Chapter 2: Filthy Confirmation
The bourbon didn’t help him sleep. It never did. It just made the ghosts in his apartment louder. Mike spent three days avoiding the empty spaces in his life. He went to work at the failing computer repair shop. He nodded along as Dustin recounted his latest campaign. He lied to his mother on the phone. He did everything except the one thing Maddox had suggested: something for himself.
The idea felt foreign, selfish. His entire identity had been built on a foundation of for others. For the Party. For El. For Hawkins. For the goddamn world. Who was he without that?
On the fourth night, the silence in his apartment became a physical pressure against his eardrums. It was the sound of a story with no next page. He pulled on his jacket. The early autumn air had a bite to it, a warning of the Midwestern winter to come. His feet carried him on a familiar path, one he hadn’t walked since he was a teenager sneaking out. Towards downtown. Towards the faint, flickering neon of The Rusty Anchor.
He didn’t go inside. The thought of sitting on that stool again, under Maddox’s knowing gaze, felt like too much. Instead, he lingered in the shadows across the street, a spectator to his own indecision. He watched the tavern door swing open, spilling out a wedge of yellow light and the muffled thump of a bassline. A couple stumbled out laughing. Then, later, a lone figure.
Maddox.
He emerged from the employee entrance at the side, a dark shape against the brick. The red of his hair was muted in the gloom. He lit a cigarette, the flare of the match illuminating the sharp plains of his face for a second before he shook it out. He leaned against the wall, head tipped back, exhaling a long, slow stream of smoke into the chilly air. He looked tired. He looked utterly himself.
Something snapped in Mike. A fuse blew. It was the sight of that unguarded moment, the quiet exhaustion, after days of being psychoanalyzed by a fucking coaster. It was the accumulated weight of every unasked-for, perceptive glance. All of it crystallized into a sharp, reckless need.
He crossed the street, his footsteps silent on the asphalt.
Maddox heard him anyway. His head turned, the cigarette a glowing orange point in the dark. He didn’t speak. Just watched Mike approach.
Mike stopped a foot away. The alley smelled of stale beer from the dumpsters and wet brick. The tavern’s sign flickered, painting Maddox in pulses of sickly red light.
“Couldn’t stay away, Wheeler?” Maddox’s voice was a low rasp, textured with smoke and the night.
Mike said nothing. His heart was a hammer against his ribs. He reached out, his movement decisive, and plucked the cigarette from between Maddox’s fingers. He held Maddox’s gaze as he brought it to his own lips, took a drag he didn’t want, the bitter smoke stinging his throat. Then he dropped it and ground it into the damp pavement with the heel of his boot, killing the ember.
A faint, intrigued smile touched Maddox’s mouth. “That was a fresh one.”
“You talk too much, Mayfield.”
Mike moved. It wasn’t a thought; it was a current. He closed the final distance, his hands shoving hard against Maddox’s shoulders, spinning him and slamming his back into the rough brick wall. Maddox grunted, the air punching out of him, but his stormy eyes blazed with something hot and victorious. He didn’t fight it. He welcomed it.
Their faces were inches apart. Mike could smell the whiskey on Maddox’s breath, the clean sweat beneath his t-shirt, the trace of citrus from his soap. The tension was a live wire, snapping and dangerous.
“This what you wanted?” Mike hissed, his voice raw. “To see the armor come off?”
“I wanted to see what was underneath,” Maddox breathed, his gaze dropping to Mike’s mouth. “Show me.”
Mike’s control shattered. He crashed their mouths together. It wasn’t a kiss; it was a collision. Teeth scraped. Maddox’s lips were chapped, and he tasted of smoke and something profoundly male. His hands came up, not to push Mike away, but to fist in the fabric of his jacket, holding him there, pulling him closer. The noise Maddox made in his throat was pure hunger.
Mike’s hands were everywhere—tangling in that fiery hair, scraping down the solid plane of Maddox’s chest, clawing at his belt buckle. He was drowning in the sensation, in the rightness of this wrong, beautiful thing. He needed more. He needed to obliterate every thought, every ghost.
He broke the kiss, both of them gasping. Maddox’s eyes were dark, pupils blown wide. Without breaking that searing eye contact, Mike dropped to his knees on the cold, grimy pavement.
The alley air was chill on the back of his neck. Maddox looked down at him, his chest heaving. “Mike…”
“Shut up.” Mike’s fingers worked the button of Maddox’s jeans, fumbling in his urgency. He gave up and leaned forward, catching the metal of the zipper pull between his teeth. He tugged it down slowly, the sound obscenely loud in the quiet alley. Maddox hissed, his head thumping back against the brick.
Mike yanked the denim and his briefs down just enough. Maddox’s cock sprang free, already fully hard, thick and flushed in the flickering neon light. Mike didn’t hesitate. He didn’t think about it. He leaned in and licked a firm, wet stripe from base to tip, tasting salt and skin and pure, unadulterated Maddox.
“Fuck,” Maddox groaned, his hips jerking forward.
Mike took him into his mouth, his own need a wildfire in his veins. He worked him greedily, one hand wrapping around the base, the other bracing against Maddox’s thigh. He used his tongue, his lips, taking him deep until his throat protested. He wanted to consume him. He wanted to be claimed by this, by the gritty reality of brick and sweat and the weight of another man on his tongue. It was the most present, most alive, most for himself he had felt in years.
Maddox’s fingers twisted violently in his hair, not guiding, just holding on. “Yeah, just like that… fucking hell, Mike…”
His thrusts became less controlled, more urgent. The rhythm was ragged, desperate. Mike let him, wanted it, the loss of control a sacrament. He looked up, meeting Maddox’s gaze. The other man was staring down, his expression shattered open, raw with a pleasure that looked almost like pain.
“I’m gonna come,” Maddox warned, his voice strangled.
Mike just hummed in answer, the vibration pulling a broken sound from Maddox’s chest. He drove himself deep one final time and held there, pulsing, as hot release flooded Mike’s mouth. Mike swallowed, taking it all, the taste bitter and essential.
For a long moment, the only sounds were their ragged breaths and the distant hum of the tavern. Maddox’s grip on his hair softened to a tremble, then fell away.
Mike slowly pulled back, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He stayed on his knees, looking up, feeling the cold of the ground seeping through his jeans. He felt gutted. Cleansed.
Maddox sagged against the wall, his pants still open, his eyes closed. He looked utterly spent. He finally looked down, his expression unreadable. He reached a hand down, not to help Mike up, but to cup his jaw, his thumb stroking over Mike’s cheekbone.
“Get up,” Maddox said softly, his voice wrecked.
Mike stood, his legs unsteady. They were close again, the energy between them shifted, charged with a new and terrifying intimacy.
Maddox tucked himself back in, zipped his jeans with deliberate slowness. He studied Mike’s face. “You good?”
Mike shook his head. No. He wasn’t good. He was unraveled. He was found.
“Me either,” Maddox said, as if reading his mind. He leaned in and pressed a kiss to Mike’s forehead, surprisingly tender. “My shift’s done. My place is two blocks over. It’s quiet.”
It wasn’t a question. It was an offering.
Mike just nodded. The armor was off. It lay in pieces around his feet in a grimy Hawkins alley. All that was left was to see what happened next.