#i know its because of yosano but even natsume is tired of them fighting

[astxlphe-fics]

Pink Flowers  // Fukumori

Mori had his feelings for Fukuzawa cut out of him years ago. Hanahaki AU

Word count : ~1700

CW some blood, one murder, one medical malpractice 

When they’re younger, when they’re still a doctor and his bodyguard, Mori is the target of many attempted murders and kidnappings.  

Despite his constant misgivings about bodyguarding, despite the simple fact that Mori doesn’t, actually, need any kind of rescuing, Fukuzawa comes for him.  

Every single time.  

Then they fight together, back to back, as a team, against threats to the fragile balance of Mori’s world, of the neutrality of his underground clinic.  

It’s during those fights that Mori realizes than yes, sometimes he needs Fukuzawa by his side, and that he enjoys his company. They collapse, letting themselves fall sitting on the ground, side by side, bloody and tired.  

Mori sighs and there is a tingle in his throat.  

He doesn’t think much of it, barely notices it, but he does feel the beginning of a fondness for the man.  

+  

The itch at the back of his throat takes months to turn into a full cough, and he spits out the first petal in his own sink, thankfully.  

Having a patient around while he discovers his own illness would be less than ideal. Rumors go fast in the underbelly of Yokohama, and if the news escape his office it’ll quickly make its way to his enemies.  

He picks it up and studies it carefully.  

“How bothersome,” he declares, throwing it in the trash.  

But what can he do about it?  

There are several things he can do, in fact.  

First option — kill Fukuzawa before this disease takes a hold of him. But it’ll upset Natsume, and he isn’t sure he is capable of killing his bodyguard.  

Second option — get rid of the feeling altogether. While this is something he can eventually do on his own, letting it fade, an operation would be a sure way to fix the issue. The problem: he can’t operate himself.

Third option — seduce the man. Make sure that what Mori apparently feels for him is returned. Keep him by his sides, for good.  

This thought is infinitely more appealing than the first two.  

He doesn’t have to decide immediately. He doesn’t want to.  

“What do you think, Elise?”  

She looks up from her picture book. “I think you’re gross.”  

His laughter makes him cough again. Another petal comes out, and he thinks of every possibility again. He thinks of Fukuzawa, of the flowers fading from his lungs as the man holds him close.  

He’ll cross that bridge when he gets to it. Hanahaki isn’t a kind illness, but it’s considerate enough to make the killing slow.  

+  

Elise doesn’t start looking worried until a few months later, when he wakes up gasping for breath, petals sticking to the back of his throat and spilling out of his mouth.  

Her reaction tells him the situation might become critical soon.  

It’s more anger than worry, to be fair, and she throws some of his tools to the ground in a fit of rage. “Just kill him!” she yells, before crossing her arms and setting her face into a pout. “I’m starting to feel sick too, so get rid of him before he kills the both of us.”  

He would, usually, cave in to whatever Elise demands of him. He loves her, after all, and anything she wants is worth getting for her.  

But not this. This is something he can’t give her.  

+  

By the time Fukuzawa finds out about Yosano, Mori is throwing up whole flowers. It’s starting to affect his work, but it doesn’t look like Fukuzawa has noticed.  

If he has, he hasn’t said anything about it, which is fine by Mori.  

They fight — of course they fight, but it’s not like they usually do.  

Everyday fighting is banter and annoying each other, it’s Fukuzawa coming for him every time he gets into trouble, no matter how much he doesn’t need it.  

Everyday fighting makes the flowers in Mori’s lungs grow larger. It makes Mori want this man to love him.  

His chest tightens, thinking about what they have the potential to be, about how much they could do for this city just by being together, about the kind of embrace he could give him.

Fukuzawa draws his sword, and Mori almost chokes, swallowing down the flowers threatening to fall from his lips.

There is no fixing it now.  

+  

Their partnership broken, the illness gains more ground, with no hope of recovery through more...traditional means.  

It quickly becomes urgent to do something about it. The flowers are larger than ever, and if he was a lesser man, he would cry thinking about what they could have been, he would go back to Fukuzawa and ask him to reconsider, to come back to him.  

Gritting his teeth, he closes his eyes, grieving for a relationship that doesn’t exist, which was doomed from the day he threw up that first petal.

He is not a lesser man, however. He shoves his own fingers down his throat to drag the flowers out. They clog the sink, bloodied and of a horribly cheerful pink color.  

How those feelings have made him weak. They make him sick with a deadly disease, shift his focus, make him yearn for something he knows he can never have.  

He needs to get rid of them as soon as he can.  

“Look at you!” Elise scolds him. “I told you, we should have killed him.”  

“I’m sorry Elise.” He smiles at her sheepishly, because she is right. He should have dealt with it a long time ago. He just hadn’t wanted to.  

They make him irrational.  

There are other underground doctors in the city, though none of them as skilled, none of them as reputed, as he is. He will find someone to take care of it.  

She scowls, eyebrows drawing together, and she tugs at his sleeve. “You’re so stupid, Rintarou.”  

+  

The other doctor is surprised to see him, of all people, but he gets to work quickly. He looks smug, knowing such a thing about Mori Ougai, about the weakness taking over him.  

He will use it against him, in the future, if he can.  

Mori doesn’t let him entertain the idea.  

He refuses any kind of anesthetics, unwilling to put himself at the mercy of another person with a scalpel, and Elise stands guard. The other doctor underestimates her, but Mori knows she can recognize any suspicious medical action and rise up to protect him with barely any prompting.  

The doctor opens him up and fixes him, and the pain means nothing when he’s finally getting rid of the feelings he has for Fukuzawa Yukichi, for they have been weighing on him since the beginning, far more than he ever admitted to.  

When it’s done, he’s both curious and satisfied to realize that what he feels is now little more than indifference. Everything he has wished for since the start, to have him standing by his side, for lips on his skin and to be the only one in his eyes, seems ludicrous now. A waste of time and energy.  

He cuts the doctor’s throat once he’s done and looks for any witness. Then, he puts Fukuzawa out of his mind, and moves on.  

His work won’t do itself. He has a Mafia boss to take care of.  

Time to get down to business.  

+  

"It’s a pity.”  

Blood seeps out of Fukuzawa’s neck, and Mori is regretful, surprising even himself, though it’s not as personal as it could have been, once.  

His feelings for Fukuzawa were cut out of him years ago.  

Without this virus, they could have been a team again and crushed those rats with ease. They were always a deadly combination, so this is nothing but a missed opportunity.  

But first comes the security and well-being of his own, and any feeling he allows himself those days is for them, for the Mafia — and for Elise, of course, but she is something else entirely.

He still apologizes for cheating. He may not love the man anymore, but he respects his strength and a fair fight would have ended in Mori’s defeat. It’s not something he can allow again, not with so much at stake.

All he needs now, is to wait for Elise to pop back up into existence, stay here until Fukuzawa dies — it’s the least he can do for his old teammate — and prepare for the rage of the Detective Agency.  

Until Natsume shows up to scold them and drags them away to Dostoievski’s hideout.  

Later, as they’re on their way, it’s plain in the way Natsume looks at him that he knows. Mori doesn’t care. He has done what needed to be done.  

Elise reappears soon after, and he gives her a hug that she pretends to protest to. She will always be the most constant thing in his life, the only one who he knows will stand by him until his last breath.  

+  

The virus fades, and the ability user at the origin of it tries to run. Fukuzawa and Mori grab him before he can, together, like old times.

It makes Fukuzawa nostalgic, in a sense. He misses the team they used to be, before they each took a different walk of life. Before he learned of Yosano.

A part of him wishes that, when this is over, when they have won against Dostoievski, they can stay this way — a little bit of a team, again.

He wonders what Dazai is planning, forcing Akutagawa and Atsushi together.  

Both boys are like rough diamonds, and Dazai is playing a dangerous game, hitting them against each other like this. There is little he can do but trust Dazai’s judgement and hope the sparks he makes don’t start too big of a fire.

Though, knowing him, he would probably say it’s the point.

Mori, he can tell, is thinking the same, though he doesn’t speak of it. He catches him glancing at the pair, eyes lingering on Atsushi, and Fukuzawa can’t blame him for it. He’s just as doubtful of the black-clad young man with whom his subordinate already seems to have a quiet understanding.

The Mafia leaves. Fukuzawa watches as Mori’s red scarf billows in the wind.  

There is an itch in his throat.