"Matsuoka."

Rin turned around at his name, on hand at the towel slung over his shoulder. He was still only in his swimsuit – the person who'd just called his name was in tracksuit top and bottoms.

"Rei Ryugazaki," he said sarcastically, one hand on his hip and an eyebrow raised critically. "Wha'd'you want?"

The bespectacled man regarded him silently for a few seconds, and Rin was about to repeat his question impatiently when the other man suddenly blushed and looked away.

Stricken curious, Rin cocked his red head to the side. "What are you thinking? You're blushing, Ryugazaki."

Rei ducked his head bashfully, still not saying a word and still not looking at him.

Rin sighed impatiently and made to turn away. "I'm just gonna go now. Tell me when you're able to t-"

"Bite me."

Rin froze incredulously. What?

With his back turned to the other man, Rin suddenly had no desire to turn around and face him again. Approaching steps told him that Ryugazaki was coming towards him, and this was confirmed when the other man's voice suddenly said at his ear, breathing warmly into his neck, "I want you to bite me."

Rin's breath caught, and a flutter of desire in his stomach had him turning around on the idiot, grabbing him by the shoulders and slamming him into the wall to their right violently.

"What the hell are you saying?!"

"Matsuoka…!"

"What are you-"

"Remember what you said earlier? About how I'd better swim faster than you if I didn't want to get bitten? Well, I've thought about it and – and, I want you to bite me!"

Rin's mouth snapped closed. The innuendo was clear enough; just some biting wasn't the only thing the other man was asking of him. He shook his head angrily, giving Ryugazaki another shove into the wall. The blue-haired man looked panicked now, his eyes wide and face turned away, and he was still blushing. Rin drew back, letting go of him. He took a step back, silently observing the man who had taken his place by Haru's side on the team, and made to walk away.

"Wait!" Ryugazaki called after him, not moving from where Rin had shoved him against the wall. "I… You like Sousuke, don't you?"

Rin froze. His back muscles tensed, lips drawing back over his sharp teeth, but he didn't turn around. "The fuck are you-"

"I can see it," Ryugazaki cut him off, his voice gentle despite the lash that were his words to Rin. He wasn't trying to hurt him. "It's about as obvious as you liking Haru."

Rin's shoulders slumped at that. There was no way he could deny that. Absolutely no way. "What are you…" He trailed off.

"What am I trying to prove?" Rei finished for him, his voice kind. "It's hard not to notice Haruka-senpai. His form is beautiful. Really."

The redheaded swimmer turned around this time, gazing wide-eyed at the other man. "You… You, too?"

Rei smiled. "Yes. Makoto, too."

"Makoto…" Rin shook his head bemusedly. "I never noticed."

"I think I'm the only one who has," Rei said. "You guys know him too well to have noticed anything different. But Makoto is as observant as he is transparent when it comes to Haruka-senpai. He knows you like Haru."

"You told him…?

"I didn't have to. Makoto's known from the start."

"…Thanks, I guess. But that still doesn't tell me what you're trying to do with all this."

"You don't have to like me," Rei said immediately, hands down by his side, palms against the wall. "In fact, I know you don't. You probably hate me for taking your place on Haruka, Makoto and Nagisa's side. I know I'm not the best butterfly swimmer. I'm trying my best, but I'll probably never get to your ankle when it comes to swimming. I know all that. And yet." He cocked his head. "We both know Haru – you more so than me. We both know nobody can compete with him. But I think we are also both aware that he'll never bother with either of us. To him, there's only the sea. That, and Makoto. He doesn't know it yet, but I know Haruka-senpai is in love with Makoto. Once upon a time, he might have been in love with you. But though he understands why you did it, I think you've hurt him too much for him to ever truly love you again."

"You don't know anything," Rin murmured, hands tightening on his lowered towel and goggles.

"Let me finish. You don't have to like me. Hell, I certainly don't like you! But you…" Rei took a deep breath, the blush on his face returning full force as he looked down bashfully. "You turn me on."

Rin laughed nervously, something so uncharacteristic that it had Rei looking up quickly, startled by the sound. "That's crazy. You're crazy."

"Maybe. Before the Regionals, on that island both our schools went to to train, I went out to sea at night, when the others were asleep. I'd been behind that day during practice. I hadn't even completed half the regime. I wanted to get better. I hated that I was the one holding them back. I ended up nearly drowning, and I nearly got Makoto killed with me. It brought us all closer though. I've never trusted them more than after that particular event. I might be crazy. But sometimes that's for the best. Don't you think?"

There was silence for a minute, and when Rei looked up, Rin was still looking down at the floor, but the look on his face was no longer repulsed, but thoughtful. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking… I'm thinking about what you said."

"Which part?"

Rin looked up, and Rei drew a quick breath. Rin's eyes burned right through him, branding his face in red hot ambers.

"'You turn me on'," the redhead repeated, watching Rei squirm under his gaze. "'I want you to bite me'". He paused. "You meant that?"

Rei nodded quickly, holding his gaze nervously. "More than anything."

Just like that, Rin was on him, towel and goggles dropped to the floor on the way. The redhead's shoulders pressed his own back into the wall, one hand on his waist and the other on his hip and slipping slowing down and around to grasp his ass. Rei gasped, his back arching into the other man's chest, hands grabbing at Rin's forearms desperately.

"I…see," Rin murmured into his neck, teeth grazing his skin.

"Ba—stard," Rei stuttered distractedly, hyper aware of the redhead's hand kneading his ass teasingly.

Rin's hand slipped around, and Rei gasped again when the redhead cupped his half-hard bulge through his tracksuit bottoms. Rin started, looking momentarily thrown off by something. "Ryugazaki, you're-"

"Shut up," Rei snarled suddenly, squeezing the other man's forearms angrily. "I know what I am!"

"Hey, hey," the older man chuckled heartily, and bent his head to nip at the other's neck. "I never said I minded. I'm just stating a fact."

"But I don't- need you to point out- that I'm- embarrassingly small-"

"I don't mind," Rin repeated. "It's not embarrassing – I don't care about your size. And as such, I'd hope you wouldn't care about mine…"

And with that, Rin rolled his hips into the other man's, pleased when the dark-haired butterfly swimmer shivered from head to toe at what he was feeling. "Kami-sama… You're a- a monster!"

"So you don't mind?" Rin enquired curiously.

"No, but that's not – it's not the same."

"Not the same as what?"

"As having a small penis."

"Sure it is," Rin countered pleasantly, still massaging Rei's crotch with his right hand and the other pushing him closer at the small of his back. "Differences are still differences," he said. "Some might reject you for yours, just as they might reject me for mine. Therefore-" He bit into Rei's neck again, making the other man gasp and tense, "I don't care." And, right on cue, Rin proceeded to slip his hand right into the other man's tracksuit bottoms.

Rei bit his lip, and his grip tightened around Rin's forearms when the latter's hand closed around the base of his shaft. The redhead began pumping, moving his fist in short, slow, teasing movements that he knew would soon have Rei keening in need. The hand he held at the base of the bespectacled-man's back began moving in small, gentle circles, a comforting motion that Rin didn't realize was as instinctive as it was kind.

Rei could say nothing as the other's hands worked on him, could not even begin to think of an appropriate reply as he felt Rin's monster length lengthening still – harder and longer and thicker. It was a massive turn on to know that Rin was getting hard on giving him a hand-job; to know that, in some abstract way, he was the source and plug of the redhead's need and fulfilment. He could take all this away from him – from both of them – if he liked. He could have – but the knot progressively growing and hardening in his stomach, and the heat spreading in his own legs and face, told him that he would suffer from it just as much as Rin would – and that that wouldn't be such a turn on, after all.

Wordlessly, he slid his hands up to tangle in the other's shoulder-long red hair. For a second he did nothing more than revel in the silky feel of it, but when his hands began to itch and twitch with restraint he knew he could wait no longer. So he tightened one hand on those red locks, tugged the other man's head back from the crook of his neck, and crashed his mouth down onto Rin's.

It was a liberation. In the split of a second and the released beat of a catatonic heart, their entire demeanours changed, from carefully controlled probing hands to fingers that tugged and groped at every strip of skin that could be reached. In seconds they had both become a mass of nerves and tumbling hormones, unable to word the unending, incomprehensible want that had suddenly tightened its grip on their insides in a fierce lover's embrace. Even Rei could not explain it, for even when he'd just said himself that neither of them were particularly attracted to the other, suddenly, to him, there was nothing in the world but the red-haired man with the sharp teeth tugging at his clothes and grinding against his half-clothed shaft. He wanted to scream, he wanted to swear, he wanted to yell with the force of the all-encompassing desire that suddenly seemed to grip his cock in the form of Rin's renewed hand.

Instead, all he did was grit his teeth and hug the other man closer.

Before Haruka-senpai and Matsuoka, Rei had known he was attracted to men, and had thanked the theory of evolution for being born into a world that was beginning to accept homosexuality. But his size had always been a problem to him, in the sense that how could he ever be confident around a man that he might like or want when he knew that said man would, without fail, be disappointed when came the time of baring their girts? As a result, he'd never before been touched the way he was being touched now, and he was hyper aware of the fact that it was Matsuoka Rin doing this to him – a man who was his diametrical opposite when it came to size.

But somehow, Ryugazaki Rei did not care. Somehow, he could not have cared less. And somehow, it was the only thing he cared about.

A world of contradictions offered itself to him, opening its arms to him just as he slipped his own hand into Rin's swimsuit and began responding in kind to the attentions being bestowed onto him. Rin tensed but did not pull away, and that alone told Rei everything that he needed to know. Red and violet eyes met then, pupils blown wide with lust and crave. Rin bared his teeth at him in a show of want and aggressiveness that had Rei's breath growing shorter and his hand speeding up on the redhead's impressive length, their fists bumping together at the point where Rin's swimsuit met Rei's tracksuit bottoms.

At this point, neither of them cared that they were in the middle of a corridor into which anyone could have walked in on them at any given moment. Caring, and even so much as thinking about anything but each other was too far beyond them for it to even strike them as important. They touched each other like starving dogs, desperate for the friction that would give them their release, desperate for something that was more intense and more indispensable than anything they had ever experienced before. Neither of them quite knew what it was that made this different – much less Rei who didn't have much material for comparison either way. But Rin – Rin knew what he wanted. He'd always known what he wanted, in any and every circumstance. Yet just at that moment, though he knew he wanted something, craved it with an urge that inflamed every inch of his body, his fumbling hands, slightly less sure than they usually were, his snapping hips, desperately fucking Rei's hand, would not allow him to be lucid enough to understand what he was doing – and why he was doing it.

And as the heat in his body flared up and the rhythm of his hips broke quite suddenly into quick, jerking motions, his teeth sank down on Rei's bottom lip, and he spurted his load over the other man's hand just as the taste of blood and ecstasy invaded his senses.

The two tasted remarkably the same.

When he was done, he looked up into Rei's wide eyes, aware of the fact that Rei hadn't come and that Rin had stopped pumping him when he'd felt his own orgasm closing in. The younger boy was breathing hard, and his tense body told Rin how much he needed his release, and also how scared he was that Rin would deny it to him.

But that had never been Rin's style. Nonetheless…

"There," the redhead said, letting his hand slip away from Rei's hardness and rest on the waistband of his tracksuit, pulling it down only slightly with its weight. Rei's eyes widened even more. "I bit you," he continued, and to highlight his point leaned in to lick off the blood trailing down the other man's chin from his split lip. "Happy?"

Rei said nothing, but the purple eyes searching Rin's face and his silently heaving chest showed him the man's panic. Rin made to turn away to the locker room, hand still on the other's waistband, and at Rei's quick intake of breath he pretended to be startled by it and turned back to look at the blue-haired man.

"What is it?" He bent down to pick up his discarded goggles and towel, letting a few delectable seconds of the other's panicked silence stretch before smiling slyly. "What, Ryugazaki? Did you really think I was just gonna leave you like that? Come on. I ain't done with you just yet."

A/N: Soooo... I haven't been part of the Free! fandom for very long - ever since Eternal Summer came out, actually. With all the tumblr updates about it coming up, I kind of got sucked up into it. Now I've got all the episodes dowloaned, and loads of ideas for fanfics, and lots of OTPs. :3

Either way, this is my very first contribution to the Free! fandom. I hope it's okay for a first, and I fear that Rin and Rei may be a little OOC. Gomen! I tried my best. xP

Please check out the POLL on my profile to vote for the fic you want me to start posting next, and you can also like me on facebook (KuraraOkumura's Disciples), where I post updates and interact with all ye amazing readers! :PP

Hope you liked the read. :3

~Tenshi

PS: To anyone who is following any of my other fics, be aware that they are all on an undetermined HIATUS. I will be starting my first year of University on the 15th of September, which basically means I probably won't have much time left to write (much to my horror. :/). I'll continue to do my best for updates, but don't expect anything regular. Thank you for your understanding! :)) 3