#odericevertz

- dec/kai start being teammates with benefits when they both join arsenal. the pull is rooted in mutual fascination at first (more attraction/secondhand curiosity from only ever knowing him through mason on kai’s side. in comparison declan wants to get a rise out of him, wants to see what the awkwardness morphs into when kai gets good.) the power balance is definitely kind of fucked in the start because declan is doing so much better so there’s an undertone of pity for a while but they both have no complaints about it and the imbalance resolves itself once kai starts coming good as the season rolls on

- meanwhile martin/kai are striking up a budding friendship that’s v much based in tenderness. martin sets out to take care of kai because they’ve got similar backgrounds (see: mikel’s i can fix him complex) + captain duties given kai’s price tag and history etc and ends up liking him a lot more than he expects. kai feels the same…..a tangle of admiration fondness desire etc. martin literally sets up his path to redemption by giving him the fucking penalty against bournemouth. i feel crazy.

- (in true arsenal fashion this is complicated by how mikel tells martin to handle kai at the start of the season and granit aka kai initially being viewed as a xhaka replacement at LCM. that is another fic.)

- so this ode/kai and dec/kai tracks are running parallel as the season develops……..meanwhile MARTIN/DECLAN. EVEN more complicated to me. some fans saying that declan would make a better captain than martin……him having a more traditional captain’s personality/physicality than martin…….fitting in so well and being so universally adored so quickly….HIM SAYING HE’D LOVE THE CAPTAINCY IF ANYTHING HAPPENED TO MARTIN…….there is something very sharp and hungry about declan below the affable nice guy act. i love that.

- tldr the martin/declan tension resolves itself in dubai where declan finally acknowledges martin as captain and then they fuck. i have the scene pictured in my head. kai is relieved as hell.

- so before the end of 23/24 (aka before the fic starts) they have definitely all slept together before and are starting to fall into a familiar dynamic. unfortunately the nature of football is that everything is fleeting……the dynamic changes from season to season and the loss complicates that more. i don’t think there is any universe where declan joins odekai in ibiza because he is simply not the kind of person to go and try and forget about such a massive loss right after it happens. i conceive of him as a very solitary creature……social only by habit and extremely selective with who he shows vulnerability to. offscreen he spends a week by himself processing and then proceeds to throw himself into the next challenge (euros). this works as a distraction mostly because england nt is full of young hungry people who are also his friends…….england nt fic. now there’s a thought.

- only once england lose the final and there is literally nothing else to contend with other than the reality of losing x2 does declan allow kai to bring him around etc. phone call scene, after which deckai DO talk about the team the game the season etc but not about the relationship. fun fact as i mentioned to holdinghistorsogently in the dms is that they WOULD have talked about all of this with martin…….but in that moment martin can’t stand listening to this casual intimacy that he’s excluded from through no fault of his and cuts himself off first. this guy is so good at quiet self-destruction

- anyway anon to answer you i don’t think there is a hierarchy. to me their dynamic is one where they’re just as likely to go home together in a pair and the last one is going to have feelings of varying intensity about it depending on who it is. they are never going to talk about it everrrr because they just don’t work like that…. they are definitely at their most balanced and happiest IN the trio dynamic, but i don’t think they’ve reached the stage where they’ll instinctively default to the trio dynamic yet. life if they communicated 🕊️

- (important to note that the deckai in this fic is filtered heavily through martin's pov so we get a more surface-level perspective of their relationship than i'd like, but martin is right in that i think they have a sort of playfulness that martin doesn't have with either of them by virtue of being captain.)

excited to see how this shifts and evolves in the coming season though. and each individual side of this triangle on its own is still very compelling to me.