Chapter Text
How much longer....?
I'm sick of the dark. I've been in the dark for too long.
I miss my--
Light.
For a while, I see nothing but the ceiling. Whoever opened me up has slapped a paperweight on me so I can flatten. Good thinking.
In the meantime, I regain my sense of my surroundings fairly quickly.
Then the person who rolled me open grabs hold of me. He’s tall and holds me vertically, so I don’t see his face yet--but I do see that I’m in a mostly unfurnished room. It’s bare for the most part, though it’s obvious someone’s in the middle of moving in.
Then I spot a familiar sketch peeking out from a nearby binder, and something in me stirs. My oil paint practically trembles with it.
My Creator--
Is he near--?
Oh...It's been so long... Too long...
Then the person lifts me up to hang me on the wall and--
Oh.
I see how it is.
I wish I had a mouth so I could sigh.
Or scream.
But I don't, so I can't do anything except look and see and watch and think.
Now... I remember this guy. Of course I do. Some part of me has always known him.
After all, it was my Creator who handed me to him.
I was made for him.
My Creator made me with love and care. He thought about this boy the entire time--I could tell. Knowledge of him, familiarity with him, seeped into my being with every brushstroke, every smear of paint. I carry him in my layers. I know of him in ways that only my Creator taught me.
And now all of that is gone. Reduced to this.
Because the person I was made for--Mike Wheeler--is a fucking loser.
For one, his hair is awful. That fuckass side part, boldly exposing a forehead that should never, under any circumstances, be made public. It’s enough to make me want to keep a solid six feet away from him at all times, at minimum.
What did my Creator see in this… this--
What did he see in this troll?
It must’ve been one hell of a thing, considering I was born out of it.
And look where that’s brought me.
Here.
Again.
“I’m doing it,” Mike says, voice shaking, legs trembling violently as he stood on the stool. Neck halfway through a noose.
Do it, pussy.
He never does it anyway.
His hands shake harder and suddenly he rips it off his neck and throws himself to the ground.
Ohmyfuckinggodbro.
“Why can’t I do it?” on his hands and knees, he yells to the empty room, like the walls might answer him.
Well. I'm on the wall, so technically, I would, if only I could.
I metaphorically roll my eyes.
You might call me cruel, but listen, you’d be in my shoes too if you had to see this shit five times a week.
So here’s the recap of my--now our--life with Mike Wheeler.
He wakes up. He goes to class. He comes back and sits at his desk--right across from me, mind you, so I’m forced to stare directly at his face. And I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’d rather be staring at his bony ass. At least that would be a mercy.
Putting on awful glasses, like the hair wasn't enough, he studies for a bit, then pulls out that stupid typewriter and starts clacking away like he’s doing something important. He looks so pretentious doing it that I have to bite my top varnish layer just to keep from dissolving into the organic or whatever chemical mess I’m made of.
He’s bitchless, too. Not once has he brought anyone home.
And I know what my Creator hoped Mike would feel toward him. Damn it, I saw it myself--the heart eyes he was all but fucking me with back in the van. I thought he’d be right. I really did.
I mean… that fuckass smile when he first rolled me open. Back then, I thought we were cool. I thought that if he was fucking with me, then he’d fuck with my Creator too.
I don’t know what happened in the eighteen months I was rolled up and closed off from the world--because why the fuck wouldn’t he want to look at me, when at first he looked like he was in love with me?--but there’s nothing like that behind his eyes now.
There’s nothing there at all. And there’s definitely nobody in his bed, or another painting hogging all his gazes. He has posters that can’t talk--they’re boring as hell.
Well. Most of them can’t.
Except for this weird stair poster that keeps talking to me about how I turn its world and starve and exhaust it and then launches into some lyrical rhythm about moving the stars for me. It goes on. And on.
It’s not as flattering as it sounds. I don’t feel serenaded. I would like either a gun or a restraining order.
So I do my best to ignore that entire side of the room.
But that’s about it!
I thought college kids were supposed to get laid?
Which--fine. That actually brings me joy. Knowing my Creator’s feelings--and unfortunately, he instilled some cursed sense of care for Mike Wheeler into me through his own fingertips-- I feel a small pang about it. I can never betray my Creator completely.
Sometimes Mike looks at me weird, too. He’ll stop mid-sentence, fingers hovering over the keys, and suddenly I can’t even enjoy the blessed silence because now his gaze is on me.
It was flattering the first ten--fine. thirty--times.
Then it turned just completely fucking creepy. So much that I grow anxious. Does he hear my breaths?
Can I even breathe? No. I can’t. I am paint. I do not have lungs to inhale air, nor a mouth or nose to do it through.
See what this guy does to me? I'm conscious of my own capabilities now.
He stares. He stops mid-type, fingers frozen above the keys, and just looks. I started counting after a while--because what else do I have but time to do mental gymnastics? Ten seconds. Fifteen. Twenty-three. Once, a full minute and forty-five seconds.
This is more than admiration, or artistic appreciation--which, for the record, I do deserve. Mike Wheeler looks at me like he’s trying to find someone he’s missing in me.
Which is strange, because I gave him a three‑headed dragon and four people. One of whom is himself, by the way, so I can’t quite make sense of it. I can’t put meaning to that look.
Mike Wheeler’s expression is some cursed mix of regret, yearning, and disappointment. First of all--he didn’t even make me. So what exactly does he have to feel regret over? And don’t get me started on disappointment. Like, bitch, be grateful. You have a literal piece of art hanging in your room made and gifted to you by someone who loves you. It doesn't get any better than that. Wake the fuck up, like damn.
But yearning? Yearning for what? Who?
That’s where I’m stumped. Does he miss my Creator when he’s not around?
Speaking of my Creator--
He comes over sometimes.
That should make me happy. It almost did the first time--until he looked at me like… like--
Like regret.
Whenever he sees me, my Creator’s face falls. He looks guilty--not just that, but also hurt. He twitches, bites his lip, like he wants to apologize but won’t, can't, because that would require acknowledging me.And what more is there to acknowledge, really?
I’m a wonderfully executed oil painting, made for Mike Wheeler by my Creator, Will Byers.
Is there something about it that’s off-putting? About me?
I don’t think so. I think I’m fucking A‑tier.
But my Creator is ashamed of his own creation. He must be, for he avoids my surface. Avoids my eyes--my composition, which he made himself, thank you very much. He leaves me to rot in this loser’s room without a proper frame. I don't have rights to dignity, so I'm just taped to the wall.
Taped. You truly cannot make this shit up.
It’s deeply insulting.
It’s… betrayal.
And I blame Mike Wheeler for all of it.
And so my forced roommate becomes my enemy.
Because my Creator won’t look at me.
But Mike will. Endlessly.
And it makes me want to grow limbs, crawl out of my own frame, materialize into a three‑headed dragon, and slay this Mike Wheeler on the spot.
Alas.
I am paint.
If only I had a purpose other than being looked at...
and making my beholders sad or guilty just by existing in their field of vision.
Maybe then this would be over.
Maybe…
Just maybe…
If I were-- ever--
Just once, like I was promised...
If I was...
Addressed.