Chapter Text
He’s heard the whispers.
That his rival is more than that, more than a singular human being.
Somehow the new embodiment, the enhanced reincarnation of Barça’s old 8. Iniesta.
That Pedri doesn't play, he wills football art into existence, doesn't command the ball with a tap of his foot so much as with a glance, a magnetic look. Like he almost belongs to the wrong sport, a ballerina among ballers, outclassing each and every one as he moves on a level above.
That anyone reaching up to grab hold of that plane will find their fingers mercifully crushed.
That when his body is in agreement with him, he is the peak, cannot be topped.
If you were to project them onto that overused-and- gnawed-to-the-bone debate, he is Messi and Jude is Ronaldo. For uncountable reasons really.
Technicality and tempo versus power and scoring. Harnessing the game, like conducting an orchestra, moving through it all like him and the ball are the only ones on the pitch, versus pulling out moments of magic like fireworks, with a physicality sculpted by an artist.
Elegance and beauty, just in different ways.
Pedri is Messi like Messi is inhumanly good, graceful, cuts through a defence like sharpened shearing scissors through silk.
Messi himself is something more, not quite of this world. He is like someone with the strength of more than one person, just a bit more super than human, to the point that it becomes uncanny. That his opponents yield more out of subconscious fear than just body feint trickery.
(To the point that Jude didn’t choose to copy his celebration, it sprung forth from him involuntarily like an uncontrollable transformation, a playing thing moving his arms into place like a doll, because really he’s the one who-)
Messi has something else behind his eyes, his movements, like a perfect puppet on a string, movements executed by something just a little past human.
You can see it sometimes, in the dark, in his shadow, under the floodlights—there’s a whisper of someone more-Maradona. Again, but enhanced. Now able to make the limits crumble at his feet without a word.
The truth, that everyone either cannot perceive or is so terrified by that it chokes acknowledgment away from them, is that Messi is not just Messi.
At least not ever since he walked onto the pitch for Argentina wearing number 10. He is a crack in reality which the fractured pieces of past glory have slipped into, becoming trapped in a mortal shell which they twist irreparably.
And Ronaldo can see it. He still chooses to fight anyway because he is the peak of what a single human can achieve.
Even if he knows, he knows, he knows, he knows, has found himself unable to look away from the way the world bends and breaks easily at Messi’s feet like the earth itself is breathing, or shuddering, as he plays.
Ronaldo has made it shake himself,once or twice, but it cost him almost his entire being.
(He should be the Ronaldo, he should be himself he should be he should be he should be but he is not be cause he is not himself anymore maybe never was because of what he is he has become he is he hi he is he is him because he is no longer himself he is no longer-
Jude can see it.
But it’s because, in a wonderfully bitter spell of irony, there is just one thing wrong with their prescribed roles in this form of the debate.
Because Pedri, as much as he appears to be, is not the human shifted three spaces to the left in their pair.
He is, instead, just the greatest performer on the pitch.
Because that role is filled by Jude.
Or at this point, the number 5 of Real Madrid feels closer to a name that actually fits him.
Because everything fits wrong now, the way his shoulder sits in his socket, even after surgery, the way his jersey hangs heavier than only fabric is capable of, the way his soul sits just slightly off kilter inside his ribcage, strained and stretched with the introduction of someone, something else, much older.
Zidane. But also more than him, more than anyone-
An echo which rests its hands around his limbs and neck, never applying any pressure, but always there, always encouraging reality to be coaxed towards his will, always fed by the incessant wave of white noise and lights he is overcome with on the pitch.
He is great, he will become even greater, for club and country, he will be legendary—and he can no longer catch his own eye in the mirror.
Can barely remember what it felt like to just be himself, Jude.
Not Jude Bellingham, not Belligol, not England’s Number 10, not The New Number 5 of Real Madrid– just what he was before he was twisted into someone just a little bit more.
And he knows who’s the only one able to see it.
Able to look at him, truly look at him, as in as close to perceiving as much of his entirety as a single human could comprehend.
‘Jude.’
‘Pedri.’
Barca’s star nods in acknowledgement as they meet in the line up of El Clasico.
The Number 5 of Real Madrid looks him in the eye, and Pedri, with a basic human instinct baked into his bones to run in the face of the unknown, the undone, still manages to shake his hand. And Jude perfectly resists rendering all the phalanges and muscles and ligaments within it to a fine dust.
This goes silently understood through the meeting of their gazes.
Pedri sees him, acknowledges him, and never questions. He nods back with a made-easy-through-practice smile.
He doesn't say his name anymore. Or, he doesn’t say it like he said his old name, the one of the person he’s outgrown now just a bit, replaced–like a ship of Theseus with its parts reattached with silver, rusting into gold–without anyone else realising.
(He practices saying it every day. In front of the mirror at first, now in front of the wall. ‘Hi, I’m Jude Bellingham.’ And each time it becomes just the slightest bit harder to choke out.)
Sometimes Jude can’t tell if that makes him want to hug Pedri, or slap him, or consume and subsume and crush and scatter and suck dry and break his mind, his soul, and-
The Number 5 of Real Madrid tells him, ‘Good luck, you’ll need it.’
Pedri replies, with that same smile and all seeing eyes that successfully manage to hide any fear, ‘Thanks, but I can make my own.’
Jude lets out a laugh and for a moment he feels almost close to normal.
And then he lets go of Pedri’s hand, and receives only a quick glance back. One of understanding, of comprehending the incomprehension that he is.
They get on with it, on the pitch which, if not for its existence, Jude would have gone mad already. Or maybe he’d still just be one.
‘ ’
He asks him about it.
When he finds that Pedri has unexplainably (unavoidably) stayed behind in the close-to-catacomb web of tunnels and changing rooms in the old stadium they’ve just played a ‘friendly’ pre-season Clasico at.
‘What do you think are you doing.’ His tone removes the question mark, makes it clear he knows exactly what it is that’s gnawing away at him, and that it’s something Pedri has to stop.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’re looking at me.’
Pedri raises an eyebrow and chuckles, face cluelessly questioning what are you even saying? (just the slightest bit ingenuinely)
‘Jude, I don’t know how to break it to you but you are a galactico. Being looked at when you’re a world famous footballer kind of comes with the territory.’
‘You know that’s not what I meant.’ He feels the words, the force of his voice press a bit too strong before he can help it.
Pedri falters for a second, sarcastic tone evaporating in an instant.
Jude readjusts, ‘I mean, you look at me. Like nobody else.’
Barça’s Number 8 nods, recomposed, but with a hint of something more raw in his eyes. He replies with a quieter tone, at the edge of gentle.
‘Yeah, I do. What I don’t see is how that’s an issue.’
‘…it puts you at risk.’
‘Of what?’ He’s pushing slightly, a bit more challenge in his eyes now, undaunted by anything.
‘Fucking hell, you know. I don’t want you to get twisted too.’ Jude’s own fear slips out a bit, making the words tight, heavy.
Pedri’s eyes widen just a fraction, then soften. Don’t relent, they could never, especially not facing Jude, but soften.
Jude keeps going, ‘Because you have the immense talent to be able to touch greatness while staying as you are, just human flesh and blood.’
But somehow, that’s the wrong thing to say because it makes Pedri’s eyebrows twitch for a millisecond, gaze sharpening, then flicking away to the floor.
‘Really? Is talent enough? I wasn’t sure since I’ve felt pretty fallible, recently.’
The sarcasm is tinged with bitterness, this time. The slightest hint of guilt too, but it’s almost impossible to catch under all the frustration.
‘I mean, it kind of seems like every time I touch greatness my body just falls apart on me. And I'm getting quite sick of it, honestly. Especially,’ he chuckles briefly, humourlessly, ‘when I know that, in my bones, and then see you. Who’s just, you know, more now. Who has been playing through pain for two years. As if it doesn’t even exist to you anymore.’
He meets his gaze again.
‘So I don’t know, Jude, is talent enough? If physically you’re still just so weak, as simple flesh and bone?’
Jude hesitates, and then says, so honest it makes his heart beat fucking loud out of terror, that sometimes
(that’s a lie, it’s so much closer to constantly, he’s not as strong as Messi, he’s still so young and human he can’t handle what he’s becoming, it gets worse each time he steps on the pitch, he hears his name get tangled with Zidane’s, running into each other like cursive, so much he fears one day they’ll be indistinguishable, at least to his ears, and who, what, will he be then?)
‘I wish I could trade my UCL, my Kopa Trophy, my Golden Boy, the La Liga Championship, and all the Player of the match, month, league, whatevers I’ve gotten in my life, just for the chance to feel like myself, only myself, again.'
'In fact,’
he laughs with no real joy behind it, just to throw his head back a bit and be able to break Pedri’s gaze for a second so he can breathe,
‘Sometimes I’m fucking scared to win the World Cup. Cause I know it’ll just pull me further away from Jude because-’
Zidane won it. And he, Jude, back when he truly was himself, is gone.
‘Even if the person I am becoming wins, Jude Bellingham will not. Because who I am supposed to be, who everyone thinks that I still am, has ceased to exist.’
He takes a breath. 'But you know that already, don't you?'
Pedri looks somewhat shocked at the confession. Like his first instinct is to push back, to snap that only someone with trophies to lose could say something like that.
But Jude thinks that Barça’s 8 can feel the fear coming off of him,
(the invisible hands are pressing the slightest bit more on his windpipe—he knows it isn’t actually Zidane, not really, that’s just the form it takes, half an illusion, half a lie—because it is football, something born of humanity but grown so much bigger than human, something they give their entire beings to unkowingly and then obeyingly, it’s why the legends can never escape, become managers and pundits just so they can get close enough to the pitch again to feel alright, fight past the physical limits of humanity with moon sized egos because that’s the only way to resist losing yourself to the burning sun that is the sport’s spirit, that gaping maw, as long as possible—even if they know they’re already lost, began to be from the moment they stepped on the pitch and just got even more so with every step more, because even probably the closest person who’s come to resisting it still says with his whole chest that ‘winning is the only time I feel alive’)
because Pedri pauses a moment to take it in, and then replies softly, with conviction in his eyes.
‘I know you feel like you’re gone, but even if I can see the parts that are… more, now… you still mostly seem like Jude. Like you’re human, at your core. And not for nothing, nobody else has noticed anything yet, anyway.’
It’s half comforting, half painful.
Nobody else can see through his image, can see him being slowly strangled—but that’s not what Pedri means. So he lets the words calm him down.
(When they first met, Zidane had taken one glance at him and immediately given him an expression of pity and apology, (and fear) and Jude had smiled as usual (the expression that only Pedri seems to be able to see the exhaustion in) and said
‘This is the way it is with football, isn’t it?’
And the former 5 of Madrid had paused for a moment, and then nodded and said,
‘Yes, our unrelenting mistress will always move forward to the next brightest thing.’
He had given him a small, slightly concerned smile, and then added,
‘Call me if you ever need to talk about it, alright kid?’
Jude had smiled again as he walked away and forced himself to delete Zidane’s number from his phone, with the fear of losing himself even more if he saw his way of walking, talking, expressing.
(even if the thing that grips him isn’t actually Zidane, just a part of him that football took and is remaking and reinforcing based on Jude’s own perception to capture him, he can’t give it any more ammunition)
He looks at the new Number 8 of Barça and understands that he’ll never look away from him, (and if Jude lets himself be honest with his emotions, he’s so fucking grateful for that) and says,
‘Just. Promise me you’ll never give into it, if it offers.’
Pedri raises his head a little, then nods, certain, eyes peering into his soul (or what’s left of it.)
‘I promise.’
Jude lets out a proper sigh, and suddenly feels able to release all the tension from his shoulders. Or, almost all of it at least.
‘Thank you.’ he breathes.
‘I mean,’ Pedri smiles and shrugs a little, but his eyes stay a bit raw. ‘It’s not really a tough decision after what you’ve said.’
‘Maybe, but seriously, thanks so much mate, I mean, it’s mostly for you but… I think you’re the only thing that keeps me grounded, as well.’
Jude’s last few words only make it out a bit quieter than the others, but they still echo slightly in the hall between changing rooms.
‘Oh.’
There’s something he can’t quite place (or maybe just won’t allow himself to) in the way Pedri’s eyes go softly wide, and then crinkle up again as he gives him a small smile unlike any other Jude’s seen on his face.
As if it's an expression only he can bring out of him.
‘I’m… glad to be able to. So, will you promise not to stop me from seeing you?’
Jude feels his eyebrows raise in pure surprise, and then his voice raises them even more as it comes out almost faltering, sounding just so human.
‘Sure. I promise.’
Pedri’s eyes flash brighter, along with his proper smile, and something about it makes him feel actually okay this time, just for a moment.
‘ ’
Jude thinks about Pedri a lot. He can never not, of course, but somehow it happens even more after that Clasico. Even now, two months later, when Madrid is meeting Barça again. There's just something about him.
Especially his eyes.
Bold arched brows, dark earth brown colour, white under the iris, ringed by subtle circles of darkness but also with fire inside.
Staring into his soul like he’s rearranging the atoms which made him up, like a tsunami plunging him down into the deep, like a warm blanket wrapping him in front of a fire afterwards. Or before. Or maybe just at the same time.
They’ve got a shade and gaze that could only be described as ‘pretty?’
‘Hm?’
Vini stares at him with a knowing look as they warm up at the edge of the pitch, about to start.
(His gaze is almost as knowing as Pedri’s these days, actually, starting to have the slightest bit of natural wariness hidden away at its edges. Jude supposes it makes sense, he is the Next Number 7 of Madrid and the Next Neymar after all.
But still, his gaze can only be considered close to Pedri’s in the same sense as the Moon can be considered close to the Earth–it can see in the broadest strokes, can tell something’s there. But it's blind compared to the detail perceived by a satellite just above the planet’s surface.)
His teammate asks again, ‘I said, you find Gavi pretty?’
‘What? No- I mean yes, like just objectively but he’s no Pedri–where did you get that idea?’
Vini laughs infectiously, in that way that nobody can avoiding smiling at.
(except Jude, who now has to do so consciously–which is the only way he catches his friends unusual eagerness to start giggling, seemingly to be able to close his eyes instead of keeping them trained on Jude’s face. He feels a slight pit in his stomach)
‘You’re kinda staring at him bro?’
‘Oh, that wasn’t intentional. I was just zoning out about something else.’
‘Hm, another Barca midfielder, presume? A certain Number 8, I perhaps?’
Jude feels his cheeks heat up just a fraction.
‘Shhhh! And you got perhaps and presume mixed up, but good on you for trying out big words in English–’
Vini throws his towel at him. ‘At least I’m trying! Você poderia fazer um esforço também!’ {you could make an effort too!}
‘Ok, ok, eu vou fazer melhor! Então, por que você está tão interessado em se eu acho Gavi bonito, hm?’ {Alright, alright, I'll do better! So, why are you so interested in whether I find Gavi pretty, hm?}
‘Ah-’ His eyes widen in confusion, clearly not expecting Jude’s Portuguese to be as good as it is.
(and why would he since it's been enhanced by what he's becoming, his français may be perfect compared to anything other than his English now but the rest is still far better than it ever was, football is international after all)
‘None from your business!’
‘Hm, você está literalmente corando, mas ok.{you’re literally blushing, but ok}
And it’s actually-’
‘Of! Yes! I know, argh, fuck you!’ Vini playfully shoves him.
(and Jude tries to ignore how he quickly pulls his hands away, as if Jude is much hotter or colder than he anticipated)
‘Hey!’ Their heads whip back towards Barça’s warm up spot, which the team’s Number 6 is rapidly approaching from. Bizarrely, with Raphinha in tow.
‘Ah- Gavi! To what do we owe the pleasure?’ Vini switches to Spanish in an unsuccessful attempt to appease the culer, always going right to the edge with him still.
Gavi’s expression turns even stormier, if that’s possible. And just slightly red.
‘I heard you insulting me in Portuguese!’
‘Wh- what?’
‘Don’t try to deny it! You were laughing like a hyena as always and then I heard something in Portuguese with my name. Now repeat it so Raphi can translate it for me and I can decide how appropriately hard to tackle you in 5 minutes!’
Vini just stares at him wide eyed for a second–somehow blushing even more if Jude’s eyes don’t deceive him, Vini’s lucky it’s a bit harder to tell with his skin tone–and then bursts out laughing, even brighter than before.
Raphinha seems to be putting in some effort to keep his expression neutral but not struggling too much, (he must be super human too… or just get a lot of practice from being on the national team with him) but Gavi’s gone absolutely red.
Jude can’t tell if it's more from him finding Vini cute or absolutely enraging, but he gets a strong feeling they’re going to end up on top of each other at least once this match. Possibly even afterwards.
‘Oh my god, that’s just so far from the truth man- first of all, I didn’t even say it! Jude did!’
‘Seriously? You expect me to believe Bellingham-’ and then as Gavi turns his gaze towards him for the first time, he falters for a second,
(just like Vini looked for a moment when he first greeted him this morning—As if he too can see that something’s not right about Jude anymore, but nothing more than that.)
‘the Brit, knows fluent Portuguese?’
‘Jude, show him!’
‘Ok then!’
He sees Vini beam, and then clock a few seconds too late how incriminating the message is, starting to try and say something to get Jude to stop repeating it, but by then it’s too late.
Gavi and Raphinha stare at him, the former with the slightest bit of fear and confusion just slightly informed by his basic ability to perceive the uncanny valley, and the latter with just regular old surprise before he just sighs,
‘I’d translate that, but I don’t think anyone deserves to get in the middle of you two trying to sort of your feelings… so good luck.’
Jude thinks he hears him mutter La Liga is a serious institution, they said, people will be professional, they said under his breath as he walks away to squawks of protest from both blushing players.
But as his gaze follows the Barça Captain, it’s pulled towards his teammate with those eyes, already fixed on Jude with a brightness to them as he nods and motions for him to come over.
And who would Jude be to not go to Pedri when he asks?
‘Wait… does bonito mean the same thing in Portuguese and Spanish?? And did he say ew like in English?? Are you saying I’m not cute??’
‘What. Absolutely n- ah! I mean…eh… Jude! Where are you going!?’
‘Oh yeah, change the subject like a-’
‘To talk to Pedri for a second.’
‘Oh, of course you are!’
‘What’s that supposed to mean? What is he doing with-’
‘Come on Pablito, doesn’t your best friend tell you anyth- ARGH!’
Jude takes his cue to leave just as Gavi pounces on Vini, wanting absolutely no part in witnessing what they do next.
‘Thanks for rescuing me there. What’s up?’
Pedri smiles at him and replies, ‘You’re welcome. I just wanted to tell you I think you look lighter than usual, in case you don’t want to believe it yourself. And pr- I mean, yeah.’
Jude suddenly notices now how flushed the midfielder is. Must just be from the exercise he’s been doing.
‘You look good.’ He gives him a little smile, and Jude feels a part of him melt a tiny bit.
‘Oh, thanks.’ Jude smiles back. (or at least tries to, he really wants to but the expression can never quite reach his eyes anymore.)
‘Vini and Gavi can tell what I am, though. They definitely can’t see me like you, but they clock that I’m not just myself anymore.’
‘Right.’ Pedri nods, something a bit more negative in his expression. It isn’t jealousy, more like…concern. With maybe just the slightest hint of possessiveness buried kilometres under its surface.
‘I’ll keep an eye on Gavi, see if his vision gets any stronger.’
‘Could you also maybe… try to convince him it’s just in his head? Or wait no, that’ll probably just make things worse.’
Jude sighs, and Pedri, still mindful of keeping his expression from getting too true in front of the public surrounding them, glances at the clock which tells them they have about a minute left, in subtle annoyance.
He looks back at Jude with his eyes open like windows directly into his soul.
‘I’m glad that I can ground you a bit before a big match like this, at least.’
‘Damn, can you see my thoughts as well as everything else?’
‘Maybe.’ He shoots him a sly smile, then it turns genuine.
‘No, you’re just easy to read.’
‘I think a lot of people would disagree.’
‘Well, I am immensely talented after all.’
Jude opens his mouth to reply, but the cheers of the crowd fill in instead.
Announcing that their time is up.
‘See you on the pitch.’ Pedri waves, with softness mixed with fire in his gaze.
‘You too.’ Jude tries to be comforted by his sure tone, as he steps out into the churning cauldron that is the Santiago Bernabeu.
Vini and Gavi get sent off with red cards.
Both for incidents which occurred just after accidentally brushing by Jude.
When the referee questions them on their shocking aggression, they look almost a bit haunted as they explain that they don’t know what came over them.
(Pedri catches his eye after each one, tries to mouth something, maybe intending to be reassuring. Jude turns away from him each time)
‘ ’
One night a few weeks later—their third clasico in as many months—after the pundits showering him with flowers,
(dead things which are beautiful, celebrated for being that—just like him now that’s him now he is gone he is not is not is not)
after he gets a standing ovation from the whole Camp Nou, after Vini gives him a strange look and waves him goodbye early, a little nervously and after Gavi strangely, wrongly, avoids tackling him the whole game—he finds Pedri.
Who’s stayed behind until he’s finished with an almost hour long hot shower, scrubbing until his skin turned reddened just to clear his mind, scratch an unreachable itch inside of him, just feel something.
Pedri gives him a look of acknowledgment, empty of pity or disapproval, and then drives them to a secluded cafe to just exist, squeezed into the same banquet, outside of football for a bit.
Sitting there, Jude quietly admits he blacked out for most of ‘the greatest match he’s ever played.’
They sit in unnecessary-to-break silence as time stretches out like pulled raw rubber, until it finally gives out.
‘Why?’ Jude says it softly, and it makes Pedri’s ribcage hum with static.
‘Why what?’
‘Why do you stay, Pedri? When you know… what I am. What I’m becoming.’
Pedri moves imperceptibly closer. ‘…you're more than just my rival. The other side of our coin. I stay because I see what you are, I could never look away from you, you’re…’
‘What? Mesmerising? Terrifying? Like a car rushing towards you, freezing you to the spot?’
‘Strong. And caring… and beautiful. You were before, and you still are now, even if you don’t believe it.’
‘Oh.’ He goes quiet for a bit, feels a painful lump form in his throat. A part of him
(or maybe not, it’s so hard to tell where he ends and it begins these days)
whispers he still can’t see or comprehend me in my entirety—but the rest of him replies nobody can and he’s far closer to doing so than anyone else in the world, maybe even Jude himself.
‘You, um, actually think so?’
‘Trust me. I can see it.’
Jude takes a deep breath, and leans down and rests his head on the other midfielder's shoulder. ‘Thank you.’
Then after a brief pause, ‘I’m sorry.’
He feels Pedri smile,
(despite not seeing his face)
as if he’s just being ridiculous, and the Barça midfielder’s hand ghosts over his.
‘Don’t mention it, really. And how many times will I have to tell you, you have nothing to be sorry for.’
He notices Jude opening his mouth to rebut him,
(despite not seeing Jude’s face either)
and shakes his head to make any self-blaming words die on Jude’s lips.
‘I’m not a moth drawn inescapably to a flame, Jude. I’m a person, seeing another person going through some fucked up shit, and deciding to care about them cause they deserve to feel okay again. I choose to do that myself, of my own free will.’
‘Some people don’t even think free will is real.’ Jude certainly doesn’t, at this point.
Pedri hums ‘Can’t prove it either way though? I mean, I know there’s probably something in psychology or physics which claims to, but to me, as long as it feels real enough, I don’t see why it should matter.’
‘I guess. I just don’t want to be dooming you.’
‘If you really want to feel better about that, you’re likely the one with the least free will out of the two of us, not me. Sorry.’ He breathes it out, half lightly.
Now its Jude’s turn to chuckle a bit.
‘Don’t apologise for saying the truth, Pedri.’
The Barça player goes quiet for a moment, and then replies. ‘I mean, what even is the truth anyways? Can we ever be sure of it?’
Jude’s tone turns more inquisitive, but still remains soft. ‘The fuck is up with you now? Didn’t realise you turned into a philosopher while I was out of it.’
Pedri chuckles into Jude’s hair, letting his hand settle on Jude’s.
‘What’s wrong? Can’t you answer the universe's questions with that more-than-human head of yours?’
‘I- no?’ Jude’s unsettled at the reminder, it feels so uncharacteristic of Pedri- until he processes more and clocks the sarcasm in his tone, too focused on the words to realise it initially.
Pedri’s reply sounds genuine, at least.
‘It sounds like you’re still pretty human then, so I wouldn’t be so sure that you’re right about something so unknowable. Emphasis on the pretty,‘ he says under his breath, then continues,
‘I know- actually no, I really don’t, probably can’t even imagine how hard it is to resist it. But I know you well enough to be sure that you’re the strongest person out there. I just hope you can let yourself relax despite it all sometimes. I can’t know for sure, but it might help.’
‘Huh. But you’re wrong, you’re the strongest really. You've been putting up with me.’
Pedri properly scoffs this time, and Jude’s pretty sure he rolls his eyes too. ‘Stop minimising yourself, Jude.’
He wraps a delicate arm around him, and Jude melts into his side without making his bones hum.
‘I can try.’
For Pedri, he thinks he’d do anything.
‘Thanks.’
Jude looks up at him, confused to receive the word of gratitude.
‘For what?’
‘Trying to be kind to this guy I care about a lot. And before you say anything, I don’t think it’s just because I see you. I think I would in every universe.’
Fucking Pedri, he’s so… ugh he should say lame, but as the words really hit Jude inhales, and it hurts his chest the slightest bit, in a way that feels so alive.
He sighs it all out as Pedri rubs his arm the slightest bit, closing his eyes to lose himself in the Barça midfielder’s warmth.
He wishes that he could lose himself in him forever.
They stay like that until the café finally closes in the depths of the night, at which point Pedri just leads him into his car again, and then his home, and then his bed, and even though they don’t go any further than holding hands as they drift off, it’s the closest Jude has ever felt to anyone, more intimate than any past physical acts with another, any friendship, any romance he's had so far in these 22 years.
Pedri does the impossible, brings him back to himself.
And so the brief moments when they can be together in the same space, the resistance between the edges of the atoms that make each of them up creating the illusion of touch, sustain Jude for months more.
‘’
Jude is with Pedri on an empty pitch, at night, and it feels so strangely liminal—but Pedri smiles at him, and so he smiles back,
and then his grip on himself starts to slip all at once and he hopes that he managed to scream out loud the words that come to him in a last gasp of panicked lucidity-look away-
after eternity reverts back into a single moment, he collapses back in on himself enough to feel human enough to think. He’s somehow gotten turned around.
‘Fuck, please tell me you didn’t see.’
So he turns back. To see—
‘no.’
Pedri is wide eyed. Entire being frozen into an expression he’s never seen before, has never even imagined were possible to such an extent.
He is a stature, terror embodied.
He isn’t blinking.
He isn’t breathing.
‘Pedri, Pedri no, please, no, I’m so sorry I’m so so sorry just come back to me, please,’ he switches to Spanish, barely realising it.
‘Barça needs you, Spain needs you, the fucking football world needs you I- I need you, please. I can’t lose you.’
His voice is breaking, he brings his hands up to caress the sides of Pedri’s face.
They still feel warm.
And although Pedri doesn’t move even a fraction of a millimeter, two tears slide, unsynchronised, down his frozen cheeks.
Jude hugs him, and as he does he realises where the strange noise he’s been hearing at the edge of his senses is coming from.
A whisper, trapped inside Pedri, barely audible through the gap in his statuesque lips. Cinco cinco cinco cinco cinco…..
And then Jude doesn't remember anything more than the crunch of bones in his grasp, the burst of blood from eyes and mouth and ears, the feeling of skin, muscle, soul flaking away all to join his own body, as he loses control and is replaced by the act to destroy, consume, subsume, engulf, devour, rip apart and intake into himself and Jude is gone and he is just a thing of blood and bone and muscle and silver and gold and black and white leather at its center and Pedri is no more is no more is no more is no more is no more is gone is gone is gone is gone
,
Jude wakes up.
Because it was a nightmare. It felt so real but it was just a nightmare. It had to be.
He lets out a ragged breath, and then takes 5 minutes to just breathe and let his spine stop feeling like it’s been frozen solid and lightly electrocuted.
(He feels hungry.)
He calls Pedri, just to hear his voice for a millisecond, before hanging up and blocking his number.
He has to stay away from him, it was a nightmare it wasn’t real he’s alive he’s okay— but Jude can’t let that nightmare become a reality.
‘ ’
He gets the urge to score a panenka penalty in training.
The ball ricochets diagonally between the top bins of the crossbar and the ground, faster and faster, ending up shooting from corner to corner until finally it cracks the goalpost’s top left edge apart like glass, leather shell exploding as does, leaking gold out of its insides, which solidifies like water freezing immediately in polar air.
Calcified Or with a hint of Argent.
And at the same time, Jude feels the shield of pretend reality around him break and himself rip apart in parallel with the ball’s trajectory.
Exposing the ancient name at his back, ancient person or unholy infinitude of them embedded in his core. Zidane and Varane and Pirri and Rooney and Alli and Cannavaro and Bellingham and countless others all combined into an unreadable scrawl, one which hurts to look at and hurts to expose, his left shoulder, his Achilles heel, burns.
The eyes of his coach and teammates glaze over, and they act as if nothing is amiss but they all look haunted when he sees them out of the corner of his eye.
Like Vini did first, they’ve all started subtly avoiding him, not out of malice, but pure fear.
And Jude cannot blame them, because he just wishes he could do the same.
He thinks afterwards that Pedri wouldn't be like this, if he was in Jude’s place.
He’d be able to control himself, he's the one closer to Messi, closer to being able to withstand football, hell, probably to bend it to his will even.
He was surely already kicking his mother in the womb, while Jude sat there uselessly picking daisies until age 5. This was a mistake, because just from seeing the way they play, what they’re able to accomplish it’s clear that Jude is the wrong one to incarnate it.
Because he isn’t pulling off a fucking air elastico.
(God, he remembers seeing the clip of that and being unable to tear his eyes away, genuinely feeling a shiver go down his spine because he can’t do that and he isn’t even human anymore)
The ball isn’t stuck to his feet like magic, sure he may have composure and elegance but people don’t say Vitinha or Bellingham, Caicedo or Bellingham, Fede or Bellingham– they say anyone or Pedri.
It just feels illogical.
Or maybe that's why he is the target this time, maybe the football went for someone weaker because it knew he’d start slipping, be unable to resist it.
Messi may truly be an anomaly among anomalies, that was pretty fitting- and then it's like something’s doused him with freezing cold water, making his hair stand on end.
Because Pedri is just human. Terrifyingly so.
And he suddenly hates himself for thinking anything different because why would he ever, in any way, subconsciously wish for Pedri to be afflicted with this.
Why. why why why why (he knows he knows he knows he knows why.) Jude has to get a grip, he's getting scared to even let himself think now.
‘ ’
Eight days on and he keeps blacking out, more and more frequently.
He has the nightmare every night, just lasting a little longer in that lost, broken form at the end each time.
He can never warn Pedri to turn fast enough, like some twisted reversal of Orpheus and Eurydice.
Can never keep control of himself and his body long enough to buy him even a millisecond of mercy.
But he’s getting used to it.
(terrifyingly, he has to remember this isn’t anything a human should be subjected to and that’s what he still is, at least deep down. Hopefully. It feels like trying to hold on to the edge of a cliff by grasping at straws)
However as he has the nightmare again for the 8th time in a row, he’s a little more spooked than usual to find that instead of being petrified with terror, Pedri is calm.
Still frozen, but with accepting eyes and an almost smile.
And instead of cinco, he just whispers ‘I choose this I choose this I choose this’
It’s almost worse.
(no, not just almost, way way way worse)
Almost feels more real.
But in the morning, he wakes up strangely energised, not hungry like he has been. As if he’s been given a new set of cells, tissues.
(A small part of him fucking screams to call Pedri, before remembering that he blocked him for a reason, his own safety. And like he says, maybe it’s okay to not feel the pressure to understand everything all the time.)
He tries to go through his day and finds he actually can, really much better than usual. like he feels so much more stable, human, even while training for England, and his abilities are still as good, it’s basically a miracle
—except then he sees the concern on Marcus’ face, once training is over, and asks what’s wrong.
Marcus replies, ‘Oh, it’s just a Barça thing, nothing for you to worry about.’
And that should settle him.
(but it doesn't, because of course it doesn’t, because he plays for them)
He still finds himself curious though, and so he asks again, with just a tad more strength to his voice.
Marcus’s face goes slack and replies, ‘Pedri’s missing.’
Jude almost loses it right there. Runs away until he’s somehow, through the blur of it all, found the same pitch in a park as in his dream.
Searches and finds, after too much (but really not enough) time, that there’s a single drop of blood on a blade of grass.
He looks up, and is greeted with a view that matches with the exact way the background landmarks did in the dream.
And he feels something within him break loose, overcome, impossibly, the hold on his windpipe, as Jude screams without opening his mouth, ‘take me entirely, and just bring him back. I don’t care what happens to me but you will never take him again’ and he hears somehow ‘he accepted it because he loved you, you know,’
Then feels his entire body explode with pain, as his consciousness grows just a little bit more permanently far away, and it all goes white and blau and grana and or and argent, silver and gold
He blinks, and there is a warm presence beside him.
Somehow, not daring to even try breathing, he’s imbued with the strength to force open his eyes. Only to see—
‘Pedri…’ he stares, slack jawed.
At him. He's back, barely even panting with exhaustion.
‘You- I- I’m so fucking sorry.’
Pedri looks at him with- with something so much more behind his eyes, and wraps his arms around Jude. Instinctually, Jude leans down to rest his head on his shoulder.
He replies of so softly, so understanding. ‘I’m okay… you don’t need to worry about me.’
He pulls back, then fixes Jude with an almost apologetic smile.
‘Although, that name… doesn't quite fit anymore.’
Jude inhales sharply, feels a drop of something hot spike in his eyes, more apologies rush and bubble up like water boiling on his tongue, but he finds himself unable to get them out.
As lips are pressed against his once Pedri notices them.
Jude is frozen by it, or maybe so overcome with warmth that it’s made him unable to move. Pedri pulls back just for a moment, gazing at him with those eyes.
‘Don’t apologise, haven’t I told you that already? You always beat yourself to a pulp about things outside of your control. Stop thinking about it if it scares you.’
And then, like a tsunami, he goes back in and his lips meet Jude’s with what feels like the force of the Big Bang. It’s the most amazing kiss of his life, because he doesn't have to tamp down on his own strength and keep it light for Pedris' sake.
He feels like they cease to exist as themselves for a moment, become almost one.
It’s so warm, almost suffocatingly so. He feels something trail down from his eyes.
Even if he Jude’s replacement, Pedri’s killer, being kissed by another wrong twisted thing and its all his fault, and he’s a monster and he should probably just stop existing as penance- he just feels so fucking alive.
‘I want to be injected into your veins. Again.’
He can’t tell if it’s actually spoken, or just one of Pedri’s thoughts he can hear.
Despite his lack of actual strength compared to Jude, even in whatever his new state grants him, Jude’s still completely at Pedri’s mercy.
And that’s his happy place.
Pedri kisses him like the action has replaced his heartbeat as the only thing keeping the Number 8 alive.
Jude doesn't know how much of this is how what is now Pedri, but also more than Pedri, has been twisted by the time he just spent as nothing more than the components of about half of Jude’s cells.
He can’t ignore what's just happened, despite Pedri being back, he won’t– but he finds that even if the guilt is insurmountable, and it should be– he can’t help but let himself feel comforted by Pedri’s embrace.
He can’t tell when the kiss stops, or has stopped, whether his eyes are still closed or not.
The world comes back in a haze, and Jude resists meeting his gaze, because he knows if he does he won’t have the strength to get the words out.
He tries to push against him a little, and Pedri's hands let go of his sides. Suddenly, he feels so cold.
‘You… You aren’t him anymore. He’s dead.’ Just another ship of fucking Theseus, only this time Jude was it’s only architect.
He stares back, unflinching. ‘If you believe that, then so are you.’
Pedri- The thing that wears Pedri’s face, with the same kind, burning eyes, steps closer, and continues, forever undaunted.
‘We’re two sides of one coin, remember? We aren’t what we were, but we’re equally part of each other now. Can’t that be enough?’
And he doesn’t want to listen, a part of him screams that he shouldn’t be allowed to– but the rest just wants to fall into Pedri's words like they're a blessing, a shield which could protect him from all harm. So he lets a compromise slip from his lips.
‘…Maybe.’
Pedri examines him, and it's like to him looking at Jude is now just like looking in a mirror, nothing escaping his consideration, his understanding.
So the fact his next words seem to base themselves directly on Jude's thoughts can't even surprise him.
‘It's not an insult to anyone you think is 'gone' to accept yourself, you know that? And really, the people we were aren’t gone at all, they’re still us… or at least the foundations for who we have become. We’re just…’
‘More, now.’
‘Yeah, exactly.’
‘We shouldn’t be, though.’
‘Is that an unwritten truth of the universe?’
‘No? I mean- maybe? I…’
‘I think…' Pedri looks down at his palm, eyes tracing the shape of something across it that Jude's vision isn't privy to.
'We might be a bit… changed. I don’t even know how much. But that doesn’t make us lost causes, when it comes to being human.’
He says it, staring into Jude's eyes, with a conviction that's so distinctly him that Jude lets himself admit,
‘…I hope that I can bring myself to believe you. But I don’t know how much of me has become you, Pedri. How can I tell if you’re just the worst parts of me reflecting back what I want to hear?’
‘Well, I don’t think I am. And sure, I can’t actually know, but I don’t really care. Because I feel alive and close to myself enough, still.'
'How can you tell?'
'Because all I truly want, what I've felt for ages now, hasn't changed one bit.'
Staring at that special expression again, the one Pedri seems to keep Just for him, Jude breathes out without thinking,
'And what is that?'
His other half's eyes shine with something a bit misty, for the first time that Jude's seen.
'It's to be with you. That you'll let me love you at least, if you can't match it in return.’
His breath hitches, and for a moment, he feels anything else fall away. They're just two twenty-somethings facing each other on a small pitch in the park, dappled with sunlight as it filters through the trees.
'I think I can. Match it, that is.' Jude thinks he always has, actually.
He feels warmth bloom in his chest as the brightest smile breaks across Pedri's face. And then he feels that last though get scanned over, and reality hits him again.
‘I’m still sor-‘
Pedri scoffs at him and lightly flicks the side of his head and for a second it’s enough to grant him the euphoria he feels whenever he achieves the feeling of almost normal.
‘I’m actually going to punch you next time you say that, ok?’
‘Okay, okay… I’m sorr– ouch! Fuck, you weren’t joking!
‘Seriously? You know I wasn’t Jude… just, why?’
‘I… I don’t know. Maybe I just wanted to make sure you aren’t just saying shit, that you really are yourself. Still have that fire in you.’
Pedri stares at him incredulously. ‘So you thought baiting me into hurting you was the best course of action?’
‘I…’
Pedri just sighs and sits down onto the grass, breathing in the life around them.
‘God, we’re pretty fucked up aren’t we?’
‘Yeah.' Jude lets out a short laugh despite himself. 'I guess… that is probably a sign we’re still at least a bit human.’
Pedri gives him a short grin, and nothing not-of-this-world flashes behind it. ‘There we go, that’s the spirit.’
He pats the ground next to him, and Jude dutifully sits.
‘Let’s just rest here a while, okay? I heard you haven’t been sleeping well.’
Jude’s eyes narrow in suspicion, or maybe fear.
‘Where did you hear that?’
‘…you called me at 5:08 am. And then blocked me.’
‘That could mean anything.’
Pedri sighs. ‘What do you want me to say, Jude? You’re just easy to read.’
‘Pedri.’
‘Okay, fine. I heard it from your thoughts. Happy?’
‘No! not at all, how can I ever be again when I-‘
A warm hand finds his and holds onto it gently. ‘You can stop thinking about it, if it’s causing you grief.’
‘I can’t just… live in denial all the time!’
‘Sure, but you can’t stay stuck either. Sometimes the only way to survive shit is to move on from it.’
‘Fuck, but ignoring it’s why it took me so long to realise you were- you were.’ His voice falters. ‘How aren’t you scared?’
‘I… I don’t know. Sometimes a part of me feels like I must be just so terrified past terror that I can’t even process it, cause logically I should be really fucking scared. And I am a little in general, but… whenever I see you, whenever I’m with you, I’m not. I wasn’t when you embraced me, after I saw. I've just been reduced to a part of you, now. So I know more than anyone, that you are still mostly human, and that you are good. so how could I be scared?’
‘How… are you even hearing yourself? You’ve just described something fucking terrifying, and, and you’re even wrong to say that you weren’t scared when you saw me, because you were. You were literally the picture of fucking terror until- until the last time I had the dream. When it was real.’
The realisation hits him like something cold, and Pedri just keeps gracing him with that far too serene smile. He tries to shake off the shiver it sends crawling down his spine.
‘Well, there you go. I mean, sure my memories of what happened are pretty fuzzy, but I still feel like I would remember terror. And I don’t. I think…’
Pedri scrunches up his face in thought. ‘I might just be a pragmatist? Like I can recenter myself and look at things objectively, and that’s how I don’t lose myself to fear?’
‘Um, I don’t know for sure but I do not think that’s the definition of that word.’
Pedri chuckles. ‘Yeah that’s fair… Oh, maybe it’s just because I’m not going through the same thing as you. Not being twisted in the same way.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Can’t you see it? The part that makes me more is you, Jude. There’s no silver pressing down on me–’ Pedri eyes his neck as he says it, ‘Just gold sealing up the cracks.’
Jude can't say he really understand what he means by that, but a part of him feels like questioning it would only make him feel worse about what Pedri is now, what he has become, so he relents.
‘Okay. But what if I can’t see it? Can’t feel able to hope, in all this?’
Pedri looks him dead in the eyes and says, ‘I’ll just have hope for the both of us, then. And will never stop, because I heard what you told it to get me back.'
His tone switches up, now, turning somehow lighter, but also more admonishing.
'Which was, by the way, so insanely reckless, and dangerous, and-‘
‘Exactly what you would have done?’
‘Eh- well...’
Jude raises an eyebrow at him.
Pedri gives him an eyeroll in return. ‘Okay fine, absolutely. But damn you for knowing that.’
The ghost of a smile passes over Jude’s face.
‘Well, love,’ his voice breaks on that second word. ‘How couldn’t I? You’re just easy to read.’
Pedri stares at him for a second, before he bursts out laughing
'Oh god, it really does sound ridiculous now that I hear it, fuck…’
Half against his will, Jude giggles.
‘Not as much as ‘thanks for being kind to this guy I care about, in every universe i think i see you,' like! You’re so fucking mushy if I didn’t know any better I’d think you were a box of Valentine's day chocolates taken human form.'
He's met with a semi-shocked expression, which fully fails to keep the joy out of those eyes.
‘Yeah, well, you love it, so what does that make you? And don’t even try to deny it, since I can actually see your thought's now.'
And as Pedri notices him falter, his fear rushing back as his words hit, Jude just hears in his head,
‘When are you going to stop treating your own happiness like a bird whose wings you must clip the moment it starts to soar?’
He thinks back, ‘Never. Because if I don't then I let my guard down. And then it can catch me.’
Pedri looks at him for a moment, and then pulls him into his arms.
And he feels as warm as before. Warmer, even.
So, traitorously against his own deeply rooted instincts, he allows himself to stop ripping up his insides with guilt.
Except for the part of him that’s become soothed when Pedri becomes twisted even though he feels super guilty abt it, cause at least now it makes Pedri make more sense, explains how he can surpass him even though Jude should be much stronger,
(maybe he’s the real violation of the universes laws, maybe he always has been)
No, he really can’t allow himself to think that. He could fuck up in every other way but not like that. He can't fear Pedri, he just can’t.
They just sit there, taking in the birdsong, existing. It feels like the calm before the storm.
And then there are the times when he blinks and suddenly sees, the way that Pedri is held together by fractures filled in with gold, and wonders if in that world away from them now, when Pedri was still just pure flesh and blood and Jude was only a little bit gone, if this is how Pedri saw him.
He can’t tell what exactly about the thought ignites a faraway feeling of wrongness the most.
Pedri smiles at him, and Jude thinks back that thing he said about their free will and wonders, do either of them still have it now? If he had less, and is now supposedly the one keeping Pedri from falling to what threatens to consume them both?
The thought edges him just that bit closer to the start of an inescapable spiralling pit. If Pedri is supposed to be his anchor to humanity and he cant even hold onto him with full confidence, then Jude is already lost.
So with no other option, he trusts, and leans into the warmth, the reassurances, with all of his past-human strength.
‘’
The hours pass like perfectly efortless throughballs, as Pedri watches with love in his eyes as Jude starts to find himself miraculously growing open to viewing his own existence with anything other than dread and suspicion.
And then Pedri’s chuckles and Jude’s now small, fragile laugh are interrupted by twin gasps.
They whip their heads around behind them.
‘Gavi. It got Pedri too.’
Vini is finally looking at Jude again. But there is no laughter, no light in his expression.
‘Fuck.’
Pedri's own best friend seems unable to even recognise him.
He feels Jude go rigid at his side and moves in front of him to but in, ‘It got me, momentarily, and then Jude brought me back. Neither of us is gone.’
But Gavi just shakes his head briskly, nothing but coldness in his eyes (other than the hurt screaming just below their surface.)
‘Jude is dead. He has been for months now, and we’ve just been far too kind to the twisted in human thing wearing his a face. And now you’ve been twisted too Pedri, because we were too late in dealing with it.’
Pedri stares at them in disbelief, stony expressions barely disguising their terror, expressions so unfamiliar, so painful and pained—and suddenly it clicks.
They feel guilty, and think that they need to grieve them as a result.
Just like Jude. Fuck.
'No. You've got it all wrong, you’re all just letting yourselves get twisted by the fear it inspires,' He shifts his gaze to Jude next to him, pleading with his eyes for him to listen.
'It's why you lost control, couldn't trust me with seeing all of you. We can't let fear consume us all, or we really will be gone.'
But he can tell in his eyes (in his whole being, emotions spilling into each other) that Jude is slipping, drowning in all of his worst assumptions with their best friends echoing the worst thoughts running rampant in his head.
'I knew I was right about this all along. I always cling too much to denial.'
'No.' Pedri thinks back, 'Don't you fucking dare-'
Jude speaks softly, stares ahead so he won't meet any of their eyes. 'Vini, Gavi, look away.'
'NO-'
But Jude has already begun to give in, and Pedri may be imbued with the power of his gold but even he can do nothing but watch as he unfolds like origami being undone, the trasluscent golden sheath around his neck dissolves, allowing the half invisible silver hands around it to finally press onto his skin and begin to strangle, the edges of Jude's humanity starting to fade away, becoming lost like sheets of an iceberg slipping into the sea.
And then anything else fades away and it's just them, in the eye of the storm.
Pedri feels his voice crack, as gold begins to well up in his tear ducts.
’Stop. You promised.’
He sees Jude's eyes spill over, soul leaking down into his tears, and the tiny, resigned smile which feels like a goodbye.
He wants to reach forwards and hold him together until it all ends, but Pedri is rooted to the spot, like an overgrown gravestone. He hears Jude speak without seeing his lips move.
‘I promised that you’d always be able to see me. And you will, whenever you look in the mirror. I’m a part of you didn’t you say? Forever-‘
Pedri opens his mouth to says something more, but falters.
Because he realises, from the subtle widening of his eyes, from the way his gaze shifts to truly open just as the last of himself evaporates away, that for once, it's Jude who sees him.
He says his last words out loud. ‘I love you. You’re- you’re golden, Pedri.‘
Despite his best efforts, fighting with everything left of himself and the gold of Jude in him, he doesn't manage to get his words out before he's blinded and thrown backwards.
'The gold you see in me is you. I love you too, and I always will, just please stay.'
The rining in his ears and echoes of screams that choke his heart fade away, and Pedri knows the words go spoken but unheard.
His eyes blink open, uncaring of his protests.
He thinks he might hear Gavi or Vini gasp, but he doens't give a fuck about them right now.
Because in front of him, in the center of a fine dusting of gold and a few flecks of silver on the grass, there sit two items.
A small trophy, half covered by a white jersey. Pedri's legs move against his will, stepping closer.
It’s the Kopa Trophy. And the jersey is Real Madrid, Number 5. The name above is scratched out.
The shirt is covered in splatters of gold that look like blood stains. As well as tiny drops of actual blood, at the gold's edges.
'Fuck. Jude…’ he falls to his knees, the fresh gold on the grass staining his shorts, and finds that he doens't even have the energy in him to scream. He feels like his body is made of grains of sand instead of atoms, all in a mold, and somehow they’ve all been sucked out and new ones have rushed in to replace them but it’s not the same.
It’s so empty.
Only a few hours ago, he was (nothing more than a part of) Jude—no longer Pedri, simply the blood in his veins, protein in his muscles, marrow in his bones, the air in his lungs and synapses in his brain, living in his memories, his heart, his soul.
And now he’s Pedri again, or at least he’s supposed to be. He still felt right about that up until about 5 moments ago.
His hands, shaking, reach for the jersey. He expects it to feel warmer, heavier, like it should—but it’s just thin, never worn polyester, at the end of the day. He brings it to his chest and allows himself to sob into it once and once only.
Then he keeps it held tight against his heart as he reaches for the trophy.
It feels just like the real thing.
The one Jude first touched him through indirectly, as his hands found Pedri's fingerprints from the year before.
He hears someone speak, sounding far away. 'All this time, Jude was just getting warped by this little thing?' One of the two says it. Vini.
He doenst allow himself to think about them anymore, lest he do something that he might regret.
All that Pedri can do his hold the last remaining pieces of Jude, not even fucking human cause he couldn’t even get that from the universe, could he?
Because Pedri may have been repaired with Jude's gold, but he's just human, in the end. Can’t work a miracle the other way around.
'I… I'm sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.'
He looks up to see who has disturbed his mourning, and finds that he’s suddenly getting his energy back.
Staring into Gavi’s terrified, broken eyes, he feels like burning something.
‘Gavi… You should be.’
He feels the gold, the power to unmake, render ligaments and muscle to a fine dust, surge within him as he shoots his hand out towards the Number 6 of Barcelona, who flinches badly—only for them both to be met with a surprise.
Gavi, with Vini reaching out his hand in front of the midfielder's body, seemingly on instinct judging from his own shocked expression—and Pedri, with the way his hand has frozen in mid air, refusing to budge, to hurt them.
Almost like someone’s holding it back.
‘What the fuck?’ As the words spill from his lips, Pedri remembers what should have been impossible to forget.
It was Jude that put him back together. And literally died rather than using his eldritch abilities to hurt anyone.
It's just enough to just make him falter momentarily.
For the strength of the ancient thing clouding his mind, feeding on his grief, to lessen enough for Pedri to realise what he was truly about to do to his best friend.
He shuts down for a moment, not even breathing.
Goes back to hugging the trophy and jersey, planting a small, desperately kind kiss upon both. And then let the tears flow down properly, and hopes they'll never stop.
And then he feels the fire come back within him, or perhaps it never left, beginning to blacken and char the inside of his ribcage.
He will bring Jude back.
So despite the gold's protests, he speaks to it.
'I don't care what you have to do. You will take this trophy and jersey and you will remake them, so that Jude stands in front of me again.'
He feels it smile with pure, unadulterated joy, as one of his clenched teeth cracks a bit and he tasts gold pour out of it.
'Of course, Number 8. Your wish is my command.'
And then he feels the world break and reshift around them, and something screams in the back of his mind in the milisecond it takes for his eyes to close and open again.
Jude stands there with his back to him. Wearing a white jersey, adorned with the number 5- wait no, the number 10. Wait. No.
He turns around. And smiles brightly, with cold eyes.
Pedri suddenly sees him, and is hit by the realisation that the screaming he heard for a moment was the gold.
Because what he sees before him is not Jude Bellingham.
It's not the person with his soul is stretched over his heart, in a way that is gorgeous but also looks just the slightest bit painful. Made up of silver cuts that leak gold and spill through him.
The one with something about his movements that's always graceful, even when he seems to stumble around for a moment with long legs that somehow inhumanely manage to keep sheilding the ball, perfectly positioned, driving forward even while standing still.
Someone that makes football feel alive as his heart beats outside of his chest, as his foot kisses the ball, who's too expressive for his own good, a person so twisted to be hauntingly beautiful and still just so fucking human.
The person it was, and has been, and always will be impossible for Pedri to not fall in love with.
Seeing this, it hits him like being shot through the heart and head that that person is gone.
Because the one that stands before Pedri is completely void of him.
All ambition, unashamed hunger, the only bit which might be faintly left of Jude is too stretched thin keeping a basic lid on the further than human, just enough to keep it from immediately consuming everyone around him, not to be conscious anymore.
He looks almost the same.
Laughs close enough that if you never knew him and heard it recorded you could be fooled for a second, before your brain caught up.
He is smiling, with teeth bared and eyes that would put anyone on edge, deep in their heart.
And Pedri can tell that this thing would burn down his childhood home, his country itself, to touch gold.
That maybe, he will.
No.
Of course he will. Unstoppably, he will.
He comes closer, something sharp, a hunger past human in his cold eyes, and reaches his hand to cup the side of Pedri's face.
‘Pedri. Or no, that doenst fit anymore, does it?’
And for a moment, he flickers, and Pedri stares into his own face, just a little twisted, as if recreated by someone with either an almost perfect memory, just not enough care to remember the little imperfections, the moles and asymmetries on his face which make him human.
Not the creaction of anyone who's ever loved him.
It flickers back, and smiles again, or maybe it never stopped, and Pedri feels the skin at the edge of his face, near its hand start to ebb and grow light and numb, silver seeping into the gold fractures appearing but unable to stop the impending evaporation.
Pedri pulls back, and the things expression twists again—it’s like it doenst have facial muscles, just rearranges every facet of its appearance to freeze into a new expression, now one with faux sadness.
It makes him want to run but he cannot look away. Stepping closer, it grabs him and he is stuck like a man in a vat of liquid cement, immediately drying.
It begins to become harder to breathe deeply.
‘Don’t you remember how it felt to just make up the cells in my body? How nice, how easy it was to exist like that? No thoughts, no concerns, no fear, no anger,’
it sighs with false sympathy.
‘I don’t know why he brought you back, consciousness is the cause of so many cruelties… it could be just you and me again. Playing football. Please.’
And there’s a desperate undertone there that’s unlike the thing, more like if Jude were trying to break free.
Somehow by some miracle, still conscious.
Pedri looks at him with some different, almost renewed hope and realisation in his eyes—before he lets that act drop with a raised eyebrow and a steely glare, buring with barely numbed hatred.
‘You’re not too bad an actor, I'll give you that.’ But if there’s one thing Pedri is, other than being good football, it’s being able to see the real Jude Bellingham.
And this hollow thing in front of him is more void of Jude than he himself is.
So because of that, Pedri has to unmake it.
He takes a single breath, and buries his head into its chest as his tears burn. Pedri feels the last bit of Jude's humanity become a tool in his grasp to use to rip apart the thing that now wears his love's skin—but not before Jude whispers thank you, in his final shred of personhood, invisible hands around closing around his heart holding his soul so softly.
Pedri just screams, higher than any human register could understand, gold fractures overcoming the whites of his eyes, dripping upwards with gold tears, threatening to blind him. The sound shatters the floodlights, and the Number 5 of Real Madrid screams in tandem as Pedri’s fingernails dig into its left shoulder and its muscles strip off it's bones and are eviscerated as they float up, as reality rips around them and reveals the bit of 5’s core inside of Pedri himslef to be evaporated upon contact with the air, as 5 distintegrates as the silvered blood in its veins boils amidst the liquid gold which has engulfed it, trapped in this mortal shell by the pure pain which is inflicted onto it, until finally—
—he is football he is futbol he is the beautiful game he is pain he is number 5-no, he is number eight—
He is done.
It’s no more.
Just a raw, dripping carcass, with the fractured, melted pieces of a trophy in its centre.
He feels something warm and metallic drip from his lips. Every part of him feels like it’s in some sort of pain.
Gavi and Vini look at him with something past horror, frozen into statues caught in silent screams. The tear tracks on their faces have dried to a dark red.
Fuck, now he knows how it felt for Ju—Before the thought of him can allow itself to be processed and fully formed, he grabs it and rips it up—he knows it will destroy him.
But he also feels his abilities are fading fast, as the last of the Number 5 evaporates into the entropy of the universe.
So as executioner, he acts quickly to rip a small hole into the fabric of reality and engulf the remains inside.
And as it seals up, he feels everything untwist, as the tears and gold and silvered blood staining his skin disappear, as that skin becomes as simply human as it was.
As the act retroactively deletes Jude from existence.
But the stains on his soul remain eternally, dying it dark red, almost black. And for that great mercy, he will forever be indebted.