Yep, that's right, another ficlet.
Ficlet for kaiserkehl - Ruud/Raúl. R-ish.
***
There's something exhilarating about being in a new city, about living there, about putting the past behind him and moving on with his life somewhere he's been before, of course, but somewhere he's yet to really know. There's something that makes his heart beat faster when he thinks about it, exciting but not just a little unnerving. Sometimes he's caught between something darker, not unlike panic. Now is one of those times.
He's played in big games before, that's certain - there've been domestic cup finals and international semis, times when he was a lot younger and every game felt big as the World Cup; he's played there now, and in some ways enjoyed it. But he's never been to a place like this at a time like this one: the Bernabéu when Barcelona are visiting.
The game's over. The fans are leaving the stadium and the teams will leave soon, too. The game's over - he can't even explain why he feels this way. He's not in awe of the game or the event or the spectacle, he's just sitting there at his place in the changing room, showered and changed with his bag at his feet, feeling his heart beating just a little too quickly. He feels anxious, not quite right. His muscles ache and his hair's still damp, drops of water from it rolling down his neck and soaking into his collar. The light's too bright. The place is too noisy. He wonders if his ex-teammates saw the game. Thinking they might have just makes it all feel worse.
David ruffles his hair and says something he doesn't quite catch in that familiar almost-cockney accent before heading for the door. Ruud's glad that Becks is there, if only because he's a familiar face in a way - the problem is he's not really all that familiar anymore, with the tattoos and the crow's feet and the laughter lines. The David he knew might be in there somewhere or maybe he's gone but when they talk it's like his old friend is a caricature of his former self. All he has to do is look in the mirror to see that maybe, just maybe, the same's quite true of himself.
And he wishes that David wouldn't speak to him in English. He's trying to settle and trying to learn and it's like every hello throws him back three steps. He'll be conjugating estar in his head as he practices penalties and David tried to ask him to lunch. A battered copy of a British tabloid will land in his lap as he's muddling through a sentence en español and he knows that David's just trying to help but sometimes he wonders if he remembers Ruud isn't actually English. And he can almost feel the click in his head as he snaps back through the gears into the language of a country that he's left behind.
The language doesn't help. All around him he can hear that changing-room-incessant chatter and all he catches is a couple of words here and there. Sometimes he feels he's in over his head now, that he should have known better. Maybe that's what's unsettling. But he doesn't get a chance to analyse it any further.
"We go now."
He knows the voice and doesn't particularly want to look up but he does it anyway. His new captain's looking down at him.
"En español, por favor," he replies, but Raúl just smiles and shakes his head.
"You come with me," he says, quite deliberately, just as Ruud expects. Despite the odd phrasing, he knows it's more command than question or anything else. He doesn't think to protest.
The thing is, he knows exactly what's going to happen; he knows because it's happened before. It made less sense then, the first time, when he hadn't got a clue why Raúl González was speaking to him in stilted, jarring English and trying to get him to go with him to who knows where. He went with him, of course, mostly because he couldn't find the Spanish back then that he needed to say he couldn't go and Raúl studiously failed to understand any English he spoke at all. But maybe also because he was intrigued. Maybe because that faint smile tugging at the corners of his new captain's mouth held more of a promise than he'd consciously realized. Maybe because it was what he wanted, after all.
There was no grand seduction once they got where they were going. They stepped inside Raúl's apparently empty house and while Ruud was wondering what exactly he was doing there and where Raúl's wife could be, he was blindsided; Raúl slipped one hand to the back of Ruud's neck and tugged him down into a kiss he hadn't seen coming. His mouth was spicy and hot, a taste he couldn't place that made his head spin as he tried to protest. It was only a token effort - he was saying no as his fingers curled into the front of Raúl's shirt to pull him closer. He knew he should be stopping this but he honestly couldn't tear himself away and in the end, Raúl just did it for him. He pulled away, leaving Ruud flustered and rumpled and almost breathless, sort of embarrassed and extremely off-balance. He couldn't say he understood.
He thought maybe Raúl was going to backtrack then and offer him a drink or even tell him to go; he thought maybe it was all some sort of grotesque and elaborate joke and Raúl had just set out to humiliate him for reasons unknown. As it turned out, that was far from being the truth. It was only a moment, albeit a long one, before Raúl's fingers curled into the waistband of Ruud's jeans and pulled him closer.
"You come with me," he said, and this time Ruud didn't try to protest at all.
There was sex, of course. It took Ruud by surprise when Raúl reached for his belt, when he let the stubbornly English-speaking Spaniard undress him in the bedroom that smelled sort of heavy and cloying, like a heady mix of roses and cinnamon, like that meant something. He doesn't think he caught his breath for an hour, while Raúl's fingers touched him, as he let him lay him down on the heavy linen sheets and press his mouth hotly to places he only barely touched himself: the arch of one foot, the crook of one elbow, the prickly place over the pulse in his neck where the blood beat too quickly. Raúl's hands pushed his knees apart, Raúl's fingers brushed over the sensitive skin of his balls. Raúl's fingertips traced the hardening length of his cock. And then he took him in his mouth.
That didn't last long, Ruud almost writhing on the bed as Raúl's tongue flickered over the vein in the underside of his rather sudden erection. He pulled back and suddenly there was lube and Raúl's sticky-slick fingers at his cock, and he watched in something like perfect stunned silence as Raúl shifted up to straddle his hips, reached back and guided Ruud's cock up to press inside him. He could do nothing but clutch at his hips and thrust up, hard and gasping. It was all so fast, so unexpected, that it took his breath away.
In the end he came with a shout and Raúl followed not long after, having guided Ruud's hand to his cock. He wiped them both off with his t-shirt then flopped down heavily beside him; Ruud turned his head to look at him, trying to decide if he was expected to cover up and deciding that if Raúl was content to lie there flushed and naked with a virtual stranger then frankly, so was he.
Then Raúl leant over and kissed him roughly, settled closer with one hand spread over Ruud's newly-shaved stomach. Then he started to speak.
He doesn't remember what he said, only that it started in ‘yo sé…' and ended with ‘cálmate,' a quiet command that he understood without really understanding the word. Raúl's voice hot by his ear made his eyes close and his pulse settle; Raúl's fingers stroking faintly at his stomach made him smile and sigh. In the end, he wasn't sure that it needed to make sense. He was settled. Everything made sense and didn't.
It's been almost three months now since that day. His Spanish has come on in leaps and bounds and he's getting to know the city, settling into this new way of life. It agrees with him; he's almost happy now that he moves. But every now and then he feels just like he's going under. Somehow it's like Raúl always knows and keeps on pulling him back, with a promise he's there just as long as he's needed - Ruud can be nothing but grateful for this, for as long as it lasts.
He looks up and Raúl's waiting, patiently as ever. He stands and they leave together.
***
There's something exhilarating about being in a new city, about living there, about putting the past behind him and moving on with his life somewhere he's been before, of course, but somewhere he's yet to really know. There's something that makes his heart beat faster when he thinks about it, exciting but not just a little unnerving. Sometimes he's caught between something darker, not unlike panic. Now is one of those times.
He's played in big games before, that's certain - there've been domestic cup finals and international semis, times when he was a lot younger and every game felt big as the World Cup; he's played there now, and in some ways enjoyed it. But he's never been to a place like this at a time like this one: the Bernabéu when Barcelona are visiting.
The game's over. The fans are leaving the stadium and the teams will leave soon, too. The game's over - he can't even explain why he feels this way. He's not in awe of the game or the event or the spectacle, he's just sitting there at his place in the changing room, showered and changed with his bag at his feet, feeling his heart beating just a little too quickly. He feels anxious, not quite right. His muscles ache and his hair's still damp, drops of water from it rolling down his neck and soaking into his collar. The light's too bright. The place is too noisy. He wonders if his ex-teammates saw the game. Thinking they might have just makes it all feel worse.
David ruffles his hair and says something he doesn't quite catch in that familiar almost-cockney accent before heading for the door. Ruud's glad that Becks is there, if only because he's a familiar face in a way - the problem is he's not really all that familiar anymore, with the tattoos and the crow's feet and the laughter lines. The David he knew might be in there somewhere or maybe he's gone but when they talk it's like his old friend is a caricature of his former self. All he has to do is look in the mirror to see that maybe, just maybe, the same's quite true of himself.
And he wishes that David wouldn't speak to him in English. He's trying to settle and trying to learn and it's like every hello throws him back three steps. He'll be conjugating estar in his head as he practices penalties and David tried to ask him to lunch. A battered copy of a British tabloid will land in his lap as he's muddling through a sentence en español and he knows that David's just trying to help but sometimes he wonders if he remembers Ruud isn't actually English. And he can almost feel the click in his head as he snaps back through the gears into the language of a country that he's left behind.
The language doesn't help. All around him he can hear that changing-room-incessant chatter and all he catches is a couple of words here and there. Sometimes he feels he's in over his head now, that he should have known better. Maybe that's what's unsettling. But he doesn't get a chance to analyse it any further.
"We go now."
He knows the voice and doesn't particularly want to look up but he does it anyway. His new captain's looking down at him.
"En español, por favor," he replies, but Raúl just smiles and shakes his head.
"You come with me," he says, quite deliberately, just as Ruud expects. Despite the odd phrasing, he knows it's more command than question or anything else. He doesn't think to protest.
The thing is, he knows exactly what's going to happen; he knows because it's happened before. It made less sense then, the first time, when he hadn't got a clue why Raúl González was speaking to him in stilted, jarring English and trying to get him to go with him to who knows where. He went with him, of course, mostly because he couldn't find the Spanish back then that he needed to say he couldn't go and Raúl studiously failed to understand any English he spoke at all. But maybe also because he was intrigued. Maybe because that faint smile tugging at the corners of his new captain's mouth held more of a promise than he'd consciously realized. Maybe because it was what he wanted, after all.
There was no grand seduction once they got where they were going. They stepped inside Raúl's apparently empty house and while Ruud was wondering what exactly he was doing there and where Raúl's wife could be, he was blindsided; Raúl slipped one hand to the back of Ruud's neck and tugged him down into a kiss he hadn't seen coming. His mouth was spicy and hot, a taste he couldn't place that made his head spin as he tried to protest. It was only a token effort - he was saying no as his fingers curled into the front of Raúl's shirt to pull him closer. He knew he should be stopping this but he honestly couldn't tear himself away and in the end, Raúl just did it for him. He pulled away, leaving Ruud flustered and rumpled and almost breathless, sort of embarrassed and extremely off-balance. He couldn't say he understood.
He thought maybe Raúl was going to backtrack then and offer him a drink or even tell him to go; he thought maybe it was all some sort of grotesque and elaborate joke and Raúl had just set out to humiliate him for reasons unknown. As it turned out, that was far from being the truth. It was only a moment, albeit a long one, before Raúl's fingers curled into the waistband of Ruud's jeans and pulled him closer.
"You come with me," he said, and this time Ruud didn't try to protest at all.
There was sex, of course. It took Ruud by surprise when Raúl reached for his belt, when he let the stubbornly English-speaking Spaniard undress him in the bedroom that smelled sort of heavy and cloying, like a heady mix of roses and cinnamon, like that meant something. He doesn't think he caught his breath for an hour, while Raúl's fingers touched him, as he let him lay him down on the heavy linen sheets and press his mouth hotly to places he only barely touched himself: the arch of one foot, the crook of one elbow, the prickly place over the pulse in his neck where the blood beat too quickly. Raúl's hands pushed his knees apart, Raúl's fingers brushed over the sensitive skin of his balls. Raúl's fingertips traced the hardening length of his cock. And then he took him in his mouth.
That didn't last long, Ruud almost writhing on the bed as Raúl's tongue flickered over the vein in the underside of his rather sudden erection. He pulled back and suddenly there was lube and Raúl's sticky-slick fingers at his cock, and he watched in something like perfect stunned silence as Raúl shifted up to straddle his hips, reached back and guided Ruud's cock up to press inside him. He could do nothing but clutch at his hips and thrust up, hard and gasping. It was all so fast, so unexpected, that it took his breath away.
In the end he came with a shout and Raúl followed not long after, having guided Ruud's hand to his cock. He wiped them both off with his t-shirt then flopped down heavily beside him; Ruud turned his head to look at him, trying to decide if he was expected to cover up and deciding that if Raúl was content to lie there flushed and naked with a virtual stranger then frankly, so was he.
Then Raúl leant over and kissed him roughly, settled closer with one hand spread over Ruud's newly-shaved stomach. Then he started to speak.
He doesn't remember what he said, only that it started in ‘yo sé…' and ended with ‘cálmate,' a quiet command that he understood without really understanding the word. Raúl's voice hot by his ear made his eyes close and his pulse settle; Raúl's fingers stroking faintly at his stomach made him smile and sigh. In the end, he wasn't sure that it needed to make sense. He was settled. Everything made sense and didn't.
It's been almost three months now since that day. His Spanish has come on in leaps and bounds and he's getting to know the city, settling into this new way of life. It agrees with him; he's almost happy now that he moves. But every now and then he feels just like he's going under. Somehow it's like Raúl always knows and keeps on pulling him back, with a promise he's there just as long as he's needed - Ruud can be nothing but grateful for this, for as long as it lasts.
He looks up and Raúl's waiting, patiently as ever. He stands and they leave together.