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It’s right before the Clasico when Jude feels completely battered, like he has to put extra effort into every step he takes instead of it being natural, like he has to think twice even before breathing. The only thing he wanted to do was have his mom drive him home and jump into his bed, letting the soft sheets lull him into a deep sleep.
He makes her drop him off at Gavi’s hotel instead, ignoring the pointed look she gives him. This is dangerous territory and they both know it, especially before a big game like this.
That’s probably why Gavi hadn’t been the one to text him like he usually does, had made it so that if Jude wanted to meet, he’d have to reach out. Jude thought he was just delirious and exhausted enough to not care about that. He wanted to see him. Maybe admitting it made him look more vulnerable than the actual act of it, but Jude had never been good at hiding his feelings.
When he’d first texted, he’d half expected Gavi to not respond at all. He must have been busy training, like Jude had been. Except in his case, he had the added incentive of desperately wanting to earn a start, even though he probably wouldn’t be given one for his own sake. Jude didn’t have to do that, he knew he’d start because he’d been told, even if the goals had dried up. Either way, the consolation that it was probably a good thing for Gavi to not play at all in such an intense game didn't help soothe the twinge in Jude’s heart that desperately wanted to play against him.
Maybe, that’s why he’d made his mom drive all the way to Gavi’s hotel, completely opposite to their usual route. To have one little moment, one night that he got to keep to himself before they had to be thrown in front of the Bernabeu’s raging crowd, pretending like they didn’t know each other as anything more than players even though no one else had gotten close to touching him the way Gavi had for a year now. It’s probably why Gavi immediately responds and sends him the address, or atleast a tiny little part of Jude’s heart hoped.
When Gavi opens the door to his hotel room, quickly dragging him inside, Jude is still in the casual clothes that he’d put on after training, shoulder strap accompanied, like a parasite that he couldn’t get rid of. Well, he could , but that was more complicated. It was easier to think of it as something that was temporary, until the need for it magically disappeared. Right .
The way in which Gavi’s hands travel from his wrist to his waist makes something inside Jude shiver with anticipation, even though he’s been on the receiving end of his touch so many times. Something about the fact that it’s instinctive makes the hair on his arms stand up even more, that they’ve done it so many times that it’s almost second nature now. Routine. That’s what Gavi symbolises to him, even if the routine includes sneaking around in hotel rooms and eating shitty takeaways on weekends until his heart feels content for once. It doesn’t matter that he has to skirt around and hide it, it matters that it’s theirs .
“Hey.” Gavi says, as he leans in for a kiss, pulling Jude down instead of getting up on his tiptoes. He’s almost tugging at his face in a way that’s so quintessentially Gavi that it makes Jude’s heart hurt. Or, maybe it’s the fact that he’s so exhausted that he’s delirious now.
“Hey, when did you finish training?.” Jude asks, somehow in the span of a year actually starting to look forward to the tidbits that he gets from Gavi about what they do at training. It’s much better now than when he was stuck in individual training, not being able to do anything other than exercises for his injury that were enough to drive anyone insane after the first few days. Not Gavi though, even if Jude had done his fair share of holding him closely as he sat in silence after those long gruelling training sessions. It was one of the only times he’d seen Gavi go completely quiet.
“A few hours ago. It’s so nice seeing my name on the squadlist again.” Gavi says, as if just the thought of it makes him feel giddy. Hell, it almost makes Jude himself feel giddy too. He’d watched Gavi get his first start of the season, playing twenty minutes against Sevilla, his boyhood club.
It was almost an insurmountable task to hide his grin as he watched the boy he liked most doing the thing that he loved most, like he’d never been gone. They’d won too. The game against Bayern had been tougher, managing a measly draw. Jude hadn’t missed the opportunity to hang it over Gavi’s head, what with their win against Dortmund.
“You think the coach will let you play?.” Jude asks gingerly, even though he knows Gavi wouldn’t ever get offended or touchy at the question. He’s kissing Jude’s neck while straddling his hips in a way that drives him crazy, in the way Gavi knows drives him crazy.
“You better hope not for your own sake.” Gavi jokes, exactly the response Jude had anticipated that he can’t help but have the corners of his lips quirk up in a smile.
It’s when Gavi is about to guide him to the bed, when his shoulder starts twinging, like some sort of ironic joke. It isn’t so much that the pain is debilitating enough to ruin his entire day anymore, but the sudden reminders that it’s still there feels cruel anyway. Gavi’s face morphs into concern, like he immediately knows just from the way Jude’s face had darkened that something was bothering him. Instead of pushing him down roughly like he’d probably planned, he makes him sit on the bed instead, his fingers intertwining Jude’s.
“Shoulder?.” he asks, even though he obviously knows the answer.
“Hmm, didn’t take the brace off yet.”
“Why? Is it bad enough that you have to wear it all the time now?.” Gavi worries, and the sight of it almost makes Jude feel bad, even though he can’t really control his body.
He hesitates before he replies, the vulnerability of what he’s about to say making him feel self conscious. Not because of the admission itself but what it implies. But really, maybe the thing that scares him the most is sitting here and showing someone the parts of him that don’t work the way he needs them to, that crack open the facade of perfection he’s been desperately trying to hold onto and ask for help instead of chipping away at them. He does it anyway.
“No, just wanted you to do it. Your hands are softer.” he moves his head to the side as he speaks, wanting to get a proper look at Gavi’s face.
“Thank you, you know I take a lot of pride in my lotioning routine.” he says and Jude knows, because he’s spent nights doing it with him after they’d decided to shower together. Another reminder of the routine that they’d built that made his heart ache.
When Gavi touches him the next time, his touch is far more calculated and gentle. And really, they’d turned from rough and messy to this a long time ago, after they’d already explored every part of each other’s bodies that they didn’t feel the need to claw and poke until they could figure out what the other person liked, what turned them on. He starts taking off Jude’s brace and he finds that it’s far less excruciating when he can stare at Gavi’s face the whole time instead of looking down at the too cold tiles in Valdebebas.
The instant gratification after Gavi takes off the strap doesn’t last long. It feels like freedom for a little bit, like he can breathe again literally and figuratively until the soreness kicks in, like when you’ve rested your head in the wrong position for so long that getting used to the right one hurts. Gavi can probably tell, because he calmly grabs a cooling cream from his bag. The way he moves, like it’s second nature for him to take care of Jude like this almost calms his nerves down.
“Sit still,” he instructs and Jude thinks he could spend his whole life listening to him talk just like this. He does as he’s told, until the cooling cream brings him instant relief for a while and he’s back to grabbing Gavi by the waist and towards him, not even waiting until he’s put the cap on the bottle. The only response Gavi gives is a slight chuckle before letting Jude kiss his waist until he feels satisfied.
He ends up massaging Jude’s muscles in the way he knows makes him feel better while Jude is too busy kissing and nosing at whatever part of his body he can, unable to get enough no matter how many times he does it. They both know what they want to do, except now Jude finds that he enjoys the time they spend together leading upto the actual time he spends having sex with Gavi just as much, if not more. It’s definitely better than the first few times when it felt like a business transaction, even if they were both too out of it and dazed to actually know what they were doing apart from the fact that they couldn’t keep their hands off of each other.
Gavi gets up again, and Jude can barely get a whine out before he’s back, holding a bottle of lotion in his hands this time. He gets up on the bed and pulls his knee to his chest, handing the bottle over to Jude, who takes it immediately. It’s almost like a little trick that he loves doing, or maybe it comes as second nature to him, knowing that Jude only really feels comfortable asking for something if he can do something in return, if he can feel useful even in the smallest ways. Jude doesn’t think there’s a single person out there who knows how to love him like that, whether they know all the things he would rather keep to himself or not. God knows Gavi doesn’t, and yet.
He starts the way he always does, kissing the little scar on Gavi’s knee. The first time, he’d been stupid enough to do it only after he was done applying the lotion, getting a taste of scented Hibiscus in his mouth almost instantly, Or, maybe he hadn’t had the courage until afterwards. Now, he knows that Gavi looks forward to it almost as much as being touched. Then he takes a tiny but good enough scoop of the lotion before making his way up and down Gavi’s thighs, down to his ankles. Even though Jude had been there while it was happening, he really doesn’t think he can ever stop marvelling at how Gavi had built his body back up, how his thighs actually looked strong again, if not stronger than they’d been before.
When he’s done, he looks at Gavi with an expectant look on his face, like he’s had enough of the build up and needs to be fucked already. He knows Gavi can tell too because there’s an unmistakable shit-eating grin on his face. Or, maybe he’s just trying to withhold as long as he can because he wants to savour Jude instead of having it be over before he knows it. He goes through the extra length of making Jude work for it and kiss him first. Despite how much he’s holding back, Jude can tell he’s practically itching to leave marks on his body, knowing the cold weather will force him to wear layers anyway.
He doesn’t know what Gavi finds more amusing, covering him in marks before games like this, for the whole world to see in just a slip. Or, the fact that he gets to be the only one to see it.
“Can you make it hurt?.” Jude almost whispers, voice laced with desperation once he’d ended up under Gavi, who didn’t have as much self control as he claimed after all. The only thing he gets in return is a pointed look and Gavi’s grip tightening against his wrist.
“No,” he responds firmly while wiping away at the sweat building up on Jude’s forehead. “Just relax okay? I know your body, I know what I’m doing.”
And Jude does; lets himself be touched and kissed and fucked in all the right ways by the only person that really knows every inch and crevice of his body, until he doesn’t feel like taking himself apart bit by bit anymore.