When the college first told Mitch he'd been assigned to a double room instead of the single he requested, saying he was pissed was an understatement. He's a fairly private person, he needs his own space. He was almost positive that having to share a dorm room with some stranger would be a complete disaster.

Turns out, he was wrong. It wasn't so bad. Although maybe that's because he was assigned a halfway decent roommate. Some of the people he'd met told him horror stories about their roommates, and in comparison, his roommate Jake was a pretty chill guy.

Mitch doesn't know a whole lot about him, not even what he's here to study for. He thinks it might be something to do with communications, but he's not really sure. What Mitch does know, is that Jake spends a lot of time elsewhere which suits Mitch just fine, but when he is around, Jake is more than happy to strike up a conversation with him.

Another thing about Jake is that he never seems to invite any of his friends over. Mitch tends to invite a few of his new friends around, and sometimes he feels a bit paranoid that Jake might think he's showing off or something, but Jake is nothing but friendly to anyone who comes over. Secretly, Mitch hopes Jake will bring some friends over one day so he'd feel less guilty about having his over so often. Also just because he's nosey and wants to know more about Jake. He's a bit mysterious, and you can find out a lot about people judging by who they hang out with.

-------

It takes a month, but Jake finally does bring someone back to their room.

Mitch is sitting at his desk actually doing some of his homework when he hears the familiar sound of Jake unlocking the door. But this time, instead of the silence that follows the squeaking of opening the door, he hears another voice. A very loud voice.

"I can't believe you managed to get a room on the first floor." Following Jake into the room is a boy. "Seriously, how'd you do it?"

"I don't know, maybe the admissions office just liked me better." Jake teases.

The new, playful tone to Jake's voice throws Mitch off a bit. He turns around in his chair, curious to see the person who initiated it. He's not sure what he was expecting Jake's friend to look like, but it wasn't at all like the guy who was standing in front of him. Blonde hair peeking out front under a snapback, one of those douchey tank tops that show up his bulging shoulders, and a cheerful expression on his face.

"Sixth Floor. Sixth! I even told them about my messed up knee, but apparently that doesn't matter. I mean, if the elevator breaks, then I'd have to-" The guy stops mid sentence when he notices Mitch watching them. "Hey, I'm Scott." He hold his hand out for Mitch to shake. "You must be Jake's roommate. Mitch, right?"

"Yeah, hi." Mitch reaches out to return the handshake.

"Nice to meet you." He grins.

"You don't mind if Scott hangs out here for a bit, do you?" Jake asks.

"Oh, no, that's fine." Mitch replies, because really, as much as he wants to have peace and quiet the one time he actually decides to do his work, he can't say no to Jake when he always tolerates Mitch's friends being over.

"Thanks Mitchie, you're a lifesaver." Scott pats him on the back rather enthusiastically and Mitch grimaces. Half at the gesture and half at the fact that they've known each other for two minutes and he's already calling him some ridiculous nickname.

"Really, my roommate kicked me out because he wanted to have sex, which is fine, but it's 2 in the afternoon. He could've at least waited until I was at work tonight or something." Scott is still addressing Mitch, while Jake is over grabbing drinks from his mini fridge.

Mitch doesn't have a clue as to how to respond to that, so he just nods and chuckles lightly. He wonder if Scott has a filter or if he just says whatever comes to mind first. He decides it's probably the latter, as he grabs his headphones and turns his music up to block out whatever Scott and Jake are talking about.

-------

Mitch doesn't see Scott again for about two weeks. He's really rather relieved if he's being honest. While he's sure Scott is a nice person, having him around for the whole afternoon while he was trying to do some school work was...tiring. One of the first things Mitch noticed was that Scott couldn't seem to sit still. He had to have spent half the time he was there just pacing back and forth across the room, his shadow passing over Mitch's desk every thirty seconds. The second thing Mitch noticed was that Scott was constantly loud. So so loud. He was always making some sort of noise, whether it was yelling at the video game they were playing, making beatbox noises, or just laughing...because everything was apparently funny to Scott.

It's a Tuesday afternoon when Mitch sees Scott next. He's getting ready for his shift at work, slips into his uniform, grabs his keys and heads to the door. As he opens the door, a certain blonde- haired friend of Jake's comes with it, crashing into Mitch's shins and nearly taking him out. Mitch scrambles to grab on to the door frame and frowns down at Scott on the floor. By the looks of things, Scott must've been sitting down, leaning against the door.

"Shit. Sorry Mitchie." Scott looks up at him, and he grimaces at the nickname again. "I'm just waiting for Jake." He explains as he climbs to his feet.

"How long have you been there?" Mitch asks, because surprisingly he hadn't heard Scott.

Scott unlocks his phone and checks the time. "An hour now. Jake's always late." He shrugs.

"You should've knocked. You could've waited inside." Mitch says to him, because it's true. As irritating as Scott was the other week, Mitch is still a nice person and would've been happy to let Scott in to wait. He knows how uncomfortable it has to be to sit on the floor for an hour, much less on dorm room carpet because who knows what's on that.

"Didn't want to bother you." Scott says. "Last time I was here you kinda just put your headphones on and ignored me, so I figured you don't like me, found me annoying or something."

"No, that's not true at all!." Well, mostly not true. "I just... I had a lot of work to get done and I left it all to do at the last minute like an idiot. So I put in my headphones so I wouldn't get distracted, that's all."

"Oh. Okay. Well, if this ever happens again," Scott beams, "now I know."

"Now you know." Mitch repeats with a genuine smile. "I really do have to go though." Mitch ushers Scott out of the doorway and locks the room behind them. "Hope Jake doesn't take too long." He says as he walks down the hallway.

"See you later Mitchie." Scott calls after him.

-------

A few days later there's a knock on the door. Mitch frowns and wonders if he'd invited a friend over and somehow managed to forget about it. He swings the door open and on the other side stands Scott, with his usual cheerful grin on his face.

"Scott. Hi."

"Hey Mitchie. Jake here?"

Mitch looks around the room, even though he already knows that Jake isn't here. "No, he's not here at the moment, sorry."

"Right, okay. Said he'd be here half an hour ago." Scott looks at Mitch expectantly, like he knows what he wants but he's too scared to ask for it, so Mitch puts him out of his misery and offers for him to come inside.

"I doubt he'll be much longer, you can wait in here if you want?"

"Are you sure?" Scott asks, but it's a bit late because he's already making his way into the room and towards Jake's bed.

Mitch closes the door behind them and sits back down on his own bed, reaching for the book he was reading for his next class before Scott so kindly interrupted. In his peripheral vision he can see Scott glancing around the room, hands fidgeting in his lap as if he's not sure what to do with the silence. Eventually, it becomes too much for Scott.

"So... what do you study?"

"English Literature." Mitch answers stiffly, with a quick glance up from the page he was reading.

"So is that like.. poems and shit?"

"Sure." Mitch responds, because he's not sure that Scott would really care if he gave him a more detailed, more correct answer.

"Could never quite get my head around that stuff at school." Scott says. "Who's your favorite poet?"

Mitch sighs and puts his book down. He senses that Scott wants to carry on this conversation whether there's a book in his hand or not, so he decides he may as well indulge him.

"I'm not sure." Mitch answers honestly.

"My poetry knowledge extends about as far as Dr. Suess. Can't go wrong with a bit of Green Eggs and Ham I suppose." Scott answers the question Mitch never actually asked in the first place. Mitch has to strike a smile at the response because despite not knowing him for long, it seems like such a Scott thing to say.

"So, what about you? What do you study?"

-------

Mitch realizes that once you get Scott talking, it's rather difficult to get him to ever stop. Especially since Scott knows so many people, meaning that he has hundreds of stories to share. Mitch doesn't necessarily mind though. The more Scott talks, the more Mitch appreciates his voice, so he's not too bothered that he hardly ever gets a word it. Scott's laugh is rather infectious too, and Mitch finds himself laughing with him at all these things he normally wouldn't find funny.

Jake makes it back to the room about an hour later, during which time Mitch had learned a lot about Scott. Scott's personality seemed very open, and bubbly, much like Jake, and it made sense to Mitch why they were friends.

-------

"Sometimes I feel like I see you more than I see Jake." Mitch greets Scott as he opens the door one day.

"Not here then?" Scott steps into the room anyway.

"Why don't you just text him or something? Seems like that would save you a lot of hassle." Mitch suggests. It would save him a lot of hassle too. Scott's been visiting more and more lately, and every time Jake's not in, he insists on waiting inside. This means he also insists on striking up a conversation every time, and Mitch isn't very good at saying no, so now he has a lot of work to catch up on.

"Nah, it's fine. I don't mind waiting. Besides, Jake never checks his phone anyways." Scott sits at Jake's desk this time, spinning around in the chair to face Mitch before starting up a conversation about this new record shop he found.

Today, Scott leaves before Jake gets back. It's a bit odd, Mitch thinks, but maybe something came up and he had to change his plans. Mitch shrugs and thinks nothing of it, instead making a mental note to visit the record shop Scott had told him about.

-------

One afternoon after class, Mitch rounds the corner down the hallway to his dorm room, and there sat leaning against the door is Scott. Sensing Mitch's presence, Scott looks up from his phone and waves, jumping up on to his feet.

"Maybe I should get you a key cut." Mitch jokes.

"Sorry." Scott's smile is sheepish, he actually looks apologetic. "Jake borrowed a DVD of mine and I need it back. He thought you'd be in so I figured I could just swing by and get it. Turns out you weren't in, obviously, but I thought I'd wait. No use in making two trips."

"Oh, sure." Mitch unlocks the door and holds it open for Scott to come in.

Scott heads straight for Jake's desk and finds what he needs. Mitch just lets Scott take care of what he needs too. With a bit of luck he'll be straight back out the door and then he can get on with his reading in peace and quiet.

"You didn't happen to watch the Sing Off the other night, did you?"

Or not.

Mitch is torn between telling the truth or lying. He wants to lie and say no so that maybe Scott will leave and he can start his work. But he also wants to say yes because he's been dying to talk to someone about the past episode.

He shoves the book back into his bag and turns to face Scott. "Yeah, actually. I did."

-------

Mitch is sitting on his bed with his laptop, wasting time watching random youtube videos, when Scott barges straight into the room without knocking.

"Knock knock."

"Who's there?" Mitch responds without even thinking, eyes still on his computer screen and not registering what Scott is doing.

"Scott..." The confused tone to Scott's voice has Mitch looking up from his screen. "You know, Jake's friend? Probably the tallest kid you know. We've met before. Several times now." Scott continues slowly.

"Right, yeah. Hi. Scott." Mitch blushes when he realizes Scott wasn't intending to tell a knock knock joke. "Um, why do you have a guitar?" He asks when he finally notices the object in Scott's hand.

The perplexed expression on Scott's face is quickly replaced with a grin when he hears the question. "The other day you said you wanted to get better at playing. I got bored, figured I'd come by and offer my services." He lifts the guitar up and wiggles the hand it's in, as if he's trying to entice Mitch with it. "Unless... unless you're busy of course."

Mitch shuts his laptop and shoves it to the side. "Nope, not busy."

"Great." Scott beams. He passes the guitar to Mitch and then goes to sit on Jake's bed, opposite of him.

Mitch strums a few random chords before launching into a song, with Scott calling out which chords to play. It's a slow process, but Mitch really feels like he's getting the hang of it, improving.

Eventually though, Mitch's fingers betray him and he starts stumbling over some chords, over and over, not getting any right. Wordlessly, Scott stands up and comes over to sit next to Mitch on his bed. Despite all the space, he chooses to press his thigh right up against Mitch's. Mitch can feel the warmth radiating from Scott through his jeans and it gives him even more trouble with the chord, brain unable to concentrate at all now.

Scott brings his hand up and adjusts Mitch's fingers on the guitar. His surprisingly gentle touch causes Mitch's stomach to squirm a little, which is stupid because Mitch doesn't like Scott like that, at all.

"Try now." Scott says softly and then lets go of Mitch's hand.

Mitch gets the chord right this time, but Scott doesn't move back over to Jake's bed. Doesn't even bother to distance himself from Mitch. He just stays where he is, pressed right up against Mitch, and he isn't sure if he enjoys it or hates it. It's definitely clouding his brain though.

When Mitch checks the clock again and realizes they've been at this for over an hour, he reluctantly hands the guitar back over to Scott. "I should probably get ready for work, shift starts in half an hour."

"Okay, yeah." Scott stands and heads towards the door.

"Thanks for the help Scott."

"No problem Mitchie." And there's that nickname again, but Mitch finds that he doesn't mind it so much anymore, at least not from Scott. "You'll be up there with the likes of Hendrix soon enough." He winks and then pulls open the door.

"Ha, yeah okay." Mitch scoffs. "See you later."

-------

"Jake in?"

Scott never knocks anymore, just waltzes on in to Mitch and Jake's dorm room like it's his second home, which it pretty much is, with the amount of time he spends here. With or without Jake.

"Just missed him. He went out like fifteen minutes ago." Mitch tells him.

"Damn, okay." Scott stands in the middle of the room and looks around, like he's not sure what to do next.

"Are you okay?" Mitch asks, mildly concerned because Scott isn't his usual carefree self today.

"Yeah, just..." he comes over and sits next to Mitch on his bed. He doesn that a lot these days and Mitch wonders if it's because Jake's bed isn't as comfortable. "This guy asked me on a date the other day and I said yes. But now I think I'm having second thoughts...I'm just... I'm really nervous and I guess it's just throwing me off. I'm not normally a nervous person."

Mitch feels jealousy building inside him. Which, again, is stupid because he doesn't like Scott like that. At least, he thinks he doesn't. Scott had been provoking all of these different feelings in Mitch each time he visited, and he was having a hard time wrapping his head around them.

"Jake usually has good advice, thought he might be able to help me or something." Scott continues with a shrug.

Mitch knows that this is the point where he should jump in, be a good friend, and give some inspirational speech about how he should go for it because you never know what could happen. But instead he stays quiet. There's something about sending Scott into another man's arms that doesn't sit well with him. It's almost like he doesn't want to share Scott with anyone else, which makes him feel even worse because now he feels like a possessive, creepy friend, and that's not what he wants to be.

"You know what, I should just go for it." Scott's voice takes on this weird tone as he tries to psyche himself up. "I haven't been on a real date in a while, but, what's the worst that could happen?" Scott gets up and heads to the door, Mitch eyes following him the whole time.

"Thanks for the help Mitch." Scott's grin returns again but Mitch only sees it for a second before he leaves the room, slamming the door behind him. Mitch frowns to himself, alone in his room, feeling a strange sense of disappointment, noticing that his usual nickname wasn't used this time.

------

Scott doesn't stop by to his and Jake's dorm at all during the next two weeks. And although Mitch has been more productive in these past two weeks than he has for the rest of the semester, he really misses Scott's company. He shoves the thoughts that Scott's probably out with his new boyfriend to the back of his mind and pretends that there's another reason why he hasn't come around. He almost caved and asked Jake where Scott's been, but he wasn't sure if maybe they had a falling out and his question would make things awkward.

But one afternoon, there's a familiar knocking on the door and Mitch rushes over to open it, almost embarrassingly quickly.

"Scott, hey." He steps back and gives Scott room to come in.

"Jake not back yet?"

"Um, no, not yet." Mitch tells him, even though it's quite obvious that Jake isn't in the room.

"Mind if I...?" Scott gestures to Jake's bed behind them. Mitch inwardly cringes at how awkward things are between them, like the first few times they hung out. Had he done something wrong without paying attention? Mitch is the first to admit he can be oblivious sometimes.

"No, of course not." Mitch smiles, desperate to end the weird tension that's developed between them.

Scott plops down onto Jake's bed and Mitch goes back to his own bed, reaching for the book he was reading before Scott came. Scott stays silent and Mitch hates how unusual it feels, so he puts the book back down, deciding it's his turn to start a conversation.

He should probably stick to lighter topics, but of course his curiosity gets the better of him and he jumps straight to the point. "How'd your date go?" He hopes the smile on his face looks at least somewhat genuine.

"It was alright. We only had one date." Scott shrugs and MItch has to fight a grin from spreading across his face.

"That's a shame. Was he not a nice guy?" Mitch asks once he managed to force his face to look sympathetic.

"No, he was a nice enough guy. We just didn't hit it off." Scott explains.

"Oh."

"Besides, I realized halfway through the date that I like someone else. That kind of thing puts a little bit of a damper on a date."

Scott is smiling now, but Mitch has to once again squash the jealousy that threatens to overcome him. Of course Scott likes someone else.

"Well, whoever it is, I'm sure they'd like you back." Mitch reassures him with a polite smile because it's true. Over the past few months he himself has realized its almost impossible to not fall for his signature charm.

"I hope so. Although, he can be a bit oblivious sometimes." Scott slides forward to the edge of Jake's bed so that he's only perched on it now. "Most of the time, actually."

"Oh." Mitch frowns. How could somebody possibly ignore the signs that someone like Scott likes them? "I guess you'll just have to make it obvious you like him then."

"Right."

Scott stands up and with his long legs, it only takes a few steps to make it to the other side of the room to Mitch's bed, collapsing down next to Mitch where he leans against the wall so that they're sitting impossibly close, with the entire right sight of his body pressed into Mitch's left. He grabs ahold of Mitch's hand, intertwining their fingers and resting their joined hands on his own thigh. Mitch is still frowning, down at their hands at first, but then he brings his gaze up to meet Scott's smiling eyes.

"This is me making it obvious that I like you, by the way." Scott teases Mitch with a quick squeeze of their hands.

"Right." The frown on Mitch's face turns into a smile, slowly spreading across his face until his dimples are showing.

"Does this mean I can kiss you now?" Scott's already staring at Mitch's lips as he asks.

Mitch doesn't answer. Just turns his body slightly so he's facing Scott better and then closes the gap between them. He presses their lips together and it's gentle at first, but then Scott responds and the kiss turns much more heated, much more desperate. It's not a perfect kiss by any means, their teeth bashing together on more than one occasion and Mitch is pretty sure he accidentally bit Scott's lip, but it's still an amazing kiss none the less.

Mitch breaks the kiss and shifts his body so that he's straddling Scott's lap, one leg on either side of him. "This okay?"

"So okay." Scott breathes as he puts his hand on the back of Mitch's neck and brings their mouths together again.

The kiss goes on and on, and as he rubs both hands up and down Scott's chest, Mitch thinks that he could do this forever with Scott. That is, until Scott grinds his hips up with a groan, and Mitch realizes that there's a lot more he'd like to do forever with Scott.

Scott leans forward a little, struggles with the hem of his t-shirt, until Mitch realizes what he's doing and breaks the kiss to help him remove it.

"Wait, do we have time? Jake-"

"Is always late." Scott finishes for Mitch. "We have plenty of time."

Satisfied with that answer, Mitch rakes his eyes over Scott's chest, grinning at the expanse of skin before him. He knows he probably looks a bit crazy, but he doesn't care. All he wants to do is explore. So he does just that.

He leans back in and presses a few kisses under Scott's jaw, enjoying the noises Scott makes as he squirms beneath him. Mitch continues trailing kissing down Scott's chest, stopping to pay particular attention to his nipples. He smirks when Scott bucks his hips, making a mental note to remember where his sensitive spots are. He seeks out Scott's lips once more, giving him a final kiss before reaching down to unbutton Scott's pants.

They're interrupted then by the squeaking of the door and an exclamation of "Oh shit!" from Jake.

Scott reaches for a pillow to hide behind and Mitch glances over his shoulder to see Jake covering his eyes with one hand, the other reaching out in front of him as he blindly tries to find the door without tripping on anything.

"Jesus. Have you two been hooking up with whole time?" He asks, still not looking.

"Well, actually we-"

Scott is cut off by the slamming of the door and Jake's muffled voice from behind it in the hallway, "You know what? No. I don't want to know."

"Well, I think the mood has officially been killed." Mitch says sadly as he climbs off of Scott's lap.

"I'm sure we can manage to bring it back to life again." Scott wiggles his eyebrows suggestively at Mitch.

"I'm still here guys!" Jake yells from outside. "Can I come back in now? Please?"

Mitch rolls his eyes but gets up and opens the door for Jake anyway. Guess he and Scott will have to try again later.