clo (clo) wrote in clofic, @ 2005-06-19 23:35:00 |
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Entry tags: | andy roddick, andy roddick/roger federer, one-shots, pg-13, roger federer |
one-shot: Control (PG-13, Andy Roddick/Roger Federer)
Title: Control
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Andy Roddick/Roger Federer
Summary: Andy reflects on losing and hate. Anger overrides common sense and Roger gets a shock.
Notes: Set in the changing rooms after the Andy vs. Roger Wimbledon 2004 final which is directly responsible for my tennis obsession over the last three months.
Disclaimer: Roger Federer and Andy Roddick own themselves and I have no claim/relation to them whatsoever. To my knowledge, this didn’t happen anywhere but the confines of my plot-bunny-infested mind. Feedback is welcomed; flames are fed to the plot-bunnies.
Control
Losing has always had a slightly metallic taste for Andy. He can’t explain why or how but it lingers for hours after he’s walked off court, bitter and sharp on his tongue. It could be his imagination. It could be because he has to bite his lip hard to cut off a stream of self-disgusted profanity whenever he misses that final shot. It could be from the exhaustion of the match or from holding back the tears that burn behind his eyelids.
It could be but he thinks it isn’t.
He thinks it’s because of his bitter hate for the man now standing across the changing rooms from him, carefully loosening the tangles in his ponytail. Hate so fierce he can taste it, unpleasantly acidic in his mouth like too-peppery food or those sugared-sour sweets that make his eyes water. Suffocating hate that he can't fully explain or justify.
Not that hate has ever really been a rational emotion.
Pin-pointing the moment he started to hate Roger is impossible. It didn’t happen in a flash of realisation; nor did he wake up every day disliking the man more and more. Instead Andy, after careful and rational consideration of his feelings, realised that the Swiss quite simply drives him absolutely fucking crazy. It isn’t the smirk, or the calm or even the kind-yet-condescending tone in which Roger congratulates him on a good match. All those things add to the eventual feeling but Andy knows, deep down in the dusty corners of his soul where he never lets anyone look, what the problem is.
Roger controls him. Like a pet, like a child. And no matter how hard Andy tries to break that hold, Roger always ups his game just the little bit extra he needs and leaves Andy as the frustrated looser. Every time.
Without even trying.
Nothing annoys Andy more than someone being able to control him.
His massive serve somehow is a way he can emphasise that; if Andy Roddick is serving at you, you either get a bullet-proof helmet or get the hell out the way. He loves the thrill of being the fastest, the hardest, in front of the pack. Untouchable. It’s like a drug, knowing he has something special and dangerous, something the other players in the locker room can discuss with hushed tones and nervous eyes. Except for Roger who, with unbreakable calm and a serve nowhere near as fast, can walk out on court and walk off the winner a few hours later without batting an eyelid at Andy’s best efforts.
Control. Of his game, of his place in the rankings. It hurts that Roger was the one to take over the number one spot. Being number two is good but number one is better. Andy isn’t just the second seed anymore. He’s the second who lost first. Who was good enough for a while but wasn’t the best.
It hurts like a fucking fist to the stomach. Hate born from hurt, from his own inadequacy, from Roger’s brilliance. Andy’s always loved being the best, at tennis, at interviews, at the goddamn finger painting when he was in kindergarten and couldn’t have defined ‘competition’ if you’d paid him in candy. He was there, he had it and for a short while nothing could stop him. He was number one and on top of the world. Untouchable.
Then Roger came along and suddenly it’s the dark-eyed Swiss who is the topic of terrified whispers and admiring glances in the locker room. Andy’s been shunted to one side, further and further as with each match up against Roger the whispers of Andy can do it grow quieter. Roger is the name on everyone’s lips, perfect, brilliant Roger with perhaps, according to the commentators, more talent than anyone before. Practically unbeatable. Stunning. The best.
Untouchable.
Andy thinks all that and it really fucking hurts.
Across the room Roger’s running a hand through now-loose hair. Andy watches from under the brim of his hat as the Swiss catches a hair grip and works it out of a knot, combing his fingers patiently through the tangle. The match was intense on every level and Andy can see the sweat soaking Roger’s shirt, feel it trickle down his own neck. English weather may be inhospitable half the time but the day’s decided – at last - to be hot and the locker room is stifling. The buzz of the press is blocked out, locked away on the other side of the door and it’s just the two of them on opposite sides of the room, on opposite sides of equal. In a few minutes Roger will walk through that door to an endless night of interviews, congratulations and celebration.
Andy will walk through to sympathy and worse, pity. Because he lost. Loser. They won’t say it but he’ll see it in their eyes, hear it the words they think are comforting. And he’ll smile and compliment the match and pretend that everything in him isn’t fighting to just make one sharp comment about Roger. Just one. Something cutting and personal that would be spread across the internet within hours and outrage Roger fans across the world. But it would be petty and childish to hate a rival, so Andy will simply smile, and compliment the match, and pretend he’s okay with being beaten. Again.
Which is about as far from the truth as it’s possible to get.
Roger’s stretching now, hands locked together behind his neck, damp shirt clinging to him like a second skin. Andy’s shirts tend to be a little too big because he likes the space to move but all of a sudden it seems silly. Roger’s shirt could have been tailored specially for him; of course the perfect number one would have a perfectly fitting shirt. Andy makes a mental note to grow up sometime soon and yanks his own offending shirt over his head, getting tangled in sweat-damp cotton and the hat he forget to take off. When he emerges almost a minute later, flushed, hatless and even more annoyed if that’s possible, he finds Roger standing a short distance away, leaning on the wall and watching him with a small smile.
Andy has a well-developed set of morals. He knows you should help little old ladies across the road, should be polite to fans and kind to small, fluffy animals, though occasionally he wonders at how similar the last two seem. He knows how important it is to behave on-court – though sometimes he likes to cross the line just to prove he can – and he knows it’s a good thing to take loosing cheerfully – which means not trying to commit grievous bodily harm to your opponent in the changing rooms after the match.
He knows it but it’s really fucking difficult not to jump up and give Roger a black eye to wipe the smile off his face.
“You’ve been watching me for ten minutes,” Roger remarks casually, as if stating something as mundane as “You have blonde hair” and not something that sends Andy’s heart racing into overdrive; fuckit he noticed- “It’s very distracting.”
“Sure you’re not going crazy?” Andy attempts a smile which he can feel is more like a grimace. “Just staring into space. Composing my game plan for next year y’know.”
Roger doesn’t move, his smile doesn’t change. Andy’s walking the fine line between patience and violence. “Why are you watching me?”
Lie. Don’t lie. Andy goes for the safe option. “I told you I’m not.” He stands, tosses the sweaty, crumpled shirt towards his bag without breaking eye contact with Roger. “Congratulations on the match. You deserve it.”
I should’ve wonis what he means and they both hear it, echoing around the room. Roger’s smile takes on an uncertain edge, smugness warring with anxiety at the American’s tone.
“We both deserved it.”
“Yeah. Guess we’ll ask them to put both our names on the board eh?” What Andy intended as a joke comes out sharp enough to cut and Roger flinches.
Unflappable, untouchable Roger flinches.
For a brief moment Andy is too surprised to speak. He’s never managed to break that mask of calm before and the minor triumph gives him a faint thrill of victory. He’s lost the match but not the war and competitive instinct has him capitalising before he realises his mouth is open.
“Weren’t expecting me to play so well today eh? Better watch yourself Federer. I’m looking forward to knocking you off that throne.” Part of him regrets the threat as he watches the surprise flash across Roger’s face but most of him is savagely proud, still a loser but having found a way to slip a knife in Roger’s back. Common sense is screaming at him to shut the hell up and he does perhaps his most sensible thing in the last ten minutes and brushes past Roger to head for the showers with a mumbled “Forget it.”
The hand on his arm is sudden and irritated; grip tight enough to leave a handprint-shaped bruise. Andy lets himself be spun round to face Roger’s furiously dark glare but doesn’t stop, uses the momentum of the move to carry him forward, slamming the Swiss back against the wall. Impact jerks a soft cry from Roger’s throat but Andy’s beyond hearing it.
“You beat me,” he snarls. “Fine. But I almost had you out there today Federer and don’t forget that. Don’t ever fucking forget that.”
Roger tilts his head back, meeting Andy’s hazel eyes with shadowed, dark ones. The American has him pinned; hands trapped behind his back and in Andy’s fierce grip, one arm pressing across his chest to hold him down. They’re close, closer than handshakes and hugs out on court; close enough to feel each other breathe, Andy’s bare chest pressed to Roger’s sweat-damp shirt. Somehow their legs have tangled; Andy isn’t sure he can move without falling and isn’t sure he wants to.
Roger at his mercy is… fascinating.
“What’re you going to do now Roddick?” Roger asks softly, his accent more pronounced as he struggles to breathe with the pressure on his chest. Andy can feel the Swiss’ heartbeat, pounding fast against his arm. “Keep me here all night?”
Andy hesitates. They have ten minutes at most before someone comes to fetch them; they need to be changed and ready by then. Things he could do to Roger in ten minutes flash through his mind and he dismisses most as impractical or stupid. It’s difficult to think coherently this close; they’re touching from the chest down and pressure in all the right spots is making him consider something he’d have sworn wouldn’t apply to Roger. Andy’s never considered being gay; it’s never come up but right now it seems like a viable option if it means Roger’s stare doesn’t lose that slightly stunned, submissive look. The irritating smirk is growing again on the Swiss’ mouth and with common sense crushed beneath his bodily reaction to the other man, Andy leans in for a kiss.
His immediate thought is that it’s different to kissing a girl; Roger tastes nothing like lip balm or makeup but of something musky, hot and undeniably male. The startled whimper from him however is anything but and Andy relishes the feel of making Roger tremble beneath him in submission. His tongue’s in the Swiss’ mouth before he can stop himself and the sharp grate of teeth on soft, damp lips elicits another broken sound, of surprise, of fear and perhaps lust. Andy takes his time running his tongue along rows of sharp teeth, along the roof of Roger’s mouth and pulling back to nibble his bottom lip. The Swiss writhes beneath him but Andy presses down harder with a wordless noise of reassurance.
Roger’s gasping for air when Andy finally leans back; eyes wide and shocked, face flushed. The American fights back a grin of triumph and reaches up to brush a lock of hair off Roger’s face instead. Dark eyes are staring at him warily, torn between amazement and horror. Andy leans in again, this time to breathe sarcastic words into the Swiss’ ear.
“Who’s the winner now Roger?”
And he’s gone, releasing the Swiss and scooping up his bag, heading for the showers. Just before the door swings shut behind him he glances back. Roger hasn’t moved, staring after him in speechless shock. Andy greets the look with a final smile before the door slams shut and he strides away down the corridor with a spring in his step.
Control. It’s good to have it back.
~ Fin ~