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MAY 31, 2025 — KNICKS VS PACERS, EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS, GAME 6
An hour after the loss, Jalen sits on the benches in the locker room, thumb brushing over his bruised knuckles.
It makes him feel like a child, punching lockers over a game. He can hear his dad’s chastising voice faintly in his head, but he shakes it off. The dull ache of his knuckles feels borderline delicious—anything to distract his nerves for a second from what he lost, what they lost, tonight. He thinks he will remember this night for the rest of his life, this feeling. As the purple of his hand deepens, he thinks he should make himself remember it.
Jalen pushes himself off the bench as the locker room door clatters open. Josh is still in his jersey, the sheen of dried sweat still across his forehead. He stands there, eyes shifting down at Jalen’s clenched fist, pausing there, then meeting his eyes again.
“Everybody else is at back at the hotel.”
Jalen doesn’t spare him a glance. “Great.”
Josh lets the door close behind him. “You gonna sulk in here all night?”
“I might.”
Josh snorts, a half-hearted effort. “Don’t be a bitch.”
“Shut the hell up.”
It’s not much different from how they always speak to each other. But Josh feels the chill, the humorless of it. No warmth, no Jalen.
Ever the fighter, Josh takes a step forward. Rests his palm on Jalen’s shoulder, feels him stiffen under it. Almost makes him smile. Almost makes it feel like any other day, inching his way into Jalen’s space to elicit a reaction.
“Come on, man. We’re all beat. We’re all crushed. Let’s drink with the team and forget about it. Can’t change the past, right? Finals next year. We got it.”
This is usually Jalen’s speech, spinning variants of it for the past two years. When he thunders it to his team, he shoulders their loss in those moments, and it’s always heavy and so thrilling. He believes it, always. Next game, next year. We got it.
But in this moment, his vision blurs. His bruised knuckles bunch up the front of Josh’s jersey and shove him up against the lockers, ignoring his hiss of Jesus, man, feeling the cold of the lockers as he traps Josh’s body with his own.
If Josh is startled, he doesn’t look it. His face is annoyingly even, a measured look in his eyes. “You gonn’ punch me?”
In this moment, Jalen hates him. His smug tone, everything a fucking joke, never surprised by Jalen’s anger or disappointment. Treating him like a kid, a pet. They weren’t going to the conference finals and Josh thinks a punch would fix that. This asshole.
When Jalen clashes their mouths together, he hopes Josh can taste the hate against his tongue, a bitter taste. He hopes Josh can feel the guilt and shame and anguish of another title slipped from their fingertips as he presses his chest flush against Josh’s, their heartbeats thrumming against each other.
Finally, Josh seems unprepared, just for a second. He stills against Jalen’s touch before responding with full force, with every atom of his being. He lets Jalen keep him pressed to the lockers despite looming four inches above him, his hands pushing Jalen’s hips into his own, earning a groan spilling into his mouth.
For a second, Jalen is afraid he’s taken the wrong path. Broken something beyond unfixable as Josh parts for a moment, foreheads pressed together, craning Jalen’s neck back. Josh was going to punch him now, he’s sure.
Josh spits in his mouth and Jalen swallows it, hard, and their mouths chase each other again.
Were they arguing? Josh can’t remember.
Josh pulls on his braids. Jalen bites his lip, drawing blood. Soothes the broken skin with his tongue. Josh tents so hard in his shorts he’s bucking his hips, chasing friction.
Jalen breaks away. Pushes Josh’s shoulders for good measure, suddenly an ocean of distance between them. They’re both heaving. The clamber of half-open lockers ringing in their ears.
Josh catches his breath first, feeling the sting still on his mouth. Missing it. “You good?”
And Jalen leaves him then, door slamming after him.
Josh replays the sound of Jalen’s moan in his mind as he sinks to the floor.
He thinks he will remember this night for the rest of his life.
MAY 25, 2026 — KNICKS VS CAVS, EASTERN CONFERENCE FINALS, GAME 4
The win is a searing heat in Jalen’s chest that he can’t simmer down. Job’s not done, he knows, not yet. But he’s crowned MVP of the Eastern finals and he catches sight of Josh’s boyish grin, the smile lighting up his entire face, and the heat spreads to his stomach.
Back at the hotel, the party dies down around 2AM. There’s a lot to celebrate. But there’s a lot to anticipate, too. Win now, celebrate later.
But there’s a rap at Josh’s door, and when he sees Jalen standing there in a t-shirt and boxer shorts, he thinks the party isn’t over just yet.
The door closes with a soft click, and Jalen’s shirt is too big on him. Josh’s heart clenches in his chest.
Josh opens the mini fridge. “You want a drink?”
Jalen chuckles, shakes his head. “Nah. Had enough.”
Josh nods, throwing himself into bed. Jalen sits besides him. “You tired, cap?”
Jalen makes a face. “Don’t call me that.”
Josh props himself up on an elbow, a hand ghosting over Jalen’s bare knee. Testing the waters as his fingertips graze the skin. “Why not?”
Jalen doesn’t flinch. “It’s corny.”
Josh settles his hand there, thumb caressing the skin. Inches up Jalen’s thigh so, so slowly. “Captain, my captain,” in his dumb, singsong voice.
Jalen scowls and laughs but doesn’t pull away from the touch. Scoots even closer to Josh, if either of them really think about it. “Fuck off. Don’t call me that.”
“Ever?” Josh asks, an innocent question. Fully sitting up now, he trails two fingers up Jalen’s side and rests them under his chin. He makes note of the way Jalen’s breath hitches. “Or just before I kiss you?”
And it’s there now, unavoidable. They’ve grabbed each other’s asses on national television and stolen glances as they showered side by side after practices, accidentally cuddled to sleep on jet couches on multiple occasions, even, but have never spoken of that night until now. Almost a year of avoidance and that kiss could be chalked up to a distant dream.
But not anymore. Josh remembers. Jalen remembers. Won’t let each other forget.
Jalen’s eyes drop to Josh’s mouth and Josh thinks yes, yes, finally, yes.
Jalen turns his head. “I didn’t come here to kiss you.”
The blood in his veins feels oddly cold. Josh scoffs. “Alright. Sure.”
“I’m serious!”
“Okay, fine. What did you come here for, then?”
Jalen starts an answer and it drifts away. His eyebrows knit together, frustrated. He doesn’t know. Every answer his brain strings together sounds too much like you.
Josh takes the silence as an answer, a cocky grin replacing his second of dread in an instant. “Take it, baby. Whatever you want. Take it.”
Something snaps in Jalen then, and thank god. He pushes Josh onto his back, slotting their knees together, hovering over him.
Jalen blinks at him. “You’re already hard.”
He experimentally rolls his hips into Josh’s erection, earning a guttural groan. “You’re wearing that. Yes, I’m hard.”
“I was about to go to sleep.”
“Just fucking touch me.”
Jalen rolls his eyes but pulls both their dicks out of their shorts, and won’t you have it, he’s hard, too. He spits in his hand and palms it over their tips, mixing their precum as they moan in unison. He strokes them together, slow, paced.
Josh is unraveling fast, blabbering Jalen, Jalen, JB into the soft part of Jalen’s neck, trying to litter kisses up his jaw until Jalen cranes his head away.
“I said no kissing.” There’s a hard look in his eyes, darkened by lust, but something serious, too. He quickens his pace, squeezing their cocks together.
Josh tries to fuck up into his hand and huffs out, “You’re so bossy.”
Jalen shrugs, taking two slick fingers and squeezing Josh’s balls, resuming the stroking after Josh gasps, pained in pleasure. “I’m MVP.”
Josh feels the heat coiling in the pit of his belly with speed and intensity, and makes an executive decision. Puts his height and size to use and grips Jalen’s ass and flips them over, pinning the smaller boy into the mattress, hand locking over both his wrists above his head. Jalen’s eyes are wide now, mouth ajar.
“Maybe,” Josh grunts, sliding his dick against Jalen’s length with such precision and slowness that Jalen’s toes curl, “But not right now.”
Josh’s hands work at a quick pace and Jalen’s head spins, whimpering. Josh wants to hear that sound over, and over, and over. “What am I now?”
Josh has never heard Jalen’s voice like this before. Soft, whiny, soaked with desperation. Laid out so plain there was no hiding it. For him.
Josh licks the shell of Jalen’s ear and from his obscene moan, it doesn’t break the no kissing rule. He whispers, punctuating every word, “Right now, you’re just another bitch in my bed, cumming all over yourself.”
The spark in Jalen’s core bursts into full lightning, whiting out behind his eyes as he comes undone into Josh’s fist, hips trying to meet Josh’s, trying to bruise them together. White paints his shirt and Josh’s chest, and he can hear his heartbeat in his head.
Josh’s strokes slow down a little, staring down at Jalen in awe, loosening his grip enough on Jalen’s hands that he snakes one down, spreads his cum onto Josh’s cock and strokes fast. Josh nearly collapsed on top of him, the sound ripping out of his throat “Fuck—ah, close. So close, fuck.”
Suddenly, after one more hard, rapid stroke, Jalen removes his hand and slips away from under Josh in one fluid motion. Josh thrusts his hips into the sheets just once and his orgasm rips through him, come splattering the sheets and his body, mixing with Jalen’s on his chest.
He’s still breathing hard, laying in his mess in the bed he has to sleep in when he takes a look at Jalen, who’s already slipping back into his shoes by the door. “Asshole,” he croaks out.
Jalen gives him a smirk then, and nothing else, leaving Josh as effortlessly as he comes to him.
JUNE 5, 2026 — KNICKS VS SPURS, FINALS, GAME 2
A 2-0 lead by the skin of their teeth. Josh finds Jalen in the showers after, steam billowing in the air. Every other shower is empty, but he strips away his sweaty jersey and shorts and slips into the one right besides Jalen.
Jalen seems unfazed by it, a small smile playing on his mouth as he stares at the floor.
Josh lathers his chest in soap and bumps shoulders with Jalen, who gives him a look, finally.
Holding eye contact, Josh takes his time to rub the suds down his hips, the soapy water running down his strong thighs. He wraps his fist around his dick and gives it two hard tugs as Jalen suck in a sharp breath.
“You missed me?” Josh says, barely a question. He watches Jalen grow half-hard under the spray of the water.
“Seen you everyday,” Jalen murmurs, unsure of what to do with his hands, of whether he should touch himself or Josh or both.
Josh lifts an eyebrow, letting go of his own dick. “Smartass.”
Jalen frowns, nearly a pout, and Josh wants to coo and laugh. Wants to scoop him into his arms and fuck him against the wall. But Jalen is unrelenting, always a face of calm, always composed under pressure.
Unless it comes to Josh. He shuts his eyes, voice barely discernible over the shower, but Josh catches every word. “Yes. Missed you. So bad.”
As a reward, Josh takes his dick back into hand and Jalen does the same with his own, matching pace. The inches between them go up in smoke with the heat of the water.
“How bad?” Josh’s spare hand curls into Jalen’s braids, bringing his head closer.
“Bad,” Jalen grits out, but it’s not enough for Josh, it never is. He adds, “Missed you, your dick. Thought of you all day.”
Josh whistles, a low sound. “Even during the game?”
“Don’t think for a second your dick made me miss those free throws.”
Josh laughs, an aching feeling in his bones. “Let me get you off.”
“Please,” Jalen groans, and what a pretty sound that is from him.
Josh lets his dick press against Jalen’s thigh. “Kiss me first, baby.”
He’s already going in for the kiss when Jalen takes a step back, a pro at that. Josh’s heart clenches when Jalen says, half sheepish and half serious, “Gotta earn it.”
Frustrated, terribly pissed, Josh turns his own shower off and switches the knob of Jalen’s to the coldest setting before leaving the locker room in a towel, shouting echoing behind him.
JUNE 8, 2026 — KNICKS VS SPURS, FINALS, GAME 3
The loss puts a halt to a thirteen game win streak, and the series isn’t measured in a single win or loss, Jalen knows. But it’s a shit, dirty game, and the end of the streak didn’t have to feel like an inevitability.
He doesn’t want to think about this game. He doesn’t want to think about the next game. He wants to forget, and when his eyes find Josh in the locker room, tugging off his Jersey, shorts hanging loosely off his hip bones, he wants.
It’s a similar position as their first kiss, pressed up against the lockers, this time with Jalen’s back against the metal. He’s about to slam their mouths together when Josh puts a finger to his lips.
“I think I get it now.”
Jalen’s forehead creases. He considers taking Josh’s finger into his mouth, sucking it. “Get what?”
“I’m the thing you want when you hate yourself.”
Jalen’s brain clouds with confusion. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
Josh doesn’t relent, but he doesn’t give up, either. He presses their bodies together. “I’m a good lay, when you want it. On your terms.”
“On your terms, too.” Jalen reminds him.
Josh hums. “Yeah. But you’ll only kiss me when your ego is bruised. When you need to remember I’m a person, and me wanting you makes you feel better about yourself.”
Jalen squirms against the lockers, not unpleasantly. “That’s not what this is.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No.”
“Okay. Get on your knees.”
“What?”
“Get on your knees,” Josh repeats, sounding bored. “If you want to feel better, I don’t care. If you want to cum, I can make that happen.”
If Jalen thinks about it, it’s not for long. He drops to his knees, hands at his sides, peering up at Josh. Waiting.
Josh is bricked. “Get off on my foot.”
Jalen looks like he’s just been asked to shoot himself. “What?”
Josh wiggles his shoe. “Get yourself off on my shoe or I’m leaving.”
Jalen sits on his knees in silence. For a moment, Josh wonders if he’s pushed this thing too far, but then he feels a weight sitting on his foot, and Jalen is grinding down his aching cock, still clothed in his shorts, against Josh’s shoe with his teeth gritted together.
Josh is so elated he could combust, raking fingers against Jalen’s parted scalp and pressing a kiss to the top of his head. Almost what they both want, almost.
Josh points the toe of the shoe up and Jalen whines, grinding quicker, almost bouncing on it, which earns him a, “That’s good, baby.”
And the praise is just as electric as how humiliating this is, being at Josh’s whim like this, doing anything he wants without a second thought. Jalen fucking loves it, would do it any day of the week.
In the heady swarm of how horny he feels, hips slowing down as his cock leaks into his shorts, the damp spot growing, Jalen tugs at a leg of Josh’s shorts. “Let me suck you off,” he pants out. Adds, “Please.”
Josh smirks, a thumb rubbing Jalen’s cheek. And it nearly kills him to say it, but he does. “Nah, baby. Gotta earn it.”
Jalen moans as his grinding grows sloppy, tension building as he tightens up. He’s about to come, but if he’s anything, it’s a quick thinker.
He mouths at Josh’s erection through his shorts, not quite a blowjob, but as far as he can get with the fabric in the way. He licks and sucks on the mound, swallowing the taste of pre-cum soaked polyester and seeking more. Josh is grabbing the back of his neck and tilting his hips into Jalen’s mouth and murmuring “Fuck, baby, you’re so good. My good boy,” and Jalen cums in his pants, wet and hot and with a loud moan around Josh’s clothed cock.
Josh’s orgasm follows soon after, forcing Jalen’s face to stay in place through it, some of the cum seeping through and into his mouth as Josh lightly presses Jalen’s softening cock down with the toe of his shoe, earning a pained, low whine.
When they pull away, Jalen is a wet, sticky mess, pupils blown wide. Josh is halfway to the showers when he looks back at Jalen, still on his knees. “Feeling better now?”
Heat rises to Jalen’s cheeks as he retorts, “Fuck off,” but he lacks the venom.
As Josh disappears into the showers, laughing, Jalen thinks that he should follow him. That wherever Josh went, he wouldn’t mind following. Win or lose.
JUNE 13, 2026 — KNICKS VS SPURS, FINALS GAME 5
The celebration is a speeding car with no brake in sight. Jalen could swear his body and brain are only running off on pure adrenaline, the kiss of his father on his head, the cheer of the crowd a shot to his veins. He tries to commit it all to memory but it is a fever dream with every color in highest vibrancy, smoke filling his lungs, a drug of its own. He seeks out Josh’s eyes to find them already on him. When they hug, Jalen’s towel wrapped around his head, knees buckling, Josh is babbling, voice faster than his thoughts, “We won, we won, we won. I love you, I love you. Fuck.”
Jalen is being pulled into Josh’s lap in the back of the limousine ride to the hotel, and the team doesn’t even give them a glance. Josh’s hands are slipping up Jalen’s championship shirt and pinching his nipples as Jalen almost slips hold of the Larry O’brien trophy, shooting a meaningless glare that’s met with a limo full of laughs.
“Bet you’d let me fuck you right here, wouldn’t you?” Josh mumbles into Jalen’s ear, slotting his knee under him, in between his legs. Presses into him.
Jalen shivers. He looks around briefly, at these guys that they love and love them. “Yes.”
Josh’s hands still, as if he hasn’t already given them away, as if they both haven’t already, probably ages ago. Heart in his throat, he swallows down. “What did you say?”
Jalen doesn’t respond to that, just turns his head and grabs Josh by the shoulders and pulls him in for a searing kiss, the car almost bursting open with the sounds the team makes. Though, Josh doesn’t recall a sound, licking into Jalen’s mouth, hungry and wanting, starving for over a year.
Jalen kisses him until they both get their fill, which is hours and miles on the road, laps around the same few blocks. They’ll have their moment in the hotel soon, properly, finally. Josh laying Jalen down and kissing a trail down his stomach, kissing the tip of his cock as fingers open him up. Filling him to the brim until Jalen is crying, begging for him to move, and fucking him until they come twice, thrice. Kissing his cries and moans and swallowing every sound, never satiated. Chasing more and more until they are bone tired, falling asleep with mouths just an inch apart, as if they fell asleep kissing. Waking up hours later just to do it all again.
Right now, though, they continue kissing and licking and biting in the limousine, Jalen breathing the words back to Josh with every mouthful of air he can get. We won, I love you. We won, we won. I love you.
It’s all the same, they both know.