Work Text:
"Ali!"
"Virg, not now.”
"Ali, this is serious! You're going to get out of the house because we're going golfing, and I need your help to choose which sweater vests we're going to wear.” Van Dijk held up two sweater vests, one with golfing sheep and the other in deep purple and straw-coloured argyle. "Lambs, or royal purple?”
"Please Virg, not now. I want to be alone." Alisson closed his eyes, staring at the floor. “Why don't you take Jarell golfing? You two get along, and Harvey told me he's been wanting to try it.”
“Look, Alisson, I'm worried about you.” Van Dijk hadn't wanted to admit that. He hadn't planned for it, since Alisson was notorious for keeping his promises when it came to arrangements. But with Alisson refusing to go out with him, there was only one way to make him.
"The whole reason I arranged all this was so you could get out for once. Since Marcelo left, you barely leave here except if we have an away game or it's your day to do the shopping. You need to get out of Kirkby once in a while, it's not healthy to stay in here!”
After spilling that out in the open, Van Dijk was sure Alisson would give in and go with him. What he forgot, though, was that certainty was the antecedent of error.
"Please, Virg, I...I can't do it today.”
Van Dijk couldn't believe his ears. "But you promised!”
"I know I did, I'm sorry. But...I don't want to go outside. I just want to stay in Kirkby as long as I can.”
Now what did he mean by that? "Kirkby's our home, right? It'll always be there for us.”
"But will it?" Alisson shouted, startling Van Dijk. He'd heard Alisson yell many times, but every time it happened he was caught by surprise. “The boss built Kirkby for us, Virg. He planned out everything, from the bedrooms to the kitchen down to the strategic broom closet locations! He was the one who thought of all of us living together after the Covid lockdown let up, so we wouldn't be separated. Who knows what the new coach will do when they get here?”
"We'll…we will stay here. Right?" Van Dijk didn't know how to answer that question. Of course, he knew Klopp had been the one to suggest that they move into the training ground together so they wouldn't have to be apart like the pandemic had forced them to be. But it had never occurred to him that their Kirkby Ground could stop being a home and start being…just a training ground.
No bedrooms, painted in their favourite colours and decorated with photos of their successes and joys. No dining room, with a maple dining table that they'd all gather in for meals. No living room, where they would all watch movies together and share stories about their lives outside of football. No living room, with the big screen TV and the leather couches where they would all gather to watch movies and matches together. The thought of Kirkby being just a training centre, just a workplace, was so unimaginable that Van Dijk blocked it from his mind without a second doubt.
He couldn't think that way, and he couldn't let his teammates think that way. It was only February. Klopp had four more months to go before leaving, and even then he would probably leave some notes behind for the next manager, explaining how things worked around there.
"I understand your concerns, but you can't always live in fear of what may happen. The boss has a long while left, and despite what he said to the press I know that he's going to do a pretty rigorous background check on whoever comes next. So let's go golfing and enjoy the fact that we have a home to come back to. What do you say, buddy?”
"That's why I need time to think now!" Alisson yelled, his voice sounding frustrated yet defeated. "Kirkby will be here now, but will it be here later? What if the new boss doesn't believe in making the team into a family? What if we get someone who's horrible to us, or doesn't believe in hugs, or thinks that we're tools in their plan? The boss will be here for four months. I'm going to stay here and enjoy as much as I can, not go around hitting little plastic balls into holes!”
“And that's totally relevant, but it'll make you feel better to get out of the house and stop thinking about such depressing things!"
“Says who?! Virg, the boss is leaving, forever. He won't be living with us anymore, he won't be there with us. By May, four of the people that I considered as almost my blood family will be gone. And Marcelo loves Dublin so much that I don't know if it'll be five !”
“They'll visit, won't they? Sometimes love means letting people go when they need to leave. They said it, they had to leave for the good of the team—”
“No, they didn't! Bobby didn't need to leave for the team! Fabio didn't need to leave for the team! Lijnders and Marcelo didn't need to leave, Da—the boss didn't need to leave! The team would've been just fine—”
"We would've never met Domi if they hadn't left. Darwin and Ibou found friends in Lexi and Wataru. I found a friend in Ryan." Van Dijk pinched the skin between his eyes so hard that it hurt. "Can't you see the good in all those things?!”
“I do see the good, Virg! I'm surrounded with people reminding me of the good things every day. It's almost like after a while, the sadness is supposed to go away.” The tears in Alisson's mint-blue eyes threatened to spill over as he clenched his hands into fists. Van Dijk could almost see his nails dig into his skin, but his mind was too clouded to say anything about it. "Please, I need twenty minutes alone."
"And how will that help you?!”
"Oh, I don't know! Thinking about my second father figure is leaving my life just like the first time, perhaps? But you wouldn't understand at all—”
"Of course I understand!”
"Well, you sure have a funny way of understanding!"
"You sure have a funny way of accepting!"
"STOP!!!”
*
Quansah hadn't meant to overhear Van Dijk and Alisson. He'd just gone into the kitchen to get a cookie, but he'd decided to hide in the pantry while searching through his options. And then he heard it.
"You need to get out of Kirkby once in a while, it's not healthy to stay here!"
"Kirkby will be here now, but will it be here later? What if the new boss doesn't believe in making the team into a family?"
"Can't you see the good in all those things?!"
"I'm surrounded with people reminding me of the good things every day. It's almost like after a while, the sadness is supposed to go away."
Quansah cringed and gasped, hiding in the corner of the pantry as the argument continued. It went back and forth, back and forth, and every time he thought it couldn't get worse it very much did.
Of the many things that had changed since he joined the youth academy, Van Dijk and Alisson's friendship had been one of the strongest constants. After Van Dijk took Quansah under his wing, it was only a matter of minutes before Alisson picked him up, hugged him, and declared him “a precious academy baby" which was Alisson for "adoption complete”. So seeing them fight, seeing them yell at each other and reflect the pain they felt inside at each other, was like digging a knife through the silk screen of his reality.
"And how will that help you?!"
"Oh, I don't know! Thinking about my second father figure is leaving my life just like the first time, perhaps? But you wouldn't understand at all--"
"Of course I understand!"
"Well, you sure have a funny way of understanding!"
"You sure have a funny way of accepting!"
Quansah couldn't take it anymore. Hands firmly over his ears, he pushed aside the pantry door, upsetting a half-open box of rice in the process, and screamed at the top of his lungs.
"STOP!!! Please , both of you, stop it! You both understand each other, now get out of your thick heads and see that before I go insane!"
Van Dijk and Alisson simultaneously froze in place, turning to face Quansah with shocked and quilty expressions. If they hadn't been yelling at each other less than a minute earlier, Quansah would've laughed at how in sync they were.
"Jarell…” Van Dijk cleared his throat and walked over to him, resting a hand on his shoulder. "You were here this whole time?"
Quansah nodded, not knowing what to say. The self-consciousness he normally would've felt for screaming at Van Dijk was catching up with him. "I just wanted a cookie.”
"We're sorry you had to hear that, kleine ster ." Van Dijk opened his arms, stretching them wide. "Come here.”
Oh, how Quansah wanted to launch himself into Van Dijk's arms and forget this all ever happened. But every time he looked at either Van Dijk or Alisson, all he could remember was the explosive fight that had nearly panicked him. He shook his head, stepping away from Van Dijk.
“I...I'm not hungry anymore.”
Alisson took a step forward, his eyes filled with regret. "I'm sorry, Jarell—”
“I don't need that apology. But both of you need to apologise to each other, before you hate each other!”
Before either of them could answer, Quansah ran out of the room, forgetting all about his cookie. He only wanted to talk to one person, the only one that could make him forget about all this.
*
“Boss!” Quansah ran into Klopp’s office, slamming the door behind him. He turned around, only to see Klopp’s face behind the door he’d just slammed. “Oh…”
Klopp chuckled, opening the door and letting himself into the office. “It’s okay, Jarell, you’re not the first one to make that mistake. I've even shut myself out sometimes!”
Quansah offered a weak smile, but he couldn’t find it in himself to laugh at the joke. His spirits had been dampened as soon as Van Dijk and Alisson had started arguing.
“What’s wrong, kleine alte Seele?” Klopp, being the human emotion radar he was, noticed something was off almost immediately. “Did you get hurt?”
Quansah tried to answer, but the words stuck in his throat as if they didn’t want to come out. He settled for launching himself at Klopp, wrapping his arms around him as if he were a small boy running to his father after a scraped knee.
“Virg wanted Ali to go golfing, but Ali wanted to spend time alone and Virg wanted to get him out of the house! Now they’re yelling at each other and Marcinho’s going to stay in Dublin and Ali’s losing his second father and Kirkby won’t be home anymore! ”
Klopp raised an eyebrow in confusion, before it hit him. “You were in the room while Ali and Virg were fighting, weren’t you?”
“I’m sorry! I just wanted a cookie, and…I don’t want them to hate each other. I don’t want to leave Kirkby.”
Klopp hugged Quansah tightly, brushing some wayward grains of rice from his hair. “ Liebling , listen to me. Virg and Ali don’t hate each other, okay? They’re both stressed and worried, with all that’s going on. With me…leaving, they’ve been here for a long while and they needed to vent. Things got heated, and they were yelling at each other without thinking straight. Then again, those two are anything but straight. They’ll be alright, Jarell, they just need to calm down and they’ll be glued back to each other’s hips.”
Despite himself, Kwansa laughed at Klopp’s choice of words. “Might as well paint a rainbow in their rooms. Oh, wait…will the rooms still be ours?”
Klopp nodded, pointing to an astonishingly high stack of papers on his desk. “I’m already writing detailed notes for the next manager so they’ll know about everything they need to know. The relationships, the friendships, the gardening instructions and the chaotic happenings. And in the list of mandated requirements, I’m also adding that the new manager must be supportive of our LGBTQ players and staff, and let all of you stay in Kirkby whenever you want.”
Quansah felt the serotonin switch on in him like a lightswitch. “You mean it? We’re staying here?”
“If he doesn’t want to stay here with you and be a decent manager, I just might send myself over here to watch over you.” Klopp stapled about fifty papers into one stack, setting it into a cardboard box. As Quansah expected, about forty-seven papers flew out from under the stack, leaving the three papers that had actually been stapled in place. “Nobody messes with my boys, even when I’m not physically here to protect you all. The same for everybody else here.”
“Phew, that’s a relief. I was actually worried that Virg and Ali were right.” Quansah’s eyes widened as he remembered how he’d left the two. “Oh no, what if they’re still fighting now?! Who knows what they’re saying to each other?”
Klopp stopped stapling his notes to refill the stapler with fresh staples. “You did tell them to stop, didn’t you?”
Quansah blushed as he looked down at his feet. “So…you did hear me screaming at them.”
“I did, although I didn’t hear any of the context since I was on the phone.” Klopp finished filling the stapler and walked towards the door, opening and closing it. “Though it wouldn’t hurt to check it. Come on, Jarell.”
Quansah rolled his eyes from behind the glass door. “I would, if I wasn’t on the other side of the door.”
*
Quansah's first fear was that Van Dijk had sped off in his car to the golfing session with all the anger, guilt, and hurt from the fight, while Alisson had run away with the same emotions. However, they found both Van Dijk and Alisson sitting at the island counter, staring at their phones with solemn expressions. Klopp cleared his throat, causing both of them to look up.
" Hé, baas ." Van Dijk forced a smile, but it didn't quite reach his eyes.
" Oi, chefe ." Alisson didn't even try to put on a fake smile.
Quansah was about to yell at them again. Why they'd scared him so much, why they'd hurt each other so much without even caring. But then he saw how both of their eyes were red, as well as the way they held hands from across the table, he decided against it.
Klopp took a deep breath, the weight of the situation weighing heavily on his shoulders. "I know things are tough right now, boys. But I want you to know that Kirkby will always be your home, no matter what happens. I'm already writing notes for the future manager, so they'll know what to do and what to not change. And you two, you've been through so much together. You're friends, and even good friends fight sometimes. But there's no reason to let things get so heated to where you hurt each other, or keep it down until it all boils over at once.”
Van Dijk and Alisson exchanged a single glance and turned toward Quansah, silently asking him to come to them. Quansah hesitated, but went over to the counter where they were.
"Jarinho, I'm really sorry. To you, and to Virg," Alisson added, no doubt remembering the discussion from earlier. "I know I don't deal with my thoughts very well when my anxiety flares up, and the past few days have been...tough to digest, to say the least. But I should've went golfing with Virgil instead of yelling at him like he didn't have friends that left, too—”
"No, no, no." Van Dijk tsked, placing a gentle finger over Alisson's lips, effectively shushing the keeper. "I should've listened to you when you said you needed some time instead of pushing you."
Alisson took Van Dijk's finger off of his face, encasing it between his hands. "I accused you of not understanding the situation when you clearly did! We just show it differently. You had the right to be mad at me for breaking our date."
"And you have the right to be mad at me for insisting you go golfing instead of taking that break, mijn jade . I know you cope with stress differently than I do, it's just..."
"I don't want to be alone," they admitted at the same time.
Quansah, sensing the solemnity of the situation, spoke up. "Hey, I know what'll make you two feel better. Let's make some cookies!"
Alisson's eyes lit up, while Van Dijk raised an eyebrow. "Cookies?"
Quansah nodded eagerly. "Yeah! We can make them in the shape of footballs, and decorate them with icing. It'll be fun, I promise."
Van Dijk and Alisson exchanged another glance, this time with a hint of amusement. "That does sound like fun," Van Dijk said, a hint of a smile on his lips.
"And you did want some cookies before everything went wrong, didn't you Jarell? You deserve it, after hearing us argue like that." Alisson stood up from his seat, almost dropping his phone in the process. "What are we waiting for? Vamos , let's bake some cookies!”
And just like that, the tension dissipated. They all got up from the table and started gathering ingredients, Quansah leading the way. As they began measuring ingredients and arguing about which chocolate was better for the kind of cookies they were making, the fight slowly began to fade more into the past than the present.
Klopp watched them from the doorway, a smile on his face. He knew that things wouldn't be easy in the coming months, especially after he left to start his worldwide journey. But as long as his boys had each other, they would get through it. And as long as they had Kirkby, they would always have a home.
And as long as he was there, he would make sure both of those things would stay there.