Chapter Text
Tiredness hits him first.
Not the ‘normal’ kind of tired, either. Not the kind of exhaustion that comes after a long shift, restless sleep, or from Christopher keeping him up by shouting at his PC all night.
This is different. It sits beneath his skin, heavy and persistent, as though his body has forgotten what it feels like to be completely rested. It weighs him down, like a physical weight on his shoulders that he’s struggling to lift more and more as the days go on.
At first, Eddie tells himself it's nothing he can’t handle.
He’s been through worse. He’s worked through worse. He’s been stabbed, shot, and buried alive. A little exhaustion isn't going to scare him.
So he keeps going.
He gets Christopher ready for school, makes breakfast for the both of them, and kisses his forehead before he leaves, promising that he'll pick him up later. He goes to the firehouse, drinks coffee, and laughs when Hen makes some comment about Buck being incapable of putting anything back where he found it.
Normal. Everything is normal.
Except that when Buck grins at him around the mouthful of toast he's stolen from Eddie's plate, something in Eddie's chest aches.
Not metaphorically, either. An actual, physical ache. One that has his palm coming up almost instinctively, pressing against his sternum as he waits for the sensation to pass. One that has him wincing enough for Buck to notice and ask, "You okay?"
Eddie looks up to find there's concern already written across Buck's face, that familiar crease appearing between his eyebrows. Eddie removes his hand from his chest and forces himself to smile, not wanting to worry him. "’M fine. Just swallowed wrong, food got stuck," he says, going back to what’s left of his toast.
Buck watches him for another second, clearly unconvinced, but eventually nods. "Okay."
Eddie smiles again and Buck smiles back, and no matter how small it is, it still manages to make the pain worse. It still manages to make his heart flutter before it thumps painfully against his ribs.
That frightens him– just for a moment, because it reminds him that he has a time limit on this now. That he only gets to see that smile, to have his heart flutter like that, for a little longer. Now Eddie understands what the flowers truly are.
They aren't simply something that’s happened because he fell in love. They're responding to it, growing because of it. Spreading throughout his lungs, festering inside him and stealing air from him.
Every time Buck smiles at him another flower bud blooms. Every time he looks at Eddie with that familiar look in his eyes, the one Eddie had mistaken for returned feelings, another thorn draws blood in his lungs.
His body is taking something that should have been beautiful and turning it into a slow, deliberate method of killing him.
⚬──────────⋆⋅☆⋅⋆──────────⚬
The second time Eddie coughs up a petal, he's home alone.
He feels that familiar burn in his chest, that intrusive lump in his throat and immediately dives up to make it to the bathroom. He barely makes it to the sink before his chest convulses. His hands grip the porcelain while another cough tears through him, then another, until his eyes water and his ribs ache with the effort.
When the sensation finally passes, Eddie stays where he is, breathing carefully through his nose with his eyes closed.
Then he looks down.
Pink.
A tiny petal rests against the white basin, a droplet of blood next to it. It’s bright red, a stark contrast to the sink it’s staining. There's a little on the petal too, and Eddie finds himself angry that its beauty is being marred by his blood.
He stares at it without touching it. Marvels at it, really.
The first ones had been a shock. The first ones, coughed up in his kitchen, could have been a figment of his imagination. Something that he’d convinced himself had happened because he was deliriously tired from the end of his shift.
This one is confirmation. This is really happening. The pain in his chest had been real, caused from a physical disruption, and not just from an oncoming panic attack like he had hoped.
Slowly, Eddie reaches out and picks it up between his shaking fingers.
It's so small.
Delicate enough that the slightest pressure could crush it. It’s soft as he swipes the pad of his thumb over it, smearing his blood over his skin instead of the pretty pink.
For a strange moment, he considers keeping it.
He could put it somewhere safe. Somewhere private. Tuck it into the back of a drawer or hide it inside one of the books on his nightstand. Maybe one day, when this is over—if it ever is—he could look at it and remember that this had really happened.
That he hadn't imagined the pain. That he hadn't imagined the flowers. That, for however short a time, his love for Buck had been so strong that it had physically existed inside him. That he’d loved Buck so much his body hadn’t had enough space to house it, so he’d had to grow something from it instead.
Eddie turns the petal over carefully between his fingertips. It's such a soft brush against his skin that he barely feels it, and almost drops it back into the basin.
He doesn't want to throw it away.
The thought surprises him with how immediate it is. Because technically, this is a part of him. It grew inside his lungs. His body made it. Somehow, impossibly, something born from his own blood and breath had become a tiny piece of the love he'd been carrying for Buck all this time.
He thinks he could keep it hidden somewhere, just for himself.
Maybe years from now, if he's lucky enough to live that long, he could find it again and remember this strange, painful period of his life. He could hold it in his palm and know that once, he had been capable of loving someone so deeply that his own body had grown flowers from it.
The thought hurts. Not because of the flower, or the fact that he’d grown it simply because he loves someone who doesn’t love him back. But because, in some deep, twisted way, he feels like he’d grown it for Buck.
Eddie closes his fingers gently around the petal, cradling it gently in his palm like it’s a living, breathing entity with its own lifeforce. Like Eddie might snuff it out if he holds it any more tightly.
He wants to keep it. God, he wants to.
But then he thinks of Christopher. What if Christopher finds it? What if he sees it in the trash? What if he picks it up because he thinks it's pretty? What if he asks where it came from? What if he finds out?
Eddie's stomach drops at the thought. No, he can't risk it. Not yet.
He folds a paper towel around the petal, but even then he hesitates. It feels absurdly difficult to let go of something so small.
His thumb presses once against the folded paper, as though he can somehow feel the petal through it. His voice comes quiet when he whispers, "I'm sorry."
He doesn't know whether he's apologizing to the flower, to himself, or to the love that created it. Whether he’s apologising to a universe he doesn’t believe in for allowing himself to finally want something.
Because, clearly this is his penance for allowing it. Clearly, this is the universe’s way of punishing him, it’s way of saying, “see Eddie, this is what happens when you want something. This is what happens when you love something. This is what happens when you’re selfish.”
He closes his eyes, and even though it hurts just as much as the twisting vines in his chest, he drops the folded paper towel into the toilet.
For several seconds, he simply watches it sit there. Watches as the water darkens the tissue from the edges in, until the pink of the petal peeks through. What for? He’s not sure. To taunt him? To beg to be retrieved?
His hand rests against the edge of the sink, his stomach swirling uncomfortably as he watches it spin oh so slowly on the water's surface.
Part of him wants to reach down and take it back. To pull it out, apologise again, dry it off and store it in a jar under his bed. To keep it safe. To preserve it.
Instead, he takes a deep breath, feels more weight settle on his shoulders, then flushes it.
The water carries it away in a death spiral. Eddie watches until there is nothing left. No evidence. No proof. Nothing Christopher can find. Nothing Buck can accidentally see. Nothing anyone can ask him about.
Just rippling water slowing as it settles.
He feels dread settle in his bones a little. Feels like he’s just lost some important part of his identity that he can never hope to get back.
He closes the lid and leans against the sink, staring at his reflection in the mirror. He looks tired. Paler than usual, with shadows gathering beneath his eyes that weren't there a few weeks ago. His fingers tighten around the edge of the porcelain.
"It’s okay." His voice sounds strange in the empty bathroom. He swallows and tries again. "It’s okay."
He doesn't know who he's saying it to. Maybe himself. Maybe his reflection. Maybe whatever cruel part of the universe decided that loving someone who doesn’t love you back wasn't painful enough on its own.
Eventually, he straightens his shoulders and leaves the bathroom.
Nobody’s around to see.
⚬──────────⋆⋅☆⋅⋆──────────⚬
He spends the next few days researching.
Late at night, after Christopher is asleep and the house has gone quiet, Eddie sits at the kitchen table with his laptop open and searches for words he never thought he'd have to type.
Hanahaki disease.
For a long time, Eddie sits there staring at the screen, trying to understand what he’s reading.
Most of it’s clinical.
Symptoms. Progression. Treatment. Complications.
Words that make the whole thing sound almost manageable when they're written down like that, as though reducing something as terrifying as flowers growing inside your lungs to a list of symptoms somehow makes it less frightening.
It doesn't.
If anything, the clinical language makes it worse, because Eddie can see himself in every line.
Persistent coughing.
Chest pain.
Fatigue.
Difficulty breathing.
Coughing up petals.
He scrolls farther.
There are sections about progression, about what happens when the flowers become dense enough to obstruct the airways. There are diagrams he doesn't look at for long because they have unease settling in his chest beside the petals. There are descriptions of people who waited too long to seek treatment and ended up in respiratory failure.
How the flowers will begin to develop roots and stems, and how they’ll penetrate lung tissue to build a home there.
How, when he dies, a flower will bloom from his mouth. One that can’t be removed.
He scrolls again.
A paragraph catches his attention.
Hanahaki is traditionally associated with unrequited love. In rare circumstances, the condition may manifest in the object of the sufferer's affection following prolonged emotional exposure. Although, where the disease manifests in object of the sufferer's affection, onset is most commonly associated with a direct confession of unrequited feelings followed by emotional rejection.
Eddie's brow furrows.
He reads it once, then again.
The object of the sufferer's affection.
His stomach turns.
He’s the sufferer in this situation. And the object of his- the sufferers- affection? That’s– Buck.
He keeps reading. Surely he’s reading it wrong. Surely he’s mistaken here.
When the rest of the article uses jargon that confuses him more and provides him with more questions with answers, he backs out of if and googles instead.
Can you pass Hanahaki to the person you love?
Everything inside Eddie goes still with what he reads.
He doesn't breathe. He doesn't move.
He simply stares at the words until they blur.
Then everything catches up with him.
Not through proximity, not necessarily. Not Buck sitting beside him or touching his shoulder or spending years woven into Eddie's life. But through a confession. A confession followed by rejection.
If he tells Buck about his feelings, and he rejects him, he could give this to Buck.
Eddie's hand rises slowly to his mouth, trying to hold back the nausea that suddenly threatens him.
He knows exactly how that conversation would go.
He would tell Buck the truth.
A simple I love you.
And Buck would look at him with those blue eyes, startled and horrified and gentle, because Buck is always gentle when someone is hurting.
Then he would say he was sorry. He would tell Eddie that he didn't feel the same way. He would tell him they were just best friends, while thinking that the idea of loving Eddie back is ridiculous, just as he’d told Maddie.
And Eddie could live with that. He’d have to. It would hurt. It would probably break something inside him that he didn't know how to repair, but he could survive it.
Except—
Buck might not.
Eddie's chest contracts. He can suddenly see the aftermath with horrible clarity: Buck apologising for not loving Eddie back, like it’s something he could control, then immediately turning to cough into his hand, confused by the first petal.
Buck trying to laugh it off. Buck waking up breathless in the middle of the night. A doctor explaining that flowers are growing inside his lungs. Explaining how and why.
And then Buck looking at Eddie, and knowing.
He catches himself against the table, fingers curling around the edge until his knuckles ache. “No.”
This time the word is barely audible. There’s no one around to hear it anyway, but he still says it in a barely-there voice.
There is no hesitation in his decision.
If telling Buck could put him in danger, Eddie simply won't tell him. The choice is immediate and absolute. Then another thought follows.
He can’t tell anyone.
Hen would tell him to go to the hospital. Bobby would insist on knowing how bad it was. Maddie would see through him eventually.
Christopher—
Eddie's throat tightens. No. Christopher is too young to carry something like this.
And, if Eddie tells any of them, they would all tell Buck.
They’d decide he deserves to know, and they would be right, which is what makes the decision so painful.
Buck is Eddie's best friend. He has earned the truth. If their positions were reversed, Eddie knows exactly what he would do: he would fight, argue, refuse to leave Buck alone with something this serious. Be by his side the entire time.
But Eddie isn't willing to gamble Buck's life against the possibility that a medical theory might be wrong.
So he closes the page. He deletes his search history for the night. Then he sits in the dark kitchen with his hands folded tightly together, trying to make himself accept what he has just decided.
He won't tell Buck. He won't tell Hen. He won't tell Bobby. He won't tell anyone who might decide Buck has a right to know.
He'll make excuses when he's tired. He'll hide the petals. He'll clean the blood from the sink before Christopher wakes up. He'll keep going to work and smiling when Buck looks at him and he’ll pretend there isn't something growing inside his lungs.
And if anyone asks what's wrong, Eddie will lie.
Not because he's ashamed, not anymore.
But because Buck's life is worth more than Eddie's need to be saved.
Then he thinks of Buck.
That stupid smile, the laugh that comes too easily, the way Buck throws himself into everything with his whole heart.
Eddie closes his eyes, keeps his voice small as he whispers, “I won't do that to you,” under his breath. His voice cracks on the last word.
He picks up his phone and stares at the blank screen.
There’s so much he wants to say.
I love you.
I'm scared.
I don't know how much time I have.
Please don't let me disappear without knowing why.
But please don’t ask me, because I can’t risk what might happen if I tell you.
But none of it matters if saying it puts Buck in danger, so Eddie swallows every word. He has spent his whole life learning how to carry things quietly, he can carry this too.
Even when it kills him.
Especially if that's what it takes to keep Buck safe.
Eddie closes the laptop, his eyes closing with a sigh. The kitchen falls silent around him, and for a long time, he simply sits there listening to the refrigerator hum. Now that he’s closed the laptop the only light in the kitchen comes through the windows from the street lights outside.
He hadn’t realised how long he’d spent at the table looking into his impending doom. Reading about how he could kill his best friend through a slip of his tongue.
Somewhere down the hall, Christopher turns over in his sleep. Eddie looks toward the door with another sigh.
Christopher.
The thought hurts more than the flowers ever could. What happens to him?
That's the question Eddie has been avoiding. Not what happens to Eddie, but what happens to Christopher?
He supposes, given his will, that his son goes to the person who’s killing him.
He has spent weeks thinking about his own death. He has imagined Christopher having to move on and live without him, wondered who would teach him to drive, who would stand beside him at his wedding, who would make sure he knew that none of this had ever been his fault.
Who gets him ready for school every morning? Who remembers that he doesn't like the crusts on his sandwiches, and which nightmares are bad enough that he needs someone to sit beside him until he falls asleep again? Who takes him to surfing lessons, checks his homework, helps him with college applications, listens to the stories that seem to have no ending, and tells him that he's safe?
And, of course, the answer to all of that is Buck. Buck will be those things for him.
But he’s still so scared of that– of missing all those things.
The only thing that scares him more, is this. Is leaving Chris behind and taking Buck with him.
Of leaving Chris without someone there to be those things for him.
And this is a whole other type of fear. This is the first thing that makes Eddie understand that he would choose his own death over risking Buck's life.
Eddie presses his palms against his eyes, a broken sob of a laugh spilling from his crowded chest, "Fuck."
The word comes out broken and shaky. He can't do this. He can't leave Christopher, not again. Not after everything he’s already been through.
And then, inevitably, his mind goes to Buck again. The thought hurts in a completely different way this time.
Even now, Buck is everywhere. In his kitchen. At the firehouse. In Christopher's life. In all the spaces Eddie has spent years pretending aren't important. And now Buck is the reason Eddie is dying.
Not because Buck did anything wrong, and that's the cruelest part.
Buck didn't ask Eddie to fall in love with him. He never promised anything. Eddie did this all by himself. He took small moments—a hand on his shoulder, a look across the firehouse, Buck showing up, Buck staying, Buck loving Christopher, Buck loving him—and built something out of them that had never actually existed.
Eddie had mistaken friendship for something more because he wanted it to be more.
He reaches for the laptop again and searches for treatment.
There are different approaches.
Some involve surgery to remove the flowers. Some involve medication. But none of those options provide a permanent solution. The medication doesn’t stop the growth, but it can slow it. Though Eddie supposes that’d only drag out his suffering. And the surgery might get rid of the flowers, but they’ve been seen to come back faster and more aggressively, like some kind of fight or flight response. Some kind of survival instinct bringing them back bigger and better.
Because the underlying cause remains. Unrequited love.
The simplest cure is the one Eddie can't have. Stop loving them, or have them love you back.
Eddie stares at the words, and he almost laughs.
As though he can simply decide. As though love is a light switch he can turn off because it has become inconvenient. As though he can wake up tomorrow, look at Buck, and see only his best friend.
No warmth. No ache. No longing. No yearning. No desire.
He knows better than to think that’s a possibility, at least for him. He's tried. God knows he's tried.
For years, he has told himself that Buck is his friend. His partner. Christopher's Buck. Family.
He has given every other name he could think of to what he feels, but none of them can change what it actually is. None of them can make it something it’s not.
None of them can make what he feels anything other than love.
Eddie shuts the laptop with a huff.
He doesn't sleep that night.
⚬──────────⋆⋅☆⋅⋆──────────⚬
The ethical questions come to eat away at his soul three days later.
It happens while Eddie is standing in the shower, as most intrusive thoughts do.
Another cough tears through him, harder this time, leaving his chest burning. When it finally passes, he looks down at his palm, and through tears he finds two petals, twined together with blood splattered over them again.
He stares at them, and suddenly, he wonders whether keeping this secret is selfish.
Maybe he has no right.
Buck deserves to know.
Hen and Chimney deserve to know. Bobby and Athena deserve to know. His parents, his Tia, his Abuela, they all deserve to know.
Christopher definitely deserves to know.
If Eddie is sick enough to die, shouldn't the people who love him get the chance to prepare? Shouldn't they know? Shouldn't someone be given the opportunity to be able to help? To say goodbye.
His fingers close around the petals, shaking again.
He thinks about Buck. Because Buck would insist, he knows he would.
Buck would drop everything. He'd sit beside Eddie, research everything, and probably blame himself for not noticing sooner. That thought makes Eddie's stomach twist violently enough that he’s shocked he doesn’t throw up there and then.
Buck already blames himself for things that aren't his fault, and if Eddie tells him, Buck will make this his responsibility.
Eddie can't do that to him.
Not when Buck already has enough on his plate. Not when Buck has no idea that he's the reason Eddie is sick. Not when Eddie knows how much it would hurt him.
But that's selfish too, isn't it?
Keeping someone from saying goodbye because he’s too afraid to hear them say it. Keeping Christopher in the dark because he can't bear to see his face when he understands. Keeping Buck close while pretending everything is normal. Lying to his boss about something that could potentially be affecting his ability to do his job, could possibly get someone else hurt, all because he doesn’t want to voice what’s happening to him because it’ll make it all too real.
Eddie turns off the shower and stands there dripping, staring at the wall. Maybe there is no right ethical answer. Maybe there is only the answer he can live with.
But Eddie isn't sure whether he can live with any of them.
Though it might not be his choice, because there’s not a chance in hell he’s going to tell any of this to Buck, if there’s even the slightest possibility it might kill him. It might not be inevitable that telling Buck will give him hanahaki too, but just the thought of it is enough to have his breath coming faster.
He flushes the petals, not even bothering to stand and watch as they disappear.
⚬──────────⋆⋅☆⋅⋆──────────⚬
He almost tells Buck at the firehouse one day. Convinces himself that he won’t give hanahaki to Buck through his confession. That, after many more hours of research, he found that it’s so unbelievably rare that he’d inflict it on Buck that he might be able to do it.
That, if he somehow does pass it on to Buck, he’d find a way to fix it. He’d fall out of love with him, no matter how impossible the thought seems, if it would wither the flowers in their lungs.
It happens after a shift. They're sitting on the roof, Buck with a bottle of water in one hand while he talks about something Christopher said earlier. None of them want to leave yet, neither are tired enough to go home to their empty houses and sleep.
Eddie has a tea in hand, curled up in one of the deck chairs, but he isn't really listening to whatever Buck’s saying.
He's too busy watching him.
The way his hands move when he talks. The way his smile comes easily. The way he looks at Eddie as though there is nowhere else he'd rather be.
For one impossible second, Eddie thinks maybe he could say it. Maybe he could finally tell him. Maybe he could stop pretending.
The thought arrives so suddenly that Eddie almost believes it might actually be possible. He could turn toward Buck, tell him that something is wrong, tell him that he has been coughing up flowers, tell him that the flowers are growing because he's in love with someone who doesn't love him back.
He could tell Buck everything, and Buck would listen.
But that’s entirely the problem.
Eddie knows Buck well enough to know exactly what would happen.
Buck would stop smiling.
That easy, post-shift glow would disappear from his face, replaced by that familiar crease between his eyebrows and the worried look that Eddie has seen a hundred times. He'd start asking questions. How long? How bad? Why didn't you tell me? What can I do?
And then he'd blame himself. Buck has a talent for taking responsibility for things that were never his fault. He'd convince himself that he should have noticed sooner, that he should have asked more questions, that he should have somehow known Eddie was sick just by looking at him.
Eddie can't do that to him.
Not when Buck has done nothing wrong. Not when Buck is sitting beside him looking happier than Eddie has seen him all day.
There’s something almost weightless about Buck after a shift. The adrenaline has faded, the tension from the calls they've run has loosened from his shoulders, and he's left with nothing but that bright, uncomplicated happiness that seems to come so naturally to him. His hair is a mess. His turnout jacket is half unzipped. He's talking and gesturing with his hands at the same time as he laughs.
He looks light.
Free.
Happy.
There is something almost unfair about the way Buck can make the world seem brighter without trying.
Eddie watches him and feels something inside his chest twist painfully. He doesn't want to be the person who takes that away. He doesn't want to watch Buck's face fall when he tells him. He doesn't want Buck to spend every moment after this wondering whether Eddie is getting worse. He doesn't want Buck sitting beside a hospital bed. He doesn't want Buck looking at him like he's already grieving.
Like Eddie’s already dead.
And, selfishly, Eddie doesn't want to see the moment Buck realises that the person Eddie loves is him.
Because then Buck will know.
He'll know that all of those little moments Eddie treasured meant something different to him. He'll know that Eddie fell in love with him. He'll know that the flowers are killing Eddie because of it.
And Eddie can't ask Buck to carry that. He can't place the weight of his death on Buck's shoulders and then expect him to keep living normally.
So Eddie swallows, forces his chest to loosen, forces himself to look away from Buck's face.
Maybe he can keep this one thing to himself. Maybe he can carry it; he’s carried worse.
But for some reason, he finds his voice, "Buck."
Buck's sentence comes to a stop immediately.
He turns toward Eddie, giving him all of his undivided attention without hesitation, the easy smile still lingering at the corners of his mouth. "Yeah?"
Eddie's mouth goes dry.
For one terrifying second, he almost says it anyway.
I'm sick.
I don't know how long I have.
I'm in love with you.
Please don't look at me like I'm already dying.
The words crowd behind his teeth, desperate to get out. But instead, Eddie sees that smile again, that light in Buck's eyes, and he thinks about what it will look like after Eddie tells him.
Gone. Replaced by fear, and guilt, and something akin to pity.
Eddie can't do it, not yet.
Somehow, over the years, Buck has become woven into the fabric of Eddie's life so thoroughly that Eddie doesn't remember what things looked like before him. There are moments when he tries to picture his life without Buck in it, and his mind simply refuses to cooperate.
How is he supposed to ruin someone who means that much to him? How is he supposed to risk his life too?
Buck waits. Of course he does.
He doesn't rush Eddie or fill the silence for him. He simply turns a little more toward him, his expression open and patient, waiting for whatever Eddie is trying to say.
That somehow makes it worse. Because Buck deserves the truth. But he also deserves to be happy. And Eddie’s having a real hard time choosing which one he should let him have. Why does he have to be the one to choose? Why should there even be a decision in the first place?
Eddie looks down at his hands, shakes his head and gives a smile they both know is fake, "Nothing."
Buck's brow furrows, "You sure?"
"Yeah." The lie feels heavier than it should.
Buck studies him for another moment, clearly unconvinced. "Because… you looked like you were about to say something?"
Eddie forces another smile, tries to make this one more believable. He can feel his chest aching again, a dull pressure beneath his ribs that reminds him exactly what he is trying not to say. "I forgot."
Buck's expression softens, then he laughs quietly, shaking his head. "Okay." He nudges Eddie's shoulder with his own, casual and warm, as though nothing has changed. "I’m sure you'll remember whatever it was eventually, old man."
Eddie looks at him– at the smile Buck has already found again, at the way his shoulders have relaxed.
At the easy happiness that Eddie can’t bear to take from him.
That's the problem. He doesn't think he ever will.
Doesn’t think he’ll ever have the courage to tell Buck something he has every right to know, because he’s too scared to see his reaction. Too scared that he might hurt him too.
Because to take away that happiness, Eddie has to say it out loud.
And saying it makes it real.
He’s not ready for this to be real yet.
⚬──────────⋆⋅☆⋅⋆──────────⚬
That night, Eddie lies in bed beside Christopher.
His son is asleep, one hand curled beneath his cheek, his breathing slow and even. And Eddie has crept into his room to look at him, because he’s not sure how much time he has left to do that now.
Eddie watches him for a long time before reaching out to gently brush Christopher's hair away from his forehead. He keeps his voice low when he speaks, "I'm sorry."
Christopher doesn't stir.
Eddie swallows hard.
He wants to tell him everything. He wants to tell him that his dad is sick, that he's scared, that he doesn't know how much time he has, and that he's sorry.
But the words won't come when Chris is awake. When he’s looking Eddie in the eyes over dinner, or when he climbs in the passenger seat as Eddie picks him up from school.
Because if he says them, they become real. If he tells Chris, then Chris knows.
If he tells Buck, Buck knows. If he tells Hen, Bobby, Chimney— Everyone knows.
And once everyone knows, Eddie can't pretend anymore.
He can't wake up tomorrow and imagine this is temporary. He can't go to work and act like he isn't dying. He can't stand in the kitchen while Buck steals his breakfast and pretend that there is still a future where this is simply nothing.
Telling them means admitting that someday there won't be an Eddie around anymore.
He presses a kiss to Christopher's hair, a stray tear dripping down his cheek that he rushes to wipe away.
For now, he can keep pretending. For now, Christopher gets his dad, Buck gets his best friend, and Eddie gets to sit beside the people he loves without watching grief settle across their faces.
It isn't fair, he knows that. It’s not fair to him or to them. And it isn't right, either.
But he's afraid, and fear is a powerful thing.
Eddie pulls the blanket a little higher around Christopher, watching with a fond smile as he settles into the warmth of his sheets.
"I'll tell them," The promise feels hollow even as he makes it. "I’ll tell you. Soon."
He knows, even then, that he might not.
But soon is easier than now. Soon he can tell them. Soon he can figure out how to explain that the flowers are growing in his chest because he fell in love with his best friend. Soon he can figure out how to explain that Buck doesn't love him back. Soon he can figure out how to explain that he's dying.
Tonight, he can't. Tonight, he lies beside his son and listens to him breathe.
He’ll tell the others when he’s sure they won’t tell Buck. Until he knows he’s not risking his best friend.
Then, when he feels a cough beginning to form, Eddie slips quietly from the room.
He just about makes it to his bedroom before he doubles over, one hand braced against the wall as another painful fit shakes through him.
More petals fall into his palm– almost enough to rebuild a whole flower.
Pink against his skin.
Beautiful and delicate.
They sit in a small puddle of blood.
Red and deadly.
Eddie stares at them until his vision blurs. Then he closes his fingers around them and whispers the only thing he can.
"Nobody needs to know."
For now, anyway.
Because if nobody knows, then maybe this isn't real. If nobody knows, Eddie can still pretend he has time. And if he can pretend long enough, maybe he won't have to think about what happens when the pretending stops.