"Yeah, you can start with a pen!" Flynn smiled, straightening up from the drawer. He grabbed a black ballpoint pen off of the top of the bedside table and tossed it lightly to Eli. "Just anywhere on the wall is fine. I also want to put our handprints up there eventually, but that'll be messy. Maybe some other time," he thought aloud. Stooping back over, Flynn continued to rummage through the wide drawer until he found what he was looking for and pulled it out triumphantely. It was a human skull, at least a few decades old by the looks of it. The jaw was still attatched to the bottom - most likely glued shut at the hinge. However, it wasn't just a regular old human skull. Flynn had painted flowers on it, beautiful bursts of blue, red, yellow, and purple against the pure white. Delicately painted vines and leaves twirled around the flowers, weaving them together in a little dance.
Flynn set it carefully on Eli's bed, still staring at it. For once, he wasn't grinning like a fool. "It reminds me of you," he said softly, still staring at the empty sockets of the skull. Flynn shook his head quickly, suddenly realizing he might sound like a creep. "I mean- Let me explain." Flynn picked the skull up gently, as if it were a frail baby, then perched on the end of Eli's bed. He didn't look up at him, still staring down at the thing in his lap. "For me, this project means a lot. I um…." he trailed off, struggling to get the words out. "I killed someone a long time ago. No, this isn't their skull. I found this one in a collapsed catacombs while I was exploring a few hundred years ago. But that's not the point," Flynn said softly. "The point is, I'm a murderer. I didn't have a motive. Something just came over me and I did it, for fun I guess. I paid the price for it. I still do, to this day." He paused, his voice dark. "I'm a murderer. But I like to think that I've changed since then. I like to think I'm a better person now. And I'll always be a murderer, but maybe I'm not a really bad one. I'll never really forgive myself for taking that person's life away. I won't. But I do like to think I've changed since then. Our mistakes do make up a large part of us, yes. But they don't define us. I am not just a murderer. I'm a painter, and a writer, and a singer, and a murderer. I'm Flynn. And I think it's important to know that. I want you to know that." He paused again, then finally looked up at Eli. His eyes glistened slightly, but the threat of tears was over at this point. "Now, this project. I'm painting flowers on a skull. Why is that important? Well… flowers mean rebirth. Flowers come in the spring, when everything is new and full of life. Flowers mean change, for me." He briefly glanced over to the flowers on his wall, then looked back to Eli. "So yes, I'm a murderer, represented by the skull. But the flowers represent something new, a new birth out of an old death." He let those words sink in for a moment, liking how that was phrased. "A new birth out of an old death…" he whispered to himself, looking back down at the skull again. Flynn smiled and looked up at Eli, holding out the thing to him. "It reminds me of you because I feel like this is a new rebirth. This is a new chapter in my life, that I'm looking forward to spending with you. I hope you do, too."
