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Pyro had heard stories of a certain disease when he was still alive, something about coughing up flowers because of your love for someone - he'd always assumed that was some sort of fictional tale, a story older kids used to scare him, trying to make him panic anytime he thought he had a crush on someone.
He could not possibly have been more wrong. Staring at the petals he'd just hacked up onto the floor, wavy and colored brightly, red and orange slightly darkened by his own spit, he realized with dread pooling in his stomach that the tightness in his chest he'd been feeling the past couple days hadn't just been anxiety. The urge to claw at his own chest and get the damn flowers out, or perhaps beg his goddess to help him get rid of these feelings, it overwhelmed him for a solid few minutes as he stood there.
Then they heard a noise outside and inhaled sharply, wrapping their arms around themself as their head jerked up. A knock came from the door, and they swore under their breath, crouching down and struggling to pick up the dozen petals they'd managed to cough out. "One moment!"
The petals practically came apart in their hands, but they did their best to run to the small closet they'd made and wipe the bits and pieces off on a towel anyway. When they at last made it to the door and opened it, they found themself staring at none other than Sausage - thankfully one of the people they were probably the most comfortable around.
"There you are!" The other man beamed at him, clasping his hands together. "I was planning on going mining, and I wondered if you wanted to come with me? Just to get away from all the chaos for a bit."
As wonderful as it sounded to escape for a while, the last thing he wanted to do was end up revealing that in front of anyone else. But… maybe Sausage would know how to deal with this. He'd told him plenty already, about his past and how he'd died, so one more thing couldn't hurt. The other man was a couple years older, he was pretty sure, so maybe he'd know some more - it'd at least give him someone to vent to.
"Sure," they hummed, turning around and reaching over to the small table next to their door where their pickaxe lay. "I actually wanted to talk to you about something. It's, uh… important."
His head tilted to the side, smile faltering. "Really, now?"
"Nothing bad, of course," they said quickly, tightening their grip on the pickaxe at the realization of how terrible that sounded. "It's just, ah- private. I'd rather talk to you about it than anyone else, although I can't say it's… good."
A quiet, nervous laugh slipped out of them, and Sausage's expression shifted to something more concerned, softer - almost the exact same look he'd given them when they'd opened up about their past. The clear affection and care made their stomach twist and their chest tighten, because he was absolutely not going to take it very well when he found out who their feelings were centered around.
But regardless of all his logic telling him just how horrible of an idea this was, he followed Sausage toward the caves anyway. Out of everyone in his friend group - if he could even call most of them real friends when they'd barely spoken - he was the one least likely to freak out, so maybe there was a chance it wouldn't go too horribly.
"So, how have you been?" Sausage asked, falling into step alongside him. He did his best to swallow down his anxiety, although he couldn't bring himself to look at the other man with the guilt swirling in his chest. Why it, of all people, the one his friend group seemed to despise?
"I've been alright," he hummed, somehow managing to keep his voice steady for the most part. "Just… getting through everything. You?"
"Same here, yeah." His soft brown gaze felt all too intense, able to see him staring right at them out of the corner of their eye; it was like he was trying to figure out what they were hiding just by looking at them.
The two of them stepped down into the cave, and almost the second they'd entered it, Sausage spoke up before he even had a chance to think about what he wanted to say. "So, you said you had something to tell me? Something… personal?"
"Yeah, so I… started feeling weird a day or two ago. Uh, a bit after Apo and Abolish had their whole… argument in front of everyone." Their voice wavered just slightly on his name and they could tell immediately that the other man knew exactly what they were going to bring up. "And this morning, only a bit before you arrived, I began… coughing up flowers."
Sausage turned to face them fully, stopping in his tracks with wide eyes. They wished they could run, take back everything they'd just said and pretend they were perfectly fine, but then his hands settled on their arms with a shocking amount of gentleness and he murmured, "You're in love with… Abolish?"
"Yes, I… I am," Pyro breathed, trying to hold back the sob suddenly pressing at the back of his throat. Gods, he couldn't be crying over this. "They're fire lilies, and I… unfortunately don't think they could be meant to represent anyone else. And I will admit that these… feelings, are not new, um- I'll just say that."
The confession made his face burn, although he hoped the other man wouldn't notice in the slightly dimmer light. He'd known about his feelings since he first laid eyes upon the man, with its bright, cat-like eyes and sharp canines, the perfectly toned muscles part of him wanted to sink his own teeth into at times. And the various things they'd both implied to each other about their upbringings and the surprising amount of similarities between them, even though he never would've guessed Abolish would relate with how perfect of a man it clearly was compared to him.
They were dragged out of their thoughts by the soft laugh Sausage let out. "There's no need to be so ashamed of yourself! I mean, I'm sure anyone would find him attractive, right? It's not like you can control your feelings." He shook his head slightly, before they were being yanked forward, hugged tight against his chest. "I totally understand if you don't want to tell anyone else. But you should tell him, at least."
"Tell him?" They practically choked on their own words, a spike of panic shooting through their chest like they'd been struck with a spear. "I- I'm not going to tell him. It doesn't feel that way about me, nor would there be any point when we're… here."
All of them were going to die, except one - and even then, it was likely whoever won would simply make their wish and then be sent back to the afterlife. And, above all, the winner would not be Pyro. Not even in a million years. Even if Athena somehow believed in him, he had to say that she was wrong for that, because he was possibly the most pathetic, useless person out of every single champion here.
No matter if he was the one to win or not, though, even just considering himself and Abolish only one of them could possibly survive. It was impossible. In all honesty, he didn't even want to entertain the thought, no matter how much ever fiber of his being ached to confess to the man and then curl up in its arms for the rest of their lives, shower it in affection and feel loved and safe for the first time in his life.
They blinked tears out of their eyes while Sausage huffed quietly. "Not any point? Pyro, this is your one chance to date someone. You can't pass that up!"
Something clicked in the back of their head. One chance. It really was, wasn't it? And here they were, wallowing in their own misery and refusing to do anything like they always did. "I… I supose that's true, I hadn't- I hadn't… thought of it that way. Thank you."
The other man patted their back a few times before letting go of them, stepping away with a soft smile. There was something sad about his expression, nostalgic, although they couldn't quite place why. "It's no problem at all. You still up for mining?"
"Yeah, of course." With a deep breath, he lifted his pickaxe over his shoulder. "I… need some time to think about how to tell him, anyway."
The few hours he spent down in the cave with Sausage were still somehow not enough to come up with a good plan. He agonized over it, picking apart every little thing that could go wrong and how he needed to fix his phrasing and change how he spoke, until he was exhausted and all he wanted to do was lie on the cold stone and melt into it forever. The other man reassured him it was perfectly fine about a million times, but he wasn't the one with this awful weight in his chest.
By the time they were home and able to think again, the sun was just beginning to set. They hauled themself out of bed to get something to eat before they went to sleep; they could confess to Abolish tomorrow, maybe. After all their anxiety and the flowers they'd coughed up in front of Sausage not once but twice, they just wanted it to be over. Who cared if he liked them back at this point.
Warm sunlight streamed into the room, and they awoke when it settled over them, heating the blankets and gently bringing them out of sleep. It was… nice. As if they were tucked against Abolish's chest, his skin so warm against them, only they still hadn't managed to tell him anything or even speak to him at all since their illness had begun. Damn it.
He rolled out of bed and stretched, twisting to pop his back. A gift, perhaps, would either win it over or at the very least help it not hate him whenever it inevitably rejected him. The only issue was that he didn't have much to give other than things it definitely already had. A spare weapon, maybe, or some flowers? The latter option sounded terribly ironic.
And so, he slipped outside with a spare piece of ribbon he'd found in his hand, glancing around for flowers he could give to Abolish. What colors would it even prefer? The ribbon he had was black, so perhaps red and orange would go nicely with its color scheme, if he could find some. Or maybe it wouldn't even like flowers at all because it was a real man - at least a realer one than he was.
They went off in search of flowers nonetheless, because if they were going to get rejected anyway there was no point in worrying over a gift Abolish would probably throw out or refuse entirely. Eventually, they tied a dozen or so red poppies and orange tulips together, trying to make them all look as pretty as possible even though they'd never given anyone flowers in their life. They hadn't ever felt like this before in all honesty, only experiencing fleeting crushes on strangers at the most.
Now all they had to do was get the flowers to him and confess their feelings without anyone else noticing. Taking a deep breath, they held the bouquet close to their chest and started to walk, heading in the direction of his house. They really hoped he was home and not off hanging out with the other champions or mining or doing whatever else, because they absolutely did not want to sit with this stupid decision for any longer than they had to.
When he neared Abolish's home, he nearly choked on air, swiftly hiding his flowers behind his back. Shit. The man was just coming home, although it at least appeared to be alone, and it spotted him before he had any chance to prepare himself. Stopping in front of its door, it tilted its head and called out, "Pyro?"
"Hello, uh-" He trembled as he tried to force his legs to work. This was what he'd been planning on doing, wasn't it? Talking to Abolish, confessing his feelings, and giving it flowers. All of that sounded so much easier in theory. "Apologies if I'm… bothering you at all, but I wanted to talk to you about something."
The man in front of them raised an eyebrow, tilting his head as if he were trying to get a look at what they were hiding. "Uh huh…? What do you have there?"
They tightened their grip on the flowers so hard they almost worried the stems would snap in their hands. "It's… related to what I wanted to discuss with you."
Their gaze swept the area; there didn't seem to be anyone else around, so they could only hope no one was hiding anywhere nearby trying to listen in on what they were doing. With a significant amount of effort, they forced themself to take a few steps forward, legs shaking and threatening to give out underneath them.
"Abolish, I… when we first met, you seemed- incredible." He nearly choked as the words left him, tumbling from his lips without him really even processing what he was saying. The other man's eyes widened a bit, but it didn't interrupt, expression only getting more shocked as he spoke. "I didn't… want to do anything about it, though. Because, well, we're all going to die here, and it'd just be… a distraction."
The flowers he was holding suddenly seemed very, very stupid, but he couldn't do much about that now. All he needed to do was get through the last of this confession and everything would be fine, he could go home and forget about all of this. "I understand if you don't feel the same. But I spoke with Sausage, and he… encouraged me, to at least try? Rather than allowing the illness to get worse. Because I… started coughing up flowers yesterday morning, and well-"
A breathless laugh left him, as far from amused as possible. He held out the flowers in front of him, hands shaking so much he worried he'd drop them, and Abolish stared at him for a few excruciatingly long moments before it replied. "I- I do? Feel that way about you. Thank you?"
Its hands brushed against their own as it took the flowers, red spreading across its face. What?
Neither of them spoke for at least ten or fifteen seconds. Then, impossibly gentle, Abolish settled a shaky hand on the back of their neck and pulled them down into a kiss. Their lips connected softly, lips slotting together for only half a second before he was already dragging himself away like he hadn't realized what he was doing.
"I love you," Pyro whispered without thinking, grabbing Abolish's face maybe a bit too roughly given the way his cheeks flushed a deep red. But they were kissing again before either of them could say anything else, save for the barely audible I love you too he breathed into their mouth, sharp teeth brushing their skin and sending the slightest of shivers down his spine.
Then, as if the universe were trying to remind them that they were standing were anyone could see them, thunder rumbled overhead and they broke apart in an instant. Face still red, but now with a so very warm smile on his face, Abolish laughed, "Maybe we should… head inside."