starexploded
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By all measures, Mike is a good alpha. He checks all the boxes, really. Protective without being overbearing, quick to step in when someone’s in trouble, careful but not patronizing. He’s loud and boisterous, sure, but he’s also earnest, and sweet, and so goddamn chivalrous it’s stupid.
It’s all so horribly infuriating, and so infuriatingly endearing.
That’s the thing about instincts. They make everything so confusing. Will knows, rationally, that all of these things are just Mike’s way of being a good friend and packmate. And yet, there’s still a part of him—a decidedly omega part—that relishes in the attention in a way he knows he shouldn’t.
Navigating teenage relationships is hard enough. It's even harder when instincts get involved.
Bookmarked by starexploded
29 Dec 2025
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she's got you mesmerized by delusionaltogether (Whyyyyy)
Fandoms: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
09 Dec 2025
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This is what Mike’s been thinking about, in between worrying whether they’re all going to die, which definitely suggests that his priorities are a little out of whack, but he can’t help it. The past year has been bizarre, to put it lightly, but he thought that one of the better things to come out of it is that he and Will are friends again, like, real, close friends. He’s wondered, once or twice, in the midst of his own relationship’s crumbling status, whether Will has ever had any romantic entanglements, whether he plans to. Previously, Mike had ruled it out, because he thought if Will was interested in someone that he’d tell him about it, or at least not hide it. But Robin mentioned a date, and Will’s the only guy she’s been around lately except for Steve, who’s pretty obviously still hung up on Nancy (ew), so, like, what else is Mike supposed to think?
Will has made a new friend. Mike feels normal about it, really.
Bookmarked by starexploded
12 Dec 2025
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“We are more similar than you realize, Will. Both of us were...sensitive children. We were different. Seen as freaks. But we are special. You are special.”
Will takes a shallow breath, tries to swallow his nerves. He speaks flatly. “And?”
Henry blinks, seemingly surprised by Will’s coldness. “I chose you that day, you know.”
And Will sees himself, small and alone, riding his bike through the darkness. He sees the silhouette of something tall and not-human. He sees himself crashing his bike. Running home. But the creature unlocks the door. It follows him into the shed. It gets him.
“It was you,” Will whispers, a hand coming up to the back of his neck. The monster that took him. The possession. The visions. “It’s always been you.”
(or the one where will’s connection to the upside down is a crucial part of season 4 instead of him getting sidelined, and how it changes everything)
Series
- Part 1 of darker in the day than the dead of night
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Bookmarked by starexploded
06 Dec 2025
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i need you more than anyone darling (you know that i have from the start) by lumism
Fandoms: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
17 Aug 2022
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It’s fine. It’s totally fine. He’ll just go to sleep- and when he wakes up tomorrow, he’ll forget that this crisis had ever even happened. He closes his eyes, and tries to turn off his brain. It shouldn’t be too hard, probably. He’s heard Max make that joke enough times to suspect that there might be some truth in it. After all, Mike has spent this long being oblivious. Surely, he can manage one night more.
Not even an hour later, he finds himself climbing up Will’s bedroom window.
Mike has more realisations in one night than in two whole years. It's all Jonathan's fault.
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Bookmarked by starexploded
05 Dec 2025
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“Do you want to go home?” He questions, leaning close and voice soft, and Will pauses, before nodding again. Mike lets out a breath, and lets his hand press against Will a little more firmly when he starts to sway in place again. “Okay, let’s go.”
Then he looks up and is met with smug faces, and Mike flushes when he realizes his own hypocrisy.
“I don’t talk like that,” Max recalls, voice high-pitched and overly girly and – Mike definitely doesn’t talk like that.
According to everyone in his life, Mike has a voice reserved just for Will. He tries to figure out what that says about him.
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Bookmarked by starexploded
05 Dec 2025