iwilldieinthepool
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Mike is waiting for Will in the basement, a look of suspicious, nervous excitement on his face. He cleared the table and laid out upon it are two card games.
"Now, I know you’ll resist," Mike blurts out, stepping toward him. "But I think this will be good. For both of us! For when we... you know,” Mike trails off, “When we get partners.”
Will scoffs, stepping closer to inspect the titles.
Spill or Sip and Truth, Dare, or Strip.
Or: Mike suggests a spicy card game to help Will loosen up before college. It works a little too well, and suddenly they’re gambling with unresolved feelings, and clothes, that were meant to stay in place.
- Language:
- English
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- 107,307
- Chapters:
- 16/?
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- 3,929
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Bookmarked by iwilldieinthepool
30 Mar 2026
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Will looks down at the sheet, fingers worrying the edge. “I thought we were being careful. Taking our time.”
Mike swallows. “I thought I was too.” He lets out a small, sad breath. “I was wrong.”
Will looks back up. “So what are you saying?”
Mike’s chest tightens. This is it. The place where he either steps back—or finally names the truth.
“I’m saying I need something to change,” he says. “Or I’m going to break.”
The words hang there, bare and undeniable.
Will’s eyes flicker. “I don’t know if I can give you what you’re asking for. Not yet.”
Mike nods. He’d known this answer was possible. Knowing doesn’t make it hurt less. It reminds him of the same words he said in that coffee shop three years ago.OR: A post-canon, slow-burn Byler story about growing up unevenly, loving at the wrong time, and finding your way back to each other once you’ve learned how to stay.
(Title from the song Nauseous by Conan Gray)
Bookmarked by iwilldieinthepool
20 Mar 2026
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“You kept my painting,” Will says. Sure enough, there’s the heart on Mike’s shield, just as red as the day Will painted it. It was Will’s heart that he painted, maybe. It was also Will’s heart that he pulled out and molded into the lie he thought Mike needed to hear, halfway between Salt Lake City and a secret government bunker in Nevada.
Will’s heart is in his throat now, and in Mike’s hands, and on Mike’s wall, framed and carefully displayed.
They stand there in silence for a minute, Will on one side of the room and Mike on the other and too many years of radio silence in between. The quiet is so heavy it’s like a weight on Will’s chest, crushing him, applying pressure—but to a wound or to a bruise, he doesn’t know.
“Will,” Mike says. “Why are you here?”
(or, will has some realizations and a lot of hard conversations, and not every loss is forever.)
Series
- Part 3 of boys in bars
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 13,771
- Chapters:
- 1/1
- Comments:
- 220
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- 1,585
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- 215
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- 12,547
Bookmarked by iwilldieinthepool
02 Feb 2026
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“D’you ever consider I did it on purpose? I am a bit of an attention-seeker, you know.” Perhaps Mike is drunker than Will initially thought.
“What?”
“How else could I get the chance to talk to you alone?” Will feels like the air was just knocked out of him. Of course Mike is joking, but there’s a hint of truth to the statement. He was looking for ways to get Will alone. Will isn’t sure whether this information excites him or terrifies him.
“You’re nutty,” Will says, physically shaking the worries from his head.
“Maybe so,” Mike says, “but it worked.”
A collection of moments between cowboy Mike and saloon worker Will as they start to understand what they want in life. Story set in the Red Dead Redemption universe. Byler Big Bang 2024
Series
- Part 1 of red dead byler
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 38,897
- Chapters:
- 7/7
- Collections:
- 1
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- 355
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- 2,113
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- 503
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- 42,296
Bookmarked by iwilldieinthepool
27 Jan 2026
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“Hungry,” is all Mike manages to get out. Will can hear each ragged breath scuttle up and down his chest. He squints at Mike, the boy refusing to break eye contact, staring intently at Will. The emptiness from this morning is back.
Will scoots up in bed and shimmies out of his blanket cocoon, placing his hands on the sides of Mike’s arms. “Are you feeling sick?” he questions gently. Something’s not right.
Mike shakes his head and once again, opens his mouth with a brief pause before speaking. “I’m so hungry, Will.”
Mike gets a little too into the occult. After a ritual-gone-wrong, Will has to piece together a decades-old mystery to save his best friend's life.
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 84,534
- Chapters:
- 18/18
- Comments:
- 662
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- 1,298
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- 638
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- 59,606
Bookmarked by iwilldieinthepool
25 Jan 2026