Chapter Text
"did you really mean it?"
trent's voice seeps through the speaker, intertwined with some sort of confusion. it comes after a prolonged, urged period of silence, poked with ruffling of sheets and anxious sighs.
jude wishes he knows the answer, but he himself knew he was bullshitting out of his arse. maybe it was an act of over compensating for the transfer to liverpool that fell through, but that excuse made him laugh.
"i don't know."
"what do you mean you 'don't know'?" there's a miniscule nip of anger that edges his voice, and jude feels his heart dip just a bit.
"trent, i just- i dunno, i just wanted to say something-"
"so you make a shady comment?"
jude keeps quiet on the other side, picking at the skin on his fingers as his lips melt into a frown.
"you're fucking sick, you know that?"
he's never heard such malice, from anyone really. quarrels on the pitch stem from the heat of the moment, so words hurled to others are more impulsive, and truly lack the undercurrent of raw emotion.
yet jude's heart and throat swap places, and suddenly, he feels like throwing up.
"trent, i'm sorry- trust me when i say that, please."
the man on the other side scoffs, and jude thinks if he strained hard enough, he would've heard the roll of trent's eyes.
"that doesn't do shit, jude. what you said made me feel like a right beg," trent exasperates. "had people calling me 'agent trent' just for it to seem as if i had no chance at all."
"that's not what it is!"
"but that's how it looks like, jude, God!" trent's tone is acrid and iced with something akin to disgust, and it's as if all of jude's strength weeps out of his skin. the extent of what he had done truly hits him now; he had been blind to it, even when people had lashed at him on twitter. but there's trent, someone who hovered upon the blurred line between friend and lover, that jude had, quite figuratively, punched in the gut.
it's not that it was intentional, but jude had thought that he had to express his allegiance somehow, yet he had presented it in such a distasteful, hypocritical way.
"you really confuse me, jude," trent voices harshly. "i don't know who you really are anymore."
that stills him.
"what?"
trent tries to find the right words to say, "did you ever even want to come here, genuinely?"
jude can't help but laugh, albeit angrily, "come on, don't be like that, t. you know i wanted to play for liverpool."
with you, he thinks to add on, but he composes himself.
"yet you shit on us to uplift another team," trent shakes his head in disbelief.
jude really wants to defend himself, but he knows that he's in every ounce of wrong. his eyes sting, and he uses the heels of his palms to quench it.
"hendo's shocked you said that, you know," trent laments, "can't believe that jude bellingham himself slandered his team."
and as disappointment strikes harder than anger, jude feels his heart sink that the newfound fact. jordan is his mentor, older brother if he wants to be a little bit more truthful, and now he's fucked things up.
"i regret it so much, believe me."
"yeah well," trent purses his lips, "regrets don't take back words."
"i didn't mean what i said, trent."
"then what did you want to say, huh? that you didn't want to play for a team that didn't qualify for the champions league next season? or that it's not about the money that you wanted to go to real? don't shit yourself."
his outburst silences jude, and trent sighs in order to calm himself.
"i thought i had to prove something, t."
trent doesn't reply for a few seconds.
"there's nothing to prove, jude. people already know how good you are."
"i know."
trent shuffles on the other side, dumping the phone on his lap after he covers himself with the duvet.
"you had to use that final of all things."
"i thought it would show how much i want to go there, the fans need to know... right?"
trent is smothered in surprise, "what the fuck jude? after realising that you're probably just gonna heat their bench?"
jude scowls at what he hears. it's something that he's been attacked with since, but he rules it as just petty liverpool fans. hearing it come out of trent's mouth cuts a deep incision in his heart.
trent heaves out a bewildered sigh, "you know what, enjoy madrid, jude. i hope they treat you better than we ever could."
jude scrunched his face, "don't be like that, t-"
"bye, jude."
and when he hangs up, jude feels the heat from his skin wash away completely.