Los Gatos 30/? part 1a
Pairing: David Villa/David Silva (main), Sergio Ramos/Fernando Torres, others
Characters: Iker Casillas, Víctor Valdés, Andrés Iniesta, Xavi Hernández, David Silva, Jordi Alba (this part of the chapter)
Rating: R (?)
Warnings: AU
Disclaimer: I don't claim it has ever happened.
Chapter 30
David stubbornly refused to do as much as look at Herández as the Catalan escorted him to the lift. He did keep an eye on the guy’s feet, though, and therefore managed not to act horribly spooked as the technician slipped into the small room after him.
David immediately took the corner across the door for himself, leaning against the wall with hands in his pockets, generally ignoring the brooding figure of Hernández. If the man wanted something more from him, he would have to initiate contact. He had barely managed to keep up with the game back during the questioning, avoiding slips by pure miracles so his nerves were taunt as fuck without this new hand being dealt out.
He wasn’t sure he knew the rules here.
He sucked the air in when the Catalan didn’t disappoint.
"Why Silva?", Hernández was staring at the buttons as the next floor one turned bright orange.
He almost carried on pretending the man wasn’t there when it occurred to him that it wasn’t intoned as a philosophical question.
"Excuse me?", he turned slowly wondering if he hadn’t made a mistake when Hernández only shot him an exasperated glare.
"Silva", the Catalan waved his hands as if the sole word personally offended him, "Why? That’s not your paternal name-"
David snorted at the patriarchal tirade and realised it might have been neither the place nor the time only when the technician folded his arms pointedly.
"It may be my working name", he couldn’t help himself, not with the guy acting all wise and mighty, "I may be using it for business, it adds some exoticism…", he trailed off as the impressive eyebrows the Catalan seemed to be stuck to formed an unimpressed arch, "Okay, so I just use it", he shrugged, slumping even harder onto the cold metal wall.
The eyebrows did a little cheerleading dance with a Hannibal Lecter undertone.
"You know Arguineguín?", he asked rhetorically and Hernández for a second looked dumbstruck that it didn’t take the Inquisition and torture to make him talk, "Yeah, guessed so", he rolled slightly using his shoulder as support, "You’re not missing much. It’s so small it wouldn’t even get a barrio’s name here, yet forty percent of its population is called Jiménez", his mouth curled on its own at the mention of the town, "There’re at least five in every street."
Hernández made a face as if his suspicions had just been proven so just in case, David added.
"There was a Jiménez in my class. David, because obviously it was the name of the decade", he diplomatically omitted that one year that placed Villa in another decade than him no matter how you counted, "It sucked", he guessed that looking back, his constant struggles with the poor idiot weren’t as epic as he used to believe, "He was an idiot", he rolled his eyes at the Catalan’s huff, "I mean it. He was the worst student in our class and for some reason, teachers always confused us. As if we were anything alike", he didn’t use to get what was so fucking difficult in remembering to check which one was which at writing down notes then and he still didn’t get it now, "So after I got another of his 4s I just signed my next test with ‘Silva’", because righting up the notes involved a lot of awkward embarrassment on the part of both him and the teachers. He could swear some of them had started to dislike him just because he had to point out that he wasn’t the Jiménez they’d been raging about.
It shouldn’t have come across as shocking that he had chosen to use Silva then, at least in the semi-official school situations but of course it had and his mother had got called to a private meeting with the headmaster to talk about her divorce and if his father had still had any parental rights.
His parents had never been so pissed with him as then. Apparently he didn’t get to decide about such things until he was at least 18 and living on his own and apparently it had been a huge offence that could have led to an enormous rift within the family… It had taken a whole evening worth of explaining, yelling and slamming the doors to get his parents to even acknowledge that no, he hadn’t been going through a rebellious phase at fourteen, that it had all been for purely practical reasons.
He still remembered how his mum had crept into his room silently later, at night, whispering soothingly that they had overreacted - understatement - but that his dad had been afraid that he had hurt David somehow to make him act like that. If he had truly been hurt, he had a funny way of showing it but anyway David had accepted that apology as he had never been able to stand arguing with his parents or worse yet, that period of fragile peace that followed every quarrel.
He had started to use Silva whenever he could, though, because it would have been silly to back down after all the drama.
The teacher who had been the one to bring the subject up to the headmaster hadn’t offered him even a semblance of apology, though unfortunately she had later overheard him spitting to Kun furiously that "the bitch could have asked him first". He had learnt pretty fast then that it was healthier to keep his opinions to himself, but at least Mrs García had assumed Kun had played a more active part there than listening to him and had given them both an earful.
Hernández grunted without conviction, shaking him out of his memories.
"That’s it?", he sounded incredulous as if completely sure David was playing him.
"Afterwards it just stuck", he returned to staring into space, "It’s not as if I’d changed my name or anything", it wasn’t as scandalous as most people seemed to believe. He hadn’t gone to the ayuntamiento to change his identity for Pete’s sake.
At least before no one had got that brilliant idea to call him Silvita. If his class bullies had had the brain capacity to make it up he’d have probably been forced to find a new school.
Hernández fell silent after that last confirmation and David was too busy half reminiscing, half trying to come up with "what’s next" to be bothered by it, so it shouldn’t strike anyone as weird that he froze when suddenly the Catalan pressed the ‘stop’ button.
He cautiously peeked at the brooding policeman, trying to determine if he seemed a type to resort to less conventional interrogation techniques but for the life of him he couldn’t imagine Hernández getting physical.
Or he was just that marvellous of an actor, time would tell. Soon. David didn’t have much unmarred space on his face to offer anyway.
"How old are you?", the cop didn’t even approach him, just gave him an eerily calculating look-over from his own corner of the lift.
"Twenty", David frowned. They had asked about that, repeatedly. Not to mention they had checked his ID and most likely the state records.
The Catalan pursed his lips - his eyebrows accompanied the grimace with practiced fluidity - then, unexpectedly, something in his expression changed.
"Where do you even see yourself in ten years?"
David’s head shook on its own. He bumped into the cold wall in an unrestrained necessity to put as much distance between them as possible under those circumstances.
Where did he see himself?
He… Smiled, because that wasn’t as climactic as he could have envisioned. He had been waiting for such a question back there, probably coming from Casillas’ lips - Casillas’, who had seemed to take whatever bait David had decided to leave… Casillas who would never listen for an answer as he was always too busy building sandcastles in his mind.
Hernández, on the other hand, looked perfectly focused on David, as if his response would mean something to him.
His smile grew wider.
It wouldn’t - it couldn’t - mean anything to Hernández that David simply didn’t see himself in ten years, period. Not with him already being unable to cover the distance of two floors of a staircase without dragging a stiff leg behind him halfway through.
According to the good doctor in Sevilla, in a vast majority of the cases the damage to the tissue proceeded slowly, causing true trouble only in an old age when such problems were to be expected. Well, apparently David fell into the minority part. Not that it surprised him, he had known the man had been sugar-coating the facts during their last visit just as he had known then and there that he would never agree to live with such an impairment. Crutches at the age of thirty? No, not for him. He may not be an athlete but he would never be a cripple.
He had never told anyone, not his parents and not Kun, and he didn’t need to tell Villa. He felt the man knew. How? Maybe it was the instinct of a predator. He didn’t want to believe the man - his lover but still a murderer - understood him better than the people he had grown around. Maybe that was what had been making Villa keep him, that knowledge that there had never been a ‘forever’ included. It just didn’t explain why Villa had insisted on taking him to see all those orthopaedists that couldn’t help because no one had yet discovered the method of altering the genes and reversing their effects. It had been pointless, yet David humoured him as always, as long as no one wanted to perform another surgery.
They hadn’t. They could recognise a hopeless case when they saw one.
He just carried on smiling until Hernández had no other choice but to let the lift move again.
...
"Andrés", Iker wasted no time in grabbing the technician’s arm to drag him along, "What’s up with Krkić?"
"What’s up with him", Andrés echoed, growing visibly alarmed as Iker’s manhandling almost made him collide with the office door, "I hope you realise you’re seriously freaking me out", he deadpanned when they finally stepped inside.
"Look", Iker put his arms on his hips, then quickly ran a hand through his hair, "Has he recently mentioned anything about detox?", he was still royally pissed at the Manchego for withholding the information about Krkić’ addiction. Andrés had only deemed it appropriate to share it with him after the failed raid, probably concluding that keeping secrets now that he was one of the main suspects wouldn’t work in his favour.
"He needs drugs to fill in the forms Mourinho hands him out", the technician snapped, "It means: I doubt he considers detox… What’s up with him?"
"That’s what I like to know", Iker hissed back sensing that Andrés was subtly attacking him. It took an impressive amount of nerve to do so since he was the one who hadn’t handled the problem rightly from the beginning, "He’s gone."
"What?", Andrés seemed seriously thrown off, "How?-"
"He’s taken a sick leave", Iker decided to fuck the fire alarm and angrily patted his pockets in search of the cigarettes, "Today, incidentally", he cursed viciously as he couldn’t encounter any, "Apparently due to some prolonged exposure to Mourinho-"
"Mourinho?"
"Stress", Iker amended, resigning himself to yet another minute sans nicotine, "Doesn’t matter. What counts is that he’s done a runner on us."
"Did you see it?", Andrés drew a shape of a small paper in the air, "Who gave it? Have you tried calling him?"
"Yes and he’s not responding", Iker growled. He was capable of taking few sensible actions contrary to the popular belief, "And his parents don’t know anything either."
"Well done alerting him we’re looking for him", Andrés jerked away.
"He disappears in the middle of an inside investigation, I guess he’s figured out we’re going to look for him", Iker had weighted pros and cons of that call, "Talking about looking for him…"
"I’m on it", the Manchego nodded curtly and threw him a notebook he picked up from a desk, "Give me the doctor’s name, I’ll see if he’s clear and if he can tell as anything useful."
Iker quickly scribbled the name down. At least Andrés was treating the matter as seriously as it deserved. He had to admit he had feared the technician would be reluctant to suspect the boy he had so trusted.
He winced as soon as he thought that. Yeah, exactly. Andrés had trusted him.
"Torres", he mumbled to explain himself, "I have to", he pointed to the door.
"Oh", Andrés took his eyes away from the doctor’s name, "Sure. Go and see what you can get from him", he smiled grimly, "And don’t worry, I’ll find Krkić."
...
He barely made it out of the door when he bumped straight into Valdés.
"Casillas", the Catalan steadied him single-handedly, manoeuvring him so that he could prop himself against a wall, "I’ve been trying to find you", the pathologist appraised him furrowing his eyebrows, "You look like shit."
"Well, thanks", Iker chuckled dryly, attempting to side-step him.
"Not so fast", one move and Valdés was blocking his path with his surprisingly bulky body. Iker had somehow lived under assumption that his ‘bad persona’ was kind of restricted to his tattoos, "You need to see the doctor."
Not that.
Valdés must have read his expression correctly, because his face darkened with obvious frustration.
"Casillas", he growled warningly, "They took care of your wounds but they need to be redressed as directed", he made a show of consulting his watch, "Which in within an hour. Don’t make us both humiliate ourselves and force me to drag you there", Valdés just looked the kind to do that, once Iker thought of that.
"I’ll go", he agreed lightly, "Just after Torres-"
"Torres’ not going anyway", Valdés snorted, "Besides, wouldn’t it be actually better to interrogate him after Isco brings in the evidence from his flat?", okay, so the pathologist might have a point. It probably wouldn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things if he murdered Torres with changed bandages or not and right now, the Catalan seemed ready to strangle him, "Do you have any idea how many bones there are in a wrist?"
"Many?", Iker tried, at the same time avoiding Valdés’ nose as the pathologist had suddenly found himself in his face.
"Eight", the Catalan gritted out with the airs of contempt which Iker didn’t really deserve. He was going to say ten, "And if you want to continue to be able to wield a gun, steadily in the best case and at all in the worst, you’ll run to the hospital now to let them patch it up as well as they can."
"You could do that", Iker reminded blandly, earning himself an arched eyebrow.
"I deal with corpses", the Catalan informed happily, "Your living tissue isn’t within my competence."
Iker glared but Valdés only glared harder.
"You just want me to go there so I’ll visit Cesc", the words tasted acidly on his tongue.
Valdés didn’t answer but his eyes softened a bit. Iker swallowed against the stiff ball in his throat.
...
His phone began to vibrate the moment he pressed the button on the car key.
"Yes?", he grunted when he hit the car top with his grazed arm.
"Have you lost your fucking mind?", he regretted he was holding his mobile with the shoulder so that he couldn’t escape the furious yell.
"Good afternoon to you too, Carles", he rolled his eyes starting the ignition.
"Are you taking some perverse pleasure in fucking up or couldn’t you simply let such an opportunity to inflame the rivalry between Madrid and Barcelona pass-"
"I’m inflaming the rivalry?", Iker actually stopped the car in the driveway, "Was that me who accidentally forgot to mention the involvement of the Bureau during the Bartomeu hearing press conference? To which he’d also forgotten to invite us?", he kind of stifled a laugh because he in no way held it against Puyol. He would have been pissed if he had had to drive all the way to Barcelona just to answer three questions of the reporters.
"I wasn’t the one doing the inviting", Puyol grumbled but didn’t address the other part, "But if that’s a way to get back at us-"
"What the hell are you on about?", Iker had never pinpointed Puyol as someone to create problems for the sake of it. The man may have a hell of a temper but he wouldn’t be bothering him without a sound reason.
"Have you seen today’s news?", the Catalan’s tone changed to wary.
"Not yet…", he realised how unprofessional it sounded but excuse him that he had had a busy night.
Puyol spat out something in Catalan, fortunately too quickly and too bundled-up together for Iker to work out.
"Who has even talked to the press? Was that you-", Puyol was back on the track.
"Carles", Iker leaned forwards to see if the main road was clear, "I’ve deduced something’s wrong but I still have no idea what that is…"
"The press knows that Gómez agreed to talk!"
"What?", Iker avoided crashing into a red Fiat by an inch.
"It was in every morning journal", Puyol gritted out between clenched teeth, "We have journalists right now camping in front of the Department while technically they shouldn’t even know Gómez was arrested-"
Iker barely acknowledged the shouting driver of the Fiat.
"What happened?"
"What happened?", Puyol went back to yelling, "Casillas, I’m asking what happened here, you’re the one besides the five people on my team who knew that Gómez spilt the beans!"
"You think I called the press?", it was such a ridiculous notion Iker almost snorted, "Anyway, I wasn’t the only one, you contacted Guardiola too…"
"Yes, and told him about the arrest, I only called you after the initial interrogation because I naively assumed it may somehow help you with your recent developments-"
Puyol was most likely carrying on in the similar fashion but Iker completely tuned him out, stunned with the foreboding realisation.
"Fuck", he bumped his fist on the steering wheel, "Carles, wait, I’m going to call you back in a few", not waiting for the Catalan’s response, he disconnected, took a sharp turn right and kicked the Ford’s door open, rummaging through the wallet for some change.
...
"Guaje", despite being rationally sure no one could overhear him there, he still kept looking over his shoulder every second, "I’ve done all I could. They have his fingerprints, they’ll link him up to the shooting in no time."
...
It had taken him three attempts to finally get the phone to work because he hadn’t used one in as long as he could remember and because it turned out to be a trial trying to pick up a receiver, slip in the coins, dial a number and lit up a cigarette at the same time.
"It’s me, Casillas", he inhaled a calming mouthful of nicotine, "Sorry, I had to change the phone", he settled diplomatically for that summarised version, not seeing the point in admitting to Puyol that his mobile was apparently bugged, "How are you proceeding?"
"And how do you think we can proceed with the whole country aware of our arrestee working with us?", the forced break must have helped Puyol gather back his composure, even though Iker could tell he wasn’t satisfied with his little white lie, "He’s obviously taking a holiday break with his new uniformed friends", he couldn’t blame the Catalan of not divulging more.
He nodded, deciding it was probably his cue to say his goodbyes.
"Wait", Puyol must have read his mind, "We’ve got one journalist up here to explain, the info about Gómez appeared around 6 a.m. on one of the Internet news sites", he spelt out the address, "When we contacted them, they swore none from the staff had put it up."
6 a.m. Minutes after Puyol had called him.
"You believe them?"
"I’ve no grounds not to, they actually put it down some one hour later, not knowing how it’d got there or if it wasn’t a poor joke. Unfortunately it was enough time for the others to scent it."
"Do you have someone tracking that sudden appearance?", Iker glanced longingly at the fag he’d just ground down with his heel.
"It wasn’t up long enough to do so", the Catalan sighed, "Look, Casillas, I’m sorry to round up on you like that but you have to put yourself in my place-"
"I get it", Iker was so pissed at himself for not thinking about a bug in his phone earlier that he certainly understood Puyol. Everything at the Bureau had been bugged, why would his phone have been spared?
"Right", Puyol cleared his throat, "There’s something that may interest you. He said that Löwe wants something from you."
"Me?"
"Not you in particular", came a hurried correction, "Gómez said that Löwe’s convinced you have some material that may compromise him, though you possibly don’t realise it yet. He wants it to disappear."
"Evidence we have but don’t know we have?", sounded totally like them, "That’s highly unlikely. Anyway, how does he imagine to retrieve it, then? Walk in with arms drawn?"
"Hey, don’t kill the messenger", he might have overdone the ‘wounded dignity’ part, "I don’t mean I trust him blindly, I just thought you may appreciate a heads up."
"I do", well wasn’t that weird that Gómez had refused to name the person he had been coming to Spain to meet but had no qualms about selling out his boss, "I still don’t see how it’s logistically doable-"
"Wouldn’t be the first time your system got breached, right?"
Iker huffed, wondering if the evidence in question was even indeed of the cyber-type.
...