Where the wind whispers

Title: Help Me Carry The Fire, Chapter Six of ???
Characters: Bojan Krkic, Thiago Alcantara, Mamen Sanz, Cesc Fabregas, Andy Carroll, David Luiz, Raul Meireles ; mentions of: Lionel Messi, Pep Guardiola, Carla Garcia, Robbie Keane, Gary Neville
Rating: PG-13 this part, higher later
Words: this part: 2,614 ; total words: 15,233
A/N: Just want to give a HUGE amount of thanks to wh_mermaid for helping me figure out something for this fic (and I'm so glad she's home!)! :D Thank you very much bb, I'm sure I will love you more in the future ♥ Thanks if you've been reading this and double the thanks if you've commented on it. I really do appreciate both. :) Today's part, I hope you like it :)
Previous Parts: One | Two | Three | Four | Five



There was a very annoying clickity-click coming from the computer directly behind him, Bojan had quickly realized once he had sat himself at one of the library computers. It was his free period and freshman lunch. He could only assume that there was an annoying freshman sat annoying behind him being annoyingly obnoxious as he played an equally annoying computer game. It was the only solution Bojan had managed in the ten minutes he had been there. He was aware that he had not been the most pleasant person in the past week and a half but he had reasoned out exactly why that this was the case.

Firstly, the only reason he was in the library in the first place was that he was trying to do a report for his literature class based off the book they had had to read. Unlike Silva, he had spread the reading out to more than one day, or as Silva had boasted, approximately six hours, for a three-hundred page novel. Instead, it had taken Bojan about five days to finish the book due to all the other homework he had been given. For such plentiful amounts of work in his load, that was precisely why Bojan was taking this great opportunity of a free period to work on the lengthy essay due for the report of the novel instead of doing something fun, such as being outside listening to Gerard attempt to pick up another girl after his last one dumped him for ‘looking at another girl funny’.

Secondly, Leo was still acting like a sullen child and that was what grated Bojan’s nerves so. It had been a week and few days’ extra since the ‘great event’ that had separated them. Bojan’s frustrations grew when after such a lengthy amount of time came when Leo wouldn’t speak to him. He wouldn’t even stand and listen to him. Nothing Bojan did—writing notes, sending text messages and emails, writing on his Facebook wall, leaving a note jammed into the door of his locker, making a large sign and having Pique deliver it personally, wearing a t-shirt that had ‘Leo, speak to me!’ written on it, sending a letter through the mail—seemed to have any effect on getting the other boy’s attention. Bojan had begun to wonder if he was invisible or if Leo was simply being purposefully obtuse. After all, it wasn’t as if Leo could not notice Bojan’s attempts. Still, he had somehow managed to fail.

Thirdly, Bojan was really starting to miss Cesc. The few phone calls that they had exchanged were only a minor relief to the loneliness he felt. He had been with Cesc for as many years as they had been alive; it was so strange to be so far away from him and for such an extended period of time. He missed Cesc greatly and the phone and Internet were wonderful inventions and uses of technology, but they couldn’t bring back Cesc’s smile lighting up the room or the way his fingers like to tickle Bojan if he was in need of a laugh or the way Cesc’s socks always managed to wind up in his laundry, even if they were firmly separated into two different laundry hampers. Now, there was no light in the room because no one smiled the same way—the Cesc way—and there was no random tickling and there certainly wasn’t any surprise socks found in the wash. It was depressing him and Bojan wanted someone to tell. Which lead back to problem number two and the fact the number one person on his priority list to tell was not speaking to him.

Bojan thought these reasons were solid evidentiary support of why he was in a completely horrendous mood.

For these exact reasons, Bojan snapped when he had had his last straw listening to the click-click-clicking coming from the computer. He spun sharply in his chair, swiveling it dramatically, and glared at the back of the computer monitor. All he could see at first was the dusty back and the tanned skin of someone’s arm while their fingers quickly moved over the mouse buttons.

If Bojan had been his normal self, he would have politely cleared his throat and asked the person to click quieter. As it was, however, that was most certainly not going to happen. Bojan rose from his chair, moved around the desk he was seated at and stopped by the boy’s desk.

“Hey!” He said, loudly for the quiet of the library. “Do you have to click so goddamn hard?!”

The boy, who was much younger than him, Bojan realized through his anger, raised his eyebrows and his eyes widened. Bojan glared down at him, hoping the stupid idiom about killer looks would suddenly come true. Unfortunately, today was not the day pigs flew or cows sought out the other side of the moon.

“S-sorry?” The boy asked, mumbling through the word.

“You’re over here clickity click mc-fucking-clickerson and some of us are trying to study and do important shit like write an essay. Stop clicking so damn hard, shut the hell up, or leave. Pick one.” Bojan glared and turned on his heel to go back to his own seat, leaving the stunned boy in his silence.

Unfortunately for him, the librarian heard every single word of what Bojan had said. She rose from her chair, pushed it in, and advanced on his cubicle.

“Out, right now Mister Krkic. You will not speak to another student that way in this school. Do you understand?” Senora Sanz spoke with pursed lips and an angry tone.

Bojan sighed as he felt the now-familiar aggravation run through his veins. He said nothing though, because he was smart enough not to get into any more trouble. “Yes ma’am.”

He logged off the computer after saving his work, shoved his flash drive into his bag and rose from the table. Senora Sanz watched him like a hawk the entire time and he shoved the bag onto his shoulder.

“Apologize to Mister Alcantara before you go.” She ordered and Bojan sighed. He had had enough.

“Like hell I will. Kids like him should wait till they get out of diapers before they come to school.”

Senora Sanz inhaled sharply, her fury growing, and she drew herself to her not-unimpressive full height and grabbed at his shoulder. She dug her finger nails into his skin—hard enough to make it painful, only—and steered him from beside the desk towards the door of the library.

“Alcantara, follow.” She ordered quickly as she marched Bojan from the library.

Bojan ignored the stares from the other students and hoped beyond all hope that he wasn’t going to be getting a three day vacation from the headmaster or a phone call home to Pep.


“Enjoy the sun, Cesc, it won’t last.” Andy smiled lazily as he leaned back on the green of the courtyard that was surrounded by the cloisters. Cesc smiled slightly and watched Andy’s head tip back and his eyes close at the feeling of the sun on his skin. The sun wasn’t exactly warm, but it was a nice reprieve from the dampness and rain. Cesc counted that as a blessing and enjoyed it also.

He also couldn’t help but notice the firm line of Andy’s jaw and the pale length of his neck with the small lump where his Adam’s apple was. For the first time since he had arrived two weeks ago, Cesc got a really up close and personal look at the boy who had somehow deemed it absolutely necessary to take him under his wing and look after him. His hair was longer than most and it was almost always pulled back into a thick pony tail. His grin was wide and his eyes big and bright and always sparkling. Andy had a laid-back personality about him, one that Cesc enjoyed for some time but he would always notice that after a while Andy simply became too much Andy, too exuberant and too enthusiastic about things. Perhaps Cesc was simply a prude, an uptight naïve prude that lacked excitement. Then again, maybe it was Andy that was simply out there too much.

The two weeks that he had been there, Cesc had made only two newly acquainted friends. One was a girl named Carla who sat next to him in Neville’s theology class. She had loaned him a pen when he had forgotten his own and she had let him copy her notes two or three times when he had gotten behind in the lecture due to trying to figure out the man’s accent. She had a pretty smile for a girl, Cesc had noticed and he liked her. They had gotten a coffee once after theology during their break. She was friendly and she made him laugh.

Another person that Cesc had taken to spending time with, albeit only a few moments here and there, had been Robbie Keane. He was another quiet lad that shared Cesc’s English and maths class who was from Ireland and was definitely not an outspoken person. Robbie had sat next to him in maths class and had asked him if he was the same one that had Beckham’s English class at the same time he did. After Cesc’s confirmation, that was all there had been to the conversation and that was just fine with Cesc. They had sat together and Cesc liked the boy’s quiet nature.

He was also Andy approved.

Andy had given him a brief run-down of whom to avoid and who to make good with of the people Cesc had met so far. Cesc thought it was all a bit overbearing of Andy to tell him who to be friends with or who to run away from, especially since they were walking down the lane and Cesc was being given this information without actually having met any of these people. Andy told him to trust him, and therefore his judgment, so Cesc let him speak. In the back of his mind, he knew that he would take whatever Andy said with a grain of salt. He would pass judgment on the people Andy told him about if and when he met them. And only then would he think about trying to befriend them or run from them. He wasn’t going to flat out take someone’s word that they were a good person. People could be wrong.

The name Cesc had been avoiding floated back to his mind. People could be very, very wrong indeed.

Andy had said that Carla was okay, even an all right girl. He said that if he was ‘into that sort of thing’, he would have asked her on a date. Cesc hadn’t asked what he meant by ‘that sort of thing’, but he could guess that maybe Carla wasn’t his type. He shrugged and said that she was nice and funny; Andy had agreed. As for Robbie, Andy had said that he was almost always the quiet sort, but very quick on the books and very intelligent. He said that once Robbie really got to know you and was friends with you, that he was quite good fun and did—eventually—know how to loosen up a little. Cesc took Andy’s word on that one.

Cesc mirrored Andy’s movements in the grass and leaned backwards onto his hands with his eyes closed. The sun felt deliciously warm and tingly on his skin and for a few minutes he almost believed he was back in Spain; he would have believed it more had not the temperature been cooler here than at home for this time of year.

They weren’t the only ones out and about during the afternoon of sunshine. The courtyard was occupied by a group of girls, giggling and talking constantly about any and everything. There was a small five-a-side game of football going on in the far corner, using the break in cloisters as goals. Occasionally, the goalkeeper would have to run under the cover into the corridor to retrieve a ball gone astray. Several other students of both sexes were scattered throughout the green, enjoying the sun, reading and writing, and some on their laptops. Llorente was one of those, and had brought a notebook and pen for note taking.

It was a comfortable afternoon, Cesc had decided and opened his eyes to look around at the others. It was peaceful and he liked that. It reminded him of when he was a boy by the riverside, enjoying the sunlight and the coolness of the water on his skin as he floated with the light current downstream. While there was no river with a canopy of trees to blanket him in shade, it still was as charming as the river scene, although a slightly more historical aspect.

Just after Cesc had come to his realization of the English charm, he saw a figure sporting a big grin and a boy following along beside him. The taller one that wasn’t covered in tattoos like his counterpart had his hands placed behind his back while his inked companion simply laughed at some joke between them. At first, Cesc was taken by the sheer volume of the boys hair and the many curls but he couldn’t look away due to the fact they were headed right towards him and Andy. Cesc watched the pair cross the courtyard green, cutting through the five-a-side game, as if those playing simply were not there. The pair moved past the insults hurled at them and did not stop until they towered over Andy and Cesc.

Andy noticed Cesc’s mouth opened to speak but before he could ask or any sound could come out, the tall boy moved his hands around from behind his back, grinning brightly, and dropped a balloon filled with water onto Andy’s head.

“Bloody hell!” Andy swore as his hair slid down his face, dripping wet, and soaking the top of his shirt. Splotches of water had dampened his jeans and Cesc had shifted out of the way just in time to avoid some water drops of his own. Andy spun quickly to see who had soaked him and then the anger was gone from his expression as fast as it had come.

Cesc was confused by the sudden turnabout until he quickly realized what had taken place when Andy spoke again.

“All right, Luiz, that was a good one.” Andy conceded and the boy, Luiz, beamed, clearly pleased with himself.

“Thank you, I do try.” He said, beaming look still in place. Cesc noticed his accent was clearly different than his Spanish one and noticed the suggestions of Portuguese in it.

Andy laughed slightly and shook out his hair, this time Cesc did get wet due to the droplets. Once Andy’s hair had been pulled back to his trademark ponytail, he turned to Cesc.

“Oh right. David this is Cesc, Cesc this is David Luiz and his best mate, Raul Meireles.”

Cesc nodded slowly, trying to figure out why somebody would prank someone in such a way. He wondered what Andy had done to David to cause such a thing.

David turned his attention to Cesc and smiled. “You’d make a good panda.”

Cesc frowned and his eyebrows drew together. “I’m sorry?”

“A panda.” David repeated simply and looked back to Andy. “See you later Andrew.”

Cesc could only watch as he and the laughing Meireles left them, one stunned to silence with confusion and the other trying to get dry again. Cesc could only imagine why he would ever want to be a panda.