this year's love.
I'm not entirely happy with this, but perhaps someone out there will like it.
Title: This Year's Love
Pairing: Daniel Agger / Fernando Torres
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Lies.
Notes: Title taken from the David Gray song.
Feedback > life. Constructive criticism is very welcome.
Fernando's life has been one of fresh starts. He knows that, from the outside, he represents a stubborn sort of constancy, an inability to move on, to see the light, to admit defeat. He recalls his older brother telling him off for it; overhearing his mother lamenting to his father about her poor son's appetite for failure; gentle prodding from his national teammates to go on to something bigger, better, different. But he knows that every year that he stayed at Atlético was a new beginning; a new chance to prove himself, to forget the inadequacies of the season before and start over from zero goals, zero points, zero matches played. Whether he succeeded or not was irrelevant; it's the fact that he tried that he knows he'll look back on when his body gives out and his pace runs down and the game has no need for him anymore.
He knows that, when he came to Liverpool, it was like a rebirth, and every subsequent season has presented the same opportunity to forget the past and create a new present; to score more, to win more, to do better. Whether that's been a present without Xabi Alonso, without the Champions League, without a trophy or a medal to show his family - it's been a fresh start nonetheless.
And this season, he is determined, will again be different. He will live this year as though there have been none preceding it. He will ignore his injury-stained World Cup, the headlines bearing Villa's name alone, with Fernando's in small print, in articles wondering what happened to the world's best striker. He will ignore seventh position in the league, and the absence of European football. He will ignore the world's attempts to leave him drowning in that burdensome past and, though they're made up of doubt, regret, and humiliation, his memories of that past will just ever push him further toward proving himself, and proving that past wrong. Of that, he is quite determined.
What he likes about Daniel but hasn't been able to articulate to anybody else is the way the Dane just understands him, with a small nod and an 'Mm, yes' which speaks worlds of comprehension that, to others, just looks like polite indifference. For someone whose usual response to the frivolous ideas of his colleagues is a disparaging frown and sarcasm that dashes over their heads, Daniel's lack of argument represents what a louder man might express through oh-my-god-yes's and bubbling excitement. He gets Fernando, Daniel does. They're on the same page.
So when, over a too-hot breakfast on their first too-hot morning back at Melwood, Fernando says, "So. A new year. Let's make it a good one, yeah?" and Daniel responds with his small nod, and an "Mm, yes", the smile they share is one of complete understanding, of inspiration so silent that they don't quite realise how inspired they are, and of a promise that this year will be the richest, the best yet.
They train harder, with their teammates, the physios, alone, their lingering injuries feeling less painful, their determination to start the first match against Arsenal spurring them on to run harder and faster and for longer, to arrive first and leave last, to infect each other with their unstoppable, rejuvenated hope for the weeks, months, year ahead. When the others commend their positivity, the surprise with which they reply their thank-yous is genuine; at this point, there is nothing to be had but hope.
Accompanying their countdown to the league's opener is Fernando's childish naïvety which Daniel constantly claims that he finds amusing, but which Fernando sees rubbing off on the Dane a little more every day. Their heated nights, the hangover of which begins far too early as Daniel's adherence to alarm clocks is draconian at best, are sustained by the afternoon siestas that Daniel, bored and sleepy as Fernando naps, has lately taken to adopting himself. They set up evenings where the warm smell of Daniel's cooking permeates the house and Fernando's voice echoing his advanced English language podcasts (though Daniel jokes that he should still be on intermediate) provides the soundtrack. Their lunchtimes are conversational affairs at Melwood, their breakfasts quiet but for the rustling of newspapers (the sports pages only).
They establish a routine so deliciously purposeful that every repetitive day feels fresh and rings of muted triumphs by the hour, of muscles worked and vocabulary learnt and carbohydrates consumed. They work toward their perfection in a syncopated rhythm, making way for each other where they require; in step when the hurdles are a little higher and demand a leg-up or a word of encouragement.
Split between them is a consuming desire to spread over nine months the kind of personal triumph that Fernando missed in South Africa, and the whole, vindicating feeling of leading a team to victory that Daniel has missed all his life. Even though Fernando's the one with the World Cup, and Daniel's the one looking at the weight of the world rather than bearing it, they both launch into tackles, shoot at goal, attack corners and demolish the gym equipment as the bright young stars of Liverpool who have the power to make this season incredible, and they share the responsibility equally, and with equal enthusiasm - it doesn't even feel like a burden yet.
It is Fernando and Daniel that await the Arsenal match, and not the other way around. It is Fernando and Daniel who drift off to sleep, the night before, and dream of the grand triumphs that, this season, will mark every football pitch that they touch.
* * * * *
It starts badly, with the bench, two dropped points and a concussion.
It's fear, more than anything else, that grips Daniel as everything he's trying to hold onto threatens to slip away. It's the same old terror when his body fails him; it's a desperate sort of hope that the sideline will not claim him. It's a fear that their perfect year is, already, not going to be this one.
Fernando holds him, and Daniel's fingers latch onto his gratefully, and they look at each other as though they're all that's real in this blur that has thrown Daniel off his feet. They say nothing, because there's nothing to be said. They just determinedly, perhaps childishly, cling onto their hope that this year will be different, that it just has to be; and they quietly fear that its birth bodes only a replay of seasons gone by - of unmet expectations, of burdens, and of crumbling.
He watches Fernando brave the next day with a bright smile and an easy absence of worry, as though he isn't as crushed as Daniel is, as though his innocent hopes for a new beginning haven't been heartbreakingly dented. He listens as the Spaniard takes care to emphasise the character that the team showed, refusing to fall in the face of red cards and injuries and yet another hapless referee. He smiles as Fernando talks to Xabi on the phone, catching only a little of the rushed Spanish but picking up phrases like "No, it was better than it looked" and "One point from Arsenal is a great result".
But he sees Fernando's smile fade when he mentions the post-match talk, the warm-down, the fans, and Daniel, unable to remember, just looks back at him blankly. He hears Fernando's sharp intake of breath when Daniel, unable to control himself, winces violently at another thudding pain in his head. He watches Fernando's shoulders slump when Daniel, unable to give him the comfort that the Spaniard is so lovingly wrestling out of himself, has nothing to say in response to his lover's frustrated silences.
Uselessness has only ever been second to guilt on the list of emotions that Daniel swore he wouldn't allow himself to feel this season, not for a moment - and right now, he's feeling both. And they're not even a day in.
He turns up to training in the morning and Martin Škrtel looks like he wants to kiss him better, and it's far more terrifying than any facial expression the Slovakian has ever worn before. He merely endures the sympathies, though he know he should be grateful for them. There just hits a certain point where "It looked really bad at the time, mate, I've gotta tell ya" loses all meaning as Daniel continues to struggle just remembering what 'the time' constituted, exactly. It's odd, getting commiserations for something you don't remember. And Daniel's just about to snap at the oddness of it all when Fernando tells him that one of the physios wants him, and he whisks him away, his rescue quick and swift and entirely obvious but entirely welcome.
His comfort pounds against lonely locker doors, and Daniel receives gratefully, glad that at least Fernando knows 'how are you feeling?' is nowhere near as helpful a recovery tool as actually making him feel something. And he feels a little less useless when Fernando moans his pleasure - but the guilt remains.
* * * * *
But through it all, it is Daniel who reaches out to Fernando, as much as the other way around. It is Daniel's hand coming to rest on Fernando's shoulder, and he looks at him with an earnestness that he isn't obligated to wear.
"You're still clear," he says firmly. "Even though everything is... fuzzy," he says, ignoring Fernando's smile at his choice of words, "and I can't remember much, you're still clear."
And when they kiss, Fernando wants to recreate that Sunday afternoon with new memories that Daniel can pretend are real. He kisses him with the warmth and hope and life which they have silently promised each other, the resuscitation of a year which the weekend doesn't deserve to ruin before it's begun.
Daniel's memories of that Sunday afternoon never come back, and Fernando tells him that it's okay to leave it locked away; almost as if to forget that the day ever happened. But Daniel shakes his head, sleepily, lopsidedly on his pillow, and Fernando frowns over tired eyes. And for the briefest of moments, they don't understand each other.
"I don't want to forget that we lost points, that we went a man down - any of it," Daniel explains, Fernando not quite recognising the calm brightness that lines his husky dawn words with hope, although it's that same light in everything Fernando has been doing and saying that has brought it out in Daniel. "Because when it gets to the end of the year, and when - not if - when we've won the league and the FA Cup and the Europa thing -" Fernando chuckles - "I want to know that we did it despite all of that. Despite the losses and the shit referees; despite a bad start. I want to know that we picked ourselves up and carried on, you know?"
"With our heads held high," Fernando murmurs, slightly amused.
"After all, isn't that what we promised ourselves?"
That Daniel's conviction, sharpened by the innocence of morning, which makes yesterday feel softer and more distant, and brighter in the early sunlight, is a reminder that perfection was never what they were after - merely the possibility of it - is lost on Fernando, his mind still somewhere in his sleep. But though he doesn't quite realise why, it's comforting, and on this shiny early morning of warm, tempered light blanketing freckled skin and making hair and eyes and words golden, the comfort is, genuinely, perfect.
Daniel's hand snakes around Fernando's neck and he pulls him in for a languid morning kiss, their lips meeting somewhere over the tiny gap between their pillows, their bodies touching lightly beneath the sheets.
"I'm going to make some coffee."
Fernando smiles. "Should I go and get the paper?"
Daniel returns the grin. "Two copies, as always."
Their routine of breakfasts, lunches and dinners continues, undisturbed, as the days of the new football year tick over. They train and play and hope with the same gusto that their reunion had witnessed, and they deftly sidestep the doubts that threaten them through lost points and lost players.
And they do it because they see the same pure drive in each other. They come home to passion and wake up to quiet resolution. They kiss their congratulations and apologies and empathies, and their lovemaking is their unspoken, stubborn promise to do it together, to pick the other up when he gives in, to reach for the heights that the other achieves.
The breakfasts, lunches and dinners are the metronome, and their love plays along. Without it, it would be aimless time, counting down to nothing. But this year - the year of Fernando and Daniel - is a time; a time to prove themselves, to do themselves proud, to succeed. A time to remember, but before that, a time to create. And they create it with the tiny brushstrokes of their everyday, little by little, holding each other's hands steady as they do.
Title: This Year's Love
Pairing: Daniel Agger / Fernando Torres
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Lies.
Notes: Title taken from the David Gray song.
Feedback > life. Constructive criticism is very welcome.
Fernando's life has been one of fresh starts. He knows that, from the outside, he represents a stubborn sort of constancy, an inability to move on, to see the light, to admit defeat. He recalls his older brother telling him off for it; overhearing his mother lamenting to his father about her poor son's appetite for failure; gentle prodding from his national teammates to go on to something bigger, better, different. But he knows that every year that he stayed at Atlético was a new beginning; a new chance to prove himself, to forget the inadequacies of the season before and start over from zero goals, zero points, zero matches played. Whether he succeeded or not was irrelevant; it's the fact that he tried that he knows he'll look back on when his body gives out and his pace runs down and the game has no need for him anymore.
He knows that, when he came to Liverpool, it was like a rebirth, and every subsequent season has presented the same opportunity to forget the past and create a new present; to score more, to win more, to do better. Whether that's been a present without Xabi Alonso, without the Champions League, without a trophy or a medal to show his family - it's been a fresh start nonetheless.
And this season, he is determined, will again be different. He will live this year as though there have been none preceding it. He will ignore his injury-stained World Cup, the headlines bearing Villa's name alone, with Fernando's in small print, in articles wondering what happened to the world's best striker. He will ignore seventh position in the league, and the absence of European football. He will ignore the world's attempts to leave him drowning in that burdensome past and, though they're made up of doubt, regret, and humiliation, his memories of that past will just ever push him further toward proving himself, and proving that past wrong. Of that, he is quite determined.
What he likes about Daniel but hasn't been able to articulate to anybody else is the way the Dane just understands him, with a small nod and an 'Mm, yes' which speaks worlds of comprehension that, to others, just looks like polite indifference. For someone whose usual response to the frivolous ideas of his colleagues is a disparaging frown and sarcasm that dashes over their heads, Daniel's lack of argument represents what a louder man might express through oh-my-god-yes's and bubbling excitement. He gets Fernando, Daniel does. They're on the same page.
So when, over a too-hot breakfast on their first too-hot morning back at Melwood, Fernando says, "So. A new year. Let's make it a good one, yeah?" and Daniel responds with his small nod, and an "Mm, yes", the smile they share is one of complete understanding, of inspiration so silent that they don't quite realise how inspired they are, and of a promise that this year will be the richest, the best yet.
They train harder, with their teammates, the physios, alone, their lingering injuries feeling less painful, their determination to start the first match against Arsenal spurring them on to run harder and faster and for longer, to arrive first and leave last, to infect each other with their unstoppable, rejuvenated hope for the weeks, months, year ahead. When the others commend their positivity, the surprise with which they reply their thank-yous is genuine; at this point, there is nothing to be had but hope.
Accompanying their countdown to the league's opener is Fernando's childish naïvety which Daniel constantly claims that he finds amusing, but which Fernando sees rubbing off on the Dane a little more every day. Their heated nights, the hangover of which begins far too early as Daniel's adherence to alarm clocks is draconian at best, are sustained by the afternoon siestas that Daniel, bored and sleepy as Fernando naps, has lately taken to adopting himself. They set up evenings where the warm smell of Daniel's cooking permeates the house and Fernando's voice echoing his advanced English language podcasts (though Daniel jokes that he should still be on intermediate) provides the soundtrack. Their lunchtimes are conversational affairs at Melwood, their breakfasts quiet but for the rustling of newspapers (the sports pages only).
They establish a routine so deliciously purposeful that every repetitive day feels fresh and rings of muted triumphs by the hour, of muscles worked and vocabulary learnt and carbohydrates consumed. They work toward their perfection in a syncopated rhythm, making way for each other where they require; in step when the hurdles are a little higher and demand a leg-up or a word of encouragement.
Split between them is a consuming desire to spread over nine months the kind of personal triumph that Fernando missed in South Africa, and the whole, vindicating feeling of leading a team to victory that Daniel has missed all his life. Even though Fernando's the one with the World Cup, and Daniel's the one looking at the weight of the world rather than bearing it, they both launch into tackles, shoot at goal, attack corners and demolish the gym equipment as the bright young stars of Liverpool who have the power to make this season incredible, and they share the responsibility equally, and with equal enthusiasm - it doesn't even feel like a burden yet.
It is Fernando and Daniel that await the Arsenal match, and not the other way around. It is Fernando and Daniel who drift off to sleep, the night before, and dream of the grand triumphs that, this season, will mark every football pitch that they touch.
* * * * *
It starts badly, with the bench, two dropped points and a concussion.
It's fear, more than anything else, that grips Daniel as everything he's trying to hold onto threatens to slip away. It's the same old terror when his body fails him; it's a desperate sort of hope that the sideline will not claim him. It's a fear that their perfect year is, already, not going to be this one.
Fernando holds him, and Daniel's fingers latch onto his gratefully, and they look at each other as though they're all that's real in this blur that has thrown Daniel off his feet. They say nothing, because there's nothing to be said. They just determinedly, perhaps childishly, cling onto their hope that this year will be different, that it just has to be; and they quietly fear that its birth bodes only a replay of seasons gone by - of unmet expectations, of burdens, and of crumbling.
He watches Fernando brave the next day with a bright smile and an easy absence of worry, as though he isn't as crushed as Daniel is, as though his innocent hopes for a new beginning haven't been heartbreakingly dented. He listens as the Spaniard takes care to emphasise the character that the team showed, refusing to fall in the face of red cards and injuries and yet another hapless referee. He smiles as Fernando talks to Xabi on the phone, catching only a little of the rushed Spanish but picking up phrases like "No, it was better than it looked" and "One point from Arsenal is a great result".
But he sees Fernando's smile fade when he mentions the post-match talk, the warm-down, the fans, and Daniel, unable to remember, just looks back at him blankly. He hears Fernando's sharp intake of breath when Daniel, unable to control himself, winces violently at another thudding pain in his head. He watches Fernando's shoulders slump when Daniel, unable to give him the comfort that the Spaniard is so lovingly wrestling out of himself, has nothing to say in response to his lover's frustrated silences.
Uselessness has only ever been second to guilt on the list of emotions that Daniel swore he wouldn't allow himself to feel this season, not for a moment - and right now, he's feeling both. And they're not even a day in.
He turns up to training in the morning and Martin Škrtel looks like he wants to kiss him better, and it's far more terrifying than any facial expression the Slovakian has ever worn before. He merely endures the sympathies, though he know he should be grateful for them. There just hits a certain point where "It looked really bad at the time, mate, I've gotta tell ya" loses all meaning as Daniel continues to struggle just remembering what 'the time' constituted, exactly. It's odd, getting commiserations for something you don't remember. And Daniel's just about to snap at the oddness of it all when Fernando tells him that one of the physios wants him, and he whisks him away, his rescue quick and swift and entirely obvious but entirely welcome.
His comfort pounds against lonely locker doors, and Daniel receives gratefully, glad that at least Fernando knows 'how are you feeling?' is nowhere near as helpful a recovery tool as actually making him feel something. And he feels a little less useless when Fernando moans his pleasure - but the guilt remains.
* * * * *
But through it all, it is Daniel who reaches out to Fernando, as much as the other way around. It is Daniel's hand coming to rest on Fernando's shoulder, and he looks at him with an earnestness that he isn't obligated to wear.
"You're still clear," he says firmly. "Even though everything is... fuzzy," he says, ignoring Fernando's smile at his choice of words, "and I can't remember much, you're still clear."
And when they kiss, Fernando wants to recreate that Sunday afternoon with new memories that Daniel can pretend are real. He kisses him with the warmth and hope and life which they have silently promised each other, the resuscitation of a year which the weekend doesn't deserve to ruin before it's begun.
Daniel's memories of that Sunday afternoon never come back, and Fernando tells him that it's okay to leave it locked away; almost as if to forget that the day ever happened. But Daniel shakes his head, sleepily, lopsidedly on his pillow, and Fernando frowns over tired eyes. And for the briefest of moments, they don't understand each other.
"I don't want to forget that we lost points, that we went a man down - any of it," Daniel explains, Fernando not quite recognising the calm brightness that lines his husky dawn words with hope, although it's that same light in everything Fernando has been doing and saying that has brought it out in Daniel. "Because when it gets to the end of the year, and when - not if - when we've won the league and the FA Cup and the Europa thing -" Fernando chuckles - "I want to know that we did it despite all of that. Despite the losses and the shit referees; despite a bad start. I want to know that we picked ourselves up and carried on, you know?"
"With our heads held high," Fernando murmurs, slightly amused.
"After all, isn't that what we promised ourselves?"
That Daniel's conviction, sharpened by the innocence of morning, which makes yesterday feel softer and more distant, and brighter in the early sunlight, is a reminder that perfection was never what they were after - merely the possibility of it - is lost on Fernando, his mind still somewhere in his sleep. But though he doesn't quite realise why, it's comforting, and on this shiny early morning of warm, tempered light blanketing freckled skin and making hair and eyes and words golden, the comfort is, genuinely, perfect.
Daniel's hand snakes around Fernando's neck and he pulls him in for a languid morning kiss, their lips meeting somewhere over the tiny gap between their pillows, their bodies touching lightly beneath the sheets.
"I'm going to make some coffee."
Fernando smiles. "Should I go and get the paper?"
Daniel returns the grin. "Two copies, as always."
Their routine of breakfasts, lunches and dinners continues, undisturbed, as the days of the new football year tick over. They train and play and hope with the same gusto that their reunion had witnessed, and they deftly sidestep the doubts that threaten them through lost points and lost players.
And they do it because they see the same pure drive in each other. They come home to passion and wake up to quiet resolution. They kiss their congratulations and apologies and empathies, and their lovemaking is their unspoken, stubborn promise to do it together, to pick the other up when he gives in, to reach for the heights that the other achieves.
The breakfasts, lunches and dinners are the metronome, and their love plays along. Without it, it would be aimless time, counting down to nothing. But this year - the year of Fernando and Daniel - is a time; a time to prove themselves, to do themselves proud, to succeed. A time to remember, but before that, a time to create. And they create it with the tiny brushstrokes of their everyday, little by little, holding each other's hands steady as they do.