Chapter Text
The sound of a door opening causes Eric to look up from his seat at the kitchen table.
“Bebé, you home?”
Eric snorts at Joan’s ridiculous question and turns his attention back to the laptop in front of him, pushing his glasses back into place.
“Where else would I be,” he replies, loud enough to carry through the hallway.
“Kitchen?” Joan asks back and probably pulls off his shoes, judging from the thuds on the floor.
“Sí.”
He hears Joan walk closer, mentally prepares himself to run his hands through his boyfriend’s freshly styled hair and kiss him all over his halfway shaven cheeks.
But when the goalkeeper enters the kitchen and Eric looks up, the smile dies on his lips.
“What is that.”
Joan frowns and points to his chest. “It’s… me? What do you mean?”
Eric rolls his eyes. “No, what’s that on your head.”
“A buzz-cut,” he replies, as if it’s the most obvious thing on planet earth.
Agitated, Eric stands up from the table. “I can see that, idiot. I’m asking what the fuck made you shave the four centimetres of hair on your head off when not even that is enough?”
And now Joan has the audacity to pout. “I thought you liked my hair.”
Eric takes off his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Joan, I’ve been telling you to let it grow at least a tiny bit because it would look so good on you. Now you shaved it?”
“Pau begged me to do it,” he says with a shrug, and now Eric wants to scream.
“Pau? How exactly does a Pau get my boyfriend to shave his head?”
Joan groans. “You know how he is, he comes and looks at you with his huge green eyes and frog baby cheeks and tells you everyone is mocking him for his new haircut and if maybe you would mind getting the same one so he doesn’t feel so insecure anymore.”
“And of course the natural response to that is ‘Yes, Pau, that’s valid and we can’t have you being sad so of course I will ruin my looks for you’,” Eric mocks him, hands on his hips and eyebrows raised in disbelief.
Joan just squirms and tilts his head. “Well, yes.”
With a snort, Eric shakes his head. “This kid. Got you wrapped around his finger tighter than around mine,” he comments, and immediately Joan tuts in protest.
“Of course not, amorcito, come on,” he mumbles with a chuckle and pulls Eric — a very glaring Eric — in by his hips. “Hey, I love you. Pau is just…”
“Tío, I’m not jealous of Pau.”
Joan raises an eyebrow. “You’re jealous I gave in to his wish rather than yours.”
Eric is quiet for a second, then huffs out a breath. “I guess that’s what couples feel like when they have their first child or something.”
“Are you saying Pau is our first born?” Joan asks with suppressed laughter, pulling a grumbling Eric even closer and kissing his temple.
“No, of course not. But you sure treat him like he is,” he mumbles, and Joan laughs again.
“Right. I’m the one who cleared a shelf in our guest room for his clothes, aren’t I? And I keep buying peanut protein bars that neither of us eats. And I also text him every second to third day about his progress in the defense and some tactical analyses,” Joan muses.
Eric pulls back and fixes his boyfriend with a disbelieving look. “Hello? I don’t only text him for football stuff, that’s so im-” And then he freezes, and his shoulders sag. The goalkeeper just hugs him closer and kisses the top of his head again.
“What else do you text him then, hm? If he ate enough? If he got home safe? If he brushed his teeth?”
“Shut up.”
But Eric’s arms are wrapping themselves around Joan’s back now, his cheek pressing into his chest.
“You’re so soft,” Joan says with a fond sigh, and Eric scoffs. “Love you, Rico.”
Eric shifts back and looks up at Joan, pulling his face into one of disdain.
“I love you too, but… I can’t wait for you to grow your hair back.”
Joan snorts and cups Eric’s neck to pull him into the kiss, but the defender stops him. Joan opens his mouth in disbelief.
“Excuse me? I cut my hair and you won’t kiss me again?”
Eric smirks. “You’d deserve it,” he jokes, and Joan narrows his eyes.
“You’ll regret that.”
“Mhm, now let go of me, I have emails and bills to go through.” Eric squirms his way out of Joan’s hold, who pouts again and chases him for two clumsy cheek kisses.
“Are you putting on your glasses again?” Joan asks with a hopeful smirk, and Eric turns back, raising one eyebrow.
“Are you growing your hair back?”
The taller man sighs and lets go of his boyfriend, holding up his hands in defeat.
“Yeah, okay, I get it, never shave my head again even if it means Pau is tearing up.”
And Eric can’t even be mad at him. He always knew Joan was the sweetest man alive, and he also knew he had a soft spot for the other little Catalan defender, but he didn’t know that his affection ran that deep. So he walks back, grabs his boyfriend’s cheeks and kisses him shortly on the lips.
“Can you hang up the laundry?”
Joan presses a hand to his lower back and hums, giving him another kiss.
“Also, have you packed for tomorrow?” Eric asks as he pushes back again.
“No, but I’m gonna pack now. Did you have lunch?”
Eric scrunches up his face and grins. “No, I want you to cook.”
And because aside from the fact that Eric’s cooking is indigestible, Joan is also incredibly in love with the man, he simply laughs, nods, and kisses him one last time for good measure before he follows his chores.
When he comes back into the kitchen, Eric is still sitting at the table, his glasses on, eyebrows furrowed and hunched over his laptop.
Joan smiles to himself and pulls out a pan, feta cheese and peppers.
“Did you put the quinoa into the fridge last night?”
Eric turns around as if he didn’t register Joan coming in earlier.
“Yeah it’s in the blue box.”
Joan opens the fridge, then hears a snort.
“Did you put up your hood so I don’t have to see your hideous haircut?”
“Why, is it better like this?”
Eric presses his lips together and tilts his head while Joan flips him off. He turns back to the stove and starts chopping up the veggies, but he can’t stop himself from turning back to watch his boyfriend stare in concentration as he clicks around on his keyboard.
Deciding that the food can wait for another minute, he walks over and leans down, hugs Eric from behind.
He breathes in the familiar smell of the older one, enjoys the feeling of his beard against his temple, the sound of his soft breathing and eventual confused hum.
After about a minute, he feels a hand on his arm and turns his head, resting his chin on his shoulder.
“Hey,” Eric whispers and pushes up the black sleeve to caress Joan’s wrist. “You okay?”
“Mhm,” Joan murmurs back, and kisses Eric’s jaw. “What are you doing?”
“Checking your banker’s orders.”
A weird sense of warmth floods Joan’s chest, and he thinks that maybe others would be alarmed by that sentence. But when he’d started dating Eric, it felt as if they skipped the puppy love phase altogether and immediately moved into the married one, where household chores were shared without complaints or having to ask, where Joan automatically took over both his own and Eric’s kitchen, where he let the defender get the data for all his finances that only ever gave him a headache to look into and seemed like a walk through the garden for Eric.
“Anything interesting?”
Eric hums. “The order for Aldeas Infantiles SOS, there was no money sent to them this month.”
“Doesn’t it happen in the middle of the month? Like on the fourteenth?” Joan asks with a frown and Eric shakes his head, scrolling down and pointing to the screen.
“You always sent it on the ninth, see? Today is the eleventh,” Eric tells him. Joan lifts his head and inspects the display in front of him, but before he can say anything else, Eric rubs his arm again. “It’s fine, I’ll check in on it and call your accountant if necessary.”
Joan nods and kisses Eric’s cheek again. “I can do it too.”
Eric turns to him, those big brown eyes looking back at him through his glasses, already half bleary from sitting in front of the screen for so long.
“Don’t worry, I’ll do it. You go and get back to our lunch, or better yet dinner,” he jokes, and when Joan actually unwinds his arms from his shoulders, he stops him by his arm.
“You know you’ll always be the most beautiful man on earth for me, right?”
A kind, crinkly smile takes over Joan’s face, small eyes disappearing, the soft black fabric of his hood enveloping his face in a cozy manner, and Eric leans up to kiss him.
“That first place is getting a bit crowded, don’t you think?” he asks back, and Eric laughs before caressing his chin.
“Go back to work, Casanova.”
———
On the flight to Madrid, Eric has to share his boyfriend once again with the green eyed little man. He came up to them first thing that morning in the parking lot and voiced his excitement and shy gratitude over Joan’s haircut, looking so adorably small in Joan’s hug that any trace of anger completely evaporated from Eric.
Now he doesn’t mind sitting next to Ferran in the middle aisle, next to Joan and Pau at the window, even if the Valencian is glued to his phone this morning, which is usually Eric’s job.
“Who are you texting?” he asks when his own phone gets too boring and he’s leaning into Ferran’s shoulder. The striker lets out a snort and shows him his phone.
It’s a group chat, presumably only including Pedri, Gavi and Ferran, and the chat is filled with stickers of the oldest, sent back and forth by the midfield duo.
Eric laughs out loud and leans closer.
“What on earth?”
“You’d think these two are unemployed and not busy with physio appointments, they started this like a week ago and now they won’t stop. I didn’t even know there were this many pictures of me,” Ferran explains with a groan, and Eric can still only laugh and marvel at yet another picture of Ferran mid-drinking, his eyes looking to the side in disdain at whoever is talking next to him.
“Please add me to this group chat, oh my gosh,” Eric exclaims, but Ferran just snaps his phone back and switches it off.
“In your dreams. They’re already enough terror.”
Eric chuckles and looks over to his boyfriend and Cubarsi, smiling a little at their heads bowed together over Pau’s iPad, playing some kind of offline game as they both tap their fingers furiously on the screen until Joan throws his hands up and whines.
———
“Since when do you get red for a mildly aggressive foul, eh? Yeah, sure, studs up and this and that but oh my god, did you see how many Atletico players were fucking digging their cleats into our players? Did you see them? Cause the ref didn’t, I don’t know, his eyes were specialised to ignore fouls on FC Barcelona or something.”
Joan watches as Eric throws another piece of clothing on the bed, can practically see his boyfriend’s head smoke from anger as another hopeless laugh escapes him.
“Also, tackles in the box don’t give you a penalty anymore. Did you know? Written by Jose Modalban.”
Another kick to the suitcase on the ground, followed by stomping footsteps. Joan watches as Eric walks into the bathroom, leans against the doorframe.
He’s tired, he’s disappointed and all of his bones hurt differently after this cruel loss, but he knows speaking up only fuels Eric even more in moments like this.
“At least I got a goal contribution, right? Own goal and red card, holy shit. And they say I’m the future of this club.”
The cupboard door gets slammed shut, and now Joan can’t do anything else but step forward and grab Eric’s wrists.
“Hey, look at me.”
Eric doesn’t. He keeps his head to the side, jaw clenched and eyes still incredulous, arms rigid in Joan’s hold.
“Rico.” Joan’s voice is hoarse, tired, but at least a little bit of his usual warmth shows through. With one hand on his jaw, he turns Eric’s head to him and connects their gazes.
“I need you to listen for a second, yeah?”
Eric nods, albeit stubbornly, and Joan looks at him as he takes a deep breath.
“You have a right to be angry, love. And you have a right to be disappointed in the whole team, because we were shit. But there’s a limit. Right? One limit is-” He taps the bathroom drawer. “No more violence. It doesn’t do anyone any good. Not even you.”
Eric holds his gaze but doesn’t react otherwise, like a kid being scolded that won’t admit what he did was wrong.
“The second limit, and most important one, is no self deprecation. Remember? We fucked up as a team, Eric. We had a bad day, Atletico had an exceptional one, we were missing key players and we still have the second leg at home to turn this around.”
He takes Eric’s cheeks into his hands now, caresses the from anger reddened spots and observes how his eyes slowly transform from anger to grief and exhaustion.
“I don’t want to hear this shit about all the things you apparently did wrong or you mocking yourself. Yes? Apart from the fact that the own goal was on me, and not on you, and the red card was a joke from that ref, you were okay, cariño. Yeah?”
Eric shakes his head, but he doesn’t say anything. Joan watches him carefully, how he starts blinking more than usual, how his long lashes are suddenly filling up with unshed tears, and then he gently tugs him in closer.
The defender doesn’t protest, just lets himself stumble into Joan’s arms and bury his face in his chest, and for the first time tonight, both of them breathe out in half-relief.
“I’m sorry for being so angry,” Eric croaks out after a minute, after wetting the front of Joan’s t-shirt and curling his fists into the back of it.
Joan slowly rubs his back up and down and nods, kisses his ear.
“I know, love, and it’s fine. Hm? It’s gonna get better. You had to let some of it out, now you can let it out differently. With me.”
Eric nods and rubs his cheek against Joan’s chest, as if trying to disappear in his hold.
“We’re going to shower now, then we’re going to put on something cozy and get into bed, and maybe we can just put on a movie and turn off our brains. Okay?”
He nods again and pulls back, looking up at Joan with those eyes that are now even bigger and redder and more glassy than ever. Joan tenderly wipes away two or three leftover tears and kisses Eric’s forehead.
After the shower, both of them feel like at least physically, the dirt of the match has left them, and there’s a heavy sort of calm hanging in the air.
Joan grabs two of his shirts out of his suitcase and brings one to Eric, who thanks him with a long kiss to his cheek and a tight hug.
When he walks back and pulls on his own clothes, there’s suddenly a knock on the door.
He turns to Eric first, who frowns back at him and shrugs, and then he opens it despite the clock already passing one am.
“Hi.”
Pau’s small whisper fills the hallway and Joan’s eyes immediately widen at the sight of the eighteen year old standing in the dim light, his eyes rimmed red with guilt and both hands clutching a pillow.
“Hey, are you okay?” he breathes out and opens the door wider, nods for the boy to step inside.
“Uhm, yeah. I just thought that, well, I think I can’t really sleep well alone tonight,” he admits meekly while Joan closes the door and watches him with a sad smile.
“Okay, don’t you share a room with Bernal?”
Pau nods. “He fell asleep like one hour ago.” He shrugs. “I, uh, I couldn’t.”
Eric comes out of the bathroom now and watches the younger boy with worried eyes.
“Hey Pau, is everything okay?” He immediately regrets the question, because for a teenage player burdened with the responsibilities of adults, of course it isn’t.
“Uh, yes, yeah, I’m okay,” he quickly — too quickly — assures Eric. Both young men are watching him with careful gazes, and Pau starts fisting the pillow even tighter. “Well, I wanted to say I’m sorry for- for the own goal because I should have gotten to the ball quicker and I didn’t play well any-”
Without further ado, Eric pulls Pau into a hug and shushes him. “None of that, Cucu. None of that.”
The teenage boy is still holding the pillow in his arms, but his head falls to Eric’s shoulder and his feet shuffle just a few inches closer. Joan catches Eric’s gaze over Pau’s shoulder and gives him a soft smile, as if to tell him he’s proud of that reaction.
His own hand comes up to gently stroke over the back of Pau’s head, and then before he knows it, he has both of the defenders leaning into his chest and hidden under his embrace.
“Do you want to sleep here, Pau?” he asks quietly after pressing a featherlight kiss to his short hair. The young boy nods hesitantly, and wipes his cheek as they break up the hug.
Joan’s heart immediately breaks and he pulls him back into a warm embrace.
“Oh, come here, bebé. It’s okay,” he cooes, surrounding his smaller shoulders and cupping his head. The pillow falls to the floor, his arms come up to tentatively wrap themselves around Joan’s back, and then there’s a shaky exhale warming the front of Joan’s shirt.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he mumbles, drawing soothing circles into the boy’s back. “Okay?”
Pau nods and sniffles.
“The own goal was on me, peque. Not on you, not on Eric. And it’s okay that you made a few mistakes too. I remember that you also blocked a few shots, and remember the tackle somewhere in the first ten minutes?”
Pau nods again, weaker this time.
“We just failed as a team. Sometimes we have shit days, sometimes it’s one player who doesn’t have his head in the right place, sometimes it’s everyone. And it’s okay because we’re no machines, right? We’re all just little humans.”
Eric smiles gently at his boyfriend’s words. His own exhaustion and disappointment in himself still sits deep in his bones, but with every second of Joan’s calm kindness he can sense not only his but also Pau’s muscles loosen. He turns away and rummages through his bag, holding that warm spark in his chest that only his wonderful goalkeeper can create.
“You’re not little,” comes Pau’s croaked out response then, and both Joan and Eric have to laugh.
“Come on, it’s bed time.” Joan pats the boy’s back and picks up his pillow, the one he always carries with him on away games because it’s the only thing tethering him to his childhood home sometimes.
Pau nods again, trotting to the king sized bed on the left side and sitting down on it.
“Have you brushed your teeth?” Eric asks as he places a water bottle on his nightstand.
“Yup.” Pau slips under the covers after pulling off his socks, and Joan can’t hide the fond chuckle at Eric’s question.
A while later, the lights are off, the moon and streetlights illuminating a corner of the room.
Joan is drifting in and out of his hypnagogic state, still aware of the rustling blanket across the room, Eric’s hand twitching on his stomach and his hair tickling his jaw.
The rustling gets louder, Joan furrows his eyebrows and buries his nose in Eric’s messy hair, and the next thing he takes notice of is a shadow falling over him.
“Joan?” It’s barely even a whisper, but he feels himself turn his head and nod, eyes still closed.
“Are you awake?”
“Mhm.”
“Can… can I sleep here?”
“Mhm.”
“Oh, thank you.”
He feels a rush of cold air hitting the side of his body and grimaces, blinking one eye open. In the darkness, he can barely make out what’s happening, but a moment later there’s a second body pressed up into his other side, a head that fits perfectly into the space between his arm pit, curled together like a child.
A small sigh leaves Pau’s lips, and like on autopilot, Joan places his arm over the boy’s shoulder and pulls him just a little bit closer.
“Goodnight,” Pau whispers, and Joan squeezes him in response.
Suddenly Eric stirs and lifts his head tiredly. “Pau?”
Joan feels the boy go rigid.
“Yes?”
“Are you in our bed?”
There’s a short pause, then another, this time even shakier ‘yes’.
“I can also go back, I didn’t want to-”
Eric sighs and reaches his hand out, drops his head back to Joan’s chest.
“Give me your hand, bebé.”
Pau obeys slowly, and then Eric’s fingers wrap around his own and he presses a lazy kiss to his thumb. “Sleep.”
And for the first time in what might just be forever, Pau’s pillow lies alone on the empty bed on the other side, his mind falling into the silent abyss of sleep even quicker than usual to the symphony of Joan’s warmth, a strong arm around his back and a gentle hand holding his own.