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Tommy was going to die. He knew that. He had known that from the moment he first started coughing up petals of Carnations and Hyacinths.
He knew, of course he did. It was impossible not to know.
Also impossible was to not know what or rather who was the reason for his sickness. Because that was all it was. A sickness. A fictional sickness or at least everyone believed so. Tommy included, or at least he had been included and would have continued to be included, had he not spent the last few weeks spitting out bloodied flower petals from flowers growing in his lungs, stealing a bit more of his breath every day.
It was getting increasingly hard to draw the oxygen he needed to breathe, his breath being stolen by leeches directly from his lungs. Beautiful and colorful ones, sure but still leeches.
The plants, once nothing more than mere seeds, planted by his one-sided love for his family, had grown, had fed off of the darkness, the humidity and the oxygen, his oxygen, in his lungs. And soon they were going to be the death of him. He just hadn’t known that soon meant soon.
One day something was different. His breath came shallow, even more so than before. Even slight movements would make black spots dance in his vision.
He was going to die soon He realized. Not just very soon either but that very day.
The realization dawned on him, pooling in his stomach and stealing his breath in a way the flowers claiming his lungs couldn’t.
“PHIL! WILBUR? TECHNO?”, he screamed before remembering that, oh, his family was on a business trip and would only be back the next day.
So not only would he be dying today but he would be dying completely and utterly alone.
Alone, with no one to hold him and tell him that it was going to be okay.
Alone, with no one to push the stray hairs out of face and give him a kiss on the forehead.
Alone, with no one to hug him and joke with him about meaningless things to distract him of the pain blossoming through his chest from the roots slowly making their way towards his heart.
He didn’t want his family to find him when he inevitably died either choking on his own blood mixed with the now fully grown flowers or from blood loss caused by internal bleeding from the vines ripping into his veins.
But since he had no say in the matter for what should be obvious reasons, he figured he’d write them a letter.
As blood gathered in his mouth, he dragged himself up and over to his desk, grabbing a blank piece of paper and a pen.
Writing turned out to be way more difficult than he thought, his handwriting even more illegible than usual, as his body shook with every coughing fit, each one more violent than the one before.
He only managed to write a single sentence, barely literate before his legs gave out and he was forced to his knees.
Tears welled in his eyes threatening to spill over as he lay on his back, all the energy drained from his body.
Single drops of blood, and blood drenched white and pink petals dripped onto the floor and distantly Tommy wondered if they would ever be able to get rid of the stains, once the red liquid has seeped into the wood.
Would they move his stuff? Would they sell his stuff? Would they keep it all as a reminder of their youngest brother and son or would they play pretend, as if he was just away on vacation and would be back soon, bringing warmth in form of loud noises and light banter with him?
The now steady flow of tears started mixing with the stronger stream of blood leaking from where he had opened his mouth to try and breathe only for his body to be wrecked by yet another brutal cough.
He whined in pain when he felt the roots pierce his heart, causing him to bleed, draining his life force.
He died that afternoon, bleeding out all by himself.
—————
A few hours later his family found him, lying on the ground with flowers growing out of his mouth, taking advantage of his inability to stop them from doing so.
They noticed he had wrote something in a notebook on his desk, the single sentence written in the too unfamiliar handwriting seeming to taunt the family of four-turned-three for not noticing their youngest struggles until it had been way too late.
They read the three simple words that were hastily scrawled onto the writing block and allowed themselves to cry, to weep for who they had lost, their sunshine who brought happiness into their life in form of snarky remarks and halfhearted insults, their lovely boy who hadn’t let himself believe that his family loved him dearly and had fallen because of it.
The piece of paper, littered with hours-old blood stains and petals stuck to it and with new tear stains from three separate pairs of eyes, that sent three people tumbling, hearts heavy with something akin to grief, guilt and anger or perhaps all those, simply read
I forgive you