ɢᴏᴏᴅ ᴛɪᴍᴇꜱ ɴᴇᴠᴇʀ ꜱᴇᴇᴍᴇᴅ ꜱᴏ ɢᴏᴏᴅ

PART THREE - CHAPTER FOUR; JOHN STONES

PART THREE – CHAPTER FOUR;

JOHN STONES

14th June – 18th June

The aftershocks of the Croatia match and the build up to the England draw on the 18th June against Scotland at a drizzly Wembley.

Declan Rice, Mason Mount & John Stones all start, with Ben Chilwell on the bench.

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John wasn't proud of the England performance today. It wasn't that he did anything wrong, for starters it ended nil-nil so defensively having a clean sheet was a massive success, but he felt they could have done more.

The fans didn't travel to a drizzly Wembley to watch England score no goals at all while they played what could only be described as a boring game of football.

The fans deserved more than that, and the team were more than capable of providing that, but unfortunately today they just had to settle for the result.

John had walked off the pitch, his hair dripping around his face as he made his way down the tunnel with Alex stood at the far end.

She had seen the way he was frowning a bit and she knew he would already be processing it all and working himself up into some kind of tizz about what he could have done better, so she wanted to get there before it got too far.

She smiled as he approached her "Stones" she said to him with a grin. 

"Stones" he said back to her grinning as he looked towards her, his arms wrapping around her shoulders, whilst hers wrapped around his waist as he walked them backwards, once again feeling that sense of déjà vu as he tried to help her dodge the things behind her back as she just stepped back effortlessly.

"Wish we'd won that" he told her as he carried his movements slowly, his arms strong around her, protecting her like he always does.

"You need to look at the positives of the match darling, you didn't concede any goals" she said as he steered her away from some of the ground staff coming out of the doors in front of him "and you still came out with a point" she tells him as he pulls her back in closely as she goes to step back in the way of a few of the backroom staff "and you looked so hot out there" she admits as he lets out a laugh with her.

"There's that smile I love" she continues as she trails her hands down from his waist with one of them lightly gripping onto his bum as squeezing it as he continues to laugh.

"Behave you" he tells her, still smiling at her as he speaks "but thank you darling" he adds as she continues to smile at him.

"Always" she admits as they carry on walking through to the locker room.

*

John clambered into his seat on the coach, ignoring the calls from the back of the bus, both Kyle and Tripps telling him they had saved him a seat with either of them, he just wasn't in the mood for it. He sent an apologetic smile as he felt his legs hit the seat material.

Not long after he felt her hand on his thigh as he looked to the right of him, Alex smiling away as he crossed his hand over hers, squeezing her thigh too.

"You could have gone and sat with your friends you know" she told him with a smile as he shook his head.

"You know if I have the chance I will always pick you over anyone else" he told her, the words she already knew, she would also always pick him too.

"I love you so much and I am so proud of you, you know that right?" she tells him as he smiles at her.

"I love you so much more" he tells her as she grins at him "thank you for just always being here to supporting me, even though its technically your job to be here" he jokes as she lets out a laugh.

"It might be my job, but you know I'd be here even if it wasn't" she admits "you know I'd never miss a match, even if that meant driving for well over 4 hours with roadworks just to watch you lose 4-0, you know I will aways be there".

John lets out a loud belly laugh now, his mind instantly taking him back to that moment, like it always does whenever either of them bring it up. It's always Alex's comeback in regards to her declaration of love for him.

She always reminds him of how she travelled up for his Barnsley debut on a day were literally every road was closed.

She couldn't travel up the day before so had to leave home so early in the morning to make it, just to watch them lose. John constantly apologised to her, telling her it was a complete wasted trip, whereas for her she said she wouldn't have missed it for the world.

She did joke that next time he made her travel all that way she hoped he would be winning instead which he tried to promise her that he would try.

Alex smiles as she watches him laugh, she knew it would cheer him up, she did regularly remind him of it so that he knew that when he was feeling bad about himself, or guilt for people watching him and not achieving the result he hoped for that those that loved him would do anything for him.

John always used a different declaration of love to Alex, one that he didn't admit to her until they were a full year into their relationship, one that shocked her a bit when he said it.

"I hated sand, I didn't like the way it would cling to me oh, and the sea, like it scared me" he told her when they went on holiday, both families together a year after their initial meet, to the same place.

"Then why are we here?" she told him laughing as they sat upon the same stretch of beach that held so many memories for them both.

"Because it was romantic and you looked like you loved it, like you said to your mum and mine on the first day of our holiday that you wanted to go down to the beach and how much you loved the ocean so I just wanted to impress you" he had told her as she looked at him stunned "I even told my mum and dad not to mention that I didn't like the beach as I was going to try and brave it this time round".

Alex laughed "so you just did it for me?" she asks as he nodded "even having sex on the sand when you hated it?" he nodded again "with it clinging everywhere?" she chuckled.

"And I'd do it all again in a heartbeat" he admitted to her as she smiled.

"So what's changed now?" she asked him "like you can't tell me you now love it".

"I wouldn't say I love it" he admitted smiling "but it brings back so many good memories with you so its slowly becoming one of my favourite things" he smiled wider at her as she embraced him once more.

So since that day they would always add to their little declarations of love, both finding things they never did or didn't think they would like before one another but slowly making them things they enjoyed or at least tolerated for one another.

They were a partnership, a team, they were best friends.