[RPF Basket] Here's Remembering, by waferkya
SAFESLASHHere's Remembering
a real person fanfiction about Basketball by waferkyaEN
Warning: None.
"It's not flawless, what he remembers, - and he knows every game like he just finished playing it, - but it's perfect."
DISCLAIMER
(EN) The author doesn't own real people depicted in this fanwork and no one makes money from this fanwork. None of what is depicted in this fanwork has happened or has to be considered true in any way; events and characters are fictional and in no way supposed to represent actual reality.
(IT) Questo fanwork non vuole offendere o essere lesivo nei confronti delle persone reali descritte, né pretende di dare un ritratto veritiero di eventi o personalità, e nessuno guadagna denaro a causa di questo fanwork. Niente di quanto è raffigurato in questo fanwork è accaduto o deve essere considerato vero in alcun modo; eventi e personaggi sono fittizi e non rappresentano in alcun modo la realtà.
Pau looks back, sometimes; it just happens, really: someone shouts in heavily accented Spanish over the phone, the sky is the wrong shade of blue, news about Messi's latest goleada make it to cable TV and he just looks back.
He plays over and over again the thirty-six minutes walk from his place to the Palau; sometimes, he still wakes up before sunrise, his body set and ready to go, and it takes him twenty-seven seconds to remember he's no there anymore - not in time, nor in space.
When he thinks about Spain, when he thinks about Barcelona, when he thinks about home, it's all there, on the back of his hand, it's like he never left. The places, the smells, all the colours and even the faces of his classmates at the University - he remembers, and he thinks of them, once in a while, even if he knows it's dangerous, hanging on to the past, living there, living all of that over and over again.
But still, he can't help it.
Memories are always better, he's known that as long as he's been alive; and when you have been through what Pau has lived, Jesus, sometimes it's hard to believe the future is going to beat that.
He looks back and he sees winning, he sees history and a whole country hanging on his every move; he sees places he'll never ever want to forget, he sees days he can recall every single moment of.
He looks back and the toughest defeat he sees, the burning humiliation of missing the one shot that he shouldn't have missed - not ever in his life, - that day in Madrid he had to smile for a silver medal that he hated so much - even that makes for a warm memory, in the end, because they were there; his brother, his friends, and his Juanca, his soft smile close enough to hurt and soothe him at once.
So, Pau does that, looking back, across the ocean, and he smiles a little to himself, because it keeps him sane. He kicks Marc off his bed, in his memories, and with Felipe and Calde they laugh so hard his stomach hurts for three hours straight; Juanca looks up at him from under his lashes and the corners of his mouth curl a little before he shoots the fortieth three-pointer in a row, once more annihilating Pau's attempts at beating him.
It's not flawless, what he remembers, - and he knows every game like he just finished playing it, - but it's perfect. It's staying up too late at night to play poker or la pocha, it's sneaking chocolates from the bowl in the hotels' halls, or sprawling on the bed to watch F1 when there's nothing better on TV and ending up giving a name to every little mole on Juanca's back.
He can't do that with his teammates in Los Angeles, and he doesn't even want to. Love and affection and that honey-dipped happiness only belong to his memories of Spain, of Barcelona, of home.
He's not scared, he's not worried; it gives him strength, really, knowing there's people waiting for him, a place he can call home which actually feels like home more than anywhere else in the world. It's comfort, it's safe. He tries to focus on the here and now, - his career in America, every dunk he makes, - because that's what he wants, but he won't want it forever, he knows that.
This is what's going to break him, honestly. Not the criticism in the 'papers or the angry shouts of the audience filling floodlit arenas, not even Silvia; when Pau Gasol gives up, it wil be because the memories won him over - that past he like to live in sometimes, it's going to catch up with him, he knows that.
a real person fanfiction about Basketball by waferkyaEN
Warning: None.
"It's not flawless, what he remembers, - and he knows every game like he just finished playing it, - but it's perfect."
DISCLAIMER
(EN) The author doesn't own real people depicted in this fanwork and no one makes money from this fanwork. None of what is depicted in this fanwork has happened or has to be considered true in any way; events and characters are fictional and in no way supposed to represent actual reality.
(IT) Questo fanwork non vuole offendere o essere lesivo nei confronti delle persone reali descritte, né pretende di dare un ritratto veritiero di eventi o personalità, e nessuno guadagna denaro a causa di questo fanwork. Niente di quanto è raffigurato in questo fanwork è accaduto o deve essere considerato vero in alcun modo; eventi e personaggi sono fittizi e non rappresentano in alcun modo la realtà.
Pau looks back, sometimes; it just happens, really: someone shouts in heavily accented Spanish over the phone, the sky is the wrong shade of blue, news about Messi's latest goleada make it to cable TV and he just looks back.
He plays over and over again the thirty-six minutes walk from his place to the Palau; sometimes, he still wakes up before sunrise, his body set and ready to go, and it takes him twenty-seven seconds to remember he's no there anymore - not in time, nor in space.
When he thinks about Spain, when he thinks about Barcelona, when he thinks about home, it's all there, on the back of his hand, it's like he never left. The places, the smells, all the colours and even the faces of his classmates at the University - he remembers, and he thinks of them, once in a while, even if he knows it's dangerous, hanging on to the past, living there, living all of that over and over again.
But still, he can't help it.
Memories are always better, he's known that as long as he's been alive; and when you have been through what Pau has lived, Jesus, sometimes it's hard to believe the future is going to beat that.
He looks back and he sees winning, he sees history and a whole country hanging on his every move; he sees places he'll never ever want to forget, he sees days he can recall every single moment of.
He looks back and the toughest defeat he sees, the burning humiliation of missing the one shot that he shouldn't have missed - not ever in his life, - that day in Madrid he had to smile for a silver medal that he hated so much - even that makes for a warm memory, in the end, because they were there; his brother, his friends, and his Juanca, his soft smile close enough to hurt and soothe him at once.
So, Pau does that, looking back, across the ocean, and he smiles a little to himself, because it keeps him sane. He kicks Marc off his bed, in his memories, and with Felipe and Calde they laugh so hard his stomach hurts for three hours straight; Juanca looks up at him from under his lashes and the corners of his mouth curl a little before he shoots the fortieth three-pointer in a row, once more annihilating Pau's attempts at beating him.
It's not flawless, what he remembers, - and he knows every game like he just finished playing it, - but it's perfect. It's staying up too late at night to play poker or la pocha, it's sneaking chocolates from the bowl in the hotels' halls, or sprawling on the bed to watch F1 when there's nothing better on TV and ending up giving a name to every little mole on Juanca's back.
He can't do that with his teammates in Los Angeles, and he doesn't even want to. Love and affection and that honey-dipped happiness only belong to his memories of Spain, of Barcelona, of home.
He's not scared, he's not worried; it gives him strength, really, knowing there's people waiting for him, a place he can call home which actually feels like home more than anywhere else in the world. It's comfort, it's safe. He tries to focus on the here and now, - his career in America, every dunk he makes, - because that's what he wants, but he won't want it forever, he knows that.
This is what's going to break him, honestly. Not the criticism in the 'papers or the angry shouts of the audience filling floodlit arenas, not even Silvia; when Pau Gasol gives up, it wil be because the memories won him over - that past he like to live in sometimes, it's going to catch up with him, he knows that.