1 - 20 of 124 Works in Depressed Mike Wheeler
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Mike is going to fix everything in his life, even if it kills him. Especially if it kills him.
Or..
A collection of letters Mike writes to his friends and family before he goes.
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Maybe it’s the lingering adrenaline from the false alarm a moment ago, but Mike suddenly has a bad feeling deep in his gut. Something is off. Slowly, he walks around to look at Chrissy’s face.
White eyes. Rapid blinking. Unfocused. Unseeing.
Mike’s terror multiplies tenfold, heart rate ratcheting back up. He blinks and it’s Will standing in front of him, glaze-eyed and shaking, seizing, eyes twitching in their sockets, stuck in a waking nightmare as the Mind Flayer forces itself into every orifice.
He blinks again and it’s Chrissy, going through the same thing. Or something very similar.
Fuck. Not now. Not again.Or: After witnessing Chrissy's death, Mike finds himself on the frontlines of the latest interdimensional battle—and at the top of Hawkins’ Most Wanted list, as police, crazed townspeople, and otherworldly monsters all vie to get to him first.
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The year is 1984, and after Ted Wheeler dies because of some stupid lab accident at his annoying government job in Hawkins, Indiana, Thirteen-year-old Mike and his family are forced to move there and stay at some lousy trailer park because 1.) moving there was the closest thing they had to still being with him, not that Mike really cared, 2.) it was the cheapest place his mom could afford when you’re in charge of a family of four with no man in the house, and 3.) because Mike had kinda maybe sorta did something really, really bad to another boy at school that unfortunately just lined up with the time him and his family had to move so… nothing important really.
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If I only could, I'd make a deal with God, and I'd get him to swap our places. . .
Mike Wheeler can't make a deal with God, but he can make a deal with Vecna.
Mike swaps places with Max. -
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The Fallout after Vecna, sure was something alright. After all this time fighting and bleeding for peace, it's weird when you finally get the chance to enjoy it. For thte most part everyone had adjusted well to not having to fight for their lives on the daily anymore. That is.., everyone except Mike. But really in the grand scheme of things, he'll be fine like he always is right? So there's nothing to worry about. (Newsflash, there is very much to worry about, but subject is too deep in denial to acknowledge it.)
Series
- Part 1 of Stranger Things Have Happened Here
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just a depressed mike drabble
Series
- Part 16 of drabble collection
- Part 24 of mike-centric angst collection
- Part 13 of of course it isn't just me!
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The body at the lake (in season 1) was really Will's and Mike is going through grief. Mike is writing in a diary because the school psychologist told him to. This is a diary fic.
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The party finds Mike after an attempt.
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Season four re-write but Mike is the main character and takes the place of max in many aspects.
also hopper never goes to Russia and the byers stay in Hawkins.Series
- Part 5 of Mike wheeler angst
- Part 1 of right where you left me (series)
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Out of all people… him. Why does—out of all people in Hawkins—it has to be him who hears Mike. Why did he say all that? What if Will thinks he’s pathetic? What if he pities him?
He clutches the walkie, considers turning it on, then stops. “What if he regrets answering? What if I ruin whatever’s left?”
It’s stupid, isn’t it? After all, it’s Will. The same Will he was when they first met on the swings and Mike asked him to be his friend. But people change, don’t they?
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Vecna was defeated years ago. The party finished Highschool and was, sadly, growing apart.
It’s 1990 and Will finds his old walkie talkie. It’s 1990 and he turns it on, off, on again. It’s 1990 and he finally get’s his best friend back. After a year with almost no contact.
But what about his— Well, Will thinks, that has to be a problem for his future self.
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You and I drink the poison from the same vine. by ixiale
Fandoms: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
25 Jul 2025
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In some alternate universe mike & will are nothing more than a popular local story about how they found will byers body in the quarry and just days later they pulled out mike wheelers from the same exact spot.
(Idea from the tweet by @supercutbyler !)
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Mike took a long sip of his tea, letting the liquid pour hot and comforting into his stomach. “I’m not stressed, I'm just tired.”
“Yeah I bet,” his mother said quietly. “You kids have been through so much. You shouldn’t be dealing with all of this. Especially at your age.”
“Yeah. Well we are. Nothing we do can change that,” Mike muttered, a motto he repeated constantly. To expel the what ifs. The if thens. The maybes.
Or Mike and Karen have a long needed chat.
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wanna hold you (like you needed then) by wayward_sherlock
Fandoms: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
17 Jul 2025
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It was only a matter of time until this happened, and Will should’ve been more careful, should’ve known that the one time he doesn’t patrol with Mike that it would happen again, and that Mike wouldn’t be carrying his song with him. Will has noticed, over the past few weeks, a shift in Mike – away from his old, emphatic self, to a Mike that’s more withdrawn, that always looks tired or lost in thought or both. And, look – Will knows that the apocalypse is never kind, not to anyone, but it’s especially concerning to see Mike act this way at strategy meetings, at the few DND games they get to play when there’s a lull in action, when he’s doing something he’s interested in.
Will has noticed, and he’s not an idiot – everyone told him how much Mike wanted him back when he was taken, how furious Mike was with anyone who said he was dead. But Dustin told him, one night, about the quarry, the way Mike hadn’t even hesitated to step off, like he wanted to die.
mike gets vecna'd, and will steps in to save him -- if mike will let him.
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(No explicit content)
In 1989, Mike Wheeler heads to college, but instead of finding freedom, he’s consumed by loneliness and depression. Turning to alcohol and reckless behavior, he struggles to cope with the fear of his sexuality. In desperate attempt to prove himself, Mike is wreck less and careless. Weeks later when a girl named Ashley shows up with a positive pregnancy test, claiming he’s the father of her child, Mike’s world is shattered. After the birth Ashley disappears, he’s left alone to care for the baby, barely scraping by, struggling to afford food and balance overwhelming responsibilities. With his mental health crumbling, Mike doesn’t know how much longer he can keep going. -
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“Are you cutting yourself?” Nancy asked. “Is that what those scars are from?”
“That’s not your fucking business!” Mike yelled. Nancy stepped back. She had never seen him so angry. “That’s my problem, not yours, and you don’t get to Nancy Drew this shit, okay? I’m not a mystery for you to solve. I just needed-- I needed--”
She caught a glimpse of his face crumpling into a sob before he turned and slammed the door behind him. Nancy swore she felt the walls shake.
Or: Mike is hurting himself and Nancy is terrified.
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Talks about who Mike really is and who he is seen as. As well as a little bit of his own POV and him writing about what he wishes he was.
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This is my first fic I’ve ever written so don’t be surprised if it’s not great.
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You’ve got a beautiful brain, but it’s disintegrating, from all the medicine by A1_Lex
Fandoms: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
11 Jun 2025
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Mike Wheeler survived bullying, demogorgons, vecna, the mind flayer, the upside down and falling off a cliff but he never expected the thing that could finally take him out could be his own body..cancer.
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When they beat vecna and his army Mike thought he would be safe, then in the summer of 87’ he gets diagnosed with stage ll sarcoma cancer. He meets a boy in the hospital and finds love where he never expected. Then comes in Will Byers when he moves back to Hawkins.
Jealousy, pain, mourning and heartbreak. -
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Will Byers died on November 6, 1983, but three years after his death, he was found collapsed in a wheat field outside Hawkins, with 15 years old and a alarmingly poor health
How did he survive the inverted world and what came out of it with him?
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“Hey, it’s ok to be scared. It’s not fun for anyone. But sometimes it’s necessary, especially when you’ve swallowed something you’re not supposed to. Do you think you can try and be brave for me, Mike? Just this once?”
Mike sobs harder the more Will speaks. He’s asking too much of him, especially when Mike’s already overwhelmed.
Will finds Mike in the bathroom. But why is there a nearly empty bottle of shampoo beside him...?
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you might never come back home, and i may never sleep at night by byerseason
Fandoms: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
23 Apr 2025
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...
“This,” Mike said, stepping forward.
“This thing where I keep—giving you everything I have. Where I spend half my time worrying about you, trying to make things a little less awful for you—for years. And you just—”
He stopped himself with a harsh breath, dragging his palms over his eyes until it hurt.Will stood there, his eyes already glassy. He looked like he didn’t know where he was anymore. Like this wasn’t the room he thought he’d stepped into.
“I didn’t ask you for any of that,” he said finally. His voice was small. Trembling. But it landed like a knife.Mike flinched. Just barely. Then his voice cracked like a whip.
“But you took it. You took all of it.”
...or, the one where both mike and will distance themselves from each other despite living in the same house. will is silently suffering his vecna visions and mike is a mess.