FIC: The District (4/?)
Title: The District (4/?)
Author: Rave (dorkorific)
Fandoms: Football RPF. The West Wing (eventually). Punditfic.
Characters: Include but are not limited to: Iker Casillas, Cesc Fabregas, Xabi Alonso, Jose Mourinho, Sian Massey, Steven Gerrard, Alex Curran (oh my god it's a manageable-sized cast today, what is going on). Full, hopefully-updated cast list here.
Disclaimer: Surely I don't have to tell you that this entire premise is ludicrous.
Warnings: None. Well, politics.
Summary: AU. Iker Casillas, a young state legislator from the fictional state of Fairfield, launches an unlikely bid for Senate.
Notes: At end.
Part One.
Part Two.
Part Three.
William Shankly Statehouse
Fairfield City, FA
May, 2008
At first all Iker could think, stupidly, was how soft the kid looked. Soft sloe eyes, soft mouth, soft dark hair you wanted to slide your fingers into and grip. Even the quick once-over he gave Iker -- a candid, unmistakeable invitation in those eyes -- was soft somehow, artless, young. Iker’s mouth went dry.
“Yes,” Iker said, apropos of nothing.
“I’m, uh. Cesc Fabregas,” the kid said. He had a good handshake, and close in he smelled like clean laundry. “I’ve been emailing you?”
“Yes,” Iker said again. He shook his head out a little, awkwardly touched the top button of his shirt and let his hand fall. “You’re Forlan’s intern? What happened to that other kid, Robin?”
“Mm,” Cesc said. He caught his lower lip in his teeth, which were translucent white, a little crooked in front. “He’s here still, it’s just now there are two of us. So if you need help with anything --”
“Nope,” Iker said. “Thanks. No. Not at the moment.”
There was a knock, and Xabi put his head around the door. “Hey, Iker -- oh. Fabregas. How’s it going?”
“Good,” Cesc said. He tilted his head, mouth curving up shyly. “Um. Sorry, Mr. Casillas, Diego wants to see your testimony for the Education committee, if you have it?”
“I’ll email it to him,” Iker said shortly. He retreated behind his desk. “Is that it?”
“Yeah, that’s it,” Cesc said. “Nice to meet you. I’m -- looking forward to working with you.”
“Yes,” Iker said for the third time, digging his nails into his leg under the desk. “Yep. Good luck. Looking forward to it.”
“Bye,” Cesc said, and -- oh, God, either Iker was having some kind of innocent-schoolboy-porn hallucination, or he was blushing a little. Xabi watched him go with a stony expression.
“Don’t sleep with him,” he said when the door closed.
“I wasn’t even -- what?” Iker said. “Christ, Xabi, he’s like twelve.”
“It’s a Lewinsky waiting to happen,” Xabi said, fixing Iker with a glare. “He’s not twelve, and he’s got moony eyes and an air of purpose. I’m fucking serious, do not lay a hand on that kid. Don’t let him lay a hand on you, either.”
“I’m not going to,” Iker said sharply: it was as much to himself as anyone else, and he knew it.
Washington Hilton
Washington, DC
September, 2011
Cesc’s ear was in his mouth. His breath was warm and damp on the shallow dip of Iker’s throat. He was laughing, dazed and breathless, and Iker had his hand tangled in that thick dark hair so he could kiss Cesc’s eyelids, his sweat-damp temple, the corner of his smile.
“Oh, man,” Cesc said, his voice a little wispy. “Man.” He nuzzled under Iker’s jaw and bit lazily at the corner of it, raising a cascade of goosebumps down Iker’s chest and side. “I was just -- I was losing it.”
“Christ, I know,” Iker said. He tipped Cesc’s chin up to him and kissed his soft mouth, wrapped his arms around Cesc’s shoulderblades and pressed his palm to the back of Cesc’s neck to get him closer, as close as possible, every inch to every inch. He wondered for an insane moment what would happen if he just never left this room, said fuck it to everything else, barricaded the door and spent the rest of his life with Cesc’s warm loose body twined around him. (And since when had he started thinking like that? Since always, probably, Jesus, he was an idiot.)
“I hate it,” Cesc said. His voice was muffled now in Iker’s shoulder. “I fucking. It’s the worst. I saw you at lunch today, at Old Ebbitt.”
Iker stilled, his hand halfway up Cesc’s hot smooth spine. “I didn’t see you.”
“I went to the bathroom,” Cesc said. There was a laugh in his voice again but now it was sort of desperate and awful. “I mean, for like half an hour. Well, not quite, but -- I couldn’t just sit there. I don’t have a poker face, you know? If I would’ve had to watch you and pretend like, whatever -- I couldn’t’ve. And Pique was there and he knows me.”
“You hid in the bathroom,” Iker repeated. He wanted to laugh, but he didn’t really. “I made you hide in the bathroom?”
"I couldn’t think what else," Cesc said, sheepish. "But now Pique thinks I'm, like, on drugs."
"Pique is on drugs," Iker said, meaninglessly. He kissed the top of Cesc's head and let his head fall back against the pillow, stared up at the ceiling. It didn't bear saying aloud how ridiculous all of this was. The imaginary finance meetings Xabi had Canales put on Iker's calendar, and the second cell phone he had to carry, a shitty Nokia from 2003, registered on Xabi's phone plan, with Cesc's number programmed under the name of a Thai takeout place. It had been pretty funny, for a while.
"How did it go? Down there," Cesc asked.
“Went okay.”
"Andrew Sullivan’s tweeting it. He said you sounded presidential but you talk too fast."
Iker snorted. "He’s still mad at me for that time I shaved my beard."
Cesc rubbed his thumb over Iker’s face, from the corner of his eye down to the hinge of his jaw and along the line of his chin. His lashes shadowed his eyes. “Yeah, well,” he said.
“Don’t tell me you are too.”
“It’s your face,” Cesc said simply, his thumb still resting at the corner of Iker’s mouth. “I like your face whenever.” He craned his head up to glance at the connecting door. “So he’s still in there, huh.”
“He always has to stay.” They could hear the treble murmur of the TV through the wall, turned up too high, which was Xabi’s way of giving them privacy.
Cesc's mouth went all tight and he said, “This wasn’t supposed to be all -- you know. I didn’t mean to make trouble.”
“Of course you did,” Iker said into his temple, his lips dragging against the bones under Cesc’s thin skin. He palmed the tight curve of Cesc’s ass, kneading the muscle a little. “From the minute I met you you did.”
“Shut up,” Cesc said, thumping his sternum. “No. I just liked you is all.”
It had been months, in the statehouse, months of Cesc lingering awkwardly outside his office, or coming in to drop off papers, his dark eyes too obvious and heated. Sometimes he’d have his suit coat off and the sleeves of his shirt pushed up over his elbows, looking up at Iker through his lashes like he didn’t know what he was doing. Grazing his hand against Iker’s when he handed things over, smiling shyly at him across the room, whatever, while Iker pretended not to notice, or not to know what it meant. He hadn’t been able to breathe easy until Cesc’s internship had ended in August.
And then two weeks later he’d walked into his advanced political science seminar -- his first as an adjunct -- to find the kid fucking sitting across the room from him, looking like butter wouldn’t melt.
“It wasn’t even about me,” Iker said, shrugging his arm tighter across the top of Cesc’s back. He could feel Cesc’s heartbeat under the knit bones and the flesh there. “Could’ve been anyone. You had a power thing.”
“For -- fucking, what, adjunct professors,” Cesc said. “For state senators. Jesus. If I had a power thing I could’ve done better.” He scraped his teeth over Iker’s nipple and said into his chest, “Ugh. I suck at this.”
Something behind Iker’s collarbone twinged. He gripped the roots of Cesc’s hair, cupping the back of his skull, and kissed him quiet again. “I love that you suck at it,” he told him, and that was all, because Cesc always knew what he meant.
“Stupid,” Cesc said drowsily into his mouth. “You know. Me too. How long do we--”
“An hour,” Iker said. He glanced at the glowing red numbers of the clock on the nightstand.
“An hour, or an hour left?” Cesc said, clearly already knowing the answer.
“Twenty-one minutes left,” Iker said. He could feel the muscles of Cesc's back starting to tense again, and he dug his thumb into the spot where his neck flowed into his shoulders.
“You wanna -- " Cesc shimmied clumsily against him. “Best twenty-one minutes of your life. I promise.”
Iker laughed low into his hair. “I bet.” Cesc was such a dork sometimes, a complete weirdo.
“Seriously,” Cesc said. “I know things.”
“Yeah, okay,” Iker said. He kissed Cesc lazy and deep, letting himself linger. His mouth tasted animal, slightly bitter, like home. “Just stay still, huh?”
“All right,” Cesc said. He butted his head under Iker’s chin. Iker closed his eyes.
This was always the worst part, when Iker first came back. It was that split second when Xabi saw his body held looser and his eyes content, and then had to watch him set his jaw, gather himself back, close himself off again. He shut the connecting door, his back to Xabi. His fingers rested a little too long on the doorknob.
“So,” Xabi said.
Iker dropped his hand. He said with that familiar tired humor, “We have to stop meeting like this. People will talk.”
“Your hair’s damp,” Xabi said. “What have I told you a million fucking times?” Sympathy was usually counterproductive.
Iker turned and scrubbed a hand through his hair. “I wore a shower cap. It’s barely -- no one will notice.”
“And your suit,” Xabi said, pained. “What did you do, tap-dance on it?”
He got up from the bed and Iker put his chin up obediently, a kid waiting to be adjusted. Xabi straightened his collar, smoothed out his coat. The knot of Iker’s tie was, seriously, a fucking disgrace. He undid it and started again.
“Very good, Jeeves,” Iker said. Xabi flicked his lapel, then stepped back to survey his handiwork. Iker looked put together, enough. There was at least a little more ease in his shoulders than there had been. It’d have to be fine.
For the first time Iker noticed the TV going. His brow creased. “What the hell is this?”
Xabi followed his gaze. “I don’t know. I was working, I just left it on.” On the screen a tearful, haggard woman was being strapped into a wedding dress. The closed captioning said I’m so so happy, which seemed like it had to be a mistake. He groped for the remote, clicked the TV off. “All right?”
Iker exhaled. “It’s leaving him there. He just --” He cut himself off, jerking his head sharply sideways. “I hate it. I hate it.”
Xabi didn’t say anything. He pushed his hands deeper into his pockets and watched Iker’s face. It had been a mistake, letting them meet here. It made the whole thing even more sad and tawdry than usual. In the future he’d take that into consideration.
(That had been what Cesc wanted to ask him about, after the EPL meeting. The keycard you left me -- it’s for the Hilton? Like, the same one where --
Yes, Xabi had said curtly, scanning the street for a taxi and raising his arm.
Cesc had said, Is it okay if -- I just wanna watch his speech, like just the beginning even, and his face had been nervous and defiant. I’ll wear a suit. I could stand in the back--
A cab had pulled up to the curbside then. Xabi had jerked the door open, halfway in already, just desperate to get away. I don’t think it’s a good idea, he’d said, too short. He’d caught the flash of furious sadness in Fabregas’s eyes, but what was he supposed to do? They’d made the call to handle it this way.
He rested his hand briefly on Fabregas’s sleeve, as if he could comfort him -- as if he had any right to comfort anybody. Check in at seven forty-five, under Taylor, he said, and Fabregas had nodded, a curt little snap of his chin, and then Xabi had slammed the cab door and gotten the hell away.)
“I’m good,” Iker told him. “We can go back down.”
Xabi nodded. He brushed off the pillow he’d been lying on, scanned the room quickly for any evidence they’d been there: there was nothing. “We go upstairs first,” he told Iker. They’d do it the same way they had before.
When they opened the stairwell door on the eighth floor, Jose Mourinho was lurking in the hall like a fucking vampire.
“What,” Xabi said, twitching back involuntarily.
“Hello, Xabier,” Mourinho said. His eyes flicked briefly over them, taking in Iker’s barely-damp hair, the new crispness of his tie, Xabi’s trousers slightly rumpled from sitting on the bed. “Casillas. What a surprising...surprise.”
“We had to make a call,” Iker said blankly.
“Ah,” Mourinho said.
“What are you doing up here?” Xabi demanded.
“You know,” Mourinho said serenely, waving a hand as if that answered the question. He was talking at a perfectly normal volume, Xabi knew rationally that he had to be, but Christ, it really fucking sounded like he was shouting. “I was about to head back downstairs. Care to walk with me?” A few rooms down from them, a door opened and someone peered out. Xabi wanted to strangle something.
“Are you trying to sink my campaign?” Xabi hissed.
“I only suggested we share an elevator,” Mourinho said. “Don’t you think you’re being a little extreme? Not to mention paranoid.” He extracted a stick of gum from his coat pocket, offered it in turn to Iker and Xabi, and when it was rejected shrugged and unwrapped it fastidiously.
There wasn’t anything else to do, so they started for the elevators. A few steps behind them Iker already had his head down, automatically.
“I told you to back off for ten minutes,” Xabi said, as quietly as he could. “I asked you nicely.”
Mourinho wrinkled one side of his mouth, considering. “I’m not sure that’s what I got out of our conversation.”
“For fuck’s sake, José,” Xabi said. The elevator opened and he punched the Lobby button so hard he nearly jammed his thumb. “If you’re think you can force me to come back to PV by ruining Iker’s chances in this idiotic way, go fuck yourself. I’ll work for Legal Aid. I’ll defend the goddamn manatees.” Iker put a warning hand on his arm and Xabi tried to count backwards from ten only what the hell came after eight.
“You’re under a lot of stress,” Mourinho said sympathetically, patting his arm. “I understand.”
“You’re putting me under it!” Xabi said. It came out a strangled yelp.
The doors dinged and slid open again, and he found himself staring into the eyes of that Massey girl, Shane or whatever it was, TPM’s new reporter -- and he was just standing there, with Jose Mourinho’s Godfather-like hand on his shoulder, and Iker skulking behind them like a fucking convict.
“Evening,” Mourinho said, giving her a laser-focus smile that radiated almost tangible charm, and breezed right by. Xabi followed him, nodding a curt hello.
“I really don’t understand why you’re so angry,” Mourinho said as they made their way back to the ballroom.
“You are making an effort to create suspiciousness out of literally nothing,” Xabi bit out. “I have to assume you’re doing it on purpose, for fun.”
Iker said, low in his ear, “This is not worth getting into a fight about.”
“Do I look like I’m getting in a fight?” Xabi said belligerently, and bit his lip as he caught his own tone.
“I’m sorry, this is clearly a bad time,” Mourinho said, turning that hypnotic smile on both of them. “We’ll talk when you’re feeling more rested.” He patted Xabi on the shoulder, clasped Iker’s hand, and sauntered off. Across the room, Xabi noticed, Massey was watching him go, gaze narrow as a hawk’s. She had her phone out and was typing something furiously.
“She’s sharp,” Iker muttered over his shoulder. “Talking Points Memo, right?
“Yes,” Xabi said grimly. “I hate her already.”
“Xabi,” Iker said suddenly.
“What.”
“It’s gonna be fine,” Iker said.
Xabi stared at him. He looked ridiculously earnest, his eyes all warm and sad in that way they always were after he’d been with Cesc, like a fucking Disney prince. As if he had any idea! As if he had any fucking clue how badly this could end.
“Of course it is,” he said finally. He forced a smile. “Come on. We should find Raul before you go.”
The drive back had been mercifully uneventful. He’d tried to insist on driving, under the pretense that she was too drunk (“For God’s sake, Stevie, it was half a martini four hours ago,”) which had so irritated Alex that she’d driven like a saint just to nettle him.
“See?” she said loftily as they pulled smoothly up in front of Stevie’s building. “I can’t imagine what you were so worried about.”
“Congratulations,” Stevie said, unclicking his seatbelt. “You drove like someone who wants to live. This day’ll go down in history.”
Alex made a sharp, scoffing noise. Strands of her hair were coming loose from her regal pouf; he’d always loved her in these moments, when the person under the makeup began to reappear.
(That had been part of the problem. “Stevie, I’m the person in the makeup, too,” Alex had said once, tiredly, “you can’t just pick the side of me you like better and decide that’s the real one.” And he’d understood that, in theory, but he hadn’t really: not well enough.)
He leaned across the gearshift and brushed his lips across hers, gently at first and then more insistently. She let him, but that was all.
“Come up for a nightcap?” he suggested, and kissed the delicate heated spot on her neck that always did it for her, pressed his tongue softly against her perfumed skin.
But Alex pushed him back, not hard. She pressed her lips together in a rueful little wince. “Not tonight, Stevie.”
He pulled away, surprised. “Did I do something?”
“No, silly ass,” Alex said. She pinched his cheek fondly. “Nothing like that. It’s just -- Aitor and me. We’ve got a bit serious.”
“Oh,” Stevie said, blinking. He leaned back into his own chair and turned forward again, taking it in. “Huh.”
“It can’t be such a surprise really,” Alex said gently. “We couldn’t go on like this forever, could we?”
“I sort of thought we could,” Stevie admitted, which -- all right, now that he’d said it aloud it was patently ridiculous. He let out a little snort of embarrassed laughter and dug the heel of his hand into one eye.
After a moment Alex said, “I think you should get back out there, Stevie. I really do.”
“Come on, Al,” Stevie said with mild disgust, “don’t, urgh. ‘Get back out there?’”
“Well, I do,” Alex said, defensively. “I mean, I’m not telling you to go off and get yourself hitched. I’m only saying it’s been a bit of a crutch, this, hasn’t it? Why would you make an effort when you can count on your ex-wife for a bit of a pity shag every now and again?”
“A pity shag?” Stevie echoed, indignant.
“You know what I mean.”
“I certainly don’t,” Stevie said.
She patted his thigh. “All I mean is, we’re a bit like -- I don’t know, junk food or something, you and me. Cheap, easy to get at, tasty enough, and you don’t have to dress up for it. And then all of a sudden you realize you’re all bloated and stuck and no one else wants to have sex with you anymore.”
“What I’m getting out of this is, One, that you think I’m cheap and, Two, you’ve only gone on sleeping with me because you felt bad,” Stevie said. “Is this your version of a pep talk? Really?”
“Don’t be dramatic,” Alex said. She leaned into him and kissed his cheek. Her mouth was soft and a little waxy. “I’ll see you tomorrow for pick-up.” She tugged his tie loose, scrubbed impeccably manicured fingers through his hair, and smiled that sideways smile he’d never seen her give anyone but him. “There,” she said. “Feel better?”
“A bit,” Stevie said, smoothing his hair down self-consciously.
“That’s a start, anyway,” Alex said.
Upstairs, in his apartment, he hung his jacket over his desk chair, undid his tie, poured himself a scotch. He sat on the edge of the bed, drinking it meditatively. Outside there were distant sirens. Methodically he bent over to untie his shoes; they were new and a little more pointed than he’d usually have gone for, and he winced slightly at the cramp, rubbing the sole of his foot against the carpet. Then he lay down on the bed and stared at the ceiling fan.
He wanted, suddenly, to talk to Xabi.
It wasn’t that the urge was new. He’d spent a lot of time over the last couple of years wanting to say one thing or another to Alonso, mostly variations on “Get fucked.” But not to talk to him.
Out of nowhere he remembered, with almost dizzying vividness, a moment on the campaign: nothing special, some Wednesday night in July. They’d been in the office going over Rafa’s latest ad numbers. Stevie had been idly tossing a baseball in the air and catching it, watching Xabi, who was bent over the printouts. The night was sweltering, oppressive, and the A/C was broken, so they had the windows open. Stevie was down to his undershirt. Xabi’s button-down was undone, his t-shirt tucked neatly beneath.
“The response is pretty good, but we’re preaching to the choir,” Xabi had said. His voice was muffled because he was chewing absently on his pencil. “Latinos. Men eighteen to twenty-five. Women under forty. We need buys in -- NCIS, maybe. King of Queens.”
“The Spice Channel,” Stevie suggested.
“I feel like you’re not taking this seriously right now,” Xabi complained.
“I’ll take you seriously when you stop being insane,” Stevie said. He caught the baseball, lofted it in the air again. “How are you proposing we fund buys like that at New York broadcasting rates? Hyypia was wrangling with the D-Trip all morning: nil. We don’t get a budget increase until we can show them we stand a chance of winning.”
"We don't stand a shot at winning if everyone thinks of 2005 when they get in the booth," Xabi said. “That’s why I’m saying, the risk --”
"I know what you’re saying,” Stevie said. “It’s a lovely little catch-22. And you don’t have to convince me, you know; talk about preaching to the choir. No, we’re just going to have to fire someone and see if we can get fifteen seconds during a CSI spinoff for the price of their salary. Do you think that Chinese place is still delivering?”
Xabi took the pencil out of his mouth and held it like a cigarette between his slender fingers. “You know how many people reference that book without ever reading it?”
“What?” Stevie said, bouncing the ball off the floor.
“Catch-22,” Xabi clarified. He spun the pencil over his knuckles.
“That was a book?”
Stevie easily ducked the pencil chucked at him, but missed the baseball in the process. It deflected off his shoulder, rolled under his desk. "Now look what you've done," he said mildly, rubbing the sore spot.
“Oh, you’re fine,” Xabi said. He retrieved his pencil and poked Stevie’s shoulder with the eraser. Stevie let out an exaggerated yelp of pain. “I meant to say earlier, I don’t like that new script proposal you sent.”
“You have a problem with my puns?” Stevie leaned forward and groped around under the desk until his fingers touched the stitches edging the baseball. He rolled it back and trapped it under his foot.
“First of all, yes,” Xabi said. He had the pencil back in his mouth again. “Many many problems. But it’s not the lines, it’s the tone.”
“We’re going to have to go negative eventually,” Stevie said. “I’m just saying let’s do it now, before we look desperate. Seriously, I’m starved. Lo mein?”
Xabi let out a sigh that communicated both impossible suffering and infinite patience. He rested his head on his open hand, smooshing up one side of his face, and cocked an eyebrow at Stevie.
Stevie chucked the baseball at him. Xabi caught it automatically, without even flinching, and winged it back into Stevie’s hand. An unwilling smile tugged at his half-hidden mouth.
“Reflexes like a jungle cat,” Stevie said, grinning back.
“Call the place,” Xabi said. “Wonton soup, and those dumplings. Not the big doughballs; the little spicy ones that I like. And then we’re going over the budget until we can eke out 30 seconds during Three and a Half Men in Middlesex County.”
“I’m telling you, we should just fire someone,” Stevie said, fishing for his phone. “I say Keane. He fidgets.”
“You know what, sure. Whatever you say. Fire everyone.” Xabi yawned hugely. “Think of the savings.”
“Just you and me then,” Stevie said.
“Anfield Consulting Partners, Inc.” Xabi said into his palm. “That’s why we’re doing this, right? Because sometimes I forget.”
“That, and for America,” Stevie said. “Chin up, sunshine.” He pushed his fingers briefly into the soft-spiked whorl of hair at the back of Xabi’s skull and scrolled through his contacts for the delivery place. He’d have to call Alex after, tell her he’d be home even later than usual. Although probably she would have just assumed.
“The little Szechuan dumplings, make sure they know,” Xabi said. “Do we have Sam Adams in the fridge? I’m not drinking that vile swill of Riise’s,” and in the end there was only a torn-up case of Bud Light, but Xabi hadn’t complained.
Anfield Consulting. Now, on his bed in Capitol Hill, Stevie felt a curious pang remembering how carefully they'd planned it out. Anfield was supposed to be the whole point, the eventual endgame. A long-term thing. They’d taken on Benitez’s kamikaze mission for the resume and the connections, that was all, to see how they could improve on the last time. It was supposed to be step one of ten. They couldn’t have known how fucking good they’d be at it. They couldn’t’ve known that Benitez for Congress would be steps one through nine; that step ten would be the real bitch.
Stevie meant to get up, take his trousers off at least, but he found he was almost too tired to move. It had been a clusterfuck of a day, and he was comfortable enough. He’d just close his eyes for five minutes. Five minutes, then he’d get up and brush his teeth and everything.
He let his eyes drift shut, and then he was out.
Notes.
1. It is so weird to me to write this, like, 4500-word part and be all worried that it is too short? Ha ha, 4500 words is more than I wrote in years. Anyway, it's short because everybody needs a fuckin BREAK, so I just cut it off here. Next time: more barça and criska and chad ochocinco and Wonkette articles.
2. yeats wrote bits of this when I wanted to stab it and yelled at the State of the Union with me and I was like "what a beautiful human this is, i must thank her effusively in the notes." ONLY THEN she made this manip of a beautiful future that can never be and I changed my mind: she's a tease and a monster. thanks for the tears of yearning, sparkles. get bent.
3. if y'all knew how fucking long that stupid Statehouse ID took me I think you would be both appalled and disdainful. IT WAS A PROJECT, and that's why The EPL Group has a logo apparently designed by a child with Wingdings and Windows 95. Sometimes corporations have terrible logos, ok, it's totally realistic.
3a. OK let's be honest: mostly it took a long time because i couldn't get off Google Images. I'm having this Thing with Cesc lately, the Thing being that I think everything he does/has ever done is the most awkward/precious thing on the planet, which like, 1. calm down, but 2. IS KIND OF ACCURATE? I mean. LAMBKIN. Like I could do a whole spam of his slightly crossed eyes and doofus grin in photos and why it's the beeeeest. i'm restraining myself tho.
4. have I mentioned how fucking awesome you guys are for reading this and commenting and being all knowledgeable and insightful and funny and shit? it just fills me with endless delight forever and always.
Author: Rave (dorkorific)
Fandoms: Football RPF. The West Wing (eventually). Punditfic.
Characters: Include but are not limited to: Iker Casillas, Cesc Fabregas, Xabi Alonso, Jose Mourinho, Sian Massey, Steven Gerrard, Alex Curran (oh my god it's a manageable-sized cast today, what is going on). Full, hopefully-updated cast list here.
Disclaimer: Surely I don't have to tell you that this entire premise is ludicrous.
Warnings: None. Well, politics.
Summary: AU. Iker Casillas, a young state legislator from the fictional state of Fairfield, launches an unlikely bid for Senate.
Notes: At end.
Part One.
Part Two.
Part Three.
William Shankly Statehouse
Fairfield City, FA
May, 2008
At first all Iker could think, stupidly, was how soft the kid looked. Soft sloe eyes, soft mouth, soft dark hair you wanted to slide your fingers into and grip. Even the quick once-over he gave Iker -- a candid, unmistakeable invitation in those eyes -- was soft somehow, artless, young. Iker’s mouth went dry.
“Yes,” Iker said, apropos of nothing.
“I’m, uh. Cesc Fabregas,” the kid said. He had a good handshake, and close in he smelled like clean laundry. “I’ve been emailing you?”
“Yes,” Iker said again. He shook his head out a little, awkwardly touched the top button of his shirt and let his hand fall. “You’re Forlan’s intern? What happened to that other kid, Robin?”
“Mm,” Cesc said. He caught his lower lip in his teeth, which were translucent white, a little crooked in front. “He’s here still, it’s just now there are two of us. So if you need help with anything --”
“Nope,” Iker said. “Thanks. No. Not at the moment.”
There was a knock, and Xabi put his head around the door. “Hey, Iker -- oh. Fabregas. How’s it going?”
“Good,” Cesc said. He tilted his head, mouth curving up shyly. “Um. Sorry, Mr. Casillas, Diego wants to see your testimony for the Education committee, if you have it?”
“I’ll email it to him,” Iker said shortly. He retreated behind his desk. “Is that it?”
“Yeah, that’s it,” Cesc said. “Nice to meet you. I’m -- looking forward to working with you.”
“Yes,” Iker said for the third time, digging his nails into his leg under the desk. “Yep. Good luck. Looking forward to it.”
“Bye,” Cesc said, and -- oh, God, either Iker was having some kind of innocent-schoolboy-porn hallucination, or he was blushing a little. Xabi watched him go with a stony expression.
“Don’t sleep with him,” he said when the door closed.
“I wasn’t even -- what?” Iker said. “Christ, Xabi, he’s like twelve.”
“It’s a Lewinsky waiting to happen,” Xabi said, fixing Iker with a glare. “He’s not twelve, and he’s got moony eyes and an air of purpose. I’m fucking serious, do not lay a hand on that kid. Don’t let him lay a hand on you, either.”
“I’m not going to,” Iker said sharply: it was as much to himself as anyone else, and he knew it.
Washington Hilton
Washington, DC
September, 2011
Cesc’s ear was in his mouth. His breath was warm and damp on the shallow dip of Iker’s throat. He was laughing, dazed and breathless, and Iker had his hand tangled in that thick dark hair so he could kiss Cesc’s eyelids, his sweat-damp temple, the corner of his smile.
“Oh, man,” Cesc said, his voice a little wispy. “Man.” He nuzzled under Iker’s jaw and bit lazily at the corner of it, raising a cascade of goosebumps down Iker’s chest and side. “I was just -- I was losing it.”
“Christ, I know,” Iker said. He tipped Cesc’s chin up to him and kissed his soft mouth, wrapped his arms around Cesc’s shoulderblades and pressed his palm to the back of Cesc’s neck to get him closer, as close as possible, every inch to every inch. He wondered for an insane moment what would happen if he just never left this room, said fuck it to everything else, barricaded the door and spent the rest of his life with Cesc’s warm loose body twined around him. (And since when had he started thinking like that? Since always, probably, Jesus, he was an idiot.)
“I hate it,” Cesc said. His voice was muffled now in Iker’s shoulder. “I fucking. It’s the worst. I saw you at lunch today, at Old Ebbitt.”
Iker stilled, his hand halfway up Cesc’s hot smooth spine. “I didn’t see you.”
“I went to the bathroom,” Cesc said. There was a laugh in his voice again but now it was sort of desperate and awful. “I mean, for like half an hour. Well, not quite, but -- I couldn’t just sit there. I don’t have a poker face, you know? If I would’ve had to watch you and pretend like, whatever -- I couldn’t’ve. And Pique was there and he knows me.”
“You hid in the bathroom,” Iker repeated. He wanted to laugh, but he didn’t really. “I made you hide in the bathroom?”
"I couldn’t think what else," Cesc said, sheepish. "But now Pique thinks I'm, like, on drugs."
"Pique is on drugs," Iker said, meaninglessly. He kissed the top of Cesc's head and let his head fall back against the pillow, stared up at the ceiling. It didn't bear saying aloud how ridiculous all of this was. The imaginary finance meetings Xabi had Canales put on Iker's calendar, and the second cell phone he had to carry, a shitty Nokia from 2003, registered on Xabi's phone plan, with Cesc's number programmed under the name of a Thai takeout place. It had been pretty funny, for a while.
"How did it go? Down there," Cesc asked.
“Went okay.”
"Andrew Sullivan’s tweeting it. He said you sounded presidential but you talk too fast."
Iker snorted. "He’s still mad at me for that time I shaved my beard."
Cesc rubbed his thumb over Iker’s face, from the corner of his eye down to the hinge of his jaw and along the line of his chin. His lashes shadowed his eyes. “Yeah, well,” he said.
“Don’t tell me you are too.”
“It’s your face,” Cesc said simply, his thumb still resting at the corner of Iker’s mouth. “I like your face whenever.” He craned his head up to glance at the connecting door. “So he’s still in there, huh.”
“He always has to stay.” They could hear the treble murmur of the TV through the wall, turned up too high, which was Xabi’s way of giving them privacy.
Cesc's mouth went all tight and he said, “This wasn’t supposed to be all -- you know. I didn’t mean to make trouble.”
“Of course you did,” Iker said into his temple, his lips dragging against the bones under Cesc’s thin skin. He palmed the tight curve of Cesc’s ass, kneading the muscle a little. “From the minute I met you you did.”
“Shut up,” Cesc said, thumping his sternum. “No. I just liked you is all.”
It had been months, in the statehouse, months of Cesc lingering awkwardly outside his office, or coming in to drop off papers, his dark eyes too obvious and heated. Sometimes he’d have his suit coat off and the sleeves of his shirt pushed up over his elbows, looking up at Iker through his lashes like he didn’t know what he was doing. Grazing his hand against Iker’s when he handed things over, smiling shyly at him across the room, whatever, while Iker pretended not to notice, or not to know what it meant. He hadn’t been able to breathe easy until Cesc’s internship had ended in August.
And then two weeks later he’d walked into his advanced political science seminar -- his first as an adjunct -- to find the kid fucking sitting across the room from him, looking like butter wouldn’t melt.
“It wasn’t even about me,” Iker said, shrugging his arm tighter across the top of Cesc’s back. He could feel Cesc’s heartbeat under the knit bones and the flesh there. “Could’ve been anyone. You had a power thing.”
“For -- fucking, what, adjunct professors,” Cesc said. “For state senators. Jesus. If I had a power thing I could’ve done better.” He scraped his teeth over Iker’s nipple and said into his chest, “Ugh. I suck at this.”
Something behind Iker’s collarbone twinged. He gripped the roots of Cesc’s hair, cupping the back of his skull, and kissed him quiet again. “I love that you suck at it,” he told him, and that was all, because Cesc always knew what he meant.
“Stupid,” Cesc said drowsily into his mouth. “You know. Me too. How long do we--”
“An hour,” Iker said. He glanced at the glowing red numbers of the clock on the nightstand.
“An hour, or an hour left?” Cesc said, clearly already knowing the answer.
“Twenty-one minutes left,” Iker said. He could feel the muscles of Cesc's back starting to tense again, and he dug his thumb into the spot where his neck flowed into his shoulders.
“You wanna -- " Cesc shimmied clumsily against him. “Best twenty-one minutes of your life. I promise.”
Iker laughed low into his hair. “I bet.” Cesc was such a dork sometimes, a complete weirdo.
“Seriously,” Cesc said. “I know things.”
“Yeah, okay,” Iker said. He kissed Cesc lazy and deep, letting himself linger. His mouth tasted animal, slightly bitter, like home. “Just stay still, huh?”
“All right,” Cesc said. He butted his head under Iker’s chin. Iker closed his eyes.
This was always the worst part, when Iker first came back. It was that split second when Xabi saw his body held looser and his eyes content, and then had to watch him set his jaw, gather himself back, close himself off again. He shut the connecting door, his back to Xabi. His fingers rested a little too long on the doorknob.
“So,” Xabi said.
Iker dropped his hand. He said with that familiar tired humor, “We have to stop meeting like this. People will talk.”
“Your hair’s damp,” Xabi said. “What have I told you a million fucking times?” Sympathy was usually counterproductive.
Iker turned and scrubbed a hand through his hair. “I wore a shower cap. It’s barely -- no one will notice.”
“And your suit,” Xabi said, pained. “What did you do, tap-dance on it?”
He got up from the bed and Iker put his chin up obediently, a kid waiting to be adjusted. Xabi straightened his collar, smoothed out his coat. The knot of Iker’s tie was, seriously, a fucking disgrace. He undid it and started again.
“Very good, Jeeves,” Iker said. Xabi flicked his lapel, then stepped back to survey his handiwork. Iker looked put together, enough. There was at least a little more ease in his shoulders than there had been. It’d have to be fine.
For the first time Iker noticed the TV going. His brow creased. “What the hell is this?”
Xabi followed his gaze. “I don’t know. I was working, I just left it on.” On the screen a tearful, haggard woman was being strapped into a wedding dress. The closed captioning said I’m so so happy, which seemed like it had to be a mistake. He groped for the remote, clicked the TV off. “All right?”
Iker exhaled. “It’s leaving him there. He just --” He cut himself off, jerking his head sharply sideways. “I hate it. I hate it.”
Xabi didn’t say anything. He pushed his hands deeper into his pockets and watched Iker’s face. It had been a mistake, letting them meet here. It made the whole thing even more sad and tawdry than usual. In the future he’d take that into consideration.
(That had been what Cesc wanted to ask him about, after the EPL meeting. The keycard you left me -- it’s for the Hilton? Like, the same one where --
Yes, Xabi had said curtly, scanning the street for a taxi and raising his arm.
Cesc had said, Is it okay if -- I just wanna watch his speech, like just the beginning even, and his face had been nervous and defiant. I’ll wear a suit. I could stand in the back--
A cab had pulled up to the curbside then. Xabi had jerked the door open, halfway in already, just desperate to get away. I don’t think it’s a good idea, he’d said, too short. He’d caught the flash of furious sadness in Fabregas’s eyes, but what was he supposed to do? They’d made the call to handle it this way.
He rested his hand briefly on Fabregas’s sleeve, as if he could comfort him -- as if he had any right to comfort anybody. Check in at seven forty-five, under Taylor, he said, and Fabregas had nodded, a curt little snap of his chin, and then Xabi had slammed the cab door and gotten the hell away.)
“I’m good,” Iker told him. “We can go back down.”
Xabi nodded. He brushed off the pillow he’d been lying on, scanned the room quickly for any evidence they’d been there: there was nothing. “We go upstairs first,” he told Iker. They’d do it the same way they had before.
When they opened the stairwell door on the eighth floor, Jose Mourinho was lurking in the hall like a fucking vampire.
“What,” Xabi said, twitching back involuntarily.
“Hello, Xabier,” Mourinho said. His eyes flicked briefly over them, taking in Iker’s barely-damp hair, the new crispness of his tie, Xabi’s trousers slightly rumpled from sitting on the bed. “Casillas. What a surprising...surprise.”
“We had to make a call,” Iker said blankly.
“Ah,” Mourinho said.
“What are you doing up here?” Xabi demanded.
“You know,” Mourinho said serenely, waving a hand as if that answered the question. He was talking at a perfectly normal volume, Xabi knew rationally that he had to be, but Christ, it really fucking sounded like he was shouting. “I was about to head back downstairs. Care to walk with me?” A few rooms down from them, a door opened and someone peered out. Xabi wanted to strangle something.
“Are you trying to sink my campaign?” Xabi hissed.
“I only suggested we share an elevator,” Mourinho said. “Don’t you think you’re being a little extreme? Not to mention paranoid.” He extracted a stick of gum from his coat pocket, offered it in turn to Iker and Xabi, and when it was rejected shrugged and unwrapped it fastidiously.
There wasn’t anything else to do, so they started for the elevators. A few steps behind them Iker already had his head down, automatically.
“I told you to back off for ten minutes,” Xabi said, as quietly as he could. “I asked you nicely.”
Mourinho wrinkled one side of his mouth, considering. “I’m not sure that’s what I got out of our conversation.”
“For fuck’s sake, José,” Xabi said. The elevator opened and he punched the Lobby button so hard he nearly jammed his thumb. “If you’re think you can force me to come back to PV by ruining Iker’s chances in this idiotic way, go fuck yourself. I’ll work for Legal Aid. I’ll defend the goddamn manatees.” Iker put a warning hand on his arm and Xabi tried to count backwards from ten only what the hell came after eight.
“You’re under a lot of stress,” Mourinho said sympathetically, patting his arm. “I understand.”
“You’re putting me under it!” Xabi said. It came out a strangled yelp.
The doors dinged and slid open again, and he found himself staring into the eyes of that Massey girl, Shane or whatever it was, TPM’s new reporter -- and he was just standing there, with Jose Mourinho’s Godfather-like hand on his shoulder, and Iker skulking behind them like a fucking convict.
“Evening,” Mourinho said, giving her a laser-focus smile that radiated almost tangible charm, and breezed right by. Xabi followed him, nodding a curt hello.
“I really don’t understand why you’re so angry,” Mourinho said as they made their way back to the ballroom.
“You are making an effort to create suspiciousness out of literally nothing,” Xabi bit out. “I have to assume you’re doing it on purpose, for fun.”
Iker said, low in his ear, “This is not worth getting into a fight about.”
“Do I look like I’m getting in a fight?” Xabi said belligerently, and bit his lip as he caught his own tone.
“I’m sorry, this is clearly a bad time,” Mourinho said, turning that hypnotic smile on both of them. “We’ll talk when you’re feeling more rested.” He patted Xabi on the shoulder, clasped Iker’s hand, and sauntered off. Across the room, Xabi noticed, Massey was watching him go, gaze narrow as a hawk’s. She had her phone out and was typing something furiously.
“She’s sharp,” Iker muttered over his shoulder. “Talking Points Memo, right?
“Yes,” Xabi said grimly. “I hate her already.”
“Xabi,” Iker said suddenly.
“What.”
“It’s gonna be fine,” Iker said.
Xabi stared at him. He looked ridiculously earnest, his eyes all warm and sad in that way they always were after he’d been with Cesc, like a fucking Disney prince. As if he had any idea! As if he had any fucking clue how badly this could end.
“Of course it is,” he said finally. He forced a smile. “Come on. We should find Raul before you go.”
The drive back had been mercifully uneventful. He’d tried to insist on driving, under the pretense that she was too drunk (“For God’s sake, Stevie, it was half a martini four hours ago,”) which had so irritated Alex that she’d driven like a saint just to nettle him.
“See?” she said loftily as they pulled smoothly up in front of Stevie’s building. “I can’t imagine what you were so worried about.”
“Congratulations,” Stevie said, unclicking his seatbelt. “You drove like someone who wants to live. This day’ll go down in history.”
Alex made a sharp, scoffing noise. Strands of her hair were coming loose from her regal pouf; he’d always loved her in these moments, when the person under the makeup began to reappear.
(That had been part of the problem. “Stevie, I’m the person in the makeup, too,” Alex had said once, tiredly, “you can’t just pick the side of me you like better and decide that’s the real one.” And he’d understood that, in theory, but he hadn’t really: not well enough.)
He leaned across the gearshift and brushed his lips across hers, gently at first and then more insistently. She let him, but that was all.
“Come up for a nightcap?” he suggested, and kissed the delicate heated spot on her neck that always did it for her, pressed his tongue softly against her perfumed skin.
But Alex pushed him back, not hard. She pressed her lips together in a rueful little wince. “Not tonight, Stevie.”
He pulled away, surprised. “Did I do something?”
“No, silly ass,” Alex said. She pinched his cheek fondly. “Nothing like that. It’s just -- Aitor and me. We’ve got a bit serious.”
“Oh,” Stevie said, blinking. He leaned back into his own chair and turned forward again, taking it in. “Huh.”
“It can’t be such a surprise really,” Alex said gently. “We couldn’t go on like this forever, could we?”
“I sort of thought we could,” Stevie admitted, which -- all right, now that he’d said it aloud it was patently ridiculous. He let out a little snort of embarrassed laughter and dug the heel of his hand into one eye.
After a moment Alex said, “I think you should get back out there, Stevie. I really do.”
“Come on, Al,” Stevie said with mild disgust, “don’t, urgh. ‘Get back out there?’”
“Well, I do,” Alex said, defensively. “I mean, I’m not telling you to go off and get yourself hitched. I’m only saying it’s been a bit of a crutch, this, hasn’t it? Why would you make an effort when you can count on your ex-wife for a bit of a pity shag every now and again?”
“A pity shag?” Stevie echoed, indignant.
“You know what I mean.”
“I certainly don’t,” Stevie said.
She patted his thigh. “All I mean is, we’re a bit like -- I don’t know, junk food or something, you and me. Cheap, easy to get at, tasty enough, and you don’t have to dress up for it. And then all of a sudden you realize you’re all bloated and stuck and no one else wants to have sex with you anymore.”
“What I’m getting out of this is, One, that you think I’m cheap and, Two, you’ve only gone on sleeping with me because you felt bad,” Stevie said. “Is this your version of a pep talk? Really?”
“Don’t be dramatic,” Alex said. She leaned into him and kissed his cheek. Her mouth was soft and a little waxy. “I’ll see you tomorrow for pick-up.” She tugged his tie loose, scrubbed impeccably manicured fingers through his hair, and smiled that sideways smile he’d never seen her give anyone but him. “There,” she said. “Feel better?”
“A bit,” Stevie said, smoothing his hair down self-consciously.
“That’s a start, anyway,” Alex said.
Upstairs, in his apartment, he hung his jacket over his desk chair, undid his tie, poured himself a scotch. He sat on the edge of the bed, drinking it meditatively. Outside there were distant sirens. Methodically he bent over to untie his shoes; they were new and a little more pointed than he’d usually have gone for, and he winced slightly at the cramp, rubbing the sole of his foot against the carpet. Then he lay down on the bed and stared at the ceiling fan.
He wanted, suddenly, to talk to Xabi.
It wasn’t that the urge was new. He’d spent a lot of time over the last couple of years wanting to say one thing or another to Alonso, mostly variations on “Get fucked.” But not to talk to him.
Out of nowhere he remembered, with almost dizzying vividness, a moment on the campaign: nothing special, some Wednesday night in July. They’d been in the office going over Rafa’s latest ad numbers. Stevie had been idly tossing a baseball in the air and catching it, watching Xabi, who was bent over the printouts. The night was sweltering, oppressive, and the A/C was broken, so they had the windows open. Stevie was down to his undershirt. Xabi’s button-down was undone, his t-shirt tucked neatly beneath.
“The response is pretty good, but we’re preaching to the choir,” Xabi had said. His voice was muffled because he was chewing absently on his pencil. “Latinos. Men eighteen to twenty-five. Women under forty. We need buys in -- NCIS, maybe. King of Queens.”
“The Spice Channel,” Stevie suggested.
“I feel like you’re not taking this seriously right now,” Xabi complained.
“I’ll take you seriously when you stop being insane,” Stevie said. He caught the baseball, lofted it in the air again. “How are you proposing we fund buys like that at New York broadcasting rates? Hyypia was wrangling with the D-Trip all morning: nil. We don’t get a budget increase until we can show them we stand a chance of winning.”
"We don't stand a shot at winning if everyone thinks of 2005 when they get in the booth," Xabi said. “That’s why I’m saying, the risk --”
"I know what you’re saying,” Stevie said. “It’s a lovely little catch-22. And you don’t have to convince me, you know; talk about preaching to the choir. No, we’re just going to have to fire someone and see if we can get fifteen seconds during a CSI spinoff for the price of their salary. Do you think that Chinese place is still delivering?”
Xabi took the pencil out of his mouth and held it like a cigarette between his slender fingers. “You know how many people reference that book without ever reading it?”
“What?” Stevie said, bouncing the ball off the floor.
“Catch-22,” Xabi clarified. He spun the pencil over his knuckles.
“That was a book?”
Stevie easily ducked the pencil chucked at him, but missed the baseball in the process. It deflected off his shoulder, rolled under his desk. "Now look what you've done," he said mildly, rubbing the sore spot.
“Oh, you’re fine,” Xabi said. He retrieved his pencil and poked Stevie’s shoulder with the eraser. Stevie let out an exaggerated yelp of pain. “I meant to say earlier, I don’t like that new script proposal you sent.”
“You have a problem with my puns?” Stevie leaned forward and groped around under the desk until his fingers touched the stitches edging the baseball. He rolled it back and trapped it under his foot.
“First of all, yes,” Xabi said. He had the pencil back in his mouth again. “Many many problems. But it’s not the lines, it’s the tone.”
“We’re going to have to go negative eventually,” Stevie said. “I’m just saying let’s do it now, before we look desperate. Seriously, I’m starved. Lo mein?”
Xabi let out a sigh that communicated both impossible suffering and infinite patience. He rested his head on his open hand, smooshing up one side of his face, and cocked an eyebrow at Stevie.
Stevie chucked the baseball at him. Xabi caught it automatically, without even flinching, and winged it back into Stevie’s hand. An unwilling smile tugged at his half-hidden mouth.
“Reflexes like a jungle cat,” Stevie said, grinning back.
“Call the place,” Xabi said. “Wonton soup, and those dumplings. Not the big doughballs; the little spicy ones that I like. And then we’re going over the budget until we can eke out 30 seconds during Three and a Half Men in Middlesex County.”
“I’m telling you, we should just fire someone,” Stevie said, fishing for his phone. “I say Keane. He fidgets.”
“You know what, sure. Whatever you say. Fire everyone.” Xabi yawned hugely. “Think of the savings.”
“Just you and me then,” Stevie said.
“Anfield Consulting Partners, Inc.” Xabi said into his palm. “That’s why we’re doing this, right? Because sometimes I forget.”
“That, and for America,” Stevie said. “Chin up, sunshine.” He pushed his fingers briefly into the soft-spiked whorl of hair at the back of Xabi’s skull and scrolled through his contacts for the delivery place. He’d have to call Alex after, tell her he’d be home even later than usual. Although probably she would have just assumed.
“The little Szechuan dumplings, make sure they know,” Xabi said. “Do we have Sam Adams in the fridge? I’m not drinking that vile swill of Riise’s,” and in the end there was only a torn-up case of Bud Light, but Xabi hadn’t complained.
Anfield Consulting. Now, on his bed in Capitol Hill, Stevie felt a curious pang remembering how carefully they'd planned it out. Anfield was supposed to be the whole point, the eventual endgame. A long-term thing. They’d taken on Benitez’s kamikaze mission for the resume and the connections, that was all, to see how they could improve on the last time. It was supposed to be step one of ten. They couldn’t have known how fucking good they’d be at it. They couldn’t’ve known that Benitez for Congress would be steps one through nine; that step ten would be the real bitch.
Stevie meant to get up, take his trousers off at least, but he found he was almost too tired to move. It had been a clusterfuck of a day, and he was comfortable enough. He’d just close his eyes for five minutes. Five minutes, then he’d get up and brush his teeth and everything.
He let his eyes drift shut, and then he was out.
Notes.
1. It is so weird to me to write this, like, 4500-word part and be all worried that it is too short? Ha ha, 4500 words is more than I wrote in years. Anyway, it's short because everybody needs a fuckin BREAK, so I just cut it off here. Next time: more barça and criska and chad ochocinco and Wonkette articles.
2. yeats wrote bits of this when I wanted to stab it and yelled at the State of the Union with me and I was like "what a beautiful human this is, i must thank her effusively in the notes." ONLY THEN she made this manip of a beautiful future that can never be and I changed my mind: she's a tease and a monster. thanks for the tears of yearning, sparkles. get bent.
3. if y'all knew how fucking long that stupid Statehouse ID took me I think you would be both appalled and disdainful. IT WAS A PROJECT, and that's why The EPL Group has a logo apparently designed by a child with Wingdings and Windows 95. Sometimes corporations have terrible logos, ok, it's totally realistic.
3a. OK let's be honest: mostly it took a long time because i couldn't get off Google Images. I'm having this Thing with Cesc lately, the Thing being that I think everything he does/has ever done is the most awkward/precious thing on the planet, which like, 1. calm down, but 2. IS KIND OF ACCURATE? I mean. LAMBKIN. Like I could do a whole spam of his slightly crossed eyes and doofus grin in photos and why it's the beeeeest. i'm restraining myself tho.
4. have I mentioned how fucking awesome you guys are for reading this and commenting and being all knowledgeable and insightful and funny and shit? it just fills me with endless delight forever and always.