Hi everyone! This piece is inspired by the sunflower emoji and also the song Sunflower by Rex Orange County. I’ve become a little obsessed with sunflowers because they just feel bright and sunny and its like free serotonin for my brain.
Word Count: 1046
Helianthus
Sunflowers had always been his favourite. Tall and clear yellow against a blazing azure sky, standing like they were guardians to his ethereal shrine. Each towering bud planted a smile on his face and breathed fresh life into his features as they stretched forever upwards towards the sun. When times grew lonely and his greyness flooded his mind, all it took was a fleeting glance to the sunshine by his window to force a grin into his isolated heart.
Hooked up to machines by a web of wires, his eyes outstretched their metaphorical hands and explored the world to lengths that his thin limbs couldn’t. He was confined to the cotton sheets of the bed and the smell of disinfectant that had become invisible to his conscious mind. He had long since given up his fight against fate’s cage and had learned to live with the fact that he would never have the key to open it.
It was why he was grateful for fate’s sympathies, the blooming sunflowers that had grown just underneath his window and then past it.
But his favourite sunflower of all was the one that grinned back at him. Such a bright and wholesome smile had never eased his mind more and it gave him hugs that felt like the sun and a soft blanket around his shoulders simultaneously.
“Hey you, how was breakfast?” Lian planted a kiss on his forehead after speaking. It was a quick gesture, but one that still made his heart flutter. With the brief kiss, life had been revived into him.
“It was the same, thanks for coming again,” he replied, his smile was genuine and no longer that of one who was contempt with dying.
“I’ll always come visit idiot, who else is going to?”
“My mum, probably, or maybe my sister if she’s feeling nice,” he joked. It was a ruse of course. He was obsessed with Lian, he wanted the boy by his side more than anyone else.
Lian laughed, “well you’ve got me okay?”
He pauses, almost like he wants to add something more, something heavier, but he ends with a simple, “always.”
He knew Lian was telling the truth, he hadn’t missed a day unless it was physically impossible. No matter how late or early Lian had to visit him, he always made time to be by his side.
On occasion, Lian had taken him out into the hospital courtyard, wheeling him down to the bench in the garden which was just high enough to see the first fiery rays of amber and gold that melted in the sunset. When the sun had finally set, they stayed outside. Lian had fetched a blanket and the two of them had stayed close to one another, to watch the stars and admire the sunflowers under the luminescence of the moon.
Lian always got cold first, pulling himself closer to him when the wind nipped at their noses. He liked to make fun of him for it, seeing as Lian was the one supposed to be physically well and yet he still couldn’t stand the cold. It gave him a sense of strength, being able to shelter his boyfriend still despite his body’s increasing weakness.
“Did you get enough rest last night? I saw you were online late,” Lian asked, settling into his chair by the bed.
He had tried sleeping, but last night had been bad and the nurses had to give him more pain meds. “Yep, I dreamt all about us, you were so cute in my dreams,” he gushed, words laced with half-truths. He had dreamt of Lian that night, but more of how his passing would hurt him, how his caring boyfriend deserved somebody better, somebody who wasn’t dying.
“You sure?” Lian questioned. He was good at detecting lies, but sometimes they got through his meticulous sensors.
“Definitely, and can I add, I think you’d look great in one of my tank tops,” he added, directing the conversation away from himself.
“You think?”
“Yep, and then when it gets cold, I can give you my jacket like always.”
Lian watched him with a careful gaze. He was reminiscing on the past again, remembering the summers they had spent together lazing around, sharing jackets and watching sunsets.
“We’ll do it together again, I promise you,” Lian spoke with a soft, reassuring tone, grabbing his hands and brushing his thumbs over the knuckles.
He always wondered how Lian could remain so optimistic, to keep hope despite his condition and he always felt guilty for giving the burden of being optimistic to Lian. Whilst he could mope and suffer in his melancholy, Lian was always forced to wake him from the macabre slumber and remind him to keep living again.
“What would I ever do without you,” he smiled, pulling Lian’s hands to his lips, pressing butterfly kisses against his closed fingers.
“Probably go crazy, or start hitting on your doctor or something,” Lian retorted, matching his humour, a lazy smirk on his face.
“Can we watch something together again today?” He asked, hoping Lian had brought his laptop again.
“I’m one step ahead of you, squish up a bit.”
Lian slipped into the bed with him, the two fighting for the comfort of the duvet as they curled up to watch the movie together. Once settled, Lian resting comfortably under the crook of his arm, it was his eyes that watched the boy beside him instead of the screen. Lian still smiled despite how much he hated it here because they were together. It was all that mattered to him.
He decided he had to be like his sunflower, to turn to the sun whenever he could, clutch at his optimism as desperately as he could. Because nights of darkness and clouded skies didn’t stop it from growing, only illuminated its strength and progress, it shone in the moonlight that was an echo of the day, just as ethereal in the starlight as the sunshine.
“You’re squishing me,” Lian mumbled, shifting his head.
He had unconsciously tightened his grip on him, trying not to lose him. He didn’t know if he could make it through any of what was to come without Lian by his side, his infinitely blooming Helianthus, his sunflower.
Lizzy Harrison 
Bloody marvellous!
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