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Will didn’t expect to find Mike on his doorstep unannounced on a random Tuesday evening in the middle of finals week, nor did he think he’d be tossing his studies aside to host him.
What he also didn’t expect was to be sitting in the same room with Mike, the boy he never did quite manage to stop loving, and his new college boyfriend. Or that Mike would close to bulldoze Carlton out of the way so he could share the two seat sofa with Will.
Carlton, sitting across the room on the cheap, springy armchair, did not look very happy.
Will didn’t mind. Couldn’t. Not with Mike’s thigh pressing hot, familiar, delicious fire into his. Not with Mike’s arm thrown around his shoulder, his fingers tracing patterns into his arm. Not with Mike’s smug smile as he made small talk with Carlton.
God, Mike was such an asshole.
Will cleared his throat to hide his grin.
“Callum, was it?” Mike asked, knowing full-well that wasn’t his name.
“Carlton,” his wet blanket of a boyfriend corrected dryly.
Mike, polite as ever (so, not at all), crossed one leg over the other, his foot brushing deliberately over Will’s calf, and nodded his head. “Whoops,” he said, uncaring. Clearly, he was enjoying the daggers Carlton kept staring at Will and Mike’s every point of contact. “What is it you said you’re studying?”
Carlton scoffed. “Civil law.”
“Oh, wow!” Mike looked at Will, his eyes reflecting mischief, and patted his thigh. “You’ve got yourself a leader of the law! How very responsible.”
Will snorted a laugh. When Carlton narrowed his eyes, he said, “Sneezed. My bad.”
“Bless you,” Mike excused, snickering. When his eye went back to Will’s very responsible boyfriend, his grin grew. “Will has very bad allergies, you know? Always has. They come out in the fall, make him all sneezy. Happens when he’s around boring people, too… do you happen to know anything about that?”
“I know about his allergies, thanks.”
Will had to bite down on a bark of laughter. What a fucking liar. He had no allergies; Mike was just making fun.
“Oh, I’m sure.” Mike’s voice wobbled like he was trying not to laugh. Again, he was such an asshole.
This might be the best day of Will’s life.
Carlton looked pointedly at Mike. “Well, it’s been a pleasure to meet you. It is almost dinner time, though, so…”
Will rolled his eyes. The nerve of him to try and kick Mike out of Will’s own apartment was insane. Mike seemed to agree, but decided feigning ignorance was the best path to take.
“I’m partial to a Japanese takeaway. How kind of you to offer to pick up dinner!”
“I wasn’t– Will, can you just…?”
Will blinked innocently, pretending like he wasn’t hard in his pants from the mere scent of Mike’s aftershave. “I could go for some Katsu curry. You’ll go get us dinner from that nice place on the high street, won’t you?”
It worked just how he knew it would. Carlton sighed, rubbed a hand over his eyes, and nodded. “I’ll let you two have some time to…” he darted uneasy eyes between the childhood friends, “catch up. I won’t be long.”
That last sentence was directed at Mike with a look of pure distrust.
When the door clicked closed, Mike burst into breathless laughter.
“Did you–” A gasp. “See–” A wheeze. “His sour–” A cackle. “Fucking face–”
Will snorted. “You’re a terrible person.”
He got up and walked into the connecting kitchenette, Mike following behind him, still laughing.
“I mean, really. You sure know how to pick ‘em, Will.”
Head in the fridge, reaching for the last two cans of Coke, Will replied, “Oh, please. It’s not like it’s a very serious relationship.”
Mike accepted one of the drinks as Will closed the fridge and leaned back against the counter. “I think you’d better tell that to Mr Possessive. He seems to think you’re tied down for life.”
Will rolled his eyes again. “It’s so overbearing. I asked him to give me space during finals week, and what does he do? He shows up unannounced with flowers and claims of missing me.”
“That’s… sweet?”
“It’s sickening. We’re in college, for God’s sake! It’s like he can’t comprehend that we’re two separate people.”
His eyes were drawn to Mike’s pop-slicked lips as he spoke. “Then why not give him the boot?”
Will shook his head, gaze flicking up to Mike’s sparkling eyes. “He’s got his uses.”
“Uses?”
He raised a brow. “Yeah, Mike. Uses. A man has needs, you know.”
Mike’s eyes filled with annoyance. “Ah. Good in bed, is he?”
“No.” Will shrugged, taking a prolonged sip before continuing. “He’s better than my hand, though. I mean, he’s got a mouth and he kinda knows how to use it.”
“Is that so?” Mike questioned, shuffling closer. Their thighs pressed together again as Mike put his drink down, hands coming to rest on the counter either side of Will’s waist, caging him in.
“Mhm,” Will hummed, licking his lips. Mike was drawn to the movement like a moth to a flame. “Why? Does that bother you?”
“Yes,” Mike admitted.
Will grinned, revelling in the tension between them. It was like a string pulled taut, ready to snap at any given moment. He knew what was going to happen, what had been building for years — the distance did wonders to Mike’s confidence. Before they were separated by school, he was never so obvious about wanting Will. Now, though…
Mike, not breaking eye contact, fumbled around in his pocket and withdrew a questionably rolled joint. He held it up between them, his wrist pressing against Will’s chest lightly.
His eyes swept Will’s face and then body, the want in them reflecting flames. He arched his brow. “You look good, Byers. Wanna feel good, too?”
Will plucked the blunt from between his fingers and tucked it behind his ear. “You got a light?”
Mike smirked.
—
“I’ve been missing you like crazy.”
They were sprawled on top of the counter, Mike’s head in Will’s lap with the lit blunt clutched between fingers that rested atop his chest. Looking down at a ruffle-haired, lazy-smiled Mike was his favourite thing, Will decided on the spot, his feet kicking back and forth against the cupboards.
“I visited you two weeks ago,” Will pointed out, neglecting to admit just how much he’d been missing Mike, too.
Mike, with his red-rimmed eyes and flushed cheeks, pouted. Potent smoke swirled artistically between them. Will amused himself by swatting a hand through the smoke until Mike grabbed his wrist.
Will giggled, eyeing the fingers wrapped around him. “I’ve got a Mike bracelet.”
Whatever strain it was, the weed was working fast and hard. Will was high out of his mind; everything was ten times funnier, the air was bendable, and Mike was impossibly beautiful. Somewhere through the haze of his mind, he remembered that Mike had always been beautiful.
But a sudden thought had him frowning. He matched Mike’s pout.
“Why won’t you let me have a Mike bracelet all the time? I look good in jewellery, I’ll have you know.”
Mike’s lips stretched like putty into a dopey smile. “Yeah, I’ve noticed. You should get a necklace or something. I’d like that.”
Will raised his brows in challenge. “What if I wanted a Mike necklace to match my Mike bracelet?”
Humming thoughtfully, Mike sat up. Without letting go of Will’s wrist, he put the spliff between Will’s lips and brought up his other hand to wrap loosely around his throat.
He tilted his head. Nodded slowly. Licked his lips.
It might have been the weed, but Will swore he could feel the blood rushing through his veins like waves lapping at a shore. He shivered.
“Well?” Mike prompted.
“Huh? Did you say something?” he mumbled around the joint.
Mike shuffled closer, dark eyes intense. “Do you like the Mike necklace?”
“Uh…” Will nodded dumbly. “Mhm. I like it.”
He swallowed, causing Mike’s fingers to tighten just slightly, less like he was readjusting and more like a reflex. His gaze flicked back to Will’s eyes. “You look really hot like this.”
Quirking a smile, Will said, “It’s not hot in here, Mike. It’s actually kind of cold.”
“No, idiot. I mean you look hot. Good-looking. Attractive. Um–” Mike paused. “I don’t know any more words.”
That makes sense, Will realised, giggling again.
Mike’s lips twitched. “What are you laughing at, William?”
“I don’t know,” Will laughed. “Don’t call me William, Michael.”
“You sound really weird talking around the smoke stick,” Mike pointed out, laughing at him. Distantly, Will thought smoke stick was a funny word. Two words. Whatever.
“So take it away,” Will ordered, drawing in another puff. He exhaled a hazy cloud as Mike reluctantly removed his hands from Will and took the joint. He sat up properly, legs crossed, and stared at Will, seeming to be lost in thought.
“Ugh! I’m so high,” Will complained, taking no notice of Mike’s silence.
“I am, too,” Mike agreed. His eyes widened as an idea seemed to pop into his mind. “Oh my God, Will!”
“What?”
Instead of replying, Mike hopped off the counter and took in a deep draw of smoke. Will shuffled to the edge of the counter and focused on the way Mike’s hands felt when they grasped his jaw.
“Open your mouth,” he rasped around the thick cloud leaking from his mouth. He blew it out, frustrated. “Wait, I forgot to say that first–”
When Mike started laughing, Will was confused. It must have been contagious, though, because Will also started laughing. They stayed like that for what felt like a second and a decade all at the same time, just chuckling into each other’s skin.
Will slunk down from the counter, chest to chest with Mike, whose laughter slowed to a smooth trickle that warmed Will’s body from head to toe.
“Okay, okay, sorry,” Mike said slowly. He brought the joint back up to his lips and whispered before hitting it, “Open your mouth now and inhale when I get close enough.”
Will thought that was weird, but he did it anyway. In the mess of their laughter, Mike’s hands had drifted away from his face, but the one not holding the joint now came back up and gripped him with fingers splayed over his cheek and a thumb under his chin.
His lashes fluttered as Mike drew closer, their eyes pinned on each other as the distance between their mouths became smaller and smaller. When their lips brushed, featherlight but electrifying, Will’s throat worked around a half-swallow, half-whimper.
When their noses bumped, Will began to inhale. Mike was breathing thick smoke right into his mouth. The whole act was dizzying; Will couldn’t be sure whether it was the drugs or just simply Mike that was inducing this reaction in him.
It was becoming a very difficult feat to ignore the tightness of his pants.
Mike’s eyes were burning holes into Will’s. This was closer than they’d ever been — almost as close as they dared to imagine — and again, Will had the realisation that something shifted, that this was going somewhere neither of them could take back, somewhere they’d been moving towards for a long, long time.
He exhaled the smoke, now thinning, casting white shadows to drift across Mike’s sharp features. The air cleared but neither boy made a move to pull away. Rather, they moved infinitesimally closer, catching lips and bumping noses again.
Will’s heavy eyes fought to stay open. The force of Mike’s aura had him longing to shut his eyes and close the distance, to feel the warmth of his mouth and taste the remnants of earthy weed on the tip of his tongue.
Swaying forward, he breathed out a needy, “Mike, I want–”
“Yeah?”
“You… I need–”
The words seemed to know not to come out, seemed to know how wrong his desperation was. But even knowing it was wrong, he didn’t care that his morals were flying out the window. Not when he was breathing in the scent of his life-long love, his best friend, the person who knew him better than anyone else in the world.
And as always, Mike knew what he needed. With his eyes still boring into Will’s, Mike nipped at his bottom lip teasingly and drew back with a satisfied smirk.
Humming, Mike asked in a low, rough voice, “Is this what you need, Will?” He pressed close and took Will’s full bottom lip between his, sucking sinfully until Will surged forward to properly claim his lips. Mike pulled away, tutting. “Mm, no. Where are your manners?”
Will’s eyes squeezed closed as he pressed his head against Mike’s, the joint laid forgotten in the rarely-used ashtray on the counter.
“Please,” he whined. “Please, Mike. I’ve waited so long.”
“Yeah, I guess you have,” Mike agreed, but when Will tried again to kiss him, he was denied once more. “But what would Mr Perfect think?”
Will shook his head. “I don’t care.”
“You don’t care?” Mike chuckled, pressing his lips briefly, too briefly, to Will’s. “I can’t say that doesn’t please me. What happened to you, Will? You used to be so loyal.”
“To you.”
“To me?” Mike echoed, the grin obvious in his voice even through Will’s closed eyes. “Only me?”
“Only you,” Will confirmed. “Always you.”
“Mm, but we shouldn’t,” Mike purred, tone careless like he was planning to take everything he wanted despite what he was saying.
Will opened his eyes and was met with Mike’s calculating, lustful gaze. He licked his lips, the tip of his tongue sliding purposefully across not just his, but Mike’s as well.
“We will, though.”
Will spoke it as a promise. Mike smiled.
“Yeah,” he agreed.
Will’s grin was swallowed almost immediately by Mike’s lips finally pushing against his own, open and plush and just right.
There was nothing to be said for it; it was wrong, but it felt so deliciously right. Moans spilled in the millimetres of space when they separated for air; hands ran through hair and over hips; noses got in the way and they lapped up each others’ laughs.
It was all Will had ever wanted — all he dreamed and hoped and craved, all he knew he’d never be lucky enough to have. But here he was, taking what was given and giving just as good. It was like one of his wet dreams come to life and God, if the real thing wasn’t infinitely better.
Will gasped when Mike swiped his tongue over his bottom lip, allowing him to delve his tongue into the warm heat and tangle with Will’s. The feeling set his nerves alight and the bucking of his hips was completely out of his hands.
“Oh my fucking God,” Will murmured between kisses, knees weak as the hard line of Mike’s dick lined up with his own and pleasure spiked.
Mike grunted, pinning Will’s hips into the cupboards and grinding hard into him. The kiss was severed and Mike’s hot pants against Will’s ear had him squirming, pushing back, moaning unabashedly into his hair.
“You sound so good,” Mike huffed into his ear, one hand on his waist and the other carding fingers through the hair of Will’s nape. He drew his face back to look at Will, their eyes darkened with desire and their mouths hanging open to let free their pleasured noises. On a particularly good thrust of hips, Mike let out a punched out groan, his red-rimmed eyes falling heavy-lidded. “Shit, Will. Come here, need to kiss you, just–”
As the kiss resumed, Mike’s hands wandered to the back of Will’s thighs and suddenly, Will was letting out a startled yelp as he was lifted and placed back on the countertop.
Will smiled down at him, his hands coming up to settle on his cheeks, and he leaned down to take Mike’s bottom lip between his teeth, tugging lightly until Mike’s moans turned to whines and he surged forward tongue-first, continuing his exploration of Will’s mouth.
His legs wrapped around Mike’s waist, tugging him in further. The angle of their hips was a sinful drag and Will squirmed, feeling the beading of pre-come soaking into the fabric of his underwear.
“This is better than I imagined,” Mike whispered, pressing a line of kisses down his jaw. “Been wanting this for so long.”
Will tilted his head, allowing Mike access to his neck. He grinned up at the ceiling, dopamine shot to the sky. “You should’ve told me,” he panted. “Why didn’t you?”
“When I realised, it was too late,” Mike explained, his tongue working wonders. “You were already here, probably having the time of your life hooking up with a bunch of guys. And then Mr Fuckhead came along…”
Will laughed, carefree and so, so happy. “I’ve only ever wanted you, Mike.”
He pulled away from Will’s now-tender neck and smiled a serene smile. “So, have me.”
Pensively, Will brushed his fingers through Mike’s fringe. “Okay,” he whispered.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
The kiss that resumed was full of knocking teeth and clashing grins, but to Will, it was perfect. They stayed like that for what felt like a long time, just enjoying the taste of each other and the closeness that they were finally allowing themselves to indulge in.
Not long later, the sound of a lock turning echoed in the open-planned house.
Mike disconnected their lips and started to pull away, but Will tugged him right back in so close their noses bumped and ordered roughly, “Don’t stop, Mike.”
After barely a second of heavy eye contact, Mike bit down on his lip with a deep groan. That paired with his blown-wide pupils was a sight that had Will’s cock absolutely throbbing. Mike was sinfully, devastatingly pretty.
It was like a magnet when Mike claimed his lips again — he kissed the hell out of Will, harder, more intense than before. Will smiled into it, broader when the door opened. Mike was jealous.
Will swept his tongue along the roof of Mike’s mouth and drank down the whimper he released from the back of this throat. Truly, Mike had no reason to be jealous. He was it for Will. Always had been.
The sound of footsteps and then a plastic bag hitting the opposite end of the counter vaguely registered, but it wasn’t until Carlton’s voice, hurt but unsurprised, rang out in the kitchenette.
“Will? What the hell are you doing? Are you being serious right now?” he asked, tone low and angry.
Reluctantly, Will broke away from the kiss. When he turned his face to look at him, Carlton’s eyes blew wide.
It didn’t seem to be over the fact that Mike had merely latched right onto his throat instead, not a care in the world as he sucked obscene bruises into Will’s skin and tongued a line over the sensitive vein in his neck — no, if the way his eyes scanned over Will was anything to go by, it was to do with how ruined he must have looked.
And… Yeah. Will felt ruined. He knew his hair was out of sorts from the way Mike’s long fingers had carded through it restlessly, gripping and tugging at the strands in a way that drove him crazy. He knew his lips must be swollen and red from the way they ached in the best way after relentless biting and sucking. He knew his eyes were red from the lowering high and dark with growing lust.
He also knew for damn sure that Carlton had never coaxed such a reaction from him.
Blissed out, Will grinned; his hands shot out to take hold of Mike’s shoulders when teeth nibbled gently at his earlobe. Breaking the silence, he grunted a raspy, “So, I think we should end things.”
Mike’s palm ran over the strain in his pants, very obviously gloating. It felt like a reward.
Will almost rolled his eyes. So possessive.
“Yeah!” Carlton exclaimed, throwing his hands out. “No fuckin’ shit!”
Mike snorted his amusement into the crook of Will’s neck before pulling back, ignoring Carlton completely in favour of reaching for the joint that lay forgotten in the tray by Will’s thigh, having since gone out. He re-lit it and brought it up to Will’s mouth, who took a long drag while Mike faced Carlton.
He raised a brow. “It was always gonna be Will and I. Sorry.”
Will leaned back, blowing the smoke up to the ceiling. Mike wasn’t sorry at all; his tone was purposefully unapologetic and his smile even more so. Carlton must have noticed, too.
“This is un-fucking-believable,” he muttered, glaring hell at Mike, who stood unbothered, still half-attached to Will. He was smoking the blunt now, looking gorgeous while doing it. “Honestly, Will. I thought you had standards.”
Will laughed. He did have standards; Mike was clear proof of that. Deciding to date Carlton, however? Well, his standards must’ve flown out the window when he made that decision.
So, making a new, better decision, Will made a fist in Mike’s shirt and pulled him back in, really making a show of the kind of kiss Carlton had never and would never receive from him. This was for Mike and Mike only.
He barely heard the sound of the front door slamming closed as he lost himself in Mike.
—
“I’m fucking starving,” Will complained when they eventually parted.
Mike smoothed his thumb over Will’s browbone and smiled cheekily. “Your boring boyfriend left dinner for us. You’ve lost yourself someone very kind.”
“Ex-boyfriend,” Will corrected, grinning. He hooked a finger in the front of Mike’s shirt and whispered, “I’d like to call you my boyfriend now. And believe me, I haven’t lost much. Not in comparison to what I’m gaining.”
“You’re not gaining anything,” Mike whispered. “You’ve had me all this time. I just wasn’t aware of it for a stupid amount of time. But I’m here now and I’m not leaving.”
Will smiled. “Good.”
“Good,” Mike agreed, pressing a chaste kiss to his head before pulling the bag of Japanese over. He groaned. “Dinner is so much better when it’s free.”
“And when you’re high,” Will snorted.
Neither of them said it, but food tasted a whole lot better when you were sharing it with the person you loved, too.