you split me at my seams
Title: The Motionless Hours (II)
Disclaimer: all made up
Characters: Fernando Torres, Martin Škrtel, the Liverpool crowd
Rating: PG-13 this part
Summary: AU. Fernando is obsessive compulsive. Martin doesn’t hold back.
“The important hours are the motionless ones. Those stopped fractions of time, half-dead minutes, are the truest thing about you, the truest you -- not owning them nor being owned by them, without attributes; you couldn't 'render' them, couldn't make them more or less than they are.” -Henri Michaux
Part I
II.
Seven-year-old Fernando Torres was hauling his bucket of collected sea shells to where his brother and sister were building a sand dragon.
"Look at how many sea shells I have," Fernando chirped, proudly turning the bucket upside down. Digging through them, he picked out two he had found earlier and presented them to Mari Paz. "These are for the eyes," he explained. Israel ruffled Fernando's wet hair as Mari Paz placed the two shells in place with slow precision. Fernando, meanwhile, had already begun dividing up the shells. He wanted to group them by shape, the largest to smallest.
"Papa! Papa! Come take a picture!" Mari Paz shrieked.
In the photograph: A five foot long sand dragon with two shell eyes, difficult to make out in the photo. A grinning Israel crouched by the head, in banana yellow swim trunks and ridiculous skunk-like highlights in his hair. Also by him, Mari Paz, in a pink bikini that showed off the beginnings of her new chest, much to the disapproval of her father. At the tail end sat the baby of the family, Fernando, not even looking at the camera, his face tilted down in concentration as he sorted his shells.
"Sir, do you need any help looking for anything?" Rafa inquired when he saw the young man walk in, somewhat dazed, looking about as if he had stepped into the wrong building.
"No, just…browsing," Martin answered distractedly. Browsing for a boy, he added silently.
As he explored the library, passing the serene readers curled up with books, Martin felt out of his element. He had never set foot in a library before. Not back in Slovakia, not in Russia, not here, not ever. He breathed a sigh of relief when he spotted Fernando at a table, picking up discarded books. He eyed one of the books-a pictorial biography of Princess Diana-and checked the section he was in. Biographies. Well, today was just his lucky day.
He ducked behind a shelf before Fernando could see him, grabbing the book nearest to him when Fernando began walking his way.
When Martin looked up, Fernando was standing right in front of him, startling Martin slightly.
"Wow, small world after all," Martin said with convincing earnest, closing the book he had been pretending to read.
Fernando tilted his head ever so slightly to the side and gave Martin a curious look (which Martin found all too adorable, and God, when did he start thinking of grown men as adorable?).
"I did not peg you as the type who is following Mrs. Beckham," Fernando said amusedly, allowing Martin a reserved smile.
Martin looked down at the book he had snagged. A biography of Victoria Beckham, great.
"She's quite fascinating," Martin managed rather lamely. "Okay, I just thought there would be pictures of her half-naked inside."
Fernando laughed loudly at that, but quickly covered his mouth, his face showing embarrassment at his own little outburst in the quiet library.
Then, an afterthought hit Fernando: Okay, I just thought there would be pictures of her half-naked inside. So Martin wasn't gay?
"I need to re-shelve these books," Fernando said hastily, straightening up in what he hoped appeared brisk and business-like.
"Yeah, sure, you do your job," Martin said cheerily. "I'll be over there, reading about the life struggles of Posh Spice." Then, leaning in close to Fernando's ear so he could feel his breath, Martin added cheekily, "You should come visit me when you're done with those books. I didn't come here for Vicky."
When he was nineteen, Martin ran away from home. He was done with Handlová. He was restless. He was heading to wherever his finger landed on the map of the world.
The first time, his finger landed in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Living on a ship didn't seem too appealing. He would probably get horny and fuck his shipmates. He knew what they said about sailors.
The second time, his finger landed in North Korea. Communism was never really his style. Plus, what if they found him living there illegally, forced him into Korean citizenship, and never allowed him out of the country again? He had heard the stories.
The third time, his finger landed in Russia.
He got a job at a restaurant serving simplified Russian food to tourists cautious of trying anything new. One afternoon, during the sluggish three o' clock hour, he was having a smoke break with another waiter-Ania, when Martin said, "Russia is pretty nice."
Ania laughed and took another drag before passing the cigarette to Martin.
"Saint Petersburg is the capital," Ania said, "so of course it's nice. In the area we live anyway. But tell me, why did you leave Slovakia?"
"Get away from the same places, same faces," Martin said immediately. "I wanted to be like one of those guys who hop trains without knowing where they go, and take road trips to toward the end of the sunset, and ride motorcycles through the countryside like lone rebels."
"A regular beatnik, then? A Jack Kerouac chasing a different version of the American dream," Ania chuckled.
"A regular what? A who?"
"For God's sake, did they not teach you to read over there?"
"I read," Martin defended hotly. "Ever heard of Ivan V. Lalic?"
"Did you just make him up?"
"No, dumb fuck, he's a Serbian poet. Who's the pretentious intellect, now?"
"Okay, okay, what about him?"
"When I was a kid, if you can believe it, I used to have anger management problems-"
"Believing it."
"-so my mother read me poetry to calm me down. My father hated it, said I would turn into a fag with all those flowery words implanted in my head."
"And look at you now, anything but," Ania said, staring down at his scuffed shoes with a forced smile.
Martin gave Ania a strange look, but Ania didn't catch it.
"So, lone rebel," Ania began, "why don't you get out? Go experience Russia. If you know history, you know she's lived a sad life."
"Yeah, I saw 'Anastasia' with my sister. In that movie Anastasia lived. And she found that cute little dog, so life couldn't be too bad."
Ania shoved Martin playfully and stole the cigarette back.
"Make your jokes, but I want you to see more of Russia than just this. That's the only way to really understand a country. Go visit the smaller cities. Then go visit my hometown at least if you miss the nightlife."
And there was something about the way Ania was talking, his immense love for everything he was a part of, and some sort of wondrous dream that shone in his eyes, that made Martin truly appreciate his friend.
Martin flicked the cigarette out of Ania's hand and used his shoe to snuff it out.
"What are-" Ania began, but Martin scooped the back of Ania's head with his hand and crashed their lips together, effectively killing off any room for words.
It was fifteen after three in the afternoon. At the back of a modest-looking restaurant there were two boys sitting on the curb, dressed in black slacks, black button-up shirts, and aprons. One is Russian, the other is not. The Russian is twenty-one years old, the other is nineteen. They were young, but not too young, and probably not in love. But just for that moment, they were simply two boys kissing behind a restaurant, tasting smoke on each other's lips, exploring each other's mouths with the fervor of two people who have just realized they are unsatisfied.
Fernando knew actually approaching Martin would wreck his nerves if thinking about it already made him nervous. But the way Martin made his insides churn was different than when he first met Xabi, or Daniel, or Rafa. There was some sort of fluttering along with it, a winged hope, a something. It made him even more nervous because he recognized that fluttering as the same one he got when he met Sergio.
Taking a deep breath, Fernando began walking over to where Martin was sitting. It took him exactly twenty-one steps and if he thought counting would have calmed him down, oh was he wrong.
Martin, shoved in a plush loveseat a tad too small, cocked an eyebrow at him. Fernando was standing in front of him, fidgeting slightly, starting at Martin's Puma sneakers.
"Hello, beautiful," Martin said.
"Hi."
Martin inwardly groaned. Back to the one-word responses of day one. Standing up, he stretched up, reaching behind his back. The chair was not made for all six feet four inches of him. Fernando tried not to stare at the pale sliver of skin when Martin's shirt rose up.
"Listen," Fernando said quickly, and the fact he was speaking faster than he was thinking terrified him because suddenly he was saying, "I do not normally do this, I mean, but I am supposed to be working right now, and you seem interesting-and I mean that statement in good way-maybe if you would like to talk to me again I can give you my phone number, but only if you want, and I'm sorry, I am talking very too much, sorry, you don't have to, maybe is better-"
"Hey," Martin interrupted, slipping his hand on Fernando's shoulder and giving it a squeeze. "It's okay, don't worry about it. Just pretend you never met me."
He handed Fernando the Victoria Beckham biography.
"Take care," Martin said before leaving.
Fernando spent fifteen minutes in the biography section, leaning his head against the books, and agonizing over everything he must have done wrong.
"You coming with me to see Liverpool play Man U?"
"I can't, Xabi," Martin said, then ordered a beer. "Forgot to ask off work."
At that moment, a score of Liverpool supporters barged in and the pub turned into a massive (singing) conga line of red. Liverpool had just beaten Everton 2-0, with both goals scored by Steven Gerrard.
"More beers, I'm predicting," Xabi noted.
"Oh yeah, I didn't mention it earlier, but I ran into Fernando again," Martin shouted over the boisterous singing.
But Xabi was too busy in between flirting with a few ladies who had showed up and an enthusiastic post-game talk with other customers.
"And by 'ran into', you mean staked a claim on the library until he showed up, right?" Xabi finally shouted back, making his way over.
"And by 'see Liverpool play', you mean stalk Steven Gerrard after the game, right?"
"You're so not funny. So when's the first date, or for you, first fuck? Or has one of those already happened?"
"Never. He's too socially awkward and I'm too impatient. I don't know how we'd ever hold a conversation."
"And by 'conversation', you mean-"
"Oh fuck off, Xabi."
"Well, you two do seem like a mismatch, but it could have at least been entertaining. Besides, Fernando needs a boost in his social life."
"Xabi!" a voice rang out.
"Pepe!"
A bald man managed to squeeze himself in next to Martin.
"Brilliant game, eh!" Pepe said gleefully. "After the first twenty minutes anyway. Ten minutes in and I thought we were cooked."
"Oh I know! How's the restaurant coming along?"
"Good, good," Pepe said animatedly. "Made some changes to the menu because people complained we weren't vegetarian-friendly."
"Wait, but you make sandwiches. Why don't they just ask for the sandwich without meat?" Xabi asked.
"That's what I thought! But hey, that's what 'The Vegetarian' is, except now they don't even have to ask."
"Makes it sound like they're ordering vegetarians to eat, though," Martin interjected.
"Hm, you're right. I should probably change that before they complain about us being too cannibal-friendly. Hey, I've never seen you around. You should drop by sometime!"
"Pepe, get your ass over here!" someone yelled.
"Have to run," Pepe said hurriedly. "Nice meeting you-"
"Martin."
"-Martin!"
Xabi slid a napkin over to Martin and said, "Fernando's number. You are taking him to Pepe's, and you are going to be nice to him. One word from Fernando that you were an asshole, or variation of any sort, and you won't be welcome here."
"Persistent little bitch, you are," Martin grumbled.
Xabi merely blew a kiss.
Meanwhile, Fernando was at home furiously scribbling away in his notebook. If there was one thing he knew he was good at, it was making lists.
REASONS WHY I WOULDN'T HAVE LIKED HIM ANYWAY
1. We don't know each other.
2. His hair is too short.
3. He was reading a book about Victoria Beckham.
4. He was only leading me on.
5. He's actually straight.
6. And only wants to experiment.
7. I don't like his shoes.
8. He looks angry all the time.
9. If I piss him off, he might kick my ass.
10. Then eat me alive.
11. Before spitting me back out and burying me.
12. They'll never find my body.
13. My mother would cry herself to sleep every night.
14. Sergio might confess his love for me tonight.
15. In which case I will need to take the first flight back to Spain.
Then Fernando realized a cons-list was nothing without a pros-list, and grudgingly wrote on the other page.
REASONS WHY I WOULD HAVE LIKED HIM
1. He's hot.
2. And has nice tattoos.
3. On his shapely arms.
4. That accompany his rather fit body.
5. He's friends with Xabi, who isn't stupid.
6. He's exotic.
7. I've never been to Slovakia.
8. His eyes.
9. His lips.
10. Maybe even his nose.
11. The way his shirt looks on his body.
12. The way I imagine his shirt would look off his body.
13. He could kick other people's asses for me.
14. Sergio will never confess his love for me.
15. In which case I will need to get over him.
16. For real this time.
Fernando glared down at his own list. Somehow he ended up with sixteen pros and only fifteen cons. For sake of symmetry, he crossed out 'I've never been to Slovakia'. But now the arguments were dead even. He tore out the 'Reasons Why I Would Have Liked Him' page and tossed it in the recycling bin. There was no point having that page because he wouldn't have liked him anyway. He wouldn't have, he insisted to himself firmly.
A beeping alerted him someone had sent him a text message. Fernando flipped his phone open, expecting a reply from Sergio involving the words 'I miss you' (hopefully, thought Fernando) or a sentimental message from his mother reminding him how much she loved him (an ill-disguised plea to come back home).
fernando its martin. u free around noon tomorrow?
Fernando replied:
How did you get my number?
xabi, that minx
He should have known. Xabi was the one who gave Daniel Agger Fernando's number back in the days when Daniel wanted to sleep with him. Fernando spent the next ten minutes debating on how to reply. And then waited five more minutes so he didn't seem desperate.
He replied with:
Yes
He thought short and simple would come off as coolly unaffected and only marginally interested. The phone rang and when he saw the number, Fernando waited until the third ring to pick up.
"Hello?" Fernando asked evenly as if he didn't know who it was. As if his heart wasn't quickening at the possibility that might come next.
"Good," Martin said, skipping any form of greeting. "Because I am picking you up tomorrow at 11:45 for lunch, whether you like it or not. Pepe's Deli sound good to you?"
"Um-"
"Good, I thought so too. Goodnight."
Fernando heard the phone call end and stared at his cell phone with disbelief, thoughts and questions zinging their way across his mind. Did he just get asked out on a lunch date? A real date or one of those not-really dates? And by a stranger, none-the-less. And how did he lose ten years and go from being twenty-four to fourteen in so short a time? Wait, did Martin know where he lived?
As if on cue, his phone rang again.
Fernando allowed himself to flop back down on his bed and sigh contentedly before answering the phone. It had been a while since he had felt like things were finally going his way.
i. The real Martin Škrtel played for F.C. Zenit St. Petersburg for four years before joining Liverpool.
ii. Ania is the nickname of Aleksandr Anyukov, a current Zenit defender who also played alongside Škrtel.
iii. Real-life Škrtel may or may not have a sister.
author's note: Thanks again to Greenie for the read-over and to everyone who commented on the previous part. (f you see any mistakes, feel free to point them out.
Disclaimer: all made up
Characters: Fernando Torres, Martin Škrtel, the Liverpool crowd
Rating: PG-13 this part
Summary: AU. Fernando is obsessive compulsive. Martin doesn’t hold back.
“The important hours are the motionless ones. Those stopped fractions of time, half-dead minutes, are the truest thing about you, the truest you -- not owning them nor being owned by them, without attributes; you couldn't 'render' them, couldn't make them more or less than they are.” -Henri Michaux
Part I
II.
Seven-year-old Fernando Torres was hauling his bucket of collected sea shells to where his brother and sister were building a sand dragon.
"Look at how many sea shells I have," Fernando chirped, proudly turning the bucket upside down. Digging through them, he picked out two he had found earlier and presented them to Mari Paz. "These are for the eyes," he explained. Israel ruffled Fernando's wet hair as Mari Paz placed the two shells in place with slow precision. Fernando, meanwhile, had already begun dividing up the shells. He wanted to group them by shape, the largest to smallest.
"Papa! Papa! Come take a picture!" Mari Paz shrieked.
In the photograph: A five foot long sand dragon with two shell eyes, difficult to make out in the photo. A grinning Israel crouched by the head, in banana yellow swim trunks and ridiculous skunk-like highlights in his hair. Also by him, Mari Paz, in a pink bikini that showed off the beginnings of her new chest, much to the disapproval of her father. At the tail end sat the baby of the family, Fernando, not even looking at the camera, his face tilted down in concentration as he sorted his shells.
"Sir, do you need any help looking for anything?" Rafa inquired when he saw the young man walk in, somewhat dazed, looking about as if he had stepped into the wrong building.
"No, just…browsing," Martin answered distractedly. Browsing for a boy, he added silently.
As he explored the library, passing the serene readers curled up with books, Martin felt out of his element. He had never set foot in a library before. Not back in Slovakia, not in Russia, not here, not ever. He breathed a sigh of relief when he spotted Fernando at a table, picking up discarded books. He eyed one of the books-a pictorial biography of Princess Diana-and checked the section he was in. Biographies. Well, today was just his lucky day.
He ducked behind a shelf before Fernando could see him, grabbing the book nearest to him when Fernando began walking his way.
When Martin looked up, Fernando was standing right in front of him, startling Martin slightly.
"Wow, small world after all," Martin said with convincing earnest, closing the book he had been pretending to read.
Fernando tilted his head ever so slightly to the side and gave Martin a curious look (which Martin found all too adorable, and God, when did he start thinking of grown men as adorable?).
"I did not peg you as the type who is following Mrs. Beckham," Fernando said amusedly, allowing Martin a reserved smile.
Martin looked down at the book he had snagged. A biography of Victoria Beckham, great.
"She's quite fascinating," Martin managed rather lamely. "Okay, I just thought there would be pictures of her half-naked inside."
Fernando laughed loudly at that, but quickly covered his mouth, his face showing embarrassment at his own little outburst in the quiet library.
Then, an afterthought hit Fernando: Okay, I just thought there would be pictures of her half-naked inside. So Martin wasn't gay?
"I need to re-shelve these books," Fernando said hastily, straightening up in what he hoped appeared brisk and business-like.
"Yeah, sure, you do your job," Martin said cheerily. "I'll be over there, reading about the life struggles of Posh Spice." Then, leaning in close to Fernando's ear so he could feel his breath, Martin added cheekily, "You should come visit me when you're done with those books. I didn't come here for Vicky."
When he was nineteen, Martin ran away from home. He was done with Handlová. He was restless. He was heading to wherever his finger landed on the map of the world.
The first time, his finger landed in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Living on a ship didn't seem too appealing. He would probably get horny and fuck his shipmates. He knew what they said about sailors.
The second time, his finger landed in North Korea. Communism was never really his style. Plus, what if they found him living there illegally, forced him into Korean citizenship, and never allowed him out of the country again? He had heard the stories.
The third time, his finger landed in Russia.
He got a job at a restaurant serving simplified Russian food to tourists cautious of trying anything new. One afternoon, during the sluggish three o' clock hour, he was having a smoke break with another waiter-Ania, when Martin said, "Russia is pretty nice."
Ania laughed and took another drag before passing the cigarette to Martin.
"Saint Petersburg is the capital," Ania said, "so of course it's nice. In the area we live anyway. But tell me, why did you leave Slovakia?"
"Get away from the same places, same faces," Martin said immediately. "I wanted to be like one of those guys who hop trains without knowing where they go, and take road trips to toward the end of the sunset, and ride motorcycles through the countryside like lone rebels."
"A regular beatnik, then? A Jack Kerouac chasing a different version of the American dream," Ania chuckled.
"A regular what? A who?"
"For God's sake, did they not teach you to read over there?"
"I read," Martin defended hotly. "Ever heard of Ivan V. Lalic?"
"Did you just make him up?"
"No, dumb fuck, he's a Serbian poet. Who's the pretentious intellect, now?"
"Okay, okay, what about him?"
"When I was a kid, if you can believe it, I used to have anger management problems-"
"Believing it."
"-so my mother read me poetry to calm me down. My father hated it, said I would turn into a fag with all those flowery words implanted in my head."
"And look at you now, anything but," Ania said, staring down at his scuffed shoes with a forced smile.
Martin gave Ania a strange look, but Ania didn't catch it.
"So, lone rebel," Ania began, "why don't you get out? Go experience Russia. If you know history, you know she's lived a sad life."
"Yeah, I saw 'Anastasia' with my sister. In that movie Anastasia lived. And she found that cute little dog, so life couldn't be too bad."
Ania shoved Martin playfully and stole the cigarette back.
"Make your jokes, but I want you to see more of Russia than just this. That's the only way to really understand a country. Go visit the smaller cities. Then go visit my hometown at least if you miss the nightlife."
And there was something about the way Ania was talking, his immense love for everything he was a part of, and some sort of wondrous dream that shone in his eyes, that made Martin truly appreciate his friend.
Martin flicked the cigarette out of Ania's hand and used his shoe to snuff it out.
"What are-" Ania began, but Martin scooped the back of Ania's head with his hand and crashed their lips together, effectively killing off any room for words.
It was fifteen after three in the afternoon. At the back of a modest-looking restaurant there were two boys sitting on the curb, dressed in black slacks, black button-up shirts, and aprons. One is Russian, the other is not. The Russian is twenty-one years old, the other is nineteen. They were young, but not too young, and probably not in love. But just for that moment, they were simply two boys kissing behind a restaurant, tasting smoke on each other's lips, exploring each other's mouths with the fervor of two people who have just realized they are unsatisfied.
Fernando knew actually approaching Martin would wreck his nerves if thinking about it already made him nervous. But the way Martin made his insides churn was different than when he first met Xabi, or Daniel, or Rafa. There was some sort of fluttering along with it, a winged hope, a something. It made him even more nervous because he recognized that fluttering as the same one he got when he met Sergio.
Taking a deep breath, Fernando began walking over to where Martin was sitting. It took him exactly twenty-one steps and if he thought counting would have calmed him down, oh was he wrong.
Martin, shoved in a plush loveseat a tad too small, cocked an eyebrow at him. Fernando was standing in front of him, fidgeting slightly, starting at Martin's Puma sneakers.
"Hello, beautiful," Martin said.
"Hi."
Martin inwardly groaned. Back to the one-word responses of day one. Standing up, he stretched up, reaching behind his back. The chair was not made for all six feet four inches of him. Fernando tried not to stare at the pale sliver of skin when Martin's shirt rose up.
"Listen," Fernando said quickly, and the fact he was speaking faster than he was thinking terrified him because suddenly he was saying, "I do not normally do this, I mean, but I am supposed to be working right now, and you seem interesting-and I mean that statement in good way-maybe if you would like to talk to me again I can give you my phone number, but only if you want, and I'm sorry, I am talking very too much, sorry, you don't have to, maybe is better-"
"Hey," Martin interrupted, slipping his hand on Fernando's shoulder and giving it a squeeze. "It's okay, don't worry about it. Just pretend you never met me."
He handed Fernando the Victoria Beckham biography.
"Take care," Martin said before leaving.
Fernando spent fifteen minutes in the biography section, leaning his head against the books, and agonizing over everything he must have done wrong.
"You coming with me to see Liverpool play Man U?"
"I can't, Xabi," Martin said, then ordered a beer. "Forgot to ask off work."
At that moment, a score of Liverpool supporters barged in and the pub turned into a massive (singing) conga line of red. Liverpool had just beaten Everton 2-0, with both goals scored by Steven Gerrard.
"More beers, I'm predicting," Xabi noted.
"Oh yeah, I didn't mention it earlier, but I ran into Fernando again," Martin shouted over the boisterous singing.
But Xabi was too busy in between flirting with a few ladies who had showed up and an enthusiastic post-game talk with other customers.
"And by 'ran into', you mean staked a claim on the library until he showed up, right?" Xabi finally shouted back, making his way over.
"And by 'see Liverpool play', you mean stalk Steven Gerrard after the game, right?"
"You're so not funny. So when's the first date, or for you, first fuck? Or has one of those already happened?"
"Never. He's too socially awkward and I'm too impatient. I don't know how we'd ever hold a conversation."
"And by 'conversation', you mean-"
"Oh fuck off, Xabi."
"Well, you two do seem like a mismatch, but it could have at least been entertaining. Besides, Fernando needs a boost in his social life."
"Xabi!" a voice rang out.
"Pepe!"
A bald man managed to squeeze himself in next to Martin.
"Brilliant game, eh!" Pepe said gleefully. "After the first twenty minutes anyway. Ten minutes in and I thought we were cooked."
"Oh I know! How's the restaurant coming along?"
"Good, good," Pepe said animatedly. "Made some changes to the menu because people complained we weren't vegetarian-friendly."
"Wait, but you make sandwiches. Why don't they just ask for the sandwich without meat?" Xabi asked.
"That's what I thought! But hey, that's what 'The Vegetarian' is, except now they don't even have to ask."
"Makes it sound like they're ordering vegetarians to eat, though," Martin interjected.
"Hm, you're right. I should probably change that before they complain about us being too cannibal-friendly. Hey, I've never seen you around. You should drop by sometime!"
"Pepe, get your ass over here!" someone yelled.
"Have to run," Pepe said hurriedly. "Nice meeting you-"
"Martin."
"-Martin!"
Xabi slid a napkin over to Martin and said, "Fernando's number. You are taking him to Pepe's, and you are going to be nice to him. One word from Fernando that you were an asshole, or variation of any sort, and you won't be welcome here."
"Persistent little bitch, you are," Martin grumbled.
Xabi merely blew a kiss.
Meanwhile, Fernando was at home furiously scribbling away in his notebook. If there was one thing he knew he was good at, it was making lists.
REASONS WHY I WOULDN'T HAVE LIKED HIM ANYWAY
1. We don't know each other.
2. His hair is too short.
3. He was reading a book about Victoria Beckham.
4. He was only leading me on.
5. He's actually straight.
6. And only wants to experiment.
7. I don't like his shoes.
8. He looks angry all the time.
9. If I piss him off, he might kick my ass.
10. Then eat me alive.
11. Before spitting me back out and burying me.
12. They'll never find my body.
13. My mother would cry herself to sleep every night.
14. Sergio might confess his love for me tonight.
15. In which case I will need to take the first flight back to Spain.
Then Fernando realized a cons-list was nothing without a pros-list, and grudgingly wrote on the other page.
REASONS WHY I WOULD HAVE LIKED HIM
1. He's hot.
2. And has nice tattoos.
3. On his shapely arms.
4. That accompany his rather fit body.
5. He's friends with Xabi, who isn't stupid.
6. He's exotic.
7. I've never been to Slovakia.
8. His eyes.
9. His lips.
10. Maybe even his nose.
11. The way his shirt looks on his body.
12. The way I imagine his shirt would look off his body.
13. He could kick other people's asses for me.
14. Sergio will never confess his love for me.
15. In which case I will need to get over him.
16. For real this time.
Fernando glared down at his own list. Somehow he ended up with sixteen pros and only fifteen cons. For sake of symmetry, he crossed out 'I've never been to Slovakia'. But now the arguments were dead even. He tore out the 'Reasons Why I Would Have Liked Him' page and tossed it in the recycling bin. There was no point having that page because he wouldn't have liked him anyway. He wouldn't have, he insisted to himself firmly.
A beeping alerted him someone had sent him a text message. Fernando flipped his phone open, expecting a reply from Sergio involving the words 'I miss you' (hopefully, thought Fernando) or a sentimental message from his mother reminding him how much she loved him (an ill-disguised plea to come back home).
fernando its martin. u free around noon tomorrow?
Fernando replied:
How did you get my number?
xabi, that minx
He should have known. Xabi was the one who gave Daniel Agger Fernando's number back in the days when Daniel wanted to sleep with him. Fernando spent the next ten minutes debating on how to reply. And then waited five more minutes so he didn't seem desperate.
He replied with:
Yes
He thought short and simple would come off as coolly unaffected and only marginally interested. The phone rang and when he saw the number, Fernando waited until the third ring to pick up.
"Hello?" Fernando asked evenly as if he didn't know who it was. As if his heart wasn't quickening at the possibility that might come next.
"Good," Martin said, skipping any form of greeting. "Because I am picking you up tomorrow at 11:45 for lunch, whether you like it or not. Pepe's Deli sound good to you?"
"Um-"
"Good, I thought so too. Goodnight."
Fernando heard the phone call end and stared at his cell phone with disbelief, thoughts and questions zinging their way across his mind. Did he just get asked out on a lunch date? A real date or one of those not-really dates? And by a stranger, none-the-less. And how did he lose ten years and go from being twenty-four to fourteen in so short a time? Wait, did Martin know where he lived?
As if on cue, his phone rang again.
Fernando allowed himself to flop back down on his bed and sigh contentedly before answering the phone. It had been a while since he had felt like things were finally going his way.
i. The real Martin Škrtel played for F.C. Zenit St. Petersburg for four years before joining Liverpool.
ii. Ania is the nickname of Aleksandr Anyukov, a current Zenit defender who also played alongside Škrtel.
iii. Real-life Škrtel may or may not have a sister.
author's note: Thanks again to Greenie for the read-over and to everyone who commented on the previous part. (f you see any mistakes, feel free to point them out.