hi @marykedoesart, this is my gift to you for @natsume-ss' spring exchange!
you said you like tanuma/natsume and heartfelt, emotional themes so i went very symbolic with this, haha. i really love the idea of using imagery from the fish pond in tanuma's backyard to represent these two and their dynamic, so that became the concept i ran with. i'll explain my whole thought process below, but in the meantime i hope you like it! 💖
pls bear with me here bc this is going to be very long and wordy lol
so there's a definite theme of separate worlds here; while the environments are both pretty abstract, the idea was that tanuma is sitting in his house looking out towards his backyard where the pond is, representing the "real world," whereas natsume is in a more fantastical underwater setting, representing the world of youkai. also there's the implication that he's sitting at the bottom of the pond, aka completely immersed in that other world, while tanuma can only perceive hints of it in the reflected light & shadow on the wall.
tanuma's side is lit by the glow of the setting sun, and natsume's by an otherworldly blue light. also, there's their clothes: tanuma is in his regular school uniform while natsume is in a yukata, something that pretty much all humanoid youkai wear.
next, their poses; they're both sitting exactly the same way as a reflection of each other but natsume has his head bowed while tanuma is looking up; this is meant to represent their different approaches to their relationship. natsume is definitely more closed off, both as a defense mechanism and because he wants to protect tanuma & keep him away from the dangers of youkai. tanuma, though, is open and contemplative, maybe even hopeful; he wants to be let in and he wants to help, even if it is dangerous.
the lighting reinforces these conflicting attitudes, with tanuma's side being brighter and warmer while natsume's is darker and colder, representing this sort of "optimism vs pessimism" dynamic.
so now, the fish. the bridge between their different worlds, basically. on natsume's side it's a real fish while on tanuma's it's a shadow cast on the wall, which is obviously the original conceit of the scene in the source material: natsume can literally see the fish, while tanuma can only see its shadow. still, even if it manifests differently, it still exists to both of them, so it's a connection between them concerning youkai.
so they're both in their separate worlds, but because of this connection they affect each other, maybe in small ways at first; as the fish crosses over the barrier it leaves little effects, little disturbances behind. on natsume's side, bubbles drift up towards the surface, little pockets of air like little lifelines showing the way, and on tanuma's side little droplets fall and create ripples in the reflected water, these small things that grow and grow outward until they're not so small anymore. little feelings that bubble up and ripple out, hoping to reach the other in their own way.
the fish brings these feelings across the barrier, endlessly looping around them as they endlessly call out to each other, trying to navigate this relationship they have; it's possible to bridge the gap between them as long as they look and listen and learn to embrace the things that make them different just as much as those that bring them together.
and that's about it! my goal was to make a symbolic piece about their struggle to understand each other but with a hopeful note, so hopefully that comes across! i hope my explanation at least sort of made sense and wasn't too confusing! (to be completely transparent i only had about half of that in mind while i was drawing it, the rest sort of came together as i was writing this. neat!)
and finally, here's a still frame in the original higher resolution so you can see it a bit nicer! 💖
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Steddie | 2.3k | first part
“Okay, what was that?” Gareth asks the moment they are inside the room they are using as a dressing room for tonight.
“What was what,” Eddie answers.
“You know damn well what I mean.”
Eddie doesn’t answer, putting his best poker face on.
“That weird mating ritual you have been performing with the boy in the front row the whole night, maybe?” Jeff adds.
“I have no idea what you are talking about.” Eddie says, his voice flat as he tries to avoid the other’s gazes. He takes a towel to dab at his forehead.
“Come on, man,” Freak butts in, “you told him to stay after the concert, you have told Chrissy to get them here. We said we were not going to be that kind of band, that we were going to be like My Chemical Romance: no groupies and after concert dnd sessions.”
“Yeah, if you go with that guy what happens to our dnd session.”
“We can play dnd any other day, okay?” Eddie snaps, his hands stretched in front of him. A part of him thinks he looks like that meme of Chris Pratt in front of the dinosaurs, the other part of him detests that he thought of him. “I will make it up to you.”
“Who are you and what have you done to our DM?” Freak asks, his voice serious.
“Yeah, what is this talk about postponing dnd for some boy?” Gareth adds, there is something in his tone Eddie doesn’t like.
“Some boy? Some boy? Am I the only one with eyes in this fucking band? He is the hottest person that has laid eyes on me and I’m not letting you fuckers take that opportunity from me for one session of dnd or I swear to God I am killing every one of your characters.”
The boys don’t answer, they look at him with wide eyes and raised eyebrows.
“Wow” a voice says from behind Eddie.
He doesn’t recognize the voice but the expressions on the rest of the band in front of him make him freeze. They go from slightly annoyed to wary and to bemused. Mainly a mix of all at the same time.
The sounds of steps approaching them break the silence that had fallen in the room, before a voice finishes breaking it.
“How does dnd work with you nerds anyway, are you all bards or what?”
The boys drop their mouths open. Eddie still doesn’t recognize the voice, but there is only one person it can belong to. He sounds just as good as he had imagined. Eddie is honestly afraid of turning around after what the boy- Steve- has surely heard.
“Don’t pay attention to him,” a woman’s voice says. There’s the sound of a hit and a quiet ‘ow’ from Steve under it. “He is just trying to sound all confident after whining-“
“Robin.”
“Telling me to not get my hopes up because he probably wasn’t anyone important and you just did this every concert-“
“Robin.”
“But of course he is the luckiest bitch in this planet and has his instant crush reciprocated and-“
“Enough!”
There are some muffled noises that Eddie can only guess are the girl trying to continue speaking. He wishes she wouldn’t stop. His knight in shining armour may be embarrassed, but the rant has put a smile on Eddie’s face, has given him confidence again. He crosses his legs and turns around slowly, his hands coming up beside him.
“By all means, let her continue.”
The adonis, the hottest man that has laid eyes on him, his knight in shining armour, Steve takes his hand away from the girl’s mouth and rubs it on his jeans. Eddie can only guess the girl has licked it. God he wants to be her so bad right now.
“Hey,” Steve says, his hand coming up for a small wave. “Sorry about Robin.”
“No need for that. I’m Eddie.”
“I know,” Steve answers with a cocky smile as he crosses his arms.
“Oh and now you are acting all full of yourself as if you didn’t ask for the name of the band like 20 times 2 hours ago.” Robin says.
“Will you please just shut the fuck up?” Steve asks with the confidence only a best friend can have.
“Not a fan then?” Eddie asks amused.
“Not really my scene,” Steve answers. There is a scoff behind Eddie, and if he wasn’t so lost in Steve’s brown eyes, he may have moved to swat whoever it was. “But I sure am a fan now.”
There is now a groan behind Eddie, but he can only focus on the way his heart jumps at the words, the way Steve’s mouth lifts in one side in a smirk, how his eyes spark.
“I can get you front row tickets to all the gigs, baby.”
There’s a gagging noise being Eddie, and this time he does turn around to swat at Gareth. The little shit just laughs at him.
When he turns back towards Steve he is looking between them with a smile on his lips and he looks- damn- he’s been looking beautiful since he saw him at the beginning of the concert that night, but now his hair is a mess from the almost two hours of sweating and moving around and Eddie’s on stage confidence is slowly being replaced by his fast beating heart.
“Look man I-“ Steve starts, “I don’t want to be a problem,” he adds, glancing behind Eddie as he bites his lip. The girl next to him- Robin- turns to him with an incredulous look on her eyes that Eddie is sure mirrors his own. “But you are hot, I want to take you on a date, and the others wanted to meet you.”
Robin rolls her eyes and looks at Eddie with an eyebrow up.
“The others?” Eddie manages to say, just before he remembers the teenagers around Steve all night.
“Yeah, they are with Chrissy, I asked them to give us five minutes before coming.”
Eddie is about to say something, maybe ask about the date Steve mentioned, but in a second the door is filled with said teenagers, the one with the curly hair in the middle of it.
“YOU GUYS ARE LEGENDS!” he exclaims. It makes Eddie less annoyed about being interrupted. No one has really called them legends before, they have just surpassed 150k listeners in Spotify.
It feels good hearing it.
The dressing room fills with chatter fast, the boys and the teenagers getting along without problem. They take photos, talk about music, about their instruments, about their dnd tradition. The bad part of it all is that Eddie gets separated from Steve. He catches his eye at some point and Steve sends a little wave his way that he answers. He is talking with Robin and Chrissy and, by what Eddie can hear, Chrissy is getting every video Robin has managed to get of Eddie’s and Steve’s interactions through the concert, even a closer video of the kiss than the one Chrissy managed to get. From what he can hear, she wants to post everything on their social media before ‘someone else does and steals the chance at going viral from them’.
Eddie doesn’t know how he feels about posting Steve like that, Eddie should have probably thought, about that before making out with the guy in front of all their audience. But he seems completely comfortable with all of it. Eddie guesses that comes with being as hot as Steve is and knowing it.
It’s some time later, enough that Eddie knows they won’t be able to stay much longer in the venue, that he finally has a chance to slip away. It’s perfect, he has just seen Steve leave the dressing room, probably in search of the toilet, and Gareth and the curly hair boy he has learned is called Dustin are so deep in conversation they don’t notice him stepping away from them and leaving too.
He catches Steve just as he is leaving the toilet. Eddie doesn’t stop to answer Steve’s surprised ‘oh, hey’ that turns into a more surprised ‘woah’ as Eddie pushes him back into the toilet and closes the door behind him.
“Hey” Eddie finally greets. Steve only looks at the closed door behind Eddie and then at him again with what Eddie hopes is amusement. God, he really hopes it’s amusement, he is just not realising how creepy this looks. “So, about that date.”
“Couldn’t wait until I came back?”
“No. I mean, yes.” Why is it so difficult to talk with a pretty boy? Eddie takes a deep breath, composes himself. Theatrics, he is good with those, they make him confident. “I was suffering, being deprived from your company by your companions, and didn’t have another option.”
Steve squints his eyes, “so you decided to have the date in the toilet?”
“What? No.”
Steve takes a step closer to Eddie so now their chests are almost touching. It hadn’t downed on Eddie before how they are almost the same height. It feels very important now when he has Steve’s face right in front of him, when he can look directly at his eyes, at how they drift down to Eddie’s lips. When his inevitably drift to Steve’s lips, the boy is biting his lower lip. “Eager.”
Eddie’s breath hitches in his throat, he may have miscalculated this. There’s something he wanted to say. “No, I-“
Steve chuckles, takes a step back. “Relax dude. I know you haven’t really agreed to the date yet, we got interrupted and all that.” Eddie is about to speak, to agree a thousand times to the date, but Steve keeps talking. “You just offered to buy me a couple of drinks and called me hot,” he smiles when he says that.
“I want the date.” Eddie says before Steve can keep talking, “as soon as possible.”
Steve steps back closer. “Eager.”
“We are leaving on tour, won’t be back for three months.” Eddie explains before all his brain functions completely shut down.
“I can wait three months.”
“I can’t.”
The next second Steve’s lips are on his, his hands are on his hair, and it only takes a second for Eddie’s to do the same. Steve is even a better kisser than he was in front of the audience. Steve pushes him against the door, brings a hand to his hip, pushes one of his legs between Eddie’s. Eddie just groans and lets himself be pushed and moved. Kissed. “Fuck,” he whispers when Steve pulls away for breath. Steve smiles, takes one of Eddie’s hands in his, and kisses him again. It’s so sweet and filthy at the same time Eddie might cry, but he just moves his hips forward, and Steve answers in kind, grinding against him and getting a groan out of both of them. Maybe the rockstars that hook up with people after concerts are onto something. Though Eddie doubts he would want to do this with someone that is not Steve.
A knock on the door startles them both, Robin’s voice coming from the other side.
“Steve?” Steve and Eddie stop kissing to look at each other in silence, their eyes wide. “Chrissy said we need to leave already and you’ve been in there so long I started to worry you were kidnapped. Wait, you are in there, right? Also, have you seen Eddie? He disappeared.” Steve moves, an innocent thing that has his groin brushing against Eddie’s. And he is only a man. He moans. “WAIT! Are you both in there? GROSS.”
Steve snorts, making Eddie smile. They can hear a couple of steps moving away from the door before they come back and there is a bang on the door.
“Steve! Come out you dingus, have you forgotten about your pack of kids?”
Steve lets out a whispered ‘fuck’ before he looks at Eddie with an apology in his eyes. Eddie lets himself be moved away from the door so Steve can open it to talk to his friend outside.
“Hey.”
Eddie opens the door more so he can also fit in the gap, Steve sends him a look, smiles at his appearance, and then looks at Robin again.
“Hey” Eddie greets too. Robin is looking at them and there is no hiding what they have been doing. She can surely see their bruised lips, their wild hair. Eddie just prays she doesn’t look down and sees the bulge in his pants.
“You two are gross, was making me see that once tonight not enough?”
“You have not really seen it this time,” Steve points.
“Still.”
“You are the one that came to interrupt.”
“And for a good reason! Your kids.”
“What about the kids,” Eddie asks.
“He promised to take them home.” Robin says.
“I promised to take them home.” Steve says at the same time, a resigned tone in his voice. He turns to Eddie, his brown eyes sad, and pinches his nose.
“Can’t she take them home?” Eddie points to Robin, and they both turn towards her again.
Robin takes a breath, stops, looks at them, looks at them, sees the tent in Eddie’s pants. Grimaces.
“FINE,” she agrees, and Eddie grins. “But you owe me. Big time.” She adds pointing at Steve.
“I’ll give you ice cream for life.” Steve says. It must be an inside joke because it makes Robin roll her eyes.
“Give me your car keys at least. Rockstar here can drive you home, can’t he?”
“I’ll have him home before eleven.” Eddie swears with a hand on his chest. The other two stare at him in silence. “A.m.” he adds.
“You heard him.” Steve says while handing Robin his keys.
“Okay,” Robin answers. She takes a step back. “Have fun.” She takes a couple of steps away before she turns around. “Use protection, he is a rockstar, we don’t know where his thing has been.”
“Hey,” Eddie protests, but Robin is already running away.
“She is kinda right.” Steve says with a shrug. Eddie purses his lips. “But I have an idea on where it can be in the near future.”
“Lead the way.”
Steve slips his hand into Eddie’s.
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