Work Text:
In a restaurant called “Pepper Paradiso”, a purple haired male was working in the back in the dish pit. His tan hands went through their normal routine of grabbing the dirty dish, scrapping leftover food in the waste bin for the garden in the back, spraying the dishes, then put them in a plastic dish holder to be put through a sanitizer later. The male had been doing this for six years and knew better than to space out but he was antsy for his shift to end that he didn't notice that he was reaching for a sharp knife by it's blade.
“Lewis Pepper!” Mr. Pepper called from the stove.
This stopped the taller male as he jumped and looked to his adopted father. “Si Papa?” he asked.
“Lewis, you can leave early,” his mother Mrs. Pepper sighed but she didn't look from the peppers she was chopping.
“But,” Lewis started.
“No buts,” Mrs. Pepper said as she pointed her knife at her eldest. “You can leave a few minutes early. Now go get cleaned up before you visit Arthur.”
“Yes Mama,” Lewis said with a small smile. He knew better to argue with the woman and gave her a quick kiss on her cheek before he left.
He walked up the stairs that lead from the restaurant to their house as he allowed his mind to roam freely. They always went back to one person for the past four months: Arthur Kingsman.
Lewis had first met Arthur after Lewis started middle school. The blonde was a friend of his friend, Vivi, and he hid behind her when she introduced them. This made him want to take the Arthur and hold him close when he saw the fear in those amber eyes. He would be able to do that later down the road because by the time they hit high school, they were dating.
The first person to start the courting was Arthur. Of course, the smaller male was too shy to even ask Lewis out so he became a secret admirer by the second year of middle school. He started it out by leaving him yellow chrysanthemum in his backpack when he had gym. Lewis didn't know that flower meant secret admire but took it home anyway and put it in a vase. Then came a marigold after lunch, which he knew it was his birth month flower. He placed it in the same vase as the chrysanthemum.
Then came a stephanotiswhen he had a big test coming up, a sweetpea a week before a school dance, a yellow tulip on Valentines day, a pansy was delivered to his house when he got sick by a professional who wouldn't tell him who sent him the flower. By the time he got the sunflower, he already found out he had a secret admire and had pressed all those flowers into a book.
By then, Lewis was starting to fall for his secret admire and so set up a trap one day. It was the last week of middle school, the last chance he had on finding his secret admire before they went away for high school. Since they had three high schools in their town, he didn't know which one the other might go to. And so, for the entire week before, he wouldn't allow anything of his out his sight; leaving only his gym locker the option for admire to put a flower in. He then would fake walking home and then return to his locker and hide to see who left him the flowers. He was so shocked when he saw Arthur, who lived four miles away and had to ride a bus to and from school, walk into the gym an hour after school ended and tried to sneak a lilac in his locker with a vase.
Poor Arthur almost had a heart attack when Lewis fell out of the locker he hid in and broke the vase the flower was in. When Lewis asked him if he was his admirer, Arthur actually started to cry. The blonde was hopelessly in love with Lewis but feared rejection, that's why he left him flowers to talk for him. He thought that Lewis would hate him, that he would refuse to look at him, and they wouldn't be even friends anymore.
Lewis then did something Arthur only dreamed of: he asked him out on a date.
Arthur, misty eyed with snot running down his face, nodded shyly.
After that, they had a date every weekend during the summer. The two boys were clearly in love and Lewis loved it when Arthur stayed the night and they could cuddle in the same bed.
When high school started though, things went down hill. Lewis wanted to let everyone know that Arthur was his and that he loved the blonde. Arthur though, was already a well known target for bullies and he didn't want to give them something else to fuel their fire. Lewis understood this but there was something the alpaca loving male soon found out about his lover: he was the jealous type.
Since Lewis couldn't announce Arthur as his love, he was a moving target for the woman to try to snatch him. This left Arthur with all of his pencils broken by his own hand only two weeks into school.
It became worse when it was time for their dates and all Arthur could think of was how Cheyenne sat a little too close to his boyfriend during study hall, or how Amanda actually slapped Lewis's during P.E!
The jealousy became a deadly poison of their relationship so sadly after three years of struggling, Lewis called it off. Arthur didn't like seeing how other girls acted like bitches in heat around Lewis but he still refused to come out of the closet, his fear of the bullies were stronger than his own jealousy.
Lewis promised that they could still be friends, but the first few months after the break up, Arthur refused to even look at Lewis. He thought the break up was his fault and that Lewis now hated him. It wasn't until Vivi pushed them in the janitor closet that he found out that Lewis still loved Arthur very much, but he would have to wait until his own love would overcome his fear.
After high school, Arthur tried to push himself out of the closet. He loved Lewis and wanted to be with with him, but the chains were always pushing him back in. What became the lock though was when Vivi hung out more and more with Lewis. What he didn't know was that Vivi had her own secret admire but unlike Lewis, she knew who it was and she loved her back as well. She just didn't know how to come out to her because her little cutie was just being so cute trying to be sneaky and all lovable. So she turned to Lewis for advice since she knew that Lewis had one in middle school.
Because of that, Vivi and Lewis bonded even more so when she asked him to join her paranormal group he agreed. Of course, Arthur jumped in as well when she asked, the green eyed demon popping it's ugly head in again.
Lewis didn't notice the demon inside of Arthur though and he didn't notice how much it was destroying him this time. His main focus was helping Vivi with her secret admire and college. He didn't notice how the demon was singing sweet lies in Arthur's head, not only making him jealous but also depressed.
Lewis should have known though for all the answers were in front of him. Arthur was starting to hang out less and less with him, barely ate anything anymore, and there were bags under his eyes. Arthur only hung out with him when it was part of their investigation for heaven's sake.
So maybe that why when Arthur fell off the cliff during their investigation four months ago, it shocked and scared Lewis to death. Thankfully, where Arthur had decided to fall, he hit more the wall of the cave than the spike deep below. This was the only thing that saved the blonde but, at a cost.
“Hello Mr. Pepper,” a blonde nurse said at her station at the hospital ten miles away. “Welcome back.”
Lewis was snapped out of his train of thought, actually surprised that he was already at the hospital. He knew he could get distracted when he was in deep thought, but he didn't think he already showered, got dressed, went to the flower shop, and drove that ten miles to the hospital.
“Hello Nurse May,” he said with a hopeful smile. “How's Arthur today?”
Nurse May gave Lewis an apologetic smile as she said, “I'm sorry Mr. Pepper, there's no changes.”
Lewis visibly deflated. “Oh, well can I visit him right now?”
“Yes. He just got done with physical therapist a little while ago so I am sure he would love to see you now,” Nurse May said with a nod.
Lewis thanked her and went to Arthur's room, and saw his love laying in bed, not moving. There were a wire attached to his right arm, allowing an IV to give him the fluid and medication that he needed. On the finger of the same arm, there was a machine attached to him to keep track of his heart beat. There was a tube that was shoved down his throat that led to his lungs, to help the blond breath after he started to fail doing so on his own two weeks back. His head was shaved when the doctor's had to take a piece of his skull out of his head because his brain was swelling pretty bad when he was brought here. They were able to put it back in three days ago after it finally went down, but Lewis knew that Arthur would be mourning over the lost of his hair when he woke up.
“Hey Arthur,” Lewis said with a smile as he went over to the vase where he placed the flowers he brought over. The red tulip was still living and so he left it be as he placed the yellow rose he brought over.
He then walked over to the bed and started to rub Arthur's shoulders. He started his normal routine of giving him a massage, knowing that his muscles must be sore even though Arthur couldn't feel them right now.
After Lewis was done an hour later, he pulled the extra chair up to the bed and simply held his hand. He stayed like that, holding Arthur's hand as he rubbed his thumb in circles until the nurse came and told him that visiting hours were over. With a heavy heart, Lewis stood up and genitally kissed Arthur's forehead.
“I love you,” he said as he left, not knowing that just three hours later, Arthur would never wake up.