It started with harmless eye contact, innocuous brushing of hands, innocent smiles. He didn't even notice the garden that was growing inside him until a petal had sprung out from his lips.
Perhaps it was her courage that caused the first flower to bloom inside his chest. Or maybe it was the unusual way his name seemed to tumble carelessly from her lips. Or maybe it was when he first watched-saw, he does not stare-her writing a letter, focused, uncaring, and just absolutely breathtaking.
Perhaps it was all of it. He didn't know anymore, there were too many flowers to count now.
He would cough them out in the hallway, in the kitchen, when he's soaring through the trees, at night when he lays in bed. There wasn't a day when petals wouldn't fall from his mouth, bloody and golden, beautiful and lethal.
Of course, everytime the flowers-they stopped coming one at a time three days after the first and now come in boquets-would come out, he would always quickly close his mouth, never allowing anyone to see the blossom he was hiding behind his lips.
He could list at least 5 reasons why it was a bad idea. He is her commanding officer. She is his subordinate. They live in a time where life is uncertain and the only thing permanent is death. She's young, so much younger than him that it unsettled him. She's confused between admiration and love. She deserves more. She deserves more than what he can offer.
So, before anyone could see it, before she could see it, he swallows them whole and hope he doesn't throw it up the next time he sees her.
Every time she laughed or talked or smile-or did anything really-he could feel the soft petals of a flower caressing the walls of his lungs, creeping up his spine, ensnaring his heart.
He was slowly, slowly falling in love with her.
And it fucking suffocated him.