Work Text:
The mister patted him on the shoulder, like a pet dog. He said not to let it get to him, to just keep playing, that he'd played well. Nigel said, "They're fucking idiots." Patrick didn't say anything at all. And Silva sat down next to him when everyone else had gone into the showers and he was still unlacing his boots, which was the best part, if by best he meant pointless and ironic, since of course Silva couldn't say anything without Zaba there to translate.
Mario wanted his mom - his real mom, his mom who'd raised him and loved him even though she didn't look a goddamn thing like him - and she wasn't there and what the hell, right? "I used to really like bananas," he said. "Can't eat them anymore. They make me feel sick."
"I get some stick, when I am younger," Silva said.
Mario barely kept himself from jumping. He'd thought - yeah, he'd known Silva knew a little Italian, but not enough to understand him, he'd thought. Not enough for this conversation. "For what, being the cutest on the team?" he asked, putting a little sneer on the diminutive. He wasn't going to hear this from David fucking Silva. The fans loved him and the mister loved him and the whole fucking team loved him and he didn't get to say this to Mario.
"For my eyes," Silva said calmly. He put his fingers up and pulled the corners of his eyes high and to the side. Mario wanted to grab his hands and yank them away. It looked grotesque. "And because I am very little, but mostly for my eyes." He finally lowered his hands and smiled humorlessly. "I am lucky they cannot see that I am a faggot on my face, no?"
The sound of that word on Silva's tongue was horrific, worse even than the ugly unnatural slant of his eyes had been. "What the fuck," Mario started to say.
"If I play this game with you, who hears this more, I lose," Silva said. "So I do not play. It is not a game. Now you know, and you hear this for me and I hear this for you and we know. And we play the football, because they say what they see but they do not know. It is a good cross I give you," he added as he got to his feet and started gathering his things for the shower. Mario stared at him, the white towel knotted around his waist, the soap he grabbed out of his locker, the sparse hair on his chest and calves. All the insignificant little details he had never noticed that made up David Silva suddenly seemed very real and very relevant. "You do not waste my crosses again."