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Another Der Klassiker, another loss.
The stadium had emptied over an hour ago, but Jobe Bellingham couldn’t bring himself to move. He remained frozen in the silence of the changing room, staring into nothing as he did. His clothes clung to his cold skin; his hair still damp from the showers. He ignored the gnawing empty ache in his stomach and the dull throb that settled in his bones as his brain relentlessly replayed every second of the ninety-minute game.
Three missed chances.
A yellow card for a stupid and careless foul.
Another loss for his team.
Another win gifted to their fearless rivals.
He had mistimed it, misjudged it. He knew he had, and he also knew that the goal he had accidentally gifted to Michael Olise on a silver platter would follow him around for months.
Everyone else had cleared out. Perhaps his teammates knew he needed space or perhaps they just couldn’t stand to look at him. Carney and Felix had clapped his shoulder on their way out, but their gentle kindness had just tasted like pure pity. He would have preferred the blame. He would have chosen the ugly, honest anger which he knew simmered just beneath their polite smiles.
He didn’t need to check his phone to know what the general consensus would be.
Jude would have never made that tackle.
Jude would have never given Olise that opportunity.
Jude. The world class player who had moved onto bigger and better things in Madrid. Jude who was one of the best players in Dortmund’s recent history. Every pundit, every fan on every forum, hell, even every taxi driver in North Rhine-Westphalia had a take on the Bellingham brothers, and Jobe had spent most of adult life learning to nod along. To smile. To say yeah, he’s amazing, isn’t he? and mean it, because he did mean it. He loved his brother. He was proud of him. He always had been.
But he also couldn’t fucking breathe in the suffocating space Jude had left behind.
Usually, he could just brush it off. Usually, he could let it slide off of his back like water. But tonight he felt a hollow hole in his chest. He couldn’t get his hands to stop shaking and a sudden wave of exhaustion settled over him. He realised he hadn’t eaten since he’d left the hotel when he felt another pang of hunger in his stomach. He knew he needed something to fill his stomach with until he got home. He glanced over at a hospitality basket someone had abandoned on the wooden bench beside him. Without looking, he reached in and picked up a generic protein bar. He tore the wrapper open with his teeth and took a bitter bite. It tasted like cardboard mixed with synthetic chocolate, but he ate it anyway. He was too busy replaying the tackle in his mind, over and over, that he forgot to take a glance at the label.
“You’re still here?”
Jobe’s head snapped up.
Michael Olise was leaning against the doorframe. His locs now hung loose around his face, framing his sharp jawline. A Bayern tracksuit was zipped up to his throat. He didn’t have the expected smug or triumphant look on his face. It was worse. It was that signature mask of cold indifference, the cool nonchalance he was so famously known for.
“Wrong room.” Olise said, his voice flat, almost bored. “Your lot left nearly half an hour ago.”
“I know where my lot are.” Jobe’s voice came out rough. The heightened emotional edge in his tone clashed hard with Michael’s cold calm. “If you’ve come to gloat, save it, or go do it somewhere else.”
“I’m not here to gloat.”
Jobe rolled his eyes, letting out a bitter laugh. “Sure you’re not.”
Michael’s jaw shifted. He stepped into the changing room, letting the heavy door swing shut behind him. “I just came to tell you...” He paused, thinking carefully about the next words he planned to say. “You’re allowed to have a bad game. It happens. You’re twenty. It’ll pass.”
“Don’t.”
“Trying to be decent here, Bellingham.”
“I’m not interested, Olise.” Jobe stood up, the rest of the protein bar now crushed tight in his fist. “You think I don’t know what I did? You think I don’t know how much I fucked up out there? You think I need you to come in here and tell me it’s all good?”
“I never said that.” Michael’s voice sharpened, clearly taken aback by the sudden heat in Jobe’s pushback. “It wasn’t good. It was reckless. That’s the problem with you. You throw yourself into every game like it’s a personal vendetta. All heart no head. You’ve got zero discipline and if you keep playing like you’re on a suicide mission, it’s going to cost your club a lot more than three points.”
“Oh? Is that right?”
“Yeah, yeah, it is. I’ve watched you since you first got here.” Michael said, his eyes met Jobe’s with an uncomfortable intensity. “You play like you’ve got something to prove to the whole world, but you don’t have the composure to back it up. That’s the difference between you and Jude. Jude has composure. He’s not a fuck up.”
The words hung in the air between them. Jobe felt them land somewhere under his ribs, hot precise and slicing straight into his most guarded insecurity. Like a knife twisting into a wound. He didn’t flinch. He had a lifetime of practice in pretending he was immune to the comparison, but something in his eyes must have fractured and gave him away because Michael’s mouth shut. His own mask of indifference had cracked, and a flicker of guilt and instant regret flashed across his face.
“Don’t let me stop you.” Jobe spat, his voice trembling with a blend of fury and hurt. “Go on, say it. My brother isn’t a fuck up like I am, right? He would’ve read the game? He wouldn’t have embarrassed the whole club in front of Germany?”
“That wasn’t what I was- “
“No, say it! Everyone else does!” Jobe’s voice broke, a sharp and helpless sound that he hated himself for making. He took a step forward towards Michael, his chest heaving. “You think I don’t get it? You think I don’t wake up every single day knowing I’m not as good as him? That I probably never will be…”
The confession ripped out of Jobe like a jagged piece of glass. He felt breathless. His chest heaved and he noticed the tingling in his lips and a strange sensation in the roof of his mouth. It was a prickly heat that fizzed and spread across his tongue like pins and needles, and he could taste a metallic almost metal taste. He frowned as he touched his lips, feeling how warm they felt, how swollen they were.
Michael had a look of regret all over his face, the initial mask of indifference was now completely shattered on the locker room floor. “I didn’t mean it like that. I was out of line.”
“Save it,” Jobe rasped but the words felt thick. Felt strange.
His hand trembled as he looked down at the crushed wrapper in his palm. He took a glance at the faded black text, the small print he hadn’t bothered to read earlier.
PRODUCT MAY CONTAIN NUTS.
“No. No. Fuck. Please no…” The words came out muffled, as if his tongue was swelling against the back of his mouth, pushing against his teeth and blocking the air needed to properly form words.
Michael frowned, his eyebrows knit in confusion at Jobe’s sudden demeanour change. “What? What are you…?”
Jobe tried to answer but his lips were too thick and his tongue to heavy. The sensation shifted violently from a prickle to a rapid tightening. His breathing had become staggered, each intake of breath was drawn in through a tight, metallic scrape that whistled high in his ears and didn’t sound entirely human. Instinct took over, his hands flew up and began to frantically claw at the skin of his neck as if he could physically pull this throat open from the outside.
Jobe wasn’t yelling anymore. Only a high-pitched choking sound escaped from his lips. Michael took in the sight. Was Jobe having a fit? Was it a panic attack? Michael’s brain scrambled for a logical explanation, but he couldn’t find out. Jude isn’t a fuck up. That’s the difference between you and him. Michael had said that. And now Jobe was dying in front of him because of a fucking football tackle.
Jobe’s vision swam as he felt his blood pressure drop. His knees buckled without warning, and he reached out to catch the edge of the bench but missed, hitting the floor tiles hard. One had remained clamped around his throat, his knuckles almost white. The horror of the situation hit him like an icy wave, the realisation that oxygen was no longer able to reach his lungs.
Across his chest and neck, his skin crawled like it was filled with fire ants. Beneath his shirt, a sudden and violent bloom of raised, angry hives had spread, hot and blotchy against his skin. His pulse had shot up, and he felt his heart rattle violently against his ribs, a hammering that sounded frantic, like a trapped bird inside his ribcage. He kept trying to intake air but all that came was that same high-pitched whistle. He started to feel like he was drowning despite being on dry land.
“Oh my god, Jobe!”
Michael was on his knees without remembering how he’d gotten there. His hand settled on Jobe’s shoulder; the unnaturally hot fever of his skin burned right through to Michael’s palm.
“What is it? Are you choking? Jobe, talk to me!”
Jobe shook his head, a violent desperate movement. He couldn’t respond. He couldn’t get a single word to pass his swollen tongue. Instead, he pointed frantically at the crumbled wrapper on the floor, then at his own throat. Desperately trying to signal something to Michael that Michael didn’t understand.
“I don’t know what that means! I don’t know what to do!” Michael’s voice cracked with rising panic. He grabbed both of Jobe’s shoulders, shaking him slightly as if he could somehow snap the other man out of it. “Look at me alright? Okay. I’m going to go get help. I’ll get the physio, I will-”
Pure, raw horror spiked in Jobe’s eyes. He lunged forward and locked his fingers around Michael’s wrist with a crushing but desperate grip, shaking his head frantically. Tears spilling from his eyes.
Please don’t leave me.
Jobe knew with a terrible clarity that if Michael walked out of the door, whoever he brought back would only be finding his body. The thought of dying alone on the cold, linoleum floor of a changing room filled him with so much terror it pushed what little air he had out of his lungs. He forced his hand away from his throat and pointed directly and frantically at his gym bag slumped against the bench.
“The bag?” Michael’s eyes snapped to it. “What’s in the bag?”
Jobe could only nod in response and did so frantically. Hot tears tracking down his flushed cheeks. His vision was beginning to fray at the edges, darkening into a tunnel vision as his brain began to feel the effects of the oxygen deprivation.
Michael lunged across the floor, grabbing the bag and ripping the zipper back in one brutal tug. He tore through the contents, throwing items wildly across the floor. Shin pads, strapping tape, a tangled phone charge, a hoodie and then his hand hit a hard and bright orange case.
He pulled it out and read the bold black text on the side. The colour left his face as he did.
“You’re allergic.” Michael whispered, the horror of what was happening finally hit him. “You’ve got a…you’re having an allergic reaction.” His brain stumbled over itself. “Why didn’t you-?”
He stopped himself. There was no time for questions and both men knew it.
Michael pulled the case open, his hands shaking so violently he nearly dropped it. He pulled out the autoinjector, looking at it as if it were a live grenade.
“I don’t know how to do this.” Michael choked out as he tried to focus on the fine print along the case, but tears started to brim over his lower lids. The words blurred together as he tried to read them. “Fuck, Jobe, I’ve never…I don’t know what to do…”
Jobe’s eyes met his. They were swollen, bloodshot and wide with terror but there was a sudden focus beneath his panic. Using what felt like his final reserve of strength, Jobe lifted his hand, caught the waistband of his sweatpants and tugged them down. He tapped his finger hard against this thigh. Right there.
Michael took a sharp breath. All hesitation he had felt had now evaporated. Time was up and, in that moment, Michael knew he was the only thing standing between Jobe being alive and being dead. He gave Jobe a single but firm nod then pinned his eyes to the step-by-step diagram on the side of the pen. He read it once. Then read it again.
“Cap off. Outer thigh.”
He clamped his teeth around the blue safety release cap and yanked it clean off, spitting it onto the floor.
“I’m sorry.” He said in a sympathetic, focused whisper. “I’m so sorry. This is going to hurt.”
He lined up the tip against Jobe’s exposed muscle, steadied himself and drove it firm into the other man’s thigh. He pressed down hard and felt the sharp mechanical click vibrate through his palm like a gunshot.
Jobe’s body jerked beneath him, a muffled and strangled gasp tore from his throat but Michael didn’t move. He didn’t pull back. He kept the device firmly in place, pinning it down with both hands and began to count, needing something to cover the unbearable sound of Jobe’s shallow breathing coming from his struggling lungs.
“One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. There. It’s done; it’s done.”
Michael ripped the needle back and threw the pen aside. He looked for Jobe’s face as his hand pressed against the site of the injection. He was crying fully now, tears spilling down his cheeks.
“It’s done. It’s done. Jobe? Breathe, please just breathe.”
Michael fumbled in his pocket for his phone, his hands shook so violently it took him three tries just to unlock it He managed to dial the emergency services and the moment the line connected, the words spilled out of him in a ragged, breathless rush:
“English – I need English, please – the stadium, dressing room. Severe allergic reaction. He couldn’t breathe – I used his EpiPen – please, please hurry!”
He put the phone down beside him, leaving the call connected so instructions could blare through his speaker. He was listening but his focus was already back on Jobe. He slid his arm carefully behind Jobe’s shoulders and pulled him close.
“They said to lie you flat,” Michael murmured, his voice thick and uneven. “Get your legs up. Come on Jobe. You can do that for me. I know you can.”
He eased Jobe’s upper body back against his chest, gently cradling his head in the crook of his arms as he helped Jobe lift his long legs onto the wooden bench. He wrapped both of his arms around the younger man, pulling him firmly into the warmth of his chest, holding him like he was something fragile that might shatter if Michael let go. Jobe was still drawing horrible, fluttering rasps of air and Michael felt every desperate breath through his own ribcage, almost like they shared the same set of struggling lungs.
“Stay with me.” Michael whispered, his cheek resting against Jobe’s hair. He pressed his lips close to Jobe’s temple, feeling the frantic and hammering pulse beneath the other man’s skin. “Don’t close your eyes. Don’t dare. Don’t you fucking dare leave me.”
Time had warped around them. Seconds dragged into what felt like silent hours. Michael had lost count of how long they’d sat trapped on the cold floor beneath them. He kept his head bowed close to Jobe’s ear. He whispered quiet but endless assurances, telling him how brave he was, how well he was doing and promising over and over that help was coming. His eye’s never left Jobe’s chest, watching the shallow rise and fall, terrified that if he looked away, even for a moment, that it would stop.
Michael felt fresh tears track down his face, dripping hot onto Jobe. He squeezed his eyes shut and buried his face into the side of Jobe’s neck, inhaling the familiar scent of sweat mixed with shower gel, silently praying to a God he hadn’t spoken to since he was a boy.
A faint movement cut through the silence. Jobe reached up, his fingers searching blindly until they found Michael’s. He laced their fingers together, squeezing with what little strength he had left, telling Michael what he needed to hear but that Jobe couldn’t speak.
I’m here.
Then, slowly, so slowly Michael almost couldn’t trust it, the high whistle in Jobe’s chest began to thin. The blue tinge on his lips was slowly beginning to fade and be replaced by a faint, natural flush. Little by little, the tension in Jobe’s body that had felt rigid began to melt away until he completely sagged back against Michael’s chest, his head resting heavily against Michael’s collarbone.
Michael didn’t loosen his grip for even a moment. Instead, he tightened his arm around Jobe’s waist and kept their hands tightly entwined over Jobe’s stomach, listening to the way his breathing finally began to steady. In the quiet room, the sound of Jobe drawing clear air felt like the most beautiful thing Michael had ever heard.
“There you go,” Michael whispered into Jobe’s ear. He rested his chin on Jobe’s shoulder, pressing a small unconscious kiss to his jawline. “That’s it. Jobe, I’ve got you. I’m right here.”
“You’re okay.” Michael said. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
“Michael.” Jobe mewed. It was barely a sound.
“Don’t talk.”
“You…” Jobe dragged in a breath. “You did it.”
“I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing.” A broken, hollow laugh escaped from Michael’s lips. He pressed the heel of his hand to his eyes, wiping his tears away furiously. “I didn’t even know you were allergic. I was standing there like an idiot, yelling questions at you while you were suffocating and the last thing I said…”
Michael couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence. It was like his throat had shut around the words.
The last thing he’d told Jobe was that he was a fuck up.
That he wasn’t as good as Jude.
It had gnawed at his conscience the second the words left his mouth. He’d thrown it out purely out of frustration, he’d been tired and annoyed, and he had been unsettled by how easily Jobe got under his skin. He hated seeing Jobe’s face fall, hated knowing he was the reason for it. It made his own chest feel tight with guilt.
And then, he’d nearly watched Jobe die. Right in front of him.
“I’m sorry.” Michael whispered. “About what I said. You aren’t a fuck up. It was a shitty thing to say and I…” He shook his head. “I don’t think you’re a fuck up. I don’t give a shit about what Jude would have done, you aren’t him. I don’t know why I said it. I’m so fucking sorry.”
Jobe stared up through swollen and bloodshot eyes. The angry red hives blotched around his neck were slowly starting to fade. He looked completely exhausted.
"It's all right," he rasped.
"It's not."
“Was kinda true though, what you said.” Jobe’s gaze dropped. “I am reckless, I lack discipline and I’m not as good as him.”
“No.” The sharp intensity in Michael’s voice startled them both. Michael’s hand gripped Jobe’s shoulder. “It’s not true. You don’t need to be like him. You don’t need to be like anyone else. I’ve watched you play and you play with more heart that anyone else in that team and it makes me crazy because I can’t take my eyes off of you and I never…” He paused. “I never said that part out loud.”
Jobe’s hand tightened around his. He didn’t say anything back, but Michael felt the small squeeze.
“And you’re so fucking brave.” Michael kept on, the words spilling out in a quiet rush. “You pointed at that bag without a breath in your body and showed me exactly what to do without saying a single word. You were more alert that I was. I was out my fuck mind with panic.”
“You did alright.” Jobe said, a half-smile on his face.
“Shut up. Don’t talk.” There was no bite in Michael’s order. He gently ran his thumb across Jobe’s knuckles as they heard the sirens get closer.
The sound bought both relief and a sudden wave of dread. Michael knew what would come next; Jobe would be torn away from him. The medics would come, step in, take over and do all the things he couldn’t. He closed his eyes, dropping his forehead to rest against Jobe’s. His pulse still thumped in his chest. He didn’t know what any of this meant and in that moment he didn’t care. He wasn’t thinking about the rivalry or even tomorrow. He only cared that Jobe was alive, warm and breathing. He couldn’t bring himself to let Jobe go. Not yet.
Then the peace shattered.
The door slammed open, the paramedics in their green uniforms rushing in. A heavy medical kit clicked open. A woman’s voice asked Jobe what his name was, what he’d ingested, when the shot was given. Michael tried to answer for him, explaining through a tremble that he’d pressed the pen into Jobe’s thigh and counted to ten.
When they then went to insert the cannula into Jobe’s arm, Michael felt his hand be gently moved out of the way.
The moment the contact between them broke, Jobe panicked. His fingers scrambled for Michael’s hand, clawing weakly at the empty air. His eyes searched for Michael, wide frantic and pleading and he refused to look away once he found them. He didn’t look away even as they secured the oxygen mask over his face and moved him into the stretcher. His hand still reaching out, grabbing at the air until Michael took it again.
Michael didn’t need to think, he just acted. The instant the line was taped down, he took Jobe’s hand in his. “I’m right here. Keep your eyes on me, okay? Just look at me. Don’t look at anything else.”
Jobe felt his whole body loosen with relief.
“Are you family?” the paramedic asked as they began to lift the stretcher.
Michael didn’t bother trying to explain. “I’m going with him,” he declared, his tone leaving no room for an argument.
The paramedic’s eyes lingered on the Bayern Munich crest on his tracksuit, then at Jobe’s hand locked around his. Whatever thoughts she had in that moment, she kept to herself. “Just watch your head as you get in.”
The ambulance interior felt too bright and carried the sharp, antiseptic smell of hospital. Michael sat on the narrow bench; his knees pressed against the rail of the stretcher. He was still wearing his Bayern tracksuit, the zip pulled halfway up, his locs falling forward, casting a shadow across his face. The adrenaline from the changing room still surged through his veins. Throughout it all, his hand remained laced with Jobe’s, his thumb traced slow, gentle circles over Jobe’s wrist, right over the pulse that had almost stopped completely. Their fingers stayed locked together throughout the journey as the vehicle navigated the dark, quiet streets towards the hospital.
Jobe listened as the oxygen hissed softly through the mask. The terror and panic he’d felt back at the stadium had now settled into a heavy exhaustion that he felt deep in his bones. His chest still ached and every few seconds he felt like he had to catch his breath, but his lungs were finally taking air in again. And, despite the exhaustion, his right hand felt entirely steady – because Michael refused to let it go.
“We’ll give you another dose in case the symptoms come back,” the paramedic explained softly. “Just as a precaution, your heart rate might feel a little quicker afterwards but that’s normal.”
Jobe’s eyes flicked to Michael, wide and fearful once more. Michael leaned in until he was all Jobe could see. “Hey, its okay. Just breathe alright?” Jobe nodded, his gaze locked entirely on Michael, tuning out the rest of the world.
The whirlwind of the last hour hadn’t given Michael any time to process how bizarre this all was. Michael Olise didn’t do this. He was the player who stepped back from hugs in the tunnel, who felt himself stiffen and tense up when teammates slung an arm over his shoulder after a goal, who endured post-match handshakes with a grimace he could rarely hide. Touch had always been something to be tolerated, something to be rationed and managed. He’d learned to ignore how people mistook his quiet introversion for arrogance; he’d learned to keep the world and the people in it at an arm’s length. He had never in his life wanted to hold onto someone.
But in that moment, in the back of the ambulance, just the thought of letting go of Jobe Bellingham’s hand made his stomach turn.
The hospital was a blur of endless corridors and fluorescent lights that felt too bright. The medical team immediately wheeled Jobe through the trauma doors and Michael was forced to stop at the threshold. Struggling to steady his breathing, he approached the nurse at the front desk.
“Please,” he urged, every trace of his usual reservation and conflict aversion completely absent. “He asked me to stay with him. He doesn’t want to be alone.”
The nurse looked up at him, then glanced down the hallway where Jobe was being moved onto a bed, his hand in the air, reaching for nothing.
“Just give us five minutes until we get him settled, after that, you’re his emergency contact until someone better shows up.”
“No one better is coming.”
Jobe allowed them to poke and prod at him. They gave him more medication, wrapped a blood pressure cuff around his arm and drew several vials of blood, explaining he would need to stay overnight for observation. He nodded like he understood, but the entire time, his mind was focused entirely on one thing, he just wanted Michael to come back.
The tension in his chest finally broke when Michael walked through the door. Without a word, Michael pulled up a chair beside the bed and sat down, instinctively reaching out for Jobe’s hand. The moment their fingers connected, Michael gave his hand a small, reassuring squeeze.
“They’re keeping me overnight.”
Michael nodded. They stayed together in the dimly lit hospital room, wrapped in a heavy silence as both tried to process the last few hours. Jobe knew he should call his mother, call Carney, call Jude, but none of that felt important right now. All he wanted right now was to be in this room with the man sitting beside him.
Michael reluctantly stepped back when the nurse came in to perform more checks, take more blood. He pulled his hand away to let her work. But the moment she left, Jobe felt his shoulders drop, he reached out before Michael had even sat back down. He brought Michael’s hand back into his lap, wrapping both of his own around it as if it was something that might be snatched away from him.
To Jobe, it didn’t feel like a conscious decision, it felt like an instinct. It was like his body had surrendered to a truth his pride hadn’t caught up with yet. Every time Michael pulled away, Jobe’s breathing would hitch. Whenever Michael stepped out of the room, even for a moment, Jobe’s pulse would spike on the monitor, the green line jumping erratically until Michael reappeared in the doorway. He knew he was being ridiculous. He knew he’d probably wake up tomorrow, drowning in embarrassment.
“Sorry,” Jobe mumbled. “I’m not usually this clingy. Or maybe I am. I don’t know. I’ve never-”
“Don’t,” Michael interrupted, lacing their fingers together firmly. “Don’t apologize. I’m not going anywhere, alright?”
“But you hate being touched.”
Michael didn’t answer right away.
“Don’t you?” Jobe pressed softly, his throat still raw and strained. “You flinch when your teammates grab you. I saw you tilt your entire body away just to get someone’s hand off of your shoulder one time. And yet you haven’t let go of me once.”
Michael sighed, his eyes meeting Joel’s. There was no point in dodging the question anymore. Looking at Joel, Michael realized he didn't want to lie to him. Not now, not about this.
“I know. I keep waiting for this to feel weird. To feel wrong.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t. Its like the opposite. For once it feels like quiet, quiet when,” he nodded at their hands clasped together. “Everything in my head goes quiet when I’m holding on.”
Jobe nodded, grateful for the dim lighting that hid the flush rising to his cheeks. “Same.”
“You should go get some sleep back at the hotel, though,” Jobe murmured after a quiet pause, even as his grip on Michael’s hand tightened. “People will be wondering where you are.”
“Let them wonder.”
Jobe fell quiet for a long time. When he spoke, his voice was barely a whisper. “I thought I was going to die on that floor. Die alone.”
“You weren’t alone.”
“I know.” Joel turned to look at him, his eyes glassy and soft, the swelling around them finally beginning to settle. “That’s what I keep thinking about. That it was you.”
Michael didn’t have an answer. He didn’t know what he could possibly say in that moment. But he understood. He understood so completely because the exact same realisation had been looping in his mind for hours.
No one else had been in that changing room. No one else had seen Jobe’s face turn blue, witnessed him claw at his own throat, struggling for air. No one had heard Michael plead with him not to shut his eyes, not to die. Michael knew that things had changed now. A shift had happened. He knew that their teammates, their coaches, fans, even Jude and Jobe’s parents could be told the story, but they would never truly know it. They would never understand it, live it, feel it.
Only Jobe and Michael would ever carry what happened in that room.
The whole experience had been an unbearably intimate thing to share with someone who had been, until Michael had stood in that changing room doorway, an enemy.
Neither of them knew what would come next.
But at some point, the fear began to drain out of them. It was slow at first and at the same time, Jobe’s eyelids grew heavy. His grip relaxed as he fell asleep, though his fingers never fully slacked and every time he stirred, Michael was there, whispering I’ve got you, I’ve got you, until the tension left his face.
Michael didn’t pull away. The thought didn’t even cross his mind. Once Jobe’s breathing grew steady and deep, Michael leaned in and pressed a gentle kiss to the younger man’s temple.
He didn’t sleep. He spent the night instead in the hard chair, Jobe’s hand in his, watching the line of the monitor rise and fall. He thought about how, only a few hours ago, he’d walked into that changing room and said something cruel to the one person he now couldn’t stop looking at. He thought about how, when he realised Jobe was dying in front of him, maybe even before that, that every part of the wall he’d spent his life carefully building had come crashing down around him.
He thought about how the moment Jobe had been on his lap and reached for his hand; he’d given it to him without a second thought. How it had felt like the most natural thing he’d ever done.
By the time the sun started to rise over the horizon, Michael still had not let go.