Miss Perfect | Nancy Wheeler

Man without a face

The morning comes and you wake up before Dustin. You leave his room as quietly as you can. No way you're letting him go to school today. You change into a baby blue shirt and jeans adding a brown leather jacket to compensate for the weather.

Making your way downstairs you find your mom watching the news about Will with Mews in her lap. "Dustin and you can stay home today sweetie" she comments when she sees you. You smile softly and nod.

You make pancakes for Dustin ready for when he wakes up which is not long after you. While you watch him eat you hear the door knock. "I'll get it" you announce.

"Dustin-" Lucas is right there on your doorstep almost yelling. "Y/N?, Grab Dustin we're going to Mike's"

"What?" Their friend just died and he wants to have a meeting?

"Listen its about Will okay? And the weird girl" he looks up at you with those little kid puppy eyes you were familiar with.

"Fine but stop yelling my mom is right inside" Dustin hearing all of this comes bolting over after devouring his pancakes.

///

Sitting in a circle in Mike's basement you all listen to some muffled crying on his walkie talkie. Dustin looks upset but underneath that hopeful. You've been putting up a brave face for him but you're starting to lose faith. They found a body already what are we doing?

"You heard that right?"
"Yeah a baby!" Lucas scoffs.
"What? That was Will"
"No you clearly tapped into a baby monitor"

Dustin clamps his hand over yours "are you sure you're on the right channel?"

Mike shakes his head "I don't think its about that, I think somehow... She's channeling him"

"Like professor X!" Dustin exclaims.

"Did you guys not see what i saw?" Lucas interupts "they pulled Wills body out of the water he's dead!" He looks and points at you "Y/N you're the oldest you should know better then to believe this crap!"

Gritting your teeth you think about it. Girl with superpowers who we are literally holding captive in a basement vs body in the lake. Its too weird to even be real but it is.

"I don't know anymore. I wasn't with you guys when they found the body so I didn't see if it actually looked like Will" You knew Lucas was right but you wanted to hope for something different.

"Then what was in that water?!"

"I, I don't know okay. Maybe it's another fucking kid with superpowers and a shaved head" you retort.

Dustin leans into you. Mike speaks up "Will is alive! Will is alive! He's out there somewhere all we have to do is find him"

"This isn't going to work, we need to get El to a better radio"

Dustin smiles now "Mr Clarks Heathkit!" His what?

"The Heathkit is at school, theres no way to get the weirdo in there without anyone noticing" Lucas says.

"He's correct" you add "unless we give her a makeover!" You smile at El.

"Makeover?" She asks looking frightened.

You take her hand and the boys follow you up to Nancy's room. It felt wrong to be going through her stuff but its not like you had time to take everyone all the way over to your house and use your own stuff.

Mike rummages around and finds some makeup while Dustin and Lucas scavenge through an old, what you presume to be, dress up box.

You sit El infront of you and take out a soft blush brush. "This goes on your cheeks" you explain. "Is it okay for me to touch your face?" She nods but still flinches when it makes contact with her skin. You giggle softly "sorry it probably feels weird if you've never felt a makeup brush before"

She doesn't really need makeup since shes cute already and a child probably shouldn't be putting on a full face anyway so all you do is add a little bit of colour to her skin making her look a little less tired and withdrawn. Once finished she changes into an old pink dress of Nancys and a blonde wig.

"Wow she looks" the boys murmur.
"Pretty!" Mike says "...pretty good"

She walks over to a mirror and repeats "pretty."

"Very" you give her shoulder a light squeeze.

As the boys rush out of the house to their bikes you tell them you're going back home. Since you can't just invade the middle school as a high school student and would probably get in a lot of trouble so instead you promise Dustin to keep channel six open on your walkie talkie.

///

Outside your house there is a cop car waiting for you. Your initial thought is what the actual fuck until you are told that Barb has been reported missing. You feel a stab of guilt having forgotten about her disappearance but after a few brief questions the officer leaves, you decide to call Nancy to ask when or if she was questioned and how she's holding up.

After a few rings you hear a shaky voice on the line "hello?" She calls.

"Nancy, its Y/N the police came by and asked about Barb so I wanted to see if-" she stops you

"Yeah I've been questioned, Steve got mad at me because he doesn't want his dad to find out about the party" she sighs.

"Barbs missing and that's what he's worried about?" You gasp even though you're honestly not surprised.

"Yeah so I don't really have anyone I can talk to right now... I'm glad you called" you smile at hearing this "hey um feel free to say no but could you come pick me up?"

"Uh sure" you stutter caught off guard.

"You know that torn up photo you helped me gather up" she doesn't wait for you to reply "well I know this is crazy but I taped it back together and I swear theres someone in it behind Barb and im wondering..."

"I get it I'm on my way" you hang up and dash out into your car not bothering to explain to your confused mother. Once you get to Nancy's place she asks you to take her to the funeral home to find Jonathan.

"Hey" Nancy calls to Jonathan. You greet him too, sitting down to show him the photo that Nancy had already showed you on the way.

"Could be some sort of perspective distortion but I wasn't using a wide angle" he explained.

"I went back to Steve's place to find Barb" Nancy trails off "I thought I saw a man or something" you put a hand on her back to comfort her as her soft features tighten.

"Im sorry I shouldn't have come here and Y/N I shouldn't have wasted your time" you shake your head in reply.

"What did he look like" Jonathan spoke up "the man... In the woods?" Your mind flared up thinking about how you found Eleven in the woods, was it all somehow connected?

You figured now wasn't an appropriate time to tell either of these grieving people that you had been hiding a magic girl in your brother's friends basement so you didn't mention El.

"It was almost like he" Nancy couldn't finish the sentence, looking to you shyly.

"He didn't have a face?" Jonathan finished. We both glared at him stunned. This was your first time hearing about some guy without a face but it also wasn't the craziest thing that you could have imagined based on the last few days.

Jonathan drove ahead of your car leading you back to school. Once there he took you to his dark room for developing photos.

"Did your mom say anything else?" Nacy asked

"Only that it came out the wall"

As they talked you felt your mind fog up and you began to disassociate again. Less then a week ago you knew nothing about faceless craetures stealing people and now here you stood with Nancy Wheeler and Johnathan Byers discussing that very subject. Crazy. You felt a soft hand grip yours pulling you back to reality.

"Thats it!" You turn and look and the photo. Your stomach dropped upon seeing the colossal creature captured in frame.

"My mom- I thought she was crazy" John says dumbfounded.

"This is fucked" you whisper, one weird thing adding onto the next, day after day.