Blondie Wannabe: A Billy Hargrove Fanfic

Billy

I thought I was going to be sick. It was stuck in my throat, made my jaw and teeth hurt, all the way up to my ears burned, eyes almost watering. The real mystery was how my legs managed to continue to support me throughout my internal meltdown. If there was any logic in the universe, I would be a puddle on the floor.

As it was, Mullet Boy had yet to notice me, checking out the girl next to him, the most straight-laced student, by comparison. She had curly brown hair and was wearing black jeans and a Bob Marley t-shirt.

"As I was saying," Mrs. Mueller continued. "We're going to be looking at some of my favorite portraits, some you will be familiar with, some you won't. Gerald, could you set up the projector since you know how it works. Miss Harrington, get the lights, please."

The use of my name was enough to get Mullet Boy's attention. And when he caught sight of me, I thought he might laugh for a second. Yeah, fucking funny for him, I was the one who'd slept with a high schooler. Twice!

I flicked off the lights, thanking God for giving me some time in darkness to let my face recover from what was surely a tomato-red moment. Was this real? How could he be a minor? Thinking back on it, he hadn't had a drink in hand at the bar, and there was no alcohol on his breath when we... oh Jesus, I was a criminal. This class was what I'd been looking forward to the most, painting with my favorite teacher, and painting people too. I couldn't even enjoy it as Girl with a Pearl Earring and An American by Paul Cesar Helleu flickered onto the whiteboard, because I could feel a pair of blue eyes on me, even in the dimness. 

Once the slideshow had finished, Mrs. Mueller addressed the room. "I've split you into partners to do each other's portraits. Now keep in mind, these pairs will be for the rest of the unit, so get to know each other, do your best to get along, because there will be no switching permitted." Then turning to me, "Would you mind reading this list, Miss Harrington, my eyesight isn't what it used to be."

With shaky hands, I took the paper from her hands and read the pairs of students, looking up to try and match the name to a face. "... Gerald Whitman and Jenny Green, and Billy Hargrove and Toby Johnson."

"Uh, Mrs. Mueller." Mullet Boy was raising his hand, looking at his teacher. "Toby Johnson dropped out of the class last week."

"That's right Billy, I completely forgot." She touched her chin, before turning to me with what I'm sure she intended to be an excited smile, but to me looked like the face of the Grim Reaper come to capture my soul. "Luckily, Miss Harrington is an excellent artist and I'm sure she wouldn't mind being your partner for this unit."

Keeping my eyes anywhere but Mullet Boy, I leaned down to whisper to Daisy, "Do you think that's a good idea. I mean, maybe we could make a group of three? I only say that because I don't know if I'd be able to do all the outside of class work that'd be required for a project like this."

She cocked a silvery eyebrow at me. "Do you have another job to get to?" Chuckling at her own joke as my soul crumbled like candy canes sprinkled on top of peppermint bark, she touched my hand."I thought, since you were such a fan of my class, and have been so helpful thus far, you wouldn't mind a little extra painting with a partner."

Not wanting to disappoint her, I found myself sitting opposite the boy I'd fucked in my car, armed with some paper and a 2H pencil, sketching his face. His perfect, beautiful face.

"So, Miss Harrington, I guess I sort of know your name now." His voice was rough and smooth at the same time; like gravel in honey. "Are you actually related to Steve Harrington?"

"Can you focus on your work, please?"

"Sorry, forgive me if I'm a little distracted." He was holding his pencil right by the point like he was writing an essay, barely making any marks that I could see. "You are the last person I expected to see in my art class, I mean, the last-"

"Billy," I said, his name feeling weird in my mouth. He'd been Mullet Boy for the whole time I've known him. "We cannot talk about this here."

"Well, maybe this could have been avoided if you just told me who you were-"

"Your grip is all wrong," I said quickly, hoping no one was listening to us. 

The corner of his mouth turned up in half smile, eyes slightly confused. "Really? I've always found my grip quite pleasant."

Rolling my eyes at the innuendo, I held up my pencil. "You should keep your hand in the middle of your implement. If you grab it to close to the tip, your movements will be cramped and limited, and you will probably end up putting to much pressure on it."

He nodded, holding back a laugh. "I can't tell if that was supposed to be sexual or not."

"It wasn't." I went back to my drawing of his face. I started filling in the outline of his hair, adding some dimension to the eyes, shading under the lower lip. The nose always gave me trouble, but his I found easy to render. For whatever reason, drawing him came almost naturally to me.

"You can't just ignore what happened," he said, testing out my suggested technique for holding a pencil.

"We can talk after," I whispered, adding some hairs to his eyebrows. "But if you say anything about it here, I'll lose my job."

This seemed to placate him, and we sat in silence for the rest of the class.

"Alright students, the bell is going to ring in a few minutes, so I'm going to come around to see how things went this period. I just want you to get a feel for each other's faces for now, before we start actually painting." 

She started on the other end, and I added some cross-hatching to the darker streaks of his blonde hair, relining his eyes to emphasize how thick is eyelashes were.

Mrs. Mueller came up behind me first and looked over my shoulder. "I know you aren't a student anymore, but I'm still very impressed. You truly captured him." While he was busy smirking at me, Daisy circled around to look at my partner's sketch. "Well, Mr. Hargrove, I would be lying if I said I wasn't a bit disappointed. I expect more to be accomplished in the amount of time you had."

"My apologies, I found my partner's features a little tricky to emulate." 

I suppressed an eye roll; if he thought he was going to impress anyone with an SAT word, he was a retard.

Daisy looked at me for a moment, before conceding, "She does have a very particular set to her eyes, I give you that."

"Yes, and also the way her cheekbone leads into her jaw. I felt it would be easy for them to come across as two-dimensional; I think it would be best to really take my time with it."

God, what fucking schmoozer.

"Well, Billy, I certainly respect your attention to detail. I hope your future work will reflect it."

After she moved on and people started packing up, Billy whispered to me, "Hey, can I see your drawing?"

"No."

"C'mon, it's of me, and Mrs. Mueller said you captured me."

Hesitating, I finally murmured, "I'll show you mine if you show we yours."

Grinning, he passed me his paper and I returned the favor. "Wow," he said, trailing a finger lightly across the page, smirking slightly. "I seem so... striking. Is this how you see me?"

But I didn't respond, I was busy staring at his portrait of me. It was just an oval with two intersecting lines across it and the barest indication of where a hairline would go, and, just below the horizontally bisecting slash, a pair of perfectly rendered, intricately detailed lips.