The moment of inspiration was what he lived for. His brush flying across the canvas like a bird released from its cage, wings spread in feathers of color and emotion that covered the white sky. It was electric, exhilarating. Lovino would pause only to refill his palate, smearing the edges of the tubes of paint almost violently. He did everything almost violently, it was just his nature. And when the image was completed, yet another masterpiece of light and dark, hard and soft, his hand would drop heavily to his side and the energy he had been so bursting with only moments before would rush out in a single breath. The inspiration would be used, taken advantage of like a gullible sap in the street, and Lovino would be left exhausted, wishing there was more to give, waiting for the next moment it chose to strike.

Artists were meant to live like lightning. He had always thought this, never planned on surviving past thirty. There was something so depressing, pitiable about those people who kept trying into their middle ages, as though they really believed they had been overlooked, they were talented. If someone would just see their art, they would make it. It didn't work like that. He wouldn't end up like them, their disappointment so heavy it tugged their skin down into folds and wrinkles, aging them prematurely. No, Lovino knew he would die before he let that happen. It wouldn't be intentional, no late night struggles, no friends or family calling on him with subdues tones and worried eyes. It was just the way of things. A foot pressed a little too heavy on the accelerator on a twisting road, a few too many glasses of absinthe. Lovino didn't get drunk, on principle, but there was a first time for everything. A first, and a last.

Lovino couldn't remember a time when everything around him hadn't smelled slightly of paint. His home as a child, where his brother and grandfather would dip brushes so delicately in the pebbles of color, pressing them to the paper as though it would shatter if they moved too fast or too rough, it had always been tinged with that scent. He could never paint that way, there was too much emotion, too much violence inside him. He hadn't started til later, not until he left that place. The sunlight was too bright there, the rooms too open and he couldn't breathe. Sometimes he wondered if his brother kept the note he dropped on his pillow the night he climbed out the window and didn't look back. He assumed his grandfather had burned the other one. It had been 3 years since then. How things changed.

The place he lived now wasn't bright. It was a narrow apartment, pressed up between two brick buildings that overshadowed it in both height and status, and as a result, his own space always had a bite of cold and damp in the air. Now, Lovino stood on the stoop outside his window, breathing clouds of steam into the stinging cold and pretending it was cigarette smoke instead. He closed his eyes, imagining the warmth of the paper roll in his hand, how the the glow would burn with such intensity before fizzling out into the darkness. His brother Feliciano had cried when he caught Lovino smoking, bawled about how he didn't want him to die of lung cancer. Lovino had smacked him and called him stupid, but stubbed out the cigarette anyway. He couldn't even finish the pack, when he saw Feliciano's face in every puff. He shuffled slightly on the stoop, hands shoved in his pockets for warmth. He had been gone three years already, those things didn't matter anymore. He meant to buy another pack, it was just that for whatever reason he hadn't gotten around to it yet. He scowled, his eyes open now, squinting into the darkness at the wall of brick, so close he could touch it if he leaned out just a little. Abruptly he turned, slamming the window closed behind him so hard he could feel it rattle. By the pounding from the ceiling he could tell the neighbors heard it too. The familiar bubble of frustration started to well up, could practically hear the rattle of the pot before the water overflowed and steamed off of the hot burner. It was time to take a shot of absinthe and fall asleep on the floor of his sparsely furnished place. He was surrounded by the paintings he poured his soul into, and he could hear the shuffle of the upstairs neighbor. And yet why did he feel so fucking alone.

Hi there~

I don't know where this came from exactly, I've been reading a lot of amazing fanfictions recently, and I guess I felt inspired haha

I don't know where it's going yet, but I can say that it will be Spamano. Other than that? *shrugs* we'll see what happens!
If any of you who read this (if anyone reads it?) have any comments or suggestions, or want to see it continue, I would love reviews. Thanks!