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Steven Gerrard/Michael Owen, with Steven Gerrard/Xabi Alonso, and Steven Gerrard/Fernando Torres. For diskarte's prompt of Adele's "Someone Like You."
You'd know, how the time flies
Only yesterday, was the time of our lives
We were born and raised in a summer haze
Bound by the surprise of our glory days
*
It's the summer of 1990 when a ten-year-old boy from Huyton decides he's going to be the captain of Liverpool Football Club someday.
*
Fifteen years later, Stevie's looking around, still dazed, still utterly unbelieving, on a football pitch in Istanbul. Carra pulls him into a hug, and he holds on so tightly, to stop his hands from going damp or shaking (like it's the beginning of something, and not the end). He doesn't let go for a while, and Carra doesn't either.
He's scared. He's so scared, and there are hundreds of thousands of voices echoing in his head, and a camera being shoved into his face, and the scoreboard has been burned into the back of his eyes, possibly forever. And he starts tearing up. From the lights or exhaustion or all of it. All of this.
He feels all alone for one full moment. He feels tiny.
He hugs Rafa after that, maybe because he just needs something to cling onto. For a second. Just one second.
He's worried he's going to come apart completely until he's standing right in front of the Cup.
He leans in, tentatively, gives it the gentlest kiss he can, like he's afraid he'll break it, like he's afraid it (all of this) will break him.
Then he's clutching it in his hands, raising it high, and all of that goes away. It's his. It's real. And he's not alone like he was back in his room making that promise to himself. He's in front of the world. And the world is all his for the taking.
Only he'd never really wanted that part. Someone else did.
*
Back in those days, while Stevie's default answer to questions was, "I just want to play football for this club," Michael's always was, "I want to do great things. I want to be a star."
*
Stevie's imagining him sitting in his living room while Stevie's on top of the world.
He's not sure he means it when he says, "We missed you out there."
He meant it before. He did. Tonight's a different sort of night though.
Michael's laugh is sort of pained. He says, "No, you didn't."
Stevie feels an inexplicable foreboding. Nothing ever lasts, he realises. He knows.
*
Five years later, they're sitting in the relegation zone, and Stevie starts wondering if this is what it feels like to sit back and watch great things happen without you. Around you. In spite of you.
It's the first time in a while he ponders on the phrase Left behind.
He remembers the first time he considered it. He remembers that day perfectly.
*
"You're leaving," he says, softly. It's not a question. He's not supposed to ask questions now. He's captain. Things are starting to look up. He knows it. He knows it with everything he has. New coach, new players. Everything will be great again. It will be just like the old days. We'll bring glory back to Anfield. You and me. Like we said we would. Don't you remember?
Stevie wants to grab him and shake him, look him in the eye and tell him all of these things. And then they would smile at each other like they were teenagers again, giddy with old stories of blood-red victories and visions of the future, their future.
He can't do that though. He can't. Because he's not fifteen anymore. (Sometimes, he looks at Michael, and Michael still looks like a kid, obscured by his own aspirations. He wonders if this is what he'll become, eventually. A lost boy trying to put shattered dreams back together.)
"You knew it would happen, eventually."
"That was before," Stevie starts, because he's not going to just let him go, let this go, like that. He won't tell him to stay, but he won't let him break his heart either.
"I still love you," he says. He sounds tired.
"But you don't believe in me. You don't believe in us."
There's this moment when he swears Michael is going to say something else. Maybe it would be, "It's just a football club," or, "There are other things, beyond the horizon of this place and this thing we shut ourselves into," or, "I'll miss you."
"I don't want you to hate me," is what comes out.
Stevie turns away before he can say anything else.
*
He wasn't ever going to leave, regardless of the vitriol that would be spewed for years to come.
He was just scared, for a moment. Again.
Scared that he wasn't allowed to have this. That it wasn't his. That it would slip through his fingers the way Michael did, and Danny did.
He signs the contract. His hands are steady.
*
It's kind of unnerving, how much Xabi's gaze seems to pick up. It's like he sees everything under the surface, the person Stevie's been doing everything in his power to hide.
He says, "You're trying too hard, Steven."
"Is that a bad thing?"
"No, but you don't have to."
He looks at Stevie like he's working something out. Like he's figuring out who he's trying to prove himself to.
Stevie starts wondering that too.
*
Michael looks older, in black and white stripes. He registers that it's only been a year and a couple of months. But it's been a lifetime, too.
Michael smiles at him in the tunnel. He looks broken. It's all broken now.
Stevie, Stevie can't let it be like that. He can't.
He pushes himself past it.
*
(There's this time, in the locker room, he's so close to Xabi he can count his eyelashes.
And he whispers, all breath and heavy accent, "There's something missing inside you," before Stevie slams him against the metal, hands roaming everywhere, desperate, desperate and longing. He lets one strangled sob escape, and then he's quiet again, their heavy breathing the only sound in the empty room.
He doesn't taste like Michael, but afterwards, he can close his eyes and pretend and think about him, think about his pale skin stark against the red shirt Stevie was slowly working off him, when he comes.)
*
Cardiff feels like a natural end to their season. Stevie starts feeling like he's fitting into the name on his back.
*
Athens is less of a disaster and more of an experience.
This is what growing up feels like sometimes: a sharp, powerful blow that would have knocked you down for good before.
Picking yourself up afterwards.
*
(They're fifteen, on Michael's bed, and he makes the first move. Like he often would. And Stevie just reacts, instinctively, and they move together in the dark like they would on the football pitch.
It's drunken and rushed and messy (it's the first time for either of them - this is something Stevie will struggle to forget), and they won't talk about it for a long time.
Stevie remembers wanting to kiss him before his first team debut though. It's a strange thought at the time.)
*
There's another drunken night, after they win the UEFA Cup, and Michael will pin Stevie to a hotel room bed, kissing him all over and telling him how much he wants him.
It only takes a minute before Stevie decides he can't fight it anymore.
He feels like he's been taken apart piece by piece, and there are bite marks all over his neck, and scratches down his side. He'll lie facing away from him for a while, quiet, touching his fingers to an angry red mark on his collarbone.
When Michael says, "I love you," he doesn't need to say it back.
The next morning, Michael's still sitting on his bed and he says, "Wait," when Stevie's by the door. Stevie drops his bag, comes back over to him. He kisses him chastely, fingers running over his jaw, and it's like a promise that he won't forget about it this time.
*
He remembers his last words before he left.
Stevie still doesn't. He doesn't hate him. He doesn't hate his Michael, who sneaked onto coaches with him, and let him win at videogames sometimes when he was down. He kind of hates the person he's become though.
He kind of hates himself for letting him go in the first place.
*
(Fernando feels exposed and vulnerable under his hands. He's not as enthusiastic as Michael used to be, not as self-possessed as Xabi is; he just responds, quietly and unquestioningly. Stevie feels like he has the upper hand most of the time, and it's slightly frightening. He isn't sure he should be allowed to have this. He doesn't like feeling like that again, but he can't stop either.
He washes his scent off his skin after and tells himself to not feel bad about this. To not feel anything. To just let it be.
Xabi's look the next morning is not one of accusation or anger but pity. It's not surprising.)
*
It's 2011, and a new start all over again (but another trophy now out of reach), and Stevie's sitting in a car in Manchester. Michael rests his hand over Stevie's, gentle but firm, and it's the first time in so long, the first time in years, that he's touched him like that.
They just stay like that for a while.
Stevie says, "I can't," at the same time Michael says, "I never wanted-"
Stevie feels his muscles tense before he pulls away.
*
"I fucked up," he says, slightly muffled, into the phone.
He's not sure if he's talking about falling in love with his best friend when he was thirteen, or not listening to Xabi when he had the chance, or not seeing any of the fucking signs. Again.
Gratty doesn't say anything, but he just listens to him breathing on the other end, letting him know he's there. It's comforting.
*
Fernando kisses his cheek before he goes, says, "I didn't deserve you," and, "I'm sorry."
He wonders if that's been the problem all along. If he's been the problem.
He's the one constant in all the equations, after all. The constant.
*
Michael sighs into the phone, says, "You make bad decisions sometimes. But when it counts, you make the right ones."
"Most of the time, that's enough. But sometimes it's not. Sometimes I miss you so much, I feel like I'm going out of my head." He lets out a shaky laugh, can imagine Michael's sad smile.
"I loved you. But not as much as you loved them. You know that. I'll see you at Anfield, Stevie."
"Yeah. I'll see you."
Michael says one last thing though.
"You'll be fine. You always are."
And even if the opposite isn't always true, Stevie's always believed him.
Steven Gerrard/Michael Owen, with Steven Gerrard/Xabi Alonso, and Steven Gerrard/Fernando Torres. For diskarte's prompt of Adele's "Someone Like You."
You'd know, how the time flies
Only yesterday, was the time of our lives
We were born and raised in a summer haze
Bound by the surprise of our glory days
*
It's the summer of 1990 when a ten-year-old boy from Huyton decides he's going to be the captain of Liverpool Football Club someday.
*
Fifteen years later, Stevie's looking around, still dazed, still utterly unbelieving, on a football pitch in Istanbul. Carra pulls him into a hug, and he holds on so tightly, to stop his hands from going damp or shaking (like it's the beginning of something, and not the end). He doesn't let go for a while, and Carra doesn't either.
He's scared. He's so scared, and there are hundreds of thousands of voices echoing in his head, and a camera being shoved into his face, and the scoreboard has been burned into the back of his eyes, possibly forever. And he starts tearing up. From the lights or exhaustion or all of it. All of this.
He feels all alone for one full moment. He feels tiny.
He hugs Rafa after that, maybe because he just needs something to cling onto. For a second. Just one second.
He's worried he's going to come apart completely until he's standing right in front of the Cup.
He leans in, tentatively, gives it the gentlest kiss he can, like he's afraid he'll break it, like he's afraid it (all of this) will break him.
Then he's clutching it in his hands, raising it high, and all of that goes away. It's his. It's real. And he's not alone like he was back in his room making that promise to himself. He's in front of the world. And the world is all his for the taking.
Only he'd never really wanted that part. Someone else did.
*
Back in those days, while Stevie's default answer to questions was, "I just want to play football for this club," Michael's always was, "I want to do great things. I want to be a star."
*
Stevie's imagining him sitting in his living room while Stevie's on top of the world.
He's not sure he means it when he says, "We missed you out there."
He meant it before. He did. Tonight's a different sort of night though.
Michael's laugh is sort of pained. He says, "No, you didn't."
Stevie feels an inexplicable foreboding. Nothing ever lasts, he realises. He knows.
*
Five years later, they're sitting in the relegation zone, and Stevie starts wondering if this is what it feels like to sit back and watch great things happen without you. Around you. In spite of you.
It's the first time in a while he ponders on the phrase Left behind.
He remembers the first time he considered it. He remembers that day perfectly.
*
"You're leaving," he says, softly. It's not a question. He's not supposed to ask questions now. He's captain. Things are starting to look up. He knows it. He knows it with everything he has. New coach, new players. Everything will be great again. It will be just like the old days. We'll bring glory back to Anfield. You and me. Like we said we would. Don't you remember?
Stevie wants to grab him and shake him, look him in the eye and tell him all of these things. And then they would smile at each other like they were teenagers again, giddy with old stories of blood-red victories and visions of the future, their future.
He can't do that though. He can't. Because he's not fifteen anymore. (Sometimes, he looks at Michael, and Michael still looks like a kid, obscured by his own aspirations. He wonders if this is what he'll become, eventually. A lost boy trying to put shattered dreams back together.)
"You knew it would happen, eventually."
"That was before," Stevie starts, because he's not going to just let him go, let this go, like that. He won't tell him to stay, but he won't let him break his heart either.
"I still love you," he says. He sounds tired.
"But you don't believe in me. You don't believe in us."
There's this moment when he swears Michael is going to say something else. Maybe it would be, "It's just a football club," or, "There are other things, beyond the horizon of this place and this thing we shut ourselves into," or, "I'll miss you."
"I don't want you to hate me," is what comes out.
Stevie turns away before he can say anything else.
*
He wasn't ever going to leave, regardless of the vitriol that would be spewed for years to come.
He was just scared, for a moment. Again.
Scared that he wasn't allowed to have this. That it wasn't his. That it would slip through his fingers the way Michael did, and Danny did.
He signs the contract. His hands are steady.
*
It's kind of unnerving, how much Xabi's gaze seems to pick up. It's like he sees everything under the surface, the person Stevie's been doing everything in his power to hide.
He says, "You're trying too hard, Steven."
"Is that a bad thing?"
"No, but you don't have to."
He looks at Stevie like he's working something out. Like he's figuring out who he's trying to prove himself to.
Stevie starts wondering that too.
*
Michael looks older, in black and white stripes. He registers that it's only been a year and a couple of months. But it's been a lifetime, too.
Michael smiles at him in the tunnel. He looks broken. It's all broken now.
Stevie, Stevie can't let it be like that. He can't.
He pushes himself past it.
*
(There's this time, in the locker room, he's so close to Xabi he can count his eyelashes.
And he whispers, all breath and heavy accent, "There's something missing inside you," before Stevie slams him against the metal, hands roaming everywhere, desperate, desperate and longing. He lets one strangled sob escape, and then he's quiet again, their heavy breathing the only sound in the empty room.
He doesn't taste like Michael, but afterwards, he can close his eyes and pretend and think about him, think about his pale skin stark against the red shirt Stevie was slowly working off him, when he comes.)
*
Cardiff feels like a natural end to their season. Stevie starts feeling like he's fitting into the name on his back.
*
Athens is less of a disaster and more of an experience.
This is what growing up feels like sometimes: a sharp, powerful blow that would have knocked you down for good before.
Picking yourself up afterwards.
*
(They're fifteen, on Michael's bed, and he makes the first move. Like he often would. And Stevie just reacts, instinctively, and they move together in the dark like they would on the football pitch.
It's drunken and rushed and messy (it's the first time for either of them - this is something Stevie will struggle to forget), and they won't talk about it for a long time.
Stevie remembers wanting to kiss him before his first team debut though. It's a strange thought at the time.)
*
There's another drunken night, after they win the UEFA Cup, and Michael will pin Stevie to a hotel room bed, kissing him all over and telling him how much he wants him.
It only takes a minute before Stevie decides he can't fight it anymore.
He feels like he's been taken apart piece by piece, and there are bite marks all over his neck, and scratches down his side. He'll lie facing away from him for a while, quiet, touching his fingers to an angry red mark on his collarbone.
When Michael says, "I love you," he doesn't need to say it back.
The next morning, Michael's still sitting on his bed and he says, "Wait," when Stevie's by the door. Stevie drops his bag, comes back over to him. He kisses him chastely, fingers running over his jaw, and it's like a promise that he won't forget about it this time.
*
He remembers his last words before he left.
Stevie still doesn't. He doesn't hate him. He doesn't hate his Michael, who sneaked onto coaches with him, and let him win at videogames sometimes when he was down. He kind of hates the person he's become though.
He kind of hates himself for letting him go in the first place.
*
(Fernando feels exposed and vulnerable under his hands. He's not as enthusiastic as Michael used to be, not as self-possessed as Xabi is; he just responds, quietly and unquestioningly. Stevie feels like he has the upper hand most of the time, and it's slightly frightening. He isn't sure he should be allowed to have this. He doesn't like feeling like that again, but he can't stop either.
He washes his scent off his skin after and tells himself to not feel bad about this. To not feel anything. To just let it be.
Xabi's look the next morning is not one of accusation or anger but pity. It's not surprising.)
*
It's 2011, and a new start all over again (but another trophy now out of reach), and Stevie's sitting in a car in Manchester. Michael rests his hand over Stevie's, gentle but firm, and it's the first time in so long, the first time in years, that he's touched him like that.
They just stay like that for a while.
Stevie says, "I can't," at the same time Michael says, "I never wanted-"
Stevie feels his muscles tense before he pulls away.
*
"I fucked up," he says, slightly muffled, into the phone.
He's not sure if he's talking about falling in love with his best friend when he was thirteen, or not listening to Xabi when he had the chance, or not seeing any of the fucking signs. Again.
Gratty doesn't say anything, but he just listens to him breathing on the other end, letting him know he's there. It's comforting.
*
Fernando kisses his cheek before he goes, says, "I didn't deserve you," and, "I'm sorry."
He wonders if that's been the problem all along. If he's been the problem.
He's the one constant in all the equations, after all. The constant.
*
Michael sighs into the phone, says, "You make bad decisions sometimes. But when it counts, you make the right ones."
"Most of the time, that's enough. But sometimes it's not. Sometimes I miss you so much, I feel like I'm going out of my head." He lets out a shaky laugh, can imagine Michael's sad smile.
"I loved you. But not as much as you loved them. You know that. I'll see you at Anfield, Stevie."
"Yeah. I'll see you."
Michael says one last thing though.
"You'll be fine. You always are."
And even if the opposite isn't always true, Stevie's always believed him.