Fic: Don't Let It Break Your Heart (1/2)

Title: Don't Let It Break Your Heart
Author: el_defe
Beta: lisachanoando
Fandom: Football RPF (Serie A/Primera División)
Characters: Bojan Krkić, Josep Guardiola, José Mourinho, Zlatan Ibrahimović, Jose Ángel Valdés; mentions of quite a bunch of people from both Italian and Spanish first leagues.
Rating: 18+/NC-17
Warning: slash, angst, (slightly) what-if, age difference. Hints (not depicted, maybe even unworthy of a mention) of threesomes, foursomes, past underage relationships, kinky things.
Word Count: 10,045 (FDP)
A/N: I don't know how much you're involved in the soap opera made up of national press specialized in both Primera División and Serie A (Spanish and Italian first tier leagues). At the moment I'm writing these notes, in the first days of November 2011, Zlatan is going to introduce his autobiography and he has already spoiled his hate for Guardiola and the Barça team lifestyle, and his respect for Mourinho; Bojan is still angry because he had to leave his team and he refused to speak about/against his former coach so far; Guardiola and Mourinho buried the hatchet after the street fight in the last Clàsico; and Jose Ángel keeps tweeting funny things on his account, mainly photos of him and Boji in various levels of nakedness. There are lots of mentions and hypotheses about what happened in the last two years, so, if anyone is interested, I made up a full reference sheet at the end of the story.
This fic is my entry for hittheshowersbb; you can download and listen the lovely mix henpecked made for me by going here.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. I do not own them and I don't earn anything, except personal and others' amusement.

Summary:
Bojan Krkić has closed his eyes as well as his heart when he arrived in Rome. Love knocked many times stubbornly.
José Mourinho has started playing another straightforward mindgame. Love made the first move, though.
Josep Guardiola has realized his biggest error of his life. Love kept going, making his heart bleeding.
Zlatan Ibrahimović has sworn to help his archenemy. Love asked him that promise, and he said 'yes'.
Jose Ángel Valdés has wondered about his true feelings. Love explained him patiently.

When your desires are shattered without mercy, you can't do anything but run away as far and as fast as you can, chasing the broken shards of those which once were your dreams and finding yourself to cut your flesh and your soul with them at once every time you manage to catch one.

Bojan doesn't like to lie, but he couldn't say the truth to anyone: Rome can't fulfill his aspirations and hardly will, but he knows how much words could hurt, and he just isn't ready to bear Roman people's hate, too.

He just had to run away.

Bojan has learnt quickly to reply to the dozens of call tries by his friends by texting, as he doesn't want to know further about the suspects of Leo, Geri and the others, and he's perfectly aware about the effects their voices would bring along: he cried a lot when he found Carles' voice in the last message of the responder, and it was just a week ago, so he still doesn't feel ready to do anything but sending batches of neutral-to-happy texts and mails to all of them, while he keeps ignoring their calls. An easy task even when Pedro tried to hide his number in a desperate attempt, as Roma staff always looks for him on another cellphone.

The only reaction Bojan has showed so far surfaces every time a very stubborn man tries to call him: every time he reads his name on the phone display, he can't believe he even has the guts to look for him and try to talk to him... about what? How pleasant Rome is? How different its streets and its traffic and its nights are? Or does he just want to say that he's sorry, that he misses Bojan at least as much as Bojan misses him, that he was wrong and he wants him to come back to Barça as soon as possible, that he wants to see him so badly, in Rome or wherever he wants?

"Stop calling me," Bojan whispers several times to the phone, almost on the verge of tears, but it keeps ringing at least twice before the lighting turns off. A text arrives a minute later, as usual, and as usual Bojan deletes it without even reading it. He breathes out, heavier than the last time, and he puts himself under the sheets, trying to get asleep. Traffic lights outside the hotel he's staying in never seem to fade away.

 

"This is what I meant." Pep lets the cellphone fall on the desk, making an unpleasant, loud sound and risking to break it. "E-mails, calls, TXTs, it's all the same: no replies at all in a month. He could be dead and I wouldn't know about that and I wouldn't have got a chance to apologize."

"He's not dead, he's fine."

Pep raises his eyebrow in a way that only he could find threatening. "Why did I even call for your help? I should have done the same with you, after what you did to Tito. I don’t even understand why did you bother to come."

"I didn't kill him either, you know... at least, not yet. You seem unsurprisingly distracted about your dear ones' health lately, aren't you?" José blatantly ignores the second death glare from Pep, smoothing down the fabric of his trousers with a careless gesture before he crosses his legs again. "As for your call, you perfectly know I can't resist if there's a damsel in distress to save."

"Shut up."

"As you wish." They spend at least ten minutes drowning in silence, then Pep curses and José grins just a heartbeat later.

"I'm not a damsel in distress," Pep says in a bitter and somewhat desperate tone that gives away the lie in his own words, "I'm just in trouble. In a lot of trouble. I don't know what- I don't know how to do what it has to be done."

"Aww, love is in the air. I'm aware there isn't a single idiot in the world willing to be your conscience, but don't you think you should have apologized to your Bojanito-"

"Don't call him like that."

"Huh? Did I just stumbled upon a pet name of yours?" José asks with a grin as his friend blushes.

"It just sounds a little too... pervert. I mean, you make it sound like that."

"Oh, that completely makes sense, just like that. Let's see, you seduced a boy from your cantera – and he wasn't even of age, at that time – until you cooked up him enough to make him jump on you on the spot; you took his first kiss and you've been his first fuck and you tickled his first kinks as well, spicing up your snoggings a little more every time by trying to go as far as you both could, and I'm a pervert if I remind you that you're a little older than the boy?"

Such a brutal and blatantly provoking summary of his last three years would have made Pep's face burn up in any case, but hearing it like that, told from a voice he always cared about a lot – a voice he probably knows better than any other one whispering or screaming or laughing in the whole Spain in this very moment – hurts even more; José says those words with no bitterness or resentful feelings, his tone is soft and definitely ironic as always, but it's a hard critique of the things Pep has done – and of the ones Pep has not done. José's right. As always. And the realization doesn't bring just another wave of shame: desperation spreads fast through his body, strangling his throat and aching painfully.

"What should I do?"

"Wait."

"I can't wait."

"He doesn't want to talk to you now," José hesitates for a moment, as Pep has hidden his face behind his hands and, even if he's not making any sound, he's quite sure his friend doesn't want to show he's crying. "The boy feels betrayed and blames you for that, and he's probably right. Do you really want to risk to be cut out of his life for good? Because that's what's going to happen, if you keep looking for him in such an insistent way."

"What if I leave for Rome and-"

"It sounds reasonably worse than any of your last ideas."  Pep is speechless for a moment: he didn't hear José stand up from the armchair, neither he felt his presence so close to himself until the friend wrapped his arm around his shoulders; with a quick move he had to wipe away the ears under his fingers. "Just wait. Make sure the boy knows about you, and then wait for him. He's grown up enough, he has the right to choose, you owe it to him."

"I'm not even sure he has read my messages until now."

"I do agree. But I'm quite convinced he will not shoot on a messenger." José puts a finger on Pep's lips, as he already knows what he's going to say. "I'll take care of that, too."

"You will- wait." Pep can't see deep enough into José's eyes in order to fully understand what's going on in his 24/7-ticking mind. He understands enough from the smooth line of his grinning lips, though, and he's both hopeful and grateful: he knows he won't find anyone so close to help him to depart again, while he could just keep doing nothing at all and wait for Pep to fall into his grasp once more. Pep is sure he loves Bojan as his own life, but he's perfectly aware as well he was – he is José's, because it’s always been this way, since ages before everything else. And the warm wave rising when he approaches to José and kisses him on the lips, rushing to taste his tongue as soon as surprise leaves for curiosity and careful expectation… isn't it love as well?

"You didn't have to," José whispers, taking a quick breath of the air between them. "I didn't ask for compensation."

"Don't you want me?"

"Do I even have to answer this?" José kisses him with no hesitation or claim to play it safe, holding him in one of the most tender hugs Pep can ever recall. "I just don't think it would be fair, after our discussion."

"Do you think I'm a perv if I want you to fuck me right now, then?"

"Of course I do," José grins against Pep's lips, "I made you in my own image."

 

When he was younger, loneliness was never an issue for Zlatan, as he always walked on a neverending road a few people knew, and, as the years passed by, no one could keep up his pace. He was somewhat happy, rather than uncomplaining, because the steps on that unknown and mysterious track familiar to him only were natural and instinctive.

Helena never tried to chase him, as a matter of fact; he bumped into her so many years ago that he learnt to slow his pace enough to let her take him by the hand, without even noticing it; everyday fights and challenges still urged him to run, run down that track with all his strength, shouldering and kicking his way until the very end.

José has been different. José forced Zlatan to stop and say "Yes" without asking "Why?", since the very first moment – a scorching day of mid July and a glare that made Zlatan feel like he was tearing up his kit with bare hands. His body said "Yes" even before his lips did, and José looked at him with a questioning, yet curious and amused glance; then, José started to walk beside him without any permission, keeping his fast pace with ease for a while, until Zlatan sprinted and ran alone forward.

He was scared. He feared to end his career with none of the trophies he dreamt of in his showcase, sure, but he was still frightened to death by the power José had on him. But José didn’t chase him – he waited for his first uncertainty, his first weakness in a life which knew no weak spots, and he let Zlatan know he was still behind him, on the same route, just a little far from him. José would have waited for all the time Zlatan needed, but Zlatan couldn't wait any longer anymore, and he said yes again without questioning.

Since that day, a year and a half before, Zlatan can feel loneliness as something more disturbing than an acceptable state of mind. You awake? he writes quickly on his phone in the middle of the night, with no reason at all since José called him just yesterday and they both don’t like being tormented: so he feels happy in a totally childish way when his replies come less than a minute later.

Can't you see I'm sleeping? the first text says, and then: I was thinking about you flashes on the display. Zlatan's grin widens as he adds a winking smile on his new text, at the end of the line.

Tomorrow night? ;)

I need your help. There's something you can do for me.

Anything. Can I call you? Zlatan's quite sure José's not alone, for he's aware about his hate for texts; he can't ignore the sting of jealousy, poisonous and waist-high, as well as the incomprehensible shiver of pleasure which shakes his spine by just figuring José's body lingering with a faceless shadow. He has always been scared by how much easily he could accept the idea of José fucking someone else, in the aching, unbearable intervals between a meet and the following. Neither he can understand why he never did the same, even if José often invited him to do so.

This time, José's reply comes later than the previous ones.

I'd prefer not. Need you to meet someone. Deal?

Zlatan frowns by instinct – Helena is always very busy to remind him that he cannot do that anymore, if he doesn’t want to change his forehead in a stretch of wrinkles. Someone?

I'll tell you tomorrow night.

Jealousy boils off, while pleasure shakes him again, stronger and for longer than before. As he suddenly turned sixteen again, Zlatan slips his hand in the shorts. Again.

 

Bojan should have moved in a flat as soon as he had a chance.

He's considering the idea since he called Jose a couple of hours later than the time he tried to go to bed, asking him for hospitality "as traffic outside my hotel is unbearable". It's a lie as innocent as the hundreds he said in the last weeks, and still it adds its weight on his heart, but he couldn't say any bits of truth, not even to a friend, a teammate and the boy he knows better in Rome. Bojan shared many experiences with Jose when they were at Barça and at Gijon respectively, competitiveness and respect soon left for a good friendship, and they were used to share the bedroom at the training camp of the juniores national team: Jose's a nice person, he's a listener, he likes to have fun with some friends, he's one of the best teammates and friends Bojan had outside the enclosed, almost unreal Catalan environment and, moreover, he's the first one Bojan could think about when he needed to run from his claim for a new tormentless life in Rome just ten minutes ago.

Bojan doesn't know why Jose moved from Spain: Roma probably looked for his friend as soon as they entered into negotiations for himself when Pep said he wasn't unsaleable anymore; instead, he has to give credit to the Roman entourage for their patience, persistence and for trusting in them. He feels guilty when Jose brings him some sheets folded on the arm and a bottle of water in the other hand, as he thinks he didn't prove himself a good friend.

"I suppose you haven't changed your habits in these months" Jose says shyly, shaking the little bottle for a moment, and Bojan smiles and nods. "Are you sure you don't want to sleep in the bed?"

"I won't let you sleep on the couch in my place, Cote. It's fine, don't worry."

"It's large enough for the two of us." The loud, repeated sound of a horn blasts in the sudden silence between them. "... not a pun. I mean, we slept with Sergi and Martín on a king size in Vyborg, right? There would be more room now" Jose adds, uselessly trying not to blush.

"I haven't changed my habits in these months" Bojan smirks, half-surprised because he can't even recall when he joked last: it seems a very long time for sure. "I could molest you in the night." Jose blushes even more, seeming not able to reply, and he adds: "Only if it doesn't bother you."

"I swear it"  Jose says, taking back the sheets and water: he's saying the truth, but neither him or Bojan could say how much.

 

When Pep opens his eyes again, it's still dark outside – clock says it's still a quarter to five – and José's not there anymore. Pep can still feel his smell in the room impregnate his own skin and pierce his soul, although, and he needs just a blink to recall once again their night together; arousal awakes his body as well as his mind, but he doesn't do anything but lying naked and excited on the bed, his legs still wrapped in a fastidious sheet.

For how much José's strokes, or his presence, or just thinking about him can have such a shattering effect on Pep, he can't ignore his mind was devoted to Bojan only even in his climax, he can't ignore he whispered his name on José's smiling lips, he pleased the friend thinking about how Bojan used to do the same with him, he splayed his legs and rose his hips as... as Bojan did. As Pep taught to him in nights filled of laughter, experiments and endless talking.

After realizing that sleep won’t come again, Pep sighs and stretches out his limbs, trying to give a meaning to the images filling his mind: shaming pleas, the bitter taste of his tongue, tender words, mild rubbing of his aching back, and José writing texts on his phone – a mean he mainly uses just for platitudes and when he wants to drive the press mad. With another regretting sigh, he hangs around the room for a while, then he goes straight for a shower: another workday will start in three hours, and he isn’t lucky as José this time, as schedule will force Barça to enjoy half a day of rest less than Real.

 

Those heavenly regrets
Still on me though
Trying to catch a cannonball
And so burning tired

 

"Come on, spill the beans."

"Mmm, no," José whispers, starting to kiss the soft skin on Zlatan's neck and enjoying the warm stroke of his large hands on his shoulders: they both are almost still, as they were still having sex, except for Zlatan's legs that aren't folded against José's body anymore, but lie close to his hips, tired and languishing as the rest of his body is. They are always afraid and unwilling to break the spell with an uncomfortable word or thought, caring about each other's serenity at least in the moments they spend together (mostly by fucking, but that's imputable to desire that seems even growing, despite distance and time).

"Come on. You stay here for the night, don't you?" José nods quietly. "We have time for a second round, then. And a third. And-"

"Some respect for older people, you moron" José mutters. Zlatan laughs softly. "I have to meet someone in Rome. I want you to meet him in my place."

"Any motivation for such an absurd request?"

"If any journalist spots me in Rome, every single newspaper, magazine, website and TV show in the world will speculate about my desire to come back to Italy and train one of the Romans, or – even worse – they'll think I'm going to make pressure on them in order to bring De Rossi or Borriello to Madrid. Not that this would ever happen in the next twenty years."

"What about they spot me?"

"They've been endlessly pretending you've been sold to every single top team in Europe in the last two years, I'm sure that some gossip about that wouldn't hurt you and your team as much as would damage mine. Plus, you know quite well whom I have to meet."

"Huh?"

"Krkić."

Zlatan resists to the urge to frown just because José chooses that moment to free himself from the grasp of his legs and roll on his right, close to him but not enough to distract his mind in that resounding way. "He will never come to Madrid."

"That's not my intention. You have to talk with him, as neither I or Pep could."

"... tell me it's not about what I'm thinking."

José gently slaps his thigh. "They broke up a month ago. The boy doesn't reply to anyone among his friends and keeps ignoring Pep and what he wants to say to him to apologize. He needs your help."

"You're kidding." Zlatan looks in his eyes directly – a great mistake, as they never change. "You're not kidding, you're out of your mind."

"You said you would have done anything."

"Well, I meant for you. I didn't include Guardiola in the people I'd have been glad to help." Zlatan keeps walking back and forth from the bed to the table with the remnants of their dinner; he's offended and enraged and he's still naked and sweaty, and even if his steps are swinging and quite far from the mighty elegance of his strides on the pitch, he's surprisingly one of the sexiest things José's ever seen in forty-eight years. "I don't know what to do" he says, reluctantly.

"What about what I just asked to you?"

"It's not that easy, okay? Damn," he curses, throwing himself again on the bed, his arms folded under the head, "I hoped so much you weren't fucking him, among all the ones you could."

"Jealous?" Zlatan's heavy breath looks more sincere than any answer to him. "You don't have to."

"I know. It's more difficult than I thought."

"Mmm." José turns on his side and puts a leg against his. "Trying to understand you is always one of the most challenging quests I had to face."

"Promise you don't laugh?"

José nods slowly, breathing against Zlatan's ear – an affection he indulges in most of the time. Zlatan sighs.

"Maybe I... I'm not sure I'm disliking the idea at the moment."

"What idea? Look for Bojan and make him return into Pep's sheets?"

"Yeah. It would help to move him away from you." Zlatan laughs, bitterness in his tone. "Never mind. I'll go. I'd go to Hell, if you asked me."

It's José's turn to sigh, now. "Quit romantic tragedy at once. I've already said it, you don't have to be jealous of Pep." He kisses Zlatan's burning cheek. "Just... just don't make me choose one after another. You can understand better than other people, I'm not your one love. But I love you, mh? Doesn't matter what city will be your home or what kit you will have on tomorrow or in ten years. As long as you love me, it will be perfect."

"I know. I know, José."

"What's the problem, then? Hell, I can't understand at all what's your problem with me and Pep, and..." José brushes again his lips against his scorching skin, and suddenly his grin is so wide and triumphant that Zlatan is forced to move his gaze elsewhere, right on the friezes of the ceiling of their room. "Maybe it isn't a problem at all" he murmurs, tickling the tip of Zlatan's hard cock with his fingertips. "You should have told me way before today. It would have been an easier call last year, as you both were in the same city."

"Enough. I'm already ashamed of myself without your sarcasm."

"Why are you ashamed, gypsy? Fantasies are good... and harmless."

"I don't have any fantasy on Guardiola, his existence busts my balls as much as last month." He holds his breath every now and then again, as José's hand is touching him with more insistence and he already can't measure how much pleasure he can feel when it's him stroking his cock. "I'd kill him, but it's disturbingly exciting to think about you with him, that's all. And I'll kill you if you ever try to drag me in a threesome" he adds with a withering glare to José's smirk.

"Mmm, funny... you've already played that game several times, for what I can recall."

"Shut up. It was different" Zlatan says, trying to defend his position as pleasure mounts.

"Right, it wasn't a threesome. Last time I checked, Mario and Davide were two different persons. That makes four."

"I'll make sure to hurt you a lot when I kill you" he mutters, his threat melting in a warm, liquid tone. "I don't wanna make out with Pep. Promise me."

"I'll send you a sex tape on mission accomplished, then" José replies and sticks out his tongue. Zlatan's moan is loud and dripping with desire.

 

"You've such a horrible face." Nicolás messes Bojan's hair gently, somewhat worried, and the boy resists to the urge of springing up and avoid the stroke.

"Nothing coffee can't heal." Here it is, another lie, he thinks, discouraged. "I... I'm not sleeping that well at the hotel. I'll move at Jose's place this afternoon and I'll stay there for a while, until I find something nice, but I should make up for a lot in any case."

"Home sickness?" the man winks, and Bojan's face seems to morph into stone.

"At all" he replies, trying not to yell, but his shaking voice is suddenly cold and a little high-pitched, so every other approach by Nicolás gets totally discouraged. When the dining clerk serves him the coffee, in fact, Bojan's already alone again.

He returned to the hotel last night, as his hope was to overcome his fears and his need to run away until no one would have bothered him, but it's true he didn't sleep well: in fact, he didn't sleep at all, and he spent half the night eating rusks, looking at the quiet display of his personal phone without using it and watching a couple of documentaries on the National Geographic Channel. He tried all but one of the emergency tricks to fall asleep he knew, in vain, and as usual he wasn't in the mood for self-pleasuring: anyway, memories of his nights with Pep didn't help him to relax and find some relief by stroking himself.

For these reasons, asking Jose for hospitality for more than just one night as soon as he met him outside Trigoria that morning has been less difficult than Bojan thought: his friend seemed totally happy and excited to have someone to share his little flat with, and he even proposed Bojan to stay as long as he wishes, without looking for another place to live. It could be nice.

Maybe he could stop running, at least for a while.

With a sigh, he dials a number without even look at the phone keyboard: Geri answers in less than two seconds, roaring in joy, and Bojan's heart squeezes a little – not by fear, luckily.