Chapter Text
And because love battles
(José)
It’s just a touch, a hand resting too long in the crook of an elbow, not like it wants to hold back, to hold on, but as if to say: I am here. Surely not, José thinks, and yet later he knows with stark certainty not to feel snubbed when it’s just the two of them who retreat into the old manager’s office, the one with the long yellow couch that suddenly makes a lot more sense.
He leaves in silence for once, goodbyes said and the door closes behind him. Just as it shuts, he catches a glimpse of them sitting together, their white heads bent close, their foreheads almost touching, whispering football one last time. His nails dig into his palms. 49 vicious games between them bridged so easily by a hand in the crook of an elbow.
The shot of jealousy in his throat is so bitter it makes José’s eyes water.
(Pep)
They sit on the stage together, green armchairs next to each other; somebody was clever enough to make sure they don’t need to share a microphone. The press is adamant they have made their peace - or truce at least, the bloody hatchet buried as their teams and the years slip away between their fingers. Pep looks at them and knows better. Their bodies are facing away from each other, right leg crossed over the left and vice versa, a game of deforming mirrors. There is a wall, drawn in the space between the edges of their armrests. Sure, an elbow might bridge it, shirt touching shirt, but there’s no real gate to it, just an invisible line, mere geometry, an idea of a boundary. To be so old that all is left of your passion is the smothered distance to what you hate.
Even when they leave it's offbeat - one, then the other - in the thunder of applause, saying their goodbyes. Sir Alex waits, Arsene goes first, squinting into the light as he steps off the stage, long legs almost folding as he skips the last step, the distance awkward for his too long strides. He forgets his glasses on the armchair.
_
It's raining when Pep himself finally steps outside the venue, thick curtains of water falling from the heavens. He hails a taxi in the downpour, his coat soaked through by the time he squeezes into the backseat. He misses Barca, misses the heat.
Just as the wheels get rolling, he catches a glimpse of a red and white umbrella among the sea of black ones. They are standing underneath it, white heads bowed together to look at a phone, Sir Alex's hand resting in the crook of Arsene's elbow where it's bent to hold the umbrella over them both,the lines of their bodies blurring in the rain.
It spreads like a crack on a surface of glass. Pep presses his forehead to the cold window of the taxi as the heartbreak knots in his throat: he's sure if he looked there would be a pair of thin, silver framed glasses tucked away safely in the breast pocket of Sir Alex's shirt.