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It wasn’t as poetic as the storybooks made it seem.
Detective Kit Clancy doubled over in the precinct bathroom, hacking up another handful of purple petals mixed with blood. Violets, of all the damn flowers. He'd looked it up after the first incident three weeks ago. Violets meant "faithfulness" and "I'll always be true." The irony wasn't lost on him.
He splashed cold water on his face, watching pink-tinged droplets swirl down the drain. The doctors had been clear about his options: confess his feelings and risk everything, or undergo the procedure that would carve out not just the flowers but every tender emotion that came with them. They called it "selective emotional excision,” as if love were a tumor to be cut away. The third option, the one they didn't mention in their sterile pamphlets, was to let the garden in his chest bloom until it choked him.
Kit had chosen door number three, because he was apparently an idiot with a badge and a death wish.
The bathroom door creaked open behind him. Kit quickly turned on the faucet, pretending to wash his hands as he swept the scattered petals into the sink with his sleeve. A few stubborn ones clung to the porcelain, purple against white like bruises on skin.
"You alright in there, partner?" Doohickey's voice carried that familiar note of concern that made Kit's chest tighten dangerously. Another coughing fit threatened, but Kit swallowed it down along with the metallic taste of blood.
"Yeah, just—" Kit cleared his throat carefully. "Just needed a minute. Be right out."
He heard Doohickey's footsteps retreat, but slowly, reluctantly. Kit stared at his reflection in the mirror: pale, hollow-eyed, looking like a man who was dying by degrees. Which, he supposed, he was.
Doohickey stood by their shared desk, all five-foot-ten of him radiating the kind of barely contained energy that made perps nervous and witnesses cooperative. His dark hair was disheveled from running his hands through it, a habit Kit had memorized along with a hundred other details he had no business noticing.
"Martinez wants to see us in twenty," Doohickey said, not looking up from the case file spread across his desk. "Something about the Morrison case."
Kit nodded, settling into his chair and trying not to notice how Doohickey's sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, how his fingers drummed against the desk in that rhythm Kit had learned meant he was thinking hard about something. Trying not to notice the way the afternoon light caught the gold flecks in his brown eyes when he finally looked up.
"You sure you're okay? You've been off all week. Pale, jumpy—" Doohickey leaned back in his chair, studying Kit with the same intensity he usually reserved for suspects. "When's the last time you ate something that wasn't vending machine coffee?"
When I could keep food down without choking on flower stems, Kit thought, but said, "I'm fine. Just tired."
Doohickey didn't look convinced, but he let it slide. He always did. That was part of what made him such a good partner. He knew when to push and when to give space. It was also part of what was killing Kit, literally. The way Doohickey cared just enough to worry, but not enough to dig deeper. Not enough to see what was really happening.
—
"What is your type? Seven years I've known you, and I've never seen you with anyone serious." Later, Doohickey perched on the edge of the desk, genuinely curious. "Come on, there's gotta be someone who's caught your eye."
The question hit Kit like a punch to the solar plexus. He felt the familiar flutter in his chest, the warning pressure that meant the violets were stirring. You, he wanted to say. You, with your terrible jokes and your loyalty and the way you make me feel like I'm worth something. You, even though you're married and straight and would probably request a transfer if you knew what I've been thinking about you for the past seven years.
"I don't know," Kit managed, focusing on the paperwork in front of him. "Haven't really thought about it."
"Bullshit." Doohickey grinned, the expression lighting up his whole face in a way that made Kit's heart stutter. "Everyone has a type. Tall, short, blonde, brunette; what gets Kit Clancy's motor running?"
Partners who smell like cheap cologne and coffee. Partners who remember I like my sandwiches without mayo and always take the first watch on stakeouts because they know I'm not a morning person. Partners who trust me to have their back and never question why I sometimes stare too long or stand too close.
"I guess I like..." Kit searched for something safe to say, something that wouldn't give him away. "I like people who are genuine. Who don't pretend to be something they're not."
"That's not a type, that's a personality trait." Doohickey was enjoying this too much, Kit could tell. "What about physically? You gotta have preferences."
Kit coughed, tasting copper and the sweet scent of violets. "I should get back to this report."
"Fine, be mysterious." Doohickey slid off the desk, but not before ruffling Kit's hair in a gesture that was probably meant to be brotherly but sent electric shocks down Kit's spine. "But I'm gonna figure it out eventually. Seven years of partnership gives me special investigative privileges."
If only you knew, Kit thought, watching Doohickey walk away, you'd realize you figured it out a long time ago.
—
That night, Kit sat at his kitchen table with a pen and paper. His hands shook as he wrote, violet petals scattered across the surface like confetti at a funeral.
Doohickey,
If you're reading this, then I'm gone, and you probably have questions. The flowers in my lungs finally won, and I need you to know it wasn't your fault. None of this was your fault.
Seven years ago, when Captain Martinez paired us up, I thought I was the luckiest bastard in the precinct. Best partner anyone could ask for: smart, loyal, fearless when it counted. I didn't expect to fall in love with you. Hell, I didn't even know I could fall in love with anyone, let alone my partner.
You asked me what my type was. The answer was you. It was always you. Your terrible jokes, the way you run your hands through your hair when you're thinking, how you never give up on a case even when everyone else has moved on. The way you make terrible coffee but always remember I take mine black. How you've had my back every single day for seven years without question.
I never told you because I was a coward. Because I knew you didn't feel the same way, and I couldn't bear to lose what we had. Because you have Rebecca, and she makes you happy in ways I never could. I watched you fall in love with her, watched you light up every time she called, saw how you smiled when you talked about her. I was at your wedding, remember? Best day of your life, you said. I smiled and congratulated you and died a little inside.
Even dying seemed better than watching you look at me with pity or disgust or, worse, awkward professionalism while we figured out how to work together after I'd destroyed your marriage and ruined everything.
The doctors called it Hanahaki Disease. Unrequited love made literal—flowers growing in your chest until they choke you. I could have had them removed, but the procedure takes all of it; the love, the pain, every feeling I ever had for you. I couldn't do that. I couldn't let them carve you out of my heart.
I know this isn't fair to you. I know you'll blame yourself, and I'm sorry for that. But I needed you to know that every day I got to be your partner was a gift. Every case we solved, every late night stakeout, every stupid argument about where to get lunch—all of it mattered. You made my life better just by being in it.
Take care of yourself, Jacob. Give Becca my regards. Find happiness in the life you've built together—you deserve it.
Love always, Kit
P.S. - The violets in the evidence bag mean "faithfulness" and "I'll always be true." I looked it up. Even dying, I couldn't help being a detective about it.
Kit sealed the letter in an envelope, wrote Doohickey's name across the front, and left it on his kitchen counter where the paramedics would find it. Then he went to bed, and waited.
The end came slowly, then all at once. Around midnight, the coughing started again, more violent than it had ever been. Whole violet stems emerged, thorns tearing at his throat, roots still clinging to fragments of lung tissue. He staggered to the bathroom, then back to his bedroom, leaving a trail of purple petals and blood drops across his hardwood floors.
By two in the morning, he couldn't make it out of bed anymore. The flowers had taken over completely. Violets were spilling from his mouth with every labored breath, carpeting his pillow, his sheets, falling to the floor like a grotesque wedding procession. The irony of it struck him even through the pain: he was drowning in symbols of faithfulness, choking on his own unwavering devotion.
In the quiet moments between coughing fits, Kit's mind wandered to all the almosts. Almost calling him Jacob instead of Doohickey during that late-night stakeout three years ago when they'd shared terrible coffee and worse jokes. Almost reaching for his hand when they'd solved their first murder case together, the adrenaline and relief making Kit feel invincible for exactly thirty seconds. Almost kissing him in the evidence locker last Christmas when Doohickey had laughed at something Kit said, his whole face lighting up like he was the most fascinating person in the world.
Seven years of almosts. Seven years of swallowing words like "I love the way you think" and "you make everything better" and "please, just once, look at me the way you look at her." Seven years of memorizing the sound of Doohickey's laugh, the way he drummed his fingers when he was thinking, how he always ordered extra fries because Kit would steal half of them anyway.
Kit thought about Rebecca too, about the way she made Doohickey's eyes crinkle with genuine happiness. How she was everything Kit wasn't—open, warm, unafraid to take up space in the world. He'd never hated her, couldn't hate someone who loved Doohickey so completely, so fearlessly. But God, how he'd envied her certainty, her ability to say "I love you" without choking on flowers.
Another wave of coughing brought more violets, more blood. Kit pressed his face into his pillow, breathing in the sweet, cloying scent that had become his constant companion. If he closed his eyes, he could almost pretend the flowers were a gift instead of a death sentence. Almost pretend someone had filled his apartment with violets because they knew what they meant. Faithfulness. Devotion. I'll always be true.
He thought about the letter on his kitchen counter, about Doohickey reading those words and finally understanding. Would he feel guilty? Would he wish he'd noticed sooner? Or would he just feel sorry for his pathetic partner who'd been stupid enough to die for love like some character in a Victorian novel?
Kit hoped, (God, even dying he was still hoping,) that Doohickey would understand it wasn't his fault. That love like this was nobody's fault, just bad luck and worse timing and hearts that refused to learn better. He hoped Doohickey would remember the good parts: the solved cases, the shared meals, the way they'd trusted each other completely in ways that had nothing to do with romance.
The streetlight outside his window cast long shadows across the violet-strewn floor. Kit watched the petals drift in the faint breeze from his heating unit, beautiful and deadly, like everything else he'd ever wanted. His breathing was getting shallower, each exhale bringing more flowers, less air.
He thought about calling Doohickey one last time, just to hear his voice. But what would he say? "I'm dying and it's beautiful and terrible and I wouldn't trade a single moment of loving you, even knowing it would kill me"? That seemed like too much honesty for anyone to bear.
So he lay there, surrounded by the garden that had grown in his chest, and let himself remember every good moment. Every shared glance, every casual touch, every time Doohickey had said his name like it mattered. Seven years of almosts that had been enough to build a life on, even if that life was ending now.
The last thing Kit thought about wasn't the pain or the regret. It was Doohickey's smile. The real one, the one he saved for solved cases and good news and moments when the world made sense. Kit had seen that smile probably a thousand times, had memorized every line of it, and he carried it with him into the dark like a prayer.
He died sometime around three in the morning, alone in his apartment, violet petals scattered across his pillow like a makeshift bouquet. His body was curled on its side, one hand still pressed to his chest as if he'd been trying to hold something precious close. There was purple everywhere and the sweet scent of violets mixing with the metallic tang of blood.
In the end, it wasn't as poetic as the storybooks made it seem. It was just love, and loss, and the terrible mathematics of hearts that beat out of sync.