.
A promise of more to come.
To have won so much and somehow lose even more is almost beyond him.
It feels like a death in the making.