Bittersweet

Desire

On Monday he felt fine enough to go to work, it seemed like he had gotten whatever it was out of his system, but he was incredibly grateful that Wil had already set up a doctor’s appointment, and told him as such, assuring Wilbur that he knew how serious it was. After a nurse gave a quick check up, his doctor came in and asked what was wrong.

“It’s my throat, I’m suddenly needing my inhaler pretty often and I keep coughing something up, but nothing showed up on the x-ray.”

“Something? Blood?”

“No, it’s like, a rose I think? I brought some.” Reaching into his jacket pocket he attempted to pull out what he hadn’t touched since Sunday. In his hand was what felt like crusty tissues, mostly different shades of purple, with some pink and flecks of white mixed in. “It wasn’t crumbly then, but...”

“Open up, let me get a look.” Eventually the doctor used a swab to remove a layer of indigo not much bigger than a fingernail. “If it’s organic it wouldn’t show up on an x-ray. You said something about a rose?”

“Yeah, I was coughing and suddenly there was a rose in my hand, I swear I don’t know where it might’ve come from. And there have been more flowers, or something like that.” Techno hands clenched with panic, digging his nails into his palms while the doctor ran a series of tests and reviewed the data, noticeably confused.

Finally, he turned around with a serious look on his face. "Unfortunately, this seems to be unprecedented, at least in this area. I'll have to do more research and contact some colleagues. In the meantime, we just have to manage your symptoms, which aren't too bad. I can prescribe some specialized steroids to keep your throat from closing up, which has long been an option to treat your COPD. The main issue is that you’d have to stop taking adderall, having strong doses of two different stimulants in your body is highly inadvisable, even if they target different areas.”

“Any other options?” Techno meekly asked, reminded of the horrors of his college years.

“Cough drops should do much of the same thing, and there are some brands that are extra potent I can help you find.”

He arrived home a little under an hour later with an armful of cough drops and a bit of hope. After letting Phil, Tommy, and Wilbur know he was okay, at least mostly, he flopped down on the couch for a rare midday nap. Except a couple minutes later he wasn’t tired. Restless, he started scrolling through his phone, noticing that he hadn’t talked to Dream recently. It would be good to let him know about his health situation given how urgently he had left the last time they spoke, he might’ve even seen the mess of flower petals in the hallway.

A shy smile pushing up the corners of his lips, he sent a brief recap of what he’d told the others, adding a few emojis to add some lighthearted fun. For longer than he’d like to admit he watched the conversation, seeing his message get marked as read not long after he sent it. A little celebration icon came shortly after that, but those three little dots indicating that Dream was typing something remained. Nervous, Techno didn’t watch for long before setting his screen out of sight. Staring at the ceiling he started to giggle in a way he would never do while Wilbur was around. It was fun to have a crush, an unwavering wellspring of dopamine.

A ding rung out and Techno snatched up his phone. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help!” He smiled wide, drafting up the usual polite refusal. But then he stopped. Maybe it would be worth it to be a little bit selfish while he had an excuse. After all, he had just learned the value of inching out of his comfort zone.

“Well I am pretty hungry, dinner?”

The place Dream was reviewing tonight was cute, a small yet busy Central American family restaurant with brightly colored chairs. He was coughing a bit when Dream showed up, despite the lingering bitterness of a cough drop, but there weren’t any flower petals on his coat sleeve, so they walked in and got a table without incident.