Hi, I love ripping my heart out and decided to go with Hanahaki this prompt. 🙂 Suffer with me!

Akira could tell
you exactly when the flowers had started. August 13^th,
just a normal day when Akechi had come to Leblanc and yet…something
had changed. The first petal had scratched as it came up and
fluttered to the floor in a slow dance. The warning signs had all
been there and yet…Akira had chosen to ignore them. Maybe things
could change with Akechi, maybe they could be friends or even more.
That’s what the flowers wanted, after all.

But every time he
thinks he might be ready to say something the universe intervenes.
Akechi decides to leave, or Akira gets sick, or something with the
Thieves comes up. Something to pull them apart and give the flowers
more time to root and grow and choke him to death. By the time
November rolls around and they’re going through Sae’s palace it’s
hard enough to breathe that going through takes more time than
they’re used to because Akira’s trying to keep from choking up
petals.

He’s not sure what
flower they are. He knows it’s supposed to be significant, and he
used to work at a flower shop, sure, but the first petal cut that job
opportunity down. He didn’t want
to know what they meant. What he wanted was to tell Akechi how he
felt and not die to trails of spit and blood and silk. He wonders if
this is some kind of punishment for some stupid sleight in another
life or if this is payment for him leading a group of teenagers
through the literal human psyche under the banner of justice. Maybe
both, maybe neither. What he does know is that he loves Akechi Goro
with all of his heart but will never say he does. Not out loud, and
especially not to the person in question.

The
time after his arrest was, oddly enough, the easiest to hide the
slowly spreading roots twisting in his body. He knew they were fatal
now. Takemi told him when he blacked out and Sojiro dragged him there
to make sure that he wasn’t dying. Oh the irony, looking back on it
now. She’d been frank with him; he wouldn’t live to see the new year.
She couldn’t tell him exactly how long he had, since the roots grew
sporadically, but if he rang in the new year he should consider
himself damn lucky.

The
moment he stepped foot on the ship he knew that was it. He spent the
first thirty minutes hiding out in a back corner puking his guts up
and choking out entire flowers. There was so much blood he felt faint
and weak but pushed himself on. He couldn’t let the Thieves see him
like this. Only Morgana knew and he had been sworn to secrecy. He
didn’t understand just how little time Akira had left, only that he
promised to finally say something after Shido had been dealt with.
And that would be true, if he weren’t a dead man walking who was more
plant than human at this point.

The
fight with Akechi wrecked him, not just from physical strain during
the fight but emotional strain on his heart. He swore he could feel
the roots physically move through the tissue with each hit he landed
on Akechi, on the person he loved so much it had killed him. Takemi
hadn’t lied when she told them he wouldn’t make it; she just probably
hadn’t expected him to go out like this.

It
happened so suddenly that nobody’s sure what’s happening at first.
Not until the first flower hit the cold metal of the ship did anyone
react, arms jerking him down to the floor and trying to fish another
one out of his throat. The pollen tasted awful and metallic-no wait.
That’s his own blood. His throat was raw and it hurt to breathe even
more. He saw Akechi from across the room, eyes blown wide, and felt
himself smile just a little bit.

“I’m
sorry…” He coughed and wheezed and the pain spread to the rest of
his body. More blood, more flowers, even a few actual fucking roots.
His vision swam with each weak breath. Akechi began dragging himself
across the floor towards them, wincing in pain and trying to keep his
own throat from filling with blood. The Thieves surrounding him
hesitated but when Akira reached a hand out they parted and let one
of Akechi’s claws wrap gingerly around his.

“Akira…?”
he breathed, running  a clean hand through curly black tresses.
“Akira no…no, don’t-”

“I
love you Goro.” Akira turned to the side away from Akechi and
vomited up a mess of flowers and petals. Each breath sounded
shallower than the last and brought unimaginable agony with it. His
eyes closed as he shifted closer; Akechi took him into his lap
wordlessly. “I’m sorry I couldn’t…couldn’t ever tell you. But I
never felt that…that it was right. And then…the flowers…”

“Akira
shut up.” Akechi blinked back tears even as they rolled down his
cheeks. “You don’t get to say ‘I love you.’ Not after I…not after
what I did.”

“Trying
to kill me? I think that…was your way of saying ‘I love you,’”
Akira laughed. Akechi grit his teeth and fought down every urge of
his to beat Akira’s fucking face in. He leaned down and pressed his
lips to Akira and sighed.

“No.
No, you idiot. You don’t get to say ‘I love you’ now, after I had the
fucking roots cut out,” he whispered, and Akira gasped. The feeling
of love were gone in Akechi’s heart, snipped away with surgical
precision months ago. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let this
happen?”

“I
didn’t think you loved me back,” Akira whispered. His eyelids
drooped; he could taste blood in the back of his throat. His lungs
rattled with every breath. He wouldn’t last much longer. “When did
you get it done?”

“August
fourteenth,” he answered. Akira barked out a laugh and heaved to
try and get his breath back. His fingers slowly laced with Akechi’s
to hold.

“The
flowers started August thirteenth,” he admitted, and the laugh
Akechi let out sounded pathetic and hollow. He set his hand down on
Akira’s chest to feel the steady thump thump, thump thump
of his heart even as it slowed
down. “…Tell me something. If I had told you…would you have
said yes?” A clawed hand trailed down across his face gently and
set shivers down Akira’s spine.

“…Honestly?
I wouldn’t have. But you wouldn’t have been forced to die.” Akira
took a deep, shuddering breath, and let it out slowly.

“Promise
me…you’ll lead the Thieves. And finish Shido. Change his heart.
For…for me,” he said. Their hands squeezed tight as Akechi leaned
forward a bit more to cradle Akira properly.

“I
promise Akira. For you. We’ll take him down and put an end to this
hell,” he whispered. Akira turned to the side to heave one final
cluster of flowers before smiling weakly. A thin trickle of blood
rolled out of the corner of his mouth.

“Thank…you…Goro,”
he breathed. He shuddered, Akechi pulling him in even tighter, as the
light began fading from his eyes. Akechi felt Akira’s heart stop
underneath his palm and cursed himself for getting rid of the
flowers, because he couldn’t even shed a fucking tear for the boy who
had given him hope for a brief moment. The looked over to the mound
of flowers surrounding Akira and that was the final straw that broke
the camel’s back.

Shido
would pay. Akechi swore it.

Akechi
shuffled around his apartment slowly, not entirely sure what he was
doing anymore. After the raid on Shido’s palace and the battle with
Yaldabaoth, the Thieves had disbanded and went their separate ways.
Through some miracle he had managed to avoid jail time, contributed
almost entirely to Shido’s testimony and the threats leveled at his
son; community service and probation for the next five or so years
would be enough, the judge had felt. A small mercy he felt he didn’t
deserve.

He
made a simple breakfast, just eggs and toast and a plate of pancakes.
A cup of coffee that he would never touch sat at the edge of the
table beside him, as it always did. After choking down the food he
rose from his seat to clean the dishes and begin tending to the vase
of flowers he kept front and center.

The
rue flowers and the wormwood looked so strange paired with the
jasmine in the planter, the beautiful color fading and wilting, but
Akechi couldn’t bring himself to get rid of it. He never would; the
jasmine would be pressed and sealed and left somewhere for him to
always remember just how close he came to having it all.

The
final blossom that fell from Akira’s lips felt dry against his
fingers.