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saint--claire · 4 months

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When I was a little child, there was a particular library book I checked out week after week, endlessly renewing it as much as I was able. The book, How to Raise and Keep a Dragon by John Topsell was a quasi-nonfiction guide to, as you guessed, rearing different species of dragons. I loved it. Tiny-me had plans.

As an adult, I tried to buy it a few times. No dice. The book was so old that no mainstream bookseller stocked it. Even when I tried niche websites recommended by various booksellers and librarians, I still couldn't find it. It was sadly lost to time, apparently not popular enough to make it into the archives.

But.

My best friend had a copy of that book. We're going to call her G, for several reasons not relevant at the moment. I was discussing my search with G one day, for some reason I can't remember now. She got a funny look on her face, asked me a few questions about the cover, listened to me do a very poor job of explaining with my hands how the hardcover copy had included a real gemstone in the dragon's forehead, and then went off to fish it out of her bookcase.

I was Gobsmacked.

I should not have been, given that the history of shared childhood books between us both would have made a circle with ragged edges, more so than a venn diagram, but I digress. The book came home to live in my house for a few months, and I was delighted by the chance to read it again.

Do people remember those type of books? Dragonology, Egyptology, The Stone Age - a way of introducing children to non fiction. They very earnestly spoke about the responsibilities needed to raise dragons, the practicalities involved. There was a record of registration you could fill out, if you had carefully considered the information to your self and felt you were responsible enough to to go through with adopting a dragon.

I vaguely remember filling out some of the riddle and puzzle questions in the Dragonology books. I would never have written in John Topsell's book, it was a library book.

But.

When I re-read G's copy at home, smiling over the familiar artwork, I was surprised to turn the page and find the painstaking, somewhat-wonky handwriting staring back at at me. Baby G, with her name spelled out in freshly-joined but still-not-quite-got-the-hang-of-this-yet cursive lettering. Baby G had filled the registration out in her best handwriting, in glittery green gel pen to denote the importance of the document. This was compared to the earlier, less important checklists done in plain black ink.

I read the registration certificate. Smiled. Smiled some more at the names listed for G's dragon, her dam, and her sire - Eragon was also a great book. Go off, Christopher Paolini.

Breed; standard Western Dragon. The box 'miniture' was ticked, to show that G's dragon was of the minature specic variety, rather than a full size dragon. This was, as she would later explain to me, chosen on the basis that baby-G felt it was the more financially responsible choice. Also so she could keep her dragon in her house with her, but we're not there yet.

I looked at that certificate. Looked at it again. Looked at the calendar, and then looked at the sewing machine I had just been given for Christmas.

G celebrates her birthday in January.

The template came first. I studied the different images of the standard western dragon through the book, picked my favourite, and re-drew it to a significantly larger scale.

Inking the design to the fabric, four times over probably took the longest.

I very subtly asked G the next time she was over (after hurling all dragon-related materials in a panic into the depths of my wardrobe) what type of colour dragon she would have, should it come up. As G later said, that type of question from me truly did not register as anything other than a question asked from theoretical interest. I transitioned the topic as discreetly as I could after she answered, and delightfully, my sneakiness went in one ear, out the other, and she forgot I had ever asked until several weeks later.

I enjoyed painting them.

Don't ask me how many mistakes I made through this process. So many. I do already know how to sew, but it's been a long time. I'd been meaning to get back into it for a while.

Given that various aunts and grandmothers and my mother had a knack for calling when I was up to my elbows in either paint or pins, it became a family affair. Each of them peered at the project through face time and offered their advice.

Some of the advice I took, some I didn't. No regrets about sewing it in pink thread. Considerable regrets about accidentally slicing one of the feet in half and having to fix that.

In the end though, she was finished.

I carefully pinned on her name tag, with the name baby-G had chosen with a little blue ribbon. A collar was unacceptable, this is a dragon, people, come on. Dragon's don't wear collars.

I put the book in the box, open to the registration certificate, and put the dragon on top. Wrapped the whole thing up with a bow and then refused to touch it before I sent myself mad trying to fix details that didn't really need to be fixed.

A bit late for her birthday, sure, but there we are. We'd gone for a trip off to nowhere for a weekend, to go try wine made out of blueberries and hike up a waterfall. (And climb on it. And swim in it. It was a very good waterfall).

I gave her the box, informed her she wasn't allowed to keep the box, just the contents (it was the only thing I had that was big enough for me to keep all of my A3 portfolios in, it had only been temporarily-repurposed as dragon housing), and then left the next bit up to the gods.

A surprise, sitting un-awaited for some 15 years in amber, to catch up to baby G and adult G together.

Happy Birthday, baby and adult G.

#StClaire speaks #How to Raise & Keep A Dragon #John Topsell #Joe Nigg #the thing about problems hammers and nails #except in this case it was childhood wishes and sewing machines #and as someone said #you were relearning to sew and you started with THAT?#well no #I started with a scrub hat #which kept the hair out of my face while I painted this #and then also that apron my aunt gave me the pieces to years ago that I refused point blank to do by hand #but yeah #101 mistakes later #and one re-attached foot #pretty happy with her #dragons

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solarmorrigan · 9 months

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They aren’t high, but they might as well be.

It’s so late that it’s early, sitting in those odd hours of motionless night when exhaustion throws a ridiculous filter over everything and it’s an effort not to laugh loud enough to alert Robin’s parents to the fact that there’s an unauthorized boy in her room.

She and Steve have been lying side by side on her bed for the last hour, both knowing they should probably go to sleep if they’re going to wake up with enough time for Steve to sneak out and actually drive home safely, but they’re not quite ready yet. Instead, they’re content to be pressed together, shoulder to ankle, hands intertwined between them, content to feel the other secure and nearby.

Robin lifts their hands and uncurls her fingers, spreading them open like a star and prompting Steve to do the same, until their hands are pressed flat together with their fingers outstretched.

“Your hands are bigger than mine,” Robin says, looking at the way her palm fits into Steve’s with room to spare and the way his fingers extend past hers by almost a whole knuckle.

“Probably because I’m bigger than you,” Steve says, also lazily gazing at the way their hands fit together.

“Yeah, but they’re, like, way bigger than mine,” Robin insists. “You have really big hands.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “They’re not that big. You just have stubby fingers.”

“Rude. You just have giant hands.”

“I do not.”

“Like mittens.”

“No.”

“Banana hands.”

“You are literally the only girl who has ever said something bad about the size of my hands.”

Robin smacks her free hand against Steve’s chest. “Ew.”

Steve is laughing. “You started it.”

“Lies,” Robin says, taking Steve’s hand in both of hers so she can continue examining it. “Why are your nails so nice?”

Steve watches as Robin traces the tips of her fingers over the even cuticles and neatly trimmed ends of his nails. “Because I take care of them, and I don’t bite them, unlike some people.”

“I never bite your nails,” Robin says, smiling as Steve groans dramatically.

“That was terrible. You’re terrible.”

“Nope, you love me.”

“I can love you even if you’re terrible.” Steve turns his hand so he can catch one of Robin’s and look it over for himself. “You’ve been biting your nails a lot lately.”

Robin shrugs. “Stressed,” is all she offers; she doesn’t really have to say much more for him to get it.

Steve frowns, threading his fingers back through hers and squeezing. “You used to paint them, didn’t you? Like, to help you remember not to chew on them so much?”

“I did, yeah,” Robin says thoughtfully. “It’s been a while since I’ve even thought about doing that.”

“You should do it again. Give your nails a chance to heal,” Steve says.

Robin hums, as if she has to think it over. “Only if you let me paint yours, too.”

And maybe it’s the fact that it’s after two a.m., but all Steve does is shrug and say, “Yeah, sure.”

Robin sits up on the bed like Dracula popping up out of his coffin, turning to stare at him with her bedhead flying wild around her face. “Seriously?”

“You want me to say no?” Steve asks.

“Well I didn’t expect you to just say yes!” Robin says in a hushed yell. “I thought I’d have to argue you down.”

Steve grins. “Go get your nail polish before I change my mind, Buckley.”

He doesn’t have to tell her twice. Robin swings her legs off the bed and goes to her dresser, digging through her makeup case and returning with a handful of black-capped bottles.

“Pick your poison, Harrington.” Robin gestures to the array of colors.

Steve is slow to sit up, stretching and groaning before he turns to sit cross-legged in front of Robin. “You pick. I’ve never had my nails painted before, so we’ll have to go with your expertise.”

“Hmm.” Robin clasps her fingers together under her chin, tapping her lips with her index fingers as if this is the most serious decision she’ll ever have to make. Finally, her hand flashes out and grabs one of the bottles, holding it up and wiggling it for Steve to see. “How about a little navy blue, sailor?”

Steve rolls his eyes, but he can’t tamp down his smile. “Why not?”

“Okay, gimme your hand.” Robin holds her hand out for Steve’s, palm up and fingers making grabby curls.

Steve puts out his left hand and lets Robin place it on her knee, fingers outstretched while he waits for Robin to shake the bottle of polish thoroughly and unscrew the cap.

“Try to hold still,” Robin instructs him, biting the tip of her tongue between her teeth in concentration as she applies the brush to his thumbnail.

Obligingly, Steve holds as still as possible, content to watch as Robin works her way from his thumb and onto his index finger, coating his nails in shining wet navy blue.

He pulls his hand away for a moment when Robin has to dip the brush back in the bottle for more polish, looks over her handiwork, and lets out a low whistle.

“Wow,” he says, putting his hand back down on Robin’s knee when she gestures for it. “You really suck at this.”

Robin lets out a surprised bark of laughter, narrowly avoiding streaking nail polish down the length of Steve’s finger. “Fuck off, I do not!”

“You kinda do, Rob,” Steve says, his voice full of warmth even as he denounces her skill with a brush.

“How would you even know?” Robin jibes. “You said you’ve never had your nails painted before.”

“I know the nail polish isn’t supposed to go over the edges of the nail,” Steve shoots back.

They both pause to look at the way the polish has been laid thick over the skin on either side of Steve’s nails and has even dribbled a little bit onto the tip of one of his fingers.

“Shut up. It’s a process,” Robin finally says, taking the brush to his ring finger.

“A process, huh?”

“Yes! You paint the nails, and then you use nail polish remover and, like, a Q-tip to clean up the edges.”

“Uh huh.”

“You’re just fussy, that’s all,” Robin pronounces, grinning at Steve’s little noise of offense.

“I am not fussy,” he insists.

“You kinda are, Steve,” Robin replies. “Anyway, I’d like to see you do a better job.”

“Deal,” Steve says, maybe a little too quickly for Robin’s liking. “I’ll do your nails next.”

“Well that, I have to see,” Robin says, putting the brush back into the bottle and motioning for him to switch hands.

True to her word, Robin quietly retrieves the nail polish remover and some Q-tips from the bathroom and neatens up her paintjob once she’s finished, and Steve appraises her work like a jeweler looking over and handful of gems.

“Not bad, Buckley,” he says, shrugging his lips.

Robin rolls her eyes. “What are you now, a fashion critic? Hurry up and paint my nails so I can make fun of you.”

Steve’s answering grin is unsettlingly sharp, but Robin still lets him pick the color. He settles on red—“To accent the blue, obviously”—and shakes the bottle before pulling the brush and starting on Robin’s left hand where it rests on his knee.

His strokes are smooth and even, not once straying over the edges of her nails, not even over the bitten, ragged ends, and he moves from one finger to the next with a kind of practiced ease.

“What the fuck!” Robin barely remembers to keep her voice down in her outrage. “Why are you good at this?”

Steve ducks his head, clearly holding in a laugh. “I used to paint Carol’s nails for her all the time.”

“Carol Perkins?” Robin asks, brows furrowed.

“Did I spend a lot of time with any other Carols?” Steve shoots her a look from beneath his lashes before turning back to his work.

“Why?”

Steve shrugs. “She tried to get Tommy to do it one day and he refused, so she asked me to do it instead, and… I dunno, I figured, why not? I did suck at it at first,” he admits. “But I think she just liked having someone’s focus on her for the time it took to do her nails. And I guess I just – like, it felt good, I guess. Taking care of someone else, even just in that little way. And I liked how the nail polish looked when I finally got it right.

“Any time we hung out at her house, she’d ask me to paint her nails for her, or she’d steal my mom’s nail polish if we were at mine. It was, like… our thing, I guess?”

For a moment, Robin sits in the knowledge that Steve and Tommy Hagan and Carol Perkins had actually been friends.

From the outside, the three of them had looked like a toxic hurricane of derision and unfairly nice bone structure; they were rarely seen without looks of condescending amusement or lounging around being too cool for everyone else. It had been easy to think of their arrangement as some kind of superficial bond of mutual bitchiness, but at the same time, everyone distantly knew that Steve and Tommy and Carol had been a package deal since at least middle school.

Tommy and Carol had been the only two people Steve routinely hung out with, now that Robin thinks about it. People from basketball and swim and other hangers-on came and went, but those two had been fixtures. They’d probably been his best friends.

And midway through Junior year, Steve had left them.

He’d realized they weren’t who he thought they were, or maybe he’d realized they weren’t who he wanted to be, but the fact is that he’d left behind the two people he’d known the longest and had stepped uncertainly forward without knowing if he’d have anyone at all after that.

For a while he’d had Nancy. Then had come Henderson and all the other rugrats – but as much as Steve loves them, that isn’t quite the same as friends your own age, is it?

But now, he has Robin.

And she’s going to make sure that’s worth something.

“I can’t believe I’ve had some kind of professional manicurist under my nose this whole time,” Robin laments, grinning at Steve when he glances up at her with a huff.

“I’m pretty sure you have to get paid to be a professional. Are you gonna pay me for my services?” he asks.

“I will pay you in love and affection,” Robin declares. “Money can’t buy you these things, Steve.”

“That’s convenient,” Steve shoots back.

“Isn’t it? And I’m going to paint your nails yellow next time,” Robin says.

Steve glances to the side, where Robin’s collection of nail polish sits. “You don’t have any yellow.”

“I’ll buy some.” Robin shrugs. “I think it would look good on you.”

“And you just assume I’m going to let you paint my nails again.” Steve raises an eyebrow at her as he dips the brush back in the bottle to rewet it for the last couple of nails.

“Yep,” Robin says easily.

Steve looks back down, like he really needs to focus that hard on getting the nail of her ring finger just right, but she can tell he’s biting down on a smile.

“Okay,” he finally says, quietly.

“Okay,” she echoes back, giving him a sleepy smile when he glances up.

It’s late, and it’s going to be even later by the time they can go to sleep without ruining their nails, and in fact they’re probably not going to get any sleep at all, but somehow, Robin doesn’t mind.

Even being sleep deprived together with Steve is better than anything she can think of doing apart.

[Prompt: Comparing hand sizes]

#disclaimer: I don't know how big either of these people's hands are just roll with it #stobin #platonic stobin #robin buckley #steve harrington #stranger things #solar wrote #robin paints nails like I paint nails and she is valid <3

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