Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

By the end of his first month at university, Sergio Ramos had accumulated three warnings from residential services, one disciplinary email from a professor whose name he could never remember, and a reputation he considered mostly unfair. The warnings had all been delivered to the same address, a battered three-story house six minutes from campus that technically belonged to Cristiano’s uncle, although nobody had seen the man since move-in day.

Sergio lived there with Cristiano, Marcelo, Toni and Karim, which meant there was almost always somebody shouting from another floor, somebody eating food they had not bought, and somebody claiming innocence while standing directly beside whatever had just broken.

The house had become notorious faster than any of them had expected. Cristiano insisted this was because they possessed charisma, Marcelo claimed it was because everyone on campus secretly wanted to be them, and Toni maintained that it had considerably more to do with the fact that Marcelo had once ridden a shopping trolley down the front steps at two in the morning while Cristiano filmed it. Karim, who had been inside the trolley, refused to contribute to the argument because according to him, surviving the experience had already been contribution enough.

They were not technically a fraternity.

Cristiano called them one anyway.

“A fraternity requires an organization,” Toni had explained during their second week, sitting at the kitchen table with a textbook open in front of him while Cristiano attempted to repair a blender he had broken twenty minutes earlier. “There would usually be membership, rules, some kind of formal structure, possibly affiliation with the university.”

Cristiano glanced up from the blender. “We have membership.”

“No, we don’t.”

“The five of us.”

“That’s called living with your friends.”

“We have rules too.”

Toni looked toward the refrigerator.

A piece of paper had been taped to the door sometime after midnight the previous evening. Across the top, Marcelo had written HOUSE RULES in black marker. Beneath it were three increasingly illegible instructions.

1. DON’T EAT BENZ’S YOGURT

2. NO FOOTBALL INSIDE AFTER 1AM

3. IF POLICE COME, TONI SPEAKS

Toni looked back at Cristiano.

“No.”

Sergio had laughed hard enough to nearly choke on his cereal.

The name stuck anyway. Their house became the frat house because Cristiano said it often enough that other people eventually stopped questioning it, and Sergio found he did not particularly mind the reputation that came with it.

They were loud, occasionally irresponsible, and far too entertained by one another, but they were not cruel. Their jokes usually landed on each other before they landed on anyone else, and if someone outside their group became uncomfortable, Karim or Toni generally noticed before Marcelo and Cristiano managed to make things worse.

Sergio usually noticed too.

He simply tended to notice after laughing first.

That was how he ended up with most of his disciplinary warnings.

The first had involved a fire extinguisher that Cristiano swore had discharged itself. The second happened after Marcelo discovered that the polished floors of the humanities building were excellent for sliding in socks. Sergio’s role in that incident had consisted entirely of encouraging him, which he still believed should have counted for considerably less than the official complaint suggested.

The third had been more complicated.

It involved Karim asleep inside a laundry trolley, Marcelo pushing from behind, Cristiano providing commentary in Portuguese, and Sergio taking over halfway down the corridor because Marcelo had complained that he was getting tired. Toni had followed them while repeatedly saying that he wanted it formally recorded that he was not participating.

The residence supervisor had disagreed.

“You’re all eighteen or nineteen years old,” she had said while looking at the five of them as if she deeply regretted her career choices. “You are university students.”

Cristiano nodded solemnly.

“That was not a compliment.”

“I understand.”

“You absolutely don’t.”

Sergio had looked at the wall because making eye contact with Marcelo would have ended him.

The problem was that they had fun.

Too much of it, probably.

Sergio had arrived at university expecting football training, lectures he would occasionally struggle to stay awake through, and maybe a few decent parties if he got lucky. Instead, he had ended up living with four people who made every ordinary day feel like it had the potential to become a story they would tell for the next ten years. Even Toni, who liked pretending he was above everything, had developed the habit of appearing in the kitchen whenever something suspicious became loud enough.

Their secondary dynamics should have made the living arrangement unbearable.

Three alphas in one house was already considered a questionable choice, and four would have been intolerable if Kaká had lived there too. Sergio and Cristiano were both alphas, as was Karim, though Karim’s scent stayed naturally low unless he was irritated or exhausted. Marcelo was a beta and therefore enjoyed claiming that he alone possessed emotional stability, while Toni, also a beta, responded that nothing about Marcelo had ever suggested stability.

Kaká lived two streets away.

That did not stop him from being in their house often enough that Sergio had once discovered three of his shirts in the laundry and complained that Cristiano was slowly moving his boyfriend in without permission.

“He has his own apartment,” Cristiano had said.

“Then why is his underwear in our dryer?

Cristiano stared at him.

Sergio stared back.

A slow smile had appeared on Cristiano’s face.

Sergio immediately raised one hand. “Never mind. I don’t want to know.”

“You asked.”

“I regret asking.”

Kaká was another alpha, which made his relationship with Cristiano the subject of far more curiosity than either of them deserved. Alpha-alpha relationships were hardly unheard of, especially among their generation, but people still tended to stare whenever Cristiano casually buried his nose against Kaká’s neck or Kaká left a visible scent mark against Cristiano’s collarbone.

Cristiano never cared.

If anything, being watched seemed to encourage him.

Sergio had once seen him pull Kaká closer in the middle of the student union after noticing two people whispering nearby.

“You enjoy making people uncomfortable,” Sergio had told him afterward, once they were halfway across the courtyard and finally out of earshot of the students who had been staring. Cristiano had looked genuinely offended by the accusation, as if Sergio had questioned his morals rather than pointed out something everyone who knew him had already accepted. “I enjoy my boyfriend,” he said, then glanced toward Kaká with the sort of smug satisfaction that made Sergio regret bringing the subject up at all.

“You nearly climbed into his lap.”

“He has a good lap.”

Kaká had been walking beside them throughout the exchange, entirely unhelpful, his mouth curved into a quiet smile while Cristiano continued defending himself with complete sincerity. He did not deny that Cristiano had practically folded himself around him in the middle of the student union, nor did he seem particularly embarrassed about having allowed it. If anything, the way he reached over to brush his fingers against Cristiano’s wrist only made Cristiano look more pleased with himself.

Sergio had watched the two of them for several seconds before deciding that love made otherwise intelligent men completely unbearable. Cristiano had once cared about looking composed in public, or at least Sergio was fairly certain he had, but apparently that instinct had died somewhere between meeting Kaká and deciding personal space was optional. Sergio had no intention of ever becoming that ridiculous over another person, and he had said as much to his mother later that evening when she called to ask how university was treating him.

She laughed before he even finished the sentence. “You say this every year.”

“I have never said this before,” Sergio protested, leaning back against the kitchen counter with his phone tucked between his shoulder and ear. The house was unusually quiet around him, which probably meant Cristiano and Marcelo were somewhere outside creating a problem Sergio would eventually be blamed for helping with.

“You said it when you were sixteen.”

“That was different.”

“You were crying over Pilar.”

“I was not crying.” Sergio frowned at the cupboard in front of him as if his mother could somehow see the expression through the phone. “I was emotional.”

“You called me at midnight.”

“That proves nothing.”

“You cried.”

Sergio pressed his lips together, already aware that defending himself further would only make her enjoy the conversation more. “Mamá,” he complained, dragging the word out until she laughed again, warm and entirely unsympathetic on the other end of the line.

By the time the conversation ended, she had moved on from humiliating him about a relationship he barely remembered to asking whether he was eating properly, sleeping enough, and keeping up with his lectures. Sergio assured her that he was doing all three with enough confidence that the lies almost sounded convincing, then hung up and opened the refrigerator to discover half a bottle of sports drink, three eggs, and Karim’s aggressively protected yogurt. He stared at the shelves for a moment before ordering takeaway.

Sergio liked people in general, which was probably why university suited him as quickly as it did. He liked them loud enough that he never had to wonder whether they were enjoying themselves, direct enough that he could usually tell within five minutes whether they liked him, disliked him, or wanted something from him. He liked knowing where he stood with people. There was comfort in that kind of certainty, especially when most of the people Sergio had surrounded himself with had never possessed the ability to hide what they were thinking in the first place.

Luka Modrić was almost the complete opposite, and Sergio suspected that was why he became curious about him before they had ever exchanged a word. There was something strangely difficult to read about Luka even from a distance, as though he had spent enough time around people to learn exactly how little of himself he needed to offer them. Sergio might never have paid him much attention if the effort Luka put into being overlooked had not eventually become noticeable in itself.

He first saw him properly during the second week of term, in a Thursday morning lecture Sergio had already decided was scheduled far too early for anything involving statistics. Luka sat three rows from the back of one of the few lectures Sergio shared with upper-year students, an elective statistics module that attracted students from several programs and year levels.

He wore oversized hoodies regardless of the weather and almost always had a cap pulled low enough over his forehead that Sergio could barely make out his face from across the room. Some mornings Luka pulled the hood over the cap too, which Sergio privately considered an impressive level of commitment to not being perceived.

There was nothing particularly dramatic about him that should have held Sergio’s attention. Luka rarely spoke unless the professor addressed him directly, never joined the whispered conversations that started whenever the lecture dragged, and spent most of the hour bent over a notebook filled with cramped handwriting. If anything, he seemed determined to make himself as unremarkable as possible, quietly taking notes while everyone around him shifted in their seats, checked their phones beneath the desks, or complained about the air-conditioning.

Sergio assumed the hoodie meant Luka was sick the first time he noticed him and forgot about it before lunch. The second Thursday, when Luka appeared dressed almost identically despite looking perfectly healthy, Sergio wondered if he was hungover. By the fourth week, with the Madrid weather still too warm for the amount of fabric Luka insisted on wearing, Sergio finally accepted that this was apparently just how the strange little second-year dressed.

“Who is that?” he asked Marcelo one afternoon when they crossed the central courtyard and Sergio spotted the familiar hoodie near the economics building.

Marcelo followed his gaze, squinting across a crowd of students. “Who?”

“The little guy.”

There were approximately forty people within sight, and Marcelo turned slowly enough to make his judgment obvious.

“Excellent description.”

“Hoodie.”

“Still many.”

“Cap.”

Marcelo squinted again before his face cleared with recognition. “Oh. Him.”

The answer suggested Marcelo had known exactly who Sergio meant after all, which only made Sergio more impatient. “Well?”

“Luka.”

“Luka what?”

“I don’t know.”

“Very useful.”

Marcelo shrugged. “I think Croatian.”

Sergio looked at him. “You think his surname is Croatian?”

Marcelo shoved his shoulder hard enough to knock Sergio half a step sideways. “No, idiot. I think he’s from Croatia.”

Sergio looked back toward the steps, where Luka stood between two men who made his already slight frame look even smaller. Gareth Bale was easy enough to recognize because Sergio had trained with him twice since joining the university football team, while the taller, dark-haired man beside him looked vaguely familiar from somewhere around campus. Luka had his hands buried inside his hoodie pocket and his shoulders drawn slightly inward, but whatever Gareth was saying clearly had his attention.

Then Luka replied.

Gareth burst out laughing.

The dark-haired man shook his head with the expression of someone who had heard the same kind of remark many times before, and Luka tipped his face toward the pavement as though he might hide the smile pulling at his mouth if he moved quickly enough.

“So he talks,” Sergio said.

Marcelo gave him a strange look. “Why wouldn’t he?”

“He never talks in lectures.”

“Neither do you.”

“I talk.”

“You whisper football scores to me.”

“That’s communication.”

Marcelo snorted, and the two of them kept walking before Sergio could think of a better defense. He forgot about Luka again after that, or at least he told himself he did, until he spotted the same cap bent over a book in the library two days later and recognized him before he consciously understood why.

After that, Luka seemed to appear everywhere.

Sergio saw him outside the student health center the following week, standing under the awning with his sleeves pulled over his hands while he waited for Gareth. He saw him in the cafeteria a few days later, where Gareth pushed half of his chips onto Luka’s plate while Luka protested with visible irritation before eating every single one anyway. Another afternoon, Sergio caught sight of him crossing the economics courtyard with the dark-haired Croatian beside him, Luka speaking quickly enough that his hands occasionally escaped his sleeves to gesture before disappearing again.

There was nothing remarkable about repeatedly seeing the same person on a university campus. Sergio understood that. They moved through many of the same buildings, shared at least one lecture, and apparently knew some of the same people through football. His growing awareness probably had more to do with Luka’s distinctive habit of dressing as though direct sunlight might personally identify him than anything genuinely meaningful.

Still, Sergio began recognizing him from a distance before he recognized plenty of people he had actually spoken to.

The small frame inside an oversized hoodie became familiar first, followed by the cap, the canvas bag that almost always hung from one shoulder, and the way Luka tended to walk close beside either Gareth or the dark-haired Croatian without ever quite matching their longer strides. Sergio eventually learned that the other man’s name was Vedran Ćorluka, another Croatian and a third-year student who apparently knew Luka from home.

He learned that from Toni.

“You know him?” Sergio asked one evening, lingering near the kitchen table while Toni worked on his laptop.

The question came after Sergio had spent several minutes staring into the refrigerator as though edible food might materialize if he remained patient enough. It had not. The shelves contained mustard, half a carton of eggs, one bottle of sports drink, and several containers of Karim’s yogurt, which had somehow acquired the same legal protections as sovereign territory after Marcelo ate one without permission.

“Vedran?” Toni asked without looking away from the screen.

“No. Luka.”

That got his attention.

Toni looked up, and for reasons Sergio could not immediately identify, the look lasted half a second longer than necessary. “He’s in two of my economics modules.”

“What’s he like?”

Toni’s expression shifted almost imperceptibly, though Sergio caught the brief pause of his fingers above the keyboard before he continued typing. “Why?”

Sergio closed the refrigerator after finally accepting that staring into it would not produce anything worth eating, then leaned back against the door. “I’m asking.”

“Yes. I gathered that.” Toni glanced up at him. “I’m asking why you’re asking.”

“Jesus. Am I being interrogated?”

“You’ve spent the last five minutes asking me questions about a second-year student you’ve never spoken to.” Toni’s attention returned to the spreadsheet on his screen, apparently deciding Sergio was no longer interesting enough to look at. “If you’re that curious, go speak to him.”

Sergio considered the suggestion, although approaching Luka directly would require admitting that he had become curious enough to do something about it. He was not quite there yet. Instead, he folded his arms over his chest and thought back to the handful of times he had seen Luka around campus, always recognizable beneath some combination of oversized fabric and a cap pulled low over his face.

“Is he always like that?”

Toni sighed without looking up. “Like what?”

“Covered up.” Sergio gestured vaguely toward his own head, although Toni was not watching. “The hoodies, the hats. He dresses like that every time I see him.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’ve never asked?”

“No.”

The immediate answer made Sergio frown. “But you know him.”

“I know him enough to talk to him in class.”

“And you’ve never wondered why he dresses like he’s avoiding facial recognition software?”

That finally made Toni stop typing. He lifted his eyes from the laptop and regarded Sergio with the exhausted patience normally reserved for particularly difficult children. “Of course I’ve wondered. The difference is that I don’t ask people invasive questions just because I’m curious.”

Sergio pressed one hand against his chest with exaggerated offense. “I understand boundaries.”

From somewhere in the living room, Karim called, “No, you don’t.”

Sergio turned his head toward the doorway. “Nobody asked you.”

“I can still hear you.”

“Then stop listening.”

A few seconds of silence followed before Karim called back, “Close the refrigerator next time. You’re wasting electricity.”

Sergio looked behind himself and discovered that he had somehow leaned against the refrigerator without shutting the door completely. He pushed it closed with his hip, then looked toward Toni, who had lowered his face toward his laptop in an obvious attempt to hide the smile pulling at his mouth.

“Don’t.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were going to.”

“I really wasn’t.”

“You have the face.”

Toni’s mouth twitched again, but he spared Sergio further humiliation and returned his attention to the laptop. “Maybe you should investigate that instead.”

Sergio ignored him and wandered back toward the counter, where he picked up the bottle of water he had abandoned earlier. He should probably have let the subject go there, especially after Toni had already made it clear that he considered Sergio’s sudden interest suspicious, but another question had been sitting at the back of his mind since he first started noticing Luka around campus. Sergio twisted the cap loose, took a drink, then glanced toward Toni again.

“What’s his dynamic?”

Toni’s fingers slowed over the keyboard. “Luka’s?”

“Who else have we been talking about?”

“I was hoping we were finished talking about him.”

“We almost are.”

“That sounds unlikely.”

Sergio smiled and leaned one hip against the counter. “Alpha or beta?”

Toni finally looked up, and something about his expression told Sergio immediately that neither option was correct.

“Omega.”

Sergio paused with the water bottle halfway back to his mouth.

That, he had not expected.

University campuses were stricter about scent regulation than most public spaces, particularly in enclosed areas like lecture halls, libraries and study centers. Alphas were expected to keep their glands covered during classes, scent-dampening patches were available through student health services, and deliberately flooding a shared room could get someone removed before they finished arguing that they had done nothing wrong. Deliberately scenting another student without permission was taken more seriously still, especially when an alpha and omega dynamic was involved.

Omegas had their own reasons for covering more skin, and plenty used suppressants or scent blockers for comfort rather than necessity. Sergio had grown up around enough omegas that none of that seemed unusual to him. What struck him as strange was that Luka’s scent had never reached him at all, despite Sergio having passed close enough to him more than once.

Sergio’s nose had always been annoyingly sensitive. His mother used to joke that he could smell dinner from the end of their street, and what had sounded like an impressive skill when he was eight became significantly less entertaining once puberty introduced him to crowded classrooms full of adolescents with unreliable control over their secondary-gender scent.

By university he had learned to live around it, but he could still pick Cristiano’s sharp pine and citrus from across their house, recognize Karim’s warmer amber and smoke before Karim entered a room, and detect the soft spice of Kaká’s scent strongly enough that he now associated it with Cristiano almost as much as he associated it with Kaká himself.

Omegas were usually easier on Sergio’s senses than other alphas. Their scents tended to sit lighter in the air, often sweeter or more layered, and even strong omega scents rarely left the pressure behind his eyes that an aggressive alpha could cause after an hour in the same room.

Luka smelled like nothing.

Sergio had passed him in the economics corridor at close range enough times to know that for certain. It was not the mild neutrality of a beta either. There was simply an absence where Sergio’s instincts expected information to be, like reaching for a light switch in the dark and finding an empty wall instead.

“Suppressants?” Sergio asked after a moment, more to himself than Toni. It was the only explanation that made sense when he thought about how often he had passed Luka in the economics building without catching even the faintest trace of an omega scent.

Toni gave a small shrug. “Probably.”

“They must be strong.”

“Maybe.” Toni kept typing, clearly hoping that another vague answer would finally exhaust Sergio’s interest.

It did not.

Sergio took another drink of water while thinking back to the people Luka was usually with. Gareth was almost always somewhere nearby, and Vedran seemed close enough to Luka that Sergio doubted either of them could have missed something as obvious as heavy scent suppression. “Does Gareth know?”

The question finally made Toni’s fingers stop over the keyboard. He remained still for a second before looking up slowly, his expression settling into the particular kind of patience he seemed to reserve almost exclusively for Sergio and the rest of the house.

“Sergio.”

“What?”

“Why do you care whether Gareth knows?”

“I don’t care.” Sergio realized how quickly the answer came and amended it with a shrug. “I’m curious.”

“That’s what worries me.”

Sergio smiled, because he knew Toni well enough by now to recognize that the comment contained at least some affection beneath the judgment. Toni remained entirely unimpressed, staring at him long enough that Sergio eventually lifted both hands in surrender.

“What? I’m not doing anything.”

“Good.” Toni returned his attention to the laptop and resumed typing. “Keep it that way.”

Sergio frowned. “You make me sound like a problem.”

“You received three warnings in your first month here.”

“Those were unrelated.”

“One involved a laundry cart.”

“Karim wanted to get in.”

From the living room, Karim called, “I was drunk.”

Sergio pointed toward the doorway as though Toni had just provided him with a witness for the defense. “See? Completely unrelated.”

Toni did not bother looking up. “Leave Luka alone, Sergio.”

There was enough seriousness beneath the otherwise casual instruction that Sergio noticed it, even if he did not understand why Toni seemed convinced his curiosity would inevitably become somebody else’s problem. He rolled his eyes and pushed away from the counter, deciding there was no point trying to get anything more useful out of him tonight.

“I haven’t even spoken to him.”

“Exactly,” Toni said. “You’re doing very well so far.”

Sergio grabbed the nearest dish towel and threw it at him. Toni caught it with one hand without even looking, which annoyed Sergio enough that he went to order food instead.

The subject might have ended there if Cristiano had not decided three weeks later that the house required a party.

According to Cristiano, every respectable university house hosted a beginning-of-term party. Toni pointed out that the beginning of term had happened more than a month earlier, which only resulted in Cristiano announcing that theirs would therefore be a delayed beginning-of-term party as if he had solved the problem rather than renamed it.

“That’s just a party,” Karim said from the couch, where he had been stretched out for the better part of an hour with one arm thrown over his eyes. He sounded half-asleep and entirely uninterested in whatever distinction Cristiano believed existed between an ordinary party and one held several weeks too late to qualify as a beginning-of-term celebration.

Cristiano ignored him completely. He had already claimed the empty side of the kitchen table as his planning space, though the only evidence of actual planning was his phone, an unopened notebook, and a drink he had nearly knocked over twice. “We should invite everyone.”

Toni looked up from his laptop. “No.”

“Yes,” Marcelo said immediately from beside him, despite having contributed nothing to the discussion until that exact moment. He leaned forward with sudden interest, apparently deciding that any idea Toni rejected that quickly deserved his full support. “Everyone.”

“No,” Toni repeated, with the calm certainty of someone who already knew he would be ignored and had decided to object for the record anyway.

Cristiano frowned. “Why not?”

“Because we live here.”

Cristiano stared at him for a moment. “Yes. That’s generally where people have house parties.”

“That isn’t the part I’m questioning.” Toni gestured vaguely around them, encompassing the kitchen, the living room beyond it, and possibly the structural integrity of the entire house. “I’m questioning why you think inviting everyone we’ve met since September into the place where we sleep is a good idea.”

“We haven’t met that many people.”

Toni looked at him.

Cristiano hesitated. “Okay, I’ve met many people.”

“You invited someone yesterday because he complimented your shoes.”

“He seemed nice.”

“You don’t know his name.”

“I’ll ask him at the party.”

Sergio laughed into his cereal while Cristiano looked entirely satisfied with that solution. Before Toni could explain why this was exactly the problem he was talking about, Marcelo had apparently decided the guest list was settled and moved on to what he considered the more important issue.

“We need lights.”

“No.”

“Colored ones.”

“Still no.”

Cristiano nodded thoughtfully, as though Marcelo had proposed something genuinely useful. “Actually, lights could be good.”

“Thank you.”

Toni looked between them and seemed to realize with some resignation that allowing the two of them to brainstorm in the same room had been his first mistake. “Normal lights already exist in the house.”

Marcelo stared at him. “Those are for seeing.”

There was a brief silence.

Karim lowered his arm enough to look over from the couch. “What do you think party lights are for?”

“Atmosphere.”

Cristiano pointed at Marcelo in immediate agreement. “Exactly.”

Toni returned his attention to the laptop with the expression of a man consciously choosing which battles were worth the damage to his blood pressure. That should have ended the discussion, but Marcelo had apparently interpreted the lack of further objection as permission to continue.

“A smoke machine.”

Toni’s head came back up. “No.”

“Small one.”

“No.”

“We can put it near the stairs.”

“Absolutely not.”

Cristiano looked toward Sergio then, apparently searching for the only person in the room who had not yet rejected or enthusiastically worsened the plan. Sergio had been sitting on the kitchen counter throughout the entire conversation, eating cereal directly from the box because every clean bowl had mysteriously disappeared sometime that morning.

“You’re very quiet,” Cristiano said.

Sergio glanced from him to Marcelo, then toward Toni, whose expression suggested he was already reconsidering every decision that had led him to living with these people. “I want to see how long this takes before Toni kills Marcelo.”

From the couch, Karim lifted one hand lazily. “Twenty minutes.”

Toni looked at him. “Generous.”

Marcelo appeared genuinely offended. “Why am I the one getting killed? This was Cristiano’s idea.”

“Because Cristiano eventually gets distracted,” Toni said. “You escalate.”

Cristiano frowned at him. “I don’t get distracted.”

As if summoned specifically to prove Toni’s point, Cristiano’s phone lit up where he had left it on the table. Kaká’s name appeared across the screen with the beginning of a message beneath it, and Cristiano reached for the phone almost immediately, his attention abandoning the conversation before any of them had the chance to comment.

The response was so immediate that the room went quiet for several seconds, not because anyone was surprised Cristiano had answered Kaká, but because the timing had been almost offensively perfect. Marcelo slowly turned toward Toni with his eyebrows raised, and Toni met the look with the calm satisfaction of someone whose argument had just been proven for him. Karim lasted the shortest amount of time before his laughter broke the silence from the couch.

Cristiano remained oblivious for another few seconds, his attention fixed on whatever Kaká had sent him while his thumb moved quickly across the screen. It was only when Karim’s laughter became impossible to ignore that he finally looked up and noticed everyone watching him. “What?”

“Nothing,” Toni said, already turning back toward his laptop.

Cristiano narrowed his eyes. “You’re all looking at me.”

“No one is looking at you.”

“You were.” Cristiano glanced around the room as though expecting one of them to admit to whatever offense had apparently occurred while he was distracted. Sergio was doing a terrible job of hiding his smile behind the cereal box, while Marcelo had abandoned subtlety altogether and was trying to lean far enough across the table to see Cristiano’s phone.

“What did Kaká say?”

Cristiano noticed what he was doing and immediately pulled the phone against his chest, angling the screen away before Marcelo could read anything. “None of your business.”

Marcelo stopped halfway across the table and stared at him. “Oh, now you understand privacy.”

Cristiano’s expression flattened.

“Fuck off.”

That only made Karim laugh harder, and even Toni’s mouth twitched as he lowered his eyes toward his laptop again. Cristiano muttered something in Portuguese under his breath before returning to Kaká’s message, apparently deciding his boyfriend was worth considerably more of his attention than the four people currently making fun of him.

Sergio shook the cereal box until the last few pieces fell into his palm, watching Cristiano attempt to type a reply while shielding the screen from Marcelo. Toni had already returned to his laptop, apparently satisfied that his argument had proven itself without requiring further participation, while Karim settled back into the couch with the lingering amusement of someone who had expected exactly this outcome.

The conversation might have died there if Marcelo were capable of leaving an idea unfinished for longer than thirty seconds. He leaned back in his chair and surveyed the kitchen with renewed concentration, his gaze eventually traveling upward as though the answer to their apparently urgent need for party decorations might be hidden somewhere above them.

“We could hang something from the ceiling.”

Toni’s fingers stopped moving over the keyboard. His eyes closed briefly before he asked, with remarkable restraint, “What?”

“I don’t know. Something.” Marcelo gestured toward the ceiling. “Fabric could look good. Like those things clubs have.”

“What things?”

Marcelo stared at Toni as though the answer should have been obvious to anyone who had ever attended a party in their life. “You know the ones I mean. Those pieces of fabric they hang from the ceiling in clubs sometimes, all loose and…” He lifted both hands and made an unhelpful waving motion through the air. “Like that.”

Toni watched the gesture without any visible increase in understanding. “That explained absolutely nothing.”

“It explained enough.”

“For whom?”

“For people with imagination.”

Sergio lowered the empty cereal box he had been absently shaking for the last few crumbs and looked between them. “I think the technical term you’re looking for is hanging things.”

Marcelo pointed at him immediately. “Exactly.”

“That was not support.”

“It sounded supportive.”

“It was making fun of you.”

Marcelo considered that for a second before shrugging. “Still helped.”

Sergio stared at him, then looked toward Toni. “I understand why you want to kill him now.”

“Thank you,” Toni said.

Marcelo ignored him and continued studying the ceiling, apparently constructing the entire decoration scheme in his head. “We could put fabric across here, maybe over the living room too. Make it look less like…” He glanced around their kitchen. “This.”

Karim lifted his head from the couch. “You live here.”

“I know. That’s why I’m aware it looks bad.”

Toni finally looked up from the laptop. “And how exactly are you planning to attach fabric to the ceiling?”

Marcelo hesitated.

For the first time since proposing the idea, genuine uncertainty crossed his face. He looked toward one corner of the ceiling, then another, before his gaze dropped to the miscellaneous collection of household supplies on the counter.

“Tape.”

Toni stared at him.

“Strong tape,” Marcelo clarified.

Sergio covered his mouth, but the laugh escaped anyway.

Toni closed his laptop with slow, deliberate care and rested both hands on top of it. “I want it formally established now that when several meters of fabric detach from the ceiling and land on somebody, I had nothing to do with it.”

“It won’t fall,” Marcelo insisted, with the absolute confidence of someone who had done no research whatsoever and had apparently decided confidence was an acceptable substitute.

Toni stared at him across the table. “Your entire plan is to attach several meters of fabric to the ceiling with tape.”

“Strong tape.”

“The adjective doesn’t solve the problem.”

“It helps.”

“It really doesn’t.”

Cristiano, who had spent the last several minutes smiling at his phone while Kaká occupied whatever remained of his attention, finally looked up. He glanced toward the ceiling, then at Marcelo, apparently having caught enough of the conversation to believe his input would be useful. “Why don’t you use staples?”

Toni turned his head toward him, and whatever Cristiano saw in his expression made the suggestion lose some of its brilliance almost immediately.

Cristiano glanced toward the ceiling again. “Staples are probably too much.”

“Probably?”

“Definitely,” Cristiano corrected, settling back against his chair. “Forget I said anything.”

Marcelo looked between them with visible disbelief. “That’s it? You’re giving up?”

Cristiano shrugged. “It was a suggestion, not a cause I’m willing to die for.”

“You’re supposed to be helping me.”

“I suggested staples.”

“And Toni looked at you once.”

“It was a very convincing look.”

Toni’s expression remained perfectly neutral as he returned to his laptop, which only made Sergio laugh. Marcelo, meanwhile, seemed genuinely offended by Cristiano’s complete lack of loyalty to an idea he had introduced less than thirty seconds earlier.

“You could at least defend it.”

“Why?” Cristiano asked. “I don’t care about the fabric.”

Marcelo stared at him. “You said it would look good.”

“I say lots of things.”

“That might be the first accurate thing you’ve said tonight,” Sergio said.

Cristiano gave him a lazy middle finger without bothering to turn his head.

Marcelo exhaled heavily and looked back toward the ceiling, apparently mourning the loss of his grand decorative vision. “I hate planning things with all of you.”

“You’re not planning,” Toni said, his eyes still on the laptop. “You’re suggesting increasingly worse ways to attach fabric to a ceiling.”

“At least I’m contributing.”

Sergio shook the cereal box beside his ear, discovered it was finally empty, and tossed it toward the bin. “You’re contributing to Toni’s early hair loss.”

That finally got Toni to look up. He touched his hair automatically, then seemed irritated with himself for doing it.

Marcelo grinned. “See? Now he’s worried.”

“I wasn’t until you started talking.”

Marcelo let himself fall back against his chair with a dramatic sigh, his gaze returning to the ceiling as though Toni had personally destroyed a vision that would have revolutionized university parties forever. “Fine. No fabric.”

Toni reopened his laptop and settled back into his chair, apparently deciding he had reached the maximum amount of stupidity he was willing to supervise for one evening. “I’m staying somewhere else Saturday.”

Sergio looked at him over the top of the empty cereal box, unconvinced. Toni had threatened to abandon the house before at least two of their previous disasters and had never actually followed through, mostly because his desire to avoid whatever stupidity they were planning was consistently outweighed by his inability to trust them unsupervised. “No, you’re not.”

Toni barely glanced up. “Yes, I am.”

“You’ll spend the entire night wondering whether we’ve burned the house down.”

“I already assume you’re eventually going to burn the house down.”

“Exactly.” Sergio pointed the cereal box toward him as though Toni had just strengthened his argument rather than contradicted it. “So you’ll stay here to prevent it.”

Toni opened his mouth, seemed to reconsider the amount of effort required to argue with him, and returned his attention to the laptop instead. Sergio took the silence as confirmation, which earned him a quiet sigh from across the table but no actual denial.

When Saturday arrived, Toni was still there.

He claimed this had nothing to do with Sergio being right and everything to do with the fact that leaving Cristiano and Marcelo responsible for a house full of drunk university students constituted negligence. Sergio did not bother pointing out that this was exactly what he had predicted. The satisfaction on his face did it for him.

Toni least of all.

By nine, there were already enough people inside the house for Sergio to privately admit that Toni had probably been right about the guest list. By ten, Cristiano had clearly lost whatever limited control he had possessed over invitations, and by eleven there were people sitting on the staircase whom none of the five residents recognized.

Sergio loved it.

The kitchen had grown warm enough that someone cracked open a window despite the cooler night air outside, and the glass above the sink had fogged faintly from the number of bodies moving through the house. Someone had connected speakers powerful enough to send a quiet vibration through the floorboards, Marcelo had somehow acquired colored lights despite Toni explicitly banning them, and Karim had taken possession of the good bottle of rum while refusing to explain where it came from.

Cristiano moved through the rooms like a politician campaigning for reelection, greeting half the people by name and pretending he knew the other half well enough that nobody noticed the difference.

The combined scent in the house had become its own atmosphere. Alpha musk sat heavier near the living room where most of the football team had congregated, while floral, citrus and sweeter omega notes gathered and disappeared whenever someone moved through the crowd. Betas cut through it all without contributing much of their own, something Sergio envied after the third overexcited first-year alpha walked past without properly containing his scent.

Sergio could tolerate most of it.

He still considered throwing Cristiano outside when Kaká arrived.

Cristiano’s attention reorganized itself around his boyfriend almost immediately. Sergio watched from the kitchen doorway as Kaká stepped through the crowd and Cristiano went directly to him, one hand settling at his waist before Kaká had finished saying hello. Their kiss was brief and familiar, the kind that suggested neither of them remembered there were other people in the room until someone made enough noise to remind them.

Cristiano’s scent lifted almost immediately with the change in his mood, the sharp pine and citrus that usually stayed close to his skin spreading warmly into the already crowded room. It was not quite enough to count as scent flooding, but with half the football team packed into the house and several other alphas already doing a questionable job of controlling themselves, Sergio felt the additional layer hit his sensitive nose almost at once.

He grimaced and rubbed briefly beneath his nose. “Control your fucking scent.”

Cristiano pulled back from Kaká just enough to look at him, one arm still comfortably wrapped around his boyfriend’s waist. His expression shifted toward immediate offense. “I am controlling it.”

“You smell like someone dragged an entire forest into the kitchen.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m not controlling it.”

Sergio gave him a pointed look. “I can smell you from here.”

“You’re standing three meters away.”

"Exactly”

Cristiano seemed to consider that perfectly reasonable. “I’m happy. It happens.”

“Then be happy quieter.”

Kaká laughed softly beside him, which only made Cristiano’s scent warm again before he caught himself and deliberately pulled it closer to his skin. Sergio noticed the effort immediately, along with the smug look Cristiano gave him afterward as though successfully controlling his own pheromones deserved applause.

“He’s jealous,” Cristiano told him.

Sergio took a drink. “Of what?”

“My relationship.”

“Every day I see your relationship, I become more committed to being single.”

Kaká’s smile deepened. “You say that now.”

“I’ll say it forever.”

Cristiano looked at Kaká.

Kaká looked back.

Whatever silent conversation passed between them made both of them start laughing, which Sergio immediately distrusted.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Kaká said.

“That was definitely something.”

Cristiano leaned over and kissed Kaká’s temple. “You’ll understand one day.”

Sergio made a disgusted sound and walked away before they could become more unbearable, already regretting having approached them in the first place. Love, he maintained, had done something deeply humiliating to Cristiano’s brain, and Sergio intended to preserve his own for as long as possible.

He ended up in the living room.

That was when he saw Luka.

For several seconds Sergio thought he had mistaken somebody else for him because Luka Modrić did not look like someone who would voluntarily attend a party at Cristiano’s house. Luka was a second-year, one year ahead of Sergio, and everything Sergio had observed about him so far suggested he preferred rooms where people whispered and respected personal space. Yet there he was near the far wall, partially sheltered between Gareth and Vedran, wearing a charcoal hoodie with the sleeves dragged over his hands and a black cap pulled low over his forehead.

Apparently even a crowded house party was not enough to persuade him to dress differently.

Sergio shifted slightly to see around two people talking in front of him. Luka held a plastic cup in one hand, and judging from the complete absence of interest with which he occasionally lifted it, Sergio guessed it contained water rather than anything stronger. Gareth was speaking close to Luka’s ear so he could be heard over the music, while Vedran stood on Luka’s other side with the relaxed posture of someone accustomed to acting as a wall between him and the rest of the room.

Luka said something Sergio could not hear over the music, his face mostly hidden beneath the low brim of his cap. Whatever it was made Vedran pause halfway through a drink before snorting into his cup, while Gareth laughed loudly enough to earn an irritated shove against his arm. Luka looked unimpressed by both reactions, though the smile he was trying to suppress ruined the effect.

Sergio watched the exchange from across the room longer than he had any reason to. It was strange seeing Luka like this after weeks of knowing him almost exclusively as the silent second-year who disappeared into the seat beside the wall and rarely volunteered more than a few words in class.

Around Gareth and Vedran, some of that stiffness seemed to fall away. He still kept himself tucked between them and away from the busiest part of the room, but he was talking now, occasionally gesturing with one sleeve-covered hand, his expression far more animated than Sergio had ever seen it.

A shoulder bumped lightly against Sergio’s as Marcelo squeezed into the narrow space beside him, following the direction of his gaze almost immediately. Sergio glanced over and found the beginnings of a knowing smile already forming on Marcelo’s face.

“You’ve been staring over there for a while.”

“I haven’t been staring.”

Marcelo looked toward Luka, then back at Sergio. “Watching intensely, then.”

“I’ve looked over a few times.”

“Enough times that I noticed.”

Sergio took a drink, mostly to give himself something to do. “Maybe you’re staring at me too much.”

Marcelo considered that defense before nodding thoughtfully. “Good attempt.”

“Fuck off.”

Marcelo only smiled wider, clearly pleased that Sergio had become defensive at all. His gaze drifted across the room again and settled on Luka, recognition arriving almost immediately.

“Oh. Hoodie.”

Sergio frowned at him. “His name is Luka.”

That made Marcelo’s attention snap back to him with considerably more interest than Sergio wanted.

Sergio shoved him hard enough to make Marcelo laugh, then watched him disappear back toward the kitchen before he could turn the observation into something more irritating.

Luka stayed for another hour.

Sergio knew because he kept accidentally checking.

There were plenty of omegas at the party, some wearing scent-dampening patches and others apparently deciding there was little point when the entire house had already become saturated with competing smells. Sergio could still distinguish most of them at close range. Vanilla from someone near the stairs, something bright and fruity from an omega dancing beside the speakers, warm cinnamon from a girl he had met once in the student union.

Luka remained impossible.

Even when Sergio saw him move through the room toward the kitchen, passing near enough that Sergio should have caught something, there was no trace of omega sweetness or even the faint underlying warmth suppressants sometimes failed to hide. The absence made Sergio’s attention snag on him more insistently than a strong scent probably would have.

At one point Gareth disappeared toward the kitchen and Luka stood alone for perhaps thirty seconds while Vedran spoke with someone several feet away. An alpha Sergio vaguely recognized from political science noticed almost immediately and approached him.

Sergio watched without meaning to.

The alpha stopped too close.

Luka shifted backward.

The alpha moved closer again, leaning down as though Luka’s attempt to create distance had simply been an invitation to follow.

Sergio felt his shoulders tighten.

He could not hear what Luka said next, but whatever it was changed the other alpha’s expression instantly. His eyebrows rose, his mouth tightened, and he straightened with the offended disbelief of somebody unused to being dismissed quite so efficiently.

Luka simply lifted his cup and took a slow drink of water.

The alpha walked away.

Sergio laughed under his breath.

Apparently whatever Luka lacked in volume, he compensated for elsewhere. The realization made Sergio’s curiosity sharpen rather than fade, because quiet had apparently never meant timid in the first place.

By midnight, the party had begun losing its original shape. People had broken into smaller groups, the music had been lowered slightly after somebody mentioned the neighbors, and Toni confiscated Marcelo’s phone after discovering he was attempting to order a smoke machine for same-night delivery despite having been forbidden from buying one three separate times.

Someone produced cards.

That should have been the warning.

Sergio had known Cristiano and Marcelo long enough by then to understand that games became dangerous whenever both of them were drunk enough to become creative. He played anyway, which Toni later claimed was proof that Sergio could recognize danger perfectly well but possessed no corresponding instinct to avoid it.

They ended up crowded around the dining table with Sergio, Cristiano, Marcelo, Toni, Karim and Kaká squeezed between discarded cups, cards and two empty bowls of crisps. Kaká refused to participate because he claimed he enjoyed watching Cristiano lose more than he enjoyed winning himself, which Cristiano naturally treated as a betrayal of their relationship.

“You don’t support me.”

“I support you.”

“You just said you want me to lose.”

“Because you’re funny when you’re angry.”

Cristiano stared at him.

Kaká smiled.

Cristiano’s expression softened so quickly that Marcelo made a loud gagging noise from across the table.

Sergio joined Marcelo with an exaggerated look of disgust. “You two are fucking unbearable.”

Cristiano only looked more pleased with himself, settling back into his chair while Kaká laughed beside him. “You’re all jealous because none of you have what I have.”

“Yeah, that’s definitely it,” Karim said, barely paying attention as he rearranged the cards in his hand. He glanced around the table when nobody immediately moved. “Can we play before Cristiano starts giving us relationship advice?”

That was enough to get everyone focused on the game again, although Sergio would later argue that he might have done considerably better if Cristiano had stopped talking through half of it. Three rounds later, Sergio dropped his cards onto the table and stared at them with the offended disbelief of someone who had only just discovered the possibility of losing.

“This is your fault,” he told Cristiano.

Cristiano laughed. “How the fuck is it my fault? They’re your cards.”

“You kept distracting me.”

“I wasn’t distracting you. You just can’t count.”

“I can count perfectly fucking well.”

“Apparently not tonight.”

Toni pointed out that neither accusation had anything to do with the rules of the game, which both of them ignored because admitting that would have required accepting personal responsibility.

Marcelo slapped one hand against the table before Sergio could start gathering the cards. “Wait. You lost, so you still have to do the challenge.”

Sergio immediately shook his head. “No, absolutely not. That round doesn’t count.”

“Why wouldn’t it count?”

“Because Cristiano was cheating.”

Cristiano gave him an incredulous look. “I wasn’t cheating. You were holding your cards where I could see them.”

“They were against my chest. Where else am I supposed to hold them?”

Cristiano glanced pointedly at Sergio’s chest before looking back at his face. “I don’t know what to tell you. You have a lot of surface area.”

Kaká made a strangled sound beside him and quickly covered his mouth, but the laugh was already obvious in the way his shoulders started shaking.

Sergio pointed at him. “You’re supposed to be the reasonable one. Don’t encourage him.”

“I’m not,” Kaká managed, although he was still laughing. “Sorry.”

“You don’t look sorry.”

“He isn’t,” Cristiano said, far too pleased with himself.

Before Sergio could drag the argument any further away from the actual game, Marcelo leaned forward and pushed the discarded cards aside. “You can complain about Cristiano’s cheating later. You lost, we agreed the loser gets a challenge, so you’re doing one.”

“I remember the rule.”

“Good. Then stop trying to get out of it.”

Sergio sat back in his chair, already suspicious of how pleased Marcelo looked. Still, refusing outright would guarantee weeks of being reminded about it, and Sergio had never been particularly gifted at leaving his pride untouched when his friends started poking at it.

“Fine.”

If Sergio thought about it later, and he would think about it far more often than he wanted to, that was probably the point where everything actually began. There were dozens of opportunities afterward when a different decision might have changed the direction of the next six months, but this was the first one. He could have laughed and refused. Toni could have shut down the game. Kaká could have convinced Cristiano that whatever was coming next was already starting to sound cruel.

None of them did.

Marcelo did not answer immediately, which was the first indication that whatever he had in mind was going to be worse than Sergio expected. Instead, he leaned back in his chair and looked around the living room, slowly scanning the people still scattered throughout the party with an expression of such obvious consideration that Sergio started regretting agreeing to the challenge before Marcelo had even explained it.

“What are you looking at?” Sergio asked, following his gaze without understanding what exactly he was searching for.

Cristiano figured it out first. His attention sharpened as he looked from Marcelo toward the crowd, and a grin began spreading across his face. “Wait, are we choosing someone for him? Because if Sergio gets to choose, he’s obviously going to pick someone who already likes him.”

“Exactly.” Marcelo pointed toward Cristiano as though he had finally found someone at the table capable of understanding his vision. “We choose the person, Sergio has to get close to them, and eventually he has to convince them to actually date him.”

Sergio stared between the two of them, waiting for either one to explain what part of that was supposed to be entertaining. “So your big challenge is that I have to ask someone out?”

“No, because asking someone out once would be too easy for you.” Marcelo shifted forward again, resting his arms against the edge of the table. “You have to actually make it work. Get them interested, go on dates, become their boyfriend, whatever it takes until we agree you’ve properly won.”

There was enough emphasis on the last word to make Sergio suspicious. He narrowed his eyes at Marcelo, already certain there was another part he was deliberately leaving out. “And what happens after I’ve supposedly won?”

Marcelo hesitated, exchanging a quick glance with Cristiano before looking back at him. “Well, then you end it. That’s the whole point of the bet. You prove you can get the person we choose to fall for you, and once you’ve done that, you break up with them.”

Whatever amusement Sergio had been carrying from the game disappeared almost immediately. He leaned back in his chair and studied Marcelo’s face, waiting for the grin to crack and reveal that he was exaggerating for the sake of getting a reaction. “You’re seriously asking me to convince somebody that I genuinely like them, get them to date me, and then dump them because the five of you decided it would be funny?”

Marcelo’s grin weakened beneath the look Sergio gave him. “When you explain it like that, obviously it sounds terrible.”

“How else am I supposed to explain it?” Sergio asked, incredulous. “That’s literally what you just told me to do.”

“It’s a stupid party bet, Sergio. I’m not asking you to ruin someone’s life.” Marcelo lifted both hands when Sergio continued staring at him. “You flirt with them, date them for a while, prove you could actually pull it off, and then you end things. People date and break up all the time.”

“Yeah, except most people don’t start dating someone already planning the breakup because their idiot friends made a bet about it.” Sergio glanced around the table before looking back at Marcelo. “That’s fucked up.”

Marcelo grimaced slightly, apparently finding it considerably harder to defend the idea once Sergio stopped treating it like a joke. “Okay, when you keep saying it like that, yeah. It’s a little fucked up.”

“A little?”

“You don’t sleep with them,” Cristiano said quickly, apparently deciding there needed to be limits before Sergio rejected the idea entirely. “Nothing like that. You flirt, get them to agree to date you, stay together long enough that it counts, then end it.

Kaká turned his head toward Cristiano without saying anything, but the look alone was enough to make Cristiano notice. He had been smiling a moment earlier, clearly entertained by Marcelo’s increasingly ridiculous challenge, but some of that amusement faded when he caught his boyfriend watching him.

“What?” Cristiano asked, already sounding defensive despite Kaká not having said a word.

Kaká gave a small shake of his head. “Nothing. I’m just listening.”

“No, you’re doing that thing where you don’t say anything because you want me to realize something by myself.”

That earned a slight lift of Kaká’s eyebrows. “And what exactly am I trying to make you realize?”

“I don’t know. That’s the problem.” Cristiano studied his face for another second before gesturing toward him with mild accusation. “You’re judging me silently. I can tell.”

“I haven’t said anything about you.”

“Exactly. You normally say something, so when you go quiet like this, I know you’re thinking I’m being an idiot.”

Kaká’s mouth curved despite his attempt to keep his expression neutral. “If you’ve already reached that conclusion by yourself, I’m not sure you need my help.”

Cristiano stared at him, apparently unable to decide whether he had just been insulted, while Sergio let out a laugh from across the table. Before Cristiano could demand an explanation, Toni finally set his cards down and looked between Marcelo and Cristiano with an expression that suggested he had heard enough.

“This whole thing is stupid,” he said. “You’re talking about dragging someone who isn’t even here into a bet because Sergio lost a card game.”

“Thank you,” Sergio said, gesturing toward Toni as though somebody had finally introduced basic common sense into the conversation. “At least one person at this table understands why this is fucked.”

Marcelo groaned and sank farther into his chair, looking around at them as though their reluctance was the unreasonable part. “Jesus Christ, you people are making this sound like we’re planning a crime. It was supposed to be a stupid challenge.”

“Then come up with a stupid challenge that doesn’t involve someone else’s feelings,” Toni replied.

Marcelo stared at him for a moment before muttering, “You’re all incredibly boring.”

Karim had remained quiet throughout most of the discussion, and when he finally looked toward Sergio his expression held none of Marcelo’s amusement. “You can refuse.”

Sergio should have taken the opportunity and refused. He had already said the challenge was fucked up, Toni clearly agreed with him, and even Kaká’s expression suggested he would happily watch the entire idea die before Marcelo managed to make it worse. Karim had given him an easy way out, and under any reasonable circumstances Sergio would have taken it.

Unfortunately, Marcelo knew him too well.

A slow smile appeared on his face as he leaned back in his chair, and Sergio recognized the look before Marcelo even opened his mouth. “Unless this isn’t actually about the challenge being fucked up and Ramos just doesn’t think he can do it.”

Sergio’s attention snapped toward him. “That’s not what I said.”

“No, I know.” Marcelo lifted his hands with exaggerated innocence, though the smile remained firmly in place. “I’m just saying, if you don’t think you could convince whoever we choose to date you, that’s completely fine. You can admit that.”

There it was. Sergio knew exactly what Marcelo was doing, and judging by the way Marcelo’s smile widened, he knew Sergio knew too. It should have made the provocation easier to ignore, but Sergio still felt his pride react before common sense had the chance to catch up.

Cristiano noticed the change in his expression almost immediately. He leaned back in his chair and laughed, looking far too pleased with himself. “Oh, fuck. He’s actually considering it now.”

“I’m not considering anything.”

“You are.” Cristiano pointed at him, grinning. “You have that look.”

Sergio frowned. “What fucking look?”

“The one you always get when somebody tells you that you can’t do something. Your whole face changes, and then five minutes later we’re all dealing with whatever terrible decision you made because you needed to prove them wrong.”

Across the table, Toni rubbed one hand slowly over his forehead, looking as though the headache he had been anticipating all evening had finally arrived. “The worst part is that he knows you’re provoking him and it’s still working.”

“I know what they’re doing,” Sergio said.

“That doesn’t make it better.”

Sergio ignored him and looked back at Marcelo, whose expression had become unbearably satisfied now that his little strategy was clearly working. He could still refuse, and some sensible part of him knew that was exactly what he should do, but curiosity had already started pushing its way past his better judgment.

“Fine,” Sergio said, leaning forward slightly. “Who did you have in mind?”

Marcelo turned in his chair, scanning the party with the exaggerated concentration of someone selecting a target. His gaze moved over the room once, passed the staircase, then stopped near the far wall.

Sergio knew who Marcelo had chosen before he even followed the direction of his gaze. There was only one person in the room Marcelo could possibly be looking at with that much satisfaction after spending the last month listening to Sergio ask questions he insisted were nothing more than curiosity, and the realization made something in Sergio’s stomach tighten.

“No. Pick someone else.”

Marcelo turned back toward him, his smile widening at the immediate refusal. “I haven’t even said his name yet.”

“You don’t need to. I know who you’re looking at.”

“Then I guess that saves us some time.” Marcelo tipped his head toward the other side of the room, where the familiar charcoal hoodie was still visible among the crowd. “Luka.”

Sergio followed his gaze despite already knowing exactly what he would find. Luka was still near the far side of the living room with Gareth beside him, one hand curled around his plastic cup while Gareth leaned closer to say something over the music. He looked as out of place at the party as he had when Sergio first noticed him earlier, tucked comfortably into the small pocket of space created by the two people he actually knew.

Cristiano followed Sergio’s gaze across the room, and his expression changed the moment he realized who Marcelo had picked. He leaned forward against the table, looking between Luka and Sergio with considerably more interest than he had shown when the challenge was still hypothetical. “Okay, that’s actually a good choice.”

Sergio glanced back at him. “Why is Luka suddenly a good choice?”

“Because it would actually be difficult.” Cristiano gestured vaguely toward the other side of the room. “I’ve seen people try talking to him before, and it never goes anywhere. He barely gives them enough time to finish whatever line they walked over with.”

Sergio frowned. “And you know this because?”

“Because I have eyes, Sergio. We go to the same university.” Cristiano shrugged, taking another drink before adding, “And people talk. He’s been here a year longer than us. It’s not exactly a secret that he doesn’t date much.”

Toni’s expression sharpened at that. He had been mostly watching the conversation since Luka’s name came up, but now he looked directly at Cristiano. “He’s a person, not some campus challenge everyone gets to take a turn at.”

“I didn’t say he was.” Cristiano’s eyebrows pulled together, some of his earlier amusement disappearing. “I only said people have tried asking him out before.”

“You said nobody gets anywhere with him like that’s what makes him interesting for the bet.”

Cristiano opened his mouth, paused, then glanced toward Kaká as though expecting support. Kaká only looked back at him, and whatever Cristiano found there made him reconsider what he had been about to say. “Okay, fine. That sounded worse than I meant it.”

Marcelo tapped his fingers against the edge of the table while looking toward Luka again. “He’s not wrong about one thing, though. I’ve seen a couple of alphas try with him too, and Luka usually gets rid of them pretty quickly. One of them barely lasted a minute.”

“Maybe because they were bothering him,” Kaká said, his tone mild enough that Marcelo looked back at him before answering.

“Probably. The last one wouldn’t stop touching his arm after Luka moved away from him.” Marcelo grimaced at the memory and took another drink. “Actually, yeah, that guy deserved it.”

Sergio looked back across the room and remembered the alpha from earlier stepping closer when Luka had clearly moved away. The memory sat differently now that his friends were suggesting he approach Luka for entertainment, and something uncomfortable tightened low in his stomach.

Sergio kept his eyes on Luka for another moment before turning back toward the table. The more they talked about him like this, the less amusing the challenge became, particularly after Marcelo’s story about the alpha who had apparently been unable to understand when he was unwanted. “Choose somebody else. If he already spends half his time getting rid of people who won’t leave him alone, I’m not going over there just to become another one.”

Marcelo groaned and leaned back in his chair. “Come on, Sergio. You’re acting like we’re asking you to stalk him. You talk to him, see if he’s interested, and if he’s not, then that’s it.”

“Five minutes ago, you were telling me I had to make him date me.”

“Well, obviously you have to try.”

“I can try with someone else.”

Marcelo studied him for a second, and Sergio immediately recognized the direction his thoughts were taking. “So you are worried he’ll reject you.”

Sergio gave him a flat look. “I’m worried you’re going to become unbearable if I let you keep talking.”

“That isn’t a no.”

“I’m not scared of talking to him, if that’s what you’re trying to get me to say.” Sergio gestured toward Luka with his drink. “I just watched another alpha get told to fuck off for bothering him. Maybe that’s a sign he doesn’t want random people walking over and flirting with him.”

Toni glanced at Sergio from across the table, and for once there was something almost approving in his expression. Sergio noticed it just long enough to feel mildly vindicated before Cristiano leaned forward and inserted himself back into the conversation.

“Then give yourself six months.”

Sergio turned toward him. “Six months for what?”

“For the bet.” Cristiano spoke as though this solved the entire problem. “Nobody said you have to walk over there tonight and convince him to date you by next week. You have six months to get to know him properly.”

Sergio stared at him. “That’s an insane amount of time for a stupid party bet.”

“Then you shouldn’t have a problem doing it.”

“How does making it six months suddenly make it easier?”

“It gives you time.” Cristiano shrugged, apparently finding the logic perfectly obvious. “You don’t have to annoy him. Talk to him normally, become friends first, whatever you want. You spend half your life telling us how charming you are anyway, so prove it.”

“I don’t spend half my life saying that.”

Marcelo laughed. “You say it enough.”

Sergio ignored him and kept staring at Cristiano, who had the irritatingly pleased expression of someone convinced he had found a solution to every objection. Beside him, Kaká had gone noticeably quiet again.

“Amor,” Kaká said eventually, his voice low enough that Cristiano turned toward him immediately.

“What?”

Kaká gave him a look that was gentler than Toni’s had been but carried much the same warning. “Maybe stop trying to make the bad idea sound reasonable.”

Cristiano’s mouth opened, but nothing came out immediately. He glanced around the table, apparently realizing that defending himself would only make Kaká’s point for him, and finally settled back in his chair with a reluctant exhale.

For once, he actually stopped.

That should have been enough for Sergio to let the entire thing die there. He had already objected more than once, Toni clearly wanted no part of it, and even Cristiano had finally run out of arguments.

Then Gareth said something across the room, and Luka laughed.

Sergio’s attention moved back across the room almost automatically. The smile was barely visible beneath the cap, just the curve of Luka’s mouth and a quick glimpse of teeth before he ducked his head as though embarrassed to have reacted so openly.

It changed his entire face. He looked younger when he smiled, despite being a year older than Sergio, the guarded stiffness around his eyes disappearing long enough for Sergio to understand why Gareth seemed to spend so much time deliberately trying to make him laugh.

A stupid thought slipped into Sergio’s head before he could stop it.

He wondered whether he could do that.

Whether Luka would ever look at him like that, surprised into smiling before he remembered he was supposed to be guarded.

“Fine. I’ll do it.”

The words had barely left Sergio’s mouth before the entire table reacted. Toni turned toward him so quickly that his chair shifted against the floor, while Kaká closed his eyes for a moment with the resigned expression of someone who had watched a perfectly avoidable disaster become inevitable. Marcelo looked delighted, immediately leaning forward again, and Cristiano’s grin returned as though he had forgotten every objection raised over the last ten minutes.

Sergio regretted agreeing almost immediately.

“Don’t start celebrating yet,” he said before Marcelo could say anything. “If I’m actually doing this, there are rules. I’m not letting you idiots decide halfway through that I have to do something worse just because you’re bored.”

Marcelo settled back into his chair, still visibly pleased that Sergio had agreed at all. “All right. Your challenge, your rules. What do you want?”

“For one thing, I’m not sleeping with him because of a bet.” Sergio’s expression hardened slightly as he looked around the table, making sure none of them misunderstood him. “I don’t care how long this goes on or whether we actually start dating. Sex isn’t part of it, and none of you get to decide otherwise later.”

“Obviously,” Marcelo said, his amusement fading enough to show that he understood Sergio was serious. “Nobody was asking you to do that.”

“Good. And if Luka makes it clear he genuinely wants me to leave him alone, then it’s over. I’m not going to spend six months chasing him around campus after he’s already told me to fuck off just because Cristiano decided six months sounds impressive.”

Cristiano lifted his hands in surrender. “Fine. If he actually rejects you and doesn’t want anything to do with you, you’re out. I’m not expecting you to harass him.”

“And this stays here.” Sergio gestured around the table. “I don’t want the football team hearing about it, I don’t want someone mentioning it at another party, and I definitely don’t want it getting back to Luka because one of you couldn’t keep your mouth shut.”

Marcelo looked mildly offended. “We’re not that stupid.”

Toni slowly turned his head toward him.

Marcelo caught the look and sighed. “Okay, we’re occasionally that stupid, but we can keep a secret.”

“You better,” Sergio said. “Because if one person outside this table finds out, I’m done.”

Nobody argued with that, and the conversation finally quieted enough for Sergio to look across the room again. Luka remained beside Gareth, completely unaware that his name had spent the last several minutes passing around a table of first-years like the terms of some ridiculous contract.

Six months suddenly felt much longer than it had when Cristiano first suggested it. Sergio was supposed to approach him, somehow get past the suspicion he already showed most unfamiliar alphas, become someone Luka trusted enough to date, and eventually end the relationship once Marcelo and Cristiano decided he had sufficiently proved his point.

Put plainly like that, it sounded even worse.

The idea sounded uglier when he stripped away Marcelo’s laughing and Cristiano’s teasing and reduced it to what they were actually asking him to do. Sergio knew that. He knew enough to feel the small warning tugging somewhere beneath his ribs, the part of him that understood there was a difference between playing a joke on his friends and turning another person’s feelings into something they could win or lose over a table.

He agreed anyway.

Later, that would be the part he hated most.

At the time, Sergio told himself it was harmless because people dated and broke up constantly. Nobody had said he needed to promise Luka forever, and nobody seriously expected Luka to fall desperately in love with him after a few dates. Judging from everything Sergio had heard, the more likely outcome was that Luka rejected him within a week, Sergio admitted defeat, and Marcelo spent the next month calling him a coward until they all found something else to laugh about.

There. Simple enough, Sergio told himself, provided he did not think too hard about the part where another person had absolutely no idea he had just become the subject of a six-month bet. He reached for his drink and took a long swallow, hoping the warmth of the alcohol would quiet the uncomfortable feeling that had been sitting in his stomach since Luka’s name first entered the conversation.

“So when exactly am I supposed to start this?”

Marcelo’s grin returned so quickly that Sergio immediately disliked the answer. “Right now would be good.”

Sergio lowered his cup and stared at him. “Right now? You want me to walk over there after four drinks and start flirting with him while all of you sit here watching?”

“He’s already here, you’re already here, and you’ve spent half the night looking at him anyway.” Marcelo gestured toward the other side of the room as though the opportunity could not have been more convenient. “You don’t have to propose to him. Just go talk to him.”

“I’ve had four drinks.”

Cristiano laughed from beside Kaká. “You say that like four drinks have ever stopped you from talking to anyone.”

“That’s different. Usually I’m not trying to win some ridiculous six-month bet while five idiots stare at the back of my head.”

“You’re barely drunk anyway,” Cristiano said. “I’ve seen you more drunk at lunch.”

Sergio frowned at him. “That happened once.”

“It happened twice.”

“The second time was your fault.”

Cristiano lifted his cup with a completely unapologetic smile. “And you survived both times, so I don’t see the problem.”

Sergio looked toward Luka again and realized Gareth had disappeared somewhere into the kitchen. Vedran remained nearby but had turned away to speak with someone else, leaving Luka standing by himself for the first time Sergio had noticed all evening.

Marcelo noticed the opening at almost exactly the same moment Sergio did, and the expression that spread across his face made it clear he had no intention of letting it pass. He nodded toward Luka before looking pointedly back at Sergio. “Well, there you go. He’s alone now, so unless you’re planning to wait until next semester, you might as well go talk to him.”

Sergio remained exactly where he was, turning his cup slowly between his hands while he watched Luka glance down at his phone. “I said I’d do the bet. I didn’t say you get to order me across the room whenever you feel like it.”

“No one’s ordering you anywhere,” Marcelo said, far too innocently. “I’m just pointing out that this is probably the easiest chance you’re going to get tonight.”

Cristiano nudged Sergio’s leg beneath the table, earning an irritated look almost immediately. “Come on, Ramos. You’ve spent longer arguing about going over there than it would take to introduce yourself.”

“Can both of you shut the fuck up for thirty seconds? I’m going.”

“You don’t look like you’re going.”

“I was about to stand up before you started talking again.”

Cristiano laughed and leaned back, apparently satisfied now that he had managed to irritate Sergio into moving. Sergio set his cup down and pushed his chair back, but before he could properly stand, Toni spoke from across the table.

“You know you really don’t have to do this, right?” His tone had lost the dry amusement he had carried through most of the game, and when Sergio looked at him, Toni was watching him seriously. “You can still tell them the challenge is stupid and leave it there.”

There was no amusement in Toni’s expression now, only the kind of steady look that made Sergio irritatingly aware that Toni was usually the person in the house who understood consequences before the rest of them did.

For a moment, Sergio actually considered taking Toni’s advice. Nothing had happened yet, which meant he could still sit back down, tell Marcelo to find another challenge, and spend the rest of the night forgetting the entire conversation had ever happened. His hand was still resting against the back of his chair when Marcelo leaned closer, apparently sensing the hesitation.

“Don’t tell me you’re backing out already,” Marcelo murmured, keeping his voice low enough that it barely carried beyond Sergio. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Coward.”

Sergio slowly turned his head toward him. “You really don’t know when to shut the fuck up, do you?”

Marcelo’s smile widened. “Is it working?”

Unfortunately, it was.

“Fuck you.” Sergio pushed himself to his feet before the sensible part of his brain could regain control, and Marcelo immediately broke into laughter at how easily the provocation had worked.

“Good luck,” he called after him.

“Don’t watch me,” Sergio warned, pointing at the table before he moved away. “I’m serious. Find something else to fucking look at.”

That request lasted approximately two seconds. By the time Sergio had taken his first step away from the table, Cristiano was already leaning sideways to get a clearer view around him, Marcelo had made no attempt whatsoever to hide his interest, and even Karim had abandoned his cards to see what happened.

Sergio stopped and looked back at them in disbelief. “Are you fucking serious? I just told you not to watch.”

“We’re not watching,” Cristiano said, while very obviously looking directly past him toward Luka.

“You’re literally doing it right now.”

Cristiano made a vague gesture for him to continue. “Just go. We’ll be normal.”

“That sentence means nothing coming from you.”

Kaká at least had the decency to look faintly embarrassed on behalf of everyone else, although the small smile he was trying to hide made it clear he was not entirely innocent either. Sergio stared at all of them for another second before shaking his head and turning away.

“You’re fucking terrible,” he muttered.

Behind him, Marcelo laughed again.

Sergio pushed away from the table and crossed into the living room, slipping between groups of people while trying not to think about the fact that five pairs of eyes were almost certainly following him. The closer he got, the more ridiculous the entire situation became. Sergio had approached plenty of people before. He had flirted with strangers in clubs, asked for numbers after lectures, kissed people whose surnames he never learned, and talked himself into dates with almost no preparation beyond deciding he wanted one.

This should have been easy.

Luka somehow made it difficult by doing absolutely nothing.

He stood beside the wall with his water in one hand and his phone in the other, reading something on the screen with the concentration of someone who would have preferred to be anywhere else. The hoodie was darker up close, charcoal rather than black, and Sergio could finally see the small Croatian football crest embroidered near the side of the cap.

Sergio slowed as he approached.

Still no scent.

Even from here.

Nothing.

The absence bothered his instincts in an oddly compelling way. Sergio’s brain expected information his nose was not receiving, leaving Luka unreadable in a way that had nothing to do with the cap hiding half his expression. Most people gave something away before they even opened their mouths. Nervousness, interest, irritation, attraction. Secondary-gender scent usually sharpened those signals whether someone wanted it to or not.

Luka gave him nothing.

Sergio had almost reached him when Luka finally looked up.

His eyes were lighter than Sergio expected.

Brown, but warm amber near the center beneath the yellow light from the hallway, framed by lashes Sergio had never been close enough to notice before. Wire-framed glasses sat low on his nose, almost hidden beneath the brim of his cap, and Sergio had the strange thought that Luka looked softer up close than he did from across a lecture hall.

For one moment, they simply looked at each other.

Then Luka’s gaze moved past Sergio’s shoulder.

Straight toward the table.

Sergio resisted the urge to turn because he already knew exactly what Luka was seeing. Cristiano, Marcelo, Karim, Toni and Kaká had probably developed a sudden and extremely convincing interest in anything except the two of them.

Luka looked back at Sergio, and the faint ease that had been lingering in his expression disappeared almost immediately. His eyes narrowed slightly behind his glasses as he studied him, then flicked once more toward the table before returning to Sergio’s face with considerably more suspicion than before.

The reaction was so immediate that Sergio almost laughed. He had not even opened his mouth yet, and somehow Luka already looked as though he expected whatever came out of it to be irritating. Judging by the way his gaze lingered on Sergio’s face, cautious and distinctly unimpressed, Sergio had the uncomfortable suspicion that Luka knew exactly who he was.

Apparently Sergio’s reputation had managed to introduce him first.

He stopped a polite distance away rather than moving into Luka’s space, sliding both hands into his pockets while deliberately keeping his alpha scent pulled tight beneath his skin. Sergio might have agreed to a stupid bet, but he knew enough about omega etiquette to understand that crowding Luka with pheromones when Luka was already wary of him would turn suspicion into hostility within seconds.

Sergio stopped in front of him with enough distance between them that Luka did not have to move back, then offered what he hoped looked like an ordinary smile rather than the smile of someone whose friends were probably still watching from across the room. “Hey. I’m Sergio.”

Luka regarded him quietly for a moment, his fingers still curled around the plastic cup in his hand. His gaze slipped past Sergio toward the table once again before returning to his face, and something about the look made Sergio suspect Luka had already put together that this approach was not entirely spontaneous.

“I know,” Luka said.

His accent was softer than Sergio had expected after hearing him only from a distance, Croatian rounding the edges of his English without making the words difficult to understand. Sergio had expected him to sound as guarded as he looked, but his voice was simply quiet, forcing Sergio to lean in slightly to catch it beneath the music before remembering himself and keeping his distance.

“You know me?” Sergio asked, unable to hide some of his surprise. “We’ve never talked before.”

“No, but I have ears.” Luka took a small drink from his cup, studying Sergio over the rim for another second before adding, with complete seriousness, “You are very loud.”

Sergio blinked.

Of all the answers he had expected, that had not been one of them.

Behind Sergio, someone at the table made a badly muffled choking sound that carried even through the music, followed almost immediately by what sounded suspiciously like somebody trying not to laugh. Sergio did not bother turning around. He had lived with Marcelo long enough to recognize the noise of him enjoying Sergio’s humiliation from several meters away.

Sergio closed his eyes briefly and resisted the urge to look back and tell all of them to fuck off. “I’m going to pretend I can’t hear them.”

That finally changed something in Luka’s expression. The suspicion did not disappear, but the corner of his mouth pulled upward before he could quite stop it, small enough that Sergio might have missed it if he had looked away at the wrong moment. Luka immediately hid it behind another drink, though the faint amusement remained around his eyes.

Sergio saw it.

Something bright and competitive immediately sparked in his chest, mixed with an interest he was not yet willing to examine closely enough to give another name.

He moved a little closer so he would not have to raise his voice over the music, careful to leave enough space between them that Luka would not feel crowded. The last thing Sergio needed was to prove every suspicion already written across Luka’s face correct within the first minute of speaking to him.

“Okay,” Sergio said, rubbing briefly at the back of his neck. “I probably deserved that. In my defense, most of the noise usually isn’t entirely my fault.”

Luka lifted his cup and took a slow drink of water, watching Sergio over the rim with an expression that suggested he found that defense extremely difficult to believe. The almost-smile from a moment earlier had disappeared, but some of the amusement remained in his eyes, mixed with enough suspicion to remind Sergio that getting Luka to laugh once did not mean he had accomplished anything.

Sergio smiled anyway.

Knowing Marcelo, the entire thing would have some ridiculous name by the time Sergio returned to the table. Operation Modrić, probably, because Marcelo had the sense of humor of a twelve-year-old and apparently believed every bad decision became better once it had a title. Sergio already hated it, and Marcelo had not even had the chance to say it yet.

Still, Luka had not made an excuse to leave, had not turned toward his phone in dismissal, and had not given Sergio anything resembling the unmistakable rejection he had warned his friends would end the bet immediately. He was still standing there, quietly studying Sergio as though he had not yet decided what to make of him.

For the first attempt, Sergio supposed that was enough.

He had six months, after all.

And this was only the beginning.