ficlet: I am you are me (football rpf)

[meretricula]

this is very short. I just want it out and over. I'm meant to be doing many other things right now but I needed some kind of reaction to the various forms of asshattery going on in football, so hopefully this is it and I can go back to actually writing my dissertation.

title: I am you are me
fandom: football rpf
characters: Mario Balotelli and David Silva
rating: PG-13
word count: 400
summary: A brief conversation about a difficult thing.
notes: a much better fic about Mario Balotelli than this one was recently posted to footballslash. if you haven't yet, you should read it. this was not written in reaction to any specific event, although the staggeringly constant racist abuse that Balotelli has faced all his life is very real. someday I want to write cracky fluff about Mario falling in love with Silva and traipsing around after him like a possessive, poorly trained puppy, but this is very much not that fic.


The mister patted him on the shoulder, like a pet dog. He said not to let it get to him, to just keep playing, that he'd played well. Nigel said, "They're fucking idiots." Patrick didn't say anything at all. And Silva sat down next to him when everyone else had gone into the showers and he was still unlacing his boots, which was the best part, if by best he meant pointless and ironic, since of course Silva couldn't say anything without Carlos there to translate.

Mario wanted his mom - his real mom, his mom who'd raised him and loved him even though she didn't look a goddamn thing like him - and she wasn't there and what the hell, right? "I used to really like bananas," he said. "Can't eat them anymore. They make me feel sick."

"I got some stick, when I was younger," Silva said.

Mario barely kept himself from jumping. He'd thought - yeah, he'd known Silva knew a little Italian, but not enough to understand him, he'd thought. Not enough for this conversation. "For what, being the cutest on the team?" he asked, putting a little sneer on the diminutive. He wasn't going to hear this from David fucking Silva. The fans loved him and the mister loved him and Carlos loved him and he didn't get to say this to Mario.

"For my eyes," Silva said calmly. He put his fingers up and pulled the corners of his eyes high and to the side. Mario wanted to grab his hands and yank them away. It looked grotesque. "And because I am very little, but mostly for my eyes." He finally lowered his hands and smiled humorlessly. "I am lucky they cannot see that I am a faggot on my face, no?"

The sound of that word on Silva's tongue was horrific, worse even than the ugly unnatural slant of his eyes had been. "What the fuck," Mario started to say.

"If I play this game with you, who hears this more, I am going to lose," Silva said. "So I do not play. It is not a game. Now you know, and you will hear this for me and I will hear this for you and we will know. And we will play the football, because they say what they see but they do not know. It was a good cross I gave you," he added as he got to his feet and started gathering his things for the shower. Mario stared at him, the white towel knotted around his waist, the soap he grabbed out of his locker, the sparse hair on his chest and calves. All the insignificant little details he had never noticed that made up David Silva suddenly seemed very real and very relevant. "Don't waste my crosses again."

Comments

[justkisa.livejournal.com]

I love this--so, so much. Gah, I wish I could find the words to describe my reaction to this--it's just--it's short but the emotional punch it packs--wow. I love your Silva--just love him. And the last line - it's perfect. Really just wonderful.

[meretricula.livejournal.com]

thank you very much! I've never written Silva (or Mario) before, so it's a bit of a new thing for me. and, well. difficult subject, obviously.

[acchikocchi.livejournal.com]

This is the first fic I've read since, like, cornerflag, and I'm so glad I did. Really glad. I'm pretty brain dead right now but. Yeah. Thanks for this.

[meretricula.livejournal.com]

hey hey welcome back then! I'm glad you think it worked okay. ~hugs~

[brojan.livejournal.com]

it seems wrong to say i liked this, but it's beautifully written and it says something important, so. i'm glad to have read it, and thanks for writing it.

[meretricula.livejournal.com]

I feel equally weird thanking people for commenting on anything serious, but thank you for reading. I'm glad you think it worked. ♥

[mardia.livejournal.com]

This is a really well-done fic, on an incredibly difficult subject. Thanks for writing it.

[meretricula.livejournal.com]

thank you - it means a lot to me if you think it turned out okay. ♥

[lalalalynds.livejournal.com]

I love it. <3

[meretricula.livejournal.com]

thank you!

[falange84.livejournal.com]

God, this is excellent. You've managed to handle a tough subject beautifully.

[meretricula.livejournal.com]

thank you for reading - I'm glad it worked for you.

[pearlfire.livejournal.com]

Brilliant. I admit I'm not a big fan of either of these players, but the way you brought in all the issues--racism, homophobia, adoption--was just amazing. And it's so true, what Silva says in the end, and the way you came back to football in the end, instead of getting tangled up in the very real, but very complex topics of race/sexuality/identity.

Special kudos for this line: his real mom, his mom who'd raised him and loved him even though she didn't look a goddamn thing like him. I *hate* it when people ask me who my "real" mom is, like my mom isn't real enough even after she raised me through hell and high water.

I'll stop rambling now. ^^

[meretricula.livejournal.com]

thank you very much for reading despite the characters - obviously I'm very attached to both of them, but I know I'm a bit in the minority there. they're all awkward topics to address from the outside, but I wanted to do the best I could, respectfully, and I'm glad if you think it worked out okay.

Mario and his family, from what little I know of them, have always struck me as terribly sweet together. (I wish I could find out what his parents said to him after he crashed his car, seeing how his reaction to the accident was, "mom and dad were right, should have gotten a different car.") especially in the mess when his biological parents suddenly tried to reclaim him once he got famous, I just. I felt so awful for him. the only tie that matters is with the people who loved me as a son (http://www.corriere.it/sport/08_novembre_06/balotelli_genitori_biologici_comunicato_c87a9a3c-ac0a-11dd-9d45-00144f02aabc.shtml). weeping forever.

[sashatwen.livejournal.com]

Thank you for writing this. I don't know the characters, but it made my eyes tear up.

I just woke up thinking, someone should write a fic with Marcelo saying to Busquets, post-classico goal, "this little monkey here just threw a coconut into your back yard"...

... and then you posted this. :))) Bravo!

[meretricula.livejournal.com]

thank you for reading. for what it's worth, Mario Balotelli is well (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1343323/EXCLUSIVE-Mario-Balotelli-interview-Tell-Manchester-City-fans-Im-smiling-inside.html) worth (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/gabriele_marcotti/04/01/balotelli/index.html) knowing. and David Silva is, well, David Silva. he's our beloved small woodland creature (http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/dec/13/five-things-premier-league-weekend). I've never heard anyone ask him how he felt growing up as a mixed-race kid in a country like Spain. I hope the backstory I gave him is wrong, but, well. I wouldn't be surprised if some of it were true.

[nahco3.livejournal.com]

this is just superb. I obviously have incredibly affection for Silva, and you've really written him perfectly here imo, but Mario is brilliantly portrayed as well. this is the kind of fic I wish we saw more of in fandom; thank you so much for writing it.

[meretricula.livejournal.com]

thank you - I've never written Silva before, so I'll trust your judgment! (definitely read the fic I linked in the notes, if you haven't yet. and punch by applegnat.)

[rosykate.livejournal.com]

As much as I wish this was longer, because the world could always use more fic about David Silva and Mario Balotelli, singly and together, I am strangely content. You handled complex, awful, difficult issues with grace and in such a way that would make expanding them out seem contrived.

[meretricula.livejournal.com]

this comment makes me feel like I did something right as a writer. thank you so much for reading!

[una-surrealista.livejournal.com]

man, thanks so much for writing this. and posting the link to that other fic. this a topic that just...I can't even. and right now with Busquets and everything...I don't know. when I'm upset about something I try to bear in mind cultural differences and context, but racism is racism. there is no context to that. apartheid was racism, but so is every racial insult made in the heat of a football game and every racial chant made from the crowds. so thanks.

[meretricula.livejournal.com]

it's tough. the thing with Busquets, I just... if we're right, it's awful. if we're wrong, it's awful that he's being wrongly accused. but the most awful is that nobody seems genuinely motivated to get to the bottom of it for the sake of GETTING RID OF RACISM instead of as one more weapon to fling in a stupid media war over a football match. I'm so disappointed in both sides.

but anyway. thank you for reading the fic!

[una-surrealista.livejournal.com]

so true. I think what bothers me the most is that Marcelo hasn't come out and said anything, which I guess could mean he didn't say it, but which could also mean that it's so routine he doesn't see the need to speak out. which is just the worst thing. but yeah. not only for this incident, but I have never been happier to see the back of a football game, win or lose, than these past four clásicos.

[meretricula.livejournal.com]

Marcelo's the victim here, if there was an incident, and he shouldn't be paraded out into press conferences to speak about it if he doesn't feel comfortable doing so - but it makes me edgy to see this conversation being held exclusively by a bunch of white men in suits. and that's all I've got to say about it, aside from thank god it's over.

[una-surrealista.livejournal.com]

oh, good point. I didn't even think of how he might feel having to do the whole press conference thing. but the white men in suits. yeah. I'm with you there.

[krisseems.livejournal.com]

I started watching City regularly when Silva went there and I have to say the Balotelli is hugely fascinating. He seems to have such a bad attitude sometimes, but then you remember his past and the fact that he is so young still. These two together are so interesting. And I love the last line. Feisty Silva, getting angry about wasted crosses.

[meretricula.livejournal.com]

every time I see pundits talking about what a mess Balotelli is, I want to shake them and yell something about how he's so young and has been through so much shit and just cut him a break already, ngl. I want so badly for him to go out on the field and make them all shut up. and awww, bb Silva, I started following Man City for him too.

thank you for reading!

[krisseems.livejournal.com]

I feel like the press is just waiting to jump on him. There was an interview on City's OS today with him and Patrick Viera. They were talking about the FA Cup final coming up and asked Mario if he listens to Viera a little more in the dressing room because of his experience. He jokingly said that "sometimes he doesn't even listen to his parents but he does listen a little more to him, but he only needs be told a few times and he learns. He's not stupid." There was an article written about it the same day and the title is, and I'm not joking, "I don't listen to my parents". How do people expect him to act if that is the kind of crap they are going to pull? How frustrating for him. Ugg. Pundits are the worst. I would like to see them playing now a days. It has to be ten times more stressful for a player with internet media and instant criticism.

Sorry this was kind of a novel.

[drbillbongo.livejournal.com]

I loved cheryl_bites's fic as well but honestly, yours doesn't have to hide behind that one at all! I'm seriously in awe about how you write. This is short but packs such a punch, and I literally gulped when Silva made that comment about getting teased and said, almost defeatedly, that he's glad one can't tell by looking at his face that he's gay. It's heartbreaking. I don't even want to think about it. Poor Silva. :/ I loved how seamlessly they got back to talking about football. And the last line. And somehow I wish there were more of this, because now that you put the idea in my head I can't stop thinking about Balotelli/Silva.

Gorgeous fic.

[meretricula.livejournal.com]

thank you so much! I loved cheryl_bites' fic, and applegnat's of eons ago, but god, I want so much more Mario fic in the world. and Mario/Silva. but just Mario in general.

[sanzina89.livejournal.com]

OH GOD. THIS IS SO AWESOME.

All my football otps are there and I wanna hug you so much :')

(I LOLed at Everybody in Manchester City/Silva because it's so true XD I'm just for AJ/Silva, but I admit there is room for everyone here XD)

[meretricula.livejournal.com]

haha, you mean the fandom overview? I'm glad you enjoyed it. :)

[missmollyetc.livejournal.com]

I think you did very well, with an incredibly difficult subject. <3

[meretricula.livejournal.com]

thank you very much! I'm glad you -- well, liked is probably the wrong word, but I'm glad you appreciated it?

[missmollyetc.livejournal.com]

::grins:: I certainly appreciated it! And liked it as well. I think stories such as this, as painful as they can be, are also entirely necessary. There's a lot of ugliness in mainstream soccer fandom, and it doesn't do to forget that, even as we support the players/teams.