Chapter Text
There are only two things really to be expected of Perth. One: the characteristics of the pitch, world renowned for its bounce and speed, admired and loathed in equal measure. The England team look upon it with a trepidation they do not admit, but the media seem to force down upon them. As Matt Prior said, the fact that England hadn’t won in so long isn’t off putting. It’s just a scary record that they aspire beat.
The second expectation is the heat. The sun seems to glare furiously at the beautiful city. It’s no worse really than anything they play under in places like Sri Lanka but it certainly feels like it. Because they’ve got the added pressure of the current Australian lead making sweat bead enough already.
But far from the perpetual cloud and rain of England, for training, at least, it feels like something of a holiday. A group of men who are all good friends, playing a game they love all day. Thinking of it like that takes the pressure of the series off their backs.
The Captain is happy to allow it – if only for an hour or two – because most of the team were dressed, padded and out of the dressing room door before he could stress the importance of winning the Test here. He knows they don’t need to be told it, but he tries to anyway because he needs to hear it for himself. To feel like a Captain, despite all the critical murmurs and sofa-bound hisses, and know that it’s on his shoulders alone to perform.
“You’re thinking too much~” comes one voice that as far as he knows, has never spoken a harsh word against him. It’s also close, and comes with a wash of warm breath on his neck.
Alastair turns his head to face Kevin who’s smiling at him like he means to cheer him up. Not that Alastair needs it, but the gesture is just that side of caring that’s cute. How can he not smile back? He only just resists the urge to touch him. “About the weather. Initially,” he replies.
The South African doesn’t press for an extrapolation. Alastair knows he’s been talking his worries out in his sleep, but Kevin has never once said anything, but woken him with gentle kisses that promise of an era of loyalty. Instead, his smile widens more to mirth and he glances out of the long window. “It is a bit crazy,” before he turns back, he bends to find something in his bag and produces his tube of zinc.
Alastair plucks it from his fingers and chuckles when Kevin deigns to look surprised. He shuffles around on the bench they sit regardless, resting his hands on Alastair’s thighs. He feels how those fingers squeeze him and thumbs rub tiny circles, teasingly just under his shorts, into his inner thighs. Part of Alastair is tempted to climb up and straddle him, but Ian’s in the far corner and looks at them between messages on his phone, wishing for all the world that they were somewhere else.
Uncapping the tube, he squirts an amount onto his forefingers. “Where do you want it?”
“It’s not like you to ask,” Kevin replies in a voice so low and quiet it’s the purr that Alastair usually hears through the back of his ear in the middle of the night. Yet, the brown of Kevin’s eyes still swirls with the quest to restore confidence in the Captain. It’s obvious that he wants to distract him from what looms in the days ahead. He tried to be entirely professional in Adelaide to no result, so Alastair relents.
He smirks, lowering his gaze to emphasise the importance of the motion of his hands as he spreads the zinc cream in his palms as he often does lubricant before reaching out to take Kevin’s cock in hand, or prep himself for the night ahead.
The way Kevin’s hands slide up an additional inch or two does not go unnoticed. He slathers the thick white cream across Kevin’s cheeks. Rubbing it up to the line of shadow his cap will cast, he comes back down and works it into the very shape of Kevin’s lips, and into the stubble growing around them.
“Not sure I need this much,” Kevin mutters, glancing down as Alastair squeezes out some more cream. He remains still and poised regardless.
“Nonsense,” he chides, leaning closer. As he slides his hands across Kevin’s face, adding another layer, he presses their mouths together briefly. “Can’t have my South African peach burning now, can I?”
“Peach? Peach?” Kevin laughs quietly, incredulously, and pulls Alastair up and onto his lap. The Captain wants to pretend that the show of strength does nothing for him, but he’s already grinning and his body nestles closer. When he spares a glance over Kevin’s shoulder, Ian’s pinching the bridge of his nose.
“What’s juicier than a peach?” Kevin continues in that most intimate of tones. His hands slide up Alastair’s back and push him down for another kiss.
It’s longer, deeper, and Alastair can feel the thick, white zinc rub off onto his skin. But he’s enjoying the kiss far too much to care, let alone stop it. Kevin’s tongue is as sharp and skilled as the rest of him, making Alastair hum deep in his throat. Before he really knows what he’s doing, his hands are moving round Kevin’s jaw, to cup around his skull. He catches himself just quick enough, stopping and palming what little is left of the cream over the South African’s ears.
“White suits you,” Kevin murmurs as they part for breath. He gingerly trails one finger across Alastair’s cheek where the cream had transferred. “Though I far prefer a splatter of it than a smudge.”
In the background, it sounds like Ian is choking, it’s all but lost under Alastair’s bark of a laugh. He slaps Kevin’s shoulder as a reprimand though he’s much too amused for it to even hold a mockery of sincerity. “You would.”
“Seriously though,” Kevin’s smile drops back to that sweetness that only two people get to see – not that Alastair thinks of the other one. He removes his hands from where they had fallen around the Captain’s bottom. “I don’t want you burning either.”
“But I—”
Kevin raises an eyebrow, shooting down the argument before it starts. The tube is retrieved before Alastair even submits. Well, he looks at the zinc, smirking like it’s something else that is usually presented for his other end and Kevin shakes his head, smiling.
Alastair leans back, not out of reach but denying all consent to being painted with the stuff. He licks his lips, not even trying his best to be alluring. It works because he sees Kevin’s adam’s apple bob profoundly. “I thought you liked my tan.”
Kevin just hums coolly, eyes narrowing because he’s wondering just how far Alastair is willing to go to prevent him from applying the cream. “My favourite is still your snow-white arse thou—”
“Seriously?” the Warwickshire batsman groans and pushes himself to his feet. “Here. I’m leaving, now you can have the bloody room.”
He stalks past the two of them, muttering under his breath all manner of bitterness’ that Alastair’s heard many times. They both know not to take it as anything more than what it is – hilarious. The dressing room door hasn’t even slammed shut before they’re chortling and sliding ever closer to each other now there’s absolute privacy.
“So,” Kevin sobers up first, waggling the tube of zinc between this index finger and thumb. “Where do you want it?”
Smirking, Alastair loops his arms around Kevin’s neck, casually, shamelessly; at just the right angle for another time-devouring kiss. “You really have to ask?”