#I looked up the variations of Hanahaki | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

1864reruns · 7 months ago

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ㅤㅤㅤgratefulness (i'm sorry, can this be over now?)ㅤ౨ৎㅤ12.9k

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oneㅤ/ㅤtwo synopsis. luffy loves you— you know this with how abundantly clear love is in every ministration of his outstretched hand and a grin— yet your traitorous heart demands more, even though you're in no place to give him your loyalty. you know this so you do not demand his love nor to be saved, even when met with a relentlessly stretched hand.

warning(s). gn! reader, hanahaki disease, but some creatively liberated variation of it, angst, hurt/some comfort, slow burn, but does it really count if nothing happens?, unrequited love, pining and the works, background character death, blood, violent imagery, vague allusion to an unspecified mental disorder that involves eating habits (pls be careful!!!), luffy tries his best to be kind but it's cruel, reader spirals 🙏; minimal editing and proofreading (these are basically my thoughts raw and unadulterated)

from vyon. the card game they play is a vietnamese one also known as smth like thirteen in english and has too many rules to explain but it doesn't really matter :3 i was a beast at that game though i fear; this fanfic has been in my drafts for so long, it also grew into too big of a project than it was meant to be. i also had to split this up into two parts, it was getting too long, i'm sorry ＞︿＜

do not repost / copy / translate.

Once you know Monkey D. Luffy, you'll know his heart not a few minutes after. He's welded the unmoving, burning ingot to his bicep, always on display due to his amassing collection of armless vests; rubber skin melted around the golden gem, oozing past the lines of his beating heart to staple it there, an anomaly on the expanse of skin not otherwise susceptible to bullets or cannons. Your captain is a man that lives with his heart on his tongue, always ready to dictate the lay of your next move with an irregular beat that drums against the skinned men of war and an impulsivity that makes his crew scramble after him exasperatedly; oxygen taken from his cerebral arteries to his brain are stained in the grease and oil that stick to the meat he handles so carelessly. In the same endearing way, he's careless with his heart, allows for the small stuff to momentarily prick his heart, for judgement to cloud into anger before it picks up on the bitter taste of agony.

It's always easy to get a frown onto Luffy's face. Feign disinterest in his stories; make yourself too busy to help him look for strange insects; force him to shower, scold him after he does something he wasn't meant to; keep him away from something he seems interested in; starve him for more than five minutes— he makes it all exceptionally too easy. You're not audacious enough to claim to know Luffy any more than the Strawhats, especially not those that he had met in East Blue; you try not to let it bother you that they managed to meet a younger Luffy who had so many holes in his defence, whose smile threatened through skin more, who had yet to find scars in his palm from how hard he had to clench his fists.

To you, it seems unfair that Luffy had managed to uncover so many of your firsts. His unwavering presence by your side as you learnt how hard it was to live on sea, the intonations of your screaming when a marine canon was pointed at you, to live so freely away from the confines of restrictive justice, how it felt to have a hand in yours to promise forever and then some. Luffy has no preferential treatment when it comes to people he loves; he treats them all the same, no hierarchy could dream to disrupt that.

With the same sandals he uses to stomp on the faces of Marine's, he could demand food from Sanji, money from Nami, Zoro to play with him— instead, you watch him whine Sanji, food and dissolve into a puddle when his cook orders him to wait, he allows Nami's fists to fall onto his head when he makes any financially impulsive decision (or even thinks them), and he idles himself with drawing on Zoro's face with Usopp and Chopper, with the previous two of them taking the psychical brunt of their consequences. (Chopper is let off with a mere promise that he won't join in with their shenanigans again when it involves making Zoro into a fool and a growing bump underneath his hat.)

Luffy, from second to fourth gear, is tender aggression when it is love.

His form is bizarrely respectful when the door opens and light dawns upon your face; you see him through the gaps of Nami and Sanji's legs and towering forms over him, his hands on his thighs and feet tucked underneath his bottom. He slurs out an I'm sorry that lets you know that his face is definitely messed up and then follows up with an I was hungry though!

Then Nami messes him up some more for his shitty justification.

She leaves him— some caricature of her anger— on the floor with her hands on her hips and Sanji trailing after her with hearts in his eyes at her dominant display of power. As she passes Brook, he asks for the colour of her underwear and earns himself the same treatment. It's then that you laugh. Luffy snapped his head up, following after the trembling air of your laughter and then calls out your name, the syllables are all messy around his swollen cheeks and a missing tooth that will come back after a few minutes but you cannot rid yourself of the thought that it's sticky with love that you only remember hearing when you were just a babe, screaming and crying in the arms of a tired and ill mother in a hospital. You were introduced to a group of midwives with same love you hear now, their idle finger catching into both your small hands; Luffy's hand dances across the air, breaking apart your laugh with urgency and catching onto your wrist.

You're not sure if it's you who had been pulled to him or if he'd managed to catapult himself into you but you both end up a mess on the floor regardless. Limbs tangled around each other in a wave as you both fall to the deck, Luffy does not correct the length of his arm and takes to wrapping the limb around you like a vine snaked around the trunk of a tree. You don't know a start nor an end as Luffy nuzzles his beat–up face on your shoulder. "Hey captain," you raise your head to look down on him, trying to wrench a hand through the tight spirals he's coiled around you.

"I'm hungry," he whines in lieu of a response, "and I'm bored, Usopp kicked me out after I ate one of his ketchup stars." He doesn't relent with his hold on you, simply loosening the coil that you're trying to work your hand through before tightening again once your arm makes it past to trap it against your side. You don't question the fact that Usopp's ketchup stars may be laced with gunpowder or what the small dose of gunpowder may have done to Luffy's internal organs.

You guess even Usopp has his limits when it comes to his childish captain. "I can't do a lot about either of those things if you're keeping me hostage here." He looks up at you, his exaggeratedly large lips in a pout that matches the swelling of his cheeks and then says your name again, like you’ve done him wrong. It's a disordered collection of the letters again but you find you can't really do anything to fight against it. Instead, green tendrils sprout from your trapped arm, each vine wrapped in a light of leaves and strain against his extended limb before he gives in and, instead, laughs as he wraps his rubber arm around the spindly, twisted branches splitting open layers of skin on your bicep. His skin coloured against the green runner keeps the bine from wilting down to meet gravity.

You let Luffy do whatever he wants, with an expression that you're not sure you're too familiar with etched out on the lines of your face. Thinking back on it, you could've simply done as Nami had or Usopp, ignore or scold him enough into submission but his fingers catch one of the fronds and it curls between the meat of his fingertips, reaching out to tickle his palm and something soft blooms inside you. You know it must be you, not the work of your devil fruit, because as much as you've tried in your lacklustre pursuit of beauty, you've never been able to sprout any kind of flowers.

When Luffy finally lets you go, you find your way into the kitchen and give Sanji a smile. You apologise for interrupting him and tell him that you know that lunch had been served only an hour ago but, if he wasn't too busy, you were still a little peckish. Sanji shoots up immediately and asks you what you've got a taste for— you assure him any leftovers from lunch will do and he tells you, though this doesn't come as any surprise, that Luffy had worked his way through any grain of leftovers with a laugh. You laugh along with him and well, you seemed to be craving meat right now.

The plate he prepares seem to be more about quality rather than quantity, with sauce underneath the red meat drizzled across the white ceramic, a slab of meat already cut into bite sized pieces for you and a decorative herb stuck between the fatty slices but when the light oozes down into the stretch of meat, you don't think Luffy will complain too much.

You, of course, were right about that.

The shattering grin he greets you (the plate of meat, however small it seemed) with gives you the faint smell of sticky rain drenched in the light of the sun, and you almost give him your hand when he reaches out for the plate. Brook's guitar strums in the background and your heart shakes in time with his strings and Luffy's incessant chewing.

You've really no problems with Usopp asking you to help him with target practice, it's fairly common for you to help the crew with their unique fighting style— save Nami and Franky for fear of losing your life with their less than particular aimed area of damage— it's easy enough really. You don't even have to be mentally present for it; shaking through layers of flesh, vines grow across the deck of the Sunny and rise up straight to tower over Usopp as he fixes his goggles over his eyes. You keep a quarter of your mind instilled in every chloroplast that shivers across the skies so you can keep them moving but the other three quarters are focused on the card game you play with Robin, Chopper, and Franky.

You hear the snapping of elastic and your finger twitches against the back of playing cards as the particular vine shot to the left, glancing curiously at Chopper's hand across from you when he turned to Franky and accuses him of looking at his cards.

"It's not my fault!" Franky frowned, fixing his comedically small glasses to perch on his metal nose. "Your cards just happen to be in my view when I'm looking at the pile 'cause you're tiny!"

Chopper takes to this horribly (you reshape a vine that has fallen to one of Usopp's stones and keep it relentless across the wave of air) and he grows into the much less cute and broader, more human version of himself to hold his hand out of Franky's view. (Two vines snap together and they take the path to slice through air to where Usopp stands, you hear the cracking of wood as Usopp shouts at you, saying he only wanted to focus on offence. An apology is drawn out with the green arm in the air.)

"Ivy," your eyes flicker to Robin and she gestures to the pile of discarded where the two of spades had been placed on top. "It's your turn." You glance down at your hand, eyes flickering over the collection of 7's in your hand.

"Bomb." (You feel a vine break apart into pieces, think about the fact that it's lucky you've no nerves attached to the tendrils, and keep the one down to give Usopp a little win.) Franky curses your name as Robin chuckles.

Chopper glances at the four 7's with a sense of wonderment that you're sure is too dramatic for the moment. "No wonder I had no sevens!" You give him a sly grin and watch Robin pass her turn, ignoring Franky's levelled glare behind his glasses.

In the end, Robin wins anyways, ridding herself of her hand with her final card being the two of hearts. The loss is taken bitterly by both you and Franky though you think Franky definitely takes it worse than you do as when he stands to sulk away, cards fall out of his speedos, and they leave a trail after him. Robin, in all her morbidity, laughs behind a hand as you and Chopper drop your jaws in disgust.

Chopper collects the cards, hesitating with the ones that had been on Franky until Robin points out that you've all played many rounds and there's a chance that all of them had shared the same fate. (Another vine shutters down to the floor, broken apart and particles flown across the deck.) The cards slowly fall to the floor as Chopper cries out in disgust. Shaking your head with some colourful amusement, you use the two vines fallen to pick up the cards and start shuffling them.

Responding to Chopper's call, Luffy shoots his way from Sunny's figurehead. "What're you guys doin'?" He falls graciously to where Franky had previously been sitting; his eyes are ever so impatient to glance over the cards being shuffled. "Oh," he says with great interest, "are you guys playing 'go fish'?" He leaned towards you— the cards in your possession, actually— and blinks at the shuffling. "Lemme in!"

"We weren't playing 'go fish', Luffy." The little doctor has since calmed down, taking a seat between Luffy and Robin and shaking his head. "We were playing—" he turns his head up to Robin, to which she supplies 'bài tiến lên' with the intricate accents and all, "that!"

A flash of thinking places itself on Luffy's face, crossing his arm and tapping the side of his sandals on the deck, then it's gone. "Let's just play 'go fish' then."

Chopper whines, saying that 'go fish' is boring and that Luffy always snatches more than one card from other people's hands, which is cheating, and that he doesn't want to play.

Luffy turns to you with a pout, eyebrows furrowed at the dip where his nose bridge starts and then straightened out towards the end. The two vines that had been expertly dodging all of Usopp's shots and taunting him by doing silly dances and twisting into words in the air both crumple down to the floor at the same time, they follow the curve of your spine as you double over, a breath stuttering in your throat. You hear Usopp call your name and the deck of cards slip out from the vines that had been shuffling this entire time, your hand wraps around your throat and you hack out a cough you've managed to choke on.

"Are you dying?" Chopper shoots up, frantic as you keep coughing and choking— both violent in temperament, and scampers around, shouting for a doctor.

Footsteps tap closer as a shadow forms over you, Usopp's hand patting your back ferociously comes after the sound of shoes stop.

The blur that came with tears invading your eyes gives you the confidence to look at Luffy again before you're calling Chopper to a stop. "I'm fine, just choked on air."

You don't mention how it felt like you were breathing through a cheesecloth, how your lungs feel so restricted with every inhale as you all compromise on 'chase the ace' and how easier it feels when Usopp pushes his way between you and Luffy, too intimidated to pick from Robin's hand; when you all finish up for dinner, Robin is looking at you in a way that makes you think she's caught onto how you've been struggling.

Dinner is a strange ordeal. It's characterised with its usual events: Luffy sneaking his hands into people's plates though his stands full, Usopp trying to hold his plate out of his way, Zoro tending to his glass bottle of beer, Sanji making some quip about Zoro's show of alcoholism, Nami getting increasingly annoyed by the noise around her, Brook's laughter, Zoro escalating the situation with Sanji, Chopper screaming when Luffy clears Usopp's plate and then goes for the doctor's, Robin watching the scene with the patience of a saint, Franky pretending he was better than the rest, Usopp exacting revenge on Luffy by swapping their plates. It all ends with Nami telling them all to shut up and Luffy taking one final chicken leg from Zoro's plate. You stare down at your plate and count the missing bits, Luffy hasn't really touched any of the potatoes or asparagus, so you finish them up.

Two chicken thighs sit in stark contrast to the plate, thinking about having them anywhere near your mouth makes you a little sick for some reason, the weight of them in your stomach, the taste of caramelised skins, crisped with wells of juice sat next to a tinge of burnt flesh; you push the plate over to Luffy and detest the way he can take the colour of well–done oranges between his teeth and not care about the juice dribbling down his chin.

Luffy says thanks with his mouth full of chicken; Nami glares at him and turns a more concerned face to you (that also makes you sick) and inquires about you not eating. You mumble out some excuse about not being hungry, not feeling well, having a little bit of a headache, feeling tired— something along those faux lines, you don't remember but you remember that you don't tell them the truth exactly. "Sorry Sanji," you fix into your shitty excuse after, running a hand through your hair, to make yourself feel better about the entire ordeal.

He offers to make you a more palatable porridge or soup instead.

You take a cigarette and a red apple, going to bed hungry and angry at some unknown thing that brews on the tip of your tongue.

The next island is of great interest to Luffy.

The entire crew knows that its history nor culture was not either reason behind his excitement, only the mere prospect of digging his sandals into new, uncharted land is why he's running around the deck, filling up the empty spaces with bubbling laughter. Sanji finishes up bentos for those that are leaving, taking unnecessary extra care with Nami��s, and wishing he had it in him to starve Zoro whilst Nami is giving everyone an allowance. You take two bentos, yours and Chopper's, and head out onto the deck. Luffy only seemed momentarily sad that you were going with the doctor but bounced back immediately after when the trees come closer enough to intimidate so you push down the offer to join him instead. Franky joins up with Usopp, Luffy'll run off alone regardless of who he ends up going with, Nami ends up going with Zoro (to Sanji's displeasure), and you and Chopper make plans to find a pharmacy and a library for Robin.

Being around Chopper is easy enough with this unsettling prick of poison that's forced minimal responses, curt words, a flurry of tiredness, a sickening chill through your days recently. The little doctor is a lot more mindful of changes in mood, it's not any imminent injury either so he doesn't press to know why. Out of guilt (for being a brooding asshole lately), you ask him about his rumble balls and all his different forms. He answers cheerily and you can only pick out every other word with a persistent headache as the smell in the air changes from salty skies and bloody fish to sweetened foods and something unfamiliarly clean.

It's a bright island. You hear a faint bell in the distance that is traced over with the sound of children and stall owners; Chopper's hooves rhythmically sound beside you on the pavement and you find yourself counting them in groups of four. "Ah, there." You pick up your head and turn to follow the direction of Chopper's eyes. A sign is hung on the side of the building, the library. "Robin wanted a book of North Blue diseases for some reason," Chopper mumbles to himself as you two push open the door.

It's a small bookstore, walls lined with books and the paths carved with more standalone bookcases. "North Blue diseases?" You repeat, confused, "do they have North Blue exclusive illnesses?"

Your question goes unanswered, though it looks like it opens a vault of new questions for Chopper. Books aren't of great interests to you, so you follow behind Chopper as he walks through each section and grab whichever book he tells you to bring down for him. On the way back, you tell Chopper to keep going and change your course in search of something you're not too sure of.

You stray away from the town centre and head deeper through the small alleys of the town, there's no destination in mind; without the urgency of a fights and with the domesticity of a small knit community, you wander adrift. There's a dampness in the air to the walk around a shadowed hide of the place that loosens up the tension below your ribs, many different eyes follow after your form as the heel of your shoes click against a null path; shadows ooze around the soles of your shoe and lacquer up between the carved maze of black rubber of your soles until you find your way into a dead end.

It's a little bit of a cliché to be met with a ragtag group of delinquents when you turn to go back. Your eyes trace over them. In the hand of the one closest to you sits your wanted poster.

Something blooms inside you again— it's a much more pleasant feeling than the unmoving sap of ire that's been invading lately. Each man before you is physically bigger, towering over you ominously and shadows eating you but they all have swords and guns in their hands and that's why they lose. You, to the detriment of all life around you, are a weapon in and of itself; you choke out the vitality from others and steal their nutrients. They strained against their confines as their skin blossoms through shades of blooms, you are not the merciful rubber of a human, so your constraints don't relent, they squeeze and squeeze until the bark splits apart, until blood is cut off at the source, until they wither, until you are full.

On the way back, you buy a gift for everyone with the money you hadn't used and when they take to it, all in their varying degrees of joy, you feel less bad about the dead end alley full of brothers and sons. You tell yourself, handing Zoro a gift of alcohol, if not them, then it'd have been you.

You end up staying anchored to the island for a week to your displeasure. The longer you're stuck there, the closer you are to exploding; you always keep an eye out on the log pose strapped to Nami's wrist like you could quicken the process if you stare enough. Usopp starts avoiding you out of fear you'll blow like a poorly constructed cannon, Zoro makes you train with him to see if it'll help blow off some steam, Sanji brings you iced drinks at a rate that keeps you dizzy but you always feed it to Luffy or redirect it to Chopper's or Usopp's office with a little note.

On the third day, you follow in Zoro's example and sprawl out on the deck to rest your tireless mind. You've always wondered how sleep was ever a possible option for him when the feet thundering across the deck came with obstructive vibrations, no doubt slapping any chance of sleep away from his mind, but you find that it's almost pleasant. Beats all from familiar loves translates through the groves of wooden planks and etch through the back of your spine, you feel a bone fall back into place after Nami's heels against the floor and the thunderous kick that lands where Zoro was standing manages to work its way up your head to ease a headache.

The sun burns cries into your eyes and the skies move fluidly, they don't ripple as clouds shrivel against a light blue you're unfamiliar with; even as you close your eyes, you continue to feel the burn of the sun. The slapping of weaved straw against a sticky, sweaty sole then the deck comes as you slip into sleep.

Dreams have never been so amicable enough to become a recurrent in your life; more often than not, you're shown memories all blended together into a mess that leaves you sick, the abhorrent now and the nostalgic then bleeding past their confines until you see your mother stood next to that deceitful Marine admiral, both with that same look in their face. You wake up with a start when a loud bang scours its way through a flurry images you're unfamiliar with and then your body escapes you. Your head weighs with the heaviness of the bodies dropped to the floor, arms cold as if dipped into the river Styx, bones locked in place with a restrictive pain, muscles burning, aware of every breath that shivers through your suddenly odd body.

"Owww," three Luffys blur around each other as you pushed a hand to the floor to straighten up, you try blinking away the other two, but they're glued to the captain reflecting in your eyes; he looks down at what he's tripped on and follows it back to you. Your hand is met with something curved in shape when you go to push yourself up and when you look down, you see vines underneath you. You realise then that a burst of them had grown beneath you, splitting through the lawn deck and uplifting some of the planks underneath the greenery and inching upwards towards the guard rails of the ship. They take the form of something you think you met in your most recent sleep.

Luffy has managed to crawl his way towards you in the time you spend wondering why your devil fruit had been acting up— in your sleep no less and he wraps a hand around your ankle to get your attention. "Hey, you're really cold." He pointed out, eyes flickering down to the flesh between his fingers and then trailing his fingers up your thigh as he shifts closer to you on his knees.

The touch makes you violent and tender. "Really?" You managed to puff out, giving too much air back to the world with how much you're panting, "I feel a little warm though."

Luffy hums, clapping his hand over your cheeks with gentleness he only shows to those he loves, and it feels wrong. You get an itch underneath your skin that urges you to move, move, move but you can only push Luffy away with a ferocity he'd never shown you as you tremble under the bursting of violent air hacking up your throat, your shoulders strain as you wrapped your arms around your stomach, trying to heave out something that wasn't there.

Luffy scrambles back immediately, not caring for you shoving him away, and soothes away the rattling of your core with his clammy hands on your arm. "Are you sick?"

No, you think as a retch comes up your mouth; maybe, you correct as the path is marked by drool slipping down your chin and tears streaking across your cheeks. You shake away Luffy again. He's less submissive this time, his legs open over yours to plant his knees by your thighs. You hear him call for Chopper and it's obvious he has something of a frown marked on his face; you keep burning beneath your skin, but Luffy keeps rubbing his palms over your arms like you're cold.

You realise what your vines had drawn underneath you when Chopper comes out, fretting over you as he takes Luffy's place close to you. A grave. The image makes you laugh as the reindeer instructs his captain to haul you up after you'd ignored his inquires on if you could walk; your arm bends around the shape of Luffy's shoulder and your laughter erratically convulses into a collection of coughs from the skin on skin high.

You forced into bed rest after Chopper does a preliminary round of tests on you and declares you've simply gone down with a cold. You take to the diagnosis apprehensively, though in Chopper's defence, how was he meant to accurately diagnose you if you don't tell him all your symptoms? Instead, you sit in his office and spend the minutes, all alone, trying to retch out the feeling of having a piece of hair down your throat; you claw at the blanket and keep hacking until you've got a blanket full of tears and spit. The feeling does not pass.

At lunch, you get a visit from Franky who comes by to complain that you've made unnecessary work for him. "—seriously, how did you manage that in your sleep? Were you having a nightmare?" He ranted, legs crossed and leaned back in the visitor chair in a way that pushes his skinny, hairy legs close to your face.

Scrunching up your face, you sit up. "It was the future." You rebut, in between all his fantastical stories of his nightmares and talking about how he'd never attack Sunny even if Chopper grew a mechanical, giant arm and overthrew Luffy to become their captain. "A future," you correct yourself before turning to Franky with eyes judgemental, "are you scared of Chopper?"

"You weren't there at Enies Lobby," he tells you, which serves as a cruel reminder of sorts. You think about all the scars you've seen littered on the crew's skin and wonder which ones they've collected while they were with Luffy and who knows of which. The faint, protruding marks underneath Nami's tattoo, the stitches around Zoro's ankles, the ones pulled across his chest; you wonder if Sanji's got one hidden underneath his bangs. "The future?" Franky repeats after a moment, "are you a prophet?"

"It's a working theory," you brush off instead. "Though I can see in my mind's eye that Luffy is currently eating all the food and you’ll be left to starve if you don't go back."

Franky scrambled up from the seat not a second after your words.

With him gone, you settle back onto the bed and wonder about too many things to recall.

Between the hours after lunch and before dinner, Luffy comes by. He settles himself on the bed and forces you up as well, the shifting causes another cough to burgeon in your throat and you turn your head the other way to spit it out in an uncontrolled group of four. "You're not feeling better?" He frowns.

You see now that he's holding two pieces of barbequed meat in his hand, he's got the bone in his palm as he holds it upright like a sword, juices from the flesh dripping down to his hand and the smell gives you a headache. "Do you want this?" You move your eyes to Luffy, he's got his eyebrows furrowed together and his lips straightened out in a line when you don't answer. "Both?" He looks over at you, then the meat, and then you. "You," he swallows, "you can have them," his knuckles turn red around the bone, "since you need energy and you're sick." You think he's trying to convince himself to give them up.

You reached out and watch Luffy's face turn sour as his expression squeezes altogether around a midpoint trapped in his nose; you retract your hand and watch his face relax and his body unwind, you think he's moved his hand back a little. You repeat it again a few more times until laughter comes up and dislodges the uncomfortable feel of hair set deep in your throat. "It's fine, Luffy, you can have 'em."

"Really?"

"Mhm, go for it."

He moans around a bite of meat, crying your name as he chews and says thank you. The feeling is back as soon as it left.

No one comes to visit after that. Chopper comes by before he heads off to bed to make sure you're all set for the night and tells you that he expects to be woken up if you feel any symptoms get worse. You agree to his conditions, though can barely make yourself seem like you were taking him seriously with his cute face scolding you, but it seemed to work well enough as he's gone after he leaves a cup of water by your side. Sleep lingers around the corner, shirking away from your twitching fingertips and restless eyes; you give up after a few minutes, thinking about Robin who'd been thrown on watch tonight.

After going back and forth on the details, you bundle up yourself in the blanket (not wanting to have to mimic any semblance of serious guilt to get through Chopper's less than intimidating scolding if you get any sicker in the morning) and wander to the deck. The darkness of the sea would be safe for you, twisting around every limb extended to grope your way through your chosen path and oozing out from strands of hair to empty at your feet if not for the lamp of the moon ahead of you. Its light a forecast of tragedy, reflecting off a blade that would drive through the blood of a man who faced an unlikely love with only disgust and betrayal. "Robin?" The light hangs onto your word with a vehemence to uncover your unjustifiable deeds.

"Ivy," a shudder of surprise rattles your head to duck to your shoulders as you turn around. "Sorry, did I scare you?"

You give Robin a frown, tugging your lips down. "Yeah, my weakened bones nearly fell to the floor." She huffs a laugh. "Please announce yourself before you appear." Robin traces over your palish face and your features soften into a smile when your eyes meet.

"Can't sleep?" She asks once you two settle at the side of the Sunny where you'd napped earlier today, some of your vines still wedged between planks and parts of the floor haphazardly missing. You lean your back against the side of the ship and lower your eyes to the floor.

It's a total void, welcoming you back home. "No," you answer, a little breathless. The moon doesn't shuttle into the hole of the deck and something reaches a hand out for you between the atoms of a black hole. Roots twist out, easing close to your feet and sinking beneath the soles of your shoes. "I napped a little earlier." It's safe.

Robin hummed— I know rattles through her hum— and her elbow falls onto the guard rail of the ship. For the next few moments, you regret coming out. Robin's always been more receptive to the details and fine lines; it's not surprising that she can nitpick through a flurry of fronts and covers to the feelings you want to hide. They beckon out to her, wanting to fill that hole that's grown smaller with every day she wakes up to the open seas and the lively sound of her crew. "Chopper said you were sick?"

"A cold," you sniffle, bringing the blanket closer to you. Finding some semblance of confidence inside you, your eyes flicker over to Robin but she isn't looking at you— only turns when she feels your gaze levelled on her. You hesitate, searching for something to say and land on extending an arm and opening the blanket to invite her into your bundle. "You cold?"

She laughs, "it's fine, you should go back in if you've got a cold though." Her head tilted with a smile, "it'll be bad if the night air makes you worse."

Not wanting to find yourself softened in moonlight nor her eyes, you nod and bid her a goodnight before shivering your way back into your room. The door opens and light from Sunny's hallway is swallowed into the darkness of your room before it's banished out with the slam of your door, you shuffle around odd things thrown on the floor and slip into bed.

Your sleep is broken through with intervals with coughing, curling into yourself, shivering still though you burn in the night like a sibling of a star. When you wake up, sometime in the afternoon, you're heaving and reaching out your arms all around your duvet to haul together the skin that feels like it's melted down. Your palms prick against the leaves of vines that have overtaken your room, they fluoresce around your body and branch outwards to all corners of your room. The mess all blur together as your brain thrashes in your head with every splutter, you shake and twitch, trying to make sense of anything. Skin burned raw as you attempt to kick away the shrubbery that's keeping the blanket contorted around your body.

Your throat skinned and crude with its imminent thoughts of water.

A hand reached back blindly to grope at your bedside table for the cup that Chopper left for you last night. What you find instead is the burning touch of the sun, it seeps through the micro wounds stabbed through lines of your fortune and inflames every nerve straight to your heart. Your hand snaps back towards your body, the bones shivering from the imminent heat. Your entire body twitches at different paces, an invasive and hungry need drowns your senses. You need water, you need not for this to happen, water, you need for your sleep to be calm, you need to stop burning, you want to stop losing control, water first. You want water. Water— you turn your head to find the water, you need— Luffy?

Luffy is sat on a chair that you don't remember being there and when you look a little closer, you see that your vines had granted him a throne to comfortably lay on, other than that, they avoid him like the near plague. His body is leaned forward, his chest laid against the side of your mattress and arms crossed on your bed to sleep on like a pillow. You retch up some acid and, like the bowed head of a priest, a gentle petal disrupts the stream, flowing against the tide. It's a beautiful purple colour that's light against the transition to white towards the middle and an eye-catching yellow streaking against the white; lines of a deeper hue stretch through the petal and it's oddly reminiscent of veins.

The petal sits on the puddle of stomach acid that warms your thighs, your head bowed down to stare at it; you feel your soul unfurl at the sight of it, branches stretched outwards over a riverside, the heavy head of buds pulling weighted branches down to drink from the stream. Everything else blurs with a ripple, the petal is withstanding no matter no much you try blinking away an oncoming headache. The river near dries up in your attempt to wash down this unnerving disgust; you hunger for more.

Little changes when you find out what this 'cold' truly was. The lighting in Sunny's library is several shades warmer than the light of the sun, it draws upon the hunched shoulders down to your back as you tilt your head to hear the bones crack under your ear. Four syllables, that's all your death is. A lot of words are four syllables. Anonymous; unfortunate; hilarious; adventurous; hanahaki. It doesn't mean a lot by itself, so you try giving it some context. You pretend to tell Chopper that you're dying, you have hanahaki and that it's something he can't cure in a way you'll accept and you still feel nothing. You think about Chopper's face. He adamantly tells you that he'll cure you, he'll do it. The you in your imagination tells him no. Faced with your refusal, Chopper cannot do anything. In the end, it is a grave that cures you.

Death, as it stands, was something you had accepted when you stepped onto a pirate ship. Even someone with as stubborn a character as Zoro could be welcomed in by death, even Luffy. For a while, you wonder about death. The air in the room pauses as if to grace you with the silence to ponder on it, all you hear is the sound of your own breathing.

The closest thing to death comes searching for you a few minutes later.

You've always been interested in Brook. A skeleton with nothing but a sword; he has no lungs yet still sings, no heart and still smiles, dead but human in all his actions and behaviours. "There you are." He sneaks up behind you, bones falling onto your shoulder as you think, he smiles down at you. "Luffy asked if I’d seen you earlier.” He looms over you for a moment before he's straightening back up and calling out loudly, "but I'm a skeleton so it's not like I have eyes to see anyone anyways!"

It's the two syllables 'Lu–ffy' that shakes you the most. You stifle a cough in your chest and feel it tear through your ribs instead, searching for a path out. "For what?" The breaths rattle in your chest and shudder through your words.

"He wanted to show you a beetle." He takes the seat next to you, peering down at the picture book that you have open. You wait for him to make a comment about seeing what you were reading before disregarding it all with a lack of eyeballs so he wasn't seeing it really but he doesn't say anything, so you're forced to talk instead.

"Brook."

"Yes?"

It takes a single breath to prepare you to say this, it's warm and evident that you've not yet truly succumbed to your illness. "Do you see yourself as dead?"

Death is the art of those who do not live. It's something that keeps people tethered to the moment; it's the one thing that keeps humans humane. It's evidence you've lived, no matter how full nor how long. She's beautiful in her own right.

"I cannot see myself as anything because I am a skeleton with no eyes!"

Brook does not get to elaborate because Luffy shuttles in moments later, whispering loudly. (He'd learned somewhere that you're meant to be quiet in a library when he was younger but his whispers still manage to shake the room somehow.) "You're here! I found a beetle to show you!" He tip–toes to your side, "what're you reading— oh, hi Brook! The flowers here are pretty!" He points a finger down to a sunflower; his index covers an entire petal and he strokes it upwards to the middle. "Do you think they're edible?"

He turns to you with a smile.

You meet him with the same, "their seeds are." He gasps and picks up the book to scour through the letters in search of a name of these seeds. You take in a shuddering breath and when you feel another urge to cough, you cannot stop it.

When vines splatter around the room, they uproot the place; they've always been disruptive in this way. A wave of them washes various bouts of furniture to the floor, through the pounding of your ears, you hear the sound of books thudding as green appendages snake through bookcases and rattle them at the base; Brook's chair collapses as a vine chokes out one of its legs into splinters, the world blurs into a hue of greens and purples. A hand reaches from down in your throat, you heave around gaps of allowance for air and gag, cough, retch up more acid and some tea that Sanji brewed earlier this morning in lieu of breakfast. It's unpleasant. It's ugly in a way death should not be, though you guess the dead don't get to choose how to live in the same way the living cannot choose their death.

You're hauled off to Chopper again.

Chopper's voice comes as the hollow sounds of keys on an old piano. He does another round of tests on you— this set lasts a little longer than the previous and he takes extra caution with some. He finds that your heart is a little faster than it should be, he nitpicks at the bluish tint around your fingers and notes the concerning amount of weight you've lost in the past few weeks. When he asks you, what's wrong, you tell him that that's what he should be telling you.

Hypoxia; another four syllables for your cause of death. "Some of the symptoms are there," Chopper frowns, mumbling to himself. "It's when your tissues aren't getting enough oxygen, do you have difficulty breathing?"

You placed your cheek into your palm, elbow on Chopper's desk. "You're a pretty good doctor, Chopper."

The effect is immediate, he starts blushing and kicking his legs in his seat, a hoof goes to rub at the back of his head and nervous laughter comes from him. "That isn't distracting me at all, you bastard." You smiled and watched the compliment break any semblance of professionalism in him.

He gets back on track a little while later, placing a stethoscope on your chest and asking you to cough. You're not sure exactly what he's looking for but you give a soft cough into your elbow and you can say for certain— just based off the way he jumps back and looks at you a little quietly for a second, it's nothing good. Chopper spends a few minutes looking at your fingertips, then your lips, then some other parts of skin already exposed and humming to himself, troubled.

For now, he says, he wants you to try not to exert yourself— maybe leave fighting to everyone else and focus on resting until he can figure out a better way to confidently diagnose you. His lips are pulled into a frown, hands in his lap and trying his best to be professional and keep his emotions at bay. Before you know it, your hand is on top of his pink hat and fondly rubbing over the material softly. "Thanks Chopper, I'll keep that in mind."

He nods. You hesitate for a second before you're getting up to leave so that everyone else can see that you're not dying— or maybe you should tell them you are, you're not sure you could take another session of Franky accusing you of destroying the Sunny to create more work for him.

Your hand wraps around the doorknob and twists, stopping when Chopper speaks again. "You're not hiding something from me," he accuses gently, "are you?"

Your hand tightens around the doorknob. A flash of that imaginary Chopper comes back to you— heartbroken and confused at your refusal to be cured— you steal an unnecessarily large breath from the world. "I get sudden cravings for sweet things if that means anything."

Chopper, unbeknownst to you, takes those words and carves them true and raw into himself. His eyes are unwilling to leave you for more than necessary during the times you eat together, he watches you push aside the food on your plate, tearing small bits of meat off the bone to chew on it for a couple minutes too long before swallowing. He makes note of the way you have no problems finishing up everything but any sort of meat, sliding them over to Luffy, or one of his victims.

You're met with another blossom soon after lunch. You've made a bad habit of leaving the table early to escape the smell and resign yourself to the open deck, sprawling out on the grass like Zoro usually does. You're certain you're about to fall asleep shivering but the slap, slap, slapping of your captain's sandals are nearing closer so your brain kicks awake with a start; your eyes twitch, eyelashes shuddering in the wind. The darkness over your eyes morphs into a shadow of Luffy hovering over you, head tilting with a hand on his hat— your mind supplies you with the frown— and then you hear him taking a step back and sitting down next to you.

A troubled melody hums through his lips and when you open an eye to peek at him, you see his hands wrapped around his ankles, legs loosely crossed; he turned back to you and you quickly close your eyes. Here is where you finally learn that when Luffy touches, he's never placated with a simple tap, a light knocking between skin— no, he must stroke, he drags his fingers up the side of your thigh, he shivers from the coldness of your flesh and, even then, crawls closer. Then he's silent for a worrying amount of time and for a moment, curiosity takes you over. You find yourself wanting to draw light upon the disgusted features when he's met with someone he thinks close to him is growing closer and closer to a grave amongst the roots.

He leans his forehead against yours whilst you shuffle through the despicable crawl of your heart through your bones, something shifts in you and when you reach to itch at your side, it dislodges. It takes no more than a simple flip for your entire world to shift; you think you saw Luffy hovering over you momentarily before you had snapped to the side.

A fragment of the world greets its end.

Something strangles you, a hand of a giant pressing two fingers against the sides of your neck until everything in you bursts and splatters against parts that have gone unknown until now. There's nothing new to the tremor of vine that erupts through your skin, bubbling through the surface of flesh like a geyser; the tentacles claw their way your throat until you're choking around them, searching for an allowance for air. Your knees shuffle up to find some balance, head ducked to meet the lawn across the deck and elbows digging deep into the dirt. Your spluttering comes in time with the sound of Luffy calling your name, shouting for Chopper; there's a knot tied inside your mouth, you shake away tremors and tears all the same. You erupt yet there's nothing to be burnt, it's only ash that leaves your mouth— only the colourful petals of the wisteria plant that wash over the green of the open deck, burnt in hues with blood.

The next island is a spring island, known for their sweet peaches and sweeter music.

You watched Luffy devour two peaches in his hands, the ripe skin melting underneath his teeth— pale with a dusted blush until it snapped into a bloody red, melted at the pit. Then he's gone with a rustle of mikan trees as you held out a basket for Nami to delicately place her mikans in; apparently, she'd managed to catch the attention of some peach vendor with her sweet tangerines and swindled the poor man out of his money for a basket.

The streets are lined with lively hums and a strumming of odd instruments, music escapes through every crevice of a worn-down building as Luffy jumps from stall to stall, drooling over the goods before you're beckoning him back with his lunchbox and a promise of meat after you finish this errand for Nami. On your way to the stall, you hear faint chattering that doesn't interest you but Luffy straightened up beside you and turns to stare at the people as they argue on who had managed to grow the biggest peach this year.

You sigh, grabbing hold of Luffy's collar when he stops to stare at them and drag him off to the stall vendor who had fallen victim to Nami's schemes. The exchange is easy enough— give him the basket (ignore the fact that Nami had managed to make it look like it was overflowing by artfully bunching up a cloth on the bottom and filled gaps between the fruits with flowers) and make sure you've got the correct amount of money. It's when Luffy asks the stall vendor who has the biggest peach this year that things begin to go downhill.

Rather than answering Luffy's question, the man goes on a tangent about some kind of festival for a God and how the biggest peach will be the offering to said God this year— apparently, Shumi (the woman who owns the fabrics shops) had managed to get her hands on this, that, or the other to help her husband grow a peach large enough to bring doubt to the fact that Gyupuri had managed to grow the largest peach (again) this year.

Luffy insists on tracking them both down to help the people come to a decision as he wiped away the drool on his chin. Resigned, you managed to find Shumi first with her shop being the only one in town that sold fabrics and she denies you both permission to see the peach; Gyupuri, on the other hand, is more than happy to show you to the peach he grows. He takes you straight out of town, into the forest, and then up the mountain to where there's a clearing full of nothing but flesh coloured peaches.

As you listen to Gyupuri's story on how he was merely taking after his father to grow these strangely sized peaches, you have to keep Luffy in your hold so he doesn't go running to the giant peach and take a bite out of what could be for a God. Somehow though, he manages to get a handful of flat peaches when you weren't looking and when you attempt to apologise to Gyupuri, he doesn't seem to be fazed, shoving a few more peaches into your hand and telling you it's fine.

"So, who is this God anyway?" Luffy asks, his legs wrapped around your waist and chin hooked on your shoulder as he leaned back, satisfied with cheeks full of the peach you were holding in your hand. You turn to give him a look, but he merely stares at you back.

The people here must have made a unanimous decision to answer questions from the left side of the field because Gyupuri only tells you the name of this God when he drags you and Luffy up a hill to stare at a statue of this God carved out of generic stone.

To be polite, you call the statue pretty; Luffy feels no need to be polite, so he says it's not really. When you look at him to furrow your eyebrows at him, he's already looking at you.

When you're back on the ship, money handed to Nami, you think about that moment so much that it grows moss in your mind and vines burst through the crevices of the worn–down artifact you've made out his gaze to be. You throw up everything you manage to eat and feel hollow and worthy when you meet Luffy's eyes in Chopper's office again.

There's a chill that follows your days after that.

It's persistent and stubborn in a way that cruelly reminds you of Luffy. On a brighter side, you've got an excuse to be lazy in bed though it irks your bones not to have the weight of you walking thrumming up your body. You get visits from the Strawhats, get your food delivered to you, some of the crew shuffling into your room to keep you entertained with some card games and the likes— you get Luffy consistently making his way into your room and treating it as any other room on his Sunny. He comes in, always makes himself home on the bed, and talks about what he did today. At some point, it becomes less endearing and more annoying to be treated as though you were actually dying. (You hadn't told them for a reason.)

Four days after Chopper had resolutely punished you with bed rest, Luffy decides that he was going to start sleeping in your room. Apparently, your face had translated over what your head was thinking too quickly because he starts whining, saying that he wouldn't get to see you enough if he doesn't do this and, well, since you've always had a tender, raw, skinned soft spot for the boy, you end up saying yes.

He spends his first night telling you what he was going to spend tomorrow doing and you come to the realisation that every other sentence contains you. (Going to find more beetles to show you... Chopper told Sanji it'd be good to get more meat into your diet... Zoro accidentally cut snakes and ladders in half so Nami is giving me money to see if we can find one for you so we can play... Robin said there's a really pretty flower on this next island… For you… For you...) It’s all there laid bare and you cannot face it. You hide your face into the crook of your elbow and wretch out a cough. Luffy frowns but doesn't mention it. He talks himself into sleep and you lay awake to him, trying to keep yourself from blooming throughout the night so he doesn't wake up, cold and still.

When you're startled awake with misty embrace in a dream, you see that Luffy has gone.

What he has left is his straw hat and a mouthpiece of his greatness. The straw is rough against your fingers, resembling the thorns that grows along roses and you stare at it in your lap until you can feel the roughness in your throat— just when you think you need to get water, Sanji shows up with breakfast. You eye the cigarette in his lips and ignore the settling of the tray on your bedside table, watch the smoke fight the smell of scrambled eggs and bits of bacon to take over your room.

"We're at an island?"

Sanji walks around your bed, finding himself comfortable on the couch across the foot of your bed. "We docked early this morning," you watched his smoke rise, ash falling to the wooden floor of your room, waving and grasping hands up to God. Sanji keeps himself entertained by looking around your room, his foot pushing around odd leaves and petals on the floor before he nods over to the plate. "Eat." Then he's gone.

You stare at the tray, settling Luffy's straw hat aside, you shuffle to the end of your bed and take the fork in your hands— you look at the plate until you swear you can taste the eggs in your mouth and the slight bursts of saltiness that'll come from the bacon and you have to wash it down with the glass of water he's given you. You push it aside and opt to go back to sleep.

You dream of a still life on top of a hill, overlooking a dock as the Sunny pulls back out into the sea; you thrash but find every part of you rooted down to one spot, the wind picks up and you feel tangles of what could be hair or leaves hitting against a part of your body. You're still rooted despairingly in a garden of silks and duvets when you wake, Luffy had found himself unable to keep away from your breakfast but when you sit up and look a little closer, you see a pile of the diced bacon bits shoved off to the side as he shovelled eggs into his mouth.

Shattering free from the earth with a faltering cough broken into four, you shuffled yourself up and spit out a cluster of wisteria. At this point, you do not need to look at Luffy to know what his face looks like; he turned to face you, cheeks full and quickly finishing the eggs to shuffle closer to you on the bed with a book in his hands. "You left your book under the plate."

It's a hardback children's book, pulled out of Sunny's library and coloured a light blue that resembled the sky and broken apart by a sunflower in the middle and petals around it, the title curled around the sunflower. You know that the book was left in the library when you were having your episode. The cover is smooth to the touch as Luffy gives it to you and ends up knocking his shoulders against yours in his attempt to get closer; your eyes moved over to the tray of food and you think of Sanji, who'd grown up in the North Blue where this children's story was more popular amongst the romantic commonwealth.

He knows, you think, and it fills you with a dread that the wisteria blossoms feast upon delightfully; he knows, and he could tell everyone, the vines throb over your heart as Luffy opens the book over your lap and looks up, expectantly at you.

Myrsa was a pretty girl, enough so that praises sang for her ended up calling upon the scorn of love's Goddess. The depiction of her getting cursed is almost comical, stricken by lightning as she returns from a forest with a basket full of flowers and mushrooms. "What happens next? What happens next?" Luffy pushes his face closer to the book, tangling a rubbery leg with yours as he moves impossibly closer. "How does Myrsa beat up the God?"

It's the certainty he holds that Myrsa will beat up God that makes you laugh, it's the fact that she does not beat anything that makes you tremble, shaking coughs and petals out your throat. Luffy seems to think that the book is too excitable, trying to pry it away from you and saying that he can ask Robin to read it to him later so you should just rest. "Don't you want to know if Myrsa will beat up the God now?" You ask instead, knowing the answer will be yes.

Perhaps they were the wrong words to convince Luffy because when you're on the last page, Myrsa buried in a forgotten land and her love used as fertiliser for a field of sunflowers, he's threatening to beat up a God made up to exact revenge for Myrsa. It's a lot more cheerful than you had expected— all the characters drawn with round faces, small bodies, and black dots as eyes. It makes death seem redeemable.

After Luffy hauls himself out of your room, in search of the God had turned Myrsa into sunflowers, you force the bacon down your mouth and bring the tray out to Sanji. You linger in the kitchen, eyes watching him as he scrubbed the dishes and danced around the kitchen, no doubt knowing why you were there. He doesn't seem to want to be the one to approach the topic just based on the way he refused to stop even for a moment for the past fifteen minutes you've been there.

You know nothing about Sanji past the fact that he's blond, he's a cook, and he used to be a prince from North Blue's Germa Kingdom.

"You know Myrsa didn't die because she had hanahaki." Your hip meets the edge of an island, arms crossed over your chest as you watched Sanji finally slow to a halt, throwing a glance over at you. He takes his cigarette between two fingers, breathing in for a moment and then takes it out, holding it out to you. "What she was cursed with, wasn't ever meant to be able to kill her."

"I know."

Sanji takes the cigarette back after you shake your head, shrugging a little as he continued. "Myrsa died."

You laugh a little, "I read the book."

There's a point he's trying to make that's as foreign to you as the notion of a love that doesn't hurt but he turns a glance to you that almost reads like he's disappointed in you and it settles nicely against the vines choking you through. You straighten up, uncrossing your arms and his visible eye wanders back over the pots he has boiling on the stove. "You liked the ending?" The ending of the North Blue story was a two–page spread of a sunflower field, a planet of bright yellows and a dull light blue, clouds breaking apart overwhelming tones of sunny golds and drowning diamonds.

A tree split awkwardly in half due to the spine of the book, curved in shape and pinched in the middle until you held the pages at the edges and pulled to straighten in down. "It was pretty," a gentle breeze running through the leaves shedding from the tree, a shiver to the wooden flesh that split apart if looked at the right way by the right man. Myrsa was beautiful, even in a death she didn't pick treated her well.

How could you hope to live when she did not?

You find a lot of things pretty now; you wonder if that's the dead crawling in you that is beginning to appreciate the life around. Robin sat on the deck with a cup of cooling coffee on a table in front of her and a book in her hand, Nami stood between her rows of mikan trees, Zoro straining under the weights of his responsibilities, Brook with a violin to his shoulder. The sky drowned over the ocean as Luffy leaned his head against you on Sunny's figurehead, his voice a soft beat over the water rushing against the hull of the ship. He's talking about Shanks and his dream and your heart aches selfishly; his skin gulps down the orange light of the dawning sun and you resigned yourself to a death loving him.

You wonder if Luffy still thinks of his dead brother, your tongue slips against the bark of your gums, and you open your mouth without thinking. "Luffy," you hear spoken into the wind, "will you tell me about your brother?"

"Sabo?" He's clapping his feet together excitedly, turning from the sky to you with a large grin on his face, "he's a part of the Revelation Army— no, wait revocation? Revenge Army? Renovation Army! Wait— that's not right."

"No, the other one." A whisper haunts the wind, 'the dead one' written in its movement.

There's a certain hesitation to his words that brings you to the realisation that being loved by Luffy is a wonderful thing. He's never been one to be articulate with words, picking the simple ones that come to mind first without a moment's hesitation but strangely the simple–minded way served him well when it came to love. Love is not articulate either— it's one of the simplest things in the world— so when it's met with someone like Luffy, it blossoms into an art form of all things beautiful.

You regret have not meeting Luffy when Ace was around. Dancing around his features is a tender skip of tightness; his shoulders pulled up to his ears, head ducked down, lips awkward and tongue thick as he told you the story of being accepted to be Ace's brother. Hues of embers fluoresce, dripping down on Sunny's figurehead as you reached an arm around him; his words are stained in blood and adoration, strained and slow but Luffy persists, his love persists.

"You should've met him!" He finishes, turning to you with a light chuckle. "You would've loved him."

Your hand falls onto his shoulder, pulling him closer despite the crawl of vomit up your throat and you leaned your head against his straw hat. "Maybe I will."

Death is another thing you think is simple. It's as easy as slipping into Chopper's office to find him hunched over his desk, his hooves holding onto a pestle as he circled the butt around in a mortar. "Ah, you're here?" He glanced over his shoulder as you walked around him and settled onto one of the beds he has in his room. "Give me a second! I nearly have your medicine ready."

"Chopper," you think you've played this out in your head before, "I have hanahaki."

His arms slow down to a halt, his face dropping by several degrees; the previous petals that made up his hopeful and cheerful expression flutter to the floor, guided by the winds you'd altered with those four words.

"Hanahaki?" Chopper's words are slow as he settled the pestle down, "I thought— but it doesn't exist?"

"Funnily enough, it died off." You tell him with a little laugh. "As more people took to the seas and chased after the one piece, less people fell victim to hanahaki." The Chopper you've told this to before in your mind was definitely less devastated and surprised to be greeted by the fact that you have hanahaki.

He's stumbling over his words, trying to pick something to focus on first as his face was scrunched up, eyebrows furrowed, and lips open into disbelief. "How long have you known? Why didn't you tell me? You'll have the surgery, right? You can trust me; I'll definitely save you. When did it first start?" Your head is pounding with the incessant questions he spits at you, unable to answer any of them as any allowance for a response was filled in by another inquiry. Suddenly, he's pulling his mind to a stop as he turned back to you, solemn and sad and asks, "who is it?"

It's easy to tell how Luffy has touched people, Chopper makes note of the way your head tilts and you smile and it's obvious that there was no one else capable of calling upon your love.

"And the surgery?"

The look on your face, although foreign to you, tells him all he needs to know.

That doesn't stop him though, he keeps himself by your side and urges (pleads) you to have the surgery; his constant presence becomes a problem when he makes a point of forcing Luffy away from you. It's small at first, trying to distract Luffy with other things, claiming to want to be the one to watch over Luffy when you all dock so you're not given the chance, clinging onto your arms and demanding your attention when Luffy threatens to take it away from him. Then, when Luffy notices that he's been holding onto this flower for hours, fingers pinched around a sunflower stem to ask you how you get seeds from the flower to eat, and every time he's seen a speck of your colour from corners, Chopper shows up to drag you away or points a finger somewhere to shout about a meat mountain, he has a problem.

You notice it's about the meat mountain at first though.

He's slamming the door to Chopper's office after the fourth time, shouting, "Chopper! Where's the meat mountain you keep talking about?" He doesn't seem to care about the fact that Chopper is checking up on you as he stomps into the room, plopping himself down right next to you. Chopper pushes him away when your shoulders brush against each other and you're coughing out bloodied petals. His attention diverts when he hears the shaking of your cough, how you knock into him uncontrollably as your torso leans to meet your thighs, hands deep into the foam edge of the mattress. Petals splatter onto your shoes, clinging to the leather with saliva and re–painting the laces in a sickly red. Luffy’s touch is intrusive, a hand tightened on your thigh that burns your skin to ash and forces vines to splutter out your skin. They attack him, you reel yourself away from Luffy in hopes that they don’t reach him but in some disgusting way, they force themselves to new lengths to coil around his limbs. Spindling up and up and up and you can’t see his face anymore as a thick rope of vines in the shape of his hand reaches out for you, they keep moving up until you only see his hat— your back knocks against the wall. You sternly tell yourself this death is acceptable; the vines grow limp.

When you’ve calmed down enough, the first thing Luffy asks you is, “why aren’t you better yet?” And you feel as though you’re being scolded for some reason; your eyes flicker over to Chopper, fingers tangled together in front of your thighs from the corner of the room you’ve forced yourself into. When Luffy catches the wandering glances— as if you’re trying to keep him out of something— he treats you exactly how you’re acting. Like a criminal.

“Chopper?” It’s unnerving how his eyes are still on you, no trace of expression on his face, “out.”

“But—”

“Out.” Chopper throws you an unhelpful glance as he passes you to get to the door.

You’ve always had the wrong impression of Luffy— everyone that doesn’t know him has the same image; he’s a pirate that has taken down warlord after warlord, who has brought horrifying change and shifts the balance of authority wherever his feet take him. Hearing hushed whispers of him and his close affiliates in the lightened haze of booze, to distract from a tooth getting knocked out of place never does much for his image either. Though it wouldn’t be right to say that Luffy is wholly good either— he’s selfish. Selfish and impossibly kind and downright disgusting with the handling of his own needs; the sound of your name fizzing between his teeth has you startled, nodding your head back to him on the bed you’d left him at.

“You’re hiding something.” It’s not a question nor is it an accusation of any kind. It’s an observation. Luffy slides himself off the bed, his sandals comically slap against the floor of Chopper’s office, “tell me.” His hands fall onto your shoulders, one stays there and the other slides down. He treats your skin like an amusement park for his pleasure; his nails drag across the goosebumps of your bicep, pressing down on raised scars and then splashes into the palm of your hand, dragging ripples in the centre.

You hesitate, twisting your fingers together and pulling as if to attempt to dislodge the odd feeling that follows his fingertips. “Are you asking as a captain?” Despite how general expectations of Luffy remain pretty low to those who do know him, it’s also known that Luffy has a nerve in him that’s impossibly receptive to hurt. There’s a certain way to activate it and when it’s on, it doesn't quieten down until its idiot owner is pleased. Luffy scrunches his face up in an odd way, displeasured at your question as if he couldn’t believe you’d ask him something that hurtful, and his head tilts.

“Tell me.” You’re met with an unwavering stare, the hand on your shoulder tightens and there’s a hardness to it that you’ve never associated with your rubber captain— you can feel the bone in his fingers, stern and undeniable. Your eyes trace over the exposed, tanned skin of his bicep and you wish that you could force your vines through his skin to crawl into his chest and listen to the tremors that’ll run up your devil fruit from his beating heart for some kind of answer. There’s a sudden breath that’s available to you that isn’t tainted and clogged, trapped before it even meets your lungs, but it burns in a new way as you stare at Luffy, scared and terrified of a new life that’ll be forced upon you if you tell him what’s wrong with you.

You open your mouth with an excuse, but Luffy huffs and the words shrivel in your mouth, collapsing to a grain on your tongue and when you close your mouth, you taste dirt. “Luffy,” you beg, “I can’t— just, I’ll be fine.”

There’s a hint of some anger in his gaze before it turns into a haunting realisation, “Chopper knows, doesn’t he?” He pushes you aside, “I’ll just ask Chopper.”

There’s a ringing distant in your ears that chimes like the bell of the church from that place two islands ago, maybe three— you haven’t been too good with time recently. Sunny shakes like the earth as a body hits the pavement, you feel disgusting and heavy and an itch claws through your palms where Luffy’s hand has just been. You’re sure it’s Chopper he’s shaking an answer from but you hear Robin’s voice, calling for him to calm down and when that doesn’t work, Sanji cuts in. It all gets further and further away, you think about the planks of Sunny opening to welcome you back into that darkness from nights ago, you think about being choked by one of your vines, you think about the wisteria blooming whole in your lungs— you think and you think and think and suddenly, it’s all nothing. You’re dying, you think, that’s a fact, what else? Luffy is the reason. Or maybe you’re the reason.

“Luffy,” were you the one talking? “Luffy.” The voice comes again, stern and your eyebrows furrow with the same tension that the voice is carrying. “Thank you for being my captain.”

Not that it surprises you, Luffy punches you.

#op production: circa. 1864 #one piece #monkey d. luffy #one piece angst #one piece x you #one piece x reader #luffy oneshot #luffy angst #luffy x reader #luffy x y/n #luffy x you #op luffy #monkey d. luffy x reader #monkey d. luffy x you #op x reader #op angst #one piece one shot

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crydentialzz · 4 months ago

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PART 2 HERE hi hii hello!! twiddlefinger has been rolling around in my nbrain like marblses soo have my take on the disease :3 - oh also if u like this consider taking a peek at my fan species i made for the nuggets of the max design pro universe here - idrk what warnings specifically would fit this since this is more like a breakdown of the virus itself, but just be warned there are itty bitty mentions of blood. lmk some suggestions for the warnings tho, would b very helpful ^w^ - (i based this off of being a opposite (kindof) to hanahaki disease since they r both emotion related and hanahaki is probably one of the most popular forms of "illness-due-to-feelings" which i thought was cool. oh also b aware that this is all copy-pasted from a doc i wrote up at infrequent times at night when motivation was high. i went through the entire thing and made sure it was coherent, but i doubt i caught all of it so apologies in advance for any parts that may be weirdly written or phrased, feel free to ask questions to clear stuff up. if u guys like it ill probably post more. this in parts since its so long, this 1 is the introduction and first 2 stages of the illness. aaaaanyways enjoy!!!!)

Inquies cupidinem or it's nickname “Twiddlefinger” is a parasitic disease that hijacks the dopamine system in the brain that activates when in love, causing an intense obsessive drive to keep their partner with them by any means.

Instead of illness being borne of unrequited feelings / love, Inquies cupidinem is from requited feelings and its connections to obsession, greed and or desire for a partner (these all vary in intensity). It can also be created from requited yet repressed feelings yet to be expressed to an established partner (or partners), or even from an intense fear of their partner leaving.

The disease manifests itself as a type of parasite, often located in the Jugular Vein or hidden in the arteries and veins in the lungs, and appear as black, oily growths. Its placement in veins and blood vessels is due to the disease hiding in blood cells to travel around the body and infect their host fully.

Stage 1 The disease will start out small. Little things like a temporary sore throat, cough, lower / higher body temperature, and will last a few days (3-5 days). Slowly as the illness grows, the host’s physical appearance may begin to change in a variety of ways, most notably being thinning fur around a certain region or fur patterns changing color to become muddier / darker; for those with dark fur this will be the opposite, patterns will become lighter in color / washed out. This begins about 2-5 weeks into having the previous infrequent symptoms, mental health is stable, but the patient may experience moments of memory loss, fuzziness / brain fog or deja-vu. The infected may also start to have odd behavior around their partner such as stealing / hoarding items owned by their partner or asking excessive questions about things their partner likes (these actions all act towards getting closer to their lover which temporarily satiates any need for their partner the patient may experience early on). Stage 2

Thus begins the second stage in which the internal decay rapidly increases. The body is stuck in an internal fight, the physical constantly decaying and losing mass while the infection wants to keep growing, increasing mass and keeping the body alive with its growth and amplification of muscles (this overall leads to odd looking body variations, oftentimes looking somewhat muscular and dangerously thin at the same time). The host will get strong instincts / urges to keep their partner close, even escalating into violent overreactions when said partner interacts with others. This is controllable for the most part, but the feelings will only grow stronger the longer they are unaddressed or ignored. The sickness increases, now comparable to an elevated high fever; constant shaking, occasional dry heaving / throwing up large amounts of infected blood, high irritability and intense muscle spasms most commonly occurring in the hands and fingers (the brain will send signals to grab their partner and keep them close, think something similar to alien hand syndrome but a little more controllable as this command can be averted with other stimuli). In terms of physical symptoms, the thinning fur will have targeted one area at this point, covering it in the oily substance of the infection. The muscle and tissue underneath may begin to rot away as well, leaving exposed bone (if it doesnt rot immediately, it at least is very loose, barely connected to the host and has high chances of simply tearing away if injured or touched too much). This stage is usually where contact with the patient will be limited as, against their instinct and drive to be around their partner, they will most likely try and lock themselves away from the public in fear of harming loved ones, or depending on the patient's situation will spend less time around family / their partner often opting to cover the area temporarily and distract themself. At this point mentally, brain fog has increased; the patient will find it difficult to get their mind off of their partner as they slowly grow more obsessive, even revealing some OCD symptoms (notably “Pure-O”, “Real Events OCD” and “Relationship OCD” mix). Symptoms such as repetitive rituals, replaying events over and over / flashbacks, intense overwhelming feelings of shame / guilt / fear / embarrassment, worrying that actions have caused others harm, thinking they dont deserve their partner (or idolizing / putting their partner on a pedestal), and much more. The infected will also often experience Hyperthyroidism + Polyphagia symptoms as the obsession grows from just a want to a physical (carnal) need. This will occur directly after or in the middle of the 2-5 week time-frame for the second stage is up as the disease quickens its spread.

#Moth’sBrainChatter #max design pro #twiddlefinger #mdp #max mdp #max design pro fanart

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phoebonicawrites · 2 months ago

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Hey look I actually finished writing something. Apparently the key is being as self-indulgent as possible and just going for it.

So I've been rotating the entire cast of Drăculești around in my head since I played the demo, and the flower symbolism spawned this idea. This isn't actually compatible with any continuity in the demo. It's an AU don't worry about it.

Hanahaki disease is traditionally caused by unrequited love, but I like the variations where it's unspoken love better. And I'm a sucker for brainwashing/amnesia tropes where the suppressed thoughts and memories are just kind of... biding their time.

***

Tomorrow they leave for England.

Renfield finds his chest tightening at the thought, tries to force the feeling down, take slow, steady breaths. There's nothing to fear. It's disloyal of him, to even think there might be. It shows a lack of faith.

And he is nothing if not faithful.

And still his body turns traitor against him, cold sweat breaking out on his brow, his throat threatening to close up altogether, his insides churning - butterflies in his stomach, haha - his fragile mortal heart pounding so hard that he can almost hear it. He grips the bedsheets tighter, trembling.

There's nothing to fear. There is nothing to fear. He knows England, knows London, knows how to walk in sunlight as a free man and do all the work required of him. He won't be going back to the straps and the shocks and the stark white rooms that crawled with nightmares only he could see. His Master saved him from all of that, pulled him out of the darkness and gave him a home and a purpose and will never abandon him, not if he does his job well, not if he is obedient and faithful - he is nothing if not faithful -

A racking cough shakes apart his train of thought as he curls into himself, gasping for air, something scratching at the back of his throat - is one of the little lives he's allowed to feed on trying to make its way back up? Or is he coming down with some illness, some mundane weakness of his still too human flesh?

Please no. He can't be ill. He has too much work to do.

He closes his eyes. Deep breaths. In, out. One day he will be more than this. One day he will sit at his Master's right hand and eat at His table with the rest of the family. One day his body will be transformed, made new, made perfect, and he will have eternity to spend at his Master’s side, to be faithful, to be cherished, to be loved -

"Hhhk-!"

The next breath never comes.

Something rises in his throat, wedges itself into his airway. A thick mass, soft around the edges but unyielding, scraping at the walls of his throat as he spasms around it. Can't cough it up. Can't swallow. Can't scream.

He pushes himself to his knees, drives balled fists into his stomach. Once, twice, again. No good. Black stars wheel across his vision, he's going to pass out soon, no no please I can't, I can't die, no, He promised! He gave me a job to do! please I want to live I want to live I want to live -

Only one thing for it.

Fingers force their way into his throat. Gagging, lungs burning, he claws at the thing, tears away a few tiny useless fragments before finally, finally, he finds a firm grip and pulls. It won't move, and then it does move but with agonising slowness, tearing at him every inch of the way as he drags it out into the light.

He pulls the thing out of his mouth with a hideous wheezing gasp, retches, barely has the presence of mind to turn his head so that he vomits over the side of the bed and not onto the sheets. Collapses shuddering to the mattress as he gulps in air with broken sobs, staring at the puddle he's made on the stone floor, blood and bile and iridescent wings and...

...golden petals.

Slowly, he turns to look at the thing in his hand.

It's a sunflower head.

Renfield can't understand where it came from. Just as he can't understand why the next thing he does, before even trying to clean up the mess he's made, is to walk to the window, hold the flower out into the darkness, open his hand and watch as it falls past the edge of the cliff and out of sight.

He can't understand why the sight makes his eyes burn with fresh tears. A sunflower. What could that possibly mean to him?

He can't remember even having seen the sun before.

#fanfic #draculesti #dracula #roger m. renfield #hanahaki #canon-typical bug eating #body horror #brainwashing #amnesia #whump #emeto cw #psychiatric abuse mention #might revisit this idea when the game is actually released and I can go somewhere with it #any contradictions in Renfield's thought process are intentional #as is the fact that he refers to himself by his surname #his memory is pretty scrambled here #somewhere in London Jonathan Harker is coughing up butterflies

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icannotreadcursive · 2 years ago

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I want you all to know that the way I find fic to read is absolutely bonkers.

I’ve seen a few posts recently (including a poll or two) about fic searching strategies and habits on Ao3) so I’m thinking about this, and I just feel like sharing.

So, I used to just scroll through fandom tags, search by character or ship like a halfway sane person.

But then, for the sake of some personal research I went on a kick of searching by additional tags--things like Hanahaki, Possession, Mermaid AU--to see distributions of what kind of fics and fandoms different tropes and kinds of stories were common in. It was very interesting. I have done absolutely nothing with this research other than internalize it into my understanding of How Fandom Interacts With Stuff. It wasn’t even research related to the Metatext Guide. I’m just Like This.

This is a pretty long explanation, so buckle up and continue under the readmore if you want a glimpse into how weirdly my brain works.

Anyway, I have discovered that searching by tag both does a better job of providing fics that scratch an itch for a certain vibe (which is more often what I’m hunting for than anything about particular characters) and usually provides results that, by filtering, I can narrow down to a much shorter list to actually hunt through. (I find it frustrating and overwhelming to have like 20+ pages of results to go through for a given ship or something. It’s partly choice paralysis but mostly frustration that so many of those results will be things I’m not interested in and the need to comb through them by hand when I can’t readily narrow the filters further and the chances of missing something I really would like in between all the chaff, or from later pages of results because I’ve just given up.)

So what I do is pick a tag, search it, then click on it in the tagblock of whatever fic shows up in my initial search. This takes me to a results page of all the fics tagged with that tag, its variations, and any tags that stack under it.

This is usually a lot of results, but that’s okay. Now we filter like we’re goddamn sea sponges.

Most of the filtering I do at this point is Excluding. I will set the language (usually to English because that is my first language), set a length range depending on how I’m feeling, set a recent date rage if this is a tag I’ve looked at before and I don’t wanna reread, etc. But mostly it’s going down the Exclude section of filters, checking the boxes for fandoms I’m not interested in, ships I don’t like, the “Major Character Death” warning because I’m rarely here for that, “Reader” and “You” under Character because I personally cannot stand reader-insert fic, tags I’m not into, etc--then hit apply filters to reload the refined results, and repeat this process until the top 10 tags shown for every section in the filters is something I’m fine with.

At this point, I copy the URL from my search page and open another copy of it in another tab, Include something--usually a category (like all the m/f fics) or an additional tag (all the Hurt/Comfort)--and then do the whole Exclusion process again with that subset of results. Doing that, i can almost always whittle down to less than two pages of results to actually comb through--opening fics that look promising as I go. Once I’ve done that, I close the second search tab, Exclude the secondary search’s Included tag from my main search, then do all that again with a different Included tag’s subset of results.

Yes, the multiple rounds of filtering takes forever. Yes, I am aware this is a bizarre way to hunt for fics--the fact that it’s such a pain to do is a constant reminder that no one expected anybody to use the search and filter system like this.

I’m dyslexic, though. The round after round of filtering isn’t as draining on me as sitting there, reading through page after page of summaries and tagblocks--especially because I find the tagblocks difficult to parse, even with a dyslexia friendly siteskin on that does help. I don’t necessarily trust myself to catch a tag I don’t like; it’s more reliable for me to filter the living daylights out of things. (This is also part of why I simply do not read fics without summaries.)

If I’m in, say, a Mistaken Identity or Mutual Pining kinda mood, it usually doesn’t matter to me if that takes the form of Deep Space 9 or Sailor Moon--or, hell, with some tags, especially less common ones, I’ll happily read fics for fandoms I’m not even in, which can be a cool way to expand my horizons.

And, developing this method of hunting fic has given me a way to narrow down and section out overwhelming numbers of results when I do want to search by fandom, ship, or character. Like when I recently dove into Trigun fic for the first time.

So yeah, that’s how I search Ao3, in case anyone was wondering.

#eiiri has thoughts #fandom #Ao3

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catboydogma · 2 years ago

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The Brute Divine

PART I OF III

PART II: IN THE BLACKNESS

OR: hey, sol, what's up with that chronic hanahaki draft you've been talking about for the last year? IT'S HERE! we have: pining, slow burn, chronic hanahaki, hanahaki as body horror, cuddling, angst, hurt / comfort, and sustained eye contact held to an uncomfortable degree! parts ii and iii soon to come, spaced throughout the day to give me time to format and catch any typos. more tags / warnings on ao3! a masterlist will go up once posting has finished.

feat. art from the amazing @olives-and-lilies !!

wc: 11,616

Morning glories are a flower common to humid, deciduous climates on a widespread variety of planets. They are deceptively hardy flowers with root systems that survive through the winter and bloom yearly in warm seasons with a variety of bright colors. They are edible for many species and can be used in food, teas, or topical ointments. These different colors signify different things to many cultures, but nearly omnipresent are those for the most common variations: blue for strength, yellow for new beginnings, white for rebirth.

Obi-Wan was running late. He was—no. Obi-Wan checked the time on the newly-omnipresent datapad in his hand. He was just barely on time, no thanks to Anakin. He ran a hand through his hair, grimaced at its length, and hazarded a few tugs at his tunics and obi to make everything lay flat.

The new Commander of the 212th Attack Battalion of the Grand Army of the Republic was waiting at a textbook-perfect parade rest in the massive, echoing hangar bay of the GAR base. Obi-Wan’s first harried impression was that he looked like a statue, as much a part of his surroundings as the X-wing fighters and docking cradles.

The helmet turned to him and the illusion shattered. Obi-Wan went for a handshake. The Commander threw a salute as perfect as his parade rest had been. They stared at each other like that for a startled moment, and Obi-Wan found himself grasping at the very last straws of his remaining composure.

“Ah,” he said, scrambling to recall the informational pamphlets that had been distributed among the senior Knights. “At ease.”

“General Kenobi,” the Commander said. He deliberately stepped out of parade rest and tilted his head in a stilted nod.

read more on ao3

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abyssal-ali · 2 years ago

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look at those flowers that look like you

Pairing: Jasonette

Rating: T

WC: ~2.6k

A/N: Hanahaki AU of my Reputation AU.

Includes prompts for days 8-13 (May 10, 12, and substitute quote 1 are the quotes used, and May 8, 9, 11, & 13 are the flowers used).

Title from snow flower by V of BTS (ft. Peakboy)

I've read a couple hanahaki fics but not many, and this is my first time writing one, so I hope it's okay.

Spoilers for Reputation 'Verse: It's not stated (and I haven't gotten that far in Reputation 'Verse), but Tikki is a Symbiote with Mari, and Plagg is a cat (he's sentient. I'm not saying why bc spoilers, but he can talk and judge Mari's dismal relationship status.)

Todd is Mari's nickname for Jason and he calls her Snow.

Mari is very heavily emotionally repressed from dealing with Hawkmoth (shocker, Jason is the emotionally literate one), so she acts a bit differently here.

They're in Paris, Jason is having a kind of gap year from the Bats and Mari moonlights as Noire Chance (I daren't say more lest I spoil RV.)

If you see plot holes...no you don't♡

Enjoy!

♡☆♡☆♡☆♡

Noire Chance whipped through the cool air, laughter bursting from her lips as she narrowly evaded her pursuer. By using her smaller size and flexibility to her advantage, she sprung off the wall corner and doubled back, using the precious few seconds she had gained to increase the gap between her and Red Hood.

However, Hood had more mass and force behind him, causing him to catch up to her quickly, snagging a gloved hand around her waist and jerking her back to his chest as he swung them up to a taller rooftop.

“Got you, Snow.”

She pouted but didn’t pass up the chance to be trapped by his sturdy body, keeping the resistance to a minimum.

“And I believe that makes it 4:3 escapes this week, in my favour. I would like to collect my winnings in the form of a homemade meal and baking,” said Hood proudly.

She rolled her eyes but acquiesced with minimal grumbling.

They headed off in separate directions for their respective residences, patrolling over for the night.

~~~~~

Marinette had a long hot shower to unwind and relax, planning on taking the weekend off for once. The heat and steam eventually made breathing difficult, so she got out and dried off. Hopefully, she wasn’t coming down with something.

She dressed in her favourite fuzzy onesie and curled into bed with the novel Hood had recommended to her. She was halfway through and it was starting to get good.

The band around her chest eased a little bit as she relaxed and was still. She should probably get checked for asthma or sickness, but she was usually fine. It was probably just another side effect of the trauma that she preferred to ignore.

Dismissing the thought from her mind, Marinette snuggled deeper into the pillows and focused on the book.

~~~~~

“Smells good.”

Marinette whipped around, brandishing a knife threateningly at the intruder. “When will you learn to knock?!”

“When you get a better security system,” shrugged Jason. “This one is so easy to get by, I could do it in my sleep. When it actually requires effort, then I’ll consider it. I gotta keep you on your toes, though.”

“You really don’t.” Marinette gave him the cold shoulder, turning back to stirring the sauce on the stove. “I have a perfectly fine system for enemies, and I can take care of myself just fine.”

“I know you can.” There was a tell-tale crunch as Jason pilfered a handful of grapes from the rack where she was draining them and ate one. “Doesn’t hurt to be extra cautious.”

He had a point, but she wasn’t going to give in yet. They had a variation of this conversation every time he broke in came over.

Plagg wound around Jason’s feet, begging for pets, or more likely, cheese. Jason scooped the cat up and ran his fingers through Plagg’s silky fur.

“Hey, Plagg, Snow thinks you’re a good defence system. But you’re not, are you? Look at you, purring in my arms.”

“That’s because he’s smart enough to know who’s a friend and who’s foe,” Mari defended Plagg.

As they ate, Marinette noticed the familiar tightening around her chest. It felt like she swallowed too large a bite at once and got stuck in her esophagus.

Sipping her wine didn’t help dislodge the lump, and Mari realized that the lump wasn’t physically blocking her airway, though it felt like it.

She continued eating, taking smaller bites than normal just in case.

Jason stared at her. “Why are you eating so slowly? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” She glared back at him. “Maybe it just seems slow because you inhaled your portion in five minutes.”

“I did not inhale it! I appreciated the effort that went into making such a delicious meal and savoured it appropriately–by eating it while it was still fresh and hot.”

The band tightened, and Mari was unable to hide the grimace she made that time.

“Okay, something is wrong. What’s up, Marinette.” All teasing had left Jason’s voice and he stared at her, trying to pick out why she was acting so oddly.

“I just feel a bit short of breath. It happens sometimes. I’m fine,” she hiccupped.

“Snow, being short of breath is not a good thing.”

“Could you stop being so overbearing?!” Marinette snapped. Surprise covered Jason’s face. She’d never yelled at him seriously before, but it didn’t sound like their joking debates now.

“Sorry.”

She looked almost as surprised as him that she’d yelled at him. “Sorry,” she muttered. “I’m just not feeling great, okay? Do you mind cutting tonight short?”

“Yeah, of course. Do you want to go to bed?”

“I’ll just go lie down. Good night, Todd.”

“I hope you feel better soon, Mari. Have a good sleep.”

She nodded and headed to her room.Jason puttered about for a few minutes, clearing the table and washing the remaining dishes, hoping Mari would emerge and tell him what was up. She never got sick, thanks to Tikki. Something was definitely off.

He knocked lightly on her door. The lights were off and he hoped she was asleep, but he didn’t want to leave without one last check.

If he didn’t, who would?

The door swung open and he saw Mari bundled in her blankets. The grey light from the rainy evening provided just enough light for him to see her shaking as if she was cold, or maybe having a nightmare.

He stepped in quietly and promptly stopped when he heard Mari whispering fiercely to herself.

“I am not going to cry. This is not worth crying about. I am not going to cry. I will not cry– dang it!”

Her hand moved, he assumed to wipe the tears away, and he approached her bed slowly.

“Snow, you know I’m always here for you, right?”

She rolled over as quickly as she could, being bundled up so much. “Jason! Why are you still here?!”

“I wanted to be sure you were actually okay before I left.”

She lifted her chin defiantly, the moonlight highlighting a tear trail silver on her cheek.

“Peachy. Thanks for your care, but I’m fine by myself. Don’t you have patrol, anyways?”

“You’re more important, Snow. Do you want to tell me why you’re crying?”

Another tear spilled over.

“No.”

Jason sat on the edge of her bed, pulling her into his arms. “I don’t care if you don’t want my help; I’m giving it to you anyways. I know how lonely it feels to cry alone.”

He held her all night as tears continually rolled down her face silently, dampening her blanket and his shirt, but he didn’t care.

Finally, she fell asleep and he tucked her into the dry half of her bed. His lips brushed her hair before he straightened and left the room.

~~~~~

Marinette stretched and slowly opened her eyes to a sunshiny room. It was nice to wake up peacefully, not from a nightmare. Little specks of dust danced in the warm beams, Plagg was purring on her feet, and–

She bounced a little in shock. Jason was facing her, soundly asleep, his arm slung over her waist, though he was on top of the duvet and she was under it.

Why was Jason sleeping on her bed? He’d never done that before.

How mortifying. Why had she cried on him all night? How uncharacteristic of her.

She should’ve just yelled at him and kicked him out, though both were even more uncharacteristic.

She didn’t even know why she was crying, which was the most frustrating. It’s easy enough to cry and excuse it when you have a reason, but crying for no reason is stupid, she told herself.

At least Jason didn’t say anything about it? If he treated her like she was irrational or weak after this, she was going to send him to the moon without a suit.

She rolled her eyes and reached down to pet Plagg.

Jason opened his eyes and smiled at her.

“Hey, Mari. Sleep well?”

His voice was deeper than usual and a bit rough, sending shivers down her spine.

Mentally slapping herself, she forced a smile and her everyday everything-is-fine voice. “Just fine. How about you? Thanks for staying, by the way.”

“I got a good sleep. Sure wasn’t from knowing this place was secure, so I wonder how that happened,” he teased.

Marinette pushed him off the bed.

“Ouch! Snow! Just for that, I’m not going to make you breakfast like I was planning.”

“Wait, no, I’m sorry!”

~~~~~

Once Jason left after breakfast Marinette headed off to shower and contemplate the meaning of life.

“Tikki, do you have any idea why this is happening?”

“I’m sorry, Marinette, but I do not at the moment.”

Partway through washing her hair, the steam got to her and she started coughing. She stumbled out of the tub to lean over the toilet, feeling something moving the wrong way up her esophagus.

She spat a small orange bud out and stared at it in confusion. A couple coughs later, four more orange-yellow blossoms joined the first.

“Tikki,” she whispered in dawning horror. “I’m coughing up flowers.”

~~~~~

Googling her symptoms was a brilliant idea, and she discovered that she had anywhere from two hours to five years left and she was likely suffering from hanahaki disease, which wasn’t well-recorded and had limited information on, both for causes and treatments/cures.*

The flowers she was coughing up were apparently butterfly weed, a cousin to milkweed, which was toxic to almost all animals except monarch butterflies. Butterfly weed, shockingly enough, attracted butterflies.

She shivered. Butterflies.

That made sense, she’d always made sure butterflies avoided her. Of course she was suffering from a disease for unknown reasons and said disease made her attract one of the things she hated the most in the world.

Possible reasons for contracting hanahaki disease included unrequited romantic feelings, unconfessed romantic feelings, or unknown romantic feelings.

Ugh, why was it always romantic feelings? One of the most conflicting emotions she never wanted to experience and wanted desperately at the same time.

She wanted to be loved completely and all-consumingly by someone who would burn the world for her, who would make her their number one priority.

She had seen the consequences of obsessive love in Hawkmoth. Look what he had done to her in the name of love. Love was dangerous. It hurt the innocent.

It was heart-wrenchingly beautiful.

~~~~~

Marinette sat down straight on her couch, journal cracked open to a fresh page and pen in hand. What I could have hanahaki about: was scrawled across the top line.

Ten minutes later she tossed them onto the floor in frustration.

“How am I supposed to know what I’m feeling?! They’re all jumbled together and I don’t particularly feel inclined to untangle them!”

Another hacking cough started and a small cluster of butterfly weed stained red came up. With a tired sigh, she wiped her mouth and picked up the journal and pen.

~~~~~

“‘Feeling better?’ No, I’m coughing up literal bloody flowers because I’m too emotionally repressed to know why!” she hissed at her phone in response to Jason’s text.

“Have a diagnosis. I’ll be fine in a couple days,” she replied.

Jason showed up at her door the next night.

She opened it and was promptly greeted with a bouquet of flowers. “You knocked,” she said, stunned by the bouquet.

Jason shrugged. “Didn’t want to drop the vase.”

“Thank you…but what is this for?”

He shrugged again. “Just because. You know that book I was reading about flowers? It just made me think of you and so I got them. I bet Tikki will love them.”

“Probably. Thanks, Todd.” She placed the vase on the coffee table, identifying the blossoms as yellow and white lilies, pink and red roses, and smaller filler buds with pink lilies-of-the-valley and baby’s breath. She remembered what most of them meant from one of Jason’s rants–

The now-familiar urge to cough up a branch of flowers overtook her and she headed swiftly to the bathroom to do so in peace.

“You okay, Mari? Seriously? ‘Cause that sounds…bad,” called Jason.

“Yep, just some stuff. It sounds worse than it is,” she called back.

She swung the door open and raised a brow at him standing right outside.

“I’m fine; drop it.”

He eyed her but gave in and bowed after her, following her to the couch, where she’d been watching a Chinese drama.

Halfway through an episode, he shifted to see her better. “Do you have hanahaki?”

Her head whipped around to look at him. “What?”

“Do you have hanahaki?” he repeated. “You’re coughing up bloody something, which looks like flowers, you’re being more standoffish than usual, and you’re emotionally traumatized, which would make sense why you caught it.”

“Ugh, can I have no secrets from you?!” she threw her hands up in exasperation. “Fine, I have hanahaki! I’m working on processing my emotions or whatever so I can know why I have it, okay? I’m taking care of it.”

“You know a faster way to resolve it?”

“What?”

With that tone of voice, he was either teasing or going to say something she wasn’t going to like.

“Acknowledging your feelings and confessing them.”

Oh, it was both. Yay.

“Right, well, I don’t know what I’m feeling, never mind for who.” She leaned menacingly into his personal space.

He kissed the tip of her nose. She sat back an inch and blinked.

“What was that for?”

He sometimes did it when they hadn’t seen each other in a while, one of their old traditions that he still kept. She returned it only when he was sick, injured, or feeling sad.

“Just because. And now you’re not in my face and I won’t go cross-eyed anymore,” he grinned. “Look, you hang out with how many people you could have feelings for?”

“...”

“I’m your only friend that you regularly hang out with, Snow.”

“So…I have feelings for you?”

“Do you?” he asked softly. “What comes to mind when you think about me?”

“Safe, fun, affection…”

She paused, then vaulted over the back of the sofa and ran to her room. “Tikki, do I like Jason?!”

“I think you view him as more than a friend.”

“I like Jason?

“I like Jason.

“I love Jason?

“I love Jason. How- That is literally so obvious…I love Jason.”

Marinette shuffled out of her room a few minutes later, facing him sheepishly. “It has come to my attention that I have romantic feelings for you.”

He smiled, the happiest one she’d seen on him in ages. “I have romantic feelings for you, too.”

“I was starting to get the idea,” she laughed, nodding at the vase a couple feet away.

"Finally."

Jason’s hands cupped her face. “Is your nose glowing a side effect of hanahaki or something?”

“Not as far as I know…” She pulled her phone out and stared at the screen. Her nose was faintly glowing.

“It’s not just the sunlight, right?”

Jason shook his head. “Is–I think it’s a soulmate mark.”**

“What?”

Tiny gold freckles dotted her nose and forehead, the largest one being on the tip of her nose, where he usually kissed her.

“We’re soulmates?”

Marinette looked at Jason in shock.

“I have a soulmate?” he muttered.

“I’m so glad it’s you!” Mari launched herself into his arms, squeezing as tightly as she could. “I secretly imagined you as my soulmate when we were younger, you know.”

“I did too!”

They laughed together, overflowing with joy at the revelations of the afternoon.

Link to inspo pic of bouquet Jason gifts Mari:

https://i1.wp.com/the-little-flowershop.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/RED-ROSE-PINK-LILY-FLOWER-BOUQUET-THE-LITTLE-FLOWER-SHOP-FLORIST-LONDON-UK-DELIVERY-e1554746538624.jpg?fit=822%2C1056&ssl=1

*Hanahaki Disease isn't very common in this world because it's caused by unacknowledged romantic feelings (unacknowledged by the owner of said feelings). It doesn't show up very often, as most people come to realize they have feelings for another person before the hanahaki sets in (too badly). However, as Marinette is very much in *suppress* and *act fine* mode, she has no idea what she feels about Jason, etc.

Jason, my poor boy, has been trying to drop hints to Marinette that he sees her as more than a friend/vigilante partner for a while now, but Mari is heavily in *denial* and *don't get your hopes up about someone liking you*. The book about flowers Jason was reading was about the symbolism/flower language. Yes, he told Mari all about it and she ignored all the random flowers he'd previously given her.

**Soulmate bonds are rare (1.5% population), and show up as gold marks where the soulmates touch skin-to-skin the most. Mari and Jason aren't super touchy, and are usually mostly covered up, so it's taken a while for their bond to show up.

Maribat Taglist (open): @the-coffee-fandom, @questioning-blob-of-fog, @jennifer-rose123

#Hanahaki Hours #Hanahaki Hours 2023 #Jasonette #Mlbxdc #Dcxmlb #Fic #ali writes

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mintaka14 · 2 years ago

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Six Sentence Sunday (which was yesterday for me, but whatever) 20 Feb 2023

I’m madly pinballing between several wips at the moment as my brain throws random stuff at me. One of them is a ML hanahaki variation fic that I’ve had simmering in the background for a while. So here’s a little snippet of it:

“Are you alright?” Luka asked gently, and it sounded different to the way Adrien had asked. It sounded like he already saw half the problem, and was willing to give her whatever she needed.

“I’m fine,” she said wearily. A familiar feeling prickled in her lungs, and she pressed a hand to her chest to try and suppress the cough that was building up. “I mean, I’m not fine,” she amended, “but I’ll work it out.”

“I’m here if you need someone to work it out with,” Luka offered, his eyes still fixed on her with that look that saw right through any excuses she might make, and accepted whatever she chose to tell him anyway.

#lukanette #pro lukamari #six sentence sunday #hanahaki #Lily White and Blood Red #angst

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evanescentjasmine · 1 year ago

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For the questions for fic writers - how about 4, 12, and 30?

4. What detail in [insert fic] are you really proud of?

The closest answer to mind right now is probably the name of Grief's daemon in genius loci. It gave me such (forgive me) grief until Riddance just waltzed into my head fully-formed and feral.

Details I actually worked on would probably beeeee...

The narrator voice in my Hades/TMA crossover fic, there is no escape, which had to follow the Hades style while still being horrifying. Deeply pleased with how that came out.

The way urban fantasy protagonist Gerry Keay uses the Fears against each other in my GerryOliver TMA fic, youth dipped in folly. I'm fascinated by the different conceptions of the Fears and how someone outside of the Institute would think of and interact with them, so that was very fun to do.

Most recently, the descriptions in my Daniil timeloop fic, salvage. I'm a writer who frequently forgets that characters don't just exist in a formless void and has to get bonked on the head to describe things, so this is very much a, "look, ma, I did it by myself this time!"

12. Are there any tropes you used to dislike but have grown on you?

I haven't written any of these myself (yet?) but hanahaki, a/b/o, and variations of love/fuck or die tropes have historically not been my jam - then I joined horror fandoms and discovered actually these are incredibly tasty to me IF! AND ONLY IF! the horror of it is explored and, preferably, frontloaded. Then I eat that shit up with a spoon.

30. Have you ever written something that was out of your comfort zone? If so, what was it, and how did it affect your approach to writing fic thereafter?

Related to the above but: r o m a n c e

I can co-write romance just fine, and can enjoy reading it, but left to my own devices in my own fics I tend to...forget it exists? Sex too, sometimes (#aroace brain) which means I don't tend to write ship fics usually, and pairing dynamics tend to be background or off-screen entirely.

My first foray into writing romance by myself was for original work writing and I wrote like six separate romanceable characters in that so woof. It was uh. Painful? And awkward? And I second-guessed myself constantly. Then my GerryOliver fic (although even then my lovely friend and beta had to be like "jas do you think you wanna add some...you know...kissing to this?" and I am eternally thankful) and then -

Well. How it affected my approach to writing fic is a) when I'm outlining I have to look at it and ask myself, did I forget to consider if they have romantic and/or sexual feelings again? and b) how can I use those potential feelings to make everything w o r s e

I'm looking forward to implementing the results of my learning into genius loci before long.

(although, despite being ostensibly a shippy fic, Artemy and Daniil's relationship to each other is still not quite as important as their respective relationships with themselves so. maybe one day I'll write a straight-up romance finally who knows)

#ask game

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kitkatt0430 · 1 year ago

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9, 14, and 21 for the relationships asks?

9.) When you write, do you plan out the stages of a relationship, or just let it flow? Do you have any works where the characters seem to "write themselves"?

I'm much more of a seat of the pants type writer than a planner, so I'm much more likely to just let it flow. But at the same time, I'll often have at least a general idea of the phases of the relationship. The whole friend to crush to mutual pining nonsense to crashing ridiculously into dating sort of thing. Or variations thereupon. :D

There've definitely been a lot where the characters seem to write themselves, though. The Pied Piper's Army of Rats series has both to some degree. There've been some changes here and there, but once I started working on it the series has followed the general plan for the Cisco/Hartley ship from the start. The two of them having to learn to trust each other, then become reluctant friends, start noticing there's this attraction brewing, move in together to get Hartley out of STAR Labs and further from Eobard's control, the Out of Time/Rogue Time event really polarizing their feelings for each other and demonstrating that in two separate timelines Hartley chooses protecting Cisco over his own safety, and then finally they hook up afterwards.

There's still stages to go, getting comfortable with living together as a couple all of a sudden and Hartley still wanting a space that his sister can move into with him when she turns eighteen. (It's been hinted at, but Jerrie's doing late admissions to local colleges in Central & Keystone that offer things she's actually interested in, but knows her parents won't support her through. She's done regular admissions already for the 'approved' places for business and science degrees she has no interest in.)

But then the other big ship of the series was Barry/Iris/Eddie which swung in out of nowhere and refused to be quiet. I just love Westhallen too much, I couldn't resist the opportunity to slide it in. And, honestly, those three just work. I don't really have a set plan for them, to be honest. I'm just winging it. Which, admittedly, may be why the latest fic in that series is yet unfinished. But I'll get there.

14.) Are there any relationship dynamics/tropes you want to write in the future, but haven't yet?

I've been inspired to write Reverb/HR - definitely a bit of a crack ship there. And that'll likely take the sunshine/grumpy dynamic to much more of an extreme than I've taken it before. So that's a specific one that's coming up.

But overall, I'm not really picky about the relationship tropes I write. I'll probably eventually even write something with Hanahaki disease in it, just so that I will have tried it once for the challenge of it. The more I write, the more I realize that some things I write not because they are tropes or ships I specifically like, but because I enjoy the challenge that writing those things presents. It's why I like fix-fic writing, because there's definitely a challenge there in taking something that feels broken to me in some way and determining how to make it work better.

I think this is why I'm looking forward to getting around to the mpreg request fic I was sent. Though I'm also kind of glad it's far down on the list of fic requests, since it is out of my usual comfort zone. Gives me a lot of time to figure out how I want to make it work - backstory on the characters for how they reach the point of wanting to have kids, the circumstances for which its possible, how much real science can I use to back up the hand-wavey fictional science... and then also writing it in a way that it can still be an enjoyable fic for those who might not usually read that trope but are still choosing to give it a chance. (Like myself, though I've still read plenty of it over the years.)

21.) Not all relationships are romantic. What's your favorite non-romantic relationship that you've written about?

Lisa and Hartley as QPPs. Clicking as friends at first but the later coming to realize how important they are to each other and how comfortably they've just kind of come to living together... the Missy Verse is probably one of my favorite little ongoing series because of them. I may not add to the series a lot, but when I do it tends to be heavy on the side of looking at how their relationship grows from a regular platonic relationship into a much more queerplatonic ship.

#kitkatt0430 answers #relationship ask game #ask game

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eatyoursparkout · 6 months ago

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Questions for the fanfic ask! (man, all of them are so fun!) 20. what is your favorite trope to write?

43. how did writing change you?

2. talk about a notable time a narrative or character has looked you dead in the eyes and said “fuck your plan, here’s what we’re actually doing.”

20) Ooh, too many to count really... hence why my ao3 profile is a huge mix of tropes- I keep wanting to try out new things! Some that immediately come to mind are 5+1 (because I like the structure of writing a series of interconnected scenes), and hanahaki (for the poetic angst potential), but the thing that I probably write the most is variations on get-together fics. I like navigating all the feelings and the will-they-won't-they tension that leads up to that final emotional catharsis. I haven't written enough of it, but I also love enemies to lovers for the crunch, and let me be weak, let me sleep, because it's another great way to emotionally torment a character.

43) I'm sure it's changed me in other ways that I can't think of right now, but honestly what I've noticed most is that it's really changed the way that I observe and interact with my surroundings. Whenever I'm out, I'm constantly noticing and cataloguing details about people, the environment, etc. and thinking about how I'd describe them in words. One time I was walking back to my apartment in the winter and I suddenly became super aware that I was doing it- thinking about how I'd describe the rubbery crunch of the snow, the way it squeaked beneath my boots... it's just something that I can't turn off now 😂

Semi-related, but it's also made it so hard to read books without stopping every other page to make note of some turn of phrase I like, or some well-constructed paragraph. I have to decide before I sit down whether I'm going to shut off that critical reader and just enjoy the story, and even then I often fall into the trap haha

2) My answer for this one is probably going to be kind of disappointing! I'm way more planner than pantser, and pretty much outline everything. I've had some outlines expand to be larger than intended, but I've never had a moment where a fic truly diverged from my original idea. This is probably also influenced by the fact that a lot of my works are (explicit) oneshots and/or character/relationship studies, so I don't often write the kind of plotty, long stories that could really go off the rails...

#ty for the questions!!#book.answers

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cleaning-has-its-benefits · 1 year ago

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Lately I’ve thinking of a fic idea I had, which I wasn’t really sure I would actually write someday. I guess I would call it’s status as “unlikely I will write this” rather than “I’ll never write this.” But I felt like talking about it so heck it.

It would have been a pre-canon fic from Kel’s pov. It didn’t have a title and the summary would have been “Kel’s thoughts regarding hanahaki.” As you might guess, it was a hanahaki au, although the way hanahaki works would have differed from the standard. There’s probably a name for it but I’m not too knowledgeable in hanahaki variations.

Cw for emetophobia.

So, here hanahaki is a non-lethal sickness, but it’s severity varies greatly from person to person, depending on the exact cause. The cause can be related to unrequired love, but said love doesn’t necessarily have to be romantic, it can be platonic or familial too. But in general, the cause of hanahaki is bottled up or unresolved feelings, not necessarily about love. So here, all the group suffers from hanahaki to various degrees.

Well, since this was mostly a monologue, there wasn’t that much plot. But it would have taken place during recess at school. Kel there would think about how hanahaki is rather common among students his age, and he wonders about what could have happened to them to end up with hanahaki. Considering his own experience, he find saddening how widespread it is. It’s probably a normal occurrence to find bloody petals (or full flowers) in the bathroom. Maybe sometimes he looks at the lower grades and feels certain nostalgia for the time when he was little and didn’t have to grown accustomed to living with the sensation of petals in the lungs. Although it’s not like children are strangers to the sickness.

For as long as he’s known them, Aubrey and Basil have always suffered from hanahaki. Maybe this sickness is the reason why they both bonded before meting the others. It wouldn’t be until his teenage years when Kel would actually grasp the implications of that, and sometimes he wishes he could have been more understanding at the time. Now though, Basil avoids him (and everybody, really) like the plague and Aubrey doesn’t want to know anything about him, so Kel thinks he cannot do much.

There might or might not been a plot point regarding Kel’s hanahaki affecting his practice in basketball, due to it making it more difficult to breathe or causing pain during intense physical activity, but him not being deterred by it. However, I think I needed to do research to actually point how hanahaki is treated in the sports world, so this is mostly a loose idea there.

If this reads as somewhat messy is because this fic didn’t get beyond the brainstorming phase, so maybe I should stop trying to give some order, and I’ll admit I thought more about the world than Kel’s thoughts regarding it. So now I’ll mention how the main group is affected.

Starting with Kel, he has a mild severity. This means that in the current time he just coughs petals like once or twice per day, although at times they can be bloody. He contracted the sickness on the day of his 13th birthday, when it truly hit him all his friends had… left him? Kel’s hanahaki comes from this uncertain status of the friendgroup. They never officially end their friendship, they just sorta… stopped talking and spending time. This lack of closure and longing is the cause. Even if at first it was shocking and confusing for him, overtime it has gotten milder and milder (though in the beginning it was really distressing, specially because he didn’t really understand his very messy emotions.) It’s expected that with more time, Kel’s hanahaki will cure on it’s own, but he has hopes that one day it will cure when he’s reunited with his friends once again.

Hero’s hanahaki started sometime after he snapped at Kel. Before, it wasn’t anyone’s guess how he felt. He expressed pretty clearly how devastated he was, so he wasn’t ‘bottleing it up’ and thus I think it makes sense if he didn’t suffer from hanahaki during his long-year seclusion. After it, though, he threw himself into a lot of work to keep himself busy and not think much about it. He didn’t want to worry his family, so he became more closed-off and tried to solve his feelings on his own. His hanahaki would also be considered mild, but is more severe than Kel’s, but Hero hides it better. The main cause is the guilt, that he tries to work on his own, that he “should have” helped Mari. Maybe it could get cured if he accepted he was fifteen and he simply didn’t know, but that’s a really difficult thing for him. Though I think he also feels guilty for leaving the others on their own and not taking his role as the older brother of the group. I think in general he blames himself for a lot of things. After the talk at the tree-stump, his symptoms would lessen considerably. He maybe feels he’s finally doing what he should have done four years ago.

Aubrey’s hanahaki started at a young age, due to her familial problems. If this fic was from her point of view, I think it would have been really angsty, imagine if her parents made her hide her sickness to keep their reputation. That would be messed up! But anyways, in her teenage years, her hanahaki has gotten worse. The cause it’s still her family issues, which have only gotten worse, but there’s also her unresolved feelings regarding her former friends. She misses them, but she isn’t willing to admit it. There was a scene I had thought of, where Aubrey is at Kim’s mother’s house, throwing up in the bathroom in the middle of the night. She’s not alone, however, Kim is there to accompany and help her, like by keeping her hair out of the way and rubbing her back. Probably Aubrey has a bit internalized what her parents told her, to hide her sickness, so her letting someone her help is a sign of great trust.

Like Aubrey, Basil’s hanahaki started when he was small, due to his absent parents. Although since he had his grandmother, his sickness was milder than Aubrey’s, and maybe he was a bit more open about it than her, or at least his grandmother didn’t make him feel like it was something he had to be ashamed of. After Mari’s death, though, his hanahaki would become very severe. Hiding the secret implied hiding many things, but what made his sickness to worsen so much was the feeling of not being able to be honest with anyone. Basil couldn’t talk about what tormented him so much, because no one could know, and since no one knows what he went through, then no one can understand what he feels… except one person. Basil’s hanahaki would probably be the closest to the standard hanahaki. There was an scene of Basil that was to parallel Aubrey’s, where he throws up in his bathroom in the middle of the night, though in his case he’s alone and trying to keep quiet, to not wake up Polly or his grandmother. While Aubrey uses the sink (because the flowers would clog the toilet), Basil uses the bathtub, since there he has more space to throw up whole flowers, and also can lie down a bit. In the scene, he would be doing that, pressing the side of his face against the bathtub’s border and trying to rest a bit. There’s a flower stuck in his mouth but at first he’s too exhausted to do anything about it. After a while, though, he reaches for it and pulls out a flower with a stem as long as his arm, and roots the same size, then he places it with the rest of the bloody flowers in the bathtub. He looks at the mess, although I didn’t decide if he sobs at it or if he looks indifferent. Either way, he knows he has to clean that up before he can go to bed, but all he can think about is how tired he is and how much he wants to sleep.

Sunny’s hanahaki started after Mari’s death and out of everyone in the group it is the most severe, although this isn’t obvious at first glance. Sunny coughs up bloody petals while he sleeps, and with just that it would seem his case is a mild one. However, that just means all the flowers are stuck at his lungs, and he feels a lot of pain, constantly is out of breath and even little exercise can be dangerous for him. He doesn’t give himself many chances to let them out, though in moments of high stress, such as the phobia fights, are when the lid is lifted and sometimes he doesn’t even get to the bathroom before throwing up in a rather violent way. Sometimes this can happen in the middle of a battle, so it is really stressful for him. I was going to think about how hanahaki affects headspace when I remembered this was supposed to be a Kel-centric fic and thus I didn’t really have room for that. As for the cause of Sunny’s hanahaki… where to even begin! At least I guess in the true ending it would be cured? Or at least get way less severe?

I might have include how hanahaki had been treated/viewed historically and culturally, maybe leaning towards it being encouraged to be hidden, but I wasn’t really sure about this.

Going back to Kel, the fic would have ended with Cris and Jay calling Kel to hang out with them. Turns out the reason why Kel was at recess doing nothing for like 2-3k words is because he was waiting for them, so he goes with them rather joyfully. This fic’s tone was to be more bittersweet than angst, maybe with Kel being mostly nostalgic, so I though ending it on a happy note would help with it. Or idk.

I was really torn between taking this seriously (in the sense of making a finished fic of it) or not, so I was going back and forth between adding it to my list of wips or leaving it as just a fun idea to think about. But since I still have a lot of wips, then I was leaning more towards the second option. Writing it here is a way of registering it and so it doesn’t get lost in memory, which I was a bit sad about. So yeah.

I almost forgot to add, this was inspired by a post I read a long time ago but I can't find it :(

I'll link it here if I find it again.

#ideas that i'll never finish or even start

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atsuminthe · 3 years ago

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when the rain falls, when the sun shines

★ synopsis: there was nothing he could have done... was there?

★ character(s): sakusa kiyoomi

★ warnings: VERY HEAVY ANGST and i cannot stress this enough, unrequited love, hanahaki disease au, graphic depictions of death (gore), declining health, some symbolism, grief, spiraling, depression, anxiety/panic attacks

★ word count: 2k words

★ minty’s notes: if any of the warnings listed triggers you, for the love of god, please do not read this. i beg you.

★ additional notes: for y’all brave souls who decide to venture further, i recommend listening to THIS while reading. it’s a very small playlist of songs that inspired this fic.

“at the very back of the cecilia garden, surrounded by life, sits a dead flower—the product of a poor soul trying to bring their beloved back after their skin had gone cold.”

it had all began when kiyoomi moved in next door at the age of 6. it was usually his siblings that socialized with the neighbors and introduced the family to everyone—his parents were too busy with work for such trivial matters. he was a reserved child, having been raised in a cold environment, yet he opened up quickly when presented with the offer of someone to call “friend”. it was as if his little grey world had been hit with a splash of color—nothing big, maybe a cloud taking the shape of a weasel or a patch of grass becoming green—and, frankly, he was thankful that he met you.

“it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” he mumbled, eyes cast down, looking at his shoes as you sat on the porch eating pickled plums—his favorites. he remembers your smile after he said that—it was raining, but the sky immediately cleared up the moment your lips curled into a grin. at the time, he thought you could control the weather or something. maybe it followed your mood unconsciously? who knows, he never found out—it was most likely a coincidence, kiyoomi thinks. nobody can control the weather.

you two basically grew up together—while you had other friends, and many more at that, you always came back to kiyoomi no matter what. he understood you the best and you could always be trusted to listen to him without blowing up that he was “bothersome”. you were never busy enough to tell him no, and he was thankful for that.

now, at 16, the sakusa household is empty most of the time. after his siblings left, it was just him and the silence. some nights were spent over to your house, other to his cousin’s—he learned to live in solitude, surrounded by nothingness and closing himself off from the outer world with a shell so thick and sturdy even you had trouble breaking through.

but you’re—you. sakusa kiyoomi’s best friend, still following him around with a bento you made yourself so he eats that day, still pestering him and poking at his waist and ribs when he ignores you, still pushing him to do what he loves and encouraging him to work hard so he can achieve his goals. you’re always there right beside him—or behind him, as of late—to support him. kiyoomi is grateful, of course. you keep him on track most days.

when did you start to fall, though?

some say you “fall in love and scrape your knees”; others say “you don’t always fall in love, sometimes it feels like walking into a house and knowing you’re home”. the variations of this simple act—of loving—are endless, like the infinite expanse of kiyoomi’s obsidian eyes as he stares at nothing in particular.

when did he become so handsome?

perhaps he was always like this, able to steal your breath away and make your chest ache painfully, even if you were not aware of it. it had started slow—one winter morning, on your way to school, when he wrapped his green scarf around your neck after you sneezed from the cold, gently chastising you for not waking up on time and almost being late. or one summer night, when his usually small smile morphed into one of his rare laughs, with snorts and chokes and stutters, when motoya said the funniest thing all three of you had heard in a while. on a spring day, when he gifted you a small bouquet of cecilias, flowers of faithfulness, that had just bloomed in his garden—he said they reminded him of you with how bright they looked in the morning sun. on an autumn evening—a walk in the park turned visiting some stores and buying little trinkets for each other.

for you, there was no “falling in love” or “walking in a house and knowing you’re home”—it was waking up and choosing to love. it was choosing to lose yourself for him—to let yourself fade for a love you didn’t know it was unrequited.

the ache in your chest and shortness of breath followed you everywhere, not just when spending time with your best friend. it was a constant in your life—a constant you told nobody of. you let it sit, thinking it’ll go away eventually, as all things have passed before. yet this one was insistent, forcing you to gasp or take deeper breaths out of nowhere, else you’d choke—on something.

and one day, with a powerful cough, one single bluish-purple flower fell from between your lips and landed into your palm, droplets of blood rolling down your chin from the strain. a quick search revealed that the flower you had just spat was a wolfsbane—a highly toxic plant that symbolizes, among others, death.

you knew about this flower-coughing disease—everybody knows. you’ve had relatives that died because of it. how ironic, you think, to be afflicted by the one illness you despise the most. and to disturb kiyoomi from his career? to burden him with something that could affect his entire future? he’s told you numerous times that he sees you more like a sibling than anything else. why bother?

you could bear with it.

or so you thought.

it was 6 months after the first flower appeared—you hadn’t come to school in a two days, neither had you answered any phone calls or texts. to say kiyoomi was worried was an understatement. he knew your parents had left the prior week on a business trip and he knew that you were capable of taking care of yourself—but where were you? there was no trace of your existence left except for the rumors that he didn’t care to listen to. it was all gossip, how you’d found someone older and ran away with them, or how you left home to make a living as god-knows-what.

kiyoomi doesn’t like being ignored.

he decides to visit you after school, see what you’ve been up to. there has to be something wrong if you didn’t show up anywhere at all, right?

oh, how he wishes he didn’t do it.

the moment he opens the front door with the spare key under the welcome mat, a chill travels down his spine—something is amiss. something terrible has happened—his stomach drops when he hears the familiar silence he so loves—it’s unusual for this place. it’s pressing like an anvil on his chest, suffocating him. he takes a careful step, the old hardwood floor squeaking under his feet.

the looming sense of doom becomes bigger and bigger, weighing his shoulders down as he pushes forward. he passes the kitchen, where a stack of a few unwashed plates sits in the sink, while the rest of the room is in pristine condition. the living room is untouched as well, so are the bathrooms and your parents’ room.

kiyoomi sits in front of your door and he’s never felt more unsettled in his life. he’s shaking like a leaf, his hand attempting to grab the doorknob and twist it to open the damn slab of wood—his strength seems to have dissipated, to have left him in his time of need. with a deep breath that sounded more like a child crying silently, he forces his muscles to move and push the door open. he stands in the doorway, taking in the sight before him as the door slowly reveals your room.

the scream he lets out can only be described as horrifying—heart-wrenching, like a cry for help when you can’t articulate words—pained.

his eyes widen and dull over, hand flying to cover his mouth and nose as he looks at you.

you’re laying on the bed, pale and unmoving, vines and branches piercing your torso, splitting it open, mercilessly impaling your insides and twisting at impossible angles, curling around your ribs as the bed is drenched in dried blood. an entire bush of wolfsbane, having taken over your body, unfurls on your cold corpse like a parasyte, having burst open your chest in an attempt to escape.

on your face, obscured by the flowers, out of kiyoomi’s sight, a smile bloomed in your last moments—little does he know, you’ve had him on your mind as your heart started beating slower and slower, vision fading to balck—your last breath a mutter of his name, lovingly calling for him—maybe so he could save you, maybe so you could see him again one more time and remind him to take care of himself—yet he didn’t come.

he couldn’t have known.

in your right hand, under a few leaves, the pendant he bought you for your birthday sits bunched and clutched between your fingers—a remnant of a love that never happened, a sliver of hope extinguished like a flame in a snowstorm.

kiyoomi sits there, petrified, before his knees fail him and he falls on the floor, sobbing silently—he’s having a panic attack, breath hitching in his throat and still trembling like a newborn fawn. his mind blanks, no rational thought in sight, as he flexes his fingers and taps the ground underneath him rhythmically to calm down.

he calls for you—screams your name, blunt nails scraping at the floor in a weak attempt to ground himself—sobs it under his breath, head falling on the hard wood with a loud thud—whispers it to the heavens, hoping you’d come back.

you don’t.

who’ll comfort him, now that you’re gone?

it’s been years.

there was nothing that could help kiyoomi recover from the trauma of you dying—both the act and the image of you simply laying there—no matter how many therapists or psychiatrists he’s seen—they all deemed him “hopeless” or something like that. they refused to work with him at some point, motivating their choice with “he’s been to half of my colleagues, i’m not a miracle worker” most of the time.

he doesn’t want to forget you.

he still gets panic attacks from time to time. they’re not major—just a little shortness of breath and heavy limbs that pass on their own after a few minutes. he lays in bed all day, anyway. he doesn’t have the energy to get up and do anything—it feels pointless. what’s the point, anyway? you left. why should he stay?

he sees you in everything. you’re everywhere—like a guardian angel, urging him to eat or crack open his blinds so the sun still seeps in, even if just on a sliver of the carpet. his home is neat and tidy, mainly because he never uses anything out of the other rooms besides the kitchen—he sleeps on the couch he moved there two weeks after your passing—and the bathroom. he doesn’t bother with being well-kept, something that shocked everybody that knew him.

sakusa kiyoomi, clean freak and germaphobe, not being uptight about his hygiene?

he looks in the mirror when he passes it by in the bathroom—he looks deplorable. his stubble has grown out again, the dark circles under his red, puffy eyes have become even darker, his shoulders look like they’re holding the weight of the world.

truth be told, he’s carrying the guilt of a death. he knows it happened because of him, because he refused to acknowledge you as something more than a “sibling”—he feels stupid now, looking back. he could have at least said he didn’t like you the way you liked him, or that he wasn’t interested in a relationship—yet he chose to be a moron and spew that filth with his own mouth.

home.

it’s just a house that happens to be his.

you’re gone and so is his home.

he visits the little cecilia sprout that appeared on your grave every week, talking to it as if it’s you. he’s not sure if you can hear him up there, but he can try to relay whatever message he has to the flower and hope it’ll deliver it to you.

one day, he promises to the little flower as it opens its corolla and the delicate petals unfurl just like the aconite that devoured your body so long ago, he’ll give you cecilias again.

“nothing on this earth creates more beautifully macabre things than the desperation of a lover.”

taglist (send an ask/dm to be added/removed): @nakizumie; @lovelytarou; @risjime; @izhyperfixates; @kirakirasaku; @tsumooo;

#[ minty’s kitchen treats — salt ]#haikyuu!!#sakusa kiyoomi #sakusa x reader #sakusa x y/n #sakusa x you #sakusa angst

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aro-and-tired · 4 years ago

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Aromantic Experiences in Fandom: Survey Results

PART 1 - PART 2 - ANALYSIS: TIME IN FANDOM - ANALYSIS: AROALLOS VS AROACES

As this is the second part of the discussion regarding results of this survey, I suggest checking out Part 1 before this.

This post will discuss how aromantic content creators in fandom feel when it comes to creating aro-specific content, and how aromantic fans feel when it comes to shipping and their preferences for it. There will also be a space for additional comments.

Content Creators Questions

The first question here was a check asking respondents whether or not they ever created fancontent, such as fanfiction, fanart, etc. 76.5% (701) of the respondents stated that they have created fancontent, while 23.5% (215) stated they haven’t. Non-creators skipped the rest of this section.

Question 1: Which kind of content do you create in fandom?

Starting with the options I had given, from most to least picked we have:

Fanfiction - 71.3%

Fanart - 58.8%

Memes - 44.4%

Meta - 22.3%

Playlists - 16.3%

Fanvids - 7.3%

Merch - 1.9%

Furthermore, many people mentioned other kinds of content they create. This includes headcanons, edits, moodboards, roleplay, cosplay, podfic. translations, fan music and ask blogs.

Question 2: Have you ever made content focusing on aromantic headcanons, or other kinds of aromantic content?

Yes, in addition to other kinds of content - 57.2%

No - 41.5%

Yes, I only make aro content - 1.3%

Question 3: If you have created aro content, would you say it got more or less attention than your non aro content?

52.6% of respondents declined to answer or stated that it wasn’t applicable. Excluding these respondents, the results were

It got less attention - 68.1%

It got the same amount of attention - 29.5%

It got more attention - 2.4%

Question 4: Have you ever felt discouraged by your fandom when it comes to making aro content?

Yes, because I didn’t think it would get attention - 42.6%

Yes, because I was afraid to get hate for it - 35.7%

No - 39.2%

Question 5: Have you ever received hate because of the aro content you made?

40.7% of respondents answered saying they have never created aro content. Excluding these respondents, the results were

No - 81.5%

Yes - 18.5%

Shipping Questions

The first question was a check that asked whether or not the respondents were at all into shipping. 88% (806) said they enjoy shipping, while 11.2% (103) said that they are not. 0.8% (7) said that they are not into shipping, and not involved in fandom. Respondents who picked the last option skipped the following section, and were taken to the end of the survey.

Shippers

Question 1: How important is shipping to you when it comes to being in fandom?

Shipping is my primary form of engaging with fandom - 7.1%

Shipping is fairly important to me, but I’m also into other sides of the fandom - 22.5%

Shipping is about as important to me as other sides of the fandom - 38.8%

Shipping is not particularly important to me, I prefer other sides of the fandom - 29.7%

Shipping is the least important part of engaging with fandom - 2%

Question 2: Do you consider non-romantic shipping (shipping characters as queerplatonic partners, friends with benefits, etc.) to be a valid form of shipping, or do you think shipping only refers to romantic situations?

I think shipping can be both romantic and non-romantic - 71.2%

I think some types of non-romantic situations can count as shipping, but not all of them - 21.7%

I think shipping only refers to romantic situations - 7.1%

Question 3: When it comes to your ships, do you prefer content that focuses more on the romantic or sexual aspect of the relationship?

I prefer content focusing on the romantic aspect, I dislike sexual content - 33.1%

I prefer content focusing on the romantic aspect, but I also enjoy sexual content - 23.2%

It makes no difference / I like both equally - 31.9%

I prefer content focusing on the sexual aspect, but I also enjoy romantic content - 9.4%

I prefer content focusing on the sexual aspect, I dislike romantic content - 2.4%

Question 4: Would you say fans place too much importance on romantic shipping, leaving too little space for other kinds of discussions?

Yes - 84.7%

Unsure - 10.7%

No - 4.6%

Question 5: Here I will give you a list of tropes commonly found in shipping fan content. I ask that you pick 5 that you consider your favorites. You can pick less than 5 if there aren't enough tropes that you like, but please try not to pick more.

As a disclaimer, this question is not meant to judge whether or not someone is a “valid” aromantic or anything of the sort. It also does not necessarily indicate that liking the more popular tropes picked is an aro thing, especially since some of these are also popular in fandom spaces at large. It is only meant to highlight general trends in the community.

The five most popular tropes picked were:

Mutual Pining - 46.8%

Domestic Fluff - 46.5%

Slow Burn - 44.8%

Enemies to Lovers - 40.6%

Friends to Lovers - 38.2%

All of those tropes were picked by more than 300 people. Following these, the only trope picked by more than 200 people was Established Relationship.

Tropes picked by more than 100 people were, in order of popularity, Soulmate AU, PWP, Fake Dating, Getting Together, Porn with Feelings, and with the same popularity Friends with Benefits and Telepathic Bonds.

Tropes picked by less than 100 people were, in order of popularity, Unhealthy Relationships, Unrequited Love, Hanahaki Disease, Arranged Marriage, Hate Sex, Friends with Benefits to Lovers, Jealousy/Possessiveness, First Dates, Break Ups, and least popular Love at First Sight.

Question 6: Here I give you the same list of tropes, but this time I ask that you pick the 5 tropes you dislike the most. Again, you can pick less than 5, but please try not to pick more

The same disclaimers as the previous question apply.

The five most disliked tropes were

Jealousy/Possessiveness - 52.9%

Unhealthy Relationships - 48%

Hanahaki Disease - 42.9%

Love at First Sight - 42.4%

Hate Sex - 40.6%

All of these tropes were picked by more than 300 people. Following these, tropes picked by more than 200 people were Soulmate AUs, Break Ups, Arranged Marriage, PWP and Unrequited Love.

Tropes picked by more than 100 people were Fake Dating and Porn with Feelings.

Tropes picked by less than 100 people were Friends with Benefits to Lovers, Telepathic Bonds, Domestic Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friends with Benefits, Enemies to Lovers, Established Relationships, First Dates, Slow Burn, and least disliked with the same amount of votes Getting Together and Mutual Pining.

Once again, there is no judgement on anyone who hates popular tropes or loves hated tropes. The aromantic community is not a monolith, there is great variety between us, and no aromantic people is made up only of their aromanticism. There can be all sorts of reasons why one would like or dislike a trope.

That being said, some considerations can be made from these trends. For example, various aros have said that since romantic attraction is confusing we don’t quite get how can someone fall in love with people they barely know, or why is falling in love with a friend considered strange and not the norm. Many of the popular tropes involve characters who have known each other for a long time (Mutual Pining, Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn) while things such as Love at First Sight or First Dates are less popular.

We can also look at tropes various aros find arophobic. Hanahaki Disease is often mentioned as making many aros deeply uncomfortable, and we can see that here few people have it as a favorite, and many pick it as one of their most disliked tropes. Another one that is often mentioned in those discussions is Soulmate AU, that people are more ambivalent about - it’s both the sixth most disliked and seventh most liked. Maybe because it has much more variation than Hanahaki Disease, or maybe because people find it less arophobic as a whole. Or maybe simply due to personal tastes.

Non-Shippers

Question 1: Is the reason you don't enjoy shipping connected to the fact that you are aromantic?

Yes - 87.4%

No - 12.6%

Question 2: Would you say fans place too much importance on romantic shipping, leaving too little space for other kinds of discussions?

Yes - 97.1%

Unsure - 1.9% (2 people)

No - 1% (1 people)

Question 3: Do you think you would be more into shipping if people more often shipped characters in a non-romantic way, such as writing about queerplatonic relationships?

Yes - 82.5%

No - 17.5%

Additional Comments

People were allowed to leave additional comments here about anything that wasn’t covered previously.

Many people remarked on the general amatonormativity that is present in fandom spaces, in particular how it often seems as if fandoms are not interested in character dynamics that don’t involve romance. Some people also talked about often aro headcanons overlap with gay/lesbian headcanons because of the similar traits that can count as coding for both identities, and this can cause conflict within fandom. Overall, many people felt that aromantics are often a subcommunity within the larger fandom communities.

Some people also stated that they feel smaller fandoms are more open to aromantic interpretations than bigger ones. Various people mentioned fandoms that they felt were more or less friendly, often saying that small fandoms with few people tend to be more welcoming to aro fans.

There was also some discussion regarding the concept of non-romantic shipping. While many people agree that they enjoy viewing their ships as, for example, queerplatonic relationships, some also feel that using shipping terminology is inadequate for them. Shipping is by default assumed to be romantic by most people, and some don’t like having to using that word or words derived from it for non-romantic situations.

Part 2 Summary

Many aromantic content creators have felt discouraged by fandom when it comes to making aromantic content, either because they are afraid of not gaining any attention for it or because they fear receiving hate for it.The first concern seems quite valid, as a majority of people who did create aro content found that it got less attention compared to their non-aro content. When it comes to receiving hate instead, less than a fifth was a victim of it. This being said, there’s also a good number of aros who don’t overall feel discouraged when it comes to creating said content.

Out of the aros who enjoy shipping, most of them consider it neither the most nor least important part of their fandom experience, usually also enjoying other ways of engaging with fandom. Most prefer romantic content over sexual content, or enjoy both equally, with a minority favoring sexual content over romantic content. The majority also feels that fandom spaces can be too dominated by shipping.

An even higher percentage of aros who do not enjoy shipping find it too prevalent. A good number of them believe that they do not like shipping because they are aromantic, with many also saying that they would be more favorable to shipping if there was more space for non-romantic shipping.

Thank you for having paid attention so far! You can contact me if you have any questions. As I said in Part 1, I am also working on a couple more posts to look for potential differences in the opinions of a few groups, I will publish them in upcoming days.

#aromantic #arospec #fandom #survey results

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thebluestbluewords · 9 months ago

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I am in love with this art, it's so gorgeous! As an angst lover and a die hard believer that Jay falls hard and fast for his friends the second he has the beginnings of a crush, I am thinking SO hard about this concept.

I've read one variation on hanahaki that I absolutely loved and want to think about here, where instead of the disease happening because of unrequited feelings of love, it happens because the affected person won't acknowledge/say anything about their feelings. As much as I enjoy the angst potential of unrequited jaylos (and I do think this idea could still play out that way, just bear with me), I also really enjoy the variation where hanahaki disease doesn't require reciprocation or death.

I'm thinking about Jay as the protector of the group. As the cool one, who's there for the others but doesn't have the first clue how to talk about his own feelings. Thinking back to the D2 "girl talk" scene, Jay is a great guy and a loyal friend, but he's not super....emotionally intelligent. It feels very true to how I'm reading his character for him to develop feelings, and then just never talk about them or mentally acknowledge them, because he doesn't have the time or brain space for feelings! He's busy! He's got swords to swing and classes to take and Chads to bother!

And okay, maybe he's staying busy because he doesn't know how to deal with these feelings that keep popping up whenever he looks at Carlos and sees him happy, laughing, thriving now that they're off the isle, but whatever. He's a friend, and Jay has a lot of feelings about all of his friends. He's just a great friend kinda guy.

(Jay does not have these feelings about all of his friends)

And like, maybe his chest hurts a little more than it should, but that's fine. He's probably just tired. He'll sleep it off.

(spoiler alert: he does not sleep it off)

It's a surprise when the first flower petals start. Jay isn't expecting to start hacking out a lung after practice, and he really isn't expecting it when instead of a blob of gross chest mucus, he coughs up a handful of bright yellow flower petals. He's seen a lot of Weird Shit happen, but flowers coming out of his body isn't normal, and reeks of magic bullshittery, so he goes to the best magic person he knows, which is Mal.

Mal is in the middle of a mental breakdown, because I'm imagining this set in a vague time slightly before the second movie, where she's always one bad day away from snapping and murdering everyone around her and then herself, but she's grateful for a magical distraction. A magical mystery to throw herself into is as good an excuse as any to get out of her ongoing obligations!

Except...there's nothing about throwing up flowers in her mother's spellbook.

There's nothing in the library either. There's a restricted collection of magical textbooks and histories in Fairy Godmother's office, but they don't have any way of breaking in there, and they're committed to the whole goodness thing now. No more breaking and entering, even if it is for research. They'll just order the books themselves, off the dark web! It's much more morally defensible to engage in the illegal magical objects trade than it is to break into a teacher's personal book collections.

Unfortunately, the dark web isn't known for speedy shipping, and Jay's flower petals are starting to come up spotted with blood. He's pretty sure it's because they're tearing his throat on the way up, but the chest pain is a little scary, and he's sick and tired of waking up to the feeling of vines clogging his throat. (this is also where I would put a claustrophobia moment, if I was writing this for real and not just in bullet points). Jay's dad didn't exactly lock him in the closet as a kid, but Jay's been stuck in too many small, dark spaces while hiding from villains who caught him stealing from them to be fond of the feeling. The flowers don't cut off his light, but they clog his throat, and when he moves too quickly he'd swear that he can feel them ripping free of his lungs. It feels like he's drowning on dry land, and if there's one thing Jay does have an irrational fear of, it's drowning.

Nobody dies on the isle, but if you drown, the spell will bring you back over and over, and it'll hurt every single time.

Jay's the protector of the group. The loyal friend who looks out for everybody. But he can't look out for them if he can't breathe, and online shippers don't respond well to Mal's threats of violence and dragonfire on everything they love, so with a full bloody flower in hand, they break into Fairy Godmother's office.

It's a tense break-in, but they're careful and quiet (one bloody flower coughing fit notwithstanding) and the information they need is coincidentally in the first book they find. (Mal uses a searching spell to find the topic, but she's got her magic under control, and it's fine. It's not like Fairy Godmother would put magical shields on her office that are set to trigger a silent alarm if she senses magic being cast around her collections....no. She'd never do that).

Hanahaki. It's a magical disease, Mal reads out, that affects those who are in unrequited love. It's characterized by flowers in the lungs, and can be easily resolved by.....oh, okay, maybe she can just cast a localized fire spell to burn the flowers out? A little weed killer shot? They could make Jay laugh in the middle to make sure he aspirates it into his lungs. She's just spitballing here.

Jay is not amused by these suggestions. He would wrestle her for the book and read it himself, but he can't fucking breathe right now, and the next flower that comes up is whole, and there's more blood than petal visible.

Okay, Mal says. Okay. You just need to confess your feelings to the person you're in love with, and the flowers will die on their own once you acknowledge that you're in love.

Ah, says Jay. Yeah. Okay. I'll just die then.

(and then Carlos and Evie run in because hey, Fairy Godmother is on her way back, and she's moving pretty fast, and does anyone else hear an alarm??)

They can't run fast enough. Before they're even out the door, Fairy Godmother is there, and her phone is BLARING the magical alert sound, and she's not exactly pleased to see four students ransacking her personal magical reference library, but oh, dear, that's a lot of blood--

Jay maybe, possibly can't breathe. And like. The lecture they're getting is cool and all, but he's just gonna cough until he passes out, if that's cool with everyone? Great. Perfect.

He wakes up in the school nurse's quarters, because they didn't know where else to drag him. The nurse can't do shit, and the others are literally begging him to confess, but Jay Cannot Talk About This, not in front of everyone, and....look, he'll deal with it in the morning. Just one night to sleep it off and gather himself, and then he'll do it. Just. Give him space.

The girls leave. Carlos can't abandon his roommate to a night alone in the nurse's office, so he's reluctant, and this is it, this is the moment.

Jay literally has to tell him.

Or else he's going to die.

(and maybe it's unrequited, but the confession is the important part, and before Carlos can give him an answer, Jay starts coughing again, and the next flowers that come up are still bloody, but they're not bright and fresh anymore, and the stabbing pain of the vines in his lungs are already fading, and that's it, the answer doesn't matter, because the flowers are dead now and all that's left to do is pass the remaining plant matter and they can both get on with their lives and never talk about it again)

(but they maybe do talk about it again)

Because maybe they don’t love each other the same way, but they’re still friends, and Jay’s still in love, and they have to make sure the flowers don’t come back— because they can’t come back. There’s no way he’d get the same disease twice. They can just be friends, and Jay can be in love, and it’ll be fine.

They’ll be fine.

(if I want to get REALLY angsty with this, the magical hanahaki is progressive, and the first time it only requires a confession, but if it comes back it requires the feelings to be required, and oh, it’s going to come back.)

One sided Jaylos lives in my head rent free

#jaylos #the art makes me CRAZY about them augh #the angst potential is too good #me?? write 1500 words of not!fic because I saw beautiful art??#it’s more likely than you think

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vibraniumwing · 4 years ago

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what once was mine.

a neville longbottom x reader wherein the reader catches a disease that everyone fears to get, and when the former realizes what was happening, it was all too late.

WARNING: angst, hanahaki!au, mentions of death, major character death

A/N: okay so this is my own entry for my writing challenge !! the chaotic eggs were talking about hanahaki fics and i just couldn’t shake this idea off. i hate writing angst for this little bean but i JUST can’t let this go.

prompt: healing incantation from tangled.

word count: 3.2k

---

Neville walked through the path of what was once his safe haven, the chilling air biting into his skin as he reached the only tree that was in the middle of the vast land that was littered with flowers.

For the beautiful place that once brought him joy, also gave him despair.

---

You and Nevile got along quite well due to the fact that the two of you grew up next to each other and that you’ve always had this special bond over plants— whether it be magical or just the normal kind— meaning that you mostly bonded over tending to the plants at the greenhouse and helping Professor Sprout during your free time.

He would usually teach you the magical properties of the plants you’ve studied for in Herbology while you teach him certain meanings and symbolisms for flowers that you’ve studied in your free time.

---

Neville was making his way to the greenhouse when he heard a gentle voice through the window, peeking through, he saw you gently spray the pots of dittany with water as you quietly sang,

“Flower, gleam and glow Let your power shine Make the clock reverse Bring back what once was mine”

He mesmerized by the way you carried out the song, capturing him in a trance as you continued to sing and tend to the plant, unaware of his presence,

“Heal what has been hurt Change the Fate's design Save what has been lost Bring back what once was mine”

Your voice growing more silent as you ended the song, only noticing his presence as you turn around and see him looking at you with a rather dazed expression, amazed at what you’ve performed in front of him.

“Nev! how long have you been there?” You question, nearly dropping the watering can, cheeks flushed at the realization that he heard you singing.

He smiled at you shyly, “Just enough to hear you sing, why have you never told me that you sing so well?” he questioned, jogging to the door and entered the greenhouse, the smile still evident on his lips.

You shied away from his gaze, “It just never came up as topic, besides my singing abilities aren’t that good.” you now answer, walking back to the table to return the canister and face him, crossing your arms as you lean on the table. “Now I’m guessing you want an answer to why I was singing to them?” Questioning him, motioning to the plants that was in front of you.

He sheepishly nodded, genuinely curious at your habit.

Taking a deep breath in, you started to explain, “When I was young, my mom would always sing me this song when she’s healing the small wounds I would get to distract me from the pain, telling me that this song helps to revive what once was in agony.” You answered, walking back over to gently hold the leaves of the magical plant in front of you.

“Then when I started to grow my own garden, I would sing the song to the flowers in my garden when they would show signs of wilting, as if to help them grow back. It’s silly, I know, but I just believe that it helps them in a way.” You finished explaining, looking back at him with an embarrassed expression, still in disbelief that he had finally caught you.

He looked at you incredulously, shocked that you think he would shame you for such a habit. “I don’t think that’s embarrassing, I honestly think it’s adorable.” tone filled with sincerity as he rubbed the nape of his neck, “I would love to learn that song too.”

That was your turn to look at him with disbelief, did he really want to learn the song because of you?

A huge grin soon came over your lips as you pulled out a tattered leather journal from your bag, handing it over to him. “I might consider teaching you the song if you learn these flowers with me.” You persuaded him, his hands now opening the notebook to see the hand-drawn flowers you’ve designed on the pages, it’s names and meanings beside it.

“You’ve got yourself a deal.”

---

“Hey (Y/N), what do these flowers symbolize?” He asked you one day, pointing to the page that had carnations decorating the page, the name and its meaning missing.

You leaned over and smiled sadly at the drawing, “Those are red carnations, Nev.” You started off, leaning on your chair as you continued, “You can see that the red varies from a light red hue to a much deeper and rich one, right? Well, the light red carnations symbolizes admiration while the deeper ones mean deep love and affection.”

He eagerly listened to your explanation, nodding once as he motioned for you to finish what you were saying, you bring your hand towards the white and striped variations of the same flower, “The white ones represent pure love and good luck while the striped ones are for the regret of a love one cannot share. “ You finished, giving him an accomplished look as he was amazed.

“Who knew a single flower and its colors have tons of meanings.” He commented, fingers gently grazing over the surface of the page as he looked at it with awe.

“Everything has meaning if you look at enough, Nev.”

---

As days passed by, you’ve bonded over the simple journal filled with flowers, spending hours upon hours showing him what they could mean to a person and how you can care for it.

as the days passed, you also felt your heart slowly sink in deeper into the emotions you swore to never tell.

---

You were passing by greenhouse when you heard a familiar tune carry out from the windows, stopping by the very last one, you peek to see Neville carefully tending to his Mimbulus Mimbetonia that he bought in that same year, gently watering the plant as he sang.

“Flower, gleam and glow Let your power shine Make the clock reverse Bring back what once was mine”

Admittedly, his voice wasn’t that good but the tenderness in every word he spoke had you swooning; your heart swelled with adoration as he continued to sing, unaware of how you were silently watching him.

You’ve made yourself content with that, just admiring him from the distance; loving him silently from the side.

---

The two of you were in the Great Hall, immersed yet in another session of flowers and symbols, you were explaining to him the meaning of Camellias when you’ve noticed he seemed to be out of focus, staring off into the distance.

You followed his gaze to the group of students who proudly wore their house color of blue, landing on a certain blonde girl who was eating her food quietly, caught in-between two chattering girls.

Upon realization, your throat started to itch, making you wince at the feeling. “Hey Neville, are you still with me?” You asked, clearing your airway as to ease out on the uneasy feeling stirring inside of you.

He instantly snapped out of it and looked back at you with a grin, “Yeah, I’m sorry about that. You were saying?” motioning you to continue, eyes now glued to the flower you had recently drawn.

“There are called camellias. Generally, they would symbolize love, affection and admiration to a person. However, like what I’ve explained before, the colors vary what their purpose.” You explained, hand reaching over to scratch your throat as the its irritation intensified, “For example, red would mean love and affection.”

Neville silently nodded, not noticing how you were struggling with your words, “and these are?” he asked, pointing to the pink ones that were alone by the corner of the page.

“Those are pink camellias, those signify a longing for someone,” You finished.

“Your knowledge on these never ceases to amaze me.”

---

Weeks passed and the irritation just worsened, confusing you to no end about what you may have eaten to cause such a state.

Until you were walking alongside with Neville until you coughed, feeling a rather foreign object in your mouth. You covered your mouth and looked at your friend with wide eyes before running to the lavatory, stumbling to the sink as you release whatever was in your mouth.

It was petals, and not just any petals, it was striped carnation petals.

You stared at the bunch in your hands, rather terrified of the beautiful red to white design it had.

---

Seemingly enough, every time you would cough up these little monsters, it would be whenever Neville would be looking or talking to Luna.

Your eyes looked at the amount of petals you had coughed up in just a week, filling the little jar you had hidden halfway through already. Everyday would be a new struggle for you as your breathing would get restricted more and more each time.

You sat by the window of your dorm and watched how the glass reflected in the moonlight, gently shaking the jar as you watch the petals flutter inside the case, remembering how you

You had some alone time after telling Neville that you would stay back at Hogwarts rather than go down at Hogsmeade, telling him that you were feeling a little under the weather for such activities.

He offered to stay back but you said no, telling him to go have fun and enjoy the rest of the day, to which he reluctantly agreed to and left with Seamus and Dean.

You wandered into the library in hopes at you would find something that would answer what you had been currently suffering with. Eyes quickly skimming through the various books until you came across one that explained muggle ailments and illnesses.

Scanning through the pages, your eyes had caught a picture of lungs that were slowly being filled with petals, “Hanahaki Disease...” you read out loud, your head pulsating at the realization of what you had caught, its severity causing you to tear up.

‘This disease is stemmed from a love you cannot receive back, the petals usually appear from a certain flower and reminds them of the person they hold dearest.’ You silently read, blinking through the tears as your fingers played with the carnations that laid rest inside your pocket.

“It’s severity may vary from petals to coughing up the full form of the flowers, the only known cure for this is aside from the reciprocation of love is the removal of the petals, however the devastating side-effect includes the loss of emotions for the said person. This is severely fatal for those who decide to leave it be, death be their mark for those who pretend not to see.” you whispered, fear creeping into your mind at the realization if you get this removed, your love for Neville will also leave

That’s when you’ve decided to leave what you have as it, choosing to endure what may come rather than to lose Neville.

Your hand clutched the container as sobs soon followed, tears freely flowing down your cheeks, “I’d rather fight and endure the pain may give me than to lose the love I have for you, Nev.”

and for the first time in what seems like forever, there were no petals that night.

---

You’ve decided to keep a notebook to keep track on the days you’ve survived with this living hell, writing down what happened within your day and if you have coughed up any petals; small bits and pieces of how you adore your best friend.

You were by the Greenhouse, hugging your cardigan closer to your body as you admired the beautiful flowers of a rather wilted aconite, drawing the plant as you quietly sang to yourself,

“Flower, gleam and glow Let your power shine Make the clock reverse Bring back what once was mine”

Bringing comfort to your rather irritated chest as someone joined along, your head whipped to where the sound came from, seeing Neville walk towards you with a rather warm smile, the same smile that you found comfort in, the same one that caused you to be in the predicament that you are right now.

“What are you drawing there?” He had asked, attempting to peek at the notebook which you closed rather quickly.

You shook your head and hugged the notebook close to your chest, “You can’t look into this yet, Nev. Not yet.” You had said before coughing once more, a single petal escaping your lips.

He looked at you with concern etched on his face, rubbing your back soothingly. “You’ve been coughing a lot lately, (Y/N), are you alright?” He asked, voice laced with worry as you nodded, giving him a smile as you held onto his hand.

“I’m all good, Neville, don’t worry. It’s just a cold that’s been sticking around for longer.”

---

You crossed out another date on the calendar you’ve made on your journal, signifying you have yet lived another day with this treacherous disease. It’s been three years since the first day you’ve coughed up petals and you still can’t believe you’ve lasted this long.

The longest record for this was for just 5 months, yet here you are now, marching on your way down to the Great Hall with your heart pounding at the realization that you were about to walk into another battle aside from your own.

As chaos soon ensued, you and Neville were on lookout by the other end of the wooden bridge, on the lookout for the pack of death eaters that were bound to invade the castle that way. You were both staring out into the rather pitch black valley, you were chewing the inside of your cheek as your hands grip on the railing, “Nev, before we both get into this, I just want you to know-”

You were about to confess what you felt for him when a loud rumble of feet interrupted, making you both alert and grip onto your wands as you looked into the distance. You grabbed his hand the moment you saw the death eaters viciously towards the entrance when three of them just obliterated into nothing making the rest halt in their tracks,

Neville gave you a knowing look, a rather victorious smile on his lips, “Yeah?! You and whose army?!”, taunting the large crowd who stopped in their tracks. Yet when a single flare landed on Scabior’s want, you immediately tugged on his sleeve, “Nev, we have to run.” as the death eaters rushed inside the gatehouse.

You instantly took the lead, the both of you fleeing the bridge while avoiding the spells the snatcher was casting on the both of you while Neville casted a few spells to blow up the bridge.

You were the first one to the end, watching how the bridge fell as your friend disappeared from your sight, “Neville!” You shrieked, Seamus holding you back as you coughed, your throat not handling the rather strenuous thing.

You struggled in Seamus’ grip, sobbing at the thought that your friend might have plummeted to his death when his want re-emerged from where the bridge cut off, his head soon popping out as he supported himself on the ledge, “That went well.” He groaned.

You wiped your tears and ran towards him, helping him up as you cupped his face, eyes searching any bruises he might have. “Nev, don’t ever scare me like that again.” You sobbed, not minding the fact that every time you had to take a sharp inhale, it felt like glass was being pushed into your lungs because of the flowers growing within your chest.

A soft chuckle escaped his lips, breath heaving in lots of air as he felt the adrenaline course through his veins, “I’m okay, (Y/N/N). I promise.” he assured, smiling at you rather happily.

“Hey I hate to break your moment but we have to get back inside the castle now” Ginny spoke up, motioning the two of you to go and stand up. You both looked at each other and stood up, running along with her into the school as you maneuvered through the sea of students trying to flee the scene.

“What were you trying to say earlier, (Y/N)?” Neville had finally asked, glancing at you as he bumped into another student again, you shook your head, choosing not to speak up about your emotions in a time like this, “I’ll tell you once this thing is over, just promise me you’ll stay alive” You said back, giving him a smile which he mirrored, understanding what you meant.

“Ginny! Neville! (Y/N)! Are you alright?” Harry’s voice soon rang in your ears, watching how Harry took the lass by his side and looked at the both of you with expectancy. You gave him a mere nod while the other spoke up, “Never better! I feel like I could spit fire! You haven’t seen Luna, have you?”

Harry looked at him confused, “Luna?” “I’m mad for her! ‘Think it’s about time I told her since we’d probably both be dead by dawn!” Neville exclaimed, giving you a small pat on the back as he ran up the stairs.

You suddenly felt your airway constrict more as you violently coughed, hunching over as a bunch of petals escaped your mouth, a bit of your own blood trailing down your mouth as you looked at Ginny who was talking with Harry. Despite the painful ringing in your ear and your ragged breath, you shouted at the both of them, “I’ll go this way! Be safe, the both of you!” before running off into the distance, fighting your way through the crowd.

You didn’t know where your feet would take you as you ran until you reached a deserted hallway, making you finally collapse on the floor as you spat out buds of the beautiful carnation and even the flower in its full form.

With a shaky hand, you grasp onto in, heaving in your last breath before blacking out.

---

When you woke up next, you heard a voice quietly sing albeit the hoarseness present in it, you found the sense of familiarity in every word,

“Flower, gleam and glow Let your power shine Make the clock reverse Bring back what once was mine”

The song was cut off by a sob, causing you to stir as your vision was invaded by the bright light, looking down at what seems to be a distraught Neville. “H-Hey.” You managed to croak, wincing at the pain it caused you.

He looked up at you with bloodshot eyes, “Why didn’t you tell me, (Y/N)? Why didn’t you tell me?” He asked, crying harder as you brought your hand up to wipe his tears, silencing his sobs as you sang for one last time,

“Heal what has been hurt Change the Fate's design Save what has been lost Bring back what once was mine”

Tears of your own spilled as you realized that you have finally reached your end, that with every inhale that you took the exhales got shorter. You weakly cupped his cheek, smiling softly. “I didn’t want you to worry so much, seeing you happy was enough for me.” You explained, eyes exploring the ruins of the Great Hall for one last time.

“Because I’d rather die knowing that I loved someone as great as you, Neville. I’m sorry.” your answer cut off by coughing up the final camellia that escaped your system, giving it to him as you softly sang before drifting off, the cries of what once was your first love floating away.

“What once… was mine.”

---

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