Chapter Text
The basement is dimly lit, the flickering glow of a single overhead bulb throwing long shadows across the cluttered table. The air feels thick with tension. The only sounds are the soft clink of plastic miniatures as Mike puts them away and the cicadas outside, their steady chorus rising and falling in a soothing rhythm. It fills the room with the warmth of a summer night.
It’s just the two of them now. Will and Mike. Just Will and the crush he’s been carrying for nine long years, alone in the same room.
He has to remind himself of that fact over and over, because his feelings for Mike are so intense, so fucking visceral, that even being this close makes his head spin. Will sinks into a nearby chair, forcing himself to breathe. The scrape of it against the floor louder than it should, making Mike pause mid-task. He looks up, eyes immediately finding Will.
“You okay?” Mike asks, his brows pulling together in that familiar, overly concerned way. Will has lost count of how many times he’s wondered if that’s the same look Mike gets when he—
No. He cuts the thought off. Hard.
“No, yeah. ’M alright. Just felt woozy for a second.” Woozy from Mike’s mere presence. Maybe it’s a good thing he’ll never get to kiss him, because his body is clearly not prepared for that.
“Will, bro, you don’t look alright, man.” Will presses his tongue against the back of his teeth and keeps his face carefully neutral. The combination of bro and man in a single sentence hits harder than it should. Will has never really believed in the concept of hell, but right now, he’s reconsidering.
“And yet, I am. So drop it.” The edge in his voice slips out despite his effort to keep it steady, frustration simmering just beneath the surface. He wants to tell Mike to shut the fuck up. He doesn’t.
“Okay,” is all Mike says.
The basement stays quiet for the next five minutes, broken only by the soft sounds of Mike cleaning up the remnants of their three D&D games. Will doesn’t say a word. He stays planted in the chair, not lightheaded anymore, just… unwilling. Looking at Mike feels like it would make everything worse.
“Will…”
Mike’s voice cuts through the silence. It’s unmistakably him. As cliché as it is, Will’s heart still skips at the sound of his name. After all these years, he hasn’t shaken how good it sounds coming from Mike. The way it rolls off his tongue, warm and familiar, sending a sharp thrill straight through him. His brain betrays him immediately, imagining how sexy it might sound if Mike ever moaned it.
What the fuck. His heel digs into the floor as if grounding himself there might keep his thoughts in line
“Enoughhhhhhhh!” Will yells, the word tearing out of him before he can stop it.
Jesus Christ. Making a mess of himself just because Mike exists in the same room. It’s ridiculous—the amount of power Mike has over him without even trying.
Mike freezes, one hand still hovering over the table, and Will wishes he could rewind ten seconds.
“Yo—” Mike starts, but Will cuts him off immediately.
“Forget it. I just—thought of something I didn’t want to think about. We’re good. I’m good.”
That’s a lie, obviously. But it’ll do.
Will takes a second before forcing himself to look up. Yeah. It’s that bad. “You were saying?”
“I was saying…” Mike trails off, then frowns. “Will, why the fuck are you looking at me like that? What—?”
His eyes are wide, too expressive for Will’s sanity, mouth slightly open like he genuinely doesn’t understand what’s happening.
Heat floods Will’s face instantly. His heart starts pounding like it’s trying to escape his chest. Everything about Mike hits harder than it should. Every look, every word, every pause. His brain scrambles, tripping over itself, a hundred thoughts crashing together at once. What he wants. What he can’t have. The crushing weight of best friends settling back into place like a locked door.
He breathes in, slow and shaky. Don’t let him see. Don’t let him know.
Except… Will doesn’t even bother trying to hide it.
“Looking at you like what?” he asks, aiming for casual and landing somewhere reckless. Like I want to be sitting on your lap, dry humping the fuck out of you?
The thought hits him fully formed, vivid and traitorous. He’d rather die than say it out loud. But it’s there, loud as hell in his head.
“Like… I don’t know,” Mike says, rubbing the back of his neck. “Like you—whatever.”
And there it is. Mike stumbling, bailing out the second things veer even slightly into uncomfortable territory. Anything even vaguely homoerotic and he short-circuits.
Yeah. Whatever.
“Wanna watch a movie or something?” Mike suggests, abruptly changing the subject as he stretches his arms over his head.
Will leans back in his chair, still buzzing from his own spiraling thoughts. The feeling drains out of him almost immediately. Just like that, the warmth in his body starts to fade, leaving something dull and hollow in its place.
“Sure,” he manges. His voice stays even, but the enthusiasm from earlier is gone.
“Maurice?” Mike goes on, completely oblivious. “Don’t know what it’s about, though. My sister rented it. Said it was supposed to be goo—”
“I know it,” Will cuts in quietly. “Yeah. Sounds good.” He manages a smile, though his thoughts are still a mess.
Mike grabs the remote and heads for the couch. Will follows a moment later, choosing a spot a little farther away than before. It’s not much, just a few inches, but it feels like more than that.
Mike glances over, brow creasing. “You still seem kinda off.”
“I said I’m fine,” Will answers too quickly. “Just… tired, I guess.”
“Right,” Mike concedes, nodding, but he doesn’t look convinced. His eyes linger on Will like he’s trying to read something written just under the surface. Something Will is very carefully not letting show.
Will forces his attention back to the screen, but he can’t shake the sense that they’d been hovering on the edge of something. And now it’s slipped away, buried under small talk and normalcy. He sneaks a glance at Mike, who looks perfectly absorbed in the movie. Unaware of the tension still coiled tight between them. Or maybe just pretending to be.
Maurice plays on, the soft glow from the screen washing the basement in warm light, shadows stretching lazily along the walls. They’re sitting close despite the space Will deliberately put between them, the air thick with everything neither of them is saying.
Then the movie cuts to Maurice and Clive. Looks held a second too long, the weight of everything unspoken pressing in. And suddenly—a kiss.
Will’s breath catches. Want and frustration twist together in his chest. “That kiss was so… I don’t know, raw.” He whispers, the words slipping out before he can stop himself. He flicks his eyes toward Mike.
Mike shifts slightly. “Yeah.” That’s it.
So much for conversation.
The movie keeps going, but Will can’t let the moment go. The kiss lingers on-screen, and with it comes that familiar pull. Quiet, insistent. He glances over again and notices Mike moving, inch by inch, drifting closer without seeming to realize he’s doing it.
Will’s heart starts racing. The couch cushion dips as Mike shifts closer. The space between them shrinking. He's close now, close enough to feel. The warmth. The nearness. It sends a shiver straight down his spine. For a moment, the rest of the world fades away, leaving just the basement, the screen, and the unbearable awareness of Mike beside him.
“Mike…?” Will starts, but the word catches in his throat. His voice cracks slightly on Mike’s name, and he has to swallow before trying again.
He’s suddenly, painfully aware of how close they are—knees nearly brushing, the space between them charged and fragile.
Mike’s eyes stay on the screen, but his focus clearly isn’t there anymore.
“It’s just… this movie,” he begins, hesitant, his voice barely louder than the hum of the TV. “It kinda makes you think about… what ifs, you know?”
Will nods, pulse picking up. “Yeah.”
“Yeah,” Mike echoes. There’s something thick in his voice now. He finally looks at Will, and for a moment, everything stills; the screen, the room, the air between them.
“I wish…” Mike trails off.
Will can see it. The fight behind his eyes, the words pressing at the back of his mouth, the hesitation holding them there.
“What do you wish?” Will asks in a whisper.
Mike exhales, rubbing his right thumb against his knee like he needs something to ground him. “I don’t know, man. Just… sometimes it feels like there’s more here.” His voice dips, almost unsure of itself. “Something we don’t talk about. Something I don’t even know if I want to talk about.” Mike stills the second the words leave his mouth, like he’s surprised by them. There’s a flicker of something sharp across his face, panic, maybe, before he smooths it away.
Will swallows hard.
Mike’s gaze softens when he says his name again, barely a breath this time.
“Will…”
He takes a deep breath, like he’s bracing himself. “Just… Will, I think I lied earlier.” He hesitates, jaw tightening. “I wasn’t honest. And I can’t be honest, because I’m not comfortable with it.”
The words hang there.
Will’s focus narrows immediately, his gaze flicking between Mike’s eyes and his mouth. Is he saying what he thinks he’s saying? A shiver starts at the back of his neck and drags slowly down his spine at the possibility.
“Are you talking about…?” Will lets the question trail off, trusting Mike to know exactly what he means.
“Yeah,” Mike worries his bottom lip between his teeth. “Yeah. I’m talking about our conversation by the tower, Will.”
Hearing his name like that,deliberate, weighted, makes Will’s chest tighten. Mike only does that when something really matters. And this matters.
“I—” Will starts, then exhales in shaky relief when Mike cuts him off. Thank God. He has no idea what he was about to say. He’s barely holding himself together.
“Just let me finish, okay?” Mike insists. Will could swear he shifts closer. “I mean… I can’t be more than your best friend. I just can’t, Will.”
The words hit like a punch, and before the ache in Will’s chest can fully set in, Mike rushes on.
“But I want to do things to you,” he admits quietly, honestly, “that no best friends should ever want to do to each other.”
The silence that follows is deafening.
“You—” Will swallows. That’s all he’s got. “Mike…”
Less than twenty minutes ago, Will was convinced Mike saw him as nothing more than a friend. And now... Now he’s sitting inches away from someone who’s just admitted he thinks about him like that. Wants him like that.
Jesus Christ.
Will’s heart is racing so hard he’s lost count of when it even started.
“I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry.”
It’s a lie. Will has too much to say. So much it’s all piling up at once, ugly and desperate and needy. What do you want to do to me? Is the loudest one, though.
“And you don’t have to say anything,” Mike counters.
He steps closer. Once. Twice. Until there’s barely any space left between them—three inches, maybe less. Will doesn’t bother counting. All he knows is that Mike is right there.
Mike pulls back a fraction, like he’s reconsidering, then leans in anyway, like stopping would somehow be worse
Then Mike lifts a hand.
His fingers brush a loose strand of Will’s hair and tuck it gently behind his ear, slow enough that Will feels it everywhere at once. Down his spine, deep in his gut. His knees threaten to give out. He could redraw the shape of Mike’s fingers from memory if he had to; that’s how violently his nerves light up.
“Because I’m not going to act on it,” Mike continues.
It’s too much.
His voice cracks. “And I know you want it.” He swallows. “I think I want it even more than you do.”
He drops back onto the couch, looking up at Will now, eyes dark and wide and devastatingly open. Will forgets how to breathe. Having Mike look at him like that. Really look at him. Knocks the air straight out of his lungs.
“And y’know what else…” Mike continues, distracted, fingers catching the hem of Will’s shirt. He twists the fabric absently between them. “I get hard when I think about you sometimes.” I get hard when I think about you sometimes, Will repeats in his head.
Holy shit.
It’s not even what Mike says that shocks him the most, it’s how he says it.
Too direct. Too flat. Like he’s ripping the words out of himself before he can change his mind. Mike never talks like this. He jokes. He hedges. He backtracks. Pretends it doesn't matter. This is blunt in a way that feels almost violent. Like Mike’s trying to hurt the thought before it can hurt him.
And Will knows immediately. This isn’t how Mike talks. Not ever. It’s damage control. It’s Mike saying the thing as fast as possible so he doesn’t have to sit with it any longer than necessary.
Will curls his hands into the couch. This has to be some kind of cruel joke, something he’ll replay while jerking off for the rest of his life because none of this is ever actually going to happen.
Mike’s fingers trace the edge of the shirt now, slow and intimate, like they already know where they want to go. “I get so fucking hard, Will.”
Then he leans in just enough to make it worse.
“But I can’t even touch myself,” Mike grits out, low and tight, “because that would mean admitting it’s because of you.” His jaw clenches. “A man.”
The way he says it, bitter, like it’s a slur, makes Will’s chest ache.
Mike throws his head back with a frustrated sigh. “I’m not fucking gay. I like girls. I liked El.”
Will doesn’t interrupt. Doesn’t remind him of what he just confessed. Just lets him talk himself in circles.
“But some fucking how,” Mike finishes, quieter now, “I want you.” He emphasizes the ‘you’.
“Okay,” Will breathes
He looks down, exhales, defeated. What else is there to say?
Mike wants him. His body wants him.
And he’s still not going to do anything about it.
“But—”
Will’s head snaps up so fast it almost hurts.
“But what?” The eagerness in his voice gives him away immediately.
“But if you act on it,” Mike replies evenly, eyes locked on his, “I’m not gonna stop you.”
He doesn’t look away. Doesn’t laugh it off. He watches Will carefully, like he needs to know he’s being understood.
Will nearly loses his mind right there.
He schools his expression, forces a crooked smile. If Mike gets to tease him like this, then fine. Fair’s fair.
“Yeah?” Will asks softly. “You’re okay with getting nasty as long as I’m the one holding your hand and telling you it’s fine?” He tilts his head, voice dropping. “As long as I’m the one with my hand wrapped around both our cocks, jerking us off, it’s okay because I’m the one doing it?”
He pauses, eyes never leaving Mike’s. “Is that how it works, Mike?”
Will’s hips jerk forward without permission at the image. Sharp, humiliating. The thought alone is enough to have him do that.
He shakes his head quickly, like that might clear it, like he hasn’t already crossed a line in his mind he can’t uncross.
“Yeah,” Mike agrees easily, smiling. “That’s exactly how it works.”
God, he’s insufferable.
“You’re so nasty,” Mike adds.
“Besides,” He goes on, casual as hell, “your hand wouldn’t fit around both of us. Mine would.”
The words hit harder than they should. Wicked. Deliberate. And the worst part—he didn’t say it accidentally. He absolutely thought about it. Ran the scenario through his head just like Will did.
“We gotta eat dinner in, like, thirty,” Mike remarks, then pauses, sucking on his bottom lip. “I wanna use all those thirty minutes to kiss.” He rushes the next part. “I mean… you kiss me first. And yeah, I’ll kiss back. But you’re the one who kissed me. Not me. Yeah?”
Will rolls his eyes so hard he almost sees his own brain. “You are so fucking repressed. Holy shit. It’s literally just the two of us in this goddamn basement.”
He barely has time to shift before Mike grabs his hips and pulls him back down onto the couch. Will’s shirt rides up in the process, and suddenly Mike’s hands are on bare skin, grounding him exactly where he shouldn't be.
“Don’t go yet,” Mike whines. I don’t want to choose, but I don’t want you gone. Is what Mike is basically saying with that.
That fucking tone. Those stupid puppy eyes.
It’s a miracle Will hasn’t moaned already. Turned on doesn’t even begin to cover it. There has to be a stronger word for this. Mike makes him feel painfully aware of every inch of his own body. There’s a tight, aching heat pooling low in his stomach, and they haven’t even kissed.
There is absolutely no way they can kiss down here with Karen upstairs. Will knows, without a doubt, that if they do, the sounds he'd make would break the goddamn sound barrier.
And then, just to make it worse, he feels Mike’s thumb move.
Barely noticeable. Slow. Grazing the left side of his hip like it belongs there.
Outside, crickets chirp. Inside, it’s just their breathing. Synced, shallow, loud in the quiet, and the unbearable awareness of exactly how close they are to doing something they think they definitely shouldn’t.
“Those,” Mike murmurs, tugging lightly at Will’s bottom lip with his index finger, “are gonna have to somehow end up on these.” He releases him only to tug at his own lip next.
“And later…” His finger drags slowly downward, tracing a deliberate line from his mouth to his cock. “Here.”
He’s fucking insane.
“Do you have any idea how gay that is?” Will snaps, heat flooding his face. “You want me, Will, a man, to suck you off?” He scoffs, voice sharp with barely contained lust. “Oh, wait. No. It’s fine because you’re not doing anything, right? Yeah. My bad.”
Except the thought alone nearly makes his brain explode. Seeing Mike’s cock, actually seeing it, the centerpiece of far too many restless, wet dreams.
“Yeah,” Mike confirms. “I want you to suck me off. Dry.”
He stands again, crowding Will’s space, fingers tipping his chin up until Will has no choice but to look at him. “And maybe, it’s gonna make me want to do it to you, too,” he adds, like he’s commenting on the weather.
For a moment, Will almost gives in to it—to how badly Mike wants him right now.
Then he understands: Mike isn’t offering clarity. He’s asking Will to steady him while he stays unsure. Because he’s overwhelmed. Because Will is safe, familiar, grounding.
And Will knows, even before he says it out loud, that he can’t be that for him. His stomach twists.
“Mike,” Will starts, breath unsteady, “I don’t want to be your experiment. I don’t want to be how you figure out whether you’re okay with being with a guy or not.”
That hits. Harder than anything else has.
Mike’s expression shifts. Not defensive, not dismissive. Serious.
“You’re not that,” he says immediately. “This isn’t about being with a guy.” His grip tightens just a little. “You’re the only person I’d even let myself get this close to. This is about you. About wanting to do all those things to you, with you, and not knowing how the fuck to deal with it when it won’t shut up.”
Will barely has time to process that before a floorboard creaks upstairs.
They both look instinctively toward the basement stairs, breath held, like they’ve been caught doing something already — even though they haven’t done anything they can’t take back. Yet.
Mike’s hand is still curled in Will’s shirt.
The sound passes. Footsteps fade.
Mike exhales sharply, like the tension has finally found somewhere to go.
He pulls Will down onto his lap.
“Mike,” Will chokes out, breathless and sharp all at once, hands instinctively bracing against Mike’s shoulders. Being pulled down changes everything at once: the height, the balance, the way his knees press in on either side of Mike’s thighs. “What the fuck are you doing?”
Mike freezes.
Like, actually freezes. Like the realization hits him all at once, radiating outward from where Will is sitting on his lap, from where his hands are still on Will’s waist. His grip loosens immediately.
“Oh. Shit.” He swallows. “Fuck.”
Will doesn’t move. Doesn’t get up. Just looks at him. The world tilting as he registers the change in height.
“You don’t get to say you don’t want to act on this and then do shit like that,” Will states. “You don’t get to pull me onto your lap like it doesn’t mean anything.”
Mike exhales hard, like he’s been punched.
“I—I wasn’t thinking,” he stammers, too quickly. “I mean, I was, but—” He shakes his head, clearly flustered now. “Jesus. Will, I’m sorry.”
He helps Will up immediately, hands careful now, almost reverent as he sets him down on the couch beside him instead. Then, deliberately, he scoots away. Just enough space to make a point.
Just enough to hurt.
“There,” Mike mutters, rubbing a hand over his face.
Will lets out a shaky laugh that sounds more like disbelief than humor.
Mike’s jaw is tight, eyes fixed on the floor. “I didn’t mean to mess with you. I swear. I just—” He looks back up, eyes honest and a little panicked.
The space between them feels louder than the crickets outside.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Mike adds, softer now. “Or make you feel like I’m using you to figure myself out.”
Will swallows, hands curling into the couch cushion.
“Then don’t,” he offers simply.
“But I might. Hurt you, I mean.” Mike pauses. “I meant what I said, though. About wanting you. That part wasn’t a lie.”
Will looks at him, really looks at him.
“I know.”
And somehow, that’s the scariest part.
Will exhales slowly, like he needs to gather himself before he speaks. When he does, his voice is steady. Not loud, not angry. That somehow makes it worse.
“Alright,” he says. “Then here’s what I need.”
Mike looks up immediately. Attentive. Serious. Like he knows this matters.
“You don’t get to touch me like that,” Will continues, gesturing vaguely between them, “or talk to me like you’re halfway to fucking me, and then turn around and say you’re not acting on it.” His jaw tightens. “I can’t do that, Mike. I won’t.”
Mike swallows. “Will—”
“No,” Will cuts in, sharper now. “Let me finish.”
He shifts on the couch, creating a little more space on purpose this time. “I’ve wanted you for too long to pretend I can handle ‘almost.’ I don’t get to turn this off just because you’re confused.”
Mike’s eyes are fixed on him. He doesn’t interrupt again.
“If you want me,” Will says, quieter but no less firm, “then you want me. Not as some loophole. Not as something you let yourself do because you can pretend it doesn’t mean anything.” He shakes his head. “I won’t be your exception. And I definitely won’t be your secret.”
Will’s throat tightens, his voice controlled in a way that takes effort. “So either we keep our hands to ourselves and stop talking like this entirely,” he gestures again, vaguely, helplessly, “or you figure out what you actually want before you put me back in that position.”
Silence stretches between them.
Mike lets out a short, humorless laugh, the kind that comes out when everything suddenly feels too close. He runs a hand through his hair, eyes flicking away for the first time since Will started talking.
“Okay,” he concedes finally. “Then I guess that’s it.”
Will frowns. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means,” Mike bites back, sharper now, irritation bleeding through, “that I’m not gonna sit here and have you tell me what I’m allowed to feel or say.” He looks back at Will, something hard settling behind his eyes. “You want lines? Fine. There they are.”
“That’s not what I—”
“No, it kind of is,” Mike cuts in. “You’re basically telling me to either magically figure my shit out right now or shut up entirely.” He scoffs.
Will stiffens. “That’s not fair.”
Mike stands, abrupt, the movement final.
Will’s chest tightens. “Mike—”
“I think we should just stop,” Mike cuts him off, voice flat now. “For tonight. Before this turns into something worse.”
For tonight. Worse than this, Will thinks distantly.
Mike grabs the empty game boxes, suddenly very busy. “We’ll eat. We’ll watch the movie. Or not. I don’t care.” He shrugs without looking at Will. “But I’m done talking about it.”
The conversation ends not with a door slammed, but with something quieter.
Something closed. For tonight.