pfoebels, gen, short snippet, pining and schalke jump scare because parker would indulge justin's taste in football. @rememberx noticed the different jersey sizes in the deb auctions and it went downhill from there.
Sie bieten auf etwas Besonderes
The package arrives on a Thursday. He finds it waiting at his door when he comes home. A neighbor must have buzzed the postman in and accepted on his behalf. It makes him frown when he first spots it, leaning ever so slighty back against the dark wood. It's early, he thinks. He didn't expect it to arrive just yet. Didn't think it would sit in front of his apartment waiting for him to come home from practice, like an uncomfortable surprise.
He picks it up. It's supposed to be a pleasant one. Something he was looking forward to until he missed to check the tracking notifications. He shoves it under his arm, leaves his shoes at the door and takes the package inside.
It's smaller than he imagined. Just a compact brown box. Standard packaging, probably capable of holding two coffee mugs and a secure amount of packing peanuts. Not that he ordered four mugs. But maybe his neighbor thought he did when they signed their name illegibly on the small scratched display of the postman' scanner. Two new coffee mugs for the guy who just moved in three weeks ago; clearly not at home in Köln yet. Most likely missing all kinds of kitchenware still.
Suddenly, the package feels heavy in his hands. Not like four coffee mugs anymore but five skillfully baked bricks. His wrists hurt while he carry it across the hallway into the living room and sets it down on the coffee table, finally.
He breathes. Looks at it. Breathes again. Looks at it. Looks away.
Leaves.
He has a knife in his hand when he gets back to the living room. It's later, he thinks. Late enough to be dark outside. Late enough that the light of his tv is illuminating the room. A football game is playing. Schalke probably. He doesn't care to check what Parker picked. Doesn't care for the beer Parker offers him either, or that they'll get chips crumbs on his white couch. He should've chosen leather instead of fabric, but he didn't need it back in Berlin. Didn't need it, because he had barely been in his apartment anyway.
He sits down on the carpet and pulls the package from the table into his lap. It's still small. Still just big enough to hold two coffee mugs. Or a pleasant surprise. He doesn't know anymore.
The packaging tape parts easily for the blade of his kitchen knife. It's regular tape, brown logo-less and inconspicuous. Just like the box. Anything could be inside. Like five bricks, two mugs, a mega pack of pens. Like new stick tape, black and white, and a complementary role of flames tape. Anything.
Anything. Like a jersey.
Black and red and golden.
Big white numbers against the dark fabric. Ninety-two.
And a name just above: N O E B E --
He buries his fingers in the dark fabric and pulls the jersey out of the package before he can finish reading his name. It's washed. They always wash the jerseys for auctions. But when he closes his eyes and buries his nose in the golden collar, and breathes-- he can smell him. He can smell Marcel again.
He doesn't look up when he asks, "Are you not going to say anything?"
"Do you want me to say something?" Parker says quietly.
Maybe, he wants to say, because buying the jersey Marcel wore at their last game together is ... sad. Desperate. A new low in his life he didn't know existed before this summer. But he knows Parker won't tell him that. He's seen the two jerseys hanging in his closet, black and red and golden and white, bigger than Parker's own jerseys.
"No," he says and pulls the jersey over his head. It's a little too big on him, just one size. The collar scratches at the nape of his neck, unlike his own, too. Marcel used to complain about it. Someone scores. It might be Schalke, or maybe it's Hamburg. He still doesn't care. "Just don't tell Mo."
