Archive of Our Own

There had come a point, sometime in the last however-many years of working for Station KTVT, when Mike Batter’s indignation at the lengths to which Mr. Ant Tenna would send his errand monkeys had given way to a stark, clear acceptance. Any time, any place, he’d be ready. That’s just how it was. Four in the morning, Tenna’s been up all night revising a script and needs some feedback? Sure, boss, I’ll get up and take a look. Saturday evening, needs a ride up to San Francisco for a corporate party? Well, that’s a bit far, but how bout I take you to San Jose? Too focused on a special show to go out and buy groceries? Yeah, I can swing by and drop them off, no problem.

That last one was becoming a more and more frequent occurrence. He’d drive down to the supermarket with Mike Jeong and Mike Pluvier, argue for ten minutes about whether it was acceptable to change out Tenna’s order of organic bananas for non-organic bananas, then buy two bags of groceries, drive to Tenna’s house, and rock-paper-scissors about which one of them gets to actually go in and deliver them.

So when Tenna calls him at 11PM on a Saturday, right when the Mikes are settling down for their weekly movie marathon, Batter just sighs and puts him on speakerphone.

“What’s up, boss?”

“Mike! Thank goodness. A friendly voice!”

His words are spoken with the same showman-like nonchalance that one comes to expect from Tenna, but even through the phone, his fast, frantic breaths and trembling voice are clear as day. Shit. Guess it’s gonna be one of those nights.

Batter leans in closer to the receiver. “Something wrong? Where are you?”

“I’m at an… event. In Los Gatos.” Perhaps sensing the way the three Mikes exchange confused glances, he elaborates: “It wasn’t supposed to be a big deal! I wanted to keep it on the down low! But I’d—” His voice frays with exhaustion. “Really like to leave now.”

“Of course,” Batter says. “Where’s the event?”

“It’s at this winery—” He gives the name. “Thank you. So much. I would have just taken the express down 17, but—”

“No trouble at all. Be there in 30.”

He hangs up.

“Huh,” says Jeong. “Didn’t tell any of us he was going out.”

“A winery in Los Gatos?!” Batter explodes. “What event? Who invites Tenna to events?”

“New sponsorship deal?”

“Not at a fucking fancy winery!”

“Friend’s wedding?”

“If Tenna has friends that we don’t know about, I’ll eat this rug.”

Pluey hums and holds up his phone screen. Displayed is a blog post from some official CyberCity Enterprises account.

“Private event celebrating the media and advertising divisions…” Batter reads. “Located amongst the natural beauty of the winery at… there’s no way Tenna got invited to this.”

“He’s in media,” Jeong says, shrugging.

“Not at CyberCity, idiot! He’s got no ties with those guys at all now that…”

He freezes.

“Now that Spamton’s gone…”

The three Mikes look at each other in dawning horror.

“Ya really think he could be there, boss?”

“Hell if I’m finding out.” Batter’s already halfway out the door, grabbing the key ring and the signature red Mike Bowtie from their designated pegs. “You guys do movie night without me. Marathon something. NOT any of the Ocean’s films.”

Highway 17 is mercifully quiet. Batter—well, really, Mike, since he’s the one in the tie tonight—stews behind the wheel. If there’s actually a chance that legendary industry crashout Spamton had shown his ugly ass in public for the first time in two years… god, of course that would have Tenna chomping at the bit.

It gives him a bit of sadistic relief to remember how tired and desperate Tenna had sounded. As much as he wants to wring Spamton’s neck for whatever he’d done to him this time—or, you know, wring the necks of the CyberCity guys; who knows if Spamton was really involved—hopefully his upset signals that nothing’s changed. Spamton’s still gone, KTVT’s still independent, CyberCity’s not up in their business. And Mike gets to come in after all the carnage and do what he does best: help Tenna get back on his feet.

Should’ve just let me come with you, boss, he thinks as he pulls up the redwood-lined driveway. I’ll be your attack dog. Scare away all the fucking venture capitalists.

Tenna is sitting on the curb a little ways off from the actual entrance to the building. In this lighting, caught between the warm inside glow and the cool darkness of the trees, he looks surprisingly small. He’s wearing a blue collared shirt with a somewhat garish splatterpaint pattern, and a bright yellow bowtie of his own that Mike’s pretty sure he gave him ages ago. Should Mike be proud to have contributed to his boss’s outfit? Or outraged that this is the first use it’s seen in forever?

Tenna leaps to his feet as soon as the car rolls into view. His movement is a little off-kilter.

“Thank you,” he sighs, cramming himself into the passenger’s seat. (The Mikes really need to invest in a bigger car; maybe once Jeong stops blowing all their money on that fucking horse gacha game.) “Please remind me to never accept an offer to go to one of these again!”

There are about a thousand questions buzzing around in Mike’s head, but he keeps his face composed. Toggles the radio to the UCSC student station like Tenna likes. Asks, casually, “What’s the occasion, then?”

“Oh, you know. It was just a little… media industry celebration night! And I am an important figure in media, after all.”

“Right you are,” Mike hums. “So, were the CTV guys there, or…”

“No, it was more of a…” His shoulders sag. “Digital media event.”

“Whoa, boss, thinking of going digital?”

“Not at all!” Tenna cries. “It was pure propaganda. Self-congratulatory nonsense. Lots of numbers. No art whatsoever.”

“There must’ve been something worth going for, right?”

“If there was,” Tenna laughs, “I couldn’t tell you.”

They turn onto 17. Mike gets a burst of deja vu, an image of the handful of times he’s driven Tenna to and from the South Bay. Forever will this trip be tinged with memories of Tenna’s anxious fretting, he thinks. The one and only time Tenna had appeared as a guest at some children’s entertainment fan event. A meeting in San Jose with an important sponsor. The stupid Addison Co. corporate mixer that Spamton had dragged him to without even giving him a ride. Yeah, Mike remembers that last one pretty damn well. Tenna had stayed up in SF with Spamton overnight, and came back too late the next morning, all flushed and giggly and visibly sore, and the rest of the story was not so hard to figure out.

Right now, Tenna’s staring out the window, face blank. His fingers lock together. Shaking just enough to notice.

“So,” Mike presses. “Was there anyone there you knew at all?”

“It’s funny, actually.” Tenna’s still looking away from him. “The whole reason I went was because those little bastards promised there would be people at the event that I knew.”

“Which little bastards are we talking about?”

“Well, some of the guys at CyberCity’s Addison division have my email address—”

“Ah, those bastards.” Try as he might, Mike’s never been able to put all the pieces together on that one, but he’s picked up enough from multiple half-drunken rants to know that they had once offered Tenna a very insulting deal. “And were they right? Did you know anyone?”

“No one but the Addisons themselves!” Tenna groans. “They all cornered me at one table and tried to make me listen to their pitches! It was endless!”

“Sounds like hell,” Mike says. If he wasn’t in Mike Mode, his reaction would be more like: the fuck is wrong with them? Can’t take no for an answer? “I sure hope you’re not planning to put up with that again.”

“Don’t worry! This is the last time I take anyone from CyberCity up on anything!”

“Glad to hear it, boss. They don’t deserve you.”

Tenna’s cheeks tint pink. He lays his hand on Mike’s thigh and briefly squeezes.

“You’re too good to me, Mike. I knew you’d understand.”

His hands are so big and so warm. Mike ignores the wash of heat that comes with such a stupidly intimate touch. That’s just how it is, he reminds himself. He’s used to it. Another piece of the being Mike deal.

And besides, there’s way better things to think about as the car settles into silence. Mike spends it turning over Tenna’s words in his head. Formulating possible probing questions that won’t reveal his own suspicions. Tenna went to the party because he thought he would know people there. What people? Who could he possibly have believed would be at a CyberCity event that would make him drop everything and take the bus to Los Gatos without telling anyone?

Who but Spamton?

Everyone at the studio remembers the day that Spamton disappeared.

The details are murky. A new deal with Tenna, a mysterious phone call, an escape into the night. What Mike remembers best is waking near midnight with a pounding headache and a half dozen missed calls.

“What’s up?” he’d mumbled into his phone as he sat up in bed. “You okay, boss?”

“The website’s gone,” Tenna said.

“What? What website?”

“The station website! All of our social media accounts!” Mike could practically hear him wringing his hands as he spoke. It was the voice of a man who had tried to call him with at least five different increasingly-pressing issues in the last five minutes. “They’ve all disappeared!!”

Later investigations would reveal that every server that Spamton owned, every account connected to his email address, every inch of his digital footprint had been wiped within minutes.

Spamton was still around somewhere in the physical world, of course. He’d been evicted from his San Francisco apartment. He’d had a couple very public altercations with CyberCity higher-ups. There were rumors he was still sneaking into corporate buildings. There were rumors he’d joined a cult. There were rumors he’d started a cult. There was pretty good evidence he was now investing everything in crypto. Bluecircle had gone under almost immediately, but Mike still occasionally saw ads on sketchier websites that copied the exact cadence of its signature emails: THAT’S RIGHT!! NOW’S YOUR CHANCE TO BE A [[BIG SHOT]]!!

But none of that really mattered anymore. No one at the studio had ever seen Spamton again.

They’d rebuilt the website. They’d made new sponsorship deals. Funds were stable but tight. Station KTVT limped forward into the uncertain future, but the damage was done. They’d never fully recover.

Tenna would never fully recover.

“Where to, boss?” Mike hums as they approach the end of the highway. “Right back home? Got anything that needs doing at the studio? Or do you need something fun to make up for your shitty night?”

As expected, Tenna perks up at the promise of something fun.

“At the studio, do you still have your—what’s the new Nintendo called again?”

“The Switch?”

“Yes! We could play more of that fighting game all the kids like!”

Tenna can actually hold his own in Smash with ridiculous competence, at least once he stops complaining about how tiny “these newfangled controllers” are. Mike isn’t really feeling like being pulverized by Zelda tonight. He’d much rather take Tenna out to a bar. Sit a foot away from him as he spills out all his cares, leaning in, lips at Mike’s ear. (He waves away the image with which his brain automatically continues the scene: Tenna’s hand on his shoulder, teeth on his earlobe.) If he’s lucky, Tenna would give him another tidbit of a story from the station’s past, and Mike would have another pin for his theory board. But—well. It’s whatever makes Tenna happy.

“Sure,” says Mike.

The car rolls to a stop as the highway ends in a red light. There are only a few other cars out. The sky is dark and blank and huge over the rows of trees. Mike wonders idly if Tenna would ever like to go stargazing.

And then Tenna’s phone rings.

“Hm!” Tenna says. He squints at the screen. His mouth curls downward. “Oh. Alright.” He puts it to his ear and tries to sound chipper: “Mr. Ant Tenna! Ah, Swatch, hello—”

The light is still red. The world is frozen.

“What?” says Tenna, very softly.

The light turns green. The car moves, Tenna moves, and everything shatters.

“You’re joking,” Tenna all but shouts. He tilts forward, white-knuckled on the armrest. “You’re sure? Just now? Really? Mike—Mike, pull over, please.”

Mike swerves the car down the nearest cross street. Tenna’s already fumbling with the door before they’re even stopped. “I don’t believe you,” he’s saying. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

Mike parks haphazardly in front of a gas station, just as Tenna spills out of the car. He gathers himself up and strides down the sidewalk. Mike swears under his breath, locks the car, and runs after him.

“No, I’m back in Santa Cruz.” Tenna’s talking like it isn’t midnight, like he isn’t wandering straight into a residential neighborhood. “Does he know I was there half an hour ago? Tell me. Please.”

Mike’s stomach drops.

The silence hangs heavy around them, punctuated only by footfalls—Tenna’s march towards nowhere, and the patter as Mike’s shorter legs try to keep up. It’s just on the edge of warm; the sea air makes the scene feel a little out of focus.

“You said that? Those exact words?” Beat. “And that’s it?” Beat. “But did you see where? He doesn’t still have that car, does he?”

Guided by some unknown automation, Tenna turns on his heels and stalks back the way they came. He doesn’t give Mike a single glance, just catches his arm and drags him along.

“Is there any way—” His voice is trembling now. “He could have known. That they forwarded that email to me.”

The tug on Mike’s arm is relentless. He can feel Tenna’s rapid heartbeat in his palm, in his clutching fingers. The night is suddenly much, much warmer.

“I don’t know how to do that. Security… manage all devices? No, I don’t know what Gmail is; it’s with AOL…”

“Uh,” Mike says, panting a little. “Mr. Tenna—”

Tenna stops. He releases Mike, holds up his hand, leans forward.

In the silence that follows, Mike can almost hear Swatch’s voice. I’m afraid there is simply no way to verify… though he claims to have been legitimately invited, there’s no record…

“Tenna,” says Mike again. His composure—his Mike voice—is slipping; he realizes he sounds uncomfortably like he’s pleading. “Let’s go—”

Tenna does a weird little gesture that’s theoretically an attempt to politely shut him up, and functionally involves tapping the pads of his fingers against Mike’s lips.

Mike stops breathing.

“Okay,” Tenna whispers. “Okay. Thank you very much. I’ll call you back in the morning. Thank you.” And when he flips his phone shut, the resulting click seems like the loudest sound in the street.

Tenna’s hand, perhaps of its own accord, moves from Mike’s mouth, to his cheek, up to his hair. He tangles his fingers in it and crushes Mike’s face into his chest.

“Oh, Mike.” He makes an attempt at a laugh. “You know, I think you might just have saved me from a very awkward party.”

And he wraps his other arm around Mike’s shoulders and just holds him like that.

Is Mike supposed to hug him back? It’s not the first time Tenna has grabbed him like a buoy in a storm, but he’s never quite figured out if, in these moments, he’s more of a friend or more of a comfort object. Maybe it’s a holdover from Pluey and his softness, or Jeong and their sturdiness. This Mike is short and gangly and not really fit for being either a rock or a soft toy, but Tenna clutches him close all the same. His breathing is very fast. Dangerously fast.

“Mike!” he cries suddenly. He pushes him away, holds him at arm’s length. “Change of plans! We are not going to the studio! We are going somewhere where he won’t find me if he comes looking!”

No elaboration is needed on who he refers to. What sticks in Mike’s brain is instead the implication that the studio, Tenna’s safe space, isn’t safe enough. Perhaps it still feels to him like this threat is coming from the inside, no matter how long it’s been.

“I can drop you at your house—”

“No, no, too obvious! I’m thinking—” He clasps his hands together. “We go up into the mountains! Sleep in the car! Watch the sun rise!”

“Sure, but it might not be all that comf—”

“Or we could just go to your house!”

“My house?!”

“Yes! I’ll only need a couch to crash on—oh, will your roommates mind?”

“They’ll be fine,” Mike says automatically. His head is spinning; the sensation of Tenna’s fingers on his mouth is still imprinted onto the surface of his mind. “You sure the studio isn’t—”

“I’ve never been to your house!” Tenna continues, as if he hadn’t heard him. His voice is dialed up again, much too loud. “Isn’t this exciting!” He twirls around and marches back towards the shoddily-parked car, though with significantly less spring in his step than before. “Please tell me it isn’t far—I think I feel a headache coming on…”

They pile back into the car. Tenna closes his eyes and leans back against the headrest. Taking advantage of his diverted attention, Mike pulls out his phone and texts the group chat with hands that are definitely not shaking:

battat: Tenna’s fucked up. Bringing him to the apt rn. Hide my theory board + the fridge photos and do NOT leave your room.
m.jeong: whoa. is he doin ok?
tuxedocat25: 🙀👍
battat: Gtg more details later
tuxedocat25: 😿…

“I don’t believe it.”

It’s Tenna’s voice, small and breathy. He still has his eyes shut tight. His fluffy yellow hair spills all over the too-short headrest.

“Me neither,” Mike offers. He starts the car. Lotta unbelievable things happening tonight. He wills his attention back in the direction of Tenna’s current plight—he’s got a lot of practice in the art of not thinking about Tenna touching him.

Tenna’s head tilts in his direction. “Do you really think he would—he would come to a party like that for my sake? He would’ve known he’d be kicked out immediately. Oh, but—” He perks up. “That’s so romantic! Risking himself just for a glimpse of—!”

There’s a fine line here between telling Tenna what he needs to hear and avoiding that always-unmentionable implication: that he is not the center of attention. “Well, boss,” Mike says slowly. “I think that if he wanted to see you, he could’ve just come down to the station anytime in the last two years.”

“He could have!!” Tenna wails. “And now we know he has a car! What a scumbag! Two years of nothing, just absolutely nothing—unless he only just got the car? And this was just one of many future—”

“Maybe he borrowed it. Or even stole it—”

“Should we go back to the studio?” Tenna’s still talking like he hadn’t heard him. “Haha, there’s, uh, really no reason to expect he’d be there tonight. Mike; I’ve got no clue why I suggested that! He’s just disappeared again. Off into the ether with no goddamn explanation, just like old times!!”

“Sounds about right,” says Mike. He subtly picks up speed. Can’t let Tenna switch direction again; he’s already pre-planned too much about the encroaching house call. “Boss, I don’t think you’ve got anything to fear. Why would he come crawling back to you now? Best we just get you some water and some ibuprofen and someplace to rest. How about that?”

“Yes,” Tenna sighs. “Yes, thank you.”

This is dangerous, is all Mike can think, above the giddy feeling, above the nerves. He could’ve suggested some other place to stay. Booked them both a hotel room or something. But no. He has to see this through.

As Tenna’s chatter peters out, the turnings of Mike’s thoughts burst in to replace it. Hundreds of logistical considerations, one after the other. He needs to take a circuitous route back to the apartment, just in case Tenna ever tries to find his way back here unannounced. He needs to correct Tenna if he mentions his roommates again—it’s not that Tenna’s ever likely to meet their landlord, but given that Pluey is technically a freeloader, they can’t afford to take chances about that sort of thing. When they get to the house, Tenna will say wow, this is quite a tight fit for three people! and Mike will say oh no, don’t worry, it’s just me, my friend, and my cat, which is exactly what he’d told the landlord when they first toured the place.

What if Tenna wants to meet his alleged cat? What if he wants to meet his alleged friend?

It’s not that we’re pretending to be the same person, he’d told Jeong and Pluey when they first formally got in on the gig. That would be stupid.

It’s simply that Tenna cannot be allowed to be reminded that they are all separate people. That’s different.

If Tenna actually took a look at his official records, he’d notice a Michael Pluvier, who works in costuming, and a Michael Jeong, who works in security, and… well, someone who looks awfully like Mike Batter, who works in lighting. (Mike’s not his legal name—it’s not even the name he chose for himself when he started transitioning—but no one’s called him anything else in a long, long while.) This hypothetical, unrealistically bureaucratic Tenna would also notice a mysterious fourth person, labeled only as Mike in the official files, who has been working here for much longer than Pluvier, Jeong, or Batter, and who is by far the most well-paid employee of Station KTVT.

Sometime between the day that the three new Mikes had started stepping in for the old, absent Mike—first out of confusion, then out of necessity—and the day that Spamton had all but seized control of managing the station’s finances, Mike Batter had had a very productive meeting with the former financial manager: he’d wheedled his way into receiving 100% of the wages that had previously gone to Absentee Mike. Today, this money goes into an account shared by all three Mikes, and is a source of both constant benefits (they can actually afford an apartment in Santa Cruz!) and constant stress. If Tenna ever gets any glimmer of an idea that he should go restructure the way they get paid, they’re fucked. Best case: Tenna compensates them all for their above-average contributions. Middling case: Tenna decides he can’t afford all that, and chooses one of them to be Mike forever. Worst case: they’re all fired for financial fraud. And every possibility in between.

So things have to be as seamless as possible. The Mikes have to look the part—back shirts, red bowtie. They have to communicate extensively. So much so that they seem to share memories. Blend into each other.

And they can’t be anyone else. Just Mike.

Beside him, Tenna’s got his hands gripped tight on his knees, staring straight forward.

“Almost there, boss,” Mike hums, turning down their street. His own hands are sweaty on the wheel. Does he trust his roommates? Will they have hidden everything personally identifiable? Will they be able to keep their noses out of his business?

The Mikes live in a small two-story apartment in the middle of a row of similar ones. It’s got sunny yellow paint and palm trees flanking the driveway. When they first moved in, Mike Batter had introduced himself to every single one of their neighbors, and then made a ranked list of their relative trustworthiness on his theory board. Fortunately, none of them makes a habit of peering out their windows at night, so it’s with a decent lack of paranoia that Mike parks, opens the door for Tenna, and leads him up the stairs to their doorstep.

“This neighborhood is quite pleasant,” Tenna remarks as Mike fumbles with the key.

Mike nods mutely and lets him in.

The downstairs, he immediately realizes, looks pretty weird to an outsider. To the left is a big black wall of heavy curtain cordoning off the entire living room; that’s what Jeong and Pluey use as their bedroom. Soft light and muffled film music filter through the small gap at the bottom. Okay, so they’re still doing their marathon. That’s fine. They just have to keep doing that for as long as it takes to get Tenna to bed.

To the right is the tiny kitchen, unfortunately devoid of places to sit. Tenna nearly trips over the bag of stale cat food they keep around for lying-about-Pluey purposes.

Mike hauls it into the corner. “Sorry, boss!”

His arms feel weak. That’s Tenna, his brain keeps reminding him. Right there. In my space. Standing by the coatrack. Hopefully not noticing how many pairs of shoes there are…

“You’ve never told me you had a cat!” Tenna pipes up, grinning.

“Ah, yeah! Love that guy. He’s asleep right now, though.” For emergencies, he’s got a bunch of cat pics saved to his phone, courtesy of a friend who actually owns a tuxedo cat. Maybe not something to get into while he’s still feeling so frazzled. “Uh. Can I get you anything to drink?”

He checks the fridge. Beer. Calpico. Two containers of Trader Joe’s orange-peach-mango juice. Jeong’s stupid gross peanut butter protein drinks. He shuts the fridge.

“Oh, just some cold water, thank you.”

Tenna’s gaze is wandering—from the big framed Castle of Cagliostro poster by the stairs, to the obligatory banana slug fridge magnet, to the dying plant on the counter, to the curtains drawn over the single window. He smiles at one of the smaller posters: an illustration of Tenna himself posing on stage, commemorating an old TV Time special.

“That was a good one,” he sighs. Then: “What! I didn’t even sign it for you?! Do you have a pen?”

Wordlessly, Mike produces a pen. Tenna bends over and gifts the poster with his big, loopy signature—

TO MIKE, MY FAVORITE ♡ – ANT TENNA

The heart feels like it’s teasing him, Mike thinks, even if he knows Tenna means it with complete sincerity. With complete platonic sincerity. Doesn’t stop his own stupid heart from picking up the pace.

“Your water,” he offers.

Tenna takes the glass, throws back his head, and downs it in one gulp. Mike feels like a pervert watching him swallow.

“Ahh. Thank you. Is there a place I can sit down…?”

This is the problem with turning the living room into a second bedroom. Well. This, and occasionally coming down for a midnight snack to hear Jeong and Pluey having sex.

“Only, uh, my room, I’m afraid.”

Tenna, unfazed, chuckles. “You must’ve been in my room more times than anyone, Mike! Only fair I should get to see yours.”

He heads up the stairs. Mike, sweating buckets even in his t-shirt, kicks off his shoes and follows.

Up here, there are only two rooms—the bathroom, and Mike Batter’s bedroom. It was inevitable, really, that they would get here; he’s known from the start this was the only possible place he could put Tenna. But it still feels wrong to see his boss marching up the too-narrow stair, invading his private sanctum. This is where he exists when he isn’t being Mike-Mike. Or, rather, where he exists in that same liminal state of Mikeness he’s been inhabiting since he first began responding to the name.

They step in together. Mike shuts the door behind them. The hinges creak, like they always do. Tenna feels too big for the room; a few more inches and his head would scrape the top of the doorframe. He stands there, idly fiddling with his tie, and surveys the space: the bookshelf full of thriller novels and DVDs, the desk with its container of multicolored pens, the bland white Ikea bedframe, the empty wall where the theory board used to be.

And Mike should be pulling out the chair, gathering pillows, going to find the pain meds, but he’s just frozen in place next to him. Waiting for approval. Tenna hasn’t got a huge house, but it’s bigger than this, and certainly livelier. Tenna’s house is full of stuff. Personality. Memorabilia built up over decades. Endless DVDs and cassette tapes, posters plastered on every wall, way more CRT televisions than anyone ever needs to own. And it’s not that Mike wishes his space had more eye-popping colors or funny tchotchkes, he’s perfectly fine with how he lives, it’s just—is this all he has to offer to the guy around whom the entirety of his daily life revolves?

Then again—maybe the blankness is perfect. Mike is not really a person, after all. Just a possibility space.

“What a cute room,” Tenna says. And he slips out of his shoes and strides immediately to the bed.

So that’s how this is going to go. Mike lowers himself into the desk chair just a few feet away, as Tenna lays down in his bed—on the sheets Mike hasn’t cleaned in three days—like it’s nothing.

“Are you redecorating?” he asks, pointing at the blank wall.

“Uh, yep. Not sure what to put there.”

“How bout a TV?” grins Tenna.

“That’s a good thought.” Oh, how glad he is that Tenna can’t see the flatscreen in the living room. He’d probably insist on gifting the Mikes one of his CRTs. “Never a bad option when you’re all alone on a late night.”

Tenna turns his face back up towards the ceiling. It’s always hard to tell with his long, curly bangs, but it seems like his eyes are closed.

“Ah, you know, Mike,” he says softly, “it can’t help but make me think of the last time I got picked up from one of these awful corporate events. He took me to his apartment, and he had this huge horrible 4K monitor right next to his bed… I mean, I suppose when you’re such a big shot, that’s the sorta thing you’re supposed to get! But it just felt like it was staring at us all night…”

“Awful indeed,” is the only thing Mike can think of to say. His mouth is dry. He should’ve taken a glass of water himself.

“You really don’t need anything more than 480p anyway, but 4K! It’s obscene! The way it just warps the image!” He shudders. For a second, Mike thinks (hopes) that he’s going to go on the “go to a movie theater if you really need your big screen” rant, or the “why must realism be the be-all end-all of audiovisual media” rant, or even the “if you really want realism then just play Silent Hill 3 for heaven’s sake” rant, but it’s unfortunately not a surprise when Tenna continues with: “But, tell me honestly, Mike. Do you think that was the beginning of the end?”

“The TV?”

“The opulence of it all! Even if I did become a big shot like him, that was never going to be me!” He tilts his head back towards Mike, smiles sadly. “Ha. And with that stunt he pulled, it’s never going to be him again either.”

“Mm,” Mike says. This is another one to add to his scoreboard: he’s calculated that about two-thirds of the time Tenna talks about Spamton’s disappearance, he’s incandescently angry; one-third, he’s just deeply sad.

“It didn’t have to be this way! He could have reached out! Explained! Just come down to the station at all!” He slaps the heels of his palms against his forehead. “I know he isn’t there right now. He—he can’t be. But what if he heard he just missed me at the winery? What if he’s looking for help?”

“He’s had a good two years where he could’ve come and asked for your help,” Mike says, for what feels like the thousandth time. It’s hard to keep the venom out of his voice.

“But now I actually can help him—”

“Because you have other sponsors. And you have other sponsors all because he fucked you over.”

Tenna laughs. He readjusts his position, sinks into the pillow. Mike’s pillow. “Ah, Mike. Always reminding me of the things that matter. Maybe all of this could have been avoided if I’d just had you there with me!”

“Where?” Mike demands, because the only image in his head is being sat in the cuck chair at Spamton’s SF apartment, right next to the stupid fucking 4K TV—

“At any of these corporate events! Especially with what an absolute nightmare that first one was. I know you, Mike; you’d tell the Addison boys to get lost at the first sight of them. And you’d tell him off for being too selfish or rude or never explaining anything at all. And it sure would’ve been more pleasant to come back here than to his place.”

He knows he’s talking about the decor, but it’s taking all of Mike’s willpower to not say, wow, was the sex really that bad?

Then again, he might just have to jump out the window if Tenna starts talking in detail about sex with Spamton.

“You actually have DVDs,” Tenna continues. “That’s a mark of a distinguished man, Mike! For example!” With an energy he didn’t seem capable of just two minutes ago, he leaps off the bed and squats next to the bookshelf. “The complete Twin Peaks box set?! Oh, I’ve got to rewatch that sometime; I was just thinking about putting a murder mystery pastiche into Marvelous Mystery Board!” He pulls the box off the shelf before Mike can protest. “Let’s ask your roommates when they’ll be done with their movie—”

“Roommate,” Mike cuts in frantically. “Just one. I don’t want to disturb them—”

“They’ll be alright! Movies can be paused!”

“I thought you were tired—”

“What’s better than television for cooling off after a stressful night?!” He stands up, very quickly—and teeters as he does so, and stumbles, and braces his hand against the back of Mike’s chair.

Mike shimmies out from under Tenna’s leaning figure and puts a tentative hand on the small of his back.

“Let’s take it easy, boss…”

He helps him back to the bed. With some hesitance, Tenna lays back down. His dress shirt is thin; Mike can feel the warmth of his skin under his palms.

“Well,” Tenna mumbles, “if you’re going to keep me in bed like a tuberculosis-ridden Victorian maiden, you may as well get me some medicine.”

“Right,” Mike says. There’s a weird sort of disquiet that comes from the prospect of being banished from the room. Or just the idea of leaving Tenna alone in here, unsupervised, for longer than he needs to. “For the headache, right?”

“Yes please!”

He should move, then. Get it over with. He gives Tenna one last glance (Tenna, right there, in his bed—what the hell, man), then runs downstairs for the water and ibuprofen.

Memories are flooding back without permission. Snapshots of the first weeks post-Spamton. The many, many nights where Tenna would call Mike over to perform some menial task, some thinly-veiled excuse for company, and it had ended with the two of them sprawled on the Green Room couch til the early hours of the morning, watching something or other on TV. Jeong and Pluey had reported sleeping through similar incidents, when it had been their turn to go, but Batter had forced himself to stay up. Because what if Tenna really needed him? And what if someone else walked into the room and saw him drifting off with his head on Tenna’s shoulder? And—

And the one night, not a month after Spamton disappeared forever, when some random studio employee had given Tenna an invite to a rave in Monterey (an unofficial fundraiser benefiting a specific aquarium thing, and Tenna would never skip out on an opportunity to help the aquarium), and Tenna had been in just the right state of mind to drop everything and drag Mike down there with him. Mike is never going to forget the proprietary way that Tenna’s arm had slipped around his waist as he crowed to a group of twenty-somethings about that time that TV Time had partnered with the aquarium for an educational event. And Tenna had puked all over Mike’s shirt and cried the whole drive back and at the end of it, just as Mike parked in Tenna’s driveway, Tenna had sat up on his knees in the passenger’s seat and leaned in and said I really should be doing something to thank you for all this, Mike, and Mike’s brain had gotten so stuck on the thought of oh god, I can’t let him fuck me while he’s drunk, that when Tenna continued with I know! I should get us some matching sealife-themed t-shirts! it sounded like a bad joke.

He’s still got that t-shirt somewhere, actually. Not that he ever has occasion to wear it. Unfortunately—courtesy of Mike’s uncontrollable tendency to fixate on silly, unrealistic scenarios, regardless of whether or not he actually wants to—that first thought, the what if he HAD actually wanted to fuck me that night, is the thing that’s stuck around.

Before heading back upstairs, Mike peeks into the living room. Jeong and Pluey are swaddled together in a blanket, utterly enraptured by My Neighbor Totoro.

“So,” he stage whispers. (Jeong starts and runs to hit the space button on their laptop.) “Tenna’s fine. Bit loopy. I guess he’s stealing my bed for the night? I’ll try to keep him in my room, but you guys cannot let him see you.”

Pluey salutes. Jeong says, “Where’re you gonna sleep, boss?”

“Sleeping bag,” Mike says. It’ll be hell on his back, but it’s not like he’s gonna leave Tenna alone in his room. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Sure you don’t wanna come down here?”

“I’ll see how I feel, okay.” It’s not bad to have the option. Jeong and Pluey’s bed is capacious enough; they’ve all done plenty of stuff on there together that Mike does not really want to think about right now. “Seriously, don’t worry about me. Just stay in here, keep watching your shit, and be really careful if you’re gonna come out. Capiche?”

Jeong gives a thumbs-up.

Back in Mike Batter’s room, Tenna is, for some fucking reason, laying on his stomach in the middle of the carpet, legs kicked back, leafing through the assortment of random papers that Mike keeps tucked on his bottom shelf. There’s two stacks of DVDs sitting next to him.

Fear washes through Mike’s chest.

“What the f—what are you doing?”

“Oh! Don’t mind me, just reorganizing your collection. It’s really more helpful to order movies by date rather than alphabetically—”

“No. That.”

“Y-yes, I disturbed some other things while I was taking the cases out. You should really find somewhere to put these! There’s—somebody’s glasses prescription; is that your roommate’s? Oh, and all of these boardwalk tickets! I still can’t believe that’s all digital now…”

Mike squints at the definitely-unfilled prescription sheet with his deadname at the top. Surreal. “Can you not go through my things,” he says.

Tenna actually pouts. “Oh… ah, Mike, I thought it would be only fair. You organize all of my things for me!”

“That’s—”

Different, he wants to say. Because he’s Tenna’s employee.

That’s not really something he wants to be reminding Tenna when he’s laying on the floor of his bedroom.

“That’s real nice of ya, boss, but I think I can manage myself.” He takes the stack of papers and tries to shove it back into the space from whence it came. A couple of the smaller items fall out in the attempt—a bunch of those damn boardwalk tickets, plus a handful of photos. Not of Pluey and Jeong, thank god—it’s just some old pics of him with his parents from when he was a kid.

Naturally, Tenna seizes upon this immediately.

“Ooh, who are these?” He looks up at Mike. Back down at the photos. Grins. “Hey, she could be your sister.”

“Uh-huh,” says Mike, plucking the photos out of Tenna’s hand. There’s this weird feeling stirring in his gut. Like… he’s not sure if he’s allowed to have a history in this moment. To be anything but sprung fully-formed from the grounds of the KTVT station. Evidence of a childhood elsewhere—one where he’s not wearing the Mike tie or the black button-downs—could create a sense of incongruity. Especially a childhood in which he appeared to be a girl.

“Anyway,” he says. “I got the ibuprofen for you.”

“Much appreciated!” Tenna hums, hauling himself to his feet. “Though it’s funny—the headache seems to get better the less I think about that party. Or the people at that party…” He shakes his head, gulps down a pill.

“That’s great to hear!”

“And I really—I don’t think that he was ever going to come to the studio tonight. There was nothing to be worried about! Though I still—” He sets the glass back on the table with a too-loud clink. “Haha. He wouldn’t come to the studio—and he sure didn’t want to come to the party while I was there…”

“Uh, hey, boss, how bout we finish up with the DVD organizing?” Mike tries, but it’s of no use. Tenna’s staring down at the glass, transfixed in his own world.

“Well! That would explain everything! If he was just avoiding me in general. He’ll come to the party to freak out his old coworkers, but he doesn’t dare an altercation with me—”

“Because he knows you’ll kick his ass.” Mike picks up the glass and places it firmly in the middle of the table, away from where it’s in danger of being knocked over by Tenna’s idle fidgeting.

“Of course I would! You know I’m not above a little tactical ass-whooping if necessary, but in a situation like this he’d have to really be asking for it. First I’d rather he—”

In lieu of slapping him, Mike grabs Tenna’s wrist. Tenna starts.

“Mike?”

“Boss. You’re tired. You’re spiraling. Let’s stop thinking about him, okay?”

Tenna sighs. “It’s just so hard, when everything reminds me of—”

“Everything? Really?” If there’s anything Spamton-like in his room, he wants to know so he can tear it down at the first possible convenience.

Tenna turns away from him, head drooping a little. “Not everything! Of course not. But—well, I already told you. It’s the scenario. It’s been so long since the last time someone took me back to his place after a party…”

“Yeah, but, c’mon. This place is different. And I’m sure we can make some new memories to override the old ones, right?”

“New memories…” Tenna’s giving him a potent look, one he’s not entirely sure how to read. He nods. “I hope so.”

Unfortunately, all the vehicles for memory-making that Mike can think of—all the ones that Tenna’s likely to take an interest in, at least—are things that happen outside of his bedroom. His Switch is back at the studio, they can’t use the TV, and like hell Mike’s gonna let Tenna touch his laptop, even if the guy’s unlikely to make fun of him for having a whole browser window full of Reddit tabs. But maybe the fact that it’s past midnight gives them some clue about how they’d best be spending their time.

“Unless, uh… maybe you’d rather just get some sleep?”

It’s a fair tradeoff, he thinks. Sure, he might be missing out on some personal one-on-one time with Mr. Ant Tenna, but since when has he ever had a shortage of that? This way, he can take care of Tenna’s mental health while also ridding himself of the responsibility of finding them some other activity.

“Ah,” Tenna says. Does he sound disappointed? “Right you are. Well, I won’t keep you up either!”

And he crosses the room, pulls back the covers, and tucks himself into Mike’s bed.

It only just barely fits him. But there’s something so weirdly cute about that—about Tenna’s big curly locks falling all across his pillow, about the way he pulls the covers up over him, snug as a bug.

“Don’t forget to turn out the light,” he sings.

“Yeah, one sec.” Mike opens the closet, searching for the sleeping bag. Tries to convince himself that his heart hasn’t just picked up speed again. Should he change out of his current attire too? The bowtie and button-down aren’t the most comfortable pajamas, but he can make do for the sake of keeping up the uniform…

“Looking for something?”

“Just the sleeping bag—”

“Sleeping bag?” Tenna laughs. “Mike! You didn’t think I was going to kick you out of your bed, did you?”

He scoots a little closer to the wall and pats the space next to him.

Heat and fear crash through Mike’s body like a tidal wave.

“Boss, you really don’t have to—”

“And you can stop calling me boss, too! We’re not on the clock!”

Mike stares at the empty space. The possibility looms before him. Tantalizing. There’s no way he’s getting a wink of sleep if he does this. But for the opportunity to sleep next to Tenna? He’ll hate himself if he passes this up.

Normally, he’d go shower, brush his teeth, do his whole little pre-bedtime ritual. No time for that right now, though. Can’t let Tenna be alone long enough that he realizes what a terrible idea this is. So, heart pounding, he turns out the light and slips into bed beside him. Just like that.

The bed is too small for it to be comfortable. Tenna is right there. He’s turned onto his side to better accommodate Mike, but that just means he’s facing towards him, the tip of his pointy nose an inch away from Mike’s ear, a little smile on his face like this is perfectly normal.

“Bit of a squeeze!” Tenna hums. Mike can feel his breath on his cheek. Fuck. “But we’ve been in tight squeezes before, haven’t we, Mike? I think I’ll sleep better with you here, even.” And, without even giving him a moment to process that, he lays his arm directly over Mike’s chest. “Ah, you’re so warm! Like a… heated plushie. Hm, do they make those?”

“No idea,” Mike chokes. Being compared to an object meant only for touching is doing weird things to his stomach. And doing entirely unsurprising things to the heat between his legs.

Tenna pats his shoulder. “Mm. Don’t worry about it. Just relax.”

Mike is not going to relax.

It’s far from the first time he’s slept in odd proximity to Tenna, he reminds himself with some amount of desperation. They’ve dozed off next to each other during all-nighters at the studio. They’ve shared a hotel room on a trip; in fact, Tenna had specifically requested that if he had to share with anyone, it should be Mike. There was that one week where the Mikes took turns crashing on Tenna’s couch because Tenna was too sick to leave the house. Mike Batter still remembers hand-feeding him oatmeal as he shivered in bed, burrito’d in blankets, hair a mess. But even then, it’s not like he’d been there in his bed with him.

The seconds tick by. Minutes. Tenna’s breathing gets slower and slower. Mike doesn’t dare look at him—just keeps his eyes fixed on the ceiling. There’s no way he’ll get to sleep like this, laying so rigidly on his back, but what’s the alternative? Squishing himself up at Tenna’s side, wrapping all his limbs around him? Tenna wouldn’t mind, he thinks, and it makes him feel ill—that there’s nothing but himself stopping him from taking that leap. But that would declare an intention. A burden that he doesn’t want to commit to. A burden he doesn’t want to push onto the other Mikes…

He could slip out of the room. Join the Ghibli marathon. If that doesn’t kill his libido, there’s always the classic casual friend sex trick. Or pretending to use the bathroom? But he doesn’t think he’ll be able to open the door without Tenna hearing, and moreover, the thought of abandoning him like that is not something he can stomach. Maybe if he asked Tenna’s permission first? But Tenna would be so sad…

Okay, he can at least give it a shot. Try out a more comfortable position, see if he can sleep. But when he turns towards Tenna—well, it’s just another pang of a reminder that Tenna is here, in his bed, a big beautiful lump beneath the covers, his hair exploding this way and that but still leaving enough of his face for Mike to stare at wistfully. His nose, almost touching Mike’s now, and his long, pale throat, and his thin, pink lips, and—

Look. It’s biological. He’s a fully-realized gay adult; he’s known what was going on since the day—wow, it had to be more than a decade ago now—that Tenna had come up behind him backstage and clapped his big hand on his shoulder and heat had shot like a bullet through his abdomen. Right now, he’s remembering that one night at the bar with Jeong and Pluey—he’d been shitfaced and ranting about Tenna, and somehow he’d ended up slamming his hand against the table and telling them—someday, one of us is gonna end up in his bed, you know that, right? He’s gonna get a bit too lonely, a bit too desperate, and we’ll be the only ones available, and we’ll be such suckers that we’ll do it. To which Jeong had responded: Uh, boss, I dunno about you, but I think if Mr. Tenna wanted to sleep with me I could just politely decline.

So, alright. Fine. Maybe Mike Batter is just the world’s biggest sucker.

Doesn’t change the fact that having Tenna’s arm slung over him, fingers curled loosely in the folds of his dress shirt, is making him feel crazy. God, he needs to do something about the heat roaring inside of him.

Very slowly, so that there’s no chance of the movement disturbing Tenna, he brushes the pads of his fingers down against the front of his pants. Exhales a little at the blooming, insistent pleasure.

Could he actually just lay here and touch himself, inches away from Tenna? It’s not like he isn’t getting off to the thrill of it, stupid as that may be. And he feels confident in his ability to stay quiet. Just… do what he needs to, then sleep. Nothing untoward about it. Tenna never has to know.

He rolls onto his other side, careful not to disturb the arm over him. Staring at Tenna’s sleeping face while jerking off about him has a unique sort of appeal, but he can’t shake the fear of how he would look at him if he were to wake up. It’s not like in this new position—with Tenna’s breath on the back of his neck, the shadow of his chest over his back—he could ever forget that Tenna is right there.

He unzips his shorts and slips a hand between his legs. Fuck, he’s already so wet. It makes a soft, slick sound when he runs two fingers up and down through his folds. Shit. If he’s lucky, this won’t take too long anyway. The noises are unavoidable, even as he directs his fingers solely towards his clit. And he’s trying to keep the jerking motions contained to his wrist, but it can’t help but shake his arm, and then jostle Tenna in turn…

Tenna’s fingers twitch. Mike stops moving. His pulse throbs between his legs. This is not the time to be thinking about how easily he could lower his head and suck Tenna’s thumb into his mouth.

But Tenna just shifts in his sleep behind him. His head moves in closer. Literally breathing down Mike’s neck.

Maybe Mike can just go slowly. It’s torture, but if it works it works. He inhales—too loud, too shaky—and picks up the rhythm again. Now’s a great time to take out those thoughts that he otherwise keeps tightly locked away in his mind—they don’t do him any good except when he’s masturbating—thoughts like what if that was Tenna’s hand, reaching down to touch me, and what if he grabbed me, pulled me in close to him, his hips at my ass—

The rustling of fabric sounds behind him again. Just Tenna shifting around—nothing to worry about—but Mike still turns his head just slightly, just in case—

And Tenna’s got his elbow propped up, cheek resting on the palm of his hand, leaning in towards him. Mouth agape. Even in the dark, it’s clear his cheeks are scarlet.

The two of them stare at each other. Mike’s heart kicks into overdrive. He can feel it in the press of his fingers against his clit, unmoving.

“Oh,” Tenna breathes. His exhale is hot on Mike’s jaw. He makes a weak attempt at a laugh. “Well! Oh my. That’s. Can I help you…?”

What?

“What?” he says.

“Um!” Tenna sits up. It disturbs the covers; they slough off of him and fall around Mike’s waist, making it even more apparent where he’s put his hand. “C’mon, you know, you seem a little, like you need…”

“Like I need what.” This isn’t real, he’s telling himself. He needs Tenna to say it, to prove they’re both living this.

“Oh, no, it’s—don’t be ashamed!” Tenna cries, entirely mistaking Mike’s tone. “It’s, um, it’s perfectly natural…”

He falls silent. God, he’s just looking at him. It’s taking everything in Mike to keep his fingers still.

“Sorry, boss,” he hears himself say hoarsely. He starts sitting up, makes a gesture towards the door. “Completely inappropriate, I know; I can just, uh, finish in the bathroom…”

“What? No, no, don’t leave, Mike—”

Tenna’s hand shoots out to clutch his shoulder. Mike freezes.

“I,” continues Tenna, softer. He swallows. “Ha, I told you I wouldn’t push you out of your own bed, y’know.” He pulls the pillow out from under his head and props it up against the headboard. “You can sit back, if you like, and I’ll, uh, give it my best go—”

“Were you asleep at all?” is the only thing Mike can think of to say, because there is absolutely no way Tenna is making an offer like that just out of the blue.

Tenna’s blush deepens. He shakes his head.

So was he just planning to lay there and listen to Mike jerk off?

“I-it’s pathetic, I know! I just, ah, couldn’t help but imagine that it was my presence that was affecting you like that…”

He cannot be fucking serious.

“Mike,” whispers Tenna. “It’s the least I can do. For all of this.”

Feeling like he’s moving underwater, Mike sits up against the headboard. Grabs a tissue from the nightstand and wipes his slick fingers. The bed dips where Tenna moves to the center of it, on his hands and knees between Mike’s legs. Waiting. Like an expectant dog, Mike thinks.

“Okay,” he says. “If you really want to. Hold on.”

He lifts his hips and wiggles out of his shorts and boxers. The fact that Tenna’s just sitting there, watching him undress—it’s unreal. He’s been naked around the other Mikes, and that’s been chill, but they don’t look at him like Tenna’s looking right now.

And when he’s done, before he can say anything at all, Tenna moves without being directed—puts his hot palms on Mike’s thighs and draws them apart, exposing him. Just being touched at all draws from him another pathetic little gasp. It’s so much, so fast.

“Oh, I see,” Tenna says, with some surprise, and Mike doesn’t know what to make of that until Tenna trails his thumb down his outer folds and elaborates: “I, um, can’t say I’ve done this before! But, Mike, I’ll try my damnedest, I’ll tell you that.”

It belatedly occurs to Mike that Tenna, master of noticing absolutely nothing, did not know he was transgender. Which is… fine. He’ll just have to tell the other Mikes to never go pantsless around Tenna, so he can’t notice the difference in their anatomy. Or maybe they could start wearing subtle trans flags? He can’t imagine either will mind; Jeong is agender anyway, and Pluey has never seemed to care about that kind of thing, so—

The thought flies from his mind when Tenna leans down and puts his tongue against his clit.

“Oh my god,” Mike hisses, involuntarily clamping his thighs around Tenna’s head. Tenna’s mouth is so hot. He’s licking absolutely everywhere, and it only half works, but the enthusiasm—how quick he is to just throw himself into it—makes Mike lightheaded. “Boss—ah—hold on. Go slower. I’ll tell you what feels g—” His breath catches in his throat as Tenna sucks at his clit. Another win for testosterone, making things easier on a guy who (he presumes) is only experienced with having dicks in his mouth. “Y-yeah, okay, do that.”

Tenna hums in acknowledgement. God, that feels good. Mike threads his fingers through Tenna’s yellow curls—in this position, he can see the brown and greying undyed roots that he usually keeps hidden under his hat—and Tenna nuzzles into his touch, unashamed. He’s so goddamn cute. Mike can’t stand it.

“You’re doing really good,” he says, just to see Tenna preen at the words; in reality, the pressure directly on his clit is becoming as painful as it is hot. “You can try, um, licking in other places too…”

Maybe he can just… prolong this fever dream a little bit, before they inevitably have to sleep. He tries to sear the sensations across his memory: Tenna laving his tongue through his folds, slow and careful, fingernails digging into his thighs, long nose stuck in his bush. And then the simple fact—equally mind-blowing—that somehow this was the first solution Tenna had imagined. Mike’s being weird and horny? Well, then, the obvious course of action is to eat him out with the passion of a groom on his wedding night!

And he really is going above and beyond. Tenna spreads him gently with his thumbs to get better access, then kisses him all over, lower and lower until his tongue is dipping into Mike’s hole and Mike actually squirms with arousal. His fingers must be tight enough in Tenna’s hair to really hurt by now, but Tenna says nothing, just keeps making out with his pussy. Logically, Mike knows that the ceaseless wet noises aren’t so loud that his roommates downstairs will hear, but he can’t help but imagine some danger to the whole affair. Tenna’s so shameless, he thinks. Then: maybe he should be more shameless—suck bruises into my neck higher than any collar will cover and then tomorrow he’ll giggle and flush whenever someone asks me about them in earshot of him—

Ridiculous. He’s getting ahead of himself.

But damn does it feel incredible when Tenna eventually finds his clit again, and Mike opens his eyes (when had he closed them?) and looks down again at the scene of Tenna between his legs, face a dappled, pretty scarlet, lapping at him with a sort of devotion he might even call—

He doesn’t get to finish that thought. His climax hits him hard and fast—he shivers apart, and he feels Tenna’s grip on him strengthen, holding him down, helping him through it.

That’s about the moment where everything starts to go a little hazy.

Tenna carefully shakes away Mike’s weak grip on his hair and sits back on his heels. He looks utterly wrecked. The new shine on his lips—the obvious bulge in his pants—it should be illegal, Mike thinks sluggishly, to see his boss like this, but here he is. Still holding his hips down like it’s nothing.

“I h-hope that was alright,” Tenna whispers. A bit hoarse.

“Uh huh,” Mike says. Little aftershocks continue to twitch through him. “It’s good. You’re good. Holy shit.”

“Ah, I’m glad to hear it,” Tenna sighs. “My lovely Mike. Was that… all you needed?”

No, absolutely not—his greedy body is still hungry for more. Especially after that baffling endearment. My lovely Mike? What the hell was that?

“Uhh,” he says. Fuck.

“We’d better get to sleep,” Tenna says. Hesitantly. “Big day tomorrow, as it always is!”

“Yeah,” Mike says.

Tenna doesn’t move. He doesn’t even take his hands off Mike’s thighs.

“Well!” he says. And he reaches up Mike’s body to grasp his shoulders. He leans forward onto his hands and knees, like a looming giant, and plants a quick kiss on Mike’s forehead.

The gesture feels so… paternal. Why does that make Mike harder.

“Boss,” he gasps. “You should—”

“Oh, please!” giggles Tenna, sitting back again. “Not after we’ve—”

“You should let me help you too. Please.”

“O-oh, it’s—” He tries to surreptitiously lay his hands across his lap such that they cover his bulge, but it doesn’t really work. “I’m sorry, I guess I must’ve—”

It makes Mike delirious to know that Tenna is just as turned on as he is. Not that that should be a surprise. It would be weirder if he wasn’t, he reminds himself. Biology, and all that.

“You should put that in me,” he says without thinking.

“Ha—oh—geez, Mike—” Tenna’s fingers tangle together, over and over, in his lap. “Never one to skimp out on the full performance, are you?”

“I’m not kidding.” More frustration leaks into his tone than he would have liked, but who cares about keeping up the Mike voice in a circumstance like this. “You need some relief.”

Tenna sighs. He leans in, seeming to really consider this.

“You’ve caught me!” he says quietly. “I do. I admit it.”

And he starts unbuckling his belt.

That’s it?! Mike wants to scream. No protests? No hesitation? Not even a well, if you’re REALLY sure…? It’s just Tenna doing what Tenna does best. Accepting that Mike’s ultimate job is to help him in any way he can. To make him feel good.

He’s right, of course.

“You’ll, ah, have to pardon me again for having so little experience,” Tenna is murmuring as he shuffles off his pants. “Guess this is a great night for learning things! I’m not usually, aha, on top, so to speak…”

It’s so stupid how much that knowledge makes the whole thing hotter.

“I’ve, uh—” Fuck it, he may as well say the first thing that comes to mind. “I’ve got a strap-on somewhere if you—”

“Ah!” Tenna cries, a little strangled. His dick visibly twitches in his underwear. But before Mike’s reeling thoughts can get any further than oh god, he’d let me fuck him? Tenna continues: “Well, you know, that’s just so much prep—and, gosh, I really am excited about trying something new—”

Something he didn’t do with Spamton. That has to be what he means.

“And!” he chirps. “I believe you made a, uh, specific request!” And, with an awkward motion, he starts peeling off his underwear, and Mike’s train of thought rides right off a cliff.

Look, Mike can’t pretend to know (or care) much about dick size, but this guy is definitely on the larger side of average. Maybe it’s his height? He’ll have to look up if there’s a correlation between those measurements later. You know, when Tenna’s not opening his legs again, scooting in closer to bracket his hips with his knees, lips parted to sigh out little trembling breaths. He guides his dick in, prods the head of it against Mike’s folds, testing the positioning.

“Wait,” says Mike suddenly. Shit.

He pitches his shoulders towards the edge of the bed and fumbles in the beside drawer as best he can without moving his legs from where they’re resting on Tenna’s knees.

“Is something—”

Mike tosses Tenna a condom and a small bottle of lube. “Just—you know,” he mutters as he lays back down. “To be safe.”

“Oh! Yes, of course!”

There’s a voice in Mike’s head telling him that he owes it to Tenna to let him hit it raw. Whatever the fuck that’s supposed to mean. He can’t believe he almost listened. Next time he calls up Tenna’s doctor to arrange a physical, he’s gonna order him an STD test.

“Sensible as always, Mike,” Tenna hums, bending back over him.

Fuck, he’s so big like this. Especially when he places his hands on either side of Mike’s biceps and slowly, awkwardly rocks forward to align their hips. Mike could probably say something like hey boss, maybe missionary’s not our best bet, but he’s too transfixed by how close Tenna is suddenly. Practically on top of him. Chests heaving together inches apart. A big cat lazily holding down a trapped bird. They’re still both in their button-downs, too, but maybe that’s a good thing: Mike might just lose his mind if he had every inch of Tenna’s naked body pressed against him.

“Is that okay?” Tenna whispers. His dick nudges up against Mike’s clit; Mike exhales into his shoulder. Damn their height difference—like this, his vision is taken up by the fringes of Tenna’s hair; he’s too small to look him properly in the face.

“Yeah,” says Mike, feeling like an insect about to be pinned. What are you asking me for, he wants to say. Just fuck me. That’s why I’m here.

He’s already so open and relaxed from the foreplay; when Tenna guides his dick into him, he fits so perfectly that Mike’s first thought is legitimately why haven’t we been doing this all this time. Tenna clutches his shoulders, holding him steady as he finds a rhythm, and Mike thinks, you could sling me over your desk like this, smother me and pin me down and tell me to clean up afterwards, and I’d do it.

“Th-there we go,” Tenna whispers. If he turns his head, Mike can see just the edge of his sweet, crooked smile, and somehow it’s the sexiest thing in the entire world. “How am I doing…?”

“Good,” Mike manages. A good 90% of his awareness is long gone, zeroed in on the joining of their bodies, on Tenna so hot and big inside of him.

“Aah—I’m so glad to hear it!”

His hips slump—for a moment, their entire weight rests on Mike, driving Tenna’s cock in even further, and suddenly Mike does feel trapped. At least until Tenna makes a small, frustrated noise and pushes himself up off of him. And then all the weight—all the heat, all the pressure—is gone.

“My hips don’t enjoy this position,” he confesses. “Let me see…”

He sits back on his heels, kneeling in the middle of the bed. Surveys the situation—Mike sprawled across the duvet, shivering and dripping with arousal. And despite his red face, his parted lips, his hunched shoulders, there is something… no, not smooth, exactly, but self-assured in the way Tenna takes Mike’s hips in both hands and lifts them clean off the bed.

Mike has to clap his hand over his mouth to keep himself from yelping.

“Sorry!” Tenna cries, entirely misconstruing the issue. He grabs the extra pillow and stuffs it under Mike’s back. “Is this alright? You can handle it? You’re just, ah, so small…”

He’s got a gooey smile on his face as he says that, as he drags Mike’s hips even further forward until his upper back is almost resting on his knees. Only his shoulders are fully touching the bed. Mike’s mind flips in rapid succession between Are you objectifying me for my height, Tenna?! and Please objectify me and Why am I like this and Why are YOU like this.

(The answer to “why does Tenna have a short people fetish” is disappointingly obvious, though.)

“Fine,” Mike grunts. The position’s got him splaying his legs at an obscene angle; with a reluctance he doesn’t care to interrogate right now, he gets a bit more comfortable by resting one of his ankles on Tenna’s shoulder.

Tenna fits his dick back up against Mike’s hole, but doesn’t push in just yet. He seems preoccupied by simply… looking down at him. Still smiling. He bends forward (sending his dick sliding through Mike’s folds, making him gasp) and runs one of his big hands through Mike’s hair. He’d be hard-pressed to call it anything but adoring. Fuck. Mike lets out a shaky sigh and tilts his head to press his cheek into Tenna’s hand. Maybe it looks pathetic. Whatever. If it is, it’s Tenna’s fault.

“Mike, I have to admit, it’s—” He giggles, embarrassed. “Such a treat to see you like this—you’re always working so hard—”

“Oh—ha—it’s all for you, boss…”

“I know!” Tenna sings. He’s just fully petting him now, one commanding hand on his waist keeping him still. “But what about you? You’re so cute…”

Mike thinks he might just die on the spot. From what emotion, he’s not sure. Maybe lust—Tenna’s dick is still just nestled against him, unmoving.

“And, well, sometimes it’s nice not getting pushed around! It’s nice to just relax! Not have to be constantly talking back to each other! It’s—it’s good to have a little control sometimes, don’t you think?”

Mike would protest that characterization of the situation, but it’s hard to argue he’s got any semblance of control when Tenna has him in as compromising a position as this. His face burns. So that’s how it’s going to be. Mike, the sweet, docile partner, versus Spamton, the unruly partner. Guess he’d better scratch out all those years of daydreams of having Tenna tied to his headboard, naked and begging—they were always just far-fetched idle fantasies, but it’s only just setting in how much it was always going to be like this. With Mike exactly where Tenna wants him. No matter how much Tenna’s basing his actions on Mike’s desires.

Good thing that shit like this is what comprises the other half of his fantasies.

“Yeah,” he says. Then: “Please, I—haha, you’re killing me here, boss—”

“Oh, Mike!” Tenna titters. “You really don’t have to call me that.”

But—finally—he pushes his dick back into him.

Maybe he isn’t doing this on purpose, Mike thinks—as much as he can think against the sudden overwhelming sensation. The embarrassment, the hints of domination, everything. All his talk about control is simply his way of justifying the way they’ve found themselves positioned—a well, I don’t exclusively sub, you know! kind of thing. A look, I’ve got a bigger repertoire than just what I did with HIM.

And then, of course, it could just be a consequence of Tenna’s stupidly long legs. What feels so revealing to Mike is just Tenna getting comfortable.

Getting… very comfortable. This new position lets Tenna go so much deeper than before; every thrust feels like it spears him open. Tenna’s face gets redder and redder, but he’s not watching the place where his cock disappears into Mike—his soft gaze, all but hidden behind his sweaty bangs, is fixed back on Mike’s face.

“Ah, y-you feel really wonderful,” he stutters. “Oh my…”

He clutches at Mike’s waist, rucking up his dress shirt, hot fingers dug into his sensitive skin. Curls inward, drives his hips forward, desperate. Filling him as far as he can go. Mike’s actually going to lose his mind. The sounds that Tenna’s making, all in response to him—

And then he remembers where he is.

“Shut up, you idiot!” he hisses, slamming both hands over Tenna’s mouth. “My roommates are right downstairs!!”

Tenna squeaks. Mike swears he gets even harder inside him. Who’s the pathetic one now.

“Way to flip the script!” Tenna whispers as Mike loosens his hands. He smiles nervously. “I’ve never seen you so… assertive, Mike!”

Mike wants to pull him down and lick the words out of his mouth. Instead he just readjusts his hips, clenches harder around Tenna. Tenna nearly whines. His hands are like vices on Mike’s waist, dragging him forward with every thrust. Using him.

“That’s so good,” Mike babbles, just because he knows it’ll make Tenna fall apart even further. “Just do whatever you like, b—do anything; I’m here for you, you know…”

“You are…” Tenna chokes. Runs his hand down Mike’s face, his neck, presses it into his chest, steadying him. “You are…”

He squeezes him so hard it hurts—then thrusts again once, twice, and comes with a little whimper that goes straight up Mike’s spine.

“Oh…” Tenna pants. He laughs. Slowly, carefully, he pulls out. “Ha. He’d always tease me for being a quick shot…”

He ties and tosses the condom. Mike lays there, burning.

Then it’s over. Tenna’s removing Mike’s legs from around his waist, putting his feet down gently on the mattress, scooting away…

“But, ah—” He flops down beside him on his back, face pointed at the ceiling. “It was all just ‘cause of how much he got me going…”

Mike, caught between do I really get you going that much, and the only reason you came first is because you weren’t touching my clit, says nothing. His core throbs with heat. Sweat plasters his bangs to his forehead.

Tenna’s face tilts towards him. “You don’t… really think I’m an idiot, do you?”

Of course. Of fucking course this is where it was going to go. “No,” Mike mumbles, “no, I promise I don’t…”

“Just a heat of the moment panic! I get it! Just… needed that reassurance, haha.”

It’s fine, Mike thinks. Maybe Tenna’s assuming something about his anatomy; maybe he thinks he can’t come again. That Mike was just offering up his exhausted body out of pure selfless instinct. He’s not sure what he wants more—to keep up that illusion, or to cool the need inside him.

“No problem,” is what he says, only a little strained. “Really. That was. Great.”

Tenna’s head sticks up off the pillow. “Mike? Is something wrong?”

“Ha, what would be wrong—”

But he can’t help but press his thighs together, to curl his toes against the ache, and Tenna catches on immediately.

“Oh, you didn’t yet—! I’m so sorry!”

All of a sudden—there’s Tenna’s arm laid across his stomach, his hot, sticky fingers searching between his legs, and what can Mike do but huff and squirm and fall open for him again. All that show of stoic concern for Tenna’s feelings, and now here he is! Pathetic!

And for some reason he can only think of the first time he saw Tenna shed his gloves after a show, and about all the other places those hands have been, clutching microphones and prize bags and whirling around on stage, and now they’ll have been inside him, filling him with no hesitation, palm scalding as it presses into his clit. Mike wriggles against Tenna’s chest, delirious and ashamed, but not too ashamed that he isn’t panting for it. Tenna’s not even good at fingering and he’s already so close.

He comes with a stifled shout, bucking up into Tenna’s hand.

“Oh my,” giggles Tenna. He props his head on his free hand and smiles down at him. “Mike, what a performance! I—ah—hope that was satisfactory!”

And he leans down and presses a single, chaste kiss to Mike’s lips with a little exaggerated mwah!

Just one brief, sweet touch, and then it’s over, he’s moving away, and Mike tries to follow him, to keep the contact for as long as he can, but Tenna sits up and pulls his slick-fingered hand from Mike’s crotch and the connection is severed.

“What a way to end the night!” Tenna whispers. “Not at all what I pictured, not at all, but… thank you, Mike. I didn’t realize how much I needed that! You know—” and he leans in again, not for another kiss, but like he’s sharing a silly little secret— “I haven’t, at all, since, well…”

Mike’s heart sinks.

“I—I’m glad! To have done that with someone other than him. Did you know, I almost thought I’d never get another chance! But you…” He pats Mike’s shoulder. “As always, you’re my antidote. Better than ibuprofen!”

“Glad to hear it, boss.” God, his throat’s so dry.

“And, don’t you think we’ll both sleep so much better after that?”

“Uh-huh,” says Mike. He should go put on his pants. He doesn’t move.

“Sometimes, though—ah, it seems crazy now, but sometimes we’d just stay up all night talking about nothing. About the future of the show and all that. Sometimes talking… sometimes arguing. One night I even, ha, bugged him so much about one thing over and over that he went to go sleep on the couch… fortunately that couch was big enough for two! Or else, you know, I’d be…”

“So rude,” Mike says automatically. “What was he thinking, leaving you there all alone.”

Tenna shudders against him. “I don’t even want to think about it! Not to mention all the times he’d sneak off before morning. You’d never do that, Mike, would you.”

“Never.”

The horrible thing is, he’s considered it. Not in this context, of course. But… leaving. Ripping himself away. Flying to Alaska and not telling a soul, and hoping the distance somehow erases the nagging feeling of but you never found out who that other Mike was, and but what if Tenna needs you?

Well, maybe he’d tell Pluey and Jeong so they could document Tenna’s descent into madness. Because there’s no future in which Tenna is truly gone from his life. It just doesn’t compute. That’s the fun part of the fantasy, after all—the part where he comes back, and Tenna throws himself at his feet, crying and wailing and demanding that he promise to never do anything like that again.

(The other logical possibility, the part he doesn’t let himself think about, is the part where Tenna doesn’t notice his absence because of the two other people playing his role.)

“But, uh,” he says, tearing himself out of it. “We’d better clean up a bit. You know what they say about peeing after sex.”

“Can’t forget that!” hums Tenna. “It isn’t too late for a shower, is it? Ah, I’ll be quick. You go first, and I’ll be right after.”

He looks expectantly at Mike.

We could shower together is on the tip of Mike’s tongue, but he bites it down. God knows what being naked with Tenna will do to him. He rolls off the bed, wincing a little at the ache in his lower back, and gathers up his discarded clothing. Glances back at Tenna—half-naked, looking more at home lounging in Mike’s bed than Mike has ever felt there himself—and regrets it, because it makes him feel all kinds of nauseous. It doesn’t feel real. My back hurts because Tenna held me down and fucked me on MY bed—that’s just insane. That cannot have happened to him. Especially not here.

“You’re, uh, not gonna go anywhere, right?” he asks Tenna.

Tenna gives him a toothy grin. “Would you believe it, it’s hard to even keep my eyes open after that!”

“Sure you don’t want to use the bathroom first?”

“Oh no, I can wait. Just don’t take too long!”

“Course,” says Mike, then gets the fuck out of there.

As soon as he’s in the bathroom, he fishes his phone out of the bundle of clothes.

tuxedocat25: 🧐👂
m.jeong: what are youse doin up there
battat: Giving the boss a massage. He’s stressed, he needs it.
tuxedocat25: 😽
m.jeong: a prostate massage?

Mike drops his phone back into his shorts pocket.

He pees and changes and brushes his teeth as quickly as he can. No time for anything but the bare essentials; he’s got to get back to Tenna. Just to keep an eye on him, you know? To make sure he’s not futzing around with his personal things again. It’s easy, maybe too easy, to settle back into the logistics, the planning, rather than letting himself ruminate. We did that, he thinks again. Big fucking deal. It was always going to happen. Now there’s just the aftermath to figure out.

But when he barges back into his room, all he can see of Tenna is a mass of yellow curls peeking out of the covers.

“Boss? The bathroom’s free.”

No response but snores.

And it doesn’t seem quite so scary now to pull back the covers and slip into bed beside him. They’re back in the realm of the known: Tenna, passed out from some new form of overexertion. Mike settles in, turning away from him. Only a little bit mad that he didn’t have the chance to offer himself as a body pillow.

What are they even going to do tomorrow? He sets an alarm for earlier than usual—at the very least he’s gonna go make breakfast for Tenna; he’ll be a good fucking house-husband, okay. Even if he doesn’t get a hug and a kiss for it.

And then… well, things continue as always. They’ll go to work, and Tenna will be Tenna, and Mike will be Mike, and Spamton will not come to the studio because Spamton is out of their lives. It’s not like anything has actually changed between them.

Mike breathes a sigh of relief for that.

Even as his half-asleep thoughts, drifting in and out as Tenna’s light snores fill his eardrums, go something more like: if nothing is going to change, why not take it all the way? Let this be the night where he lets everything out, so he never has to think about any of it again—about Tenna feeling up his naked body, about Tenna panting into his mouth, about Tenna sucking bruises under his jaw.

Ugh. So self-indulgent. And he’s missed his window, anyway—Tenna’s already fast asleep.

When Mike wakes up—bleary, achey, discombobulated—he’s not entirely surprised to find his bed empty.

The first thing he does is check his phone.

m.jeong: hey boss when can we leave the room
m.jeong: me n pluey really need to go take a piss
m.jeong: ok pluey snuck out the window. dont worry wes made sure no ones seen him!
m.jeong: methinks hes at the cafe
tuxedocat25: 😸🥓
m.jeong: pluey can ya get some to go?
m.jeong: oh the big boss is out n about too
battat: Fuck where is he
m.jeong: kitchen?

Sure enough, Mike can just about hear the sound of the kitchen fan starting up.

He dresses himself in a daze. New button-down, same bowtie. He swears he can still smell the sweat on it. Doesn’t bode so well for the state of his bed. Maybe he’ll get in tonight and be overwhelmed with the scent of Tenna.

When Mike comes down the stairs—calmly, normally, not rushing—Tenna’s parked in front of the stove, doing a jaunty little dance as he fries up two eggs. Apart from the fact that he’s still wearing the same shirt from yesterday, he’s looking decently put-together; he must’ve remembered to take a shower.

He is also, for some reason, wearing Mike Batter’s fucking apron. It’s much too small for him. Surely he must’ve seen Pluey’s in the closet as well, but still—

The sight is unreal. A fever dream.

“Ah, boss,” Mike starts hoarsely, “you didn’t have to—”

“Hm?” Tenna turns. His face splits into a grin. “Mike!! You’re awake! Oh, I’m just hogging the stove, aren’t I—”

He shakes the eggs onto a plate, sprinkles them with the parmesan cheese he’s pulled from the fridge, and shovels both into his mouth.

Okay. So those weren’t for him. No breakfast in bed for the loyal house-husband.

“Swatch called again,” Tenna continues as Mike opens the fridge. “And you know what! They can’t find any trace of last night’s party-crasher. He’s just gone again! Poof! Right back to obscurity, where he belongs!”

Mike can only find it in him to muster up an “oh yeah?”

“So, there’s really no use thinking about him anymore, haha. Probably ever! Especially now that I’ve got all these new memories to dwell on, don’t you think?” And he cocks his head slyly in a way that really should not be as sexy as it is.

“You got it.”

Breakfast is a little tricky now that the front room’s no longer available. Mike leans back against the counter, cradling his bowl of plain granola and milk, inwardly chastising himself for the immediacy with which the mention of last night’s activities floods his body with heat. Got any further memory-making plans, boss? is what he’s on the verge of asking. You know I’d be up for anything. That’s me, you know—reliable ol’ Mike!

Maybe he should ask the other two Mikes what they think before he goes and says anything like that, though.

He glances upward. Tenna’s fixed him with an odd look—his gaze, though still mostly hidden, seems to travel slowly down Mike’s body. Fuck. He cannot be getting this squirmy at 8:30 in the morning.

“Ah, boss?”

Tenna laughs. He points at Mike’s bowl.

“You know, Mike, what was the one good thing about waking up in that awful SF apartment?”

“Uh, tell me.”

“He had this box of, ah, I can’t for the life of me remember the brand, but it was this super-sweet peanut butter granola. I couldn’t get enough of it! Have you ever had anything like that?”

“No, I—”

But this isn’t Pluey or Jeong, and he can’t follow up with dude, haven’t I said a billion times that I hate peanuts, can he.

“I’ll have to try it sometime,” he finishes, quietly. “Thanks for the rec, boss.”

Tenna’s smiling the whole drive back to the studio. And Mike should be basking in that same warm glow—certainly gets his heart racing, even if that’s half with nausea—but all he can think about, for some reason, is tomorrow, when it’ll be Jeong’s turn to go in and be Mike. How will Tenna treat them? Would he be grinning quite this wide? Would he pat their shoulder on the way in as they hold the car door open for him, and let his hand linger there a few seconds too long?

“You know, Mike,” Tenna pipes up when they’re almost there. “Do you remember that computer technology course they made us do last year? The one where you identify emails that are… what was the term, phishing?”

“Sure,” says Mike, though he’s pretty sure only Tenna had been made to do that.

“Is that the term? When they pretend to be from someone else, someone you like and trust, so you click them.”

Mike’s stomach clenches.

“That’s the word.”

“Well, maybe—maybe that’s what he was doing at the event last night. Just being a little scammer like always! Did you hear, he claimed to have a legitimate invite! But everyone saw through him immediately. They knew who he was.”

“Hard to hide from a reputation like that,” Mike says.

“But… between you and me, Mike, some parts of that whole email safety course just made me feel sad!”

“How so?”

“Imagine writing a legitimate email, really reaching out to someone, hoping they’ll take a chance on you… and then that email goes straight to their trash bin because your typing looked a little funny! I’d be heartbroken!”

Maybe Mike really did save Tenna from that party in more ways than one. If he’d stayed, he would have taken the bait.

And maybe that’s all there is to it. Any of it. If you dress it up enough, in the right words, the right looks, Tenna will always take the bait.

“Well,” he says, keeping his eyes fixed on the road. “Some people are just really good at pretending.”

“But how do you tell the difference? Don’t you have to have just a little faith? It can’t—” He laughs. “It can’t be that everyone’s pretending. There are people who do want my help! Who do want to help me! Who do like me—really like me! Like you.”

And his hand finds its way back to that soft, intimate place on Mike’s thigh.

“Yeah,” Mike sighs. “I do. I really do.”

He isn’t lying, this time.