WIP Week: Day 2 (Monday)

[itsadrizzit]

I’m still working on the same thing I worked on yesterday and not following the themes because this story isn’t supposed to be very long and I honestly just want to get it done. Plus, today’s theme is your “AU WIP” and I haven’t actually started writing my AU yet (I’m using this as a warm up exercise, as it were) and the only other WIP I have that technically qualifies as an “AU” is only AU because it was based around the ‘Vincent stays at Spurs in 2017/2018′ and that’s honestly still too sad for me to deal with even though I do think it could be a pretty great story.

Anyway! I managed like 1300 words today (and still haven’t finished this scene…heyo!) even though I only wrote for an hour because I had to waste most of my evening doing boring adult things like showering, feeding myself, printing tax documents, and ordering garden plants for the alleged spring that we’ll be having at some point in time.

Straight up continues from where we left off yesterday although the writing is EVEN LESS EDITED since this is all 100% new content and doesn’t have previously written material mixed in. So….I guess this is straight from my brain into your eyeballs. Sorry for that. No one should read my fic in this state. NO ONE.

Also sorry that it very abruptly stops in the middle of a thing. I don’t usually do that, but my brain is too tired to continue tonight. I’m pulling a Hemingway and stopping just as I get to the interesting bit so I’ll be excited to pick it up again tomorrow (or something like that).

Fic: Maybe It Will All Come Back to Me

Fandom: Football RPF – Tottenham Hotspur

Pairing: Christian Eriksen x Vincent Janssen

Rated: General Audiences

When the movers had dropped the sofa off at Chris’s house the following evening it had been like rubbing citrus and salt straight on a fresh wound. Chris had thrown himself body and mind fully into training, all his focus on the ball at his feet and the grass beneath his boots so he didn’t have to think about Vincent alone on an airplane flying three thousand kilometres into the unknown while Chris stayed here in London training with his teammates as though nothing had changed; still half expecting to hear Vincent’s laugh ringing across the pitch or to catch Vincent’s eye and watch Vincent’s face flash into a dazzling smile, dimples creasing his cheeks as he grinned over at Chris.

All day, everything moved too quickly around him and Chris found himself always a step too slow. Despite his attempts to clear his mind and focus on his training, his thoughts kept drifting back to the night before–Vincent’s hands all over him, his own hands pressing soft kisses against every curve of Vincent’s body, both of them once again taking as long as possible together, trying to memorise every taste and texture and smell of the other.

He’d dragged himself home after training feeling drained and ill and empty inside, wanting nothing more than to collapse into his bed and not leave it for the next week. Instead, he’d just managed to change out of the jeans and t-shirt he’d worn home from training when his doorbell chimed.

Chris groaned, directed the movers up the stairs and into his spare room, stopping to kick aside some of the boxes and plastic bins to allow them to slide the sofa, now wrapped in a heavy black dust cover, into the room. They’d had to leave it at an odd angle, one corner against the wall, the other protruding out into the centre of the room, but Chris had just shut the door behind him and told himself he’d think about it later. He probably didn’t need to look at that room for the next year anyway.

A week. He’d lasted a week before his resolve had crumbled and he’d all but made the sofa into his bed, much to the dismay of his friends.

Toby constantly chastising him about it: “It’s not going to do your joints any favours, Christiaan.”; “What’s the point of having a custom mattress if you’re just going to sleep wherever?”. He’d all but moved himself into Chris’s house, appearing in the doorway the moment Chris’s feet hit the floorboards as though he’d been standing guard outside waiting to press Chris back down into his bed.

Chris had tried to argue with him, at first telling him it wouldn’t do any good for neither of them to get any sleep, then trying to explain that at least on the sofa he was getting some sleep which is better than he was managing in his bed, but Toby wouldn’t hear any of it, instead bringing Chris glasses of water and insisting that he lay back down and close his eyes as though Chris were a child who’d woken in the night from a bad dream. Chris was pretty sure he would have considered locking Chris in his bedroom if he’d had the option.

Eventually, Chris’s bed hadn’t felt so strange and foreign and empty, and the only time he’d ever found himself on the sofa was the occasional lazy Sunday afternoon spent reading and dozing in the late afternoon sunlight.

He’d done well to get back to what he remembered as normality–life as he’d lived it before Vincent, as it were. Nights out with his teammates when he could, although usually they were all so drained after training that none of them wanted to do anything besides relax at home. Which, for Chris, more often than not these days, meant wandering around his house trying to find something to keep himself occupied.

Then, Vincent had turned up on his doorstep a month ago, a solid, warm, comforting presence surrounding Chris on all sides once more, and Chris could hardly believe he’d forgotten how life could be with Vincent at his side. He’d only stayed for a week, but the instant his taxi had pulled away Chris had felt his absence as keenly as if someone had banged a hole right through the centre of his house.

Thankfully, he’d been able to spend the next night in a hotel room, convincing himself that he didn’t miss Vincent and that he’d learned how to live life on his own again and would fall back into his old routine, but even now he was back to sleeping on the sofa at least as often as he slept in his bed.

He stifled another yawn, his eyelids already heavy despite the early hour–the last light of the sun still casting the sky in bright silver beneath the heavy clouds. He’d better make himself some coffee if he was going to make it through his evening with Toby. He’d be able to pass his fatigue off as the lingering remnants of illness if he needed to, but he’d been well enough last night that Toby would get suspicious if Chris started falling asleep on the sofa before eight in the evening.

The last thing he needed was his friends finding out he wasn’t sleeping well again. For one thing, he hated proving Toby right–something he’d had to do far too often over the past year of his life. For another, his friends all had their own families and their own lives to be going on with, and Chris hated the feeling that he was pulling them away just because he couldn’t figure his own life out. He’d get over it. He just needed some time.

Chris pulled open the cupboard and reached for the bag of coffee he always stashed within easy reach, but a second, smaller bag caught his eye and he paused mid-motion. An unassuming brown paper bag, unmarked and unlabeled, but no label was needed. Chris grabbed for that bag instead, then fished around in one of his drawers until his hand closed around the handle of a small copper pot. One of the gifts Vincent had brought with him from Istanbul–a Turkish coffee pot and a small bag of finely ground coffee from his favourite café near his apartment.

The bag was nearly empty now, Chris noted. He’d have to ask Vincent to send more the next time they spoke. Not that Chris drank the strong, bitter coffee often, much preferring his lighter roast from the Scandinavian cafe he frequented on days off. Chris had only made the coffee himself a handful of times, usually on cold, grey London mornings when he’d pried himself off the sofa, eyes red and burning with sleeplessness, wishing maybe he’d once again turn the corner and find Vincent lounging in his living room, bathed in the early light of morning.

He fished around in his hoodie pocket for his phone and propped it up on the kitchen island, carefully balancing it against his now empty water glass before he turned the screen on and scrolled through his files until he found what he was looking for.

He pressed play on the video and the quiet of the house was broken by Vincent’s shy laugh, followed by his now familiar Brabantian Dutch with its soft syllables.

‘Christiaan you’re not really taking a video of this, are you?’

Chris’s own voice answered in slightly louder Dutch from behind the camera, ‘Of course. Otherwise how will I use this when you’re gone?’

Another laugh and a shake of Vincent’s head. ‘It’s not as if it’s that difficult. Besides, I’ve already shown you twice.’

‘Show me again.’ Chris’s voice soft, and he could hear the hint of a smile around the edges. He’d never realised how much his tone changed when he spoke with Vincent until he’d played back this video on repeat, laying on his stomach on the sofa in the quiet dark of a London night a week after Vincent had returned home. Softer, sweeter, with a playful lilt he knew wasn’t there in interviews or his Spurs TV slots or even as he slid in beside Mousa or Jan or Toby for one of their frequent dinner and board game nights.