Archive of Our Own

I. 11

The heat from Spain's summer can't be masked even in the night, the feeling settling into Pau's skin as he sits outside trying to forget the suffocating warmth. The grass prickles underneath his skin, poking at him, and he wonders if the crisp dry air that he's inhaling would be bad for his lungs, considering how much he'd been heaving.

It hadn't been a good match. Pau had barely played, and within the time he did, he hardly did enough. Desperately chasing, he recognizes, somebody else's shoes, someone else's playing, getting too caught up in his own thoughts of what he should do, before he hesitates and misses the change altogether. He wants it to be instinctual, have football be his second nature, but even as he cradles a ball to sleep he doubts it would be enough.

Some people are just born with it, he remembers the coach telling him. He didn't realize the implication had included him. It didn't feel like it.

Trying to stay as still as possible, to escape from the clingy heat that enveloped him, Pau sprawls out onto the grass. It's cooler than he'd thought it be, and he stares up at the dark sky and wonders what he has to do to get better. How many more drills should he try? How many more videos should he watch? How much more should he play, what should he eat, should he get new cleats, should he—

"Everyone's looking for you, you know," A voice drawls from above him, and Pau snaps his eyes open to take a look at none other than Lamine Yamal. His eyes are big and beady, staring straight down into Pau without much emotion. Pau can count every blink that Lamine ends up doing until the boy crouches down leaning until Pau can see nothing but those eyes.

"What are you doing out here?"

The question is simple, innocuous. To get away, Pau wants to say. But that's pathetic, and certainly not something he'd want Lamine of all people to hear, so Pau ends up giving him a weak laugh. "Just wanted to cool off."

Lamine quirks a brow at him. "Here? In the middle of nowhere? Where everyone is trying to find you because you disappeared into thin air?"

Pau scoffs lightheartedly at that. "As if you aren't running off to who knows where. Let me have this."

Lamine hums, letting his knees go loose and plop down onto the grass right next to Pau. The wind is whistling softly as he does so, almost like he had brought the breeze with him. "Still. Forget about me, you shouldn't make people worry like that."

"I didn't mean to," Pau mumbles in return. He fidgets with the blades of grass between his fingers. They feel like plastic, rubbing off green chlorophyll onto his fingers. "I just needed to get away, for a moment."

Lamine's eyes flit towards Pau, and for a moment, the two of them revel in the night. They're far too young to be out here on their own, like there's nothing else in the world they need to be worried about, but when he hears Lamine's soft breathing that syncs up with his, he doesn't think he can complain.

"You're good, Cuba," Lamine mutters, when the wind stops singing to them and leaves Lamine's hair lightly tussled. "I think you should know that."

Pau tries not to shrug the compliment off. "Thanks."

"But you can always be better," Lamine amends, shuffling over on his knees to look down at Pau's face again. "You might've not been as good as you needed to be today. So what? There's tomorrow. And another day, and another one, and more competitions that you have to win. Losing once doesn't mean you have to stay a loser forever."

Lamine is awkward with his words, letting them linger a second too long. Pau bites back a giggle. "Like you know much about losing, Mr. Ballon D'or."

The way Lamine's face scrunches up at the title makes the laughter he's holding back tumble out, and before Lamine can protest, Pau closes his eyes and continues to laugh. "Golden Boy, Generational Talent, The One and Only, Lamine Yamal, no?"

Lamine flicks Pau's forehead with his ring finger, pouting. "Hey now. You really can't call me that until I win a Ballon D'or. Loses it's flavor otherwise."

"But the other ones are okay?"

Lamine groans, throwing his head back. Pau can tell he's stifling his own laughter. "You seriously get on my nerves, Cuba."

"You like it though, no?"

Pau shoves Lamine's knee with his elbow gently, and the other boy just turns his head away. It takes a moment for him to respond, but when he does, Pau notices the way his fingers fidget and how his face turns away.

"Yeah."

There's no time for him to process the response because he hears the yell of familiar supervisor calling towards them, waving his hands frantically as he beckons them backwards, and before he knows it, Lamine has got up and grabbed Pau by the wrist. It feels nice to run, when the sun is down and when there's nothing on the line, and it's every bit worth the punishment they get afterwards for breaking curfew.

—

II. 14

It's not long until those kind of conversations start to begin. The ones about girls, the ones about how they saw an Instagram model online and stared at her chest until their eyes hurt, or the ones about how they wanted to do well on the pitch so maybe Aaliyah would say yes to a date the following weekend.

Lamine can't lie and say he hasn't been interested in girls. He likes the way they look, and the way they look when they're wearing football jerseys to accompany their big eyes and smooth skin. He tries not to stare too hard, considering the way most of the girls he'd stare at simply end up teasing him for doing so, but sometimes he can't help it. He's a teenage boy who wants to discover some new things, and he wasn't raised with much shame.

Pau on the other hand, rarely talks about girls. He's soft-spoken to them, garnering much of their attention to Lamine's dismay, and Lamine can't help but squint in frustration once he sees that Pau, once again, is surrounded by girls who laugh raucously or tuck their hair behind their ears shyly. He's kind to all of them, though awkward around the overtly friendly ones, and it makes Lamine frown. He wasn't sure why— Pau could surely handle a bit of attention, and Lamine couldn't possibly be jealous that the spotlight wasn't on him all the time. So why was their an anxious feeling in his chest when he looked at Pau, nodding along to a pretty girl's story while shooting her a shaky grin at the end of it?

"Stop staring so hard," Marc says while elbowing him in the stomach. "You're going to burn a hole through the poor kids head."

Lamine's attention snaps towards the incredibly unimpressed Marc, and Lamine crosses his arms. "I wasn't staring."

Marc doesn't even bother entertaining that. "Yes, you were. And some of the girls saw. They think you were looking over at them, you know," Marc pauses for a moment, assessing Lamine before breaking out into a small grin. "Don't get mad if one of them gets the wrong idea."

Lamine huffs. "Oh please. You know what those girls are after anyways. It doesn't matter if I look at them or not— as long as they have a football player to cozy up to, I'm sure they don't mind."

He doesn't know if he means what he says, but he sure as hell regrets it when Marc sends him another extremely unimpressed stare, digging into Lamine as he just raises an eyebrow.

"Really? You're really gonna say that, now?"

Lamine feels his cheeks flush a little bit, but it's too late in his life to start feeling shame. "What? You know it's true."

Marc rolls his eyes. "Oh yeah. They're totally trying to go after the raging fame of Pau Cubarsí, right. That's definitely it. It's not like they're, I don't know, classmates or friends of his or something, yeah? Not like Pau can have any girl friends, because they're all just looking for his attention like some sort of street girl?"

"I didn't say that!" Lamine snaps, a little too loudly. Some heads turn to him in confusion, and he winces a small sorry at them. He grips Marc by his wrist, gritting his teeth. "You're being so dramatic."

Marc wastes on time in wringing his wrist out of Lamine's grasp. Unlike Lamine, who was starting to feel his skin crackle and eyes twitch at the conversation, Marc continues on steadily without a care for Lamine's outburst. "Yeah, but you were thinking it. Because you're jealous."

Lamine lets out a scoff at that. "Why the hell would I be jealous of Cuba? Tons of girls like me too. In fact, they like me more than they like him, probably. Because I'm an attacker and stuff. So I score more goals. So I'm… cooler."

Not even Lamine would believe the words coming out of his mouth with how wimpy they sound. Marc clearly doesn't either. "That's some trash and you know it. And you also know that I don't think you're jealous of Pau, Lamine."

"Then what is it?" Lamine spits out. This conversation is leaving him feeling suffocated, and he's itching to go take a shower, go for a lap, something, anything, other than talking to Marc.

"I think you want his attention more than any of those girls do," Marc says. "Maybe you want him to treat you like one of his girls. If he had any."

Marc doesn't bother dealing with a speechless Lamine any further than that, but it doesn't matter to Lamine. Now that the quiet parts been said aloud, now that he knows that there's something that he never wished there was, he can't ignore it now.

Clutching at his sports bag and sloppily putting everything inside, Lamine leaves the locker room without another word.

—

III. 14

There's something wrong with Lamine and Pau knows it. While normally, Lamine would just act as he usually would, slinging his arm around Pau while he chats with his other teammates, Lamine just doesn't do that anymore. Instead, Lamine opts to maintain his distance, only touching when necessary, and it's starting to drive Pau crazy.

He knows Lamine is a touchy person. He's known, and he's liked it. But now that all those touches have stopped, Pau thinks he's been taking it for granted. The way Lamine would fiddle with Pau's shorts if they were sitting together, the way Lamine would reach out and jump onto Pau's back without hesitation. He has half the mind to worry, assume that he had done something wrong, but it's quickly denied by Marc.

Marc says that Pau is worrying too much. Pau thinks Marc isn't worried enough.

Fair enough to say, Lamine has sort of… backed off of touching anyone at the moment. No more unnecessary contact, the only form of physicality that he shared with anyone being when they were tackling each other on the field. Pau supposes that's a good thing— that Lamine remains unaffected on the field, despite whatever weird thing he has going on off of it.

What worries him is that he had thought they were the best of friends— that if Lamine was going through something troublesome, Pau would be one of the first to know. Now that he's aware that Marc has some sort of clue on what's going on, but he doesn't, Pau can't help the nagging feeling of insecurity that chews at the lining of his stomach. Surely, Lamine could trust him with this, right?

But Marc had insisted. That this wasn't something him or Pau could deal with, that it's something Lamine and only Lamine could possibly work out within himself. And when Marc looks at him like that, so earnestly, with the worry he knew Pau could feel too, Pau decided that he would trust Marc and leave it at that.

Trust he could, until the weak dam that Pau's been trying to build up to suppress his… his everything that he's feeling about Lamine bursts through at a practice, of all things.

It's been while since Pau and Lamine have played on opposite teams, and it's been even longer since Pau had tackled Lamine with his full strength. It's not as if he wanted Lamine to get tackled— he wasn't really thinking about anything but football when he was chasing after the ball on the field, all the problems related to Lamine fading into white when he saw that damn ball, but the reality crashes back into him when he tackles Lamine, tumbles, and he ends up on top of the other boy.

It takes a moment for Pau to register that he's practically squishing Lamine with his weight, and another moment to realize that Lamine is completely frozen. Their skin sticks together from the sweat, Pau's knees practically digging into Lamine's thighs. Pau tries to leap off of Lamine and frantically apologize, try to see if Lamine was hurt anywhere, but the look on Lamine's face is enough to scare Pau away.

He looks absolutely terrified.

Shoving Pau with both hands, Lamine gets up without another word. He's sure the coaches don't see it, instead opting to try and speak to Lamine, but Pau doesn't miss the way Lamine's hands are trembling.

Pau wants to yell at him. Reach out, take him into his arms and tell him that whatever Lamine is going through, it was going to pass. But when he remembers Lamine, face growing pale while he trembles away from him, Pau realizes that there is nothing he can do.

Lamine does not want him to help, and Pau desperately, desperately wishes that it was okay.

—

IV. 15

Forgive me.

He is anchored to the ground from his knees.

Forgive me.

There is nothing he can do but pray.

Forgive me.

He is wrong.

Forgive me.

There is nothing he can do.

Forgive me.

—

V. 15

It's not like Lamine can just… get over it. It's always there, like a constant in the back of his mind, but he learns how to forget about it. He learns how to apologize to Pau, how to make everything go back to normal. He knows that Pau still wants to ask what the hell was wrong with him, but Lamine knows better than to explain. It's easier to pretend it never happened, that there was never anything to feel. He can tell the questions were on the tip of Pau's tongue, and that Pau was still hesitant to get back into their familiar rhythm. But now that there's real games on the line, Lamine and Pau hardly have time to start going back to that. It's just as Lamine had hoped it would be. Normal.

It's one day, when Pau and him are lounging on the floor of Lamine's room does Pau bring it up. It's inconspicuous, something Lamine hardly expected, but Pau says it like it's nothing. It's nothing, and yet somehow holds the entire room in a locked silence, settling over the two of them uncomfortably.

"Lamine, you…" Pau started. Lamine had just listened absentmindedly, nodding as he flipped through his playlist to turn on a song. What kind of music was he feeling today? Was it gonna be a chill hangout, with some light samba, or something a little louder? Pau coughs, trying to get his attention once more. "Lamine. Back then. Was it about…?"

For a moment, Lamine pauses and looks up from his phone. Pau had trailed off, hands fidgeting together, and then he sees what Pau's eyes are flitting to in his room. The prayer rug.

Lamine doesn't know what could've possibly given it away. He had been careful, hadn't he? After he had his entire… fit, a year ago, he had been as normal as possible. Ignoring everything that felt wrong, shoving it down because he needed to be forgiven. As long as he hadn't acted on his wills, it would've been fine, wouldn't it?

"Why don't you mind your own business?" Lamine grumbles, trying to act as unaffected as he possibly can. He can't bring himself to deny the claim, though.

Pau fumbles through his next words, face flushing as he looked away. "No, its just… I don't know. I don't, uh, I don't know what it's like or what you're feeling, or what, what you might be thinking about yourself but, uh…"

Pau, for the first time since they entered the room, looks into Lamine's eyes. Raw, unadulterated care is baked into them, and Lamine's heart starts thudding loudly in his chest. "I just want you to know that no matter what you think about yourself, or about, uh, anything, that I'm going to be here. Because you're my best friend. Because you're… you're really, really important to me."

"I don't want you to feel like you're alone, in whatever you're going through," Pau whispers. "So please, if you need help with something, just… just tell me. Whether it's a shoulder to cry on, or someone to shoot penalty shots at… I'll do whatever I can to help you."

Lamine can feel the heat creeping on to his cheeks. He hates how Pau, with all his charms and wit, can manage to bring Lamine into a crumbling mess. He bites his lip as he hides his face behind the sleeves of his sweater. "Yeah? Cause we're best friends?"

Pau smiles, genuine and soft. It makes Lamine's fingers itch to reach out and tug at those cheeks of his. "Yeah. The best-est of friends. Friends that will never be apart… my…"

Pau trails off once again, and as if he realizes what he said was a little too embarrassing, he quickly turns his head away. Lamine also feels like there's steam blowing out of his ears, and he's honestly grateful that Pau hadn't finished that sentence. If he had, Lamine thinks that his brain would've melted from it too.

"So, uh," Pau coughs awkwardly. "Let's play some, uh, FIFA? Or do you wanna watch a game or…"

Lamine chucks a controller at Pau.

—

VI. 16

I pray for forgiveness.

—

VII. 18

It all circles back to locker room talk, now that Lamine thinks about it. While he's preparing with his teammates to participate in their first world cup, the conversation he hears ends up amounting to something that he's familiar with, something they've been talking about since they were young.

"I mean, my type in a woman is like. Tall. Or maybe not. Long hair? But it's not like short hair is a no-go for me either. Pretty. Likes football?" Gavi rambles off into Pedri's ear, who just sighs. Gavi, always pleased to annoy Pedri, continues on. "Maybe someone who recognizes my rocking hard muscles and my beautiful quads. Or maybe… hmm… someone who's shorter than I am, with short hair, and plays as a midfielder on—"

"Aaaaand we are stopping there!" Pedri grits out, slamming the door of his locker loudly so that Gavi flinches backwards and shuts his mouth. "We don't need to know exactly what you like in a person, Gavi."

Gavi sticks his tongue out. Lamine tries his best not to shove Gavi when he sees that shit-eating grin on his face. "I bet everyone else wants to know but you, Pedri. You're like. Celibate. The girl-unkisser. Whatever that means."

Pedri scrunches his face. "That's not true and you know it. If anything, the true celibate person here is like…"

Pedri's eyes roam through the room before landing on someone, and Lamine knows exactly who. His eyes have followed, and so has everyone else's, to the one and only— Pau Cubarsí.

Are they seriously bringing Pau into their trashy locker room talk?

"What?" Pau frowns, now that he realizes all his teammates are staring at him. "What were you guys talking about?"

Somewhere in the background, Gavi complains about how Cuba wasn't even listening, and Pedri actually does shove Gavi over while giving a guilty smile. Conscious eating at him, Lamine supposes. "Nothing! Nothing. Just what kind of person Gavi likes. We were just wondering about you, since, uh…" Pedri stops, trying his best not to sound like a creep, and Gavi decides to finish it off for him.

"Since you've literally never flirted with a girl ever, we wanted to know what kind was your type." Gavi says, in an incredibly creepy way.

Both Lamine and Pau jolt at that, but luckily nobody seemed to notice Lamine's jumpiness due to how focused the rest of them were on Pau. He would be lying to himself to say that he wasn't curious, considering this was the one conversation topic he tended to avoid around Pau.

Not that it was a big deal or anything. He just… Pau just assumed it had to do with him being Muslim. Lamine hadn't bothered to clear up the misconception.

Pau pauses to consider it, pulling on his training pants as he does so. "Uhm, I guess…."

Lamine's heartbeat picks up slightly.

"I'm not sure, really. Someone kind, I guess?" Pau says, and Gavi groans.

"That's literally the lamest response anyone has ever given."

Pau's smile lilts a little, and he lets out a short chuckle. "What do you want me to say? Someone hot? Someone who's fit, someone who makes me want them all the time?"

He ends up putting a slight drawl on the last words, letting them fall slowly into the air. If anybody could feel the way the tension in the room starts to spark, thickening with the passing seconds of silence, Lamine is sure it would be him. He continues to rummage through his locker, hiding his face, trying to look anywhere else but Pau.

"Woah, woah, woah! I didn't say all that," Gavi whistles, low and inviting. Pedri once again, crinkles his nose at that, but says nothing. "But be my guest if you wanna, Cuba. Rawr."

That's what gets Pedri to finally shove Gavi out of the way, apologizing profusely for Gavi's actions (something he really didn't have to do, considering everyone knew that he was already like that). And while everyone is preoccupied with Gavi and Pedri doing… whatever they were doing, Lamine gently closes the door to his locker and meets eyes with the last person he wanted to look at.

"Lamine?" Pau asks, and Lamine purses his lips. He doesn't know how to describe the weird feeling that's settling into his chest. Thumping, beating incessantly, crawling around in his throat— Lamine's hands go clammy.

"Hey," Lamine laughs weakly, and Pau seems a little concerned. But before Pau can ask any questions, Lamine throws his arm around Pau just like he always does. He knows that Pau has things he wants to say, but Lamine won't let him. There's a distance between them that he doesn't want to close.

Even as he thinks as such, Lamine wonders what kind of person could possibly make Pau talk like that. He wonders, if Pau could ever want him like that, too.

—

VIII. 18

"So what if he's gay?" He hears Ferran mutter from behind the door. "A lot of us are. Doesn't matter or affect his playing, does it? You're making it a bigger deal than it has to be, Pepi."

There's some shuffling, clearly Pedri, who's in distress. Lamine can't quite make out the first part of his next statement, Pedri's voice hushed and low and far more concerned about the privacy of their discussion than Ferran had been, but the tailing end of the statement makes Lamine bite his lip hard. "…it's not the same thing, Ferran. You know that. He's… it's different, for him."

Ferran sighs, and there's a bit more shuffling around before he speaks. "You know, Pepi, he's dated a couple of girls here and there, hasn't he? And I doubt he does all of those, uh, rules that Muslims have to do anyways. Besides, he's drank before, and he's definitely had sex before. What's it to break another rule, yeah?"

Lamine squeezes his fingers together, so hard that he's begun to whimper in pain. Stop, he thinks, stop saying that. Lamine— Lamine isn't stupid. He knows what they mean, he knows that he's a hypocrite. He knows, that from the outside it looks so stupid to be feeling like this, but he doesn't want to hear that.

Who are you to decide something like that?

"…just go, Ferran," Pedri whispers, and Ferran mumbles a couple more platitudes towards the other man before Lamine can hear him clatter about to leave the room. Lamine knows he should move before he gets caught eavesdropping on their conversation, but a part of him doesn't care anymore. He wants to see the flash of regret in Ferran's eyes when he realizes that Lamine was there to listen to him.

When Ferran locks eyes with him as he leaves the room, neither of them speak a word. That's how that falls apart.

—

IX. 19

Their legs are bumping closely together underneath the table, and Pau can't believe he's technically playing footsies with each other at the big age of nineteen. Lamine's birthday had just passed, and their on their way to winning their first world cup during their… first world cup, if they can just beat Argentina, so neither of them bothers pretending like they aren't elated out of their minds.

While the team bustles about after their win, Pau can't help but glance at the dainty jewelry that's coming loose around Lamine's wrists. He's sure that it's a stylistic choice, that he likes the way that the jewelry slides down until it catches onto the thick part of his forearm. But when Lamine's fingers catch onto the bracelets, fidgeting with them absentmindedly, Pau does his very best to not stare.

His fingers are surprisingly deft, playing with the chain and rolling the pearls through his fingers. He doesn't even seem to notice that he's doing it, that his fingers are sliding against his own arm as they reach up and—

Hm. Pau turns away.

"Lamine," He murmurs, and the boys attention immediately snaps towards him. He's wearing those glasses of his too, the thick black frames resting gently on his nose, and when Lamine looks up at him through the lenses to meet Pau's own eyes, Pau is sure that everyone in the world could see the way his face erupted into a brilliant red. Trying to play it cool, Pau just grabs Lamine's wrist and begins adjust the chain on the bracelet Lamine is fiddling with to fit perfectly around him.

Pau hears Lamine's breath catch slightly, before devolving into a nervous chuckle. "What's that about? Don't want me to go around looking sloppy or something? I'll have you know that this is a pretty expensive bracelet, Cuba."

Pau shakes his head, still smiling gently at Lamine. "You were fidgeting with it. If it's so expensive, you should be taking good care of it, you know?"

At that moment, Pau decides to lean in towards Lamine, and whispers softly into his ear. "Besides, you're really distracting me like that. Next time, if you need help, just ask me."

Pau is sure that Lamine doesn't want his help on chaining up a damn bracelet, and that he's just made a fool of himself, but Lamine just purses his lips before mumbling out a small okay.

He thinks he can feel the heat radiating off of Lamine's cheeks, and it makes Pau a little giddy. He brings Lamine into a hug, ruffling his hair slightly, and they only part when Gavi makes a vomiting motion with his hands before feigning gagging in the most disgusting, over-dramatic way possible.

"Gross, gross, grossss! Get a room, won't you?"

Pedri looks extremely appalled by the entire display. Pau isn't sure if it's because of him and Lamine or Gavi. "Do you have to gag like that?"

Gavi smirks. "I bet you'd know all about gagging, Mr.—"

Pau tunes the rest of that out.

—

X. 19

A win is a win, Lamine Yamal and Pau Cubarsí are world champions at age 19, and they are making out in their hotel room while Lamine cries profusely, to the point that he doesn't think he can breathe properly.

"Lamine!" Pau hisses when he feels Lamine's wracking sobs through his own lips. "Wh, what's wrong? Come on, Lamine, are you, are you okay!?"

Lamine can't tell if he wants to continue crying or kissing. They had held it in, until now, Lamine trying to brush off that electricity wired between the two of them as they left the stadium with a world cup in their hands. Their families were surrounding them, some of them also tearing up at their accomplishment, pride filling every inch of their bodies as they wrapped Lamine in their warm hugs and encouraging words. Lamine loved them so dearly, clung onto them while letting that hazy heat hit him again, and as soon as he caught Pau's eye, he couldn't help but launch himself at the other boy.

They were world champions. At the young age of 19, they were world champions.

Celebrations had lasted lengthily, the team parading Pau around as their young player of the tournament, but as soon as the two of them were alone together, it was as if the spell broke. Shattering onto the ground in pieces, only mere seconds of charged silence was enough before Lamine pressed himself against Pau. He kissed like he needed this now.

The overwhelming feelings of guilt tears at him, but it can't tear him way from Pau. He doesn't know how to feel, about this, about their emotions overflowing into an uncharted sea as they crashed into each other. He can feel Pau's own desperation, his own longing on the tip of his tongue, and Lamine knows he has nowhere he can escape when Pau cradles him in his arms before leaning up to cup his face. He kisses the tears on Lamine's cheek, gently chiding him into calmness.

Lamine feels like a whirlpool, wrecking everything with what overflows from his heart, but Pau takes it with grace, instead just choosing to hold him until Lamine stops crying.

He cannot. He wants to be kissed, he wants to cry. He wants to forget this ever happened, he wants to stay here forever. He wants to love Pau— he does not know if this is allowed.

"I need you," Lamine pleads. He doesn't know what he's pleading for.

"I'm not going anywhere," Pau says in turn. He continues to litter kisses down Lamine's face, his breath warm against Lamine's cheeks and his heart a steady constant in Lamine's ears. "Don't cry. We aren't going anywhere we don't have to go."

Lamine kisses him once more.

—

XI. ??

For it is mine, and nobody else's to meddle in. Forgive me, how shall I be forgiven?