FrieAme AU where Friede's a paediatrician and Amethio's a terminally ill inpatient. Friede's in charge of Amethio's care and keeps telling himself not to get attached but oops Friede gets attached. So does Amethio. Contains main character death, obviously!

Thanks to my good friend for always contributing great ideas! <3

Friede suggesting to Amethio that he keeps a diary on his phone or something so that he can organise his thoughts. Amethio initially thinks it's stupid and nobody's gonna care anyway, but he begrudgingly indulges Friede because he has nothing better to do

[Me]
Most of the entries are single sentences like "I hate it here" "I'm getting sick of the colour white" "Can I please go a day without getting examined?" etc

[Me]
But over time he starts making comments about Friede. "Friede was wearing mis-matched socks today, and I think one of them was inside-out. How is he a doctor, again?" "Friede has a horrible taste in ties. I should ask Spinel to give him some fashion tips"

[Me]
Whenever something bad happens to him, or he has a bad day, Amethio leaves the day blank. Sometimes there are several blank days in a row

[Me]
The first time Gibeon visits, Amethio ends up humiliating himself in front of his father, and he was tempted to leave the day blank as always but he ended up putting "I hate this stupid body"

[Me]
When he meets Lucius, he describes him as "Some weird old man hanging out in a well-maintained garden. No idea why he's at a children's hospital, but he seems harmless I guess"

[Me]
Over time, the entries become more negative and hateful. He winds up using the diary as an outlet for his frustrations and anger at the world. He won't admit that he's lonely and scared, but he'll admit that he's had enough

[Me]
Eventually, once Amethio learns that the Weird Garden Man is Lucius -- aka the man he saw in bed with his father, who his father was having an affair with, Amethio realises he wants to write Gibeon a letter. Not just a small diary entry, but he wants to tell his father his thoughts

[Me]
About how he hates him. How he's never forgiven Gibeon for betraying their mother. About how he wanted to prove that he was just as capable as everyone else in the family and, one day, become a son that not only would Gibeon be forced to acknowledge and be proud of, but a son that Gibeon would be *jealous* of

[Me]
Amethio wanted to show Gibeon that he was better than his father. Not only academically, but as a person. As a husband.

[Me]
Yet he never got the chance to do any of that, and he can hardly call himself "capable"

[Me]
He's always resented Gibeon, and Amethio asks in the letter if his father ever even cared that his son was going to die. Did Amethio's death matter to him? Or would he go on living his life as if Amethio never existed in the first place? When Amethio died, would Gibeon be sad? Would he cry?

[Me]
Or would he be relieved that his failure of a son, who destroyed his family, was finally out of his life? Would Gibeon be happy that he no longer had to constantly feel disappointed over Amethio's inability to live up to his father's expectations?

[Me]
Amethio figures his father hates him, and that the feelings are mutual. Well, that's if Gibeon cares enough in the first place to feel anything towards him at all. Maybe he's never been worthy of his father's emotions.

[Me]
Anyway Amethio spends several days writing the letter, rewriting it, deciding to cut certain things out ("How would you feel if you knew your son was in love with his doctor? Would it disgust you? Or would you not even care about that?") and focusing his resentment on Gibeon more than anyone else

[Me]
The letter is several pages long. The handwriting is messy, but Amethio doesn't care. He just wanted to get his thoughts down

[Me]
He tells Friede to give it to his father once he dies, saying that he's sure Gibeon will just discard it anyway. Friede tries to convince Amethio that Gibeon won't, in fact, do that, but Amethio doesn't believe him

[Me]
Gibeon does eventually read the letter and has a wee bit of a breakdown over it because he never realised that Amethio was that affected by the affair/divorce. The boy was only 5, how was any of it his fault? It was Gibeon's own fault (and Lucius's!), surely he realised that much

[Me]
The line that hits Gibeon the hardest is, perhaps, "All I wanted was to contribute to this family, but instead, I only ended up taking things away from it. I'm sorry."

[Redacted]
Oh, I love all of this so much.. Ame is way too good a son. Apologizing for only taking things away from his family when it's not his fault but he still feels bad about it ;_; (I also love how he wanted to be better in every way, like a better husband.. he really saw a future for himself at a point)

[Me]
He wanted to surpass Gibe one day... Set an example for people, show them what a good husband/father is like... He had clear goals, but they were snatched away from him. And he was never able to properly convey his feelings to Gibe in person, which he also regrets

[Me]
Was thinking about that scene I wrote where Gibe visits Ame in hospital and Ame apologises to him and now I feel like part of it was also for the affair stuff, not just Ame apologising for, well, dying (and everything else). Not that Gibe picked up on it at the time

[Me]
Ame trying to communicate his feelings to Gibe but not being able to talk anymore and all he can do is trace out "I'm sorry" over and over again... Gibe telling him not to apologise, but he doesn't even know what Ame's apologising for

[Redacted]
Ame is so serious but we love that about him. (I wonder if he fantasized about being Frie's husband)

Ame apologizing for the affair stuff but really he doesn't have to! Even though he feels like he should. Gibe should be the one apologizing...

[Redacted]
(Also I am thinking about Spi and Ame never really being close as they grew up, I wonder if that was also related to the affair stuff. Like Spi never really wanted to involve himself with Ame more after this)

[Me]
I think that would contribute, yeah! In my mind there's like a 3-5 year age gap between them. I feel like they also really didn't have much in common, either, but maybe on a subconscious level the affair did contribute

[Me]
Not necessarily because Spi thought Ame did anything wrong, but he was such a hassle to deal with and get the story out of (because, y'know, the kid was traumatised) that he just... kinda distanced himself. I also think Spi would've been more affected by their mother's death, too? Maybe that put a bigger rift between them

[Redacted]
I like the thought that Ame is just easily disposable :) He is not the perfect kid and he shows emotions and that leads to people considering him a pain and a hassle.

[Redacted]
It's just a mess overall... they deserve better, these two.

[Me]
Spi being dismissive of Ame, perhaps unintentionally, and contributing to Ame's feeling of being isolated from his family... Spi not realising until Ame tells him directly (during one of their talks) and Spi feeling horrible because, well, that wasn't really his intention

[Redacted]
And even if he wants to apologize, would it change anything at this point (it would matter to Ame at the very least).

Even admitting that much would take a lot from Ame honestly! He doesn't really want to admit things like these..

[Me]
Nope. The only reason he's even telling Spi and Gibe anything is because he just doesn't care by the end. He just wants to tell them before he dies. Maybe it's also whatever medication he's on affecting him, too

[Me]
(Even though he's got a terminal illness I figure he's probably on some pain relief and other stuff to, like, lessen the symptoms. Not that they end up doing much after a certain point, most likely)

[Redacted]
And it turns out Ame had a lot to say before he died. A whole lot. He kept a lot of things close to his heart.

[Me]
He's a very private person who bottles things up. In that sense, he's a lot like Gibe. Frie encourages Ame to open up a bit more and tell people things before he no longer can, since he knows it's a common thing to regret.

Ame was apprehensive at first but he ends up realising that Frie was right

[Redacted]
He wants to tell his family everything. Everything before he no longer can. It will not be a bother. They'll be grateful to hear his truth.

[Me]
He wants to force them to acknowledge that he existed... He knows they'll probably forget about him soon after he's gone, but he wants to, hopefully, make them remember him at least a little bit

[Me]
In his letter to Gibe, Ame points out that Gibe probably knows nothing about him. "Do you know what my interests are? My hobbies? My favourite things? The foods I like most? No. You know nothing about me as a person. Because, to you, I never was a person. If someone asks you a question about me, you won't know the answer, will you?"

[Redacted]
Ame thinking he can easily be forgotten... when it's not the case at all. They will remember him. Even Frie will, despite the fact that he has many patients. Ame is still special to him.

[Me]
Exactly! Frie's also more affected by Ame's death than he usually is with his patients. In some ways, it's because Ame's older than most of the others, but there's just something so tragic about his circumstances... (And also Frie has a crush on him but lol)