Steves always felt stuck.
Slightly out of place, like a character that was supposed to be killed off, but was kept alive instead.
Adrift with no friends and a family thats absent, Steve wastes most his life working a retro video store in a dying mall.
Nothing feels real. Has felt real, ever since a party he threw in high school got wildly out of hand.
Until some guy named Eddie shows up.
Eddie, who slaps down a copy of some former major TV show everyone used to binge.
Eddie, with his wild hair and wilder eyes and an outfit that looks like he himself came out of the stupid 80s show.
Eddie, who worms his way into Steves heart, the only bright spark of his day, and who no one else seems to be able to see.
It's easy to ignore at first. Easy for Steve to dismiss the weird looks and quiet questions--especially when Eddie flirts like he does.
Kisses up Steves neck in the work closet, whispering assurances that they can be quick.
Its a little harder when his concussions are brought up. His brain damage diagnosis thrown at him.
That it's his fault that girl drowned. It's his fault he sacrificed her to save himself, even if the lack of oxygen is the entire reason he's different now…
Steve is certain Eddies not a hallucination, or some kind of--imaginary friend.
So sure hes furious with it when confronted--until that night.
When Eddie sits Steve down and informs him no one else can see him because he is from the stupid tv show.
And so is Steve.
In fact it's not a tv show, its reality and Steve is caught in Vecna's evil mindtrap--except his very real brain damage caused things to go a little differently.
Steves trapped apparently, and El has sent Eddie to go get him--and Steve wants so badly to believe it.
That he's not this lonely.
That this--dull, friendless, family-less life he's barely living, is the fake one.
Except….
“So how do I wake up then?”
“That's the hard part, Stevie.” Eddie tells him, thumb running soothing little circles on overheated skin. El thinks you need to drown--just like Barb did.”
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TRY AGAIN LATER
it's like. well. its several things.
(Plutarch's Crassus, trans. Warner)
and also this
(ibid.)
that compliment sounds like an insult, baby.
anyway, there's a fun kind of eroticism in being given everything, in taking things that aren't yours without any real consequence, in climbing towards becoming a Roman Alexander, only for one man to deny you, over and over and over again, at every turn. Sulla tried, Crassus did it better. who would put a butcher in their place? who else knows you well enough to do it? who else can match you step for step like this? doesn't it feel like a kind of intimacy, a kind of—
it's also about the 'even sulla kissed my sword/so you want me on my knees too?' innuendo was too good to pass up. that was actually the first line I wrote, I figured out the rest of this to justify making a comic with it
and finally! the sword line is referencing/playing off of Lucan's Pharsalia a little bit because it fucks hard
(Lucan's Pharsalia, trans. Jane Wilson Joyce)
EDIT: oh, and that's a public domain anatomical illustration of a heart. you know how it is with love and hate.
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I think mdzs fandom as a whole sleeps on how overprotective Wen Ning is of Wei Wuxian. He's ride or die if it means WWX is safe and if that's not love, I don't know what is
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The way that Poseidon knows that Sally doesn't want to take Percy to camp, the way he wants Percy to be able to be as much like Sally as he can... Maybe he knows that Sally's goodness is paramount to Percy's ability to eventually save Olympus, or maybe he just wants his son to take after the woman he loves - a woman unlike any he'd met in a thousand years. Further, the way he so clearly wants to be there for them both but knows he can't. The way that's obviously killing him to not be a part of their lives, and so he takes this opportunity to be there for her, even if it hurts him to hear what she has to say. The way he encourages Sally to speak her mind and re-assures her that its' not fair, that she hasn't failed, that she's doing well by Percy, that she's raised him well, and he promises to be there for Percy when he can (and in his own way he has been when it matters).
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