Chapter Text
Valk felt sick. Well, more accurately like his lungs were all stuffed with flower petals or construction paper or something.
A vase sat on his nightstand along with a glass of water, though he wasn't thirsty. So he rolled over in his bed, pulling his blanket over himself, though briefly sitting up as he coughed. A single blue petal landed in his lap. It must've fallen off the flowers next to him, so he set the petal in the vase before laying back down.
It was sheer perdition to Valk, who was rarely sick. This must be the consequence for overexerting himself at yesterday's video shoots.
He curled his wings over his back, beginning to doze again.
"Ugh." Valk muttered, a sharp jabbing in one of his wrists. He must've pulled something, rubbing it. The texture was strangely paper-y, and, upon further inspection, one of the flowers must've fallen on his wrist at some point. He quickly plucked it and set it back with its floral buddies, figuring he should move the vase later.
The sun was starting to creep back towards the horizon by the time he woke up again, blue fading to purple.
"Mic, are you okay? You've been bedridden all day." Dom asked, leaning on the doorframe.
"Think it's just a bug..." Valk brushed it off, leaning back into his pillow.
"Okay then." Dom thought for a moment. "Oh, and someone wants to see you."
Valk was basically already asleep again, so Dom just let the visitor in and left.
Slingshot draped his tail over Valk's shoulders, his wings fluttering gently.
"You doing okay?" Slingshot asked. The pair had grown quite close after Dom noticed Valk was very much in love with someone and was also horrible at talking to people in this context. So Dom pried aggressively over dinner every night that Umbrella wasn't there until Valk caved and said it was Slingshot and Dom did a little pushing to organize something. Probably just because of Valk wistfully sighing or something.
"Yeah..." Valk answered, before being cut off by a coughing fit, several more petals landing on his clothes.
"Surreee." Slingshot picked up the flowers, peering over the petals. "This is catmint."
"How'd you know that? And why?" Valk looked both confused on why this information was relevant.
"Vine Staff tells me about her plants. These aren't the same as the flowers you have here." Slingshot pulled off a bud from the plant on his desk. Sure enough, different flowers. "You should see a doctor."
"If I'm not better by tomorrow." Valk begrudgingly agreed.
Valk was definitely not better by the next day—actually worse!—and so (though he somewhat didn't want to), visited Medkit.
Medkit did all of his normal things, poked him, prodded at him, asked him questions and told him to drink more water.
"This is probably a weird question, but any crushes in the last 3 weeks?" Medkit asked, scribbling down notes.
"Yeahh, why?" Valk answered somewhat suspiciously. It definitely wasn't that blue-horned café owner or anything...
"And you feel you're struggling to breathe and fatigue?" Medkit rephrased Valk's words back at him. Valk nodded.
"Okay. Try exposing yourself to small amounts of glyphosate." The (unlicensed) doctor instructed after doing a bit of poking Valk's neck.
"...isn't that a weed killer?" Valk tilted his head.
"Yes." Medkit answered blankly without any sense of further explanation.
"...should I eat it???"
"If you like dying."
Valk looked so absolutely dumbfounded. Was Medkit telling him to... garden??? Was "not gardening enough" syndrome a new thing???
"It's common in the church." Medkit explained simply. "There's no real cure, so I'm trying to see if there's a way to stall it."
"Wait— I'm gonna die?!" Valk seemed much more concerned than Medkit about this situation.
"Most likely, yes. That'll be 20,000 bux, will that be cash or credit?" Medkit informed him.
Valk seemed majorly concerned about his health, but followed Medkit's instructions, helping out Vine Staff in her garden. He evidently sucked at it, as he managed to kill her mint, but he tried really hard.
So he instead would help Shuriken with the animals he kept in his sister's garden (which Valk didn't know he owned. Man, he really should get to know the phighters better).
He didn't know what the animals were, so he was expecting something normal as he walked in the door, like cats or birds or something, not—
A single green butterfly landed on his head. He seemed surprised, lightly shaking himself.
"She must like you." Shuriken remarked, an open plastic bin on the floor in front of him as he carefully plucked the leaves off a branch, lining the box with paper towels.
Valk laughed before sitting with Shuriken. "You own butterflies?"
"Moths! Here, just pick them up like this." Shuriken grabbed a paintbrush from a cup filled with water, using it to scoop up several caterpillars in his old container and place them in his new one before passing it to Valk. "Be careful with them."
Valk very gently used the paintbrush to move the caterpillars, trying to coax them on with his hand before getting it slapped out of the way by Shuriken.
"Y'know my brother has a crush on you." Shuriken told Valk casually as he set the last few caterpillars in their new container.
"Haha— wait what." Valk awkwardly looked up.
"Just thought you should know." Shuriken shrugged, setting the caterpillars back on the shelf as they started eating their leaves.
"Do you... have any more details?"
"It's obvious, he talks about you over most meals, even asked Vine for advice— you okay?"
Valk had a great time having a coughing fit for like a solid minute, several more blue petals landing in his lap.
"Vine's gonna be so mad if you ate her plants." Shuriken rolled his eyes, one of his pet insects landing on his hand.
"I don't think these are her's." Valk pointed out, studying the sky-blue petals.
"Well then where did they come from— oh hey Sling." Shuriken waved as Slingshot stepped outside.
"Can you please tell me the next time you invite someone over?" He looked mildly annoyed at Shuriken. "I could've at least made food."
Valk perked up at the thought of Slingshot's baking. It was almost surreal how everything tasted so good, fluffy and sweet like a fairytale cake... oh wait dang it he was zoning out or something.
"I still have some leftover pastries if you'd like." Slingshot offered much more kindly to Valk.
"Of course, thank you." Valk removed the luna moth that had flitted onto his hand, placing her onto the shelf with the rest of them before following Slingshot.
Slingshot set a few swiss rolls on the table. "I've been trying out a new recipe, you should try them." He explained.
Valk didn't need to be told twice, grabbing the spoon he was given and using it to take a generous piece of the pastry. It was really good, the texture was fluffy and spongy, the cream sweet and the exact right consistency.
"So good..." Valk complimented, managing to finish it entirely in a minute or two.
"Thanks." Slingshot's tail wagged in a wide arc as he turned away, though the blue tinting it was apparent.
Valk and Slingshot proceeded to sit in awkward silence until Valk noticed a sort of stabbing feeling around his neck, scratching it before noticing it was bleeding. A bit of glittering yellowy liquid dripped down his neck, along with a blood-stained flower.
They just looked at each other really awkwardly for about 5.26 seconds before Slingshot decided to speak up.
“Yeahhhh I’m taking you back to Medkit that really isn’t normal.” He stated before grabbing Valk by the scruff like a kitten and carrying him away (presumably to Medkit’s apartment).
“What.” Medkit looked deeply unhappy with getting his door kicked in by a concerned cat.
“Treat him or… whatever you do.” Slingshot practically threw Valk at Medkit, though Valk was fine as he fluffed out his wings to steady himself.
Valk then got placed on a table, and got poked and prodded at for a bit. “I’ll return him in 30 minutes. Wait outside.” Medkit instructed Slingshot, who did, but not without a slightly bitter look.
“What are your symptoms?” Medkit inquired, just as deadpan as usual.
“Fatigue and struggling to breathe, I guess?” Valk answered.
“Okayyy…” Medkit scribbled something down on his clipboard. “Any sleep disturbances or nightmares?”
“No? I guess a few uncomfortable ones?”
“What happened in those?”
Valk thought for a moment. “I think there were some roots and they were trying to stab me? It was weird.”
“Okay.” Medkit added more notes. “I asked you this last time, but have you had any feelings of romantic attraction to any other people within the last 3 weeks?”
Valk nodded.
“It appears you’ve got what’s called ‘Hanahaki Disease’.” Medkit informed him.
“What’s that?” He asked.
“You have flowers in your lungs and you are going to die.” Medkit nodded.
“I’m going to WHAT NOW?!” Valk raised his voice, evidently panicked. He didn’t want to die yet!
“Die.” Medkit answered flatly, much less concerned than Valk.
“What— how? What caused it I thought flowers couldn’t grow in someone’s body? Is there a cure? How long do I have left?” He started bombarding Medkit with questions.
“Slow down. There isn’t a known cure aside (from some sketchy sources online), and you have maybe a month or two, so spend it wisely. No known cause aside from perhaps isolation.” Medkit explained. This did not help Valk’s rising fear, tears beginning to well in his eyes.
“I’ll get Slingshot to go get you.” Medkit walked away, his hooves clinking against the floor of his kitchen because some deer’s kitchen was the best place to be told you were going to die soon.
Slingshot scooped Valk up and brought him right back to his bedroom, curling his tail around the smaller inphernal after hearing how close his death was. Slingshot was not interested in wasting any of Valk’s time left.
“Thanks.” Valk appreciated the other’s support. Oh, and an unwelcome thought showed up. Just bite the bullet and confess now? It could go one of three hypothetical ways: 1. Slingshot reciprocated the feelings (tho it was very unlikely), 2. Slingshot didn’t and would just avoid Valk (very saddening), or 3. Valk would suddenly keel over dead while trying to say something. Hey wait, didn’t Shuriken say Slingshot had a crush on him? But also Shuriken had the intelligence of a piece of celery nobody wanted to eat so he wasn’t exactly inclined to believe it.
Uhhhhhhhhh… sure, fuck it, say words about love or something.
“I uhhhhhhhhh… think I like you?????????” Valk said. And then proceeded to have a coughing fit for like a solid minute.