Understand

[tempered-rose.livejournal.com]

Title: Understand
Pairing: Steven Gerrard/Jamie Carragher, Xabi Alonso/Steven implied
Rating: R {language and sexual situations *cough*}
Words: 1048
A/N: In an interview of Steven, the narrator said ‘a local boy made good’ and well…my mind took it from there. Plus, I wanted to write something and I love Steven and Jamie so…<3 :-D



THERE were some things Steven Gerrard just could not understand.

For example, when Chelsea had lost the Champions League final when they had victory in their grasp. Steven really didn’t much care for the boys in blue, but he could sympathize for them—after all, the only other option in the match was Manchester and Steven would not go there. He would never be desperate enough to cheer for United; he would much prefer castration to celebrating for them.

He felt genuinely bad for the Chelsea captain and knew how the bollocking he got from the media in the days, and in some cases months, after had to hurt. However, that did not stop him from wanting to defeat those lads the next time they had a match.

But to have the trophy of Europe within fingertip reach only to have it jerked away when the cold polished metal touched the pads of your fingers… That was the cruelest kind of defeat.

Then there were the events of this summer, when Xabi had left the club. Steven did not like it; he had never claimed too. Xabi was one of his closest mates, one of the longest. The two had grown together in so many ways—not only in the football sense. They had learned how to be men together.

Steven had felt a piece of him die when Xabi told him that he wanted out. It had been one of those mornings where rain threatens but never comes. Overcast and dreary, Xabi and Steven leaned on the rail just talking. Then Xabi had come out with it. To say that he had been shocked was to understate the feeling of loss and just a hint of betrayal that came with the confession.

Xabi had begun to explain his reasoning but Steven stopped him. He didn’t want to understand why the Spaniard was leaving him, and the club. He hadn’t wanted to know then and that had not changed in the months that followed. Steven did not shut out the other man though, that would have hurt far too much. Instead, he had clasped Xabi on the shoulder and said that they would always always be best mates, no matter how far or who they played for. Xabi had given him one of his shy smiles that Steven knew expressed his relief.

Steven had accepted it, but he did not understand it.

There were a great many issues and debates that Steven did not understand, and some of them he did not want to understand. Politics was an arena that he did not want to even think of interpreting. Relationships, now that was a sticky spot. After all, he knew what a few argumentative words could do to a great friendship, another of the reasons that he was so glad that Xabi and he were close friends. They had known each other too long not to be. Xabi knew his moods like he was aware of his own and they each could predict when was and was not a good time to pick a fight.

And then there was Carra.

Sometimes the Scouser could be so damn predictable that it was incredibly easy to play a joke on him. Not that Steven ever condoned such behavior. Surely it was a sheer accident that Pepe got a copy of Jamie’s house key and had a bucket of ice water waiting on him.

At times Jamie was the temper tantrum tyrant from hell. The man could yell and bark at you till he was puce in the face, if you hadn’t shrunk back in fear. To be fair, he only really lost his temper when you were most deserving of a good shouting match. Usually the only place he was apt to loose his temper was on the pitch. Occasionally, however, he was known to yell and curse to oblivion.

Then there were those times that he was incredibly…sweet. Usually after a tantrum, especially if it had been unfounded, he would ‘love up’ on whoever it was that had to endure the hurricane known as Jamie Carragher. He would give a stupid boyish smile that somehow eased the rawness of his words and then would do something very nice and sweet for you. Whenever it was his missus, she would always have to rearrange the kitchen for all the vases of flowers that he would send. When it was Steven, he would have to make room in his fridge for all the beer that undoubtedly would come from a certain defender’s address.

Steven’s favorite times where when Jamie was completely and utterly incoherent. Those were the times when Steven had Jamie under him, or on the rarer occasions, on top of him, fucking into the next century. How the two captains of Liverpool Football Club gone from just best mates to something more than fuck buddies was still a slight mystery to them, at least to Steven.

The answers were there, if he dared to look for them. Perhaps it was his simplicity that kept him for delving into the origins of their sexual relationship, but either way Steven had grown terribly fond of his friend.

He would safeguard that particular confession and would never reveal it to Jamie. His own insecurities about whether or not Jamie saw their…if you could call it a union…as an experiment or if it meant something more to the big Scouser prevented him from ever speaking the thousand endearments on his tongue.

But this time something seemed different. For once, Jamie did not move at once, instead taking a minute or two to slide over on the bed and prop up on the pillows. Steven made to lay on his back, but Jamie had none of it and pulled him closer. Jamie’s left arm was under his head with the other on Steven’s hipbone, pressing him closer. Steven was surprised but only let a minor glimpse of the emotion flicker across his face before he snuggled into Jamie’s side.

There may have been quite a number of things that Steven didn’t understand, Jamie’s odd mood swings one of them, but the feeling of being held next to the bigger man’s body felt so right and so pure that it just had to be right.