traces, part ten (b).
Raúl doesn't really have whims. He learnt years ago to completely repress them to the point where they don't bother trying to surface anymore. So when Guti yawns widely and announces that he's taking a coffee break, Raúl instead looks over at Gonzalo, who is beginning to nod off at his desk. When the other officers start to complain about the amount of paperwork to be done and suggest leaving it for the next morning, and Guti says that he'd rather stay back late and finish it in one shot, Raúl finds himself siding with the masses. When he walks out to the parking lot, calling 'Don't fall asleep at the wheel!' to Gonzalo behind him, he doesn't notice Guti following him out.
"Raúl," Guti's voice says, and Raúl jumps a little as he turns around. "Wait."
Raúl looks around, somewhat awkwardly. As Gonzalo drives away, and the carpark becomes quiet and empty again, he can't quite pretend that Guti isn't there anymore. "You should get some rest," he says softly, noting how strained Guti looks, how incredibly tired. "Go home."
"I'm not -" Guti's voice is weak, not only with fatigue, but with stress, a fearful kind of stress. "I'm leaving."
Raúl stares at him for a moment before blinking and frowning, his eyes flickering away as though to search the air before him for some kind of an explanation. "You're leaving? As in - leaving?"
"As in leaving the country, yeah," Guti replies heavily, an apology in his expression - as though he thinks he's hurting Raúl by saying this; as though he knows he is.
The two of them stand in silence for perhaps a minute, Raúl resting an arm on the top of his car. Someone who doesn't know better would say that he's steadying himself; someone who knows him well would swear to it. The seconds tick over quickly, as everything that Raúl has never said tumbles over confusingly in his head, making it less and less clear what he should say - what he wants to say.
"You're still scared," Raúl says, his disbelief not as entire as he perhaps wants it to be. "Of them, of the Brass."
"I'm not," Guti disagrees, trying to scoff.
"Then why are you leaving?" he throws back, the hurt only badly hidden by the righteous accusation.
"I..." Guti looks too resigned to even think of an excuse. Raúl wishes that he could.
"Where do you plan to go?" he asks shortly.
Guti shrugs, pouting a little - at himself, it seems. "I was thinking New Zealand?"
"Jesus, you are scared."
"They tried to kill me."
"You tried to destroy them," Raúl shrugs, trying to coerce the nonchalance back onto his shoulders.
"They won't stop. They'll never leave me in peace."
"An eye for an eye, and so on."
"Well, I've only got two, and I'm taking them with me, if you don't mind."
"No, I don't mind," Raúl replies automatically, though Guti's lingering gaze suggests that he can see the lie. There is another excruciating pause, before Raúl sighs. "Why are you here?"
Guti seems to sink a little, in frustration, or sadness, or both. "Isn't it obvious?"
Raúl jerks his head in an awkward 'I don't know'. "You have a funny way of saying goodbye."
Guti looks back at him sadly, before giving him a crooked smile. "At least you finally think I'm funny."
Raúl sighs and straightens up, ready to make his way over to the other side of the car. "Have a nice life, Guti."
"No - I asked you to wait," Guti says, holding a hand out. "So wait." And before Raúl sees it, the hand is clasped around his wrist and the other is cradling his neck, and Guti is kissing him with all the desperate longing that Raúl only now allows himself to feel. He kisses him back with such hard, heated want that they pivot on weak heels and collapse onto the hood of the car. But Raúl notices none of this. He only feels Guti's fingers at the base of his hair, his torso and hips sinking so easily onto his own, his lips warm and wet and sweet.
This time, Raúl doesn't fight it. This time, he reaches up a hand to cup Guti's jaw gently. He allows his knee to bend as his body gradually loses control of itself. He lets Guti's mouth move down to his open collar, to his neck, and he softly pushes his head down as Guti kisses and sucks and bites. He lets himself wrap an arm around Guti as he slowly sits up, and his leg curving around Guti's back, he pulls him closer and tries to put as much passion and gratitude and regret as possible into the way he kisses him.
When he pulls away, he sees that Guti's eyes are open - bright and glazed somewhat. He wonders distantly if he's lost himself in the blue for a moment, when the door to the parking lot opens and one of the junior officers comes out and immediately coughs in embarrassment. Guti is the first to straighten up, though his hand remains at Raúl's hip and his gaze remains fixed. Raúl hears the door close again as the officer disappears.
"I should go," Guti whispers. Raúl can't bring himself to reply, only closing his eyes to stop himself from seeing too much of Guti, too much of something that, in a few seconds, he'll surely never be able to have again. "Thank you," Guti says softly, his lips dangerously close to Raúl's.
Raúl opens his eyes, but doesn't move otherwise. "For what?"
"For letting down your guard," Guti replies, "for me."
Raúl can't quite bear it, and he closes his eyes again as Guti kisses him one last time - softer than before, more tenderness than hunger, more sadness than desperation; a wish that things could have been different, that Guti could have been more wholly his, instead of the product and possession of Oxley, of the Brass, of lies. He feels Guti peel himself away, and he hears the rustle of a suit being straightened. He opens his eyes as footsteps retreat, the door to the parking lot opens again, and closes to leave Raúl alone.
He stands up, not quite understanding what the tightness in his throat means, but too tired to think about it. He absently climbs into his car and waits patiently for a few moments for his heartrate to slow down before he starts the engine. On his drive home, the streetlights zipping by with the dull repetitiveness that marks his thoughts, his mind wanders through lonely memories without ever really making a stop at any of them.
He goes to bed a thoroughly exhausted man, and dreams of rushed embraces and wooden hallways and ancient revolvers. He won't realise until a few days later, when he gets his dry-cleaning together, that Guti has slipped a note into his trouser pocket, with a phone number and address scribbled onto it beside a feeble 'Sorry'. For now, all he does is allow himself to admit, in the quiet of his solitary world, that he goes home tonight a slightly happier, and slightly sadder, man.
* * * * *
A young female officer enters the holding cell and informs Iker that he's being released, spouting something about Thierry, Sergio - Sergio? - and Miguel Torres. Iker supposes that his relief shows on his face, because she raises her eyebrows suspiciously and asks what he's looking so thrilled about. He blushes and shakes his head, before thinking, 'Oh, what the hell' - and he tells her.
Her eyebrows shoot further up. "But he's not off the hook," she says incredulously. "You do know that everyone's looking for him, that he's been trying to fix this election?"
It's as though a light goes out somewhere inside of Iker. He absently signs the forms thrust in front of him and climbs into the awaiting car that takes him back to his empty living room. His mind works very quickly; he wonders how much the police know - how much detail they know. One whisky later, scalding his unpractised throat; one phone call later; one rapid journey in a police car later; and he's back where he started. His head screams at him, but his heart rests a little easier. The fear is nothing to the relief - relief at having escaped a regret-ridden, lonely life; relief at having done the right thing for once.
He remembers what David had once said to him, warning him against getting too vested in Fabio Cannavaro and his work, and he feels uneasy for a moment. But, he figures, it's better to take the plunge and give someone - and something - your all, than to hide in your comfort zone, a doormat, and a coward, never really achieving anything. As David did.
As the time ticks closer to midnight, Fabio gets tired of waiting. He gets up from the grand leather chair behind David's desk and walks over to the window, his phone to his ear, and he looks down onto the tables and benches in the tree-lined courtyard as the dial tone taunts him. When, at last, someone picks up, Fabio immediately panics upon hearing that it isn't Michel's voice.
"He's been arrested," Michel's assistant says, sounding equally distressed. "We've been found out. And Casillas, too -"
"Iker?" Fabio asks sharply, his hand gripping the phone tighter. "What about Iker?"
"Looks like he's turned himself in."
"What?" Fabio snaps. "Turned himself in for what?"
"He apparently - I can't be sure, because I've obviously been busy trying to sort everything out from our end - but he apparently - took the fall for you."
Fabio freezes. "Wh-what?" he asks weakly.
"He's told the police that it was him who was in negotiations with Mr. Salgado," the assistant explains. "He said that he was the one meeting with him, telling him what to do and say, in exchange for significant amounts of cash. He said that he did everything possible to secure your victory - he even said that he was planning to come out publicly so as to lend your campaign a bit more credibility -"
Fabio lowers the phone for a moment, unable to listen to any more. He breathes deeply, trying to still himself. He is embarrassed by the relief and gratitude that has immediately washed over him; he is ashamed of his mind's unthinking turn to the re-election that is still is, to the social justice platform, in which Iker believed so much, which still stands tall.
"Meet me here in the morning, seven o'clock," Fabio says numbly into the phone, interrupting the assistant's repeated stammerings of 'Are you there, Mr. Cannavaro?' "We need to sort out what we're going to do. The debate..."
"Yes, sir," the assistant replies in a rush. "Listen, could I ask for a fav-"
But the favour the assistant seeks is of no concern to Fabio. At long last, his phone sitting limply in his hand, the rustle of the trees outside distracting and incredibly intrusive, Fabio feels something akin to guilt.
He thinks of the Iker he loves - loved - sitting in a prison cell, for him, and his fingers trace over the buttons of his phone as he briefly entertains the idea of calling the police and doing the right thing. For these moments, he wants to speak to Iker, regretting all the times they didn't say enough to each other. He wants to ask him why he's done it, why it was worth it - why Fabio was worth sacrificing the life he knew.
But then he thinks of that life; that life Iker had always led, pushing Fabio into the background while the spectre of David hung over them. He thought of Iker's retreat into guarded introspection, shutting Fabio out as though David's abandonment had stolen from him all of his joy, all the ways in which he could have been - should have been - generous with himself, with his time, with his love. Fabio thinks of the Iker who always groaned and shook his head when he suggested they take a holiday together; who chastised him when he went shopping for him and came home with a new suit or a new pair of shoes, telling him to take it back the next day and not to bother next time; who, more often than not, would stay up watching outdated DVDs of television shows and only go to bed once Fabio had already fallen sleep, rather than allow himself to fall asleep in Fabio's arms.
And Fabio pushes his phone back into his pocket before he gets his things, and leaves.
He doesn't know that, when he returns to Beckham's office in the morning, someone will be there waiting for him, having discovered his secret. He doesn't know that during the night, when Raúl finds himself unable to sleep, he'll remember what Thierry told him about Beckham's office being misused after his death, about Fabio adding insult to an already injured Iker. Fabio will walk in, briefcase in hand, and before he has a chance to turn back and run, one police officer will be seizing his wrists and cuffing them while another recites his rights. He doesn't know that, this time tomorrow, he'll be sitting in the same tiny room to which Iker has tried to confine himself, and that Iker will be plunged back into the sterile routine of the life he hates.
A few hours after Fabio is arrested, Martín walks through the gates of the school from which he graduated a year ago. He will perhaps never understand why Sergio had let him go, after Fernando had up and left and taken with him the box that housed had Iker's revolver. Any hope of getting the gun and its case back in Iker's possession had been extinguished, and Sergio had no longer had any use for a double.
Martín only, obsessively and furiously, wonders why Sergio hasn't contacted him, why he isn't returning his calls, why he is conveniently absent every time Martín shows up at his house - why he broke his promise, why Martín remains excluded, forgotten.
And as he walks in, just a few minutes after the last stragglers have taken their seats in their classrooms, nobody notices the bottle of kerosene in his hand. The janitor squints from afar as he sees the impossible: a boy unlocking a door that has apparently remained closed for years, and slipping inside. The janitor calls out a few minutes later, when he sees the boy leave, but as he moves closer, he feels the heat and hear the licking of flames against the Brass headquarters' walls.
"I heard that there was a fire," Carles says breathlessly, his eyes wide, after almost falling out of his car and power-walking to the Oxley entrance, where crowds of students stand shepherded by teachers, looking just as enthralled as concerned. "Did I miss it?"
"Afraid so," Pep says dryly, his arms folded. "It didn't spread very far - unfortunately for you, or it might still have been going, for your entertainment."
"Oh," Carles sighs, looking disappointed. "Who was it?"
"Not sure," Pep replies, frowning. "My money's on him, though," he adds, nodding toward the slight figure of Bojan Krkić leaning against the school's walls - the boy, unlike those around him, looking thoroughly unmoved by the morning's events. "I wouldn't be surprised if he's got another dirty secret or two up his sleeve."
"Well, who hasn't, these days?" Carles turns to look at Pep directly. "I'm serious, is there anyone without at least one skeleton in their closet?"
"Don't look at me," Pep snorts. "I know you've got a long history of theorising about my relationship with closets, but I -" He stops, and rolls his eyes. "Shit. I left my phone in my office."
"Does it matter? It's not as though you've got much of a social life to keep up with."
Pep scowls at Carles' grin. "I was supposed to meet Miguel today, to discuss... To discuss what I should do about this whole business with Henry and his Lolitas," he says, a lie which Carles, more shrewd than many give him credit for, is able to see through in an instant. "I'll have to call him and cancel - fuck knows when I'll be able to leave, with the school in this state."
Carles, his quick thinking hidden behind a perpetually vacant expression, shrugs casually. "I can get it for you, if you want. I know you've got to talk to these guys." He nods in the direction of the police officers who begin to make their way through the front gate.
"Yeah," Pep replies distractedly, turning to face Raúl and company. "Do that. Thanks."
Weaving through familiar corridors and, in his own sick little way, rather enjoying the smell of burnt wooden furniture that skips alongside him, Carles makes his way up to Pep's office and, true to form, immediately starts going through his cupboards and desk drawers. He tuts at the boring files and stationery, and shakes his head in disgust at the too-shiny, too-tight suit jacket hanging in the back of the largest cupboard.
He finds Pep's phone in the top drawer, but doesn't stop until he's reached the third. He pauses and gapes as he looks down on a little bottle of rohypnol, and his mind immediately casts back to thoughts of Miguel, of his arrest, of Guti.
In all his rushed exhilaration, he stops and thinks clearly for the first time in many years, and he supposes, with sadness and disappointment, that perhaps Pep, too, has been hiding another dirty secret or two up his sleeve.
Carles does not know that Raúl, upon seeing Pep at the school, has been struck by a memory from the day before, when Guti had snapped at him furiously, claiming that his callous mention of the Union in front of Pep had been the reason why Guti had been drugged. Carles has not seen the cogs turning in Raúl's head, remembering Guti's unfaltering, almost compulsive draw to his idealised image of the Union, one which prized talent over treasure, wits over wealth. Carles will not understand why Guti would rather have seen Pep, responsible for his near-death, enjoy his freedom if it meant the newly egalitarian Oxley and Brass were kept alive, than ensure that an innocent man walked free. But Raúl, with sadness and disappointment, will make the call for Miguel's immediate release, and Carles will welcome him back with open arms. After all, they're in this together.
Lionel sits on the little brick wall that faces Oxley, watching the hordes of students and teachers just as he did ten months ago. He chuckles in delighted disbelief as he watches Pep being discreetly ushered into the back of a police car down the road. He smiles as the teachers enlist Bojan, school captain, to round up rolls of all the students' names before they are to be dismissed, a task he accepts with a grumble and rolling eyes. He looks over at the staff room and the offices that surround it, remembering where it had all begun, in a small room where a teacher had taken a student too far - where Lionel had, unwittingly, unsettled the first pieces of dust over what would become David Beckham's grave.
He looks at the charred remains of expensive chairs as they are taken out of the school, piece by piece, and thinks about the room in which they were kept, the men who had sat upon them, the things that those men had done. And, watching the blackened remnants of the Brass Union's secret and sordid history, he revels in the knowledge that he was the one who brought it all down.