awake my soul |jayce/steven}

[Steve S. Fisher]

[height]Steven carefully picked his way through the overgrown roots. Steven took a deep breath of air as he tucked himself just inside the tree line. He was still quite visible from everywhere else except right through the tree - because people didn't see through trees. Stretching his legs out, the brunette ran a tenative hand through his hair and sighed. It was getting fluffy again. He shifted awkwardly as he glanced around. He was never exactly comfortable knowing that people knew he drew.

Which was odd.

He was an art major after all. It was quite obvious that he had to draw. There really was no other way to be an art major. Well, unless you painted and did those other things. Which he did. He was horrible at abstract and shape-based art when he did it on purpose. Art was effortless to him. If he tried to force something, it only got worse. There was a reason why he was leaning against a tree, his pencil tracing lines over paper, instead of at one of the top lawyer colleges in the United States - not including Harvard and all that stuff. They didn't want someone as pathetic and boring as him. They wanted people that could tear your throat out and smile ever so politely while doing so. He'd never been that person. He believed in fairness and justice, yes. But when he'd explained this, his parents had smiled and shaken their heads. He'll learn.

Then, they'd found out that Steven would rather let people win then fight. They noticed how awkwardly he spoke and enrolled him into speech classes. They'd worked for the most part. He didn't stutter as much anymore. Steven raised his hand to brush through his hair as he gazed down at his sketchbook. It was Gabrielle. He really couldn't stop drawing her. He really didn't need her to pose anymore. After that one (awkward) session, Steve had her memorized. Just as he'd memorized his cousin. And that was about it. He'd never drawn his parents, and never wished to. Jayce was easy to remember. He had that frightening presence of him that never came out in his absent sketches. In his sketches, his cousin was the young cousin he knew all grown up. Mischief and bright-eyed and not all shelled up.

And Gabrielle was just stunning.

She had this small smile that she would flash almost as often as she would a smirk or sit on his lap. It was her way of expressing pure joy. And the way she was so fluid and on point in her dances. She might act like a jerk to everyone else, but Steven could see the devotion she had toward dancing. She always seemed to be at peace when she danced. After hundreds of attempts (or was it still in the eighties? he'd lost count), he'd finally gotten her right. His whole notebook was devoted to her - with some interruptions of random people. That one red-head he'd caught sitting on the green, skimming over a book. The two waiters he'd seen around the campus that worked at the Houxton. Actually, he had several of those two from the first time he'd seen them work together. He went there often, and he always planned to go on the days the blonde worked. The blonde of the two was never still and a challenge to draw - her wild hair much like Gabrielle's. And he could never quite master the blonde's expressions. They always seemed to be on the verge of flickering into something else.

And Carlin, her waiter-companion.

He was just as fun to draw, fluffed hair - slightly curled and everything. And while the blonde was everywhere, he was so solidly there. Steven always felt like he understood people when he drew them. As hard as the blonde was to draw (attention-catching as she was), Carlin was easy. Putting them in the same frame, though, was just as easy. They worked together naturally and easily. The blonde was as graceless and blunt and head-spinning as she'd been since he first started eating there. Then, the most recent time he'd visited, there'd been Carlin.

But he didn't like drawing them as much as he enjoyed drawing the teachers and the strangers.

Steven sketched Gabrielle in the center of the page in one of those twirly poses she loved to use to impress him. Or, at least, that's what his guess was. Spinning around made his head ache, but maybe she liked it. He hummed along, deciding to draw a foresty background to the drawing instead of adding more random doodles along the edge. That called for color. He rummaged through his bag before carefully pulling out his kit. He wanted Gabrielle to be some sort of light blue or yellow to match her wild hair - which he was proud to say looked quite good. Needed practice, though.

He sighed. He'd never get it right, would he? He didn't stop, though. Might as well get some practice. He sketched in a few trees in the forefront before using his pretty good horrible coloring skills to shade in the rest of them - making darkening shapes just like the trees. Then there was a noise. Steve nearly kept himself from leaping into the air. The only thing that really kept him grounded was the fact that he was pretty much frozen place. Steven's eyes widened slightly when he heard the crunch of footsteps coming toward him. His sketch was left forgotten as he stared in the direction, starting to curl up on himself.

"Hello?" he asked softly.
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