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Bobby Ray sat in the driver’s seat in one of Elvis’s Cadillacs with his forehead pressed to the steering wheel. He was engrossed in thought as a few small flower petals sat sadly in his lap. His eyes were unfocused as he blankly gazed down at the flowers.
He’d just coughed them up. Like, from his body. What the fuck? The first time he thought it was a fluke but… it happened again. And again. And again.
… And why did it only happen when he thought about Elvis?
A sharp tap on the window next to his head brought him back to reality with a yelp and a flailing of hands that swiped the petals to the floor. He whipped his head to the window to see none other than Elvis himself standing there with a vaguely displeased look. Elvis was leaning forward, arms crossed.
Elvis walked out in front of the car, opened the passenger door, and slid into the seat. Bobby gulped and looked over at his boss. Surprisingly, the singer’s clothes weren’t bloodied or burned. Must have gone well, then.
“H-hey, E! How’d it go?” Bobby Ray asked, trying to not think too hard about his boss (and friend…) in case he began coughing again. He heard how forced his tone sounded though, but he had to commit.
“It went… well,” Elvis replied, seemingly a bit clipped. Bobby Ray panicked internally, thinking that E knew something was up. Knew he kept hackin’ up flowers whenever he thought about being around his friend.
“Right on, bossman!” Bobby replied with a nervous chuckle. He slipped the car into gear and tore out of the mostly empty lot he had been sitting in. No reason to keep E waiting around just because he couldn’t get his shit together, right?
On the drive back to Graceland, Bobby allowed his thoughts to wander a bit. Although he seemingly let them wander too far. He coughed into his shoulder and three perfectly shaped cherry blossom petals decorated his shoulder. Bobby jerked the wheel in surprise and nearly sent them flying off the road.
Elvis grabbed onto the door handle and barked out “What the hell, Bobby Ray!?” as he stared at the hillbilly. “You plannin’ on getting us killed today?”
“No, no. Just a bit distracted, promise! Ain’t gonna happen again,” Bobby replied, nervously laughing. He kept his mind from straying anywhere for the final few minutes to the mansion. He did NOT want to be on the wrong end of the gold-plated .45 Elvis always carried.
………
“CeCe with an E. How odd to find you here. Say, fancy answering a few questions for me?” Elvis asked in rapid succession as he sat at the table CeCe was dining at. It was TCB’s little cafe in the base, and she frequented there often. It was always where he looked first.
“Something tells me I really don’t have a choice,” she grumbled around a bite of a muffin. “And can you please consider wearing something that doesn’t show off your whole chest? It makes me hate having eyes.”
“I think a lot of people disagree with that opinion,” Elvis replied, taking her insults in stride. “About my questions, though,” he reminded, crossing his right leg over his left and leaning back into the cafe chair.
CeCe grumbled and shoved the rest of her muffin into her mouth. “Aft he kuheston.”
Elvis raised an eyebrow at her. Major judging about her being a bit of a pig. CeCe made the “hurry up” hand gesture and Elvis sighed.
“What do you know about people coughing up flowers?” He asked. He was upfront with the question just because he was tired of not knowing the various secret projects going on around him. Secret organizations and all that exciting jazz.
CeCe chewed for a moment before answering him. “One of the offices near mine was working on something like that. Grandma hockey? Something like that.”
Elvis nodded, glancing away. He’d seen the sign by the office she meant and tried to remember what it said. “Hanahaki.”
“That’s what I said.”
“Thanks,” Elvis replied, standing up. He straightened his jacket, nodded at CeCe, and walked away into the maze of the facility.
“He should stop asking so many damn questions,” CeCe mused. “Mmm. Not my problem.”
…………
“Bobby!” Elvis hollered into Graceland’s yard. “Where you at?” He asked loudly, slamming the car door shut. The car glided away as the driver went to put the Caddilac into storage for the night.
Bobby Ray had taken to staying in Graceland a day or two a week. Elvis didn’t mind his friend staying around, but Bobby apparently preferred to sleep in the yard some of those days. That wasn’t fully shocking considering who Bobby is and where he came from, but it was a relatively new behavior as far as Elvis knew.
“Bobby Ray!” Elvis hollered again. This time he heard rustling of grass to his right. He tilts his head enough to see Bobby walking towards him out of the corner of his eye, between the end of his vision and the beginning of his green sunglasses. “Ah, there you are.”
“Hey, E. Didn’t think you’d be home yet, sorry,” Bobby said a bit quieter than normal. “I was just tryna fix the stuff around here you keep mentioning.” He kept up a decent pace as he approached the porch where Elvis stood, though.
“Oh yeah? If you havent already, one of the cars won’t stop rattling. Rest of staff can’t figure out why,” Elvis replied offhandedly. He opened the front door and walked in, assuming that Bobby would follow him in. He was correct.
Bobby stepped in behind Elvis to tell him that he had, in fact, looked at that car. “You won’t believe me but it was pebbles trapped on the exhaust. Real easy fix.” Bobby stood as closely to the door as possible while Elvis stood in the foyer and faced Bobby.
“Huh. Explains why no one else found it. Good job, Bobby,” Elvis complimented. At that exact moment Bobby coughed into his elbow and a single yellow petal with pink edges floated down to the floor. Elvis’s sharp eyes tracked the petal on the way to the floor.
“Where the fuck did that come from?” Elvis questioned.
“Where did what come from?” Bobby nervously asked, stepping forward so his boot covered said object.
“Fine. Let me ask that a different way.”
“Ask what?”
“Why haven’t you mentioned you’re coughing up flowers to anyone?”
“... I’m not.”
Elvis let out a frustrated growl which had Bobby shrinking back. The petal had wormed itself out form under Bobby’s boot and it now sat between the two men like an invisible wall.
“Damn it, Bobby,” Elvis nearly yelled. “Why are you fucking coughing up flowers? That’s not normal!”
“I don’t know!” Bobby finally admitted. He was afraid of Elvis flying off the rails on him for lying, so he figured the best course of action was to come clean. “I coughed the first one up a few weeks ago. Been hurting ever sense. Are you happy now, E?”
“... Yes.”
There was a long and tense pause where both men faced each other and the truth on the metaphorical table between them.
Elvis spoke first. “It’s called Hanahaki.”
“What is it?” Bobby asked quietly. He dropped his gaze to the floor but avoided the petal that was in sharp contrast with the floor. He also ignored the pocketful of plantlife in his pocket.
“It’s… an infection of sorts. I asked around in TCB.” Elvis was worried about Bobby. He needed to know what the catalyst was for the sudden onset. “It happens because of strong longing for something.”
With the mention of longing, Bobby broke into a short coughing fit. Three more petals danced across the air onto the floor. They settled with each one closer and closer to the singer.
“Longing?” Bobby questioned, his voice high with stress. He was fucking motified to think Elvis might realize what Bobby himself realized earlier - Elvis was the thing he longed for. “Like- like in what way?”
Elvis shook his head. “The goon I asked only said longing. So, Bobby.” He paused to carefully choose the next words out of his mouth. “What’s got you so out of shape?”
“Uhh.. What if I don’t wanna say it?” He asked, trying to get a firm grasp of the options on the table for him.
“Then it gets worse and- and you might die, Bobby.”
The genuine worry in the other man’s voice brought a cough to Bobby, although no further flowers joined the others. Elvis shifted, and when Bobby looked up at his face, Bobby knew he knew.
“Bobby. Bobby, you need to answer the question.”
Bobby stood, frozen, staring into the sharp blue eyes that were suddenly the only thing he could see. Everything felt burning hot and cold at the same time. He was so disoriented and lost. He felt like every atom of oxygen was ripped from his lungs.
“Bobby,” Elvis said again, stepping forward. The click of the other man’s boots rocked Bobby’s senses even further, to the point where the only muddled thought he had was of being closer to Elvis.
Bobby took a shaky step forward as he tore his petrified gaze from the eyes in front of him. A tremble ripped through his thin body. With his gaze on the floor, he quietly croaked out “You. It’s you, E.”
Bobby dropped to his knees with a harsh crack on the floor, like a marionette with severed strings. Elvis followed Bobby to the floor, although much more carefully. Elvis kneeled in front of the other southerner and quietly asked his final question.
“What do you want me to do?”
“I-” Bobby began, but he quickly shut his mouth and continued to stare at the floor. After a moment of composing himself, he found his voice again. “Can you just hug me please?” He asked carefully, although he was so spaced out he could hardly understand what was happening to him.
A strong pressure wrapped itself around Bobby’s upper body and it took a moment for it to be registered as a hug. Elvis leaned forward and embraced Bobby without a second thought. Elvis’s head rested against Bobby’s shoulder and ever so slowly, Bobby wrapped his arms around his friend in return. The flowers in his lungs wouldn't get him today.