jbeans68
Fandoms
Recent works
-
help me not hate myself (help me love other people) by jbeans68
Fandoms: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
09 Aug 2026
Tags
Summary
I should start by telling you that I’m on the run. People are looking for me, I know, but I don’t want them to find me yet. I want to pretend for a while longer. And as soon as I get this written down, I can do that, pretend I’m not completely alone or lost or empty. Pretend my sister is beside me in the bed when I go to sleep, that it’s me staying in her bedroom rather than her ghost haunting mine.
I can’t actually call it either of ours anymore, though, really, since I live in a dorm room in New York and she’s, you know, dead. Plus the cabin is cold and dark because Hopper doesn’t pay the bills anymore now that he lives with my mom in Montauk.
So, my sister is dead. And college sucks. And I’ve been wishing people in my classes would start calling me names instead of sending pitiful looks my way. I can only imagine what they think of me. Will Byers, who can’t keep a roommate, let alone a friend. Will Byers, whose mom keeps ringing the payphone in the hall. Will Byers, who creates some of ‘the most disturbing work I’ve graded in all my years of teaching’, who is ‘showing signs of withdrawal’. Will Byers, who hasn’t been seen in a week and a half.
-
a soul that’s born in cold and rain (knows sunlight, sunlight, sunlight) by jbeans68
Fandoms: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
30 May 2026
Tags
Summary
Later, as Mike stares at his ceiling, coloured only by the warmth of a nightlight and one forgotten glow-in-the-dark star, he speaks a reassurance. “We’re going to win, Will. For real, this time.”
Will’s hands twitch where they rest on his pillow.
Mike lolls his head to the side. “We’ve been preparing for this.”
Will doesn’t look appeased. “I don’t know, Mike,” he breathes. “I really don’t know.”
Mike tells himself that he knows, so Will doesn’t have to. They’re going to win.
Deeper into the night, when Will wakes breathless and teary-eyed, Mike hesitates for only a second before he cradles him tight to his chest. He doesn’t push when Will won’t speak of what he saw; he only whispers words of comfort, soft and sweet and completely unfounded.
Mike finds a closeness with Will in the dark that he can't have in the light. Will knows little of good things, but understands they must come to an end.
-
In the quiet of some disaster, you will turn and face yourself again by jbeans68
Fandoms: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
21 Dec 2025
Tags
Summary
Vecna didn't need to pry to figure out Mike Wheeler's biggest fear. He didn't have to search through memories, didn't have to conjure up falsities or manufacture horrifying circumstances; Mike had crafted his own worst nightmare already.
When Vecna sets his sights on him, Mike doesn't tell anybody about the nightmares or the visions, because then he would have to tell them what it is he's seeing: himself.
OR
Mike Wheeler and how he confronts his queerness
Covers some of episode one and then post-episode four -
Tags
Summary
When Will can feel ordinary things again – things grounded in his own body, like sight and sound – he notes the trickle of something, inching toward his lip. He lifts a hand, bones leaden, swipes the back of it beneath his nose. Red, familiar and human.
His eyes are open, he knows. Yes. It is taking every ounce of his energy to keep them that way. Bones now welded together, still throbbing, waiting for the fog to clear. Eyelids like paperweights, jaw wound tight, gaze fixed on a blurred outline in the distance.
Finally, Will can see him. Alive. Fuzzy-edged, the image, but him no less. Lips parted, teeth flashing, the only reassurance he needs. Alive, he wants to whisper, but can’t.
The fiery ache, the torturous realignment of atoms, stronger somehow. Gravity calling out. Lay down, it says. It is done. You cannot tear yourself apart and walk on.
OR
Will Byers wakes up at the Squawk. Mike Wheeler is asleep beside him.
Recent bookmarks
-
Tags
Summary
He extends a hand towards the sorcerer, long and lined with an exhausted, unnerved shiver. Will’s face changes, first wondrous and now ever-confused, brows downward, lips slightly pursed as if something unjust has occurred and made him the target. Mike swallows a hard breath. Spring is warm and merciful, and yet somehow this room is so cold, warmth carved out of its stomach.
He bores his eyes into Will. Pleads, silently, for him to offer his hand back if he wants to avoid humiliation for the both of them. Nobody denies the Prince. Nobody kneels where they must not.
( The war is over. Mike, always a knight first and prince second, washes up new and is tasked to relearn his role in the kingdom. But wounds are wounds, and some stay open. Some may never close again. )
Series
Bookmarked by jbeans68
08 Apr 2026