and my hand in yours becomes ash in ash

[windsor]

(un)lucky

i.

You call him a variety of things the first few months, when the cameras aren't on you - Beckham, Becks, Goldenballs (with a flourish, a drawl), ponce, you fucking English pansy, Sir Jesus Christ, blondie (in retrospect, this one is a bit embarrassing), ohyoumotherfuckergetoffme - anything but his first name, anything other than David. It's childish of you and you know it, but it takes you three months, one week, and six days before you finally say it.

David.

Da-vid.

ii.

Raúl didn't like him. Everyone knew about Nando and now he was gone and there he was, David Beckham. The first time you met him after he joined the club, he had diamond earrings in both ears, slicked back hair, and a baby blue hair band that matched his cashmere sweater and spotless trainers.

You had been gripped with the absurd, horrible urge to laugh in his face.

When you're interviewed, the answers are easy: Oh, of course it's great having a world class player like him join the team, we're always looking for more quality - especially when it's someone with the sort of reputation Beckham has, I mean who wouldn't want to have him in their team I used to watch him at Manchester United all the time and the goals he scored against us in the Champions League were excellent didn't you know?

It's sickening, the way what seems like every journalist in Western Europe and beyond has suddenly descended upon Madrid. All the while, Beckham deals with them like a patient parent would with a precocious child - slightly indulgent, pandering to them with that smile, the downwards flick of his eyes, the cars and family and obscene displays of affluence. For the first few weeks, you don't see a single fucking crack in that surface - not even anger or regret at leaving Manchester the way he did. No, what he does is show up to practices early, eager; what he does is search for a house to buy, enroll his children in some exclusive school, allow himself to be photographed coming out of Madrid's best restaurants. All the while, the money flows in. The camera flashes don't lessen for months.

He is, you think at first, everything that's wrong with football.

iii.

(This is somewhat of a lie, one you don't realize until later --

There was this one time between afternoon training sessions when most of the team had filed inside to take a break from the heat, talk, make phone calls until the next one began. You had been half-heartedly watching the news when you caught a flicker at the corner of your eye and looked out the window. Squinting, you could make him out on the field, the light on his hair.

He was practicing free kicks.

You ended up watching him the entire time, how he just kept striking the ball over and over until it flew in perfectly, and then he would simply move a few feet over and repeat the process from a new position. Over and over and you could almost see the wince on his face even from this distance, but he didn't stop, and when you and the rest of the squad headed back out again, he was right there, waiting with a smile and a hand held up in greeting.

-- until later, when you can admit to remembering the way his face froze, sometimes, when someone mentioned Manchester United, how his mouth would pause in the middle of wanting to say something when he saw Van Nistlerooy on television, scoring. The strange distance that would creep into his face, then, and make it into something inaccessible. Foreign. That odd combination of happiness and hopelessness, almost like the face of a boy caught in the middle of an absurdly glorious but impossible daydream.

No one can have everything, you would tell him later.

But they can bloody well try, he would respond.)

iv.

August, late afternoon before his second match.

He walks into the room, sits down next to you. Says, "Look. I'm not that stupid. I can tell you don't like me."

Says, "But I play for the same team as you so be a professional and deal with it."
Says, "And fuck you if you think that playing for this shirt means any less to me than it does to you."
Says, "I helped to make Manchester the biggest club in the world, so winning over an ass of a goalkeeper shouldn't be too difficult in comparison, darling." Exaggerates that accent. Ruffles your hair like you're some fucking kid, gets up.

Leaves.

He scores against Mallorca that night. He scores for Real that night, and you celebrate it just as much as any other goal, no more, no less.

v.

So here's the deal. You pride yourself on being the sort of person that isn't easily charmed, but that's exactly what he does. Months pass and he works his way around your smirks and raised eyebrows with terrible jokes in mangled Spanish and sheer, disgusting determination. It's more than a little annoying, finding yourself in training with his arm wrapped around your neck, protesting and laughing at the same time.

"Come on. Please." He has you in a headlock, crook of his elbow rough against your face but fingers gentle, soft on the bone near your eye. Bends his head down as he speaks to you so that his face is right there, centimeters away; you can see a freckle or two, the lines at the corners of his eyes. His voice is an attempt at persuasion tinged with the barest hint of a whine and, you notice with a start, just a little bit of some kind of need, an honest anxiety. Huh, you think. That's new. Interesting.

"Fine. David."

"That was easy, wasn't it?" He lets go of you and you can hear the grin in his voice again. Sure enough, it's there when you look up - all white, shiny teeth with that crooked canine marring it. He never, he never stops. For some unexplainable reason, you feel disappointed, annoyed. Why can't he just let, for one second, let --

vi.

The game was, quite frankly, shit. You've got rain seeping down the back of your shirt, mud covering your entire left side where you dove to try and block that ball; it's wet and miserable and you've lost, you keep on losing. You sort of want to sit down against the goalpost, put your head in your hands and not have to think or breathe or feel for a while, but you can't. Not with an entire stadium watching.

It fucking sucks.

He walks over to you, slowly, a hand pressed against his back, hair dripping into his eyes and no longer blond, not really, but a murky indescribable color. Stands next to you, slings an arm around your shoulders.

"I'm getting old." Smiles. You would punch that smile off his face if it wasn't so conveniently distracting. He knows how to do that, at least. He knows how to get you away from your bad moods.

"What are you talking about, stupid?"

"Hey, respect your seniors."

For a minute you honestly think, what the fuck are you going on about, and then you remember that he's six years older than you. Six years, and it's a surprise, realizing what that means. You were still in school when you watched him get sent off and laughed at the stupidity of Englishmen, when he won the treble a year later. Being a goalkeeper, you forget what being 30, 31 means to outfield players, sometimes, that it means your career is winding down, and you think that what he means when he says, "I'm getting old" is, "It's almost over, I'm almost done, gone."

Then again, it's very possible that he doesn't, didn't mean anything at all.

Still, it's a fucked up thought.

You think it shows because he cuffs the back of your head lightly. "Jesus, sleeping beauty, snap out of it." You shove him half-heartedly and the two of you walk off the pitch, his hand on the back of your neck, damp but warm, and these are the times when you are grateful for him. He cares, in that reckless, whole way of his; he cares about everyone and everything in a way that no one else in the squad does. He cares, and he's not afraid, stupidly unafraid, convinced that he can win anyone and anything, even inanimate stubborn objects like malfunctioning car engines and stuck locker doors, over.

Beckham, David, whoever and whatever he was or is or might be, was not afraid of looking Raúl in the eye and sidestepping the empty pocket of air Nando left behind, of persisting and sitting next to him on the team bus for months until he finally relented. He wasn't afraid of cracking a few jokes at Ronaldo's expense within his first day of knowing him, with that quick upwards glance and smile that left genuine wrinkles in his face, and even Ronaldo's ego couldn't balk at that. He wasn't afraid of walking up to you on your bad days, the ones when everyone else just steered far, far away, and putting his hands on the side of your face, forcing a smile.

Sometimes, you think that his unshakable assurance, reliance on and in himself is justified. Other times, you want to tell him - times have changed and you're not good enough to get away with it anymore. It's what everyone thinks before they meet him, framed by something harsh and cruel, and now that you have met him, now that you know him, you still think the same thing. You still think it, only this time it's with a weird sort of sadness, regret. A kind of pained empathy when you watch him, because surely he must know it too. He's stupid about a lot of things, like national politics and science, but he tries and he's good at understanding the chemistry behind a soufflé, good at seeing the history behind people. Surely he must know.

You understand that he has, his entire life, been bouncing back and fighting back, losing minds and hearts and winning them back again. You realize that. Everyone realizes that. you don't want him to keep doing it, this time around, because if he does, it might just be one of the saddest things you've ever seen, an aging man trying desperately to get back to his golden untouchable youth. If you were meaner or kinder - you're not really sure which - you would say something, but as it is, you don't.

You feel bad about it for a while. Then you tell yourself, he's gotten everything he's ever wanted. It's been a calculated plan all along. He's smarter than he looks.

No, correction: he's got smart people around him, some pretty sly fuckers.)

vii.

The game against England is an uncomfortable one, and by the time Rooney decides to act like a total cunt, nerves have already been stretched pretty far. The black armbands, the noises from the stands, the penalty - you feel on edge, cautious. Playing against Beckham is just like playing against any of your other teammates; they become strangers to you on the pitch, different people from the ones you know in Madrid, from the ones you know by sharing rooms and training sessions and victories or defeats. It's always like that and you prefer it that way. It makes things easier, simpler.

Except this: Rooney comes barging into you - you're more than a little pissed and things might just be going off when he comes over, pushes between the two of you. He looks straight at you, in the eyes, concerned and apologetic, mumbles something in Spanish.

Spain wins by a goal. Walking down the tunnel to the locker room, you can still feel the pressure of his fingers through your shirt, against your stomach.

viii.

"Okay, so here's the sourdough starter. Go ahead and smell it, mate."

You stare at him for a long while.

You're standing in the gleaming kitchen of this monster of a house, watching David Beckham make bread and wave a jar of, of foamy white stuff at your face. It's unbelievably strange. Everything looks obscenely expensive and polished; he's wearing the kind of jeans that look old but which have only really been put on once or twice, and that annoys you. You wonder if he has anything in his closet, in his house that's been worn and used, loved and kept. Anything with meaning, anything kept out of sentimentality, some fragile human emotion.

Strangely enough, it's his refrigerator that ends up reassuring you. It's huge and sleek and has way too many buttons, but it's also covered with his sons' pictures and schoolwork, stuck on with magnets - some the shape of fruits, some modernistic and sleek works of geometry, some carefully figured metal ones of famous buildings, and, at the very corner, a gigantic yellow Spongebob. It figures that the most eclectic thing about his house is his collection of magnets. There are little snapshots, too, buried under the paper. His wife blowing out birthday candles. Beckham giving some little girl a piggy back ride. Two older people you assume must be his parents.

"You know, it's not going to kill you."

You blink, jolt back to the present. Smell the mixture, make a face.

"Are you positive?"

He sticks out a tongue at you, begins mixing. "It's okay to be jealous of my culinary skills. You can admit it." You watch him knead the dough, hands practiced and sleeves rolled up to his elbows. It's an oddly intimate to watch someone at work like this, dusting the marble table top with flour, adding oil and water and salt without needing to measure anything, head bent in concentration and the bones of his fingers flexing quickly below his skin. Just as you're beginning to feel uncomfortable, he looks up, grins. "Here, you have a go at it." You reluctantly put down the beer you've been fiddling with but not really drinking and walk around the kitchen island. The dough is smooth and only a little sticky under your palm; he stands behind you, reaches an arm around and shows you the proper motions of kneading dough.

The room is warm and quiet, well lit; in between slapping the dough down on the counter and pressing against it with the heel of your hand, you're acutely aware of his breath, light against the back of your neck, his elbow brushing yours.

ix.

Conveniently enough, you two are the last ones in the locker room after the game. It's like a scene from some bad, bad movie, you think, right before you turn the corner and walk into him. He laughs, puts a hand on your chest, lets it stay there. Looks at you for a second, reaches up and kisses you, open mouthed but tentative and careful, as if you were sixteen year olds after a first date, strangely young. You look at the mirror on the other side of the room, at the tattoos across his back, neck, down the side of his arm. You thought they were fucking crass the first time you met him. You still do, but. You look in the mirror, his skin dark against yours, waist and shoulders surprisingly thin and you think, this isn't me. This isn't happening. This is someone else's life I'm watching and they probably wouldn't appreciate it.

This is what it comes down to ultimately, after almost three years of knowing him. You're good at giving advice and the thing you want to tell him is this: stop giving so much of yourself so easily to everyone, to the world.

You'll never be happy that way. You can't fix everyone; you can't make everyone happy and fill all those empty spaces, so just, just fucking stop. You feel presumptuous and arrogant, though, when you realize that you fall into that very group of people - if he had followed your advice, there wouldn't be this thing that's not quite a thing (outside of Real, you don't spend that much time with him, not really; you've gone to a few events, had dinner at his house, taken him to your favorite restaurant, but he has Neville and the other Dave, and you wouldn't say that you're a good friend of his outside that stretching green pitch - maybe, maybe that's the why behind it all) between the two of you. There wouldn't be anything.

You are only close enough to him to even ponder saying this because of that stupid, stupid generosity.

It's ironic, you think. But you're not quite sure what irony means anymore.

When you kiss him back, push him against a row of lockers, skin on skin on metal, everything too frantic and rushed, you know you're making a mistake. It doesn't stop you, but you know.

x.

"I'll be at Gary's for a few days. Drop by, you know? If you're in England at all."

He smiles at you without teeth, as if nothing has happened between the two of you, as if you were just another nameless, adoring fan, willing to be blinded. You're stupid. You never should've thought that, that -- never mind.

"What?" You shake your head a little. "Nothing. Forget it." He shrugs, accepts it. Slides a hand through your hair, tugs a little, says goodbye.

Forget it. But you don't, and by the time you meet up with the national squad, you're in a shitty, shitty mood, and everyone can tell. Sergio probably knows why, but he's young and easygoing and likes everybody, so he doesn't say anything to anyone. He's a good kid, and you feel kind of ridiculous for saying that, because you're, what? Twenty five? Still. Luis rooms you with Xabi, and the minute he walks through the door and sees you lying on the mattress, hands behind your head and bags strewn all around the room, he lifts his eyebrows. Shoves your feet over and sits at the foot of your bed.

"So, what happened?" He knows you well. It's annoying. "Nothing," you turn your head, glance sideways at him and say, "How's Gerrard?" You both know what that means. His eyebrows still haven't returned to their normal positions and he doesn't miss a beat. "Moody, as usual. Is the whole fucking Beckham thing going well for you?" You try to kick him but he's already moved out of the way. "It's shitty," you mumble and half-heartedly hope he hasn't heard, but you know he has. He always does; sometimes he pretends he hasn't out of kindness or maybe just pity at your stupidity, but today is not one of those times. Xabi shrugs, drops your duffle bag on your chest, knocking half the air out of your lungs in the process. You knew you shouldn't have packed that much. "So's life. Start unpacking."

Later, at dinner, he passes you the bread and says, "Something could be arranged, if you wanted," in that soft-spoken, level voice of his, as if he's talking about regional elections or the stock market, something boring and safe.

You want. You don't want. You don't want to want.

You don't say anything and think of simple, sure things instead. The curve of a ball through the air. Eva. Your club. Anger. Touch.

It doesn't help much.

"Okay."

Goddamned Englishmen.

xi.

Later, watching England get knocked out on penalties, you don't know what you feel. It isn't pity. But seeing him getting subbed off, the slump of his shoulders, his eyes dark and blurry on your television screen, all you can think is: This was going to happen. I could've told you.

Your life is no fairytale; it's never been, but people have only just stopped believing.

(He calls you the day after he steps down as captain, back in Spain again. Hi, he says. How are you. What about that lunch you promised me.

You say, Stop being brave about this.

He says, What else can I do, mate? It's the first question he's asked the entire conversation.

You take him to lunch.

He orders quiche and iced tea; there's a slight sunburn beginning to appear on the bridge of his nose. Your feet touch under the table, accidental and awkward - the moment freezes for a second before he lays his palm flat on the glass and touches the tips of his fingers to yours, skin damp and cool and unexpected. It is, maybe, the only time he has come close to breaking your heart. Which sounds incredibly stupid and asinine and dramatic, you know, you know. You're not some teenage girl, but there is something so terrible and quiet and tentative about that, about a thirty year old man whose only way of asking for something, anything at all from the world, is to press his fingers very excruciatingly lightly against yours and pray that you understand.

For the first time, you might be sorry.)

xii.

You drive him back to his hotel afterwards. He's quiet in the car, mouth a soft, straight line, baseball cap pulled low over his eyes - he looks both weary and incredibly young at the same time. As you approach the hotel, he finally speaks, careful and deliberate, as if getting the words out hurts, as if he hasn't got anything left to form them with. "Vic is in London with the boys." Okay, you think, and wait. You know there's something else. "I feel. I feel bad about it, a lot of the time. What kind of dad lets his kids get stalked by the paparazzi after school? What kind of husband lets strangers get away with insulting, even threatening, his wife, you know? What kind of son --" He breaks off, looks out the window. Speaks again slowly.

"I'm very lucky, mate. I am a very, very fortunate man. Most people aren't, and I try to help, you know, I try to do something but sometimes I wish I had never made it this far. I could have accepted being a decent-at-best footballer, yeah? I would have been happy with that, I think."

You don't know what to say. This is why he has always frustrated you; he would be easy to accept and categorize and scorn if only he didn't try so fucking much, if only he didn't care. But he does. He does, and. You pull up in front of the hotel and you're not quite sure how to say goodbye when he looks you straight in the face and says, "You want to come up?"

This is the part where you're supposed to say no. This is the part where your rebellious streak shows and you do precisely what you're not supposed to. You say yes, go up to his hotel room, sit next to him on the couch, knees and arms touching. The two of you just sit there for a while, not talking much, watching television and breathing. When you kiss him, he goes very, very still. You fuck on top of expensive Italian leather, slow and lingering, and you don't tell him, I don't think you've been lucky at all.

xiii.

The season starts again.

A lot has changed - coaches, players - and a lot hasn't - the politics, the press, the way David's arm fits over your shoulders, how your hand curves around his wrist. You know that things aren't going too well, not for him or the team or you, but if there's one thing you've learned from him, for good or for bad, it's that you just have to suck it up and keep on going.

It's not even late August when the team's sent to their first event, paraded out for the press, and, honestly, what the fuck does any of that have to do with football? But you play along, you always have. Loyalty is one of your faults. Backstage, you fiddle with your tie and watch him peer in the mirror, fastening his watch.

"Iker," he says, turning around, pulling your hands away from your collar and redoing the tie for you, "There's no use, lad." You're not sure if he's talking about the tie or you or him. It's all the same anyway.

He finishes, runs a hand through his hair, straightens his cuffs. Relaxes his shoulders under the black jacket. Takes a deep breath, smiles at you, suddenly young and bright and unattainable once more.

"I am what I am, always will be. You know that. You're too young to worry so much." (Places a hand on the side of your face, warm and solid; winks.)

And with that, he turns around. Walks onto the stage and faces the cameras again. They're calling his name.

It's admirable, you admit to yourself, shaking your head.

You pitied him for it before, but it's fucking admirable, that sort of bravery.

note: For olleander - this is entirely because of you! ♥ I often suspect that the real David Beckham is far more dim and far less interesting, if still generally good-hearted, in reality, but the sheer amount of material to work with there is fucking great.

I really enjoy how this began with v.! cheerful! and puppylike! pictures, only to quickly descend into depressing character analysis. Such is the story of my life, guys. About half of this was written this afternoon, so if you see any ridiculous typos or moments of stupidity, you know.

Also, apologies to everyone on my friends list who's not interested in this sport. I realize my journal has become quite one-track and, possibly, boring recently. :(