Chapter Text
The room felt warm, too warm even, considering it was a crude winter outside and the air was nothing short of freezing. The air felt clammy and thick, rather unbreathable. Marc woke up feeling massively disorientated and for a good few seconds he barely moved, barely breathed at all. His eyelids felt heavy, his tongue drier than sand; his whole body numb, drained of all energy, hardly alive. He tried to remember where he was, what had happened, but his brain would not respond. After making a massive effort, he managed to move one of his hands which bumped into something, or rather someone; he wanted to cry, after everything that had happened and he was still there.
“Bernd” he caressed his name with a whisper
“No, my love” came the answer; a voice Marc could not recognise; cold sweat covered every inch of his skin “Bernd’s gone and he will not bother you anymore”.
******
1 week earlier
Things had gone fully out of control and Marc couldn’t take it anymore. After having spoken to his manager, he had given him his permission to pack his stuff and take a couple of weeks off; he was really trying to focus and perform at his best but the more he tried the least he achieved, the more he pushed himself, the more frustrated, angry and exhausted he ended. There was no point in dragging the situation any longer so he made his mind up and caught the first flight to the only place where he would feel better.
As soon as he saw his boyfriend, he felt like crying in relief. The minute Bernd enveloped in his arms and covered him in kisses and caresses, every worry in the world disappeared, every weight from his shoulders, lifted. Marc let him guide him, pour him some tea, hug him some more, kiss him everywhere, touch him, love him. He felt surrounded by so much love that everything else simply vanished.
The solution seemed to be temporary since, after just one day of being together, Marc started feeling terrible again. He tried to shake his thoughts out of his mind but to no avail. Often he would realise Bernd was talking to him only when it was too late and he had already missed half of what his boyfriend had said. He had tried to smile, he had really tried, but he knew the smile was not reaching his eyes and was flying away from his lips too quickly to be a genuine one. He felt exhausted and on edge, tired beyond belief and for no good reason. And then there was Bernd, the look of concern in his gorgeous features was literally killing him. On the phone, it had been rather easy to conceal how much of a shit time he was having, however, face to face, was proving a real challenge.
Bernd was always trying to make him feel at ease; to make him smile and laugh; to make him comfortable; to make him feel loved, heard and understood; and what was he giving back? Nothing but silence and apparent indifference. He had tried so many times to talk to him and tell him the truth, but somehow he just couldn’t bring himself to do it; he knew it would worry him for probably nothing and he really didn’t want to put him through it. Marc was fully convinced it would only be a few days, a few days of rest, fully disconnected from everything and things would go back to normal for him and between them.
They had been sharing a bed for 3 nights now and more than a few centimetres it seemed that a whole world was separating them. He had craved intimacy with his gorgeous boyfriend like a starved man, funny thing was that now that he was literally lying next to him, he felt incapable of doing anything but sleeping. He was feeling so anxious that didn’t think himself capable of opening his body and soul to the beautiful man next to him; he was sure that the moment Bernd laid a finger on him, all the messages and calls would come flooding to his mind making him cry desperately; he resolved himself not to let that happen by any means. At some point they would stop calling him, messaging him, and everything would be fine again. He knew he was hurting Bernd then again; it was not the lack of sex, but the lack of trust and communication what seemed to be putting a strain in their relationship and he was fully aware his boyfriend had started noticing something was off but he was still trying to pretend everything was ok. Every night they would go to bed at the same time; Bernd had tried to hug him a few times, maybe trying to initiate something, maybe just trying to let him know he was there; Marc had tried to avoid any physical contact as nonchalantly as possible, giving him a quick peck on the lips and turning his back to him, pretending he was going to sleep. He wasn’t. He hadn’t slept less in his life; constantly moving and turning to the point of desperation, incapable of ignoring the heavy pain his rejection was inflicting on Bernd.
During his time in London the messages and calls hadn’t stopped; he had tried changing his phone number a good few times, but they kept contacting him. At some point he had tried to smash the phone against the floor, but the bastard had bounced back against some towels and lied on the floor intact. And then the flowers came. One evening, he had come home after a not-so-relaxing walk around the neighbourhood when he saw them; a beautiful bouquet of red roses. It felt like everything was happening all over again; a strong bout of nausea overtook his stomach and he pushed the flower jar to the floor with all his might; only when he saw Bernd’s panicked expression he realised what had happened; only when he saw his bleeding hand he realised this needed to stop.
It all had started in the most innocent of ways. Marc was finishing some bowl of fruit while distractingly checking his instagram when he realised he had got a bit of an overeager fan. Someone had taken their time to go over almost every single post he had ever made to leave a comment; the particularity of them was that, the newest the comment the more personal it got. At the beginning he didn’t give it a lot of importance, after all it was not the first over excited fan he encountered in his career, the issue here was though that the more comments he received, the more uneasy he felt. Who was that person? And why were they so interested in him as to leave him so many comments?
Every day there was a new comment, or two, or ten, depending on the amount of pictures or posts Marc decided to make that day. At some point he started to publish less and less trying to dissuade his secret admirer of keeping up with their messages. Without any posts to comment, his fan seemed to have found another way to keep in touch so the text messages began. The first few texts had been rather innocent although Marc had had enough and decided to change his phone number; this didn’t seem to dissuade his admirer, who, somehow, got his new number and kept sending messages, only that this time they were far more intrusive and uncomfortable. He never responded to any of the messages so the messages turned into calls; calls in the morning, during training, at ungodly hours at night. More than once he would miss Bernd’s calls as he had his phone in silence, trying to ignore all the unwanted contacts.
One morning he had arrived in training and some member of the staff let him know there was something for him. With a tinge of doubt and suspecting it was all a joke, he made his way to the changing room only to discover a small bouquet of red roses on his bench: Bernd had really overdone himself that time, he decided he was so gonna propose the next time he would see him. When checking the little card hidden among the flowers, he realized it was not signed, so much for discretion, he thought with a massive smile on his lips. His happiness was short lived though, that same night he received a text from the unknown number asking him if he had liked the flowers; he chucked them in the bin as if they were poisonous. The week after he received another bouquet of flowers, bigger and more impressive than the first one, Piqué had made a joke about someone loving him very much or having a lot of apologising to do, he gave him the death stare and threw the roses in his face. Piqué stayed quiet afterwards; they trained like every other day and, once finished, he discretely took Marc to some room to find out what had him so unlike himself. Marc tried to brush it off saying it was nothing until thanks to the insistence of his teammate and friend he ended up breaking down and confessing everything that was going on. Piqué had insisted about involving the police but Marc being Marc reassured him that everything was ok and that they would get tired at some point. When Marc start ed receiving unwanted presents at his own place, he decided to talk to his coach and made his way to London without a second thought.
Bernd had texted him to let him know he would be at his favourite cafe after training so he grabbed his keys and made his way to meet him.
After waiting for more than an hour, Bernd finally understood Marc was not gonna come and decided to make his way home. His phone rang angry on his pocket and he picked up as if his life depended on it; at first, he didn’t recognise the voice on the other end of the line until Piqué introduced himself; why was he calling him?
“Is Marc there with you?” Asked Piqué trying to sound calm
"He’s in London with me, yes” Bernd replied annoyed; what did he care?
“Can you tell him to pick up his phone? I have been trying to call him for a good few hours but I have not been able to locate him”
Bernd was starting to get worried; why would Piqué call him so concerned about Marc if he knew he was here with him? “Is there something wrong? Why would you be so worried as to call me after having tried to call him for just a few hours?”
“No, everything’s fine….just…”
“Just?”
“No, nothing”
“You wouldn’t be calling me if it was nothing. I would really appreciate it if you would stop taking me for a fool and would tell me the truth. What’s going on?” Bernd had definitely ran out of patience
“I promised Marc…”
“Marc’s not here” Bernd cut
“Where is he?” Piqué sounded uncomfortable
“What is it to you? What’s going on?” Are these two together and I am missing something?
Piqué exhaled loudly “He’s going to kill me but…”
“It’s gonna be either him or me, so I’d suggest that you tell me before…”
Bernd hadn’t finished his sentence when he felt his blood freeze; Marc had a stalker.