Brazil’s defender Marcelo takes part in a training session at the Yug Sport Stadium in Sochi, on July 3, 2018, ahead of the Russia 2018 World Cup quarter-final football match between Brazil and Belgium on July 6.
From what I’ve seen, the tumblr consensus seems to be “I hope Mumbo is having a nice break. He should take as long as he needs” said while wandering dark hallways, despondent like a ghost and weeping to oneself.
(there’s sex talk and mentions of biting/blood drinking but nothing explicit)
**
he can’t quite hold back the sound he makes.
mason tries to catch it in time, but it trips out from between his teeth – the noise that kira always calls his ‘sarcastic little scoff,’ loathe as he is to let her assign anything he says or does a diminutive.
every eye at the table snaps towards him.
his lips twitch as soon as he catches sight of the expression on kira’s face; she looks about ready to burrow beneath the floorboards of tina’s dining room, mortification covering every square inch of her features. out of the corner of his eye, he can see tina’s gaze flicker back and forth between the both of them with barely restrained glee.
their non-answer is surely answer enough on its own. mason tries not to be too smug about it as he drags his tongue over his teeth behind his pursed lips, chasing the taste of his favorite high.
the fact of the matter is… kira haslet him drink from her. once or twice or – no, five times, not that he’s been counting, or obsessing over them, or thinking about it constantly while kira sleeps peacefully beside him in bed at night.
that would be ridiculous.
kira clears her throat delicately when it becomes evident he isn’t going to say anything. her eyes flash his way, then blink sweetly back towards tina. “it hasn’t come up.”
he nods, looking back down at his empty plate. mercifully, tina hadn’t seen the need for pretenses, tonight, and while he’s relieved to not have to deal with the smell, mason figures it might be nice to have something to push around as a distraction, like kira’s been doing with the last dredges of her mashed potatoes.
plus, he can hear her foot tapping underneath the table, almost as quickly as her heartbeat.
“kira,” tina says flatly, “you can’t seriously expect me to believe that. you’ve never looked hornier and guiltier in your life.”
a laugh bubbles up despite himself. this time, the glare kira sends his way is murderous.
“what?” mason demands, doing his very best not to smirk, “like it’s my fault you can’t fix your face.”
“this is ridiculous,” kira snaps, then, rolling her eyes at the both of them. “tina, you can’t just go around asking people –”
“– stop it,” kira tells him, without turning away from tina or missing a beat of her lecture, “okay, it’s rude. and personal. would you ask douglas’ girlfriend if she’d let him finish on her face?”
“douglas doesn’t have a girlfriend,” tina shrugs calmly, “just half a dozen pictures of you, in his locker.”
“wait, what?” mason asks, frowning, “when did this escalate to pictures?”
“so it isa sex thing, then.” tina’s voice is gleeful as she takes the inch kira’s provided for a mile.
“ithasn’t come up,” kira stresses again, which is more or less fair. he’d been drilling her pretty good each of the times they’d done it, so it’d probably be more accurate to say it’d come down, hard.
like she can read his mind, kira lifts a bread roll up off the table and hurls it at his head. mason snatches it out of the air with another huffed laugh. “lighten up, sweetheart,” he grins, passing the roll over to tina to put back in the basket. “you knew she was nosy when you made friends with her.”
“yeah, you – hey,” tina laughs, “now that’srude.”
mason shrugs. “thank you.”
unsurprisingly, tina remains unwaveringly charmed. the grin on her face only seems to brighten as she props her chin up on her hand to tell kira, “i like him.”
kira sighs, leaning back in her chair. “you mentioned that.”
**
predictably, he catches shit for it just as soon as they’re alone in the car, even though he hasn’t even doneanything.
“i dunno what you’re so embarrassed about,” mason says finally, when kira’s pouting has taken on the edge that’s cute instead of bothersome, “everyone already knows way too much about our sex life.”
“i’m not embarrassed,” kira aruges, “it’s just that – that’s private. it’s different.”
now she’s caught his attention. “different how?”
it’s not that he disagrees – in fact, kira’s right. it is wildly different, intimate in a way that fucking could never touch, even the kind where their hands are wound tightly together and they look each other in the eye until they finish.
but mason’s eager to hear it from her. kira has this way about her of saying what’s between them so simply and poignantly, it hits him dead-on every time. he’s sure she doesn’t even notice it, but she’s a professional at making his insides squirm with just a few words.
she doesn’t say anything as the car glides into the lot at her complex. kira pulls into the open spot with her apartment number on it, shifting the gear into park silently. then, she sighs, tipping her head back against the carseat. her hands come to rest on the steering wheel again. “it’s like – it’s ours. i mean, you’re right. people know about what we do in bed. the team, tina… i’m sure even my mother has heard about it at this point. but that’s always been between us.”
he nods slowly. mason turns his head, unembarrassed about the way he’s openly staring at her. kira’s as beautiful as ever in the moonlight, even with the flickering lamp in the parking lot casting shadows under her eyes. “i didn’t realize it was so important to you.”
the laugh she exhales is mirthless. “are you kidding?” kira asks, “it’s the only time i know for sure you feel what i feel.”
mason blinks. in a flash, she’s twisting the key out of the ignition, unbuckling her seatbelt and stepping and out of the car. a beat too late, he moves to follow her, rushing to catch up with kira at the door.
they take the elevator to her apartment together in silence. he stands around like an idiot while she sheds her clothes on the way to the bathroom, slowly making his way through each room to turn the lights off behind her.
in the dark, in bed, they stare at each other, face-to-face on her mattress. mason lifts a hand to brush her hair back off her neck, the pads of his fingers lingering first on her scar and then, just behind it, the fading imprint of his own teeth. no one’s ever noticed the second set of marks just below her ear – if they had, he’s sure he would have heard about it.
it’s probably an unspoken rule in this thing of theirs. adam and agent langford and all the others let him around kira under the assumption that he’ll keep her safe. he knows he’s not supposed to fucking drink from her. he knows they’d all go ballistic if they knew he had – five fuckingtimes, no less.
“i don’t want people to know because then they’ll make judgments,” kira says quietly, breaking the stillness between them. “i know from the way you act alone that it’s… frowned upon.”
that’s putting it mildly. to say he’d had his reservations about biting kira once – even twice, and the third time – is an understatement.
but she’d begged so nicely, and he’s only just a man…
“and then there’s – you know, the other time.” she swallows, shifting self-consciously. “everyone will think, like, how could she want him to do that after… and they’ll assume that i don’twant you to do it, and – it’s just no one’s business. i shouldn’t have to go into detail about what we do when we’re alone. and – frankly, how dare anyone try to make me feel badly about enjoying something that was taken from me like that with the person i…”
kira trails off into silence. the sheets shift under her shoulders as she shrugs them against the mattress. she’s been doing that, lately. he can assume it’s been for him, the way she dances far around the topic of anything serious.
she thinks she’s doing him a favor, is the thing. notsaying anything about it. she thinks she’s giving him what he wants, and he knows he has no one to blame for that but himself. he’s earned every wide sidestep she gives, and he deserves the way her steps get farther and farther still, too.
mason runs his hand down her neck, over her shoulder and to her waist, mapping the curve of her body under the sheet. “i shouldn’t have to bite you for you to know we’re on the same page.”
kira blinks at him. “did you hear a word i just said?”
“yeah,” he says. “still.”
kira sighs again, longer this time. the exasperation on her face is at odds with the way she shifts closer to him beneath the blankets. “yeah?”
mason nods. his hand fans out over the small of her back, urging her even closer. “yeah. doesn’t take me putting my teeth in your neck to feel what you feel, genius.”
“oh, now we’re name calling.” a smile plays at her beautiful lips. “very mature, coming from someone a dozen times my age.”
“you’re lucky you’re pretty,” mason tells her, grinning crookedly, “because you are not good at math.”
that makes her laugh, and then they’re chest-to-chest in exactly the way he’d been hoping for. kira leans over him to get to the nightstand that holds her alarm clock, and he buries his face in her chest with a dreamy sigh while the buttons click behind his head.
“thanks for coming with me tonight,” she says, once they’re settled again. their fingers are twining together again and again under the covers, like each digit is having its own thumb war in turn. he grins when her nails dig into the back of his hand sharply, eyeteeth flashing through the dark. “i know you’d’ve rathered anything else.”
“yeah,” he agrees, overpowering her easily and pinning her hand to the bed beneath his. “was alright, though.”
kira’s eyes glint playfully as her fingers flex futilely against the mattress. “just alright?”
“what do you want, a fucking sonnet?” mason grumbles. “i’m here, aren’t i?”
“yeah,” she echoes. this time, her voice is soft, her tone fond. she wiggles her palm over and squeezes his hand in hers. “guess you are.”
each of his organs flop around like he knew they would. with a sigh, he resigns himself to another night of heavy thinking while kira breathes evenly beside him, and stretches out on his side of the mattress.
kira fits neatly into the dip at his side, slotting in like she’s supposed to be there.
her eyes slide shut. unwillingly, his brain pokes at him, making him all-too-aware of the warmth flooding his body and prickling at his skin.
“He has black holes in his bones and supernovas on his lips. Everytime he talks and moves, it’s like staring at the infinite. Made of mysteries and dying stars, he floats softly towards the unknown.” - Miuna S. (x)
