"The abomination walks our streets! It sits in our classrooms! It corrupts our sons!"
It’s June in Hawkins, and the town is mobilizing. Armed with a newly proposed "Public Decency Mandate," the local church coalitions and city officials are fast-tracking a witch hunt to purge the heartland of deviant behavior. For the Party, the threat lands directly on top of a secret they are fiercely guarding: Will Byers has finally run out of places to hide, and he's just came out to them.
They build a fortress of protective loyalty around him. But the fortress has one glaring flaw. Mike. Caught between the suffocating, holy terror of his father's dining room table and the ruthless, electric reality of what happens when he and Will are left alone in the dark, Mike is spiraling. He wants Will with a desperate, destructive hunger—but in the light of day, the panic takes over.
In a town that burns its secrets at the altar, Mike has to decide if he's going to keep hiding behind the armor of a "best friend," or if he'll finally find something worth fighting for before Hawkins tears them both apart.
Words: 10465, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English
Fandoms: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Will Byers, Mike Wheeler, Eleven | Jane Hopper, Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Lucas Sinclair, Dustin Henderson, Jonathan Byers, Steve Harrington, Nancy Wheeler, Holly Wheeler, Ted Wheeler (Stranger Things), Karen Wheeler, Joyce Byers, Jim "Chief" Hopper, Lonnie Byers
Relationships: Will Byers/Mike Wheeler, Eleven | Jane Hopper/Dustin Henderson, Maxine "Max" Mayfield/Lucas Sinclair, Jonathan Byers/Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler
Additional Tags: Angst, byler, Internalized Homophobia, Secret Relationship, Pathetic Mike Wheeler, Mike Wheeler Loves Will Byers, Will Byers Loves Mike Wheeler, Mike Wheeler is a Mess, Mike Wheeler is Bad at Feelings, small town, Protective Lucas Sinclair, Slow Burn, Awkward Sexual Situations, Anal Sex, Explicit Sexual Content, Blow Jobs, Grinding, Smut, Porn with Plot, Dry Humping, Age of Consent, Happy Ending, Desperate, Desperate Mike Wheeler, Desperate Will Byers, Loss of Virginity
