Archive of Our Own

The sun glints against Gavi’s eyes.

He has to squint just to see Xavi’s hazy outline against the orange sky, blinking past the momentary pain. The haze slips from his eyelashes and onto the pitch below, everything dipped in warmth. There hasn’t been a sunset like this in months.

It feels a remnant of summer, and the preseasons that they spend in other countries. It feels different every time; the streets, the language. But there are always those brilliant sunsets, grand and expansive, the kind that make you pause for a second and demand that you notice them.

Pedri always points them out. On late bus rides, or at the very end of long training sessions, when they lay flat on the pitch and pretend that the grass underneath them doesn’t itch at the back of their necks while they fight to catch their breath. He says they’re pretty, but the ones in Tenerife are better— that Gavi has to come with him one day to see for himself. And Gavi always just nods and tries to blink away the spots from his vision.

Sometimes, he doesn’t even say anything. Gavi will catch him looking off on his own, neck tilted ever so slightly, and gaze just far-off enough for him to know Pedri isn’t listening to whoever’s talking. And then he’ll glance up too, just to see what could possibly be that captivating.

Gavi doesn’t spend a lot of his time looking up, but he can’t remember the last time he’s done it since Pedri’s been injured.

Pedri would say he should pay more attention to the world around him. Ferran would say he spends most of his time looking up at 173cm.

It’s hard to pay attention to what Xavi’s saying. Something about the upcoming group stages. He should be listening but he’s tired, and his legs are sore, and the pillowy clouds behind Xavi are too much to tear his gaze away from right now.

He makes sure to snap a picture before leaving the pitch. Sends it to Pedri without a message.

Gavi bites the inside of his cheek when the text goes through, the question of whether he’s even allowed to do this tugging at the back of his mind.

They aren’t fighting. They don’t fight. Not really, at least. Bickering over video games and practical jokes during training doesn’t count. They’ve never fought in a way that matters. Pedri’s too attentive for it, too averse to confrontation, too familiar with all the quiet ways that Gavi feels. And Gavi— he’s always quick to do as he’s told, always ready to bend over backward when it comes to Pedri.

So he doesn’t know why it feels like they're fighting now. If it’s even possible to fight without speaking.

It confuses him. He’s the first to admit that he’s never been good at understanding relationships— if whatever exists between them can even fall under that category. For as deeply as he feels, he’s not good at expressing it.

They aren’t fighting, but they aren’t alright either.

When he tries to figure out when this started, this weird distance, this newfound hesitation he feels whenever he goes to instinctively call out for Pedri, it feels like hitting a dead end.

Gavi catches him frowning to himself in the reflection of his car window. It’s a little pathetic, the way he’s moping like an aggrieved boyfriend when he’s not, because that’s not what they are. He doesn’t know if he’s even allowed to want that.

———

The season always picks up by September, but this year all he has is time to think. Ruminating just comes with the territory.

It’s a nasty habit, and a hard one to kick. Although not nearly as hard as some of the other vices that footballers use to forget their problems.

It’s why he’s thankful to have Fermin around, who’s made it easier to get through training, always offering to be a drill partner, or spotter, or just a shoulder to lean on because he’s always been kind like that, even when they were younger. Gavi appreciates it, has sorely missed his friend from the youth teams since moving up to the first squad.

But for as much as Fermin, and even Lamine or Alejandro or any of the other La Masia boys give him company, he can’t stop his thoughts from drifting. From being aware of the fact that so many of his old friends are training with the first team because of their injured bench, because of Frenkie, and Lewy, and—

Gavi tenses his jaw instinctively. Fermin shoots him a bewildered look when he suddenly starts sulking.

“What’s the matter,” He asks without missing a beat.

Gavi shakes his head. “‘S nothing.” He catches the unconvinced look on his friend’s face and hastily follows up. “There was another article. The usual things, calling me a foul-merchant and a brat. Nothing I’m not used to.”

“That’s bullshit,” Fermin shakes his head. “You know that.”

“Yeah, it’s just- I don’t want to hear it sometimes,” Gavi lies through his teeth.

Fermin knocks him on the shoulder, with a grin so genuine that it makes Gavi feel a little guilty. “Ignore it and keep going. As long as you have your kit on your back, you’re doing something right.”

Gavi doesn’t have the heart to tell him that ignoring is the hardest part.

And if he’s being honest, his kit doesn’t really belong to him. Not like it did when he was younger. There are hundreds of identical ones clustered in the stadium with him every week in the Estadi Olímpic. His body, his victories— they don’t belong to him either.

He gave those up the day he moved up from La Masia. They belong to the team, the greater entity he’s a part of. For as long as Barcelona has been a part of him, Gavi has put the team before himself, has known that he would put every inch of himself at risk for the sake of the ten other people on the pitch with him. The kind of passion that levels on insanity, what some people call love or obsession. Gavi isn’t romantic enough to call it that. It’s more of a sacrifice, parts of himself that he’s willing to give up to be here.

But sometimes, he does wonder. When the scathing remarks linger in his ears a little too long. When he’s done one too many photoshoots, and looked over his shoulder to find one too many cameras. He wonders what he has that really belongs to him anymore.

There’s his name. Not Gavi- Pablo.

He hasn’t been called Pablo since he was a kid. Not since he was six and there had been another boy on his football team, older and bigger than he was. His parents have even stopped, and he doesn’t speak to Aurora enough to really remember how it makes him feel.

It’s his name, his to keep even if he isn’t sure he wants it anymore. There’s Gavi, the footballer, the youngster who puts everything he has on the field and leaves it there too. And then there’s Pablo, the boy he only got to be for the parts of his life that he barely remembers.

He thinks he’ll just keep on being Gavi. He’s left parts of himself on the field so many times he’s lost count, emotions he doesn’t know how to label, faces that matter for ninety minutes of game time and then sometimes never again. What more is a name?

There’s his name, and then there’s Pedri.

Maybe it's ironic, to have a person when he can’t even label them as anything within convention. Pedri makes it so easy, though. The connection that wasn’t immediate, but stunningly obvious. Enough for outsiders to notice and mold into a narrative.

They only see half of it though, and not without caution from the both of them. They’re the young star midfielders of Barcelona, but they’re also two boys who secretly slip their hotel keycards into each other’s palms and spend hours talking about nothing, lazing in each other’s company before one of them gets impatient. Gavi can think of half a dozen matches where he’s spent the night before being kissed raw, the faint scratch of Pedri’s stubble against his chin being the only proof.

Gavi isn’t shy with his love. It takes up so much of him that it bleeds through everything he does. In his speaking, in the way he plays. Pedri gets to see so much of it that it should exhaust him and yet he pushes back twice as hard, all push and pull and pouty smiles that Gavi can’t get enough of.

It helps that Pedri has had this acute understanding of him, even from the beginning, like he can see right through Gavi and decides he wants what he sees. Because that’s how they work-- unspoken words and shared looks that say more than anything they ever could. Pedri does most of the talking between them. Pedri talks and Gavi listens. Except Pedri doesn’t want to talk to him anymore and now he doesn’t know what to do with himself.

The more he thinks about it, the more confused he gets. The boundaries, the murky lines defining what they are, have never been less clear.

It started out as just sex, if that’s even fair to say. Not as innocuous as a hookup, and not nearly as fleeting. Meeting eyes after a masterclass of a match, high off endorphins and the heavy flush on each other’s faces. Being shoved into a storage closet minutes later, having Pedri’s sweet mouth wrapped around him before he could catch his breath coming off the field, not ten meters away from their teammates in the locker room.

It’d be a lie to say it was his first time, even his first with a man. But something about Pedri and his tired eyes and sharp tongue and the tight coil of his body makes Gavi feel like he’s doing it all for the first time again, handed something tenacious and wanting that fits so perfectly between his hands that he can’t help but imagine it was made specifically for him.

He’d never come harder in his life, fingers laced in the sweat-damp curls of Pedri’s hair, holding his face flush against his hips, drinking in the sight of his glassy eyes.

It started out as just sex, but it was never just sex.

But really, Gavi’s just thinking to himself again.

———

“You don’t sound good, man.” Ansu says slowly, concern crackling through the receiver.

“Yeah,” Gavi returns, rubbing at the ache above his eye with the back of his hand.  “Haven’t been sleeping well.”

Somehow he’s gotten too used to the familiar weight of another person in his bed, solid and tangible. He misses being able to wrap his body around him, mumbling promises about keeping Pedri warm because he’s always cold even when he doesn’t complain about it. Instead, he’s left with his own too-warm body, too aware of his own pulse with nothing to ground him.

It’s for the best that Ansu can’t see him over the call. He looks just as bad as he sounds.

It was Gavi who called this time. It’s usually Gavi who calls. Ansu’s been busy ever since going on loan, still not regularly starting, but working overtime to overcome the media slump he’s been under since when he was still at Barcelona.

He calls because he’s always been prone to loneliness, even worse than a lot of the other La Masia boys. The constant coming and going, the leaving — Ansu knows to indulge him, even if the conversations are dull, because Gavi only calls when he feels a certain way, and he never feels anything slightly.

There are so many things he wants to say. There’s something fragile that lives inside of me, and I worry that if I push any harder it’ll crack right in half. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong but it always feels like I am.

“Pedri’s mad at me,” is what comes out instead. The words stick to his tongue even as he says them.

Ansu doesn’t respond right away, but the slow inhale on the other end of the phone is a response in and of itself.

“You know how he is,” It feels a bit like Ansu is talking him down from a ledge and Gavi hates it, hates how obvious it is that he’s a wreck because of this. He sounds tired. “He’s sensitive, and he’s been injured for so long. He probably just needs space.”

“I know,” Gavi whispers back.

“So?”

“Have you-” He swallows. “Have you talked to him at all?”

Ansu makes a noise of disapproval. “You’re not putting me in between this. Have you even asked him about it? Like properly, instead of moping?”

Clearly that was the wrong thing to say. Gavi doesn’t respond.

“You two need to sort your shit out.” Ansu sighs, and Gavi can feel the way he shakes his head through the receiver. His friend has never felt further away. “I don’t know how to help you, dude. Not when you can’t even tell me what you’re feeling.”

“I don’t know what I feel,” and it sounds just as pathetic out loud as it does in his head. He grimaces a little. If he could forget this whole conversation, he would.

The line goes quiet. Gavi doesn’t know why he does this to himself.

“How’s England?”

Maybe Ansu feels a little apologetic towards the wounded edge to Gavi’s voice, because he doesn’t hang up immediately.

“Cold. Lots of rain.” Ansu shrugs. “I’m just biding my time here. Doing my best so I can come back.”

Gavi nods even though Ansu can’t see him. He sounds nonchalant, but Gavi knows better. The image of Ansu’s pained expression when the club broke the news to him about the loan, the culmination of one too many unpolished performances, is burned into his mind.

And it’s hard, keeping up with this. At least in person, Gavi knows how to show that he cares. He doesn’t know what to do with all this distance, doesn’t know how to find the right words or say the right thing. Ansu sounds different too, always steadfast, but more and more frustrated.

Sometimes it seems like he’s doing more harm than good, reaching out like this, like he’s tethering Ansu to the place he needs to let go of, at least for a little while. Maybe it’d be better if he just stopped and did what he does best, creating space. Creating space and praying that things would be the same if— when Ansu got back.

He has to tell himself that. He’s not sure he can take any more distance.

———

Gavi twists onto his side, the sheets sticking to the thin layer of sweat along the curve of his back. He can’t sleep again.

The curtains flutter by the window from the persistent draft. The breeze skitters over his skin, making him shiver. Germany is chilly this time of year.

He can hear the neighbors moaning on the other side of the wall.

The wires in his head are crossed, all his thoughts slow and foggy as he floats in and out of consciousness. He doesn’t remember who’s staying in the room over. He’s stopped paying attention to room assignments on away games. His spare keycard stays shoved at the bottom of his bag.

He can’t make out the voices either, the disembodied sounds of pleasure and low rumbles that fill the space in between. Warm and languid and slippery through the quiet as the night bleeds into early morning. Occasionally something will slip through the cracks. A barely audible admission of awe, the murmured reverie of another’s body. It keeps him up more than anything else.

Gavi’s eyelids droop, body fighting for him to stop thinking. It’s been hours. He’ll fall asleep eventually, but he knows he won’t feel right in the morning. He hasn’t felt right in so long. He’s too busy trying to keep his insides from spilling out, and it doesn’t help that for a second, he thinks he can feel the imprint of fingertips flitting down his sides. Long, slender fingers and nails that scratch gently at the base of his neck.

———

Norway is cold. So cold that Gavi can see his breath cling to the air with every slight exhale, glimmering in the sunlight that does nothing to wipe the persistent chill from his skin.

A part of him misses all the special treatment from Barcelona— all the blankets and jackets they’re smothered in. The cold in Spain barely compares to how it is here. Hell, he’d even take the too-thick gloves his mother would always tug over his hands when he was younger.

Instead, he settles for the extra layers under his kit, all blue this time rather than spanish red, except for his rosy knuckles and cheeks. Playing in the cold hurts, aches in a way that football usually doesn’t. A hard tackle, or controlling the ball with too much momentum and he swears he can feel the imprint of it against his body long after the match, the cold bleeding into the veins of his legs and staying there.

He tugs the sleeves of his kit over his hands, balling up the fabric in his fists as he continues on with warm-ups. A quick glance up at the stadium. The crowd is large, but modest enough. He’s still greeted with red, the Norwegian kind, fans clad in jerseys with names he’s never played against except for moments like these, confined to other leagues, other lives.

The novelty of playing for his country still gets to him, still catches him off guard at times. Compared to home, he’s barely started for this team, has otherwise found himself seated on the bench until a little before half-time until only recently, until he’s earned enough of de la Fuente’s trust. But he’ll take the pitch over the bench in a heartbeat. The wind is twice as unforgiving on the sidelines.

It’s a messy game. Rife with yellow cards and curses that are poorly spat under players’ breaths.

It shouldn’t be so difficult— they had the upper hand over Norway earlier in the year, but there’s less finesse to the team right now. Their movements are choppy and disorganized, with no creativity in the middle, no unpredictability to their attack.

He can almost hear Xavi bellowing in his ear, arms waving in disbelief with every skewed pass. Maybe it’s just the cold making his ears ache. He isn’t in Barcelona right now.

Gavi’s legs carry him faithfully through the first half. The chill is unrelenting but he’s gotten used to discomfort when he’s playing. The feeling of his studs digging into the soft pitch grounds him. Time passes thick and slow, regardless.

It would ground him more if Pedri was here, controlling the midfield where he belongs. It would ground them all, to have a composed presence at the heart of the pitch, now more than ever when they’re all scattered and spilling at the edges.

But Pedri’s thousands of kilometers away right now, nestled back at home, safe from the harsh October chill but probably still just as cold as Gavi is right now.

But he doesn’t have time to think about that. He shakes his head and it makes him dizzy, the dull throb in his ears turning sharp for a moment. He’s not in Barcelona right now.

The ball finds its way to his feet twenty minutes later. His legs move without willing them to. It’s freezing— his brain is slow, but his body isn’t.

They’re on him from the moment he steps into the dressing room, cheers and whoops, and slaps on the back that make his brittle spine cry out in protest. Water and electrolyte drinks are sprayed all over him, clinging to his hair and eyelashes until he can’t blink without liquid getting in his eyes.

It feels good, the celebration, the influx of love. He must look like an idiot, dripping all over the locker room floor, grinning bashfully, because for as terribly as they played today, he can’t help but get swept up in it all. His socks are wet and sticky, not quite uncomfortable yet, but well on the way. And he really wishes Pedri was here to call him an idiot right now.

There’s a spare moment in between. And he shouldn’t. He really shouldn’t. Not when he feels so warm right now, water dripping from his hair onto the linoleum be damned.

He checks his phone anyways, when most of the team has filtered into the showers, complaining of tight muscles and unheated locker rooms.

Pedri posted on his story, supporting the team. It’s a short message, but that’s on par for him. Gavi has no new messages.

Really, he should know better by now. The cooling fabric sticking to his skin becomes harder to ignore.

The team goes out to celebrate. There are no more matches left for the international break so the manager doesn’t dispute it. Gavi can’t exactly decline, not after scoring the match-winner, so he tags along.

The night doesn’t get any less cold, but three or four beers help warm him from the inside out. He tries to focus on the celebrations around him, on the rare admissions of respect from his Real Madrid rivals turned teammates, but he doesn’t feel up for much more than people watching and the slow ripples of warmth spreading across his body.

His teammates create a respectable amount of chaos in the VIP lounge. Granted, it’s a private club, so they don’t have to keep up appearances as heavily here. Gavi takes another sip and watches Alejandro talk to some girl surrounded by half a dozen other gorgeous women and a man with a necklace too gaudy to be anything but a promoter. He catches his friend’s eye, shaking his head at the invitation to flirt with some girls they’ll never see again.

It’s all so textbook, so predictable, and yet so unlike the feeling of doing the exact same thing back home. Not that Gavi was ever one to indulge too heavily with the team. He’s not a lightweight, not like someone he knows, but he’s perpetually afraid of acting like a drunken idiot in front of the world, of losing the respect he’s struggled to earn.

The sound of a door opening and the trickle of the cool night following steals his attention long enough for another entourage to join the party. There’s a girl at the front of the group, with hair so pale it looks almost white, like cornsilk, and legs that are long and dainty.

He doesn’t plan to go home with her, not until he sees the flush on her cheeks, pink from a healthy mix of alcohol and the cold she’s just escaped.

And really, she’s nothing like him. She doesn’t talk as much, doesn’t tease as much. The warmth between her legs couldn’t be any more different. Wet and fluttering around him.

It couldn’t be less like him, but he still kisses back when she kisses him. He circles his arms around her waist afterward and tries to swallow back the bile rising in his throat that tastes frighteningly of guilt.

When he falls asleep, he dreams of the sunset.

———

It’s not the first time they’ve lost to Madrid, but this one hurts more than most.

Gavi can’t even feel his bruise-stippled legs, the way they twinge with every step as they carry him off the pitch. His cheek is bluish and ugly. He feels ugly.

He should stop by the physios. It isn’t a Clasico if he doesn’t take a beating, and he probably spent more time on the ground than he did on the ball. He’ll feel the effects of it tomorrow, even if he can’t feel anything right now, not over the bitter shock of losing, not when they had been doing so well.

Xavi knocks him on the back as he stumbles past, not saying anything, but also saying so much. The set in his brow gives him away so easily, already thinking about the next match, strategizing about how to move forward from this. And it must be the flood of endorphins leaving his head fuzzy, that and the crippling disappointment, all the little things building up on him— because some small part of Gavi is afraid he won’t be able to keep up this time.

And he knows better, but right now he’s too hurt to hold back. He lets his hazy vision slip over to the visitor's section.

Pedri’s gaze is already fixed on him, lips turned in the smallest of frowns that doesn’t reach his eyes. They’re too focused on Gavi, too soft for the distance between them, too warm with the fading glow of the sun setting behind them. His arms are wrapped around his torso, like he’s cold.

Gavi blinks slowly, and then quicker as the wetness around his eyes starts to build. His throat twists and tightens vehemently, and then suddenly he’s choking around how much he feels.

Getting through the interviews is agonizing, but he manages.

He waits until he’s far enough from the cameras to cry.

———

He hasn’t used Pedri’s spare house keys in months, but he doesn’t even have to glance down to fit the sliver of metal into the lock.

The inside looks the same as ever. A little less neat, but Fer is out of town, so it’s not much of a surprise. Gavi toes off his shoes, leaving them next to the pairs of worn-out trainers and the boots collecting dust in the corner.

His socked feet don’t make any noise as he slips up the stairs, drawn like a magnet to the only place he’s ever felt like was his.

The sound of soft pattering from the shower competes with the static in his ears.

The bathroom door isn’t locked. It’s never locked. Another day, another time, maybe Gavi wouldn’t have thought twice about pushing inside. But he’s never felt like more of a coward than he has lately.

He sits at the foot of Pedri’s bed, gaze sweeping across the room. The bed is made messily, sheets tucked in, but so clearly lived in, still faintly warm with body heat. The duvet is starkly white, and Gavi is struck by how much his skin stands out against the fabric. He scrunches the sheet in his fist a few times, just to see if it’ll leave a mark behind, to see if he really is as dirty as he feels.

The sound of the showerhead turning off, the sudden hush of water, and then an unlocked door opening, quiet but not silent. It's the only noise in the room. The only thing to pull Gavi’s eyes away from his own treacherous body.

Pedri doesn’t even look surprised to see him, and it shouldn’t hurt, but it does.

“Hey,” He says quietly, voice rough and uneven, like he hasn’t spoken aloud in a while. But maybe Gavi’s just filling in the gaps again, wanting Pedri to feel just a fraction as awful as he does, the quiet shiver of loneliness nipping at his heels. It makes him feel even worse, the fact that he wants it.

“Hey.” Gavi echoes, and really who is he fooling. He sounds just as hollow.

Even under the following silence, it doesn’t feel suffocating. Something that scares Gavi more than everything he’s realized about himself since this started.

Pedri moves first. He steps towards the foot of the bed and it feels like a weight lifted from Gavi’s shoulder.

Gavi forces his legs to open further to accommodate, to give Pedri room to get closer because he hasn’t told Gavi to fuck off yet so he’s willing to risk it— because he needs this. He’s needed this for too long. His hands come up to settle against Pedri’s hips instinctively.

Pedri looks like he wants to say something, even if he’s not sure what. There are water droplets beaded along the muscles of his torso all the way down to the towel wrapped loosely around his navel. Everything about him is pink, his parted lips, the ruddy blush running down from his cheeks to his shoulders because he always takes showers that border on the edge of uncomfortably hot. His summer tan is fading, but no less warm.

He doesn’t say anything yet, a look etched across his face that Gavi can’t quite decipher. He feels his mind go blank when Pedri’s hand settles at the back of his neck, just resting there, petting.

Gavi wants to say it so bad. The words prying and tugging at his lips. I missed you. I missed you so much.

But his tongue is far too clumsy for it. His body strewn too thin and far. There’s dirt under his fingernails and he doesn’t move his hands. The tips of his fingers press deeper into the warm expanse of Pedri’s back and he’s sorry for it. The older boy is still steam-hot from the shower, a glow under his skin like quiet embers. The slightest contact feels scorching. It feels so much that Gavi wavers under it.

“I slept with someone.” He says instead. It’s the first thing they’ve said out loud to each other in weeks. His mouth feels chalky and dry. Blinking is a monumental task. “A girl. After the match in Norway.”

Pedri doesn’t respond right away. The slight pause of his fingertips at the back of Gavi’s neck gives him away and it’s all Gavi can do not to be sick.

“Did you like it?” He finally murmurs back, hand starting to trace hazy patterns over the hair along his nape again, and Gavi shuts down.

“No,” He whispers. His eyes slip shut again. Pedri’s hands never stop. And it burns. It burns so deep inside his throat that he can’t remember what it felt like before this wretched need buried itself there. The words are fighting to escape him now, properly cursing and cutting at the soft insides of his cheeks. I wanted so badly for it to be you.

Pedri’s hands slip away from his nape and a strangled noise crawls from his throat before they come back to cradle his face, thumb just barely grazing the bruise at the top of his cheek. There’s nowhere to look but at Pedri now, at the softness of his features and the apology behind every touch.

And this. This is so much better.

“You should’ve come sooner,” Pedri whispers, the words catching in the air.

“Thought you were mad at me,” Gavi mumbles. His voice sounds foreign to his ears, thick and muffled.

“I was,” Pedri admits, and the sound of guilt trickles into his voice. “But if you came I would’ve let you stay.”

He pauses before continuing, quieter. “I wanted you to.”

Gavi doesn’t even feel capable of words anymore. His eyes flutter shut but he nods.

“Gavi,” Pedri exhales. “We should talk about it this time.”

Gavi nods, letting the shiver fully run through his body at the way his name slips from Pedri’s lips. He nods again, but he doesn’t speak, and the pinch in his brows should be enough for Pedri to know that he can’t— not right now.

And it is enough. Pedri always knows when it comes to him.

He watches with dazed eyes as Pedri steps back slightly, moving his arms belatedly as Pedri peels his shirt off his body and then he’s gently coaxing him further up the bed until he’s settled against those white sheets.   

Gavi isn’t crying, but he’s so raw with emotion that he might as well be, sensitive to every touch, everything he hasn’t had for what feels impossibly too long. Pedri isn’t gone for more than a minute, flicking off the lights before he’s back at Gavi’s side. The sheets feel like waves underneath him, shifting and rippling as Pedri moves onto the bed, keeping him afloat.

He doesn’t wait a moment longer than he has to, tugging Pedri’s arm until their bodies are pressed together, shoving a thigh between Pedri’s, shivering at all the warmth passing between them. He knows he’s in too deep, hovering between devotion and self-sabotage, but this is like a balm to everything he’s been through. His mind is quiet and his eyes are tired and his heart is sated. He’d do it all over again just to get here, even if he knows better.

“Such a baby,” Pedri says softly, but he’s already pulling Gavi closer against him, and there’s no sting to the words, not enough to make Gavi feel anything but held.

He isn’t crying, but when Pedri presses their lips together, so slow and chaste it could be mistaken for the same gentle stroke at the back of Gavi’s neck, it feels like he is.

For all the wins and losses, the parts of himself that stay buried on the field and don’t come back with him. He can swallow it all down as long as he has this.

“Gavi.”

As long as he can keep having this.