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don’t let the sun go down on me

for two years you’ve been joined at the hip; adamant at defending you’re nothing more than just close friends when people suggested otherwise. but maybe there is something more there after all. (17k of fluff, then angst, then happy ending + a poll!)

The passenger door clicked open at exactly 8:15AM. Like always.

The cool draft of the aircon hit your face first, a contrast to the already-warm sun beating down on the street outside. You ducked your head beneath the roof of the dark grey Cupra, carefully balancing two cardboard coffee cups in your left hand as you swung your legs into the footwell.

Alexia didn’t look over. She was waiting for an opening in the traffic, her left hand resting casually at twelve o’clock on the steering wheel, her brunette hair pulled up into a clip with a few strands framing her face. Her sunglasses were perched on top of her head instead of over her eyes, like always.

She’d always turn and greet you before tugging them down into place.

Without breaking her gaze from the side mirror, she held her right hand out into the space between your seats.

Palm open. Expectant but not rude.

You handed it over, a quiet and subconscious breath leaving your nose. “There you go.”

The cardboard sleeve slotted into her palm without either of you looking. Her fingers wrapped around the cup at the exact millisecond you released it– a handoff so smooth, so thoroughly rehearsed by two years of repetition that neither of you had to process it anymore.

“Thanks.”

“Mhm.”

She brought the cup to her lips, taking a cautious sip, her throat moving as she swallowed before sliding the car smoothly into the flow of traffic.

You settled into the leather seat, wrapping both hands around your own cup. It was still almost too hot to hold comfortably. The bitter scent of roasted coffee filled the car, mixing with the persistent citrus-and-cedar smell that seemed permanently woven into the upholstery of Alexia’s car due to the ridiculous frequency she got it valeted.

You’d never asked what cleaning product or spray or air freshener it was she asked for each time. You just knew that if you were ever blindfolded and placed in this seat, you’d know within three seconds that it was 8:15 in the morning and you were heading through the city to the training centre.

The radio was low, just a soft track playing under the hum of the tires against asphalt. The city was blurring past the window in golden streaks, long shadows stretching across the pavements as commuters rushed towards metro entrances.

Alexia reached over with her thumb, tapping the volume knob down just a fraction more.

“Did Adrián send the updated clips last night, or was I just hallucinating notifications at midnight?” She asked. Her voice still had that morning roughness to it, unpolished and quiet.

“He sent them at quarter to,” You said, taking a tiny test sip of your drink. “Three short cuts of their defensive mid-block. Nothing we didn’t already see on Tuesday.”

Alexia gave a breathy huff from her nose, eyes scanning the road ahead, even if she wasn’t seeing that in her head but a pitch instead. You’d be fearing for your life if you hadn’t been passenger to it for so long. She had a clean record for driving so far.

“He’s overthinking the spacing again. If we drop the interior midfielders too low, we’re just running into their trap.”

“Tell him that before video review, then.”

“I will. But then he’ll just show me three different graphs to prove why he’s right, anyway.”

“And then you will ignore the graphs and do it anyway.” You rolled your eyes.

That got a tiny twitch at the corner of her lips. She didn’t turn to face you, but the tension in her jaw softened by a fraction. “I don’t ignore him, I just… like to adapt some of his techniques and advice.”

“Sure. Adapt.”

You leaned your head back against the headrest, watching her profile as she navigated a tight roundabout. Sunlight hit the high line of her cheekbone, casting the rest of her face in gentle shadow.

It was funny how simple it had become.

Two years ago, when you first signed, sitting in this car would have made your chest tight with nerves. You’d wanted to impress everyone at the club, but particularly the coach and your captain. The icon and the face of the club.

Now she was just the person who drove too fast over speed bumps when she was tired, who insisted on buying the dark roast even though it made her grimace on the first sip, and who always, without fail, saved the seat beside her for you.

You didn’t have to fill the air with empty noise. Didn’t have to show up as anyone but yourself. You could just exist in her orbit and listen to the rhythmic clicking of her indicator as she came to a stop at some traffic lights.

The brunette glanced down at the gear shift, her thumb tracing the edge of the leather for half a beat. Then she turned her head fully to look at you.

Her gaze held a weight that lingered just a fraction too long, taking in the tired curve of your shoulders and the way your hands were wrapped around the paper cup. An almost imperceptible softening touched the corners of her mouth. Not a full smile; it was too early in the morning for that, she was still too tired. But it was enough for it to be an unspoken and tender acknowledgement that seemed far too quiet and far too heavy for a simple fifteen minute morning commute.

“Good morning,” She murmured, her tone falling into that private register meant only for the two of you.

You felt that the fluttering in your stomach was a little unnecessary for something so familiar.

“Good morning.” You returned the greeting, smiling over at her.

She held your eyes for one more second, before the light flipped to green.

Alexia caught the frame of her sunglasses and pulled them down atop her nose with ease before putting her hand back on the wheel.

The dark lenses hid her eyes, but the line of her jaw stayed relaxed as she drove the last few minutes to the training ground. She rested her forearm against the center console, her knuckles lightly brushing against the edge of your thigh as she fiddled with the cardboard around her cup. She didn’t pull away,

“Did you sleep last night?” She asked, a teasing but knowing lilt to her words. “Or were you staring at the ceiling until three again?”

You glanced over, catching your own faint reflection in her sunglasses. “I slept, thank you.”

“Liar.”

“I did!” You insisted, though a small smile betrayed you. “Mostly.”

“You only take small sips of your coffee when you’re running on less than five hours. Like you’re trying to prolong the effects of the caffeine to get you through the day.” Alexia said plainly, not even needing to look at you to call you out. She took another drink of her own coffee, setting the cup back into the holder with a soft thud. “And your shoulders are slumped down to your knees.”

You caught yourself, deliberately adjusting your posture against the leather seat with a quiet exhale. “You’re too observant. It’s annoying.”

“It’s my job to notice details.” She countered, her thumb making a small pattern against the steering wheel as she took a wide turn onto the tree-lined approach leading to the facility gates.

“Not my sleeping habits though, Alexia.”

The corner of her mouth twitched again. “Especially your sleeping habits. If you collapse on the training pitch, I’m the one that has to carry you off and make sure you’re alright.”

She paused, a crease to her brow forming for half a second before disappearing as quick as it came.

“You know, as captain and all.”

“You could handle it,” You teased, leaning your head slightly closer into her space. “You’ve been doing the heavy lifting all season.”

Alexia shot you a brief look over the top of her dark frames, her eyebrows raising just enough to elicit that same uncalled-for fluttery reaction from earlier.

“Watch your mouth,” She muttered, though the warmth in her tone completely ruined any authority she was trying to project. “Or I’ll make you carry the water crates yourself.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Try me.”

The front gates slid open smoothly as the guard recognised the Cupra, stepping out of his booth to give a friendly wave. Alexia returned it with a casual flick of two fingers off the steering wheel, easing the car through the entrance and onto the perimeter road that circled the complex.

The morning sun was slightly higher now, casting a golden sheen across the hood of the car. The peacefulness of the drive, one of your favourite parts of the day, was coming to an end. But for the last fifty yards of tarmac, neither of you unbuckled. Neither of you reached for your bags.

Alexia slowed the car down to a crawl as she approached her usual spot in the top corner of the lot, far away from where the rest of the players usually crammed in.

“We have forty five minutes before anyone else gets here,” She stated quietly, bringing the car to a halt and clicking the engine off.

Alexia turned in her seat, leaning her right elbow on the middle armrest, her hand casually dangling just inches from yours. She pushed her sunglasses back up into her hair, letting her honeyed eyes hold yours without any barrier between them.

“So,” she continued. “Are you going to tell me what actually kept you up all night, or do I have to guess?”

You pressed your lips together.

You forced your face to stay completely still, willing the flare of heat behind your ears to die down before it reached your cheeks.

Somehow, miraculously, your skin stayed cool, and you kept your expression completely neutral; you knew exactly why you hadn’t slept.

You knew exactly what train of thought it was that kept rest at bay, what route it took, and what destination you ended up at every time.

You weren’t going to tell her.

Not now, and probably not ever.

“You’ll have to keep your guesses to yourself for now.” You replied, offering her a shrug.

Alexia rolled her eyes as an affectionate huff left her nose. Then she looked back at you, with her right eyebrow raised in a questioning arch that demanded more.

“I’ll tell you when I’m ready.” You added in a softer, more sincere voice, as you held her gaze steadily.

She didn’t move.

The midfielder remained leaning against the armrest, studying your face for a long stretch of silence. She looked for the crack in your armour, searching for the tell she usually found so easily. But she couldn’t quite put her finger on it this time.

She conceded with a heavy sigh.

“You better,” She grumbled, reaching over to open her door. “Because you haven’t been sleeping well for a month or so now, and you always tell me everything.”

She pushed her door open, the crisp morning air instantly rushing into the warmth to wash away the scent of coffee and citrus.

You opened your own door at the same time and stepped out. While Alexia walked around to the boot, popping the latch to reach for both your bags, you leaned back inside the car to gather the two coffee cups, stacking them neatly together.

You met her at the back of the Cupra. Alexia was standing there in the pale light, her gym bag slung over her left shoulder and your own hanging from her right hand.

“You really don’t miss a single thing, do you?” You asked, a wry smile tugging at your lips as you reached out to hand her her drink again.

Alexia took the cup from you, her fingers brushing over yours just long enough to send an inconvenient ripple of goosebumps up your arm. In the same movement, she handed over the bag, her eyes tracking you as she watched you pull it over your collarbone.

“Not when it comes to you.” She responded simply.

She turned and headed toward the entrance doors of the complex without waiting for an answer, her trainers almost silent against the concrete.

You stood there for half a second, settling the weight of the strap against your shoulder, before taking a breath and following right behind her.

Holding the door open for you, she waited for you to catch up, slightly irked at not getting to the root of the problem but far more concerned than annoyed.

“We’re doing free kicks this morning.” Alexia noted offhandedly, letting the heavy glass door settle back against her shoulder as you stepped past her into the building.

You rolled your eyes, slinging your bag higher over your shoulder. “We do free kicks more than we do anything else.”

Alexia grinned, an unbothered flash of teeth that completely betrayed her captain’s decorum. “They’re my favourite. And I missed that one at the weekend, so–”

“So you need to put me through the torture of wall duty,” You grumbled, though the small smile ruined any real threat of complaint. You shifted your gaze to her profile as you walked side by side down the main corridor. “You didn’t even miss, Alexia. It was on target, the wall just blocked it. It was a great strike otherwise.”

“No,” She cut in, her tone sharpening into that unyielding stubbornness that had made her into who she was today. “Not great. Otherwise it would have cleared the shoulders and gone in.”

You shook your head, letting out an amused breath. Two Ballon d’Ors on her mantelpiece and she was still holding a grudge against a random defender’s shoulder from Sunday afternoon.

Her perfectionism was completely absurd, wildly inconvenient for anyone dragged into her orbit, and so deeply her that it made your chest tighten a little.

“You’re relentless.” You muttered under your breath.

“Exactly.” She smirked, preening at what was intended to be a polite insult.

She pushed open the door to the changing rooms, space cool and smelling of damp grass and fresh laundry. It was completely empty, aside from the neat, perfectly folded stack of spare training kits and boots sitting in front of each locker.

Alexia dropped her bag onto the wooden bench at her cubby, right next to yours. The two spots had been paired together since your first week at the club, a thoughtless assignment that both of you had eventually requested to keep.

For luck, of course.

The brunette tugged at the tie of her hoodie strings to free it from its loop, and pulled it over head in one swipe. It left her hair slightly messy around her face, so she reached up and took out the claw clip at the back of her head to let it fall over her shoulders, before shaking it out with a soft exhale.

As she turned back to her locker to put both things down, she caught you standing there, still holding the strap of your bag.

She paused. Her eyes lingered on your face, still hunting for whatever it was you had hidden away in the car five minutes ago.

“Have you forgotten something?” She wondered, stepping closer into your space.

“Just waking up.” You lied, swallowing subtly afterwards.

Alexia didn’t buy it.

Instead, she reached out, her fingers catching the fabric of your collar where it had gotten crumpled under your strap. She smoothed it down, her knuckles brushing against the skin of your neck, far more carefully than a simple gesture required. Her thumb hovered near your jaw for a moment longer than necessary before dropping back to her side.

“Right,” She murmured. “Well, wake up fast. I’m taking ten shots, and if you let all of them past you on the wall, you’re carrying the gear back inside.”

You looked at her, the ghost of her touch still buzzing against your skin, and felt that familiar, dreadfully helpless pull deep in your ribs.

“I’m getting a ball pelted at me ten times over, and then I have to carry everything inside after. Great.”

Alexia shot you a warning look as she sat down to swap her trainers for her boots. But the softness that caused the corner of her eyes to crinkle ever so slightly gave her away.

You unslung your bag, letting it hit the wooden bench with a thunk, and slid into the empty space beside her.

You began to kick off your trainers with each foot, but your left hand moved with a mind of its own. It reached up and blindly traced the edge of your collar to adjust the creased fabric of your quarter-zip training jumper– the exact spot her knuckles had brushed only seconds before. It was a completely subconscious reflex.

Alexia didn’t miss it.

Out of the corner of her eye, while pulling on her boots, she caught the small gesture. Her hand stilled on her heel for a split second, her lips parting as if to say something, before her fingers tugged the laces tight as she began to tie them.

“You’re dramatic, you know that?” she said, leaning back against the locker to face you, her elbows resting on her knees. “It’s ten shots. Most of them will probably hit the net anyway.”

“That’s not making me feel any better about the few that will hit my stomach.” You continued to complain, double-knotting your laces and tucking them into your boots like always.

“I’ll aim high then.” She argued, a teasing hum in her voice. “Clear the shoulders. Like I tried on Sunday, except I’ll get it right this time.”

You tilted your head up to look at her, finding her already staring down at you. The changing room was so quiet that the rhythm of her breathing was the loudest thing between you. From this close, sitting on the bench together, you could see the golden flecks in her hazel eyes, illuminated by the harsh overhead lighting, and the subtle tired shadow beneath her eyes.

“You’re mean in the morning.” You mumbled, straightening your socks just to tear your eyes away from her.

Alexia didn’t pull back. Instead, she leaned in ever so slightly, her shoulder coming to rest against yours through the material of your training kit. The contact was solid, and entirely unneeded for two people just getting ready to run freekick drills.

“I’m relentless, as you said.” She corrected softly, her tone losing its teasing edge completely. “And I’m giving you a fair warning. Most of the team wouldn’t get that.”

“Most of the team doesn’t have to stand in front of your freekicks at eight-thirty in the morning, anyway.”

Alexia gave a soft breath of a laugh that warmed the small space between your faces. She didn’t move her shoulder away; if anything, she leaned into your side even more.

“Ten shots.” She murmured, and you swore her eyes dropped to your lips for a millisecond before rising back to meet your gaze. “Then you can drag me through whatever you want to do in return.”

You smiled, despite your grievances. “Ten shots.”

You held her gaze, carefully keeping your mind a complete blank, knowing that if you allowed yourself to trace that feeling to its end, there would be no turning back.

—

The sharp thwack of synthetic leather meeting a boot echoed across the empty, dew-slicked expanse of the training pitch.

The ball travelled gracefully through the air, dipping over the fake wall you were standing beside, before rattling the back of the netting with a satisfying ripple.

“That’s seven,” Alexia called out. She was standing twenty-five yards out, her hands resting on her hips.

You shifted your weight on the damp turf, wrapping your arms around your ribs as you stepped back into position beside the yellow plastic wall.

“You’re taking too long over the ball. You’ll be booked for time wasting by the time you’re ready to take it.”

Alexia shot you a flat, unimpressed glare. “I’m perfecting the technique. Quality takes time.”

“It takes so much time that the goalkeeper’s already retired by the time you strike it.”

“Keep talking and number eight goes straight for your face.” She warned, though she was already casually hooking another ball forward with the instep of her boot.

It went straight in, completely effortlessly, of course. Boot met ball, and so came another high curling trajectory that kissed the underside of the crossbar on its way into the top right corner.

“Eight out of eight,” She announced, turning toward you with a triumphant smirk that you averted your eyes from under the guise of yet another eye roll. “You owe me another coffee tomorrow.”

“We haven’t finished the ten yet, Capi.” You grinned stepping out from beside the wall to collect the two stray balls from the grass near the touchline. “Don’t count your victories before the drill’s over.”

“I’ve got a hundred percent success rate so far. Mathematically…” She shrugged with a smug raise of her eyebrows.

“You said I had to carry the gear if you got them all past me. You’ve got two shots left. Anything could happen.” You reminded her, tossing one of the balls lightly from hand to hand as you walked toward her.

“Nothing’s going to happen. My stride is locked in.” She set ball number nine down on the grass, carefully aligning the Puma logo on the leather.

You walked past her, deliberately stepping right through her field of vision, hovering just a foot away from her left shoulder as she prepared to take her run-up.

“I don’t know…” You hummed, leaning in just close enough for your voice to carry over the air’s light breeze. “Form looks a bit shaky from here. Left hip’s dropping again.”

Alexia paused mid-step, her head snapping up towards you, her eyes narrowing into two sharp slits. “My hip is not dropping.”

“It definitely dropped on number eight,” You lied, offering her an entirely innocent wide-eyed smile. “Just saying. Don’t want you getting sloppy.”

“Get back to the wall.” She commanded, pointing a stern finger toward the yellow plastic.

“I’m just trying to help, Cap.”

“Back to the wall.”

You chuckled under your breath, sauntering back to your post.

She took a deep breath, resetting her stance, but you could see the tiny competitive fire burning in her jaw. You had gotten inside her head, if only by a millimeter.

Shot nine went in anyway. A low, skittering strike that rippled the side netting. Nine out of nine.

Alexia immediately looked over at you, raising her chin with arrogance that should have been insufferable if…

“Dropping hip, huh?” She said, nudging her head up once as she stared at you.

“Pure luck.” You called back. “Let’s see number ten then.”

She pulled the final ball to the spot with a quick drag of her sole. The morning sun was hitting her face perfectly by now, catching the lighter strands of her hair as she took her three steps back. She was entirely locked in, the perfectionist beast of a player taking control over her.

She started her run-up.

Right as her plant foot struck the turf beside the ball, half a second before impact, you let out a dramatic cough that echoed across the dead-silent training field.

The sudden noise caught her off-guard. Her foot slid slightly, meaning she sliced under the ball off-kilt when she struck it. Instead of a smooth, curling arc, the ball flew off-course– striking you square on the side of your right hip.

“Ow!” You gasp, though it didn’t really hurt, you just weren’t expecting it. It’s different in the heat of a game when adrenaline is going versus… trying to throw the greatest freekick taker on the team off her game.

Alexia froze in her follow-through, her mouth falling open in sheer disbelief. She stared at the ball as it rolled away from you, then at you, her hands flying straight to her hips.

“You cheated!” She shouted in outrage.

You doubled over, holding your hip with one hand while an uncontrollable laugh burst from your chest.

“You did that on purpose!” Alexia marched towards you, her studs digging aggressively into the grass, a mix of genuine outrage and suppressed amusement warring on her face. “That was going into the top right! Nine out of ten doesn’t count if you sabotage the final go!”

“A wall is allowed to be distracting,” You wheezed, straightening up with a huge grin plastered across your face as she stopped right in front of you, towering over your space. “That’s match conditions, Ale. Opponents make noise! Fans make noise!”

“Opponents don’t hack like a dying cat right when I’m planting my foot!” She reached out, her hands catching your shoulders to give you a playful shove, but you just laughed harder, leaning into her push.

“Nine out of ten.” You declared proudly, wiping a tear of laughter from the corner of your eye. “Which means I didn’t let all of them past me. You’re carrying the gear back inside.”

The brunette stared down at you, her jaw working as she fought with everything she had not to crack a smile. Her fingers lingered on your shoulders for a second longer than a shove required, before she dropped them when that smile broke through.

“You cheated.” She grumbled, though the softness in her eyes completely ruined the insult.

“Nowhere in the rulebook does it say a girl can’t cough.” You grinned, leaning into her space just a fraction.

Your eyes stayed locked onto hers, the heat of her hands having just left your shoulders still tingling against your skin under your jumper. She stood so close you could see the faint catch in her breath, her gaze holding yours with an intensity that made the cool morning air suddenly feel a little more intense.

Neither of you moved. Neither of you looked away.

…until the deafening blare of a car horn echoed across the car park, cutting through the silence like a blade.

You both flinched, your heads snapping toward the car park just in time to see Kika’s grey Cupra pulling in, her arm hanging out the window and the other pounding the center of her steering wheel just to torment a startled Clara who was walking towards the entrance.

The spell broke instantly.

Alexia cleared her throat, taking a small step back and rubbing the back of her neck as a flush crept up her skin. You suddenly found the damp grass beneath your boots extraordinarily interesting, shifting your weight to smooth over a non-existent rough patch.

“See,” You said, breaking the awkward static as you looked back at her with a crooked smirk. “You took so long setting up your shots that we don’t even have time to do the drills I wanted to do.”

Alexia rolled her eyes, stepping past you and giving a nudge of her elbow into your ribs. “Karma.”

“That’s not what karma means, Ale.”

“It is today.”

She hoisted the bag of footballs over one shoulder and grabbed the fake wall with her other arm, all executed with far too much ease and grace. It wasn’t until she’d made ten steps towards the main building that you started moving, jogging until you fell into step beside her.

The peaceful solitude of the early morning was officially evaporating.

Down the walkway, the door to the complex swung open with a loud clang, releasing a wave of chatter and laughter and chaos.

Alexia held the door open, letting you step through first into the shaded corridor.

Inside, the changing room was definitely no longer the quiet sanctuary you’d left half an hour ago. It was a storm of loud reggaeton blasting from Patri’s portable speaker, boots slapping against wooden benches, and half the squad shouting over each other about where they got their matchas from that morning.

You walked over to your cubby, dropping your weight onto the bench with a low breath and reaching down to grab your gym bag.

You were digging through the front pocket, pushing past rolls of tape and a tangled mess of phone chargers in search of your GPS tracker, when a shadow fell across your cubby.

“Looking for this?”

You looked up to find Alexia standing right between your knees. In her palm, the small tracking pod you’d just been rooting through your bag for.

“You left it on the center console.” She said, her voice slipping underneath the wall of reggaeton and shouting.

“Life saver.” You sighed, reaching out to take it.

“Turn around.”

You paused, hand freezing in the air as you looked at her. Then, you wordlessly followed her command.

You pivoted on the wooden bench, turning your back to her and grabbing the hem of your training jumper, pulling it up just enough to expose the tight black material clinging to your ribs.

Alexia stepped into your space, the fronts of her knees lightly pressing against the backs of yours. Her fingers were warm as they slipped beneath the fabric, taking the pod and sliding it smoothly into the small pouch resting between your shoulder blades.

She didn’t pull away immediately after, though.

Her palm lingered, sliding down to rest flat against the side of your waist. Her thumb pressed in, giving the soft skin there a firm squeeze, before she pulled your jumper back down over your hips.

“There you go.” She murmured, her breath brushing against the shell of your ear.

A shiver ran up your spine, and Alexia stepped back. She casually grabbed her bottle from her locker as if her touch hadn’t just made your pulse spike.

You swallowed, keeping your eyes glued to the locker in front of you while you forced your breath to stay even, waiting a beat before turning back around.

By the time you stood up and grabbed your own bottle, Alexia was already waiting by the door again, her bottle tucked against her arm as she leaned against the frame. She met your gaze with an unbothered, perfectly composed expression, though the slight tilt of her head dared you to make something of it.

You didn’t. Instead, you slung your towel over your shoulder and walked up to join her.

Leaving the changing room meant stepping straight into the current of the team. The hallway was a crowded mess of studs clacking against concrete, players jostling past each other, and half-finished conversations being shouted over the music still echoing from the open changing room door.

You and Alexia fell into step naturally, like always, your shoulders bumping together with every second or third stride.

“If Patri keeps playing that playlist before nine in the morning, I’m hijacking the speaker.” You complained, leaning ever so slightly closer to her as you spoke just so she could hear… totally.

Alexia let out a soft chuckle, her arm brushing yours as she adjusted her grip on her bottle. “Good luck taking it from her. We gave the responsibility to her one time on the bus after a bad game and she’s not let go of it since.”

“I have my ways.”

“Your ways usually involve begging me to do it for you.” She pointed out, glancing sideways at you with a brow raised in challenge.

“And you usually do.” You countered with a smirk.

A breathless laugh bubbled out of her chest. “Only because I can’t stand her music choices either.”

Forty minutes later, the coolness of the morning had turned into a hot glare beating down on the grass.

The coach’s whistle below with two blasts, signaling the end of a grueling, high-intensity drill that had everyone gasping for air. The squad broke from concentration instantly, dragging their feet toward the touchline where the equipment staff had set out the drinks coolers.

You reached the crate first, wiping a line of sweat from your forehead with the back of your wrist. Your lungs were burning pleasantly, your legs heavy from the constant press.

You bent over the cooler, scanning the cluster of identical bottles. You completely ignored the bold writing of your own number, your eyes instinctively zeroing in on the permanent marker 11 drawn onto the white cap beside it.

You snatched the bottle out of the box, popped the top, and took a long drink of the near-freezing water.

“Oye. That’s mine.”

You lowered the bottle, wiping your mouth with the back of your hand as you turned to find Alexia heading towards you.

She was breathing heavily, a fine sheen of sweat glistening along her face and shoulders. She was tugging the collar of her shirt up to dab her face, her eyes fixed on the bottle in your hand with a flat glare. She held one hand out, palm up, in silent expectation.

Predictably, you did not hand it over. You took an agonisingly deliberate, prolonged sip, maintaining unbroken eye contact the entire time.

The corner of Alexia’s mouth twitched. She tried to maintain her stern, captain-at-work expression, but a tiny curve broke through at the side of her lips anyway.

Before she could get a word in, you flicked your wrist and squeezed, spraying a fine stream of water straight into her face.

Alexia flinched back with a wide-eyed gasp. “Oye!”

You didn’t even get the chance to turn and run. Her long arm reached out and hooked around your shoulders before you could even take a step, trapping you against her side in a firm headlock. She snatched the bottle right out of your hand, flipped it upside down, and squeezed it directly over your hair.

“Alexia! Stop– it’s freezing!” You whined, squirming against her chest as the ice-cold liquid poured down the back of your neck and soaked through your jumper.

“Wakes you up better than the coffee, no, cariño?” She teased mid-laugh, before she finally released you with a victorious grin.

Only a few yards away, Vicky was leaning against the bench, resting her hands on her hips as she watched the display with a dry expression. She nudged Torre with her elbow.

“Look at them,” Vicky muttered under her breath, shaking her head with an amused roll of her eyes. “Honestly. They should just get married and spare the rest of us the performance!”

Torre snorted into her towel, taking a sip from her own drink. “Don’t say it too loud. They’re both oblivious to it.”

“Then maybe I should be louder, so they can finally get over themselves and get on with it.”

Torre laughed, “You go tell Ale she’s oblivious. I’ll make sure your favourite boots end up in your coffin with you.”

You didn’t hear a word of their exchange over the sound of your own laughter as you finally broke free from Alexia’s grip. You wiped the stream of cold water out of your eyes, gasping for breath, and landed a gentle playful slap against her stomach.

Alexia didn’t flinch, just grinned, unbothered, and threw her head back to take a long gulp from the same nozzle you’d just used.

“That was mean.” You said, though there was zero heat in it as you pushed soaked strands of hair back off your forehead.

“I could’ve been meaner. I don’t like people touching my stuff.” She said, wiping her chin. “You got off lucky.”

“Because I’m your favourite.” You preened.

…Only to grow a little bashful at the almost immediate nod she gave in response.

“Exactly.” She hummed, before she dumped the bottle back into the cooler and went to the growing huddle around the coaching staff.

God, she was really making it difficult today.

—

The squad filed into the main building at 11:45– the high energy of the morning had calmed into a pleasant fatigue as the training session came to an end.

The post-training routine was a domestic rhythm you both knew by heart.

You changed out of your soaked training kit into a fresh t-shirt and shorts, tossing your dirty gear into the laundry bin in the middle of the room. Alexia was at her cubby beside yours, taking her time to brush her damp hair before securing it back into its usual bun.

Neither of you talked much while changing. But every few second, a knee would bump a knee, a shoulder would brush an arm in the narrow space between your cubbies. Neither of you moved away at any point.

When the clock on the wall hit 12, the team began drifting out in small groups, heading down the hallway toward the other side of the building for the daily tactical review.

The classroom was cool and dim, a welcome contrast to the heat outside. The rows of chairs sloped down toward a massive projector screen at the front, where the assistant coach was already setting up his laptop.

Without needing to discuss it, you and Alexia walked straight to the middle row, sliding into the two seats dead center. No one on the team ever bothered to challenge a two-year-old habit.

Alexia sank into her chair with an exhale, stretching her legs out under the row in front of her. She unzipped her jumper a little, leaning back in the chair.

As the rest of the squad trickled in, Kika and Patri claiming the row behind you, Vicky and Clara taking seats near the aisle, Alexia reached up and rested her right arm across the top of your chair. Her fingers hovered just inches from the back of your neck, the wrist cuff of her hoodie brushing against the collar of your t-shirt.

You settled back into your seat, turning your head towards her. “You think he’s actually going to show all thirty minutes of the mid-block? I was hoping we’d get out early today.”

“He told me this morning it’s twenty,” Alexia murmured as the projector lit up at the front. “Which means it’ll be forty-five.”

A knowing smile tugged at your lips. “You could use your captain powers and cut him off.”

“I could,” She agreed, her hazel eyes catching the blue glow from the projector screen as she looked over at you. “But then I’d have to listen to him complain in the coaches’ meeting later about how we ran out of time. I’m choosing peace.”

“Coward.”

Alexia’s eyes narrowed into a dangerous but fond glare, her thumb brushing the edge of your collar in a silent warning before dropping back to the plastic frame of your chair.

The lights clicked off completely, plunging the room into shadow, illuminated only by the glaring rectangle of the screen. The assistant coach cleared his throat at the front of the room, stepping up with his laser pointer to begin analysing the tactical clips of the upcoming weekend’s opponents.

For the first ten minutes, the room was quiet, save for the occasional click of a pen or someone coughing.

Then the clip paused on a freeze frame of the opponent’s back line, highlighting a massive gap between their right back and right centerback.

You leaned your head sideways, tilting it toward Alexia’s until your temple was practically resting against the side of her forehead.

“Look at that spacing,” You whispered, so quietly that only she could hear over the coach’s droning voice. “You could park your Cupra in that gap.”

Alexia let out a sudden burst of a laugh, before cutting it out immediately and attempting to disguise it as a cough.

Luckily, the coach ignored it. But three heads turned around in their seats to look up at the middle row, and you felt holes being burnt into the back of your head.

“Keep it down, you two,” Patri whispered from where she’d leaned over the back of Alexia’s chair, nodding toward the screen while her eyes danced with obvious sarcasm. “Some of us are actually trying to figure out how we’re going to cover for the pair of you while you’re busy flirting in the midfield.”

“We’re not flirting,” Alexia grumbled back, not bothering to turn around or shift an inch away from where her forehead was still practically resting against yours. “We’re analysing space.”

“Right. Space.” Kika muttered from the seat next to Patri, letting out a scoffing snort into the sleeve of her hoodie. “Is that what we’re calling it now?”

You pressed your lips together into a tight line, staring resolutely ahead at the freeze-frame still up. The heat behind your ears returned with a vengeance, surely burning bright in the dark room, but you forced your face to remain completely blank.

The brunette shifted, the ease to her posture vanishing. She pulled her forehead away from yours and sat up straight in her chair, her arm slipping off the back and back into her own lap. Her jaw tightened, her eyes fixed on the screen ahead.

“Focus on the clip, guys.” Alexia mumbled, tone dropping to the stern voice she used when she wanted a conversation shut down immediately.

Patri held up two hands in mock surrender, slumping back into her seat with a knowing grin while Kika just shook her head.

Beside Alexia, you kept your attention glued straight ahead, your chest tight. The effortless bubble you’d been floating in all morning had popped, replaced by a prickly self-consciousness. You crossed your arms over your chest, deliberately creating a few inches of space between your shoulder and hers, terrified that even a slight brush of fabric would look like proof to the people sitting behind you.

Alexia didn’t reach out. She didn’t graze your knee, and she didn’t look over.

She sat still, her hands folded in her lap, staring at the defensive line on the wall. But under the light of the screen, you could see the tense line of her profile, the flex of her jaw.

She was doing the exact same thing you were– building a wall, shutting down the thought before it could take root, and pretending the elephant in the room didn’t exist.

The review wrapped up shortly after, but the air between your seats had gone stale. And when the lights finally flicked back on, the team began to file out into the corridor, stretching their arms and yawning.

You stood quickly, keeping your eyes averted to the carpet as Alexia rose beside you, her movements stiff. Neither of you looked at each other, still. Nobody said a word.

You still fell into step towards the exit, though keeping an unusual two feet of space between your shoulders as you merged into the crowd shuffling through the doorway.

The silence between you two was loud, and the group trailing behind you took advantage of it immediately.

“Who can believe that this is our Capi,” Kika’s voice piped up from a few paces back as she nudged Vicky. “Stern and terrifying with the rest of us, but as soon as she’s next to her, she’s a complete softy.”

“Right?” Vicky chimed in with a grin, raising her voice a bit so it carried down the hallway. “Anyone else takes her water bottle on the pitch and they get lectured. She does it and Alexia practically proposes afterwards.”

You kept your mouth in a rigid line, staring dead ahead at the exit doors. Your pulse was hammering wildly in your eyes, a burning wave of panic washing over you. They know. Everyone can see it. You’ve been making a fool of yourself.

“It’s the special privileges.” Cata added from the side. “Nobody else gets the VIP treatment. Maybe we all need to buy Ale a coffee each morning.”

“Must be nice being the favourite.” Pina joined in with a hum. “I wonder what else is the secret to keeping Ale wrapped around your finger like that.”

You felt your throat pull tight, your chest constricting until it was actually a little difficult to breathe.

They were just teasing, you knew that; they loved nothing more than to tease Alexia. It was basically their love language for her.

You kept your hands tucked deep into the pockets of your shorts, desperately trying to keep your posture neutral, terrified that if you looked over at Alexia or said a word, your face would betray the absolute disaster happening inside your head.

Beside you, Alexia’s jaw was set so hard the muscle visibly flexed beneath her skin. She wasn’t smiling. Wasn’t tossing back a sarcastic joke like she usually did. She surely could feel how rigid you’d gone beside her, how withdrawn you were, and to her every loud joke from the squad felt like a hammer coming down on a delicate glass wall.

“Honestly, it’s not even favouritism anymore. It’s just pathetic,” Clara said, laughing along with the rest of them around. “Just hook up already so the rest of us don’t have to walk on eggshells around your tension or have our teeth rot from the sweetness of you both.”

Alexia stopped dead in her tracks in the middle of the hallway.

She turned around slowly, her eyes flashing with a fierce authority. “That’s enough.”

Her voice was firm, a cutting whip that vibrated off the walls. The hallway went silent. Clara’s laugh died, Vicky froze mid-stride, and Kika even took a subtle step back.

“Cut it off. Right now.” Alexia commanded as she glared down at the group of younger players. “Stop making up stupid stories because you’re bored after a meeting. We’re teammates, that is all we are, it is all we will be, so stop making things weird and get to the dining hall.”

It is all we will be.

Said with a finality to Alexia’s voice that left no room for anyone – including you – to think otherwise.

And with it, every tiny detail from the morning turned inside out.

The seamless handoff of her coffee in the car. How her thumb had hovered near your jaw when she fixed your collar. The soft, murmured there you go beside your ear after slipping the GPS pod into its place. How her shoulder had pressed into yours on the bench.

It wasn’t a physical manifestation of her feelings. It wasn’t something real.

It was just Alexia, being the affectionate person she was. She was like that with everybody. She gave everyone and their dog a forehead kiss if the moment allowed for it.

You didn’t wait to see the girls’ reactions. You couldn’t. If you stayed in that corridor for one more second, you knew the hot sting behind your eyes was going to spill over right in front of them.

So without looking at Alexia and checking to see who was watching, you turned and slipped past the quieted group, pushing through the side doors back towards the locker room.

It was vast, cool, and completely empty. The air conditioning felt deafening. You hurried to your cubby, your hands shaking so much it took three tries to untangle the strap of your gym bag.

You turned to the door as you pulled it over your shoulder, before your mind hit a wall.

You hadn’t driven that day. Alexia had driven you, like she did every single morning.

There was absolutely no way you were asking her for a ride, even if someone paid you. The thought of sitting in the suffocating silence of her Cupra for the drive home made your stomach churn; you couldn’t do it.

Couldn’t sit in that passenger seat where she’d casually rest her arm against the console, holding your gaze before the light turned green, knowing what she truly thought of the dynamic between you.

You bypassed the main entrance entirely, in the end. You pushed through the side door near the medical suites and stepped out into the blinding afternoon glare.

The walk home was half an hour along the residential stretch bordering the facility. The afternoon sun beat down on your shoulders, heating the dark fabric of your jumper, but your hands remained ice-cold and trembling, tucked deep into your pockets as your trainers struck the pavement.

Every step was a punishment.

Your brain looped through every single month of teasing you’d tried so hard to brush off over the past… year, nearly two.

It hadn’t started in the hallway, it’d been building for a long while.

There were the sly grins from a number of the girls when Alexia saved the seat beside her for you. The casual comments during rondos when Alexia would pull you aside for an extra whisper of advice.

Then there was the running joke that you two came as a package deal, that you couldn’t be found without the other within arm’s reach.

The first few weeks of it were fine. Until it became a constant, unable to go one day without it.

You had always forced a smile through it, laughing sometimes, generally keeping your mouth shut and desperately convincing yourself it was just harmless locker room banter.

Except hearing Alexia explicitly shut it down – calling their teasing a stupid story, declaring with such coldness that is all we will be – made every single past memory curdle into pure humiliation.

You’d been making an absolute fool of yourself. Everyone saw through you. The team knew you were harbouring something, and Alexia had finally been pushed to the edge of her patience by it.

She tried following after you. The door to the locker room swung open and slammed against the wall.

“Hey–” She began, her voice trailing off as her eyes met only empty space.

She checked the treatment room and the bathroom– nothing. And your stuff from your cubby was gone.

“Fuck.” She muttered under her breath.

She turned on her heel and headed out the building into the car park.

The midfielder headed straight for her usual parking spot, but it sat alone under the shade of the trees, the passenger side vacant.

She stood there, in the middle of the car park, her hand coming up to push her hair back off her face, her jaw clenched tight. A knot of dread embedded itself in the pit of her stomach.

She’d snapped just to shut the team up, to protect you from being made fun of and making you feel uncomfortable– and instead, she had watched you walk away without a word, without even a glance.

Fuck.

—

By eight that evening, your apartment had been dark.

The heat of the day had faded into a cool dusk, but you hadn’t bothered to turn on the lounge lights.

You sat on the edge of the sofa, your legs pulled up against your chest, staring at the phone face down on the cushion beside you.

It had buzzed four times since you got home.

Two missed calls from Alexia, followed by two texts that you hadn’t opened but could still read clear as day on the lock screen.

Where are you? Did you walk home?

Please answer me, let me know you got home safe

Your chest ached with a consistent throb. You couldn’t reply. What could you even say?

Sorry for making things weird? Sorry for letting everyone think there was something to tease us about?

You ignored the device for as long as you could. Watching TV, old games, you tried watching three different films before turning them off, even picked up the book from your coffee table that’d been collecting dust for the past few weeks. You did manage to get through eight chapters of it though, finally.

A while later, as you clambered into bed for the night, you did reach for the dreaded brick. The screen illuminated your pale face in the dark room as you put it on do not disturb, just so that the notifications would go away.

And then you made a terrible mistake.

You opened social media just to find another distraction, but the algorithm was relentless. Clips of the two of you popped up on your feed within just a few scrolls.

One, a high definition clip from a game a couple weeks ago. Slowed down and zoomed in on the pitch right after the final whistle.

The camera caught Alexia walking up behind you, her arm sliding around your waist to pull you back against her side. Her head dipping low as she whispered something into your ear that made you laugh.

Comment after comment, a wall of speculation. Analysing every single frame.

A wave of nausea hit so hard, you slammed the phone down onto the bed beside you.

It wasn’t just the team, a private joke between teammates. It felt as if the whole fucking world was watching and picking apart every gesture you had foolishly thought was private and special.

And today, Alexia had been forced to stand in a hallway and publicly disavow you to protect her own boundaries.

You rolled over and buried your face into the pillow, listening to the sound of cars passing along the street.

The next morning, you wouldn’t be waiting at the curb at 8:15AM for a dark grey Cupra, two coffees in hand from the cafe round the corner you always walked to before she picked you up.

You would leave in your own car at 8AM, get to the complex before anyone else, and get ready on your own instead of waiting for Alexia and fitting in some drills.

You were going to give Alexia exactly what it was she wanted, what the two of you needed.

Space. Allowing you to exist as distant, professional teammates.

That first morning set a precedent. It was a transition that wasn’t clean, more like a slow bleed that eroded two years in a matter of days.

On Tuesday, you arrived at the training ground before anybody else. You sat in the dressing room on your own, when your phone pinged with your security camera notification.

A familiar Cupra slowed down as it approached the usual pickup spot by the curb. It idled, its exhaust puffing into the morning air, waiting.

You sat on the bench, alone. You watched as the car lingered for three minutes before it finally pulled away, driving off– alone.

A few other teammates arrived before Alexia did. Clara was one of them, and she kept her head down as she readied herself for the day, uncharacteristically silent and shy. Cata came in like nothing happened, and so did Pina. Patri walked in with an apologetic, sad smile at the sight of the locker to the side of you unoccupied.

Then Alexia walked in finally, a little flustered, holding a cardboard coffee cup in her hand from the same spot you got yours from. You glanced away as she walked over, managing to reach back and slot your GPS pod into place on your own.

The brunette stilled at the doorway momentarily, her hair in slight disarray and the bags under her eyes more prominent than she normally let them be. Her eyes swept the room, instantly locking onto you beside her space. She took a step toward you, rather than her locker, but you kept your head down, lacing your boots with rigid focus.

She cleared her throat and headed for her cubby instead.

During that morning’s tactical session on the pitch, the distance became physical. When it was called to pair up during passing lines, you stepped towards Patri, casually striking up a conversation about her dinner plans.

Alexia stood in the center of the pitch, holding a bib, her eyes tracking your every move. She didn’t call you over. But when you caught her glance as you rotated stations, the sheer hurt in her expression was enough to make you look away in shame.

When Wednesday rolled around, the rest of the team had already realised something was wrong.

The banter that usually filled the rooms, the hallways, the fields, was a lot more hushed than usuall. A walking-on-eggshells atmosphere.

You hated it. It was worse than the teasing.

During the morning session in the gym, you picked a stationary bike at the far end of the row, putting in your airpods even though no music was playing.

Through the mirror wall, you watched Irene walk up to Alexia while she was on the foam roller. The defender bent down, saying something quiet to her, her face etched with genuine concern.

Alexia didn’t look up; she kept her eyes fixed on the floor, shaking her head once, her lips set in a flat line that warned anyone against pushing further.

Later in the dining hall was worse. Everybody found their usual seats, at their usual tables.

Everyone but you.

For the first time in two years, you sat three seats away from Alexia.

The meals were dished out, and nobody mentioned it. The whole team was making an effort to not address it, even if it was driving each and every one of you crazy. The team dynamic hadn’t been so frosty in years.

“Can somebody pass the p–”

“Will you pass over the pep–”

The table went silent when you both spoke. Cutlery froze, jaws paused mid-chew.

Then Ewa handed Alexia, who was closest to her, the pepper. Alexia sprinkled some over her omelette, before looking up at you.

You avoided her stare and carried on eating your own meal. Pepper be damned, and all. Alexia set it down in the center of the table and kept her eyes on her plate for the rest of dinner.

God, you knew you were being so fucking dramatic. But if you’d reached for the pepper shaker from her and your fingers brushed, the slightest and smallest contact– you knew the dam would have burst.

Wednesday bled into Thursday with a sleepless night and moments of weakness where you considered putting in a transfer request.

No.

Too far.

But the routine you’d built over two years didn’t just disappear with your avoidant habits that you thought you’d grown out of. The bone-deep familiarity left phantom limbs everywhere you went.

During a high-intensity rondo, the ball bounced uncontrollably off one of the youngster’s feet, hitting you squarely in the chest and knocking the air right out of your lungs. You stumbled back, bending over with your hands on your knees as you wheezed for breath.

Before her brain could catch up to the boundaries, Alexia broke from her position on the opposite side of the circle. She took two fast, panicked strides toward you, her hand already reaching out to catch your shoulder.

“Hey, are you–”

“I’m fine.” You choked out, taking a step backwards before her hand could touch you. “I’m fine, just winded.”

Alexia’s hand hovered in the space between you, unsure what to do with itself after not reaching its planned destination. She swallowed hard, the silence stretching so taut that even the assistant coach refrained from blowing his whistle.

“Right.” Alexia said quietly. “Right. Good.”

She stepped away. The midfielder returned to her spot in the circle, but her focus was gone.

For the remaining twenty minutes of the drill, the most precise passer in European football misplaced three simple five-yard taps. Nobody called her out on it. Nobody dared.

Friday was the first time all week she tried to address it. Because the distance had become a dull pain that neither of you had the energy to fight anymore, but she wasn’t one to back down easily, and definitely not last.

Media duties wrapped up in the afternoon, and the squad was given an hour of free gym time before the weekend match preparation. You were sitting on the bench in the main corridor, finishing a protein bar, when a pair of white Nike trainers stopped right in front of you.

You, obviously, didn’t need to look up to know who it was. The subtle citrus-and-cedar scent reached you first.

“You’re driving here on your own tomorrow for the bus?”

Alexia’s voice was quiet. Stripped of its usual morning warmth and teasing confidence. It sounded tired, worn down.

You unnecessarily rolled the wrapper up into a ball, and kept your head down. “Yes. It’s easier.”

“It’s not easier.” She fought tentatively. “It’s been our tradition for almost two years. And I pass your street every morning anyway.”

She didn’t. She took a left at the traffic lights to cut through your neighbourhood, adding four minutes to her journey instead of continuing straight ahead.

“Alexia, please.” You said, finally tilting your head up to look at her.

The sight of her hit like a physical blow.

Dark shadows rested under her eyes, her face paler than normal. And her eyes, frighteningly shy, frighteningly unsure. For someone like her, those two things came on their own like everyone else, of course. But never at once, and never so harsh.

She looked as exhausted as you felt, the lines around her mouth tight with unsaid words.

“I’m just giving you what you wanted.” You said with a terrible honesty. “No making things weird. Just teammates.”

“When did I ever say that is what I wanted?” She whispered with a devastating firmness. “When did I say that, hm?”

You met her head on. You weren’t one to back down, either.

“Just a few days ago, in this very corridor, in front of numerous of our teammates.” You answered coldly. “If I remember correctly. Hm?”

Alexia stared down at you, her jaw working as she fought against whatever was rising in her throat. Her hand twitched at her side as if she wanted to reach out and grab your arm, to take you back into the Cupra, back into the quiet 8:15AM bubble where none of this existed.

But the fight left her. The tension left her shoulders, and they sagged forward. She let out a slow breath through her nose, and turned to walk away.

“Saps què vull. Si us plau.”

You had no idea what she said. And before you decipher the crack in her voice, she turned the corner and left you alone in the same hallway and same manner you’d done to her days before.

Then came Saturday. An away game against Badalona.

Matchdays were usually when the rhythm between the two of you was at its most fluid.

Drive to the training facility together. Fifth row on the right side of the bus. She’d take the window; you’d take the aisle. She’d hand one airpod over to you and slip the other in her ear, before leaning her head against the glass as you picked a playlist to put on.

On longer coach rides, her head would eventually loll against your shoulder as she drifted off. Or the two of you would lose yourselves in a card game that she would eventually win (because she would cheat), or you’d argue the entire ride about what film to put on, only to arrive five minutes into whatever you’d eventually chosen.

Instead, you drove to the training ground, arriving just as the bus was waiting near the entrance doors.

You kept your head low as you stowed your matchday bag in the luggage bay below. Heading up the narrow steps into the bus, you didn’t look back towards the fifth row.

You knew she’d be waiting there.

You dropped into the third row ahead of her, slumping back into the window seat and clamping a pair of headphones over your ears before anyone could say a word.

Two rows back, Alexia stared ahead.

She sat in her usual spot, her knees angled toward the empty space beside her. On the seat, her coat– the wordless placeholder she had laid down ten minutes ago to ensure no one else sat there.

She watched you sit at the front. Watched you adjust your headphones and stare straight ahead at the rain-streaked windshield.

Beside her, Vicky paused in the aisle, looking from the empty seat with the jacket, to you at the front, and then down at Alexia. Alexia didn’t move for a long moment. Her eyes never moved. Until she reached out, picked up her jacket, and pulled it into her lap. She didn’t offer the seat to Vicky, or call your name.

She only turned her head toward the window, her reflection pale against the glass, and held onto her coat until her knuckles turned white.

The drive wasn’t long at all. But it was a study in absolute torture.

Every time the bus took a turn or hit a bump on the road, your eyes flicked to the wide rearview mirror suspended above the driver’s dashboard. And every single time, in the reflection, you caught her.

Alexia wasn't sleeping. She wasn't listening to music. She was staring straight down the central aisle, her attention always on you.

Whenever you shifted in your seat, her posture went rigid. When you reached up to adjust your hair, her eyes tracked the movement with a desperate, starved intensity that made your heart hammer against your ribs.

She wasn't even hiding it anymore. The captain who usually maintained impenetrable control on matchdays looked completely unspooled, anchored only by the back of your neck a few meters ahead of her.

When the bus finally rumbled to a halt at Badalona’s stadium, the squad unbuckled with anticipatory chatter.

You stood up quickly, wanting to be the first off, but as you turned into the aisle, you ran straight into the wall of players shuffling forward.

And there she was, stopped barely six inches from you in the narrow corridor.

She looked prepared for the game ahead of her on the surface. You saw in her eyes, she was wrecked. Her eyes were pained. They searched your face, pleading, demanding, unravelling– looking for any crack in the visor you’d put up days ago.

Then she breathed something out that sounded suspiciously like your name, as if she’d been holding herself back from saying it since the last time the two of you properly spoke.

Your breath hitched in your throat. Every defense you had built over the week threatened to shatter right there on the floor of the bus.

Then someone, probably Cata or Kika or Pina, coughed from a few rows back to get Alexia moving again.

Her eyes didn’t budge. You swallowed down the lump in your throat, forcing your face to stay blank. You looked away. And she didn’t say another word.

She took a step to the side, pressing her back against the side of the seats to let you go.

You walked past her, your shoulder brushing hers just enough for the citrus and cedar scent to wrap around you one last time, and stepped off the bus into the rain.

Wet grass chewed up under studs on the pitch, the continuous drizzle making every turn of the ankle a deliberate effort.

The game played out in a blur of muddy tackles and rain slicked passes as shouts of instructions cut through the miserable weather.

Two goals were scored in quick succession by Ewa in the first half, but the second half was much more of a scrap than a breeze like the first. And it was made worse by the way the invisible rift between you and Alexia radiated across the grass like a live wire.

Normally the two of you operated on a weirdly telepathic-like wavelength in the middle third. The team operated on wordless instructions based on the slightest body adjustment, but between you both? It transcended team chemistry.

A glance from her meant a dummy run from you; a subtle shift in your hips signaled to her exactly where to place a thirty-yard diagonal ball into space.

Against Badalona in the rain, that connection was severed.

You played around her, through her, beside her. But never with her.

It wasn’t even purposeful.

(You think.)

The two goal lead remained until the 83rd minute, even though the friction on the pitch mirror-imaged the exhaustion in your chest. The weather and the physicality was making it unnecessarily brutal for what was supposed to be an easily winnable game.

Then, a breakthrough. Built from pure chaotic chance.

Patri won a header on the edge of the box after a Badalona corner, driving the ball towards Kika who sent it down the left flank toward Vicky. Vicky ran with it, taking four aggressive touches down the line and drawing Badalona’s last player out of position, before whipping a low skidding cross into the eighteen yard box which Ewa was darting towards, beating her player in the process.

The goalkeeper got a touch to it, but she misjudged the timing due to the rain, and it pinged off her shin and took a looping bounce onto the edge of the box as Ewa just missed it.

Instinct took over you.

You threw yourself towards the gap, leaping slightly ahead of your mark to cushion the ball down with the side of your boot. It hit the grass once, and without waiting for it to settle, you lashed your foot right through it.

The contact was sweet; a clean strike that echoed around the stadium.

The ball burned through the rain, slicing well past the goalkeeper’s outstretched fingers where she hadn’t had time to get off the ground, and tearing into the top right corner of the net.

The blaugrana fans erupted into a roar, and you sprinted off towards the corner flag. The rain whipped against your face as the overwhelming rush of adrenaline washed out the numbness that had encased your chest all week.

You slid onto your knees in the wet grass near the corner flag, throwing your arms wide as the weight of the last five days seemed to burst right out of you. And within seconds, you were buried under a wave of red and blue shirts. Hands slapped your back, fingers ruffled through your wet hair, and the chorus of praise was shrill in your ears.

Thirty yards out, sitting on the waterlogged turf just in front of the halfway line, was Alexia.

She had gone down in a hard collision in the counter-attack that was waved off, correctly, with advantage by the referee. Her long legs sprawled out over the grass, mud caked up along the side of her thigh and shorts.

She hadn’t gotten up to join the celebrations by the corner flag, she just sat there. Her hands rested flat on the cold grass behind her to prop herself up, her head tilted slightly backward as rain ran down the line of her cheekbones and dripped off her chin.

Her chest rose and fell in ragged breaths, the soaked strands of her hair clinging to her forehead and neck. Her attention locked onto you through the narrow gaps between your teammates’ shoulders. You managed to find her through the chaos and the drizzle.

There was no anger in her face, or frustration over the tackle she’d taken. A devastatingly heavy sigh escaped her lips, visible as a faint plume of mist in the chill air. It was accompanied by a look of unvarnished longing. She watched you celebrate with everyone else while she remained firmly on the outside, kept at the distance you had established.

She stayed on the ground for a while, letting the rain wash over her while the team still celebrated. Until finally, she pushed her palms against the grass and dragged herself up to her feet as the huddle disbanded. She didn’t wipe the mud from her legs, just raised her hands above her head and gave a few claps for the team.

Then her eyes dropped to her boots as she walked back toward the other side of the pitch to take her position for kick-off again.

The whistle blew for full time ten minutes later, a welcome sound that cut through the rain.

The 3-0 scoreline was secured along with the three points, but as the squad began to file off the pitch, nobody was as upbeat as they usually were after a clean sheet win. The victory was satisfying, but not in an adrenaline-packed way. It was soaked through with mud and rain and exhaustion.

You tugged your wet socks down as you neared the touchline after shaking hands, your entire kit down to your boots uncomfortably drenched. The rain was coming down harder now, cold droplets stinging your flushed skin.

A pair of muddy boots matched your stride.

“Good goal. That was a clean hit.”

Alexia’s voice was raspy, stripped raw by ninety minutes of shouting over the wind and five days of agonising silence. She was walking right beside you, though shoulders not brushing, her eyes fixed on the tunnel ahead and chest heaving a little.

You didn’t answer. You just kept walking, jaw set as you stepped over the turf by the dugouts.

She slowed her pace a fraction, turning her head toward you as the stadium faded behind you into the mouth of the tunnel.

“I said, it was a good strike.” She repeated, firmer this time. There was a defensive edge creeping into her tone, a subtle warning that she was at the end of her line.

You gave a single nod, dismissive, letting out a breath through your nose– a non verbal mhm that barely qualified as acknowledgement, and walked past the security towards the locker room.

That was it. The final straw.

Alexia’s hand shot out. Her fingers wrapped tight around your wet forearm, her grip iron-firm as she yanked you back, spinning you around to face her before you could take another step down the tiled corridor.

“Don’t do that.” She snapped, her eyes wide in warning. “Don’t you fucking do that to me.”

The week of pent-up frustration, humiliation, and exhaustion burst right through your chest. You shoved her hand off your arm with a violent flick of your wrist.

“Do what?” you snarled back, stepping right into her space, your voice echoing off the narrow concrete walls. “Give you space? Treat you like a teammate? That’s what you demanded, isn’t it? That’s what you yelled at everyone, anyway, right?”

Alexia opened her mouth to shoot back, but a noise down the corridor made her pause.

The Badalona team were filing into the tunnel right behind you. They stopped dead in their tracks, eyes wide as they took in the sight of Barcelona’s captain and her teammate standing nose-to-nose, trembling with rage in the middle of the corridor.

Her jaw clenched so hard you swore you heard her teeth creak. She looked at the players, her captain’s instincts kicking in for half a second, before her eyes snapped back to you.

Without giving you time to argue, she reached out, grabbed the front of your wet jersey, and pulled you forcefully through the nearest door on her left.

It was a cramped windowless equipment room, freezing cold and smelling of old footballs and dirty socks. The door slammed shut behind you with a reverberating clang, plunging the room into crappy fluorescent light.

You both stood there, barely three feet apart in the confined space, breathing heavily. The two of you were utterly drenched. Rain dripped from the ends of your hair onto the cracked floor, mud caked along your arms and shorts, smelling like wet grass and cold rain. Like the cupboard had been overtaken by a bunch of soggy dogs.

“Are you insane?!” You hissed, your voice venomous as you gestured at the closed door. “Dragging me into a room like that? What if someone saw?!”

“I don’t give a fuck who saw!” Alexia spat back in a hushed but no less fierce roar that practically vibrated in the small room. She stepped closer, somehow, towering over you as her breath came in ragged gusts. “I don’t give a single fuck about Cata, or Kika, or the media, or Badalona– anyone! I care about you, and you’ve spent five days treating me like a fucking stranger!”

“Now is not the time to speak about this, Alexia.” You said, trying to shove past her toward the door. You kept your voice down, but every nerve ending in your body was buzzing with volatile energy. “We are soaking wet, covered in mud, in an opponent’s stadium, five minutes after full time. Get out of my way.”

“No.” Alexia barked, blocking the door with her entire frame, her hand planting flat against the metal frame beside your head. “No, now is the perfect time to talk about it. Because I am done letting you slip away every time I get within two feet of you.”

You let out an incredulous laugh, shaking your head as rainwater dripped down your face still. “You’re unbelievable, truly, Al–”

“You ignore me now, and you ignored me during the entire game!” She cut you off, her eyes flashing wildly under the buzzing strip light. She leaned in, her chest rising and falling heavily, almost pressed against yours. “You say you are trying to be just teammates– do you think that is being a good teammate? You passed to everyone on that pitch except me! You can’t even live up to your own bullshit excuse!”

“Because it is a shit excuse!” You screamed somewhat softly, the words tearing out of your throat before you could stop them. You slammed your hands against her chest, shoving her back a couple of inches just to get air into your lungs. “I know it’s a bullshit excuse, Alexia! I know!”

Alexia stumbled back slightly, her eyes widening at the sudden crack in your composure, but she didn’t step away. “Then why are you doing it?”

“Because the alternative is so much worse!” You yelled, your voice breaking, raw and shaking with the exasperation as a result of the last week. “The alternative is a fucking nightmare.”

“What is the alternative?” Alexia demanded, shifting from anger to a frantic and desperate mess. She took a swift step back into your space, her hands hovering near your arms, terrified to touch you but unable to pull back. “Us being best friends again? Us going back to how we were on Monday morning? What’s so fucking terrible about that?”

“I don’t know!” You snapped, your hands flying up to push the wet hair back from your face. You were shaking all over, cold and furious, and utterly overwhelmed. “I don’t know, Alexia. I don’t know what the alternative is because every single time I think about going back to normal, all I hear is you in that hallway telling the entire team that we’re just teammates and that is all we will ever be.”

“I was shutting down a stupid conversation.” Alexia sighed, her voice rising, desperate to defend herself. “I was trying to stop them from teasing you, and me!”

“Well, congrats, because you made me feel like a complete fucking stranger.” Your voice cracked as the pain bled through your anger. “You stood there in front of everyone and acted like our friendship was just some embarrassing joke you had to kill off.”

“I did not treat you like a stranger!” Alexia spat back, taking another step forward. “I’m the one who tried to talk to you! I’m the one who waited at your house every morning! You’re the one who ran away.”

“Because you drew the line! God!” You shoved her again, needing to create any amount of distance. But she didn’t budge an inch, standing her ground as you pushed futilely at her rain-soaked jersey. “You drew it the second you said those words. You acted like admitting there was anything between us was the worst thing in the world. You made it crystal clear, Alexia. ‘We’re teammates, that’s all we are, that’s all we will ever be.’”

Alexia caught your wrists in her hands. She didn’t squeeze to hurt, of course, but her grip was unyielding, pinning your shaking hands against her chest and not letting you wind up to shove again. Beneath the damp fabric of her kit, you could feel the erratic thumping of her heart, hammering as frantically as your own.

“I was protecting you.” She whispered, her eyes searching yours with an intensity you hadn’t seen before. “They were making fun of you, they were making you uncomfortable. I saw how quiet you went after the tape review, you were pulling away from me.”

“I was pulling away because I was terrified.” You said, the hot sting of tears finally spilling over your eyelids and tracking scalding lines down your frozen cheeks. “I was terrified because everyone could see how I felt about you, and then you went out into that corridor and told them it was all in their heads. That… that I was basically nothing to you.”

“You think you’re nothing to me?”

Alexia’s voice dropped to a terrified, raspy whisper. Her hands slid up from your wrists, her cold fingers cupping the sides of your neck, her thumbs pressing firmly, possessively, against your jawline. She tilted your head up, forcing you to look at her– at the dark circles still carved deep under her eyes, at the tremble in her lower lip, at the unpolished ruin written across her face.

“Look at me,” She demanded in a firm tone again. “Look at me and tell me you actually believe that.”

You swallowed hard, chest heaving against hers properly now, that same fucking citrus-cedar scent the undertone of the cold grass and mud. The combination wrapped around you so thickly you couldn’t draw a clean breath.

“You said it, Ale,” You whispered with a small shake of your head, the movement small and contained in her hands. “You said it. That is all we will be.”

Alexia scoffed. A bitter and breathless sound left her throat as she let her head fall back for a second, her hands slipping from your jaw to drop to her sides. She turned her face toward the blank grey wall, pursing her lips tightly as her head shook in disbelieving anger.

You stood frozen, watching every line of her profile.

“Unbelievable.” Alexia muttered to the wall, before her head snapped back to you, eyes blazing with an unhinged desperation now. Her hands grabbed the damp fabric of your waist to haul you closer until there wasn’t a millimeter of air left between your mud-stained jerseys.

“Tell me you think I take a left at those fucking traffic lights every morning just for fun,” She demanded, quieter than you expected her to speak again but no less furious. “Tell me you think I sat on that bus today staring at the back of your head for the entire drive because you’re just a teammate. Tell me you think I lie awake at three in the morning checking my phone to see if you got home safe because I care about the team’s fucking chemistry or something. Please, tell me you think—”

You couldn’t take another word.

You lunged forward, grabbing the freezing wet collar of her kit, and slammed your mouth over hers.

The collision was brutal. A punishing amalgamation of two years of suffocating restraint. Five days of unbearable silence. Ninety minutes of physical exhaustion.

All of it, suddenly detonating at once.

Alexia let out a choked gasp against your lips before her hands flew up, her fingers tangling into the tangled mess of your hair at the base of your neck. She pulled you in harder, her mouth working against yours with a starved possessiveness that matched the beating of her heart against your ribs.

There was no gentleness to it; it was bruised, messy, urgent, the taste of cold rainwater and sweat mixing with the copper edge of adrenaline flooding your senses. Her grip on your waist tightened until her knuckles dug painfully through the fabric into your skin, dragging you flush against her body.

You gripped her shoulders, clawing at the damp material of her jersey, sliding up to hold her face as you kissed her deeper, pouring every ounce of the week’s anger and terrifying devotion right back into her mouth.

Her tongue slid against yours with an impatience that was almost violent as she parted your lips. A broken whimper slipped from the back of your throat, completely swallowed up by the frantic rhythm of her mouth. She answered the sound with a low groan of her own that vibrated deep in her chest, tilting her head to catch you deeper, her teeth grazing your bottom lip hard enough to leave it stinging.

Her hands shifted from your hair down to the small of your back, fingers hooking directly into the waistband of your muddy shorts to pull you so tight against her hips that you couldn’t tell where your breath ended and hers began. You nipped back at her top lip in retaliation, feeling the shudder that wracked through her in response.

She didn’t flinch away, she used it to press you back until your spine hit the metal door, her thigh wedging itself between yours as her thumbs dug into your jaw to keep your mouth pinned to hers, consuming every last drop of the air you were both suffocating for.

When you finally dragged your lips away, gasping for oxygen, you could barely stand up straight. Your knees buckled and you buried your face directly into the crook of her neck, dipping your forehead down to rest against her left shoulder.

Alexia didn’t let go. Her arms instantly wrapped around your back, locking you against her with a tight grip. She turned her head into the side of your neck, hiding her face in your damp hair, her chest heaving in waves against yours as the small room fell silent around you, bar the ragged breaths.

Her chest beat a steady pace against yours, eventually. Her fingers still twisted tightly into your jersey as if she believed letting go for even a second would bring the last five days rushing right back.

The quiet in the small room was absolute, save for the slow rasp of your breathing evening out together and the occasional drip of water from you both. Neither of you moved. Because what on earth came next?

Slowly, though, Alexia’s grip softened, but didn’t pull away. Her hands moved up from the waistband of your shorts, her thumbs coming up to rest against the sides of your neck.

She leaned her head back just an inch, resting her forehead against yours. When her eyes opened, the anger and the bitterness was gone; replaced by a regretful tiredness that made your chest ache in an entirely different way. The adrenaline was fading, leaving behind the freezing chill of damp kit and muddy skin.

An involuntary shiver rippled through your body, a wave of goosebumps breaking across your bare arms as the cool air of the equipment room combined with the wet clothes you adorned.

Alexia noticed instantly. Her fingers twitched against your neck, feeling the prickle of your skin beneath her touch. She shifted her weight, her gaze dropping to trace the goosebumps along your shoulders.

“You’re cold.” She murmured, her breath a warm, ghosting touch against your cheek, as if she wasn’t freezing herself too.

You looked down at your muddy boots, the cracks in the floor suddenly far more interesting than meeting her eyes. You sniffled once and gave her a single nod.

“Are you okay?” She whispered, laced with hesitation, unsure where else to start.

You cleared away the lump in your throat, your forehead still pressed to hers.

“No,” You admitted, words still trembling as they came out. “No, Ale. I’m not.”

Alexia flinched as if you’d struck her. Her thumbs smoothed over your jawline in a soothing motion.

“I know.” She mumbled, thick with regret. “I know.”

The brunette didn’t try to offer a quick fix, and for that you were grateful. She just kept her hands planted firmly on your face, the grounding warmth of her palms fighting off the cold settling into your bones.

The anger had burnt itself out, but the hurt was still an open wound.

“I broke everything, didn’t I?” Alexia said quietly, her eyes searching your face and begging for a truth she was terrified to hear. “Five days… and I let you believe you meant nothing to me.”

“You didn’t just let me believe it, Ale,” You replied, breath catching in your throat as the memories of the week came rushing back. “You built a wall. You stood there in that hallway and handed everyone else a the fucking sledgehammer to tear us down. I watched you. I stood there and listened to you make a joke out of my favourite thing in this entire world.”

Alexia closed her eyes, letting out a shaky exhale that brushed against your lips. “It was never a joke to me. God, cari, it was never a joke.”

“Then why?” The word slipped out small and more broken than you intended, stripped of all the venom you’d carried onto the pitch. “Why say that in front of everyone?”

“Can we stop pretending this is about everyone else?” Alexia said suddenly.

You blinked, cold droplets of water clinging to your eyelashes. “Then what is it about?”

Silence fell over the cramped room. The buzzing strip light overhead hummed in the stillness while Alexia stared down at you, her thumbs paused against your jaw. Her chest hitched once, twice, before she spoke in a tiny, fragile voice you had never heard before.

“You. Us.”

The two words hung between you, void of all her usual composure and authority.

“I didn’t just shut them up to stop them making you uncomfortable, cari,” Alexia went on, her gaze dropping to your chapped lips before locking back onto your eyes with a sincere honesty. “I stopped them because every time someone said it, I wished they were right. I was done with it all. I hated that everyone else got to decide what this was before I did.”

A knot in your stomach pulled impossibly tighter.

“I didn’t know how to be around you anymore.” You admitted in a downbeat voice.

“So you just disappeared?” Alexia asked, a sharp edge of pain returning as she spoke.

“Because you wanted it.” You shot back, shaking your head against her hands.

“I never wanted that!”

“Then why did you push me away?” You exclaimed. “You basically told me to back off, so I did!”

“I never said that.” She stated firmly, her thumbs digging into your jawline without meaning to. “I thought you were leaving anyway, though. I saw you pulling away after the tape review and I panicked. I tried to take control of it before… before this happened.”

You stared at her, your lungs burning, the door behind you pressing into your spine. The exact same arguments were bouncing off the narrow walls of the room, spiraling back on themselves in a draining loop.

“We’re doing it again.” You whispered. The anger properly drained out of you now, leaving only a hollow exasperation. “Ale, look at us. We’re just going round in the same fucking circle.”

Alexia stilled, her mouth slightly open, her eyes wide.

“You’re blaming me for leaving and I’m blaming you for pushing.” You said, shaking your head weakly, a tear slipping past your eyelashes to track through the dirt on your cheek. “We’re just standing here arguing about who hurt who first so we don’t have to talk about what actually happened. And… why it happened.”

You breathed out, your shoulders slouching and body trembling from the chill. You looked down at the space between your boots, where rain and mud pooled on the cracked floor, unable to hold her stare for another second.

“I missed you.” You admitted softly, small and fragile.

Alexia’s eyes softened, her thumbs brushing gently over your cheekbones to catch a stray tear. “I know. I missed you too.”

“No,” You choked out, shaking your head again, a fresh wave of stinging behind your eyes. “No, Ale, I really missed you. I missed you a ridiculous amount for what was only five days.”

You took an uneven breath, gesturing weakly with one hand between the two of you, the sheer absurdity of the last twenty minutes crashing over you.

“And now look at us,” You went on, your voice rising in a tearful rant. “We’re standing in a filthy equipment room, covered in mud, freezing to death, going in the exact same circles! And fuck, we just kissed like the world was ending, but now pretending like it didn’t even happen, arguing about how stepped back first! We’re driving ourselves crazy because everyone thinks we’re in love with each–”

“Because I am.”

Her words cut through your own like a blade.

The brunette froze as a result. Her eyes went wide with a flash of genuine shock at her own tongue. She hadn’t planned it, or filtered it. The truth had ripped its way out of her chest like it’d been begging to do for two years.

Alexia’s hands slipped from your jaw, her face crumbling into a look of panic as she realised what she’d just done. She closed her eyes tight, letting out a pained, disbelieving exhale, her head shaking once in rejection of her own slip-up.

“Forget I said that.” She rasped. “Just forget I said that. Please.”

Tears welled up faster now, blurring her frantic expression in front of you. Your fingers reached out to cling onto the wet fabric at her waist.

“No.” You whispered.

Another silence stretched between you.

“Say it again.” You demanded tentatively a few moments later.

Alexia stayed rooted to the spot. She didn’t move, didn’t speak, her mouth clamping shut as she stared at the wall behind you, terrified of crossing the threshold she had spent two years guarding.

“You say it again,” You said, too quietly to be deemed a whisper. “Or there was no point in all of this. No point in the last five days of fucking misery. No point in the last two years.”

That broke her.

The invisible wall she held up finally shattered into dust. Her head snapped back to you, her eyes swimming with raw vulnerability. Her hands gently came back up to frame your face, her palms trembling against your skin.

“I’m in love with you.” Alexia confessed, finally.

She pressed her forehead against yours, thumbs wiping at your tears as her breath hitched against your lips.

“I’m in love with you, cari. That was the whole fucking point. It’s been the entire point of the last two years.” She said, speaking in a manner that was scarily akin to pleading. “Don’t you see that?”

She held you with a forlorn, bruising tenderness. Her thumbs frantically smoothed over the muddy tear tracks on your skin, and her fingers dug deep into the tangled hair at the base of your neck.

“I was terrified to say it out loud because I thought I’d ruin it.” She breathed, cracking into a sobbing whisper against your forehead. “I thought if I admitted to it all, it would destroy what we had. So I kept quiet. But it was always you.”

A sound, a wet broken sob, escaped your chest. The weight of two years of doubt, secret glances, suppressed feelings, unexpressed adoration and devotion, it all collapsed at once, taking the last of your strength with it. Your hands flew up, clutching at her back, pulling her into you until your ribs ached against hers.

“You idiot.” You cried softly, burying your face in the cold curve of her neck. “God, we’re fucking idiots, Ale.”

She gave a gentle laugh, a relieved sob mixed into it, as her arms locked around your upper back and held you tightly against her.

“I’m in love with you too.” You stuttered out against her skin, the admission pouring out like a dam finally bursting. “I’m in love with you. I have been for so long. I never wanted anyone else, I never looked at anyone else. Just you.”

Alexia let out a shuddering exhale, her shoulders shaking as she squeezed her eyes shut, pulling you impossibly closer. The freezing temperatures of you both, the mud drying tight on your skin, the impending locker room confrontation– all of it drifted into complete insignificance against the heat of her forehead resting back against yours, her lips brushing softly, repeatedly, over yours in breathless relief.

There was nothing left to hide behind now.

No team, no rumours, no carefully constructed friendship you could pretend was uncomplicated if you just refused to look at it too closely.

The truth sat between the two of you in the cramped little equipment room with the rain still falling outside and dirty water pooling beneath your boots from the state of you both, somehow both enormous and painfully ordinary.

You were in love with her. She was in love with you.

Too soon to say the distinctive three words, but damn, not far off.

And for all the terror the admission had carried for two years, saying it aloud hadn’t changed the shape of Alexia beneath your hands.

Her arms still fit around you exactly as they had on Monday. Her forehead still found yours when her mind became too loud. Her thumb still moved back and forth against your cheek without thought, tracing the same soothing path it had probably traced a hundred times before either of you had been brave enough to ask what any of it meant.

Maybe that was the part that broke and mended your heart all in one the most.

It had all been happening quietly for twenty-four months. In cardboard coffee cups passed blindly across the centre console at quarter past eight. In an empty seat kept beside her on every bus, every plan. GPS trackers pushed into the back of each other’s shirts and water bottles stolen without permission, because it wasn’t needed.

A hand at your waist after a goal, a shoulder offered when the other was tired, an unnecessary four minute detour through your neighbourhood every single morning.

You’d spent so long waiting for love to announce itself that neither of you had noticed you were already living inside it.

Your fingers curled tighter into the damp material at Alexia’s back.

Five days.

That was all it took to discover the true size of the thing you’d both been so frightened of addressing.

Five days of trying to carve her out of routines that had grown around her like bone, only to discover there was no clean way to remove someone who had become so embedded into your heart, into every ordinary part of your life.

Alexia drew back only enough to look at you.

Her eyes were red, lashes still clumped together from rain and tears, mud dried in a faint streak across one cheek. She looked exhausted. Completely ruined, really.

Yet still, when her gaze found yours, something softened there with such uncomplicated relief that your chest gave another painful little tug.

You smiled first. It wasn’t much, barely anything at all.

Alexia answered it anyway.

Outside the room, the rest of your real lives were still waiting. There would be teammates and questions and the bus back to Barcelona. There would be another morning, another training session, another eight-fifteen. Eventually somebody would tease you again, and this time there would be no lie worth hiding behind.

But none of that mattered yet.

For now, Alexia rested her forehead against yours once more, despite the sound of people calling your names in the corridors as they searched for you, and you closed your eyes. You let the quiet settle around the two of you without fear for the first time all week.

You had spent two years terrified that loving her would be the thing that ruined everything. In the end, the only thing that had ever come close was pretending you didn’t.

—

this is not proofread and has been written over several weeks as i fought my way out of the depression trenches 😍 pls be kind lololol

i have more for these two but it was getting too long for tumblr; is there interest for a follow up blurb of the aftermath?

part 2?

yes

nooo

Remaining time: 13 hours 59 minutes

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