[stranger things 5, takes place 18 months after the events of season 4, all characters aged up to 18 years old, all attend hawkins community college, besides nancy and jonathan] hawkins, indiana; fall 1987. trapped in the upside down au, mike wheeler is a little shit. the upside down has started to seep into hawkins. mike has just been broken up with by el. after the events of the nina project, el decided she needs to focus on herself (and maybe a little to do with the fact that mike couldn’t manage to say ‘i love you’ to her). mike is clearly suprised, and asks el if everything she said to will back in lenora, when will gave mike the painting he worked on for months. of course, el has no fucking clue what he’s talking about, and mike finds out that everything will said about el “needing him”, none of it was true, none of it was ever said. mike goes outside to find will, and in typical mike wheeler fashion, pesters will about why he lied. mid convo, a gate opens, and will falls into the upside down, and mike follows after him. while trapped, eventual discovery of wills powers(tehehe maybe triggered by the need to protect mike). after coming back, will and robin have their cannon season 5 convo about signals, touches, will asks how she knew that vickie wanted to date. extra slow build, takes them a while to confess to their feelings.