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Author: Guede Mazaka
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Figo/Mutu, David Silva/Fernando Morientes, David Villa/David Silva.
Feedback: Good lines, typos, etc.
Disclaimer: This is absolutely fiction and not real and I don’t know these people at all. Any resemblance to any real-life record company is completely accidental.
Notes: Thanks to my flist for the Eurovision info! Titled after the song by Fiona Apple.
Summary: Figo’s life motto: If it’s really important, you’re never too busy to fix it.
***
David broke his fall against the wall with his hands, then jerked himself around just as Iker yanked the door shut. “Casillas, what the—” he started, throwing out his arms.
Iker grabbed David and shoved his back to the wall, then fell on top, so close that David could see the man’s nostrils flaring. Then Iker tried to speak, but he was so worked up he actually had to take a pause to stop growling. It pained David to admit it, but Victor really might be onto something with his theory about sexual satisfaction and violent tendencies.
“Villa,” Iker finally managed to grind out. “You—you don’t break my boyfriend’s TV, okay? You don’t get to do that.”
That didn’t make sense till David vaguely remembered losing his drink. He looked at his hand to check, then twisted his head to look further. His feet weren’t on the floor. “Casillas, put me the fuck down.”
“No.” Iker blinked, appearing to calm down out of sheer surprise at himself. Then he shook his head, like he was realizing that, set his jaw and jammed David a little higher up the wall. “No, because if I do that, you’re just going to go back to being an asshole and I’m tired of it. I don’t—I don’t get paid to put up with your being an asshole, and I don’t have to put up with your being an asshole to keep my job, and I don’t love you so much that…I don’t even like you.”
“And you don’t make a hell of a lot of sense, either,” David snapped. He got his toes braced against Iker’s knees, then tried to squirm his way up the wall. He did manage to get one hand on Iker’s shoulder, but then Iker shook him. Hard. Like somebody would shake a pompom, except David’s head tolerated that a lot less than a bunch of cellophane strips would. “Casillas! What the hell is the matter with you!”
“I don’t know! But at least I’m not an asshole to the nicest kid in the building! And then I don’t try to break other people’s things because he got Frenched on pan-European television! By a rock star!” About halfway through that, Iker started running out of breath, but he manfully squeezed his lungs till he’d finished yelling.
Unfortunately, that cost him just enough so that his grip on David slipped. David jerked himself forward, felt a give and then threw his weight down as hard as he could. His head cracked against Iker’s on the way down and he hit the ground hissing, dropping to his knees and then rolling onto one hip while rubbing his temple.
Iker had also gone down, but had had the sense to roll when he landed. He ended up against the door, still looking uncharacteristically enraged. Somebody banged on the other side of the door and he didn’t even wince, but just glared at David. “It’s all your fault, you know. If you weren’t such a jerk, then Figo wouldn’t have sent Silva to Eurovision.”
“How is that my fault? If I’m the jerk, then why aren’t I at Eurovision?” David snorted.
“Because if you went to Eurovision, then you’d find some way to get him to do your work again, like you always do. He’s a copy editor, you selfish bastard. He’s not a personal secretary. He’s supposed to handle—and he does handle multiple writers, but you act like he’s all yours, except I don’t think you even give him the time of day. And that’s saying a lot, because I’m pretty damn socially inept and even I’ve picked up on that,” Iker retorted. He pushed himself up on his hands, then flinched as the knock came again. Then he…sort of screwed up his face, like he thought he was some martyr holding the last line, and shoved himself against the door. “We’re busy!”
“No, we’re not!” David tugged at his shirt, then started to get to his feet.
Iker—David wasn’t really sure what to call what the other man did, but it involved making his eyes, whose whites were suddenly crammed full of engorged red veins, look like they were going to leap out and eat David’s brains. It did, in fact, startle David into sitting back down. It didn’t scare him, because it was over so quick that he really only figured out he’d seen it in the seconds afterward, but it did sit him back down hard.
“Iker?” That was one of Iker’s boyfriends—the younger, mouthy one. “Iker, whatever you’re doing, you remember rule—”
“If I kill him, then I have to bury him in the herb garden. I know!” Then Iker turned back to David, ignoring whatever his boyfriend was screaming. “You. You’re an idiot. Why’d you try to toss your glass at the TV?”
“Because Eurovision is ridiculous,” David said after a moment. He swallowed twice, then noticed what he was doing and irritably shook his head. “And it’s all going to end badly. If Figo’s so worried about legal repercussions, then I hope he’s throwing his glass at his TV. Silva…Silva’s got no experience with…with…”
And Iker rolled his eyes at David. Rolled his eyes. Like he had some kind of higher moral ground, or even just a better sense of how the entertainment industry worked than David did, with its seedy underground politics and kickbacks and hunger for naïve youngsters to ruin.
“Villa, it’s Fernando Morientes. Putting aside how I know this, he’s one of the old-school Nice Guys. And okay, I am really not an expert, but Silva looked like he knew what he was doing. Or at least like he wasn’t biting the wrong part of the mouth.” Frowning, Iker paused with his hand half-raised and thought about something that wasn’t remotely related, given the way his eyes went all distant. Then he gave up on it and got to his feet. He glanced at the door behind him, finally starting to look a little concerned about all that pounding and yelling. “You know what? You’re just stupid. And fine, you can be stupid, but you can’t be stupid and wreck Raúl’s place.”
“Fine with me,” David muttered, getting up. When the door opened, he shouldered his way past Iker’s frantic boyfriend and kept going till he was back at his own place. The actual semifinal had barely gotten started, but he didn’t need other people around to watch that. He didn’t need them to do his goddamn work. And Casillas was just a crazy nutcase.
* * *
“Oh, damn it,” Luís sighed. He stood there, remote in hand, staring at the TV.
“What?” Adrian wandered out from the kitchen, one pen tucked behind each ear and another in his hand. “Something wrong—”
To hell with it. It could wait; part of this was about dropping Silva in at the deep end, so pulling him out before he screamed for help would defeat the purpose of the whole thing. “Nope,” Luís said, clicking off the TV. He tossed the remote towards a shelf, then blinked as Adrian absently snagged it out of the air and then set it in the fancy desk caddy Luís never used. “Did you need something?”
“Still working on my employment paperwork. I, uh, need a phone number? Can I—”
“Put mine down and come back to dinner.” Luís hooked Adrian’s elbow as he strolled back that way, just to make sure of it.
* * *
About five seconds into it, Fernando stiffened, then jerked back. Then he whirled around and started snapping at somebody, and he looked like a totally different person when he was angry. At least three centimeters taller, for one, and his voice got so raspy that it made David jump. And then David realized that holy Mary, mother of God but he’d gotten kissed and kissed good and everybody was staring—
--he got out of there. Somehow. He hadn’t seen how they’d gotten in and he didn’t get out the same way, he knew that, but he didn’t really pay attention to that way, either. Maybe ten minutes later, just as he was hitting the street, he realized he couldn’t do this, he needed to go back and watch the show and at least take a stab at doing his assignment, but his feet just kept moving. He kept telling himself to get hold of himself and stop it, stop it right now and be sensible, but instead he ended up back at his hotel room. Watching the semifinal on the TV. When it was happening just down the street from him. So. Pathetic.
At the first commercial break, David did get out his notebook. It wasn’t all that easy, since he kept flashing back to Fernando’s—and then he’d remember that God, everybody had seen them, and anyway he wasn’t supposed to be getting into that sort of trouble and what would Guaje think—and he’d write something down just to distract himself. By the time they got to the third commercial break, David happened to glance down and found to his shock that he already had two pages of notes. And when he started to read them, it turned out that they weren’t bad. Not really anything remotely resembling a useful article outline, but at least he had something. Plus he did have his press passes, and he didn’t think he’d seen any other print reporters around so maybe they were really far away from the soundrooms, so for the final he could just use those to get in and then probably avoid everyone who—
Which was when David looked up at the TV again and saw a pair of commentators falling all over themselves at a clip of Fernando kissing him. Oh, God.
A little bit later, David began to think that he should get his face out of the bed if he wanted to be able to breathe. Except he wasn’t sure he wanted to breathe, since that meant he’d have to keep living and face up to…oh, for God’s sake, he thought crossly. Fine, he could be a sad little screw-up, but the least he could do was face up to it and admit that. So he rolled over onto his back.
Wow, he thought. Of all the things he’d imagined when he’d stepped out into the world after school, being a tabloid headliner hadn’t been one of them.
Then David cursed and rolled back over. They’d gone back to the singing and he glanced in frustration at the TV before remembering his laptop. He paused, having a weird moment where his professionalism insisted he needed to just sit there and listen, then told it he could listen while setting up his computer. Which he then did, and in a couple seconds he’d pulled up a few bloggers doing live-reactions. He scanned them, then rescanned them: so far it sounded like nobody knew who he was…and actually, they weren’t sure whether he was a man or a woman? David frowned and refreshed his search page. Then again.
After the third time, he wrenched himself away and made his hand take down some more notes. Come on, he did know how this worked and it was going to take a little bit for screencaps and such to hit the ‘Net.
As time went on, paying attention to the show got a lot easier. A lot easier, and then David realized he was trying to note-take the closing credits instead of getting online and facing the music—so to speak. Ew, he never would’ve let in that kind of shitty cliché as an editor, so why he was…he shook his head, pried his fingers off his pen, and pulled his laptop over. And his hand froze on the touchpad, and David really, really wanted to kick himself.
He made himself open his browser window instead.
Well, at least they hadn’t gotten a good shot of him, which was why nobody could figure out what gender he was. But…honestly? Were his sneaker-laces “girly”? He’d actually thought—he crawled over to the edge of the bed to look at them, just to check, and somebody knocked at the door. David fell off the bed, elbow-first. “Ow! Fuck!”
Today was just not his day, he decided.
“David?” Fernando’s voice uncertainly called out. “Did I get the right room?”
Oh--God. David scrambled back from the door, then hissed at himself and fumbled his way onto his feet. He stood around for another moment, then got up his courage and…tripped as he opened the door, so he fell against that and nearly shut it again. He just caught himself against the jamb before peeking around the edge. “Fernando?”
“Oh, good, they did give me the right room,” Fernando said. He whuffed a relieved breath and flicked his eyes up towards the ceiling, his lips silently moving. Then he sighed and put his hand over part of his face, looking stressed. “Listen, David, I’m so, so sorry about that. I don’t know what the hell they were—anyway, I’m doing what I can to try and keep that clip from circulating, but…”
Fernando paused, staring at something behind David. Then he cursed and fully covered his face with his hand; David twisted around and saw his laptop had gotten turned about so Fernando could see the screen, which was currently displaying a looping clip of the kiss. So David cursed and lunged for the laptop. Tripped again on the way, but he managed to stay upright long enough to grab the edge of the bed so he could throw out his other arm and hit the ‘Back’ button. Which just went to the search results page. He cursed again and dropped to his knees so he could get to the keyboard. “Shit, sorry.”
“Damn it. I should’ve known…anyway, David, whatever fallout you get from this, just let me know and I’ll do my best to help. I’m so sorry that you got put into this mess,” Fernando said. When David looked over his shoulder, the other man was slumped against the doorway, rubbing his face. “I really didn’t…want that to happen.”
“It’s okay, nobody knows who I am. I mean, it looks like people can’t even figure out whether I’m a man or a woman, so…I think I’m okay. Well. Maybe. People at work might figure it out, but I think I can talk to my boss and he’ll take care of it.” David quickly shut off his laptop and put down the lid, then got up and went back to the door. “I think it’s going to be harder for you, isn’t it? They’re all…what?”
Fernando had dropped his hand and was now staring at David, kind of like he was surprised and pleased and nervous all at once. Mostly surprised—he blinked a couple times, then tucked his hands into his trouser-pockets and arched his eyebrows. “David. I’ve been linked to other people for a lot less than…it’s been reported that I was going to get married just because I happened to stand next to a famous actress at the same jewelry counter. This is…pretty much normal for me. So who I’m worried about is you.”
“Oh, well…I’m fine, I think.” A little grimace escaped David at how wishy-washy he sounded. He tried to firm up as he went on. “I’m not important or famous or anything, so I don’t think people are going to publish stories about me, even if they figured out who I was.”
“Which they aren’t, because that was a nasty little prank and I’m going to…never mind. I’m…that’s good. But still, if you ever have any problems from this, just call me. I did give you my number.” Near the end, Fernando’s tone went a little flat. He rubbed at his eyes again, then looked tiredly down at David. “Listen, David. I’m sure I’ve lost all credibility by now, but I just wanted you to know…I really was interested in you, and just you. It didn’t seem like—when we talked, it wasn’t like somebody talking to a rock star. And that’s really rare for me, and that’s what I liked—like about you. I’m sorry for ruining that.”
When he was done, Fernando just stood there and looked at David. Totally serious, but with that exhausted shadow to it that David sometimes saw with Figo and the older journalists, when they heard about another stupid car accident or overdose with a young star. He meant every word, but he wasn’t expecting David to believe him at all.
“Anyway, I wanted to say that. I’m sorry if tracking you down or anything’s made you paranoid—” Fernando snorted “—so with that, I just tried asking the concierge of this hotel, since I ran into you outside of it. I’m not staying here, and I won’t try to contact you after this. But I will take your call if—”
“I lost your number,” David blurted out. Then he looked down. “Um. I left pretty quick, and I think I dropped the paper somewhere.”
Strangely enough, Fernando didn’t look surprised or disappointed. He shrugged, then pulled a little scrap of paper out of his pocket and handed it to David. “You did. But here…it’s my personal number, so it’ll go straight to me.”
“Oh.” David stared at the paper. “Oh…”
“So anyway, I’m sorry. And I hope you have a good trip, and write a good piece on it,” Fernando added a little awkwardly. He took a backwards step, then turned around and slowly walked down the hall.
Just as slowly, David shut the door. He pivoted around and put his back to it because he really, badly needed the support, then stared at the paper some more. Then he grimaced and twisted sharply around to yank the door open again.
But Fernando was nowhere in sight, and all David saw was one of the bellboys trundling up the hall pushing a room service cart. David shut the door again, then let out the breath he realized he’d been holding. Then he leaned against the door again and groaned.
* * *
*Well, I knew because Villa yelled his name, but if you look at the screencaps, you can see those gag shoelaces we gave him for last Christmas, and a little bit of his hair. I don’t think anybody outside of the office would pick up on those, though…why?*
“No reason,” Luís mumbled. He finally gave up on holding up his head and let his chin rest on Adrian’s back. Then he turned his head, pressing his nose into the stubbly vee on the nape of Adrian’s neck, where the hair tapered off. The shampoo did not smell that good on Luís. “Iker? You don’t know that it was Silva.”
*What? But I just told—oh. Oh. Okay.*
Adrian stirred sleepily, but when Luís petted his thigh, the other man settled with a contented snuffling and a backwards hitch of his hips. Luís bent with the pressure, absently nibbling at Adrian’s collar. “Nobody else at work does, either. That’s the first thing on the agenda tomorrow, and yes, I’ll deal with Villa.”
*But don’t you want to do that now? I don’t know where he went.*
“He hasn’t called me and neither have my police contacts, so nah. And Iker? Why the hell are you checking out screencaps? Shouldn’t you be checking how Raúl is doing?”
*Shit! I left him in the kitchen! With Ruud and sharp knives—*
That sounded really interesting, but Luís was tired. And liked Iker. And also tired, and so Luís clicked off his phone, tossed it to the bedside dresser and draped himself over Adrian’s warm, eminently enjoyable body.
* * *
Casillas was an ignorant shit, David thought as he kicked aside a chair. He watched movies and got the most bizarre ideas about how people related to each other from them, like life really went according to some script. So what if David had gotten upset? So what if he’d yelled out Silva’s name? What the hell did that mean? And he did not treat Silva like shit. It was a free-market world and Silva could always move on if he wanted to, and then David would have to—and this was a fucking inane assignment anyway. Eurovision. God. As if there was any bigger sign that the music industry was hopelessly ossified.
David wasn’t fucking watching the rest of the semifinal. Fuck Figo. That crazy asshole could find some other lackey to do it, and shove David onto the Cristiano tour coverage or whatever. But David wasn’t doing it, Figo couldn’t make him do it—any more than David could make Silva do things—and it would serve his boss right to get a reminder that Figo wasn’t Portuguese for ‘God.’ For the sake of fucking Christ.
That settled, David stormed through his dark apartment till he got to his desk. He had two half-written articles, two more at the outline stage and one that didn’t have all the sources rounded up for it yet. Plenty of work for him, plenty of writing on topics that weren’t gutted by the sheer commercialism these days. And proof that Casillas didn’t know shit because David—
--was pulling his hand away from his phone. And starting up his computer. And now closing his email, and opening his word processor. He was working. He was a music reviewer and journalist, and he’d been that before David Silva had ever come along.
So he got to work.
About two hours later, David dragged himself to bed. He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling, till the mounting frustration got to be too much and then he pushed over and punched the mattress. Then he did it again. He knew how to do to this, so it wasn’t from lack of experience that had kept him from writing a single word. And that hadn’t been why he’d had to keep pulling his hands back from his cell-phone and email, to the point where he’d just sat on them for a good ten minutes, cursing and banging his head against the back of his chair.
Figo said he couldn’t call Silva. Well, fine, that asshole somehow thought David was dependent on Silva and was expecting this to make David come crawling to his door, like Valdés did every time he went on a bender—or Casillas, whenever he needed somebody to explain that normal cocktail conversation didn’t include references to Polanski and Buñuel;’s most surreal moments. Except he was dead wrong, and David didn’t crawl. David was going to sleep, was what David was doing.
* * *
Luís dropped off Adrian with Pep before heading to work, which was…surprisingly quiet. So quiet that Luís finally buttonholed Albelda to ask about that, only to find that Iker had had the right of it and nobody else had picked up on Silva’s intimate moment with El Moro. They were talking about the kiss, but not that much since early in the morning somebody had gotten hold of Cristiano in Lisbon, asked what he thought of Portugal’s Eurovision entry and he’d expressed his frank opinion that they weren’t a tenth as good as him. Predictable, yet somehow controversial enough to merit its own “star feud” cycle.
Also, Villa hadn’t come into work yet. Odd, that. As antisocial as the man acted, he normally kept regular business hours when he was in town, like he was determined that the whole office would know how much he hated other people.
Quiet, Luís decided, was nice. He went back to his office to finish making sure his own Cristiano mess was dying a nice, understated death.
* * *
For most of the morning, David was too freaked out to venture out of his hotel room. The night before, he’d eventually gotten back to work, but he’d barely organized half his notes into coherency before the lure of his browser and unlimited high-speed Internet had been too much. He’d ended up staying up till two, monitoring fan blogs and gossip mills and the like to see if anybody had figured out he was the one who’d gotten kissed. It’d probably been the first time David had ever wished Duende had booked him a hotel that wasn’t as good.
At some point he’d fallen asleep on the keyboard. Then had woken up to find his computer going nuts, and then he’d groggily turned it off, toed his sneakers off and gone back to sleep. He had been on the bed, so when he’d woken up and found it was the next day, he’d felt okay. Mouth had tasted kind of gross, but no crooked back or anything so he’d stumbled into the bathroom, done all his stuff and then been walking out when he’d remembered why it was so weird that he’d felt okay.
At least he’d kept himself from doing yet another search on…well, on himself. For the love of God, David told himself, he wasn’t a narcissist. The whole thing had been actually kind of a shame and not something he should be proud of or even that interested in, even in a sick twisted fame sort of way. Honestly, he didn’t even like reality TV shows.
He did a lot of working on the article with the little he had. By lunch he had all the press releases memorized and had typed up his notes from last night, and he had nothing left to do. So David sort of needed to get out of his room, if only so he wasn’t sitting around twiddling his thumbs. And obsessing about last night, which…David literally flinched. Then he shook himself and got out of the room.
David had remembered to grab the Eurovision events schedule since he had some vague idea about getting more material, even though he still had no backbone to his article. In the back of his head, that little competent editor voice was telling him he needed to get some shape or at least some unifying theme before he went any further, or he’d just be writing a lot of babble, but he wasn’t doing so great at listening to that voice right now. And he knew that, and God, his head was so messed up now. He needed a walk.
He went to two official events and stood in the corner at both, fidgeting and trying to hide his face behind the nearest piece of furniture. Didn’t really get too much usable information, since he was irrationally worried that somebody was suddenly going to recognize him, and then he realized that if that was going to happen, it’d be because him hiding probably looked exactly like what he’d looked with Fernando covering him up. And also this was not where he was going to get those crucial little details, the off-stage authentic stuff that really made an article an article, and not just a…a news feed digest.
“Goddamn it, I’m better than this,” David found himself mumbling as he walked out. The person just ahead of him turned around and David flinched, thinking he’d been overheard. But no, they were just looking for their friend, and okay, he was better than this. He knew that.
David went to a café, ordered a snack and plopped his confused butt in a chair. Okay. First things first. Figo hadn’t gotten in touch, so David still had a job—David had been around for enough firings to know that—and if that was because Figo had no idea what trouble David was getting into down here, then that was fine. While David tried his best to be an honest and good person, he also wasn’t saint material. If he didn’t have to bring up the screw-up and him keeping it a secret wasn’t going to hurt anybody, then he wasn’t going to bring it up.
Which brought him to the question of whether anybody was getting hurt, and he flinched again. Then hit his hand against the chair-arm, which hurt but good. He kind of needed a bite of reality so he’d stop being a dumbass and start working through this like the mature person he hoped he was.
So Fernando had kissed him. And David had kind of enjoyed it.
“Oh, for…” David muttered, putting his hand over his face. Take out the “kind of” already, because he’d just plain enjoyed it. Not just because it’d been longer than he could remember since somebody had kissed him, but because Fernando was absolutely not the sort of neurotic fame-eaten jerk of a star David was used to dealing with—well, except for the part where he was ridiculously, steamily photogenic.
But other than that, Fernando was funny and gracious and well-mannered, and also he loved music. And loving music, as David had been sad to find out after starting at Duende, was entirely different from working with music. Fernando had an honest passion for it, and an irritation with all the commercial trappings that sometimes buried it, and basically…if David was going to be honest with himself…Fernando had the same qualities that made David love Guaje so much. Minus the part where Guaje was stone-blind to David’s feelings and also an asshole ninety-nine point nine percent of the time. And David Villa was an asshole. No matter how much David loved him, and accepted that side of him, that was the truth.
And a tiny part of David…was ready to give up on getting his dream.
* * *
Luís glanced down, then raised his brows. “Nice wingtips.”
“I have to go interview a witness at her dance studio. Thought it might help to show a little forethought, and a less lawyerly side,” Pep shrugged. He popped his phone into his pocket, then knelt down to tie the laces on those wingtips. “Stop hoping my belt’s going to slip and I’m going to show you my naked ass, Luís. One, haven’t you seen that enough times? And two, you’re taken again, aren’t you? What would Helen say?”
“Never, and she’d say the last batch of orgy photos I emailed her were grainy and had funny orange tones?” Actually, Luís had been staring at the cat-shaped carpet stain just under Pep’s ass, but if the other man wanted to think his buttocks deserved that kind of obsession, then he might as well. That was what friends did for each other. “I came by to ask Adi where he put something in my desk.”
Pep paused, then glanced up. Then he made a weird little shrug and hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “He’s borrowing Xavi’s office right now. So…you really are taken?”
So Luís objected on principle to that sort of phrasing, because he believed in a relationship as defined in terms of ‘relation,’ connoting a two-way flow because A couldn’t ‘relate’ to B if B didn’t also ‘relate’ to A. He therefore made a face in reply, but didn’t really mean it since one, Pep’s profession was obviously—and rightly—going to skew his view of human interactions and two…he basically was taken. His oddly comfortable freedom with Helen aside, he was rather old-fashioned when it came to relationships. Partly because he just didn’t have the damn space in his calendar for multiple assignations. He hadn’t even had room for a marriage.
Even though Pep had gone back to doing his shoelaces, he still knew what Luís was thinking. He would by now. “I’m happy for you. And I can say that in a serious tone even though I’ve barely started going through his criminal and legal records—and he’s got quite a few—because you’ve been standing there for two minutes and haven’t made a single crack about some bad habit of his. He’s already mentioned the reorganization of your life, so I know you had a chance.”
Luís…occasionally hated the fact that Pep knew him so well. He made another face, and this time it was just because he knew they annoyed Pep.
“Also, I told him if he fucks with you, I’ve been to football matches in Argentina and I know a thing or two about fucking people up,” Pep casually added. He got up and straightened his suit-jacket. “How do I look?”
“My fashion editor would scarify you and then insist on feeling up your stubble,” Luís told him. “How’d Adi take the warning?”
Pep grabbed his briefcase from a chair, called something to his secretary and then pushed past Luís to grab the door. “He got very quiet and he’s not stopped working since. Go take him out to dinner already.”
Then he was out the door before Luís could roll his eyes. Though Luís did anyway, because he had habits to keep up, before he slipped in to get Adrian.
* * *
David didn’t go into work. Because he wasn’t getting any work done. So going to work seemed like a contradiction, like a lie, like an empty—God, he sounded like a shill.
He slouched at his desk and stared at his computer and silently demanded to know what the fuck was going on. And he did that for the entire day, though he didn’t realize that that much time had passed till his phone suddenly went off.
David ungracefully scrambled for the phone. It was on the opposite side of the desk from him, precariously balanced on a stack of folders that toppled when his first grab missed. Since his arm had been resting on that stack, he went sideways and fell hard onto his desk, paperclips and pens jabbing painfully up into his flesh. Cursing, David struggled against the slippery paper, only to watch impotently as his phone skittered near and then over the edge of the desk.
When it hit the floor, it stopped ringing. And it seemed like David’s heart did as well.
But then it rang again, and he smacked his head against the desk. Ignoring the pain and wave of dizziness, David scooted around the desk and snatched up the phone as soon as it got within reaching distance. “Hello?”
*Villa?*
Something wrenched brutally in David’s chest. It took a moment for him to get that that was disappointment. Overwhelming disappointment, because…because…
*It’s, er, Bojan. You didn’t come into work today, and before he left, David Silva asked me to make sure you were okay. So…you’re okay, right?*
“He asked you to what?” David snapped. He shoved himself up against the desk, then pulled at his hair. “He can talk to you?”
After a long pause, Bojan started to cough uncomfortably. *Um…no. I mean, I can’t…give him any messages for you. Figo said so.*
“Oh, fuck Figo. You talking to him or not?”
*What? Well—I—just—oh, wait. You mean David Silva? No, I haven’t heard from him since he left. And er, David. I’m just a, er, intern. I can’t…you know, do that…to…to…Figo…”
Disgusted, David had already dropped the phone from his ear. Now he hit the ‘end’ button and threw the mobile away from him. He closed his eyes, then twitched as he heard the phone hit the far wall. Then he pulled up his knees and pressed the heels of his hands against his face.
A moment later David had gotten halfway across the floor before he realized that he couldn’t just call Silva. Figo wasn’t stupid and he would’ve done something about that, and anyway why did David need to call? Even if they had a joint assignment, David didn’t need Silva’s part till Silva came back, and he didn’t need Silva at all to do his part, which he hadn’t managed to do because he’d been lying around all night, acting like some grief-stricken moron. And that—that right there, that was what most confused him. Because he hadn’t lost anything.
Had he?
David slowly came to notice that he was still sitting in the middle of the room. He stared viciously about his darkened, silent apartment, then kicked out at the floor. Then a second time. The force of that kick made his hip slide and he fell back, cracking an elbow against the floor before he could stop himself. He hissed and grabbed hold of the carpet with his hands, then began to push himself up. Then stopped, and then laid down on the floor on his back and closed his eyes again.
Silva hadn’t called the office. Bojan would’ve given that up; the kid had no pokerface or pokervoice to speak of. So Silva hadn’t…called. He probably was doing all right in Serbia. Of course he was. It wasn’t like he was an incompetent dilettante like half the magazine.
He hadn’t tried to call or email. Fuck Figo, if there’d been something really important, then Silva would’ve found a way. But he hadn’t. So…there wasn’t anything important he needed to tell David. So…David was less important than whatever he was doing in Serbia, and apparently that included making out with Spanish rock legends. So.
“Fuck,” David said, and put his hand over his face. Then he took it off and groped behind him. He had to wriggle up a few centimeters, but eventually he got hold of his phone.
* * *
“Adi, seriously, we’re home because this is home, not an extra office. If Pep said it doesn’t have to be done for three days, then he means it—oh, what?” Luís muttered, taking out his phone. “What?”
*Figo?*
Luís glanced at Adrian, who’d already re-submerged himself in ledgers and that weird calculator with the little wheel of paper printing off it. Then he sighed and rolled around the jamb to the other side of the doorway. “Villa. What?”
*Am…what am I like with Silva?*
Villa sounded uncertain. He actually did. Softer voice, slightly wavering, the works. Damn, Luís thought. Yep, he knew his man-management skills, all right. “He pretty much thinks nothing he does for you is good enough and that you don’t know who he is beyond being your own personal non-annoying, always efficient gofer. So you’re a jerk to him, basically.”
Long pause. *Thanks, Figo,* Villa said, tone utterly subdued.
“You’re welcome,” Luís said to the dial tone. He shut off the phone, frowned at it, and then rolled back around the jamb. “Adi. Do you know what time it is?”
“Oh! Sorry, you have to be starving. I’ll go heat something up—” And Adrian was out the door and into the kitchen before Luís could get hold of him. Shit. Okay, maybe Luís’ time-management skills needed a little work.
* * *
When the final performance was over, but the votes were still being tallied up, David slipped out of the press area and made his way up to the soundrooms. He got lost twice, but for once the universe seemed to be with him and he still managed to find the one Fernando was using before they announced the results. Not that he just went straight in, though—for one thing, that would’ve been a horrible distraction to Fernando and David was a professional, damn it.
For two, David definitely needed that extra time to collect himself and figure out what he was going to say. It had to be—well, it had to make sense, obviously. He couldn’t just stammer his way through it, even if he still didn’t have a really firm idea of what he was going to do. He had made up his mind. He really had. But it was just such a big…deal…that he didn’t know if he was doing the right thing, so he kept second-guessing himself, and then telling himself to stop it, only to think of another reason that he should reconsider. It just wasn’t a clear-cut situation.
“David?”
When David looked up, the silhouette in the doorway was twisted around so that David couldn’t see a face. He started to make an excuse, but then the person turned and it was Fernando. So his mouth dried up instead.
“David?” Fernando asked again, frowning. He glanced behind him as he shut the door, then came out into the little dark hall. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah. No, yeah, I’m fine. I…isn’t it still going?” David pointed helplessly at the door. “The final?”
Fernando blinked, like he’d forgotten about that too. Then he shrugged and made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “We’ve cut to commercials. Got about two minutes, but if you need longer, I can do that afterwards. Just give me a sec and I’ll tell—”
“No. No, two minutes should be…should be plenty. I hope,” David said. Stammering and fine, he was not polished and cool and confident but whatever, he was doing this. “Listen, I was—was thinking all day about what you said to me. All of it, since we’d met. And…and…I like you, too.”
* * *
Since he’d pulled a late, long shift the night before, Luís had no problem with sleeping past noon the next day, given that that still only had given him about five hours’ sleep. He was somewhat less pleased to find the note from Adrian tacked to the fridge, and was in the middle of dialing Pep’s office when somebody knocked at the door. Luís ignored it, but then it sounded like whoever it was had tried to ram their shoulder into the door, and so he thought he needed to get that. God knew he didn’t need Adrian freaking out in a carpenter way on top of everything else.
But when he went out into the living room, there was already a hand fumbling at the locks. Luís glanced at the wrinkled dent in the sofa cushions, then sighed. “David, didn’t I tell you to use the—”
“I know, I know, but I kind of passed out before I got off the couch. Spent the whole flight working on my article…finally got some kind of handle on it…” Silva mumbled. A gigantic yawn took him as he swung open the door, tipping him forward so he completely missed the way an unshaven, disheveled, ragged-looking Villa nearly collapsed in relief upon seeing him. Though then he looked up, and yelped and hit himself against the door, and Luís just shook his head. “Guaje!”
“David…” Then Villa frowned. “Wait. What are you doing here?”
“Oh, well, Luís picked me up from the airport, and since it was so late, he just let me stay over…” Silva slowly went from hanging onto the door for dear life to absently gripping the edge. “Guaje? You all right? You look…kinda awful. Um. I mean.”
Villa blinked. “No, I meant…you’re back.”
“Well, I was done with my assignment. I had my return ticket, and it said…are you sure you’re all right?” Silva asked. He pushed the door open a little more. “What are you doing here? Oh, wait, you want to talk to Figo, right? Sorry, I’ll get out of the—”
“No. I mean, I was here to talk to him, but wait! Wait!”
Probably the only reason they didn’t fall over was because Silva was still sleepy and so his body was relaxed enough to absorb the impact of Villa’s awkward lunge at him. Not that Silva’s eyes weren’t wide as eggs, the one glimpse Luís got of them. The poor man windmilled his arms till Villa finally set them straight, then tried to step back. He probably just still felt off-balance, but Villa took it a different way and flinched.
Then set his shoulders, stood up and took it. “David,” Villa said. “I…I know I haven’t been all that nice to you over the years—”
“What? No, you—”
“Oh, it’s me. You don’t need to cover up me to me,” Villa snapped. Then looked sorry about it when Silva ducked his head. “I--look. I—really appreciate all the work you’ve done for me. You’ve been the best editor I’ve ever had, including Figo.”
Luís rolled his eyes and chalked another one up for why he shouldn’t succumb to Villa’s scruffily pathetic looks.
Silva’s head came right back up. He sounded surprised—vaguely pleased, but mostly shellshocked. “Oh. Wow. Um, thanks. Though it’s been no…big deal, I liked—”
“And I pretty much depend on you now to do what I do, that’s how much you mean to me. I can’t write without you.” It all came out in a rush, and judging from the expression on Villa’s face, hadn’t quite been what he’d planned on. Though he barreled on anyway. “You should know that.”
“Oh,” Silva said a little while later. He appeared to have frozen in place.
“But this is—very late, and I know I’ve been such an asshole that I can’t expect you to forgive me for it. I’m—I know. I fucked up. But—you should hear that I did realize everything you’ve done for me before you go off with that…” Villa screwed up his face, scratched at his neck and shuffled in place, struggling very long and hard with his inner bitch. He made a good effort. “…beanpole pop icon…”
The blush went all the way around Silva’s neck so Luís could see it too. “Oh, God, you saw me? And Fernando—and oh, my God, Guaje, listen, that was…it…”
After another bout of wrestling, Villa managed to grab Silva’s shoulders and lightly shake the man to stop the babbling. Then he slowly lifted his hands, looking regretfully at them. “David. Look. If he…he makes you happy…then that’s fine. I’m just sorry that I never realized…”
“What?” Silva took a step back. Then a step forward, shaking his head. He started moving his hands around, and then he turned into a little frantic whirl of denial. “Wait, no, no, no, Guaje, you’ve got it all wrong, I—”
“Look, you don’t have to be nice to me anymore. In fact, you deserve to be—”
“I—we—it’s not—”
“David, I’m—”
With a strangled scream of pure frustration, Silva finally launched himself at Villa. They tumbled back through the doorway and Luís took a concerned step forward, but then he saw the hand that had clamped around the jamb, keeping the two men from completely falling over: nasty personality, but good reflexes, Villa had. Snorting, Luís crossed the room and took up a new spot right inside the door just as Silva dragged his mouth off with a wet pop.
For once Silva looked fired up—seriously irritated, and without a single speck of apology in it. He had his hands in Villa’s hair and pulled at the spikes even though Villa was already bug-eyed. “David! Listen! I’m not dating Fernando! We just—he kissed me, and asked me out, and I kind of liked him because he’s really a nice guy but he’s not you and I love you. And I love my job. I—I had to think about it, but I do. I mean, sure, it’s a drag and a bitch sometimes but sometimes it’s just—just awesome, and I don’t want to leave it. I can’t be doing it like I’ve been lately, because that’s just all drag, but there’s got to be some middle ground. And I’m gonna work at it and find that, because that’s what you do with things you love. You don’t…cop out.”
“That’s beautiful,” Luís said. “But I’m not really clear on one thing. Did you like the reporting side, or did you want to go back to the copy editing?”
“Huh? Um…well, this was…you know, kind of weird, and not really a good feel for what reporting’s like? I think I liked it, aside from all the personal stuff, but I kind of want another trial,” David replied, sounding distracted. He had to twist around a bit before he figured out where Luís was. Then his brow furrowed, and he looked all around again. Including down, where Villa was still holding him, and the color exploded into his face. “Oh…God. I totally just—”
Luís reached out, but thankfully, Villa had recovered from his shock and kissed Silva before Luís had to slap him into it. And even found a second to glower at Luís over the curve of Silva’s ear, like he wouldn’t have been grateful for the help and anyway, didn’t he have better things to concentrate on?
He did. His eyes shut a moment later, and then his head turned so he could do something that made Silva drop his left arm heavily over Villa’s back. Silva started to slide amidst all the mouth sounds, but Villa got his hand down there and plumped the other man back up by way of a good hold on one buttock. Which let Silva get his legs around Villa’s waist, and okay, now Luís was seeing skin he normally didn’t see. He coughed.
Banged his foot against the floor, whistled, and finally put his face into his hand. “Inspiring as this is to artists and lovers everywhere,” Luís sighed, “This is still my doorway.”
“So?” Villa mumbled.
“So no sex here, or guess where I’m sending Silva next. Can’t? Well, neither can I, because I haven’t dug up my globe and spun it yet—ah, there we go. You’re welcome, boys.” Luís leaned out, watching, till the elevator at the end of the hall had shut on yet another prolonged make-out session. Then he went back into his apartment and closed the door, grinning to himself. This wasn’t going to catch Villa up any faster on his backlog, but something about their rabid enthusiasm was rather touching. Possibly because now Luís didn’t have to put up with Silva moping around the place.
Also, that sounded vaguely familiar…oh, right. Luís grabbed his keys and went back out to pick up Adrian.
* * *
“Guaje?” a sleepy, satiated little voice mumbled.
David turned his head, then twisted over on his side, letting his arm fall over the other man. “Nothing.”
Snort. “C’mon. I’ve been learning you for three years.”
Which made David wince, and as soon as his knees and hips were working again, he was making sure he…he paid for the coffee for now on. For one. Also, probably they should get to his bed. It was a lot more comfortable. And then—whatever, he’d get to that. “Just…so you told El Moro no?”
The black scruff nestled on his shoulder slowly rotated till two eyes could look at him. Two surprisingly clear, pensive eyes. “I said…that I liked him, and that part of me…did want to…you know. But I…I don’t know how more obvious I can be, but I’m really in love with you, Guaje. If I went out on a date with anyone else, then for a long time it’d be all about getting away from you. And that’d be unfair to him, just…just aside from me not wanting to give up and do that yet. Which was the main reason I said—”
David kissed the other man, and then kissed him again once it was clear that nascent nervous tremor had gone away. Then he laid back down, his hand tangled up in thick black hair.
“If you’d said yes, I would’ve—I would’ve respected that,” he said slowly. “I made up my mind that I’m going to be…as good as I can be to you, from now on. But you said no.”
“Yeah. So don’t worry about it—”
“No, I am going to. Because I know—this was very close, and I don’t do close. So we’re dating.” It came out a bit rough. David grimaced and tucked down his chin. “I’ll…do you even drink coffee? Never mind, I’ll figure it out when you order tonight. When I take you out to dinner. Eight okay? I’ll drive, and it’s on me, and no protesting. I’m earning your ‘yes.’”
The smile he got already made it all worth it.
* * *
“Because if I can get this worked out, then I can—”
Luís hit the ‘Play’ button and the movie started off with some bombastic operetta, effectively drowning out whatever Adrian said. Rude, maybe, but not that big a deal when Luís had already heard a zillion variations on, “Not now, I’m working myself to the bone” since he’d finally pried Adrian out of Pep’s office…only to have the other man set up a mini-fort around himself with the ledgers at home. He sighed, retreated to the couch and flipped out the leg-rest. Then picked up his notebook. “Adi?”
“What?”
“I’ve got this really bad draft on my left side,” Luís called back.
He didn’t really think it’d work and was mostly just warming up to a good nagging session, but he supposed he should’ve known better. Should’ve being the key word: when something clunked behind the couch, Luís nearly dropped his popcorn. Then he put that on the side-table and twisted around just as Adrian lifted the book, looking embarrassed.
“Sorry. So where is it? I can probably get it tomorrow, when you’re at work,” Adrian said, staring at the ceiling. He didn’t quite notice when Luís grabbed his wrist. “I don’t feel anything…”
“You might want to sit down.” Luís tugged Adrian’s arm. Then yanked it, and that finally got Adrian absentmindedly crawling over the back of the couch. “See, if you’re right here—”
The book fell somewhere in front of the couch, and then Adrian made a surprised huffing noise as Luís pulled him back from retrieving it and up against Luís’ side. Adrian blinked, then turned his head towards Luís. “I…still don’t feel a draft.”
“Nope, but I feel ribs.” Whereupon Luís poked a couple and discovered that Adrian was a bit ticklish, what with the squirming and funny expressions. Grinning, Luís clamped his arm around Adrian’s waist. “Adi, you don’t have to pay it back all at once.”
“I know, but—”
“And turning into an office drone isn’t endearing to me. I saw you once in a hospital bed, and if I have to see you like that again, I’d really rather it not be for something like exhaustion,” Luís added. He reached around to get his notebook and pen, then propped those up on his lap as he got the popcorn off the table. “You’re in, so you can stop trying to get in. I’m hard to impress anyway.”
Adrian was silent for a couple seconds. Eventually he hitched up his shoulders, which was a pretty ambiguous gesture. Then he sighed and swung his legs up onto the leg-rest next to Luís’ feet, snuggling his head into the cup of Luís’ shoulder. “Thanks. It’s just…when you do something like this, you really remind me how much I’d like to be not just in, but not kicked out.”
Luís hummed and put his head back. Then he moved his knee, which was twinging a little, and watched as Adrian adjusted. “I’ve been through a lot by now, Adi, and it’s made me damn cynical. I don’t expect you to surprise me. I just would appreciate it if you aren’t a hypocrite about whatever you do. That’s the only thing I still can’t get used to.”
“Okay,” Adrian said after a moment, long and thoughtful. As the opening teaser wrapped up and the movie started, he put his hand over and took the popcorn bucket so Luís’ lap was freed up for writing. Then he munched a fluffy kernel.
He went very still. A small whistling noise came from him and he abruptly tucked his head down, then was lifting it when Luís handed him the beer and the napkin. “I probably should’ve mentioned,” Luís said. “I like putting piri-piri sauce on my popcorn. It’s a little hot.”
“Yeah,” Adrian gasped between gulps. He downed about a third of the bottle before he gave it back to Luís. Then his elbow nudged at Luís’ side as he carefully wiped off his fingers. “Your sense of humor’s a little off sometimes.”
“Well, you do make cute faces.” Luís shrugged at the look he got, then snorted as Adrian put his head back down, getting the bristly tops of his hair up against Luís’ jawline. “I have to watch this damn thing to stay culturally relevant, so if I fall asleep, wake me up.”
“’kay.” Adrian tilted the bucket towards him. He gingerly picked up another piece of popcorn, then nibbled at it. Then ate it. “I think my tongue’s burned now, but you know, not in a bad way. Not when you get used to it.”
“That’s experience for you,” Luís said. He rested his chin on the top of Adrian’s head and settled in for the movie.
***