Miserable At Best Chapter Three
Miserable at Best
Three- We both know I’m not that strong
The next time the Nation Team is called up; there is some amount of confusion. For the first time since anyone can remember, the David’s are not trying to switch rooms to be together. They’re barely acknowledging each other’s presence. Villa is rooming with Iker and no one is really sure who Silva is with. In fact, other than practice time, no one sees Silva at all.
You are worried about the younger player and you are not the only one who notices how poorly he is doing. Earlier, you overheard Del Bosque asking Iker to speak with Silva to see if anything is wrong with him. You hope Iker and Silva can come up with a good excuse, because VDB might have an aneurism if Iker tells him that Silva and Villa were too blind to admit they love each other and subsequently broke up. Not that Del Bosque would care that the two were together, but rather be irritated that no one told him. After all, a relationship of any sort effects a person’s mental game and VDB would most likely attribute Villa’s lack of goals since the World Cup to this break up.
“What are you frowning about?”
You look up from where you’ve been glaring at your hands into the teasing dark eyes of your lover. Sergio is laying chest down, a sheet barely covers the gentle curve of his backside and your eyes follow the strong lines of his legs under the sheet to where a lone ankle is poking out. He should be on the cover of romance novels as you find the image of your undressed, barely concealed lover enough to make anyone’s blood run hot. Hmmm, perhaps an erotica book would be more appropriate.
“You’re beautiful,” you tell him sincerely and he flashes that gypsy grin.
“I know,” he raises the magazine he’s reading and you see he’s been reading an article about himself. “I think I’ll frame this and put it in my bedroom.”
“And so vain…”
“But you wouldn’t have me any other way.”
“No, I wouldn’t. I love you.”
The smile falters on his lips and he quietly closes the magazine and puts it on the bedside table. Grabbing your hands, he pulls you down against his chest and you bury your face into the crook of his neck. You love these moments, when it is just you and him, safely hidden away from the world. Sergio understands you better than anyone you have ever known and you know he will always grant your mind release from the troubling thoughts that plague it.
“I want you to tell me something Niño,” he whispers, gently brushing your cheek with his hand. “You have been very open with me the past few weeks, more than usual. What is bothering you?”
“I’m worried about Silva,” you tell him sadly. “I did what you and Olalla suggested but I think I made it worse.”
“What happened?”
And so what occurred the night in Manchester comes tumbling from your troubled lips. He listens as you speak of how white Silva’s flat is, the lingering smell of bleach, the constant cold, and how devoid it is of anything personal. His eyes are worried when you tell him you secretly went through the kitchen when Silva was in the bathroom and the only thing you found aside from bleach were protein bars. Finally, there is a frown on his lips when you tell him how you mentioned Villa and your failed seduction of the younger player.
“He called himself a whore?” Sergio’s expressive eyes are sad and you close the gap to kiss him.
The seduction or failed seduction as it were, was Olalla’s idea. She suggested to you that perhaps Silva would leave his misery behind if he realized there was more to life than moping around about Villa. You stared at her like she had grown a second head but she just laughed and said it wasn’t cheating if she ordered you to do it. Jokingly, you brought it up with Sergio on the phone and were stunned into silence when he agreed with her.
“She’s right, it’s not cheating if we ask you to do it, plus you don’t love him like that, so it’s not emotional cheating,” he said cheekily while you tried to keep your eyes from bulging out of your face. “Besides, doesn’t a good hot fucking always make everything better?”
In the end, you failed. You don’t have Sergio’s mysterious charisma or your wife’s calming sweetness. All you have is freckled gangly bumbling fuck-it-up-itus, which made Silva worse off than before.
“Maybe you should talk to Villa while I talk to Silva?” Sergio suggests.
“Do you mean talk or sex?”
“Just talk, although…” Sergio trails off and you see a mischievous plan beginning to form behind those eyes. “We could always invite Silva in here with us. I’m sure Villa would break down the door to get him away.”
“You’re horrible, and you’d have to get Silva to agree and we both know he won’t.” You flick the tip of his ear and he pouts. “As enticing as it sounds, I don’t want to deal with a pissy or murderous Villa.”
“I suppose,” Sergio lets out a dramatic sigh and you bean him in the face with a pillow. “Hey!”
A rather cliché pillow fight and much giggling ensues and soon you’re tickling him and he’s screaming in laughter. You are positive it would have evolved into loud kinky sex had there not been a pounding on the wall and Xabi’s irritated voice yelling something. While you aren’t sure what exactly he said, the both of you definitely heard “eviscerate” and “balls”. Sergio and you giggle quietly, but with a touch of nervousness- you both know Xabi watches that creepy Dexter show and would probably make good on his threat. He’s just being bitchy about not seeing Stevie.
“Sorry Xa-” you’re cut off from your apology when Sergio pushes you down, straddling over your hips and pinning your arms over your head.
You look up at him and wonder what you did in your past life to deserve such luck in the current one. Sergio is a well chiseled god, hovering over your body somehow able to look like lustful sin and naughty innocence. His hair, shorter but still soft, feathers around his face as he leans down to kiss you slowly. Some corny line about drinking ambrosia from his lips flashes through your mind and you smile.
“You’ve been a bad, bad little boy,” he whispers into your ear, tongue flicking the tip of it and you nearly whimper as he grinds your hips together, delicious friction building.
“You should punish me,” you whisper back, catching his lower lip with your teeth and roughly nipping at it.
“I plan to,” he tells you solemnly before roughly biting the junction of your neck and shoulder, putting a hand over your mouth to muffle your cries.
Tonight is going to be a good night.
* * *
You feel ridiculous, but you are obsessively checking your phone to make sure Cesc hasn’t texted you ‘the code’. Sergio is gone in his hunt for Silva. You kicked him out when he started singing that Shakira song to you about counting the freckles on your body. Cesc overheard your plotting at lunch (surprising as you didn’t think anyone could hear over Piqué’s loud story and gesturing) and has agreed to ‘distract’ Iker. You’re not exactly sure what that means, but you have an inkling that Iker won’t be returning to his room for a while. Or all night. Kinky.
“ThunderCats Are Go!” Flashes across your screen and you look out of the peephole of your door just in time to see Iker walk by, silly grin on his face.
Waiting until you hear a door shut, you open your door and sprint down the hall to Villa’s room. Knocking loudly, you plant a brilliant, albeit fake and over the top, smile on your face as he answers the door. The trademark bitchface expression is front and center but you ignore it. You’re pretty sure that’s his permanent expression.
“What do you want Nando?” He asks you and you detect either anger or exhaustion in his voice, probably both.
“I need to talk to you,” He rolls his eyes but you press on, voice lowered. “It’s important, it’s about Silva. Please?”
“Yeah,” he sighs and lets you into the room.
You’re not really sure what to say to him. What is clear is that Villa and Silva are not functioning well without each other. Villa looks like shit, not as bad as Silva, but still like he hasn’t slept through a night in a while. Olalla has mentioned in passing that Patricia told her Villa is moodier than normal. They also haven’t had sex since the team returned from Argentina. That’s enough to make anyone grumpy.
“I’m worried about him,” You tell David after you’ve perched yourself next to him on his bed. “He’s not doing well.”
“I noticed,” he mutters, staring at the floor. “He won’t talk to me, he doesn’t return my calls.” Bitchface. “He answers if Patricia calls.”
“Why does she want to talk to him?”
“To make sure he is okay, and so Zaida can talk to him.” David’s frown deepens even more. “Even my daughter misses him.” There’s an awkward pause before he asks, “You’ve been to see him in Manchester?”
“I’ve been a few times. We had a… a…..,” you gnaw your lower lip trying to find a word to encompass what occurred the last time you went to see him, “an argument. I haven’t seen him in a few weeks.”
“What did you argue about?”
“You.” He raises an eyebrow and you huff before elaborating. “I wanted him to call you so he could know he was more than an occasional quick fuck.”
“He’s not a quick fuck,” Villa growls, tensing.
“I think everyone knows that except him.”
“Fuck.” Villa flops back on his bed, hands coming up to cover his face as he sighs. “I don’t know what to do.”
There’s a tortured and defeated look on the normally stoic face. This new attitude is a total departure from the Villa you know and you don’t like it at all. You want to see those small grins and smiles from when he thought he was being covert in stealing glances at Silva. You want to see the confidence from the amazing year at Valencia. You want to see the old and happy Villa, not this broken man.
“He told me he couldn’t be with me anymore because he felt guilty. He thought that he took away from my time with my family. He told me he loved me.”
“What?” Your eyebrows shoot up to your hairline. “Christ, what did you say back?”
“Nothing- it was in a letter he gave me when he left.”
You are silent; you don’t know what to say. What can you say to that? You know in your heart that Villa loves Silva, even if he can’t put it in worlds. Love was in every stolen look and touch. Love was in every Valencia game you would watch. Love was in the silent, but comfortable way they could sit together for hours on end. And now, love in the form of heartbreak was etched into the miserable and tired face.
“Can I ask you something if you promise not to get angry?” You ask him and he looks up at you with a bit of a scowl on his face.
“Why would I get angry?” He already sounds angry.
There have been a few questions lingering in the back of your mind for a few weeks now, ever since the last time you saw Silva. You admit, you reacted badly when the younger man called himself a whore. Perhaps the right thing to have done was to ignore the comment, but you were enraged that your shy friend could think of himself in such a manner. Ever since then, you’ve wondered if Silva called himself a whore or if Villa put the words there first.
“Did you call Silva a whore?”
“Excuse me?” He jolts up and stares at you in disbelief. “No! I would never call him that. Did he say I did? I didn’t, he’s not…” something clicks behind David’s eyes. “The letter… he wrote that whores shouldn’t fall in love.” He jumps to his feet and slams his fist against the wall. “Fuck!”
A silence drags on as he flops onto the bed, knuckles bright red and definitely going to bruise. Maybe this was a mistake. You don’t know what to say to him. You want to tell him everything that took place when you went to see Silva, but that will probably make everything worse. Or maybe the knowledge of just how miserable Silva is will make Villa get off his mopey ass and hunt the Canarian down.
“Did he tell you I called him a whore?” David asks you, morosely sitting up into a slouch.
“No.”
“What, it just happened to come up in conversation?” David’s eyes have narrowed at you and you suddenly know what a mouse feels like when the hawk catches sight of it.
“He was upset,” you tell him as nonchalantly as possible, but you are the worst person at keeping secrets, especially from someone as sharp eyed as David Villa.
“Bullshit.” There’s anger in his voice.
“You don’t think he has the right to be upset?” You find yourself irritated at his sudden mood swing.
“What happened?”
“It’s none of your business- he’ll tell you if he wants to.”
“Don’t be an asshole Fernando,” he growls at you, “you’re the one who came in here to talk to me about him and now you won’t fucking telling me what happened.”
“Whatever David,” you roll your eyes and move towards the door. You’ll let Sergio deal with this because apparently you suck at anything dealing with fixing relationships.
“Tell me what happened,” his hand slams against the door, holding it shut, preventing you from leaving.
“I’m not your fucking fairy godmother or therapist,” you sneer, pushing him aside and yanking the door open. “Grow up and talk to him if you want to fix things.”
He takes you by surprise as he throws you up against the wall. His arm is pressed against your chest and arms and no matter how hard you struggle, he won’t let go. There is fury in his eyes as he glares at you and it’s a wonder you don’t spontaneously combust. But you are just as furious- who the hell is he to treat you like this? Did he ever hurt Silva like this? That possibility enrages you further and before you know it, you are goading him on.
“I kissed him,” you snarl. “He was crying over you so I kissed him and tried to make him forget how shitty you treated him.”
Villa’s anger falters for a minute and he looks like a lost child. But then, the rage clouds his face and his punch catches you in the jaw. The sting of the punch makes you gasp, but then fury over takes you and you lash out, landing a punch of your own. Your mind goes cloudy as you become a tangle of flying fists and shouted words.
“Keep your fucking hands off of him,” Villa practically screams in your ear.
“I wouldn’t have to touch him if you didn’t treat him like a slut,” you rage back.
Doors are being thrown open to see what the commotion is and soon you are ripped apart by Piqué and Pepe. You’re pretty sure you have a cut above your eyebrow as a good deal of blood is making its way down your face. You smirk as you see you’ve split Villa’s lip and most likely given him a black eye.
“What the fuck is going on?”
Iker has come storming from down the hall, shirt missing and a red bite mark is more than noticeable on his shoulder. You would normally say something to embarrass him, but this is hardly the time or place. Plus, the Captain looks pissed. No, Iker looks murderous.
“Nothing,” Villa and you mutter at the same time, arms crossed and facing away from each other.
Further down the hall, one of the doors opens and Sergio steps out. He sees you and Villa being scolded by Iker (while half the team watches) and grimaces. Another head pops out and you see your boyfriend has been successful in locating Silva. Silva looks between you and Villa and frowns- he’s not stupid, he realizes what happened. Sergio whispers something into Silva’s ear before gently pushing him back into the safety of his room and shutting the door.
Villa pulls himself from Piqué’s grip and storms passed Iker, who now looks like he’s contemplating a mass murdering spree. Sergio puts an arm out to stop him, but Villa is angrier than you’ve ever seen him and Sergio goes flying into the wall. However, Sergio is more than a pretty face and he’s up off his ass and pulling Villa back from Silva’s door before you can blink. Iker is foaming at the mouth. Sergio says something to Villa, loud enough for only the enraged man to hear. Whatever your lover has said, it stops Villa in his tracks. The anger dissipates and the broken man returns, slouched and down trodden.
“What are you lot looking at?” Sergio barks at your nosy teammates, who magically disappear back into their rooms.
“Are you okay?” Pepe asks you quietly.
“I’m good,” you tell your Liverpool teammate. “Er, don’t tell Stevie, I don’t want him bitching at me for fighting.
“I got your back Niño,” Pepe winks before leaving you in the hallway with Sergio, Villa, and an apoplectic looking Iker. Oh, and a fidgety Cesc.
“My room, now.” Iker spits out.
Villa shuffles along behind him, looking more miserable than before if that’s possible. Sergio grabs your hand and plants a soft kiss on your inner wrist before gently wiping some of the blood off your face. The gesture would be sensual, if Cesc wasn’t watching you with large eyes and Iker didn’t want to stab you.
“What the hell are the two of you fighting about?”
When Villa doesn’t say anything, you decide not to press the matter. You’ve already done enough damage for one day. Bite lip, look down.
“Is this why Silva looks like shit?”
“Yes,” Sergio helpfully chirps- you’re sure Villa’s glare is just as lethal as the one you’ve directed at your lover.
“Tell me what’s going on,” Iker sits down in one of the chairs and crosses his arms, pissed expression still on his face. “Don’t lie to me or I’ll go get Del Bosque and tell him just how bad Silva is and that his two strikers are fighting like teenagers.”
“It’s none of your business,” Villa snarks, throwing himself on his bed, pointedly ignoring everyone else in the room.
“When you sent Cesc to distract me, it became my business.”
You exchange a guilty look with Sergio as Cesc has the decency to look ashamed. Villa just throws another dark look your way- you flip him the bird.
“Fine. Villa, you’ll be rooming with Piqué until you retire if you don’t start speaking.” A Bitchface is the only response Iker gets before he rounds on you. “And Torres, I’ll find a way to tell Gerrard that you’ve been coming onto Xabi.”
Wait, what? That’s a low blow. You see the anger in Iker’s eyes and you know he’ll make good on his threat. StevieG will make your life hell if he thinks you’ve been hitting on his precious Xabi. Fuck, he might even end your life. Glancing at Villa, you can see him weighing the pros and cons too- rooming with Piqué means sleeping with one eye open. Sighing, the both of you begin to piece together what has occurred in the past few months.
* * *
“This is so fucked up.”
An hour has gone by, as have many bottles of alcohol. Everyone is drunk. Your fight with David is forgotten as you both apologize. It was wrong of you to provoke him, though you do feel justified in the few punches you landed. The cut on your brow has been dutifully bandaged by Sergio, complete with a kiss that made David and Iker roll their eyes. Cesc cooed like a fan girl and you wondered how many drinks he had consumed.
“I think you should hire a skywriter to write a declaration of your love for him in the sky with an airplane!” Cesc declares, albeit redundantly and more than a little drunk.
“I’m sure the press would love that,” David is in a surly mood.
“I think you’ve had too much to drink,” Iker tells the younger player.
“And then,” apparently Cesc isn’t finished explaining the grandiose plan that has formed in his mind, “you show up at his flat on a white horse, with flowers and candy and champagne. Oh, and condoms,” he says in a rather matter of fact tone, “safe sex is very important.”
There is a thud as Sergio falls off of the bed, sniggering so hard that he’s curled onto a ball, shaking. David looks at Cesc with, well, a more drunken cross-eyed bitchface. You’re trying to picture getting a horse onto the lift at Silva’s building. Your shoulders begin to shake with laughter at the thought of Villa on a horse with flowers in an elevator. Iker looks like he wishes he was dead.
“And then you would sweep him into your arms and ride away with him into the sunset,” Cesc finishes dramatically, eyes large as he gestures wildly, “to live happily ever after!”
“There’s no such thing as happily ever after,” David mutters as Sergio scraps himself off the floor to once again sandwich David between the two of you.
“I’d like to think there is,” you say, reaching across him to link fingers with Sergio.
“You’re going to make me sick,” David grumbles while Cesc sighs in an over the top fashion and stares at Iker with longing in his eyes. “Iker, who is he rooming with?”
“No one, Del Bosque thought he might be sick and let him room alone,” Iker says in a sobering tone.
“He shouldn’t be alone,” David grumbles before shuffling into the bathroom, door closing quietly behind him.
“I’ll go,” Sergio volunteers. “We were going to watch a movie when… errr… yeah,” he says in reference to your rather public fight with Villa.
Sergio is the best choice. If there is one person Silva will be able to relate to, it’s the man who lives a thousand miles away from a married lover. On top of that, Sergio is both a good listener, and a more than excellent distraction. Perhaps he can succeed where you failed.
“Goodnight,” Sergio closes the gap between you and plants a gentle kiss on your lips. “Stay here and distract him?”
You nod and he kisses your freckled nose. Nodding to Cesc and Iker, he gracefully glides out of the room.
“You can go back to Cesc’s room you know,” you tell Iker with a suggestive wiggle of your eyebrows. “I can stay with David.”
“Are you two going to fight again?” Iker raises an eyebrow and frowns so dramatically that you want to ask if he’s been taking lessons from Ronaldo. “Because I don’t want to break up another fight when I’m in the middle of-”
“In the middle of what, Iker?” He flushes red and you grin. “Were you and Cesc busy?”
“It’s none of your business.”
“That’s funny, because I swear earlier you said-”
“Stop tormenting him, Niño,” David reenters the room and flops down next to you on the bed. “Let him and Cesc get back to humping like rabbits.”
“We do not hump li-”
“Thanks!” Cesc practically leaps from the bed and drags a startled Iker from the room.
The lock clicks loudly behind them and the only noise in the room is the air conditioning unit. You exchange a look with David and soon the both of you are clutching your sides laughing. That’s how the two of you have always been- pissed off one minute and then fast friends the next. El Niño y el Guaje- much more alike than anyone would ever know.
“I still don’t understand how they function,” David tells you, shaking his head. “They are so different.”
“Perhaps that is where the attraction is,” you put forth and he shrugs. “I think Cesc makes Iker feel like a normal person- when they’re together, he’s loved for being himself. He’s not the Captain of Spain or Madrid, or San Iker, he’s just Iker.”
David shoots you a sideways glance. “I didn’t know you were so poetic.” You laugh. “Nando, how… how do you and Sergio work? How do you make it work?”
And slowly, you explain everything to him. Honesty and communication are essential to your relationship with your wife. Her greatest fear was that she would not be enough for a famous man, as fame often tempts men to stray from their beds. One day, her anxiety finally peaked and she confessed her fears to you. Olalla made you promise that if you ever wanted to sleep with someone else you would ask her first. You were mortified at the idea of being with anyone but her, the woman you had fallen hard for the moment you shyly asked for her name. Cheating on Olalla seemed impossible to you as you loved her so much you didn’t think there was room in your heart for anyone else.
That changed the day you met Sergio Ramos. As cheesy as it sounds, something about him just drew you in. Sergio was a walking contradiction that pulled confused feelings from you. How could someone with such mysterious features also have an emotive face and be unable to hide what he was thinking? How could a body, so graceful and poetic, also deliver harsh plays on the pitch? And most important, how could a man induce not-so-innocent thoughts in Fernando’s mind?
You struggled with the thought of Sergio and what he meant to you for a long time. Despite playing for rival teams, you became fast friends and often spent days off in each others company. Eventually, the tension and guilt began to build. You knew the repressed feelings weren’t one sided, you spent half of your time together practically fucking each other with your eyes. You would have been fine, denying your attraction to him, until the one night he leaned across couch and kissed you. No, there was no going back after that kiss, that instantly addictive kiss. You confessed your attraction, and the kiss, to Olalla. You thought she would either cry, slap, or leave you- possibly all three. Her reaction?
“That’s kind of hot.”
“I don’t believe you,” David interrupts your (still drunk) story. “There is no way Olalla said that.”
“Why does no one ever believe me?” You say with a pout. “My wife is amazing; call her if you don’t believe me. She’ll explain everything.”
As David Villa is not one to be fooled, he does exactly that. Your home phone number is on his cell (programmed in by Patricia, in case David need to contact her when she is visiting Olalla) and soon he is talking to your wife. His expression goes from doubtful, to disbelieving, to an embarrassed red flush, and finally rests on thoughtful as he hangs up 15 minutes later.
“Okay, I believe you,” he finally relents and you smirk. “Your wife is very… open minded. She explained your… arrangement.”
“She’s the best,” you tell him with a grin and you mean it- Olalla is the best woman you know and you definitely would not be where you are today without her constant support. “Don’t you want to hear the rest of my story?”
“No,” he tells you with another trademarked bitchface and not to be outdone, you put on your best ‘bish, please’ face to throw back.
“But there are so many juicy details. Ooo like the time we snuck into Aragones’s office and-”
“Torres, I’m going to gag you.”
“I always knew you were kinky.”
“So… Sergio doesn’t care that you’re married?”
“Nope.”
“And does he… is he with other people when he’s in Madrid?”
“Yes,” you tell him, frowning slightly.
The fact that Sergio is allowed to see other people, after five years together, makes your heart hurt. You’re not sure if he has seen anyone, it’s an unspoken agreement that he doesn’t tell you if he has. It’s hypocritical of you, but the thought of him in anyone’s arms but your own makes you jealous. Someday, Sergio will fall in love and marry a beautiful woman and when that day comes, you can only pray she will understand the deep relationship you share with him. Sergio has a permanent place in your heart and you never want to think of a time when he won’t be there.
“I don’t know how to fix this. I want him back, but the distance and the fact that he won’t even talk to me…” David trails off and gets under the covers of his bed and stares at the ceiling, once again looking like a child.
“Tell him the truth.”
“I’m not like you or Sergio. I can’t tell him-”
“Cut the crap David. You can win the World Cup but not tell someone that you love them? No way, that’s bullshit.”
“It’s different, he’s more important than the World Cup.”
You smile- who knew that feisty bad boy David Villa could love someone so deeply? Clearly there was more to the stoic striker than bitchfaces and soul patches. It’s almost as if you’re in a Shakespearean play- a comedy of errors or just some god damned tragedy.
“You’re not going to leave even if I try to kick you out, are you?”
“Nope!”
Sigh. “Goodnight Nando.”
Despite his protests and insistence that you sleep in the other bed, you snuggle under the covers next to him. You fall asleep with a smile on your face because you know in your heart the two of them will be okay.
Three- We both know I’m not that strong
The next time the Nation Team is called up; there is some amount of confusion. For the first time since anyone can remember, the David’s are not trying to switch rooms to be together. They’re barely acknowledging each other’s presence. Villa is rooming with Iker and no one is really sure who Silva is with. In fact, other than practice time, no one sees Silva at all.
You are worried about the younger player and you are not the only one who notices how poorly he is doing. Earlier, you overheard Del Bosque asking Iker to speak with Silva to see if anything is wrong with him. You hope Iker and Silva can come up with a good excuse, because VDB might have an aneurism if Iker tells him that Silva and Villa were too blind to admit they love each other and subsequently broke up. Not that Del Bosque would care that the two were together, but rather be irritated that no one told him. After all, a relationship of any sort effects a person’s mental game and VDB would most likely attribute Villa’s lack of goals since the World Cup to this break up.
“What are you frowning about?”
You look up from where you’ve been glaring at your hands into the teasing dark eyes of your lover. Sergio is laying chest down, a sheet barely covers the gentle curve of his backside and your eyes follow the strong lines of his legs under the sheet to where a lone ankle is poking out. He should be on the cover of romance novels as you find the image of your undressed, barely concealed lover enough to make anyone’s blood run hot. Hmmm, perhaps an erotica book would be more appropriate.
“You’re beautiful,” you tell him sincerely and he flashes that gypsy grin.
“I know,” he raises the magazine he’s reading and you see he’s been reading an article about himself. “I think I’ll frame this and put it in my bedroom.”
“And so vain…”
“But you wouldn’t have me any other way.”
“No, I wouldn’t. I love you.”
The smile falters on his lips and he quietly closes the magazine and puts it on the bedside table. Grabbing your hands, he pulls you down against his chest and you bury your face into the crook of his neck. You love these moments, when it is just you and him, safely hidden away from the world. Sergio understands you better than anyone you have ever known and you know he will always grant your mind release from the troubling thoughts that plague it.
“I want you to tell me something Niño,” he whispers, gently brushing your cheek with his hand. “You have been very open with me the past few weeks, more than usual. What is bothering you?”
“I’m worried about Silva,” you tell him sadly. “I did what you and Olalla suggested but I think I made it worse.”
“What happened?”
And so what occurred the night in Manchester comes tumbling from your troubled lips. He listens as you speak of how white Silva’s flat is, the lingering smell of bleach, the constant cold, and how devoid it is of anything personal. His eyes are worried when you tell him you secretly went through the kitchen when Silva was in the bathroom and the only thing you found aside from bleach were protein bars. Finally, there is a frown on his lips when you tell him how you mentioned Villa and your failed seduction of the younger player.
“He called himself a whore?” Sergio’s expressive eyes are sad and you close the gap to kiss him.
The seduction or failed seduction as it were, was Olalla’s idea. She suggested to you that perhaps Silva would leave his misery behind if he realized there was more to life than moping around about Villa. You stared at her like she had grown a second head but she just laughed and said it wasn’t cheating if she ordered you to do it. Jokingly, you brought it up with Sergio on the phone and were stunned into silence when he agreed with her.
“She’s right, it’s not cheating if we ask you to do it, plus you don’t love him like that, so it’s not emotional cheating,” he said cheekily while you tried to keep your eyes from bulging out of your face. “Besides, doesn’t a good hot fucking always make everything better?”
In the end, you failed. You don’t have Sergio’s mysterious charisma or your wife’s calming sweetness. All you have is freckled gangly bumbling fuck-it-up-itus, which made Silva worse off than before.
“Maybe you should talk to Villa while I talk to Silva?” Sergio suggests.
“Do you mean talk or sex?”
“Just talk, although…” Sergio trails off and you see a mischievous plan beginning to form behind those eyes. “We could always invite Silva in here with us. I’m sure Villa would break down the door to get him away.”
“You’re horrible, and you’d have to get Silva to agree and we both know he won’t.” You flick the tip of his ear and he pouts. “As enticing as it sounds, I don’t want to deal with a pissy or murderous Villa.”
“I suppose,” Sergio lets out a dramatic sigh and you bean him in the face with a pillow. “Hey!”
A rather cliché pillow fight and much giggling ensues and soon you’re tickling him and he’s screaming in laughter. You are positive it would have evolved into loud kinky sex had there not been a pounding on the wall and Xabi’s irritated voice yelling something. While you aren’t sure what exactly he said, the both of you definitely heard “eviscerate” and “balls”. Sergio and you giggle quietly, but with a touch of nervousness- you both know Xabi watches that creepy Dexter show and would probably make good on his threat. He’s just being bitchy about not seeing Stevie.
“Sorry Xa-” you’re cut off from your apology when Sergio pushes you down, straddling over your hips and pinning your arms over your head.
You look up at him and wonder what you did in your past life to deserve such luck in the current one. Sergio is a well chiseled god, hovering over your body somehow able to look like lustful sin and naughty innocence. His hair, shorter but still soft, feathers around his face as he leans down to kiss you slowly. Some corny line about drinking ambrosia from his lips flashes through your mind and you smile.
“You’ve been a bad, bad little boy,” he whispers into your ear, tongue flicking the tip of it and you nearly whimper as he grinds your hips together, delicious friction building.
“You should punish me,” you whisper back, catching his lower lip with your teeth and roughly nipping at it.
“I plan to,” he tells you solemnly before roughly biting the junction of your neck and shoulder, putting a hand over your mouth to muffle your cries.
Tonight is going to be a good night.
* * *
You feel ridiculous, but you are obsessively checking your phone to make sure Cesc hasn’t texted you ‘the code’. Sergio is gone in his hunt for Silva. You kicked him out when he started singing that Shakira song to you about counting the freckles on your body. Cesc overheard your plotting at lunch (surprising as you didn’t think anyone could hear over Piqué’s loud story and gesturing) and has agreed to ‘distract’ Iker. You’re not exactly sure what that means, but you have an inkling that Iker won’t be returning to his room for a while. Or all night. Kinky.
“ThunderCats Are Go!” Flashes across your screen and you look out of the peephole of your door just in time to see Iker walk by, silly grin on his face.
Waiting until you hear a door shut, you open your door and sprint down the hall to Villa’s room. Knocking loudly, you plant a brilliant, albeit fake and over the top, smile on your face as he answers the door. The trademark bitchface expression is front and center but you ignore it. You’re pretty sure that’s his permanent expression.
“What do you want Nando?” He asks you and you detect either anger or exhaustion in his voice, probably both.
“I need to talk to you,” He rolls his eyes but you press on, voice lowered. “It’s important, it’s about Silva. Please?”
“Yeah,” he sighs and lets you into the room.
You’re not really sure what to say to him. What is clear is that Villa and Silva are not functioning well without each other. Villa looks like shit, not as bad as Silva, but still like he hasn’t slept through a night in a while. Olalla has mentioned in passing that Patricia told her Villa is moodier than normal. They also haven’t had sex since the team returned from Argentina. That’s enough to make anyone grumpy.
“I’m worried about him,” You tell David after you’ve perched yourself next to him on his bed. “He’s not doing well.”
“I noticed,” he mutters, staring at the floor. “He won’t talk to me, he doesn’t return my calls.” Bitchface. “He answers if Patricia calls.”
“Why does she want to talk to him?”
“To make sure he is okay, and so Zaida can talk to him.” David’s frown deepens even more. “Even my daughter misses him.” There’s an awkward pause before he asks, “You’ve been to see him in Manchester?”
“I’ve been a few times. We had a… a…..,” you gnaw your lower lip trying to find a word to encompass what occurred the last time you went to see him, “an argument. I haven’t seen him in a few weeks.”
“What did you argue about?”
“You.” He raises an eyebrow and you huff before elaborating. “I wanted him to call you so he could know he was more than an occasional quick fuck.”
“He’s not a quick fuck,” Villa growls, tensing.
“I think everyone knows that except him.”
“Fuck.” Villa flops back on his bed, hands coming up to cover his face as he sighs. “I don’t know what to do.”
There’s a tortured and defeated look on the normally stoic face. This new attitude is a total departure from the Villa you know and you don’t like it at all. You want to see those small grins and smiles from when he thought he was being covert in stealing glances at Silva. You want to see the confidence from the amazing year at Valencia. You want to see the old and happy Villa, not this broken man.
“He told me he couldn’t be with me anymore because he felt guilty. He thought that he took away from my time with my family. He told me he loved me.”
“What?” Your eyebrows shoot up to your hairline. “Christ, what did you say back?”
“Nothing- it was in a letter he gave me when he left.”
You are silent; you don’t know what to say. What can you say to that? You know in your heart that Villa loves Silva, even if he can’t put it in worlds. Love was in every stolen look and touch. Love was in every Valencia game you would watch. Love was in the silent, but comfortable way they could sit together for hours on end. And now, love in the form of heartbreak was etched into the miserable and tired face.
“Can I ask you something if you promise not to get angry?” You ask him and he looks up at you with a bit of a scowl on his face.
“Why would I get angry?” He already sounds angry.
There have been a few questions lingering in the back of your mind for a few weeks now, ever since the last time you saw Silva. You admit, you reacted badly when the younger man called himself a whore. Perhaps the right thing to have done was to ignore the comment, but you were enraged that your shy friend could think of himself in such a manner. Ever since then, you’ve wondered if Silva called himself a whore or if Villa put the words there first.
“Did you call Silva a whore?”
“Excuse me?” He jolts up and stares at you in disbelief. “No! I would never call him that. Did he say I did? I didn’t, he’s not…” something clicks behind David’s eyes. “The letter… he wrote that whores shouldn’t fall in love.” He jumps to his feet and slams his fist against the wall. “Fuck!”
A silence drags on as he flops onto the bed, knuckles bright red and definitely going to bruise. Maybe this was a mistake. You don’t know what to say to him. You want to tell him everything that took place when you went to see Silva, but that will probably make everything worse. Or maybe the knowledge of just how miserable Silva is will make Villa get off his mopey ass and hunt the Canarian down.
“Did he tell you I called him a whore?” David asks you, morosely sitting up into a slouch.
“No.”
“What, it just happened to come up in conversation?” David’s eyes have narrowed at you and you suddenly know what a mouse feels like when the hawk catches sight of it.
“He was upset,” you tell him as nonchalantly as possible, but you are the worst person at keeping secrets, especially from someone as sharp eyed as David Villa.
“Bullshit.” There’s anger in his voice.
“You don’t think he has the right to be upset?” You find yourself irritated at his sudden mood swing.
“What happened?”
“It’s none of your business- he’ll tell you if he wants to.”
“Don’t be an asshole Fernando,” he growls at you, “you’re the one who came in here to talk to me about him and now you won’t fucking telling me what happened.”
“Whatever David,” you roll your eyes and move towards the door. You’ll let Sergio deal with this because apparently you suck at anything dealing with fixing relationships.
“Tell me what happened,” his hand slams against the door, holding it shut, preventing you from leaving.
“I’m not your fucking fairy godmother or therapist,” you sneer, pushing him aside and yanking the door open. “Grow up and talk to him if you want to fix things.”
He takes you by surprise as he throws you up against the wall. His arm is pressed against your chest and arms and no matter how hard you struggle, he won’t let go. There is fury in his eyes as he glares at you and it’s a wonder you don’t spontaneously combust. But you are just as furious- who the hell is he to treat you like this? Did he ever hurt Silva like this? That possibility enrages you further and before you know it, you are goading him on.
“I kissed him,” you snarl. “He was crying over you so I kissed him and tried to make him forget how shitty you treated him.”
Villa’s anger falters for a minute and he looks like a lost child. But then, the rage clouds his face and his punch catches you in the jaw. The sting of the punch makes you gasp, but then fury over takes you and you lash out, landing a punch of your own. Your mind goes cloudy as you become a tangle of flying fists and shouted words.
“Keep your fucking hands off of him,” Villa practically screams in your ear.
“I wouldn’t have to touch him if you didn’t treat him like a slut,” you rage back.
Doors are being thrown open to see what the commotion is and soon you are ripped apart by Piqué and Pepe. You’re pretty sure you have a cut above your eyebrow as a good deal of blood is making its way down your face. You smirk as you see you’ve split Villa’s lip and most likely given him a black eye.
“What the fuck is going on?”
Iker has come storming from down the hall, shirt missing and a red bite mark is more than noticeable on his shoulder. You would normally say something to embarrass him, but this is hardly the time or place. Plus, the Captain looks pissed. No, Iker looks murderous.
“Nothing,” Villa and you mutter at the same time, arms crossed and facing away from each other.
Further down the hall, one of the doors opens and Sergio steps out. He sees you and Villa being scolded by Iker (while half the team watches) and grimaces. Another head pops out and you see your boyfriend has been successful in locating Silva. Silva looks between you and Villa and frowns- he’s not stupid, he realizes what happened. Sergio whispers something into Silva’s ear before gently pushing him back into the safety of his room and shutting the door.
Villa pulls himself from Piqué’s grip and storms passed Iker, who now looks like he’s contemplating a mass murdering spree. Sergio puts an arm out to stop him, but Villa is angrier than you’ve ever seen him and Sergio goes flying into the wall. However, Sergio is more than a pretty face and he’s up off his ass and pulling Villa back from Silva’s door before you can blink. Iker is foaming at the mouth. Sergio says something to Villa, loud enough for only the enraged man to hear. Whatever your lover has said, it stops Villa in his tracks. The anger dissipates and the broken man returns, slouched and down trodden.
“What are you lot looking at?” Sergio barks at your nosy teammates, who magically disappear back into their rooms.
“Are you okay?” Pepe asks you quietly.
“I’m good,” you tell your Liverpool teammate. “Er, don’t tell Stevie, I don’t want him bitching at me for fighting.
“I got your back Niño,” Pepe winks before leaving you in the hallway with Sergio, Villa, and an apoplectic looking Iker. Oh, and a fidgety Cesc.
“My room, now.” Iker spits out.
Villa shuffles along behind him, looking more miserable than before if that’s possible. Sergio grabs your hand and plants a soft kiss on your inner wrist before gently wiping some of the blood off your face. The gesture would be sensual, if Cesc wasn’t watching you with large eyes and Iker didn’t want to stab you.
“What the hell are the two of you fighting about?”
When Villa doesn’t say anything, you decide not to press the matter. You’ve already done enough damage for one day. Bite lip, look down.
“Is this why Silva looks like shit?”
“Yes,” Sergio helpfully chirps- you’re sure Villa’s glare is just as lethal as the one you’ve directed at your lover.
“Tell me what’s going on,” Iker sits down in one of the chairs and crosses his arms, pissed expression still on his face. “Don’t lie to me or I’ll go get Del Bosque and tell him just how bad Silva is and that his two strikers are fighting like teenagers.”
“It’s none of your business,” Villa snarks, throwing himself on his bed, pointedly ignoring everyone else in the room.
“When you sent Cesc to distract me, it became my business.”
You exchange a guilty look with Sergio as Cesc has the decency to look ashamed. Villa just throws another dark look your way- you flip him the bird.
“Fine. Villa, you’ll be rooming with Piqué until you retire if you don’t start speaking.” A Bitchface is the only response Iker gets before he rounds on you. “And Torres, I’ll find a way to tell Gerrard that you’ve been coming onto Xabi.”
Wait, what? That’s a low blow. You see the anger in Iker’s eyes and you know he’ll make good on his threat. StevieG will make your life hell if he thinks you’ve been hitting on his precious Xabi. Fuck, he might even end your life. Glancing at Villa, you can see him weighing the pros and cons too- rooming with Piqué means sleeping with one eye open. Sighing, the both of you begin to piece together what has occurred in the past few months.
* * *
“This is so fucked up.”
An hour has gone by, as have many bottles of alcohol. Everyone is drunk. Your fight with David is forgotten as you both apologize. It was wrong of you to provoke him, though you do feel justified in the few punches you landed. The cut on your brow has been dutifully bandaged by Sergio, complete with a kiss that made David and Iker roll their eyes. Cesc cooed like a fan girl and you wondered how many drinks he had consumed.
“I think you should hire a skywriter to write a declaration of your love for him in the sky with an airplane!” Cesc declares, albeit redundantly and more than a little drunk.
“I’m sure the press would love that,” David is in a surly mood.
“I think you’ve had too much to drink,” Iker tells the younger player.
“And then,” apparently Cesc isn’t finished explaining the grandiose plan that has formed in his mind, “you show up at his flat on a white horse, with flowers and candy and champagne. Oh, and condoms,” he says in a rather matter of fact tone, “safe sex is very important.”
There is a thud as Sergio falls off of the bed, sniggering so hard that he’s curled onto a ball, shaking. David looks at Cesc with, well, a more drunken cross-eyed bitchface. You’re trying to picture getting a horse onto the lift at Silva’s building. Your shoulders begin to shake with laughter at the thought of Villa on a horse with flowers in an elevator. Iker looks like he wishes he was dead.
“And then you would sweep him into your arms and ride away with him into the sunset,” Cesc finishes dramatically, eyes large as he gestures wildly, “to live happily ever after!”
“There’s no such thing as happily ever after,” David mutters as Sergio scraps himself off the floor to once again sandwich David between the two of you.
“I’d like to think there is,” you say, reaching across him to link fingers with Sergio.
“You’re going to make me sick,” David grumbles while Cesc sighs in an over the top fashion and stares at Iker with longing in his eyes. “Iker, who is he rooming with?”
“No one, Del Bosque thought he might be sick and let him room alone,” Iker says in a sobering tone.
“He shouldn’t be alone,” David grumbles before shuffling into the bathroom, door closing quietly behind him.
“I’ll go,” Sergio volunteers. “We were going to watch a movie when… errr… yeah,” he says in reference to your rather public fight with Villa.
Sergio is the best choice. If there is one person Silva will be able to relate to, it’s the man who lives a thousand miles away from a married lover. On top of that, Sergio is both a good listener, and a more than excellent distraction. Perhaps he can succeed where you failed.
“Goodnight,” Sergio closes the gap between you and plants a gentle kiss on your lips. “Stay here and distract him?”
You nod and he kisses your freckled nose. Nodding to Cesc and Iker, he gracefully glides out of the room.
“You can go back to Cesc’s room you know,” you tell Iker with a suggestive wiggle of your eyebrows. “I can stay with David.”
“Are you two going to fight again?” Iker raises an eyebrow and frowns so dramatically that you want to ask if he’s been taking lessons from Ronaldo. “Because I don’t want to break up another fight when I’m in the middle of-”
“In the middle of what, Iker?” He flushes red and you grin. “Were you and Cesc busy?”
“It’s none of your business.”
“That’s funny, because I swear earlier you said-”
“Stop tormenting him, Niño,” David reenters the room and flops down next to you on the bed. “Let him and Cesc get back to humping like rabbits.”
“We do not hump li-”
“Thanks!” Cesc practically leaps from the bed and drags a startled Iker from the room.
The lock clicks loudly behind them and the only noise in the room is the air conditioning unit. You exchange a look with David and soon the both of you are clutching your sides laughing. That’s how the two of you have always been- pissed off one minute and then fast friends the next. El Niño y el Guaje- much more alike than anyone would ever know.
“I still don’t understand how they function,” David tells you, shaking his head. “They are so different.”
“Perhaps that is where the attraction is,” you put forth and he shrugs. “I think Cesc makes Iker feel like a normal person- when they’re together, he’s loved for being himself. He’s not the Captain of Spain or Madrid, or San Iker, he’s just Iker.”
David shoots you a sideways glance. “I didn’t know you were so poetic.” You laugh. “Nando, how… how do you and Sergio work? How do you make it work?”
And slowly, you explain everything to him. Honesty and communication are essential to your relationship with your wife. Her greatest fear was that she would not be enough for a famous man, as fame often tempts men to stray from their beds. One day, her anxiety finally peaked and she confessed her fears to you. Olalla made you promise that if you ever wanted to sleep with someone else you would ask her first. You were mortified at the idea of being with anyone but her, the woman you had fallen hard for the moment you shyly asked for her name. Cheating on Olalla seemed impossible to you as you loved her so much you didn’t think there was room in your heart for anyone else.
That changed the day you met Sergio Ramos. As cheesy as it sounds, something about him just drew you in. Sergio was a walking contradiction that pulled confused feelings from you. How could someone with such mysterious features also have an emotive face and be unable to hide what he was thinking? How could a body, so graceful and poetic, also deliver harsh plays on the pitch? And most important, how could a man induce not-so-innocent thoughts in Fernando’s mind?
You struggled with the thought of Sergio and what he meant to you for a long time. Despite playing for rival teams, you became fast friends and often spent days off in each others company. Eventually, the tension and guilt began to build. You knew the repressed feelings weren’t one sided, you spent half of your time together practically fucking each other with your eyes. You would have been fine, denying your attraction to him, until the one night he leaned across couch and kissed you. No, there was no going back after that kiss, that instantly addictive kiss. You confessed your attraction, and the kiss, to Olalla. You thought she would either cry, slap, or leave you- possibly all three. Her reaction?
“That’s kind of hot.”
“I don’t believe you,” David interrupts your (still drunk) story. “There is no way Olalla said that.”
“Why does no one ever believe me?” You say with a pout. “My wife is amazing; call her if you don’t believe me. She’ll explain everything.”
As David Villa is not one to be fooled, he does exactly that. Your home phone number is on his cell (programmed in by Patricia, in case David need to contact her when she is visiting Olalla) and soon he is talking to your wife. His expression goes from doubtful, to disbelieving, to an embarrassed red flush, and finally rests on thoughtful as he hangs up 15 minutes later.
“Okay, I believe you,” he finally relents and you smirk. “Your wife is very… open minded. She explained your… arrangement.”
“She’s the best,” you tell him with a grin and you mean it- Olalla is the best woman you know and you definitely would not be where you are today without her constant support. “Don’t you want to hear the rest of my story?”
“No,” he tells you with another trademarked bitchface and not to be outdone, you put on your best ‘bish, please’ face to throw back.
“But there are so many juicy details. Ooo like the time we snuck into Aragones’s office and-”
“Torres, I’m going to gag you.”
“I always knew you were kinky.”
“So… Sergio doesn’t care that you’re married?”
“Nope.”
“And does he… is he with other people when he’s in Madrid?”
“Yes,” you tell him, frowning slightly.
The fact that Sergio is allowed to see other people, after five years together, makes your heart hurt. You’re not sure if he has seen anyone, it’s an unspoken agreement that he doesn’t tell you if he has. It’s hypocritical of you, but the thought of him in anyone’s arms but your own makes you jealous. Someday, Sergio will fall in love and marry a beautiful woman and when that day comes, you can only pray she will understand the deep relationship you share with him. Sergio has a permanent place in your heart and you never want to think of a time when he won’t be there.
“I don’t know how to fix this. I want him back, but the distance and the fact that he won’t even talk to me…” David trails off and gets under the covers of his bed and stares at the ceiling, once again looking like a child.
“Tell him the truth.”
“I’m not like you or Sergio. I can’t tell him-”
“Cut the crap David. You can win the World Cup but not tell someone that you love them? No way, that’s bullshit.”
“It’s different, he’s more important than the World Cup.”
You smile- who knew that feisty bad boy David Villa could love someone so deeply? Clearly there was more to the stoic striker than bitchfaces and soul patches. It’s almost as if you’re in a Shakespearean play- a comedy of errors or just some god damned tragedy.
“You’re not going to leave even if I try to kick you out, are you?”
“Nope!”
Sigh. “Goodnight Nando.”
Despite his protests and insistence that you sleep in the other bed, you snuggle under the covers next to him. You fall asleep with a smile on your face because you know in your heart the two of them will be okay.