writing dumps

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Robert and Herman both get the disease- poetically, at around the same time too, although they don't tell the one another until it's almost too late.

When Robert starts coughing up flowers, little blooms of water hyacinth- both fleeting and dangerous in their beauty- he does what he's best at and ignores it. The problem doesn't exist if he doesn't acknowledge it. It was a lesson he learned young, something that followed him throughout his career as a hero.

And, matter of fact, something that doesn't work.

Like always, the problem gets worse rather than go away, and Robert is forced to accept the fact that something is wrong. So wrong, that when he starts coughing up petals and blood on a daily basis, Robert finally admits defeat and goes to see a doctor.

Hanahaki disease, a terminal illness bloomed from unrequited love. It was something inherently beautiful in a morbid way, something romantic authors would lose their minds over. A one-sided love, so deep that flowers take root in the infected’s lungs, slowly choking out their every breath until that love is the last thing they experience.

An unrequited love that kills you with a bouquet of blooms and blood.

One where the only cures were horribly limited- either removed through surgical means that claws that love away, or by the other party returning the feelings.

And with the aquatic flowers currently digging into Robert's already fucked lungs, he has a damn good idea who these feelings are for, and he'd rather die than force Herman into this situation with him.

So, Robert returns to ignoring the problem.

He hides it from everyone, shies away from the probing questions born of concern, while his smoke-damaged lungs struggle under the weight of the garden he accidentally created.

It's only when his condition becomes too frequent to hide that Robert finally spills, that he's vomiting blood and beautiful lavender-crimson blossoms because he loves someone who deserves so much more than a miserable fuck-up like him.

There's concern of course, even the Z-Team begins to treat him like he's made of glass, set to shatter with every pained rattle of breath. Chase and Mandy practically beg him to get the surgery.

But it's too late, and Robert's already accepted his death.

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Herman already knows what's wrong, when petals fall past his lips. He'd spent a good portion of his life researching random topics, and hanahaki disease was just one of many subjects he'd been fascinated by back then.

So when he begins choking on a mixture of red and blue anemones, Herman knows exactly what's wrong, and knows exactly that there's nothing he's willing to do about it.

He'd been thinking about death a lot lately- but never his own. It was always fear of losing his grandma that kept him up at night, but he felt a strange sense of acceptance with his own death on the horizon, despite knowing that his grandma would outlive him then.

He doesn't go to a doctor about it, because he doesn't see the point in wasting money on a lost cause, when he already knows what started the whole thing, and the reason he wouldn't consider surgery for it.

Robert, his boss, the one person that wasn't family that wholeheartedly believed in him, but couldn't ever love someone like him.

Someone like Herman, perpetually wet and with such shaken confidence that he couldn't even talk to the man properly. Robert deserved a real hero, someone truly selfless and wonderful like Blonde Blazer, not moist and awkward Herm.

Herman's powers exacerbate the disease. The excess liquid already present in his lungs only furthering the spread of roots and flower buds. It forces him to step down from hero work- something he couldn't help but mourn. All the work he'd put into it, gone, reduced to nothing but a janitor again.

But it was hard to be a hero, when every wrong breath had him spewing blood and suffocating on too-large blooms crawling up his throat. Not to mention the irritation of the flowers scratching up his trachea.

So Herman melted into the background again, forced to watch everyone enjoy their lives, while accepting the fact that his was cut short because of his love for someone unattainable.

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It all comes to a head when Herman collapses one day mid-shift, choking so badly on a bloody cluster of flowers and viscera that he couldn't breathe.

The sight of the young man almost dying in front of him was enough to pull Robert from his depressive spiral, and realize that his love might not be as one-sided as he thought.

For the remainder of the shift, Robert kept eyeing the bloodied stain left on the floor, still not cleaned up after Herman was carted off to SDN’s med bay. Even when he took frequent breaks to hack out his own clump of rooted lung tissue and wilting petals, he continued staring at that stain like it was the only thing keeping him together.

His work dispatching was halfhearted at best, disastrous at worst. It was bad enough that Mandy intercepted, calmly telling him to go home and leave the team to her. Robert didn't fight her for once, but he didn't go home like she told him to.

He went to the med bay instead, and bullied his way into seeing the one person who inhabited his thoughts, his heart, his lungs.

Herman looked dead already, peaceful despite the red highlighting the cracks in his lips. He didn't seem fully there, not reacting at all when Robert half collapsed into the chair next to his bed, grabbing one of Herm's clammy hands.

He was hooked up to far too many machines, all beeping at a lethargic pace, like they were only delaying the inevitable. His skin was paler than Robert was used to seeing, made worse by the water still trickling off of him, and only made the bruising under his eyes so much deeper. The blanket over Herman was already soaked with water and most definitely not comfortable, but Robert still pulled it a little higher anyway, tricking himself into believing he was being helpful.

The sight had that familiar pain in his chest tightening, twisting into a painful lurch. Robert turned away from the source of his affection and suffering- as if he was hiding the gruesome sight from someone who didn't see him anyway- as a rasping cough uprooted more water hyacinth from his lungs.

The collection of flowers and gore splattered onto his lap, more and more piled on until Robert was dizzy from lack of air. He gasped a breath in, choking on a mouthful of coppery liquid, and coughed until more flowers were dislodged.

At the same time, Herman breathed out harshly, more red spluttering past his lips, heart monitor dipping, and Robert dragged himself back upright, half hovering over him. Bundles of hyacinths scattered to the floor in his haste, painting the tiles in a horrific gory masterpiece.

Robert probably looked half crazed to anyone else, sleep deprived and roughed up, teeth stained crimson and dripping blood onto his beloved’s catatonic form. He didn't care though, he needed to get Herm's attention.

“Herman,” He hissed out, voice little more than a rough scrape of torn vocal cords. It was quiet, barely even audible to his own ears, but it was enough.

Herman's eyes fluttered open, pretty just like the flowers Robert had been vomiting for weeks, and even with his own death fast approaching, they were still so full of love. His lips curled, just a little ghost of a smile, ruined by the blood and blue petals decorating his bed.

“Herm-” Robert rasped harshly on that single word. He coughed up another mouthful of petals, and they skimmed serenely over the redhead's face, “Herm, please. Please, it's me isn't it? Tell me I'm the one who did this to you!” He pleaded, leaning even further over Herman, “Tell me I'm the asshole who made you think you're unloved, tell me I can fix it! Let me fix it, please Hermie.”

Robert snatched a handful of the purple blooms that had blanketed Herman, holding them in a trembling hand over the other's chest, over his own garden of love.

“This is for you, all of it's for you- always you. It's always been you, Herm. Just listen to me, breathe for me, please just breathe,” Robert babbled helplessly, barely able to comprehend anything except the slowing of the heart monitor, “Just breathe, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry Hermie. I love you.”

He leaned in- although it would better be described as falling forward and barely catching himself- and cupped Herm's frail face in his own shaking hands. Their foreheads pressed together, the gesture so incredibly tender that Robert's eyes blurred with unshed tears. His ragged breaths misted over Herman’s bloodied lips.

“I love you, please believe me, I love you so much it hurts,” He whispered, broken.

Robert's chest continued to twist and writhe in agony, like the flowers were feeding off of his despair.

Their lips brushed, soft and bloodied and filled with the whisper of dying breath that had Robert sobbing above Herman.

Then the heart monitor jumped, the air puffing faintly against Robert's lips quickening, and those chapped lips chased after him when Robert attempted to pull back. Unable to deny the man he'd been yearning for, Robert tilted his head into the kiss, both of them stealing one another's breaths that felt so much easier than before.

When Robert finally felt cruel enough to tear his head away, he was met with a much more healthy flushed face, Herman's steel blues locked onto Robert's whiskey browns with so much love and devotion.

“I love you,” Herman echoed, and Robert fully crumbled.

He held onto Herman as they both cried over almost dying, as they both laughed over being such idiots, as they fell deeper in love.

It wasn't over yet, the flowers were still there, withering and detaching from their insides, but they'd stopped spreading.

And as Robert held Herman while the younger vomited up the remains of his anemones, his own hyacinths dead and waiting for removal, Robert embraced his whole life- literally and figuratively.

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Low-key made myself cry writing this 😭