chapter 7 of my byler fic is up on ao3! it’s called Where Is Your Boy Tonight? because i simply couldn't resist.
excerpt:
After composing herself, Jane nudges Will gently, pulling him out of his fixation of ripping a cherry red napkin to shreds. “You okay? Where’s Carlton?”
Mike finds that he despises booths. There’s nowhere to look except for the people in front of you, and right now, that’s the absolute worst place to look. He’s afraid that when Will inevitably raises his eyes from the massacred paper, they’ll not land on Mike, but see right through him. That’s what they did, before. He knew Mike, and Mike knew him, and all of this reminiscing makes him want to get up and walk through those creaky double doors, never to be seen again.
“He’s, uh,” maroon stains begin creeping up from his neckline, “he’s just— he’s not feeling well, really, so he stayed home. Yeah.”
Lying is a lost art, because blush-ridden Will is dying to be painted as an oil-on-canvas masterpiece.
Why are you lying?
“That’s okay, though,” Will shrugs as if he’s relieving his back of a phantom burden, “I think I’ll be staying out longer tonight, anyway.”
Now, Mike would try not to think too hard about that statement or the sharp tone with which it was said, if the boy in front of him wasn’t looking straight at him, through him, into his very soul, slowly enunciating the words, making them sink into his pores. A threat. A promise.
That’s so funny! Will said the same thing!, he sorely remembers the last words of Will’s chirpy boyfriend. So. Okay. Tonight is the night for settling scores. His stomach drops at the thought.
Mike barely manages to break free from Will’s orbit, feeling his cheeks unnecessarily heat up as he concentrates on picking at the ridges of the vintage oak table-top. In the brief moment of looking away, he could have sworn there was a ghost of a smug smirk pulling at the boy’s lips.
God. He’s miserably losing the game already.
