Chapter Text
The routine starts as it always does. He’s never been able to identify exactly what part of him is initially set off, but it doesn’t really matter. Either way, Jack Baxter wakes up with a mild jolt, unsure of anything beyond the ever-present headache that makes his eyes feel like they’re about to pulse their way out of the sockets. He presses a palm to the right one like more pressure would somehow fix it, before glancing at the glowing clock on his bedside informing him of the time. 2:37 AM. This is pretty par for the course: it always seems to happen in the two o’clock hour.
Next comes a wheezy inhale and exhale, an automatic action that feels more and more manual by the day. It’s a sign that he’s become deeply acquainted with, eliciting a world-weary sigh that he knows is extraordinarily out of place for someone of his age. Trying to ignore the rising sensation in his abdomen and hoping he can quell it for another couple minutes, he pushes back the comforter and crawls out of bed. Hands, currently holding steady, blindly search in the dark for a wall to lean against, then find the door so he can let himself out. The reflection of yellow light on the floor makes for an easy guide to the bathroom, despite the rheum and sleepiness still blurring his vision.
The nausea that had forced him awake can wait no longer, and only moments later, involuntary tears contribute to the blur. It’s a fairly common side effect of projectile vomiting, but what he finds himself throwing up so regularly isn’t. As he leans back on his haunches, desperately trying to catch his breath and wiping his mouth with one sleeve that will undoubtedly need to be cleaned later, he can’t yet bring himself to look at the blood-soaked beebalm flowers that had been exploding from his mouth just a few moments before. Although he’s almost used to the taste and sensation of all of this by now, it’s still not something he wants to be ogling in the middle of the night.
Especially not when there’s so much of it now. He could swear that it’s gotten more violent than it was at the outset, that there’s only more flowers every day, that perhaps they’re sentient and actively trying to force their way out of the body they inhabit. Although the sentient aspect is nonsensical and he knows better than to make himself crazy over it, Jack thinks once again that he’s right about his first two hypotheses. And that’s true; he very much is.
When the disease had first reared its head, it was just the occasional hacking cough and a bit of mucus. He’d thought it was no big deal, assuming probably just a cold or seasonal allergies. But he hadn’t realized just how deep these roots had dug until blood had started coming up, and then the first couple petals shortly after. Since then, his condition had quickly begun to degrade, almost faster than he had been able to comprehend. One day, he’d been fine, if winded slightly easier than usual. The next, he was being knocked to his knees by coughing fits that pulled up gore, and vomiting balls of flower petals and god only knew what else in the middle of the night.
Needless to say, he initially hadn’t coped very well. The whole situation had only gotten more frustrating once he’d done some research on the flowers he was coughing up, and found out that this specific type of beebalm flower was naturally scarlet, no blood dye required. It felt like a big “FUCK YOU” from the universe, a needlessly brutal reminder that he lived in one world, she in another, and the barrier between them could never truly be broken down. That fact was something he had spent a great deal of time trying to forget, trying to force himself to see her as nothing but a rival. But the scarlet, spiky flowers slowly overtaking him were the personification of how futile his efforts were, and he could only hold out against them for so long. Once, he had been angry, screaming out his rage to metal until he keeled over coughing and expending his ever-draining energy on anything but his sickness.
But at this point, Jack’s resigned to it for the most part. He no longer has the energy to waste on fury, and has long since run out of tears to cry. He knows that the disease will ravage his body until he’s nothing but the shell it lives in, and he’s already more than halfway there. He’s running out of time, and the research backs him up.
In fact, he’d gone down somewhat of a rabbit hole once the flowers had started coming up, which was how he had figured out what was happening in the first place. According to the sparse medical files he’d been able to dig up, it was something called flower petal pulmonary syndrome, or more commonly, hanahaki disease. Essentially, the sufferer had flowers growing within their respiratory system, usually the lungs. It wasn’t exactly a wonder that it was hard to find information on, considering that cases of it were exceedingly rare, and it was generally regarded to be a fictional illness with no clear origin beyond “unrequited love”. Although it appeared to have come from Japan, that was no help in regards to the sickness itself.
He had come across some other interesting information aside from the vague cause of it, such as the fact that the type of flower being coughed up depended on the individual according to the few cases on record. This would have been fascinating if it weren’t a situation of salt being rubbed in the wound, and he had instead focused his research around how to cure it. And of course, that was where the general lack of resources came back to bite him. He had prayed for something to hope for, something solid he could cling to in what had become an unruly storm.
But as it had turned out, there looked to be only two ways he could stop this. He could get up the nerve to tell her what was happening and how he really felt about her, as opposed to the facade he’d been trying to keep up. Or, it was possible to undergo a surgery to remove the plant growth. He had weighed both options extensively, and had found that he was basically out of luck, as if he hadn’t been horribly unlucky to end up this way in the first place. Confession would probably result in him getting his ass handed to him, which could theoretically kill him anyway. Surgery was incredibly dangerous thanks to where the flowers were, and it wasn’t out of the question for the disease to come back later on. In that case, his already-weakened state would pretty much equal certain death.
So, as he forces himself to his feet and staggers over to the sink to splash some cold water on his face and rinse out his mouth, Jack knows all over again that there’s really only one path for him now, and it’s to die. Of course, he’s contemplated this as its own series of paths. Does he really want to suffer this way if the outcome is the same, or would it be easier to simply take the matter into his own hands? He’s considered it plenty of times over, and had nearly made the latter choice once or twice. But he had only teetered at the brink, returning from it rather disturbed at his thought process. So he’s decided that he doesn’t want to die that way. Besides, there’s plenty of ways to go out on your own terms without committing suicide.
Jack raises his head and meets his own gaze in the mirror. It’s dull as he stares back at himself, like the light’s died from his eyes before his body has. He can’t muster up the energy it’d take to be surprised by that anymore, instead just running a trembling, pallid hand through his hair. He’s not certain of it in the combination of lighting and exhaustion, but he thinks that his hair’s gotten grayer, the salt-and-peppery color no longer contained just at his temples. Somehow, that doesn’t surprise him either. He knows just how deeply the disease runs, and how quickly it has worn him down. It shows in the effort it takes to function, let alone when it comes to taking on whatever missions his mother assigns him.
He snorts once he realizes that his thoughts have turned to his mother, slowly turning away from the mirror to head back to his bedroom. He hasn’t told her what’s happening to him, and he isn’t planning on doing so. If she somehow can’t tell that her son is actively dying in front of her, then he doubts she’d give a damn even if she knew. She’s not worth the effort anymore.
Slipping back into his room, he runs his fingers along for a second to find the switch, then flicks on the overhead light. Despite the deep exhaustion settling into his muscles, he’s not gonna be able to sleep for a while given how sore his throat is now, so he might as well do something productive with being awake at this hour. Besides, something about the sheer violence of tonight’s incarnation of the routine has told him that his clock is running low now, his future end no longer a distant dream.
Although he still has no intention of killing himself, he’s been developing a plan for the last couple weeks. So, to make use of his wakefulness, he scrounges around for a notepad, pen, and a hardcover book to use as a makeshift clipboard, then climbs back onto his bed. He has to pause for a second to cough, cringing at the iron taste that seems to linger in the back of his throat at all times. Then he sets the notepad against the book resting in his lap, taking a deep breath and uncapping his pen.
With still-shaking hands, he begins to write.