Work Text:
Despite not sleeping very well last night, Roger attends the press conference after training with Stefanos. He expected the question from the press.
"I was not invited, I did not expect it." Roger says in a baritone voice, thinking of the conversation he had with Rafa the night before the wedding.
"Rafa please...we've spoken about it, for many many times. I'm not coming."
Rafa sighed, "Roger, I really want you to be there, for me."
Roger raised his voice. "For what? So that I will see you get married to....someone?" Someone not me. He almost said. "Is that what you want, Rafa?"
Roger glances at the journalists. They are waiting for him to elaborate. They seem unconvinced.
"It is true that we get along very well -" Roger tries again. But his thought is interrupted. Maybe not anymore since he told me about the wedding, about leaving me to live a normal life, to 'do the right thing'.
"Roger, we cannot go on like this." He remembers Rafa's voice on the phone. He knew what was coming. He read the news.
"I'm marrying Mery."
"You're leaving me?" Roger said weakly after a few seconds' silence. He hoped Rafa did not hear he was on the verge of tears.
"Roger, we don't have a future together."
Roger wanted to shout at him, tell him how wrong he was, tell him he would leave Mirka, tell the whole world about their story, propose to him, marry him and they would live happily ever after.
Roger said none of that, "We don't."
"Mery...she has been waiting for me for a long time. It's time for me to do something for her."
"Rafa...I love you." Roger knew it was stupid of him to say that, to think that his love was more important than anything else in his life. Maybe it used to be. But Rafa had grown up and become a much better person than Roger himself ever would.
"I know." Roger heard a sob from Rafa. But he knew Rafa was smiling at the same time. "But sometimes love is not enough, no?"
It should be. Roger blinks, willing himself to concentrate on answering the question. He needs to say something more to justify his absence. "But at a wedding, you invite the people with whom you share the most time."
That's a safe answer. Roger thinks. He sees some people nodding in agreement. That means Rafa's family and the people from Mallorca. Anyone but Roger Federer.
"Roger, I lied when I said I wasn't nervous. I was a bit nervous...not because of tennis." Rafa gave him a shy look. Roger was stunned.
They were alone in the locker room in Geneva after doing the video for Laver Cup interviewing each other. Roger had asked Rafa if he was nervous playing him for the first time in Miami.
"I wanted to impress you...because...you know why." Rafa blushed. Suddenly he was the 17-year-old island boy with dark eyes and long hair again. "And I was very excited to share the court with you..I wanted to share all my time with you, Roger. Not just on the court."
Roger had no answer to it. The Laver Cup weekend loosened them up since their phone call, when Rafa told him about leaving him and getting married to Mery. But Roger had not forgotten that Rafa was getting married in a few weeks. "I know." He simply said. He felt Rafa's gaze on him, but he was determined to avoid meeting his eyes. Rafa did not say more. The moment was gone. They both knew it did not matter anymore.
"That's why it's not a problem for me." Except letting him go is the most painful thing I've gone through in my life. Roger swallows. The room is silent except for his voice. He has managed to say, "I sent them a congratulatory message for their union." Roger is proud of how calm he sounds.
Roger feels the weight of his phone in his pocket. That isn't completely a lie. He did text Rafa on the wedding day.
"You are a better person than me. You do all the right things, like marrying the woman who has devoted her whole life to you, instead of waiting for an idiot who can never reciprocate your love - "
Instead of that, Roger simply typed 'You are a better person than me' and hit send. He had no idea why he felt the urge to text him, to connect even on his wedding day. Deep down he knew he wanted to make it difficult for Rafa, to shake him up a bit before he said his vows to Mery.
But Rafa did not check his messages all day. When Roger checked his phone again, he saw that Rafa read the message around midnight. Rafa ignored him.
"I knew he would not answer me right away because he would have better things to do, like to party." He fakes some chuckles. He hears some laughters from the floor.
Rafa will never reply him to his text. He knows that Rafa will be a good husband. He will do all the things Roger has always wanted to for Rafa as a husband but never could to his newly-wed wife. He will prove him right, because his action always speaks louder than words.
Unlike me. Roger thinks about all the things he has said over the last week, about how he wants to teach at Rafa's academy when he retires. It's too little too late now. He feels heat in his eyes.
Someone coughs, Roger is awakened from his thought. The journalists are looking at him. Roger's lips curve upwards into the kind of smile he wears for all the PR events, and the words he has practised to say in his whole career come mindlessly to him -
"I am very happy for him and I hope it was a memorable day."