I *really* should be working...
...but this little fic wouldn't stop bothering me, so I decided to just get it out of my system. New pairing for me, hope you enjoy!!!
Title: Catching Up on a Carousel
Rating: PG-13 to R
Wordcount: 1,559
Pairing: Gianluigi Buffon/Edwin van der Sar, impled Edwin van der Sar/Ruud van Nistelrooy.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Woe.
Summary: Attraction can be a very strange thing. Covers Buffon's transfer to Juventus, World Cup 2002, and Euro 2008.
Note: For thepianopoetand sonnenbluemchen.
The attraction, as strange as it was, was undeniable.
Perhaps it was that they were both ugly, but in their own way strangely magnetic. Perhaps it was the parallel of their hands, encased in grubby gloves - their upright forms at the end of the pitch, watching, fists clenching and unclenching by their sides as they waited to be called upon. Perhaps it was that they both knew that a goalkeeper is always different. Different jersey, different training, different lives.
They had heard of each other, of course. Gianluigi knew a man who had lifted the Champion’s League trophy, a skinny man with windswept hair and a long career in his home country, taken away to a place arguably more prestigious, but foreign. Edwin knew a teenager who had pulled rank, risen rapidly, his still-shifting face plastered on newspapers everywhere, the next Great Italian Hope.
Attraction, wended through black type on bleeding pages and worming its way through the Italian hills. Gianluigi only hoped that if they ever came face to face, the tingle at the back of his brain (the one that made no damn sense, pazzo, he tried to tell himself) would be justified and grow into - something.
* * * * *
He was happy with the transfer fee because he knew he was worth every penny. The Juventus jersey felt like a second skin around his ribs, the shine of the blue bringing out the darkness of his eyes. He was so ecstatic to see his new teammates, many of whom were his heroes - Zidane, Piero, and the rest - that he didn’t realize for a while that the real reason (very very real, but buried so deep and so absurd that he would never even dream of expressing it) for his transfer was nowhere to be found.
“Where’s Van der Sar?” he asked on the third day of training. “I was looking forward to meeting him.”
“Oh, somewhere,” Alessandro said carelessly, flapping his hands about - typical Italian. “I think the boss has him training with the youth team now that you’ve arrived.”
Something in Gianluigi’s stomach twisted, guilt without the burden of blame. Over Piero’s shoulder, he could see Edgar Davids frowning mightily, dark stormclouds practically hovering over the big Dutchman’s dreadlocked head.
“Isn’t that - a bit of a waste?” Buffon said finally, parrying a ball that one of the coaches had sent at him, bouncing it off into the stands.
Alessandro snorted, mocking. “Hardly. The bastard lost us the fucking Serie, didn’t you hear?” He put an arm around Gianluigi’s shoulder, patting his cheek. “You wouldn’t have bobbled that save.”
Gianluigi made the corners of his mouth turn up, but nothing more. Davids stomped off towards the dressing room, bumping Zidane. As the volatile Frenchman whined, Buffon stood and wondered what it was he had done.
* * * * *
In the end, the first time they met was on the street in Torino, far away from the stadium or training grounds. Buffon picked him out through the crowd of tourists, his head clearly visible above the melee of gelato-slurping Americans and Britons because of his height.
Van der Sar saw him coming, and Gianluigi could just make out how his bright blue eyes closed and shuttered as he approached.
“Edwin,” Gianluigi said as they finally came together. “Nice to meet you at last.”
“Buffon.” His voice was polite, but Edwin’s fingers gripped his only once, then dropped his hand without further ceremony.
The tingle sputtered.
* * * * *
There were a few more matches. Buffon walked out onto the pitch as Edwin turned at right angles and sat on the bench, jiggling one of his knees up and down, his hands always stuck under the armpits of his training jacket, which he wore even when it was forty degrees and sweltering. Buffon tried not to look at him too often, but sometimes, when the action was slow and he stood leaning against one of the goalposts, arms crossed against his chest, it was hard not to.
When Edwin eventually snuck away and popped up in England, tanned and finally (for the first time since Buffon had met him, and oh, how he had wished to see it for himself) smiling, Gianluigi was almost glad.
* * * * *
The 2002 World Cup was meant to be his redemption in more ways than one. Making up for that broken hand just before 2000’s Euros, proving himself for the Azzuri. But in the end there was only one redemption that really mattered, as he read match reports over small cups of sake and tried, mostly in vain, to stomach the rawness of sushi.
Something ridiculous, hidden but still sharp when it stabbed through his chest, broke when he saw Van Nistelrooy’s celebrations, grasping Edwin’s head close in front of the eyes of the world. But when, only a few minutes later, the long blue form in the goal stretched victoriously and then leapt up, face set in determination as the Swedish ball bounced harmlessly away - then every tear seemed sewn over and completely healed, better than new.
And he found himself in the Dutch team’s quarters before he knew it late that night, staring frankly into sleepy eyes which widened, then narrowed as they stared at him through the half-open door.
“Fuck off, Buffon.” Edwin’s voice was tired as he stepped away from the door, starting to push it shut.
Gianluigi stuck his foot in the doorjamb, wincing when his toes were raked by the edge of the door. “Look - I came to apologize, you git.”
There was a pause. Then the door swung open again - Buffon wriggled his liberated toes inside his shoe - and Edwin’s long face peered out at him again.
“Apologize. Really.”
“Mm.” Gianluigi put his hands on his hips. “Can I come in?”
“Why?”
“What,” Buffon scoffed, “do you have company? Ruud again, is it?”
Edwin’s eyebrows contracted sharply, but after a moment he opened the door all the way, gesturing inside with one hand while drawing the other across his forehead. “Fine.”
Gianluigi came in slowly, hearing the door click shut behind him as he surveyed the bedroom - double bed, both sides mussed, both pillows tossed across the sheets. Buffon giggled under his breath.
“So. You came to apologize?”
“No,” he said calmly, turning to face Edwin, who was looking at him with a little bit of curiosity and no small amount of hostility. “Not really. It wasn’t my fault, in the end. I didn’t take your job, you lost it.”
He knew he was on dangerous ground, despite the desperate need he had to get this off his heavy chest - the temperature in the small room seemed to have dropped several degrees as he spoke. Edwin’s eyes were icy-blue this time.
Gianluigi swallowed. “You should have blamed the management, you know. That’s all I’m saying.”
Edwin’s hands were on his hips, gripping the bone through his clothes. “Give me one reason why I should care that you’re saying this.”
Gianluigi breathed in.
Edwin made quite an amusing noise when Buffon crossed the distance between them in two strides and grabbed him by the ears, bringing their lips together in a warm, wet kiss. And he couldn’t help but giggle when Edwin’s eyes fluttered closed, his hands crept around Gianluigi’s waist, and Buffon felt that tingle at the back of his brain spread through every nerve in his body - a tingle magnified to the extreme when Edwin was panting below him, hands so like his own digging wildly into his taut back as he thrust back and forth.
Attraction, indeed.
* * * * *
“Sorry about that,” Edwin muttered in Gianluigi’s ear as they hugged after the match, with Ruud jumping about in the distance and Buffon’s palms stinging from the absence of saves, the impact of goals that he should have stopped, three of them.
“It’s all right,” Gianluigi replied, feeling exhaustion settling deep into his muscles as Edwin began to pull away, already looking towards the stands and his celebrating teammates. “No problem.”
He left the pitch, pulling off his gloves and flexing his fingers, trying to work out the sweat, the clamminess. The dressing room was a sobering affair, of players too old and too tired even to be despondent.
Gianluigi stayed in the changing room for a while after the others had left, content to sit with his head tilted back against the lockers, feeling the cold seep into his skin. He was so close to falling asleep, in fact, that he didn’t hear the footsteps, and only started when he heard Edwin’s voice.
“Hey.”
Edwin leaned down over him in his suit, his hair damp, smelling of grass and soap. He always did seem clean at all times.
He tilted his head forward, looking Gianluigi up and down almost in affection, almost shy. His kiss tasted of celebratory champagne.
“I’ll see you, yeah?” he said as he stood back up.
Gianluigi smiled. “Yeah, sure.”
Edwin nodded and drifted back out of the dressing room, wandering backwards for a few steps, his hands in his pockets, then turning and striding down the dark hallway beyond, one hand scratching at the back of his neck.
Gianluigi sighed and stood. The tingle seemed ingrained now.
He wasn’t sure whether to laugh or curse.
FIN