The rest is still unwritten. Fic.
Title: The rest is still unwritten. [AU]
Rating: PG (o.o. Yeah, I don’t know either.)
Pairing: Cristiano Ronaldo/ Kaká
Word Count: 7. 541
Warning: None, I guess. I do like me some drama at times, though. And, as it was requested, a touch of schmoop.
A/N: First of all, who am I kidding, my knowledge of physiotherapy and psychotherapy is limited; therefore everything in this fic is obviously only a product of my imagination (which is capable of running rather wild even into unknown directions). I do neither claim this to be true nor to be realistic. So consider this realistic as in ‘There are no unicorns shitting stars and no one who’s not biologically able to gets pregnant’-realistic, okay? … Second, this was meant to be written for a request over at fslashexchange , but I haven’t been able to submit it on time due to internet difficulties. Therefore this is most probably not something I would have started writing myself (did someone say ‘fictional-Kaká-disliking’? No? I thought not. :P), but I got caught up somewhere in the middle and it wouldn’t let go of me again, either.
*
Ricardo stares at the blank paper in front of him, just like he started to do twenty minutes ago.
He has memorized everything about the paper by now, it’s smooth and soft looking texture, the way one of the edges curls upwards a little, but only a tiny little bit. His eyes have scanned and memorized the whole page and in his mind he has filled it with words over and over again. He can see it so vividly before his inner eye that he even gets the impression he can see the ink glistening in the bright sunlight flooding the room just before it dries, he can almost feel the lines the pencil carves into the paper under his fingertips, can smell the stinging smell of thick felt tips in his nostrils.
And yet he’s still sitting here, his gaze fixed on the paper - the blank paper, blank, white, nothing, nothing at all, no ink, no lines, just nothing at all - as if his life depends on it.
After another ten minutes of silently looking at the paper, adoring it, devouring it, condemning it, Ricardo hears the sound of the door being opened.
His time has run out for today, it seems.
“Still nothing …?” someone says and if Ricardo would dare to look away from the paper for just one second, he knows he’d see Marcelo there, probably smiling like he always does. Ricardo can’t look away though, he can’t even shake his head, he never can.
“Oh, don’t worry about it, Kaká, words will come back to you, eventually …,” Marcelo almost gleefully continues - as if his voice is bearing good news -, calling him by his nickname which nobody apart from the lively Brazilian does, and only when he leans forward, standing behind Ricardo’s chair now, and takes the paper away from the desk in one flowing movement, Ricardo’s eyes - still fixed on the now empty desk, still seeing the paper lying there - catch something different, something rolling into his vision.
It’s a pen.
The pen Ricardo has been trying to pick up for almost an hour now, without success.
Ricardo has always liked Marcelo, despite his ever so gleeful attitude. Sometimes he even manages to laugh at one of the many jokes the other man cracks over the course of a day; sometimes it’s just the way Marcelo dresses that makes Ricardo crack up in his lighter moments. He likes the way the caregiver acts around him, not as if Ricardo suffers from some kind of contagious disease but treating him like a normal human being - well, usually.
It’s because Ricardo is so fond of Marcelo that he’s not mad about the young caregiver calling for Doctor Gonzalez when Ricardo all out of sudden bursts into helpless cries of pain, sobbing cries which shake and wreck and tear his body apart on the inside, while on the outside he remains terribly still, cries which sound awfully insane even in his own ears, as much as Ricardo hates to admit that. He doesn’t hate Marcelo for holding him tightly as a needle is jabbed into his arm, doesn’t hate him for the way he stops Ricardo’s arms from helplessly but angrily flailing around with the useless and numb hands attached to them. He doesn’t even curse him once or addresses a mad word at him. The anger he has come accustomed to feel is silent and urgent and scorching. No, Ricardo doesn’t blame Marcelo. The young caregiver has no idea about what’s going on inside of him, after all.
When in Marcelo’s position, he’d probably act the same way.
Besides, it’s no big deal for him, he ponders, in the sweet last seconds of a relatively clear state of mind before the tranquilizer takes him away and drags him down into a softer and fairer world. It’s just another relapse.
#
When Ricardo wakes up the next time, the world feels kind of blurry at the edges, the dim light in his room telling a story of him having slept for the most part of the day. It's early or maybe even late evening by now and for a moment Ricardo wonders why he has even bothered to wake up, in the first place. It can't be long until it's time for him to go bed, anyway. Then he remembers that he hasn't woken up because he wanted to, but that he has only woken up because now the medicine allowed him to wake up again. It's not a very comforting thought, it has never been, even though Ricardo has been here before. It's like his thoughts are sometimes running in cycles.
As soon as his senses feel strong enough to dare and leave the comfortably dulling haze they've been lulled in, the first thing Ricardo recognizes is the smell of food in the air, some kind of pasta with a sauce containing tomatoes, coming from a plate stored next to his head on the little desk he still hasn't put a single one of his personal items in. There's no use for that, after all, not even after two whole months.
The second thing he realizes is Cristiano sitting right next to his bed, his eyes fixed on him attentively, not leaving his features once.
Ricardo likes Cristiano for different reasons than he likes Marcelo, even though both younger men share the same profession. And even though Ricardo knows that the both of them are very close - he's become quite a good observer in his weeks here, little details never having been a thing to escape him as easily -, in his eyes they couldn't be any different. Because where Marcelo is all loud and smiles and probably doesn't even realize how strenuous he can be at times with his forced understanding for absolutely everything, Cristiano is everything but that.
Ricardo rarely hears him enter the room; most of the times only acknowledges Cristiano's presence when he's already behind or in front of Ricardo, laying a soothing hand on his shoulder to ease the strain there as his quiet eyes take in the struggling fight in front of him immediately. In general, where Marcelo rambles, Cristiano keeps quiet, listens. Even though it's not as much Ricardo can tell him - though it increases day by day, the only progress he probably makes since two months -, he knows that Cristiano listens to every single word of it. Remembers every single word of it. And where Marcelo's touches are sometimes only strong and professional and purposeful, there is always something lingering to Cristiano's touches, something soft and careful - acting as if Ricardo was as fragile on the outside as he is on the very inside -, an edge to them which spoke of something more.
Or probably this was just Ricardo's deserted and lonely and probably not completely sane mind playing tricks on him.
"Marcelo told me about what happened. ... I'm just wondering how exactly you got him to leave you alone in that room."
Cristiano's voice lingers in the air and the accusation in his tone is unmistakable. He's probably the only one - except for Dr. Gonzalez - who'd address his disapproval of Ricardo's ways of acting so directly at him.
"He's not as persistent as ... other people are ...," Ricardo answers, his tongue slurring a bit with the last bits of tranquilizer still circuiting in his body. He's not as persistent as you are, he thinks.
For a moment Cristiano says nothing, but he moves in his chair and leans over to reach for the plate carrying the pasta which still smells of deliciously sweet tomatoes.
"You should eat something; you missed the regular dinner time by three hours ..."
This makes it late evening.
He does not complain when Cristiano places the plate on Ricardo's legs which are hidden under the thick blanket of his bed. He looks down at Cristiano's hands which close so easily around the fork and the knife. He envies, silently.
A few weeks ago, the process of having Cristiano feeding him like a little child has made Ricardo blush with embarrassment and anger the entire time, but by now he's learned to at least tolerate it, knowing that the only other way of getting to nutrition is a needle in his vein - and it's not like he'd need any more needles penetrating his skin, really. He also knows that this is Cristiano's job, that this is part of his everyday schedule and so Ricardo tries to see it as an inevitable but not as horrible part of his own every day schedule, too.
When Ricardo's not hungry anymore, Cristiano takes the plate away from his lap, places it on Ricardo's desk again and returns to look at him, his features a bit softer now.
"I'll look after you tomorrow afternoon ...," he says and it sounds not a bit as gleeful as Marcelo would have managed to say it.
Ricardo can feel the anger stirring up in his stomach again, a feeling he has become quite used to over the course of the last two months.
"Who says I'm going to try it again, tomorrow? ... If I couldn't make use of my hands today, why should I try and make use of them in vain, tomorrow?"
"I say so. ... Because if you give up trying just because you pushed yourself too far today - and you know that you did - you're never going to learn it again. You’ll never get there unless you really try! It's not my fault you fucked yourself up today. You won't do so tomorrow. ... I'll make sure of that."
And then Cristiano is gone, without wishing Ricardo a good night like he usually does, without asking him about a new word, phrase, a new idea for a poem maybe, without checking if there's anything else Ricardo needs, taking the empty plate with him, leaving Ricardo to some hours of lying awake and wondering and eventually falling back to sleep, this time a natural sort of sleep.
#
Something unpleasant about Cristiano - if there really is something as unpleasant about him: the way time with him feels normally flowing and easier to take on, whereas time without him around trickles down slowly, like syrup trickling down a spoon or like a song which never seems to reach its peak, which never seems to end at all, as boring as it is.
In the beginning, Ricardo has been worried about the fact that his life without Cristiano around has become nothing but boring so quickly, but then again is he barely living his own life since about two months, after all. The life he lives now has nothing to do with the life he is used to live. This is merely a shadow of it left.
In the beginning, Ricardo has wondered whether all of this is really necessary, if he is really better off this way. But despite not even having neither the opportunity nor the courage to change something about that and even though he feels like the last two months have brought him closer to hell than he has ever been before, his belief that life in any and every manner - even this manner - is better than death has been rooted to deep. And buried somewhere just as deep there is still hope.
Hope that his fingers won’t remain numb forever.
It isn’t a hope Ricardo never falters to hold on to. But as yesterday evening has proven once again, Ricardo has someone else to do that for him, now, doing it probably better than Ricardo could have ever tried. And that in return is one of the many rather pleasant things about Cristiano Ronaldo.
#
“And you know that you don’t have to write something down, Ricardo, don’t you? … You can as well draw something if you like … and even if these are only a few lines across the paper, that doesn’t matter at all. Just remember that you don’t have to form words, yet. There’s still time for that, later. …”
Even though Ricardo listens as attentively as he can to the psychologist’s - Ricardo still refuses to call him his psychologist, he refuses to - words, Doctor Gutierrez just has that special something around him which makes it merely impossible not to spend attention to him, as soon as the blank paper and a pen are placed on the desk in front of him, comfortably in reach for his hands, all his attention seems to snap.
Suddenly there is only this nothingness begging to be filled with something, anything, and a pen which ridicules him, makes him suffer without limitation by simply laying there. By refusing to fit into the loose grasp of his fingers (not that he tries to pick it up now, he has tried and failed one time too often during the last two months).
“You won’t leave him alone, Cris, will you? … And should there occur some complications, you page me and not Raú- … Doctor Gonzalez, yeah? I know Marcelo was just trying to be helpful yesterday and so was Dr. Gonzalez and he surely meant well, but I do not wish my patient to be held down with the help of tranquilizer anymore …,” Gutierrez addresses Cristiano now, knowing well that Ricardo has a hard time listening right now.
“Don’t worry, Dr. Gutierrez. … I’ll just make sure there won’t be any complications.”
Once again this grim tone has taken over Cristiano’s voice as he now pulls out a small notebook and a pen himself, placing it right next to the set laying in front of Ricardo and sitting down next to him. Ricardo startles a little at the feeling of Cristiano’s arm brushing his own, is freed from the taunting spell the pen seems to have on him for at least a moment.
“How much time do I get this time?”
Doctor Gutierrez, who by then is almost out of the room already, turns around to shoot Ricardo a surprised but pleased smile - at least his patient is showing some kind of anticipation today.
“I think we can go for two hours. … Considering yesterday’s … let’s call it incident, I think some extra time will do you good. … I’ll be back checking on you myself then, please try not to murder my assistant here in the meantime. I’m rather fond of Cristiano, you know?”
And with one last wink at his assistant, the blonde man sweeps out of the door to leave two quiet men behind.
In Guti’s absence, it gets harder not to fall under the pen’s depressing spell again. For a long time, the best Ricardo can do is just to sit there and listen to the scrapping sound Cristiano’s pen makes as it leaves its traces within his notebook. His dark-haired caregiver doesn’t say a thing, doesn’t hesitate or stop to think about what he’s writing down once. It’s always like that. One day, Ricardo quietly promises himself for the hundredth time, he will ask Cristiano what exactly he is writing down so mindlessly and easily every time he sits beside Ricardo to watch over him.
Time passes, fluently and quickly so now, and Ricardo barely notices how the thought and the different possibilities entice him, how he gets so caught up in his own thoughts revolving around Cristiano and this small blue notebook that he completely forgets about everything else - including his own task at hand.
It’s only when Cristiano at his side suddenly throws his pen aside and stares at him, furiously, that Ricardo blinks and gets aware of his surroundings again. It feels like waking from a dream to him.
“You know what angers me the most about you? Seventy minutes and I haven’t even seen you try it, yet. Not once. … I have no idea where you are with your thoughts but clearly you are not focusing as you’re supposed to …,” clearly the same Cristiano as yesterday night is talking to him now. “So enlighten me, please, because I really don’t understand. Correct me if I’m mistaking, but do you even want to recover, at all? Because it doesn’t look like it, to me. It’s not looking like you’re even trying only a bit to go out there again, to live your life again. Do you even want to do that, again, living? …”
One more thing that is unpleasant about Cristiano: his words always manage to get to Ricardo like no one else’s words do - not even the words of Doctor Gonzalez or even Doctor Gutierrez. Because Cristiano’s words confuse him to such an extent that leaves him with no more idea of how to respond, what to make out of them, what to think anymore. Also, there is always truth in Cristiano’s words - a truth Ricardo refuses to acknowledge, just like he refuses to call Doctor Gutierrez his psychologist.
“I’m sorry…,” Ricardo therefore replies quickly and automatically, not wanting to admit how deeply Cristiano’s words hurt him, how they did touch a truth he was struggling to pretend to not see, not know that it was there deep inside of him since two months. Since the accident had happened. The young caregiver seems to choose his words with such sharp care and precision, it is a talent Ricardo most probably would have envied him for - under different circumstances, in another life. In his past life. Now - in this current state of life - he does not. He just wishes the young man’s tongue and tone to be softer with him. He just wishes the world to leave him alone. But Cristiano doesn’t. He’s probably one of the very few people Ricardo has ever met who never seem to leave him alone, no matter what he does.
“Oh, please don’t be sorry for yourself. … But may I ask you a question? Why do you think Doctor Gonzalez is not around anymore when you're ought to train your fingers? Why do you think it's only Gutierrez who's monitoring you now, it’s only Marcelo or me looking after you now and no nurses anymore? Tell me, Ricardo, why you think that is.”
Ricardo presses his lips tightly together and makes a disapproving sound, glancing down his arm at the soft spot on the underside of his elbow, where a little plaster covers a patch of skin.
"Well, you weren't there yesterday, but I can actually remember Doctor Gonzalez being here very well. Still hurts where he jabbed the needle into my arm, actually..."
The glance Cristiano shoots at him can only be described as furious now, his dark eyes burning into Ricardo’s. Secretly, Ricardo has always quietly adored Cristiano’s eyes, for the fire and cold they hold, alike, for them being able to change so quickly, for always stirring up a feeling inside of Ricardo that makes him want to reach for a pen and start writing about them. If only he could.
"It's not his fault, you were practically begging for it, from what I've heard. ... But where is he now? You remember that he was still here with you in the beginning, when you started with your rehabilitation, don't you?” Cristiano’s eyes pin Ricardo down on his chair, his whole body seems to tense and it is clear that he’s not really waiting for Ricardo to respond. He’s probably only pausing to prolong the effect. "Well, I can tell you why he's not around anymore. It's because he and Gutierrez have figured out what your real problem is, by now. And it has nothing to do with your hands, for sure. It's all about what's going on up here."
The light brush of Cristiano’s fingers against his temple, pointing at his head, makes Ricardo startle again, but more for the caregiver’s words than for the soft touch. He feels that things are getting terribly close to where he never wanted them to get to again. And the feeling gets even more urgent when he suddenly sees Doctor Gutierrez sweeping into the room again, as quietly as he had left it before. The psychologist’s words are very low and calm when he speaks now.
“Cristiano …”
“Well, tell us what’s going on there, Ricardo. … Tell us what’s on your mind that stops you from trying…,” the caregiver continues though as if not noticing his employer’s presence, his eyes like liquid fire on Ricardo’s skin as his voice is as sharp as unyielding ice.
“There’s nothing up there keeping me from trying. … It’s just that I simply can’t!”
“If you feel like you really can’t, you’d have got to try harder. But you don’t even try.”
“Cris …,” Doctor Gutierrez seemingly tries to interfere, but again Cristiano acts as if he did not hear him speak.
“You must try harder, right now. … Pick up the pen. Do it!”
Ricardo has never been a person to lose his temper rather quickly, at least not as long as other people still are surrounding him. He used to remain polite and friendly, faced with whatever obstacles, difficulties, dickheads, keeping the anger rising inside him hidden beneath a civil or at least indifferent mask. Only when at home, sitting at his kitchen table or lying on his sofa he dared to let his emotions flow out freely, secured by the knowledge of no one being there to witness him doing so, to judge him for it. He would fill pages and pages and pages of empty books with his thoughts, with his anger and his fears, write it all out of his system, every word freeing his body from the pressure more and more. He would write until he felt lighter again, until the anger had left his body leaving nothing but faint traces of bitterness and memories of dreams he had stopped trying to pursue long ago inside him. Even though most people did not understand, writing it all down was soothing his temper and the best way of venting to him.
Since he had lost control over his hands after the accident, this way of freeing himself from all the pressure - all this anger, all these fears - building inside him had escaped him. And so Ricardo has had to find a different way of letting it all out.
What probably surprises him most, in the first split seconds, is how little surprised Cristiano and Doctor Gutierrez seem to be by his behavior. Maybe they have counted yesterday’s relapse as a warning sign, that’s the only explanation fitting, otherwise Ricardo can’t explain how Cristiano just flies to his feet immediately, as Ricardo starts to attempt to let go of some of this anger - some of this fear - starting to wreck his body again, causing him to scream and try to wriggle out of Cristiano’s arms with as much power as he can drain from his feelings. He barely recognizes Gutierrez coming closer to him, his mind concentrating on a second pair of arms, a second pair of hands, trying to keep him calm and down in his chair now, belonging to another young man, bald and tall and strong and determined, another caregiver, it seems.
And suddenly, between the helpless and angry motions of his body - the same ones as yesterday - and the glimpses of the still white and clean and unwritten paper laying on the desk he catches every now and then, the incoherent screams escaping his lungs turn into words.
“I despise myself. I hate this life. It’s not worth a thing to me. I’d rather be dead than living like this. I hate myself for being so passive, for not being able to do anything on my own, for being so dependent, so weak. I’d rather be dead, let go of me, I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to, I can’t. I’d rather be dead. …”
The words leave him in a rush of hot breath and a heated stream of thoughts and even though speaking them out aloud is nowhere near as satisfying as writing them down in all precision and detail, Ricardo can feel how at least a small part of his feelings seems to leave his body along with the words. At the same time it makes him feel uncomfortable, being so exposed in plain sight to his caregivers, to Gutierrez, now that he has shared what he’s trying to protect since two months.
“Guti…,” Cristiano whispers lowly, almost pleading, Ricardo’s ears barely pick it up, his mind is too busy to do other things to really and properly deal with the small and low input.
“Don’t let go of him now…,” Gutierrez demands harshly, looking as determined and concentrated as he hasn’t looked ever before - or at least Ricardo can’t remember having seen him like this is ever before - , his hands - Ricardo would have never guessed that the psychologist had such strong hands -capturing Ricardo’s head now, forcing him to look directly into these steel-blue eyes as he turns to speak to him, again. “You’re not the one you really hate, Ricardo, trust me. You don’t hate yourself, not at all. But I know there’s something else. … What is it that bothers you the most?”
Even though he knows it is pointless by now - Cristiano and the other caregiver (his name is Pepe, Ricardo will remember later) are overpowering him way too much -, he can’t help but to trash against their strong hands, trying to free his body. But while his body is held down by them so firmly, it seems like he has also lost control over his mouth, as he finds himself responding to Gutierrez’ prompting without even intending to.
“My hands,” he spits out now, “I hate my hands. They’re useless, just utterly useless and I loathe that. I need them and I can’t use them, I hate them for letting me down like that. All my life I have depended on them and I hate them for making me so dependent. I hate them for being so important to me, I hate them for refusing to just let me believe that I will never make use of them again. My hands disgust me.”
“Guti, I don’t think … maybe we should …”
“Hush now, Cristiano, let me do my job here and concentrate on your own. …,” Gutierrez snaps though, his eyes fixed on Ricardo and nothing but Ricardo now as he kneels in front of him, looking him in the eye as if he’s practically digging into them, looking for what’s hidden beneath. And Ricardo understands that Gutierrez knows that he’s so very close.
“You’re doing great, Ricardo, you’re doing very great. But that’s still not the truth, is it? … I know how precise you can be with words and feelings; I’ve seen your diaries. I’ve read some of them. And it’s neither yourself you truly despise nor your hands. …”
“It’s only my hands!”
Ricardo shakes his head furiously, feeling tears carving their way up inside of his body. But Gutierrez is mercilessly clawing into the hole he has spotted, now. It’s too late.
“No, it’s not. Look at me now, Ricardo, look at me. … And now tell me, be as precise as you can, what is it that scares you so much? What is it that really bothers you; that keeps you from making progress with your hands? Because we know that you should be able to make progress, your body should accommodate to the practice and exercises easily. And yet it doesn’t. … I know you don’t want to, I know this won’t be pleasant, but just tell me what it really is, Ricardo, and I promise you, it’ll get better, far better, from here on out … Tell me now: What is it that you really despise?”
Ricardo knows that he’s trapped now. That there’s no chance to escape the psychologist’s questions. He knows Gutierrez won’t let go of him now, not when he has dug so deep and found so much, nor will the two caregivers holding him down on the chair, even though he has stopped his angry thrashing by now, gets too exhausted by it.
“My job. The life this job makes me life, the rules this job sets up for me. The things that are expected of me to do, the things I end up doing every day. … I hate everything about it. Everything. This work disgusts me, it’s not what I wanted, it’s what I never wanted to be, I hate everything of it, and I don’t want to go back to it, never again. I don’t want to do it ever again, I don’t want to write a single line for them ever again, I hate to waste my talent and my future on something that’s so insignificant and so not what I always wanted to do. My job. My old life. It disgusts me, so much that I have no words to describe it. Please don’t make me having to go back there again,” Ricardo cries out eventually, tears welling up in his eyes but more tears of exhaustion than of sadness.
The first thing he realizes is the absolute silence following his words, the stillness after he stops trashing against the two caregiver’s grip. The second thing he realizes is that his psychologist’s look on him is soft and understanding, but that there’s a triumphant shimmer in his eyes as if he has achieved something, as well. The third thing Ricardo feels is Cristiano’s gaze on him, looking down at him wistfully and uncertainly, but the touch of his hands getting so very soft from one moment to the other, as if to apologize to Ricardo for what he’s done, what he’s said during the last few minutes.
And then, suddenly, Ricardo gets aware of another feeling pulling at his nerve strings.
He looks down at his right hand, tears blurring his view.
But he can still see the pen his fingers are tightly clawed around. The pen he has taken up from the desk all by himself, without even realizing it.
#
Ricardo has always felt this fascination with words, especially with the written word, ever since he has learned how to read as a little boy in school. Before that even he had admired his father’s handwriting whenever he had come across it, not even being able to read what his father had written yet, but already fascinated by the wide rounds and sharp lines, small points and tiny bows blue ink had left on paper. He can still remember every inch of excitement and thrilling to fill up his body when he had been told how to write himself, how to fill a page with exactly the same rounds and lines and points and bows. And this childish fascination has never left him, ever since. He has started to write on his own, the scrapping of pencil and paper becoming a sound which always accompanied him wherever he went. He wrote everything down, things he heard and saw and though, things he wanted to remember and things he wanted to forget, birthday wishes, postcards, lists, short-stories, everything.
It had been clear for him for as long as he could think that he had wanted to do something dealing with writing in his life, even writing something at a computer if he at least could be able to write something on his own. Whether he wanted to become an author, a journalist, a poet or anything similar, he’d never figured out while just trying everything of it out, at times all at once. It hadn’t brought him money, but it had pleased him without limits - in the beginning, when money had been no issue.
And then money had become an issue and Ricardo had been forced to look for another job in order to pay his tuition fees, a job that turned out so time-consuming he had to drop his classes at university eventually in order to get enough money to pay for the rent and food and clothes, a job so boring and dull that every day had been barely acceptable to live through, a job having to deal so less with the things he really had wanted to do with his life that it had slowly driven him insane. His only comfort had been the quiet evenings and nights he had spent at home alone, writing his trails of thoughts into his books, at least keeping a little bit of that spirit within him, of that fascination with words and books and paper alive. It had been rather something more than nothing, but it hadn’t been anything he had ever wanted, either.
Until that one day.
In retro perspective, this terrible accident which had left him behind with absolutely no feeling in his fingers had not quite been the worst thing ever happening to him. But it had come very close.
#
When Ricardo wakes up again, the air around him feels fresh and clean, almost sober. He opens his eyes to blinding and stark white sunlight flooding the room, making it shine white, almost as white as a blank page staring back at him. Blank, that’s exactly how he feels these days, as if all ink and all writing ever to have filled him up has been drained out of him.
He realizes the routine that has caught up with him again, how he stretches his legs first, still starring at the ceiling, and how he then hesitantly stretches his arms and his fingers, too, not quite accustomed to the fact that he can actually feel something inside his fingers again, yet. The feeling doesn’t surprise him anymore, and yet it feels nothing like he had expected it to feel.
And when he reaches out for the plate standing on the table next to his bed, the food smelling of sweet breakfast and coffee, he’s not really surprised to find Doctor Gutierrez sitting in the chair next to his bed. It’s a sight Ricardo has come accustomed to over the past seven days, even though a part of him still waits and hopes for someone else sitting in this exact chair in the morning. But since that afternoon, his mornings always begin with Doctor Gutierrez; his days always feature his psychologist’s presence. At the same time, they’ve completely ceased to feature Cristiano’s presence.
The morning after Ricardo’s final breakdown - even though everyone else seems to favor calling it a ‘breakthrough’ more than a breakdown - Cristiano had been there, sitting quietly next to his bed and waiting for Ricardo to wake up. The young caregiver had said nothing and Ricardo hadn’t either and so Cristiano had only looked at him with these brown and calm and deep and quiet and sorry and soil-like eyes. Without saying a word he had laid his notebook on Ricardo’s desk, had brushed his fingers over Ricardo’s temple just once - hesitating slightly when he felt how Ricardo squirmed away from the touch - and then, just in his typical and unpleasant manner, he had left the room, leaving Ricardo behind. He had not returned to see him ever since. Cristiano’s book was still lying on Ricardo’s desk, right next to the plate which his breakfast was now standing on.
“Good morning, Ricardo…,” Gutierrez’ voice sounds politely and warm, as friendly as indifferent. “I assume you slept well…”
Ricardo’s response is a nod, only recalling his dreams in a blurry haze but there’s nothing uncomfortable about the memory so he does just as well assume that he slept well. At least it was only his own body sending him to sleep and no medicine, something he counts as a clear sign for sleeping well.
“Do you feel like eating?” Gutierrez asks him further on, interpreting the intensive stare Ricardo has lain on his desk. He only shakes his head now, his thoughts already revolving around the small blue notebook again, just like they have for a total of the last seven days. It itches in Ricardo’s fingers - it really does - to open the book and read what’s written down in it, he’s practically starving to read all of the words Cristiano has left there in his neat handwriting, to get to know Cristiano’s thoughts eventually. Ricardo feels certain enough to say that he knows Cristiano to an extent which not everybody at his working place knows him and still, there’s something missing.
And yet he hasn’t opened the book until now, even though he most probably would be able to.
“I think you should know …,”Gutierrez starts again and this time his guess as where to pick Ricardo up in his trail of thoughts is the right one, “that it’s not Cristiano’s fault. What we put you through that day. I don’t know what he said or did to you before I showed up, but I gave him clear instructions to rile you up. Forcing a confrontation was the task I had given to him, not a task he had chosen by himself. … And maybe you as well ought to know that he did not necessarily agree to the methods I used and wanted him to use, too, I can assure you of that. Just the opposite, he wanted to protect you from it and in the end the only reason why he agreed on helping me in the first place is the same reason why I wanted him and only him to do it. Because it seems to me that he cares about you just like you care about him. So he did it - most reluctantly, I’d like to stress it again - in order to prevent someone else doing it, someone who doesn’t know you as well as he does - Marcelo, maybe -, someone who had probably hurt you even more…”
Once again the only thing Ricardo can do is shake his head because he doesn’t want to hear it all, because he still refuses to understand, too wrapped up in his hurt feelings. Because he still doesn’t know how to feel about this breakdown, the breakthrough, what has been said before, what is happening with him now, afterwards, the progress he makes and how well he does, the feeling returning to his fingers slowly, the fact that it’s not Cristiano anymore who’s sitting next to him when he wakes up but that it’s Doctor Gutierrez instead.
“Also, he hasn’t touched your diaries even though I offered him to read them in order to understand. He has refused to read a single word or even hear about it. He says he’d never wanted to invade your private space like that. … Maybe you should read the one that he’s given to you, though, I assume that would help you to understand why he’s so sorry and that it’s a difficult situation for him, too, the way he feels. Because he is sorry. And he does feel something for you which he probably shouldn’t. … You should eat something, Ricardo. And then you should get started reading it. Turning the pages should be well practice for your hands, Doctor Gonzalez has told me, too. …”
And so Ricardo begins to read in Cristiano’s notebook, eventually starts to discover his caregiver’s well-treasured thoughts, not few of them having to do with himself. The thought that Cristiano has written all of this down right in front of Ricardo’s eyes makes his skin tingle in excitement and anticipation.
Reading every line and sentence and phrase carefully and twice, deciphering their meaning slowly and word for word, Ricardo now wishes more than ever that he had found the nerve to ask Cristiano what it was that he kept writing down. Maybe it would have made things easier.
It takes him another full week to get through the book, simply because it’s demanding so much of his concentration and he wants to read every single word with only the right amount of care, something not as easy to accomplish looking at the way Cristiano has written down his mind and his heart without any form or structure. But after another week, his fingers gaining more and more strength and him slowly winning his control over them back in the meantime, he finishes reading the book eventually, closing it carefully and completely on his own.
He does not even try to convince himself that these are tears caused by something having gotten into his eyes accidentally softly staining his cheeks.
#
The next time Ricardo sees Cristiano again is two months and a fortnight later.
He sits in a small café, one of his favorite places in the whole city, still one of his favorite places there even though so much has changed, sipping his coffee when all out of sudden and out of nowhere he sees him.
There's nothing magical or spectacular about his former caregiver's appearance, one moment Ricardo is staring at an old man's broad back hurrying along outside on the street and in the next moment he finds himself looking directly into Cristiano's well-known features, the surprise flashing over his face being mirrored by the window pane. He freezes for a moment but when he blinks the next time, Cristiano is already on his way over to him, pushing the café's door open and looking around for Ricardo as if to secure himself that it's really him and he's not only seen a ghost. It has happened to both of them before, even though they'll get to know that only much later, these small and stinging disappointing moments when they thought they'd see each other, only to be disappointed by their mistaking. This time it's real, though.
Ricardo doesn't really know where to look as Cristiano approaches him, it's been not even three months but the aching in his chest is surprisingly strong and sweet for that, and finds himself focusing on his hands resting on the table.
His mind tries to form something to say as an 'hello', but all the words he has stored up there, everything he's practiced for the almost impossible seeming 'what if’, are abandoning him now, leaving both of them in an awkward but mutually heartfelt silence at first.
"So, uhm. ... Doctor Gutierrez returned my book to me when you were discharged. ... He told me you had read it."
Ricardo nods, still staring at his hands and not daring to look up for reasons he himself is not really sure of, but the blush spreading on his cheeks unintentionally surely among them.
"You could have kept it, you know? ... I meant it to be yours, anyway."
Something inside of Ricardo stirs at that and he feels the urge to say something, he can physically feel it, but there are no words coming to his mind. The idea of speaking is so very close to the front of his head but the words just won't come out, he can't get a grasp on them. He can feel in the lingering silence how Cristiano waits for him to say something, but he can't. Eventually, as he manages to look up just once, he sees the other man shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans, shrugging.
"Well, anyway, I just came over because I wanted to see whether you're alright. ... And perhaps to apologize, I don't know. ...," Cristiano pauses, still waiting for a reaction of Ricardo which just won't come. As he drops his voice now, Ricardo can hear a strangely familiar tone in the other man's voice, a tone filled with regret and excuse and longing he knows very well from listening his own thoughts late at night when sleep just won't come. "It wouldn't have been possible anyway, not in our situation ...," Cristiano muses lowly, his eyes fixed on the table and the pattern which covers it, lines curved deeply into wood, his eyes staring into the nothingness in front of him, not really focusing on Ricardo anymore.
Ricardo, still, is silent.
And then, when his brain eventually proceeds that he’s about to fuck it up again and that right now is probably the last chance he will ever get, the words are suddenly there. Still not on the back of his tongue, but at least he can grasp them in his mind. Grasp them and give them shape. After another few seconds, he picks up the pen lying next to his coffee mug - he does it slowly and carefully, but he does - and scribbles down something on a piece of paper.
He can see Cristiano startling visibly at the motion of Ricardo writing something down, clearly something his former caregiver is not used to see of him, and when he pushes the note into the other man's direction, smiling carefully at him, Cristiano glances over at him surprised, but surprised in a positive way.
Ricardo's handwriting is still not as clear and round and full as it has been before the accident, but Cristiano is able to decipher the words, nonetheless.
‘Things have changed. We can always try now.’
Rating: PG (o.o. Yeah, I don’t know either.)
Pairing: Cristiano Ronaldo/ Kaká
Word Count: 7. 541
Warning: None, I guess. I do like me some drama at times, though. And, as it was requested, a touch of schmoop.
A/N: First of all, who am I kidding, my knowledge of physiotherapy and psychotherapy is limited; therefore everything in this fic is obviously only a product of my imagination (which is capable of running rather wild even into unknown directions). I do neither claim this to be true nor to be realistic. So consider this realistic as in ‘There are no unicorns shitting stars and no one who’s not biologically able to gets pregnant’-realistic, okay? … Second, this was meant to be written for a request over at fslashexchange , but I haven’t been able to submit it on time due to internet difficulties. Therefore this is most probably not something I would have started writing myself (did someone say ‘fictional-Kaká-disliking’? No? I thought not. :P), but I got caught up somewhere in the middle and it wouldn’t let go of me again, either.
*
Ricardo stares at the blank paper in front of him, just like he started to do twenty minutes ago.
He has memorized everything about the paper by now, it’s smooth and soft looking texture, the way one of the edges curls upwards a little, but only a tiny little bit. His eyes have scanned and memorized the whole page and in his mind he has filled it with words over and over again. He can see it so vividly before his inner eye that he even gets the impression he can see the ink glistening in the bright sunlight flooding the room just before it dries, he can almost feel the lines the pencil carves into the paper under his fingertips, can smell the stinging smell of thick felt tips in his nostrils.
And yet he’s still sitting here, his gaze fixed on the paper - the blank paper, blank, white, nothing, nothing at all, no ink, no lines, just nothing at all - as if his life depends on it.
After another ten minutes of silently looking at the paper, adoring it, devouring it, condemning it, Ricardo hears the sound of the door being opened.
His time has run out for today, it seems.
“Still nothing …?” someone says and if Ricardo would dare to look away from the paper for just one second, he knows he’d see Marcelo there, probably smiling like he always does. Ricardo can’t look away though, he can’t even shake his head, he never can.
“Oh, don’t worry about it, Kaká, words will come back to you, eventually …,” Marcelo almost gleefully continues - as if his voice is bearing good news -, calling him by his nickname which nobody apart from the lively Brazilian does, and only when he leans forward, standing behind Ricardo’s chair now, and takes the paper away from the desk in one flowing movement, Ricardo’s eyes - still fixed on the now empty desk, still seeing the paper lying there - catch something different, something rolling into his vision.
It’s a pen.
The pen Ricardo has been trying to pick up for almost an hour now, without success.
Ricardo has always liked Marcelo, despite his ever so gleeful attitude. Sometimes he even manages to laugh at one of the many jokes the other man cracks over the course of a day; sometimes it’s just the way Marcelo dresses that makes Ricardo crack up in his lighter moments. He likes the way the caregiver acts around him, not as if Ricardo suffers from some kind of contagious disease but treating him like a normal human being - well, usually.
It’s because Ricardo is so fond of Marcelo that he’s not mad about the young caregiver calling for Doctor Gonzalez when Ricardo all out of sudden bursts into helpless cries of pain, sobbing cries which shake and wreck and tear his body apart on the inside, while on the outside he remains terribly still, cries which sound awfully insane even in his own ears, as much as Ricardo hates to admit that. He doesn’t hate Marcelo for holding him tightly as a needle is jabbed into his arm, doesn’t hate him for the way he stops Ricardo’s arms from helplessly but angrily flailing around with the useless and numb hands attached to them. He doesn’t even curse him once or addresses a mad word at him. The anger he has come accustomed to feel is silent and urgent and scorching. No, Ricardo doesn’t blame Marcelo. The young caregiver has no idea about what’s going on inside of him, after all.
When in Marcelo’s position, he’d probably act the same way.
Besides, it’s no big deal for him, he ponders, in the sweet last seconds of a relatively clear state of mind before the tranquilizer takes him away and drags him down into a softer and fairer world. It’s just another relapse.
#
When Ricardo wakes up the next time, the world feels kind of blurry at the edges, the dim light in his room telling a story of him having slept for the most part of the day. It's early or maybe even late evening by now and for a moment Ricardo wonders why he has even bothered to wake up, in the first place. It can't be long until it's time for him to go bed, anyway. Then he remembers that he hasn't woken up because he wanted to, but that he has only woken up because now the medicine allowed him to wake up again. It's not a very comforting thought, it has never been, even though Ricardo has been here before. It's like his thoughts are sometimes running in cycles.
As soon as his senses feel strong enough to dare and leave the comfortably dulling haze they've been lulled in, the first thing Ricardo recognizes is the smell of food in the air, some kind of pasta with a sauce containing tomatoes, coming from a plate stored next to his head on the little desk he still hasn't put a single one of his personal items in. There's no use for that, after all, not even after two whole months.
The second thing he realizes is Cristiano sitting right next to his bed, his eyes fixed on him attentively, not leaving his features once.
Ricardo likes Cristiano for different reasons than he likes Marcelo, even though both younger men share the same profession. And even though Ricardo knows that the both of them are very close - he's become quite a good observer in his weeks here, little details never having been a thing to escape him as easily -, in his eyes they couldn't be any different. Because where Marcelo is all loud and smiles and probably doesn't even realize how strenuous he can be at times with his forced understanding for absolutely everything, Cristiano is everything but that.
Ricardo rarely hears him enter the room; most of the times only acknowledges Cristiano's presence when he's already behind or in front of Ricardo, laying a soothing hand on his shoulder to ease the strain there as his quiet eyes take in the struggling fight in front of him immediately. In general, where Marcelo rambles, Cristiano keeps quiet, listens. Even though it's not as much Ricardo can tell him - though it increases day by day, the only progress he probably makes since two months -, he knows that Cristiano listens to every single word of it. Remembers every single word of it. And where Marcelo's touches are sometimes only strong and professional and purposeful, there is always something lingering to Cristiano's touches, something soft and careful - acting as if Ricardo was as fragile on the outside as he is on the very inside -, an edge to them which spoke of something more.
Or probably this was just Ricardo's deserted and lonely and probably not completely sane mind playing tricks on him.
"Marcelo told me about what happened. ... I'm just wondering how exactly you got him to leave you alone in that room."
Cristiano's voice lingers in the air and the accusation in his tone is unmistakable. He's probably the only one - except for Dr. Gonzalez - who'd address his disapproval of Ricardo's ways of acting so directly at him.
"He's not as persistent as ... other people are ...," Ricardo answers, his tongue slurring a bit with the last bits of tranquilizer still circuiting in his body. He's not as persistent as you are, he thinks.
For a moment Cristiano says nothing, but he moves in his chair and leans over to reach for the plate carrying the pasta which still smells of deliciously sweet tomatoes.
"You should eat something; you missed the regular dinner time by three hours ..."
This makes it late evening.
He does not complain when Cristiano places the plate on Ricardo's legs which are hidden under the thick blanket of his bed. He looks down at Cristiano's hands which close so easily around the fork and the knife. He envies, silently.
A few weeks ago, the process of having Cristiano feeding him like a little child has made Ricardo blush with embarrassment and anger the entire time, but by now he's learned to at least tolerate it, knowing that the only other way of getting to nutrition is a needle in his vein - and it's not like he'd need any more needles penetrating his skin, really. He also knows that this is Cristiano's job, that this is part of his everyday schedule and so Ricardo tries to see it as an inevitable but not as horrible part of his own every day schedule, too.
When Ricardo's not hungry anymore, Cristiano takes the plate away from his lap, places it on Ricardo's desk again and returns to look at him, his features a bit softer now.
"I'll look after you tomorrow afternoon ...," he says and it sounds not a bit as gleeful as Marcelo would have managed to say it.
Ricardo can feel the anger stirring up in his stomach again, a feeling he has become quite used to over the course of the last two months.
"Who says I'm going to try it again, tomorrow? ... If I couldn't make use of my hands today, why should I try and make use of them in vain, tomorrow?"
"I say so. ... Because if you give up trying just because you pushed yourself too far today - and you know that you did - you're never going to learn it again. You’ll never get there unless you really try! It's not my fault you fucked yourself up today. You won't do so tomorrow. ... I'll make sure of that."
And then Cristiano is gone, without wishing Ricardo a good night like he usually does, without asking him about a new word, phrase, a new idea for a poem maybe, without checking if there's anything else Ricardo needs, taking the empty plate with him, leaving Ricardo to some hours of lying awake and wondering and eventually falling back to sleep, this time a natural sort of sleep.
#
Something unpleasant about Cristiano - if there really is something as unpleasant about him: the way time with him feels normally flowing and easier to take on, whereas time without him around trickles down slowly, like syrup trickling down a spoon or like a song which never seems to reach its peak, which never seems to end at all, as boring as it is.
In the beginning, Ricardo has been worried about the fact that his life without Cristiano around has become nothing but boring so quickly, but then again is he barely living his own life since about two months, after all. The life he lives now has nothing to do with the life he is used to live. This is merely a shadow of it left.
In the beginning, Ricardo has wondered whether all of this is really necessary, if he is really better off this way. But despite not even having neither the opportunity nor the courage to change something about that and even though he feels like the last two months have brought him closer to hell than he has ever been before, his belief that life in any and every manner - even this manner - is better than death has been rooted to deep. And buried somewhere just as deep there is still hope.
Hope that his fingers won’t remain numb forever.
It isn’t a hope Ricardo never falters to hold on to. But as yesterday evening has proven once again, Ricardo has someone else to do that for him, now, doing it probably better than Ricardo could have ever tried. And that in return is one of the many rather pleasant things about Cristiano Ronaldo.
#
“And you know that you don’t have to write something down, Ricardo, don’t you? … You can as well draw something if you like … and even if these are only a few lines across the paper, that doesn’t matter at all. Just remember that you don’t have to form words, yet. There’s still time for that, later. …”
Even though Ricardo listens as attentively as he can to the psychologist’s - Ricardo still refuses to call him his psychologist, he refuses to - words, Doctor Gutierrez just has that special something around him which makes it merely impossible not to spend attention to him, as soon as the blank paper and a pen are placed on the desk in front of him, comfortably in reach for his hands, all his attention seems to snap.
Suddenly there is only this nothingness begging to be filled with something, anything, and a pen which ridicules him, makes him suffer without limitation by simply laying there. By refusing to fit into the loose grasp of his fingers (not that he tries to pick it up now, he has tried and failed one time too often during the last two months).
“You won’t leave him alone, Cris, will you? … And should there occur some complications, you page me and not Raú- … Doctor Gonzalez, yeah? I know Marcelo was just trying to be helpful yesterday and so was Dr. Gonzalez and he surely meant well, but I do not wish my patient to be held down with the help of tranquilizer anymore …,” Gutierrez addresses Cristiano now, knowing well that Ricardo has a hard time listening right now.
“Don’t worry, Dr. Gutierrez. … I’ll just make sure there won’t be any complications.”
Once again this grim tone has taken over Cristiano’s voice as he now pulls out a small notebook and a pen himself, placing it right next to the set laying in front of Ricardo and sitting down next to him. Ricardo startles a little at the feeling of Cristiano’s arm brushing his own, is freed from the taunting spell the pen seems to have on him for at least a moment.
“How much time do I get this time?”
Doctor Gutierrez, who by then is almost out of the room already, turns around to shoot Ricardo a surprised but pleased smile - at least his patient is showing some kind of anticipation today.
“I think we can go for two hours. … Considering yesterday’s … let’s call it incident, I think some extra time will do you good. … I’ll be back checking on you myself then, please try not to murder my assistant here in the meantime. I’m rather fond of Cristiano, you know?”
And with one last wink at his assistant, the blonde man sweeps out of the door to leave two quiet men behind.
In Guti’s absence, it gets harder not to fall under the pen’s depressing spell again. For a long time, the best Ricardo can do is just to sit there and listen to the scrapping sound Cristiano’s pen makes as it leaves its traces within his notebook. His dark-haired caregiver doesn’t say a thing, doesn’t hesitate or stop to think about what he’s writing down once. It’s always like that. One day, Ricardo quietly promises himself for the hundredth time, he will ask Cristiano what exactly he is writing down so mindlessly and easily every time he sits beside Ricardo to watch over him.
Time passes, fluently and quickly so now, and Ricardo barely notices how the thought and the different possibilities entice him, how he gets so caught up in his own thoughts revolving around Cristiano and this small blue notebook that he completely forgets about everything else - including his own task at hand.
It’s only when Cristiano at his side suddenly throws his pen aside and stares at him, furiously, that Ricardo blinks and gets aware of his surroundings again. It feels like waking from a dream to him.
“You know what angers me the most about you? Seventy minutes and I haven’t even seen you try it, yet. Not once. … I have no idea where you are with your thoughts but clearly you are not focusing as you’re supposed to …,” clearly the same Cristiano as yesterday night is talking to him now. “So enlighten me, please, because I really don’t understand. Correct me if I’m mistaking, but do you even want to recover, at all? Because it doesn’t look like it, to me. It’s not looking like you’re even trying only a bit to go out there again, to live your life again. Do you even want to do that, again, living? …”
One more thing that is unpleasant about Cristiano: his words always manage to get to Ricardo like no one else’s words do - not even the words of Doctor Gonzalez or even Doctor Gutierrez. Because Cristiano’s words confuse him to such an extent that leaves him with no more idea of how to respond, what to make out of them, what to think anymore. Also, there is always truth in Cristiano’s words - a truth Ricardo refuses to acknowledge, just like he refuses to call Doctor Gutierrez his psychologist.
“I’m sorry…,” Ricardo therefore replies quickly and automatically, not wanting to admit how deeply Cristiano’s words hurt him, how they did touch a truth he was struggling to pretend to not see, not know that it was there deep inside of him since two months. Since the accident had happened. The young caregiver seems to choose his words with such sharp care and precision, it is a talent Ricardo most probably would have envied him for - under different circumstances, in another life. In his past life. Now - in this current state of life - he does not. He just wishes the young man’s tongue and tone to be softer with him. He just wishes the world to leave him alone. But Cristiano doesn’t. He’s probably one of the very few people Ricardo has ever met who never seem to leave him alone, no matter what he does.
“Oh, please don’t be sorry for yourself. … But may I ask you a question? Why do you think Doctor Gonzalez is not around anymore when you're ought to train your fingers? Why do you think it's only Gutierrez who's monitoring you now, it’s only Marcelo or me looking after you now and no nurses anymore? Tell me, Ricardo, why you think that is.”
Ricardo presses his lips tightly together and makes a disapproving sound, glancing down his arm at the soft spot on the underside of his elbow, where a little plaster covers a patch of skin.
"Well, you weren't there yesterday, but I can actually remember Doctor Gonzalez being here very well. Still hurts where he jabbed the needle into my arm, actually..."
The glance Cristiano shoots at him can only be described as furious now, his dark eyes burning into Ricardo’s. Secretly, Ricardo has always quietly adored Cristiano’s eyes, for the fire and cold they hold, alike, for them being able to change so quickly, for always stirring up a feeling inside of Ricardo that makes him want to reach for a pen and start writing about them. If only he could.
"It's not his fault, you were practically begging for it, from what I've heard. ... But where is he now? You remember that he was still here with you in the beginning, when you started with your rehabilitation, don't you?” Cristiano’s eyes pin Ricardo down on his chair, his whole body seems to tense and it is clear that he’s not really waiting for Ricardo to respond. He’s probably only pausing to prolong the effect. "Well, I can tell you why he's not around anymore. It's because he and Gutierrez have figured out what your real problem is, by now. And it has nothing to do with your hands, for sure. It's all about what's going on up here."
The light brush of Cristiano’s fingers against his temple, pointing at his head, makes Ricardo startle again, but more for the caregiver’s words than for the soft touch. He feels that things are getting terribly close to where he never wanted them to get to again. And the feeling gets even more urgent when he suddenly sees Doctor Gutierrez sweeping into the room again, as quietly as he had left it before. The psychologist’s words are very low and calm when he speaks now.
“Cristiano …”
“Well, tell us what’s going on there, Ricardo. … Tell us what’s on your mind that stops you from trying…,” the caregiver continues though as if not noticing his employer’s presence, his eyes like liquid fire on Ricardo’s skin as his voice is as sharp as unyielding ice.
“There’s nothing up there keeping me from trying. … It’s just that I simply can’t!”
“If you feel like you really can’t, you’d have got to try harder. But you don’t even try.”
“Cris …,” Doctor Gutierrez seemingly tries to interfere, but again Cristiano acts as if he did not hear him speak.
“You must try harder, right now. … Pick up the pen. Do it!”
Ricardo has never been a person to lose his temper rather quickly, at least not as long as other people still are surrounding him. He used to remain polite and friendly, faced with whatever obstacles, difficulties, dickheads, keeping the anger rising inside him hidden beneath a civil or at least indifferent mask. Only when at home, sitting at his kitchen table or lying on his sofa he dared to let his emotions flow out freely, secured by the knowledge of no one being there to witness him doing so, to judge him for it. He would fill pages and pages and pages of empty books with his thoughts, with his anger and his fears, write it all out of his system, every word freeing his body from the pressure more and more. He would write until he felt lighter again, until the anger had left his body leaving nothing but faint traces of bitterness and memories of dreams he had stopped trying to pursue long ago inside him. Even though most people did not understand, writing it all down was soothing his temper and the best way of venting to him.
Since he had lost control over his hands after the accident, this way of freeing himself from all the pressure - all this anger, all these fears - building inside him had escaped him. And so Ricardo has had to find a different way of letting it all out.
What probably surprises him most, in the first split seconds, is how little surprised Cristiano and Doctor Gutierrez seem to be by his behavior. Maybe they have counted yesterday’s relapse as a warning sign, that’s the only explanation fitting, otherwise Ricardo can’t explain how Cristiano just flies to his feet immediately, as Ricardo starts to attempt to let go of some of this anger - some of this fear - starting to wreck his body again, causing him to scream and try to wriggle out of Cristiano’s arms with as much power as he can drain from his feelings. He barely recognizes Gutierrez coming closer to him, his mind concentrating on a second pair of arms, a second pair of hands, trying to keep him calm and down in his chair now, belonging to another young man, bald and tall and strong and determined, another caregiver, it seems.
And suddenly, between the helpless and angry motions of his body - the same ones as yesterday - and the glimpses of the still white and clean and unwritten paper laying on the desk he catches every now and then, the incoherent screams escaping his lungs turn into words.
“I despise myself. I hate this life. It’s not worth a thing to me. I’d rather be dead than living like this. I hate myself for being so passive, for not being able to do anything on my own, for being so dependent, so weak. I’d rather be dead, let go of me, I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to, I can’t. I’d rather be dead. …”
The words leave him in a rush of hot breath and a heated stream of thoughts and even though speaking them out aloud is nowhere near as satisfying as writing them down in all precision and detail, Ricardo can feel how at least a small part of his feelings seems to leave his body along with the words. At the same time it makes him feel uncomfortable, being so exposed in plain sight to his caregivers, to Gutierrez, now that he has shared what he’s trying to protect since two months.
“Guti…,” Cristiano whispers lowly, almost pleading, Ricardo’s ears barely pick it up, his mind is too busy to do other things to really and properly deal with the small and low input.
“Don’t let go of him now…,” Gutierrez demands harshly, looking as determined and concentrated as he hasn’t looked ever before - or at least Ricardo can’t remember having seen him like this is ever before - , his hands - Ricardo would have never guessed that the psychologist had such strong hands -capturing Ricardo’s head now, forcing him to look directly into these steel-blue eyes as he turns to speak to him, again. “You’re not the one you really hate, Ricardo, trust me. You don’t hate yourself, not at all. But I know there’s something else. … What is it that bothers you the most?”
Even though he knows it is pointless by now - Cristiano and the other caregiver (his name is Pepe, Ricardo will remember later) are overpowering him way too much -, he can’t help but to trash against their strong hands, trying to free his body. But while his body is held down by them so firmly, it seems like he has also lost control over his mouth, as he finds himself responding to Gutierrez’ prompting without even intending to.
“My hands,” he spits out now, “I hate my hands. They’re useless, just utterly useless and I loathe that. I need them and I can’t use them, I hate them for letting me down like that. All my life I have depended on them and I hate them for making me so dependent. I hate them for being so important to me, I hate them for refusing to just let me believe that I will never make use of them again. My hands disgust me.”
“Guti, I don’t think … maybe we should …”
“Hush now, Cristiano, let me do my job here and concentrate on your own. …,” Gutierrez snaps though, his eyes fixed on Ricardo and nothing but Ricardo now as he kneels in front of him, looking him in the eye as if he’s practically digging into them, looking for what’s hidden beneath. And Ricardo understands that Gutierrez knows that he’s so very close.
“You’re doing great, Ricardo, you’re doing very great. But that’s still not the truth, is it? … I know how precise you can be with words and feelings; I’ve seen your diaries. I’ve read some of them. And it’s neither yourself you truly despise nor your hands. …”
“It’s only my hands!”
Ricardo shakes his head furiously, feeling tears carving their way up inside of his body. But Gutierrez is mercilessly clawing into the hole he has spotted, now. It’s too late.
“No, it’s not. Look at me now, Ricardo, look at me. … And now tell me, be as precise as you can, what is it that scares you so much? What is it that really bothers you; that keeps you from making progress with your hands? Because we know that you should be able to make progress, your body should accommodate to the practice and exercises easily. And yet it doesn’t. … I know you don’t want to, I know this won’t be pleasant, but just tell me what it really is, Ricardo, and I promise you, it’ll get better, far better, from here on out … Tell me now: What is it that you really despise?”
Ricardo knows that he’s trapped now. That there’s no chance to escape the psychologist’s questions. He knows Gutierrez won’t let go of him now, not when he has dug so deep and found so much, nor will the two caregivers holding him down on the chair, even though he has stopped his angry thrashing by now, gets too exhausted by it.
“My job. The life this job makes me life, the rules this job sets up for me. The things that are expected of me to do, the things I end up doing every day. … I hate everything about it. Everything. This work disgusts me, it’s not what I wanted, it’s what I never wanted to be, I hate everything of it, and I don’t want to go back to it, never again. I don’t want to do it ever again, I don’t want to write a single line for them ever again, I hate to waste my talent and my future on something that’s so insignificant and so not what I always wanted to do. My job. My old life. It disgusts me, so much that I have no words to describe it. Please don’t make me having to go back there again,” Ricardo cries out eventually, tears welling up in his eyes but more tears of exhaustion than of sadness.
The first thing he realizes is the absolute silence following his words, the stillness after he stops trashing against the two caregiver’s grip. The second thing he realizes is that his psychologist’s look on him is soft and understanding, but that there’s a triumphant shimmer in his eyes as if he has achieved something, as well. The third thing Ricardo feels is Cristiano’s gaze on him, looking down at him wistfully and uncertainly, but the touch of his hands getting so very soft from one moment to the other, as if to apologize to Ricardo for what he’s done, what he’s said during the last few minutes.
And then, suddenly, Ricardo gets aware of another feeling pulling at his nerve strings.
He looks down at his right hand, tears blurring his view.
But he can still see the pen his fingers are tightly clawed around. The pen he has taken up from the desk all by himself, without even realizing it.
#
Ricardo has always felt this fascination with words, especially with the written word, ever since he has learned how to read as a little boy in school. Before that even he had admired his father’s handwriting whenever he had come across it, not even being able to read what his father had written yet, but already fascinated by the wide rounds and sharp lines, small points and tiny bows blue ink had left on paper. He can still remember every inch of excitement and thrilling to fill up his body when he had been told how to write himself, how to fill a page with exactly the same rounds and lines and points and bows. And this childish fascination has never left him, ever since. He has started to write on his own, the scrapping of pencil and paper becoming a sound which always accompanied him wherever he went. He wrote everything down, things he heard and saw and though, things he wanted to remember and things he wanted to forget, birthday wishes, postcards, lists, short-stories, everything.
It had been clear for him for as long as he could think that he had wanted to do something dealing with writing in his life, even writing something at a computer if he at least could be able to write something on his own. Whether he wanted to become an author, a journalist, a poet or anything similar, he’d never figured out while just trying everything of it out, at times all at once. It hadn’t brought him money, but it had pleased him without limits - in the beginning, when money had been no issue.
And then money had become an issue and Ricardo had been forced to look for another job in order to pay his tuition fees, a job that turned out so time-consuming he had to drop his classes at university eventually in order to get enough money to pay for the rent and food and clothes, a job so boring and dull that every day had been barely acceptable to live through, a job having to deal so less with the things he really had wanted to do with his life that it had slowly driven him insane. His only comfort had been the quiet evenings and nights he had spent at home alone, writing his trails of thoughts into his books, at least keeping a little bit of that spirit within him, of that fascination with words and books and paper alive. It had been rather something more than nothing, but it hadn’t been anything he had ever wanted, either.
Until that one day.
In retro perspective, this terrible accident which had left him behind with absolutely no feeling in his fingers had not quite been the worst thing ever happening to him. But it had come very close.
#
When Ricardo wakes up again, the air around him feels fresh and clean, almost sober. He opens his eyes to blinding and stark white sunlight flooding the room, making it shine white, almost as white as a blank page staring back at him. Blank, that’s exactly how he feels these days, as if all ink and all writing ever to have filled him up has been drained out of him.
He realizes the routine that has caught up with him again, how he stretches his legs first, still starring at the ceiling, and how he then hesitantly stretches his arms and his fingers, too, not quite accustomed to the fact that he can actually feel something inside his fingers again, yet. The feeling doesn’t surprise him anymore, and yet it feels nothing like he had expected it to feel.
And when he reaches out for the plate standing on the table next to his bed, the food smelling of sweet breakfast and coffee, he’s not really surprised to find Doctor Gutierrez sitting in the chair next to his bed. It’s a sight Ricardo has come accustomed to over the past seven days, even though a part of him still waits and hopes for someone else sitting in this exact chair in the morning. But since that afternoon, his mornings always begin with Doctor Gutierrez; his days always feature his psychologist’s presence. At the same time, they’ve completely ceased to feature Cristiano’s presence.
The morning after Ricardo’s final breakdown - even though everyone else seems to favor calling it a ‘breakthrough’ more than a breakdown - Cristiano had been there, sitting quietly next to his bed and waiting for Ricardo to wake up. The young caregiver had said nothing and Ricardo hadn’t either and so Cristiano had only looked at him with these brown and calm and deep and quiet and sorry and soil-like eyes. Without saying a word he had laid his notebook on Ricardo’s desk, had brushed his fingers over Ricardo’s temple just once - hesitating slightly when he felt how Ricardo squirmed away from the touch - and then, just in his typical and unpleasant manner, he had left the room, leaving Ricardo behind. He had not returned to see him ever since. Cristiano’s book was still lying on Ricardo’s desk, right next to the plate which his breakfast was now standing on.
“Good morning, Ricardo…,” Gutierrez’ voice sounds politely and warm, as friendly as indifferent. “I assume you slept well…”
Ricardo’s response is a nod, only recalling his dreams in a blurry haze but there’s nothing uncomfortable about the memory so he does just as well assume that he slept well. At least it was only his own body sending him to sleep and no medicine, something he counts as a clear sign for sleeping well.
“Do you feel like eating?” Gutierrez asks him further on, interpreting the intensive stare Ricardo has lain on his desk. He only shakes his head now, his thoughts already revolving around the small blue notebook again, just like they have for a total of the last seven days. It itches in Ricardo’s fingers - it really does - to open the book and read what’s written down in it, he’s practically starving to read all of the words Cristiano has left there in his neat handwriting, to get to know Cristiano’s thoughts eventually. Ricardo feels certain enough to say that he knows Cristiano to an extent which not everybody at his working place knows him and still, there’s something missing.
And yet he hasn’t opened the book until now, even though he most probably would be able to.
“I think you should know …,”Gutierrez starts again and this time his guess as where to pick Ricardo up in his trail of thoughts is the right one, “that it’s not Cristiano’s fault. What we put you through that day. I don’t know what he said or did to you before I showed up, but I gave him clear instructions to rile you up. Forcing a confrontation was the task I had given to him, not a task he had chosen by himself. … And maybe you as well ought to know that he did not necessarily agree to the methods I used and wanted him to use, too, I can assure you of that. Just the opposite, he wanted to protect you from it and in the end the only reason why he agreed on helping me in the first place is the same reason why I wanted him and only him to do it. Because it seems to me that he cares about you just like you care about him. So he did it - most reluctantly, I’d like to stress it again - in order to prevent someone else doing it, someone who doesn’t know you as well as he does - Marcelo, maybe -, someone who had probably hurt you even more…”
Once again the only thing Ricardo can do is shake his head because he doesn’t want to hear it all, because he still refuses to understand, too wrapped up in his hurt feelings. Because he still doesn’t know how to feel about this breakdown, the breakthrough, what has been said before, what is happening with him now, afterwards, the progress he makes and how well he does, the feeling returning to his fingers slowly, the fact that it’s not Cristiano anymore who’s sitting next to him when he wakes up but that it’s Doctor Gutierrez instead.
“Also, he hasn’t touched your diaries even though I offered him to read them in order to understand. He has refused to read a single word or even hear about it. He says he’d never wanted to invade your private space like that. … Maybe you should read the one that he’s given to you, though, I assume that would help you to understand why he’s so sorry and that it’s a difficult situation for him, too, the way he feels. Because he is sorry. And he does feel something for you which he probably shouldn’t. … You should eat something, Ricardo. And then you should get started reading it. Turning the pages should be well practice for your hands, Doctor Gonzalez has told me, too. …”
And so Ricardo begins to read in Cristiano’s notebook, eventually starts to discover his caregiver’s well-treasured thoughts, not few of them having to do with himself. The thought that Cristiano has written all of this down right in front of Ricardo’s eyes makes his skin tingle in excitement and anticipation.
Reading every line and sentence and phrase carefully and twice, deciphering their meaning slowly and word for word, Ricardo now wishes more than ever that he had found the nerve to ask Cristiano what it was that he kept writing down. Maybe it would have made things easier.
It takes him another full week to get through the book, simply because it’s demanding so much of his concentration and he wants to read every single word with only the right amount of care, something not as easy to accomplish looking at the way Cristiano has written down his mind and his heart without any form or structure. But after another week, his fingers gaining more and more strength and him slowly winning his control over them back in the meantime, he finishes reading the book eventually, closing it carefully and completely on his own.
He does not even try to convince himself that these are tears caused by something having gotten into his eyes accidentally softly staining his cheeks.
#
The next time Ricardo sees Cristiano again is two months and a fortnight later.
He sits in a small café, one of his favorite places in the whole city, still one of his favorite places there even though so much has changed, sipping his coffee when all out of sudden and out of nowhere he sees him.
There's nothing magical or spectacular about his former caregiver's appearance, one moment Ricardo is staring at an old man's broad back hurrying along outside on the street and in the next moment he finds himself looking directly into Cristiano's well-known features, the surprise flashing over his face being mirrored by the window pane. He freezes for a moment but when he blinks the next time, Cristiano is already on his way over to him, pushing the café's door open and looking around for Ricardo as if to secure himself that it's really him and he's not only seen a ghost. It has happened to both of them before, even though they'll get to know that only much later, these small and stinging disappointing moments when they thought they'd see each other, only to be disappointed by their mistaking. This time it's real, though.
Ricardo doesn't really know where to look as Cristiano approaches him, it's been not even three months but the aching in his chest is surprisingly strong and sweet for that, and finds himself focusing on his hands resting on the table.
His mind tries to form something to say as an 'hello', but all the words he has stored up there, everything he's practiced for the almost impossible seeming 'what if’, are abandoning him now, leaving both of them in an awkward but mutually heartfelt silence at first.
"So, uhm. ... Doctor Gutierrez returned my book to me when you were discharged. ... He told me you had read it."
Ricardo nods, still staring at his hands and not daring to look up for reasons he himself is not really sure of, but the blush spreading on his cheeks unintentionally surely among them.
"You could have kept it, you know? ... I meant it to be yours, anyway."
Something inside of Ricardo stirs at that and he feels the urge to say something, he can physically feel it, but there are no words coming to his mind. The idea of speaking is so very close to the front of his head but the words just won't come out, he can't get a grasp on them. He can feel in the lingering silence how Cristiano waits for him to say something, but he can't. Eventually, as he manages to look up just once, he sees the other man shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans, shrugging.
"Well, anyway, I just came over because I wanted to see whether you're alright. ... And perhaps to apologize, I don't know. ...," Cristiano pauses, still waiting for a reaction of Ricardo which just won't come. As he drops his voice now, Ricardo can hear a strangely familiar tone in the other man's voice, a tone filled with regret and excuse and longing he knows very well from listening his own thoughts late at night when sleep just won't come. "It wouldn't have been possible anyway, not in our situation ...," Cristiano muses lowly, his eyes fixed on the table and the pattern which covers it, lines curved deeply into wood, his eyes staring into the nothingness in front of him, not really focusing on Ricardo anymore.
Ricardo, still, is silent.
And then, when his brain eventually proceeds that he’s about to fuck it up again and that right now is probably the last chance he will ever get, the words are suddenly there. Still not on the back of his tongue, but at least he can grasp them in his mind. Grasp them and give them shape. After another few seconds, he picks up the pen lying next to his coffee mug - he does it slowly and carefully, but he does - and scribbles down something on a piece of paper.
He can see Cristiano startling visibly at the motion of Ricardo writing something down, clearly something his former caregiver is not used to see of him, and when he pushes the note into the other man's direction, smiling carefully at him, Cristiano glances over at him surprised, but surprised in a positive way.
Ricardo's handwriting is still not as clear and round and full as it has been before the accident, but Cristiano is able to decipher the words, nonetheless.
‘Things have changed. We can always try now.’