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“Mike! Mike, stop!” Will laughs. “I’m serious, put it down!”
“Admit it, Will! I won’t stop until you admit it!”
“Absolutely not!” Will yelps as Mike thunks the wooden spoon against the top of his head. “Mike!”
Mike cackles maniacally clearly oblivious to — or simply uncaring of — Will’s distress. The sticky spoon tangles itself in Will’s — freshly washed, damnit — hair. Will tries to tug his arm out of Mike’s iron grip, but he must have started working out when he was away for college because he can’t get out. The more likely option, since hell would have to freeze over before Mike intentionally trains in his spare time, is that Will is very tired and that his muscles are lax with laughter. He tries to look stern and irritated, but it apparently fails spectacularly, because as soon as Mike stops howling enough to get a good look at Will’s face, he starts giggling again.
“Oh, oh— hah— oh my god, I’m so— I’m so sorry, Will—”
Will finds himself smiling against his will. The fool can’t even finish a full sentence without laughing. He swats at Mike. “Okay, okay, get it together! We’re never going to finish at this rate.”
Mike takes a deep, gulping breath. “Phew, okay. Yeah. Oh, shit, it’s in your hair!”
Will shoves him hard enough to knock him back into the sink. “You’re just now noticing!?” Mike claps a hand over his mouth, but the sound of snorting, manic giggling escape anyway. “You’re insufferable.”
“You love me,” Mike says from behind his hand.
“God knows why,” Will mutters to himself, turning back to the kitchen island, which is a veritable explosion of flour, sugar, and Christmas-colored sprinkles. It makes him exhausted just to look at, frankly, because the clock in the kitchen is ticking steadily closer and closer to four PM but the cookies are nowhere close to done. He feels arms winding around his waist before a weight settles against his back.
“Remind me again why we’re making cookies for everyone instead of just buying them?” Mike says, the sharp jut of his chin digging into Will’s shoulder.
“Because it’s festive!” Will insists. “And because I didn’t think it would be this hard.”
“You think we should call in Nancy?” Mike says, clearly reluctant at the prospect of admitting his inadequacy to his sister but fighting it in the name of just finishing the damn cooking.
“I think,” Will says, shaking Mike off of him and picking the rolling pin up, “that we should get back to business.”
Mike sighs theatrically, but loosens his grip around Will’s waist to toss the spoon into the sink and dig around for the cookie sheets. Will winces at the clattering of metal-on-metal, but does his best to coax the dough into some semblance of a flat sheet all throughout. Eventually, Mike lets out an a-ha! from behind him and skids around the island to show Will his treasure.
“I found them!”
“Good job, Mike,” Will says, handing him a cookie-cutter. “Now help me out here, they’ll be here any minute.”
“Half an hour isn’t any minute— ”
“Mike.”
“Alright, alright!”
They manage at least fifteen decently-shaped cookies and at least as many mangled ones, which Will considers a success. They stick the pan into the oven — to Mike’s immense disappointment they didn’t end up needing the second cookie sheet — and then it’s just a waiting game.
The waiting game isn’t really all that bad when you’re with your mostly long-distance since-recently-boyfriend since-always-best friend, Will thinks as Mike crowds him against the counter. He places his flour-covered hands on Mike’s chest, probably leaving handprints but not really caring all that much. “Hi,” he murmurs, “you don’t have a spoon this time, right?”
Mike lets out a little breath of a laugh into the space between them. “Nope, no spoon. Just me.”
“Good.” And then Will kisses him. Mike’s nose presses into his cheek and his lips taste like the M&M’s he snuck while they were making the dough. Will can’t help but smile into it, into the relief of the semester’s stress running off of him.
Mike was the one to pick him up at the airport for Christmas this year, corny sign and all. He’d driven them back to the Byers house where El, Joyce, and Hopper were waiting impatiently on the porch, bundled in jackets and scarves and woolen socks. Will had run toward them and nearly bowled his mother over with the force of his hug. Mike had stood back as Will held his family for the first time in months. Eventually, though, Joyce broke out of the group hug and waved him over to join. After all, Mike has been a part of the Byers family for years.
They pull out of the kiss when the doorbell rings. Will’s eyes widen. “Go,” Mike says, laughter in his voice.
Will nearly falls over as he runs out of the kitchen into the hallway. He barrels toward the door, throwing it open as if it were his own house. The grin that breaks out on his face as he sees the person standing on the other side of the door almost hurts his cheeks.
“Jonathan!”
“Hey, Will,” Jonathan says. The hug that follows is as cold as the outside air, Jonathan’s jacket crinkling as Will squeezes him tight. “What’s that?” he asks over Will’s shoulder when the timer starts ringing in the kitchen.
“We made cookies.” Will says, pulling back and letting Jonathan shut the door so he can start peeling off some of his outside layers.
“We as in…?”
Will frowns. “Me and Mike. No, we didn’t burn the kitchen down,” he cuts in before Jonathan can say anything.
“I didn’t say anything,” Jonathan says as he hangs his coat and scarf up, grinning.
Will kicks at his shins. “Whatever.”
Jonathan’s gaze catches somewhere behind him, and Will steps to the side. He glances over to make sure there isn’t any smoke coming out from the kitchen, but there’s just Mike peeking out from behind the stairs, now-silent tomato timer in his hand.
“My turn now?” asks Nancy from her perch on the bottom step of the stairs.
Jonathan toes off his shoes and walks in to grab her around the waist and spin her around. Will looks away when they kiss. He doesn’t need to see that. He looks at Mike instead, who’s also very pointedly not looking at them. “Why don’t you do that for me?” he asks Will instead.
“You’re too tall,” he explains. He is. Will would break his back trying to get Mike far enough off the ground to spin him around, and he says as much. Mike purses his lips.
“Well, grow then.”
Will laughs. “Yeah, I’ll make sure to do that for spring break.”
“Good,” Mike says, but his serious façade breaks quickly. “C’mon, come look at our kids!”
“No,” Will says, scrunching his nose, but walking to the kitchen. “Don’t say it like that.”
Mike rolls his eyes, disappearing into the kitchen again. When Will walks through the doorway, Mike makes a sweeping gesture at the sheet of half-decent cookies. Will smiles. They’re not half bad, actually. None of them are burnt, and most of them have an okay shape even if they did go a little wonky while they were being baked. Mike picks one up before Will can warn him to be careful of the hot oven sheet and breaks it in two.
He holds one half out to Will. “Let’s try them together!”
“Mike, you’re going to—”
“Please, Will?”
Oh, damn it all. Will eats the cookie and it’s still way too hot. He burns his tongue a little bit, and so does Mike if his expression is anything to go by. He schools it quickly, sliding closer to Will and looking positively devious.
“Did you burn yourself?” he asks, exaggeratedly batting his eyelashes.
“A little, but— Mike, what?”
Mike’s biting down on a huge grin, Will just knows it. “Want me to kiss it better?” Mike asks, seconds away from breaking out into crazy laughter again.
Will snorts. “Jonathan and Nancy are right outside,” he whispers, lips almost touching Mike’s.
“So?” Mike murmurs. “They’re distracted. They won’t notice. Just a little kiss, c’mon. I burned myself too.”
“Wonder whose fault that is.” Will rolls his eyes but leans in to connect his and Mike’s lips. He intends to just give him a little peck, a playful kiss better, but Mike grabs onto his waist and they fall into each other like they always do. The kitchen falls away around them, and the world is reduced to Mike’s hands on Will’s waist and Will’s hands on Mike’s cheeks. Mike’s tongue against the seam of his lips and the sugar cookie crumbs in the corner of his mouth. Will smiles around it, wraps his arms around Mike’s neck and presses their chests together.
“Oh, good.” They spring apart like two south poles, seven feet of distance between them again in a matter of seconds. Will’s face feels as hot as a furnace. His eyes flick frantically between Jonathan and Nancy, who are both smiling with various degrees of nefariousness. He can only barely meet Jonathan’s eyes, and he suspects Mike isn’t really looking at his sister, either. “I was wondering when you two would figure this out,” Nancy continues.
“Wh— what? What do you mean?” Mike manages, trying and failing to seem innocent.
Jonathan shoves Will slightly, grinning. “How long has it been?” he asks.
Will stares at his feet. “Since Halloween,” he mutters. He can’t lie to Jonathan. He can’t.
“Damn it!”
Will looks up to see Jonathan looking extremely frustrated and glaring at Nancy of all people. When Will looks over to Nancy, she’s smirking smugly at her boyfriend. “Pony up, Jon,” she says.
“You— wh— Nance, what the hell!?” Mike’s eyes look about ready to bug out of his skull. Jonathan pulls a crumpled five-dollar bill out of his pocket and hands it over to Nancy. Mike looks over at Jonathan, betrayed. “Did you… did you make a bet on us?”
Jonathan at least has the sense to look a little apologetic as he throws an arm around Will’s shoulders. “We’re very happy for you…?” he tries.
Nancy gives Mike a very aggressive noogie as she agrees with Jonathan. Probably to make up for the fact that she’s openly showing him affection. Will huffs a laugh at Mike’s disgruntled expression. “They should be here soon, yeah?” he says in an attempt to distract him. “We should finish decorating the cookies.”
“They can decorate their own cookies,” Mike grumbles, glaring at Nancy for a quick moment. Will picks an orange out of the fruit bowl on the counter and tosses it at him. It hits Mike square in the shoulder and he yells in indignation. “Hey! That hurt!”
“Stop being a baby, then. C’mon, let’s finish decorating the cookies.”
“Fine,” Mike says. He’s still acting moody, but by the time he and Will are standing at the kitchen island and covering the cookies in frosting and sprinkles, their thighs are pressed together. Mike leans over to smear icing on Will’s nose and Will immediately brings up a butter knife to threaten him with.
“Don’t you dare,” he says, “Mike, no! There’s already batter in my hair!”
“Okay, alright, I get it!” Will keeps the knife steady and Mike’s eyes widen. “William, put the knife down.”
Will lowers his weapon with a laugh. He leans over to give Mike a kiss before leaning back over the cookies. He’s working on one of the trees, trying his very best to get the texture right on the branches. Mike is dipping the cookies right into the frosting and then dunking them in sprinkles right after. His part of the island looks like Holly was responsible for it, but he’s undeniably working a lot faster than Will is.
“How long are you gonna be working on that one cookie?” Mike teases. Will bumps his shoulder in retaliation.
“Shut up.”
“Listen, it’s five to which means that any minute now—” The doorbell rings, and Mike smirks. “—any minute now, El is going to show up.”
Will blows him a raspberry. “Your house, you go open the door.”
Mike opens his mouth, most likely to argue, but apparently decides against this particular battle and shuts it again to walk out of the kitchen. He hears Mike welcome El, and what also sounds like Max, into the house. Will decides the Christmas tree cookie will have to be good enough as is. There’s only a handful left undecorated, so he finishes the batch with Mike’s dunking-technique. He’s just added M&Ms to the last one when El ducks into the kitchen.
“Hi, Will.”
“Hey, El.”
“Can I have a cookie?” she asks, blinking at the mess in the kitchen.
“Only if you help me clean up?” Will tries. El considers this for a moment until her eyes zero in on something on the counter.
“I will help,” she says, “but only if I get that one.”
She points, and Will’s heart drops. “El—” he protests, but he really does need the help cleaning up. “The Christmas tree one?”
“Yes.”
It hurts his heart to know that the cookie he so painstakingly decorated will be the first one to go. He eyes the bushy tree, the candies that he delicately placed to look like ornaments. “Okay. You can have it.”
El cheers.
Now that the entire party is settled around the table, deep into the Christmas-but-not-really-Christmas-themed campaign, Will is having second thoughts. He brings his head up from his character sheet to glance at Mike, who peers back at him from over the master’s screen.
Will doesn’t know entirely what the campaign entails, but he knows what happens at the end, regardless of the players' actions. They are hurtling towards the end concerningly quickly.
“Can I roll for stabbing Lucas?”
Mike’s head whips around to look at Max. “You can’t roll for stabbing Lucas,” he says sternly. Max just raises her eyebrows. She knows there aren’t any rules per sé, so she fixes Mike with a stare. Mike amends, “You can’t stab Lucas right now.”
She smiles and leans back in her chair. “Okay, then I vote we go into the castle.”
“Are you insane?” Dustin yells. “Who knows what could be in there!?”
“But we do need to look for Krampus,” El says, squinting at the game mat and the little figurines that cover it. “I want to go inside. Jane wants to go inside,” she amends.
“I dunno, guys, do we have any more info before we enter?” Lucas tries.
“It doesn’t matter!” Max bangs a hand on the table. “We have to check, there’s nowhere else to go!
“Okay, okay!” Mike says. “Roll for initiative, all of you. No cheating."
El plucks a dice off the table and blows Mike a raspberry. In a remarkable show of restraint he does not do it back at her, just watching her closely to see if she manipulates the dice in any way. El manipulating not only her own throws but others’ was a big problem throughout their first campaign during fall break. Will admits it had some entertaining results, but it was undeniably a frustrating campaign to DM for.
Several dice clatter on the tabletop as everyone throws their D20.
“Thirteen,” El says, lips twisted to the side.
Mike notes everyone’s rolls down. Dustin rolls a nat-20, somehow, and promptly decides on investigating the outside of the castle before he does anything else.
“Okay,” Mike says, glancing at his notes, “Dustin, roll for a perception check, please?”
Dustin rolls a whopping one , and Mike basically tells him things they all had already guessed. The castle is made of stone — shocker — it’s covered in snow — wow, really? — and has moss and lichen growing all over. Dustin bangs his head against the table, and the movement knocks a couple of figures over. El frowns and rights them with her powers.
“Lucas, what do you want to do?”
Lucas sighs heavily, staring at his hands like they can give him the answers. “Guess I can’t really do anything but go inside, can I?”
Max claps him on the back. El decides to go inside the castle, as does Max. Will gets to decide last — he rolled a four for initiative — and also decides that he wants to enter the castle.
“Everyone except the bard has decided on entering the mysterious castle,” Mike says, leaning over the table and slipping back into his storytelling voice. “The stone walls loom high above you, thick with moss and lichen—” Dustin groans. “—and eroded with time. The bricks are uneven and cracked. The door in front of you is solid steel, and is very thick and heavy. There are small holes in the wall, where archers probably used to sit once upon a time.”
“I want to climb the castle,” Max says immediately, excitement clear in her voice. “Can I climb the castle?” Mike nods, smiling. “And I roll for… dexterity?”
“Yep, so your D20,” Mike clarifies. Max throws and gets nineteen, which has her pumping her fists in the air. Maxine the Zoomer climbs the wall with ease, and the rest of the party follows through the door after El casts a spell to break the door open. Dustin changes his mind and decides to go with the rest of them through the gate. The excitement of watching his friends get into D&D quickly fades as Will realizes what’s coming now that they’re inside the castle.
“You enter a great hall,” Mike says slowly, almost hesitant. They’re in too deep now, and both Will and Mike know it. Nothing to do but finish what they started. “The hall is filled with presents, big and small. They’re stacked in tall, tall piles, and in the middle of it stands Krampus.”
The party roars victoriously.
“...but it’s not just Krampus in the castle!” Mike continues, “Across from the great, horned beast stands a paladin in humble garb!”
Will hides his smile in his hand as the party glance around at each other in confusion.
“Mike—”
“Did you write yourself into the campaign?” Lucas asks incredulously.
“Sssh!” Mike hushes. “The paladin is saying something, but it’s almost impossible to hear over the chatter of the party in the great, echoing hall. You do not know if he is collaborating with the monster or conspiring against it.”
“I’d like to roll for insight to determine the paladin’s intentions,” Will says quietly.
Mike smiles at him, the one that’s seemingly always been reserved for Will. Max narrows her eyes at them. “Go ahead, Will The Wise,” Mike says, sweeping a hand theatrically over the game mat.
Will, thank god, rolls a sixteen.
“The paladin, although conversing with Krampus, does not seem to have a clear alliance with him. He seems to be saying something about the piles of gifts, and about how they don’t belong to Krampus. He is on your side, but he hasn’t noticed your arrival yet.”
“I want to kill Krampus,” El says.
Will snorts.
“Alright,” Mike says, reading over his notes quickly. “Everyone, roll for initiative.”
Everyone rolls, breaking out into anticipatory grins. Seems like the entire party is really pumped to kill Krampus for stealing the Christmas gifts from Ten-Towns. Max gets the highest initiative.
“Can I attack at the same time as El?”
“Sure,” Mike says. “Both of you can roll for attack.”
El attacks Krampus with a great blaze of a fire spell, distracting him as Max fires a crossbow at him. Will worries a little bit for the paladin’s safety during all of this, as Max and El (and everybody else, judging by their wild cheering) have seemingly forgotten about him. Then, he remembers that Mike is DMing and can pretty much do whatever he wants.
“Krampus howls in pain, taking eighteen points of damage, but he has not yet been defeated!” Mike announces. “He is in a weakened state, and cannot retaliate! Dustin, what do you do?”
“I swing my longsword at him—!" Dustin rolls and Mike peers at the dice to calculate the hit.
“The hit lands and slices Krampus’ neck clean across! Blood sprays across the floor and Krampus falls to the ground, dead!”
Everyone rises from their chairs, cheering, except for Will who remains glued to his chair. His heart is beating right out of his chest and feels like it’s about to jump out of his mouth. Mike clears his throat and the party settles down.
“Krampus is dead, but the matter remains of the mysterious paladin!” A few mumbles of confusion. Will was right, they did forget about the paladin. Well, about Mike. “The paladin turns around, clothes singed from the fire spell and clothes stained with Krampus’ blood. He takes in the party with wide surprised eyes.”
Everyone sits quietly to listen, intrigued by this sudden turn of events. Will takes a deep breath.
“The paladin’s eyes lock onto a certain party member,” Mike continues, making eye contact with Will. He knows this part of the story by heart, Will knows, because he’s heard it about a million times before. They’ve practiced this until the words were just letter soup in their ears, until the nerves faded away into laughter about how ridiculous it all is. “‘William?’ asks the paladin.”
All eyes turn to Will. He stares intently at the irregularities in the paint on his D8. “I… I look up at the paladin, and realize that I recognize him. ‘Mike, is that you?’”
All eyes turn to Mike again, and it’s comical enough that Will would laugh were he any less nervous. “‘It’s me,’ the paladin, Mike, says.”
“What the hell is going on?” Max hisses to Lucas. Lucas just shrugs, glancing over to Will again.
“Does anyone want to roll for initiative?” Mike says, still staring into Will’s eyes.
“No, no,” Max says, leaning back in her seat, clearly amused. “You do your thing.”
El nods in agreement, and Dustin, too.
Mike takes a deep breath, raising his eyebrows in a silent question. Will nods. “The cleric approaches the paladin, who takes him in his arms."
“No, wait, actually— what the hell is going on?” Dustin says. “I’m confused, is anyone else confused?”
“I’m really confused,” Lucas says. El shushes them both.
“Let them finish,” she says. Will smiles gratefully at her, practically shaking with nerves at this point.
Mike swallows. “Mike the paladin and Will The Wise back out of their embrace, and lean to kiss each other instead.”
The table descends into confused muttering all around, and Will feels instantly as if he’s made a huge mistake. He gets a glimpse of El’s knowing smile before he thunks his head onto the table. “Okay, great, can we go back to Ten-Towns and hand out the presents now?”
El’s slight hand settles between his shoulder blades comfortingly. Will tilts his head to face her so he can see her expression. It’s mostly loving and caring, but there’s a concerning undertone of mischief that he doesn’t trust. He frowns at her.
“No, absolutely not, you two will explain this right now!” Dustin says.
“Yeah,” Lucas adds, “I think I know what you’re implying here, but I’m gonna need to hear it.”
“Say it, cowards,” Max laughs, “this is the dorkiest fucking thing ever, just say it.”
Will lifts his head off the table. “We’re dating.”
He immediately puts his head back on the table. The party cheers about as loudly as they did defeating Krampus. El’s hand rubs up and down his back a few more times before leaving.
He hears Mike’s voice over the cacophony of all of his friends chattering with each other. “Is… is that okay? With you guys?”
Will looks up to reach a hand out for Mike to grab. Mike takes it immediately, damp with nervous sweat. Will squeezes it and shoots him what he hopes is a reassuring smile.
“Are you kidding?” Lucas says. “We’ve been waiting for months for you guys to get together.”
Dustin nods sagely. “I could feel the electricity.”
Max rolls her eyes in time with El, but she’s smiling. “Can we finish the stupid campaign? We gotta save Christmas, guys.”
All in all, it’s just about everything Will could have asked for. Paladin Mike doesn’t join the rest of the party for the journey back to Ten-Towns, instead opting to take care of Krampus’ corpse, and nobody questions it. They load back onto the toboggan, now laden with heavy bags of gifts, and Dustin tries to hit on the polar bear woman again. He fails because Max convinces her to give him a fake address.
The party travels through all of the ten towns, handing out gifts to appreciative children. Mike is grinning all throughout the last part of the campaign, excitedly doing impressions of the small kids receiving the presents. Will laughs at him, and lets himself slip into the snowy world of the campaign that Mike has been working on for the past month without worrying about the impending revelation. It’s behind him now, and everything is turning out fine.
Well, everything except the dexterity check Mike throws at them nearing the end of their sleigh ride. Somehow everyone ends up rolling below a ten, even with bonuses, which means all of their characters fall right off of the toboggan into the thick snow just outside the last town.
Will laughs with his friends at their terrible luck at the hands of his tyrannical DM of a boyfriend, and everything is okay.