Work Text:
When it happens, Lamine is thirty yards away from Pau and the guys at the back, and yet he sees in the incident in overwhelming clarity.
It’s a tackle he’s seen Pau do a hundred times over and over, one that he’s been on the receiving end of in training even, but this time Pavlidis goes down and Lamine’s eyes fly to the ball, rolling away from the two players as if it wants to distance itself from the outcome, too. The angle is clearly wrong, an error made through whisker-thin margins, and even as the referee’s whistle cuts through the crowd’s screams Lamine finds himself closing his eyes for a margin of a second, hoping, silently praying that the worst doesn’t come.
But it does come, because the card is red and the crowd erupts from all corners once more, the bloodthirst even more palpable now. It’s like a flip of a coin, how quickly the atmosphere has turned suffocating, like they’ve only just realised that they’re playing inside a horror movie.
Lamine finds it in himself to try and jog closer, but he’s numb like his limbs are disconnected, moving with a mind of their own. Now, at least, he can hear them more clearly: Iñigo and Pedri protesting incomprehensibly, Frenkie pleading with the referee for any softer sentence that they could salvage. Deep down Lamine knows it’s a done deal; this stadium has never been kind to them as culers, Lamine himself having seen years of crushing defeats on idols and teammates faces alike.
In the end Pau does walk off, and for a split second Lamine manages to catch the dejection and upset in his eyes as he goes. It feels like some kind of electric shock, because this is Pau and he’s never seen Pau like this—Pau, who is so consistently logical and calculated with his defense and passes, so smart with his tackles like Lamine has known for the better part of a decade.
He doesn’t know how long he spends frozen like that, but soon Jules has his hand on Lamine’s shoulder and he’s down back to earth, down back on the rough pitch of the Estadio Da Luz, with an hour more of football to fight for. With ten men on the team. Without Pau stabilizing the team in the back.
“Heads up, Lamine. We’re going to play again. We’ll see him later.” Jules whispers in his ear, and he nods gravely. Lamine forces himself to swallow, and scans his surroundings on the pitch right before the ball goes into play.
Job’s not finished.
The final whistle sounds and Lamine immediately leaves his place on the bench to go to the dressing room early, his entire body having been buzzing ever since he left the pitch. It felt like an eternity, watching his teammates run through the whole match while he had no way to help or control the outcome.
Of course, it ended up being fine. Raphinha gave them the lead, but that was long after he’d left. Flick had been kind when he came off, saying that he clearly wasn’t at the top of the game like Lamine didn’t know that, but even here his head still feels gone.
He doesn’t find Pau in the dressing room, doesn’t see him even when everyone else is slumped over uncomfortable seats listening to their post-match talk. It’s unusual, the feeling of not having Pau beside him, as they always were with each other.
Eventually Lamine does see him again when they’re all piling into the team bus, weary bones clambering at the thought of finally getting some rest. He’s sat a few rows from the back instead of his usual place in the middle where Hector always claims is the coldest, and Lamine is worried again.
But Pau does look up and pats the seat next to him, and Lamine follows easily. Pau’s face is unreadable, his expression as blank as ever. “Hey,” Lamine whispers, unsure of how the other is feeling.
And then Pau does smile, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes and Lamine can understand. There’s the urge to touch his face, to console him, but it feels like they’re too much in the open for that. Like the environment is too harsh for such soft gestures.
Pau wriggles in his seat a bit, and Lamine ends up leaning his head on Pau’s shoulder as the bus starts moving. This is enough, for now. He can hear their teammates chattering silently even with all the fatigue, but Lamine doesn’t have it in him to fall asleep just yet.
They stay just like that for the trip, not saying anything more.
It’s way past midnight in Lisbon when they arrive back at the hotel.
This is how it usually happens, after matches: they enter the room and Pau immediately crashes out on the pristine hotel sheets, taking up all the space like a starfish and, if they won, a big smile on his face too.
This is different. Lamine goes directly to the bathroom, just to wash his face again, and when he comes out Pau is on his bed, sitting up with his back against the headboard, the light from his phone illuminating his face.
“What’cha watching?” Lamine asks as he dries his face off with a towel.
Pau looks up and shakes his head. “Ah, it doesn’t matter.” There’s a tinge of guilt in his voice.
“Come on,” Lamine insists, and climbs on the bed too, uncaring of how tiny the single bed really is. He gets a peek on the screen, and—it’s the match replay, exactly on the minute when he got sent off.
“Oh, Pau…” Lamine whispers, and in a quick movement Lamine snakes an arm around Pau’s neck, wrapping around his shoulder and his hand resting on Pau’s chest, and Pau leans into it, slumping down lower to slightly tuck his face into Lamine’s neck.
He sighs. “I keep thinking about it, you know.”
Lamine can feel Pau’s heartbeat under his hand, like this.
“We still won.”
“Yes, well, I saw Pedri after the match, he looked like a dead man standing. The guys would have gotten out of this with a bigger lead and half the fatigue if not for me.” Pau murmurs. “And…” he trails off.
Somehow, Lamine thinks he knows what Pau’s thinking of.
“It’s not the same as last year. You know that—Pau, Flick told us about this so many times. A single guy should never cripple a whole team. None of us should carry that burden.”
Pau shakes his head. “No, it shouldn’t. But… it’s ridiculous, Lamine. I’m one of the ones that failed to keep that lead last year, and now my mistake is why everyone had to work twice as hard.”
“Well,” Lamine sighs. “We’re a team for a reason, yeah? We’ll be fine. Heck, I don’t know if you even noticed, but I was so shit today,” he chuckles, attempting to lighten up the conversation. “I think being taken off at the 56th minute is a personal record for me.”
Pau scoffs, and attempts to elbow Lamine even in the position that they’re in. “Of course I watched.”
“What if I told you that was just how much I wanted to stick by you?” He jokes.
“No way, idiot,” Pau shakes his head incredulously, but at least Lamine can see that the other boy’s feeling a lot less bad about himself. Mission accomplished for him, then.
“Hey, but seriously. We’ll make it up to the team, I can feel it happening in the future. One way or another. Don’t worry your pretty face too much about it, yeah?”
At the last sentence, Pau reacts immediately, scrunching up his eyebrows fondly, a touch of red on his pale cheeks. “Shut up,” he says, but there’s no heat to his words.
This time, Lamine finally does it, plants a quick kiss on Pau’s temple. It’s easy, feels like the easiest thing in the world. “You wouldn’t really want that, would you?” His voice comes out so soft, almost unrecognizable.
He finds it hard to think or feel self conscious about anything when Pau’s looking at him like, this, though. With all of the stars sparkling in his eyes, like a galaxy.
Pau scoffs again, and it’s like a rumbling where their bodies touch each other. “No, I wouldn’t,” he admits.
“Lucky for you, because I’m not going anywhere,” Lamine giggles.
And Lamine feels Pau nod, in lieu of another response. They just stay like that for a while, breathing in unison, until Pau eventually breaks the silence. “Hey, stay like this tonight, will you?”
Lamine agrees readily, shifting again so that they’re both in a more comfortable position, fully lying down on the bed now. “We’ve both grown so much the past year and still we find ways how to squeeze ourselves into single person beds like we did in La Masia,” Lamine remarks, amused.
“It’s a learned skill. We’re lucky.” Pau laughs, and for the first time since the game finished Lamine can barely see any traces of the night’s disappointment on his face. There’s a moment, and Pau looks like he’s thinking of something. “Lamine, what time is it?” he whispers, barely audible over the quiet in the hotel room.
Lamine reaches over awkwardly to the nightstand to take a look at his own phone. “Almost 1:30.”
“Ugh.” Pau runs a hand over his face again. “I’ll probably look sleepy during the recovery session again.”
He doesn’t sleep well on the plane, Lamine remembers. “Let’s go to sleep then, yeah?” he suggests, and Pau nods promptly.
Lamine turns the lamp off and they move into somewhat of a sleeping position, still facing each other, and with Pau’s eyes closed, so tangibly close to him that Lamine can almost count his eyelashes, he looks so at peace.
The moment feels like it stretches forever until Pau opens his eyes again, and Lamine feels caught. He smiles again, the drowsiness evident in his features. “Hi. Thank you. Love you, y’know.”
And just like that, Lamine feels like his heart could burst at any moment. “Love you,” he replies, easy, but it’s like his mind is floating. They have this. They got each other.
Sometimes, it sounds too good to be true.
Neither of them say anything more after that, no longer willing to disturb the peace and quiet that falls over the room. Pau shifts ever so slightly, closer and closer, and it’s the closest it can be to perfect after such a long day.