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The Westfalenstadion visitor’s tunnel smelled like wet lawnmowers, freezer-burned ice packs, and that lingering, distinct sharp tang of deep-heat lotion that clung to the back of your throat if you breathed in too fast through your mouth.
It was Erling Haaland’s last afternoon in Dortmund—and the whole bloody building was carrying on like someone had died.
Custom Tudors. Plural.
He’d literally handed them out in heavy, velvet-lined boxes like some sort of Scandinavian Santa Claus with a nine-figure release clause. Marco got a watch. Gregor got a watch. Even the kit man—a bloke who had spent two years muttering in low German about Erling leaving muddy socks in the sinks—got an engraved piece of Swiss engineering that probably cost more than a family sedan.
Nineteen-year-old Jude Bellingham stood by the row of metal lockers, leaning his lower back against the icy steel, his thumbs hooked through the drawstrings of his grey tracksuit bottoms. He watched the spectacle through the narrow gaps between his teammates' shoulders while he waited his turn.
Everyone was laughing, taking photos, slapping Erling on his absurdly wide back. Erling was bellowing, lifting a tiny physio completely off the tiles by his armpits, his laugh bouncing off the concrete ceiling like a sledgehammer.
It was too loud. Too neat. A big, shiny bow wrapped around two years of Jude’s life that had been entirely—exhaustingly—dominated by the giant blonde menace currently crushing the breath out of a mid-tier defender.
Jude dropped down onto the wooden bench and unlaced his left boot. Slowly. Extremely slowly. He picked at a knot that wasn't there, waiting for the room to clear, waiting for the echo of sliding doors and squeaking sneakers to fade down the corridor until the air finally stopped vibrating.
A shadow, broad enough to eclipse the harsh fluorescent overhead tube, fell straight across his bare knee.
"Ah, just like an old man," Erling’s voice grumbled. It wasn't his normal voice; it was set to low, a deep rumble that made the wooden bench transmit subtle vibrations straight into Jude’s spine. "So slow. Knees broken?"
Jude didn't look up. He focused very intently on the frayed silver aglet of his shoelace. "Some of us have tendons made of actual human tissue, Erling. We don't all run on hydraulic fluid."
"Look at me."
"No. I'm busy."
"Jude. Look."
Jude let out a long, long-suffering sigh—the kind he’d perfected over eighteen months of playing straight man to a lunatic—and dragged his chin up.
The elder wasn't holding a velvet box. He wasn't holding anything sleek or expensive or remotely appropriate for a multi-million-euro parting gesture. Instead, his massive, pale hands, which could swallow a football whole, were clamped around the squishy midsection of a light-blue plush shark.
It was nearly three feet long. It had floppy, slightly bent felt fins, a row of screen-printed white zigzag teeth, and a pair of hard, black-bead eyes that stared dead ahead with total, unbothered emptiness.
It smelled faintly of store-bought factory canvas and Erling’s absurd, sandalwood-heavy cologne.
Jude stared at the fish. Then he stared up into Erling’s completely serious face.
"What,” Jude took a brief pause, "is that?"
"Shark," Erling said simply, a small smile finally tugging at his lip. The word just plopped out of his mouth like a wet pebble.
"Well I can see it's a shark," Jude snapped, his eyebrows pulling together until his forehead creased. "Why are you holding a shark in the Westfalenstadion?"
"From IKEA," Erling grunted. He stepped forward, the heavy rubber soles of his slides squeaking against the tile, and thrust the plush nose directly into Jude’s sternum. Hard. "It's for you."
Jude didn't catch it. He just let the snout press against his chest, feeling the soft, lumpy polyester fibers through his thin cotton tee. "I’m nineteen years old, Erling, not nine. I am a professional footballer. Why are you giving me a children’s toy when you just gave Marco Reus a ten-thousand-euro watch?"
Erling’s upper lip hitched—just a twitch, a sharp, crooked flare of a grin that showed off his white teeth. He leaned down, crowding Jude’s personal space with that complete, unbothered entitlement he always had. His massive shoulders blocked out the rest of the room; all Jude could see was pale skin, flushed cheeks, and those terrifyingly clear blue eyes.
"Marco doesn't cry when I am not on the bus," Erling murmured, dropping his voice down into that quiet, heavy register he only ever used when the press officer wasn't holding a microphone. "You get whiny. You're going to miss me."
God, he was infuriating.
"I am not going to miss you!" Jude’s hands flew up—not to accept the toy, but to physically push the flat, velvety face away from his chin. His fingers sank straight into the soft stuffing. "I’m going to enjoy having the seat next to me empty. I’m going to enjoy not having a giant stealing my protein bars and complaining about German traffic!"
"Liar," Erling whispered, chuckling softly. He didn't pull back. He just let go of the shark entirely, leaving Jude suddenly stuck holding the massive, lightweight grey-and-blue lump against his stomach.
Erling reached out. His thick, calloused thumb brushed over the top of the shark’s floppy dorsal fin—right where Jude’s knuckles were white-knuckling the fabric. The heat of Erling's skin radiated off him like an open oven door, his thumb dragging across Jude’s skin for two seconds longer than any normal teammate touch had any right to last.
"His name is Blahaj," Erling finally told him, his thumb slowly retreating. "So you don't forget about me."
Jude looked down at the toy in his lap. The stuffing inside was completely lumpy; the dorsal fin limped pathetically to the left like a deflated sail. "He's deformed, Erling. He’s flat."
"Like your head will be when I am not here to check it," Erling deadpanned, though the sharp edge in his voice immediately dissolved into something far softer—a low, fond chuckle that hummed straight through the cold floorboards between them.
He didn't just walk off. Erling never understood spatial boundaries when it came to Jude.
He dropped his heavy leather duffel onto the bench with a loud, hollow thud, towering over Jude for a long, quiet second. Then, without a single word of warning, Erling bent down, hooked his massive arms straight under Jude’s armpits, and yanked him up off the bench into a crushing, rib-cracking hug.
The shark slipped right out of Jude’s lap, tumbling onto the damp, sock-littered tiles below, completely forgotten.
Jude gasped, his chin colliding squarely with the hard curve of Erling’s collarbone. It smelled overpoweringly of that absurd sandalwood soap, hot skin, and the damp wool of Erling’s oversized hoodie. Erling buried his face right into the crook of Jude’s neck, squeezing him so tightly Jude’s toes barely grazed the floor—a heavy, suffocating weight that felt less like a farewell and more like Erling trying to physically weld them together so he wouldn't have to leave.
"Erling—Jesus—my ribs—" Jude choked out, muffled against the damp fabric of Erling’s shoulder, though his own hands reflexively came up to clutch at the thick material of Erling’s back, fingers digging in tight.
"Don't get slow without me," Erling muttered into Jude’s skin, his breath hot and ragged against Jude’s pulse point. He held on for three seconds longer than necessary before finally letting go, letting Jude drop back onto his feet with a soft sway.
Erling stepped back, his pale blue eyes scouring Jude’s face with a strange, fierce intensity that made Jude’s stomach pull into a tight knot.
Then Erling swept his duffel back onto his shoulder, turned, and stepped right over the shark plushie sprawling on the floor, his heavy slides slapping against the tiles as he headed for the double doors.
"Hey!" Jude called out, his voice a little breathless, waving a hand toward the floor. "You're leaving your fish!"
Erling stopped right at the doorway, his hand resting on the metal push-bar. He didn't turn his body—just swung his broad head around, striking eyes locking directly onto Jude’s with zero humor left in them.
"Don't you dare leave him there, Jude," Erling warned, his low rumble carrying a sharp, possessive grit that bounced off the stainless-steel lockers. "And don't stuff him in a box. Keep him on the bed."
Jude blinked, taken aback by the sudden, dead-serious weight in Erling's tone. "Erling, it’s a stuffed—"
"He brings goals," Erling interrupted, blunt and absolute. He held Jude's gaze for one long, unblinking heartbeat—making sure the message landed down into Jude's bones—before pushing the metal bar. "He stays with you."
The heavy fire doors swung shut behind him with a soft, pneumatic hiss, cutting off the sound of his squeaking slides.
The silence that rushed into the empty locker room was instantaneous—and suffocatingly loud.
Jude stood alone under the humming fluorescent tubes, his chest still burning from where Erling’s collarbone had dug into his skin. He looked down at the floor.
The plush shark was lying face-down on the cold tiles, one floppy fin bent awkwardly beneath its soft belly, its hard black-bead eyes staring blankly at a stray piece of ankle tape.
Jude let out a long, shuddering breath that rattled in his throat. He leaned down, picked the shark up by its lumpy midsection, and brushed the locker room dust off its pale blue belly with the palm of his hand. It was soft—ridiculously, absurdly soft—and as he held it against his stomach, the faint, lingering scent of Erling’s sandalwood soap drifted up from the synthetic fur.
Keep him on the bed. He stays with you.
God, he was an absolute idiot.
Squeezing the shark's squishy sides once, Jude felt the tiny plastic pellets shift in its tail, before tucking it securely under his arm like a match ball.
When Jude packed his hard-shell suitcase in his apartment that night, he noted all the kits, towels, and toiletries he needed to bring with him. But the shark—crooked, deflated, and carrying the exact scent of the giant currently sitting on a plane to Manchester—was set gently right on top of his folded clothes, its flat grey snout tucked securely under the zipper before he closed the lid.
Fourteen months later, the shark was no longer sky-blue. It had faded into a dull, worn slate-grey, its seams thoroughly softened by thousands of miles of high-altitude cabin pressure and being aggressively shoved into away-baggage trunks.
By the time Jude settled into Madrid, his life had turned into a white-hot, blinding blur. The flashbulbs at the Bernabéu, the roaring sea of eighty thousand voices, the endless camera lenses tracking his every eye-blink—it felt like trying to drink from a pressurized fire hose.
And right in the center of his brand-new, sterile living room in La Finca—a sprawling mansion eleven miles north of the stadium, filled with cold white marble, pristine glass walls, and minimalist Italian furniture that felt more like a gallery than a home—sat the fish.
It occupied the sharp corner of his custom leather sofa. Sometimes it was on his king-sized bed, propped against four-hundred-thread-count cotton pillows like a strange, flat gargoyle.
"Brother, what is that?" Eduardo Camavinga had halted dead in his tracks the first time he walked into Jude’s house for a FIFA session. He pinched the tip of Blahaj’s tail between two manicured fingers, lifting the limp shark into the air with an expression of pure, unadulterated disgust. "You make, how many millions a year? Why do you have a dead fish from IKEA in your house?"
"Put him down, Cama," Jude said threateningly, not taking his eyes off his phone screen—where he was absolutely, definitely not checking Manchester City’s line-up for their 3:00 PM kickoff. "It's a structural lumbar support device."
"It has no structure! It’s like a pancake!" Cama dropped it, letting it flop lifelessly onto the leather. "You are deeply strange, Jude. Very mysterious. Very strange."
Everybody thought the shark was just a quirky bit.
His mother gave it a fond, exasperated sigh every time she dropped off containers of homemade food and found it sitting on top of Jude's official Real Madrid kit bag. Jobe had literally threatened to film himself throwing it off the balcony for TikTok. The Spanish tabloids had even run a tiny, bizarre sidebar image when a fan caught a three-second clip of Jude walking off the team bus in Bilbao with a floppy tail poking out of his Louis Vuitton duffel: “El Amuleto Secreto de Bellingham.”
They all thought the shark was the only thing Jude had carried across borders from Germany. They didn't see the rest of it. They didn't see the invisible, intangible ghosts of Erling that had quietly colonized Jude’s entire daily existence until he couldn't filter them out if he tried.
It was in the air. Literally.
In Jude's en-suite bathroom, sitting on the imported black granite vanity next to his expensive designer aftershaves, was a heavy glass bottle of Nordic sandalwood body wash. It was the exact brand Erling used to lend him back in Dortmund when the younger forgot his washbag—a deep, earthy, slightly spicy scent that Jude had hated at first for being too strong, too suffocating, too Erling. But three weeks after moving into his empty Madrid home, when the quiet at night got so loud his ears rang, Jude had gone online, found the specialty importer, and bought six bottles in bulk. Now, his skin perpetually smelled like Erling's shower.
It was in his habits, too. Jude now drank hot water with lemon and ginger thirty minutes before bed—a bizarre, militant Scandinavian routine Erling had nagged him into doing for "gut health." He wore silk sleep masks on the team plane because Erling had once lectured him for forty straight minutes on circadian rhythms and blue light.
The shark was just the tangible, stuffed-polyester proof of a much larger infection.
They spoke late. Always late.
Surely, it was a miracle that the two were still keeping close contact with each other, with all the busy individual schedules and what-not.
When the games were finished, the press conferences wrapped, and the heavy black compression boots were unzipped, Jude’s phone would vibrate on his nightstand. FaceTime.
Erling’s pale face would fill the screen—usually angled from below, showing off his sharp jawline and the dimly lit ceiling of his dark, rainy Manchester estate. He’d be lying flat on a foam roller, an ice pack strapped to his knee, his blonde hair tied back in a messy, damp knot.
"You should go wash your face," Erling would state without opening his eyes properly.
"Good evening to you too, Erling," Jude muttered, leaning his head back against his sofa cushions. He had the shark wrapped securely in the crook of his arm, his fingers absentmindedly stroking the soft, worn fabric near its gills—feeling the tiny plastic pellets tucked inside its tail. "Always a pleasure."
Erling’s pale eyes flicked open on the screen. He didn't look at Jude’s face first—his gaze dropped straight down to the soft grey head resting against Jude’s ribs.
A slow, terribly annoying smirk spread across Erling’s face, pulling at the corner of his mouth.
"He looks flattened," Erling noted, his voice low and raspy from ninety minutes of screaming at referees. "You are choking him."
"He likes the pressure," Jude shot back instantly, though his fingers stilled on the shark's side. "It keeps the foam distributed."
"He is taking my place," Erling murmured, a lazy glint in his eye as he tapped his index finger against the camera lens, darkening the display for a second. His voice dropped into that quiet rumble that seemed to vibrate right through the glass of Jude's phone. "So you have something to hold."
Jude immediately shoved the shark off his lap. It flopped onto the marble floor with a quiet, pathetic slap.
"I am not holding anything for emotional reasons," Jude snapped, his face suddenly feeling far too warm for an air-conditioned room in Spain. "I am using an ergonomic tool that you forced upon me because you have zero spatial awareness."
The man on the other side of the call just laughed—that booming, deep belly laugh that filled Jude’s quiet, massive house until the glass walls seemed to echo with it.
"Pick him up, Jude," Erling said softly, his eyes gleaming through the screen, sharp and unblinking. "The floor is cold."
Jude glared into the lens. He held out for three whole seconds.
Then, wincing internally at his own complete lack of spine, he reached down, grabbed the shark by its dorsal fin, and pulled it right back onto his chest. He leaned his chin on its flat snout, breathing in—the sandalwood soap on his own skin mixing with the faint, faded scent of the toy.
Erling didn't say another word about it. He just closed his eyes, listening to the quiet sound of Jude’s breathing over the speaker, while the rain rattled against the windows in England and the warm Spanish night bled slowly into morning.
The humidity in Miami wasn't like European rain—it was a heavy, suffocating steam that pressed against the double-paned glass of the hotel suite, leaving a thick haze on the window.
England had just squeezed past Norway in the World Cup quarter-finals, two-one after a brutal extra-time finish at Hard Rock Stadium. Jude had played his heart out, his legs feeling like sacks of wet cement, his ribs bruised from getting battered on every single set piece.
Afterward, the England squad had gone feral. Half the team was currently tearing up an exclusive South Beach club, high on adrenaline, cheap tequila, and Thomas Tuchel’s rare, beaming approval.
Jude had lasted exactly thirty minutes at the party. He’d nursed a single club soda, ducked out while Declan Rice was mid-karaoke, and slipped out the back exit into a waiting black van. He was exhausted—not just in his muscles, but deep down in his marrow.
Now, it was 1:30 AM.
Jude sat on the edge of the massive king bed in his quiet suite, wearing gray track pants and a loose white tee. His ankles were wrapped in ice packs, his posture slouched. Sitting right beside him on the pristine white duvet was the shark.
Blahaj was looking thoroughly battered. One of its black plastic eyes had a faint scratch across it, and its belly had lost most of its fluff, flattened from months of Jude using it as a backrest on haul flights.
Knock. Knock.
Two quiet, heavy raps against the solid wood. Not a media officer’s frantic tap. Not a teammate’s drunken pounding.
Jude’s heart did a little jump. He unzipped the ice packs, swung his bare feet onto the hardwood, and walked over to the door. He unlatched the chain and pulled it open just an inch.
Erling was standing in the dim, carpeted hallway.
He looked broad enough to block out the corridor's ambient lighting. He was wearing an oversized black hoodie with the hood pulled low over his messy blonde hair, dark sweatpants, his hands jammed deep into his front pocket. He’d been subbed off late in the game, and his face carried the tired, quiet look of a guy who hated losing, but was currently too drained to throw a tantrum.
"Erling," Jude breathed, leaning against the doorframe. "How did you get past security?"
"I walked past them," Erling grunted softly, popping his shoulder against the jamb. "They don't stop vikings."
He didn't wait for an invitation either. Erling pushed past Jude, stepping into the cool air of the suite with quiet, heavy steps. Jude shut the door behind him, dropping the latch back into place.
Erling walked straight to the king-sized bed, his broad shoulders slouching forward, and dropped his heavy frame onto the edge of the mattress.
The springs groaned under his weight.
And then, Erling froze. His huge, calloused palm was resting directly on top of something squishy and lumpy. He looked down, pulling the greyish-blue plushie out from beneath his thigh.
"Ah," Erling said, a tiny, lazy smile tugging at the corner of his lips as he held it up by its dorsal fin. "There you are, Blahaj."
Jude snatched a fresh bottle of water off the desk, cracking the cap open. "Put him down. He’s sensitive."
Erling squished the shark's belly, chuckling softly as the deflated foam gave zero resistance. "Jude, he is totally flat. What are you doing to my fish?"
"I use him for lumbar support!" Jude shot back immediately, taking a long swig of water to cover his suddenly warm face. He’d never admit—not in a million years, not even under interrogation—that the shark spent almost every night tucked firmly against his chest, chin resting on its soft head while he fell asleep. "On the plane. For my lower back. I told you, he’s an ergonomic tool."
"You sleep with him," Erling deadpanned, looking from the plushie to Jude with a teasing glint in his pale eyes.
"He supports my back," Jude corrected firmly, snatching Blahaj out of Erling's hands and tossing it onto the armchair across the room. "There. Now sit properly."
Erling just grinned, sprawling out on his back right across Jude’s white duvet with his dirty socks hanging off the edge. He grabbed the TV remote off the nightstand, clicked it on, and flipped straight to the local sports network running the match highlights.
They spent the next couple of hours just being.
No heavy speeches, no intense drama—just the two of them slouched side-by-side, picking apart the game with quiet, familiar banter. They replayed moments on the screen, argued over who ran harder, complained about the unbearable Miami humidity, and shared a room service plate of lukewarm fries Jude had ordered at 2:30 AM. It was so easy, so effortless, like no time had passed since their Dortmund days at all.
By 4:00 AM, the initial post-game adrenaline had completely washed out of the room, leaving behind a heavy, cozy quiet.
Erling pushed himself up into a sit, rubbing a massive hand over his tired face, his blonde hair sticking out in every direction.
"I have to go," Erling muttered softly, his voice raspy from exhaustion. He swung his long legs off the bed. "Before my team realizes I am gone and thinks I got lost in Miami."
"Yeah," Jude said, sitting up on his side of the mattress. "Yeah, probably a good idea."
The blond stood up, towering over the bed for a second. He looked down at Jude, his bright eyes softening with that familiar, quiet warmth he only ever showed when it was just the two of them. He reached out, his heavy hand coming down on the back of Jude’s neck for a quick, affectionate squeeze—warm, solid, and lingering just long enough to make Jude’s pulse hitch.
"Good game, Jude," Erling told him quietly. "Rest your legs."
"You too, mate," Jude replied, his voice barely above a whisper.
Erling turned and walked out, closing the suite door behind him with a soft, quiet click.
The sudden silence in the room was instant—and heavy.
Jude sat alone on the edge of the bed for a long moment, staring at the closed door. An annoying, hollow ache settled right in the middle of his chest. He missed him already—missed the noise, the heavy presence, the way Erling took up entirely too much space on a bed. But Jude would rather die than say any of that out loud.
Instead, Jude stood up, walked over to the armchair, and picked up the shark.
He climbed back into bed, pulled the duvet up to his chin, and wrapped both arms tight around Blahaj, pressing his face into the soft, worn fabric that still smelled faintly of Erling's sandalwood soap.
By October, the fleeting heat of Miami had dissolved into memory.
Jude lived in his sleek, sprawling mansion tucked behind heavy security gates eleven miles north of the Santiago Bernabéu. The distance from the stadium gave him peace, but the quiet inside the house was often too loud. Autumn in Madrid brought crisp, ink-black nights, and after recovery sessions, Jude would retreat to his master suite, surrounded by cold marble, muted beige tones, and soft architectural lighting.
And propped against the plush white linen of his bed sat Blahaj.
If you looked at the shark now, you could barely tell it had ever been that stark, factory-fresh indigo—that bright, childish cobalt it wore when Erling had handed it to him in Germany. Months of long-haul travel, international flights, and Jude unconsciously dragging it against his chest during late-night calls had bled the fabric dry.
The shark’s color had faded into a dull, washed-out slate, a ghostly ash-blue stripped of its original luster. Its cotton was worn thin, its belly lumpy and flattened.
Jude hadn't noticed the shift all at once. It happened in quiet, accidental fragments.
He’d be sitting on the edge of his bed at midnight, holding his phone up in the dim light of his bedroom while FaceTime connected. Erling would answer from Manchester, usually sprawled across his own pillows in some soft, worn training top.
And every time Erling’s face lit up the screen, Jude found himself getting strangely, dangerously distracted.
It wasn't just that Erling looked familiar. It was his eyes.
Jude knew Erling’s eyes were blue. He’d known it for years. He'd known it from late nights spent staring at screens when he missed the older man more than he cared to admit. But lately—as the toy on Jude's bed bled away its color into a lifeless, dull pewter—Erling’s eyes seemed to be stealing every drop of vivid pigment left in the universe.
On the screen, in the low glow of the display, Erling’s eyes weren't just blue. When the light caught them just right, they flashed like cold sapphire cutting through dark water, so vivid and intense that Jude would lose his train of thought mid-sentence.
"You look dead," Erling’s raspy voice came through the speaker, without so much as a hello.
It was nearly midnight. Erling was leaning back, his blonde hair sticking up in soft, messy tufts.
Jude blinked, suddenly realizing he’d been staring at Erling’s face for five solid seconds without speaking. His thumb was absentmindedly stroking the shark’s tail—a piece of fabric that was now a pale, faded fog-grey.
"Gee, thanks mate," Jude muttered, forcing his eyes down to his own hands to break the spell. "We played ninety minutes in thirty-degree heat. My legs feel like lead."
"You need to sleep more," Erling said softly. His tone wasn't his usual booming, arrogant banter—it was low, heavy, carrying a quiet, protective weight. "I can see the dark circles, Jude."
"I sleep fine," Jude lied smoothly, his gaze flickering back up to the screen.
There it was again. That breathtaking, mesmerizing contrast.
The plushie under Jude's arm was practically charcoal now, completely drained of its soul. But Erling’s gaze was a brilliant, striking azure—a shade so bright, so violently alive, that it made Jude’s breath catch in the back of his throat. He couldn't look away. He felt pinned by it, mesmerized, his mind short-circuiting as he tried to figure out why he’d never noticed just how deep that color went.
"Is the fish giving you good lumbar support?" Erling asked, cutting through Jude’s thinking once more, a tiny, fond smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.
"Best in the business," Jude murmured automatically, his voice dropping an octave as he felt the sheer exhaustion weighing on him. "Wouldn't swap him for anything."
Erling’s expression softened. He stayed quiet for a long moment, just watching Jude through the camera lens, those sharp, cerulean eyes tracing the line of Jude’s jaw, the tired slant of his shoulders.
"I'm coming to Spain next month," Erling announced into the quiet night. "Champions League. Valdebebas."
Jude’s heart did a strange, erratic drop in his chest. "Yeah?"
"Yeah," Erling murmured, his gaze holding Jude captive across eleven hundred miles of distance. "Don't get hurt before then. I want to see you."
"I won't," Jude said softly, completely unable to break eye contact, feeling as though he were slowly drowning in a shade of blue he had no defense against. He wants to see me, Jude’s heart repeated instead, over and over like a broken record. He wants to see me.
Drip, drop.
The mid-November rain in Madrid wasn't heavy, but it was relentless. It turned the pristine turf of the Santiago Bernabéu slick and greasy, catching the glare of the stadium floodlights until the pitch looked like polished dark glass.
Real Madrid vs. Manchester City. Champions League group stage. Seventy-two minutes on the clock, 1–1 on the scoreboard, and the air thick with fifty thousand roaring voices.
Jude’s lungs were burning. He was running on pure adrenaline, his kit plastered to his back, stained brown with mud at the hips from three separate sliding tackles. He was hyper-aware of every shadow, every bounce of the ball, and especially the towering, sky-blue shirt wearing number nine that had been floating on the periphery of his vision all night.
It happened on a City corner kick.
The ball whipped into the crowded six-yard box—a high, curling arch. Jude launched himself off his right foot, tracking the flight of the leather, his shoulders tense, his whole body poised to head it clear.
He never saw Ruben Dias coming from his blind spot.
There was a sickening, heavy crack—bone on bone, high impact, zero warning. Dias’s shoulder caught Jude squarely on the left temple mid-air.
Jude went down before his brain could register that he’d been hit. His head bounced hard off the wet, unyielding turf.
Instantly, the stadium noise didn't fade—it exploded. The roar collapsed into a high-pitched, white-hot static, like a television tuned to a dead channel at maximum volume. The bright stadium floodlights blurred into blinding, smeared halos that burned his retinas. The world tilted violently, his depth perception completely shot.
Get up, Jude told himself fiercely. Get up right now. Don't let them see you down.
He tried to push himself up on his elbows, but his arms felt like wet rope. Nausea hit him in a violent wave. The stadium began spinning in nauseating, disorienting circles.
Whistles blew frantically. Players clustered around. Suddenly, hands were on him—Madrid physios, City defenders, the referee—a dozen shadowy, suffocating silhouettes blocking out the sky, leaning over him, shouting things he couldn't process.
Too close. Too loud. I can't breathe.
A wave of claustrophobic panic slammed into Jude’s chest, sharp and agonizing. His pride fought back, but his concussed brain couldn't filter the sensory overload. The crowd roared, the flashbulbs strobed, the hands pressed into his chest, and Jude’s lungs simply seized up. He couldn't drag air in. His chest rose and fell in short, desperate, ragged hitches, his throat tight, his vision tunneling down into black spots.
"Back off! Give him room!" a voice roared—a deep, familiar accented boom that cut straight through the static like an axe.
A massive shadow cut through the cluster of players. Erling didn't just walk over; he physically shoved a Spanish physio back by the shoulder, stepping directly over Jude to create a human barrier with his broad frame, blocking out the stadium lights and the sea of staring faces.
"Erling, step away, he's concussed—"
"Shut up and give him air!" Erling barked back, completely unbothered by official protocol.
The blond dropped straight to his knees in the mud. He didn't grab the younger dramatically. Instead, he stripped off his dripping black wristband, reached down, and placed two large, shockingly warm hands firmly on either side of Jude’s neck—cradling his jaw, fingers resting right against Jude's wildly hammering pulse.
"Jude. Look at me," Erling commanded. His voice wasn't loud now; it was set to that low, heavy register that vibrated right through Jude’s skull. "Look at my face. Stop looking at them."
Jude’s frantic, blown-out dark eyes locked onto Erling’s.
"You're having an attack. You're fine," Erling said, his light eyes fierce and utterly unblinking. He grabbed Jude’s right hand and forcefully pressed it flat against his own chest—right over his heart, beneath the damp sky-blue fabric. "Feel that? Breathe with me. In."
Erling expanded his broad ribcage, taking a slow, massive breath.
Jude tried to mimic it, his chest shuddering. In.
"Out," Erling rumbled, his heart beating a steady, heavy rhythm against Jude’s palm.
Out.
"Again," Erling ordered softly, his thumbs gently stroking the strained, tight muscles of Jude’s jaw, grounding him in the slick mud. "In... and out. Just me and you, Jude. Nobody else is here."
The static in Jude’s head slowly began to quiet. The terrifying spin of the stadium slowed down, anchored entirely to the steady, rhythmic rise and fall of Erling’s chest beneath his hand, and the intense, vivid blue staring down into his eyes.
As the panic finally receded, the overwhelming physical exhaustion of the concussion took its place. Jude’s eyelids grew impossibly heavy. His body went lax.
Right before the darkness pulled him under completely, Jude’s fingers reflexively tightened around the front of Erling’s shirt, his chin slipping sideways to rest against Erling’s forearm as he passed out cold.
The medical room beneath the Bernabéu was quiet, sterile, and washed in harsh white light.
Jude sat on the edge of the examination table, wearing a clean, oversized black Madrid sweatshirt and shorts. An ice pack rested against the painful, purple swelling on his left temple. The Madrid doctors had already finished their checks—mild concussion, clear neck scans, mandatory rest. They had stepped out to talk to the manager, leaving Jude alone in the chill of the room.
The heavy metal door clicked open softly.
Jude looked up.
Erling stepped inside. He had tossed a dry jacket over his muddy City kit, his blonde hair still damp from a quick rinse. In his massive right hand, he was holding a lumpy, faded object he’d pulled straight out of Jude’s unzipped matchday duffel.
It was Blahaj.
The plushie looked completely battered. Not only had it bled away into a washed-out, dull grey. It was flat, soft, and utterly devoid of shape.
Erling walked over quietly, his heavy slides squeaking against the tile. He didn't hand it over; he just set the limp shark down on the metal table right beside Jude’s thigh.
A tiny, lazy smirk tugged at the corner of Erling’s lips, though his eyes carried a soft, lingering tension from the scare on the pitch.
"All your teammates urged me to give you this," Erling joked lightly, resting his hand on the edge of the table near Jude's knee. "Seems like you can sleep fine without it."
Jude looked at the slate-grey toy sitting on the cold metal.
On the pitch, when the world had collapsed and he was suffocating in the dark, he hadn't thought about the shark once. He hadn't searched his mind for a comfort item, or wished he had his plushie from his kit bag. The second Erling dropped into the mud, the proxy had simply ceased to exist.
Jude lifted his gaze from the faded toy, looking straight up into Erling’s face.
Under the sharp fluorescent tubes of the medical room, the contrast was blinding. The shark beside him was a dead, empty grey—stripped of all its original pigment. But Erling’s eyes... Erling's eyes were a breathtaking, electric cerulean, burning with a quiet, raw intensity that made Jude’s pulse do a slow, heavy drop in his chest.
"We both know that's not the case," Jude replied softly.
The subtle banter dissolved instantly, leaving the quiet air between them thick and vibrating.
Erling’s smirk faded. He didn't step back. He stepped closer—so close that his knees brushed against Jude’s legs where he sat on the high table. Erling reached up, his thick, warm fingers gently catching Jude’s chin, his thumb brushing over the skin just below his lower lip.
"You grabbed my shirt," Erling murmured, his voice dropping into that quiet, husky rumble that sent a shiver straight down Jude’s spine. "Before you went out."
"I was concussed," Jude said, though there was zero conviction behind the lie, his eyes locked entirely onto the brilliant sapphire staring back at him.
"You didn't ask for the fish, Jude," Erling whispered, his gaze dropping to Jude’s lips for a fraction of a second before rising back up, fierce and unblinking. "You needed me."
Jude let out a slow, quiet breath. He reached out, his hand coming up to wrap around Erling’s wrist, feeling the steady, rapid thud of Erling’s pulse under his thumb. He didn't pull away. He didn't try to hide behind a joke or an ergonomic excuse anymore.
"Yeah," Jude confessed softly, the truth hanging between them, undisputed and completely bare. "I did."
Erling didn't press for a grand, cinematic speech right there under the medical room lights. He just let out a long, shaky exhale, leaning forward until he could wrap his arms around the Madrid player—his opponent. The “glad you’re okay” sentiment remained unspoken.
They stayed like that in the quiet room—the ‘Grahaj’ sitting forgotten on the metal table, while the real thing held him tight.
The shift didn't arrive with a dramatic announcement or a sudden, theatrical declaration. It slipped in quietly through the back door, trailing in the wake of that damp, cold night in Madrid.
When the doctors finally cleared the younger midfielder from concussion protocol a week later, something in his posture had fundamentally rearranged itself. The hyper-controlled, meticulously guarded distance he’d spent three years cultivating as Real Madrid’s golden boy simply evaporated.
He went back to being tactile.
Not in front of the press lenses or the mixed-zone microphones, but in the quiet corridors, the private lounges, and over video screens. It was the old Dortmund Jude—the boy who thought nothing of hooking an elbow over the striker’s massive shoulder, casually resting a hand against the small of his back while waiting for a lift, or tugging on the sleeve of his hoodie just to keep him from walking too fast.
And the older athlete, as he had always done, opened his arms and absorbed every bit of it without a single flinch.
It wasn't just physical contact returning out of nostalgia. Over the months that followed, their quiet late-night calls had grown softer, lingering far past the point of casual banter. There were middle-of-the-night texts that carried no football talk, unhurried morning check-ins, and a subtle, unspoken affection that shifted them firmly onto a new, romantic plane.
It was a gradual, sweet evolution—a transition earned over years of long-distance longing, muted envy, and silent substitutions. After everything they had bypassed and suppressed, the intimacy felt well-deserved, arriving precisely on time. Neither felt the need to label it or rush it; it was simply the tide finally coming in.
When the summer offseason rolled around in July, the Norwegian striker hadn't booked a flash trip to Ibiza or Saint-Tropez. He had flown straight to Spain for one simple reason: after months of stolen hours in hotel rooms and quick tunnel hugs, he wanted Jude to himself. He wanted long, uninterrupted days where he didn't have to share the younger player with eighty thousand fans, camera crews, or rigid match schedules.
Now, the Spanish sun was baking the manicured hedges of La Finca into a deep, fragrant gold.
Jude’s sprawling estate was silent save for the low hum of the central air conditioning and the rhythmic splash of the infinity pool outside the floor-to-ceiling glass doors. The main living room was washed in the soft, amber glow of early evening, the television humming quietly in the background with a low-volume documentary neither of them was paying attention to.
Erling was stretched out sideways across the deep, velvet sectional sofa—taking up nearly two-thirds of the dark leather.
The homeowner wasn't sitting in his own armchair. He wasn't sitting on the far end of the couch, either.
He was tucked right into the tall Norwegian's side.
Jude’s chin rested comfortably against the broad expanse of Erling’s chest, one of his long legs hooked over the striker's thighs, his arm draped heavy and possessive across his stomach. His fingers absentmindedly plucked at the soft cotton of Erling’s white t-shirt, rising and falling with the steady, slow tide of his breathing.
The older man's massive arm was wrapped securely around Jude’s waist, his thick fingers resting flat against his partner's hip, occasionally running a lazy, calloused thumb over the bone. The air around them was rich with the familiar, soothing warmth of sandalwood soap and summer air.
Across the room, sitting on top of the sleek black marble coffee table, was the shark.
Blahaj looked smaller than ever in the grand space of the mansion. Its fabric had long since lost its original pigment, faded down into a completely matte, neutral slate-grey that bled harmlessly into the background decor. It was just a quiet relic now—a silent witness that had fulfilled its duty.
Erling’s gaze drifted from the muted screen down to the top of Jude’s head, his fingers threading through the younger man's dark, soft curls, gently tugging at the roots.
"Look at him over there," the striker murmured, his deep voice vibrating right through his ribs, hummed straight into Jude’s cheek.
Jude didn't shift his weight. He just squeezed Erling’s waist a fraction tighter, letting out a lazy, contented sigh. "Look at who?"
"The fish," the blonde giant said softly, a quiet, fond hum lacing his words. He tilted his head back against the leather cushions, his thumb resuming its slow circle against Jude’s hip. "Now that I am sitting on your sofa, I guess you don't need that old thing anymore."
The younger athlete didn't argue. He didn't offer a dry excuse about spinal alignment or ergonomic support. He didn't scoff or pull away.
Instead, Jude just leaned up, pressing a soft, lingering hum of agreement right into the warm skin below Erling’s jawline.
"No," he whispered, his breath fluttering against the tall man's pulse point. "Don't need it."
Erling’s arm tightened around him, pulling Jude up an inch higher until their faces were leveled in the warm twilight of the room.
When Jude tilted his head back to look at him, he didn't see the dull grey of a worn-out toy, nor the dark, heavy shadows of distant hotel rooms. He was surrounded by it—the deepest, most striking shade of blue in Erling’s quiet gaze, an electric sapphire that burned with an absolute, unwavering clarity in the dim light.
It wasn't a temporary color borrowed from a factory line. It was constant. It was his.
The Norwegian leaned down, his lips brushing against Jude’s forehead, then his temple, before settling gently against his mouth in a slow, unhurried kiss that tasted like home.
Jude closed his eyes, sinking entirely into the solid, heavy warmth of the arms holding him, completely anchored at last.
Across the room, the dull, grey plushie sat abandoned on the marble table—completely drained of its color, useless and forgotten in the amber twilight.
Erling shifted his weight, rolling his broad frame over until he was looming directly over Jude on the dark leather sofa. The sheer, massive size of him blocked out the rest of the room, casting a heavy, hot shadow over Jude’s chest.
When Jude opened his eyes, he was met with those electric, dangerous lapis eyes looking down at him—vibrant, wide, and unblinking.
Slowly, the tall Norwegian let out a low, raspy chuckle that hummed straight through Jude's ribs. His jaw opened, pulling back into a wide, crooked grin that flashed a sharp, brilliant wall of white teeth in the dim light—predatory, towering, and utterly unyielding.
Jude’s breath hitched, a shudder running down his spine as Erling leaned down, his mouth hovering just a fraction of an inch above Jude’s throat, tracking the frantic, rapid pulse beneath the skin like a target.
There was nowhere to run. No pitch to escape to. Jude was about to be completely devoured, and he didn't want to save himself.
"Told ya in Dortmund, Jude," Erling purred into the dark, his sharp teeth lightly brushing the sensitive skin of Jude's jawline before closing in. "The shark stays with you."