these hands are shaking from carrying hope
๐
March 2018
Chey stared in shock at his screen, at the man in the photo. He had stubble, now, sure, and his hair was shortโbut the scar that carved across his left eye was familiarity incarnate.
"You're ALIVE?!" Chey gasped aloud, tears leaping, unbidden, to his eyes. The caption of the photo was just confirmation he didn't need: 'Anarchy Keystone.' Chey mouthed the name to himself, unable to breathe, then broke under the weight of his emotions. He buried his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking.
"You're fucking alive..." he whispered against his wrists, his breath hot on the words โDonโt dieโ that Anarchy had inked there eight years ago. An instruction that Chey had somehow followed, despite everything. An instruction heโd always fearedโno, always feltโhis best friend must have failed. But heโd been wrong: Anarchy was alive, had been alive this whole timeโand somehow seemed to be thriving.
Chey desperately swiped the tears from his eyes to stare at the photograph, to drink in every detail. The concert lighting made it hard to tell, but Anarchy didnโt seem nearly as pale as he had been the last time Chey had seen him. His cheeks were no longer hollow and his eyes seemed bright. He was smiling. Tears blurred Cheyโs vision again and his throat seared with the urge to sob or laugh with relief or maybe both at once.
He could feel eyes on him, but he couldn't have cared less that he was crying in full, now, in the middle of a crowded Bronx coffee shop. Let the whole world see.
Anarchy was alive; nothing else mattered.
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Wowza this only took 5ever! Worth it tho, I think. I'm happy with the end product! I want to do a full vignette for this scene at some point, but for now I just have a couple sentences I slapped together in...3 minutes or so. That's alright though, I think the comic speaks for itself.
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2020 update: redrew Anarchy's face bc it had been driving me NUTS and fixed Chey's tattoos. Also added a bit to the lil snippet of writing