"Do you know what Henry told me before he first brought Merlin to meet me?" Uther asked into the silence. Arthur shook his head no. "He told me how much I’d love him, he was so nervous about it and it touched me, there was such sweetness in his nervousness. But then he said that he couldn’t quite believe Merlin was his, that he was much more suited to you. He said, ‘Merlin and Arthur would make sense, but I’m so lucky, Dad, I found him first.’"
So, I totally meant to write this as a short drabble, but somehow it got away from me and became a decent sized one-shot :’) Hope you enjoy!
“It’s not what it looks like…” Ryan starts, jumping up from where his limbs are tangled with Conor’s on the bed. He turns and relaxes when he sees Michael at the door to his bedroom. He slumps back onto Conor and throws Michael a lazy grin. “Oh, it’s just you. Never mind, it’s exactly what it looks like.” He winks at Mike and runs his fingers through Conor’s hair.
Michael gapes, his feet frozen at the doorway. He feels his palms start to sweat, his heart in his throat. Yeah, so he knew about Ryan and Conor. But that had mostly been in an abstract, inconsequential way–something so far away that Michael wasn’t even sure it was true. Because sure, Ryan had said the two of them were in a friends-with-benefits situation, had been for a couple months, but Ryan mostly says a lot of things. And Ryan and Conor were so careful in public and around anyone who wasn’t in their immediate friend circle that Michael wasn’t even certain how much truth there was to Ryan’s claim.
But it is all pretty obvious now. With both Ryan and Conor flushed red and pressed up against each other, looking at each other like nothing could tear them apart. Both of them naked. Together. Michael feels something rise in his throat.
“I’m just gonna–” He says in a high, squeaky voice, and that was all he manages to get out before he turns and books it out of Ryan’s room and to his own bathroom.
Later, he lays in his bed, staring at his ceiling. It is incredible, really, how much his insides turn at the image of Ryan being with Conor like that, an image that is now burned to the inside of his eyelids so that, whenever he closes his eyes, Michael can see the two of them wrapped together, Ryan grinning down at Conor, Conor’s hands wrapped around Ryan’s neck as he arches up to kiss Ryan and–
“Ughhahhhhh,” Michael punches his pillow and lets the groan carry through his bedroom.
It is hard talking to Ryan or Conor after that. Michael isn’t sure if either of them notice. Conor isn’t over too often, nor does he talk to Michael enough probably to notice any change in behavior. And Ryan is mostly a bit scatter-brained. A lot of things escape his attention most of the time, and only the most obvious and explicit information gets through. Which Michael doesn’t think this is.
Michael still tries to be polite, but it’s getting increasingly harder and harder to not stare at Ryan’s body during practice, not when he knows what it looks like fully naked. And it’s hard to not look at Ryan’s lips when talking to him, not when he knows what they look like when they’re slightly bruised from kissing someone raw. And it’s getting to be almost impossible not to push Ryan against the lockers and fuck him senseless when Ryan fixes him with his piecing gaze or when he laughs at one of Michael’s jokes (God, his dimples are going to be the end of Michael) or when Ryan basically does anything.
Michael feels like he’s going insane.
He doesn’t doubt that he’d had a crush on Lochte. That was pretty obvious from the second he’d laid eyes on the blue-eyed boy. But those tiny feelings had mostly become a subtle part of his existence, a low hum in his bones. But now. Seeing Ryan in a sexual setting, seeing Ryan looking fucked out, seeing Ryan with fucking Conor brought out all the want, the desire, the jealousy that had been festering under layers of denial.
It’s a Wednesday, about a couple of weeks after Michael had caught Ryan with Conor, when Ryan finally pulls him aside after practice and fixes him with a glare.
“What the fuck, Phelps.” It isn’t really a question. It’s phrased more like a statement.
Michael rubs the back of his neck, looking anywhere but at Ryan’s piercing blue eyes. Ryan’s blue eyes that make him want to. Just. Michael bites his lip and tries not to think about all the things he wants to do to Ryan.
He gives out what he hopes is a nonchalant laugh. Even he could hear how weak it sounds. “What’s up, Lochte?” He asks, his voice probably a couple notes higher than it would normally be. He thumps Ryan’s arm in a way that he hopes is super casual.
Ryan glares even harder, if that was possible. He slaps Michael’s hand away. “Don’t you ‘What’s up Lochte’ me, you asshole.”
Michael flinches at the anger and the, shit, the hurt, in Ryan’s voice. He looks down at his feet, his shoulders slumping in defeat. He knows he’s been kind of a dick, but, in his defense, his onslaught of feelings for Ryan have kind of taken him for a ride.
Which is a shit excuse. But.
“You’ve been all but ignoring me these last couple weeks. You never talk to me anymore, if you could avoid it. You are out of the house before I even wake up, even though we both fucking come here to practice, and you shut yourself in your room literally the moment we get home and I just–” Ryan’s voice breaks then. Michael looks up in surprised, and is shocked to see tears in Ryan’s eyes. Ryan looks like he’s torn between feeling angry and lost. He sniffs furiously. The act so endearing that Michael just wants to reach out and envelope Ryan in his arms and just keep him there. Forever.
“I don’t know what to do anymore.” Ryan’s voice loses some of its hard edge. “I don’t know what I did, Mike. I don’t know why you’re ignoring me and I don’t know what to do to fix it. I won’t–I can’t have you hate me.”
Michael breaks then. His feelings suck and this unrequited love thing kinda sucks also, but seeing Ryan so broken and confused–that there is the worst Michael has felt in probably ever. He shakes himself and pulls Ryan to him, burying his nose in Ryan’s hair.
“Ryan, no. Please don’t–it’s my issue. You did nothing wrong.” He mumbles the words into Ryan’s curls, as he feels Ryan slowly relax into him.
“What is it, Mike?” Ryan speaks into Mike’s T-shirt. “What’s bothering you? I can help.”
Michael just shakes his head, hoping Ryan will just let it go. Of course, he’s not that lucky.
Ryan pulls away, fixing him with that gaze again. “Michael. We tell each other everything. And if it’s something big enough to make you pull away from me then I wanna know. I wanna help,”
Michael clenches his jaw. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing!” Ryan’s voice rises, taking on a note of the same frustration it contained before.
“Let it go.”
“I won’t!” Ryan steps into his space and backs Michael against the wall behind him, and suddenly Michael finds it hard to breathe.
“Ryan–”
“Mike, I swear if you don’t just freaking tell me–”
Michael kisses him. In the grand scheme of things, it probably isn’t his best decision. But Ryan was so close and all he could smell was Ryan’s cologne and the suntan lotion that was as perpetually a part of Ryan as the sun was a part of Florida. And he had wanted Ryan for so long that he can’t help but give in.
He melts against Ryan, the solid mass of his body. He wraps one hand around Ryan’s neck and lays the other on his waist. Oh god. This was better than he could’ve ever imagined it to be. Ryan tasted like a mix between chlorine, mint gum, and the ham sandwich he’d had for lunch and that doesn’t sound like it’d be amazing. But it was. God, it was.
And then it got even better. Because Ryan gave a little whimper about 10 seconds in and started kissing Michael back. Mike felt his legs turn to jello, his insides scream with joy, his heart beat a million times a minute.
Eventually, Ryan pulled away. Or maybe he had pulled away. To be honest, he wasn’t really sure about anything except that he had gotten to kiss Ryan, the goddamn man of his dreams, and that he really needed to take a breather or risk suffocating right there in the locker rooms, kissing Ryan. Which, actually, now that he thought about it, wasn’t the worst way to go. Far from it, in fact.
Ryan was breathing heavily into his neck, and he could feel Ryan grinning against him, which just really lit Michael up from the inside until it was all could do to stop himself from dancing with happiness. Ryan looked up at him, and that smile was still there. The one that made Michael want to climb to the top of the diving boards and announce to the world how much he loved a dumb, curly-haired weirdo named Ryan Lochte.
“So.” Ryan started, then buried his head in Michael’s neck again, hiding his grin there.
“So.” He pulled Ryan flush against him.
“You’re not gonna tell me that was a mistake, are you?” Michael could tell that Ryan was going for joking. But he heard the anxious tone that lay just under it.
“Nah. Not a mistake.”
“Good. Cause I’m kind of in love with you.”
Michael jerked back at that. He couldn’t have heard right. Ryan couldn’t be. Ryan wasn’t. “You’re what?”
Ryan just rolls his eyes at him and flicks his ear. “For someone who’s on their way to becoming the best athlete ever and will probably rule the world one day or something, you are shockingly dumb.”
Michael pouts at that. “Hey!”
Ryan’s gaze softens. “Of course I’m in love with you, you idiot. God, I am so gone for you.”
Michael nods fervently and kisses Ryan within an inch of his life. “Shit, Ry. Me too, I love you so much. You don’t even know.”
Once they pull apart and Ryan is dragging Mike out to his car, he says, “I think I might have an idea.”
Michael is too high on endorphins, on love, on Ryan, to even bother piecing together what Ryan meant by that.
best friend: zuuccromantic partner: hagelinsexual partner: kreider study buddy: im thinking mcd would keep me on track subject of platonic love: staal lunch friend: sheppard!rival: tanner glass lmao
1:it's the year 3000, not much has changed but everyone lives under water, who wins the Stanley Cup?: Pens because players can now be healed instantly and we aren’t screwed over by injuries.
8:If you were writing a musical about an NHL player who would it be and what would be the title of the opening song?: I would write one on Sutter and the opening song would be “An angel is born in Red Deer”
29:Who, in the NHL, would be the best dragon tamer?: idk why but I keep picturing Jagr???
Tanger's hotness increased exponentially when he cut his hair, so I've gotta give it to him. But Geno's face and everything else kills me, so he's a close second now.
