#in my unemployment era atm so I actually have Time and Energy to write fics.

[player1064]

Footy RPF Fictober, day 1 - First game against each other

also available on ao3

MORE excuses to not carry on with my WIPs? shocking....

Hoping I can keep this up the whole month - I'll do a mix of different ships for the prompts (though if you really want to see a specific prompt with a specific pairing lmk!!!)

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“I think I’m gonna be sick.”

Gary’s head feels fuzzy. His heart is racing, every time he takes a breath he can’t seem to get in enough air so he’s breathing deeper, faster, until his gasping breaths don’t feel like they’re doing anything at all.

And then, Paul. He rests his hand on Gary’s back, warm and solid between his shoulder blades, and it makes the world stop spinning. He’s stood next to the bench, hovering above Gary awkwardly like he’s not quite sure what he’s meant to do with him

(Fair enough, Gary’s not quite sure what he’s meant to do with himself either.)

“Teams are up,” Paul tells him simply. “He’s only on the bench, Gaz, chill out.”

“Wasn’t even thinking about him,” Gary lies.

He hears a scoff. Yeah, right.

He’s been lucky, he is aware of that. Seven years and this is the first time the draw’s gone against him, the first time he’s had to face down the prospect of David Beckham walking onto the pitch in a different colour kit than his.

The Boss had kept him on the bench for the first leg, no need to question why. Gary’s finally getting back to good form again, feeling like his old self – he’s been playing every three days for the past few weeks but he was never going to be picked to play away in the Champions’ League, and not against him.

When he no longer feels like he’s fighting for air he shrugs Paul’s hand off his back and looks up at him with a grimace. Paul grimaces back.

“Is Gaz dying?” he hears Wazza call out from the other side of the dressing room.

“I’m fine,” he dismisses, at the same time that Paul is saying “yeah, probably.”

“Still got another eight weeks ‘til I retire, Scholesy.”

“You’ll be dead before then.”

“Oi! Thought you were meant to be making me feel better?”

“Thought you said you were fine.”

The Boss walks in without fanfare – nobody stands to attention, they all just keep talking among themselves, joking around and drinking their lucozades and stretching out tired muscles. Gary watches, though, as he wordlessly starts copying names out onto the whiteboard. 4-5-1, get the ball to Wazza and eventually he’ll score. Standard procedure.

Milan’s line-up isn’t too different to what it was for the first leg, except that Becks is out and Flamini is in. More defensive, but then they’re going into this leg a goal down, of course they’re going to play it safe.

Gary doesn’t keep the captain’s armband in his locker anymore, these days it’s passed too frequently between him, Rio, and Giggsy for it to really belong to him. So, he stands up and wanders over to the corner the Boss is in under the guise of looking for it, hopes he doesn’t look too pale or run-down after his little – whatever that was, a minute ago.

The Boss looks up as he walks over, gives him a tight smile that tells him he’s not fooling anyone.

“We’re the better team,” he tells Gary, voice low. “We’ll win, no question about it. We’ve already got them on away goals.”

“Boss –” Gary starts, then realises he has no idea what he’s meant to say. If they bring him on I think I might die? Twenty years and they’ve never been on opposite sides, not even really in training. They were a unit, Gaz and Becks down that right hand side – why bother splitting them up? “Boss, I –”

“You won’t play against him.”

Sir Alex reaches out to place his hand on Gary’s elbow, feather-light but it feels heavy as always. “Gary, listen to me. I will not make you play against him. He comes on, you come off. Got it?”

Gary looks up to meet his eyes and nods, feeling small. “Thanks, Boss.”

*

Becks comes on in the sixty-fourth minute. Gary comes off in the sixty-sixth. He sits on the bench and watches his old teammate fumble passes that a ten-year-old could’ve made, tries to hide the vindictive sort of joy he’s feeling that we’re better than you, bigger than you. And we always will be.

It only takes a few minutes for Paul to come and join him on the bench. He looks annoyed about it, same as he always does. Gary had been brought off, to put it simply, because the Boss doesn’t trust him around Becks; he has no such problem with Paul, but he’s getting older too and if he wants to keep him going (one more year, one more year, one more year), then he needs to make him rest.

“He’s playing like shit,” Paul says, hand held up to cover his mouth – a holdover from 2003, from that one stupid game against Madrid when everything had started to fall apart at the seams.

Gary smirks. He reaches a hand up to scratch the scraggly hairs on his chin, tries to make it look subtle. “He’s playing like an American.”

Paul snorts, sways to the side to bump his shoulder against Gary’s. “Didn’t think you had it in you, Gaz.”

“Bet you fifty quid he’ll say it’s on purpose. That he didn’t want to disrespect the United fans, like.”

“Gary Neville, you little bastard,” Paul says, voice proud. “What’s got into you, eh?”

He shrugs. It’s easier, now that United are three goals up. It’s easier now that he’s losing. Reminds him that the club has had better players than David Beckham, that he needed them more than they needed him. Reminds him that maybe that’s where it’ll start and that’s where it can end: football, Manchester United. That none of the rest of it has to matter.

“Dunno if I should speak to him, after the match. Might be rubbing it in his face,” he says, which really means please help me shake him off before I make a fool of myself.

Paul looks at him for a long moment, then he nods and kicks Gary in the ankle, just a light little tap. I’ve got your back.