#Barcelona femini

[flemingology]

business casual ─ alexia putellas x reader

in which: alexia dresses up the ballon d'or

warnings: nothing, slightly suggestive at the end

wc: 1.9K

a/n: wrote this in an hour or two. saw alexia's look and couldn't resist it lol. first piece for her! hope you enjoy :)

Ballon d'Or night. One of the most anticipated nights of the year. Especially for your girlfriend. Having won two of the awards herself, she was well acquainted with the prestige that came with the event.

Just like last year, though, the ceremony took place right in the middle of Alexia's international break. She'd cursed the people in charge for the ridiculous planning last year, but seemingly it hadn't gone any better this time around. Flying out from their national camp wasn't the most ideal situation, but Alexia thanked her lucky stars that the RFEF were quite loose around the whole ordeal – allowing her and her national teammates the time and space to fly over to Paris.

Despite her best efforts, Alexia knew she wasn't going to win it this year. She'd put her bets on Aitana or Caroline, who both had an incredibly year of football under their belt. The Spanish midfielder, who had still been struggling with niggles throughout the past season, wasn't tipped as one of the favorites for the award this year. Not that she minded, though. She'd won the award twice and was more than happy for her teammates to be showered in the praise that they deserved. All in all, Alexia always enjoyed her nights at the ceremony, winning an award or not.

Just like every year, though, the Spaniard wasn't planning on giving you any insight on what she was going to wear. Everybody knew that one of the big things about the Ballon d'Or – footballers and awards aside – was all about the stars rocking up the red carpet in quite the glamorous outfits. Alexia had tried to convince you a couple times to come with her to Paris, but you weren't the one for all the media attention. You much rather stayed on your couch back in Barcelona, watching the live stream like a hawk, attentively eyeing the arriving taxis to try and catch a glimpse of your girlfriend.

A quick glance at your watch told you the time was nearing 7, so you knew she had to be about done with the preparations of her look. You decided to send her a text.

To: Amor ❤️ "Go have a good time tonight, baby. Orgulloso de ti. I love you ❤️"

You knew how much Alexia adored it when you mixed your usual English with some Spanish, forever a sucker for you speaking her mother tongue. You'd gone out of your way to try and master the language, knowing how much it meant to her if you'd be able to communicate to the part of her family that didn't know the English language as well as she did. You hadn't anticipated a text back at all, but you were pleasantly surprised at the buzz of your phone a couple moments later.

From: Amor ❤️"Eres el mejor. Thinking about you. I'll call you later 😘"

A little over an hour had passed when Alexia finally emerged on the livestream. You were caught up with cooking dinner, your laptop stood on the counter behind you while you were prepping your vegetables. You turned around, planning to throw the diced tomatoes in a different bowl, but your actions got cut short when you caught a glimpse of your girlfriend on the screen.

"My God," you breathed out silently. Vegetables completely forgotten about, you quickly put your cutting board back down and turned your full attention towards your laptop. She was wearing a striped, charcoal-colored pair of trousers, combined with nothing but a suit vest that tied at her waist. The vest showed the perfect amount of cleavage and chest, leaving just enough to the imagination. She wasn't wearing loads of make-up, but it was visible, just as you knew she liked it. Her hair was perfectly slicked back into a bun, her ears adorning a pair of sparkling earrings that perfectly accentuated the simplicity of the look. She looked incredible. You weren't expecting anything less, but she never failed to take your breath away in moments like these.

You watched her pose for the cameras on the red carpet, accompanied by all her Barcelona teammates, but you couldn't tear your eyes away from her. Now it was your turn to scold the decision to hold the event during international break, mourning the opportunity for her to come home to you and you to admire her look in the flesh. Before long, the camera panned away from her and caught a bunch of new arrivals, which you took as your cue to try and continue your dinner preparations.

As much as you were distracted by her and her look, and she clouded your thoughts at any given moment, you managed to cook yourself a meal. The ceremony well underway by now, you plopped down on the couch and watched the rest. Barcelona were crowned as Team of the Year, Alexia receiving the award in name of her team. You decided to try your luck and send the Spaniard another text. You knew she didn't keep her phone on her during events like these, but maybe you'd get lucky and get a response from her within a couple hours when she was in her hotel room.

To: Amor ❤️ "Ale, you look amazing. You've outdone yourself. I'm so in love with you. Me dejas sin aliento cada vez."

As the night went on, the camera kept panning towards your girlfriend. As one of the biggest stars in the room, it was expected for her to have quite some time on air, but it was starting to have its toll on you. Your girlfriend looked incredible but here you were, at home, hours away from your lover. You wanted nothing more than to be there with her, to be able to see her after the ceremony and really show her how much you liked her outfit.

A dull ache started forming between your legs and you knew it was only going to get worse throughout the evening. Without the prospect of having your girlfriend around, you knew it was going to be a long night.

Before long, the ceremony ended and you decided to make your way upstairs. It was quite late already, the event stretching out into the late hours of the night, so you decided it would be best for you to try and get some rest before Alexia inevitably called you up deeper in the night.

You'd managed to get a couple hours of sleep before your body got abruptly woken by the shrill noice of Alexia's ringtone blaring through your bedroom. You had put your volume to the maximum, knowing you were quite the deep sleeper, and you were glad that it had worked. You palmed your nightstand with one eye open looking for your phone, nearly declining her call before you managed to get it with you on the mattress, accepting her call and putting her on speaker.

"Hola, amor," Alexia quipped, her voice still quite energetic despite the late hour she called at. You glanced at the clock on your night stand, reading 1:36am. "Hi, baby," you replied, a small smile creeping up your face upon hearing the voice of your girlfriend. "How are you?"

"Mhm, good. Thank you. How are you?" you heard rustling in the background, assuming she was getting into bed. "Good. A little tired, though", you didn't want to make Alexia feel bad but her response seemed like you did. "Lo siento, amor. Do you want me to let you sleep? I know it's late," you shook your head at that but quickly verbally disagreed, realizing she couldn't see you through the phone. "No, no. I've missed you and I'm glad I'm speaking to you."

"Did you watch?" a slight chuckle escaped your lips, Alexia's question almost felt like mockery. "Of course I did, Ale. You never let me know what you're going to wear beforehand, so I have to find out through the stream!"

You didn't have to see her face to know that she had a shit-eating grin on her face now. "Mhm, I guess you're right. What did you think?" you rolled your eyes as a slight smile tugged on the corner of your lips. "What did I think? I told you through text, no?" you decided you could tease her a little before giving her what she wanted.

You heard a faint groan on the other side of the call. "Si, you did."

"Kidding, bébé. You looked perfect, honestly. You know how much I love it when you wear a suit vest. It accentuates your chest perfectly," you finished, your mind already thinking back about how good your girlfriend looked in her outfit tonight. "I knew you'd like it. Nice surprise?" you thought about how the way she looked left a throbbing between your legs throughout the rest of the night. "Very nice surprise. Just a shame that I can't get to show you just how much I appreciated the way you looked tonight."

Alexia hummed, an amused lilt seeping through. "Anything specific on your mind?" you didn't know how to approach this, not knowing whether Alexia was feeling a change of mood at this time of the night. "Well, let's say that you had me thinking about all the things I would do to you if you'd let me take that suit off you," Alexia let out a deep breath. "Dios mio, amor. You know there's nothing I would've wanted more than to come home to you tonight and let you take it off me."

Alexia's words did nothing to soothe the aching between your legs, if anything it only spurred you on further. "Ale," you started, taking a deep breath trying to ground yourself. "You have to stop right now," you tried to sound deterministic. "Why?" she quipped back, clearly enjoying the way she was working you up. "Because I'm already worked up, and you're not here, so you can't do anything about it. If I want to be able to get some sleep later, you need to turn it down a little."

"Who says I can't help you?" Alexia's words were spoken softly, almost as if she was unsure about what she was proposing. You frowned before speaking up. "Hmm? What do you mean?" a couple moments passed before the Spaniard spoke again. "I don't know, maybe we could be on the phone while you,..." Alexia trailed off, but you remained silent, wanting her to voice what she wanted. "...while you take care of what I started."

Your cheeks turned a deeper shade of red at the proposition she just made. "You want to talk me through it... over the phone?" you tried, wanting to make sure that the both of you were on the same page. "Sí, si quieres?"

"Yeah," you breathed out nervously, feeling the thrill of the newness of the situation. You and Alexia hadn't done anything like this before. You'd shared a couple pictures and videos with each other while the midfielder was at camp, trying to bridge the couple weeks that she was away, but you had never thought about phone sex. It wasn't something that had been brought up yet and you hadn't deemed it as something either of you two needed, the both of you more than satisfied with your sex life at was, but you couldn't deny the pang of arousal that shot towards your core every time you thought about Alexia talking you through your orgasm over the phone.

"Yeah, I want this." "Perfecto, corazón. Now spread your legs and let me make you feel good."

[wileys-russo]

babe wake up the alexia edit just dropped 👑

full credit to @putell1sta on twitter for making this

[wonder-kid-pugh]

In the Eye of the Beholder - Alexia Putellas x reader

Hey guys! So I was recently inspired by my trip to Spain. I spent the day in Barcelona and I even went to Camp Nou so I was really excited and inspired to write for Alexia. But yeah I have an idea to turn this into a small series if you want. But this was kinda rushed so I'm sorry if it wasn't the best. Anyways hope you enjoy!

Alexia was exhausted.

Which is understandable. Ever since her return from injury it seemed like she didn't get a moment to herself. Everyone wanting to talk to her about her return from one of the most grueling injuries in women's football, especially at such a crucial point in her career. (Her absence from the Euros was still tough for her to talk about but unfortunately it came with the territory).

With all her media obligations and then her also captaining the team while also working tirelessly with the Barca medics and physios to make sure she doesn't do anything to possibly injury her knee or anything else.

It was just a bit much in that moment.

She was so overwhelmed in that moment that for a second she couldn't catch her breath. So she did the only thing she could think of. She left for a walk. To where it didn't matter she just needed to not feel trapped or weighted down right now.

She wanted to feel the air on her face and to just walk about the place she loved.

Alexia left so quickly that she didn't even think to bring Nala. Alexia wincedly lightly knowing that Nala would have loved to go for a walk right now. Deciding that she would have to apologize with a few extra treats, Alexia kept going knowing there was no point going back now.

Alexia didn't know how long she had been walking for before she realised where she was. She signed tiredly as she ran a hand through her hair as she could see the stadium a short distance in front of her.

Even when she tried not to, her mind always wondering back to work.

She turned to start heading back to her apartment but was stopped when she smacked right into someone.

She eyes widened as you let out a small shriek and dropped your things.

"Ah damn it!" You mumble under your breath as you bend down to collect your things.

Alexia shakes her head as she bends down to help you with your things which earns her a smile from you. Which if it wasn't for the fact that her brain was still trying to play catch up, would have stopped her in her place.

You swiftly and messily gather all your belongings up again, gratefully taking the notebook from Alexia when she held it out to you. "Thank you" you answer in surprising perfect Spanish for someone who was just speaking English just a moment ago.

The two of you straightened up as you make sure you have everything before giving Alexia your full attention. "I'm so sorry!" You apologized sincerely. "I wasn't really paying attention and I really didn't mean to walk into you". You rubbed your neck sheepishly as you realise your rambling to this poor stranger. "I'm looking for Camp Nou?" Your blush worsens, "I'm kinda lost"

Alexia couldn't help but chuckle. Finding your shy nature and darkening blush adorable. "Not completely" Alexia reassured as she nodded her head in the direction of the stadium. "You're close. It's just down that way".

You let out a sigh of relief as your shoulder relax the tiniest bit. One being for finally finding the stadium and two being thankful that the pretty stranger you crashed into wasn't angry with you.

"Thank god" you answered smiling at the stranger. "Honestly I didn't think it would be this hard to find a massive stadium".

Alexia laughs sharing a smile with you. Not quite ready for the conversation to end, Alexia once again nods her head towards the stadium. "Would you like me to walk with you? Just to make sure you get there?"

Your eyes light up with something Alexia couldn't quite recognise. But she liked how your eyes shone at the simple offer of kindness. It was only then she  realised how blue your eyes were. For a second she swore she could have been looking into the sparkling crystal clear water with how bright they were.

"Really? You wouldn't mind? I'm sure you have better places to be…"

Alexia cleared her throat silently wishing you hadn't catch her staring at your eyes. Alexia nodded her head with a smile, "No it's okay. Honestly I have nowhere to be. I was just wondering around to be honest".

"Well if you're sure…yeah that would be great. Thank you" you thanked her with a smile. And for Alexia that was enough for her.

Alexia gestured the way for you to begin walking. "So why are you looking for Camp Nou? Are you a fan?"

You bit your lip timidly as you looked around almost as if to check to see if anyone else was listening. "Not exactly…can I tell you a secret?"

Alexia quirked an eyebrow. She didn't know whether it was because she herself was quite secretive about her own personal life or whether it was the fact that they didn't even know each others names that she was surprised at that.

"Sure" Alexia chuckled at the simple idea of her sharing a secret with her. But she also couldn't help but feel giddy that she was willing to do so.

You bite the inside of your cheek before signing, seeing one of the many shops selling Barcelona merchandise. "I'm not a fan. Of football in general really. I just never took an interest in it" you answered honestly, your eyes not meeting Alexia's.

Alexia's eyebrows furrowed a bit. "Then why are you going to the stadium?"

You held up the book that Alexia had helped pick up for you. "Well I'm an artist. I got asked to do a mural for the team but I have no clue when it comes to football. So I thought I would take a tour of the stadium and hopefully get some inspiration for it as well as maybe learn something".

Alexia was in awe of the commitment. She imagined that most artists would just look them up and just start away. The fact that you wanted to take time to go learn more about the club. Her club in fact warmed her heart.

It showed how passionate you were as well. The fact that you didn't even know much about Football but you still wanted to make sure you did it justice.

"That's a good idea" Alexia smiled. "I can tell you love what you do".

You blush lightly as you duck your head in modesty. Wanting to get the attention off you, you turn it back to her. "What about you? Do you like football?"

Alexia pursues her lips at the question. It was obvious that you didn't know who she was. You didn't know she was Alexia Putellas. La Reina. Captain of Barcelona and Spain. She was just…a person.

Maybe it was better like that.

"Oh. I love Football" Alexia answered honestly while grinning sheepishly. "Maybe a little too much sometimes".

But you just chuckle, raising an eyebrow, "Barcelona?"

"Till I die" Alexia answered honestly. Which was the truth she couldn't ever imagine not playing for her club.

You hum as the two of you stop in front of the stadium entrance. "Have you ever taken the tour before?"

Alexia gives you a small smile. The last time she had probably taken the tour was years ago. Back when she barely understood the rules of the game. Back when her father was still trying to explain the game to her.

"A long time ago yes"

Your eyes flicker up to the massive stadium before grinning at the stranger in front of you.

Alexia couldn't stop the laugh escaping her. "What are you planning?"

Your eyes gleam playful with a hint of mischief in them. "What?" You play innocent faking hurt. "I don't know what you're talking about…"

Alexia rolled her eyes looking at her knowingly. "I know that look. My best friend always gets that look when she's up to something".

You just grin. "She sounds like fun".

Alexia rolled her eyes but she couldn't deny it as she nodded. "She is. Now what is it?"

You pursued your lips before sighing. You guess it couldn't hurt to ask. "It's just…" you start but continue when Alexia nods on encouragingly. "Just you seem to know a lot about Football and you support Barcelona and I know practically nothing so I was wondering…would you like to do the tour…with me?"

You couldn't even look Alexia in the eye. This poor random stranger which you first of all crashed into, and probably ruined her perfectly enjoyable walk, and who knows nothing about you and you just asked her to give up her day to explain Football of all things to you.

You face flows red and starts to darken but can't seem to stop yourself. "I mean! I would pay for you of course! That's if you want to. Which you probably don't. Which it perfectly fine! I'm sure you have way better things to do than just talk to me about football of all things…"

You so desperately wish you could cramp all the words back into your mouth. So much so you didn't realise how widely Alexia was smiling at you.

You only stopped when you felt soft hands grab yours.

"It's okay. I would love to" Alexia smiled reassuringly. She gave you a quick squeeze of the hand just to make sure. "And you don't need to pay for me it's okay. But I have one condition to being your Football Coach/Teacher".

You raise an eyebrow amused. You held your sketch book close to your chest with a smile. "Oh yeah and what's that?"

Alexia smirks and you swear you nearly dropped all your stuff again. It was by far the sexiest thing you've ever seen. "You have to promise to be a life long supporter of Barcelona and you can never ever become a Real Madrid fan".

"Who?"

Alexia smirked as she pointed at you, "Exactly". She offered her arm with a smile, "Shall we?"

The two headed inside, Alexia being conscious enough to steer you away from any direction of posters with her face on them. It was a lot easier when the two of you had gotten inside. However, when she had gone to pay, the staff had nearly blown her cover before she quickly shushed them. Thankfully you didn't notice the interaction as you had already paid and was off looking at some pictures.

Alexia had just came over and joined you when you turned to her with a bit of a sheepish smile, "I just realized that I didn't even introduce myself before asking you to spend the day with a total stranger".

Realising how bad that sounded you physically grimaced before offering a hand. "Well I'm Y/n just so you know".

Alexia instinctively shook your hand but paused briefly. "Ale" she said simply. Honestly she didn't know why she didn't tell you her name. Technically it wasn't a lie. Her friends and loved ones called her Ale. But she found herself hesitant to tell you her actual name.

It wasn't because she didn't feel comfortable with you. Cause in actual fact she had felt more comfortable with you in the 10 minutes you knew each other than with some of the people she's met for work.

But Alexia had a small feeling it was because of how normal she felt with you. As selfish as it was she didn't want to ruin it.

For one evening she didn't want the stress that came with her life. For one evening she didn't want to be the Barcelona Superstar. She didn't want to be Alexia Putellas.

So for the evening she was just Ale.

When you said you knew nothing about football, you really knew nothing about Football. Which Alexia only really realised when she had to explain basic rules of the game. L

But she really enjoyed it.

She enjoyed getting back to the basics of the game. Remembering how her father use to explain it to her.

She also loved how cute your face looked all scrunched up when you didn't understand something. Or how you lit up when you finally understood it.

But Alexia gave you an indepth insight into the club. Talking about key players they had throughout the years. The playing style they were known for. Different coaches and captains the team had and their impact on the club.

Alexia found that you found Johan Cruyff extremely interesting and his dedication to the club. "Huh I guess he bled pure blue and red then".

Alexia did her best to steer you away from anything talking about the women's team as much as it pained her not to show the teams successes. Which was surprisingly easy as you were so busy looking around while also doing quick sketches in your book and writing stuff down.

"I didn't know that one club could have so much history behind it" you said in awe as you started to leave the museum part.

Alexia just chuckles. Thankfully it was quiet enough that there were only a few people doing the tour as well so she hadn't been recognised. She was also thankful that she at least grabbed a cap before she abruptly left her apartment which she used to screen her face a bit from fans.

"Yeah I suppose" Alexia hums but freezes when she is faced with an Alexia jersey in front of her. Alexia bites her lip as she keeps her head down and moves towards the exit.

"Ale? Is everything okay?" You asked concerned carefully putting your hand tentatively on her shoulder in case the action wasn't wanted. But thankfully it had the desired effect when you see how Alexia untenses the tiniest bit.

Alexia nods a little stiffly but forces a smile. "Yeah. Yeah I'm okay just I really want to show you something".

You just nodded and if Alexia wasn't so focused on getting past the fans without noticing, she would have noticed how she took your hand unconsciously to try and move quickly and quietly past everyone.

And if she had looked back she would have noticed how your face had taken a red flue to it.

Alexia quickly moved through the stands and the away team dressing room which you were perfectly fine with not having much interest in them.

Then you felt the air knocked out of you.

"Wow…" you mumble as you and Alexia step out on to the pitchside. Alexia had to pursue her lips when she saw how you did a full 360 spin to take in the full stadium. But she ultimately failed as a smile slipped through along with a giggle.

You plopped right down on one of the sub bench seats right beside Alexia leaning back against the comfy seat.

"Could you imagine playing here? Having a sold out stadium with everyone's eyes on you? Thousands of people paying just to come watch their favourite player?" You ask hypothetically. But it just makes Alexia laugh as she smiled.

"Yeah…" Alexia smiled at you as you continued to look out at the field.

"What do you think it feels like?" You ask curiously not knowing that Alexia has already experienced playing on this very field. "To be out there on the field for a game?"

Alexia looks at you for a second thinking maybe you did actually know who she was. But shakes off the thought as she thinks for a second. "I think it's nerve racking" Alexia answers honestly.

Alexia now had your full attention. You look at her tilting your head slightly. "What do you mean?"

Alexia hums thinking back to when she played in Camp Nou. "Well I think it's nerve racking really. Having to worry about playing well. Not wanting to disappoint anyone. Your teammates, your fans, your club. Not wanting to mess up". "Having all those eyes on you from the moment you step on the field not wanting to mess up" Alexia answers honestly but then concedes. "But I do also think its amazing. Having a sold out stadium full of people who came to watch and support you. To see all these players who want to grow up and be like you".

You hum before smiling and nodding. "Yeah. I guess when you put it like that yeah it sounds stressful". You hum thoughtfully, "I kinda get it though. To a certain extent".

You sigh when you see Alexia motion for you to explain. "Well when I paint I guess. I mean don't get me wrong it's what I love to do. But when you're showing someone your work you're kinda putting a bit of themselves in front of you".

You let out a little smile but Alexia can see the hurt in your eyes. "And then you have to be ready for them to tear it apart in front of you".

Alexia bites her lip wondering if she would be overstepping. "Sounds like you're speaking from experience…"

You let out a little humorless laugh. "Well let's just say that my parents are too happy about my career choices". You had said it with a light tone but Alexia noticed how hard it was to talk about, not even able to look at her. "We would have much preferred if I got a more 'stable' job".

Knowing that this was obviously something that wasn't easy for you to talk about, Alexia knows she should tread lightly and maybe just move on.

But she couldn't leave it at that.

"I'm sorry about that" Alexia said gently before she gave her hand a small squeeze. "But as long as you're happy and you're doing what you love. Isn't that what matters?"

You didn't say anything and for a second Alexia feared that she had majorly overstepped. She was about to pull away her hand but was stopped when you held it firmly, "You're right". You flashed her a wide smile, "Thanks Ale".

Alexia felt herself shiver at the way her nickname fell from your lips. But she pushed through it and smiled back. Not trusting herself to answer back steadily.

After they left the field they went to the top of the stadium. Albeit with a few groans and moans from you asking how many more stairs there were. Alexia watched silently how you were amazed by the view. Imagining how cool it would be to see everything that was happening from the top stands.

Sadly for the both of you the tour was over soon after that despite both of you trying to stall. Alexia walked you back out to where you had first met. More like crashed into each other. Careful to avoid any of her jerseys or pictures in the stadium store and the posters on the stadium.

You rocked on your heels as you looked at Alexia. "To be honest I wasn't really looking forward to the tour" you gave her a bright smile. "But I actually had a lot of fun today. And I'd say I have you to thank for that".

Alexia grinned as she spotted the small blush tinting your face. "Well I'm glad I could teach you about the greatest football team in the world".

The two of you share a look before you fall into giggles. You bite your lip wanting to stay longer but you can see how late it's getting and you've already taken up Alexia's day enough.

"I better getting going" you sigh, looking at your watch. "I've taken up enough of your day".

Alexia smiled, "Actually I think I needed it. I had fun today".

You smiled brightly, "Well I'm glad I could help then". Neither of you know what to say.

Your just about to turn to start walking away when you stop yourself. As much as you didn't want to part with it, you rip out a page from your sketchbook and quickly scribble down something on the back of it and hold it out shyly to Alexia.

"I…I wouldn't normally do this but…" your face darkened red. "But I had a lot of fun today so uh here".

Alexia takes the paper and looks at it with a small smile when she realizes it's your number.

"For if you ever want to waste the day away with someone again" you shrug trying to act nonchalant about it but you both knew you were well past it. "Or not. It's completely up to you if you use it. Absolutely no obligations". You started walking backwards clutching your sketchbook to your chest biting your lip. "But I really hope you do".

You really tried not to look back but you couldn't help yourself. You waited until you were just about to turn the corner only to smile when you saw Alexia still watching you. You shot her a wink before disappearing out of her eyeline.

Alexia pursued her lips trying to stop herself from smiling like an idiot. But when she looked at the piece of paper with your messy scrawl on it, it was very hard.

She goes to fold the piece of paper to put in her pocket but stops when she sees something on the other side of the page. She flips it over and is surprised to see a small sketch of her.

It seems that the tour wasn't all you were focused on.

The sketch was of her standing on front of a Barca crest. When you had seen her looking at the frame you couldn't help yourself. The light shining down on the design was reflecting onto her giving her this glow. You captured her side profile extremely well. She swore if it wasn't for the fact she knew it was drawn in pencil, she would have thought it was a picture straight off a professional camera.

It was something she was definitely going to cherish.

She reached for her phone to save the number but groaned remembering that she forgot that she had left it at home to get away from all the stress of work. So she quickly made her way home not wanting to lose the number.

But as she's walking home she realizes how much lighter she feels. Before she had felt like this weight had been on her chest making it hard for her to breathe. But now it was gone. All that stress had seemingly disappeared.

You had done that.

Alexia smiled the whole way home. Thinking about what she would text you when you got home.

[wosospacegirl]

What?? No!!!

[pernillecfcw]

@lionesses On to Sydney / Gadigal ✈️

[skipper1331]

I love you (?) // Alexia Putellas

Love

L-O-V-E

A word with a lot and heavy meaning. It wasn't something you just said randomly every day - maybe some people did, but not Alexia. Love meant a lot to her. She came from a well-educated household where love and solidarity were a priority. Her family meant the world to her, she loved her family.

Football meant a lot to her too, she loved football and the friends she had made through it.

Alexia was known to be stern, someone of few words and someone who chose her words carefully. She’s a known person - it came with the business. So she certainly didn't say the words "I love you" carelessly or to everyone.

The only two people who heard it regularly were her mother and sister. All the other people just knew by her actions and caring nature.

And then there was you.

You had crept into her heart with your shy smiles, big grin and addicting laugh.

She wasn’t sure at first if she should ask you out - it took a lot of convincing (thanks to Mapi) to do so.

It surprised her when you agreed but it was obvious to anyone in the Barcelona squad - she was head over heels for you while you also were totally smitten for the captain.

Fast forward, 6 months into your relationship the words "I love you" lingered in the back of Alexia‘s mind. She hadn‘t said those words yet, neither had you.

You knew Alexia was careful and shy, sometimes even scared - it took awhile to break her walls down, so you respected her pace. The feelings also new for you.

The pace was perfect for both of you, nothing rushed or hasty.

But as the days went by, Alexia‘s feelings grew stronger and stronger. At night she thought she‘d explode at some point because she didn’t express herself to anyone.

The words were on the tip of her tongue, all day, everyday.

She wanted to say them.

She really did.

But it was a big step in your relationship. Would you say it back? Did you even feel the same way? What if not?

You meant a lot to her, she didn’t want to ruin anything - everything she had with you was so so special and precious, innocent even.

At the perfect moments, she remained silent, as she had so many times before. It wasn't just an "I love you" it was so much more. Love didn't even come close to what she felt yet it was the closest thing to describe what she felt when she was with you. It was weird.

It was chaotic in her head, her thoughts not organized or structured. It annoyed her. Order was very important to her, especially in her head - after all, that and her talent had made her the best football player in the world. So she didn't like the fact that there was now a lot of chaos.

Normally, she would have talked to you about it, but since it involved you, she couldn't do that.

A different solution had to be found as quickly as possible.

In the next few days, she asked herself what to do. Who could she confide in?

1. you

2. Mami (+ Alba)

3. Alba (+Mami)

4. Mapi

That was the list of people she could always talk to, even if it was often difficult for her - like now.

And that‘s when it hit her.

If she could tell her mother, sister and best friend that she loved you, she could tell you too.

Step by step.

telling her mother

Alexia stood in the kitchen with her mother, preparing dinner while Alba and you set the table. Ale‘s eyes lingered on you, a love sick smile plastered on her face, eyes screaming hearts. She loved the bond you had with her sister. Alba often joked that you were also her sister, which in the future you definitely would be as her sister in law.

The older Putellas watched the scene in front of her, her heart bursting at every laugh she heard. You fit in perfectly with her family - everything was so harmonious, loving and caring, almost too perfect to be true - the most important people united.

Deep breaths, "I love her" she admitted to her mother. It was the first time ever she said that out loud. Her cheeks were bright red.

She didn’t look at her mother, neither at you because suddenly the vegetables in her hands were very interesting.

"Oh, I know" Eli chuckled, the footballer dropping the knife and turning towards her mother.

"You know?"

"I can see it in your eyes"

her sister

The Putellas sisters sat in their local coffee shop for their weekly catch up. Since their teenage years they had the tradition to at least sit together for a coffee once a week. Sometimes it was just for 5 minutes, sometimes for hours, sometimes early in the morning, sometimes in the evening, depending on the schedule.

"Ale, are you listening?" Alba waved her hand in front of her sisters face.

"Que? Lo siento, what did you say?" she stated, her mind had drifted back to you.

Alexia knew you were waiting in her apartment, probably still on the couch where she had left you with a kiss. Or maybe you were in the kitchen? Getting a snack? Or in bedroom reading a book?

I love you

"Thinking about your girlfriend, hm?" the younger Putellas raised a brow while taking a sip of her coffee.

"Sí, lo siento. Please tell me again what you were saying?"

Alba started once again but quickly realized that her sisters mind was somewhere else.

"Come on, Alexia. What‘s going on?" this time Alba flicked the footballers nose to get her attention, "absent again" she explained when the midfielder grumbled confused at her little sister.

"What‘s on your mind?"

"I love her"

"okay…?"

Alexia furrowed her brows, "I love her" repeating her words.

"okay…? I know" Alba repeated her words as well, questioning what the problem was.

"You know too?"

"hermana, you talk about her all the time, like non-stop" she laughed, "it‘s quite obvious that you love her"

telling Mapi

Just a few hours ago, the team had won the champions league trophy - it felt euphoric, everybody high on the adrenaline and joy.

Mapi and Ale watched Ingrid and you dancing on the dance floor, medals around your necks, singing to the song that‘s blasting through the club.

"I‘ve never seen you so happy" Mapi stated as Alexia took a sip of her drink, her own medal still around her neck.

"I love her"

"Oh, I know"

"why does everyone know this?" Alexia furrowed her brows, a frown displayed on her features.

Mapi laughed at her friend, throwing an arm around her shoulder.

"Ale, seriously? You look at her like she hung the moon. You talk about her all the time. You follow her around like a lost puppy. You sulk the whole day when she‘s not there. You beam from ear to ear when she‘s holding your hand. You-"

Alexia cut her off with a hand covering her mouth, "I get it!" her cheeks crimson red as she shied away from the defender as soon as she had stopped talking.

"You‘re the same way with her, like I’m with Ingrid. We‘re both lucky to have such sweethearts in our life. So, don‘t fuck it up"

"Don’t mess up either" Alexia laughed. Mapi was absolutely right: The captain was head over heels for you, totally smitten and unconditionally in love with you. She had never been so happy before - with you, she felt lightheaded and free, something that was rare in the life of a professional athlete.

She loved you.

And was so thankful to have you in her life - being able to call you hers, hers only.

"I wouldn���t dream of it" Mapi agreed, feeling the exact same about Ingrid, raising her drink.

"Salud"

telling you

"Amor!" Alexia belly laughed, running after you as had thrown multiple paper balls at her to get her attention, her attention too focused on the tv. You ran around her apartment, the girl close behind, almost catching you in the kitchen.

Though, she did caught you in the bedroom, where she quickly wrapped her arms around your middle and tackled you onto the bed.

"Amor, that wasn‘t very nice of you" she stated firmly yet you could see the smile she was trying to hide.

"I was only concerned about your well-being!" you defended yourself, trying to wiggle out out of Alexia’s grasp which Alexia denied as she straddled your waist, pinning your arms down. "I was afraid that the wrinkle on between your brows would stay permanent if you had kept that look on your face any longer" you stated innocently - the same expression plastering her face once again, causing you to laugh.

"Laughing at me, hm, amor" her fingers slid along your arms before they suddenly started to tickle you.

The room was filled with laughter, yours (which was music for Alexia‘s ears) and her own.

"I give up! I give up!"

"You shouldn’t mess with me" the midfielder giggled.

Silence followed, both of you staring in each others eyes with so much love and adoration.

Slowly, Alexia leaned forward, her hands cupping your cheeks while your hands rested on Alexia’s thighs as you met in the middle.

Both of your minds went blank as you kissed one another, hearts racing, skin tingling, cheeks burning.

Pulling back, Ale still had her eyes closed, taking in and appreciating the moment.

"I love you"

it was whispered yet loud and clear.

The midfielder looked at you - the way your face lit up, smile wider than she‘d ever seen before, eyes full of happiness looking at her.

"I love you too"

The older girl matched your expression, hardly hiding her emotions.

"Say it again, por favor"

You happily did, "I love you, Alexia."

Sighing contently, she leaned her forehead against yours, "again, por favor" and that‘s what you did, your girlfriend repeating your words each time.

Because she really did love you.

Ps. She had practiced it more often than she liked to admit in front of the mirror.

"I love you"

"I love you"

"I love you"

"I love you"

"I love you“

Because practice makes the best, right?

[samkerrworshipper]

lights are on, but nobody’s home

barca femeni x reader

it’s unedited. i’m not sorry about it, if it puts u off then soz icbf. this fic has been in my drafts since october so it was about time i finished it! combined to fics lol to get it done and its a fast paced very vague mess but have fun :) loved the idea not the execution!

warnings: kinda angsty?

Red cards exist in the game for a reason. You don’t deny that. Red cards are needed to keep people safe, to set a boundary between safe and unsafe play. But there had been something so undeniably unfair about yours.

You’d hurt somebody, you weren’t going to lie about that. It had been unintentional, but a risk you’d taken had ended up with the world’s best player being stretchered off the pitch, and for just that, you deserved a yellow. But a red, for a tackle that was mostly legal, seemed ridiculous. Tackles happened. As a defensive midfielder, it was your job to get the ball off attackers, it was your responsibility to make sure that you stopped the ball from being kicked in the direction of your keeper or down the field to another player. It was what cemented your spot in the English midfield; you weren’t just a good attacker; you were ferocious in defence. You averaged at least 5 tackles per game; it was the most crucial part of your game; it was fundamentally what made you a good footballer.

Arguing with the ref and using some particularly vulgar language definitely didn’t help your case but in your defence it hadn’t been a red cardable offence. It was all pointless though, the card had already been raised and pointed in your direction, you’d been booked, in a friendly of all games.

It was bad, you’d know that from the moment your cleats had stepped over the line, the incessant booing being directed towards you as you walked past Sarina the grim frown etched into the details of her face was enough of a sign. You were in a bad situation, but you’d just put your team in an even worse situation with a one less player on the field to continue the fight in the world cup final rematch. It wasn’t good, it was your job to make sure that your team was in the best situation to achieve success on the pitch and you’d jeopardised that. What you hadn’t realised was that action wasn’t only jeopardising your team, it was jeopardising you as a whole.

It had begun from the moment you’d gotten back to your hotel room later that night. Your teammates had focused all of their energy on trying to lift your spirits, with the game ending in a 1-1 draw, everyone was happy. The England team was your second family, and considering you didn’t play in the WSL like the vast majority of them, national team time was valuable to you. You sat next to Beth on the ride back to the hotel, happy to listen to her non-stop talking as a distraction for the disappointment that had settled inside of you. At team dinner, you sat sandwiched in between Grace and Ella; most dinners spent on your normal table, you struggled to get a word in, but it was the constant surrounding buzz that kept you out of your head and specifically off of your phone, and you were more grateful than usual that you had that. By the time you’d even made it to your room and gone through your nighttime routine, you still hadn’t checked your phone. It was only as you began to prepare yourself to get into bed that you headed towards your bag to fish it out. You climbed into bed, finally opening your phone for the first time, and instead of it having a handful of messages from your family and a sprinkle of Instagram notifications, there were thousands. Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, newsforums, both English and Spanish; as you scrolled down the list, it only got bigger. All of it was the same, about how you’d ‘intentionally’ injured your own club teammate to benefit your national team, how you were malicious, how you had played beyond the line of safe play, how you deserved to be penalised, how you had ruined sportsmanship. It was never-ending, and the more that you read, the worse it got. You felt like a shell of yourself as your eyes scanned the different words; you completely dissociated it all. It felt like you were reading about somebody else, like there was absolutely no possibility that the sentences you were absorbing could possibly be about you. There was so much falsity behind all of it that it was hard to understand it. You’d played the same you always did, you hadn’t played dangerously, you’d played within the rules as you always did. Beyond that, you’d visited Aitana in the change rooms after the game, desperate to apologise and make sure that you hadn’t done any damage or hurt her in any way. Your play hadn’t been malicious, there hadn’t been any ill intention or hatred fueled behind it, even though every single article or post was making it seem that way. Aitana had come off after the clash purely as a caution, when you’d gone to see her, all she was dealing with was a little bit of inflammation. By the time you were both back in Barcelona, she’d be as good as new. Even after watching the replays, it was clear to anybody with eyes that all you were doing was fighting for the ball, the same as every other 1-on-1 battle throughout the game. Yet as soon as a spotlighted player got injured, it was suddenly a different story being told.

Normally you would shake it off, in general, you were the kind of person who didn’t get bothered by much, You were a bubbly and happy person, you were the kind of teammate who was always smiling and trying to make other people laugh. Usually, if you had a teammate who was in the same situation as you were now, you would be the one picking them up and trying to help them shake off all of this. It wasn’t normally a struggle for you to overcome a little bit of hate, but there was something so shattering about this. Whilst you still believed deep down that you’d done nothing wrong, it was hard to convince yourself of that when there were so many people who were telling you otherwise.

You weren’t the kind of person who regularly fell into the mind numbing action of doom scrolling, you weren’t big on social media in general, it was something you had to do because of your job but not much else beyond that. Yet right now it felt impossible to deviate away from it, every time you saw your name pop up again somewhere you were drawn to another dark place of the internet where you kept reading until you were mentioned or tagged in another post and your phone lit up with a new piece of media.

It was never ending, it just kept coming, and the longer you indulged in it, the sicker you started to feel. Had you done something wrong? Were you truly as malicious as everyone wrote? Were you the bad person they were painting you to be?

It was impossible to not consider that potentially everyone else was right, maybe you were the problem.

It was a good day to be roomed with Lucy, she’d been in bed before you’d even made it up to the room and asleep whilst you’d been showering. If the sounds of snoring were anything to go off of then she was long gone, which made you feel more secure as you muffled a sob into your pillow. It was going to be fine, by the time morning rolled around it would be forgotten. Or at least that was what you thought.

The convenience of playing your games in Spain was that unlike majority of your teammates, you were able to sleep in the following morning instead of flying back to their club teams. Lucy was gone long before you woke up, something you were specifically grateful for because whilst Lucy was mostly oblivious, you weren’t sure if you would have been able to hide your red eyes and puffy face. You hadn’t had much sleep, but even in the few hours that you had managed to get, the notifiations on your phone had only multiplied significantly. Every second your phone lit up again, and for the sake of your own brain you chose to switch it off completely. If you stayed in the shower a little longer because you got so lost thinking about it all that your feet started to go numb from the water pressure there was nobody around to say anything about it. If you happened to space out halfway through your skincare and accidentally spill half of your serum down the sink it was nothing a bit of water from the sink couldn’t fix. Every time you thought you’d forgotten about it all, like you’d drifted away from everything you’d read and then suddenly it all came back to you like some sick fever dream. It was the same words that kept circulating, and every time it came back to you it was impossible to just let it go.

You were half way dressed when your door was knocked on. It was what woke you up to the fact that you had absolutely no idea what time it was or how long you’d spent spaced out and in your brain.

You weren’t shocked to find Keira waiting outside your door, looking significantly more put together then you were.

“Mate, I’ve texted you about 30 times. The taxis here to take us to the airport.”

Fuck. You’d forgotten that you were taking a group taxi instead of leaving the hotel individually.

“Give me five minutes, I slept in and forgot to pack up last night.”

Keira cut you off before you continued your ramble of excuses.

“I’ll help you pack up, you focus on getting dressed and sorting yourself out, okay?”

Keira wasn’t your closest friend, she was one of the few people on the Barcelona team that spoke fluent english which grouped the two of you together. She was also one of your idols coming through as the youngest midfielder in the English and Barcelona squad. But personality wise the two of you didn’t jell, you were too energetic and a little bit too immature to buddy up with her. It didn’t change the fact that she was basically an older sister to you. She wasn’t exactly the person you’d go to for relationship advice or confess your troubling thoughts to. But she was the person you could rely on to help you in any situation without asking questions, and this really was an extension of that.

Keira made quick work of packing up your things from around your room whilst you finished getting dressed and putting your hair in a messy bun.

By the time you’d made yourself look just enough presentable for the public eye Keira was done, all of your bags piled together at your hotel room door.

“I found your phone at the bottom of your bag, looks like you might want to charge it before the drive.”

Right now, your phone felt like a block of dynamite, balancing in Keira’s hand, ready to explode at any second.

“No, I just turned it off.”

You didn’t really think about how odd your words could sound until they’d left your mouth, and Keira’s eyebrows were raising quickly.

“You just turned it off?”

It’s an unusual behaviour for you, one that Keira has clearly picked up on by the tone in her voice. Your phone is practically an extension of you, the team didn’t joke about you having square eyes for nothing. Always getting people to film tiktoks or do stupid challenges.

“Yes?”

You actively observe all of the cogs in Keira’s brain turning, she looks like she has a lot to say, but then she glances down at her watch and it’s clear that the fact that you are running well behind time takes priority.

“Let’s go, the taxi is waiting.”

Keira practically pushed you out of the hotel room, all of your bags in her hands and ushering you straight towards the elevator.

As she’d said, the taxi is waiting in front of the lobby, the driver looks particularly ticked off as he waits outside the drivers side door, his foot tapping and a cigarette hanging halfway out of his mouth. Keira loads your suitcase into the boot of the car whilst you take your backpack off of her and hop into the back of the car, Keira follows and sits down across from you.

The first five minutes of the ride are silent, Keira flicks through her phone whilst you stare out the tinted window and pretend that you can see the things passing by.

“You can talk to me you know? I know we’re not exactly the closest, but I’m here for you.”

You don’t bother to look in Keira’s direction, you keep your eyes and facial expression schooled and focused on the window.

“Anything the media writes is bullshit, you ought to just ignore it.”

You wished you could have ignored it last night, when theoretically you were at your most vulnerable. Maybe if you hadn’t of read so much when you were already in a bad mindset it wouldn’t have imprinted so much, regardless it has and you can’t just ignore it.

“Kei, I’m fine. When have I ever cared what the papers write about me?”

Now, right now is when you care. It’s a fair statement though, you’ve never been affected when tabloids have written far worse things about you, when you came out and for months there was homophobic slander everywhere you looked. In the past it hadn’t been based off of facts, it had all been fictitious. But now that there is just a inkling of truth behind what’s being written it feels far more real and you aren’t sure how to get past that.

“I’m just saying that there isn’t anything wrong with being affected by it. Especially after last night, there’s nothing wrong with admitting that.”

This is the trouble between you and Keira, she’s a lot more frank. In your opinion it’s a thing that comes with age, whilst she’s very happy to admit when she’s going through a hard time you’d rather cover it up with jokes and pretend that it doesn’t actually bother you. The trouble with your approach is that it only works for so long before people start to see you fraying at the edges or you completely break down from the pressure.

“Just mad I hurt your bestfriend, huh?”

The only response you get from Keira is a loud exhale, the same a mother would when her child makes a immature joke at a immature time. Immaturity is your coping mechanism, because by default people tend to be put off by it, they naturally gravitate away from it. Furthermore they gravitate away from whatever conversation or confrontation they were going to have.

“I’m not mad, I’m concerned for you and how something like this can affect a persons career.”

It’s too many feelings, to much concern, too much. You don’t deserve it and you definitely do not want it.

“I’m fine, we play football, it’s part of it all.”

You still haven’t looked at Keira but you could make an educated guess and assume that she looks deflated. It’s another reason that out of Keira and Lucy you’d always gotten along better with Lucy, you didn’t care to admit it but she knew how to get to the bottom of all of your weird cues and knew what was right and wrong to say. Keira’s too smart for her own good, and it doesn’t work on you, it never has. She’s all you have at Barca now though, besides Roebs, whose been too focused on her rehab and getting back on the pitch to be much of a friend.

“Hate shouldn’t be part of it. If you need to talk about the fact that some part of it is clearly bothering you then I’m here, anybody else on the team is here. Okay?”

You nod purely for the sake of ending the conversation, you can’ even figure out how you feel about it all, let alone trying to rationalise it with Keira. You’re upset, yet you can’t quite get to the bottom of it. You’ve never been upset before when your actions have ended in somebody else getting injured, it’s a rare occurence and when it happens you feel a little bit of guilt but usually it fades. Injury is part of the game, it happens all the time right in front of your eyes. You suppose Aitana isn’t actually injured though, she’s sore and has a low grade ankle sprain but it’s nowhere near the same as her tearing her acl or breaking a bone because of you. You just feel drained, it’s odd, you put it down to the fact that you hardly got any sleep last night but you have this underlying feeling that it’s somehow more than that, yet you have no explanation for it.

After a long break of silence Keira and yourself fall into a fairly bland conversation about the upcoming fixtures and winter break plans. It’s so evident that there is tension in every word each of you speak, like you’re both a few syllables away from saying something that neither of you want to.

Luckily Keira is a lot more cautious than most people, unlike most of you friends or teammates in general she can control herself to a respectable level and can stop herself from word vomiting emotion fueled spieles.

By the time the driver pulls up in front of your apartment building not much has been said at all, but the overarching feeling is tense, it doesn’t feel good and the mixture of it with the everything else is making you feel sick. Keira gives you a hug after helping you unload your luggage and then leaves you. You know that outwardly you’re presenting that you want to be left alone yet everything in you is being used to stop yourself from clinging onto Keira and asking her to stay with you.

Your week is a lot of the same feelings. You have two days to yourself before training starts again and the two days are spent in bed. If you aren’t scrolling on your phone andreading every single thing that has your name mentioned then you are sleeping, or crying, or lying in bed thinking about it all. Every text from one of your teammates is left unopened, none of it matters when every single waking moment of your life is being spent thinking about the moment over and over again. It’s not just your career, not just the fact that you’re going to have to sit out in the next fixture and potentially tarnish your relationship with Sarina. You hurt Aitana, you hurt your ownt teammate. Your own actions had caused harm to somebody that you cared about. Every article, tiktok, post they were all painting you in some kind of negative light, like you were a demon hiding behind smiles. It was hard not to consider the truth behind it all, had you done what you did with malicious intent?

By the time training finally rolled around you were feeling even worse than you had a couple of days ago. Even though you’d been sleeping for hours a day there wer ebig eye bags under your eyes, you were pale and looked like you were sick. It was noticed by your teammates almost immediately, you weren’t even fully dressed in the change rooms before Pina was punching on you, talking rapidly in Catalan that you didn’t remotely understand.

“Chica, you missed our games night last night. To busy sleeping off the four goals you scored over the break, no? You need to leave some goals for other people.”

You shook Pina off as quickly as you could, you had a focus for the day and that was getting all of this over with. You had a game in three days, a game that you couldn’t ruin for your team again.

“Estas bien?”

You finish pulling your training top on and sit down on the bench in front of your locker.

“Estoy Bien.”

You focus on getting a sock on each of your feet and then your boots.

“Chica?”

There is concern laced in Pina’s voice, she’s still standing in front of you. Almost everybody else has made their way out onto the pitch, leaving the two of you and a couple of stragglers behind.

“You don’t look so good chica, are you feeling okay?”

Your boots are easy enough to lace up, once you’re done you reach behind you for your jacket, not quite sure if it’s warm enough to train in just your shirt.

“Estoy Bien. Vale?”

Before Pina can ask much more, you begin to walk towards the doors of the locker room. It’s breezy enough outside that you choose to put your jumper on, as do most of your teammates.

Aitana is doing individual training, because of her ankle. Pere says that it’s precautionary.

If you weren’t already feeling like you were on the brink of vomiting then now it’s the only thing you can feel. You feel ill, you feel completely absorbed by the sickness pooled at the bottom of your stomach. When Pere asks if you’re feeling alright you can’t say no, because you have no reason to feel as badly as you do. But it’s all the words, they’re spinning around in your head, every article, every single word.

It shows on the pitch, every decision, every pass, every shot, every tackle is helf back. You’re fearufl and it shows.

When training finally does finish, and Aitana is still working by herself with one of the coaches on another pitch you feel like it’s almost your breaking point. Until Pere pulls you over again and lets you know that you’ll be starting for the match on the weekend as a replacement for Aitana.

That’s your breaking point. You have nothing to say, nothing to think. You feel like a zombie as you walk towards the locker room. You sabotaged your teammate for your own good.

As soon as the team list is out that’s the only thing people will be saying, You don’t even want to think about what people will think when they see the photos of Aitana training by herself with her ankle all taped up. Whilst you were out on the pitch with all of your teammates. What was just starting to get better for you was only bound to relapse with the new information.

All of the girls notice your shift in behaviour. It’s Pina though who approaches Alexia on your third day of training back. Aitana is still training individually, purely for precaution and preservation. There are more important games then the one coming on the weekend and it’s not worth aggravating the small injury. It doesn’t feel like that to you though, and it’s been abundantly clear to everybody that something is up with you.

“Alexia, can I talk to you for a second?”

Alexia’s been talking to Irene about ….. for at least ten minutes and whilst Pina has no interest in interrupting it’s getting boring waiting around for a conversation to end that’s clearly dragging.

Alexia looks so care free, and Pina asking to talk to her shouldn’t change that, but the look that’s on her face changes Alexia’s demeanour almost immediately.

“What’s up?”

Pina looks at Irene awkwardly, like she’s not sure if the information she’s about to share with Alexia is for Irene’s ears. Irene seems to get the message, farewelling the two of them before heading off.

“I’m worried about y/n.”

Alexia’s silently been wondering whether to approach the subject. She’d thouyght about asking Keira is something had happened on England camp, considering that your particularly filthy mood had seemed to start afterwards. It was out of character for you, and originally Alexia had thought it was all part of some sort of prank plot. But as the last couple of days had passed it had become drastically clear that there was something else wrong. She’d thought it would be smarter to give you the benefit of the doubt, everyone had bad weeks. Alexia wasn’t aware of any relationships you were in but she wouldn’t have been shocked if your mood had been due to a breakup or something of similar origin.

“Ale, she’s been acting strange. She comes in everyday and hardly talks to anybody, she doesn’t joke around with use like she normally does, she hasn’t been answering our groupchat, she’s been avoiding all of our plans to hang out. Out on the pitch she’s been cautious but so unphased and she won’t talk to me or Ona or Patri or Kika or Esmee and I don’t know what to do anymore. Somethings really wrong, normally she’s so happy, I mean everyones noticed that the locker room has been more quiet. I thought it was going to pass, but she’s seemed really upset, like somethings really wrong and what’s happening on the internet can’t be helping it.”

The problem is that Alexia doesn’t disagree with anything that Pina is saying, she can’t dismiss any of it as overreaction because whether it’s been conscious or not she has noticed all of the things that she’s being told. She hadn’t yet pieced it all together as one thing but now that all the puzzle pieces are being laid out in front of her it seems impossible to ignore that it’s all coming together.

“On the internet? De qúe estás hablando?”

Alexia is the first to admit that she’s not exactly the best with technology, sure she’s got all the social media apps and Olga is constantly trying to teach her the ways of all of them but it doesn’t particularly interest her. She finds it easier to look at them as another means of work, it’s how she makes money, posting about football and endorsements. Otherwise she finds enjoyment in places besides her phone. Does it keep her slightly out of the loop? Yes. Does she have younger teammates to keep her up to date? Also yes.

“All the stuff about Aitana. I haven’t read into it much, but I know it’s not good. The media have been slaughtering her for that red card. She punishes herself enough after a bad tackle or pass, I can’t imagine what a red card would do.”

Alexia makes a mental note to look into it later but for now she knows that she needs to deescalate. Because if Pina is telling Alexia now then it’s not long before it blows up within the team.

“Okay. I’ll talk to her tomorrow after the game, if she’s still off I’ll talk to her. I’ll have a chat with Keira and ask if anything asked on camp, bueno? Whatever it is Pina, it can be fixed, all problems can be fixed. I’m sure it’s just been a rough week with all the travel and games, not everybody can adjust well, mixed with the recent fixtures it would be expected that everyone is feeling a bit more exhausted.”

It’s the rationalisation that seems to calm Pina down more, which was ultimately Alexia’s end goal. She can deal with you tomorrow but for now it’s crucial that she stops this from escalating within the team. When things spread it all becomes more drama and it’s not good, distractions are not what everybody needs leading into the next fixtures.

Alexia honestly forgets about the conversation completely. Between organising dinner the night before, stretching, spending quality time with her girlfriend and generally just getting herself game ready and in a good head space. She woke up feeling rested and prepared for the game ahead.

You however, were quite simply a mess. You’d hardly slept in over a week now, if you did sleep you woke up in a sweat after a particularly brutal nightmare, you were hardly eating because you always felt so nauseous from the anxiety and your performance on the football pitch had been dismaying.

Alexia, and your teammates, weren’t noticing the smaller things. You lived in your own apartment, in your own building. Nobody was aware of everything that was contributing to all the things that were beginning to show.

Alexia, hyper vigilant after Pina’s admission decided that she’d try and find you before everyone hopped on the bus to head to the opposing stadium, yet you were nowhere to be found. As everyone loaded onto the bus she almost missed you. Usually, you sat at the back, with the younger girls. Normally, Alexia gravitated somewhere in the middle of the bus, she was too old to be singing or messing around at the back but she liked to still be kept in the mix.

It was why she almost missed you, hunched into a seat almost at the very front of the bus.

“Chica?”

The way your whole body darted upwards as soon as you heard Alexia was another concerning thing that she was adding to a mental list.

“Capi.”

You pull your headphones off as a courtesy, but the reintroduction to the sounds of earth and the environment around you brings you right back to everything you’ve been feeling.

“Are you waiting for Kika or Vicky?”

Alexia feels like she already knows your answer, but she’s hanging on to a thread of hope that whatever Pina is feeling isn’t as bad as it seems.

“No, I need some sleep and it’s impossible to get any back there without somebody sticking something in my mouth or posting videos of me with my mouth half open.”

Alexia laughs, it’s the exact reason she can’t sit up the back anymore, it’s too much stupidity in a concentrated space.

“Ah, normally you’re more than happy to terrorize the rest of us, normalmente eres la reina de los estupidas.”

When your face doesn’t even respond slightly to Alexia and you have no witty comeback about her being boring or something else it’s another clear sign that something is up, she just can’t quite pin point what.

You’ve tuned out from her though, and as much as she is worried and thrown off, the bus is not a place to make a scene, specifically before a match. You will not take well to Alexia interrogating you and potentially causing any kind of emotional distress.

So, even though it pains her to do so, she walks on, she leaves you in the sinking ship you’re currently n in, taking on more and more water as every minute passes.

You’re at a point where you can admit to yourself that you are in no way fit to play.

You don’t want to be on the pitch, the fans don’t want you on the pitch, your teammates musn’t want you on the pitch, Pere wouldn’t have you on the pitch if Aitana was available and when you think about it the whole footballing world doesn’t want you on the pitch.

You flinch when you walk out to warm up and are met with boos, the Spanish fans are unlike all other fans, their passion is palpable and when one person starts booing everybody follows suit. It’s not even Barcelona fans, which is undecidedly worse and better. The overall impression is that you’ve aggravated the Spanish people.

It takes your teammates a couple of seconds to catch on to who it is the anger is being directed at but once they do it’s a domino affect of everybody turning to you, and then turning to each other and back to you. You try your best to not let it affect you, you’ve been booed before and have dealt with many angry fans, but when it starts to echo from the away side of the stands you honestly question if you’ve pushed yourself a little bit too hard.

Alexia regrets her decision not to say something to you when she sees the complete fear in your eyes as you look around at the crowd, who are vehemently booing you. It’s not a good feeling on any day to clearly have a crowd so against you but when you’re clearly off kilter as it is it’s clear that it all throws you off even more.

Before Alexia can think about it, she’s beelining straight to Keira.

“What happened on camp?”

Keira is just as thrown off by what is occurring as everyone else.

“England camp?”

It’s clear in the bewilderment in Keira’s face that she’s not understood what Alexia’s asking.

“With y/n, did something happen that nobody knows about?”

The booing finally comes to an end, but it doesn’t change the overall energy in which a whole crowd is sending your way.

“She was fine all camp, being an idiot with grace and beth and being her usual self. All the other games she was fine, and then after the Spain game, after the red card, she’s just been acting different. It’s like G at Man City all over again.”

Alexia understands everything that Keira’s saying, until the last sentence. Her English is pretty good, hger understanding is almost perfect, speaking less so but the last few words completely surpass her level of interpretation.

“G? Man City?”

Alexia notices you in the corner of her eye doing shooting practice, every time you miss and echo of cheers erupts.

“Georgia? Stanway? A couple of years ago, when she was young she got a stupid red card, it wasn’t pretty not dissimilar to the challenge on Aitana. Big mess with the media, got some really nasty messages.”

She doesn’t remember the moment itself, but she does remember reading something about it a couple of years ago.

“Gracias.”

You’re red hot with rage already, the crowd has you amped up. When Pere questions you in the locker room about your state of mind, you are quite literally in a blinding fury. It the kind of sadness fueled anger, youa re literally ripping apart at the seams and instead of actually feeling all of the innate anguish you are experiencing you turn it into anger.

“Why the fuck did you go to Pere and tell him I wasn’t ready to play.”

The tunnel is the only time you’ve been able to talk to Alexia, she’d been so held up with the pep talk, then talking to Pere, then giving inspiration to everybody else. But now that you have the opportunity you can’t ignore it.

Alexia’s eyes are ahead, you’re stuck standing behind her but she can hear you perfectly clear.

“After the game.”

It had taken enough effort for you to convince Pere that you were fine. You were begging for a starting spot that you didn’t even want, a spot that is actually making you feel sick to your stomach. It’s the doubt though, you doubted yourself in that stupid tackle that got you the card, so if you doubted yourself what was to stop everybody else from doubting you?

“No, what makes you think that you can talk to our coach about my game fitness without even talking to me? Do you have any respect for me at all?”

Alexia turns around, and it makes you feel slightly validated and slightly less like you’re about to punch her in the head.

“It’s not about your fitness.”

The punching in the head feeling returns pretty quickly.

“Not about my fitness? What the fuck else is it then? Just because I don’t act like a dickhead on the bus and decide to take a nap?”

Alexia gives you on final look before turning around, the look on her face only adds to your sickeningly consuming anger.

You go onto the pitch angry, which isn’t good for anything. Every time the ball lands at your feet, boos echo out. Every time you get tackled, which is fairly frequently because the opposition has chosen you as the punching bag for the game, cheers erupt. The game is easy enough, 90 percent of possession is with Barcelona, with you spot in the midfield the ball comes to you every few seconds. It’s mostly fine, for the first ten or so minutes. Until the tackles start to get rougher, and you’re mad, and the crowd is loud and everything feels so incredibly wrong.

It’s working you up at a fast rate, then the ball lands at your feet for the 50th time in the match already, and without even looking up at your defender, who three seconds before was standing right in front of you, her studs are placing themselves directly into your calf. It’s not a comfortable feeling, to put it lightly. You manage to clear the ball before you’re on your back, clutching at your leg and trying your best to breathe as the crowd cries out, your opponent mutters something aggressively in spanish and your teammates argue with the referee.

It’s all too much. Your just angry, and upset. Not even at your defender or at the tackle, just at all of it. You think in a roundabout way that this is all karma, that this is your punishment for whatever you did to anger everyone and yourself. You’re tired and fed up and want it all to go away.

You want to sink into the grass of the pitch and just disappear, it would make your life so much easier if in this moment you could just disappear and not face any of the stuff that is happening.

Then there are hands on you and you’re reminded that it’s nowhere near that easy.

“Estas bien? Necesitas la medica?”

You force yourself to stand up, push through, get it over with. You need to prove everybody wrong.

Whether you can see it or not, you are spinning out. Everybody else can see it, you’re frantic, timid and shaken. Patri is the one to put her hands on your shoulders and steady you before you try to return to play.

“You need to go off.”

Twenty minutes have passed, you aren’t going to force a sub when it is unnecessary.

“I’m fine.”

Patri shakes her head, in the same way Irene or Marta would when they are being tough.

“You are not okay, and you need to go off before something worse than that happens.”

You shake Patri off, and when she tries to come back you give her a shove.

“I’m fucking fine. I know when I can and cannot play.”

Like every other attempt that’s been made to try and stop you, she just frowns and walks away. The ref gives you a once over before allowing the game to return to play.

It’s not fine, nothing is fine. Your defender continuously gets away with dangerous tackles that should be continous yellow cards, the crowd is getting to you with every passing second. By gods grace three goals are scored in a few minutes, not only does it silence the opposition it puts you at ease a little bit. For the most part, you’re doing okay, or as okay as possible.

Until it gets to a corner.

There is two minutes of stoppage time, which have well and truly been used up. The corner is going to be the last play and it’s impact is not super important but the pressure is still there. You end up sandwiched between the two centre backs, and for whatever reason when the boot releases off of Patri’s foot from the corner instead of running to make room like you’re supposed to, you are yanked directly to the ground, with two boots stepping directly onto your legs.

It’s not agony, it’s definitely not good but you’re spending more time trying to not cry and collect air then focusing on everything else.

You can’t breathe, and you physically can’t stop the sob that leaves your mouth, it’s pathetic but it’s been building and you can’t stop it.

You don’t bother with listening to the call, or letting your teammates help you up or worrying about the play. The whistle has blown and you have one mission, to go anywhere away from people. You force yourself to stand up even though your back hurts from falling flat on it and your thighs hurt from being stomped on, and walk off.

Pere and the bench are still waiting in the dug out, normally you’d hug or talk or anything but right now the only thing on your mind is getting away, because if you don’t then what is now only tears is going to turn into a full panic attack. You’re working simply off of pure instinct, you have the shutters on and the only thing you are focusing on is your end goal and getting there. When you get to the changing rooms it’s empty, you bee line straight through to the bathroom and lock yourself in a stall before you actually let yourself think beyond the orders that have been set out in your mind.

Like everyone had said, you aren’t ready. You are living with the knowledge that because of your actions, your stupid actions you are being given a spot and opportunity that you didn’t deserve, you got it purely based off of the fact that you injured one of your teammates. Now you can’t even live up to the expectation of being a replacement.

The feeling that was initially what you had thought to be anxiety sickness builds up and all of a sudden you’re grateful your in the bathroom because within a couple of seconds you are kneeled on the floor letting your whole stomach contents out. It’s not a good feeling, you’ve been slowly descending towards rock bottom for days now but you’ve come to the realisation that this is it, this is your lowest point. Every time you think about the pitch you subsequently think about the crowd which leads you to think about everything happening inside your phone and then the sick feeling is back full force. The you think about Aitana, her ankle, her spot, her training, everything. All of that combined and all you can do is cry, it’s the only emotional outlet that you have enough energy for. You’d love to be able to punch something or throw something but you don’t have the energy, you’re running off of no sleep, hardly any food and now the fatigue of playing a half of football.

“Chica, can you open the door?”

Truthfully there are not many people you want to see in this moment or really ever again but Alexia might be at the top of the list. You’d been a little bit star struck when you’d gotten to Barcelona, you were an up and coming and to be on a roster with the best midfielders in the world was something you were in awe of. You were still slightly in awe of the fact that you were sharing a bench with two ballon d’or winners.

“I’m fine.”

You force yourself to stay as silent as possible even though it’s hard with the constant sobs building up inside of your chest.

“Please open the door.”

You’re at rock bottom and even if you try to swim out you’re going to need some help at some stage you suppose.

As soon as you open the door there is a resounding gasp, you close your eyes to keep a little bit of your inner peace whilst Alexia steps into the stall and locks the door behind her. There is just enough room for her to squeeze down on the floor next to you so she does without any hesitation.

“I don’t need you telling me that you were right to question me playing and that it was a bad idea, I’m already aware.”

You’re not sore from the match and yet everything hurts, you actually feel like your limbs are slowly being ripped off of your body and everything is being split open.

“I wasn’t going to say that, I was going to ask if you’re okay.”

It’s a complicated question.

“Physically yes.”

Your eyes are still closed, if you look at Alexia then suddenly this all becomes a whole lot more real.

“Mentally, emotionally?”

Just the question is enough to essentially demuzzle you, everything you were doing to stop yourself from crying out fails, and you start sobbing, in the loudest and ugliest way possible.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

Alexia bunches up jext to you, slings an arm around your shoulders and brings you in closer.

“Don’t apologise when you didn’t do anything wrong, even if everyone else is making it seem like you did.”

Deep down you do believe you did something wrong, you don’t exactly know what but you must have, you must have done something because why else would all of this have happened.

“I hurt Aitana, I took her spot, I sabotaged her.”

The crying is cathartic, you’ve been crying for days but in an unemotionally detached way to expel some of the depression instead of actually feeling it.

“No you didn’t. You mis-timed a tackle that ended in a very minor injury. Football is a game of injuries, it happens. I don’t care what you’ve read online or what you’ve heard, the facts are simple. Anyone on our team or the england team can tell you that. Nobody blames you for what happened, not even Aitana. So you shouldn’t blame yourself.”

It’s easier to blame yourself you think.

“Everybody hates me, all I’m getting are messages about how I deserve to die and how people wish I’m never able to have kids or that I get injured as payback.”

Alexia’s deep breath makes you feel queasy all over again.

“What we’re going to do is delete all of your social media apps for the next few weeks, nothing is going to make people stop being putas, si? So for your own sake you’re going to delete all of them, turn all of your comments off, turn your messages off. There is nothing more important then your peace of mind, once that’s gone then this happens. You deserve better than this, you deserve to feel better than this. You also deserve to have fun and enjoy being a part of this team, nobody thinks you sabotaged Aitana, nobody blames you. You are just as welcome here as you were before the break, you are just as valued here as you were before the break. This stupid situation is not worth your health, si?”

You wipe away some of your tears, even though they’re still coming and nod.

“You deserve better, and until people realise that we need to focus on making sure that you know that.”

You feel specifically worthless, and it’s completely your own doing.

“Now, we need to get up before my legs go to sleep and my old body is stuck on the floor in here. Not everybody has young bones like you kids.”

You flush whatever parts of your stomach decided they wanted to resurface and force yourself to stand up, but as you do so the realisation that you are midway through a match comes back and all off a sudden you feel the need to sit down again.

“I told Pere to take you off for the rest of the game, I was coming off anyway, managing minutes. You can get dressed or shower, or do whatever you need to do and then we’lltalk a bit more about how we can turn this around. I’m serious when I say that the main focus is you right now and supporting you.”

You ignore the fact that nothing was ever mentioned about Alexia managing minutes and just accept that it’s a pointless argument and you don’t exactly mind her company right now. It’s nice to know that there is somebody shining a light for you at the end of the tunnel.

[helen-with-an-a]

 Operation Christmas Kiss

Barça Femeni x Reader ; Keira Walsh x Reader

Description: The team come up with a plan to get Keira and R to confess before Christmas

Word Count: 3k

“So, what’s everyone doing for Christmas?” Alexia asked, taking a sip from her drink.

You sat back, watching the others as they told you their Christmas plans. Naturally, your eyes lingered on Keira. Keira … the girl you had been in love with for well over half your life.

You couldn’t help but smile as she laughed at something Aitana had said, her eyes sparkling. You sighed despite yourself. Keira … the girl had been your first kiss all those years ago. ‘Practice … for when we’re older’ you had said. It had been the Christmas camp for the Young Lionesses, and everyone was swapping stories of their first kisses, first loves, first times. You were barely sixteen, but the peer pressure had been a lot. You had made up some bullshit about a girl at school. You had confessed the truth to Keira that night. She had just smiled at you and offered to kiss you. Simple and just like that. Nothing too fancy, nothing crazy, just a friendly gesture. You ignored the butterflies then and you had continued to ignore them. Every brush of her hand against your skin when you partner up, every lingering hug or gentle touch as you moved around your small flat in perfect harmony.

“What about you, chica?” Patri asked, nudging you back to the table.

“Oh um, nothing really.” You smiled, taking a bite from the snacks on the table.

“Nothing?” Mapí repeated.

“Yeah, I’m not doing anything. My parents are-”

You started to explain how you didn’t do anything special at Christmas. You never had. You parents had been forced to go to Church and do all the family stuff when they were growing up and they had hated every minute of it. When they finally branched out on their own, Christmas was just a normal day. Sure, you always had a few presents and a nicer meal, but it was never the spectacle that it was for everyone else. Your parents had agreed to fly over to Barcelona this Christmas, arguing that it was about time they had a hot holiday. The best flights they could get was Christmas Day, and that suited you just fine. They would land around midday, and you would spend a few days with them, relishing in the quiet as the rest of the world gorged themselves on overpriced, dry meat they had spent far too long slaving away over in the kitchen. And then your parents would be off again, arguing that they didn’t want to ruin your New Years’ plans and that they would much rather be lounging on a pool bed in Tenerife rather than you cramped flat anyways.

“Do you not want to spend Christmas with them?” Pina asked quietly, her voice a little nervous.

“No, it’s not like th-” You could see the looks people were sharing. The sad pitying looks that meant they thought you didn’t spend Christmas with your family for a very different reason.

“It’s okay, amiga. We understand,” Marta smiled kindly.

“It’s not-” you tried again. You loved your parents, and they loved you. You had no issue with them, and as far as you were aware, they had no issues with you. You knew some others around the table had had issues with their parents, especially when they were teens and trying to figure out their sexuality. But for you, it was never like that. You had never actually ‘come out’ to your parents. You had just brought a girl home when you first moved to Manchester and introduced them to your new girlfriend. No one had batted an eye.

“Vamos, chica, I need el baño and then we shall get another drink, sí?” Ona asked, standing up from her seat, extending her hand to you.

“Uhh, sure … ok…” You let yourself get dragged away by Ona, unable to catch Keira’s eye.

“Ok, we need to do something for la niña. She cannot spend Christmas alone.” Mapí started, her eyes narrowing as she came up with her plan.

“Maybe she doesn’t want to do anything for Christmas, kjære?”

“That is absoluta mierda, Princesa.” Mapí dismissed Ingrid with a wave of her hand. “Everyone wants to do something for Christmas.” Ingrid sighed, shaking her head. She knew her girlfriend, if Mapí had a plan, the plan would be happening regardless of what anyone else said.

It took maybe 10 minutes for a plan to be concocted. A plan that Keira was not too happy about. She had tried, she had tried so hard to get the team to see that there really was no issues, no larger problem at hand that led you to not really ‘doing’ Christmas. You always had been like that. She didn’t do traditional Christmas herself – her family opting for an Indian instead. A habit they had picked up from you. You were 13 when you met, 14 when she had begged her parents to let her spend the holidays with you, and 15 when you spent your first Christmas at the Walsh household.

Her parents had fussed and stressed over the catering for months, you had both watched them bring up Christmas when you visited every school holiday. It had been a throwaway comment really, a joke that you would be happy with an Indian for all you cared. You could see the look they gave you, a curious, intrigued look. ‘Christmas is about family, right? You don’t have to add the stress on top of it. If you want to do a roast, go ahead, but we just do whatever we fancy. Last year it was a roast because Kei was with us, but usually it’s something way more chilled. I think we had picky bits once’. The look on Mrs Walsh’s face was one that you would remember forever. The look of pure and utter relief that someone else had said it. That you had said it. From that Christmas on, there was no more burned potatoes or overcooked turkey. There was an Indian takeaway, dished up with more pride than any carving had ever received.

“Guys, honestly, she doesn’t wan-’

“No, Keira. She needs this.” Mapí wasn’t having any of it.

“She really doesn-” Keira tried again, looking to Lucy for help. Lucy grinned, smiling into her glass as she shrugged.

“Kei,” You shouted, oblivious to the conversation going on at the table. You staggered slightly, flopping heavily onto the ginger’s lap. “Come dance?” You asked, the blush on both of your cheeks having nothing to do with the alcohol.

“I don’t dance, y’know this.” Keira laughed slightly, her arm automatically cradling your waist.

“Please, Kei.” You pulled out your infamous puppy dog eyes, ones you knew she was irresistible to. “For me?” You pouted ever-so-slightly.

“Ugh, fine.” Keira rolled her eyes, unable to help the smile that spread across her lips as you squealed with joy. “The things I do for you,” She grumbled, allowing herself to be pulled across the floor.

“When are they going to realise, they’re head over heels for each other?” Alexia asked, watching you loop your arms around Keira’s neck as her fingers danced with the waistband of your jeans.

“Who?” Vicky asked, trying to follow Alexia’s line of sight.

“Keira and Y/N, estúpida” Pina supplied, pointed to where you and Keira were very much in your own little bubble. The group watched as Keira said something to you, and you dropped your head onto her neck, all sporting smiles as Keira’s fingers traced gentle lines on the sliver of bare skin on your back.

“At least you get a break,” Lucy commented, bringing her arm around Ona’s shoulder. “It was like this at City too, and at camp.”

“Oh god. Do you remember that time when Y/N did her hamstring, and she wasn’t on England camp? It was maybe a week and all I heard from her was ‘Kei this’ and ‘Kei that’.” Ellie chimed in, rolling her eyes at the memory.

You had torn your hamstring a week or so before you were supposed to go away on an England camp. The suddenness of it all had meant you were even more mopey than you would have been normally. Yes, you missed playing, and yes, you weren’t a fan on the rehab. But doing it without Keira to keep your spirits up was too much to handle. She had been by your side from the moment you had sat down on the grass, your face contorting in pain. She had been subbed off a few moments after you and followed you down the tunnel. Keira had driven you home and stayed the night, doting on you hand and foot, acting as you butler, driver and bodyguard until she had to leave for St George’s Park.

When Ellie had picked you up the next morning, you were a vision of sadness. Your hair was sloppily tied up, the blue circles under your eyes more noticeable than ever before. Ellie had taken note of the small 24 printed on both your hoodie and shorts for the whole week.

“God, Kei was no better. ‘I wonder what Y/N’s doing right now?’, ‘Has anyone heard from Y/N?’, ‘I better text her, make sure she’s doing okay’, ‘Oh, sorry I can’t hang out with you, I’m facetiming Y/N’. It was nauseating,” Lucy huffed, taking a swig of her drink.

“Ok, we get it, they’re in love and have been for ages, they just need to get a grip and kiss each other.” Kika laughed, watching her two new friends press themselves closer and closer.

“What do you think they’re talking about?” Aitana asked.

“Oh, Kei. I’m so in love with you it hurts.” Patri joked, her eyelids fluttering as you drapped herself over Cata.

“Oh, Y/N/N, me too. I’m just too in my head to do anything about it.” Cata joined in.

“I’m thinking we change our plan. Operation Get Y/N and Keira to Kiss at Christmas is a go.” Mapí turned to the table, bringing out her phone to take notes.

“We may need to shorten the name.” Caro chimed in, a small smile on her face.

“What are they planning?” You asked Keira, your face millimetres from hers.

“They want you to celebrate Christmas.” Keira smiled as you groaned, your head dropping onto her shoulder.

“I am celebrating Christmas, Mum and Dad are flying out on Christmas day.”

“I know that. You know that. They just don’t know that’s how you do Christmas.” Keira pressed a sneaky kiss to your temple. “They want you to spend Christmas with someone, you rescued me before that bit got figured out.”

“No,” you whined. “I love my Christmas plans. A chilled Christmas and then a very fun New Years’ with you.” You couldn’t help the blush that rose on your cheeks when you thought of your New Years’ plans.

“I know you do,” Keira laughed quietly, her cheeks sporting a similar blush. “And it’ll be our first New Years’ together.” You rolled your eyes.

“Stop phrasing it like that. We’ve spent a million New Years’ together.” You complained, shuffling closer, relishing in the feeling of her fingers against your skin.

“No, we haven’t. We have spent 13 together. But this we’ll be our first one as more than just friends.” Keira whispered into your ear.

It was a new development for you and Keira. One that had taken far too long to happen, but over a snowy hot chocolate at the Munich Christmas market when you had flown out to see Georgia, it had happened. It wasn’t really anything epic, nothing like a fairytale. Keira had told you how beautiful you looked, eyes reflecting the lights of the market. You had blushed and told her you thought she looked pretty too. She had pushed some hair off your face, and you were just inches from each other and then suddenly her lips were on yours and you hadn’t looked back since.

You had told your family but beyond that, you were relishing in the privacy of it all. The stolen kisses and quiet declarations were adding to the magic of it all. You knew you needed to tell the team soon, but you were having too much fun watching them moan and groan at each other. You were more than happy to keep it between you to, a perfect little secret to be shared at just the right time.

It was the last home game before the break when Mapí’s plan was finally able to come to light. She had everything planned to perfection. Aitana and Kika were still out on the field with Keira. Ellie and Lucy were signing things for fans and keeping a close eye on you. Alexia was the organiser, the go-between to make sure you would be walking down the tunnel at the same time. Cata was waiting by the locker room door, making sure that no one would stand in the way. Mapí, Patri and Pina were all in the locker room, placing mistletoe at strategic locations across the room. One above the doorway, one above each of your lockers, one by the entrance to the showers and the last one tucked safely next to Mapí’s things, a fail-safe she could wave above you if Plan A, B, C and D fell through.

It was the Man City game, the team knew they had ample time to prepare with how long you and Keira would stay out on the pitch catching up with old friends, but that didn’t help with the nerves. Mapí had even bribed one of the coaches to help. When Alexia gave the signal, a painstakingly crafted but natural movement of taking off her Captain’s armband, the coach would drift over to you, telling your group they needed to come inside for cool down and stretches. At the same time, Carla would beckon Keira over for some media and you would both meet at the top end of the tunnel, ready to walk past the rest of the team and straight into the locker room. Vicky had been chosen to point out the mistletoe if you hadn’t spotted it already. It had originally been Ingrid but that was met with a raised eyebrow and a shake of her head.

“Kjære, are you su-”

“Sí, Ingrid, I am more than sure. It will be un milagro de Navidad.” Mapí waved her girlfriend away, her eyes fixed excitedly on the door.

“- it’ll be nice. I’m glad that Lani and the other Aussies will be able to get back home quickly.” You chatted away to Keira, a City shirt adorning your top half as you pushed your way into the locker room. Pina not-so-subtly came to stand in front of you, stopping you in the doorway.

“You played really well, Chicas.” Pina smiled unnaturally at you.

“Uh, thanks?” You said slowly, although it came out more like a question.

“Sí, muy buen juego” Patri added, her eyes also a bit too wide. You looked towards Keira and back again, you eyes taking in the mistletoe dangling from the ceiling.

“Oh, mira eso. You are standing under muérdago. Ellie, what is muérdago en Inglés?” Vicky called, her voice superficially high.

“Mistletoe, Vicky. It is Mistletoe in English.”

“Ahh, sí. Y/N and Keira are standing under mistletoe.” Vicky’s acting was appalling. You glanced up anyway, smiling at the small spring resting above your heads. “Is the tradition the same in England as it is in España?” Vicky held her hands out in a comical shrug.

“You mean, whoever is caught under the mistletoe has to kiss, otherwise it is bad luck?” Ellie added, her acting equally awful.

“Ah, so it is the same.”

You looked over to Mapí, who was vibrating like a kid about to open their most anticipated present.

“Be … so, be … so, beso, beso, beso” Mapí began to chant, her voice carrying across the room.

You looked to Keira, smiling at her as the small blush bloomed across her cheeks. You shrugged, as if saying ‘I’m down if you are’. She nodded shyly, a smile matching yours. You shuffled a little closer, your hand coming to rest on her cheek.

You leaned in, the world around you fading into the background. Her breath hitched as your faces drew closer, her gaze briefly dropping to your lips before meeting your eyes again. The moment stretched, charged with anticipation, until finally, your lips met in a tender, lingering kiss.

The room exploded with applause, whoops, and whistles. Mapí was the loudest, clapping her hands and shouting, “Eso es! Así se hace!”

As you pulled back, Keira’s shy smile had turned into a full-blown grin, her eyes sparkling with a mix of nerves and exhilaration. “Well,” she said, laughing softly, “guess we’re lucky now.”

“Guess we are.” You stuck your tongue out at her as you moved away to the bathroom.

“So, how was your first kiss with the girl you’ve been in love with since you were 13?” Lucy asked, nudging Keira with her elbow.

“Oh, that wasn’t our first kiss,” Keira smiled up at her friend, her cheeks still lightly stained with pink.

Lucy blinked. “N-not your first kiss?” She spluttered.

“Oh no, I was her first kiss when we were like 16? I think. It was a youth camp, and everyone was saying about their first kiss and she said she hadn’t had one so I kissed her.”

“J-just like that? You kissed her? And you didn’t think to tell me?”

“Why would I, Luce? It’s not that deep.” Keira laughed, enjoying the look on Lucy’s face.

“Not … not that deep?” Lucy screeched. “Kei, you’ve been in love with her since you were 13, I have had to listen to you both whine and whine about it all and you’ve already kissed her? Keira, what the fuck?”

“Language, Lucia.” Keira teased, bending over to gather her stuff for the shower.

“H-have you kissed her since you were 16?” Lucy asked, trying to wrap her head around what was going on.

“Of course she has,” You chimed in, kissing Keira swiftly on the cheek. “It would be weird not to kiss your girlfriend.”

[flemingology]

“just because i got you a gift, doesn’t mean I like you” with alexia 🎄

secret santa ─ alexia putellas x reader

part of my christmas series. full masterlist here!

in which: a silly christmas tradition defrosts you and alexia's relationship

warnings: emotionally unavailable alexia is a warning on it's own

wc: 5.1k

a/n: probably one of my favs from the series. hope you enjoy!

Making the move to Barça a couple months ago was a much harder decision to take than some people might think. Admittedly, there are a lot of upsides to playing alongside the best players in the world. The standards are high, the training sessions are good, you're in better shape than you've ever been in and you're steadily growing your trophy cabinet. On the other hand, nothing was harder than leaving your family behind in England.

You grew up in London, a steady youth leading the way towards being picked up by the Arsenal academy, where you went through all the youth groups and eventually got picked for the first team. Everything seemed to be going well, you were playing a good amount of minutes, fitting right in to Arsenal's defensive line. The first couple years you couldn't imagine yourself ever playing for a different team than the Gunners, but an injury-ridden year completely changed that. It started with a few niggles that kept you out of the occasional game, but a couple months into the season you suffered a lateral ligament injury to your right ankle, keeping you out for the best part of 3 months. You tried your best to get back into the squad, but you felt like Arsenal had moved past you.

At 27, still one of the best defenders in the game, you let your agent know that you needed a change. It hadn't been easy for you to come to the conclusion that it was better to leave, but you weren't ready to give up on your career yet. Not when you were supposed to be in your peak years now. Endless meetings, phone calls, late night text messages and a lot of turmoil later, the perfect deal struck. You were starting to feel a bit hopeless in your position, so Barça's offer came at the perfect time.

They expressed how they thought you'd be a perfect fit in their defensive line. Standing tall at 5'7, your aerial threat was one of the things they voiced could be helpful to the team. The contract in itself was perfect. They offered you three years, good pay and they would help you with accommodating to Spain – housing, visa, finances, the club would take care of all of that so you could focus on settling in through your football.

It seemed like a no-brainer, but obviously there were two sides to the story. You were determined to get your career back on the right track, but leaving your family behind in England wasn't an easy decision to make. It took a lot of tearful hugs and heartfelt promises to visit from your family, before you managed to cut the cord completely and sign the contract with the Spanish giants. Nonetheless, you always felt like your family supported all your decisions, and just like you they were certain that this was the right move for your career.

Now 3 months later, if anyone asked you, you would still say that this had been the perfect step. You accommodated to the weather fairly quickly, settled into an apartment that the club had found for you, and took up a couple extra language classes on offer to try and master the Spanish language a bit quicker – you had a basic understanding, and you could manage during games and training sessions, but still struggled here and there.

You'd felt at home within the team, too. It was definitely one of the things that had been on your mind prior to your first training session. You were nervous about whether you were going to be good enough, whether they would deem you worthy enough of wearing the blaugrana colors, but any doubts melted away like snow in the sun when you got invited to a team bonding night right as your first training session ended.

You went out for a meal and drinks in one of Barçelona's hidden gems, one that the girls seemed to love. It was clear that they had been here quite a few times, because the waiter knew some of their orders by heart. You bonded with Ingrid throughout the night, both of you sharing experiences of having to leave your family behind in a different country to play football here. You warmed up to her, she was nice to you and seemed to really like your company, but you stayed a bit distant from the rest of the girls. Everyone was deep in conversation with each other, most of the time conversing in Spanish. You were well aware that they didn't have to involve you in their conversations, you were a 27-year-old adult at last who could stand up for themself, but you found it hard to really integrate fully with the tight group that had seemed to form over the years. From a different point of view, it might've seemed that you were uninterested and not bothered trying to mingle with the rest of the team, but that wasn't the case at all. Although, that wasn't what people picked up. Especially not the captain.

You've not had more than a handful conversations with Alexia, ever since you signed for Barça. In the beginning, you tried putting it off to the fact you both weren't entirely comfortable in the other's language. But as time went on and you got settled more and more into the team, playing more minutes and getting closer to most of the girls, you couldn't just put it down to that anymore. You had tried a couple times in the early days of you transfer to string together a conversation with the Spanish midfielder, but you never got further than the odd "Hola" or "Good game, Ale". You tried to shrug it off, but you couldn't say that it didn't bother you. Alexia seemed open and chatty towards your teammates, but seemed to block off the second you neared within a 5-meter radius from her. And even though you had bonded quite well with her best friend and her girlfriend, they didn't seem to want to say anything about it.

A couple weeks had passed, and you found yourself in a meeting talking about the month ahead. December would be busy, UWCL games ramping up and the league and cup to keep up with. There was a lot of tactical talk going on and while you know you shouldn't, you zoned out a bit, tired from the already long day – and it was far from over. You had an appointment planned with the physios after the meeting, a quick routine check for your ankle, but they would need to take some tests here and there, pushing your relaxing on your couch tonight even further back on the agenda. You got pulled out of your thoughts when the tone in the meeting changed, going from very stern and tactical to a little bit lighter, and it wasn't until you noticed the powerpoint slide that you understood why.

SECRET SANTA

Your eyes widened in surprise and a small smile grew on your lips, a light hum of chatter making it's way through the meeting room as some girls rehashed up some memories from the year before. You hadn't expected secret santa to be a tradition within the Barça squad, but you found it fun. Otherwise so very composed and professional, it was nice to see a different side to the club and the staff.

"Okay, girls! As you can see from the powerpoint slide, we're doing secret santa again this year! Last season went well and we thought we should reintegrate it again. We're going to draw names now in the meeting, and then we'll arrange a date further down the line when we figure out what our schedule will look like." A couple staff members explained the ins and outs a bit further for anyone who had never participated in the lighthearted Christmas tradition, and then the name drawing started. Someone had written everyone's names on little pieces of paper and put them in a bowl, letting it go round the meeting room and having everyone take one. You were sat near the back, so there was only a couple pieces of paper left when it was your turn. You picked one and shielded away from Esmee and Keira who were on either side of you, reading the name that was written on the paper. Mapi Léon. A smile crept on your lips upon reading your defensive partner's name. You didn't give in to Keira’s prying and soon the meeting concluded, sending everyone on their way for the next part of their day.

Most of the girls were headed home now, but you made your way to the physio's office. They checked a couple things and made you do a couple tests, measuring and calculating whatever they deemed necessary to ensure that your ankle was perfectly fine. Lucky for you, it didn't take long as you thought it would. You were the only one that still needed treatment, so the physios were able to round off their checklist for you quite smoothly. You were sent on your way with a pat on the shoulder, telling you to keep it up the way you were doing – both on the pitch and with your ankle. You shrugged it off at the time but you couldn't deny the way it made you feel a little warm inside. You were still quite self-conscious about yourself and your football here in Barçelona, so it was more than welcome to get a compliment about it, especially from someone that isn't the coach.

December was rough. You thought you'd get a little reprieve from cold winters as you now were a bit more south compared to England, but you were fooled. It was cold, it was busy, the training sessions only getting harder as the games ramped up in both domestic competitions and the Champions League. The month felt like it was going on forever but eventually you reached the end. Your final training session of the week, Thursday, but more importantly secret santa day. After you wrapped up both the outside and indoor session, everyone went for a shower and then gathered in the cafeteria. You all had some post-workout food and then got together at one big table, conversation flowing easily as everyone prepared to receive and give their gifts. You were one of the first who had to give their present. You'd gotten Mapi a big batch of her favorite coffee blend, along with a couple different syrups for her to try. You knew she loved her coffee and you hoped she'd be happy with it, but a subtle nudge from Ingrid had set you up in the right way and you were quite certain that the Spaniard would be pleased with your present.

"Oooh, muy bien!" Mapi wore a bright smile as she opened your present, clearly happy with what you bought her. Ingrid and you shared a knowing look before her girlfriend pulled you into a tight hug, pressing a smacking kiss against your cheek in thanks. Your cheeks flushed a little when you realized the two of you were in the centre of attention, quickly sitting back down and letting the afternoon roll on. What you didn't notice, though, whilst you and your defensive partner were sharing an embrace, was the jealous look in Alexia's eye.

Admittedly, she had been cold to you, some would even say it was borderline rude the way she treated you ever since you came in. But she had a reason. And she knew damn well that didn't excuse her behavior, but she couldn't bring herself to either telling you what was on her mind or dropping her cold act. So she kept it going, knowing it made you uncomfortable, although that was the last thing she wanted to do. In reality, Alexia had started developing some feelings for you. None very deep, because how in the world would that be possible based on nothing more than a handful three-sentence conversations, but you had piqued her interest. Your hard-working nature, the way you held yourself, your professionalism – but who would she fool if she said she didn't find you attractive. It might've been the biggest one, even. Alexia felt attracted to you. But by the time she realized that, she'd kept the cold act up for so long that she didn't think there was a way back, so instead of confessing to you she only acted more distant and more cold. She knew she was in the wrong, but an opportunity had popped up to make it up to you and she wasn't going to let it slip.

Time flowed easily, and before you knew it your name was called. Your eyes shot around the room to see who would get up, but seeing her walk over to the pile of presents was the last thing you'd expected. Alexia's light expression that she was wearing earlier, had changed to the stone cold one that she wore whenever she was in close proximity with you. You noticed how neatly wrapped her present was. A beautiful beige wrapping paper, with gold accents here and there, topped off with a small black ribbon. She came to stand beside you, propping one of her arms on the back of your chair, leaning her body over to you and dropping the present on your lap. You were well aware of how close the Spaniard was to you right now, probably closer than she'd ever been. When she didn't say anything, you just went to unwrap the package that was heavy in your lap. You didn't recognize the packaging immediately, but when you realized what was underneath the wrapping paper you could feel a couple tears pricking your eyes.

An array of British snacks and comfort foods sat in your lap, from Cadbury chocolates to Walkers crisps, digestives and so much more. You hadn't expected such a thoughtful present from anyone, especially not Alexia. You quickly wiped away a stray tear that had escaped your eye, quickly standing up and turning your body towards Alexia. "Thank you," you said, not knowing what to do with your hands as you played with the rings on your fingers. You were more than thankful that most of the girls weren't paying attention to the interaction, most of them caught up with their own presents or inspecting what others had gotten. "Can I give you a hug?" You didn't want to overstep any boundaries, but you wanted to thank her appropriately for the present. You'd never voiced to her directly that you missed home, so it was clear that she'd just been paying attention. Maybe more than you thought she had been. Alexia didn't respond verbally but pulled you in a hug, awkwardly patting your back as she didn't know what to do with herself. In reality, she wanted to pull you tight, rub comforting patterns across your back and press a kiss against your crown but she knew that was a place she wouldn't return from. So instead, she did the next best thing; push you further away. "Just because I got you this, doesn't mean I like you."

Your body tensed up at her words and you suddenly noticed the burning sensation of her arms around you, quickly removing yourself from the embrace and sitting back down, nearly giving yourself a whiplash from the sheer force that you backed away from the midfielder with. You'd allowed yourself to get comfortable in the hug, sensing as if you two were crossing a bit of the boundaries that had been present ever since you met one another, but her comment put you right back where you started – maybe even further. The interaction didn't go lost on Mapi, who whispered something in Alexia's ear as she passed the defender to go back to her seat, Mapi clearly angry at her.

You sulked for the remainder of the evening, knowing you were being a pain in the ass but you couldn't bring it in you to care this time. When you said your goodbyes and made your way out of the facility later that evening, you felt a hand tugging you back before you could open the door of your car. Startled by the unexpected touch, you clutched your chest where your heart would be as your eyes met Ingrid's. "Ingrid, don't scare me like that, for god's sake," you said, playfully hitting the Norwegian's shoulder who only laughed at your reaction. The conversation soon took a turn, though, when she mentioned the earlier events. "Hey, about Alexia, I kno-", she started, although you didn't let her finish. "Ingrid, it's fine. She doesn't like me, I get it. I'll just steer clear from her. I don't need it to be told to my face, we can just avoid one another and everything will be fine."

Ingrid closed her eyes and shook her head, placing a hand on your arm that was animatedly waving along as you spoke. "No. God, no. You're so wrong." "I'm wrong? Ingrid, you heard what she said to me. I don't think I need more confirmation than what she verbally told me a couple hours ago." The Norwegian pinched the bridge of her nose and let out a deep sigh, before she spoke up again. "I know this is going to sound weird, but Alexia doesn't hate you. She doesn't dislike you, not at all. It's quite the opposite, if you ask me."

"The opposite?" you asked, a confused lilt in your voice as you urged Ingrid to speak further. "She'll give me hell for telling you this, but I can't just be a bystander to this anymore. She's hurting you." Ingrid took a deep breath and looked you in the eye. "Alexia likes you. And she doesn't know what to do about it. So she does what she does know, and that's pushing you away. I, uhm, agree that it isn't the way she should handle it and certainly not like she did just earlier, but she doesn't know any better." Your thoughts ran rampant in your head, thinking about all the conversations and interactions you had in the past months and gauging whether there was any point where Alexia acted like she liked you, even for a moment. "Ingrid, what the hell are you talking about?" You raised your voice, to which she put a hand on your shoulder, reminding you that you were outside the parking lot just outside the facility. "I know it sounds insane. I didn't believe it either when Mapi told me, but you know she wouldn't lie to her best friend about that. Now, I don't know how you feel about her, but I suggest you talk about it. Because she's been sulking about the situation at our house the last couple weeks and I can't bear it anymore. She has to do something about it, and quick."

"Ingrid, I-" "Y/N. Don't argue with me on this. I don't know how you feel about Alexia, but I know how it's been weighing on you that she's been treating you like this. If anything, it's just an opportunity to clear some of the tension. If you don't want to do it for her, do it for me and Maria." You nodded, begrudgingly, but you nodded nonetheless. You didn't say much more because you needed some time to process what the Norwegian told you, so you sent her away with another promise to text Alexia and then drove home. You took your time that evening to process everything. You thought back to the couple months, and the newfound information still felt like a fever dream. Alexia liked you. Liked liked you. You couldn't say it didn't flatter you. You also couldn't say that some of those feelings weren't mutual, but you'd need some time to explore those. And you'd need lots of time and conversations with Alexia before you could move past the way she treated you the past months. But you were ready to give it a try. So later that night, you sent the Spanish midfielder a text, secretly hoping that Ingrid had notified her that she'd told you, softening the blow a little bit already.

To: Alexia Hey, Alexia. I'm not sure how to approach this, but here goes nothing. I spoke to Ingrid today about us, and about you, I assume she told you this? I don't want to wave this away and say I think the way you treated me is excused now that I know the reason behind it. I know you know that too, and I'd love to talk about that if you are open to do so too. Nonetheless, I was still shocked when Ingrid told me the reasoning behind your behavior. I didn't expect it and it still feels a bit like a fever dream. I'm flattered, even? I'd love to explore it, Ale, but we'll have to talk about some things first.

You sent the message before you could overthink any of your word choices, and plopped down on the couch. You wanted to set your mind to the show that was playing on tv, but you couldn't focus – your thoughts seemingly unable to drift away from Alexia. You thought about what you wanted to say to her, how you wanted to word whatever you were feeling, but right before you could dive in the deep end of your feelings you heard a notification sound coming from your phone, slightly startling you. You picked it up with haste, eager to see what the blonde had replied.

From: Alexia Hola :) I'm sorry you had to find out through Ingrid, that's not fair on you. I know I should've told you and I know I've been childish about it, but I didn't know what to do with myself. I completely understand if my behavior has put a barrier between the two of us, because I've been nothing short of immature. I would love to talk to you about things, because I've been silent about it all for long enough. If you're down, I could call you? I hope you're enjoying your present.

A small smile tugged at the corners of your lips at the mention of her present, glancing over to the basket of snacks that was placed on your coffee table. You grabbed a packet of crisps and sat back on the couch, enjoying the salty snack while you typed a response to Alexia.

To: Alexia It's okay. I can understand where you're coming from, but I'm glad you're acknowledging that it was immature. I loved the present. What you said while I hugged you confused me even further, and I know I was killing the mood after that. I'm sorry for that. But thank you, it means so much to me. I'd love to call, but could you maybe come over instead? I'd prefer it if you were near, but don't worry if you can't. I know it's late and it's been a rough week.

From: Alexia I'll be right there.

You hadn't put your phone down as another message from Alexia chimed in, letting you know she was on her way to your place. You decided not to question how she knew your address, assuming she probably got it from Maria or Ingrid. You quickly freshened up a little, brushing your hair and putting on some fresh clothes, still in your training attire from earlier. You tidied a little, putting dishes in the dishwasher and rearranging your cushions as a knock on your door pulled you out of your thoughts. You opened the door to a sight you thought you'd never see. Alexia was sporting a small smile, a thin layer of sweat present on her face from the rush she was in coming here. In her hands was a small bouquet of red roses, and you wondered where she'd found the time to pick those up along the way. You felt warm inside and ushered the blonde to come inside, not wanting her to be in the cold hallway much longer.

"Hi," you said softly, still feeling a little apprehensive whenever she was around. Old manners died hard. "Hi. These are for you." Alexia stretched her arm out and gave you the bouquet of flowers, which you gratefully took and put in the empty vase on your kitchen counter. "Thank you so much. You know you didn't have to do that but, uhm, they're really nice. Thank you. I still needed some for this vase, clearly," you chuckled, your cheeks flushing slightly red at the loving gesture from the Spanish midfielder. You were still struggling to wrap your mind around the shift in behavior from Alexia, grown very used to her stone cold personality whenever you were around her. It was a very welcome change, but it was one that you'd have to get used to.

"Do you want a drink?" You asked Alexia, who was seemingly lost in thought while she looked around your apartment, taking in her surroundings. You decided to let her do that and fill up two glasses of water for you and her, slowly making your way over to the living room where she was looking through your vinyl collection. "You've settled in nicely, I really like how you decorated your apartment," Alexia said when she heard you shuffling around behind you. A bright smile crept on your face at the compliment. "Thanks. I've spent a lot of time trying to make it look cozy. Being that far away from my family and friends, it's just nice to have a place that feels like home." "I can imagine. I've never moved away from here and I've never had to struggle with something like you are right now, but I can imagine it's not easy at all. You're doing great." You looked away from Alexia's gaze as you felt your cheeks heating up again. "Do you want to sit?" You tried to steer the conversation away from the current topic, earning a nod from Alexia as she sat down on your couch, opposite to you.

You talked for hours on end, the conversation topics ranging from your family to hers, to your move to Barçelona and what sparked it, to how you've been feeling at the club, to eventually the – still slightly apprehensive – relationship between the two of you. Talking to Alexia felt easy, something you never thought you'd say. She was interested, listened with intent and really seemed like wanted to hear what you were saying. She asked questions, tried to understand your views on things and voiced back exactly how she felt. You hadn't expected her to be so open about her feelings after everything that happened the past couple of months, so it was a welcome change for the blonde to put her heart out like that. When you felt like she adequately expressed her feelings about you, you too talked about your own. You said that you really wanted to explore things between you, that you couldn't deny the blonde's charming energy and that you had found yourself gutted with how little the two of you had bonded over your first couple months in Barçelona – more than eager to make up for lost time.

When the night came to an end, you could feel a weight had been lifted from your shoulders, and Alexia felt the same. It had been nothing less than a burden for her to carry around, forever dancing around feelings that she didn't know how to express, pushing you further than she ever wanted to do. She was eternally grateful for the opportunity you were giving her by wanting to talk to her.

"Thank you, honestly. You didn't owe me anything and yet you gave me the chance to explain everything and talk about my feelings. I owe you one." You smiled brightly at Alexia and waved away her comments. "Don't worry about it. We've talked about it, we're okay. I understand where you were coming from. It's fine, Ale, I promise. I'm glad you came to terms with it."

The two of you started to make moves towards your front door, knowing you should end your conversations and call it a day, but with the prospect of a day off tomorrow and no training to wake up for, neither of you really felt the intent to wrap it up. Nonetheless, a couple moments later Alexia found herself in the hallway, leaning against your doorframe as you talked a little more, wrapping up your conversation.

You noticed Alexia looking down at her feet, playing with her fingers before she lifted her head and locked eyes with you again. "I might not be in the position to ask you this right now, but would you maybe want to go on a... date together?" You chuckled at Alexia's nervousness, a slightly red tint covering her cheeks as she spoke. You took one of her hands in yours and nodded fiercely, a smug grin covering your lips. "Yeah, I'd love to. Text me, okay? I'm free whenever." Alexia's smile grew wider with each word you spoke, the Spanish midfielder giddy about the prospect of taking you on a date. "I will. I promise. I should get going now, it's getting late." "You should. Be safe getting home. Have a good night, Ale."

You pressed a soft kiss to Alexia's cheek after wishing her a good night, causing the midfielder to blush deeper than she already had been. She stumbled over her words as she wished you another goodnight, clumsily walking backwards and gripping the handrail as she nearly fell head first on the first step of the stairs of your apartment block. You couldn't hold back the chuckle as you watched Alexia steady herself and rush down the stairs. "Be careful, capi!" you yelled after her, earning nothing more than a grumble and some Spanish curse words that you couldn't make out.

Sticking to her promise, Alexia was way more open with her feelings moving further. You went on a couple dates, you shared a few kisses and before you knew it you were dating. If someone told you that goddamn Secret Santa was what would bring you two closer, and eventually start a relationship, you would've never believed them.

[wileys-russo]

Platonic!Alexia Putellas, “How did you even manage to get up there?!?!”, tree

stuck II a.putellas/barça-femeni

"come on!" cata groaned as the ball sailed right past her head again, a widespread grin on your face from the free kick spot. "thats five for five coll, you're losing your touch!" you taunted, the spaniard flipping you off and kicking the ball back to you.

"i'm done with this humilation amiga!" the goalkeeper pulled her gloves off with a defeated shake of her head, making her way out of the goal.

"have you thought about maybe saving some then? won't be so humiliating." you grinned, pulled quickly into a headlock by the girl who chastised you in spanish before letting you up.

"hey!" you groaned as no sooner were you freed did a weight land on your back almost causing your knees to buckle as you stumbled but steadied yourself.

"hola!" mapi sung out, clinging onto you as you tried to shake her off. "finished your laps then?" you laughed, the older girls constant chatter throughout training meaning she was ordered to run an extra ten laps of the pitch under your captains watchful eyes.

"yes! my legs are like jelly compañero, carry me." mapi sighed tiredly, tattooed hand patting your cheek as you struggled to take steps forward.

"for a tiny person you're so heavy." you grunted out as she scoffed in offence. "i am not tiny or heavy!" the defender protested as you rolled your eyes. "tell that to me i'm the one carrying you maría." you groaned out.

"do not call me that! makes me feel like i am in trouble." the older girl huffed as you made your way inside and headed for the change rooms. "why because thats what ingrid says when she's mad at you?" you snickered, whining as mapi sharply tugged your ears for the comment.

"ow! you can walk yourself then!" you dropped her without any warning causing her to fall onto her ass with a hiss of pain. "at least help me up." the older girl held a hand out as you rolled your eyes but grabbed it.

you let out a yelp as suddenly you joined the defender on the ground, mapi hopping to her feet with a grin as a few of the girls wandered out of the change rooms.

"you fall for that everytime pollito." mapi grinned with a shake of her head as you glared up at her, catching both her girlfriends and your captains eyes over mapi's shoulder, both who frowned curiously at the sight of you on the floor.

"ingrid, ale! she's picking on me again." you pouted as ingrids face hardened and she started to quickly walk over, alexia following suit. "mentirosa!" mapi gasped as the taller girls arrived and immediately helped you up.

"she asked me for money for the vending machine and then pushed me over when i said no." you sighed, ingrid pulling you into a tight hug and glaring at her girlfriend whose mouth opened and closed like a fish.

"princesa she's lying!" mapi defended herself with a scoff, eyes burning holes into your head as you sent her a smug smile which quickly turned into a frown when ingrid glanced down at you.

"what have i said about bullying her maría?" ingrid warned as mapi could only scoff in disbelief, alexia running a hand through your hair with a shake of her head.

"honestly, maría you're supposed to be a role model for her she's only sixteen. act your age!" alexia warned, ingrids arms still protectively wrapped around you as both girls guided you away.

you only peeked around them and grinned at mapi who was staring after you venomously, your hand curling up to flip her off as her jaw dropped before you rounded a corner and were out of sight.

as much as in that moment mapi wanted nothing more than to wring your neck, she couldn't deny she really did harbour a large soft spot for you, seeing a lot of herself within you and hoping to be able to use that to guide you forward as you grew older.

so when an hour later you appeared seemingly out of nowhere with a smile and a peace offering in the form of her favourite candy bar, she didn't have a choice but to roll her eyes and pull you into a hug.

however just because mapi cared for you did not stop her also viewing you as the ultimate source of entertainment. as pina and patri grew wiser they stopped giving into the dares and challenges mapi would set them, frustratingly.

but then you came along and suddenly her attentions shifted, forever egging you on to do things to mess with your teammates, and most of the time helping you.

your innocent smile and charming demeanor meant that you were the perfect shield for her to hide behind, alexia rarely ever able to stay upset with you for more than a moment and everyone else just brushing it off as you being young and adventurous.

it was on this particular tuesday after you'd weasled your way back into mapi's good books and alexia had landed herself onto her hit list with the extra laps that mapi decided to make a move.

"i bet you cannot hide ale's boots somewhere she can't find them pollito." mapi pulled you into the change rooms as everyone else headed off for lunch, the defender watching on gleefully at the way your face lit up at the challenge.

"is this because of the extra laps?" you questioned, not quite as gullible as mapi had hoped as she rolled her eyes. "maybe." was all the defender replied as you shrugged, not really needing much convincing to go forward with it anyway.

despite the fact she kept an incredibly tidy home, which you would know given the fact you lived with her, alexia's cubby was rarely not messy, boxes on boxes of shoes stacked on the top shelf as various bottles, medical tape and knick knacks littered the cubby itself.

you smiled at the photos of her and her family taped to the wall having been all but legally adopted into it anyway, eli claiming you as her third daughter from the very moment she met you. you rolled your eyes at the pictures of you taped up, most of which were taken candidly when you weren't looking.

standing up on the bench you rifled through the various nike boxes until you found your captains favourite pair of boots, tugging them out and placing everything back the way you found it.

"where are you going?" mapi asked with a confused frown as you hopped down and headed for the door with the boots in hand. "you only said to hide them, you didn't say it had to be in here."

"you're not landing that!" mapi scoffed in disbelief as you'd tied alexia's boots together and were attempting to throw them up and over a tall tree branch, routinely missing time and time again as they fell to the grass and you sighed.

"new plan." you hummed looking around for a new hiding spot. "or, climb up." mapi gestured to the tree as you looked at it with a hint of uncertainty. "unless you are too scared, pollito." mapi taunted making chicken noises as your jaw hardened.

"gimme those." snatching the boots out of her hand you slung them around your neck, looking up again at the tree with a newfound determination, mapi cheering you on as you started to climb.

"see!" you grinned successfully, sat on a branch and hanging alexia's boots with a satisfied nod, mapi clapping her approval and gesturing for you to get down.

"uh maps?" you called out as the defender had started to walk back toward the training building, turning and raising an eyebrow as your face paled. "i can't." you shook your head as hers cocked to the side in confusion.

"what do you mean?" "i mean, i can't get down." you admitted, not having thought that far when you'd clambered up here, the height in which you were sat now dawning on you as suddenly things became even worse.

"pequeña?" your eyes widened as alexia wandered out, clearly looking for you as she spotted mapi and walked over, asking in spanish if she had seen you considering lunch had long began and you weren't ever someone to miss food.

"okay amiga, don't be mad." mapi started placing her hands on her best friends shoulders who immediately frowned. "maría that is the easiest way to get me mad!" alexia warned with a scowl, pushing her hands off as ingrid walked out next followed by frido as you sighed in defeat.

"whats going on? ale did you find her?" frido asked as the two arrived and mapi rubbed the back of her neck with a guilty smile ingrid knew all too well. "where is she amor?" her girlfriend sighed, rubbing her temple with her fingertips already knowing something bad was happening.

"eh...there?" her hand moved to stretch toward the sky, finger pointing you out as the three girls eyes followed, widening in horror as you gave them a small wave, cheeks flushed red.

"maría. why is she in a tree?" alexia turned her gaze on her best friend who shrank, frido and ingrid hurrying over to the tree as mapi started to back up, alexia advancing with clenched fists.

"its a funny story?" mapi tried with a nervous laugh, turning on heel and sprinting off as alexia moved to grab the back of her training top but missed, cursing under her breath.

"traitor!" you yelled after the tattooed footballer who disappeared inside. "get down älska. right now!" frido yelled glaring up at you as your body deflated. "i can't." you mumbled, barely loud enough for them to hear.

"how did you even manage to get up there!?" alexia yelled making you wince, ingrid already on the phone to someone as you swang your legs back and forth avoiding the blondes eyes.

"i climbed up, just didn't think about how to climb down." you admitted as alexia inhaled and closed her eyes, counting to three as frido rubbed her back sympathetically.

"firetruck will be here in ten, they'll get her down." ingrid returned as your eyes widened in shock. "no way! this place is huge and you're saying the groundsmen don't even have a ladder?" you whined with a groan.

"i hope you told them to have the sirens on." alexia glared up at you as your eyes widened even further. "oh yes. lights, sirens, the full experience." ingrid confirmed as you exhaled deeply, crossing your arms and huffing unhappily.

and lights and sirens there were.

the disruption had caused practically the entire team and staff to come outside, your face burning bright red in embarrassment as an erruption of teasing, whistles and cheers greeted you once your feet hit the grass again.

you hissed in pain as alexia appeared, grabbing your ear and twisting it. "what do you say?" she ordered pointing to the firemen who helped you. "thank you." you mumbled, eyes trained to the ground and wincing as alexia pinched harder. "and?"

"sorry for wasting your time." you mumbled again, nearly falling over your feet as the furious blonde dragged you away still with a firm grip on your ear, your blush deepening at the teasing words from everyone which followed.

"nope! you too." mapi tried to hide before she was seen but it was to no avail as alexia grabbed the younger girls ear and pulled her inside, mapi whining while you remained silent, ingrid following after her with a dissapointed look.

"sit!" you were both pulled into the locker room and pushed to sit down side by side on the bench, mapi glaring up at her best friend and rubbing her ear as you remained silent, eyes trained to the floor.

"sorry chiqui." mapi winced as she looked at you and your ear which was just as red as hers, trying to hug you as you pushed her off and sent her a filthy look making her cringe.

both your gazes shifted as alexia cleared her throat, eyes still ablaze with anger as ingrid stood beside her fixing her girlfriend with a look that meant mapi knew she'd be sleeping in the living room tonight, no exceptions.

"why the hell were you in a tree huh? estúpido!" you frowned as alexia directed the question to you, words racing through your head as something clicked and your frown melted into a pout.

when you added a sad sigh that only mapi knew was very much so fake, her head turned, eyes wide in fear of what was about to come out of your mouth.

"capi i only went up there for you." you mumbled, hitting alexia with your best puppy dog eyes as she frowned and mapi inhaled sharply, seeing where you were going to take this.

"what do you mean?" alexia asked, tone a little softer now as again you sighed.

"well mapi threw your boots up there and i know they're your favourite pair ale so i tried to climb up and get them back for you, but then i got stuck and mapi ran away without helping me." you rested your chin on your fist with another sad sigh.

"pequeña diablo mentiroso." mapi whispered under her breath, shaking her head with a look of disbelief as you glanced to her, corners of your mouth upturned smugly just for a moment.

"maría!" ingrid hissed in disbelief as mapi stammered out the truth but it was far too late, alexia already sat on your other side and looking over your ear, kissing your forehead and cooing repeated apologies as you tucked yourself into her side.

"we're leaving. go!" ingrid warned sternly, pointing to the door as mapi gave up defending herself, grabbing her bag as ingrid hugged you tightly, saying something inaudible as you smiled at mapi over her shoulder.

"you lose!" you mouthed at her smugly as the defender sighed deeply, shaking her head before mouthing something back at you, admittedly almost as proud as she was infuriated.

"well played amiga."

[wonder-kid-pugh]

In the Eye of the Beholder Pt 2 - (Alexia Putellas x reader)

Hey guys! So many of you wanted to see a part 2 so here it is! Honestly I think it was kinda rushed so I don't think it's the best. But I hope you enjoy it!!!

Ever since that day at the stadium you and Alexia had been texting back and forth nearly everyday.

It had started to become one of the things Alexia looked forward to everyday.

She enjoyed your conversations. From all the silly thoughts you shared with her to all the serious conversations you had about life and experiences. You talked about anything and everything.

But Alexia couldn't help but feel slightly guilty.

She still hadn't told you who she was.

Well to a certain degree. Alexia had never lied to you. Not specifically at least. She still talked about how stressful her job was and all the antics her teammates got up to.

But she never said what her job was or the fact that she was actually Alexia Putellas a very public figure in the soccer world.

You knew the fundamental parts of her. You had talked about family, friends, work everything. But Alexia couldn't help but feel she wasn't being entirely honest with you.

Here you were sharing such intimate details of your life with her. Your likes and interests. Your love of art. Even the rift between you and your parents.

And she couldn't even tell you her full name.

It felt deceitful to Alexia. But she couldn't help it. She didn't want to ruin one of the best things in her life right now. You were her escape when life got to hard. You were her first call after a hard session or a long day of media. You made her the happiest she had ever been.

Unfortunately, everyone was starting to take notice.

"I see mystery girl has blessed you with her daily texts" Mapi teases as she drops down onto the chair beside her captain.

Alexia blushed as she bit the inside of her cheek. "I don't know what you're talking about..." She immediately hides her phone when she sees Mapi try to sneak a peak.

Mapi rolls her eyes. "C'mon Ale! We all know there's a girl at this stage!" She teasingly pokes at Alexia's reddened cheek. "We have all noticed that you've been glued to your phone more recently and actually smiling at it rather than your serious face".

Alexia shoots Mapi a look but Mapi just grins and points at her. "That's the face!"

Alexia rolls her eyes but can't help but chuckle at her best friend.

Mapi threw an arm over her captains shoulders. "I'm not saying it's a bad thing Ale". She squeezes her in a side hug, "We've all just noticed how much happier you've been recently. And it's nice". The blonde defender shoots her a soft smile. "Whoever it is we can all tell they're good for you Ale".

Alexia couldn't stop the smile spreading on her face. "Yeah she is". But she couldn't help but sigh as she looked down at her phone.

"What's wrong?" Mapi asked concerned. Alexia had been fine moments ago.

Alexia bit her lip before sighing rubbing her eyes. It couldn't hurt to talk to Mapi about it.

Right?

"There's this girl" Alexia admits to which Mapi squeals loudly but is quickly silenced by a swift slap to the arm by Alexia. "Shut up or I won't tell you" she mumbles looking around to see if anyone catch them but thankfully they were all too wrapped up in what they were doing themselves.

"Okay okay okay" Mapi says calming down allowing Alexia to continue.

Alexia sighs but smiles as she thinks of you. "She's... amazing" Alexia breathes out with a love sick smile. "She's just so happy and she's really funny. She always makes me laugh". Alexia's faces starts to darken. "And she's really really beautiful" she says dropping to a whisper.

Mapi couldn't help it. She was just about able to latch her hand over her mouth before she let out a loud squeal alerting the rest of the team. She muffles her yelps of glee while Alexia's blush gets even worse as she shoves the defender.

But Mapi couldn't help it. It had been a while since she had seen her best friend this happy.

Especially something that wasn't related back to work or football. The last time she must of saw her anywhere near this happy must of been when she was dating Jenni.

"Well she sounds very special" Mapi smiles as she nudges her shoulder against Alexia's.

Alexia smiles with a subtle nod. But Mapi can see the way her hands are locked together and how her smile drops the tiniest bit as she gets a faraway look. "Yeah. She is".

"So what's wrong?" Mapi asks softly.

Alexia plays with her hands for a second longer before deciding to bite the bullet. "She doesn't.. exactly...know who I am".

When she saw how Mapi raised an eyebrow at her she continued on. "Look she doesn't know I'm Alexia Putellas. Famous Footballer". "She has no clue about football so when I first met her I just told her my name is Ale and I really like football" Alexia explained as she ran a hand through her hair. "And since then we've been texting and calling back and forth and...I still haven't told her who I really am".

Mapi just nods feeling that Alexia right now just needs a sounding board to talk out her problems. As the person she would probably go to, is the very person she's talking about.

Alexia frowns, "I just feel like I'm not being honest with her". Alexia pursued her lips, "We have such great talks and she's been really honest with me and I feel I'm hiding such a huge thing from her". Alexia shakes her head, "I don't think I'm being fair to her".

Mapi hums. "But what's stopping you from telling her?"

Alexia bite her lip not knowing how to tell her. "It's...nice" she starts tentatively, "Not having any expectations of who I am or how I'm meant to act". "It was like for the first time in a long time someone saw me and not for my career" Alexia revealed before biting her lip. "And as selfish as it may seem. I don't want to lose that. I don't want to ruin one of the best things in my life right now".

Mapi nods fighting everything in her to crack a joke right now seeing how serious this was for Alexia. "Well if you're asking me" Mapi started smiling at her captain, "I would tell her".

Mapi gripped Alexia's shoulder, "If she hasn't given you a reason not too and if she's really as special and amazing as you say she is". Mapi smiled at her, "Then I see no reason for you not to tell her".

Alexia nods slowly. "Your right" she concedes agreeing with the blonde.

Mapi just snorts with a playful grin, "Of course I am".

Alexia rolls her eyes as she shoves Mapi off her. And for a split second Alexia can't help but think how well you and the blonde would get along. "I just don't want anything to change".

"And they won't" Mapi says calmly. "But if they do then it's her lost". "Besides" Mapi scoffs, "she doesn't even know anything about football".

Alexia scoffs but can't help but let a chuckle slip through.

"Seriously though!" Mapi exclaims as they walk out to the field for training. "What the hell do you talk about? Like is it even possible for you to have a conversation not involving Football?"

"We talk about lots of things!" Alexia defends while her best friend gives her a look of disbelief. "We talk about our days, family, places in Barcelona, work".

Mapi raises an eyebrow. "How do you talk about work without telling her?"

"Well she knows you as my coworkers rather than my teammates" Alexia says sheepishly while rubbing her neck.

Mapi let's out a gasp as she holds her chest in mock hurt. "I would like to think we're a little more than just coworkers Ale!"

Alexia rolls her eyes but quietens when everyone starts to fall in for the start of training.

"You should tell her Ale" Mapi lowers her voice so no one could heard. "If you really like this girl you should be honest with her. Give her a chance to know you. All of you". Mapi throws an arm around the brunette and messes up her hair. "Even the crazy football maniac you".

Alexia glares at her and fixes her hair before she switches her focus to training.

But when she goes home that day after training she decides to follow Mapi's advice. She quickly opened her phone and sends you a quick message before she could talk herself out of it.

Once she pressed send, Alexia tries to busy herself with things around her apartment but she always catches herself checking her phone constantly.

She is eventually pulled from it by a call from her mother. The call serves as a good distraction from waiting for your reply. So well in fact that the whole day catches up with her as she soon drifts off after finishing the call.

However, three days later Alexia still hasn't heard from you. It's the longest you had ever gone without texting each other since the two of you have met.

But your silence was beginning to worry the football player. Her mind couldn't help but create all these scenarios for your lack of contact. She tried to convince herself that you were simply busy and never got around to messaging her back.

But her mind couldn't help but wander. Wondering if you were in trouble. If something had happened to you.

Or worst, you had somehow found out the massive secret she had been keeping from you and you were mad at you.

Alexia didn't know what to think for the past few days. She thought about messaging you again. Hell even calling you so she could hear your soothing tone over the call reassuring her you were okay.

But if you were really mad at her, she didn't think you would want her bombarding you with messages. Or distracting her with calls if you busy.

Even though Mapi suspected that her captain didn't want to come off as desperate........

"I don't know what to do!" Alexia groaned to the defender as they messed about with a ball before training was set to begin. "It's been 3 days! And she still hasn't responded to me!"

Mapi wiggles her eyebrows at her. "What?" She starts, "you expect her to be waiting by the phone to message you back?"

Alexia sighs her shoulders slumping. "No" she answers as she runs a hand over her hair. "But I would have thought she would have messaged me back by now". Her eyes shone with worry. "What if she's ignoring me? What if she found out and she's mad at me?"

"Why would she be mad at you?" Mapi asks confused.

Alexia narrows her eyes at her. "Because she found out and she's mad I didn't tell her!" Alexia exclaimed quietly as he threw up her arms. "God! How do you have a girlfriend?"

"Hey!" Mapi says indignantly sending the ball at her feet at Alexia's legs which she narrowly dodges. "I'm a fucking catch!"

Alexia huffs but Mapi can see how truly worried she is that she possibly offended the girl that she liked. Mapi sighed and squeezed her shoulder. "Look Ale. I'm sure there is a perfectly good reason she hasn't messaged you back yet". Mapi shrugged her shoulder, "Maybe she's just been busy and forgot to message you back. Or maybe she's having trouble with her phone. Who knows". Mapi fixes her with a look, "But I'm sure it's nothing".

Alexia took a deep breath before nodding. "Yeah your probably right".

Mapi couldn't help but chuckle. Alexia furrowed her brow. "What?"

Mapi shrugged as she continued to giggle at her captain. "It's funny. Seeing you like this". Mapi has only what could be described as a shit eating grin, "Usually you're so calm and confident. It's funny seeing you stress over a girl". Mapi raised an eyebrow, "Honestly I don't even think you were like this with Jenni".

Alexia sighed as she dragged a hand down her face. "I just don't want to mess it up before I even get a chance with her".

Mapi opens her mouth to say something but her eyes catch something over Alexia's shoulder. She juts her chin at something behind her which causes Alexia to tilt her head at her but before she even has a chance to turn she's already being called.

Her eyes quickly meet Jonatan's but she freezes when she sees the person standing beside him.

"Alexia!" He greets with a wide smile unaware of the internal panic she's currently experiencing. "How are you today?"

Alexia nods absent mindedly. "Y-yeah good".

Jonatan looks at her weirdly but chooses to ignore it as he gestures to behind him. "Well I just wanted to introduce you to the artist who's going to be designing the murals for the stadium".

You try to pursue your lips to hide the smile as you watch Alexia break down in front of you.

"It's lovely to meet you Alexia" you say holding out a hand as you dragging out her name teasingly.

But it's seems that it doesn't have the desired effect as Alexia winces slightly but shakes your hand. "Y-yeah you too". Mapi and Jonatan share looks at Alexia but decide to move on.

"She's recently done a mural for the men's team and it was so incredible that we decided to ask her to do one for the women's team" Jonatan explains.

You hum for once taking the praise in stride as you lock eyes with Alexia. "Well it helped that I had a good history of the club".

Alexia swallows hard as she looks down hoping that her blush wasn't too noticeable.

Jonatan excuses himself as he moves away to talk to some other club officials. Mapi does the same having an inkling why her captain is suddenly acting unusual.

Alexia swallowed hard, "Uh what are you doing here?" Her eyes widened realising how bad that sounded. "Not that I'm not happy to see you! Cause I am! I'm really happy to see you. I'm just surprised!"

Alexia can't seem to stop the words tumbling from her mouth but you seem to take pity on her as you gently touch her elbow. 

"Ale" you say with a hint of amusement stopping her rambles. "I came here to meet the players I was going to be drawing". You shrugged, "Thought if I was  going to be doing a mural for you I would need to meet you to get an idea of what you would want for it".

Alexia nods understanding that you wanted the mural to be the best it could be. Once again going above and beyond for your art.

"Right" Alexia nods before she rubs the back of her neck. "Look I want to say I'm sorry..." She starts but doesn't make it very far.

"For what?" You ask before crossing your arms. "For not telling me you were actually a world famous Footballer and was a bit more than 'just a fan'?"

Alexia frowns and winces hearing your change in tone. She didn't want to meet your eyes seeing how angry you are with her. Her eyes closed as she internally scolds herself from keeping it from you. For ruining everything before she had even gotten a proper chance with you.

She was about to open her mouth an apologise profusely when she was interrupted by a giggle.

She tilts her head at you as she looks up to see you trying to muffle your laughter with your hand.

"I'm sorry" you let out with a giggle. "I couldn't even keep a straight face". You smiled brightly at her. "You looked like a kicked puppy I couldn't do it".

You pursued your lips when you saw how confused the footballer was. "Alexia" you said softly with a reassuring smile. "I've known who you are for a while now". You had to do everything in your power not to laugh as Alexia's eyes nearly bugged out of her head.

"You knew the whole time?" She asked quietly.

You shook your head. "Not at first" you admitted, "the day we met I had no idea who you were". You grinned at her, "Like I said I know nothing about Football".

"It wasn't until the day after when I was doing some research online about the players to start practicing sketching them that I came across you" you explained. "I must say you're very impressive Ms Putellas".

Alexia's face darkened with the compliment but quickly brushed it off. She had more important things to worry about.

Mainly what you thought about her.

"So the whole time we were talking...you knew?" She asked and you just nodded. "Are you mad?" Alexia asks quietly. "That I never told you?"

You couldn't help but coo at the footballer and almost as if you hand had a mind of its own your hand went up to cup Alexia's cheek forcing her gaze back on you. Your train of thought temporarily lost when her eyes looked into yours with a softness you had never experienced before.

"No I'm not mad Ale" you answered truthfully smiling lightly when you see how her eyes lit up the tiniest bit when she realised you weren't mad at her.

"You're a very impressive read Alexia. Just from what I could see when I was doing my research you're very accomplished" you compliment. "But I could see it the day we met. Before I knew who you were that day we met you looked like you had this heavy weight on your shoulders".

You shrugged, "Now I just thought you were having a bad day when we first met and thankfully as the day went on it seemed to get better". You smiled kindly at her, "But when I found out who you were I made a lot of sense".

You rolled your eyes, "Although it should have been obvious from the way you talked about Football and the feeling of playing on the pitch".

You smile when you hear Alexia laugh feeling quite accomplished yourself for that.

"Being as accomplished and well-known as you comes with a certain weight and expectation and a burden of responsibility. Especially as Captain". You squeezed her hand, "I didn't want you to feel like you had to live up to those expectations with me. So I understood that you wanted to tell me in your own time".

You shrug, "It doesn't matter to me that you're some world class famous Footballer". You got a michevious smirk on your face. "Your still the weirdo who agreed to go on a stadium tour with a complete stranger to me".

Alexia scoffed while you fell into giggles. Even though it was at her own expense, Alexia thought it was worth it to hear you laugh.

Alexia shrugs, "What can I say?" She smiles softly at you as her eyes scan your face. "She was a very pretty stranger".

You bite your lip unable to fight off the red fue overtaking her face.

Alexia felt her chest puff over slightly feeling immensely proud to have that effect of you.

You cleared your throat as you nodded towards the field. "Well you better go lead Captain". You wink at her. "I want to see you in action for myself. See if you're everything people say you are" you tease.

Alexia smirks at you feeling even more ready for training than before. She had someone to impress. "I'm not" she started with her own wink. "I'm better" she whispers as she moves in closer to you as her voice dropped slightly.

Your blush darkens even more as you can't help but find her surge of confidence even more attractive.

Your eyes briefly flicker down to her lips before moving back up to her gorgeous eyes. But you don't do anything other than bite your lip knowing that simple action has caught her attention as Alexia's eyes seem to darken.

Alexia seems to forgot where she is in the moment as it looks like she's seconds away from closing the gap between them before you gently push her towards the field. "You better go. Seems I'm not the only one vying for your attention".

Alexia looks over her shoulder to see you're right as most of the team are looking over and waiting for her. With many of the youngsters eagerly awaiting her presence.

"Yeah" Alexia agrees turning back to you. Alexia started walking backwards, "Besides!" She grins widely at you. "I have someone I need to impress!"

And impress she did.

You know you were there to watch the team but you couldn't help it. Your eyes always seemed to trail back to the captain.

Your eyes flickering between the field and your sketchbook. Doing quick sketches of different players. You were in awe watching them all together. How close they all were and how well they all worked together as one.

Alexia showed you why she was considered the best in the world. She was a strategic leader, encouraging motivator and a ruthless opponent. To you it seemed like she was almost dancing across the field as she got past players.

However, you didn't miss how every time she scored or did well, she would look up to where you were in the stands almost like a child who craved praise and attention. Not wanting to give her the satisfaction though, you pretended to busy yourself with your sketchbook.

You had been so caught up in drawing that you hadn't realised that practice had finished.

"So that's her huh?" Mapi asked as she caught Alexia staring at you once everyone had finished up.

Alexia simply hummed not taking her eyes off you as your sole focus was on your sketchbook.

"Is she the reason that Ale was showing off today?" Ingrid asked as she came up beside her girlfriend.

Alexia threw the blonde a look who I'm response just threw her hands up in surrender. "You said you wouldn't tell anyone!" Alexia exclaimed.

Aitana scoffed as she joined the group. "Please everyone can see you making heart eyes up to her throughout practice".

Everyone laughed as Alexia hid her face in her hands.

Patri chuckled as she nodded up towards the stands where you were. "Looks like you have some competition Captain".

Alexia's head shot up to where you were but relaxed when she saw it was only Pina talking animatedly to you in the stands.

Deciding she had enough teasing, Alexia made her way over to the two of you. She didn't even have time to say hello before Pina was bouncing over to her with a page in her hand.

"Alexia! Look at this!" She cheered as she thrust the page in front of her.

Alexia delicately took the page to see it was another one of your sketches. This time though it was of both her and Pina. Claudia was beaming as Alexia had an arm wrapped around her as she pressed a kiss to the crown of her head.

Another masterpiece.

"It's amazing" Alexia agreed as she laughed seeing how happy it made the younger girl.

"Can I keep it?" Pina asked as she turned back to you. Her eyes gleaming with hope as she clutched the page into her chest. It made you ecstatic seeing how happy the drawing had made the young player.

And as much as you didn't want to part with another drawing of the captain, you couldn't help it seeing how happy it made her.

"Of course" you smiled as your eyes flickered to Alexia. "As long as Alexia doesn't want it".

Claudia turned to Alexia who just nodded to her, "No it's alright you have it Pina".

Pina let out a small squeal of delight as she ran off to show the rest of the team the drawing leaving the two of you alone.

"That was nice of you" you quipped as you closed your sketchbook giving her your full attention.

Alexia just shrugged playfully. "I'll just have to get the artist to draw another one for me" she teased as she sent you a wink.

You just hummed as you went along with her. "Hmmm I don't know. I hear her work isn't cheap. It definitely wouldn't be for free".

Alexia met your challenging stare but she wasn't one to back down from a challenge. Emboldened she leaned forward with a grin. "How about it I took her out for dinner? As payment of course".

You had tried to bite you lip but even that couldn't stop the smile blooming on your face. "I think that might be arranged".

Alexia's smile took uo her whole face. She knew what winning a Champions League felt like.

But somehow this felt even better.

"How about now?" Alexia asks not wanting to waste any time.

You raised an eyebrow at her, ""Someone's eagar". You chuckled but Alexia just shrugged happily with a wide smile. "How about you go have a shower and I'll be waiting outside for you" you say as you raise to your feet.

Alexia nods as she starts backpedaling towards the dressing rooms. "Better get moving so. Don't want to keep the beautiful lady like yourself waiting".

She shoots you a quick wink and turns running towards the dressing room.

You can't help but laugh as you watch Alexia all but sprint out of sight. You were so busy watching her that you didn't notice the blonde defender coming up to you.

"She really likes you you know?"

You jumped lightly before turning to the blonde who grinned at you. Not looking apologetic in the slightest at scaring you. "Sorry" she say but you doubt she meant it not that you mind.

You just wave her off. "It's fine". You bite your lip as you look in the direction she disappeared. "And the feeling is definitely mutual".

Mapi nods wanting to choose her words carefully as to not ruin her captain's chances but also wanting to be protective. "She's been a lot happier recently. Everyone can see it and I guess we have you to thank for that". Mapi rolled her eyes lightly, "She was losing her mind when you didn't message her back".

You scrunched your face up at the blonde before her face drops in realisation as you blush shyly. "When was this?"

Mapi shrugged as if Alexia hadn't been freaking out about it earlier. "Three days ago why?"

You let out a little scoff but you scratch the back of your neck sheepishly. "That explains it. So I kinda dropped my phone in a pot of paint and absolutely destroyed it". You winced lightly, "And I haven't gotten a chance to replace it yet".

Mapi nods, happy to know that you were flat out ignoring her best friend, "You better get on that". Seeing Alexia running up to you seeing, Mapi takes her chance to tease her best friend. "After all Alexia couldn't bare not talking to you for so long".

You burst out laughing as Alexia runs up to you catching the tailend of the conversation. Alexia glares at the blonde defender and swiftly slips her hand into yours.

"That was quick" you quip trying to fix Alexia's glare.

It works as Alexia looks at you with a smile squeezing your hand. "Couldn't keep you waiting now could I?"

You hum, "Well seeing how well the first one went. You wanna give me another tour? I don't know Barcelona very well".

Alexia smiles widely already knowing exactly what places to bring you. "Absolutely let's go".

Mapi didn't even get a chance to say goodbye before Alexia was eagarly pulling (more like dragging you) to the exit.

"God you must really like me if you're this eagar to get me all to yourself" you joke but Alexia freezes for a split second as Alexia takes in your words.

"Sorry" she says quietly as they come to a stop realising how she was acting.

You smile lightly as you brush some wet hair behind her ear then move your thumb over her cheek. "Alexia" you let a breathy sigh. "You need to calm down okay?" You squeezed her hand as you looked into her eyes. "I really like you okay? You need to relax".

Alexia let out a deep sigh as she nodded. "I'm sorry. It's just I really like you too and I don't want to mess up".

You smile as how cute she is right now. "Well if you couldn't tell I'm pretty smitten with you so I don't know if it's possible for you to mess up". You tilt your head at her, "If anything I should be worried. I know absolutely nothing about Football".

Alexia laughs as she shakes her head, "I think I can get over it".

You bump her hip, "Don't lie".

Alexia laughs even harder, "Fine. Then I'll just have to teach you everything you need to know about Football".

"Think you can handle it?" You ask but Alexia just smiles back at you.

"For you? Definitely".

God I feel this ending is so bad.......

[pitchsidestories]

el sueño de una niña (2) II Jenni Hermoso x Reader

part 1 | masterlist | word count: 1803

summary: Jenni promised reader's daughter Mila to come to her first football match, can she keep her promise despite being away with the Spanish national team.

author's note: dear readers, you asked for a part 2 and here it's, please enjoy. Let us know your thoughts on the oneshot.💜🖤

“But you promised to come…”, Mila whined through the phone, her voice on the verge of cracking. The disappointment in the little girls voice weighed heavy on Jennis heart.

She winced as she replied: “I know, I know.”

“It’s my first important game…”, Mila complained.

Jenni sighed. She was the one who had helped Mila find a football team in her age class, the one who had bought her first pair of cleats and also the one who had promised her support for her first game. Only, she had forgotten that she would be away with the national team at the time of Milas first game.

“I'll find a way to be there, Mila.”, Jenni promised determinedly. She didn’t know how yet but there was no way she would disappoint her.

Mila seemed a bit more calm at the end of their call but at the same time the conversation had attracted the interest of Jennis spanish team mates.

“Mila has a game?”, Alexia asked, her eyebrows moved towards her hairline with curiosity.

Jenni threw her phone on her hotelbed with frustration: “Yes, it’s her first one. She asked me to come weeks ago.”

Irene who leaned in the doorframe smiled to herself: “Do you all remember your first games?”

“Who doesn’t?”, Alexia replied with a grin.

“We all do.”, Jenni agreed. She knew from experience how formative first games could be.

Aitana stood there, frowning at Jenni like her brain was working at full speed: “But how do you get to her game when you’re here with us right now?”

The hotelroom went quiet as everyone seemed to search for a solution to help Jenni out.

“Easy, fake an injury.”, Mariona blurted out.

Four pairs of eyes stared at her. The disbelief about her suggestion was palpable inside the room.

Jennis face suddenly lit up as she got up from her bed: “During training later? Mario, you’re a genius!”

Excitedly, the darkhaired player pressed a grateful kiss to Marionas cheek and picked her up to whirl her around.

“Jenni!”, she protested, her cheeks slightly reddened.

“Sorry!”, Jenni laughed and finally let Mariona back down.

“Don’t tell anyone that I had anything to do with it.”, Mariona pleaded.

Jenni winked at her nonchalantly: “Oh, don’t worry, Darling. I’d not tell a soul.”

“Good.”

A few hours later, Jenni went down just as planned during a training drill. She held her knee and screamed in pain. The other players crowded around her, faking worried looks. Alexias eyebrows knotted together, indicating that Jenni was definitely overdoing it.

“Jennifer? Are you alright?”, their coach asked, crouching down to Jenni.

“No.”, the football player moaned.

“The physio should take a look at it.”, Alexia interrupted, trying to steer the conversation into the right direction.

Jenni nodded quickly: “Yes, just to be sure. That really didn’t feel good.”

“Okay.”, Montse agreed as she watched her get up and limp off towards the physios.

A short time later, the physiotherapist Pilar realised with a sour face. “You’re fine, Jennifer.”

 “Listen I know I’m fine but there’s a game tonight I’ve to attend. It’s a little girl’s first football match.”, Jenni pleaded.

She shook her head in disbelief. “You want me to lie and say it’s bad enough that you’ve to leave?”

“Not to leave necessarily only to take a break until tomorrow. Please.”, Jenni looked at her with big eyes.

“Excuse me, you want me to compromise my integrity.”, Pilar protested.

“It’s for a good cause.”, the striker gave her the most charming smile in the hope it would work on the physio like it did on all the women before. Nowadays, the specific grin was usually reserved for Mila and you. But this was an emergency.

“You owe me, Hermoso.”, she warned her.

“I know, you can count on me.”, Jenni reassured the physio.

“Go.”, Pilar replied in an impatient tone.

“Thank you!”, the football player promptly jumped off the lounger throwing kisses at her.

“Ugh.”, the physio waved it off, pretending to be disgusted by it.

In awe you watched your daughter warm up with the teammates who became her friends. Mila and you were heartbroken that your friend hadn't come yet despite her promise, which she was supposedly so keen to keep.

The referee started the game that’s why you didn’t hear the person coming who put her arms around your waist with a cheeky smile on her lips. A loud gasp escaped your mouth as you turned around to see who dared to touch you like that.

“Jenni?!”, you exclaimed surprised, glancing at the face you came to love so much over the past year.

“Hey.”, the Spanish woman greeted you grinning.

“You really made it to the game.”, you whispered deeply impressed by her dedication.

“I told you I’d. I never break a promise.”, Jenni answered in a serious tone.

“True, it’s been twelve months, and you never ran away.”, you noted.

“Can’t believe you still think I would.”, she remarked hurt.

“No, I trust you.”, you disagreed whole-heartedly, cupping her cheeks with your hands before exchanging a gentle kiss with the striker. For one moment the pitch and the game faded into the background.

“I think I deserve that trust by now.”, Jenni stated earnestly, pressing a kiss to your hand before releasing you fully.

“You do.”, you responded. Both of you followed the game proudly. The Spanish national team player was the one who cheered and supported the girls the loudest.

A bright smile lit up Mila’s face during a short break once she realized that Jenni did came to the game to see her play. Shily your daughter waved at her which the striker returned with her hands formed to a heart. When the game was on again Mila even scored her first goal.

“There she comes! Hi Mila.”, Jenni kneed down to hug the small girl after the match officially ended.

Milas face split into a big grin once she spotted Jenni standing next to you. She immediately broke into a run and jumped into Jennis arms. “Jenni, you made it!“

“Of course I did. I promised you.“, Jenni laughed as she spun the little girl around before setting her back down on the grass.

Mila cocked her head: “Have you seen me play? You looked distracted by looking at Mami.“

You failed at stifling your laughter while your girlfriend replied: “Hey! Of course I watched you play.“

“Uhu, sure.“, Mila nodded, her little face filled with sass.

Jenni raised her eyebrow at her with a grin: “Excuse me? I came all the way from my national team camp to watch you play.“

The tiny football players’ eyes widened in awe: “How did you do that?“

“Magic.“, Jenni explained, waving her hands through the air as if she was casting some spells.

“Wow.“

“All for you.“, she winked at your daughter.

“Thank you, Jenni.“, Mila beamed and pressed yourself against the football player for another hug.

Jenni kneeled down to her: “You did so well today. Were you nervous?“

Mila nodded hesitantly: “Yes but Mami said she believes in me.“

“We both believed in you. Don’t worry, the nervousness gets better after a few games.“

“It does? Also, told coach that you’re a good coach too.“, Mila said and pointed in the direction of woman your age who watched you with raised eyebrows.

You shot her a smile while Jenni laughed: “Oh god.“

“She didn’t like to hear that.“, Mila confirmed what you both could read from the face of her coach already.

Jenni bit her lip to stop herself from laughing: “I bet so.“

“Mila, are you hungry?“, you quickly changed the topic, impatient to leave the football pitch and the watchful eyes of the youth coach.

“Yes!“

You turned to your girlfriend: “What about you, Jenni?“

“I think I have time to take my girls out for food.“, she winked.

“Perfect.“, you smiled.

Jenni held out her hand for Mila. You took the other hand of your daughter. “Let’s go.“

“Please, I’m starving.“, Mila complained which caused all three of you to break into laughter again.

Jenni ruffled through the young girls hair: “Don’t worry, you will get some food to fuel your body after such a long game.“

You found yourself at a restaurant shortly after. Mila was busy digging into her chicken tenders and you watched Jenni pick at her salad.

But there was something that your girlfriend had said earlier that you couldn’t get out of your head. You leaned forward, your chin resting on your hand and watched Jenni curiously: “So… how did you get out of the Spain camp?“

Chewing on a tomato, Jenni shook her head: “Can’t tell you that.“

“It’s top secret, huh?”, you smirked.

“Yes, it’s between me, the girls and our physio.”, she winked conspiratorially.

The small comment of the striker sparked Mila’s curiosity as well. “Was it dangerous?”

“A little bit.”, Jenni admitted sounding amused.

“Woah, that’s so cool.”, your daughter marvelled.

“Mila!”, you clicked your tongue disapprovingly.

“But mami you must admit it’s true.”, Mila defended herself.

Swiftly you changed the topic, looking into your girlfriend’s eyes. “When do you have to go back?”

“Tonight, but I can take Mila to bed before that.”, Jenni answered smiling.

“Really?”, your child asked beaming with delight.

“Really.”, the footballer confirmed mirroring her excitement.

“Good.”, Mila nodded satisfied.

The dinner with three had gone by in a blink.

In an animated tone Jenni read out loud to your daughter in the child’s bedroom. It was a story for boys and girls featuring the life story of Marta. In between you could hear Mila’s lively comments she exchanged with your girlfriend until there was only the silence of the night.

“She’s sleeping?”, you questioned as Jenni closed the door behind her.

“Yes.”, she affirmed calmly.

“Wonderful.”, you muttered gleefully. Eye to eye, you noticed a desire and lust in the way the striker looked at you. A blush crept upon your cheeks feeling the intensity of her stare. “What? Why are looking at me like that Jennifer?”

“No reason?”, she murmured innocently.

“No, tell me.”, you demanded in the knowledge that your lover was lying.  

“Well, I’ve some more time before I’ve to leave.”, she began mischievously.  

“You mean long enough to..?”

“Yes.”

“We shouldn’t waste more time don’t you agree?”, you glanced at her expectantly.

With a playful expression Jenni took your hand to guide you to your shared bedroom, leaving no doubt that she was fully in line with what just passed your lips.

Everything started with a promise and ended with another one.

After you two made love together Jenni promised that you three would be a forever thing. Something like the three musketeers against a man’s world which despite all it’s harshness would never get you down.

if you enjoyed this story reblogs, comments and likes are always appreciated !

[pernillecfcw]

🎞️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🎞️

[skipper1331]

Little things // Alexia Putellas

headcannons

The little things Alexia and you do while being absolutely in love with one another

car and driving around

Alexia always opens the door for you

She‘s the driver while you‘re the passenger princess

She insists on hearing your playlist, even though you both have a shared playlist (she knows you love your playlist)

you kiss her temple/ cheek at every red light

She’s getting you some flowers in the time you‘re at your appointment (she insists on driving you everywhere)

having a water bottle and snacks in the car, just in case

in the kitchen

Alexia helping you the best she can but ends up admiring you from the bar stool or hugging you from behind as she whispers compliments in your ear

when it’s her turn with cooking, she only cooks things you love

Also she lets you try everything before serving and vice versa

"The chef deserves a kiss now "

She makes sure the table is set perfectly and the atmosphere is tranquil

Dinning with you is very important to her, so she makes sure not to mention work or anything that causes stress, she likes to keep the calm and lovely atmosphere

with her family

having a hand on your thigh under table, also drawing patterns on the back of your hand when you intertwine your fingers

one time, you dropped your fork, so within seconds her hand was covering the corner of the table, so you wouldn’t hurt yourself while picking up the cutlery

She loves the bond you have with her family, even though the mocking and teasing of you and Alba can be a pain in the ass.

Kisses always make up for it

"I‘m going to marry her" she tells her mother

Her family already knows because they can see it in her eyes when she looks at you

And they also know you‘ll say yes because they see the look in your eyes when you look at Alexia

You two are the perfect match

Her mother loves you

Her sister does too

at night

You wear her clothes, she loves the sight

both of you sleep better when you‘re with/next to each other

Alexia always has an arm around you, in the need of protecting you

you cuddle into her, legs tangled together, arms around each other

sometimes she‘s the big spoon and sometimes you are, it depends on the mood

when she can’t sleep, you‘ll scratch her back and she‘s in a slumber in an instant

During off days you‘ll stay up till the early hours, just talking, giggling, stating random facts or debating the newest gossip

soft snores filling the room

Alexia often wakes up before you, though she doesn’t make any signs of leaving the bed before you‘re up

If she has to get up though, she‘ll kiss your forehead and promise to be back soon and wishing you a good day

football

you‘re not a professional footballer (you had to google the rules after Alexia had told you she’s a pro) though she likes to think you are as she puts you in goal when the two of you are training together

'training together' - she begs you to join her training routines, ends up convincing you with kisses

It‘s enough to see her pout

you can’t resist her pout

-

watching random football matches at home

Alexia puts a jersey on the bed before each home game, so you have something to wear for the stadium

'Alexia' and '11' on your back making her heart flutter

Your heart bursts with pride every time you see her walking out of the tunnel

Cheering for her

always in the stadium at home games and at important away games (champions league final, etc)

you‘re her biggest supporter

Alexia makes sure football and you are balanced - she never puts football above you but she‘s still ambitious and always gives 101% to be the best

You‘re always impressed by Alexia, her talent is phenomenal

Alexia enjoys impressing you

-

at first Alexia used to shut you out after a lost match

over time she learns to let her guard down

you make her feel loved and appreciated

She can let her walls down around you and likes to think that it‘s okay to be vulnerable sometimes (you assure her that it always is)

after won matches only happy things happen; nice dates, kisses, relaxed evening, etc

the achievement jar

One evening, after Alexia had scored two goals and an assist, you brought up the idea

It‘s been in the back of your mind since awhile but only now the mini marble footballs had arrived

won game? One marble in the jar

Alexia scored a goal? one marble

Alexia scored two goals? two marbles

Alexia assisted a goal ? one marble

won trophy? three marbles in the jar

and so on

when the jar‘s filled Alexia gets a big big surprise. Such as special days with massages, literally anything to show her how proud you were and how much she deserved

Yes, you still had date nights which were also special but the achievement-appreciation-days were just a tiny bit more special

Alexia loves it

So do you

your job

Alexia supports you on every step of the way to your dream job

After a long and exhausting day, Alexia hugs you, runs you a bath, anything that makes you feel relaxed and appreciated

She‘s your date to any work event (vice versa)

Alexia has all of your (important) meetings and appointments in her calendar

If you have to study, Alexia makes sure not to bother/distract you yet also always making sure that you stay hydrated and take some breaks

future

Both of you have your future planned together

Alexia dreams of marrying you, she has the ring hidden in her football drawer because she knows you‘d never look there

You talked about getting a dog, both of you really liking the thought. You just couldn’t agree on which breed (yet)

private proposal

wedding just like you dreamt of as a kid

happy tears spilling out of your eyes as you see each other for the first time

best day of your life

amazing honeymoon

Both of you never taking of your rings

Alexia taping it for her matches

her new celebration is to kiss her ring after scoring

kids, if you want them

The future bright and welcoming as you continue to share the perfect marriage

you‘ll never stop loving each other

[alotofpockets]

Stay where you are | Keira Walsh x Reader

5k celebration prompt: "Stay where you are. I’m coming to get you."

Woso masterlist | Words: 1.5k

-----

Today had been a long day, and it was finally time to pack up and go home. The rest of your coworkers had already left, but you had to finish some work, so you had stayed behind. After packing your stuff and closing up the office, you made your way to your car.

When you reached your car, you went through your bag to find your keys. You were so exhausted that you had just tossed them into your back, so of course they had made their way to the bottom of the bag. 

Once you finally find them, you unlock your car and sit down with a sigh of relief. Finally time to go home and relax. You slot the key into the ignition and turn it to start the car, but nothing happens.

With a frown you tried again, twisting it harder as if that would make a difference. The engine made some noise, but it still refused to start. You felt the panic set in as you tried time and time again, but your car still wouldn’t start.

You let out a frustrated groan and let your head fall back against the headrest. Why did this have to happen today of all days? You were exhausted and just wanted to go home, order some dinner, and relax, but no. 

For a moment you look at your girlfriend’s contact in your phone, wanting to call her to pick you up. But with a shake of your head you put your phone away again. Keira was hanging out with her friends today. A night out with some of the girls on the team she had said before you left this morning.

You knew that if you called she would drop everything to come and pick you up, but you knew how busy she had been lately. She deserved to enjoy her night off and to hang out with her friends uninterrupted. 

The bus was your next best option. The nearest bus station was only a few blocks away, so you got out of your car and locked it again before taking off. It was dark out already. The past few weeks it had started getting dark so early, but you should be fine because there were plenty of street lights lighting up your path towards the bus stop.

That feeling of thinking you should be fine, faltered after you had just turned the corner off of your office’s street. At first it just felt like someone was walking behind you, that feeling quickly got confirmed when you heard footsteps.

You felt your chest tighten. It was probably nothing, but still the thought of someone following you was enough for you to be on edge.

However, the longer you kept walking, the less you were convinced that they weren’t following you. Only one way to find out, you thought, and took the next turn right. The bus stop wasn’t to the right, but you were going to take three more rights to come right back where you just were to see if they were really following you.

With your phone in hand, you pretended to check for directions, trying to act casual in case the person behind you really was following you.

Your heart was nearly beating out of your chest as you turned the last corner and were back where you started, with the person still behind you. Your feeling had been right, someone was following you.

Trying to act like you hadn’t noticed them, you kept walking. Getting into a bus right now wasn’t a good idea. What if they followed you home? So, instead of taking the left to head to the bus stop, you took a right to take you into the city centre. 

You didn’t stop walking until you made it into a bar. A crowded place, with plenty of people around to keep you safe if necessary. 

Your heart was still beating rapidly when you got your phone out of your pocket and dialed Keira’s number without thinking twice. 

“Hi love, is everything alright?” Keira said as she picked up the phone. You could hear muffled noises in the background, she was clearly in a crowded area, out with the girls. 

“I’m sorry I called and interrupted your night out, but I think someone is following me.” You scanned the room to check if the person had followed you inside. “Wait, what? Where are you now?” Keira’s voice instantly turned to worry. 

“I was walking to the bus stop because my car wasn’t turning on, and someone was behind me the whole time. I even walked around a block and they still followed me. I didn’t want to go home in case they-” You started rambling, but Keira stopped you. 

“Hey hey, take a deep breath.” She waited to hear you do so before asking, “Are you somewhere safe now?”

“I’m at our bar.” You didn’t even have to say which one you meant, Keira knew that our bar meant the one that you had met, and had gone too often to celebrate your relationship. “It’s crowded, and I thought it was safer than staying outside.”

“Good thinking, love. Stay where you are. I’m coming to get you." Wait, that’s not what you intended, you just wanted to hear her voice, not for her to drop her night out with friends. “Wait no, you don’t have to. I’ll just-”

“No. Stay where you are. I mean it.” You could hear her already moving, keys jingling, muffled voices in the background as she hurriedly spoke to someone. “I’m with the girls. We’ll be there in ten.”

You could hear by the tone of her voice that there was no convincing her to not come and pick you up. Still you were about to argue again, but that died out the moment that you saw the person that had been following you. Well you hadn’t seen their face, but they wore the same black hoodie and jeans that you had seen when you had been faking looking for direction.

“He’s inside.” Your voice dropped to a panicked whisper as you were trying to move further into the bar so he wouldn’t be able to see you. 

Keira’s surroundings had started to sound different, but you didn't notice. You were way too panicked to hear that she was already on her way. “Make sure you stay near the bar or close to people, okay? Stay on the line. We’re about five minutes out.”

You did as Keira said and moved towards a crowded section at the bar. Keira’s voice was the only thing keeping you from freaking out. “I’m scared.”

“I know, love. You’re okay and you’re not alone. We are almost there, I promise.” Five minutes sounded fast, but they felt forever as you kept going over the crowd to see if he was coming closer to you.

And then finally you spotted Keira, followed by Ona and Patri. They searched the bar for you, and were relieved when they saw you unharmed walking towards them. 

Keira immediately wrapped her arms around you and held you close. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.” Ona and Patri stayed close, looking around to check that no one was following you, while Keira guided you out of the bar.

The rest of the girls were waiting outside. Aitana was talking to the security at the door, and when she laid her eyes on you she motioned you to come closer. “I’m so glad you’re okay. Can you describe what he looks like? I told security what happened, so they are going to kick him out after we’ve left.”

You nod and tell the security guard all the details you knew. He told you he would take care of it, and that he wished you a safe rest of your evening.

Keira, who hadn’t left your side since she found you at the bar, wrapped her arm around you and guided you to the car. “Thank you.” You said softly.

“You never have to thank me for keeping you safe. Just promise you’ll call sooner next time, alright? I would come pick you up if you weren’t in danger too, no matter what.” You nod, “I promise.”

When you got back, you expected them to just drop you off and continue their night, well everyone except Keira. You didn’t think she would leave your side any time soon. But all of them got out of the two cars and followed the both of you inside.

“You guys should continue your night out, I’m okay now.” You tried to tell them, but they weren’t having it. None of them were planning to leave any time soon, so you all decided to watch a movie together. Pina got to work on ordering everyone some food, while Vicky looked for a movie to watch.

Meanwhile, you sat leaned into Keira’s side with her arm wrapped protectively around you. 

She held you close, her fingers drawing soothing patterns on your arm. The comfort of her presence, combined with the chatter of the girls as they settled in, began to ease the tension that you had been feeling in your chest since you left the office.

Keira pressed a kiss to your forehead. “We’ve got you.”

-----

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[theuntoldstorythatneedsawriter]

Wrong name 👕⚽️

Ingrid Engen × reader

warning : fluffy 💭💗

(my first language isn't english, sorry for any grammar or spelling mistakes)

Summary :

You decide to wear Alexia’s jersey to a match, instead of Ingrid’s.

You knew exactly what you were doing when you grabbed the Alexia Putellas jersey from your wardrobe. It wasn’t an accident, and it wasn’t a mistake. You wanted to see how your girlfriend would react. She was always so calm, composed, and never really the jealous type. With this little experiment, you hoped to get some kind of reaction.

As you slipped on Alexia’s jersey, you couldn’t stop thinking about all the different ways Ingrid could react, especially considering you always showed up to her matches wearing her name.

You walked into the stadium with a playful smirk, already imagining her reaction. The energy of the crowd surrounded you as you found your seat, excitement building for the big game. But, even as the match kicked off, you couldn’t focus on the action in front of you. Your mind was too preoccupied with how Ingrid would take this little joke.

When she spotted you from the pitch, there was a brief flash of confusion in her eyes, followed by what you could only describe as irritation. Ingrid’s gaze lingered on you for a moment, you could practically feel her thoughts from where you sat:

Really? Alexia?

As the game went on, you couldn’t help but giggle every time Ingrid glanced your way. Her performance was flawless, of course, nothing seemed to shake her focus on the field. But between plays, when her eyes caught yours again, you noticed a little frown tugging at her lips.

After the final whistle, you made your way to the players’ area, trying your best to hide your anticipation. The moment Ingrid emerged from the tunnel, she let out an annoyed:

-Really?

Cossing her arms, a mix of amusement and annoyance on her face.

- Alexia’s shirt?

You grinned, pretending to be innocent.

- What ? She’s a legend! Plus, it’s a really comfortable.

Ingrid eyes were filled with annoyance but you could still see a playful glint in them.

- I see how it is. Preferring the captain to your own girlfriend, I'm disappointed kjærlighet. (love)

You stepped closer, unable to hide your laughter anymore.

- Don’t be mad. You’re still my favorite player, but I just thought... I don’t know, maybe you’d want a little competition.

Ingrid shook her head, clearly trying to hide her smile.

- Oh, I’m not worried about the competition

She said, stepping closer until she was standing right in front of you.

- I just hope you know who you’re going home with.

Her voice was teasing, but there was an edge to it, a subtle reminder of who you were actually here for. You couldn’t resist.

- Of course I do. The best player on the field.

Ingrid smirked, finally letting her arms drop as she wrapped them around your waist, pulling you in for a quick hug.

- Good

She murmured into your ear, her tone softer now.

- But next time, wear my shirt.

You chuckled, hugging her back.

- We’ll see. I kind of like keeping you on your toes.

As she pulled away, Ingrid rolled her eyes, though you could see she wasn’t really upset.

- Just remember, Alexia might be the captain, but I’m the one you’re stuck with.

You smiled, knowing she was right.

- I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Her hands found your hips, playing with the end of the jersey.

- Take it off.

- What ?

Before you could even processe de information the jersey was off your body. Taking her jersey off, Ingrid handed you her jersey.

- Put it on

- No it's all sweety

She gave you a look that made you put it on immediately, wanting to survive till the end of the night. Once on, Ingrid took a good look at you, admiring your features.

- Better

She grabbed your hand and walked straight to the parking lot, impatient to finally get home. Alexia mouthing a "Good luck" as you pass by, having seen the all thing.