Work Text:
Prompt: ‘I wish you would hurry up and start to fall for me, the way I already do for you.’
The new bloke had his nose buried in a book again.
That was John's first thought as he came out fresh from the shower, skin squeaky clean of the caking mud of the training ground.
John nodded slightly when the bloke looked up and their eyes caught, can't help but be Mr. Social, and the bloke nodded back a minute one. It was slightly awkward. They were slightly awkward.
It was a bit unfair that John couldn't even refer to the bloke by his name in his head. Yeah, the blue kit and the lion crest adorning his chest were new, but it's not like John never knew who he was.
C’mon, it's Frank Lampard.
Oh how John knew him. He was already there when John started coming every Sunday to the Hammers' Youth Club. He's slightly older and so mesmerizing on his feet that John could barely look away sometimes. He talks in an accent foreign for that part of the city. Too proper. Too posh. His proper and posh professional footballer dad picked him up after every game in their proper and posh car.
The lads took one look at him, heard the way he talks once and knew ‘you’re not from around here’. ‘You’re not one of us’, and they hated him with a burning passion. John knew because no matter how good little Frank get, how much John couldn't keep up when he guarded him, people hissed and jeered at him still. He scored a beautiful flick once in Ipswich and Geoff wouldn't even shake his hand.
Peculiarly, it was John who left first. But Chelsea came calling, and you'll be daft not to heed their call.
So he came to practice one Summer day, suddenly realizing he's surrounded by people in shiny black cars with posh accents, and the first thing that he thought was 'Frank wouldn't look out of place here'.
When Frank did came into the club a few years after, John was the last person on Earth surprised about it.
But they're still painfully awkward and it's strange because John is never awkward with anybody. But what do you say to somebody you looked up to in your youths days who'd probably only remembered glimpses of him anyway, if at all?
'Hi, how've you been? D'you remember me? We used to be in the U-15 together with the Hammers. I heard how the fans treated you there, must be awful, huh?'
'Did you know I used to obsess over defending against you? Used to obsess over stealing the ball off your feet.'
'Did you remember I succeeded once, just once, and then I lost my balance and you held out your hand, helped me back on my feet and smiled at me? Knocked the air out of my lungs, that smile did.'
Nothing can be more mental than saying those lines, John knew that, so he kept his silence as he changed into a fresh track suit and took a seat on the bench to start lacing up a pair of sneakers.
When he looked up, he finally realized how close he was seating himself from Frank. Their shoulders were almost touching.
This close, John could smell the clean scent of shampoo from the damp ends of the other boy's hair.
This close, John could study the long sweep of lashes across cheekbones as the boy's eyes scanned over the book's page.
This close, John could see him lining a passage on his book with a broad stroke of the pencil in his hand. John read, "I wish you would hurry up and start to fall for me, the way I already do for you", and smiled because posh people and their poetry and the irony of that line striking a chord in his Cockney heart was too much to resist.
If the universe's playing a joke on you, might as well laugh along with it, his Mum said once. John couldn't help but feel she's right.
"Right. I'll be off then." John stood and walked over to the door and stopped. Glanced at the posh boy that looked in all the world like he's in his element now. 'I'll see you Monday, Frank,'
Frank looked up, a look of slight surprise in his eyes. John decided he liked that look too. 'Yeah. Take care, John.'
John smiled a bit wider and Frank returned it with a smaller one.
So in this part of the plot John had always been a few steps further, but he's fine with that. Frank will catch up soon.
He's a proper genius, that one.