"center", for catslash
First of the holiday fics! catslash requested "Dolphins-era Joey porn", so that is what she got. It's Joey Harrington/Daunte Culpepper/Rex Hadnot. If you're unfamiliar with ze footballz, Harrington (the stunning lad in the icon here) was the former quarteback of the Detroit Lions. Culpepper was the QB of the Minnesota Vikings. Both are on the Dolphins now... Culpepper was supposed to be the starter this year and Joey the backup, but Culpepper's knee is all made out of ground hamburger an' everything, so Joey's been starting. And he kind of sucked when he was on the Lions, because the Lions suck the life out of everyone, but he's been surprisingly decent starting for the 'Fins (as Pats fans after today's game will have realized). Rex Hadnot is the center for the Dolphins, and has a funny name.
Oh, and Dominic Raiola is the center for the Detroit Lions, and was the center when Joey was there.
Porn was the request, so, y'know, filthiest rating you have an' all that.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. It is in no way a reflection on the actual life, behavior, or character of any of the people featured, and there is no connection or affiliation between this fictional story and the people or organizations it mentions. It was not written with any intent to slander or defame any of the people featured. No profit has been or ever will be made as a result of this story: it is solely for entertainment. And again, it is entirely fictional, i.e. not true.
center
He’s afraid to ask.
He wants to, very, very badly. But he’s afraid. It’s not that he’s the new kid here… he is, but they’re both new in this city, warm humid nights unfamiliar to them both after years of shivering in frigid parking lots, coming out of domes after practice. Culpepper’s been in the league longer, but he’s not that much older than Harrington, just. Took Harrington longer, that’s all. Redshirt, and all that.
For the both of them, it’s their first season away from the team that drafted them, that’s something else they share.
It’s not that he’s in awe of Culpepper, although maybe he should be. Culpepper’s been in three Pro Bowls and Harrington, he only knows Pro Bowls because he used to watch them to see how Shaun Rogers did, so he’d have something to talk about when the team next got together and he could try to make the defense hate him a little bit less. Harrington should be impressed by Culpepper’s success in the league, maybe, but years with the Lions have soured him on stardom, and he’s not impressed by much these days.
He badly wants to ask about the cruise, but he remembers what a big, sordid deal it was in all the interested media, and he doesn’t want to be the guy who brings it up. But he wants to ask, he really does.
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It’s not like on the Lions, where every play had him running for his life, scrambling for his own sake. The first game Harrington has where he’s not sacked once, in the locker room afterwards he grabs Rex Hadnot around the shoulders and hugs him, thanks man thanksthanksthankyou into the center’s neck. He can’t help it, he’s so pathetically thankful and relieved.
For a second afterwards though, stepping back, he’s got that old sick feeling in his stomach, that guilty acid burn like he always had in Detroit, that fearful defiance, well fuck them, why does it matter if he likes to play the piano and prefers wine to beer and isn’t married. But Hadnot just laughs and cups a huge hand around the back of Harrington’s neck, squeezing firmly, and Harrington’s got an odd feeling that Hadnot knows, he knows, but it’s OK. It’s OK, somehow, with the whole team, because they’re with him, not against him.
In Miami, Harrington thinks, it’s not just the nights that are warmer.
-------------------------------------
Culpepper still shows up to practices and games, although nobody really knows why. He talks to Lemon, sometimes, explaining the ins and outs of pro football to him or at least keeping up appearances, but he doesn’t talk to Harrington, and he doesn’t talk to the coaches. Harrington guesses that it’s so he doesn’t spend too long away from the football field. Harrington’s been playing football his entire life, everything he’s ever done bracketed by white stitches on brown leather, he can get that, sure.
The limping, crutch-heavy gait that Culpepper’s adopted starts haunting Harrington a little. It’s easy, too easy, one bad hit to your knee and look at where you are, sideline-bound, strung to the bench with tape and innocent little pills. Harrington starts seeing that awkward motion out of the corners of his eyes when he’s on the field.
But it’s not like the Lions, where that would be it, he’d start seeing something like that and he’d get freaked out, because the hit would come, it would. Now, when he’s getting skittish in the field, he taps Hadnot once in the center of his back before bringing his hands down for the count, and Hadnot drops into a lower stance, blocking anyone’s path to Harrington with everything he’s got.
Harrington knows he’ll do it, so he feels confident, steps back and scans for Dolphins down the field without fear, Culpepper’s nervous back-and-forth off-field limp pushed to the edges of his mind.
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Coming back to Detroit is not something Harrington looks forward to, and the crowd is about as raucously bitter as he’d supposed they would be. But there are spots of orange and teal in the stands and Ford Field is quiet, tomb-like, by the end of the game.
It’s about as successful a homecoming as he could have wished for. Harrington’s standing on the sideline watching Lemon take a few snaps, a sort of ridiculous happy victorious feeling bubbling away inside of him, something he never thought he’d feel in this city. He sees that limp in the corner of his eye, but they’ve already practically won, and it’s Culpepper himself, not the worry of Harrington’s own mind.
“Good game.” Culpepper leans down on his crutches heavily. Harrington can look at him and see the rest of the sideline over the top of his head and the curved surface of his back, which is rare, because he’s used to looking Culpepper straight in the eye, they’re usually on the same level.
“Good to win it.” He rests his hand on Culpepper’s back, companionly, the sort of thing he might not normally do but today is his day, his return.
Culpepper slumps a little further down, the crutches shoving his shoulders up. “Used to like playin’ here. Usually beat the shit outta you guys.” He cuts his eyes over to Harrington with a hint of a mischievous grin twitching his lips.
“Jerk.” Harrington swats at Culpepper’s head and the grin grows wider as Culpepper ducks, the diamond studs in his ears catching the light of the dome and sparking brightly, like they’ve been doing this all season, easy as anything. Went to break the ice and there wasn’t any ice there, really, like Culpepper was waiting for it just the same as Harrington had been.
Looking out at the field, Harrington sees Dominic Raiola staring across from the opposite sideline. The game’s between then, flickering players running across the turf, he can’t read Raiola’s face at all. For a moment he feels a little tug under his jersey, but he knows better now. All those nights Raiola had tensed his hands on Harrington’s hips, squeezed his eyes closed and praised Harrington’s piano-playing fingers to the ceiling, and still. Push came to shove and the defense grumbled about how much they hated him, the receivers got high and glared at him with bloodshot eyes, Raiola stomped the grass clods out of his cleats in the locker room and agreed with Dre Bly that they should keep the fucking fags out of football while Harrington had frozen in place in front of his own locker, blood running cold, everyone sneaking dirty scornful looks at him from all around.
Fuck him. The Dolphins are winning this game and Harrington has nothing to lose anymore. He bumps Culpepper with his hip so that Culpepper overbalances and has to grab Harrington around the waist with one arm, crutch falling free, laughing, “You asshole, hittin’ a man on crutches, ain’t no way to fight.”
Hadnot also on the sideline, attuned to every twitch of his quarterbacks, turns his head and smirks down at the crutch on the ground. With no one making a move to pick it up Harrington has to loop an arm around Culpepper’s back to help hold him up, gloved hand fisting in the teal-piped material of Culpepper’s sweatshirt. Culpepper tightens his hold on Harrington’s waist and tries to headbutt him in the shoulderpads. Across the field, Raiola turns around and walks away.
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Culpepper loves video games. He gets all these absurdly early special releases and then invites people over so that he can show them off. They’re still rolling high over the Thanksgiving win and Harrington tries to ignore the little warm rush of pleasure he gets when Culpepper invites him and Hadnot over to try out his latest acquisition.
They’re all crammed together on Culpepper’s couch because Hadnot isn’t a small guy and neither is Culpepper. Hell, neither is Harrington, but he feels a little incongruously small sandwiched between the two of them. The couch is a purple plush monstrosity that had caused Hadnot to burst out laughing when they walked in and saw it, because really, Culpepper can probably afford a new couch, doesn’t have to keep his old Minnesota holdovers.
Culpepper had just smiled, shrugged. “Lotta good memories on this couch,” with a wink at Harrington that leaves him stuttering for a second before snapping his jaw shut. Everything is comfortable and he has real friends, maybe, on this team. He doesn’t want to fuck this up.
Piano-playing hands or not, Harrington can’t keep up with Hadnot and Culpepper, both of whom seem to regard the video game interface as their natural environment. After he loses for the fourth time he just chucks his receiver at the floor and slouches down, kicking his feet up on the table in front of them. Hadnot and Culpepper keep playing, leaning forward, big thighs pressed on both of Harrington’s sides, nudging him to elicit a reaction when one of them makes a particularly good move.
“Aw fuck you, man!” Culpepper yells, Hadnot’s character dancing in jerky animated victory on the TV screen. Hadnot curls his arms up and poses dramatically. Harrington laughs until Culpepper lunges across to smack good-naturedly at Hadnot, normal rough-housing between friends, teammates, nothing unusual at all, but it lays Culpepper out across Harrington.
Bad leg hanging off the couch to keep it away from the action, Culpepper’s hips press down on Harrington’s stomach. Hadnot is fending him off lightly, careful to not cause further damage. Harrington nervously gets his hands on Culpepper’s stomach, pushes up a little, because he’s pretty sure that Culpepper knows how he is, everyone here does, and they might be more OK with it than the guys back in Detroit were, but he doesn’t think Culpepper would be here, like this, if he realized.
Culpepper looks down and Harrington is struck dumb by the blinding white of his smile. “Crushin’ you down there, J?”
Harrington swallows, wet audible click in his throat. Culpepper looks up at Hadnot and something passes between them. They can tell how Harrington is reacting and they’re going to shove him off the couch, tell him to get the fuck out, it’ll never be the same again and Harrington hadn’t even had time to really start being friends with them, hardly. No one on the Lions ever called him ‘J’.
He doesn’t even mean to, he can’t help it, pressed up against Hadnot with Culpepper lying on top of him, they can’t blame him for this, they can’t, and
Culpepper presses his stomach down into Harrington’s hands, sliding give of fabric and soft flesh from not being able to work out as much as he normally would, hard muscle underneath that. Hadnot shifts, gets up, and Harrington finds himself falling sideways on the couch, unable to stop it with Culpepper’s weight on top of him.
“But, you’re not….” Harrington gapes up at Culpepper, because he’s not, he doesn’t understand, he’s the only one he knows whose life is fucked up this particular way.
“Maybe I’m jus’ better at hidin’ it than you are.”
“But… the boat….”
Culpepper’s eyes narrow and Harrington is afraid, he’s done it now, had to bring it up, but a moment later and Culpepper’s face has cleared, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Man, if you know the half-a what went down on that cruise, you’d know I’m jus’ as bad as you are.”
Harrington highly, highly doubts this, but Culpepper is laughing again, laughing and laughing and pressing his bright bright smile into Harrington’s neck, teeth sliding over the tendons there. Harrington cannot believe this. He’s flat on his back on a bright purple couch with the quarterback he’s starting for a live warm weight on his chest, his ribs. It’s nothing like it was with Raiola, all furtive and guilty and hasty.
His eyes wander up to Hadnot, who is standing next to the couch, big hand on the small of Culpepper’s back, looking down. Harrington opens his mouth but can’t think of anything he could possibly have to say.
“Bed,” Hadnot says, hand shifting lower and squeezing Culpepper’s ass until he grunts, and that’s about the best thing Harrington’s heard all day.
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They have to be careful, Culpepper’s knee being what it is. Hadnot helps him out of his pants solicitously, working the pantleg down around Culpepper’s knee brace with a tenderness Harrington hardly expected to see. He feels oddly left out, naked and vulnerable in the face of it, looking down at the bed and rubbing the edge of the sheets between his thumb and forefinger.
The bed springs up and dips heavily down again as Hadnot gets up and resettles himself behind Harrington. The considerable weight causes Harrington to tip backwards, his shoulders landing against Hadnot, a broad, warm sort of place to rest. Hadnot’s arms come up around Harrington, hands opening like sunrises on Harrington’s chest, his stomach, hot to the touch. Raiola was never this… gentle isn’t the word, because it’s not gentle, not at all, not with rough calluses tweaking his nipple and thick fingers pressing demandingly into his hip. Possessive, protective, maybe. Hadnot shifts so that his legs are on either side of Harrington, his cock rubbing worryingly hard along the top part of Harrington’s spine, and Harrington should feel trapped, probably, surrounded by such massiveness, but the hands are too distracting and he just feels painfully, breathlessly turned-on. Hadnot has a much better grasp on this whole ‘center on and off the field’ thing than Raiola ever did.
Culpepper slithers over the sheets on his stomach and props his face up in his hands, comfortable and shameless between Harrington’s legs. Harrington stares, still unable to believe any of this. The diamonds in Culpepper’s ears gleam brilliantly at him in tiny rainbow fragments. Culpepper’s lips are ridiculously inviting and Harrington cannot stop looking at them.
Hadnot slides a hand down and wraps it around Harrington’s cock, pressing his thumb forward so that it inclines towards Culpepper’s face. Culpepper grins that dazzling white grin again, runs his tongue a little nervously over his lips. Harrington has no idea whether he’s done this before or not but he can’t stand the sight of it, he’ll come before anything even happens, so he closes his eyes tightly and tries to concentrate on breathing.
It’s in some ways worse with his eyes closed, because he can feel everything so much more acutely. He can feel Hadnot pressing into his back, every ridge on the tips of Hadnot’s fingers as they grope across his chest, the rolling shapes of Hadnot’s fingers as they fist around the base of Harrington’s cock and, god, everything when Culpepper slides his mouth over the head of it.
Culpepper’s mouth is tentative, unsure, and he’s not taking much more than just the tip of Harrington’s cock, but it’s hot and wet and Hadnot’s hand is more than making up the difference. There’s no way Harrington can last long, not when he’s been taut-wired since the moment he walked in the door. He tries to get out a word, a warning, it’s only polite, but he can’t make his throat work, can’t get anything past his vocal chords beyond a breathy kind of whine.
He comes so hard that he can feel his eyes roll back, his mind whiting out for an endless second before he’s woozily snapped down to earth by the sound of Culpepper coughing. He forces his eyes open and everything is swimming with the colors way too bright. By the time he manages to make his eyes focus, Culpepper has wiped his chin and is trying to smile sheepishly, no longer a question about if he’d done anything like that before or not.
Hadnot’s hands have shifted to Harrington’s hips and he must signal to Culpepper from behind Harrington’s view, because Culpepper rolls to the side without a word, and Hadnot manhandles Harrington over onto his stomach, gentle but firm. One big hand slides up between Harrington’s thighs and his fingers cup up against the bottom of Harrington’s ass, squeeze, relax and trail down to just behind his balls, a sensitive kind of place that drives Harrington as insane as he can be driven right now, his body still lax and his mind still half-speed.
Culpepper and Hadnot are talking over his back, discussing something, but it’s all beautiful white noise to Harrington. “Can’t kneel,” he hears, and “Don’t matter, I’ll hold ‘im up,” and he doesn’t care at all. They can do whatever they want to him.
The bed springs up when Hadnot gets off it, rummaging for something under the clear direction of Culpepper’s voice. Just like in practice, Harrington thinks, fighting the urge to giggle. He feels drunk, high, on top of the world and in-fucking-vincible, here.
A finger presses into him from behind, responsibly lubricated, and he could laugh, he really could. Harrington pushes his hips up and back to meet it, two surprised voices murmuring behind him, and he has to press his face into the bedspread to stop himself from bursting into hysterical laughter. He’s not new to this, not by a long, long, long shot.
He doesn’t open his eyes again until Hadnot wraps one arm around Harrington’s chest and hauls him upright. Harrington looks down and there’s Culpepper, lying on his back with his hands behind his head, cock standing straight up and already wrapped in a condom. Harrington moans at the sight and immediately feels stupid, feels like a fucking girl, but Culpepper looks like he’s just been punched in the face, cross-eyed from lust, and maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing.
Hadnot does it all for him. Holds Harrington up, arm like a strap across his chest. Guides Culpepper in with his free hand, nudges Harrington’s legs into a more comfortable position until he’s sitting on Culpepper’s cock, his back against Hadnot’s chest again. Culpepper’s hands have flown from behind his head and are gripping Harrington’s thighs hard, his breathing labored.
Hadnot lifts Harrington a little, drops him back down, and Culpepper swears violently, his hips slamming upwards. Harrington’s still loose from his own orgasm, tilting his head back to rest on Hadnot’s shoulder, his throat cool and bared to the ceiling. Hadnot shifts him again and Culpepper makes a sound like a wounded animal.
It’s an awkward angle and his grip still isn’t very strong, but Harrington manages to work a hand behind his back, grab hold of Hadnot’s cock and stroke it up and down. He’s no good at video games but this his fingers are practiced at. Hadnot moves Harrington’s hips again and bites him hard at the base of his neck, causing him to tighten all his muscles in reflexive action, Culpepper nearly sobbing from the sensation.
“Rex,” Harrington mouths, soundless, “Daunte, Rex,” but Hadnot gets it somehow, grins against Harrington’s skin and thrusts up into Harrington’s hand, tightens his arm and moves them all together.
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“Are we. What was. The team…”
“Don’t worry,” Hadnot mutters, hand skimming down over Culpepper’s ass, Harrington’s eyes going wide as Culpepper arches his back into the gesture, even after all that it still hits him in the pit of stomach just as hard. “Don’t worry ‘bout it, man.”
One of the first things Harrington learned when he started playing football was to trust his center. Trust your center. He always has, served him well through college, and got him in trouble with the Lions, trusting his center a little too much and getting burned for his pains. He can hardly avoid trusting his center, though, even after Raiola, he can’t avoid it any more than he can avoid breathing. He trusts Hadnot simply, uncomplicatedly, wholly.
Hadnot tells him not to worry, he’s there to keep Harrington from getting plowed under, he’ll keep Culpepper from hurting himself any further and from hurting Harrington at all, and Harrington, god help him, believes it.
Oh, and Dominic Raiola is the center for the Detroit Lions, and was the center when Joey was there.
Porn was the request, so, y'know, filthiest rating you have an' all that.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. It is in no way a reflection on the actual life, behavior, or character of any of the people featured, and there is no connection or affiliation between this fictional story and the people or organizations it mentions. It was not written with any intent to slander or defame any of the people featured. No profit has been or ever will be made as a result of this story: it is solely for entertainment. And again, it is entirely fictional, i.e. not true.
center
He’s afraid to ask.
He wants to, very, very badly. But he’s afraid. It’s not that he’s the new kid here… he is, but they’re both new in this city, warm humid nights unfamiliar to them both after years of shivering in frigid parking lots, coming out of domes after practice. Culpepper’s been in the league longer, but he’s not that much older than Harrington, just. Took Harrington longer, that’s all. Redshirt, and all that.
For the both of them, it’s their first season away from the team that drafted them, that’s something else they share.
It’s not that he’s in awe of Culpepper, although maybe he should be. Culpepper’s been in three Pro Bowls and Harrington, he only knows Pro Bowls because he used to watch them to see how Shaun Rogers did, so he’d have something to talk about when the team next got together and he could try to make the defense hate him a little bit less. Harrington should be impressed by Culpepper’s success in the league, maybe, but years with the Lions have soured him on stardom, and he’s not impressed by much these days.
He badly wants to ask about the cruise, but he remembers what a big, sordid deal it was in all the interested media, and he doesn’t want to be the guy who brings it up. But he wants to ask, he really does.
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It’s not like on the Lions, where every play had him running for his life, scrambling for his own sake. The first game Harrington has where he’s not sacked once, in the locker room afterwards he grabs Rex Hadnot around the shoulders and hugs him, thanks man thanksthanksthankyou into the center’s neck. He can’t help it, he’s so pathetically thankful and relieved.
For a second afterwards though, stepping back, he’s got that old sick feeling in his stomach, that guilty acid burn like he always had in Detroit, that fearful defiance, well fuck them, why does it matter if he likes to play the piano and prefers wine to beer and isn’t married. But Hadnot just laughs and cups a huge hand around the back of Harrington’s neck, squeezing firmly, and Harrington’s got an odd feeling that Hadnot knows, he knows, but it’s OK. It’s OK, somehow, with the whole team, because they’re with him, not against him.
In Miami, Harrington thinks, it’s not just the nights that are warmer.
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Culpepper still shows up to practices and games, although nobody really knows why. He talks to Lemon, sometimes, explaining the ins and outs of pro football to him or at least keeping up appearances, but he doesn’t talk to Harrington, and he doesn’t talk to the coaches. Harrington guesses that it’s so he doesn’t spend too long away from the football field. Harrington’s been playing football his entire life, everything he’s ever done bracketed by white stitches on brown leather, he can get that, sure.
The limping, crutch-heavy gait that Culpepper’s adopted starts haunting Harrington a little. It’s easy, too easy, one bad hit to your knee and look at where you are, sideline-bound, strung to the bench with tape and innocent little pills. Harrington starts seeing that awkward motion out of the corners of his eyes when he’s on the field.
But it’s not like the Lions, where that would be it, he’d start seeing something like that and he’d get freaked out, because the hit would come, it would. Now, when he’s getting skittish in the field, he taps Hadnot once in the center of his back before bringing his hands down for the count, and Hadnot drops into a lower stance, blocking anyone’s path to Harrington with everything he’s got.
Harrington knows he’ll do it, so he feels confident, steps back and scans for Dolphins down the field without fear, Culpepper’s nervous back-and-forth off-field limp pushed to the edges of his mind.
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Coming back to Detroit is not something Harrington looks forward to, and the crowd is about as raucously bitter as he’d supposed they would be. But there are spots of orange and teal in the stands and Ford Field is quiet, tomb-like, by the end of the game.
It’s about as successful a homecoming as he could have wished for. Harrington’s standing on the sideline watching Lemon take a few snaps, a sort of ridiculous happy victorious feeling bubbling away inside of him, something he never thought he’d feel in this city. He sees that limp in the corner of his eye, but they’ve already practically won, and it’s Culpepper himself, not the worry of Harrington’s own mind.
“Good game.” Culpepper leans down on his crutches heavily. Harrington can look at him and see the rest of the sideline over the top of his head and the curved surface of his back, which is rare, because he’s used to looking Culpepper straight in the eye, they’re usually on the same level.
“Good to win it.” He rests his hand on Culpepper’s back, companionly, the sort of thing he might not normally do but today is his day, his return.
Culpepper slumps a little further down, the crutches shoving his shoulders up. “Used to like playin’ here. Usually beat the shit outta you guys.” He cuts his eyes over to Harrington with a hint of a mischievous grin twitching his lips.
“Jerk.” Harrington swats at Culpepper’s head and the grin grows wider as Culpepper ducks, the diamond studs in his ears catching the light of the dome and sparking brightly, like they’ve been doing this all season, easy as anything. Went to break the ice and there wasn’t any ice there, really, like Culpepper was waiting for it just the same as Harrington had been.
Looking out at the field, Harrington sees Dominic Raiola staring across from the opposite sideline. The game’s between then, flickering players running across the turf, he can’t read Raiola’s face at all. For a moment he feels a little tug under his jersey, but he knows better now. All those nights Raiola had tensed his hands on Harrington’s hips, squeezed his eyes closed and praised Harrington’s piano-playing fingers to the ceiling, and still. Push came to shove and the defense grumbled about how much they hated him, the receivers got high and glared at him with bloodshot eyes, Raiola stomped the grass clods out of his cleats in the locker room and agreed with Dre Bly that they should keep the fucking fags out of football while Harrington had frozen in place in front of his own locker, blood running cold, everyone sneaking dirty scornful looks at him from all around.
Fuck him. The Dolphins are winning this game and Harrington has nothing to lose anymore. He bumps Culpepper with his hip so that Culpepper overbalances and has to grab Harrington around the waist with one arm, crutch falling free, laughing, “You asshole, hittin’ a man on crutches, ain’t no way to fight.”
Hadnot also on the sideline, attuned to every twitch of his quarterbacks, turns his head and smirks down at the crutch on the ground. With no one making a move to pick it up Harrington has to loop an arm around Culpepper’s back to help hold him up, gloved hand fisting in the teal-piped material of Culpepper’s sweatshirt. Culpepper tightens his hold on Harrington’s waist and tries to headbutt him in the shoulderpads. Across the field, Raiola turns around and walks away.
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Culpepper loves video games. He gets all these absurdly early special releases and then invites people over so that he can show them off. They’re still rolling high over the Thanksgiving win and Harrington tries to ignore the little warm rush of pleasure he gets when Culpepper invites him and Hadnot over to try out his latest acquisition.
They’re all crammed together on Culpepper’s couch because Hadnot isn’t a small guy and neither is Culpepper. Hell, neither is Harrington, but he feels a little incongruously small sandwiched between the two of them. The couch is a purple plush monstrosity that had caused Hadnot to burst out laughing when they walked in and saw it, because really, Culpepper can probably afford a new couch, doesn’t have to keep his old Minnesota holdovers.
Culpepper had just smiled, shrugged. “Lotta good memories on this couch,” with a wink at Harrington that leaves him stuttering for a second before snapping his jaw shut. Everything is comfortable and he has real friends, maybe, on this team. He doesn’t want to fuck this up.
Piano-playing hands or not, Harrington can’t keep up with Hadnot and Culpepper, both of whom seem to regard the video game interface as their natural environment. After he loses for the fourth time he just chucks his receiver at the floor and slouches down, kicking his feet up on the table in front of them. Hadnot and Culpepper keep playing, leaning forward, big thighs pressed on both of Harrington’s sides, nudging him to elicit a reaction when one of them makes a particularly good move.
“Aw fuck you, man!” Culpepper yells, Hadnot’s character dancing in jerky animated victory on the TV screen. Hadnot curls his arms up and poses dramatically. Harrington laughs until Culpepper lunges across to smack good-naturedly at Hadnot, normal rough-housing between friends, teammates, nothing unusual at all, but it lays Culpepper out across Harrington.
Bad leg hanging off the couch to keep it away from the action, Culpepper’s hips press down on Harrington’s stomach. Hadnot is fending him off lightly, careful to not cause further damage. Harrington nervously gets his hands on Culpepper’s stomach, pushes up a little, because he’s pretty sure that Culpepper knows how he is, everyone here does, and they might be more OK with it than the guys back in Detroit were, but he doesn’t think Culpepper would be here, like this, if he realized.
Culpepper looks down and Harrington is struck dumb by the blinding white of his smile. “Crushin’ you down there, J?”
Harrington swallows, wet audible click in his throat. Culpepper looks up at Hadnot and something passes between them. They can tell how Harrington is reacting and they’re going to shove him off the couch, tell him to get the fuck out, it’ll never be the same again and Harrington hadn’t even had time to really start being friends with them, hardly. No one on the Lions ever called him ‘J’.
He doesn’t even mean to, he can’t help it, pressed up against Hadnot with Culpepper lying on top of him, they can’t blame him for this, they can’t, and
Culpepper presses his stomach down into Harrington’s hands, sliding give of fabric and soft flesh from not being able to work out as much as he normally would, hard muscle underneath that. Hadnot shifts, gets up, and Harrington finds himself falling sideways on the couch, unable to stop it with Culpepper’s weight on top of him.
“But, you’re not….” Harrington gapes up at Culpepper, because he’s not, he doesn’t understand, he’s the only one he knows whose life is fucked up this particular way.
“Maybe I’m jus’ better at hidin’ it than you are.”
“But… the boat….”
Culpepper’s eyes narrow and Harrington is afraid, he’s done it now, had to bring it up, but a moment later and Culpepper’s face has cleared, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Man, if you know the half-a what went down on that cruise, you’d know I’m jus’ as bad as you are.”
Harrington highly, highly doubts this, but Culpepper is laughing again, laughing and laughing and pressing his bright bright smile into Harrington’s neck, teeth sliding over the tendons there. Harrington cannot believe this. He’s flat on his back on a bright purple couch with the quarterback he’s starting for a live warm weight on his chest, his ribs. It’s nothing like it was with Raiola, all furtive and guilty and hasty.
His eyes wander up to Hadnot, who is standing next to the couch, big hand on the small of Culpepper’s back, looking down. Harrington opens his mouth but can’t think of anything he could possibly have to say.
“Bed,” Hadnot says, hand shifting lower and squeezing Culpepper’s ass until he grunts, and that’s about the best thing Harrington’s heard all day.
-------------------------------------
They have to be careful, Culpepper’s knee being what it is. Hadnot helps him out of his pants solicitously, working the pantleg down around Culpepper’s knee brace with a tenderness Harrington hardly expected to see. He feels oddly left out, naked and vulnerable in the face of it, looking down at the bed and rubbing the edge of the sheets between his thumb and forefinger.
The bed springs up and dips heavily down again as Hadnot gets up and resettles himself behind Harrington. The considerable weight causes Harrington to tip backwards, his shoulders landing against Hadnot, a broad, warm sort of place to rest. Hadnot’s arms come up around Harrington, hands opening like sunrises on Harrington’s chest, his stomach, hot to the touch. Raiola was never this… gentle isn’t the word, because it’s not gentle, not at all, not with rough calluses tweaking his nipple and thick fingers pressing demandingly into his hip. Possessive, protective, maybe. Hadnot shifts so that his legs are on either side of Harrington, his cock rubbing worryingly hard along the top part of Harrington’s spine, and Harrington should feel trapped, probably, surrounded by such massiveness, but the hands are too distracting and he just feels painfully, breathlessly turned-on. Hadnot has a much better grasp on this whole ‘center on and off the field’ thing than Raiola ever did.
Culpepper slithers over the sheets on his stomach and props his face up in his hands, comfortable and shameless between Harrington’s legs. Harrington stares, still unable to believe any of this. The diamonds in Culpepper’s ears gleam brilliantly at him in tiny rainbow fragments. Culpepper’s lips are ridiculously inviting and Harrington cannot stop looking at them.
Hadnot slides a hand down and wraps it around Harrington’s cock, pressing his thumb forward so that it inclines towards Culpepper’s face. Culpepper grins that dazzling white grin again, runs his tongue a little nervously over his lips. Harrington has no idea whether he’s done this before or not but he can’t stand the sight of it, he’ll come before anything even happens, so he closes his eyes tightly and tries to concentrate on breathing.
It’s in some ways worse with his eyes closed, because he can feel everything so much more acutely. He can feel Hadnot pressing into his back, every ridge on the tips of Hadnot’s fingers as they grope across his chest, the rolling shapes of Hadnot’s fingers as they fist around the base of Harrington’s cock and, god, everything when Culpepper slides his mouth over the head of it.
Culpepper’s mouth is tentative, unsure, and he’s not taking much more than just the tip of Harrington’s cock, but it’s hot and wet and Hadnot’s hand is more than making up the difference. There’s no way Harrington can last long, not when he’s been taut-wired since the moment he walked in the door. He tries to get out a word, a warning, it’s only polite, but he can’t make his throat work, can’t get anything past his vocal chords beyond a breathy kind of whine.
He comes so hard that he can feel his eyes roll back, his mind whiting out for an endless second before he’s woozily snapped down to earth by the sound of Culpepper coughing. He forces his eyes open and everything is swimming with the colors way too bright. By the time he manages to make his eyes focus, Culpepper has wiped his chin and is trying to smile sheepishly, no longer a question about if he’d done anything like that before or not.
Hadnot’s hands have shifted to Harrington’s hips and he must signal to Culpepper from behind Harrington’s view, because Culpepper rolls to the side without a word, and Hadnot manhandles Harrington over onto his stomach, gentle but firm. One big hand slides up between Harrington’s thighs and his fingers cup up against the bottom of Harrington’s ass, squeeze, relax and trail down to just behind his balls, a sensitive kind of place that drives Harrington as insane as he can be driven right now, his body still lax and his mind still half-speed.
Culpepper and Hadnot are talking over his back, discussing something, but it’s all beautiful white noise to Harrington. “Can’t kneel,” he hears, and “Don’t matter, I’ll hold ‘im up,” and he doesn’t care at all. They can do whatever they want to him.
The bed springs up when Hadnot gets off it, rummaging for something under the clear direction of Culpepper’s voice. Just like in practice, Harrington thinks, fighting the urge to giggle. He feels drunk, high, on top of the world and in-fucking-vincible, here.
A finger presses into him from behind, responsibly lubricated, and he could laugh, he really could. Harrington pushes his hips up and back to meet it, two surprised voices murmuring behind him, and he has to press his face into the bedspread to stop himself from bursting into hysterical laughter. He’s not new to this, not by a long, long, long shot.
He doesn’t open his eyes again until Hadnot wraps one arm around Harrington’s chest and hauls him upright. Harrington looks down and there’s Culpepper, lying on his back with his hands behind his head, cock standing straight up and already wrapped in a condom. Harrington moans at the sight and immediately feels stupid, feels like a fucking girl, but Culpepper looks like he’s just been punched in the face, cross-eyed from lust, and maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing.
Hadnot does it all for him. Holds Harrington up, arm like a strap across his chest. Guides Culpepper in with his free hand, nudges Harrington’s legs into a more comfortable position until he’s sitting on Culpepper’s cock, his back against Hadnot’s chest again. Culpepper’s hands have flown from behind his head and are gripping Harrington’s thighs hard, his breathing labored.
Hadnot lifts Harrington a little, drops him back down, and Culpepper swears violently, his hips slamming upwards. Harrington’s still loose from his own orgasm, tilting his head back to rest on Hadnot’s shoulder, his throat cool and bared to the ceiling. Hadnot shifts him again and Culpepper makes a sound like a wounded animal.
It’s an awkward angle and his grip still isn’t very strong, but Harrington manages to work a hand behind his back, grab hold of Hadnot’s cock and stroke it up and down. He’s no good at video games but this his fingers are practiced at. Hadnot moves Harrington’s hips again and bites him hard at the base of his neck, causing him to tighten all his muscles in reflexive action, Culpepper nearly sobbing from the sensation.
“Rex,” Harrington mouths, soundless, “Daunte, Rex,” but Hadnot gets it somehow, grins against Harrington’s skin and thrusts up into Harrington’s hand, tightens his arm and moves them all together.
-------------------------------------
“Are we. What was. The team…”
“Don’t worry,” Hadnot mutters, hand skimming down over Culpepper’s ass, Harrington’s eyes going wide as Culpepper arches his back into the gesture, even after all that it still hits him in the pit of stomach just as hard. “Don’t worry ‘bout it, man.”
One of the first things Harrington learned when he started playing football was to trust his center. Trust your center. He always has, served him well through college, and got him in trouble with the Lions, trusting his center a little too much and getting burned for his pains. He can hardly avoid trusting his center, though, even after Raiola, he can’t avoid it any more than he can avoid breathing. He trusts Hadnot simply, uncomplicatedly, wholly.
Hadnot tells him not to worry, he’s there to keep Harrington from getting plowed under, he’ll keep Culpepper from hurting himself any further and from hurting Harrington at all, and Harrington, god help him, believes it.