Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2020 10:30:19 +0000
From: writer guy <premiershiplads@outlook.com>
Subject: Premiership Lads part 133: Helping Hands & Crossed Wires

Part 133: Helping Hands & Crossed Wires


They were bound for Sheffield, and the FA Cup quarter final. The mood was
cautiously optimistic, but the drive felt long and it was already getting
late; Kieran Tierney pulled the big Sony headphones over his ears and
relaxed back in his social distanced seat, his Arsenal tracksuit sliding
a little against the cushioned coach chair. Loud indie music blared in
his ears and he tried closing his eyes for a nap, but it didn't come, so
he settled for watching the English Midlands whizz blandly by beneath a
stormy summer horizon.

The 23-year-old Scot was anxiously excited for tomorrow's 1pm game; the
Premiership had hardly been going their way, but perhaps the Cup could
allow them to salvage some dignity and end this season on a high of
sorts...?

Watching Liverpool take the title this week, the mad celebrations of the
players and the fans, it had filled Tierney with excitement and envy.
Thing was, he knew the feeling. In his formative years at Celtic, victory
had been reliable. Okay, so the Scottish league wasn't as big or as
competitive, but Tierney was a young man who had entered his career with
a series of table-topping seasons, and up in Glasgow he had experienced
the highs and elation of that win, the rapturous devotion of the local
following; the madness he'd seen up at Liverpool, both from the squad
and the Scousers on the streets, filled him with the same yearning
homesickness that had come and gone at many points this year. He was
eager for a sniff of success here at his new London club.

He was disturbed from his distracted thoughts by a few figures traipsing
up and down the aisle of the rattling, bumpy coach, players clearly
restless at the journey from North London to South Yorkshire, pumped up
by the afternoon training session before they all packed up to travel.
Their manager, Arteta, was taking tomorrow's clash very seriously,
presumably with the same thin hope as everyone else: making it to the FA
Cup final, even if they couldn't win it, would do something to balance
out the poor league performances that were haunting them all.

Just as Kieran glanced back and forth into the aisle, shifting his 5ft10
frame again in the spacious seating, he noticed a passing footballer slow
and stop beside his row, a big grin spreading on his features. It was
their talented striker, Alexandre Lacazette, coming to a stop and resting
both elbows on the headrest of the inner seat next to Kieran, giving him
a cheerful nod; with a tiny bit of awkward reluctance, Tierney slid the
earphones off and addressed the older player, waiting for the smooth
Frenchman to say something.

`You doing okay down here, eh?' Lacazette asked brightly.

`Super,' Kieran muttered vaguely, not wishing to be rude, but still
faintly intimidated by the French forward after what had happened in his
flat.

`Super,' echoed Alexandre teasingly, and he leaned forward a bit,
bringing one knee up onto the spare seat so that he was leaning more
privately into the booth of these two seats, resting on his elbows and
flashing that broad toothy grin at the young defender.

`Just can't wait for tomorrow,' Kieran told him blandly, pulling idly
at his seatbelt and feeling the uncomfortable grip of his headphones
about his neck, his own music playing loudly into his jawbone. He flashed
a nervous grin at the other man, kinda wishing he'd back off now. But
nope; Lacazette was sliding further forward until he was dropping into
the spare seat right beside him, breaking the slightly unhelpful coach
rules that kept them all apart in transit.

`You are not comfortable with me,' the Lyonnaise footballer stated
simply, tilting his head.

`Hmm? Och, nah, we're good, we're...'

`Super...?'

`Huh... aye...' Kieran brought a hand up to scratch at his tufty brown
hair and cover his face a little, cringing at the closeness of his older
teammate, shifting his big buttocks and thighs against the chair and
elbowing the window awkwardly by accident as he did. `Lacazette,
mate...'

`Hey,' murmured the Frenchman more quietly, `you must relax. I am
sorry if upset you, but... was simply a favour, no?' He stared quite
intently now, his smile swapped for a more steely look of assertiveness.
`It is normal, Tierney, for older players to give young ones a helping
hand.'

Kieran knew he must be blushing deeply at this wording. `Erm, buddy...'

`A helping hand,' Lacazette said, repeating his phrase, then shrugging
in that infuriating way, `a little bit of guidance, as they say here...'
He reached a hand for Kieran's shoulder, giving it a squeeze through the
thin Arsenal hoody. `We older players must... look out for... the newbies,
eh....' He chuckled, something condescending in his manner, as if there
was much more than five or six years between them, though that was
perhaps a couple of decade in footballing terms.

Tierney decided that resisting or avoiding this conversation was not
helpful, he needed it over with and to be left alone with his thoughts --
more than anything, he couldn't have reminders of that lewd afternoon
together distracting him from being in the right defensive mindset for
tomorrow. `I know,' he grumbled vaguely in his thick Scottish accent,
`I know that, mate, it's cool, it's erm...'

`It is just a... rite of passage,' Alexandre was saying calmly and
quietly. `It is important that you are relaxed and happy, eh, a fiery
young man like yourself...! Aha... and we sportsmen, well, we must... be
comfortable with each other.' His grin returned, sparkling and easy, and
it really was oddly comforting and reassuring for the younger lad, just
as it had been in his flat while he sat there on the sofa feeling all
sorts of shock and regret at what had happened. Looking Alexandre in the
eye and hearing his subtle confidence, the young left-back felt vaguely
foolish and guilty for the way he'd avoided his teammate somewhat in the
weeks since; certainly, they'd parted on good terms when Alexandre quit
his flat and left him and his throbbing arms and satisfied tool, and
he'd made no complaints or accusations about the `helping hand', as
Lacazette put it. It had only been afterwards, lying awake that night,
and turning the incident over, that he'd felt queasy with regret and
really began to question the why the hell another man had been able to...
finish him off.

`I can see it troubles you,' said Alexandre, after he left too long and
awkward a pause here.

`No...'

`It is fine. You will learn in time. These things... they are not
important. They are just... male bonding, eh?' That broad, charismatic
grin, a slight retreat of the short powerful athlete's body from the
seats, but then he was leaning back more closely again, the hand
returning to the broad sweep of Kieran's shoulder, and the other...
Tierney blushed more deeply, suddenly incredibly aware of the public
melee of the packed coach, as one of those confident brown hands shifted
past the broad spread of his thigh and rested, for about three seconds,
on the bulging front of his tracksuit bottoms, then pulled sharply away.
`You are a big boy, anyway, you need help more than most, eh...! Haha...'
And Lacazette was pulling back with a relaxed shrug and a smirk of
mischief on his face, clearly aware how dangerous the little grope had
been in this setting. Kieran shifted and twisted in his seat but tried to
laugh and smile, not wishing to appear as prudish or naïve as he must
have done so far to the other guy. To try and signal an end to the
unwanted conversation, though, he grabbed the chunky plastic of his
headphones and forced a broad leonine yawn of his mouth, and the hint
seemed to work.

`I leave you to rest,' the Frenchman said comfortably. `Good to speak,
Kieran. Eh?'

`Aye,' he agreed warily, `good to speak, aye.'



Dinner was a subdued affair, in the mid-range out-of-town hotel that the
squad were occupying, stuck out on the fringe of the big old industrial
city. The wary optimism that had left North London was turning to a
collective nervousness; you could see the tension in other lads' faces.
Kieran could see the hunger for victory, but the crippling fear of a few
embarrassing losses. Arteta himself looked sorta rigid with anxiety,
though he was moving around the dining tables and patting shoulders and
making confident appraisals of a number of key men in the team; some lads
were more boisterous and vocal in their confidence, like Sead Kolasinac
and young Reiss Nelson; others actually looked blanched with dread and
barely seemed to speak word, like bearded Calum Chambers and troubled
David Luiz. Then there were some, like his neighbour and roommate for the
night, who were just broody, exuding a sort of controlled confidence that
could cover any number of private worries. But then that was typical of
Shkrodan Mustafi, the big German-Albanian who hunkered down next to him
at the table and made limited small talk throughout the meal.

Tierney didn't really have a regular roommate on the team's away trips,
as he hadn't exactly made close friends. Ironically, thinking about that
conversation on the coach, Lacazette was the guy he'd technically
become, er, closest to, but... well, that hardly counted, it wasn't
exactly the best basis for a good friendship down here, was it?! No, he
felt almost at arm's distance from everyone on the team, which was
nowhere near as close-knit as he was used to back up in Glasgow, even in
the earlier days on Celtic's youth squads.

Mustafi was a good roomie in that sense, quiet and respectful, but in
this atmosphere of Cup tension, Tierney couldn't help but wish he was
paired off with someone a little chattier. When they got up to the room,
the stern silence of it all felt immediately oppressive, and he was even
glad by the unintelligible sound of his married roommate calling his wife
for almost an hour; he couldn't understand more than five words of
German, but he liked the warmth of Shkrodan's voice when speaking to his
other half, and the background noise it gave to their otherwise gloomy
hotel room. Whilst the 6ft centre-back paced the room and laughed at
private matters with his model spouse, Kieran undressed from his
squad-branded tracksuit, just in a baggy white tshirt and his black boxer
briefs for bed, and tried to occupy himself with a bit of reading the
news on his iPad, a bit of checking fan messages on social media, a bit
of lingering at the windows and squinting out at the vague, dull
Sheffield skyline beneath the heavy rain.

It felt like thunder and lightning might come tonight, a sort of vague
pressure in the air.

Behind him, Mustafi had clearly reached the end of his long catch-up. He
was apologising, `Sorry my friend, sorry to be so long...' in a quietly
distracted voice, which Kieran of course shrugged off politely, not
looking back at him but waving one hand and muttering, `No, no, of
course, you got to check in...' His tone or his hunched body language
must have given away some of his growing nervousness, though, because
then the older bloke was moving his way, joining him at the windows,
still fully kitted out in the dark Arsenal tracksuit from the coach,
which his broad 6ft body filled and stretched out a little. A sharp
figure of hypermasculinity, head to toe.

`You okay?' Shkrodan asked him, his accent making the question sound
almost suspicious.

`Aye, good,' Kieran said, leaning his elbows on the windowsill and
flashing a brief smile at the other man. `Just thinking it all over, all
that shit from training today, you know? All these new strategies big
boss was on about, and... Ach... okay, I guess I'm kinda nervous, haha!
Isn't everyone...?'

Shkrodan nodded his big head. `True, true. But as you get more
experienced, the nerves are... less of an issue. You see too many cups,
too many tournaments, to feel it quite the same. Just you wait until you
win your first cup here -- it is... how you say, rite of passage?'

Kieran grinned back at him, something about his turn of phrase giving him
an odd spark of de ja vu, but mostly just appreciating the effort at
reassurance from someone who'd once been on a World Cup winning team.
`Aye,' he said wistfully, `we'll see about that.'

`Relax,' Mustafi chuckled at him. `you must be relaxed for tomorrow,
young man like you!'

Again, looking at the 28-year-old German hulking at his side, Kieran felt
that vague pang of recognition, the familiar pattern of words, accented
and a little fragmented; it triggered a frown of thought on his smooth
young features, mistaken for greater nervousness by his fellow Arsenal
defender. One of Mustafi's meaty arms swung about his broad shoulders in
a reassuring gesture. `Hey, we older players must look after you young
ones,' the usually reserved man said in a deep, serious tone, fixing him
with a piercing stare from his hazel-blue eyes.

Kieran looked at him, and something clicked. The phrasing. Look after,
relax, rite of passage... No, he told himself, you're being daft. But why
was the older fella looking at him so intently? Touching him around the
shoulders like that, when he was usually keeping to himself and very
conservative in his behaviour. Tierney felt a familiar little spark of
unexpected but not wholly unwanted attention, blushing somewhat beneath
the stern gaze and shifting his body an inch further away from Shkrodan,
who just patted at the centre of his upper back and laughed lightly.

`All you need is a little guidance,' the German intoned, `that is all.
A helping hand.' He seemed to pause there, meaningfully, and look away
from Kieran, out at the darkening view of the city, before going on. `I
think I can help,' he said, `as older defender, you know? Just let me
help, Kieran. You will feel settled in at Arsenal before you know it.'

Kieran gawped at him, feeling the warm solid touch near the top of his
back. A little guidance. A helping hand. The young jock blinked and
nodded and went to reply but didn't know what to say. Still, the
blue-eyed German was staring deeply at him, his heavy-set features framed
in gingery-brown hair and beard, accentuating his strong square jawline.
Like Lacazette, he exuded a mature confidence that was reassuring and
motivating for Tierney, getting a better sense of the team this could be,
the things Arsenal really might achieve, if he stuck it out here.

`A helping hand,' Tierney found himself echoing, a question mark
hovering somewhere after the idiom. His shoulders were tensing up and he
brought his hands together on the windowsill, fingers fidgeting, locking
and unlocking, suddenly keenly aware of his state of undress next to the
bigger, broader bloke.

Mustafi let out a gentle laugh, pulling his hand away from Kieran's back
and seeming to square up next to him, emphasising his couple of inches
height advantage and the muscular breadth of his chest, filling out that
tracksuit top quite magnificently. The grin on his lips was cool and
almost challengingly relaxed, his eyes still sharp and intense. `Yes,'
he said, after a thoughtful pause, `that is the expression, no?'

Kieran felt a hot blush in his cheeks and he was aware of an embarrassing
stammer as he answered. `Er, aye, I guess, er... hah...'

`Hold that thought,' Shkrodan told him curtly, backing off, `I need to
piss.' And with that, the bulky centre-back was disappearing across
their room and into the adjoining bathroom, and Kieran was staring back
at the window; not at the view of Sheffield though, at the pale ghostly
reflection of his own nervous features, staring back at him in refracted
outline on the double-glazing. Fuck, he thought, with an odd mixture of
excitement and trepidation, Lacazette was right, then; this was normal,
wasn't it? This was the way. Maybe not with the English, he thought
uncertainly, they were so fucking prudish and up themselves, but amongst
European players, clearly...?

Kieran thought back to the many vague warnings and talking-tos that had
occurred in his final weeks in Scotland. `It's very different down
there,' one coach had told him. `You'll be mixing with all sorts of
fellas,' another old Celtic legend had muttered at him at one of his
goodbye events, and at the time Kieran had just assumed he was an aged
racist. `Things just work differently in London teams,' a family friend
had informed him with a knowing look. Sure, the English league WAS
different, but was it really this different?

Tierney looked at the bathroom door, still open a crack; he could hear
the splash of heavy piss from the big German fella and his cheery
whistling as he did so. He thought about all the things Mustafi had said,
all the echoes of Lacazette's little pep talk. There was no mistaking
what `guidance' meant, what kind of `helping hand' was coming to
`relax' him. Fuck, fuck! Did he really want this again? Well, he'd
certainly shot his load last time, hadn't he? It had felt... well, it had
felt GOOD, having a strong man's hand do the job, but -- the 23-year-old
turned back and forth both mentally and physically, pulling away from the
window and rubbing at his face, looking about the room at their
possessions scattered around each of the double beds. Among the many
confused thoughts rattling through his brain, making him feel
uncomfortable and distracted, was the awareness of what a dim Scottish
bumpkin he must always appear to these sophisticated, experienced
European blokes, how even his discomfort on the coach earlier on must
have been embarrassing and pitiable to a man like Alexandre Lacazette.

He needed to stop fussing over his confusion and doubt, dind't he?
Needed to see that `rite of passage' between he and Alexandre for what
it was, become a bit more of a... man of the world? A bit bewildered by
his situation and his own thought process, Kieran listened to the end of
the trickling piss noise and the lilting peak in Shkrodan's whistling,
and began tugging his tshirt up and off, thinking simply that he didn't
want to get any mess on it. Then, bounding into the space between the two
beds, he grabbed at the slack waistband of his saggy black undies and
began shoving them down, nervously cupping one hand over his weighty
privates but dropping the pants down his thick defender's thighs and
onto his ankles. My bed or his bed? What's normal? Erm. He stood there,
looking between the two doubles; his own was cluttered with his
half-unpacked kit bag and his tablet and stuff, whereas all of the tidy
German man's stuff was piled to the side and the beige bedding was clear
and crisp. In the bathroom, the flush of a toilet sounded loudly, and the
door began to open.

Kieran threw himself nervously onto Mustafi's bed, rash in indecision,
and lay there awkwardly naked, staring up and across the room as the
bathroom door widened and out stepped the tall, broad figure of his
confident, experienced teammate, that cool look in his big features, damp
hands being wiped against the front of his tracksuit and loose crotch
bouncing a little in the dark fabric of his tracksuit bottoms, and- he
looked up, his hazel-blue eyes wide and his relaxed grin vanishing. The
centre-back took two long strides across the room and paused midway to
the beds, and just stared straight at him. `Kieran,' he barked, `what
the FUCK are you doing?'



It took a good minute of knocking before anyone answered the door. When
they did, Kieran found he couldn't quite look his teammate in the eye,
skulking at the doorway with his hoody pulled shut over his bare torso,
only the black underpants pulled up over his bottom half; he'd been in
too much of a hurry to escape Mustafi's indignant fury to grab at his
shorts or trackies, and now here he was, two corridors away, glad he'd
randomly managed to remember Lacazette's room number from overhearing it
in reception a couple of hours earlier.

`Kieran,' breathed the usually composed Frenchman in obvious surprise.
`Ca va...?' The 5ft9 striker was stood in the fluffy white of a hotel
robe, tied at the waist, not fully opening the hotel room door, but
filling the narrow space and staring confusedly out at him. There was a
fine sheen to his dark brown features, and to the patch of defined chest
on show where the robe fell a little open; he must be fresh out of the
shower, Tierney supposed, to look so damp and glossy.

`I've fucked up,' he grunted at him. `Can I come in? Erm. Can I...
crash with yous?' He stared grimly at the 29-year-old player, knowing
how ridiculous his request and his appearance must seem, but really lost
for what else to do. He was terrified to go back to his own room at the
other side of this floor; as he'd rushed from the room in panic, Mustafi
had still been slipping between English and German and Albanian as he
cursed and ranted. A good Muslim man, his rant had repeatedly expressed,
being mocked and degraded by an idiot savage from the highlands! That had
pretty much been the gist of it. Suffice to say, young Kieran had
entirely misread the signals.

There was an akward moment then where Kieran suspected Alexandre might
just grin and laugh and assume this was a prank or bit of banter, and
just shut the door on him. But no, he stepped back a little and opened
the door more fully, though quite cautiously, and gestured for Kieran to
come in. Lacazette's roommate, he noticed, looked just as damp as he;
Granit Xhaka was stood in the centre of the room, a white towel wrapped
about his waist, his long pale torso glistening wet. He was staring in an
understandably alarmed way, clearly put out by the weird lateness of the
interruption and the fact that Kieran was stumbling into their room in
just an open hoody and his underpants, red-faced and gibbering.

`Eh?' was all the Swiss man asked in his confusion, frowning deeply at
him and then at Lacazette.

`Granit was about to shower,' barked Alexandre, almost dismissively.
Kieran stared in puzzlement at the shiny dampness of the midfielder's
ripped physique, sure he must be fresh out of the shower from the heated
dampness of him, but then felt another note of confused surprise as Xhaka
just nodded, gave him a strange scowl, and marched across to the bathroom
door, leaving the two of them in the main room, with Alexandre pulling
into view and patting him on the shoulder. `Tierney,' he asked, the
Scotch surname always sounding so smooth and saccharine in his French
tones, `what has happened...?!'

They sat down on one of the beds, and Kieran told him: explained his own
fractious nerves during dinner, the frustrating quiet of rooming with a
bloke like Shkrodan, the confusing moment of intervention when the older
fella started speaking to him. Mortified, he joined the dots of what
Mustafi had said, the echoes of Lacazette's own speech, and the wild
assumptions that had filed up in his head. Sitting nervously on the edge
of the other man's bed, Kieran hugged at his knees and frowned
apologetically at Alexandre, realising it probably sounded like he was
blaming him.

`Go on,' the French player said sympathetically, still in his robe,
although Kieran now realised that he was not wet from a shower, smelt
more of rich manly sweat than of any soapy product; both players must
have popped into the hotel's gym after dinner, Tierney concluded with
dawning understanding, they must have just got up here all sweaty and
worked out when he disturbed them -- no wonder they looked so funny about
it! Fuck, what professionals.

He explained, cringing and covering his face, how much he'd misread the
signals from Mustafi, what he'd assumed might happen, how he'd stripped
off and waited on his bed like some sort of seedy backstreet brothel
customer. He recounted the furious confusion from the German, his own
pathetic attempts to explain and defend himself -- `Helping fucking
hand!' Mustafi had roared, almost throwing him to the floor as they
wrestled by the bed, slapping him over the top of the head like a naughty
dog -- and how everything he'd said had just made it worse and worse.
`I never said your name,' he added rapidly, staring gloomily at
Alexandre and playing with the drawstrings that dangled from the open
collar of his hooded top, `I never mentioned you, honest, I kept my trap
shut about that, so-`

Lacazette just made a vaguely soothing noise, stroking his shoulder
through his hoody, shaking his head gently. `Calm down. It will be fine.
A misunderstanding. I will speak to Shkrodan tomorrow, I will explain, I
will make it better. Trust me. He is good man.' He gave Kieran's
shoulder a gentle squeeze, just enough to be firm and comforting, sat
there with his smiling bearded face and the lingering patina of sweat on
his exposed neck and chest. Kieran stared at him and felt a complete
fucking idiot, struggling to add up just how wrong he'd got things in
the other room, how much he'd misinterpreted that dialogue. What a
dunce! God, to be as cool and calm as a fella like Lacazette, he thought,
so casual and dismissive -- and focused enough to put in a sweaty gym
shift before bed, the night before a cup game!

At that point, Granit Xhaka re-emerged from the bathroom, wearing an
identical hotel-branded robe to the Frenchman, a towel in his hands as he
rubbed at his short hair. He stared at them with an odd expression on his
fresh face, seeming to eye up their moment of confession with a
suspicious air that made Tierney worried all over again about his
behaviour, his need to come here, his desperation for reassurance and
comfort. He glanced back at Lacazette, wondering if he should go, but
Alexandre just smiled calmly at him. He began speaking, but though he
looked at Kieran, he was obviously talking to Granit; rapid silky French
to the Swiss player, punctuated by little scoffing noises from Xhaka, who
despite this, came and sat on the edge of the parallel bed, half-smiling
at Kieran and folding his arms over his chest.

`You can stay here,' Alexandre said eventually, returning to English.

`You lads sure? Erm. I can sleep on the floor or summat, I don't need
much comfort me, so-`

`Non, non,' Alexandre assured him quickly, hand still on his shoulder,
`you have my bed. I will, er, bunk up, as you say, with Granit... oui?'
He passed a twinkling grin to Xhaka, who seemed to smirk at this, and
Kieran felt terribly guilty for the impostion, the two older European
players' kindness and willingness to accommodate him. He was about to
try a gushing inarticulate thank you or some insistence that he could
just nick one pillow and camp out on the floor by the windows, when he
felt Lacazette's hand slip down his arm and onto his thigh instead; his
big bare thigh.

As if it wasn't the very problematic behaviour that had put them all in
this position, Alexandre slid his hand over this muscular mound and, for
the second time today, ran his fingers gently over Kieran's crotch; he
tensed up immediately and looked sharply at Granit, who was still staring
at him with a curious expression. `Er, mate,' the Scottish footballer
grunted sheepishly, shaking his legs and brushing those tender brown
fingers away from his drooping package.

`Hmm? Hah... oh, Tierney...' Alexandre was squeezing his upper thigh
instead now. `Relax, my friend. You obviously need the, aha, helping
hand, after all...!' Kieran squirmed a bit, reminded of his full
foolishness, but there was an insistence and tingling excitement to the
other bloke's touch. `You would not have misunderstood Mustafi if you
were not... in need.' Kieran frowned guiltily at him then looked back at
Xhaka. `Oh,' Lacazette sighed, `he is okay, do not worry. Granit...
understands. Don't you, Xhaka...?'

Another of those gentle scoffing noises, which amidst their secretive
French had sounded almost derisive, but now seemed more playful and
friendly. The Swiss-Kosovan midfielder grinned knowingly at Tierney
across the room, his dark twinkling eyes signalling that he knew exactly
what sort of relief and helping hand and guidance a hot-blooded young
footballer might occasionally need from a more experienced colleague. He
loosened the tight hug of his arms about his chest, his robe falling open
a little at the chest in a similar way to Lacazette's. He didn't say
anything, just smirked and tilted his head and patted his knees, where
the hem of the robe came to its abrupt end. Tierney belatedly realised
that his crotch was being fondled again, fingers gently teasing at the
big bulging outline down there, and he sat back a little, unsure how to
deal with this.

On the one hand, it felt good; even with another lad watching, weirdly,
it felt comforting and relaxing to be touched with such certainty and
novelty -- it really had been the longest dry patch of Kieran's formerly
very active sex life, after all -- and he DID want a repeat, that was the
scary truth, he HAD been incredibly ready to read something into
Mustafi's chatter. A wank would be very relaxing, that was always true,
it would certainly help to cool his anxiety about the prospect of Arsenal
crashing out of the FA Cup tomorrow afternoon, if their play was as
dogshit as it had been lately...!

But then, on the other hand... The counter argument of uncertainty,
nervous homophobia, remembered panic, was cut short before it had time to
plod through his churning brain, because one fingertip of Lacazette's
hand had found the tip of his nob and was circling gently over it through
the thin black cotton, sending shivers from his crotch down each limb and
up his chest. He went to speak but just let out a little gurgle of
pleasure; this made Xhaka emit a soft, almost affectionate laugh, and
when he looked to the right, it was making Lacazette grin that broad
confident smile once again.

`Why don't you just lie back on the bed and close your eyes?' the
Frenchman asked him. Kieran expression flickered uncertainly and he
resisted the urge to push Alexandre's hand almost violently form the
space between his big thighs. The prospect was more than inviting. `Go
on,' added Alexandre soothingly.

`Just relax,' chipped in Granit's voice from the other bed, still an
edge of playful laughter to it. `Lie back and let him help.' No, he
hadn't said that, Kieran realised, a moment later, as he began to shift
back on the bed, lifting his thick legs up over the silky duvet, eyes on
Alexandre's grin; he'd misheard the pronoun, there. `Lie back and let
us help,' was what the Swiss bloke actually said. The little mental
correction fizzled on the edge of consciousness like a disappointing
firework.

Following murmured French-accented instruction, Tierney shucked the hoody
from his broad shoulders, its inner lining warm beneath his bare back as
he lay down on the bed, head hitting the carefully arranged pillows, and
thick footballer's legs stretching out below, brushing a little at the
towelling of Lacazette's robe. As advised, he shut his eyes, and did his
best to relax, but this was no easy task, in a strange room, with two
guys looking at him, aware of what a dickhead he'd made of himself in
another room nearby; presumably Shkrodan was still fuming, or back on the
phone to his bird, calling him all sorts of offensive words.

Fingertips back against his bulge: calmly controlled in the way they felt
up the outline of his big soft prick. It was more slow and deliberate
than the spontaneous, helpful grabbing in his flat, where his porn
fixation had been exposed by Alexandre's lusty curiosity. It had felt
almost accidental there, a heat-of-the-moment intervention when his own
arms seemed so pathetically weak form the gym; here, it was very gentle
and gradual, making him shiver against the bedding and fight to keep his
eyes closed, curious at what his friend was gonna do. But he did as he
was told, just lying there, trusting in his experienced teammate's
ability to relax him completely. He could remember the rush of last time,
the shocking satisfaction of it, the breathless disbelief...

The other hand was touching his thigh, just above the knee, massaging
warmly into his hairy skin; no, wait, not the other hand. There were two
hands at his crotch, carrying out the achingly gradual exploration of his
lumpy package. Which meant that the other hand, stroking gently up and
down his hairy outer thigh, belonged to... oh.

That hand crept up the outside of his leg, and now several sets of
fingers (three, four?) were taking hold of the slack elastic waistband
and pulling back. Kieran seized up a little at this but his cock was
twitching uncontrollably. He pressed his arms flat at his side and
obediently lifted hips a little bit, so that his undies could be pulled
smoothly down from his waist, stretching across his legs, then down,
down, down, off. Naked, now, with two fellas touching him. Fuck.

`Stop worrying,' Lacazette's voice said smoothly, as if able to see
into his rising panic. `You are tense, Kieran. Let us help.' Xhaka
didn't speak, but he thought he could hear his breathing. Well, they
knew best, he figured uncomfortably, they must do, they'd been playing
top-flight football in Europe for years, he was just a spotty schoolboy
when they were making their Premiership debuts...!

Hands on his thighs, two on each, massaging at him. No contact with his
dick, where it hung awkwardly over the platform of his sack, stretching
and waking. Instinct told him to lift his arms off the bed and use one of
them to attend to this semi, and the other to push away the ticklish
hands that were teasing into his inner thighs. Trust them, some inner
voice told him, in line with the French player's gentle instructions.
Trust it. It'll help. But... He pressed his palms into the bedding, slim
arms at the sides of his torso, dick rising a little as it stretched and
thickened. Was that a little gasp in Granit's slow shallow breaths...?

One hand, maybe Alexandre's, slid all the way up his right inner thigh
until the fingers were prodding at the droop of his balls, lifting and
nudging them with each rub, in turn making his cock bounce and flop a
little. And another hand, on the other side, doing the same thing. Kieran
suppressed another little soft moaning sound, turning it instead into a
nervous chuckle. `Relax,' Alexandre was saying again, quietly, `just
relax... nobody will get angry at you here, boy...' The reminder of
Mustafi's rage was, oddly, comforting in part: the reminder of that
misunderstanding should, he supposed, bring back more guilt and
self-loathing about this, but instead it just created contrast. He'd
fled from confusion and uncertainty and hot tempers to this place of
weird, unexpected comfort, but also now kinda familiar, because he knew
with dizzying certainly how good the Frenchman's grip would feel on his
cock when it eventually came. This was all too much for Kieran's brain
to take tonight.

And still, nobody touched his cock. Fingertips stroked over the pale
reddish growth of his pubes and teased around the inside where his thighs
met his crotch. His balls were lifted and weighed and stroked; he no
longer knew quite which fingertips came from what hand. His cock was
getting harder and harder, rising up fully, and he felt weird shame at
how visible and obvious his excitement would be to the two of them. He
was so exposed here, so vulnerable. Just as he thought fingers might
finally meet his swollen shaft, one hand came running up his tummy a
little instead, and his dick brushed against an elbow and a bicep as this
happened; the long-awaited contact made him shudder and let out a fuller,
more vocal groan.

`That's it,' Lacazette said appreciatively, `just relax... enjoy...'

And there, FINALLY, was a hand curling around his cock. Lacazette's?
Xhaka's? It was impossible to tell where each sensitive touch was coming
from. He clamped his eyes shut to fully resist the temptation of finding
out, shutting away the many confused thoughts and questions, just
allowing him to focus only on the deep, warming pleasure of this touch.
While one hand slowly, SO SLOWLY, pulled up and down on his erection,
another was still fingering gently at his balls; another was stroking all
the way up and down his left thigh, tickling at his kneecap, and another
was still on his softly defined abs, tracing the little line of fur from
his navel back to his pubes. He shuddered and felt his breathing become
ragged and heavy.

Did the hand on his dick swap then? Hard to tell. Did it matter? Probably
not. Felt so good. Ohhh.

Hands, uncertain how many, where under his thighs now, lifting a little,
pulling to the sides. He let his legs be guided; his bruised
footballer's heels dragging back a little over the covers as his knees
lifted up and to the sides, another hand-swap seeming to happen and
fresh, tighter drags closing around the upper half of his tool. `Ohhh,'
he gasped out loud, less embarrassed by showing his sensual enjoyment
now, just lost in the physical sensations. It no longer felt weird or
exposing, being naked on the bed, he was barely aware of his own
physicality, or there being two other guys in the room. It was just a
warm sexual gratification that reminded him of his first teenage wanks or
the loss of his virginity in a Glasgow back-alley.

His legs were now quite lifted and spread, thighs and calves touching,
his cock pulled back towards his tummy as it was stroked. Hands were
creeping down the back of his thighs, from hamstring to glute. It tickled
more, the touch on the edges of his buttocks, and he gave another nervous
giggle between his hot panting. He felt like a warning `Mate...?' or
some pushing gesture of his own tingling hands was needed, because there
was an invisible barrier somewhere there that wouldn't feel RIGHT, he
thought. But he did remember, in his moments of climax, that Lacazette
had...

Uhhh, there it was: someone, Granit or Alexandre, had slipped fingers off
his full fat balls and onto his gooch, circling a thumb over that
sensitive hairy skin, while another hand began to squeeze ever so gently
at the prime meat of his right buttock. He opened his mouth to protest,
despite his shuddering enjoyment, but a long firm finger pressed down
over his lips in a silent gesture of hush. Kieran tried his best to
relax.

`Sniff this,' came the surprising instruction; not Lacazette this time,
certainly, but Xhaka, more hoarse and throaty in his quiet speech. What
`this' was, Kieran had fuck all idea, but the hand that had silenced
his lips was brushing its knuckles at his chin and lip and seeming to
hold something before his nose. Kieran breathed in and got a shock of
intense scent and funny, chilling sensation in his nostrils, like when he
used to sniff marker pens at school or tried silly laughing gas with
mates on Friday nights in the park; he was breathing something in,
intensely, into one nostril then the other, a relaxing rush pouring into
his whole being.

The thumb on his gooch was replaced with a finger and it went south.
Kieran opened his mouth and gave a silent moan of surprise as the finger
slid all the way down his hairy arse-crack -- what he knew should shock
and repel him, under the influence of that deep sniff, he felt weirdly
detached from, just relaxed and curious. The finger moved back up, and
then again, sliding calmly between his big buttocks, making his lifted
legs wobble a little, until another hand gripped him by the knee and
stilled the wobble soothingly. The effect of the inhalation seemed to
wear off, he felt a surging panic, his ring tightening in terror, but
then those clumsy knuckles grazed his chin again and the bottle of
whatever was by his nose. He sucked in a breath of it, one nostril then
the other, and the effect felt even more rushing and mind-emptying. A
finger or a thumb was rubbing repeatedly over his hole and he found
himself concentrating on that attention with only a mild, languorous
enjoyment, no worry or questions for a long minute of stimulation.

A hand, someone's hand, was back on his cock too, and on the power of
this drug, whatever it was, the touch felt even better, even more
sensitive, even more wildly necessary. Kieran pushed his head back into
the pillows more, hunching his shoulders there, unable to keep his hands
still at his sides; he lifted them and threw his arms back until his
fingers clutched the wooden headboard, and he pressed his ankles into the
bedding to keep his legs still and apart. Four hands. One on his cock,
one inside his left thigh, another on a knee, and lastly, the finger
circling back and forward over his twitching, innocent sphincter.

`Ohhh,' he whined loudly, `ohhh...'

`Oh yes,' rasped Xhaka's voice close by.

`Let it go,' murmured Lacazette silkily.

The hands moved. The one on his knee slide down his firm shin, tickling
at his leg hair and training bruises; the one inside his thigh pushed in
to thumb at his gooch and gently squeeze his balls; the one between his
cheeks moved away from his twitching sensitive hole and seem to splay
fingers all the way up his crack until something very small, maybe a
pinky finger, was pushing firmly and unstoppably at his secret entrance;
the hand on his cock shifted right up to the tip, pulling his foreskin
back and thumbing around the helmet, ohhhh god...

Exactly as the little pinky finger found its way two inches into his
untouched hole, exactly as the other hands roved his powerful legs, and
the main active fist around his cock began to drag back down to the base,
Tierney reached his peak. `Fuck fuck,' he grunted loudly, `fucking
hell...' He kept his eyes closed as he exploded, but felt drops of it
smear the insides of his knees and down his thick calves. `FUCK, SHIT,
OH GOD...' A splash of his own seed even seemed to fall on the squashed
curve of one buttock, where that most daring hand was retreating, leaving
his tight stinging ring alone, quivering at the brief invasion. Kieran
gripped the headboard with both hands and lay there in a shaking daze,
the last gush of his seed oozing from his cock head.

Hands left his body one by one; gentle creaks signalled weights lifting
from the bed, until he felt incredibly alone for a moment, lying there
panting and naked. He concentrated only on his breathing and the tingling
glow around his crotch, slowly relaxing his knees until his legs fell
heavily down against the bedding and his ankles stretched to the foot of
the bed. He became aware of low chuckles from the other men, reminded
that the hands belonged to other humans, other men, after all; quiet
voices in rapid, syrupy French. Kieran ignored it, just lying there,
recovering.

When he opened his eyes, the room seemed empty for a moment. A gentle
twist of his neck told him that no, he was not actually alone, but the
other two had crawled into the bed they must share, committed to him
having this to himself. Why the fuck were they being so kind?! He lay in
a state of naked, bewildered gratitude, thinking about the way those two
big masculine footballers had gently brought him off. His eyes found the
little bottle of poppers on the bedside table, alien and familiar all at
once; he'd seen it in clubs, or at house parties, but... he wasn't
totally sure he knew what it was. He felt like he associated it with a
whole other cultural world, but he couldn't put his finger on what. He
stared at it for a moment and then closed his eyes again, and fumbled
around him at the bedding, dragging up at it and pulling it slowly over
his own bare body, curling into an almost foetal position, far too
relaxed and satisfied to question what had taken place. Of the others,
all he could really see was the vague outline of Lacazette's short dark
hair and a bit of black shoulder muscle; beyond it, the faintest
suggestion of Xhaka's hairline. Tierney rolled over onto his other side,
away from them, pulling the duvet around him more rightly; if he looked
at the two older footballers in their bed, he might start to overthink,
to visualise what had really happened between them, to remember his
mortification in front of Shkrodan Mustafi.

No, he thought, none of that. Just... mmm, that tingly happiness in his
big floppy cock, the strong sense of physical completion that came with
blowing his load. What a slow, sensual climax it had been, nothing like
he was used to, nothing at all like the urgent relief Lacazette had
allowed him last time, squashed in on his own sofa, barely able to lift
his throbbing biceps. This had been like a little taste of paradise,
gently allowed him out of some patronising wisdom from more experienced
blokes.

The young Scotsman cuddled innocently into his pillow and duvet, leaving
the questions and doubts for tomorrow morning, for now just closing out
the world and letting himself drift into a happy dream; it was last
summer, and the Scottish league was won, and Celtic were triumphant. He
grinned his way into sleep, picturing the green and white stripes of his
old kit, the tight rough hugs of his Scottish allies, the Glaswegian
victory and the messy drunken nights that would follow. He'd been so
fucking happy up there, a prince among his countrymen.



`He looks so fucking happy,' Granit whispered in French, lifting his
head a little to look past Alexandre's chest at the tight grin on
Tierney's face as he slid into deep, snoring rest on the other bed. `He
is almost as beautiful as he is stupid.'

`Now, now,' murmured Alexandre, sliding an arm beneath his shoulders,
`let him be...'

`His cock,' the Swiss player added in reverent tones.

`I know. Haha. I don't think he even realises.'

`Mon dieu...'

`And his arse...'

`You slipped a finger in...!'

`He didn't seem to mind.'

`Only because I fed him more poppers than...'

`Shh. You'll wake him. Let him be.'

`Oh Alex... that was so hot...' A cheeky snigger in the dark. `Can we
keep him?'

`You've changed your tune.'

`Mmmm. I want you to fuck me again.'

`With him asleep there? No... no... We need our sleep, Granit. Tomorrow.
The cup.'

`Yes...' A long quiet sigh. `Yes, you're right. Goodnight, my love.'

`Goodnight, friend. Goodnight.'