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The first time Pedri hears the damn meme, he’s sitting in the middle of the dining room, surrounded by the entire fucking national team, trying to eat breakfast without committing a crime. It’s already a difficult morning because, once again, Ferran has chosen to sit with Pubill and Llorente, despite the fact there’s a perfectly good empty chair right next to Dani, and absolutely no reason for him to be over there.
His mood has also been severely compromised by the events of the previous night, when his increasingly promising seduction campaign suffered an unforeseen complication. The campaign had been going well, actually; Pedri had spent several days establishing he can walk around the room wearing as little clothing as he chose. Pedri had seen Ferran checking him out on several occasions, even if the idiot refused to actually do anything about it. Unfortunately, the aforementioned idiot decided that if Pedri was going to walk around half naked, he could too. Which was how Pedri had ended up lying rigidly in bed last night while Ferran wandered around their room in his briefs, looking for his training shirt, entirely unaware that Pedri was experiencing an erection of Eiffel Tower proportions beneath the duvet.
Ironic that, if Pedri allowed himself to think about it.
“Are you going to eat that?” Gavi asks, pointing at the toast Pedri has been ignoring for the past ten minutes.
Pedri moves his plate farther away, which Gavi takes as a challenge to try and steal it away. He half climbs over Pedri, one arm reaching for Pedri’s plate, the other pushing against his chest. Pedri considers jabbing his fork into Gavi’s jugular, but across the room Ferran has leaned toward Pubill to look at something on his phone, and that seems considerably more deserving of his attention.
“Oyarzabal, Dani Olmo, Lamine Yamal…”
Pedri eventually manages to shove Gavi back into his chair, and he instantly launches into a spiel about England’s national team and how it’s overhyped. Pedri keeps pushing his food around, eyes betraying him every couple of seconds when they, involuntarily, across the room where Ferran is still sitting too close to Pubill.
“¡Oh, Ferran! ¡ Oh, Ferran!”
Pedri’s head snaps around so violently he hears something inside his body protest.
“Hostia.” Gavi winces. “Your neck okay?”
Pedri doesn’t answer, too busy looking at Yamal’s phone down the table. He cannot see the screen from where he’s sitting, but he knows with absolute certainty that the annoying female voice came from that direction.
Is if to prove him right, it goes off again.
“Oyarzabal, Dani Olmo, Lamine Yamal… ¡Oh, Ferran!¡Oh, Ferran!”
What the fuck?
“Look at the kid’s phone any harder and it’ll catch fire.” Dani has followed his gaze and is now smiling into his coffee.
Well, maybe it fucking should.
“What the fuck is that?” Pedri asks, still glaring at Lamine’s phone.
Gavi glances over and immediately starts laughing. “That’s half the world thirsting after your best friend.”
“Not my…” Pedri shuts up in the last possible minute, his brain finally catching up with the rest of the sentence.
The bastard beside him is already smirking. Pedri has spent the past several weeks correcting Gavi whenever he calls Ferran his boyfriend, so often that the denial has apparently become an automatic response, even when Gavi, for once, says something innocent.
“Not your?” Gavi asks, raising an eyebrow.
Pedri throws a bread roll at his head. Gavi ducks and it hits Dani in the shoulder instead. Dani looks down at it with the expression of a man who has been unfairly targeted in a fight he’s not participating in.
“Can you behave for five minutes?” Dani asks, picking the bread from his lap.
“Tell him to stop being a dickhead,” Pedri says, getting up.
Gavi watches him with undisguised delight. “Where are you going?”
Pedri doesn’t dignify that with an answer. Instead, he walks straight to the other end of the table where Lamine is sitting next to Pau and slipping behind their chairs he bends over Yamal’s shoulder.
“Play that again.”
Pau jumps a little in his chair, but Yamal is already grinning when he looks up at him. “You haven’t seen it?”
Pedri tries really hard not to frown. “Would I be asking you to play it again if I’d seen it?”
Lamine turns the phone toward him, tapping once on the screen. There’s a woman sitting in a bar, microphone in hand, watching Spain’s players appear on the television. She reads out the first names in a fairy ordinary imitation of a commentator, and Pedri can almost appreciate the joke until Ferran appears on the screen and she abruptly abandons any pretense of professionalism.
“¡Oh, Ferran! ¡Oh, Ferran!”
Pedri’s lips instantly curl in displeasure, eyes flickering between the woman and Ferran’s face on the television behind her. First of all, her voice is rather annoying, if he’s honest with himself. Also, why is she doing that? Ferran is standing there before a football match, doing nothing more provocative than looking vaguely serious during the lineup presentation. Second, the difference between how she says Dani’s name and how she says Ferran’s is fucking insulting. Why doesn’t Dani get special treatment? He looks equally serious, equally handsome, why couldn’t she say his name like that?
Lamine starts laughing. “You get it now?”
Pedri’s frown deepens. “Why’s saying his name like that?”
Lamine stares at him for a moment, apparently trying to determine whether Pedri has suffered some kind of head injury. “Because she thinks he’s hot.”
Pedri looks at the screen.
Well.
No fucking duh.
It’s Ferran.
That doesn’t really explain why she needs to announce it to the entire internet.
“It’s a joke,” Lamine adds, shrugging his shoulder.
Pedri sniffs, straightening his body. “Not a very good one.”
Pau looks up at him, light eyes confused as they find his. “It’s got millions of views.”
Pedri fixes him with a deadpan look. “Millions of people can be wrong.”
Lamine starts the video again, and Pedri finds himself listening to the change in the woman’s voice with mounting irritation. She’s not even being subtle about it – which is probably the whole point – she just goes from naming professional footballers to sounding as though Ferran has shown up on television in the same attire he’d been walking around their room last night.
“Can you send it to me?” he asks before he can stop himself.
Lamine’s grin widens, eyes sparkling in a way that makes Pedri’s stomach turn uneasily. “Why?”
“Do I need a reason to have an embarrassing video of Ferran on my phone?”
He catches Pau giving a sideways look, before turning to Lamine, and finally to the phone in his hand. “It’s not embarrassing, though,” he says voice soft.
Pedri crosses his arms. “I think it is.” He glances at Lamine. “Can you send it?”
Lamine looks over Pedri’s shoulder toward Gavi, who’s watching them with the delighted expression of someone who’s finally found some prey in the trap he’s set.
“Sure,” Lamine says, tapping his phone. “I’ll send it.”
He’s still smirking when Pedri walks away. He gets back into his seat, reaching for his coffee and pointedly ignoring Gavi who’s staring holes into the side of his head. Pedri takes a sip of his lukewarm coffee and bites on his cold toast, wondering if maybe joining the national team this time was a terrible idea.
“Did you find out what the video was about?” Dani asks, visibly struggling not to laugh behind his coffee cup.
Pedri stares at him. “Why are you asking if you know already.”
Dani shrugs. “I’m just trying to make conversation.”
“Well don’t. You clearly lack the skills.”
“I think it’s hilarious,” Gavi pipes up, because it’s a well-established fact that he has no regard for his life.
Dani’s eyebrows pull on his forehead, head tilting a little on the left. “People on the internet finding Ferran attractive is hilarious?”
“Nah, them losing their shit over him is.”
Pedri glares at the both of them, biting into his toast with slightly more force than needed to consume one’s breakfast. Across the room, Ferran laughs at something Pubill says, completely unaware that Pedri is currently being subjected to psychological warfare over a video of a woman appreciating his face.
Pedri picks up his coffee. He’s going to be extremely normal about this. He can do it, he can be okay with people finding Ferran hot. He’s been dealing with it for years now, this is just more of the same.
The lie lasts until Ferran approaches their table, not ten minutes later.
“What’s going on here?” he asks, stealing the last piece of orange from Dani’s plate.
“Nothing,” Pedri says immediately.
Ferran arches an eyebrow, gaze moving from him to Gavi before landing finally on Dani. “Really?”
“We’re just talking about your fan club,” Dani says conversationally, and Pedri briefly has the urge to lunge at him over the table.
“Oh?” Ferran grins. “What have they done now?”
“Lost their fucking minds,” Gavi says, and Pedri makes an involuntary noise in the back of his throat.
Dani laughs at his reaction, and Ferran looks at him, clearly expectant. “He’s discovered the video,” Dani explains, playing his eyebrows.
Ferran’s expression changes just enough for Pedri to notice. Just the smallest arch of his eyebrows, the slightest curve of his lips. His eyes flicker to him once, before returning to Dani as if it never happened in the first place. There’s the slightest dust of pink over the apples of his cheeks.
Pedri’s eyes widen. “You’ve seen it?”
Ferran makes a vague motion with his head. “Someone sent it to me.”
“Who?”
Ferran bites into Dani’s orange. “Why?”
“Who sent it?” Pedri asks again, and even he doesn’t know what it’s so important.
“Marc, I think.”
Pedri’s nostrils flair. “Pubill?”
“No, Casadó.”
Pedri considers this information and decides that Casadó deserves a place in his list. He doesn’t know why he has a list or how he came to be in possession of it, but he knows it now contains three names; Marc Pubill, Marcos Llorente and Marc Casadó.
Maybe people whose names start with M should be banned from getting too close to Ferran to talk to him.
Ferran glances at Gavi. “What’s his problem?”
“He’s upset they haven’t asked his permission,” Dani says.
Pedri’s fingers flex around his blunt butter knife. “I’m upset because it’s fucking weird.”
Ferran laughs, which Pedri considers a disappointing response to a legitimate concern. “It’s just a meme, Pedri.”
Pedri scowls. “It’s a shit meme.”
“Okay,” Ferran concedes far too easily, which only works into getting Pedri even more pissed.
“Not even a good edit.” It slips out without his permission. He feels the heat built up somewhere beneath his ribs, and travel slowly up his neck. But the words are out there now, and there’s not much he can do about it.
Ferran pauses with the orange piece halfway to his mouth. “You watched it?”
Pedri could lie. It would possibly be prudent, mature even, considering their situation. But he has never been accused of making his own life easy and he’s not about to start now. “Lamine made me.”
From farther down the table, Lamine shouts, “You asked me to send it to you!”
The dining room erupts, and Pedri seriously considers requesting a transfer to another national team. Ferran is still smiling when he gets up to leave, one hand resting briefly on the back of Pedri’s chair as he passes. It’s a stupid little thing, hardly worth noticing, except Pedri notices, and for a moment he nearly turns his head to follow him. He doesn’t; Ferran is already walking away, and Pedri has enough problems without letting Gavi catch him staring at the man’s arse over breakfast.
By lunchtime, Pedri has watched the video eleven times. This is not because he likes it; it’s research, and he would appreciate it if everybody stopped acting as though there’s something suspicious about a professional footballer taking interest in how his teammate is being represented online.
It’s increasingly annoying how the available evidence keeps expanding. There are now versions with different music behind the original sound. Somebody has made a compilation of Ferran smiling during interviews. Another account has taken a perfectly innocent photograph of him leaning against the tunnel wall, looking vaguely annoyed, and added the caption:
HE KNOWS EXACTLY WHAT HE’S DOING.
Pedri knows for a fact that Ferran didn’t in fact know what he was doing in that photograph. He was waiting for the team bus and complaining about his sock a minute after the snap the camera managed to get. Pedri was there, so Pedri knows, unlike all these strangers on the internet.
He opens the comments despite knowing better than that.
He’s so boyfriend coded.
He frowns.
What the fuck does that even mean?
Ferran is boyfriend coded in the sense that he’s extremely good at being somebody’s boyfriend, Pedri has extensive firsthand evidence of this. It’s definitely not information the general public needs to be discussing beneath an edit of Ferran walking across a football pitch.
He scrolls farther.
Imagine waking up next to him.
Bitch, what the fuck?
Why are all these people fantasizing about Ferran, publicly?
Pedri locks his phone, and it stays like that for approximately forty seconds. Then he opens it again. The edit has another two hundred thousand views.
“Fucking unbelievable,” he mutters.
Across the hotel lounge, Fabián looks up from his cards. “What?”
“Nothing,” Pedri says with a wave of his hand. Fabian stares at him for a moment longer before going back to his game.
Pedri watches another edit. This one uses a clip of Ferran after scoring, shirt clinging to his chest, with the same ridiculous audio laid over it. Pedri stairs at the screen; that clip is objectively unfair. He saves it, for evidence of course, but then he feels too weird about it and deletes it – he’s not going to become part of the problem.
His phone buzzes in his hand, Gavi’s name flashing across the screen; he’s sent him the original video.
thought you’d want this for your collection
Pedri replies with a photograph of his middle finger, to which Gavi responds with six laughing emojis. Pedri blocks him for the rest of the day.
The situation deteriorates after training. By then, several of his teammates have caught up to the fact that saying Oh, Ferran in the correct voice, while in Pedri’s general proximity will make him react in increasingly funny ways.
Naturally, they become unbearable.
Nico does it first while Ferran is stretching, and Pedri nearly chokes on his own fucking spit because objectively yeah – Oh, Ferran. He turns pink to the tips of his ears and runs to the other side of the pitch as if he’s being chased. Lamine follows, considerably louder, and Pau starts laughing uncontrollably when Ferran looks up in confusion.
Pedri is tying his boots when he hears it the third time. “Can you all shut the fuck up?” He snaps because being normal about people lusting after the man he’s in love with is one thing, but being teased by his entire fucking squad is another one and he hasn’t signed up for it.
Lamine turns. “This doesn’t concern you,” he says, like he’s fucking invisible and won’t bleed if Pedri smacks the ball straight into his face.
“Then stop doing it next to me,” he says through his teeth, finally straightening.
“Doing what?” Pedri stares at him, and Lamine’s smile widens. He leans closer to him, so much so that they’re practically standing nose to nose, and takes a deep, theatric breath. “Oh, Ferran.”
Pedri throws a sock, but since they’re so close together and he throws it too hard, it bounces straight off Lamine’s chest. Ferran catches it in the air, arching an eyebrow at them.
“Why are you throwing pieces of clothing at people?”
Pedri glares at him. “Because they’re annoying.”
Ferran examines the sock, turning it over in his hands. “Is this even clean?”
“Give it back,” Pedri snaps, reaching for it, but Ferran holds it just out of reach with a grin that makes Pedri seriously reconsider his commitment to behaving like a normal human being.
“Say please.”
“Ferran.”
“What? It's basic manners, Pedri.”
Behind them, Lamine makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like a dying animal, and Pedri knows without looking that Pau is probably doubled over somewhere. Ferran, meanwhile, is standing there in his training kit, flushed and sweaty and smiling at him like he hasn't personally contributed to approximately ninety percent of Pedri's problems over the past six years.
“Please,” Pedri says, with enough venom to qualify as a threat.
Ferran looks delighted. “See? Was that so difficult?” He drops the sock into Pedri's outstretched hand, then reaches over to ruffle his hair before jogging off toward the others.
Pedri watches him go, his scalp still tingling where Ferran touched him.
“Oh, Ferran,” Nico sighs behind him, with such exaggerated longing that Lamine nearly falls over laughing.
Pedri has just stepped through the hotel’s entrance when he lands to an obvious conclusion; all of this is Lamine’s fault. The conclusion is undeniably correct because Lamine has already made the noise at him approximately seventeen times today, and blaming an eighteen-year-old for being childish is considerably easier than examining why the video has ruing his afternoon.
He’s halfway through the lobby when he spots Eric sitting on one of the couches with his phone in his hand. Pedri lowers his head and fastens his pace, intending to make it to the elevators before either one of them slips up and opens his mouth.
They haven’t been getting along particularly well lately. Eric has been doing that thing where he speaks to Pedri perfectly normally in front of other people, then becomes infuriatingly unavailable whenever Pedri actually wants to talk to him. Pedri would almost prefer another argument, at least then he could tell Eric to fuck off without having to wonder whether he deserved it.
Eric, apparently, decides he’s fine talking to him one-on-one today.
“Pedri.”
He stops. “What?” Eric studies him for a moment, then turns his phone around, and the fucking video is paused on his screen. Pedri closes his eyes. “Not you too.”
Eric looks down at his phone with an expression of mild curiosity. “I was just going to ask if you’d seen this.”
“I’ve seen it.”
Eric nods slowly, eyes studying Pedri’s face for much longer than Pedi would like, and unfortunately, he knows that look; they’ve been friends long enough to recognize the precise moment Eric decides he’s going to be a bastard about something.
“She’s got a point, though.”
Pedri’s jaw flexes. “What point?”
Eric’s gaze drops to the phone. “Ferran looks good.” Pedri blinks at him, and Eric shrugs. “It’s an objective observation.”
“Okay?”
Eric’s mouth twitches, and Pedri knows he should leave, because whatever Eric is doing is very obviously deliberate, and the last thing Pedri needs is to give him the satisfaction. But he and Eric and always been rather willing to indulge in each other’s worse instincts, and so instead, he sits down opposite him.
“Why are you even watching it?” Pedri asks, pulling a face.
“Somebody sent it to me.”
“Who?”
Eric scratches the side of his face. “Rashford.”
A vein twitches on Pedri’s forehead as he tries to decide whether this is grounds to add Marcus in his list.
His fucking name also starts with an M.
Eric scrolls through some posts, still looking irritatingly relaxed. “Apparently there are loads of edits now. People are going mad for him.”
Pedri folds his arms. “People are bored.”
“During a World Cup?” Eric shots back, the challenge evident on his voice. Pedri bites on his tongue and counts to five the way he knows Ferran sometimes does when he’s trying to maintain his composure. Eric tilts his phone slightly, studying the screen. “Good for Ferran, though.”
Pedri’s eyes narrow. “What does that mean?”
Eric looks up. “What?”
“Good for him how?”
Eric blinks. “People think he’s attractive. That’s generally considered a good thing.”
Pedri curls his hands next to his thighs. “It’s fucking weird.”
Now it’s Eric’s turn to frown. “Is it?”
“Yes,” Pedri says without elaborating.
Eric nods thoughtfully. “Interesting.”
Pedri shifts a little in his seat, planting his elbows against his knees and leaning on them. “What’s interesting?”
Eric puts his phone down, and brushes a hand over his hair. There’s something in his expression that reminds Pedri uncomfortably of their last argument; how he’d looked at him when he’d accused Pedri of being the reason why Ferran was hurting.
Maybe sitting with him was a really, really bad choice after all.
“You wanna know what I think?”
Pedri doesn’t particularly want to, no. Still, he doubles down. “I asked, didn’t I?”
“I think Ferran should enjoy it,” Eric says, voice perfectly even. “He’s single. He’s having a good tournament. Half the internet thinks he’s gorgeous. Why shouldn’t he have a bit of fun?”
Something unpleasant twists in Pedri’s stomach. “He doesn’t care about that shit.”
Eric raises his eyebrows. “Doesn’t he?”
Pedri sets his jaw, lifts his chin slightly. “No,” he says with conviction he doesn’t feel.
“Right.”
Pedri shifts on the couch again. “What?”
Eric shrugs. “Nothing. You know him better than I do, apparently.”
Pedri looks away, his stomach churning. He should’ve expected the jab, instead he walked straight into it.
Across the lobby, a few of the others are coming in from outside, laughing about something. Ferran is among them, walking beside Pubill with a bottle of water in his hand. He sees Eric and lifts his chin in greeting before following the others toward the lifts.
Pedri watches him go.
“He seems happier lately,” Eric says, his voice low enough, making sure not to carry down the corridor Ferran just went.
“What?”
“Ferran,” Eric says, if Pedri had forgotten who they were talking about. “He looks happier.”
Pedri feels his temper starting to rise. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Eric looks at him for a long moment, and Pedri is sure they’re about to launch into another pointless argument. And it will be pointless, because in the end of the day Eric knows fuck all and he should keep his stupid opinions to himself anyway. Then, Eric surprises him, by choosing not to answer. His thumb presses over his screen, and from his phone comes the now deeply familiar voice.
“¡Oh, Ferran! ¡Oh Ferran!”
Pedri snatches a cushion off the couch and throws it a him with much more force than he should’ve used, probably. Eric catches it against his chest, laughing.
“Bit touchy, aren’t we?”
“Delete that.”
“I don’t think I will, sorry.”
“It’s fucking annoying.”
“Then don’t have it on your phone.”
“I don’t,” Pedri lies.
Eric is laughing properly now, which only makes him angrier. He hasn’t heard Eric laugh like that with him in weeks, and the fact that it’s happening in his expense is somehow both satisfying and deeply offensive.
“You’re obsessed,” Eric says.
Pedri climbs to his feet. “I’m going upstairs.”
“Okay.”
“Find a hobby.”
“Pissing you off is my favourite one.”
Pedri says something deeply lewd under his breath, and turns toward the lifts. Behind him, Eric says, with unbearable satisfaction, “Oh, Ferran.” Pedri doesn’t turn around, but he does, however, raise his middle finger over his shoulder. Eric’s laughter follows him all the way across the lobby.
And because the universe is a cruel place, and hates Pedri specifically, Ferran is standing by the lifts when he reaches them. He looks at Pedri’s face, and then shifts, craning his neck slightly to look at Eric who’s still laughing on the couch.
“What happened?”
“You best friend is a fucking idiot, that’s what happened.” Pedri says hotly.
Ferran smiles a little. “You two are fighting again?”
Pedri lets a long breath. “No.”
“Okay.”
When the lift arrives, they step in together. Pedri stares at the illuminated floor numbers, making sure to keep his distance, because he’s never been particularly good at keeping his hands to himself when forced in tight spaces with Ferran. Ferran himself is standing on the other corner, leaning against the mirror, hands lazily staffed in the pockets of his sweats.
They’re almost at their floor when he breaks the silence.
“You know, I actually thought the video was pretty funny.” Ferran’s smile only widens when he catches Pedri’s incredulous look’. “She really commits to it. You gotta give her credit for that.”
Pedri feels like laughing.
As if finding him hot needs any committing.
He presses the button for their floor, despite the fact that it’s already lit. “She’s embarrassing.”
“Maybe.” Ferran glances sideways at him. “It’s still nice.”
Pedri doesn’t like the sound of that. “What’s nice?”
Ferran shrugs, looking at the doors. “Being wanted, I suppose.”
He says it casually, without looking at him, and Pedri has no idea whether he’s supposed to understand something from it. He can’t even tell if Ferran means the video or something else entirely.
When the doors open, Ferran steps out first. Pedri follows him down the corridor, trying not to look at the slope of his neck, or the curve of his back, or how the muscles on his thighs shift when he walks.
That evening, Pedri makes the mistake of opening the comments under another one of Ferran’s edits. He’s been doing this for years, finding edits of him on Twitter and having a field day with the people in the comment sections. What is unusual is that he has now spent nearly ten minutes scrolling without finding a single person calling Ferran useless, overrated, or a waste of Barcelona’s money. Normally, he’d have found at least three by now, and at least one of them would have received a reply questioning their intelligence, their understanding of football, and occasionally their relationship with their mother.
It’s a well-established system. Pedri finds something offensive, Pedri corrects it, everybody involved has a considerably worse evening. Tonight, however, the internet appears to have undergone some sort of collective personality transplant.
he’s so much hotter than people give him credit for
Pedri finds himself unconsciously nodding along. That’s fair, actually. Ferran has always been good-looking, even when people were too busy complaining about his finishing to notice, and Pedri has privately considered the general public’s failure to appreciate this one of its more baffling shortcomings.
his smile is actually insane
Also fair. Ferran has a really pretty smile, Pedri could – and has, actually – spend hours looking at it.
the way he looks at people when they’re talking to him… lord, I’d fold so fast…
Pedri’s thumb slows. Well, yes, Ferran does do that. He pays attention when people speak, sometimes with this slightly furrowed expression that makes it seem as though whatever you’re saying is the most important thing he’s heard all day. Pedri used to like it when Ferran looked at him like that, although he’d generally respond by telling him to stop staring.
He’s not sure why somebody needs to make an entire public announcement about it.
need him in ways that would concern medical professionals
Pedri blinks.
Okay.
What?
the things I’d let that man do to me
Oh, c’mon. These comments can’t be real…
I just know he’s good in bed
Pedri sits up.
Now, hold on.
There’s absolutely no way this person knows that. Unless… no, no Ferran is not that stupid. He wouldn’t sleep with a complete stranger and not have them sign and NDA… would he?
No.
Besides, Ferran is not sleeping around.
No, this person doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about. Not that he’s wrong, Ferran is good in bed, but even Pedri – who has considerably more information on the subject than anybody currently participating in this conversation – wouldn’t go around announcing it to strangers.
He clicks on the account; a woman from Manchester, twenty-four, apparently a Real Madrid supporter. Pedri stares at her profile for longer than he probably should.
The fucking audacity.
He returns to the comments and types before he can think better of it.
you support madrid go and try to fuck Bellingham instead
He posts it and keeps scrolling.
I would let him ruin my life
Pedri snorts, because if there’s anyone who knows what it feels to have his fucking life ruined by Ferran Torres then it’s him, and yeah, he’d definitely do it again. He can’t agree with that person only though, so he just likes their fucking post.
Torres can definitely get it, bet he could have anyone he wants
This time Pedri swallows the snort before it can make it past his lips. First of all that’s a rather ridiculous statement; nobody can have absolutely anyone they want, that’s impossible. Pedri is also in position to know that Ferran, specifically, has spent a significant amount of time wanting somebody who has made the whole thing unnecessary difficult.
Yes, he’s talking about himself. He’s been thinking a lot about all that lately. It’s not something he appreciates being reminded of while scrolling through Twitter.
he’s not going to pick you because you made an edit
Pedri types and posts it despite knowing it’s rather petty. The account replies almost immediately.
giiiiiiirl I knowwwww let me dream
Pedri considers explaining that dreaming is fine but publicly claiming another person’s boyfriend is available for general consumption is a completely different matter.
Ex-boyfriend.
Whatever.
imagine being his girlfriend, dude, I’d never let him leave the house
Pedri’s expression darkens. Now that just sounds toxic. Why are all of Ferran’s fans so fucking deranged? They can’t just lock him in the house – if that were a viable choice, Pedri might’ve considered it – but Ferran is a professional athlete; he needs to leave the house, go to training, matches, recovery all that shit they’re supposed to do for their careers. Besides, Ferran loves going to the grocery store and doing his own shopping, he’d be miserable if anyone took that away from him.
Pedri types;
that’s a weird thing to say about someone you don’t know
he’s a person not a fucking handbag
are you looking for a boyfriend or a pet?
Somebody likes the comment almost immediately and Pedri feels vindicated. Then the original commenter replies;
it’s called a joke babe
Pedri’s jaw tightens and he briefly wonders if he’s about to start a beef with a fourteen-year-old over Ferran.
Yeah, he doesn’t really care. If this is a child, they need better supervision.
go buy a sense of humor babe
This is going extremely well. Usually, if he spends this much time on Twitter he has received at least three very imaginative death threats. This feels like a walk in the part.
Until he reads the next comment.
need to know what his hands feel like
Nah, fuck that.
What are these people even on? They’re hands, they feel like… hands. More specifically, they’re Ferran’s hands, and they should stay within Pedri’s line of vision for at least until the end of the month otherwise there’s a high possibility he’ll end up in prison.
go outside
he types, thinking he’s being far too nice. A few seconds later, somebody replies.
why are you fighting everyone in the comments lmfao
Pedri stares at the phone. He’s not fighting everyone, he’s barely responded to four people, five – if you count the Madrid supporter, who absolutely deserved it if only for being a madridista. This is nothing compared to what he’s used to over in the football side of Twitter.
He starts typing a reply, but then he gets distracted by a text from Gavi, who’s apparently also on Twitter and has forward him a screenshot of one of his comments; are you looking for a boyfriend or a pet? Underneath, Gavi has written :
is this you
Pedri’s stomach drops.
no
pedri
tio
don’t make me ask again
i didn’t fucking post that Pablo
so it’s not one of your burners
Pedri considers throwing his phone across the room, but he’s not sure that would get rid of the evidence.
prove it
Gavi sends him another screenshot
dios mío, get off his dick, it can’t be that good
Pedri stares down at the words, feeling an unexplained sense of grief. He remembers typing that, he remembers the absolute mortification he felt reading it after he’d posted it, and how quickly it gained both likes and retweets. He’d been so damn happy back then, even while injured, even while Ferran was dating Sira.
He wishes he’d appreciated what he had more.
could be anyone
you’re clinically genuinely insane
i hope you know that
Pedri blocks him again, and returns to the edit, because he refuses to let Gavi’s completely unnecessary interference distract him from the important work being done here.
Need him to leave Barcelona so he can finally shine somewhere else.
Pedri sits up so abruptly that his pillow slides off the bed.
Oh, for fuck's sake.
Somebody underneath has suggested Paris. Apparently PSG would appreciate Ferran more, Luis Enrique would know how to use him, and Barcelona have wasted enough of his career already. Pedri reads the whole exchange twice, increasingly offended by the confidence with which people who have never spoken to Ferran are discussing where he should live.
Finally, something he can actually do something about.
he's literally happy at barça stop making shit up
He posts it, then immediately starts composing a second reply because the original commenter has also claimed Ferran doesn't get along with the coaching staff, which is complete fucking nonsense. Before Pedri can finish, somebody else replies.
bro thinks he knows ferran personally
Pedri lets out a short laugh. The nerve of these people is extraordinary, especially when he's sitting in a hotel room with Ferran's dirty socks approximately two metres from his face.
you clearly don't, he replies.
why are you so mad lmao
because some of us actually watch football instead of making up transfer rumours on tiktok
He considers leaving it there, but the more he thinks about the suggestion of Ferran moving to Paris, the more ridiculous it becomes. Ferran complains when Barcelona gets too cold in January. What the fuck is he going to do in Paris?
also paris is shit
Ther, that ought to settle it.
Pedri is still feeling considerably better about things when another account joins the conversation.
you're acting like his jealous boyfriend
His smile disappears. He quickly taps on the handle to check the profile; there's no picture, the account has barely four followers, and a bio consisting entirely of football emojis. Some absolute nobody, then, with apparently nothing better to do than make assumptions about strangers.
you're acting like a loser
He blocks the account before they can answer, because he's not wasting any more of his evening on people who don't know what they're talking about.
For a few minutes he continues scrolling, occasionally liking a comment that praises Ferran's performances and resisting the urge to argue with somebody who thinks his best position is on the left wing. The familiar irritation is almost comforting. At least these people are talking about football, and at least he knows when they're wrong.
Then he comes across another edit. It's a compilation of Ferran laughing during interviews, with that fucking woman's voice playing over the beginning. The comments are full of people discussing his smile, his eyes, the way he looks at somebody when they're speaking. Pedri reads a few before closing them, because he already knows what Ferran looks like when he's listening to someone. He doesn't need a stranger to explain it to him.
The trouble is that lately Ferran hasn't been looking at him quite as often. Pedri pushes that thought as far as he can to the back of his mind, and opens another comment.
how is this man single???
Pedri rolls his eyes. He could answer that, actually, but he's not about to explain his private life to a bunch of people who have only just discovered Ferran exists. Another notification appears from the account he blocked earlier, still visible in the activity preview.
ferran isn't gonna fuck you bro
Pedri stares at it. Then he starts laughing, because, well, that's one hell of an assumption.
He could end this argument with one sentence. He could absolutely fucking destroy this person, and the temptation is so strong that he actually opens the reply field before remembering he's blocked them.
He considers unblocking them. Instead, he screenshots the comment and sends it to Gavi.
look at this fucking idiot
Gavi replies almost instantly.
didn't you block me
Pedri ignores that.
A second message arrives.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Then another.
well technically
Pedri sits up.
finish that sentence and i'll kill you
Gavi sends a voice note. Pedri doesn't listen to it, partly because he knows exactly what Gavi is going to say and partly because he's just realized he's been arguing with strangers for nearly an hour while the one person he actually wants to talk to is in the bathroom.
He looks toward the closed door.
He'd been meaning to say something to Ferran tonight, something that might make it easier to get closer to him again without having to manufacture another reason to take his shirt off. He'd had a few ideas earlier, although none of them seem especially promising now.
He looks down at the screenshot from Gavi one last time, then closes the conversation. He'll think of something. He always does better when Ferran is actually in front of him anyway.
The bathroom door opens, Ferran comes out in a towel and Pedri stops breathing. The bathroom door opens.
Ferran comes out in a towel.
Pedri stops breathing.
It's not even a particularly small towel, which makes his reaction all the more humiliating. Ferran has one wrapped securely around his waist and another draped over his shoulders, and he's busy rubbing at his hair with the end of it as he walks toward his suitcase. There's nothing Pedri hasn't seen before. In fact, there's very little about Ferran that Pedri hasn't seen, touched, or committed to memory at some point over the past six years, and he would have thought that might make the whole situation easier to manage.
Apparently not.
“Have you seen my black shirt?” Ferran asks, crouching beside his suitcase.
Pedri knows exactly which shirt he means. It's folded in the second drawer of the wardrobe because Pedri put it there yesterday after getting fed up with Ferran leaving his clothes all over the room. He also knows that Ferran will look particularly good in it, which is an entirely separate problem.
“Drawer,” he says, pointing.
Ferran gets up and goes to check. “Since when do you put my clothes away?”
“Since you started living like a fucking animal.”
“That's nice of you, Pepi.”
“I didn't do it to be nice.”
“Of course not.”
Ferran pulls the shirt out and smiles at him, and Pedri feels a familiar, aggravating warmth spread through his chest. It's a tiny smile, the sort Ferran gives him without thinking, and for a moment Pedri forgets to be annoyed about the towel. Then Ferran turns around to get dressed, Pedri looks at the ceiling. This is ridiculous, they're both adults, they're sharing a room at the World Cup. Pedri has seen Ferran naked more times than he could possibly count, and there is no reason for him to be sitting here like some sort of Victorian maiden who has accidentally glimpsed an ankle.
When he looks back, Ferran has dropped the towel.
Jesus fucking Christ.
Pedri turns his head so quickly he nearly pulls something. “You could warn me.”
Ferran looks over his shoulder. “About what?”
“About getting naked in the middle of the room.”
Ferran laughs. “You've been walking around without a shirt on all week.”
“That's different.”
“How?”
Pedri has no answer that wouldn't get him into serious trouble.“Just is.”
Ferran shakes his head, still smiling, and pulls on his underwear. Pedri watches the reflection in the dark television screen for approximately two seconds before realizing what he's doing and becoming so disgusted with himself that he picks up his phone. There are another fourteen notifications from the argument, he doesn't open them. He settles into his bed instead, and stares at the television. He has a feeling this is going to be a long night.