Random OneShots

Princess Picasso pt.1

By: underratedandunknown on Ao3

Harringrove

~~~~~

Steves still painting when his alarm goes off. It's six in the morning and he's been up since 2am. He had slept for around four hours that night, which is more than usual, before his nightmares finally startled him awake again.
Steve pulls himself up off the floor, picks up his newest unfinished painting of a demo-dog running through the woods, blood dripping from its jaws; then he sets it on a nearby easel before he heads down the attic ladder to get dressed.

He doesn't take long to get dressed since he just wears variations of the same thing every day now: a sweatshirt and jeans. The only thing that takes him a while now is his stupid hair. Even though not many people pay attention to him anymore he's too scared that someone would notice if his hair stopped being so stupidly big.

Before he can go to school, he has to drop Dustin off at middle school. When Steve gets to the Hendersons house he 'accidentally' rests his elbow on the car horn, making sure that the whole neighborhood can hear his car. After a few seconds Dustin comes running out of his house
"Okay! Okay! I'm here!" Dustin shouts while jumping into the car right when Steve lifts his elbow. Before Steve can say anything to Dustin, he's already started talking about what could be real or just another game plot, but Steve is too tired to really care. He keeps nodding to what Dustin says until they reach the middle school. Dustin quickly says goodbye and runs over to where Lucas and that max girl are already talking.

When Steve finally gets to school, he still has a few minutes before his first and worst class starts. English. He quickly heads to his locker to get his useless English book; he still doesn't know how people read when all the letters seem to be moving around. Even though he loves books it's too confusing for him and he'd rather just listen to someone else read it to him like Nancy used to do, instead of feeling like an idiot.

Great, now he feels horrible. And amazing timing as usual Jonathan and Nancy pass by his locker practically hanging off each other. Don't get him wrong, Steve is actually happy for them now. But that doesn't stop him from being jealous of their relationship and the fact that they don't cry themselves to sleep every night out of loneliness.

The class is almost full when he takes his seat in the back to the left, the perfect place to sit in order to not stick out. He was enjoying staring blankly at the words on the chalkboard when someone walks in front of him and sits right beside him. Steve could recognize that unbuttoned shirt anywhere.
Billy Hargrove.
Billy stretches over Steve's ear practically breathing down Steve's neck giving him goosebumps, then whispers. "Hey pretty boy, did you magically learn to read overnight?"
Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Steve replied, keeping his voice steady and emotionless "Drop it Hargrove." and of course Billy only smirked. Thankfully the teacher walked in to end Steve's annoyance and start his suffering.

English seemed to take forever but he got by with minimal comments from Hargrove. Once it was over Steve is one of the first ones out the door. He has two more classes until lunch or what he liked to call the not so fun game of hiding under the gym bleachers and hoping no one finds him. Steve's other classes pass quickly enough, especially since there isn't anyone that really knows him in those classes. He's actually really glad none of them know the real him and only see him as the ex-king Steve. It makes his plans a lot easier.

At lunch Steve is under the bleachers, not eating but drawing in his designated spiral notebook lost in his head. He's sitting propped up on a metal bar when someone opens the gym door startling Steve and causing him to wack his head on another metal bar followed by an: "Ow!" and someone chuckling at his expense. Steve recognized the guys laughing to late because now Hargrove is standing over him with his notebook in hand.
"You hang out here often princess?" Hargrove taunts while looking down at him.
"That's none of your business Hargrove." Steve glares up at him before reaching up to try and grab the notebook back but Billy just lifts it farther up before he can get to it.
"Whatcha got in here Harrington." he said while opening the notebook. He seemed to falter for a second before continuing with his taunting." Oh, so the princess has a dark side...how interesting." Billy's clearly enjoying this, but Steve definitely isn't enjoying his bully looking into the secret parts of his life.
"Give it back Hargrove."
"Why? Are you trying to keep your little gift a secret?"
The way he said it sounded like it should be an insult, but Steve felt as if it was a compliment. But what would Steve know about compliments? The only compliments he gets are from Dustin.
"Hargrove, I have to get to my next class. Give me my notebook." Steve was begging to be punched right but he really could care less.
Thankfully for Steve's sake Billy just smirked, tossed him his notebook then went to stroll out the door.
"See ya princess Picasso!" and Billy was gone out the door with a wink.

Steve sat at the edge of the bleachers for a while trying to process what just happened while internally denying that Billy was flirting with him because Billys not gay and he's definitely not blushing. After a few more minutes Steve snaps out of it and rushes to his class that he's now very late for.

That night Steve dreamt of blue eyes and blood.