He Who Controls the Flame (001 fanfic)

Chapter Eleven- Ink on the Skin

I knew I was dreaming when I saw that Peter's hair was a mess. Okay, maybe not a mess, but it certainly wasn't in the immaculate style I was used to. It looked like he had been running his hands through it a thousand times.

"Hi," he said, standing in the doorway of my studio, wearing his usual all white uniform getup. I didn't realize just how weird that was in the moment, my dream-self thought it was completely natural for him to be in Hawkins-lab attire in my home. It made total sense.

"Hi?" I snorted. "I don't think you've ever said hi to me before. You look like you're about to ask me to prom." He did look nervous, his hands were fidgeting at his sides and his eyes were darting around.

"Just out of it, I guess," he said, cupping his neck with his hand. I frowned, wiping my hands off on the rag I kept close by. Multiple swathes of paint coated my fingers, but at least it was dry and I wouldn't be leaving multicolored hand prints all over his shirt.

I walked over to him, dodging canvases with finished, half-finished, or barely started pieces of art. My father was extremely uptight about the manner the house was kept in. There could be no dust, laundry had to be immediately put away once it was out of the drier, the fridge was never to be understocked. Everything needed to be ready for guests at the drop of a hat. But my studio...my studio he had no power over. He told me I could go crazy as long as I wasn't getting paint on the walls. So I did just that.

Canvases were everywhere, half-dried paint platters covered almost every surface, and the smell of paint hung heavy in the air. I had sketches strewn about the floor and reference photos hanging on little wires above where I would paint so I could look at them easily. It was my safe space, a place where Hawkins Lab, my father, college worry, or Robbie didn't exist. It was just me and my paint...and now Peter, though he made it way, way better.

"Out of it?" I asked, stopping just before him. He looked down at me, his brows drawn in. I saw then that he looked pale, his eyes bloodshot. The fine veins on his temples stood out and he had dark shadows pressed under his eyes.

"Yeah," he breathed, before shaking his head as if he was acting silly. "Can I see what you're painting?"

I grinned, leaning on the wall next to him, so close that my chest brushed his. "What? No stripping off my clothes and fucking me on the counter?"

Peter's brows shot up to his hairline and he gaped at me. "What?"

I shrugged. "That's usually what happens in my dreams." I reached up and tugged on a piece of his golden hair. "And I know this is a dream."

"How?" he asked.

I tugged harder on said hair. "Because you look stressed and you never look stressed." I admired the lock trapped between my fingers. "Your hair reminds me of that fairy tale, you know the one where that weird goblin guy makes that poor woman turn straw into gold and then forces her to give up her firstborn?"

He gently wrapped his fingers around my wrist and I started, not expecting him to be so gentle. He wasn't normally so soft and chaste in my dreams. "You mean Rumpelstiltskin? And I'm pretty sure she begged him to turn the straw into gold, the child was just payment."

"He's still a jerk," I said, rolling my eyes. I let my fingers dive deeper into his hair and he closed his eyes, his chest expanding as he inhaled. "My point is, your hair is how I imagine the gold to look like. I want to see if I can capture it in a painting."

He opened his eyes. "You want to paint me as an-" he cleared his throat, "and I quote, 'a weird goblin guy'?"

I pushed at his chest lightly with my other hand. "You know what I mean." I leaned my head against the doorframe. "But I think painting you would be too difficult."