(Untitled)
PROMPT POST 1
Please make sure you've read the rules post first, and play nice!
Flat comment page here just to clarify, as a few people have been asking, art fills are also very much welcomed!
Please make sure you've read the rules post first, and play nice!
Flat comment page here just to clarify, as a few people have been asking, art fills are also very much welcomed!
"I'm sorry," Andres blurted, "but I can't - please don't."
"Oh god, I'm so sorry," Xavi said, horrified. "I didn't think - I have to cut everyone else off, I'd go crazy if I knew where they all were off the pitch, too. I didn't realize - "
"I'm not everyone else, I'm your bondmate," Andres said, and maybe he was more upset about it than he'd realized, because he was starting to get hysterical. "You can't - "
"I won't," Xavi said. "I'm sorry. I won't do it again. Andresito, it's all right, I'm sorry, I'll stop. Breathe." Andres could feel Xavi frantically trying to sort of fling reassurance at him from across the city. It wasn't working, but it was still a little comforting to realize that he wasn't the only one muddling through this - sometimes Xavi didn't have a clue either. "Do you - would you feel better if I was there?" Xavi asked uncertainly, when Andres had calmed down. "I could drive over."
"It's half an hour just to get to the city from your parents' place, and it's late," Andres pointed out. "And anyway, I'm fine."
"Fine my ass, you were almost crying a minute ago," Xavi muttered.
"I was not crying," Andres said indignantly.
"No? Good, I'm pretty sure that was somewhere near the top of the list of things Victor will kill me for."
"Xavi."
"Andres," Xavi mimicked. Andres could hear a faint rustling sound and knew without thinking about it that Xavi was in bed. "Are you sure you don't want me to come over? The drive really isn't that bad at night." The enormous yawn he let out immediately afterward somewhat undermined his offer.
"I'm pretty sure if you fall asleep behind the wheel and crash your car I'll be more upset, not less," Andres said.
"Don't be such a brat," Xavi said, and yawned again. "I don't even know why I'm so tired. It's not like we've been training very hard."
"Emili said this could happen for the next couple of weeks. Weren't you listening when he was talking about side-effects?" Xavi hummed noncommittally, and Andres sighed. "You're going to have to tell me what's been bothering you sooner or later, you know."
"Maybe tomorrow," Xavi said, after a long pause. He didn't say anything after that, but he didn't hang up the phone, either. Andres fell asleep listening to Xavi's breathing. He didn't remember his dreams.
*
The next day was when Emili had said they could go back to training with the team. He'd thrown in some pleased noises about how well they were progressing, too, but Andres had mostly been paying attention to how tense Xavi was. He was even worse in the locker room in the morning. Andres stuck close to Victor like always, but he tried to keep an eye on Xavi. He seemed fine; he joked around a lot with Carles and they both were sort of half-heartedly teasing Leo, who'd been called up to train with the first team so many times they'd all lost count but hadn't quite lost the wide eyes yet. If Andres hadn't been able to feel that Xavi's stomach was a mess of knots, he wouldn't have known anything was wrong. And he still didn't know what it was.
They weren't paired up for stretching so he couldn't ask then, and they weren't even put on the same team for five-a-side. Andres had decided to just corner Xavi at lunch, and forget about it until then, when they started playing and he was hit with a wave of relief from Xavi so strong it almost knocked him over. He lost the ball, and Xavi's team scored.
Leo ran over to Andres, his eyes even bigger than usual. "Are you okay?" he asked. "Should I get a physio?"
"I'm fine, I'm fine," Andres said, and ruffled his hair. "I wasn't paying attention, that's all. Come on, now we've got to equalize." Xavi had the ball. Andres saw where he was going to pass it, intercepted, passed to Leo. Leo scored. Xavi made a face at him and mouthed, "cheater," but Andres just grinned. As much as he loved running around with Xavi, he'd missed playing football.
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"Good game," Xavi said behind him. "Even if you did cheat."
"You did too," Andres said, and leaned backwards into Xavi, knowing he could support his weight for a moment. "Are you going to tell me what that was about?"
It was a sincere question and Xavi considered it as such, although Andres realized after a moment that his wording had been harsher than he'd intended. "Emili said they weren't sure how I would react to the bonding," he said eventually. "Because they've never seen anyone who could hear everyone the way I can. He said there was a possibility I wouldn't be sensitive to anyone but you anymore. It wasn't a big possibility, or else the míster wouldn't have gone ahead with it, but they didn't know for sure. Anyway, it turned out fine, so I guess there was nothing to worry about."
"But - Guardiola," Andres said, choosing not to voice his immediate thought of why didn't you tell me, because he knew already, and he wouldn't like the answer any better if Xavi said it out loud. "Guardiola was bonded."
"Oh," Xavi said. He sounded startled. "I forgot that you never played with him. Pep isn't like me, he's not sensitive. He told me once that he could barely even feel Figo, and they'd been bonded for almost four years then. Pep is loud. He couldn't hear anyone, but we could all hear him."
Andres thought about that for a minute, still leaning into Xavi's shoulder. He was thirsty, a little, but he didn't want to interrupt their conversation to go get a drink. Xavi handed over his half-full water bottle without comment. "When Figo left," Andres said. "And everyone was… everyone was so angry, and upset. My roommates got into fights. A lot of the students had nightmares."
"I still don't know if Pep knew he was doing that," Xavi admitted. "I wanted to ask him, but - I mean, he wouldn't have done it on purpose. It's not like he wanted anyone to get hurt. He wouldn't have wanted the fans to throw things at Luis in Camp Nou. But Luis was the one we would have asked to get him to stop." He rested his forehead on the back of Andres' head for a moment, then gently pushed him away and started walking towards the rest of the team. "Pep said he forgave Luis. He said he understood why he left. I don't know if it was true. I wouldn't have."
Andres grabbed Xavi's arm. "All right. But I'm your bondmate, and I'm not going to leave. So don't ever keep secrets from me again." He glared when Xavi turned around to stare at him, and jogged off to join Victor too quickly for Xavi to say anything in reply. After a moment he realized he still had Xavi's water bottle, but under the circumstances he thought it probably served Xavi right.
"What was that?" Victor asked, surprised.
"Nothing," Andres spat, then shook his head. "Sorry. I'm not - Xavi didn't tell me something he should have, that's all. It'll be fine."
"Do I need to threaten him some more?" Victor sounded at least half-serious.
Andres laughed and leaned into Victor's hand when he ruffled his hair. "Violence is never the answer, asshole. Come on, the mister is calling." He finished off Xavi's water and put it aside, then let Victor shepherd him into the clump of defenders standing to Rijkaard's left. He could feel Xavi looking at him, but the coach was talking and Andres couldn't spare the concentration to figure out what he was thinking.
Xavi came over to him when the mister finished, and the five-a-side teams had been reshuffled so they were on the same one and Victor wasn't; Andres couldn't avoid him. "I didn't - "
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"Okay," Xavi said. He started to reach out to touch Andres' shoulder or maybe his cheek, but he let his hand fall before it got even halfway. "Okay."
It was fine while they were playing. As soon as the ball was in play nothing else mattered, and Andres' passes to Xavi were as impossibly perfect as ever. It still didn't make him any less furious once practice was over, and he was kind of glad that Emili showed up and dragged him off for a quick check-up before Xavi could corner him.
It only took a few minutes - Emili just wanted to check his blood pressure and pupil dilation and cluck a little about getting enough sleep - and then he was asking if he had any questions and somehow Andres couldn't stop the words from coming out of his mouth. "Why didn't you tell me what the bonding could do to Xavi?"
Emili blinked at him. Andres was pretty sure Emili had never seen him look angry before. "About the potential for reducing his sensitivity to other players, you mean? I do have to respect doctor-patient confidentiality, you know," he said mildly. "And Xavi asked me to let him tell you himself."
"Of course he did," Andres muttered. "Of course he - if something is going to hurt him or make him sick or anything, I want to know. I want you to tell me right away. He's my bondmate and I need to know."
"Ah," Emili said. He was doing a remarkable job of not looking at Andres as if he was having a psychotic break, but Andres wouldn't have blamed him for thinking it. "Well, you could have have the club lawyers draw up papers to make you medical proxies for each other. It isn't how things are usually handled but I think there's some precedent. Xavi would have to be willing to sign them, though."
"Oh, he'll be willing," Andres said grimly.
"I… see." Emili busied himself with putting away his sphygmomanometer and flashlight, presumably to give himself time to control his expression. Andres hated himself a little bit, and Xavi a little bit more. "It's extremely unlikely that there will be any other effects from your bonding, though. I know your initial reaction was a little - strong, but we did look into it for anything that could be a medical issue, and it was only because you two are unusually compatible. It won't cause any problems later on."
"Shouldn't you have expected that?" Andres asked, a little skeptical. "I mean, it's Xavi."
"Sensitive and compatible are not the same thing. It is a common misconception, but you should have been taught that at La Masia," Emili lectured. "Xavi is very sensitive and also incompatible with almost every player who has ever passed through Barcelona. If you hadn't agreed I would never have allowed Rijkaard to have him bonded. With any other player on the current team it could have killed him or driven him insane."
Andres thought he was actually past the point where he could get any angrier with Xavi. It was just - useless. "Oh. But there's no risk of that now."
"Oh, no - Andres, there's nothing to worry about. Everything is perfectly fine with both of you. You shouldn't be fretting yourself." Emili smiled at him reassuringly. "Now, off you go, before you miss lunch completely. I didn't mean to keep you so long."
Andres didn't feel capable of speaking normally to any of his teammates, so he headed straight to the parking garage. He could drive home, have lunch, and hopefully by the time he had to be back for the afternoon session he wouldn't want to strangle his bondmate quite so badly. It was a wasted effort, though, because Xavi was sitting on the hood of his car waiting for him. "Hey," Xavi said.
"Hey," Andres said flatly.
Xavi winced. He met Andres' eyes for a second, then looked down at his hands. "I didn't - I didn't mean to upset you. I'm sorry."
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"Andresito. I do. I will. I know I'm not - good at telling you things sometimes. But I'll try to be better. I promise, I do trust you." Xavi glanced over at Andres, looking pathetic and sad and hopeful, and if Andres hadn't been able to feel how much he meant it he would have shoved him off the car for trying to pull those puppy eyes on him.
"You'd better," he said firmly, and couldn't help smiling when Xavi sagged a little in relief. "Because we're going to be amazing."
"Fucking amazing," Xavi corrected.
Andres laughed. He looked down at Xavi's hand resting on the car between them, and before he could think about it he reached down to catch it in his own. "Fucking amazing," he agreed. He could feel Xavi's confidence and his love running through his blood like oxygen, and in that moment he had never believed anything as much as he believed in them.
notes: Most of this is obviously completely made-up - hello, soulbonding fic! But Emili Ricart really is one of the Barcelona physios, Xavi Hernandez and Andres Iniesta really do have an astonishing on-pitch connection that has led some journalists to describe them as "footballing soulmates" and Victor Valdes really is Andres Iniesta's best friend. They've known each other since they were roommates in Andres' first year at La Masia, when he was in fact still crying himself to sleep over how much he missed his parents. (The part about Victor mother-henning him to death is pure speculative fiction, though.)
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The part about Victor mother-henning him to death is pure speculative fiction, though
and what a delightful bit of speculation it is!
I am really over the moon this got filled so well. You went above and beyond what I wanted and I read this whole thing with a progressively growing smile. Thank you so so so so much, a million besos. :******
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Fantastic, anon, great job! Hope you write more about Xaviesta...I love this pairing and it's a pity it's not written so often. And oh I loved that Cesc is sensitive too...
Anyway, brilliant work!
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So yeah. Seconding.
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