#apparently the radio was telling me to fricking work on this fic... | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kaylathekittykat225 · 4 years

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Tears in the Heart // Steve Harrington X Wheeler!Reader

Warning/s: language, angst, fluff? Flufting? Flirting? I don’t know man. I just went into a frenzy writing.

Word Count: Y’all it keeps getting going, I need to be stopped; 25k. I am sorry, I got excited

Guys, y’all are egging me on to write angst, and angst is my love somehow, don’t stop. And it’s all fine that angst is how I write, that and slow burrrrrrrrrn! Okay go onto reading.

This one was requested by gwenandtheunfortunatename

Hey!! I just love your writing and long fics!!! Can u do one where the reader is a female!Wheeler reader and feels invisible with her family but actually has a few friends in school? Nancy and Steve are dating but then he slowly starts to notice how she doesn’t treat her sister well (maybe the reader is missing from school one day?) or doesn’t pay attention so it becomes a concern for him or someth??

Here’s my Masterlist.

Enjoy.

—–

Watching paint dry was always the most infuriating thing, especially for you as someone who was so excited for the first layer of paint to dry so that you could start applying the next layer or just wanting your beautiful art piece to be done so you could feel accomplished with what you just did. Watching paint dry was an infuriating task, and yet here you were, dancing around your room to the music your radio was blasting for you while you continued to wait for the first layer of what you were painting to dry enough so as not to smudge.

Some great artists prefer to work even through the wet paint: Monte used it to blend two colors together seamlessly, Van Gogh used it to have the colors stand out more when he used the globs of paint to add dimension to the canvas, Bob Ross used the wet paint to ring out the true beauty of the world and showing how colors don’t stand out, but truly blend in together.

You worked differently than those guys, for one thing you weren’t a famous painter like they were. But you couldn’t stand mixing colors together from different layers. The composition looked messy when you tried doing it, so you knew you felt more comfortable with layering and drying paint on top of itself. Just was not the thing for you.

The song changed and a grin grew on your face as you heard the guitar riff opening and felt a rush of energy surging through you. Your paint brush was held in your mouth between your teeth and your dancing started back up again as you cranked the volume up a little louder to get the entire room shaking. The music was so loud, and you were so in the zone of mixing up your next shade of reddish pink that you didn’t hear someone screaming at you about the volume of your radio. They noticed when your volume went up and that you weren’t noticing their calling your name.

You didn’t notice them until they turned off your radio entirely and tried calling your name again. “Y/N.” Your name was called again, this time it startled you to the point that you let out a small scream that let you drop your paint brush from your mouth and strike the ground. Spinning to face your radio, you saw your mother staring at you with a look on her face that you often received when you did something wrong. “It’s almost midnight, Y/N. Holly and Michael are in bed, where you should be, and your sister is trying to study for an exam tomorrow. Now is not the time for you to let the entire neighborhood hear what you are listening to.”

“Sorry, mom.” You grabbed your paint brush off the ground and looked back up to see your mother had been replaced by your older sister. “Sorry I disturbed your studying. What class is it for?” While you asked your question, you worked on moving your easel from the middle of your room to one of the corners while also chucking your paints into a box along with your brushes.

When your sister didn’t answer, you looked up at her to see her just staring at you from the door. She had this little smile on her face, one that didn’t show any emotion though. “Oh, it’s not like you care about my test. All you worry about is your art and painting. Next time, at least put on some better music, not your shitty trash.” And with that, she shut the door behind her with a flick of her hair over her shoulder as she left.

You finished cleaning up after your paint dance, not giving too much thought to what she said to you as you pulled your sweater over your head and changed into your pajamas. Comments like that have been a common back and forth between the two of you ever since you entered high school with Nancy.

Maybe it was something to remind you that you were a year younger and she knew her way around the school better than you did. Honestly why she was doing this was unknown to you, so you just rolled with it. She never said anything mean or anything like that, just…

You shook your head as you pushed your covers back and slid into bed, getting ready to pull your lamp cord when there was a loud thud coming from your window. Instinct told you to ignore it and just go to sleep leaving whatever outside your window outside, it was most likely a squirrel who ran into the glass of your window while trying to get back onto its nest.

And you tried. You did click your lamp off and pulled your covers up to your chin, letting your eyes fall shut as you worked on falling asleep for tomorrow's day. As soon as your eyes were closed however, another tap rattled your window, and something was making noises outside the glass. “Just ignore it.” That was your mantra for the time being as you did so, pretending the sound wasn’t there and that you could just. Fall. Asleep.

Tap tap tap. “Dammit.” You groaned while throwing the blankets off you, following your intuition through the dark room to where your window should be, having forgotten to send the light back through the room as your annoyed self walked closer to the window. “I’m going to kill this fucking squirrel and eats its nu-” Your rant to yourself was interrupted as soon as you forced your blinds open and you saw a face staring back at you in the darkness outside.

A shriek left your mouth as you took a step backwards, stumbling away from the horrifying sight of someone staring back at you in the night. The face itself jumped back ever so slightly from where it was pressed against your window when it saw you too.

The two of you stared at each other for a few more seconds before you recognized who the hell was staring into your bedroom window. It was your sister’s boyfriend, Steve Fricking Harrington. Why the hell was he staring into your window?

Pulling open your window, you looked over at your clock and saw that it was midnight, stating this to the boy who was hanging from your window frame, his fingertips turning red from holding on. “Sorry to interrupt your beauty sleep, Snow White. I’m sorry I didn’t want to fall to my death.” His voice came out strained as he moved to pull himself into your window.

“Whoa! I didn’t say you could come in! What are you doing on my windowsill? Stop climbing in my window!” Your voice was a whisper that also counted as yelling as you tried stopping him from entering your room, not to much avail though. “Harrington, what what are you doing here?!”

“Shut up, Wheeler.” Steve finished coming through the window, somehow finding a way to trip as his foot finished coming through, falling into you and sending the two of you down to the floor. “Jesus, Wheeler, sorry to say, but I do have a girlfriend. You are being very forward though.” From where you were laying on the floor with him kneeling over you on all fours, Harrington had this shit eating grin on his face which caused a slight anger to boil inside you.

Instead of answering him, you shoved your hand into his face and pushed him away, telling him to get off you with a mutter. “Wh-what are you doing here, Harrington? It’s midnight and you are in my room. What the hell is going on?” Standing to your feet, you watched him also pull himself up while shifting his hair around to make sure it stood where he wanted it to be.

“Funny story there, Wheeler. But that is a story for another time.” He spoke to you as though his being in your room was not a pressing matter. “What I do need to know, Wheeler, is how pissed your dad would be about finding me here?” Steve craned his neck to look out your window, apparently trying hard not to be spotted as he was looking for most likely your father.

Scoffing, you sat back down in your bed, staring at him from where you sat. “Honestly, it’s not my dad you should be worried about.” He sighed at your response in relief. “My mom on the other hand…” You made a face that got the message across, because your dad was an amazing man, but your mother had her own mind that definitely got in the way of a lot of things your sister and even yourself sometimes when Karen Wheeler brought her mind to a stop. And Nancy seemingly sneaking her boyfriend into her room next to yours was definitely not something your mom would be fine with.

You heard a quiet ‘shit’ and felt a small feeling of smugness rush through you as quickly as the cold overtook your room. “If you’re gonna sneak in and out of Nancy’s room, honestly it would be quieter just to go from my room to the shed on the other side of the room.” Steve stared at you curiously at this suggestion, even you yourself were shocked at your offering, but you really couldn’t take that back after he quietly inched his way closer to the window at the other end of your room.

Standing up, you made your way over to be next to him as he pulled your curtains away from the window, revealing that your window had easier access to get to the ground than your sister and the garage. “Plus, I have direct access to the woods, so my parents won’t notice your car around if you park it behind that big tree back there.” While pointing all these features out, you noticed that he was staring at you with a look that read extreme confusion.

“Why...why are you helping me sneak into your sister’s room?” You both were wondering that, but he didn’t have to voice it like that. Your face grew warmer as you fumbled for words about why you did this, because you didn’t really know why except for the excuse of not wanting them to get caught and then the entire family being forced not to ever leave again. That was a good excuse, it did the trick though.

Because you couldn’t explain why you would stick your neck out like that, for Nancy and Harrington. Nothing against the two of them, but you were too impartial to the two of them to risk anything.

So you scoffed and gave him the lame excuse you thought of and worked on shooing him out of your room. “Okay, okay. Jeez, Wheeler, I’m leaving. Sorry to whoever has to deal with sleep deprived you for the rest of their lives.” He shimmed himself out of the window, forgetting completely to close your other window, forcing you to get back out of bed and shut it before shutting the window he just dropped down from.

You watched him sneak his way to the front of the house and hopefully make an uneventful exit before you pulled the curtains in front of your window shut, bringing your world around you into darkness that you found oddly uncomfortable while standing in the middle of the room.

Sleep didn’t come as easily as you wanted it to; it never really took you over, leaving you to sleep more restlessly than normal and thus a sleep deprived Y/N took to the world. Your first few periods floated past you honestly like a dream, nothing happened, just the teacher murmuring on about their respective subjects. Nothing interesting to you really.

Your mother frequently got on your case to pay more attention in these classes, because every year, like clockwork, during parent teachers week, your teachers would comment on how you needed to remember to turn in your homework, or if you do turn in your homework, to not doodle across half of it. It was always commenting about your behavior in classes and school, how you looked like you would rather be somewhere else than cooped up there all day. Your mother always told you to do better. Why did you have to be interested in painting? Why not a sport or be good at school like your sister because brains could get you a good husband and an easy life.

Your father never spoke up during these meetings, sitting there because he was the man of the family and should be an example for his daughter to marry. He never took your side, but he also never defended your mother and her beliefs of how you should follow in your sister’s footsteps. It was never a secret, but your dad gifted you various paints, brushes, new pencils. When you were running out of a specific paint, or needed a new book or canvas, you found one more always tucked away in your closet, where you thought you checked, but there it was anyway.

There were few things in the world you knew for certain, you loved painting and how it freed your soul, how excited you were to graduate and head to California to get away from this damned town, but one thing you were certain on, was that you were not unloved by your father. You never doubted his love even if it wasn’t on his sleeve like your mother’s love of Nancy.

Speaking of Nancy, honestly after last nights...odd interaction between Harrington and yourself, you didn’t know how to look him or your sister in the eye. You had nothing to be ashamed of, it's not like you kissed him or anything, just the thought alone made you shudder, so why were you unable to look at them throughout the school day?

“Ugh!” You groaned at these stupid thoughts that were plaguing your thoughts and slammed your head down onto your notebook on the lunch table you were sitting at. Your sudden noise and head banging caused the other occupants of your table to look up; Matt and Clare had been giving each other looks all lunch with how you were acting today.

On any given day you were still quiet and almost always doodling away in the margins of your notebooks or going so far as to pulling your full sketchbook out just to get a bigger picture going. But you didn’t have a book open in front of you or a pencil in your hand, instead your fingers were rapping against the hard table and your leg was shaking so bad that you were shaking the table.

You were so out of it that you couldn’t hear your own name being called. “Y/N...Y/N.” Matt had been repeatedly calling your name the last five minutes after he finished up his own lunch and was eyeing your Cheetos that hadn’t been touched. Clare told him to leave you alone, but your ginger friend was ever persistent in stealing your food. “What if I just take the bag from her?” He directed the question towards Clare next to him while staring at your bag of snacks.

“I mean she’s out of it enough that I kind of want to see what happens.” Clare was watching you just as intently, your head was still down on the table. “She may have died; I haven’t seen her move since her head fell down.” Clare said Y/N and died and Matt let out the loudest gasp the cafeteria ever heard; she didn’t honestly know which one to be more embarrassed about, the fact that heads turned or that not enough heads turned for this to be the first time for him to be this obnoxious in the school lunchroom.

While Matt was busy slapping a bruise excitedly on Clare’s arm, you raised your head up and roughly rubbed your eyes with the palms of your hands. “I’m not dead, Matt. I just...I can’t figure out this drawing.”

“No, no, no, no. But wait.” Matt decided to ignore your distress and Clare’s slapping his hand away and kept talking. “But think about it! The perfect way to murder someone! What if Nancy wanted to kill Y/N and what she’s been doing is poisoning her food slowly over time and it’s finally kicking in! Nancy Wheeler is mur-” Your best friend was screaming at this point before your other best friend slammed her hand over his mouth with a dark blush over her face.

“Matthew Schafer listen to me hard and clear. Shut. Up. Now is not the time for one of your theories, especially one about a certain someone’s sister.” Clare growled that last piece out while tilting her head towards you. The two of them looked over to you as they saw you doodling away on a napkin you had picked up from the lunch line, your chin resting on your hand and your other, dominant hand, held the pencil you were drawing with.

Your entire body was shaking from your leg, causing the picture you were drawing to be scratchy, which, maybe that’s how you wanted it to be. “Why is she shaking so much?” Matt mumbled against Clare’s hand; their eyes fixed harshly on you as they just watched. Watch their best friend unravel before their eyes, watch her get frustrated at the drawing in pen on a napkin, watch her groan in frustration and let your head fall back on the table.

Clare let go of Matt’s mouth slowly and reached over the table to grab your arm, moving slowly to not scare you. As her hand grabbed onto you, she realized how much you were letting your leg bounce, she could feel it through your body, making her own arm gently shake. You didn’t respond right away to her hand, leading her to rub her thumb up and down your arm and giving you a gentle squeeze. “Y/N?”

In the six years of knowing you for Clare, she had been there for your lowest and highest, she had seen you through late night anxiety, posttest highs, first time putting your art up for others to see. She hadn’t been there for everything, but she had been there for enough to help you through the rough times. Clare looked at you, just waiting for you to lift your head up.

“Y/N, look at me.” Whether listening to her or not, you did lift your head up and met her eyes. “Are you okay?” there was no doubt that her words were filled with earnest worry, you could tell that and that she was worried about you, along with Matt who you also had you fixed in his eyes.

The quiet moment was shattered as the school bell screamed that there was four minutes for you to get to your next class. You followed the crowd around your friend group in packing up your pencil case and collecting your trash to toss while walking by the trash can. “Yeah, just frustrated at this drawing I can’t figure out.” And with that you walked out of the cafeteria and towards the one place that could calm you down, with Matt and Clare following close behind you until they were side by side with you.

They dropped your lunchtime behavior and Matt quickly filled the silence with his complaining about his Statistics teacher giving him homework to do over this next weekend after they just turned in a big packet not days ago. Clare filled in how her AP Chemistry teacher totally screwed her over with the test today and how he told the class that there would be no Nuclear Chemistry on the exam and yet two of the math twelve point questions were all nuclear that she couldn’t bullshit her way through and just did random math to get some sort of partial credit.

And you listened, adding in your thoughts here and there, stating how it was unfair to add homework after just finishing one, how shitty of a teacher it was to go against his word on what was gonna be on the test. The trio of you sat down in the art class you all have together with your respective easels in front of all of you with paints also at the ready on the table next to the canvas.

Class began, with your teacher talking about your assignment for the day, (what kind of inspiration was something you see every day?) and letting you go free and let your artistry be free. And this was when you felt something from the back of your head that you had been wrestling with all, maybe you could get this off your mind officially and be able to think of anything else other than this random nose.

It’s honestly stupid to be banging your head over something as simple as a nose, but this was driving you insane. Honestly batshit insane because usually you thought of something and you moved quickly to draw it since your brain was already working on some details that you needed the basic features to draw first.

And yet today was the day that you could finally say a human nose took the best of you. Matt worked on another Pokémon, last week you laughed to yourself as he got more and more excited with the orange and reds in his Charmander drawing. This week, yellow and blacks seemed to be the color he was reaching for; this will be interesting to watch from behind him. And Clare pulled out a polaroid picture from her backpack and taped it to the upper corner of the canvas, showing you the still shot of the main road running through downtown.

You also began your own work, grabbing hold of your pencil before reaching for the easel and you let your hand draw instinctively. You started with the structure of the face, a face you couldn’t think of but felt the need to draw a face structure; maybe this face structure would help you through the nose and drawing the rest of the face may be able to get you done with this face.

Faces and portraits weren’t your forte, they weren’t what you went for. You enjoyed drawing abstract pieces, things that spoke to you, because painting people wasn’t what you wanted others to see, you wanted to paint things that meant something to you, that could mean something to others if they saw your artwork. Art for you was emotion, drawing from the human soul, passion, and you felt like you couldn’t do that by painting someone’s face onto a canvas.

And all this nose was doing for you was driving you insane and getting your angrier by the second. This wasn’t something you felt comfortable just throwing paint at; penciling was stupid in your mind because this puts a lot of stress on the artist to be perfect, to not allow changes to be made midway through the project. So why were you penciling?

With a frustrated groan, you tossed the pencil onto the table next to you and stared at the white board in front of you, the blank one with some pencil scratches through the middle. Looking around the edge of your own canvas, you took a look at Matt and Clare, seeing them both working away at their own respective paintings, the orange and yellow of Charizard and the browns and reds of the town picture Clare was replicating.

Your eyes went back over to Matt, watching his face scrunch up in focus as he worked on getting the roaring face of the dinosaur looking creature just right, and his nose was all wrinkled as he dipped the brush back into the paint he was using. His nose.

“Matt.” The ginger turned to you, revealing that he had a second paint brush between his teeth, looking at you with a blocked ‘huh?’ “Can you just sit there for a second, I need to draw something really quick.”

His eyes brows perked up as you picked up one of your smaller tipped paint brushes and proceeded in dipping into the black and looked to Matt’s nose for inspiration as to how to begin to shape the nose. “Are you painting me like one of your French girls? Ow! What the hell was that for?” His head changed directions as he turned to glare at Clare who just chucked a paint brush straight at his head.

“That’s for-”

“Mr. Schaefer, don’t make me call your father down here for spouting profanity.” The art teacher called from the front of the classroom without looking up from her grading papers.

Matt muttered to himself as he turned around and rubbed the spot he was hit in the back of the head. “What do you need, Y/N?”

“I just need you to sit there so I can draw your nose.” Without looking at him too much, you quickly drew the shape of his nose, noting the subtle differences between Matt’s and whatever nose you keep thinking about. Things you could change when you moved on to shading and coloring the skin tone around the nose and over the black, a color you didn’t like to use for line work made things too neat. Shading differentiates the shadows from the highlights and the normal skin tone, there was no reason for you to use black to do this.

Matt made some comments about the weird request and started bragging to Clare about how his nose was ‘Y/N painting worthy’. The two of them began bickering about their noses and which ones of them had a better looking one, but you left them to bicker as you pulled pink and yellow together, pulling a little white and red into play as you mixed a skin tonish color together. Or, at least you think it looked kinda like skin tone, it wasn’t exact, but you figured it would do.

The rest of the period, you worked hard to get this nose right, shading here and there, adding brown to the skin tone shade you make it seamlessly flow together with a speck of white to the tip of the nose. Overall, it was a pretty good-looking nose.

So why did you still feel bugged about this? You finished the painting that you had in your mind, but why didn’t you feel the accomplishment of finishing one of your paintings? There was always a sense of greatness that you feel when completing a project, and it wasn’t here. You felt nowhere near close enough to feeling that.

The period bell rang, pulling you out of your mind and frustration as you were forced to work on it tomorrow, hopefully you can get whatever your mind is stuck on. Breaking down your easel, you put your paint and everything away before meeting Matt and Clare outside the door. “How’d my nose picture go, Y/N? I may wanna see that.”

The three of you chuckled on your way out the door, happily in your own world as you passed your sister on the way down the hall. Nancy didn’t bother giving you a glance as she smiled at her boyfriend walking over to her. “Hey babe.” She giggled as he reached down and pressed a quick peck to her lips before they walked off to her next class.

“Hey, beautiful, how was your chem test?”

“Well I would have had time to study more of my nuclear notes had someone not been interrupting me.” She fluttered her eyes at him before bouncing into explaining how she thinks she got at least a 91% based upon how many questions she thinks she got wrong. Steve Harrington chuckled at her angry comments on her teacher and told him that she can’t be anywhere near him when AP study time comes around.

“Babe, I know every way of sneaking into your room. I’ll always be there for you, for moral support or for a distraction. Besides, you don’t have to start studying until later next week, so relax.” He nuzzled his nose into her hair and pressed a kiss to the top of her hair.

Nancy scoffed and looked up at him through her thick lashes. “And I don’t have time to not stud, Steve, I need to keep up.” His face visibly dropped at the mention of it already being that time of year. “Hey, I promise I’ll see you every day.” He commented on how he would hope so and the two of them made a run for their next classes as the bell was about to ring.

-----

Through the drive home, from the passenger seat of your sister’s car, you had your sketchbook on your lap with a pencil lazily being pushed and pulled across the paper in no specific way right now. You hated pencil, as seen with the nose painting, but it was still a basic art form that helps you start on something, getting an idea for what to doodle possibly as a full piece or just something to do in an evening.

Horribly so, after a few pencil strokes, you noticed something come forth in the picture. “Damnit.” You curse under your breath and shut the book before sliding it into your backpack.

“What’s got your panties in a twist?” Nancy asked as she continued driving the three of you home, with Mike in the backseat doing some math homework he should have done this morning.

Glancing at her, you knew she wasn’t interested in why you were frustrated yet again, a mutual understanding the two of you had as she would often talk about Steve and her school work on the way home while you just let her rattle on. She was just sick of your groaning next to her, no doubt. “Not that you care but a drawing has been bugging me all day.” She hummed in response, proving your point and how she wasn’t listening.

“Hey Y/N?” Mike chirped up from the back of the car as he leaned forward to perch his head onto the middle seat between you and Nancy. “Can you draw me a picture of my paladin if I describe him to you?”

A smile grew on your face. “Sure, thing bud. Can I do it tomorrow?” He nodded with a big grin on his face as he leaned back into his seat as Nancy pulled into the driveway and parked next to your father’s car.

“You’re the best, Y/N!” Your little brother called out as he pedaled away on his bike, also screaming about how he would be back before dark from...Dustin’s house? You couldn’t hear him at the point of where he was turning out of the driveway. That kid brought a larger smile to your face as you made your way into the house with Nancy close behind you.

“Y/N? Is that you?” Not even two steps into the house and your mother was calling you for helping in chores.

Following the voice of your mother, you found her in the kitchen with Holly on her hip and working over the stove at what you can assume to be dinner for tonight. “What do ya need mom?”

“Take Holly while I finish dinner. Oh, Nancy, how was your test?” Your baby sister was passed on to you while your older sister sat with your mom and talked about her day.

You looked down at Holly and filled your cheeks with air to make your face appear to be a frog as you walked the two of you out of the kitchen. “Come on, Ms. Holly, should we go paint a picture for mom and daddy?”

“Yeah!” Holly cheered at you mentioning her being able to play with paint. Your mom may have had a good grip on Nancy and made sure she had her bright future ahead and she kept her sweet baby Holly close, but Holly ran to you every time. You “tricked” Holly into liking you because you had paints and paper she could color on and give her arts to different peoples of the family.

The two of you make your way up to your room as you asked her about her day and she told you about how in preschool, Danny Cincade was pulling her pigtails during lunch and he wouldn’t stop until one of the teachers saw him do that to her. “Well, next time he does that to you, tell him that it hurts your hair and it hurts your feelings. If he doesn’t listen to you…” You paused before thinking about what you were going to say next as you set her down in the chair at your desk and pulled the paper out for her to begin her project on. “Well I will say that you decide what you should do when he’s pulling your hair, whether that’s pull his hair or call him a mean name like he’s a poop head, then I say you can make that choice, Holly-bell. But make sure you ask him to stop.”

Your little sister gave a surprising amount of thought to this before she nodded. “Can I have paint now? I wanna draw daddy a big and spiky porkipine!”

You did a “surprised” gasp. “A porcupine? Now why would you want to give dad a porcupine picture?”

“Cause he was extra spikey today with his hair, and he was grumpy today when he drives me to school.” Holly grabbed one of your old paint brushes you no longer used and dipped it heavily into the brown paint that you pulled out for her before splattering it on the paper in front of her. You loved watching her paint, seeing the sparkle in her eyes, her little tongue sticking out of the side of her mouth while her nose scrunched up in total concentration at her little piece of art she wanted to work on.

It was amazing to see, truly it was, to see someone so enthralled in their own work that they have no other cares in the world besides what is in front of her. Maybe that’s how you looked to the outside world. Because that’s how you feel when you paint, just you, your brush in the paint, the colors, and your imagination; that’s honestly all you needed for yourself to feel what you created.

You smiled to yourself while you grabbed hold of your own art supplies and set the tripod easel in its usual spot, at this point the three legs having their own divets in the carpet from where it spends its time. Staring at the canvas, you thought to yourself for a few minutes of where you should continue going; on the canvas was a dark red background overall with a much lighter center that was meant to draw you in closer, get a good look at everything.

In the middle sat a heart, not one that any five-year-old could draw, but an anatomical heart, you had the shape down and blank canvas towards the main junctions of the heart, with various plans of flowers in your head to put on top and within the heart.

A heart is the garden of the body, where everything is felt, consoled, thought through. The brain is the rudder of the body, but the heart is its center, the guiding force, the heart stops the brain from going into autopilot and gives you something to do and work for. The heart harbors so many emotions that flourish and grow into beautiful flowers, flowers you were working on painting right here. Flowers you wanted others to see and appreciate. But the flowers would have to wait because you needed to work on the soil of the flowers right now and finish shading in the features of the heart and its musculature.

“Y/N!” You had barely started mixing paints when you heard your mother call your name. “Holly! It’s time for dinner!” A sigh mixed with a groan from your desk.

“But I’m almost finished.” Holly whined, her slouched shoulders giving away her sadness and wanton to finish the rest of the painting. “I just need to finish daddy’s spikes.”

Stepping over to her, you looked over her shoulder and felt her smile come back onto your face at the sight in front of you. “You can finish painting, Holly-bell. Mommy and them can wait a few moments.” And she went back to painting, with a quickness behind her paintbrush while you stood over her, waiting for the inevitable second call to be heard.

She was almost done. “Y/N. Get down here and eat.” And there it was, with your mother doing her normal drawing out the last word to warn you she was not in a playing mood tonight.

“One second, mom!” You called down the stairs before looking at your little sister again. “Hurry it on up, Holly.”

“I’m almost there. Just two more spikes.” You followed her paint brush, noting more than two strokes as she worked to finish up. “Done!”

“Y/N Wheeler, get down here, now!”

You picked Holly up while she gingerly held the painting so that no one smudged it up and set her on your hip. “And that means that mommy is hungry, so we better get going, little miss Holly-bell.” The pair of you exited your bedroom and headed down stairs, where you whisper to Holly to be ready to fight mommy’s angry wrath, leaving her giggling as you set her down at her spot at the table next to your father.

Dinner was uneventful, it was meatloaf night so the group of you naturally began arguing how ketchup was a necessity for topping off your dinner. Currently it was only you and Mike fighting hard for ketchup while the rest of your family was arguing for either no topping or barbeque sauce, but no one else understood what you meant when you said that it made the meatloaf so much better.

-----

You found yourself standing in front of your work, only an hour or so after dinner had ended, and Holly just came in to tell you goodnight and that ‘daddy really liked his porcupine. Now that her painting for the day was done, you could relax and do your own work for the day on your work you commissioned yourself to do a little over a week ago. Tonight, you wanted to finally work on getting the flowers painted and going in on details around the actual heart itself, showing the roots of the flowers making their way down the face of the heart.

And that is what you did for the next hour or so of your night, dancing to your music, mixing paints, and applying layers of the colors onto the canvas, covering what little white was left and finally felt accomplished that everything was covered even if there was at least another week's worth of painting to go, but that didn’t mean that you couldn’t continue working at it and making the sweet ending ever closer.

However, you did need to wait a few more minutes before adding more touches since paint is not an instantaneous drier, thank God you didn’t ever find joy in oil painting, you would have gone mad trying to wait for that to dry enough for you to move on to the next piece of work. So, while waiting, you saw the clock and decided that it was time to switch into your pajamas and get comfy.

From across the hall, you heard the shower start up and figured that Nancy was in for her shower, since Mike was a morning showerer type of person and your parents had their own bathroom, Nancy was the only person you could think of to be showering right now. Your pants had already been switched out with pajama bottoms and you were tugging your shirt off when you heard something thump behind you. Turning around with the enlarged sleep shirt in your hands as you worked on flipping it right side out when you made eye contact with someone in your room.

“Shit!” The word left your mouth before you could think of anything other than use the shirt to cover yourself up. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Harrington stood in front of you with wide eyes. “Give a guy warning next time you undress, not that I’m complaining, but I am dating your sister and all so...” He gave a little shrug of the shoulder before you huffed and threw the shirt you were holding at him in a lump.

The cloth didn’t do much when it hit his head except giving him full access to seeing you in only a pair of pants and your bra. “Why the hell are you in my room?”

“You’re the one who gave me permission to use your room to sneak into Nancy’s.” Harrington said as matter-of-factly as he could while tossing the shirt back at you, which you gladly took and threw over your head.

“We need to work on the timing then. You can come in when…” Looking around the room, you saw a stuffed ladybug that had been sitting on the top shelf of your dresser for ages now. “When this bug is in the window, feel free to come in. Nothing before dinner here otherwise you’ll be way too early, and my parents might see you.” You slammed the stuffed bug down before walking back over to your paint corner and staring at the canvas. Now that he was in the room, you didn’t want to deal with him or anything.

“Thanks, I’ll just head over to Nancy’s room now.” You hummed, not really listening until you saw him out of the corner of your eye, until you heard the shower going.

“Wait!” Leaping forward, you grabbed his wrist and stopped him from opening the door. “She’s in the shower, you can’t go in her room.”

“Showering? I’ll just join her.” At the mention of that, you looked over at him in disgust and shuddered at the thought. “What? Never seen a guy shower before?” When you didn’t answer him right away, Harrington stepped away from your door and came closer to you, a cocky little grin in his face when he came into view. “Have you ever seen...a guy naked before?”

You tried so hard to cover the blush on your face as you tried working out an excuse. “Of course, I have, I’m not a person who lives under a rock. I’ve seen a guy before.”

“No, no, no. I didn’t ask that. I asked if you have ever seen a guy naked. As in have you ever slept with a guy?” No response. “Oh ho ho. This is very interesting. You are more a virgin than I thought you were.”

“Shut up.” You growled and shoved him out of your face, moving to grab onto your brush and palette and made a dark line on the piece of pink flesh on the heart. The dark worked as a shadow you were gonna use to emphasize the green that would be used in the next layer, making it look like the roots would be interwoven into the flesh of the heart.

Harrington chuckled as he walked over to your bed and let himself fall backwards into your bed. You didn’t turn around and worked on pulling more life from the heart using small strokes that made them less noticeable.

Up close you could see all of the colors and of course you could see the colors, but even with just the base layers down, you could feel pride bubbling inside of you as you concentrated on keeping your hand steady. “Is this yours?” A voice spoke softly behind you, causing you to jump and a streak of green crossed the right ventricle and cutting through a flower.

A noise of annoyance left your mouth and you let your head fall forward with your brush dropping onto the table next to you. Turning, you saw Harrington hanging over your shoulder with his eyes fixated on what was in front of him. “Yes, Harrington. This is mine.” With a heavy sigh you resigned yourself for the night, not too satisfied with your progress. But keeping a certain guest in your room wasn’t helping you.

Nancy get out of the shower please.

“That’s amazing.” For the second time that night, Harrington caused you to blush. “I haven’t seen anything like this before.” He reaches his hand out to touch it when you grabbed his wrist and pushed it away.

“It’s still wet.” Your words weren’t meant to be harsh, but he didn’t seem to notice as he slowly nodded his head while keeping his eyes fixated on the painting. Noticing that he seemed to enjoy your painting, you pulled the brush back out and dipped it back into the pink. “You can watch if you would like.” You mentioned quietly while keeping your eyes on what you were doing and your back turned to Harrington as he sat back down on the bed.

The moment was kind of serene, odd honestly was the best word, odd to have someone watching you, something you checked every few moments to see if you could ease the tension in your shoulders but he still sat there watching. You’ve had Clare and Matt in the room with you while you paint, but neither of them ever went out of their way to watch your every move and twist of the brush. Even if you were in your environment of comfort and what you wanted to be doing, you didn’t know how you felt about this.

Next door, you finally heard your sister’s door close, signally to you that she was out of the shower, and knowing her, she was already dressed and relaxing on her bed. “You...can climb through to her window now. Or you can go through the hall if you really want to.” Turning slightly, you didn’t look at him other than to see him still watching you before walking over to your backpack and retrieving your sketchbook from it along with some pencils and sat down on your bed, tucking your feet under your body.

Nodding, Steve stood up and thought for a second. “I think I’ll go through the window for now, since Nancy doesn’t know about me coming through here.” You parroted that that was a good idea while you opened your sketchbook and stared at it rather than at Harrington as he climbed his way through the window next to Nancy and left you alone again.

Sighing in relief, you found peace again and let your pencil glide across the paper. The piece didn’t last if you hoped it would as you quickly realized what was forming. “Shit, not again.” The nose was back.

Thinking about it, you didn’t really want to go back to our painting and decided just to deal with the damn nose...again. Until you eventually dozed off, you drew this nose over and over again, working this time only with shading and line work as you took different angles and lighting and perfecting this nose if you could say so.

This nose haunted you until you slipped into your dreams.

-----

Today felt like any other day, started out the same, kept going the same, even lunch was the same, with Matt and Clare arguing and with a new habit that seemed to be forming you bent over your sketchbook while continuing to draw a part of the body. However, you think you out nosed yourself last night, since you had three pages full of this nose. That didn’t stop you from watching as your paper quickly filled with the form of human lips.

“Oh, does Y/N over here want to practice kissing with these lips?” Matt chuckled to himself when he stood up and looked over the top of your easel. “If you really wanted someone to kiss, you coulda just asked, Y/N.”

Clare hopped over to your side of the painting, leaving her own for a second to see what exactly Matt was teasing you about. “Matt, as if any girl would want to kiss you.”

“Cause you keep stealing all the girls.” He winked at her as a rosy blush traveled up her neck before he turned his attention back to you. “Uh, Y/N, I don’t know how to tell you this, but you know that the nose is usually not that close to the mouth, right? Not like right underneath it?”

Matt did point out the simple feature that you had all the knowledge that you were doing. You don’t know what it was, but you just wanted to put the lips there. You didn’t know why, but it was the same reason that led you to agonizing over a nose and a pair of lips these past couple of days. Just to see what happens. Besides there is no perfect face who’s to say this isn’t how this face looks.

“That’s not where the mouth goes.”

“Picasso didn’t follow the lines of society so there’s no reason I have to.” You smiled up at him as you worked more pink into the lips without making it look like the lips had lipstick on. “Besides, I can just...see them there. This is my painting not yours.” Matt gives you a quiet ‘whoa’ as he thinks on what you just said while Clare congratulates you on managing to break your best friend’s mind and gives her a small time of quiet to finish her own piece of work before the bell rings in the next couple of minutes.

Not much silence followed for you when you heard the intercom system activate overhead. “Y/N Wheeler, please report to the front office. Y/N Wheeler to the front office.” Everyone’s head in the room turned to look at you, giving you a look as you slowly stood up, a dark blush running over your face as you quickly as quietly as possible walked out the door and following the hallway to the front office.

In your three years at this school, never had you been called to the front office, and seeing your mother there made you nervous to your stomach. “Mom?” You quietly called her name as you entered the main office and saw her standing there, waiting for you. Looking at her, you knew this wasn’t a happy calling, something confirmed by both her stern look on her face and seeing a shy looking Holly standing behind her leg.

“Y/N, so nice to see you. I’m taking you home.” Her smile looked friendly to any other bystander, but that smile had been shown to you plenty of times when you had to explain your grades, or where you were later at night. This smile meant she was here to deal with business, and you were about to be interrogated until wanting to curl up in bed and just die.

Your mind raced as to why this was happening. Nancy wasn’t here, neither was Mike, so this was only you. Get out. Get out. Run. Get away. You tried figuring out what to do, how to get out of this and the only thing you could think to do was sputter out “Bu-but I need my backpack.” Trying to get away from here, that’s all you could think about.

“Nancy will get your stuff. Now let’s go. Holly still needs to eat lunch and we need to get home, don’t we Holly?” The youngest Wheeler looked up at your mom and gave a small nod, still not moving out from behind her leg.

“I...but mom-” You spoke, but she interrupted.

“Y/N Wheeler, now.” This shut you down, her almost growl and the definite glare she sent at you gave you the opportunity to only respond with a quiet yes ma’am as you followed her out the door.

Matt had told you that being pulled from school early was always a bragging right as it meant skipping classes for the rest of the day. This wasn’t exciting and something you were relishing and going to tell your friends about. You feared what your mother’s temper would say. She never hurt you not physically, but she didn’t hold back with her words.

The car ride back home was absolute hell. Not a word was spoken, even Holly was silent during the ride. You noted how you were riding in your dad’s car, given your family only had two cars and Nancy currently had one at home. Your dad would be home. Maybe he would help you in keeping your mom calm.

“Um, mom?” You asked, trying to alleviate the tension but she wasn’t having any of it.

“Don’t. Say anything until we get home.” Shrinking into the seat, all you can think of doing was melting away, jumping out of the car. Because you have never seen your mother so quiet, she was so quiet that she was lethal; this happened before with our dad, he had done something when you were younger and your mother quietly called your father upstairs to their room before you heard her speaking.

Your mother wasn't screaming, she was a woman who cut down her opponents with her words. Her words were sharper than any weapon, any sword, and that’s what scared you because you were at the receiving end of her words.

And make you wait she did. Holly, your mother, and you walked into the house, completely quiet without Mike downstairs with his friends and Nancy upstairs talking with her friends or Harrington on the phone. And silence made you uncomfortable.

You followed your mom to the kitchen where she rounded the island and planted her hands firmly on the tile countertop. “I got a call from Holly’s school today.” This came out of nowhere, but you couldn’t move or do anything other than stand under your mother’s stare. Holly was sitting at the table with a sandwich in her hand and happily eating her lunch.

Her nails began to tap rhythmically on the countertop. “Her teacher told me that she pushed a little boy off the playground today. I get to the school and they tell me the same thing, and here I am thinking, my sweet little Holly? Why would she do that? Where would she get an idea like that? So, I ask her this exact question. Do you know what she tells me, Y/N?”

The pit in your stomach was a boulder now, you understood what was going on. And your mother wasn’t going to be happy with what you had to say. Slowly you nodded your head, giving her a response with what you knew. “Holly, your little sister Holly, told me that you, her older sister, told her to push that boy off the playset.” Her voice had stayed very level, but her eyes grew Angier and fiery with every word this mother dragon blew from her mouth.

“Mom, I didn’t tell her to push him. She told me he was pulling-” She didn’t let you finish as she slammed her hand down on the counter, causing you to flinch and take a step back.

“You don’t get to justify what you did. You aren’t the one who has to call this little boy’s mother and tell him why your sister pushed him. You aren’t the one who has to tell all her friends that my high school daughter is rebelling against me so much that she is trying to get her little sister in trouble. You, Y/N, are the one that did this, and I have to deal with the consequences of what you’ve done.” Her words rolled off her tongue and stung you, each and everyone.

“But mom, I didn’t mean for that. Holly told ne-”

“Don’t turn this on your sister because you don’t want to get in trouble. I am tired of your behavior recently, Y/N. I am not dealing with this anymore, where is your sketchbook, I’m taking it away from you until I deem it okay for you to get this back.” As she spoke, your heart rate elevated and you began to freak out.

“What? Wait no mom no! It’s a week until the art show! What am I supposed to do for the next week?!”

You could feel our eyes widening as you gestured around the counter, trying to argue with her. Your mom doesn’t do well with people arguing with her. “You can spend time with your family, Y/N. Not lock yourself in your room all day.”

“Then make Nancy do that too! Don’t single me out, mom!”

“Don’t bring your sister into this. Just because you are jealous of her doesn’t mean you can-”

“No mom! I’m not jealous of Nancy! You pretend in your mind that we are the same person, I just happen to be the less pretty, less academically amazing, less perfect daughter! That is not my fault that you put these stupid expectations on me that I never asked for! You can’t single me out in this family just because they are the least successful of your children! That is not fair!”

At this point it was a screaming match between the two of you, words you were holding back were starting to come out of your mouth, but it was like you were drunk and had no filter and no idea when to stop but it was all coming out. Your screaming attracted the attention of your father from his shower upstairs, the raised voices of two women of his household worried the man.

Coming down the stairs, your dad looked into the kitchen and saw Holly sitting in her grilled cheese with her sandwich half eaten while watching you and your mother. Looking further into the kitchen, he found the source of the shouting and quickly worked on diffusing his wife and daughter from murdering each other. “Whoa! Karen, Y/N, what is going on? You two need to calm down.”

“Stay out of this, Ted. Y/N and I are talking.” Your mom growled the last part of that phrase out without breaking eye contact with you. Ted Wheeler was looking between the two of you, he had obviously seen his wife blow up like this, but he had never seen you feed into your mother’s rage. He didn’t know which one had started and he didn’t know which “side” to take, because either way it would not work out well.

“Karen.” He took his wife’s hand and gently squeezed it. “Stop.” He stood his ground, shocking his daughter and wife alike. “Y/N go up to your room. Your mother and I will talk about this.”

“Ted Wheeler.”

“Yes dear?” Your father responded to your mom’s anger and responded with his usual soft and neutral voice. This was your que to leave, to go hide in your room and get away from this horrible place. AS soon as you stepped in, the first thing you thought to do was hide you paint supplies.

Your mom threatened you with taking your art away, but not if you hide it from her. Grabbing hold of your paints, you grabbed six or seven major colors, one that you can make other colors from these along with a few of our brushes. You couldn’t hide everything because your mom would figure out that not everything is there, but if you grab only a few of everything, you would be fine.

Heart pounding, pulse racing, short breaths, you worked as quietly and quickly as you could without alerting your parents of what you were doing.

Footsteps made their way up the stairs, warning you that someone was about to walk into the room. Panicking, you shoved the bucket of few paint supplies up into a corner of your closet and you sat down at the edge of your bed, settling yourself down before your bedroom door opened and your dad stepped in, causing you to look over at him with a sad look on your face. “How mad is she?” You were afraid to ask.

“Well, you said some pretty choice words to your mother, Y/N. So pretty mad.” Groaning, you hid your face in your hands. “She was threatening just to lock you in your room with nothing in here but your bed...but I was able to calm her down enough to just keep you in your room except for meals.”

“So, no art supplies?” He nodded at your question, to which you replied with a sigh. “How long?”

Sitting down next to you, you dad bumped your shoulder with a soft smile on his face. “I told her we can split the idea and make you suffer until Sunday night rolled around.” Sunday was like three days away. That meant those days you didn’t get to work on any of your projects that you had. “Don’t worry, squirt. You can survive this.” The two of you sat together on the bed for a little while longer before he finally stood up and helped you grab your pencils and paints and markers as well as a small stab with taking your work in progress heart away.

Looking at the room now, you felt emptier than the room, there was nothing in the room and that left you feel nothing inside. You saved some of your paints, but without even just the easel in the corner of your room it’s so empty and sad to look at your room. The walls had very few pictures on them, especially the one next to your window that was next to your sister’s room. Staring at the blank wall made your blood boil, boil so much that you blindly grabbed a paintbrush and stepped up to the wall as a butcher walked towards a new body of meat ready to be sectioned off into eatable pieces. Your brush worked as nimble as any scalpel, working with speed at the wall, your mind wasn’t thinking, your body was moving on its own at this point.

And there was no stopping it.

-----

It was only Saturday afternoon and you had two small panic attacks just thinking about the art show coming up. Just because opening night was in like two weeks doesn’t mean that you could turn it in the night the show opened, everything was due this Tuesday, completed, dry and everything. Would you be able to do that by then? Your art teacher had reached out to you and asked you to enter a piece, making you now feeling obligated to enter something. And that something happened to be locked in your parent’s room for the weekend.

Usually when you were antsy or nervous, you would draw or paint, and here you were still. A few colors and pencils but no paper. And lined paper did not agree with you doodling style of drawing erasing and then redrawing, you wore simple paper out too easily. You needed something heavier. And you couldn’t go at the walls again like last night; waking up this morning, you were shocked to see just what you did, quickly pushing your curtains around to hide that part of the wall, leaving your window open to let natural light fill the room you would be spending the next couple of days isolated to.

A light knock at the door, causing you to perk up to thinking hopefully your dad would come in and tell you that your mother slept well, and she was giving you back all your stuff. Not that you were upset or angry at your brother when he walked in, but when you looked at the dark headed boy who stuck half his body through the door, your hope fell away. “Hey Mikey, what’s up buddy?” You gestured him to come fully into the room with you where he plopped down into your desk chair across from your bed.

“Well, um, I wanted to know if you...you could still draw my DnD character? I was just figuring that since you don’t have your big piece to work on right now and I just wanted to see if you could do it now because you’re not busy and you said you would do it in the car a few days ago and I just think you could do a really cool job drawing him and it would be great and my friends might also want you to draw their too and that’s all up to you but if you could at least do mine that would be great and you would be an amazing sister.” His words jumbled out of his in one mess, something he does whenever he gets nervous or excited about something.

You let him ramble a bit through what he wanted, his excitement bringing a smile to your face as you saw just how much he wanted this done, even if he stumbled over his request. He had nothing to worry about in the world. Mike sat there after his long request, finally giving your room to speak. “You done talking, Mike?” You quipped, not meaning it in a mean way as you watch him cough for air. “Of course, I’ll do it for you, buddy. Can I just request something from ya?” His head nodded up and down, his eyes sparkling with excitement at your acceptance. “Get me some paper I can draw on.” He was already out the door when you said paper.

Chuckling to yourself, you went over to your closet and grabbed hold of the box of pencils you kept just in case; staring down at the bright colored Crayola that you weren’t favoring to use, but, it was for your brother and you loved Mikey enough to use these. You heard him scrambling back up the stairs before Mike rushed into your room, gasping for air as he held out some paper, he grabbed from the printer downstairs to you. You took the paper from him and laid it on top of one of your schoolbooks.

Pencils out next to you, paper at the ready, a semi sturdy workspace, you were ready. “Alright, Mike, what does this paladin of yours look like?”

The two of you sat there for a long period of time, which honestly slipped away from you as you did your best to draw a person, since you still haven’t gotten any better at it since your fascination with the nose and lips, but you still did your best as he animatedly told you about how Elias the Esteemed stood, how he was a lawful good paladin who only did what was just even when the other characters in the party would be annoyed by his upright behaviors.

While you were drawing, you asked him to tell you stories about his friends adventures, and he so happily did; he told you about how they spent almost twelve hours fighting to save a princess and the others thought his character was being stupid for trusting an evil goblin when a fairy offered to help them until it turned out that the fairy was evil and was the one trying to kill the princess to get enteral youth. Just from watching your little brother speak, you could tell that he absolutely adores what he and his friends do every weekend.

There was something that just brought joy to you when you saw someone radiate passion about something they love. And you saw this in your little brother as he told you story upon story of the renegades his friend group was.

Passion speaks louder than simple descriptions or words. These stories gave an idea of how the paladin held himself, why he swung left handed and not right, stupid little things than made you draw Mike’s character in such a way that to you, it would make him feel more alive and ready to jump off the page, ready to fight for the sake of any princess in need.

It was getting near dinner time when you finished, though you had been done for a bit of time, instead keeping this time to yourself. In this family, quality time was few and far between, and being with your brother brought happiness to your...rough weekend. And it was quickly shattered into pieces when you heard the call for dinner. Mike quickly stopped talking and looked towards your door before glancing back at you.

“Let’s get going then, Sir Eliad the Esteemed. Let us go feast after this glorious victory.” You turned the portrait over to him and wrapped your arms around his shoulders as the two of you headed down the stairs to join the rest of your family.

You kept to yourself for the rest of the evening, but really it was the rest of your family that didn’t come to see you. Your mother and you weren’t really on speaking terms, Holly wasn’t allowed near you after you “told her to push a boy off the playground”, and your father was passed out in front of the TV. Nancy had asked your mom if she could run up to the store and buy some ice cream, leaving the whole upper level of the house to yourself and there was nothing for you to do with it all.

So here you were again, staring at your ceiling as you twirled one of the pencils you still had out around your finger in complete and utter boredom. How could anyone live like this? You have been left alone with yourself and your thoughts for a full day and you were already ready to kill yourself. Looking around, you found yourself staring at the small stuffed ladybug sitting in your window, something to which you looked at curiously.

It was the weekend and you hadn’t seen Steve try and climb through your weekend since Thursday evening. Granted it was only a day ago, but you were curious as to why your sister and her boyfriend didn’t take this time to be theirs and spend time together. Hmm. At least he wasn’t walking in while you were changing into your pajamas again.

Speaking of pajamas, might as well get them on since you obviously weren’t going to be going anywhere tonight that would require proper clothing, so you pulled your pants off from the day and pulled on your pajamas bottoms before tugging your shirt off and over your head.

“Wheeler, we might wanna consider buying ladder.” A voice spoke up behind you, cause you to scream and drop the shirt you were holding onto the ground before turning around.

“What the hell, Harrington?!” You shouted at him, thanking the lord that you were alone on this level otherwise your mother would have stormed in here before you could say the boy’s name.

The brunette looked at you with a look on his face that you couldn’t read but you could have sworn you saw a quick blush appear on his cheeks before you remembered that you were in fact putting on your pajamas and he yet again came barging in on you. “Okay, this was your fault. I checked and the ladybug is there, so I thought I could come in.”

You stumbled over a few words before you gave up ad scoffed at him before putting your shirt over your head. “I thought you had just died because you weren’t here last night, so I assumed I was free of you sneaking into my window. Forgive me for being hopeful.”

“Aw, come on Wheeler, you know you would miss me if I just left you behind.” He smiled at you and sat down next to you on your bed, bouncing you up and down ever so slightly with his weight being added to the bed.

You muttered to yourself as you pushed your pencils away, “You have no idea.” And there you sat, the two of you in quiet silence, where you stared out the window at the trees next to your house, fireflies were beginning to emerge, lighting up the yard.

“Did you finish that painting?” Harrington asked you, to which you replied with a hum. “Your heart and flower painting that you had over there? Did you finish it?”

“Oh, um…” You pulled your lips between your teeth, because he had no right to really know about it, but he was asking, but why did you want to tell him? You ignored the questions and just rolled with it. “My mom...more or less grounded me for the weekend and took my stuff away from me, so I’m stuck here without anything to work on.” He gave you a look that you only responded to with a shrug.

He scoffed. “Wow, take a painter away from her painting.” Looking over, he saw your pencils tossed onto your desk. “You any good with pencils?”

“I mean yeah, paint is what I want to work with, but as long as I can put it to paper, I can use it.” When you answered his question, he nodded before he pulled something from his backpack that you didn’t notice he had until now. “What are you doing?” Your brows were quirked as you watched him bring back out a notebook. A sketchbook actually.

Your face had a look of shock on it, bringing him to smile at you. “Calm down, Wheeler. I can see the boredness in your eyes and I have this book. Mess around with it, I’m sure as hell not using it.” Your words caught in your throat as you stared down at the notebook that was now in your lap.

“Um...thanks, Harrington.” You stood up and grabbed the pencils you had honestly not really knowing what to do with this newly given gift. “Do you...want me to draw you anything?” You asked.

Harrington looked up at you, a look deep in thought on his face before he turned to you and asked, “I want you to draw me like a cartoon character.” Hearing this, you were surprised at his request, even voicing this confusion yourself. “You know like Fred from Scooby Doo? Draw me something like him. All attractive and suave.” He grinned up at you, his dark eyes twinkling as he waited for your answer to his request.

“I...don’t really do animation. I’m more of an emotion led artists and this isn’t really-”

He interrupted you. “Well then I guess I’ll be having my notebook back.” He held his hand out to you, but you held the book to your own chest shaking your head. “Thought so, now get drawing, Wheeler.” You were honestly taken aback by him sitting here and demanding things from you.

Almost stupidly, you sat down in the chair sitting in front of him and grabbed a pencil, the black one, one that you were using in his outline. Animation was more your style, even if it wasn’t what you wanted to be drawing right now, you found that drawing Harrington animatedly was easier than real life but there was still a learning curve for you.

You drew his face in very simple lines. His jaw came down into a subtle, but he did have a square face overall, deciding to accentuate the shape of his face while adding a slight chin to make sure he didn’t have just a square for his head. His ears were pretty flush to his head, so you didn’t bother and just hid them behind his hair.

Oh, the hair. You grabbed the brown pencil and moved to try and find a way to translate the Hairs hair onto paper and it wasn’t working that well. There is a reason Harrington was known for his long and fluffy hair, and boy was it hard to find a way to get the curls and the wisps onto the paper without making it seem like stray pencil marks.

You needed to tell your sister to tame her boyfriend’s eyebrows because they needed help, he was a few hairs away from unibrow. One had a sort of arch with some stray hairs underneath it and the other looked like a caterpillar. So, you decided to fix them on paper, and you gave him some damn good-looking eyebrows if you do say so yourself. Moving on, you stared at his eyes, and you finally noticed that he was staring back at you just as intently as you were, only he didn’t have a reason to be watching you. Maybe it was because he was staying still for you, but his gaze was a little unnerving. So instead of wanting to put focus on the small flecks of individual colors that made of his warm brown eyes, you grabbed the brown pencil again and just quickly drew a brown blob at the center of each eye and called it that.

His nose was in two sweet and small motions, choosing to ignore drawing the slight crook midway down his nose. It was a simple nose, given that you knew almost every turn by now after drawing it multiple times.

Your head shot up with your eyes wide at this, the pencil in your hand had stopped as you stared at Harrington’s nose. It was there, the nose. The one you had been drawing all week. There it was. The tweak at the top of the nose, the small button at the tip, the small and light freckles that lined the bridge of his nose. They were all there in front of you and you had no clue what to do with this new information.

It couldn’t be. Why the hell would you be drawing Harrington’s nose? There was no reason you had ever looked at him for more than five minutes total since the time he and Nancy started dating.

But there were the lips. The lips too. They were right there. Staring at you with all the swings and curves and pink tone with reds in it that you had been trying to copy since yesterday morning. The two of them were staring right at you. The face they belonged to was sitting in front of you and you didn’t know how to feel about it.

A hand snaps in front of your face, one of its fingers striking your nose gently. “Wheeler? You still in there?” You shook your head, clearing your brain of the fog that took you over.

“Yeah, sorry.” Quickly pulling the sketchy book closer to your face, you hid your warm face from where he could see you and quickly drew his lips in, completely ignoring your racing mind as you drew the outline and colored in his clothes on the way down, noting his denim jacket, T-shirt and a pair of jeans. On top of a pair of sneakers that you had never really seen him not wear before.

From the face you took time to get the feeling of Harrington into the drawing, you quickly rushed through the rest of him, producing a finished product in less than five minutes and handing it over to him. “Here you go. Sorry if it’s not like Fred enough for you, but I’m not really an animator or anything.”

Harrington looked over the paper you handed him; his face blank as he took in everything from the sheet of paper. The anticipation in your stomach grew every second he just stared at what you produced, wanting to be affirmed in what you had done, the ever challenging part of being like you, was that you didn’t know it but you needed the affirmation of how well you did. And for some reason, especially right now.

“Wow, Wheeler, you could open one of those street drawing stand things and have people pay you for these.” He gave you a quick smile before tucking the paper into his backpack between some of his school books. Looking at his books, you quickly remembered where you were and what he was doing here.

“Why aren’t you with Nancy right now?” You questioned and he quickly muttered to himself.

He fiddled with his zipper before turning back to you, fiddling didn't fit his persona. “I just assumed she was taking a shower again since you didn’t kick me out.”

You quirked an eyebrow at his response. “If I remember last time, you were half out the door ready to join my sister. I didn’t think you needed my permission to go see your own girlfriend. Much less have sex with her if you want to.” He scoffed at your remark, you bringing a smile to his face.

“Good to know I have Nancy’s little sister’s permission to sleep with her next door to you.” He slings his backpack back onto his back as he makes this comment.

“Whoa whoa, I didn’t mean that wait-Harrington I didn’t mean that!” He was already out the window by the time your confused brain caught up to you. “Great, now all I’m gonna hear is them having sex.” You muttered angrily to yourself as you slammed the window closed behind him.

Because what else would you want to hear besides your sister and her boyfriend screaming in pleasure at each other.

Looking around the room, you saw the sketchbook sitting on your desk. The sketchbook that Harrington gave you.

Steve Harrington. “Oh God.” You gasped out as it all fell around you. You fell back against the wall behind you, slipping down until you were seated, your brain finally caught up to you and the panic settled in. “Holy crap, holy crap. What have I done?”

His nose. That was it. He had your nose that you had been drawing. You found the face. And you didn’t like this at all.

You have been drawing your sister’s boyfriend's nose obsessively. And you couldn’t explain why.

Your heart rate increased.

Breathing became short, curt, and rapid.

Your vision was getting a little fuzzy around the edges as you tried rapidly blinking.

Chest was heaving, but no air was getting in.

You were having a fucking panic attack and there was no one here to help you.

You have to remember how to breathe on your own.

How do you even breathe?

You were alone, and your body couldn’t remember how to breathe.

You were alone and you couldn’t breathe

You couldn’t alone and you were breathe.

Alothe.

Brone.

Your panic took you over and you fell over onto your carpeted floor, passed out and afraid of what you now know.

-----

Monday morning finally came, to your mother coming into your room and calling you awake. Last night you finally got all of your supplies back and you were doing everything you could to make up for the lost weekend you had planned to use for painting. You stayed up until 3am, until your body was shutting itself down. You had seen Harrington come through your room and go, not giving him much to talk about this time around. You couldn’t let yourself get distracted with how little time you had left.

And when that three am mark rolled around, your brain couldn’t tell what was pink from green and you almost painted a giant line through the heart. So, you slept, for three hours your body rested and reset itself.

And it was rudely interrupted by your mom telling you it was Monday and you had to go to school. As you got dressed, you thought through how long it would take you to finish. All the colors were on the page, no white remained thankfully, but the flowers still needed life, they needed depth so that they were not 2D.

You could take the picture with you to school. But when would you work on it? And you wanted to keep this all a big reveal. Your teachers sure as hell wouldn’t allow you to work on it instead of their own class.

You could stay home. But how the hell was that supposed to work? Knowing your mother, you sure couldn’t get her to allow you to stay home for a reason as stupid as a painting.

But what if she didn’t know you were home?

An idea formed in your mind as you threw your hair up in a ponytail and walked over to your sister’s door before knocking on it. She called you in. “Y/N?” Nancy was confused when you walked in. “What do you want?”

“Nancy, I have a huge favor to ask of you. Can you please leave me here at home? I need to stay back and finish working on my painting and I don’t have enough time tonight. I promise I will do whatever you want, I will do your chores, your homework, I don’t know but please, Nancy, I really need this.” You pleased with her, throwing all your sincerity as you can into your words.

She didn’t say anything for a few seconds, her eyes darting back and forth between yours, looking for something, though you don’t really know what. “You owe me if I do this.” You gasped in relief at her words and surged forward, throwing your arms around your sister’s shoulders.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you so much Nancy. Oh my gosh I owe you so much right now. Thank you.” You held her tight in a hug, ignoring how she didn’t return the hug, but you were just too elated at this moment to care. “Okay, I’ll like get in the car with you and at the stop sign at the end of the road, I’ll just jump out and run home.”

“Yeah, yeah. I don’t care.” She wiggles slightly as she wants you to release her, making you let go and rush out of her room.

You did as you said. Wished your parents goodbye after breakfast, got into the car for a short time before telling Mike to keep quiet and you ran home.

That was the easy part. What Harrington didn’t tell you was that climbing up the wall of the house wasn’t as easy as it sounded, and you ate dirt twice before you finally made it up to your window. You thanked your past self for leaving the window open, not knowing how you would have managed it to try and get that window open from the outside.

But you were inside now, and all you had to do for the rest of the day before your sister got back was be quieter than a mouse. And with painting, that wasn’t too hard for you: standing on your feet without moving was something you got used to. But this time, you couldn’t just tune the world out, you had to make sure that your mother didn’t walk in to find you here and not at school.

So, you went in painting, pulling out your paint palette and container of paints, you began working. Mixing, painting, brushing, applying the paint, you stood for hours, ignoring your stomach as it called for food around lunch time. Moving only one, and that was because you dropped a paint brush and needed to step forward a little bit. The other time was when you heard your mother coming up the stairs.

Your first urge was to scream when you heard her. It was almost like a horror movie with the murderer coming closer to the victim and the victim had nowhere to go. Where to go, what do you hide in? Would she even come in here? Of course, she would, she’s your mother! Looking around, the best you could think of with the footsteps getting slowly closer was under your bed, because you were basic and asking to be killed.

You dove and as quietly as you could, you shoved yourself under the bed, not realizing how cramped it would be down there, it wasn’t as easy as you thought it would be but you still were able to get yourself underneath before you watched the door swing open. Her heeled feet walked in, followed closely by the vacuum behind her, which she plugged in and quickly went to work.

All you could do was sit there, waiting, watching as the vacuum came closer, going away, closer, away. So on and so forth, but you would hear the occasional mutter from your mom about how filthy you kept this room, and how you need to put your paints away and not leave it lying out all day. From where you were lying, you could see her jostling things around above you, but nothing seemed to give away your still being home.

Looking around the room, you took inventory of what a bug must feel like, seeing everything so big and far away. Your dresser, bookshelves, even your backpack was massive from where you were. Crap. Your eyes widened as your mother grabbed your backpack from the ground. You were supposed to have your backpack at school right now, and it was sitting on your floor for your mother to see.

Shit shit shit shit shit! You screamed in your head with your hand clamped over your mouth as you waited for your mom to find you, catch you, and never let you see the light of day again. Something bounced off your bed. “Y/N needs to stop leaving her backpack home and start taking it with her.” Those were the last things you heard your mom say before she turned and dragged the vacuum behind her out the door, shutting it behind her before moving down the hall to your brother’s room.

A heavy sigh left your body as you felt relief rush over you knowing that you were safe from getting caught. And with that, you pulled yourself out from under the bed, squeezing a little bit at the hips, but finding yourself free from dust. You didn’t have much more of a thought to yourself other than getting more of the painting done before you could call it a day and finally finish it all off with a quick signature at the bottom.

A few more hours of you working passed before you heard your sister come back home. Just in time too. You had the biggest smile on your face as you painted the last brush stroke at the bottom. “Y/N Wheeler.” You were finished. Finally! Mike cried out that he was home and then promptly called how he was heading over to Dustin’s house. Opening your door, you wanted to make your way over to Nancy to thank her again, wanting to know what she wanted in return.

Opening your door, you saw Nancy had beaten you to it and was standing outside your door. “Nancy! I just wanted to say than-” Your smile and happiness quickly went away when Nancy shoved past you, cutting you off.

“Why was Steve asking about you?” Her question confused you, which you voiced, asking her what she was talking about. “Steve! My boyfriend! All he could do was ask me about you and why you weren’t at school and how you were enjoying your new notebook and then he went on to show me the cartoon you drew of him. When did you draw him? Why are you hanging around my boyfriend?!”

“Whoa, Nancy, I wasn’t hanging around him. I haven’t done anything. I don’t even talk to Harrington.”

“Then why does he have this drawing?” And to prove it to you, she pulled the silly drawing out you did a few nights ago, where Harrington asked you to draw him like Fred.

Looking at the paper, there was honestly nothing you could think of wrong with the situation. “Nancy, for like the past week, he has been using my window to sneak in and out of the house because he was almost caught by mom. I offered to let him use my room to slip through. You were busy or something like two nights ago and he was sitting in here waiting for you to finish and he told me to draw him like Fred from Scooby-Doo.”

“He’s been sneaking through your room?! You suggested this? Y/N what the hell have you been doing with my boyfriend in my room?” Nancy was screaming at you at this point, alerting your mother that the two of you were home when she called up the stairs for you two to stop yelling.

You were getting frustrated at this point, “Nancy! No! I haven’t been doing anything with your boyfriend! I’m not even interested in the asshole!”

“Then why did I find you drawing his face in your notebook?!” Once again trying to prove you were in the wrong, she showed you more papers, the ones from your sketchy book that were in fact of Harrington’s face that you found out the other night.

“Where did you get those? Nancy, that's from my notebook, where did you get that?” Your failed attempt to grab the papers from her led to her getting all in your face.

“And why were they in there?! Why! Y/N why are you hitting on my boyfriend?! Is nothing sacred for me?! All you do is walk around this house, painting, and drawing and being a goody little two shoes! You are a complete bitch Y/N! I work my ass off for my grades, to be great in school, to have an amazing boyfriend! And you are trying to steal him from me!” She kept getting louder and louder, screaming at you and stomping her feet and making more and more accusations towards you that you didn’t understand.

“Nancy, I know how it looks but I was just-”

She walked dangerously close to your painting, her flailing arms almost hitting it right off the easel. “You were what, Y/N?”

“Please be careful, Nancy, the paint is still wet.” Reaching out, you grazed her hand, hoping to calm her down but she ripped it away from you.

“Oh, is this what you care about? Let me show you what you’ve done to me, Y/N. What happens if I do this?!” Before you could react, her hand flew and shot its way through the canvas, punching a huge hole into the painting you just finished not moments ago.

“No!” You screamed in horror, staring at the hole she hit through the flowers atop and intertwined amongst the heart. Your own heart broke and your body had no idea what to do besides just scream.

Footfalls stormed up the stairs and Karen Wheeler charged into the room. “Y/N Wheeler, what are you screaming about, that is completely uncalled for!”

Tears welled up in your eyes as you looked to your mother for help. “Mom, Nancy she...look mom!”

“Mom! Y/N has been flirting with my boyfriend and cheating with him behind my back! And she skipped school today!” Nancy’s face had rage written all over it, nothing compared to the absolute shattered feeling you felt.

“Mom wait no please. I-” you tried explaining, but your mother had heard enough, and she spun on you.

“I can’t believe I ever raised a daughter like you, Y/N. I am completely disappointed in you. Steve is your sister’s boyfriend. And I’m talking to your father when he gets home about you missing school. Apologize to your sister right now.” Your mom was angry, you could tell, but you were hoping you could argue with her. “Don’t argue with me, Y/N! I guess locking you in your room isn’t enough for you to learn your lesson anymore. Your father will be hearing about this, young lady, you can be sure of that.”

She was gone, your mother left you in the room with your sister, going downstairs and angrily muttering to herself. Looking over to your sister, she saw she was still angry on her face, with a sickening smirk on her face. “What...have I ever done to you, Nancy? All I have ever done is try to be your little sister. All I want is for my big sister to guide me, be a role model. I just want you to love me, Nancy.” Tear tracks raced their way down your face as you stared at your sister, if you could even call her that anymore. Not after what she did to what she knew you loved doing and had worked so hard on.

“Why would I ever love the sister that made my parents split their love up?” Nancy’s voice came out as a growl and followed your mother, slamming your door behind her.

Your body finally gave out and you fell to your knees before curling up and letting our sobs ring through the room, screaming at one point all the pain out of your chest. Your mother yelled at you again, but you didn’t listen, you kept crying at the pain in your chest, the same pain that showed through the tear in the still wet painting.

------

“Karen, we should talk to her before we keep punishing her. She is going to hate us if we keep doing this.” Ted Wheeler was trying to talk some sense to his wife while walking up the stairs to his daughter’s room.

“Ted, I think it’s time we discipline her my way. You have been going too easy on her these last few years and she’s fighting back. I don’t like people fighting against me, Ted.” Karen Wheeler gave her husband a look that told him to be quiet while she did the talking, he was there to be a point of authority and trick you into listening to your mother.

Nodding, your father grabbed the door handle into your room and pushed the door open. “Y/N, sweetie. We wanted to talk to you.” The husband and wife opened the door and expected to find you sitting on your bed or standing in front of your painting that the two of them have known you have been working on endlessly lately.

But the room was empty. You were nowhere to be seen. “Y/N?” Karen took a step into the room, checking behind the door to see if you were standing there. “Y/N, I don’t want to deal with your games right now. Get out here young lady.” The woman checks under the bed, in the closet, but you weren’t in either of those places. “Ted, I don’t see-” Turning around, Karen Wheeler saw her husband standing in front of what looked to be the artwork you were working on. She stepped closer, looking around her husband's shoulder and her eyes widened when she saw what was before her.

It was a beautiful painting. The dark background may look black for one second, but when looking deeper at it, there were the light colors of white and grey in the background, creating an open ribcage around what is the centerpiece of the painting: a red heart. The heart had amazing detail, veins and fat tissue where you would suppose it would go. Green things ran along the heart as well, but it wasn’t as easy as it was before to tell that there was a bouquet of flowers emerging from the main openings of the heart because where the flowers once were was now a giant hole ripped through the canvas.

Karen Wheeler was rarely shocked at being speechless, yet here she was with her hand pressed to her mouth in awe at what she was looking at. It was beautiful but broken. While she stared at this, Ted had gone to the door and called somebody’s name down the hall. “Is this what she has been working on?” Her words came out breathless and airy. “It’s so beautiful.”

Ted nodded as he looked around the room, waiting for who he called before something caught his eye behind the curtain that was being blown around the open window. “Did you call me, dad?” Nancy stepped into the door confused.

“Nancy, do you know what happened to your sister’s painting?” Karen turned to her eldest daughter, her pride and joy, before her husband could, who had pushed a curtain away to see more of what he was looking at.

Looking over, Nancy shrugged. “She deserved it. I told you mom, she was che-”

“Nancy, I’m not asking for what she did to you. Did you do this to her painting?” Nancy looked around the room, not wanting to look at her mother, but giving a slight nod. “Nancy Wheeler! You know what painting means to your sister!”

“But mom, she doesn’t-”

“No Nancy! You aren’t in the right here. Y/N could have hit on your boyfriend, which I want to verify with your boyfriend, but that does not give you the right to destroy what Y/N has spent weeks working on.”

“Karen.” Ted called over to his wife.

“Nancy Wheeler, you are in a big deal of trouble right now and I don’t want to see you. You have severely hurt your sister and I am extremely upset with you.” Nancy looked away from Karen, her face flushed with red as she left the room, not feeling too hot that she had been turned on by her parents.

“Karen,” Ted called again, to which she finally turned back to him. “Look.”

Written on the wall, in black paint was line after line of your handwriting. “Failure. Stupid. Y/N Wheeler is useless. Not pretty like Nancy. Not smart like Mike. Not loveable like Holly. Matt is friendlier than Y/N. Clare is emotionally stable. Stupid. Failure. Shit. Y/N Wheeler is shit. The world won’t stop. Nobody here. Noone wants me. Unwanted. Unloved. No difference. No change without. Gone. She is gone. Y/N Wheeler isn’t wanted. She isn’t going to want. “

“Oh my god.” Karen gasped again, tears prickling at her eyes as she turned away, not wanting to see anymore as she looked around the room. “Y/N? Sweetheart please!” She looked at the closet again and saw your shoes were gone. Your shoes and one of your jackets were missing. “Ted. Ted! She’s gone! Y/N’s gone! Our little girl is gone, she's gone.” Her words sputtered out of her mouth as she fell into her husband’s arms, her face and cries falling into his shoulders as he led her over to where your phone sat on your desk.

“Hawkin’s police department.” Flo’s voice asked through the phone, she sounded bored rightly so since nothing happens in this small town.

“Flo, this is Ted Wheeler.” He held the phone to his other ear so that his wife wasn’t crying near it. “Pass me through to Chief Hopper. Our daughter is missing.”

-----

“Y/N!”

“Y/N Wheeler!”

“How many Y/N’s do you know, Lucas?” Mike looked over to his friend; the three of them had been out for the last two, maybe three hours, calling out your name, much to Dustin’s chargin when his voice started cracking and hurt from screaming.

“Well I’m sorry I just wanted to say something other than your sister’s name.” Lucas called back to the only male child of the Wheeler family. “Mike, we’ve rode back and forth across this damn road so many times, I can count how many pedals it takes to get from one side to the other.”

Mike ignored his friends' complaints as he kept calling out your name, hoping that as they kept doing this loop that you would call back out to him. Come running out of the woods. Just come home. “Y/N!”

Across town, your parents were looking just as hard as your little brother. Your mother had removed her heels and stockings and skirt for a pair of sleep pants your father had and some sneakers she found in your room that would fit. Never in your wildest dreams could you imagine that your mother would be trekking through the muddy, dirty woods, especially for the likes of you. “Y/N!” Your mother called out, moving the flashlight back and forth as she tried seeing any sign of you in the woods near your house.

“Karen, sweetheart. We won’t be able to find her out here, it’s nearly midnight. It’s too dark for us to make a difference in the search.” Ted reached forward and gently grabbed his wife’s elbow, hoping he could guide her home. He had been out here with her, calling your name and looking at every possible place you could be hiding.

Karen looked back at her husband and in the glare of the flashlight off him, he could see her eyes filled with worry, shame, frustration. “Ted, I’m the reason she is out here. And I want to be here when we find her.”

Mr. Wheeler nodded his head, tugging a little harder on her elbow before she let herself be pulled into her husband’s embrace. The two of them stood in the middle of the woods, a mile or so away from your house, holding each other as they worried for their lost daughter. “Come on, dear. I’m sure we can look a little longer. Maybe she’s just a little farther ahead.” She nodded her head at Ted and the two of them continued forward. “Y/N!”

Back at home, Nancy was sitting in the living room with Holly drawing in front of her while she went over flashcards for her AP exam coming up. “Nancy?” At hearing her name, the young girl looked up. “Where’s Y/N? I didn’t get to paint with her today.”

She scoffed. “What is with this family and Y/N? She’s not here, Holly.” The last part, Nancy spoke louder so that the youngest Wheeler would hear her.

“Where is she? I miss her.” Holly said it so nonchalantly as she kept drawing on her little page. Nancy glowered down at the little girl before she stood up, ordering Holly to stay there and that she would be right back. Walking into the kitchen, she picked up the phone and quickly dialed a number.

“Hello?” Her boyfriend's voice came through the receiver and she felt like she could smile for the first time since she got home that day.

“Hey, Stevie. Wanna come over? My parents aren’t home and thought that we could get some alone time in.” She leaned against the doorframe of the kitchen, getting a look to see that Holly hadn’t moved an inch.

Steve took a second to respond. “Sure, babe why are they out of the house. They just had a date night.”

“Oh, Y/N up and ran off and they’re off looking for her like a manic. She’ll be home soon I’m sure. It’s what she gets.” Nancy rolled her eyes at her own statement. “So, you wanna come over?”

She heard a release of breath on the other end. “God, Nancy. Your sister is missing, and you want me to come over? Please tell me you are calling me to help your family look for her.”

“Steve Harrington. What are you talking about? Steve Harrington you are my boyfriend, not my sister’s boyfriend or best friend.” Nancy growled into the phone ready to go off on the phone to her ear, but he cut her off.

“No, Nancy. I am not someone who dates a girl who ignores her sister, who hurts her sister on a daily basis by not even looking or caring about her.” His words caught her off guard, truly they did because here it was again, her little sister coming back to claim what is originally Nancy’s. “Nancy unless you tell me this is some sick joke, I’m sorry but we are done.”

Nancy Wheeler had nothing to say and was even more in shock when she heard the dial tone ringing in her ear. “Steve? Steve? Hello?” Nancy stood at the phone and tried ringing him back up, with no answer. In the living room, Holly hummed to herself as she continued moving her marker back and forth across the paper, so excited for mommy to get home and to give her a new painting of the family.

“Y/N!” It had been hours since the sun had fully gone down and at least five hours since Hopper got the initial call. This kind of thing doesn’t happen in Hawkins, never has before Will went missing a couple years back. “Y/N Wheeler!” Hopper called again into the night, shining his flashlight around the exterior of the fence of Hawkins lab, trying to see if anything would connect another strange event from the Upside Down to you.

The lab has been quiet for a while, so it didn’t connect why you would have gone missing. And it sounded like it wasn’t a missing persons case and instead was a kid running away from home. His eyes were barely hanging open at this point and he had used up his last cigarette over an hour ago, so he needed a kick to get him going that he didn’t have.

He didn’t want to, but Chief Hopper knew when to quit and now was the time. Grabbing his radio, he called out to Powell and Callahan on his radio. “Yeah boss?”

“I’m calling it for tonight. We will keep searching for the girl tomorrow when we get some shut eye and the sun is up.” Hopper mumbled into his radio as he did one last sweep of the area around him before he turned back around and headed for his truck.

“Will do boss.” Something clicked in Hopper’s mind before he signed off for the evening. “You say something else, boss?”

“Yeah, make sure Ted and Karen get home safe, I don’t need more civilians out getting lost.” The three police officers finished their pleasantries and signed off until the morning when they promised the three of them would be back out at eight am on the dot. This left Hopper to wander the woods alone with his own thoughts and the quiet around him back to his car and head back home to Eleven and some Eggos waffles fresh outta the toaster.

Hopper gripped his steering wheel with one hand while the other he used to rub his face of the stress this evening has caused. He enjoys his work, he really does. Helping the community and everything, but the max he wants to worry about is thieves from the local pharmacy because the local teenagers wanted to get high on Nyquil. No missing kids who run away from home. No monsters. No kids who have been experimented on their entire lives.

First Joyce’s kid, now one of the Wheeler’s daughters too. Whatever happened to kids listening to their parents and staying home? “I swear, if Eleven even thinks about disappearing like that on me, I’ll turn this state topside.” With a slam of the door, Hopper looked up to his little cabin, something he found when he was a young stupid kid and later in life would convert into a home for himself away from the life of Hawkins. Now it was his permanent home for him and his new daughter.

“El, I’m home.” Hopper ducked his head into the door frame, looking over to the coat rack that he placed his hat upon the coat rack before making his way into the kitchen right next to the door. “I hope you didn’t eat all of the waffles while I was gone.” He quipped with a smile on his face; he didn’t hear her respond, which he was glad about since she should be in bed, like he wanted to be. But Jim needed something in his belly.

He hummed to himself a little tune he heard on the radio on his way over, not knowing what the song was, but it was here in his head and it didn’t seem to appear to be leaving any time soon. This ditty stuck with him as Jim Hopper pressed a little extra butter into the crevices of the waffle and smothering it in syrup, the best way to eat waffles honestly. Grabbing his plate, Hopper decided in his head which channel he was going to watch tonight before he turned in only to get up at the asscrack of dawn tomorrow.

Stepping into his living room, Hopper jumped in surprise when he saw Eleven staring at him with a straight face. “Jesus, El, you should have said something while I was in the kitchen, I thought you were asleep by now.” Eleven kept her gaze upon her father figure as he rounded the couch and saw another thing he was not expecting.

El was sitting on the couch in a pair of sweats and a t-shirt, but she wasn’t alone. Hopper nearly dropped his waffles when he saw you, passed out on his couch, your head laying on El’s lap as she ran her fingers through your hair, which was sopping wet, as were your clothes. “Eleven. How did she get here?” Jim fell into his armchair, his plate of waffles laying on his lap and his jaw dropped down nearly as far.

“She knocked.” El stated curtly, her eyes looking to Hopper a second more before she turned her head to look back down at you. “She’s Mike’s sister.”

“Yeah, that’s one of the Wheeler’s daughters. I’ve been looking for her all night. When did she get here?” Hopper moved his body forward to see more of her surrogate daughter and you.

“At 9-4-9. Why is she so sad, Hopper?” She completely disregarded his own questions and comments and began pegging her own at him. “I can see her thoughts. She’s so sad. Why? She has Mike. I can’t have Mike but I’m not sad.”

Hopper sighed after hearing this, he never poked into other people’s affairs, but he had a feeling he might have to talk to your family when he got you home. “I...I don’t know El.” The young teen nodded her head, her hand still running over your hair.

The group of three sat there in quiet silence, El stroking your hair as you slept on while Hopper sat deep in thought of what he should do next. He was thinking, but he could not stopwatch his daughter and how she acted around you. He saw that you were still wet, though it did seem like you were slowly drying off, hopefully you wouldn’t get sick because of this.

Placing the now empty plate down, Hopper stood up with his mind made on what he was going to do. “Come on, El. It’s past your bedtime, bud.”

“But I want to stay-” With a raise of his hand, Hopper stopped the young girl from speaking.

“I’ll stay with her, El. Don’t worry.” The chief walked over and gave her shoulder a gentle pat on the shoulder as he helped guide her out from under your head. “Be careful with her, I’m sure she’s had a rough night.”

Going into her room Hopper gave her a quick kiss on the forehead, to which she gave the customary comment “scratchy” with a smile on her face as she commented on his beard against her skin. With a chuckle, Hopper shut the door behind him with El flicking the lights off herself, leaving him in the main room of the cabin. The man signed deeply as he ran his hands over his face roughly, trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes and wake himself up just a bit.

He took a rather ungracefully seat next to your head, hoping his jostling of the couch would wake you up, but you only shifted at his added weight. Jim Hopper sighed again and moved his hand over to your shoulder, gently shaking it. “Come on, kid. I need you to wake up for me.” His already gruff voice as gruffer and deeper from exhaustion as well as how quiet he was being. “Kid, you gotta get up.”

You finally started to move, letting out a groan at being woken up, your body shivering under his warm hand. The groan quickly moved into a gasp as you shot upright with your eyes wide like an animal Hopper has seen hunting before. You quickly pulled away from his hand, almost like he had burned you and pressed yourself against the armrest of the couch as your eyes greedily took in the room you were in.

“Hey, hey kid, calm down. It’s me Hopper.” He watched as your eyes came to focus on him, your eyes rapidly moving, and your chest was heaving. “Calm down, kid. You’re safe. It’s Chief Hopper. You’re safe.” His hands were in front of him, a simple signal of peace between the two of you as you slowed your breathing down and started blinking, your eyes rapidly seeming to come back into focus.

“Ch-chief Hopper?” Your voice came out a little hoarse, surprising you at the weakness behind your own voice. “Wh-what...where am I?”

“You’re in my cabin, kid. Bout twenty miles from any form of civilization.” Hopper kept his place on the couch, letting you settle yourself into a cross legged position that seemed more comfortable, though not fully at ease. “Wanna tell me how you ended up over here? And why you’re sopping wet?”

His comment caused you to look down at yourself, just now noticing that you were in fact wet. “I...I don’t really remember. I just was running through the woods out by my house, and I guess I just...wait, I think I fell into a creek or something before I found this place. Yeah, I fell into some creek, and it was freezing water, so I...don’t remember much after that…” You looked down as you tried remembering just how you got here.

“Well kid, you somehow made it from one end of Hawkins to the other. You’re almost outside of the city limits.”

“What? Wait what time is it?” Your eyes widened again, and you quickly jumped off the couch, making a move towards the door.

“Hold up, kid.” Hopper grabbed your forearm as you moved past him, stopping you and reversing your path to lead you back down to sitting next to him, this time placing you closer to him. “You know you caused a lot of trouble around town.” Your shoulders sank when he mentioned this, followed by a quiet apology that he waved away. “I don’t care, you’re fine, I know where you are. Now, wanna explain this to me?” Feeling around his pockets, Hopper produced a polaroid picture that he handed over to you.

You took the picture from him and felt yourself deflate once you saw your wall. “I forgot I did that.” Your words were quiet mutters as you looked at the words you painted nights ago when you were in a rage. “I...I didn’t-”

“Don’t tell me it didn’t mean anything. The words are there.” Hopper had his gaze fixed on you, his body leaning towards you as he waited for a response. “Y/N,” You looked back up at him from hiding from the photo. “Are there problems at home?”

He barely suggested this, and you shook your head. “No, there’s nothing like that, Chief Hopper, sir. It’s just...it’s…” Hopper watched as you worked on your words; whether it was appropriate or not, he placed his hand on your knee in solidarity. “There’s nothing wrong. I’m just...it’s hard sometimes, cause I’m just stuck in the middle. Mikey’s the only boy in the family and he’s always at his friends house. Holly is adorable and she’s the baby and she’s cute. And Nancy…” You paused again, focusing your gaze onto your finger tracing the fabric on the couch. “Things aren’t good with her and me. I got into high school and she just...because very mean. Bitchy honestly. My parents care about me...but they don’t side with me and it isn't good sometimes. Or a lot of the times. But things are like bad at home, times just get rough sometimes.”

“I think you just described a bad household, kid.”

“No, no, no. It’s not bad. I didn’t mean…” Your voice cracked and you moved to quickly wipe your eyes. “I didn’t…” You tried again, but you couldn’t get yourself to talk.

Hopper sighed at watching you. He didn’t want to have this conversation, it was an uncomfortable feeling already, but if he wanted to sleep again, he needed to know. “Don’t tell me if you meant it or not. Can you tell me why you wrote all of this? I’m just here to help you, Y/N.”

You finally looked up at him, for the first time really since you woke up, feeling your eyes starting to sting. “Damnit.” You whined into your hands as you hid your face from Hopper just as quickly as you looked up at him. Trying, you tried so hard to stop yourself from crying, because this wasn’t something you did. Y/N Wheeler didn’t break down and cry. You didn’t do that kinda thing.

Hopper watched, he was never this good when his wife got emotional, he was barely there for his own little girl. With El, she was even stranger of a case and had no clue what to do with you. You were a practically random sixteen/seventeen-year-old sitting on his couch, crying, and he was lost. He went against his own instincts and did something that made him uncomfortable but would hopefully help you.

“Come here kid.” As gently as possible, Hopper wrapped his arm around your shoulder and led you to cry on his own shoulder, much to his uncomfort. “Talk when you want to. I’m here all night.” As much as he didn’t want to be awake for the evening, he had a feeling he may have needed to say this.

And you took his suggestion quickly. “I don’t always feel like that, I just-I just-I just...it gets hard when my mom wants me to be like Nancy and I can’t because I’m not smart enough, or pretty enough, or perfect enough. And I was angry and tired and...I do hate home. I hate it so much. But I have nowhere to go. I can’t just leave.”

You had no one to listen to you, not before this, but Hopper did. Hopper listened to you until you slowly cried yourself to sleep. Chief heard your voice quiet down as you kept talking until you went completely silent and your breathing evened out to where you were sleeping. He glanced over to the clock and groaned at how late it was, or early. It was way too close to when he needs to be awake for his liking.

“Guess I should sleep myself.” Muttering to himself, Hopper leaned his head against the back of his couch and worked on getting himself to sleep, feeling you shift closer to his shoulder just before he fell asleep for the night.

-----

El let her leg jump against yours in the front seat of Hopper truck. Early this morning, you woke up to Hopper talking to someone through the phone, it sounded like he was talking to his police workers, telling them something about staying in the office and not being able to show up till later in the morning. After the phone call, he corralled you and El into his work truck after giving you a change of her clothes that looked like they should fit.

Plus, it gave her an excuse to see your little brother, who apparently has a little girlfriend that you didn’t know about. She was smiling in her seat next to you, still not having said too much to you other than she was excited to see Mike.

She was sandwiched between you and Hopper, allowing you to stare out the window as the scenery around you changed, watching as the scenery changed from heavily wooded forest to dirt roads to suburbs. All the while, you wondered what would happen when you got home. Because there obviously wasn’t anywhere else you would be going besides back home. How will you walk in? Will you go up to your room? Will your mom care? Chief Hopper said they were out searching for you, but you had a pit growing in your stomach where you thought how this could be a lie.

This question was going to be answered much faster than you anticipated as you saw your house and driveway come into view in the front window of the car. El’s jumpiness intensified at the sight of the house while you tried sinking further into your chair. “Alright, you two, let’s get to the door before this rain picks up again. I don’t wanna go into work soaked.” He warned as he got out of the car with El following past him and ran for the front door.

But you didn’t move a muscle.

You watched as Hopper went up to the door that El was already knocking on and it opened before the Chief even got up there. Your mother had opened the door and you inhaled sharply when you saw her with her hair pulled back into a mess that you wouldn’t even call a bun anymore and it looked like she was in a pair of your father’s pants and a grungy t-shirt.

Her eyes looked over Chief Hopper and El, who had pushed past her to where you assumed would be hugging Mike, before back to the Chief who pointed at the truck, causing her to look in your direction. The moment you two made eye contact, she began running to you, across the grass with no shoes on her feet. Rain was still coming down in a constant drizzle, but that didn’t slow your mom down.

Seeing her pursuit towards you, you pushed the door open and fell out into the rain yourself before moving towards your house and mom. You two met and her nearly tackled you to the ground as she wrapped you in one of the tightest hugs you ever received. Her face pressed into your shoulder and she held you so tightly to her chest, and you returned this by slipping your arms under your mother’s and held onto her waist. “Mom.” You whimpered into her chest, sealing your eyes shut as you fought back tears you never thought you would have shed.

The rain ran down your head and under your clothes, but you didn’t want to think about anything but your mom’s hug right now. “Y/N, oh my…” You heard your dad’s voice before you felt him hug you from behind, taking both you and your mom up in an embrace you hadn’t felt in a long time. Opening your eyes, you saw the front of your house, the door opens to your house with Chief Hopper standing on the porch still, his arms crossed over his chest with a neutral look on his face. In the doorway, you saw someone standing at the threshold of the house: Nancy. She looked at you, no emotion to her face, just watching. You wanted to feel uncomfortable under that gaze, but you shut your eyes and came back to enjoy the safe and warm embrace of your parents around you.

It was eventually the rain that pushed you three inside, and where your strings of apologies began. On your couch, with your dad sitting next to you and your mom kneeling in front, you started apologizing for running away, apologizing for making your parents and family and other people worried, apologizing for seeing your sister’s boyfriend. “Y/N,” You were interrupted by your mom. “Don’t apologize for something you didn’t do. You shouldn’t have been sneaking Steve into the house at all, but you were helping him see your sister.” She ran her thumb against your cheek, affection you weren’t used to yet or at all.

Your gaze went over to Chief Hopper, who was leaning against the junction between your living room and kitchen. He gave you a small smile and nod, almost having to tell you that it was okay for your mother to be treating you like this. ‘If you ever feel uncomfortable at home, or if you ever need anything kid, drop by the office. My door will be open if you need it’. He told you this morning while he offered your waffles for breakfast before hitting the road, the both of you remembering your admittance early this morning to him.

“Okay.” A quiet whisper came from your lips as you looked back at your mom and gave her a small smile. You just hoped in the back of your head that things would somehow go back to what you knew as normal.

-----

You concluded that you had no clue what normal was.

Tuesday your mom and dad kept you home from school with your father running out to work for a few hours before coming back. She never let you out of her sight throughout the day, calling your name every time you left the room for more than five minutes. And every time she called your name, you knew that it was your fault, you were the reason she was skittish about you leaving the house.

Eventually you were able to convince her that you were just going upstairs to sleep for a little bit, promising her that you wouldn’t leave or slip out the window...again. Stepping into the room, you sighed at the feeling of being able to breathe again. Sliding down against the door, you never realized how...overwhelming having attention on you was. But your room was your sanctuary and you looked around, your eyes stopping when you saw the wall next to your window, it was blank. The words you wrote had been painted over like they never were even there.

You gulped and forced yourself to look away from the negative space and felt the wind leave your body at the sight of an empty easel stand. “M-Mom?” She came up the stairs a few seconds after you called her. “Where’s my painting?”

At your question, she pulled her lower lip between her teeth. “Sweetie, your dad took care of it.” Her news scared you, but what else had you expected when the canvas was destroyed, you could try and paste it together, but then it wouldn’t look the same. “He told me he was going out to get you another canvas sweetie, so you can paint it again when he gets back.” Nodding your head, you sighed before smiling up at her.

“Thanks mom. I’m tired, so I think I’m gonna take a nap or something.” She returned your smile before kissing your forehead and shutting the door behind you. Once you were alone, you took one final look at the empty corner before you turned to your bed and tucked yourself in for now.

Wednesday passed by with Clare and Matt tackling you as you stepped out of the car, both of them screaming at you for being missing for two days without telling them and making them worried when they heard about you actually going missing. And all you could do was apologize for making them worry. Every time anyone reminds you about how worried they were, you feel another wave of guilt in your decision.

At least your teachers didn’t bring it up, leaving you to figure out what you missed from the past two days on your own and your school day went on as normal, with a happy break during art class until you remembered your canvas. Seeing the face that you had started, you stared at it for a second, thinking, waiting, waiting on what is a good question, but your small burst of waiting ended when you picked up a paint brush and dipped the tip into black and began the outline of a face.

You didn’t give a fuck right now. You wanted to paint, and this face is what you were going to paint. That art period was one of the fastest ones you remember attending but still one of your most productive ones with you being able to get the shape of the face done and drew the base color of the hair down in the shape you would work with tomorrow.

And when Thursday art class came, you were already painting before the bell rang, not waiting for teacher’s permission to get started. Colors blended seamlessly, every strand of hair stood out in a cohesive way, the skin tone was becoming less white and more colored with a light blush on the cheek to give life. The lips and nose were already done, and this left you with the eyes.

You realized you hadn’t seen Harrington since...was it Saturday? Not that you cared, you didn’t need Nancy breathing down your neck again for supposedly cheating behind her back. But you wanted to keep this painting going, wanted to finish something that Nancy couldn’t destroy. Something you wish you could turn into the art show for your school.

You pushed away the thought of the art show you worked so hard to put a piece in, but that’s all your teacher talked about was the show today in Indianapolis. She advertised it on Wednesday and Thursday in class and told everyone to go if they were interested in seeing different schools and their projects they had worked on. You had been planning on going all year since you heard about this opportunity back in August. And now, your plans are completely up-ended for having your own art presented there.

Instead of focusing on the now missed opportunity of the painting, you looked to what was before you and pulled your paintbrush to begin the eyes. Harrington’s warm and welcoming eyes.

Time slowly ticked by until you had the body of the eye colored out and everything except for the eye color itself. The pupils were completely, and the iris was outlined, but you left the coloring for last. You knew the color, but not the depth. Like his hair. His hair was brown, but there were small shines of gold hidden throughout, and as his hair got to his tips, they muted down to almost an auburn color. Nothing was just a single color; depth came from marking out the darker exterior iris and getting lighter as it gets closer to the pupil before darkening again.

This was something you stopped yourself from doing; you could stare at Harrington’s skin or hair all day and he wouldn’t notice. Trying to see his eyes, that was harder than you called for. So, you couldn’t know the report layers of his eyes, not without doing it in the next couple of days when he jumped through your window.

“What time is it?” You muttered very quietly to yourself as you turned in your seat to look at the clock hanging in the back of the church. With only ten minutes left in class, you were about to turn around when someone caught your eye. And you didn’t stop your staring gaze at Harrington sitting in the back row of class.

How long he had been in this class, you had no clue, but you couldn’t take your eyes of the teenager in the back of your class who had a paintbrush pinched between his fingers and working on the canvas he had in front of him. He must have felt your stare because he looked up at you and met your gaze.

You didn’t turn away yet, allowing the two of you to dumpling watch each other. From here you couldn’t see the colors you had been needing, but you could see the small smile he sent your way and a wave. You returned the gesture and turned back towards your own drawing, a warm blush rising to your cheeks as you dm cursed yourself for not noticing that he was in your class and painting obviously his face in front of him.

In the next ten minutes, you cut yourself off early and worked on cleaning up the paint brushes and paint palettes. You didn’t get much quiet cleaning done when you found someone standing next to you in the adjoining sink. “You've been missing the past couple of days, Wheeler.”

Harrington was washing his own equipment next to you. “Yeah...I wasn’t feeling well these past few days.” Not everyone in school knew you needed to know what happened between you and your family.

He hummed at your response not responding for a time until he was finished washing the brushes. “What are you doing tonight, Wheeler?”

You looked at him in confusion in his direction. “Why?”

“I was...there’s a new movie out and I was curious about if you wanted to come watch it with me.” His question caused you to scoff as the bell rang around you, forcing you to put your brushes away while answering over your shoulder.

“You should be asking my sister, not me. Besides, I’m busy in Indianapolis.” Yes. You were still going to the show, your mom and dad told you it would be a good way for you to show them what you enjoyed doing, even if nothing was there for you to show. You tried arguing this morning, but neither of them would change their minds.

Matt and Clare had you sandwiches between the two as they asked about your painting since you should be almost done, but you still weren’t focused on that. “How long has Harrington been in our art class?”

“I would say...he’s been there the whole time, hasn't he, Clare?” Matt asked over your head.

“Yeah, that sounds about right. He’s always been tucked away in the back. Very quiet for Harrington.” Clare commented herself in his “odd” and quiet behavior. You nodded in sort of understanding, but you threw a look over your shoulder again, still curious as to why Harrington was asking you about seeing a movie.

-----

“Mom, we really don’t need to do this. We can just go home and have a movie night or something.” This had been your comment the entire ride from Hawkins to the capital in your state. But they hadn’t listened to you and kept driving.

And with you now standing in front of the building that was advertising the show, you tried even harder to not have to go inside and they pushed ever more for you to go in. “Come on, even if you don't have anything to actually present, we want to see what gets you excited to paint.” Your mom spoke rather whimsically as she wrapped her hand under your dad’s arm and he escorted her into the building, you were trailing behind them. As much as you didn’t want to go inside, your mother always found a way of getting you places you didn’t want to be.

Stepping into the door, you were welcomed to the warm environment of overhead lighting of candelabras, a cinnamony smell, and wooden floors that made the place feel homey and welcoming. A place you would gladly spend your Saturdays wandering between the lone pillars that held small statues, paintings on walls, different mediums of art you have never dabbled in but could appreciate.

“Come on, Y/N. Give us the tour of the place, what is everything?” Your dad looked to you with a smile. With a small huff, you looked around the room, to the other families of students whose art was on display, their art, and not your own, before you smiled back and started walking around with them.

They asked questions about what everything they saw, what it meant, how did it look like that, why did they do this kind of medium instead of that. It was fun for you to see them so interested in what you enjoyed. Some of the questions they asked were out of your realm, like why they used more black than red in this painting, why were the flowers sculpted this way. “That’s just what the person wanted to do. Everybody puts their own spin on what they do.”

The three of you were standing in front of a painting of what looked to be the Chicago skyline, with multi colors showing the sunset and stars beginning to appear in the sky. Really pretty painting, very simple but it caught the moment the sun disappeared behind the city.

You enjoyed standing in front of the painting for several minutes, analyzing it, acknowledging the simplicity of the painting and its colors while also admiring this person’s work with blending paints to make three colors appear to be a rainbow. You had never been to Chicago yourself, but this painting brought you there. To your left you watched your parents move down to another display, but you kept yourself happy enjoying others work.

“Beautiful.” Someone spoke next to you, the only other person who was standing in front of the painting with you; you looked over at the person and scoffed at seeing him.

“You following me now, Harrington?” As much as you wanted to move away from him, you didn’t want his presence interrupting your enjoyment of a small thing you loved. “How’d you even find me?”

“I’m not following you; I just happen to enjoy looking at art. Or do I come off as too much of a douchebag for this kinda stuff?” Looking back over to Harrington, all you did was look at him. Watch him. He never answered how he found you and you really didn’t want to have him around you more than sneaking in and out of your room to get to Nancy.

“Still doesn’t explain how you got to this one.” You mumble to yourself as you found the painting now not as appealing as before and turned to follow after your parents, seeing a big group of people gathering around a small stand.

“Wheeler, hey I wanted to talk to you about something.” Harrington was by your side again and walking over with you. His tall height allowed him to see over most of the people in front of the exhibit; once he saw what was on the other side of a sea of people, his eyes widened before a small smirk perked at his lips. “Wow.” He muttered before turning back to you.

“Whatever you want Harrington, no. And...stop talking to me. Please.” Your heart was starting to pick up pace as you moved around the crowd, still away from him and a little closer to where your parents were at the center of this grouping.

He followed; it was getting annoying. “Come on, Y/N. I just wanted to talk to you. I mis-” You spun around, your hair and dress you were wearing flaring out around you as you turned back to look at him.

“Don’t say that, Harrington. Me talking to you is the reason I am in this whole mess. So, stay away from me.” Something ran through you, you couldn’t tell if it was fury or anger, but a heavy emotion coursed through your veins as you stared at him. Your hands were fisted by your side and you hoped your glare would tell him to back off. “I don’t need Nancy hating me already more than she does. Just leave me alone.” Everything around you hurt, and nothing made sense. The art exhibits around you no longer were appealing; you were confused, and you didn’t know why.

“Y/N, that’s what I need to say, if you would let me talk.” Harrington stepped towards you with his hand extended out to grab hold of your wrist and bring your hand forward. “Nancy and I are-”

“I know, you and Nancy are dating, that’s why I can’t talk to you.” As you spoke you tried pulling your hand away, but Harrington had a stronger hold than your weak pull could break. And after feeling his hand almost holding yours, you almost broke and let yourself enjoy this small moment.

When you made the mistake of not pulling away harder, Harrington took a step closer to you, your feet were almost touching and he was so close you could smell his deodorant, or cologne, or whatever he used. Whatever it was, it smelt better than your little brother most days. “Y/N, if you would let me talk, I can tell you that Nancy and I are-”

“Why do you keep saying my name? You’ve always called me Wheeler and I’ve called you Harrington.” You took a step closer, even if it was small, and pressed your finger against his chest pokingly. “I call you Harrington because if I call you Steve, that makes me want to date you more. I want to be selfish and be the one that dates you. But I can’t because you are my sister’s boyfriend and she may hate me, but I respect her enough to not try and get with you. So please, just leave me alone.” You were practically begging him at this point, and you stepped away from him, moving to turn back to find your parents.

Forgetting that he was still holding on your hand, you groaned as he tugged you back around. Your beginning argument was cut short when you felt him press a kiss to your forehead. He left his lips against your rapidly heating up skin for a few seconds longer before he pulled away with a smile on his face. “Nancy and I aren’t dating anymore. I called it off after she…” He looked around for a second before he coughed and spoke again. “Let’s just say after I saw some true colors shining through.”

You stared at him confused, watching him, waiting to see if there was anything you could tell you that he was lying to you, that this was all a ploy for him and Nancy to see that you are trying to steal him from her. “How...what?”

Before he could answer, you heard your name being called. “Y/N sweetheart.” You turned your head towards where you heard your mom’s voice before you looked back at Harrington.

“I…I gotta go.” Taking a tentative step backwards, you kept your eyes on him as you slowly pulled your hand away from his. Once your hand was free from his grasp, you slowly turned away, letting the smile finally grow on your face.

“Wheeler?”

“Yes? Steve?” You tested out saying his name as you spun around quickly and looked at him. The feeling left you breathless and lightheaded.

“When are you free this weekend? I wanted to see if you could draw me another picture.” His smile hadn’t left his face and neither had yours.

Honestly you were feeling bashful at the attention and you couldn’t look at him without your heart skipping a little and the feeling that your smile wanted to get even bigger, so you looked at your feet as you answered. “I’m free this Saturday if you...wanna pick me up?”

Although you already knew the answer, you were excited to actually hear him say it; looking back up, he nodded. “Yeah, I can do that. I’ll come to your window to get you.” Your name was called again, breaking the small moment and you gave him a small wave before you turned around.

Maybe it wasn’t so bad that you were here today.

The crowd around that one piece had dissipated with your parents still at the front of it, both blocking it from our view as you mom looked at you with a smile. “Y/N. Can you tell me why this person painted these flowers with a…” Her words faded away as you came around her and saw what everyone had been staring at.

There it was. But how? Staring at it, you knew, you knew it was yours.

The dark red background, the faded white outlines of the ribcage, the heart, the beautiful red and pink muscles and veins running across the structure. It was all there. Even the big rip in the center was there. But it wasn’t as noticeable with the gorgeous bouquet of roses sticking through the hole, making the original painting of flowers look 3D now. Your jaw dropped at the sight of it being here, and just as gorgeous as you imagined it when you began working on it.

“How did this get here?” Stepping past your parents, you went up to the stand it was sitting on and read the plaque next to it. Your name was there! “I thought you threw it out?”

You felt your dad’s hand on your shoulder. “Now why would I throw something so beautiful and emotional away? You worked so hard on it that I wanted to add my own spin to it.” He did this.

“You...you did this, dad?” He gave you a nod, and you felt your mom’s hand on your opposite shoulder, you between the two of them as you three looked at your art piece. The piece you had been planning and working on for months now and was here, in the biggest student art gallery in Indiana. After Nancy, you never thought you could have gotten to see this.

Tears quickly filled your eyes and started running down your face, but you didn’t move to wipe them away and instead moved to wrap your father in a tight hug. “Thank you.” You whisper to him, staring at what was before you as your mother enveloped you on your otherwise. “Thank you so much.”

The moment to others just seemed to be a family enjoying this piece of work, a sweet moment. And it was, but to you, you have never felt so loved before. This wasn’t going to fix everything that ever happened to you in the past with your parents and your family, but this was a good start to changing thin. You didn’t need to forgive them for everything from before, but you knew that one day, just one day all the tears in your heart could be mended and your heart be as full as the painting before you.

#steve #steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington one shot #Mike Wheeler #Nancy wheeler #stranger things #stranger things season 3 #Stranger Things Season 1 #stranger things imagine #stranger things season 2 #joe keery

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