Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Roque’s mom has a port-wine stain on the back of her neck that spreads up past her hairline. Sebas has a hard time believing something so angry looking isn’t painful, but he’s been assured it only itches in the winter time. Right now, it almost shimmers under the effort of her passionate dish washing. Sebas moves to help dry a plate before Roque gently pulls him back down onto the barstool.

“She won’t let you.” He chuckles mildly. It’s almost drowned out by his mom’s - Laura’s - trailing recount of the family’s recent activity. Sebas likes her accent. It has a lilt to it that matches the soft bounce of her shoulders, and he finds himself smiling when she lifts her hand from the dish water to tap pointed fingers at her chest, uncaring of the dampness it leaves on her shirt. He glances over to see Roque with the same sheepish grin.

“I just don’t understand why your sister is so very opposed to paying nothing in dormitory fees at Duesto, as if being able to eat and sleep at home is so terrible-“

Roque grimaces in a way that tells Sebas this is a long debated topic.

“Mamá, she’s been your baby for so long, I think she just wants to grow up and, you know, spread her wings.” He made an unenthusiastic flapping motion with his left hand. Laura scoffed and turned her head.

“You’re all my babies. And I would like to be able to see and hear my babies as much as I can. Not just for holidays or when something terrible happens.”

If she notices the air stiffening around the two of them, she doesn’t show it. Instead she shakes her head and continues on listing Roque’s youngest sister Isabella’s other poor decisions. 

Roque leans closer and wraps an arm around Sebas’ shoulder, curling the tips of his fingers into the divot of his clavicle before kissing his temple. Sebas marvels at the novelty of not needing to hide from a parent. He marvels more when Laura turns towards them, hands ripely red from scrubbing, and kisses Roque on the cheek and him on the crown of his head before tapping into the hall for a dry dish towel as if that were the only thing wrong in the world.

Gratefulness has always fit oddly on him.

Roque hadn’t asked to see the text his father sent him two hours after the leak. He feels like the objective reality is that he’d had enough pain over the last week to last several lifetimes, and didn’t want or need to take a peak at Sebas’. There’s a selfish bite in him that’s appreciative of it, eager to hold his misery behind his eyelids like he always has. But it’s not a thing you can thank someone for. He wouldn’t know the shape of the words even if it was.

There’s words to express thanks for being allowed to stay with Roque’s family, for lodging and shelter from his own mistakes, but he they sit tepid and uncomfortable at the back of his throat like a pill swallowed wrong. When he manages to draw a pitiful “Thank you.” out as Laura tuts over him - buttons his shirt, lobs another helping on his plate - it feels like pulling something out of the kitchen drain, inky and anomalous.

He wonders if she sees him the same way, some trailing, pitiful mass as she leads him through the grocery store. He’s dreaded leaving the flat since their arrival. The fear that the paparazzi, Olympo stooges, or the ADL will swarm and cart them off and away from each other never to be seen again has lodged hard and firm in his mind. It sits like a familiar piece of coal between his eyes, crossing them and making him numb with focus until Laura tugs at his sweater. 

“Sorry.” He mutters quickly as he rejoins reality. It’s almost centering, grounding. “I’m sorry” has always been easier than “Thank you”.

Laura doesn’t seem like she heard him. She’s squinting at a notepad with a faint seashell pattern and moving her lips silently.  When she turns to him her eyes are closed and he’s, absurdly, frightened that she’s going to reprimand him. She doesn’t, of course. When she opens her eyes they’re bright and unconcerned, and her voice tumbles out with the same melodic ease it always has.

“Could you go back and grab some more onions? I forgot about the salsa criolla.” She says and wiggles her head around in a ditzy motion. 

He’s pretty sure he can do that. It’s a modest sized grocery store and the vegetable section is only a couple aisles back. He plans out the route in his head, opting to take the slightly longer path through the freezer aisle where people are less likely to linger and takes the floral bag with two existing onions with him. 

Sebas manages to make it past the corner marking the end of the dairy section before feeling the telltale shiver of dread patter down his neck. It’s with a near paralytic level of caution that he turns to look behind him, as if fearing the potential confrontation will issue an extra dimension of harshness as a penalty for his anxiety. When he finds nothing but a smattering of other shoppers along the aisles he gives a shuttered exhale of half relief and moves forward.

The produce department has a terrifyingly open structure offering nothing in the way of obstacles to hide him from any onlookers. He tries to keep the constant flittering of his eyes across the room disguised by a purposeful gait and half-lidded gaze, but he’s reasonably certain by the time he passes the tomatoes that he just looks like some sort of well groomed, paradoxically health conscious drug addict. He’s too busy shoving a couple more onions into the bag to think of a different strategy before he makes his way back. 

The aisles are somehow longer on his trek back to Laura, the corners wider and more foreboding with the threat of a surprise attack. He keeps looking back over his shoulders, convinced that his embarrassing appearance amongst the vegetables has exposed him to every malicious party simultaneously. The weight of his idiocy, twofold for both venturing out with Laura and for indulging in the surely psychotic delusion that he’s being pursued in a goddamn grocery store, trails behind him.

When he finds Laura missing from where he’d left her the feeling engulfs him. It devours even the speckled linoleum beneath his feet until he’s floating in a primordial miasma that shrieks at him to run even as it swallowed him whole. The image of Roque being hauled away by men in white bleeds from its constant home in the back of his mind into his sight and his blood chills and seizes. His hands and feet suddenly become nebulous entities as terror pushes him into movement, pulls him backwards and forwards again to look down every row for the assurance of her ruby cardigan, the loose ball of dark hair held up by her patterned scrunchy. 

When the rows are littered with people but empty of the one he wants, the panic for her safety coagulates into a bonafide hysteria for his own. Every step pulls him further and further into the cloud of his nightmares raised into flesh, tangible reality.  His heart threatens to crack his own ribs as he checks what feels like the dozenth aisle and finds nothing but the blur of a man looking at toilet paper. The final, desperate thought that he’d be better off sprinting out of the store while he still can stutters to a stop along with his feet when he feels the vibration of a phone in his pocket.

Laura

He can’t feel the press of the screen against his face or the plastic casing in his hand. The sound of her voice is the only evidence that he hasn’t just dropped the phone in his panic.

“Sebas, I’m by the spices if you can’t find me. Did you get lost?”

The relief is disorienting. His mouth must have gone numb with the rest of him because his answer feels more like, sounds more like it’s coming from someone else than his own body.

“Okay. I’ll be there in a minute.”

He corrects on the journey back, straightens his spine and shoulders and quells the fear into twitching submission with heaves of breath as subtle as he can manage. He drives the point of his incisors into the flesh behind the corner of his lips until the crying out of nerves is enough to quiet the remnants of droning panic.

It’s a shape of himself he knows well. It feels like putting on a freshly ironed suit or jelling his hair, a suit of armor stiff and starched on his skin. Something his mother would cup his cheek for and tell him how handsome is, her baby boy. He shakes the memory off with what feels like his entire body, slots the armor back into place before he can feel embarrassed for it.

It falters when he sees Laura peering down at her notepad again near the bags of flour. He’s reminded, starkly, of just how awkwardly gratitude sits in his hands when he feels himself try and fail to rush towards her in a way that isn’t wholly bizarre and conspicuous, only to stand haltingly in place when he reaches her. When she looks over at him she only smiles, apparently uncaring.

“Did you get lost?” She half chuckles. He looks to the side, willing the shame into vapor.

“A little.”

She looks down at his hands.

“You got the onions?” She asks gently.

He looks down himself, mortification shaking him out of the lesser embarrassment as he finally realizes he’s been standing with the bag stiffly at his side as if it contains a severed head or something equally appealing.

“Oh.”

Laura just smiles again and puffs a soft breath out of her nose. She brings her hand up and pats his cheek.

“You’re cute.”

They keep walking.

“How was the grocery store?” Roque asks when they walk in the store, looking entirely too smug for Sebas’ liking. Sebas squints his eyes petulantly before glancing at Roque’s new wrist brace. He takes in the detail of its enhanced bulk and bright blue coloring before quickly looking to the counter and plopping down a bag of spices. It’s louder than he anticipated and he winces at the sound. 

Roque gets up to help before being aggressively shooed back to the living room by Laura. He throws his hands up in defeat and winks serenely at Sebas while walking in reverse until he reaches the carpet. Sebas finds himself similarly waved off, though with admittedly less fervor once everything is unloaded and ready to be stowed away in corners he isn’t familiar with. 

He joins Roque on the sofa, stiffly accepting the arm around his shoulders before willing himself to relax. He reasons the discomfort is over Roque’s father sitting in an adjacent chair, despite knowing the man to be fully accepting of his son. He’s not even paying particular attention to the present moment as he scrolls idly on his tablet, scowling occasionally. Sebas is still thankful for the distraction of modern technology, along with the drone of Uruguayan news on the television. He’s doubly grateful for the fact that there appears to be nothing catastrophic occurring on an international scale. A part of him hoped the thought would make their current situation seem small and inconsequential, a blip compared to the regular horrors occurring in the world at large. There’s a chasm where the relief should sit inside him. He leans closer into Roque’s hold like it will somehow tether him.

“What did the doctor say?” He murmurs quietly enough that he doubts Roque’s dad can hear it.

“The same thing Olympo’s doctors did. It’s bad, but with enough time and physical therapy it should get back to normal. Eventually.” There’s a bored edge to his resignation, like he’s tired of the unrelenting misery of the past few weeks the way he would be tired of the same meal over and over, the same song on the radio.

“Do you think the doctors here are good enough to take care of it?” Regret settles as soon as he says it, gets lit up into a hot plume when Roque retracts his arm a bit and twists to look at him.

“What do you mean?” 

“I mean… compared to the HPC.” He hopes the desperation cools to simple caution by the time it leaves his mouth.

Roque scoffs and resettles against him.

“I don’t know what the HPC staff is capable of at this point. They’d probably make it worse if I went back now.”

He pauses.

“If they even let me back in the building.” It’s quiet, said under his breath like he isn’t sure if he wants Sebas to hear it. Fair enough, he thinks, considering he has nothing to respond to it with. He squeezes the hand over his shoulder and hopes it suffices.

“Any word from your family?”

The idea of putting his problems on Roque right now feels like throwing a wet towel on a drowning person. The idea of lying feels like throwing a dumbbell on them. Sebas feels his face pinch in dread. He had been hoping that the walls of Roque’s childhood bedroom would provide a refuge from their current predicaments, as if its soft linens and remnants of adolescence could somehow pull time back to a simpler, less miserable memory. It was a stupid kind of hope considering they wouldn’t be in this room in the first place if it wasn’t for that misery, he thinks. He frowns, knowing he’s running out of time to answer.

“My sister texted me.”

“What did she say?”

Sebas shifts around, pulling the covers up and then lowering them again. The weight of Roque’s stare, clearly expectant even through the filter of a sideways glance, hangs heavily in the inches between them. Sebas swallows.

“That I’m still her brother.” He mutters breathlessly.

He knows Roque probably considers it the bare minimum, and is possibly proven right when he only responds with a faint nod. Sebas doesn’t really know how he feels about it. He kind of wants to throw up when he thinks of it. It’s been four hours and he hasn’t responded.

“Nothing from your brothers?” 

He’s been avoiding the thought of his brothers as if the mere idea of them would level some sort of hex on an already dire situation. He just shakes his head and hopes, selfishly, that Roque will take the hint. When he hears the blunt sound of Roque putting his phone on the bedside table he feels himself relax an increment. 

The lights are off soon after and Roque curls around his back, bringing his wrapped hand up Sebas’ chest. He nuzzles behind his ear before kissing the delicate skin there.

“It’ll get easier.” He whispers. 

Sebas nods. He wishes he believed him. He wishes more that he could squeeze his hand.

Chapter Text

Sebas sucks in a harsh scoop of air when he wakes. The ghost of a rubber heel digging into metacarpals hangs thick and threatening above him until he manages to shake it off with a flex of his fingers. He peers at the darkness of the room and pores over the scattered bits of awareness as they converge into an idea of where he is. 

Not at home. Not at the HPC. Roque’s house. Roque’s room.

Roque.

He shifts and stretches behind him, fanning out his hand to widen its reach. Dread scratches at him when he finds nothing. His muscles twinge in sluggish complaint as he hauls himself up to turn and squint at the empty mattress behind him, as if Roque has somehow managed to stay on it and away from his reach at the same time. Sebas drowsily imagines him hovering over the ground in front of his nightstand and scowls. The clock reads 23:36.

He turns back towards his side of the bed and rubs a hand over his face like that can scrub the senselessness out of him. It succeeds in the sense of pulling him away from his imagined anxieties enough to focus more on the present moment, a moment decidedly dominated by his urge to use the restroom. His newfound awareness tells him Roque is likely using the one connected to his room - having not actually been hauled away by malevolent medical professionals a second time - and that he and the sheets are better off if he uses the one near the living room.

He can tell the tv is on as he stumbles closer to the door, the flickering menagerie of color and muffled voices leaking into the room from the gap at the floor. His old, long practiced habit of tiptoeing across hardwood shifts into place as he pads down the hall as silently as his still waking body can manage. He glances at the tv, eyes squinting, once it edges past the wall separating the living room from Isabella’s bedroom. A rerun of 7 Vidas is on, colors garish but the sound mercifully dulled in the darkness. He peers around the corner before continuing on, the fear of being caught strangling the still aching need to relieve himself.

Laura is on the far end of the couch that sits pressed against the wall of Isabella’s room. The rest of the couch is occupied by Roque, wrapped in a bright afghan with his head in Laura’s lap. She’s combing her fingers through his hair and must be talking very, very softly as what Sebas can see of her mouth is barely moving. Roque’s eyes are closed but his cheeks glimmer with the reflected light of the tv, clearly damp with tears.

He suddenly feels sick. 

He inches backwards into the hall. Shame drips out of him, off of him like the sweat off a glass of ice water. It leaves puddles under every step he manages, his feet barely leaving the floor. The stilted trek back to Roque’s room feels hours long by the time his groping hand reaches the knob again. When he finally squeezes himself through the door he finds the room filled with a sense of utter airlessness, as if he’s standing in the void left by a black hole. It takes seconds for him to decide on getting back into bed, rationalizing that the weight of the blanket will ground him.

It half works. The mattress and comforter give him back his outline, but the blunt press of his surroundings, the undeniable reminders of his physical reality hidden in the merciful dark, plunder him hollow. Roque’s pillows have the crisp, earthy scent of a fabric softener he’s never used. The childhood trophies, so insignificant in the illustrious story of Roque’s career that he didn’t feel the need to bring them to the HPC, glimmer faintly in the dim light. A soft, normally imperceptible ticking clucks out of a faded power ranger alarm clock that Roque can’t seem to part with.

He is unequivocally, irrefutably present - invading, carving space - in Roque’s most precious, private place, and Roque cannot talk to him.

The bed is still empty of Roque when Sebas wakes again, groggy and drained from a fitful night. The trinkets of him, the remnants, stare at Sebas in relative fluorescence compared to the night’s darkness. He doesn’t waste time getting up and out of the room, shuffling out the door before he feels fully awake.

Roque is hunched over on a barstool near the counter with an exhaustion that seems to mirror his own, looking blearily down at his coffee and holding his injured hand in his lap. He seems startled when Sebas knocks his forehead against his temple in desperate fondness, making a soft “oh” sound that makes Sebas want to hold him. He settles onto the barstool next to him instead. Roque’s dad - Enrique, he endeavors to remember - looks to be psyching himself up to flip an omelette. Laura must be out or still sleeping. Sebas leans into his palm, elbow on the table, and wills away the question of just how long she and Roque were up last night.

Enrique manages to toss the omelette up, but not without casualties. He swears and jolts as oil pops out and bits of egg sprinkle the counter. A puff of air knocks out of Roque and Sebas turns to see him smiling and shaking his head.

“Good morning,” he murmurs into his coffee cup before taking a sip.

“Good morning,” Sebas echoes. Another loud pop from the stove has them all flinching again. “Laura’s sleeping?” He asks, clawing at casual. 

Roque just nods and keeps sipping. “You want some?” He asks, tilting his head towards the pot. 

Sebas feels his face scrunch up and mutters “No, I hate coffee.” 

“Even with a lot of cream?” He sounds incredulous, eyebrows soaring.

“That just makes it worse.” Sebas is fully scowling now, waving his hand in a shooing motion. Roque chuckles.

“I bet you love mate, then”

Sebas makes a gagging sound and covers his mouth with his hand. When Roque gently elbows him he elbows back, but freezes when Enrique tuts from the stove. In the space of a second the possibility of being run out of the Perez home and onto the street for insulting a beloved cultural beverage trickles ice cold from his brain down to his feet, standing his hair on end and whispering promises of destruction, of death, to the rhythm of his rushing blood. 

“It’s good for you, you know.” Enrique says, bringing the spatula up to point behind him and flinging a speck of egg onto the floor.

“Full of antioxidants, antimicrobials, and saponins.” He waves the spatula for emphasis before lowering it back down to the pan. “Just wait until you’re older, you’ll get a taste for it.”

Sebas’ feels himself warm up, body shuddering back into equilibrium as Enrique continues with his endeavor and Roque smiles softly at him.

“Convinced yet?” He asks. 

“Can I put sugar in it?” 

Roque’s brows shoot up again and he tilts his head from side to side, considering.

“You could, but if mom or this guy finds out about it they might lecture you.”

Sebas nods in mock solemnity. 

“I guess I’ll be staying away from it then.”

Roque smiles again, the small kind that makes it look like he just told you a secret. Sebas nudges him softly and they sit in silence until Enrique serves Roque a rather rough looking omelette.

“Want some?” Roque asks, holding the fork out to him.

“I can make you one, Sebas.” Enrique offers. A nervousness suddenly crawls over his skin, burrowing into the muscle and bone beneath before he can think to ask why it’s there.

“No, no, no, I’m fine, thanks.” He waves his hand in front of him. “I don’t usually eat right when I wake up. And I had plenty last night. Thank you.” 

He coughs, the words having scratched his throat in their haste. He can only hope his awkwardness reads as overzealous politeness instead of dishonesty while the quiet, familiar ache of his stomach attests to the truth. It gnaws at the core of him, teeth sinking in and staying there while the better, less animal, less stupid part of him still has the sense to ask why he’s doing this again.

“You get Cristian’s texts?” 

Sebas jolts minutely from where he’s been resting on the couch while Roque showered. He groans and rubs his face, the dread of a long, miserable day settling onto his shoulders.

“No. I’m not awake enough for Cristian yet.” He grumbles, only painfully aware of how petulant he sounds after the words have left his mouth. He tries not to wince at the sound of his own voice.

“Fair.” 

Roque plops down next to him and kisses his temple before maneuvering to try and get a sock on one-handed. Sebas drops to the floor before he can protest.

“Here.” He takes a sock in hand and folds it into a short tube before gently rolling it onto Roque’s foot. By the time he gets to the other one Roque’s hand has come to rest softly on the crown of his head and he has to bite his lip to stay focused, mind and body blooming with the memories this position holds.

They haven’t done anything since the leak. Sebas doesn’t know how they could have with everything going on, how fast it all had moved. It seemed like a matter of hours separated the chaos of the trailer and the current moment. Amaia’s collapse, his father’s text messages, the frenzied rush out of the HPC, they felt like blinks, like painful spasms across the course of a single migraine. He’d scarcely been aware that he’d even had a body until he realized just how badly it ached now, how much it hungered for something to feel good, anything. 

He grimaced and pushed it down. A well worn and once treasured practice. It wasn’t long ago that he prided himself on it, his restraint, his discipline for the sake of what was really important. He’d thought himself a devotee of practicality, kneeling at the altar of success while pleasure sat leagues, lifetimes away from his line of sight. It was easier that way, simpler. The zeroed in focus cleansed him of all else, narrowed his mind down to the shape of the oval ball and what he had to do to get it where it needed to go. His teammates may have been better at passing, may have had more strength behind their tackles, been faster or able to jump higher, but it didn’t matter. None of them could hope to match his devotion, his sacrifices. It used to be easy to convince himself that that made it worth it.

He forces himself back up to his feet before his mind wanders to what his "devotion" looks like now and the present moment becomes even more unbearable than it already is. 

“Thanks.” Roque’s voice calls him out of his head, the gentle lilt of it hooking and pulling him back down onto the couch from he’s been standing in front of it like an idiot. He gets a kiss on the cheek for his efforts and feels like disappearing, blood churning in his cheeks. Roque wraps an arm around his shoulder and Sebas remembers how they had sat side by side like this in the locker room. How Roque had touched him so softly, held him so softly. When he feels Roque leaning in to kiss him again he shakes away from him like he had then, desperate for air, for the arm’s distance from his desire that he’d so dutifully crafted and maintained for years. Only this time he has no game to retreat to, just the air of Roque’s disappointment and the nightmare at hand hanging in front of him.

“What did Cristian say?” He asks, starving for a pivot in subject no matter how bad it tastes. 

Roque actually chuckles. It’s a blinding contrast to the dismal sigh he was expecting, and experience tells him it’s an indicator that either something positive has developed or the situation is even more dire than initially thought. Sebas figures his terror at the latter is the reason behind his silence. Roque just nudges him gently.

“Check your phone.” 

He’s only looked at it to check the time since waking up, pointedly ignoring everything below that part of the screen like it somehow contained a frequency of light that would slice through his corneas. When he opens it now there’s a collapsed accordion of messages from Cristian, an identical one from Zoe right below it, and a single message from his sister that he’s reasonably certain he doesn’t have the courage to look at yet. From the second he allows himself to glance at them he makes out a “You let me know if you wanna talk okay??” and feels himself choke on the guilt of knowing they haven’t received the same attention from him, that he’s been too caught up in his personal realm of this bad dream conjured into reality to check on anyone else or even maintain correspondence beyond sending a cursory “Here” once they arrived. Upon unlocking it he finds a damning “9” hovering above the messages icon and steels himself.

Cristian

Today 8:34

You guys doing okay? 

I’m back in Barcelona now, I’ll fill you in over the phone.

Talked to Lobo. He says the vibes at the HPC are rank right now, everyone’s freaking the hell out and jumping ship to other centers. 

Have you been on any of your socials??? There’s a video going around of Nuria getting wheeled away on a stretcher and the footage from the championship is everywhere now.

Also the guys are fucking pissed at Charlie. Even Javier. Said there was a huge blow-up after he got out of the infirmary. He says he’s gonna press charges but they’re all mad enough at him for costing us the World Cup they’re gonna report him for his confession about Roque’s hand. 

No word on Amaia.

Today 9:16

You let me know if you wanna talk okay??

It’s a deluge of information. Sebas reads over the text again and again to try and scrounge up an ounce of solid ground to hold onto. He tries to imagine the HPC, once a well-oiled if chaotic machine falling into disarray in a matter of days, hours really, and finds himself failing. He can still only imagine people walking through the halls as normal, chatting and ribbing each other good-naturedly or otherwise. The familiar sound of whistles blowing or weights hitting metal framing stubbornly echo off the walls of his skull as he fights to picture the unnerving silence that likely remains.

“Shit.” He breathes out, just to crack the silence.

“Looks like things are falling apart all on their own.” Roque smiles sadly at him, the distant heaviness in his eyes telling him just how much he shares his sorrow at watching the HPC fall, no matter how rotten its bones had become. Sebas exhales heavily.

“Have you talked to Cristian?” He asks.

“A little this morning. He said he told his parents everything and they’re furious.”

“At Iker, I hope.”

“At both of them, but mostly Iker. His dad’s old school,” Roque shakes his head. “He doesn’t take any of this doping crap, and he’s on the board of the federation, so...” 

“So shit’s about to hit the fan.” Sebas answers, feeling like every muscle has numbed save for the ones responsible for talking.

“Probably.” Roque leans back on the couch.

Sebas rocks softly, attempting to run through every possible outcome of shit hitting the fan while the ceiling is still clean. None of them are pretty.

“Do you think Cristian will be okay?” He asks, quietly. Roque raises an eyebrow.

“What do you mean?”

“Do you think Iker would do anything? Or his dad?”

“I… I don’t think so.” Roque leans forward, face furrowing. “Why? Do you think they’d do something? Did Cristian make it seem like they would?”

Roque’s eyes are boring into him now, concern swerving into bonafide fear in a matter of seconds. Sebas looks away, an inexplicable sense of embarrassment tearing into him.

“I don’t know. You know as well as I do what Iker’s like, and Cristian said he’s just like their dad.” Roque is quiet for a bit after that.

“Yeah but… this is more serious. With what happened to Nuria, Cristian could have gotten killed. And if his dad’s really serious about doping he’s probably angrier at Iker anyways.” Roque’s leaning even closer now, as if a smaller proximity will make him more convincing. Sebas is hooked in place like a piece of meat, cold and ready to hacked to pieces.

“And Cristian said his mom babies him, she’d probably protect him from either of them.”

“If she didn’t stop it before, why would she stop it now?”

The silence that follows feels like it’s sucked all the air out of the room, leaving everything in it to hover in low gravity space. He doesn’t want to think of Iker hurting Cristian, doesn’t want to think of a man who looks like Iker and sounds like Iker hurting Cristian but the image flashes and burns like a cursed polaroid in a horror movie behind his eyes. He rubs them to try and snuff it out.

“Sebas.”

Roque’s voice is so close to him, his hand on his knee, gentle and patient like he’d been in the locker room what feels like years ago. Sebas leaps up like he did then, runs like he did then with only a quick “Sorry, I just need some air” to cover his miserable tracks. 

The winter air burns his lungs when he gulps it in on the balcony. He tells himself it’s a cleansing burn like the ache of sore muscles or the press of a bruise, proof of exertion, of effort, ability. The sting of cowardice burns brighter, cuts deeper through the physical pain and he has to remind himself to breathe to keep it from drowning him. 

He knows Roque is hovering in the doorway, letting the cold air into the flat, zapping it of warmth, all for his sake. Sebas can feel the weight of his worried stare on his hunched shoulders like a barbell. He rubs the back of his neck to relieve the familiar ache, words tumbling before he’s sure of his capacity to fully form them.

“Sorry.”

Roque steps closer, the sheer size of him smashing through any muffling effect his slippers might have offered. Sebas feels him rest his good hand on his upper arm.

“Sebas.” He’s whispering like he’s trying not to spook a wounded animal. Sebas wants to scream. Probably would if he wasn’t so utterly certain it would turn into crying. The effort it takes to keep his jaw shut has him near shaking.

“Sebas, it’s okay. Talk to me.”

Roque crying in his mother’s arms in the middle of the night. Roque with his shattered hand, his ruined career. Roque’s photo on a disability card. 

He swallows. Roque squeezes his arm.

He pushes the feeling down, suffocates the ugliness under bellows of frigid air and the taste of blood as he gnaws through the skin of his inner cheek. Roque’s hand is warm when he grips it back.

“I’m okay. I just… needed some air.”

It’s been a part of his pre-game ritual for his entire career, even through the grade school games, to pray before every match no matter how inconsequential. He thinks now that if one were to combine the fervor of each of those appeals to God over the years, the accumulated mass would pale in comparison to desperation with which he now begs the Holy Father to let Roque drop the issue. He feels the grip on his bicep tighten and considers dropping down to his knees.

“You know I’m here, right? When you’re ready to talk, I’m here.”

Sebas almost feels like laughing, the relief is so potent. Instead he nods curtly, joining his hands together in a tight fold and hoping the pulse of his heart through his palms suffices as thanks.

Chapter Text

Even through the chill of spring the afternoon sun has started to beat through the windows of the Perez’ flat. Sebas finds himself standing in one of the wide shards of light cutting holes in the hardwoods, glued in place despite the growing heat that’s now edging into genuine discomfort.

He’s been staring at his sister’s text - a terse “Call me” - for what feels like 20 minutes by the time Roque wraps himself around him from behind, hooking his chin over his shoulder after another failed negotiating session with Laura over helping out with the laundry. He’s nothing if not persistent, having already been ushered out the kitchen once that day after Laura got up and started preparing lunch. Though, Sebas guesses he’s already well acquainted with that aspect of his personality. He shoves his phone back into his pocket despite knowing damn well Roque already saw the message,  sparing a moment to wonder if his secrecy was always this clumsy, this transparent. His frown deepens.

“Are you guys close?” Roque asks, no need for airs as usual. Sebas inwardly gawks at his ability to remain so unchanged by the current circumstances, the violent uprooting of everything that had once been inherent to his being, his past and future. Against all obstacles, Roque is still Roque. Guileless and pure as the day Sebas walked onto the field and saw him clear through four players in his path, deliver the ball with a flawless arch through the goalposts and celebrate with only a wide, open smile.

Roque nuzzles his cheek and he realizes the silence has stretched across several seconds now.

“No. She’s ten years older than me.”

“Wow.” Roque answers mildly, though Sebas can feel the muscles in his face furrow. “How much older are your brothers?”

Sebas shifts at the question, can’t help resenting it when there’s much better things to be questioning now. Like why Roque’s answer to how his second chat with Cristian went was limited to “Fine. I don’t know.” and a quick peck to Sebas’ cheek. Or why he keeps looking at his right hand like it’s a terminally ill newborn instead of something in need of simple respite. But then, Sebas supposes he’s not in a position to be interrogating Roque on anything at all. He chews on his answer before letting it out.

“Mateo is seven years older, Alejandro is five years older.” Sebas answers probably too stiltedly, hand tracing the outline of his phone in his pocket. “How much younger are your sisters?”

‘Where are they?’ Seems a far more apt question. The shiver of despair at the fact that neither of them even knew how many siblings the other had until the trip to Bilbao freezes it behind his teeth, ready and waiting to thaw at another date.

“Isabella’s four years younger, Carmen’s two years younger.” Roque answers almost sleepily.

He runs his good hand over the curve of Sebas’ bicep and he can’t help but shudder at the contact. He fights the urge to collapse completely into Roque’s hold, give himself over to the effortless strength and everything it offers. The memory of what Roque’s capable of even with the injured hand beats at the front of his skull and the vee of his groin. He tries to bat it away with a gentle shake of his head, mortified, and feels his mouth open before he’s made the conscious decision to grasp at small talk to try and smother it completely.

“What’s Carmen studying?” He asks, a little breathlessly.

“Medicine. She’s thinking she wants to be a dermatologist.”

“Yeah?” He’s surprised to find himself genuinely interested, impressed. “Good stock”, his father would probably call the Perez’. He feels himself cringe, organs compressing as the familiar phrase bounces around his head.

“Yeah, she’s always been the smart one out of the three of us.” Roque says with clear fondness, smiling into Sebas’ shoulder. Discomfort blooms in his chest at the idea that Roque thinks himself stupid. 

“So if you have any moles, I’ll give you her number and you can send her a picture.” His tone is deadpan but Sebas can still feel the smile being pressed into his skin. He can’t help but return it, squeezing the hand still on his upper arm.

“Yeah? You sure you don’t want dibs on all of my weird growths?”

Roque scoffs.

“With what we get up to, I’ll probably notice them before you do.” He murmurs before gently nibbling on Sebas’ earlobe. 

He nearly yelps in surprise, just barely keeping himself from pushing Roque away. Instead he twists enough to glare at him, wide-eyed but still gripping his hand. Roque just chuckles. His brows furrow gently as he brings his hand up to cup Sebas’ cheek. Sebas feels it render his insides down to a trembling puddle, just barely contained beneath his suddenly feverish skin as he tries to hold onto the jagged edge of his outrage.

“Sebas, you don’t need to be embarrassed. It’s not like we’re grinding on the counter. Relax.” Roque’s voice is low and soothing, and he notes with muted frustration that it’s quite effective even as averts his eyes, suddenly self-conscious. 

“I’m sorry.” He mutters. Roque just swipes over his cheek with his thumb and kisses him. His already liquid insides somehow soften even further as he fights the urge to shake in the gentle hold. Roque’s continued touch, his kisses, are like a steady fire against his skin, warming and settling him into a tender stupor he’s no less helpless to resist against than any other weary traveler would be. It takes everything in him to suppress a whine when Roque pulls away.

“Hey.” He whispers. He’s so close Sebas feels it against his lips.

“Hey.” He echoes, feeling cross-eyed.

“You okay?” 

“Are you?”

Roque’s brows twitch a little, like he wasn’t expecting the question to be lobbed back at him. Fair enough, Sebas wasn’t really expecting to throw it back at him either. When Roque stays silent he imagines trying to reel the words back in on a shimmery line, back into his body where they can dissolve into dust, but it’s too late now. He watches Roque’s Adam’s apple bob out of the corner of his eye.

“It hasn’t even been a week, Sebas.” His voice is a little louder now, like something is trying to break through and he’s considering giving it permission. Sebas fists a hand in the soft fabric of his hoodie, pulling him closer still. 

“I’m worried about you.” He mutters into the precious inches between them. The image of Roque on the couch the night before haunts his line of sight as he fails to suppress a glance towards the afghan lounging a few feet away. Roque gently pulls his head down to rest on his shoulder,  rubs his fingers into the meat of his neck just like he had in the locker room and sighs. Sebas lets him.

“I’m fine, bébé.” The soothing pressure against his trapezius quells the jolt of discomfort at the endearment. Or perhaps the dull foulness of the lie overpowers it, hanging in the air like a bad smell as Sebas closes his eyes. “I’m worried about you.” He continues. 

Embarrassment blooms beneath Sebas’ ribcage and grows outward, haunting the outer layer of his skin with a sickly sheen. He grips Roque solidly with one arm as if returning the hold in kind will offer proof of some equal level of repose. The irony of mimicking a calm he doesn’t even believe himself barks at him from some newly, annoyingly self-aware part of his brain. He nuzzles under Roque’s jaw in an attempt to shut it up.

“It’s just family. Lots of people have shitty families.” He mutters and feels Roque tighten his grip around him like he knows he’s liable to bolt at whatever he says next.

“You looked like you were having a panic attack earlier.”

He’d appreciate it if the act of being in a committed relationship could stop resembling a vivisection, or at the very least if he could start developing a tolerance for it. True to Roque’s supposed prediction Sebas feels his body practically galvanize into stiffness at the accusation, muscles threatening, promising to carry him miles away at the first go ahead. He breathes through the urge, painfully aware of how Roque has started to stroke through his hair the way one would a startled racehorse. The silence bites at him again, damning, sentencing. 

“I’m just… I don’t know what’s gonna happen.” He resigns a half truth, piteously hoping Roque will mistake it for something worth chewing on. 

“I don’t either…” Roque admits and Sebas grips him tighter. The weight of his honesty, the taste, the smell, the scent of it, warms and loosens his muscles into ease. He finds himself pulling closer to narrow the distance between himself and the achingly tangible rhythm of Roque’s pulse, the connection suddenly addicting in its intensity. 

“Mamá said you got freaked out at the store, did someone hassle you?” 

If this entire ordeal resembled a vivisection, Sebas is reasonably certain this is the point where metaphorical scalpels set in on separating skin from muscle. He tries to breathe through the imaginary pain like it’s a physical one, a muscle cramp or the stab of a newborn bruise, to will it away into an awareness beneath his conscious one. Instead it sits in his chest like a piece of coal, clogging his airways and scratching his throat. Before he can try and force it out with a word, even a sound, Roque starts again.

“We need to talk to each other.”

He’s pulled back to the night spent hiding at Gunter’s cabin in an instant. The fragile optimism of it shimmering despite the cloak of devastation and ruin, the sound and feeling of Roque falling apart in his arms once they were alone. Sebas aches for the agonizing memory now, for whatever strength he’d had then to keep himself tethered and solid enough to earn the weight of the man in front of him against his chest. To make his hands worthy of knowing the shape and shade of his pain, ignorant of how deeply he would fail to uphold that promise in a matter of days. 

Had it been a farce, then? A lie they both believed? There seemed no other explanation for how he had somehow collapsed from someone Roque could depend on to another person he needed to hide from. A grown man too afraid of his own shadow in a grocery store to realize he could call the person he came in with before having a panic attack, too frail to hold his own brokenness, let alone someone else’s. 

And the tenderness that came after the tears. The talk of the future, whispered into the air between as if the house wasn’t empty except for them, eager and secretive and filled with chaste kisses. Was that a lie too? A simulacrum of love gleaned from sitcoms and the backs of romance novels he stole glances from as a teen? Because what did he know about love? Where would he have learned when he was too busy hiding to allow a second’s thought of what it would even look like if he was ever brave enough to reach for it, to allow it?

He’d never earned the right to murmur that first “We need to talk to each other,” in the darkness they shared that night. He never would with the way he was acting now, leaving Roque to try and hold him together while Sebas couldn’t even be bothered to ask him what was really going on. And what was that if not infinitely fitting? The trailer had done more than expose his deepest secret, it exposed what he was beneath even that: a hypocrite. The reality shocks him into a frigid stupor, lights every hair on a humiliated end and before he can stop himself he’s grasping at the frayed thread of his integrity.

“What did the doctor actually say about your hand?”

It’s louder than he intended, feels like it’s left a trail of echo syncopating across his ribs but for the sudden stiffness in Roque’s shoulders he thinks he could have whispered it and still knocked him back on his proverbial haunches. Sebas squeezes his eyes shut and aches, his heart tearing between the pull to apologize and the push to sink in his heels and commit to what he said he would back in the cabin no matter the discomfort, no matter the cost. The tightrope hangs in the cold space of Roque’s silence and it hurts. He wants this to be over. Wants them to be years from this now, in an apartment that’s all their own with Roque doing something he loves and their friends over for dinner every week. He doesn’t want to be interrogating answers out of his boyfriend who should be able to trust him enough to share them freely. He doesn’t want to be too much of a coward to talk to his only supportive family member and pull some of the weight off a man who’s already being crushed to death.

“You tell me, I’ll tell you.” Roque answers, interrupting his thoughts and Sebas isn’t sure if he loves or resents him for it. He struggles for a moment to even recall what Roque’s question had been, brows knitting together until Roque soothes them back into levelness with a firm hand over the back of his neck. He sighs, feeling out of breath before he even speaks.

“I couldn’t find your mom. She asked me to go get something and when I got back she wasn’t there.”

Roque is silent, the grip of his right arm tightening around Sebas like he’s trying to make up for the loss of his hand. Sebas stays buried in the crook of his neck and tells himself that this is what talking looks like. He takes a deep breath and Roque leans down to kiss his forehead, oozing so much encouragement and love Sebas has to fight from shaking.

“When they took you, after you collapsed… I thought someone was going to take her too.”

He can feel the warmth, the weight of Roque’s heavy exhale blow through the fine hair at his temples and it tenders the frozen parts of him, thaws the fear like it’s a cold hand cupped to his lips in the winter chill. Sebas feels himself quake softly and grips him tighter.

“I didn’t know you saw that.” Roque admits and Sebas hates how defeated he sounds, as if he’s failed in some way, somehow.

“I wouldn’t have left you. Not after that. Not while you were just lying there.” But then had left Roque, hadn’t he? He let those monsters take him and had been willing to leave Roque on his own until he saw him on his knees, begging, at the cabin. The shame gnaws at him, its teeth biting through the warmth of Roque’s arms to make him cold again, alone again.

“They won’t try anything. They’re not that stupid.” The last word comes out venomous and Sebas has to keep himself from flinching out of habit. Roque goes back to rubbing his neck. “They’re in hot water already, and it’s only gonna get worse for them. They wouldn’t do anything extreme now.” 

Sebas nods, wanting desperately to believe him, to have this ridiculous fear squashed so he has room for all the far more reasonable, far more frightening ones. He hooks his chin over Roque’s shoulder and feels himself settle. The other end of the bargain looms just above them, heavy and dark and unavoidable like a massive piece of furniture about to topple down a staircase. He grips Roque tight, kisses his neck and pulls back to face him again, trying to steel himself for the both of them. When Roque won’t meet his eyes he cups his cheek, gently tilting his face upward until he grants a split second of a grimace, eyes darting up and immediately back down  like he’s looking through Sebas’ chest to see his right hand. Sebas doesn’t know if he’s happy he’s blocking it or if he’d turn his torso transparent if he could. In a second it no longer matters.

“One of the metacarpals broke, and two of the extensor tendons have ruptured. The tendons will probably need surgery to work again at all, but the damage…” The room is suddenly cold, even with the light of the sun. He hears the click of Roque’s throat like it’s at the bottom of a well. “It’ll probably never have the range of motion it used to, and tendinosis is almost guaranteed. It will always hurt.” 

Sebas brings both hands up to hold Roque’s face to his and they breathe, just like that.

In his chest it burns. It burns like hell.