1 - 20 of 68 Works in Pining Will Byers
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i bet on losing dogs (i'm losing by their side) by annie_dot
Fandoms: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
03 Jan 2026
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Mike’s hands were pulling him in before he even had time to process the whole interaction, and somewhere, deep, buried by shame and hurt and fucking hearbreak, 15-year-old Will is standing in an airport, holding a freshly painted picture, about to see his best friend for the first time in a year, and the two Wills merge, and something clanks and clicks and heals, and Will closes his eyes and breathes in shakily, nostrils attacked by the scent of the man in his arms. His fingers dig into Mike’s shirt, a little desperately, more than a bit pathetically.
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Four years after leaving Hawkins, Will is back for Max and Lucas's wedding. He has a plan: get drunk, avoid Mike Wheeler as much as he could, and flee as soon as possible back to California.
It all backfires.
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One last Adventure (What happened but could not be seen) by RonnieAnnRoyals
Fandoms: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
03 Jan 2026
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El isn't dead. Mike wheeler keeps repeating the phrase to himself as dinner goes on around him. His mother and friends talking in low near devastated voices still tinged with hope. El is not dead, and Mike is going to prove it.
Just not yet.
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If only I could, I'd make a deal with God, and I'd go back in time to save us by theweirdoseth
Fandoms: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
03 Jan 2026
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Then, in the most obvious way possible, his eyes rake over Will’s figure, lingering on the way his shirt hugs his stomach, and over the muscles in Will’s arms.
And then, to Mike’s absolute mortification, his younger-self flushes, cheeks growing impossibly red and eyes darting to the floor. Not in an obvious manner either, because Will immediately levels Mike with a questioning stare and a teasing smile which makes him want to crawl into a hole and die.
~~~
Post s2 Mike and Will travel to the future. It ends dramatically.Updates every day/every other day
Series
- Part 1 of Mini Miwi Time Travel fic
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Frozen without your touch, without your love by Siriuslybetterthanyou
Fandoms: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
03 Jan 2026
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Vecna traps Mike Wheeler inside a vision built from his deepest fear: being left behind.
As Mike fights to survive a future where he is no longer needed, Will Byers is forced to confront the truth he’s kept buried and say the one thing he never thought he’d be allowed to.
Sometimes love is the only thing strong enough to pull someone back.
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One year after the epilogue, the world was technically saved, but it hadn’t gone back to normal. Hawkins is quiet for the first time in years, the party had scattered, and Eleven’s absence lingers in everything they can’t say. Mike and Will are older now, physically and mentally, shaped by grief and distance, learning how to exist in a future that doesn’t look at all like the one they fought for. The one there friends died for.
Life slowly resumed, college, phone calls home, visits that end too soon, they find themselves orbiting each other. Seeking solace in the presence of each other. Best friends, right? What starts as shared loss becomes shared understanding, shared moments of breakdowns only the other could comprehend. Then, something gentler. Something braver than either of them expected. They find that choosing to stay still when the world keeps moving, choosing to embrace the grief instead of being swallowed by it, and finding peace… that sometimes the world doesn’t end, it just changes.
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There’s thunder in the sky and thunder in Will’s chest.
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Mike counts the beauty marks on Will’s body like it’s nothing.
But Will feels like he's going crazy. -
you'd have to stop the world just to stop the feeling. by femmedraconia, needygirlxyukkii
Fandoms: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
01 Jan 2026
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Change was scary. That had always been an overwhelming fact for someone like Michael Wheeler, even if he never admitted it aloud to anyone ever.
◟𓎠𓎠𓎠𓎠𓎠𓎠𝜗♰𝜚𓎠𓎠𓎠𓎠𓎠𓎠◞
maybe he shouldn't have bottled up everything , but now , it's too late to write his wrongs. it will always be will byers haunting his narrative , and only will.
ㅤㅤ𓏼 ﹒ ഒ。
Series
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I can't hide from you like I hide from myself by lesbianvictorianeuman
Fandoms: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
30 Dec 2025
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“You’re drunk.” The words tumbled out before Will could stop them, giving Mike an out if he wanted. He internally cursed himself for retreating so quickly.
Mike didn’t tear his gaze away. If anything, his expression hardened.
“Not drunk enough to say things I don’t mean.”
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Will Byers and Mike Wheeler go to a party and get drunk. Things that the both of them had buried deep down slowly start to surface.
Also, Will Byers gives Mike Wheeler a haircut.
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Will Byers doesn’t need a monster to tell him he doesn’t belong.
He’s been telling himself that for years.As Hawkins begins to fracture again, Mike Wheeler becomes the mirror Will can’t bring himself to face—because looking at him means seeing everything he’s learned to hate about himself.
A slow-burn Byler story about self-erasure, trauma, and loving someone who believes they were never meant to stay.
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Yearning Final Boss, and I mean it
Byler during the 18-Month Timeskip Before Stranger Things 5.
Byler Post-Stranger Things 5 Vol. 1.
Byler Post-Stranger Things 5 Vol. 2.
Flashbacks -
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Summary
After their Fathers untimely disappearance, and Jonathans refusal to become king, Will Byers is forced to deal with both the weight of a crown and a mysterious new illness.
In a kingdom where his citizens barely know his name, and with advisors trying to manipulate him left and right, will the Prince be able to write his own story?
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Mike hesitates for half a second. Then he twists the throttle. The four-wheeler surges forward.
Will yelps, sharp and surprised, the sound torn out of him as the ground blurs beneath them. Wind slams into his face, stealing his breath, and his body is jolted backwards by the sudden speed.
“Oh my god, Mike!”
Mike laughs, loud and unrestrained. “Holy shit! This thing’s fast!” The field rushes past them in streaks of gold and green. The engine roars, vibrating through Will’s chest, through his arms, through every place they’re touching. He doesn’t have time to think. He doesn’t have time to panic.
His arms lock around Mike’s waist, with no time to even process.
⋆˚࿔ OR ~ Will & Mike get bored so they steal a four-wheeler and go on a ride together while Will is absolutely a flustered mess.
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But Mike is still staring at him with something akin to wonder, and Will’s brain seems to be working on overdrive to embarrass him to death as quickly as possible.
(Ah, fuck it.)
“Mike.”
Mike’s expression is so sincere that it hurts Will to look at it. “Yeah?”
“What do you think… when you look at me?”
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In the 18 months between the Upside Down cracking Hawkins in two and their disastrous Crawl, Will starts drawing again. It’s a familiar feeling, sitting in the basement with some paper and a box of crayons, an ever-curious Wheeler looking over his shoulder.
Except, it’s not Mike. No, Mike hasn’t been talking to him unless completely necessary, which sucks, but Will’s gotten used to it. No, it’s little Holly, just as sweet as Will remembers and totally captivated with his art.
It’s refreshing, at least, to have someone look at him with stars in their eyes for once. He just hopes Mike doesn’t find out; it’ll give him another thing to be weird about.
TLDR: Five times Will teaches Holly how to draw, and one time it’s Mike who takes his lessons to heart.
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“I don’t think that it has to mean that you’re into guys,” Lucas says. His words are accompanied by a casual shrug, and said in the tone of someone who has clearly already given this subject some thought. Will doesn’t know what to do with that information. Jump from a building, maybe. “I mean, we’d all get flustered if Spider-Man carried us in his arms.”
Mike points to him enthusiastically. “Thank you, Lucas.”
Dustin looks between the two of them, his eyes narrowed.
“...Would we?”
“Sure,” Mike concludes. “He’s attractive. That’s not a weird thing to think.”
Will just barely resists the urge to bang his head against the table. He feels Dustin’s eyes glued to his burning face, and sinks even further down his chair.
In which Mike tells Spider-Man that he has a crush on his best friend, and Will jumps to some very wrong conclusions.
Podfic of look before you leap by lumism
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rolled it up a hill, like a ball of snow by chocolair
Fandoms: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
24 Dec 2025
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She blinks. "Oh. Well, we volunteered together. You know, there were, like, signals."
His brows come together. "Signals?"
"Yeah, you know, like a brush of the knee, a bump of the elbow, a shared look," she offers, her wide eyes on his. "It all just kind of accrued, like a snowball rolling down a hill until it was obvious."
A heat coils inside of his chest, something he'd now dare to name as hope. "How obvious?"
She takes a peek through the window, a smile on her face. "Let's just say the, uh, snowball became an avalanche."
Or, a collection of several moments in which a snowball began to pick up speed.
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we keep pretending the past isn’t knocking by Athenasbook
Fandoms: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
18 Dec 2025
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Summary
Will and Mike have grown distant after the events of season 4. In an attempt to reconnect, they spend time together reading comics and reminiscing, slowly rediscovering their friendship—and realizing their feelings for each other might be more than that.👀
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evermore by riddlsm
Fandoms: Stranger Things (TV 2016), Stranger Things: The First Shadow - Trefry
17 Dec 2025
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Summary
Mike Wheeler has been captured by Vecna. Will Byers can feel it happening.
The connection they’ve always shared—the one that felt like coming home—is now a thin, screaming wire in Will’s mind. Through it, he doesn’t just feel Vecna holding Mike. He feels him changing him. Taking their best memories and dyeing them black, turning every inside joke into a trigger, every moment of trust into a lie.
Will has to get him back. But how do you rescue someone who’s being taught, moment by moment, that you’re the enemy?
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Five stages of grief, witnessed in real time as Will fights not just a monster, but the horrifying, weaponized version of his best friend that the monster is building from the inside out.
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crashing down (just to find your wings again) by s0ld_it
Fandoms: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
16 Dec 2025
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Summary
"Maybe it was just that I didn’t believe that I could do it, that I could take control. Because why would I ever be magic, y’know?”
Will said it casually, but something in Mike's chest twinged at his words.
“But yesterday, I realized that I've always been capable of it. It’s like you said, it’s innate,” Will said shyly. “It’s just me. And I know me.”
“So this power to control the hive mind- it’s been in you the whole time, you just had to unlock it?” Mike asked.
“You were pretty much spot on yesterday, in the field,” Will nodded. “Sometimes I wonder how you know me so well,”
Mike felt his heart speed up a little. “Possibly because I’ve known you forever?” He nudged Will’s knee.
Will laughed, eyes crinkling at the corners. He was beautiful. “No, that can't be it,” He joked. "I think you're a psychic, actually."
“I had faith too, y'know." Mike said. “Sorcerer.” He added with a small smile. He was aware how dangerous this was. How borderline flirtatious he was being.
He couldn’t care less.
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will find his wings. mike notices.
a vol 1 (and post vol 1) byler character study :))
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"It's not just anything." Mike turned to look at him, and they were suddenly very close, close enough that Will could see the darker flecks in Mike's eyes, could count his freckles if he wanted to. "You're incredible. You know that, right?"
Will couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Could only stare at Mike's face inches from his own and try to remember why leaning forward would be a terrible idea.
Mike's eyes dropped to Will's mouth for just a second. Maybe it wasn't so terrible of an idea. It would be so easy... to reach out and touch.
Then Mike was pulling back, clearing his throat, looking flustered. "Anyway. Um. Should we-"
What happened in those 18 months in the Wheeler house between S4 and S5 that made Will so hopeful... or, as the kids call it, MWTFDYD Gate.
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After a cabin movie night, Will develops a very specific medical condition: every time Mike touches him, his heart tries to explode.
It is fine. Really. He can handle sharing sleeping bags, being used as a space heater, Mike’s hand under his hoodie for warmth, storms in the Wheeler basement, and totally-normal, absolutely-not-a-date trips to the spring fair where holding hands somehow becomes public information.