Work Text:
It’s not that the FIFA World Coach of the Year Gala is boring, it’s just that Pep would be happier back in Manchester with his boys, or pouring over pages and pages of tactical plans. Instead, he’s stuck in a glitzy ballroom, in Geneva, trying not to sneeze from the champagne bubbles flowing up his nose. There’s a FIFA official droning in his ear about something or the other, probably the evils of video replay, but keeping up with him requires a minimum of Pep’s attention. He’s hardly expected to participate anyway.
“There you are!” he hears behind him. The voice is familiar, and he finds his mouth twitching up into an involuntary smile as he turns around.
Lucho hugs him tight, around his middle, like he used to every time they went out on the field. It brings back memories. He pulls back and Pep grins at his familiar face.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” Lucho says, keeping his arm around Pep’s back. “It seems like there’s less familiar faces every year at these things. I ran into this one and then I figured I’d bring the gang back together.”
He points over his shoulder, and Pep follows the path of his finger with a sudden sense of dread.
“José,” Pep says, relieved that it sounds calmer than he feels. He takes a sip of his champagne, the bubbles stinging his mouth.
“Josep,” José returns, and just like that Pep’s hackles are up. He hates being called that, hates anyone but his family using his full name, and José knows that, he knows-
Pep takes a deep breath and the anger recedes. The sound of the room filters back in, along with the burn in his throat.
“I thought you two were civil now,” Lucho says, quietly. There’s an almost mischievous lit in his eyes. Lucho has always drawn unfortunate joy from the spectacle of Pep’s feelings. Especially where they involved José. He’d told Pep repeatedly that he found their feud childish.
“Oh, we are,” José says, languidly sipping his champagne.
“Very civil,” Pep adds.
“Excellent!” Lucho says jovially. He stops a waiter with a whole tray of champagne. “Let’s celebrate then.”
Pep puts away his glass and goes to take another. José reaches for it at the same time, and their fingers touch on the glass. They both spring back as if burned. After a moment of indecision, Pep takes two, handing one to José.
They toast. Pep closes his eyes and drinks.
“Congratulations,” José mutters. It’s unclear who he’s talking to. Pep opens his eyes. They’re a little blurry, from the bubbles. He looks at José and finds he can’t read his expression.
That’s fine. He usually can’t.
“I wonder if they serve shots here,” Lucho says, almost conversationally.
*
Pep wakes up with his head pounding and feeling like something died in his mouth. He’s got the vague memory of Lucho ordering their third round of shots, but nothing after that. He’s never been a great drinker, but he’s gotten worse with age.
He feels too warm, and sweaty as a consequence, the morning sunlight burning his eyes.
José groans next to him, his body a line of heat against Pep’s side.
He hates that the shape of it is familiar.
Pep sits up blindly, his eyes squeezed shut against the nausea. He stumbles to the bathroom to take a piss, throws some water from the sink on his face, after.
The bathroom mirror is at an angle, so he can see José stretched out on the bed. The sunlight spills over his skin, turning it to burnished bronze, the white sheets softening his silhouette. If it weren’t for the grey hair, it’s almost like-
Pep splashes water against his face again, chasing away the mirage.
A glint of something draws his attention to his hands. There’s a plain gold ring on his finger, catching the light.
“Well, fuck,” José mutters from the bed.
For the first time in over a decade, Pep finds that they’re in perfect agreement.
*
It turns out that a marriage planned in half an hour by Luis Enrique and some of his young Serie A cohorts isn't actually legally binding. The priest is swinging in his own little breeze, already a few fingers deep into a bottle of whiskey they apparently paid him with. The chapel is legitimate, though how Lucho managed to convince the owners to open it to their motley entourage is anyone’s guess.
However, it’s the video of two managers who allegedly hate each other swaying at the altar and giggling while taking their vows that might just be the hardest to explain.
If they were kids still, then maybe it could be chalked up to a drunken mistake. And then maybe the photo of them kissing could be just a trick of the light. But Pep is 45 years old. He doesn't get the luxury of running away from his problems anymore.
José might, with the childish persona he sometimes projects.
Pep watches him from the corner of his eye, making his own quiet phone calls. José still hasn't dressed. The ring on his finger catches the light.
Pep calls his agent first, then Manchester City management, to make sure he still has a job. He does. But they want him at Manchester Pride this year, which he was planning to do anyway. He briefly wonders if they’ll put him in the same float as José, but dismisses the thought.
The people of Manchester welcomed the LGBTA+ community, but they weren’t nearly ready for the two club colors mixing.
The last phone call is to his family. That goes as well as can be expected. They know about him. They suspected about José.
His mother asks him if they’ll stay married, in a tone that makes it clear that she doesn’t approve of the match.
“I’ve never liked that boy,” she says, even though that isn’t the truth. She’d given José Catalan lessons at one of family and staff meetings that the club liked to organize. Pep remembers it still, so clearly, the way that José had leaned down to listen to her, laughing in delight when she taught him a dirty word instead of something more useful.
He’s thought then, maybe-
it didn’t matter.
“Just a lapse in judgement,” he says to her instead, “just a mistake. It might cost me and I won’t shake the questions about him this season, but that’s nothing new.”
“Alright,” she says, pauses, “take care of your heart, boy. It’s always been too big for it not to hurt you.”
He nods, even though she can’t see him, and softly says goodbye.
It leaves him in the quiet with José. He’s still in bed, though the softness of the early morning has given into the now familiar cutting sharpness.
“We have a few hours before we’re expected to face the media,” José says, quietly. There’s something calculating in his expression, and Pep tells himself it’s the alcohol that turns his stomach.
When José reaches out for him, he goes.
*
The press conference is up there in the top five most uncomfortable in Pep’s career, and he’s been accused of doping.
His agent is there with him, as is a roomful of reporters from various media outlets. The hot stage lights blind him, so he can’t guess their exact number. He’s probably better off for it. Manel is standing in the shadows just off the stage, leaning on the wall. Their eyes meet and he gives Pep a little nod. It makes him feel better, knowing that he’s there.
His mind drifts briefly to José . He’s doing his conference separately. Pep wonders what excuse he’s got lined up for this particular situation. Did the referees make him go to the chapel? The players’ incompetence drive him to drink? Is it the pitch’s fault? Geneva’s fault? FIFA? Pep’s?
Probably Lucho’s, actually.
The frazzled PR person interrupts his thoughts and calls on him to read his prepared statement. It’s more or less the truth; they had a bit too much to drink and the night got away from them; the marriage isn’t legally binding; he and José are just friends.
Then, there’s the questions.
It starts off easy, with a few questions about the gala and about his future at City. The ones about José are harder to answer, but he gets away with making the answers as boring as possible.
It’s the calm before the storm.
A journalist with a very posh British accent is called on to speak. Pep doesn’t hear what newspaper he’s from over the sudden pounding of his heart in his ears.
“Are you gay?” the man asks. The room goes tomb quiet, as if everyone’s holding their breath.
“No,” Pep says, watches everyone take a big breath of relief, return to scribbling in notepads and laptops. A white-hot frisson of anger lights up his insides. “I’m bisexual.”
Manel is the first one to start clapping. The rest of the room reluctantly joins in.
*
“Why couldn’t I have fallen in love with you instead?” he’d asked Manel when they were younger, after José had just up and disappeared the first time and wasn’t picking up his phone. Pep had been maudlin after half a bottle of wine, and Manel let him lay his head in his lap where he was reading a book on the couch.
“I don’t know,” Manel had said, reaching down to ruffle Pep’s hair. “Maybe I wasn’t enough of a challenge for you.”
There was a flash of something in his eyes that Pep’s drunk mind couldn’t comprehend.
They never talked about it again.
*
Turns out that two of the biggest managers in the world coming out has a lot more impact than you would have thought. In the few weeks following Pep’s announcement, a few football players in leagues across the world quietly come out. Pep is a little bit grateful for it because it takes the scrutiny off his ill-advised wedding for a while.
When the season starts, the opposing team supporters are merciless, hurling slur after slur until their words blend into one big scream of hatred. Pep is surprised by how unaffected by it he feels. It’s nothing he hasn’t heard before.
They win and the fanclubs get sanctions and then the cycle repeats all over again.
*
Pep isn’t usually in the habit of watching any of José’s press conferences. He never really says anything of meaning, and Pep has a PR team to give him a concise enough summary if they feel like he needs one.
So nothing prepares him for the sight of José mid-rant, a gold ring gleaming on his finger.
Pep had just been watching a Barcelona game, making notes to himself, but had got a bit too immersed in a diagram and didn’t realize the game was finished. When he looked up, José was on the screen, directing his players from the sidelines.
The camera isn’t directly on him, but it’s near enough to pick up his wildly gesticulating hands and the barest glint of gold on his left ring finger.
He’s wearing his wedding ring.
Pep’s wedding ring.
Or maybe not exactly his, since he technically can’t remember who bought them, but it’s a match to the one Pep has hidden in his desk drawer.
He watches the rest of the match, but doesn’t really see it, waiting for brief glimpses of José on the bench.
Confusion wars with anger in his heart, underlined with a feeling of hurt that he isn’t and never has been willing to examine.
In the end, as always, anger wins out.
*
He gets into his car and drives.
The Manchester streets are starting to look familiar now, washed by rain and reflecting blurry streetlights.
He could go anywhere. Take the M62 to Liverpool, knock on Klopp’s door and have a nice cup of tea. He doesn’t seem like someone who’d leave a fellow manager out on the streets. Or maybe even pop over to the M1, drive for a few hours to London, visit Arsene and his French wine. He could go to any one of the multitude of friends he’s made in and around Manchester.
In the end, he doesn’t have to go very far.
Honestly, Pep hadn’t really been thinking about what getting an apartment in Salford might signify. He hadn’t even known that José lived barely a few blocks away then. Someone must have told him the address at some point, because he drives there automatically, sliding into a parking spot that just miraculously opens up in front of José’s house.
The security guard at reception does a double take when he sees him, but he calls up obediently and gives him directions to the right floor. Pep’s mood clashes with the bright ringing music in the elevator. He watches his reflection in the mirror, how sickly he looks in the neon lights, all the gray flecks in his beard seemingly standing out at once.
He knocks once. The door swings open almost immediately, José leaning against it in a disinterested pose. He looks a little rumpled, in just sweatpants and a T-shirt, though both look new and without a wrinkle. But there’s something in how his normally keen eyes are a little foggy that tells Pep he must have caught him up from a nap.
Pep doesn’t bother with hellos. He just reaches into his pocket to pull out the ring, holding it up to the light.
José steps aside, and lets him inside.
Pep notes that all the lights are on, the coffee table and the kitchen table strewn with papers and diagrams. Probably for United’s game with Swansea, judging by the Borja Baston headshot peeking out from one of the files. Other than that, the apartment is spartan, with barely a few pictures on the walls, but very little personal items on the shelves. There are a few books, but none that Pep had known to be José’s favorites.
He registers all of that in a quick glimpse, then walks decisively to the window instead of turning around. The windows are tall and wide, offering a beautiful view of Manchester at nighttime, lights from the residential buildings dotting the horizon. After a moment, José comes to stand next to him.
Pep watches him watch his profile in the reflection of the window.
“They’ll tow your car if you park there,” José finally breaks the silence. He sounds pleased at the prospect. Pep looks down the street, at where his car is sitting snugly between two others. He suddenly wishes he were still in it instead.
“I’m not planning on staying long.”
“I can imagine the headlines now,” José tries again. “‘City manager’s car towed in front of arch rival’s house’. That’ll make a great story.”
“You’re so dramatic,” Pep murmurs. “Is that what you fancy yourself? My arch rival?”
“I’m just saying that’s the narrative the media will spin,” José spits out ‘media’ like it’s a curse word, and Pep feels the sudden urge to roll his eyes.
“How about ‘City manager’s car spotted in front of his alleged husband’s house’? They might go with that.”
Pep is watching, so he sees the way José flinches at ‘husband’, the sharp involuntary motion.
“We aren’t married,” José ’s voice is almost infuriatingly even.
“And yet, you’re still wearing the ring.”
And he is, even now, the faded gold tucked snugly around his finger, contrasting with his skin.
“You didn’t throw it away either.”
“That doesn’t mean I parade it in front of the whole football world on a daily basis.”
“Nobody noticed.”
“I did.”
They lapse into silence, fraught with tension. Pep curls his hands into fists, then thinks better of it when the urge to punch José in the face becomes almost overwhelming. The edges of the ring dig into his palm, painfully.
José is the one who breaks the silence this time too.
“I wasn’t drunk.”
“...excuse me?” Pep swings around to look at him, wildly, but José is stubbornly looking away.
“I wasn’t drunk at the gala. I drank three shots and put the other ones away. Enrique didn’t even notice.”
“But…” Pep says, helplessly, searching José ’s face for some sort of clue. “Why did you marry me?”
José shrugs.
The urge to punch him comes rushing back. The ring is probably leaving impressions on his palm. The pain of it allows him to rein in his temper for a moment longer.
“You know, you never told me why you left so quickly,” he says quietly. He isn’t expecting an answer, not really. If José shrugs again and looks disinterested, Pep can punch him in the face and not feel guilty about it.
José surprises him. He’s been known to do that sometimes.
“I woke up in the middle of the night and you were muttering something against my neck. You talk in your sleep, you know that?” he says and Pep flushes. He knows he does. “Usually you’re commanding people on the field, or explaining a play. This time you weren’t.”
José takes a deep breath, and when he speaks again, his voice is softer.
“You were speaking in Catalan, but mostly nonsense. I finally figured out that it was supposed to be a poem.”
“And you left because of that?” Pep frowns. José finally looks up and their gazes meet. José’s eyes glitter like the lights outside.
“I left because you made it very easy to fall in love with you,” he says.
It’s like all the air disappears from the room.
“I couldn’t let that happen,” José finishes, and there’s something in his tone that’s almost pleading. Meanwhile, Pep is finally putting things together, all the pieces slotting into place, like the ring that looks natural around José’s finger.
“That didn’t work out as well as you’d hoped, did it?” Pep says. He takes a half step closer.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” José says, glaring. “It’s fine. You hate me.”
And Pep does. But that’s never been all he’s felt. His feelings for José are a complicated mass of contradictions, but running through it is a sliver of something that overpowers everything else.
“For someone who’s usually pretty smart, you’re actually extremely dumb,” Pep says calmly. When it looks like José might be opening his mouth to complain, Pep unclenches his hand around the ring, and slips it onto his ring finger instead.
And for the first time in all the years that Pep’s known him, José looks entirely thrown.
He doesn’t protest when Pep steps closer, or when he reaches out to fist his hand in his T-shirt, reeling him in.
When Pep kisses him, he kisses back.
*
The next morning, Daily Mail goes with the headline: ‘City manager’s car towed in the middle of United territory - ex-husband José responsible?’
Meanwhile, in a flat in Salford, José cheekily offers to drive Pep to City training. Pep threatens to divorce him.