Not!Football AU
The Theoretical SIG Sauer
Chapter 8 ½ /8 ½
Rating: R
Summary: In which Xabi is an Arsenal fan.
Eight weeks later
London, England
The silvery digits are staring back at him defiantly from the center of the door. Never in the history of… anything has the number 22 looked so scornful. He rings the bell after a ridiculous amount of minutes wasted on standing in silence in front of a penthouse flat door.
It instantly seems like a shite decision.
“Hello… Is... uh…”
“Yes, he’s making dinner. Would you like to…”
“I can wait here, thanks. I’m…”
“I know.”
The man actually has the gall to offer Steven a kind smile before he calls out for Xabi.
These are the longest six and a half seconds of Steven’s life. He’s contemplating ripping off the light cast on his arm and beating himself senseless with it, an act of pythonesque penitence worthy of how utterly stupid he feels. Then Xabi shows up, all slacked and sweatered and bearded and beautiful. Not to mention dumfounded.
“Steven…” At first, Xabi doesn’t know what to do with his hands. He seems just as unsure about what to do with the two men standing on each side of him, so he twists the checkered kitchen towel around his fingers until his voice comes back from Awkwardland.
“Hi. Um. Come in… please.”
“Hey. I… can’t, I’m actually on my way to catch a flight,” Steven says and the lie is not just brazen but also ludicrous. The only place he’s going to is an empty apartment with mustard and beer in the fridge and a laptop with a work in progress resignation letter that’s been half-typed up for eleven days now. That’s every single day Steven has been out of the hospital and/or the rehabilitation center. “I just wanted… I came to say goodbye,” he adds, this time truthfully, because in the last half a minute of his life this has become his truth.
Xabi has not had as much practice with bullshitting for a living though so it takes him a bit longer to stop rambling.
“Oh. Well… I’m… This is… um. This is Agent Steven Gerrard. Steven, this is… Quique.”
“Nice to meet you, Enrique,” Steven grins and then looks at Xabi and Xabi looks at him and instantly knows he shouldn’t have.
It’s not that Quique says or does anything out of the ordinary when he catches The Look that passes him by like a bird in full flight. It’s just the way in which he says the right thing…
“I’ll be inside… Nice to meet you, Agent Gerrard.”
Steven nods dumbly and stares for a bit at his flannel-tinted departure.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come in at least for a coffee,” Xabi asks, breaking the spell.
“I can’t, as I was saying…”
“Right… Off on another boring, not at all exciting mission,” Xabi smiles halfheartedly. “I’d ask if you’re going somewhere far or… if you’re coming back soon, but you probably wouldn’t tell me anyway. I had to track down your Danish friend in a pub to find out you were still alive…” he swallows air, trying hard to keep the real words he wants to scream out trapped inside.
“If you can call a dungeon full of tattooed metalheads a pub…”
It’s weak, bordering on lame, and they both know it.
“I tried everything I could think of to find you, to… speak to you,” Xabi gestures with his free hand, “Not that I blame him…considering… but Commander Lampard was not very forthcoming with information. All he could give me was advice to stay out of his way until the operation was finished. I suppose I should be grateful he decided to not have me prosecuted for hijacking his helicopter.”
“Well, Fat Frank does like doing things by the book...”
“Maybe if you’d bullied him less at the Academy, he’d have nicer things to say about you. But at least Agger told me you were still alive, for the first couple of weeks I didn’t know…” Xabi’s voice trails off a bit and when he picks up, he sounds almost frustrated with himself. “I thought... I guess I was wrong.”
Steven looks down at his cast.
“I didn’t think you’d…” He gets stuck there, the knot in his throat a timely warning sign that’s not very helpful but at least saves him from further embarrassment. “Got your envelope,” he says instead and Xabi’s brow loosens involuntarily. “You’re lucky Powell didn’t arrest you on the spot for attempted bribery of an agent.”
“I explained to your M that it was an old debt. There’s not going to be a Nobel Prize check, it’s only fair. Nobody should have to pay that much for a cup of tea.”
The eight pounds hidden in the envelope that’s burning a hole in the inside pocket of Steven’s leather jacket feel heavy and cumbersome. Steven feels disembodied, like he’s watching a script that should have unfolded just. like. this… this is the part where he would have said A decent price for a couple of pints tho. You got a nice place round the corner, saw you there not really paying attention to the North London derby last fall. There’s hope for you yet… and then he’d do his Merseyside cult initiation bit on the way to the pub. That was Plan A. He hadn’t thought it through very thoroughly past this stage though and his improvised Plan B sucks.
“Does it still hurt?” Xabi wants to reach out and touch Steven’s elbow, but thinks better of it.
“Nah, just have to wait a few more days for the titanium screws to settle, I’ll be free soon.”
Fuck’s sakes, Gerrard…
For no particular reason, Xabi decides this is the perfect opportunity to stop avoiding eye contact and says point-blank:
“He doesn’t live here anymore, we’re just… we recently decided to try to make it work this time.”
“Good luck,” Steven gives him a thin-lipped smile and nods to add a drop of conviction to it. “I really should get going.”
Er… good to see you? Take care… mate? So fucking daft, the whole thing… He figures it doesn’t really matter if he’s any good at goodbyes or not (he really isn’t), this is the perfect time to just turn on his heels and go rubbish a letter.
He’s only five steps gone when Xabi’s voice rings in the hallway, clear like an epiphany.
“Steven, I… I don’t love him.”
“That’s too bad for him,” Steven sounds surprisingly honest, especially to himself.
“I’ll mail you some guaro,” he says, the corner of his mouth curling over the word the way his tongue can’t before he steps into the elevator.
Four months later
Cartagena, Colombia
Friday mornings are generally not Xabi’s favorite time to wake up at 7 am. In fact, he’d been quite stoic to resist the temptation of throwing his phone out the window and shoving his head back under the pillow. Going back to sleep is not that challenging when you live in a bungalow by the beach. He’s wide (if a little irritatingly) awake now as he steps through the debris covering every single inch of what could charitably be called his office. He pushes an impassive brick with the tip of his loafer and looks up at the shattered window, only half listening to the familiar violin-sharp voice echoing from the office next door.
“Oh well, we all feel much safer knowing the Foreign Office is here to write a report. I’m not sure why you need me to tell you that we do have enemies when it’s quite obvious that someone wants us out of their way. There’s at least five of the major oil investors we’ve made quite unhappy last week alone, do they not require you research your assignments?”
The woman walks out into Xabi’s office with a look of disdain thrown over her shoulder and he suddenly stands there, eyes wide, arms hanging limply by his body, not giving a damn about the devastation surrounding them.
“Xabs, good to see you’re in one piece at least,” her Scottish burr comes through stronger when she’s tired or furious, both of which Xabi’d witnessed rarely in their months of working together. “The UK embassy apparently thinks a bureaucratic shoulder to cry on all the way from Bogota is what we need at the moment…”
She stops to look behind her and back at Xabi and the coin clinks when it drops.
“Are you going to introduce me to Double Oh Sexy or what?”
He does, although Xabi’s not sure who this version of Steven in a suit is. Not that he’s complaining or anything. It’s a very nice suit, goes incredibly well with his eyes.
“So you’re a protector of London-based NGOs now?” Xabi asks once they’re left alone under some pretext or other.
They walk idly among morning rush office workers zipping along Cartagena’s business district boulevard. They make small talk about Xabi’s new life in Colombia as the resident expert of oil watchdogs who’d just been bitten hard this morning following the publication of their latest report about environmental fuckups off the coast. They both pretend that Steven doesn’t know his every move for the past four months in great detail already.
“I prefer to think of myself as a… cultural envoy of my nation,” Steven says wryly.
“So… of all the little countries in the world cursed with oil reserves and a weak institutional framework, Her Majesty sent you to mine?”
“She works in mysterious ways.”
Xabi chuckles deep in his throat, making absolutely no effort to look away from how tan and rested and… good Steven looks.
“None of this makes any sense, does it? I’d really like someone to explain to me how it’s possible to spend a week with a man who shot me, kidnapped me…” Steven braces himself with a ready line about the waterfall, but Xabi has no intention of ever complaining about that part again. “…more than half a year ago and not be able to stop thinking about him every single day?”
They stop in front of a café, the smells of fresh brews and sticky pastry drifting out onto the sidewalk.
“You’re probably still thinking with your dick.”
Judging by Xabi’s smile, the theory has merit.
“Well… are you?”
“Am I what?”
“Still trying to get into my pants?”
“Still playing hard to get?”
“Don’t know if I can afford it anymore with a lousy embassy job. The downgraded security clearance isn’t terribly sexy.”
“Do you come home safe every night?”
“Relatively safe. Most nights.”
“Do you sleep with your SIG under the pillow?”
“On the nightstand.”
Of course, Xabi thinks. All business, forget the Hollywood stuff.
“I can work with that. Plus, you’re still a Royal Marine, right? You probably got to keep the dress uniform when you retired.”
“Yep…” Steven nods, unable to play innocent about where this is going. Unwilling, if he’s perfectly honest.
“I can definitely work with that.” This was the part that used to confuse the hell out of Xabi in his bad hair university years, but that’s long past him now. “Would you like to have a drink with me?”
Steven wishes he could stop grinning, he really does. It’s just not that easy.
“Sure… I’ll have a drink with you. I could do with something to eat too, actually.”
Xabi frowns.
“Can we fuck first? I promise I’ll buy you lunch later,” he says in an appeasing tone, oblivious to the looks they’re getting from the women in suits walking past them and out of the café.
“Back off, ladies,” Steven warns sternly, “I saw him first.”
He’s practically shoved into the nearest taxi.
The End
Chapter 8 ½ /8 ½
Rating: R
Summary: In which Xabi is an Arsenal fan.
Eight weeks later
London, England
The silvery digits are staring back at him defiantly from the center of the door. Never in the history of… anything has the number 22 looked so scornful. He rings the bell after a ridiculous amount of minutes wasted on standing in silence in front of a penthouse flat door.
It instantly seems like a shite decision.
“Hello… Is... uh…”
“Yes, he’s making dinner. Would you like to…”
“I can wait here, thanks. I’m…”
“I know.”
The man actually has the gall to offer Steven a kind smile before he calls out for Xabi.
These are the longest six and a half seconds of Steven’s life. He’s contemplating ripping off the light cast on his arm and beating himself senseless with it, an act of pythonesque penitence worthy of how utterly stupid he feels. Then Xabi shows up, all slacked and sweatered and bearded and beautiful. Not to mention dumfounded.
“Steven…” At first, Xabi doesn’t know what to do with his hands. He seems just as unsure about what to do with the two men standing on each side of him, so he twists the checkered kitchen towel around his fingers until his voice comes back from Awkwardland.
“Hi. Um. Come in… please.”
“Hey. I… can’t, I’m actually on my way to catch a flight,” Steven says and the lie is not just brazen but also ludicrous. The only place he’s going to is an empty apartment with mustard and beer in the fridge and a laptop with a work in progress resignation letter that’s been half-typed up for eleven days now. That’s every single day Steven has been out of the hospital and/or the rehabilitation center. “I just wanted… I came to say goodbye,” he adds, this time truthfully, because in the last half a minute of his life this has become his truth.
Xabi has not had as much practice with bullshitting for a living though so it takes him a bit longer to stop rambling.
“Oh. Well… I’m… This is… um. This is Agent Steven Gerrard. Steven, this is… Quique.”
“Nice to meet you, Enrique,” Steven grins and then looks at Xabi and Xabi looks at him and instantly knows he shouldn’t have.
It’s not that Quique says or does anything out of the ordinary when he catches The Look that passes him by like a bird in full flight. It’s just the way in which he says the right thing…
“I’ll be inside… Nice to meet you, Agent Gerrard.”
Steven nods dumbly and stares for a bit at his flannel-tinted departure.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come in at least for a coffee,” Xabi asks, breaking the spell.
“I can’t, as I was saying…”
“Right… Off on another boring, not at all exciting mission,” Xabi smiles halfheartedly. “I’d ask if you’re going somewhere far or… if you’re coming back soon, but you probably wouldn’t tell me anyway. I had to track down your Danish friend in a pub to find out you were still alive…” he swallows air, trying hard to keep the real words he wants to scream out trapped inside.
“If you can call a dungeon full of tattooed metalheads a pub…”
It’s weak, bordering on lame, and they both know it.
“I tried everything I could think of to find you, to… speak to you,” Xabi gestures with his free hand, “Not that I blame him…considering… but Commander Lampard was not very forthcoming with information. All he could give me was advice to stay out of his way until the operation was finished. I suppose I should be grateful he decided to not have me prosecuted for hijacking his helicopter.”
“Well, Fat Frank does like doing things by the book...”
“Maybe if you’d bullied him less at the Academy, he’d have nicer things to say about you. But at least Agger told me you were still alive, for the first couple of weeks I didn’t know…” Xabi’s voice trails off a bit and when he picks up, he sounds almost frustrated with himself. “I thought... I guess I was wrong.”
Steven looks down at his cast.
“I didn’t think you’d…” He gets stuck there, the knot in his throat a timely warning sign that’s not very helpful but at least saves him from further embarrassment. “Got your envelope,” he says instead and Xabi’s brow loosens involuntarily. “You’re lucky Powell didn’t arrest you on the spot for attempted bribery of an agent.”
“I explained to your M that it was an old debt. There’s not going to be a Nobel Prize check, it’s only fair. Nobody should have to pay that much for a cup of tea.”
The eight pounds hidden in the envelope that’s burning a hole in the inside pocket of Steven’s leather jacket feel heavy and cumbersome. Steven feels disembodied, like he’s watching a script that should have unfolded just. like. this… this is the part where he would have said A decent price for a couple of pints tho. You got a nice place round the corner, saw you there not really paying attention to the North London derby last fall. There’s hope for you yet… and then he’d do his Merseyside cult initiation bit on the way to the pub. That was Plan A. He hadn’t thought it through very thoroughly past this stage though and his improvised Plan B sucks.
“Does it still hurt?” Xabi wants to reach out and touch Steven’s elbow, but thinks better of it.
“Nah, just have to wait a few more days for the titanium screws to settle, I’ll be free soon.”
Fuck’s sakes, Gerrard…
For no particular reason, Xabi decides this is the perfect opportunity to stop avoiding eye contact and says point-blank:
“He doesn’t live here anymore, we’re just… we recently decided to try to make it work this time.”
“Good luck,” Steven gives him a thin-lipped smile and nods to add a drop of conviction to it. “I really should get going.”
Er… good to see you? Take care… mate? So fucking daft, the whole thing… He figures it doesn’t really matter if he’s any good at goodbyes or not (he really isn’t), this is the perfect time to just turn on his heels and go rubbish a letter.
He’s only five steps gone when Xabi’s voice rings in the hallway, clear like an epiphany.
“Steven, I… I don’t love him.”
“That’s too bad for him,” Steven sounds surprisingly honest, especially to himself.
“I’ll mail you some guaro,” he says, the corner of his mouth curling over the word the way his tongue can’t before he steps into the elevator.
Four months later
Cartagena, Colombia
Friday mornings are generally not Xabi’s favorite time to wake up at 7 am. In fact, he’d been quite stoic to resist the temptation of throwing his phone out the window and shoving his head back under the pillow. Going back to sleep is not that challenging when you live in a bungalow by the beach. He’s wide (if a little irritatingly) awake now as he steps through the debris covering every single inch of what could charitably be called his office. He pushes an impassive brick with the tip of his loafer and looks up at the shattered window, only half listening to the familiar violin-sharp voice echoing from the office next door.
“Oh well, we all feel much safer knowing the Foreign Office is here to write a report. I’m not sure why you need me to tell you that we do have enemies when it’s quite obvious that someone wants us out of their way. There’s at least five of the major oil investors we’ve made quite unhappy last week alone, do they not require you research your assignments?”
The woman walks out into Xabi’s office with a look of disdain thrown over her shoulder and he suddenly stands there, eyes wide, arms hanging limply by his body, not giving a damn about the devastation surrounding them.
“Xabs, good to see you’re in one piece at least,” her Scottish burr comes through stronger when she’s tired or furious, both of which Xabi’d witnessed rarely in their months of working together. “The UK embassy apparently thinks a bureaucratic shoulder to cry on all the way from Bogota is what we need at the moment…”
She stops to look behind her and back at Xabi and the coin clinks when it drops.
“Are you going to introduce me to Double Oh Sexy or what?”
He does, although Xabi’s not sure who this version of Steven in a suit is. Not that he’s complaining or anything. It’s a very nice suit, goes incredibly well with his eyes.
“So you’re a protector of London-based NGOs now?” Xabi asks once they’re left alone under some pretext or other.
They walk idly among morning rush office workers zipping along Cartagena’s business district boulevard. They make small talk about Xabi’s new life in Colombia as the resident expert of oil watchdogs who’d just been bitten hard this morning following the publication of their latest report about environmental fuckups off the coast. They both pretend that Steven doesn’t know his every move for the past four months in great detail already.
“I prefer to think of myself as a… cultural envoy of my nation,” Steven says wryly.
“So… of all the little countries in the world cursed with oil reserves and a weak institutional framework, Her Majesty sent you to mine?”
“She works in mysterious ways.”
Xabi chuckles deep in his throat, making absolutely no effort to look away from how tan and rested and… good Steven looks.
“None of this makes any sense, does it? I’d really like someone to explain to me how it’s possible to spend a week with a man who shot me, kidnapped me…” Steven braces himself with a ready line about the waterfall, but Xabi has no intention of ever complaining about that part again. “…more than half a year ago and not be able to stop thinking about him every single day?”
They stop in front of a café, the smells of fresh brews and sticky pastry drifting out onto the sidewalk.
“You’re probably still thinking with your dick.”
Judging by Xabi’s smile, the theory has merit.
“Well… are you?”
“Am I what?”
“Still trying to get into my pants?”
“Still playing hard to get?”
“Don’t know if I can afford it anymore with a lousy embassy job. The downgraded security clearance isn’t terribly sexy.”
“Do you come home safe every night?”
“Relatively safe. Most nights.”
“Do you sleep with your SIG under the pillow?”
“On the nightstand.”
Of course, Xabi thinks. All business, forget the Hollywood stuff.
“I can work with that. Plus, you’re still a Royal Marine, right? You probably got to keep the dress uniform when you retired.”
“Yep…” Steven nods, unable to play innocent about where this is going. Unwilling, if he’s perfectly honest.
“I can definitely work with that.” This was the part that used to confuse the hell out of Xabi in his bad hair university years, but that’s long past him now. “Would you like to have a drink with me?”
Steven wishes he could stop grinning, he really does. It’s just not that easy.
“Sure… I’ll have a drink with you. I could do with something to eat too, actually.”
Xabi frowns.
“Can we fuck first? I promise I’ll buy you lunch later,” he says in an appeasing tone, oblivious to the looks they’re getting from the women in suits walking past them and out of the café.
“Back off, ladies,” Steven warns sternly, “I saw him first.”
He’s practically shoved into the nearest taxi.
The End