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ridingtorohan · 3 days ago

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Moments of the Tulpar crew experiencing Hanahaki disease for the reader (pre-crash)

𓇻 content warning. no spoilers for the game. swansea's is left ambiguous if it's romantic or platonic. receiver's choice. jimmy's whole section is a warning; denial, mention of self-mutilation (not depicted), possessiveness, manipulation and implied sexual frustration. jimmy's ending line is not about sexual assault, he's just manipulative.

Hanahaki Disease

A condition that causes the victims to cough up flowers or flower petals, due to either unrequited love or repressed love for another person.

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Yellow Chrysanthemum- a deep love that cannot be spoken.

"You have your space legs," Curly says, voice a low rumble in his chest. His hand smooths over your shoulder, feeling the shift of muscle. Through the flightsuit, he could feel the rumble of your laughter.

"Six times the charm, right?" You smile with the glint of your teeth, head tipped back to peer up at him. Warmth and roots lodge in his chest, like tiny tendrils of leaves crawling through him. Like being tickled from the inside, a radiated warmth that resonated through his limbs. He loved to look at your smile, how your expression lit up the whole room.

Curly remembered when the two of you were paired together, with you fresh out of training and new to travel. How queasy it made most people feel, even with the artificial gravity. He'd been the same.

Blue eyes dart low, watched as Daisuke threw a uno reverse down, giddy in his seat.

You shout back and reveal one of your own. The conversation devolved then to a bickering match and culminated in Daisuke's sulky expression as he scrounged around for a green.

"You should join us, Curly," you said, eyes back on him.

Stems lodged in his throat, petals curled against soft muscle. A bloomed flower, ripe under your attentive gaze. Everything inside him blossomed at your every word, fragile and wanting in his mouth.

"In a minute. Piloting duties." As he excused himself with a clearing of his throat, he reluctantly pulled away from your side, only to let his eyes linger on your side profile. How easy you interacted with the other Tulpar crewmembers; Anya and Daisuke especially.

Swansea grumbled in his seat and through some barbaric display of betrayal, threw down a stack of +4's on top of Daisuke's green before announcing the new colour (green). The pivotal horror only increased as you slapped your own on top, just for Daisuke to hurriedly slap through the deck. ("We don't even have enough cards!")

It's a gentle feeling; being in love like this. Feeling connected in more ways than a captain should. Than a captain legally ought to. Still, it reached up, through his body, like an ache that needed to be fulfilled. Eyes that always followed you; the attentive way he spoke to you. Every bone in his body whispered love, love, love. I love you.

Pilot duties was just an excuse. Safe from the rec hall, Curly raised a fist to his mouth as his chest heaved. A wet, sticky yellow flower fell from his mouth, devotion spelled out to the bone.

Curly doesn't hate you for this. He's lived long enough to cradle the emotions as they come, to take the small chances when he could get it. A captain's duties didn't extend to fraternization.

As he held the flower between his fingers, he couldn't fault you at all. Not when you smiled at him - like the crew-- like that. He didn't expect his love to be returned; loving you was enough. Even like this.

Honeysuckle- devoted love, whose entwined vines represent the difficulty to escape its grasp

The insufferable itching was the worst of it. Each swelled muscle, bulge under his veins; Jimmy has half a mind to claw into his own skin. Tear the flowers right out from him, bloody and whole.

He'd rather feel anything but this, this unfathomable twitchy lurch in his chest. How you made his skin clammy and pulse skittered. Half of the time he wanted to throttle you, the other portion involved throwing you against the wall and devouring you right there.

Because something about you demanded that he take, stake a claim on his person. Outside of Curly, you were the only one able to placate him, to have a backbone and withstand his hurled words.

He didn't expect this twitch in his body, the tension that rattled through him like a freight train. Jimmy, on all accounts of everyone he's ever been with, didn't do soft. He didn't do sweet.

With you, it felt like the best and worst of him was brought out. A willingness to scoff and turn the other way - however begrudgingly. The way his temper flared, quick to rise on the offense and defense.

Red, sickly petals fall from his mouth, stems and roots attached. He's aware of the damned disease; felt it in every rock of his body. Every time his arm so much as touched yours. The inescapable draw, the sway of the boat, the chasm that roared to life inside him.

They tore like a mother up his throat and no amount of scratches at his skin lessened the torment. You have him wrapped right around his finger, drowned him in a pool of your own making.

Jimmy all but hated you for it; hated your sympathetic frowns, the way you so easily acted with the nurse and Daisuke. He's imagined it many times, his fist clenched around your wrist, his mouth on yours. How hot you'd feel against his skin.

The way you turned your head, how your mouth moved so easily, focus rapt on Swansea over some bullshit. Holed up on the sofa, electronic board between you. A better student than Daisuke was supposed to be.

Jimmy's eyes darted over your expression, the way your nose moved when you breathed, the swallow of your throat. Under the simulated forest screen, you looked captivating. Forest light over your eyes that highlighted your cheekbones.

That familiar spasm resonated in his chest again, wet, hot and sickly, and he spat it out, threw the squashed pink and orange blossom in his fingers, roots slick with blood. All that left to the ground as he stomped ahead, hands planted on the back of the sofa.

"Sure, electronic work is all hoorah, but how 'bout I show you some real skills in the pilot's chair?"

He's definitely one to boast, and with the way your eyes turned up, it sent another tremor through his chest. Eyes narrowed, a challenge left your lips, his eyes quick to follow the motion.

Swansea scoffed with a sneer. But who cared about him or his opinions?

When you finally relented, the rattle in his chest intensified, that ache to touch reigning fierce. While Curly's presence deterred any advances Jimmy could make on you, he'd eventually get you right where he wanted you.

Forget-me-nots- the pain of loss and desire to hold onto memories and love

Psych evals weren't Anya's favourite task by any means, but it had been another aspect of her career. One that she chose, one that she'd keep choosing again and again. A step closer to the actual job she wanted; one with different stresses, different bosses. More stability.

For all that it was considered, one aspect that she liked most was to learn about you. How you perceived the depicted situation, how your lips pursed when you were in thought. How your leg shifted, how you once paced the room.

More than once, she'd been distracted by the lull of your voice, the stride of your steps, how your tendons moved beneath your flight suit.

"Good." She says, the word airy in her mouth.

When you smile at her, it is blinding, enough to make her eyes dart away, heart tender in her chest. With you, everything just so much ... less. Less frightful, less stress. Less constant noise in her head. She could breathe around you, bursting a garden for you in her lungs with each stolen glance.

For her, passing the flowers were easy. Mostly petals at first, loose and velvety to the touch. Then whole ones, beautiful and pristine, a testament to their circumstances.

She didn't feel drawn to you, so much as drawn around your orbit; like the Earth around the Sun. A star that burned bright in her eyes. She'd always preferred sunrises.

As the nurse, Anya has been expected to pick up on traits of her patients; learn their allergies, habits. How to better help them. Who helped the nurse? Who helped her when her heart galloped, cheeks a fire when she looked at you?

You were sweet - tender, when most others would look away.

It felt like a baptism by fire.

"That's a cool flower," you breathed out, when the silence lapsed between you.

She startled, hand to her mouth - but your eyes are distant, focused on the bottle she kept on her desk. Not that bottle was an apt term; a tall cup was more appropriate. Keeping a flower without roots was difficult; but forget-me-nots was simple. Easy. Swaddled in water, pretty blue petals frame the glass lip. A testament to her affection for you.

The end of her pen tapped against the clipboard. "Thank you."

Now, your eyes turn to her, lidded with approval and warmth. Her flower garden grows. "I never knew we were allowed to keep flowers here."

A smile lit up her face, immediate and without hesitation. Your approval, however small, meant the world to her. It filled her with a sense of satisfaction, of belonging. Of knowledge that she'd be safe and secure with you, as she always has been.

"It's a special case."

Eyes turn back, admiring the pristine petals. "Still petty cool though. Adds nice colour to the room."

She smiled and her chest hurt with the admiration and affection that ran through her. An intensity that swooped through her, fierce and devoted. "Thank you. I'll be sure to add more next time." She would; anything to have you keep coming back to her little corner of the world, to see your eyes linger, even if not on her.

"Sounds great."

You both turn as Daisuke poked his head in, grin wide on his face. "Hey, guys." Brown eyes dart to you with a pointed, "Curly was looking for you." You nod, fingers on your coat lining as you adjusted it. Anya tried not to focus on it.

"We'll continue this later?" You ask her.

Anya's eyes turn to the forget-me-not, alone and perfect. Even though psych evals weren't a choice, this was. And she'd always keep choosing you. "Yes."

Rue - fragrant flower that is used to ward off evil spirits, representing courage, repentance and healing

Feet step over the small, fragile petals littered over the ground. No matter how many times Swansea swept them up, they clung to his clothes and followed him. Even now, they cluttered his workspace, with one ground to paste around a bolt.

"Looks like a chicken was killed here," comes your voice. Swansea's mouth twitched, upper lip pursed as he doubled over his work. Wiring was delicate work, after all, and he had to correct the mess that his intern made before it affected anything.

Fortunately, he was able to rewire the grid for the time being.

"Shit's tough if a little flowers gets every inch of you knotted up," he answered, voice gruff as flowers tickled his throat. With a twist of his mouth, he coughed, and with the ease of a man whose been through this before, spat the dry buggers out and away from his workspace.

He could all but hear the shrug as you say, "Doesn't bother me."

As he set aside his tool, he leaned over for the spool of electrician's wire. Your knuckles met him, warm flesh against weathered hands as you pass it to him. "Thanks." As he turned away from you, he coughed again, each petal little more than a nuisance.

All the same, you hovered beside him, head leaned over his shoulder as he toiled away. There was something soothing and mundane about it, the way your eyes drifted over his hands, faded tan lines not yet gone.

"You want something or you just like babying my work?"

From his peripheral, Swansea could see the twitch of your lips, the wry wrinkle in your brow. How your eyes turned away, roamed over the assortment of metals he has strewn about over his work table, only to linger on the equally as vast array of pale yellow.

Telling him to see Anya about his 'condition' hadn't helped the last time you brought it up. Swansea had more than enough experience to believe that it'd be here to stay, to ruminate among the other seedlings left behind in his chest. This one festered longer than the others, almost soft and delicate. How he dealt with it was the same.

But you were different from the rest.

"You know me, always wanting to admire your work." There's that cheeky grin he knows and he snorts in amusement. Even when it was followed by a short cough, he turned his focus back on the wires. When that was sorted through, he leaned back in his chair, brow sweaty with exertion.

"Alright, get it off yer chest and tell me what's up."

There's that twitch of your head he knew so well, the cock of your mouth and the side-glance of your eyes. Even as you leaned against his workstation, hip to the edge, every side of you rang with familiarity. Cramped together on a ship for six hauls did that to people; it was easy to know their body language, their mannerisms.

Easy to love.

Swansea's head tipped back, lips quirked and brow shifted in a beckoning motion. With a sigh, as you always did, you began your tirade about your latest frustration. Jimmy was at it again, a string of months long frustration bubbled out. Cards up his sleeve - literally--, the snide remarks, the open hostility. A point of contention that Swansea knew all too well.

"Want me to sock him a new left cheekbone?" In response, you laughed, eyes shut tight as you doubled over. No holds barred, genuine and true to the bone.

A facet of you that Swansea always liked; you had been upfront from the get-go, earnest in your attempts to befriend the crew. In mapping out the ship, glad for Swansea's guidance as he gave you the grand tour. A genuity that he hadn't seen for a long time, let alone directed at him.

Most people scoffed at his age, dismissive of the years toiled away in labour, dedicated on one task to the next. Where the two of you may have butted heads, you always bounced back, prepared for the next go. It had reminded him of himself, when he was younger. Now, it just reminded him of you.

While you all too gleefully admonished him for the offer, he didn't rescind it. Because for all the things he admired in you, you fostered it in him too. A drive to be himself, to rebound after the goings get tough. Wakeup calls weren't as pleasant as your company, but for now he'd take what he could get.

Even if the flowers got in the way of it all.

Dahlia- representing sacrifice and endurance needed to thrive in harsh conditions as well as gratitude and commitment

His leg is stationary, twitching every so often against the table. Daisuke has already knocked over a few Sorry! pieces, not that he had much problem with that - Swansea was winning anyway.

The tv screen before you two was awash in a golden haze, a sun over a distant horizon, washing the sea in light. It's picturesque, letting him ruminate in the thoughts with a hazy feeling in his chest.

He's never quite been in love like this before, this upbeat, yawning, yearning chasm inside him. Where every touch gives him the jitters, where he just wants to wrap you up in his gangly arms and hold onto you forever.

He's never been in love where it aches, like flowers rooting in his blood. Out of everyone, he knows more than enough about the condition that saunters in his body; seen it enough times on his sisters. A hereditory predisposition, he somehow never grasped that he'd get it.

Not once did it ever feel wrong, like this was a burden. A phantom ache, it reached into his lungs and nestled there. He had seen the pink petals fall into his palms and he knew, 'this is love'. When he saw your face, felt his heart patter in his chest, he knew, 'this is love'.

Each time he opened his mouth, slid a packet of extra sweetener your way, he felt it. Just as he felt it now, resting low in his chest, stems of dahlias woven into his hair. Out of everything, he'll always be proud of it, of what you've given him. This life that throbs inside of him, the moments that never seem to pass.

Even though you've expressed concern whenever Daisuke coughed up a fresh one - whenever your shoulders so much as touched-- he was glad for it. Glad for how your leg shifted against his now, your arm all but crushing his. How you two are folded together, your eyes glued to the peaceful scene on the screen, while all Daisuke can think about is watching you.

How the light dances over your cheekbones, over your nose. How you nestle against him like you can't pry yourself away, thigh to thigh and shoulder to shoulder. As restless and ansty as he tended to be, he felt solid and complete right beside you.

"That is not what your book says," is what you say as your mouth twitched upwards, eyes crinkling at the corners as you look at him. Each glance has him grin and he felt like a kid again, one who learned how to draw again for the first time.

"It is so!" He chirped with a dramatic wave of the electrical book that Swansea had given him. "It is hella in here! Thomas Edison totally got the idea of the lightbulb from the flowers that wove around it!"

And you laugh, that sound that sent shivers right down to his bones and he grinned and echoed, unashamed of how he sounds, his heart and inner garden close to bursting.

"No way! I've read that book! He isn't even in there!" You smacked his shoulder and he doubled over, sides pressed to yours as he dramatically flourishes it closer.

"Is so!" He pointedly tapped his index finger to the paragraph he was on. As you squint through the dim light, he could already tell by your furrowed brow and rolled eyes that you had skimmed the page. Even as you jostled his shoulder, he laughed.

"Am I right or am I right?" He laughed.

"It's not in there!"

"It might as well be!"

Even as your laughter chorused together, he found himself all too eager to slide back up against you, the book propped up in his arm as he showed off the page. "...and he totally, radically, found purple petals. The end!" He concluded his paragraph. It was worth the elbow to the gut and the hard laughter. Because it was coming from you. It was all you.

"You said orange flowers last time!" You admonish, almost under your breath before you laugh, "But alright, go on then. Read the rest of it if you're so sure of it!" With a wide grin, he did, even when you rolled your eyes at his random embellishments, or when he completely derailed and started to rant about the invention of pizza.

For each moment that lingered between you two, it felt easy. It felt safe. Even when you gave up and grasped the book from his hands, when your knuckles touched and electricity wound under his skin, he knew it to be true.

As your hands drew out the flower bookmark he kept, half-squashed between the pages, he caught it as you set it down.

For every failure that he felt he cropped up in life, this certainly wasn't it; this was something made with love, with passion, with something that he had avidly searched for as he grew up.

When he tucked the flower into your hair, he listened to the ramble of your words as you scanned through the paragraphs - the proper ones-- and watched the light of the screen reflect across your eyes.

This is the feeling that Daisuke knew best; this burning, smoldering affection that rested inside his chest. This was as close as he'd get to feeling 'home' without returning to Earth, and he wouldn't have it any other way.