Football: Enchanted [Sergio Ramos/Fernando Torres]
Title: Enchanted
Ships & Characters: Sergio Ramos/Fernando Torres
Word Count: 2,080
Rating: P for Purple Prose.
Summary: I’ll spend forever wondering if you knew, I was enchanted to meet you.
Disclaimer: Not true, broseph. AU. This is pretty subpar, but it’s based on TaySwift, so really I don’t know why you would expect anything more.
Notes: In the interview of my life, one day someone will ask me “Do you constantly have the urge to turn Taylor Swift songs into fic?” and I will answer “Yes. Now please excuse me while I stick my head into a paper bag.”
Begin reel.
In the first scene, there is this. The lights flicker off and the film reel sputters on, the clicking in the background soft against dark walls. The lighting dim, murmuring in the background, glasses clinking together over tables clothed in velvet mauve.
He stands at the bar, laughter curving up the corners of his lips. Hair swept back into a ponytail, ink crawling past white sleeves rolled up, fingers drumming on marble. He leans forward to whisper into her ear, one hand on her thin shoulder. His lips brush the shell and she colors, draws a hand to cover a smile that then flickers onto his own. He glints white, breathes courtesy, and when he draws back, her eyes are fluttering. He’s polite, but nothing reaches his eyes. His face is drawn in something that so closely resembles sad it’s a wonder he doesn’t wear his heart on his sleeves.
Perhaps he does and it’s simply hidden under the folds.
He lifts a drink to his mouth, stops as the rim presses against pink and then he withdraws. She leans forward this time, brushes against his jaw and it’s like a secret, between them, only she hums with it and he distances. He places a hand in her hair, twists his fingers through, and presses a chaste kiss to her cheek. She falters, he smiles.
When he leaves, the drink is left on the counter and she is left blinking.
Across the bar, a man in blond feels his heart stutter in his chest. Another man at his elbow, his agent, squeezes his shoulder and he turns.
“Let’s introduce you to the director, then,” the agent says and the man in blond tugs into a frown.
He says yes, but what he means is who was that man and why was he so sad?
The scene dims, the static of the reel crackling through the air as bodies shift in seats. There is only a moment to breathe, and then there is the second.
He’s on a date when he sees him again. There’s a beautiful girl across from him, a girl with long brown hair and a smile so kind that he thinks she can see under his skin. He thinks he should pay attention to her, should brush his thumb against the back of her hand, should laugh at the stories she’s telling.
Instead, his eyes flicker across and the man’s at the bar again, but he’s alone this time. His shirt is blue, pulled tightly under a black vest. Jeans, torn at the thighs, sit low on his hips and he thinks that he shouldn’t be noticing his hips but then, he thinks, what else would he notice?
This time, the man, born of the golden sun and dipped in cinnamon he can taste on his tongue, lets the alcohol reach his lips. He smiles at the bartender, banters low and into his glass. The drink is clear, an olive at the corner, and the blond stares as he picks it up, takes it into his tongue, curls his mouth around it and chews.
“You’re staring,” the girl across from him says, knowingly, and he sighs before looking at his plate of food.
“When are you going to make me stop pretending?” he asks and the smell of his fettuccine makes his stomach twist.
The girl smiles and brushes her thumb over his hand, instead.
“Whenever you’re ready to,” she says and he feels old, then, because everyone knows his name but here she is and she knows the story behind it.
“Go talk to him,” she says and he shakes his head.
“Next time,” are the words that leave his lips and it’s like an echo in his head; next time, next time, next time and maybe in this town there will be a next time, but, as she shakes her head with a slight smile, she voices what he knows by heart.
“There might not be a next time.”
Still, he just watches and it’s his own fault that he’s left wondering why the other man, who looks so alone, makes him feel the same way.
The third scene is the important one, the one where the theater quiets and breaths are halted before they’re exhaled. This is when the white lights fade into softer colors, when lines sharpen because every word has meaning.
There is a next time. It’s not when he expects, because it’s his birthday and the red carpet is spread for those whose names he knows. It’s not where he expected or what he expected, but his agent had insisted and the ice sculpture bears an uncanny resemblance that makes his laughter nervous.
“Who are you here with?” someone with a microphone asks and he’s forced to smile, to dimple the way he’s expected and his answer explains more than they know.
“It’s my birthday,” he says, as though that’s answer enough.
He’s not particularly sure how he comes or why, but he’s been watching that silhouette for long enough to not be surprised when she smiles and leans into his ear when they hug.
“Time to stop pretending,” she whispers and then, “Happy Birthday, Fernando.”
And he’s not sure how to interpret the way his chest aches; whether it’s that he loves her more than he knows how or that he doesn’t know how to love her at all.
Unsurprisingly, he isn’t the one who speaks first.
“Feliz compleaños,” the man says and Fernando thinks he could melt into that voice, low and calm as it is.
What’s your name? he wants to ask, but the words that come out are nothing like that.
“You crashed my party.” It’s not an accusation, but a statement, like oh the sky is blue or I can see myself in your eyes.
“You made it easy.” Isn’t the answer he expects, but the smile is and when they move forward into a hug, Fernando thinks he can feel it burn into the back of his head. It’s like a sigh when they embrace and it’s cliché in the worst of ways, but Fernando can feel heartbeat against heartbeat and he thinks the drumming in his head is easier to listen to than the questionable music his agent has selected.
“I don’t know who you are,” Fernando says with the hint of a smile and the other man laughs, tangles their fingers together like he was meant to and leans forward to press words against his ear.
“Everyone knows who you are,” he whispers. And then, as though he can already read Fernando’s heart, “Even if you don’t want them to.”
To which Fernando wants to think that’s who I am, that’s what I do, it’s okay, it’s fine but instead, feels no, not at all, there isn’t a person in the world.
What he says is, “What are you, to tell me what I can and cannot feel?”
Their fingers, tangled in the hearts of men, catch between their chests and the man leans forward knowingly, soft lips to his cheek.
What the man replies is, “Enchanted.”
The fourth scene is a cutaway, an extra frame carefully cut around the edges and pasted in the middle of a sequence with thin tweezers and a dab of rubber glue. It begins at the stretch of another red carpet, the mouth unfurling from a black car and rolling to the edges of steps.
Velvet bars bodies pressed forward and as he steps out, the light of bulbs blinds already darkened eyes. He fit a smile on his face, brushes away freckles with his hand, and his steps are firm, but he’s in a movie of his own making. He feels his limbs move, hears the voices call, and he’s outside of his body, watching his life in a dark room.
He waves when he’s beckoned to, mind captivated by images of flush skin and inked lines, and it’s only when he steps over the edge into the dark of the theater that he thinks he sees a hint of gold creeping past the corner.
It’s strange seeing himself on the screen and his fingers drum impatiently on the armrest, eyes avoiding the bright sounds and colors because he doesn’t like the reaction, the energy, the conscious effort to like what he sees. The breath stills in the audience at the right moments and exhales at the right moments and the nervous energy during peaks of anxiety is enough to crawl on his skin uncomfortably.
When it ends, there’s resounding applause and he plasters a smile on because this is who he is, what the love in his life is supposed to amount to.
He’s given congratulatory hugs, but he feels nothing and when he re-emerges into the light, spots of bulbs make his head hurt.
Her arm wraps around his waist almost immediately and he smiles-breathes-for that sweet kiss on his cheek until she squeezes his hip and he looks across.
Motion slows and Fernando is blinded by how comfortable the other man looks, how gracious and sincere his smile is as he wraps his fingers around his date’s, like they were meant to, and Fernando can remember what that pressure feels like.
His stomach drops low and it’s only when Olalla presses apologies against the back of his jaw that he can turn away and think, maybe chance encounters are never more than fleeting moments after all.
The fifth scene was never meant to be in the sequence, so it isn’t. It lies on the cutting room floor, collecting dust and surrounded by memories that never came to pass.
In it, a man with cinnamon skin and a golden laugh turns his eyes down, fingers the edges of his scarf. He looks up, across a red carpet, and sees a man with sun caught in his hair, with specks of stardust littering his skin. He looks up, across a red carpet, and sees the Spanish wind caught in the mountains and delicate arms holding it close, like the peaks hugging the edge of the sky, and it is what he cannot have and he wonders, heart in his throat, wonders if he wasn’t meant to have it, then why did God lead him to believe he had a chance?
Intermission is caught not in the middle, but near the end, when all is nearly done and in ruins. The lights flicker on momentarily and sore muscles stretch until sad smiles settle in hearts too heavy to wish for hope. Intermission is when Fernando remembers words so wise, they almost slipped past his ears.
“Time to stop pretending,” Olalla had said and it’s only in the deep, summer moon that he realizes it’s true.
“Who are you here with?” someone with a notebook asks and the smile on his lips is faint because the answer has yet to be carved in stone.
“No one,” he answers truthfully. He leans forward in his chair, taps the side of a video camera with a green light blinking. “But I’ll find him.”
And the words are deliberate in a way that the journalist understands.
The next day, there is ink and bright colors in newspapers and magazines. He smiles as he walks past stands and feels comfortable watching a face that looks like, for the first time, it knows what it wants.
He has a phone to his ear and a pencil to mark just what he needs to know.
There is no music in the last scene, although there should be. There should be a chorus of voices, sounds weaving through each other like the Santa Ana wind through loose, blond hair.
It begins with a knock on a door, a shift of legs and expectant heartbeats.
He feels it drum through his chest, rapidly, dull gunfire into soft clay.
The door opens and there’s a moment when they meet again, when it’s the first scene again, only there’s no agent, only there’s no woman, only there’s no sadness, only surprise.
“Fernando,” Sergio breathes. And then, “What are you doing here?”
This time, Fernando is the one who smiles, Fernando is the one who tangles their fingers like they were meant for it.
He cups Sergio’s face with one hand, thumb brushing past coffee with just enough milk and Spanish spices mixed to perfection.
“I was enchanted to meet you too.”
And then he leans forward for their kiss.
End reel.
Ships & Characters: Sergio Ramos/Fernando Torres
Word Count: 2,080
Rating: P for Purple Prose.
Summary: I’ll spend forever wondering if you knew, I was enchanted to meet you.
Disclaimer: Not true, broseph. AU. This is pretty subpar, but it’s based on TaySwift, so really I don’t know why you would expect anything more.
Notes: In the interview of my life, one day someone will ask me “Do you constantly have the urge to turn Taylor Swift songs into fic?” and I will answer “Yes. Now please excuse me while I stick my head into a paper bag.”
Begin reel.
In the first scene, there is this. The lights flicker off and the film reel sputters on, the clicking in the background soft against dark walls. The lighting dim, murmuring in the background, glasses clinking together over tables clothed in velvet mauve.
He stands at the bar, laughter curving up the corners of his lips. Hair swept back into a ponytail, ink crawling past white sleeves rolled up, fingers drumming on marble. He leans forward to whisper into her ear, one hand on her thin shoulder. His lips brush the shell and she colors, draws a hand to cover a smile that then flickers onto his own. He glints white, breathes courtesy, and when he draws back, her eyes are fluttering. He’s polite, but nothing reaches his eyes. His face is drawn in something that so closely resembles sad it’s a wonder he doesn’t wear his heart on his sleeves.
Perhaps he does and it’s simply hidden under the folds.
He lifts a drink to his mouth, stops as the rim presses against pink and then he withdraws. She leans forward this time, brushes against his jaw and it’s like a secret, between them, only she hums with it and he distances. He places a hand in her hair, twists his fingers through, and presses a chaste kiss to her cheek. She falters, he smiles.
When he leaves, the drink is left on the counter and she is left blinking.
Across the bar, a man in blond feels his heart stutter in his chest. Another man at his elbow, his agent, squeezes his shoulder and he turns.
“Let’s introduce you to the director, then,” the agent says and the man in blond tugs into a frown.
He says yes, but what he means is who was that man and why was he so sad?
The scene dims, the static of the reel crackling through the air as bodies shift in seats. There is only a moment to breathe, and then there is the second.
He’s on a date when he sees him again. There’s a beautiful girl across from him, a girl with long brown hair and a smile so kind that he thinks she can see under his skin. He thinks he should pay attention to her, should brush his thumb against the back of her hand, should laugh at the stories she’s telling.
Instead, his eyes flicker across and the man’s at the bar again, but he’s alone this time. His shirt is blue, pulled tightly under a black vest. Jeans, torn at the thighs, sit low on his hips and he thinks that he shouldn’t be noticing his hips but then, he thinks, what else would he notice?
This time, the man, born of the golden sun and dipped in cinnamon he can taste on his tongue, lets the alcohol reach his lips. He smiles at the bartender, banters low and into his glass. The drink is clear, an olive at the corner, and the blond stares as he picks it up, takes it into his tongue, curls his mouth around it and chews.
“You’re staring,” the girl across from him says, knowingly, and he sighs before looking at his plate of food.
“When are you going to make me stop pretending?” he asks and the smell of his fettuccine makes his stomach twist.
The girl smiles and brushes her thumb over his hand, instead.
“Whenever you’re ready to,” she says and he feels old, then, because everyone knows his name but here she is and she knows the story behind it.
“Go talk to him,” she says and he shakes his head.
“Next time,” are the words that leave his lips and it’s like an echo in his head; next time, next time, next time and maybe in this town there will be a next time, but, as she shakes her head with a slight smile, she voices what he knows by heart.
“There might not be a next time.”
Still, he just watches and it’s his own fault that he’s left wondering why the other man, who looks so alone, makes him feel the same way.
The third scene is the important one, the one where the theater quiets and breaths are halted before they’re exhaled. This is when the white lights fade into softer colors, when lines sharpen because every word has meaning.
There is a next time. It’s not when he expects, because it’s his birthday and the red carpet is spread for those whose names he knows. It’s not where he expected or what he expected, but his agent had insisted and the ice sculpture bears an uncanny resemblance that makes his laughter nervous.
“Who are you here with?” someone with a microphone asks and he’s forced to smile, to dimple the way he’s expected and his answer explains more than they know.
“It’s my birthday,” he says, as though that’s answer enough.
He’s not particularly sure how he comes or why, but he’s been watching that silhouette for long enough to not be surprised when she smiles and leans into his ear when they hug.
“Time to stop pretending,” she whispers and then, “Happy Birthday, Fernando.”
And he’s not sure how to interpret the way his chest aches; whether it’s that he loves her more than he knows how or that he doesn’t know how to love her at all.
Unsurprisingly, he isn’t the one who speaks first.
“Feliz compleaños,” the man says and Fernando thinks he could melt into that voice, low and calm as it is.
What’s your name? he wants to ask, but the words that come out are nothing like that.
“You crashed my party.” It’s not an accusation, but a statement, like oh the sky is blue or I can see myself in your eyes.
“You made it easy.” Isn’t the answer he expects, but the smile is and when they move forward into a hug, Fernando thinks he can feel it burn into the back of his head. It’s like a sigh when they embrace and it’s cliché in the worst of ways, but Fernando can feel heartbeat against heartbeat and he thinks the drumming in his head is easier to listen to than the questionable music his agent has selected.
“I don’t know who you are,” Fernando says with the hint of a smile and the other man laughs, tangles their fingers together like he was meant to and leans forward to press words against his ear.
“Everyone knows who you are,” he whispers. And then, as though he can already read Fernando’s heart, “Even if you don’t want them to.”
To which Fernando wants to think that’s who I am, that’s what I do, it’s okay, it’s fine but instead, feels no, not at all, there isn’t a person in the world.
What he says is, “What are you, to tell me what I can and cannot feel?”
Their fingers, tangled in the hearts of men, catch between their chests and the man leans forward knowingly, soft lips to his cheek.
What the man replies is, “Enchanted.”
The fourth scene is a cutaway, an extra frame carefully cut around the edges and pasted in the middle of a sequence with thin tweezers and a dab of rubber glue. It begins at the stretch of another red carpet, the mouth unfurling from a black car and rolling to the edges of steps.
Velvet bars bodies pressed forward and as he steps out, the light of bulbs blinds already darkened eyes. He fit a smile on his face, brushes away freckles with his hand, and his steps are firm, but he’s in a movie of his own making. He feels his limbs move, hears the voices call, and he’s outside of his body, watching his life in a dark room.
He waves when he’s beckoned to, mind captivated by images of flush skin and inked lines, and it’s only when he steps over the edge into the dark of the theater that he thinks he sees a hint of gold creeping past the corner.
It’s strange seeing himself on the screen and his fingers drum impatiently on the armrest, eyes avoiding the bright sounds and colors because he doesn’t like the reaction, the energy, the conscious effort to like what he sees. The breath stills in the audience at the right moments and exhales at the right moments and the nervous energy during peaks of anxiety is enough to crawl on his skin uncomfortably.
When it ends, there’s resounding applause and he plasters a smile on because this is who he is, what the love in his life is supposed to amount to.
He’s given congratulatory hugs, but he feels nothing and when he re-emerges into the light, spots of bulbs make his head hurt.
Her arm wraps around his waist almost immediately and he smiles-breathes-for that sweet kiss on his cheek until she squeezes his hip and he looks across.
Motion slows and Fernando is blinded by how comfortable the other man looks, how gracious and sincere his smile is as he wraps his fingers around his date’s, like they were meant to, and Fernando can remember what that pressure feels like.
His stomach drops low and it’s only when Olalla presses apologies against the back of his jaw that he can turn away and think, maybe chance encounters are never more than fleeting moments after all.
The fifth scene was never meant to be in the sequence, so it isn’t. It lies on the cutting room floor, collecting dust and surrounded by memories that never came to pass.
In it, a man with cinnamon skin and a golden laugh turns his eyes down, fingers the edges of his scarf. He looks up, across a red carpet, and sees a man with sun caught in his hair, with specks of stardust littering his skin. He looks up, across a red carpet, and sees the Spanish wind caught in the mountains and delicate arms holding it close, like the peaks hugging the edge of the sky, and it is what he cannot have and he wonders, heart in his throat, wonders if he wasn’t meant to have it, then why did God lead him to believe he had a chance?
Intermission is caught not in the middle, but near the end, when all is nearly done and in ruins. The lights flicker on momentarily and sore muscles stretch until sad smiles settle in hearts too heavy to wish for hope. Intermission is when Fernando remembers words so wise, they almost slipped past his ears.
“Time to stop pretending,” Olalla had said and it’s only in the deep, summer moon that he realizes it’s true.
“Who are you here with?” someone with a notebook asks and the smile on his lips is faint because the answer has yet to be carved in stone.
“No one,” he answers truthfully. He leans forward in his chair, taps the side of a video camera with a green light blinking. “But I’ll find him.”
And the words are deliberate in a way that the journalist understands.
The next day, there is ink and bright colors in newspapers and magazines. He smiles as he walks past stands and feels comfortable watching a face that looks like, for the first time, it knows what it wants.
He has a phone to his ear and a pencil to mark just what he needs to know.
There is no music in the last scene, although there should be. There should be a chorus of voices, sounds weaving through each other like the Santa Ana wind through loose, blond hair.
It begins with a knock on a door, a shift of legs and expectant heartbeats.
He feels it drum through his chest, rapidly, dull gunfire into soft clay.
The door opens and there’s a moment when they meet again, when it’s the first scene again, only there’s no agent, only there’s no woman, only there’s no sadness, only surprise.
“Fernando,” Sergio breathes. And then, “What are you doing here?”
This time, Fernando is the one who smiles, Fernando is the one who tangles their fingers like they were meant for it.
He cups Sergio’s face with one hand, thumb brushing past coffee with just enough milk and Spanish spices mixed to perfection.
“I was enchanted to meet you too.”
And then he leans forward for their kiss.
End reel.