On Fate, and Leopard Print Shoes - cesc/pique and xavi/villa gen/friendship fic
On Fate, and Leopard Print Shoes
~2,240
PG-13
Villa's injured, Cesc is adjusting, and Xavi overthinks everything. For eleret in the valentinesplay exchange.
Link to the original post
The first time Xavi visits David at the hospital, he doesn't acknowledge the situation. He's scared of it, and nervous of the hospital, and he hides behind everyone else who is there. They laugh and cheer and give David the cup and Xavi just puts a wall up in front of anything bad.
David texts him though, much later, or the next day maybe, Xavi can't remember. He remembers reading the text and then deleting it and then forgetting whether it had said anything important other than 'Can you come back tomorrow?'.
He replies briefly, yes, hoping he hasn't missed anything else. He's distracted, on edge, he doesn't like it when things don't go the way they should, and David picking up an injury on this scale is definitely not how Xavi saw the season going.
---
He's talking to Cesc about it the next morning, not about David, no one wants to talk about that, but about everything following a set path, fate or whatever you want to call it. It's a bit deep for training, but Cesc doesn't get bothered by things like this. He lives his life a little easier than that - a discussion about destiny is as light hearted to him as a conversation about David's shoes. Or, Xavi supposes, just as accurately, a discussion about David's shoes is as serious to him as a discussion about destiny.
It makes being around him so simple, so when Xavi starts to get worked up about the question of whether David had any control over this, whether David just has to accept that this was meant to happen, he finds himself gravitating towards Cesc.
"Do I think it exists?" Cesc asks, screwing up his face against the sun. "Yeah I guess in a way. Because I think I was always going to come home. So that was what was waiting for me."
"But like if you got injured," Xavi says. "Right now, if you got injured in the next game and you were out for a year, would you think that was waiting for you?"
Cesc looks thoughtful for a minute.
"No," he says, "Not exactly. But maybe it would mean something more in the bigger picture, you know."
Xavi nods, even though that's not what he wants to think at all, and then they're running again.
---
He asks David, and David makes a face. "Are you worrying about this?" he says. "You are, I can see you doing it right now."
"Of course I'm worrying about this," Xavi says. "David, it's a serious injury, of course-"
"No," David says, "You're worrying about whether this was going to happen or not, whether we can control what happens to us."
Xavi frowns, and David is smiling at him, fond and exasperated.
"Xavi," he says, "Stop. Worry about the practicalities of my recovery, don't turn this into a philosophical problem."
"I'm not," Xavi says, but he is.
"You are," David says, and Xavi figures that yeah, of course David knows what's going on.
---
The next time he visits, David looks exhausted.
"I'm not sleeping," he admits, "not until they knock me out, and even then I don't get any rest."
Xavi sits on the edge of the bed and puts a hand on David's cheek, and then his forehead. He brushes David's hair to one side. It's instinctive, and David leans into it, closes his eyes.
"Can I do anything?" Xavi asks, because it's the only thing he can think of to say that isn't an endearment. He rubs David's arm in sympathy and when he takes his hand David holds on tight.
"No," he says, and opens his eyes. "Just this, is nice."
"Tell me about the team," he says, "tell me what happened today."
"I'm sure you've heard it all," Xavi says, "from Leo or whoever."
"No," David says, "I like the way you tell it."
---
"You know Cesc," Xavi said once to Carles in the middle of a conversation about transfers or something. "You know Cesc: everything is easy to him."
Carles had looked sceptical, and Xavi had moved on.
He remembers the conversation months later when he sees Cesc looking tired in training. Not at the end, when they're all exhausted, but at the beginning. He arrives as usual with Gerard and when he gets out of the passenger side, Gerard comes round the car and closes Cesc's door behind him, puts an arm around his shoulders and leans in close. He looks up and catches Xavi watching, and Xavi nods, and looks away.
Xavi keeps watching Cesc in training but he is nothing out of the ordinary. He laughs and jokes and teases and clings as much as he does every day. He looks a hundred percent, but Xavi can't shake the memory of him that morning.
---
He asks David the next day. They're at David's house now that he is no longer hospital bound. He asks how David thinks Cesc is doing, and David laughs at him. Xavi thinks David didn't use to laugh at him as much as he does now, but it's nice.
"I see how it is," David says. "You've grown tired of worrying about me. You need a new project."
Xavi sighs.
"What," David says, laughing again now. "What, wasn't I a good patient? No don't give up on me, I want another chance. I'm jealous of Cesc now."
"I'm leaving," Xavi says, and David grabs his wrist.
"No," he says, "You can't leave.
"You're worried about Cesc?" He says, more serious now but still, Xavi knows, teasing a little.
Xavi shakes his head, inordinately cross. "Forget it," he says.
David adjusts his hold on Xavi, circles his fingers more loosely around his wrist. He rubs his thumb over the inside of Xavi's arm. "Come on," he says. "I'm just teasing."
Xavi shakes his head again. "Forget it," he repeats. "I was just - forget it."
---
Sometimes Cesc has bad days, Xavi decides, which he is aware is a really obvious insight to have about someone but is an insight nonetheless. On one of these bad days he takes Cesc out for lunch and actually gets him to leave the changing rooms before Gerard does. Cesc hovers in the doorway sort of fitfully for a long time while Xavi waits in the corridor, but Gerard must know what to say because in the end Cesc joins him, smiling and clapping Xavi's shoulder.
"Alright?" Xavi says, and, "Of course," Cesc replies.
Of course, Xavi thinks.
They eat in Xavi's favourite restaurant near the training ground. Xavi doesn't know many other places to eat in Barcelona if he's honest, and he thinks it would be inconvenient to make Cesc drive all the way out to Terrassa only for him to have to drive all the way back again.
Xavi talks about fate again, and it makes Cesc thoughtful again. Xavi doesn't know if that was a mistake; he meant to distract Cesc from whatever it was that made him look weary and cautious, not to magnify it.
But Cesc concentrates on what Xavi is saying, and maybe Xavi is getting it right after all.
"You know," Cesc says, "I think a lot of things are chance and then what you make of it."
"So David's injury," Xavi says, looking at Cesc over his water glass. "Is what he makes of it?"
"Sure," Cesc says, shrugging easily. "But what I mean is that it's not this thing that he was building to, y'know? It's not something that his career was leading up to, like this is the thing that will define him."
It's almost distracting, how intuitive Cesc can be. Xavi sort of wishes he had known Cesc better when he was younger, to see if he's always been like this.
Cesc finishes. "Like if he hadn't dedicated his life to football, he wouldn't have injured himself like this."
Xavi nods.
"And anyway," Cesc says, "It's not even that bad, the injury. He's going to be fine."
Right at the end of the meal Xavi manages to ask if Cesc is okay. Cesc nods, then says yes, which order betrays him, so Xavi just says okay.
Then he says, "You know you can talk to me. If you need to."
Cesc looks at him a while before he replies. Xavi feels like he is being studied. Cesc scrunches up his nose and laughs at him. "Yeah," he says. "Thanks. I know."
They finish up and say goodbye at their cars. Xavi draws it out, leaning against the bonnet as Cesc opens his door.
"Doing anything this afternoon?"
"I'll probably just have a nap," Cesc says, "See Geri later, probably."
He smiles at Xavi, and Xavi lets him go.
---
Cesc is right; David's injury isn't that bad. At least, it isn't career ending. At least, that's what they say. Xavi is having a competition with himself to see how many times he can qualify the statement, 'David's going to be fine', and he thinks he's winning.
He keeps thinking about it on the pitch. Not during the match, but as bookends to it. Distracting thoughts because David still isn't standing where Xavi wants him to stand and he isn't there to tuck a hand around the back of Xavi's neck after, and instead of briefly missing him Xavi ends up thinking about a world in which David stops playing at 30 and how horrifying that is.
It's throwing him off his concentration, and he feels too foolish to tell anyone, so he tells David.
David doesn't laugh at him this time. He does talk him through exactly what the doctors and physiotherapists said, and Xavi feels like laughing at the reversal of roles.
"What," David says, "You think this is funny? This is serious stuff."
But he's smiling, teasing, and he curls a hand around the back of Xavi's neck.
---
Xavi doesn't know why this is all such a big deal to him all of a sudden. He's had teammates get seriously injured before and he's had serious injuries himself, but he's never found himself in such a funk.
He is sitting on his own in the changing rooms before anyone else is there, when Cesc comes in. Xavi looks askance at him and Cesc nods behind him. "He's on the phone," he says.
"How are you?" He drops his bag in his locker and opens the zip. Xavi watches him.
"Fine," he says, distractedly.
Cesc gives him a small grin. "Is that why you're sitting here on your own?"
Xavi frowns at him. "Well how are you," he says, rhetorically.
Cesc grins a little wider. "I'm good," he says. "I'm feeling good."
"I was up far too late last night though," he continues. "Thinking about all this fate crap you keep going on about."
He shakes his head.
"It's really bugging me, you know, it wasn't at first, but it is now. It's really winding me up."
"What?" Xavi says, and then, although he thinks maybe he should be apologising or telling Cesc not to think about it, "Why?"
Cesc stares into his locker and looks thoughtful.
"I thought I had a drink in here," he says.
Then, "Because I thought that when I came here it would be the final change in my life, like I had done all these other things and then finally just-"
He falters a little and frowns like he's reassessing his words.
"You know," he says. "With Geri here and,"
"I know," Xavi says. Cesc smiles at him. "Yeah," he says, for no reason.
"If you think about it too much," Cesc says, getting animated, "You start to think - was I supposed to do this? Maybe this wasn't what I was meant to do. Then what am I meant to do?
"And it drives you crazy you know?"
And then he looks at Xavi and Xavi just starts laughing. He's laughing because Cesc is so earnest and yet can tell exactly how stupid the whole thing is, and Xavi couldn't see that. Suddenly he gets perspective, and it all becomes ridiculously funny to him.
Cesc laughs too, and when Gerard comes in he starts smiling at the both of them. He hooks an arm around Cesc's neck and draws him in, looking at Xavi over the top of his head.
"What's so funny?" He says, but Xavi shakes his head, catches Cesc's eye, and keeps laughing.
---
He apologises to David, for not being the person who believed he would be okay.
David shakes his head. "It's okay," he says. "But I do need you to be that person."
Xavi looks at him, serious. "I do," he says. "David, of course you're coming back."
"I know," David says, starting to smile. "You're a bit late for that."
Xavi takes it, and doesn't rise, and David laughs at him.
"You never used to laugh at me so much," Xavi says, and David looks fond.
"You never used to be as funny to me," he retorts, and reaches across to pull Xavi in when he tries to leave.
"I don't like you," Xavi says, and David laughs again. "Sure, sure," he says.
"So it's a good thing you're going to be okay," Xavi says, believing himself almost ninety percent. "Because I'm not going to be around to keep you company anymore."
David hugs Xavi to him and Xavi gives up.
---
~2,240
PG-13
Villa's injured, Cesc is adjusting, and Xavi overthinks everything. For eleret in the valentinesplay exchange.
Link to the original post
The first time Xavi visits David at the hospital, he doesn't acknowledge the situation. He's scared of it, and nervous of the hospital, and he hides behind everyone else who is there. They laugh and cheer and give David the cup and Xavi just puts a wall up in front of anything bad.
David texts him though, much later, or the next day maybe, Xavi can't remember. He remembers reading the text and then deleting it and then forgetting whether it had said anything important other than 'Can you come back tomorrow?'.
He replies briefly, yes, hoping he hasn't missed anything else. He's distracted, on edge, he doesn't like it when things don't go the way they should, and David picking up an injury on this scale is definitely not how Xavi saw the season going.
---
He's talking to Cesc about it the next morning, not about David, no one wants to talk about that, but about everything following a set path, fate or whatever you want to call it. It's a bit deep for training, but Cesc doesn't get bothered by things like this. He lives his life a little easier than that - a discussion about destiny is as light hearted to him as a conversation about David's shoes. Or, Xavi supposes, just as accurately, a discussion about David's shoes is as serious to him as a discussion about destiny.
It makes being around him so simple, so when Xavi starts to get worked up about the question of whether David had any control over this, whether David just has to accept that this was meant to happen, he finds himself gravitating towards Cesc.
"Do I think it exists?" Cesc asks, screwing up his face against the sun. "Yeah I guess in a way. Because I think I was always going to come home. So that was what was waiting for me."
"But like if you got injured," Xavi says. "Right now, if you got injured in the next game and you were out for a year, would you think that was waiting for you?"
Cesc looks thoughtful for a minute.
"No," he says, "Not exactly. But maybe it would mean something more in the bigger picture, you know."
Xavi nods, even though that's not what he wants to think at all, and then they're running again.
---
He asks David, and David makes a face. "Are you worrying about this?" he says. "You are, I can see you doing it right now."
"Of course I'm worrying about this," Xavi says. "David, it's a serious injury, of course-"
"No," David says, "You're worrying about whether this was going to happen or not, whether we can control what happens to us."
Xavi frowns, and David is smiling at him, fond and exasperated.
"Xavi," he says, "Stop. Worry about the practicalities of my recovery, don't turn this into a philosophical problem."
"I'm not," Xavi says, but he is.
"You are," David says, and Xavi figures that yeah, of course David knows what's going on.
---
The next time he visits, David looks exhausted.
"I'm not sleeping," he admits, "not until they knock me out, and even then I don't get any rest."
Xavi sits on the edge of the bed and puts a hand on David's cheek, and then his forehead. He brushes David's hair to one side. It's instinctive, and David leans into it, closes his eyes.
"Can I do anything?" Xavi asks, because it's the only thing he can think of to say that isn't an endearment. He rubs David's arm in sympathy and when he takes his hand David holds on tight.
"No," he says, and opens his eyes. "Just this, is nice."
"Tell me about the team," he says, "tell me what happened today."
"I'm sure you've heard it all," Xavi says, "from Leo or whoever."
"No," David says, "I like the way you tell it."
---
"You know Cesc," Xavi said once to Carles in the middle of a conversation about transfers or something. "You know Cesc: everything is easy to him."
Carles had looked sceptical, and Xavi had moved on.
He remembers the conversation months later when he sees Cesc looking tired in training. Not at the end, when they're all exhausted, but at the beginning. He arrives as usual with Gerard and when he gets out of the passenger side, Gerard comes round the car and closes Cesc's door behind him, puts an arm around his shoulders and leans in close. He looks up and catches Xavi watching, and Xavi nods, and looks away.
Xavi keeps watching Cesc in training but he is nothing out of the ordinary. He laughs and jokes and teases and clings as much as he does every day. He looks a hundred percent, but Xavi can't shake the memory of him that morning.
---
He asks David the next day. They're at David's house now that he is no longer hospital bound. He asks how David thinks Cesc is doing, and David laughs at him. Xavi thinks David didn't use to laugh at him as much as he does now, but it's nice.
"I see how it is," David says. "You've grown tired of worrying about me. You need a new project."
Xavi sighs.
"What," David says, laughing again now. "What, wasn't I a good patient? No don't give up on me, I want another chance. I'm jealous of Cesc now."
"I'm leaving," Xavi says, and David grabs his wrist.
"No," he says, "You can't leave.
"You're worried about Cesc?" He says, more serious now but still, Xavi knows, teasing a little.
Xavi shakes his head, inordinately cross. "Forget it," he says.
David adjusts his hold on Xavi, circles his fingers more loosely around his wrist. He rubs his thumb over the inside of Xavi's arm. "Come on," he says. "I'm just teasing."
Xavi shakes his head again. "Forget it," he repeats. "I was just - forget it."
---
Sometimes Cesc has bad days, Xavi decides, which he is aware is a really obvious insight to have about someone but is an insight nonetheless. On one of these bad days he takes Cesc out for lunch and actually gets him to leave the changing rooms before Gerard does. Cesc hovers in the doorway sort of fitfully for a long time while Xavi waits in the corridor, but Gerard must know what to say because in the end Cesc joins him, smiling and clapping Xavi's shoulder.
"Alright?" Xavi says, and, "Of course," Cesc replies.
Of course, Xavi thinks.
They eat in Xavi's favourite restaurant near the training ground. Xavi doesn't know many other places to eat in Barcelona if he's honest, and he thinks it would be inconvenient to make Cesc drive all the way out to Terrassa only for him to have to drive all the way back again.
Xavi talks about fate again, and it makes Cesc thoughtful again. Xavi doesn't know if that was a mistake; he meant to distract Cesc from whatever it was that made him look weary and cautious, not to magnify it.
But Cesc concentrates on what Xavi is saying, and maybe Xavi is getting it right after all.
"You know," Cesc says, "I think a lot of things are chance and then what you make of it."
"So David's injury," Xavi says, looking at Cesc over his water glass. "Is what he makes of it?"
"Sure," Cesc says, shrugging easily. "But what I mean is that it's not this thing that he was building to, y'know? It's not something that his career was leading up to, like this is the thing that will define him."
It's almost distracting, how intuitive Cesc can be. Xavi sort of wishes he had known Cesc better when he was younger, to see if he's always been like this.
Cesc finishes. "Like if he hadn't dedicated his life to football, he wouldn't have injured himself like this."
Xavi nods.
"And anyway," Cesc says, "It's not even that bad, the injury. He's going to be fine."
Right at the end of the meal Xavi manages to ask if Cesc is okay. Cesc nods, then says yes, which order betrays him, so Xavi just says okay.
Then he says, "You know you can talk to me. If you need to."
Cesc looks at him a while before he replies. Xavi feels like he is being studied. Cesc scrunches up his nose and laughs at him. "Yeah," he says. "Thanks. I know."
They finish up and say goodbye at their cars. Xavi draws it out, leaning against the bonnet as Cesc opens his door.
"Doing anything this afternoon?"
"I'll probably just have a nap," Cesc says, "See Geri later, probably."
He smiles at Xavi, and Xavi lets him go.
---
Cesc is right; David's injury isn't that bad. At least, it isn't career ending. At least, that's what they say. Xavi is having a competition with himself to see how many times he can qualify the statement, 'David's going to be fine', and he thinks he's winning.
He keeps thinking about it on the pitch. Not during the match, but as bookends to it. Distracting thoughts because David still isn't standing where Xavi wants him to stand and he isn't there to tuck a hand around the back of Xavi's neck after, and instead of briefly missing him Xavi ends up thinking about a world in which David stops playing at 30 and how horrifying that is.
It's throwing him off his concentration, and he feels too foolish to tell anyone, so he tells David.
David doesn't laugh at him this time. He does talk him through exactly what the doctors and physiotherapists said, and Xavi feels like laughing at the reversal of roles.
"What," David says, "You think this is funny? This is serious stuff."
But he's smiling, teasing, and he curls a hand around the back of Xavi's neck.
---
Xavi doesn't know why this is all such a big deal to him all of a sudden. He's had teammates get seriously injured before and he's had serious injuries himself, but he's never found himself in such a funk.
He is sitting on his own in the changing rooms before anyone else is there, when Cesc comes in. Xavi looks askance at him and Cesc nods behind him. "He's on the phone," he says.
"How are you?" He drops his bag in his locker and opens the zip. Xavi watches him.
"Fine," he says, distractedly.
Cesc gives him a small grin. "Is that why you're sitting here on your own?"
Xavi frowns at him. "Well how are you," he says, rhetorically.
Cesc grins a little wider. "I'm good," he says. "I'm feeling good."
"I was up far too late last night though," he continues. "Thinking about all this fate crap you keep going on about."
He shakes his head.
"It's really bugging me, you know, it wasn't at first, but it is now. It's really winding me up."
"What?" Xavi says, and then, although he thinks maybe he should be apologising or telling Cesc not to think about it, "Why?"
Cesc stares into his locker and looks thoughtful.
"I thought I had a drink in here," he says.
Then, "Because I thought that when I came here it would be the final change in my life, like I had done all these other things and then finally just-"
He falters a little and frowns like he's reassessing his words.
"You know," he says. "With Geri here and,"
"I know," Xavi says. Cesc smiles at him. "Yeah," he says, for no reason.
"If you think about it too much," Cesc says, getting animated, "You start to think - was I supposed to do this? Maybe this wasn't what I was meant to do. Then what am I meant to do?
"And it drives you crazy you know?"
And then he looks at Xavi and Xavi just starts laughing. He's laughing because Cesc is so earnest and yet can tell exactly how stupid the whole thing is, and Xavi couldn't see that. Suddenly he gets perspective, and it all becomes ridiculously funny to him.
Cesc laughs too, and when Gerard comes in he starts smiling at the both of them. He hooks an arm around Cesc's neck and draws him in, looking at Xavi over the top of his head.
"What's so funny?" He says, but Xavi shakes his head, catches Cesc's eye, and keeps laughing.
---
He apologises to David, for not being the person who believed he would be okay.
David shakes his head. "It's okay," he says. "But I do need you to be that person."
Xavi looks at him, serious. "I do," he says. "David, of course you're coming back."
"I know," David says, starting to smile. "You're a bit late for that."
Xavi takes it, and doesn't rise, and David laughs at him.
"You never used to laugh at me so much," Xavi says, and David looks fond.
"You never used to be as funny to me," he retorts, and reaches across to pull Xavi in when he tries to leave.
"I don't like you," Xavi says, and David laughs again. "Sure, sure," he says.
"So it's a good thing you're going to be okay," Xavi says, believing himself almost ninety percent. "Because I'm not going to be around to keep you company anymore."
David hugs Xavi to him and Xavi gives up.
---