Nepeta is growing tired of the oleanders that claw (if the situation wasn’t so dire, she’d laugh at that word choice) up her throat when she thinks for too long. She knows why, she isn’t stupid. Well- She might be, but she’s a lovestruck one, and two adjectives are better than one.
Her lungs burn with every breath as she desperately heaves into a school toilet, as she violently coughs and prays any outside observers just think she’s vomiting, or having a coughing fit, anything that isn’t this.
Every second, every tick of a clock makes Nepeta’s throat itch more, and the roots making their home in her organs grow further, cutting her lifespan shorter. She wonders, although it’s a resigned sort of wonder- it’s more-so knowledge than anything, if this sickness will take her life, if she’ll be considered a tragedy for what happens.
... She knows she isn’t going to change anything, or stop loving Jade. Because it’s love, isn’t it, in the end. To be fully consumed by what you love isn’t such a bad thing, although her hands are shaking and in the moment- in the now, - she doesn’t realise this.
She hears a voice mumble something outside of the stall- It might be Eridan, or maybe Kanaya- She can only really hear her heartbeat, but she shouts a halfhearted “I’m okay!” nonetheless, and stands up.
She tries to hide the violent shake in her hands as she twists the knob to unlock & open the stall door. When she exits, she looks Kanaya dead in the eyes and grins, even though her muscles feel like they might snap apart if she tries to use them any longer. It hurts, but the alternative hurts more.
Not loving her, she means. Without that love, what is she? She knows there was a time where she didn’t love Jade, but every memory is blurry, stained by blood-stained rose tinted glasses.
She leaves the bathroom without speaking any more words to Kanaya, and heads to english class with the worries in her mind creeping, not dissimilar to the vines deep in her lungs.
———
Nepeta knows that her hanahaki is worsening. Every breath in spells a new kind of agony, a symphony that draws to an excruciating crescendo as she coughs up those oleanders, stained with the bright crimson of the blood they're continuously drawing.
She isn’t sad, oddly enough.
She’s tried to look on the positive side of things for a very long time, now, but she knows that hanahaki has very few positive sides.
She writes nothing at all, slowly, in a notebook that’s supposed to be for English class. Oh well- It’s... It’s not like she’ll be going there for much longer, anyway. She tries not to think about that.
I love you, she writes, as if that’ll ever actually matter. She wonders if the love of the dead goes somewhere after they’re gone.
It’s not as bleak as it all seems; because she loves her.
Nobody would understand, and she almost regrets telling Vriska to confess, because she now knows that if she ever tells anyone, it’ll get around to Vriska, and she’ll tell her the exact same thing;
Confess.
She doesn’t know why it’s such a daunting concept, or why it draws panic almost as harsh as the flowers through her body.
Her brain is beginning to loop the same thoughts, over and over, a constant stream of I love her, I love her, I love her- as if she didn’t already know that.
Nepeta wonders if her heart is skipping a beat, or if it’s about to stop.
——
Nepeta’s shipping chart is a mess, by now, filled with little doodles of Jade, over and over. That’s fine, though. It’s one of the few things she can fix by now.
--And of course that’s when Jade decides to sneak up behind her. Nepeta snaps the book closed, a panic response, and decides to act like her usual self, or as close as she can imitate.
“Jade!” She greets, genuinely excited, and Jade laughs, a sweet thing that rings like bells through Nepeta’s stomach, leaving pain in their wake- not that Nepeta even cares. “Nepeta!” She greets just the same, and Nepeta’s guilt is drowned out by the love she feels.
Nepeta loves her, and it should be a crime that it’s stained by the knowledge that she’ll be leaving so soon.
She isn’t jealous, though- She can only pray Jade finds love, or something that makes her happy, once she’s gone.
——
Nepeta leans over the toilet in her home, the one place where she should be safe, and coughs up oleanders, colour only ruined by the blood that comes with them.
There’s blood on the floor by now, staining everything the colour of love and passion, and Nepeta knows that everything is now a clock, ticking down rapidly.
She refuses to stop loving, ever, and she knows that getting help, or support, means she’d be hauled in front of a bunch of doctors, who might find her interesting, but would never care about her situation.
So she’s going to die.
——
It happens when she’s going about her usual routine, hacking up flowers in a school toilet. She covers her mouth with her hand, desperately, and manages to close the stall door before anyone sees.
And then she hears someone enter. “What the fuck?” They say, and Nepeta recognises that voice.
Vriska.
Vriska knocks on the closed stall door, so strong that the weak door shakes slightly. “U- Uhm, it’s-” Nepeta tries to say, to which Vriska immediately realises it's her.
She has made a mistake. “Why the fuck is there blood? Holy shit, is that a peta-“
Knowing what Vriska is about to say, and terrified of making it real, Nepeta opens the stall, a petal still hanging out of her mouth, and she runs.
She knows Vriska is faster than her, but she hopes to lose her in a hallway or two, so she follows every twist and turn, picks her second choice at every fork in the road. (although she does end up nearly knocking a few innocent students over)
Her phone buzzes, and hesitantly, ever so hesitantly, she opens it.
arachnidsGrip > arsenicCatnip
AG: Listen.
AG: You’ve got it, don’t you?
AC: i don’t know what you’re talking about, vriskurrs!
AG: How many times have i told you to stop calling me that by now
Nepeta takes a deep, shuddering breath in.
AG: Ugh. Listen, it’s kind of obvious now.
AG: Have you confessed yet?
AC: ...
AC: no
AG: Called it. Confess.
Nepeta is fully aware of what Vriska is like when pushed, so she closes her phone.
The fear wrapping itself around her veins is a lot more potent on the way home. She wonders what’ll happen when she’s gone.
——
Vriska’s idea has been following Nepeta like a virus. She’s going to die, so what would it matter if she got rejected?
She wants to confess so very badly that it’s almost as painful as the hanahaki. Almost.
Lately, it’s been getting worse. Her thoughts are disjointed, although they still ring out I love her every few minutes. Her movement isn’t the same, stilted like she’s poorly reanimated, and she still notices Vriska’s gaze lingering too long on her. Nobody else has noticed.
Every so often, Vriska catches her in a hallway alone, and only tells her to confess with a steely gaze. She wonders what it was like to feel it all disappear like a bad dream, and wishes that she’d get the chance to feel it too.
This thought follows her, and aches every time she thinks about it. Why does it hurt so much? Why does everything hurt, now? Isn’t love supposed to be good and kind and everything that Nepeta wishes she could be?
She doesn’t understand, and that’s the worst part of it all. It used to be easy, used to be a simple question of ‘do i love her,’ with the simple answer of ‘yes’, and now it’s just her death.
Nepeta doesn’t want to die. She wants the chance to fall in love again, to find somebody that does love her back, that finds some sort of value in the worst parts of her, even if she hides them desperately, feverishly.
Nepeta wants Jade to love her so desperately that it hurts, leaves her nerve endings alight with agony, to the point where she struggles to move some hours, and moves with all the grace of her clumsy stumble through love for others.
... She wants Jade to love her.
She grips the pen in her hand so tightly that it creaks, ominously. She wants Jade to love her.
Nepeta takes a deep breath in, although it burns for what might, hopefully, be the last time.
She’s going to confess, and if she dies, then that’s... fine.
… Because she loves her.