Chapter Twenty #3
It didn’t fit at first. Marcos tried to put the number over the Sebastian in his head and came up with the wrong version.
Not this Sebastian in his apartment, body held too tightly, face sharp with anger he was trying to swallow.
A smaller one. Junior grounds. Cold mornings.
Sebastian with too much confidence and shoulders he hadn’t grown into yet.
Sebastian shoving him at centre bounces, glaring when Marcos won a tap, snapping insults at Marcos.
Marcos had thought they were only fighting.
Apparently, Sebastian had been surviving something else at the same time.
“Alright, well, I get that. I mean, you saw how I was when—”
“I’ve been struggling with this for years.” Sebastian shook his head, stepping past Marcos and into the living room. “I’ve kept that part of me away from the AFL. From everything. And now it—it’s…not.”
“So, this is about what Parker said.” Marcos moved beside Sebastian, though he still kept space between them.
“No. I mean, yes. But it’s the stuff online. It’s us being placed together.”
“They’re jokes.” Marcos snaked his arms around Sebastian’s shoulders and leaned in, lowering his voice. “Commentary. It doesn’t mean anything.”
Sebastian shrugged Marcos off and stepped away. “They’re not jokes to me.”
“What—”
“I grew up in locker rooms with guys calling someone a fag for glancing in the wrong direction and being scared it would be aimed at me. I was scared I’d get targeted in a game if someone found out. Or of what my grandparents would do if they found out.”
Sebastian paused, looking up at the ceiling and running his hand down his face.
Marcos didn’t move. The space between them was different now, wider and harder to cross without knowing where to place his feet.
“This might not affect you because you haven’t had to live with it,” Sebastian continued, his voice rising and lowering with each word.
“Worst case for you, you can just go back to being straight. I can’t do that.
I have to live with whatever happens. All the things that get said, it’s all real for me. ”
Marcos bit the inside of his cheek as his eyes ran over Sebastian.
His breathing had gone uneven. His fingers kept flexing over and over at his sides, like his body wanted something to hold onto and refused to let itself reach for it. Marcos had seen him angry plenty of times. But this wasn’t only anger.
It looked closer to fear. And that was harder to look at.
“Things are different now,” Marcos said, because he had no idea what to say.
“I can’t risk that.” Sebastian’s voice evened out.
“I’m on a one-year contract. What happens if guys on the team have an issue with it and it causes problems?
You really think they’re gonna re-sign me?
Or other teams will? Like, fuck, Marcos, you’ve heard what people say from the crowd.
Teams aren’t gonna want a player that brings that shit to the field. ”
Marcos had heard it. He had heard plenty over the years.
Everyone had. Players pretended they didn’t because reacting gave the crowd exactly what it wanted.
He had heard men at the fence tell players to harden up in ways that had nothing to do with football.
Heard comments about players being soft, weak, gay, worse, all thrown together until they became part of the same ugly language.
He had heard things said to opponents and teammates, sometimes loud enough for the umpire to look over and do nothing because the ball was already moving on.
He had never had to wonder if the words were waiting for him specifically.
Sebastian had.
“So, what?” Marcos stepped closer again. “You’ve spent your life protecting yourself from all this, only for some stupid shit on the internet to make you feel like crap?”
Sebastian turned to face Marcos. “I don’t know.”
The answer was smaller than the argument deserved.
Marcos stepped forward, wrapping his arms around Sebastian and tucking his head into the crook of Sebastian’s neck.
For a second, Sebastian didn’t move. Then his hands came up slowly and gripped the back of Marcos’ shirt, fingers bunching in the fabric. Marcos held him tighter.
“Aren’t you worried people will find out?” Sebastian asked quietly.
Marcos hadn’t thought about it. He’d been so caught up in trying to figure himself out that he hadn’t considered other people would label it before he had a chance to do it himself.
He had thought about what it meant to want Sebastian.
What it meant to like him. What it meant that sleeping with him didn’t make Marcos feel wrong anymore.
Sebastian did have a point, though. The jokes and commentary didn’t bother Marcos the way they bothered Sebastian. They had sounded like noise. Rivalry content. Fans being fans. Teammates being teammates.
But the reality of what could happen sat beneath everything, waiting.
“I’ve kinda been trying to find out myself,” Marcos said with a small chuckle.
Sebastian’s arms tightened around him, and the silence held them both.