Returning from an eight-hour flight to an apartment whose bookshelf, closet, and bathroom had been ransacked was not, Micah feared, on Alistair's itinerary.

Micah spasmed the second he heard the lock whizz-click and the handle turn. He was in the midst of dismantling the baskets on the bottom shelves of the bookcase and looking like a gremlin while doing it. He wasn't even high anymore, just insane.

It was daylight and past Micah's 8AM, but he didn't care. All he cared about was that he must have missed the timer on his phone that urged him to clean, holy shit, Alistair's gonna be back in an hour and—

Micah could handle yelling, screaming—he grew up with it, in some capacity—but he hadn't even gotten around to masturbating to the polaroids yet. He'd really hoped to do that first before getting chewed out for making a mess.

Instead, Alistair slouched into the apartment shoving his suitcase over the threshold. It was on wheels and performed a neat 180 before coming to a halt. Only then did Alistair rise, unsling his duffle from his shoulder, and see the state of things. The door clicked shut behind him.

"Holy shit," he laughed.

Micah immediately started stacking throw blankets back into the basket. "I'll clean everything up, I swear."

"Leave it, it's fine."

"Respectfully, you haven't even seen your closet yet."

Alistair did so promptly, leaving Micah to shove stacks of books back into place and files back into their cabinets. When Alistair returned, his voice was full of mirth. "Why, exactly, did you create a leaf pile with my underwear? Were you nesting or something?"

Micah sputtered. He'd thought it was obvious, but evidently not. Maintaining eye contact, he reached back, slapped his hand onto the stack of three polaroids, and flicked them in Alistair's face. "Fuck you."

Alistair's shit-eating grin was downright diabolical. "So you had fun?" Alistair said.

"I'm missing the third."

"What?" Alistair ducked down to pick up the scattered remains of his slutty photos. He turned them over to check the numbers and laughed even harder. "Holy shit. You're missing two."

Micah was on his feet. "You're joking."

Alistair glanced back into his room and, likely, the abandoned moisturizer bottle on the floor of his bathroom. "Did you even jerk off to these yet?" he asked, circling back.

"No, you prick. I—" He followed Alistair and therefore, saw the moment he wrenched open his nightstand drawer and produced the third polaroid like it was a limited edition Yu-Gi-Oh card.

He passed Micah, slapped the polaroid into his hand, and said, "I figured you'd check my nightstand first since that's where I keep all my toys, and then my underwear drawer, and then my bookcase."

"Why your bookcase?" Micah asked, but the answer was in the third photo. It was yet another lounge chair photo, only this time, Alistair's other leg was only partially raised and the very same book was folded over his crotch, cover up.

Micah would, definitely, have went to the bookcase had he seen this.

Alistair was at his refrigerator. "I hid a fifth one in case you got curious," he said, opening it. He studied the door shelves before sliding open what should have contained eggs and butter. Instead, there was a flat, open pack of... something.

Micah arrived to investigate. Alistair turned the pack over. It was sex chocolate, and on the other side, Alistair completely naked on a bed.

Micah snatched the photo in an instant. "Shut up. How did I not see this?!" But he knew why. He only ever opened Alistair's fridge to store leftovers from takeout. He wasn't cooking. He had no reason to go looking for eggs and butter and think to check.

Alistair started laughing again, this time delirious. "Holy shit. That made the redeye worth it."

Micah was still staring at Alistair's fully erect cock and where his fingers dipped even lower, first knuckle disappearing inside. He wanted to perish between those thighs.

Alistair swept up his luggage and carried it to the bedroom. "Don't worry about cleaning up. I prefer cleaning on my own anyway."

"Seriously, I can help at least," Micah said, distracted. His dick felt suddenly very aware in his sweats as he readjusted himself.

He was left to his own devices for a moment as Alistair took a shower. With that time, Micah tidied the closet as best he could but realized very quickly that he couldn't fold the underwear up as well as Alistair did, or stack them in rows the same way, either.

After the shower cut off, Alistair shouted loud enough for Micah to hear, "Sorry you had to deal with me the other week!"

Micah was struck by the apology. Deal with. And then, bitterly, he remembered how avidly Alistair had insisted the want to not see Micah wasn't personal. "It's fine. I'm, like, the last person on this planet who would take ending a benefits situation personally."

There was a pause and then Alistair was in the doorway, a robe loosely tied. "That—What makes you think that? I still want to sleep with you. I thought the photos made it clear?"

Micah had said photos in his hand and was presently debating whether or not they belonged in his duffle. "You didn't want to see me the day you left. I wasn't even asking for sex, it was just to talk about Benny," Micah said.

Alistair dragged his hand up the side of his face and to his hair, cursing. "It wasn't about you."

Frustration flared. "I just said I don't give a shit."

"No, I mean, I don't know what it is but sometimes I—" Alistair started, careless. He took a calculated breath and explained. "I'm better now so I can talk about it. But dealing with other peoples' bodily fluids when I'm not expecting it makes it feel like—like the beetles from Indiana Jones are crawling under my skin. Being around people makes me want to claw my skin off. Does that make sense?"

Oh, it seriously wasn't personal, Micah thought, and was sickened by his own relief. Alistair's anger with Benny made slightly more sense. Benny didn't give two shits about germs. In fact, Micah was fairly positive every time Benny's immune system failed was because he'd screwed someone who was ill or getting over a cold. Micah had never known anyone to be less offended by blood, snot, tears, cum, and saliva than Benny was.

"So you're a germaphobe or something."

"No, it's not that really..."

"Why'd you leave the pictures if you knew I was gonna jerk off to them? Which I didn't, thanks for that. Spent all fucking night looking for number three."

Alistair laughed and said, "That's different."

"It isn't."

"No, yes it is. I knew you were here and I knew what you were going to do." At this, Alistair's voice had gone sultry, low, and he was prowling closer. "And that thought turned me on the past two weeks. I knew once I was able to stomach being around you again, I'd want you revved up and ready to fuck me."

"I'm not a Rolls-Royce you can 'rev up'," Micah said, and then with a roll of his eyes, said, "'Stomach being around me', aw, do I upset your wittle itty bitty tummy?"

The attack commenced with a seething, "You little shit—"

Alistair's hands were on his abdomen, tickling the shit out of him and making him squirm. Micah wasn't even a ticklish person, but his nerves were already on fire and prepped for the attack. Screaming, Micah thrashed, abandoned the polaroids, and tackled Alistair around the waist to bodyslam him on the bed.

"Shouldn't you be in class today?" Alistair said.

"Skipped," Micah said. He rose to his feet and prompted Alistair to flip onto his stomach. He hitched the robe up to find Alistair's thighs and ass already shining with lube. He reached into the nightstand anyway, directed by Alistair's breathy, "Left," to a bottle.

He pulled his cock free from his sweats and shed his sweatshirt before popping open the cap. With one thumb hitching the hem lower, he worked his fist around his cock with a low, vexed groan.

You're supposed to be hating him, Micah thought, but every reason he'd come to hate Alistair for felt pointless. He couldn't fault Alistair for the way his brain and body behaved with the Period Sex Incident, nor did he feel viciously wronged whenever he lied awake in Alistair's bed staring at himself in his own mirrors.

It's almost like revenge, but Alistair did it to himself. He wondered how often Alistair had had sex under Micah's mirrors and thought about Micah when he saw them. It was no different than Lennon in that regard.

Honestly, it was kind of hot now.

Alistair unsheathed his shoulders from the robe, exposing sun-kissed shoulders that Micah's teeth latched onto the moment he saw them. He licked and sucked on them as his tip breached Alistair's entrance, and Micah swore he was tighter than he remembered. Or maybe Micah was just out of practice. Hell, he hadn't slept with anyone since housesitting for two weeks.

He rocked in, little-by-little, until he was sheathed fully and rolling against the edge of the bed with one of Alistair's legs hitched up by Micah's hand. The other slid against Micah's shins, his foot finding the floor as their steady, delicious pace was accompanied only by the muffled rustling of the comforter and their breaths. The squelch of every extraction, and the, "Hah," in Alistair's voice when he entered again.

Micah folded over him to wrap his arm around Alistair's bare torso. The robe was left draped and wrinkled around his back, the bow at the front still tied. He laced his fingers through it, seizing him by the waist. He jerked his hips hard, fusing them together.

"Harder," Alistair said, an elbow to the mattress, the other raised off it. He dug his hand into the comforter, balling it into a fist.

Micah obliged.

He hefted Alistair's hips off the mattress, forcing him to stand to meet every thrust. The robe pooled on the floor. Each slap was made slick with lube that sent Micah to the edge with a groan. He held himself there, though, reaching under to grab Alistair's cock and squeeze.

Alistair's head hung between his shoulders, hands braced on the mattress. He gasped, uttering a simple, "I'm—"

"Now?"

"No, I need—Fuck." Alistair hissed in a wet breath, gasping as Micah pounded into him.

"Hold it," Micah said, squeezing tighter. Alistair cursed. "You can control yourself, can't you?" He said all this knowing, intimately, that he was also close to coming.

He jerked fast, paused, and extracted nice and slow for Alistair to feel Micah's tip against his prostate. Their want for another round flew out the window when Alistair uttered the most debilitating, "Yes—" that made Micah crazy.

He slammed back in, Alistair's ass slapping against Micah's hips. He dragged out and rolled his hips to add friction to the graze. And then, both hands to Alistair's waist, he yanked Alistair back into him.

Micah's hand reached down to cup Alistair's tightened balls as he came. He pulsed his hand as he, too, came with a low groan. Cum dripped onto the robe.

"God, I needed that," Alistair sighed, leaning into his elbows. His head fell onto his laced fingers. There, he caught his breath with Micah's cock softening inside him.

Micah licked the back of his neck and nibbled gently. Alistair tipped his head to the side so Micah's lips could latch onto his defined trapezius. His skin was fresh with the smell of vanilla.

Micah's nerves prickled as he unintentionally rolled his hips forward again as if trying to keep himself inside. This was an impossible feat, though. He felt cum and lube slide down his flaccid cock and wondered if Alistair could feel it on his taint.

Micah kneaded Alistair's ass like it was his own personal stress ball. He spread the cheeks apart, his thumbs rolling them back together. He crested Alistair's glutes and dug his fingers into Alistair's obliques. He avoided the dimple piercings, as much as he wanted to play with them, and instead buried his thumbs on either side of Alistair's spine.

"You can go harder," Alistair said, voice gritty and muffled in the sheets.

"You sure?"

"Positive..." He broke off into a groan when Micah massaged up the right side of his spine. He dug his knuckles into the muscle and Alistair moaned. "Harder."

"Masochist," Micah accused, but obliged with his elbow.

Somewhere between digging a knot out of Alistair's left shoulder and the right, Alistair fell asleep while saying, "I need to leave for work... in an hour..." Comatose.

Micah proceeded to massage back down to his slutty waist and think about what to do. The right thing to do would be to clean Alistair up, but Micah had never really been the type of guy to do that. He was fine doing so at his own place where he knew where everything was and, thanks to the Ransacking of Alistair's Place, Micah knew where everything was.

He got up, cleaned himself, dressed, and fetched wipes and a towel. In the process, he stumbled upon Alistair's body oil collection once again. He brought one with him and after cleaning up the mess he made of Alistair's ass, he dragged the leather chair over to sit and stretched one of Alistair's legs out and over the armrests.

"What're you doing," Alistair slurred into the mattress. His question was answered by Micah's fingers rubbing circles over his thighs and moving down to the back of his knee. Alistair accepted this with a tired groan. "I gotta go to work."

"You have forty-five minutes," Micah said, and so he was permitted to continue his massage of Alistair's legs and feet.

He took this time to blatantly memorize the tattoos. Alistair's legs were swathed in foliage and experimental, geometric patterns. His ankles were banded with triangles and even the tops of his feet were inked. As Micah's thumbs framed the underside of Alistair's heels, he took note of the thin, cheeky tattoos underneath no bigger than his pinkie nail. An "L" on his left foot and an "R" on his right.

Fucking stupid, Micah thought, affectionately, and caught himself melting a little like how he did with Benny, Kennedy, and Erika's little quirks.

Benny, when he said, "Bless you," when people coughed rather than sneezed. Kennedy and how instantaneously she shed her bra from under her shirt the second she entered the flat to relax only to slingshot it at the nearest person, saying, "Incoming!" And Erika, who signed off all her angry notes with the cutest bubble sticker heart.

With ten minutes left, Micah said, "Okay, I'm gonna go."

He pushed up to his feet, hands textured and pruny after half an hour of massaging. Alistair rolled onto his back with a delicious groan that would have had Micah hard and yearning if he hadn't come already. Eyes searching and roaming Alistair's chest, he watched as Alistair wriggled his shoulders, tattooed pecs on display. His nipple piercings glinted in the crisp sunlight reflecting off the snow.

And then, with a lazy smile, Alistair sniped Micah through the heart.

"Bye," Micah said, took his duffle, and went to leave. He doubled back to jab a finger at the mirrors. "I'll be back for those."

"You always say that." It was practically a purr for Micah to get back there and fuck his brains out.

When Micah returned to the apartment, he didn't expect people to be there. Benny had lab and Erika would be in class, which meant Kennedy's car had no reason to be parked outside their building collecting frost.

Kennedy was out of her car the second Micah processed that was, indeed, her car.

"What're you doing here?" he said.

"You haven't been answering my calls."

Confused, he checked his phone. He'd given Benny, Erika, and Kennedy their own ringtones so he knew who to answer versus a random number he never saved. The screen was dead when he looked at it. "Ran out of battery. What's wrong?"

Kennedy folded her arms over her chest to keep her coat closed. The wind had picked up and tossed her hair back to reveal troubled brows and a frown.

"I'm gonna warn you about something and it's seriously gonna piss you off."

Micah rolled his eyes, "Yeah, right."

"You're gonna want to kill someone. And I'm not saying I'll help you hide the body, but you seriously cannot blow up about this. Alright?"

Now Kennedy had him concerned. He lowered his duffle from his shoulder, which only drew attention to it. She stared at it, at Micah's backpack, and said, "Where have you been? Erika said you haven't been around."

"Out," he said.

"Holy shit," she said, with a grin. "You've been with Alistair, haven't you?"

Micah glared at her. "I haven't. I was housesitting for him and after the whole Period Sex Incident I didn't want to make Benny feel bad by mentioning it."

Kennedy's smugness dissolved into a pout. She stomped her foot. "Damn. That's a good excuse. So you didn't sleep with him?"

"No," Micah lied, smooth, as if he did it all the time. He didn't think he'd ever lied to Kennedy about his sexual excursions.

I'll have to unpack that later.

"What's this I'm supposed to commit felonies over?"

Kennedy rolled her bottom lip between her teeth. She glanced away and didn't meet his eyes only because she'd squeezed hers shut. "Hunter was at Potgiving. I swear I didn't know he was gonna be there, but now they've been talking again and—"

Micah heard more than felt his breath cloud the air. It started as a buzz at the back of his skull that turned to a ringing in his ears that wouldn't stop. A vein in his neck throbbed against the cold.

He hadn't spoken to Benny since Sunday.

"He skipped the tolerance workshop because of him, didn't he," was all he could say.

Kennedy winced. "I think so."

"And you never said anything?"

"I didn't want to worry you. I thought it'd pass, but he says Hunter's changed and—"

"Why wouldn't you keep them apart at the party?" Micah said. He'd meant to shout it—really shout it, so several blocks over would hear—but instead, it came out choked up and crackly with panic.

He registered then that the skin around Kennedy's eyes had gone pink. She floundered, helpless, and said, "I don't know. He looked so happy and it was weird seeing Hunter at a party. He never goes to parties, so I thought maybe—maybe he has changed?"

"Why are you only telling me now?"

"Micah—"

"Why did you cancel brunch yesterday?" he asked. He was catching on and he wished he hadn't.

She winced. "H-He wanted to bring Hunter so you could be on better terms with him and use me as a buffer. I told him it wasn't a good idea and that you needed to be warned ahead of time but—Micah, he got so offended thinking I thought you hated Hunter still. I cracked and asked Erika to make up an excuse for me cancel."

"I do hate him."

"Don't tell him that..."

"Why shouldn't I?" He knew why and hated to admit it. Benny would pick Hunter over him in a heartbeat. "How could you let this happen?"

"I didn't realize it'd get bad again! I'm sorry, okay?" As Kennedy went on, Micah dropped his duffle and paced away from her. He dug the heels of his palms into his eye sockets. "And I warned you, didn't I? He really wants to bring Hunter out to dinner with us. It could be fun."

Micah would have laughed if he didn't feel like he wanted to throw up. "Could be," he said. "I'd rather eat the barrel of a gun."

"Okay, harsh and uncalled for."

"I'm not going. Whatever you're planning, I'm not going. I don't wanna see that guy's fucking face."

"Micah, please just think about it," she said, but he was already stalking toward the entrance. He swiped his card and entered as Kennedy shouted after him, "I'll buy you some time, so process this! In a healthy manner—!"

It was foretold that Micah would process Benny and Hunter's rekindling in the least healthy manner he could manage.