13 (a)
Title: You Stop I Start(1/2)
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Cesc Fàbregas/Robin van Persie
Disclaimer: Complete fiction
A/N: AU fic. Cesc and Robin meet when they're kids. This took ages, and all I know is that it's finally done. I am part proud of it (I actually wrote OTP fic!), and part What-did-I-just-write? But okay, w/e, here it is. DONE.
When Cesc is five, his best friend is a kid named Sergio. They do everything together, from monopolizing the sandbox to build “empires” in which they both co-ruled as kings with equal power, to stealing Iker’s juiceboxes, to playing football, to driving David Silva mad whenever he agreed to play Hide and Seek with them, and then actually having to hide when David Villa inevitably went after them for making his best friend cry.
This is how they meet:
Sergio gets gum stuck in his hair (to this day, he still won’t tell Cesc how, so the latter assumes it had happened from Sergio’s own stupidity) and Cesc stumbles upon him crying behind a bush, his left hand covered in gum and a tangled mess of his own hair.
Cesc takes a minute to assess the situation. “Wait here,” he says. Ten minutes later, he returns with scissors and his own bottle of water. While Sergio attempts to wash the sticky mess from his hand, Cesc cuts his hair. (They still fight about this. Sergio blames him for the worst cut he had ever had to endure, and Cesc tells him he had been stupid on two levels. 1) For somehow getting gum stuck in his hair, and 2) for letting a five-year old― “Whom you did not know,” Cesc stresses, pointedly― near him with scissors.)
They’re safety scissors, so it takes awhile. Sergio looks ridiculous because the gum had only gotten stuck on one side, and Cesc had only cut around it. Even though Cesc thinks Sergio reminds him a little of the dog his grandparents have, he tucks Sergio’s hair behind his ear and announces, “You look like a prince.” Which isn’t a lie, really, because his grandparents had named their dog Prince Louis. (Sergio is outraged when Cesc comes clean about this years later.)
Cesc gets in trouble when the teachers see what he has done, and when Cesc obstinately tells them that they shouldn’t make scissors so easy to walk out with, they talk to his mother about his attitude problem and he gets in even more trouble at home.
Sergio shows up the next day with a proper haircut, shorter than it has ever been and will ever be. Fernando pipes up that he likes it and asks Sergio if he wants to go play with his Legos, and Cesc crossly sulks in a corner, watching it all unfold. He thinks about shoving Fernando away, but he was already in enough trouble.
Sergio though makes a face at Fernando, and ignoring him completely (a fact that he denies whenever Fernando brings it up) goes over to Cesc. “My mama says these are for you,” he says, holding out a bag of cookies to him.
Cesc gapes at him. “Wasn’t she mad?”
Sergio shakes his head. “She said you meant well, and she seemed to find it funny.” He nudges Cesc slightly and sits beside him. “I helped her bake them.”
The rest is history.
When they are seven, Sergio finds an old video camera and spends the entire summer following Cesc and Carlota around, filming them.
He films them dancing the Macarena and falls over laughing, scaring Carlota a bit as she hurries away. “You are so awkward,” he giggles, crawling over to where Cesc is sitting on the floor.
“You better not show that to anyone,” Cesc warns. “Ever.”
“When you become famous, I’m going to sell it,” Sergio says, gleefully. “I’ll be rich.”
Cesc shakes his head. “Always riding on my coattails.” He’s not actually sure what that means, but he’s heard his parents use it and he hopes he’s using it correctly; he figures Sergio won’t know either way.
“Why work hard when I can just sponge off the rich?”
“Yeah, you should marry a princess and be a kept man.”
“Then I’ll really look like a prince,” Sergio says, pointedly.
Cesc laughs and punches him in the arm.
They have their first big fight when they’re eight:
Cesc’s parents tell him they’re moving to London, and he feels like Sergio doesn’t get upset enough. “So you’re not going to miss me?” he demands, after waiting for a reaction from Sergio for five minutes.
“No,” Sergio answers, haughtily. “I have Fernando. So go to stupid London, I don’t care.” He stomps off to where Fernando is building something with his ever-present Legos.
When he sees Sergio share his cookies with Fernando during recess, Cesc goes to sit alone by the sandbox, his lower lip quivering.
Xabi comes over to sit beside him. “Why are you fighting with Sergio?” he asks.
“I’m moving to London,” Cesc says, quietly.
“Oh.” Xabi blinks. “We’ll miss you.”
Cesc promptly bursts into tears and flings his arms around Xabi’s neck. “Sergio won’t,” he sobs, “he’s already replaced me.”
Xabi awkwardly pats him on the back and sighs.
They still aren’t talking on Cesc’s last day, so Cesc goes over to Fernando to pick a fight, only Fernando is staring at him with wide eyes and a chocolate smear on his face, and Cesc can’t think of anything else to say except, “You should notice when he changes his hair, he likes that.”
Fernando solemnly nods. “Okay.”
Iker huffs behind them. “You and Sergio are so stubborn. And stupid.” He scowls when Fernando and Cesc gasp at the S word. “Oh, grow up.”
Cesc finds Sergio behind the same bush where they had first met. He sits besides him without saying a word, and after awhile, Sergio sighs.
“I only said those things because I don’t know what I’m going to do when you go to fancy London and I'm left here.”
“You have Fernando.”
“I guess. He’s not as much fun. He refuses to steal Iker’s juiceboxes.”
“That wuss.”
“I know. And he likes the raisins in my mama’s oatmeal and raisin cookies.”
“He doesn’t pick them out?”
“No!”
“He’s so weird. I think it’s all those freckles. No one should have so many freckles.”
“Yeah.”
Cesc sighs. “I don’t want to fight anymore.”
“Me either.”
So they steal Iker’s juiceboxes one last time.
The only thing that stops Cesc from throwing a tantrum is that he’s eight, like his father had pointed out so many times, he couldn’t just throw a fit. Plus Carlota was being chipper and she was the baby, he couldn’t out-brood his little sister.
He doesn’t reciprocate when his mother tries to hug him goodbye and Carlota kicks him in the shin for this, so he’s already in a bad mood when a voice says, “You can’t sit there” as he puts his bag down at an empty desk.
He looks up at a boy who is smiling at him, apologetically. “That’s Ashley’s seat,” he explains. “He’s really…umm, particular.” He points to the desk on his other side, and picks up the book that was on it. “This one’s free. Sorry, I was looking for my pencil case and I was emptying out my backpack.”
Cesc gives him a suspicious look, but he moves to the other desk.
A few minutes later, the aforementioned Ashley arrives and sits down at his desk. “I had the worst weekend ever,” he says to no one in particular. “I wanted this special edition car and my dad said it was too expensive. Too expensive, can you believe it? I know he has the money.”
Cesc doesn’t realize he’s sneering until Ashley turns to him and glares. “What are you looking at?” he demands, and then turns away without an answer.
The boy who had warned him grins. “Yeah, he’s a bit―”
“Crazy?”
The boy ponders this. “Not very nice all the time,” he says finally.
Or at all, Cesc thinks. Ashley spends the rest of the morning whining about how the sun streaming in through the window was blinding him and how he had sensitive eyes, interrupting the teacher with a lot of sentences that started with, "But my father says―", and making fun of a blond kid because he didn’t speak English too well. Cesc is glad the boy beside him had warned him because he's sure if Ashley spoke directly to him again, he would be sent home with a note.
When they had arrived in London, Cesc's parents had taken them around the city so they could familiarize themselves with it. When they were at a restaurant, he hears a couple fighting and the woman had finally stormed off after calling the man a twat. Cesc hadn’t been sure what it meant, but he decided he liked it. He also knew enough about it to know that he shouldn’t use it around his parents.
But this Ashley person, he decides, is definitely a twat. Whatever it meant, he's sure it's applicable to Ashley.
When Ashley leaves in the middle of the year for some pretentious-sounding private school (“Probably a school full of twats like himself,” Cesc says and Andrei, the blond boy that Ashley had bullied, giggles appreciatively. Cesc knows what it means by then, but he’s not sure Andrei does), Cesc isn’t sorry and smugly dumps his books on the desk that should have been his from the start.
Cesc has an awful first day.
First, there's Ashley Cole. Cesc had liked everyone at his old school, or in the very least, he never wished bodily harm on any of them or wanted to smack any of them in the face with the backside of his hand (he eventually learns that it's called a bitchslap, and thinks it’s appropriate that he felt Ashley deserved one). But this Ashley Cole kid― Cesc can feel it coming. They were going to have problems.
Second, almost all of the teachers pronounce his name wrong; they all seem to think his name is Francis, and one of them had even said Francesca and then looked up in confusion. That’s when Cesc learns that Ashley’s laugh is more irritating than his voice.
During English, when the teacher asks him to read a passage out loud, he gets all flustered for some reason, and he stumbles over all his words. He struggles through five sentences before the teacher puts him out of his misery and asks Ashley to continue. Ashley, already the bane of Cesc's existence, continues in the most pompous tone Cesc has ever heard.
He has never hated anyone more in his entire life.
This is how he and Robin become friends:
Cesc learns that the Boy Who Saves Him From the Wrath of Ashley is called Robin, and he’s nice. Too nice to be friends with Cesc, because while he finds the niceness endearing for now, he’s sure it will eventually get on his nerves.
During recess though, Cesc is just pulling his sandwich out when Ashley walks up to him, sneering. “If it isn’t the illiterate imbecile from sunny Spain.” Before Cesc can figure out whether he wants to answer that with a retort or with his fists, Ashley is on the ground, his hands over his face, hollering in pain.
Cesc is staring at him in confusion, when he notices Robin standing beside him, cradling his right hand and wincing.
“What did you do that for?” Cesc demands.
Robin blinks at him. “You’re not illiterate,” he finally says.
Cesc gives him a strange look. “Well, no, I’m not, but…I don’t need you to defend me.”
“I wasn’t really― it’s just…he was being a…” Robin gestures to Ashley, who, for some reason, is rolling around on the ground, moaning in pain.
Cesc smirks. “Twat?” he offers.
Robin’s face breaks out into the sunniest smile Cesc has ever seen. “Yeah.”
Mr. Rice appears and frowns. “Oh, Robin, again?”
Cesc looks at Robin. Again? he mouths, and Robin shrugs in reply, but he’s smirking a little bit.
Mr. Rice casts Robin a look of disapproval as helps Ashley to his feet. “Come on now, Ashley, your legs are fine, you don’t need to lean so much of your weight on me. He hit you in the face, not the legs. Mr. van Persie, I’m sure you know where the principal’s office is.”
Robin sighs and turns to leave, when Cesc grabs his arm. “You’re not a nice boy at all,” he says in awe.
Robin bristles slightly at that. “I’m nice to people who deserve it.”
“What did he mean when he said ‘again’?”
“Oh, that.” Robin waves his hand, dismissively, but he looks a bit smug too. “You know that scar Ashley has near his hairline?”
Cesc snorts, because he doesn’t; he doesn’t spend a lot of time looking at Ashley’s face and he can’t imagine why Robin would think he would.
“I tripped him. He was following Andrei around and mocking his accent, and I just wanted him to stop.”
Cesc beams. “Playground vigilante.”
Robin laughs. “I guess. Listen, I’ll talk to you later, I should go to Principal Wenger and explain myself.”
“Do you want me to come and tell him what happened.”
“Nah, he’s not too bad, I’ll be okay.”
It’s hard not to be friends with someone after they’ve hit someone who has insulted you. So that was that.
Cesc spends his first few weeks there talking about his old schoolmates, especially Sergio.
“I had a best friend in Holland,” Robin says.
Cesc blinks at him. “You’re from Holland?”
“Uh-huh.”
Cesc mulls this over. “I’ve never had a Hollandish friend before.”
“Hollandish?” Robin asks, looking perplexed.
“Isn’t that what people from Holland are called?” Cesc perks up. “Wait. It’s Hollandaise, right? I’ve heard that before.”
The corners of Robin’s lips quirk up slightly. “That's a kind of sauce.”
“Oh.”
“Dutch, that’s what we’re called.”
“Cool. I’ve never had a Dutch friend before then.”
Robin grins. “Here I am.”
“Have you ever had a Spanish friend?”
“No.”
“Okay, cool. You have me now.”
Since he’s met Sergio, Cesc has always celebrated his birthday twice: once with his family and all his friends, and then one more time with just Sergio. Sergio’s mother would always make him an enormous birthday cookie in lieu of a cake, and the two of them would spend the good part of the day eating most of the cookie, and then Cesc would bring home whatever is left for Carlota.
In the days leading up to his ninth birthday, Cesc becomes sulky and snappish, until Robin finally gets annoyed and demands to know what’s wrong. So Cesc tells him, and Robin looks uncomfortable.
“I can’t bake,” he says.
“Did I ask you to?” Cesc snaps.
Robin drags his feet in the sand to slow his swing down. “You don’t have to be so stroppy,” he says huffily, and then jumps off from the swing leaving Cesc by himself.
This is how Cesc spends his ninth birthday:
It falls on a Saturday and Cesc declines his parents’ offer to have a party and says he’d rather just have a family dinner. He has friends and he knows he’d have fun, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that Sergio wouldn’t be there and Cesc misses him.
Sergio calls to wish him, and when Cesc tells him that he’s not having a party, he is appalled. “You have to have a birthday party. You’re nine.”
Cesc scowls. “What’s so special about nine?”
“That’s almost ten.”
“I’m too old for a birthday party,” Cesc mumbles.
“Don’t be one of those people,” Sergio says.
“What people?”
“You know, those sad, depressed people who act like every birthday is a death sentence. You’re nine, you’re too young to be so jaded.”
“Jaded?”
“It means ‘worn out’ or ‘weary’.” Sergio sounds smug.
“I know what it means. How do you know?” Cesc demands. It’s mean, he knows, he’s indirectly calling Sergio stupid, but the latter either doesn’t notice or he’s choosing to ignore it.
“Xabi gave everyone a Word of the Day mini-calendar as a party favor on his birthday.”
“That sounds awful,” Cesc says, but he’s also a little jealous. It sounds like exactly the kind of thing Xabi would do, and even though he’s sure he probably would have thrown it in his closet and not used it, Cesc still wants one. He misses Spain, and Sergio, and Xabi and the Davids and Iker. He supposes he even misses Fernando a little.
He’s not in a better mood after he talks to Sergio, and he spends the rest of the day playing Candyland with Carlota, who tries vainly to bring him out of his bad mood.
Robin comes over an hour before dinner. He hadn’t spoken to Cesc after their stupid fight over the birthday cookie, and Cesc had been upset when he hadn’t called to wish him either, so he’s surprised to see him. Even if there seems to be flour in his hair and chocolate stains on his shirt and―
Cesc peers at him. “What is that on your cheek?”
Robin swipes at his face and examines his hand. “Batter.”
“Batter?”
“Yeah, sorry I look like this; I wanted to bring this over while it was still your birthday. It took longer than I thought. This is my fourth one. I owe my mother a lot of eggs.” Robin shakes his head, then smiles at him, brightly. “Here.” He thrusts out a cardboard box. “Happy birthday!”
Cesc gives him a strange look but he opens the box and he blinks when he sees what’s inside. He looks at Robin. “I thought you said you didn’t bake.”
Robin rubs the back of his head, looking sheepish. “I don’t. Like I said, this is my fourth try. I mixed up the sugar and salt measurements in the first one, and I burned the other two. I know it doesn’t look good. I did the icing too, but I probably should have let my mother help with that.”
Cesc isn’t sure what to say. “No, it’s a…boy cake. It’s perfect. Thanks.”
They bring the cake into the kitchen, where Cesc’s mother helps them cut it. Cesc knows something is wrong as soon as he takes his first bite. It tastes really weird and although it looks like a chocolate cake, he isn’t sure what flavour it’s supposed to be. His parents look confused as they swallow their first bites and Cesc reminds himself to tell his sister how great she is when she gives Robin a dazzling smile and takes another bite.
Robin knows something is wrong though and when he takes a bite, Cesc watches his face fall. “It’s awful,” he says, in a small voice.
“It’s okay, honey,” Robin’s mother says, patting him on the back. “This was your first try.”
“You should have tasted the first dish I made,” Cesc’s mother puts in. “It was terrible, but I got better as I made it more often.” She gives Robin an encouraging smile. “It’s the thought that counts, and this was very thoughtful, Robin.”
“I’m sorry,” Robin says, and Cesc just wants the sad tone in his voice to go away. “This was a stupid idea.” He reaches for Cesc’s plate, but Cesc quickly forks the rest of it in his mouth.
“I like it,” he insists. “And Carlota does too, see?” He points to where she is almost halfway done.
This seems to make Robin more upset. “Just throw it out,” he says, quietly. “I’m sorry. You were really sad about the birthday cookies, and I was going to try making those but I didn’t want you to think I was trying to replace Sergio so―” He stops abruptly, and hanging his head, he turns to his mother. “Can we go home now?”
Robin’s mother gives them an apologetic smile. “Sure, honey, let’s go.”
Cesc puts his plate down and follows them out. “Wait.”
Robin’s mother leaves them alone and waits for Robin in their car.
Cesc isn’t sure what to do. Robin is just standing there, refusing to look at him. So finally Cesc just puts his arms around Robin. He’s never hugged anyone outside his family, not even Sergio, but it doesn’t feel awkward like he thought it would.
“I’m sorry,” Robin whispers.
“If you apologize one more time I’m going punch you in the stomach,” Cesc says.
Robin lets out a small laugh. “You hit like a girl.”
Cesc lets go. “You have obviously never seen how Carlota gets when I try to hide her toys. She gave me a black eye once.”
Robin smiles. “Serves you right.”
Cesc grins and thanks him one more time. When he goes back inside, his father asks him what he want to do with the cake. Cesc thinks about how upset Robin had looked and how he never wants to hear Robin sound that way again.
“I’m going to eat it,” he says. And he does.
On Monday, Cesc brings Robin a slice of cake from the one his mother had made for him. Robin thanks him, and he looks surprised when Cesc brings out a slice of cake from the one he had made.
“What?” Cesc asks, taking a bite.
Robin smiles and then he shakes his head. “Nothing.
Part 2
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Cesc Fàbregas/Robin van Persie
Disclaimer: Complete fiction
A/N: AU fic. Cesc and Robin meet when they're kids. This took ages, and all I know is that it's finally done. I am part proud of it (I actually wrote OTP fic!), and part What-did-I-just-write? But okay, w/e, here it is. DONE.
When Cesc is five, his best friend is a kid named Sergio. They do everything together, from monopolizing the sandbox to build “empires” in which they both co-ruled as kings with equal power, to stealing Iker’s juiceboxes, to playing football, to driving David Silva mad whenever he agreed to play Hide and Seek with them, and then actually having to hide when David Villa inevitably went after them for making his best friend cry.
This is how they meet:
Sergio gets gum stuck in his hair (to this day, he still won’t tell Cesc how, so the latter assumes it had happened from Sergio’s own stupidity) and Cesc stumbles upon him crying behind a bush, his left hand covered in gum and a tangled mess of his own hair.
Cesc takes a minute to assess the situation. “Wait here,” he says. Ten minutes later, he returns with scissors and his own bottle of water. While Sergio attempts to wash the sticky mess from his hand, Cesc cuts his hair. (They still fight about this. Sergio blames him for the worst cut he had ever had to endure, and Cesc tells him he had been stupid on two levels. 1) For somehow getting gum stuck in his hair, and 2) for letting a five-year old― “Whom you did not know,” Cesc stresses, pointedly― near him with scissors.)
They’re safety scissors, so it takes awhile. Sergio looks ridiculous because the gum had only gotten stuck on one side, and Cesc had only cut around it. Even though Cesc thinks Sergio reminds him a little of the dog his grandparents have, he tucks Sergio’s hair behind his ear and announces, “You look like a prince.” Which isn’t a lie, really, because his grandparents had named their dog Prince Louis. (Sergio is outraged when Cesc comes clean about this years later.)
Cesc gets in trouble when the teachers see what he has done, and when Cesc obstinately tells them that they shouldn’t make scissors so easy to walk out with, they talk to his mother about his attitude problem and he gets in even more trouble at home.
Sergio shows up the next day with a proper haircut, shorter than it has ever been and will ever be. Fernando pipes up that he likes it and asks Sergio if he wants to go play with his Legos, and Cesc crossly sulks in a corner, watching it all unfold. He thinks about shoving Fernando away, but he was already in enough trouble.
Sergio though makes a face at Fernando, and ignoring him completely (a fact that he denies whenever Fernando brings it up) goes over to Cesc. “My mama says these are for you,” he says, holding out a bag of cookies to him.
Cesc gapes at him. “Wasn’t she mad?”
Sergio shakes his head. “She said you meant well, and she seemed to find it funny.” He nudges Cesc slightly and sits beside him. “I helped her bake them.”
The rest is history.
When they are seven, Sergio finds an old video camera and spends the entire summer following Cesc and Carlota around, filming them.
He films them dancing the Macarena and falls over laughing, scaring Carlota a bit as she hurries away. “You are so awkward,” he giggles, crawling over to where Cesc is sitting on the floor.
“You better not show that to anyone,” Cesc warns. “Ever.”
“When you become famous, I’m going to sell it,” Sergio says, gleefully. “I’ll be rich.”
Cesc shakes his head. “Always riding on my coattails.” He’s not actually sure what that means, but he’s heard his parents use it and he hopes he’s using it correctly; he figures Sergio won’t know either way.
“Why work hard when I can just sponge off the rich?”
“Yeah, you should marry a princess and be a kept man.”
“Then I’ll really look like a prince,” Sergio says, pointedly.
Cesc laughs and punches him in the arm.
They have their first big fight when they’re eight:
Cesc’s parents tell him they’re moving to London, and he feels like Sergio doesn’t get upset enough. “So you’re not going to miss me?” he demands, after waiting for a reaction from Sergio for five minutes.
“No,” Sergio answers, haughtily. “I have Fernando. So go to stupid London, I don’t care.” He stomps off to where Fernando is building something with his ever-present Legos.
When he sees Sergio share his cookies with Fernando during recess, Cesc goes to sit alone by the sandbox, his lower lip quivering.
Xabi comes over to sit beside him. “Why are you fighting with Sergio?” he asks.
“I’m moving to London,” Cesc says, quietly.
“Oh.” Xabi blinks. “We’ll miss you.”
Cesc promptly bursts into tears and flings his arms around Xabi’s neck. “Sergio won’t,” he sobs, “he’s already replaced me.”
Xabi awkwardly pats him on the back and sighs.
They still aren’t talking on Cesc’s last day, so Cesc goes over to Fernando to pick a fight, only Fernando is staring at him with wide eyes and a chocolate smear on his face, and Cesc can’t think of anything else to say except, “You should notice when he changes his hair, he likes that.”
Fernando solemnly nods. “Okay.”
Iker huffs behind them. “You and Sergio are so stubborn. And stupid.” He scowls when Fernando and Cesc gasp at the S word. “Oh, grow up.”
Cesc finds Sergio behind the same bush where they had first met. He sits besides him without saying a word, and after awhile, Sergio sighs.
“I only said those things because I don’t know what I’m going to do when you go to fancy London and I'm left here.”
“You have Fernando.”
“I guess. He’s not as much fun. He refuses to steal Iker’s juiceboxes.”
“That wuss.”
“I know. And he likes the raisins in my mama’s oatmeal and raisin cookies.”
“He doesn’t pick them out?”
“No!”
“He’s so weird. I think it’s all those freckles. No one should have so many freckles.”
“Yeah.”
Cesc sighs. “I don’t want to fight anymore.”
“Me either.”
So they steal Iker’s juiceboxes one last time.
The only thing that stops Cesc from throwing a tantrum is that he’s eight, like his father had pointed out so many times, he couldn’t just throw a fit. Plus Carlota was being chipper and she was the baby, he couldn’t out-brood his little sister.
He doesn’t reciprocate when his mother tries to hug him goodbye and Carlota kicks him in the shin for this, so he’s already in a bad mood when a voice says, “You can’t sit there” as he puts his bag down at an empty desk.
He looks up at a boy who is smiling at him, apologetically. “That’s Ashley’s seat,” he explains. “He’s really…umm, particular.” He points to the desk on his other side, and picks up the book that was on it. “This one’s free. Sorry, I was looking for my pencil case and I was emptying out my backpack.”
Cesc gives him a suspicious look, but he moves to the other desk.
A few minutes later, the aforementioned Ashley arrives and sits down at his desk. “I had the worst weekend ever,” he says to no one in particular. “I wanted this special edition car and my dad said it was too expensive. Too expensive, can you believe it? I know he has the money.”
Cesc doesn’t realize he’s sneering until Ashley turns to him and glares. “What are you looking at?” he demands, and then turns away without an answer.
The boy who had warned him grins. “Yeah, he’s a bit―”
“Crazy?”
The boy ponders this. “Not very nice all the time,” he says finally.
Or at all, Cesc thinks. Ashley spends the rest of the morning whining about how the sun streaming in through the window was blinding him and how he had sensitive eyes, interrupting the teacher with a lot of sentences that started with, "But my father says―", and making fun of a blond kid because he didn’t speak English too well. Cesc is glad the boy beside him had warned him because he's sure if Ashley spoke directly to him again, he would be sent home with a note.
When they had arrived in London, Cesc's parents had taken them around the city so they could familiarize themselves with it. When they were at a restaurant, he hears a couple fighting and the woman had finally stormed off after calling the man a twat. Cesc hadn’t been sure what it meant, but he decided he liked it. He also knew enough about it to know that he shouldn’t use it around his parents.
But this Ashley person, he decides, is definitely a twat. Whatever it meant, he's sure it's applicable to Ashley.
When Ashley leaves in the middle of the year for some pretentious-sounding private school (“Probably a school full of twats like himself,” Cesc says and Andrei, the blond boy that Ashley had bullied, giggles appreciatively. Cesc knows what it means by then, but he’s not sure Andrei does), Cesc isn’t sorry and smugly dumps his books on the desk that should have been his from the start.
Cesc has an awful first day.
First, there's Ashley Cole. Cesc had liked everyone at his old school, or in the very least, he never wished bodily harm on any of them or wanted to smack any of them in the face with the backside of his hand (he eventually learns that it's called a bitchslap, and thinks it’s appropriate that he felt Ashley deserved one). But this Ashley Cole kid― Cesc can feel it coming. They were going to have problems.
Second, almost all of the teachers pronounce his name wrong; they all seem to think his name is Francis, and one of them had even said Francesca and then looked up in confusion. That’s when Cesc learns that Ashley’s laugh is more irritating than his voice.
During English, when the teacher asks him to read a passage out loud, he gets all flustered for some reason, and he stumbles over all his words. He struggles through five sentences before the teacher puts him out of his misery and asks Ashley to continue. Ashley, already the bane of Cesc's existence, continues in the most pompous tone Cesc has ever heard.
He has never hated anyone more in his entire life.
This is how he and Robin become friends:
Cesc learns that the Boy Who Saves Him From the Wrath of Ashley is called Robin, and he’s nice. Too nice to be friends with Cesc, because while he finds the niceness endearing for now, he’s sure it will eventually get on his nerves.
During recess though, Cesc is just pulling his sandwich out when Ashley walks up to him, sneering. “If it isn’t the illiterate imbecile from sunny Spain.” Before Cesc can figure out whether he wants to answer that with a retort or with his fists, Ashley is on the ground, his hands over his face, hollering in pain.
Cesc is staring at him in confusion, when he notices Robin standing beside him, cradling his right hand and wincing.
“What did you do that for?” Cesc demands.
Robin blinks at him. “You’re not illiterate,” he finally says.
Cesc gives him a strange look. “Well, no, I’m not, but…I don’t need you to defend me.”
“I wasn’t really― it’s just…he was being a…” Robin gestures to Ashley, who, for some reason, is rolling around on the ground, moaning in pain.
Cesc smirks. “Twat?” he offers.
Robin’s face breaks out into the sunniest smile Cesc has ever seen. “Yeah.”
Mr. Rice appears and frowns. “Oh, Robin, again?”
Cesc looks at Robin. Again? he mouths, and Robin shrugs in reply, but he’s smirking a little bit.
Mr. Rice casts Robin a look of disapproval as helps Ashley to his feet. “Come on now, Ashley, your legs are fine, you don’t need to lean so much of your weight on me. He hit you in the face, not the legs. Mr. van Persie, I’m sure you know where the principal’s office is.”
Robin sighs and turns to leave, when Cesc grabs his arm. “You’re not a nice boy at all,” he says in awe.
Robin bristles slightly at that. “I’m nice to people who deserve it.”
“What did he mean when he said ‘again’?”
“Oh, that.” Robin waves his hand, dismissively, but he looks a bit smug too. “You know that scar Ashley has near his hairline?”
Cesc snorts, because he doesn’t; he doesn’t spend a lot of time looking at Ashley’s face and he can’t imagine why Robin would think he would.
“I tripped him. He was following Andrei around and mocking his accent, and I just wanted him to stop.”
Cesc beams. “Playground vigilante.”
Robin laughs. “I guess. Listen, I’ll talk to you later, I should go to Principal Wenger and explain myself.”
“Do you want me to come and tell him what happened.”
“Nah, he’s not too bad, I’ll be okay.”
It’s hard not to be friends with someone after they’ve hit someone who has insulted you. So that was that.
Cesc spends his first few weeks there talking about his old schoolmates, especially Sergio.
“I had a best friend in Holland,” Robin says.
Cesc blinks at him. “You’re from Holland?”
“Uh-huh.”
Cesc mulls this over. “I’ve never had a Hollandish friend before.”
“Hollandish?” Robin asks, looking perplexed.
“Isn’t that what people from Holland are called?” Cesc perks up. “Wait. It’s Hollandaise, right? I’ve heard that before.”
The corners of Robin’s lips quirk up slightly. “That's a kind of sauce.”
“Oh.”
“Dutch, that’s what we’re called.”
“Cool. I’ve never had a Dutch friend before then.”
Robin grins. “Here I am.”
“Have you ever had a Spanish friend?”
“No.”
“Okay, cool. You have me now.”
Since he’s met Sergio, Cesc has always celebrated his birthday twice: once with his family and all his friends, and then one more time with just Sergio. Sergio’s mother would always make him an enormous birthday cookie in lieu of a cake, and the two of them would spend the good part of the day eating most of the cookie, and then Cesc would bring home whatever is left for Carlota.
In the days leading up to his ninth birthday, Cesc becomes sulky and snappish, until Robin finally gets annoyed and demands to know what’s wrong. So Cesc tells him, and Robin looks uncomfortable.
“I can’t bake,” he says.
“Did I ask you to?” Cesc snaps.
Robin drags his feet in the sand to slow his swing down. “You don’t have to be so stroppy,” he says huffily, and then jumps off from the swing leaving Cesc by himself.
This is how Cesc spends his ninth birthday:
It falls on a Saturday and Cesc declines his parents’ offer to have a party and says he’d rather just have a family dinner. He has friends and he knows he’d have fun, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that Sergio wouldn’t be there and Cesc misses him.
Sergio calls to wish him, and when Cesc tells him that he’s not having a party, he is appalled. “You have to have a birthday party. You’re nine.”
Cesc scowls. “What’s so special about nine?”
“That’s almost ten.”
“I’m too old for a birthday party,” Cesc mumbles.
“Don’t be one of those people,” Sergio says.
“What people?”
“You know, those sad, depressed people who act like every birthday is a death sentence. You’re nine, you’re too young to be so jaded.”
“Jaded?”
“It means ‘worn out’ or ‘weary’.” Sergio sounds smug.
“I know what it means. How do you know?” Cesc demands. It’s mean, he knows, he’s indirectly calling Sergio stupid, but the latter either doesn’t notice or he’s choosing to ignore it.
“Xabi gave everyone a Word of the Day mini-calendar as a party favor on his birthday.”
“That sounds awful,” Cesc says, but he’s also a little jealous. It sounds like exactly the kind of thing Xabi would do, and even though he’s sure he probably would have thrown it in his closet and not used it, Cesc still wants one. He misses Spain, and Sergio, and Xabi and the Davids and Iker. He supposes he even misses Fernando a little.
He’s not in a better mood after he talks to Sergio, and he spends the rest of the day playing Candyland with Carlota, who tries vainly to bring him out of his bad mood.
Robin comes over an hour before dinner. He hadn’t spoken to Cesc after their stupid fight over the birthday cookie, and Cesc had been upset when he hadn’t called to wish him either, so he’s surprised to see him. Even if there seems to be flour in his hair and chocolate stains on his shirt and―
Cesc peers at him. “What is that on your cheek?”
Robin swipes at his face and examines his hand. “Batter.”
“Batter?”
“Yeah, sorry I look like this; I wanted to bring this over while it was still your birthday. It took longer than I thought. This is my fourth one. I owe my mother a lot of eggs.” Robin shakes his head, then smiles at him, brightly. “Here.” He thrusts out a cardboard box. “Happy birthday!”
Cesc gives him a strange look but he opens the box and he blinks when he sees what’s inside. He looks at Robin. “I thought you said you didn’t bake.”
Robin rubs the back of his head, looking sheepish. “I don’t. Like I said, this is my fourth try. I mixed up the sugar and salt measurements in the first one, and I burned the other two. I know it doesn’t look good. I did the icing too, but I probably should have let my mother help with that.”
Cesc isn’t sure what to say. “No, it’s a…boy cake. It’s perfect. Thanks.”
They bring the cake into the kitchen, where Cesc’s mother helps them cut it. Cesc knows something is wrong as soon as he takes his first bite. It tastes really weird and although it looks like a chocolate cake, he isn’t sure what flavour it’s supposed to be. His parents look confused as they swallow their first bites and Cesc reminds himself to tell his sister how great she is when she gives Robin a dazzling smile and takes another bite.
Robin knows something is wrong though and when he takes a bite, Cesc watches his face fall. “It’s awful,” he says, in a small voice.
“It’s okay, honey,” Robin’s mother says, patting him on the back. “This was your first try.”
“You should have tasted the first dish I made,” Cesc’s mother puts in. “It was terrible, but I got better as I made it more often.” She gives Robin an encouraging smile. “It’s the thought that counts, and this was very thoughtful, Robin.”
“I’m sorry,” Robin says, and Cesc just wants the sad tone in his voice to go away. “This was a stupid idea.” He reaches for Cesc’s plate, but Cesc quickly forks the rest of it in his mouth.
“I like it,” he insists. “And Carlota does too, see?” He points to where she is almost halfway done.
This seems to make Robin more upset. “Just throw it out,” he says, quietly. “I’m sorry. You were really sad about the birthday cookies, and I was going to try making those but I didn’t want you to think I was trying to replace Sergio so―” He stops abruptly, and hanging his head, he turns to his mother. “Can we go home now?”
Robin’s mother gives them an apologetic smile. “Sure, honey, let’s go.”
Cesc puts his plate down and follows them out. “Wait.”
Robin’s mother leaves them alone and waits for Robin in their car.
Cesc isn’t sure what to do. Robin is just standing there, refusing to look at him. So finally Cesc just puts his arms around Robin. He’s never hugged anyone outside his family, not even Sergio, but it doesn’t feel awkward like he thought it would.
“I’m sorry,” Robin whispers.
“If you apologize one more time I’m going punch you in the stomach,” Cesc says.
Robin lets out a small laugh. “You hit like a girl.”
Cesc lets go. “You have obviously never seen how Carlota gets when I try to hide her toys. She gave me a black eye once.”
Robin smiles. “Serves you right.”
Cesc grins and thanks him one more time. When he goes back inside, his father asks him what he want to do with the cake. Cesc thinks about how upset Robin had looked and how he never wants to hear Robin sound that way again.
“I’m going to eat it,” he says. And he does.
On Monday, Cesc brings Robin a slice of cake from the one his mother had made for him. Robin thanks him, and he looks surprised when Cesc brings out a slice of cake from the one he had made.
“What?” Cesc asks, taking a bite.
Robin smiles and then he shakes his head. “Nothing.
Part 2