Chapter Text
Their Dortmund clips are going viral again. Daisy yellow shirts with black numbers streaking across his phone screen like a bumblebee, spreading suggestions of sweet, sweet nectar across the internet like wildfire, recycling and repackaging and reposting the same clips because the world couldn’t get enough of the same old shit—the beautiful friendship—the alleged situationships—the manifestation of the omegaverse—whatever the hell people were getting off to these days. He had been an unwilling participant in all of this and an even more unwilling listener, because having a younger brother meant them browsing all of the relevant social media tags and psychoanalysing them out loud while Jude contemplated, not for the first time, if murder was really as easy to get away with as TV dramas suggested.
It's even more annoying that it's Jobe giving him all this crap, because Jobe’s the one sporting the yellow and black colours now, because Jobe knows what it’s like to have unwanted publicity based on pure speculation and poorly stitched edits, because Jobe thinks he knows everything about him just because they have the same parents.
Jobe’s gesturing at the TV screen, playing the same Instagram reel on repeat, talking at him. “You can’t blame people for thinking you have chemistry.”
“I have chemistry with Trent and no one thinks we’re fucking,” and he regrets saying that the moment it leaves his mouth because then Jobe gives him a shifty glance that suggests he simply doesn’t know enough because he’s not, unlike some other people in this household, chronically online.
“They aren’t saying you’re fucking,” Jobe barges on, as if that was the point, “they’re saying you’ve fucked.”
“We have not.”
“You walked across half the pitch just to pinch the man’s waist, Judy.”
That’s because football is the fucking gayest sport in the world, he wants to scream, heterosexual men slobbering all over each other and raging and crying in this twisted paradox of a game that’s supposed to be peak masculinity, apex predator type shit, but we get to cry and scream over a winning goal or a narrow loss and not over people dying and stuff—and climb all over each other—you stupid and naive little boy literally getting paid to ogle a man move across the pitch and to respond to those movements, to match them in rhythm, thinking I don’t know what it’s like to feel a hard dick pushing up against you but like it’s not gay it’s just adrenaline because you just won us the damn league you gorgeous amazing man you.
The irony is not lost on him. Neither is his hypocrisy, but Jude thinks he’ll just have to make his peace with that. “Just wear the damn rainbow armband,” he’ll think to himself while scrolling through the ten millionth news outlet story about a player refusing to wear it for whatever reason, because it doesn’t matter to Jude how other people live as long as they’re decent people but also the second people start cooking up the “oh Jude Bellingham’s secretly gay” jokes (or at least some of them are; from what Jobe’s shown him some people have started believing in that like it’s a damn religion) like a trio of Shakespearean witches that’s when he gets offended? Somehow even more offended when people who’ve never touched a ball in their life start flapping their tongues about his career?
He’s offended because it’s not true, he tells himself. And then he thinks about the Norwegian commenting “nice” on the most obscure posts and even having the audacity to tag him in a shipping edit, and everyone online hits the final nail in the coffin. “You see, now this is a man that’s confident in his heterosexuality. He gives zero fucks.”
So what does it mean if Jude gives more than zero fucks? What does that say about him now, people of the internet?
Also, Haaland can't be confident in something that's nonexistent. So really, what the fuck is his deal? Is this a marketing strategy to further boost Haaland's name (not that it does because everyone on the planet probably knows who he is by now) by dangling “bromantic” carrots in front of a herd of new fans? He can almost visualize it now: Haaland's fancy agent calling him up the day after Norway's loss, saying “Okay, Erling, for your next career venture you need to be in love with Jude Bellingham. Yeah. No, not a joke. Now reply to all these edits of the two of you to Katy Perry blasting in the background.”
Except no one's trying to play the gay game in football. Owning the rainbow gets you shunted out of lineups, dropped from sponsorships and eventually erased from football history. Statistically Jude knows there has to be someone in every club getting dick once in a while, but all their paychecks are being signed off by big homophobic billionaires, and he imagines people would still like to be employed at the end of the work day.
And Jude worries, whether he likes it or not. Haaland happens to be that one player at Manchester City that likes getting dick once in a while. And right now he may be one of the best in the world but he's not immune to being torn down from his altar of fame.
He wishes, not for the first time, that he didn't know Erling Braut Haaland was into men.
Jude found out against his will, really.
The team had been out celebrating a win in one of those German techno clubs that left Jude's eardrums wishing they could jump out of his ears and hide in a soundproofed room. Instead he nursed his beer under Marco's watchful eye, pretending Erling's absence did not feel out of place to him. With Erling, Jude felt less like a stupid teenager and more like someone who could be trusted to let loose and have fun without worrying about dire consequences because he always had a more mature friend to rein him back in. At the moment Marco felt more like his mum. He loved him, but he wasn't the best company at a party, and Jude felt guilty that Marco had to take on the task of babysitting him.
“I think I'm gonna head back,” he said, fishing out his share of the bill and leaving it on the counter.
“You sure?” Marco asked. Jude hoped the club was dark enough so he couldn't see the flush on his cheeks–it felt they were on fire, at least–and pulled himself into the most upright position he could muster.
“Sure, mate. I know the way back. And I should probably check on Erling anyway.” His roommate had an upset stomach. The older man had always been there whenever Jude was feeling ill, whether that was showing up at his apartment with a Norwegian sick meal for whichever ailment he had or simply texting him to take his medication on time, so Jude felt happy to return the favour.
Mercifully, Marco let him off with a wave. Jude shouldered his way through a wall of undulating bodies to the door and slipped out the door.
The hotel was a 20 minute walk away, which was just enough time for the thudding music in his head to fade away. Hearing mostly restored, he even Googled “stomach pain relief” and stopped by a convenience store to pick up 3 items from the BRAT diet Google had recommended. Applesauce was unavailable, but Jude felt accomplished enough, in that 18 year old way when you've finally done something sensible without your mum having to tell you beforehand.
Jude noticed nothing amiss on his way down the corridor. He slapped his keycard on the sensor, letting out a little beep and the lock sprang free.
He was kicking off his shoes when he looked down and saw a single right shoe, far too small to be Erling's. “Huh.”
Then Jude looked up.
Erling would have looked more laughable trying to crouch in the corner unnoticed if not for the sheer panic splashed across his face. Then there was the man Jude had never seen before, looking at the floor like it suddenly held all the answers to the universe, three steps away from Erling, though by looking at the state of their rumpled clothing and shiny mouths Jude had no doubt that half a metre was an astronomical difference compared to the proximity they had both been sharing a second ago.
Maybe he was really drunk. Clearly he was hallucinating and once he snapped out of it he would have a good laugh about it with Erling.
Jude slapped himself and immediately felt ridiculous. The anonymous man let out a noise akin to someone trying to stifle a laugh at a funeral. Erling looked like he was on the urge of organising himself a funeral.
With the sobering weight of the slap came Jude's forgotten social graces. Whatever this was, he clearly wasn't supposed to have seen it and the best way forward would be to wipe the incident from his mind and turn a blind eye. Okay. Yes. He put his right foot in front of his left foot and closed the door.
It took him halfway across the lobby to realise he only had one shoe on. For all the fame he had been chasing his entire life, now was the one time he wanted to be anonymous forever. If someone saw him right now he honestly wouldn't be capable of coherence.
What the fuck was that? He buried his face in his hands, trying to smooth away the aching in his temples. He imagined himself in the conference room at the Westfalonstadion, slumped back in his chair at the back, looping the match footage with dogged determination until Jude found the root of the problem, shining crystal clear now he could see it was there all alone. That pass was half a second too slow. His foot made contact with the ball wrong. Someone had been wide open for a split second and he hadn't taken the opportunity.
Erling Haaland apparently liked men.
“So what's happened here, Jude?” he asked himself. In his mind he was already sketching a rough picture of what had happened seconds before he entered the room. Erling and what's-his-name had been kissing. They had been seconds away from making it to the bed. Erling's hand was fisted in what's-his-name's shirt and what's-his-name had his hand clenched around Erling's hair. Fuck. He really didn't need to be thinking about that anymore. Jude let his hands drop from his face and stared at the wall.
A rough tap on his shoulder shook him out of his thoughts. Erling thrust his forgotten shoe at him like they were living in some sort of Cinderella crossover. “Hey.”
Jude took the shoe but didn't put it on.
“Look.” Erling twisted his hands deeper into the pockets of his hoodie. He looked like someone trying to compress themselves into a vacuum, like a star collapsing in on itself. “Can we talk?”
“Here?” Jude said dumbly.
“I meant upstairs, but if it would be…triggering for you it's best we stay down here then.”
The way Erling chose to use the word triggering struck a dull ache in Jude's stomach. He was becoming distinctly aware that they were standing on the edge of a precipice, that the conversation could go one way or another, and the gun was in Jude's hands.
“Nah, let's go.”
The elevator ride upstairs was exceedingly awkward. Jude could tell Erling was trying to gauge him for any reaction whatsoever but constantly failing to and staring at some spot on the wall behind Jude's head. Jude was valiantly trying to keep his face as expressionless as possible in case one small muscle movement convinced Erling that Jude might hate him for this and put an end to the friendship. He was still holding the shoe in his right hand, fingers worrying at the laces.
Erling let Jude enter their room first. Probably to reassure him that there were no surprises this time round. Jude sat on his bed and felt his stomach clench as Erling sat opposite him and opened his mouth.
“This was not how I wanted you to find out.”
“Yeah, duh,” because his speech reverted to that of a petulant 6 year old when he was nervous.
“I'm sorry you had to see that.”
“I'm not, you know, washing my eyes out with bleach.”
Erling paused and Jude knew that was when he would have laughed if it weren't for the severity of their current conversation. “I guess I have to thank you for not overreacting.”
“I did slap myself to make sure I wasn't seeing things.”
“You are very dramatic. But it could have been a lot worse.”
“What do you define as worse?”
Immediately after the words leave his mouth, Jude knows he's never uttered a sentence this stupid in his life. Jude could be stabbing Erling in the stomach or running him over with a car or calling the tabloids on him for a quick buck.
Erling raised a nonexistent blond eyebrow.
Jude ducked his head, cheeks burning. “Right, sorry, yeah. Is that what this conversation is for, then? To see if I'm gonna react like an arse?”
“Are you?”
“No,” Jude spat out hotly, feeling the heat rising to his ears. “Jesus, who do you take me for? I'm not like, against gay people.”
A corner of Erling's mouth tugged upwards. “I'd hoped so. Still, in the sport we play, you can never be too sure.”
“Were you ever going to tell me?” Jude asked. The initial shock was beginning to wear off and instead it was being replaced with an immature sense of betrayal and curiosity. I thought you'd have trusted me enough–not to react badly, at least–to tell me.
Jude was aware that he was being an entitled little twat because surely Erling didn't owe him any explanation no matter how close they were, and he had a very good reason not to, seeing as they were coworkers as well as friends. Coworkers that could later go head to head against each other on different teams and this wasn't something anyone wanted used as leverage against them. Still, he was 18 and stupid and drunk. Something inside him felt like demanding exclusivity, because that was what they were. Jude wasn't letting just anyone shove him to the ground after a winning goal and then proceed to crush the air out of his lungs with all 200 pounds of their being.
“If I found someone I was going steady with, then I would.”
“So you've never been in an actual relationship before?” Jude asked. “You're 3 years older than I am and you haven't found anyone to have a serious relationship with yet?”
Erling frowned at him, albeit a little fondly. “Not everything has to be a race, Jude. If the right person comes along then I'll act accordingly. I don't feel the need to rush into anything–”
“--Except when you're on the field,” Jude finished for him. “So what was that then?” he continued, waving his hand vaguely at the spot where the anonymous man stood moments ago.
His friend had the decency to look embarrassed. “That was a hookup. You know–”
“--I know what a hookup is, Erling. I'm 18, not 8 years old. You don't have to pull out the dictionary.”
Erling raised his hands in surrender, though his face broke out into a smile. “That's what it was. But I swear I'm not doing this after every game. I keep it professional.”
Jude failed to see how getting fucked in the arsehole was remotely professional because your body probably hurt like hell afterwards, but he decided not to argue. More emboldened with liquid courage, Jude scooted closer towards Erling. “Bro, so what's your type?”
Judging from Erling's face, that was the last question he'd been expecting to be asked. “What, in men?”
“Yeah. I don't know, actually. Are you exclusively into men? Or are you, like,” he scraped his mind for the correct terminology, “bi or a pan.”
“Well, for starters, I'm not a cooking utensil,” Erling said monotonously, and Jude rolled his eyes at him. “I've never felt like I needed to define it, really. People are just…attractive. It doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman or neither.”
Jude looked at him with wide eyes as if Erling was a sage master imparting little nuggets of wisdom. “Mate. Do you just wanna fuck the whole world then?”
“You have a very strange mind, Jude.” In hindsight, it was really a glowing testament to Erling's character that he did not shove Jude off the bed right then and there. “Of course not. I have, you know, standards.”
“Yeah, okay, stop dancing around the question. What are Erling Haaland's standards for men?” Jude pointed at him like he was the host on Who Wants to Be A Millionaire and Erling was the contestant approaching the million-dollar question.
“Well, they've gotta be a good person first, you know. Be nice to kids and animals. A little competitive but not overwhelmingly so, just so I know they're still having fun–”
Jude cut him off before Erling could continue rattling off his list of best qualities a person should have. “You ain't seeing any of that when you meet someone for the first time, mate. Where do your eyes go first?”
Erling turned red. “I wasn’t aware you were asking about physical attraction,” though Jude knew he definitely was aware, and then, infuriatingly, fell silent.
Jude bounced his knee on the mattress fourteen times before his patience ran dry. “Oh, come on then.”
“You are so annoying,” Erling put his head in his hands. “Especially when you are drunk.”
“You know you love me.”
“Not right now,” he retorted, but there was no bite behind it. “If you must know, it's the eyes.”
Jude balked, swallowing the following up jokes about ass or waist or tits he had ready at the tip of his tongue. It was such an Erling answer–so earnest, so romantic, so mature, so teary eye inducing. Eurgh.
“What about the eyes?”
Erling shrugged. “The eyes are the windows to the soul. That's what they say in English, yes? If the eyes attract me, if they tell a story, then I'm more likely to be intrigued.”
Jude shook his head. “You're so full of bullshit, man.”
Erling glared at him like a guilty man and then ground out the following sentence like he was a dog refusing to let go of a bone chew. “...and also the…posterior region, I guess.”
Victory! He was never going to let him live this down. “What about the posterior region?”
“Why do you care?” his friend asked, exasperated. “You're not even interested in men.”
Jude shrugged. “Yeah, but I can find men objectively attractive. Like how I can acknowledge that David Beckham is handsome.”
Erling considered this statement. “You have a point.”
“Okay, so answer the question.”
“I'm not providing specifics, Jude.”
“Does anyone on the team have the kind of backside you like? That's vague.”
“How is that question going to lead to a vague answer?”
“Oh, so now you're media trained,” Jude said, crossing his arms in front of his chest petulantly.
Erling just sighed and ruffled Jude's hair. “Enough questions for today.” Maybe it was the hint of exhaustion in his friend's voice, but that made him shut up. He felt like he'd disappointed Erling's expectations for him to act like a mature adult, and while yes, Jude was younger, he didn't like being reminded of his own naivety about the world around him. Sometimes it made him act like a twat.
He inched away and put a respectable distance between them. Then, because he didn't know what else to do, Jude stuck out his hand and grabbed Erling's.
“I won't tell anyone.” Just to remind Erling that he can act like an adult and that he respects the sanctity of this conversation, men's backsides or none.
Erling looked down at their conjoined hands. “I know.”
They shook on it.
“I'm sorry if I was being nosy.”
“Be more confident in your ability to stick your nose into other people's business, Jude. Take out the if.”
“Whoops.”
“It's okay,” Erling said, voice softening. “I know you're just…eager to see things from my perspective.”
“Yep,” Jude nodded. “Have a lot of food for thought now.”
“Ah, well. Don't think too much about it. Worry your pretty little head about something else. Like winning the next match.”
“You think my head is pretty.”
“Sure.”
“And little.”
“Well, smaller than mine, at least.”
“I'll tell you what isn't smaller than yours.”
“Let's be media trained and family friendly for a little while.”
Jude flopped backwards onto the bed. “I will be so much taller than you when I'm older,” he swore, “and I'll stop being so curious.”
“Like a cat,” Erling said, brightening in the proud way he always did when he found a way to use an English idiom.
“Yep.” He popped the “p” with more force than was necessary. “Like a cat.”
At the age of 23, however, Jude did not surpass Haaland in height, nor did he ever stop replaying that conversation over and over in his head.
Okay, maybe after they had that whole yap session about men being hot Jude had sort of been on the lookout for men that, in whatever inexplicable fashion, he would find attractive; and he did, because Jude would've been a much sadder man if he'd been surrounded by men who looked like they had their face kicked in by a horse every day. Hell, any player at Real Madrid looked like the goddess of love and beauty when they smashed the ball into the net. So maybe Jude didn't love men, he just loved winning, and the men were like shiny stepping stones across the river to that glorious trophy at the end of the season.
Is this what it meant to be bicurious? Jude had no idea. It wasn't like he trusted anyone to ask, except Jobe, but he doubted Jobe had ever been insecure about his sexuality.
He would have asked Haaland, ideally, except the time to ask that question was long gone, like a peach going from sourly unripe to succulent to rotting. And he's definitely not asking now, because how weird is it to be asking “Mate, so how'd you know you liked men,” when the internet just so happens to be head over heels for your bromantic shenanigans. Next thing he knows Haaland will probably think Jude's gay, too, which is annoying enough now that it's widely considered to be a popular belief.
He's had a girlfriend, for fuck's sake. Still, the internet could and would always be selectively forgettable. Maybe Haaland finds it as irritating as he does.
Or maybe not, seeing as he's on his phone 24/7. At least, he wagers, Haaland's social media team is working overtime. It's a very successful PR stunt on his part, and Jude can't help but feel bitter that if he pulled the same shit the media would probably be tearing him to shreds instead of applauding him for his relatability and happy-go-lucky personality.
He doesn't know what to do with all this unwarranted anger towards Haaland. Normally he keeps it brewing inside him until it's too much to bear and he lets it spew out of him to Jobe like Jude's body is a poorly sealed barrel of wine and all that is sweet has turned to vinegar and his brother has to swallow the mess, and Jude would feel better for a while but that feeling of emptiness would eventually drain him hollow and he would have to beat the same dead horses over and over again just to feel something. There's nothing lukewarm about his thoughts when it comes to Haaland. There hasn’t been since Jude’s first day at Dortmund.
So, no, they're not the most bosom of friends. Not to Jude, anyway. After their Dortmund days Jude had figured Haaland probably deserved someone less volatile and more consistent about their relationship, which is why their daily messages dwindled to weekly one-sided texts and eventually thumbs up emojis once in a blue moon and the customary “good luck” before they faced each other on the pitch; then on the pitch Jude would be stupid and confuse Haaland further about where they stood as homies that were inevitably drifting apart by clinging to the blonde's side like one of those flies that got into your house and never seemed to be able to find the window out again. Worst of all, Haaland would never fail to reciprocate, despite the fact he had to know there was now a gaping maw of distance between them, so it was almost like he'd been permanently waiting in the wings for Jude to close the gap.
Just as he's thinking about Haaland shoving Jude's sweaty face into the crook of his equally sweaty neck and shoulder after England sent Norway home, face tilted to the stands as the English fans scream Wonderwall at him, Jobe properly bangs on his bedroom door and Jude throws the covers over his head with a groan to piss off. Naturally, as all younger siblings are, Jobe is undeterred in the slightest.
“Jude, you're gonna want to see this!” Jobe yells in between attempting to break his door down.
“MUM!” If Jobe wants to escalate things then two can play at that game. “Mum, I'm trying to sleep and Jobe is being a–”
The door opened with a clean click of the lock. His mother stood in the doorway, looking like the proper picture of fury at having to stumble down the stairs in the dark because her oldest offspring decided to start screaming for her like bloody murder. “It is 3 in the morning.” She turned and threw an equally murderous glare at Jobe, who immediately looked deflated. “I don't care what time you boys decide to go to bed at, but I do not need to find out first-hand. Let your brother into your room and maybe we can all have some peace and quiet.”
“But Jobe–”
“Jude woke you up–”
Their mother made a twisted facial expression that threatened their joint disowning. Jobe crossed the threshold into Jude's room with little grace and shut the door.
“Well what is it then, you fucking donut?”
Jobe shot him a filthy look with far too much audacity for someone that tried to break into his room and ended up waking the entire house while doing so. “It's your work husband, you knobhead.”
“Who in the bloody hell is my work husband?”
His brother waved his hand in the air dismissively. “There’s only the one, you know. I sent you the link.”
Jude just looked at him, wondering if the witching hour was interfering with his hearing.
“I'm sorry,” he said slowly, “you just said that you sent me the link.”
“Yes.”
“So why was there a need to break down my door at 3 in the morning?”
“Just click the bloody link and you'll see, you twat. Stop yelling at me before Mum goes off on both of us again,” Jobe said, clearly hell bent on making Jude's life torture. There was a glint in his eye that Jude didn't like.
It would be easier to rip off the bandaid and send Jobe on his way. Glaring at his brother the whole time, just to ensure he knew how much this physically repulsed Jude to do, he reached for his phone and pulled up their iMessage thread.
It was a Twitter link, of all things. Jude had been a professional football player long enough to know that Twitter was a cesspool of horrible people embalmed in respective echo chambers–there was a place on there for everybody no matter how niche their corner was–kind of like Hell, really, and so Jude had left his Twitter account to his social media manager two years ago and never looked back. Out of the goodness of his heart, he'd warn Jobe later about the devil's incarnate of social media, but right now he's too absorbed in trying to keep his eyes contained within his eye sockets.
🚨🚨🚨Erling Haaland spotted getting handsy with unknown man in club 👀👀🚨🚨🚨
Jude read it once, put down his phone, then reread it again.
“Jobe, this isn't even from a reliable news source,” he observed, trying not to let the panic show on his face.
“It was just posted like 10 minutes ago.”
“There's a video,” Jobe pointed out.
“It's AI.” Because they now live in a world that warrants that response daily.
“I've checked.”
“How have you checked?” He’s trying really hard not to sound hysterical, but for all he knows Jobe isn't a technological mastermind, “for fuck's sake, you thought that video of Haaland getting scared by his reflection while eating was real.”
There was a pregnant pause.
“Well, it's a 4 minute clip, Jude. No one's spending that much money on faking a clip of Haaland and some dude. I watched the whole thing and it looks proper authentic to me.”
“So you haven't checked, all you've done is eyeball it. Also, there are some real freaks out there, and rich people are often freaks because they have the money to support that kind of lifestyle.”
“Like you.”
“Shut up and get the fuck out of my room.”
Jobe stuck out his bottom lip, the same way he'd been doing it since they were children and getting into arguments. “Well, you can run it through an AI detector if you don't trust me. You can watch it yourself and pass the verdict.”
“I'm not watching what I know to be slop.”
“Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. It's Shroedinger's Slop. You won’t know til you watch.”
“You’re very adamant on me watching this thing.”
“I did wake up the entire household just to see your reaction, Jude.”
“There’s not going to be a reaction, because it’s obviously just some really impressive AI deepfake, and also I don’t care about Erling Haaland enough to throw my hat in the ring on his sexuality.”
Jobe looked unconvinced. “You seem very affected by this video you haven’t even watched.”
Which is precisely why I’m not going to watch it, he wants to snap back. God knows he doesn’t need to see Haaland fornicating with another man.
“Or, you know,” Jobe continued, face brightening menacingly, “you could just call him and ask if the video’s real or fake.”
“Don’t be fucking stupid.” The thought of clicking back into their message thread and seeing the “good game, brusjan, you were spectacular today. good luck in the semis” to which he’d panicked and simply reacted with a red heart emoji made Jude want to hurl. Then they had lost the fucking semis and they returned to England with bronze medals but still it hadn’t come home, and Jude had fucked it. And maybe Norway would have taken down Argentina, because they deserved to be there and maybe they wouldn’t have fucked it up. And then there was the message a few days later that just said “congratulations” which Jude also couldn’t bring himself to reply to because bronze was good but bronze medals did not satisfy a nation’s 6-decade long dream to bring it home.
The messages stopped after that.
After Jobe decided he’d had enough of taking the piss out of him and left the room, he watched the video, making sure he had his AirPods firmly embedded in his ears before he hit the play button.
The video quality, surprisingly, didn’t seem like it had been shot on a potato. The person holding the phone was bouncing up and down to the music, so the first 30 seconds of the video were a blur of colourful lights being cycled through red, green and blue. Then the camera caught something—and presumably also the person taking a video—because the video stopped spinning like it was trapped inside a laundry machine, blurred, then came into focus.
It was undeniably Haaland (the immediate recognition annoyed Jude but he could not know why) engulfed ridiculously like a dumpling in a massive jacket as if that would lend him some degree of anonymity. He was hopping up and down in that stereotypical white-boy manner, the same moves that Jude had laughed at him for billions of times, bopping his head to the music, pointing his long arm to the ceiling and letting it flop around like a flag above the crowd to the beat. His other arm, however, was placed haphazardly around the shoulder of a shorter man in a very—Jude noticed with distaste—very transparent sleeveless top. It was almost comical how they danced together while being dressed for completely opposite seasons. Jude could almost laugh.
He wished he could laugh.
The lights flashed red and blue and green. The shorter man’s hand came snaking up the left side of Haaland’s waist. If that was where his hand was moving up, Jude didn’t want to think about where it had been previously placed. As if in response, Haaland’s hand moved downwards, mapping out the curves of the other man’s shoulder, bicep, arm, waist. The other man turned towards him so Jude could only make out his blurry side profile.
The camera shook once, twice, and then righted itself, zooming closer towards the two men. Annoyingly, a throng of shapeless bodies had moved in front of them so all Jude could see was the top of the shorter man’s head and the left side of Haaland’s darkened face, tipped forward to almost touch the other man’s forehead. Jude squinted and saw, faintly, the outline of Haaland’s hand in the mother man’s hair.
There were still two minutes left of the video. Jude felt he had seen enough. Jobe would probably tell him in the morning, anyway, analysing every second like a post-match review. He threw his phone onto the bedside table and smushed his head into his pillows so hard he was starting to see stars behind his closed eyes.
He felt sick.
How could he have been so careless? Was he getting tired of putting up the act? Did he actually want to lose his job? Was his ego so astronomical after the World Cup launched him into universal recognition that he forgot half of his audience would gladly stone him for liking dick? Or worse, did he no longer care if that happened? Did he truly believe he was untouchable now? What the fuck was Haaland doing? Who the fuck was that other man?
Jude felt his insides burn and curl up on itself, like meat on a grill left disfigured and charred. His brain felt like it had been left out in the sun for too long during a heatwave, like it would start melting out of his ears at any minute. This isn’t news to him. There’s no reason why he should want to hurl like he’d ingested something dirty and covered in shit. Maybe Jude’s more close-minded than he thinks. Maybe he’s just like Harry Kane and he should wear the rainbow armband on the pitch while secretly traipsing off to golf with the orange man.
He got out of bed. He needed a fucking drink.
They looked into the camera, smiling as naturally as they could after reading the cringiest pickup lines in the Milky Way—to each other, no less. Erling looped an arm around his shoulder. Jude leaned in a little closer and pretended he didn’t notice the Norwegian’s splotchy red cheeks. “And…that’s a wrap,” the director announced. “Thank you, gentlemen.”
Erling, being the courteous man he was, shook hands with everyone in the room. Jude just smiled, waved, and bolted. It was still too early in the day to look his best friend in the eye normally after a contractual obligation to flirt with each other—on camera—for Valentine’s Day. What species of wanker even cares about Jude and Erling pretending to snap each other up like horny teenagers at some club or bar or summat? Isn’t that a little too gay for the average football fan? A little too much rainbow sprinkles on the pitch? Why was Erling even blushing at these god-awful jokes?
After tearing through the Westfalonstadion as if there was a serial killer hot on his heels, not even bothering to stop by the dressing room and change out of his kit due to the terrifying thought that Erling would be in there too, Jude was disappointed to find that his mother wasn’t out on the tarmac at the usual spot she parked. Worse, when he called his mum it went straight to voicemail. Fuck. Jude really should’ve learned how to drive. He squatted by the road and studied the cracks in the pavement like a five-year-old kid contemplating where to start their next chalk drawing.
“I had to be gay for pay today,” Jude would tell his mother. Scratch that. She wouldn’t even know what that meant. Also, it felt a little pathetic to be complaining about some forced homoeroticism in the bleeding 2020s. Anyway, Jude didn’t give a fuck.
Immediately, he felt exceedingly monstrous. Was he only feeling this way because he knew Erling liked men? Would he have been so bothered if he’d had this interaction with Hummels or Jadon or literally anyone else in the dressing room? Fuck, he was a narcissist. What, just because his non-heterosexual best friend blushed while Jude read him some stupid pickup lines that automatically implied Erling was attracted to him? Or, even worse, Jude was actually a fucking homophobe in disguise. Jesus Christ.
At that moment, Jude felt a familiar presence loom over him, casting his body in shadow. “You haven’t changed,” Erling observed. He was wearing a shirt Jude had seen him wear a thousand times over, worn and gray and faded with some obscure Norwegian slang scrawled across the front.
“Nah, had a bit of an emergency.”
“Your mum’s not here yet.”
“Congratulations on passing that eye test with flying colours.”
Erling raised an eyebrow, used to this back and forth ribbing technique Jude often employed when he didn’t want to tell him something. “You want a ride? If it’s an emergency.”
“Nah I’ll be fine.” He fixed his face into something resembling a grin. “You go on ahead, mate, see you tomorrow.”
“Okay,” and then Erling proceeded to squat next to him on the pavement, still somehow towering over him. Jude lowered his head and watched him out of the corner of his vision.
“You got anyone for Valentine’s?” Erling asked.
It felt a little sad to say no, but Jude said so anyway. “You?”
Erling shook his head. “Nah.”
“What, no women throwing themselves at you?” Jude hesitated, then bit the bullet. “Or men?”
“Nah.”
“No hookups tonight?” He accentuated this with an elbow jab.
“That was one time.”
Jude elbowed him again, then folded his elbows on his knees when Erling didn’t reciprocate. “You ever had anyone for Valentine’s before?”
Erling searched Jude’s face before breaking out into a large smile. “You look like you already have an answer ready for me.”
“What are you on about?”
“Sorry to disappoint, Judey, I’m not…what’s the word…incel?”
The laugh that tore out of his chest caught him so off guard he lost his balance and his arse kissed the pavement. “Who taught you that? I need to give them a fiver.”
Erling still looked wonderfully confused. “Bro, it means, like, involuntarily celibate.”
“And I am not that,” Erling answered with such confidence that Jude nearly sprawled onto the road laughing.
“Nah but it’s like,” he wiped his eyes, “a proper derogatory term, Erl. You know the Andrew Tate supporters. That’s what they’re called.”
Erling considered this information, nonexistent brows pulling together a wrinkle across his forehead. “Yes, laugh at the foreigner for not knowing all the English. It’s a perfect world.”
“Oh come on Erl, don’t sulk. I was just taking the piss. Who did you spend Valentine’s with then?”
His best friend shrugged. “I had a boyfriend back in Norway when I was 14. After that I had two girlfriends, but none of those relationships lasted very long. I’d say two overlapped with Valentine’s Day…so I’ve spent two February 14ths, one girl and one boy…not alone.”
“Not alone” sounds vaguely like mockery to Jude’s ears, and it’s confirmed when he looks over and sees a teasing glint in Erling’s eye. “Fuck you, mate.”
“Fuck you too.”
Jude’s saved from having to respond to this loving, affectionate barb by the sound of his phone ringtone. It’s his kid brother, because he’s spending half-term break here, and suddenly everything–his mother’s phone going to voicemail, the extraordinary tardiness–falls into place.
Presently, his mum’s car came rumbling into view, screeching to a halt about 5 paces away from where they were crouched on the sidewalk. Jobe stuck his head out of the passenger’s side and shouted, “Surprise!”
“Jobe was in the driver’s seat until I remembered the legal age to drive in Germany was 18, and then we had to get off the highway and switch seats,” his mum said tiredly.
Jude was not aware that Jobe had procured a driver’s license. Jobe flashed him a shit-eating grin that said betcha wish you could do that! More annoyingly, Erling was looking back and forth between the two of them in amusement. “So your younger brother can drive.”
“You know what they say–younger and better,” his brother said, ducking out of the car. “Good to see you again, Erling. Ain’t my brother just a perfect mama’s boy?”
“Well,” Erling said philosophically.
They exchanged pleasantries and Jude tried valiantly not to look like he wanted to bury his head in the pavement. This pretense immediately shattered when his mother suggested Erling come over for dinner. Jude would like to say that he was a very collected, cordial, adult-y adult, but he’d had enough for a day. First they had to film that Valentine’s Day video and now they were going to have dinner together? Meeting Jude’s family? Even the tabloids couldn’t make this shit up, and if they could, the headline would be GAY.
“Mum, I’m sure Erling has places to be.” He was trying really, really hard not to whine.
Erling, damn him, said, “I don’t have any plans for the evening.”
“But you drove here. Your car is here,” Jude reminded him.
Erling shrugged. “So? I’ll just drive back to my flat first, run some errands, and then drive to yours.”
“Jude, just because you can’t drive doesn’t mean everyone else can’t.” He was going to kill Jobe one of these days.
Eventually they got into the car with Jude feeling relatively unscathed–though he knew his family was going to humiliate him at dinner later and he knew Jobe was compiling the ugliest childhood pictures of him to show Erling later–and Erling tapped on the glass, mouthing see you later before breaking out into a large smile that made Jude feel a little better about the events that would transpire later.
Night fell and Erling was outside of Jude’s flat at seven, on the dot. This wasn’t an extraordinary situation—they spent a ridiculous amount of time at each other’s flats—but it was the first time Jude’s mum could be seen behind him as he opened the door, whipping up a salad at the kitchen island; the first time Erling could hear Jobe shouting at the television when he slipped on a banana in Mario Kart.
It was different, though. They both felt it in the air.
Stop it, he reminded himself. Think about it any more and it will really be gay.
But he didn’t stop thinking about it. He thought about it when Erling sat himself right next to Jude at the dinner table without a second thought, like that was where he belonged, when Erling was deep in conversation with his mum, when Erling passed the potatoes to Jobe. He thought about it when they played FIFA together and Jude threw the controller down in a fit of rage and Erling was a furnace on top of him, laughing his head off while holding him back from hurling the controller at the TV. He thought about it when Jobe started showing their guest a compilation of Jude’s worst moments—a mix of grainy camera footage and random photos he’d saved on his phone—and Erling studied all of them, occasionally saying, “ooh, that’s rough” or “actually pretty cute”, which would rile up Jobe more.
The worst was when Jude walked Erling downstairs to his car. It was a cloudless night, and Jude appreciated that it felt like nothing was hanging over them, that they could just be comfortable together in this moment, in their proximity, in their friendship.
Of course Erling had had to say something. “Thanks for inviting me over.”
“‘S nothing, brusjan,” he said, massacring the pronunciation with his Brummy accent, “we had lots of fun. Mum really liked you.”
“You can tell?”
“I’m her son, course I can.”
The headlights on Erling’s car blinked to life as they approached. Erling put his hand on the door, but didn’t draw it open.
Jude felt overwhelmed with how much he didn’t want Erling to leave.
“Thanks.”
“You said that already.”
“No, no,” he shook his head, golden strands catching the light of the foggy orange streetlights, “not for inviting me over. For being the second boy to spend Valentine’s with me.”
Jude nearly choked at the sincerity in his friend’s voice. He looked at him and searched his face for any sign of a joke, and found none. The cool evening air suddenly felt heavy, cloying to his skin, as if a blanket had been draped over the two of them; Jude stared into Erling’s clear blue eyes and thought about it.
When he jolted awake, the sky was bright and clear—exceedingly unusual for Birmingham—and he felt like he’d been roasted alive. He turned, squelching on his sweat as he went, and checked the weather on his phone. No, he wasn’t living through a heatwave, thank fuck. Then why did he feel so fucking warm?
Gradually, the space beyond his bed began to sketch itself back into reality. His room, tinged with the scent of alcohol. A pile of cheap, scrunched up beer cans (his guilty pleasure even though he could be getting drunk like a lord on some ‘79 bottle of whiskey with how much he earns) on the floor next to his bedside table. He sat up and immediately felt like a marching band, except with its instruments all out of sync and faulty, was booming against his forehead.
Jude picked up his phone again to check his sleep cycle—all out of whack, he assumed, seeing as the digital clock told him it was now 4 in the afternoon and he still felt like he’d barely slept—and then felt his blood turn to ice.
There was a message from Haaland, sent at 9:07 am.
Are you feeling a little more sober now?
Then at 9:10 am: Remember to drink lots of water when you get up eventually.
And finally at 9:30 am, it was just a single, ominous message. Call me when you wake up? We need to talk.
Not I need to talk, not you need to talk, we need to talk. It had been 4 years since they’d properly been a we.
He clicked into their message thread and scrolled up to see a long chain of unanswered calls, until finally, the one before Haaland’s first message, there was a glaring green box that said Video call.
Oh, fuck.
2 h 38 min.
He had to move. He had to move countries–no, move continents. He planted one unsteady foot on the ground, and then screamed when the sharp edge of a can dug into his ankle. His football career was over, he was sure of it, but whatever dogged determination, perseverance and urgently running after a ball for most of his life kept him upright, dragged himself out of his bedroom, through the corridor, and finally, to Jobe’s door.
“You look dead,” his brother said scathingly when he finally opened after what felt like to be the thirtieth knock. “Proper corpse like.”
“Jobe,” he interrupted, about to give his precious brother more blackmail material to hold over his head for the next 50 lifetimes, “Jobe, I called Haaland this morning.”
Jobe, to his credit, did not immediately call him a clown. What came out of his mouth, however, was significantly more humiliating.
“I know, you absolute moron. I heard your whining through the walls.”
“What?”
“Damn you, Jude, don’t look at me like it’s my fucking fault when you were the reason I didn’t get to sleep a wink all night.”
If his brain wasn’t so sluggish and oversaturated with beer he would have pointed out that maybe Jobe was the reason for all of their suffering, because if he hadn’t shown Jude that damned video he wouldn’t have gotten drunk, but at the moment there were more pressing questions than accusations. “What–what did I say?”
Jobe made a face that suggested he’d rather be congesting puke. “The soundproofing of our walls are shit, but they’re not that shit. I’m not a bloody bat with supersonic hearing. You were just whining away about Erling this and Erling that for hours, but that’s all I’ve got. Maybe if you grew an actual spine for once and called the man sober you’d have a better chance of remembering your conversations.”
Jude opened his mouth, but Jobe wasn’t done. “Maybe if you just told him you liked him you wouldn’t be so bloody miserable. I’m not having it anymore, Jude. I’ve suffered through hours–days, if you cared to combine them–listening to you harp on about Erling Haaland like he’s your nemesis and he killed your whole family but goddamnit I’ve seen the way you look at him and it makes me sick. Not in a homophobic way, by the way. It makes me sick how you think yourself into a corner because of your…tendency to deny who you are and who you like, and it makes me sick that we’ve both chosen a career that teaches you that’s the right thing to do. And I love football, dammit, it’s my life. But—”
His brother looked almost close to tears. Jude’s not an arse; clearly this is so much more than him, so he puts his hand on Jobe’s forearm in a way he hopes to be placating. “What are you trying to say?”
“I’m saying I’m not straight, Jude. I’m saying it hurts to see your older brother act like he hates the man he had an obvious situationship with—“ Jobe raises a hand before Jude can refute anything “—just because Haaland’s a man. Because, I don’t know, you’re my fucking older brother and I care about your opinion and I care about you reacting the same way the day I tell you I love a man.”
It’s the second time someone’s come out to him and Jude still has no bloody idea how to react.
“Well?” Jobe demanded, eyes glistening and desperately trying to keep his face together. “Say something.”
He didn’t know what to say. But Jobe was valiantly trying to keep his face from crumbling and for someone that was even taller than Jude he looked incredibly small, the same way Haaland had looked in that hotel lobby so long ago, as if trying to compress themselves in air, and Jude realized he’d never been fair to Haaland about his sexuality for one reason or another, except all he could think of now was how he couldn’t make the same mistake with Jobe.
He opened his arms hesitantly and nearly got bowled over by the way Jobe threw himself into them.
“I’m so sorry you felt like you couldn’t tell me.”
“Nah,” Jobe chuckled wetly from where he was pressed into the side of Jude’s neck. “Couldn’t have expected you to know.”
“I’m not homophobic, Jobe.”
“I know. But it’s more complicated than that.”
He did know. He knew how hard it was to pretend a part of you wasn’t always left behind with the special people you meet in life, to be revered and adored on the field by the same people who would drop you, ruin you, desecrate everything you’d be trying to build, if they got an inkling of who you were. He knew because he’d thought about it every time Erling stepped onto the pitch to roars in the stands, every time he looked at Erling or clung to him a little too long without the context of a celebration, every time his eyes would just search for the Norwegian in a foreign crowd, wishing that somewhere, he was looking back.
Not in anger. Just something he was too scared to name.