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Stars burst to life behind his eyes, and his whole body follows, coming into tune. It’s like when you have to shake the static from the TV – yeah, that’s what it feels like – and the picture sharpens into focus.
He feels so here. So now.
“Whoa,” Mike breathes, realizing distantly that he’s smiling.
Going into their last year of college, Mike feels like the only one in the Party who hasn’t fully figured things out – it's like everyone else knows how to be a person, and he’s just been faking it this whole time. Will helps him feel a little more normal.
Or: Mike and Will stumble into a fwb arrangement, and the inevitable happens. Duh!
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16 Jun 2026
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Mike Wheeler is thirty years old, three years married, and incredibly unhappy. After an unexpected AOL Instant Messenger group chat with the Party, Mike reconnects with Will after several years and realizes that maybe his life doesn't have to be so bad.
Or: A 2000s epistolary fic in which Mike falls in love with his childhood best friend and cheats on his wife.
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13 Jun 2026
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a lesson in coasting: an idiot's guide to gay allyship by michael j. wheeler by cinnamoncider
Fandoms: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
06 May 2026
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“So, I’ve been thinking," Mike throws his head back into the sofa’s head rest. “You know how I talk about girls all the time?”
The pencil in Will’s hand freezes for just a moment, something Mike wouldn’t have been able to tell at all if he wasn’t staring right at Will’s hands to avoid his gaze. “So?”
“Well, I’ve been thinking, right?”
Will looks up, but Mike isn’t looking back at him. He’s picking at a loose thread on the couch cushion. “What, about girls?”
“No,” Mike shakes his head, “about boys."
Will nearly chokes on his tongue. “You’ve been thinking about boys?”
or, mike conducts an uncomfortably elaborate semester-long personal inquiry project on how to be a better straight ally to his gay best friend. for educational reasons only. obviously
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11 May 2026
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Will doesn't know how he’s ended up in this situation, truly. He’s toying with the possibility that he actually tripped over and died when he got up to answer the door and this is some pre-death hallucination, because there’s no way that he’s really in a situation where Mike Wheeler is sitting on his bed and asking Will to kiss him.
“You- you want me to what?” Will chokes out once he’s stopped coughing – because Mike had chosen to ask that particular question when Will was taking a sip of water, and he almost fucking drowned on it.
“Kiss me,” Mike repeats, confirming that Will wasn’t hallucinating the first time. “For practice.”or;
user kissingpractice finally writes kissing practice.Bookmarked by startingline
30 Jan 2026
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“Just saying, if you’re taking another hit, you should share it with me,” Mike says, and Will slowly tilts his head, drinking in every word. “It just makes sense. Like, mathematically.”
Will’s reddened eyes narrow, bewildered. “Mathematically?”
“If there’s two hits left, we’d each only get one,” Mike explains. “But if we shotgunned, we’d both get two.” God, this is the best idea he’s had in ages. He should’ve stolen Will’s weed, like, months ago. “That’s like, bang for your buck. This is simple math, Will Byers. Keep up.”
In which it’s well past midnight in New York, Will can’t sleep, and Mike feels like they barely know each other anymore.
So, they get a little high. Mike is very normal about all of it.
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Bookmarked by startingline
27 Jan 2026