Down in Your Heart; Villa/Torres
Title: Down In Your Heart
Pairing: Villa/Torres
Rating: PG
Word Count: 3,003
Summary: "I'm lost," he whispered, despite the fact that the other man was sleeping, "I'm empty, and I'm aching, and I don't know why." Only the blank streets of Poland below the hotel window heard his confession: The National Team was so much easier than his new home at Chelsea.
Author radioroses
Mixer: distira
Download Mix Here
Several things had changed, but not too drastically, never any more than was only vaguely noticeable. There were people on the team that changed the shape of The Twenty Three, as Fernando always seemed to refer to them -- and why would he pick anything but? Only they knew what had happened a world away, really. The friends, family, fans, had seen only that which was allowed. What they didn't know were the nights spent in the darkness, praying to God that that little octopus Paul actually knew what the Hell he was doing,saying, for lack of a better word. In all honesty, who really was in their right mind? Certainly not a group of men who had mud thrown at them and invested their hopes and dreams in a creature that couldn't even process actual thought. But dearLord did he love that little octopus in his glass cage with those plastic boxes and that Red & Yellow flag of his home country because that was really all that mattered.
Champions of Europe, Champions of the World.
Poland is a cheap flight. Not too far from ...His home was in Spain, where they spoke the language and laughed and the flag was beautifully coloured, like the sunrise, and reminded him of days hidden away when the window was open and the sunlight dripped across skin that pulled tight over muscle and bone and invited fingers to brush ever-so-lightly against, playing their way up the plains of spine and shoulder and neck andEstrella in a sleepy voice that didn't want to wake up but got up anyway, just enough to roll over and pull Fernando down to the bed, against his chest. But he didn't live there, had chosen to stay in Liverpool. And what had they done? Well, they certainly hadn't done him any favours, and he really didn't have that much of a choice; he had to leave, but he had the untouched England.
"You gonna get your suitcase or let it go around in circles?" A laugh filtered in to the air after those words around lips that parted to invite every word right back in, echos of a dangerous game dancing in the corner of his eyes.
"Good to know you can walk, David." Fernando laughed too, and David could see written in those eyes he had so missed that everything had been affirmed. Yes,El Guaje was going to make the Euros and there was nothing to worry about. Croatia? Cake. Republic of Ireland? Done. Italy? They could conquer that, too, because they could conquer anything together. The two of them, walking out of the airport for the bus and seated next to each other, laughter and smiles and, "I didn't think you'd make it back, Maravilla." The whole bus laughed, in an instant forgetting why they were there, and no one really cared. Everyone really knew he'd be back -- Del Bosque had said that he would wait forthem. Just as they always waited for each other.
Once inside the hotel, everything was different. Among friends they lagged behind, hushed voices more of a precaution than a necessity at that point, and despite the fact that their mouths were moving too fast to afford actual smiles they were always there dancing across eyes and lighting up features. "I promised you I'd be here." David's voice is low, deep, thick with concentration as they opt to take the stairs. It's only five flights, David's enjoying his newfound freedom in walking once again, and Fernando wants to say Please, don't push yourself but he knows better.
"I know you did," Fernando is doing his best to hide the fact that he's keeping a half-step behind, watching David in a mixture of concern and admiration, "but even the great Guaje can't will everything in to place."
David stops on the landing between floors three and four, looking back at the other man with a smile so bright Fernando doubts the stars will seem as bright as they used to because nothing compates to that smile, nothing compares to the way every line in the other mans face line up so perfectly that Da Vinci had it wrong when he painted the Mona Lisa . "For you, estrella , I could will the Earth to stand still." The shorter man starts walking again, giving Fernando no time to respond and maybe, just maybe, it's better that way.
When they reach the fourth floor landing David holds the door open, slightly out of breath, smiling despite himself, and all Fernando can think of is just how perfect he finds the other man as he walks passed, catching his eyes and entering the hallway that houses the Spanish National Team. In two days they'll begin their fight to keep the title as Champions of Europe and even if they don't win, even if they manage to lose their first three matches -- even if he can't see how that would be possible -- but even if they do, it doesn't really matter because nothing could ever be as perfect as they were on that fateful day last July. And nothing that anyone ever says or does can take that away.
"I was surprised you only called me once." David looks up from his suitcase, where he's busy checking to make sure that all of the things that he packed still lay inside, like someone would take them. Sometimes, Fernando thinks that it's just another nervous habit, the same way David will lay all of the contents out on the bed, reorganize them, refold them, and then tuck them in to a drawer and no matter how many times it happens, Fernando always offers his assistance and David always declines. "When you left Liverpool, I mean."
Of course. What else would he be talking about? Fernando left three voicemails, as hopeless and desperate as it was, when he found out David had been injured before the Barcelona striker even had time to get to his phone. "Why?" Though he already knows the answer, he wants, needs , to hear the only man that he loves, has ever loved, say it out loud.
David laughs. Not a free, happy laugh, but a calming one. Whether he's trying to calm his own nerves, or the others, is left open for debate. "Because I know that it broke your heart. Because I know that you won't ever tell the secrets as to why, only comment, only once, about broken promises. And I know, perhaps better than anyone, how much promises mean to you." David sets down the last of the shirts and begins to refold his pants, and Fernando watched silently the care with which the gesture was done. All creases were pressed out, and then they were folded in half, the ankles folded up halfway to the knee and then in half as a whole. Always. Some things never changed. "Which is why I had to get better. I promised you that I would be here with you in Poland, E strella . The same way that I promised you every night in South Africa that everything would be okay."
Fernando, stunned, stays silent. Those are the words that he expected to hear, but they still leave him breathless. David notices, but says nothing, and the subsequent silence is filled with the folding of clothes and ends with the rezipping of a familiar, worn suitcase, and for a moment Fernando wonders if the other man will ever buy a new one, and doubts it. Rarely is the superstitious side of El Guaje seen, but it is a hidden side, like so many others, that Fernando knows well. He watches, lips parted and prepared to speak, as clothes begin to find their way in to the drawers of the dresser. "Why do you always keep your promises to me?" When he finally finds his voice they are not the words that he expected to speak, and judging by the hitch in movements and the way that his eyes look up without his head, David did not expect to hear them either.
" Estrella ," he whispered, setting aside the task at hand and crossing the room, arms going tight around the taller man and lips pressed to the skin just below his ear, leaving his breath to soothe when words are lining up, waiting to escape. "For the same reason that the sun rises in the East and sets in the West; For the same reason that the Earth revolves around the Sun." David paused, a trail of kisses leading the way from ear to neck, along his jaw, stopping featherlight against lips. "Because I don't know how to do anything else." Only then did he kiss Fernando, for the first time since he was visited in the hospital months ago, when the injury was fresh and the cast was still something worth getting used to. The kiss is delicate, but demands that the other take the strength that David is offering in that moment.
He wanted to protest. Wanted to say, But you know how to play football, David, you're amazing at it and you love every minute of it , but those words wouldn't come out, and some part of him knows that David senses them on the tip of his tongue anyway because moments later there David's tongue is, stealing them away and Fernando forgets they ever existed in the first place. Fernando's arms lift, fingers clenching the fabric of the others shirt with a grip that turns his knuckles white and the gesture only urges David on, tongue sweeping mouth and lips caressing lips, one hand at the base of the Chelsea strikers neck and the other against his hip. When he finally pulls away, the distance between them is only enough to allow the air passed, close enough that they are sharing breaths. He cannot see it, but Fernando knows that there is a smile on David's lips.
"I love you."
Before there is time for Fernando to respond the older man is kissing him again, more forceful, willing the worrier within the blonde to stop worrying about everything so much and just enjoy that moment, because he knows that he's never said it before and probably shouldn't have said it, had kept himself from saying it so many times before but he couldn't keep it inside any more. And maybe, just maybe, this doesn't have to be the end of the world as they both know it. For as much as David doesn't want Fernando to speak, Fernando doesn't want to speak. He knows that he can't say it back, not yet, maybe not ever, and something inside of the carnal desire to just be close to the other could be enough to will him to forget that it ever happened.
Eternity passes inside that kiss. What seems an outward struggle for dominance is nothing more than the celebration of being equal: They're in this together, in everything together.
"David," as soon as they part to gasp in shaking breaths the name is out, "I ca--" but he doesn't care to hear Fernando say I can't say it or explain why because, "It doesn't matter" and that seems good enough, at least for the time being, shirts off bodies and on the floor and David's going to have to fold the clothes left on the bed again but it doesn't matter, and they're both telling themselves the same words as primal feelings take over: It doesn't matter .
- - - - -
"I'm lost," he whispered, despite the fact that the other man was sleeping, "I'm empty, and I'm aching, and I don't know why." Only the blank streets of Poland below the hotel window heard his confession: The National Team was so much easier than his new home at Chelsea. Looking away from the window Fernando finds the form of the man he knows hehas to love lying in bed, naked and tangled in the sheets and their clothes are still on the floor and there's a pile of half-unfolded pants that never made it in to the drawer at the foot of the bed. What possessed him to speak the younger is unsure but there the words are, swallowed up, yet again, by a foreign country that feels more like home than England has since his return from South Africa.
>Leaving the window he knelt at the foot of the bed, picking up the clothes and folding them the way that they're meant to be folded, the way that he knows they're folded despite the fact that he's never actually done it himself. How many things in the world does he know how to do, but has never actually done? Fernando can't keep his eyes off the sleeping form of the light of his life on the bed, and he's pretty sure that that last pair of pants isn't folded perfectly but he puts them in the drawer anyway, doing his best to keep the silence of the room in-tact.
Standing he pulls the blanket from the floor and draws it across the sleeping man, pressing a kiss to his shoulder. "You've changed me, David." David doesn't stir, and Fernando lingers for several moments, half-bent over the other, fingers mere inches above blankets and skin, watching . When he finally stands, a heavy sigh left to dust against the elder's hair, the Chelsea striker has to force himself to look away and follow his feet to the bathroom and the waiting shower.
- - - - -
"Good morning, sleepyhead." David makes a muffled Mmnghf sort of sound in protest, reaching for the man he is unaware has been watching him for the last hour, reliving simpler mornings a world away, sunrise washing over skin and tickling eyes until they finally decided to open. "How did you sleep?" Fernando smiles, warm and comforting and he can't believe that he's hiding the torment within him as he slips on to the sliver of open bed between David and the edge instead of crawling back in to his spot. Something about having to be that close, skin on skin and blanket and embraces, gives the stirring sea within him pause.
"Not long enough," he yawns in reply, arms snaking around the younger striker and pulling him even closer, if at all possible, burying his face between shoulder and neck and pressing the softest of kisses wherever lips come to rest. "How long've you been up?"
Fernando can't help but laugh against an ear, brushing featherlight touches against spine. "Not too long."
David pulls back, his eyes searching underneath knit brows, lips pulled together in a line so tight there is no smile left between them and Dammit, Fernando, you gave yourself away . "What's wrong, Estrella ?" Now fully awake the Barcelona striker shifts his weight, leaning against one elbow and moving closer to the middle of the bed to give the other man room, fingers finding a familiar hold sprawled across the back of his neck.
The silence seems to stretch on forever, growing thinner and thinner until it's stretched taught around the room and just might have spilled out in to the hallway, over on to the streets below to where everyone knows, everyone knows, everyone k n o w s and he just won't say it. "I just... couldn't sleep." When Fernando pauses -- to take a breath, to figure out what to say, to pray that the other will just leave it for what it is -- David immediately opens his mouth to speak and is silence by the younger's hand over his mouth and exerts more effort than it should have taken to sit up, has back to David, legs over the side of the bed and feet brushing the floor.
The great Guaje stays silent and still.
"Just. Be quiet , for once." Everyone feels the flinch. "I haven't been able to sleep all night. Not fully. Not really. I just... I keep hearing your voice, what you said," he pauses to cast a glance over his shoulder, watching David watch him, wanting to speak, "and I don't know why. I mean. I understand, I guess. You just weren't supposed to say that." Fernando looks away, to the window and the sun and the foreign sky that's exactly the same wherever they go, and David knows he's allowed to speak now.
"I can't, won't , take it back, Estrella ." And David sits up, pressing a kiss to the younger man's shoulder, neck, ear, inhaling deeply against his hair and he smells the shower and the distress and something else that he can't quite place. "So don't ask me to. We can pretend I didn't say it, I told you already, it doesn't matter--"
"But it does matter, David, it does matter." Immediately he is on his feet and turns to face the man half-sitting, half-lounging on the bed, still dressed in only what parts of sheet and blanket remain across skin, a demanding contrast to his own practice shorts. "Why would you say it otherwise?"
David laughs. Fernando looks stunned. David is laughing at him. Not a soft, quiet, you're being ridiculous Estrella laugh, but a full blown, That's the funniest thing I've ever heard laugh.
"You're crazy, Estrella. " David, after some difficulty in untangling himself from the mess of bed linens, stands, pulling Fernando to him, arms around his middle and face right where it belongs against neck, and Fernando can feel the smile still stretched across lips as they take in steady breaths. "I love you. I've loved you since South Africa, Estrella , and I've been infatuated with you since we started playing together. And you're the only person that can't see that."
What words Fernando wants to say do not come out. He wants to scream, to slap some semblance of sense in to the other man, to push him away and leave their room to find his own and, "I love you, too, David."
Pairing: Villa/Torres
Rating: PG
Word Count: 3,003
Summary: "I'm lost," he whispered, despite the fact that the other man was sleeping, "I'm empty, and I'm aching, and I don't know why." Only the blank streets of Poland below the hotel window heard his confession: The National Team was so much easier than his new home at Chelsea.
Author radioroses
Mixer: distira
Download Mix Here
Several things had changed, but not too drastically, never any more than was only vaguely noticeable. There were people on the team that changed the shape of The Twenty Three, as Fernando always seemed to refer to them -- and why would he pick anything but? Only they knew what had happened a world away, really. The friends, family, fans, had seen only that which was allowed. What they didn't know were the nights spent in the darkness, praying to God that that little octopus Paul actually knew what the Hell he was doing,saying, for lack of a better word. In all honesty, who really was in their right mind? Certainly not a group of men who had mud thrown at them and invested their hopes and dreams in a creature that couldn't even process actual thought. But dearLord did he love that little octopus in his glass cage with those plastic boxes and that Red & Yellow flag of his home country because that was really all that mattered.
Champions of Europe, Champions of the World.
Poland is a cheap flight. Not too far from ...His home was in Spain, where they spoke the language and laughed and the flag was beautifully coloured, like the sunrise, and reminded him of days hidden away when the window was open and the sunlight dripped across skin that pulled tight over muscle and bone and invited fingers to brush ever-so-lightly against, playing their way up the plains of spine and shoulder and neck andEstrella in a sleepy voice that didn't want to wake up but got up anyway, just enough to roll over and pull Fernando down to the bed, against his chest. But he didn't live there, had chosen to stay in Liverpool. And what had they done? Well, they certainly hadn't done him any favours, and he really didn't have that much of a choice; he had to leave, but he had the untouched England.
"You gonna get your suitcase or let it go around in circles?" A laugh filtered in to the air after those words around lips that parted to invite every word right back in, echos of a dangerous game dancing in the corner of his eyes.
"Good to know you can walk, David." Fernando laughed too, and David could see written in those eyes he had so missed that everything had been affirmed. Yes,El Guaje was going to make the Euros and there was nothing to worry about. Croatia? Cake. Republic of Ireland? Done. Italy? They could conquer that, too, because they could conquer anything together. The two of them, walking out of the airport for the bus and seated next to each other, laughter and smiles and, "I didn't think you'd make it back, Maravilla." The whole bus laughed, in an instant forgetting why they were there, and no one really cared. Everyone really knew he'd be back -- Del Bosque had said that he would wait forthem. Just as they always waited for each other.
Once inside the hotel, everything was different. Among friends they lagged behind, hushed voices more of a precaution than a necessity at that point, and despite the fact that their mouths were moving too fast to afford actual smiles they were always there dancing across eyes and lighting up features. "I promised you I'd be here." David's voice is low, deep, thick with concentration as they opt to take the stairs. It's only five flights, David's enjoying his newfound freedom in walking once again, and Fernando wants to say Please, don't push yourself but he knows better.
"I know you did," Fernando is doing his best to hide the fact that he's keeping a half-step behind, watching David in a mixture of concern and admiration, "but even the great Guaje can't will everything in to place."
David stops on the landing between floors three and four, looking back at the other man with a smile so bright Fernando doubts the stars will seem as bright as they used to because nothing compates to that smile, nothing compares to the way every line in the other mans face line up so perfectly that Da Vinci had it wrong when he painted the Mona Lisa . "For you, estrella , I could will the Earth to stand still." The shorter man starts walking again, giving Fernando no time to respond and maybe, just maybe, it's better that way.
When they reach the fourth floor landing David holds the door open, slightly out of breath, smiling despite himself, and all Fernando can think of is just how perfect he finds the other man as he walks passed, catching his eyes and entering the hallway that houses the Spanish National Team. In two days they'll begin their fight to keep the title as Champions of Europe and even if they don't win, even if they manage to lose their first three matches -- even if he can't see how that would be possible -- but even if they do, it doesn't really matter because nothing could ever be as perfect as they were on that fateful day last July. And nothing that anyone ever says or does can take that away.
"I was surprised you only called me once." David looks up from his suitcase, where he's busy checking to make sure that all of the things that he packed still lay inside, like someone would take them. Sometimes, Fernando thinks that it's just another nervous habit, the same way David will lay all of the contents out on the bed, reorganize them, refold them, and then tuck them in to a drawer and no matter how many times it happens, Fernando always offers his assistance and David always declines. "When you left Liverpool, I mean."
Of course. What else would he be talking about? Fernando left three voicemails, as hopeless and desperate as it was, when he found out David had been injured before the Barcelona striker even had time to get to his phone. "Why?" Though he already knows the answer, he wants, needs , to hear the only man that he loves, has ever loved, say it out loud.
David laughs. Not a free, happy laugh, but a calming one. Whether he's trying to calm his own nerves, or the others, is left open for debate. "Because I know that it broke your heart. Because I know that you won't ever tell the secrets as to why, only comment, only once, about broken promises. And I know, perhaps better than anyone, how much promises mean to you." David sets down the last of the shirts and begins to refold his pants, and Fernando watched silently the care with which the gesture was done. All creases were pressed out, and then they were folded in half, the ankles folded up halfway to the knee and then in half as a whole. Always. Some things never changed. "Which is why I had to get better. I promised you that I would be here with you in Poland, E strella . The same way that I promised you every night in South Africa that everything would be okay."
Fernando, stunned, stays silent. Those are the words that he expected to hear, but they still leave him breathless. David notices, but says nothing, and the subsequent silence is filled with the folding of clothes and ends with the rezipping of a familiar, worn suitcase, and for a moment Fernando wonders if the other man will ever buy a new one, and doubts it. Rarely is the superstitious side of El Guaje seen, but it is a hidden side, like so many others, that Fernando knows well. He watches, lips parted and prepared to speak, as clothes begin to find their way in to the drawers of the dresser. "Why do you always keep your promises to me?" When he finally finds his voice they are not the words that he expected to speak, and judging by the hitch in movements and the way that his eyes look up without his head, David did not expect to hear them either.
" Estrella ," he whispered, setting aside the task at hand and crossing the room, arms going tight around the taller man and lips pressed to the skin just below his ear, leaving his breath to soothe when words are lining up, waiting to escape. "For the same reason that the sun rises in the East and sets in the West; For the same reason that the Earth revolves around the Sun." David paused, a trail of kisses leading the way from ear to neck, along his jaw, stopping featherlight against lips. "Because I don't know how to do anything else." Only then did he kiss Fernando, for the first time since he was visited in the hospital months ago, when the injury was fresh and the cast was still something worth getting used to. The kiss is delicate, but demands that the other take the strength that David is offering in that moment.
He wanted to protest. Wanted to say, But you know how to play football, David, you're amazing at it and you love every minute of it , but those words wouldn't come out, and some part of him knows that David senses them on the tip of his tongue anyway because moments later there David's tongue is, stealing them away and Fernando forgets they ever existed in the first place. Fernando's arms lift, fingers clenching the fabric of the others shirt with a grip that turns his knuckles white and the gesture only urges David on, tongue sweeping mouth and lips caressing lips, one hand at the base of the Chelsea strikers neck and the other against his hip. When he finally pulls away, the distance between them is only enough to allow the air passed, close enough that they are sharing breaths. He cannot see it, but Fernando knows that there is a smile on David's lips.
"I love you."
Before there is time for Fernando to respond the older man is kissing him again, more forceful, willing the worrier within the blonde to stop worrying about everything so much and just enjoy that moment, because he knows that he's never said it before and probably shouldn't have said it, had kept himself from saying it so many times before but he couldn't keep it inside any more. And maybe, just maybe, this doesn't have to be the end of the world as they both know it. For as much as David doesn't want Fernando to speak, Fernando doesn't want to speak. He knows that he can't say it back, not yet, maybe not ever, and something inside of the carnal desire to just be close to the other could be enough to will him to forget that it ever happened.
Eternity passes inside that kiss. What seems an outward struggle for dominance is nothing more than the celebration of being equal: They're in this together, in everything together.
"David," as soon as they part to gasp in shaking breaths the name is out, "I ca--" but he doesn't care to hear Fernando say I can't say it or explain why because, "It doesn't matter" and that seems good enough, at least for the time being, shirts off bodies and on the floor and David's going to have to fold the clothes left on the bed again but it doesn't matter, and they're both telling themselves the same words as primal feelings take over: It doesn't matter .
- - - - -
"I'm lost," he whispered, despite the fact that the other man was sleeping, "I'm empty, and I'm aching, and I don't know why." Only the blank streets of Poland below the hotel window heard his confession: The National Team was so much easier than his new home at Chelsea. Looking away from the window Fernando finds the form of the man he knows hehas to love lying in bed, naked and tangled in the sheets and their clothes are still on the floor and there's a pile of half-unfolded pants that never made it in to the drawer at the foot of the bed. What possessed him to speak the younger is unsure but there the words are, swallowed up, yet again, by a foreign country that feels more like home than England has since his return from South Africa.
>Leaving the window he knelt at the foot of the bed, picking up the clothes and folding them the way that they're meant to be folded, the way that he knows they're folded despite the fact that he's never actually done it himself. How many things in the world does he know how to do, but has never actually done? Fernando can't keep his eyes off the sleeping form of the light of his life on the bed, and he's pretty sure that that last pair of pants isn't folded perfectly but he puts them in the drawer anyway, doing his best to keep the silence of the room in-tact.
Standing he pulls the blanket from the floor and draws it across the sleeping man, pressing a kiss to his shoulder. "You've changed me, David." David doesn't stir, and Fernando lingers for several moments, half-bent over the other, fingers mere inches above blankets and skin, watching . When he finally stands, a heavy sigh left to dust against the elder's hair, the Chelsea striker has to force himself to look away and follow his feet to the bathroom and the waiting shower.
- - - - -
"Good morning, sleepyhead." David makes a muffled Mmnghf sort of sound in protest, reaching for the man he is unaware has been watching him for the last hour, reliving simpler mornings a world away, sunrise washing over skin and tickling eyes until they finally decided to open. "How did you sleep?" Fernando smiles, warm and comforting and he can't believe that he's hiding the torment within him as he slips on to the sliver of open bed between David and the edge instead of crawling back in to his spot. Something about having to be that close, skin on skin and blanket and embraces, gives the stirring sea within him pause.
"Not long enough," he yawns in reply, arms snaking around the younger striker and pulling him even closer, if at all possible, burying his face between shoulder and neck and pressing the softest of kisses wherever lips come to rest. "How long've you been up?"
Fernando can't help but laugh against an ear, brushing featherlight touches against spine. "Not too long."
David pulls back, his eyes searching underneath knit brows, lips pulled together in a line so tight there is no smile left between them and Dammit, Fernando, you gave yourself away . "What's wrong, Estrella ?" Now fully awake the Barcelona striker shifts his weight, leaning against one elbow and moving closer to the middle of the bed to give the other man room, fingers finding a familiar hold sprawled across the back of his neck.
The silence seems to stretch on forever, growing thinner and thinner until it's stretched taught around the room and just might have spilled out in to the hallway, over on to the streets below to where everyone knows, everyone knows, everyone k n o w s and he just won't say it. "I just... couldn't sleep." When Fernando pauses -- to take a breath, to figure out what to say, to pray that the other will just leave it for what it is -- David immediately opens his mouth to speak and is silence by the younger's hand over his mouth and exerts more effort than it should have taken to sit up, has back to David, legs over the side of the bed and feet brushing the floor.
The great Guaje stays silent and still.
"Just. Be quiet , for once." Everyone feels the flinch. "I haven't been able to sleep all night. Not fully. Not really. I just... I keep hearing your voice, what you said," he pauses to cast a glance over his shoulder, watching David watch him, wanting to speak, "and I don't know why. I mean. I understand, I guess. You just weren't supposed to say that." Fernando looks away, to the window and the sun and the foreign sky that's exactly the same wherever they go, and David knows he's allowed to speak now.
"I can't, won't , take it back, Estrella ." And David sits up, pressing a kiss to the younger man's shoulder, neck, ear, inhaling deeply against his hair and he smells the shower and the distress and something else that he can't quite place. "So don't ask me to. We can pretend I didn't say it, I told you already, it doesn't matter--"
"But it does matter, David, it does matter." Immediately he is on his feet and turns to face the man half-sitting, half-lounging on the bed, still dressed in only what parts of sheet and blanket remain across skin, a demanding contrast to his own practice shorts. "Why would you say it otherwise?"
David laughs. Fernando looks stunned. David is laughing at him. Not a soft, quiet, you're being ridiculous Estrella laugh, but a full blown, That's the funniest thing I've ever heard laugh.
"You're crazy, Estrella. " David, after some difficulty in untangling himself from the mess of bed linens, stands, pulling Fernando to him, arms around his middle and face right where it belongs against neck, and Fernando can feel the smile still stretched across lips as they take in steady breaths. "I love you. I've loved you since South Africa, Estrella , and I've been infatuated with you since we started playing together. And you're the only person that can't see that."
What words Fernando wants to say do not come out. He wants to scream, to slap some semblance of sense in to the other man, to push him away and leave their room to find his own and, "I love you, too, David."