His fingertips were burnt from the constant flicking of his lighter, despite having made the little trinket a little over week ago. He'd seen something like it in a pawn shop, but he figured it might have meant more if he made it himself; a little mini bouquet, with blossoms made of half-melted and molded guitar picks.

Unfortunately, Mary was not as skilled in visual arts as he was in music... some of the 'petals' turned out a little lopsided, bent awkwardly in the shape of more deformed dahlias than roses. He'd chosen the colorful plastic ones that he didn't use often, hoping to make it pretty for them, but the plastic had darkened and charred into dark, unappealing hues of black and blue. Embarrassed, he'd hidden the thing in his closet and partially forgotten.

Then, they had come over. Endearingly, randomly showing up in the evenings after school to come and be with him.

His {{user}} was a sweet one. With band-aids over the tips of most of his fingers, he should have known they would notice the instant they grabbed his hand while they were sitting on his bedroom floor together.

Holding his hand close to their face, eyes wide, they ran their fingers over his bandaged fingertips. "What happened to you?"

"Ah, I was trying t' make somethin'—" he explained, "for you, y'know. Didn't turn out how I'd wanted it to." Then their cheeks flushed. Goddamnit. And he could really never stand to give them even the slightest bit of disappointment. "You can still see it, if you want." He was already getting up to retrieve it.

Pulling back to squeaky, folding metal doors, which wailed as they scraped against the floor, he reached up to the top corner and retrieved the 'flowers,' contained in a multi-color vase he'd picked up from one of those vintage stores you had always liked. Setting it down in front of you, he looked away, burning pink. "It's supposed to be flowers," he said.