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There are gentle fingers on Harry’s back that he expects now. A soft questioning push. Harry takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, tries to memorise what Katie just said. Like passing through phantom warm water.
Runs his hand over his head and feels his shaved hair. Opens his eyes and Sonny is humming at the kitchen island.
…..
They still lost at the World Cup. Jude still pulls his shirt over his face, Mason still moves to comfort him, always easier to help someone through their loss instead of deal with your own.
Harry can feel every second of the agony of that failure burn through him. Even watching on the tiny screen of his phone he can feel it still. In any telling that loss lingers.
Son still apologises, still takes on the disappointment of a whole country without asking for anything back. Harry can remember the tears in his eyes. The stilted conversation they had after the game by phone when they couldn’t quite connect.
“I really wanted this H.” Son says after frustrating attempts from them both to find the right words. “I can’t even get part of what I wanted.”
In the strange lost days after their World Cup ended -their World Cup ended, but the games continued - Harry spins the words over and over in his mind.
The girls are standing with their mother, trying to follow Katie’s lead to guess what to say. “I’m sorry,” Harry thinks. “I really wanted this.”
…..
It’s Halloween, and Harry is fixing fairy wings onto the back of a tiny dress.
It’s Halloween, and the girls both dress up like Alice in Wonderland. With their hair pulled back in pale blue Alice bands. Harry catches himself wondering what happened to Jack Grealish.
…..
The first time he thought he was shoved from behind. Stumbled into Eric who said “Har, mate, you right?”
It was raining, this place is still clearly London. Harry thought he might have lost his footing on the slick grass.
He misses more passes that he connects with that first day. And Eric narcs him out to Pep that he stumbled earlier. Pep leans in close to Harry, asks gently if he’s feeling any after affects.
Harry stammers out he’s fine. Just the rain, just the grass. Pep looks unconvinced. He sends the players around them off on drills. Announces it’s a short training session anyway and gestures Harry ahead of him.
Pep walks with him down the familiar corridors of White Heart Lane. Paths that Harry knows by heart. They chat idly, Pep keeping his hand on the small of Harry’s back.
He asks the training staff to check the head knock from the Sunday before. Harry has no memory of it.
He has no memory of Pep with this concerned tone, or the medic, or the mural of the knight in red and yellow and blue on the wall behind them.
Harry doesn’t seem to be expected to say much here. The familiar motions of ‘“look here, any headache, how do you feel..?’ Is given a clean bill of health and sent on his way.
Son is waiting for him, leaning against the wall. He steps forward as soon as Harry comes out of the room.
“Let’s get home Har.” He says. Harry’s bag is beside Son’s and Harry isn’t sure where his keys are anyway. He follows. The sky is clear now, Son tries to start a conversation a couple of times. Harry looks at him carefully but can’t quite answer.
Son’s hands are the same, blunt square cut nails. His eyes are kind and slightly worried. The streets are a pale grey, interlaced cobblestones that rumble under the wheels of Son’s car. It’s a short, quiet drive.
They pull into a street with too many trees and turn into a garage slightly under street level.
Harry gets out of the car awkwardly, because this car is sleek and low and nothing like the car he has been driven in with Son before.
“Are you in a bad mood with me?” Son asks.
Harry looks up, “no, no, never. Just a headache.” It’s not like Harry wouldn’t follow Son almost anywhere.
They walk into a house that is silent and tidy. No pile of shoes by the door, no dogs.
“Just a headache.” Harry says. “Son” he says and he looks down at his hands as they tingle, he tips his face toward them and it feels like he is going to throw up.
Opens his eyes and he’s looking at Enfield. It’s raining. Harry trains, he takes penalty shots against Hugo and scores ten out of ten.
“On fire H!” Eric yells.
“Get in H!” Son yells with a passable English accent. Conte is frowning on the side of the pitch. He sends them off impatiently, scowling at the sky, turning to his office on the other side of the training grounds.
Harry drives himself home and googles the game last week. Just to check. He didn’t get subbed off or have any knocks to the head. Tottenham still lost.
Katie puts her hand on his shoulder. Harry looks up, she is twisting her mouth and says “did you write down the dates?” Harry apologises that he didn’t, didn’t write down the dates, didn’t hear what the dates were for.
The girls would love him to go, and it is a week day Katie says gently. Her understanding slides in like a knife.
…..
It happens again. Walking to the kitchen to get a drink for Ivy. It feels like he has slipped forward on the wooden floors. Looks up and the garden is raked gravel and low stone benches. Behind him is the echo of silence and he runs into a different living room, wondering what happened to Bluey playing on the tv, and where Ivy is.
There are tastefully framed prints on the walls, and a black and white picture of him and Son. They are grinning in each other’s faces, and Harry is hugging the FA cup to his chest.
Harry reaches his hand out to touch the photograph. His hair is shaved short and he spins around in the silent living room before his fingers reach it.
He walks to the front door and when he opens it, trees line the street, a cool silent almost canopy. The cobblestones look nearly marble in the light, and as Harry walks down the front steps he brushes the stair rail and it causes a static tingle up his arm.
“Daddy?” Ivy tugs his hand “Where’s my water?
…..
It’s dark outside. Harry wakes up desperate for the loo and walks into the wall, then the door. Feels like he is moving tangled up in clothes. Wrenches the door open and looks back at the body sleeping under the covers. The bed is only just off the floor.
The hallway has some sort of runner lights along the baseboards. Harry steps into the bathroom and runs his hand over his head. Buzz cut like he has never had before. (Except in the picture in the living room with the tasteful artwork, with the picture of him, and Son, and the FA cup.)
His face unlocks his phone at least. He googles himself. It was last year. Under Pep, an ugly scrappy game, and they won on Harry’s penalty kick.
He checks the EPL table and Spurs are third behind Newcastle and Man City. ‘In Europe,’ Harry thinks, and feels a tingle like the phone is buzzing in his hand.
Looks down at his phone with the screen gone black, and the dog is snoring in the corner. Goes back to bed beside Katie. She edges over to him, and and curls under his arm, settling into deeper sleep with a sigh under his touch.
……
A winning game, and Son scores with the kind of volley that will appear on highlight reels for the month. Pep pumps his fists on the sidelines and Harry stumbles through an interview with Kelly about what winning the cup would mean. He wipes his forehead on his sleeve and checks the hoardings to find out which cup.
Son is accepting praise in the dressing room. He smiles when Harry comes in “couldn’t save you from all the interviews Har.” He says.
At training again. Running around the pitch to warm up and it’s the kind of beautiful day when anything is possible. “You gonna talk to the jackals H?” Hugo asks.
Son smiles, always smiling. “I can take them for you H.” He says.
Harry skives off his agent and team and takes the kids to the park. Viv tries to boss Lewis around, who ignores all her fussing. Harry pushes them on the swings and it almost feels like he is flying through the air with them.
…..
Pressure between his shoulder blades and Son is smiling at him over dinner. Harry takes a desperate drink of water and coughs to cover that he doesn’t know what they were just talking about.
Son strokes the back of his hand. Harry lets his chopsticks clatter down beside him and looks around the unfamiliar room.
“Yeah it’s too spicy for me even.” Son agrees. “Go in the living room. Har, I’ll make the tea.”
Harry stands up off the mat on the floor in front of the short wooden table. For lack of anywhere else to go - this must be the house with the other bed low to the ground and the hallway with lights along the floor - he goes to the living room. The walls are still beautifully decorated. Above the fireplace a woman in a green skirt with a red top is holding two fans. Yellow leaves swirl behind her.
Son comes in holding two small white cups with no handles, one which he hands to Harry. He sits down, pressed to Harry’s side and puts his cup on the floor.
“You are a very distracted man Har.” Son says and rests his head on Harry’s shoulder. Harry can see them on the reflection on the tv. Oceans of space on each side of them. The tea is too hot to drink so he puts his down as well. This room lacks coffee tables and barbies. He wraps his arm around Son, who curls into him.
Son edges tight to him and kisses him on the cheek. Harry looks down and Son is leaning toward him, eyes falling closed and lips parted. It’s not like he hasn’t thought of this before. Usually thought about it in hotel rooms or in showers rather than a living room after dinner. Leans down enough to press their lips together.
The angle is making his neck twinge and Harry starts to pull back, but Son follows him, chases his mouth and climbs onto his lap. And as they kiss he rubs his hips into Harry. Tongue warm and slick in his mouth.
Harry can smell green tea and feel blood rushing to his fingers where his hands have crawled under Son’s shirt, caressing Son’s back. Opens his eyes with a gasp and he is thankfully alone in his living room. Looks down, but he’s wearing different clothes and isn’t hard anymore.
…..
The disappointment of the game against Southampton, and Son and Harry sit quietly on the trip back. Harry scrolls through pictures of his kids. Puts his phone away, and his arm over Son’s shoulder.
Son turns in surprise and Harry can see him, eyes slowly closing, head tilting back.
Asks him about the football academy to break the silence between them. Let’s Son’s voice and enthusiasm for the kids there soothe his trip home.
…….
Pep is carefully explaining how three draws in a row won’t end their season. Son sits next to Harry on the bench, close enough he can feel the heat from Son’s thigh radiating against his.
The hair on his arms rises up being this close to each other. Harry nudges Son’s leg with his knee. Pep winds down the inspirational part of this session and turns to the whiteboard as Son slides slightly closer.
In the car park Son pushes Harry against the car, shoves his hand into the front of Harry’s joggers before Harry can do more than open his mouth. His fingers scramble against the cool metal. Harry knows he should stop this, out here where anyone could come around the corner.
But the pillars of the underground garage block them from the view of anyone walking nearby, Son’s expensive sports car the only one parked here.
Harry’s fingers burn despite the cold paint.
Opens his car door at Enfield. Parked between Eric and Rich. Glad no fans are hanging around to ask about their manager.
…….
The grim silence in the aftermath of the Newcastle loss. Harry is jostled, shoved forward in his seat, and sits back in an armchair in a hotel room. There is a print of the Angel of the North on the wall. The rest of the room is dim. The vague implication of a window and bed. A light behind Harry illuminating Son.
Son stands in front of him, bare foot, shirtless, and his underwear hides nothing. Harry puts his hands on the elegant glide of his hips. He pulls Son nearer to him. Kisses the skin above his belly button. Can smell soap, and Son, and taste something salty that must be Son’s arousal in the back of his mouth.
Son links his fingers behind Harry’s neck. Smiles down at him. Harry slides his hands around Son’s body, smooths his hands over the warm firm cheeks of his arse. He keeps eye contact and he pulls Son’s underwear down. Kisses his stomach and can feel Son’s cock sticky against his cheek.
He tugs Son onto his lap. His hands holding Son close. Son pulls his hand around to his cock. Closes Harry’s hand around him. “Har,” he breathes out. “Want this so much.”
Son frowns slightly, mouth tilted down. Squeezes Harry’s hand around his cock tighter and moves it up and down. Lets go and braces his hands on Harry’s shoulders and tips his head back.
Harry takes over and stokes him steadily. Like he gets himself off. Son comes quickly, wet in Harry’s hand.
“Har,” Son says and leans his forehead on Harry’s.
Harry runs his hand up the delicate bones of Son’s spine, his hands tingle with the warmth of Son’s skin.
Katie glows and Harry gazes at her until she blushes and tells him off. He rests his hand on the swell of her stomach. Kisses her neck and slides his fingers down to her clit.
…..
Harry’s parents stand with him as he receives the goal scoring award. It’s a dizzying whiplash, walking on the pitch, the crowd cheering, the girls, holding the trophy. Having the record. Katie’s obvious pregnancy, Son clapping. Son’s hug that lasts slightly too long.
Afterwards, Son’s kissing him dirty and insistent. He can feel weight of Viv in his arms, Ivy clinging to him, eyes wide, staring up at the crowd.
Gathers all those thoughts to some other part of his brain. Spins them around so Son is the one pushed against the wall. Twists one hand in Son’s hair, the wall behind him the same pale grey as the living room. Uses his other hand to push their pants down and both his hand and Son’s hand bump as stroke each other off.
…..
‘This is not the season that Harry Kane or anyone at a Tottenham would have wanted.’ Harry learned very early in his career to skip stories about him.
But he watches the report anyway. Listens to the pundits suggest futures he has never considered before.
The disappointment of the season sits like a stone in Harry’s stomach. He puts his drink down on the wall outside the restaurant where they are having the end of year event for the families. Wants company and to be left alone. Feels the shove forward and looks at Son, screaming in joy in his face.
“Europe!” and he throws his arms around Harry and snogs him in front of everyone. Harry puts his arms around him automatically, and can hear everyone cheering around them.
They drink and Son doesn’t leave his side all night. Squeezed under Harry’s arm, or holding hands. Rests his chin on Harry’s shoulder, beaming, hugging him from behind.
They are poured into a car by Cuti. Son rests his head on Harry’s shoulder, his hand on his thigh. Their driver looks carefully forward, the streets are empty and the traffic lights favour them.
“Why don’t you call me Sonny anymore?” Son runs his fingers up the seam of Harry’s trousers. Voice soft, but he’s peeking up clearly waiting for Harry’s answer.
Harry kisses him. Holds his face in his hands because he can and says: “Sonny.” Kisses him again and whispers it against his lips. Kisses him and whispers it over and over until Sonny is laughing too hard to kiss back.
They arrive back at the silent house. The trees whisper overhead, stars sparking in the small gap between their evergreen branches.
Sonny throws himself into Harry’s arms, and they bounce off the walls, kissing frantically, groping any skin they can reach. Making their way to the bedroom at the end of the hallway with only the slat bed inside it. Windows bare, the room lit by the streetlights. Harry thinks he rips a button off pulling at his clothes.
He tries to follow Sonny’s lead, picks up the lube that Sonny throws aside, but can’t see what Sonny is doing, his hand behind him, kissing Harry every time he starts to talk.
Harry holds Sonny’s hips steady with his hands. “Har,” Sonny moans as he slides slowly down on him
Harry can feel his mouth drop open can hear them both gasping, “Sonny.” He whispers back. Sonny puts his hands on Harry’s shoulders. Stares into Harry’s eyes, his own dark and glassy. Rocks slowly on top of him, leaning further and further forward until they both come, panting into each other’s mouths.
…..
They are both called into a meeting with Dan Levy to discuss the potential new manager.
Son meets him in the car park beforehand. “What do you think about this one H?” He asks. Harry tries his best not to shrug.
“Running out of options huh, Son?”
Harry can feel Son looking at him in the office. He leans over to let their hands brush when Dan turns to load a new document.
Harry can’t feel the bite that Sonny put on his chest. He can taste the gloss that Katie had on her lips when she kissed him goodbye earlier. Can feel the lazy satisfaction of early morning sex with her relaxing his hips and spine.
….
They all meet at St George’s. Harry hugs Jack for longer than usual. “You all right H?” Jack asks, but indulges the hug, as good natured as always.
The Malta game goes exactly as expected and he’s subbed off after sixty minutes. It’s an easy win, no one trying to make anyone look bad. Turns to give the armband to Jordan and Kieran is waiting to take it.
“You good Har?” Kieran asks, leans forward like they have instructions to share with the cameras focused on them.
Harry leans in as well to mumble some of the usual lines, he scans the field over Kieran’s shoulder and Jordan isn’t even on the pitch. Slides the captain’s arm band onto Kieran and claps the crowd, walking past Trent and Marcus, subbed off with Harry and Ben.
….
There is just time before the start of training to travel to Korea to check in at the academy. They walk hand in hand, under a hat and mask disguised enough, or everyone polite enough, they are barely bothered.
Harry enjoys letting Sonny lead him around. Agrees to every meal, or drink, or event, just for Sonny’s obvious pleasure.
Harry’s pretty sure the universal language of football means the kids understand what he’s telling them about penalty kicks. Sonny patiently explains to all the littlest kids over and over how to position their bodies to kick the ball.
After a shower, and Harry scrubs his fingers together. Imagines a spark, or a firework. Runs his hand over his head in frustration and the fuzz scuffing his fingers causes a tingle.
Harry cheers at Ivy’s gym tournament. Takes her out for ice cream, just her and him, and listens to her tell him everything that he just watched as her sundae melts.
Sheppards the kids through bath time and toothbrushing and has them burn off energy trying get up and down the staircase twice or three times in the time it takes Katie to get up once.
Lewis laughs at Ivy and Viv clapping, walking backwards to show up their mother. The dogs bark, and Katie tells Harry he will be carrying her to bed.
He swoops down and picks her up bridal style, and Katie shrieks as loud as the kids, holding her hands over her stomach and warns “if you drop me….”
Harry smiles at her, lets her fall softly to her feet and kisses her as the kids run down the stairs again.
Stands in the kitchen to make the tea, thinks about Katie’s laughing scolding while Ivy giggles, his fault they were too excited to drop off to sleep easily. Them in bed now and he lets himself fall forward like he has been pushed.
Sonny insisted he was going to take Harry on the most stereotypical vacation before they returned for the start of the season. He takes Harry to Jeju Island. They walk on the beach at sunset, timing it so they are mostly alone.
When they come back any mess has been whisked away and dinner is waiting for them.
Walks onto the deck where Sonny is drinking something colourless and lethal. Sonny quieter than normal over their meal.
He finishes his drink and Harry watches him. Not exactly prepared when Sonny says; “We said after the World Cup we would talk about children.” Harry looks at him, soft dumb buzz of alcohol in his system. Doesn’t remember it, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
“I want four,” he says, drunker than he thought. Sonny’s face crumples in, he takes a breath that Harry can feel shudder through them both. Glances down and then looks up with a slightly fake smile on his face. “Can we start with one?”
Harry picks up his hand and kisses the back of it. His palm, his wrist, his arm. “Anything you want.” Harry says. Drunk enough to be expansive. Sonny lets himself be tugged forward but kneels down in front of Harry before he can be pulled onto his lap.
There is a dim light from the table but no one close enough around to see them.
Sonny swallows Harry almost to the base of his cock. Harry can feel his head spinning as much from the drink as with everything Sonny is doing. Fights off the pins and needles twisting in his finger tips where he’s gripping Sonny’s hair. Comes with a shout, his chest heaving.
Harry gives Sonny a long slow blowjob. Has to stop every minute to rest his jaw. Sonny doesn’t complain, he runs his hands along Harry’s head chanting “Har,” and “please” but comes nearly silently.
It’s their last night and they drink soju, Harry asks Sonny to make love to him. The words sound exactly right. Sonny’s eyes glitter. He goes slowly. Sliding one finger than another into Harry. It’s a twinge but it feels so good. Sonny pushes his legs further apart slides in deep and Harry comes over his hand, Sonny shuddering on top of him, snuffling into his neck.
“Hey hey Sonny” he says gently. Strokes Sonny’s hair as he sniffles into his skin and slips out of Harry’s body.
Harry wakes up without a hangover and Katie sleeping on his shoulder. Her stomach pressing into his side.
…..
A tiny little body, more a pile of blankets than a baby. Skin paler than Sonny’s, but with eyes that look the same. Harry feels like he forgets the exhaustion and the love in equal measures.
“H, she’s sleeping. Come to bed.” Sonny says, he sounds tired himself. Harry freezes.
“What did you call me?”
Son looks at him. There are pictures on the walls in the bedroom now. A lamp in the corner. A little nursery is set up next to the window.
Son walks over and puts their daughter into her cot. Leans down and kisses her soft cheek.
Sonny lays back down and flips the covers back. “Harry come to bed,” he says softly.
Harry looks out the window, they forgot to close the curtains, the trees that line the street wave in the wind, tops nearly touching.
Harry pulls the curtains shut, a button sitting on the windowsill, the light gleaming off the ring he always prefers to wear on his finger. He rubs his thumb over it. Climbs into bed and pulls his husband into his arms.
…..
The first game back and Harry begins what is bound to be a hundred interviews about his new gaffer. Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville tease each other as much as they speak to him.
In every London the sun is shining and the season is starting.