Chapter Text
Jude was so happy for the win; adding the fact that he had scored those two goals was everything for him, along with the proud look from the trainer. The hugs from his teammates and, above all, the look full of pride that his parents gave him. So he was so, so happy; the party was at its loudest, alcohol running everywhere along with food.
Jude decided to sit down for a bit on the only couch that he found that was empty. He opened his Instagram and started checking the stories and saw all the congratulations; the smile on his face was growing bigger and bigger. Then he saw the story from @isabellaa, which was the profile from Isabel Haugseng, one of Erling's childhood friends. The story in question was a picture of her hugging Haaland, along with a message in Norwegian. He knew some words, but he was too drunk to try, so he hit the translation that said, "The adventure is over for now, but we will take the memories with us forever. I'm so proud of you." He watched the image for a long time; Erling was crying in the photo. He remembered that he saw the Norwegian cry, but from afar, and when they hugged, he dried his tears so he wouldn't notice them. Jude didn't say anything in that moment; jealousy flooded him because how was it possible that he wasn't able to do that?
He and Erling had a sort of situationship going on for a long time. Since he started at Real Madrid, he knew for certain that Erling was single, the blonde would've told him otherwise, right? Jude liked Isabel; she was a funny and pretty girl, so smart and one of the few persons that were really close to Erling, so it wasn't weird that they started to be "something". The thing that Jude and Erling had was something that very few people knew, just some teammates of Erling, since it was always Jude that went to visit him. Jude was very reluctant to make something official or stable. Erling had come out of the closet as bisexual with his family and close friends and to some teammates from Manchester City and since Erling was a very private person, he didn't feel the need to scream to the whole world about it. But Jude hadn't even taken the time to think about his own sexuality; he was too afraid to think about it. He wasn't able, for now, to answer back to the 'I love you's' that Erling had given him a lot of times.
Should he call Erling and ask him about his relationship with Isabel? Would that show his evident jealousy? He was drunk enough to consider even going to Erling's hotel and going to his room looking for answers. Maybe Erling and Isabel were just friends; Erling still loved Jude, and then he would be able to comfort him about the loss of Norway, and Jude could finally express his emotions.
With a new flush of resolution, he got up from the couch, waited a second to stabilize himself, and went looking for his jacket and his keys He got out of their hotel and called for a cab. When he got in, he gave the driver the address of the hotel were the norwegian was staying. He searches in his chat with Erling for the number of the room. When the cab arrived at the hotel of the norwegian team, he then paid quickly and tried to enter the hotel looking calm.
When he arrived at the door of Erling, he took a deep breath and knocked. He waited and knocked again, this time again without any answer, but he heard someone grunt behind the door, and then he heard steps coming closer to the door. Jude felt the anticipation along with the anxiety fill him to the brim. Then the door opened, and Jude Bellingham found himself face to face with the man of his life, Erling Haaland.
Erling was having a hard time sleeping; he tried his best to not let the anger take the best of him, along with the frustration and sadness that always came with the loss of a match. He tried to take time to think about other things, like the fact that he was getting back to Norway soon, back to the cold, and there were a lot of people waiting for them, people that were very proud of him and his team. They were going to meet the royal family, for God's sake, but even with all of this, his mind was going back to one person, Jude Bellingham.
He had really missed playing with Jude, even if they were on rival teams. Erling loved Jude a lot; he knew that with certainty, even if that love was starting to be surpassed by the feelings he believed were starting to develop between him and Isabel. He didn't know how much time he could be able to wait for Jude to be ready; he didn't want Jude to figure out his sexuality; he only wanted reciprocity of his feelings from Jude. He wanted to feel loved too; at this point he didn't want to have a relationship that was known to people; he only wanted to be loved enough to be able to call Jude his boyfriend, even if it was only in his mind and in the silence of their home.
But the feeling that maybe Jude took advantage of their situationship in the match and distracted him during all the match. Those intrusive thoughts were starting to take room in his mind, and all the things that he read on social media about his development on the match were starting to take a toll on him. He didn't actually think that Jude tried to sabotage him for his team to win. If they were sabotaged, Jude was the last person to blame in that situation. All the things that he said to Jude at the end of the game and in the press conference after the match were real, and he really meant all of those things. He was trying hard to convince himself about those things.
Erling was in the middle of that mental battle when he heard a knock on his dorm door; he ignored it. It probably was one of his teammates that got drunk and wanted to bother him. But then, another knock came; he grunted and decided to go check the door before they kept bugging him. The closer Erling got to the door, the heavier his chest felt; it was like something told him to not answer the call and to go back to sleep and move on.
The last person that he hoped to find on the other side was Jude, the source of his greatest joys and also the source of all of his insecurities. Jude looked drunk, very drunk; his eyes were clouded with joy and, at the same time, with guilt along with other feelings that Erling wasn't able to decipher in that moment.
The hallway was empty, except for Jude, who was looking straight into Erling's blue eyes. The british man smiled wide and asked, “Can I come in, Erling? ”.
All the confidence that Jude had accumulated on the way to the hotel was starting to fade the longer he looked at Haaland’s face. "Get inside Jude. What are you even doing here?" Erling asked, sounding tired. The tallest man walked to the mini fridge that was in a corner of the room and pulled out two water bottles. Jude looked at him; all the things that he wanted to say were erased from his mind. He felt blank and didn’t know what to say now that he had Erling in the same room.
Erling signaled him to sit down next to him on the couch that was close to the bed and gave him one of the water bottles, already open. Jude felt a cozy feeling flood him; Erling always was so considerate with him. No matter what the situation was, the blonde always took care of him.
Jude took a deep breath to gather confidence to talk about all the things that were bothering him. “I-I just wanted to see how you were doing and... and I wanted to ask you something." His nerves were so evident that even with his head down he saw the little smirk that showed on Erling’s face. “Go on Jude, don’t be nervous; you know that you can trust me" Erling said.
“I know it’s just, I don’t wanna sound crazy or invasive or selfish; I just want to let go of all of these insecurities that I have been keeping in a box at the back of my mind."
“Jude… is this something about the thing that we both have?” Jude lifted his head quickly; fear was filling his eyes. No, no, he couldn’t let Erling think that he wanted to end this. “Well, it’s about that, but it’s not what you are thinking if it is what I think." Erling's gaze still was full of uncertainty but had a hint of expectation. Jude took another deep breath and kept talking. “It’s just that I saw the story that Isabel posted after the match, and you looked sad, and the message that she put along with that red heart... I know that you both are friends, but I wanted to ask you if you have some feelings for her. I think that I deserve to know if that’s the case.”
The silence after that was loud. Erling didn’t know what to say or think about that. Why was Jude now showing some interest in Isabel being his friend? Now was the moment that he decided to be possessive over him? Erling was a very direct person and anger was starting to emerge inside of him. “Why are you asking me that? I thought that you wanted to “check” on me, not interrogate me about my relationship with my friends”.
Jude looked at Erling with surprise, and started to get angry too. Why Erling didn’t want to answer the question?.
“So you are saying that you and Isabel are a thing right? I thought that you loved me.”
“Don’t come at me with that shit Jude and why do you even care about if I like Isabel? To you I’m just a person for you to play with me, you never said ‘I love you’ back and maybe I’m tired of waiting for you, I want to be loved.”
“How can you even THINK that you mean nothing to me? You really think so lowly of me, Erling?”
“REALLY?! WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT? Jude I literally love you so much, today was my lowest game in such a long time AND EVEN after that I hugged you ON the field, I told every goddamn reporter out there that you were one of the fuckin best in the whole world and now you go and say that I think lowly of you? If we’re on that road then maybe I do think lowly of you, but as a partner, even if that’s a label that you haven’t earned with me.”
Jude couldn’t believe what Erling just said, he was starting to get so angry and he was drunk, so maybe that’s the reason behind all the words that he said in that moment, he wasn’t really angry at what Erling said, he knew, deep down that the blonde was right and that he was being unfair. But Jude was a man afterall and a man full of pride and selfish above all that. The mere thought that HIS man wanted to be far from him was a thought that he couldn’t stand.
“Well, maybe if you had decided to be my side on this world cup and go over your family pride then maybe I would’ve wanted to make our thing official and you could’ve been a champion with me!!”
During all his life, Erling Haaland had felt a lot of pain, from the physical to the emotional type, he had a broken heart on his teenage years but the pain that invaded his heart after the words of Jude was a new type of pain. The tears started to fill his eyes and a sad smile appeared on his face. Erling looked Jude to the face as he stood from the couch, the look of the other man was filled with regret from his words but the pride was still there. “I want you to leave now Jude, and in the moment that you step out of that door forget about this thing between us, I really do not want to start yelling at you and hurt both of us, you already did enough so if you really want to avoid my hate I suggest that you leave this room.” Jude couldn’t believe what he was earing, Erling was kicking him out, how could he dare to do that? The english couldn’t believe how his whole world was crumbling in front of him, ten minutes ago he was ready to finally say the ‘I love you’ that would change everything but now… Jude was in the first line of a breakup and he wasn’t thinking clearly.
“You really don’t mean that Erling, you love me, you can’t let me go. Just remember the match, you literally couldn’t scape from me, always looking for me.” Jude regretted that last sentence so much. Why couldn’t he stop saying all of those things? Jude couldn’t bare the shattered look of Erling, the only thing that he wanted was to see that smile again. But a very dark part inside of him wanted to see the other man suffer for even thinking of leaving him behind.
The tears were now running free down Erling’s face, he felt angrier and like he was losing his composure and dropping at the same level as Jude.
“ So I wasn’t wrong by thinking that you took advantage of my feelings for you and you did used them to win, I can’t believe that you dropped yourself to that level Jude, maybe this is why you have been paying lees attention to me for these last few weeks, so for when we met on the field you knew that I was going to be searching for you and you used that moment to distract me.”
They were face to face, anger pouring from every breath and look that they exchanged. “Oh Haaland, don’t you dare to make those bloody assumptions of me, those aren’t true and you now it, and if they were, maybe you wouldn’t have been so easy to distract if you had a team that was good enough.” While Jude talked he poked Erling’s chest with his finger “And let me tell you one more thing, all of this bloody hell would have happen if you followed me to be with England”.
Erling couldn’t find his words, he didn’t want to so he said nothing and just stood there, looking right into Jude’s eyes, for what it seemed to be the last time that he could see those dark brown eyes with such detail.
“So that’s it’s how it’s gonna be then, right Erling? So I’ll be going, I will fulfill my part of the deal and I won’t come back looking for you, but I’ll miss you, Erling.” Said Jude now with tears filling his eyes. He walked to the door and left the room without looking back. The english player wanted to take one last look to Erling but he knew that if he did that he would run to him and give him a goodbye kiss and that was a very bad idea.
He walked down the hallway wiping his tears and trying to control his sobs so he wouldn’t be heard by the other guests, he heard a door open behind him and some hurried steps behind him. Jude kept walking while he tried to not get his hopes up but then…”JUDE!” It was Erling’s voice so he stopped right on his feet and waited. “I’ll always love you and you will always have a place in my heart that no one and nothing will replace and I really hope that you win the world cup.”
A strangled cry came out from Jude’s throat, he really wanted to bring himself to turn around and look at Haaland. He heard the sobs from the other man and yet he knew that Erling was smiling at him, because that’s just the way that his now ex lover was and when Jude finally decided to turn to watch Erling once more time, the other man was already gone.