Chapter Text
Mike Wheeler is not a bad person.
He’s pretty sure, anyway.
Or he was pretty sure, at least, before now.
He calls Mom every Sunday afternoon after he knows she’s home from church, even with the time difference. He calls Holly about her math tests and listens to the drama only middle school girls can justify, and Nancy about her articles every time he picks up the paper from his favorite bodega and sees her name listed as an author. He always makes sure to close the kitchen cupboard doors after himself. He always hands his assignments in on time, even when he really, really doesn’t want to do them. He’s gotten better at recycling his plastic bottles and cardboard instead of throwing them away, too.
Therefore, he is most certainly not the kind of person who would finally figure out they’ve been in love with their best friend their whole life, whom they share a mere five hundred square feet of space with, and then proceed to ruin their life about it next.
No. Good people get over it, which is what Mike’s been trying to do for the last half a year. Good people stuff it down. They repress it. They pretend their life-altering realizations that came months ago at four A.M. on a Wednesday night in the dead middle of sophomore winter, staring up at the blank ceiling with tears in their eyes and an ache in their chest, didn’t even happen by morning.
Good people don’t burden their best friends who would never want them back with their too-big, too-confusing feelings.
Good people most definitely, most certainly, undoubtedly do not hide in their best friend’s five-foot standup closet while he brings men home to fuck—er—fuck him, Mike thinks. Jesus Christ.
Man. One man. At least Mike wouldn’t do this twice.
How does it go? Once is a coincidence, twice is a pattern?
At least it’s not a pattern. Good people don’t make patterns out of hiding in the closet—literally, physically, figuratively, emotionally, whatever—and stuff the meat of their palm into their mouth to keep from making noise.
Look, he didn’t—Mike didn’t mean to. He didn’t, he swears to God, it’s just—
All Mike was trying to do was grab Will’s dirty dishes from his nightstand—like good roommates do—because he knows Will inside and out, knows that with his crazy deadlines, half the time he’s eating his ramen with one hand and mixing paints with the other on his bedroom floor. He forgets his dishes and they’ve run out of forks.
Mike never even minds. He just wanted to do the fucking dishes.
And then, as if the Devil himself was laughing up at Mike from Hell, Mike found himself standing in the middle of Will’s bedroom, three bowls and two cups in hand, as the front door opened and followed up with a voice much lower than Will’s, something Mike can’t make out from in here, and then giggling. Giggling. This giggle that makes Mike’s stomach churn.
He knows all of Will’s laughs. He knows Will’s laugh when he’s trying to be quiet in class, one of the first Mike fell in love with. His suppressed cackles with a hand over his mouth when he knows he shouldn’t be laughing because he knows sometimes Will can’t help but laugh in the worst situations. He knows those bright, bursting, bubbly giggles that just seem to spill right out of him when he’s in a really good mood, like he’s high off sugar or just heard a good joke, and his snickering when he’s laughing at something terribly stupid somebody in the Party did, because they’re always up to no good. Hell, lately he’s even become familiar with the low, smooth laughs that Will makes when he’s an hour into a joint and just can’t seem to fall asleep.
Therefore, that—whatever he just heard from across their apartment come out of his best friend’s mouth—is not a giggle he’s ever met before. And it freezes Mike in his tracks, right in the middle of Will’s bedroom, like a deer in headlights.
A good person probably would’ve walked out, dishes in hand, and nodded at Will and—and whoever Will decided to bring home tonight—and retreated to his bedroom to shove headphones over his ears. A good person would at least try and pretend his best friend wasn’t getting fucked while his roommate was home, just a bedroom over.
Decidedly, then, maybe Mike Wheeler is, in fact, not a good person.
Because as soon as he hears another bright laugh bubble out of Will from the kitchen followed by what Mike can only imagine to be a shove of a body against the fridge followed by a gruff, “is your roommate home?”, he makes a run for it.
Into Will’s closet. With dirty bowls and cups in hand, he maneuvers the door shut behind him as quietly as he can.
His ears are ringing. Good people don’t do this. Normal people don’t do this.
It’s dark in here besides thin, parallel sheets of light streaming in from the wood detailing and a crack down the center of the doors. This guy has a lot of fucking clothes. Where the hell does Will even get so many goddamn clothes from? It distantly smells like perfume, Mike immediately recognizes it as the one El used to love wearing from Starcourt, and thrift stores and dust and their favorite laundry detergent and cedar.
Mike can’t hear much of anything in here with all this fabric absorbing the sounds of the apartment. He can’t hear Will. He almost thinks he’ll get lucky, that they’ll get too eager too fast, that Will will let a stranger take him apart on their two-person loveseat—eugh, loveseat, really?—instead of Will bringing him back to his bedroom.
But the Devil is still laughing up at Mike from Hell.
There’s loud clanking and heavy footsteps thrumming through the floorboards, and Mike thinks maybe death would be gentler than this.
Maybe Death himself would wrap Mike up in his arms, lead him away. Mike’s saved the world twice, and still, he thinks dying would be a more merciful outcome than this.
Mike sets the dirty dishes he realizes he’s still holding with shaky hands on the floor in the back corner near a pair of old sneakers he recognizes, ones Will always wore in Hawkins, and shoves a couple of coats aside to make room for himself to crouch down.
He made the bed. He may as well lie in it.
There’s only silence. Long, deafening silence as Mike presses his ears into a fleece blanket Will has hanging in his closet. He doesn’t want to hear Will giggle like that again, and he definitely doesn’t want to hear that jackass talking to Will in his own home.
There’s a longer stretch of silence until Will’s door bangs against the wall. Mike nearly jumps out of his skin.
“He’s not home,” Mike hears Will say in this—in this tone he’s never heard Will speak in before. He hears Will pressed up against the wall that borders his closet. Mike’s pretty sure his heart is going to fall out of his ass. “He’s—” Mike hears. And then he hears kissing. “Must be with—” Jesus. “Our friends, maybe—” No. No, no, no. “God. Fuck. Why’s my light on?”
Mike gets this sinking feeling in his stomach as a disgusting realization dawns on him.
The fucking light.
Will never leaves his light on. Never.
“Pro’lly forgot,” the guy says. He kisses Will’s worries right out of his head.
Mike wants to puke. He mustn’t know Will as well as he thought he did.
He doesn’t know every tone of voice anymore. Every laugh, every dream, every desire.
Will—apparently, now, Will meets men and brings them home and lets them kiss him breathless. Men who don’t know exactly how Will likes his tea like Mike does, or how he grew up, shy and quiet and afraid, not his big heart, far too big for his own body. They don’t know he still sleeps with a stuffed rabbit and a nightlight because he’s still afraid of the dark. This man in Mike’s house doesn’t know Will’s favorite movie or food or song, or the fact that he’ll always prefer to listen to his own mixtapes rather than the radio, or how he cries and retreats when he’s angry instead of throwing a fit, or how he always sleeps with his back turned toward the wall so he can feel safer, or the way that he always seems to run cold, even in the summer.
Or maybe he does.
Mike doesn’t know.
“Cool art,” Mike hears, gruff and low and gravelly, and he really wants to puke all over Will’s fucking wardrobe. “You do all this yourself?”
“Yeah,” Will breathes. There’s kissing—wet and slimy and fucking disgusting. “Art major.”
“I can’t even draw stick men,” Mike hears. He wants to throttle this guy, suave and casual and not good for Will. Obviously. “You’ll have to teach me sometime.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Will sighs. He can hear Will humming through the wall—but not the like hums he recognizes from Will, to old rock tunes and new pop sensations when he’s concentrating. Instead this is low, under his breath like he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it, maybe. “Don’t leave a—”
“Oh, no? Shame,” Mike hears. There’s shuffling and then a thump on the wall. He swallows hard. “Here, let me take this off of you then, I’ll leave you with whatever I want, how’s that, baby?”
Will moans. He honest-to-God-fucking-moans. Mike didn’t even know Will did that.
Mike bites down on his palm. His head is fucking reeling. This cannot be happening.
There’s more shuffling and another low giggle from Will, one that makes Mike’s blood curdle in his veins. Will says something, he knows, but it’s too muffled for Mike to make out. The guy says something like, “you’re gorgeous, Will, look at you,” and Mike wants to fucking scream.
“I’ve only—” Will sighs. Breathes heavy like he’s running a fucking race. “I’ve only been with—a few, um—”
“Yeah? Aight,” Mike hears. There’s a pause, and then a low, “figured so, pretty boy. I’ll be gentle with you, yeah? C’mere.”
Mike hears shuffling and another thud against the wall, to which the guy apologizes for, and Will’s heavy breathing may as well be reverberating through the bedroom like a fucking megaphone.
His heart is pounding. He can’t seem to think of what he possibly did wrong, in this life or maybe his last, to deserve being put through this. He can’t seem to think of much of anything, actually.
Smacking of lips and sloppy wet sounds from their mouths is making Mike pray to Jesus fucking Christ above that this dude’s a bad kisser. Like, why is he kissing Will so wet? If it were Mike—well, he’d be clean about it, really take his time. Not douse his best friend in spit. Gross. Will deserves better than that, doesn’t he?
Will doesn’t seem to think so, though, which makes Mike’s whole plan fall apart as he hears panting and—and whining fall from his best friend’s mouth, over and over, babbling out words Mike’s not even sure are real words, through the thin closet walls. Will likes gross, sloppy, disgusting kissing, apparently, and Mike didn’t know that.
Because of course he didn’t. Why would he know Will likes men with deep voices and messy kissing and confidence and…
“Christ, you’re pretty like this. Fuck, look at you.”
“I—” Will chokes. Mike can only imagine Will, standing shirtless against the wall with a man, dark haired and taller than him, wrapping his arms around his body because Mike knows he gets shy sometimes. “I…”
“C’mere,” he says, gruff and low, eliciting some sort of tiny squeak out of Will’s mouth, “let me lay you out, pretty thing.”
Mike hears a devastating and muffled, “okay,” fall from Will’s mouth.
“Atta boy,” Mike hears, and then there’s more shuffling, a big grunt, and more of those fucking giggles out of Will’s mouth again. Mike thinks he picked Will up, maybe, which is stupid, because Will’s grown, he can—he can walk himself the ten feet to his own bed. Like, he does it every day.
Mike glances up through the cracks in the closet. He’s sitting on the floor, so he’s a little under eye-level to Will’s bed tucked into the corner of his shoebox of a bedroom. The light is sort of blinding as Mike—against his better judgement, but he’s established he’s a terrible person by now, rotten right to his core—shifts forward onto his knees to peek through the wooden slats.
Will’s holding the guy’s face in both his hands as he kisses his mouth. The guy is definitely bigger than Will—probably older too, God, is he a fucking cradle robber? Mike’s two weeks younger than Will is—with a hoodie and jeans hanging low on his waist. Dark hair, strong arms, tall. He’s got an arm wrapped around Will’s middle and the other under his ass to support his weight. Mike very nearly pukes in his mouth.
Will’s whole bare chest is flushed against him. Mike sees him pull away as they stand at the foot of his bed, glancing around the room, and Mike sees him drop his forehead onto the guy’s shoulder. “Sorry it’s messy—I know I’ve got paint and dishes and—” Will breathes, and Mike’s heart sinks. “Oh.”
“All good?”
“Yeah,” Will nods. “I just—yeah, I don’t remember taking my dishes from my nightstand last night? Sorry.”
The guy lets out this dark laugh and shakes his head, bending down as he lets Will lie down on the bed. “You’re cute, Will.”
Mike can’t really tell from the angle, but he thinks maybe Will smiles. Why doesn’t Will ever smile at him like that?
Will paws at the guy’s hoodie sleeve as his head tips back into the pillows, trying to drag him down, too. Mike knows this guy has no idea that Will holds Mike’s sleeves when they’re crossing busy roads. The guy leans over Will, totally crowding his space, and kneels down onto the mattress, straddling Will’s hips, as it dips with their bodies. Mike really wishes Will’s old twin bed would fucking break under his weight.
Mike’s legs feel like they’re about to fall asleep, tingling and sore from the awkward angle he’s sitting at. He tips his head back against a shelf, squeezing his eyes shut. His brain is fogging up. This is Hell on earth. Certainly he’s died and gone to Hell.
There’s muffled moans of Will’s into the guy’s mouth which make him laugh which make Will whine even more. There’s clothes rustling and Will’s squeaky little twin bed isn’t doing them many favors in subtlety. “Fuck, you’re killing me, pretty boy,” the guy says, and Will laughs.
Mike finally opens his eyes and surveys the scene again. Both of them have got their shirts off now; Will, thin and lean and flushed beet red against his grey sheets, and the other guy, muscular and big and tanned. He squints. There might be scratch marks on his shoulders.
Mike always complains to Will that he really needs to trim his nails more. Fuck.
“Can I get these off’a you?”
Will lets out this—this broken noise in response, and Mike sees through the slats that Will lifts up his hips from the bed so his jeans slip off his hips and down his legs with ease. Mike won’t lie and say he’s never—never thought about what Will would be like like this, what he’d sound like, what he’d say. He guesses he never considered how—how shy he is. Which makes sense, ‘cause Will’s always been shy, he’s always been private. It’s in the way he’s hardly talking, just letting go. Letting this guy be good to him, be sweet, gentle. Like he actually trusts him.
“Needy thing,” is all Will is met with. Mike feels dizzy. Will probably does, too. “Look at you like this. Fuck, you’re sexy.”
Mike watches as Will tips his head back into the pillows, the same pillows Mike lays on when Will’s having nightmares and begs Mike to not let him be alone tonight.
“Open for me, pretty,” the guy mumbles. Mike stares in disgust as Will’s legs fall right open for him. The guy kneels down between Will’s legs, wrapping an arm underneath each of his knees, and tugs Will closer to his face. He adjusts and makes himself right at home between Will’s legs like he fucking belongs there. And Will’s—he’s hard through his boxers. Like, obviously. And it’s not that Mike is trying to look, it’s just, like, right there.
And—um, so is Mike, as it so happens. Which is, of course, doing wonders for his psyche right now.
Disgusting pervert hides in his secret crushes closet and pops a boner in his jeans listening to him get fondled and praised by a stranger.
Yeah. Something like that.
“Let’s get these off, too,” is mumbled right into Will’s fucking stomach. Mike hears chaste kisses, and he peeks an eye through the slats once again. Will’s squirming under his lips as his boxers get pulled down his thighs. He’s picked up a pillow from beside him since Mike last looked, clutching it in his arms.
Mike’s always known Will to be beautiful. It’s been a fact of life as long as they’ve been best friends—the grass is green, the sun shines hot, The Empire Strikes Back is the best movie that’s ever been made, Will Byers is beautiful.
It’s just—he’s breathtaking like this. Flushed chest and cheeks, eyes squeezed shut with overwhelm, squirming around under praise, the sweetest little shy noises he clearly can’t help but fall from his lips. And, like, yeah, Mike can’t help but staring at Will’s cock, lying solid against his belly, flushed deep red and aching, but—it’s beautiful, too, in such a perverse, fucked up kind of way.
If it were up to Mike, he wouldn’t let Will wait like this. The guy’s just—just sitting back on his ankles, kneeling between Will’s legs as his hands wander and explore Will’s body. Mike wouldn’t make him wait, though, he thinks. He’d have had his hands and mouth on Will’s obviously aching and needy cock forever ago.
“I need—” Will mumbles out, whining into the pillow he’s got clutched in his hands. “Can—please—”
“What, gorgeous?”
“Need—” Will tries again, stumbles, but the words die in his throat.
“Hey, none of that. Need you to use your words for me, pretty boy.”
Will pants. “Can you—mouth, C, please.”
C, he said. C.
Mike wants to fucking kill C.
He stares daggers through the cracks in the closet door. C has nestled himself between Will’s legs, drawing his hands up and down his chest, fingertips ghosting over his inner thighs. Will’s panting in desperation, now, and every time C’s hands draw close to his cock, it twitches, right along with Will’s stuttering hips.
C is torturing his best friend. Mike wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t.
He’d take his time, draw every slope and valley of Will’s waist, his chest, his hips, his shoulders, but he wouldn’t be evil. Not like this jackass.
“Mouth?” Is all C says. “What about it, baby?”
Mike wouldn’t make Will ask. He knows Will’s always had issues saying out loud what he wants—it’s why Mike thought he knew Will better than Will did himself, sometimes. Will’s shy and reserved, retreats when he feels threatened.
He doesn’t always say what he means. This guy is—
“Need your mouth on my—my cock, God, please.”
A low whine bursts out of Will as C’s finally wraps a hand around and tugs at his cock, throbbing, must be painful by now. Just like—fuck.
Mike clenches his teeth as his stomach lurches. He’s been straining against his jeans, too. He—his head is buzzing. He can’t really think straight, can’t concentrate, can’t breathe right. His legs are numb from sitting in the same spot, tucked away on the floor of this cedarwood closet. He—fuck. Just the zipper. Just so it stops hurting.
He’s not a good person, not by any stretch, but he’s not so rotten of one as to jack off into Will’s clothes as he voyeuristically watches a real-life porno play out in front of him through a few wooden closet slats.
C’s lazy with his hand job technique, Mike thinks. His wrist is totally floppy and he’s slow, too slow, and he’s still sitting back on his knees while Will cradles a pillow, squirming. Not that Mike’s ever given a hand job to anyone besides himself, but he’d do a better job, obviously. He’d have a firm wrist. Faster. “You even gonna last long enough for that, princess?”
Princess.
Princess?
“I—” Will chokes, huffing. His hips are stuttering against C’s hand. His other is pressing down on one of Will’s hipbones, keeping him pinned down. “I can usually—”
“Usually what, sweetheart?”
“Can—can go for another pretty—fast, I—oh, fuck.”
Right. Okay. So Will has an impeccable refractory period. Whatever. Does Mike care? No. Why should he care about something like that?
Mike’s pretty fucking sure he’s leaking into his boxers at the thought of Will—discovering something like that. Probably alone in bed while Mike sleeps a room over.
Mike’s hips stutter, not dissimilarly to Will’s. He presses a hand over his mouth again, tries to calm his breathing.
“Oh, yeah? Gonna let me test that theory?”
Will lets out this broken gasp as the guy’s hand begins to slow down and then stills on Will’s cock. “Whatever—whatever you want.”
Oh, fuck that. Seriously, Will? Whatever C wants?
Mike would rather die than let Will feel second-best to anybody. Ever. If he was in C’s place, he’d get Will off a thousand times before letting himself come. He wouldn’t care.
“I want,” C breathes as he bends himself over, kissing at Will’s thighs, both of his hands reaching up his torso, “for you to cum in my mouth,” he says, almost like a stage whisper, “and then for you to let me fill you up. How’s that sound?”
Will lets out the most broken noise Mike’s maybe ever heard fall from somebody’s lips, which C lets out this deep, bellowing laugh about. Fuck. He bites down on his lip, probably split open with blood now, and tips his head closer to the door. Will’s body is covered in a sheen of sweat that Mike can make out from all the way over here. He can’t believe Will would let somebody so selfish fuck him like this.
Mike could be a better lover. If Will just gave him a chance, he could. They’d laugh together, and Will wouldn’t have to worry about stuttering out things he’s scared to say. He wouldn’t have to worry about being second place.
Will’s fingers thread through C’s hair as he kisses at the tip of Will’s cock, nearly purple and glistening with need. C takes Will in his mouth, and Mike can’t fucking look away. Will’s hips buck up into the guy’s mouth and he’s writhing on the bed like he’s being fucking exorcised.
Surely it can’t be that good. Like, his technique here too? Doesn’t look so great. He’s—he’s…
It doesn’t take long for Will to whine out a stream of babbles, “can you—I’m—oh, fuck, no, no, I’m—I’m close, I—” and for C to laugh at Will with his stupid fucking mouth full of Will’s cock. He’s not even that hot anyway, and he looks dumb still in his jeans, leaned over the bed, sucking off his best friend. He drags a hand down Will’s belly and wraps his fingers around the base of Will’s dick, which makes Mike’s stomach flip. He can’t even take Will all the way in his mouth.
Mike probably could. Yeah, he thinks, even though he’s never tried it before. He definitely could. He wouldn’t need his hands to supplement the rest.
Mike can’t tear his eyes away as Will pulls at the guy’s hair, looking for anything to grasp onto, to sink his adrenaline and energy into. It only takes a minute for Will to finally choke out, “I’m—fuck, I’m gonna—” and then whining into open air as he, presumably, at least, starts to cum with shaky legs and curling toes and a whiny little stutter in his breaths.
Mike’s pissed. It can’t be that good.
He—fuck. He’s pressing a hand against his own straining cock in his boxers before he even realizes what he’s doing.
Will collapses into the bed, boneless and high, giggling again once he starts to come down from his high.
C pops off of Will’s cock with his—with his jaw hinged open, leans over Will’s stomach, and lets Will’s—lets his cum drip from his mouth right onto Will’s belly. Will shakes.
Fuck that, too. Fucking sacrilege. Mike would’ve swallowed every drop of it like communion wine straight from God’s hands, reverent.
Will’s left alone on the bed as C gets up to strip himself of his jeans and boxers and, well, not to be like that, but Mike can’t help but—well. Mike’s got to be bigger, right? Yeah. Selfish and a smaller cock?
Maybe the Devil isn’t laughing anymore. Maybe it’s Mike’s turn to.
“You got condoms?” C asks, gravelly, and Will whines out this little noise in response, something that sends shocks to Mike’s brain.
“Mmh,” he tries. “Yeah, in—in the drawer. Nightstand.”
Oh. Okay, cool. So Will keeps condoms in his nightstand drawer. Which, of course, Mike didn’t know, because why would that be something he should know about his best friend? It’s not. That’s private and personal and invasive.
It’s just—well, he wishes he did. When Will bought them, how, with who. Alone? When? How long has he—well. Mike would’ve come with him if he asked. Like—a friend date. To support him.
“Lube too?”
“Same place,” Will whispers. Mike’s stomach twists. Of course he has lube, too. Why the fuck wouldn’t he?
“You prepped?”
“Yeah,” Will groans out. He’s still hard against his belly, now shiny and slick with spit and—and his own fucking cum. Mike’s still pissed, he nearly huffs, as he palms himself again. He can feel the wet patch on the front of his boxers and—fuck. Even with the zipper open, it’s uncomfortable and crammed and sweaty in here, and he really wishes he could get these off. “Just—need another minute.”
C crouches in front of Will’s nightstand and shuffles Will’s stuff around, finding a box of condoms and a bottle. He tears the wrapper open with his teeth which makes Will laugh, which makes Mike want to die of cringe. Who even does that? Did he get that move from a bad porno? Come on.
Mike pointedly watches as C rolls the condom onto his cock and—and Mike can’t help it. He knows Will inside and out. They wouldn’t need to use condoms at all—if he could feel Will, warm and tight and messy, bare skin to bare skin, close as two people can possibly get?
His cock twitches in his fucking boxers again. He presses his hand down so hard he sees stars against the darkness of the closet.
“Think you’re ready, beautiful?”
“Mmf,” Will muffles out, “please. Fuck.”
“Aren’t you polite?” C says. “Cute.”
Mike watches as Will lays himself back on the bed, legs instinctively parting this time without C even having to ask. Mike wants to throw up about it, watching C jerk himself off to get ready after squirting lube into his hand and holding one of Will’s legs down. The sounds are fucking obscene.
The bed creaks as C pulls Will closer by his hips. “Relax,” C murmurs, low and easy, “hey, I got you.”
Mike nearly laughs at that.
I got you.
As if this guy knows the first fucking thing about Will. As if he gets Will. As if he gets why Will wakes up in tears some nights, as if he gets why Will cries when he gets hungry, as if he gets how hard Will loves others and never, ever himself.
The mattress groans again. Will exhales sharply.
Mike presses the heel of his hand harder over his mouth. God, he fucking hates this.
He hates this apartment and this closet and this stranger and the sound of Will letting somebody else take care of him. And worst of all, buried somewhere underneath all the nausea and humiliation and jealousy, he hates that Will sounds happy.
That maybe Will doesn’t need Mike so much after all. Maybe he’s finally safe in the hands of someone who isn’t Mike.
That’s the worst part, he thinks.
C is lining his cock up with Will, a hand on his ass and the other on his dick, slowly pressing in. Will chokes at the sensation. Mike’s stomach twists in terror. It should be him pressing himself into Will. It should be him making Will sound like that.
He should be holding him tight, cradling him, praising him, brushing his hair out of his eyes, wiping away his tears. Does this jackass know Will cries when he’s overwhelmed?
“There you go, Will,” C murmurs softly beyond the closet door. “Doing so good for me, baby. Taking me so fucking good.”
Will lets out these strangled noises as he reaches up for C, grabbing for his arms or his hair or his chest, something to grab onto. C laughs about it, entangles one of his hands with Will’s fingers. Mike can hear Will’s breathing, labored and choppy, as he bottoms out for C, hips finally joining together.
“Can you—” Will chokes out, a frantic hand reaching for C’s hair. “Wait—a second? Just—like bein’ full.”
Fuck. Mike nearly fucking whines at that. His throat is dry, scratchy, sick. He bunches up both hands into fists and squeezes his eyes shut tight as his neglected cock throbs in his jeans.
“Yeah?” C says softly. There’s rustling sheets, the bed creaking quieter this time. “Yeah, okay. Cute. Take your time, pretty boy.”
Mike’s chest fucking aches. His stomach is sick. His hands are shaking. He’s pretty sure there’s tears brimming in his eyes.
Because—because of course Will would get like this. Warm and yielding and soft around the edges when somebody finally handles him carefully enough.
Mike knows that better than anybody. That should be him and—and yet.
And yet Will wants C. Big, strong, gentle, sexy. He doesn’t want Mike, lanky and virginal and insecure.
“Sorry,” Will whispers, almost embarrassed, and Mike can see a flush as it spreads down his chest.
“You apologize too much,” C murmurs. “Takin’ my cock so good, baby. You ready?”
“Fuck—” Will sputters. “I—yeah. Yeah, please, can you—”
“—hey, I got you, lover boy.”
Mike seethes. Nobody loves Will more than Mike does—Will doesn’t need to want him back for that to be the truth.
Mike digs his fingernails into his palms so hard he swears there’s probably blood dripping onto Will’s carpet in here. There’s definitely stupid, stupid tears in his eyes, now. His chest is tight the way it always gets when he’s trying not to cry.
He feels pathetic.
He feels disgusting.
Beyond the door, the bed starts to creak again. Slow now, rhythmic. Mike’s eyes are squeezed tightly shut. He can’t bear to watch another second, he thinks, as he leans his head back into the wall behind him. He presses the palms of his hands into his eyes to try and ignore his thrumming cock, listening to whine after whine fall from his best friend’s mouth at the hands of someone else. Someone stronger, hotter, older. Better.
He’s murmuring praise into Will’s ear so quiet Mike can’t make any of it out anymore.
He should’ve walked himself right out of this apartment half an hour ago. He should’ve—
Hindsight is twenty-twenty, he supposes. Fuck. His heart cracks in two in his chest.
Every beautiful sound Will makes shoots straight down Mike’s spine and settles so fucking low in his stomach, hot and disgusting and humiliating. His cock throbs painfully against the confines of his jeans, trapped and aching and utterly ignored. His hips buck up into nothingness, needing something, anything, anything to take the sting away.
The sting comes from C presumably speeding up his thrusts, rougher, more self-assured against Will’s hips. Will’s letting curses fall from his mouth like broken prayers.
Mike, against his will, like a reverent betrayal of his own body, feels that all-too familiar pool of guilt begin to settle low in his stomach as he hears Will start mumbling that he’s getting close, too close, and to, “stop, stop, I’m so—”
“Gonna cum again for me, pretty? All over your stomach? Ain’t even touching you, fuck, you’re so good to me, c’mon, Will.”
Every single muscle in Mike’s body tenses up as the most guilt-ridden orgasm of his entire life washes over him, wave after wave after wave, unrelenting, as he listens to Will fall apart, to the harsh sound of skin on skin. Tears fall from Mike’s eyes as he stuffs his mouth with anything he can find—probably a sweater of Will’s, he doesn’t know—to keep himself quiet. His boxers humiliatingly flood with spurts of familiarly sticky, filthy warmth.
His body has betrayed him. Fucking revolting.
Will’s laughing outside the closet door as he comes down from his second orgasm of the night, laughing to C about how nice it feels to be full. Mike’s ears are fucking ringing. He can’t make everything out anymore; everything sounds distant, fuzzy.
Mike doesn’t watch another second. He misses as C peels the full condom off of his cock, tying it up and discarding it onto a tissue on Will’s nightstand. He misses the laughter that bubbles from Will’s chest, misses the kisses C plants all over Will’s belly, up his torso, his neck, his lips. Misses how C cradles Will like he’s precious after all is said and done.
The bed shifts back and forth as Mike’s hearing slowly begins to clear up. He can sort of make out back and forths, jokes, teasing. He hears C ask, “you think your roommate will be home soon?”
Will’s laughter dies down. “I—don’t know, actually,” he admits. “He’s a homebody, I’m surprised he’s out at all tonight. Um, I guess you should probably—”
“—yeah, yeah. Before he gets home. I ain’t into three-ways. No offense.”
Will doesn’t laugh. “Yeah, I’ll—you need to shower?”
“Nah,” the guy says. Mike squeezes his eyes shut tight. They’re still burning. “I’ll pro’lly head out if that’s alright with you, yeah?”
Mike’s not looking anymore. He misses the flash of hurt that flickers on Will’s face for—for just a second before he pulls himself back together, nodding at C, sitting himself up with a twist on his face because his stomach still feels sticky and taut.
“Cool,” Will says, soft. He reaches for the throw blanket he has at the end of the bed—the one he shares with Mike on the couch sometimes. Mike doesn’t see it to know, though. “Um, I’ll—show you out.”
Presumably, the shuffling and soft voices are C getting up and dressed again before Will gets up, blanket wrapped around his whole body and trailing behind him on the floor, and leads C back out of the bedroom. C kisses Will goodbye. He doesn’t leave a number behind.
It’s as if Mike can finally let out the half-hour long breath he didn’t even know he was holding.
Mike waits, and he waits, and he waits. Waits until he hears the lock of the bathroom door click and the shitty shower turn on, loud and clanky and runs either cold as ice or way, way too hot, like Hell is raining down.
Mike stays where he is for another full minute, staring blankly at the thin stripes of light through the closet door, like his body’s forgotten how to move. His chest is heaving. His boxers are cold and sticky, and his hair is all sweaty, stuck to his forehead. His knees ache when he finally unfolds himself from the floor, pushing the closet door open as quietly as he can. Every muscle in his body protests as he nearly stumbles out of the cupboard doors.
He stares at Will’s bed. The sheets are tangled up, blankets are everywhere. Will’s clothes are still laying on the floor. There’s a fucking condom tied off on his bedside table next to the empty wrapper. Will’s bottle of lube is sitting, cap still open, right next to them. It smells like sex and sweat and Will.
His stomach feels hollow. Cavernous. The light is blinding in here. His head is pounding.
Mike turns on his heel, gnaws on his lip, and shoves the closet door closed before beelining his way back to his bedroom, locking his door behind him.
He can’t help it.
Mike presses the heel of his hand to his mouth, and he cries.