i can't breathe

choking on my breath

It starts with a crack, really.

A little crack that you barely notice, more of a hole the size of pencil lead in your sternum. You feel it at night, trace it with your finger and feel the little tingle of pleasure barely ghosting there. It's just a tiny thing that you don't know the cause.

Then it widens and you still don't know why and when you touch it there's a tiny crackle of pain, like you shouldn't touch that and you do anyway because it's a curious little thing.

(And you sort of get a little ache like you do then, but this time it comes from somewhere like inside your ribcage or in your soul, and it's only when you look at your brother. You pay as much attention to it as you do the crack.)

There's a tiny little, centimeter-wide vine that starts filling in the crack after maybe a week and the tip of it surfaces enough that you can sort of tug on it and it makes a sort of burning feeling. You kind of like it, it's weird, but you pull at it until it's long enough that it can curl around the first joint of your phalange. The thing is a pretty, almost aqua looking green. It reminds you of echo flowers, a little bit.

(And maybe it's a little hard to ignore the way your soul flutters a little bit when you look at him but you ignore it anyway. You just love him and he's your precious brother and you can't have that little flutter.)

(Your soul never really listened to you.)

After you acknowledge that, though, it grows. It grows and wraps around your sternum a few times and then moves and branches out to your ribs, a little scraping sensation that makes you twitch. It's uncomfortable and itchy and every time you pull at one of the vines, your breath stops short and it sends a shock into your sternum. It's not good.

(And every time you look at Papyrus your cheekbones get cooler in a cold flush and you fidget, you don't keep eye contact much with him anymore. When he hugs you, you melt a bit, your soul thumping within your ribcage. Rebellious little thing- stupid little thing.)

Little buds start to grow, too. It's maybe been a month and eventually flowers bloom, on the insides of your ribs and sternum. They're pretty. They're all different shades of blue, but they never dip dark enough to look like your indigo. They remind you of Papyrus' magic and that scares you a little. Well, not necessarily his magic, he can use cyan and indigo all the same, but of the times you've seen his soul and the pretty glow that emanated from it. You haven't actually seen it since he was young enough to not be embarrassed by such things, and you weren't much older, an innocent thing when you helped him change his shirt. You probably couldn't see it without stammering and sputtering now.

(You need to stop because Papyrus asked you if you were okay earlier, you weren't breathing well, and you said yeah, fine, I'm fine, because honestly you're having some trouble breathing sometimes and you think it's because of him. Maybe it's not because of him. Maybe you need some help. This isn't good. This isn't natural. It's gross.)

The vines splinter across your ribcage overnight, wind their way around another rib or shoulder blade and more grow on that, but this time the petals sort of brush against your soul. It hurts, it really shouldn't you think but it hurts and you don't know why. You grab the petals and pull.

You have trouble regaining your breathing after that, because you can feel the vine where that flower was and it burns and tingles and the flower felt alive in your hand even hours into your charade of shaky breaths, scraping at your eye sockets so you don't start bawling again, and brushing your thumbs against the petals. You force yourself through the day and

(you don't look at Papyrus. You're mostly silent now, because sometimes a petal or stem barely ghosts against your soul and that makes it hard to breathe. You still feel his eyes on you, tracing your expression and posture carefully but you have to stay calm and relaxed and chill like you always are. You're the older brother (brother you're his brother) and you have to stay collected when you feel like you're dying. It's okay, it's fine.)