Work Text:
Ferran could not remember the last time he had been fully sober.
It must've been the day of the finale, which was—God, it had been almost two weeks by then. All days blurred together between clubs and bottles and everyone congratulating him on the win, and oh my god, that goal, it was stunning, Ferran, great job, I cried, people would tell him it was just like Iniesta sixteen years ago, and every single time he would say no, no, calm down, I'm nowhere near as good as him. He flirted with people; he barely remembered anyone's name.
After the celebrations in Madrid, it seemed like he never wanted to get off that high. But he had to, eventually, land back in real life, and he knew that it was not going to be a soft thud. He would face it once he got back home. For now, though, he drank and ignored his phone and tried not to think that in the sea of unread messages on his phone there was none from the one person he wanted to hear from the most. Not that they had not talked at all, but it all felt weird and stilted after Madrid. He knew why, and it was all his fault.
He sighed loudly as he plopped down on his bed, head spinning even more once his head hit the pillow. Jesus, after so many days he should’ve gotten used to it. He was tired but then realised that he had to pee badly, so he somehow made it to the bathroom, hitting half the furniture in the room in the process. Pedri told him to cut it down that night in Madrid, and yet here he was, not cutting it down at all but doubling it, more like. The thought of Pedri made him reach for the bottle of water that was on his nightstand when he made it back to the bed, and as he drank, he thought it would be a smart idea to pick up his phone and text his friend to tell him, aren’t you proud of me, I’m drinking water. Ferran knew he was awake. He wasn’t sure which time zone Pedri was in, but surely it had to be midmorning there in the Maldives, where he was right then. The last text he sent was a picture from the place they were staying in, the pristine water, and their room right in front of the ocean. Ferran, petty as he was, replied with a single heart emoji and nothing more. And now here he was, opening the chat in the middle of the night, thinking, I’m going to send this picture. A picture of the bottle of water, or maybe a selfie of himself with the bottle in hand. It would’ve been quite the picture if he held the bottle between his lips in a suggestive way. Look what you’re missing out on. In the end he didn’t take the picture. He did something much, much worse. He sent a text. Well, it was like two texts because he misspelled, and Ferran was too stupid that night to use that modern tool called edit text. I msi you, was the first one. Then, a second one, I miss you. He was proud of himself for only taking two tries. Then panic set in. He stared at the screen. He had time to delete it; Pedri hadn’t viewed it yet. But not even a minute later—maybe it was longer; time went by differently when he was drunk—the two ticks became blue, which meant that Pedri was indeed on his phone and that he had seen the messages. Too late to take it back now. He should've gotten asleep by then, but Ferran obviously couldn't. His heart had started racing too fast. He had to wait for an answer, which came rather quickly. It was not an I miss you too; Ferran did not truly expect that. Go to sleep, it said. He snorted. Of course.
only if you ask nicely :), he typed, because at that point he had already made a fool out of himself, so another stupid text wasn’t going to hurt.
pedri
i’m not doing this
ferran
doing what
pedri
i’m not pretending everything is normal and fine between us
and i’m not having this conversation with you when you’re most likely drunk
ferran
i’m not
well not that much
see i can type everything correctly
pedri
it takes you like 5 minutes to send a text
ferran
oh are you counting the minutes then? 😊
you miss me too just admit it
pedri
go to sleep
Then a pause, and another message came through, please.
That dot at the end felt ominous. Ferran groaned. Again, it was his fault. But he had been keeping the secret long enough, even before the World Cup started, and he couldn’t keep it in anymore after it. And so on the flight back from New York, Ferran told him. There’s a chance I might move to Paris, he said. He saw the shift on Pedri’s face instantly, how he went from the pure euphoria of the win that had never left his face for hours to something akin to pain. Maybe not pain, but hurt for sure. Maybe he shouldn’t have told him before leaving for their separate holidays. The truth was he should’ve told him months before, and he chose the worst moment to do so. So he wasn’t particularly surprised that Pedri’s texts would be cold and distant ever since they both left Madrid.
ok, he finally texted, defeated. He was drunk but not drunk enough to be completely unhinged. He knew Pedri well enough to know not to insist; there was no point. They’d have to talk about everything that happened in person. i’m sorry, he added, because he realised that he hadn’t told him, at least not after that night on the plane, and it was such a brief moment because no one was asleep; everyone was too high on the happiness after that win that the whole flight had been a constant party, and right after Ferran shared the news, Gavi dropped himself on Pedri’s lap, Lamine following suit with his loud music that he hadn’t turned off for a single second since they boarded that plane. There was a brief silent exchange between them before they went back partying, surrounded by their friends and teammates. Ferran had been an idiot, ruining that special night like that.
He waited for Pedri to reply and saw the three dots appear and disappear, but no text came through. And so Ferran slept.
He woke up not long after. It had been maybe four, five hours. Not more. He had fallen asleep with his phone lying on his pillow, and at some point he must’ve turned on the side because it was pressed against his cheek. Ferran had weird, confusing dreams in that short time he slept. Pedri was in all of them; he was quite sure. More than dreams, they were sort of renditions of memories. They were all mingled together, but he remembered bits of Pedri on his couch, watching a movie one evening after training. They often came back home in the same car and made excuses to have dinner together. There’s no point in going to training with two cars when we live so close; that was how it started. A kiss, as he was about to get off Pedri’s car one evening. Slowly, with time, the kissing became a thing, something they would do in the car or in the corridors in stadiums or at the training centre when no one was looking. Then the kissing grew into something else, the first time during a trip they went on with the national team, the first time he blew Pedri in the room they shared, the night before a qualifying match for the World Cup. All those years of friendship and all the jokes from the teammates and friends, you two look like a couple suddenly weren’t jokes anymore.
They fucked for the first time when they came back from that same trip. They kept doing it any chance they got, but they never talked about it. Some people at Barça and some others in the national team had probably picked up on it but never asked; no one had ever been too forward about it. Ferran wasn’t stupid; he knew the bubble would explode at some point. Just a single step in the wrong direction, and everything would burst. It was a fragile bubble, the one they had been living in the last year and a half. And the possibility of him going to France, well, was more than a wrong step. It was a whole fucking marathon in the wrong direction.
He thought again about the dream, about Pedri lounging on his couch with no clothes on. That had happened so many times over the past year. Let’s watch a movie, one of them would say, and then they would barely pay attention to it. Sometimes they didn’t even turn on the TV. There was no chance he was going to fall asleep again now. He picked up his phone, the shape of it probably still visible on his cheek. It was midday; he truly hadn’t slept much at all, but he was fully awake. He rubbed his eyes with his free hand and unlocked his phone, ignoring the info he just got about his New York trip that was happening in two days. He had drank a lot the night before, but he wasn't drunk enough not to remember about the texts he sent before falling asleep. And Pedri had replied about two hours earlier. It must’ve been evening now in the Maldives, Ferran reasoned. He could google it, but it didn't matter. What mattered was that Pedri had replied.
His head hurt. He needed some coffee very soon. Not before he looked at what Pedri had texted him, though. You’re always making him your priority, his sister told him once when she was visiting him in Barcelona, and to this day Ferran wasn’t sure she was joking. Ever since then, he had tried to mention Pedri less to her. It was a hard task, and anytime he would say something about his teammate, Ferran would catch a glimpse in her eyes. She knew something. He also had to text her back. She was taking care of his dogs, and Ferran had been ignoring her for twenty four hours. He was a mess.
Ferran could see Pedri’s text from the preview; he didn’t even need to open the chat. It was a short one. He held in a breath as he stared at it, unable to move. It was three simple words, but they meant everything.
please don’t leave.