Fic-Post: Push it (Swimming RPS)
Title: Push it
Pairing: Ryan Lochte/Michael Phelps
Rating: PG-13 (i think)
Word Count: 1,807
Summary: Two can play a game.
Warnings: nope
Disclaimer: yeah no
Author's Note: this is the prequel to Hate is a strong word (but I really really really don't like you), my little live-fic thing i did during the golden goggles. brought along by
i jotted down a little something and chucked it onto my tumblr (here) within five minutes of those tweets, but it was literally just a few sentences and i wanted to actually turn it into something halfway decent so this is the result.
re: the costume. i'm relatively sure that i read somewhere that ryan's halloween costume was 'rockstar', leather pants and the whole thing.
Dedication: icygrace, tellmelittlelie and ch33rylips whom i've been tweeting to as i wrote this. i hope i didn't disappoint?
PUSH IT
Fuck it.
Those are the only two words going through Michael’s head right now. So what if it’s the Golden Goggles. So what if he put on a nice suit (like, a really nice suit) or fussed with his hair or put on a good watch. He remembers Megan telling him that she went up and down and back and forth through Manhattan to find the perfect dress - the dress she was now wearing - and she couldn’t wait to show it off. So what?
Fuck it.
Michael arrived late. Because well, frankly, he could. But also because he wasn’t practised in putting effort into the way he looked, so he really needed the extra minutes this time.
They arrived and photographers were in full swing, yelling out a jumble of names. Flashlights were going off every nanosecond. Reporters were begging to be acknowledged. Another day, another dollar.
And suddenly, the jumble of names turns into one name and one name only.
“Ryan, over here please!” “Ryan, this way!” “Ryan Ryan Ryan!”
Of course Michael glanced over. Because how couldn’t he? It’s Ryan. Having everyone wrapped around his little finger with the twinkle of his blue eyes. Creating swoons with a flash of a smile.
Ryan has always been secure where Michael wasn’t. When Michael needed half an hour to pick a shirt to go someplace, Ryan reached around his shoulder and just pulled out the perfect outfit in under five seconds, handing it to Michael with a smile, maybe even a “You can’t be good at everything, man. Deal.” paired with a wink. He’s never meant to hurt Michael with it, but right now, seeing Ryan on the red carpet, he’s not so sure anymore.
Michael doesn’t even see her at first. Because all he sees are flashlights and Ryan. And those pants. Leather. Ryan had sent him a picture on Halloween, him in his costume. Michael had escaped into a bathroom and sent back a photo of the bulge in the crotch area of that weird overall he was wearing (a last minute-costume Megan had picked, with the sole intention of looking hot next to the once great Michael Phelps - who was wearing a fucking overall).
At first, Michael thinks it’s Shawn. The lesser of the two evils. He was sort of glad when Ryan told him Erika’s gonna leave him alone for Golden Goggles, because she has to get her kid ready for some beauty pageant. (Michael had just snorted at that - of course Erika is a pageant mom, it’s like the world fell into place upon receiving those news) Michael doesn’t necessarily like Erika or Shawn, but if he had to choose favourites at gunpoint, he’d pick Shawn. She leaves Ryan to his business. She lets him be stupid. She isn’t always around.
But then he sees Shawn standing at the side, a smile on her face that makes Michael want to strangle her. She looks like one of those stuck up poodle owners at some stupid dog-show and Michael wouldn’t even put it past her if she had a treat for Ryan in that purse of hers.
Though it appears Ryan’s ‘treat’ is currently fitting neatly into the crook of his arm. She must be a freaking hobbit, because she’s wearing heels and her hair is so big you could fit a damn eagle in it and she’s still short, too short. She’s put her leg into some weird position and Michael actually wants to check if Erika is around somewhere, because she looks like she has to parade some bikini on a stage in front of a jury. And to be fair, she is not exactly wearing that much more clothing. Not that Michael knows that much, but he’s spent enough time around enough women to know a thing or two. One thing he knows is that you don’t wear a dress to an award show that is so tiny that a towel after a shower covers up more of your body. And the realisation almost pains him, but he has to admit that Megan is actually appropriately dressed for the occasion and that Little Miss Hobbit could actually learn a lesson or two from her.
Somehow, Michael doesn’t even know how, Ryan suddenly catching him watching. His eyes skim the row of photographers and he looks around further and then he sees him. And their eyes lock and Ryan just smiles at him. It might be a simple ‘Hi there’ or a ‘Hey, how nice of you to show’, but all that Michael sees in that moment is ‘What do you say now? Two can play that game. Ball’s in your court. Play it.’. It makes Michael angry.
He was about to make his appearance on the carpet, but the thought catches up to him. Fuck it. He’s Michael fucking Phelps, he’s not going to stoop down to that level. What does Ryan even want anyway? Show him that he got game? Because his mother saying that he’s having one-night-stands (and Erika not doing anything to get rid of the rumour) hasn’t done that already? Manwhore Ryan Lochte was a hit with the media, so why the sudden change of heart? Or considering the sheer quality of his escort (fitting, Michael thinks), it might have been a change of dick. (A dick that hasn’t been inside a vagina in a long time, Michael knows this)
So he thinks Fuck it. And he says it too and just turns around and makes his way away from the madness. Megan follows him, the clicking of her heels being almost as irritating as Ryan and the escort. Michael doesn’t understand her. She’s there for show, she knows that. She’s not meant to care, she’s not meant to rush after him like she has to patch up his wounds.
“What?” he turns around and hisses at her, make her freeze on the spot.
“I don’t … like … are we not gonna walk the carpet?”
“No.” The reply is sharp.
“But … my dress … I’ve-“
“So go walk the fucking carpet then!”
And he turns back around and just walks off. There’s a side door where the employees sneak out to smoke and he just stands there for a while. What he’d give to be at a pool right now. He was in dire need of beating up the water for a few laps, let out his anger.
Ryan had hated the games. He thought it was nobody’s goddamn business what he did with his dick as long as it didn’t keep him from swimming (oddly enough, it never did. Michael was the one who was kept from swimming by Ryan’s dick). Ryan didn’t see the point in Megan, “What for, why do you need to have a model girlfriend? Like, literally a model girlfriend. She looks like she was made somewhere.” Those were Ryan’s exact words. Funny how he’s now the one who turned up with what looked like the leftovers of the place where they ‘made’ Megan. Ryan hated the games. But somehow, he was now the one playing along and he even upped the ante.
His phones buzzes in his pocket. Michael doesn’t need to check to know who it is. He accepts the call.
“Tell them I do press if I win something.”
“Michael, you-“
“No, fuck it. I don’t.”
He hangs up and slips into the building. He hears the noise and the buzz and just follows it. He rounds a corner just as Ryan walks in with Cullen, laughing about something or the other. Cullen’s mother is close by, Shawn and the escort hang back a little.
Michael’s heart stings a little when he sees Ryan with Cullen. His Ryan. Not Reezy. Michael never got it. Ryan was perfect when he was Ryan, he didn’t need to be Reezy. He didn’t need to hang a huge chain around his neck and he didn’t need to wear grills. He didn’t need to out-black a black guy. He didn’t need to show off his ‘game’ by being accompanied by a girl that is even more questionable than what was sort of expected of him. He could be Ryan and people loved him just as much. Ryan was nice and generous and he wouldn’t sleep easily if he knew any of his friends were going through tough times. Ryan arrived late to swim meets because some five-year-old kids approached him on the parking lot. Reezy showed up on red carpets on time to make sure that there were enough photos taken of him and his latest piece of bling.
Michael decides he’s had enough torture for the night and he really just wants to get this whole ordeal done and over with, preferably right now. But he has to take the high road or some shit (how he wishes there was some ‘high’ involved right now) and he has to face up to everyone backstage for the walk-outs. Thank god someone had the decency to pair him up with Allison and not Ryan, as it had been the original idea.
Michael walks down a hallway and suddenly, he’s right there. Reezy. Not Ryan. This is definitely Reezy. He’s too smug to be Ryan. He just looks at him, blue eyes challenging. Waiting for Michael to react. And Michael wishes he had it in him. But there’s one thing Ryan and Reezy have in common - they both switch off the part of his brain that tells him ‘Don’t’.
“Really? You gotta be fucking kidding me.”
Reezy knows what it means. Ryan does too, but he has the common decency to not react to it. Reezy does. He huffs out a small laugh and walks past him, his walkout being before Michael’s. He has to get in line.
They wait. Moving forward a step every time a new name gets called as the music filters through. Michael stares at Ryan’s back, willing him to turn around, give a smile, let him know that ‘it’s all good, bro’. But then it’s almost Ryan’s turn. He straightens out his cuffs, adjusts his tie, but he still hasn’t turned around. And then he does turn around, seconds before he’ll be announced, looking Michael dead in the eye, knowing that he’s just there.
“Hey Mike?”
Michael just looks at him, eyebrows raised.
“I’m just playing by your rules here.”
It sounds like a Reezy thing to say, it’s a challenge. But the eyes looking back at Michael, void of emotion (professional enough to leave them behind), the eyes are Ryan’s. Ryan is telling him that he brought the girl, not Reezy. Ryan is fighting Reezy’s fight and he’s chosen Michael as his competitor. And there is one thing that Michael knows for sure. If he has to fight Ryan, he’s going to come out as the winner.
Pairing: Ryan Lochte/Michael Phelps
Rating: PG-13 (i think)
Word Count: 1,807
Summary: Two can play a game.
Warnings: nope
Disclaimer: yeah no
Author's Note: this is the prequel to Hate is a strong word (but I really really really don't like you), my little live-fic thing i did during the golden goggles. brought along by
i jotted down a little something and chucked it onto my tumblr (here) within five minutes of those tweets, but it was literally just a few sentences and i wanted to actually turn it into something halfway decent so this is the result.
re: the costume. i'm relatively sure that i read somewhere that ryan's halloween costume was 'rockstar', leather pants and the whole thing.
Dedication: icygrace, tellmelittlelie and ch33rylips whom i've been tweeting to as i wrote this. i hope i didn't disappoint?
PUSH IT
Fuck it.
Those are the only two words going through Michael’s head right now. So what if it’s the Golden Goggles. So what if he put on a nice suit (like, a really nice suit) or fussed with his hair or put on a good watch. He remembers Megan telling him that she went up and down and back and forth through Manhattan to find the perfect dress - the dress she was now wearing - and she couldn’t wait to show it off. So what?
Fuck it.
Michael arrived late. Because well, frankly, he could. But also because he wasn’t practised in putting effort into the way he looked, so he really needed the extra minutes this time.
They arrived and photographers were in full swing, yelling out a jumble of names. Flashlights were going off every nanosecond. Reporters were begging to be acknowledged. Another day, another dollar.
And suddenly, the jumble of names turns into one name and one name only.
“Ryan, over here please!” “Ryan, this way!” “Ryan Ryan Ryan!”
Of course Michael glanced over. Because how couldn’t he? It’s Ryan. Having everyone wrapped around his little finger with the twinkle of his blue eyes. Creating swoons with a flash of a smile.
Ryan has always been secure where Michael wasn’t. When Michael needed half an hour to pick a shirt to go someplace, Ryan reached around his shoulder and just pulled out the perfect outfit in under five seconds, handing it to Michael with a smile, maybe even a “You can’t be good at everything, man. Deal.” paired with a wink. He’s never meant to hurt Michael with it, but right now, seeing Ryan on the red carpet, he’s not so sure anymore.
Michael doesn’t even see her at first. Because all he sees are flashlights and Ryan. And those pants. Leather. Ryan had sent him a picture on Halloween, him in his costume. Michael had escaped into a bathroom and sent back a photo of the bulge in the crotch area of that weird overall he was wearing (a last minute-costume Megan had picked, with the sole intention of looking hot next to the once great Michael Phelps - who was wearing a fucking overall).
At first, Michael thinks it’s Shawn. The lesser of the two evils. He was sort of glad when Ryan told him Erika’s gonna leave him alone for Golden Goggles, because she has to get her kid ready for some beauty pageant. (Michael had just snorted at that - of course Erika is a pageant mom, it’s like the world fell into place upon receiving those news) Michael doesn’t necessarily like Erika or Shawn, but if he had to choose favourites at gunpoint, he’d pick Shawn. She leaves Ryan to his business. She lets him be stupid. She isn’t always around.
But then he sees Shawn standing at the side, a smile on her face that makes Michael want to strangle her. She looks like one of those stuck up poodle owners at some stupid dog-show and Michael wouldn’t even put it past her if she had a treat for Ryan in that purse of hers.
Though it appears Ryan’s ‘treat’ is currently fitting neatly into the crook of his arm. She must be a freaking hobbit, because she’s wearing heels and her hair is so big you could fit a damn eagle in it and she’s still short, too short. She’s put her leg into some weird position and Michael actually wants to check if Erika is around somewhere, because she looks like she has to parade some bikini on a stage in front of a jury. And to be fair, she is not exactly wearing that much more clothing. Not that Michael knows that much, but he’s spent enough time around enough women to know a thing or two. One thing he knows is that you don’t wear a dress to an award show that is so tiny that a towel after a shower covers up more of your body. And the realisation almost pains him, but he has to admit that Megan is actually appropriately dressed for the occasion and that Little Miss Hobbit could actually learn a lesson or two from her.
Somehow, Michael doesn’t even know how, Ryan suddenly catching him watching. His eyes skim the row of photographers and he looks around further and then he sees him. And their eyes lock and Ryan just smiles at him. It might be a simple ‘Hi there’ or a ‘Hey, how nice of you to show’, but all that Michael sees in that moment is ‘What do you say now? Two can play that game. Ball’s in your court. Play it.’. It makes Michael angry.
He was about to make his appearance on the carpet, but the thought catches up to him. Fuck it. He’s Michael fucking Phelps, he’s not going to stoop down to that level. What does Ryan even want anyway? Show him that he got game? Because his mother saying that he’s having one-night-stands (and Erika not doing anything to get rid of the rumour) hasn’t done that already? Manwhore Ryan Lochte was a hit with the media, so why the sudden change of heart? Or considering the sheer quality of his escort (fitting, Michael thinks), it might have been a change of dick. (A dick that hasn’t been inside a vagina in a long time, Michael knows this)
So he thinks Fuck it. And he says it too and just turns around and makes his way away from the madness. Megan follows him, the clicking of her heels being almost as irritating as Ryan and the escort. Michael doesn’t understand her. She’s there for show, she knows that. She’s not meant to care, she’s not meant to rush after him like she has to patch up his wounds.
“What?” he turns around and hisses at her, make her freeze on the spot.
“I don’t … like … are we not gonna walk the carpet?”
“No.” The reply is sharp.
“But … my dress … I’ve-“
“So go walk the fucking carpet then!”
And he turns back around and just walks off. There’s a side door where the employees sneak out to smoke and he just stands there for a while. What he’d give to be at a pool right now. He was in dire need of beating up the water for a few laps, let out his anger.
Ryan had hated the games. He thought it was nobody’s goddamn business what he did with his dick as long as it didn’t keep him from swimming (oddly enough, it never did. Michael was the one who was kept from swimming by Ryan’s dick). Ryan didn’t see the point in Megan, “What for, why do you need to have a model girlfriend? Like, literally a model girlfriend. She looks like she was made somewhere.” Those were Ryan’s exact words. Funny how he’s now the one who turned up with what looked like the leftovers of the place where they ‘made’ Megan. Ryan hated the games. But somehow, he was now the one playing along and he even upped the ante.
His phones buzzes in his pocket. Michael doesn’t need to check to know who it is. He accepts the call.
“Tell them I do press if I win something.”
“Michael, you-“
“No, fuck it. I don’t.”
He hangs up and slips into the building. He hears the noise and the buzz and just follows it. He rounds a corner just as Ryan walks in with Cullen, laughing about something or the other. Cullen’s mother is close by, Shawn and the escort hang back a little.
Michael’s heart stings a little when he sees Ryan with Cullen. His Ryan. Not Reezy. Michael never got it. Ryan was perfect when he was Ryan, he didn’t need to be Reezy. He didn’t need to hang a huge chain around his neck and he didn’t need to wear grills. He didn’t need to out-black a black guy. He didn’t need to show off his ‘game’ by being accompanied by a girl that is even more questionable than what was sort of expected of him. He could be Ryan and people loved him just as much. Ryan was nice and generous and he wouldn’t sleep easily if he knew any of his friends were going through tough times. Ryan arrived late to swim meets because some five-year-old kids approached him on the parking lot. Reezy showed up on red carpets on time to make sure that there were enough photos taken of him and his latest piece of bling.
Michael decides he’s had enough torture for the night and he really just wants to get this whole ordeal done and over with, preferably right now. But he has to take the high road or some shit (how he wishes there was some ‘high’ involved right now) and he has to face up to everyone backstage for the walk-outs. Thank god someone had the decency to pair him up with Allison and not Ryan, as it had been the original idea.
Michael walks down a hallway and suddenly, he’s right there. Reezy. Not Ryan. This is definitely Reezy. He’s too smug to be Ryan. He just looks at him, blue eyes challenging. Waiting for Michael to react. And Michael wishes he had it in him. But there’s one thing Ryan and Reezy have in common - they both switch off the part of his brain that tells him ‘Don’t’.
“Really? You gotta be fucking kidding me.”
Reezy knows what it means. Ryan does too, but he has the common decency to not react to it. Reezy does. He huffs out a small laugh and walks past him, his walkout being before Michael’s. He has to get in line.
They wait. Moving forward a step every time a new name gets called as the music filters through. Michael stares at Ryan’s back, willing him to turn around, give a smile, let him know that ‘it’s all good, bro’. But then it’s almost Ryan’s turn. He straightens out his cuffs, adjusts his tie, but he still hasn’t turned around. And then he does turn around, seconds before he’ll be announced, looking Michael dead in the eye, knowing that he’s just there.
“Hey Mike?”
Michael just looks at him, eyebrows raised.
“I’m just playing by your rules here.”
It sounds like a Reezy thing to say, it’s a challenge. But the eyes looking back at Michael, void of emotion (professional enough to leave them behind), the eyes are Ryan’s. Ryan is telling him that he brought the girl, not Reezy. Ryan is fighting Reezy’s fight and he’s chosen Michael as his competitor. And there is one thing that Michael knows for sure. If he has to fight Ryan, he’s going to come out as the winner.