Prompt Post #1

[football_kink]

Prompt Post 1

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FILL: Rooney & Ronaldo gen (2/3)

[anonymous]

Because here's how it was. Wayne Rooney never thought about being the best player in the world, but he thought about playing for the best team. He wanted to lift a cup for Manchester United, and for Ferguson. He wanted to lift a cup to say, look, look what we achieved, and he wanted to do it in the knowledge that he had played his part and that no one else could have played that part for him.

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And then Ronaldo, well. He wins the Ballon D'Or, and shatters every pre-conceived notion Rooney had about his club versus individual loyalties. Maybe he didn't think about being the best player in the world because he couldn't be the best player in the world. Maybe his place in football was to play alongside the best player in the world.

And for a season this works. For a season they are the best partnership the Premier League has seen in years. They are beauty, in the curl of a ball as it drops into the penalty area, as Rooney catches it on that spot on his boot, the very spot that Ronaldo seems to have a telepathic connection to. Not once, not ever, do they look up. They don't catch each others' eyes. Rooney could play these games with his eyes closed. He could touch and score and celebrate with a blindfold and still he would know which way to turn to let Cristiano fly into his arms, to yell incomprehensibly in his ear of the perfection of their game, to deafen Rooney and yet still, still Rooney would play on. Take away all his senses and he would play by instinct alone.

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When Ronaldo leaves it is strange, and empty. But when Rooney wakes up to the talk around him, he hears his name and his name only. Slowly the definition of himself, himself as a footballer and not as a partnership, it comes back. When Ferguson speaks to him Rooney feels like the child whose flashier, more talented brother has left home and now finally he's getting his place in the spotlight. And he's buggered if he's going to let this pass him by.

Ronaldo keeps in touch with him, texts and phone calls after their goals. He tries to match Rooney goal for goal but he can't do it and he laughs when Wayne takes the mick. Tells him to get his own Golden Ball and then maybe they'll talk. It's all banter, but the old dreams start coming back for Rooney. The World Cup looms and he thinks, yeah, come on, I can lead them. I can do the impossible.

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