meretricula: Rrrrrrafa Nadal! (whatever)
[personal profile] meretricula
lo and behold, I keep my promises! well, every once in a while. this turned out to be more about reading and less about the hotness of Novak's glasses, but whatever. RAFA AND NOVAK PLAYED THE FINAL OF THE US OPEN, CONSIDER THIS A (very belated) CELEBRATION POST. :DDD

title: The Serbian Tennis Players' Book Appreciation Society, Membership: Two
fandom: Tennis RPS
pairing: Rafa/Nole (of course)
rating: PG-13
word count: 1860
summary: In which it is absolutely, indisputably and beyond a shadow of doubt all Ana Ivanovic's fault.
notes: Thanks to @Noleksa for checking my Serbian! And the Spanish text is obviously not mine; the translation I used can be found here. Further notes can be found at the end of the fic!

It started mainly because Novak got bored on planes. He flipped through the in-flight magazines, he fiddled with his iPod, he fidgeted. He tried to talk to whoever was sitting next to him. Marian just wanted to sleep until they got wherever they were going, and it drove him crazy. "Why don't you read a goddamn book," he snapped finally, on one particularly excruciating flight, and since Novak didn't like to piss Marian off (at least not unintentionally), he ran into one of the little magazines-and-candy stores in the airport while they were waiting for a connecting flight, and grabbed a book at random off the shelf.

It was an interesting book, actually, although at that point he probably would have read it even if it had turned out to consist of nothing but the backs of cereal boxes. Novak started it in English because that was what they had in the store, and then the next time he was in Serbia he remembered to grab a translated copy in an actual bookstore, and it kept him busy for a few more trips. The next problem arose when he finished it.

"This is a really interesting book," he tried to tell Marian. Marian opened his eyes and glared.

"I am sleeping," he said. "Leave me alone."

"But I want to talk about my book," Novak said.

"I should have known better than to sit next to you," Marian muttered. "Go bother someone else. Someone your age, who doesn't need his sleep."

Novak made a face and dug out the in-flight magazine. Someone had already half-finished the crossword, in ink. At least it was a short trip.

*

The tournament they were flying to was mixed, so he went out to dinner with Ana that night. It was kind of weird; they were in the same sport and from the same country but they never seemed to see each other unless they made the effort. Dinner was nice, though. Ana seemed a little stressed but she was always fun to talk to. "Tell me something that's not about tennis," she said, over decaf coffee, because they both needed to be up early for practice the next day. They'd already discussed their brothers and their respective love-lives, so that limited work-unrelated conversation a little.

"I read this really good book," Novak started, before he realized that it probably wasn't something Ana was interested in. Stereotypes were terrible and unfair and so on, but in Novak's experience, professional athletes really didn't read much.

"What was it about?" Ana asked, smiling. "No, come on, you can't just leave me hanging like this!" she added, when Novak sort of flapped his hands at her instead of answering. "Now I'm curious."

"I've still got it in my suitcase, if you want to borrow it," Novak offered, unsure if she was just humoring him.

"Yes, please," Ana said. "I need something good to read while I'm getting treatment anyway."

*

"I don't know if I agree with his ideas about the Unmanifested," Ana announced a few days later, dropping down onto the couch beside Novak in the players lounge. Novak blinked.

"Is it the terminology or the concept you don't like?" he asked at last. "I thought it was a pretty interesting idea, myself."

"It's not about liking or not liking," Ana said, frowning. "I liked it. I just don't know if I agree with it."

"Oh. Well - "

"What are you guys talking about?" Vik asked. He was playing cards with his physio at a table a few feet away.

"A book," Novak and Ana said in unison.

"Oh," Viktor said, nose wrinkling, and turned back to his card game. Novak rolled his eyes.

"Look, I've got practice in like five minutes," he said to Ana. "But can I call you later? I'd really like to talk about the book more."

"Sure!" Ana beamed at him, and he remembered that she'd told him once, a couple years ago, that she didn't have all that many friends on the women's tour. "But look, you really need to read some Freud to understand where I'm coming from. I'll pick up something for you in the bookstore and drop it off with your team when I have the chance."

He and Ana both got knocked out of the tournament that afternoon and Novak didn't get a chance to see her before she left, but when he came back from dinner there was a plastic bag with the label of a local bookstore hanging from his door. The receipt was still inside the book; Ana had scrawled Read it!!! on the back in Serbian. Nole shrugged and tucked it into one of the outer pockets of his tennis bag, so he would be able to get at it on the plane.

*

The thing was, Novak loved reading and he loved talking to Ana about what they were reading, but their taste in books didn't always overlap too much. He wanted to read biographies, she wanted to read philosophy and psychology and political science, and while he didn't mind any of that, the sad fact of the matter was that if you looked at a Venn diagram of their reading material, the oval containing things they both wanted to read could also be labeled "really really depressing books". Novak thought about inviting Janko to join them (Vik still thought he and Ana were both crazy and refused to even let them talk about books while he was in the room) just to get a little variety in their book selection, but when he mentioned it to Ana, she looked dubious and said, "You want to read Dostoevsky?" which was… well. Kind of a good point, when he thought about it. Also, Janko was fun, but kind of crazy.

All of which was fine, except he and Ana were both at a certain point in their careers where, unfortunately, the last thing they needed was to depress themselves further with the books they read. Life was depressing enough when you'd apparently forgotten how to fucking serve.

*

When Ana handed over her latest selection, she'd taken off the dustjacket so that it looked completely anonymous, which should have warned Novak that something was up. "You have to give it a chance," she said quickly, which was another clue. "Promise that you'll read it. I really liked it."

"Okay?" Novak said. "Look, I read Marx, didn't I? I'm not going to give up just because it's boring."

"Promise!" Ana insisted.

"I promise, I promise, God. What is this, anyway?" He opened the book to the title page. "Гордост и предрасуде?"

"You'll like it, it isn't boring," Ana said, and looked relieved when her mother came over to tell her that her practice court was free. "I'll talk to you later! Read the book!"

*

He didn't get a chance to start the book until he was on the plane to the next tournament, but Ana was right about one thing - it wasn't boring.

*

"Noleeeeeeeeeeee," Rafa said, and flopped down on the bed beside Novak. "Nole, stop be so boring."

"Just let me finish this chapter, okay," Novak said, and pushed his glasses further up his nose. "I'm almost done with - GAH!" He swatted ineffectually at Rafa's hands, which were sliding under his shirt. "In a minute!" Rafa nuzzled at his throat, then bit right above his collarbone. Novak's dick chose that moment to remind him that he hadn't had sex with Rafa in over a month. "Okay, or now."

The book and his glasses both ended up on the floor.

*

"Okay, so, not that I mind the sex," Novak said a few days later. "But you have knocked my glasses off the bed three nights in a row, and sooner or later they're going to break."

"Mm-hmm," said Rafa, clearly not paying attention, and pulled off Novak's glasses yet again as he leaned in for a kiss. Novak grabbed his wrist.

"Look, stop doing that. I need those to read, okay?"

Rafa made a disgruntled face, and Novak resolutely remained uncharmed. "Always reading, so boring, no? Anyway, what book is this?"

Novak tried to dredge up the Spanish that Rafa occasionally insisted on teaching him. (Rafa claimed it was because Novak was better at languages. Novak was pretty sure it was because Rafa was too damn lazy to try learning Serbian.) "You'd say, uh… Orgullo y… something. I don't know the word in Spanish."

"Orgullo y Prejuicio? For serious?" Rafa rolled his eyes. "Is the book with too many sisters, no? And the pretty one, she argue with Darcy half the book, then she marry him. Maribel love that movie, she make me watch with her at Christmas."

Novak stared at Rafa. Elizabeth had just embarked on what he thought was a fairly successful flirtation with Wickham when Rafa interrupted him, again. And Darcy was an ass. "I hate you so much right now."

"You don't know ending already?" Rafa blinked at him, a study in innocence. "Sorry. But now you don't need read rest of the book, no?" He grinned and settled Novak's glasses carefully back on his face. "Maybe you wear these for the sex this time."

"You ruined the end of Pride and Prejudice so that you could have sex with me while I'm wearing my glasses," Novak said flatly. He contemplated throwing the book at Rafa's head - hardcover or not, no jury in the world would convict him so long as it was more than 50% female - but in the end decided to be the bigger person. "I'm going to go sleep in my own room."

*

Novak would have stayed angry for a while to make sure he'd gotten his point across, except it turned out that Rafa was really good at groveling (and also Novak wasn't going to pass up regular sex on the rare occasions that he could get it), so he thought he might as well be magnanimous and forgive him. He held firm on indulging Rafa's weird kink for his glasses, though, until Rafa showed up at his hotel room, apparently after some awkward multi-lingual consultation with Ana, with a really nice Spanish translation of Pride and Prejudice. "I think, maybe we can read together," Rafa said shyly. "Since you like so much."

*

"'Elizabeth estaba tan confusa que no podía hablar. Después de una corta pausa, su compañero añadió: ––Es usted demasiado generosa para burlarse de mí. Si sus sentimientos son aún los mismos que en el pasado abril, dígamelo de una vez. Mi cariño y mis deseos no han cambiado, pero con una sola palabra suya no volveré a insistir más.' Rafa, are you asleep already?"

"'m awake," Rafa insisted. "Read. Is my favorite part."

"I knew you were reading ahead," Novak muttered. "'Elizabeth, sintiéndose más torpe y más angustiada que nunca ante la situación de Darcy, hizo un esfuerzo para hablar en seguida, aunque no rápidamente, le dio a entender que sus sentimientos habían experimentado un cambio tan absoluto desde la época a la que él se refería, que ahora recibía con placer y gratitud sus proposiciones. La dicha que esta contestación proporcionó a Darcy fue la mayor de su existencia, y se expresó con todo el calor y la ternura que pueden suponerse en un hombre locamente enamorado. Si Elizabeth hubiese sido capaz de mirarle a los ojos, habría visto cuán bien se reflejaba en ellos la delicia que inundaba su corazón; pero podía escucharle, y los sentimientos que Darcy le confesaba y que le demostraban la importancia que ella tenía para él, hacían su cariño cada vez más valioso.'"

Rafa yawned enormously, and then adjusted the position of his head in Novak's lap so he could smile sheepishly up at him. "Maybe you right, I gonna sleep soon. We can finish tomorrow?"

Novak smiled back. "Yeah, we can finish it tomorrow. I don't know what I'm going to do after that," he added, putting the book and his glasses on the bedside table before he switched off the light. "I didn't think we'd read so fast, I don't have any other books with me."

"Mmm. I bring La Ciudad de las Bestias for you tomorrow. Is in my bag. You will like."

"Yeah?" Novak asked. He lay down beside Rafa and extracted a sleepy kiss.

"Is my favorite book, of course you gonna like," Rafa mumbled, and was asleep before Novak could reply. Novak pressed one last kiss to his cheek, then closed his eyes and promptly followed suit.

further notes:

1. Novak Djokovic looks really good in glasses.
2. Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic have both mentioned reading Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now. I don't know if one of them gave it to the other but I wouldn't be surprised.
3. Tennis players really don't read.
4. Janko Tipsarevic is indeed fun, but kind of crazy. (He also has a tattoo of a quote from Dostoevsky, although last anyone heard, he's taking a break from reading because books are too depressing.)
5. The part of Pride and Prejudice that Novak is reading in the last scene, for those who don't speak Spanish (myself included!), is the bit at the very end where Elizabeth finally confesses to Darcy that she loves him.
6. Rafael Nadal's favorite book is The City of the Beasts by Isabel Allende.
7. The cut-text is taken from "The Book of Love" by The Magnetic Fields (listen here).
8. Blame [livejournal.com profile] aramley. This is all her fault.

Date: 2010-10-27 03:08 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] aramley.livejournal.com
SCREAM. I am grinning like a lunatic in a lecture and I don't caaaaaare bc NOVAK! RAFA! GLASSES! PRIDE AND PREJUDICE!

Will comment coherently when I am not typing on my phone. Or pretending to listen to some guy talk abt underwater archaeology.

Date: 2010-10-28 12:02 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] meretricula.livejournal.com
:DDD IT IS ALL FOR YOU BABY

hope the underwater archaeology lecture was fun!

Date: 2010-10-28 07:52 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] aramley.livejournal.com
I cannot go without commenting to this fic using this icon, or mentioning that Ana is so awesome in this :D

Date: 2010-10-28 07:55 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] meretricula.livejournal.com
NOVAK HOW SO GEEKILY SEXY. (though I had to use a different photo to link as proof of his bespectacled hotness, because I feel that the animals might creep people out.)

hee! you know how I feel about Nole and the ladies.

Date: 2010-10-28 08:16 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] aramley.livejournal.com
True, and I am not sure how far I approve the level of scruff going on in this picture (he looks perilously close to an under-chin beard D:) but it was the only icon of Nole's sexy glasses I could find! Icon-makers of the interwebs, y u no like Nole's sexy glasses? :(

I do know! And I approve :) Nole's galpals should be in all fic!

Date: 2010-10-28 09:15 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] meretricula.livejournal.com
Novak needs to wear his sexy glasses more often. I just realized that the only photo I actually have of him in glasses is the one with the weird lemur-things. :( PHOTOGRAPHERS, GET ON THIS.

agreed! so very much agreed! do we have time for a secondary campaign after the "convert the world to Rafa/Nole OTP" one where we inform everybody about how awesome Novak's galpals are?

Date: 2010-10-27 08:08 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] vlieger.livejournal.com
hee! oh my god so much adorable! ana and novak and rafa, ahaha. this, man:

"You ruined the end of Pride and Prejudice so that you could have sex with me while I'm wearing my glasses," Novak said flatly. He contemplated throwing the book at Rafa's head - hardcover or not, no jury in the world would convict him so long as it was more than 50% female - but in the end decided to be the bigger person. "I'm going to go sleep in my own room."

i can't stop grinning :DD

Date: 2010-10-28 12:24 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] meretricula.livejournal.com
:DDD I just love them so much, ugh. I'm glad you liked it! the whole thing is so ridiculous and self-indulgent but w/e w/e I do what I want, and what I want is Novak reading Pride & Prejudice in bed.

Date: 2010-10-27 10:45 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] the-curlyone.livejournal.com
OH!!! *flails*
There are soo many things I love about this:

Nole in glasses!!!

Serbian-tennis-players book club!

Novak stared at Rafa. Elizabeth had just embarked on what he thought was a fairly successful flirtation with Wickham
Ha, I see Novak fell into Wickham's trap too.

God, tennis players really don't read. I squee'd so much when Rafa mentioned Isabel Allende, she's one of my favourite authors XD

Date: 2010-10-28 12:25 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] meretricula.livejournal.com
seriously, it is painful to hear them all list Dan Brown as their favorite author. =/

I'm so glad you liked it! :D

Date: 2010-10-28 12:35 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] the-curlyone.livejournal.com
seriously, it is painful to hear them all list Dan Brown as their favorite author. =/

I know, in my head the only people that like Dan Brown are people that never willingly read a book before. I know it makes me a book snob but goddamit that is one awful 'author'

How could I not like it? There are a million things to love about it.

Oh, by-the-by, I've finally ventured into football slash after telling myself for years that I shouldn't and your recs list has been a great help in negotiating the fandom :)

Date: 2010-10-28 01:01 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] meretricula.livejournal.com
hee, I am the greatest worst enabler ever! :DDD I hope you will enjoy your venture into the mothership of sports fandom, haha.

Date: 2010-10-28 08:26 am (UTC)
ext_24105: jackie and hyde, that 70's show (tennis3)
From: [identity profile] miss-universe93.livejournal.com
eee, this is absolutely adorable! i have such a kink for nole in glasses too, i think this is quickly becoming one of my favourite tennis ships. wonderful!

Date: 2010-10-28 10:57 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] meretricula.livejournal.com
aww, thank you! my work as a Rafa/Nole evangelist is very important to me. :D

Date: 2010-10-28 07:44 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] louis-quatorze.livejournal.com
Awwww, adorable! (And athletes in general don't read. I think that is 75% of my Philippe Senderos Thing. He is well-known for having read more than one.)

Date: 2010-10-28 07:59 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] meretricula.livejournal.com
hee, thank you! oh man, athletes and books. it's a little painful. though the running jokes on Crackovia about how footballers don't know how to read are hilarious and bring joy to my life.

Date: 2010-10-28 08:17 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] louis-quatorze.livejournal.com
They don't read and generally have no taste. (I die a little inside every time I see a "footballer playlist" posted, but I also laugh a lot.)

Date: 2010-10-28 10:42 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] hollabee.livejournal.com
Awww, this was adorable ♥ Also I want to join in the Ana and Novak book club. I WOULD BE ANA'S FRIEND :(

Date: 2010-10-28 10:54 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] meretricula.livejournal.com
thank you! I know, right? most awesome book club ever!

Date: 2010-10-30 03:52 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] krisherdown.livejournal.com
Ana and Novak's book club sounds like fun (of course it's best to keep Janko away from it) but I like Rafa's input as well. Very nice.

Date: 2010-10-30 09:42 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] meretricula.livejournal.com
thank you! :)

Date: 2010-11-01 03:19 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] rosayu.livejournal.com
It's because of you and aramley that Rafa/Nole is my OTP shortly after I've gotten into the tennis fandom! And Nole in glasses is sexy as hell! You know some people with glasses is just fail. But Nole in glasses is major win! Needless to say, I've completely enjoyed your story esp. Nole reading to Rafa on the bed! In Spanish no less! Gah!

Date: 2010-11-01 06:26 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] meretricula.livejournal.com
every time someone tells me that Leah and I have succeeded in converting them to our glorious OTP, I feel a little frisson of personal validation run down my spine. :DDD thank you very much! I'm glad you liked the fic, and I hope you'll stick around the fandom for a while.

Date: 2011-07-03 08:01 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] spdfg.livejournal.com
I was looking to make the Wimbledon men's final a little more interesting (I still haven't had the chance to learn to watch tennis properly, if you know what I mean) and this was perfect for that purpose. Your rendering of Rafa in broken English is love. And Ana removing the cover of Pride and Prejudice. Hee. :D

Date: 2011-07-03 08:21 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] meretricula.livejournal.com
hee! always glad to be of service. ([livejournal.com profile] aramleys_words and I have both written a lot of this pairing if you're still looking for more. XD)

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