Chapter Four
Marcos – “Dude, what the fuck?”
LATE JANUARY
Marcos’ shoes hit the footpath in time with the music.
He kept his breathing steady, shoulders loose, arms swinging without too much effort.
The night had held onto the heat of the day.
The sun had gone down, the sky darkened, and the air still sat warm against his skin.
Sweat had soaked through the back of his singlet and gathered along his chest, making the fabric cling each time he turned a corner.
He’d started from home nearly forty minutes ago, cutting through the inner streets on a route he knew well enough that he didn’t need to think too hard about it.
His family lived close enough to the city that a proper run could drag him toward the CBD if he let it, and Marcos usually did.
He liked the distance. He liked knowing he could keep going long after the streets changed around him.
Houses gave way to apartment blocks, old shopfronts, narrower footpaths, brighter corners, and people spilling out of late dinners with their phones in their hands.
Close to midnight on a Tuesday, though, there weren’t too many people out.
A couple stepped aside when they saw him coming, and a delivery rider shot past him in the bike lane, shoulders hunched forward, reflective strips catching the streetlight as he shot through an intersection without slowing.
Training had been sitting in his body all day.
The full squad was back now. No more half-empty oval and no more pretending the season still sat somewhere safely in the distance.
They were back in it. Gym blocks, match simulation, stoppage work, repeat efforts, recovery, meetings, and whatever else Jacob decided they needed before the pre-season games started.
The Mustangs had come back from the Christmas break in good shape. Better than good, maybe. There was proper movement in the team now, more voices, more pressure, more older players setting the standard.
Jacob still never seemed satisfied.
Marcos had learned quickly that the man could watch a clean passage of play, nod once, and then spend three minutes explaining why it wasn’t good enough.
A few of the newer players had been pulled into line by the end of the first week back.
The ones who’d thought fitness would carry them through had learned that fitness wasn’t the same as discipline.
The tension between Marcos and Sebastian had changed, too.
It hadn’t disappeared. It sat there every session, close to the surface, waiting for someone to come in too hard or hold contact too long.
There were still moments when they forgot they wore the same colours.
A contested ball would hit the ground between them, and both of them would go at it with a fraction too much force.
A ruck drill would turn sharp, or a block would become a shove.
Then a shove would nearly become something that had Jacob’s voice cutting across the field before either of them could decide their next move.
But it happened less now.
Not because Sebastian had warmed to him, though.
In fact, Sebastian had stopped engaging.
Marcos wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his wrist and turned down a side street that ran between a row of apartment buildings and a small strip of stores with their shutters pulled down. His music kept going, bass thudding low through his headphones, but his mind stayed on Sebastian.
At training, Sebastian still called for the ball when he had to. He still used Marcos’ name when the play required it. He still stepped into space and demanded the pass with the same sharp confidence he had always carried. But outside the work, he had shut every door.
Marcos had tried casual conversation in the gym.
Nothing.
He’d made a jab about Sebastian’s kick.
Ignored.
The locker room moments were the worst of it.
When they were alone together, Marcos would attempt to break the awkwardness, but Sebastian would just look at him once, sharp and quick, then look away, and that was all he got.
Marcos had no idea what to do with a version of Sebastian that simply refused to engage.
It wasn’t as if Marcos needed Sebastian to talk to him, but Sebastian ignoring him hit differently from Sebastian hating him.
Marcos picked up his pace for half a block, letting the thought burn off under the harder rhythm. The footpath narrowed ahead, cracked near a tree root, and he shifted around it without looking down. Further up, a side street cut darker between two taller buildings.
Marcos turned into it.
He’d run this way before. It wasn’t his shortest route home, but he wasn’t ready to turn back yet.
The street was quieter, tucked away from the brighter road behind him, with apartment entrances set back a little and a few small businesses closed along the ground floor.
Pools of white light spilled from doorways and signs, leaving darker patches between them.
The next street he turned down was the same. The only difference was something moving ahead.
At first, Marcos thought it was someone leaning against a wall, maybe drunk, maybe waiting for a ride. Then the figure shifted wrong. One shoulder hit the brick, a hand braced there, and the person pushed off only to stumble another step.
Marcos slowed. The music kept going in his ears, too loud now. He reached up and pulled one headphone free.
The figure stumbled under a strip of light from an apartment entry.
“Sebastian?”
The figure lifted his head.
Even in the poor light, Marcos saw the expression before anything else. Annoyance first. Recognition second. Then Sebastian let out a groan so rough it dragged from his ribs and leaned his back against the wall.
“Mierda,” Marcos muttered and walked closer.
Sebastian looked different out of his training gear and the Mustangs’ colours. Loose forest-green pants hung from his hips, and a black jacket sat over a white shirt. His black hair was gelled up in a small wave over his forehead, slightly dishevelled. He wore glasses, too.
That threw Marcos. “You wear glasses?”
“Go away,” Sebastian mumbled, closing his eyes and waving Marcos on.
Instead, Marcos came to a complete stop and leaned his shoulder against the wall next to him. “How much have you had to drink?”
“Seriously. Just fuck off.” Sebastian’s voice was uneven and tired. He shifted against the wall, and the shift brought the side of his face under the light properly.
Bruising sat along his jaw. Another mark had started to darken below his eye.
“Dude, what the fuck?” Marcos pushed off the wall and stepped in front of Sebastian, watching him more closely. “Did you get in a fight?”
Sebastian stepped away from the wall and tried to push past him. A sharp exhale slipped out as his shoulder brushed Marcos’ arm. Marcos watched him take two uneven steps before cutting in front of him.
“Stop.” Marcos placed his hand on Sebastian’s shoulder. “Just… stop.”
Sebastian met Marcos’ gaze. The eye near the bruise narrowed more than the other, and Sebastian’s brow furrowed. He rolled his head, then swatted Marcos’ hand away.
“What the fuck happened?” Marcos pressed again, and Sebastian sighed.
“A disagreement,” he muttered, seemingly giving up trying to walk away as he leaned on the wall again.
“And how many drinks did it take for that to happen?”
“I had one.”
“Okay,” Marcos said slowly. “So, you can’t handle alcohol.”
“Fuck you.” Sebastian grimaced. “You don’t know anything.”
The last part came out too quickly. Not out of anger, but more so slight intoxication.
Marcos kept his gaze steady.
Sebastian’s glasses sat slightly crooked. One lens had a smudge across it, and there was a small cut near his cheekbone that had already dried.
Marcos checked down the empty street, then up toward the windows of the apartments above them. “You live around here?”
“Street over. On the main strip.”
Marcos whistled. “Fancy.”
“Just leave.” Sebastian reached up to touch the bruise on his jaw and flinched. Something slipped out when he did, low and tight: “M? ki?p.”
Marcos didn’t know the words, but he knew enough to catch that they weren’t English. Vietnamese, probably. It sounded sharper in Sebastian’s mouth than Marcos expected, clipped by pain and irritation.
“As much of a pain in the ass you are, I’m not going to leave you stumbling in the street.”
Sebastian scoffed, straightening again and starting down the path.
“What?” Marcos questioned. “We’re a team now. I can’t have you not able to play.”
“I don’t need your help—”
Marcos grabbed his arm and slung it around his shoulders before Sebastian could finish. “Yeah, yeah. You’re stubborn. We get it.”
Sebastian stiffened. For a second, Marcos thought he might shove him off. Then his weight settled, not fully, but enough that Marcos knew he’d been right to step in.
He kept one hand around Sebastian’s wrist where it rested over his shoulders and the other around Sebastian’s waist. Careful. Enough to guide him without dragging him. He didn’t know what hurt yet, and Sebastian clearly had no interest in telling him.
They walked slowly. Too slow for Marcos’ legs, which had been in a running rhythm a minute ago and now had to match Sebastian’s uneven steps. Sebastian’s breath caught now and then when his foot came down wrong, or his torso twisted too far.
Marcos glanced at his face a few times, trying to get a read off him, but he wasn’t able to get much. A tense jaw. A wince. A glare that didn’t have its usual force because one eye didn’t want to open properly.
Marcos adjusted his grip and kept going.
They turned down one street and then another until the brighter main strip opened in front of them.
More people moved here, though still not many.
Someone sitting outside a bar watched them pass.
A pair of women walked around them, one glancing at Sebastian’s bruised face before looking away.
Marcos straightened without meaning to, making himself broader beside him.