Work Text:
Jude disappears into his bedroom when he gets home.
He does that sometimes. His mother has gotten used to it, and she just smiles, squeezes his arm, reminds him to text Jobe sometime this afternoon.
Jude locks his bedroom door, though there’s no reason to. He’s just used to locking things by now. Locked cars, locked windows, locked gates. Locked down social media accounts. If you leave a way in, someone will find it.
He showers first. Runs the water cold, until his skin is just short of numb. Showers are supposed to reset you, and maybe they do, maybe a bit, but not enough. Jude thinks about hidden cameras until he’s back in a Real Madrid t-shirt, and then he thinks about the big bright cameras that line the pitch.
He’s fumbling for his phone about as soon as his fingers are dry enough to work the touchscreen. He considers texting first, but that feels more exposed, somehow—leaving a paper trail—so he just presses call, leaving the bathroom door open as he returns to his bed.
Erling picks up after the third ring. Jude closes his eyes as soon as the line connects. He fidgets with the hem of his comforter.
“Now you stop ignoring me?” Erling says, voice lighthearted. “Ancelotti gives you friends and family time today?”
“No trainin’ today,” Jude mutters. “Got back from Berlin a few hours ago.” God, he’s missed Erling’s voice.
“Right, of course. Your beautiful goal.”
“Mm. It was a tap-in.”
“Ah-ah, let’s not criticize tap-ins, now.”
Jude laughs a bit, despite himself, despite everything. He’s holding the phone so close to his ear that he might hang up by accident. Like maybe if he can press it close enough to his skin, Erling will be here, in his room, in his bed, beside him. Or maybe they’ll both be back there. Together.
“I miss you,” Jude whispers, messing with the comforter again, letting his head drop down against his knees.
Erling’s voice is oh-so soft.
“I miss you too.”
Jude nods against his knees. It’s nothing new. Erling was gone from Dortmund already, and he’s no more gone just because Jude has left there too. But it feels different in Madrid. Like a fresh wound.
“I watch all of your highlights,” Erling says into the silence. “You’re proving me right.”
You’ll win it all. That’s what Erling used to say, before games in the locker room or curled up on his couch on late nights. How do I know? Because I know. Look at you.
It used to make Jude glow. Used to make him sit up straighter, Erling saying those things. Being looked at. Being seen.
But now Erling is just another one of everyone, every person in the world, it feels like, on the street and in the stadium and on their little phone screens. Looking. Watching.
“Thanks,” Jude murmurs. “I watch yours.”
Maybe that makes him everyone, too.
Erling’s voice is still gentle.
“What’s going on, Jude?”
The question makes Jude’s eyes burn, in the way Erling says it, and he blinks, resting his head back against the headboard, reminding himself to breathe. Erling doesn’t say anything. Lets the silence stretch for a while.
Jude imagines he can hear every one of Erling’s breaths, but he can’t. Not really. The audio isn’t that good.
“M’ just tired,” Jude whispers eventually, voice a bit shaky, despite his best efforts. “Something—there was somethin’ earlier. I dunno.”
Erling latches onto it immediately. “Something?”
Jude wipes at his eyes, even though there aren’t any tears on his face, just the persistent threat of them. He looks at the ceiling. Looks at his knees.
“There was this fan outside the airport,” he admits clumsily. “Touched me. I guess.”
“Touched you?” Erling repeats, voice suddenly sharp and low.
“Not like that,” Jude says hastily, but he’s losing the battle with the tears, and so his words come out unconvincing, wavering and flimsy. He doesn’t know if he’s convinced, even—he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know anything.
“Tell me,” Erling prompts, softer, but not that soft, because Jude can hear the dangerous intensity in the corners of his voice.
Jude sniffs, breath really shaking, now, doing a shitty job at hiding it.
“Not like that,” he repeats. “M’ not trying to make a big thing.”
“Okay,” Erling soothes, just the same, the dangerous-softness. “Not like that. Just tell me.”
The tears are smearing all over his phone screen, and Jude pulls it away for a second, wiping at it with his sleeve, careful to keep from hanging up. His face is burning.
He lowers his voice as quiet as it’ll go and still register through the microphone. He feels wrong to even say it over the phone, to even think about it, like everyone will know by tomorrow.
“She just asked for a photo,” he breathes, glancing at the closed blinds. “She put her arm around, y’know, and she just—her fingers went under my waistband a little bit.”
Not really a little bit, it was pretty far, and Jude presses his own fingers to his hip, trying to knead away the phantom sensation. It shouldn’t bother him so much. It didn’t hurt.
“Jesus,” Erling mutters. He does sound angry, this time. Proper angry.
“I dunno. Maybe it was an accident.”
“It wasn’t an accident.”
Jude doesn’t argue, because her fingers rubbed slow across his skin, didn’t they, and she wouldn’t have done that if it was an accident.
“Jude,” Erling murmurs, almost coos, so caring, so gentle, a bit desperate, like he doesn’t know what to say. “Are you home now?”
“Mm. In bed.” Dortmund was home.
“Can we Facetime? I want to see you.”
It’s half a plea, and so Jude hums in affirmation. He hangs up, fumbling for his earbuds on his bedside table and putting them in. It’s only a moment of silence before his phone lights up with Erling’s name again. Jude wipes at his own face, pressing accept.
Seeing him almost makes it worse—the missing. Because it’s not just Erling, it’s his Erling, Erling holding the phone at a funny angle, a bit too close to his face, damp hair loose and hanging around his shoulders.
“You don’t look good,” Erling murmurs, searching Jude’s face, brow furrowed. Jude tries not to look at himself at the top of the screen. He tries to focus on Erling, tries to hold onto him, like he’s not hundreds of miles away.
“Don’t be a dick,” he says, smiling a bit.
Erling doesn’t bite the attempt to be lighthearted. “Where was security?”
Jude half-shrugs. “Don’t think anyone saw. But m’ worried someone caught it on camera, and it’ll get out, or something, and people will get the wrong idea.”
He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what people would make of something like that. But he knows he doesn’t want it, doesn’t want anyone watching him look at her, analyzing his nervous movements or reading something into his plastered-on smile. Or maybe just getting ideas. He feels sick.
“Fucking hell,” Erling mutters.
“I just wish you were here,” Jude breathes, curling over himself a bit, holding the phone tight. He wants to touch Erling through the screen. He wants to be home.
“I can come,” Erling says immediately. “Four hours.”
Jude stiffens. “Don’t say that.”
“Jude. If you need me—”
“Don’t,” Jude interrupts, more sharply this time. “Just don’t. Okay?”
Erling looks at him for a moment. Jude doesn't know who he sees—if Erling still recognizes the same kid from Dortmund, or if he's something else, now, something closer to whatever the world sees in the highlights. He doesn't ask.
It's a cruel offer, anyway. Coming here. Erling must know that.
Jude looks at his bed. Smooths the comforter back down.
“Okay,” Erling whispers finally. Soft.
Jude nods. “Okay.”