Your Petals Are My Thorns

Hope you enjoy. :) x

Dan likes flowers. He likes the way they smell, he likes the way their petals feel on his skin, all smooth and soft like satin. He likes them in all shapes and colours, and he likes to carve them into his skin. There's a small garden growing on the inside of his thighs, most flowers faded, only two still red. Sometimes he wishes he could choose the colour of the flowers growing on his thighs, make them colourful like the rainbow. Those flowers on his thighs, they are there to remind him to be a good son, a good Christian, because sometimes Dan likes to look at boys the way he looks at flowers, and sometimes he likes the way boys smell when they walk by, and sometimes he wonders what their hair or skin would feel like under the touch of his fingers, if it would be all smooth and soft like satin. Sometimes Dan thinks about boys like he thinks about flowers, can't help but notice that they are beautiful. But Dan is a man, and men don't find other men beautiful because it's wrong and a sin. Dan wants to be a good son, both for his parents and for God, and that's why every time he dares to think of boys like flowers, he punishes himself by carving a flower on the inside of his thighs.

"Dan, honey, dinner is ready," his mother calls for him from downstairs, and Dan puts away his pen to take a break from homework. Before they start eating, his family holds hands and prays. Before Dan goes asleep that night, he kneels down before his bed, folds his hands and prays to the wooden cross above his nightstand. With every prayer, he has the phantom feeling of the flowers on his thighs tingling. Dan sees it as a sign of God's forgiveness for his sins.
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The new student comes on a cold and rainy Monday in November. His hair is black and his uniform slightly rumpled, the tie around his neck lose. The teacher introduces him as Phil Lester, and when Phil has to say a few words about himself Dan spots the glistening telltale sign of a piercing on his tongue. He sits at the back of the class. Dan carves a flower into his thigh that night before praying and going to sleep.

Phil becomes popular quickly. He's a trouble maker. Dan hears the whispered conversations about how Phil's sometimes seen smoking, and about how his skin is apparently covered in tattoos hidden under the white shirt and blazer of his school uniform. He's also smart, challenges the teachers, likes to call them out. Dan feels uncomfortable whenever Phil gets into a discussion, hunches his shoulders and tries not to look back at the boy as the teacher gets redder in the face every second. The insides of his thighs tingle uncomfortably.
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On Sundays Dan goes to church with his family and occasionally after that he likes to visit the bookshop on the other side of town. His parents don't like it that he likes to read non-religious books. They've taken away his books in the past, so when he leaves church he excuses himself by saying he wants to go to the park. It's not a lie, because he'll visit the park before going to the bookshop. It's just only half the truth. He keeps the books he buys hidden under his bed and only reads them when he knows he's alone.

The employees here know him and greet him with a smile. Dan immediately makes his way to the supernatural section. Lately he's become interesting in werewolf stories, and he searches for the second part of the book he's finished just last Wednesday. His parents would probably send him to a religious boarding school if they knew he reads books about humans turning into creatures at full-moon. Either that or they would kick him out with just the clothes he's wearing on his back.

So invested in finding the book he's searching for, fingers grazing over the spines of them as he does so, Dan doesn't notice that he's suddenly not standing alone in front of the supernatural section anymore.

"You're in my class, aren't you? It's Dan, right?"

Dan startles at the voice and looks up, eyes wide. At first glance he only sees tattoos on pale skin and black clothes, but then his eyes travel up further to meet Phil's eyes. Dan quickly straightens up, every muscle tense. His hair is ruffled even more than at school and he's close enough for Dan to see the flecks of yellow around his irises in his blue eyes.