After his meeting with the contractor, Michael collected the report from the fire department and forwarded a copy to his insurance agent. The full details of what happened were finally explained to him. When he pictured the scene, all those candles dotted around his bedroom... he couldn't help but wonder if it was something Tibur would have liked.

Strolling down the street with Tibur's student card in hand, Michael called for a taxi, deciding to pick up a few things on his way back to the dorms.

At the little foreign supermarket, Millie was understandably pissed off at Tibur.

"Tristan got kittens, and you didn't even bother to take me to visit them?" she asked, "Have I done something to piss you off again?"

Tibur just didn't want her to see Michael, it was nothing personal.

"I had to go home anyway to pick up a book, and it was only next door... it's not like we planned it behind your back. Next time, we'll both go."

Millie had been worrying since the night they'd watched the sunset on the boat. Although they'd made up, she didn't feel like they were as close as before. Without Tibur and Tristan to hang out with, her social calendar was almost obsolete; there were very few friends she'd made in Modesh. Although the customers loved to chat with her, they also tended to keep to themselves. Not once had anyone asked for her number or extended an invitation.

"There had better be a next time!" she warned.

As the day drew to a close and Millie and Tibur shut up shop, she offered to buy him a drink.

"On me" she coaxed, "I could do with the company."

Tibur checked the time on his phone; Michael should be waiting for him outside the accomodation already. 

"Next time" he proffered, leaving Millie to lock up while he ran off down the road.

Michael was standing in front of his building, swatting away mosquitoes as he tried to retain his cool. He looked as though he'd just come from the barber shop; his hair slicked back and his face freshly shaved. If he didn't know better, Tibur would have guessed he was on his way to meet a date. 

"Have you been out here long?" he asked, catching Michael off guard before he'd had the time to notice him.

Michael straightened his posture and flashed a seductive smile.

"I'd wait all night if it meant I got a glimpse of you" he said.

Tibur took a step backwards.

"What are you doing?" he asked, "You're being weird."

"Is it weird to have missed you?" Michael replied, "Because I did."

Tibur took his keycard from Michael's hand, watching him with growing skepticism as they walked together to the building's entrance. A student, clearly late to his part time job, threw open the door as he bolted to catch his bus. Michael stepped between Tibur and the door, grabbing the handle before it could hit him.

"Are you okay?" he asked, his smouldering gaze tinged with an unwarranted level of concern.

"Fine" said Tibur, "I'm fine... just go inside."

 When the elevator arrived, Michael moved aside and let Tibur enter first. As the rush of students returning home crowded them, Michael stood firm, keeping Tibur safely within the reach of his solid arms. The princess treatment was bordering on excessive. Making their way through the hallways, Michael held open every door.

"You don't need to do this, you know?" said Tibur, "I have a perfectly good pair of hands myself."

"Perfectly good..." repeated Michael, "So perfect I can't help but want to hold them in my own."

Resisting the urge to punch him, Tibur took a breath and opened his door. He should have just punched him.

"What the fuck?!" he cried, scanning his room.

In the space where he'd planned to sleep that night, a large standing fan was oscillating, the flames on the red little tealights that littered every surface were flickering wildly.

"You just had a fire in your apartment! What were you thinking?" asked Tibur, hurriedly extinguishing the candles. "Not to mention, there's a smoke detector in here... and a sprinkler system! We're not supposed to have naked flames in our rooms! What if you'd set if off when you were lighting them? Are you trying to get me kicked out?" 

This had to be the pinnacle of Michael's stupidity.

"Nothing happened though" he said, "You don't need to get so worked up over it, I was trying to do something nice!" 

"This isn't nice" Tibur scolded, "It's dangerous! Didn't you realize that?"

Michael had disregarded the whole 'burning his apartment down' aspect of that woman's grand romantic gesture - he just thought it sounded like a good way to set the mood. It was very unlikely to have resulted in a fire the second time around; he felt almost positive on that front.

"I'm sorry" he said, grabbing Tibur by the waist as he tried to apologize.

"Let go!" came Tibur's reply, "You still need to explain what that fan is doing here; how long have you left it on for? If we go above our energy limit for the month we have to pay the extra ourselves! There's a meter out in the hallway, how am I supposed to explain to the guys on my floor?"

In this point at least, Michael had every right to feel smug. He'd fortunately met with an angry looking student in the elevator when he was carrying the fan up to Tibur's room. Alerted to the policy regarding large electrical appliances, Michael had credited the surplus meter with several hundred dollars. When he told Tibur about it, he wasn't met with the praise he was expecting.

"You put how much?" asked Tibur, "Are you trying to cover the electricity bill for the whole building?!"

"You're mad about the cost, you're mad that it's already paid for. Is there anything you're not mad about, Tibur?" Their romantic evening didn't seem salvageable at this rate.

"I don't want to be mad about anything!" said Tibur, frustrated by the number of buttons that Michael had been pushing.

"Then don't be."

"It's that easy?" Tibur asked him sarcastically.

"Yeah..." said Michael, "It is. Allow yourself to think about the pros for a change. Like how you can sleep tonight without overheating, like how you don't need to worry about your bill... like how we get to be this close for another night... Or is it just me that's happy to be near you?"

The pouty student was mad at how reasonable Michael was being; it made it seem like he was overreacting, and he was almost positive that he wasn't.

"Look, you've just got home... why not take a shower and wind down? I promise not to light another candle. I'll sit quietly on the bed and wait for you... sound good?"

Tibur conceded, pulling out a change of clothes from his closet and heading into the bathroom. There was a new bottle of his favorite lotion on the shelf, and two brand new toothbrushes side by side at the sink. He had to admit, he wasn't the worst overnight guest he could have had.

Feeling a lot more relaxed as he stepped out in into the pleasantly cool bedroom, he found Michael waiting on the bed as promised. Dressed only in his boxer shorts.

"It's not hot enough anymore for that to be your excuse" said Tibur, "You should put some clothes on."

Michael reached over to the desk, producing a large bottle of massage oil.

"Let me rub your back" he said, "It'll help you relax."

Tibur was right not to trust the innocent look he gave him. His intentions were anything but honorable.

"Okay" said Michael, sensing his resistance, "Maybe a little later then. But at least come sit with me, I meant it when I said I missed you today."

Tibur sat a safe distance away as he dried his hair.

"I still need to study..." he said, "I can't hang out with you for long."

It was Michael's turn to pout. He'd have to wait even longer before making his move, or else risk angering him further.

"For your engineering degree?" he asked, "I saw the text books on your desk."

"It's not a degree..." Tibur confessed, "It's just a two-year certificate. But I should be able to find work as an Engineer's assistant at the end of it, and that's a stable enough job to support myself."

"Bullshit..." said Michael.

Tibur glowered at him.

"What's 'bullshit'?!" he asked, "That I'm working my ass off to provide myself with a decent future? I'm sorry if it's not the impressive Bachelor's you expected!"

"You working your ass off to be someone's assistant is bullshit" said Michael, "How much is the course you really wanted to do?"

Tibur was suddenly quiet. Michael sighed. He was disappoined to be right.

"I'll give you an hour to study" he said.

Michael played on his phone, lying on the bed in his boxers under the cooling reach of the large electric fan. Tibur's tiny old desk fan just couldn't compete; after one sweltering night in the little dorm room, Michael realized how much Tibur must have been suffering.

His permissable hour of work reaching its conclusion, the hard-working student was met with the sight of the lazy foreigner. Must be nice... he thought to himself.

The new fan was going to make it difficult for him to sleep on the floor, there really wasn't space for them both by the bed.

"Where am I supposed to sleep?" he asked.

"With me on the bed" said Michael as a matter of course, "Surely you only slept on the floor last night because of the heat, right? We don't have that problem tonight."

He'd slept on the floor for his own protection, not necessarily from Michael, but from his own indecent thoughts.

"Tibur..." said Michael, grabbing his hand and pulling him down onto the bed beside him, "How do you know what it is you want if you keep refusing everything? Saying 'no' doesn't always make you happy. Denying yourself every time will only make you regret it later. I know you're tired, I know you're tense... just lie down, and let me rub your back."

"Fine" said Tibur, allowing himself a little indulgence, "but I'm not taking my clothes off. You can roll my T-shirt up if you need to... but that's as far as you can go." 

Laid face down on the bed, he couldn't see Michael's hands as they hovered over his body, itching to push inside his pants and grab hold of his round, bare buttocks.

"If it hurts you have to stop" Tibur told him innocently.

Michael swallowed, pooling the oil into his hands and warming it, before hitching up Tibur's shirt. His back was smooth and tanned, freshly scented from the shower. The oil fell in drops along his spine, and his body twitched. Michael was mesmerized.

Two strong, firm palms glided along Tibur's waist, pushing forcefully up to his shoulder blades, his fingers sinking into their recesses. Tibur groaned, and Michael began to get excited. Repeating the motion, Tibur called out.

"There... uhh... there's a knot..."

Michael kneaded the spot, the pleasant moans ringing out uncontrollably. Unlike the times he'd done this for his 'dates', Michael was becoming invested. He no longer felt it was a chore, instead taking pride in every noise he elicited. Tibur's pants were pulled ever so slightly down, Michael's hands roaming across his lower back, his thumbs running in circles across his skin.

He couldn't resist much longer.

Against his better judgement, he plunged his hands below Tibur's waistband, tracing the contours of his ass and sneaking a finger into his tight and unforgiving hole.

"Ow!" cried Tibur, "What the fuck are you doing?"

Michael withdrew hastily.

"I got carried away..." he said, "I didn't mean to..."

"You didn't mean to stick your finger in my ass..?! Was this your plan? A little oil and you thought it would be okay?"

"I mean... it's easier with women" said Michael, "But it's the same basic principle, right? A little lubrication... it's not like I didn't think about it at all. I know it's bound to be a bit tighter, but it can't have hurt that much."

"Turn around" said Tibur.

Michael froze.

"Turn. Around." Tibur had never been more serious.

"At least I had some oil on my hands!" Michael protested.

Tibur dispensed a little into his own palm and rubbed his hands together. Michael was out of excuses, obediently turning around on the bed.

"Ow!" he cried, as Tibur's finger penetrated him.

"You can't just jam things places and expect it to be okay" said Tibur, "It's different with a man... not to mention when it's for the first time. Your cheap scented oil won't cut it either, you at least need to buy the right stuff..."

Tibur had been testing the limits of his university's firewall with the number of questions he'd been searching on the internet. Some things Tristan had helped him understand, but the rest he was too embarrassed to ask.

"And... if I buy the right stuff?" asked Michael expectantly.

Tibur shoved him, wiping his finger on Michael's chest.

"Buy whatever you want" he told him, a blush forming on his cheeks, "it's got nothing to do with me. You wouldn't know what to do with it anyway..."

"And if I learn?" asked Michael.

"Then nothing..." said Tibur, "I'm going to wash my hands."

When Tibur came back, Michael was busy researching things on his phone. He bought himself another half hour of studying in peace before he was called back to bed.

"Come lie down and watch something with me before you go to sleep" said Michael. 

Lying awkwardly on the edge of the bed, Michael pulled him closer.

"You can't see from there" he said, wrapping his arms around him and putting his phone screen where Tibur could see it.

"What is it you wanted to watch?" he asked, "There's a new sci-fi show that's meant to be good."

Michael pressed play on the video he'd found.

'COLLEGE STUDENT'S FIRST TIME WITH MALE ROOMMATE'

His eyes widened and he tried to wriggle free, but Michael held him tightly. 

"Just watch it with me" he said, "It's educational."