𝘓𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘺 ; Byler

𝐎𝐮𝐫 𝐂𝐮𝐭𝐞 𝐋𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐐𝐮𝐞𝐞𝐫𝐬

Mike POV: Starts when Max comes to talk to make him go talk to Will.

Mike laughed with his friends, taking a long drag of the bowl that Troy had handed him before passing it to Jason on his left, Jane straddling his hips, her head resting on his shoulder, placing slow kisses onto his neck. Mike knew she was drunk, and the weed that she occasionally drew from Troy's hands, but he appreciated the affection regardless.

His mind kept flicking back to the beginning of the day, when him and Will had gotten into a fight and they apologized. He thought about the way that Will's new hairstyle suited him, how hot he looked in those rings and that stupid fucking band t-shirt. The thought didn't even phase him anymore. Over the past few months, Mike had been thinking about Will a lot. He found himself sitting silently while he was anywhere, just contemplating why he couldn't get Will out of his head. At first out of hate, thinking he got some kind of gay plague that was making him feel this way towards another man. But he soon came to realize that these feelings felt more real than the ones he had felt with Jane, and although Jane was his girlfriend, he still struggled at times to say he loved her. He was still confused though, because he was still 100% certain that his late night sessions with the hot magazines-

 (A/n: Mike flipped to the mens section of the magazine /j)

-with models in bikinis that Lucas graciously let him borrow were driven out of pure attraction.

Jane tore him from his thoughts. "I'll be right back, baby, Troy and I have to go greet an old friend of mine from Cali," she whispered in his ear, licking it softly before climbing off of his lap and taking Troy's hand before leading him somewhere within the house.

Mike nodded, watching them disappear before grabbing the bowl from Jason and taking a deep inhale of the smoke before passing his lighter and the bowl to Lucas. When it was Dustin's turn, like always, he shook his head and babbled something about his mom.

"Mike, you've got an audience," Jason snorted from across the couch, gesturing behind him. He turned around and was greeted by a swaying Max standing with a bottle of an unknown liquid sloshing within the bottle, nearly empty. No way that nerd drank all of that.

"Can I help you?" he raised an eyebrow at her.

She leaned down, her alcohol scented breath filling Mike's nose. Was she drinking fucking Vodka? He was kind of impressed, but he couldn't let her know that so he leaned away from her, a disgusted look on his face.

"What the hell?"

"I have something me and my friends wanna show you in the lawn, I think it has something to do with your mom and an old high schooler or something?" She slurred, blinking sluggishly at him.

"Jesus Christ, I'll be right back," he grumbled getting up.

He followed Max to the front until she suddenly stopped in front of him, causing him to bump into her. "Will is throwing up in the bathroom, he said something about you and I thought I'd amuse him. Don't fuck up this time," She said, her voice now crisp, as if she'd never even been drunk in the first place.

Mike rolled his eyes and pushed his way through the crowd, making his way to the bathroom he saw next to the room that he knew Will was in earlier that night. He took a deep breath before knocking on the door softly. After there was no response, he threw open the door, thinking Will had OD'd or something. To his relief he was just sitting on the toilet.

(A/n: I'm not copying and pasting a whole two chapters for you, I'm too lazy and that's gonna be too much reading. If you really can't remember, first of all, lmao fucking dumbass, second of all, go reread the last two chapters. The POV doesn't really change much. This picks up right after Max interrupts them.)

Mike grabbed Will's wrist as he stood up from the toilet seat, pulling Will up to his feet. They shared a look as they made their way past Max, allowing her to slip into the room. She shut the door behind her, leaving the hallway empty, besides Will and Mike. They stood silent, Mike stumbling over his own words trying to find the right thing to say. Before Mike could come up with a million and one reasons to stop himself, he grabbed Will by the wrist and led him into the kitchen, where groups of people sat in dining chairs, stoned out of their minds, a great place to be with Will without people really noticing. This still isn't a good place to do this, He thought.

Mike brought his attention to the back door leading out into the backyard. Mike hesitated for a moment before he reached down and grabbed Will again, this time by the hand, and led him outside into the dimly lit deck that had small festive lights strung around the roof. They stopped near the railing of the wooden deck, which was surprisingly empty. Mike took a deep breath before he laced his fingers with Wills slowly, avoiding Will's gaze. He felt his cheeks flush as he realized what he was doing.

He suddenly felt Will drop his hand and felt a sharp pang of confusion and fear.

"Sorry about that, I knew she was drinking, but not that much," Will chuckled awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck faintly with his free hand as Mike scanned the woods that stood behind them, thinking over every possible reason why Will would've rejected him.

"What?" Mike asked, looking down at his now empty hand before pulling his gaze back to Will with a confused look on his face, flushed. Did I mess up and misinterpret his feelings? Mike thought, palms sweaty.

"Max, I didn't know she'd be that drunk," Will clarified, Mike hearing him laugh awkwardly when he noticed that Will made every effort to not look at Mike.

"Oh, yeah it's cool, totally," Mike said, his eyebrows furrowed as he nodded awkwardly putting his hands in his back pockets, arms flapping slowly like chicken wings. I definitely fucked something up.

They both stood in silence awkwardly, Mike shifting his weight between the tips of his toes into his heels, looking around the back yard. Will crossed his hands in front of him, fiddling his thumbs back and forth waiting for something or rather, someone to interrupt the moment of silence.

Mike thought to himself for a second before feeling a need for clarity between the two. Mike clenched his jaw and spoke out, finally breaking the silence that had fallen between them. "Did I do something wrong?"

It was now Will's turn to turn to him, confused. "What?"

"Earlier, when we came outside and ended up here, when we, you know, when we... did the thing," Mike whispered, his eyes darting nervously, scanning for any spectators, praying to himself that nobody heard him somehow. He bit his lip nervously when he finally made eye contact with Will, who was already looking at him.

"You sound dumb," Will smiled, bumping Mike's leg with his foot.

"Okay well I'm new to this," Mike hissed, his arms extended outwards at his sides for emphasis.

"So am I..." Will whispered, breaking eye contact again.

Mike bit his tongue, realizing how much of an asshole he was probably being.

"Do you wanna hang out tomorrow?" Mike blurted after a long pause had drawn between them.

He had a lot of questions about liking men, and quite frankly he really just wanted to be around Will after missing the opportunity for so long.

"You can come over tonight, you've been using shit and I don't trust you getting home alone without getting hurt," Will said, quietly again, still avoiding Mike with his eyes.

"Yeah, sure," Mike said, with a small nod before turning on his heel and walking inside abruptly.

(A/N: So basically this is the same chapter as the last one, but taking place before the conversation with Will, and after being kicked out of the bathroom by Max, all in Mikes' Point of View.)