Chapter Text
What you need to understand is that Will is no angel.
He knows, to an outsider, that he must seem it; always sweet and soft-spoken, a little shy around the edges, all doe-eyed and bunny-toothed smiles, the picture of innocence.
But Will has mastered it, you see. The art of weaponisation.
And no, it isn’t all a lie. He still sleeps with his childhood tiger plushie with him on his bed, still loves disappearing into the fantasy world of D&D, still forgives too easily and forgets not nearly enough. On the surface, all of it is true. He’s the friend who rarely drinks, almost never raises his voice, loses hours to his sketchbook or a new stretch of canvas. He calls his mum every week, visits his brother every two. On the surface, his halo is bright.
They don’t know what lies beneath.
They forget that the Devil was an angel once, too.
Because Will is in love with Mike Wheeler, and once upon a time, those feelings were nothing more than that. Will used to be content in pining from afar, yearning for things he knew he could never have and hating himself for the ache of it, the way his heart would beat like the flap of angel wings in his chest whenever Mike was close. And Mike was often close. More so these days, since they moved to the city and moved in together.
It always felt like such a hopeless thing, Will’s love for him.
Mike was dating Jane, and Jane was technically a sister to him now, and Will had so much guilt festering inside of him that he was never sure where he ended and the rot began.
Not much has changed, since then.
They still live in their shoebox apartment where the pipes wail and the tap drips and the door gets stuck when it’s cold, where they host movie nights and there are always crumbs on the floor and dishes in the sink and mounds of laundry piled high between Will’s most recent art projects and Mike’s balled up papers. Most things are exactly the same:
Will is still in love with Mike Wheeler.
Mike is still dating Jane.
Except now, he’s fucking Will too.
Which is why it’s important to understand that Will is no angel, because he is certainly not a passive observer to the whole ordeal. The truth is, Will can’t even remember when he began this descent from heaven. Before they moved in together, it was easy to keep the image of the halo in suspension above his head, and for a short time after, the same was true.
He and Mike have always been the best of friends.
It was an easy excuse, one Will swore by, for a time.
When they were kids, Mike had always done his best to take care of Will in all the ways a best friend could. He was protective—of course he was, especially after everything—and it had stuck even into adulthood. Those eighteen liminal months of living in the Wheeler house had been torture enough, filled with so many mixed signals that the input had fried his brain.
Will should’ve known that sharing an apartment would only be a thousand times worse.
And as the halo began to flicker, so did the excuse.
Will had thought that moving to the city and pursuing his art dreams in college might finally give him the chance to get over him. Mike had Jane. Maybe Will could find someone, too.
But Mike had no respect for that particular dream, and Will had let him trample all over it like it had never even existed. Because Will had been in love with Mike Wheeler since before he was even old enough to know what love is, and Will Byers is no angel at all.
It had started almost like a game, one with rules left unspoken and consequences too vast to think too hard about, trying to see just how far the other would take it.
Mike had no idea Will would let him take everything, if he wanted to.
And Will had no idea Mike would.
It had been out of some morbid curiosity, for Will. Mike had always been clingy, was always the first to reach for Will and hold onto him like someone might steal him away if he didn’t. Will got it, sort of. He had let him go before, and then Will had disappeared. So it was easy to chalk it down to friendship, back when Will still believed in his own excuses.
God, how naive he had been. How caught up in his own denial.
Mike was clever like that. He’d have his big hand sitting hot and heavy on Will’s thigh during movie night with the Party, and Jane tucked snugly beneath his other arm. He’d come home to their apartment with her sickly floral perfume all over him, and he’d wrap his arms around Will’s waist and shove his hands up beneath the hem of his shirt to rest across his tummy, and Will would wonder if it made him a terrible person, a terrible friend, a terrible brother, if he enjoyed it.
Will could’ve stopped him at any time. Before it went too far. But every time Mike pushed, Will yielded. And every time Will pulled, Mike took another step closer.
It’s all Will had ever wanted, after all.
Mike’s eyes on him, Mike’s hands on him, Mike’s perpetually severed attention now wholly fixated on him. He almost didn’t care how he was given it, didn’t care if it made him selfish, if it meant he was taking advantage and betraying both his sister and their friendship. Will had loved him long enough and hard enough that he would let Mike take everything.
And take it, Mike did.
All of his shame, all of the guilt that twisted in his stomach, all of the bitter envy. With Mike, he could let it all fall away. He could stretch his legs out across Mike’s lap and have his big hands splay out across his thighs, or have his fingers tracing soothing patterns into the sensitive skin of his socked feet, around the delicate bump of his ankles. Will could sit at their tiny kitchen table with his tea and Mike’s coffee and run a fingertip over the obscenely prominent veins in the backs of Mike’s hands and up his forearms, and he could let himself go all blushy-pink when Mike grabbed his hand to press their palms together and say Oh my god, Will, your hands are like, so tiny. He could wonder if Mike knew how badly that affected him. He could wonder if perhaps Mike was taking advantage, too.
He could wonder if he even cared whether he was.
And when they play-fought on the sofa one evening after Will had stuck his ice-block feet up beneath the fabric of Mike’s shirt to press against his stomach, Will could allow himself the thrill that came with having Mike’s strong hands all over him; one wrapped firmly around both of Will’s dainty little wrists to pin them behind his back, the other shoving his face down into the pillows beneath him. It’s almost pathetic, how easily Will had submitted to it. How quickly his laughter had been snuffed out and left him choking on his own smouldering arousal. And that was even before Mike had straddled his ass and Will had felt the poke of something pressing hard and big against him in his own fake-struggle against Mike’s restraint.
The skin of Will’s wrists was bruised with purple fingerprints for days.
Will had rather liked wearing Mike all over him.
So much so, in fact, that he had taken his chance one night when Mike was out with Jane and he had stolen a pair of Mike’s boxers and his well-worn Butthole Surfers hoodie—it was already big on Mike, but on Will, he was drowned. And when Mike had found him like that in the kitchen, Will had told him with a coy flutter of his lashes that he needed to do laundry, that he had nothing of his own to wear, and Mike had known that it wasn’t just a lie but a near fucking invitation, and god he had certainly taken it as if it was.
Will could never forget that first time.
The way Mike had come up behind him and nestled the hard length of his cock between Will’s boxer-clad asscheeks and whispered—
“We’re best friends, Will. You’ll let me, right?”
He didn’t need an excuse at all.
Whatever Mike wanted, Will would let him have.
The art of weaponisation has always been Will’s favourite medium.
Now, in the kitchen as he waits for his tea to brew, Will dances bare-foot on the linoleum floor to the radio playing Lovesong with the dial turned down low because it’s early, and Mike is still sleeping, but Will knows he will be up soon. He’s planned this, after all. He knows exactly how to push Mike’s buttons, how best to taunt him so Will gets what he wants.
They’ve been doing this for long enough now; this sort of free use friends with benefits thing that they never speak about. There’s something sort of addictive about it, for Will. Something that helps to numb the jealousy he feels about Mike dating Jane, because it’s Will he’s fucking on the down-low, and it’s halfway toward everything Will has ever wanted.
He’s made his peace with it, by now. He’s fine with being Mike’s side-piece, because there was once a time when he wasn’t even a piece on the board at all, and now he gets to have him, however Mike chooses. Because it is always Mike who initiates. It’s always Mike who takes what he wants, but it is also Will who goads him into doing so.
He’s wearing an old and faded The Fall shirt he’d borrowed and forgotten to return to Jonathan some three years ago now, and it’s baggy on him, but only just enough.
Because Will wants to show off what peeks out beneath the hem, the flash of yellow cotton fabric that just barely covers the swell of his ass.
A pair of panties, stolen from Jane.
It’s fucked up of him, he knows it is.
But he can’t lie and say he doesn’t get off on the idea of it: Will, in Mike’s girlfriend’s clothes, getting fucked as if he really was Mike’s girlfriend and he loved him just the same.
God, a guy can dream.
Sometimes Will can fool himself. He can watch the way Mike stumbles and trips in his hurry to take care of him, to make sure every one of Will’s innocent bats of lashes gets him exactly as he pleases. Sometimes the domesticity of it is enough to break Will’s heart. Seeing Mike hunched over the sink, scrubbing paint stains out of Will’s favourite jeans, or pairing Will’s socks when he’s done a load of laundry. Making sure Will remembers to eat when he’s locked in with an art project. He started making all of Will’s meals, a few months back. Started researching vegetarian diets to make sure Will was getting enough protein.
He refuses to let Will pay for anything, citing his trust fund and his part time barista job as being more than enough to cover the costs for the both of them. He’s usually always touching Will somewhere, a bump of an elbow, an arm around his waist, a hand on his thigh, and that’s when he’s not balls deep inside of Will or shoving his fingers into his mouth.
And yeah, Mike can be greedy and kind of an asshole sometimes too. He takes and takes and takes and he smiles as he does, but Will also kind of adores him for that, too. It means he’s wanted. It means he’s desired, even if it isn’t love.
Will swings his hips as the synth bridge rises, eyes closed as he lets the music sing through him. God, he loves this song. Loves the way it makes something feral roar in his chest.
He smells Mike’s day-old cologne just a half second before two big hands encircle his waist.
Will gasps at the sudden heat that presses into him from behind, all along his back and down the backs of his bare thighs.
Mike buries his face in the crook of Will’s neck, breathing him in. He’s clearly not fully awake yet, still sleepy-soft around the edges, his voice a low rumble as he says—
“Morning, baby.”
A gentle giggle slips free from Will’s lips.
“Morning, Mikey,” he purrs, reaching an arm up and around so he can ruffle Mike’s hair, fingers tugging gently through the messy curls.
He feels Mike’s hum all up against the skin of his neck, a soft vibration to oppose the not so soft press of his dick against his—Jane’s—panties, already hard through his pyjama pants. Will wonders how long he’d been watching him dance, if he’d been perving on him in the doorway like a creep while Will shook his ass, his cock slowly filling at the sight of him.
Will wouldn’t mind if he had. It was kind of the point, after all.
“These new?” Mike asks as his fingers splay down over the soft, sensitive pudge of skin beneath Will’s belly button, fingertips toying with the elastic at the front of his panties.
Will bites his lip. “They’re Jane’s.”
And oh god, he swears he feels Mike’s dick twitch against him when he says it, and isn’t that something?
“Mmm, so that’s why they looked familiar.”
He rolls his hips in an achingly slow grind against Will’s ass, mouthing hotly at the juncture between his neck and shoulder where the t-shirt falls low, tonguing along the skin Will bares for him and sucking a rose-petal bruise up to the surface, a hickey in the shape of Mike’s mouth. It coaxes a shiver from Will despite the heat of it, despite the sinking realisation that—fucking great—he’ll either have to cover that up later or lie to Max again.
“Take some cash from my wallet,” Mike tells him, rutting against him with intention. “Buy yourself some of your own panties so you don’t have to go stealing my girlfriend’s, yeah?”
Will pouts. “Bet they look better on me, though.”
“Yeah baby, so much better.”
“You fuck her in these, too?”
“Nah, just you, baby.”
So what if Will likes it a little fucked up, a little unforgivable? There’s no one around to bear witness except for the ugly thing inside him that shapes its terrible mouth into a smile and grinds its teeth around the taste of Mike’s confession. Because Will has always secretly liked the cruelty of it. He likes hearing how much better he is than Jane while he has Mike all over him, because it’s easier, then, to silence the voice in his head which reminds him that Mike will never love him how he yearns to be loved. It’s easier to forget how, despite whatever filthy and fucked up things Mike does to him, they’ve never even kissed.
It’s easier still when Will feels the slick tip of Mike’s cock smearing just below the elastic edge of the panties, and then with purpose dragging down against the yellow cotton as he slips between the plush fat of his thighs.
Will lifts up on his tip-toes, arches his back into Mike’s big hand splayed across his stomach. His dick between Will’s thighs is already so fucking slippery with Mike’s own pre-come that the glide is easy, dragging forward against his sac, the pink tip of him poking out obscenely right up against where Will is aching and sensitive before he slides back out.
In the confines of the panties, Will’s own dick leaks, swollen and untouched and useless. He knows it’ll stay that way; knows by now that if he wants to come, he’ll have to be a good fucking boy and take what he’s given while Mike has his way with him.
It doesn’t matter what Will wants, anyway.
He would never deny Mike of anything.
Without warning, a hard slap lands against the muscle of his thigh. Will gasps and tenses at the sudden sting blooming hot across his skin, radiating in waves of sharp pleasure-pain along his nerves in the shape of Mike’s handprint.
“C’mon, baby, be good and keep those thighs tight for me,” he says, his voice a little mean. “Can barely feel a thing if you’re all loose around me like that.”
“S-sorry, Mikey,” he sniffles. “I’ll be good, I promise.”
And he tries to be, he does, squeezing the muscles of his thighs tighter together so Mike has even more friction, even more pressure to fuck into, because if there’s one thing Will does want, it’s to always be the best hole he possibly can, whenever Mike wants him.
“Fuck, that’s it, baby,” Mike groans, the sound of his hips smacking against Will’s ass and his dick squelching between his thighs so fucking nasty against the quiet hum of the radio. “What are you gonna tell my girlfriend when I ruin these fucking panties of hers?”
“She doesn’t need to know.”
“No? You won’t tell her you wore them just to get me to fuck you?”
“I— I didn’t—”
“Don’t lie to me, baby,” Mike near fucking growls. “I know you did. What would she do if she knew how much of a slut you were for her boyfriend’s cock?”
God, and Will really must be fucked in the head, because those words strike through him like a match to his arousal, igniting every smouldering nerve into raging flame. His hips buck forward into open air, the fabric of the panties now tight around his dick, damp with both of their precome and undoubtedly turning thin and translucent where Mike rubs against him, harder now, spurred on by the squeeze of Will’s thighs around him and the guiltless words that pass their lips.
“Not my fault you can’t keep your hands off me,” Will bites back, but it’s breathless and doesn’t land except to harden the grip Mike’s got on his stomach, on his hip.
“Mmmmyeah, how could I resist?”
Mike never does, not with Will.
Consequences be damned, his greed knows no restraint.
As he works himself faster, he drops a trail of slick, scorchingly hot kisses along Will’s neck, little nicks with his teeth, harder sucks of his sensitive skin between his lips. And consequences be fucking damned, because Will knows he’s going to be made a liar later whether he likes it or not, so he bares his entire throat to give Mike as much as he has, and then Mike is gasping and he’s pressing Will hard against his body as he comes, hot ropes of it spilling down Will’s thighs, all over the yellow of his stolen panties.
“Fuck, baby, so good for me,” he groans as he fucks out the last flutters of his orgasm, carelessly smearing come all over the already-ruined cotton. “Such a good girl, Will, that’s it, baby. You always let me do whatever I want to you, hmm? Never tell me No?”
Will would shake his head, but doesn’t want to dislodge Mike’s face from the crook of his neck, not for as long as Mike is happy to keep it there. It’s the same way Will would sacrifice everything, if it means he has Mike like this for even a moment: panting and sweaty where he presses up against him, ribbons of his come painting the tender skin of Will’s inner thighs.
There is nothing he wouldn’t let Mike do to him.
Even break his stupid fucking heart.
Even swipe the come off Will’s skin with his fingers and press them into his mouth before Will even realises what’s happening, the salty trails painting his lips and tongue. And of course Will cleans it off his fingers like the good girl he is, takes his time lapping against the familiar shape of his long fingers, only gags just a little when Mike shoves them in further.
Then Mike is pulling back, and the softening heat between Will’s thighs is rescinded from their snug confines in favour of being tucked modestly away into his pyjama pants.
And Will is left, Mike-less and still hard in Jane’s panties, while Mike goes about his morning, setting the coffee pot on to brew, putting away clean dishes, resting a big hand on Will’s waist to move him out of the way with a hushed s’cuse me, baby, so he can grab a spoon.
Will white-knuckles the kitchen counter where he stands and tries to blink his brain back online. His tea has certainly over-brewed by now. Eeeyuck. He’ll have to make another.
“You got your thing with Max today, right?” Mike asks over the clatter of plates being rearranged in the cupboard. “Your little ice cream date?”
Will should be used to it by now.
This, after all, is the nature of their arrangement.
“Uh,” he exhales, trying not to think too hard about how Mike’s come is cooling against the damp panties like it might just glue him into them. “Um, yeah, I do. After class.”
He chucks his overbrewed tea down the sink. Goes to reach for the kettle to boil himself another mugful of water, but Mike tsks at him and bats his wandering hand astray and steals it to do it for him instead. Will mutters an embarrassed little thank you. It’s probably the least he could do, actually. He’s the reason the tea overbrewed in the first place.
“That’s cool,” Mike nods over the rush of water. “What flavour you gonna go for?”
“I was thinking either salted caramel or pistachio,” Will says, resting one hip against the counter. Usually he’d be perched up on top of it, legs swinging merrily while Mike moved around him, but considering the state of his panties, well… “I don’t know yet. I’ll see what Max is getting, maybe that way we can share.”
Mike laughs, nose scrunched and eyes bright. “You know Max isn’t sharing shit.”
“Ouch. No, you’re probably right.”
And so it goes. Mike makes Will’s tea just how he likes it, perfectly brewed with enough sugar to comatose a toddler and just a splash of milk, and Will drinks it there in the kitchen while Mike cooks breakfast and listens to Will yap about his classes and his most recent art projects and almost, almost, forgets about the state of his panties.
Will takes enough cash from Mike’s wallet for a whole new drawer full of panties and for ice cream with Max, and Mike doesn’t even bat an eye.
*
“Did you getting fucking mauled?” Max asks in recoiled greeting, already reaching to manhandle Will into her grasp, turning him this way and that. “Girl, those look fresh.”
Yeah, so Will decided to take the hit and lie to his friend again, and what about it?
Mike didn’t exactly leave him many options.
Besides, if he’s being honest, Will does kinda like it, wearing the evidence of Mike’s desire all over his body but still keeping the truth of it held close to his chest. It’s their little secret. The other wouldn’t understand, not even Max. Maybe especially not even Max.
It’s a crack in the angelic illusion he so meticulously upholds. All their friends think he just likes to get around, nameless hookups with guys who leave him absolutely destroyed come morning, because Will would never dream of outing Mike by telling anyone what goes on behind the closed doors of their apartment.
Not that Will himself even knows what he’d out Mike as, if he did. Mike’s made it pretty clear that they aren’t anything more than best friends. As if that excuses everything.
(Maybe to Mike, it does. That’s none of Will’s business.)
Will bats Max’s probing hands away from his neck, flushing rosy pink in the cherries of his cheeks when he can’t hold back the smile. “Hands off, Maxine.”
“Where are you catching hookups on a Wednesday night, anyway?”
“None of your business, is where.”
“God, some fucking animal he is.”
“Can we maybe drop it?” Will winces, looping an arm through hers to drag her forcibly in the direction of the ice cream parlor. “Ice cream’s on me today, my treat.”
Max rolls her eyes. “You mean Mike’s treat.”
“Boo,” Will pouts. “What’s mine is yours, babe.”
“Ew, I don’t want that greasy Wheeler trust fund money.”
“Fine, you can buy your own ice cream then.”
“Nonono I take it back—”
She does, and they get their ice creams, and Max doesn’t share, just as Mike predicted.
Will makes some lousy excuse about wanting to browse the local clothing stores, but Max doesn’t seem to care for one anyway, just excited to go girl’s shopping no matter the reason. It takes him a while to muster up the courage, so sure someone’s going to think he’s lurking awkwardly in the underwear section in a pervy way rather than a gay way, but no one else is here. Just him and Max and the giant fucking blush that seeps across his cheeks when she catches on to the real reason he wanted to come here and sidles up with a sly smile and a seemingly innocent question of— “So, slutty or demure? What vibe are we going for?”
And it’s as easy as that.
The answer to her question is, undoubtedly, slutty as fuck.
At the end of it, Will ends up with an entire armful of lace and silk and cotton, because Max apparently takes her job of underwear wingwoman very fucking seriously, and Will has a whole pocket full of Mike-granted cash to burn through. Plus he’d like to have options and alternates for when Mike inevitably ends up destroying them.
“Does Wheeler know you’re buying these with his money?” Max asks while the cashier rings up his haul, and Will flushes.
She doesn’t need to know that Mike was the one who suggested it, actually.
“He’ll find out, he does my laundry.”
“Of course he does,” Max mutters, barely audible, under her breath. “He’ll probably huff them too.”
“What was that?”
“Nothing, my sweet summer child.”
Back home, Will changes into his favourite pair: lacy and blue with little embroidered yellow daisies embellished all over. He wears them beneath his tiniest shorts, the lace poking out where they barely cover the swell of his asscheeks, paired with a too-short Bowie crop top he cut himself, the hem curling up around the bold lettering.
He’s drawing in his sketchbook when Mike gets home from work, tummy-down on the sofa, his socked feet kicking up into the air, only half-focused on the sketch at hand because this is, after all, yet another ruse to shamelessly seduce his way under Mike’s skin.
Will’s sure he must look equal parts Angel and Devil all at once.
He’s sure, from the way Mike freezes in the doorway, that it’s working.
When Will looks up from his sketchbook page, he finds Mike staring. Eyes like two black holes behind his glasses, standing stock still with his shoes still on and his keys still in hand, practically fucking salivating with his mouth wide and panting like a dog.
Will offers him a sweet, bunny-toothed smile.
“Hey, Mikey.”
“Uh, hi,” Mike breathes out, then clamps his mouth closed like he’s just realised how wide it’s hanging open, works his jaw, swallows hard. “I’m, uh… gonna shower.”
It’s almost a shame. Will secretly loves the smell of coffee and pastries and sweat that always clings to his skin after a shift, loves knowing that the reason Mike works his ass off in that shitty college-wage coffee shop is so Will can live the lavish lifestyle he does; so he can have pretty new panties and ice creams with his friend and sprawl out at the end of the day with his sketchbook and a devilish desire to make Mike want to ruin him.
He doesn’t comment on it. Just nods his head and goes back to his sketchbook, the pages full of half-finished likenesses to the exact structure and vein patterns of Mike’s hands.
Will listens to the pipes wail as the shower runs.
The Smiths drone on from the record spinning in the corner.
And then Mike is back, hair still damp and curling slightly around his eyes with a few stray droplets of water cascading down over his bare shoulders and chest, that barely-there fuzz of hair adorning his skin. Dark jeans are slung low on his hips, his black studded belt doing nothing to keep them up so the waistband of his boxers peeks out over the top.
He comes to sit down on the floor right beside where Will has stolen the entire sofa for himself, one elbow propped up against the cushion when he turns to look at Will.
“So, how was your day?” he asks, and okay, sure, they can do the small talk thing, if that’s what Mike wants to do. As if he doesn’t look like he’s about to jump Will at any given second, jesus christ. “Did you have a nice time out with Max?”
“Mhm, yeah we did,” Will smiles, flipping the cover of his sketchbook and resting his chin in the palm of his hand. “The ice creams were so good.”
“Yeah? What flavour did you go for?”
“Wanna guess?”
It’s an innocent question, one without a single brush stroke of weaponisation within it, so Will gasps when Mike grabs him harshly by the face in response, his long fingers and thumb wrapping tightly around his jaw, catching it open on his sharp intake of breath.
Mike holds him there for a second, eyes locked on Will’s parted lips.
“Tongue out, baby.”
Will obeys.
The pink peek of his tongue stretches out across his lower lip, the slow blink of his huge doe-eyes submitting entirely to the rough grasp of Mike’s hand on him.
Will can’t lie—he loves when Mike gets like this, all mean and demanding, when Will’s mind goes all fuzzy with the heat that carries him on a warm sea of submission. He trusts Mike, is the thing. He trusts Mike to know what’s good for him, even if Will himself has no limits. Because he will take anything, everything, if that’s what Mike wants to give him.
He holds his breath as Mike leans forward, so close that Will can almost taste the hours-old bitter coffee that lingers on his breath, and then closer still, so fucking close, oh god.
Mike’s lower lip brushes against Will’s as he sucks his tongue into his mouth, and he is soclosesoclosesoclose, but it isn’t a kiss because they don’t kiss, they don’t, but his mouth is hot around Will’s tongue and Will swears he feels the hot tip of Mike’s own stroke across the tender muscle, and Will is going to pass the fuck out in the next three seconds if he doesn’t take a breath—
“Mmmm, salted caramel, right?”
He lets go of Will’s face so abruptly, it leaves him reeling.
“Yeah,” he pants, swallowing hard. “Right.”
Will can’t help but feel a little violated, a little humiliated.
And he can’t help the way he kind of likes it, too.
“I see you went shopping, as well,” Mike slides a palm up the back of one of Will’s thighs, all the way to where the blue lace peeks out beneath his shorts, and then grabs a greedy handful when his fingers slip up under the hem. “These are so cute. Can I see?”
Will rolls his eyes to hide the fact that his heart is currently rabbiting away uncontrollably in his chest. “No. You’re gonna ruin them if you do, and I like these ones.”
Mike raises his eyebrows, unmoved by Will’s pout.
“I paid for them, didn’t I? And I’m not allowed a better look? Pfft.”
“You’re an asshole, Mike,” Will says, with bite, slapping Mike’s insatiable hand away from his ass. “What would your girlfriend say if she heard you talking like that?”
“Don’t talk about her,” Mike lands a sudden, hard slap against the flesh of his thigh, and Will flinches at both the sound and the sting that pinches across his skin. “It’s not my fault you decided to dress like a slut tonight. Seriously, Will. These are far too fucking short. I can see everything.”
“Then you don’t need a better look, do you?” Will huffs.
He’s pushing his luck, and he knows it.
There’s a terrifying dark void that’s swallowed Mike’s irises whole, two twin black holes that threaten to lure Will within their gravity and swallow him whole. He knows what happens when Mike gets like this; when Will talks back, steps out of line, insults his authority. He knows what happens, and he craves the darkness to lull his brain back to quiet.
“Oh, you’re feeling like a slut and a brat tonight, huh?”
A tiny smirk pinches at the corners of his mouth. “And what are you gonna do about it?”
It’s on Will for encouraging him, really.
There was once a time where he tried not to, wondering if he would be absolved of all his guilt if he upheld the image of an angel like a mere witness to his own desecration. He wondered if his purity would be restored if he pretended he didn’t want this, too.
He could’ve struggled, he could’ve put up a fight, pushed Mike off him the moment he’d felt his hard cock press against him through his jeans, laughed it off like best friends should, but Will didn’t do any of those things. He never tells him No, even when he sort of kinda wants to, just a little bit, because sometimes Mike can be too mean, too greedy, too demanding when Will’s heart is already black and bruised and his love for him is too consuming.
Sometimes it scares him, how far he’d let Mike go.
How often he finds himself alone and wanting and desperate for the next time Mike will look in his direction and let Will pretend, for a moment, that he’s got everything he ever wanted.
Because this thing they have is a two way street, and while Mike uses Will, Will uses him right back. A fallen angel with a heart full of sin lured by temptation. There’s no use in pretending anything else is true.
And so Will finds himself face down once more in the cushions, his tiny shorts pulled all the way down his thighs, under his bent knees and up over his socked feet, one leg draped carelessly over the front of the couch to allow space for Mike to slip between, his glasses already discarded on the coffee table.
Over the lace of his panties, right over Will’s hole, Mike spits.
Every single one of Will’s erogenous zones lurch, all at once. The sudden wet and the heat and the decadent degradation of it pulls a mournful little cry right out of his throat, and that’s even before Mike is pressing the flat of his tongue up against the lace and dragging it all the way from the squish of his balls, along his perineum, tip curling against his entrance, slow and slick and coaxing. One of Will’s hands flies out to cup Mike around the back of his skull, fingers tightening in his damp curls, harder still with every swirl and dip of his tongue against the tender muscle, the rough way he squeezes Will’s cheeks apart for better access.
He whines plaintively, hips rocking down into the couch cushion beneath him and up against the velveteen bliss of Mike’s mouth, such a gentle and brainless euphoria sinking through him; sinking every last ounce of his brattiness right out of him until he’s reduced to a helpless, shuddering mess sprawled out across the sofa, just how Will likes it best. Just how Mike does, too, turning Will all pliant and docile beneath him, so willing to take whatever Mike gives him. He’s merciless with it, eating Will out over his panties like a man starved.
“God, your pussy’s so wet for me, baby,” Mike rasps, fingers toying with the soaked lace and shoving it aside so he can run a finger over where Will’s hole is fluttering uselessly.
“MmmmMikey,” Will moans into a cushion, the material wet beneath his cheek where he’s been drooling shamelessly into it. “Is it better than hers?”
“You know it is, baby,” Mike presses the tip of his thumb just beyond the tender muscle of Will’s rim, and Will fucking shudders at the touch. “Bet I could just slide right in, huh? But I’m not gonna. You can be good and come just from my mouth, can’t you?”
“Please,” Will whines. “Please, Mikey, need your mouth, I’ll be so good, I promise.”
“That’s my good girl.”
Then Mike is going back to lapping like a dog at Will’s spit-slick hole, and Will sees it coming but he’s still ambushed by how fucking good it feels; the slippery heat of his mouth, the swirl and dip of his tongue as he nudges the tip just beyond the muscle and presses inside. Every sensation dials up to a hundred as Mike well and truly eats him out. The nudge of his long nose between Will’s cheeks, the hard grasp of his hands holding him immovably open, each tiny groan and grunt of pleasure muffled against his ass.
Will isn’t sure if he can come just from Mike’s mouth on him, but he wants to, goddamnit, he wants to be so good for him, to prove to Mike whose pussy is best.
But there’s also the couch cushion beneath him, growing all gross and slick with the leak of his precome through the lace, and Mike hadn’t told him not to…
“Mikey, oh my god, m’close.”
It passes his lips on a tremulous whimper, his hand tightening in Mike’s hair, so tight it has to hurt, and he grinds his hips down into the cushion and notes the hot tears that layer in his eyes and spill out over the edges as pleasure spikes, that fuzzy edge of bliss so intense it’s almost pain, all the muscles in his body drawing taut, his hole clamping down around Mike’s tongue. Still, he fucks him through him. Pulses his tongue in and out of Will’s hole as his orgasm crashes over him and he ruins his pretty new lacy panties and Mike does not relent.
Will hardly comes down from it, floating around in that haze of overstimulation as Mike keeps lapping at Will’s fluttery hole and all he can do is lay there and take it, take it, take it… that is until his thighs are trembling and every last shimmer of bliss has long since been eked right out of him, and suddenly it’s too much, too intense—
“Mike, Mikey, stop,” he whines, and because Mike is greedy—insatiable, even—he doesn’t stop, not until Will manages to muster every last bit of strength left in his body to pull him up by the roots of his hair, and over his shoulder he catches sight of him:
Lips swollen, damp with saliva all the way down his chin, almost dripping with it. There’s a dazed look on his face, a pinch between his brows like he’s unsure why he’s suddenly been forcibly removed from his feast, blinking slowly at Will as he glares at him over his shoulder.
He’s a rabid dog, is what he is.
Needs to be put down, probably, what with the way he’s looking at Will.
“I wasn’t done with you,” he pouts, and Will notices the way he’s palming at the frankly obscene bulge in his jeans; has been palming it, probably, the fucking pervert, his chest heaving and his pupils blown wide. “Just a little longer, ‘kay?”
He says it like a question, but Will knows it isn’t.
Mike doesn’t wait for a response, just grabs Will’s wrists in one of his big hands and holds them firm behind his back, the other hand still kneading at the fat of his ass, and then it continues. With hot slashes of tongue and the fervent heat of his mouth and the blistering throb of sensation that ties Will’s already-jangled nerves in fucking knots, reducing him to an incoherent jumble of tears and trembles. How he still has any nerve-endings left unscorched is beyond him, but still Mike manages to wring these fraught little twitches from his body.
Will goes utterly limp against the cushions, barely hears the feeble protests that escape his own lips, unsure if they’re actually even protests at all, or perhaps just a brainless chant of Mike’s name on repeat like a prayer. He barely hears the clink of Mike’s belt, either, or the slap of wet skin pushing through the fist of his hand as he works himself to orgasm, but Will does hear the groans he presses right up against his hole, feels the rhythm of his tongue grow sloppy and desperate and then suddenly not at all—
Because Mike is pulling back, and the rush of air on Will’s slick hole is cold, but not for long.
Hot ropes of come slash between his cheeks at the same time a sob pulls from deep within his chest, only half-existing in his own body as Mike finishes all over him.
“Fuck, baby, your pussy looks so good with me all over you,” he groans, stroking himself through it. “Tastes so good too, baby. Oh, you’re so good, Will. My good girl.”
And, yeah, he is.
Will is Mike’s even if Mike isn’t his, and never will be.
He can be his good girl, his baby, his best friend, whatever Mike wants him to be, however Mike wants him, and ache though it does, Will takes it like it’s everything.
He manages, just barely, to peel open one tear-stuck eyelid to catch the way Mike casually wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, the way he lands one last spank against Will’s poor assaulted ass, then tucks himself away, dismounts from the sofa, and reaches toward the coffee table for his glasses.
As he slides them back onto his nose—his nose which was just buried between Will’s cheeks, jesus—he catches Will’s watchful eye and smiles. “Thanks for the better look, baby. Shame they’re ruined now, huh?”
Will blinks at him, eyes glassy, head empty.
“Gonna make dinner,” Mike groans as he stretches his arms above his head, stomach muscles rippling unfairly as he does. “Pasta good with you, yeah?”
Will blinks again.
Mike takes that as a yes, grinning as he stands, turns away, walks out of Will’s eyeline. Just fucking leaves him there, sprawled out over the sofa with his ruined lace panties damp between his spread legs and Mike’s come still dripping over his hole.
He hears the sound of The Butthole Surfers starting up on the record player, the sound of dinner being prepared in the kitchen.
And Will just lays there, feeling awfully bereft.
*
The aftermath holds him even when Mike doesn’t.
It weaves through the cavity of his rib cage left torn open in Mike’s wake, his teeth-marks indented all over Will’s tender, chewed-up heart, filling the void of his absence with the dissonant tones of Locust Abortion Technician, and Will wonders if perhaps he is already in hell. If maybe this is his punishment, for all the wanting he holds in his heart. All the greed.
Because Will wants and he wants and he wants, and that used to be enough. For Will, it was enough. But Mike keeps giving him something between everything and nothing, and wanting is not enough to fend off the devastation of his phantom touch on Will’s skin.
His thighs still tremble with the memory of him.
They haven’t gotten the memo yet, that Mike is not coming back. That he never does, because Mike will tear him open, he’ll ruin him, he’ll take it too far, but he won’t stay. Never long enough for it to start to feel like anything real, anything more than all his excuses.
The things Will wants all lie in the empty space he leaves behind in the aftermath.
Here, he dreams of tenderness, of chapped lips pressed against his own, of being brave enough and honest enough to tell Mike the truth and have him stay. Instead, Will’s got come dripping over his hole and down between his legs, in no doubt getting all over the cushion beneath him, and it isn’t the first time, nor will it be the last, because he’s not brave and he’s not honest but he thinks maybe Mike knows this anyway.
He thinks he gets off on it, and Will knows this because he secretly does, too, but right now he’s peeved, is what he is. Peeved, and irked, and kind of pissed off once the post-orgasm endorphins have all been used up and left him, like Mike has, alone and sticky on the sofa.
Fucking eww. Will lets out a petulant huff, nose wrinkling. He pouts, too, because he’s damn well earned the right to, he thinks, and he doesn’t give a shit if that makes him a brat or some other not-nice word Mike likes to use because he knows for a fact that it riles Will up to no end. He goes to roll onto his back before he realises, too late, that there is in fact no more sofa to roll onto, and promptly lands on the floor with a thud, right beside his too-short shorts that Mike had discarded there without a second thought.
God, fuck, how humiliating.
Will sniffs. There’s a damp spot on the sofa where he’d lain, just like Will knew there would be. Fucking great. Now they’re gonna have to steam clean the cushion again.
He hauls himself up onto unsteady legs, wrenches the hem of his rucked-up crop top further down his chest, and attempts to stomp his way toward the kitchen, but his feet are too small and muffled by his socks over the hardwood floor for it to be particularly effective. Mike is busy chopping veggies, and he doesn’t look up when Will appears in the doorway with his arms crossed and his come-soaked panties still pulled askew, because Mike is a fucking asshole, and this is not new information to anyone, especially Will, but he is still absolutely fucking furious.
“You got come on the couch,” he grits out.
Mike smiles, then. Gives Will a heated once-over.
“Well, I don’t think that was me.”
“It’s your fault that it’s there, Mike, meaning you got come on the couch.”
Mike’s smile widens. “I can come steam clean it right now if it’s bothering you?”
“It’s not bothering me, it’s just…” Will’s gaze flicks down to the floor, to where his two socked feet are pointing together in an upside down V. “You shouldn’t have done that. It’s gross.”
“Aww, is that right?” Mike coos at him, stepping away from his veg to tug Will closer with a fingertip hooked under the lace of his panties, and Will blushes. “Well I’m sorry baby, will you let me make it up to you?”
Still, his bottom lip pushes forward in a pout. “How?”
“I can go run you a bath right now, if you like,” Mike says, fingers stroking gently over the sensitive skin of Will’s hip along the top of the lace. “With those bath salts I bought you? Then by the time you’re done I’ll have dinner ready for you, how’s that sound?”
Will bites his lip. That does sound good, actually. That sounds really fucking good, especially with the way his panties are currently clinging uncomfortably against his skin and his anger has snuffed out into something delicate and a little sore around the edges.
Mike is such a good friend.
And Will loves him, he does, so he will take whatever he can get.
“Yeah, okay,” he breathes, wide eyes flicking shyly up to meet Mike’s, finds him looking back with a heady intensity that only worsens the pinking of Will’s cheeks.
“So, bath?”
“Bath.”
“Then dinner?”
“Then dinner.”
“That’s my good boy,” Mike purrs, and then Will is letting himself be guided toward the bathroom with Mike’s massive hand on his waist as he stumbles to keep up beside him, legs still all baby-deer-like and shaky beneath his own weight.
He watches from the doorway as Mike runs his bath, perched haphazardly on the edge of the tub as steam seeps through the small room and hits Will’s nose with the scent of lavender from the bath salts, carefully gauging the temperature of the water with his elbow. Hot, almost too hot, just as Will likes it, but never enough to scald. Just enough to leave him flushed pink and dopey and lavender-sweet by the time the water grows cold.
“‘S almost there, baby,” Mike murmurs over the rush of water. “You wanna strip? I’ll get those pretty panties of yours into the laundry, see if I can save them.”
Will nods, and he does as he’s told, and he winces as he peels the lace from his body and his soft little cock hangs bare out in the open, damp with his own come. His hands hang modestly in front, as if to cover himself, as if Mike hasn’t seen him in worse states a hundred times over before, but there’s something different about this, about the inherent intimacy of nakedness without the expectation of sex, that makes him go all shy.
Mike doesn’t mention it, though. He doesn’t tease, he doesn’t prod. Just offers Will a hand once he’s closed off the water and helps him ease his way down into the tub.
Maybe it’s the steam, the potent lavender of the bath salts Mike adds without moderation, but Will is choking up. His eyes are glazing over and he prays that Mike doesn’t notice, because there’s no true explanation but for the blurry line of their friendship that Will used to use like a north star in the darkness of night, now haloed and fuzzy like the rest of him. He feels so utterly unmoored without it, so lost out on the choppy seas of his love for Mike.
He almost forgets to feel guilty.
He almost forgets that Mike is not his to love.
Because Mike does such a good job of it, making Will forget. And it’s so easy, to let it happen. To let everything else fall away as the warmth of the water soaks into his body, and to let the gentle brush of Mike’s lips over the sweaty skin of his forehead feel like it could mean something more, even when it doesn’t. Will would fool himself, regardless.
Mike gathers up the small pile of Will’s clothes before he leaves, muttering something about laundry, about dinner, about leaving the door ajar so Will can shout if he needs anything, and then he’s gone. Will tips his head back against the edge of the tub and closes his eyes.
He thinks about letting his head sink beneath the water’s surface, thinks about submerging into its endless quiet and taking a long, deep breath so the water would fill his lungs.
Maybe then he would be purified.
Maybe then he would be clean.
But Will understands, he would sell his soul to the devil if it meant he got to have Mike, in whatever filthy and terrible ways he’s willing to have him, angel wings be fucking damned.