Title: Rivalry
Pairings: None really
Rating: PG-13
Summary: After losing his match to Safin in the AO semi-finals, Federer contemplates his relationship with the fiesty Russian.
Word Count: 396

Rivalry:

Sleep was a long time coming for me last night. I mean how could I even think of going to bed after sitting through hours of interviews with the same question being asked over and over again.

How does it feel to lose?

What’s going through your mind right now?

Do you think Safin will make a formidable rival this year?

Pfft! Rival? What rival? I blame it all on luck and perhaps the fates working against me. I deserved to win that match and yet…yet I had let it slip through my fingers just like that. We’ve played so many times in the past and I’ve always won rather easily – a victory that filled me with such sweet delight and unparallel pleasure. I relished in his yells and screams of agony – his imminent self destruction - as I toyed with him on the court. You might think me a sadist, but I can’t help it.

I love making him angry.

That fire in his eyes that seems to melt right through the very depths of my soul - that fiery intensity that reeks off his damp, flushed and sweaty flesh as he stalks behind the net like a caged beast. How I long to make him fall to his knees before me and to beg for mercy…in a way that has absolutely nothing to do with tennis.

My girlfriend is calling out to me, but I ignore her as my eyes remain glued to the screen before me. It’s the Finals – an event in which I should have dominated. I should be the one there right now, not him. I should be the one touching him again, no matter how brief our exchange would be. I should be the one making him scream over and over again as he fights with his inner demons.

I would like to think that I have left more than an impression on him. I would like to think that our match has left him with nothing but thoughts of me and only me. I would like to think that he is just as crazy about me as I am about him now. So, let him enjoy his moment in the spotlight. Let him hoist that trophy that should have rightfully been in my hands, for the next time we meet…

…I plan to stake my claim over him…completely.

The End…