Chapter Text
1991
Mike stood at the doorway, hands on his hips, assessing the wreckage. He’d spent the better part of today deep-cleaning the entire apartment so Will could come home to a clean space and it hadn’t made a dent in the paintbrush situation. He’d genuinely never seen this many in one place that wasn’t a shop.
Mike adored their apartment, an old artist’s place with huge stained glass windows depicting ancient rulers, wide-plank wooden floors, beams low enough that Mike caught his head on them at least once a week without fail.
And what they had both discovered recently, after just over a year of living here, a darkroom.
They’d found it by accident. Will had been rearranging his closet with Mike and came to discover the back made a hollow echo when he knocked it. An hour later, once everything had been removed, they had discovered a bolted up door handle, and behind that, said darkroom.
It was fully furnished, painted black with the red safety light already installed.
Since then, Mike saw far less of Will around the apartment, frequently finding him in the dark room developing photographs he never got the chance to view.
Now, Will was currently completing a figure studies module for his art degree, focussing solely on human anatomy, life drawing, the study of the body as a subject. The only part of his work he shared with Mike was the final painting which was strange. Mike had never been sidelined from Will’s passions before. Not his sketchbooks in school, not his college portfolio, not even the embarrassing stuff like from when he was seventeen still trying to figure out how hands should look.
The paintings were erotic to say the least, the curve of a bicep, the shadow of an Adam’s apple, the small of someone’s back caught mid turn. No matter how much he asked, Will would never let on to who the models were.
Mike was infatuated, the paintings having taken up the majority of his brain space for the past two weeks the project had been going on for. He saw the care and detail, from the way the light hit the tips of the hairs on someone’s arm to freckles he was sure only a microscope would pick up. But Will noticed it every time.
The art of being perceived, Mike thought. He wasn’t jealous of the models. Not one bit.
Well. He hadn’t fully let himself acknowledge this jealousy until now. Mike had the full day off today, being given the task of finishing his 80s adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. Instead, he had decided to clean the whole apartment just so he watch the specific look of relief on Will’s face when he returned.
He exhaled, wiping the dew of sweat forming on his hairline on his sleeve, glancing at the clock.
2.35pm
Will finished his photoshoot at 3pm, the walk to their universities’ art department from their apartment only 10 minutes. He grabbed his bag from the coat hanger and left anyway.
Since they’d moved in together for their second year, it had become a routine for Mike to pick Will up from all of his classes whenever he could. After their 3pm classes, they would frequently stop by the niche bookstore-coffee shop, Once Upon a Brew for Will’s peppermint tea and Mike’s americano, same order every single time, to the point where the barista had stopped asking.
Mike stopped before this time, balancing the drinks in a flimsy cardboard cup holder as he walked. The art department was mostly empty at this hour, students desperate to enjoy the few hours of afternoon peace before beginning their evening workload.
The door to the studio Will had been renting this semester was propped a few inches open, light spilling out gold across the hallway tile.
Mike pushed it open.
The first thing he registered was the laughter, easy and familiar. And then he saw him.
A guy from Will’s cohort - tall, broad, the kind of build that made sense standing in front of a camera. He was draped across a chaise near the window as if he were royalty, wrapped in loose lengths of pale white silk that had slipped low enough to make it clear there was nothing beneath them.
Will was crouched a few feet away, camera up, saying something Mike didn’t quite catch that made the guy laugh again, head tipping back, throat exposed to the light. Will moved forwards, adjusting the silk himself, smoothing out where it sat on the guy’s collarbone, casually, tilted the guy’s chin a fraction with the same unthinking ease and lifted the camera once again.
The shutter clicked.
“Perfect, hold that.” Will’s voice had a warmth in it, the voice he used when he was completely absorbed in something. So absorbed, he still hadn’t noticed Mike standing at the door, frozen in place, drinks still in hand.
He should say something. Knock, announce himself, do anything other than stand there.
The guy caught sight of him first, glancing past Will with mild curiosity. “Can we help you?”
Will turned. “That’s my housemate.” He nodded to the guy. “Mike, I finish at 3.”
“It’s ten past.”
“Right.” Will lowered the camera, “Sorry. Give me like a few more minutes to wrap up?”
Mike stepped back into the hallway and stood there, back to the door, listening to the muffled sound of the shutter going a few more times, Will’s voice low and easy, the stranger’s laugh answering back.
He wasn’t jealous, he thought for what felt like the hundredth time that week.
He wasn’t exactly jealous of the guy on the chaise. Objectively speaking, he looked exposed, his entire body on display for anyone who happened to glance through the door, more than Mike would ever willingly reveal. He’d walked around the apartment shirtless, what? Three times?
He was jealous of the attention.
Mike had known Will for over a decade, had been touched by him a thousand careless, ordinary ways - shoulder bumps, finger brushes when they passed each other something, a casual arm around the shoulders when they watched movies together in the evenings. None of it had ever felt like that. Considered, deliberate.
Will was actually looking, cataloguing, deciding where the light should fall, how to make the stranger appear the most visually appealing.
Mike wanted to be studied like that. By Will, of course. He wanted his eyes on him with the same patience, wanted to be told his best angles, wanted Will to paint each individual freckle on his body.
A few minutes turned into ten but eventually, Will emerged, equipment bag slung over one shoulder. The stranger, fully clothed this time, thank God, gave Mike a friendly nod before thanking Will, and heading in the opposite direction.
“Sorry.” Will said, falling into step beside Mike as they made their way back to their apartment. “The exposure was annoying today, kept changing whenever I moved so I wanted some extra shots just in case.”
“It’s fine.”
“You’re being weird.”
“Sorry. I’m drained, cleaned the whole apartment today. You’re welcome.”
“You’re a hero.”
“I’m aware.”
They walked the rest of the way mostly quiet. Mike didn’t bring up the studio. Will didn’t offer anything further regarding it.
Back at the apartment, Will disappeared straight away into the darkroom while Mike began to prepare dinner, after searching every single cupboard for the pasta of course, before remembering it was fresh and in the fridge this time.
Mike loved this about living with Will, the low persistent hum of them sharing a space but doing different things within it.
Tonight it didn’t stay peaceful.
He heard it faintly beneath the whir of the extractor fan, frustration muffled by the darkroom, followed by a door slamming as Will appeared in the kitchen.
He wordlessly grabbed a drink from the fridge, eyes red and puffy, dragging his sleeve across his face.
“You okay?”
“Fine.” Will looked down as he picked angrily at the ring pull. “Photos are all under-exposed. The lighting didn’t come through on the prints, it’s nothing like how it looked through the lense.” He dropped back against the fridge, looking out across the apartment. “Deadline is this weekend. I don’t have anything to paint from.”
“Can you try sketching it anyway, from memory? While it’s fresh?” Mike suggested.
Will gave him a disheartened look as if that were an absurd suggestion “It won’t work.”
“Just try it. Dinner’ll be another fifteen minutes yet.”
Will didn’t answer, just went back to his desk with his drink in hand, dragging his feet across the floor as he walked back. It was almost enough to make Mike giggle slightly, but he held it back.
He returned to the stove, completely eyeballing the amount of pasta he poured into the water. He always put too much either way.
Then he heard it louder this time. The specific, furious kind of crying Will did whenever something refused to cooperate, sharp little frustrated breaths, the scratch of a pencil being pressed too hard into paper before being thrown down at the desk.
Mike had known Will long enough to know this wasn’t sadness. Will cried when he was angry, when something mattered enough to disappoint him. He took his art seriously in a way that frequently overwhelmed him. Watching Will get furious at himself for not being good enough, despite getting a full scholarship solely due to his artistic talents, at nineteen, was the single most endearing thing about him.
Mike set the stove on low-heat as the sauce finished cooking and turned to find Will.
He was hunched over the desk, sketchbook open to the beginning of someone’s torso that had clearly been erased and redrawn many times given the pilling of the paper. Mike came up behind him and wrapped both arms around him without a word, chin resting on the top of Will’s head.
Will went rigid under the touch for a second, then let his head tip back slightly against Mike’s chest.
“It’s so stupid.” He sniffed, wiping more tears from his face.
“It’s not stupid. Anyway, Dinner’s ready.” Mike insisted, ruffling Will’s hair before he could think too hard about doing it. “Truffle pasta. Your favourite.”
That got the smallest huff out of Will.
They ate on the sofa, Will’s feet dropped across Mike’s lap the second he sat down, the same as every night. Mike had put Pretty Woman on without being asked - Will’s go-to whenever he’d had a bad day.
“How was your day?” Will eventually asked, eyes still a little pink but calmer now.
”Mostly fine, I’m having to complete my Romeo and Juliet adaptation this week.” He rolled his eyes theatrically. “Obviously it’s set in the 80s so I have my opinions.”
“Oh god.”
“The balcony scene is insane Will. He just shows up, climbs a wall for a girl he barely knows and starts monologuing at her window like that’s a reasonable, mature thing to do.”
“It’s romantic.” Will laughs.
”It’s deranged is what it is. You know what’s romantic? A boombox. Just imagine Juliet looking down to see Romeo blasting ‘I Just Died In Your Arms’, she’d instantly be swept off her feet. Way less effort, zero climbing-related liability. Also the foreshadowing!”
“He needed to be quiet though.”
”Yeah but I bet you, Lord Capulet would start breakdancing to it. Family feud settled.”
Will was laughing properly now, the tension from the past half an hour finally gone from his shoulders.
They watched the movie for a while after that. Mike cleared the bowls, offering the occasional comment from the kitchen while he washed up.
He came back to the sofa to a distraught looking Will who had completely given up on watching the film, instead holding an empty sketchbook.
“It’s not going to work.” Will said eventually, staring at the screen without really taking anything in. “The painting. I have no reference, no time to reshoot. I’m just going to have to hand something half-finished and not even-”
“Use me.” Mike blurted.
“What? You hate having your picture taken.”
“I won’t if it helps you.”
Will exhaled. “It’s… okay, it’s kind of a whole thing, Greek god, I guess. I need to like drape fabric over you, some shimmer for the skin so it catches the light right.”
“Okay.” Mike couldn’t tell if he genuinely wanted to help or just wanted Will to look at him. Both probably.
“You sure?”
“Will. Yes, just tell me what to do.”
Will got to work with the quiet, focused efficiency Mike noticed in the studio doorway earlier. He set up the tripod adjacent from the large Victorian window by their dining table, mounted the camera, angled the lights, clipping a warm orange filter over each one until the whole corner of the room looked like a sunset itself.
Mike watched from the sofa, the sudden and specific horror of what he’d actually volunteered for sinking in.
He would have to take his clothes off, in front of Will, on purpose, under lights, for an extended period of time, while Will looked at him. As much as he was insecure about his body however, Will had always made him feel otherwise. Whether it was extended glances, or verbal compliments that the gym was paying off, Will always washed away any sense of insecurity.
He wanted Will to look at him. That, really, was the whole problem.
Mike exited the bathroom wearing the smallest pair of white boxers he owned. They were practically see-through, revealing every curve of his body, leaving very little to interpretation.
Will glanced up, did a visible, double-take, before immediately adjusting a light.
“Thanks Mike. Just- lie down there for me and I’ll put the cloth on you.”
Mike lowered himself onto the wooden floor, propping himself up on one forearm, the way Will had positioned him. The evening light came through the window, shades of ambler and rust, warm across his skin.
It should have felt embarrassing, lying on the floor, almost naked, while his best friend fussed with the lengths of white cloth, tucking one section over his hip, smoothing another across his shoulder. It felt far from it. It felt like every nerve in his body had relocated to wherever Will’s fingers were touching.
Once proud with the positioning, Will spoke “You look-” he stopped himself. Mike watched the colour climb fast up his neck. “Good. You look good. Um. The light’s good.”
“Thanks.” Mike managed, fairly proud of how normal it came out despite Will’s eyes tracing over his entire body.
Will disappeared and came back shortly after holding a small glass bottle filled with a shimmering, golden liquid. It caught the light, glowing beautifully as though it was some sort of witch’s potion. Will was a sorcerer after all.
“Body glitter. For mostly your arms but basically everywhere. It’ll photograph really well in this light.” Will offered nervously holding out the bottle.
Mike uncapped it, smoothing a thin layer over each arm, unhurried, watching Will watch him as he did it. Then when he got to his shoulders, he paused.
“I don’t really know how you want it up here,” he said, which was almost entirely a lie.
Will hesitated a second, then crossed over, kneeling before him, taking the bottle back. “It’s not complicated, you just-” he stopped explaining and did it instead.
His fingers were warm as they smoothed a light sheen over one shoulder, then the other.
“Your cheekbones need it too.” Will said, mostly to himself, and reached up to trace a light path across them. “The light’s going to hit them really nicely if-”
Mike stopped listening, aware only of how close Will’s face had gotten to him, how soft his touch was, how badly Mike wanted this to never end and to stay here with Will forever. The excuses he could make to keep this going. What would happened if he just leaned-
He stopped himself. He knew very well now that Will was gay. He also knew, with the same flat certainty, that it was highly unlikely Will would ever be in love with his best friend and housemate.
His thought process stalled as Will’s fingers dropped lower, thumb smoothing gold across his collarbones.
“I think-” Will’s voice had gone slightly unsteady. “I think your stomach needs some too. For the - the shadows, when you’re lying like this, it’ll-”
Will didn’t finish, just reached down and dragged a slow line of shimmer across Mike’s stomach, over the soft definition there. Mike’s breath caught audibly before he could stop it.
Will’s hand went still immediately “Sorry.”
Mike realised how long it had been since he’d last spoken. He was too transfixed on Will’s hands, on Will to even respond to him.
“You’re fine.” It came out slightly strained. Why could he never just act casual?
Will didn’t look up. His ears had gone fully red, all the way down to his neck. He sighed, admiring Mike once again, before retreating to his tripod.
“Okay. Just look towards the window please.”
The shutter went off a dozen times, Will trying different angles, murmuring half to himself. “That’s, yeah, that’s so much better than earlier. You’re so much-” A pause. “The glitter looks really nice.”
Mike bit down on a smile. He loved when Will got awkward. “What angle do you want?”
“Just stay like that.”
”No, I mean what angle do I look best from? You’d know.”
Will’s hesitation lasted slightly too long. “Slightly below,” he said finally, not meeting his eyes, adjusting the tripod to prove his point. “The shadows hit your- It enhances things, your face, your-” He gestured vaguely at Mike’s torso.
Mike let himself feel smug about that for exactly as long as it took Will to start shooting again. Then, the focus was back on looking good for Will.
They developed the photos together afterwards, the two of them in the dark room, red light turning everything slightly more intense. Mike wasn’t built for this kind of careful, patient work. He caught his foot on a cable stretched across the floor immediately and had to grab the shelf to keep from taking the enlarger down with him, which got a short laugh out of Will.
Will let him help anyway, guiding his hands through each tray, developer first, timing it on the little clock nailed above the sink, then the stop bath, then the fixer, Will’s voice low and instructive in the dark in away that made Mike want to mess something up on purpose just to keep hearing it.
They clipped them to a string to dry and Mike watched Will look at them. He looked pleased. Pleased at Mike.
Will didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. Mike could see it on his face - he was satisfied. Then he turned to Mike, and before Mike had really registered it happening, Will had crossed the small space between them and wrapped both arms around him.
Mike stood there a second, gold glitter probably transferring straight onto Will’s shirt, and then he hugged him back properly.
“Thank you,” Will said, quiet into his shoulder. “They turned out really good.”
“Really?”
“Yeah suited it. The whole Greek god thing. I think it’s the curly hair honestly.”
“Oh thanks.” Mike felt his face go warm. Thank God they were in red lighting where if Will looked, hopefully, he wouldn’t be able to tell.
Will huffed a laugh, stepping back properly, looking Mike up and down once more. “Go shower, you’re going to get glitter everywhere.”
Mike showered the rest of the glitter away and pulled on an old t-shirt. Will’s bedroom lights were still on when he passed. Mike caught sight of him sitting by his easel, the print propped up beside him for reference.
“Still working? It’s like eleven, Will.” Mike asked. He often caught Will up late, too late to be working. Many times over the past few months, he’s actually turned the light off and stood by it so Will had no other choice but to go to bed.
”I’ll stop in a minute. Just want to start while it’s still fresh.”
“It’s a photo it’s not going anywhere.” Mike laughed.
“No but the memory is better now.” A pause. Mike watched Will look towards the photo. “Knowing what you felt like under my hands helps more than the picture does.”
Mike’s stomach dropped somewhere lower than it should have but he didn’t back away from it this time. “Good thing you have me around whenever you need to check then.”
Fuck why on earth did he say that. That just implied, very clearly implied, that Will would need to touch him again.
That got Will’s head up properly. “Yeah?”
Oh.
“Yeah, if you need me again. I can model again.”
“You’d really just- whenever I need?”
“Whenever. Honestly? I liked watching you work today, the way you get all focused.” He huffed a laugh. “Didn’t know that would be the kind of thing I’d be into, but here we are.”
Will’s brush stopped moving entirely. “Into?”
Shit. “Bad word choice.”
Will didn’t say anything else. His shoulders sank, just slightly, something dimming in his expression that looked, for a second, almost like disappointment. Had Mike gone too far? He really hadn’t meant to say that. He’d thought it of course. Many times.
“I should probably go to bed.” Will eventually said, filling the silence.
“Night Will.”
“Night Mike.”
Mike made himself walk to his room before he could stand there any longer analysing Will’s face to try to decode what that look had meant. He lay in the dark for a while, listening out for the eventual sounds of brushes being set down, water running, and then the light switch flicking off.
Only then did he let himself close his eyes.