We'll Shine Together Ch. 1 - The One Where Elizabeth Makes the Connection
Title: We'll Shine Together Ch. 1 (The One Where Elizabeth Makes the Connection)
Fandom: Swimming
Pairing: Eventually Michael Phelps/Ryan Lochte, some Elizabeth Beisel/Conor Dwyer in there too
Disclaimer: Not real, I own nothing, this never happened, it's all fake, etc.
Rating: PG-13 this part
Summary: At Trials in Omaha, Elizabeth realizes that Ryan may have more-than-friendly feelings for Michael.
Notes: So I chucked my NaNoWriMo and started this massive fic instead. I think it's gonna go better, honestly. Idk if it's gonna end up being 50K words but I have 18 chapters planned and this is the first. I've never really written anything this massive before so bear with me. Basically, this fic is going to go something along the lines of- Elizabeth decides Ryan and Michael have a "more than friendly" chemistry, so she enlists Allison to help her set them up while they're in London. The first couple chapters are not gonna have much action, sorry, but it will pick up. There's gonna be some Phlochte action eventually, I promise. And it's going to switch viewpoints depending on the chapter (i.e. this one is from Elizabeth's, then there'll be more from her and some from Allison's, Michael's, and Ryan's, and a couple of group POV chapters) so hopefully that doesn't get confusing. 2004 words this part.
Elizabeth's waiting for her waffle to be done at breakfast during one of the last days of Olympic Trials when she hears her name out of the corner of her ear from the table where Conor and Ryan are sitting.
"What about me?" she asks, sitting down next to Ryan and across the table from Conor, who smiles widely at her.
Ryan snaps his fingers and points at Conor. "See, that, that right there. That little smile."
Elizabeth frowns and pours syrup onto her waffle. "What are you even talking about, Ryan?"
"I was telling Conor that he needs to focus up for today. Not just sit around flirting with you all day and then forget he has to swim."
Elizabeth rolls her eyes. "First of all, Conor is twenty three years old, not twelve. He's not just gonna forget he has an event like the kids on your dad's swim team do." She pauses and takes a sip of orange juice. "Secondly, who says we're flirting?"
Ryan laughs. "Everyone who has two eyes can tell you two are hooking up."
"Well, we're not," Conor says with a scoff. Then Elizabeth raises an eyebrow at him, because they've definitely been spending a lot of the past week making out in each other's hotel rooms, and he sighs. "Okay, well, we aren't right now. Because taper."
Elizabeth gives him a half-smile. "Yep, because of taper." It was really the worst though, because they had all this free time when they really could be hooking up more, but every time one of them would start inching toward third base, the other one would bring up taper and ruin everything. Or as much as you can ruin something you shouldn't actually be doing when you know you're trying to qualify for the Olympics.
"So you two are hooking up, then?" Ryan asks, and Conor nods. "Good. It's about time. But seriously, dude, don't let her distract you." He reaches over and ruffles Elizabeth's hair. "She's cute, but is she cuter than an Olympic medal?"
Conor pauses and Elizabeth arches an eyebrow. "I...." he mumbles. "There's no way to answer that."
Elizabeth grins at him. "That was the right answer." She takes a bite out of her waffle, then watches as Ryan's eyes follow Michael from one end of the breakfast bar to the other. His sweatpants are slung low on his hips and his hair is all messed up from sleep. "Lookin' good, Phelps," she says with a low whistle, and Michael turns around and flashes her a sleepy smile.
"Thanks Beisel," he says with a laugh. "You swimming today?"
She nods. "200 back heats this morning, semis in the evening. You guys all have the 200 IM tonight, right?"
Ryan and Michael exchange a glance before Michael nods. "Yep, and the 100 fly. You're not dropping that?"
Ryan shakes his head. "Don't think so." He gives Michael a toothy grin. "So watch your back."
Michael matches his smile. "It's on, Doggy." He piles some more eggs and bacon onto his plate and walks back down to the other end of the breakfast bar.
Elizabeth watches as Ryan's eyes follow Michael again. "You should focus on the race too, Ryan."
"As opposed to....?" he asked, his eyes still never leaving Michael.
"Focusing on beating Michael," Elizabeth says. "You know you swim better when you're just swimming for yourself."
Ryan sighs and picks at his toast crusts. "Yeah, yeah."
Conor looks up and gives her a weird look over his glass of juice but doesn't say anything, and Elizabeth goes back to her waffle. After a couple of minutes of silence, Ryan leans over and plants a kiss on Elizabeth's cheek.
"Thanks for the advice, Beisel." He claps Conor on the shoulder when he stands up. "I'll see you back in the room, dude."
Elizabeth smiles at him as he leaves, watching as he stopped on Michael's table for a quick word on his way out of the room.
***
The men's 200 IM finals that night are after the women's 200 back semifinals, so Elizabeth towels down on the side of the deck and watches Ryan, Michael, and Conor. She should probably be heading to warm down now, and she knows Gregg will probably yell at her over it later, but really, what's another two minutes going to hurt?
Conor winks at her on his way out and she blows him a kiss for luck. He smiles back and she blushes a little, thinking Ryan's definitely going to yell at her, but he's in the zone for this one and doesn't even see her on his walk to lane four. He had the faster semis time by almost a full second over Michael, and maybe it's because she didn't see him that close up for the 400 IM, but it's the most serious she's ever seen Ryan around a pool, though that's not saying much.
When it was all over, Michael ended up winning over Ryan by .09 seconds- it was so close, but surprisingly Ryan didn't seem too upset about it. Elizabeth watches as he high fives Conor in one lane and then climbs over the lane rope to press his face into Michael's neck and sling an arm across his shoulders.
It's weirdly affectionate, but it's Ryan- he's that way with everybody. When he sees Elizabeth on the side of the deck he wraps her in a huge wet hug, then Conor comes up on the other side and hugs her too.
"This is the plus side of swimming," she says with a laugh, kissing each of them on the cheek before tucking herself under Conor's arm. "You did good, Con."
He smiles, still breathing heavily. "Yeah, I'll get 'em next time. 'Cause this dude's retiring, right Phelps?"
He grabs at Michael when he walks past and he breaks into a smile. "Yep. You're gonna kill in Rio, man." Michael elbows Ryan lightly. "Dude, we gotta go warm down before the 100 fly. That shit's gonna hurt."
Ryan flashes a huge smile. "Sure you can beat me again? You're moving in on retirement, you know, how much longer can you keep it up?"
Michael winks at Elizabeth. "I can keep it up plenty long enough, thank you very much."
Ryan laughs and slings his arm around Michael's shoulders again. "C'mon, Mike, pool's waiting."
Elizabeth does a quick warm down in the pool with Conor and then the two head up to the stands to watch the 100 fly semis. Ryan had barely made it into the first heat that morning, but that didn't seem to bother him. He manages to make it to finals, and once again Elizabeth watches him climb over lane lines to hug Michael.
She thinks back to Rome and Shanghai, to Ryan and Michael giggling after events and laughing at breakfast at the hotels, to them hanging out on the deck together before training and there's definitely at least one time she's seen Michael take his headphones out to talk to Ryan.
Elizabeth turns to Conor. "Ryan and Michael are pretty close, right?"
"Yeah," he answers disinterestedly. Well, that's great, she could have figured that much out herself. But it seemed to her that they were more than just "pretty close" but she didn't think she should just come out and say that. Luckily, she has a much better conversation with Allison later that night back at the hotel.
"Sup, roomie?" Allison says when she sees Elizabeth in the lobby, smiling widely.
Elizabeth wraps her in a hug. They had both qualified at the beginning of the week - Elizabeth in the 400 IM, Allison in the 400 free, and they had agreed they would room together at the Village almost immediately. That also put them as roommates for the pre-London training camps in Knoxville and Vichy, which was going to make them even more awesome than they were already going to be. "You made it into another relay, I saw?"
"Yep, 4 by 100 free," Allison beams. "You didn't do too shabby yourself in the 200 back! Finals tomorrow!"
Michael walks in then and wraps Allison in a huge hug from behind before resting his chin on her shoulder. "Wanna watch a movie before bed?" he asks Allison.
She shrugs. "Maybe if you pick something good." He smiles and walks off to the elevators, and Elizabeth gives her a pointed look. "What?"
"You two aren't..."
Allison shakes her head. "I mean, clearly I would."
"Who wouldn't?"
"Exactly," she agrees. "But, I don't know, dating him would be weird. We see each other too much." She shakes her head a little. "Plus, I don't know how he'd even have time for me, as much as he texts Ryan."
Elizabeth's ears perk up at that. "He texts Ryan?"
Allison nods. "Almost constantly. I think that's why he and the last girl he was actually with broke up- I heard her yelling something about him always texting when they were together, Michael said she almost chucked his phone in the pool."
"Yikes," Elizabeth says, but the wheels are turning in her brain. So sure, he and Michael text all the time. She does that with Allison and Dagny and her friends back in Rhode Island. But they're girls. That's what girls do. And in the couple of years she's known Ryan, she's never really known him to be much of a texter, or at least not a particularly eloquent one.
She decides to investigate a little bit further when she curls up into Conor to watch a Workaholics episode on his laptop. "So, random question. Does Ryan ever text you a lot?"
Conor shrugs. "I mean, I get texts here and there if there's a Lil Wayne song on the radio and he's particularly excited about it. Or if he wants me to come over and play Call of Duty with him. We don't have lengthy conversations, if that's what you mean."
Elizabeth nods. "Yeah, that's what I figured. I was just flipping through my texts earlier and realized I hardly have any messages from him and I thought it was weird."
She hardly pays any attention to the rest of the episode, though she gathers it was particularly funny since she can feel the rise and fall of Conor's chest under her head as he laughs heartily. Because what she said to Conor was true- Ryan rarely texts her. And apparently he's not texting Conor any more than he is her. But if what Allison said is true, it's probably because he's been texting Michael all the time.
There's always just the possibility that they're just really good friends. This is their third Olympics together, which puts their friendship at almost 8 years. But there are also the lingering hugs and the arms slung over shoulders and the way Ryan's eyes followed Michael at breakfast and the fact that she definitely saw Ryan making out with a very attractive guy while they were dancing at some club they'd all gone to earlier in the year.
So yeah, maybe there was a possibility that Ryan was attracted to Michael.
She pushes it out of her mind until they're all done and qualified and out at a bar on a Monday night before they head to Knoxville for the first training camp and basically the last time they can all get decently drunk until after the Olympics are over.
There's a leggy brunette sidling up next to him at the bar, and Michael smiles at her, but she can tell it's only out of politeness. Ryan, however, is glaring at her, despite the fact that Michael doesn't notice or care about her. She sees Ryan's hand placed casually against the small of Michael's back, watches him flash Michael the smile she knows is usually reserved for pretty girls he wants to take home.
And that's when Elizabeth realizes that Ryan is definitely attracted to Michael. And she definitely wants to do something about it.
Fandom: Swimming
Pairing: Eventually Michael Phelps/Ryan Lochte, some Elizabeth Beisel/Conor Dwyer in there too
Disclaimer: Not real, I own nothing, this never happened, it's all fake, etc.
Rating: PG-13 this part
Summary: At Trials in Omaha, Elizabeth realizes that Ryan may have more-than-friendly feelings for Michael.
Notes: So I chucked my NaNoWriMo and started this massive fic instead. I think it's gonna go better, honestly. Idk if it's gonna end up being 50K words but I have 18 chapters planned and this is the first. I've never really written anything this massive before so bear with me. Basically, this fic is going to go something along the lines of- Elizabeth decides Ryan and Michael have a "more than friendly" chemistry, so she enlists Allison to help her set them up while they're in London. The first couple chapters are not gonna have much action, sorry, but it will pick up. There's gonna be some Phlochte action eventually, I promise. And it's going to switch viewpoints depending on the chapter (i.e. this one is from Elizabeth's, then there'll be more from her and some from Allison's, Michael's, and Ryan's, and a couple of group POV chapters) so hopefully that doesn't get confusing. 2004 words this part.
Elizabeth's waiting for her waffle to be done at breakfast during one of the last days of Olympic Trials when she hears her name out of the corner of her ear from the table where Conor and Ryan are sitting.
"What about me?" she asks, sitting down next to Ryan and across the table from Conor, who smiles widely at her.
Ryan snaps his fingers and points at Conor. "See, that, that right there. That little smile."
Elizabeth frowns and pours syrup onto her waffle. "What are you even talking about, Ryan?"
"I was telling Conor that he needs to focus up for today. Not just sit around flirting with you all day and then forget he has to swim."
Elizabeth rolls her eyes. "First of all, Conor is twenty three years old, not twelve. He's not just gonna forget he has an event like the kids on your dad's swim team do." She pauses and takes a sip of orange juice. "Secondly, who says we're flirting?"
Ryan laughs. "Everyone who has two eyes can tell you two are hooking up."
"Well, we're not," Conor says with a scoff. Then Elizabeth raises an eyebrow at him, because they've definitely been spending a lot of the past week making out in each other's hotel rooms, and he sighs. "Okay, well, we aren't right now. Because taper."
Elizabeth gives him a half-smile. "Yep, because of taper." It was really the worst though, because they had all this free time when they really could be hooking up more, but every time one of them would start inching toward third base, the other one would bring up taper and ruin everything. Or as much as you can ruin something you shouldn't actually be doing when you know you're trying to qualify for the Olympics.
"So you two are hooking up, then?" Ryan asks, and Conor nods. "Good. It's about time. But seriously, dude, don't let her distract you." He reaches over and ruffles Elizabeth's hair. "She's cute, but is she cuter than an Olympic medal?"
Conor pauses and Elizabeth arches an eyebrow. "I...." he mumbles. "There's no way to answer that."
Elizabeth grins at him. "That was the right answer." She takes a bite out of her waffle, then watches as Ryan's eyes follow Michael from one end of the breakfast bar to the other. His sweatpants are slung low on his hips and his hair is all messed up from sleep. "Lookin' good, Phelps," she says with a low whistle, and Michael turns around and flashes her a sleepy smile.
"Thanks Beisel," he says with a laugh. "You swimming today?"
She nods. "200 back heats this morning, semis in the evening. You guys all have the 200 IM tonight, right?"
Ryan and Michael exchange a glance before Michael nods. "Yep, and the 100 fly. You're not dropping that?"
Ryan shakes his head. "Don't think so." He gives Michael a toothy grin. "So watch your back."
Michael matches his smile. "It's on, Doggy." He piles some more eggs and bacon onto his plate and walks back down to the other end of the breakfast bar.
Elizabeth watches as Ryan's eyes follow Michael again. "You should focus on the race too, Ryan."
"As opposed to....?" he asked, his eyes still never leaving Michael.
"Focusing on beating Michael," Elizabeth says. "You know you swim better when you're just swimming for yourself."
Ryan sighs and picks at his toast crusts. "Yeah, yeah."
Conor looks up and gives her a weird look over his glass of juice but doesn't say anything, and Elizabeth goes back to her waffle. After a couple of minutes of silence, Ryan leans over and plants a kiss on Elizabeth's cheek.
"Thanks for the advice, Beisel." He claps Conor on the shoulder when he stands up. "I'll see you back in the room, dude."
Elizabeth smiles at him as he leaves, watching as he stopped on Michael's table for a quick word on his way out of the room.
***
The men's 200 IM finals that night are after the women's 200 back semifinals, so Elizabeth towels down on the side of the deck and watches Ryan, Michael, and Conor. She should probably be heading to warm down now, and she knows Gregg will probably yell at her over it later, but really, what's another two minutes going to hurt?
Conor winks at her on his way out and she blows him a kiss for luck. He smiles back and she blushes a little, thinking Ryan's definitely going to yell at her, but he's in the zone for this one and doesn't even see her on his walk to lane four. He had the faster semis time by almost a full second over Michael, and maybe it's because she didn't see him that close up for the 400 IM, but it's the most serious she's ever seen Ryan around a pool, though that's not saying much.
When it was all over, Michael ended up winning over Ryan by .09 seconds- it was so close, but surprisingly Ryan didn't seem too upset about it. Elizabeth watches as he high fives Conor in one lane and then climbs over the lane rope to press his face into Michael's neck and sling an arm across his shoulders.
It's weirdly affectionate, but it's Ryan- he's that way with everybody. When he sees Elizabeth on the side of the deck he wraps her in a huge wet hug, then Conor comes up on the other side and hugs her too.
"This is the plus side of swimming," she says with a laugh, kissing each of them on the cheek before tucking herself under Conor's arm. "You did good, Con."
He smiles, still breathing heavily. "Yeah, I'll get 'em next time. 'Cause this dude's retiring, right Phelps?"
He grabs at Michael when he walks past and he breaks into a smile. "Yep. You're gonna kill in Rio, man." Michael elbows Ryan lightly. "Dude, we gotta go warm down before the 100 fly. That shit's gonna hurt."
Ryan flashes a huge smile. "Sure you can beat me again? You're moving in on retirement, you know, how much longer can you keep it up?"
Michael winks at Elizabeth. "I can keep it up plenty long enough, thank you very much."
Ryan laughs and slings his arm around Michael's shoulders again. "C'mon, Mike, pool's waiting."
Elizabeth does a quick warm down in the pool with Conor and then the two head up to the stands to watch the 100 fly semis. Ryan had barely made it into the first heat that morning, but that didn't seem to bother him. He manages to make it to finals, and once again Elizabeth watches him climb over lane lines to hug Michael.
She thinks back to Rome and Shanghai, to Ryan and Michael giggling after events and laughing at breakfast at the hotels, to them hanging out on the deck together before training and there's definitely at least one time she's seen Michael take his headphones out to talk to Ryan.
Elizabeth turns to Conor. "Ryan and Michael are pretty close, right?"
"Yeah," he answers disinterestedly. Well, that's great, she could have figured that much out herself. But it seemed to her that they were more than just "pretty close" but she didn't think she should just come out and say that. Luckily, she has a much better conversation with Allison later that night back at the hotel.
"Sup, roomie?" Allison says when she sees Elizabeth in the lobby, smiling widely.
Elizabeth wraps her in a hug. They had both qualified at the beginning of the week - Elizabeth in the 400 IM, Allison in the 400 free, and they had agreed they would room together at the Village almost immediately. That also put them as roommates for the pre-London training camps in Knoxville and Vichy, which was going to make them even more awesome than they were already going to be. "You made it into another relay, I saw?"
"Yep, 4 by 100 free," Allison beams. "You didn't do too shabby yourself in the 200 back! Finals tomorrow!"
Michael walks in then and wraps Allison in a huge hug from behind before resting his chin on her shoulder. "Wanna watch a movie before bed?" he asks Allison.
She shrugs. "Maybe if you pick something good." He smiles and walks off to the elevators, and Elizabeth gives her a pointed look. "What?"
"You two aren't..."
Allison shakes her head. "I mean, clearly I would."
"Who wouldn't?"
"Exactly," she agrees. "But, I don't know, dating him would be weird. We see each other too much." She shakes her head a little. "Plus, I don't know how he'd even have time for me, as much as he texts Ryan."
Elizabeth's ears perk up at that. "He texts Ryan?"
Allison nods. "Almost constantly. I think that's why he and the last girl he was actually with broke up- I heard her yelling something about him always texting when they were together, Michael said she almost chucked his phone in the pool."
"Yikes," Elizabeth says, but the wheels are turning in her brain. So sure, he and Michael text all the time. She does that with Allison and Dagny and her friends back in Rhode Island. But they're girls. That's what girls do. And in the couple of years she's known Ryan, she's never really known him to be much of a texter, or at least not a particularly eloquent one.
She decides to investigate a little bit further when she curls up into Conor to watch a Workaholics episode on his laptop. "So, random question. Does Ryan ever text you a lot?"
Conor shrugs. "I mean, I get texts here and there if there's a Lil Wayne song on the radio and he's particularly excited about it. Or if he wants me to come over and play Call of Duty with him. We don't have lengthy conversations, if that's what you mean."
Elizabeth nods. "Yeah, that's what I figured. I was just flipping through my texts earlier and realized I hardly have any messages from him and I thought it was weird."
She hardly pays any attention to the rest of the episode, though she gathers it was particularly funny since she can feel the rise and fall of Conor's chest under her head as he laughs heartily. Because what she said to Conor was true- Ryan rarely texts her. And apparently he's not texting Conor any more than he is her. But if what Allison said is true, it's probably because he's been texting Michael all the time.
There's always just the possibility that they're just really good friends. This is their third Olympics together, which puts their friendship at almost 8 years. But there are also the lingering hugs and the arms slung over shoulders and the way Ryan's eyes followed Michael at breakfast and the fact that she definitely saw Ryan making out with a very attractive guy while they were dancing at some club they'd all gone to earlier in the year.
So yeah, maybe there was a possibility that Ryan was attracted to Michael.
She pushes it out of her mind until they're all done and qualified and out at a bar on a Monday night before they head to Knoxville for the first training camp and basically the last time they can all get decently drunk until after the Olympics are over.
There's a leggy brunette sidling up next to him at the bar, and Michael smiles at her, but she can tell it's only out of politeness. Ryan, however, is glaring at her, despite the fact that Michael doesn't notice or care about her. She sees Ryan's hand placed casually against the small of Michael's back, watches him flash Michael the smile she knows is usually reserved for pretty girls he wants to take home.
And that's when Elizabeth realizes that Ryan is definitely attracted to Michael. And she definitely wants to do something about it.