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HT100 Flash Fiction Challenge #1 - Forgiveness
I had much smuttier ideas for maverick4oz's birthday tribute here, but this is what happened instead. I have no idea where this sentimental stuff came from, but I offer it in response to the Flash challenge.
It happened so fast and yet time seemed to stand still as he stood there, staring at Toby from across their pod, endless scenarios and arguments raging through Chris' brain while he tried to interpret the look his lithe roommate was giving him. It was when his mind was overthrown by the blood in his veins that he finally closed the distance between them, small in size but expansive in what it meant for both of them. Negotiating that small space, scarcely more than an arms length, was the beginning of a journey that neither had fully prepared for.
In a time it seemed to draw a breath, Chris' arms were around him and Toby's sturdy hand was at his face, feeling his jaw move under its fingertips as he consumed him. Deep within Chris, under heavy folds of self-loathing and roiling cavities of compulsion and malevolence, he felt a shudder. It was if something thought long cold and dead had just gasped for breath.
Heavy hands drunk with blood and numbed with disbelief pushed him slightly back from Toby. He stared intently into a shadowed blue gaze not much unlike his own, searching for something he needed to see for himself. He had heard the words, but he knew better than most that mouths can lie. And when he finally saw it, when he saw forgiveness in Toby's eyes, the last veil of doubt was shed from him. Everything he had done, every wrong step, every ruin of a soul he had made in his life felt forgiven in those eyes.
It happened so fast and yet time seemed to stand still as he stood there, staring at Toby from across their pod, endless scenarios and arguments raging through Chris' brain while he tried to interpret the look his lithe roommate was giving him. It was when his mind was overthrown by the blood in his veins that he finally closed the distance between them, small in size but expansive in what it meant for both of them. Negotiating that small space, scarcely more than an arms length, was the beginning of a journey that neither had fully prepared for.
In a time it seemed to draw a breath, Chris' arms were around him and Toby's sturdy hand was at his face, feeling his jaw move under its fingertips as he consumed him. Deep within Chris, under heavy folds of self-loathing and roiling cavities of compulsion and malevolence, he felt a shudder. It was if something thought long cold and dead had just gasped for breath.
Heavy hands drunk with blood and numbed with disbelief pushed him slightly back from Toby. He stared intently into a shadowed blue gaze not much unlike his own, searching for something he needed to see for himself. He had heard the words, but he knew better than most that mouths can lie. And when he finally saw it, when he saw forgiveness in Toby's eyes, the last veil of doubt was shed from him. Everything he had done, every wrong step, every ruin of a soul he had made in his life felt forgiven in those eyes.