LOCKtober: Fictional Disease (Hanahaki Disease) (Patreon)

Violet had always wanted to make something people would remember.

Maybe that was something every artist wanted, even if they were too embarrassed to admit it.

There was something comforting about knowing a painting could outlive the person who made it. Paint didn't breathe. It didn't get sick. It didn't grow old. If someone cared enough to keep it, a painting could stay exactly where you left it for years.

Maybe that was what Violet wanted.

To make something that stayed.

Perhaps that was why she did not fear the first violet that fell from her lips.

It was small and bruised, its petals damp against her palm. There was something almost beautiful about it, something painfully familiar. There was a little blood with it too, but for some reason, that wasn't the first thing she noticed.

It was the color.

She stared at it for a while, wondering what kind of purple she would need to recreate it. Maybe a little blue. A little red. Something darker around the edges.

It was beautiful.

It shouldn't have been.

Violet knew what it meant. She wasn't stupid. She had heard stories about people coughing up petals because they loved someone they couldn't have. Flowers growing inside their lungs, feeding on feelings that were never returned.

She knew exactly who hers belonged to.

Silver.

Her affection for the bounty hunter had never arrived all at once. It accumulated quietly, in details too insignificant to notice until Violet had already memorized them. The tilt of Silver's hat. The tired weight behind her eyes. The smell of liquor lingering after she left. The moon catching along her silhouette. The rare softness hidden beneath everything sharp about her.

Violet began painting those details.

Then she began painting Silver.

Never directly.

Silver became moonlight spilled across an empty chair. A bottle beside a shogun. A lone wolf beneath an unfinished sky. A silver streak dragged through wet paint. Violet hid her everywhere, believing that disguising love as art somehow made it less obvious.

Her body was less talented at lying.

Petals became flowers.

Flowers became stems.

And somewhere beneath Violet's ribs, roots began weaving themselves through flesh.

Every feeling left unspoken gave them something to feed upon. Every moment beside Silver became another blossom. Every thought of what could never be became another root winding tightly around her lungs.

Breathing eventually became painful.

Loving Silver remained effortless.

That frightened Violet more.

The flowers were always violets.

There was something cruel about dying from something bearing her own name. As though her body had decided that if she refused to give herself to Silver willingly, it would slowly tear pieces of Violet from her instead.

So she left pieces everywhere.

In handkerchiefs stained purple and red.

Between pages of sketchbooks.

Beneath unfinished canvases.

At the bottom of wastebaskets where crushed petals slowly turned brown.

Violet became very good at hiding the evidence.

She became even better at painting through the pain.

Her canvases changed as the disease worsened. Silver appeared more often. The disguises became weaker. A familiar hat emerged from the shadows. A familiar hand wrapped around a glass. A familiar figure stood beneath Violet's painted moons.

Eventually, there was hardly a canvas where Silver could not be found.

Except beside Violet.

She could paint Silver's eyes from memory. She could recreate the curve of her smile with a handful of strokes. She could capture the loneliness of someone who wandered beneath moonlight as though nowhere had ever truly been home.

Yet whenever Violet tried to paint herself beside her, the brush stopped.

Wanting Silver was easy.

Imagining Silver wanting her back was impossible.

So the second figure was always painted over.

Again.

And again.

Until layers of color buried every version of a life Violet secretly wanted.

The flowers continued growing.

Silver had been lingering near her while Violet worked, close enough that Violet was painfully aware of every movement beside her. She had learned how to tolerate that particular ache, the warmth that always seemed to spread through her chest whenever Silver came near, though lately it had become difficult to tell where affection ended and the roots began.

Silver suddenly leaned closer.

Violet initially thought she was looking at the painting, but then Silver's nose twitched slightly. She lingered near Violet's shoulder for a moment, almost like she was trying to figure something out.

“Do you always smell like that?”

Violet's brush stopped against the canvas.

For a second, her mind went through every possible answer except the obvious one. She glanced toward Silver, suddenly worried that maybe she smelled like paint.

Or sweat.

Or, God forbid, weed.

“Like what?” she managed.

“Flowers.”

Oh.

Silver leaned in again before Violet could move away.

Her eyes slipped closed as she breathed in the scent, completely unaware of where it was actually coming from. She stayed there for a moment longer than Violet expected, as though she genuinely liked it.

Then Silver smiled.

Not the sharp grin she usually carried. Not the kind she wore when she was teasing Violet or when she'd had too much to drink.

It was softer.

Almost content.

“I like it.”

Violet's hand immediately rose to cover her mouth.

Something shifted inside her chest.

Then came the pressure.

It crawled upward through her throat until something soft settled against the back of her tongue.

A petal.

Of course.

Of all the possible times.

Violet swallowed it before Silver could notice.

“Uhm, yeah,” she managed, keeping her hand near her lips until she trusted herself enough to lower it. Her smile came a little more carefully than usual.

“Thank you. I'm glad you like it.”

Silver seemed satisfied with the answer. She stayed beside Violet for a while longer, still carrying that small smile, completely unaware that the pleasant floral scent surrounding the painter had nothing to do with perfume.

Violet returned her attention to the canvas and tried to steady her hand. She should have been scared. The flowers had gotten bad enough that someone else could smell them now. Silver could smell them.

But Violet couldn't stop thinking about the way Silver had closed her eyes.

The way she had leaned closer instead of pulling away.

The softness of her smile.

I like it.

Maybe it was stupid.

Silver was talking about the flowers, not her.

Still, Violet let herself pretend otherwise for just a little while.

Later that evening, after Silver had gone, Violet coughed until her knees touched the floor.

One hand pressed against the ground while the other covered her mouth. Her chest burned as something forced its way up her throat, larger than the petals she had gotten used to hiding.

When it finally stopped, Violet stayed there for a moment, trying to catch what little breath the flowers allowed her.

Slowly, she opened her hand.

An entire violet rested in her palm.

There was blood along its stem.

Normally, Violet would've thrown it away.

She had thrown away hundreds by now. What was one more?

But this one felt different.

Silver had noticed this one.

Not the flower itself, maybe. Not the disease. Not what it meant.

But she had noticed something.

For someone who spent so much of her life wondering whether anyone would remember she had been there at all, that small realization meant more to Violet than it probably should have.

She thought about Silver leaning closer.

She thought about her closed eyes.

Her smile.

I like it.

Violet carefully stood and walked back toward her desk.

She opened her sketchbook to one of the many pages filled with Silver and placed the flower between them.

For once, Violet did not throw it away.

She wanted to keep something that proved Silver had noticed her.

So's really wells deep into this PawPrints ship that they actually have more ideas to brew for MoonShine after this LOCKtober! Mi will just be sweating bullets for whatever So's writing gears were tingling in their mind...