Work Text:
Tango hadn't had the best night's rest, he kept on waking up coughing, he felt like he was struggling to breathe. And when it was morning, he woke up coughing out specks of blood. That's definitely not something he'd like to wake up too…
The taste of blood wasn't something he'd like, so he decided to go to the kitchen to grab some water. He probably just bit on his tongue too hard, his teeth were quite sharp, so he probably was biting on his tongue whilst he was asleep without realizing.
He grabbed a cup and filled it with water, and took a swig of it but as he tried drinking the water he felt something blocking something in his pipes, and he starts coughing, choking on water he presumes, as he coughed something like a clump of blood came out of his mouth. Tango had just thought it was blood due to it being red. Luckily for him, it was in the sink, so he just flushed it down.
“Gross…” he thinks, he needed to go to the bathroom and clean his mouth after that. Tango walls to the bathroom grabbing his toothbrush and toothpaste, he wets his toothbrush before pointing on toothpaste to start cleaning his teeth, and spits out the residue of toothpaste noticing the same red, like clump before, but it looked less like blood like last time, it looked like a petal?
“Since when could I vomit out petals?” Tango thinks to himself, grabbing some mouthwash, gurgling it in his mouth to get all the gross taste out and spitting it into the sink.
Tango still pushes aside the weird things this morning, trying to ignore it, but as the day went on it had worsened. He felt the need to have a bowel on him at all times, he kept spitting out red flowers, he was so confused.
“Maybe, Impy– knows what's going on?” He thinks to himself. Grabbing his phone, texting Impulse.
You> hey, Impy-
Impy> hello, Tango, what must you need from me?
You> can you come over?
Impy> sorry Tango, busy dealing with the Bad Boys. Well Ogre and Xequla that is, don't know where Canary is.
You> Impy! Are you texting me whilst heroficating?!
It really sounded like he was telling Impulse off. Like a teacher would to a naughty student cheating on their test. He didn't get a response, which in Tango's opinion was a bit better, but then as he re-read Impulse's text, his mind began to wonder, Canary wasn't with them. As he thought about him, he began to choke, coughing out almost a full flower, but only half of it. Not the whole flower.
This is where Tango started to panic, what on earth was going on?! He shouldn't be vomiting out flowers, Blaze hybrids don't do that… At least to his knowledge, matter of a fact, he doesn't think any hybrid has the ability to do that. Not even Fae. Maybe something on the internet has answers.
Tango dealt with this for weeks on end. And he began to worry about his own safety so one day he decides to search up what it meant, what it stands for when petals and flowers are coming out from his mouth. He went over to his laptop, searching up ‘what does vomiting flowers mean?’ and ‘is vomiting flowers a disease?’ and other questions similar to those.
Upon researching, he found something called the Hanahaki disease. A disease mainly found in Japan, is a disease where someone has fallen in love with someone, yet it is not returned by the other, causing you to vomit out petals, then into flowers then eventually vines. The cure is unknown. Theories suggest either the person has to move on or they have to confess their love to the other.
–
Tango finished reading it all, understanding that he instead has this disease. Who even is it? Who is this person that his poor unfortunate soul likes, but they don't like back.
“Well, that's just great!” Tango lets out a huff, resting his elbows on the desk and using his hands to cover his face, rubbing it. Someone doesn't like him the same way. That's fun…
Tango looks over to his phone, getting a message from Pearl.
Pearly> hi, Tango, just to let you know you have work in like 10 minutes!
You> shit! I forgot
You> forgot*
Tango puts away his phone, he completely forgot he had work today, he rushes to his room getting changed into his uniform and grabs his phone and lanyard, quickly rushing to the bus stop. And catching the bus to work. He waited 4 minutes for the bus and caught it. Heading to work.
As soon as Tango got off at his spot, he rushed to the post office, scanning his ID card and entering the post office. As soon as he entered, he took a deep breath. Etho and Pearl looks at Tango, “You’re late…” Pearl looks at Tango a bit disappointed.
“Sorry! Hero training has been keeping me real busy lately. And I also woke up coughing blood, and flowers, I think?” Tango casually adds like it’s nothing serious. “Excuse me?! Tango, are you ok?” Etho looked worried at him.
“Flowers? I haven’t seen that since I was maybe 5, I heard from Grian that Jimmy who was like 8 I think, randomly one day, woke up, vomiting out petals then flowers. None of us knew what it was and still don’t to this day” Pearl says.
“Jimmy?” Tango starts coughing, spitting out some flower petals. The other two stared at him in shock, looking at the ground, which had some flower petals. “Tango! I didn’t know it looked like” Pearl panicked, staring at him, her eyes full of worry. She pats his back as he continued to cough.
Etho watches as Flowers and petals come out from Tango’s mouth, he wanted to help, but he’s never seen this before, “You might need to talk to Grian or Jimmy about this. If Pearl is correct, those two are the only ones who know about it” Etho tells him.
“I–” before Tango could even answer, Pearl says something, “Etho’s right, I’ll drop you off at Grian’s place, It’ll be better if you saw them in person.” His head turned quickly to face Pearl. “I can’t! Jimmy’s still healing, I don’t want to put the pressure on Grian, he’s already having to take care of Jimmy…” He tells Pearl, feeling guilty of intruding on the two.
“Well, then I’m taking you to a doctor. And I know you hate the doctors. It’s either we go to G’s place or we go to the doctors” Pearl crosses her arms, putting her foot down, it’s this or that. No getting out of it. “Nope, not going.” Tango says, he didn’t want to do either.
–
Pearl knocks on the door to his apartment, as she had a tight grip on Tango, who was trying to leave. “Grian!” A few minutes later, Grian came to the door and opened it to see a Tango and a Pearl, “Hi, Pearl and Tango? What do you two bring for me today?” He raises his eyebrow curious on why they were here, Pearl barley visits and Tango… Well, he rarely talks to Tango. The two were in their work uniform, which Grian found more strange.
“G, you remember that story you told me when we were teenagers, that story about when Jimmy was younger and flowers came out his mouth and stuff?” She starts asking, and before she continues she awaits for Grian’s answer, which he gives a slow nod, confused. “Yes? What about it?” He glances over to Tango, who looks like he doesn’t want to be here. “Well, apparently this buddy here has got the same problem.” She pulls Tango closer to him.
“Pearl! I’m fine, I haven’t coughed up a petal this whole ride on the way here!” Tango protests, and Pearl just turned her head facing towards Tango, clicking her tongue in disapproval. And takes a petal that Tango had stuffed into his pocket showing it to Grian, making him frown feeling sympathetic for him, not really knowing how it feels to have it, but he’s seen it before with his brother. When they were younger.
“I wish I knew how to stop it, but I don’t I’m sorry… Jimmy had it for a couple of months and then one day it disappeared. Tango started to have trouble to breath. His breaths were un even, he felt like something was going up her throat and coughs out half of a flower. Grian just stared at the ground where half of a yellow flower came out. “Jeez– I haven’t seen something like that since I was 8, and Timmy got it and I thought he was going to die.” He looks at the Blaze hybrid, looking horrible. Tango panics as Grian says he thought Jimmy was going to die because of this, he didn’t want to die. “Grian! You can’t just say that! Where’s Jimmy?” Pearl huffs, then switches the topic. “He’s resting, he’s not allowed out of the house till his bruises are mostly gone.” Grian tells her.
Pearl shakes her head not liking the idea how Jimmy was pretty much put on house arrest. “Can you go get him? See if he knows how he made it stop.” Tango didn’t want to say anything, he already knew how to do it. He just didn’t know who it was. Grian walks away from the door heading down the hallway entering a room, and next thing they knew two people exited the room, Jimmy following behind, he was wearing grey sweatpants and no shirt on. All the bruises on his top half were showing, most of them looked faded out but not entirely gone.
Tango starts gasping for breath again and half of a flower came out. Jimmy’s eyes widen, “Tango! Are you okay?” He walked over to him in worry, helping him be stable as he looked like he was going to fall over, Tango tried to look anywhere but up at Jimmy’s bare toned chest, and his broad shoulders. Fuck. Tango get a hold of yourself, he coughs out some petals. His face felt like it was heating up, as he was guilty staring at Jimmy’s chest, he darts his eyes to the ground, coughing more petals variating from light blues, reds, and yellows.
Tango let’s out a silly little squeal, before looking up at Jimmy again, “M’fine–” He says as his eyes keeping looking at Jimmy’s chest but tries to hide it looking at Jimmy’s eyes instead. Which in his opinion did not help at all. Was Jimmy always this gorgeous? He felt something claw up in his throat, and gasps for his breath. “You have Hanahaki…” Jimmy frowns realising what was going on, he remembers a little bit from when he was younger when he had it.
Pearl looks at Jimmy, “Hanahaki? Isn’t that a fake Disease?” She’s heard about Hanahaki in stories, she thought it was just some fake disease in stories, Jimmy shakes his head, “Apparently not, It’s when someone has a crush on someone, but it’s not reciprocated. I had it when I sorta had a crush on Martyn, but when I moved on it just disappeared. I’m pretty sure if the person who has Hanahaki disease admits their feelings to the person it can go away also.” Jimmy adds, he was pretty sure that it was one way to make it stop. “For me, it lasted 3 months I think. I got to the point vines were growing inside of me, that’s why I find breathing a bit more difficult for me since then. And those breathing exercises helps me a lot with that. Also, my inhaler I have just in case I hyperventilate.” Jimmy explains his experience and what it is has done to him. Which makes Tango freak out, his breathing pattern was off, and his vision blurred, “-ango!” was all he could hear before blacking out.
–
“I’ll text Impulse- If he doesn’t wake up soon, so he can drop him off home” Pearl says grabbing out her phone from her pocket, texting Impulse, she paced around the room waiting for a response. “C’mon, c’mon answer you idiot!” Pearl stares at her phone frustrated, as Impulse wasn’t answering his phone.
“I’ve got to head to work… I can’t just leave Etho at work alone” Pearl complains shoving her phone back into her pocket giving up on waiting for Impulse to answer his phone. “I– We can look after Tango. I can’t really leave the house, so I can look after him.” Jimmy points out to Pearl, watching as she looks at both of them, silently thanking them both. Leaving and heading back to work, so Jimmy and Grian were left to look after Tango. Grian shut the door after Pearl left and headed to the Kitchen opening the fridge to realise there was no food. He then looks over to Jimmy who was just watching over Tango, sighing, “Tim, I need to go to the supermarket… Stay here and look after Tango” He tells him, grabbing his Lanyard, wallet and Keys, and before he exits he takes a quick glance at Jimmy and Jimmy gives him a nod. Saying he’ll be alright. Grian left the apartment heading to the supermarket.
–
As Grian left maybe 5 minutes later, Jimmy could hear some groaning, he rushed over to Tango checking up on him, “Tango! Are you okay? You passed out???” Jimmy puts his hand over Tango’s head checking his temperature, like how Lizzie would every time Jimmy would get sick. “You’re heating up” Jimmy tells Tango, as Tango looks up at him and then looks around, and realises he was at Grian and Jim’s apartment. He sits straight up and starts coughing harshly, “Woah- Woah! Relax you’re fine. Grian’s gone to the supermarket to get some food and drinks because we’re out.” Jimmy, squeezed Tango’s hand trying to relax the blaze hybrid.
Tango coughs out a petal for the like thousandth time today and sits up on the couch where he was lying on. “Jimmy-” He manages to get out, Jimmy moves to sit down on the couch besides him, “Yes?” He looks at Tango full of worry. “I–” he looks at the ground, he wants to say something, but he’s too scared to. He knows who it is now. Tango knows who this person is. He remembers the conversation he’s had with Zed about it.
Jimmy looks at Tango and assures him that it’s okay to say what ever he wants to say, “You can tell me anything, I won’t judge.” Tango takes a deep breath, “Jimmy–” He looks up at Jimmy was looking at him with his beautiful brown eyes. Coughing out a flower, Making Jimmy stare at him worried, “Do you like– like me?” Jimmy figured it all out before Tango could even say anything to him. Jimmy knows when someone coughed up a petal it meant they were thinking of them. Tango rubs the back of his head, staring at the ground as he taps his foot against the ground, not answering Jimmy. Jimmy felt horrible for being the reason why Tango is like this.
“How long?” Jimmy asks. “Maybe a month or so ago when it started happening” Tango admits as Jimmy looked at him filled with worry, and it was showing, “I– I’m so sorry… If I knew–” Jimmy stutters over his words, not knowing what to say, he never thought of Tango like that, of course Tango liked him. He’s so stupid. Jimmy pulls at his feathers, pulling them out and Tango grabs Jim’s hands stopping him from doing more damage, “It’s not your fault! It’s mine… I should’ve told you…” Tango protests as he sees the other tearing up, feeling absolutely shit.
“But–” Jimmy stammers, before Tango puts his forehead on Jimmy’s, “You don’t have to like me back, I’ll get over it eventually” Tango gives Jimmy a weak smile which didn’t reassure him at all. “No– I can’t let you be like this, because I don’t-” Tears started falling down both of their faces. “I’ll be fine… Promise” Tango’s voice cracked as he spoke, wiping Jimmy’s tears, and starts coughing up flowers, and not just one but multiple. “I don’t want you to force you to like me, because I like you.” Tango tells him, lifting his head off from Jimmy’s and kisses his forehead. Making Jimmy frown more. “I– I wish I could fix this- to fix the problem but all I do is make it worse…” Jimmy looks away from Tango.
“We can still be friends and that’s what matters to me” Tango tries to assure the other, but it doesn’t sound all that convincing. Jimmy winces as he hears Tango speak. It’s his fault. It’s all his fault. Jimmy gets up and goes to the bathroom, locking himself in for the rest of the day. Blaming himself for Tango being like this. Why can't he just like him? Why was it so difficult for him to love him? To love someone he cares about? If he can care about him, why can't he love him the same way Tango loves him? Why was it so hard for him? He pulls at his wings, wondering what was wrong with him. He just wishes loving was just as easy as everyone says it is. What made Tango so much different???
Maybe it's the constant fear of rejection? Maybe it's the trauma from his past making him never love again.
Maybe he'll never fall in love again...