fanfic100 -- Steven Gerrard -- #63 Summer
Title: You Don't Speak German
Character(s): Steven Gerrard/Xabi Alonso
fanfic100 prompt: #63 -- Summer
Word Count: 611
Rating: PG-13
Notes: Maybe first in a series. This is pre-tournament through the first round of group matches.
Germany is hot. Hotter than you expected, hotter than (Michael says) Japan was, hotter than anyplace you've been before. Well, anyplace where they weren't serving you drinks with little blue umbrellas in them. Here, you could probably put a little blue umbrella in your water, you guess, if you wanted, but everyone would look at you funny, and really, it wouldn't be the same. So you're squirreled away in this fancy hotel in the middle of nowhere, with no fruity drinks at all, Sven keeps starting training earlier and earlier, and no matter what time of day it is, Germany is hot. And sticky, and you start taking longer and longer showers. Until one day you run out the hot water for the entire floor, and no one can shave (not that Theo minds), and yeah. Things aren't going so well for you at your first World Cup.
Something just feels off, and you're not entirely sure what it is. In fact, you have no idea what it is, but things aren't right. You train, you play darts or something downstairs, and then . . . what? You should go to bed, since training is at approximately the Hour God Forgot, but you can't. You toss and turn, and end up staying awake till three, watching German TV. (Note: you do not speak German.) And you wake up, eat breakfast, spend a couple of hours trying to figure out just what Sven wants you and Frank to do in midfield, and before you know it, you're playing Paraguay the next day.
And it's then that you realize that whatevers bothering you seems to be a team-wide problem. Everyone's shown up, but no one's really there. Not that that makes any sense, but it's true. You can't coordinate your runs with Frank, Michael's lost his first touch, and fuck, even the goal wasn't really David's. You all start the game well enough, and you even manage to keep the momentum for a little bit, but about ten minutes into the second half, when Michael comes off, you think, Christ, we're doing it again. You hold on for the win, but somehow it feels like a loss.
You all keep track of the other groups, gathering in someone or another's room to watch after training. Carra takes notes, of course, argues with the commentators, stays up to watch the highlights of the games you've already seen; for once, you're glad not to be rooming with him.
Except, you kind of miss that. You miss away games with Liverpool -- okay, not the ones to Portsmouth or, god, Birmingham. But, like, to Madrid or Turin, and especially to Istanbul. You miss staying with Luis on that trip to Athens, communicating through gestures because his English wasn't quite there yet. You miss rooming with Carra, how it reminds you of sharing a room with your brother when you were growing up. You miss Xabi.
You don't know how much until you're in Gary's room watching the Group H opener. He scores off a header, like Rafa's made you all practice over and over. Watching him and Luis run around together, you suddenly feel an overwhelming need to switch nationalities. Or not really, but god. You miss that. You miss his arm around your shoulder, the way he runs straight over to you after a goal, crashing into you, screaming into your ear. Right now, watching more bad German TV, you just miss him.
You switch the TV off, find your phone, send an irredeemably sappy text message. Carra would mock you, but you don't care. For the first time since you left Liverpool, something feels right.
Character(s): Steven Gerrard/Xabi Alonso
fanfic100 prompt: #63 -- Summer
Word Count: 611
Rating: PG-13
Notes: Maybe first in a series. This is pre-tournament through the first round of group matches.
Germany is hot. Hotter than you expected, hotter than (Michael says) Japan was, hotter than anyplace you've been before. Well, anyplace where they weren't serving you drinks with little blue umbrellas in them. Here, you could probably put a little blue umbrella in your water, you guess, if you wanted, but everyone would look at you funny, and really, it wouldn't be the same. So you're squirreled away in this fancy hotel in the middle of nowhere, with no fruity drinks at all, Sven keeps starting training earlier and earlier, and no matter what time of day it is, Germany is hot. And sticky, and you start taking longer and longer showers. Until one day you run out the hot water for the entire floor, and no one can shave (not that Theo minds), and yeah. Things aren't going so well for you at your first World Cup.
Something just feels off, and you're not entirely sure what it is. In fact, you have no idea what it is, but things aren't right. You train, you play darts or something downstairs, and then . . . what? You should go to bed, since training is at approximately the Hour God Forgot, but you can't. You toss and turn, and end up staying awake till three, watching German TV. (Note: you do not speak German.) And you wake up, eat breakfast, spend a couple of hours trying to figure out just what Sven wants you and Frank to do in midfield, and before you know it, you're playing Paraguay the next day.
And it's then that you realize that whatevers bothering you seems to be a team-wide problem. Everyone's shown up, but no one's really there. Not that that makes any sense, but it's true. You can't coordinate your runs with Frank, Michael's lost his first touch, and fuck, even the goal wasn't really David's. You all start the game well enough, and you even manage to keep the momentum for a little bit, but about ten minutes into the second half, when Michael comes off, you think, Christ, we're doing it again. You hold on for the win, but somehow it feels like a loss.
You all keep track of the other groups, gathering in someone or another's room to watch after training. Carra takes notes, of course, argues with the commentators, stays up to watch the highlights of the games you've already seen; for once, you're glad not to be rooming with him.
Except, you kind of miss that. You miss away games with Liverpool -- okay, not the ones to Portsmouth or, god, Birmingham. But, like, to Madrid or Turin, and especially to Istanbul. You miss staying with Luis on that trip to Athens, communicating through gestures because his English wasn't quite there yet. You miss rooming with Carra, how it reminds you of sharing a room with your brother when you were growing up. You miss Xabi.
You don't know how much until you're in Gary's room watching the Group H opener. He scores off a header, like Rafa's made you all practice over and over. Watching him and Luis run around together, you suddenly feel an overwhelming need to switch nationalities. Or not really, but god. You miss that. You miss his arm around your shoulder, the way he runs straight over to you after a goal, crashing into you, screaming into your ear. Right now, watching more bad German TV, you just miss him.
You switch the TV off, find your phone, send an irredeemably sappy text message. Carra would mock you, but you don't care. For the first time since you left Liverpool, something feels right.