Title: N/A Part 2/?
Rating: R
Pairing: Fernando Torres/Sergio Ramos
Word Count: 5,982
Summary: They are teenagers. They do stupid things, but they do them together.
Notes: Massively epic and without beta. Be kind.
Chapters:
One.
The holidays come and go in quick succession. Christmas and New Year and Epiphany. Fernando half expects to get a call from Sergio, just to tell him hello and make sure he's having a good break, but no contact is made. There isn't even any email, though if Fernando is honest he doesn't make any effort either. Instead there is just the reassurance that Sergio will return on the ninth of January, two days before school begins again, that his flight will arrive in the evening, that he'll send a postcard while he's there.
The card arrived four days ago, pretty and impersonal. "Wish you were here" in English on the back. It's the sort of thing people never actually write on postcards, except in movies. But it makes Fernando smile anyway and tack it up beside Steven Gerrard on his cork board.
Sergio touches down in Liverpool and only stays with his family long enough to get home and drop off his things, so that by the time he gets to Fernando's house he has only been back in England for a little over an hour.
He knocks on Fernando's door as a courtesy before barging in. Fernando tries to stand up for no reason. His voice comes out sort of squeaky when he yells a greeting, and then Sergio is scrambling up over his body to sit beside him on the bed.
"How are you," they ask, at the same time, and laugh just because it's a strange relief to see each other.
Sergio is darker, even though he only spent three weeks away, one of them in January. He looks bright and terribly happy. He can't stop smiling. He hugs Fernando, awkwardly, and they speak out of sync finally.
"Did you have fun," Fernando asks, even though it sounds like a ridiculous question as soon as it's in the air. Of course he had fun. He is happier than Fernando has ever seen him.
Sergio waves away the question. "I've got a whole lot to tell you," he says. "Let's hear from you first. Did you have a good Christmas?"
Fernando shrugs. "Nothing exciting. Someone bought me a book about Cristiano Ronaldo." He levels Sergio with an unamused stare. "Thanks for that one, Father Christmas."
Sergio has the nerve to look innocent. "It wasn't me."
"I'm sure." Fernando hits him for good measure, partially just to touch him. It's strange to have him back again, like he was never gone at all and like he was missing for ages. It's slightly surreal. "Mostly I just ate too much."
Sergio rolls his eyes. "Yeah, I could tell. You didn't get anything good?"
Fernando hits him again, harder this time. "What do you mean you could tell? You're such an asshole. Remind me why you came back."
"I can tell, that's all. Your belly..." He looks down at Fernando's stomach and then back up again, quickly. "Looks more jolly than it did when I left."
There is a moment of dead silence, in which Fernando tries to decide what to yell about first.
"I do not have a belly!" He smacks his torso, as if this proves his point, but it just makes Sergio laugh. "I have a stomach. A nice one, too."
"I didn't say it was a bad thing. But it's definitely a belly." And he actually reaches over then, pinches at Fernando's blossoming inch of fat. The reaction is instantaneous and violent.
Fernando jerks away from his fingers, curling up, ticklish and probably a little bruised. "Shut up," he practically screeches. "Like you're perfect."
Sergio slips down on the bed to push his hips out, offering his stomach for inspection. Fernando grabs at his side ruthlessly, but even through the padding of his sweater he is ridiculously firm. His smug grin is worse than the strange rumble that goes through Fernando's spine.
"Fuck you," he finally manages, weakly. "Tell me about Sevilla already. You're drooling to do it."
Sergio pulls his bag up over his shoulder and settles it against his thighs. "I've got better," he says, hauling out his laptop. "I've got a slideshow."
Fernando groans and drops himself dramatically back against the pillows. "If this is just pictures of you giving thumbs-up, I don't want to see it."
"Not a single one. Promise."
They shift closer together, shoulders and hips touching, to support the computer on their legs. Fernando waits while he types in his password, pulls up the files. He doesn't watch, just keeps thinking about how good Sergio smells, and how he never realized it before.
"Here," Sergio says. He tips the screen up, so that it's lit completely, and Fernando can see every picture clearly. Sergio talks him through every one. His old house in Camas, and the aunt they stayed with during the trip, and then the entire family crammed into one photo. Grandparents and cousins and, shockingly, siblings that Fernando didn't know existed, plus nieces and nephews. There are pictures of the women cooking Christmas dinner and the men gathered together in the street to smoke. Pictures of Sergio crammed into the kid's table, grinning like a fiend.
There's a tour of Sergio's favorite parts of the city, the Maestranza, the Catedral de Santa María de la Sede, the Sánchez Pizjuán Stadium. And then there are more strangers, who Sergio goes through just as dutifully. Two dozen friends easily, most of them older, and strange in the same ways that Sergio is. Tonio is an art student, he tells Fernando. Eva is a flamenco dancer. Piero is in a band.
The photos are taken with various backdrops. A crowded bar in this one, a crummy looking apartment in another. These are more telling. Sergio's arm is in the corner of most of them, and he's making silly faces, and he looks brilliantly drunk.
"That's Victor," Sergio says, near the end. "My other best friend." But they don't look like friends. Victor has his face pushed up against Sergio's jaw, and his teeth are flashing, and his lips look swollen, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out what he really is.
"So that's Sevilla, huh?"
Sergio grins. "So that's Sevilla. The end."
Fernando taps the screen, where there are thumbnails of pictures he hasn't seen. "What're those?"
"Just more party pictures." But he reaches up to close the computer like he doesn't want to share them, and Fernando stops him.
"Let me see."
"You didn't get enough of me?"
"Come on, I sat through this much. What are they?"
Sergio doesn't click down to them, so Fernando does it for him. He sort of wishes he hadn't, even though he figured what was really in them. It's Victor again, only this time he's got his mouth on Sergio's. Victor trying to suck Sergio's lips right off of his face. Victor's shaved head on a naked chest that Fernando recognizes even though he's never seen it.
"If that's what you do with your best friends," he says.
Sergio shrugs. "Maybe he isn't."
"He's your boyfriend."
"He was, yeah."
Fernando mulls over that for a second, closing the laptop finally because he doesn't want to look at Victor's stupid face anymore. "Was?"
"You didn't hear? I moved to Liverpool." He tries too hard to make it into a joke, so that the silence after is even more awkward.
"Is that why you broke up?"
Sergio runs his fingers along the smooth edges of the computer. "We don't have to talk about this."
"I figured." Fernando has never seen him nervous before, even on that first day at school, standing in front of the class and being introduced. He can only imagine that's what this is.
"Does that mean you want to, or that you feel obligated?"
Fernando knocks his knee against Sergio's. "Just tell me."
"There were a couple reasons, but yeah. A year is a long time, you know?"
"Would you still be with him if you hadn't left?"
"I don't know." Sergio pushes himself further down the mattress, until he can rest his head on the pillow. "Maybe."
"Do you miss him?"
Sergio laughs then because he can't help himself. "Jealous?"
Fernando just shrugs in response and purses his lips tight, which makes Sergio laugh harder.
"Well you shouldn't be, anyway. I'm all yours now."
Fernando grunts a reply but doesn't speak. Instead he pulls a small box out of his bedside table and throws it at him.
Sergio catches it against his chest, turns it over in his hands, gives it a shake. "Wrap this yourself," he asks, and his smile hasn't faded at all. He thumbs the edge of the bare box, but looks up for permission first.
"I never figured out tape dispensers," Fernando replies. "And this way you can't pretend you care about the paper just to spend ten minutes unwrapping it."
Sergio laughs and pries the lid up. A ring winks up at him from a bed of cotton batting. Pale, milky grey, like nothing he's ever seen before. His curiosity overrides his appreciation.
"What is it?"
"It's a ring. Duh." But Fernando takes the empty box from his hands when he picks it up, and pries out the paper he has folded inside of it. "The woman said it was..." He consults his own scratchy handwriting. "'A disc from the horn of Michin.' Some--"
Sergio's eyes go goggle-sized as he rounds them on Fernando. "The concrete bull."
"What?"
"Maera's concrete bull." Sergio rubs his thumb over the smooth surface of the horn. "It took him five tries to get the sword in. The first one dislocated his right wrist."
"It might not be real," Fernando says finally. He can't stop watching Sergio's mouth form words he doesn't actually speak. "I got it off some gypsy. You know how they lie."
Sergio smiles. He fits the ring down over his middle finger. It almost overwhelms his hand.
"I didn't know if it would fit, but I figured we're about the same size." Fernando pauses, scowls a little. "Apart from my gut, of course."
"It's perfect."
"You're welcome."
Sergio lifts his head and flashes him the biggest smile he's ever seen. "Thanks."
"Like you need any more jewelry," Fernando says, after he recovers. He swats at Sergio's hands already heavy with rings, at his wrist tied up in bits of fabric, a leather cuff, and a strip hammered metal that keeps his skin green. "Queer."
But Sergio doesn't take the bait, just thumbs the circle of horn over and over again. "I feel bad now."
"Because you got me a book about Cristiano Ronaldo?"
Sergio grins. "Because I bought it used, and you left the price sticker on."
"Fuck." Fernando pulls the ring off of him then, cheeks flushed as he tears at the little paper tag. "Would you believe I got it on sale?"
"No." Sergio takes it back from him, settles it onto his finger like he really wants it there. "Now I know how much you love me."
"Good thing you can't buy love, huh?"
"Good thing I'm only sixty euros, is more like it."
Fernando saves his last shred of dignity by shoving Sergio off of the bed.
"Can you stay over," he asks, after watching Sergio roll around on the floor and fake injury.
"Spend the night?"
Fernando shrugs like it doesn't matter. "Yeah. Unless you want to just impersonate Crispiano the whole time. You can do that at home."
Sergio smiles as he finds his feet. "I'll have to call my parents."
"Sure," Fernando replies, even though it doesn't seem like something he would actually have to do. He saw the pictures. It's doubtful that Sergio's parents are actually sticklers about curfew. But if he's looking for a way out, Fernando won't deny him the chance. He's not completely sure about the idea himself.
Sergio volunteers to sleep on the sofa, but Fernando tells him it gives good backache. He says that the floor is fine, but Fernando won't hear of it. "You just got off a plane," he insists, "you've reached your level of discomfort." And so instead they share the bed. It's not terribly risque. Fernando has a double, it's made for two people. He reminds himself of this fact a couple times as they settle onto opposite sides of the mattress.
Even so he can't get over the feeling of being in tight quarters. In the dark, with just the display of his digital clock throwing blue light, he is hyperaware. Sergio shifts onto his back and Fernando feels the entire mattress shudder. He pays close attention to the pattern of Sergio's breathing, until there is an unreality about the entire scene. Half-awake, he wonders if any of this is real. Half-asleep, he reaches out and his fingers find the skin of Sergio's elbow after just a few meager inches.
He rolls onto his side, and he can feel his breath washing over Sergio's shoulder and back across his own face. He tries to judge the distance between them. He spreads his fingers, encircles most of Sergio's forearm. He tries to convince himself that he is just a victim to his murky brain. If I was awake, he thinks, I wouldn't be touching him. But whatever the balance between waking and sleep, he doesn't fall for it completely.
He lays like that for what feels like an eternity, breathing in his own exhalations, trying not to think about the scent of Sergio's skin underlying the air escaping his mouth. And then, because the urge is too great, he wedges his face between Sergio's shoulder and the mattress.
This is not the way boys are supposed to sleep together, of course. He knows it. And if it were anyone but Sergio, he would be fine just clinging to the edge of the bed, blatantly ignoring the fact that he is sharing it at all. But this is not anyone else. It is Sergio. And that he falls asleep right there is strange, but not unnatural.
He wakes up with his fingers curling around a fistful of Sergio's shirt. They parted in the night, because neither of them are used to sleeping with another person. But Fernando's hand betrays him. The only saving grace is that he wakes up first, that he can extricate himself from the bed without comment.
The promise of food draws him downstairs into the empty kitchen. His parents are already gone off to work. He scrounges cupboards and refrigerator for breakfast that doesn't require cooking. He settles on frozen sausage and waffles, bland and soggy in the microwave but enough to fill his ever-expanding belly. He doesn't complain.
Sitting on the couch in the living room, he watches a children's program about a little girl who refuses to take off an alligator costume. Because he doesn't have to think much about the plot or the life lessons, his mind wanders. Not surprisingly, it goes straight up the stairs and into his own bedroom. He dumps his dishes into the sink as the little girl parades bravely onto stage in her costume.
It's the combination of television and his meandering brain that does him in.
When Sergio finally comes downstairs, rubbing sleep out of his eyes and with a terrible mess of hair, Fernando is prepared.
"Good morning," he says, in English. Sergio only grunts a reply. "Sleep well," he asks.
Sergio swivels his eyes over lazily. He's a horrible grouch straight out of bed, it seems. Fernando smiles past his blank stare.
"I'm not going to speak Spanish all day," he says, and offers Sergio a worn bilingual dictionary scrounged up from his parents' overflowing bookshelf. "You'll probably need this."
Sergio takes the weighty paperback and drops it meaningfully between them on the couch. His voice is scratchy and thick when it comes after a false start. "Fuck you."
"Sorry," Fernando replies. He beams. "Didn't catch a word. Breakfast?"
"You're lucky my hands are asleep."
"Nope. Still didn't get it." Fernando picks up the dictionary and brandishes it at him. "Breakfast. That's a word you should learn."
"Bitch," Sergio says, as proof that his English has improved.
Fernando shakes his head, mouth puckered into a look of sage pity. "I'll take that as a 'no.'"
At noon, Sergio learns the word "food" because his stomach is trying to eat itself. And because he says it in English, Fernando pretends that he finally understands. They have sandwiches because Sergio refuses to consult the dictionary enough to demand something warm. He's surprisingly stubborn about the entire thing. He goes into the same strange kind of silence Fernando sees him in during school, ignoring most of what's going on around him, even though it's blatantly obvious that Fernando isn't talking to anyone else. For hours there is only eerie quiet and complete ignorance.
He comes around to the idea only after he decides that there's some fun to be had. He chooses the words he can spell phonetically, responds with choppy sentences from the included phrase book.
"Do you want to go to the park," Fernando asks.
Sergio scans a page for the translation, then another in the opposite side. "It's an emergency," he says after a short delay. He beams. That's one of his favorites.
"I know, I know. You need to see a doctor. You lost your purse. You'll call the police." Fernando sighs. "This is supposed to be helpful, you realize."
But Sergio only hears the words that he recognizes. He visibly perks up. "I need a doctor," he says. He actually makes it pleading. "I've been injured."
"Even now you're diving. Fucking Spaniard." Fernando snatches the book to hit him with it. He does it again just because it's so satisfying. "Necesitás un medico."
Sergio laughs, doesn't have to check the dictionary. "Help! Police!"
"If you scream 'rape,' I'll gag you. I promise." Fernando drapes himself across Sergio. He props his elbows up on the far side of Sergio's chest. He sighs. "You need to learn this stuff."
"I'm lost."
It's strange, speaking to him and not being understood. Fernando liked it at first. He was the one doing the aggravating. Now it's tiring. He may as well be addressing a brick wall for as much as Sergio is paying attention to the actual words.
"I know you won't be here forever," he says. "But it's not like a year isn't a long time. What if you did get lost? What if you really did need a doctor?"
Sergio squirms under him. "It's an emergency."
Fernando ignores him. "I'm not always around to translate. I'm not even around half the time. Just on weekends. I bet you don't even know the bus system yet."
"System," Sergio asks, and the word comes out rubbery.
"I should make flash cards for you just in case. Get you a map. Something. It's a miracle you haven't gotten yourself killed yet."
"You," Sergio says. He smiles, touches Fernando's shoulder because it's within range. "Tú."
Fernando looks over at him finally. He returns the smile. "Yeah. Tú."
Sergio's English education continues. Fernando is determined, though when asked he doesn't give any particular reasons. "You just need to learn it," is what he falls back on, out of exasperation. And even though Sergio sighs and drags his feet over every step of the way, he goes along with it. Fernando doesn't give him much of a choice.
They go into the city proper because Sergio hasn't seen much of it. Fernando gives him a tour in their last few days before winter break ends. He tells him everything he can remember about the city. He takes him to all of the places that the tourists see, even though he has never been to most of them himself. He attempts to book them on a guided Beatles tour, but backs out of reservations after hearing the price. Instead he consults a few websites, then breaks down and focuses on the places that he himself finds interesting.
"This," he says, "is the Liverpool FC shop." He spreads his hands and motions grandly. They have already gone through the museum and stadium, dimmed only slightly by Sergio's boredom and Fernando's familiarity. "Isn't it great?"
"Brilliant." Sergio rolls his eyes. "I especially like the larger-than-life Gerrard. Oh, wait. I forgot."
Fernando elbows him. "Shut up," he says, but he can't quite keep the excitement out of his voice. He practically scampers to a display of jerseys printed with the glorious number eight.
Sergio is less passionate. He browses listlessly, walking the wide furrows between well designed displays. He slips his fingers over the more expensive-looking bits and baubles. He snorts at an official Liverpool FC jelly mold. He has no preparation for the sudden shock of a female mannequin, limbless, wearing a pair of red and white underwear, a matching camisole. He turns to tell Fernando how ridiculous it is, but instead he ponders.
He checks over his shoulder, covertly. Fernando is in an animated conversation over something he can't understand. No doubt vehemently extolling the precise measurements of his beloved Stevie G's more intimate areas. It serves him right.
Sergio snags a pair of panties and walks to the register. He has no shame. He slides them across the counter, dares the woman ringing him up to say a word. What she says is the same as what he always hears when he dares his way into a store and actually purchases. The words are lost, but he knows the inflection. He smiles blankly and waits for the total to appear on the digital display. Then, casually, he tosses a keyring in as well.
The petite bag is handed over to him as if it is actually worth the twenty euros he has given her. He hopes it buys Gerrard's wife a really tacky dental floss thong. He hopes that's exactly what Gerrard likes. He smiles in something truly close to evil glee.
Fernando, disengaged from his Liverpool lover, motions excitedly up at the wall where a jersey hangs behind glass.
"See," he asks, though it's more of a command. "Signed." He sighs, just like a lovesick little girl.
Sergio remains unimpressed. "Hold out for one he orgasmed on. Are you ready yet? I think my stomach can handle some of that crap the English call food."
Fernando nods, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He wants the jersey, of course, but he has wanted it for years. When it sells they replace it. The signature is always in a very slightly different spot. He imagines that one day he will actually have the money to buy it. He wants one with Stevie's scribble aligned perfectly with the crest.
"Fish and chips," he asks, swinging himself toward the door.
Sergio shrugs. "Sure." Outside he slips the purchases into his bag.
Fernando notices. "You bought something? You debased yourself enough to actually buy something?"
"I do that occasionally. I would have stolen it, but I didn't want your boyfriend to jump from the shadows and slap me."
"Trust me," Fernando says, "Stevie has better things to do than bother with you. What'd you get?"
Sergio unearths the slender bag and pulls out the keyring. The heavy Liverpool crest spins slightly, catches the light, distracts completely.
"Why do you need that?"
"For my keys."
Fernando rolls his eyes. "Right."
"I'm going to melt it and think evil thoughts. Better?"
"More up your alley, anyway."
Sergio smiles and tosses it at him. "Alright, so it's for you."
"Feel bad about the book?" Fernando flips it a few times in his palm.
"No. Just wanted you to have something to commemorate the day."
School begins again. They scrape together as many grey afternoons as possible. They find more excuses to sleep over. The timeline that they have always functioned under is more pressing, now that they are half-way through. It comes at them like fever.
"You could stay after you graduate," Fernando says one night. This is an old conversation that neither have actually spoken yet.
Sergio shrugs. "You could come to Spain."
Fernando sighs. "I like Liverpool."
"We have football in Spain," Sergio says.
"I don't mean the team."
"I know."
The silence is ominous.
In a few months, this will dissolve. Fernando can feel it like mercury in his veins. Heavy and dangerous, making him stupid. He digs the flat edge of his thumbnail into the carpet. Sergio will go back to Sevilla because it's the city he belongs in. For a while they will work under the pretense of remaining friends. They will talk on instant messengers. When university starts they will email occasionally, because there isn't time for anything else. They will forget to tell each other the little things that make the day important, and they will forget to care about them, too. They will be reduced to short messages every few months. It will be "how are you" over and over again for the rest of the year, until nothing.
Fernando digs a ragged piece of carpet fluff from under his nail. He hates.
Sergio will go back to his friends and his boyfriend, or get a new one. He will talk about how miserable he was in England. He will tell everyone how glad he is to be back. He will stand in the sun until he is a brown, foreign thing. He will let his hair get wild and longer. He will forget all the good things about here.
"The smell of rain," Fernando says. "Cold beaches. Dark afternoons." He doesn't look up to see the confusion on Sergio's face. He soldiers on. "How hot you feel when you come in from the snow. The snow at all.
"You have to remember," Fernando tells him finally. "So you'll know what to miss."
Sergio lounges across the width of the bed. He smiles something Fernando hasn't seen before.
Fernando sighs differently this time.
"I'll remember."
"You'll do it all wrong. You'll just think about all the bad stuff."
"That is the bad stuff."
Fernando turns his head to see Sergio's face. "Remember," he says, like he can will it all into Sergio's brain, frame it for him and put it in the most flattering light, trick his synapses into being kind.
Sergio sighs differently too. "I'll remember you."
"You could stay. Then you wouldn't have to."
"You could come with me. In case I need reminding."
Fernando pushes himself onto his knees. He shuffles that way to the edge of the bed. He stares hard into Sergio's eyes. "The smell of rain," he says. "Cold beaches. Dark afternoons."
They go over it, again and again, until the sound of his voice is more familiar than the words. Sergio will remember.
Fernando argues. He comes up with a long list of reasons for Sergio to stay. He tries to convince Sergio that they're valid. And when that doesn't work, he bribes. Slowly, he thinks, he is wearing Sergio down.
"British music is better," he says. He has tried this particular angle before to no avail. He has come armed this time. He ploys Sergio with the white buds of his earphones, swinging like a hypnotist's pocket watch. "Liverpool gave the world the Beatles. England made the Stones, the Who, Pink Floyd, Donovan, Genesis, Yes, Jethro Tull. Punk is completely English. The Clash, the Sex Pistols, the Damned, the Buzzcocks, the Stranglers, the Roundhose, the Flamin' Groovies. And glam rock, too. Marc Bolan was English. Bowie still is."
Sergio sighs listlessly. "Flamenco is Sevillan."
"Flamenco sucks."
"So could you, if you'd shut up."
Fernando kicks him half off of the bed. "Football was born here, too."
"Bullfighting is illegal."
"You'll live without it."
Sergio hauls himself back up onto the mattress, closer than before he was dislodged. Their shoulders and feet knock. "Will you?"
Fernando doesn't feel as trustworthy with them so snug. He keeps his mouth closed. He mulls over it, or pretends to. He scrolls rapidly through the artist directory of his iPod, up and down from A-Ha to ZZ Top. He stops on a random song, offers Sergio one earphone. They snuggle further down against the pillows, together because now they're joined.
Fernando tips his head back and listens with his eyes closed. Sergio stares at Fernando's hands on the slick plastic gadget pumping music into his head. He's ridiculously pale. Even his knuckles are dotted with a few freckles. His fingernails chewed way down. His wrist is all bone and hard tendons. Despite his ancestry, his fluent Spanish, his birth certificate, he is thoroughly English. He would live without it, but maybe not with.
"The Eagles," Fernando says. His voice is a low mumble. "Hotel California."
English, and so Sergio doesn't understand anything except "California." He doesn't care. If it's something he needs to know, Fernando will translate. Though Sergio wonders sometimes about the things he refuses to repeat in Spanish.
Sergio pulls the white plastic plug from his ear. He dumps it across Fernando's hands. He is tired of being convinced.
"What about José Mercé," he asks. "Camarón de la Isla? What about Paco de Lucía?" He kicks Fernando, because it's his turn. "Why is yours better?"
Fernando clutches at the mattress to keep himself from spilling over the side. He glares hard. "Because mine is here."
"Why is here better?"
Fernando crowds him against the pillows. "Because I'm here."
"And if I'm not?" Sergio doesn't pretend that he is going to stay. It's terribly brave and stupid. It makes Fernando's guts do somersaults.
"Then I guess you'll be in Sevilla."
"I guess so."
Fernando sits back with a sigh. He doesn't know what tactic to use in these moments, when it stops being a game.
"You could come with me," Sergio says.
"You could stay," Fernando replies. This has become the script. It's kinder now than it used to be. They don't feel it quite as hard. It takes less time to recover.
Fernando turns off his iPod. He winds the long white cords round and round, tucks the whole bundle deep into his pocket. "What are you going to do," he asks. "Any openings for weird gypsies down there?"
Sergio turns his bracelets, exposing a tattoo hidden under the green ring of his wrist. "I'm going to cooking school," he says.
Fernando stares at him. "You cook?"
"No. That's why I'm going to school."
Fernando scoffs. For some reason he expected something more dramatic from Sergio. Something really impossible. The banality of his choice is almost disheartening. Even Sergio is realistic, when it's down to the wire.
"What about you?" Sergio pulls his legs up, plants his feet on the mattress. "Think there are any openings for Gerrard boot lickers?"
"I want to be a trainer at Anfield," he says. It's not so outlandish. He doesn't want to be a star striker or anything. He can be a realist too.
"Don't you have to play for them to train them?"
Fernando shrugs. His heart does strange things inside of his chest. "So maybe I will."
"Maybe," Sergio says. He doesn't sound optimistic.
Fernando shrugs with exaggeration. "Maybe you can come visit," he says. "Maybe I'll introduce you to Stevie."
Sergio laughs. He lets his head drop hard against the wall. "I'm sure. I'll save the date for your wedding."
"June," Fernando replies. "I want a June wedding."
"With a white dress?"
"Red and white, of course."
Sergio laughs harder, and Fernando only hits him softly, to keep himself grounded.
"Morrissey," Fernando says as the song starts. "Steven Patrick. Born in Lancanshire and raised in Manchester. Fronted the Nosebleeds, Slaughter & the Dogs for four songs, then the Smiths with Johnny Marr. Went solo in 1988. Loves Oscar Wilde, James Dean, and the New York Dolls."
Sergio takes it the way he does all of the information Fernando throws at him. He lays on the floor, head near the speakers, and nods. He taps his bare feet against the wall, more impatience than interest. He hasn't looked impressed yet.
Morrissey croons, and Fernando wishes he didn't have to translate. He wishes he had picked another song. He pauses the track.
"'I see the world, it makes me puke, but then I look at you and know that somewhere there's a someone who can soothe me.'"
Sergio snorts. "Puke."
Fernando presses play. He remembers hearing Morrissey the first time. He remembers the feeling of disembodiment, the lull, the high. He doesn't understand why Sergio isn't even paying attention. Why he doesn't get it.
"What's next?"
Fernando taps the notebook laid out in front of himself. They have been at this for almost an hour, and already they're on disc two. He thought this would be more.
"It doesn't matter," he says. "Just listen."
"I don't have to," Sergio replies. "It's another whiny guy I don't understand. Next?"
Fernando turns the page and queues the track. "Interpol," he says. "Founded in New York City, 1997. Paul Banks, Daniel Kessler, Carlos Dengler, and Sam Fogarino. Debut album Turn on the Bright Lights."
Sergio doesn't even wait to hear the first notes. He sighs. "I hate the American stuff. Skip it."
"No." Fernando shuts the notebook pointedly. He clamps a hand down over Sergio's eyes. "Listen." He presses play.
Sergio tries to pry his fingers away. "I can't understand it. Why don't you get that?"
"You don't have to understand," Fernando says. He drops down to lay beside Sergio. He closes his own eyes. "Just listen."
It's a thing of beauty, "The New." It makes his heart seize up in his chest, so that the music is his only pulse. He feels every beat and lull. He lets it break over him, and it feels like everything all in one. Not even Sergio matters when the guitar comes three minutes and fourteen seconds in. He is infinite.
The song ends and Fernando gropes blindly for the pause button. He lets them lay in silence for a few long moments before he even realizes that there is no response from Sergio. He plays it again.
"Well," he says, after the third time.
Sergio rolls over onto his stomach. He pushes himself up to his knees. "It was okay."
"Yeah." Fernando smiles. "They're definitely okay."
Sergio bends down and smacks his cheek. "Come on," he says. "I'm hungry."
"I left my urge in the icebox," Fernando replies.
Sergio doesn't get it, but he doesn't need to. He smiles. "Sounds delicious. Let's have that."
To be continued forever and ever.