War is Over
David Beckham/Iker Casillas, AU, R. It's not Tahiti or Dubai, but it'll do.
Three days after he’d gotten fucked over, David requested a move as far away from England as possible. There aren’t any openings for chefs de partie in Tahiti or Dubai-
(“For the fifth time: are you fucking serious?” Ryan, his boss, hollered. “Fergie will kill me if I lose you.”
He couldn’t reply because his shift was going to start.
The next day, after work, he was summoned for a drink.
“There was an opening. I made the call.”)
But, a little less exotic and a lot closer to all he wanted to forget, Madrid, would do for now.
Within two days, he had packed up everything he owned in his car.
A week to the day, he drove out of miserable London-
And arrived in an equally grey-not like the postcards (the fog, he told himself, and the fact that it was November)-Madrid.
David alternated from gazing up at an old squat building and back down to the crumpled napkin on which Francesc, one of the posh apprentices from Les Roches back in London, had scrawled messily an address.
(“They’ll take care of you real good here promise.”)
He rang the buzzer and a black-haired head popped out of the window above him, yelling, what David could only assume-from the body language-was, “what the fuck do you want?”
The yeller, Íker, was not rude, just annoyed at having been disturbed from his self-imposed study exile.
Joder, he’d forgotten that he’d agreed to whatever it was Cesc was asking of him so he could go back to his thesis because it was not going well.
He greeted David in grammatically flawless-better than David’s anyway-accented English, and, “I apologise for the mess.”
David was relieved; ‘Una cerveza por favour,’ was pretty much the extent his knowledge of the language.
Íker, a masters’ candidate-
(“Literature. I’m going to be poor for the rest of my life.”)
And Cesc, the trainee chef, had been childhood friends and football teammates before life-and broken metatarsals-led them on their separate ways.
David (according to Íker: “Dá-vid”) walked through the place.
“Your room. Mine. Bathroom. Kitchen. Here’s a map of the city. Buena suerte.”
Then he disappeared behind his door after tossing a keychain in his direction. David didn’t see him for about a week.
David began work.
His colleagues were a colourful crew though he understood very little of anything they said.
He took over as saucier. The last guy “left to be closer to his parents in Romania”, but his commis-a smiley Brazilian named Marcelo-did the universal gesture of snorting something up the nose so David figured the official story was not the entire truth.
The chef de cuisine, Raúl was an intense fellow, some up and comer who spent more time in the office than out of it and looked longingly at the kitchen every time he rushed by.
Raúl’s second in command was the only one who really spoke more than four or five unstrung words of English at a time, a quiet, large, rugged blond everybody called Salgado.
The problem was he spoke very little. “You must learn español,” he said calmly, one dinner service, an island of zen in a sea of chaos.
Good thing their line of work was pretty much universal; hellish conditions, chaos every service shift, loud shouts needing very little translating, coordinated movements practised and memorised long ago, repeated everyday, exquisitely turned out food that needed no explanations.
David was good at his job.
After their shift, the boys would collectively trudge past their fatigue to their favourite hole in the wall cervecería. David tagged along because it wasn’t as if he had anywhere better to be.
He’d sit on the edge, nursing his beer, while they mimed lewd jokes for his benefit and got drunk, and it was fine because he laughed in all the right places.
David liked routines. Here or London or elsewhere, it was source of a comfort to him.
Getting up at ten, going to work at two and making his way home around midnight (after those days, when he was just too tired to even think) or two or three after a few rounds, to the dismay of his co-workers.
(Even mute Salgado-
“Live a little. Your wife isn’t waiting up for you, is she?”)
He used his mornings to purchase cleaning supplies because, as tired as he was, he needed to clean more than sleep.
(The multiple dirty mugs full of leftover coffee in the sink and the overflowing ashtrays thrown unceremoniously across the kitchen counter were the only sign of life from his mysterious roommate.
Íker’s door seemed welded shut.)
The sixth day, he accidentally took the wrong bus home after having maybe one too many and wandered, lost, for two hours.
That was when he began to seriously consider-struggling to get the keys in the door-that maybe he should look into this language learning thing.
Bugger. He’d dropped the damn keys.
He bent down to pick them up, and by the time he got upright again, the door was open and his shirtless roommate was standing in the doorway, hair dishevelled, eyes looking quizzically at him.
Íker stepped aside to so he could stumble on in. “You okay?”
“You’re alive!” David smiled, drunkenly.
He had enough alcohol in him not to colour in embarrassment and collapsed in the living room, watching Íker go back to the kitchen and resume his breakfast (in a bowl that said: 100 años de Real Madrid).
Íker was of course, alive, but not living a substantial life as of late.
He had decided he’d had enough of staring at his computer screen after he walked into his bathroom at around four that morning to take a piss-all that coffee-and saw how pale he was (a particular Bram Stoker character came to mind).
That was the moment his cockney roommate scratched on the door like a lost cat.
“Don’t you people know how to hold your liquor?” He wondered aloud.
David disappeared behind the sofa.
“It’s my day off. It’s fucking frigid out there-you know…the weather’s not like they say it is. I don’t know a damn soul. Don’t speak the language. What would you do?”
Before Íker could say anything, he was already out cold.
When David woke up, there was a cold mug of coffee, and aspirin and a Lonely Planet guide to Madrid on the coffee table next to him.
Íker called Cesc on his way to his grandfather’s in Avila.
“How’s the Englishman?” was the greeting when he picked up.
“He’s not some kind of weird alcoholic is he?”
Laughter went down the line. “We cook for a living. It’s only right we drink on our days off, man.”
Íker overtook a lorry going too fucking slow. “Why did he move here? He showed up with a car full of things and all he can say is, ‘por favor’.”
“Nobody knows. I think someone in the kitchen fucked him over and he’s pretty damn good at his job so the boss got him a transfer to the hotel there.”
“Joder.”
“Yeah. Hang on-”
There was a lot of yelling for awhile in the background and Íker turned off the highway.
“So have you gotten some since the last time I saw you or are you still jerking off over your books?”
“Fuck off.”
The next week Íker was leaning against the kitchen counter eating toast when the bathroom door opened and David emerged, towel-clad.
(For someone who made a living around food, and didn’t know where the nearest gym was, the guy looked like a footballer.)
“A sober day off?”
David nodded, a half-smile on his face, as he disappeared into his room.
Íker had moved on to cereal when he reappeared, clutching the guidebook. “Gracías. For this.”
“De nada.”
David nodded. “You finished your…”
Íker shook his head, “not even close.”
“Oh.”
“Like you, I also need a day off sometimes.”
“True.”
David fixed himself some coffee. He poured some for Íker.
“Do you need a ride?” He asked. Then he shrugged, “Or…I could show you around?”
They bumped into each other as they swapped places.
David looked at him.
“Okay.”
Íker didn’t really know how to be a host, so he pretended to be one of those tour operators on the double-decker buses that rumbled around the city.
David nodded politely.
Una Historia de Madrid y Lingua Español (nivel) as taught by Señor Íker was interesting and all, but he wanted to do some shopping.
It was just that Íker didn’t seem like the type.
They eventually compromised with beer and tapas.
That week, Íker stopped speaking to him in English.
David took to walking around with a pocket dictionary.
A few days later, as Íker was on his way out and David was washing the dishes, when he asked, “how come you chefs don’t cook?”
David understood that, no problem.
On David’s next day off, he borrowed Íker’s car and came back laden with groceries.
He acquainted himself with his own kitchen facilities and later on knocked on Íker’s door.
“Quiero-es- ”
Stop. Try again.
“¿Quieres comer?”
Íker laughed but followed him.
“Your Spanish is better,” he commented over one last glass of red wine. “Now you don’t sound quite so lost.”
David coloured across the table from him, and cleared the dishes while he tried to figure out that last bit.
Five weeks to the day he got a new roommate, Íker was having trouble concentrating.
David was vacuuming the place.
But it wasn’t the noise that was bothered him.
(Íker hopped out of the shower, late for a meeting with his advisor.
David had been watching the news but he’d given up when Íker trailed wet footprints on the carpet. “You call yourself Spanish.”
“Why?”
“Aren’t you all supposed to be tan and suave?”
“One out of two isn’t bad, surely?”)
One afternoon, David had looked through his books.
“Mate, are you that interested in the sex life of dead gay writers?”
Íker scowled and kicked him out.
Bernard Shaw. Bernard Shaw, what?
His mind was blank.
Well, it was almost Christmas-
Joder. The presents.
Now he definitely needed another cigarette.
On his next day off, David volunteered to help him do his Christmas shopping.
Íker whined the entire way.
(The Christmas music, the crazy crowds, the cold.)
David just smiled and turned up the tape he popped into the deck.
“And so happy Christmas…”
Íker considered driving them off the road.
Ruffling through football jerseys in El Corte Ingles, Íker asked if he was going home for Christmas.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I work New Year’s. It’s the busiest night of the year.”
“That sucks.”
“Not really.”
In the posh kitchen store David had been itching to go to, he patiently explained each implement Íker randomly brandished in his direction or in the air.
(“No. En español.”
“No lo sé en español.”
“Fine.”
Then, a few minutes later, “and this?!”
“You’ll hurt someone if you keep doing that.”)
Then when the Spaniard’s jaw locked shut in frustration, he chose something (a Kitchen-Aid mixer) for Íker’s mother.
It was cold as fuck in Madrid that day.
In honour of having braved the city and the shopping, they decided to get very drunk.
One minute they were staring at the television, watching Real Madrid wallop Sevilla, and the next-
They were kissing.
Not…softly-his hand was tangled in Íker’s hair and-
There was kissing-biting-tongues thrusting-
Grinding.
David wasn’t quite sure how it all started.
All Íker knew was that he was pressed against sofa and David’s tongue was doing amazing things in his mouth-to his nipple-that spot beneath his collarbone-
A callused hand had made its way in his jeans, hot, and him, waiting-
He can’t breathe.
Thrusting into David’s fist-
(“Yeah-Like that?”
“That-yeah, that-Ah, espera-”)
And there was the tugging of shirts and kicking of jeans aside-
Íker with a fistful of David’s cock, a finger-then two-buried inside him-brushing past his prostate-
He’d never been more turned on.
Needing friction David rubbed his erection against the sofa-
Íker’s fist closed around him.
His mouth bit the armrest.
David’s back, arched, black ink and tan.
(“Joder.”)
David moaned, and for the first time ever Íker couldn’t understand a word of English.
He spilled himself all over their hands-
Seeing the white against the leather, Íker-thrusting hard, lip bleeding-came inside him.
It’s strange when they both wake up the next day.
Sticky, awkward-
(Íker, flustered, jumps up.
David follows him into the shower.)
But, it was okay.
The next week, in the early morning, David gave Íker a hand with his luggage.
Someone had hung mistletoe in the foyer.
The brief kiss led to Íker’s handjob right in the lobby.
David had just settled in with his papers and the coffee when he heard the keys in the door.
“You can’t spend Christmas alone.”
An hour later they were both in the car, the coffee in a thermos and the papers in his lap, and on the highway.
(“But no Christmas carols.”)
Their second night in the mayor’s house, it snowed.
The entire clan-stately grandfather included-spent the afternoon of the next day locked in an intense snowball fight.
David cornered Íker against the wall.
The snowball melted on contact.
Someone laughed in the background.
Íker slipped into his bed at midnight.
“Should we?”
A Spanish shrug. “¿Y porque no? Tengo fría.”
David fucked Íker hard into the bed frame.
The pillows muffled their cries.
And the mirrors misted up.
(Afterward, “Oh-
Feliz navidad.”)
Note:
For the 2007 fbslashsanta.
Three days after he’d gotten fucked over, David requested a move as far away from England as possible. There aren’t any openings for chefs de partie in Tahiti or Dubai-
(“For the fifth time: are you fucking serious?” Ryan, his boss, hollered. “Fergie will kill me if I lose you.”
He couldn’t reply because his shift was going to start.
The next day, after work, he was summoned for a drink.
“There was an opening. I made the call.”)
But, a little less exotic and a lot closer to all he wanted to forget, Madrid, would do for now.
Within two days, he had packed up everything he owned in his car.
A week to the day, he drove out of miserable London-
And arrived in an equally grey-not like the postcards (the fog, he told himself, and the fact that it was November)-Madrid.
David alternated from gazing up at an old squat building and back down to the crumpled napkin on which Francesc, one of the posh apprentices from Les Roches back in London, had scrawled messily an address.
(“They’ll take care of you real good here promise.”)
He rang the buzzer and a black-haired head popped out of the window above him, yelling, what David could only assume-from the body language-was, “what the fuck do you want?”
The yeller, Íker, was not rude, just annoyed at having been disturbed from his self-imposed study exile.
Joder, he’d forgotten that he’d agreed to whatever it was Cesc was asking of him so he could go back to his thesis because it was not going well.
He greeted David in grammatically flawless-better than David’s anyway-accented English, and, “I apologise for the mess.”
David was relieved; ‘Una cerveza por favour,’ was pretty much the extent his knowledge of the language.
Íker, a masters’ candidate-
(“Literature. I’m going to be poor for the rest of my life.”)
And Cesc, the trainee chef, had been childhood friends and football teammates before life-and broken metatarsals-led them on their separate ways.
David (according to Íker: “Dá-vid”) walked through the place.
“Your room. Mine. Bathroom. Kitchen. Here’s a map of the city. Buena suerte.”
Then he disappeared behind his door after tossing a keychain in his direction. David didn’t see him for about a week.
David began work.
His colleagues were a colourful crew though he understood very little of anything they said.
He took over as saucier. The last guy “left to be closer to his parents in Romania”, but his commis-a smiley Brazilian named Marcelo-did the universal gesture of snorting something up the nose so David figured the official story was not the entire truth.
The chef de cuisine, Raúl was an intense fellow, some up and comer who spent more time in the office than out of it and looked longingly at the kitchen every time he rushed by.
Raúl’s second in command was the only one who really spoke more than four or five unstrung words of English at a time, a quiet, large, rugged blond everybody called Salgado.
The problem was he spoke very little. “You must learn español,” he said calmly, one dinner service, an island of zen in a sea of chaos.
Good thing their line of work was pretty much universal; hellish conditions, chaos every service shift, loud shouts needing very little translating, coordinated movements practised and memorised long ago, repeated everyday, exquisitely turned out food that needed no explanations.
David was good at his job.
After their shift, the boys would collectively trudge past their fatigue to their favourite hole in the wall cervecería. David tagged along because it wasn’t as if he had anywhere better to be.
He’d sit on the edge, nursing his beer, while they mimed lewd jokes for his benefit and got drunk, and it was fine because he laughed in all the right places.
David liked routines. Here or London or elsewhere, it was source of a comfort to him.
Getting up at ten, going to work at two and making his way home around midnight (after those days, when he was just too tired to even think) or two or three after a few rounds, to the dismay of his co-workers.
(Even mute Salgado-
“Live a little. Your wife isn’t waiting up for you, is she?”)
He used his mornings to purchase cleaning supplies because, as tired as he was, he needed to clean more than sleep.
(The multiple dirty mugs full of leftover coffee in the sink and the overflowing ashtrays thrown unceremoniously across the kitchen counter were the only sign of life from his mysterious roommate.
Íker’s door seemed welded shut.)
The sixth day, he accidentally took the wrong bus home after having maybe one too many and wandered, lost, for two hours.
That was when he began to seriously consider-struggling to get the keys in the door-that maybe he should look into this language learning thing.
Bugger. He’d dropped the damn keys.
He bent down to pick them up, and by the time he got upright again, the door was open and his shirtless roommate was standing in the doorway, hair dishevelled, eyes looking quizzically at him.
Íker stepped aside to so he could stumble on in. “You okay?”
“You’re alive!” David smiled, drunkenly.
He had enough alcohol in him not to colour in embarrassment and collapsed in the living room, watching Íker go back to the kitchen and resume his breakfast (in a bowl that said: 100 años de Real Madrid).
Íker was of course, alive, but not living a substantial life as of late.
He had decided he’d had enough of staring at his computer screen after he walked into his bathroom at around four that morning to take a piss-all that coffee-and saw how pale he was (a particular Bram Stoker character came to mind).
That was the moment his cockney roommate scratched on the door like a lost cat.
“Don’t you people know how to hold your liquor?” He wondered aloud.
David disappeared behind the sofa.
“It’s my day off. It’s fucking frigid out there-you know…the weather’s not like they say it is. I don’t know a damn soul. Don’t speak the language. What would you do?”
Before Íker could say anything, he was already out cold.
When David woke up, there was a cold mug of coffee, and aspirin and a Lonely Planet guide to Madrid on the coffee table next to him.
Íker called Cesc on his way to his grandfather’s in Avila.
“How’s the Englishman?” was the greeting when he picked up.
“He’s not some kind of weird alcoholic is he?”
Laughter went down the line. “We cook for a living. It’s only right we drink on our days off, man.”
Íker overtook a lorry going too fucking slow. “Why did he move here? He showed up with a car full of things and all he can say is, ‘por favor’.”
“Nobody knows. I think someone in the kitchen fucked him over and he’s pretty damn good at his job so the boss got him a transfer to the hotel there.”
“Joder.”
“Yeah. Hang on-”
There was a lot of yelling for awhile in the background and Íker turned off the highway.
“So have you gotten some since the last time I saw you or are you still jerking off over your books?”
“Fuck off.”
The next week Íker was leaning against the kitchen counter eating toast when the bathroom door opened and David emerged, towel-clad.
(For someone who made a living around food, and didn’t know where the nearest gym was, the guy looked like a footballer.)
“A sober day off?”
David nodded, a half-smile on his face, as he disappeared into his room.
Íker had moved on to cereal when he reappeared, clutching the guidebook. “Gracías. For this.”
“De nada.”
David nodded. “You finished your…”
Íker shook his head, “not even close.”
“Oh.”
“Like you, I also need a day off sometimes.”
“True.”
David fixed himself some coffee. He poured some for Íker.
“Do you need a ride?” He asked. Then he shrugged, “Or…I could show you around?”
They bumped into each other as they swapped places.
David looked at him.
“Okay.”
Íker didn’t really know how to be a host, so he pretended to be one of those tour operators on the double-decker buses that rumbled around the city.
David nodded politely.
Una Historia de Madrid y Lingua Español (nivel) as taught by Señor Íker was interesting and all, but he wanted to do some shopping.
It was just that Íker didn’t seem like the type.
They eventually compromised with beer and tapas.
That week, Íker stopped speaking to him in English.
David took to walking around with a pocket dictionary.
A few days later, as Íker was on his way out and David was washing the dishes, when he asked, “how come you chefs don’t cook?”
David understood that, no problem.
On David’s next day off, he borrowed Íker’s car and came back laden with groceries.
He acquainted himself with his own kitchen facilities and later on knocked on Íker’s door.
“Quiero-es- ”
Stop. Try again.
“¿Quieres comer?”
Íker laughed but followed him.
“Your Spanish is better,” he commented over one last glass of red wine. “Now you don’t sound quite so lost.”
David coloured across the table from him, and cleared the dishes while he tried to figure out that last bit.
Five weeks to the day he got a new roommate, Íker was having trouble concentrating.
David was vacuuming the place.
But it wasn’t the noise that was bothered him.
(Íker hopped out of the shower, late for a meeting with his advisor.
David had been watching the news but he’d given up when Íker trailed wet footprints on the carpet. “You call yourself Spanish.”
“Why?”
“Aren’t you all supposed to be tan and suave?”
“One out of two isn’t bad, surely?”)
One afternoon, David had looked through his books.
“Mate, are you that interested in the sex life of dead gay writers?”
Íker scowled and kicked him out.
Bernard Shaw. Bernard Shaw, what?
His mind was blank.
Well, it was almost Christmas-
Joder. The presents.
Now he definitely needed another cigarette.
On his next day off, David volunteered to help him do his Christmas shopping.
Íker whined the entire way.
(The Christmas music, the crazy crowds, the cold.)
David just smiled and turned up the tape he popped into the deck.
“And so happy Christmas…”
Íker considered driving them off the road.
Ruffling through football jerseys in El Corte Ingles, Íker asked if he was going home for Christmas.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I work New Year’s. It’s the busiest night of the year.”
“That sucks.”
“Not really.”
In the posh kitchen store David had been itching to go to, he patiently explained each implement Íker randomly brandished in his direction or in the air.
(“No. En español.”
“No lo sé en español.”
“Fine.”
Then, a few minutes later, “and this?!”
“You’ll hurt someone if you keep doing that.”)
Then when the Spaniard’s jaw locked shut in frustration, he chose something (a Kitchen-Aid mixer) for Íker’s mother.
It was cold as fuck in Madrid that day.
In honour of having braved the city and the shopping, they decided to get very drunk.
One minute they were staring at the television, watching Real Madrid wallop Sevilla, and the next-
They were kissing.
Not…softly-his hand was tangled in Íker’s hair and-
There was kissing-biting-tongues thrusting-
Grinding.
David wasn’t quite sure how it all started.
All Íker knew was that he was pressed against sofa and David’s tongue was doing amazing things in his mouth-to his nipple-that spot beneath his collarbone-
A callused hand had made its way in his jeans, hot, and him, waiting-
He can’t breathe.
Thrusting into David’s fist-
(“Yeah-Like that?”
“That-yeah, that-Ah, espera-”)
And there was the tugging of shirts and kicking of jeans aside-
Íker with a fistful of David’s cock, a finger-then two-buried inside him-brushing past his prostate-
He’d never been more turned on.
Needing friction David rubbed his erection against the sofa-
Íker’s fist closed around him.
His mouth bit the armrest.
David’s back, arched, black ink and tan.
(“Joder.”)
David moaned, and for the first time ever Íker couldn’t understand a word of English.
He spilled himself all over their hands-
Seeing the white against the leather, Íker-thrusting hard, lip bleeding-came inside him.
It’s strange when they both wake up the next day.
Sticky, awkward-
(Íker, flustered, jumps up.
David follows him into the shower.)
But, it was okay.
The next week, in the early morning, David gave Íker a hand with his luggage.
Someone had hung mistletoe in the foyer.
The brief kiss led to Íker’s handjob right in the lobby.
David had just settled in with his papers and the coffee when he heard the keys in the door.
“You can’t spend Christmas alone.”
An hour later they were both in the car, the coffee in a thermos and the papers in his lap, and on the highway.
(“But no Christmas carols.”)
Their second night in the mayor’s house, it snowed.
The entire clan-stately grandfather included-spent the afternoon of the next day locked in an intense snowball fight.
David cornered Íker against the wall.
The snowball melted on contact.
Someone laughed in the background.
Íker slipped into his bed at midnight.
“Should we?”
A Spanish shrug. “¿Y porque no? Tengo fría.”
David fucked Íker hard into the bed frame.
The pillows muffled their cries.
And the mirrors misted up.
(Afterward, “Oh-
Feliz navidad.”)
Note:
For the 2007 fbslashsanta.