#𝑠𝑙𝑜𝑎𝑛𝑒 𝑚𝑖𝑡𝑐ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑙 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑦 ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑔𝑟𝑜𝑣𝑒 ❤︎

[sunflowerharrington]

𝐦𝐲 𝐟𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐩𝐨𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐧 | 𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐞

part four: feels like an explosion when you’re around me

mfp masterlist

content warnings: masking emotions, flinching, post traumatic stress disorder (ptsd), sexual thoughts, swearing, a character raising their voice, shouting

taglist: @myobmaya @creneal @thisishellfire @hellfirehaley @taecube @steveslittlesunflower @friendly-neighborhood-ghoul @wzrlds @eddies-bat @quickiesgirl @fxllfaiiry @liviawritesthings @corrodedhawkins @eddiebillysteve @mvrylee @untoldshortsofthefandoms @nevermore66 dm comment or ask me if you would like to be added or taken off

notes: i'm super busy with college which is why updates are really slow, please bare with me. as always, billy’s thoughts are italicized

summary: it’s the beginning of the project, and the beginning of the end of everything, possibly. and we get to know a little about “sebastian the rose” and “bonnie the sunflower”, sloane’s characters from her short story she wrote when she was nine!

If anything, the one thing Billy was good at was basketball. It was one of the only things he cared about other than his looks and his beloved Camaro which he named Celeste. And so he found himself signing up for the Hawkins basketball team, taking the pen in his left hand to scribble his name down. It totally wasn’t because he knew Sloane was a cheerleader.

Then he looked at the sign up sheet for the cheer squad with Sloane’s name at the very top, and underneath that was Heather Holloway’s from his math class. It was then that Billy had confirmed that Sloane’s handwriting was just as beautiful as she. Slanted letters with a swirl at the end of a cursive ‘S’ and a cursive ‘M’ for the start of both her first and last names. He also noticed that she chose not to write her middle name down.

Billy couldn’t comprehend how Sloane could look the way she did, walking past him down the hall with a delicate wave. She looked beautiful in anything she wore, and it led him to wonder what she would look like in more of his clothes than just his jacket… or no clothes at all… Sitting on his bed in nothing but his favorite red shirt, her glossy lips inching closer and closer to his—

No. Can't have those thoughts in public.

He noticed how his pants began tightening ever so slightly, and he groaned under his breath, hoping he wouldn’t have to rub one out in the bathroom and be late for English class; the class he would be sitting beside Sloane in. The girl he was just fantasizing about.

Just fucking great.

He waited for Robin outside the music room, tapping his fingers against the tops of his thighs, and then they walked together to Mr Green’s English, with Robin rambling on about having to do a project with Nancy.

“Is this Nancy chick really that bad?” He asked, regretting it instantly as it sent Robin into another tangent. Meanwhile, Billy had noticed Steve Harrington walking to class with Sloane. He was talking animatedly with a bright smile crossing his handsome face, and it only made Billy’s blood boil even more. Why? He was unsure.

He just didn’t understand why Steve got to talk to her and he couldn’t. Were they… boyfriend and girlfriend?

If they were boyfriend and girlfriend she wouldn’t be wearing my jacket. Again.

She must really like it.

Should I let her keep it?

Thankfully Steve and Sloane had made it into the classroom before Billy and Robin, saving Billy the need to mess up Steve’s very punchable looking face. As they entered, Mr Green asked them to sit with their partners, busy stapling many copies of papers in his hands for tests for the younger students.

Billy turned to look for Sloane in an instant, who had been turned around talking to Heather, exchanging a purple and black bracelet and a blue and pink bracelet, with Heather taking the blue and pink one to match her backpack. Sloane’s gaze drifted from Heather’s and towards Billy’s after sliding the bracelet on her wrist, waving him over while Heather got up to sit next to Jason for the project.

Billy trudged over and slouched into his chair, letting out a loud sigh as he did so, making her giggle under her breath, sending a wave of something through Billy’s veins. Happiness.

He turned to look at Robin next for some reassurance, only to see her talking with her partner, Nancy. Maybe all Robin’s ranting was for nothing.

“Hey, pumpkin,” he said with a smile, twisting his ring around his finger as he tried to get comfortable in the chair. Sitting on sharp, damp rocks by the sea on a windy day would be more comfortable. “I like your bracelet.”

“Thank you, Heather made it for me,” she grinned, the corners of her eyes crinkling as she smiled. “Pumpkin? Is this a nickname upgrade?” She leaned in closer to his ear. “Am I no longer your heartstopper?”

You still are.

“Am I not your James Dean anymore?”

And with that she burst into a fit of giggles, taking a gentle hold of his wrist in an attempt to ground herself. He pulled his hand away immediately, and she noticed, but never said a word about it.

Not yet, anyway.

She turned away from him for a moment to pull a purple notebook and a black and purple pen out of her bag.

“I’m sorry that I held your hand without asking,” she muttered under her breath, turning her attention back to Mr Green, who had begun speaking again.

“Okay class, for today I’m going to need the names of at least three works of literature that you are considering. I expect the name of the piece you have chosen, an interpretation of the piece and a schedule for what you are going to do for the duration of the project by next Monday. So you all have a week to complete this assignment and I want no excuses as to why it’s not done.”

Billy rolled his eyes. He didn’t know any works of romantic literature, let alone three or more. So he was hoping that Sloane would know at least two.

Two was better than one or none.

“Do you have any idea of what we could do?” She asked, finally breaking the silence between the two, a soft and hopeful smile appearing on her pink lips as she flipped open her notebook and wrote the date at the top of the page. Monday, September 1st 1984; two days after the day Billy fell in love with her.

The day his life officially started.

“No,” he said plainly. “Do you?”

“No, I don’t. Romance has never really been my forte,” she shook her head, and after she wrote both of their names down on the page in black ink, she began doodling a little purple heart next to Billy’s name, knocking the air out of his lungs for a second.

The way she wrote his name was beautiful, not to mention how adorable the heart looked next to his name. But maybe she did that for everyone and it meant nothing. Maybe he was reading too much into it.

“Oh really?” he smirked. “And here I thought you’d be like Shakespeare.”

She raised one of her eyebrows. “He wrote tragedies, Billy. Lots of them. My favorite is Othello. It’s so interesting to me.”

Othello interests her? Mental note; ask her about Othello.

“Well let’s just hope our project doesn’t turn into one of those.”

There was an awkward moment of silence between the two and Billy suddenly hated the fact that Robin was sitting in front of him. Shit, more ammunition for her to tease him with. He rolled his eyes as Robin began making kissy faces at him and making her hands into a heart, though a little smile started to tug at the corners of his lips. Robin smiled back before turning back around to continue her oh-so-riveting conversation with Nancy.

She would rather watch paint dry on a wall than listen to Nancy drone on about Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington. More like; Steve ‘Hair for Brains’ Harrington. She thought he was dimmer than a broken lightbulb. Dimmer than Jonathan Byers’ mom’s broken Christmas lights.

Billy’s gaze shot back to Sloane. His sweetheart. His dream girl. His new obsession. And she smiled, a little dimple appearing in her cheek… and it nearly murdered him with how much he wanted to kiss it.

“Maybe we could do a short story? I feel like everyone else will do a love song…”

“I don’t know any love songs, so I think we should do a story too,” he admitted, which was sort of true, he just couldn’t think of any from the top of his head with her so close to him. And she’d be running for the hills if he said her voice was like a love song, so he stopped himself.

“Me too,” she sighed, twirling her pink pen in between her fingers, her nails painted with a thin coat of blue nail polish. The same blue as the scrunchie she wore in her hair on the night they met.

“So like, a short story about what?”

“I um… I know a short story about sunflowers and roses as a metaphor for two star-crossed lovers but I don’t know how good it is. I wrote it myself when I was nine. It’s engraved in my mind forever.”

“I see that many of you have not started, mainly Mr Hargrove and Miss Mitchell,” Mr Green spoke up, his gaze focussed on the two. “I suggest you start now as this is part of your daily grade.”

“Ooh, looks like we’re in trouble,” Sloane whispered in his ear, giggling, unable to see his body shooting into overdrive as she did so.

“Uh, yeah… I guess we are.”

“We wrote our names down, sir! At least we’re not making out in the back of the classroom,” Sloane piped up, winking at Billy. “Though I wouldn’t mind that...”

Billy’s heart skipped a beat. One beat gone, two beats, three beats, four…

Does she mean that? Who would wanna kiss me?

“Okay, that’s enough, Miss Mitchell. No need to scare off Mr Hargrove on his second day.” Mr Green said, sighing. “Alright class, back to work!”

Sloane began to explain the story of the two flowers, turning back to look Billy in the eye: a metaphor for two lovers. Sunflower and Rose. In this case, one male and one female. Bonnie and Sebastian. Bonnie was very delicate, gentle like a sunflower. She was also like a daisy, but a daisy that would unfortunately be ruined, slowly getting all of her petals ripped out until all that is left is her stem. Bonnie didn’t want to give up so she pushed herself into the thrones of the beautiful, irresistible rose next to her. His name was Sebastian. Pushing against him until all that is left is her battered and bruised stem - Internally and externally. But sometimes one petal stays, hanging onto dear life; a glimmer of hope that everything will turn out okay if she held onto that petal. And then she started to bloom again, this time stronger against the storm and the rose.

As Sebastian was pulling at Bonnie’s petals, her stem got caught and ripped through her skin, breaking her down, weakening her stem. Her petals began to wither, and with no other sunflowers around to give her light to stay strong, she perished.

Until Sebastian’s began to bloom.

Billy sighed dreamily as Sloane continued her story, his elbow propped up on the table and his chin in his hand, his heart palpitating in his chest as he watched the way her lips moved as she spoke.

“The sunflower began to bloom one day, her petals fluttering open in the sunshine and closing in the evening, until another began to grow. But this sunflower was unusual. It has thorns growing from it and a severely damaged stem. Bonnie weaved her way around Sebastian, strengthening him even though his thorns were cutting into her, and they grew together in harmony until a fire appeared. They both had to close up and protect themselves from each other and the fire, but the fire enticed Sebastian and he began to burn as he got closer and closer until he looked back at Bonnie and realized everything he needed was right there and had been this entire time.”

I—

“That’s amazing,” he said, and she beamed. And he could have died right there. But at least he would have died happy.

“Thank you, Billy. Seriously, that means so much to me. I don’t share the story that often…”

“So I should feel honoured?”

“Very.”

They somehow managed to come up with three other pieces after that to hand in for the first step of their project. Thank heavens for poetry books, vinyl records and Sloane. Because Billy couldn’t think a single damn thought with her around.

“What about There Goes My Baby by The Drifters?” She asked, tapping her pen against her lip for a moment. “Maybe if we can’t think of any others we could use that one.”

“Mhmm, good idea.” Very good idea. Thoughts other than Sloane would be good to have right now for Billy.

He didn’t even hear what she had said.

𝑠𝑙𝑜𝑎𝑛𝑒 𝑚𝑖𝑡𝑐ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑙 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑦 ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑔𝑟𝑜𝑣𝑒 ❤︎

☁︎ 𝐒𝐥𝐨𝐚𝐧𝐞’𝐬 𝐒𝐮𝐧𝐟𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫 𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲.

☁︎ 𝐌𝐲 𝐆𝐢𝐫𝐥 𝐛𝐲 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬.

☁︎ 𝐒𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐭 116 𝐛𝐲 𝐖𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐦 𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐞.

☁︎ 𝐈 𝐂𝐚𝐧’𝐭 𝐇𝐞𝐥𝐩 𝐅𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐈𝐧 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐛𝐲 𝐄𝐥𝐯𝐢𝐬 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐥𝐞𝐲.

Her writing is adorable. Just like her.

He watched as her pen glided over the thin sheet of paper in her spiral notebook, furrowing his brows when he saw her writing down William Shakespeare. “I thought you said he wrote tragedies?”

“He writes poetry too, hot stuff,” she said with a smile, her eyes lighting up.

She likes poetry?

“Also we can do our project at my house, by the way. Just in case… Um… In case your parents don’t want some random girl coming into their house.”

There was no way Billy’s parents would let him have a girl over. Not that he cared. He just didn’t want Sloane to have to meet Neil.

Even if they ended up together by some miracle, she was never stepping within ten feet of Neil Hargrove.

Ever.

“That would be for the best,” he said, smiling gratefully. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome! Ooh—!” she said, interrupting herself. “Are you excited to get your picture taken tomorrow?”

“I’m sorry? My picture?”

“For our yearbooks!” She chirped. “We have to get our picture taken tomorrow morning… Did you not know about this? I’m sorry for not telling you—”

“Stop apologizing for everything, sweet thing,” he chuckled, pulling his arm around the back of her chair, relaxing in his seat.

‘Twas about damn time he did.

He swore he could hear her breath stutter as he let his arm rest on the back of her chair, brushing against her shoulder blades through his jacket encasing her body for a split second. But he didn’t want to ask her about it in case he was hearing things.

“I already look perfect,” he half-joked. “I don't need to do any preparation for this. Except for my hair, trimming my moustache, making sure my necklace looks right, painting my nails black again… So, I guess I do have to do a lot, actually.”

“You’re funny,” she laughed, hitting his arm as she did so, making him subconsciously flinch and pull back.

Why the fuck would she do that?

Her brows furrowed as he did so, her eyes now downcast towards the table, before looking back up at him from underneath her mascara-coated lashes, an apologetic look flashing across her face. “I… I’m so sorry, Billy.”

“Why are you sorry? You did nothing wrong,” he said, mentally kicking himself off the roof of the school for not masking it that time, that feeling that you get just before tears begin welling in your eyes coursing through his body, shooting it into overdrive. And not a good kind of overdrive. “Let’s just get this stupid project done.”

“I don’t think the project is stupid…”

He didn’t even want to think about it. Not one thought about his past. He hated it all and wanted to get rid of his past forever, so there would be room to make more memories in Hawkins.

Preferably with a girl by the name of Sloane Nadine Mitchell, though that would be practically impossible. She didn’t like him like that!

“Okay. Um… I’m still sorry, by the way. I know you don’t wanna talk about what just happened, but—“

“Can you just drop it? Jesus, I don’t care if you’re sorry or not. How many times do I have to tell you to stop saying sorry?” he said, raising his voice ever so slightly, a frown creasing between his brows. “We’ve got our shit done, now stop talking to me.”

“But I—”

“We’re just doing a stupid fucking project together, it’s nothing more than that. You don’t need to know me, Sloane. Can you not take a fucking hint? Are you that stupid?”

“Billy, just calm down, please—!”

“I said; drop it! Do you not understand what ‘stop’ means?! And your sunflower story is fucking garbage, we’re taking that out of the project. And I never wanna hear about it again!” He raised his voice louder, slamming his hand down on the table, then excusing himself from the classroom.

Sloane jumped upon hearing the door slam, tears beginning to well in her eyes almost immediately after, especially as whispers from her classmates began to get the better of her. She hugged his jacket around her, basking in his presence as tears filled her glassy eyes…

This was the first of a thousand cuts of the rose’s thorn into the sunflower’s stem.

And there would be many more to come… sooner than she thought.