Chapter Text
“Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worst kind of suffering.”
― Paulo Coelho, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
***
His eyes wander across the room. It’s discreetly lit in soft, warm tones, illuminating the mostly cream-coloured decorations and dresses, dark suits of approximately half the guests darks drops of ink in between the fluttering of chiffon. People are talking and the voices rise as high as the ceiling until they form one unintelligible mass that hums in his chest and makes his ears go practically deaf. The cold sparkling wine is a nice remedy for the general unease he feels for being amidst this many people after such a long time, but his glass is empty far too quickly and he thinks it’s inappropriate to ask for another already. He’d rather be slightly uncomfortable than drunk off his ass before lunch.
Adjusting his tie, too tight around his neck after months of sweatshirts and t-shirts, he leans back against the bar, hopefully blending in instead of standing out and winces slightly as his elbow lands in a wet patch. He silently hopes that it’s just water and does nothing else about it. Instead he glances up at the ceiling, watches reflections dance without coordination and eventually watches the crowd do very much the same. He can pick out a few bridesmaids in their softly draped, lilac dresses, hovering close together like lionesses ready to pounce on any male prey that saunters too close and okay – perhaps he is being a little harsh in his observations; they might be very nice girls and simply unintentionally aggressive flirters.
The bride is somewhere in there too, tufts of white tulle whirling into his sight occasionally. He is sure Kevin took lessons, because he sure as hell hadn’t been remotely able to dance like that back in the day.
The music picks up, pumping more energy into the people dancing and apparently also into the ones talking; he can barely hear his own thoughts. At least that is why he deems it justifiable to flinch when suddenly a solid hand plants itself on his shoulder in a bid for attention. His head turns around fast enough to give him whiplash.
“Look what the cat dragged in,” Mats says with a smile that almost splits his face, still unfairly handsome and barely ages. “Didn’t think you’d make it,” he adds before reaching out to pull him into a bone-cracking hug.
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he retorts after getting released. “Not that I though he’d ever get anyone to marry him.”
“Don’t let him hear you say that,” Mats replies with a wink and steps back an inch to make room for Cathy, who leans forward to kiss him on the cheek.
“I’m glad you made it, Marco,” she tells him with a bright smile and settles back against Mats’ side. “You look well.”
Marco shrugs, because he really doesn’t. He’s still jetlagged, still missing a good day’s worth of sleep, and his suit is probably rather unfashionably wrinkled. He hadn’t made the time to shave either, preferring a fair bit of stubble to cover his face in a really pathetic attempt to conjure up any kind of protective layer between him and everyone else.
“So do you,” he says, not because it’s polite but true. Cathy looks a million times better than when he’d seen her last. Having two kids has made her face fuller, her features softer – plus Marco doesn’t fear getting stabbed by her knees anymore. “That colour really suits you,” he continues, motioning to her dress.
Cathy beams and raises an eyebrow at her husband. “See, I told you fuchsia was better than mauve,” and Mats indulges her with a smile before she struts off to get a glass of something Marco doesn’t quite catch. Perhaps the new in-drink of the season.
He turns back to Mats. “How are you, man? Not looking bad yourself.”
“Oh, you know,” he says. “Enjoying the life as a young retiree and stay-at-home dad. I couldn’t have parted from afternoon naps.”
“I can imagine.”
“And you? How was your flight? And how long are you staying?”
“The flight was too long,” Marco answers. “And I’m planning on staying a few days. The I have to be off.”
Mats expression is wistful. Glasses clink in the background. “Still got ants up your ass, huh?”
“Now that is a mental image I didn’t need,” Marco grimaces. “You don’t say that lightly if you’ve had actual ants in places you’ve never wanted anything to crawl, ever.” He still has nightmares sometimes.
“Please tell me there are pictures.”
Marco shakes his head. “Nah, sorry. I didn’t take any.”
“Did someone else take some?”
He averts Mats’ glance, knowing full well what he’s hinting at. Cathy and her drink are nowhere in sight and suddenly Marco wishes that some people would just come up and talk to them, or Mats, instead of having this one-on-one time. “There wasn’t anyone to take pictures,” he deadpans, hoping to quench that branch of conversation. He doesn’t add that there hasn’t been anyone like that in a long time. He still hasn’t… can’t bring himself to –
“Well, like my mother always used to say,” Mats interrupts his thoughts, snaps him back into his own body, “other mothers have beautiful daughters too.” He grins. “Or sons. You know.”
Marco huffs out a dry laugh and raises a brow at Mats, not gifting him with a reply of any other sort. Turns out, he doesn’t get the opportunity to say something anyway. Cathy appears in his line of view, armed with a drink in an alarming shade of pink, closely followed by –
“Look who I ran into,” she calls out to them over the music before sliding her arm through Mats’. Schmelle and Jenny join them, the latter looking like she should be in a maternity ward rather than wrapped in a few hundred Euros worth of silk. But she looks radiant as she kisses his cheek and Schmelle is radiating the same sort of positive energy he’s always had about him and from then on, it’s comfortable and it feels natural, almost easy. Marco allows himself to let out a silent breath and relax his shoulders, listening in on the stories the others exchange about various stages of pregnancies and children teething, and he doesn’t mind listening, but it’s not like he’s got something to contribute to that.
He orders his second glass of wine, lets the conversation wash around him and answers the occasional question they throw his way without delving too deep, giving too much away, more of a reflex than intentionally, a habit burned deep into his mind after years of media scrutiny and press conferences. Schmelle asks where he’s been (Australia, mostly) and Jenny asks how it’s been (hot, mainly) and Cathy asks where he’s going to go now (to which he doesn’t have an answer; not yet, at least). They don’t look at him with pity – which is kind since in comparison, they’ve got it figured out – because they still are his friends and they understand, their eyes tell him that, but really, they still don’t understand.
And Marco doesn’t blame them. But he wonders if he should’ve stayed away. Because it’s inevitable, it’s so fucking inevitable that he should have placed a bet on it. This is Kevin’s wedding after all; there’s Roman with a bit more weight around his middle and a couple of grey streaks in his still impressively full hair, and Nuri with his usual boyish smile, and Neven with glasses and a new haircut that makes him look like a scholar, and Kloppo smiling with all his teeth who pulls Marco into a hug that takes him back fifteen years and makes his chest feel inexplicably tight.
Marco figures it is a small mercy that he sees Felix first.
***
Marco never had a big epiphany. There had been no shock, no real crisis, more of a gradual descent into adolescence when he met the guy who’d become his first boyfriend. It hadn’t been an anxiety-fuelled battle either. They’d had the same friends, gone out and after a couple of drinks, he’d given his first handjob in the back alley of some pub in Dortmund. Nobody besides friends and family had known who he was back then and dreams of become a professional football player had been there, but vague at best. He’d been underage and the guy, Lukas, not much older.
He hadn’t brought Lukas home, never introduced him to his parents as anything but a friend; not because he’d been ashamed, but because it never had the potential to become anything more. They had gone out for a couple of weeks, (or to be fair, perhaps fooled around was a more accurate description) shared the first fumbling, partially embarrassing sexual experiences and parted again when Marco finished school and left Dortmund to try his luck as a footballer.
Only then did Marco realise that he might have a problem.
***
Felix, much like Fabian, had never become the footballer his older brother was. He’d never lacked talent, but some bad timing and even worse luck had resulted in a series of injuries just after making his debut for Dortmund’s first team in his late teens and his career as a professional had been over before it had actually taken off. Marco had been there to see some of the subsequent battle in the Götze family, but he’d never seen the resolve of it, for various reasons. He has no idea what has happened to Felix ever since, but he looks cheerful enough, Marco thinks, yet he can’t shake the oddness of it all, shaking hands and exchanging a few shallow pleasantries, because he never knew how much Felix knew. But Felix doesn’t act like anything is odd at all, instead tells Marco about work, only vaguely since he’d followed his fathers footsteps and Marco has no expertise on that subject, about getting engaged and possibly moving to London.
Marco doesn’t know how he feels about Felix so easily sharing all that with him. It confronts him with something he’d rather push to the back of his mind, if not out entirely. He’s been pushing and running for a fair while, but now that he is back, he finds himself face to face with everything he’d so desperately avoided for the past couple of years. When he sees Mario making his way through the still dancing and animatedly chatting crowd towards them, he becomes unable to hear a single word Felix is saying, blood starting to rush in his ears as anxiety washes over him without mercy. He empties his wine, hoping in vain that it might calm him down.
Mario’s smile is there, visible and seemingly at ease, but Marco could probably go another decade before he’d forget how to read his expressions, before he’d miss that nervous twitch around to corners of his mouth, the bobbing of his Adam’s apple as Mario swallows whatever clogs his throat.
“Hey,” he says casually and holds out a hand.
Marco thinks he wants to laugh. “Hey,” he replies and shakes it. It takes a lot of willpower to not shake his head in a disbelieving smile. “How are you?”
“Good.” Mario’s reply is as stiff as his handshake and the neatly pressed revers of his suit jacket. “And you? Kevin says you’ve been abroad.”
“Yeah. Trying to make retirement less boring.” He puts his hands into the pockets of his trousers to stop himself from ordering yet another glass of wine. The last thing he needs is to be tipsy around Mario. “I’m not really up to date on what you’ve been doing, sorry.”
Mario waves it off. Marco notices out of the corner of his eye that Felix is no longer standing with them and he blinks a couple of times to stop his vision from zeroing in on Mario. “We’ve all been busy,” he says and that right there shows how much time has passed, especially for them, between them. If Marco tries he can remember a time when they could never be too busy to text or call or keep in touch in any way possible. Although he’s not sure if he wants to.
Now he finds himself looking but not really looking at Mario, at loss as to what to talk to him about, wondering if he even wants to, if he should, regretting coming here in the first place which is unfair on so many levels, because Kevin was his friend first. He tells himself to get a grip as his eyes flicker across the room, tension almost tangible between them. Eventually, Mario clears his throat.
“I meant to call you,” he says quietly and for a second time this day, Marco almost dislocates his neck.
He guesses that for a moment, the surprise is clearly visible on his face, but he’s gotten better at schooling his expression. Marco keeps his voice even as he says, “When? Ten years ago? Five? Any time in between?” If Mario notices the sharp undertone, well – he can suck it, as immature as that sounds.
Mario has the decency to at least look a tiny bit guilty. “I didn’t know if you’d want me to.”
“You didn’t try to find out,” Marco deadpans.
He’s almost forty years old. He’s moved on, matured and whatever the hell people do when they need a change, when they need to change. Mario has grown up a lot as well, Marco knows that much and so he figures they are both above such petty arguments, but it’s not his duty to forgive simply because a lot has happened since.
Mario sighs. “I know,” he says, sounding defeated. “I wasn’t a very good friend then. Not sure if I’m a better one these days. But for what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I really am.”
“Noted.”
Marco is pretty sure Mario hoped for more, but he’s not getting it. Apologising is the least thing he could’ve done and Marco sure as hell isn’t going to pat him on the back for showing that he might be a decent human being after all. Mario’s shoulders sag a little, but the tension clears away somewhat and Marco finds it easier to breathe.
“Do you want to grab a drink?” Mario asks him. “Catch up?”
He doesn’t really have a good reason to say no.
***
Ahlen was a good step for him. Marco knew that not everyone agreed, that especially his parents thought it might be smarter to continue school (they were always supportive, but they sure had their doubts), but he didn’t want to rot away on the bench of the second team of a club that didn’t want him. He always knew it would be a challenge, in more ways than one. He grew as a player and as a person, but he quickly realised that some parts that made up who he was didn’t have space in this new life he so badly wanted to live.
The guys on his team talked about girls, girlfriends and sex. They didn’t pressure Marco to join in, but they asked him if he had a girlfriend back home. He told them no. He didn’t mention that he’d had a boyfriend instead.
It didn’t feel like lying at the time.
***
“Australia,” Mario echoes. “That sounds exciting. How long?”
They’re sitting outside. It’s still quite cool despite the sun, but it already starts to smell like summer. The music is very much audible, but pleasantly muffled by the large French doors and Marco is nursing a Gin and Tonic, taking a few small sips before setting the glass back down onto the table.
“Five months. Started in Brisbane, then down the Gold Coast. Stopped in Melbourne and Sydney and stayed in Adelaide for two months. Then across the Outback to Perth.”
Mario raises his eyebrows at that. “Damn. Across the Outback? Very brave, especially considering your skin tone.”
Marco barks out a surprised laugh. “Oh, fuck off.”
“I’m just kidding. Where else did you go? You retired and then just… dropped off the face of the earth.”
The thing is, Marco doesn’t have to tell Mario anything anymore. He could easily tell him that he’d gone here and there, far away and not worth mentioning and part of him wants to play it all down, because it seems like he’s been running when he hasn’t, at least not really. It had all started because he had needed to get away, for good, but he stayed away because he wanted to; because for the first time in his life, he didn’t care about anyone else. Marco still doesn’t care. And he shouldn’t care what it might sound like in Mario’s head. He’s not running.
“Canada. People there don’t really care about football, so it’d seemed like a good idea,” he says with a shrug, aware of Mario’s eyes on him as he stares into his rapidly diminishing drink. “East to West Coast. Brazil after that, because I wanted to see something other than the inside of football stadiums.” He sees Mario smirk out of the corner of his eye and mentally scolds himself for mentioning Brazil. He downs his drink to flush down whatever it is that’s suddenly clogging his throat. “I did the Inca trail, went home for Christmas and then flew east.”
“Jesus,” Mario whistles. “How many air miles do you have?”
“I lost track.”
“I don’t doubt it. What now? Any corner of the world left that you haven’t seen?”
Marco taps his fingertips against the ridge of his glass, watching as perspiration curls around his index finger before lifting his head to glance over at Mario, absentmindedly drinking him in; immaculately tailored suit and dark shirt, top button undone, softly tanned. His hair is back to its natural colour, not dipped in blonde, and he’s gotten rid of his earrings. He looks good, Marco has to acknowledge. Even the lines on his face suit him.
“I’ve been thinking about touring Europe. That would put my mum at ease.”
“Well,” Mario says, tugging on the sleeves of his jacket, grabbing his glass and putting it down straight away, “if you’re ever in Italy, you should drop by.”
Marco’s lips form a soundless oh. Now he’s relieved he’s not holding a drink anymore, because he’s pretty sure he would have dropped it this instant. He swallows thickly, then tries a casual smile.
“Are you still playing for Juventus?” he asks, because that’s the last he remembers before tossing his phone and getting on a plane.
Mario looks at him with surprise. “Uh, no. I retired a while ago. Few months after you did, actually. My knee kind of… gave up.” He brushes a hand along his leg in practised fashion, as if the pain were still present, soothing undoubtedly still strong muscles hidden beneath a layer of smooth cotton.
This is something Marco remembers although he’d rather not; Mario’s proneness to injuries, first his battle with his back, then his Achilles heel, then his knee. He’d always come back better than before and it feels wrong that he hadn’t been allowed to choose when to quit. It feels wrong that he hadn’t known until now.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I had a good run.”
“No doubt about that,” Marco says more to himself than to Mario. Absentmindedly, he wonders if perhaps they should go back inside and catch up with everyone else, and he does also wonder if they’re being left alone on purpose. He wouldn’t put it past the guys. “So you stayed in Turin after?”
“Yeah,” Mario replies. “Didn’t have a reason not to.”
Marco knows he shouldn’t read anything into this. He tells himself he wouldn’t know what to read into it anyway.
***
After Lukas, there was Tobi. The brother of a friend’s friend, or something like that. He was a couple of years older, not interested in football at all. He studied mechanical engineering, was into tennis and clubbing and Martin Scorcese films. They went out together, made out in the middle of the dance floor of a club where he saw more bare chests than covered ones. It was different, it was exciting and at first, it was easy.
He introduced Tobi to his family and started thinking about moving in together. At the same time, his career lifted off, with Bundesliga clubs starting to pay attention to him, sending first offers to his agent. He spent most of his time at practice, or on the pitch and if he didn’t play football, he met his boyfriend (which continued to sound entirely strange when he said it out loud) for lunch or dinner.
There was no doubt that his teammates were catching on. If they were bothered by it, they didn’t say a word and for a while it had been a relief.
After a year, it became a burden.
Tobi didn’t agree with his priorities, didn’t like that Marco’s focus was football, didn’t understand why he worked so hard for something that made him hide part of who he was. They threw words at each other like sacrifice and compromise and career (never love) and it ended in a rather spectacular fashion when Marco told him to go fuck himself and signed for Borussia Mönchengladbach.
***
He excuses himself after a couple of hours, wishing the newly betrothed all the best, because his jetlag is catching up to him and Marco soon feels like he is going to pass out on the spot. There are more handshakes, kisses and hugs and he leaves, a paper napkin with Mario’s number scribbled on it in a haste securely tucked into the pocket of his suit jacket.
Marco sleeps for fourteen hours straight, back in his old room that his mother finally turned into a decent guest room, no more football posters and old jerseys and trophies lining the walls and shelves. Only his first Champions League medal has survived the clean up, framed and on display above the antique chest of drawers. He wakes up in the very early hours of the morning. It’s still dark outside when he walks out onto the balcony and he shivers, pulls his coat tighter around his body and settles onto a wooden deckchair.
He leans back and takes out a cigarette from the packet he’s been carrying around for at least four months. Lighting it, he remembers the instant the smoke reaches his lungs that he finds it absolutely disgusting. Marco’s not sure why he does it anyway. He thinks it’s because it gives him an excuse to get away and quiet down for a couple of moments. Perhaps he does it because he was never allowed to before.
Marco finishes it, gets out his phone and, without much thought, books a flight out to Athens for the following day before he can do something as stupid as calling Mario. Naturally, his mother isn’t happy he is leaving again so soon, and his father seems disappointed, but he’s got a certain look in his eyes that gives Marco the impression he knows exactly what’s going on.
He’s not big news anymore, so there’s no hassle at the airport, just a few hushed murmurs and sideway glances, but Marco still lets out a relieved breath when he sits down in business class and puts his headphones on. He closes his eyes and, with practised ease, falls asleep within seconds.
***
The first couple of months at Mönchengladbach weren’t easy, but Marco didn’t expect them to be. Physically, there was a lot to catch up on. He’d always been a skinny and scrawny kid, so he went out of his ways to gain weight, bulk up, change his game and seek one-on-one confrontations on the pitch instead of utilising his speed. He adapted and adjusted and it made it all worth it.
However, playing for a Bundesliga side, he knew he couldn’t be as easy-going with regards to his personal life anymore. He knew that a professional football player who wanted nothing more than to become part of the National Team wasn’t supposed to be gay.
He missed Tobi, missed being in love, in a relationship, but most of all he missed not caring. Marco had worked too hard to risk anything and he guessed he was too young to wake up and go to bed with worry settled in the pit of his stomach, but he did worry. Almost constantly.
Caro was a blessing, really. They’d known each other for years, she’d known both Lukas and Tobi, he trusted her. And she didn’t mind.
So, rather unexpectedly, Marco found himself with a girlfriend.
***
Marco rents a car and travels south after three days in the Greek capital to meet up with a few guys he’d met in Cambodia a year ago and if they’d known who he was back then, they hadn’t made a big deal out of it. In fact, they haven’t mentioned anything up until now, and it’s not like Marco has a career to lose if else were the case. They set up camp near the coast, close enough to be lulled to sleep by the sound of waves crushing against the shore and it’s rather similar to their time in Koh Kong, sleeping on the beach, sitting around campfires, with other backpackers, far away from civilisation.
Marco had started something (and there really is no other definition) with one of them, casual and careless, and it’s obvious that Sean doesn’t mind picking up where they’d left off. Yet Marco finds himself pulling away after his t-shirt sails down onto the sand.
“So going home wasn’t a good idea?” Sean asks, sliding a hand over tense shoulders that give Marco away.
“It was good,” Marco replies. “Just… unexpected.”
Sean doesn’t press further. They undress unceremoniously and wade out into the water until they start to float.
They part ways after a week. Marco takes a ferry across the Adriatic Sea to Croatia. He spends one inexplicably restless week travelling from one island to the next until he finally calms down after two days in Zadar. He is walking down the street when he sees a small record store and after entering without knowing why, his eyes fall upon an old and understandably dusty album by Justin Bieber. Laughter bubbles up his throat and before he can stop himself, he’s snapped a picture of it and sends it to Mario.
Marco regrets it a second after he’s hit send, but it takes no more than five minutes until his phone flashes with Mario’s reply.
‘Where on earth do they still sell this?’
Marco smiles at that, shakes his head remembering their shared but rather embarrassing obsession, doesn’t reply and continues along the road.
***
He and Tobi got back together after Christmas. They broke up again less than a month later, this time for good, but for the same reasons it hadn’t worked out the first time. Marco was determined to stay in the closet and firmly lock the door behind him, but Tobi wasn’t willing to join him in the dark, and Marco didn’t blame him. It didn’t exactly break his heart, but it was a hard pill to swallow, because it sketched an image of the life he was going to lead for a long time. Marco had made his decision and he was going to stick to it, but he started to feel the effective tremors.
He didn’t mind as much as long as the team was doing well, as long as he was improving with every full match he was allowed to play. He was friends with most of his teammates and they had fun on and off the pitch, but Marco did feel the occasional pang of loneliness when he came home to an empty flat after a particularly good or bad match and didn’t have anyone to share it with.
Marco wasn’t a negative person; but it was hard to stay entirely positive.
He did the only logical thing (because there was no way he was going to pick up some stranger in a club anymore) and put his entire focus on football.
Until it paid off big time.
***
Marco spends a month travelling through Croatia, Bosnia and Montenegro, then he tosses a coin and flies to St. Petersburg. He sends Mario a picture of Peterhof Palace and doesn’t wait long for a reply.
‘Did you know they call it the Russian Versailles?’
Marco didn’t know that. He doesn’t answer and descends the stairs towards the gardens.
***
He met Mario not, like it would’ve been easy to assume, on the pitch, but at their agency. He hadn’t known much about him, just that he’d just made his debut for Dortmund and that he was young, but already scarily good. It was cold and Marco was distracted tying his scarf when he literally bumped into Mario. Ready to utter a quick apology and be on his way, he startled when Mario held out an icy hand to shake.
“Reus, right?” he said with a smile and then they were off, and Marco couldn’t recall ever getting on with someone so instantly. They chatted for a while; exchanged number and Marco didn’t think much about him for the next couple of weeks.
Mönchengladbach played Dortmund for a second time in March and they lost 0:3. Kevin, whom Marco had kept in touch with after their time together in Ahlen, invited him over to his place after the match to have a few drinks and catch up and Marco light-heartedly agreed. He wasn’t surprised that Mario ended up at Kevin’s as well.
What did surprise Marco was the fact that instead of leaving early to see his parents, he and Mario spent almost the entire night on the terrace, sharing a blanket to keep warm, comparing the music on their iPods and talking until Kevin refused to let them leave, so tired they could barely keep their eyes open. They shared Kevin’s sofa bed and drove him insane, because they didn’t shut up until the early hours of the morning.
When Marco joined his teammates on the bus to drive back to Gladbach, he earned himself a couple of catcalls he didn’t get; at least not until he sat down next to Roman, who winked at him and said with a wink, “Night at the girlfriend’s, huh?”
He guessed he looked tired, a bit rumpled, but only after he caught his reflection in the bus’ window did he realise that he had a big smile plastered onto his face.
***
Marco takes the Red Arrow sleeper train to Moscow. It smells like old people and heavy tobacco and produces noises he doesn’t want to think about for too long. It takes around ten hours and when Marco steps onto the platform in Moscow, he can barely move his neck. He checks into a hotel, grabs a cup of coffee and heads out towards the Red Square.
The next day, he snaps a picture of Lenin’s embalmed body.
‘Does he smell?’
Marco suppresses a laugh (this is a mausoleum after all), doesn’t text back, but he heads out straight after, breathing a sigh of relief when fresh air hit his face.
Moscow in general is huge and impressive, but Marco can’t shake off the uneasy feeling he’s been carrying around since getting to St. Petersburg. Maybe he is being paranoid, but he visits the Red Square, spends another night and heads to the airport without having a destination in mind.
***
They texted every day, without exception and Marco was very glad that he earned enough money to not have to worry about his horrendously high phone bill. They called each other too, and then they talked about pretty much everything; about practice and the latest Champions League matches, their favourite teams and players, their idols, their plans and aspirations, their friends and families, music and Inception (resulting in a lengthy argument about whether or not Leonardo DiCaprio had ended up in limbo), made fun of the latest Twilight movie or debated over the importance of the right cheese/dough ratio with regards to pizza.
It was weird, Marco freely admitted as much, but he didn’t see any reason to stop. Caro, who visited every other weekend to make fun of his shoes and torture him with Hugh Grant movies (yes he was gay, but he wasn’t that gay), just raised her right eyebrow at him after he’d been on the phone to Mario for the entirety of ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’. The eyebrow specifically asked “new flame?”
“Just a friend,” Marco replied and it probably wouldn’t have taken that much more for Caro to laugh in his face.
“Sure,” she commented with a shrug, turning back to the TV screen.
“Caro,” Marco poked her thigh with his toe, “he really is a just a friend.”
“Of course he is, honey,” she smiled and patted his foot in return.
***
‘Is it cold?’
Marco snorts. Even if he would reply to Mario’s texts, that question wouldn’t get one. Of course it is cold, Marco answers in his head and rubs his hands together as he puts his phone back into the pocket of his newly acquired coat (spring in Finland is freezing). He’d sent Mario a picture of an ice sculpture, because it’s still just 5 degrees in Oulu and Marco sincerely hopes Mario wasn’t being serious when he’d typed that.
It takes a while, and it’s not the nicest or easiest leg of his recent trip, but he feels surprisingly humbled when he reaches the northernmost point of Europe and takes a moment to properly feel the gravity of this speckle of land he’s set foot upon. Walking up to the railing, he braces his arms on it and stares out into the semi-darkness; harsh winds making his eyes water and his cheeks burn. Marco counts to ten and swallows the lump in his throat, then he makes his way back, circles the iron globe and snaps a picture of the giant road sign pointing into any possible direction. Apparently, it’s 2102 kilometres to the North Pole, and 6468 kilometres to New York and 4282 kilometres to Rome.
‘Time to head south again?’
And Marco guesses that it is.
***
Mönchengladbach finished 12th in the league. Dortmund jumped into the Europa League spots, and of course Bayern Munich wiped the floor with all of them. All in all, Marco couldn’t be unsatisfied with his first season, but there was certainly room for improvement. There had been a certain number of injuries that he wasn’t happy with, that had prevented him from following the call-up to the National Team (he tried not to make a big deal out of it, because he hadn’t debuted yet and there were so many talented young players who could take that spot from him), so Marco knew he was going to spend the summer working on his physique, building up his resistance and strengthening his body.
He took Caro to Portugal for two weeks and got back in time for Mario’s 18th birthday. His parents had taken his younger brother away to the grandparents for the weekend and so the entire house got taken over. It wasn’t the biggest party Marco had been to, but they still managed to get absolutely smashed. Kevin threw up just past midnight and continued as if nothing had happened and the first people started to either leave or pass out in random places when the sun started to rise. They didn’t bother with the clean up just yet. Marco, feeling a bit unsteady on his feet, let Mario drag him upstairs and ended up with a mouth full of pillow when he fell face first onto the mattress they’d set up next to Mario’s bed earlier. He barely registered Mario staggering around his room until suddenly, the blinds were closed and everything descended into pleasant darkness. Sheets rustled and springs groaned, then it was quiet.
Marco concentrated, trying to focus on an invisible spot on the dark ceiling to make the spinning in his head stop, then Mario spoke up unexpectedly.
“I’m dying,” he sighed melodramatically and Marco chuckled into the sheets. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this drunk.”
“I have,” Marco said. “Never thrown up, though.”
“Gross. That was disgusting.” He paused, silence only broken by their deep and steady breaths. “I’ve never eaten squid.”
Marco only stopped short for a second. “I’ve never been south of the equator.”
“Hm,” Mario hummed. “Me neither, I think. Is Tunisia south of it?”
Marco could barely stop himself from getting cross-eyed. There was no way in hell he could conjure up vast geographical knowledge. “I don’t think so,” he muttered and stretched. And because he was an idiot, and drunk, but mainly an idiot, he said, “I’ve never slept with a woman.”
If that startled or shocked Mario – he didn’t show it. Perhaps he was too drunk to do anything but mumble a quite “okay”. But Marco suddenly heard his heart thundering loudly in his ears, throbbing almost painfully in his chest and he knew he couldn’t blame that on the five vodka shots he’d had earlier. And somehow, Marco knew that even in their dunk-off-their-ass mental state, Mario realised he hadn’t confessed to being a virgin.
“I have,” Mario told him almost non-chalantly and he sounded half-asleep already. Marco was suddenly very much awake. “Wasn’t good. Like, not good at all,” and now he sounded almost scandalised.
“Awkward and fumbling?” he asked, stumbling over half the syllables.
“Awkward and fumbling,” Mario confirmed. “Like… just not – you know?”
He did know. At least he thought so.
***
Marco stops over in Copenhagen to stay with a couple he’d travelled with on Vancouver Island. They show him around the city and it’s the most calm and relaxed he’s felt in weeks. Their chatter and jokes distract him from the fact that he already has a plane ticket to Rome, and a comfortable rental to drive around in. He knows that it would take him between six and seven hours to drive to Turin, a bit more if he’d want to stop in Florence to see the Uffizi.
If there is one thing Marco hasn’t done in the past five years, it’s planning ahead. He isn’t running away anymore, but he does’t want to suddenly start running towards something.
***
The problem with Mario, Marco decided, was that he’d met him away from any training centre or football pitch, as a civilian (which sounded as stupid in his head as when he said it out loud to himself, or Caro). The first memory Marco had of him, the first image that came to his mind, wasn’t of a professional footballer in a black and yellow kit. It was of a guy just a few inches shorter than him, in a dark coat and a purple beanie and a grey scarf, with cheeks reddened by the cold air from outside and dark eyes slightly watery from the wind they’d been exposed to.
Mario wasn’t even his type. He was so distinctly different from anyone Marco had ever dated or just fooled around with, yet he somehow managed to eclipse all of them, and nowadays Marco had a hard time even remembering Tobi’s face. Marco blamed it partially on the fact that Mario had, in a year, achieved to insert himself completely into Marco’s life. They were in a platonic but still somewhat strangely co-dependent long-distance relationship and the longer it went on, the harder it became for Marco to actually stress that platonic distinction. He blamed his utterly sad lack of any sort of love life and convinced himself that he had turned Mario into a substitute.
Until, of course, he realised that Mario wasn’t a substitute at all, or for anything.
Caro laughed at him and patted his cheek after he’d naively shared his dilemma with her, and continued to torture him, even when she wasn’t in Gladbach, by sending him countless pictures; Mario featured in a magazine, Mario warming up before a league match, Mario during a league match, sweaty and with his jersey sticking to his chest and –
It was, quite frankly, kind of embarrassing for Marco. He wasn’t a teenager, and Mario wasn’t even his type, and Marco did not have a crush. Mario was his best friend, without close competition and sometimes they didn’t see each other for months, and then it was because their clubs played against each other, yet there was… something Marco couldn’t put his finger on. Something unspoken for, and a bit scary, like a comfortable tension that told Marco things he tried not to think about too much.
***
He spends his first day at Rome asleep in his hotel room, no idea how tired he is until he lies down for just a moment. Twelve hours later, he wakes up with a sore back and a growling stomach, so he rolls onto his stomach and closes his eyes again. The next day, Marco forces down coffee and heads out into the warm spring sun, without a map and without a clue what he wants to see; without a clue what he’s actually doing in Rome, what the hell he’s even doing in Italy. He walks around with a bad mood probably undeserving of the breathtaking sights surrounding him and he needs until early afternoon to get a grip. Another cup of strong coffee gets his feet back on the ground and since he’s close to it anyway, Marco heads to St. Peter’s Square and, armed with sunglasses and a bowler hat he’d bought in Shanghai, gets in line to enter the Basilica.
After he’s taken the first couple of steps inside, Marco almost dislocates his jaw staring up at the ceiling in utter awe. He’s spent so much time actively avoiding people and civilisation, travelling to secluded places to not be confronted with why he’d left in the first place, that he sometimes forgets that for all its flaws, humanity did manage to create a few miracles of their own. Taking off his sunglasses, he tucks them into the neckline of his t-shirt and walks across the marble floors towards the dome. Rays of light shine through gaps in the ceiling, cutting across the scene in front of him and Marco holds his breath for a moment, before he dazedly takes out his phone and snaps one of the best pictures he’s ever taken.
Marco stays absolutely still and distractedly wonders if he should have perhaps taken a multi-coloured flag with him to hide it somewhere in silent protest, to make a statement. Then he winces at the thought, because if there is one sentence he’s heard too many times in his life, it’s to make a statement. Marco has never been that type of person.
He leaves and buys a map on the next street corner, then walks until his feet hurt and it’s so dark he can barely read the road signs. Back in his room, Marco tries to figure out how to prolong his stay in Rome without boring himself to death, how to fit in as many stages between Rome and Turin to buy himself time, or finding an excuse to avoid Turin altogether. It’s so pathetic Marco has to cringe at himself and he ends up tossing the map across the room, accompanied by a row of curses he hasn’t used since his footballing days. When his phone beeps all of a sudden, he almost throws it against the wall too.
‘Are you even allowed to take pictures in there?’
Marco shakes his head and smiles to himself. The next morning, he gets into his car and drives to Florence.
***
The call-up to the National Team was the culmination of everything he’d ever wanted, everything he’d worked for so hard. There was some unfortunate timing of injuries involved until he finally, actually made it to the team, but that didn’t matter anymore. He didn’t sleep for what felt like days before travelling to meet up with everyone at Frankfurt Airport. But any anxiety was quickly pushed aside due to the sheer elation and insanity that threatened to knock him off his feet when he stopped for a second to just think.
Marco smiled so hard it hurt his cheeks when he, together with Simon and André, entered the lounge the rest of the team and staff was waiting at. He knew most of them, but some only briefly, as opponents, since there was nobody from Mönchengladbach besides him. But he knew the guys from Leverkusen pretty well, and he immediately saw the small group of Dortmund players huddled together in one corner, with a side of Mesut. Mats saluted him with a crooked smile when Marco flopped down next to Mario, who silently passed him one of his earphones, flinching when Marco poked him between his ribs. Marco switched off his phone and started pulling on the hood of Mario’s sweatshirt.
“Transformers 3?”
Mario snorted. “Oh God, what a massive load of shit. Moneyball?”
“Quite good, actually,” Marco admitted. “But I still don’t get Baseball. The new X-Men?”
“I liked it. Midnight in Paris?”
Marco gave Mario a sideway glance. “Are you kidding me?”
“It’s Woody Allen!”
“So?” Marco laughed. “Jesus, you’re such a snob. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy?”
Their eyes locked. “Now who’s the snob? Thor?”
“Yeah, what was Natalie Portman doing in that?”
Mario shrugged. “No idea.”
A snorted laugh interrupted them and Marco’s eyes short up to see that Mats had covered his mouth with his sleeve. Mesut was staring at them with a wrinkled forehead. “You guys are so weird,” he said. They bumped their fists to underline that statement.
It was entirely without question that they sat next to each other on the plane to Istanbul, and then on the bus to their hotel, and that they shared a room, and paired up for training exercises. They weren’t literally joined at the hips, but they might have been just as well, it wouldn’t have made a difference. Marco couldn’t really help it, but he indulged himself, grabbed Mario whenever he felt like it, pulled him close or pushed him hard enough so he would fall over his own feet. He enjoyed it, partially because Mario knew, and didn’t mind anyway.
It fitted into the flow of the entire week when Marco made his National Team debut as a substitute for Mario. And if the hug on the sideline ended up being a bit tighter and longer than usually, nobody said a word.
***
Marco plans on staying in Florence for only half a day. The schedule is tight, and he hurries to the Uffizi. He knows that this is a place that deserves more than a few hurried glances. He knows enough to feel guilty for not spending hours gazing upon Boticelli’s The Birth of Venus. There’s a painting by Da Vinci, by Raffael and Caravaggio and Michelangelo, and Marco tries to stop, tries to appreciate the magnitude of those masterpieces – but there are just so many people. He’s never been claustrophobic, yet some things leave marks and that’s a particular issue he hasn’t been able to get over until this point. So he looks for the quickest way through the mass of people and just when he thinks he’s out of the thick of it, he feels a pull on his shirt, making him stop and turn around.
There’s a kid. Not much older than – maybe eight? He’s got a head covered by messy, dark curls that reach the shoulders of a white football jersey the kid’s apparently pulled over a long sleeved shirt in defiance. Marco recognises the jersey. Of course he does. Simple, white, with black edge and the eagle right above the heart; and four golden stars framing its head. His throat tightens. Marco’s forgotten what it feels like to be looked at in utter, unguarded adoration.
The boy pulls on the hem of his shirt once more. “Are you Reus?” he asks, not beating around the bush.
“Um,” Marco says. “Yeah, I am.”
“Can you sign this?” As an afterthought, he adds, “please?”
That he is baffled would be an understatement. But the brief moment of hesitation seems to spark panic, because the boy continues to tuck frantically. “Please? It’s yours. You need to sign it,” and he points to his back, where Marco would, if he looked, undoubtedly see a black eleven with his name right above it.
“Sure, sure,” he quickly replies, crouching down so they can be eye to eye. “I just don’t have a pen.”
“Mama does,” the boy says and seemingly out of the blue, there is a woman by his side, in skinny jeans and a white tunic, who looks a little too young to be the boy’s mother, but Marco isn’t one to judge. She smiles at him, almost apologetically, and holds out a children’s felt-tip.
“I hope it’s no inconvenience,” she says, sounding as young as she looks. “But he’s a really big fan. I mean, we all were – are! Especially after the, uh. You know. Yay you, right?” and she smiles again, almost all her teeth showing, then she clears her throat and hands him the pen.
“It’s no problem,” Marco tells her, because this isn’t, and it never was. Then he turns to the boy. “What’s your name?”
“Mario.”
Of course it is, Marco thinks, stretches the fabric of little Mario’s jersey across his knee. “I have a… friend who’s called that.”
Little Mario leans forward and drops his voice, like he’s telling a secret. “I know. I don’t like him. Mum says he’s an asshole.”
Marco starts to look up at little Mario’s mother, but the boy vehemently shakes his head. “Nah, that’s Mama,” he tells Marco. “My mum says that. She calls him traitor.”
Marco blinks and finishes signing, then he stretches his knees. “Um,” he starts, but the kid’s mother (at least one of them) interrupts him with a wink.
“My wife’s from Dortmund,” as if that explains everything, which – actually – it does. “Thank you so much. He’s probably not even going to remember this place, just that he met you.”
“I hope not,” Marco says, because how much of a shame would that be.
She shrugs. “Well, boys, you know?”
“I do. Well… I got to be off, so –”
“Of course,” she calls out with an embarrassed smile as she realises that quite a handful of people are now starting too look their way. “So sorry, Jesus. But thanks, so much, really. Say thank you, baby,” and her son does, then they both wave and disappear in the opposite direction.
Marco looks after them for a moment, then he turns on his heels, knees suddenly feeling a little week, and sends the grown-up Mario a picture of the Venus. He counts to three before his display lights up.
‘When are you getting to Turin?’
Far too soon, Marco thinks, and makes his way towards the Ponte Vecchio.
***
There was something off between them after the match against Turkey. Not badly off just – different. They sat on the bus, arms touching from wrist to shoulder, sharing an iPod (Marco wasn’t even sure at this point if it was his or Mario’s), and they didn’t say a single word the entire ride back to their hotel.
***
‘That’s my front door.’
And that isn’t a question. Marco smiles to himself, trying to appear calmer as he feels on the inside, and puts his phone back into his bag, which he slings over his shoulder, walking up the steps of the porch. The door swings open only a second later and Mario steps out, wearing battered jeans and a navy t-shirt, smiling wide.
“You’re an idiot,” Mario says as a way of greeting. “Taking a picture of my door.”
Marco looks at him pointedly. “You asked if it was cold after getting a picture of an ice sculpture.”
“Point taken.”
They stand in front of each other for another couple of seconds, until Mario pulls him into a one-armed, and slightly awkward, hug, stepping aside to let Marco in. The house, about an hour outside of Turin, surrounded by nothing but hills and forest, is big, but not massively so. It looks nice at first glance; parquet floors, cream-coloured walls and an expectedly large amount of shoes cluttering the hallway. Marco drops his bag and follows Mario into what turns out to be an open-plan living area, with the kitchen on the left side, a dining table in the middle and a few leather armchairs and sofas on the far right.
“Beer?” Mario calls over his shoulder as he rounds the kitchen island and walks towards the American-style fridge.
“Sure,” Marco answers and walks towards the back of the house, which is almost entirely made out of glass, allowing an absolutely stunning view. He can see a big terrace, some random patches of grass, and so many trees scattering the hills that he won’t attempt to try and count them all. Even considering that Marco’s seen most of the world by now, this is a nice spot Mario picked for himself. Said person now holds out a bottle for him to take and joins him by the windows. “Nice place,” Marco tells him.
“Yeah, I know. I bought it a few years ago. Grew tired of living in the city,” he explains. “It’s more private. Less traffic.”
“I can imagine,” Marco comments and takes a sip. He glances down at the label on the bottle, distinctively German, and smiles to himself. Silence stretches on and it’s not uncomfortable anymore, nor awkward, but Marco doesn’t really know what to say to Mario; can’t even begin to imagine how he should start an actual, not superficial, conversation with him.
Fortunately for him, Mario takes over. “You hungry?” he asks.
“Starving.”
***
It was late when the bus finally reached their hotel, but adrenaline was still pumping through their bodies and Marco imagined that this applied even more to him, since one didn’t make his debut for the National Team every day and his blood pressure was probably unhealthily high. There was only a light training session scheduled for around noon the following day, so Jogi let them be when the entire team piled into Basti’s bedroom.
The room was small, and they were many people, so Marco ended up sandwiched between Mario and André whilst Lukas did his best to entertain the lot. He did well and soon the entire room was filled with voices and laughter and Marco couldn’t hear his own thoughts, which was most definitely a good thing, because someone (Marco didn’t want to point fingers, but he strongly suspected Thomas) had managed to organise a crate of beer. Marco ended up sharing one with Mario, because he didn’t trust himself with more, but it was enough to warm his blood and cloud his head ever so slightly.
Perhaps he only imagined it, but the air grew tighter around him, making it harder to take deep breaths and he became overly aware of Mario’s body next to his, of his lips close to Marco’s neck after he’d leaned against his shoulder. Marco tangled his fingers tightly into the material of his training jacket and tried to focus on anything but his best friend beside him. It didn’t work, it didn’t work at all, so Marco decided to take the coward’s way out of his and got to his unsteady feet. Tripping over a couple of outstretched legs and piles of clothing, he waved goodnight and made his way to the door, earning a few light-hearted taunts, but when he stepped out into the hotel’s empty hallway, Mario was right behind him.
***
Mario moves around the kitchen with ease, boiling water and throwing in some pasta and Marco feels stupid just standing around, but Mario waves him away, telling him to wait outside. Marco isn’t in the mood to argue, so he turns the corner and steps out onto the terrace where the air is fresh but surprisingly warm. There is a certain smell in the air, scented with tree gum and soil and apart from the clatter that’s coming from the kitchen, it is utterly quiet. The wooden planks of the patio groan quietly when he walks across them to sit down at the small table towards the edge, overlooking the scenery and he takes a minute to just calmly fill and empty his lung, and then fill it again.
When Mario joins him, Marco can’t say how much time has actually passed. They commit sacrilege by having pasta and pesto with beer instead of wine and watch contours get fuzzier as the sun slowly starts to set. It remains warm, so they stay outside. Mario gets them more beer and Marco loosens his posture, lets tension pour from his shoulders like water. Eventually, he is relaxed enough to feel reckless.
“Why did you want me to come?”
He doesn’t turn his head Mario’s way, but he hears him setting his bottle down on the table. “I don’t know,” he answers after a moment’s hesitation. “Why did you send me all those pictures?” Another heavy pause. “Why did you come?”
“Not sure,” Marco shrugs and takes another sip of his beer.
“Well, I’d,” Mario starts and clears his throat. “I’d like to think we’re still friends.”
Marco can’t help the dry laugh that works its way up his throat and past his lips. Slowly, he turns his head to the side. “Mario,” he says slowly. “You know as well as I do that we were never just friends.”
***
Marco was ready to crawl out of his own skin by the time they reach their bedroom. He walked in first, a couple of steps into the room, and brought is hands to his heated face, rubbing over his cheeks and tired eyes. He took a couple of trembling breaths and turned around as soon as he heard the door’s lock click. Mario let go of the handle and leaned against the door, crossing his arms behind his back, worrying his lower lip, looking at Marco as if – well. Marco wasn’t exactly sure, but he guessed it was similar to the way he was currently looking at Mario.
“I’m not –” Mario started and cleared his throat. “I’m not reading this wrong, right?”
Marco dropped his hands to his sides. “I don’t think so.” Because this was what they’d been heading towards since day one, Marco realised belatedly.
“Okay,” Mario said, still not moving from his spot against the door.
“Okay,” he echoed and contemplated moving forward, but his legs had already made that decision for him.
They breathed each other’s air for some unimaginably drawn-out seconds, lips close, but not touching, eyes closing. Marco hovered closely, still hesitating for the fraction of a moment, until Mario brought up his hands, grabbed a solid portion of Marco’s jacket and pulled him in. Their bodies collided, lips parted in a silent, simultaneous gasp. Marco dipped his head and leaned in.
Kissing, at least in Marco’s books, was nothing overly spectacular. Naturally, he wasn’t a big fan of PDA; therefore kissing had always been a tool to instigate something other than kissing. He hadn’t made a habit out of making out with his boyfriends on the couch. Now, every single nerve in his body was standing on end. He could feel blunt fingernails digging through the material of his clothes, raking down his sides, making his skin burn as much as his oxygen-deprived lungs, but Marco didn’t want to stop, possibly not ever. He pulled away enough to lick across Mario’s bottom lip and gave it a soft tug with his teeth, planting his hands on either side of Mario’s head to prevent his body from swaying. Mario caught his mouth again, angled his head and deepened the kiss even further, and it just went on and on and there was a foot hooking around the back of his thighs and –
“God.” His voice was barely audible. “We should –”
“ – stop? For now?”
“Yeah…” Marco couldn’t tear his eyes away from Mario’s lips, red and swollen and still shimmering with – “I mean, there’s… we have that training session…”
“And there are people next door,” Mario added, fingers still firmly on Marco’s hips.
He tried to get his pulse back to normal speed. “Maybe we should –”
“Do this once we get home?”
“Definitely. Yes.”
***
The legs of his chair scrape over the patio and Marco gets to his feet, walks a couple of steps to the edge. About a dozen rectangular boulders are laid out to form stairs that lead to an almost unnaturally green patch of grass; a couple of wild flowers, some blossoming trees, a fucking football by the old pine trees. He hasn’t touched one in – God, at least three years, and he can’t but wonder whether he’s forgotten how to play. It would be easy to just walk over there and try it out. Marco still doesn’t do it.
He turns and sees that Mario has been following his gaze to the ball lying on the almost black soil. Not for the first time this day, Marco asks himself what on earth possessed him to come here. He doesn’t know what he expected. They’ve barely spoken a word to each other in ten fucking years and now they are trying to – what, exactly?
“What do you want me to say?” he asks, feeling the strain of the past couple of weeks in his bones, weighing him down.
Mario bites his lips and shrugs, and in the fading light, with enough distance between them, he suddenly looks painfully young. “I don’t know. What do you want to say? I was prepared for some shouting, you know. So fire away if you feel like it.”
“I don’t,” Marco tells him. “I really don’t,” and he moves away, starts to put even more physical distance between them, perhaps trying to match the emotional canyon that separates them these days.
“I would, if I were you,” he hears Mario say quietly.
“But you’re not me,” then he heads back inside.
***
Marco believed that it was practically inevitable for things to change at least slightly between them. But they didn’t. They still texted and talked about what they’d texted and talked about before. It was easy and it was effortless and they didn’t have to talk about anything to clarify what was actually happening between them – they were best friends, and now they were sleeping with each other. Marco guessed they would deal with everything else if it ever came their way.
The sex was phenomenal. Marco couldn’t even begin to comprehend how fucking phenomenal the sex was, considering they didn’t have much practice with each other, or with that many other people. Although Marco didn’t know if that applied to Mario, since their respective sex lives was the one thing they hadn’t talked about before. Marco didn’t particularly want to mention it now, because he felt inappropriately jealous of people he didn’t know existed or not, which was childish and immature and Marco tried quite hard to ignore that not talking was probably immature as well.
Who could blame him? They barely had two or three days a month to spend together and the last thing Marco wanted to do when Mario walked through his door was talk. Marco wanted to strip him out of his shirt and lick a trail down his smooth, tanned chest and he wanted to sink to his knees and drive him insane. But he also wanted to pull Mario back against his chest while they watched TV, have a second toothbrush in his bathroom and a section in his wardrobe that wasn’t his, and he wanted to wake up next to Mario and be the first person he saw every day.
It took a couple of weeks but eventually, Marco had to admit that he wasn’t just sleeping with his best friend – he was in love with him.
***
“I’m sorry.”
Marco turns around with a sigh, sees Mario hovering in the doorway. For what, he wants to ask, because there is a list of things Mario could and probably should be sorry for. There is also a list of things Marco wants to say to him (it’s an actual list, somewhere in one of the boxes from his old apartment that are currently stored away in his parents’ attic), but he can’t be bothered at this moment. He fears that if he starts, he might not stop for hours, and he is tired.
“I’m sure you are,” he says dismissively. “But I’d rather stop talking now, okay? I’m sure we’ve both had a long day.”
Mario looks like he wants to say something else, but in the end he goes with, “of course” and shows Marco to the guest room.
***
They didn’t talk, and they didn’t worry about the speed with which their relationship was progressing. Christmas rolled around and Marco went back to Dortmund to spend time with his family, which turned into mostly spending time with Mario. He’d met Mario’s parents and brothers before, but this time, he guessed he met them as the boyfriend (although that term wasn’t specifically used, the statement was pretty obvious when Mario took his hand during dinner). Nobody batted an eyelid when Marco stayed the night. Two days later, he introduced Mario to his parents and sisters.
After the winter break, things went surprisingly well in all areas. Marco divided his focus between football and Mario and although he knew that his agent was in talks with Mönchengladbach over his contract whilst reviewing quite an impressive amount of offers from other clubs, he didn’t want to get involved in it. He owed it to his club to give his all until the end of the season and he wouldn’t make a decision based on financial perks. He didn’t talk to Mario about it and Mario didn’t ask.
Which meant that Marco made his decision still halfway through the second half of the season, without any outside influences, solely based on what he thought and what he wanted (which, fortunately, also played into what family and friends wanted for him). He told the club that he wasn’t going to renew, made a few more phone calls, then told Mario the following weekend. Dortmund had won their match and it looked like they were going to snatch the Bundesliga title for a second consecutive season, so Mario was in a good mood in spite of his injury. He almost spit apple juice all over Marco’s couch.
“You’re fucking with me.”
Marco grinned to himself and shook his head. “Nope. I’m signing in a few weeks, before the season’s over.”
“Let me get this straight,” Mario said, pulling his legs in to kneel on the couch to face Marco. “You had at least three other clubs offering well over 20 million for you, and you chose your old childhood club over them?” He grinned. “Maybe Kloppo should give me a bonus?”
Marco returned his smile, watching Mario move closer, sliding into the space between his legs until their noses brushed. “What, you think I chose Dortmund because of you?”
“Naturally,” Mario replied, pressing their lips together briefly. “I’ve got skills.”
“You do? I’m not so sure – ow!”
Mario pinched him again, probably for good measure. “You just want me to blow you.”
“Well, now that you’ve mentioned it…”
He suppressed another yelp as Mario dug his fingers between his ribs and swallowed an eager groan when he went for his belt straight after.
***
Marco wakes up at the crack of dawn, but he presses his face into the pillow and doesn’t move for another hour or two. He thinks that he is waiting for the familiar itch that tells him he’s got to get going, and soon, but it doesn’t come. Possibly because of unfinished business he can’t leave behind, not this time. So he gets up, has a quick shower in the ensuite bathroom, grabs a pair of jeans and a t-shirt out of his bag and heads downstairs. There is a note stuck to the fridge with Mario’s familiar scribble, telling him that Mario has some meetings and will be back this afternoon and to make himself at home (also there is coffee on the stove).
Marco fills a cup and heads outside where it smells even better than the previous evening. He makes a mental note to go for a walk later and downs his coffee, rises to get a second cup as well as his shoes. He takes two more sips, then he leaves the cup on the patio, is careful not to slip on the still slightly damp grass and relishes the surrounding silence.
The farther he walks away from the house, the easier it becomes to pretend that it’s not Mario’s and that, in a couple of hours, they aren’t going to face each other awkwardly, unknowing how to deal with their utter inability to deal with this. Marco guesses it would be less difficult if he knew what Mario was trying to achieve, but he doesn’t, and since he still has no clue why he came in the first place (although perhaps it would be healthy for him to eventually stop lying to himself), so he can’t actually point any fingers in this situation.
Marco wants to stay out here, maybe hide, but he doesn’t want to walk too far and get lost like an idiot. After strolling back and forth for a while, suddenly finding the peace and quiet rather unsettling than relaxing, he sits down on a mossy boulder and takes out his phone from the pocket of his jeans. For five minutes, he thinks about checking his emails, or perhaps his voicemail, but the sheer amount of messages would probably throttle him. Instead, he goes through his list of contacts and decides to call the one person who might possibly, with the slightest chance, be able to help him in his dilemma.
“Hello?”
Marco can hear some commotion in the background. “Um, it’s me. Is this a bad time?”
“Marco?” The noises get muffled and he assumes Mats has put one hand over the speaker. “No, no, it’s fine, we’ve just established that the Looney Tunes are closer to my children’s hearts than I am, and that they’d be happy to exchange me with Bugs Bunny.”
“No surprise there.”
“Ungrateful little brats,” Mats says light-heartedly and Marco hopes that his kids don’t hear that. But it’s quieter from the other end of the line, so he assumes that Mats has left the room to talk in peace. “What’s up, man? Where are you at?”
Marco laughs dryly. “Yeah, that’s kind of the reason I’m calling. I’m in Italy. At Mario’s.”
There is a heavy clonk and a hearty curse, then he hears Mats’ voice again. “Are you serious?” he lets out a long whistle. “Damn. How did that happen?”
“I’m not really sure myself,” Marco replies honestly. “He’s gone out, and I’m just trying to convince myself not to make a run for it.”
“Do you want me to talk sense into you?” Mats asks. “Because I’m going to need more information for that.”
Marco rubs his neck and gets up, because that damn stone he’s been sitting on is cold and a bit wet and more than a bit uncomfortable. “We talked at the wedding. And it was – fine, I guess. He told me to stop by if I got to Italy. And I did. I think he wants us to talk.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
Perhaps not, but – “What the fuck is there to talk about?” he blurts out. “Seriously! He’s acting like the last ten years didn’t happen and I think he wants to be friends again and –”
“Marco?” Mats breaks him off. “Calm down, all right? You’re not twenty-three and he is not moving to Munich. And – sorry to tell you this – you’re probably not making it very easy for him.”
“Is that what it’s supposed to be? Easy? Want me to go easy on him?”
“No,” Mats tells him. “But you can give him a chance. Isn’t that why you’re there?”
Marco feels his body deflate, anger leaving him in waves, rolling off his shoulders. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know what I’m doing here. What I was thinking.” He pauses for a moment. “Did you talk to him?”
“Recently? No. We chatted at the wedding and we generally keep in touch and – okay. Listen.” Mats’ tone changes slightly, but Marco has known him long enough to realise what that means, and he braces himself. “We’ve all grown up. He’s been trying to make amends. For a while.”
“What do you mean?”
“He wanted to retire at Dortmund, did you know that?” and Marco stops short. “Didn’t want to extend his contract at Juventus and come back. Kloppo was in on in, and Aki, nobody else knew. It fell through anyway.”
He has a bad feeling about this. “Because of me?” Mats’ silence is confirmation enough. Marco feels dizzy. “Jesus.”
“I told him to call you,” Mats recalls. “He said he would, but he didn’t. So, if you don’t know what to talk about, that could be one thing.”
***
The European Cup didn’t go as Marco had expected; or hoped. Granted, none of them had hoped to get kicked out by Italy of all teams, but it was especially bitter for him, for Mario, and those who didn’t even get the chance to do anything to change their fate. He hadn’t been a part of the National Team for long so he understood that he had to earn his place, but it was frustrating nonetheless. And Mario… He was the best damn footballer Marco had ever played with or against, regardless of the fact that he was screwing him, and to see him benched was just plain painful.
Marco got over it after a handful of days, surprising himself more than anyone else. The anger and frustration was replaced by a sense of calm and he knew, just so surely and absolutely knew, that their time would come.
They went on holiday together with André (one of the few trustees, who unfortunately enjoying making them uncomfortable with dubious comments) and then the new season started and it was – Marco didn’t have the words to describe it. It wasn’t just perfect, it was… everything. It was everything and it meant everything and he never ever wanted it to end.
***
Mario comes back at around three in the afternoon, carrying a small bag that he drops in the doorway when he sees Marco sitting at the kitchen island, nursing a glass of whisky that is so strong he’s only managed to drink a quarter of it in the past hour. He is wearing this stupidly soft-looking grey Henley, rolled up to his elbows and two buttons undone to reveal the jutted line of his collarbones. Tanned, strong fingers grab the edge of the counter. Marco’s eyes shoot back up to Mario’s face.
“Am I going to need some, too?” Mario asks and gestures at Marco’s glass, who doesn’t hesitate to slide it across.
“I talked to Mats.”
“And here we go,” Mario says and takes an impressive sip. He pulls a face, puts the glass back down. “What did he say?”
Marco tries to talk around the lump in his throat. “That you wanted to come back,” he manages to say evenly. “That you wanted to tell me. But you decided against both, obviously.”
Mario sighs and sits down, apparently trying to hypnotise the marble countertop. He doesn’t say anything for a long while and Marco wants Mario to stop having this effect on him. He brushes his hands over the rough material of his jeans in an attempt to stay calm.
“Why did you stay in Turin?” he presses on and Mario cracks.
“Because I was scared,” he surrenders and Marco thinks he can still see it there in his eyes. “I was fucking terrified. When I left, I was a stupid, petulant child and the fans never forgave me for that. I thought they wouldn’t want me back. You did forgive me for going to Munich, but – well. I knew you didn’t want me back. So I signed the contract extension, partially because I was a coward, and partially because Juventus has always been good to me, and I wanted to at least show them my appreciation.” Giving Marco a tired smile, he slides the whisky back towards him. “I played until my body wouldn’t let me anymore and now I work for the club, mostly with the kids,” and he folds his hands on the countertop. “You’ve told me about touring the world, and now I’ve told you about this, but I doubt this makes us even.”
“Is that the point of all this?” Marco asks and finishes the whisky, suppressing a cough as it burns all the way down his to his stomach. “Making us even?”
“No,” and something in the way Mario says it makes Marco prepare for another blow. “I just – I just miss you. I really fucking miss you.”
tbc