Twisted Wonderland X Reader

Petals of Love | Sebek X Reader

Summary: Perhaps you weren't meant to love him like you believed

Pairing: Sebek X Reader (Reader is not Yuu)

Pronouns: None used/gender neutral

[A/n]: This does involved the Hanahaki disease and invloves mentions of blood, vomiting, gagging/choking, and other related topics, please read at your own risk if you feel you cannot handle those topics!

You'd always heard of people suffering from the effects of unrequited love. The horror stories of people's lungs slowly filling with deeply rooted flowers, slowly suffocating as the plants grew to be bigger and stronger. Despite this disease not being contagious it was horridly common, with more and more people falling victim to it every year.

You'd always counted yourself as lucky, believing yourself to be wise enough to not fall for someone who clearly held no interest for you. So when you had coughed up a half dozen of seeds one afternoon you thought it to be nothing more than leftovers from lunch.

As the days progressed though you found yourself tiring easier, sometimes having to stop for an extra moment to catch your breath. These new conditions didn't stop you from happily trotting along with him. Anywhere he went, you were sure to follow. Your presence easily spotted aside his, even if he was sometimes too busy to take note of you.

It wasn't until you found yourself laying awake in bed, unable to sleep with the growing chest pains and ever so slight tickle in your throat, that you had considered something to be wrong. You had previously assumed your worsening conditions were due to lack of sleep or poor editing but adjustments to both showed no improvements in your health. Attempting to bring such issues up to the school infirmary workers lead to only one result, Hanahaki disease. Clearly, all their years of schooling and first aid has given them tunnel vision as there was no way you could develop such a thing.

Sebek had to love you back. I mean, he always seemed a bit softer when scolding him you, he'd allow you to walk with him when he escorted Malleus from class to class, he'd even let you sit in and watch when he was training, something of which you had never heard of him allowing anyone else the privilege of. Clearly, he held you in a higher regard than he did most others. At least, that's what you kept telling yourself as you leaned over the toilets in your dorm's restrooms. You watched as petals floated about in the water, their pale green color tainted by the blotches of red that stained them.

"Fuck," you found yourself curing at your reflection in the water. The sudden realization of just what was happening creeping up on you. As you sat slumped on the bathroom floor you contemplated what to do. There were only a few options, surgery or a slow death.

You didn't want the surgery though, you liked the warm feeling his presence brought you, the way your heart would skip a beat every time he invited you to his training sessions, hell you just loved everything about him in general. There wasn't a thing about him that you could bring yourself to hate, not that you'd ever want to. You only wanted to be able to spend as much time with him as possible. The decision wasn't an easy one, so you granted yourself a few days to make it, mulling over the pros and cons of brother outcomes.

During the few days of decision-making, you found yourself frequently having to be excused from Sebek's presence, even leaving one of his training sessions early to hide away in the closet bathroom. Your time in there was spent hunched over the white porcelain bowl, coughing and gagging until the bits of flower fell from your mouth. Occasionally bits of stem or unbloomed bulbs would fight their way up as well, but your disease hadn't yet progressed enough to produce full flowers from your mouth. You weren't sure if it was denial or simply being around him so much that had slowed the progression, but you were grateful either way.

"I want him to love me back so badly, but I fear I'll die before I see the day." You spoke aloud to yourself as everything you'd ever dreamed of in relation to Sebek slowly crumbled before you. As much as you desired for Sebek to love you like you love him, you knew you would have to release that dream. Your selfish desire to have the man all to yourself would sooner kill you than allow you to live happily.

Collecting yourself, you stood upright, flushed the toilet, washed your hands, and headed to the infirmary. There you spoke with a nurse who once more diagnosed your disease for what it was. Upon informing them you would in fact be getting surgery, you left. While they sorted out paperwork and such that would be required for your medical leave, you went to sort out everything else. You spoke first to Crowley, informing the Headmaster of your soon-to-be leave, in which he wished you the best of luck. Next was your teachers, each of which you had to sit down with and work out a plan to stay caught up with school and homework so that you would not fall behind and fail. And last of all was your friends, you told everyone except for Sebek. Rather than speak to him personally you asked for one of his dorm mates to do you a favor and pass him a note which detailed why you were leaving. You couldn't bring yourself to tell him everything to his face, especially when it came to the part that you were hopelessly in love with him. You knew that if you even attempted it you would cave and chicken out, choosing instead to let yourself wither away rather than enlighten him of the harsh reality.

With all the important things out of the way, you were able to return to your dorm, packing a small bag with things you wished to have during your stay. You knew that the hospital would hold you a few days after surgery to monitor you and make sure everything was going well and you didn't want to go without these items for that long.

As you packed and headed out early the next morning, Sebek let the letter rest on his desk. He had Malleus related matters to attend to and would read it later, though later came too late. By the time he had gotten around to reading it, which was during his lunch the next day, you were long gone. His sudden rush to your dorm was fruitless as you had left hours early. Any attempt to contact you via text or call was in vain as he was left on delivered or sent to voicemail. Even asking others to try to contact you changed nothing as they too were shown the same results. Sebek found himself in despair, his heart-wrenching at the thought that you were hopelessly in love with him, to the point where it was killing you, and you said nothing. He had to see you, and he had to see you now, he couldn't let you go through with this. He couldn't lose you.