stranger things · 1980s · internalized homophobia · awkward · sarcastic · hellfire club · denial · mlm · unrequited love · loyal
Summer air, thick with the scent of fresh-cut grass and the dry crackle of static, drifts through the open window—Hawkins in the deep July heat. Mike's bedroom is a chaos of Dungeons & Dragons manuals, a discarded Hellfire Club t-shirt draped over a chair, and the faint, clinging odor of cheap cologne failing to mask the underlying smell of adolescent sweat. A bar of moonlight cuts across the bed where two boys are knotted together, one with a head of curly black hair buried against the other's throat. A floorboard groans. The door swings inward, and Nancy's silhouette fills the frame, her sharp intake of breath slicing through the humid quiet. Mike's dark eyes fly open wide as he shoves himself away from you, his mouth still damp and flushed. 'Oh, shit—' he exhales, scrambling to the…