Title: Le Capitiane
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Eric Cantona/Roy Keane
Length: 2882 words


Le Capitaine

It was everywhere.

In every newspaper, all over the tv, on the streets, in the dressing room, on the face of every fan – it had even managed to seep its way into your house, like a noxious gas would underneath the door and through the cracks around the windows. Like a cold wind, it had swept across all of Manchester, taking any rays of warmth and sunshine with it, and instead bringing a cold, driving rain. It was infectious, but most despair and depression is. Just another defeat. That’s all it was.

But in reality, it was so much more.

You never mentioned anything to him, but he never mentioned anything to you either. You both walked in the next morning to the dressing room, and greeted each other with a curt nod before getting on with your business. You were never going to discuss it out loud; discussion was never part of either one of you. Two people whose silence said so much more than their words ever could; that’s what you both were, and that’s what you both would always be.

Maybe that was part of why there was a plurality to the ‘you’. That it was never you each as separate entities, but together, as allies. That was the right word for it – allies. United in achieving a common goal – in fighting for the team, for the glory, for each other, for everyone else, for yourselves. Everything in life was a fight, a struggle, and he had only ever been the other one who understood that. There were personal demons that had to be fought against, that you both had – life was never simple like it was for the other players. Two men who were stuck in battle forever, out on the football pitch, inside your heads, against yourselves. You were the one he always knew he could rely on when he needed support, and he was the same for you. A general and his lieutenant out on the battle field – but like all generals, there would come a time when they would be defeated in battle for the last time.

You couldn’t say you were surprised when you heard the news. Not at all. He’d been down this road before, and it was someone else who had stopped him from going all the way. But you could see in him every day – in his eyes, in his manners, in his (few) words, in the way he looked every time he placed that armband on his arm, every time he pulled on that shirt, every time he strapped on his boots - that he had never really left. You knew it was only a matter of time – hell, it was a road you stood at the beginning of, not wanting to even imagine or look towards the end. But he was there, and you watched him walk his way down it, all the way to the end, past the point of no return.

That didn’t make it any easier to take.

You were sort of disappointed in yourself, sad that you couldn’t do anything to stop it. Someone had stopped it before, but like a flood, like a finger stuck in the hole of a dyke, it could only be held back for so long before it all came rushing forward. It had only been a temporary fix, bringing him back before; like a plaster over a bullet wound, it only fixed things on the surface. It couldn’t fix the turmoil happening underneath, and it was only a matter of time before he knew – before you both knew – that the time had come. You wondered if it had been your responsibility to try to stop it, if they all expected you to take that job upon yourself and try to do it. But you knew, you knew deep down, that nothing you could ever have done would have stopped it. It was his own battle to fight, one you could never have helped him in, no matter how hard you tried. And whether or not he lost, you’d never know. Only he would know. But this decision was the end, the final order from the general. It was what he had to do.

*

You walked off the pitch a little bit behind him for the final time, unconsciously on his right side, where you always were and where you felt you belonged. In the hierarchy of the players, if there was one, you were always right below him, one step below. And you were perfectly content with that; you didn’t want his position, the pressure. He held it in a way you knew you never could, his presence and grace and elegance and genius commanded a respect you could only hope to one day understand, nevertheless actually command yourself. He was brains and elegance and genius, whereas you – you were brawn, you were nothing more than a brute, in your mind; he had both a kindness and a strength, this perfect mix you could never achieve. You could never do anything with elegance or grace or charisma like he could – it wasn’t your place. And you didn’t want it anyway.

He’d always had faith in you though, and you never understood why. But he always, invariably, infallibly, knew what was best, and you left it to him. Leave it to the general to command the army; it’s not your place.

You studied his back in front of you for one final time, taking in the back of his jersey as the rain poured down in sheets around you. His head was bowed, but his collar was still popped up in that eternal gesture of defiance that had come to define him; the white 7 on his back struggled, but managed to still stand out among the dirt and grass stains and sweat that threatened to obscure it. It was almost the perfect representation of him, that number on that shirt – defiant and odd and special, always managing to emanate a power that affected everyone around you. Maybe it was your imagination, but you thought you felt that power flicker a few times in the past few weeks – maybe it was nothing more than being used to feeling it and growing so accustomed to it that you never knew how much you would miss it when it was gone, and now that very imminent threat made it more powerful to you at times. Or maybe that was how he knew that it was time, that it was time to call it a day – maybe he was more aware of his waning powers than anyone else could ever be. You would never believe that those powers could wane, but as you stared at that white 7 with his name - Cantona - proudly displayed above it for the final time, your mind almost wondered for a moment.

There was something missing, something hollow and lost about his back as it walked down the tunnel for that final time, and you studied it furiously, desperate to find the missing piece of his magic and do your best to restore it. You would want nothing more than for him to stay forever, to always be there to guide and to lead and to own the fucking place like only he could, but as your eyes traveled over him, your eyes fell on his right arm, maybe only a yard in front of you as you followed him for the final time, and saw a conspicuous absence on his right arm – the armband.

Your eyes followed his arm down, slightly alarmed by its absence, when you saw the end of it sticking out of his fist, the band so unceremoniously crumbled in his hand.

And it was then that you knew that he had lost.

The air of defeat, permanent, ever lasting defeat sat heavily on his shoulders, and you saw it in his eyes, smelled it in his sweat and tears and on his skin, felt it radiate from him. That last act – the removal of that band, so unceremoniously, so unnoticed to the outside world, completely unnoticed as an abnormal action by everyone but you, let you know that he had lost his battle. He was leaving because he had lost, because of his failures, and like a true captain, would go down with his ship. He had no choice; it was done.

You watched him walk out of the dressing room for that final time, leaving his jersey – and the band, and himself - crumpled and dirty on the bench. You saw the slump of his shoulders, smelled and saw the defeat and the failure radiate off of him as he walked out of his place, his heaven, his palace, his house, his ship, his castle for the last time, not looking back on the place that he had once called home, that had cradled and held him and had been so undeniably his. He turned his back on his home, and walked away.

You turned to his jersey and picked it up, letting the captain band fall to the bench and lie there. You could never bring yourself to touch it – it was his and no one else’s, it was sacred; it was not something you were worthy enough to touch, to hold in your hands. It would be out of your place.

You folded up the dirty shirt with his name and number facing up, and laid it on the bench right in what would be forever to you his spot, right over the arm band, right where he had sat for years and years, on your left, where his presence would command the attention and respect and reverence of every soul in that dressing room, like a king on his throne, where he truly belonged. And after staring at that dirty shirt for one final time, you slowly walked out of the room, and with half a glance back at the red pile sitting on the bench, turned off the lights and walked towards your car.

You had only ever really known him with that band around his arm, and that was how you knew him best, how he belonged, how the best shone out in him – when the responsibility was on him, when it fully allowed his domineering, captivating, motivating presence to inspire all of those around him, to glide around with his head held high, with his grace and regality and all the respect that he commanded and rightfully deserved. You didn’t know how you would manage without his guiding presence there next season – and you could hear the same murmurs of worry from the fans, swirling around your ears and through your mind – but you knew that no one could ever deserve, wear, and make that band his own like he had.

And to see him giving up like that, losing and surrendering and giving up the symbol of what was him, the symbol that defined him so definitely, so easily, made you doubt nearly everything in the world.

*

Hours later you heard a knock at the door, and when you opened it and found his soaking wet figure standing there in the sheets of rain that hadn’t stopped falling since he’d made his announcement, you stepped aside to let him in without a word. Who knows how long he’d been standing there, staring at your front door, afraid to knock, unable to knock, without the strength to knock – it could have been 5 minutes, it could have been 5 hours, but it didn’t matter to you.

What mattered was that you saw a defeated man in front of you, someone who had no choice but to go through with what fate had decided for him, what he knew was right. It was hard to believe that fate could play a role in the life of such a godly person – surely he would laugh in the face of fate; he decided his own fate, in the same way he decided everything in his life. He commanded.

But all of that previous grace and charisma and command and regality and godliness was gone. Instead, standing in front of you, a shell of a man; someone who had lost everything in their life that they held dear, everything they lived for. His shoulders slumped; his head was bowed, staring at his feet, not daring to look you in the eyes. Little puddles of water formed at his feet where his drenched clothing and hair dripped. You closed the door quietly and turned to face him, regarding a man who had changed and lost so much in a few hours. Both of you knew that this is what he had to do, that he couldn’t go back, that he never would – but that didn’t make it any easier.

You reached out for him and placed your hand underneath his chin, lifting his head a little bit to be able to see in his eyes. He didn’t flinch at your touch, simply stood there soaking wet, cold and silent, stoic. You raised his head a little so you could look into his eyes, and inside them, you saw a mix of things you knew you’d see – there was sadness, emptiness, resignation, unsaid apologies but there was also that defiance and that strength that you always knew you could find there, in every aspect of life, at every time during the day; it was in that you found comfort.

You took him upstairs and slowly, quietly, got him out of his soaking wet clothes and left them unceremoniously on the floor. You pulled him into bed with you and made love to him for the final time, pressing kisses to every inch of his face and chest, trying to pour some warmth back into his cold body. Eventually you both came, and each slumped against the other, the fatigue of the day, of the past month, of all of the emotions finally came pouring out in every inch of your bodies, both of you completely exhausted.

And something inside of you broke.

With the slight moan that you let out as you finally came, deep inside of him, eventually slumped against his body, pressed flush against him, all of the hopelessness and despair and loss you felt with his final everything came flooding out, and tears started to stream uncontrollably down your face. You kissed the middle of his forehead, right where his eyebrows slightly grew together, the spot that always made you smile when you saw him, well aware that you were covering his face in hopeless, depressed, unbelievably final warm tears.

You held him tightly against you, wanting to never ever let him go, wanting to hold him forever and keep all of his inner strength and power and all of those things that made him unbelievably him, unbelievably perfect, all of the attributes that you could never have and none of the flaws, all for yourself. You cried quietly for yourself, for him, for the fans, for United, for your future, and for his.

Eventually he reached out to you and wiped your cheek, and when you opened your eyes and looked down into his you saw that there were tears there as well. He pulled your head down next to his, and placed his mouth near your ear, kissing it and breathing on it, before opening his mouth to say the first words he’d spoken to you since he reached the end of the road those long weeks ago.

“It’s yours,” he whispered. “It’s all yours.”

“What is?” you asked, your face buried in his neck, breathing in his smell and tasting his skin for the final time.

“The club. The captaincy. I’ve left it to you.”

The power of his few words hit you like a train and you slumped into his embrace, feeling his arms and his grip tighten around you, holding you so hard to him like he’d never let you go, feeling the beat of your heart against his, perfectly in sync. He grabbed your head by your hair and moved it so he could kiss your mouth, gently, for one last time.

You could feel his strength in contrast to your weakness, his elegance to your simplicity, his genius to your heart. He bestowed to you everything he knew you thought you needed, but that he knew you had.

Eventually you broke the silence, your tears finally having dried, your hand tangled in his hair and your face pressed against his, listening to his breathing.

“And you?”


“I’m yours. Forever.”



(From that day forward every time you put that armband on your arm, you wore it for him. You wore it to continue his legacy, to honor his memory, to never provide him with any doubt that you didn’t deserve it. Not that he ever would have anyway. You wore it every time to find the strength inside of you, the grace and elegance and genius that you never thought you had, but that he always saw and knew, and that he gave to you in that one final night. You wore it for the club, for the fans, for yourself, but always, above all, for him.)