Football: We're So Starving [Iker Casillas/Cesc Fàbregas]

[crinklefries]

Title: We’re So Starving

Ships & Characters: Iker Casillas/Cesc Fàbregas ; Sergio Ramos, Robin Van Persie, David Beckham
Word Count: ~10,000. :| This is getting out of hand. My next challenge will be to write something under 5K. :|

Rating: PG-13? idk mang.

Summary: AU. Captain of his football team, president of his fraternity, Iker Casillas doesn’t know the face of hunger. Until he meets Cesc.

Disclaimer: Not true, broseph.

Notes: I went to a poverty simulation dinner the other night & it was really inspiring & humbling. This started out as an exploration of that situation with a really important and turned into shameless fluff. My life, welcome to it.

On an unrelated note, if you’re interested, I’m offering fic for Help_Japan; the fandom auction to raise money for the situation in Japan. Please feel free to bid if you have a specific request and a few dollars to spare. ♥

The ache begins somewhere near the pit, that space just below his naval and above his groin. He’s outside when it starts, curled into a thick coat that’s seen so many winters that it’s begun to wear thin under the arms and down the sides. His hands tremble on the cover of a faded book and he closes it before it can fall out of his thin grip, white from anemia that is not naturally born.

A couple looks at him pityingly, but they’re hand-in-hand and they speed up as they pass him, breaths hanging white in the frigid air. They don’t linger to ask him what’s wrong, but people rarely do and he’s thankful, for the most part.

He lays the book down carefully, his page creased at the corner to mark his spot, and he curls into a ball on his side, small body compressed to fit neatly into the park bench. The blue of the sky shifts into something just past deep and a light flickers on nearby, casting a thin enough gaze on him that, for just a moment, he doesn’t feel completely alone.

The waves of pain begin faster after that, stretching from behind his naval and up through his stomach, roiling through his chest and ending somewhere near his throat. His chest hurts, his esophagus burns, and that’s only the beginning.

Cesc closes his eyes tightly and tries to think of the last time he ate. He can barely remember the taste, let alone the feel. His whimpers fade as his body, numb from cold and a lack of anything to warm it, begins shutting down. He tucks his head into the front of his coat, covers it with his arm, and he thinks that maybe there was a half-eaten poptart three days ago. His stomach whines from the memory, misses the taste almost as soon as the dull purple color fades from a mind so worn by hunger it can barely concentrate.

Next time, he thinks. Next time, I’ll get in line sooner.

Maybe then, he dreams, he can sleep inside, in the warmth, at least for one night, just to remember what it feels like.

///

To be fair, Iker Casillas thinks, he hadn’t technically asked for the position. He had been perfectly happy as a pledge and even happier as a regular member. There had been that brief stint as Recruitment Chair, of course, until the majority of the house had realized that Iker Casillas didn’t really have that much patience for bright-eyed freshmen whose definition of brotherhood included a six-pack of Sam Adams, lots of grunting, and enough self-discipline to thoroughly be put to shame by a class of kindergartners. It had been Sergio’s idea.

Of course, when it came down to it, most things were Sergio’s idea.

“Man, I have to tell you,” Sergio says, leaning over Iker’s shoulder at the podium. “You really suck at keeping their attentions.”

Iker feels a headache threaten the corners of his temples and he waves his gavel around rather uselessly until Sergio takes it from him and raps it down on the podium, hard, multiple times.

“Oy assholes, shut your fucking mouths long enough to sit through announcements!” a large grin and a kiss to his cheek before Sergio innocently takes his seat at the executive council table next to Fernando.

You’re welcome, the cheeky bastard smirks and Iker wishes he could quit Sergio Ramos, because his life, he’s certain, would be much simpler without. The Sevillan has been an unexpected, unplanned constant since he walked into their shared room Iker’s sophomore year, after his easy wit and aggravatingly charming smile convinced the house president to let him move into the fraternity house just after bidding. Mostly it was unheard of, but Sergio had flashed that smile and Iker hadn’t been surprised.

“Thank you, Sergio,” Iker says dryly. He clears his throat and attempts a half-smile, to which someone snickers from the audience. “Shut up Villa.”

A young man with an aggravatingly misplaced goatee smirks at him and Iker shakes his head, half-hiding a sigh of utterly woe-begotten tragedy behind something that would resemble an amused smile if anyone thought he knew how to give one.

“Seriously though, everyone shut up, if I don’t get through these announcements in the next ten minutes I’m imposing mandatory study sessions for the entire house.”

Whines start almost immediately, to which Iker responds in kind with an actual smile that isn’t entirely angelic in nature. He raps his gavel on the podium loudly and starts at the top.

When he was four years old, Iker’s abuelo asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. Wide brown eyes and a smile that lifted the corners of blue-stained lips, he had climbed into a lap just warm enough for the Spanish midday sun and arms drew around him in a way that kept him small even when he was getting too big.

“What do you think I should be, abuelo?” he had asked, face lit in sugar-stained innocence.

When he was four years old, Iker’s abuelo had thumb away stripes of blue and purple from his chin and pressed firm lips to his forehead.

“I think you should be the best man you can be.”

Iker shakes his head and dismisses chapter. The boys scatter fast, rustling t-shirts and the dull thud of sneaker traction on wooden floors. A few of them wave at him because they’re too new to think they shouldn’t and Iker rolls his pencil between his index finger and thumb to the space between his index and middle by way of returning the gesture.

Brotherhood, David had said once upon a time, years ago, and Iker had believed him.

“Hey, we need to talk,” a voice says at his shoulder and Iker’s shoulders slump.

“You always need to talk to me, gitano.” If he sounds tired, it’s because he is.

“Yeah, well.” Sergio’s hand rests on his forearm and Iker feels a gentle squeeze before he turns. “We kind of-are you okay?”

Iker rolls his shoulder and shrugs with a smile.

“Midterms. Go on.”

Sergio looks dubious, but shrugs. A lesson learned long ago, Iker thinks, and the bond that braids them together. Sergio never asks and Iker always tells.

“We’re kind of in a shitty place, Iker,” the Sevillan sighs and he taps a pen against a binder he’s holding.

“What kind of a shitty place?” Iker’s eyes narrow and he thinks that’s probably the last thing he wants to hear from his Vice President.

“Yeah, so remember when everyone wanted to elect Masch to be Service Chair and you were really fucking against it but everyone thought it’d be a really fucking good idea so they did anyway?”

Iker feels a twinge of thoroughly abused irritation. It’s somewhere near the pit of stomach, a place usually reserved for the stress from football.

“Yeah, I remember,” he says darkly.

“Yeah, well.” Sergio clears his throat and looks up from his notes. He looks thoroughly pissed off, which is usually either a sign that someone’s fucked with his flamenco collection again or he has bad news for Iker. Iker isn’t psychic by any means, but he has more than a slight feeling it isn’t the former. “Turns out you were right. Before he fucked off with a quarter of the new pledges, he actually did shit at his position.”

“Meaning.”

“Meaning,” Sergio sighs and shoves a binder at Iker, “we have practically no service hours and if we don’t get to three hundred by the time Nationals does inspections, we’re fucked.”

Iker’s mouth drops open and there are signals-a buzzing noise in his head, a pressure crescendoing in his temples, awful, scraping sandpaper where his tongue should be-there are signs, Iker, there are always signs, and if you fucking ignore them, you’re going to end up with someone else’s tongue down your throat and that, my dear Casillas, is how you get STDs-and while he’s sure that the situations are completely different, he’s not sure that David’s voice, in his head, actually recognizes that.

///

Once upon a time, there was a boy named Cesc Fàbregas. He had thick, brown hair and wide brown eyes and a smile that rolled off his lips like his teeth were meant to be seen. He was healthy and well-fed and played football with his sister in their backyard, because his father had built a goal post just for him.

He had a best friend named Gerard Piqué and they spent most of their time outside, under a blue sky that stretched so widely above his house that he sometimes wondered whether or not it got dark after he went inside just because he wasn’t outside to pay it proper attention anymore.

He laughed a lot and ate a lot and when his mother opened the back door to call his name, he went running into her arms and they would wrap around him as tightly as possible. Mi niño, mi niño hermoso, she would say because he was her Cesc, her beautiful little Cesc.

“Cesc?” he hears a voice call to him softly. Cesc’s body jerks automatically, slight limbs untangling from each other as he scrambles in blind panic. They’ve caught him, they’ve caught him, they’ve caught him, he thinks and he’s to his feet before he realizes a hand’s gripped his shoulder too strongly for him to move from. “Cesc, Cesc stop, it’s me.”

Cesc’s nerves, strung tight, stretch thin and his chest heaves from effort he’s barely exerted. It takes him a second to recognize the leather at the back of his legs, the books piled on a table that he could never own.

Arms wrap tightly around him and Cesc shakes his head, denying it, but not before his limbs do. Robin presses a kiss to Cesc’s cheek and pulls back. Worry lines his face, but he tucks it away before handing Cesc a latte and a paper bag.

“Here,” he says gently. The words are on Cesc’s lips, but Robin’s palm find its way onto his hollowed cheek. “Don’t, Cesc. Just eat it?”

There was a time he would say no, Cesc thinks, because pride weighed on his shoulders heavily; he could hold his head above his neck because this was where he had gotten himself, all by himself. These days, though, he can barely tell the difference between pride and hunger and maybe it’s because both stab so sharply into his stomach, so very often.

“Thanks, Robin,” he says and his voice is a whisper, a mere breath of what it used to be. He opens his mouth and takes a small bite of a blueberry muffin, but he can’t even taste it.

Robin presses a kiss to Cesc’s cheek and he’s so numb that he can’t feel it either.

This is what he remembers: one year ago, on a day with too much brightness and wind he can feel in his hair, he drags a small, tattered suitcase up the stairs. All of his belongings fit into it, a case barely big enough to be considered one, but he’s proud because there’s a title on his tongue and a future written across his brow. He tucks away bruises and knocks rapidly on a brown door on the third floor, a grin settling into place.

There’s a scrambling inside and a boy opens the door. He’s tall and pale and wearing a red football jersey and has orange Cheetos stains on his chin. Cesc likes him.

“Hi,” Cesc beams, not bothering to hide his laugh. “Hi, I’m Cesc Fàbregas!”

The boy looks at him ogle-eyed before his face softens into an expression that is so kind it nearly breaks Cesc’s heart.

“’m Robin,” the boy says, with a shy smile. “Robin Van Persie.”

“Well, Robin Van Persie,” Cesc says and picks his suitcase up easily. “I hope you asked for the very best roommate in the entire world, because you just got him!”

Once upon a time, there was a boy named Cesc Fàbregas. He had thick, brown hair and wide brown eyes and a smile that rolled off his lips like his teeth were meant to be seen. What he wanted, more than anything else, was to be healthy and well-fed and play football with his sister in their backyard, while his father watched and his mother waited for him on the porch.

What he got instead was a step-father with a temper problem, a mother who turned to unnatural highs to cope with a daughter who had died too soon, and grandparents who didn’t care either way. At some point, he had gotten tired of crying himself to sleep at night and packed what few clothes he had, along with his worn football boots and a faded picture of him and his sister, into a torn old sack and found himself a new dream, a new family.

He never saw his best friend again, but he made a new one, a really sweet one, and he thought that for once, maybe, he would see what a happy ending really looked like.

But happy endings, he discovered, were only meant for fairytales, so this boy, named Cesc Fàbregas, lost the only other home he had.

When he curls up on the park bench or on a scratchy cot in the middle of the night, his sister’s picture tucked near his heart, he still cries and he wonders if he’ll ever stop.

///

It had been rock-paper-scissors. It was always rock-paper-scissors and Iker, gullible, predictable, 60-year old man that he was at heart, somehow, inevitably, always chose rock. Sergio Ramos, being, well, Sergio Ramos, had learned this fact years ago. Sergio’s mainstay, therefore, was paper and Iker thinks that after three full years, he really should know better.

“Enjoy feeding the hungry,” Sergio had said with a bright grin and a pat to Iker’s shoulder as he strapped a guitar across his back. “Besos!”

Which is why while Sergio Ramos was spending the afternoon drumming out the beats of flamenco to preschoolers, Iker Casillas was blinking at a hairnet in his hands.

At the heart of it, it always came back to Sergio Ramos.

The work is mostly routine, methodical, mindless. He had already spent an hour in the warehouse earlier, packaging enough hot dogs that he’s pretty sure he’s developed an allergy just to the smell of it. Granted, green beans and chili rank much higher on the scale than unpackaged hot dogs, but Iker can’t help but wince every time the wet food hits the trays with a slopping sound.

After a while, the faces blend together, and Iker is distinctly uncomfortable by how hollow each of them looks. Cheek bones jutting out too sharply, dull eyes, and dried lips barely wet by thin, pink tongues, Iker can feel his skin crawling with dissonance. There’s a feeling he usually avoids and it isn’t sympathy, per se, but it isn’t disgust either. It’s this twisting, gnawing feeling in his stomach that there’s no difference to be made here, that a boy born into prosperity and opportunities could never give any one of them what they could possibly need.

So Iker closes his eyes and scoops out chili and frames it with green beans and only answers when someone quietly thanks him.

An hour into his shift, his wrists are aching and Iker thinks the smell of chili is so putrid that his stomach is churning from it. He turns his head to quietly gag into the corner of his apron and when he turns back, there’s another hollow face with dead eyes and pale skin and too much hair to possibly wash or tame. There’s small hands tucked into a ragged sweatshirt that stretches so large it covers knees that, Iker is sure, would knock together only from cold because there’s barely any weight for them to collapse under. The wiry fingers, clasped over the edges of a yellow tray, push it forward and large eyes stare down, replaced by the longest eyelashes Iker’s ever seen. Lips tremble and Iker thinks he can almost feel the overwhelming defeat, the heavy burden of sadness.

He swallows and scoops out more chili and green beans than he has before.

The hands and tray stay where they are for a moment and Iker’s confused, but then those brown eyes dart up. There are tears there, Iker sees then, but they’re blinked away in surprise and the boy lowers them again before stammering out a “Th-thank you” so softly Iker barely hears it.

Iker only realizes how white his knuckles are when he feels the metal spoon digging painfully into his palm.

Hey! he wants to call out. What’s your name?

Hey, he wants to say. You’re too young. You’re too, too young.

“What is a man, abuelo?” Iker had asked, rubbing small palms into small eyes.

“Ah,” Iker’s abuelo had said, pressing small kisses onto a small nose. “A man is the most beautiful thing, nene. He is someone who takes care of his madre and padre when they are sick, someone who reads stories to his abuelo and abuela when they are old, someone who plays with his baby brother when he’s sad, someone who smiles at strangers when he sees them. He is beautiful, inside and out.”

Iker lets go of the spoon and smiles at the boy. The boy, for his part, cocks his head and blinks. Iker sees soft pink creeping up his cheeks before he stumbles away.

///

There’s a seat in the corner of the classroom, just by the window. It’s a seat tucked into the back, in a row that’s barely full because that’s just how dice scattered to the wind fall. There’s an unofficial rule, the first week of classes, that where you sit is where you belong, for the rest of the semester, and sitting elsewhere is tantamount to committing invisible treason.

Cesc likes that seat, in the corner of the classroom, just by the window. It’s the heat the light affords, the sun warming his skin just above and below where tiny, dark hairs stick up because they’re so unused to it. He likes opening his notebook-the same one he’s been filling for a year because buying any more is out of the question-and writing down what the professor’s instructing, letters curving into knowledge he’s wanted his whole life.

When someone talks to him, when the professor calls on him, his voice is quiet, but his smile is strong. He’s hungry, starving, but knowledge satisfies him, kindness fills him. The girl next to him reaches over and asks for a pencil and he forgets that he has nothing to do for his lunch break.

English literature hadn’t been Iker’s first choice, really. It hadn’t been his second choice either. As far as third choices had gone, it was borderline, but the pre-requisites for a degree in Psychology had deemed humanities a necessary, core component and hell if Iker was going to be stuck in a room with theater majors all day. He dealt with enough drama queens back at the house.

The first day of class, he takes a seat at the row closest to the door, in a place too near the front for complete comfort, but Sergio had run late with the coffee and he had barely made it to class on time at all. There hadn’t been very many choices left anyway.

Most days, Iker stares at the chalkboard and wonders what it would be like to have words that flowed.

Most days, Iker wonders what it would be like to have something he loved.

Cesc’s favorite book is Huckleberry Finn. When the professor assigns it to the class, a groan is audible from nearly every corner of the room. Cesc’s head is light and he can feel his vision spinning, but he thumbs through the pages of his barely whole copy reverently. His fingers slide across crinkled pages that are so heavy with time that he can feel the heavy grains starkly against his tips. The class insists that they’ve read Huckleberry Finn so many times they could recite it from memory by now. It’s an exaggeration for them, but not for Cesc.

Huckleberry Finn is the only book he owns; a trodden, water-spoiled paperback stolen from his father’s shelf before his step-father set everything on fire. He doesn’t need the rough copy any more. He could read it by heart just as well as he could read it by words.

We said there warn't no home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don't. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft.

He wonders what it would be like, to find someone, to find a raft, to float away together to somewhere only they knew.

“What are the themes present in Huckleberry Finn?” the professor asks.

Iker draws at the corner of his notebook, plans his day around his executive board meeting, around the football team’s practice, around drinks at the end of the night.

No one answer and Iker sighs, adding horns on a poorly shaped stick figure of Sergio.

“Friendship,” a soft voice says from the far side of the room. Iker doesn’t pay attention. “Home. Loneliness. Adventure. Acceptance. Hunger.”

A pause.

“Brotherhood.”

Iker looks up.

Your newspapers call you a brave people so much that you think you are braver than any other people - whereas you're just as brave, and no brave. Cesc doesn’t think he’s brave. He doesn’t think he’s particularly smart.

He survives because he has to.

He reads because he wants to.

He wishes he had a Jim, but he barely has a raft for himself.

Maybe it’s the light, Iker thinks, but there’s something about the boy in the corner. Maybe it’s the way his feet tap against the floor when he’s speaking. Maybe it’s the way he never fully meets the professor’s eyes, the way he curls down into himself.

Maybe it’s the fact that when he smiles, Iker wants to know what happened to Huckleberry Finn.

Iker thinks that maybe he knows him, but he can’t remember from where.

///

Packaging rice, Iker decides, is significantly less nauseating than packaging hot dogs. It is, however, significantly more irritating and he’s not particularly sure when and how he managed to get rice into all folds of his clothing, but he did and has, so he’s still shaking out the little white grains when the volunteer coordinator comes to get the next shift of servers.

It’s potatoes and chicken today, which, he supposes, is an improvement from chili if only because the smells of either aren’t strong enough to make him want to heave over the side of the counter. The chicken actually smells good enough that his stomach rumbles lowly, although the friendly chatter from the rest of the volunteers is loud enough that no one notices.

Iker’s sore from practice and he has a midterm to study for, but he decides that he’s having a good day. He gives a little girl extra potatoes and smiles at a woman who leans forward and asks him for his phone number.

“Maybe next time,” he laughs and decides he likes that smile on her face. There’s a shallow quality to it, but the food is steaming and she seems so grateful to have the tray back in her hands that Iker can’t resist. “I hope you have a really nice day.”

He means it.

The line is almost unending and his feet start to hurt after a while. He runs out of chicken and asks the volunteer working in the kitchen-his name is Ricardo-to switch him the empty metal bin for a new one. He grasps the edges and fits it into place, golden brown chicken, perfectly cooked, filling the air with the scent of food. Iker’s aware of eyes-so many eyes-each of them pivoted toward the dish. He could be a god, for the power he has over them right now.

It makes him unbearably sad, words clamped to the roof of his mouth that don’t want to be pitying, but are. He doesn’t want to be a god, or a saint. He wants to help them, but he doesn’t know how.

He serves them food instead and for them, Iker guesses, that’s close enough. It’s close enough.

“I want to be a man, abuelito,” Iker had said with a yawn. Head tucked carefully into his abuelo’s shoulder, Iker’s eyes fluttered as his abuelo’s soft hand found his hair.

“One day, nene,” his abuelo smiled, rocking back and forth, “you will be a man to make me proud.”

The food is dwindling when he sees him. A familiar figure, shrouded in how small he is. The boy, Iker can recognize him this time, seems even more ragged than before. His jeans are torn at the knees and Iker can see a bruise forming over skin pulled tight. A nose protrudes just beyond a hood and Iker can’t see his face, but he doesn’t have to. He looks cold, he looks hungry, he looks so heartbreakingly small that Iker wants to gather him in his arms and breathe life into him.

It isn’t until the boy is nearly to him-two people behind-when Iker realizes two things.

First, that there’s only a piece of chicken left.

Second, that he’s holding a battered copy of Huckleberry Finn.

What was his name, what was his name?

Iker can’t remember.

He doesn’t want to see the boy’s face fall when it’s announced that there’s no more food. He doesn’t think he could possibly bare to see the devastation there, the hunger. He thinks that if he saw it, that one hint in his eyes, it would probably break his heart.

When Iker was thirteen years old, his abuelo died. Pneumonia is what the doctors had said, but he had known better. His abuelo, Iker knew, had died of a broken heart.

“One day, nene,” his abuelo had said, the day after his abuela’s death, “you too, will find love. And then you will know what it means to be a good man.”

“I promise,” Iker had said, laying flowers on his abuelo’s grave. “I promise, abuelo, I will make you proud.”

Iker sets down the spoon when the announcement is made. He doesn’t watch the boy’s shoulders slump, doesn’t try to listen to the growling of his stomach.

He rips off his hairnet, tugs the apron above his head, and darts out past his fellow volunteers before he can leave.

The boy is fast. Even disappointed and hungry, he’s to the door almost quicker than Iker can get there. But he’s just not quite fast enough for the captain of the football team.

Iker grabs his elbow. The boy looks up and recognition sets in. Iker thinks he sees shame or panic, but all he really sees is aching.

“Hey,” he says softly. He squeeze’s the boy’s elbow. “Come to dinner with me.”

///

When Iker was eighteen years old, he had met David. You sound funny, David had laughed. You look funny, David had teased. You should join my fraternity, David had smiled.

“Iker,” a voice slurs into his ear. He blinks up from the couch, face buried into the crook of his arm because his head is spinning and he can barely remember his name, let alone what drink he’s on.

Iker frowns, fingers clasped tightly around the bottle of Heineken. He tries to raise his head, but he’s pretty sure it’s been stuffed with cotton balls and he giggles into his arm because he can’t think of anything else to do.

Fingers pry at his hand but he shakes his head and pulls back.

“No!” he exclaims and there’s a tut of exasperation that he recognizes, unfortunately. “Why aren’t you-you-” He frowns and waves the bottle around. “You know. You know.”

“Iker, you’ve had enough,” Sergio says and Iker’s protest dies on his lips because his best friend looks annoyed. On second thought, maybe Sergio hadn’t been slurring after all.

He tilts his head and opens his mouth in confusion.

“Why aren’t you-”

Sergio looks around the party forlornly before placing Iker’s drink on the table and sinking into the cushion next to him. Iker can barely follow the fast movements, so he settles for giggling into Sergio’s shoulder when he settles down. Sergio, for his part, sighs and pats Iker on the top of his head. Iker shifts, smiling, smiling, until it turns into a frown and then he’s breathing deeply into Sergio’s arm for a different reason altogether.

When Iker was nineteen years old, he had turned in his request to drop his engineering major.

“What do you want to do with your life, then?” his padre had asked over the phone.

I want to be a good man, Iker had wanted to say.

“I don’t know,” he had answered instead.

He thinks he used to know what he wanted. This was his plan, in this order: he would study hard in high school and be accepted to a good university, he would study engineering-one of the really hard ones; industrial or biochemical or electric-on a scholarship awarded to him for being his school’s best goalkeeper, he would fall in love, graduate in four years, get married, be hired by a top engineering firm, make lots of money, and take care of his parents.

This was what happened, in order: he studied as hard as he could have, was accepted to a decent university, started off studying engineering, joined a fraternity, lost the district championships when he fumbled a penalty save, fell in love, let his grades suffer, lost his scholarship, dropped his engineering major, became president of his fraternity, said goodbye to the man he loved, and picked up an incredible tolerance to hard liquor and beer.

Some days, Iker thinks that he was meant for so much more than what he’s given himself, thinks that he’s disappointed every person who has ever cared for him. He’s saved goals and lost his humanity. He was never a saint, but he had always wanted to be.

When Iker was twenty one years old, David had taken him by the shoulder and told him he was leaving.

“Where are you going?” Iker had asked and he had been torn.

“I’m graduating, Casillas,” David had said with a strange smile. “You didn’t think I was going to stay here forever, did you?”

Iker had shaken his head, but his eyes betrayed him.

“Listen, Iker,” and David’s tone had been kind. He had wrapped his arms around his best friend. “You’re going to graduate in a year, yeah? Come to Los Angeles. I’ll be waiting.”

Iker hadn’t graduated with his class, the next year. He hadn’t graduated the year after that either. Somewhere along the way, he had lost David’s number and David hadn’t called again.

“It’s been three years,” Sergio says softly. His thumb traces circles soothingly down Iker’s forearm. It’s comforting.

Iker shifts into the touch, because he’s drunk, because Sergio’s his best friend and his heart remembers what it was like to have more than just that.

“I should have left a long time ago,” Iker says, alcohol burning in his throat. He tips his head back and closes his eyes. If disappointment had a taste, it would taste like Iker Casillas.

“Nah,” Sergio says. He presses a kiss to Iker’s forehead. “You’ll leave when you find something worth leaving for.”

That night, Iker sleeps with someone. He’s not sure who, but it’s someone. He’s drunk and quiet and barely feels it in his bones. He doesn’t say David’s name. In fact, he doesn’t say any name at all.

Instead, he remembers hungry brown eyes and thin limbs and wonders if, maybe, souls can starve too.

///

It’s against the rules, he’s pretty sure, but Iker sets aside an extra plate of macaroni and vegetables just in case. The line is, as usual, endless, but his shift doesn’t seem as long this time. His eyes keep darting up, straining to find a figure smaller than all of the others, a baby bird wrapped in a faded black hoodie pulled tightly about a body that is easily dwarfed.

When he finally sees him, he’s at the very end of the line. The lead volunteer closes the door behind him and Iker can’t help but smile as he stumbles through the room, inching closer to the food. Again, it’s nearly gone when he reaches the counter, but this time Iker doesn’t let anyone turn him away.

“Hey,” he says kindly and the boy, Cesc, looks up. He’s wary and he looks more than a little embarrassed, pink tinged high in his cheeks.

“There’s no more food,” the volunteer next to him says and Cesc looks uncertainly from Iker to the girl and then back to Iker again.

“That’s okay,” he mumbles after a moment and Iker can tell how it kills him, he can nearly feel the torment heavy on his shoulders.

“Wait,” Iker says as Cesc turns away. Cesc looks back warily, but Iker’s already taken off his hairnet. He retrieves the hidden plate and slides out from behind the counter. “Here, I uh. Saved you a plate.”

It’s something he’ll never forget, Iker thinks, the way that Cesc reacts. It’s slow, as though he’s processing one word at a time, waiting for each to catch up to the other before he can digest what’s happening. His shoulders, tense and shaking, loosen first. Then his arms, then his knees, and finally Iker can see the understanding reflected in eyes that are shining. His mouth curves down into a soft oh and the quiet sound that escapes makes Iker think that this boy, this quiet, beautiful boy, has never seen kindness before.

It makes Iker want to wrap his arms around him, the way his abuelo did, show him what it feels like to embrace the Spanish sun.

Instead, Cesc is the one to offer Iker a smile.

“Do you want to eat with me?”

There are two kinds of hunger, Cesc learns: hunger of the body and hunger of the heart. Cesc has become so used to the former that he forgets he’s starving for the latter. He’s a boy who loves to live, who would live to laugh. He smiles at women walking their dogs, children playing with their grandparents, little boys protecting their baby sisters. He drinks in the stars every night and tells stories to the fireflies that will listen. He shares his bread with the family of three sitting next to him at the soup kitchen, every time. Cesc gives his heart because he has nothing else to give.

This older boy, the one with the stern eyes and the soft brown hair, the one with the strong arms and the pale skin, the one with tempered hesitation and heavy regret hanging over smiles that he gives when he thinks no one is looking-this boy makes Cesc forget he was ever hungry to begin with.

“Have you been in my class all semester?” Iker asks sheepishly. He tears at a loaf of bread awkwardly, because he’s not particularly hungry and he feels bad taking food from the poor, but Cesc had insisted.

“Yeah,” Cesc laughs lightly. He shovels soup into his mouth so eagerly, with so much enthusiasm that Iker can’t help but smile.

“Hey, slow down, you’re going to choke.”

Cesc shakes his head, although his fingers shake on his spoon. Iker shouldn’t notice, but he does.

“I talk more than most people,” Cesc says, swallowing a mouthful and then reaching for his fork. He stabs it into a stalk of broccoli and stuffs it in his mouth. He looks thoughtful. “Maybe you just don’t pay attention.”

Iker coughs slightly and colors, ignores the amused looks at him and studies his roll instead.

“Are you a lit major?” he asks, tearing off a corner and pelting it into Cesc’s pile of vegetables. There’s a question at the edge of his mind, but it’s not one he can ask.

“English. Lit emphasis,” Cesc says. He swallows his broccoli and scoops a forkful of macaroni. He’s mixing absolutely everything and it makes Iker wince. Cesc doesn’t care. He happily continues chewing on everything, all at the same time. “And accounting. I’m double. I like. Don’t really like accounting, but I’m good with numbers and what am I going to do with a lit degree anyway, right?”

He shrugs nonchalantly, but there’s defiance there that Iker can’t place. Pride, even. He leans toward Cesc, nudges him with his shoulder.

“So why do it then?”

Cesc’s chewing slows and he averts his eyes, training them on his plate instead.

“I.” He frowns, pushes a piece of squash out of the way. He exhales noisily and blows stray strands of hair from his face. It annoys Iker and he lifts his hand to brush away the offending bangs. He does it before he realizes it. Cesc mostly just smiles at the touch. “I had to work really hard to get here. I’m barely making tuition and.”

Iker nudges his shoulder gently, again. I’m listening, he doesn’t say, but Cesc seems to understand.

“I just don’t want to be one of those, you know?” Cesc finally says softly. “I’m working my ass off, I want to do something I love too. …even if I can’t do anything with it, later.”

Iker thinks about all of the classes he’s skipped, all of the majors he’s dropped, all of the extra years he’s taken and he’s still no closer to being where Cesc is than he was four years ago.

“Yeah, I get it,” he says, but he doesn’t.

Iker’s smile is hesitant, Cesc notices. He doesn’t show it very easily and he hides his warm laughter behind a gravity that Cesc doesn’t think suits him. Iker converses easily with the little girl in pigtails sitting to his left and Cesc can see how much he cares, even if Iker can’t.

He reaches up, fingers stretching toward the older boy’s hair, but he withdraws at the last minute.

When Iker turns back to look at him, Cesc is smiling into his dessert.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Cesc says. What he means is everything, but even his English classes can’t properly prepare him to express why.

“Where will you go?” Iker asks once they’re outside in the frozen air. Their breaths fog between them easily and even through his thick coat, Iker can feel thick needles painfully pierce past his skin into his bones. Cesc is already shaking, his teeth clattering together loudly.

“I-I d-d-don’t,” he manages. He shakes his head, but his face is tucked as far into his tattered coat as he can manage. His nose sticks out and it’s such a raw pink that it looks painful.

Iker can’t imagine. Well, he can, but he doesn’t want to. He knows how late it is, how quickly the cots at the homeless shelter will go in this weather, the entirety of this season. He doesn’t know, but he can almost sense that it’s a daily struggle for Cesc and his unofficial companions-it’s a fine line, the matter of an hour or ten minutes and which they choose, food or warmth, is not a matter of getting something, but giving something else up.

“Cesc,” Iker breathes and Cesc looks up. He’s shaking so badly that Iker doesn’t even hesitate. He wraps his arms around the younger boy’s smaller frame, gives him what warmth he can.

“Cesc, come home with me,” he noses into Cesc’s thick hair. Cesc starts to shake his head no, but his teeth get louder, more painful. He’s rattling in Iker’s arms and Iker strengthens his grip, presses a kiss to a cold temple. “Please. Just for tonight. It’s too cold.”

It’s too cold. The words seem to spread through the air like frozen fire, as though it’s never occurred to Cesc that there could be such a thing.

It is. It’s too cold, Cesc thinks and in Iker’s arms, it’s so warm.

He buries his face into Iker’s chest, clings shamelessly to his waist.

“I-it’s too cold, Iker,” Cesc repeats and he knows it’s true because he can’t even muster up the tears to cry about it.

///

Iker has always thought that his room was too big. When he doesn’t wake up in the middle of the night to find Sergio passed out drunk across the foot of his bed, it’s just him and four echoing walls. The perks of being president, a private room, and Iker has always appreciated the quiet, but always regretted the loneliness.

Tonight, Sergio helps him make a makeshift bed on the floor.

“You don’t have to-I can just sleep on my coat,” Cesc begins, uncertainly, and it occurs to Iker that maybe this is killing the boy a little bit, having to accept help.

“Don’t be an asshole,” Sergio says before Iker can. He grins and throws an arm around Cesc’s shoulder. Cesc sags under the weight, but his face brightens a little. It’s the Sergio way, penetrating past those defenses with easy words and a smile. “This fucker made me buy extra bedding when it wasn’t my fucking job and damned if it doesn’t get put to good use.”

Sergio tugs on Cesc, arm still wrapped tightly about his shoulder, and nearly drags him out of the room. Cesc looks back at Iker in something close to fear.

“And anyway, if you get cold, just crawl into bed with him,” is what Iker hears Sergio say. “He hasn’t gotten any in ages.”

Cesc colors like a tomato and Sergio snickers lowly and ducks his head immediately, preemptively anticipating and avoiding the projectile that, sure enough, Iker is kind enough to throw in his direction.

“Fuck you, Ramos,” Iker calls.

But he smiles.

Halfway through the night, Iker can hear the sounds of uncomfortable movement. He shifts in his bed and blearily opens his eyes. On the floor, Cesc has pulled his coat over his blankets. He’s trying to be quiet about the way his body shivers, but it’s hard when he’s basically quaking.

“Cesc?” Iker calls softly and Cesc quiets. He tries to pretend he’s sleeping, but the breathing isn’t even enough and Iker isn’t stupid. “Cesc, come up here.”

The boy doesn’t reply, just squeezes in tighter.

It takes a moment, but Iker sighs. He drags himself out of bed, pulling his thick blankets over Cesc’s own as he settles on the floor next to him.

“I-Iker,” Cesc squeaks, but Iker shakes his head.

“Too late,” he mumbles. “Go to sleep, Cesc.”

Cesc hesitates, but Iker doesn’t say anything else. Within a minute, his breathing evens out again. He makes sure that Iker is completely asleep before shifting closer. The older boy is warm and Cesc can feel his body start to thaw.

Iker wakes up with Cesc’s head tucked under his chin, Cesc’s arm wrapped around his waist. He watches him, breathing in and out softly, almost peacefully, just until he starts to feel creepy about it and he wonders-wonders how it’s possible to live your life from day to day, not knowing when you’ll eat next or find shelter. He wonders how it’s possible to wander from shelter to shelter, how it’s possible to give up your meal for the day just because you’re five minutes too late, to live with that possibility every single day, and to still make it to class on time. He wonders how it’s possible to still be able to smile, even if it’s a little sadder than it would otherwise be.

Iker wonders if maybe this is what his abuelo meant, in his own way; what it means to be strong, to be a good man, but he’s not sure. He noses a kiss onto Cesc’s chin and drapes an arm over him. He can’t major in Cesc, but maybe he can learn.

///

It’s always midterms, is what Iker decides. The high pressure, high-stressed week or two weeks that is the bane of every college student’s existence. The fact that he’s, somewhat, willingly put himself through an extra two years of this shit is nauseating enough that he briefly considers dropping out. Sergio could run the fraternity, they don’t really need him.

Sergio, unfortunately, disappears halfway through the week, though, so Iker is stuck enforcing study hours and leading meetings and only breathing a sigh of relief when he runs into Cesc on campus and drags him back to the house.

At first, Cesc protests, saying he can’t keep taking advantage of Iker. Then Iker reminds him that he doesn’t know the first fucking thing about Huckleberry Finn so really, Cesc is doing him a service. Given that their service chair had fucked off, Iker says, this practically makes Cesc a brother which entitles him to a makeshift bed, the food in the kitchen, and a fake ID.

It works for the first week. Cesc smiles every time Iker forces him to get coffee. He laughs when Iker’s fraternity brothers challenge him to play Fifa in the living room. He hums happily when they share lunch together, sit down to dinner.

Iker slowly learns everything about Huckleberry Finn. He learns that it’s Cesc’s favorite book. He learns that Mark Twain is Cesc’s favorite author. He learns that Huck is Cesc’s favorite character and he thinks Tom Sawyer was a bit of a dick for how he treated him.

He learns that Huckleberry Finn is the only book Cesc owns, that he stole it from his father’s shelf when he was younger, that his stepfather didn’t read, that once, he wrote a fifteen page paper on the book and it was almost published by a magazine.

Iker learns that Cesc loves nothing more than to laugh, nothing more than to make jokes, nothing more than to eat and he’s always, always hungry. He learns that his favorite food is donuts, that he has an abnormal fear of mushrooms, that, once upon a time, his mother used to cook for him and her empanadas were the best in the entire world.

He doesn’t learn much more than that, but it gets him thinking.

“Did you know that there are boys shelters in other cities?” he asks one evening, flicking his pencil from one finger to another, and staring intently at his laptop screen.

“What?” Cesc is distracted, examining his accounting textbook on the ground.

“Boys shelters. Not like, hm, homeless shelters or anything, but kind of safe havens for younger guys who have been through shit.” Iker clicks through the homepage and frowns, wondering why no one had thought to open one here.

Cesc is quiet for long enough that Iker looks up at him. He looks uncomfortable, fidgets as he distractedly writes down numbers.

“I guess I’ve heard of them,” he mumbles. He doesn’t look enthusiastic-in fact, he looks more embarrassed than Iker’s ever seen him-but he doesn’t say anything else and Iker is too distracted to prod.

“Hmm,” Iker says aloud and it gets him thinking.

“I feel like a burden,” Cesc says to no one in particular, one night. He stares at Iker’s ceiling, pulls Iker’s blankets up high, feels no hunger from a stomach filled with Iker’s food. His chest is heavy and when he turns over, he remembers everything Iker’s done for him and nothing he’s been able to do in return.

The next morning, before class, he carefully packs his rucksack and leaves.

And then, just like that, Cesc disappears. Iker can’t seem to catch him after class, can barely hear him in class, doesn’t see him at the soup kitchen. Every time he makes up his mind to break code and change seats, Cesc somehow knows and doesn’t show up.

“Where’s he staying?” Sergio asks over drinks.

“I dunno,” Iker mumbles.

“Who’s he staying with?” Sergio wonders.

“I dunno,” Iker frowns.

“What’s he eating?”

Iker sighs wearily and tips back his beer.

“I don’t know, Serge. I don’t know.”

///

The school year is drawing to a close, which means celebrations for most of the students, but uncomfortable phone calls for Iker.

“When’s your graduation?”

“The 14th of May, mama.”

“Did you buy your cap and gown?”

“I don’t want to walk-”

“Iker Casillas, did you buy your cap and gown?”

“Yes, mama.”

“What are you doing after graduation?”

This one makes Iker pause, chew on his lips.

“I don’t know, papa. I’m thinking.”

It’s a Friday, a month after midterms. The professor has moved past Mark Twain now and is now discussing the intricacies of To Kill a Mockingbird. Iker actually read this book. He wonders how Cesc liked it, but the boy continues to ignore his efforts to talk to him.

He looks over at the corner, as he usually does, and that’s when he gets a feeling. Cesc’s head is down on the desk, his eyelids drooping. Iker is across the room, but he thinks that the younger boy’s face looks more drawn than usual, as though he’s in pain. His arms are resting on the desk, but they’re shaking. Iker has a bad feeling, like a knife twisting in his gut. His nerves are at edge immediately and he turns his body toward that part of the room, the hairs at the back of his head standing.

Cesc’s eyes flutter and he seems to try to pick his head off the desk, to pick his body off the seat.

“Professor,” Iker hears himself start, but he’s interrupted as abruptly as the lesson is as Cesc’s body goes slack and he collapses to the ground in a loud thud.

Iker doesn’t remember the sirens or flashing lights. He remembers pushing past the professor, past the EMTs, forcing himself into the ambulance beside Cesc, holding onto starved, cold hands and Iker could tell-they didn’t have to tell him, Cesc didn’t have to be awake-he could just tell.

“He’s severely malnourished,” the EMT says and Iker nods fervently, squeezes Cesc’s fingers.

“I know,” he says, panicking. His heart is caught painfully in his throat, the thudding overwhelming the sirens. “Fuck, I know. I know, I know.”

Cesc sleeps nearly half the day. There are IVs stuck into his vein, he looks washed out in his hospital gown. Iker stays in the room with him half the time, spends the rest of the time calling his fraternity brothers, yelling at the nurses, forgetting to eat himself until Sergio shows up with a sack of food.

“Casillas, calm the fuck down,” Sergio says sternly and he grips Iker’s shoulder so painfully tight that he has no choice but to listen. “He just fainted. They’re getting him his nutrients, giving yourself and the nurses fucking aneurysms isn’t helping anyone. Pull yourself the fuck together.”

Right, Iker thinks, he’s right, but all he can hear is his abuelo’s voice, one day, nene, you too, will find love. And then you will know what it means to be a good man. Maybe it’s significant, because he doesn’t remember the last time he was bent to the breaking point with anxiety.

This is what hunger is, Iker Casillas decides: it’s not just a physical manifestation of not having the proper nutrients. It’s not missing a meal a few times, it’s not your roommate finishing the last brownie when you want it at midnight. It’s not fasting for a day or a month, it’s not going a week without leaving your room.

Hunger, Iker Casillas decides, is the absence of something so vital, so critical-nutrients for the body, love for the soul-that without it, your body stops functioning altogether. Hunger is the lack of a place to call home, people to call family, someone to love.

He runs his thumb across Cesc’s cheek, watches him take in slow breaths as the IV pumps saline into his dehydrated body. Iker closes his eyes, feels the magnitude of the world on his shoulders and Cesc balancing on a thin line. He presses a kiss to the boy’s temple and then to his cheek and then to his nose and then to his lips.

He lingers there and when he pulls back, he has a thought.

That maybe, in some metaphysical sense, Cesc wasn’t the only one starving.

When Cesc wakes up, he doesn’t know where he is. He doesn’t feel the scratchiness of used cot sheets underneath him, doesn’t feel the wet grains of the park bench. His throat isn’t dry and his stomach isn’t threatening to curdle in on itself. When he shifts, he finds that he can barely move and it’s only then that he notices the tubes taped to his wrists. And then the head resting by his elbow.

He doesn’t know why Iker is there-barely even remembers how he got here-but the older boy looks exhausted and Cesc can’t help but feel responsible.

“Iker,” Cesc says softly. Iker doesn’t hear. He reaches forward carefully, brushes fingers against the hairs at the nape of Iker’s neck. “Iker.”

Iker stirs at that, lets out a low groaning sound from the back of his throat. He straightens and rubs his eyes. When they open, they meet Cesc’s own. Cesc watches him for a few seconds, wondering, and offers Iker a tired smile.

“Hey.”

Iker tilts his head and laces his fingers through Cesc’s own.

“Hey, Cesc.” And then. “Long time no see.” And then. “If you ever try leaving again, you bastard.”

And then, after a minute.

“I’m never letting you leave again, you idiot.”

///

“You’re graduating,” Cesc smiles, fixing Iker’s tie carefully.

“I know how to tie a fucking knot,” Iker scowls and his fingers try to wrest the blue material away from the shorter boy. Cesc, however, is having none of it. He swats at Iker’s fingers and ignores the glower that he gets as a result.

“Yeah, that’s why you had to change your tie like a dozen times,” Cesc grins. Iker opens his mouth to protest, but sees the crumpled pile of ties lying on their bed. He promptly shuts it. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

A few swift threads, in and out and through loops, and Cesc lets go and steps back, looking over Iker proudly.

“You look good,” he says from behind the older boy as Iker critically examines himself in the mirror. He pushes his fingers into his hair with a frown, but Cesc just laughs and wraps his arms around from behind. “We’ll get you some Rogaine, don’t worry.”

Iker turns red and twists around immediately, trapping an unsuspecting Cesc between strong arms. Cesc, for his part, squeals and tries to wriggle loose, but Iker shakes his head and keeps him in iron-clad arms.

“You’re going to ruin your suit!” Cesc exclaims, but Iker’s too busy grinning, one arm clamped around Cesc’s back and the other trying to find that spot he knows is too ticklish for any human being. “Iker, no!”

Iker doesn’t listen and by the time he finds that spot and Cesc is nearly breathless from giggles, Cesc realizes he’s been backed into the bed.

“You’re going to ruin your suit!” he re-emphasizes, but Iker just grins.

“Oh, I know,” Iker says and Cesc stumbles backwards onto the bed. The older boy straddles him almost immediately, hands creeping under Cesc’s shirt. “I don’t really care.”

Cesc is breathless for a second before he grins and tugs on Iker’s tie.

“You’ll be sorry when your madre gets here,” he beams and undoes his work. “And I refuse to help you tie it again.”

When Iker is twenty four years old, he graduates. He walks on stage and grasps a long-earned degree in Psychology. His parents, brothers, friends cheer. Sergio claps him on the back after, declare drinks on him. He laughs a lot, drinks a lot, kisses Cesc on the mouth a lot.

“What are you going to do with a degree in Psychology?” his father asks.

Iker shrugs, but it’s not weighted by indecision.

“Nothing.” And then. “But I was thinking I could think it over while doing my master’s.”

His father’s eyebrows go up.

“In?”

Iker squeezes Cesc’s hand.

“Non-profit administration. I was thinking of starting a boys shelter.”

It takes a tense moment for his father’s shoulders to relax before he’s engulfed in hugs from both of his parents.

It’s his father, and not his mother, who whispers in his ear.

“Your abuelo would be proud.”

Later, Cesc whispers into his mouth, “I am too.”

///

Iker asks Cesc to move in with him after graduation. Cesc is hesitant, his body already strained from happiness and the guilt of having accepted so much-too much-from him already. How much longer can he keep relying on Iker, he wonders? How much more does Iker have to offer before he grows tired?

“Rent is low,” Iker smiles when he senses Cesc’s doubt. “I can cover it.”

And when Cesc still doesn’t answer, Iker presses a kiss to his nose.

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep track. You can work it off as my executive director.”

It takes Cesc just long enough to process this, the implication; that there is a future, that Iker has planned this future, that, unlike ever before, Cesc is included in this future. Then his breath catches, his eyes widen, and he laughs and then he laughs some more and then he throws arms around Iker; a saint and the saved.

“Really? You mean it?”

Iker laughs.

“As long as I can read to the boys too. I have this book I really like, see.”

Iker leans down, hands resting on either side of Cesc’s neck. He runs his nose along Cesc’s jaw, traces the soft skin there until he reaches lips and they’re parted for him already, eagerly.

“Yeah?”

When they kiss, it’s firm, solid. Iker feels warm and tastes warm and lets out little laughs when Cesc, in his eagerness, bumps noses or teeth with him. When color crawls up Cesc’s neck, Iker’s hand is there, keeping him in place, and when his knees knock together, Iker’s hand is at the small of his back, keeping him in place, and when he breaks away to draw a breath, Iker’s smile is there, keeping him in place.

“Yeah.”

Cesc nearly hums with happiness, nearly vibrates with feeling, and, he thinks, he’s never felt healthier.

///

Once upon a time, there was a boy named Cesc Fàbregas. He had thick, brown hair and wide brown eyes and a smile that rolled off his lips like his teeth were meant to be seen. He was a little smaller than most and he was a lot thinner than most, but he had an appetite for life that was filled a little by food, a little by warmth, and a lot by laughter. Once upon a time, he had a broken home, a broken life, and a broken heart. Once upon a time, he lived under his means because his means were barely anything to live by at all.

But one day, this boy named Cesc, met a boy named Iker Casillas. This boy had thinning brown hair and strong, broad shoulders and a smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes when he meant it. He was a little more serious than most and he was a little less talkative than most, but what he wanted, more than anything, was to hold his head up high and make proud the people who loved him.

And this boy named Iker Casillas, took the boy named Cesc Fàbregas into his home and Cesc took him into his heart and together they both grew up to be, what Iker’s abuelo would consider, good men.