Fic: Draw My Heart (and more)
Title: Draw My Heart (and more) - Chapter 1
Pairing: David Villa/Lionel Messi
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 3,325
Disclaimer: Nothing written here is true at all.
Summary: Originally written as a series of drabbles for a prompt at footballkink2, this is a college/university AU where Leo studies art and David is his law-student roommate. I'm tidying it up a little, and hoping to continue with the story.
En el instante en que sabes cuál ha de ser el resultado, estás perdido.
You are lost the instant you know what the result will be.
-- Juan Gris
*
"Oh my god, Villa, go and get your own beer!"
"The fridge is too far away," the Asturian mumbles. He gives Leo a cheeky smile and takes another swig of his roommate's beer.
Leo tears his eyes away from the screen and narrows his eyes at the other man. He grabs the bottle and runs his tongue sloppily along the mouth of the bottle, drooling a little for good measure. "Okay, go ahead."
David examines the bottle, and then shrugs and takes another gulp of beer. "Mmm."
Giving a grunt of defeat Leo turns back to his laptop. David snorts, "What's got you so fixed to that tonight? Are you watching porn or something? You'd tell me if you were watching porn, wouldn't you?"
"I'm not watching porn," Leo says, rolling his eyes. "Why would I watch porn right next to my roommate?"
David eyes the naked girl and dude on the screen, looks back at the spreading smirk on Leo's face. "So what is that, art?"
"Finally, you get it. Yes. I am doing my degree in art, if you remember."
"Porno art," David mutters, taking a long pull from the bottle.
"Hey, you mind?" Leo snaps.
"Do you draw? Or do you just...look. And analyze."
"Yeah, I draw."
"Like nude models and stuff?"
"If I can get them," Leo says seriously. "Otherwise I have myself."
David looks down at Leo. "Egoistical bastard."
"I don't draw genitals," Leo scowls impatiently. "I'm not a genital artist. If that even exists. I draw everything, okay?"
"So you know, cocks included," David points out.
"Do you want me to draw your cock or something?"
Leo regrets the words the moment they leave his mouth and David doesn't hesitate: "Sure, d'you like them hard or soft?"
Leo doesn't say anything for a bit. Then, "I've never tried one hard."
"That's too bad," David grins. "They're best that way."
*
"Lie still!"
Villa glowers at him but stops moving. Shaking his head a little, Leo bows his head again and returns to his work.
The Spaniard inches his hand across his stomach again and Leo heaves a sigh.
"I'm just," Villa protests. "I have an itch. Just a quick scratch. Please."
"I have an itch to murder someone right now," Leo mutters under his breath.
"What?" David blinks at him with wide brown eyes, ungelled hair falling dark across his forehead.
"Nothing," Leo smiles. "Go ahead. Scratch yourself. Whatever."
"It stopped itching now," David says, sulking. "Please just hurry the fuck up, I'm freezing."
"You're always freezing," Leo snorts. "I don't think I've ever met anyone as afraid of the cold as you are."
"Yeah, yeah, don't talk to your muse when you're drawing him."
"You're not my muse, Villa."
David gives him a cocky grin. "Okay," he says. "Sure. You just like to draw me naked. A lot. I'm sure you do that with all of your friends."
Leo doesn't answer that, though his tongue is tripping over itself indignantly, trying to find some response. His pencil skims quickly over the paper and he realises he's captured the expression on David's face, the bright of his eyes and the quirk of his lips, just so, when he smirks.
David is beautiful naked.
Leo blinks.
David is beautiful naked, objectively, he corrects himself.
I don't think he's beautiful naked, he argues.
I mean, I do, but objectively, so, it's not like I, you know.
Leo clears his throat. "Okay, I'm done, you can put your clothes on."
David sits up on his bed and stifles a yawn. Someone knocks on the door and starts to open it, lets out a noise which Leo isn't sure is surprise or disgust and shuts it again.
"Cesc," David snickers. "I think he thinks we're doing it."
"I think he thinks you're an arrogant bastard who walks around naked all the time."
"That too," David agrees. "He has the biggest crush on you, Messi. But then you know that already."
"He's one of my best friends," Leo mutters.
David puts on a pair of boxers and messes his hair up with his hands. "Maybe you can draw him..."
He waits for it:
"...although you might find it very hard."
Leo throws his art eraser at David.
*
"Don't talk to me."
David bites his lip. "Leo, I'm sorry you had to see it, I had no idea you'd come back early."
Leo refuses to look back up at Villa again. There might be something in his roommate's eyes that would convince him he was being overly angry for no reason.
Or rather - for an obvious, obvious reason.
"I know Cesc is one of your best friends..."
"Yeah, yeah," Leo says shortly. "He can make his own decisions. If he wants to have sex with you I don't care, just don't do it in our room."
David hesitates. "If you really don't care, why're you so angry about it?"
"I--" Leo pauses, searching for a mask for his feelings, finds it. "I'm just annoyed you were doing it on my bed. Why the fuck would you do someone on your roommate's bed?"
An idea forms in his head--maybe David had done that because, because what he really wanted to--was to do it with--
"I'm sorry, Cesc just kind of sat down there," David says, cutting in and breaking the hopeful thoughts in Leo's mind. "Then it was kind of hard to move after we started--um."
Villa has the decency to look ashamed of himself. Leo tears his eyes away.
"Well, it's gross."
"I, I'm sorry. Really, Leo."
Leo wanted David to want him and not Cesc. He wanted David to know that.
And he wanted David, but he hadn't really known that until now.
Leo stares down at the blank sheet of his sketchbook, thinking. He really did want to do more with David than just daydream about him. Because he had daydreamed about David, had caught himself doing it multiple times. How it might be like to go out with David on a date; what it would feel like to have David flirt with him with the possibility they would actually act on it. How it might feel, if David kissed him.
Leo asks, "Are you guys going out, now?"
David says, quickly: "Of course."
He sounds a little torn and Leo looks up at him involuntarily, and David continues. "We went out a couple times, it wasn't like he came over last night and then we just."
Selfishly, Leo doesn't like that answer one bit.
"Okay."
"Okay," David says, carefully. He watches Leo take out a fresh pencil from his case.
"Take off your shirt."
"Okay," David says.
*
"Go away."
"Leo," Cesc whines. "Leoooo, talk to me. Please."
"I'm trying to finish an essay here," Leo groans. "What is it?"
"Oh good," Cesc says in relief. "So you are talking to me."
"Why would I not be?"
Cesc leans against the wall and appears to examine his nails. "I...well, everyone's been saying you're mad at me. For sleeping with David."
"I'm not mad at you," Leo snorts. "I'm mad at David."
"Why?"
Leo pauses just long enough that a small smirk works its way onto Cesc's face. Alarmed, Leo stammers, "B-Because this is my room, too, and--"
"Oh, just admit it," Cesc snorts. "You do like him. You act like you don't but you do. Leo, if you'd just told me I would never have touched David...and I'm positive if he knew he wouldn't sleep with anyone else in the world right now."
Lost for words, Leo just stares at the Catalan boy, who grins back.
"Cesc, you're going out with him...right...?"
Cesc looks concerned. "What? Who told you that? I'm not going out with David."
Leo blinks. "Oh--then--I. What are you saying? That David likes me?"
"I'm not telling," Cesc says, bratty suddenly. "I think I've said enough."
"Cesc, wait!"
But Cesc is out of the door, leaving behind only a whiff of his cologne (a suspiciously sugary scent, like donuts) and a general air of smugness.
Leo is still staring at the door when it opens again and David comes in, looking tired but immaculate in a suit. Leo recalls that he hadn't seen David leave this morning; he must have had an early presentation for class.
"Hey," he says, a little nervous after what Cesc had told him. Did David really care about him? If Leo thought about it--maybe he had always pretended not to like David. Maybe he'd pretended too well.
"Hi, Leo," David smiles, loosening his tie and undoing two buttons. "How've you been?" He shrugs off his jacket and Leo just watches, mesmerized.
"Oh, uh, good," he says.
Oh, and I like you. Did you know that?
No, Leo, I didn't, I like you too!
Leo hastily cuts off the increasingly silly sounding conversation in his head. He wasn't very good with the whole romance or dating stuff. He wasn't--he had only ever gone out with one guy, back in Argentina.
"Are you okay?" David smiles at him. The Spaniard seems a little different, and Leo thinks that it's because he hasn't put as much gel in his hair today. Nor was he wearing his favourite diamond studs in his ears.
"Yeah. I've got an essay to finish. Cesc came in halfway and completely threw me off."
"Yeah, Cesc does that," David says. He doesn't meet Leo's eyes when he says it.
"So how's it going?" Leo asks, lightly. "You and Cesc?"
"Good," David answers; he sounds a little nervous. "It's...fine."
Leo narrows his eyes. "I do talk to my best friend, you know. He told me you guys weren't ever going out."
Looking guilty, David meets Leo's gaze and mumbles, "Yeah, no, we're not."
"Why would you tell me you were?"
"Because," David starts. "I didn't want you to think. That I was some. Who just sleeps around with whoever."
Leo sighs. "But that's who you are?"
"No!" David is looking at him earnestly, brown eyes wide. "I'm really not. I don't ever usually do stuff like that. The night with Cesc I just--if I couldn't have--we just."
If he couldn't have--what? Who?
"Alright," Leo says, slowly. "I believe you."
David is blushing slightly. Leo thinks to himself that David might look even better in a dark grey suit. Not that this black one wasn't already causing Leo all sorts of problems in his head.
"Hold still," he says, fumbling through his stuff to dig out his camera. He hefts it up and frames the shot, David sitting on his bed, the sunlight warm on the beige covers.
"Have you taken up photography too?"
"I figured you wouldn't always be able to pose for hours," Leo says from behind the camera.
David raises his eyebrows. "I am not going to let you take naked pictures of me."
"Why not? I'd give you a cut of the profits..." Leo puts the camera down, smiling despite himself, despite the uncertainty and hope tangled inside him. Mostly he couldn't help smiling when he saw David.
David smirks appreciatively. "Touché."
*
"I love you too," David is saying. There's a notepad open in front of him, with two lines of notes and what looks like a deformed bean in the bottom corner. Leo shuts the door behind himself, just coming back from dinner, and goes over to inspect the drawing.
David ends the call and stretches like a cat, yawns. "Hey. That was my mother."
"What's that?" Leo asks, pointing at the bean. Now that he's closer, it looks like it has eyes and a nose and mouth.
"You," David returns. His grin is wide and Leo rolls his eyes. "No, seriously," David continues. He adds some very unfair ears and copies Leo's mop of hair with a few admittedly deft strokes. "See?"
"Flattering," Leo growls. "You should get into political caricatures."
David smiles innocently at him. "Hey, show me your sketches."
A little startled, Leo considers. "Okay." He's shown pieces to David before, but not everything. He takes out one of his sketchbooks and lays it on his bed, flips it open.
"Pretty," David muses, coming over to stand beside Leo, who is kneeling on the carpet next to his bed. "Is that Rosario?"
"Yeah, it is." Leo's a little surprised that David knows the place, remembers where Leo said he was from. He'd probably only talked about his hometown a few times, when they first met each other and were exchanging basic points, touches of information until they settled into a rhythm, a relationship.
Then again, Leo remembered for David; Tuilla.
"It's beautiful," David says quietly, and he crouches beside Leo, reaching out to prop the sketchbook against the wall, his hand brushing past Leo's.
The Spaniard sits on the carpet and stares at the page. Leo sits and looks, too, at the graphite grain of the windowsill, the curtains he'd redrawn multiple times trying to get the way they caught the breeze in the springtime.
Leo flips through pages of Rosario, of other favourite places, of his family. He reaches the last third of the sketchbook and raises his eyebrows.
"You're up, Villa."
David smiles. It's him, lying down with his forearm across his eyes.
"You could've been a little more generous in certain...places," David smirks, but he's thumbing the edge of the page slowly, approvingly. "You're very good, Leo."
"Thanks," Leo says, and he feels himself blushing slightly. Whether it's at the compliment or showing David these pictures he isn't sure.
David raises his eyebrows when they come to one of the last pages. "Who's this?"
"Oh, that's a friend, Llorente," Leo laughs. "He does art too, but more sculpture and prints. He insisted on having his picture drawn--something about being sure he'd look like a Greek god."
"He certainly has the ego for it," David says, almost grumbles.
Leo pauses. "Yeah, well, you gotta admit...he's pretty perfect," Leo says. He watches the Asturian's face, feels a glow of warmth and delight when David looks irritated and not a little jealous.
"You think?" David snorts. "...I've got a friend doing politics...he could kick his ass."
Leo shrugs. "Ok, show me."
David scowls.
*
"I've got a party tonight, do you want to be my plus-one?" David asks, his tone offhand.
"What sort of party?"
"A law party," David deadpans. "No, a birthday party for a friend."
"Ahh," Leo says, capping his pen and leaning back in his desk chair. "Meeting the lawyers."
David says, "If it were 'meeting the artists' I'd go."
"You'd better," Leo laughs, adds: "Artists throw interesting parties."
David laughs, too, but says, "People throw interesting parties...and my friend's definitely people. Want to come? Actually, bring a couple of your friends, he won't mind. He's really a the more the merrier type."
"Is this Pepe Reina?" Leo asks. He'd met the guy a few times, never often enough to chat because Reina lived in another residence hall.
"Yup."
"Sure," Leo says with a grin. "Sure, I'd love to come. I'll ask some friends, too? Maybe a few..."
"As many as you like," David tells him. "Pepe's planning to take over the entire Hill." The Hill was a grassy slope fifteen minutes from campus on foot, popular for picnics and napping and football in the flatter clearing at the bottom.
"So it's not going to be a drinking party," Leo says, impressed. Most parties were drinking parties: in somebody's flat or house, or in a club, the hard booze always a constant. (Apart from maybe one of Andres' wine-tasting parties. But then Andres was like that. His family seemed to own half the vinyards in Castilla-La Mancha.)
"It's going to be a drinking party," David smirks. "Just not only a drinking party. Patricia's family runs a catering business so the food's going to be pretty damn good. And Pepe's such a cheesy arse...he says the party'll kick off at sundown, but I know that's because he wants to watch the sunset with Yolanda."
Leo bites his lip. "That's so sweet."
"Isn't it?" David snickers. "Pepe's amazing. Softest hearted bastard I've ever known."
So are you, Leo thinks, smiling at the obvious affection in David's voice.
Someone knocks on their door.
"Come in," they both say at about the same time; David gives Leo a look and Leo laughs.
"Are we meeting before the party?" Cesc asks, poking his head in.
Leo stares. "How did you--"
"Pepe's in my general interest class, we both took Intro to Philosophy," Cesc says, letting himself in and going over to sit on Leo's desk. "And I know you must be coming, since David asked you."
"Hey," Leo starts indignantly, but Cesc goes on:
"Fer and Jesús are coming, I asked Andres but he's busy, he might be an hour late."
"You didn't ask me?" Leo asks, hurt.
"David asked you," Cesc says, like it's an obvious answer. Then, in a low voice, so that Leo isn't sure if he's heard right, "I knew he'd leave it til today, the nervous son of a..."
Leo looks across the room from Cesc to David, who cocks his head questioningly.
"Huh," Leo says. He remembers the way David had asked him, now: perhaps too casually to be casual. Maybe he was reading too much into it or maybe he wasn't; but maybe, Leo thinks to himself, David likes me, too. The thought warms his heart and sends a fizz of nervous anticipation down through to the tips of his fingers.
"Tell your friends to meet at the West gate," David says, his eyes not leaving Leo's. "We can walk there together."
Leo's heart skips a beat before David looks away again, his Adam's apple rising a little as he swallows.
"Alright," Cesc says, slowly. He makes it to the door and slinks out.
Leo isn't sure what has just happened, the look David gave him--but it feels like an acknowledgment of something, somehow--and he likes it.
*
"Hey."
Leo turns, from where he's been staring out across the roofs of the city, the stars beginning to show in the night sky. It's David, his eyes glittering slightly in the dark.
"Hey," he smiles. "The party's amazing."
"Yeah?" David seems pleased. He has two beers in his hand, and he holds one out. "Here, I got you another one."
"Oh, thanks," Leo says, accepting it. "I...thanks."
David takes a swig from his own bottle and says, "Why aren't you back there with the rest of the guys?" The unspoken question, Leo supposes, or hopes, is: why aren't you back there with me?
"I was...I just came out here to see the view." Leo gestures, says, "It's beautiful. This city, I mean. It makes me miss my home even more but at the same time I just love it and it's enough."
Perhaps he isn't just talking about the city.
David says, "I know what you mean."
Leo turns surreptitiously to the side to examine David's profile in the dim light, his heart feeling like it's hovering slightly in his chest. He can't quite pin down the feeling, but it's a feeling of almost-change. If he had to describe it, a hope of sorts, a potential, something that could happen, would--
"I like you."
The words seem to hang in the air in Leo's world after he utters them. He hadn't planned it. He hadn't expected it, and now he's quite surprised by himself.
David seems to turn to face him in slow motion; everything is in slow motion.
And then, when David has turned, is facing him, Leo's eyes don't focus on anything besides the Spaniard's face.
"Leo?" David says. It's barely a whisper, the end tilting up in arrested hope. He licks his bottom lip, eyes never leaving Leo's, like he's reading everything Leo wants to say in his eyes.
"I like you, you...you've been amazing, to me. When I got here last September I thought maybe I wouldn't find anyone I'd like as much as Cesc, and Gerard. But you--it's like I've known you longer, than."
Leo isn't quite sure anymore if he's making sense, and he can't tell from David's reaction: which is just to stare at him, lips slightly parted.
He's just beginning to feel awful when he sees it in David's eyes, a split-second before David does it. David's hands rise to brush his jaw and the tips of his fingers of his right hand are slightly cold from the beer bottle, and David has his thumb around the neck of the bottle to keep it away from Leo's neck.
All that, the little details, and then nothing but David.
When David kisses him, just brushes their lips together, Leo shuts his eyes and it's all David, everything is nothing but David, the city and the sky and stars are David.
Leo really is almost dizzy like in the novels when David lets him go, lets his hands fall and moves back all dark eyes and the smell of summer. He hadn't known it could be like this in real life.
"I really like you, Leo."
And just then, Leo feels almost too much to smile.