Chapter Text
Flowers were always beautiful to Tommy.
The first memory he had was his mother taking him to a garden up in the countryside. He couldn’t tell you what they were doing there, he was just three or four years old. But he remembers the colourful plants that she set him down near, the baby blanket he rested on being the only place where the beautiful buds didn’t touch.
There were marigolds, begonias and sunflowers, the easiest to grow flowers. Off to the side was a hill of wild flowers, stronger and more vibrant colours just out of reach. After that day he was in love, nature itself was a wonderful thing but flowers were better.
At the age of eight he got a book on flowers. It was huge, going into detail on anything and everything about the plants. From how to grow them and the meaning behind them. His favourite was roses, a very cheesy choice he knows. But every rose meant a different love and he liked that about them.
Not everyone liked flowers though, even the most beautiful ones had some kind of painful side. Sometimes love would kill you and flowers were the ones to be its blade. Hanahaki disease was an awful reality that not many but enough people face to give the plants a bad rep. Tommy never understood it, science never understood it.
But he did understand flowers.
“Creeper!” Ranboo’s voice yells out, Tommy reacting just in time to move out of the way from a creeper. Tubbo’s giggles ring out through the discord call, causing him to frown.
“Tubbo!” He yells, hiding his own laughter as he glances over at Ranboo’s chat. They were streaming a speed run for his Twitch, Tubbo and Tommy brought on to cause some chaos for the man as they tried to ‘help’ him beat the game. It was incredibly fun to lead creepers over to him.
It wasn’t as fun when his partner tries to betray him and leads the green mobs over to him. “What? I’m getting wood.” Tubbo says, voice high pitched and sounding like a liar . He rolls his eyes as he scoffs, running over to Ranboo as he gets more wood.
“Liar.” He spits, stealing the wood from the American with his amazing ping. He hears Ranboo say something as he scurries away with his newly acquired logs. It went like that for a bit, Tubbo and Tommy wasting Ranboo’s time and causing the fans to root more for the other as he desperately tried to get everything he needed.
The fun of course didn’t last long, ending when they just got to the blaze spawners. The sound of his front door opening causes Tommy to still, hands tightening around his mouse. His friends' voices played around his head, earphones there yet he couldn’t hear anything that came out of them.
“Thomas!” His mothers voice calls out, Tommy slamming the mute button as he whips around.
“Yea!?” He yells back, heart speeding up a bit as he eyes his door. The sound of hurried footsteps makes him shrink back in his seat. The door whips open, his mothers face scrunched up in anger as she stares at him.
He refuses to meet her eyes as he decides to look at her put up ponytail. “I told you to clean up the kitchen and living room.” She states, arms crossing over her chest.
He internally curses at himself, hands leaving his keyboard and mouse as he grabs at his pants. “Shit- sorry. I’ll get to it, it just slipped my mind-“
He’s cut off by a huff, his mother walking a step further into his room. “I don’t want to hear your excuse’s Thomas! I have very important people coming over tonight and I can’t have your fathers beer bottles littered around the place. I’m going out to buy some things, I better come back to see the front rooms spotless.” She states, not leaving any room for him to talk as she leaves the room, door slamming shut behind her.
She’s definitely not in a good mood…
Tommy turns back to his computer, the ‘you died’ screen up as his friends text him in discord. He sighs, scooting closer as he tries to listen in on what they are saying. “-in a bit chat, I’m sure his wifi just died.” Ranboo’s voice is the first one he hears, the hint of a waver in his tone.
He takes a deep breath in, calming his nerves as he hears his mother leave the house once again. He ignores the tightens in his chest and the fact she literally just got home only to leave again. It’s because of me . He thinks bitterly, but he pushes the feelings down as he reaches for his mouse and unmutes himself. “What the fuck happened in the nether!?” He yells cheerfully, eyes fixated on the worried typing of his friends in discord.
“Tommy!”
“Tommy!”
His friends yell in unison, voices cutting out from how loud they were. “Boys, you won’t believe how shit the wifi’s been…” He lies, watching as chat hypes up from his arrival. Something tickles deep in his throat, making him swallow to try and stop it. It doesn’t work, leaving him irritated as he tries to make an excuse to leave the stream early.
The ‘important people’ his mother was talking about didn’t seem very important to him as he walked around, saying hi to everyone as they came in. He was dressed nicely, his mother having rummaged through his closest to find something that wasn’t ’distasteful’ for him to wear.
His father was laughing, already two beer cans into the night as his mother steered him around the people she worked with. He never really understood her job. It was some company business thing she never thought to explain to him. But it always ended with a party and him being forced to greet people he barely knows.
“And you must be Thomas!” A lady said, his mother right behind him as she held a bubbly champagne glass.
He put up a strained smile as he put out his hand, the woman’s clammy fingers grabbing into him in a handshake. “Hello.” He replies, remembering his manners. If streaming has taught him anything it’s how to put up a face. “It’s good to have you here.” Well, whatever here was supposed to be.
The lady's smile grows as she lets him go, Tommy forcing himself not to wipe his hand on his pants. “Oh such a gentleman! You really have trained him well.” She says, looking over at his mother. His smile falters at the comment but he recovers when she looks back to him. Keep it up, don’t embarrass mother and father.
“It wasn’t that hard, just some discipline here and there.” His mother goes in to say, looking at him from the corner of her eye. A shiver goes down his spine at the words. Discipline, he curls his hands into fists. Whatever happened in this house was anything but discipline! Yelling? Yes. Threatening to cut off the wifi? Definitely. Leaving him alone for weeks on end? Ha, Child's play.
Tommy’s sure real child discipline doesn’t leave him in his room, curled up in a ball and crying for forgiveness.
“Thomas?” His mothers voice breaks him out of his thoughts. Tommy turns to look at her, keeping his stance tall as she looks seconds away from scolding him.
“S-sorry, I got lost in thought.” He stutters, looking between the lady and her. “Can you repeat-“ Tommy’s stopped as his throat itches, a cough forcing its way out of him. He raises his hand and covers his mouth as his chest squeezes uncomfortably. He struggles to breath for a couple seconds, coughs interrupting him every time he tries. It takes an embarrassingly long time for his coughs to calm down, and an embarrassing amount of eyes on him.
The second it dies down Tommy’s reeling back, taking big breaths of air as he tries to end the burning in his lungs. “You okay honey?” His mother says, eyebrows knit together. Her hand has somehow found its way to his back, rubbing circles between his shoulder blades.
He nods, wiping at his mouth with his sleeve. “Y-yea, spit went down the wrong pipe I think.” She nods, hand leaving his back as she faces back forward to the lady they were talking to.
“Okay then. Back to what I was saying before, you're graduating college soon.” He nods, even if he really didn’t need to. “I thought it would be a good idea for you to work under Ms Crook as a sort of internship over the summer, she works in editing in the company.” Tommy would have liked to say he paid attention to the rest of her words, but his throat itched and he started to feel uncomfortable in his clothes.
It was distracting, so much so he left his mothers side and sat down at the table, his father across from him with a bunch of his own work friends. They all smelled like beer. But like they were doing to him, Tommy ignored them and focused on himself. As the party went on his few coughing fits started to stain his throat, shoulders hiking up as he covered his mouth.
No one noticed him in the corner of the room and if they did his mother redirected them to somewhere else. Like she was ashamed of him just sitting there, not interacting with the people at the part. After a couple hours of him scratching at his arms and almost coughing up a lung, the party finally started to thin and people started to go home. Tommy didn’t even wait to be excused before he got up and rushed out of the room and up the stairs.
He marched right towards the bathroom, hoping to splash water on his face or at least get itching cream for whatever hell spawn of a bug that must have bit underneath his clothes. Tommy turned the doorknob of the bathroom and slammed in behind himself, hackles rising as he coughed into his hand. It felt like something was crawling up his throat.
The itching got too unbearable, Tommy ripping off his shirt and throwing it to the floor. He sits down next to the bathtub, a cough ripping itself through him as he moves to look at his arm. It’s only when he looks down, mind suspecting a pesky mosquito bite when Tommy sees the petal sticking out of his red and irritated skin. It was a pink carnation petal…
He blinks a few times, coughs periodically coming out of him as he stares down at the bright pink flower petal. It doesn’t do anything but sit there, embedded into his forearm like it had just grown out from underneath his skin. Without really thinking Tommy grabbed at the small plant, the sensation making the skin around the area sting a bit with pain.
He bites down on his tongue as he rips it out, a small open cut being left on his skin. Blood dribbles out of the very small wound and down his arm. Tommy looks from the petal then to his arm over a hundred times before his brain finally catches up with itself. A pink carnation petal just grew out of his fucking arm. A petal . He drops the plant, eyes wide.
It really shouldn’t have been that surprising.
The days following what he dubs the petal incident were… slow. He doesn’t know how to put it. Tommy feels like everyday after he’s been pushing through thick water, his mind a haze of what the fuck and I can’t believe this is happening. At first he thought it was some kind of wicked dream and he’d wake up the next day perfectly fine.
But the coughs followed him like a disease. He guesses it is one, because there’s no mistaking that he has hanahaki. Petals literally came out of his lungs, his skin itched and blood trickled out of his mouth in the middle of the night. Tommy said nothing, he did nothing. There was nothing he could do.
And maybe there actually was, somewhere in the world there being a cure. But Tommy couldn’t find it in the hours of the night, where his eyes strained against his vibrant screen. Google searches, articles and videos all led to the same depressing surgery. One that he wasn’t willing to go through, not when love for another was the only thing he had left now. He knows what people will think when they find out, that poor TommyInnit has the flower sickness.
He wasn’t lovable, it was his fault he was sick. So instead of sitting in self pity he wrote letters, dedicated to each one of his friends and family members. He started with the Dream Team, one letter for all of them. He wrote hastily, having much more to get through. He wrote how much he appreciated Dream for letting him on the SMP, how much he liked vlogging with George and how cool and funny he thought Sapnap was.
You know, everything he wouldn’t be caught alive saying to them. He guesses that’s the point of writing these. He’ll be dead when they read them. Is that brutal? Weird? Tommy doesn’t know, doesn’t want to think about it. He wouldn’t call himself suicidal, just… practical. He’s setting up for the worst. The hanahaki disease might not even progress past coughing fits and bloody lips! He’s hopeful, maybe.
The next people he writes to are his grandparents, who have been nothing but supportive. The letters are short and sweet, his curses left off the page with thanks to every card they’ve sent him for holidays. The next couple of letters were harder to write. Tubbo’s and Ranboo’s were the only ones he started to cry while writing. He ignored the tear stains on the page as he wrote.
He had to leave it there, not able to write the last three letters he wanted to. Phil’s, Techno’s and Wilbur’s would just have to wait. He put the letters he did write underneath his bed and climbed on top of it. Tommy grabbed his phone and did the only thing he thought to do now.
Gremlin Child: Can I come over to your house for the weekend?
Brother Soot: For a vlog?
Gremlin Child: No. Just to hang out.
Brother Soot: Sure. You can come over Friday after college.
Gremlin Child: Thanks Will.
Maybe texting Wilbur right now was a bad idea, but he couldn’t help but think of it differently. Maybe if he gets away from his parents the flowers would stop growing. Maybe his itchy skin won’t give away to petals or coughs won’t rattle his body until he’s dripping with sweat on the floor.
And besides, Wilbur liked him. What else could possibly get rid of an unrequited love disease then the love of a brother?