Chapter Text
A line of spit connects their mouths together like a thin tether; the spiderweb-thin line quivers before snapping as Michael reels back with wide, searching eyes. He searches, desperately looking between Mike’s stare and mouth, narrowing his eyes and furrowing his brows. An unbearable silence stretches between them, and Mike shakes in place from the fear that he may have accidentally overstepped. He watches Michael, watches countless little microexpressions, watches him start to sneer and stop in his tracks, watches him clench his jaw. Michael had been playing with something in his pocket earlier.
“If you keep playing with my feelings like that, I mean, I might actually get mad, Mike,” Michael eventually says, voice wavering, “If…if that was some, I don’t know, spur of the moment thing, I’m willing to let it slide! B-but, um, well—because if you meant to kiss me, then…then, I really won’t let you leave my sight—”
Mike huffs, freeing his hand to pull Michael’s neck closer, sloppily pressing their mouths together again. Was Michael trying to scare him off? The man seemed to enjoy saying that a lot, that he would keep him or not let him leave. Mike wonders if Michael was just afraid of letting anyone get too close; perhaps these little outbursts were just baseless empty threats. Although, that was certainly wishful thinking. Michael was more than a little bit deranged, had cemented his capability for violence, had a history of trying to follow through with his death threats. Maybe agreeing to let Michael keep him or whatever was harmless, really, and he had nothing to worry about. Maybe not.
Their teeth clack together, and Mike’s vision swims. Michael licks into his mouth, pushing his tongue against Mike’s until it’s hard to breathe. He can taste himself, and Michael is forcing his tongue so deep into Mike’s throat that he really has no choice but to swallow. With a shudder, Mike pants into the kiss, trying not to get lost in thought.
Mike claws at the other man when he nips at his tongue, just hard enough for Mike to jump. He wants, terribly desperately, to have a crystal ball, to be able to predict his future. He wants to know, needs to know, if encouraging Michael to hang around like this, like some rabid stray dog he’s unwittingly fed, is going to end in his death. He wants to know if Michael will kill him in the end. What happens when Michael realizes that this little obsession of his was formed from baseless misinterpretations? What then? What happens when Michael gets bored and decides he’s no longer fun to mess with? What happens when Michael gets too comfortable—if this malignant attraction spread between them, virulent and catching, then surely Michael’s violent tendencies could spread to Mike at some point; what happens when one of them finally snaps? The crystal ball he’s imagining is too foggy, too blurred to begin speculating.
Michael bites down on Mike’s bottom lip, too intense and excited to even pretend to know what he’s doing. He wants to know how this ends. He wants Michael to stay awhile, he wants to get to know the man, maybe take him apart a little bit. When the dust settles, he wants to be able to say that he changed Michael just as much as he himself was changed. Mike feels haunted, stuck in a loop, stuck wanting and waiting; every time Michael comes back, every time the loop repeats, his feelings get more and more intense, threatening to spill over and drown them both. Michael isn’t very good at kissing, he thinks, trying to tamp down his own unpracticed excitement. Dizzy from only taking in shallow breaths, Mike pulls back from him. He searches Michael’s face this time, resisting the temptation to name the emotions he finds.
“You’re shaking.” Mike points out hypocritically. He wants Michael to get jealous, wants Michael to feel the need to prove himself, or something equally as terrible. There’s a strange energy in the air; his heart is beating far too fast, despite how thrilled he is to finally be kissing Michael. The air is too stagnant, too hot despite the droning din of his air conditioner.
“You look delirious, Mike,” He responds, panting, gripping Mike too close, “I mean, are you feeling alright? You’re blushing so hard, aren’t you embarrassed?” Neither of them are willing to acknowledge the fact that they’re kissing, Mike realizes, contemplating whether or not to tease Michael. When had he gotten so comfortable? When had he decided he felt safe teasing Michael, testing boundaries? What if he was too comfortable—what if he said the wrong thing one day and ended up bleeding out, gutted on the scuffed linoleum flooring of Freddy’s kitchen, leaving poor Abby alone and confused? The thought sends an icicle of dread down his spine, waking him from his braindead stupor.
Stiffly pushing away from Michael, he stares hard into the man’s face, pretending and trying, trying so hard to read his thoughts, to intuit Michael’s true intentions. Puffs of breath, both sighed and forced out, linger between them, and Mike feels like screaming. Michael tried to kill him, before all this. They had ‘met’ because Michael had tried to wipe out half the town’s population at minimum.
“What’s wrong?” Michael coos, “You’re doing it again—are you the only one allowed to initiate? To reciprocate? I have feelings too, Mike, puppy, I wish you weren’t so skittish! I have feelings, and you’re about to start hurting them,” He smiles into his words, “You’re so interesting, I—I mean, you’re s-so, um, I think that you’re very…” Michael stutters out, looking pained and sheepish, pointedly avoiding eye contact, “I h-have feelings for—I think I have feelings for…” He gulps, clearing his throat, “Um! You’re…easy to, ah, to look at. Easy on the eyes. You know. It—it feels like you’re tearing my heart out when you, um, when you…so, Mike! So, please don’t hurt my feelings, I’ll—I might die. I’ll die, puppy, I’ll keel over and, and—”
“What?” Mike starts, frozen in shock. A confession. A pseudo-almost-sort-of confession, but a confession nonetheless. A confession in a backwards, Michael sort of way. A confession. A confession? Mike’s thoughts run in circles, looping, looping circles, and he replays Michael’s half-confession in his mind until the words stop making sense, until they become nonsensical sounds rather than sentences with meanings. Michael thought he was attractive? Michael was…attracted to him, beyond being interested in just humiliating him? How terrible. How awfully dangerous.
“This is…all of this is your fault, Mike. Whatever you did to me, I mean, I can’t get you out of my head! I’m so, so, so happy you agreed to let me keep you, because, um, if you didn’t, I—well, I would have kept you regardless! You’re so, ah, so fun, Mike, puppy; I would have taken you away,” Michael clicks his tongue, choosing his words carefully, “I wouldn’t have killed you, really, b-but the thought did cross my mind, you know, if you said no. I wouldn’t have…I couldn’t have, but, you’re so sweet when you want to be, saying that you want to be mine like that! You really want to be mine, it’s fascinating, you’re such a…” He trails off, nipping at Mike’s neck, “I’m flattered—I have you all figured out, but, you’re so surprising sometimes!”
Tracing gentle lines down Mike’s stiff arms, he continues, whispering, “I was going to kill you, you know. When I ‘left’ you; watching for a month. When you started calling people. When you were going to—to hook up with some random fucking moron,” Michael whines out, “But! But, then I thought about it! And, um, I remembered that you were just insatiable, and, well, that made me feel bad,” There’s a crazed look in his eyes, and Mike feels his heart skip a beat in what he hopes is fear, “It made me feel bad, because, I mean, you poor thing! I had promised to help you, didn’t I? I told you that I would help you with how, ah, insatiable you are, and I just left you to your own devices! That wasn’t fair to you, now was it? You just can’t help yourself, can you?”
“You were going to kill me?! Huh? Again?” Mike balks, “You’re fucking crazy—actually fucking crazy! Why are you telling me this? In what world is that a normal thing to admit?!” He tries to extend his arms more, but Michael crowds against him further, pressing a light kiss to the corner of his mouth, “I-I wish I hated you! What the fuck is your problem? Fuck off!”
“You wish you hated me? So you don’t hate me, then. That’s so cute, Mike, that you have to pretend to be, um, mad at me! You can’t admit your feelings for me, so you hide behind—so you play coy, then?” Michael laughs to himself, winking at Mike all stiff and disjointed, “I’m not as crazy as you think I am!” He sing-songs, gradually standing to his full height. Mike scrambles to stand too, unwilling to feel cornered by Michael in his own home.
Michael continues, “You admitted that you missed me earlier, puppy. Admit something else to me now. Say something cute, Mike. I mean, you were blushing earlier, shaking and panting, too! And you said some really cute things when I was—”
Mike plasters his palm across Michael’s mouth, seemingly surprising the man, who leers down at him with wide eyes and raised eyebrows, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, you lunatic. You just, basically, confessed to me, and—and then said that you were thinking about killing me! I don’t…I don’t know what you want me to say!” He catches his breath, staring into Michael’s shirt collar to avoid eye contact, “I missed you. I-I missed you so much that I thought I was…I thought I was going t-to be sick, and, fuck, don’t make me admit this shit. God. God fucking damnit, M—” He bites his tongue and forces himself to sigh, stopping himself from confessing how much he wants Michael, how much he wants Michael all to himself. It’s a terrifying thought, really, how much he wants to…to monopolize Michael’s time, or whatever.
“Don’t, um, don’t stop talking there, puppy,” Michael sounds breathless, lost in anticipation, and it’s easy to understand him despite how muffled his voice is behind Mike’s hand, “I was listening. I want you to keep talking, I-I want to hear you talk. Keep talking? Please.” Mike removes his hand as if burned when Michael licks his palm, electing to instead grip the hem of Michael’s shirt.
“I…I want you around,” Mike manages to say, struggling around his words, “You’re, fuck, you’re a good-looking guy, and, uh, I-I shouldn’t want you around, and you’re fucking crazy, and—and dangerous! I should be filing a restraining order against you, if I knew how to do that. Fuck, I wish you would just leave me alone! I want,” He lowers his voice, leaning forward to speak into Michael’s shirt, “I want…I want you to…” Mike sighs, all but whispering into the ironed fabric of Michael’s dress shirt, “I can’t. I can’t tell you, it’s impossible…I want you.”
Pulling teeth would have been easier than his little halfway confession, “Hm? S-say that louder? Please. Please? Mike, you—you, um, you want…me?” Michael stammers, “Mike. Mike, I—you fucking tease! I’ll keep you all to myself, I-I won’t let anyone else look at you. Mike. Mike, you’re being so…so agreeable right now, aren’t you? You’re being so good! I’m happy,” Mike can hear his grin, can hear how self-satisfied and thrilled he is, “Mike, puppy, let me prove it to you.”
“Prove what? What are you talking about?” Mike questions, cautiously curious. Michael shuffles backwards a step so he can grip Mike’s waist, holding him in place.
“Let me prove myself to you, puppy. You want me? That’s what you said, right? That means, then, that you want me to be yours. I mean, I’m so flattered, Mike! You want me to be all yours? Only yours? Aw, I thought you’d never ask!” Mike blinks, unsure if Michael was being cruel, if he was being sarcastic again, or if he was being completely genuine, “Oh, I’ll prove it to you, puppy.”
“Uh,” Mike starts, thinking about all of Michael’s violent implications and almost-confessions of homicide, “You really don’t have to prove anything. Please don’t…don’t prove anything. Don’t do that.”
“I was right. You’re really such a tease. You’re just playing all demure and shy again, pretending like you don’t want me t-to prove how—how much, um, well,” A pause, “You’re being so sweet right now, pretending like you don’t really care, but I know better! And I want to. Let me. Please, Mike, I-I want to prove how much that I really, really, u-um…” He trails off, seemingly too embarrassed to finish his thought completely, “Maybe you want me to prove it right now? Ah, I want to train you; I won’t let you hook up or—um, I won’t let anyone else touch you. I finally won, and it’s not fair that you were going to let someone else get to fucking see you like that! Mike. Mike!”
Mike lets himself get pushed onto the bed, his knees buckling and heart racing, “I…want to be yours,” He half-placates, half-admits, “You’re seriously unwell, and, like, super fucked up. But, I’m, unfortunately, attracted to you, god help me. What the fuck did you do to me?”
“So well-behaved when you want to be. How nice of you, letting me push you around like that! Good. Very good! You’re sort of, I mean, I really, really hate to slut-shame, and all that…” Michael comments, purposefully ignoring Mike. Don’t piss me off, he thinks, stewing angrily. He tilts his head, curiously appraising Mike and his poorly veiled interest, openly staring and ogling, searching. When he finds what he’s looking for, he ushers Mike farther on the bed, crawling after him.
“I think you have something seriously wrong with you,” Mike says, flustered and strained, “Like, you might have a complex or something. I can’t blame you, given, uh,” Mike pauses to think, trying to come up with a biting insult, “I can’t blame you at all, given—given what your dad was. How was your relationship with your dad, by the way? Well, anyone would turn out to be completely fucked up if—”
“Alright,” Michael interrupts, grin twitching into a sneer, “Alright! No more talking,” Michael topples Mike against the mattress, holding him down with a hand over his mouth, “You, ah, lost that privilege, puppy. And it is a privilege. That wasn’t very nice. You know, no one wants to be around a dog that can’t behave itself. It’s, um, fucking annoying,” Mike glares up at him, narrowing his eyes as Michael uses his free hand to trace and feel and grab, “Yeah, um, I’m not letting you speak for a while, okay? Poor thing. So pent up! So, so pent up that you’re taking it out on me. You’re not well-behaved at all sometimes. I’m embarrassed for you, puppy. Well, ah, now that I have you like this…”
Mike harshly exhales through his nose, letting his breath fan out across Michael’s long fingers. Fighting the urge to roll his eyes, he prays that his bait actually works. He feels like shit—he feels like an asshole, purposefully trying to make Michael upset, trying to make Michael jealous. It’s disgusting, really, that he wants to see how Michael reacts to being angry, how he reacts to being taunted like that. Michael hasn’t killed him yet, and maybe, sure, he might be trying his luck, but surely pushing a little bit harder, being a little meaner wasn’t going to suddenly drop his likelihood of surviving all the way to zero.
“You’re so easy to read, Mike,” He says conversationally, sliding his free hand over Mike’s steadily growing bulge, “Do you think that I don’t know what you’re doing? I mean, I’m not stupid, Mike. Mike, puppy, I told you that I would prove it to you, didn’t I? Now, um, why don’t you try begging for forgiveness? Because what you said wasn’t very nice. And also, you should beg for my forgiveness because you sort of, I don’t know, insulted my intelligence! I’m such a nice guy, giving you a second chance like this, huh?” Michael presses down harder, grinding the heel of his palm against Mike’s clothed dick, “Oh wait, right, you lost speaking privileges, poor puppy. I think you should ask for forgiveness in a different way. You’re resourceful; I’m sure you’ll find some way to make it up to me.”
“Fucking creep,” Mike tries to say, “Go to hell.” It’s garbled and nonsensical behind the tight grip of Michael’s palm pressing him against the mattress, the words drawing out into a wavering moan. He’s panting, grinding upwards into Michael’s hand until he thinks he might start crying out of desperation.
“What did you say? Ah-hah, sorry, I couldn’t understand that,” Michael purrs out, glaring down at him, “Doesn’t it feel good? Doesn’t it feel even better when you’re not thinking of things to say?” He suddenly freezes, sliding his hand up to Mike’s waist rather than grinding it down, “You know what? I might not even let you come. You, um, really pissed me off. Oh, I know I’m just playing into your little game, getting upset and all that, but! But, um, that really wasn’t fucking nice, puppy.”
He continues, “I might just leave you like this. You’re hard, Mike; you’re so predictable! Hold on,” Michael shifts, deftly undoing his belt with one hand, still plastering his other hand against Mike’s mouth, “I mean, yeah, you’re mine and all that, but, I don’t think the honour system will work in this situation. If you catch my drift, puppy,” He crowds against Mike again, looping his belt around his trembling wrists and pulling the fraying faux-leather taut, using both hands to secure it, “So, be nice, okay? Say something nice this time, or I’ll actually leave you like this!”
Mike openly moans, whining and rutting upwards when Michael finally, finally begins grinding his palm against Mike’s aching, clothed cock again, “Please, hah, ah—um, fuck, please fucking take my pants off and actually touch me,” He begs, hissing through his teeth as Michael sporadically changes pressure just to watch his reactions, “Fucking, ung, you asshole, I’ll—”
“Not nice. Hm. I don’t think calling me an asshole is, um, very nice at all, actually. That’s just too bad, Mike! Maybe next time, huh? You were being so cute today, too. I mean, before all that.” The hand grinding against his cock leaves abruptly, and Mike spasms as Michael actually stands up, leaving him trembling and delirious and achingly hard on the bed. Michael stares down at him, flustered and red, openly raking his eyes over Mike, openly ogling him with rapt attention, obsessively taking in every inch. With one last glance at the belt holding Mike’s wrists together, one last played-up wink, and one last toothy grin, Michael straightens his clothes, dusting his shirt off, and leaves.
Watching in utter disbelief, Mike stills his breathing, only half believing that Michael was actually leaving. When he hears the front door click shut, when he hears the front door being re-locked, Mike thinks he might have an aneurysm.
“Are you fucking serious?!” Mike screams, hard and trembling and sweating in place, “What the fuck?!” He was going to kill Michael, if that freak ever showed his face again.