I wrote this a while ago and I put it in
in_the_shadows7 's stocking so I might as well post it here too.
fic: untitled | R | steven gerrard/daniel agger | AU (of course :P) | Note: some parts might upset some people. however this is all fiction and shouldn't be taken seriously.
The lies started a long time ago and Daniel doesn’t even feel the bitter sting anymore, as they flow off his tongue more natural than the saliva itself. It’s easier over the phone, he pleasantly discovers and she can’t look at him with those eyes and that smile.
He could hear at first, hear the white pearlescent twinkle of her teeth and the curving of her lips. It faded away gradually with his dignity.
Daniel left Denmark in hope of a better life, for himself and for his soon-to-be-family. She left him at the airport and he left her on the brink of something fragile with his promises and he got on the plane. The plan was simple; find a place to live and a job and work from there. He was a good boy really, and his intentions the same - send some money to his mother, a little to the girlfriend so she could pay the rent on their two bedroom flat above the grocery shop and the rest for his own essentials.
England wasn’t quite what he’d hoped. He’d always thought his English fairly reasonable, passable, enough to get him by. Which was why it was something of shock when he couldn’t understand a thing. A cheap hotel was his home for the week and a man down the road from it offered him a few quick jobs here and there. There were packages, envelopes, all locked shut with thick layers of tape and Daniel never asked what was concealed behind all that paper.
The man had to disappear after a few days and he wished Daniel the best and pressed a small pile of notes into his hand. It wasn’t nearly as he’d hoped but Daniel’s mother had taught him of faith and hope and Daniel clung onto that as tightly as he clung to that picture of his beloved Sophie every night.
**
Sophie’s picture got lost in the amount of moving around he’d done, his ability at acquiring “quick here and there jobs” hindering his ability to find an actual place to live. That was until someone else walked into his life, or well, into some random bar he happened to be drinking in, the one beside the run down hostel in which Daniel was taking up residence.
His smile was friendly and his suit expensive and that was enough for Daniel to take the card with the phone number on it and dial the next morning.
**
He unpacked his things properly then, set his clothes on the old shelves and smoothed out the wrinkled folds of the worn carpet. He attempted to dust down the sheets and made a mental note to get them washed. It wasn’t much but it was somewhere to settle, for a while at least anyway, for as long as Colin allowed him there.
He met him for breakfast the next day and Colin’s face turned a few shades more serious as he launched into talk about the job.
“You said you were desperate didn’t you?” His jet black hair fell over his eyes as he stirred sugar slowly into his coffee.
Daniel nodded and thought of the fiver he could only send his mother the week before last before looking back up.
Colin leaned closer and Daniel’s complexion turned pale and his stomach slightly sick before he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply catching nothing but the sickly sweet scent of the other man’s aftershave.
“You sure you’re up to it?” Colin held out his hand. And Daniel gripped it as tight as his teeth gripped his own bottom lip.
Resorting to prostitution was never a part of his great big plan and his mother would never approve, never mind his girlfriend. His Sophie. He felt tears well up in the corner of his eye as he sat himself on his bed, gripping the bed linen with his hands as felt the droplets leave damp trails in their wake right down his cheeks.
He could never tell them.
**
The first time was the worst. The man was taller than he was, blonde and well built and he forced himself upon Daniel, who took it.
When it was done that sick feeling lingered in his stomach as he lay there for hours, even as he counted out the four twenty pound notes over and over. It would be fine after a while, it was just another job after all. The sick feeling started to abate until the phone rang and he pick up the receiver.
He smiled and forgot everything as he listened to Sophie’s voice down the line, across the space between them and it was as though they were never apart. She stopped talking all of a sudden and Daniel barely noticed for a few moments, so caught up in his awe of her.
“Dan,” he could hear her swallow before she took in a breath, “I’m pregnant.”
As soon as he sat the phone down he ran to the bathroom and vomited three times before he sank to the floor and cried himself to sleep there.
**
His second client was different, very much so.
He picked him up in a car Daniel would never be able to afford and even if he could afford it, he’d never look like he belonged there on the plush leather of the seats.
Steven shook his hand like you would to your boss or your father in law and smiled warmly before setting off. He barely said a word as they drove for an hour and a half and only muttered “ok” as he pulled up outside a hotel in the countryside.
They had dinner, with normal chit-chat typical for people who didn’t know each other and afterwards they had sex in one of the rooms upstairs before Daniel was paid and driven home.
“See you soon,” he’d heard as he shut the car door but thought nothing of it as he climbed the steps to his flat.
**
“Ah, you again.”
Steven looked out of place standing in his grey suit in the dingy corridor before stepping gingerly into Daniel’s flat. He glanced at his surroundings, walking quietly over and examining the bits and pieces on the kitchen counter. He was about to comment on something, Daniel could tell by the way he paused and his mouth quivered but he didn’t let a word leave his lips. He kissed him.
Pressing him against the counter in a way someone like him wasn’t meant to and Steven’s designer jacket ended up scattered across the kitchen floor along with the leather belt of his trousers and the trousers themselves.
**
He didn’t leave straight away this time, despite the fact that the money was already sitting on the dresser awaiting the eager counting of Daniel’s fingers. Steven pulled out a cigarette and inhaled deeply, sighing loudly and relaxing against the pillow.
“You’re nicer than some of your workmates,” Steven grinned and Daniel just looked at him pointedly.
“You’re the nicest one I’ve had so far.”
Steven was smirking and about to burst in with a sarcastic comment before Daniel quipped “Which isn’t that major really considering you’re only my second.”
Steven lips formed an “oh” shape instead, taking another drag from his cigarette so he wouldn’t have to comment.
“How’d a lad like you get into something like this?”
Daniel shrugged, and blinked tiredly.
“I’ll bet you’ve never needed money so badly you’d do anything to get it hmm?” Daniel stared straight through him this time, eyes burning through Steven’s.
“I well…” he didn’t know what to say to that, “No I suppose I haven’t.”
“I didn’t think so.”
They sat in amiable silence until Steven started to get dressed again. When he was finished he turned back towards the bed and towards a tired Daniel.
“Money isn’t always happiness,” he started quietly, “I’d give up anything and everything to get my wife back, to make my little girl smile again.”
Daniel felt a sudden rush of sympathy and reached for Steven’s limp fingers as they hung somewhere around his pockets. He let go after a few seconds and sat up more in the bed.
“My girlfriend … this is all for her,” his voice cracked a little as he said it, “for her and the child growing inside her. They don’t need to know how I get the money, just that I do.”
Steven nodded and turned to leave, pausing midway and going back to the bed. He leaned over and ran his hand over Daniel’s hair and kissed him on the cheek.
He searches for the scarf Steven says he left behind later and finds it, the old picture of Sophie dusty and worn underneath.
**
A month passes and Steven visits at least twice a week. There are rare occasions when Daniel invites him over and he doesn’t pay but they still sleep together, which could be strange but for some reason it’s not to them.
Once Steven invites him for coffee at a bistro in town, says he’ll pick him up. Daniel freezes as he locks the front door and turns round to see a small blonde head dozing in the back seat. He gets in anyway, and glances nervously over his shoulder before Steven smiles and reaches in and strokes her hand.
“I couldn’t get someone to look after her,” he whispers, “sorry.”
Daniel shakes his head and shrugs his shoulders before smiling himself. They sit on a bench in a park further down the road with two takeout coffees balanced in their cold fingers, the little girl cooing happily on her father’s knee sucking on the biscuit in her tiny hand.
Her arm moves all of a sudden and knocks the coffee sidewards and over Steven’s knee.
“Oh …fu,” he stops and shakes his head and laughs before handing her to Daniel without thought. The younger man holds her almost at arms length and the wide eyed stare of the girl is almost like his own. She frowns and reaches out all of a sudden and touches Daniel’s cheek before giggling and he can’t help but smile back.
He doesn’t even notice Steven, who stopped cleaning himself off a few minutes, watching them intently with a grin threatening to burst over his lips.
Daniel stays the night at Steven’s and they fall asleep together with their clothes still on and the tv buzzing gently in the background, Steven’s hand clutched snugly in his own.
**
Daniel packs up his stuff two months later, carting boxes down the stairs and loading them into the back of Steven’s car, Lily sitting watching contently on the doorstep.
That night with the sheets still sticky and their breathing not quite normal Steven rolls over and strokes Daniel’s cheek with his thumb and utters those three words.
Daniel swallows and wraps his fingers round the other man’s.
“I love you too.”
**
His phone rings the next day while Steven is at work and Lily at her grandmothers house.
The cries are too sudden and Daniel feels his stomach roll and his eyes fill. He says goodbye and hangs up and thinks about life and his baby that never got a chance. He glances at the picture of Steven and Lily on the fireplace and thinks that life is never fair.
**
Steven returns home late that night to find his house in darkness and a note on the table.
No matter how much I need you; there are people that need me more.
**