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It was one of those slow nights.
Training had been long, but not brutal. Dinner was leftovers. Music was quiet. Ferran had been half-asleep on his stomach since ten, shirt off, curled sideways across the bed like someone had dropped him there and forgotten to move him. Pedri wasn’t far behind him, barefoot, loose t-shirt, stretched out with one knee hooked over Ferran’s thigh and his fingers wandering across his back in no real direction.
He’d started tracing the wings again, mostly out of habit. He always ended up back here when Ferran was like this, worn out and calm, the kind of tired that made him quiet in a way he never was on the pitch. Pedri let his fingers drift along the right wing, then the left, skipping over the FT7 logo in the center, pausing under the crown.
“You still like all of these?” he asked absently, thumb brushing the old ink.
Ferran hummed against the pillow. “Wouldn’t’ve kept them if I didn’t.”
Pedri smiled. Fair.
He shifted a little lower, dragging two fingers across the text beneath the logo, lo intentas, te equivocas, te levantas, before skating past the gladiator and over to the bay leaves tucked low on either side of Ferran’s spine.
And then he saw it.
It was new. Or new-ish. Subtle enough to blend into everything else, but definitely not something Pedri had traced before.
“Wait,” he said, sitting up a little. “What’s this?”
Ferran made a sleepy noise. “What?”
“This. By the leaves.” Pedri leaned in, squinting. “Is that… an eight ball?”
Ferran cracked one eye open. “Maybe.”
Pedri ran a fingertip around it. Yeah. Definitely an eight ball. Small, black, outlined sharp but tucked into the curve of Ferran’s lower back like it had been part of the plan all along. And circling around it - smaller text, lowercase, barely noticeable if you weren’t looking - was one word: home.
Pedri blinked at it. “You got a new tattoo.”
“Mhm.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“Didn’t think I had to.”
Pedri stared at the little design for a long second, mouth parted slightly.
“…It’s a magic eight ball,” he said slowly.
“Yeah.”
“With the number eight.”
“Correct.”
Pedri’s gaze lifted, just for a moment, toward the framed Barça jersey across the room. Number 8. His number.
And then his eyes dropped back to the word etched around the ball. Home.
He blinked. “Is this about me?”
Ferran rolled his face lazily toward the pillow again, voice muffled. “Took you long enough.”
Pedri sat there in silence, hand still resting against the curve of Ferran’s back, fingers curled lightly around the edge of the new ink.
He didn’t know what to say. The realization had hit so softly it almost didn’t register, like hearing someone say your name from the next room, like catching a familiar smell in the middle of a crowded street. It was simple. Understated. An eight ball, a word.
And still, it said everything.
“You’re such a loser,” Pedri said, voice quiet but warm.
Ferran made a sleepy sound again. “Say it like it’s news.”
Pedri leaned down and pressed a kiss to the base of his spine, right beneath the new tattoo.
“It’s really good,” he added, gentler now. “I like it.”
Ferran didn’t say anything back, but his hand slid out across the bed until it found Pedri’s. Their fingers linked, easy.
Pedri laid down beside him again, keeping close, forehead nudged lightly against Ferran’s shoulder. His thumb traced over the back of Ferran’s knuckles in lazy circles.
“It’s weird,” he murmured after a beat. “How you always manage to say things without actually saying them.”
“Yeah, well. You talk enough for both of us.”
Pedri laughed once, nose brushing Ferran’s skin. “You suck.”
Ferran’s mouth twitched into a tired smile. “Love you too.”
They stayed quiet after that. Not because there was nothing else to say, but because there was nothing that needed saying. Pedri could still feel the faint warmth of that new ink under his fingertips, the way it sat there like a secret, like something Ferran never intended to show off. Not for the cameras. Not for the world. Just for him.
And he got it.
Not every “I love you” had to be loud. Some of them were small and permanent, drawn into skin and hidden beneath the curve of a shoulder blade.
Pedri closed his eyes and let the silence settle around them again.
He didn’t need anything else.
- sofía ✎ᝰ.