Work Text:
The bulge in Cristiano's trunks made a lump in Leo's throat.
He'd swallowed both before. Was pretty good at it, actually, but he usually required a little bit of warning. Warning when Cristiano was so close that he could drive his shiny Mercedes through the empty suburban streets and wind up at a party at Pilar's house without Leo even knowing he was nearby. Warning that he might ditch the frat house for a night and slum it at a high school party just so he could dip himself into Pilar's hot tub like he owned it. Like he'd never disappeared at all. Warning that his drawstring would briefly dangle so close to Leo's face that he could chew on it like a piece of spaghetti, Cristiano and the Tramp. Warning each other was usually a rule.
Leo tried to act casual. "Caaasual," he said the word slowly and sank until only his eyes were above the water. He was nailing this. In a casual way.
Fortunately, Leo wasn't the sort of guy who got noticed much at parties. The only other people in the hot tub were Pilar and Sergio, devouring each other's faces with a focus only achieved on Adderall. The rest of the party had migrated back inside, where a messy game of flip cup still couldn't compete with the bass rattling in the living room. Iker was technically outside, but he was sprawled across two lawn chairs and hadn't moved in a few hours, so Leo was pretty sure no one at the party saw him become an awkward turtle.
If Cristiano had noticed, he was playing dumb with spectacular ease. In fact, he seemed unaware of Leo entirely. Instead, he bit down on a red solo cup and held it between his teeth, freeing both hands to applaud the ferocious lip lock in front of him.
"Wow. Ramos. Wow." He clapped with force. "The sheer stamina is staggering. Imagine if you added some kind of synchronization. You'd be unstoppable."
Sergio held up a hand and high fived Cristiano without breaking contact with Pilar. That's when Leo spotted it, the gentle twitch of Cristiano's pecs as he relaxed in the water. He was flexing. He'd definitely noticed Leo.
It was an impressive, infuriating performance. Truly Cristiano's specialty. Leo thought about the old cartoon with the frog that only sings in front of his exasperated owner. There he was, surrounded by half the high school, and he was the only one who could hear Cristiano calling. They'd both learned long ago that the first rule of surviving high school is to maintain plausible deniability.
And a nerd like Leo hitching a ride home with a jock like Cristiano just to get his face mashed into the backseat so hard he could still taste the leather - that was against the rules. Cristiano conveniently forgot the rules on hot days or lonely evenings, immune to reality until they were tired and spent in his tangled bedsheets. Leo never forgot the rules. Not when he was gleefully breaking them, and definitely not when he was climbing out a window and over the rosebushes on his way out. Denial got a lot less plausible if Cristiano's mother caught them stuck together like magnets in their sleep.
It got a lot easier when Cristiano graduated. One day he picked Leo up and drove out to the bluff, the next day he didn't, and Leo was left to finish the rest of the summer as a rule-abiding citizen. Piles of books and the Criterion Collection kept him busy on the days he felt like behaving, a bottle of Jergen's lotion eased the nights when he didn't.
By autumn, it started to get old. The blur of AP classes and extracurriculars couldn't push back the loneliness. It's not that he didn't have friends, he could always hang out with Gerard or Mesut if he really wanted. They'd watch One Piece. Study. Stumble through TikTok dances, just like last year. Nothing was wrong, really. But he had felt the searing heat of being wanted and now everything else left him cold. He wasn't, Leo decided, distracting himself hard enough. He hadn't found a substitute for the chaos of Cristiano, nothing threatened to pull him in and under like those mysterious waves of hunger and indifference. If mental and social stimuli couldn't do the trick, then it was time to get physical.
His memory of signing up to join the cheer squad was hazy. His dad threatened to hurl him out of the house to go socialize and he figured he might as well get tossed around as an actual social outlet. The logic flowed at the time. He was lean, he was strong, and he had an intimate knowledge of how flexible he could be.
And it worked! He held Pilar up on his shoulder during games, did backflips off Luis's knee during half time, and never let himself think about Cristiano. It was a rule he made up for himself and it had worked pretty spectacularly until the golden boy crashed a massive rager at Pilar's, right after Leo had tucked himself into a corner of the hot tub and promised he'd stay for at least an hour. He successfully filled a solid 27 minutes, swigging two beers and watching Sergio nibble on the captain of the cheer squad like an appetizer. Until some hair gel and a pair of broad shoulders pushed his way into the tub.
"Puff Puff Pilar!" Cristiano finally stopped clapping and sipped his drink. "I see you've attached yourself to a new living host."
"Ugh," she pushed herself away from Sergio and reached for her towel. "Ronaldo. Welcome back. Do you want to come upstairs later and step on a bunch of Monopoly pieces for me?"
He screwed his face up in confusion and goddamnit it was cute. A monosyllabic "huh" slipped through his lips.
"Oh yeah," Pilar dripped, "since you're already here to crush my game, figured I'd let you make a night of it."
Cristiano choked on a laugh. "Ok, great to see you, too. Jesus."
She climbed out of the tub and motioned to Sergio, who was out of the water with a bang, a jittery greyhound after a starter pistol. Cristiano waved goodbye, water rolling down his forearm and over his bicep. He'd definitely been working out.
Leo tried to divide 17 by 1.5 and list the nations of the world in alphabetical order, tried to will himself out of this situation and into some gentler form of hell where he could be crushed quickly and painlessly by a giant boulder. A world where he was put out of his misery instead of this one, where every inch of him lit up when their knees brushed under the water, alone now, just as a wave of hunger rolled in. Cristiano's foot found Leo's, ventured further up his leg. A rush of heat surged even higher. By the time a toe flicked at the leg of his swim trunks, Leo couldn't remember if they had rules about this. Maybe the rules only applied to dry land. Not now. Not when his breath is so shallow and Cristiano is so determined. Technically, if you squint hard enough, they were in international water. And Leo was almost hard enough to squint.
Almost.
"What is wrong with you?!" He bolted upright and grabbed the offending ankle with both hands. "What if someone had - are you crazy?"
Cristiano flexed his leg in Leo's grip. "Oh come on, touch it."
"You're a tool," Leo dropped his foot with a splash.
"Tools can be real useful," Cristiano waggled his eyebrows. He floated forward, eyes locked on Leo. "You know that better than anyone. Levers and oooh pulleys, yeah."
Leo sat in silence, contemplated the audacity of a man trying to talk dirty with a limited knowledge of simple machines. Leo watched him drift closer.
"Name one more. And maybe you've got a shot."
"Don't be a brat," Cristiano grinned. "It's been a long time."
"Whose fault is that?"
He slid his hands along Leo's calves. "I love when you're mouthy."
Leo rested his head back against the ledge and tried to work out the puzzle in front of him. The idea of just being seen in the same hallway used to terrify Cristiano. Now he had all the discretion of a bottle rocket. His gaze burned into Leo's. His stubble glistened along his jaw, jagged and glittering, nature warning the world of an elegant predator skimming the top of the water. Like he'd never been afraid of a thing in his life.
Leo was stumped. He spotted bruises against Cristiano's neck and swallowed another bitter lump.
"Where’d you get those?”
Cristiano shrugged. "Kiss it and make it better?"
His hands slipped between Leo's knees and spread them gently. Slowly. Waiting for an objection that never came. Green light.
Cristiano's body was suddenly against his. Just like before but somehow nothing like he remembered. Harder. Heavier. His lips felt all too familiar brushing along Leo's ear, his boldness felt shocking and new.
"Hey, little man."
"Hey," Leo remembered to exhale. He tried to recall his objection, distracted by the feeling of his legs wrapped around Cristiano's hips. He was vaguely aware they weren't alone, not really, that there was an entire party disintegrating around them even as he yanked on a draw string.
"Did you double knot this?" Leo's head was swimming and his hands couldn't move fast enough. "Wait. Isn't this against your cool kid rules?"
"Course not," Cristiano worked a hand up Leo's trunks. "You little hypochondriac."
Leo could hear his heart beat in his ears, felt Cristiano wedged against him, pressing into places that made him temporarily forget his own name.
"That's not what hypochondriac means."
"Whatever." Cristiano nuzzled his forehead against Leo's and let his body weight sink into him. His voice barely a whisper. "Tell me if you want to stop."
Leo nodded. He mumbled the words "I don't get you" before their lips crashed together. He should know better. He was smarter than this. He was above this whole thing, the parties and the necking and the cold plunge into loneliness that awaited him at the end of this plank. Smart boys don't let their hearts beat this fast.
He sucked in a sudden breath, unprepared for the electric jolt when Cristiano's fingers brushed the head of his cock. Their limbs were tangled, fumbling, fast and growing slicker. Leo pushed their hips together and felt Cristiano shudder against him. The water was warm but their skin was hot, clothes stifling. Hands pulled at trunks and grasped for relief, Cristiano's groans interrupted every time Leo dragged a pair of wet lips back to his own.
Fuck restraint.
He kissed with force now. Abandon. Kissed him the way he used to, months ago, when they first did this in a cramped backseat behind tinted windows. He had this moment, nerds like him had sold their souls for less. So he took it, thrusted into Cristiano's fist under the water.
This was getting out of hand. A distant part of his brain knew that. He pumped his hips again and let out a ragged sigh. His hands trailed down Cristiano's stomach, rewarded with a gasp when they went lower and tried to match the other man's rhythm. Cristiano's eyes fluttered shut, his face flushed and handsome and enthralled.
Cristiano kept one hand in a meaty fist and wrapped the other around Leo's waist, coaxing him forward and back, again and again and again. Leo couldn't do this for long. He groped for the right words.
"This is just..."
"Right?" Cristiano laughed.
Leo felt himself nod in agreement, his hips driving forward and head spinning. He'd reached a point of no return. Logic melted. Their lips met, harsh and bruising and entirely too excited. Teeth dug into his lower lip and he suddenly had both his arms wrapped around Cristiano's shoulders again. Their bodies pressed together, the muscles in Cristiano's body new and overwhelming and intoxicating. Leo was close. So close to thinking this could really happen. Not just tonight, but close to going out for chili dogs and buying tickets to the movies and falling in love in the backseat on a Friday night. Close to believing maybe Cristiano wanted-
"Yo!"
A strange voice rang in Leo’s ear. Sergio Ramos. Gruff and a little annoyed. He’d pulled on his varsity jacket and stood next to the hot tub, seemed not to notice that he'd caught Leo in the most undeniably torrid moment of his life.
Leo froze in place. If he didn’t move, maybe Sergio couldn’t see him. But there was no walking this back - no denying it. Exposed. Hard. Legs wrapped around a dumb bro who was rutting against him, battling the swim trunks pooled around his knees.
Sergio dragged his fingers through the water. "Pilar said everyone has to be out at midnight, so you dumb shits need to finish up by 11:59." He flicked his fingertips and disappeared back into the party. Casual.
Leo nodded silently, relaxed his hips back into his seat, didn't actually remember when he'd been lifted out of the water. The thump of bass crept back into his awareness.
"Oh." He squeezed his head with both hands. "Kay."
What the hell just happened?
Cristiano pressed his lips against Leo's neck and ran them up his jaw. His lips met Leo’s with a tenderness they’d skipped over earlier. He pulled Leo's shorts off his ankles and lifted his hips.
"Shhh, babe," Cristiano fumbled for position and kissed Leo again. Still hungry. Still focused. Like there wasn't another person for miles. "It's ok now. Jocks are supposed to fuck cheerleaders."