Ficlet: Let me bathe here in your smile (Pep/Bojan)
Title: Let me bathe here in your smile...
Summary: Pep used to wish Bojan wouldn’t smile so often.
Warnings: Slash. And a bit of angst, too.
Rating: PG-13. As innocent as Bojan himself. ::cough, cough::
Wordcount: 467
Disclaimers: I shouldn’t be allowed to watch football matches unsupervised by a team of psychiatrists. This is all in my imagination.
A/N: for sophiamoon, for graciously granting me the request for a ficlet of these two, and as the equivalent of a Get Well card.
For what it’s worth, this isn’t a songfic. *But* there was a song persistently running through my head while I wrote this. It’s called “Don’t fade away”, it belongs to the much-missed Dead Can Dance (if you’re curious, you can listen to it here), and not only did it give me the title of this ficlet, but also a line that I can’t help but relate to these two: I’ve heard that innocence has led us all astray... (the title of my next ficlet, perhaps?).
As usual, this hasn’t be beta’d, it has been written while I should have been doing something else, and I would appreciate encouragement, criticism and fangirling. ;)
I was inspired (sic!), by Bojan's eyes as he warms the bench and his puppyish hope every time Pep turns in his direction, by Guardiola's endless interviews about how he doesn't have a problem with Bojan, even though he doesn't give him many minutes to play, and by the pics showing those two together (including one before Pep was made Barca's manager).
Let me bathe here in your smile
Pep used to wish Bojan wouldn’t smile so often. Every one of those brilliant smiles filled him with the delicious pain of seeing the forbidden paraded right in front of his nose, and that was before Pep found himself with the (formal) responsibility of guiding the boy on and off the pitch.
With new responsibilities came new rights, and new possibilities: a seemingly paternal arm slung around shoulders that were stronger than they looked, a playful hug, a well-intentioned hand on the back of a frail neck. No-one gave an askance look at this. Physical encouragement, of all kinds, is well-known in the football world. And when Bojan’s smiles became wider, brighter, more frequent, praise was heaped upon the manager who was managing to bring the shy youngster out of his shell.
But Pep is not that kind of man. He has principles and he doesn’t intend to renounce to them, not even in the face of hopeful, puppyish eyes that follow him everywhere. He doesn’t intend to bask in undeserved praise either. And as much as he enjoys them, as much as they pain him, he doesn’t intend to be the cause and the recipient of those smiles any more. He is aware that his feelings (that Bojan’s feelings, which can be divined with nothing more than a look) are not right, and he cannot, will not nurture them.
So, he turns away. He stifles his own wants and needs and thinks only of his duties. He focuses on the game, on tactics, strategies and rotations, and leaves the flickering smile and the too-soft eyes to languish in the bench. To prevent people talking, he tries to act as if Bojan is just one more of the pawns at his disposal, to play him like a striker more, but he is aware of his lack of success at this, of the murmuring at the back of the bench when young Bo once again gets to play the last three minutes of a match; it seems that all his careful work has achieved the completely opposite of what he intended. And Bojan doesn’t smile anymore.
Now, temptation returns, and Pep wouldn’t be human if he didn’t give into it every so often, ever so subtly. Little gestures that no-one else would think about twice, Pep indulges in with deliberation and then holds onto them like burning coals. He is conscious of his own damnation, but also of the smiles that seem to hesitantly revisit to those lips that keep him awake at nights, and there are times when he considers it a fair trade-off, to feel guilty for the rest of his life but to never make Bojan feel unwanted again.
Pep used to wish Bojan didn’t smile so often. Now, he remembers those as happier times.
Summary: Pep used to wish Bojan wouldn’t smile so often.
Warnings: Slash. And a bit of angst, too.
Rating: PG-13. As innocent as Bojan himself. ::cough, cough::
Wordcount: 467
Disclaimers: I shouldn’t be allowed to watch football matches unsupervised by a team of psychiatrists. This is all in my imagination.
A/N: for sophiamoon, for graciously granting me the request for a ficlet of these two, and as the equivalent of a Get Well card.
For what it’s worth, this isn’t a songfic. *But* there was a song persistently running through my head while I wrote this. It’s called “Don’t fade away”, it belongs to the much-missed Dead Can Dance (if you’re curious, you can listen to it here), and not only did it give me the title of this ficlet, but also a line that I can’t help but relate to these two: I’ve heard that innocence has led us all astray... (the title of my next ficlet, perhaps?).
As usual, this hasn’t be beta’d, it has been written while I should have been doing something else, and I would appreciate encouragement, criticism and fangirling. ;)
I was inspired (sic!), by Bojan's eyes as he warms the bench and his puppyish hope every time Pep turns in his direction, by Guardiola's endless interviews about how he doesn't have a problem with Bojan, even though he doesn't give him many minutes to play, and by the pics showing those two together (including one before Pep was made Barca's manager).
Let me bathe here in your smile
Pep used to wish Bojan wouldn’t smile so often. Every one of those brilliant smiles filled him with the delicious pain of seeing the forbidden paraded right in front of his nose, and that was before Pep found himself with the (formal) responsibility of guiding the boy on and off the pitch.
With new responsibilities came new rights, and new possibilities: a seemingly paternal arm slung around shoulders that were stronger than they looked, a playful hug, a well-intentioned hand on the back of a frail neck. No-one gave an askance look at this. Physical encouragement, of all kinds, is well-known in the football world. And when Bojan’s smiles became wider, brighter, more frequent, praise was heaped upon the manager who was managing to bring the shy youngster out of his shell.
But Pep is not that kind of man. He has principles and he doesn’t intend to renounce to them, not even in the face of hopeful, puppyish eyes that follow him everywhere. He doesn’t intend to bask in undeserved praise either. And as much as he enjoys them, as much as they pain him, he doesn’t intend to be the cause and the recipient of those smiles any more. He is aware that his feelings (that Bojan’s feelings, which can be divined with nothing more than a look) are not right, and he cannot, will not nurture them.
So, he turns away. He stifles his own wants and needs and thinks only of his duties. He focuses on the game, on tactics, strategies and rotations, and leaves the flickering smile and the too-soft eyes to languish in the bench. To prevent people talking, he tries to act as if Bojan is just one more of the pawns at his disposal, to play him like a striker more, but he is aware of his lack of success at this, of the murmuring at the back of the bench when young Bo once again gets to play the last three minutes of a match; it seems that all his careful work has achieved the completely opposite of what he intended. And Bojan doesn’t smile anymore.
Now, temptation returns, and Pep wouldn’t be human if he didn’t give into it every so often, ever so subtly. Little gestures that no-one else would think about twice, Pep indulges in with deliberation and then holds onto them like burning coals. He is conscious of his own damnation, but also of the smiles that seem to hesitantly revisit to those lips that keep him awake at nights, and there are times when he considers it a fair trade-off, to feel guilty for the rest of his life but to never make Bojan feel unwanted again.
Pep used to wish Bojan didn’t smile so often. Now, he remembers those as happier times.