Swimslash, Sports Make You Health
Fic. Written for missanee and splitting_minds in the drabble meme.
Man, I used up a lot of condoms while writing this, which led to some awkward conversations with the neighbors. "Lovely weather we're having. So, was that you on the roof yesterday, dropping… things?" Yes. Yes, Mrs. Smith, it was me. Lovely weather indeed.
Title: Sports Make You Health
Summary: It took Michael a long time to figure out that he and Ryan were actually dating, which totally wasn't his fault.
Warning & Disclaimer: This is a work of fantasy. None of the actions portrayed by the people herein are reflective of real life.
Notes: For missanee, who wanted Ryan/Michael, and splitting_minds, who wanted anti-smarm Ryan/Michael, with a side order of Despatie. Sorry if it got a trifle smarmy; I was trying to kill two birds with one stone.
Title is from the Elasun Olympic ad.
It took Michael a long time to figure out that he and Ryan were actually dating, which totally wasn't his fault. It probably had to do with the fact that Ryan's idea of a quality date was to drag Michael to the closest medical center within the Village and collect extra condoms so that they could make water balloons and nail unsuspecting athletes from the balcony of their housing apartment, regardless of sport, nationality, or medal standing.
"I like how this is going to, like, get our asses kicked by the entire world and maybe the UN," Michael said.
"Shut up, target at five o'clock," Ryan said, and put his hand out.
"You don’t even know that means. You’re totally just picking numbers," Michael said, but reached out from his spot on the chaise lounge and handed him a condom balloon anyway, idly wiping the lube residue off on his thigh. A few seconds later, there was a splash and a lot of loud swearing; judging from the accent and choice of profanity, Michael figured Ryan had gotten another Australian. He kind of had a thing about Australians.
Ryan ducked down next to him, still cackling. "Bullseye, man. Fucking epic."
"Why Australians?" Michael asked.
"All the green and yellow. They're the easiest to spot," Ryan said, and Michael figured that did make a lot of sense when he thought about it.
Next to them, the garbage bag filled with unused condoms gaped open, spilling dozens of foil packets onto the ground; they caught the sun and cast a dappled pattern of light onto Michael's feet. A whole garbage bag, and Michael still wasn't sure how they'd gotten that many out of the volunteer at the center, who had been, like, a tiny elderly lady half his height and definitely someone's grandmother. That hadn't stopped Ryan from slapping a condom down on the counter, giving her his best shit-eating grin, and rattling off the only Mandarin he knew, "Ni hao, ce suo zai nar, xie xie?"
She'd given them each a pamphlet on safe sex, which only had two condoms each inside, so Michael haltingly used the few phrases they'd made him learn (which were actually supposed to be common phrases used for street bartering, so he really hoped he hadn't accidentally propositioned her for sex or anything) to try for more. That got her to pull a bowl of condoms out from under the counter and flourish it at him, like she was offering him after-dinner mints. Ryan's eyes had lit up, and he'd shoved Michael forward and hissed, "Dude, ask for more, ask for a lot more," and Michael had hissed back, "Rosetta Stone didn't teach me the Chinese to ask for condoms in multiples of a thousand."
But somehow they'd gotten the message across, because they walked away with more condoms than Michael was pretty sure he could use in five years, and that would only be if he were the sort of person who regularly banged someone new after every meal, with a three o'clock triplets special. Not the kind of person who trained under Bob Bowman and regularly had to weigh jerking off against napping, when napping won 95% of the time.
"Yeah, I don't know what you think you're gonna do with these, because I'm leaving for London soon and I have plans to, uh, eat and sleep at some point," Michael said dubiously.
"We're gonna have fun," Ryan said. "Plus, they're free, and there's like, all these extra ones that people haven't used yet. That ain't right. We gotta represent America proud."
And it was fun, once they'd figured out the ideal water to condom ratio, and that they needed a pinhole poked through the neck right before launching for maximum splatter impact. Otherwise, sometimes they bounced. ("This is bullshit," Ryan complained after the first few attempts. "They're condoms, they're not really supposed to break," Michael said. "Man, you better hope Aaron doesn't really have a concussion from that because Brendan and Ian are gonna kill you so much.")
The filled condoms had been wobbly and hard to carry; they'd had to make several trips back and forth from the bathroom, carting them in towel slings until Ryan thought they had enough arsenal to last for a good time. Michael was pretty sure he was supposed to be doing something else, like having an interview or endorsing a product, and not lying on a towel and listening to Ryan annoy half the free world, but it was hot and his Blackberry was on vibrate and lying at least five feet away. Reluctantly, he sat up and started reaching for it.
Ryan peered over the edge of the railing and made frantic motions with one hand. "Dude, quick, quick, I see Bernard!"
What the hell, Michael thought, and grabbed the biggest condom balloon he could find instead. He was only going to live once.
"Man, he's a sprinter. You think he'd be tired by now," Ryan said, as he hid behind the sliding door curtains and Michael slouched down as low in the chair as he could. Ten minutes, and Alain didn't seem to be anywhere near done with yelling, a whole tidal wave of angry French that was probably about their parentage and an unspecified array of barnyard animals.
"Yeah, you'd think," Michael said, and rearranged his towel.
"It was worth it," Ryan said, and Michael couldn't help grinning, because, well, yeah, it totally was. The only way it could be better would be if he'd actually let Ryan fill some of the condoms with maple syrup or soy sauce the way he'd wanted to. He was kind of starting to regret saying no.
Beijing summer sky above him: apocalyptic clouds and scorched ozone, and the humidity made the pollution feel like it was sticking to his skin like film. Beneath them, the rest of the Olympic Village was as close to peaceful as it got, except for Alain and the mingled noise of multiple stereos simultaneously playing country, rap, pop, and rock in at least a dozen different languages. Michael picked out German, Chinese, Spanish, and what might have been Russian or might have been a cat being run backwards through a blender before he stopped listening.
It was nice to sit still, to not care about anything for a while except how much he kind of wanted a Dominos’ MeatZZa Feast pizza, with maybe some Cinna-stix. Even people giving him free shit, like the watches and certificates and all the millions of pieces of clothing with Speedo logos on them was getting to be a hassle, because then he had to smile and pose while mentally trying to figure out where he was going to store it in a packed room that was already overflowing with Ryan’s free stuff as well.
Some random woman had even handed him her baby yesterday after the press conference, speaking to him in a rapid-stutter flood of incomprehensible Chinese, and he'd been briefly panicked over the thought she was trying to give that to him as well. It turned out she'd just wanted a picture of him with the baby. It had been tiny and very new. The woman had cooed to try and get it to smile, and Michael had sort of jiggled it with one arm and made faces, but neither attempt helped. It had that mistrustful, crumpled look that he remembered from when Whitney's first kid was born, as though it was fully expecting Michael to drop it at any second. It was a relief to give it back.
It was really nice not to have anyone asking whom he was fucking. Morals clause aside, it would be ten kinds of awkward to admit that Ryan Lochte was the first person other than his right hand that he'd gotten off with in over eight months.
Alain must have given up and Ryan seemed to be regrouping for the moment, because no one was swearing at them in any foreign languages. Michael leaned down and picked up a water balloon in each hand, carefully weighing them. He rolled them around in his hands until the reservoir tips faced outward.
"Check it out," he said, and pressed them against his chest, arching his back and leering. "Amanda."
"Dude, no way, she's totally barely a B-cup," Ryan said, and snickered anyway, which was really one of the reasons Michael liked him, aside from the blowjobs and the mutual appreciation for rap music and the perfection of the Big Mac. He squinted at Michael thoughtfully. "Huh. You know, you'd make a really ugly woman."
Michael squeezed them carefully, and made them jiggle. "Whatever. You're just jealous because you know I'd have better tits than you would."
"No fucking way," Ryan said, "if I was a girl, my tits would be fucking awesome and you know it. I'd be stacked."
He tried to tweak the reservoir tip. Michael elbowed his hand away and nearly lost the condom on his right side. "Don’t touch my fake tits without permission, jackass. Have a little manners."
"Dude, cocktease," Ryan said, and grabbed again. In the struggle, Michael ended up losing the right one after all when he managed to burst it on Ryan's head. There was no use being lopsided after that, so he tried to shove the second one down the back of Ryan’s shorts before Ryan could grab it, never mind that there were still dozens of other condoms waiting to be used. But Ryan sat down on Michael, so Michael wedgied him, and in all the scuffling, they lost about ten other condoms in collateral damage. The cleaning staff was probably going to kill them.
"You didn't even get to name your tits," Ryan said a little mournfully, and shook his hair like a dog, scattering droplets everywhere. "Don't girls do that?"
"Yeah, except where I'm not a girl, cocktard." Michael ran his fingers through the water on his chest, flicked it into the air.
"I named my balls," Ryan offered, and then, with one of his typical cow-on-the-train-tracks sudden subject changes, "what are you going to do with your million bucks?"
Michael shrugged. “Charity. Peter had that established, like, way back in Athens. He’s got the foundation set up already and everything. Just gotta get the check.”
"You should buy me a new grill."
"You'd just lose it. Again."
Ryan flopped down beside him, sitting on the chair's armrest and trying to steal more of the towel to wipe his face against. Michael shoved back. “I need that million bucks more than your orphans with diseases do,” Ryan said seriously. "I'm the best thing that ever happened to you."
“Yeah, thanks, Bob Costas. And it’s not orphans with diseases,” Michael said, although that wasn’t a bad idea. He might get to meet Angelina Jolie, though it was just as possible she'd warn him to back off her shtick. She would have totally taken that woman's baby. "It's water safety. And promoting swimming."
"Well, duh," Ryan said. "You don't know how to do anything else."
"Fuck off, asshole," Michael said, eyes still closed, and then opened them again in a real hurry when Ryan said, “Okay, cool,” and started yanking on Michael’s shorts.
"Whoa," Michael said, and started to sit up while his dick eagerly fought all the hours of lecturing they'd had to get from the crash course in Olympic etiquette, AKA Don't Be Bode Miller, You Little Shits, Or We'll Beat You With Your Own Medals. "What?"
"What?" Ryan asked. "You said."
"Yeah, okay, just," Michael said, hands gesturing aimlessly in the air and unwilling to bat Ryan away, but feeling like he had to put up some kind of token argument. “Right here? For real?”
"Why not?" Ryan asked. He stopped working on Michael’s shorts long enough to sit back on his heels and take off his shirt. "No one else is in the apartment. And we have, like, a shitload of condoms. What else should we do?"
Michael opened his mouth to reply and then stopped because, hell, what Ryan said actually made sense. And wow, that was kind of fucked up. He really should record the moment for posterity.
"I mean, we can go back into the room if you're worried about your delicate skin getting sunburned, princess," Ryan said, and just for that, Michael grabbed the nearest water balloon and winged it at him, though not as hard as he could have. Ryan dodged; the balloon sailed over the railing and burst on the next balcony over. "Yeah, I thought so."
Every year or so, Peter sat him down at Octagon and gave him lectures on shit he wasn't allowed to get caught doing, with everything ranked by how bad it would look on the news and how much money it would take to make it go away if he were caught doing it. There were graphs and a point system and everything. Most of it was pretty straightforward; some of it was stuff he couldn't ever imagine doing (seriously, goats?), but he figured somebody must have tried it at least once for it to have made the list.
Drugs usually topped the list, but getting caught having sex in public was definitely in the top ten. Doing it without a condom was also pretty bad, so maybe he'd win a few points back by the fact he had, like, five hundred of them.
And it might have been the air pollution rotting his brain, but Michael couldn't actually think of a real downside to getting laid on a fifth floor balcony of the United States Swimming housing unit in the Olympic Village, so he said, "Yeah, okay," and flopped back down in the chair expectantly.
"I'm not doing all the work, you douche," Ryan said impatiently, and slapped at Michael's thigh. "Not unless you give me a million dollars, so get your bitch ass in gear."
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure there's nothing you could do to me that would be worth a million dollars." Michael waved at his crotch. "Feel free to give it your best shot, though."
"That's a verbal contract. That totally counts." Ryan jabbed at whatever part of Michael he wanted him to shift or lift as he pulled at Michael's clothes. "You should hire someone to dress you. Get someone other than Speedo to send you something. Get Armani to send you more free shit. Get some fashion."
"I'm not wearing the fucking Ralph Lauren thing, I'm not even going to be here," Michael muttered. He lifted both arms and Ryan yanked his shirt off and tossed it aside; hips up, and there went his underwear. "Easy with the goods, man."
"Pussy." Ryan poked Michael's navel. "Shit, dude. You know, if you got this pierced, it would totally qualify as, like, a Prince Albert."
"Quit it," Michael said, and squirmed a little, so of course Ryan had to poke his belly button again, and Michael missed kneeing Ryan in the chin by about two inches. It would have mostly been an accident.
Ryan pulled the towel out from beneath Michael and draped it over the balcony railing edge with a flourish. "There. Curtain. Totally private. Let's get to the red hot dickings."
"Did you seriously just say red hot dickings?" Michael asked incredulously, squinting up into the sun. "Okay, that's, like, a lameness penalty of at least ten grand off the million. Twenty grand."
"Bitch, bitch, bitch."
Ryan smelled like sweat and sunblock, a whiff of chemical coconut that could have also been from the condoms. Latex, too. It almost made Michael feel like he was at the doctor's or getting a drug test, or something. Though the doctor usually didn't sit on Michael's thighs, grind against his cock, and bite random patterns into his chest and collarbones, while muttering surprisingly dirty half-sentences about voyeurism and fucking in the open and giving Bob Costas a cheap thrill.
Too bad, he figured. More people might actually report their whereabouts to the USADA if they knew they could count on getting head after being stuck with a needle.
The balcony wasn't really big enough for the both of them, especially after Michael had dragged the lounge chair (stolen, with no small amount of effort, from the residential area pool) out there. Ryan couldn't crouch over Michael comfortably without his knees banging into either the railing or the wall; Michael had already hit his head twice against the back of the chair trying to hitch himself up far enough to give Ryan room to sit on the end of the lounge. Then, when Ryan did fit himself on the end of it, Michael shifted the wrong way, and the whole thing nearly collapsed.
"I don't think this is load-bearing furniture." Michael shifted again. He remembered playing with Whitney and Hilary at the pool, taking turns sitting on the lounge chairs and carefully balancing, so that when one of them got up, they could jolt the other off with the sudden shift of weight. "Ow."
"Stand up, then."
"I'm not standing." Michael stretched carefully. "That's work."
"Lazy motherfucker," Ryan mumbled into his collarbone. "No blowjob."
"One million dollars," Michael said.
"Go flat," Ryan said, getting up. Michael adjusted the chair and did; though he could already tell it wasn't going to make things much better, even if Ryan switched directions. Sixty-nining was great in porn, where the beds were huge and no one looked like they were in danger of falling off during the best parts. It was less fun when the metal support bars of the chair were digging into his back and Ryan hadn't even taken off his boxer-briefs yet; Michael wouldn't have anything to look at.
Ryan just lay down on top of him, apparently all out of drive, which was totally unfair when he'd been the one to get Michael's hopes up with the promise of balcony sex. It was too hot to have so much of Ryan above him, covering him, but he didn't want to push Ryan off either. Michael didn’t know where to put his arms or legs; he half-heartedly tried to cross his ankles in the small of Ryan's back, but it was too much effort to keep them there and he let himself just go limp, shifting every now and then to get some contact against his dick.
After a few minutes, it wasn't so bad anymore, even if it didn't look like he was going to get a blowjob any time soon. Ryan dug his chin into the hollow of Michael's shoulder and mouthed at his neck. Michael scratched Ryan's back a little, and tried to figure out how to jumpstart Ryan again. It was weird; usually it was totally the other way around.
"I’m naked," Michael said helpfully. "I have no clothes on."
"No shit, Sherlock." Ryan didn't do anything but bite a little harder on Michael's neck.
"I want million dollar head," Michael muttered. "This is totally not worth a million dollars."
"You are such a whiner," Ryan said, and rolled off him to land heavily on the ground, condom balloons wobbling merrily away in his wake. "Okay, get up." He tugged Michael off the chair, and pushed him up against the railing with his back to it, right where the towel was hanging. "Stay there."
Michael resisted the urge to turn his head and check for other people out on the other balconies. The heat trapped by the metal railings seeped through the towel against his lower back and ass and legs. He could already feel sweat forming behind his knees. He rested his hands lightly against the rail; it was like trying to drive after leaving his car parked in the sun for a long time, too-hot steering wheel under his grip.
Ryan looked at the concrete floor, and then looked at the towel. Michael could practically see the wheels turning in his head. His own brain was churning out possible scenarios for the next thirty seconds-- Ryan taking the towel to kneel on (probable blowjob, good. Someone nearby getting naked photos of him during the blowjob he would be unable to turn down, bad. Overall outcome: bad); Ryan going back into the room for another towel or pillow (delayed blowjob, bad. Ryan probably getting distracted and leaving Michael with blue-balls, bad. Overall outcome: very bad); Ryan wanting to try some weird alternate position where Michael sat on the railing (probable blowjob, good. Michael losing his balance and tumbling naked to his death from the balcony, bad. Overall outcome: extremely bad); or Michael speaking up like, now, with another suggestion (probable blowjob, good. Lack of death or Octagon and/or Speedo bitchfits, good. Overall outcome: hopeful).
"It would work better with the chair," he said, before Ryan could grab away the only barrier between his bare ass and the general population of China, or abandon the whole activity for something shiny.
"It would work better if you shut up." Ryan hitched the lounge chair over anyway, and sat down at eye-level with Michael's dick.
Ryan's hands were hot and still a little sticky with condom lube. He smiled up at Michael, the same look he always had whenever he was about to convince Michael to try something completely stupid and probably awesome. He sucked Michael's dick into his mouth, cupped his balls in one hand, and his tongue swirled, seeking. The inside of his mouth was wet and warm, but Michael didn't mind that anymore, didn't want to do anything except push further into the heat.
"Fuck, shit, fuck," Michael said, and tried really hard not to be a jerk and shove forwards too much. Ryan laughed, though it was more of a snort, and the vibration around his dick felt so good that it made his toes curl. He grabbed the railing tight, even though it burned his hands.
Ryan went slow but steady, taking it easy. That was fine; that was better; it was easier to move with his rhythm. He could feel sweat prickling all over him, between his shoulder blades, in his armpits, and behind his thighs. Michael rested one hand shakily on top of Ryan's head and shifted his weight backwards and forwards, barely noticing whether or not the towel was still hanging straight. The whole United States team and Rowdy Gaines could have been standing on the other balconies yelling play-by-play commentary, and he wouldn't have been able to bring himself to give a shit.
It was almost a relief when Ryan stopped because Michael didn't want to come yet, trying to hold on for just a little longer. Ryan pulled his mouth off but kept rolling Michael's balls with one hand. He lifted his other hand up to his mouth like he was going to cough, and spat twice. It registered vaguely as a warning in Michael's mind, but he was too busy thinking of 200 IM split times.
"I wish I had my slingshot," Ryan said, and at the same time grabbed the base of Michael's dick and simultaneously pushed two fingers knuckle-deep into Michael. "We could be getting more distance. We could hit, you know, Sweden. In the next dorm over."
Michael meant to reply, but it came out strangled. He was coming, except he wasn't; it was trapped in the middle of his dick somewhere, with nowhere to go. He made a really embarrassing noise, and Ryan, that asshole, just laughed like a maniac.
"Holy fuck, I wish I had my phone. That's totally ring tone material." Ryan kept his grip, and squeezed a little tighter. Michael whined. "Shut up, I know what I'm doing,"
"I'm not--" Michael said, hips jerking forward automatically when Ryan curled both fingers and rubbed. "Just, there's lube in the bag."
"Man, I knew that old lady wanted a piece of you." Ryan shook his head. "Yeah, no. Okay, it's too fucking hot out here."
Ryan let go of the base and sucked hard on the head of his dick. It was almost a disappointment to come so fast. But Michael let his back arch and his knees lock, eyes squeezed shut in order to enjoy it as long as he could, and came, and came, and came, the last spurt feeling like it was being pulled from somewhere spine-deep, just on the edge of painful.
Ryan pulled off and out and wiped his hand against the towel. He stood up and spat his mouthful of come over the railing edge, which made Michael wince and really hope no one was walking by down below. He rubbed at the back of his neck and popped his jaw. "Okay, I'm pretty awesome, but one of us is totally gonna fall off the balcony if we stay out here."
"Yeah," Michael agreed, still feeling a little dazed, and followed Ryan back into the room without even bothering to put the towel on or shut the sliding door before he collapsed on the bed.
After a few minutes, the air conditioning cleared his head a little bit, and made him inclined to be more concerned about reciprocal blowjob etiquette. Ryan was sitting on the floor, picking through the packets of condoms that they hadn't used or destroyed.
"Found the lube," Ryan said, without turning around. "What's lychee?"
"Dunno," Michael said, staring at the ceiling. "But Aaron ate, like, a whole thing of strawberry lube on a dare once. Back in Sydney."
"What the hell, seriously?" Ryan sounded like he didn't know whether to be more impressed or grossed out. "Like, how?"
"He got peanut butter and made PBJ's with it."
Michael had tried a bite. It hadn't been too horrible, actually.
Ryan started lobbing condom packets at him from across the room. Michael swatted the first couple away, and then sat up before Ryan could start reaching for the balloons. "C'mere," he said. Ryan groaned, but got up and walked over.
"C'mere," Michael said again, and hooked his thumbs into the waistband of Ryan's boxer-briefs and tugged them down to Ryan's knees. Ryan put a hand on Michael's shoulder to steady himself and stepped out of them completely, dick bobbing with the motion.
Michael ran his thumb down the length of it, and Ryan made a happy, surprised noise that shot right back to Michael's dick, waking up for round two. He did it again, a little harder, then leaned forward and wrapped his whole hand around it, a softer stroke. He let go.
"Ryan," Michael said, just to feel the shape of the name in his mouth.
"Hey," Ryan said. He flicked Michael's left ear. "Dork."
"Loser." Michael bracketed his hands on Ryan's hips to hold him still where he was. He licked a stripe on Ryan's stomach, down his navel and stopping just before where it would get interesting. There was the prickle of the returning shaved hair against his tongue, and coconut.
"Did you put sunblock on your dick?" Michael licked further down, and then again. Yep. "Why the fuck would you do that?"
"You were being a selfish asshole and said I couldn't use your Kiehls if I kept jerking off with it," Ryan said.
"You used, like, half the bottle in two days. It's expensive. Get your own." He licked again and grimaced. "You're ruining piña coladas for me. They're all gonna taste like your dick."
"You drink piña coladas?" Ryan didn't seem to be able to decide whether to squirm away or push forward for more. "You got a vagina you aren't telling me about, Mike? Because, extra holes, I'm all over that, man."
"Don't even start with me, Lochte." Michael breathed on Ryan's dick, and leaned back when Ryan decided to push rather than squirm. "Kaitlin Sandeno told me all about the Cosmos incident at the Shanghai short courses."
"I had a handicap," Ryan said, with dignity. "I started off way more drunk than she did."
"You're totally handicapped," Michael agreed, and started trying to spell M-I-C-H-A-E-L with the tip of his tongue on Ryan's dick. He got to H before Ryan dropped his double handful of condoms on the bed, planted the heel of his hand against Michael's chest, and pushed him down to sprawl flat on the bed.
Michael looked up at him. "No?"
"You said you didn't want to do any work." Ryan pushed at Michael's legs until he swung them up onto the bed and lay lengthwise. "I'm not letting you weasel out of paying me."
"Okay. You can go ahead and fuck me now, dude," Michael said, because he kind of liked seeing Ryan's eyes get all big and his mouth go a little slack, like a kid who'd found a key to the candy store.
"You gotta wear a condom," he added as an afterthought, because he'd forgotten earlier and both Bob and Peter probably had unsafe sex alarms going off in the backs of their heads. Which-- ew. Bob probably had no idea of the sheer number of times he'd successfully cockblocked Michael without even being around, just from the memory of his sex lectures, most of which seemed geared towards horses rather than people.
Nothing killed a hard-on faster than a flash of Bob Bowman glaring and muttering about gelding. He could patent that shit.
"I like how you only remember in time for me to have to wear one," Ryan said, but he was already fumbling through the condoms and single-serving-size packets of lube that he'd brought over.
"Yeah, you know I hate to disappoint you," Michael said, "but I don't think we're gonna need all of those."
"All part of the million dollar package," Ryan said. "'Sides, you never know about later."
Ryan got on the bed and crawled between Michael's legs, pushing his knees apart. Michael fumbled for a pillow to stick under himself, because if they were doing this face to face, the last thing he needed was to fuck up his back in a repeat of post-Athens. Facedown would probably be easier, but Ryan seemed to be in a making-out mood so far, and that was different enough that Michael figured he should go with it.
He followed the pressure of Ryan's palms, letting one leg get bent back against his chest and hooking the other up over Ryan's shoulder. Ryan was methodically ripping open lube packets, squeezing them into a glob on his palm, and then dropping them on the floor. Michael snickered at the look of concentration on his face and got ready to flinch from the lube, but it was warm, either from Ryan's hands or from being left out in the sun on the balcony most of the day. He breathed deep anyway when Ryan pushed a finger into him again, slowly this time.
"Okay?"
"You're supposed to be trying to go for better than okay," Michael said.
"Douchebag," Ryan said affectionately, and hummed under his breath a little. It was familiar, and Michael thought he might be getting fingered to the beat of Lollipop.
His dick wasn't quite back in the game completely yet but getting there, little buzzes of pleasure that were getting more frequent, connecting into something stronger. He shifted his leg on Ryan's shoulder, lifting his heel up and then letting it thump down again, somewhere in the vicinity of the alligator tattoo. He wondered what it felt like to get something inked on the shoulder instead of the hip.
Ryan leaned in, and his mouth was suddenly close like, whoa. Michael stared at it, kind of transfixed, and almost missed the actual words when Ryan licked his lips and gave Michael a solemn look. "Do you want Sensational Joy, Garden Pleasant, Fruit Fresh, or Exotic Romantic Flower?"
Michael blinked.
"Because I gotta say, you look like an Exotic Romantic Flower to me," Ryan said. He squinted down at the tiny print on the pastel-colored condom package. "With Jasmine and Tutti-Fruit flavors, which give you the most romantic feeling at the happiest moment. The market research result indicates there are eighty one percent female consumers are very comfort with this type."
"Tutti Frutti isn't a flower," Michael said stupidly, before his brain could catch up with his mouth.
"Eighty one percent, Mike," Ryan said happily. "Or, you know, Garden Pleasant. The natural delicate fragrance, the banana, the orange, and the pineapple three kind of combinations, just makes your love incisively infinite!"
"Incisively infinite," Michael repeated, and what the fuck did that even mean?
"Our love is," Ryan agreed. "Fruit Fresh. Have lemon and mint two flavors, which give you most fresh feeling in the happiest moment!"
Love. His and Ryan's.
Oh, Michael thought blankly, legs in the air. He was in love. No one had told him. Someone should have. Someone that wasn't a condom wrapper.
Michael liked Ryan. He'd been pretty sure this was true, and not some PR thing that he'd managed to trick himself into believing, because he kept hanging out with Ryan even when Ryan did things like accidentally set the room on fire by leaving his underwear hanging over the lamp, or make Michael take his earbuds out just so Ryan could tell him jokes about talking muffins. He liked Ryan because he didn't have to think about liking him, he just did.
Except now Michael was thinking about it now, and the evidence was kind of obvious and terrifying. It wasn't just that they kept hanging out, because Michael hung out with a lot of people; it wasn't that Michael liked Ryan, because he liked a lot of people, and Ryan even seemed to like him back. It was that all the little likes seemed to build into something bigger, a lot like the way the pulses to his dick were twitching into a heavy, steady wall of pleasure.
He hugged Michael after all their races, even when he lost. He dropped condom balloons on three out of the four swimmers on the French 4x100 free relay team, and even used his cell phone to get a video clip of the actual moment of impact on Bernard, which was totally going on youtube as soon as possible. He borrowed Michael's iPod charger, clothes, comb, toothbrush, toothpaste, razor, shaving cream, shampoo, deodorant, and lotion without asking, and didn’t care if Michael did the same to him. He picked up the phone or texted back whenever Michael called, no matter what time zones either of them happened to be. He automatically took Michael's pickles and gave Michael his coleslaw whenever they ate together. He told Michael to come stay with him in Gainesville, and actually seemed to mean it.
At some point, when Michael wasn't looking or paying attention, all of those things had happened and they came to Beijing and Michael let Ryan blow him in public places and Ryan actually listened to Michael about wearing condoms, and now he was suddenly staring down the long path of a probably Ryan-involved future.
Weirdly enough, Michael wasn't too freaked out by it. That was the other kind of telling sign.
Ryan must have sensed something, though. Michael had stopped pushing his hips up, and Ryan pulled his fingers out and blinked at him with a foggy, sex-very-soon expression. "What's wrong?"
"You're, like, my long-distance boyfriend," Michael said, a little stunned. "We're fucking dating."
"Yeah, Mike." Ryan rolled his eyes, and went back to what he'd been doing. "Man, and they call me slow. I can't believe you just figured this out now."
Ryan's head could fit in a condom-- Michael knew this because they'd messed around with some of the condoms earlier, jamming arms and feet and whatever else they could stick in there, just to see if they could.
"Anyway, Sensational Joy," Ryan started to say, so Michael reached up, hauled Ryan down, and kissed him in a horrible awkward clash of teeth and tongues, because it was either that or kill him, and the IOC was stupidly strict about murder and would probably refuse to let him swim in London.
And apparently Ryan was his boyfriend or something. Who knew?
Ryan kissed back hard, which made Michael's dick jump all the way back into the fun. "Roll over, c'mon," Ryan said, and half-pushed Michael over himself, pulling the pillow out from underneath. Michael settled the rest of his way onto his stomach, arms wrapped around the pillow and his cheek pillowed in turn on his bicep.
Fumbling and the smell of something tropical, then one not particularly gentle thrust, two, and Ryan was all the way inside on the third. He bit Michael's shoulder and Michael rolled his hips. He pushed up on his elbows a little for leverage; Ryan pressed him back down; he rocked against Ryan, a full body motion that was much easier to pull off in the water where the water buoyed him up and he was only worrying about his own body's rhythm.
"Don't fucking rush me," Ryan said, his hair tickling between Michael's shoulder blades. He pressed his forehead against Michael's back, breathing hot against his skin. "It's cool, okay, I know you want it. We're going."
Being flat kept the angle from ideal, but Ryan hit the right one often enough so that it didn't matter, and Michael didn't feel bad about keeping his eyes closed, his mouth open, not caring if he was making a weird sex-face. He shifted and pushed back; they matched rhythm for five short thrusts, lost it, caught it for three long ones, lost it again. Ryan bit at him some more but not too hard, lips folded over his teeth. There were still going to be marks. His sweat smelled like coconut, a bitter chemical edge to it that made Michael want to bite back.
Michael talked a little, never really his thing but he was willing to make the effort, simple stuff like "yeah, there" and "harder" and "now" and "Ryan, c'mon, Ryan," until Ryan fucked the coherency out of him and all he could do was breath hard and groan.
The bed was creaking, and he heard faint rustles every few seconds as the condom packages fell off or their corners scratched against the sheets from the movement. He stopped trying to match Ryan's speed and movement, grabbed one of Ryan's hands, and shoved it into his crotch. Ryan pulled Michael up on his hands and knees, wrapped an arm around his waist, and jerked hard on Michael's dick, thumb rubbing pre-come and the remnants of whatever lube he'd had left over up and down the shaft. It smelled a little like what Michael figured fucking a fruit salad must be like, so he must have gotten the incisively infinite love condom after all. Whatever.
When Michael came, he bucked up almost hard enough to throw Ryan off, and Ryan rose with him, supporting most of his weight on his knees so that they dug deep pits into the mattress.
Ryan took his time getting off, which he probably deserved for staying on focus for as long as he had, so Michael tried to stay with him as much as possible instead of lying there completely boneless. It wasn't bad. Getting fucked without the distraction of needing to get himself off was relaxing somehow, like getting a massage after a race. He stretched out like he was in streamline, and Ryan slid his hands down Michael's arms until they locked around his wrists. Slow, slower, sudden burst of speed to the finish, and done.
The whole bed felt damp. Ryan moved back just enough to pull out and get the condom off. He tossed it over the edge of the bed and flopped back down. Michael tried to see where it landed, because they were going to have to clean the place up eventually and otherwise one of them was going to accidentally step on it.
There was a long silence, where Michael figured the options were either to fall asleep immediately or actually acknowledge his tropical condom epiphany.
"Uh," Michael said.
"Fuck, you're gonna get weird about this, aren’t you?" Ryan asked.
"Apparently I've been dating you for a while and didn't know it," Michael muttered into the pillow. "You're not weirded out?"
"We don't have to actually talk about it," Ryan pointed out, which immediately made Ryan the best person Michael had ever dated, knowingly or not, and Michael actually considered really giving him a million dollars.
"Wait, wait a sec," Ryan said before Michael could give away all his foundation's money. He clambered off the bed, and went out onto the balcony again.
A distant splash, and more profanity getting shrieked. French again. For someone who'd accidentally destroyed a Guitar Hero guitar console, two Wii controllers, God only knew how many skateboards, and had just come about five minutes ago, Ryan had remarkably good aim and hand-eye coordination. And a weird sixth-sense for pranking, but that was just Ryan.
"Bernard come back for more, what?" Michael said idly. He figured he'd think about moving again at some point. Maybe in an hour. Or two.
"No, I got the other guy who's always in the Cube, the short one who dives." Ryan leaned over the balcony. "Despot, or something."
"Despatie." Michael frowned. "Actually, I think he's Canadian."
"Really? Eh, motherfucker," Ryan said victoriously. "I told you that you should have let me put maple syrup in at least some of them."
"Yeah," Michael said. He put his hands behind his head and smiled at the ceiling. "I totally should listen to you more often."
"Jeah, for real," Ryan said, and then he got serious so quickly that Michael actually saw the exact instant where all the triumph and happiness drained out of his face like water, leaving him somber and thoughtful. It was like visual whiplash, and it caught him off guard so that he stared blankly when Ryan said, "seriously, I'm giving you a pass on talking about this, so don't flip out about it or anything. Because I maybe kind of like hanging with you, and it would suck if you got all weird about it and I'd have to find someone else's ass to kick."
"I think we just talked about it," Michael pointed out. "And you can't kick my ass, I beat yours so hard it's not even funny. Anyway, it's--"
He thought carefully about it, harder than he tended to make his brain work after coming twice inside forty five minutes. "I'm cool with it. I guess. If you are."
And hell, Michael figured that was good enough for now. He had eight gold medals, a million dollars, a garbage bag of condoms, and a gold medallist Olympic probably-boyfriend who gave great head. Life could be a lot worse.
"I'm not giving you retroactive anniversary shit, though," he added,
"Whatever, you still owe me a million dollars," Ryan said. He grinned, and just like that, everything was normal again. He flexed. "I'm kind of worth it."
"Yeah," Michael said, grinning back. "I guess you are."
He stretched. "You want to," he started to ask, when Ryan said, "Oh shit, c'mere, German water polo team!" and Michael got up and went.
He could earn his million dollars back later. He figured he'd definitely have the opportunity.
Completely Totally Unnecessary Last Minute Author Notes:
Big thanks to twigcollins for advising on the last minute title change. The Elasun ads are totally worth checking out, by the way.
You know, originally I had them on the roof, dropping condom water balloons on people. And I thought, Gee, maybe I should take another look at the Beijing Olympic Village housing so I can actually know what it looks like. And it is totally nice! Like, really nice! But in high-rise complexes, and I thought, Great googly moogly, they can't be dropping shit from that high, they'll kill people. …Or will they?
So, I tried to do a ridiculous amount of math to figure out how fast a water balloon dropped from a high-rise apartment building would be going, and then remembered, Wait, Thorne, you can't do regular math, let along physics! So, I said, screw it, and googled "how high drop water balloons deadly". And the ever-glorious xkcd forums provided the answer. In short:
Assumed a spherical water balloon weighing about 1 kg (that is, a few pounds)… the terminal velocity of the water balloon is about 50 m/s. How much force does that transfer to the person? The change in momentum will be something less than (mass)*(velocity), because clearly not all of the water will just come to a complete stop on top of your head (most of it will splash and continue going down.) To be conservative let's say 2/3 of the mass comes to a complete stop on your head, so the impulse = change in momentum times 2/3:
I = 2/3*(50 m/s)*(1 kg) =33.333 kg m/s
The average force will be I/(time duration of impact… Let's say the impact only lasts for .1 seconds. Or, to make it even scarier, how about .075 seconds. So, then, the average force will be I/(.075 s):
F = 444.4 Newtons.
The National Highway and Safety Administration have come up with some estimates about the sudden impact forces a human can withstand. As it turns out, they estimate ranges for average males, females, and children, and came up with a fatality value of about 65g if the impact is taken to the chest, side, back, or head. Let's lower that to 50g just to be on the safe side: 50g = 490 Newtons. So, we see that the average force from a terminal velocity water balloon is not equal to the ability of the human head to withstand force!
In conclusion, yes, they probably could have bombed Alain Bernard with a condom balloon from the roof of a high-rise and not done him any real damage. This has been your fun mathematical fact for the day.
Man, I used up a lot of condoms while writing this, which led to some awkward conversations with the neighbors. "Lovely weather we're having. So, was that you on the roof yesterday, dropping… things?" Yes. Yes, Mrs. Smith, it was me. Lovely weather indeed.
Title: Sports Make You Health
Summary: It took Michael a long time to figure out that he and Ryan were actually dating, which totally wasn't his fault.
Warning & Disclaimer: This is a work of fantasy. None of the actions portrayed by the people herein are reflective of real life.
Notes: For missanee, who wanted Ryan/Michael, and splitting_minds, who wanted anti-smarm Ryan/Michael, with a side order of Despatie. Sorry if it got a trifle smarmy; I was trying to kill two birds with one stone.
Title is from the Elasun Olympic ad.
It took Michael a long time to figure out that he and Ryan were actually dating, which totally wasn't his fault. It probably had to do with the fact that Ryan's idea of a quality date was to drag Michael to the closest medical center within the Village and collect extra condoms so that they could make water balloons and nail unsuspecting athletes from the balcony of their housing apartment, regardless of sport, nationality, or medal standing.
"I like how this is going to, like, get our asses kicked by the entire world and maybe the UN," Michael said.
"Shut up, target at five o'clock," Ryan said, and put his hand out.
"You don’t even know that means. You’re totally just picking numbers," Michael said, but reached out from his spot on the chaise lounge and handed him a condom balloon anyway, idly wiping the lube residue off on his thigh. A few seconds later, there was a splash and a lot of loud swearing; judging from the accent and choice of profanity, Michael figured Ryan had gotten another Australian. He kind of had a thing about Australians.
Ryan ducked down next to him, still cackling. "Bullseye, man. Fucking epic."
"Why Australians?" Michael asked.
"All the green and yellow. They're the easiest to spot," Ryan said, and Michael figured that did make a lot of sense when he thought about it.
Next to them, the garbage bag filled with unused condoms gaped open, spilling dozens of foil packets onto the ground; they caught the sun and cast a dappled pattern of light onto Michael's feet. A whole garbage bag, and Michael still wasn't sure how they'd gotten that many out of the volunteer at the center, who had been, like, a tiny elderly lady half his height and definitely someone's grandmother. That hadn't stopped Ryan from slapping a condom down on the counter, giving her his best shit-eating grin, and rattling off the only Mandarin he knew, "Ni hao, ce suo zai nar, xie xie?"
She'd given them each a pamphlet on safe sex, which only had two condoms each inside, so Michael haltingly used the few phrases they'd made him learn (which were actually supposed to be common phrases used for street bartering, so he really hoped he hadn't accidentally propositioned her for sex or anything) to try for more. That got her to pull a bowl of condoms out from under the counter and flourish it at him, like she was offering him after-dinner mints. Ryan's eyes had lit up, and he'd shoved Michael forward and hissed, "Dude, ask for more, ask for a lot more," and Michael had hissed back, "Rosetta Stone didn't teach me the Chinese to ask for condoms in multiples of a thousand."
But somehow they'd gotten the message across, because they walked away with more condoms than Michael was pretty sure he could use in five years, and that would only be if he were the sort of person who regularly banged someone new after every meal, with a three o'clock triplets special. Not the kind of person who trained under Bob Bowman and regularly had to weigh jerking off against napping, when napping won 95% of the time.
"Yeah, I don't know what you think you're gonna do with these, because I'm leaving for London soon and I have plans to, uh, eat and sleep at some point," Michael said dubiously.
"We're gonna have fun," Ryan said. "Plus, they're free, and there's like, all these extra ones that people haven't used yet. That ain't right. We gotta represent America proud."
And it was fun, once they'd figured out the ideal water to condom ratio, and that they needed a pinhole poked through the neck right before launching for maximum splatter impact. Otherwise, sometimes they bounced. ("This is bullshit," Ryan complained after the first few attempts. "They're condoms, they're not really supposed to break," Michael said. "Man, you better hope Aaron doesn't really have a concussion from that because Brendan and Ian are gonna kill you so much.")
The filled condoms had been wobbly and hard to carry; they'd had to make several trips back and forth from the bathroom, carting them in towel slings until Ryan thought they had enough arsenal to last for a good time. Michael was pretty sure he was supposed to be doing something else, like having an interview or endorsing a product, and not lying on a towel and listening to Ryan annoy half the free world, but it was hot and his Blackberry was on vibrate and lying at least five feet away. Reluctantly, he sat up and started reaching for it.
Ryan peered over the edge of the railing and made frantic motions with one hand. "Dude, quick, quick, I see Bernard!"
What the hell, Michael thought, and grabbed the biggest condom balloon he could find instead. He was only going to live once.
"Man, he's a sprinter. You think he'd be tired by now," Ryan said, as he hid behind the sliding door curtains and Michael slouched down as low in the chair as he could. Ten minutes, and Alain didn't seem to be anywhere near done with yelling, a whole tidal wave of angry French that was probably about their parentage and an unspecified array of barnyard animals.
"Yeah, you'd think," Michael said, and rearranged his towel.
"It was worth it," Ryan said, and Michael couldn't help grinning, because, well, yeah, it totally was. The only way it could be better would be if he'd actually let Ryan fill some of the condoms with maple syrup or soy sauce the way he'd wanted to. He was kind of starting to regret saying no.
Beijing summer sky above him: apocalyptic clouds and scorched ozone, and the humidity made the pollution feel like it was sticking to his skin like film. Beneath them, the rest of the Olympic Village was as close to peaceful as it got, except for Alain and the mingled noise of multiple stereos simultaneously playing country, rap, pop, and rock in at least a dozen different languages. Michael picked out German, Chinese, Spanish, and what might have been Russian or might have been a cat being run backwards through a blender before he stopped listening.
It was nice to sit still, to not care about anything for a while except how much he kind of wanted a Dominos’ MeatZZa Feast pizza, with maybe some Cinna-stix. Even people giving him free shit, like the watches and certificates and all the millions of pieces of clothing with Speedo logos on them was getting to be a hassle, because then he had to smile and pose while mentally trying to figure out where he was going to store it in a packed room that was already overflowing with Ryan’s free stuff as well.
Some random woman had even handed him her baby yesterday after the press conference, speaking to him in a rapid-stutter flood of incomprehensible Chinese, and he'd been briefly panicked over the thought she was trying to give that to him as well. It turned out she'd just wanted a picture of him with the baby. It had been tiny and very new. The woman had cooed to try and get it to smile, and Michael had sort of jiggled it with one arm and made faces, but neither attempt helped. It had that mistrustful, crumpled look that he remembered from when Whitney's first kid was born, as though it was fully expecting Michael to drop it at any second. It was a relief to give it back.
It was really nice not to have anyone asking whom he was fucking. Morals clause aside, it would be ten kinds of awkward to admit that Ryan Lochte was the first person other than his right hand that he'd gotten off with in over eight months.
Alain must have given up and Ryan seemed to be regrouping for the moment, because no one was swearing at them in any foreign languages. Michael leaned down and picked up a water balloon in each hand, carefully weighing them. He rolled them around in his hands until the reservoir tips faced outward.
"Check it out," he said, and pressed them against his chest, arching his back and leering. "Amanda."
"Dude, no way, she's totally barely a B-cup," Ryan said, and snickered anyway, which was really one of the reasons Michael liked him, aside from the blowjobs and the mutual appreciation for rap music and the perfection of the Big Mac. He squinted at Michael thoughtfully. "Huh. You know, you'd make a really ugly woman."
Michael squeezed them carefully, and made them jiggle. "Whatever. You're just jealous because you know I'd have better tits than you would."
"No fucking way," Ryan said, "if I was a girl, my tits would be fucking awesome and you know it. I'd be stacked."
He tried to tweak the reservoir tip. Michael elbowed his hand away and nearly lost the condom on his right side. "Don’t touch my fake tits without permission, jackass. Have a little manners."
"Dude, cocktease," Ryan said, and grabbed again. In the struggle, Michael ended up losing the right one after all when he managed to burst it on Ryan's head. There was no use being lopsided after that, so he tried to shove the second one down the back of Ryan’s shorts before Ryan could grab it, never mind that there were still dozens of other condoms waiting to be used. But Ryan sat down on Michael, so Michael wedgied him, and in all the scuffling, they lost about ten other condoms in collateral damage. The cleaning staff was probably going to kill them.
"You didn't even get to name your tits," Ryan said a little mournfully, and shook his hair like a dog, scattering droplets everywhere. "Don't girls do that?"
"Yeah, except where I'm not a girl, cocktard." Michael ran his fingers through the water on his chest, flicked it into the air.
"I named my balls," Ryan offered, and then, with one of his typical cow-on-the-train-tracks sudden subject changes, "what are you going to do with your million bucks?"
Michael shrugged. “Charity. Peter had that established, like, way back in Athens. He’s got the foundation set up already and everything. Just gotta get the check.”
"You should buy me a new grill."
"You'd just lose it. Again."
Ryan flopped down beside him, sitting on the chair's armrest and trying to steal more of the towel to wipe his face against. Michael shoved back. “I need that million bucks more than your orphans with diseases do,” Ryan said seriously. "I'm the best thing that ever happened to you."
“Yeah, thanks, Bob Costas. And it’s not orphans with diseases,” Michael said, although that wasn’t a bad idea. He might get to meet Angelina Jolie, though it was just as possible she'd warn him to back off her shtick. She would have totally taken that woman's baby. "It's water safety. And promoting swimming."
"Well, duh," Ryan said. "You don't know how to do anything else."
"Fuck off, asshole," Michael said, eyes still closed, and then opened them again in a real hurry when Ryan said, “Okay, cool,” and started yanking on Michael’s shorts.
"Whoa," Michael said, and started to sit up while his dick eagerly fought all the hours of lecturing they'd had to get from the crash course in Olympic etiquette, AKA Don't Be Bode Miller, You Little Shits, Or We'll Beat You With Your Own Medals. "What?"
"What?" Ryan asked. "You said."
"Yeah, okay, just," Michael said, hands gesturing aimlessly in the air and unwilling to bat Ryan away, but feeling like he had to put up some kind of token argument. “Right here? For real?”
"Why not?" Ryan asked. He stopped working on Michael’s shorts long enough to sit back on his heels and take off his shirt. "No one else is in the apartment. And we have, like, a shitload of condoms. What else should we do?"
Michael opened his mouth to reply and then stopped because, hell, what Ryan said actually made sense. And wow, that was kind of fucked up. He really should record the moment for posterity.
"I mean, we can go back into the room if you're worried about your delicate skin getting sunburned, princess," Ryan said, and just for that, Michael grabbed the nearest water balloon and winged it at him, though not as hard as he could have. Ryan dodged; the balloon sailed over the railing and burst on the next balcony over. "Yeah, I thought so."
Every year or so, Peter sat him down at Octagon and gave him lectures on shit he wasn't allowed to get caught doing, with everything ranked by how bad it would look on the news and how much money it would take to make it go away if he were caught doing it. There were graphs and a point system and everything. Most of it was pretty straightforward; some of it was stuff he couldn't ever imagine doing (seriously, goats?), but he figured somebody must have tried it at least once for it to have made the list.
Drugs usually topped the list, but getting caught having sex in public was definitely in the top ten. Doing it without a condom was also pretty bad, so maybe he'd win a few points back by the fact he had, like, five hundred of them.
And it might have been the air pollution rotting his brain, but Michael couldn't actually think of a real downside to getting laid on a fifth floor balcony of the United States Swimming housing unit in the Olympic Village, so he said, "Yeah, okay," and flopped back down in the chair expectantly.
"I'm not doing all the work, you douche," Ryan said impatiently, and slapped at Michael's thigh. "Not unless you give me a million dollars, so get your bitch ass in gear."
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure there's nothing you could do to me that would be worth a million dollars." Michael waved at his crotch. "Feel free to give it your best shot, though."
"That's a verbal contract. That totally counts." Ryan jabbed at whatever part of Michael he wanted him to shift or lift as he pulled at Michael's clothes. "You should hire someone to dress you. Get someone other than Speedo to send you something. Get Armani to send you more free shit. Get some fashion."
"I'm not wearing the fucking Ralph Lauren thing, I'm not even going to be here," Michael muttered. He lifted both arms and Ryan yanked his shirt off and tossed it aside; hips up, and there went his underwear. "Easy with the goods, man."
"Pussy." Ryan poked Michael's navel. "Shit, dude. You know, if you got this pierced, it would totally qualify as, like, a Prince Albert."
"Quit it," Michael said, and squirmed a little, so of course Ryan had to poke his belly button again, and Michael missed kneeing Ryan in the chin by about two inches. It would have mostly been an accident.
Ryan pulled the towel out from beneath Michael and draped it over the balcony railing edge with a flourish. "There. Curtain. Totally private. Let's get to the red hot dickings."
"Did you seriously just say red hot dickings?" Michael asked incredulously, squinting up into the sun. "Okay, that's, like, a lameness penalty of at least ten grand off the million. Twenty grand."
"Bitch, bitch, bitch."
Ryan smelled like sweat and sunblock, a whiff of chemical coconut that could have also been from the condoms. Latex, too. It almost made Michael feel like he was at the doctor's or getting a drug test, or something. Though the doctor usually didn't sit on Michael's thighs, grind against his cock, and bite random patterns into his chest and collarbones, while muttering surprisingly dirty half-sentences about voyeurism and fucking in the open and giving Bob Costas a cheap thrill.
Too bad, he figured. More people might actually report their whereabouts to the USADA if they knew they could count on getting head after being stuck with a needle.
The balcony wasn't really big enough for the both of them, especially after Michael had dragged the lounge chair (stolen, with no small amount of effort, from the residential area pool) out there. Ryan couldn't crouch over Michael comfortably without his knees banging into either the railing or the wall; Michael had already hit his head twice against the back of the chair trying to hitch himself up far enough to give Ryan room to sit on the end of the lounge. Then, when Ryan did fit himself on the end of it, Michael shifted the wrong way, and the whole thing nearly collapsed.
"I don't think this is load-bearing furniture." Michael shifted again. He remembered playing with Whitney and Hilary at the pool, taking turns sitting on the lounge chairs and carefully balancing, so that when one of them got up, they could jolt the other off with the sudden shift of weight. "Ow."
"Stand up, then."
"I'm not standing." Michael stretched carefully. "That's work."
"Lazy motherfucker," Ryan mumbled into his collarbone. "No blowjob."
"One million dollars," Michael said.
"Go flat," Ryan said, getting up. Michael adjusted the chair and did; though he could already tell it wasn't going to make things much better, even if Ryan switched directions. Sixty-nining was great in porn, where the beds were huge and no one looked like they were in danger of falling off during the best parts. It was less fun when the metal support bars of the chair were digging into his back and Ryan hadn't even taken off his boxer-briefs yet; Michael wouldn't have anything to look at.
Ryan just lay down on top of him, apparently all out of drive, which was totally unfair when he'd been the one to get Michael's hopes up with the promise of balcony sex. It was too hot to have so much of Ryan above him, covering him, but he didn't want to push Ryan off either. Michael didn’t know where to put his arms or legs; he half-heartedly tried to cross his ankles in the small of Ryan's back, but it was too much effort to keep them there and he let himself just go limp, shifting every now and then to get some contact against his dick.
After a few minutes, it wasn't so bad anymore, even if it didn't look like he was going to get a blowjob any time soon. Ryan dug his chin into the hollow of Michael's shoulder and mouthed at his neck. Michael scratched Ryan's back a little, and tried to figure out how to jumpstart Ryan again. It was weird; usually it was totally the other way around.
"I’m naked," Michael said helpfully. "I have no clothes on."
"No shit, Sherlock." Ryan didn't do anything but bite a little harder on Michael's neck.
"I want million dollar head," Michael muttered. "This is totally not worth a million dollars."
"You are such a whiner," Ryan said, and rolled off him to land heavily on the ground, condom balloons wobbling merrily away in his wake. "Okay, get up." He tugged Michael off the chair, and pushed him up against the railing with his back to it, right where the towel was hanging. "Stay there."
Michael resisted the urge to turn his head and check for other people out on the other balconies. The heat trapped by the metal railings seeped through the towel against his lower back and ass and legs. He could already feel sweat forming behind his knees. He rested his hands lightly against the rail; it was like trying to drive after leaving his car parked in the sun for a long time, too-hot steering wheel under his grip.
Ryan looked at the concrete floor, and then looked at the towel. Michael could practically see the wheels turning in his head. His own brain was churning out possible scenarios for the next thirty seconds-- Ryan taking the towel to kneel on (probable blowjob, good. Someone nearby getting naked photos of him during the blowjob he would be unable to turn down, bad. Overall outcome: bad); Ryan going back into the room for another towel or pillow (delayed blowjob, bad. Ryan probably getting distracted and leaving Michael with blue-balls, bad. Overall outcome: very bad); Ryan wanting to try some weird alternate position where Michael sat on the railing (probable blowjob, good. Michael losing his balance and tumbling naked to his death from the balcony, bad. Overall outcome: extremely bad); or Michael speaking up like, now, with another suggestion (probable blowjob, good. Lack of death or Octagon and/or Speedo bitchfits, good. Overall outcome: hopeful).
"It would work better with the chair," he said, before Ryan could grab away the only barrier between his bare ass and the general population of China, or abandon the whole activity for something shiny.
"It would work better if you shut up." Ryan hitched the lounge chair over anyway, and sat down at eye-level with Michael's dick.
Ryan's hands were hot and still a little sticky with condom lube. He smiled up at Michael, the same look he always had whenever he was about to convince Michael to try something completely stupid and probably awesome. He sucked Michael's dick into his mouth, cupped his balls in one hand, and his tongue swirled, seeking. The inside of his mouth was wet and warm, but Michael didn't mind that anymore, didn't want to do anything except push further into the heat.
"Fuck, shit, fuck," Michael said, and tried really hard not to be a jerk and shove forwards too much. Ryan laughed, though it was more of a snort, and the vibration around his dick felt so good that it made his toes curl. He grabbed the railing tight, even though it burned his hands.
Ryan went slow but steady, taking it easy. That was fine; that was better; it was easier to move with his rhythm. He could feel sweat prickling all over him, between his shoulder blades, in his armpits, and behind his thighs. Michael rested one hand shakily on top of Ryan's head and shifted his weight backwards and forwards, barely noticing whether or not the towel was still hanging straight. The whole United States team and Rowdy Gaines could have been standing on the other balconies yelling play-by-play commentary, and he wouldn't have been able to bring himself to give a shit.
It was almost a relief when Ryan stopped because Michael didn't want to come yet, trying to hold on for just a little longer. Ryan pulled his mouth off but kept rolling Michael's balls with one hand. He lifted his other hand up to his mouth like he was going to cough, and spat twice. It registered vaguely as a warning in Michael's mind, but he was too busy thinking of 200 IM split times.
"I wish I had my slingshot," Ryan said, and at the same time grabbed the base of Michael's dick and simultaneously pushed two fingers knuckle-deep into Michael. "We could be getting more distance. We could hit, you know, Sweden. In the next dorm over."
Michael meant to reply, but it came out strangled. He was coming, except he wasn't; it was trapped in the middle of his dick somewhere, with nowhere to go. He made a really embarrassing noise, and Ryan, that asshole, just laughed like a maniac.
"Holy fuck, I wish I had my phone. That's totally ring tone material." Ryan kept his grip, and squeezed a little tighter. Michael whined. "Shut up, I know what I'm doing,"
"I'm not--" Michael said, hips jerking forward automatically when Ryan curled both fingers and rubbed. "Just, there's lube in the bag."
"Man, I knew that old lady wanted a piece of you." Ryan shook his head. "Yeah, no. Okay, it's too fucking hot out here."
Ryan let go of the base and sucked hard on the head of his dick. It was almost a disappointment to come so fast. But Michael let his back arch and his knees lock, eyes squeezed shut in order to enjoy it as long as he could, and came, and came, and came, the last spurt feeling like it was being pulled from somewhere spine-deep, just on the edge of painful.
Ryan pulled off and out and wiped his hand against the towel. He stood up and spat his mouthful of come over the railing edge, which made Michael wince and really hope no one was walking by down below. He rubbed at the back of his neck and popped his jaw. "Okay, I'm pretty awesome, but one of us is totally gonna fall off the balcony if we stay out here."
"Yeah," Michael agreed, still feeling a little dazed, and followed Ryan back into the room without even bothering to put the towel on or shut the sliding door before he collapsed on the bed.
After a few minutes, the air conditioning cleared his head a little bit, and made him inclined to be more concerned about reciprocal blowjob etiquette. Ryan was sitting on the floor, picking through the packets of condoms that they hadn't used or destroyed.
"Found the lube," Ryan said, without turning around. "What's lychee?"
"Dunno," Michael said, staring at the ceiling. "But Aaron ate, like, a whole thing of strawberry lube on a dare once. Back in Sydney."
"What the hell, seriously?" Ryan sounded like he didn't know whether to be more impressed or grossed out. "Like, how?"
"He got peanut butter and made PBJ's with it."
Michael had tried a bite. It hadn't been too horrible, actually.
Ryan started lobbing condom packets at him from across the room. Michael swatted the first couple away, and then sat up before Ryan could start reaching for the balloons. "C'mere," he said. Ryan groaned, but got up and walked over.
"C'mere," Michael said again, and hooked his thumbs into the waistband of Ryan's boxer-briefs and tugged them down to Ryan's knees. Ryan put a hand on Michael's shoulder to steady himself and stepped out of them completely, dick bobbing with the motion.
Michael ran his thumb down the length of it, and Ryan made a happy, surprised noise that shot right back to Michael's dick, waking up for round two. He did it again, a little harder, then leaned forward and wrapped his whole hand around it, a softer stroke. He let go.
"Ryan," Michael said, just to feel the shape of the name in his mouth.
"Hey," Ryan said. He flicked Michael's left ear. "Dork."
"Loser." Michael bracketed his hands on Ryan's hips to hold him still where he was. He licked a stripe on Ryan's stomach, down his navel and stopping just before where it would get interesting. There was the prickle of the returning shaved hair against his tongue, and coconut.
"Did you put sunblock on your dick?" Michael licked further down, and then again. Yep. "Why the fuck would you do that?"
"You were being a selfish asshole and said I couldn't use your Kiehls if I kept jerking off with it," Ryan said.
"You used, like, half the bottle in two days. It's expensive. Get your own." He licked again and grimaced. "You're ruining piña coladas for me. They're all gonna taste like your dick."
"You drink piña coladas?" Ryan didn't seem to be able to decide whether to squirm away or push forward for more. "You got a vagina you aren't telling me about, Mike? Because, extra holes, I'm all over that, man."
"Don't even start with me, Lochte." Michael breathed on Ryan's dick, and leaned back when Ryan decided to push rather than squirm. "Kaitlin Sandeno told me all about the Cosmos incident at the Shanghai short courses."
"I had a handicap," Ryan said, with dignity. "I started off way more drunk than she did."
"You're totally handicapped," Michael agreed, and started trying to spell M-I-C-H-A-E-L with the tip of his tongue on Ryan's dick. He got to H before Ryan dropped his double handful of condoms on the bed, planted the heel of his hand against Michael's chest, and pushed him down to sprawl flat on the bed.
Michael looked up at him. "No?"
"You said you didn't want to do any work." Ryan pushed at Michael's legs until he swung them up onto the bed and lay lengthwise. "I'm not letting you weasel out of paying me."
"Okay. You can go ahead and fuck me now, dude," Michael said, because he kind of liked seeing Ryan's eyes get all big and his mouth go a little slack, like a kid who'd found a key to the candy store.
"You gotta wear a condom," he added as an afterthought, because he'd forgotten earlier and both Bob and Peter probably had unsafe sex alarms going off in the backs of their heads. Which-- ew. Bob probably had no idea of the sheer number of times he'd successfully cockblocked Michael without even being around, just from the memory of his sex lectures, most of which seemed geared towards horses rather than people.
Nothing killed a hard-on faster than a flash of Bob Bowman glaring and muttering about gelding. He could patent that shit.
"I like how you only remember in time for me to have to wear one," Ryan said, but he was already fumbling through the condoms and single-serving-size packets of lube that he'd brought over.
"Yeah, you know I hate to disappoint you," Michael said, "but I don't think we're gonna need all of those."
"All part of the million dollar package," Ryan said. "'Sides, you never know about later."
Ryan got on the bed and crawled between Michael's legs, pushing his knees apart. Michael fumbled for a pillow to stick under himself, because if they were doing this face to face, the last thing he needed was to fuck up his back in a repeat of post-Athens. Facedown would probably be easier, but Ryan seemed to be in a making-out mood so far, and that was different enough that Michael figured he should go with it.
He followed the pressure of Ryan's palms, letting one leg get bent back against his chest and hooking the other up over Ryan's shoulder. Ryan was methodically ripping open lube packets, squeezing them into a glob on his palm, and then dropping them on the floor. Michael snickered at the look of concentration on his face and got ready to flinch from the lube, but it was warm, either from Ryan's hands or from being left out in the sun on the balcony most of the day. He breathed deep anyway when Ryan pushed a finger into him again, slowly this time.
"Okay?"
"You're supposed to be trying to go for better than okay," Michael said.
"Douchebag," Ryan said affectionately, and hummed under his breath a little. It was familiar, and Michael thought he might be getting fingered to the beat of Lollipop.
His dick wasn't quite back in the game completely yet but getting there, little buzzes of pleasure that were getting more frequent, connecting into something stronger. He shifted his leg on Ryan's shoulder, lifting his heel up and then letting it thump down again, somewhere in the vicinity of the alligator tattoo. He wondered what it felt like to get something inked on the shoulder instead of the hip.
Ryan leaned in, and his mouth was suddenly close like, whoa. Michael stared at it, kind of transfixed, and almost missed the actual words when Ryan licked his lips and gave Michael a solemn look. "Do you want Sensational Joy, Garden Pleasant, Fruit Fresh, or Exotic Romantic Flower?"
Michael blinked.
"Because I gotta say, you look like an Exotic Romantic Flower to me," Ryan said. He squinted down at the tiny print on the pastel-colored condom package. "With Jasmine and Tutti-Fruit flavors, which give you the most romantic feeling at the happiest moment. The market research result indicates there are eighty one percent female consumers are very comfort with this type."
"Tutti Frutti isn't a flower," Michael said stupidly, before his brain could catch up with his mouth.
"Eighty one percent, Mike," Ryan said happily. "Or, you know, Garden Pleasant. The natural delicate fragrance, the banana, the orange, and the pineapple three kind of combinations, just makes your love incisively infinite!"
"Incisively infinite," Michael repeated, and what the fuck did that even mean?
"Our love is," Ryan agreed. "Fruit Fresh. Have lemon and mint two flavors, which give you most fresh feeling in the happiest moment!"
Love. His and Ryan's.
Oh, Michael thought blankly, legs in the air. He was in love. No one had told him. Someone should have. Someone that wasn't a condom wrapper.
Michael liked Ryan. He'd been pretty sure this was true, and not some PR thing that he'd managed to trick himself into believing, because he kept hanging out with Ryan even when Ryan did things like accidentally set the room on fire by leaving his underwear hanging over the lamp, or make Michael take his earbuds out just so Ryan could tell him jokes about talking muffins. He liked Ryan because he didn't have to think about liking him, he just did.
Except now Michael was thinking about it now, and the evidence was kind of obvious and terrifying. It wasn't just that they kept hanging out, because Michael hung out with a lot of people; it wasn't that Michael liked Ryan, because he liked a lot of people, and Ryan even seemed to like him back. It was that all the little likes seemed to build into something bigger, a lot like the way the pulses to his dick were twitching into a heavy, steady wall of pleasure.
He hugged Michael after all their races, even when he lost. He dropped condom balloons on three out of the four swimmers on the French 4x100 free relay team, and even used his cell phone to get a video clip of the actual moment of impact on Bernard, which was totally going on youtube as soon as possible. He borrowed Michael's iPod charger, clothes, comb, toothbrush, toothpaste, razor, shaving cream, shampoo, deodorant, and lotion without asking, and didn’t care if Michael did the same to him. He picked up the phone or texted back whenever Michael called, no matter what time zones either of them happened to be. He automatically took Michael's pickles and gave Michael his coleslaw whenever they ate together. He told Michael to come stay with him in Gainesville, and actually seemed to mean it.
At some point, when Michael wasn't looking or paying attention, all of those things had happened and they came to Beijing and Michael let Ryan blow him in public places and Ryan actually listened to Michael about wearing condoms, and now he was suddenly staring down the long path of a probably Ryan-involved future.
Weirdly enough, Michael wasn't too freaked out by it. That was the other kind of telling sign.
Ryan must have sensed something, though. Michael had stopped pushing his hips up, and Ryan pulled his fingers out and blinked at him with a foggy, sex-very-soon expression. "What's wrong?"
"You're, like, my long-distance boyfriend," Michael said, a little stunned. "We're fucking dating."
"Yeah, Mike." Ryan rolled his eyes, and went back to what he'd been doing. "Man, and they call me slow. I can't believe you just figured this out now."
Ryan's head could fit in a condom-- Michael knew this because they'd messed around with some of the condoms earlier, jamming arms and feet and whatever else they could stick in there, just to see if they could.
"Anyway, Sensational Joy," Ryan started to say, so Michael reached up, hauled Ryan down, and kissed him in a horrible awkward clash of teeth and tongues, because it was either that or kill him, and the IOC was stupidly strict about murder and would probably refuse to let him swim in London.
And apparently Ryan was his boyfriend or something. Who knew?
Ryan kissed back hard, which made Michael's dick jump all the way back into the fun. "Roll over, c'mon," Ryan said, and half-pushed Michael over himself, pulling the pillow out from underneath. Michael settled the rest of his way onto his stomach, arms wrapped around the pillow and his cheek pillowed in turn on his bicep.
Fumbling and the smell of something tropical, then one not particularly gentle thrust, two, and Ryan was all the way inside on the third. He bit Michael's shoulder and Michael rolled his hips. He pushed up on his elbows a little for leverage; Ryan pressed him back down; he rocked against Ryan, a full body motion that was much easier to pull off in the water where the water buoyed him up and he was only worrying about his own body's rhythm.
"Don't fucking rush me," Ryan said, his hair tickling between Michael's shoulder blades. He pressed his forehead against Michael's back, breathing hot against his skin. "It's cool, okay, I know you want it. We're going."
Being flat kept the angle from ideal, but Ryan hit the right one often enough so that it didn't matter, and Michael didn't feel bad about keeping his eyes closed, his mouth open, not caring if he was making a weird sex-face. He shifted and pushed back; they matched rhythm for five short thrusts, lost it, caught it for three long ones, lost it again. Ryan bit at him some more but not too hard, lips folded over his teeth. There were still going to be marks. His sweat smelled like coconut, a bitter chemical edge to it that made Michael want to bite back.
Michael talked a little, never really his thing but he was willing to make the effort, simple stuff like "yeah, there" and "harder" and "now" and "Ryan, c'mon, Ryan," until Ryan fucked the coherency out of him and all he could do was breath hard and groan.
The bed was creaking, and he heard faint rustles every few seconds as the condom packages fell off or their corners scratched against the sheets from the movement. He stopped trying to match Ryan's speed and movement, grabbed one of Ryan's hands, and shoved it into his crotch. Ryan pulled Michael up on his hands and knees, wrapped an arm around his waist, and jerked hard on Michael's dick, thumb rubbing pre-come and the remnants of whatever lube he'd had left over up and down the shaft. It smelled a little like what Michael figured fucking a fruit salad must be like, so he must have gotten the incisively infinite love condom after all. Whatever.
When Michael came, he bucked up almost hard enough to throw Ryan off, and Ryan rose with him, supporting most of his weight on his knees so that they dug deep pits into the mattress.
Ryan took his time getting off, which he probably deserved for staying on focus for as long as he had, so Michael tried to stay with him as much as possible instead of lying there completely boneless. It wasn't bad. Getting fucked without the distraction of needing to get himself off was relaxing somehow, like getting a massage after a race. He stretched out like he was in streamline, and Ryan slid his hands down Michael's arms until they locked around his wrists. Slow, slower, sudden burst of speed to the finish, and done.
The whole bed felt damp. Ryan moved back just enough to pull out and get the condom off. He tossed it over the edge of the bed and flopped back down. Michael tried to see where it landed, because they were going to have to clean the place up eventually and otherwise one of them was going to accidentally step on it.
There was a long silence, where Michael figured the options were either to fall asleep immediately or actually acknowledge his tropical condom epiphany.
"Uh," Michael said.
"Fuck, you're gonna get weird about this, aren’t you?" Ryan asked.
"Apparently I've been dating you for a while and didn't know it," Michael muttered into the pillow. "You're not weirded out?"
"We don't have to actually talk about it," Ryan pointed out, which immediately made Ryan the best person Michael had ever dated, knowingly or not, and Michael actually considered really giving him a million dollars.
"Wait, wait a sec," Ryan said before Michael could give away all his foundation's money. He clambered off the bed, and went out onto the balcony again.
A distant splash, and more profanity getting shrieked. French again. For someone who'd accidentally destroyed a Guitar Hero guitar console, two Wii controllers, God only knew how many skateboards, and had just come about five minutes ago, Ryan had remarkably good aim and hand-eye coordination. And a weird sixth-sense for pranking, but that was just Ryan.
"Bernard come back for more, what?" Michael said idly. He figured he'd think about moving again at some point. Maybe in an hour. Or two.
"No, I got the other guy who's always in the Cube, the short one who dives." Ryan leaned over the balcony. "Despot, or something."
"Despatie." Michael frowned. "Actually, I think he's Canadian."
"Really? Eh, motherfucker," Ryan said victoriously. "I told you that you should have let me put maple syrup in at least some of them."
"Yeah," Michael said. He put his hands behind his head and smiled at the ceiling. "I totally should listen to you more often."
"Jeah, for real," Ryan said, and then he got serious so quickly that Michael actually saw the exact instant where all the triumph and happiness drained out of his face like water, leaving him somber and thoughtful. It was like visual whiplash, and it caught him off guard so that he stared blankly when Ryan said, "seriously, I'm giving you a pass on talking about this, so don't flip out about it or anything. Because I maybe kind of like hanging with you, and it would suck if you got all weird about it and I'd have to find someone else's ass to kick."
"I think we just talked about it," Michael pointed out. "And you can't kick my ass, I beat yours so hard it's not even funny. Anyway, it's--"
He thought carefully about it, harder than he tended to make his brain work after coming twice inside forty five minutes. "I'm cool with it. I guess. If you are."
And hell, Michael figured that was good enough for now. He had eight gold medals, a million dollars, a garbage bag of condoms, and a gold medallist Olympic probably-boyfriend who gave great head. Life could be a lot worse.
"I'm not giving you retroactive anniversary shit, though," he added,
"Whatever, you still owe me a million dollars," Ryan said. He grinned, and just like that, everything was normal again. He flexed. "I'm kind of worth it."
"Yeah," Michael said, grinning back. "I guess you are."
He stretched. "You want to," he started to ask, when Ryan said, "Oh shit, c'mere, German water polo team!" and Michael got up and went.
He could earn his million dollars back later. He figured he'd definitely have the opportunity.
Completely Totally Unnecessary Last Minute Author Notes:
Big thanks to twigcollins for advising on the last minute title change. The Elasun ads are totally worth checking out, by the way.
You know, originally I had them on the roof, dropping condom water balloons on people. And I thought, Gee, maybe I should take another look at the Beijing Olympic Village housing so I can actually know what it looks like. And it is totally nice! Like, really nice! But in high-rise complexes, and I thought, Great googly moogly, they can't be dropping shit from that high, they'll kill people. …Or will they?
So, I tried to do a ridiculous amount of math to figure out how fast a water balloon dropped from a high-rise apartment building would be going, and then remembered, Wait, Thorne, you can't do regular math, let along physics! So, I said, screw it, and googled "how high drop water balloons deadly". And the ever-glorious xkcd forums provided the answer. In short:
Assumed a spherical water balloon weighing about 1 kg (that is, a few pounds)… the terminal velocity of the water balloon is about 50 m/s. How much force does that transfer to the person? The change in momentum will be something less than (mass)*(velocity), because clearly not all of the water will just come to a complete stop on top of your head (most of it will splash and continue going down.) To be conservative let's say 2/3 of the mass comes to a complete stop on your head, so the impulse = change in momentum times 2/3:
I = 2/3*(50 m/s)*(1 kg) =33.333 kg m/s
The average force will be I/(time duration of impact… Let's say the impact only lasts for .1 seconds. Or, to make it even scarier, how about .075 seconds. So, then, the average force will be I/(.075 s):
F = 444.4 Newtons.
The National Highway and Safety Administration have come up with some estimates about the sudden impact forces a human can withstand. As it turns out, they estimate ranges for average males, females, and children, and came up with a fatality value of about 65g if the impact is taken to the chest, side, back, or head. Let's lower that to 50g just to be on the safe side: 50g = 490 Newtons. So, we see that the average force from a terminal velocity water balloon is not equal to the ability of the human head to withstand force!
In conclusion, yes, they probably could have bombed Alain Bernard with a condom balloon from the roof of a high-rise and not done him any real damage. This has been your fun mathematical fact for the day.