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justprompts | Smoking
Saturday, 16 August 2008 19:50![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
strips4uPicture Prompt: Smoking
PAST SCENE, SET LATE AUGUST 2005
“It’s just hair. It’ll grow back, baby…”
Maddy’s words had been comforting to Flynn at the time. He’d nodded and laughed it off with a weak joke about it being no different to getting a Brazilian and he didn’t even have to suffer pain of waxing. It’s easier to laugh something off when it’s just a notion. What he didn’t realise at the time was how accurate his jesting had been…
Flynn made a grab for the shower taps and shut it off abruptly. His slicked wet body was still soapy, rinsing being the last thing on his mind at the moment. He’d been expecting the hair on his head to start to fall out at any time; he’d had dreams of waking up completely bald or walking down the street and all his hair blowing out with a mere breeze of wind. It wasn’t like that, of course. And nor was it the hair on his head that he started to lose first.
He uncurled his hand, palm up and stared at the dark hair, stark against the light skin of his palm. He was losing his pubic hair. He gave a small laugh of disbelief and swallowed back a niggling warning of nausea. For some reason, this was more of a shock than what he expected finding the hair on his head falling out would be. He stumbled out of the shower and over to the sink to turn the cold tap on heavily. He stuck his palm underneath the spray and it washed the course, curly strands down the drain.
The water continued to run as he looked down at himself. He didn’t look any different. He expected to find baldness most definitely on par with a Brazilian, but he realised it was irrational to think it would all fall out at once. He clutched the edge of the sink, leaning forward on to it to stare at himself in the mirror. He looked so sick. His face was grey with heavy black marks under his eyes bloodshot, sunken eyes. Dark eyes turned up to his head, sweeping over the lacklustre, limp strands which were normally shiny and thick.
Closing his eyes to somehow struggle for a burst of confidence, he slowly put his hands up to his head and dragged his fingers through his hair. Large chunks of brown hair came away when he brought his hands back down and he just looked at them, horrified. No amount of warning or words could ever have completely prepared him for this moment. It was really happening. He had cancer. He was dying. He was losing his hair.
By the week’s end, he’d be bald.
Silent tears slipped down his already wet cheeks. He couldn’t even place why he was crying at that point. He simply shut the tap off and went out in to the living room, still wet, soapy and naked, to pick up his packet of cigarettes. With a shaky hand, he managed to light one up.
That was how Maddy found him when she got home from the shops, standing there with a cigarette in one hand and a fist full of his own hair in the other, a puddle of shower water pooled around his bare feet. They would eventually move on from it enough to joke about it one day, but at that moment, they just both stood there in shock, then held each other in tears like they would never let go.
Madison James [![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
canmakeufeel] used with permission
Words | 581
PAST SCENE, SET LATE AUGUST 2005
“It’s just hair. It’ll grow back, baby…”
Maddy’s words had been comforting to Flynn at the time. He’d nodded and laughed it off with a weak joke about it being no different to getting a Brazilian and he didn’t even have to suffer pain of waxing. It’s easier to laugh something off when it’s just a notion. What he didn’t realise at the time was how accurate his jesting had been…
Flynn made a grab for the shower taps and shut it off abruptly. His slicked wet body was still soapy, rinsing being the last thing on his mind at the moment. He’d been expecting the hair on his head to start to fall out at any time; he’d had dreams of waking up completely bald or walking down the street and all his hair blowing out with a mere breeze of wind. It wasn’t like that, of course. And nor was it the hair on his head that he started to lose first.
He uncurled his hand, palm up and stared at the dark hair, stark against the light skin of his palm. He was losing his pubic hair. He gave a small laugh of disbelief and swallowed back a niggling warning of nausea. For some reason, this was more of a shock than what he expected finding the hair on his head falling out would be. He stumbled out of the shower and over to the sink to turn the cold tap on heavily. He stuck his palm underneath the spray and it washed the course, curly strands down the drain.
The water continued to run as he looked down at himself. He didn’t look any different. He expected to find baldness most definitely on par with a Brazilian, but he realised it was irrational to think it would all fall out at once. He clutched the edge of the sink, leaning forward on to it to stare at himself in the mirror. He looked so sick. His face was grey with heavy black marks under his eyes bloodshot, sunken eyes. Dark eyes turned up to his head, sweeping over the lacklustre, limp strands which were normally shiny and thick.
Closing his eyes to somehow struggle for a burst of confidence, he slowly put his hands up to his head and dragged his fingers through his hair. Large chunks of brown hair came away when he brought his hands back down and he just looked at them, horrified. No amount of warning or words could ever have completely prepared him for this moment. It was really happening. He had cancer. He was dying. He was losing his hair.
By the week’s end, he’d be bald.
Silent tears slipped down his already wet cheeks. He couldn’t even place why he was crying at that point. He simply shut the tap off and went out in to the living room, still wet, soapy and naked, to pick up his packet of cigarettes. With a shaky hand, he managed to light one up.
That was how Maddy found him when she got home from the shops, standing there with a cigarette in one hand and a fist full of his own hair in the other, a puddle of shower water pooled around his bare feet. They would eventually move on from it enough to joke about it one day, but at that moment, they just both stood there in shock, then held each other in tears like they would never let go.
Madison James [
canmakeufeel] used with permissionWords | 581
