1 - 20 of 80 Works in Mike Wheeler Character Study
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After everything Hawkins has taken from them, Mike Wheeler learns that surviving isn’t the same as feeling safe.
As the town rebuilds, old friendships shift, routines fracture, and the weight of what they’ve lived through refuses to fade. Mike has always been good at paying attention to patterns, to people, to the things that could go wrong but some feelings don’t fit neatly into anything he knows how to name.
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"Mike was beginning to see that it was okay to do some things with Will and not okay to do others. It was okay to say Will was cool, but not that he was pretty; it was okay to hug Will, but not kiss his cheeks; it was okay to say he was his best friend, but not that he loved him."
A character study on Mike and Will’s early friendship, pre-upside down.
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i wanna know peace again (wanna sing a different song) by vansunshinee
Fandoms: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
30 Dec 2025
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And Mike softened, because of course he did. It was Will, with his round eyes and soft frown, Will, who had always been the one, good thing Mike has ever had. And that thought terrified him, snaking up from his gut with awful words that had been thrown around since he was a kid. Best friend. Sure. Mike was stupid, but not that stupid. Not anymore.
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Mike is not having a good week. He can't decide if being near Will makes it better or worse. It's raining. Some things are said out loud. Some aren't.
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Beauty was in the eye of the beholder, but Mike disagreed.
There was no world where anyone could argue that Will was only beautiful to certain people, because that simply was not true.
Will had been personally crafted by Aphrodite herself and Mike knew, without question, that if a blind person were to press their fingertips against Will's face and dragged them across his skin, they could tell that the boy poured heart-stoppening, maddening beauty from every single one of his pores.
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Ever since Henry died alongside the Upside Down, Mike spent his nights listening to the breathing of one Will Byers right next to him on his bed.
Mike stared, and he wanted.
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Mike has walked through Will’s mind. He saw the darkness, the memories, and he felt the feelings, the ones he couldn't understand. So when Will comes out — brave and shaking and real — Mike puts the pieces together, and knows he can't stay silent anymore.
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this is set after will comes out and also includes cutgate aka some of the deleted vol 2. plotlines/scenes that we truly deserved and need (the byler basement scene & the elmike camazotz plot) (also sign the petition for the vol 2 deleted scenes to be released!!!)
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ты и есть сердце, майк.
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Tell the truth you never wanted me (Tell me) by ryeontop
Fandoms: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
26 Dec 2025
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Post Will coming out scene, Mike figures things out and asks questions that everyone wants answers to.
“— He used to have these fleeting thoughts about Will as he grew. Eyes lingering too long on the wrong parts of Wills face and body, he would think about him as he would think of a girl.—“
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I hide behind silences, never to be seen. by waterkalpis
Fandoms: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
26 Dec 2025
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“This is who you are, Mike Wheeler,” Vecna’s voice roared through the carnage that surrounded them. The Upside Down, Will noticed abruptly. Why were they in The Upside Down?
Mike had his back pressed against some wall, palms flat against the dark vines that were gradually curling towards his wrists. Will moved his lips, but no sound left them. Why couldn’t he speak?
“Have you asked yourself what your family would think of their son? One who inhabits a husk, unfeeling beneath his sinews?” His laugh reverberated in time with the thunder. “Who would want such a travesty?”
Series
- Part 2 of Can I Try Again?
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The men and their forgotten guns are unaffected around him, and Mike’s vision isn’t the clearest; all he can see is the vague, lit shapes of moving fire surrounding the one body he does know to be Will’s. They are dead, and Mike is anything but unaffected.
Something monumental shifts–Mike can feel it.
or
The world is ending, and Mike really loves Will.
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you're all that i've known for a while by wayward_sherlock
Fandoms: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
22 Dec 2025
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The ache has multiplied, now, spreading from his chest to his whole body, and he suddenly feels a real urge to cry, for the first time in — years, probably. He wants so desperately to talk to Will that it feels a little bit like he might throw up, but he knows that Will sleeping through the entire night is almost as rare as it is for Mike — less because of his brain betraying him and keeping him up like Mike’s does, but more because of the near-constant nightmares he never talks about — and he looks so peaceful, laying under the softest blanket that Mike could find, that Mike refuses to be that selfish, selfish enough to wake him.
He can — he can stay, though. Maybe watching Will breathe will be enough to make Mike’s insides stop churning, stop doing their damndest to escape through his skin.
christmas eve, 1986. mike just wants to be close to will.
Series
- Part 1 of 'tis the damn season.
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" The steady rhythm of his heart filled the room and it brought everyone together in a collective sigh of relief.
*beep,beep,beep* "
♛♥♛
This is a character study on Mike Wheeler, and my interpretation of him through the years. I know you too need to know hat the hell is going on behind those curls.
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 8,141
- Chapters:
- 1/1
- Kudos:
- 18
- Hits:
- 271
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want to hate you (half as much as i hate myself) by MazzyStardust7
Fandoms: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
21 Dec 2025
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For not the first time that night, Mike wonders if Will is still awake in the basement.
Tossing and turning on the old spare mattress that Mike had relegated him to instead of- Well. Mike's thoughts slam into a wall. Even if he had let Will sleep in his room, he'd still be on that mattress. Just... just on the ground beside him instead of two floors down.
"You're a freak," Mike mumbles to himself, squeezing his eyes shut.
Or, Mike and El are taking a break, and in the absence of being able to pour himself into that relationship, he's spending entirely too much time thinking about Will... who just so happens to be living in his basement. During the 18-month time jump where the Byers have been living with the Wheelers.
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A three-segment tale about how music finds its way to Mike Wheeler, in the darkest of places.
Wherein Mike sits through unresolved sentiments and dusty cassette tapes, reliving the past few years through his memories, encounters and unspoken thoughts about the people around him. Will Byers has it all figured out —Mike wishes to mimic his example.
(post s5 vol. 1)
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 5,925
- Chapters:
- 1/3
- Kudos:
- 2
- Hits:
- 125
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don't know what to do (when i'm like this) by liveandfall
Fandoms: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
17 Dec 2025
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He shouldn't have let Max goad them into doing this. He should have shut the whole operation down the moment he saw her share a smirk with El when they were still out at the diner, innocently eating shitty waffles and soggy fries. He should have never agreed to let everyone come back here, he should have never let Robin and Steve pawn them off a twelve-pack of disgusting Sam Adams, and he should have never, ever let Dustin put his empty bottle in the middle of the circle they were sat in, comfortably buzzed and basking in normalcy.
But Mike had let them.
Mike Wheeler finds heaven in a boy who’s been to hell and back.
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Mike's desk surface is littered with papers - old homework, DnD campaign ideas, scribbles, doodles, and etchings. He shoves them all to the side with one arm as he reaches into a drawer with the other, pulling out an unused journal. He flips to a fresh page and pulls out his favorite pen, the one he uses to write all of his DnD ideas down. It had been a gift from Will. It was the perfect implement to use to start off their correspondence. Mike, for the first time in a week, grins easily, thinking of all the things he wants to say to Will. Everything he’d missed over the past week, every time Mike had thought of him, every joke he didn’t get to hear, every feeling-
Well.
Mike takes a deep breath. He puts his pen to paper.
______________________________________Since Will Byers has moved to Lenora, California, Mike Wheeler takes to writing him to attempt to close the distance between them. This distance, however, may just provide the perspective that he needs to learn more about himself with every letter that he doesn't send.
In other words: there are five letters that Mike doesn't send to Will, and one that he finally does. Each of them might just change everything.
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hold you like the sun holds the sky by green_dragonfly
Fandoms: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
15 Dec 2025
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« Mike ? » Will began.
The way he said his name felt… right, like that was the only way you were supposed to say it.
« Yeah ? » he answered.
« Thank you» the other boy whispered.
« For what ? »
« For believing in me »
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or season 5 vol 1's ending from Mike's POV and what happens after :) -
i think i've been having revelations by wayward_sherlock
Fandoms: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
14 Dec 2025
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Mike blinks at Nancy, once, twice, in rapid succession, and then he shakes his head, backing away from her. “I’m going to –” is all he can manage before he’s turning around and running towards the door, ratty Converse slipping on the smooth concrete floor.
If that’s what Vecna was preying on, that means that it’s the source of all of Will’s guilt, one of Will’s deepest, darkest secrets. That’s something that Will felt like he couldn’t tell Mike, that’s something he didn’t trust Mike with, and that makes Mike a bad friend.
will is outed while el's in his mind. mike freaks out.
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Mike closed his eyes, letting out a breath he didn't know he was holding. "I get those kind of nightmares too. About Will."
"Really?" Holly asked, her eyes wide. Then, quickly, something shifted and she glanced at her feet with a gulp. "So... you understand?"
Or,
Your average mikewhatthefuckdidyoudogate fic with a side of Holly being an unintentional (?) troublemaker.
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"Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires." by Leocantfindusername
Fandoms: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
12 Dec 2025
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"Mike, promise me that if he tries to take over, if he gets to me, you'll save yourself. Don't let him get inside your head."
"You know I can't promise you that. We're a team, remember? And if we're both going crazy then we'll" Mike settled his hand on Will's "go crazy together, right?" Mike asked with an almost shy smile which made Will's heart flutter in his chest.
"Yeah, crazy together."
§ § §
Following the disastrous events of Vecna's attack, Will tries to act normal and keep everything and everyone together. Meanwhile, Mike is desperately repressing a cyclone of confusing feelings. They were once two kids swinging happily through life, but now they need to fight for each other more than ever before.
The dice are on the table, will it be a seven?
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Maybe Robin should cut little Wheeler a bit more slack, then. After all, he’s been fighting in this war for nearly four years now– far longer than Robin was ever even aware it was happening. He’s lost people to it before. One sister kidnapped, the other M.I.A., and both of his parents in critical condition. Honestly, she should probably give him more credit for keeping his shit together at all.
All that, and he’s still here. At Will’s side.
Or: Will is unconscious following the battle at the MAC-Z, and Robin and Mike are left alone to watch over him. Robin observes some things.