Work Text:
Jude likes good football. He likes winning. He’s sick in the head for it, if he’s honest—wouldn’t have made it this far if he weren’t.
It made perfect sense to him, as a kid, watching players throw themselves at each other after a goal. He knew the feeling, even then, even sat in front of his telly with nothing but childish kicks with his dad and brother to his name. He could feel it, the hot spike of euphoria, like he was with them; feel the yearning for it pulling him by the nerves—by his bloody bones—as he’d think, exactly. That’s exactly what it is.
He wouldn’t know how to express it any other way but to let it explode out of him like that, bursting for reciprocity—for somewhere to pour all the buzzing electricity and football under his skin.
Erling—Jude knows—found it amusing, back in Dortmund. Called Jude a celebration slag with a charmed grin on his face, which as far as shite Jude had been called his entire life went, he actually kind of rated. Delighted by it a bit, because he was the one who taught Erling the word slag, and because the only reason he was such a slag about it was ‘cause they were scoring.
It’s not like Erling minded, obviously. He’d play it up for Jude: reach out those giant arms across the top of several teammates just to graze his fingers by Jude’s cheek; collapse the enormous weight of himself onto Jude; grip Jude by the back of the neck and squeeze; take anything Jude threw at him—hold Jude up when he threw himself—just so Jude had somewhere to put it.
The first time Jude got caught up enough to give Erling a stupid little kiss on the neck, Erling burst out into exuberant laughter.
“Okay, Jude,” he said, easy-going and cheerful, the way he always was, and then he leant down to Jude’s racing pulse—glorious, winning adrenaline sparkling through his veins—and kissed him back.
—
There’s a split-second where Erling’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise, when he answers the hotel-room door, but then he quickly settles into his typical happy grin, setting off Jude’s own before either of them can even say anything.
“You’re mad!” Erling tells him through a laugh, instead of saying hello.
“Let me in then so we’re not in trouble,” Jude says, slinking past him, avoiding a teasing poke to his side from Erling, pulling down the hood he was using to remain incognito. He’s pretty sure no one saw him, but still. Erling’s not wrong—getting off the bus with your team, and immediately booking an uber to the hotel of the opposing team you just beat, texting your mate for his room number, then showing up uninvited at his door is a bit mad. He was aware of all that as he was doing it.
“Wanted to catch you before you left,” he tells Erling before Erling can ask, scanning the state of the hotel room so Erling can’t see the giddy, stupid embarrassment on his face.
It’s true enough, anyway. He always wants to see more of Erling. These days, with their endless professional dedication and relentless schedules, their friendship can almost feel as ordinary as any friendship with a former teammate: more or less made up of texts and memes sent back and forth; 90 minutes across a pitch from each other, twice a year. Like everyone else, Jude watched the World Cup draw taking shape—watched Norway and England coming closer and closer match by match—with an eager sense of expectation.
Erling knows it, too. Says—his tone wry—“Did you expect a more big reunion?”
“Yeah, well.” Jude shrugs in his general direction. “I dunno if you saw, but it was actually quite highly anticipated?”
He’s still too embarrassed to look at Erling, but he can play along. There’s a kind of thrill to matching Erling’s bluntness. He knows Erling knows that it needles him a bit, to throw so much vulnerability out there—it’s the stuffy Englishness in him. Jude Victor William Bellingham. So, he knows it delights Erling whenever Jude tries it.
There’s a half empty suitcase on the only chair in the room, vomiting a mess of sportswear over its edges. There’s a fucking taxidermied raccoon next to the television. Jude bites down a laugh at it. Goes for the bed—still neat from the hotel turndown service—bouncing a little as he sits on the side of it.
When he finally looks up at him, Erling’s grinning. He’s looking fresh, now: hair down, backwards snapback on his head, clean shirt, clean shorts. It’s been ages since Jude’s hung around with him after a match. He gets nostalgic over plenty, but he’s never thought to get nostalgic over something like this before—the perfectly ordinary intimacy of it all. Erling’s hair’s longer than Jude normally pictures in his mind.
They watch each other for a moment. Jude kicks his leg out vaguely into the air, and Erling makes this scrunched up happy little face. He shuffles closer, leaning his back against the wall directly across from Jude, his endless legs stretching out into the space between them, their toes almost touching.
“Yes,” Erling says. “I saw.”
It whizzes deliriously up Jude’s spine. He could dig into that a bit more, but just thinking about it sends this mortifying heat up his neck. A little too blunt for him, probably.
“So, what’s the plan, now?” he asks, instead, splaying himself back on Erling’s bed, propping himself up on his elbows. If Jude looks down his body at him, Erling’s a tall tower, framed dead-center between his spread legs.
Erling shrugs, casually. “Rest for a bit. I think the lads were talking about a club?”
Jude nods, not actually giving a shit what the rest of the team are up to.
“May as well celebrate something,” he says, also all casual. Erling huffs out a quiet little snort, maybe at the lazy dig, or maybe because he sees right through him.
“May as well,” he agrees.
They fall into a quiet lull, watching each other’s faces, soft easy smiles settling in the lines of their cheeks. They were all smiles when Jude came in—always all smiles. Every time Jude caught Erling’s eye on the pitch, it set Erling off. Jude could feel it reflecting back at him on his own face, like they were children who were told not to laugh in class and suddenly just breathing near each other was funny.
“And you?” Erling asks.
Jude breathes.
And Jude?
Jude likes good football. A stadium singing his name. An endless barrage of new numbers—records broken, records waiting, almost in his grasp. There’s nothing like it. It’s under his skin: a racing electric current inside him, burning all the wilder for it being the World Cup. And it’s not like he hasn’t been here before, and it’s not like he doesn’t have a team who feel it all with him, and it’s even not like he hasn’t had years playing without Erling. Enough to be used to it at this point.
He got on alright with the odd lonely wank here and there after a win. He could probably get on with it for the rest of his career and be all the less fucked up for it in the long run. But he’s in the semi-finals—he got them there—and Erling’s right here, and fuck, does he love winning.
“Yeah,” Jude says, stretching his ankle to press his foot lightly against the top of Erling’s toes. “May as well celebrate, like.”
He feels his nerves singing. Every little inch of him charged up with anticipation.
His tone low with understanding, Erling says: “Ah.”
In one fluid motion, he’s off the wall, his knee dipping the mattress somewhere between Jude’s knees, a massive hand landing warm and steady over Jude’s collarbone, pressing him flat down prone for him, leaning the heavy weight of his body over Jude like an anvil about to drop.
“Okay, Jude,” he murmurs, a fluttering huff of fond laughter in his breath, and then he bends down and presses a hot kiss to the place where Jude’s neck meets his jaw.
It washes over him, at once—a colossal wave of filthy pleasure flooding through his veins, making his breath stutter, and his ankles flex, and his dick twitch.
What happened was that actually it just kind of happened in Dortmund. Luck opened up the box just the right way for everything to fall into place. For Jude to pass, and Erling to send it flying in.
So: sometimes, Jude couldn’t help but linger against Erling’s neck—so excited that it felt like nothing could sate it, but to crawl into Erling’s skin and feel the pulse of the win in his veins. Sometimes, enthusiasm made Jude’s victorious kisses more of a dragging smear of his lips, instead of a quick peck. Sometimes, when he jumped weightlessly into Erling’s waiting arms, he was half-hard from the goal, already. From the assist, even. That’s just what Jude was like. A celebration slag—Erling got it right away.
Got it enough to push Jude against a wall, sometimes, and shove his hand down the front of Jude’s shorts, whispering to him about that nutmeg, or that first goal, or that second as he tossed Jude off. “Unreal, Bellingham.”
And Jude would say something desperate like: “Did you like my pass?” So fucking wound up. So fucking horny for it. Perfect fucking football.
And Erling would laugh, and say: “Yeah, mate. Unbelievable. Always give me what I need.”
And Jude would come like that, right into the relentless heat of Erling’s firm fist.
“Did you like my goals?” Jude asks, his hips twitching up for the ghostly sense of Erling, floating above him somewhere unsatisfyingly far from Jude’s dick. He’s a fucking slag for it, alright. Jesus.
He slips a hand up Erling’s shorts, feeling up the hard muscle of Erling’s thigh, meaning to pull their hips together, but then Erling says, “I liked the second one.”
In the haze of arousal, it takes a second for it to make sense. The confusion of it intercepts Jude’s buzz, making him pause.
“Not the first?” He’s aware it comes out a little whiny. He’s been called dramatic enough times.
Erling seems unconcerned, distracted by his own hand, petting its way down from Jude’s neck to slip beneath Jude’s hoodie—hot fingers against the hot skin of his stomach.
“Hit the wire,” Erling says, with an absent-minded shrug.
He finally presses a thigh down to Jude’s erection before Jude can really process it, sending a pleasing tingle up his nerves. Enough to make Jude’s eyes roll closed for a moment—but it’s stuck in his head. Erling said it so matter-of-fact.
“Sore loser,” Jude chastises lightly. Maybe a little edgy. But only because it’s so unlike Erling to be like that.
“No,” Erling denies, calm as ever, leaning back down to bite lightly at Jude’s jaw. “It was not such a bad goal, it just went your way. Happens.”
But now the fire under Jude’s skin crackles oddly.
It does happen sometimes, yeah, but that’s not all it was. And that’s the game anyway. And it is a bit sore to bring it up when they’re supposed to be getting off.
He feels a wet taste of Erling’s tongue against his jugular. He tries to settle into the sensation. Tries to focus on his dick stiffening against Erling’s thigh, and Erling’s fingers under his jumper, trailing gently towards his navel, and Erling’s mouth sucking on his neck. But it’s thrown him off, now, that that’s on Erling’s mind. That that’s how Erling’s been thinking about it, when Jude was so amped up and needy. So—like—whatever. Hungry for it.
“Well, you’d have got one more if you didn’t push Anderson.”
Erling stops, a breath expanding in his chest. His shoulders swell and sink. He pulls up from Jude’s neck, scanning Jude’s face for a moment—his expression tempered, or something. Closed-off in this weird way he doesn’t get very often. Only sometimes, when he’s losing, which—right, yeah. He just lost a World Cup quarter-final.
They actually haven’t done this since Erling left Dortmund—since playing on the same side. Maybe Jude took it for granted that they’re not on the same side anymore. That despite everything Erling makes him feel, despite how much they like each other, maybe Erling can’t feel that electric haze of victory anymore when Jude scores. Can’t quite take Jude where he needs to go.
He thinks Erling must sense it too, from the cautious way he blinks down at him, like he’s trying to cook up a way to undo the vibes. Trying to figure out if Jude even wants him to, which isn’t what Jude fucking wanted at all.
He swallows. Casts about his nervy mind for something useful to say.
What he goes with, earnest and absurd, is: “Honestly, Sorloth fucked it.”
It surprises a huff of laughter out of Erling. He rolls his eyes, a touch of meanness to it that he rarely shows people, press or teammates, seen only in the intimacy of real, deep friendship. It settles Jude into relieved comfort.
“I mean, I would’ve passed it,” he says, pleased with himself, smirking up at Erling. He’s only joking, kind of, but he genuinely would.
Erling shakes his head like he thinks Jude’s a bit ridiculous for saying it, but he’s smiling again.
“You would not need me,” he says, half-rolling off Jude, pulling his hand out from under Jude’s clothes. Jude’s feels a sharp, bereft spike of need, but then Erling’s spitting into the palm of his hand, and saying, “Would be good enough to score,” as he slips it into Jude’s boxers.
He grins when Jude sighs at the touch—his hand really is so fucking big, it’s actually mad. Jude’s known him years, and even still, the novelty of Erling’s size hasn’t got any less titillating.
Jude closes his eyes, letting himself float in the feeling: the still, steady warmth of Erling enveloping him; the press of Erling’s chest against his; Erling’s hot breath in his ear, whispering, “Bellingham—man of the match.”
Erling slides his hand up the length of Jude and licks Jude’s cheek, unsexy, like an eager dog. Jude makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and a moan at the mix of sensations. Uses the hand he still had up Erling’s shorts to get him back with a pinch to the arse. Erling does a whole-body twitch away from it, giggling low and staccato.
It’s the worst kind of chain reaction. The best kind of their nonsense. The kind of thing that makes their teammates, now, blink at them in confusion. Erling’s hand tightens around Jude’s dick when he flinches, and Jude hisses, dizzy with arousal, and Erling lets out this giddy little snort that Jude feels right down to his ribs, blooming thickly all over him.
Imagine actually letting himself have a bad time with Erling. Sore fucking winner, he is.
It wasn’t even about the match. Jude likes the validation, but he doesn’t need it, necessarily. At least not tonight. He knows what he’s doing here; he can feel it in the air, in the lightning bolt rush in his muscles when he got the ball. It just unsettled him a bit to feel disconnected from Erling like that. Despite the distance, they’ve never really been that way. When Erling went to Manchester, Jude had a bubbling fear that it might happen, but then they got on the same pitch again, and a look was enough to get Erling beaming at him. To get Jude’s heart tumbling into a run, pulling him into Erling’s orbit. Even on different teams, when Jude leant on him, Erling took it with care and affection.
That’s what it’s about. The two of them together were made up of football and feeling good. Maybe Erling’s right, maybe Jude would’ve scored all on his own if it were him instead of Sorloth, but he would’ve been flying just as high after giving it to Erling. It was all part of the same thing, in the end. The victory would’ve been in the way Erling touched him after.
“Wish you played for England,” Jude says, strained and breathy, wanting it so acutely that it ignites his arousal, suddenly desperate for Erling to be closer. He pulls Erling’s hips down, halfway interrupting Erling’s valiant work inside his pants, crushing the whole business between their legs. He can feel the heavy press of Erling’s hard cock against his upper thigh, beneath the too many layers of Erling’s clothes.
Erling reacts instantly—moaning, deep and visceral; his whole body pressing down in chase of the feeling, burying Jude under his weight, and heat, and desire, his forehead resting on Jude’s like he’s too turned on to even hold it up. His hair, around them, forms an intimate little curtain.
Erling laughs. “Tell that to me when I don’t have your cock in my hand.”
As if to demonstrate, he lifts himself halfway off Jude again, pulling Jude’s shorts down to his knees, and taking him in naked hand.
It hits Jude weirdly, even as he grunts at the brusque way Erling’s accent clips the word cock, and the image of Erling’s big, pale hand around him.
Sometimes, you get a little too comfortable with your own style of play. A little lazy. Everyone’s got a role to play; it’s inevitable that you start to hone in on it a bit, get focused, forget about what the rest of the team were doing. Jude’s position affords him more flexibility than most, but he’s still there to do his job at the end of the day.
Meaning, really—this thing they do isn’t usually for Erling.
The first time, after Jude melted in Erling’s hands, there was this little awkward moment: Jude still coming down from coming at all, and slowly realising there was usually a second half to this game, while Erling hovered against him, breathing into Jude’s neck.
It’s only that Jude was the celebration slag. If he had to come up with some explanation for it.
Jude muttered out, “D’you need...”
Trailing off insecurely, like an idiot.
Erling just blinked at him—the air between them going weighty, and unsettling, and so unlike them—which freaked Jude out enough that he didn’t even bother waiting for an answer, embarrassed and ashamed enough at bottling it so spectacularly. He just reached for Erling, tossing him off with his face hidden in Erling’s shoulder, until Erling grunted for the finish; still managing to murmur a sweet little thanks, mate, into Jude’s the hair at the back of Jude’s neck.
Well, whatever. There are things that are hard to look at about yourself. Things that are entirely masochistic to look at if you’re a footballer. It was just easier to let Erling be the one to look at it honestly. To let Erling do all the pushing—going along with it on pure adrenaline, and joy, and whatever teammate telepathy happened when the game was good. He knows how that might’ve come across to Erling, but he’s only that much of a dickhead by necessity.
It’s better that Erling takes the lead, because if Jude did it, he wouldn’t—
He puts everything into the game. He wouldn’t know how to do anything less. It’s messy.
Erling’s easy. Everything slides right off him.
But conceding a game never meant Jude wanted it any less.
“I’d tell you whenever,” Jude says, getting a hand around the back of Erling’s neck, feeling sweat and soft hair between his fingers. “I swear.”
He looks into Erling’s eyes and says it as earnest as he can make it. Does his best Erling Haaland.
Erling’s mouth quirks. It’s hard to think of any part of him as small, but he has this slight, sweet little smile, sometimes, bashful in a way that makes him seem so boyish. Flushed with delight.
“England have a striker,” he says, kissing Jude’s chin, softly. “Poor Harry Kane.”
But it’s not really like that. Jude loves the squad—every variation of it. He loves playing with Harry, with Anthony, with Noni, Ebs, Bokayo, Marcus, whoever. He’s not sure he’d give any of them up to make a place for Erling, but the thought of even having to find a place for him feels a bit ludicrous. They were still kind of half-formed when they met each other; running on pure, enthralling potential more than anything else. Jude grew around Erling a bit. Fit Erling into the shape of himself. He couldn’t help it.
Jude ignores Erling’s joke, and pulls him in by the waistband, tickling his fingertips against the hair trailing into Erling’s underwear.
“Nah. Be lucky to have you,” he says, pushing the whole lot down, letting Erling’s dick spring free, pink and heavy.
“Haaland, Haaland,” he sings. Erling chuckles but it gets lost in a hissing little gasp as Jude runs his knuckles down the long length of him.
“Don’t need that part,” Erling says, taking Jude’s hand by the wrist, lining their dicks together, and then guiding Jude back to grasp them both, covering Jude’s smaller hand with his massive one. “I’m not such a freak like you are.”
That’s actually true. The dirty talk—football talk, really—is mostly for Jude’s benefit. That Erling thinks it’s weird is for Erling’s. He likes weird shit. The raccoon watching them is a testament to that.
Jude moves his hand without more prompting from him, not that Erling seems inclined to remove his own. Erling’s left-handed so it’s easy for them to line up together—and that does something exhilarating to Jude’s brain, when they get like this. Tailor-made, perfect fucking teamwork.
Jude’s hand’s just big enough to hold both of them, and with Erling’s giant fingers, their cocks are locked in a tight tunnel between them—a heady slide of skin on skin and whatever precome Erling managed to pull out of Jude, already. It’s a mental sensation. Erling’s giant shoulders heave with the strength of trying to breathe through it, his low groans growing more stuttered the more Jude squirms with the pleasure of it, letting his dick slide against Erling’s, and the momentum of their grip.
“It’d be like Dortmund,” Jude breathes.
Erling exhales a laugh over his face. He’s right there—the tip of his nose brushing against Jude’s—a string of hair caught on his bottom lip. “You’re in the World Cup thinking about Dortmund?”
The first time they kissed wasn’t even after a win. They were just fucking around, playing for fun because they were addicted to football and addicted to each other. Jude was fouling him like crazy, trying to make Erling laugh his way to losing the ball more than he was actually trying to get the ball; not that it helped because Erling kept using his size to hold Jude back—pressing him against barriers, against the ground, steady and heavy in a way that slid low and gooey in Jude’s navel every time it rendered him a bit helpless.
Jude did the only thing he could do, amidst his frenzied euphoria—the only play that felt right—and caught Erling with a surprise kiss.
It surprised Erling for all of a second before it clicked, and he went at Jude twice as hard, pushing Jude’s back against the post, ball forgotten, with his tongue in Jude’s mouth and his hands fisted roughly in Jude’s shirt. It was like an avalanche. A bizarre kind of mania that came to Erling when he was in the box gagging for it, ready to scare off anyone who might try to stop him—striking fucking viking. It filled Jude with such dopey bliss that it made him burst out laughing, in pure, delirious delight.
And then they were just like that: foreheads pressed together, diving back in for errant tastes of each other in between mad giggles, and half-hearted, tripping, futile little kicks towards the abandoned ball.
Jude feels a pulse of thick emotion, like a kick to the chest. “You don’t think about it?”
Erling must see it on him. He softens, strange and—
There’s no word for it, really. A beautiful sort of gutted expression.
Erling hides in the crook of Jude’s neck, sighing deep, his hand around them squeezing Jude’s for a second. Jude feels a noise rumble against his skin, a tremor that vibrates down to his organs—“Jude.”
It sounds, in a way, both like a plea and an admonishment. Yeah—Jude thinks. He’s probably right. Some games you just can’t win, no matter how much you put into them. Sometimes, you’re better off just being proud of where you got so you can scrape yourself back together again. They always say it, don’t they? It’s the hope that kills you.
Jude’s tightens his grip on Erling’s neck. He kisses the stubbly scratch of Erling’s undercut, the patch of skin behind Erling’s reddened ear. He feels Erling’s hips stuttering, his legs tensing, his whole body caving in around Jude, closing him in—nothing but Erling.
They’re close now, coiled tight together and squirming for release.
“Be fun though, yeah?” Jude whispers, his toes curling in the shoes he hasn’t even taken off. Around their dicks, he feels Erling’s strong fingers interlock with his.
“Yeah,” Erling says, driving his hips. Pushing Jude deeper and deeper into the mattress. “Yeah.”
And then he’s coming—the delicious intoxicating mess of him leaking out, coating their fingers, and Jude’s cock held tight with his. The wet slide of it all zips right down through Jude’s chest, a hot, mountainous spark in his stomach. And then he’s coming too, crying out as his body spasms with pleasure, and Erling holds him.
Jude steeps in breathless dizziness for a moment. He feels Erling’s weight rolls off him, giving him space to gasp out for life. They pant next to each other for a moment, damp from sweat, and spit, and—yeah.
“Not so bad losing with you,” Erling muses after a while, his tone playful.
Jude turns to look, taking in the state of him—eyes closed, face flushed, hair spread out, chest rising and falling. There’s something gorgeously animalistic about the bulkiness of him.
“Yeah,” Jude says, just to say something. “Good?”
Erling hums some assenting sound. He sighs, and turns to Jude. Despite the coolness of his eyes, he never looks at Jude any way but warm.
He reaches for Jude’s face, his large hand caressing Jude’s cheek. His thumb grazes Jude’s bottom lip. Jude gifts him a soft kiss to the palm of his hand.
Erling smiles, sweetly, the beginnings of a teasing joke alighting in his eyes. “You could always play for Manchester. Come to me for a change.”
He grins, all teeth, at the involuntary expression that takes over Jude’s face at that. Uses his hand to shake Jude’s head around a bit, until Jude snorts and grasps his wrist to make him stop.
“I came here, didn’t I?” Jude says.
“Yes,” Erling agrees, leaning over him, his wide amused smile hovering over Jude’s lips.
“Mental,” he says, and kisses him.