Steve's kindness is, like all self-taught one, a mirage of borrowed expressions, a collage of habits picked from people he loved, a bit stilled but eager and well-meaning, sometimes a bit chopped at the sides, a growing want to let the good feelings out in front of the right people.
Eddie liked to sometimes watch him and find all the signs of other people in him, try to match them up to right people.
He would watch and think - this is Nancy's stubbornness to never give up on people and Dustin's loyalty, he would see him trying to give advice to Dustin and see Johnathan's akward pep-talks to Will. The way he would always try to have snacks for the kids screamed both Joyce's and Mrs. Henderson motherly kindness. His willingness to sit in silence, a steady presence, when somebody needed it shined with Will's warmth. How he fights for the people he cares about, letting his meaness be a defense for them all, a barier and a shield similar to Max's snark.
And whenever he found himself to be the matching person? It made him feel loved, so fucking loved and seen that he would choke on it.
Eddie sometimes would make a game out of it, to found the matching puzzle whenever Steve's kindness shone (and it was a lot of the time). It was always someone from the party and he would always find himself with a strange fond warmth whenever he realized who it was. And usually he was good at it, it wasn't really hard when he loved and knew all those people too
There were exceptions though. The first one was Robin and it wasn't for the lack of Eddie's knowledge and love for her and moreso because of the whole RobinandSteve being always so SteveandRobin, never really separate. Whatever was Steve's was also Robin's, their clothes, habits or sometimes even their smiles shone in the same way. They were mismatched in a funny melted together sort of way, his kindness was her and hers was his and it was hard to difference between the two when even they didn't know where one ended and the other began, they traded traits like they traded clothes, wore them bright pink socks with yellow soft sweater, a joke to cheer you up with a soft you can tell me anything in the same breath.
He didn't really knew whose kindness it was the innate one that must have been deep within Steve before he let it shine or Robin's. He didn't think it would really matter anyway, they would trade it between themselves like shiny cards anyway.
The other one was a smile. An unique one, one that Eddie swore he saw somewhere before and that lacked the freckles and a missing teeth except noone in the party had these two traits, at least not as Eddie knew them and he could never find that one puzzle. It was boyish and full of mischief, usually with a starry reflection in Steve's eyes.
The last one was a lift in his tone, the way he would make his voice honey-like sweet when he tells Robin her new haircut suits her or El's new shirt brought out her eyes. The intonation always made Eddie think of bubble gum and sugared summers.
He couldn't place the last two to nobody. At least not until Steve told him about Tommy Hagan and Carol Perkins.
Obviously Eddie knew about them, but Stevie didn't talk about how they are. But how they used to be.
"Sweet." he said while passing the joint they shared laying on Eddie's bed, pressed from shoulders to their ankles. "Carol used to be sweet, warm with the naive love only kids hold" Steve's eyes were looking out the window of Eddie's room, as if he could see the young version of them just outside playing childlish games. "and Tommy used to be wild. But not like bad wild, more like he was always chasing trouble, adventure. Like kids do."
And Eddie couldn't see it, not with how the world twisted them into different people, cruel. More cold, all sharp teeth and autumn's rain.
Except he could, he could in Steve's special smile and the sound of his voice, he could see it and he could see the love that Steve Harrington had for them.
"They're douchebags now," he said when Eddie voiced it out loud "but I did loved them once, sometimes I feel like I've never stopped, they just... Grew out of my love, grew into something I couldn't."
It should be strange, to love something someone isn't anymore, but to Eddie it just spoke of the way Steve Harrington threw himself into love, how he never really stopped loving and caring. It was admirable, it was so lovable and it was so Steve-like. Earnest in the sweetest way.
It made sense that Steve Harrington would love people even through his expression of it.
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Once, years ago now, Aunt Maureen took me to visit her eldest daughter, Karina. In the midday heat, beneath the shade of a fig tree we sat in a Venice restaurant, where bougainvillaea draped over the front of flat roofed houses and fragrant blooms edged the terrace.
I loved Los Angeles. The food was always better, the people happier, the streets more colourful and picturesque than in Albuquerque, where everything was brown and beige, blending with the dust land. Karina laughed when I said this, sitting back in her chair in her oval sunglasses, a cigarette balanced between long slender fingers.
“You should see where I live downtown, then I’ll ask you again how much you love it here.”
I didn’t know what she meant. I was thinking about those cool guys I’d seen on a basketball court earlier with their hats on backwards, the loud, bass heavy music they played from a speaker, and the skaters who dropped lazily into concrete basins on their boards. I wanted to be one of them, though I knew Maureen would never buy me something dangerous like a skateboard. I played things a bit fast and loose at the best of times and once almost rollerbladed clean off a pier, so she’d developed a fear that I might one day die of pure stupidity. Maybe when I was older and she wasn’t watching me from the kitchen window anymore I would move to LA, get myself a board and skate around on it without wearing a shirt, and get muscles and a deep tan like everyone else here.
These were the kinds of thoughts I lost myself in as Maureen and Karina had conversations that either weren’t interesting or which I was unable to understand, but I was content sipping on my Fanta with ice, lurid orange, and so fizzy that it stung the back of my throat and thinking about being a grown up in LA while Maureen had her white wine and Karina her cigarettes. Soon they would order a plate of oysters that looked too much like boogers for me to sample and speak more about things happening, things that had already happened, and plans they’d made for the summer.
“What’s your favourite time of year?” Karina said to me suddenly, snapping me out of my thoughts. I knew this is the sort of question you ask a seven year old when you don’t know how to speak to children, but I thought hard about it anyway to make sure I gave her the best answer I could. She was my cool, mature cousin, and I always wanted so badly to impress her. November and December, I told her, because I got presents on my birthday, then time off school on Thanksgiving and both these things on Christmas. I was still reeling from the PlayStation console that Maureen and her husband Mario had bought me last Christmas, slotted perfectly within its square, silver box, which I still had, stored carefully beneath my bed just in case I ever needed to pack it away and move it.
“What about you, mom?” She said, and Maureen didn’t have to think.
“The spring,” she said, “I just love to be out in my garden then, with all the flowers and that lovely sun, it’s not too hot. It feels like everything is just on the brink of bursting to life.”
I thought about that later as we passed the canal, all the beautiful spring flowers that erupted from the banks, and of home too, where by now, in the hazy days of mid May, the desert was blanketed with spring grasses, with violets and golden poppies and bluebonnets, burning a trail of vibrant indigo all the way to the mountains.
Beginning // Prev // Next
Ty to @scrapplesims for suffering living in LA once upon a time and for answering my weirdly specific questions about what it was like
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what are some artists that really inspire u?
one of my largest inspos to date has been Gigi Cavenago ! his work is just an insanely unique blend of painterly and graphic that appeals to me sooo much
even his less elaborate sketches show just how insanely skilled he is his understanding of gesture and line dynamics is crazy! not to mention most of his work is entirely digital he just has such a good handle on when and where to apply texture to mimic traditional ink drawing and painting techniques
other than him some huge influences on my work (far from being all of them though) have been Cliff Chiang (artist of Paper Girls, really fantastic inks and also just draws women really good) Eric Canete (does a ton of shit but i like his sketches a lot really good understanding of anatomy and how to stylize it) and Aleksander Rostov (I feel like most people know and love the art of Disco Elysium at this point but still unbelievably gorgeous stuff)
also im just inspired by almost every single artist i see especially my peers! I try to play around with style and technique as much as I possibly can because thats how I personally learn so my inspirations range wildly from comics to fine art painting to 2005 anime fanart
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cw/tw. gif(s), child neglect, depiction of starvation & frostbite, suicidal thoughts
꧁
𝐆𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐀𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐭 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫: 𝐀𝐜𝐭 𝐈𝐈
Candour of Light and Shadows
Quest Started
I still think
Some people were born a shadow.
"ーHappy birthday, sweetheart!"
"Thanks, mama!"
"May Lady Tsaritsa bless my little snowflake so he grows up big and healthy... And may She protect you from all dangers and surround you with love and happiness!"
"..... Mama, what about-"
"Hold on, darling."
Every year, instead of burning candles, I burn the memories of you.
Every year, instead of huddling in front of a warm fireplace, I relive the memories of the icy grave you call home.
Every year....
I wonder.
Why didn't you just di̴̖̊ë̷̻͙́̒̿̆ that day?
Why did the gods pity you when your own blood couldn't care less?
Why you? Why me? Why us?
I dare not defy the fate bestowed upon me. This is the role we were bestowed with. The second option. The second best. The supporting role.
The shadow.
....
But maybe....
........
Just... maybe.
.............
Maybe all this time, I've been tricking myself, thinking I was undeserving. Of the spotlight. Of the warm fireplace. Of..... a home.
“....”
“Wha....?”
“Happy birthday, Cov!!”
“My my, did we catch you off-guard so much you were about to unsheathe your sword?”
“Ah... I'm..... sorry.......”
“It's fine, it's fine. More importantly, do you like chocolate cakes? I had no idea what kind of cake you'd like but since you love hot chocolate and cookies, I thought you'd like themー”
“......”
“Cov?”
“...........”
“Thank you.”
Maybe one day, I'll be able to feel truly worthy of this.
......
I guess…. Just for today, I can be the light.
𝐆𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐀𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐭 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫: 𝐀𝐜𝐭 𝐈𝐈 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐞
Candour of Light and Shadows
Quest Completed
[ To be continued(?) ]
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