#or the byler in law (?!?) ones

[jonathanbyersphd]

Many thoughts about these two who have been raised by the world's most emotionally distant parents standing there watching the people they love the most leave and not even turning to each other for comfort

[pixelatedtears02]

One of my favourite underrated dynamics has GOT to be Nancy and Will’s. They’ve known each other since Will became friends with Mike. But they don’t KNOW each other. Now imagine this. As you (Will Byers) grow up, your best friend’s sister is kinda in the background. You don’t know her much but she used to chill with you guys sometimes. But then you get kidnapped and she’s in the hospital? And apparently she contributed big time into finding you? Then you don’t see her much for a year. A year later you get possessed, and she’s the one who STABS YOU WITH A FIREPLACE POKER. And then you barely see each other again. Like the COMEDIC POTENTIAL. I need to see more of this. Sick and tired of this dynamic duo getting ignored.

[emblazons]

Byler-In-Law

Jonathan Byers & Mike Wheeler in The Nina Project & The Dive

[uselessnbee]

saw my favorite bylers talk about the relationship between Mike and Joyce again and now i just can't stop thinking about it

not just if she saw the airport fiasco but what if she saw the conflict between willelmike

or after they're all finally in hawkins again maybe she saw there's something going on and asked Jonathan and he told her some things he knew he could let her know

and then she comes to Mike and he expects it. he expects her to be angry to start criticising him cause he fucked up and hurts everyone and he knew this was coming but god does it hurt. this is the woman that feels like a second mother to him the woman that sometimes feels more like a mother to him then his actual mom and he knows being criticised by her is going to be the last straw and a part of him is dreading this but a part of him also thinks he deserves this. of course he does he fucked up he's the bad guy he hurt people he hurt her children she loves more than anything of course he deserves this

so he can take it. it will hurt. it will be like a punch in the face but he can take it it's what happens after that's the real question

but Joyce just smiles at him so gently and asks if he's doing okay. if everything is alright if something is going on. she tells him she cares about him and she knows he's been through a lot but if he needs her she's here for him. if he needs to talk she will listen if he just needs someone to be there for him she will be and she's just so caring and gentle and loving to Mike and Mike just. fucking. breaks.

he doesn't even remember when was the last time someone treated him this way like his feelings matter like he matters and he just can't help it. someone finally sees more than his snarkiness. someone finally sees more than him being a jerk. someone finally sees there's something more going on. someone finally sees the pain behind it and cares enough to actually ask him of he's okay and so he just lets himself cry in front of someone for the first time in years

[rotisseries]

im so completely obsessed with the loz au byler concept every single post of it I see I HAVE to reblog and then I'm in the tags losing my mind in all caps and then the post just says something like "I think a zelda byler au would be neat"

[byler-prompts]

Byler Cinderella!AU, except Mike wants nothing to do with the ball, so he purposefully gets in trouble to stay home, (his parents also punish him by telling him to do the chores), and Will is the Prince who (temporarily) runs away from his own ball, not wanting to “marry a nice woman and settle down”, as Hopper put it. (No one in his family knows he’s gay… yet)

Will successfully escapes from the Kingdom, making sure to leave behind no trace of where he was going. And why should he? He’ll just be back later anyways. Now, Will has never really been in the eye of the public, not being as extroverted as his adopted sister Jane, (they called each twins though), and not having to be out there like his reluctant older brother.

He sits there for a while, before the other wakes up, and then begins the interrogation, starting with, “Are you hurt anywhere?” Will is at first flabbergasted. He doesn’t know where he is, where wouldn’t he be? He shifts uncomfortably, before shaking his head. “Are you mute?”, comes the next question, and Will just gawks. After a few more weird questions, Mike finally asks the other for his name, and what he was doing passed out in front of his home. “My name is Will, and as for your other question,” he makes up an excuse for it, not wanting to know he’s a prince. After all, it might be a freeing feeling. They actually hit it off after that, and although Will does offer to help with the chores, he’s completely useless in that area - all off the servants normally do all the work, the only thing he really excels at is painting and drawing. So Mike just eventually tells the other (after many mistakes), to sit down and he’ll take care of it himself.

They get to know each other a bit more, and they find out each other’s hobbies, and interests, and dislikes. Mike tells him about his in royalty, Wills says they are not bad, “pushy sometimes, but not bad.” Mike just shrugs at the comment and moves onto something else. “Hey. Do you think you can show me one of your paintings sometime?” Will nods ecstatically. He was glad to have recognition for his hobbies and not his status for once. Poor Buff Byers. :(

Will then looks at the grandfather clock, it was way past midnight - the ball has ended. He turns back to Mike and smiles. “Well, I better go. My family will be worried, and they are a bit overprotective of me.” Mike snorts, “Why did you sneak out if you knew your family would be worried?” Will’s smile widens. “I already told you, I wanted some space from home.” Then, after a beat, he says, “hey, do you think I come over tomorrow?” And thus becomes the start of a beautiful romance.

Also, Jancy happens at the ball because I say so, and they are so adorable together, just like Lumax, Rockie/Vibin and Duzie. TwT

Plus, another plot device! :0

It’s not like Will and Mike could get publicly married anyways, but Mike would definitely be freaking out about it for no reason. (Mike also checks out Will’s muscles on the second visit, lmao)

Another throw away prompt, I’m getting good with these spontaneous ideas.

Anyways, use this as you wish, and again, I’ll be stalking AO3, waiting! UwU

[heartrender6]

what is wrong with all of you. bylers looove to talk about how byler endgame would be such important representation for young queer kids/teens in the closet but the second you find out that the kids in question are in fact here, seeking said representation, you freak out and condescend them. genuinely shame on you

[bananasbyler]

Okay so this WAS the outfit that Will was shown in. Bylers who aren’t tired (not me) maybe examine the clear photo to see if there’s any hints to anything 👀

Poor Finn and the heat, RIP (rip sleeves buh dum tss)

Also who is this?? I saw someone/multiple say it’s Holly. She seems to have grown up within ONE year or even before a time skip (character not actors)

I’m assuming the Holly assumptions are right because there’s the two actors seen here (and obviously child actors need two because of the law)— I wonder what the colorful outfit is for though??

It’s almost 7 am, I’m tired, catch me up in replies or something 💀

[lucystark12]

we might be witnessing something

obviously we all know how much i love byler, and what im about to say is going to sound like “gen z walking away from the white house on fire with hayloft by mother mother playing” but i have to speak my truth here- i think byler being canon will go FAR beyond the fandom and casual watchers of stranger things. we might literally be the early adopters of a pop cultural phenomenon that could go down in history as one of the most important moments in media history.

stranger things is a really bizarre phenomenon in the grand scheme of things, because it is SO famous. it’s popularity has been compared to shows like game of thrones, but it goes even beyond that, because EVERYONE watches it. i’ve been watching it since i was eleven. my mom watches it. my uncles watch it. my best friend watches it. my grandma watches it. it’s viewership is so wide because there are so many aspects of it that appeal to so many different people. the impact this show has sent a song released forty years ago to number one on the charts practically overnight and it STILL plays on the top 40 radio to this day.

think about american politics as they are right now- we’re bearing witness to one of (if not THE) most important election in american history. the difference between trump and kamala is the difference between potential dystopia and nuclear fallout and peace and progressiveness. if trump wins, he will pull all of our aid from ukraine, letting russia push forward into western europe, and we all know what happens when a country tries to push into western europe. trump’s agenda in project 2025 imposes potential laws that will take us back hundreds of years in lgbtq+ rights, rights for people of color, and women’s rights. this election has caused a huge amount of dread and fear in the american people especially as the days push on. and what do people historically cling to in moments of fear like this? art.

think about music during the vietnam war, movies like “red dawn” during the cold war, or mccarthyism during world war two. when people are afraid of the real world, they tend to turn to popular media for escapism. we’re already seeing it, as ridiculous as it sounds, in things like brat summer or the debate edits to chappell roan songs. it might not seem like it’s happening because everything about it is different today in the digital age versus sixty years ago when tvs were boxes, but it is. this is only the beginning. and with the release of the next stranger things season, it’s possible that it could only grow more.

picture this: it’s next july. trump has been sworn in as 47th president of the united states and is six months into his second term. there’s already talks of him overturning obergefell v. hodges (the supreme court ruling that gave us gay marriage), there’s now a nationwide abortion ban, and political opponents of his are slowly seeming to disappear and go inactive. but hey! the 2020’s most beloved tv show is airing its last season this week.. it’s an easy way for us all to feel nostalgia about a time (wether that be the 80s or summer 2019) when our country was progressing forward instead of so drastically backwards as it is now, or to just watch a cool sci-fi show with one of the highest viewerships of any show ever, second only to game of thrones. everyone is turning on their tvs at midnight to watch these new episodes and suddenly- the main couple consisting of the two main characters of the show breaks up, the boy leaving the girl for his childhood best friend, whom he has been in love with for years but been forced to ignore because of the way society views gay people?

and everyone is seeing this, even 40+ y/o homophobes who watch the show for the nostalgia factor and never suspected a thing. the public is outraged. fox news is going on about the gay agenda. but the shock of the news is turning heads. people are changing their minds because… people being gay actually hasn’t only been a thing for the last ten years??! gay people might not actually be lesser humans? ANYBODY CAN BE GAY? what is happening! we know everyone watches this, so people of all backgrounds all across the world and more specifically the country are reacting to this in different ways. but no matter how you look at it, everyone is talking about it. it’s all over everyone’s for you page, SNL is parodying it, anderson cooper is talking about it on CNN, trump is denouncing it on twitter, there’s a push for it to be banned in florida.

suddenly, the democrats are picking up on this, because isn’t this everything we’ve been fighting for this whole time put at the forefront of a mainstream show? this is forcing everyone to confront the implications of having a gay ship be the focal point of a show with the viewership of stranger things, and the democratic party and it’s supporters pick up on this, turning it into a symbol and essentially a martyr of the party as a whole. whatever song (and you know there will be a song) that’s used in the scene where byler becomes official is immediately topping the charts. people are walking around wearing t shirts with byler quotes on them like we’re seeing now with the kamala brat t shirts. hundreds of people are influenced by it and we may even see an increase in support for politicians who advocate specifically for gay rights or are gay themselves.

this all happens because when people who are being spotlighted by pop culture speak out, everybody hears it. it’s the same reasoning behind why an endorsement from taylor swift could outright win kamala this election. a huge part of our population has quiet beliefs that they’re just waiting to dive into until somebody in mainstream media tells them that it’s a good idea. in making byler cannon, stranger things could be changing the trajectory of popular culture and american politics as a whole for years to come. it’s all about the domino effect. if people see this, all it does is open a gateway for other stories and conversations to happen, because something so outrageous as making byler canon during the early stages of project 2025 will turn the heads of every politically inclined person in america, from every maga cap wearing trucker to every blue haired barista, and when heads are turned things are changed.

[silverliing]

Mike’s wall art

I love seeing analysis about ST set design because it really spells out so much of the story without verbally telling you, and ive seen much discussion abt the details of mike’s room in s4 (that one way sign haunts me btw). buuut there are two pieces of visible wall art that I don’t really see get talked about on here (that i’ve read) and I just have a few things to say about them and what i think they might be telling us about Mike’s character and upcoming journey (hint: going into the UD)(hint: making plans and leading the party)(hint: byler)

so idk if this has been pointed out or if it’s common knowledge atp but the two pieces circled above are lithographs by artist MC Escher; Hand with Reflective Sphere (left)

and Relativity (right)

(a lil hard to see in this screenshot i’m sorry😢)

The artwork is beautiful as you can see (canon Mike Wheeler has great taste in art). Escher was most known for his intricate “impossible constructions” which are optical illusions of paradoxical space, he was also the inventor of the impossible cube:

this is some pretty cool nerdy, mathy stuff that I’d expect mike would be into, but looking at it from the context of his character and the direction of where the story is headed, there were 3 immediate possible readings that popped into my head which point toward 3 different (yet coexisting) directions:

He likes the art — It’s true, this art taps into Mike’s interests. Valid but boring. zzzz. snooze. You could argue that these posters should be taken at face value, but I just feel like in a show like ST —where the main cast knows of and is in various ways affected by an evil alternate dimension— having a character with wall art that references perspective/dimensional anomalies doesn’t really tell us much about his specific character or story. We’ve known that the ST set designers use a character’s space to show us who they are as people, these two artworks need to tell us something about Mike and his journey. And maybe Mike’s sensibilities about the world at large are shifting into nihilism with everything that’s happened in hawkins and the art reflects an absurdist outlook of future (teenage stuff, growing up, etc. etc.)

It foreshadows Mike’s s5 arc — I love this one. Mike is one of the few in the main cast who haven’t been in the upside down proper, so this art could reference not only that he’ll go into the UD in s5 but also that there could be dimensional anomalies involved in his travel or journey there. Perhaps this is how they’ll be able to find Max— by bending the laws of physics and using the mechanics of dimensional travel against itself, perhaps to open new doors or travel in different directions (hint: time travel 😏). And i think the reason this art is in Mike’s wall is bc it will be Mike who formulates the plan to find Max and retrieve her with the help of El and Will’s new powers 😏 (g*d knows i want to see leader Mike make a come back)(and Will with powers).

Will Byers — we know Mike and Will are tied together by the narrative and so I think these artworks could be directly pointing to Will with big red arrows. This point is corroborated by simply analyzing the formal qualities of the artwork, both individually and as a set. Hand with Reflective Sphere is about optics and perspective, about seeing, but also about the flattening of space. Relativity is about space, dimension, and paradox, but also about impossible perspective/vantage point. When read together the objective reading of them is about sight and space and paradox, about how the flattening of space helps us see something new and impossible. While Mike hasn’t experienced the dimensional travel into the UD proper, many of those closest to him atp had; El, Will, Nancy… but the reason i think these two posters remind him of Will specifically is because out of everyone else who has been in the UD, only Will experiences the feeling of being stuck there and of seeing into both dimensions at once; the stuck view-master, true sight. Mike associates these things combined (dimensional travel and dimensional sight/perception) with Will.

Also, Mike is a nerdy guy, he seems interested in this kind of stuff for the fun of it so he could’ve had sciency charts that reference the subject of visible light and paradoxes the way Suzie does, but instead he has not one but two fine-art pieces by a pretty big graphic artist that reference the subject of sight and space. Also, Idk what it is about the fact that it’s fine-art and not movie/game/dnd art that makes me also associate it with Will— the self-proclaimed visual artist of the show. The words are all jumbled up in my head rn but; artist. sight. all-encompassing. dimension. paradox. new perspective. -> -> -> -> Will Byers (is this a hint to wills powers??) etc. etc. etc. you get it

Secret 4th option (ties into #2)

Mike gets Vecnaed and this forces him into extensive self-reflection and the labyrinthian trials of finding himself and mastering his fears(maybe he’s already begun his self-searching and that’s why we see this art at the beginning of s4). cue cool musical montage of Mike navigating his own memories and mind-scape to find the answer that will make everything make sense while also hiding from vecna and buying the party time to find a way to end him.

[strangerthingsbigbang]

Byler artists, we need you!

We need a pinch-hitter artist for the story below. We accept all sorts of art, including traditional/digital drawing, painting, gif sets, manips, icons and banners, fanvids, podfics, or playlists!

Story # 32

Title: I Was Made for You Main Pairing(s): will byers/mike wheeler Rating: M (Mature, Shows adult themes, but not explicitly) Genre: Romance, Fluff, Angst Word Count: 5001 Completeness: 5 Warnings: car accident, suicide Summary:

mike wheeler is a musician and songwriter with big dreams who lives on the edge. he’s wild, carefree, and following the unexpected death of his girlfriend, really fucking depressed. will byers is a law student, something his father coerced him into pursuing, and he is absolutely miserable with his life. in a very cliche scenario where will is at a bar and mike is performing a set, the two spark up a conversation after the show. they become close friends quickly. mike craves stability, while will craves spontaneity. both young men develop a push and pull dynamic that helps them discover new sides of themselves… as well as an undeniable attraction towards one another.

Art forms preferred: Traditional/Digital drawing Highest rating art preferred: M (Mature, Shows adult themes, but not explicitly)

If you can make art for this story by July 10th, please email us to let us know: stbigbang.mod@gmail.com!

[jonathanbyersphd]

Have we talked about how when Will says "We're her (El) brothers and we're family" Mike is also there and how this is possibly foreshadowing?

[steddieunderdogfics]

chuck me a bouquet after the show, babe by fivecenturiesverse

@fivecenturiesverse

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences

7,473 words, 1/1 chapters

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Tags: POV Steve Harrington, Future Fic, Band Fic, sorta - Freeform, steve harrington joins his father's business, Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington Are Best Friends, Platonically Married Robin Buckley and Steve Harrington, Pining, without even realising, homoerotic interest in the glam rock scene, Light Angst, reconnecting, Weddings, lucas max wedding, steve's dad isn't too much of an asshole, steve harrington leaves hawkins, Reunions, mildly succession themed, Parental Steve Harrington, Some Humor, suspicious amount of crying, Time Skips, A lot of hugs, mike goes to therapy, good for him, byler if you squint really hard and read between the lines, Pre-Relationship

Summary:

1996: ten years after Steve left Hawkins, and his dad has just opened the new music label and wants Steve to run it for him. Steve finds he has a peculiar obsession with metal artists who don't wear much except glitter (he just wants to keep the feel of the record label young, is all). He's invited wedding for a reunion, he finally sees faces he's fallen out of touch with. Rock and roll, new wave, alternative rock shit, whatever glam metal is. Guys with big painted eyes and fluffy hair and sexual proclivities that are going to make his dad call him up and ask if it’s really a good direction for the label. Fuck the old guys, let’s rock out whatever the fuck, it’s just a good marketing line. More youth, like no one above forty, thanks, no country “I hate my wife and I hate gun laws, yahoo freedom shit”, it’s old, it’s done. “I want something fun,” he tells Lisa. “Something young and… cool. You’re younger than me, who’s cool but underground enough that they won’t already have a label.” “I like the Pop Top 40 same as you,” she says, pursing her lips at him. “Why don’t you just send some minions out to a student bar and grab the first man wearing glitter?”

Thanks for the rec! This recommendation is apart of our Writer's Wednesday! All of the recs today are written by @fivecenturiesverse. Want to nominate an author? Fill out this form!

You can submit fic recs to our asks or the submission box!

[emblazons]

Me trying to stay neutral when someone tags any of my gifsets with mlvn and/or any “he’s so in love with El” commentary b/c they’ve breached containment:

[sparks-olivarpente]

Byler Fics List: the Grown-ups

I adore Stranger Things adult characters, here are some fics where they play an important part:

Until you wake up by Roxhylee Will is in a coma and Mike visits him every day. This one has some of the most thoughtful Ted-and-Mike chapters and an interesting take on Ted <3

Wedding at the End of the World (What do We Have to Lose?) by Julia_Skysong "Hang on, hang on," Jonathan interrupted, frowning slightly. "Let me do the math here. You've only been a…thing, for like a few days? And you want to get married?" "Dude, you're gonna get a new step-dad! Argyle cheered, trying to high five him. "Please for the love of GOD let me officiate this," Murray cackled. OR Joyce and Hopper decide to have a spontaneous wedding at the end of the world and help their kids figure out love and life.

Bananas and Closure by @tired-bisexual-brainrot Hopper runs into Diane while at the store. He invites her over for dinner, and she finds out that he now has a whole family with three kids and a wife.

No Cure for Queer by AlabasterInk (@alabasterswriting) Will Byers had about thirty minutes between realizing that the butterflies in his stomach came from appreciating Mike’s smile a little too much, to walking into his house and hearing Hopper say, “…wrong, Joyce. A guy with another guy. We used to arrest queers, you know…” And it all went downhill from there.

california show your teeth by @fireflywitch Fourteen months after a rash of unexplained disappearances tore an Indiana town apart, a new chief of police and his very normal, nothing-to-see-here family moves to Hawkins from Lenora Hills, California. "I wondered what it would be like if the Byers, El, and Hopper had grown up in Lenora Hills instead of Hawkins and moved to Indiana later on - how things would be different and what things would stay the same and which characters might be better off or worse off…" for Claudia and the Moms <3

You May Be the One Place I'm Sure About by elsie (the_technorats) the one where Joyce Byers and Jim Hopper finally have a moment to themselves. no byler here but you should read it all the same ;)

mom, i'm gay. wait, you are too? by dragons_like_smores @howtobecomeadragon “What if there are no men out there for me, Michael?” Mike, not focused at all on his mom, said absentmindedly, “Then maybe you can just date a woman.” Or: Mike unintentionally starts Karen's lesbian awakening while he simps for his boyfriend, Will, all summer long.

poor old jim's white as a ghost by AttaboyLuther Even when he started on the force back in 1980… Jim Hopper knew there was something special between William Byers and that brat Mike Wheeler. (AKA: Mike and Will fall in love, told through the perspective of one Chief Hopper)

and if you wanna cry or fall apart (i'll be there to hold you) by Strangerangels Mike Wheeler and his relationship with Will Byers, as told by Joyce Byers. Inspired by that scene in S2 where Mike holds Joyce and leads her into the car. Y'know, the one where Bob dies. You just know Mike is going to be the best in-law Joyce will ever have.

The Darkest Eyes by @light-lanterne a semi canon-compliant character study of mike wheeler, his unaddressed trauma and his relationship with will byers, told through the eyes of a very tired jim hopper who can’t help but to become attached to the boy who keeps dating his children.

The Right Thing by Nymphadoragreenleaf The second pregnancy was a mistake. They were basically at breaking point with only Jonathan and Lonnie didn’t want to have to work even more when he had already fulfilled his side of the bargain. He married her and they had a kid. What more did they expect from him (or Lonnie pov)

Benny's also by Nymphadoragreenleaf Officer Powell grimaces “The trespasser… he’s- chief it’s your misses youngest- the one who went missing a few years back.” (or Hopper pov)

some more Hopper: it's me, hi (everybody agrees) by @livsindelusion or 5 Times Mike Gets The Shovel Talk and 1 Time It's Will

and some Joyce! can't hold out forever by scorchstorm five times that others noticed how mike felt + the one time that will did.

Have fun reading :)

[dynamic-power]

Coach H

Rating: T

No warnngs

Words: 1.6k

A look at a possible future for Steve Harrington.

Taylor has known Coach H for almost 4 years, and still can't quite figure him out. They have the opportunity to investigate his office a little, and they learn more than they thought they would.

This is totally Steve-centric. All others, though I love them all dearly, are only briefly mentioned.

-------------------------------

Coach Harrington's office is one of four tucked behind the gym, between the girls' and boys' locker rooms. Taylor has never been in here before. Students rarely have a reason to come to the coaches' offices; they can all usually be found in the gym, even when class isn't in session.

Taylor has known Coach H for four years; their freshman year had been Coach's first year at Lincoln High. They know him just well enough to not feel guilty about wanting to snoop around a little while they are waiting. Maybe they can learn something.

Coach H is a bit of a point of confusion, even for many of the students who know him. He looks normal enough; Taylor guesses he's in his fifties, with thick brown hair that has started to go gray at his temples, kind eyes, and a boyish smile that is contagious. It's when he starts to talk about himself that the oddities begin to show.

He has tattoos, the most notable of which is an electric guitar that takes up most of his right inner forearm. It's upside down, with the bottom of the body tucked into the crease of his elbow and the neck stretching down to his wrist. When asked, he always admits that he doesn't play guitar; in fact, he knows very little about music at all. He says he got it because someone saved his life with that very guitar, but Taylor suspects he'd just thought it looked cool when he was young.

He also, allegedly, knows an unusual number of people with significance to the LGBTQ+ community. Taylor has heard him mention having lunch with Michael Wheeler, an author who gained popularity in the early 2000s for his fantasy novels that often feature queer characters. Kelly swears that she heard him mention the Byler siblings once. The three artists, each known for having their own distinct mediums of photography, paint, and sculpture, had risen to fame in the nineties for the mix of praise and criticism they'd received for their first joint exhibit. It had been an exploration of the realities of being gay at the time, and the artwork is still discussed and admired today.

There's also a rumor that he knows a member or two of Corroded Coffin, a metal band who toured for thirty years and was fronted by an openly gay man, though Taylor is unfamiliar with them and finds this a bit less impressive than the other possible connections.

They don't know how many of these rumors, if any, are true, but it's interesting nonetheless. It makes him a sort of unspoken, safe space for the queer students.

He has a strange scar across his throat, and if asked about it, his responses are varying levels of insane, ranging from very improbable to outright impossible. He'd been mistaken for a patient in need of a thyroid operation when he'd gone in for a knee surgery. A sentient vine got wrapped around his neck while he was being attacked by giant bats. A serial killer known simply as The Strangler had tried to make him a victim when he'd gone back to his hometown for a high school reunion. He'd been hanged for being a pirate in a past life and bore a scar as a reminder to always abide by the law.

He claims to have a brother just a few years younger than himself, but he also tells stories about being an only child. He says his reason for choosing to be a high school teacher is that he raised six teens himself, but it's common knowledge that he's never had kids. He's a nerd, which had caught Taylor by surprise the first time they'd realized it. He'd mumbled something about Coach Roberts sounding like a demogorgon when he passed by Taylor during class one day. He'd said it like he knew exactly what that fictitious beast sounded like. As though it was a sound that existed.

Then, of course, there is his friendship with Ms. Buckley, who had arrived at Lincoln the same year as Coach. There's speculation that they are actually married to each other - their wedding rings, though different, are equally strange - but Taylor has never gotten that vibe from them. They do interact with the familiarity of people who have known each other a long time, though.

Peering around the room, Taylor takes stock of what they can immediately see. A shelf is lined with trophies that the school has won in Coach H's brief tenure. At the end of the shelf, proudly displayed besides the shiny plastic, is a crudely made clay trophy that reads "#1 DINGUS" at the bottom. There is also a tall bookshelf. It's almost entirely full and has a variety of genres and authors. Taylor notices a selection of Michael Wheeler on one of the middle shelves at perfect eye level. His desk is cluttered with papers, though it looks like it is an organized sort of chaos. He has a couch that sits opposite the desk. It has a soft-looking blanket folded across the back and an assortment of pillows and plushes taking up much of the sitting space.

What catches Taylor's eye is the pin board hanging just beside the door. It is just as covered as the surface of the desk. There are a couple of fading children's drawings, a birthday card with the beginnings of a bad joke on the front, and a bunch of photos of people Taylor doesn't recognize. In the middle of the cluttered board are three photos pinned in a neat, tidy column. The top and bottom are of six people, taken probably 10 or 15 years apart. In the top one, the younger version of the group is standing in a row, arms around each other, grinning at the camera. Taylor recognizes the two in the very center; a young Ms. Buckley and Coach H are leaning into each other, pulling their friends in closer on either side. In the one on the bottom, they are all older but, in a way, the same. They've paired off, each couple kissing dramatically for the camera. On the right, Coach Harrington is being dipped back by a man with long curls pulled back into a messy bun. In the center, Ms. Buckley and a woman with a short bobbed cut each have both hands holding their partner's face. The two men on the left, one with short brown hair and the other with a mane that reaches halfway down his back, are flipping off the camera, hands held out low enough that their audience can still see them kissing.

It's the photo between these two, though, that really draws Taylor's attention. It's clearly a professional picture - six gold rings in a circle, displayed on a gnarled stump with bits of greenery in the background. The rings are three distinct pairs, each set across from each other in the circle. The first pair, the thinnest, set at the top and bottom, have been fashioned to look like vines with impossibly intricate leaves and flowers. Taylor knows Ms. Buckley wears one of these. The next clockwise are of a more medium width and have a spiral seam and tiny frays to make them look like rope. The final pair is the most familiar to Taylor; thick, golden chain links. One of those is Coach Harrington's.

"That one's been nicknamed 'the rings of power'," Coach H says, materializing beside her to examine the photos, too.

"Who took it?"

"Jonathan Byers," Coach H says easily.

Taylor's eyes nearly bug out of their head. "Like, the famous photographer?" Taylor, an amateur photographer themself, discovered Jonathan Byers and his work a few years ago and had loved it all. "You actually know him? For real?"

"I actually know him for real. He's in these other two photos."

Taylor stares at the top photo for a moment before the realization of what that fact could mean hits them. "Are you married to Jonathan Byers?! Is that him?" Taylor takes a closer look at the curly-haired man, trying to remember if they've ever seen a picture of Jonathan Byers.

Coach chuckles and shakes his head. "No," he says with a grin, "but he'd be amused to know you think so. That's Jon." He points to the man on the far right side of the first photo. He's the one with the short haircut. "This is my husband." Coach points instead to the man with the wild curls. "Eddie Munson. He's the front man of Corroded Coffin." He begins to point out the other three. "That's Jon's husband, Argyle. He owns a food truck. You might have seen it downtown. You already know Robin. That's her wife, Nancy Wheeler. Nance is a freelance journalist."

"Wheeler?" That can't be a coincidence. "Holy shit," Taylor says, unable to hold back a disbelieving laugh. "The rumors are true."

"Which ones?" Coach asks with an amused, knowing smile.

"The ones about you knowing a bunch of famous gays!"

Coach laughs at that. "I guess? I knew them before the fame. We sorta grew up together. We all ended up being in the public eye pretty abruptly in the mid-eighties. Lots of interviews and publicity. It all kinda spiraled, and now, some of us are - well." He shrugs. "You can Google it."

"Wait," Taylor says, shrugging their backpack off their shoulder and pulling their notebook out. This is the reason Taylor is here in the first place; interviews with a few of the favorite teachers for the school newspaper. But this is starting to sound like so much more than a simple "fun facts" kind of interview. "Can I just ask you? This stuff is best straight from the source."

"Sure."

"This is so cool. So, what's the real story behind the guitar?"