Archive of Our Own

Yet another moan, muffled but unmistakable, sounds from the direction of the S-Rank room.

“I think they’re fucking,” grins the other Pippins, voice a bit singsong. Battat doesn’t know his name and doesn’t want to.

“Well, yeah, obviously,” Battat hisses. “You just figured that out?”

“Could be somethin’ else,” says Jongler. “Maybe the boss is in trouble.”

“I don’t see you rushing to help him!”

Jongler shrugs. “He’ll call on us if he needs us.”

Far away, Tenna yelps. Battat has to consciously stop himself from crushing his fistful of cards. He squints at the four cards on the floor, but it’s a bit difficult to focus on the game with the heat pulsing between his legs.

He’s pretty sure the only ones who actually noticed Tenna’s awfully inconvenient hard-on at the end of the show were the handful of crewmembers who carried him offstage. To that end, as soon as Battat had pushed everyone out of the room, he’d cornered them all in the hallway and told them in no uncertain terms that if any of them snitched about their boss’s unfortunate incident, he would personally swap out all their responsibilities for water cooler cleaning duty. For a whole week.

The threat hadn’t worked. He didn’t think it would. But at least most of the stagehands ended the day thinking the gossip started and ended with Tenna’s bondage kink. Now, Tenna and Spamton are absolutely having sex backstage, and all the Mikes need to do is silence this one Pippins.

“You cannot tell anyone about this,” Battat says to the other Pippins in his most deathly-serious tone.

The Pippins giggles. “Why do you care so much?”

“Because if this shit leaks—” He gestures wildly to the S-Rank door— “Tenna’s gonna blame us. Yes, us, because he’s going to see us here and know we’re the only ones left in the building—”

“Oops!” the Pippins cries, jumping up. “I’ve just remembered! I’m late for my daily midnight massage appointment!”

He tries to flee, but Jongler grabs him and sits him back down.

“No moving,” says Battat. “We are bound by this secret now. Do not make me report you to the boss.”

“And you gotta place you’s next bet,” Jongler says.

“Wow, Battat, you’re such a sucker, haha!” The Pippins taps his fingers against the backs of his cards. “Okay… I’ll keep the secret. But only if you can beat me!”

Battat has never concentrated harder on a poker game in his life.

“That was a close one,” Jongler says, when Tenna has all but sprinted out of the studio and the Pippins, defeated, has skipped out after him.

Battat throws his cards in the air and slumps back against the couch, all splayed out. Thank god that, unlike Tenna, he doesn’t have a dick to tell on what he’s thinking about. His mind is doing a hundred calculations he really wishes it weren’t. Like—was Tenna limping, ever so slightly? Why did he have his jacket folded over his arm in such a weird position? Why did he take his jacket off at all?

Grinning, Pluey jabs his thumb at the door behind him.

“Eh,” Jongler says. “Better let the boss keep ‘is privacy.”

Pluey pouts.

Battat grits his teeth. He’s so goddamn horny he thinks he’s going to lose his mind. These two losers had better not make him waste any more time here.

“Look,” he says. “There might be some sorta… mess. Back there. To clean up. One of us should get a head start on that before Tenna gets on our asses about it tomorrow.”

Jongler nods. “Ya wanna rock-paper-scissors it?”

“No, I’ll—” He makes a big show of getting to his feet. Like this is the most onerous task in the world. “I’ll take one for the team. You two go to bed.”

Pluey tilts his head and gives him a knowing look.

“What’s that supposed to mean!!!” Battat yells at Pluey’s retreating back. “Oh my god. You’re disgusting. Let’s just split.”

He leaves Jongler to pick up the cards.

The S-Rank room isn’t in as bad a shape as Battat might have feared. There’s the shears. A bunch of cut-up ropes. The shears can go back in the supplies closet; the ropes can all go in the trash.

The whole situation, logically speaking, is all technically his fault. He’d done what Spamton said because Spamton was the boss for the night, and he had suggested, with a wink and a nudge, that one of the stagehands go “borrow” some techniques from the Weather duo. But Battat could have preserved his boss’s honor. He could have gone back to the original plan at any point. And just. You know. Tied up Tenna in a normal way.

He’s hoping no one’s gotten wind of the fact that he volunteered to be the rigger in the first place. Just like S-Rank cleanup duty, he’d made it out like he was accepting the job in order to save the others the embarrassment. And that had worked fine, even if he would have killed to use his best excuses. I know how Tenna would want to be touched, he’d say, puffing out his chest. Get your head out of the gutter; I mean it in a caretaker sorta way, not in a sex way!

He wonders if Tenna would have paid more attention to him if he’d done it while in the Mike costume. Tenna would definitely have enjoyed the process more if it was facilitated by someone he knew he trusted. Maybe next time…

Like hell there’s gonna be a next time.

Battat puts away the stool in the middle of the hall, then sweeps the whole floor for good measure. One of the curtains of the changing rooms is ajar. He might be procrastinating on checking in there.

When he does, it’s actually not so bad. He doesn’t know what he expected. There’s just a few scuff marks, and…

Oh. That’s definitely cum.

Not that he’s ever tested this, or even knows how he would test it, but Battat’s pretty sure Tenna can’t literally ejaculate. He’s a machine. He’s got some humanoid parts—certainly got a dick, as everyone in the crew has learned tonight—but not enough to let him do more, uh, advanced organic maneuvers. So this must be Spamton’s cum. Eww.

He gets some detergent and a lot of paper towels.

Unfortunately, this new evidence raises more questions. Had Tenna been carrying his jacket weird because it also got cum on it? That’s pretty rude of Spamton. That freak doesn’t know how particular Tenna is about keeping his clothes spotless. If it, hypothetically, were Battat… well, Battat also can’t ejaculate, for entirely different reasons than Tenna, but he wouldn’t be, like, getting his juices everywhere. He’d be very conscientious about the whole thing. Put down towels and stuff, like you’re supposed to.

He’d actually gone on a diatribe about this to the rest of the Mike Squad a while ago, after Spamton first started making bedroom eyes at Tenna. He’d outlined exactly how to fuck Tenna without risking damage to any of his core mechanical elements. And then Pluey had more or less suggested that Battat was only interested in this topic because he wanted to fuck Tenna, and Battat had had to tell him that no, actually, this was just a good thing to keep in mind in case they had to deal with something down the line. “It’s like sex ed for CRTs,” is how he’d put it.

So, suck it, Pluey. Maybe all that thinking is finally coming in handy.

Battat has discovered that there’s no point in inventing elaborate scenarios to imagine while he jerks off because they’re all too statistically unlikely to be worth mulling over. Instead, he just pulls up a Darkner porn website and does some research to see if he can figure out what Tenna’s dick might look like. While masturbating. He’s gotta get rid of the lust that’s followed him throughout the whole evening, and he might as well multitask.

If part of that involves testing how many fingers he can take as a way to approximate what he assumes is the girth of Tenna’s dick… that’s all just more research!!

The three of them had this whole discussion forever ago about their personal limits as Mikes. Like: is there anything they wouldn’t do, if Tenna asked them? The idea was that they could then assign these hypothetical tasks to the person who objected to them the least.

For example. Murder? Pluey had no qualms about that. Jongler had some qualms, but they figured that Tenna’s judgement about these things was usually sound. Battat had told the two of them that they were fucking insane, and that if Tenna asked him to kill someone, he could probably figure out a way to placate him rather than encourage his bloodlust.

Would you fuck Tenna if he was really horny and needed some relief was also a frequent topic of discussion. Pluey said sure. Jongler also said sure but sounded less enthusiastic about it. Battat said that if Tenna started soliciting sexual favors from his employees, they could report him for breaching laws of professional conduct. Jongler said that if Battat really cared about labor laws, he could’ve gotten Tenna on at least a half dozen by now. Well, they reckon he could. They don’t know much about labor laws.

Anyway, as Battat has repeatedly assured his fellow Mikes, he wouldn’t actually have a problem fucking Tenna if the need arose. He’s asked them to do weirder things. Battat has slept in Tenna’s bed—burning up in his costume, holding his breath so he didn’t disturb him—after he’d had a nightmare. He’s been in the room while Tenna was changing. He’s gotten stuck in the elevator with him. He’s pulled gunk out of his joints. A couple times now, he’s opened up the back of Tenna’s head to blow out the dust. What makes sex so much more of a big deal than any of that other shit, huh?

“Would ya like it, though, huh?” Jongler had hummed.

“Do you like cleaning out his casing?”

“Bit soothing, ain’t it?”

“It’s stressful!!!” Battat yelled.

“Ya think sex with the boss would be stressful?”

“Yes! Obviously!!”

And that had been that.

And now Battat can add one more thing to the list of things he has done with Tenna that are not sex, and it’s tying him up in shibari. It wasn’t as Mike, of course, but it was still him. His mind won’t stop wandering back to the sensations of it: shoving Tenna’s trembling arms into position, holding fast to keep the rope taut. Putting his hands on either side of Tenna’s thigh. Being the reason why he couldn’t stand up.

He’s not really sure why he hadn’t cut Tenna loose the second they got him offstage. The funny thing is that he’d have done it if he had been Mike. But he’d just been some Pippins, holding the means to Tenna’s freedom, and he hadn’t saved him. Maybe because he didn’t want his hands to go anywhere near the guy’s bulge. Maybe he had just been transfixed by the simple act of looking down at Tenna, rather than looking up.

Tenna calls them at about 5AM.

“Mike!” he singsongs. “Please be sure to get to the studio extra-early today! As early as possible, in fact—”

Is that a hint of an embarrassed squeak in Tenna’s voice? Battat sits up very fast in bed. “This about the cleanup in the S-Rank room?” he asks, slipping on the Motormouth Mike drawl as easily as anything. “Already dealt with! Don’t sweat it, boss.”

“Ah,” says Tenna. Fortunately for them, Tenna never questions how Mike finds out about these things. “Th-thank you, Mike. Don’t know what I would do without you. You’ll, uh, keep this on the down-low, right?”

“Course,” says Battat. His grip on the phone is sweaty. “Won’t mention it again.”

“Ah, you’re an angel, Mike. Go get some more rest.”

Battat is not going to be resting after that.

When they get into work, they all meet up in the Mike Room to debrief. First thing Battat does is to write a list of their priorities on the whiteboard.

“Number one,” he says, tapping the board. “Quell any and all rumors of sexual relations between Tenna and Spamton. This is straightforward. It’s what Tenna would be asking us to do if he was not too embarrassed to acknowledge the possibility of those rumors himself.”

“We dunno that exactly,” says Jongler.

“We literally do. It’s an extension of keep it on the down-low. Any further questions? No?”

“Yeah, I gots one. What if the boss gets into another tango. How far does we gotta go to keep that one under the radar?”

“Ideally, we keep an eye on both Tenna and Spamton. Make sure no one’s eavesdropping if they do have another, uh, tryst. Which brings me to number two.” He slaps the board again. “Spamton can be a nasty piece of work if he wants to be. If we get wind that he’s mistreating Tenna in any way, we do something about it.”

Pluey, who’s been curled up on the couch next to Jongler, giggles.

“Yeah? What’s so funny?”

Pluey wiggles his eyebrows—gives the impression of doing so, at least—and makes a sound that suggests spying on Tenna and Spamton to this extent is both hilarious and exciting.

“Yeah, bud. I can count on you to listen, right?”

“What kinda interventions we talkin,” Jongler asks, crossing their arms. “Gonna rush in and bust em up?”

“I know this sorta thing is hard for you guys, but you’re gonna need to make your own individual judgement depending on the situation. But whatever you do. Don’t. Make it out. Like you were spying. Got it?”

As predicted, when the workday starts, no one backstage can keep their mouth shut about last night. Sure, it’s not all about Tenna and Spamton’s wildly homoerotic performance. There’s plenty of congratulations all round about the money they’d raised. And Battat gets some concerned questions about the show’s future from a few people who’d overheard him arguing on the phone with the oversight committee. But the overwhelming sentiment seems to be: why was that whole thing weirdly hot? And: can we get Tenna to do that again?

Okay, so they’re not slinging rumors around about Tenna and Spamton sleeping together. The two of them had, after all, had the plausible deniability of the stage. But the degree of open thirst expressed by his coworkers still makes Battat twitchy. They have no right to be disrespecting their boss with such shallow lust! Is this going to affect their performance as stagehands? Are there gonna be hordes of employees zoning out to the mental image of their boss squirming on the floor? Is one of those Shadowguys gonna be just a little careless with the cabling backstage, so that when Tenna comes strolling in to check on their progress, he’ll trip and get all tangled up in it?

“I’m not sure if it was a good idea for them to use our book like that,” he hears Elnina whispering, cuddled up on the Green Room couch with Lanino.

“We should have been a bit more careful,” Lanino says. Then: “But it was funny…”

“Yes, it was quite funny…”

Bet you wouldn’t be saying that if it was you who had to defend the boss’s reputation, Battat thinks.

“I’ll pay you 50 points if you make more photocopies of that drawing,” one Pippins is saying to another in the other corner of the room. “Ooh, or, even better, do a few new drawings with different poses… I want one where he’s got his hands above his head.”

“That’ll be another 100 points at least,” says the other Pippins.

“Alright. Deal.”

Fortunately, they’re all smart enough to shut up when Tenna walks into the room.

Later that afternoon, Tenna calls Mike to his office.

Battat’s the one to go, of course. It’s an unspoken rule that he handles all the social tasks. He steels himself while he gets into costume: Tenna can ask him how the crew are reacting to yesterday’s incident, and Battat will be able to instantly quote—in whatever phrasing is least likely to offend Tenna’s dignity—not only the extent of the chitchat but also the material actions he’s taken to suppress it. He can mention the caricatures he’s taken down. (Doesn’t need to add that he’d pocketed the papers rather than thrown them away.) He can mention, as if it was his own doing, the moment this morning when Jongler had told off a couple of stagehands for fooling around with the rigging.

But when he shuts the office door behind him, Tenna stands up, takes a deep breath, and says, with an overcompensatingly breezy air, “Mike! I just wanted to know if the censors had gotten in touch with you at all.”

That’s it? Battat waves his hand. “Oh, don’t worry about a thing, boss. We’ve got that all cleared up.”

“Well!” Tenna near-shouts, clapping him on the back. “What a star you are, Mike! And that’s everything? They don’t… want to speak with me, or… or Spamton, or…?”

“They just tweaked the broadcast a little, issued a warning, and that’s that.”

“What kind of warning?”

“An informal one. Keep a tighter rein over your scripts, make sure your actors know the rules, that sort of thing.”

“And they are certainly correct on that,” Tenna says, with perhaps too much vigor. “As much of a success as last night was, I’m sure we’ll all be glad when I’m back in the head honcho’s seat.”

Battat has a whole tally of crewmembers who won’t be so happy about that, but he decides not to mention it. He nods. “Was that everything?”

“Well, the censors are happy, and the, uh, the crew sure seem in a good mood, don’t they?” He laughs, but the slight pink tint of his screen tells Battat all he needs to know about how much Tenna has overheard. “After all, all that really matters is bringing joy to my fans! So there isn’t anything to worry about. Not at all. Unless another… slip-up were to occur. Which it won’t.”

Would you be interested in a detailed slip-up contingency plan? Battat almost wants to say. But he restrains himself. He’s gotten off easy, not having to talk about the, uh, specifics of what Tenna means by a slip-up.

They will simply have to cross that bridge when they come to it. If they come to it.

“Twenty points says we’s gonna have to clean up for the boss again by the end of the week,” says Jongler after Battat debriefs them on the meeting. Pluey twitters in agreement.

“If you think Tenna’s going to start fucking around willy-nilly,” Battat says, “you’d get more brainpower if you plugged yourself into a teapot. He’s not some stupid horny intern! He is a professional figure!!”

It takes three days for Tenna to prove him wrong.

Ten minutes before the end of lunch break, the Mikes get a call from a frantic Tenna.

“Mike! I need your help ASAP!” His voice is like a stage whisper. Not a good sign.

“On my way, boss,” Battat replies, already booking it to the Mike Room for his costume. “What’s up?”

“I’m in the leftmost costume closet under the stage. The big one. I’m, ahaha…” He takes a long pause. “Stuck.”

“Stuck?”

“It’ll make more sense if you come and see.”

Beneath the stage, dust and spiderwebs coat the surfaces of the storage area. One of the lightbulbs has burnt out. The door of the closet in question stands ajar, as promised. Battat treads cautiously—Tenna’s cagey attitude about the whole thing is making him suspect that there’s something more going on here than a stage prep mishap.

“Mr. Tenna? You in there?”

“Mike!” Tenna cries, muffled. “Yes—you didn’t bring anyone else, did you?”

“No, should—”

“Oh, thank heavens. C’mon, get in here, quick.”

As soon as Battat opens the door, a big hand grabs him, yanks him into the closet, and slams the door shut.

The only light in here comes from Tenna’s screen, looming huge and frightened over Battat. He’s flushed, coatless, hunched over. There’s some sort of smear on his screen.

“Mike,” he hisses, squeezing Battat tighter. “Tell me if I can go out like this.”

He’s holding him like he’s a fucking squeaky toy or something—fingers pinning his arms to his sides, thumbs pressed into his stomach. Oh god, Battat can see why having his arms bound had driven Tenna crazy.

“Uhh,” Battat says. What a time for his brain to go sluggish. “On stage? You’d need your jacket…”

“Yes! I’d need my jacket! Very perceptive!” His voice drops to barely above a whisper. “Spamton said he’d wiped it all off, but I don’t know if I trust him…”

There’s no way that’s what’s smeared across Tenna’s screen.

“Uh,” Battat says again, beating his reeling mind into submission. He can think about the implications later. Right now, he reminds himself, he has only a few minutes to help Tenna get presentable. “Hold on.”

He frees his arm from Tenna’s grasp and beckons him to bring his head in closer. Does not think about it too hard when Tenna gets on his knees and bows his neck. Especially does not think about it when he instinctively spits in his hand and wipes it over Tenna’s cheek.

“Haha, whoa there,” Tenna murmurs, but he’s not stopping him. His screen is hot to the touch and fuzzy as ever. “You didn’t bring any Windex?”

“This is just so you can get to the bathroom without turning heads. You’ll need to freshen up properly before you go on camera.”

Tenna nods, which just ends up pushing his face into Battat’s hand. He laughs nervously. “Is it really that noticeable?”

“It isn’t too bad.” That’s true. “Boss, if you don’t mind me saying so, you’ve really gotta eat Spa—CHEW, I mean chew Spamton out for this one. It’s like he wants you to get in trouble!”

“Ah, you know Spamton! He’s always so keen to test the limits…”

“Keen to embarrass you in front of all your employees, more like,” Battat huffs. He doesn’t have a microfiber cloth on him, but his suit sleeve seems to do the trick alright. He’s dumping this costume in the laundry the second he gets back to the Mike Room. “There. I think that’s as good as it’s gonna get.”

“He doesn’t mean any harm in it,” Tenna protests, but he sounds unsure of himself. “But you’re right. I’ll speak with him.”

“Thanks, boss. Just looking out for you, you know.”

“Oh, Mike,” Tenna sings. He cups his hand briefly around Battat’s—around Mike’s—spherical head before rising to his feet. “As you always are!”

He pushes open the closet door and marches off.

Three minutes to showtime. Battat can’t just stand here and replay the feeling of hot, wet glass against his gloves. He’s gotta move.

It’s fine. It’s fine.

“We need to break them up,” Battat says, pacing in front of the whiteboard. He’s called an emergency meeting in the Mike Room after hours; both his fellow Mikes look like they’d rather be dozing off at home. “Spamton’s presence is just too humiliating for Tenna. I don’t care that Tenna needs an email guy. Or an ads guy. We can figure out how to do email and ads and everything. He doesn’t need that piece of junk salesman!!”

“He likes ‘im, though,” Jongler points out. “Maybe it’s true love.”

“True love is not leaving your jizz on your boyfriend’s screen!”

“Gotta give thems the time to figure these things out,” they say serenely. “Sometimes the jizz just happens.”

“I know that!! It’s not about it happening; it’s about whether or not you clean it up!!”

Pluey, who has his head on Jongler’s lap, nods without opening his eyes.

“Look. Think about it this way. This just proves that Tenna needs us more than he needs him.” He writes Spamton Pros and Mike Pros next to each other on the board. “Spamton: provides intimacy. Okay. Mike? Provides intimacy and aftercare. It’s literally simple math.”

“Is this just the thing where you’s trying to convince us to sleep with the boss again.”

“I never said that!!”

Pluey makes a yes you did noise.

“I did not! I made plans pertaining to the hypothetical event that—okay, you know what? It doesn’t matter.” He scrubs out the writing with the side of his fist. “I concede. We need more data. I guess it can’t hurt to wait and see how the relationship shakes out.”

Wait and see is a lot easier said than done.

To Spamton and Tenna’s credit, they get a whole lot more discreet after the incident in the closet. Somehow, though, that makes it so much worse. It would be one thing if they were so careful that it was impossible to tell whether or not they were still fucking, but there’s just these tiny, telltale signs that keep cropping up everywhere Battat looks: Tenna’s tie, looser than it should be. A few buttons in the wrong holes. A bottle of definitely-not-Tenna’s cologne on the sink in his office. It drives Battat absolutely nuts.

The circulating rumors have reached a tolerable level. People kind of suspect something might be going on between Tenna and Spamton, but no one can point to any evidence that couldn’t also be a symptom of Tenna’s carelessness. Thing is, Tenna should not be appearing careless. It’s not a big deal backstage, but how long until it slips into the show? How long until he slips up in a way that makes the rumors break past the studio walls?

And then, there’s the ever-nagging feeling: that if it was Battat, this wouldn’t be a problem. He’s the king of clandestine. He’d keep Tenna’s image squeaky-clean, and no one would be the wiser. It’s not like he wants to be in that position—no, that would be a nightmare, and hell on his nerves for sure—but wouldn’t it just be better for everyone if he was??

For example: if he was going to have sex in Tenna’s office, he would lock the fucking door!

It’s a stupid, stupid mistake. He’s running around doing tasks as Battat—because yes, Battat does technically have a job, even if he’s not doing the Battat job most of the time—and some other Pippins has insisted that he needs to get Tenna’s approval on the warmth of the new stage lights. So he puts all the lightbulbs into a huge box and runs around for five minutes searching for the mysteriously-vanished Tenna, only to barge directly into his office, lightbulbs and all, to the sight of Tenna splayed over the couch, clutching Spamton to his chest, cock fully out and fully hard.

“Sorry!!” Battat shrieks, slamming the door shut and narrowly avoiding shattering the whole box of bulbs. The image is seared across his mind like a burnt-in screen: Tenna’s loopy, blissed-out face. His clawlike fingers dug into Spamton’s shirt. His purplish smooth silicone dick, sized proportionally to the rest of his body.

Oh god, Battat knows what Tenna’s dick looks like now.

There’s no one else in the hallway. If it weren’t for this stupid box, he could reach down, press his hand in between his legs, just for some tiny attempt at relief. He could… stay put, here, even. He was sent here to get Tenna’s opinion, after all; why should he leave before he has a chance to ask? And to that end, he could just… shimmy a little closer to the door… try to make out any sounds… just in case he can ascertain when Tenna will be finished…

Loud footsteps sound in the opposite direction. Well. One singular loud footstep. Battat leaps away from the door.

Jongler, clad in their own Mike suit and signature cowboy hat, hops down the hallway, their head set in a stern tilt.

“You disturbin the boss, Green Pippins?”

Battat puts his finger to his lips and rushes over to meet them. “It was an accident,” he hisses. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not like I’m gonna start rumors, you know.”

“I dunno,” Jongler says, at their regular volume. “Yous was lookin pretty keen on snooping.”

“I’m not having this conversation with you.”

They grab his arm in their gloved hand. Gently. “I think I’m gonna have to apprehend yous. For… snooping. As usual.”

“When have I been snooping!! Anyway—it’s about data! And they’ve actually been doing a pretty damn good job at—hey, Jongler—!”

Jongler’s spun around and is tugging him with them in earnest now. Sighing loudly, Battat sets down the box of bulbs and lets himself be led away.

“Hey,” Jongler says when they’re back in the Mike Room. “Me and Pluey been thinking. You needs to get laid.”

“No I don’t,” Battat says automatically, ignoring the persisting heat between his legs. Then: “What exactly led you to that conclusion.”

Jongler shrugs. “You just gots to stop pining over the boss. He’s got a man. It’s not good for ya.”

“First of all.” He prods Jongler in the stomach. They don’t react. “It isn’t pining if we literally have something with Tenna that’s WAY closer than that rat could ever get.”

“Hey. Be nice.”

“Second. What is getting laid gonna do for me, materially.”

“Get ya less stressed out?”

“I’m stressed out—” Battat curls his fingers into fists in front of him. “Because we have to do right by Tenna in this—this—this time of great transition in his life—”

“Don’t think the boss is alls that stressed ‘bout that.”

“He literally called you in to come tell me off—”

“Didn’t seem too stressed on the phone either.”

“You know him!” Battat explodes. “He’s always stressed! So, more work! Always more work!”

“Ya needs a break,” Jongler cuts in. “Getting laid is a good sorta break.”

Pluey finger-guns at him from the couch.

“Okay!” He sticks his hands in the air. “Fine. You’re—not wrong. But have you got anyone in mind that’d be willing to fuck me?”

“If you’ve got no ones else, me n Pluey could,” Jongler offers.

Battat heaves a loud sigh. Yeah. Fuck it. Whatever. “If you guys want me to that badly, then yeah, you’re probably my best option. ‘My buddies told me I need to get laid’ is not the sorta thing you tell someone if you want to get laid, you hear?”

Jongler nods. “Pluey, you wanna watch or join in?”

Pluey considers this for a moment, then makes a rude gesture signaling his alignment.

“Alright, alright,” says Battat. “Let’s put it on the calendar.”

The logistics are easy to sort out. There’s already a big bed in the Mike Room; in times of high activity in the studio, any number of them have camped out there overnight, just in case they get summoned on short notice. So all that’s needed is some stolen lube and a free evening schedule, when there’s absolutely no chance of Tenna stopping by.

Once he’s accepted the reality of the situation, there’s little psychological strain either. When it comes down to it, having sex with his fellow Mikes is no different than a dozen other weird things the three of them have done together. Passing out on the bed and waking up all entangled. That one evening in the acid sauna during Tenna’s business trip to Cyber City. Showering together after the fact. No real new awkwardness or expectation comes with the decision that they should have a mood-lifting threesome.

“I’m not sure if this is helping,” Battat huffs. He’s laid back on the bed, legs open, hands folded on his chest as Pluey enthusiastically eats him out.

“You can tell ‘im if he needs to switch it up a bit,” says Jongler. They’re sitting against the headboard next to Battat, content to chill for now. “He’s a good listener.”

Battat regards the mass of dark hair between his legs. “Guess you could try going slower,” he suggests. “And a little higher up—yeah. That’s good.”

“Don’t gotta worry about nothin if it feels good,” Jongler encourages.

“No. Look. It doesn’t solve the core problem, see.”

“What’s that?”

“The boss is still having more fun with Spamton than we are with each other!” Battat throws up his hands. Then: “Yeah, Pluey, that’s good. Do that again.”

“Thought this wasn’t about thems,” says Jongler, suspicious.

“Look. If it’s supposed to get my mind off them, we should be attaining a net positive pleasure that balances out the net negative displeasure that I get from watching them have such a good time having sex.”

“Don’t think it works like that,” Jongler says, as Pluey hums a skeptical note into Battat’s clit.

“It absolutely does. You just aren’t putting it in as sophisticated terms.”

Pluey hits a good spot, and Battat exhales. There really is something to be said for letting someone else do the work.

“Okay. That’s enough warm up. I wanna ride someone. Who’s interested?”

Pluey pokes up his head and points at Jongler.

“Alrighty,” says Jongler. They’re a bit pink now. “Scoot over, you.”

It’s not that Battat’s thinking about how he would get himself on Tenna’s dick if presented with it. It’s just—well, Spamton’s so much smaller than Tenna that, logistically, it makes much more sense for him to be on top. So, if Battat wants to match his fun, then he should emulate his positioning. He helps Jongler strip away their underwear—it’s white with little hearts, definitely a concept borrowed from Pluey—and straddles them.

Pluey trills out an encouraging note. He’s gone to lean back against the headboard on the other side of the bed and is lazily jerking off. Doing stupid shit while Pluey’s watching is hardly anything new—Battat nearly winces as he thinks of that time he’d challenged Jongler to a late-night (drunk) wrestling match—but trying to line up Jongler’s dick with his hole is definitely one of the more embarrassing things he’s had the guy witness. He’s just not doing a very good job of getting it in there. He thought he’d be smoother than this! And Jongler’s dick isn’t even very big—nothing like the challenge that, say, something like Tenna’s would be…

“Uh, need help?” Jongler hovers their hand over Battat’s thigh. “More lube?”

“Fine!” Battat snaps. He finally gets the right spot and lowers himself down way too quickly. “Fuck!”

Jongler grabs his hips. Battat groans and lets them guide him into a better position. Still not the most comfortable thing in the world. Maybe they should’ve done more foreplay…

“Ya gots to loosen up,” Jongler says, matter-of-factly. “Relax!”

Battat squeezes his eyes shut. Relaxes as much as his body will let him. “Jeez. I’m trying.”

He braces his palms against their chest and starts riding them in earnest. He’s gotta admit, it’s a bit more tedious than it is hot. Especially when he cracks his eyes back open and remembers that he’s sitting on top of his buddy Jongler. Yeah, it’s fun to see their blush spread farther and farther up their head, but—

He thinks about the quiet shock on Tenna’s face as they’d lifted him out of the cage. His sweet, nervous, wobbly smile. The everything’s fine! chirp of his voice, despite his blush, despite the tent in his pants.

And Jongler’s breathing pretty heavily now, but they don’t yelp and moan and whimper like Tenna does.

What Battat wouldn’t give to make Tenna whimper.

“You’s really not relaxing,” Jongler says, a little accusatory.

“Yeah, I’m trying to keep my balance on your stupid—”

“Wanna lie down? We can do the work for ya.”

“Fine,” Battat relents, sliding off of them.

They spin him around—flat on his back on the side of the bed, legs straight up in the air. It’s a really stupid-looking pose. But it allows Jongler to stand up beside the bed and hold his ankles aloft and fuck back into him—and alright, now that he doesn’t have to keep himself upright, that’s actually starting to feel much better.

There’s a minute of silence, filled only by the soft, lewd noises of Jongler’s slow thrusts. Despite how nice the sensation is, it’s really hard not to let the self-consciousness get the better of him. Especially when his partner’s just staring down at him. If this is supposed to get him out of his head, you’d think they could stand to get a bit more passionate with it! Pick up the pace, at the very least!

“C’mon,” Battat says after a moment, rapping his knuckles against Jongler’s hands. “Give Pluey a turn.”

“Uh…” Jongler’s hips stutter. They look towards Pluey. “Do I gotta? You feel pretty good, boss.”

Pluey jumps off the bed, taps Battat’s legs, and grins.

“Alright,” sighs Jongler. They pass Battat to Pluey and flop down right beside him.

Pluey pats out an excited rhythm on Battat’s knees, then wastes no time sticking his dick in. Fuck, he’s bigger than Jongler. Faster than them, too. He bottoms out quickly, and Battat can think of only one thing—the night after Tenna’s big bondage show, when he’d fucked his fingers and told himself, well, if Tenna ever wants me like that, I’ve gotta make sure I can take him, right?

Would Tenna bend him over like this? Hard to imagine him taking that much initiative. He’d fret over Battat—over Mike—for sure. Wouldn’t touch him without a thousand assurances. No, he’d probably not set Battat down on top of his desk, or hug his knees like Pluey’s doing now, or spread his thighs and slide his big silicone dick through his folds—

He slams both his hands over his mouth to stop himself from making too embarrassing a noise.

Pluey whistles. Jongler says, “Yeah. Cool. What’s got ya going?”

“I just like Pluey more than you,” Battat snaps.

“Oh okays,” Jongler hums, unperturbed. They reach over their non-jacking-off hand to finger Battat’s clit. The sudden shock of pleasure makes Battat squirm.

God, it’s so embarrassing to be falling apart like this over nothing. He’s gotta practice playing it cool. If it were Tenna, he’d have to play it cool. Keep up the all-important air of competance—

The vision worms itself into his mind’s eye without permission. Tenna, curled over him, big hands clutched round his waist, so big that his thumbs almost meet at his stomach. Battat would grab his tie and reel him in and purr: of course you can do anything you like, boss! I’m all yours! Always there for you, right!

I’m so sorry to impose upon you like this! Tenna would whisper, cracking a nervous smile. But you always know how to make me feel good, Mike, and—I’ve just been—so pent up—

And it’s all bullshit, of course. Even if Tenna did need to get all his horny out, he’s off doing that with Spamton. No need to bother his favorite employee about it. And it’s no use pretending that Pluey’s thrusts are anything similar to the daydream. Pluey and Jongler are fucking him because they’re all friends, and it’s a fun thing to do. Tenna… Tenna would be desperate.

Always there for me, Tenna would sing, his screen pressed up against the top of Battat’s head, his dick buried deep inside him. Ashamed of himself, deferring to Battat’s every suggestion and gesture, but not stopping. Th-thank you…

“Fuck,” Battat gasps as the pressure builds all at once. Jongler and Pluey double down on their efforts, and—

Well, if anyone asks, that’s what sends him over the edge. Just the pure stimulation. Nothing else.

Battat throws his hands over his face. His cheeks burn. His thighs are shaking uncontrollably; thank the heavens Pluey’s still got them in his sturdy grip. “Oh my god…”

“Nice,” says Jongler.

Pluey warbles out a complicated question, and lets go of Battat’s legs with one hand to make some gesture he can’t see.

“He wants to know if you’d rather he, eh, finish inside, or use your thighs,” Jongler translates. There’s a frown in their voice as they continue: “Uh, can yous… get pregnant…?”

“No!!!” Battat yells, sticking out one arm to punch them in the shoulder. “Stop watching Lightner porn!” Then, composing himself: “Pluey, pal, do whatever you want. I don’t care.”

Pluey hums happily and goes right back to fucking him. It’s not an incredibly pleasant sensation anymore, but better to focus on that than to remember where his mind had been wandering. This is not proving to be a very stress-relieving experience after all. He hopes at least his two companions are getting what they want out of it.

Fortunately, Pluey finishes before it gets too overstimulating. He pulls out, swoops in to plop a kiss on Battat’s cheek, then focuses the rest of his attention on Jongler and their still-hard dick. The frenzy of squirming and giggling beside him brings a smile to Battat’s face.

Okay, he has it pretty good right now. He can admit that much. Only an absolute fucking lovesick idiot would have some great sex with his homies and then turn around and pine after his stupid, 100% unobtainable boss.

Fortunately, Battat is not an idiot.

Jongler and Pluey are all cuddled up now, arms around each other, faces squished together.

“Ah… yous guys are the best,” Jongler sighs. “Boss, ya feeling any better?”

He’s not sure he is, but like hell he’s gonna ruin their good time. He forces a laugh—it comes out a little maniacal. “Well, I think we can safely say we’ve surpassed those other two in the pleasure department, huh? Two guys fucking you is twice as many as one guy! It’s simple math!”

“Do we really gotta surpass them…?”

“Yes! That’s the whole point!!”

“Thought the point was havin’ a fun time with ya friends,” Jongler says. “Mr. Tenna ain’t gotta be part of everything—”

“But he is!” Battat sits up, ignoring the ache in his hips. “Whole reason we’re here right now is because of him! You can’t write him out of it! He’s always here, and we’re always here for him!”

“He’s not here right now…”

“It’s—a metaphor! He’s here metaphorically!”

Pluey whistles something to Jongler, too low for Battat to comprehend. Jongler nods, and they both get up in unison.

“Guys?”

Jongler grabs Battat under the armpits and hoists him into the air. Battat yelps, kicking at them, but they don’t relent.

“Think ya needs a shower,” they declare.

Pluey pokes at the trail of cum on Battat’s thigh and nods enthusiastically.

“That one’s your fault!!” Battat roars at him. But he hooks his legs around Jongler’s waist and lets himself be carried out of the room.

If they end up crammed in the shower for much too long because operation clean up Battat immediately devolves into operation finger Battat until he comes again, that’s a time loss that all the Mikes are cool with.

Maybe this is the way to go, Battat is starting to think. Spamton and Tenna will finally be embarrassed enough to be discreet about their… whatever sort of relationship they have. Battat can go back to the things that matter, like his job and his friends and filling out his theory board, and if he catches himself having unsavory thoughts he can just get Pluey and Jongler to fuck them out of his head. It’s a perfect system. Full of checks and balances. He can cancel the order he placed on a realistic robot-inspired dildo, and put the Tenna Sex Rumor Contingency Plan into a folder at the back of his drawer, and…

And then Tenna has to go and ruin everything again.

It’s 11PM, just as most of the crew is packing up, when Tenna calls the Mikes.

“Oh, Mike! Ha, I nearly forgot!” He’s trying so hard to sound casual, but it’s immediately apparent this is his I’ve been thinking about this the entire day voice. “Could you find that green Pippins and ask him to meet me in the rehearsal room? Whenever he’s able! No rush at all!”

Battat’s heart leaps into his throat.

“Ah, boss, you know, we already took care of that guy’s—”

“Took care…? No, I—”

“Gave him a good threatening and the like.” He can’t seem to stop talking. “He won’t be spreading rumors around, no sirree!”

“No, no. I want him for, ah. Another reason.”

Another reason?!?

“Sure thing,” Battat hears himself say through gritted teeth. What? is all he’s thinking. What? What the hell? “Rehearsal room, you said? Got something to rehearse?”

“Yes!” Tenna cries, with the air of someone latching onto a proffered excuse. “Just a few little thoughts. Well, tell him I’ll be here!”

And he hangs up.

Battat has never felt more naked in his life as he marches down the hall to the rehearsal room. His hands are sticky in his gloves. Trying to recall moments he’s been alone with Tenna with his real face on display, he keeps drawing a blank. What is he supposed to do without the armor of being Mike? Where is he supposed to look, when this form of his has eyes that can betray him?

The rehearsal room is big. Too big. Plainly decorated and thickly carpeted, with a dozen wheeled tables and props boxes lining the perimeter. Despite the colorful, star-studded wallpaper, it’s never seemed to Battat like a place where things actually happen. Just the warm-up. Just getting the motions down before the main event.

Tenna’s standing on the other side of the room, close to the area of raised floor that sometimes doubles as a stage. He’s got his arms clenched behind his back; ever so slightly, he rocks back and forth on his heels.

“Ah!” he cries, too loudly, when Battat enters. He throws his arms in the air, then crosses the room in a couple intimidatingly large strides and crouches down to seize Battat’s hand. “Thank you so much for coming! Hope you didn’t have too much to look forward to at home.”

The way he says that last sentence—all nudge-nudge, I know I can make you work as late as I want—can’t help but make Battat bristle. “Okay,” he says flatly. God, he wants his ever-smiling mask back. “We’re… rehearsing something, right?”

“Well.” Tenna laughs sheepishly. “Ah, I just said that to get Mike off my back, but—yes! We are.”

He moves around Battat, reaches out, and locks the door.

Battat might be fucked.

“Isn’t, uh, isn’t Mike your right-hand guy?” He finds himself stepping backwards, away from Tenna, away from the smile looming over him. “I would’ve thought you’d want to keep him in the loop.”

“Yes! But I’ve got a new idea that I’d like. Ah. Off the record.”

Before Battat can even begin to process that, Tenna is skipping away, off to the other corner of the room. He opens a prop box and rifles through it until he finds—

Oh. A length of white rope.

Tenna seems to shrink a little as he passes it over. It feels heavy in Battat’s hands.

“It’s—it’s a completely normal request! Totally within the bounds of, uh, the sorts of things the rehearsal room is for in the first place! That last special was so well-received; who knows when we’re going to need another like it… maybe once the censors have calmed down, haha…”

Battat says nothing. They both know very well that there’s never gonna be another special show like the last one.

“And Mike, you see, I love the man dearly, but he’s so nervous about me embarrassing myself in front of my employees. But you!” He bends down again to clap Battat on the shoulder, a force that sends a rattle through his whole body. “You’ve, uh, seen it all already! Nothing to hide!”

Battat thinks that the heat and pressure from Tenna’s huge hand is probably going to turn him into a metamorphic rock before he can find the words to respond.

“You want me. To. Tie you up again,” he tries.

Tenna nods. “You did such a good job last time!”

“Why don’t you ask Spamton?” It comes out weirdly bitter. Fuck, is his control over his own tone really this unreliable when he doesn’t have the costume to ground him?

Fortunately, Tenna doesn’t seem to notice. He chuckles. “Haha, Spamton? Have you seen him? No fine motor control in his little body! He might as well, ha, throw me into that whole mess of computer cables…”

It is a uniquely mortifying experience to witness, in real time, Tenna’s thoughts clearly drifting off towards the fantasy of Spamton doing that to him on purpose.

“But there’s something about having it done properly. It’s more effective. It isn’t like anything else. Last time, I sure didn’t get to rehearse with the real deal, did I? And I knew I could trust you to do it properly!” he sings, clasping his hands under his chin. “Ah… remind me your name again?”

“Um. Battat.” Nickname, but, whatever. A thousand possible further responses tumble through his head—anything from what is wrong with you, asking this of someone you technically don’t know, to does Spamton know about this, to does this count as cheating on him—but he can’t voice any of them because what if he fucks it up and Tenna backs out of this ludicrous request. He’ll never have an opportunity like this again. Not as Battat or Mike.

“And if you do it improperly, Battat, I’ll have Mike give you something more than another stern talking-to, alright?”

The threat, though harmless, still makes his mouth dry.

“Of course.”

Tenna plops down on the carpet next to him, straightening out his legs and folding his hands in his lap. Even when he’s sitting up like that he’s still taller than Battat. “If you would do the honors, then…”

What the fuck is he supposed to do? He doesn’t have the shibari book. He only remembers how to do the leg bind, and that’s only because he had to do it twice. But maybe he can extend the same general principles to a different position…

“Okay,” he says. He swallows. He’s not even in the suit and he’s already burning up. “If you could, uh, lie down for me. And stick your arms up…”

And Tenna just does it. Happy as anything. Artificial sweat droplets bead on the top of his screen, but he doesn’t hesitate, just… submits himself to Battat.

If he were Mike, he’d have a response ready to go, no problem: Boss, you sure this is a good idea? Locking yourself in a room and letting some random Pippins trample all over you? But, again, he’s trapped. Can’t let Tenna change his mind. Not yet, anyway.

He steels himself, folds the rope to make a bight, and goes to kneel behind Tenna. Tenna’s arms are straight and relaxed. Knuckles against the carpet. Fingers curled inward. Battat touches his palm, and Tenna shivers. Fuck. Fuck.

“You gonna call in Spamton after this?” He tries to make it sound conversational. Like this is just one of their routines—draw Tenna’s hand further towards him, slip his own fingers under Tenna’s sleeve, push the fabric back to expose the end of his glove.

“Oh—er—why would I do that, haha?”

“Pardon me for assuming, boss, but I would’ve thought you’d be doing this, uh, for him, if not with him.”

“Assumption not pardoned! Hey, what’s got you thinking you know how my private relationships work?”

He’s got a teasing voice on, but the words still hit Battat like a bucket of ice water.

“Sorry, I—” What can he even say to that? What would Mike say? “Just wondering what the plan is. Like, if you’re gonna want to be in the ropes for a while, or…”

“You sound like Mike,” Tenna laughs. Yeah, no shit. “This is all just for practice, you know! We are in the rehearsal room. I’ll—I’ll see how I feel as the scene develops! Isn’t it fun to just be spontaneous sometimes?!”

Battat doubles his internal percentage count for how likely is Tenna to crash out by the end of this.

He’s just been fiddling with the ropes as they talk, not actually tying anything. He’d better get on with that. Ropes bound to Tenna’s bare skin—er, bare plastic? —feel more precarious, more likely to slip, but that doesn’t stop him from peeking at the strip of grayish-purple sheen beneath Tenna’s sleeve. The rest of his body’s that color too, Battat remembers. He kind of hates that he knows that.

He loops the bight around Tenna’s wrist twice. No, three times, just to be safe. He messes up tying it off and has to restart, but it’s fine. Tenna can’t see him from this angle. Can’t judge just by touch. Remembering how he’d done his legs before, he moves Tenna’s forearms in and ties them together by spiraling the rope up and around both arms. Tenna’s breath hitches when Battat holds his wrist steady with one hand and tugs on the end of the rope with the other, attempting to pull his arms as close together as they can get.

“Ahhh.” Tenna shudders. “That’s right.”

It’s not, actually. The slant of Tenna’s arms is making it deceptively difficult to keep the rope from slipping. Much as Battat does not want to admit it, there’s probably a reason why all the arm binds he’d flipped past in the book had used a completely different technique. He just can’t get Tenna’s forearms to lay parallel: the way that his elbow and shoulder joints work guarantees that, when laid behind his head, Tenna’s arms will only meet at the wrists.

Okay. He can still make this work. First, he just needs to make sure the rope around his wrists is as tight as possible. He crawls forward until he’s sitting directly above Tenna’s hands, then uses his knees to pin Tenna’s wrists together, palm to palm. Like this, if he sits back against his heels, he’ll have the sides of Tenna’s pinkie fingers pressing directly into his crotch…

Maybe this is how it’s supposed to feel when you’re tied up right above a pool of sharks. One wrong move and you’re fucked.

At least he’s got something better to focus on. Another attempt at the same spiral technique fails miserably; he has to stealthily undo all his progress. Maybe if he tries starting the tie from above the elbow instead…?

Fortunately, Tenna’s arms have gone limp. So very pliable. Sadistically, Battat wonders what else he could get away with while Tenna’s at his mercy. Leash the end of the rope to a table leg? Have Tenna begging to be released? Run away, come back in as Mike, hold him as he sobs about that awful Pippins—

Because. Look. The same is as true as ever: there’s no use investing his brainpower into unlikely fantasies. Tenna doesn’t want Battat. He doesn’t even know Battat. He just needs him for his skills.

But if this were to happen again? If the two of them were to build a rapport?

“Ah, Battat?”

Battat starts. The job of winding the rope down Tenna’s arms is going too slowly; it’s hard to know if he’s putting enough tension on it. “Yeah?”

“I was just curious! Is this art, uh… difficult to learn?”

“Not really?” What is he saying; he copied two things from a book once. And also watched some relevant porn. Well, maybe a lot of porn. His brain isn’t really working correctly right now. “You thinking of getting into it?”

“W-well, I’m not sure what you mean by getting into it,” Tenna laughs. “I really don’t think we could make it a regular fixture of the program; I’d hate to expose the kids to anything more risqué than I’ve already—”

“Oh, yeah, not on stage, obviously.” It feels like the words are just pouring out of him—all the Motormouth of Mike with none of the refinement. He starts hitching the rope back up the spiral ladder, forming that same sort of ship’s-rigging pattern as before. “Yeah, it’s, uh, best to do these things behind closed doors. But it’s fun! Never a bad idea to let loose! Relax a bit!”

“Yes,” Tenna sighs. His shoulders seem to lose some of their tension, subtly messing up Battat’s ropework. “Spamton said the same thing! It’s good to have some time off now and then…”

“Guess Spamton’s right on this one,” Battat mutters as he ties off the rope on the last hitch. Well. He is, sure, as long as Tenna doesn’t start wholly pivoting his relaxation time from antenna massages and bedtime stories to bondage and questionably-private makeouts.

“Oh my, Battat! Do you not like our resident mailman?” He’s teasing, but there’s a slight nervous edge to his voice—years of being Mike have taught Battat exactly where this one’s going.

“What? No, of course I like him, boss—”

Unconsciously, he sits back—and sits directly on Tenna’s hands.

Tenna yelps. The heat that’s been simmering in Battat’s core rears up. It’s just a moment of pressure, a singular touch, but it’s still Tenna’s fingers on him, squirming in surprise right between his legs.

“Sorry!” cries Battat. If his scramble to push himself upright involves grinding back against Tenna’s knuckles, that’s between him and the fucking angel. He stands up, shakily, and it’s only in that moment that he really observes his handiwork—oh, there’s Tenna, on the floor, with his arms laced up over his head, chin tilted back, spine twisted in an attempt to see what’s going on behind him. The pose is awkward, the shibari looks terrible, and despite it all it’s still stupidly, stupidly erotic.

Especially when Tenna blushes and says, in his gameshow host voice, “Wow! I didn’t realize I was gonna be pinned with more than just rope!”

Battat hates him.

“Is that all you wanted,” he forces himself to ask. Calmly. Maybe the heavens will smile upon him and he’ll be able to bolt out the door and go jerk off in the bathroom or something.

“No, no, where’s the fun in that? You’ve got a little more time to spare, Battat, I’m sure…”

His grin shouldn’t be allowed to look this wicked when he’s tied up on the floor.

“Yeah,” Battat grunts. He turns and grabs another few lengths of rope from the same box. “What now, boss?”

“You really do sound like Mike,” Tenna giggles. “Do my legs!”

At least he can just reuse the same tie in its proper application and be done with it. Easy. Just, you know… sit between Tenna’s huge, bent legs, avoid eye contact, grip his shin and press it up against his thigh…

“O-oh!” Tenna wriggles a little, drawing his leg outward to accommodate Battat better. “Same as before, then?”

Pride will not let Battat admit that he doesn’t know how to do anything else. He fixates on Tenna’s ankle, because that way he can avoid looking in the direction of his face—turned upward, gazing straight at him, antennae perked. He secures the rope properly on the first try, but all that means is more time spent with his hands on Tenna’s thigh, bringing the rope around as high and as tight as it will go. At least the texture of Tenna’s pants makes it harder for the bind to slip out of tension; he doesn’t need to be pulling so tightly…

Tenna makes a sharp sound that may or may not be the beginnings of a whimper. “Ah, you certainly, uh, tie ropes like you’re rigging a fly system!”

“Yeah,” says Battat automatically. He is not going to think about how he would fix a harness to hoist Tenna in the air. He starts spiraling the rope upwards. “That’s how I got the job, you know.”

“It’s perfect! I really feel like a damsel tied to the railroad tracks!”

He is also not going to make a joke about getting railed. “So, just this on both legs…?”

Tenna nods.

“Alright.” Practice is making the work quicker, thank god; he gives the rope another tug and then starts hitching it downward. “Then… you got a plan yet?”

“Oh, w-well…”

He falls silent. That’s fine. Battat can give him time to fantasize while he does the other side of his leg. It should be difficult, pulling limbs around on a guy as big as Tenna, but Tenna just leans this way and that, perfectly accommodating. He really wants this, huh.

“I, uh,” Tenna pipes up as Battat moves on to the other leg. “Suppose I could get Spamton in here, like you mentioned. Everyone else is out for the day, right? No harm in having a bit more fun, haha…”

“Right you are,” Battat grunts. This time, he doesn’t go to the same lengths to make sure the rope’s as tight as possible—why bother, when it’s all gonna be for the stupid mailman’s benefit.

“Ah, since we’re pals, now, Battat—could I confide in you something terribly embarrassing?”

He’s grinning. Dread pools in Battat’s stomach.

“Sure, boss, anything.”

“You’ve done this sort of thing before, right?”

How Tenna could have taken that from his stressful attempt at tying him up backstage, Battat will never know. But he still nods. Just keep the momentum going, is what he’s learned. Let Tenna talk himself out.

Tenna breathes a sigh of relief. “Then I’m sure you’ve experienced this too! I don’t know why, but it’s just, well, so much easier to get off when you’re tied up…”

What the hell?!

Battat’s got no clue what his face must look like right now—flushed bright green, probably, alongside some wide-eyed expression of disgust—but whatever it is, Tenna recoils.

“Sorry!” he squeaks. “I—I thought you’d understand, but—that was completely inappropriate, I know…”

Battat says nothing. His hands work by themselves, winding the rope up and down. The thing is—if he was Mike, he’d have gone along with it. Ah, yeah, boss, sometimes you just need something special to fire you up. Because this is Mike’s job. This is why they need Mike. To handle all the weird shit that Tenna can’t keep inside his head. How dare he turn that on someone else? How dare he use one of his regular employees for something like this?

But it’s fine. Battat can salvage this. He laughs. “Just wasn’t in my job description, you know.”

Tenna deflates.

“I thought you would have said. If you didn’t want to.”

“No, of course I want to. Come on, we’re almost finished.”

And he does want to. He means what he says, but—

He could have fixed this, he realizes as he loops the final hitches. Could’ve just told Tenna, hey, did you know that Mike’s actually a shibari whiz? And having to pretend to be a shibari whiz would’ve been fine, if only he could talk to Tenna from that other angle—tied him up with hands that have touched him so many countless times—

There’s movement to the other side of him. Tenna’s trying to rub his bicep against something on the side of his head. The maneuver is widening the space between his forearms, throwing the hitches dangerously out of alignment; the bind’s sure to collapse if he doesn’t stay put—

Battat jumps up. “Uh, do you need—”

“Nope, I’ve got it!” And then, with a familiar chirp of a radio— “Hey, Mike?”

Feedback screeches between them. Fuck. Battat slaps his hands over his ears and whirls around to surreptitiously mute the little microphone he’s got affixed to the inside of his poncho. Not the first time he’s been in the room as Battat during a call to Mike, but definitely the closest call he’s had.

“Whoa there!” Tenna laughs. “Weird. Let’s try that again. Mike!”

“Here, boss,” comes Jongler’s voice.

“Could you tell Spamton to meet me in the rehearsal room, please?”

“Sure thing.”

Battat sinks back down. Ties off the final knot with shaking hands. It is agonizing to know that he’ll later be called into this room to clean up what he’d started. And he doesn’t even get to stay for the fun part. Back off, he imagines snarling at the little salesman. That’s my work you’re capitalizing on. I was here first.

He stands up, slowly this time. Looks down at Tenna. Tenna—with his ragdoll limbs, his pink screen, his timid smile, that growing bulge in his pants—

The ropework isn’t clean at all. One leg is fine; the other’s misaligned and too loose. And the lacing that was supposed to span his forearms is now mostly bunched around his wrists. But even though he’s loath to appear amateurish at anything, there’s still something about the mess of it that makes the heat between his legs coil tighter. Maybe it’s that Tenna doesn’t even seem to notice. Either way—regardless of the quality—it’s left him undone.

“You look good, boss,” Battat says. He tries to smirk. Not sure it comes out right. The room is sweltering; he needs some fresh air.

“You really think so?!” Tenna crows. The attempt to project his voice when he’s tied up on the floor is kind of pathetic in a really hot way. “It’s you who deserves the praise, though, Battat. Perhaps we could do this again sometime…”

“Uh. Let’s see.”

He lingers a second too long on the sight of it all. The way Tenna’s joints flex against the ropes. His ongoing quest for a comfortable position to lay his wrists. His propped-up knees tilting inward, like he’s trying to hide the evidence of his desire.

All this, and Battat doesn’t even get to have him.

He opens the door and gets the hell out of there.

When Battat bursts into the Mike Room, both Jongler and Pluey immediately leap up off the couch and crowd around him.

“Boss! What’s Mr. Tenna been—”

Battat pushes past them. “You will not fucking believe—” He storms in towards the bed, tearing off his poncho and tie. “Tenna had me tie him up. Again. Alone. So he could go fuck Spamton. Because he’s got a big fucking ropes fetish, and getting bukkake’d in the closet wasn’t enough for him I guess—”

“Hey, boss, don’t kinkshame,” Jongler says, while Pluey makes an inquisitive noise in the direction of the so-called closet bukkake.

“I do not know how anyone but us can stand him!!” Battat collapses backwards onto the bed, letting his limbs fan out around him. “We could’ve gone to him after the special show. Made some polite-but-pointed remarks about how it’s healthy to explore your kinks or whatever. And then we could’ve done it, instead of some poor employee—”

“It was you though?”

“Yeah, but, you know! It’s the principle of it!”

“Maybes the boss likes you,” Jongler says, leaning over the bed. “Battat-you.”

“No!! You don’t get it! He’s just using Battat!”

Pluey lets out a long, rising-falling trill. Maybe pointing out that being used by Tenna is kinda par for the course as far as the Mike role goes.

Every muscle in Battat’s body feels like a loaded spring. He needs to grab both his fellow Mikes by the necks and yell at them until they understand—until they understand what, he isn’t even sure. Maybe he just needs to be shaken like a seltzer bottle. Or fucked until he passes out. That would work too.

“And he didn’t even want to have sex after! He just wants Spamton!”

Pluey flops down next to Battat and pats his head in sympathy. Even that little bit of contact has Battat squirming. He’s pretty sure he’s never been this pent up in his life.

“Come on, guys,” he all-but-whines. “Help me out here.”

Pluey and Jongler look at each other.

“Uh,” says Jongler. “Not really feelin it today, boss. But you’s free to jerk it while we’s in here; I don’t mind.”

“Yeah? And think about what! Our awful fucking boss? My terrible shibari job? You’d think making a whole conspiracy board would make you good with strings and knots, but oh no—”

“Oh yeahs, with rope like that you’s gotta be—”

“The point is that I don’t want to think about the rope, idiot! Look, if there was ever a good time for another mood-lifting threesome—”

“If ya don’t want Mr. Tenna using you for sex stuff,” Jongler says, more gently than Battat probably deserves, “why’s you trying to turn around and use us for sex stuff too?”

Battat doesn’t have a response for that one.

Jongler lays down on the other side of him and gives him their own awkward pat. “You don’t gotta do that stuff for him,” they continue. “When ya said all those stuffs about sex with the boss being stressful, like in theoretical, I didn’t think you actually meant it… but if you did, you really don’t gotta do it.”

Pluey hums in agreement.

I DO have to do it, Battat wants to scream, but he can’t. Can’t do that to the friends curled up beside him. Not close enough to touch but close enough to comfort. He shuts his eyes.

“Maybe,” he says into the warm, quiet air, voice strained, “maybe I am just an idiot for thinking I could—” He claps his hands together, twists his fingers tight. “Look. Think about it. If Tenna and Battat started to get to know each other. I’d just be tangling myself up with him all over again—just entangling myself with him twice over, you know, rather than letting one identity bear the weight of all that shit. So—” He opens his eyes, staring at his hands, at the sheen of the green fabric in the dim light. “Yeah. Maybe I’m an idiot for thinking I could be someone other than Mike! Or for thinking there was any universe where I wouldn’t let myself be dragged into that stupid television’s dumb kink plot!”

“Aw, it’s okay, boss. Everyone does stupid things when they’s in love.”

“Oh my god!!! I’m not in love with him!!” He almost slaps Jongler’s hand away from where they’re caressing the edges of his head, then decides he likes it enough to not pretend to be annoyed. “We just. We have to be there for him. I have to…”

His voice quavers. God, it’s all so stupid. At least Pluey’s joined in on the petting-fest; he’s now nuzzling the top of his head up into Battat’s jaw.

Maybe it’s fine to just stay like this for a minute, feeling the strokes of Jongler’s gloves across his forehead, the thrum of Pluey’s breath on his neck. It doesn’t solve the problem of the persisting horniness, but he’d be lying if he said that leaning into the touch and letting his body sink into the mattress didn’t help in sapping the tension from his limbs. It’s not Tenna. But it’s… well, it’s his friends. And that’s nice. That’s really nice.

“Hmm,” says Jongler, sitting up. “Okays. I’ve gots an idea. Hey, boss?”

It takes Battat a split second to realize who they’re talking to—and by the time he does, it’s too late to stop them.

“Ah, Mike!” comes Tenna’s voice from the radio. His cadence—soft, contented—makes Battat’s heart twist. “Everything alright?”

“Been talking to that green Pippins,” Jongler continues placidly. They spring away from Battat’s frenzied attempts to swipe their microphone. “Gonna be real, boss, don’t think he’s all too happy ‘bout doing ropes and all. Not part of his contract, ya hear.”

“Oh,” says Tenna. He sounds… disappointed. Battat can’t stand it. “I really thought he was enjoying himself…”

Battat takes advantage of the pause to snatch Jongler’s microphone. “He was!” he cries. “Just a bit much, is all. Look, boss, f-frankly, I don’t think he was all that good at that ropes business in the first place.”

“Hmm, you think so?”

“Trust me, it’s obvious if you know your stuff.”

Tenna audibly perks up. “Ooh, Mike, you know your stuff, do you?”

“Well—sure, I’d, I’d be willing to give it a shot for you, boss, if Spamton’s alright with—”

“You would?!” Tenna sings, voice crackling through the room. “Is there anything you can’t do, Mike? I’m sure we can slot some recreational rope activities into our wellness routines…!”

“Sure thing,” Battat says weakly.

As soon as Tenna hangs up, he slumps to his knees beside the bed. Jongler and Pluey crouch beside him.

“How’s that?” Jongler asks.

It’s too good to be true. It’s how things should have been all along. It’s a puzzle piece slotted cleanly into place, no more or less surprising than the rest of their duties, as easily accepted and compartmentalized as the bedtime stories and the shared naps and the massages and the shock therapy.

And Battat should have stuck to his own rule about not getting off to improbable scenarios, because now there’s a tiny part of him that’s whispering: but we could have had so much more.

What more? Helping his boss cheat on his freak of a boyfriend? Giving Tenna a reason to never give him a second of peace? Further eroding the concept of professional boundaries, already nearly crumbled like a castle into the ocean?

Battat takes Jongler and Pluey’s proffered hands and pulls himself to his feet.

“Fuck. I need a cold shower.”

“Want some company in there?”

He squeezes both their hands. “Yes please.”