Chapter Text
Norway is too cold and too dark at this time of the year, but then again so is Bootle and the football doesn't stop just because you haven't seen the sun in eighteen weeks. Carra has got a point. Besides, the hotel restaurant is aglow with the warmth of a bunch of retired Liverpool football players - and John Arne Riise, who's doing great in the Filipino UFL, thank you very much - some of whom5 haven't seen each other since three trouser sizes ago, others seasoned pros on the "legends" circuit. (Didi refers to it as The Old Farts League and Stevie is a bit regretful that the name hasn't stuck).
He's the center of this little universe and they swarm to him with the same devotion beaming on the faces of four different generations of men who've worn the same red across half a century. Stevie holds court for all, genial and laughing at all the old jokes he's heard more times than he can count, and Carra knows without having to look more than twice that he's distracted and a little removed from the squad's bubble of nostalgia and bad tattoos. The side glances Stevie keeps directing at the empty seat across from his at the table when he thinks Carra's not looking speak for themselves.
He did say No promises on the phone, though it's unclear what exactly keeps him so busy that he can't add one more flight to his jet-setting retirement. Stevie did not want to push it after his initial noncommittal grunts in any case.
"Gotta keep our ankles taped tight. Keane's still a snide shite, he doesn't believe in friendlies, OK?" Carra warns him and Stevie nods pretending to be fully immersed in the gravity of the situation.
Roy's right, there are no friendlies against United, not even in charity matches like theirs, but Carra's been in All Engines Go mode since they boarded the plane to Oslo. The pressure of managing Liverpool in any incarnation must be getting to him, Stevie thinks.
Didi scoffs from two tables behind and turns to throw a casual "Shitting yerself about playing against Gary Neville again, eh?" in Carra's direction, a simple but effective grenade that never fails to leave half the room cackling. Carra chooses to be the bigger man, the man who is in charge, and so he ignores them and goes back to demonstrating to Stevie how he plans to carve open United by raking a fork over the table cloth to illustrate passing channels.
Stevie nods now and then and goes back to looking at his teammates exchanging Instagram photos of their kids and jibes about the size of their bellies. Steve Finnan jokes are always popular, everyone's pretty sure they'll never see him again. Not much of El Spanish Liverpool this time, Stevie realizes while scanning the restaurant, although he knows he can always spot a red and yellow flag somewhere in the stands on every continent. He'd blame their cowardice when faced with Norway's climate, except Luis had been genuinely gutted to miss it after an ankle sprain and at least there's Pepe, almost crushing Fabio Aurelio's shoulder into a one-armed hug and laughing so hard the cutlery rattles.
The empty chair is glaring back at him.
It gets cold and then colder overnight.
Old joints creak and groan at morning training under Carra's relentless drills. Stevie is loving it, and not just because he's younger and far fitter than most. The frosty air in his lungs, the burn in his muscles, the sound of his heart pumping through the motions that have set the rhythm of his life since age eight, it's all as comforting as it is energizing. He moves to one end of the pitch he shares with half a dozen neon mannequins who stand in a docile line in the way of his free kicks while Pepe's off talking bollocks with the medical team. Stevie'd had plenty of time to watch old tapes of van der Sar's set piece defending after dinner, not much to do in a hotel room with twin beds and only one guest, and he's eager to work some of those weak angles he'd spotted on the recordings.
"Your stance is off."
Stevie breathes through his mouth until his throat is scratchy from the wind chill, stands there staring at Xabi in his too thin city black coat and his woolen beanie and his gigantic black scarf that coils around his neck like a cashmere anaconda.
He shrugs.
"'m a bit rusty."
"No," Xabi says, rocking on his heels in a futile attempt to create a warm draft and biting his already chapped lips. His nose is the same frosty pink hue as his mouth. "Is just... your shoulders. They are down a little."
Stevie takes three slow steps towards Xabi and stops to stare some more, watches him try to shove his gloved hands in his pockets before he changes his mind. It's been fourteen years and they still don't know what to do with their hands. Stevie wraps himself around Xabi, doesn't say anything. The only distinguishable sound is Carra's yelling at the fullbacks to go fookin' faster somewhere in the background.
"I'd get me kit on asap if I were you," Stevie smiles into Xabi's too warm scarf. "If Carra notices you've missed half the session, I'll have to smuggle in leftovers from dinner for you, he'll have you running laps till you turn into an icicle."
The visiting dressing room is too small for a squad their size, so their stuff is piled into numbered boxes. Xabi's is laying neat next to box 8, the five intervening numbers swept aside. He's out of breath by the time he hurries back onto the pitch, so they start slow, lazy passes, trapping the ball under foot before they send it rolling again, in an unhurried back and forth that loosens Xabi's muscles. The ball starts pinging louder and faster until they're chasing each other on half of an empty field and barely any light left on the sky. Carra calls them off the pitch eventually invoking the sake of their hamstrings and they run to him redfaced and panting, light as feathers.
"You alright?" Stevie asks and it's the first thing he's said to Xabi since he's seen him step out wearing a liver bird in his training kit.
"Yeah."
He's never been better.
Stevie would bet anything the savage knock on his hotel room door comes from Pepe and he's duly shoved aside by Mount Baldie barging in with a string of complaints all more or less directed at his own room mate confiscating the remote and kicking him out to watch cricket. It's too late to call the kids, so it's not hard to diagnose their goalie with terminal boredom.
"What the fuck kind of sport is it that you need five days of the week for a game, eh?"
"Did you make fun of the outfits?"
"And the sunscreen on their faces," Pepe cracks up, something he's prone to doing to himself five times a day at a minimum. You should see Amman's face, it goes red with his eyes like... like a frog!"
Stevie knows Didi's cricket face all too well.
"Where is Xabi? I need him to go tell Didi to go fuck himself. In Bavarian."
"Skipped those classes in your time there?"
"Did he dump us again?"
"Taking a shower."
"What? You're going to sleep already?" Pepe tries to mask his disappointment with derision. "Wanna be Carra's pet, a good little boy, eh?"
He starts fishing for the remote on Stevie's nightstand, seemingly paying no mind to the fact that only one bed in the room was disturbed - Xabi's which he plops himself on just as Stevie rescues Xabi's laptop. It's still showing a paused Bayern training video Pepe has no interest in. He's sampling the Norwegian television channels instead, distracting himself from footage of tramlines being installed (there doesn't seem to be a fast news day anywhere in this country) only when he sees Stevie rubbing at a sore muscle in his back.
"Tio, you're all so useless, Carra's got you knackered after one day," he says, skipping the farming channel's animal husbandry special in favor of the weather forecast.
"No shit, all you gotta do is stretch your fingers and flirt with the blonde grounds keepers all day."
"My fingers are in top shape," Pepe promises, focusing hard on the weather map. "Ey, look, what a surprise: cold as fuck with a shower of bollock-freezing aguanieve. At least it should not affect any Manchester United players," he says, clicking the remote again. "Got any porno channels?"
Stevie smiles tiredly. He'd missed Pepe so much, even though it's exhausting to just watch him spring off the bed in search of something, anything to do. For the first time in decades, the size of the Reina clan makes sense to Stevie.
"Alonso, come out of there, your palms will get hairy, hombre!" Pepe shouts at the bathroom door. His only reply is a passive aggressive hairdryer, so he zooms in on Stevie's aching shoulders and starts kneading into them.
Xabi emerges from the bathroom not long after, takes in the sight of Pepe straddling Stevie on his bed, his big paws digging between Stevie's shoulder blades through the dark red fleece he's wearing. His Captain looks a little wrecked, in a good way.
"You two need some privacy?"
"Didi kicked him out," Stevie grunts, his nose buried in Xabi's comforter. "Turns out he's bearable if you make him do manual labor."
Pepe pinches his earlobe in retaliation and moves down to Stevie's sides for good measure.
"Do you know your Captain is a ticklish hijo de puta, eh?" Pepe asks Xabi, whose face remains fully composed - it just changes color.
Stevie pulls his fleece down his hips to protects himself and squirms out from under Pepe's bulk to open the door yet again.
Both Ginge and Kuyt look sober, which is a relief (though never a given), and they come bearing gifts which Dirk pulls out of his pockets one by one like a fairground magician.
"Bellamy emptied out all the vending machines on both floors because Carra banned dessert at dinner," Ginge explains, grabbing the remote to find them some football, any football, on which to spend their contraband candy bars and mini popcorn bags.
"He's sharing with you?" Xabi asks.
"Older and wiser and all that," Ginge says, but it sounds terribly farfetched. "Oh and he told me Carra wasn't out for coffee with a Manc not named Neville tonight after dinner, just in case someone asks, by the way."
Even Xabi smirks a little, Stevie notes; definitely banter of the year.
There's a second division game in Saudi Arabia at this hour and Ginge finds it at long last. Xabi recognizes a Spanish manager in the dugout but not much else, he squints at the TV while Pepe and Dirk shove the twin beds into a double deluxe. It still only fits three people if one of them's as broad as their goalie, so Stevie drags the armchair closer to the bed and regrets it immediately when he sees that Xabi's letting the other two snuggle up to Pepe on the bed and opting to sit on the floor by his feet instead.
"You're not cold?" Stevie leans over to ask him two thirds into a brutal first half of agricultural but spirited football and Xabi mutters something like 'm fine and leans his forehead against Stevie's knee flanking his head.
He's still sitting there when all their five mobile phones errupt in chimes and notification flares. Dirk gets to his first and reads them a very short and very R-rated message Carra posted on the group chat. GO THE FOOK TO SLEEP! is the man management soft side of it and everybody but Xabi is stifling yawns and dragging tired limbs to the door in an attempt to act like they're going but not because Carra said so by any means.
The room is suddenly quiet, Xabi's turned the TV off and when Steven's back from brushing his teeth he finds him still digging through his suitcase in search of something even thicker than the grey sweatshirt he's wearing. He hasn't been able to shake the chill inside his bones since he first landed in Oslo.
"Told you not to sit on the floor. C'mere," Stevie says, making a fort out of their cojoined duvets.