: MUCH ADO ABOUT FISH (2/?) : Swim Slash : Phelps/Lochte

[caelumi]

Much Ado About Fish [Jelly fish]
:: Phelps/Lochte, Swim Slash, R for language (AU & CRACK WARNINGS)

Summary:: Ryan's just a normal guy, or he was before Michael washed into his life.



Much Ado About Fish: Jelly fish.

My name's Michael.

Ryan tossed the bat into the trunk of the Escalade and pulled the lacy purple bra over to cover the bottle of vodka. He wasn't sure why he had been expecting a crazy name like Zanzabar or something--even Aquaman had an ordinary real name and Mike wasn't a fish, after all, he was just a dude. And dudes had names like Michael. And they did boss shit like naked bodysurfing all the time.

Er. Well, Ryan was sure that some of them probably did.

"So you really don't have any clothes?" Ryan asked, digging the Flipturns out from beneath the Windex and holding them to his nose to sniff. Could be worse, they really just smelled like chlorine. He handed them over.

Mike took them and a little smile tugged up one corner of his thin lips. "I really don't have any clothes. These are cool." The dragsuit consisted of pinks, yellows and blues that were bright enough to burn the brain. They'd been one of the billion or so that Ryan had gotten from Speedo at the photo shoot and he'd liked them but he might have used them to like, clean the windshield with at one point. Which would account for them being shoved in the trunk with the Windex.

Ah, there was the cranberry juice. Ryan made a face and yanked the bottle from under the backseat. It was like a damn minefield back here. "They're yours," he said to Mike, peering through the plastic and shaking the contents around. Not chunky but one could never be too cautious. Ryan unscrewed the cap and leaned around the side of the car to dump the juice onto the sand before he sat down next to Mike on the bumper, who was stepping slowly into the trunks. "You got them backward," Ryan said, holding the empty bottle between his knees. "See the string? Goes in the front."

Ryan had grown up in locker rooms and it wasn't like he didn't have a set of family jewels all his own after all, so Mike being naked didn't really bother him. Okay, so it was a tiny bit weird watching Mike work himself over, and okay, maybe there had been a little bit of staring going on, but really it was just curiosity. Because what Mike had been doing naked (as far as Ryan knew there weren't any nudist colonies or anything in Florida--well, people in Miami were pretty weird, but Miami was a long walk from here) was like, the sixty-four thousand dollar question of the day. Ryan could come up with an awful lot of ideas himself but he'd rather just hear it from the fish's mouth. The horse's mouth. Whatever. Because alien abduction just didn't seem all that plausible, no matter how cool.

The car rocked a little bit as Mike stood just enough to pull the rearranged suit up over his hips and then plopped back down. He took a minute adjusting his junk this way and that way and finally looked at Ryan. "Thanks."

Ryan cleared his throat and nodded his head. "So, uh. Probably should get you to Emergency Care or something. Do you feel all right?" He didn't need anyone ralphing in his car but then again, he sorta felt responsible (he WAS responsible, actually) so he figured he owed it to Mike to let him hurl wherever he needed to.

"Got a little headache." Mike looked at him sideways and the closest corner of his mouth slid up into a smile that made Ryan's stomach flip. He stared at the bottle in his hands as his cheeks got a little warm and he mentally listed off all the reasons it was really bad to, like, develop weird feelings for a crazy naked nudist fish-man beach bum who Ryan didn't know from Adam and who couldn't even put a bathing suit on the right-way-forward.

1) All of thee above.
2) Plus wasn't there something about people falling in love with like, people they had to take care of or something? A doctor syndrome, or... he didn't know. But Ryan wasn't sure that it was a good reason to like anyone just because you'd smacked their head open with a surfboard.
3) And just because he kinda felt like he'd known Mike before didn't mean that he actually had so get. It. Straight.

Of course it was pretty hard to hang onto any of those very good reasons when Mike was looking at him with that doofy smile that was killer freakin' cute. Ryan tossed the bottle back into the trunk and rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes hard enough to see colors.

"Are you okay?" Mike asked.

Ryan dropped his hands and blinked away the pressure spots to find Mike leaning in close, their shoulders almost brushing, and all of a sudden just like that Ryan's heart had taken up tap-dancing. Mike's lips were parted a bit and Ryan could only stare and think stupid thoughts like he wondered if Mike's mouth would still taste like salt from the water, or if Mike would even let him kiss him, maybe like, as a thank you for saving his life--except that it had been Ryan who had almost killed him in the first place...

"Ryan?"

Ryan shook his head and felt himself smile. "I'm fine. I just wiped out, not like I haven't done it a billion times before." He blinked and shrugged, his shoulder brushing Mike's. "Um, but are you? Seriously? Cause, you're kinda like, cold." Ryan reached over and put a hand to the shoulder he'd touched accidentally. Mike's skin was really soft but he tried not to focus on that. Mostly failed, but he did try. "Like really cold." It was a little weird.

Would Mike's lips be cold too? Ryan shook the thought away because, yeah. Totally inappropriate. Right? A lot of shit had gone down this morning and the very last thing he needed to be doing was thinking about making out with a guy who was probably thinking about how much money he could make if he sued the biggest name in professional swimming. As the Olympics rolled closer Ryan's agent at PMK said, you need to be careful, Ryan, more and more often and Ryan figured that sexual harassment probably fell under that particular good-behavior umbrella.

"I'm kind of cold all the time," Mike said, shrugging. "It's okay."

"Is your head still bleeding?" Hand dropping, Ryan twisted a bit to glance at his own back just to check it out. And it didn't look so bad now--at least what he could see. It felt tight and a little crusty, but that might have been sand, too. Concern wasn't a big word in Ryan's vocabulary unless it was like, a broken bone; some sand rash wasn't going to keep him out of the pool. Gregg wouldn't let it. Ryan blinked, his eyes aching from trying to see over his shoulder, and looked at Mike who was pushing fingers into his hair. "Even if you feel okay, we should probably take you in somewhere."

When Mike pulled his fingers away there was only a bit of blood on his fingertips, most of it just dryish little smears. "I can't feel brains," he said, rubbing them together. "Probably a good sign." He pushed some of his hair out of his face and smiled. The long brown strands were getting lighter, but Ryan didn't think it was all from drying out. It looked kinda... white-ish. Like salt, yanno? Which was a little weird, but what about this morning hadn't been? Par for the mother fuckin' course.

Mike's hair was locking a bit as it dried out and it made him look even more like a hippy. As strands were jostled by fingers, the little shells that were braided in the brown twinkled and knocked together with soft sounds. There were a few different kinds, mostly white, but a few were bluish and there was one near Mike's shoulder that looked like a tiny yellow snail shell, like something you could pick up in one of the tourist beach shops by the handful but... But more real, somehow. It looked so thin and fragile. "Dude," Ryan finally said, looking away from the shell and up to Mike's eyes. "I swear to God that I know you, man. Is that weird?"

Mike's teeth scraped over his bottom lip and he really looked like he was considering something before he said, "I have one of those faces?" And it was totally a question.

Ryan laughed. "No you don't."

A smile creased Mike's eyes and raised his closest ear a little, which he'd tucked hair behind. "You hit your head."

"You hit yours!" Ryan stopped. "Uh. I hit yours. Anyway, so not the point." He huffed a laugh and shrugged. "Whatever. It's just weird. It is. It's like... I dreamed you or something which..." sounded really bad, "sounds totally bad." He laughed, lifting a hand to rub his head, and figured he better shut up before he put his foot further in his mouth.

Color crept into Mike's cheeks and he stared down at the string on the bathing suit, twisting it around a finger and tugging at it. His answering laugh sounded a little breathless and really only amounted to a flash of gums that Ryan caught from the side since Mike couldn't seem to tear his eyes from the oh-so-interesting white string-tie. Ryan would have figured that it was impossible to embarrass a dude who felt fine running around with his hardware knocking in the wind but he'd apparently managed it pretty well. Huh. Maybe he should change the subject since it was obvious Mike wasn't comfortable thinking about Ryan dreaming about him.

Dude, he so was not disappointed. Even playas couldn't play all the time.

Right? Not disappointed.

"Yanno what was really dumb?" he finally asked into the growing silence. "I totally thought you had a tail when I pulled you out of the water. You know, like. The Little Mermaid." Ryan laughed because he thought Mike would laugh--come on, a tail, how dumb was that? But Mike didn't laugh a bit, not even that embarrassed soft sound he'd made just before. In fact, when he looked at Ryan the color in his cheeks was totally gone.

"What?"

The question was so like, suspicious, Ryan back-peddled like a man with his ass on fire though he wasn't even sure why, or what was even wrong. "I mean, of course you didn't, right?" It sounded way too much like a question, like he COULD have maybe had a tail which was... it was stupid, because... you know, just because Ryan could have sworn he'd seen it...

And Mike looked really uncomfortable for whatever reason Ryan could not begin to imagine. He chewed on his tongue and then leaned in, pushing his shoulder against Mike's lightly before the thought occurred to him that maybe Mike didn't want him touching him at all. Ryan leaned back, dropping his head and rubbing the back of his neck, feeling stupid and kinda awful; worse, even, than when he'd hit Mike in the first place. "Dude, uh. Sorry. I know it was dumb and I swear I'm not like, a weirdo or anything--" okay, was he the pot or the kettle? "--but I think it was that shimmery goop you had all over your legs, I mean, I guess..." He trailed off, feeling pretty fucking lame. He was totally batting zero here.

Mike glanced up long enough to ask, "Have you ever seen a sea jellie?" before his chin dropped again. His hair fell over his ear and back into his face, the shells talking quietly.

"A wha--oh." Ryan glanced over. "Jellyfish?"

"They're not really fish, but yeah," Mike said. His voice was still kinda... shit. Timid.

Ryan blew out a breath, wishing he could understand any damn thing that was going on this morning. He felt like the whole world had its big ass on backward. He scratched a dry patch of skin near his elbow--and then shot straight up in his seat as a big ol' fucking lightbulb flashed on in his head. "You were covered in jellyfish?!"

That was fucked up! That was--why wasn't Mike like, dead? "Holy shit!" he went on, grabbing Mike's arm. "We should, you need to like, dude you could seriously be poisoned right now!" Ryan stood and tugged on Mike, who didn't move. "Come on, man, really, I got attacked by a jellyfish once and--well it hurt really fucking bad--but like I kinda got sick a little and that was only one if you were mobbed... by..."

Ryan's voice trailed off as Mike's face went from pale and still maybe-upset through confusion to finally what looked suspiciously like dawning amusement. "Uh," Ryan said, watching the upward twitching that the corners of Mike's mouth were doing and feeling a 'duh' moment coming on. "You weren't really covered in jellyfish, were you?"

The smile that broke over Mike's face crinkled his eyelids and let Ryan blow out a breath he'd been holding. He was so relieved that there wasn't even any room to feel stupid. Mike lifted the hand of the arm Ryan was still holding and grabbed back, a quick, firm press of cool fingers around Ryan's elbow that was gone just as fast. "Nope," he said.

Ryan dropped himself back on the bumper and stuck his hands in his lap, tucked between his thighs. "It kinda looked like jellyfish," he murmured.

"It's called mesoglea," Mike said with a quiet laugh.

"Mees....uh. Okay." Ryan breathed out and straightened up a bit. He was glad that Mike was relaxed again at least, and he didn't really feel like he was the butt of Mike's joke, so, yeah. Ryan just let himself be glad that whatever weirdness had come up was gone now, even though he still didn't understand what had happened. And whatever, it was definitely good that Mike hadn't actually been attacked by jellyfish because then Ryan would have felt absolutely, horribly guilty. Broke the dude's head, nearly drowned him, AND left him open to an attack by opportunistic jellyfish? That had all the makings of some major karmic washback.

Putting his arms back, Mike leaned on his hands and turned his face up to the sun a bit. He wasn't still smiling but he just seemed a little more easy, somehow. It was in how he sat "Jellyfish are made of mesoglea," Mike said, "so you're not wrong. It just wasn't jellyfish."

Ryan was watching him. He thought he could see Mike's skin pinkening up in the direct light. "So... what was it? And what was it doing all over your legs? Is it something, did you like, swim through it?" He tried to think of anything he'd ever seen in the ocean that would amount to like, a huge floating blob of non-jellyfish jelly.

Mike's head tilted just enough that he could look at Ryan out of the corner of his eyes. For a long minute he was silent and eventually Ryan fidgeted a little, raising a hand to push hair out of his face just to have something to do. He might have thought that Mike was kinda joking around with him but he was back to looking serious.

Guy was a freakin' yo-yo. It exhausted Ryan a little bit.

Mike looked like he was thinking about something but he finally just shook his head and looked down at his knees. "I don't know."

"You knew what it was," Ryan pointed out. "Mesogleeks. Er, glees. Was it dead jellyfish? But I've never seen a jellyfish dry up like that. They usually hang around all like dead blobs and start to decompose and--"

"Ryan," Mike said. He looked over. "It wasn't sea jellies."

Ryan's teeth clicked together--he knew a shut-down when he heard it. "Okay." One mystery on top of another. It was a shame that he didn't have the Scooby Gang hanging out in his back pocket; he could have totally put them to work. "So should we take you to Emergency Care?"

Mike shook his head. "No, I think I'm fine. Is your back okay?"

Nothing a good chlorine flush wouldn't take care of. Ryan shrugged. "I'll survive. Had worse. There was this one time I was skateboarding and fell trying to slide down a railing--" he skated his hand through the air and then smashed it into his other palm. "Took like, all the skin off my shins. It was pretty disgusting."

"Really?" Mike looked a little awed and Ryan felt like, all of a sudden, they were back on some solid footing. "Wow."

So apparently the key to smooth sailing was to just not talk about Mike and his mysterious nudist not-jellyfish origins. Ryan could do that. "Yeah. Blood everywhere. You ever skateboarded?" Though even as he asked he figured that the answer was a no, considering what a mess Mike seemed to be with his feet. Dude was probably like a bull in a china shop most of the time and Ryan did a lot of stupid stuff, but he'd never ever put Mike on a skateboard.

There was a fraction of hesitation and then Mike shook his head. "No. I've been, uh. A little sheltered." He smiled. "My dad's a bit of a tight-ass. Really overprotective."

Dad. Okay, well then... was his Dad a nudist? It made Ryan want to laugh, a nudist being a tight-ass. Get it? He chewed on his lower lip and cleared his throat instead of chuckling. "You said something about a baseball game--"

"Never played," Mike said and man, it totally sounded like a sigh. Ryan kinda felt bad for him. Every guy should get to play baseball, it was like, American. It might even be patriotic.

"Basketball?"

"Nope."

"Skiing?"

Mike laughed. "Definitely not."

"Soccer? Paintball? Lazer tag?" Ryan couldn't believe that Mike kept shaking his head. What kind of kid had never shot hoops or kicked a soccer ball? A kid who'd gotten abducted by aliens, that's who. A kid with a fish tail and no legs to stand up on. Ryan snorted a laugh at himself, coughing a little bit.

"I meant it when I said he was overprotective," Mike said with a faint smile, tipping his head up to the sun again and half shutting his eyes. His face was definitely pink now, but Ryan didn't think it was a blush this time because his chest was pink, too--not that Ryan was looking at his chest or anything. "I never did much of anything, to tell you the truth," Mike continued, "This is much better."

Ryan raised one eyebrow. "But, uh. We're not really doing anything now." They could have been making out but of course Ryan had to go and throw the kibosh down on that one just because he'd been a little worried that some sexual harassment on top of a near-death experience wouldn't be exactly what Mike needed to make his day complete. Ryan folded his legs up in front of him, scooting back into the trunk a little bit. The sun was making him sweat, sticking pieces of hair to his forehead. He pushed back the curls and held them there at the top of his head, squinting upward.

"That's okay," Mike murmured. "Trust me, it's better."

Ryan didn't say anything but he wondered how shitty life had to be when almost getting killed by a rogue surfboarder was a high point. No wonder Mike didn't want to talk about how he didn't have clothes... maybe his dad wouldn't give him clothes or something. Maybe Mike had been like, locked in a closet. Dude, maybe he'd been chained to a wall and made to eat rats--

"Why are you making that face?" Mike asked

Blinking at the question, Ryan wrinkled his nose up even further. "Am I?" His face smoothed out into a broad grin. "I was uh, kinda picturing you locked in a closet eating rats. You didn't have to do that, did you?"

For a moment there was silence and Ryan had time to think shit, he totally did and I've outted him and now everything's gonna be all awkward before Mike burst into laughter. Creases gathered at the outside corners of his eyes as Mike sunk to the side against the car, gasping as he laughed, holding a hand over his stomach. Ryan blew a breath out and let himself laugh too. He was privately glad that hadn't been the case because he was pretty sure he'd have to call the authorities and shit if it were.

"So no rats," Ryan murmured. "But no rollerblading or lacrosse either?" He glanced over at Mike who looked relaxed and happy, one shoulder pressed to the side of the trunk, one arm still slung loosely over his stomach. Hell, his eight-pack. "Dude, you gotta be doing something. Your abs put a dude to shame."

Dark eyes slid Ryan's way. "Not yours."

It was more that little smile that Mike was wearing than the actual words that made Ryan swallow a sudden lump in his throat. He glanced down at his own stomach and poked it once before shrugging. "I'm pretty active." Wow, wasn't that the understatement of the century. "But if you don't do anything..."

He heard the sound of the shells in Mike's hair as the guy's gaze moved to him again. "I--" Mike hesitated for a moment; again, Ryan didn't know why he would have to hesitate at all unless he were like, hiding something. "I swim," Mike finally said. "A lot." There was a weird sorta grimace on his face as he met Ryan's eyes and then looked away. But Ryan was sitting up straighter.

"Dude," he said. "I swim. What's up? Don't you like it? Does your dad make you swim or something?" Did he not want to say it because of who Ryan was? Usually it was kinda the opposite; if people swam they loved to tell you their events and stuff. But the next hesitation was so long that Ryan felt bad for getting excited that they had something in common, or even asking at all. Maybe his dad forced him when Mike didn't love it. Ryan was biting his lip and had settled on apologizing when Mike spoke up.

"I'm good at it." His voice was low and his hands rubbed over his thighs; Ryan watched them go up and back.

"Uh, hey, that's cool. I'm good at it too, but. That's not really a reason to want to stop doing it. It's kinda the point of sports, to be the best you can. To be better than the next guy." It was weird that Mike looked a little sad over the whole thing; nobody should feel bad about being good at something. "You know?"

Mike tilted his gaze back to the sand. "In theory. I've never competed. Not the way you have; it'll just always be a part of who I am. I do it so much that it's not fun," he murmured, his shoulder gave a tiny jerk of a shrug and he shook his head. The shells clinked and rattled and Ryan watched how the sun caught them. "But I'm away from all that now and I don't think I'm going back. I don't want to go back." He tilted his face back up and closed his eyes like that was it, that was the Final Announcements, kids.

Ryan chewed on his bottom lip for a minute or two, watching Mike soak up the light in silence. In theory? He hadn't thought there was any sort of theory about it at all. You swam to win. Didn't you? "So, you're going to stop swimming?" he finally asked. Not that he was trying to sound expectant or anything, it was just nice to have some common ground for a moment instead of all this other weird unexplainable mysterious bullshit.

There was a long silence from Mike and the sound of the low tide filled the space between them until he spoke up. "I haven't decided what I'm going to do," he said without opening his eyes.

Not that Ryan wanted to be the one to burst his bubble, but, "uh, well if you haven't set qualifying times it's sorta your last chance before Nation... als... what?"

Mike had dropped his chin and turned his face to look at Ryan and all of a sudden Ryan felt like he was sitting in front of a one-man firing squad. "So if I set good enough times, then what?"

It was a weird question for someone who said they were good at swimming, even if they'd never competed. The picture in Ryan's head changed from Mike in a closet eating rats to Mike in a closet just big enough for one of those one-man jet-pools, forced to swim for hours and hours. He grimaced; he wouldn't like swimming either if that was how he had to do it. "Then you go to Nationals and then if you're in the top two in an event, the Olympics." Ryan stared at Mike. "You really didn't know that?"

Mike shook his head. "I know about the Olympics," he said. "I just didn't know what led up to it. I've never been--" He stopped, looking a bit like he'd just taken a bite of a lemon. "Anyway. I was just curious."

"Well," Ryan said carefully, "what do you swim? What're your times?"

Mike drew little patterns on his right thigh with his thumbnail; the lines turned pink briefly and then disappeared. "I wasn't exactly swimming in a regulation pool or anything. There was just that one time with--" He kinda caught himself, eyes jerking up to Ryan and then back down. "I'm best at the butterfly."

With what?? Ryan wanted to ask. Mike was locked-down like Fort Knox and instead of getting annoyed every time something else came up, it just made Ryan that much more curious. But if Mike had never been in a regulation pool it would explain why Ryan couldn't remember anybody with dreads at any of the meets he'd been to. He was kinda hoping that maybe that had been it, had been where he knew Mike from. No such luck, seemed like.

"Well," he said slowly, "you could swim in my pool. I'm pretty sure that Coach wouldn't mind." Actually, Ryan was pretty sure that Coach might mind a lot, but he could get Mike in the pool between practices and then there couldn't be any fuss about it that way.

The brief sunny smile was enough to make Ryan feel warmer than he already was but it was gone quick, tucked away behind a curtain of hair. "I don't know," Mike said after clearing his throat. "My dad would be really pissed. He doesn't want me showing off or anything."

Really, if Mike wanted it that much, Ryan didn't give a flying turd how the guy's dad felt on the matter. "You'd only be showing off to me," he pointed out. And probably my coach, but he didn't add it out loud. What difference would it make?

Mike's face tilted out from behind his hair. He tucked it behind an ear before starting to twist the string of the briefs around his finger again. "I guess you're right, I just..." He blew out a noisy breath and straightened up, just a little. "No, you're right. I left for a reason. And he wouldn't come and get me, so why not?" His dark eyes were smiling again as he looked back to Ryan.

Ryan couldn't help smiling back. "So," he said after a minute, "you like... ran away? To swim?" he finally asked. He wondered if it was still called running away when you were legally an adult.

Mike leaned back on his hands again and tilted his face far enough to look at Ryan and he looked totally serious now, brown eyes steady and almost like, sad in a way that Ryan couldn't put his finger on. But then Mike smiled and even though it didn't completely get rid of that look in his eyes it was warm and made Ryan's insides squirm. "Not to swim."

Ryan swallowed thickly and dropped his eyes, using a finger to push some sand across the bumper. His face felt a little hot. He was floored though, because, damn. He'd never known anyone who had run away from home. Even when him and his Dad had been totally pissed at each other and would yell and there was that one time Ryan had actually pitched a lifeguard floatie in his dad's (general) direction--even then, he'd never considered running away from home. Sure, he might fight with his dad, or his mom sometimes, but he loved them. Then again, they let him play lazer tag. So Ryan was gonna say that he was sorry, or that it sucked, except Mike seemed to be pretty happy about it. So he cleared his throat and looked up again. "Congratulations?" he asked.

The laugh that Mike gave to that made Ryan feel warm way down deep in his stomach. After the almost like, physical sensation of Mike being sad, it was great. The laugh was great. Ryan breathed out and smiled. "So is that why you don't have any clothes?" Ryan asked, not that it made much more sense than it did before. No one would sneak out of their house naked no matter how desperate they were to leave. At least he thought, but maybe that excluded closets the size of tiny pools and rats to eat. "Did you have to like, leave all your worldly possessions behind?"

Mike's toes dug into the sand. "Yeah."

"That sucks," Ryan breathed out. He knew that he'd feel like shit if he had to leave his dog and his closet and cars and stuff.

"I think it will be all right," Mike said. "Once I figure things out. Shouldn't be that hard."

Ryan didn't know what sort of things Mike had to figure out but he wasn't sure that life on the mean streets was gonna come easy to a guy who didn't even have a pair of pants. And Ryan might have actually mentioned that except that his phone started ringing from the front of the car, spilling Lil Wayne toward them. For a minute Ryan moved his head to the beat and then he climbed up into the trunk, crushing his stomach over the backseat as he stretched fingertips for the center console. He felt cool fingers wrap around his ankle as his leg flailed up; they held him steady as he grabbed. Which was nice.

With a groan Ryan slumped back into the trunk with the ringing phone in hand and hissed as he kneeled on the empty juice bottle. He looked at the caller ID and then let it ring, tossing the bottle elsewhere in a clatter of plastic and car siding. Mike looked curious, watching Ryan as he kneed himself awkwardly back to the bumper and unfolded his legs, knocking a towel and the bat out into the sand in the process.

"It's my coach," Ryan said, lifting the bat handle with one foot so that he could grab it. He put his phone to the side as it fell silent and shifted the bat so that he could use it to pick up the towel.

Mike raised his eyebrows a little bit. "And you don't want to talk to him?"

Ryan shrugged with one shoulder and grabbed the towel, shaking it out. He hated it when sand got all up in his car. It was impossible to get out of the cracks in the leather without like, magic. Or a professional detail. "He's just gonna tell me that I should be at practice." He shrugged his shoulder again and looked at Mike, who was looking back. "I wanted to be in the waves this morning. And I wouldn't have met you," Ryan pointed out with a bit of a grin, elbowing Mike. "Your head would be totally in tact. What's the fun in that?"

"Oh, I don't know," Mike said, snorting. He reached up to press at his head again; this time his fingers came back with only a couple of flakes of dried blood.

"Exactly." Ryan stood up, shifting from foot to foot in the hot sand. His phone started ringing again but before he could get to it, Mike had reached over and picked it up.

"K-dog," he said, looking at the screen. "Is that who sings this song? I like it."

Ryan damn near sprained his forehead with the way his eyebrows jumped up. "What? You've never heard of Lil Wayne? Oh my god, son, of course you like this music. This is the best music in the damn world." He stepped over, shaking his head and taking the phone. "Just gimme a minute then I'll educate you. Just a minute." He hit SEND. "Yo."

"Don't yo me. Where are you?"

"Nice to hear your voice too, baby." Ryan grinned and shuffled around in the sand. "You missin' me?"

Kyle snorted on the other end. "Like I miss not having genital warts. Do you think you'll be at practice any time today? Not that I care, honestly, because one less Ryan Lochte is like, six more events that I have a better shot making time on, but Coach is a wee bit pissed that his star pupil decided to ditch."

Ryan brushed some sand off his bumper. "I'm like the Karate Kid now. Does that make you one of the Cobras?"

"Dude, that makes me fucking Hilary Swank so don't even go there if you value life. Are you coming or what?"

Glancing up at Mike, who was watching him, Ryan shrugged. He'd kinda already promised Mike that he could swim the Gator pond but they’d never get back to Gainesville in time today and doing it tomorrow might be out of the question since who knew where Mike would be... oh. Where would Mike be? "Um. Do you have anywhere to stay?" Ryan asked Mike. "I mean--" he bit his tongue. It was stupid to invite a dude you'd just met into your home, wasn't it? Mike could be an axe-murderer or something. A rapist. A weird naked go-go dancing chicken in disguise.

"I live with you," Kyle said in his ear. He asked, "Are you high?" just as Mike shrugged and said, "Not really."

"Not really?" Ryan shook his head. What was Mike gonna do, hitch across America in a pair of swim briefs until he found a new life? That might not be the best idea in the world. In fact, it wasn't even a good idea. Not even slightly good.

"Seriously Ry, if you snuck out somewhere and baked I am gonna be pissed that you left me in practice, sober."

"Hey Kyle, you care if somebody stays with us for a little while?" The truth was, Ryan liked Mike. He liked his vibe. And he'd feel bad knowing that Mike was trying to get to anywhere with nothing but his ass for currency because Ryan hadn't done anything to help him out.

There was a pause on Kyle's end of the phone. "There's someone with you."

"Uh, yeah, who did you think I was talking to? So do you mind?" Ryan could hear Kyle's brain revving up at the question. Soon it was gonna start to smoke. "He's a totally nice guy," Ryan added, giving Mike a thumbs up because he knew that Kyle would give in, even if it took a little bit of whining. The force was weak with that one. And really, Ryan figured it was the least he could do for the guy anyway, putting him up until he found his way. He had nearly broken his head, after all.

Besides, how weird could Mike be?