Chapter Text
He couldn't feel his toes, or his feet. In fact, he couldn't feel his whole body. All he could see was a silver technicolor spiral below him, and above him, and between him too—
Wait. Between him?! He could see every inch of him as if he was staring at a photograph. His eyes, his hands, his legs. His legs?!
He glanced down at his legs, gasping at the large amount of exposure. Instead of his usual track pants, the only fabric he could see on his bottom half were a pair of very short, white shorts with a red 4 on them. He inspected his shirt, short sleeved and tucked into the shorts, and saw that it was a plain but familiar red. Not Liverpool red--Mainz red.
A tap on his shoulder interrupted him from his reverie. Dressed in the same kit as him was Milner, hands on his hips and much bigger.
"You're late for training, No. 4! One more strike, and it's extra reps in the gym for you!"
"M-Milner?!" Klopp backed against a wall that had suddenly appeared, trying his best to disappear into a corner. "What are you doing here?! Why are you playing?"
"Why am I playing? I am the coach, you dummkopf!" With one swipe of his giant fist, Milner grabbed Klopp and brought him closer to his menacing eyes. "Now do as I say, or I will crush you with a single fingernail. That's really all it takes to demolish you, weakling."
Klopp awoke with a start, sitting straight up and hitting his head against the bedpost. He took one look around his room, which was covered with the bedclothes, and realized he'd been thrashing in his sleep.
The last time he'd thrashed in his sleep, he'd had a nightmare. But it couldn't be a nightmare, he'd really thought Milner had been after him. But why?
He decided to let it go. There was training later in the day, and the boys who weren't on international duty needed him there. He couldn't let them down like that, not after he'd done it so many times in less than a year.
Klopp stumbled towards the sink to get ready. He touched his face, surprised at how hot he felt. He wasn’t using a thermometer, but from experience he could tell his fever was about one hundred degrees.
“Come on,” he muttered to himself, digging a comb out of the bin under the sink. He had to hold on to the sink’s edge for support, a wave of dizziness overtaking him as he did so. “You’ve already let them down enough. One little fever isn’t going to stop you, now is it?”
*
Milner hit the ball hard, watching it soar towards the net. “Try saving that, Ali! I used my special Yorkshire swerve for that.”
To Milner’s surprise, the Brazilian managed to catch the rapidly swirling ball, diving precisely where he’d sent it. “I don’t know, Milly. Maybe you need a little more swerve in that Yorkshire move.”
Milner was about to respond, when Tsimikas randomly ran across the pitch waving a Greece flag. He then proceeded to belly flop right in front of an astonished Alisson.
“Yo, man! How’s the practice going?”
Milner wanted nothing more than to slap Tsimikas again. “It was going perfectly swell until you ran on the pitch like a lunatic.”
“When’s training starting? The Greek Scouser has got da energy today!” Tsimgkos shouted at the top of his lungs, performing leaping high kicks around Milner. “Everybody’s already here!”
“We’re just waiting for el chefe. Then we can begin.” Diaz sprawled out in the middle of the pitch, bathed in sunlight, blissfully unaware that about half the team was staring at him. “I missed you, training pitch.”
“I’ve got a welcome-back joke for you!” Elliott announced, popping up out of nowhere and reclining next to the Colombian. “What’s gray, stands on four feet and rhymes with sparse?”
Some of them burst out laughing, while the others tried to locate the nearest exit. Diaz, meanwhile, slapped his hand over Elliott’s mouth before the Surrey native could answer. “Cállate!”
The players waited for what seemed like a long time. It was already half an hour past the time training was supposed to begin when Klopp arrived.
“Did I miss training? Oh, right, I’m supposed to be leading the training!” Klopp took a book out of his backpack, flipping through it. “Now let’s see…ah right, Ali! According to my plans, thousands of lights were burning on the green branches, and gaily-colored pictures, such as she had seen in the shop-windows, looked down upon her. No, wait a minute, that’s Hans Christian Andersen…”
Milner watched Klopp fumble through his backpack for the plans and shook his head in dismay. Not only was Klopp pale as a sheet and shaking like a leaf in the wind, he had a Danish storybook inside his backpack instead of the plans. That was if being late wasn’t enough evidence that something was wrong.
“Is that The Little Match Girl?” Carvalho asked, pointing towards the long-forgotten storybook on the pitch. “I read that when I was in school.”
“Is it a good story?” Alisson wondered aloud. He’d been watching Klopp as well, and even a newborn could tell that the Brazilian was worried. “Maybe I can read it. You know, calm my nerves a bit.”
“I’m not so sure about that.” Carvalho turned to Klopp with open arms and an expectant grin. “And I’m not so sure what to make of the fact that I haven’t received my daily Klopp hug yet.”
He inched closer to Klopp, stretching his arms wide. To everybody’s surprise, Klopp backed away before— not to everybody’s surprise—tripping over his own feet and falling into a bag of traffic cones.
Carvalho stared at the scene in front of him in shock, clinging to Elliott’s arm. “What the—”
“I’m sorry, Fabio! Oh my god, I didn’t mean to reject you or anything! I just don’t want you to catch whatever I’ve got—” Klopp froze. “Right, I wasn’t supposed to say that.”
Milner pulled Klopp off the ground, gesturing for Elliott and Carvalho to make some space. “You’re sick.”
“Heck yeah he is!” Elliott exclaimed, nodding as if he’d just made the hardest diagnosis in history. “He brought freakin’ fairytales to training!”
“HARVEY DANIEL JAMES ELLIOTT, SHUT UP!” Milner groaned in profound exasperation, taking Klopp’s hand and throwing his backpack to Tsimikas, who deflected it towards Alisson. “I think you know what’s happening, boss.”
“I know, I know, you’re going to make me rest.” Klopp pried a traffic cone off his head with a torpid sigh. “But—”
“Pep can lead the training for a day, boss,” Milner insisted. “You have a cold and, right now, you need to be a little selfish. Put yourself ahead of us for once, it’s called self-care.”
Klopp simply leaned against Milner, ironic considering the six inch difference between them. “Fine. I’ll argue with you tomorrow.”