Title: When the Night Brings You
Pairing: David Luiz/James Rodríguez
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 2,451
Disclaimer Tragically untrue.
Summary: The night Brasil loses to Germany 7-1, there's a knock on David's door.
Notes: Sequel to
And I Find Myself, Lost in You. For titania_torres.
AO3 It’s 1am, and David is folding socks.
He’s learned over the years how to pack efficiently, learned exactly what he needs for a certain amount of days. It’s like a personal math problem, a tailor-made equation. For example, he’d planned on being here in Brasil, with the team, until Monday. After the final. Because of course they were going to the final, right? So he’d brought eight pairs of socks with him. And that might not seem like enough, not for the entire span of a World Cup, but don’t worry, he’s got it down to a science.
He replays the goals one-by-one as he folds, tired hands trembling a little as he matches the socks to their mates, their perfect counterparts, muscle memory taking over as he folds them together like his mama showed him how years ago.
Seven goals.
He realizes with a start that he’s folded seven pairs of socks, the eighth pair on his feet right now. He has as many pairs of socks in front of him as there were goals scored on them today. He stares down at them in their little white, cotton balls in growing horror, each one representing a moment when he failed his team, his country, today.
He feels the ghosted presence of the armband around his bicep, feels it like a brand on his skin. He had captained them into this. He had led his team into this, straight into the darkness, into the plunging, dark depths, and they’d followed him, trusted him.
There are nearly 200 million people in Brasil, and he feels the weight of their pain, feels their tears, nearly drowns in them where he sits on the edge of the hotel bed, socked toes curled like a little boy’s in the thick carpet as he begins to cry.
He’s packing even though he’s not leaving. He’s packing because he doesn’t want to be here anymore. He’s packing even though he will have to unpack in the morning. He’s packing because he feels trapped, caged, kept here in this purgatory of waiting, like he’s been sentenced. He wants to go home, repeats the word in as many languages as he has a passing knowledge of as he meticulously folds each shirt, places each toiletry item into his suitcase.
He realizes somewhere around the middle of his futile packing that there simply isn’t a home right now, nowhere that he belongs. That this summer between seasons was about belonging here, all over Brasil, was about dreams in the shape of a golden trophy, was about a winter at home, bringing glory back to his people. Brasil, once again, was to be home, even just for a little while.
But his flat in London is sold, all of his belongings packed up by strangers into boxes that he’s never touched that are now waiting for him in a new flat in Paris that he’s never seen. And home, tonight, is nowhere.
There’s a knock at the door like a question, like the last knuckle to touch the wood is almost apologizing for doing so.
He lifts his head, tears gathering on his chin and dripping down on his clasped hands. The world falls silent again, waiting for him to respond. His hair is a jungle pulled back in a wide headband, pajama pants soft and hanging off his tired hips. His eyes are red-rimmed and puffy from crying, tears still welling and spilling down his cheeks, like he’s a child and fell off his bike and scraped his knees.
Maybe it’s Thiago. Maybe it’s Marcelo or Oscar wanting to go grab a beer in the bar downstairs, to commiserate. He’s barely spoken to any of them since they got back here, and he’s in no hurry to now.
It’s the question mark in the knock on the door that makes him stand, makes him shuffle across the room to answer.
He wipes his eyes with rough, annoyed fingers, wiping his tears off on his bare chest before he opens the door.
James is there like a vision, like the perfect dream. He’s there in a faded grey t-shirt and dark wash jeans, smelling fresh from the shower and expensive and soft, not a hair out of place, his face drawn in sorrow and sympathetic pain, his eyes so deeply brown and intensely focused on David that David is lost immediately in them, is drawn right in, drowning there so gladly.
They don’t say a word because there isn’t one for this, there isn’t language for pain so widespread, so enveloping. David’s chin trembles and he’s unravelling here in front of his boy, coming apart like he’d been waiting for this, for him, to be allowed to break apart so absolutely.
James steps inside, enters his space, and the room becomes home.
They step in against each other, chests strong with youth and pressing together hard enough for their ribs to dig in, bone against bone, hearts beating against cages for each other.
James’ arms are stronger than David ever thought possible, and he crumples in their grip.
He’d left David on Monday, real life calling, promising he’d be back for the final. Had known for certain David would be playing in it, and that he’d watch from the stands, the secret love of that boy down there on the pitch, winning for his country. They’d gotten close fast, probably too fast, dependent to the point of needing contact every hour or so, just a text, just a voicemail, a Skype session. Their entire lives had changed in a matter of days, wrapped up so tightly around each other.
And now James is here and it’s so much more real now, they’re more real. Like this means something, and they’re both agreeing to it here, now.
He doesn’t ask how David is, doesn’t say he’s sorry, that it was a nightmare, that it’s all he’s been able to think of the entire trip here. He just slips out of his sneakers, socked toes pressing into the carpet as he lifts up onto them to press a kiss to David’s forehead, soft and right between his closed eyes.
“I just,” David starts, his chin trembling as James’ hands cup his cheeks. He pauses, expecting to be interrupted, to be told not to talk about it, to just forget about it, but James doesn’t stop him, just tips David’s face down until they can rest their foreheads together, mouths so close, the air between them smelling like them, the combination of them, already so familiar.
“I’ve just let everybody down. All of Brasil. The whole team. My family. Y-you. The whole world was watching me. They gave me the armband, and I destroyed everything. I ruined everything.” He’s crying again, tears soaking between their faces, David’s breaths fast, gasping, but he keeps talking. “It’s the worst thing I’ve ever done. I’m a disappointment.”
“It was horrible,” James whispers against his lips, the words warm and something like an agreement, and it, strangely, makes David feel better. “But do you really think it was all your fault?”
“I was the captain! I was in charge! Th-they trusted me, they depended on me and--”
“If Thiago had been captain, would you think it was all his fault?”
“No,” David replies in an adamant rush, shaking his head, curls fluttering. He pulls back just enough to meet James’ eyes, comforted beyond all reason by those fingers stroking over his cheeks. The words sink in then, a strange calm settling over him like warmth as they do. “No. I wouldn’t.”
James smiles, small and sweet and his thumb is making a slow circle over the apple of David’s wet cheek.
“I’m not going to tell you to forget it. You’ll never forget it. No matter what else happens. But you have to realize that it was not just you. You weren’t the only one to lose heart. But it happened. And tomorrow you will wake up, and life will go on. Just like it would have if you’d won tonight.”
“I just want to leave.” It’s a confession, his eyes falling closed as he says it. “I just want to go… t-to go…”
Soft lips touch his cheek, the tip of his nose, his chin. Warm palms on his cheeks. And James smells so good, like a refuge. David takes a deep, long breath of him.
“You want to go home?” Lips hovering over his, trembling there. It’s alive again, this thing between them, it’s shivering naked and new and hunger between their mouths.
David just nods, chest tightening at that word, at home. His arms are around James, around his trim little waist, fingers pressing into the very top of the swell of his ass. There is nothing outside of this room. There is no one but this boy. There are no words but the ones from James’ mouth. There are no emotions but the ones that David feels thrumming under his skin as he waits for his kiss.
“Pretend we’re home,” James murmurs, pressing in even closer, the sweet softness of his tummy nudging in against David’s already hard cock. He takes a deep breath, arms tightening around James, hips digging forward as they start to rock together. “Pretend you have me home. Fuck me like you would if we were in your bed.”
David’s kiss to James’ whispering mouth is savage, is eating and sucking and he licks into the heat of it, his fingers uncurling and pressing in and down, sliding right down the back of James’ expensive jeans and underwear to grip his bare ass. James moans into the kiss, arms sliding up around David’s neck as David reaches down and lifts him up off the ground, tugging him up around his body and into his arms.
The walk back to the bed is short and ends with James pressed down into perhaps the most expensive bed in Brasil, with eight pairs of socks falling to the floor in silence. They kiss and rut and shove together, frustrated by clothes, by the ever-present thought of tomorrow and beyond, by the unfairness of how much they feel for each other and how nearly impossible it all is.
“Fuck me like I’m yours,” comes the burning sigh, and David reaches down to start stripping them both, shirts ripped over heads and jeans shoved down and off in dragging impatience. He yanks James’ underwear down and brings his hand down in a stinging slap to the side of tight ass, leaving a massive, rose-tinted handprint in his wake. James jolts against him, teeth sinking into David’s bottom lip as he writhes there, grinds right up against David’s dick, like he’s savoring the burn.
“Gonna leave a mark,” David tells him, his voice low, his left hand shoving down at his own underwear, mind flying to the lube in the drawer next to their heads. “Gonna make you remember even after you leave.”
James is the one who reaches up, shoves the drawer open, gets a hand on the nearly empty bottle of lube. He squeezes some out and reaches down between them to slick himself up, distracted fingers shoving into his own tight ass to fuck himself loose for David. David just watches him, watches his face while he fucks himself open on his fingers and rubs off against his hip.
“Who says I’m leaving?” James has three fingers inside of himself now and he’s staring right up into David’s eyes like he means it, and David can’t help that he reaches down to grip himself in his hand, his cock oozing slick all over James’ belly, can’t help that he forces those long legs wider and nestles his dick right up against those fingers, right up against that sweet hole just for a second before he’s feeding it right up into him.
James screams, honest to God screams, body lifting up off the bed, fingers abandoning their task so he can wrap his arms around David’s neck again, pushing the thick headband away so that David’s curls fall everywhere. David can feel his thighs trembling against his ribs, can feel the quake of his heart all through his insides where his dick is forced, nestled, pulsing.
“Fuck me like you love me,” James whispers right against David’s mouth, tears in his own eyes now, hands rubbing over aching muscles in David’s shoulders, down his tired arms. He lifts his legs, making it even tighter inside of his sweet little body and David braces himself up, his own thighs spreading so he can fuck him good, dick sinking into the pink suck of his asshole and it’s the best fucking thing David has ever, ever felt.
“I do,” he tells him between kisses, between the hot, fast slap of their bodies together. “I do, beautiful boy. My boy.”
He closes his eyes, their lips swollen and spit-slicked and bumping together while they fuck at each other, bodies straining to get even closer even when David gets his dick rooted up inside of him and they’re just grinding, letting James milk him, letting them both feel the way their pulses race together, the rhythm of their bodies like its own language.
David wraps a hand around James’ dick, circles the head and rubs a thumb over the tip to spread out the warm honey drip of him and he jerks him off hard, just like James loves it, frantic and needy and James is gasping, fluttering Spanish spilling from his lips as he starts to come all over his own convulsing stomach, his ass pulling hard at David’s dick, grasping at him desperately.
“Just like that,” James gasps, his dick still pulsing in David’s hand as he starts to fuck him again, racing toward his own orgasm that is building up fast, tightening every muscle in his body, pulling hard at his balls. David lifts up, leans back and grabs James’ hips for balance and just lets go, fucking him harder than he ever has, the sound of skin on skin deafening when he finally starts to unload, creaming James’ ass until he can’t even keep himself upright anymore.
He collapses down on top of him, a heavy, sweaty weight that James accepts gratefully, arms and legs going back around him to hold onto him, to keep him right where he is while they both shake, tremble against each other.
“I don’t want you to leave,” David whispers when he finds his voice, his tears returning without warning.
“I don’t know if you noticed,” James says right against his ear, his voice wrecked, scraped raw but there’s a smile in it. “But I’m yours now.”