The Hearts Mirror (Twisted Wonderland One-Shots + Requests)

Caught In Your Throat [2] (Malleus x Fem!Reader)

Requested by sanata101! Thank you!

Warnings: Angst (happy end), blood
—

Once you'd confirmed you had Hanahaki Disease, everything just went downhill. Suddenly, it seemed like everywhere you went, Malleus was there with a smile and a short wave that would cause the pain in your chest to tighten and your throat to burn. At first, you thought you could deal with it. The downhill was slow - sure, the pain flared up whenever you saw Malleus, but that was it, right?

Wrong. The pain didn't just flare up, it grew. Larger and larger every day. When you coughed, more and more thorns came out. The small pricks nicked the insides of your cheeks and your lips. Deuce and Ace began to worry you were getting physically bullied. Cater looked at you with knowing eyes but didn't say anything.

As time went on, the coughing fits became more and more frequent; you'd often have to excuse yourself from your friends or ask to leave class and go running to a teacher's bathroom (Crowley had given you special permission, saying he couldn't allow any girl to have to use the boy's bathroom - which you were grateful for now more than ever) to lean over a toilet and pray everything got into the bowl. If even the tiniest bit of blood got on the seat, you spat and rubbed at it desperately, almost once cracking it.

You begun distancing yourself from Malleus. It broke you but it was the only way to stop the growth of whatever had planted itself inside of you. Ironically enough, the larger the pain, the more your feelings for him grew. Or maybe it was the other way around? You tried not to think about it. You hated having to explain away your tear-stained face.

The separation was a bad one. It seemed whenever you tried to avoid him, one of the other members of Diasomnia would pop up out of nowhere and start talking to you about him. Lilia dropping down from the ceiling to share a memory of Malleus as an infant; Silver waking up from a nap to talk about Malleus' latest gargoyle find; Sebek deciding to cut to the chase and demanding to know why you were avoiding his young master. You disguised your coughs as laughs.

One night you'd had enough. You had gotten to the point where you were throwing up thorns instead of coughing them out. On your return from the Ramshackle bathroom, you'd looked out of one of the common room windows and seen Malleus looking forlorn towards your room. Something started burning inside of you; anger, regret, fear, you didn't know what. You just knew you'd had enough. He didn't love you, so why was he doing this? Why was he plaguing you with his existence? Why didn't he realise the pain you were in?

"Go away!" You yelled, "I don't want you anywhere near me!"

You weren't sure when you got outside. It didn't really matter much to you right now - being so close to Malleus and watching his face switch from relief to surprise and confusion to hurt was causing the thing inside of your chest to tighten.

"(y/n)...?" Malleus tried to come closer. "What's wrong? What did I-"

"Just go! Get away from my dorm!" You screamed. "Don't come back!"

"(y/n)-"

"LEAVE!"

Not even waiting for a response, you bolted it back to Ramshackle and locked the door behind you.

—

"You wanted to see me, headmaster?" Your voice came out croaky. Whether it was from the thorns or last night's screaming and crying, you couldn't tell.

"Ah, (y/n)! Thank you for joining us!" Us? "I'd like to introduce you to a guest who'll be staying with you for the next week - meet Miss Neyn Ratte."

You froze. Turning your head, you saw a girl who looked around your age with jet black hair, dark blue eyes porcelain skin and the signature pointy ears of a fae. She gave a small smile.