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“You’re an idiot,” Kevin mutters to himself he packs his dirty clothes away, readying for bed. His movements are jerky and robotic; routine as his mind runs at a million miles an hour heading to nowhere.
He’s been meaning to ask Alastair if he’d like to join him on a day’s excursion the entire day. Maybe even before that, when some locals had mentioned the place. He’s been meaning to ask, but every time he pulls Alastair aside, or catches his ear for a moment, the words just don’t form. And it’s stupid because his lips form easy kisses and the Captain’s spent the entire day wearing the shirt and sunglasses Kevin had given him, yet he can’t even ask him out.
Maybe therein lies the problem. It's a date. Two people who like each other spending time together - there's no other way around it. And they don't do dates. It's what they never even agrees because they've never even discussed it, because all they had is sex. At least, that's all it used to be.
Even if they were to reason it as just two friends; two teammates spending a day off enjoying themselves, there is no way Kevin could think of wording it that won’t make him sound like a hopeful teenager, or those infuriating giggly seamers he has to put up with on this tour.
There’s no way that Alastair wouldn’t look at him with those bottomless brown eyes and smile too-sweetly, and cast aside the gesture because it’s too far over the line they never drew in the sand.
He looks up when there’s a knock on the door, and then, after a second’s pause, comes two more. Normally, he’d smile and turn to face the impending newcomer, but his tongue goes dry as it has the entire day. He can only offer a simple welcome as he tries to conceal his awkwardness now that there’s nowhere else to be or people to turn to.
Alastair slips in, looking fresh from his meeting and weary because of it. Kevin doesn’t even ask, knowing the current pressures of selection, and leans to grab the two beers he’d brought up from dinner. Alastair locks the door and immediately approaches, taking a large gulp of the offered bottle before putting it back down on the table at their side.
“Who ever said Captaining in Australia is easy is a frigging idiot,” the brunette finally groans, hanging his head on Kevin’s shoulder and almost becoming deadweight once he lets his daytime props of duty and professionalism go.
The South African discards his drink and wraps his arms around Alastair’s slender waist and pulls him closer. “You can forget all that now,” he replies softly. He stares at the wall in front of him because it’s suddenly become one of those moments in which he could ask Alastair if he wants to go to Ellery Creek. Such simple words, for Christ’s sake. Here the man is, in his arms and looking for comfort like what is only expected, normal, in the relationship they’re not in.
That train of thought is thrown violently off the rails as Kevin feels hands slide down his naked back and past the waistband of his boxers. Blunt nails scratch him just enough to make him clench his buttocks and Kevin knows that Alastair’s already forgotten his day.
“You’re going to the Creek tomorrow, aren’t you?”
Kevin hums affirmation, glancing out of the corner of his eye at the ruffled sable mess of Alastair’s hair as if he could read it like an expression. Somehow, he already knows what’s coming and it’s like weight on his chest had become butterflies.
“I’ve got nothing to do… so,” he presses his lips to the crook of Kevin’s neck, and they’re wickedly curved like he’s daring Kevin to reject him. “I was thinking I could tag along?”
“I don’t know,” Kevin sighs and pulls out of the embrace with a faux-grimace.
He really does not want to be seen as eager as he feels despite knowing that he’s already given the game away. That much had been obvious for hours. Plus, just a little part of him wants to play and do away with that lingering fatigue and seriousness in the depth of Alastair’s eyes.
“I’ve heard the place is pretty dingy, to be honest. You’d not be interested,” Alastair’s eyes meet his, smouldering with his gorgeous half-smirk. Turning, Kevin reaches for their drinks again, “It’s just cool water and a sandy beach in the shade of gum trees.”
“I’m sure I could survive,” Alastair smiles as he sits on the bed and waits for Kevin to come closer before he reclines back on his elbows. Everything about him is always cat-like confidence and it never ceases to make the South African’s mouth run dry.
“Perhaps, but there’s nothing relaxing about being in the middle of nowhere, getting away from it all.”
Alastair takes his bottle again when it’s offered and drinks readily between his words. “I’d prefer the squawking of galahs and budgies to the Press.”
“You can spend you day doing much better things,” finishing the beer in a heavy swallow, Kevin casts the bottle aside and watches the Captain finish and discard his own, never really once losing eye-contact underneath dark lashes.
“I’m sure it’ll be slightly more fun with me there?”
Kevin hums again as he settles his weight firmly upon that slighter body, between those long, slim legs. It’s a non-committal thing that ends in a kiss to Alastair’s neck. “It’ll just be the two of us, alone. It’ll be totally boring, honestly.”
Alastair sighs and slides his hands around Kevin’s waist and up to cup around his shoulder blades, drawing him closer and subconsciously emphasising the fact that he was contrastingly still fully dressed. “You’re right, I can’t imagine anything worse then spending time with you.”
“Yeah,” Kevin scoffs, lifting his head only to fasten his lips to the prickly skin under the other’s chin. “And I can’t imagine anything worse than you naked,” he slides Alastair’s shirt up with one hand, whilst the other unfastens his trousers.
--
They set out for the creek in the early morning, when the others were too busy buzzing over going to Uluru to pay much attention to Alastair slipping back into his own room from Kevin’s wearing the same clothes as the day before.
Arriving a little while later, the three that accompanied them immediately settle down on their towels, strip off their shirts and crack open the esky to start on the beers they’d brought with them. And when Kevin gives them a look of disapproval like their actions are not what he expected and wanted, all he gets is the dismissive response ‘when in Rome!’
A few mumbles after that makes him chuckle, and he turns to see Alastair standing on the other side of the car, looking intently at him whilst appearing not to. He does finally avert his eyes when Kevin ambles over, picking his footing on the rough Outback terrain. He’s already had a few rocks flick up into his sandals and the last thing he needs is a McGrath-like injury taking him out of the Second Test.
“You said it was just going to be the two of us,” Alastair says, his voice quiet and soft, though there’s a frown threatening at his eyebrows.
Kevin glances at their companions and shrugs. In an ideal world, yes, he would love to take Alastair places alone, but the simple fact is that they don’t. He slips his arms around Alastair’s waist because the car’s concealing all but their shoulders upwards. There’s also the plus that the three who’ve come tend to turn a blind-eye to their antics, saying if you want to fuck up your marriages, that’s your business, not mine when approached the morning after an evening spent in the company of the two drunk and amorous batsmen. He’s never questioned to what extent that ignorance goes though, so he is relying on their consumption of alcohol bringing about the day the two of them had anticipated all night.
“They’ll drink themselves silly soon enough,” he smiles and nudges Alastair’s head to one side so he can kiss the bare skin under his ear: one of those few spots that made the Captain ready to agree to anything he says.
Like clockwork, Alastair’s fingers curl around the waistband of his shorts and tug him that little bit closer. “Let’s hope you’re right about that,”
Kevin grins, nibbling that copper-tinted skin and relishing how he can feel Alastair’s jaw tense against his cheek. “I was wrong about something else last night…”
The brunette pulls back wearily, eyes narrow in the expectancy of something much worse than Kevin’s actually going to say. It’s quite amusing, really, and he’s half tempted to joke that the teammates they’d left back at Alice Springs would actually be joining them shortly. “What?”
“I can imagine something worse than you naked,” he continues, deadpan, and quells the twitch to the corner of his mouth when one of Alastair’s thick brows rises. He slides his hands down to Alastair’s hips, thumbing the material of his shorts in disgust. “And it’s these shorts.”
Alastair laughs, shaking his head and taking a step back and out of their embrace. “Oh, well then, if I look better naked…” he trails off, still grinning as his long fingers make like they’re going to unfasten the drawstrings that keep the horrid things tight to his hips.
They really are something else. A mix of colours so unsuited to each other, let alone upon such a man as Alastair. More muted colours would fit him, as to not detract from the natural beauty he’s worked hard to possess. The metrosexual in Kevin cringes the longer he looks and he chuckles, walking past Alastair, but pauses to slap his bottom.
“Don’t be a whore.”
--
Kevin manages to pester the others to rise for a few photos to mark the occasion because it’ll not only cement memories of the beautiful country that Australia is, but it’s good to have something to show his family that he didn’t spend the entire time cooped up in hotel rooms, because that’ll only make him feel guilty when he inevitably has to lie and say that he spent hardly any time in bed.
They soon collapse back to the sand (and that half-empty esky) and when Kevin’s finished uploading the chosen photos to Social Networking sites, he looks up and finds Alastair already back floating out in the light green water of the creek. He hasn’t seen the man so relaxed for a long while, definitely not before this series, and maybe not even since they won the last in the summer. It’s a good feeling to think he’s given rise to this escape. As if, just for the few hours they spend here, Alastair is no longer the Captain of one side in a war that’s spanned over a Century. It’s like Kevin’s helped bring it around too, and like any decent partner on a date wants to, he wants to preserve the good feeling.
He lays back, enjoying on working up a more even tan than the one he gets when he’s batting, and listens to the loud laughter and banter of the others and the noise of the Outback that isn’t all that different to South Africa.
Kevin doesn’t know he’s drifted off to sleep until he feels cold water dripping onto his chest and stomach. Cracking his eyes open, he finds Alastair stood, blocking out the little wisps of sunlight, above him.
“You’re not actually going back in the water?” the Captain asks with an air of incredulousness though he settles down on the towel that Kevin set out for him. Those awful shorts are fiendishly low and Kevin makes no attempt to hide the fact he appreciates it.
“Crocodiles, jellyfish, sharks,” he mutters void excuses, stopping before he starts listing snakes, rock wallabies and dingoes because he suddenly realises that the drunken babble has ceased.
As he glances around confused, Alastair yawns and rolls onto his front. “They’re in the car. Aussie Rules game on the radio or something.”
“Oh,” Kevin mumbles, not really surprised. It was only a matter of time before the beer got warm and the sun a little too hot. He had thought ahead and set their towels out under a gumtree that promises shade at least until the sun is comfortably on the other side of the sky. And thinking even further ahead of that, he’d found a spot with just enough cover that they aren’t obvious to any passers by. Not that Alice Springs is the first place tourists think of going when they come to Australia.
When he turns back, Alastair seems half-asleep. His arms are up and crossed in a little nest for his head. The elevation of his upper body creates a fascinating curve to his back that little droplets of water trickle down to pool at the base of his spine. His wet hair is pushed back, exposing the full masculinity of his face, as if his body isn’t enough already. And Kevin finds himself thinking as he finds himself thinking more and more lately, that he’s in love with two of the most beautiful creatures on the Earth. Which is completely ridiculous so he silently chastises himself and returns to that one thing they have that they’re actually meant to have.
Kevin moves as quietly and as smoothly as he can as to not disturb Alastair, but the Englishman’s lips still curl upwards because he knows what’s coming. It’s only to be expected really, when he puts himself on show like this.
He bends, hands supporting himself at Alastair’s waist, pressing his lips to the nape of his neck. The skin is still slightly cool from the water and held just the slightest tang of salt. He kisses indiscriminately, dragging his teeth here and there and loving how Alastair’s breath hitches. Those tiny gasps become hums the lower Kevin goes.
When he finally reaches the small of the Captain’s back, the rest of it is dotted and dashed with pink that he quietly hopes will last longer than a few hours. He licks away that little pool of water, oddly refreshing and entirely erotic and murmurs his relish against his skin. As it vibrates along his spine, Alastair wriggles his hips like it’s growing uncomfortable between the ground and his crotch.
Smirking, Kevin seeks to make it that little bit worse. With nothing but the sound of the Outback around them – though he thinks he wouldn’t care even if there wasn’t – he hooks his fingers under Alastair’s shorts and pulls them downwards and over the plump swell of his buttocks.
“That’s much better,” he says, grinning. Sliding his hands back up Alastair’s back to nestle into the crook of his armpits, he dips his head again and lavishes attention down upon the exposed flesh. And when he starts to venture down into the cleft of Alastair’s bottom, the man groans an all too familiar frustration.
“Fuck, Kev, stop it.”
He’s reluctant to, and only slows his kisses, but stops teasing his tongue lower in the insinuation of something he’d be happy to do, but not if the Englishman wasn’t willing. Only once before had he refused and those were under some pressing circumstances that ultimately could have ruined everything if there was a sniff of getting caught together. He might be an utterly lascivious creature down to the bone, but he is still all those qualities that landed him the job of Captain.
“Ugh, seriously, Kev,” Alastair starts to wriggle again, this time with more vigour, not only to dislodge the South African but also to roll over. His face is flushed and his eyes glossy as he pulls those abhorrent shorts back up. Kevin smirks because if this is Alastair trying to stop him from screwing around it’s really not working. “We can’t do this right now,” he says with a strongly authoritative voice that should not be able to come from him when he looks so undone. “We’re in publ—”
The excuse is almost as void as Kevin’s earlier excuses for not swimming. Of course, it was a point, but it would be hard for someone to exactly sneak up on them just making otu, so he silences those full lips with his own. The kiss quickly deepens because whilst he’s being responsible, he’s still Alastair Cook and Kevin shuffles so he’s lying atop him, albeit awkwardly because Alastair is stubbornly not spreading his legs.
Kevin eventually gives up, leaving a few pecks around Alastair’s mouth before propping himself up on his elbows. For a little while, he just stares and the Captain thinks it’s weird and then amusing, but never uncomfortable. It calms Kevin down from his lusts, replacing them again with a softness he denies. Doesn’t stop him from indulging, and he strokes back the curls of black hair that stick to Alastair’s forehead before stooping to kiss him gingerly.
“When we get back to the hotel, I’m going to—”
“Hold that thought, babe,” Alastair smiles, holding a finger to his lips. He doesn’t have to say anything more because Kevin knows. He knows what his cocksure arrogance does to Alastair and instead pecks his mouth again before sliding back to his own towel.
He sighs, staring up at the sky through the lace-like umbrella of the gumtree. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Alastair turn onto his side, and then two cool fingers trace imaginary lines along his stomach. And that makes him think. “I suppose we should see about lunch.”
“Would be good,” Alastair hums, languidly drawing his hand back and Kevin hauls himself to his feet. “A gentleman never lets his date go hungry. Especially if he expects sex.”
Kevin chuckles, offering his hand to help Alastair up. It’s taken and he cheekily steals another chaste kiss. “So this is a date now, is it?” he hides his own insecurities in sarcasm, but he suspects the Englishman sees right through him.
“Yes, and it’s been great,” Alastair smiles warmly, genuinely, and strokes Kevin’s arms in the soft, tender way he’s taken to recently. Then he takes a step back and his face falls a little solemn before he turns and makes to head back to the car. “Now, let’s get back to the real world, huh?”