gravitational pull
title gravitational pull
rating pg. pg-13 at most.
pairing fernando torres/sergio ramos
summary in which raul is wise, sergio is practical, and fernando has a few epiphanies.
word count 2,015
note because james dean and sal mineo are adorable. JAJAJAJAJA. um. inspired in part by the argentine national team and their fantastic training sessions. i don't have the gif saved but you all should know what i'm talking about when you get to the point in the fic. also basically this is a spin off of one of my earlier fics, going home is not the same as coming back (victory and defeat) which is basically gen!fic about sergio's experiences with the national team. my original intent with this was to do a fernando version of it, but the sernando just snuck in there, and who was i to say no? h, and raul in this? it should be obvious that i watch way too much supernatural. it just sort of happened. i'll shut up and let you read now.
---
Oddly enough, the first time Fernando steps onto the pitch wearing the Spain jersey is ten times more terrifying than the first time he steps into the Calderon wearing the captain’s armband.
He doesn’t think he’ll ever know why, but maybe it’s because the roar of the crowd- it’s the entire country. It’s not just the families he used to be in the stands with, cheering with, crying with. It’s them and supporters of all the teams he battles against now, and so many other people. It’s massive, it’s a wave of just Spain, people holding flags and dancing and girls with painted faces and little kids with oversized jerseys and when it comes time for the national anthem, it’s for all of them, every last one of them.
---
“You aren’t the captain, you know that, right?”
What confuses Fernando is the tone of Raul’s voice. It isn’t accusatory, or angry, or defensive, it’s- it’s kind of sad, and a little bit paternal, almost. Fernando pulls his shirt over his head and glances around the locker room- it’s empty save for the two of them, he and Raul.
“What?”
It’s not the most dignified response, but it’s all he can think of, because he doesn’t know what to make of Raul, sometimes. Raul the man, not Raul the footballer- he knows exactly what to make of Raul the footballer. But Raul the man is different, and confusing, because he has somehow accepted his practical sainthood and tossed it off all in one motion, like an angel shedding its divine grace for something- more real. He’s humble and proud at the same time and Fernando can’t figure him out.
“You don’t have to act here like you do at Atleti,” Raul tells him, his voice soft and mesmerizing.
“I’m not- You don’t have to worry about me trying to take your place or anything,” Fernando says, a little hard, a little defensive.
“That’s not what I’m saying,” Raul reprimands quietly, and Fernando knows that beyond a shadow of a doubt, he is talking to his captain right now. “What I’m saying is that you can just play football here. You should just play football here. Just, you know. Like you’re playing in the streets as a kid.” He pauses to laugh a little. “Just with higher stakes.”
Fernando bites his lip and stares openly at Raul for a moment. “Okay,” he says. Raul stands up.
They leave the locker room together, not two captains, not captain and striker, not even veteran and rookie. They leave the locker room, just two footballers. When the part ways in the parking lot and Raul nods at Fernando over the roof of his car, Fernando knows he won’t ever forget that conversation, even if he still doesn’t really know what to do with it.
---
Fernando is the quiet observer when Sergio joins the national team- they aren’t exactly friends, although neither of them has ever felt the need to take their rivalry beyond the pitch. Fernando doesn’t feel comfortable joking around with the defender just yet, not the way his Madrid teammates do, so he watches. He watches Sergio play, of course, but he also watches the way Sergio holds himself, the way he interacts with the coaches, with Raul. He sees the way Sergio treats Raul with the same almost-reverence that everyone else does, but Sergio also has the hint of something playful in his smile when he talks with the captain.
It’s as if Sergio has unraveled the mystery that is Raul the man, Fernando ponders.
---
A few months later, and Fernando has been drawn into Sergio’s orbit. There’s a physical gravitational pull between them, Fernando feels. He can’t stay away from the defender. He can’t stay quiet around him, he can’t stay inside his shell. He can’t keep the chip on his shoulder when he’s around Sergio.
The pitch is empty save for the two of them, and they’re just kicking a ball around as if it’s a Saturday morning and they’re kids playing in the street outside Fernando’s house. They aren’t, of course- it’s the Bernabeu, just about as far away from the streets as is possible, and yet-
Fernando feels light, like a kid, and he receives a pass from Sergio and starts juggling, popping the ball up off of his knees, and then his chest, his head, once up from his shoulder, back down to his knees. He spins around a few times, showing off a little bit, and is caught off guard when Sergio playfully rams into him and knocks the ball away. They both go sprawling, laughter spilling out of Fernando’s chest, and Sergio makes no move to get up. Fernando doesn’t push him off, instead laying his head back on the grass and watching Sergio’s head rise and fall with his breath.
“Raul was right,” he mumbles before he realizes that Sergio has no idea what he’s talking about.
But Sergio doesn’t ask, just turns over, rolling onto Fernando’s chest in the process, and blinking down at the striker with his big doe eyes, beautiful eyes, Fernando catches himself thinking.
“Raul’s usually right,” Sergio says.
---
Fernando doesn’t know how it happened, he and Sergio. It was just- the early exit from the World Cup, and doing everything at Atleti, and not having Raul to sort him out during call ups anymore and feeling like everything was too much too much too much, and through everything-
Sergio was constant. Sergio and his gravitational pull, like Fernando was his moon and he was a planet. Because every time he was spinning out of control, Fernando went to Sergio’s house, and it didn’t even seem to require an active effort from the Sevillan, he just knew- knew what to do or say to calm Fernando down.
It doesn’t matter, though, that Fernando doesn’t know how it happened, just that it did. They didn’t collide together or anything, it was more like a gradual erosion of all things separate, until more of Fernando’s belongings were at Sergio’s house than were at his own house.
---
When he steps onto the pitch at Anfield for the first time, Fernando has Raul’s words ringing in the back of his mind, right there along with the Kop singing, and so he smiles and rubs his arm absently, half expecting to feel the captains armband and relieved when he doesn’t. He remembers nights in various parks with Sergio, just kicking the ball around, seeing what ridiculous shot he can put in the goal, and it brings a little bubble of happiness to his chest.
He hangs on to that, keeping it there, thinking of it whenever he feels himself reverting back into what he used to be, and-
And it works.
---
It’s one of those out of body moments everyone always talks about, but Fernando never thought they were real, until. Until it’s like he’s watching himself lift the ball up and hop over the keeper like he’s a little kid, trying tricks he saw his idols do on the pitch every weekend. He sees himself jump and he sees himself flick the ball so it soars ahead of him, and he doesn’t come back to himself until he’s landing, stumbling a few steps, picking his head up to see what happened, to see if the ball went in, and-
It does.
Fernando falls to his knees and closes his eyes in sheer ecstasy.
When Sergio joins the pile of happy Spaniards on top of him, Fernando reaches out, pulling him close, and they roll around on the ground with their teammates for a minute.
“Raul really was right,” Sergio says, laughing, his face full of light and youth and beauty, and Fernando has a hard time stopping himself from reaching out and caressing it. There will be time for that later.
So caught up in the moment, it isn’t until they take their starting positions again that Fernando realizes- all those years ago, back in the Bernabeu, messing around after that friendly, Sergio did know what he was talking about.
Fernando makes a mental note to send Raul a really big gift basket (maybe the trophy they’ve just won will do).
---
When Fernando gets hurt, he regresses quickly. It’s as if the years with Sergio never happened, the way he plays now, except that that’s the problem- he can’t play. Not really. Not like he has been. He’s too worried, the fear of more pain and more surgery and less playing time hovering over him like a dark cloud, omnipresent and ominous. He hates it.
Sergio knows, and so on the rare occasion they meet, they don’t do much, just hang around and watch shitty TV shows, and Fernando props his feet up in Sergio’s lap and lets Sergio’s hands breathe warmth into his knees again. When he leaves, he feels a little bit more whole.
But back in England, he cannot summon the bubble of happiness that used to tide him over from visit to visit- it’s as if losing his pace and form, even for a brief time, means losing his will, too.
He goes to Madrid and prays to find it again.
---
“Meet me in the park.”
“No.”
“Just do it, Fernando.”
Before the next protest can get out of Fernando’s mouth, the line’s gone dead, so he gets off of his couch and puts on a pair of track pants and a t-shirt and goes to the park where he and Sergio always used to meet.
“Get in the goal,” Sergio calls. He’s standing at where midfield should be, were there any lines on the pitch that is mostly dirt. Fernando stares at him blankly. “You’re playing keeper tonight, get in the goal already!”
Startled, Fernando does, standing stiffly a few feet behind where, theoretically, the penalty mark is.
“Turn around,” Sergio orders. Fernando huffs.
“How’m I supposed to play keeper if I can’t see the ball?”
“Not the point,” Sergio insists, so Fernando does.
He isn’t sure what he expects, but he’s pretty sure it isn’t Sergio taking a shot from all the way out at midfield. He isn’t expecting a shot from that far out to be on target, so he pitches forward and almost falls over when the ball hits his ass.
“The fuck?” he shouts over to Sergio, who-
Is laughing. The Sevillan’s face is cracked wide open by a huge smile, laughter bubbling from deep in his chest. He bends over, clutching his stomach for a minute, his hair blowing around in the wind, and Fernando stands there with the ball, not entirely sure what to do, so he throws it behind him into the goal and runs full speed towards midfield, leaping at Sergio and taking the defender unawares.
They go sprawling down on the ground, pressed together from shoulder to hip, and Sergio’s laughter dies down slowly but stays in his eyes. Fernando pouts, but it’s more playful than he’s been in months.
“Thought that might get you going,” Sergio says. Fernando can feel his voice rumbling in his chest. He extracts one of his hands from the trap between their bodies and ruffles Sergio’s hair until it’s sticking up in all directions.
He startles when Sergio’s hands snake down his back and palm his ass, not quite spanning it but squeezing anyway, causing him to involuntarily roll his hips.
“And with an ass like this, how could I not?”
This time, it’s Fernando who’s laughing.
---
The next time he comes onto the pitch as Spain’s number nine, he scores.
Jesus gets to him first as he celebrates, but it’s Sergio’s fingers carding through his hair and Sergio’s arms wrapped tight around his shoulders that matter most. When his teammates let him loose, Fernando raises his arms and smiles.
Raul was right, seven years ago, of course he was. But Fernando knows that even though Raul told him what to do-
There’s no way he could’ve done it without Sergio.
rating pg. pg-13 at most.
pairing fernando torres/sergio ramos
summary in which raul is wise, sergio is practical, and fernando has a few epiphanies.
word count 2,015
note because james dean and sal mineo are adorable. JAJAJAJAJA. um. inspired in part by the argentine national team and their fantastic training sessions. i don't have the gif saved but you all should know what i'm talking about when you get to the point in the fic. also basically this is a spin off of one of my earlier fics, going home is not the same as coming back (victory and defeat) which is basically gen!fic about sergio's experiences with the national team. my original intent with this was to do a fernando version of it, but the sernando just snuck in there, and who was i to say no? h, and raul in this? it should be obvious that i watch way too much supernatural. it just sort of happened. i'll shut up and let you read now.
---
Oddly enough, the first time Fernando steps onto the pitch wearing the Spain jersey is ten times more terrifying than the first time he steps into the Calderon wearing the captain’s armband.
He doesn’t think he’ll ever know why, but maybe it’s because the roar of the crowd- it’s the entire country. It’s not just the families he used to be in the stands with, cheering with, crying with. It’s them and supporters of all the teams he battles against now, and so many other people. It’s massive, it’s a wave of just Spain, people holding flags and dancing and girls with painted faces and little kids with oversized jerseys and when it comes time for the national anthem, it’s for all of them, every last one of them.
---
“You aren’t the captain, you know that, right?”
What confuses Fernando is the tone of Raul’s voice. It isn’t accusatory, or angry, or defensive, it’s- it’s kind of sad, and a little bit paternal, almost. Fernando pulls his shirt over his head and glances around the locker room- it’s empty save for the two of them, he and Raul.
“What?”
It’s not the most dignified response, but it’s all he can think of, because he doesn’t know what to make of Raul, sometimes. Raul the man, not Raul the footballer- he knows exactly what to make of Raul the footballer. But Raul the man is different, and confusing, because he has somehow accepted his practical sainthood and tossed it off all in one motion, like an angel shedding its divine grace for something- more real. He’s humble and proud at the same time and Fernando can’t figure him out.
“You don’t have to act here like you do at Atleti,” Raul tells him, his voice soft and mesmerizing.
“I’m not- You don’t have to worry about me trying to take your place or anything,” Fernando says, a little hard, a little defensive.
“That’s not what I’m saying,” Raul reprimands quietly, and Fernando knows that beyond a shadow of a doubt, he is talking to his captain right now. “What I’m saying is that you can just play football here. You should just play football here. Just, you know. Like you’re playing in the streets as a kid.” He pauses to laugh a little. “Just with higher stakes.”
Fernando bites his lip and stares openly at Raul for a moment. “Okay,” he says. Raul stands up.
They leave the locker room together, not two captains, not captain and striker, not even veteran and rookie. They leave the locker room, just two footballers. When the part ways in the parking lot and Raul nods at Fernando over the roof of his car, Fernando knows he won’t ever forget that conversation, even if he still doesn’t really know what to do with it.
---
Fernando is the quiet observer when Sergio joins the national team- they aren’t exactly friends, although neither of them has ever felt the need to take their rivalry beyond the pitch. Fernando doesn’t feel comfortable joking around with the defender just yet, not the way his Madrid teammates do, so he watches. He watches Sergio play, of course, but he also watches the way Sergio holds himself, the way he interacts with the coaches, with Raul. He sees the way Sergio treats Raul with the same almost-reverence that everyone else does, but Sergio also has the hint of something playful in his smile when he talks with the captain.
It’s as if Sergio has unraveled the mystery that is Raul the man, Fernando ponders.
---
A few months later, and Fernando has been drawn into Sergio’s orbit. There’s a physical gravitational pull between them, Fernando feels. He can’t stay away from the defender. He can’t stay quiet around him, he can’t stay inside his shell. He can’t keep the chip on his shoulder when he’s around Sergio.
The pitch is empty save for the two of them, and they’re just kicking a ball around as if it’s a Saturday morning and they’re kids playing in the street outside Fernando’s house. They aren’t, of course- it’s the Bernabeu, just about as far away from the streets as is possible, and yet-
Fernando feels light, like a kid, and he receives a pass from Sergio and starts juggling, popping the ball up off of his knees, and then his chest, his head, once up from his shoulder, back down to his knees. He spins around a few times, showing off a little bit, and is caught off guard when Sergio playfully rams into him and knocks the ball away. They both go sprawling, laughter spilling out of Fernando’s chest, and Sergio makes no move to get up. Fernando doesn’t push him off, instead laying his head back on the grass and watching Sergio’s head rise and fall with his breath.
“Raul was right,” he mumbles before he realizes that Sergio has no idea what he’s talking about.
But Sergio doesn’t ask, just turns over, rolling onto Fernando’s chest in the process, and blinking down at the striker with his big doe eyes, beautiful eyes, Fernando catches himself thinking.
“Raul’s usually right,” Sergio says.
---
Fernando doesn’t know how it happened, he and Sergio. It was just- the early exit from the World Cup, and doing everything at Atleti, and not having Raul to sort him out during call ups anymore and feeling like everything was too much too much too much, and through everything-
Sergio was constant. Sergio and his gravitational pull, like Fernando was his moon and he was a planet. Because every time he was spinning out of control, Fernando went to Sergio’s house, and it didn’t even seem to require an active effort from the Sevillan, he just knew- knew what to do or say to calm Fernando down.
It doesn’t matter, though, that Fernando doesn’t know how it happened, just that it did. They didn’t collide together or anything, it was more like a gradual erosion of all things separate, until more of Fernando’s belongings were at Sergio’s house than were at his own house.
---
When he steps onto the pitch at Anfield for the first time, Fernando has Raul’s words ringing in the back of his mind, right there along with the Kop singing, and so he smiles and rubs his arm absently, half expecting to feel the captains armband and relieved when he doesn’t. He remembers nights in various parks with Sergio, just kicking the ball around, seeing what ridiculous shot he can put in the goal, and it brings a little bubble of happiness to his chest.
He hangs on to that, keeping it there, thinking of it whenever he feels himself reverting back into what he used to be, and-
And it works.
---
It’s one of those out of body moments everyone always talks about, but Fernando never thought they were real, until. Until it’s like he’s watching himself lift the ball up and hop over the keeper like he’s a little kid, trying tricks he saw his idols do on the pitch every weekend. He sees himself jump and he sees himself flick the ball so it soars ahead of him, and he doesn’t come back to himself until he’s landing, stumbling a few steps, picking his head up to see what happened, to see if the ball went in, and-
It does.
Fernando falls to his knees and closes his eyes in sheer ecstasy.
When Sergio joins the pile of happy Spaniards on top of him, Fernando reaches out, pulling him close, and they roll around on the ground with their teammates for a minute.
“Raul really was right,” Sergio says, laughing, his face full of light and youth and beauty, and Fernando has a hard time stopping himself from reaching out and caressing it. There will be time for that later.
So caught up in the moment, it isn’t until they take their starting positions again that Fernando realizes- all those years ago, back in the Bernabeu, messing around after that friendly, Sergio did know what he was talking about.
Fernando makes a mental note to send Raul a really big gift basket (maybe the trophy they’ve just won will do).
---
When Fernando gets hurt, he regresses quickly. It’s as if the years with Sergio never happened, the way he plays now, except that that’s the problem- he can’t play. Not really. Not like he has been. He’s too worried, the fear of more pain and more surgery and less playing time hovering over him like a dark cloud, omnipresent and ominous. He hates it.
Sergio knows, and so on the rare occasion they meet, they don’t do much, just hang around and watch shitty TV shows, and Fernando props his feet up in Sergio’s lap and lets Sergio’s hands breathe warmth into his knees again. When he leaves, he feels a little bit more whole.
But back in England, he cannot summon the bubble of happiness that used to tide him over from visit to visit- it’s as if losing his pace and form, even for a brief time, means losing his will, too.
He goes to Madrid and prays to find it again.
---
“Meet me in the park.”
“No.”
“Just do it, Fernando.”
Before the next protest can get out of Fernando’s mouth, the line’s gone dead, so he gets off of his couch and puts on a pair of track pants and a t-shirt and goes to the park where he and Sergio always used to meet.
“Get in the goal,” Sergio calls. He’s standing at where midfield should be, were there any lines on the pitch that is mostly dirt. Fernando stares at him blankly. “You’re playing keeper tonight, get in the goal already!”
Startled, Fernando does, standing stiffly a few feet behind where, theoretically, the penalty mark is.
“Turn around,” Sergio orders. Fernando huffs.
“How’m I supposed to play keeper if I can’t see the ball?”
“Not the point,” Sergio insists, so Fernando does.
He isn’t sure what he expects, but he’s pretty sure it isn’t Sergio taking a shot from all the way out at midfield. He isn’t expecting a shot from that far out to be on target, so he pitches forward and almost falls over when the ball hits his ass.
“The fuck?” he shouts over to Sergio, who-
Is laughing. The Sevillan’s face is cracked wide open by a huge smile, laughter bubbling from deep in his chest. He bends over, clutching his stomach for a minute, his hair blowing around in the wind, and Fernando stands there with the ball, not entirely sure what to do, so he throws it behind him into the goal and runs full speed towards midfield, leaping at Sergio and taking the defender unawares.
They go sprawling down on the ground, pressed together from shoulder to hip, and Sergio’s laughter dies down slowly but stays in his eyes. Fernando pouts, but it’s more playful than he’s been in months.
“Thought that might get you going,” Sergio says. Fernando can feel his voice rumbling in his chest. He extracts one of his hands from the trap between their bodies and ruffles Sergio’s hair until it’s sticking up in all directions.
He startles when Sergio’s hands snake down his back and palm his ass, not quite spanning it but squeezing anyway, causing him to involuntarily roll his hips.
“And with an ass like this, how could I not?”
This time, it’s Fernando who’s laughing.
---
The next time he comes onto the pitch as Spain’s number nine, he scores.
Jesus gets to him first as he celebrates, but it’s Sergio’s fingers carding through his hair and Sergio’s arms wrapped tight around his shoulders that matter most. When his teammates let him loose, Fernando raises his arms and smiles.
Raul was right, seven years ago, of course he was. But Fernando knows that even though Raul told him what to do-
There’s no way he could’ve done it without Sergio.