Work Text:
I see a mountain in my way
It's looming larger by the day
I see a darkness in my fate
I'll drive my car without the brakes
-
You don't want to pick up your phone so you turn it off after you get in the car, for all four hours of the drive back from Barcelona. Orange lights on the highway in constant periodic flashes; light, dark, light, dark. You don't see it. You don't look at anyone either, because you've said everything in your power to say, delivered quietly in the stone cold silence of the dressing room after the match. You have done your duty.
Phil looks slightly concerned when you forgo your own car to get in the passenger seat, head down and resolutely focused on buckling your own seatbelt and ignoring his attempts to catch your eye.
“Drop you off at yours?”
You don't say anything, shake your head instead. It's possible to speak, you know that, but simultaneously there wasn't anyway you could've. You're keeping your mouth shut
-Gary Neville, he's bitten off more than he can chew this time-
You're keeping your mouth shut because you can't speak or swallow around the shame in your throat.
Phil's hand wavers over the radio dial but he thinks better of turning it on. You watch his hand make that aborted motion and alight on the steering wheel, fingers barely trembling. He's looking out of the window at the opposite lane when making a turn, although it's late and there are no other cars around to warrant such careful driving. He tries so hard, Philip, your brother Philip, your assistant manager Philip, and he would be brave even now. Even now. This more than anything else makes you draw in a breath deeper than usual
-Gary, breathe in and count to five. Go on. Nice, steady breathes-
makes you draw in a breath and your heart clench like a fist in your chest. You reach out and grip his shoulder, clumsy, hand sliding against the fabric of his shirt. He's still skinny even now, your baby brother, you can feel the bones under his skin.
He turns to look at you, wide eyed. “Gaz?”
You don't say anything. The traffic light turns green and you take your hand back. He puts his foot down. You want the car to stop,
-fuck just make it stop, Jesus, haven't they done enough those fucking-
You want everything to stop but instead there's nothing to be done, so you lean back against the seat and close your eyes. Orange lights on the street; light, dark. Light. Dark.
-
You're both trying to be quiet when you get back to Phil's house, turning on one dim decorative light in the hallway above the tall vase and toeing off your shoes. Julie and his children asleep upstairs. Emma and your girls asleep in your house too. Emma would have tried to stay up, but not for too long. She wouldn't sit at the kitchen table and wait for you to come home, because she knows you, and now you start to feel guilty for not sending her a text. Your phone's still dead in your pocket.
Phil whispers, “Guest room down the hall is made up I think.”
You nod, grateful, start feeling your way down the dark corridor.
“Gaz?” Phil says. His voice makes you turn around. He's standing with a foot on the stairs, and the light makes his hair look like it was still blonde, not greying. Again this harsh inability to force air into your own lungs, again this
-you've let them all down, this time, everyone who's ever believed in you-
You force yourself to breath. When you were children Phil would crawl into your bed and you'd talk under the covers, waving a flashlight around. You'd talk about playing for United, Phil wide eyed and smiling at the conviction in your words. Then you'd try to shove him to his own bed, but more often than not he'd fall asleep in yours, stealing all the covers by morning.
You can't do that anymore. You're grown men, and
-he seems to be losing conviction, isn't he? Although with his connections to Valencia's owner-
You're both grown up now, more than that, even. You're both old, and you have no comfort for him, both pockets turned inside out and empty.
“Go to bed,” you say, voice hoarse. “It's almost morning.”
-
Phil has a landline, which was good. Your phone had refused to turn on when you've finally gotten into bed and gave into the guilt. You get out of bed again, and it's cold with the window half open, night breeze stealing in.
You dial his number idly, not thinking about the fact that
-if I was involved with a team who got beat 7-0 there I wouldn't be able to look my family in the eyes-
Not thinking about the fact that you have it memorized until you've pressed all the numbers and you're waiting on the soft reassurance of the dial tone. He doesn't give you much time to think about that though. Two rings. As though he was waiting.
“Hello?”
You open your mouth and no sound comes out. You try again, stubbornly, angrily, dredging up what last bits of anger you have
-you're not angry, you're only defeated, only beaten, beaten, beaten-
“Jamie.”
He actually sighs in relief. It makes you want to laugh, suddenly, and you're not sure how that works except you can see his face so clearly, then, and it makes you want to laugh. Imagine the worst thing you can think of, and then imagine
-this is the worst moment of your life and you want it to be over-
Then imagine that it's not. His voice in your ear.
“How're you holding up, then.”
“Well enough.”
He pauses, as if to gauge your response and judge whether you've been telling the truth or not. It was true, anyway. You're in between the states now, teetering in the balance between the past and the future. The past; unthinkable still. The future; equally unthinkable, but hurtling towards you nevertheless. You think about damage control. Splintering pieces of something
-your pride on the floor, buried in Camp Nou, remember how you felt when you played here in red, remember the Champions League trophy, remember the color of Scholesy's hair and remember-
Splintering pieces of your thoughts you can't bear yet to make any sense of.
“Go to bed, Gaz,” he says.
“What, no banter? No telling me exactly how I fucked it all up?”
“No,” he says, seriously. You want to hang up the phone then. You wonder how it looks from the outside, the man bent over in the darkness with a hand clenched around a phone like he was having a heart attack, body curled. You wonder what the moral of the story is
-it's arrogance, that's it, plain and simple. Neville doesn't have the ability or the-
The moral of the story is so very simple.
“Go to bed, Gaz,” he says again. “I'll call you in the morning. You at Phil's?”
“Yes,” you say. It's getting light outside.
“Fine,” he says, brisk. He sounds so clearly awake you wonder if he'd stayed up waiting for you, staring at his phone on the kitchen table, drinking a cup of coffee.
“Alright. Good night, Carragher,” you say, oddly formal. It really does make you laugh this time, not from amusement or anything, just the strange and discomfiting feeling of wrongness still coloring everything around you.
“'Night, Gaz. Call you in the morning.”
You wait for the click that means he's hung up but it doesn't come. Instead there's just his steady breathing on the line, and you close your eyes and stand up. You put the receiver back in the cradle, gently.
-
You sit on the bed in Phil's spare bedroom and watch the sun come up. You watch it and wait, until you can breath again, until all the thoughts in your head distill, until there's no more darkness. There's no light, either, just this blurry whitish horizon beyond all these foreign houses, this in between stage, all uncertain. You watch and wait and look at your hands spread flat on the bedspread on either side of you. Your fingers don't shake when you raise a hand before your face.
Your fingers don't shake.
-
Fire lake and far flame
Go now but come again
Dark clouds gather 'round
Will I run or stand my ground?