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Flo knows it’s bad the second the foul happens. It’s in the way his ankle is immediately burning with the intensity of the pain and how it takes away his ability to breathe. Tears shoot into his eyes, but determined not to let them fall he’s squeezing his eyes shut. So hard stars begin dancing behind them.
He can feel someone touching his shoulder, feels the urge to shake off whoever felt the urge to touch him, but decides against it. Then Karl-Heinrich, their doctor, kneels next to him and the questions start. Where does it hurt? Everywhere. What exactly happened? Couldn’t tell you, even if I wanted to. Can you put weight on it? I’m scared to try, scared of what it means when I can’t. Instead of actually saying any of those things, he just shrugs. Karl-Heinrich tries to smile reassuringly, but it doesn’t really help.
With his and Jonathan’s help he slowly gets up on his feet, the white hot pain shooting up his leg almost makes him scream. Walking on his own definitely isn’t an option. With their support he slowly leaves the pitch, and is immediately rushed to the hospital for further evaluation. He hates hospitals, memories from his ACL injury making him sick. He longs for Jamal to be by his side, but his boyfriend is busy beating Bochum and extending the gap between their teams.
***
The doctor at the ER is nice enough, but it’s still Flo’s personal hell. It’s too loud, too busy, too bright. And the MRI machines noise is giving him a headache. He waits for what feels like an eternity, for his world to be shattered in one second.
His medial ankle ligament is torn, the deltoideum or however it’s called. It’s not like it matters anyway. The only thing that matters is the fact that he won’t be able to play for several weeks, the ugly boot he’s supposed to wear and the crutches he needs to use. His wrists immediately start hurting again, memories of himself on crutches make his stomach turn. At least it’s not the ACL again, he tries to make himself feel better somehow, doesn’t work. He sighs. Thank you, Mitchell.
Karl-Heinrich drives him back to the stadium, they forgot to take his things with them, the match is over by now. They lost. On top of everything. They don’t talk on the drive, and he enters the dressing room without a word. Xabi hugs him, Jeremie and Jonathan do the same, the others all just try to smile, but don’t try to hug him. They know there’s no way to make this hurt less.
It’s not just the fact that he won’t be able to help his club, he won’t be able to join the national team either. Jamal and him were looking forward to this week for ages, finally, a week they could spend together, actually together, not speaking through a phone, with miles separating them, when all they want is to be close. But no, now he’s injured, and the week that he looked forward to only makes him bitter.
Apparently the Bayern game has also ended by now, because Boniface yells something about how Bochum are the goats. Bayern must’ve lost too. Normally he would be happy, even though a part of him always aches for his boyfriend when his team loses. The things that come with playing for different teams.
Jeremie offers to drive him home, and Flo gladly accepts. Someone will be able to pick his car up tomorrow. He just wants to go home and shut out the world. Of course not everyone. Jamal is different. A faint smile sneaks its way onto his lips. “You’ve arrived at your destination.”, Jeremie’s horrible try to imitate the Apple Maps voice makes him laugh despite himself. Jeremie grins as if he won the lottery. “You’re so dumb bro.”, Flo grins. Jeremie shrugs “Maybe. Do you need help with your things, bro?”. He thinks for a second, then nods. He doesn’t have a lot of stuff, but even his bag of toiletries is difficult to carry when he needs his hands for his crutches. Jeremie gets out of the car, and helps him upstairs. He even opens the door of his apartment for him. “Gentleman.”, Flo laughs. Jeremie bows and grins.
***
Then he’s left alone. He normally likes solitude, and while his wish about twenty minutes ago was to shut everyone out, now the walls are threatening to close in on him. Jamal is probably still busy and hasn’t heard what happened yet. Flo’s breathing speeds up, shakily he makes his way to the living room and sinks down onto the couch.
Maybe he should call his boyfriend anyway? But what’s the use? And he doesn’t want to worry him. But the iron fist of panic around his throat is closing steadily and takes away his breath. His heart rate picks up, his hands shake. Has it been this hot in here when he came in? His vision blurs. Shakily he grabs his phone, tries to find Jamals contact. The unexpected call coming in shocks him so much that he drops his phone. “God damnit!”, Flo curses. He grabs his phone, and it takes a minute to sink in that Jamal is the one calling him.
He picks up, but doesn’t say anything, doesn’t trust his voice. “Babe?”, Jamal’s soft voice shatters something in him, a sob rips out of him. Shocked Flo presses his hand to his mouth. “Oh my love, it’s okay. I’m here.”, Jamal immediately tries to soothe him. You can tell he’s an older brother, Flo thinks. “Take a deep breath in, and out for me. You can do it.”. Flo simply follows the instructions of his angel of a boyfriend. “H-hi.”, he says after a while. He cringes internally at how snotty his voice is. Romantic.
“I heard what happened, how are you?”, Flo takes a second to think about that, how is he? “Disappointed, angry. The pain actually is okay, they gave me some pain killers. We didn’t even win!”. That last sentence makes Jamal laugh softly “Babe.”. Flo can almost picture Jamal’s face, the way the smiles and shakes his head at his antics. “I love you.”, he says softly, “I love you too, Flo.”. His gaze falls onto his foot clad in the grey boot from the ER, it’s uncomfortable. “I’m sorry.”, Jamal stops mid sentence about what he plans to eat and is quiet for a second. “Whatever are you sorry for, babe?”, Flo sighs “I know it’s not my fault, but we looked forward to spending time together again, and now I can’t join you. It just sucks!”.
“It does suck, but there’s nothing we can do about it now, love. You focus on getting better and being a good patient.”. Flo snorts, his boyfriend has a point there, he truly isn’t the best patient. Being injured frustrates him to no end, and sometimes his frustration makes him say things he normally wouldn’t. He’s appalled at himself for how he’s acting sometimes. Deep down he’s thankful for the physio’s and the doctors.
“Have you eaten already?”, Jamal rips him out of his thoughts “No, I wasn’t hungry.”. As if on cue his stomach grumbles, Jamal chuckles. “Get onto Uber Eats already, I’ll be making something too once I get home, maybe we can eat together.”. Flo nods, then remembers that Jamal can’t see him. “Yeah that would be nice.”, “Look babe, I’ve gotta jump in the shower now and drive home, I’ll call you again once I’m in, okay?”, “Yeah alright, love you. Drive safe.”, “I love you too, see you in a bit.”. Flo makes a kissing sound, and hangs up. Embarrassing, anyway. He grins to himself, and gets onto Uber Eats as promised.
***
Should he get a pizza? He feels like it would be acceptable, after the day he’s had. While Jamal has a sweet tooth, Flo would happily do more cardio to eat pizza and fries everyday. He decides to order a pizza with ham and mushrooms, for his bad conscience he adds a small salad to it. Better a small one, than no salad at all. The nutritionists should be proud of him. His app tells him the food will take an hour, his stomach growls, Flo sighs. Maybe he has something that doesn’t need preparing that he can eat in the meantime, before his stomach will digest itself.
As promised Jamal calls him about 45 minutes later. This time over FaceTime. He can see his boyfriend’s kitchen in the background, he likes Jamal’s apartment much more than his own. “What are you making?”, Jamal grins “Maultaschen, of course. But I will try making them differently this time, with egg and onions.”, “Ohh experiments with Maultaschen, how brave you are.”. His boyfriend snorts at that “Make fun of me all you want, but you like how I make my Maultaschen.”. That’s actually very true. Flo would’ve never expected that, but they taste great.
The door bell rings, and he makes his way to the door with his crutches. He hands the delivery driver a tip, and lets the paper bag hang from one of his crutches. You just need to be creative. Jamal has already set the table back in Munich, and laughs softly when Flo makes his way back into the frame. “What have you ordered?”, “Pizza, and a salad.”. Flo proudly lifts the salad bowl out of the paper bag, but has to admit that the small salad is indeed just that, small. Maybe the nutritionist shouldn’t be proud of him after all, that salad might be fit for a child, but not for a grown man.
“Who are you trying to feed that to, love?”, Jamal laughs, Flo grins “Myself? Obviously. Size doesn’t matter, right?”. Jamal laughs even harder at that. “Talking about size, I thought I could come over before meeting with the national team?”, “I’d love that, but babe, let’s be honest that’s a bit silly to drive up from Munich to Cologne, and then back down again to Herzogenaurach.”. Jamal shrugs “Special situations need special actions. I could join Rob and Jonathan, and stay with you after the Dortmund game.”. Flo smiles, he’d actually love that very much. So he agrees.
They talk while they eat, and only agree to hang up when Flo has to fight to keep his eyes open. Even though he didn’t play the full match, the exhaustion kicks in full force. But knowing that they’ll see each other after all, makes hanging up easier.
***
The days until Jamal drives up to meet him are spent with the doctors and physios and he tries his best to be a good patient, he promised Jamal to be good after all. His ankle has now started to show almost every color imaginable, the wounds Mitchell’s cleats have left started to heal. His favorite color is probably the dark purple. At least the swelling has gone down, so the boot isn’t that uncomfortable anymore. He does as he is told, and even continues doing the exercises at home he’s been shown. Jamal tells him he’s proud of him, and Flo glows at the praise.
Finally, the day has come. Flo begrudgingly had to admit that he won’t be able to change his sheets by himself, so he had to ask Jeremie for help. Thankfully his Dutch teammate agrees, without making fun of him for too long. That doesn’t mean he hasn’t laughed at him for about five minutes. “Trying to get everything nice and cozy for the boyfriend?”, Flo blushes heavily “Why did I even ask you?”, “Because you love me, and because Jona would’ve been even worse. And because I’m a good friend.”, “If you say so.”, Flo shakes his head, but can’t fight the smile on his face. Jeremie is a good friend, and he is very thankful that he agreed to come over, just to change his bedsheets and clean up a bit.
He does have someone helping him with everything, but she’s on a very well deserved holiday, and no one could’ve suspected that Flo would need her even more than he already does under normal circumstances.
***
At 5 p.m Jamal finally enters his apartment. He hugs him, and all Flo can do is melt into him. While Jamal often has the tendency to make himself smaller, he stands tall this time and lets Flo hide his face at his neck. Flo sniffles a little “Thank you for doing this.”. Jamal presses a soft kiss to his head “I love you.”. Flo presses himself even more against his boyfriend’s warm body “I love you too.”. After a while Flo let’s go and Jamal carries his bag into his bedroom. A second bag is put onto the kitchen counter “I bought stuff for dinner, I thought you probably didn’t have anything useful at home.”, “You know me so well.”. Jamal grins “I know, that’s why I’m the best boyfriend the world ever did see.”. Flo smiles softly “You are.”.
“I thought we’d make a nice Chili con Carne, what do you think?”, Flo nods enthusiastically “Good, because I’ve already bought everything and I haven’t bought anything else.”. With that Jamal begins moving around his kitchen, getting a pot and a sieve out, the seasonings he thinks he needs, and the sight of his boyfriend moving around his kitchen so naturally makes Flo’s heart feel light. Jamal doesn’t need to ask where things are once, and Flo didn’t think someone knowing where everything is could make him so happy, but it does.
“What can I do?”, Jamal looks over his shoulder “Just continue what you’re doing, sitting there and looking pretty.”. Flo blushes slightly at that, will he ever get used to Jamal handing out compliments so naturally? Probably not. He decides to just tell him about today’s rehabilitation session. He realized early on that rehab for a torn ligament in his ankle, is much more fun than rehab for his torn ACL. It still isn’t what he’d like to spend his time doing, but it’s not as bad as he feared.
Jamal in turn tells him about Jerrell’s newest shenanigans. The youngest Musiala sibling has a love for pranks, and even his older brother isn’t safe. Though Jamal has to suffer less than Carolin or Latisha. Flo adores his boyfriend’s younger siblings, but Jerrell especially has a special place in his heart. “His coach gave him the number ten now, he’s over the moon.”. Jerrell continuously tried to convince his coach to let him wear the 42, but it was never an option. Apparently some of the guys of his team went to a different team, and so he now got the number ten.
***
They eat in comfortable silence, with Flo’s leg resting in Jamals lap. Every once in a while he can feel his boyfriend caressing his shin or his knee, it’s overwhelmingly domestic. Instead of watching TV, they decide on playing some FIFA after dinner. They’ve agreed on not playing their own teams, and so Flo is playing with Barcelona, while Jamal chose Chelsea. Flo wins twice, he has always been the better player between the two of them, but Jamal blames it all on his team, especially on Levi for disappointing him. Flo can see his boyfriend texting Levi, to let him know how disappointed exactly he is. And laughs. They’re all just kids after all.
He traces his hand up Jamal’s leg and down his inner thigh, but a slap on his wrist stops him from going further. “Nuh uh, babe. We’re not doing that tonight, behave yourself.”, Jamal says grinning. Flo pouts “Don’t try that puppy look on me, you know that has never worked.”. He sighs “Fine.”. Jamal kisses him softly “You know I’m only looking out for you.”. “It’s just my ankle, babe, I’m fine.”. Jamal looks at him “Maybe tomorrow, okay? I’m too tired as well.”. Flo nods at that and cuddles back against Jamal’s side. “I’m glad you’re here.”, he mumbles. “Even though I won’t have sex with you tonight?”, Jamal asks grinning. “I hate you. I won’t tell you something nice anymore.”. But despite his words he just cuddles closer to his boyfriend. “I’m glad to be here too, love.”. Flo smiles “Too late now, babe. Now you’ve missed the chance of me being sweet.”, “You’re always sweet.”. Flo groans “Do you have to be so cheesy?”. His boyfriend only laughs at that, then presses a soft kiss to his forehead “Yes, I do. I love you.”.