Disclaimer: Of course I don't own Bungo Stray Dogs, its characters, or the franchise. This is fanfiction after all.
Story: It started with white petals. Atsushi had gone on to become fond of the smarmy, prideful jerk, but honestly Francis could just make her so happy and laugh so much. And then the sneaking suspicion that maybe she cared for him more than she should, more than the friendship she thought they shared. Then the striped petals came. By the time the red carnations came spitting out of her mouth, she was too in love and longing for him to stop Hanahaki from taking over.
Set as a Hanahaki AU. Sometime after season 3 of the anime, no further manga arcs/spoilers after.
Spoilers: Maybe.
Warnings: Age disparity. Violence, death, and cursing is a given. Slight gory image.
Pairings: Francis Fitzgerald/Fem!Atsushi

Shades of Petals
Chapter Eight: Please Be Happier

Scattering petals down the road without an end (road without an end)
Left on the battleground for one I called my friend (one I called my friend)
Maybe he loved me as he took me by the hand
And tried to understand…

The words that were written…a song he didn't want to listen to…the blood splatters all over his floor and futon…and the scattered remains of pink carnations that haunted him…

Pink for 'I'll never forget you'…

It just cemented how important Atsushi had become to him and that losing her wasn't an option. Dying as she was in his arms, the epiphany that he'd fallen in love with her wasn't a surprise and he felt foolish that he hadn't realized the truth sooner.

It was only too bad that the man she was in love with wasn't him, because he would've sworn his life and love to her.

He still would.

"Lord Francis, do you want me to call in cleaners for your office?" Louisa asked him, her voice soft and nearly too quiet.

He stared at the futon and at his floors and shook his head. "No…I think I would like to live with this reminder for a bit."

"She's doing well," Louisa May tried to sound encouraging. "Miss Nakajima's being monitored now and they say she's actually improving!"

"How?" he asked bitterly. "The one she loves is in love with someone else. Surgery will just harm her. She's dying and there's nothing I can do."

Louisa May actually let out a frustrated sound, striding towards him and thrusting the small stack of papers she'd been holding at him. He fumbled for them and was surprised to see divorce papers.

"I've had them for awhile," she admitted. "I don't think you've been in love with your wife for a long time, Lord Francis. And you know who you are in love with."

"It doesn't help Atsushi —" he started wearily but Louisa just made another frustrated noise.

"You're supposed to figure it out naturally, but you're being too dense, Lord Francis!" his usually shy and quiet assistant shouted at him. She then placed a small compact mirror on top of the papers and gave him a sad smile. "She's waiting for you," she said simply before leaving him behind.

He went to his desk and put down the papers, taking the mirror in hand and holding it up to his eyes. Why would Louisa hand this to him…?

Flipping it open, Francis stared at his reflection and glared at it, wishing he hadn't been too slow and stupid. Maybe if he'd known how he felt earlier, he could've convinced her to fall in love with him instead —

The idiocy of it all hit him hard then and he recalled everything in ironic, bittersweet clarity. The odd looks of the Agency and even Lucy and Edgar as he said what he had about the man Atsushi was supposedly in love with —himself. The irony of him stating that he couldn't care less about him being forgotten by Atsushi or having her love being removed…He hadn't even known it was himself he was talking about all along.

He'd called himself blind, a fool. He really had been an idiot.

Francis slammed the mirror onto the stack of papers and turned around, rushing out of his office in a hurry. He went to the only place he knew he should be.

And there, looking better than she'd been in months, Atsushi was kindly talking to one of his doctors. Not even saying another word, he ran to her and swept her into his arms, practically lifting her up from the medical bed. The doctor wisely made his disappearance from there.

"F-Francis?!" she asked, always incredulous with him and it made his fondness for her grow.

"I love you," he confessed to her and he could feel her go still in his arms. "It took me this long to figure it out, and I'm sorry for the delay. I love you and I can't imagine you not being with me."

Her not being in his life was inconceivable.

Atsushi gently pushed him away. He didn't understand why she looked so sad? Wouldn't she be happy he loved her back?

"Francis, you don't have to lie to me —I know how much your wife means to you and that you love her more than anything, that you would do anything for her. I don't know how you found out how I felt about you, but you don't have to lie to me to try to save me. It's okay —I accepted things and I just want to be by your side and see you smiling while I can —"

"I think you're the one misunderstanding things this time," Francis said firmly. "I was blind before, but I don't intend to mistake things. You've been there for me and have become my closest friend. I don't remember having genuine fun or being a better man before you came around. I haven't said everything I wanted to you, to even say what you mean to me…But I can at least say that you mean everything to me."

Francis cupped her face in his hands, looking into her teary eyes and gazing at the pretty colors of the sunset that he'd come to see in them.

"I've waited too long and almost lost you," he said sorrowfully. "I don't want to keep you waiting, Atsushi."

He took a deep breath and leaned in, closing his eyes and kissing her deeply, wanting her to know just how much she'd come to mean to him.

As he moved back, he pressed his lips to hers several more times, over and over because he could finally kiss her and he couldn't make himself stop. He didn't want to stop.

"I love you, Atsushi. And I'm never going to let you go, do you hear me? Don't scare me like this ever again," his voice cracked at the end and he felt her wrap her arms around him tightly.

"I love you too," she sniffed and he felt her lips grazing his neck. "I love you so much, I thought I would be okay dying if I could just be with you until the end."

Moving away so he could give her a stern look, he shook his head vehemently.

"That's the stupidest thing," he was the one who gave her a finger poke to the forehead this time, stealing her move. "I would never have been happy with that."

He soothed her forehead with, instead of brushing her hair back as she was prone to doing with him, a tender kiss to where he'd poked her forehead.

"I promise you, as you know, that I probably would've just left this world to be condemned," he admitted, knowing that he wasn't selfless or a good enough man to care about this world like she would.

Francis wasn't self-righteous, wasn't normally kind, or caring enough about others or the world around him. He wasn't a good man really —he was better than he was, but that didn't mean he had become a saint. Still…

He wasn't sure if he had even been a man before Atsushi.

"There was a song I ran across the other day and it reminded me of you —everything about it reminded me of you and it was true in every way, more than I even thought it was. I am a man because you taught me to be one, darling. Everything I am now, is because of you."

And Francis swore that he'd love her until the day he died, because that was just how he loved.

༻❁༺

It was like a dream come true and not something Atsushi had realized would ever happen for her. To be so loved by Francis and have her affections be returned the way she wished they would…It was unbelievable.

But he'd confessed his love for her and had kissed her again and again, had looked her straight in the eyes and swore his feelings for her honestly.

And now he was holding onto her like he'd never wanted to let her go and they lay in her medical bed quietly basking in each other's presence and arms.

"We'll be okay, right?" she asked, voice small and unsure.

"Of course," he said, more certain than she felt.

She wanted to ask about his wife, but she'd never felt okay broaching the topic with him —even when they'd just been friends. But, as if he'd been reading her mind, he thoughtfully brushed his fingers through her hair again and again and spoke up about it himself.

"I have divorce papers ready in my office," he said calmly, but she'd looked up in shock at him regardless. "Miss Louisa had had them prepared for a while apparently. But she's always been efficient and observant, and probably knew this was coming before I did. And she's always wanted the best for you and I, and has always looked out for the two of us. She's always been hard-working and loyal to me, and she's quite fond of you, so this is something she'd be happy to know about. Us, that is."

A rush of affection went through her for the mousy woman and she'd have to thank her when she next saw Louisa May next.

"Are we…together? Are we really?" she asked tentatively.

Francis gave her a soft smile that made her heart thump in her chest and she was surprised and elated to not feel the urge to cough up anything.

"Nothing would make me happier, Atsushi. If you'd have me?"

She closed her eyes and kissed him.

"Always."

༻❁༺

Atsushi had been cleared soon enough, x-rays showing her chest clearing up. Whatever flower vines had been around her organs had begun to retreat within hours and disappeared quickly after those first new x-rays had been taken. The flowers and petals were slower to disappear, but —though she coughed them up —there was no blood and pain was minimal until there was no pain at all. Francis still couldn't find it in himself to think it cute —not again, not after what he'd seen what it had become and almost led to.

Instead, as promised, the two of them were walking hand in hand through Sankeien Garden when March rolled around; the first of their planned visits for the year.

Walking through the trees of cherry blossoms and watching the light-colored petals floating around them in the spring breeze, there was a sort of content warmth filling Francis at the moment.

"Are you happy?" Atsushi asked him shyly, as they stopped in the middle of the path, her sunset eyes gazing at him from under her long lashes.

He remembered her asking that very same question not too long ago, back when the days of her Hanahaki had begun, and he remembered his original answer.

Francis kissed his knuckles before tenderly brushing them against her cheek, cupping her jaw after.

"I told you last time that I thought I'd like to think I was as happy as I can be," he mused. "But now? I'm more than can be happy with where I am; with you, being together, with what I have now. I still miss my daughter and I wish all the best for Zelda…but you care for me and I care for you, and I'm more than happy right now, Atsushi."

He also remembered how she'd told him to smile more and how she thought it was one of the nicest smiles when he was happy. And being as happy as he was and wanting her to be just as happy, he let out one of the biggest smiles he could.

He was rewarded with one of his favorite smiles from her —bright and sweet, just like that first time.

Francis leaned in and kissed her, in the midst of pink flower petals that didn't mean the end of them, and murmured "I love you" against her lips as he fingered the ring box in his pocket.

Started 3/4/21 – Completed 3/4/21

A/n: And we finally reached the end! Whooo~ At least it was a happy ending, right? Did I worry you guys for a second? Lol, rest assured, this ended happily :D Hope you guys enjoyed the ride? Let me know how you've enjoyed it~

Quick Points:

1. I do have some side ideas, so there might be an Epilogue, an alternate end, and a divergent one-shot! Also have more Fitzatsu stories in store~ Hope you guys will be interested in those.

2. Louisa May ships them ;D

3. My Rare_Pair_Queen Twitter decidedly has a lot more writing, now that I've resolved to focus on it~

4. Or if you enjoy my writing, you could buy me a ko-fi? No pressure though. :D I also do commissions.