Archive of Our Own ^beta

Being with Cuti felt a bit like breathing: a necessity, a reflex, something so natural he hardly had to consider it at all. He supposed it was because nothing much had changed, Cuti still acted how he always did and Sonny still didn’t know how to react to it, but now he could kiss Cuti, now he could run gentle fingers through gelled hair and trace dark tattoos in the quietness of their solitude. The few days between his return from the Asian Cup and their game against Brighton where time was spent wrapped up in the newfound realisation of this thing between them should’ve been overwhelmingly unfamiliar, but he hardly faltered in the slightest. It was almost as though this was simply a natural progression of their relationship, like they were always meant to fall into each other in such a way; an unavoidable inevitability just waiting for the best time to happen. 

If anyone noticed the changes in their relationship, they didn’t mention it - turning a blind eye to the way their hugs were that much tighter after the last minute goal against Brighton and certainly not noticing when Cuti pulled Sonny close and breathed a “te quiero” into his ear instead of wheeling away in celebration towards Brennan and the rest of the team. Sonny definitely noticed. His entire body noticed, for his cheeks didn’t lose their burning flush until much after the full time whistle. 

Everything was easy. He knew it shouldn’t be, knew it was so, so much more complicated than he probably realised, but it was impossible to consider such a thing when Cuti was around. When Cuti was around, Sonny hardly had a mind to think about much else, and even when he wasn’t, Sonny felt his presence in other ways; like how he was that much more attuned to where Cuti was on the pitch, knew out of pure instinct as if they were connected on a level that stretched far beyond just physical. 

It felt odd to hide something that so clearly meant so much to both of them, but Sonny knew it was the right thing to do, at least for a while. They staggered their arrivals into the training centre, taking two separate cars from the same house (which felt awfully excessive and bad for the environment) and faking greetings and goodbyes like they weren’t going to spend the entire rest of the day together. 

There were a number of times where their carefully constructed facade cracked, namely when Sonny had walked into training completely forgetting he was wearing a pair of what were very clearly Cuti’s team-issued Argentina socks, ‘13’ emblazoned on them next to the unmistakable sol de mayo. Madders was the only one who noticed, but Sonny couldn’t tell if that was worse than the entire squad knowing, for Madders spent the entire training session grilling him over it. Sonny managed to keep his questions at bay with a lame excuse that Cuti had just lent them to him because he had lost his own socks after training one day.

“But why are you still wearing them?” Madders had asked, shit-eating grin not once having left his face their entire exchange.

Sonny decided the best answer to that was just to steal the ball from under Madders’ feet and sprint off in the opposite direction.

So no, they weren’t particularly good at keeping it a secret, especially not when Cuti would constantly press kisses to Sonny’s cheeks that he could so easily turn into to kiss the other man properly, but he was at least pretty confident the rest of the team just thought it was just a result of Cuti’s excessive affection and not anything else. 

Except maybe Ben. But Ben knew everything, so Sonny decided that didn’t count. 

-:-

Whilst Sonny couldn’t deny there was no better feeling than playing in front of their home fans, he always had a soft spot for away days. The wins were always hard-fought, but he liked being able to give something back to the travelling fans, and the high spirits of the team stretched for much longer when they could celebrate together the entire ride back. The elation buzzed between them all with each mile they traversed down the motorways, music blasting somewhere towards the back where Richy and Pape were always fighting over control of the speaker and conversations both loud and hushed, filling any possibility of silence. 

Normally, Sonny tried his best to bustle between groups, sneaking his way into conversation after conversation; staying just long enough to joke along with them as they reminisced over moments in the game and offer his words of encouragement to them all. 

Now, he lingered wherever Cuti was sat, forcing his way into whatever space he could find (that more often than not left him sitting half on Cuti’s lap) and simply watching as they all spoke in rapid Spanish he could hardly begin to understand. There were times he would ask Cuti what they were all saying, offer his own anecdotes and laugh along with them, but other times he was content to sit in silence. He would press himself into the strong line of Cuti’s body and marvel in the way it jostled when Rodrigo said something particularly funny or when Gio would tease him for losing the card game they were playing, the rumblings of laughter against Sonny’s back massaging the tension from his muscles better than any machine could. 

Their hands found each other without fail, fingers locking together under the table tight enough to turn the grip white-knuckled. It was their way of silent communication, an unspoken encouragement, a muted celebration. They shared such a similar devotion and love for football, with their competitiveness like two sides of the same coin; whilst Cuti’s shone through in his unapologetic defending style and confrontational nature, Sonny’s manifested more in just how hard losses would hit him. He knew they weren’t easy to take for any player, but Sonny had never been able to shake his tendency to force responsibility onto himself every time they dropped points. He accepted the critics and complaints on his own so others didn’t have to, it was exhausting, but it was a habit too ingrained in him to get over. 

When they lost, he would hide away by himself towards the front of the team bus, headphones on and eyes locked out of the window. He used to hate company in these times, would shovel his bags onto the seat next to him so no one would sit there and pretend to be asleep whenever he heard someone call his name, but now there was Cuti. 

Now, Sonny didn’t even have a chance to block off the adjacent seat before Cuti would slide into it, unspeaking and sombre but touch always so tender when he would clutch at Sonny’s arms, fingers trailing across reddened skin. They held hands under the cover of a blanket or coat, letting the physical contact say everything their words couldn’t. 

The silence between them would stretch longer than just the team bus; Cuti didn’t need to be beckoned to follow Sonny back to his car and didn’t need to ask before slipping into the driver's seat too, pulling the keys from Sonny’s bag with the practised ease of someone who had observed Sonny so intently so many times that he knew exactly where he kept everything. They were quiet even on the ride home and it wasn’t until they were wrapped in the warmth of Sonny’s house (which, really, had become their house) that he felt the weight lift off his chest just enough to breathe.

“We shouldn’t have lost,” he sighed after one such game, voice bitter and frustrated, “we should have done better, I should have done better, what was I even doing out there? God I was just-”

Cuti was in front of him in a second and smothered a gentle palm across his mouth.

“Stop talking,” he said, “no football talk.”

It was an order that Sonny had no room to argue with; Cuti’s eyes were blazing, his own pent up anger and annoyance visible but, remarkably, held at bay. For someone six years his junior, Cuti had an admirable ability to suppress the torture of losses in such a way Sonny could only dream of. It wasn’t to say the losses meant nothing to Cuti, he just dealt with them quietly, ruminating over them so they fuelled his performance in the next game, whilst Sonny drowned in the feeling of everything all at once. It meant he got over them quicker, but that first evening, suffering in the dark of his room with no outlet was almost too much to deal with.

“But-” he began, muffled by Cuti’s hand.

Cuti pressed the appendage with more force, “no. You tried, gordito, eso me basta.” 

Sonny’s shoulders slouched and whilst the pain still sat heavy on his heart, it didn’t hurt as much as usual. Cuti just seemed to have that effect on him.

He hummed agreeably, sinking into it when Cuti’s arms wound around his waist, “okay.”

“My Sonny,” Cuti murmured into his hair, “you think too much.”

And he did. He paid too much thought to things he could no longer change. 

“Only think about me,” Cuti continued, “no football.”

Sonny puffed out a laugh, “I always think about you.”

“Good.”

He felt a kiss against the crown of his head, then another to his temple, then a trail pressed down the side of his face until it reached his lips. Cuti lingered there, pushing down hard like he was trying to force some of his own self-assuredness into Sonny. It nearly worked, though perhaps more because it successfully blanked his mind altogether more than anything else. 

He didn’t want to think of anything at all when Cuti was near him, hands uncharacteristically delicate and reverent against his clothed back. It felt like second nature to melt into the other man, to sneak his fingers under Cuti’s shirt and drag along the skin with a desperate edge, like he was the one that had a propensity for tough love and not the other way around. 

“You played well,” he felt the need to say, words lost in the space between their mouths.

Cuti twisted a hand free to grab at the hair on the back of Sonny’s neck, “I said no football.”

“I know, but still,” Sonny said, “I wanted to tell you.”

“Mmm, no more talking.”

Sonny gladly obliged. 

He supposed this was what it was like to come home to a loving wife or girlfriend after a miserable game, to bask in their comfort and love and use it to heal the wounds of disappointment that were fresh against his skin; only in his case, he was coming home to someone who knew exactly what he was going through, whose wounds were equally as fresh and equally as painful. They knew what each other needed, and as Sonny laid in bed that night, head resting on Cuti’s bare chest and limbs intertwined together under the duvet, he allowed himself to let go. 

-:-

It turned out, unsurprisingly, that Cuti’s tendency to leave bruises littered across Sonny’s skin only increased when he had explicit permission to do so. It didn’t help that Sonny lost any and all rationality in his body whenever he’d feel lips trail their way down to his chest, forgetting the concept of time existed until the stinging of bruised skin would bring him back down to earth. 

Cuti always had the decency to keep them far enough below Sonny’s clothes that they were out of view, he tested his luck sometimes, sure, but he knew the limits. Knew that blatant hickies were a bad look for anyone, especially a footballer whose face would be broadcasted to millions of people every matchday. He just knew. 

Except sometimes, he conveniently chose to forget. 

“I’m going to Madders’ house for dinner tomorrow by the way,” Sonny murmured offhandedly from behind his phone screen, one hand scrolling through social media whilst the other ran fingers through Cuti’s hair from where his head was occupying much of Sonny’s lap. 

There was one beat too many of silence, so much so that Sonny was convinced Cuti had actually fallen asleep on their sofa, dozing off to the sensation of Sonny playing with his hair; but when he looked down from his phone, Cuti was staring back at him. His expression was unreadable, as it quite often was, but there was a slight furrow to his eyebrows that made Sonny frown.

“What?” He asked, 

“Madders,” Cuti echoed, “why?”

It was nearly enough for Sonny to roll his eyes.

“Because he invited me, Cris.” 

Cuti hummed unconvincingly and Sonny swore he could see green tinging the other man’s skin. Cristian Romero’s jealousy truly was a hilarious thing. 

“Only you?”

“Cuti,” he huffed, in a way that was as admonishing as it was fond. 

The other man kept his expression schooled to one of indifference but the petulance in his resulting shrug was obvious. Sonny could only marvel at how he had Cuti, a World Cup winner, a seasoned Premier League and Serie A player and one of the best central defenders in the world, wrapped around his finger in such a way. He acted far beyond his age in so many other ways, but seemingly, not when it came to Sonny.

Cuti shifted then, head rising from Sonny’s lap and body contorting until he was leant half over Sonny, arms boxing him in against the back of the sofa. 

“Will you sleep at his house?” Cuti asked, the end of his sentence muffled by the skin of Sonny’s neck as he pressed insistent lips against it. 

Sonny let his head fall back with a contented hum, “no. You know I like to sleep early, I’ll be back here before my bedtime don’t worry.” 

“What will he cook?” Cuti didn’t even bother to raise his head to speak, only ceasing his attack on Sonny’s neck for long enough to push the words out. 

In the cosy warmth of late evening, Sonny’s mind was rather blissfully empty. If it wasn’t, he’d have noticed easily that Cuti’s intentions were far from pure and his kisses far from chaste. But as it was, the gentle buzz of domesticity that still remained from earlier was seemingly enough to cloud Sonny’s judgement and convince him that Cuti wasn’t doing anything else aside from just his normal, regularly scheduled affection. 

“I don’t know, probably some kind of meat? It’s getting warm now, he probably wants to try out his barbecue.” 

“He has a barbecue?”

Sonny reached a hand up to scratch through the clipped hairs at the back of Cuti’s neck, rambling aimlessly about Madders’ barbecue that he hadn’t stopped bragging about to Sonny the other day in training. Cuti surprisingly seemed to be listening dutifully; for although he remained preoccupied with his task at hand (that Sonny still remained none the wiser to), he let out encouraging hums every-so-often to the point where Sonny was actually convinced he was interested in the different modes of barbecuing Madders wanted to try out.

In what should’ve been a surprise to absolutely no one, he was wrong. Very wrong. 

He realised such a fact when he was staring in the mirror the next day, face to face with a particularly angry looking hickey right under his jaw. It was blotched purple and brown, with the tinges of yellow around the edges that were so unmistakable it was impossible to play it off as anything else. 

He was frantically smudging it when Cuti walked into the bathroom, hoping and praying to every God he knew that it was some cruel joke and it was just makeup he could rub off. 

“You look good,” Cuti said, voice lilted and far, far too satisfied with his own creation.

Sonny (realising it was not, in fact, just a cruel joke, but instead an even crueller one) whipped around.

“Cuti!” He hissed, “what the hell is this?”

Cuti trudged closer and grabbed a hold of Sonny’s chin, twisting his head to the side to view the bruise properly. He considered it for a second before a smile crept into the corner of his mouth.

“Nothing,” he said, leaning forward to press a single kiss against Sonny’s mouth.

“‘Nothing’?! Cuti, I’m supposed to see Madders later, he’s never going to let this go!” Sonny groaned. 

“Good,” Cuti stated like it truly was nothing, “tell him it was me.”

“I’m not going to- hey! Cuti don’t just walk away!”

What followed was perhaps the worst dinner Sonny had ever been invited to in his life.

It took approximately five minutes for Madders to notice, after which he decided to grill Sonny for hours over what the bruise was. Sonny tried, he really did, to play it off as a burn from the hair straighteners his stylists always used on him at every photoshoot, but even he knew it was a stretch. The bruise was entirely too far away from his hair for it to have been an accident whilst styling and the mottlings of colours were very obviously not that of a burn. 

Nevertheless, he continued to lie through his teeth for the entire dinner, thanking his lucky stars when Madders eventually dropped the subject in favour of gushing over his barbecue which was, in his defence, very nice. 

“What do you think, could I give the Argentines a run for their money?” Madders asked, victorious smile on his face as Sonny sat practically immobilised in his chair, sated and content. 

There was a diplomatic answer he definitely could’ve chosen, however Sonny knew he would be the worst kind of boyfriend if he didn’t at least defend Cuti’s honour, especially when it came to barbecuing. 

“Hmm, I don’t know Madders, have you ever tasted Cuti’s asado?” He said with a grin.

Madders scoffed, “of course you’d say that. You’re with him practically 24/7 these days,” his words trailed off into a sudden, scandalised gasp, “was he the one that gave you that hickey?!”

Sonny nearly passed out.

He was sure his face was a pretty picture of disbelief; eyes widened comically and mouth gaping around whatever kind of words he could even begin to say to defend himself. Had they been so obvious? Had Madders put two-and-two together when he noticed Sonny wearing Cuti’s socks? All of a sudden it seemed as though the relative paradise of their secrecy was crumbling, sending them crashing back down to earth. 

“Relax,” Madders chuckled, “I was joking. For your sake though, I hope whoever it was looks worse than you.” 

And oh.

Wasn’t that an idea. 

Sonny wasn’t one for payback. Nor did he particularly enjoy holding grudges, however, he had to admit Madders was right. Cuti shouldn’t be able to escape this unscathed.

So really, it wasn’t Sonny’s fault when Cuti had to wear turtlenecks and snoods for a whole week of training, desperately trying to hide the multitude of hickeys that Sonny had placed oh-so-meticulously across the expanse of his neck. 

Cuti had Madders to thank for that. 

-:-

Sometimes Sonny would laugh to himself at just how unlucky it was that he and Cuti spoke five languages pretty much fluently between the two of them, yet not a single one matched up. Sonny knew Korean and German and was finally at a point with English where he felt confident enough in his ability to carry conversations that weren’t centred around football, whilst Cuti knew Spanish and Italian. Sure, Sonny had picked up words and phrases in Spanish from his teammates, but listening and trying to understand them talk in their native language, which always seemed to be spoken quicker than any other language he’d heard, was inevitably a fruitless exercise - he had long since given up trying to learn the language past the customary greetings and a few football related terms that’d be useful for a game. 

Cuti on the other hand didn’t have that luxury with English. It was the language of the club after all, the language of the manager and the majority of his teammates too, learning it was essential. There were times he saw Cuti grow frustrated with himself, where he’d trip over words or forget them altogether, brow furrowing against the crushing embarrassment Sonny knew all too well; learning English had been a humbling process to say the least, and Sonny wouldn’t wish it on anyone, least of all Cuti. 

It made him try harder with Spanish, hoping to at least take some of the pressure off Cuti when they talked together in hushed conversations around the training centre or at home, wrapped together in each other’s company. Cuti always spoke slower with him, enunciated more than he did when he was with Rodrigo or Gio; Spanish phrases tagged onto the end of English sentences so Sonny could piece the meaning together through context. It worked, surprisingly. It shouldn’t, but it did. 

From an outside perspective, it probably looked as though they hardly spoke, but everything was easier when they let their actions speak for them: Sonny didn’t need to ask whether Cuti was coming back with him after training, he could just tell from the calm assurance in Cuti’s gaze when they made their way back to their cars, a silent confirmation, ‘lead the way’ left unsaid but understood all the same. Likewise, all Cuti had to do to check if Sonny was okay after a winding challenge was rub a questioning hand over any part of the other man he could reach and Sonny knew to respond with an affirming hum or a twisted wince. 

When words did become a necessity, they were used sparingly but effectively. Sonny had grown so attuned with Cuti he could decipher what he meant even amongst the grammatical errors and frustrated Spanish; when others jumped in to correct Cuti or fix him with a confused look, Sonny barrelled on with his own response without missing a beat.

Cuti was getting infinitely better as time went on, both from Sonny’s gentle encouragement and the lessons the club had supplied for him. So it made Sonny all the more annoyed that he had given up so quickly with Spanish.

So annoyed in fact that he found himself walking up to Rodrigo one day with a notepad and pen.

“Can you teach me some Spanish?” He asked, breaking into a bright smile when Rodrigo raised a curious eyebrow at him. 

“Spanish? Why?” Rodrigo returned with a tone that could almost be described as knowing. 

Sonny did his best to ignore it, “just feel like it’d be useful if I speak more of it, you know, as the captain.”

Beside Rodrigo, Deki let out a poorly concealed laugh. When Sonny flashed him a glare he pretended to cough into his elbow. 

“Ah right, as captain. Of course,” Rodrigo said, “makes total sense.”

“Exactly, so? Can you?”

Clearly, Rodrigo decided to humour him, for he leaned back on the exercise bike he was peddling on and said, “what do you want to learn? Football stuff? Swears? Pet names?” 

“Skip the last bit, I already know enough,” Sonny said before he could stop himself, “I just watch a lot of Spanish shows, so, um… yeah, I know those words,” he added when Rodrigo cocked his head in question.

The “Spanish shows” in question were in fact just the words he had learned through Cuti’s quirk of hardly ever calling him by his actual name, but Rodrigo didn’t need to know that. 

He also didn’t need to know that there was a part of Sonny’s Spanish vocabulary that Sonny was sure was wildly inappropriate. If the way they were spoken into his ears in a way so breathless and reverent was anything to go by, they weren’t to be repeated to anyone else, especially not Rodrigo. 

“So what, just normal stuff then?” Rodrigo chuckled.

“Yes! Just… important stuff. Stuff that would make it easier to talk with someone who doesn’t speak great English,” Sonny said with a grin he hoped was convincing.

Once Rodrigo started talking, he didn’t stop until Sonny’s notebook was practically full and his legs ached just looking at how long Rodrigo had been peddling for. It was mainly specific words Rodrigo deemed useful, but he mixed in some phrases as well, speaking at a speed far too quick for Sonny to keep up. He was sure he had spelt practically all of the words incorrectly, to the point where he had to make a mental note to check them online before he said anything to Cuti, however, he had at least managed to learn some things.

He’d expected Deki to remain quiet throughout, on account of the fact Sonny was pretty certain he didn’t speak Spanish; but Deki corrected his pronunciation far too often for that to be the case. When Sonny turned a questioning eye on him, he simply shrugged and claimed it was because of the language’s similarity to Italian. 

Sonny would’ve believed him if it wasn’t for the fact that Rodrigo was fighting against a smile by his side. 

How curious.

Perhaps sensing the scrutiny, Deki piped up with a strange expression on his face.

“You know, this reminds me of a similar situation I was in last week, where Cuti came up to me asking if I knew any German. What a coincidence.” He said, before shrugging like the information he had just offered up was extremely disinteresting.

Sonny definitely did not find it disinteresting.

“He did what?!” he practically squeaked. 

Deki hummed absently, clearly trying to appear mysterious - something that was entirely ruined by Rodrigo who had begun to choke against the force of his laughter.

“Yeah, said he wanted to learn more because it’d be useful, you know, as vice-captain.”

If Sonny was thinking straight he’d have noticed the way his own words had been thrown back at him, and as such realised that Deki and Rodrigo knew everything and were taking the piss. But he wasn’t thinking straight in the slightest. His cheeks were burning and heart practically exploding because what the hell . 

German?!

“I told him to focus on English first, but apparently he’s picking up more English lessons too,” Deki mused, “not sure why he’s so interested in languages at the moment, but whatever. I’m sure the… hm,” he pretended to count on his fingers, “ah yes, one German player on our team will appreciate his efforts.”

“Is he crazy?” Sonny couldn’t stop himself from saying.

“Yeah, probably,” Deki said at the same time Rodrigo muttered something that sounded suspiciously like ‘crazy in love more like…’.

Sonny didn’t think he was breathing. Once again he was struck by how endearing Cuti was. Picking up extra English lessons was one thing, but attempting to learn German? What Sonny knew was completely from scratch? He felt like swooning in a way that was not at all appropriate for someone thirty-one years of age.

He was about to respond when his phone vibrated in his back pocket, and when he dug it out two texts lay on his screen.

Kangin:

why is Cristian Romero messaging me?

how did he even get my number???

The next day, Cuti called him ‘hyung’ during training, and Sonny wasn’t sure the blush left his face the entire rest of the week.

-:-

Sonny often found himself wishing he could celebrate with Cuti the way others did with their partners. After each win in N17, the players would escape to private boxes or invite their wives and girlfriends down to pitchside, walking hand in hand across the grass with the kind of practised comfort Sonny dreamt of. He wanted to take Cuti’s hand and do laps of the pitch after a game, reminiscing over points in the match and laughing when they saw patches of chewed up grass where Cuti’s tackles had scarred the pitch. He wanted to share the highs of victory, to taste the elation on Cuti’s lips and bask in the joy of his teammates with Cuti there at his side as more than just another teammate. 

He wanted so much, but the world could only give them so little. 

It left them with triumphant kisses in the safety of their homes, loaded glances across jubilant dressing rooms and giddy smiles on coach rides back to London. It was enough, Sonny thought, but he was greedy; he craved more than what he knew he could take, especially when it came to Cuti.

However, when the world couldn’t give them what it gave others, they found a way to take something else just for themselves instead. 

They were losing, badly in fact. Not in the way that the scoreline was stacked way out of their favour, but in the way that Sonny felt like asking if they had all forgotten how to play football. They were lucky their opponents couldn’t finish the opportunities that were practically gifted to them, otherwise the game would be far more out of reach than just 1-0. 

It was a solemn walk into the dressing room, each player’s feet dragging on the concrete as they traipsed through the tunnel, as afraid of the frustrations of Ange as they were of the reaction from the fans whose jeers were painfully audible in the stands. 

Sonny caught the eyes of Brennan, whose shoulders had a pained set to them, pressure and expectations so, so heavy for someone so, so young. He tried to send a reassuring smile the way of the other man, but he could feel the way it twisted awkwardly under the weight of his own uncertainty. Even he, the most optimistic of people, couldn’t put conviction behind his actions and words. When Ange turned to him to add anything to the halftime teamtalk, all he could offer was a collection of scripted encouragements that lacked any sort of belief. If anyone noticed, they didn’t say anything, content to ignore it in favour of looking down at their boots. 

Everyone except Cuti.

Sonny could feel the Argentine’s gaze burning into the side of his head, and when he turned to meet it, he was met with a juxtaposingly frosty expression. It was like a shot through the chest.

Their eye contact stretched without breaking until Ange let them disperse for any final preparations before the second half. Cuti stood almost immediately and headed toward the bathrooms and the final look he sent Sonny had only one instruction: Follow me. Now.

To anyone paying attention, it was painfully obvious Sonny was chasing after Cuti: he strode with too much purpose, probably faster than he had moved in the entire first half. 

He caught up with the other man quickly, hand reaching forward testingly to run a questioning finger along the ball of Cuti’s wrist. Without even looking back, Cuti twisted his wrist around to grab hold of Sonny’s arm and dragged him into the nearest bathroom stall, door slamming shut with a jarring rattle. Sonny had just enough time to ensure the lock was on before Cuti had him crowded against the wall. 

“Why?” He implored, voice hushed but no less forceful. 

Sonny could hardly bring himself to meet Cuti’s gaze.

“I don’t know,” Sonny whispered, “I’m playing like shit.”

Cuti’s brow furrowed even further, “no. You gave up. Why?” He pushed an accusing finger in the centre of Sonny’s chest, pressing against the bone there like it had personally offended him.

Sonny was about to make an affronted remark when Cuti leant forward to capture Sonny’s lips in a bruising kiss. Sonny just about caught the surprised noise that bubbled up in his throat, distantly aware of the sounds of their teammates bustling around the bathroom outside. 

He hadn’t noticed he had been tensing his shoulders and neck until Cuti ran soothing hands along them, palms digging into the muscles and forcing away the knots they found under his skin. 

“You’re my captain,” Cuti pulled away just enough to breathe into Sonny’s mouth, “tenés que jugar como mi capitán.”

The skin under Cuti’s shirt was dripping with sweat, but Sonny fought his hands underneath the material to clutch at it anyway. For the first time since the whistle had blown to start the game, Sonny could breathe. 

“Your captain?” He said, smothering the wince that escaped Cuti’s mouth when he dug his nails into the skin under his fingertips. 

“The captain of Tottenham. But my captain too,” came Cuti’s response, lifted by a half-smile, “mi capitán. El mejor capitán del mundo.” 

Sonny hummed, the possessive praise sending a dizzying rush up his spine; words curling their way through his ears until he could hardly think of anything else. The tension began to dissipate from every inch of his body and the biting edge of fatigue fizzled out, replaced by a cosy static-like buzzing along the length of his limbs. Breaths came easily then, deep and controlled if slightly shuddery on the exhale as he forced out the last of his nervous energy through his kisses.

Cuti seemed to sense the change in demeanour, for his smile widened exponentially, “will you win for me, capitán?” He spoke like he already knew the answer.

“I’ll try my best,” Sonny said, hands mapping out the expanse of Cuti’s back one last time before the other man pulled away.

The halftime alarm sounded back in the changing room, and the murmurs of their teammates finally made their way to Sonny’s ears again, attention slowly slipping back into the world outside of the bathroom stall. 

Cuti tweaked at Sonny’s ear before delivering him with the gentlest of slaps against his cheek, “good,” he whispered.

There was a spring in Sonny’s step when he reentered the pitch, the crushing feeling of disappointment and discouragement finally lifted off his chest and head blissfully clear. 

This was his team, these were his players, but more than that, they were his friends. He thought of Brennan's despondent look, the sea of gloomy faces he had seen back in the dressing room and the impatient groans of the crowd. He owed them all so much more than what they’d experienced in the first half. 

With that in mind, he wound an arm around Brennan’s shoulder and urged him and the rest of the team into a huddle beside the centre circle. This time, he could put believable encouragement behind his words, expression confident but paired with a reassuring smile; they could turn it around. They always found a way to. 

His drastic change in attitude wasn’t questioned, only mirrored by the rest of the players as they fed off his optimism; their faces had lit up, body language a full 180 from what it had been a mere five minutes ago. Their huddle broke with a flurry of claps and cheers, each player running off to their position with renewed fight in their legs. 

Cuti stayed behind, of course. He was watching Sonny with eyes that glittered with wonder.

“Vamos ,” he mouthed, hand coming to clutch at the back of Sonny’s neck, “there’s my captain.”

And just like that, a switch was flipped. 

They scored within two minutes of the restart, and again a minute later: Timo and Brennan linking up on the wings to leave them with a goal and assist each. They all attacked with a renewed purpose, passes quick and silky in a way that spun the heads of the opposition defenders. Sonny ran and ran and ran, ignoring the way his chest burnt with every sprint if it meant he could chase back to retrieve a wayward ball and turn it into a new attack whilst at the other end of the pitch, Cuti was acting like any attempt at the opposition scoring was like an act of personal vilification. It was like nothing Sonny had ever seen before. 

His own efforts were eventually rewarded in the last quarter of the game, when his breaths had started to sting on the inhale and legs threatened to give way every time he stood still. It was with a trance-like efficiency that he chased Rodrigo’s through-ball as it trickled between the two opposing central defenders, the weight on the pass perfect to land it right in his stride. He was running on pure instinct, a vague knowledge of where the goalkeeper was the only thing he needed to focus on against the deafening backdrop of the crowd as they rose from their seats in anticipation. It was like second nature to drive the ball towards the far post, the opposite direction to where he knew the goalkeeper would dive to, so much so that he was wheeling away in celebration before he even caught sight of the net bulge.

There were a number of aching beats of silence before the first set of arms wrapped around his waist and everything exploded all at once. He heard the crowd first and the shouts of his teammates second, the relief in their voices so palpable it made Sonny’s chest sing.

He felt more than saw the way Cuti’s hand settled in his hair, fingers carding through the strands and gripping with the kind of force Sonny’s body always ached for. Cuti waited for their teammates to disperse before rounding on Sonny, hands coming to frame his waist.

Cuti’s face was flushed with fatigue, reddened by the gulping breaths that were racking his chest. He looked so exhausted Sonny reached for his sides in a bruising grip if just to ensure Cuti didn’t collapse on the spot. 

“You’re amazing,” Sonny breathed, “defended so well, so well. Thank you, Cris, thank you, thank you, thank you,” he knew he was babbling by the end of it, but he couldn’t help it. 

Cuti just huffed out a throaty laugh and let his head rock forward to knock against Sonny’s shoulder, “por vos hago lo que sea, gordito. Anything.”

Tiredness had loosened Cuti’s grasp on English, but Sonny understood all the same, he always did. 

Even the stares of thousands couldn’t deter Sonny from giving in and pressing a chaste kiss to the crown of Cuti’s head, elation so strong it was impossible to contain. And this time, when the three points were confirmed by the final whistle and their teammates revelled in the embraces of their partners, Sonny felt no jealousy. 

Because whilst he had to keep his insistent hands to himself and kisses hidden behind locked doors, he and Cuti had each other in the times where the familiarity of a partner was like a buoy amongst an endless expanse of ocean. Being able to draw on each other’s intimate trust and encouragement during a game was a luxury the others didn’t have; a rare luxury reserved for them and only them and one that Sonny had underestimated the importance of before this point. Cuti’s words had been enough to change everything , and maybe, just maybe, that was worth more than anything else. 

-:-

If anyone asked, Sonny would always say he wasn’t a jealous person. Sure, before Cuti he never had a reason to be, but even outside of a relationship sense he was usually pretty good at keeping jealousy at bay: to him, good things came to those who worked for them and he had lived off such a belief for as long as he could remember, so wishing for more without offering up enough effort to get it was, in his opinion, completely futile. In his mind, jealousy was a trivial emotion and one that he wasn’t sure he had ever truly felt.

In contrast, it would often show like a perpetual brand on Cuti’s face, something Sonny always found rather cute, with his knitted eyebrows and imperceptible scowl that was directed at anyone Sonny showed even the slightest bit of overzealous affection towards. Before, Cuti may have intervened, steered Sonny away from the slightly-too-friendly touches of their teammates and dragged him back to his rightful position by Cuti’s side like he always did. It was different now, though. Sonny had long since told Cuti he had nothing to worry about, that there was no one else and that there wouldn’t be for as long as Cuti would have him. 

The idea that Cuti felt the same was always something ingrained in Sonny’s head: the other man hadn’t given him any reason to think otherwise after all. The way Cuti acted suggested no one else existed in his world, that it was filled only of Sonny, with no room for anything else. Sonny was reminded of it time and time again, from the devotion in Cuti’s gaze whenever they locked eyes to the way his hands moved across Sonny’s body with an air akin to that of worship. His words dripped with sickly sweet affection that was so unbecoming of a defender of his stature and play style, but Sonny was helpless against embracing it. 

Cuti saw only him. Sonny was sure of it. Any implication otherwise was ridiculous, right?

He was so sure of it, in fact, that when he first felt the burnings of jealousy in his cheeks, he thought he was coming down with some kind of illness instead. Because there was no reason for him to be jealous if Cuti’s entire world revolved around him. 

Unless, of course, it didn’t.

Sonny didn’t know where it all started, perhaps it had been going on for a while and it had slipped past his attention somehow, but Cuti had started acting differently. Not in a particularly negative way, if anything it was a positive how he was getting closer to his teammates and feeling confident enough to strike up conversations with them and dole out the kind of affectionate hits Sonny was so used to receiving. But what once before was a slight enough change to go practically unnoticed, was suddenly at the forefront of Sonny’s mind. 

He had never seen Cuti so involved with the team; before, he stuck mostly to the troop of Spanish speaking guys and only ever really branched out to Sonny, but now? Sonny would catch him in easy conversation with Biss, language barrier be damned, and watch in awe at the way he had begun to joke and play around with Pape and Brennan. Even Micky, who Sonny still thought was slightly traumatised from Cuti’s initial frosty indifference, had started to feel the full effects of being friends with Cristian Romero. 

Their entire defence line had formed the kind of loyalty and camaraderie that Sonny had only ever been able to dream of before, and at the heart of it was Cuti, his encouragements and instructions firm but crushing hugs at fulltime that much firmer. Micky, Pedro and Destiny had fallen in behind him, trusting until the end, however bitter that end may be. 

Sonny noticed it first in Micky, the way his confidence had grown with each commanding performance the two of them put in together, fuelled by the praise from fans and the media until they felt and moved like one unit: what little that Cuti lacked, Micky made up for and then some, and vice versa. Cuti knew it, too. Sonny could tell he knew they were a match made in defensive heaven. So it was unsurprising really, when a genuine friendship was borne out of their competitive companionship, bolstered by their shared position and the hours spent practising together in training. 

Cuti called him Micky Mouse more often than his actual name, something that was at first just a way to tease Micky, but in the end became enough of a habit that it stuck. They wrestled away in training sessions in a babble of unintelligible words and clung to each other in games when the other made a challenge, their hands gripping each other’s shirts hard enough to hear the seams rip.

Sonny wouldn’t have minded, would’ve encouraged it in fact, if he didn’t start to notice one little thing. 

Cuti was doing the kind of things he only ever did with Sonny with others too. 

He would watch through narrowed eyes at the way Cuti would wrangle a hand in Micky’s hair and jostle his head side to side, trying desperately to ignore the way his stomach was twisting itself in knots. The way Cuti had begun to deliver his halfhearted slaps and jabs to others was even more infuriating, especially when Sonny would feel the way his eyebrows were creasing in disgruntlement every time he saw Cuti’s hands raise to hit someone else’s cheek. 

The same hands that were only supposed to run through Sonny’s hair and slap red marks into Sonny’s skin. 

He wasn’t jealous. He didn’t get jealous.

But ultimately, everyone has a breaking point.

Sonny’s came when he had wheeled off in celebration after getting on the end of Deki’s cross, three points rescued and home crowd bouncing. His teammates were on him without missing a beat, hands clutching at Sonny’s shirt, his arms, his waist, anything they could grab, but none of them were Cuti’s. Sonny could just tell . 

It took a moment for him to spot Cuti through the crowd of players, the other man on the far edge of the penalty area with his arms looped around Deki’s shoulders in a bruising hug, but when Sonny did, he finally thought he knew what jealousy felt like. Because Cuti never went to someone else during the celebrations. Especially not when Sonny was the one who scored.

A childish bitterness settled in Sonny’s chest and he hated the way it swirled around his body, embarrassed by the pathetic possessiveness he knew he had no business feeling. Cuti was allowed to celebrate with whoever he wanted, it wasn’t a crime. He could pull the hair of whoever he wanted and show them the kind of tough love he always resorted to, Sonny shouldn’t care so much. But, selfishly, he did.

And so when Cuti and Deki eventually joined the team huddle, arms still wrapped together around each other’s shoulders, Sonny couldn’t help himself. He let Cuti collect him into a hug and, in a way he hoped was equal parts pointed as it was subtle, pushed at Deki’s hand until it slipped off Cuti’s back altogether. The action was lost in the chaos of the celebrations, and Sonny let himself bask in the way Cuti’s attention was now undividedly on him. Exactly how it should be.

It wasn’t until they pulled apart from each other that Sonny realised he hadn’t been subtle in the slightest. For Cuti had fixed him with a horribly knowing grin. 

“What?” Cuti asked.

Sonny couldn’t even bring himself to save face, “why did you celebrate with him?” He returned, finger twisting itself in the bottom hem of Cuti’s shirt.

“Jealous?”

“Yes.”

Cuti must not have been expecting the kind of easy transparency that Sonny was offering him, for his eyebrows shot up.

“Why?” He chuckled, steering them away back towards their half for the restart.

“Because you’re doing this,” Sonny wrestled an arm free to tangle in Cuti’s hair, “and this,” his hand slipped back down to slap Cuti’s neck, “and celebrating with Deki.” 

“It was a good assist, no?” 

Sonny huffed, “yes but… I scored.”

He almost didn’t recognise his own voice with how much petulance there was behind the words. 

“Qué lindo,” came Cuti’s reply, lilted by the same satisfaction that shone oh-so-clearly in his eyes, “you are my favourite, gordito. No one else.” 

It made a weight that Sonny hadn’t even noticed before lift off his chest. Which was stupid, really. It wasn’t like he needed any more reassurance he was Cuti’s favourite. 

But maybe a little reminder every once in a while wouldn’t go amiss. 

“Are you sure?” He pushed, just to appease the greediness in him that wanted more.

Cuti gave Sonny a rough slap to the curve of his waist, “if I show you here I will be in trouble.” 

If the stinging contact wasn’t enough to turn Sonny’s skin a pretty shade of pink then the implication of Cuti’s words definitely was. 

“Okay?” Cuti implored.

“Yeah,” Sonny conceded with a contented smile, “got it.” 

The hand around Sonny’s waist gripped tight, “mi boludo, so cute.”

Sonny couldn’t even find it within himself to be chagrined by the gentle patronising tone of Cuti’s words. If anything, it just fuelled the warmth that had settled in his stomach.

Maybe being jealous had its perks after all.

-:-

Sonny thinks he values passion over most things, thinks that the players who bleed Lilywhite are those who he should look up to the most. He thought that about Harry, whose whole life had been Tottenham, from youth level to professional, his heart was so full of one team it felt wrong to see him leave. Sonny had been crushed by it, had doubted if so much passion for only one team could truly exist - for if Harry didn’t have enough of it to stay, could anyone? 

Sonny’s own heart beat to the sound of N17, bled the same colour as the shirt he adorned every matchday and sank and soared to the undulations of their fluctuating form, but it just wasn’t the same. The spirit he observed in himself and his teammates paled in comparison to what he saw in Harry, who had enough of it to stay for so long; to endure so much heartbreak and disappointment just for the sake of some sort of masochistic hope that one day it would all come good. 

It didn’t. 

And maybe his passion ran out, maybe it was just one disappointment too many and he lost the energy to keep pushing to bring glory to something that he held so dear but was too self-destructive to achieve what he so desperately wanted. Sonny hated him for it, but he really hated that a part of him understood all the same. Would he have done the same? Perhaps. The idea couldn’t even formulate in his brain, but if that was to do with his unflinching loyalty or the unavoidable reminder that his career had more of an encroaching expiry date he had no idea. 

A selfish part of him wished that Harry would come back, just so he could observe what true, unadulterated passion looked like again. 

That was, until he began to catch glimpses of it in Cuti. 

Sonny could never doubt Cuti’s loyalty to Spurs, he was reminded of it every game and every training session, even more so since his appointment to vice-captain. But before, with the crushing wounds of Harry’s departure still so fresh, Sonny hadn’t been able to see that it was more than just that: loyalty. He had been so stuck on the idea that Harry’s passion was one-of-a-kind, that it was born from the club taking a chance on a youth player with practically no experience and trusting him to play his game. The club had offered him so much: the wages of a superstar, the freedom of playing how he wanted to and the undying love of the fans, it was more than enough for Sonny to watch as the club became a permanent mark branded on Harry’s heart. 

He thought that was it; that the only way to truly care for a team was to have been there from the start, to be given the chance to thrive and reap the rewards of paying back what you owe. But Cuti proved him otherwise. 

His transfer to Spurs was high-profile, sure; a proven international player and Serie A defender of the year, but it was risky all the same. A chance had been taken on him, some hot-headed kid from Córdoba whose mouth and flying tackles got him in trouble more often than not, something that only continued in the Premier League, where his reputation was soured by disciplinary issues and red cards. Sonny thought at points the club had given up on him, that the glimpses of talent weren’t enough to warrant his recklessness, but his place in the team remained all the same. 

He knew Cuti noticed it too, knew he recognised how much of a risk the managers were taking by standing by him, so he gave everything to try and repay them. In a way, the trust they placed in him was even more than that of what they placed in Harry: they had more to lose with Cuti, they couldn’t just put his shortcomings down to an academy kid failing to meet the demands of top-tier football. 

Sonny watched the way Cuti would run himself ragged on the pitch, fighting for every ball, his tackles now (thankfully) on the right side of too strong and voice heard by them all. 

It was passion, Sonny was sure of it. The same kind of passion he had convinced himself left with Harry. The kind of passion that made his chest soar.

And then when Cuti scored a rare goal and wheeled away in celebration, the badge nearly ripping from the front of his shirt as he brought it to his lips, Sonny felt the world shift ever-so-slightly on its axis. 

Seeing him kiss the badge, their badge, made Sonny’s brain short-circuit, simply because he wasn’t sure it was possible to love a person this much. He told him just that, in the quiet of a darkened bedroom, lights dimmed and silence a welcome reprieve to the ringing of the crowd that still played in their ears. 

“I love your love,” he said ineloquently, sentence practically nonsensical but it was the only way he knew how to phrase it. 

Cuti cocked an eyebrow, predictably confused by the wording, “what does that mean?” He asked.

“It’s like…” Sonny began, huffing when the right words didn’t come to him immediately, “the way you love things. It’s always with your whole heart, never just casually.”

The other man hummed, reaching up to smooth a wayward strand of hair off Sonny’s forehead, touch so gentle it only sought to further Sonny’s point.

“You love Tottenham so much,” he continued, “but why? The fans have turned on you before, we don’t win anything, the manager changes season by season, anyone with your talent and half a brain would have left by now, I don’t understand.”

Cuti considered his words for a moment, “because it is my team,” he settled on.

“Would you ever leave?”

“Not if you’re here.”

However nice the implications, it wasn’t the answer Sonny was looking for. He puffed his cheeks and started again.

“What if I wasn’t here?”

Cuti didn’t hesitate, “I would stay. Mientras me quieran, I will be here.”

“See?” Sonny said, “you love this club unconditionally, I didn’t think it was possible for someone else to think like that after… well. It’s just surprising.”

“What about you?” Cuti asked with a frown, “do you not love it?”

“Of course I do, but that’s not-”

“No one loves Tottenham more than you, gordito. Your passion… es obvio.” 

Passion.

Sonny found that word hard to use for himself. He wasn’t sure if he was allowed to. He hadn’t been there from the start, he had joined when the team was already on the up and felt at times as though he was thought of as little more than an extension of the best player the club had had for years. How could he claim to boast a word so strong as passion? 

He couldn’t bring himself to accept it, “I love Spurs, of course, but not as much as people like Harry who-” he began.

“Harry left, you stayed.”

Four words. Four words that left no room for argument. Sonny’s mouth stuttered closed.

“You stayed this year, and before too,” Cuti said, “when Harry wanted to leave before, you stayed.”

Sonny didn’t know what to say.

Cuti took his silence as a victory, “what did you say? ‘I love your love’? Me too. I love your love,” he grinned, “your love makes us better.”

There were tears stinging at the corners of Sonny’s eyes, he only hoped it was dark enough in their bedroom for them to be hidden. 

He shouldn’t have needed Cuti to tell him such a thing, if he decided to be selfish for once he would’ve seen it clearly; he stuck around, he was the one who stayed despite everything. Despite the endless transfer sagas and failed managers and winless runs, he stayed. All because he loved the club over all else. It was passion. Of course it was. Why did he never notice?

“Sonny?” Cuti murmured, reaching a hand up to smudge at a tear Sonny hadn’t noticed had slipped down his cheek. 

Cuti’s face had twisted into one of concern, like he thought Sonny’s tears were somehow a reaction to his words. Sonny didn’t know how else to prove him otherwise, so he settled on a simple truth:

“I love you,” he said. 

He loved pretty much everything about Cuti, but it truly was his unwavering loyalty Sonny loved the most. He looked at Cuti and saw Tottenham, saw their club they fought tooth and nail to win for, the club that simultaneously gave them everything and nothing at all, but somehow through it all still meant so much to them. 

Cuti’s face softened instantly, “I love you too,” he said through pursed lips as he pressed a gentle kiss to Sonny’s temple, “Mr Tottenham.”

It made a chuckle bubble up through Sonny’s chest, “don’t call me that, it’s not true.” 

“Yes it is.”

“Cris-“

Sonny’s rebuttal was quelled by another kiss as Cuti surged forward into his space.

“They love you too,” Cuti murmured, “the fans. They do.” 

Sonny felt a flush heat up his cheeks at the sudden praise, “stop.” 

Cuti’s resulting grin told Sonny he was far too pleased with himself.

“Everyone loves you,” another kiss, “my Sonny is so popular.” 

“Cuti, shut up.”

And he did.

-:-

Sonny had almost forgotten what it was like to feel true, splitting pain. The kind that made bile rise in his throat and cause his teeth to grit against the urge to throw up. The kind that awoke such a vicious panic in his chest, mind racing at a hundred miles an hour trying to figure out if this was it, if his career was ending there and then. He’d move his limbs and extremities one by one, flex his tendons and muscles too, taken over by some kind of sick eagerness to at least be the first person to find out whether he’d ever be able to play football again. 

It had been a long time. He always seemed to be lucky in that respect, he’d avoid injuries by what he could only assume was the grace of God, whereas others wouldn’t be so lucky. He knew his luck was bound to run out, that one day he’d have an injury serious enough to keep him out for a while, but he desperately didn’t want it to be his first season as captain. He couldn’t abandon the team; not now. Not yet.

So when he felt his knee jar angrily against the turf after a reckless challenge from the opposition, his brain went into a state of complete and utter shutdown. He only knew that he had hit the ground from the far-away feeling of grass underneath his fingertips, all other sensations having fallen away into the distance to make way for the burn of excruciating pain in his knee. Whilst static buzzed in his ears, he could just about make out the whistle of the referee and the screams from his teammates and the crowd, voices blurred and indistinguishable. 

He flexed his fingers and toes, rolled his shoulders and ankles, just to have something to do that wasn’t testing the ligaments in his knee. He wasn’t sure he was ready: not for the pain, but instead for the damning evidence that his season, and perhaps even part of the next, was over. 

He knew there were hands in his hair, hands smoothing against the flushed skin of his arms, but they couldn’t make it through the fuzziness that had blurred the edges of his surroundings. He felt like crying, but the thought of even opening his mouth to wail was enough to turn his stomach. 

Someone was speaking to him to his left, a soft voice, most likely one of their medical staff, but he couldn’t piece the words together. It was like he was back in 2016 again, with the English language just one big mess of words in his brain he held little hope of deciphering. 

“My knee,” he thought he heard himself say, “it’s my knee.”

The cool mist of numbing spray cleared just enough of the aching from the impact for him to breathe freely but the stinging pain beyond the surface of his skin was too glaring to ignore. 

Somewhere in the distance he heard his teammates screaming for retribution but then there were hands cradling his head that were so familiar the action nearly wracked a sob from his crumpled body. 

“Sonny,” Cuti said with a scary detachedness in his tone, “are you okay?”

Sonny let the medical team straighten his knee out, bracing himself for an explosion of pain, but instead just being met with a devilish twinge that, although still unpleasant, was much better than what he was expecting. It wasn’t his ACL. That much he was sure of

“I’m fine,” he bit out in reply, “it’s not too bad.”

Cuti bent down and leaned over Sonny’s face, blocking the view of the medical staff so Sonny’s eyeline was full only of Cuti.

“Who was it?” Cuti asked.

“What do you mean?” Sonny pressed, wincing involuntarily as they straightened his knee again, a movement that Cuti caught instantaneously. His gaze hardened into something murderous.

“Who tackled you?” Cuti amended, “tell me.”

Sonny realised belatedly what the meaning behind Cuti’s questioning was and fought the urge to wince again for a reason entirely unrelated to the pain. 

“It’s fine, Cuti, don’t worry,” he said gently.

“Tell me, gordito. I’ll break his legs.” 

If anyone else had said it, Sonny would’ve chalked it down as a purely hyperbolic statement. But it was Cuti. 

And if anyone would do something so reckless for him, it’d definitely be Cuti.

“Cuti. Don’t do something stupid,” he tried to chastise, but he knew it was pointless.

“It was number 6, no?” 

“Cris, I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

Sonny just about managed to catch a handful of Cuti’s shirt before he started to rise to his feet again, tugging the material with as much strength as he could muster to keep the other man at face-level.

“Listen to me-“ he began, but a cacophony of noise cut him off; the mixture of affronted voices from the opposition and elated crowd noise told him all he needed to know, he didn’t even need to turn his head to see what colour card the referee had brandished to the other player. 

It was a consolation made even sweeter by the gradual lessening of the pain in his knee until it was little more than a nagging bite in the back of his mind. 

“See? It’s fine,” he said, releasing his grip on Cuti’s shirt with a rattling exhale, “he got a red card, it’s fine.” 

Cuti clearly wasn’t convinced for his frown didn’t let up, but he at least made no further move to leave Sonny’s space. It was comforting to have him so close and, although it was definitely not a thought appropriate for a captain to have, the violent protectiveness made Sonny fight against the satisfied grin that threatened to break onto his lips. 

Cuti’s protective behaviour had calmed somewhat since his realisation that Sonny wasn’t going anywhere; safe in the knowledge that despite how new it all was, they were both as committed as each other to making it last. Though Sonny would be lying if he said he didn’t miss it. 

He missed the violent looks and even more violent tackles, even missed the way his heart would lurch in some sort of wicked mix of terror and glee every time he’d see Cuti fight battles on his behalf. 

It was where it all started after all; when Sonny had let himself acknowledge that Cuti’s possessiveness had its perks everything else had fallen into place: no longer shrouded in misplaced fear and the illusion of hatred, his feelings were so much easier to make sense of. 

He would’ve said to Cuti as much, though something in the other man’s eyes told Sonny he wouldn’t need to. Cuti was too attuned to every one of his mannerisms that Sonny knew he had already picked up on the way his breath had stuttered tellingly in his chest and that the dusting of colour on his cheeks wasn’t just a result of fatigue. Maybe his blatant transparency would become a problem at some point, but frankly, he couldn’t even begin to care.

Because after that, Cuti’s covetous behaviour was back with a vengeance. 

It was more controlled than before, sure, with less of his previous brazen disregard for both the opposition player’s wellbeing and Sonny’s own opinion on the matter, but it still served its purpose: Sonny felt like flying. 

He had almost forgotten how much it lit him alight, skin buzzing with a childlike excitement every time Cuti’s tackles would toe the line of propriety in retaliation to anyone laying a hand on Sonny. He stuck by Sonny’s side in training even more than before, so, so close it made Sonny’s hands itch from where he would force them to stay by his side - the temptation to reach out and touch so hard to ignore when Cuti was almost permanently in his orbit. 

It came to a head against Villa: another red card challenge the catalyst of it all, and this time Sonny didn’t even need to be on the receiving end of it to know it was a red card. 

The crunching of the opposition player’s shin against the side of Destiny’s kneecap was enough to send him flying, legs swept from underneath him as his body careened towards the ground. It was a challenge that had only one motive: to hurt Destiny as much as possible. Sonny didn’t know the reason behind it, whether it was frustration at the scoreline or Destiny himself, but in that moment he didn’t care. 

He moved to round on the referee, a venomous complaint on the tip of his tongue before the sound of raised voices caught his attention. Brennan’s carried the loudest, his tone as violent as his words as he spat insult after insult in the opposition player’s direction. At that, Sonny decided harassing the referee could wait and ran towards the group of players that had begun to gather around the incident in a mess of Lilywhite and claret and blue. 

It was hard to keep his normally calm and measured attitude; anger such an overwhelming feeling he was sure his entire body shook with it. There was a difference between a heavy challenge and a reckless, antagonistic one, the first Sonny could deal with, he respected it even, but the second? It boiled his blood like no other. 

He knew it was his job to try and mediate the situation, but Brennan’s hands were up to push and prod accusingly before Sonny could get a word in edgewise and everything blew out of control. They’d gravitated close enough to the dugouts for the managers and backroom staff to get involved; Ange’s shouts were equal parts placating and disapproving, he tried to get a hand in between Brennan and the other player before things spiralled any further whilst also biting the ear off the fourth official in hopes of a red card. 

Sonny almost jumped out of his skin at the feeling of an arm wrapping around his neck. It was loose enough for him to slip out of if he needed to, but it rattled him all the same when coupled with the spiteful words thrown over his shoulder by whoever had him in a headlock. He was practically frozen into place, body shocked into a rigid line with his hands outstretched uselessly in front of him. 

“Soltalo, ya,”  

Whoever was holding him flinched so violently Sonny was jostled enough to catch sight of what had shocked him so much. 

Cuti was behind the player with two hands up against his neck to strangle him, fingers pressed tight enough to turn the tips of them white. Sonny’s heart felt foreign in his chest at the sight.

“Soltalo,” Cuti said again, raising an eyebrow in an unmistakable challenge. The words “or else” didn’t need to be said, his hands were doing all the talking. Cuti’s grip didn’t relent until the arm wrapped around Sonny’s neck unwound itself, releasing him into the swarming ocean of players as they fought between themselves. 

Sonny lost his bearings in amongst it, bustled around this way and that with every jolt of movement around him. It was as disorienting as it was stressful; his focus narrowed by the raised voices and the fleeting feeling of an arm around his neck to the point where he had lost sight of a number of his teammates. Usually he trusted them to not do anything stupid, but even he was struggling to dispel the anger that had bubbled up into his chest. 

“Sonny,” came Cuti’s voice then, arms reaching out and catching hold of Sonny by the hand.

It was a point of contact that brought Sonny’s surroundings back to a relative normal. He clutched at Cuti’s hand like a lifeline and let himself be pulled until they were standing face to face.

“Are you okay?” Cuti asked, hands moving to rest on Sonny’s shoulders. They formed a barrier around him, caging him in away from the chaos and steadied him until his feet felt slightly more stable on the ground, “Sonny.”

Sonny didn’t realise he hadn’t answered until Cuti pressed again.

“Yeah,” Sonny breathed, “I’m fine now. Don’t worry.”

Cuti took that without much argument and went off in search of the referee, the anger brewing on his tongue no longer just a result of the tackle against Destiny, Sonny could tell. For even long after the red card had been given, Cuti’s eyebrows remained viciously furrowed. Where his gaze should’ve been locked bitterly towards the retreating form of the dismissed player or comfortingly towards where Destiny was testingly rolling an ankle, it was instead fixed unblinkingly at the player who had put his hands on Sonny.

Visions of whatever kind of retribution Cuti had in mind did nothing to dispel the self-satisfied rush of adrenaline that traitorously brought goosebumps to his skin. His heart ached with it, beating too fast and too heavy under the weight of the pent-up urge to touch, hug, kiss; something, anything, everything. 

Anything but nothing. 

Before he even realised it he was crossing the length of the pitch, weaving around the bodies of his teammates as they lined up for the restart until he neared Cuti on the edge of their penalty area.

“Cuti,” he said, urgency edging his tone, “Cuti, hey.”

Cuti gave little indication he had acknowledged Sonny’s presence other than a subtle shift in his posture, body angling towards Sonny ever-so-slightly like he was reacting unthinkingly to their magnetic pull.

“Cris, look at me,” Sonny tried again. His reward was a loose hand coming to rest atop his hip but little more; Cuti was still ardently avoiding eye contact, attention completely taken by the other player. It would’ve been enough to make Sonny’s skin crawl with jealousy if he didn’t know the reason behind it. 

“Mmm?” Cuti hummed eventually.

“Stop plotting murder.”

“I’m not.”

Sonny huffed, “you are. Stop it.”

And he really tried to hold himself back, he really did. But the gentle swipe of Cuti’s fingers against his hipbone had everything spilling over all at once.

“Cuti,” he said, hands escaping from their self-imposed cage at Sonny’s side to clasp either side of Cuti’s neck, “I love you.”

That finally got the other man’s attention. The breath was knocked out of Sonny’s chest when Cuti’s eyes finally fell on him.

“I love you,” Sonny repeated, “but get your revenge with the result, okay?”

Cuti frowned, “he hurt you.”

“And hurting him won’t help you or us, we need these three points Cris.”

Pleading to Cuti’s competitiveness was the only way to avoid a disaster, as unfair as he felt it was. 

Because Sonny wanted nothing more than to see how far Cuti would go; whether he’d be subtle with his retaliation or whether he’d not stop until he saw blood, any and all consequences forgotten to the wind. It was a frighteningly exhilarating thought, and he knew Cuti could see it in his eyes, but Sonny knew it wasn’t the right thought to have.

“You always protect me so well, and I love it, you know I do,” Sonny shifted his hands so they cupped Cuti’s cheeks instead, truth dancing dangerously on his tongue before he decided to speak his mind, “trust me there’s nothing I want more than to see you hurt him, but I need you to forget what happened and help us win the game, alright?”

Cuti looked sceptical, but nodded slowly, “alright,” he conceded.

“Thank you,” Sonny breathed, “thank you Cris, truly. For all of it. You’re too good to me.”

The game ended 4-0 and Cuti kept a clean sheet. 

And if Cuti celebrated more shamelessly in the faces of the opposition players at full-time, none of their teammates noticed enough to mention it. 

Sonny, however, couldn’t wipe the smile from his face as he watched.

-:-

“It’s too early, Cuti. Like seriously, it’s still dark outside, that’s not normal.”

Sonny felt like death.

Since they had started getting ready for training together, they had operated on Sonny’s timings and schedule. That meant waking up at a reasonable hour and arriving to training at the time they were scheduled to arrive at, not a minute earlier. This was, in Sonny’s humble opinion, the correct way to go about things, with the extra hour of sleep he got invaluable to ensuring he didn’t feel like a shell of a person on the journey to training. 

Cuti, however, disagreed. 

He had always been one of the first to arrive to training every day, waking up at ungodly hours every morning to get ready and travel to the training centre, seemingly unbothered by the fact the world had still yet to wake up around him. 

Usually, Cuti was happy to concede to Sonny’s complaints, and, even though he still woke up horribly early, allowed himself to stay in bed at least until Sonny’s own alarm went off. However, a squabble over the alleged merits of being up and active earlier than everyone else had led them to this moment: Sonny and Cuti arriving to the training centre at who knows what time in the morning, with the birds still chirping their morning song and the sun still making a valiant effort to climb above the line of the horizon. 

Cuti had jostled him awake at five a.m, a time that Sonny was so unfamiliar with that the alarm clock looked weird when it displayed a five and two zeros back at him. He almost questioned if it was broken until Cuti rolled him out of bed, duvet and all, and into the shower, insisting that a shower would clear some of the static from his head.

It didn’t.

Although whether that was because of the early hour or the fact that Cuti spent most of the time kissing him stupid was undecided.

Either way, he felt like he was trawling through molasses when they padded back into their bedroom. His reflection told just such a story; hair flying at all angles and eyes puffy with sleep. Cuti, of course, looked perfect. Sonny felt like throttling him.

The rest of the morning was a sleep-deprived blur, one that Sonny only properly broke out of when he got out of the car and felt the chill of the morning air against his face. In Cuti’s defence, the early hour meant that they could travel into training together in the same car, no longer afraid of the prying eyes that seemed to follow them everywhere they’d go. The car park was resolutely deserted aside from a few cars dotted around that he knew belonged to staff members. 

“You’re exaggerating,” Cuti said as he climbed out of the driver’s side.

(Sonny hadn’t trusted himself to operate a car in his state. He could hardly put one foot in front of the other.)

“No, you’re just crazy,” Sonny huffed, “it’s too early.” 

Cuti inhaled deeply and let the breath out with a satisfied smile, “it’s perfect. Refrescante, no?”

Sonny scowled, “no.”

He was being contrary for the sake of proving a point, because if he was honest, the air really was quite refreshing this early. There was that typical English humidity lingering in the air that, with the crisp coldness of the morning, for once felt more rejuvenating than suffocating. 

Cuti rounded the front of the car and backed Sonny against his door, “so grumpy,” he said with a grin.

“I’m not a morning person.”

“Mhmm, I know.”

“Why did I agree to this?” Sonny whined petulantly.

“To make me happy,” Cuti said, and that by itself would’ve been enough to make Sonny concede, but then- “and because of this.”

Before Sonny could speak, Cuti had surged forward to kiss the words from his mouth, soft but lingering, like they had all the time in the world.

And maybe with how early it was, they actually did.

“Cuti,” Sonny murmured, sense only returning to his brain in slow trickles, “we’re outside.”

Cuti didn’t make to move out of his space, only pulled back enough to speak, “no one is here,” he said.

He was right; the only sounds around them were the gentle chattering of birds and the distant hums of cars on one road far away towards the front of the training centre. It was still reckless, stupidly so, but the fog clouding Sonny’s mind from the early hour and the insistent press of Cuti’s lips prevented him from thinking entirely logically. 

“This still doesn’t mean we’re going in early every day,” Sonny reminded Cuti between kisses, voice slurred gently, “I feel terrible.”

Cuti huffed out a laugh, “sos dramático, hm? Drama queen.”

“And you’re a psychopath,” Sonny returned, “no one normal looks this good so early in the morning.”

“I know.”

Sonny swatted half-heartedly at Cuti’s arm for his cockiness, but melted into his touches all the same, the peaceful surroundings and gentle affection wearing away at the usual irritation that always plagued him in the mornings. Somehow everything just felt more domestic than the mornings they normally shared; they had time to enjoy each other’s company for once, instead of rushing around trying to get ready for training because Sonny’s alarm was set so daringly late. He could slide his hands up Cuti’s waist as slow as he liked, let himself breathe more deeply into the kisses and savour the taste of the bitter coffee on Cuti’s tongue, mind at ease knowing that they didn’t have to sprint out of the door and into their separate cars to begin playing the role of two people who were just friends and nothing more. 

Cuti clearly got tired of Sonny’s lazy kisses, for he began to trail his own down the side of Sonny’s neck; it was nothing more than just unhurried presses of lips against the skin there, but they were mind-numbingly firm and brought a chill with them when the morning breeze caught the moisture left behind. Sonny just about suppressed a shiver.

They stayed like that an age, trading kisses back and forth against the car, world slipping in and out of focus around Sonny. There was a gentle murmuring of words from somewhere that sounded so close and so far all at once, and only when Sonny properly paused to listen did he realise they sounded like German. 

“Your pronunciation has gotten better,” he hummed inattentively at Cuti, running a hand through the hair at his nape. 

Cuti paused his mission of dotting kisses across Sonny’s jaw and raised his head, “hm?”

“Your German,” Sonny said, “you spoke it well just then.”

“German?”

Sonny let his eyes flutter open and was met with a vision full of Cuti’s confused expression. 

“I didn’t say anything,” Cuti continued slowly, like he was testing if Sonny was joking.

He wasn’t.

He had definitely heard someone speaking German, and if it wasn’t Cuti, then-

When he whipped his head to the side he locked eyes with a very exasperated looking Timo, one hand on the open door of his car and the other hanging uselessly in the air like he had started to wave before realising what he was seeing.

“Oh,” Sonny said, because what else could he say?

Timo’s mouth opened and closed like a goldfish for a number of seconds before he slammed his car door shut and scuttled towards the entrance of the training centre like a scandalised child. 

Sonny wanted the ground to swallow him whole and bury him deep enough that he’d never be found again.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Sonny hissed, “we are so screwed.”

There was a slight frown on Cuti’s face, but other than that, he seemed perfectly unfazed. Which was impressive, considering Sonny felt like his life was well and truly over.

“It was Timo,” Cuti said, laying a comforting hand on Sonny’s shoulder, “it’s fine.”

Sonny shrugged his hand off and slipped out of Cuti’s space, “no it’s not fine! Shit, Cris, what are we going to do?”

Cuti made to grab at Sonny’s waist but paused at the last second, as if offering the reassurance but not forcing him to take it. Sonny shifted just enough to allow Cuti’s fingers to catch his hip and squeeze.

“Nothing,” Cuti answered, “for now, nothing.”

“But-”

“Talk to him later, gordito, no te preocupes,” 

Sonny tried, and failed, to heed Cuti’s words. It was impossible not to worry, the stakes were too high to brush such a situation under the carpet and pretend it never happened. It wasn’t particularly stressful to think Timo now knew, Sonny knew he’d never say anything about it, but he was more so disappointed with how careless they had been. That it had only been one of their teammates that found them was a lucky escape.

“We’re never waking up early again,” he murmured, tipping forward to rest his head on Cuti’s shoulder, “this was a bad idea.”

Cuti hummed in acquiescence, but there was a teasing lilt to it. Sonny would’ve hit him if he had the energy to move, as it were, all he could bring himself to do was shuffle closer to Cuti and let him take some of the weight off his shoulders. 

Sonny put off the conversation for as long as he possibly could, avoiding any possibility of running into Timo like his life depended on it. It was an impressive feat considering the training centre was only so big and their team only so small, but he managed to stay out of Timo’s eyeline until they were all packing up to leave. Cuti brushed past on his way out of the door and gave Sonny an unceremonious shove in Timo’s direction as he went. The jostle of movement caught Timo’s eye and Sonny realised belatedly they were going to have the conversation right that second. Any and all words he had been hoping to say flew out of the window.

“So,” he started, nervous laugh fluttering up in his chest of its own accord, “about earlier.”

Timo scratched the back of his neck and Sonny swore one of the corners of his mouth was downturned in the slightest of grimaces. Clearly someone was dreading this talk just as much as he was.

“Earlier. Right,” Timo said whilst bending down to undo and redo his already perfectly tied laces. 

Sonny didn’t even know where to start, “what you saw was… well. What you saw was what you saw, I guess, I won’t pretend like it wasn’t, but… You know, we weren’t expecting you to be there and I’m sorry if we made you uncomfortable but-”

“I don’t mind, by the way,” Timo interrupted quickly, hands raising in surrender, “I have no problem with it, I… actually already sort of knew really.”

 Sonny’s mouth stuttered closed.

That definitely wasn’t on the list of things he expected Timo to say.

“You what?” He squeaked.

Timo winced at the sudden noise, “kind of? On my first day Ben mentioned that you guys had… something going on,” he said with an awkward shrug.

Ben.

Of course it was Ben.

“You joined in January though,” Sonny mused out loud, “me and Cuti, we weren’t even together…” he trailed off, desperately trying to make sense of it all.

“He didn’t say anything explicitly, just that you guys had some,” Timo waggled his fingers in air-quotes, “‘things to figure out’, I didn’t really know what he meant but then I saw you guys in training and in games and… I guess I just assumed that was what he was talking about. That and I’m pretty sure I overheard him giving Cuti a pep talk about making a move the day you came back from the Asian Cup.” 

Sonny’s face felt like it was on fire. 

“Oh my God,” he settled for, “how did he… I’m gonna kill him.”

Timo’s eyes widened, “don’t tell him I told you, he wants to pretend like he had no involvement in it and-”

“Too late,” Sonny cut in, hands already flying to retrieve his phone from his pocket.

Sonny:

how did you figure out Cuti liked me before i did?!

>:(

Ben:

Sonny.

everyone figured it out before you did.

watching your obliviousness to Cuti’s pining was getting embarrassing, i had to do something

so you’re welcome. I better be the best man at your wedding.

Sonny huffed in indignation. Partly because of the whole situation and partly because of Ben’s audacity to think he would possibly choose anyone else.

He felt like he should be terrified, or at the very least taken aback, but when he joined Cuti back in the car, their hands linked over the centre console, his stress seeped away as he realised just how much it felt like nothing had changed. There was no devastating fallout, no need for desperate excuses or humiliating words; nothing had come of a situation Sonny had been dreading for months. 

Time kept moving, the earth kept spinning and Cuti remained by his side. They were his three constants. The ones he could rely on no matter what. Things were bound to happen in their lives, their teammates would all find out about them eventually, he could change teams, they both could, they would retire, Sonny first and Cuti not too long after, they would find things to do after football and settle down in a nice house somewhere away from the public eye. But time would keep moving, the earth would keep spinning and Cuti would still be by his side.

And that, Sonny thought, was enough.