Watch the weather change - HITTER
Author: kitty69lover
Rating: PG.
Category: drama; angst
Characters: Bojan Krkic / Zlatan Ibrahimovic (implied)
Length: hitter
Summary: it cannot be summarized, just a painful telephone conversation
Disclaimer: initially only in my head; too much to contain it all, so it spilled on the webpage....
Authors Notes:1. it first occurred to me that Bojan is like Zlatan maybe two weeks ago and i can't let go of it, the sensation that my boy will end up - like all the ones i love - in the Beautiful Losers pile :( this is sort of an exorcism, i guess.
2. the title is taken from Tool's Disposition, the line seems to be haunting me these days, although only this morning i listened to it on my phone for the first time in weeks. it represents both waiting and change, patience and action...i suppose.
3. i really wish there could've been more Zlatan/Bojan. :(
Watch the weather change
The phone starts ringing, one, two, three times before he even glances at it. The number is somewhat familiar, yet there's no name on the screen, and Zlatan is tired, he doesn’t want to answer. But it goes on and on, and by the tenth ring, he picks it up.
"Hello?" he says, trying to not sound as annoyed as he really is.
There's no answer, just hard breath at the other end of the line, breath of someone who has held it in the while it took Zlatan to answer. He grows even more annoyed and is tempted to end it but instead simply asks, as calm as he can.
"Who is this?"
"Zlatan?"
The man-child voice almost makes his knees buckle and Zlatan has to sit down. His hands tremble. It took just one word, his own name - how ridiculous is this - to send him panicking and barely breathing, his heart thumping madly in its cage.
"Yes." He answers, anything else but saying his name, even though he should've, just to make sure that he still could, to wipe away the spell the name alone had on him.
"Tell me." The boy demands but so softly, the words crash against Zlatan's ears like feathers.
He can't. His lips tremble now too, and he can't utter a single word. He knows what the boy is asking, but he can't tell him, he doesn’t want to relive those days of nightmare.
"Tell me, Zlatan." Insidiously he whispers in the phone.
And all that breathing, so close to his ear. He had always gotten his way and Zlatan knows he will surrender too. It will only take one push. That comes ever so painful, like a kick in the balls, like kneecapping.
"Tell me how does it feel to be banished from the team you love."
He can’t breathe as if the boy's voice had sucked all the air out of his chest in a donkey punch, he wants to throw the phone against the wall, but the absence of breathing on the other side of the conversation stops him.
He is the one breathing raggedly right now, taking deep breaths of air that do not cool his lungs, that do not make his eyes water any less.
"Why?
The smallest of words is all he can utter, without collapsing and begging and crying,
"Because I want to be prepared."
The sniffle at the end destroys the last remnant of composure Zlatan still has and he starts crying, not even trying to conceal the sobs that fill the air, that carry over the line and into the boy's ear.
"It won’t happen. Forget everything I told you, forget everything they told you, forget everything he told you, you're not like me, never, you're different, better, you're a winner, you're a Masia boy and you're strong, you're not like me, you're not like me at all, Bojan."
It all flows out of him, words he wishes they were true, even if he's not sure, even if he knows the boy knows he's not sure, but words that can give hope and strengthen and reassure, even mildly and then the name, the name that caught him more than anything else, the mere fact that he found the inner power to say it out loud, it makes him hopeful that the boy understands he's speaking from the heart.
There is silence and hard breathing and sobs, and Zlatan thinks the boy is too young to be this scared for his future, for a future that hasn't even began, and he realizes that this fear alone, this predestination the boy is trying so hard to fight against will be his motivator, the fuel that will carry him to greatness.
He listens how the breathing normalizes and wants to say something else, but he cannot. They've said everything there was to say already and the faintest of words might ruin the fragile balance. He doesn’t dare hang up, but waits patiently for the boy to do so, and when indeed the line goes dead, he wipes tears and tries his best to straighten himself up.
It'll always hurt, to know what he lost, what he could've had, but it'll always hurt more to see the youngster fall in his path and fail like he did. He has to push him away, for his own good.
Working fast on the dials, he blocks the unknown number, his last connection to Neverland.
Rating: PG.
Category: drama; angst
Characters: Bojan Krkic / Zlatan Ibrahimovic (implied)
Length: hitter
Summary: it cannot be summarized, just a painful telephone conversation
Disclaimer: initially only in my head; too much to contain it all, so it spilled on the webpage....
Authors Notes:1. it first occurred to me that Bojan is like Zlatan maybe two weeks ago and i can't let go of it, the sensation that my boy will end up - like all the ones i love - in the Beautiful Losers pile :( this is sort of an exorcism, i guess.
2. the title is taken from Tool's Disposition, the line seems to be haunting me these days, although only this morning i listened to it on my phone for the first time in weeks. it represents both waiting and change, patience and action...i suppose.
3. i really wish there could've been more Zlatan/Bojan. :(
Watch the weather change
The phone starts ringing, one, two, three times before he even glances at it. The number is somewhat familiar, yet there's no name on the screen, and Zlatan is tired, he doesn’t want to answer. But it goes on and on, and by the tenth ring, he picks it up.
"Hello?" he says, trying to not sound as annoyed as he really is.
There's no answer, just hard breath at the other end of the line, breath of someone who has held it in the while it took Zlatan to answer. He grows even more annoyed and is tempted to end it but instead simply asks, as calm as he can.
"Who is this?"
"Zlatan?"
The man-child voice almost makes his knees buckle and Zlatan has to sit down. His hands tremble. It took just one word, his own name - how ridiculous is this - to send him panicking and barely breathing, his heart thumping madly in its cage.
"Yes." He answers, anything else but saying his name, even though he should've, just to make sure that he still could, to wipe away the spell the name alone had on him.
"Tell me." The boy demands but so softly, the words crash against Zlatan's ears like feathers.
He can't. His lips tremble now too, and he can't utter a single word. He knows what the boy is asking, but he can't tell him, he doesn’t want to relive those days of nightmare.
"Tell me, Zlatan." Insidiously he whispers in the phone.
And all that breathing, so close to his ear. He had always gotten his way and Zlatan knows he will surrender too. It will only take one push. That comes ever so painful, like a kick in the balls, like kneecapping.
"Tell me how does it feel to be banished from the team you love."
He can’t breathe as if the boy's voice had sucked all the air out of his chest in a donkey punch, he wants to throw the phone against the wall, but the absence of breathing on the other side of the conversation stops him.
He is the one breathing raggedly right now, taking deep breaths of air that do not cool his lungs, that do not make his eyes water any less.
"Why?
The smallest of words is all he can utter, without collapsing and begging and crying,
"Because I want to be prepared."
The sniffle at the end destroys the last remnant of composure Zlatan still has and he starts crying, not even trying to conceal the sobs that fill the air, that carry over the line and into the boy's ear.
"It won’t happen. Forget everything I told you, forget everything they told you, forget everything he told you, you're not like me, never, you're different, better, you're a winner, you're a Masia boy and you're strong, you're not like me, you're not like me at all, Bojan."
It all flows out of him, words he wishes they were true, even if he's not sure, even if he knows the boy knows he's not sure, but words that can give hope and strengthen and reassure, even mildly and then the name, the name that caught him more than anything else, the mere fact that he found the inner power to say it out loud, it makes him hopeful that the boy understands he's speaking from the heart.
There is silence and hard breathing and sobs, and Zlatan thinks the boy is too young to be this scared for his future, for a future that hasn't even began, and he realizes that this fear alone, this predestination the boy is trying so hard to fight against will be his motivator, the fuel that will carry him to greatness.
He listens how the breathing normalizes and wants to say something else, but he cannot. They've said everything there was to say already and the faintest of words might ruin the fragile balance. He doesn’t dare hang up, but waits patiently for the boy to do so, and when indeed the line goes dead, he wipes tears and tries his best to straighten himself up.
It'll always hurt, to know what he lost, what he could've had, but it'll always hurt more to see the youngster fall in his path and fail like he did. He has to push him away, for his own good.
Working fast on the dials, he blocks the unknown number, his last connection to Neverland.