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Branzy is hopeless.
Anyone who's ever met him would tell you the same thing—he's a stuttering, cowardly disaster of a man, especially in the face of attractive, dangerous men. He'd do anything to save his own skin, including betrayals.
He values his life. Of course he does. He'd have to be insane to be on Lifesteal while suicidal or passive about it.
He's done a lot of things he isn't exactly proud of because it ensured his survival, or at least was the best option to lose the least number of hearts. Which is how he'd ended up in Clownpierce's circle.
Branzy's allowed a lot of leeway from Clown that most people aren’t, even those he tolerates or even likes. It's not like Clown is particularly subtle about it—Branzy has noticed how differently he treats others. He’d have to be blind not to.
Where he'd speak to Branzy almost softly (never truly, he's the deadliest assassin after all), he speaks to them with a venomous edge, underlaid by unspoken (and spoken) threat.
Branzy suspects he's just about the only person to ever have seen Clown's face on Lifesteal. He wears his mask religiously outside of his quarters, which Branzy has access to, and, well… he just so happened to walk in when he was unmasked.
He'd expected to be killed for it, obviously. Why wouldn’t he? He may have been in Clown’s good graces, but even he has limits to what he’ll trust Branzy with. His bed is only a few doors down, so it wouldn't be difficult at all to spawnkill him out of his remaining eleven hearts, especially because he's shit at PVP.
…He isn't even sure he would've tried to fight back.
He's so fucked, isn’t he?
And yet… Clown hadn't even given a semblance of a threat, hadn't gone for his scythe or anything. He'd just… squinted at Branzy with his fascinating, beautiful blue-orange eyes and waved him away when he started stuttering out an apology, turning back to the mirror where he’d been lacing up his corset.
He grumbled something about idiot redstoners and wanting to sleep, but that's all Branzy heard before he left, scurrying out of the room faster than he thought he physically could.
And really… he isn't terribly shocked that he's ended up where he is, not with Clown and his attitude towards him. Making him feel… special.
Even if it's just delusions.
And Branzy knows Clown doesn't like him like that because, well, Clown has never been cowardly. He's straightforward, threatening and blunt, and he doesn't hesitate to speak his mind.
So Branzy imagines that if Clown did, by some miracle, like him, he would say something, claim Branzy for himself, domineering as he's always been.
But Branzy isn't quite so brave.
He knew from the moment he'd coughed up that first petal, a vibrant, violently red Nasturtium petal, that he would die.
He's heard of Hanahaki, had known someone whose mother had died from the very disease. They'd told him how she'd progressed, from coughing to petals to flowers covered in viscera from her lungs, eventually succumbing to the disease by suffocation and dissipating into the Void.
Hanahaki is a code-disease, meaning if a player dies in hardcore from it, their code is suffocated by the tangling vines and disperses back into the Void from whence they came. Due to being code-related, it doesn't show up in chat when someone dies from it.
Players in infinite-respawn worlds only experience code-death from it if it progresses to a severe degree, trapping them in a deathloop. Deathloops that go on for too long eventually damage the player's code too severely to recover, and it breaks apart.
It's just Branzy's luck that he's on a limited-life server.
It leaves him less suffering to go through.
It isn't difficult to hide it from Clown, not at first. Clown is only around about half of the time, most of which isn't spent watching Branzy do redstone, so he doesn't see him all of the time.
The coughing fits are excused by catching something in the first days of winter, which Clown accepts without a second thought. The petals he hides in an alcove in one of his mining caves, discreetly sliding them into his pocket when he coughs them up.
It's a chilly day in mid-February that he loses his first heart to the flowers. It isn't anything grand or dramatic—he chokes up a void-black Dahlia and suffocates on its roots as the thorns catch on his throat lining, and that's it.
He wakes up in his bed, a small bit rattled by the death, collects the Dahlias from the floor into his alcove and moves on with his day, now on ten hearts. He greets Clown as he returns from a trip, and Clown squints at him for a moment but moves on quickly to sharpen his scythe, retreating to his quarters.
The day isn't overcast or rainy, or any of the melodramatic weather events in movies—the sky doesn't care for yet another heart lost beneath it.
Despite himself, he runs his fingers along the remaining heart tattoos running down his spine, feeling their outlines. He can breathe properly for the first time in a while, and he relishes in the sensation while he can.
.☘︎ ݁˖༘⋆✿
Of course, the next day, he can feel the twinge in his chest that he's grown awfully familiar with, and he coughs up three petals of a Gladiolus into his palm while designing a redstone trap. They're beautiful things, with white bases fading into a vibrant purple on the edges.
Their beauty is only slightly negated by the gore they're covered in.
He stares at the red splattered across purple and white for a moment, a strange kind of tension in his chest.
Branzy sighs, pocketing them and rubbing the blood from his hands off on a black handkerchief on his desk.
Sometimes, he wonders what would happen if Clown found his alcove or saw him cough up a flower—whether or not he'd even recognise the disease or, if he did, if he would care. Maybe he'd scold Branzy for being foolish enough to fall for someone like him.
It's just as he's coughing again that Clown walks in without warning, striding over to him. Branzy jumps hard as the door slams open (Clown's never been one to open doors gently), quickly wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth and spinning in his chair to face Clown.
“Oh-uh, hey! Fun-funny seeing you here,” Branzy stutters, voice straining as Clown gets closer, “I-I mean, well, you do live-do live here, so, uh, so… um.”
Branzy cuts himself off with a barely audible squeak as he feels a touch of cold metal on the back of his neck. He looks up, and Clown has his scythe wrapped neatly around his neck, his impassive mask far too close to his face for comfort, tilted slightly.
Branzy tries to lean back instinctively, to make distance between him and Clown, but he stops short upon feeling the edge of the blade cut into his neck. He exhales shakily, eyes darting away from the mask's eyes, curved into perfect little crescents above the signature grin. He wonders what kind of expression Clown is making beneath the ceramic.
The room is messy, tables strewn with miscellaneous blueprints, pencils and scratched out designs. It's cast in a dim, dark blue light from the open window, and the only real light source is behind him—his desk lamp.
It happens to have the effect of contouring Clown's form both ominously and… kind of attractively. Branzy's gonna attribute that one to his fucked up sense of danger after so long with Clown.
The silence drags out for a long time, the only sounds in the room being the ticking of the clock on the wall and Branzy's trembling breathing. Clown just… stares at him for the entire time, like he's inspecting him.
Branzy swallows nervously, running his tongue along the back of his teeth for comfort, testing the edges of his canines.
“Something is wrong with you,” Clown declares finally, and Branzy's heart skips a beat. Could he have found out? So fast? There's no way. He'd been careful, hid it well, rarely even was around Clown!
“What?” He manages, swallowing harshly. His throat hurts—he can feel the scrapes of the thorns from the last flower still, from where it'd dug into the flesh on its way out.
“You're being suspicious,” Clown practically snarls, “what are you planning?”
Oh.
So Clown thinks he's gonna betray him? That's what this is? Shit, he'd nearly had a heart attack!
“You remember what happened last time, right?” Clown says tightly, likely thinking back to the time he'd lost three hearts to the guy he was betraying Clown with. Not a moment he was particularly proud of.
“I—of course I do! I'm not planning anything!” Branzy responds quickly, barely managing not to shriek when he feels the scythe press harder into the nape of his neck. It's not his serrated scythe, thank the Void, but it still hurts!
“Then what's wrong with you?”
“There's nothing—nothing is wrong with me! I'm perfectly normal, and happy, and, and healthy, and all that great stuff, you know?—” Branzy cuts himself off abruptly when he feels that familiar itch in his throat.
Fuck.
He breaks off into a coughing fit, doubling over in the chair with his hand pressed to his mouth to catch any flowers before Clown notices. The coughs wrack his body not-so-gently, chest aching sharply from the effort and shoulders shaking.
Clown, seemingly startled by his sudden motion, had drawn the scythe away from Branzy in a clean arc back around himself. He just freezes for a moment, mask locked on Branzy.
Branzy feels the flowers crawling up his throat, and for a moment, he thinks he's going to die again right in front of Clown. That would be horrible. And very bad for his plan of secrecy! And dying alone!
But in the end, they don't come out at all, allowing themselves to be swallowed back down. What kind of flower they are, Branzy has no clue.
“Branzy?” Clown asks, voice tinged with something like worry. A gloved hand comes to rest hesitantly on his forehead, drawing back after a moment. Another settles softly on the side of his head, holding him steady, but it flees before Branzy can cherish it.
Branzy coughs one last time, head pounding with a fresh migraine from the fit and eyes watering as he looks back up at Clown. “Sorry, uh, didn't mean to cough on you. Must've caught something.”
Clown doesn't move. He stares.
Branzy is more used to these episodes now, where Clown just stands too close for too long and just stares like he's committing Branzy to memory despite having already spent so much time with him. They're… odd.
Then, he wordlessly tosses a health potion to Branzy, who catches it on reflex, turning it over in his hands bemusedly. Then he spins on his heel and leaves, just as quickly as he'd arrived.
Branzy almost cries with relief.
He dies that very night, only a day after his first, choking on lovely yellow Evening Primroses.
With it, he's down to nine hearts.
When he startles awake in his bed, surrounded by vines and roots and viscera-covered flowers (and, ironically, the health potion Clown had given him), he just sits there for a long while, looking at the mess around him.
There isn't anything to say, so he doesn't. He just cleans it up and moves on with his day, picking up on his sketch where he'd left off only a few hours ago.
His days continue much the same way from then on, coughing up flowers ranging from small petals of Carnations to entire vines of Lilies of the Valley, each tucked silently into his alcove.
Which has begun to smell faintly of iron and strongly of flowers.
˖𓍢ִ໋❀.ೃ࿔
It's mid-March when he loses three hearts in quick succession to an ambush before Clown can make it to his room from across the casino. Six hearts.
Clown doesn't offer him replacement hearts, and Branzy hadn't really expected him to.
He's been growing increasingly lethargic and in pain as the disease takes longer and longer to kill him each time—his code trying its best to adapt. It would be nice if Branzy had the goal of surviving in the first place, but alas…
He's noticed that the pain has spread from his respiratory system to all throughout his body, especially in his legs and joints. The exhaustion has gotten worse, with some days spent lying on the floor at a redstone project so that Clown would think he's working. He excuses the omnipresent exhaustion with a lack of sleep, which is fitting for his night owl tendencies, he thinks.
It's worked so far.
If Clown has noticed Branzy lagging behind and speaking slower, more consideringly, he hasn't said anything—not since the first time. In fact, he's barely really spoken to Branzy at all, busy with negotiations and battles and whatnot.
The pain is agonizing some days, and those he spends curled in his bed instead of working on projects. It's one of these days that Clown stops by, waltzing into the room with a casual air that freezes when he spies Branzy in the bed, snow white hair greasy and body curled up in a ball.
“Branzy?” Clown inquires, and Branzy can see him get closer far faster than necessary through half-lidded eyes. He tracks him lazily as Clown crouches next to the bed, one gloved hand pressing fast to his forehead.
It's cold against his feverish body. Clown has clearly just come from outside, given the thin veneer of snow on his hat and the chilly quality of his gloves.
Clown hisses as his hand meets Branzy's forehead, pulling away quickly and shaking it aggressively in the air to dispel the temperature difference. Branzy laughs languidly, the sound only slightly tinged by pain.
“You have a fever?” Clown asks like it's a question, despite having just felt the heat of it for himself, “why didn't you ping me?”
Branzy waves his hand dismissively, laughing again quietly, this time with a delirious edge that he can't quite file off. Clown shifts uncomfortably, and Branzy, irrationally, feels slightly guilty for it.
“You're an idiot,” Clown drawls, but it carries an undercurrent of fondness that he can't quite disguise—or perhaps doesn't care to, or—no, he shouldn't get ahead of himself.
“Y'say that… a lot, huh?” Branzy murmurs quietly, fingers curling where they're splayed between him and Clown. He watches lethargically as Clown's gaze snaps to the hand before gently slotting his fingers between Branzy's.
“It's true,” Clown says quietly, other hand reaching up to unlatch his mask. Branzy's lips part—it's the first time Clown has voluntarily removed it in front of him instead of him walking in on Clown already unmasked.
Branzy smiles faintly and far too genuinely as he meets orange-cyan eyes, shadowed by his hat. “Hi,” Branzy whispers warmly, content. He doesn't think he's ever felt this way before, not for anyone, and certainly not this much. Clown looks both ethereal and dangerous at the same time, and Branzy thinks it suits him.
Clown exhales in an almost-laugh, the corners of his lips quirking upwards and the corners of his eyes crinkling. If Branzy didn't know any better, he'd say Clown almost looks… helplessly fond.
Or, in love, if he’d like to play into his fantasies.
“Hi, Branzy,” he murmurs into the air between them. It's wrought with a weight that doesn't feel right, not here. Not when Clown is looking at him like he's something special.
Branzy can't remember the last time someone looked at him like that, or even in a positive light at all. Most people he comes across have fear or hatred in their eyes—afraid of who he's protected by, or sometimes even his traps. A good number of people on Lifesteal hate his guts for the traps he builds, too.
How can Clown sit by his side, hold his hand and look at him like he matters?
°❀⋆.ೃ࿔
The next day, Branzy works on his latest trap—it's one of the last ones he's planned out for the Casino, and one of the ones that requires a lot of complex redstone circuitry. He's been down below floor level for several hours by this point, adjusting the angle of pistons and running redstone trails by hand.
The evidence is all over his suit. His vest is quite thoroughly dyed red from multiple unwanted encounters with the floor when his legs chose to give out on him for no reason, and there's redstone stains beneath his fingernails and all the way up his arms. Some of it is less noticeable on his tattooed arm by virtue of the black and red design, but the other is quite red.
There are petals scattered throughout the circuit—he made sure to avoid coughing anywhere that could wreck the redstone, so most of the flowers (and blood) are strewn along the exterior walls. Clown doesn't come into his circuits anyway.
Maybe it's for fear of ruining them, or maybe Clown doesn't care as long as the trap works. While Clown is a genius in both intellect and combat, he is most definitely not gifted in the art of redstone.
Branzy is thankful for it, in a way. If Clown could engineer his own builds, then Branzy would never have come into the picture—probably would have died two weeks into the server and been sent back to the world hub with a bruised ego and a few extra scars.
Though that may have been a kinder fate than the one he's currently facing.
Choking to death on flowers time after time isn't exactly the most pleasant of ways to go, but there's hardly an alternative. Gruesome as Hanahaki may be, he'd rather spend his last weeks with Clown by his side than risk being rejected, kicked from his team entirely, and spending the rest of his days alone.
It's not a nice thought.
Branzy blows a huff of air out of his mouth as he ticks a repeater forwards near the edge of the hole, almost relishing in how the air drags on the damaged inside of his trachea on its way out. Branzy doesn't like pain, but it does a well enough job to keep him focused and out of his own head.
His larynx has been suffering too. Branzy doesn't talk much anymore unless its for Clown or Rek, doesn't monologue or mumble to himself as he builds like he used to. His voice comes out hoarse and grating anyways.
Branzy feels his fingertips tingle where they drag across the compacted dirt, smearing redstone as he goes. The hole for the trap is a bit too close for his liking, but the circuitry near it is important. He coughs into his shoulder, feeling the fabric wet slightly with droplets of blood, and he frowns a bit at the sensation.
It's then, of course, that Clown decides to ping him after days of being out and not communicating at all with Branzy, and it startles him so badly that he doesn't even get the chance to see Clown's message before he's losing his footing in the dirt and flying over the edge of his own trap.
Branzy barely gets the chance to scream before his body meets the dripstone at the bottom, cleanly impaling his chest and abdomen as it does. He doesn't feel anything for a moment, adrenaline running high—then, it starbursts.
The agony is blinding, and Branzy can't help the animalistic scream that escapes his throat, dragging on the lining of his throat—but he hears nothing. No sound comes out of him at all, and he realises abruptly that there are flowers lodged firmly in his trachea on top of the dripstone.
He can't think through the pain in his torso, and there's definitely drool dribbling down his face with how his head is limply hung upside down. He can feel intimately every rough spike of dripstone down the sides of it and is he sinking lower?
The agony is radiating through every inch of him, settling deep in his bones and he can't even reach the ground to try to pull himself off of the stalagmites—they're too big and Branzy isn't even sure if he could do something like that.
Branzy feels tears slip from his eyes, trailing down into his hair, and oh Void it hurts—
BranzyCraft was impaled on a stalagmite
Branzy shoots up in his bed and grabs the fabric of his vest where the dripstone was, entire body trembling with the adrenaline of a respawn. He slips a shaking hand under the clothing, feeling the fresh outline of a death scar from dripstone. Five hearts.
He exhales shakily, throat clear of flowers. The majority of the damage in his throat was repaired—thanks to the reset of his physical body—but the scar tissue from deaths to flowers is still there. His communicator buzzes beside him, once, then twice.
Ah—right. The reason he'd fallen into his trap in the first place. Branzy swallows down the overproduced saliva due to the adrenaline and picks up his comm, scrolling back up to the message that made him fall in in the first place.
Clownpierce whispers to you: branzy are you at base
What the hell does that mean? Of course he is—he always is. He reads the more recent messages.
BranzyCraft was impaled by a stalagmite
Clownpierce whispers to you: ?
Clownpierce whispers to you: are you being attacked
Clownpierce whispers to you: are they in the base tell me when you get your bearings
Clownpierce whispers to you: im otw
Oh. Yeah, Branzy sort of wishes he'd been attacked now—how the hell is he supposed to tell Clown he fell into his own damn trap because he got scared by a communicator?
You whisper to Clownpierce: no im ok
You whisper to Clownpierce: was on the edge of my trap and ur msg scared me
Clownpierce whispers to you: oh
Clownpierce whispers to you: sorry lol, you good?
Clownpierce whispers to you: how did that even scare you so bad you fell into your own trap
You whisper to Clownpierce: idk.
You whisper to Clownpierce: i wasn't expecting it ok
Clownpierce whispers to you: wtv its fine, im almost there
You whisper to Clownpierce: ur still coming back?
Clownpierce whispers to you: i was otw anyway
Clownpierce whispers to you: i was just messaging ahead so i didn't fall into an unfinished trap or smth
You whisper to Clownpierce: oh
You whisper to Clownpierce: well don't go in the main doors
You whisper to Clownpierce: haven't rigged it yet but the floor isn't stable
Clownpierce whispers to you: k
*ੈ𑁍༘⋆
Over the next few months, Branzy loses four hearts to nary a cause but the flowers. The first time, they’re red, tubular Aloes, spewing from his mouth until a tangled clump of their vines becomes lodged in his windpipe, and he dies. Clown nearly catches him stuffing them into his pockets when he respawns, but he’s clearly distracted as he runs by with his scythe. The sight makes him cough anyways.
The next one has him bent over a pile of baby blue Hydrangea flowers, blood dripping from his tongue, dying both the flowers and his teeth a dreadful shade of gruesome red. As his head spins and his vision dims, his mind flashes to his mother—she was beautiful, with hair as white as her perfect teeth and haunting red eyes. She was a dedicated gardener, and he remembers her calloused fingers and dainty smile as she brushed his hair back, flowers falling from the ivory locks.
He wonders what she’d think of him now, with her beloved flowers in his lungs and her vines tangling through his trachea.
The third death brings him to his knees atop thin white Asphodelus petals. The alcove is nearly full of the flowers now, and the mixture of scents stings at his nose as he drops an armful of white petals into it. He sticks around longer than he usually does, eyes fixed on the pile of wilted flowers.
Branzy draws one arm up to the nape of his neck, dipping his fingers just beneath the collar where he can feel the first of his two remaining hearts, sitting primly at the tip of his spine. The skin dips only slightly with the imprint of the heart, and he can feel the small indents of the signature hardcore design. He swallows.
The fourth heart he loses, he finds himself with a palm full of spindly white Catchflies—deceit. He almost laughs at the irony.
It's when he's down to one heart that he decides Clown deserves something of a goodbye. Not a big one or anything dramatic, just Branzy thanking him for what he's done and saying he's finished the redstone projects Clown wanted.
So he does.
He coughs up a pristine white chrysanthemum days before he's planned to do it, and he realises with a grim certainty that he probably won't get four days to prepare. He doesn't bother wiping the blood from his mouth or palms, just spins on his heel and drifts out the door.
His thighs twinge with every step, rejecting the idea of physical exertion, despite the fact he's barely walked twenty steps. When he reaches Clown's door, he presses his palm flat against the spruce wood and briefly wonders if Clown is even home.
Regardless, he knocks gently, and waits.
There's a muffled shing of a blade being sheathed before the door swings open and there's Clown, maskless, armourless, and looking at Branzy with an unreadable expression. He's poised in the doorway like he's expecting a fight.
“Clown,” Branzy begins softly, voice dipping into his lower register, “I—”
“Come in,” Clown interrupts suddenly, swinging the door wide open and grabbing Branzy by the collar. He doesn't squeak, doesn't scream, doesn't even flinch. He just smiles gently and allows himself to be pulled into the room.
The door is shut behind Clown and audibly locked before he's marched inside and Clown turns to look at him again, still loosely gripping his collar.
“What is wrong with you?” Clown asks, awfully reminiscent of their first conversation about this very topic, “you look ill. You've looked ill.”
Branzy averts his gaze for a second, eyes flitting away and back to meet Clown's blue-orange irises again. He smiles, and Clown's jaw clenches visibly. The grip on the collar of his shirt tightens, lifting his heels off the ground.
“...Thank you, Clown,” he starts, and Clown's grip loosens abruptly, clearly caught off guard. His heels click back down against the ground. “You've done so much for me, and, and honestly I don't really… I don't really understand why. But you have. And… and I, admittedly, had a lot of fun building your traps…”
Clown has gone perfectly still. Branzy doesn't think he's ever seen him so utterly frozen, his expression completely devoid of any emotion. He looks away, unwilling to meet his eyes.
“Your traps are all done,” he adds after a moment, almost not ready to admit it, “so… I've fulfilled my end. Your casino is officially the deadliest place in Lifesteal! Congrats! Haha…”
Clown is still staring at him with that impeccable poker face—really, he should've expected he'd have a good one, given that he is the owner of an entire casino. It's kind of unnerving.
“Branzy,” he says flatly, “show me your hearts.”
Branzy's heart skips a beat in his chest, sharp inhale catching on the barbs in his throat as he stares back at Clown.
“U-Uh?” He stutters out, laughing nervously, “I really, I really don't think that's necessary? I mean, what?”
Clown's expression hardens suddenly, jaw tightening and eyes getting that edge they always have when he's faced with a difficult player, eyebrows furrowing.
“Branzy,” he says slowly, a dangerous tint to his tone, “that wasn't a request.”
When Branzy hesitates still, Clown apparently decides he's no longer willing to wait. His voice rings true in the space of the room, low and cold.
“Fine. We can do this the hard way.”
And before Branzy can process the words or react at all, Clown has tossed him over his shoulder like a bag of potatoes, like he weighs nothing. He's thrown onto the bed on his front, and it makes his chest twinge painfully.
He tries to roll over quickly, to face Clown and ask what the hell he's doing, but the assassin slams his knee into Branzy's shoulder, effectively pushing him back down before efficiently swinging his leg over, straddling his waist. Branzy yelps.
Clown's muscular, toned thighs are on either side of Branzy's torso. It would be incredibly hot if Branzy could dispel the panic that's begun overtaking the pleasant fog in his brain. He tries to squirm, to hit Clown with his arms, but that only gets him a hand around his wrists, pinning them above his head.
Good lord.
Clown can hold both of his wrists with such ease and Void, the way he manhandled Branzy like it was nothing…
The panic is sharp now, as Clown's free hand tugs on the hem of his shirt. It's blocked by his vest, which Clown solves by slicing it with his scythe.
What the fuck? He liked that vest!
He squirms one last time before going limp under Clown with a punched-out exhale, prompting two fingers to dig into his pulse point with a franticness Branzy didn't know he possessed. He'd always been laid-back, self-assured, anything but desperate.
Then his shirt is tugged the rest of the way up.
Branzy shivers as his spine meets the cool air of the room. It's not cold, but he doesn't usually prance around with his back exposed, especially with the fact it's where his hearts had manifested.
Which Branzy knows Clown is staring at. He doesn't need to be a genius to know his eyes are trained on the single, vivid red heart at the very top of his thoracic vertebrae. He's frozen above him, thighs locked tight around Branzy's waist.
Branzy barely dares to breathe into the pure and complete silence that had sunk into the walls. Clown's shock is like a physical thing, permeating through the air, sinking into the walls and carpets and rendering the room perfectly still.
Clown doesn't speak for a long, long moment, and he doesn't make a move to let him up or kill him.
Eventually, Branzy can't take it anymore. “Clown?” He prompts, voice soft and hesitant, shaking.
“I didn't see your death messages,” Clown responds, sounding lost, “you couldn't have died so many times. Not… not without me noticing.”
“... It's a code disease. You wouldn't have,” he murmurs into the sheets. They're patterned with red and black diamonds, hand-crafted a long time ago by Branzy when he was bored. He hadn’t known Clown had kept it, let alone used it.
“You said you had a cold,” Clown says, voice trembling with something a few shades from fear but also not quite anger, “you said it'd pass. I believed you.”
“Clown—”
“I can't believe I was so stupid,” he continues, completely ignoring his interjection, tone shifting further into anger, “why did I believe you? BranzyCraft, the known traitor, and I still trusted you.”
A shaking, gloved hand touches his final heart and Branzy flinches despite himself.
“I mean, really, the signs were all there. Suspiciously absent, constantly sleeping, coughing your lungs out… it's Hanahaki, isn't it? You fell for someone.” It's not a question. It's a statement, and Branzy doesn't know what to say. What there is to say.
“Who?” Clown demands, hand tightening painfully on Branzy's wrists, “who were you stupid enough to love so much that it's literally killing you? Who doesn't love you back? Who?”
Branzy shakes his head into the sheets, tears slipping unbidden from his eyes and smearing into the design. His breath hitches and he coughs, once, into the bed. Clown immediately slams the side of his hand into Branzy's back.
He almost chokes on the vibrant, gore-covered green Juniper that shoots out of his throat, followed closely by a black Mulberry and a beautiful pink Rhododendron. They spill onto the sheets, accompanied by red strings of viscera.
He drags in a ragged breath, both feeling and hearing how it strains along the damaged inside of his throat. Clown's hand is rubbing his back. When did he start doing that?
“Seriously, who the hell is it, Branzy? Are they really worth dying for? I can tear the roots out right now—I doubt you'd even be able to stop me if I tried to do it without your consent.” Clown hums thoughtfully, one claw dragging down his back where his lungs are in the front.
“No! You—you can't,” he shouts—or tries to, at least, his voice is hoarse—with a desperation to his voice that gives Clown pause.
“Is it Rekrap?”
“What!? No! I don't—what? Rek?”
“Flame, maybe? You barely know him, but the flowers would sort of line up…”
“Flame? Seriously!? No! Of course not!”
“I mean, it was worth a guess…”
“In what universe do you think I'd be in love with FlameFrags?”
“I don't know. Flowers that mean victory, danger…”
“Quit guessing, would you? And let me up!” Branzy quickly realises how demanding he sounds and switches to a more pleading tone, “I—I mean, please? Please let me up?”
“Not until you either spit it out or I rip these stupid flowers out of your lungs.” Branzy's inhale catches, a hiccuping sound that only makes Clown's legs dig in tighter. A claw brushes the outline of his last heart again, this time with a terrifying surety that feels like decision.
“Clown, no. You can't—you can't, okay? If—if you do it, I swear I'll never trust you again. You'll never—you'll never see me again!” Branzy tries to sound angry, self-assured, but it only comes out sounding like a cornered dog, afraid and impossibly small.
Just like always.
“You're on one heart,” Clown snarls, anger dripping from his tongue like it belongs, “one heart, BranzyCraft. You can scream and flail all you want, but you don't get to die from this. You don't get to. Even if I have to tie you down and do it myself. Even if you hate me.”
“You wouldn't,” Branzy says weakly, but he recognises the words for the lie that they are the moment they leave his mouth.
“Wouldn't I?” Clown leans in closer, hot air hitting Branzy's neck and making him shiver. Spindly strands of white hair cover his peripherals, and he can feel the locks brushing his ears. “I take care of my things. No matter how idiotic they are.” He flips him over then, and Branzy can see Clown in his full glory, poised above him.
Branzy shivers at being called a thing like belonging to Clown is as natural as breathing, as inescapable as the blue sky above them. Clown's always had a possessive streak, at least when it came to others trying to recruit him or get too close.
He distinctly remembers the time Clown had found Rek and Branzy when they were leaning in close over blueprints—he'd had to scrape blood out of the carpet for days. The paper was ruined, and Rek was suitably shaken.
“Clown, please,” Branzy whispers, feeling tears rise along his waterline. Of course. The one time Branzy wants to be firm, to tell Clown no, to get up and leave—of course. Why would he be able to be strong?
Clown’s jaw clenches, and his grip on Branzy spasms. His head lifts and his eyes meet Branzy’s. If he were a lesser, more idealistic man, he might have even said Clown’s breath hitches when he sees a tear slip down his face.
Branzy looks away, blinking rapidly to clear the moisture from his eyes.
“Branzy, I—”
“I-I’m sorry, Clown, I can’t,” Branzy stutters, voice breaking midway through his name. “I just can’t. Please don’t—please don’t hurt me.”
Clown tenses, an emotion that sort of resembles guilt flashing across his face before he coaxes it back into a cold neutrality. “Branzy…”
He shakes his head aggressively, tugging at Clown’s grip on his wrist, but it doesn’t relent. Another tear slips out, trailing its way down his cheek and the side of his neck before being caught by a gloved thumb. Clown looks troubled above him.
“I can’t just let you die,” he says quietly, “what do you want me to do?”
“I—”
“You won’t tell me who it is, you won’t let me tear the flowers out, so what do you expect from me, BranzyCraft? Do you expect me to just—what, stand back and watch you choke to death on something I can solve?” Clown’s voice doesn’t break, it doesn’t shake, and Branzy envies his ability to stay composed.
It’s horribly demeaning, really, to be held down like this, hearts (or, well, heart) out in the air for anyone to see. Maybe if he could hold Clown down like this, he’d understand Branzy’s tears.
“Yes!” Branzy sobs, turning his head when he feels a cough bubble up his throat. He splutters it out, small drops of blood landing on the white pillowcase by his head. “I’m a liability, Clown! Someone wants something from you, they go to me. I can’t defend myself, I can barely hold a sword, so why do you care?”
“I’m not letting you die,” Clown says firmly, ignoring all of Branzy’s justifications. “I don’t care what you can or can’t do. You aren’t dying today.”
“You think I want to die!?” Branzy shouts, tears tracking trails down his face, wrenching at Clown’s unwavering grip with a desperation he didn’t quite know he possessed—not that he wasn’t ever desperate, but this is a new flavour of it. Staccato breaths punch out of his chest one after another. “I don’t want to die! I never have!”
“Then just tell me who it is, and you don’t have to!”
“It's you!”
The words rush out of Branzy's throat, untangling from the ridges of his trachea before he can stop them, and Clown sucks in a sharp breath. He breathes. Clown's exhale shakes. Clown doesn't shake—he never has.
Well, it's already out. No harm in doubling down…
“Of course it's you,” he says, voice breaking, “it's been you since the day you threatened me with your scythe. How could I not? You're exhilarating. You treat me like that and just expect me not to fall for you? When you're you?”
Clown looks down at his tear-streaked face with wide eyes and lips slightly parted. He looks—Branzy is tempted to say reverent.
He barely manages to get another breath in before he's being aggressively wrenched forward in the bed and suddenly, there's lips against his. They're aggressive, almost violent, clicking once against his teeth before drawing back into a more gentle kiss.
Branzy gasps into Clown's mouth, hands freezing mid-air in shock before realising what's going on. He immediately starts moving when it clicks, bringing his legs up to cross over Clown's midsection. He doesn't have the time to ask questions.
One of Clown's hands is still pinning his wrists to the bed, while the other has a hold in the hair on the right side of his head, tight and painful in a way that makes pleasure tingle through Branzy's spine.
Clown is an insistent, dominant kisser, Branzy thinks, and it fits him very well. It's almost exactly how Branzy imagined he'd go about it—ruthless and claiming, just like him in battle and conversation and…
Clown pulls away suddenly, Branzy's hair still clutched between his fingers and his wrists captured above him. His orange-cyan eyes are locked on Branzy, not straying for a moment. It's as though he's committing Branzy in his current state to memory; gasping, red with bitten lips and wide, dilated pupils, hair tangled and splayed out behind him. He takes a breath in.
And then, “I love you.”
Branzy sucks in a breath, meeting his gaze with wide eyes. And then, he feels the pain in his chest crescendo.
“I love you, BranzyCraft.”
He gasps, eyes squeezing shut and wrists automatically tugging at Clown's grip. He lets him go, and Branzy's hands come to clutch at his chest and throat as he coughs. He coughs, and he can feel the hard edges of the roots scraping his throat. He's going to die. Surely he’s going to die.
“Don't die,” Clown says tightly, and Branzy feels his palm splay out on his chest before the searing pain of a heart being transferred stings in his spine, right under the last. Then he gives another, and another, and suddenly Branzy finds himself with nine hearts.
Branzy's throat spasms and he can feel tears spilling down his cheeks, but he can't bring himself to care beyond the agonizing pain in his throat and lungs. He coughs, a dry, rattling sound, and an entire branch of Nasturtium flowers drips from his mouth.
They're red—whether from blood or natural colour, he can't tell—and the vine they're attached to is drenched in gore. The sheets surrounding it are soaked in deep red blood as well, splattered around it like spilt paint.
Through the dizzy haze in his brain, he thinks it's kind of beautiful.
Another branch of flowers comes out covered in viscera, hitting the bed with a wet sound that makes Branzy cringe. Another, and another, and—
And then, like it belonged, a pristine sepia seed lands right in the centre, surrounded by its creations. The cause.
Clown makes an indistinguishable sound from above him—Branzy can't tell through the heavy fog—and his claws pick it up delicately. He holds it in between them like it's diseased for a long moment as Branzy catches his breath—catches his breath!
He can breathe!
His inhale is clear, sharp and unobstructed, and he almost cries. Months of trying to breathe around the invasive flowers that spread through his lungs, and he can breathe.
Clown is staring at him now, an expression of open awe on his face that Branzy's never seen before. His gaze is no longer fixed on the seed (which had apparently been crushed into dust, as evidenced by the sepia dusting on his black glove), but on Branzy.
His webbed ears are tilted toward Branzy and vibrating ever so softly, as though straining to hear.
And he relaxes.
His shoulders drop from level with his chin and his ears droop in obvious relief, letting out a long exhale. Without warning, Clown abruptly drops down onto Branzy's chest, arms winding around his midsection and pressing the side of his head into his chest—ear down.
It flicks once, and Branzy can feel it shaking against him.
Clown's hair is spread around them, and the position is slightly awkward since Clown is taller than him. He's twined his legs between Branzy's and Clown's grip on his middle is tight.
Branzy sighs, feeling it shake in his throat. Hesitantly, he brings a hand up to rest in Clown's hair, gently carding through it and running his fingers through the silky strands.
There’s still a twinge of pain in his chest when he takes a breath in, but it’s nothing compared to the agony of breathing around flowers, their thorns digging into the muscle of his lungs with each exhale. He lets his eyes shut as he winds his arms around Clown’s head, who makes a pleased sound.
Clown is warm and his grip on Branzy is never soft—always firm and strong—but he tries. The touch keeps him grounded, keeps the butterfly in his chest down and calm.
Clown doesn’t say anything for a while, only periodically tightening his grip on Branzy. Clown is splayed over him completely, pinning him down to the mattress, and Branzy can’t help but feel like it’s the only place he’s ever belonged.
When he finally speaks, it’s quiet, nothing like the terror shrouded in a veil of anger from earlier.
“I can’t believe you,” he murmurs into Branzy’s chest, rising slightly so that the curve of his nose is pressed against the side of Branzy’s throat, “you’re so stupid.”
Branzy exhales in an almost-laugh as he pulls a knot free in Clown’s hair, who lifts his head to look Branzy in the eye. Branzy lets him, bringing his arms down to the small of his back.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers into Clown’s scalp, “I didn’t think you’d… well, you know.”
“After all that I’ve done for you,” Clown says slowly, as though trying his best to process Branzy’s idiocy, “after everything I’ve let you get away with? Do you think I’d let just anyone see my face? Mend my wounds with my back to them? Do you think I take the time to save anyone else without significant reward from someone else?”
“I—”
“Do you think I would let anyone else’s hands so close to my back? To my neck?”
Branzy’s next words die in his throat, lips parting uselessly, arms tightening around Clown's waist. Because no, of course Clown wouldn’t, and he’s been allowing Branzy those freedoms like it’s nothing. To let someone so close to your vital points as the deadliest player, especially after burning half of his hearts on them, is not something Clown would do.
“...No. No, I… you wouldn't,” Branzy rasps quietly, voice hardly a whisper, violet eyes wide and still red from crying.
Clown smiles at that—not quite soft, but something adjacent. Clown doesn't do soft, doesn't do gentle and caring, and that's a part of him that Branzy has come to love about him.
“Good answer,” he says, pressing a kiss to Branzy's forehead, and Branzy almost has a heart attack on the spot. Clown loves him—still trying to process that, still trying to compartmentalize the insane prospect that Clown actually really, truly does love a man like Branzy.
It just doesn't seem real.
Things like this don't happen to people like Branzy, people unlucky enough to be weak in a world that values strength in combat over all else. Clown is one of the lucky ones born into natural talent for the art of battle. It's been in his story since before his book began.
Why would Clown want someone who's such a liability in his circle, let alone in his bed?
He's been referred to as Clown's weak point, his Achilles heel—whatever term they choose to use, it means that Branzy is a very good target if someone wants to hurt Clown for whatever reason. And it's very effective.
Not that anybody has gotten the drop on him using Branzy.
Clown is far too paranoid to not set up iron-clad safety measures on everything and everyone. There's a plan for every single disaster, every wrong turn of events, every time Branzy is kidnapped or held hostage or just used as bait.
The one thing Branzy just can't quite wrap his head around is, well, why him? There are dozens of better options for teammates, so many people are more qualified to protect themselves and do what Clown asks. People who won't drag him down like deadweight.
But does it really matter, when Clown’s arms are wound around him, and his face is pressed into the junction of his shoulder? When he’s completely armourless, scythe across the room, completely out of reach? Branzy could list all of his flaws with evidence one by one and it’d take him hours, but it’s hard to think of anything other than Clown’s breath on his neck. Maybe he’ll ask tomorrow, or the day after.
A hysterical laugh bubbles from his chest then, making Clown lift his head bemusedly. Branzy only laughs harder at the perplexed expression on his face, throwing his head back against the pillows with an arm over his eyes.
“What?” Clown asks, looking very confused, but his lips are quirked at the corner, and there's a soft look in his eyes as he hugs Branzy tighter.
“Nothing, just… I don't know,” Branzy murmurs, burying his face in Clown's hair. He shuts his eyes into it, holding Clown closely.
He's tired.
His chest hurts, and the warmth of Clown's body against his is making his eyes droop.
Maybe tomorrow, he'll make Clown breakfast and kiss him until he forgets how useless Branzy is—maybe he'll hug him tight and feel his skin against his, if only to feel the drum of his heartbeat. He’ll drag his teeth along the edge of Clown’s mask, if only to feel him shudder.
But today, he'll relish in Clown's head against his chest and the hair tickling his face as he closes his eyes against him, letting the warm fog of sleep creep in.
And he breathes.
It's clear, and it feels like truth.