Work Text:
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
- from [i carry your heart with me(i carry it in], e.e. cummings
+++
Love can eat you alive if you’re not careful about it. Some people have so much it can’t help but grow up and out of the body, manifesting as flowers and vines under the skin; an indicator of how much you want and want and forget to let yourself have. A garden that stops being a secret.
And it can go too far: if you love someone and they don’t love you back, your bones will turn to wood and your body into blossoms, and pretty soon — you’re just a tree, right, so you start composting your own flesh and blood and putting out roots until everything human is gone and just the heartwood remains. It can happen to anyone: parents who lose a child, a twin who dies before their sibling. It’s not just for lovers.
In Keith’s experience, though, it’s for lovers. That’s what happened to Keith’s dad. Keith’s mom left and Pop got thinner and thinner, his sun-bronzed skin hardening into bark, until he turned into a bent and gnarled version of himself. It had been painful to watch, and Keith will never forget the day Pop smiled at Keith across the breakfast table before stumbling out of the house and into a hole he’d dug in the garden. He had just enough bend in his trunk to cover his feet before he rooted there.
Keith took a cutting from that tree when he was sent into foster care. One of the social workers, the one who managed his case until high school, made sure Keith always had the right supplies to take care of that cutting, and even sent a note to his last group home encouraging the coordinator to help Keith enroll in a horticulture elective. Keith met Shiro outside that classroom, when Shiro had been slouched in the hallway trying to finish his botanical illustration homework before his own class started. It felt like destiny.
Thanks in part to those supplies and extracurriculars, Keith has spent the past two decades training the cutting into a bonsai. His dad is always with him. He was never much of a talker, so it’s like he never left.
Having grown up with a visible reminder of what love costs, Keith planned on avoiding the subject entirely. But life doesn’t always turn out the way you plan, and you’ve got to roll with it. That’s what Shiro says, when he’s not telling Keith to be patient or to have a little more discipline.
Shiro forgets sometimes: Keith works with plants for a living. He knows all about waiting.
That’s how it happens for Keith: he falls in love with Shiro in fits and starts, the way Shiro seeks Keith out and encourages him — the way Shiro makes jokes at Keith’s expense, jokes that aren’t mean enough to bully. Being around Shiro has helped Keith harden off from the things that bother him, has helped Keith become a stronger sort of person before. If his heart become fuel for the fire is the side effect, well: he wouldn’t have had this much delight without Shiro around, so it seems like a decent payoff. Keith can accept that he’s his father’s son.
Keith’s got a routine by now. He wakes up, examines the way his skin is changing. He used to have freckles; now he’s starting to get wood grain, spiraling out from the old pigment. Keith knows that he’s in love with Shiro, knows that it’s slowly becoming a central part of him.
It doesn’t hurt.
Keith spends most of his time in the humid greenhouse attached to his flower shop, and in some ways, he’s healthier than ever. He sees Shiro almost every day. It’s an incredible luxury, one Keith is grateful for. Some day, his blood will turn to sap and his skin will turn to bark and Keith will end up as a tree, just like his father. He’s got a big planter set up in the corner of the greenhouse where the panels can be removed if he’s got to bring in a load of compost; whoever owns the place next will be able to cart him out, and maybe even replant him. Keith thinks it would be nice if he could be planted near Shiro, maybe provide some shade and offset his utility bills; he read somewhere that planting a tree near a house keeps it cooler in summer. Shiro hates the heat.
But until that day comes, Keith has work to do. Flowers to sell, people to see, and endless cups of coffee to drink.
“You’re on time this morning,” Shiro meets him at the door of the greenhouse with a thermos of coffee in his outstretched hand. Without even opening the lid, Keith knows it will be brewed and sweetened just the way he likes, frothed with oat milk. “I saw you biking down the street right when I took the pot off the burner, so I figured I’d meet you on your way in.”
Shiro lives in an apartment above his tattoo shop, on the other half of the mixed-use property where Keith’s greenhouse and flower shop are located. He’s the reason Keith even wanted to buy property in this part of town: Shiro’s always made him feel like there was space for Keith to grow. For someone who doesn’t know shit about tending to plants, Shiro has the soul of a gardener. He cultivates.
“I’ve told you before,” Keith says, and gulps a mouthful of coffee. It’s the perfect temperature for drinking. Shiro must have added an ice cube to the bottom of the cup so Keith wouldn’t burn his tongue. “I don’t have posted hours, it’s impossible for me to be early or late.”
“And I know that sunflowers can tell time, so you don’t have an excuse,” Shiro says. Ridiculous. Keith doesn’t grow sunflowers. “You need discipline.”
“Tell me that again at Daylight Savings,” Keith says. “Maybe I’ll believe you.”
He raises his free hand to push past Shiro and open the door, and that’s when things fall apart.
“Keith,” Shiro says, reaching out to grab hold of his hand. He’s gone serious and intent, in a way Keith hasn’t seen directed at himself since Shiro convinced him he was worth securing a business loan for. “What’s wrong with your arm?”
Keith’s jacket sleeve has ridden up, exposing the new-wood gloss emerging from under his skin. The bark looks different in full light: when he examined it in the privacy of his bedroom, Keith had thought it looks almost handsome, like a tattoo in subtle ink. Now it looks more like a burn scar, nothing like the organic, winsome lifework he’s seen on Shiro’s arms and in Shiro’s portfolio. It looks exactly like skin that’s petrifying into wood.
Keith’s a bad liar. He doesn’t bother with it now, just keeps on withholding that little seed of truth when he says, “it looks worse than it is.” As he speaks, he can feel the bark rising along the protuberance of his extended wrist.
“It looks bad enough,” Shiro says. A pause — he doesn’t let go of Keith’s hand, just keeps examining the way Keith’s skin is starting to transform. The moment lasts so long that Keith doesn’t know what else to do but continue drinking his coffee.
“You know about my dad,” Keith says later, after Shiro’s gone back to his shop to flip the sign to closed and refill the thermos, and then come back again to sit like a gargoyle at one end of Keith’s workbench. It’s hot, the greenhouse trapping the sun and making the whole space fester with humidity; Keith’s given up on the idea of camouflage and subtlety and has stripped down to a tee shirt so he can work on an order of corsages without dragging long sleeves through a stray dish of oasis.
“You mean,” Shiro jerks his head meaningfully at the little bonsai that watches over Keith’s domain, “that’s not just where you put his ashes?”
“He was a fireman,” Keith says, scandalized. “I’d never burn him, that’s gotta be against a rule. So that’s a cutting from the original tree — ”
“Not sure how amputating your dad’s finger and re-growing it into a houseplant is less morbid than cremation, but fine — ”
“Shiro.” The bark on his arms itches, but the extra moisture in the workroom helps mitigate it somewhat, which in turn helps Keith keep his hands on his work. Who orders fifteen corsages made from hydrangea? It’s pretty, sure, but it’s going to wilt about five minutes after the customer finishes pinning it into place. Hydrangeas are too thirsty for this kind of adornment. “It runs in the family, is all.”
Shiro huffs. By now, after years of friendship and yearning proximity, Keith is familiar with the underlying meaning of that vocalization: Shiro’s dissatisfied with the answer and is about to counter with the full force of his irritation and innate charisma.
“You don’t deserve this,” Shiro tells him. He has an unshakable conviction that Keith is good, that Keith is worthy — it makes Keith love Shiro all the more, really, because who else would believe that and act accordingly? “Keith. You can’t give up on yourself. Let me help you.”
And Keith — knows how this story is going to end, so what’s the harm?
“I’d be honored,” he says. He ties a perfect bow around the floral tape disgusting the stems of the last corsage. “You can start now. These need to go on the delivery shelf in the cooler, let me label the boxes and then you can do my heavy lifting for me.”
“Wow,” Shiro deadpans. “Fifteen hydrangea corsages in cardboard. You’ve got real faith in my weightlifting routine if you think I can manage all that.”
+++
“I must know,” Allura says at their monthly coffee date, “when did you ask Keith to move in with you? I’ve been waiting on this development with baited breath, I thought you’d drag your feet for another few months at least, maybe until after the next big holiday when sad husbands order flowers for their wives. What is it about calendars that prompts such resentment?”
“I asked Keith to move in with me because it doesn’t make sense for him to rent a place when I have a spare room right next to his shop,” Shiro says, because he’s not about to spill the beans on Keith’s condition. Keith’s been living with him for almost three weeks and if it weren’t for how Keith is slowly turning into a goddamn tree, they would be the most rewarding weeks of Shiro’s very rewarding life to date.
“Boo,” Allura informs him. “Why would he need a spare room? Surely you don’t hog the covers.”
“Keith deserves his own space,” Shiro says. “And that includes a bed.”
“Shiro, I’m disappointed.” Allura stirs her latte three times counterclockwise, disrupting the fern the barista crafted atop the foam. “I thought you made a move.”
Shiro’s disappointed too. He’s imagined living with Keith plenty of times over the years, and the reality of it — walking into the kitchen and catching sight of Keith making coffee shirtless, sleepy and ruffled and illuminated by the sun that floods in through the east window — is marred by the way Shiro can see Keith’s skin slowly turn from flesh to wood. It looks a little like scar tissue from far away, like something Shiro could soothe if he had any caretaking abilities whatsoever. He doesn’t. Shiro’s better at fixing other people’s mistakes; it’s why he’s so in-demand as a tattoo artist. If the shading across Keith’s shoulders and right arm were just scar tissue, Shiro could absolutely transform it into something life-affirming with just his tattoo gun and inks — but instead this is a sign that Keith is dying because some fool has committed the unforgivable offense of being loved by Keith, and not loving Keith in return. Unthinkable.
“No,” Shiro says instead. “He just moved in.”
Honestly, it’s a good thing Keith doesn’t have to commute to the flower shop by bike any longer. His joints are starting to stiffen up and his knees don’t bend as easily as they used to.
“Good thing I have a standing desk,” was all Keith said when he noticed.
Shiro’s not about to stand by while these changes occur, though. After his meeting with Allura he stops by the pharmacy and procures an economy-sized bottle of mineral oil. He coaxes Keith into sitting at Shiro’s feet so he can massage the patches of wood emerging from Keith’s skin. He spends at least an hour every night rubbing Keith’s back and arms, coaxing the skin back into pliability.
“You’re doing me a favor,” Shiro tells him. It’s not really a lie: the oil feels good on Shiro’s skin, too, and performing a massage is mutually beneficial. It helps stretch out any cramps and twinges Shiro collects throughout his daily work. He feels settled afterwards, less like he’s still working on a client and more like he’s a person with a body all his own.
Also: Shiro loves touching Keith. He’s always made a point of doing so and Keith’s only grown more responsive over the years. Massage is a natural progressions from the lingering hugs and shoulder touches, at least the way Shiro goes about it. It’s immensely gratifying to feel how tension seeps out of Keith’s shoulders, how the constant knot at the base of his neck unravels with each press of Shiro’s knuckles; since Shiro knows about the whole tree thing, Keith’s taken to wearing fewer layers, and he forges a shirt entirely when Shiro rubs his back.
“I shouldn’t let you do this,” Keith sighs. “You’re too good at this. I can’t possibly pay you back.”
Shiro slips his flesh hand down the side of Keith’s neck, coaxing him back so Shiro can follow the line of Keith’s neck from below his chin, down his throat, past his collarbones. This part, here: it’s still all skin, and it’s warm and lovely, a little flushed with the heat of the day and Shiro’s touch. Keith has a couple of moles on his chest and they’re the most human, reassuring blemish Shiro’s ever laid eyes on.
“I don’t want you to pay me,” he says. “Lean against me a little bit, there you go. This is good for my hands.” He kneads his prosthetic fingers into the little divot at Keith’s nape, feeling for the persistent knot he knows is there. “But if you insist, you can tackle my back once I finish yours.”
“Sold,” Keith exhales the word, and it sounds like he’s shaking the branch of a tree when he speaks.
When they eventually switch roles, Shiro flops facedown on a yoga mat and enjoys the way Keith kneels astride his ass, the better to feel out the planes of Shiro’s shoulders and spine. There’s a persistent twinge below his scapula and Shiro’s looking forward to having Keith chase it down and banish it; Keith’s very precise once he’s got a task in front of him. He doesn’t know as much about human anatomy as Shiro does, but Keith has exceptional body-instincts. Shiro doesn’t think Keith’s ever touched him in a way that didn’t feel good.
“I love your tattoos,” Keith says.
Shiro has excellent tattoos. Both arms are covered — the right from the shoulder and its blade all the way down to where his prosthetic attaches just above where Shiro used to have an elbow and on the left arm from shoulder down to the wrist, cutting off at the point where he can cover it with a formal shirt if he has a mind to. Shiro started his tattoos with a cluster of purple anemones on his breast and has added to the bouquet on either side of his body: spiky borage and unexpected protea interspersed with laurel leaves and provocative linden blossoms, blackwork and color work and even watercolor-inspired washes that lack outlines entirely. The overall effect manages cohesion despite the mix of styles; when Keith traces a line of ivy from the cap of Shiro’s shoulder down to where it twines about the stem of a minute plumeria inked in the crook of his elbow, Shiro thinks about all the blank space on Keith’s own body — the skin that’s turning into bark, empty and still so full of potential — and dreams about what kind of ink he’d give to Keith, if Keith ever asked for anything.
Mostly, Shiro allows himself to luxuriate in Keith’s touch. His hands are still unaffected by the progression of his disease and every press of his fingers into Shiro’s aching back is painfully good. It’s a purposeful kind of touch, with real affection and care behind every press against a knot. After a while Keith’s massaging trails off and becomes more of an absent, devoted stroking, and Shiro likes that, too.
“Which one’s your favorite?” Shiro asks the question partly to keep Keith close, to entice him into slumping down along Shiro’s back — Shiro enjoys the weight, despite how his pelvis presses sharply into the yoga mat and the points of his iliac crest feel like stars, painful.
Keith takes the bait and keeps tracing the lines of Shiro’s ink, fingers tentative against each leaf and stem and bud. “I like this one,” he says, running his index finger over the protea on Shiro’s bicep. “It’s weird and alive.”
It’s a good specimen: mostly grey with licks of magenta and emerald and lavender. The protea takes up a generous amount of space, bold as the meaning that made Shiro want to emblazon it on his body. He can’t tattoo his own arms — that’s something he saves for the tops of his thighs, adding to his artwork in little doodling sessions, like writing a crossword puzzle, or making a mosaic — but he dreams in negative and positive space. The protea flower takes up plenty of both.
“Weird and alive, huh,” Shiro gets his palms under him and rocks up onto his knees, dislodging Keith off his back and onto the floor with a comical thump. Shiro follows after, lying crosswise across Keith’s legs and pinning him. He feels flushed and greedy from Keith’s touch and wonders if play-fighting will change the mood enough that Keith won’t see how much Shiro is in love with him; how much Shiro is going to miss Keith when he takes root and turns into a fucking tree. Grief hits him at odd times ever since Keith moved in. Shiro vacillates between feeling grateful that he’s got time left with him and furious that Keith is pining for someone who doesn’t appreciate him. Wrestling moves will camouflage this, surely. “Of course you’d like the weird one. It suits you anyway.”
Shiro doesn’t mean to kiss Keith then, but it happens anyway. It’s easy. He’s already feeling warm and tender from the way Keith has been looking after him, from their daily proximity, from the way Keith’s hands feel against his ink. Shiro braces himself above Keith, propped up on his elbows, and leans down; Keith’s hands come up and splay open across Shiro’s arms as he makes a little welcoming sound, kissing Shiro back.
Keith’s hands are as warm as the wood floors of Shiro’s apartment when the sun streams across them, but so much softer. Keith cups Shiro’s elbows in his strong fingers, cradles Shiro’s joints. Shiro takes this as an invitation and resettles into the kiss, taking in little sips, licking the sweet press of Keith’s bottom lip and then biting gently. This is real.
Keith opens his mouth against Shiro’s teeth in a little inhalation of surprise and licks back, scraping at the edge of Shiro’s teeth. Shiro shapes his lips to the the new outline, courteously. He kisses Keith again, huffs a breath into Keith’s mouth — maybe Keith’s lungs are changing to absorb carbon dioxide instead of oxygen, maybe Shiro’s uncovered a secret way of keeping him alive — and then Keith wraps an insistent hand around Shiro’s arm, right over the protea tattoo, and makes an unhappy sound. It’s a moan: it’s a grieving noise.
“Oh no,” he says, when Shiro pulls away to investigate. “No, this can’t be happening —Shiro, not you too!”
Under Keith’s fingers, the protea flower is writhing. It twists and the petals unfurl a little, the leaves parting to expose a new bud. The whole process is uncanny. It doesn’t feel anything like going under the needle. The flower’s movement is a vague sensation, like a shiver down Shiro’s spine. Which is fitting; in a way, the flowers growing under his skin are a sign that someone’s walking over his grave.
“Would you look at that,” Shiro says, attempting to make light of the situation. “Didn’t realize I was a late bloomer.”
Keith elbows him in the gut for that one, hard, before looking apologetic and shaping his hands around Shiro’s face so he can stroke his thumbs over the rise of Shiro’s cheekbones in apology. “Shiro, you’re dying.”
“So are you,” Shiro points out.
“That’s different! I’m — ”
“Not expendable?” Shiro suggests. “Not going to break my heart when you go? Not important to me?”
“I expected it,” Keith protests. It’s a weak argument, but Keith’s always been piss-poor at defending himself. “It shouldn’t break your heart, Shiro, it runs in my family, that’s how it works. I knew it was going to happen to me someday, but you’ve got so much to live for.” He keeps stroking Shiro’s face. Keith’s thumbs are calloused from wrangling greenery and floral wire, and it feels almost like he’s leaving fingerprints on Shiro’s skin.
“Why would it happen to you? You’re amazing! I don’t know what idiot would turn you away — ”
“It’s not y — it’s not his fault!” Keith’s unfairly pretty when he’s angry, and right now he’s more beautiful than Shiro’s ever seen him before. He looks vital, with a high flush on his face, and his eyes are narrowed and sharp and focused one hundred percent on Shiro, directly at Shiro, giving Shiro all of Keith’s considerable attention — Shiro is going to kiss Keith again, see if he can goad Keith into fighting the fate laid out before them both.
But then:
“Maybe this is a bad time,” Allura says, standing in the doorway, looking glamorous and holding an enormous platter of crudités. “Just point me to your kitchen — I thought you might like to eat some plants, you know, for revenge — and I’ll be on my way.”
“I forgot you had a key,” Shiro says faintly. He’s reeling from the kiss and the argument and the way he can feel the flowers inked on his arms starting to bloom across previously unmarked skin.
“You’ve got flowers,” Allura says, and drops the crudités. The platter doesn’t break, but its contents slip off its surface and tumble about her in a mess of greenery and a splotch of some kind of dip. Shiro hopes it’s not Ranch. “I didn’t think it was contagious.”
Shiro pinches the bridge of his nose and counts to ten, loudly. By the time he opens his eyes, Keith has clambered out the window and taken refuge from Allura’s company on the roof, and Allura has started a FaceTime call with Lance to ask about removing buttermilk stains from suede boots; hers are a casualty of the upset dip.
“— dab, don’t rub, with a damp cloth, point your camera down — yeah, you’re gonna need to use vinegar after you get the worst off, that’s a tragedy — ” Lance recites. Laundry is second only to skincare in his mind, which is why Hunk has called him ‘the tailor’ since they roomed together in college.
“Perhaps I should take them to the shoe hospital,” Allura cuts him off. “Do I need an appointment?”
“I’ll leave work now,” Lance promises. “I’ll have my restoration kit ready for when you walk through the door!”
Shiro considers counting to ten once more, or joining Keith on the roof. Keith’s retreat isn’t as dramatic as it sounds; he and Shiro often sit on the roof together, even more now that Keith’s heart is slowly turning into wood. “I’m interrupting you,” he says in Allura’s direction, edging his way towards the open window. “I can leave you to it — ”
“Wait for me,” Allura commands Lance, and ends the call. “And you! Had better be retrieving Keith, not retreating to him. I have something to say to the both of you. You’re ridiculous.”
“If that’s all you wanted to say, I’m sure I can remember the particulars and pass it along,” Shiro tells her. “In fact, I’ll do it right now — “
And he would, except Allura is freakishly strong and grabs him by the skin at the back of his elbow and pinches until Shiro carefully, painfully, crumples to one knee in order to relieve some of the tension. Her nails are like beautifully painted razors.
“Keith,” Allura says in the general direction of the window. “I’m not accustomed to asking twice.”
“You’re not accustomed to asking at all,” Keith mutters, but he slips down from the rooftop and shoves himself headfirst back into the apartment. Shiro makes a point of intercepting him before Keith gets his feet back under himself, purely as a restraining measure.
“Careful,” Shiro says. “She means business. She hung up on Lance mid-stain removal consult.”
Keith’s spine straightens, like a tree facing a storm. “I’m not afraid of her. I’ll protect you, Shiro.”
“I expected this from you,” Allura informs him. “But I had higher hopes for Shiro. Ask him who he’s in love with, Keith.”
“That’s his business,” Keith says. It’s unlike him to be a coward. There’s no reason Keith wouldn’t talk to Shiro, unless he was afraid of losing Shiro. It’s impossible. It’s an epiphany.
Shiro — feels like setting the world on fire. He rests his hands on Keith’s shoulders, turns him away from Allura so Shiro can stare down at him. When he has Keith’s attention (it never takes long for Keith to give Shiro his attention; something inside Shiro’s chest blossoms open. It might be hope), Shiro makes a leap of faith.
“I’m in love with you,” he says. “Have been for a while.”
“Shiro,” Keith says. He looks overjoyed, mutinous, desperate — like he’s about to wrestle with an overlarge order of roses that still have all their thorns. “I’ve been in love with you forever.”
“So there’s no need for all the fuss,” Allura says, satisfied. “Well! I’ll leave you two to sort this out. I have a shoe emergency to address.” She rolls her ankle at them, displaying the dip stain for emphasis, before sauntering out of the apartment. The door doesn’t close all the way behind her. She’s not a detail person.
“If you love me,” Shiro says, “then could I convince you to give up your dream of becoming a tree?”
“It’s a gift,” Keith deadpans in return. “I know how you worry about your carbon footprint. Think of me as an offset.”
“Keith!”
“Not so funny when you’re on the other end of those jokes, huh,” Keith says.
“It’s a hallmark of my personality,” Shiro says. “I have more practice, it’s charming when I do it. You’re too sincere.”
“Sincerely in love with you,” Keith says. He rubs his arm awkwardly and a strip of bark peels off, like he’s healing from a particularly gnarly sunburn. “Whoa. That was fast.”
“Shirt off,” Shiro orders. “I’ll get the mineral oil.”
The damage from the transformation is not all fixed at that moment. It takes weeks for Keith’s skin to soften all the way back down into human flesh, and the bark growth leaves scars behind. Shiro’s tattoos take even longer to stop blooming and twining under the skin, and he can’t help but feel irritated that it took them so long to communicate — he’s spent a lot of time and money on his tattoos, and at least one of them will need touch ups now. But the payoff is delicious. Keith moves in properly, for real. Eventually, he even moves into Shiro’s bedroom.
“I draw the line at flower arrangements on the nightstand,” Shiro informs him, and relocates an ikebana vase with a couple of too-short blossoms to the kitchen table. “The only beautiful thing I want to see in this room is you.”
“I’d be flattered, except I know you hate cleaning up dropped petals,” Keith says. He is still, blessedly, shirtless. Shiro is working on a design to commemorate his scars.
“What can I say,” Shiro tells him. “I don’t live in a Disney movie, I don’t need the foreshadowing. I’m too busy living my best life.”
“This is what I get for bringing my work home with me,” Keith sighs. But he doesn’t move the flowers back to the bedroom, and he lets Shiro manhandle him up onto the kitchen counter for an extended kiss before dinner; it’s a good life. There’s room to grow.