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Warning for hinted at masturbation, and one curse word. Word count is 2392. I hope you all enjoy Messy Muffins.

We both stood in the Byers family's kitchen looking at the floor. Flour and sugar and eggs coated every surface that one could see. In the middle of it all stood Mrs. Byers looking like she didn't know whether to be angry or laugh.

The kitchen hadn't started out this way. It honestly hadn't. When I arrived at the Byers house the kitchen was perfectly clean. It even kind of sparkled in that weird sort of clean kitcheny way. Mrs. Byers was putting something in the oven when I walked in.

"Hey, Mike," she called, smiling at me. "Will's in his room."

"Hey, Mrs. Byers," I called back as I turned toward the all too familiar way to Will's room.

Will's room was one of the coolest places in the Byers house, besides his older brother Jonathan's. Last year Jonathan had gotten a new radio so he gave his old one to Will. It stood on the bedside table under the lamp.

I knocked on the door and opened it slightly. I couldn't but laugh a bit when I heard the distinct sound of scurrying to hide something and Will's disgruntled voice.

"Mom," he cried out, sounding exasperated, "how many times I have to tell you to knock and then wait until I say come in to enter."

"Your mom doesn't wait to enter your room," I said, opening the door further to see Will's scarlet face staring at me.

"No. And you could have said that it was you. Instead of having me think that it was my mom."

"What were you doing?"

"Nothing," he said, his face getting even redder if that was possible.

"It didn't sound like nothing."

"Could we just drop it and go play DnD?"

"Sure," I said, watching as he drew a relieved breath. I would put that away for further discussion later. "Do you want to do a two-person campaign or see if the others want to come over and join us?"

"I called them earlier before you came over," Will said, his words coming out quicker than I'm sure he meant them to. "Lucas had to go and visit his grandmother and Dustin is going to help his mother pick out a new friend for Newes. The last one got out and ran away."

"Yeah," I said, feeling sorry for Dustin and his mother and their luck with cats. "I'd heard about that in length from Dustin."

"Me too."

We broke into laughter. I couldn't help but think that I enjoyed making Will Byers laugh like this. His laugh was infectious and I couldn't help but join in. His eyes always seemed to sparkle when he laughed no matter what. Even during that time when he was possessed by the Mind Flayer that was still true.

"What are you thinking about?" Will asked, watching me as he grabbed his DnD booklet and walked towards the door. "You looked lost in thought there for a while, Mike."

You, I thought as I wracked my mind for something to say that wasn't what I had thought. I couldn't come up with something so I went with the next best thing. "Nothing," I said, feeling my cheeks heat up.

"It didn't look like nothing," Will said, needling me the way that I had needled him earlier.

We both looked at each other and then burst out laughing each of forgetting what we were talking about beforehand. We were still laughing ourselves silly in the hallway when Mrs. Byers walked up to us.

"I need to go to the grocery store for something," she said, looking at us. "Do you boys think you can keep an eye on my muffins that I just put in the oven?"

"Yeah, Mom," Will said.

Will's mom made the most delicious muffins in the world. She said that it was a recipe that her mother had taught her. But she didn't have any daughters to teach it to so she taught her sons. So, that's what Mrs. Byers had been putting in the oven when I arrived.

"Want to play DnD in the kitchen so we can keep an eye on the muffins?" Will asked, looking at me. Those warm chocolaty eyes meeting my ow….I had to stop that. Will had no clue that I liked him like that and I wasn't sure that he'd feel the same.

"Sure," I said, following to the kitchen as Mrs. Byers pulled out of the driveway. I put my backpack beside the kitchen table and took the board for the game out. I set everything up and we began to play.

I don't know how long we were playing but all of a sudden I could smell this acrid smell coming from not so far away.

"Do you smell that?" I asked, looking at Will.

"He who smelt it dealt it," he answered, chuckling lightly to himself.

"No not that. Something else."

"What time is it?" Will asked, looking at his wrist where his watch usually was.

I turned to look at the wall clock only to find a thin wave of smoke coming from the oven. I pointed toward it and Will turned to look.

"Shit!" he cried out, running over to the oven and pulling the door down. I could hear the scrape of the shelf coming out and the smell of burnt muffins was soon in the air. "I think we burned mom's muffins."

I turned to look at the tin that was sitting on the potholder on the counter. The muffins that were ordinarily supposed to be golden brown and fluffy were now charcoal black and looked hard as a brick.

"What should we do?" Will asked, looking at the burned baked goods on the counter. "We can't just leave them here like this for my mom to discover. We said we'd watch over them and make sure that this didn't happen."

"True," I said, looking at the muffins. "Do you think that maybe…No. That wouldn't work out well either."

"What?" Will asked, watching me. "I'm open for any suggestion that would get our butts out of the fire."

"I was just thinking that we could try and bake up a new batch before your mom gets home," I said, feeling my face heat up once more. I didn't know why this time. But it did. "That way we can get rid of the burned ones and no one will know the difference besides us."

"And anyone who tastes them that has tasted my mom's muffins," Will said, sighing and sitting back down.

"She did teach you the recipe, right?"

Will nodded.

"Then what's the problem?"

"I'm not as good at making them as she is and I know for sure that we'll be caught if we do try and make them."

"Alone, maybe. But if we try together we could possibly do a good job. What do you say? Do you want to bake some muffins with me?"

He looked from the pantry where most of the ingredients were and the burned muffins and then back to the pantry once more. I could see that he was trying to think this out in his head. But did we have time to sit and think things through? I didn't think so and apparently, neither did Will.

"Alright," he said finally coming to a decision. "Let's bake some muffins and hope to God that we get them done or somewhat half-baked before Mom gets home."

"What do we do?" I asked, pushing up my sleeves and getting ready to work.

"Mom always says that washing our hands should come first," Will said, looking around. "But maybe we could gather the ingredients before we wash our hands to cut down on the time that could be spent baking."

"That's a great idea," I said, looking at him expectantly.

"Oh, yeah," Will said, going red once more. "Could you go get the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and vanilla out of the cupboards, please? I'll get the wet ingredients from the fridge and we a few bowls and pans. Then we can go and wash our hands."

"Alright," I said, heading over to the pantry and opening the door. The shelves looked kind of rickety but everything seemed to be staying together which was good. We didn't need anything falling down on top of us during our project.

I scouted the shelves finding the flour, baking soda, baking powder easily. I looked at the sack of sugar sitting there. It seemed to be begging me to just pick it up. Who said muffins couldn't have a little sugar in them? I then found the vanilla slightly out of reach on one of the higher shelves.

"Will, why did your mom put the vanilla on this really high shelf?" I asked, feeling frustrated that I was only fingertips away from getting the vanilla. Then an idea popped into my head. I put one foot on the bottom shelf which should be secure then I leaned up and grabbed the bottle.

"What's wrong?" Will asked, walking over after placing the milk, eggs, pans, and bowls down on the table.

"Nothing," I said, feeling pumped that I figured the problem out on my own.

We set about washing our hands after I put my pile of ingredients down with Will's pile of ingredients. I looked at the soap in the dispenser and then took a sniff of it. It smelt like some kind of a mix between a flower and a fruit.

"I know," Will said, lathering the hand soap upon his hands. "It's one of the girliest smells in the world. But mom likes it so me and Jonathan don't really complain."

I nodded sagely and lathered up my own hand soap. I had to admit it wasn't an entirely bad smell. It was kind of pretty.

After we washed our hands we walked back over to the table and our baking project began in earnest or so we thought. When I walked back over to the table I could see the confused look on Will's face.

"What?" I asked, looking at him with my hands on my hips much in the same that El or Max would have done if they were angry at someone.

"Why did you bring the sugar out?" Will asked, raising an eyebrow at my stance.

I self-consciously stood up straight and folded my arms across my chest. "Isn't there supposed to be some sugar in there?" I asked. "I could have sworn the last time I was here I saw your mom put sugar in the muffins."

"Then you saw wrong," Will said, dipping his hand into the bag of flour without me seeing him do it.

"I didn't see wrong. Maybe you're remembering it wrong?"

The next thing I knew I'm spluttering on a mouthful of flour and blinking in surprise. I could feel the heat rise in my cheeks once more. Not an angry heat but more of an embarrassing kind of heat. The kind of heat one experiences when they do something embarrassing in front of your long-time crush. Which in essence I just had.

"What was that for? How is that going to help us get these muffins baked and ready by the time your mom gets back?"

A small smile graced Will's face as yet another handful of flour flew into my face. Luckily this time I duck out of the way before it could hit me. I grabbed the nearest thing to me which happened to be the container of eggs that were still sitting on the counter after we'd taken the amount for the muffins out.

"No," Will squealed coming to a stop as he noticed the egg that sat in my hand. "Don't you dare throw that, Mike Wheeler."

"I'm not going to throw it," I said, putting on my most trustworthy smile.

Will bought and walked closer to me. I walked over and then gave him a hug while breaking the egg over his head.

"No fair," Will cried.

"What would be fair?" I asked him.

"I don't know. If I could crack an egg over your head?"

"Fair enough."

It wasn't long until I could feel the cold gooey gush of egg yolk and white dripping down my hair and into the back of my shirt. We each got off two more handfuls of flour and sugar before we set to work on making the muffins.

We were so busy laughing at the food fight we'd just had while making the muffins that we didn't hear the door open. Or for that matter Mrs. Byers's footsteps in the hall until it was too late.

"What is this?" Mrs. Byers asked, looking around the kitchen Her eyes then landed upon the burned muffins that still sat on the kitchen counter. "Were you two trying to make a batch of new muffins before I got home and noticed that this batch was burned?"

Thus we stood in the Byers kitchen looking at the floor each of us trying to come up with something to say. The egg yuck having turned thick when the flour and sugar had been added to the mix. This was going to be very hard to get out and I'm pretty sure that I'd get a few strange looks on my way home.

"That's exactly what happened, Mom," Will said, making me turn towards him. "We didn't expect to get into a food fight or for that matter that the original batch muffins would burn. We're sorry and we'll clean it up. Right, Mike?"

Looking up I could that Mrs. Byers was trying hard not to laugh. She really didn't want us to think that this was alright but she was having a hard time keeping a straight face. I looked over at Wil and could see that he was having trouble keeping a straight face too. Which essentially broke me down into laughter. The mother and son duo following shortly after me.

"Why don't you boys go and get cleaned up and changed?" Mrs. Byers said, going over and tossing the burned muffins in the trash. "Then we can discuss getting the house back in order, alright?"

We both nodded and ran upstairs. Our afternoon of baking fun the only thing on either of our minds.

I hope you all enjoyed Messy Muffins as much as I enjoyed writing it.