got distracted and wrote 2000 words of crack instead
Title: The Time You Put a Goat in Jerzy's Room
Rating: PG13
Summary: It was Bellamy. It was always going to be Bellamy.
Required Reading (all of which is longer and way funnier than this story):
1. Mostly because it's amazing, not because the crack it inspired has any plot to follow... because it really, really doesn't:
You are vaguely aware you can’t really object to his tortured soul crap when what goes through your head is that essentially this was not supposed to happen. It’s almost blasphemous to have this possibility when the most you ever considered was an extended weekend and the inevitable meeting in thirty years’ time at some common friend’s funeral (sorry Carra). He’ll say ‘I wish..’ and stop, searching for words and staring at your hands, wishing he’d at least have the guts to take them into his shaking ones (he’ll blame arthritis). You’ll look at the sky and nod a couple of times, chocking on tears you never shed. You’ll say ‘I know’ and you won’t be completely lying. You’ll fondly remember the time you put a goat in Jerzy’s room and shiver with dull regret.
The end. (X)
2. Liverpool is a sports movie AU, part 4325814:
We almost expect an element of lunacy from great artists but it's surprising when encountered in a footballer, Bellamy raging around the Mediterranean coast like Hemingway walloping his colleagues about the thighs when they don't get into the spirit of things. One report said that Bellamy had initially retired after the karaoke clash but was so wound up that he couldn't sleep. I like to think of him all red, tense and prickly lying in his bed before springing to his feet grabbing a nine-iron and embarking on his bonkers vendetta. When the news broke at the weekend it was difficult to envisage how he could ever be rehabilitated but of course, as is so often the case, if you are supremely talented you write your own rule book, and by close of business on Wednesday night Bellamy had scored and set up a second for the reluctant Sonny to his forceful Cher: Riise. [Against Barcelona. At the Camp Nou. Making Liverpool the only English team to have ever won in the CL there].
(X)
3. Of course it's not true, but, as always, some things are... inspired by real events. ;)
It was Bellamy.
More than a decade gone by and Xabi still insists that his memory is using Bellers as a scapegoat (and he has the nerve to chuckle at his utterly intentional pun with an unnerving little rasp in his throat, the bastard). He continues to claim that it had been Stevie who’d masterminded the whole operation, including the goat - no, especially the goat - then let the intrepid Welshman take the fall. Stevie disagrees with as much vehemence as he can muster while standing butt naked on a balcony overlooking a deserted Cantabrian beach. But then Xabi covers his back with his own breeze-chilled body, pushing Stevie’s stomach into the wrought-iron railing, and runs a knowing fingertip down the V curve of his pelvic muscle, effectively cheating his way out of yet another argument, as he’s wont to do. Stevie will consider himself lucky if he remembers how to speak English or what the hell a goat looks like anyway in about half an hour or so.
It was always going to be Bellamy though.
~
It would be difficult to explain to anyone who’d care to listen how a bunch of theoretically grown-up men would even come up with a plan like theirs. Stevie thinks it started at dinner, on their first night in the luxurious Portuguese resort serving as Liverpool’s training camp before a decisive Champions League tie. There was Portuguese goat stew on the menu. Among screwed up faces and stupid jokes, plus one terrible impersonation of Three Billy Goats Gruff in the original Norwegian, Jerzy had innocently confessed that he liked goat and was ready to have a go at the Chanfana.
“How the fook can you eat anything that looks like Bambi?”
“Why not?”
“Bambi’s not a fucking goat, mate” Bellamy groused, thus forever booking his spot in a decade-long debate.
“Big doe eyes, floppy ears, gobshite lil’ soulpatch… same difference. I don’t feel comfortable eating something that looks like it belongs in bloody Disneyland, ‘s all,” Carra shrugs.
“So what you’re saying is if something has big eyes and a cute button nose it don’t belong on the grill?”
“Eating cutesy things is fucked up, lad.”
“Not if they’re delicious,” Bellamy shrugged and went back to more pressing matters such as bullying a squad member with a better grasp of English than Jerzy so that it was truly worth the effort.
If he hadn’t been as caught up in Socratic debates about Cuteness v. Yumminess, Carra would not miss the way the tips of Xabi’s ears colored a violent shade of pink when he stared at his phone under the table, nor the way Stevie licked his lips at the other end, quietly slipping his own phone back into his pocket. He could consider himself lucky that he had no reason to notice which teammates sneaked away early while he rejoined Craig Bellamy in nagging their poor Polish goalkeeper about his dinner.
“How was Bambi? Hope you ordered him rare.”
Stevie will tease Carra at breakfast next morning, grinning like a man who wasn’t there because he’d been too busy sitting down on Carra’s bed, running his nose in a leisurely trail down Xabi’s furry abdomen and trying to pry open the strings that held up his teammate’s track pants with his teeth.
~
There are two schools of thought regarding Xabi’s involvement in their hapless plot. According to the official version, he was far too obliging and well-bred to ever say no to Bellamy, who routinely smuggled in cigarettes and candy bars from hotel vending machines under Benitez’s nose and was therefore bound by a sense of duty to repay his dealer.
The second theory is a fair bit less self-deluded.
~
Stevie doesn’t know to call it serendipity, but what he lacks in encyclopedic vocabulary he makes up in game vision and he’s never been one to shy away from a long shot.
“How’s the ankle?”
Xabi nods towards Stevie’s bruised foot resting on top of a reconverted pillow while he’s watching a Brazilian soap opera. His bare, bruised foot.
“Hurts,” Stevie pouts, shifting his other leg to make room on the bed. “Finnan’s shit tackling technique is going to send me into early retirement, you just watch.”
“You’ll live,” Xabi offers, unimpressed. He reaches for Stevie’s bum ankle and rests it in his lap, lightly running his palm over the imprint of Finnan’s studs, up and down.
His fingers are cold, but not unpleasantly so.
Stevie’s prattling on about how the Irishman should save his zeal for Zambrotta’s ankles instead when he notices the look in Xabi’s eyes while he’s massaging the instep of his foot. Stevie had been too knackered following yet another grueling training session to bother with changing after his shower and physio, which is why he’s now conveniently lounging about in his training shorts and a sweatshirt, sans socks. He’s about to make fun of Xabi for packing a suitcase suitable for a polar expedition for late “winter” in the Algarve, but switches tactics at the last minute. His foot is hitched up ever higher towards Xabi’s face and the press of Xabi’s thumbs right under his big toe is getting more and more insistent.
“Have to tell the club they could save some cash on physios. You’re a man of hidden talents, Alonso. Good with your hands too,” Stevie says with badly faked innocence and folds his arms under his head.
“I like feet,” Xabi murmurs, more to himself than anything else, his breath tickling Stevie’s sole.
“You’re weird.”
“I like your feet.”
Xabi presses a slow kiss on the ball of his foot and Stevie feels every muscle south of his diaphragm begin to twitch. He closes his eyes and is quite proud of himself when he casually sneaks his other foot under Xabi’s sweater, hitching it up to feel his way up the warmth of Xabi’s stomach with his toes. He then says in the most oh-by-the-way tone ever:
“So Bellamy has this idea for a bit of fun…”
It’s so easy from there on, it’s bloody ridiculous.
The glazed look in Xabi’s eyes as he’s incessantly rubbing little patterns between Stevie’s toes is a sure sign that he may be seeing Stevie’s lips moving, but is in fact listening to precisely zero words coming out of his mouth. That’s when he knows it’s time to strike. His roaming foot stops right under where he can feel Xabi’s heart pounding and inches back down following the thrumming of his blood all the way to Xabi’s crotch. It takes every ounce of his self-control to not smirk victoriously at what he finds there, but that won’t stop him from giving Xabi a few teasing rubs of his own.
“So… you’re in?”
“Mmmmm,” Xabi mumbles, too busy sucking on his toes to bother with words.
He’d rather run his hand down through the hairs on Stevie’s leg instead, his fingertips dipping into the sensitive skin behind his knee. He frowns for a split second, perhaps realizing that he has no reason to be patient any longer, then pulls Stevie roughly by the knees, dragging him down the bed towards his own body so he can lower himself above his torso until he’s crushing his Captain under his chest. There’s a niggling voice somewhere at the back of Xabi’s mind trying to remind him that he’s just agreed to something potentially crazy and/or embarrassing, but by then he’s naked and it’s too late and Steven shushes that voice into complete submission when he starts to lick that spot behind his ear so...
Later, when Xabi’s warmer and more exhausted and infinitely more able to shift cognitive processes from his dick to his brain, the voice awakens.
"You are aware that I don't actually speak Portuguese, right?" he asks into Stevie's hair and Stevie shifts a little to nuzzle his neck.
"Mhmmm... You have a much better chance of buying a goat in Portugal than Ginge and me though."
“How are you even going to get a goat inside the hotel?”
“That’s Bellers’ job. Carra says they’ve bribed one of the bellboys already; they’ll wheel it in in one of those carts they use for room service. So that’s their part done, ours is to get it to the hotel parking lot.”
"Is ours now?... Remind me again why do I agree to this insanity?"
Stevie's hand slips under the sheet and Xabi closes his eyes and curses himself silently.
~
“He says he does not want to get into trouble. He doesn’t want to do anything illegal. At least I think that is what he says.”
“Sir, we promise we’re not going to hurt your goat,” Stevie says in a honeydew tone and his best dimpled smile that used to work so well on Mrs. Morgan in third grade but earns him nothing but a stop acting like a creep, you’re not helping glare from Xabi.
Xabi clears his throat and continues to attempt to sweet talk (in slow, measured Spanish) the stone-faced Portuguese villager whose eyes have not left Riise’s hair since the three of them descended from his shiny convertible rental and walked into his store in the nearest thing to a village they could find around the tourist resort. He feels like he’s in the middle of a particularly terrible gag. Three Liverpool footballers walk into a farm…
The old man grunts and slowly nods, but does so in a manner that conveys pretty clearly that he continues to be unconvinced. He shuffles away towards the barn door though and Stevie breathes a sigh of relief.
“Did you tell him we need a cute goat?”
“No.”
“Alonso, that’s the whole bloody point…”
“Shut up, Ginge. I don’t think the man believes you have… honorable intentions with his goat. Asking for a good looking one is not going to make this any easier.”
Three Liverpool players soon attempt to shove a goat in the leather-bound backseat of a Mercedes.
“Why the fuck do I end up with the goat’s smelly arse back here?” Riise whines, keeping a tense distance from the animal which has now settled from its initial fright and is giving him the evil eye from behind Stevie’s driver’s seat.
“You almost derailed this whole operation, so quit your moaning. I think the farmer thought you might be of the Welsh persuasion,” Stevie chuckles, trying to not swerve too violently to avoid a pothole. Cleaning goat (or Norwegian) vomit from the back of a rental car is the last thing he needs tonight. He has no idea if goats even puke, but he’s had a few traumatic experiences with drunk Scandinavians so he’s glad the hotel is only five miles away from the village.
“Or a Satanist,” Xabi adds.
He’s not even that surprised when it turns out that neither Bellamy nor Carra are anywhere in sight at the rendezvous point, not after Rafa had given everyone the last night off as a misguided reward for all their hard work in training. Stevie’s fuming.
“I’ll go distract Dudek with vodka,” Riise chirps, eager to get away from his travel companion at lightning pace.
It’s only his second most shit decision of the night and that’s saying something.
~
Stevie goes to bed that night resigned to have lost yet another round of The Universe v. Steven Gerrard. He was supposed to spend his last night in the Algarve getting drunk, singing karaoke with the locals at the pub they’d chosen for dinner and tracing the lyrics to the Gerrard song on the inside of Xabi’s thighs with his tongue once they got back to his room. Back in the real world, Stevie’s alone, smelling of goat and Monty’s fish and chips and having to check on fucking bearded Bambi every fifteen minutes because Jerzy’s nowhere to be seen. On his last surreptitious visit to the room across the hallway, he gets a minimum amount of satisfaction from noticing that the goat is halfway through chewing up Jerzy’s signed lucky gloves. It’s not enough to make up for all the effort put into getting the creature in there in the first place, not to mention knowing he won’t even be awake to see Jerzy’s face when he discovers his new roommate, but he’ll take it.
He’s woken up at 5 am by a high-pitched wail of KURWWWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAA and smiles into his pillow, safe in the knowledge that everyone will just blame Bellamy anyway.
The End
Rating: PG13
Summary: It was Bellamy. It was always going to be Bellamy.
Required Reading (all of which is longer and way funnier than this story):
1. Mostly because it's amazing, not because the crack it inspired has any plot to follow... because it really, really doesn't:
You are vaguely aware you can’t really object to his tortured soul crap when what goes through your head is that essentially this was not supposed to happen. It’s almost blasphemous to have this possibility when the most you ever considered was an extended weekend and the inevitable meeting in thirty years’ time at some common friend’s funeral (sorry Carra). He’ll say ‘I wish..’ and stop, searching for words and staring at your hands, wishing he’d at least have the guts to take them into his shaking ones (he’ll blame arthritis). You’ll look at the sky and nod a couple of times, chocking on tears you never shed. You’ll say ‘I know’ and you won’t be completely lying. You’ll fondly remember the time you put a goat in Jerzy’s room and shiver with dull regret.
The end. (X)
2. Liverpool is a sports movie AU, part 4325814:
We almost expect an element of lunacy from great artists but it's surprising when encountered in a footballer, Bellamy raging around the Mediterranean coast like Hemingway walloping his colleagues about the thighs when they don't get into the spirit of things. One report said that Bellamy had initially retired after the karaoke clash but was so wound up that he couldn't sleep. I like to think of him all red, tense and prickly lying in his bed before springing to his feet grabbing a nine-iron and embarking on his bonkers vendetta. When the news broke at the weekend it was difficult to envisage how he could ever be rehabilitated but of course, as is so often the case, if you are supremely talented you write your own rule book, and by close of business on Wednesday night Bellamy had scored and set up a second for the reluctant Sonny to his forceful Cher: Riise. [Against Barcelona. At the Camp Nou. Making Liverpool the only English team to have ever won in the CL there].
(X)
3. Of course it's not true, but, as always, some things are... inspired by real events. ;)
It was Bellamy.
More than a decade gone by and Xabi still insists that his memory is using Bellers as a scapegoat (and he has the nerve to chuckle at his utterly intentional pun with an unnerving little rasp in his throat, the bastard). He continues to claim that it had been Stevie who’d masterminded the whole operation, including the goat - no, especially the goat - then let the intrepid Welshman take the fall. Stevie disagrees with as much vehemence as he can muster while standing butt naked on a balcony overlooking a deserted Cantabrian beach. But then Xabi covers his back with his own breeze-chilled body, pushing Stevie’s stomach into the wrought-iron railing, and runs a knowing fingertip down the V curve of his pelvic muscle, effectively cheating his way out of yet another argument, as he’s wont to do. Stevie will consider himself lucky if he remembers how to speak English or what the hell a goat looks like anyway in about half an hour or so.
It was always going to be Bellamy though.
~
It would be difficult to explain to anyone who’d care to listen how a bunch of theoretically grown-up men would even come up with a plan like theirs. Stevie thinks it started at dinner, on their first night in the luxurious Portuguese resort serving as Liverpool’s training camp before a decisive Champions League tie. There was Portuguese goat stew on the menu. Among screwed up faces and stupid jokes, plus one terrible impersonation of Three Billy Goats Gruff in the original Norwegian, Jerzy had innocently confessed that he liked goat and was ready to have a go at the Chanfana.
“How the fook can you eat anything that looks like Bambi?”
“Why not?”
“Bambi’s not a fucking goat, mate” Bellamy groused, thus forever booking his spot in a decade-long debate.
“Big doe eyes, floppy ears, gobshite lil’ soulpatch… same difference. I don’t feel comfortable eating something that looks like it belongs in bloody Disneyland, ‘s all,” Carra shrugs.
“So what you’re saying is if something has big eyes and a cute button nose it don’t belong on the grill?”
“Eating cutesy things is fucked up, lad.”
“Not if they’re delicious,” Bellamy shrugged and went back to more pressing matters such as bullying a squad member with a better grasp of English than Jerzy so that it was truly worth the effort.
If he hadn’t been as caught up in Socratic debates about Cuteness v. Yumminess, Carra would not miss the way the tips of Xabi’s ears colored a violent shade of pink when he stared at his phone under the table, nor the way Stevie licked his lips at the other end, quietly slipping his own phone back into his pocket. He could consider himself lucky that he had no reason to notice which teammates sneaked away early while he rejoined Craig Bellamy in nagging their poor Polish goalkeeper about his dinner.
“How was Bambi? Hope you ordered him rare.”
Stevie will tease Carra at breakfast next morning, grinning like a man who wasn’t there because he’d been too busy sitting down on Carra’s bed, running his nose in a leisurely trail down Xabi’s furry abdomen and trying to pry open the strings that held up his teammate’s track pants with his teeth.
~
There are two schools of thought regarding Xabi’s involvement in their hapless plot. According to the official version, he was far too obliging and well-bred to ever say no to Bellamy, who routinely smuggled in cigarettes and candy bars from hotel vending machines under Benitez’s nose and was therefore bound by a sense of duty to repay his dealer.
The second theory is a fair bit less self-deluded.
~
Stevie doesn’t know to call it serendipity, but what he lacks in encyclopedic vocabulary he makes up in game vision and he’s never been one to shy away from a long shot.
“How’s the ankle?”
Xabi nods towards Stevie’s bruised foot resting on top of a reconverted pillow while he’s watching a Brazilian soap opera. His bare, bruised foot.
“Hurts,” Stevie pouts, shifting his other leg to make room on the bed. “Finnan’s shit tackling technique is going to send me into early retirement, you just watch.”
“You’ll live,” Xabi offers, unimpressed. He reaches for Stevie’s bum ankle and rests it in his lap, lightly running his palm over the imprint of Finnan’s studs, up and down.
His fingers are cold, but not unpleasantly so.
Stevie’s prattling on about how the Irishman should save his zeal for Zambrotta’s ankles instead when he notices the look in Xabi’s eyes while he’s massaging the instep of his foot. Stevie had been too knackered following yet another grueling training session to bother with changing after his shower and physio, which is why he’s now conveniently lounging about in his training shorts and a sweatshirt, sans socks. He’s about to make fun of Xabi for packing a suitcase suitable for a polar expedition for late “winter” in the Algarve, but switches tactics at the last minute. His foot is hitched up ever higher towards Xabi’s face and the press of Xabi’s thumbs right under his big toe is getting more and more insistent.
“Have to tell the club they could save some cash on physios. You’re a man of hidden talents, Alonso. Good with your hands too,” Stevie says with badly faked innocence and folds his arms under his head.
“I like feet,” Xabi murmurs, more to himself than anything else, his breath tickling Stevie’s sole.
“You’re weird.”
“I like your feet.”
Xabi presses a slow kiss on the ball of his foot and Stevie feels every muscle south of his diaphragm begin to twitch. He closes his eyes and is quite proud of himself when he casually sneaks his other foot under Xabi’s sweater, hitching it up to feel his way up the warmth of Xabi’s stomach with his toes. He then says in the most oh-by-the-way tone ever:
“So Bellamy has this idea for a bit of fun…”
It’s so easy from there on, it’s bloody ridiculous.
The glazed look in Xabi’s eyes as he’s incessantly rubbing little patterns between Stevie’s toes is a sure sign that he may be seeing Stevie’s lips moving, but is in fact listening to precisely zero words coming out of his mouth. That’s when he knows it’s time to strike. His roaming foot stops right under where he can feel Xabi’s heart pounding and inches back down following the thrumming of his blood all the way to Xabi’s crotch. It takes every ounce of his self-control to not smirk victoriously at what he finds there, but that won’t stop him from giving Xabi a few teasing rubs of his own.
“So… you’re in?”
“Mmmmm,” Xabi mumbles, too busy sucking on his toes to bother with words.
He’d rather run his hand down through the hairs on Stevie’s leg instead, his fingertips dipping into the sensitive skin behind his knee. He frowns for a split second, perhaps realizing that he has no reason to be patient any longer, then pulls Stevie roughly by the knees, dragging him down the bed towards his own body so he can lower himself above his torso until he’s crushing his Captain under his chest. There’s a niggling voice somewhere at the back of Xabi’s mind trying to remind him that he’s just agreed to something potentially crazy and/or embarrassing, but by then he’s naked and it’s too late and Steven shushes that voice into complete submission when he starts to lick that spot behind his ear so...
Later, when Xabi’s warmer and more exhausted and infinitely more able to shift cognitive processes from his dick to his brain, the voice awakens.
"You are aware that I don't actually speak Portuguese, right?" he asks into Stevie's hair and Stevie shifts a little to nuzzle his neck.
"Mhmmm... You have a much better chance of buying a goat in Portugal than Ginge and me though."
“How are you even going to get a goat inside the hotel?”
“That’s Bellers’ job. Carra says they’ve bribed one of the bellboys already; they’ll wheel it in in one of those carts they use for room service. So that’s their part done, ours is to get it to the hotel parking lot.”
"Is ours now?... Remind me again why do I agree to this insanity?"
Stevie's hand slips under the sheet and Xabi closes his eyes and curses himself silently.
~
“He says he does not want to get into trouble. He doesn’t want to do anything illegal. At least I think that is what he says.”
“Sir, we promise we’re not going to hurt your goat,” Stevie says in a honeydew tone and his best dimpled smile that used to work so well on Mrs. Morgan in third grade but earns him nothing but a stop acting like a creep, you’re not helping glare from Xabi.
Xabi clears his throat and continues to attempt to sweet talk (in slow, measured Spanish) the stone-faced Portuguese villager whose eyes have not left Riise’s hair since the three of them descended from his shiny convertible rental and walked into his store in the nearest thing to a village they could find around the tourist resort. He feels like he’s in the middle of a particularly terrible gag. Three Liverpool footballers walk into a farm…
The old man grunts and slowly nods, but does so in a manner that conveys pretty clearly that he continues to be unconvinced. He shuffles away towards the barn door though and Stevie breathes a sigh of relief.
“Did you tell him we need a cute goat?”
“No.”
“Alonso, that’s the whole bloody point…”
“Shut up, Ginge. I don’t think the man believes you have… honorable intentions with his goat. Asking for a good looking one is not going to make this any easier.”
Three Liverpool players soon attempt to shove a goat in the leather-bound backseat of a Mercedes.
“Why the fuck do I end up with the goat’s smelly arse back here?” Riise whines, keeping a tense distance from the animal which has now settled from its initial fright and is giving him the evil eye from behind Stevie’s driver’s seat.
“You almost derailed this whole operation, so quit your moaning. I think the farmer thought you might be of the Welsh persuasion,” Stevie chuckles, trying to not swerve too violently to avoid a pothole. Cleaning goat (or Norwegian) vomit from the back of a rental car is the last thing he needs tonight. He has no idea if goats even puke, but he’s had a few traumatic experiences with drunk Scandinavians so he’s glad the hotel is only five miles away from the village.
“Or a Satanist,” Xabi adds.
He’s not even that surprised when it turns out that neither Bellamy nor Carra are anywhere in sight at the rendezvous point, not after Rafa had given everyone the last night off as a misguided reward for all their hard work in training. Stevie’s fuming.
“I’ll go distract Dudek with vodka,” Riise chirps, eager to get away from his travel companion at lightning pace.
It’s only his second most shit decision of the night and that’s saying something.
~
Stevie goes to bed that night resigned to have lost yet another round of The Universe v. Steven Gerrard. He was supposed to spend his last night in the Algarve getting drunk, singing karaoke with the locals at the pub they’d chosen for dinner and tracing the lyrics to the Gerrard song on the inside of Xabi’s thighs with his tongue once they got back to his room. Back in the real world, Stevie’s alone, smelling of goat and Monty’s fish and chips and having to check on fucking bearded Bambi every fifteen minutes because Jerzy’s nowhere to be seen. On his last surreptitious visit to the room across the hallway, he gets a minimum amount of satisfaction from noticing that the goat is halfway through chewing up Jerzy’s signed lucky gloves. It’s not enough to make up for all the effort put into getting the creature in there in the first place, not to mention knowing he won’t even be awake to see Jerzy’s face when he discovers his new roommate, but he’ll take it.
He’s woken up at 5 am by a high-pitched wail of KURWWWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAA and smiles into his pillow, safe in the knowledge that everyone will just blame Bellamy anyway.
The End