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yellow tulips for your two lips
Fandom: Fate/Grand Order
Character(s): Phantom of the Opera, Ritsuka, French servant cameos
Pairing(s): Ritsuka/Phantom of the Opera, background Dantes/Ritsuka
Genre: Fluff/Hurt/Comfort
Word Count: 664
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Summary: Phantom talks to other Servants and coughs up flowers.
Notes:
For better or for worse, Mental Pollution cannot touch the flowers Phantom coughs up.
Servants are immune to most diseases of mortal man, save the most benign. It seems ridiculous to complain about hanahaki when the worst it will leave him with is a sore throat. Asclepius refused to even give him a lozenge.
(Their Master thanked him for his songs, so perhaps a sore throat is the worst possible affliction.)
Yellow tulip petals leak from his lips, and he sighs before sweeping them into the trash. Hopeless love. Their meaning is as plain as it would be coming from anyone else - all the more reason he can’t let Ritsuka see them.
Ritsuka has petals of his own that he tries to hide: flowering raspberry. Remorse. He does everything he can to keep his Servants from worrying, and Phantom’s heart bleeds for him.
“You are being a bit silly,” Marie says, not ungently. “Your love isn’t hopeless at all. Master has room in his heart for you.”
Of course Ritsuka loves him. He loves Phantom, and Marie, and every other Servant he has. But Phantom has never been one to share, and he fears the look in Ritsuka’s eyes if he turned his claws on another of their company.
“I cannot sing in a chorus,” he says.
She hums in thought. “What you need is to spend more time with other Servants. I’m sure once you get to know them, you’ll realize that they aren’t so bad!”
He doubts that, but Marie is so earnest, and her voice so clear, that even he cannot refuse.
Salieri’s mask fills with purple hyacinth. Sorrowful. He shakes the petals out and onto the floor.
“That man already knows,” he says in a rare moment of lucidity. “There’s no point in hiding them.”
But speaking those words aloud is beyond Salieri, whether due to his curse or his pride. Phantom can’t say he understands, but he knows that Salieri will not cure himself anytime soon.
In idle moments, he weaves purple flowers into a crown and offers it to Salieri. Both of their words are hobbled, but at least Phantom’s actions are free.
Salieri blinks a few times before accepting.
Mozart, of course, hacks up no flowers. He is open with his thoughts and feelings, even when others would prefer he not be.
That’s fine. Music is an easier topic of conversation than feelings, and neither of them are particularly fond of deep connections with humans. Mozart composes and Phantom sings, and that is enough.
Ritsuka drops by sometimes, to listen to their performances. If Phantom puts a tiny more effort in when Ritsuka is watching, Mozart doesn’t call him out on it.
The petals of a damask rose accumulate in Ritsuka’s room overnight, and are swept into whatever void Dantes retreats to.
Phantom catches him once, on a night when Ritsuka requested him to sing him to sleep, only to find him already having passed out from exhaustion and Dantes disposing of the evidence of his love. Their eyes meet.
“If you value your life,” Dantes begins.
Phantom laughs, and shakes his head. “Mistake me not for a Greek chorus, count.”
He has no desire to think about the affections of others, much less reveal them to an audience.
Jeanne Alter’s room is a veritable carpet of flowers. Phantom cannot even begin to interpret them all.
“It’s too much of a pain to keep throwing them out,” she says, and her glare dares Phantom to comment. “They decompose eventually anyway.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Does the songbird not take exception?”
“I’m not letting Nightingale in here, do you think I’m stupid?”
“You’ve been talking more to the other Servants lately,” Ritsuka says. “I’m proud of you, Erik.”
He pats Phantom’s head, and the moment could not be more perfect. Now if only he didn’t have to swallow these stupid flowers, because he absolutely cannot ruin this moment with hacking up petals. He would never survive the embarrassment.