I'm back with a request for StarKingdom99!
Shipping: SplendidxFlaky
Rating: T
Word: Rose
Warning: A little blood in the beginning.
xXx
Pain.
Crushing pain.
It was all that Flaky was feeling, her lower body on fire and resulting in each of her wails being louder than the last. The redhead's pale face was lit up with dancing orange and yellow lights, her lips parted in pain filled cries. Her crimson eyes watered with agony induced tears, the gas from the exhaust pipes of crashed cars around her burning and blurring her vision.
She had pulled her eyes away from the two way road for an instance to look at Lammy, the French girl laughing, laughing before the fear overcame her and she screamed. She had pointed to the barreling truck in front of them, grabbing the wheel and turning it, unsuccessfully spinning the car ninety degrees. Her side had taken the full blow, the window shattering into pieces and her head lurching forward to bang against the glove compartment.
Scream fading as the glass shards plunged into her throat, hands curling around her tattered neck, Flaky had witnessed her friend dying. It had saved her from the heat and smothering smoke, but it hadn't saved the driver. She had been left alone to scream herself hoarse, clawing desperately at her seatbelt, as the screeching and tearing of metal sounded for miles.
She had covered her head when the other windows cracked and showed her in their shards, screaming pleas for help as her friend's body was smashed in its seat. It had been pushed to lean on her arm and soaking her in the blood of someone she knew—the trickle of the liquid gushing when the useless airbag blew out and slammed against the corpse. The force had lodged the shards deeper, practically draining her body as the wounds widened, the coppery fluid soaking and permanently staining the seats.
The girl had forced down the safety bag and clenched her eyes, one last drawn out scream exiting her, as her own side was rammed into the thick trunk of a tree, engine catching fire and the smoke billowing to the sky.
Strength a silly dream in this burning reality, Flaky had stayed strapped in her seat, a deep cut on her forehead from where she had hit the bent metal of the door, and stared glossy eyed at the rising flames. The smell of gas fumes and ashes combined was enough for her to feel woozy, light headed, and unable to think up a solution for her escape. Or would it be okay to stay seated and let fate take her; the fire would make a nice blanket, it was already warming her toes through her boots, and the thickening cloud of black swirling around her was turning her drowsy. She could just sit there . . and close her eyes . . No one would even be bothered by her screams when she felt her skin burning, they didn't care.
Sniffling, she looked at the bloodied mess that was her friend, then at her hands, shining in the fire light and reflecting it off the streaks of red. Her fingers shook no matter how hard she tried keeping them still. Suffocating on the ash filled air, her fingers hurriedly trailed the seatbelt down and pressed the release button. Difficulty ensured from the start as she struggled to push the mashed button hard enough, giving up and squirming out of its restricting hold.
She had looked to Lammy, knowing that, though she was deceased, it would haunt her to recall that she had left her in the car to burn into charred bits. The scent of skin burning, much like hair burning, was unpleasant and sent her stomach into knots as she grabbed her arms. Breathing through shut teeth, she closed her eyes against the smoke and slid the violet haired girl from her seat. It took the dreamt up strength, but Flaky managed to drag her over the backseat and, kicking the harmful shards that stood upright, pulled her onto the glass littered road.
Soot and caked blood smeared across her face, her will to carry the girl was going away as her arms screamed against the heavy lifting. She had murmured that it would be alright, dropping on the ground and having to scoot away on her backside, legs shaking and threatening to buckle under her at any time. She was soothingly brushing the friend's matted hair away, when she heard the resistant groan, followed by the shriek of metal being ripped away from its melded frame. Flaky had hit the floor as an outburst of heated flames overtook her car and singed the ends of her hair.
The trunk flung open and released another pillar of fire, a flaming tire flying out and bouncing on the road. It was heading in their direction, and she could only pray without hope that it would turn. The flames were quenched with each roll and whatever lingered when it reached her was forgotten, it towering over the two and swaying precariously. Flaky had tried retracting her legs back, but gravity had had its effect on it too soon.
It had fallen, the melting rubber burning through her stockings, the flesh beneath the thin material turning raw.
Flaky's chest heaved as it was taking all her effort to breath in the toxic air, her taste buds tasting the acidic, bitterness of the ashes that traveled and scraped against the inside of her throat. The tire's flames had leapt up and hungrily eaten at her sweater. Its touch was light, leaving a desirable warmth mingled with pain on her abdomen and tracing its gas fingers on her blackened skin. Her hand laid at her hip, inching outwards and curling around the cooling fingers of her friend.
The pain was there, but her voice was far too scratchy and rough to be heard by anyone. The car crash had been on a route outside of the normal streets and highways of the town; she doubted anyone would know she was there. And if they did, they'd expect her to already be dead, not nearing death.
Slipping into the sleep that she wanted, she imagined seeing a person clad in blue behind the wall of fire. Their sky colored eyes were horrified as they panicked, looking for a path through the fire that would reach her. They shouted something incoherent, her ears dull and hearing only the crackling around her. Imagining that they had given up searching for the path and held their arms to their face, running through the wall and enduring the flames that licked at them, she let her eyes drift close.
"Flaky!" the voice was near her, above her, and it sounded so realistic. "Flaky?! Oh my G-d! F-Flaky!?" The imagined man put his hands on her shoulders and shook her, tone pained and angry. "Open your eyes! Open your damn eyes! Flaky stop it!" His arms scooped her up bridal style, her head rolling to the side and face pressed into his chest. She caught the smoky scent that layered the smell of baked bread in the morning.
He looked around, panicky, and whispered, "Shit. Flaky, Flaky, stay with me, you're going to be okay . ." His throat contracted and he had to chomp down on his tongue, holding the vile down as he saw the shredded throat of the girl next to her. The waves of fire had reached her before he had came, and crawled over the expanse of her body-the unconscious female must not have realized it.
"Don't worry . . I'm going to get us out of here . ." He needed to, and fast. Her wheezes reached his ear and he hadn't even known how long she had been breathing in the contaminated air in the first place. She would've been . . . if she hadn't been near the ground, unaware that she was breathing in what little oxygen there was.
"Don't worry, Flaky, don't worry . ."
xXx
The squeaking of shoes and wheels against the pine washed floors was the sound that had been sounding in his ears for the last two hours besides a tense silence that lay over the hospital room. Patients that waited with family were settled in chairs along the walls and read through news and gossip magazines. Deprived of interesting topics or juicy pieces of news to converse about, the groups had resigned to thumbing through the biographies and historical novels that the cleverest had thought to bring along, disregarding the powered on TV set placed for all to view in the corner. The only person who wasn't preoccupied by a reading material of some sort or the news was the man in blue sitting on the edge of the chair.
He was well built in stature, blue bangs hanging messily in his clouded eyes, with the look of someone who had a heavy burden on their shoulders. His jumpsuit sweater was unzipped, the red shirt underneath showing, and host to various dark circles, sweat pants folded to end below his knees, and the soles of his tennis shoes were covered in ash. Splendid's bedraggled appearance was the main cause for why the two chairs besides him remained empty, the patients assuming the worst of a man who appeared to be in a fire. He could have cared less about what they thought of him.
They couldn't change his reason for being at the hospital with their thoughts. He wasn't enjoying the curious stares they had, but he wasn't going to send a snappish comment that he would have created on the spot or a hateful glare. He had business to attend to and he wasn't allowing himself to be riled up by unintended things, like their eyes that swept from his ash coated face to his bandaged hands.
His own stare was cast to the square tiles in the floor, following their never-ending lines down the hall that she was wheeled down in. He grew hope as a door opened, only to give way to an older man in a wheelchair and hospital gown pushed by a hefty, male nurse. Splendid's eyes dropped once more, this time to land on the empty chair to his right.
It wasn't exactly empty, he would say, it did occupy one thing; a fully bloomed rose, its thorns bent off by his already scorched hands so its stem was smooth. The silky petals were a crimson that reminded him of the eyes of another, the beauty did not, however, compare to hers. Her eyes were bright and filled with admiration for everything that moved. They loved to see others happy, they sparkled in even the darkest of lights, and they were the eyes that he had looked in when he had asked for her hand in marriage.
He wouldn't forget the overwhelming emotions and the tears that popped from them as she sobbed out a yes. They had been so beautiful, and he had seen them only that same morning, cheerful as she told him that she was going out with a friend. Neither of them had expected any wrong event to happen, they never thought that she would be in a horrible car crash when he wrapped his arms around her waist and planted a kiss on her head. Nor had she imagined that her giggles would turn into cries as she grabbed his chin in her hand, daintily standing taller and molding their lips together before she left.
If he had known . . he would have told her to go another day . . would have insisted on taking a different route . . would have stopped that truck if he could have . . . But he hadn't. That was the cruel reality of it, he hadn't done anything but say goodbye to her and he couldn't change that. He told her to be careful everyday, and this time he just told her to have a nice day, it was his fault that she was in that damned hospital room, getting fussed over by doctors who dared touch what was only his, instead of having a fun time with her friend.
No, he wasn't going to cry in public where everyone would see and judge him for something they knew nothing about. He wasn't going to let the aching in his heart spread further than his chest. He wasn't allowing the 'what if's enter his mind and fill him with depression, he would stay strong, he had to.
For her.
A doctor in a pressed coat came out of a door, flipping and scanning papers on a clipboard. He was blonde and young looking, but his eyes, the color of a deep pond, held wisdom that surpassed Splendid, along with a graveness as he neared the news reporter. He offered his hand, apologizing and putting it in his pocket when he noticed the bandages. "Sorry about that, Mr. Splendid?"
"It's fine," Splendid replied, standing and feeling no better when he saw that he was taller than the medical worker. "You can just call me Splendid . . . So, how's Flaky doing?"
"Well," doctors weren't inclined to lie. "She's doing okay, at best." so he didn't. His clipboard covered his nametag so Splendid didn't get a chance to catch his name before he continued. "We're assuming that she was breathing in that smoke for, say, ten to fifteen minutes. Twenty at most. It's a wonder she didn't faint sooner, by what you tell us she slipped into unconsciousness when you arrived?"
"That's right . . She was half awake, but she wouldn't answer to anything I said."
"Very well, but you must know that in taking such high amounts of harmful gases that is littered with debris, the ashes in this case, would have an effect on her lungs and the way they function." He turned the clipboard to the reporter and pointed at the two graphs on the front page. Pointing at a green graph, he said, "This is the average person's breathing rate, an estimated forty to fifty breaths per minute."
Splendid dreaded to hear the rest, looking at the graph, the numbers distinctly lower than the other. "And this one . . ?"
"That is Flaky's breathing rate, an estimated ten to fifteen breaths per minute. Now it wouldn't have been bad if she was breathing in slowly, but from what our nurses have recorded, her breaths are jumpy, uneven, struggled."
"S-so she's gonna have to stay overnight or . ."
The doctor motioned him to follow, walking back down the hallway. Splendid grabbed the rose, a petal falling off, and followed after him, face stony. "Mr. Splendid, you don't seem to understand this. Her burns are third degree and cover over sixty-eight percent of her body. Even if she made it, she'd have to go through some rehabilitation to see if her nerves are still intact . . ."
He went on, but Splendid had stopped trying to understand what he was saying. His ears were pounding and hand tightening around the stem of the flower, another petal dropping behind them. He hadn't heard the doctor correctly, that was it, he had thought he said if instead of when, he must've had something blocking his ear canal. That was exactly why. Though, the coldness that grew in his stomach was saying otherwise. It was as though ice had been poured down his shirt or a storm he had been caught in without an umbrella.
"She's in a critical state," Splendid zoned back in. "We have her wrapped in gauze, but we're not sure if the pain medications are helping her, she hasn't been respondent to any of our treatments."
"Can I see her," Splendid asked suddenly.
The doctor stopped his feet and respectively said, "Mr. Splendid, this is a lot to comprehend, perhaps you should take a seat. You could sit here in the hall or outside her door, but—"
"Can I see her or not?" he questioned more roughly. "Just give me a yes or a no."
"Yes," the blonde hesitated, "you can see her . . . but I really do suggest you processing this before you go—"
"Which room is she in?"
He wasn't going to get off it, he should might as well tell him. "You are doing this at your own request, and I would like to wish you the best of luck on her recovery. Staff members and I will be a button's click away if you need us. She's in the room down this hall, take a left at the next corner, and the fourth door or the right will be hers."
Splendid thanked him, starting off in a jog and following the young doctor's instructions for getting to her room. For every step he took, his jog turning into a run when he turned the corner and saw no one, the rose's petals detached from it and drifted to land on the tiles. He counted the numbers in his mind, feeling the clock tick away the time as he thought, Okay fourth door, that'd be 74 . . . 75 . . . 76 . . . 77! Halting, he grabbed the knob, but he couldn't bring himself to open the door.
The doctor had said that she wasn't respondent . . which meant she wasn't awake . . If he wasn't able to face seeing her body, the body his hands had trailed over lovingly so many times at night, wrapped up and her hurting . .
The blue eyes rested on the silver band on his fourth finger and he, again, thought of seeing her there in pain. Right now, she was alone, and he had promised her that he would always be there, and be her hero. Splendid took a bracing breath, and opened the door.
His arm fell off the handle and limply hung by his side, eyebrows curving upwards as he stepped quietly into the room, the beeping of the heart monitor getting louder as he brushed his hand against the end of her covers. True to the doctor's word, the redhead was wrapped tightly in gauze, the bandages covering her arm where she had been closest to Lammy's burning corpse and stretched across her chest that wasn't hidden by the blanket.
". . Flaky . ." As he sat down in the seat next to her, rubbing his eyes, he put the rose on the bed edge. He laid a shaking hand by hers, saddened eyes shutting when he intertwined their fingers. "I should've known this would happen . . I'm so sorry Flaky . . I'm so sorry . . Can you wake up and say you forgive me . ."
Beep. Beep. Beep.
"If I had only known that-" leaning his elbow and forearm on the cushion, he stared at the tube placed in her nose. "I would've . . told you I love you times ten . . Wake up, Flaky, you have so much to live for . . for us . . ." He hesitated, leaning over her and pressing his lips to the same place he had in the morning. Eyes shutting, he held himself there, nose smelling the acrid scent of smoke clinging to her hair and covering the strawberry shampoo she used, before sitting back down, lips tight.
"I brought you a rose . . If you woke up you would see how pretty it is . . and you'd hear me tell you how many ways your more lovely than it is . ."
Beep. Beep. Beep.
"You don't want to see it? It's your favorite flower, I remember you telling me that on our first date, and how I bought a bushel for you the next time . . I wanted to see the cute smile you had when I showed them to you . . If you just opened your eyes then . . I know you'll be better by tomorrow . . but by then it'll be wilted . ."
Splendid, lips puckering, blinked three times to clear his vision. He held a fist to his mouth and looked towards an empty corner of the room to collect his thoughts.
"I guess that's all I have to say right now, besides get better, which I know you will . . I hope your dreaming of something happy . . Maybe you're even thinking of our wedding day . ." Forcing a smile, he slowly laid his head on her chest and relished in her, faint, heartbeat. He couldn't say anymore, a soft tear rolling down and cleaning a line of soot from his cheek, staining the baby blue sheets with a dark gray circle.
He opened his eyes as a tender hand weakly ran through his hair, a coarse voice whispering, "M-my hero . . ."
Beeeeep . . .
Splendid couldn't work up the courage to look at the heart monitor and see the line that told his fiancé was, "G-gone . ." He forced another close lipped smile, eyes dead and no emotion stirring in them as he softly kissed the warmth fading lips of the redheaded girl.
As the line had gone on, the last petal of the rose had fallen off and left it bare, naked, and no longer beautiful.
xXx
This was originally going to be a funny one shot, what happened!? All of this from the word rose ._. So this was sorta AU, as in, Splendid doesn't have powers and there is no curse.
Up Next:
LiftyxFlaky /T/ Cold Night for koyamon-lover
NuttyxFlaky (platonic) /T/ Bitter for Ratty4949 (for this one can you clarify what you mean by platonic? I looked up the word, means a friendship with no romantically feelings and . . ?!)
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FliqpyxFlipped!Flaky /M (for gore)/ Revenge for xXxVampire-HimexXx
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SneakyxFlaky /T/ Traitor for InazumaGhostKing 0.0
NuttyxFlaky /T/ Jealousy for crystallosercacaface19 *troll face*
. . . *stabs Crystal and slaps her corpse*
