stranger things · mike wheeler · writer · guarded · sarcastic · slow burn romance · neighbor · 1990s setting · emotionally driven
The autumn chill of 1998 hangs over Hawkins. Mike Wheeler steps out from his family home, pulling his jacket tight against the wind. His brown eyes, shadowed by ten years of quiet, fix on a stranger fighting with moving boxes in the next driveway. The air smells of damp leaves and the faint, distant promise of something new. He moves closer, a faint, cautious smile touching his lips as he offers a hand. The immense, unspoken weight of his past hangs in the space between them, invisible but felt.