clo (clo) wrote in clofic, @ 2005-05-09 11:45:00 |
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Current mood: | drained |
Entry tags: | andy roddick, andy roddick/roger federer, mardy fish, poetry ficlets, r, roger federer |
Sequel to Can't Not.
Title: Don’t Think They’d Understand
Rating: R
Pairing: Roddick/Federer, implied Federer/Fish, very faint hints of Roddick/Fish.
Summary: Love. Ownership. Control. Roger’s learnt the difference.
Warnings: This trilogy took the fluff bunny and ripped it to pieces. Cutting, blood, bondage, mentions of rape, more I’ve probably missed. If you’re looking for sunshine and happiness, definitely skip this one because they ain’t here.
Disclaimer: Mine? Nope. For which they’re probably very glad right now. This is *fiction* people. Reality is probably much nicer.
Dedications: For scoobydumblonde and liroa15 who are awesome. I don't tell them that nearly enough.
Notes: Sequel to ‘Can’t Not’, because Andy lost and I threatened him with this. And because I have sadistic plot bunnies. Title comes from Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls, who surprised me by saying what I wanted to far more eloquently than I could a few times when I was writing this. Unedited, sorry. I really need some sleep today.
The white basin is stained crimson. Andy tries not to see it as he scrubs his hands hard enough to graze the skin and it’s not hard enough, doesn’t go deep enough to make him clean. Roger’s blood is staining the pure white and he can’t stop shaking. Roger’s blood on his hands. There’s probably pretty metaphors and symbolism that can be drawn from that but his mind refuses to work beyond ordering his hands to scrub harder.
Roger hadn’t even screamed. He’d just lain there, hands limp in the cuffs. Silent. Eyes screwed tight shut. Unflinching as Andy…
He hadn’t screamed. Andy’s shaking hands can’t keep a hold of the soap; it splashes into the pink-tinted water, vanishing beneath the surface. His hands are wrinkled and sore but he can still feel it, welling warm and wet against his fingertips. With a gasp he sinks to the floor and presses his face to the cold side of the sink, curling sore hands into fists.
This was all wrong, all twisted and dirty and he’d throw up if he’d eaten anything in the last few days. Mardy tries but he’s too quick to back down when Andy yells at him, too ready to let the younger American lock himself in his room and starve for days, simply because he doesn’t know what else to do. It was Roger who always used to make him eat when he was depressed, hand-feeding him bite by bite if it came to it. He’d been sweet at times like that, coaxing Andy with treats and soft words rather than force, curling around the American and whispering that he was beautiful, special, and he had to eat or he’d get sick. Andy had never been able to tell how much of it was an act, or if it was the other Roger that was the act, the one that fucked him hard and fast until he was whimpering into the gag. Sometimes he’d thought the real Roger may be somewhere between the two. More often he’d thought that the one who hurt him was the real one and the sweetness and honeyed words were just well-performed lies.
Now he’s not so sure. There was none of the usual cocky self-assurance in the Roger he’s just seen, no attempt to fight back or even struggle. He’d just lain there in silence, a few muffled hisses of pain escaping clenched teeth every once in a while. A Roger with the self-control of the one Andy knew so well from sex, but passive, accepting of his fate. Andy hadn’t even forced him. The Swiss had just obeyed in silence.
He hadn’t screamed. Andy presses a hand to his mouth and bites down hard on his own fingers to keep himself quiet. Roger hadn’t screamed so he won’t, but it’s difficult not to. Self-disgust and horror bubble up inside him and he wants to let it out, scream to bring the neighbours running but he won’t. Because Roger hadn’t and so could he.
“Andy?”
Mardy sounds small and uncertain, hovering by the door. A weak attempt at a smile from Andy seems to do nothing to reassure him and he shuffles across the room, dropping to his knees at Andy’s side. There’s a long moment of silence.
“What did you do?”
“What I didn’t want to,” Andy whispers. He takes a ragged breath as Mardy wraps his arms around him and pulls him close, Andy pressed against his solid warmth. “I never wanted it to come to this Mar. How’d we let it get so…”
“Out of hand?” Mardy offers softly, stroking Andy’s hair. Andy shakes his head against Mardy’s chest and hides his face in his friend’s shirt as the tears start to fall.
“Stupid,” he whispers. “It’s all so stupid.”
Mardy shifts his grip a little to sit more comfortably, Andy sitting between his legs and leaning sideways against him with his head resting on Mardy’s shoulder. “Andy, is Roger… Is he okay?”
Andy’s breath catches in his throat and he shuts his eyes without answering. Mardy doesn’t push it and just sits, rocking Andy as he cries. There’s no sound except the American’s gasping breaths and the slow drip of water into the sink until Andy runs out of tears, Mardy wiping the last away with his thumb before breaking the silence.
“Andy, did he say anything about what- what I-“
“No.” Andy is still clinging to Mardy, his hands tangled in the other American’s shirt tightly enough to rip the cotton. “He didn’t say anything. Didn’t even ask what I wanted him to do; it was like he knew already. Did you-“
“I swear, I didn’t tell him.” Mardy is quiet for a moment and Andy tilts his head back to see his friend’s face, sensing he’s trying to find words for something important. “Andy, he called it rape.”
Andy feels the shock run through him like swallowing a mouthful of ice-cold water; his attempt to laugh it off is cracked, uncertain. “Don’t be stupid, it wasn’t rape. It was…”
“Revenge,” Mardy says quietly. “Teaching him a lesson. Showing him how it felt. It’s just words Andy, just empty little words. I fucked him when he didn’t want me to. What would you call it?”
Truth hurts. Andy tightens his grip on Mardy as the room sways and he’s numb, shock like a punch to the stomach. What kind of person does it make him to have asked his best friend - the boy he’d kissed when he was sixteen years old and didn’t know who he was, never mind what he wanted - to rape his boyfriend? He’d never thought of it in those terms; he’d wanted to show Roger what he’d done, what it felt like, to get revenge, yeah, but not like that. He hadn’t thought, hadn’t made the connection, and he’d asked Mardy to do it for him because he didn’t think he could face Roger and not crumble under that dark stare.
“Oh god, Mardy,” he whispers, his voice cracking. “I asked you to do it for me. I didn’t… I never thought. I’m so-“
“Don’t say you’re sorry.” Mardy’s tone is sharp and Andy flinches. Tries to sit up, slide away across the floor but Mardy’s arms tighten around him, holding him close. “If you’re sorry then it was wrong and I have to-“ He breaks off, takes a breath. “I can’t live with it if you say you’re sorry. So don’t.”
“…Okay.” Andy pushes himself up a little to kiss his friend’s mouth; a promise and an apology and gut-wrenching guilt, edging the slide of tongues with bitterness. An apology that he can’t voice but Mardy knows it, understands and Andy can feel the other American shake against him.
He never should’ve asked Mardy to do it. Never should have involved his friend at all but Mardy had involved himself, wriggling into Andy and Roger’s relationship with whispers of doubt and Andy wishes he could hate him for it. He’d not been happy when Roger hurt him but he’d had him to curl up with at night, had the Swiss to call when he lost a match or had a bad day. There’d been times, like for weeks after the knife, when the sex had been soft and gentle and oh so good, kissing for hours on the couch and Roger letting Andy learn every inch of skin with touch and taste. Mardy only saw the bruises and the limp, the rough scar on Andy’s hip and the nightmares of the bad times; he didn’t see how hard it was for Roger to go sky-diving with Andy on Valentine’s Day or the time just after they’d got together, when the British weather caught them by surprise and they’d spent four rain-soaked-hours, curled together under a tree in an English field. Mardy didn’t see that. How could he understand then?
Andy had half-believed him when the older American said Roger was bad news, because Mardy was his oldest friend on tour and listening to his advice was habit; he hadn’t thought that it was none of Mardy’s business, hadn’t thought that maybe the other American didn’t know the whole story. He’d just listened and believed. And in believing, had turned treating Roger far worse than the Swiss had ever treated him into something petty, something cheap. Something like revenge.
And Roger hadn’t even screamed. Oh god.
“Mardy, I need to-“ Andy forces cramped fingers to release the handfuls of Mardy’s shirt and pushes the other American away, trying to move. Cold tiles have numbed his legs; he staggers as he stands and Mardy has to catch him, holding him up. “I- Roger. I need Roger.”
“Andy, you can’t just go back like nothing’s happened. For god’s sake, you just-“
“I know what I did Mardy.” Andy leans on the edge of the sink, eyes closed and head down as he fights to calm his stomach. Mardy’s hands are warm on his hips, keeping him steady. “It doesn’t change the fact I need him. I’m sorry Mar but you don’t get it.”
“Oh, I don’t get it?” Andy knows the instant he hears the rough edge to Mardy’s voice that he’s said the wrong thing. “I don’t get a say, I don’t get an opinion, even though he’s clearly sick or twisted or doesn’t have all the lights on upstairs, I don’t know. He cut you Andy with a fucking knife! Without asking or warning-“
“Yeah?! And what the fuck did I just do to him?” Andy shoves Mardy away with enough force to send the other American stumbling across the room, catching himself against the open door. “You waltz in with your ideals and your opinions and you never ask what I want, what I think and if I’m dealing with what he does. You just push and push until I say fine, maybe he’s wrong and you’re right, even though I love him and you don’t even know him Mar!”
“Jesus Andy, I fucked him for you!” Mardy rubs a hand fiercely across his eyes and up through his hair, despair and frustration in the gesture. “I tied him to your bed and fucked him like you asked; I’ve seen you screaming from the nightmares and heard you crying at 3am when you think I’m asleep. What more do I need to know? Is there something I’m missing, because if you’re holding out on me please, tell me, because I’m at a loss here.”
“I love him and he loves me, Mar. Loves me.” Andy’s voice cracks and he has to look away from his best friend’s disbelieving stare. “I know he does. I can’t explain it-“
“Try.”
“I can’t.” Andy almost shouts the words. “I can’t so stop asking me to. You don’t understand, Mardy!”
“Obviously not!” There’s white-hot fury in Mardy’s tone and in the way he turns on his heel, slamming the bathroom door aside as he leaves. “So obviously you don’t need my help, though fuck knows I tried.”
“Mardy!” The bathroom door cuts off Andy’s yell with a slam hard enough to splinter the wood and a moment later he hears the back door flung aside, Mardy perhaps kicking it aside as he leaves. Andy’s left standing in an empty bathroom, tears drying on his cheeks and blood-tinted water lapping at the hand he’s steadying himself with on the edge of the sink. Shock holds him frozen and silent for an endless minute before his mind starts to process what just happened, running the snarled words on repeat through his mind.
“Mardy,” he says softly and closes his eyes against fresh tears.