stripeyshirt
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will byers’ guide to advanced concepts in painting by falloutboi
Fandoms: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
27 Dec 2025
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Summary
Dustin hums in agreement while he swallows his bite. “It’s like, against his factory settings to say no to you. What do you need him to do, model for you or something?”
Will shoves his face back into his hands. “I’m going to fail.”
Max rolls her eyes. “You’re not going to fail, you’re going to paint Mike.”
Will lifts his head up from his hands, eyes wide, and shakes his head. “You don’t understand.” He pleads with his awful, awful friends, voice low. “He’s been, he’s using my-he came out of my bathroom in just a towel last night.”
Studio art major Will Byers has a study of the human body due before the semester ends, is in desperate need for a model, and has a huge, life-altering, heart wrenching crush on his best friend.
Enter: Mike Wheeler, his broken shower, and his collection of plaid-print boxers.
Series
- Part 1 of devotion | Indiana University
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My skin is clean, Will tells himself, staring down his reflection as if it’s challenging him. I’m not possessed, I’m not in the Upside Down.
I’m a second-year student at the Art Institute of Chicago. My apartment is shitty and tiny and expensive and incredible. Will stabilizes himself by gripping the countertop, looping the words through his mind. Mike is in the other room, waiting for me. He’s an English major at Loyola, and his dad has no idea how he’ll land a job. He’s waiting for me. He loves me. He’s patient with me, and he understands. My brother lives in New York, and my mom’s safe at home in Indiana. My skin is clean, and all of this is real.
I disappeared seven years ago today, and I was found.
And he’s dead, and far away from me. He can’t touch me ever again.
Bookmarked by stripeyshirt
22 Feb 2026
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Summary
“Wait,” Lucas takes another glance at Will, specifically at the sweater he’s wearing. “Is that Mike’s?”
Here’s the other thing about the last eight or so months of Will Byers’ life: he’s been spending his nights, on and off, secretly, semi-occasionally, very frequently, kissing Mike Wheeler.
He’s confused about it too, don’t even worry.
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 26,172
- Chapters:
- 3/3
- Comments:
- 608
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- 14,623
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- 149,732
Bookmarked by stripeyshirt
22 Feb 2026
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Summary
Looking at them all, he relises this is the most at home he’s felt in a long time. Catching up with Joyce, telling her how his family has been— asking Jonathan how college is going. Even cracking jokes with El, it all comes easy.
When he looks at Will, though— laughing radiantly from across the table and smiling over at Mike before looking back down to his food, almost as if he’s shy— he feels different.
For some completely unfathomable reason, he gets the overwhelming desire to kiss him.
Bookmarked by stripeyshirt
22 Feb 2026
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I just need a quiet place, where I can scream how I love you by Aloyx
Fandoms: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
09 Jan 2026
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Summary
With the Byers temporarily living under the Wheelers' roof, Mike and Will are forced into a proximity they’ve been desperately trying to avoid, after both getting sick. Between shared blankets and hazy fever dreams, the lines they’ve drawn between friendship and something more begin to blur, forcing them to confront a reality neither is ready to name.
Or
Mike and Will are in love with each other, but they're too scared to admit it, so it takes a delirious fever for them to finally stop lying to themselves, with childhood memories and an angry confession in the rain.
"He realized, with a terrifying clarity, that he would trade every bit of safety and normalcy for just one more second of Mike Wheeler looking at him like he was the only thing that mattered in the world."
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 28,734
- Chapters:
- 10/10
- Comments:
- 242
- Kudos:
- 1,962
- Bookmarks:
- 370
- Hits:
- 26,544
Bookmarked by stripeyshirt
14 Feb 2026