Chapter Text
Simply put, Kai is fucked.
Lea’s wedding is in two weeks and it’s too late to un-RSVP his date. The date that was real—despite his sister’s indulgent okay Kai, whatever you say—and that he was going to bring before he got unceremoniously dumped.
He wonders if he can fake an illness. Then he considers how Lea will try to commit fratricide, and will get away with it, and scraps the idea immediately.
This is a nightmare. He can’t go dateless. Well, he can. But he can also wrap his car around a tree for the fun of it but that’s not really an option either.
To save himself the trouble of his uncle’s attempts at matchmaking and pointed comments, he needs a date. And he needs one fast.
He pulls on his shirt. Practice ended early so the locker room cleared quickly, leaving Kai to himself as he runs through his pitiful options.
“Kai.”
He peeks over his opened locker, confused. Everyone has left or so he thought. Leo stands with his unzipped duffel bag and a box of electrolytes in his hand. He shakes it the same way Kai shakes the treat box to get Pooch out of bed. “You forgot to grab these.”
Kai makes a face. Mikel bought a new brand of electrolytes that are supposed to help with performance but they taste awful. He thinks a good third of his taste buds have been lost forever to this brand. He accepts the box dutifully though, relieved when he notices it’s the most tolerable flavor.
He nods his thanks and goes back to grabbing the last of his things.
Leo lingers and then eventually opens his own locker when Kai doesn’t say anything else. He shuffles through his neat pile of clothes. “Everything okay?”
The smile Kai gives him stretches across his mouth unnaturally. “Yeah. Just thinking.”
Leo starts to say something else but his voice fades as Kai’s attention slips back to the wedding. An idea begins to brew in the back of his mind.
Leo is his friend. They don’t text very often, neither are super keen about it, but they are friendly enough. Leo will send him restaurant recommendations and make a point to find him during training despite how Reiss clings to him.
He’s also someone Kai knows won’t laugh at his predicament. Declan would go with him but not without some ill-timed teasing. Besides, his family has met Declan so the secretiveness of who his date is would be rightfully seen as suspicious.
The problem with Leo, however, is that Kai is in love with him.
It snuck up on him throughout the season until one day, Kai was having a shit day at practice and the only solution he could think to help was a laugh from Leo.
It’s why he doesn’t know what prompts him to blurt out, “Do you want to go to a wedding with me?” He suspects the what might be undiagnosed brain damage.
Leo stops talking, digesting what Kai’s just sprung on him. “Whose wedding?”
There’s not a thought in his brain so he has no way of filtering himself. “My sister’s wedding. I was supposed to bring a date and that fell through and so I thought maybe I could ask you to…come,” he finishes lamely.
Leo tilts his head. His brows pull together and he seems to be considering his next words carefully. “So I will go as your date?”
Kai short circuits. The thought is too tantalizing for him to brush off and too rooted in what he wishes was his reality to not let himself imagine it for a moment. He thinks of Leo taking his hand during the vows, rubbing a thumb over Kai’s knuckles and then pressing that same thumb against his bare ring finger. “Yes,” he croaks out.
“You want me as your date.”
“Yes,” Kai answers, certain this is Leo buying time to reject him.
“Okay.”
“Okay?” he parrots back stupidly. Truthfully, he’s still reeling from whatever it is that took over him and asked Leo to be his date so he doesn’t have much brainpower to spare to ask Leo if he is sure.
“Send me the details.” Leo stuffs his jersey into his duffel bag. He’s zipping it up when suddenly, he frowns. Kai freezes, worried Leo has come to his senses in the space of seven seconds. “And please, let me know what gift your sister would like from her registry the most.”
-
Jorgi laughs, the bastard.
“It’s not funny,” Kai groans. He can’t focus on the game in front of him so he tosses his controller to his bed. And because Kai can never have anything easy, it skids across his sheets and straight into his bedside table, knocking his charger and alarm clock to the ground.
The clatter of it all sends Jorgi into hysterics. Kai pulls one headphone off with a wince as the echoing static rattles in his ears. God, why do all his friends suck? He called Julian the moment his brain reactivated after Leo left and Julian laughed so hard he nearly threw up. It took numerous call backs before Kai finally picked up and let Julian tell him it’s not as bad as he thinks.
Jorgi calms down and sucks in a steadying breath. It’s a good thing they’re doing this over a call or else Kai thinks he might’ve tried to strangle his friend. “He said yes so what is there to worry about?” There’s an edge of amusement in his voice that betrays how funny he finds Kai’s misery, but Kai can appreciate that he’s making an effort to not be a dick for his sake.
“Because he probably said it out of pity. And now he’s stuck having to spend a week with my family.”
“You mean you are stuck with Leo for a week.”
“What’s the difference?” Kai shoots back, one part hysterical and two parts irritated.
“The difference is that you are overthinking it while Leo has not thought twice about it.”
He knows Leo looks generally apathetic to a fault but surely even he must feel some nerves about this. “And how would you know that?”
“Because he told us.”
That stops Kai short. “Us?”
“Granit and me. He asked if there are any traditions he should know about.”
“Why would he ask you?”
He hears the rustling of fabric on Jorgi’s end. “We are in a groupchat. He asked in there,” he answers patiently.
A flare of hope shoots off in his chest. He holds the phone closer, daring to ask, “What else—what else did he say?”
“He asked for your hand in marriage.” He can practically hear Jorgi’s eyes rolling. “Come on, man. He asked Granit for some food recommendations. And then me for some Kai recommendations.”
His grip tightens around his phone. “Explain,” he demands.
Jorgi laughs. “Just what to expect from you and your family. If there is anything he should avoid doing or saying. Normal stuff.” He mutters something under his breath about how Leo wasn’t agonizing unlike someone but Kai pretends not to hear him.
Kai clears his throat. “That’s…good.”
They chat for a handful of minutes more, moving into the new training regime Mikel will be implementing next session with Jorgi bemoaning his knees cannot be run ragged for training of all things. Kai expects to be partnered with Declan again while Jorgi will inflict his particular style of torture on Ben most likely. Mikel likes to keep it interesting some days and predictable others. All in all, it will be a day Kai looks forward too. He just hopes he doesn’t manage to allude to Leo and him spending the long awaited break together. He doesn’t think he can handle the sly smiles from Bukayo and Martin if they were to find out.
The conversation peters off. Kai prepares to bid Jorgi goodnight when his friend cuts him off. He sounds serious for once.
“It will be fine, Kai. Don’t worry so much,” he reassures. “You will be fine.”
Kai swallows. The lump in his throat is no longer razor sharp. “I hope so,” he agrees softly. “Goodnight.”
-
He buys Leo’s plane ticket.
“I will pay you back,” Leo assures him, already thumbing through his wallet.
Kai shakes his head. “It is fine. I am already inconveniencing you.”
In reality, he should’ve had a ticket ready for Leo rather than buying one so last minute. Despite being weeks into a relationship at the time, he hadn’t felt the urge to buy two tickets when he was booking this trip. It was a stroke of luck that does not often shine upon Kai that allowed him to cancel his original ticket and rebook so that Leo and he could sit together. Luck and Kai making himself sound pitiful over the phone to the agent.
“Do you treat all your dates so nicely?” Leo hums. A smile twitches at the corners of his mouth and Kai wishes he could coax it into one of his grins full of teeth.
Kai busies himself with smoothing out the ticket. He’s placed it into a page protector on the off chance Leo loses his phone and somehow also manages to spill an entire coffee pot onto his ticket. “No. Just you.” He’s aiming for playful but he misses the mark by a mile. Fuck. “It is a morning flight. I hope that is okay.”
Leo shrugs. “I am an early riser.”
The dark circles under his eyes tell a different story but Kai doesn’t say anything. He’s always been surprisingly energetic on the pitch despite the purplish-grey hues indicating otherwise.
“We will be there by lunch.” His sister, despite her best efforts to remain calm and collected, had all but begged Kai to come as early as possible. A hairline fracture of desperation weaved itself through one of their planned weekly calls until the anxiety Lea felt about her impending nuptials came spilling out. He wishes the break had started earlier so he could be there sooner.
“I’ll buy us lunch then,” Leo decides, interrupting his wayward thoughts. “Let me know if there is anything you want in particular.”
You, his mind supplies helpfully.
“Will do,” he says instead with a tight smile.
It turns out all of Kai’s worries are unfounded as he finds himself falling asleep as soon as his head touches the headrest.
A soft nudge is what wakes him. He’s disoriented for a moment, confused why the air is stale and why there is a vent pointed away from him in his eyesight.
“We landed.” Leo almost sounds apologetic.
Kai rubs at his eyes, trying and failing at hiding his yawn. He ducks his head as he stands and rifles through the bag compartment to grab their things.
Sleepiness clouds his senses to a severe degree so it is Leo who ends up grabbing their bags from baggage claim and ordering them an Uber.
The venue his sister picked sits underneath a picturesque mountain and is far enough to ensure guilt keeps Kai from asking his brother to pick them up. He also doesn’t think he can subject Leo to Jan so early on in the trip in good conscience.
“You should take a nap when we get there,” Leo says, watching as Kai rests his head against the window.
The cold glass is nice against his forehead, easing the slight headache that’s crept in. “I will be fine,” he promises. He barely slept the night before, plagued by scenarios of anything that could go wrong going wrong. Leo isn’t some stranger he can ignore and go on about his life without consequence. They work together. He sees Leo more than he sees his dogs and that’s saying something considering how Kai meticulously carves out time during his week to spend a more than adequate amount of one-on-one time with each one. He cannot afford for things to go wrong or he might have to ask Bukayo to kick a ball hard enough at his head to induce amnesia.
There’s the sound of an unbuckling seatbelt and then Leo is in his space. He doesn’t give Kai any time to react, or to scold him for being without a seatbelt, for Leo slips his hand underneath Kai’s neck to slide his folded up jacket in between Kai’s head and the window. He braces his other hand on Kai’s thigh for balance and Kai is thankful his head is tilted downwards so he can drink in the point of contact as freely as he wants.
It’s over too quickly as Leo sits back down and buckles his seatbelt again. “You will get a crick in your neck if you sleep like that,” is all he says.
Kai tries not to think about how Leo’s hand is lax against his thigh now. He keeps his breaths shallow but it is futile. Leo’s scent fills his lungs, seeping into his bloodstream with every intake of air. It heads straight to his heart to make a home out of the rapidly beating organ as if it knows it has a claim it can stake.
Something like resignation bears down on Kai. There is only one way for this to end for him and he’s not quite sure he’ll come out unscathed.
-
For all of Kai’s hang ups, he’s not one to get easily embarrassed.
His siblings have a way of drudging that out of him.
Jan wraps him up in a too tight hug. Kai has been taller than his older brother for far longer than Jan was taller than him but he tucks Kai’s head against his neck as if he still that small boy who snuck into his bed when he missed him. Kai welcomes the hug, squeezing back just as tightly.
“It’s good to see you,” his brother says, pressing a kiss against his temple. “I missed you.”
“You should come to more games then.”
That earns him a laugh and a scratch against the base of his skull before Jan pushes him away gently. He pivots so that he can greet Leo who takes him in with much more grace than Kai gives him credit for. His siblings can be overwhelming but Leo easily engages with Jan as if they’ve known each other for years.
Lea takes their brother’s place easily. She’s been leading the projects at his foundation so Kai sees her more often than he does Jan. It doesn’t lessen the warmth that unfurls in Kai’s chest when the scent of her perfume envelopes him. “He is very cute. Good job,” she whispers in his ear.
Immediately, he shoves her off of him. The warmth in his chest transforms into irritation and he wonders how he ever missed her. “Eat shit,” he mutters.
“I’m impressed. That is all I am saying,” she says, holding her hands up in a mockery of innocence.
Out of the corner of his eye, Kai sees his brother pat Leo on the shoulder with a conspiratorial wink to which Leo only blinks at.
“We even had bets in place,” Jan joins in, subtly bringing Leo in.
He perks up much to Kai’s dread. “On what?”
Lea digs an elbow into Kai’s side to which he grunts at the sudden pressure on his ribs. “On if he would bring a date.”
A question seems to be on the tip of Leo’s tongue, one that has him assessing Lea and Jan more meticulously than earlier, before he settles with, “And did you lose?”
Lea sighs, draping herself across Kai. He tries to shake her off but she clings to him harder. “Big time. I will never financially recover.”
Kai nearly breaks his neck with how fast his head whips around. Offense begins to leak into his embarrassment until it’s a toss up to what consumes him more. “You bet against me?”
“Kai, Kai, Kai.” His brother sighs as if he is a particularly beloved dog whose status as beloved is what keeps him from reprimand. He is unsure how he should internalize that. “What else were we to do?”
Kai splutters. “Have faith in me? Maybe?”
Leo places a hand against the small of his back. The solid touch shifts Kai’s humiliation into something white-hot.
“Do not worry. I’ll make an honest man out of him,” Leo says straight-faced.
Silence suspends between the four of them. Kai is too stunned to look anywhere else other than at Leo’s self-satisfied smile.
Then Jan keels over, grabbing at his thighs as he laughs so hard his laughs quickly change into coughs. Lea’s tongue is between her teeth as she looks away to have some semblance of restraint. She shakes her head and closes her eyes as if that will prevent the giggles already slipping from her.
“It is so good to have you here, Leo,” Jan says when he finally calms down. He wipes his tears away with the heel of his hands. He looses a breath, chest shaking with his leftover laughter. “Whew.”
“Happy to be here,” Leo says, leaning closer into Kai’s side.
His breath catches in his throat and stutters there. He doesn’t know if he should move, if he can dare to wrap a hand around Leo’s waist.
The choice is taken out of his hands at his sister’s next question.
“So how long have you been together?”
Kai freezes. He’s been so wrapped up in the bubble of this false reality of dating Leo that he forgot the most important part: their cover story.
Leo glances at Kai out of the corner of his eyes to gauge his reaction before turning his full attention back to Lea. “It’s pretty new.”
Surprise flickers across his sister’s face and it’s gone too quickly for Kai to analyze why she would be surprised in the first place.
“But we’ve known each other for a few months. We work together,” he adds as if his family doesn’t watch his games. As if they haven’t also been mesmerized by how fluid Leo is on the pitch or by how secure the team looks when he’s subbed on. As if Kai hasn’t sung him praises any chance he’s gotten. “So it feels longer, yes?” He nudges Kai when more than ten seconds pass without a confirmation passing from Kai’s lips.
His tongue feels too thick for his mouth. “Yes. Longer.” Fuck, if there is any mercy left in this world, lightning would strike down on him right now.
The mercy comes in the form in all three of them swiftly moving past his flub. His siblings exchange a look so quick, Kai doesn’t have time to decipher what understanding they’ve come to. Lea nods slowly. “Kai has talked about you an awful lot.”
Leo crafts a carefully blank expression at his sister’s admittance. “Has he now?”
“That is not true,” Kai says hurriedly. “I have talked about you a normal amount.” There is a nonzero chance he might kill his sister before her wedding day.
“Normal is not flattering,” Leo says flatly.
Kai doesn’t notice the beginnings of a smile on Leo’s mouth and speaks before he can finalize in his mind what he’ll say. “Then slightly more than normal,” he corrects, helpless to Leo’s whims.
Lea disguises her laugh behind a cough.
“So quite a bit,” Jan surmises. He’s enjoying this. He should be helping Kai look less embarrassing but instead, he’s smiling like he did when Kai suddenly grew what seemed to be ten centimeters in one night and smacked his head right on the doorframe repeatedly for a week straight.
Leo begins to rub circles into his back slowly and Kai hates how he’s soothed by it. “You should let me know what he said later. Now, we should go unpack,” he says, injecting just the right amount of apology to appease his siblings and the correct amount of teasing to rankle Kai’s pride.
Leo waits patiently as Lea and Jan pull him into one more hug. He waves as he takes Kai’s hand in his, intertwining their fingers together and ensuring one more piece of Kai’s heart is his for the taking.
“Dinner is in two hours. Dress nice,” Lea calls after them.
“They are nice. Funny too,” Leo says when they’re out of earshot. He strokes Kai’s knuckle with his thumb and briefly, he wishes Leo would it sweep across the length of his wrist as well. “You and Lea have the same smile.”
“Mine is better,” Kai deadpans, mostly teasing. He’s pleased when he’s rewarded with a smile. It’s his favorite smile of Leo’s, a toothy one that crinkles the corners of his eyes.
Leo holds his hand tighter as he says, “I think so too.”
-
Predictably, the rest of Kai’s family loves Leo. He even manages to charm Lea’s fiancé’s side of the family as well much to Max’s pleasant surprise.
“I have too much food,” Leo announces when he finally finds a moment to break away from Kai’s mother.
Kai has escaped the main hall to take a breather in the back. Being around all his family again is nice but the magnitude of this week is beginning to weigh upon him. Putting his clothes next to Leo’s in their shared drawer while pointedly ignoring the single king-sized bed behind them wore away at the last of Kai’s sanity. He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to sleep at night with Leo inches away nor how he is supposed to get dressed tomorrow when the scent of Leo’s clothes are now mixed with his.
If he lets himself think further into the future, he doesn’t know how he is supposed to make it through this week and keep his wits about him. This must be a test, he decides. A way to test his mental fortitude before the next season starts.
Leo holds up a pastry to Kai’s lips expectantly. He automatically takes a bite.
“You want to head back?” Leo asks, licking some of the filling smeared from his thumb.
Kai closes his eyes and counts to ten. Then he counts backwards from ten and feels no less insane. “Yes,” he says, opening his eyes and looking straight ahead. “I am tired.” Understatement of the fucking year.
He lets Leo lead them back to the cabin. It’s a short walk but a steep one.
“It must be nice to see your family again.”
While his patience may be in tatters after spending so much time with them, he can’t deny the comfort he takes from being in their presence after so long. London is lonely and made lonelier by how he’s come alone. His teammates help but for him, there is no replacing the love of his family. “I am grateful they are all here,” he says quietly.
Leo hums. “Do you think any of them will move to London?”
Kai shakes his head. “Germany is home,” he says simply. England is a placeholder but a longer term one than he’d like. He loves football down to his very genetic makeup and he dreamed of the Premier League as a boy but sometimes, the what-ifs cross his mind. Choosing football was the easiest choice he’s made but perhaps, because he was so young when the choice was given, the choice was easy because he didn’t know what he’d be giving up. He doesn’t think he’d choose differently if he had the knowledge that he has now but he knows he wouldn’t have made the decision as lightly. Leo looks at him as if he can read his mind and it makes Kai wish he wasn’t so easy to read. “It is not so hard,” he assures.
“It is,” Leo says, a heartfelt understanding underlying embedding his words. Kai relaxes. “But for football, it is tolerable.”
They make it back to the cabin and Kai lets Leo shower first. He sits on the edge of the bed as he waits, mindlessly scrolling through social media until Leo’s finished.
Kai takes a short shower, exhaustion lining his bones. He does the rest of his routine in quick, practiced motions and then opens the door.
Leo is nearly naked when Kai walks out of the bathroom.
His pajama pants are loose and slung low on his hips. Thin wire frame glasses are perched on his nose, threatening to slip off his face entirely as he tilts his head down to read something on his phone. A frown brings his eyebrows together, growing tighter as he reaches the end of it.
Kai can only stare. He has seen Leo shirtless plenty of times in the locker room. He’s not yet immune but the coil of heat at the base of his spine no longer burns at first glance. What he hasn’t seen, though, is Leo shirtless before bed. His hair is free of hair wax, softly curling around his ears and at the nape of his neck. He yawns, scratching at his lower belly lazily.
Kai fingers his own admittedly thin shirt, somehow feeling more exposed than if he had gone shirtless.
Leo notices him as he locks his phone. He puts it on the bedside table and jerks to the bed with his thumb. “You ready?”
“Yeah.” Kai nods his head stiffly.
He’s under the sheets in record time. One of Leo’s eyebrows twitches but he doesn’t say anything. He flicks off the light and bathes the room in pitch black darkness.
Kai tries to take up as little room as possible, which given how large he is is a silly thing to do but he was not given an instruction manual on how to sleep in the same bed as Leandro Trossard.
Leo has no such qualms and inches closer to the middle of the bed. He settles when he’s a scant six inches away from Kai, breath evening out as sleep overtakes him. After what could be a few minutes or a few hours, Kai can’t tell, Leo reaches out and loops his foot around an ankle. He shuffles closer until his nose is pressed against Kai’s ribs, lulled by the warmth of his skin.
Kai stares at the ceiling, regretting many of the life choices he’s made that have led him here.
This has to be hell.
-
The days leading up to the wedding are a free-for-all. They spend the obligatory amount of time needed with his family before they are left to their own devices as the minute details of the wedding are wrapped up.
Kai offers a hike he found when sleep evaded him the night prior to which Leo accepts. Neither have packed the appropriate shoes but they make do with what they have.
“It is nice to see you like this.”
They’re crossing a small creek. The weather is beautiful and the flowers are in full bloom. It is a perfect day and Kai is glad to spend it with Leo.
“Like what?”
“In your element.”
Kai tilts his head. “Am I not in my element at Arsenal?”
Leo pokes his tongue into his cheek. “You are at your best when you are playing football. Here you are,” and Leo rolls his thoughts around in his head for a moment, “You are more yourself. More comfortable.”
“It is because I am not stressed out,” Kai supplies. He now only has Leo-centric stresses rather than the amalgamation of football, Leo, and life. It must be doing wonders for him.
Leo laughs, nearly missing the rock he’s trying to step on. “No secondhand anxiety from Lea?”
“None,” Kai says immediately. He has perfected the art of tuning out his sister.
The conversation slowly shifts back to talking about their respective lives. Kai listens intently as Leo recounts helping out with the local kid’s league, an exasperated but fond smile on his face.
Kai thinks from the tidbits he’s gleaned from Leo over the past few months, he lives a full life. It wedges discomfort in the space between Kai’s ribs and heart.
What Kai can offer, Leo already has. His ragged edges haven’t been smoothed out enough to fit Leo’s pieces.
They stop to eat on the way back. After Kai finishes putting the trash in his bag, he turns to Leo, intent on telling him they can stop by and take pictures of the wildflowers they saw earlier when Leo slips his hand into Kai’s.
He doesn’t know what Leo is trying to prove with just the two of them but he does not argue. He does, however, regret not having moisturized his hands once more before they left.
They make it back to the cabin, hand in hand. Leo forces Kai to nap with him after they get back and shower. It is less of a trial than the first night.
The days pass, dreamlike and so perfect, and Kai dreads the inevitable come down.
Leo’s panting next to him, flopped on the ground. What should have been a friendly match devolved into the two of them using every dirty trick they knew to steal the ball from each other.
Kai balances his arms on his knees, breaths harshly clattering in his chest.
“I won,” he says in between pants.
Leo rolls his eyes. “You cheated.”
“My height is not cheating.”
Leo sits up so he’s eye level with him. Kai raises his eyebrows, tempted to blow a raspberry at him.
Leo searches his face, a sly smile sneaking its way onto his mouth. He shrugs. “Fine. You won.”
He doesn’t allow for there to be a lead-up. Kai only has a moment to scrape together what little remains of his wits before Leo’s kissing him.
For a moment, nothing exists save for the feel of Leo’s mouth against his.
His lips are salty with sweat and part easily when Kai applies pressure. The combined heat and taste of Leo’s mouth makes him a little delirious. Hesitantly, Kai brings his hand up to his jaw, drawing Leo closer.
If Kai can only have this version of Leo for the week, he’ll do his damnedest to savor it.
-
The wedding is beautiful.
Kai cries so much, his eyes are still swollen by the time he takes pictures with his sister. Thankfully, he hadn’t been driven to sobs but it seemed as if the tears refused to stop spilling from his eyes. Leo tries to use a wetted cloth to help de-puff them but to no avail.
“Are they still red?” he asks, widening his eyes comically.
It gets a tender laugh out of Leo. “Just a bit. Hardly noticeable,” he lies, sweeping a thumb under his eye.
Kai dances with Leo flush against him and doesn’t think about how this is his last night to have this. Instead, he sways them to the beat of the music, leading him around the dance floor. Leo’s body heat radiates through Kai’s suit, leaving a heated imprint on his skin.
He wishes he could bottle this moment and tuck it behind his heart for safe keeping.
“I cannot believe we leave tomorrow already,” Leo says mournfully. “We should have taken two weeks.”
The reminder of how soon this will be over almost has Kai tripping over his own feet. He longs to be back at the Emirates as much as he dreads leaving this piece of paradise.
“I know,” is all he can manage to say. He changes the subject, desperate to prolong this for as long as Leo will let him. And let him he does for Leo indulges every once of Kai’s whims until they force themselves to bed lest they sleep through their alarms.
Their flight back is a rushed haze given how early it is. Leo is grumpy but mellows out as the morning drags on and he’s able to get a coffee into his system.
Kai purposefully picks the longest route to Leo’s house and drives slowly. Leo doesn’t comment on how long it takes. Maybe it is his last gift to Kai.
He thinks this is it when he drops Leo off at home.
He sits in the driver’s seat, picking at his cuticles while Leo rummages through the trunk for his things. Leo will redraw the lines of their friendship now that the magic weddings bring about is gone. And Kai will be okay with it. He may now know what it feels like to have Leo in his arms, what it feels like to kiss him, and what sort of addictive affection Leo guards closely to his heart but he must forget about it.
Kai will just need a little recalibration, that’s all.
Leo stands in front of Kai’s window. He rolls it down dutifully, prepared for a prompt goodbye. But then Leo says, “Why are you still in the car? You are wasting gas.” He turns on his heel and heads to his front door without looking back.
Kai takes the key out of the ignition and follows Leo inside.
-
Leo stays over more nights than he does not.
Kai never refuses him because he is not one to look a gift horse in the mouth but he does mention it over dinner.
Leo is sneaking a piece of his steak to Balou and glances up guiltily when Kai catches him. Balou doesn’t care and licks at the hand that feeds him in the hopes there is more to come. To his amusement, it seems Kai is not the only one to be taken with Leo. Though, he did not need the bribery of food to have his affection earned unlike the golden retriever.
“I like your home,” he says simply. “And you have these three.” He nods to Balou and then the other two dogs who are lounging on the couch together.
Pooch is tucked underneath one of Summer’s paws while the sound of Summer’s deep breathing fills in the spaces between their conversations. They are quite cute. Kai would not want to miss any spare moment he can find with them either.
They finish dinner. Leo promises to wash the dishes in the morning despite Kai’s protests. He sits next to the dogs, patting his thigh in invitation when Kai lingers near Balou.
They sit like this for hours, Kai’s legs hanging off the couch and Summer’s snores a soundtrack to their night. It’s perfect.
Leo presses his hand over Kai’s eyes. The darkness is a welcome reprieve and he finds he can breathe a little easier without Leo’s intense gaze upon him. Something about the chilled night air and Leo’s warmth has Kai wanting to be honest.
“I struggled with the transfer,” Kai says quietly as if he hopes the softer his confession, the less painful it will be to say.
Leo doesn’t startle at his confession. He traces one of Kai’s eyebrows, letting him gather the strength to continue.
“I am afraid of letting people down.” Kai’s throat wobbles. “And I did earlier in the season. I am in good form now so everything is good. But.”
“But,” Leo echoes sympathetically.
“When you are good, they love you. When you are bad, they hate you.” He stops. “I am okay. It does not bother me as much as it used to.” And it is not a lie. Kai has spent his transfers coming to terms with his price tags. But some days, it is overwhelming.
The finger tracing his eyebrows slows. “I was always good but not good enough,” Leo admits without resentment. “I had to force my way into Genk. It was not easy. They were reluctant to trust me but then we won the league title. Then I was sold to Brighton. It was hard to go from captaining a title winning club to starting from the bottom. I had to prove myself again.”
“And then you signed for Arsenal.”
Kai can feel Leo’s quiet nod as the couch shifts. “And I had to prove myself. Again. It is a never ending cycle. It is what we signed up for.”
Kai groans. “Fuck.”
“Fuck,” Leo agrees. He twirls a piece of Kai’s hair. He offers Kai an equal amount of honesty as thanks. “For what it is worth, I am glad you came to Arsenal.”
-
Kai is attempting to make a leaf in the coffee when Leo opens the front door. He flinches, sending hot milk to slosh over the edges of the mug.
He swears but the pain is gone as soon as it appears. He sops up the milk with a tea towel, deeming it too early in the morning for this shit to be happening.
“I already put the dogs out,” Kai says over his shoulder. He’s bemused by how the towel refuses to soak up more than half the liquid on the counter.
Leo unwraps the scarf from his mouth. “I know. I went to turn on the car.”
Kai looks up at the clock on the wall. They still have a couple of minutes before they need to leave to beat the traffic.
Leo rounds the corner of the island table, shaking off the morning chill. His cheek is warm where it’s pressed against Kai’s bicep. Kai goes very still.
He peers over, cheek sliding against his skin. Kai thinks he might die. “Ooh, a leaf.”
The mostly full mug does indeed now have a milk drawn leaf despite Kai’s clumsiness. He pushes it into Leo’s hand. “For you.”
“Thanks.”
“Nice sweater,” Kai says, pulling at a thread. It’s one of his older ones that his mother has repeatedly told him to get rid of because of its fraying edges. It’s followed him from Germany to England and he cannot bear to part from it. But his mother is right about it being so threadbare so he keeps it in the back of his car for when he misses home.
Leo grins at him. “You think so?”
He wraps the stray thread around his finger until it’s right enough to snap. The thread flutters to the countertop. “Why did you turn on the car? We still have a few minutes.”
Kai notices how carefully Leo drinks as if to preserve the leaf until his last sip. He thinks Cupid must be using his heart as shooting practice for how tightly his heart clenches at the sight.
The sleeve of Kai’s sweater is too long and distracts Leo. He puts the coffee down. “So it is warm by the time we leave. You hate when the steering wheel is cold.”
It’s not an arrow to the heart. Cupid’s taken a fucking axe to his chest.
Leo is folding the sleeves up to his wrist, tongue poked out in concentration and abruptly, Kai realizes he cannot do this.
“Leo,” he says.
The sharpness of his voice hangs between them on a knife’s edge. Leo slowly stops fiddling with his sweater, Kai’s sweater, and turns his focus to him. Leo’s confused when he catches sight of the grief darkening the hollows of Kai’s face.
He reaches out, pressing a thumb against the corner of Kai’s mouth as he cups his jaws. He leaves the unspoken question to hang in the air, giving Kai the time to formulate his thoughts. The swipe of his pinky against the line of his jaw is so delicate it makes Kai sick with longing.
He drops his weight into the meat of Leo’s palm. Leo does not falter and keeps Kai afloat, encouraging him to go at his own pace.
The sickness increases tenfold. How is he supposed to go without this? But how much more can he put his heart through before it becomes too mangled to be of use anymore?
Fear grips him by the throat in its taloned hand. If Kai does not draw attention to what this is, there won’t be an end. There won’t be a beginning either but Kai and Leo are long past beginnings. He can remain Leo’s nameless something and Kai can make do with a hollowed version of what he desperately wants. He can but he shouldn’t.
Kai wonders where this hunger comes from, wonders at what point did some part of him decide he was deficient. He wonders what he’s supposed to do with this ache.
All his life he’s known how to want but he’s never known how to ask. Today, he’ll learn.
“What are we?”
This limbo of attachment is not something Kai excels at it. He is not a casual man. He does not do things in halves and try as he might to be satisfied with what he’s been given, he will always want more. Greed has always been his Achilles heel. It took him from Leverkusen to Chelsea and then to Arsenal. It led him right to Leo.
He wants to make lattes with silly latte art an unbearable hour in the morning just to see that tired smile. He wants to shoulder all of the hurts that weigh upon Leo, the ones he keeps tucked beneath his tongue. He wants to tuck Leo’s happiness beneath his fourth and fifth ribs, to beat in junction with his heart. He wants all of Leo.
The severity emitting off of him must be excessive for Leo doesn’t crack a joke to lessen the tension stacking between them. He drops his hand from Kai. Leo considers him, considers the plea in his question and says, “It is obvious, no?”
Disappointment clots his blood. It struggles to pass through his veins. He feels lightheaded.
“I know I am not your boyfriend—“ Kai trips over the title. It is too juvenile, too childish for what he wants to mean to Leo but it is the only allowance he can afford.
Leo frowns as Kai stumbles over his words. He interrupts, “You are my boyfriend.”
Kai snaps his mouth shut. And then opens it again when he feels like the world hasn’t collapsed underneath his feet. “What?”
Now Leo looks exasperated. “We’ve been dating since you asked me to go to your sister’s wedding, no?”
That was…weeks ago.
He racks his mind for how Leo could have taken his invitation as a date but comes up blank. He had been so careful with his wording and explanation. He hadn’t been brave enough to serve his heart on a platter and hope Leo liked the offering. He had taken the choice off the table to spare himself the grief.
An unfamiliar look slides over Leo’s face. The incredulity makes way into something Kai cannot hope to read. “You did not—” And Leo’s mouth shuts audibly. He swallows. Kai follows the line of his Adam’s apple, takes in the careful breath Leo takes. He purposefully relaxes the tightness by his mouth until his face is blank.
Something is slipping out of Kai’s fingers and he does not know what but he knows he doesn’t want to lose it.
“I did not consider you would want to date me,” Kai says faintly.
Leo’s attention sharpens. “Why would I not want to date you?”
“Because you are you.”
“Yes.”
Kai wants to retreat into himself. He never thought Leo to be cruel but if he is making Kai explain what is so obvious, but maybe Kai does not know Leo enough to pass such definitive judgements on him. “And I am me.”
“That is precisely why I want to date you. I would not like to date myself. If that is what you are implying.” Leo stares at him. “Tell me that is not what you are implying.”
“I am not implying that.”
“Then what are you trying to say?” Leo asks, a touch of frustration entering his voice. “I want to understand you. I think I do but clearly I am not doing a good job.”
He wants to tell Leo it is through no fault of his that he does not understand Kai. He has no way to crawl into the hole Kai has sequestered himself into in the hopes that if he makes himself as easy going as possible, it will be impossible to dislike him. If he has no discernible traits other than being calm and awkward, nothing can be weaponized against him.
“I am very awkward,” Kai says. He holds out his hand and begins to tick off his fingers. “I struggle to say the right things. I am not as funny in English. My confidence is not good.”
“I don’t think those things,” Leo interjects. There’s an angry purse to his lips. He looks at Kai without fear, without hesitation, without care for how his words tear through Kai’s defenses. “I like you.”
The air disappears from Kai’s lungs. His stomach swoops as if he’s free-falling. He wants to believe him but he isn’t quite sure if it’s true.
His disbelief must be blatant because Leo frowns, bewildered. “What did you think we were doing these past few weeks?”
Leo isn’t accusatory but Kai feels chagrined all the same. “I didn’t think. I didn’t want to give myself the chance to hope.”
Leo mulls over this. A wrinkle appears between his brows. “Do you think I kiss anyone?”
Kai can’t look at him. His face is too hot for him to not know he’s red. “I do not want to think about you kissing anyone else so it did not cross my mind. I thought maybe it was that I was convenient.”
“Convenient,” he repeats distastefully. His accent stretches the vowels.
“You did not say anything!” Kai defends.
“You are the least convenient man I could choose. We work together.”
Kai doesn’t mention that the same sentiment crossed his mind as well because it would only serve to emphasize how willing he is to have Leo in any capacity. Even if it meant giving weight to the possibility of letting some of their team use his head as target practice to induce memory loss.
Kai stays quiet.
“You are very silly,” Leo says finally. “You are lucky you are so cute.” He looks upwards, contemplatively. “I must tell Ben about this. He will laugh.”
An oily chill slithers down his back. “Please, do not tell Ben,” he says automatically.
“You do not want Ben to know you are my boyfriend?” Leo asks innocently.
It takes Kai a second to realize Leo is fucking with him. “You are an asshole.”
His answering grin is sharp. It makes Kai want to kiss it off his mouth.
He leans down, inching closer and closer to where he wants to be. “No take-backs,” Kai warns. He’s mostly joking, more interested in feeling the curve of Leo’s smile against his lips.
Leo’s nose bumps against his as he laughs. “What are you? A kid?” But he’s looking at Kai with such adoration, the playful bite in his voice is nearly nonexistent.
And Kai can’t hold himself back, doesn’t want to hold himself back. He kisses Leo and lets himself fall into it, cupping his jaw so he can pull Leo in closer. His lips are warm and soft, the bitter notes of coffee an aftertaste Kai’s happy to keep chasing.
Leo breaks the kiss, eyes bright as if he’s only whet his appetite and found himself ravenous. He makes a valiant effort to try and tie a noose around his pure want but Kai doesn’t make it easy for him, crowding into his space and making it so that all Leo can think about is himhimhim.
“We’re going to be late for practice,” Leo says unconvincingly. He lets Kai curl over him and tip his chin up.
“Uh huh.” Kai presses his lips against the corner of his mouth.
“The car is still running.”
He’s got that pinched look on his face that makes Kai want to pull him into a kiss so he does. Leo stubbornly keeps his lips pursed but gives in after a second, causing Kai to laugh and clack his teeth against Leo’s.
They have a limited amount of time before Martin calls them to threaten extra drills for missing practice and Kai intends to make the most of every minute.