Chapter Text
It’s a Herculean task for your coworkers to end your work day. Your mandatory sick leave starts the second you clock out today. And everyone's determined to make that time last as long as possible.
From colleagues taking projects out of your hands to your boss saying she’ll escort you home if that’s what it takes. You drag your feet through the entire process of getting out of your desk to approaching the elevator. Coffee and artificial scents waft in the air. You’ll miss it when you’re gone.
Who knew that the Hunters Association would be this protective over one little Protocore scientist?
Your chest clenches at the thoughtfulness. You try to ignore the pinpricks it causes in you as you walk to the elevator. Try and try in vain to forget what the blossoming agony means and who they grow for. So you turn to your phone. It glows with messages from two people: your dear older twin sister and the man who made this pain decide to take root inside of you.
You read your sister’s texts first. She’s uncomplicated and predictable. Overprotective and sassy. No struggles; she’s family. Even if the main reason Sylus won’t love you lies with her.
The tulips within you constrict at the image of him flashing in your mind. Petals try to crawl out your throat as you rapidly press the “close doors” button so that your coughing fit isn’t heard by everyone.
Glancing back her messages, you finally read them.
From: More Feral Than a Child on a Sugar High But Unfortunately Has Access to Guns
- Why are you still here?
- I seee youuuu!
- Go home!
- Workaholic!
- And be sure to sleep!
- Oh, but eat something first.
- And I DON’T mean that shit that you think I don’t know is buried in the freezer that you nuke when you’re on a research binge.
- I mean real food!
- Eat real food and then sleep so that you don’t sulk around about having nothing to do.
- omg
- I think you’re the only person in the world that’s ever been sad when your boss gives you PAID time off!
- No fair. Give it to me.
- Actually, don’t. You’re sick.
- Again, why are you still here?!
- Because apparently Sylus is here for you???
- You make any plans with him recently?
- You two spend a loooot of time together!
- It’s cute!
- But you should tell Caleb about him…
- I can only hold him back from interrogating or using The Fleet to find out about the new man in your life for so long.
- And neither of us want that.
A bulb threatens to spill out your lips as you struggle to type your response. You fight it off by imagining your sister’s voice through her texts. Read them over again in her narration.
This is ridiculous. A mere glimpse of his name on my phone or thinking about him is enough to trigger me.
You stare at the reflective surface of the elevator. Deep eyes bags. Discoloration in your cheeks. Body one second away from collapse. It’s not a curveball; sickness and terrible health are a constant in your life. The tang of blood is what’s abnormal.
You’re far gone. You’ve known for a while. No doctor visit needed. You haven’t seen Zayne as your PCP since you found that first bit of flower. No one can know, after all. Things’ll be real if they do. And your world will come crashing down.
Sylus can and will never love you back. Surgery’s out the question. And the state of your petals signifies that the procedure to be a necessity at this stage of the disease. You’re going to die. Alone. In silence. With swiftness.
Body-shaking coughs break past your lips. You’re still in the elevator on your way to the lobby, so no one can hear (never have you been grateful to work on the upper floors of the Hunters Association and the long trips that comes with it). Blood and dark chocolate. A black rose petal than. Your skull rattles with the echoes.
It’s only after that brief episode and with the clarity of your throbbing throat do you write your reply to your sister.
To: More Feral Than a Child on a Sugar High But Unfortunately Has Access to Guns
- You’re so obnoxious, you know?
- I tell you that recently?
- I know how to take care of myself, so stop being a nag!
- You’re worse than Caleb
- So much worse
- And I wish you and everyone else in this damn building would take a page out of his book and LEAVE ME ALONE
- I’m grown!
- Hardly need all these people policing me…
- It’s just a small cough
- A small cough that may cause a disturbance here and there
- But nothing major
- Maybe some bug I caught from you and the Wanderer remnants you bring into the house?
- I’m dying
- ^edit not dying
- Read everything here before you freak out over nothing
There’s a dark sense of humor to be found in your little “slip”. Humor your family won’t find when they’re burying you. When your sister finds that she has another grave to visit, she won’t be able to laugh. Not in the beginning. It’ll take time. She’ll need to grieve you. But, she’ll forget you. She’ll move on. She’ll live on.
You’re not needed in anyone’s life. Let alone hers. With all the previous ones she’s led and all the loves she’s experienced. What’s one annoying little sister in all that?
It hurts. Burns a brand of fire that scorches and shimmers to a degree that it can’t be called a flame. Fervor isn’t the right word for the internal wound this fact causes.
Yet, you understand it. As you enter the of lobby of the Association’s bottom floor—the fancy air freshener is hard to pick up with your busted lungs—the flowers dance again at the brief sight of a familiar silhouette and car parked out front. It’s that flutter, the movement of a garden that will cause your demise, that makes you alive. Free. Full of adrenaline and high on a drug that no chemical can nor will ever replicate.
Every time Sylus enters your field of vision and you experience the suffocation in your main bronchus, you get this way. On top of the world. The rush of living without limits or regrets. Any negative emotions you could have as a result of thinking about your sister’s life without you evaporates when the tulips choke you.
The irony isn’t lost on you. You embrace it. Love it, even. So much so that you speed walk to Sylus without reading his message. Him and his familiar car, familiar red and black outfit, and familiar bouquet that he gives you each time you meet.
There’s another segment of hilarity in the flowers he gifts you. One that Sylus will understand and maybe chuckle at after your funeral. You don’t produce the beautiful white flower—one with dazzling long petals that fan behind the main bloomed bud; it’s a plant you have no name for. Sylus, in no manner, shows any signs of telling you and smirks at you. You have no desire to shatter the illusion of this little banter between you, so you’ll never know.
You do make the purple tulips he gifts with them.
Purple tulips mean royalty and elegance. A bonkers sentiment to describe someone like you. But you’ll treasure anything from Sylus. So, on no occasion will you ever voice that opinion.
Part of you believes Sylus knows. Knows the traitorous voices in your head and the malevolent ideas they whisper into your ear. That side of you believes it’s that knowledge that leads him to making this flower gifting of his a tradition between you two.
You give your own flowers to Sylus each time you meet. Except yours are locked behind your ribcage and the chosen vase lies in the lobes of your lungs rather than in your home. All of them are tulips. Have been since your disease first took root.
Purple for your admiration. Black for his strength, mystery, and practice of rebelling against forces who dare to attempt to cage him. Your other two symbolize your love for him: deep pink—joy, gratitude—and red—boundless desire, passion, and perfect love.
Perfect love.
A ridiculous concept conjured by the heart of a ridiculous girl in love with one of her sister’s past lovers.
A lover who still holds her dear, judging by the fact that he caters to your whims. Listens to your tired rants about Protocores and space and the stars. Baits you with sweets after you spend days on a particular project and smell like the human embodiment of a Bean-Boozaled.
Reads books to you in a hushed voice as you lay in your bed alone in Linkon in the apartment you share with your sister; he reads over the phone, on speaker, regardless of the time. Never makes a fuss about you interrupting his schedule with something as mundane as a nightmare about your time at EVER.
Perfect love.
You were bound to develop for someone as devoted as him. Someone who drops everything for you and your sister. Someone who lets you cry on his shoulder when memories of Josephine and the sacrifice she made for you during the explosion resurface at the worst time. Someone who lets you rant about stupid coworkers and demanding deadlines even when he has his own life to attend to.
Growing flowers for him was always in the cards for you.
“You trying to analyze the Aether Core in my eye again, sweetie? Because I’d love to hear your thoughts on it.”
A voice made of the finest symphonies and orchestras put together brings butterflies into your stomach. Butterflies that pollenate the flora in your chest. Another petal tries to crawl out of your throat, and this time, you taste more of it. A red tulip; they have a specific spice to them when you’ve thrown them up in the past.
Shoving it back with the experience you’ve garnered from hiding your condition from your sister, you roll your eyes at Sylus and take your flowers from him, “No, S-skye. I know better. Found out during our first meeting.”
Sylus chuckles. “That’s just too bad. Would’ve been the best excuse for me to finally take you away from your sister.”
His words press on the wounds on your heart a little too much. You try to hide how affected you are.
Am I that annoying? Are you already done with me?
You move to the other side of his car. He follows you. For he would go anywhere with you.
Why must you distance yourself from me? Why must you hide from me?
Sylus knows you well. Too well, one could argue. The twins tease him about it. Your older sister even quizzes him. He couldn’t care less. He’ll take any and all badgering if it makes you smile. Makes you laugh. Brightens your day a bit more.
The two of you are now on the street. Not the smartest decision.
There’s a little voice in your head that wills a car to come. That hopes and prays for some wayward vehicle or Wanderer to kill you so that your love doesn’t. Sylus will never know your feelings for him; you’ll die being his good friend. Your sister will never know your feelings for her dragon; you’ll die being her nerdy twin with social issues.
The voice in Sylus’ head says something that’s darker for a different reason in comparison to yours: “Devour her.”
His Aether Core’s more incessant these days. Burning and yearning and inside Sylus’ eye whenever he gets a glimpse at you. It desires you in every way.
To have you live with him rather than your family. Spoil you. Hold you. Love you. And it’s not always the physical and vulgar definition of that word that courses through his veins.
Intrinsic things cycle through more often. Breakfast in bed. Showering you in gifts (more than just flowers—it’s what you deserve and Sylus would be damned if he didn’t spend at least 7 figures on you every day you grace him with your presence). Small dates. Big events. Grazes against each other’s bare skin that says, “I’m here.”
He longs to have you be a permanent fixture in his life. Put a ring on your finger. Wed you. Bed you. Make you his any possible manner.
“Devour her.”
I can’t.
He doesn’t want to scare you. To have you turn your nose at him with disgust and malice like your twin once did. He couldn’t survive that.
You both get back to the usual banter to run from what’s inside your heads, “W-what reason could you have for that?”
“You tell me, sweetie.”
“You’re killing me here. I’m intrigued,” on the inside, you laugh at your own joke.
Sylus notices the shift in your expression. The worst ideas come to mind before he can beat them away. He pretends otherwise.
“Then it seems I have achieved my goal. A good mystery is always the best way to grab your attention.”
“Am I that predictable?” You lean against the passenger side door, staring at the ground as you card your fingers through the petals of the fresh gift.
Beautiful, Sylus thinks.
“Yes. You’re here with me right now, after all,” and he can’t help but get closer.
Have your sweet warmth in more of his space. Hear the comforting rhythm of your heartbeat (a background noise that chases away any nightmare and soothes every scar). Inhale the faint perfume you claim your sister likes to spray on herself without a care—and, as an unintentional result, you—every morning; he’s never smelled it on her.
Is he so consumed by you that he can’t? Or did you spin your little story to cover your love floral scents?
It’s irrelevant.
And he can’t forget the sight of you when he gets closer. Your eyes widen a smidge. Your skin with beauty marks and old scabs that you call imperfections but he calls proof of your resilience. The loose clothes that hang on your person.
“Devour her.”
No, he tells it.
Sylus hits your senses as well. His breath. His cologne and the tinge of gunpowder that lies beneath it. The fabric of his clothes shifting as he moves his hand next to your body.
“Which is a good thing, since I’m in need of your assistance.”
He doesn’t touch you. He wants to (not that you’re aware). But with his Aether Core behaving this way, he can’t risk it. Can’t risk the self-control he prides himself on failing him for the first time.
He moves you off the door to open it. With his Evol.
“Sy—Skye! You’re gonna get caught!” your squeal and stumble are adorable; you find them embarrassing.
Tendrils of energy—so corrosive and dangerous; ones that render flesh into pulp but touch your skin like it’s priceless—surrounds your hips. Sylus’ eyes are on his hands as you squirm at the display of power right in front of your workplace.
Sylus watches you watch his Evol. Curiosity sparkles in your eyes, pupils dart to dissect different segments. Lightness spreads throughout his heart. Another little moment where you show wonder instead of fear. Where you embrace him instead of running from him.
You panic while he smirks. Adoration and anxiety dance between you two. Total opposites. Like everything else about the pair of you.
Does the Association know his Evol? My sister would’ve mentioned that is they did, right? She wouldn’t have forgotten to tell me?
He shrugs at you, unaware of the crisis his presence causes. “A risk I’m willing to take just to see you smile.”
Cactus needles poke at your heart. The idiotic and duplicitous muscle squeezes under the tenderness of his words. You comply with his request. If you do anything else, you might say something or do something you can’t take back.
Like kiss him. Bring his face to yours and kiss him hard enough that he presses you against his fancy car. He'll grab your waist as pushes you further into the hot metal. Make circles on your hips while his mouth devours yours. You'd run your fingers through his hair. Yanking and pulling on the strands in an attempt to ground yourself under the relentlessness of his lips.
Would he stop? Or take you right here, in front of everyone? Or will that famous greed of his get in the way and he’ll whisk you away? Will he believe he’s the sole person allowed to gaze upon you in the throes of passion and pleasure? Or would he want to display you?
How fast would he go to get you into his bed? Would his conquest end there? Where would those hands of his—stained in blood and capable of such violence, yet you know them to be kind ones that soothe you to sleep—wander?
Around your neck? Down your back? Pining your wrists? Between your legs?
And his lips. You can't forget about them. Can't get the idea of them everywhere on you out of your head. How would he taste? More rich and umami like his black tulips? Or sweet like the pink? Maybe even a hint of sourness, like the purple?
Tingles envelop your lips. Tongue vibrates as it imagines a flavor profile you'll never get to sample. Your skin smolders like a flame, and the oak logs are your clothing.
How would I taste to him?
“Here. S-smiling. Now happy?”
Boiling. Bubbling and boiling blood in your veins from your nasty thoughts. You avoid Sylus' hands. And his face. You can’t do with more indecent thoughts of him fucking you in his car.
Sylus chuckles. You plea to the universe it's not because of how disordered you are.
It’s not. You’re not aware, but Sylus never laughs at you. Finds you adorable, yes. Finds you’re flustered nerves cute (when it’s in bursts and not deep discomfort), yes.
He chortles because it’s better he does that than cup your cheeks in his hands and kiss you. Or rub your face against his like he’s a cat. Moments like this, he wants to hoist you off your feet and spin you. Or put you in his pocket to keep for himself.
Not that your sister would let him.
“I will be. Once you agree to hear me out,” you gesture at him to do so as soon as the words finish leaving his mouth. “I need you for something.”
“For…?” you ask as he opens the door for you to step into his car. You do so and he slinks into the driver’s side.
“To be my partner,” his full-belly laugh signals that your face sports a strange expression. “Not that way, sweetie. I ama gentleman, after all. I wouldn’t dare ask you that question is such a casual setting.”
Stop that. Don't get my hopes up.
Your fingers long to run along his veiny forearms. Steal that jacket of his and wear to enclose his scent around you. Dragons are territorial, right? Would he ever mark you with his aroma like that? To show the world you're his and he's yours?
Or would he bite my neck? Leave deep gashes there and on my collarbones and suck them hard enough so that they linger for days?
Heat pools in your stomach. Without any thought, one of your hands traces the side of your neck. Sylus notices the movement. His breath catches.
You spiral while he preens. You fall apart while he soars.
“Devour her.”
The urge sinks it’s teeth into the logical side of his brain. Biting. Clawing. The fiend within longs to be set free. Sylus’ whole body buzzes, scorches. Hands itch to expore your body. Lips beg him to give in an inch. One little taste. A sample.
His Aether Core hums in his eye. Says it needs nothing more than a portion. One kiss. One mark on your skin. One listen to your whimpers and moans. It’ll be satisfied. Sylus could take his time afterwards.
It’s a lie. A tale every addict has told. Once would be enough to make him never go back. Keep you in his bed. Cling to you with palms on your form each time you appear before him.
Could he still be gentle after having you that way? Be the soft man you know him rather than the monster everyone else does? He fears becoming possessive. Terrified at the idea of the intrusive thoughts of caging and bruising you becoming reality. Frozen at the notion that, maybe, you’d let him.
Is that better or worse?
You straighten and speak with a jovial tone to break the tension, “W-what’s the plan then?”
You joke to calm your racing heart. To pretend that your entire being isn’t on fire, that your lungs aren’t attempting to squeeze what little air you have left in out. Act as if Sylus’ words didn’t bring you to cloud nine only to slam you into the harsh concrete. That you’re not breaking on the inside.
You put on a mask. You have to. To keep the flowers inside. To keep the status quo. To stay in your lane.
“Why would I tell you and ruin the surprise?” the smirk on his lips isn’t his usual one. It’s tinged with something more, roots of other emotions and meanings planted in his eyes. “But what I will tell you is that in this context, you’d be my partner for a business gala.”
Your heart falls out of your chest and under the seat of the fancy car you have no business polluting with your touch. You attempt to get out the car, to give back the flowers you don’t deserve to touch. There’s no way you can help Sylus with his request.
I’m not my sister, your eyes speak as Sylus’ face changes. I’m not a Hunter. I’m not a fighter. I’m not helpful here.
You’re a fragile nerd, too broken by EVER to stomach the sight of blood or hear a gunshot. Yet another reason you and Sylus would never work. If one excludes all the major factors—his love and history with your twin being the most glaring of them—this “minute” detail hammers the final nail into the coffin.
Surviving a life beside Sylus isn’t possible for you. You’re a coward by nature. A runner. A hider. A man with a life like his couldn’t stand being romantic with someone like you.
“The better twin gets off in a bit. S-she can meet you down here. I’ll get going now. I can’t help you.”
Sylus’ heart rips open at your words. He wants what he hears to be wrong. But, he clocked the change the second your eyes shifted; long before you spoke.
I don’t want her, he begs with his own. I want you.
He wants your heart, one hurt by many but still willing to give.
He wants your eyes, expressive and misted by pain but sharp with determination.
He wants your will; a woman afraid and, at times, not sure of herself but fierce when it matters.
He wants your intellect, that mind of yours able to keep up with his no matter the circumstances. Calculating, but kind. Can be cruel, but more prone to a compassion that borders on naivety. You give that impression on purpose. Allow others to underestimate you.
Once, Sylus did. When he first met you. The less impulsive, more reserved twin. Moments later, he learned how far the depth of that mistake goes. When your eyes locked with his. Direct. No hesitation. Glimmering with an insatiable thirst for knowledge.
Those same irises cloud with sorrow right now.
“The better twin,” you said. As if it wasn’t obvious to everyone around the two of you that you’re equal. As if you believe that rather than love your sister lifetimes ago, he still clings to her.
“Sweetie. If I wanted your sister, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
He leans into your space, grateful you don’t flinch away. Tells himself it’s to get you to pay attention, to heed his words.
The core in his eye knows better. Even in this serious time.
“Devour her. She’s yours. Consume her.”
Desire thrums under his skin. And he’s thankful you can’t hear or sense it any capacity. Sylus runs hotter as he moves over the manual shift stick in his car. The heat of your own body caresses against his.
I’m too close.
”Not close enough,” his Aether Core supplies.
Not close enough to taste. Have your lips against his. Or maybe his mouth against your neck. Your collarbones. Your stomach. Your thighs. Lower and lower until he reaches his prize. The one place he’ll never allow himself to dream about.
Going back from that would be an arduous task. But, he can’t depart from you now. He needs this proximity. To convince you. To get you to listen.
He puffs air on your skin as he breathes out. Too sharp for your mess of a brain. Smoke and expensive cologne enters your failing lungs. Heart too loud. Flesh too warm. Your imagination runs wild, and you taste the idea of him on your tongue again.
It's his favorite wine (you've had it before at his place). With a hint of sweetness and exquisiteness that you can’t describe any other way but Sylus in his purest form. You wet your lips.
Sylus sweeps away your fantasy, “If I wanted her, I’d text her. I’d call her. I’d have Luke and Kieran fetch her. I have you here with me because I want you.”
Absentminded, you bob your head in agreement as your body rises to an impossible temperature. Cheeks heat to an uncomfortable degree. Hands sweat so much that you’re surprised Sylus doesn’t comment.
Your head’s in fog. Dazed from the weight of the man you love’s words. What they mean beyond the hints. The reason behind why his eyes are intent on searing holes into you.
Sylus knows you well. Knows how you hide yourself from the world, make yourself invisible in favor of your sister. Knows that it took a while for you to believe to the narrowest of margins he wants to spend time with you.
Knows how you fold in on yourself when strangers stare in your direction for a second too long (he shields you with his large body, and that habit of his became one of the many things that made you fall in love and grow flowers in your chest for him).
Sylus knows how you make your sister the center of your world. How everything you do leads back to her in some capacity.
Even him.
But, at the same time, he knows how to push you. How to move you beyond the box you’re determined to cage yourself in. How to guide your mind towards that specific breakthrough. How to challenge you to see your work from another angle, a different light.
He’s too good to you, for you. You know that. And for that, you’ll taking choking on his love with dignity and grace.
To him, you’re too good for him. Fragile in your health, but strong in your heart. Afraid of what he does, but not of him. Weary and smart and generous, but not jaded. You’ve yet to loose your faith in the world—in him.
He can’t confess. Can’t love you the way he wants. You deserve better. Better than him and his harsh hands with countless lives on them and his dark thoughts.
You are not mine to have, you both think.
He buckles you in while you’re still distracted, “Keep that in mind for me, Fenghuang. I never settle for anything less than the best.”
You nod, keeping your head down and fiddling with your fingers in your lap. The tulips in your chest brush against your heart. The muscle pounds at lightning speed and claps like thunder. Not even the plants killing you can slow it.
Sylus drives away from your workplace, smug grin on his face (one he puts on to hide his own complex maze of emotions) as you avoid eye contact with him through the mirrors.
—
With great pain, you detach yourself from Sylus’ side for the umpteenth time to dash to the bathroom. His eyes are on you as you do. Without even looking back, you know his expression; you’ve seen the furrow in his brow enough tonight for it to be a permanent fixture in your mind. What it would be like to smooth that crease out with your hands? Bring his forehead to yours as you whisper comforting words to him and peck his cheeks?
It’s all make belief. Delusions of a dying woman. There’s no harm to it. No one gets hurt by them, so you leave your thoughts alone. Put judgement of yourself to the side for a second.
Well, except for me.
You add an addendum; they aren’t causing pain to anyone important.
Sylus watches you go, worry snaking throughout his body. He knows that you sometimes get bad allergies. That’s not the case here. Suppressed coughs that make your entire body tremble (it’s prominent each time he places a hand on you—which he rationalizes to himself and you that it’s necessary to state that you’re his partner and should be treated as such). Speckles of blood on your lips. The air of death that circles around you, thicker and more potent.
You’ve made many trips to the bathroom. Claiming both that you’ve had too much to drink—despite no even finishing a glass of simple water—and wanting to give him opportunities alone with his business associates. Each time he tells you it’s not needed. But you flash him that warm smile of yours, and his will to make you stay crumbles.
His eyes follow your retreating form. You stumble a bit, hand on your mouth and back hitching from the force of the coughs you assume he doesn’t hear. He’s heard them all night and knows from even a glimpse of you that they’re still happening.
He fidgets when you’re like this. Terrified at what it means.
Is it something she ate? Is she sick? What’s causing this? Did someone poison her to get to me?
All questions lead to one prevailing notion: he shouldn’t have brought you here. You’re not well. And all the stupid politics and dangers of his life are deteriorating your condition.
When she comes back this time, we’re leaving.
You, on the other hand, remain oblivious to his spiraling just as he’s in the dark about the tulips that nip the back of your throat. You’re alone when the tides crest. Each session you’ve had in the bathroom has been devoid of an audience. This time is no different. No one bears witness to your mess.
It’s quiet as you expel the plants. No loud retchings sounds. No deafening splashes as handfuls of petals sink in the toilet, weighed by your phlegm and bile. One of a kind you, with the agony that grips your esophagus, and the captivating tulips that spell your end. It’s poetic, in a way.
Bleary eyed and tired, you sit with your back against the seat for a second. To catch your breath. To think as tears slip on your cheeks, micro bursts of cold that soothe the sizzle of the rest of your face, from the sheer force of what came out of your body. In and out, you count each expansion of your lungs. 1, 2, 3, 4, and so on. Small things help ground you.
When the scratchiness in your mouth and the sear of stomach acid becomes too much, you turn to flush the evidence. You have pause when your eyes begin to register the size of the petals.
They’re bigger.
A bad sign. Larger means more progression. Greater growths in greater numbers. Means you’re closer to the end. Taking another shallow breath, you pull the mechanism to make it all disappear.
Deal with it later. You knew this was going to happen. You know you’re going to die. Get over it.
It’s taxing to leave the stall. A thought crosses your mind to drown yourself here. Get it all over with. Pass away in a humiliating way; a way that’s crude, sure, but spares Sylus of the insurmountable affliction you know he’s going to have once the flowers engulf you.
Rationale kicks in once you hear the lock of the stall door hit against the little metal piece it’s supposed to slide into to secure it close.
Not here. Don’t make things harder for Sylus. Don’t stain his relationships with these people with your blood.
Washing your hands and face, you center on your aspirations again. In and out. As slow as possible. As long as possible. Something to latch onto to keep yourself from giving in and doing something stupid.
Whatever calm you gather dissipates when you reunite with Sylus. He gravitates towards you, as if pulled in by the scent of the damned flora growing inside you. He leans into you, exhalation ghosting your right ear and bringing bees to life to buzz in your belly, “We’re leaving.”
“Hold on—“ you protest.
“I won’t hear it.”
His command makes your heart pound. Your face flushes and you duck to avoid his gaze. Sylus being Sylus, slides a finger under your chin and raises your eyes back to his. He’s languid but slow with his movements. Graceful but careful with his brushes.
Elegant but loving with his nudges.
Amusement fills the quirk of his lips, “Now don’t go depriving me of the lovely sight of your face. You’ll hurt my feelings.”
“I won’t. If you promise not to use me as an excuse to abandon your duties. I’m fine.”
I’d let the world burn for you, but let’s start with the basics, sweetie.
He scoffs and laughs with affection, “That you are not sweetie. And if you’re so worried about my work, think of us departing as saving my reputation. The host himself has always chastised me about bringing my sick wife here. So let me a doting husband, would you?”
“Wife.”
A purposeful decision he made in his mind the second he asked you to come with him. A declaration of everything he wants to say. A subtle jab in your direction of his love.
“Wife.”
You were nonverbal from how embarrassed you were when he announced that title for the first time. Will you be the same when he really weds you? Will it fade over time as you accept that position, or will you two be the kind of couple that’s always like that?
Sylus begins to guide you through the crowd. Can’t have that fantasy of his get too vivid. He’ll taste your imaginary wedding cake on his tongue, hear the melody of your first dance. Glimmers and shimmers of a veil on your head. The perfect dress—one more expensive and stunning than the one that hugs your figure right now—flutters in the corner of his eye.
“Wife.”
There’s no one in this world, in any life or universe or timeline, he wants to call that but you. Odds are, it’ll never come to pass.
“Devour her.”
Meanwhile, the heat of your blood numbs your tongue. You can’t even protest when Sylus lays his large palm in the small of your back. Nor can you even muster a peep when he takes you before the host. Honeyed words and pleasantries fall from each man’s lips.
Nothing comes out of yours. You’re too busy pushing down the petals that threaten to burst forth from them. That, and you’re basking in the rough texture of Sylus’ skin on your bare back. For some reason, the dress he picked out for you (one that matches his suit) opens there.
You’ve been consigned to every brush of his muscled arm or calloused hand setting you aflame throughout the night. Dancing was a hell unlike any other. To have him so close, have his warmth mingle with your cold body every time he got too near. It’s all oh so overwhelming. Respect and attention and charity that isn’t yours to have.
The garden within you has decided to act as it should. Hooked your throat and spilled out your mouth. Ruined this night you had hoped to have with your love, and tainted it with your visceral insides.
You’re back in the base before you can think about it. At the party one moment, at Sylus’ home the next. Scolding yourself, you try to rush out of the passenger seat of your love’s car. But, he’s already there: eyes narrowed in suspicion as he opens the door for you and offers his hand to you.
You take it. What else are you supposed to do? Despite how you know you can never be with him the way you want, how you know you’ll die. Your heart’s delusion of falling for him. But you also known you can never let him go. That you’ll take any opportunity to grasp his hand, to touch him and have him against your skin.
No matter how fuzzy and cloudy your brain gets every time. No matter how many coughs you have to choke back. No matter how many seeds are sown inside of you. No matter how many days are shaved off your short life. You’ll take Sylus in whatever manner you can get.
He does the same. Grips you tight when he can. Touches your bare skin with his whenever he can get away with it. Tiny things. Flashes in a pan.
This is enough, he tries to convince himself. It has to be enough.
Dancing with you tonight. Bringing you to his home. Each millisecond you let him share space with you. Under normal circumstances, he’s too enveloped by you to care about anything else.
Right now, he frets. Notices the wobble in your hands. The way your eyes dodge his. How you’re warmer than usual.
“Why didn’t you tell me before?” sits on the tip of his tongue.
“How about you get changed, sweetie? I can drop you off at your apartment afterwards if you’d like,” he says instead.
Skimming your outfit, your thoughts spin.
Am I so ugly in this you want me out of it as soon as possible? Or do you not want my sister to know that you bought me it? It has your tastes all over it, after all. Do you want it back? Should I give it to you only to see my sister in it a few weeks from now? Will you give it to her at my funeral?
“No,” you protest, so quiet you’re sure Sylus doesn’t hear you.
He does, “No what?”
Your eyes flutter towards his against your will. And those soft carmines you cherish are on you as you two walk side by side. They melt you to your core. The flowers decide to torment you less under the caress of his gaze. They hurt less in your chest right now.
“Don’t w-wanna go home. I’ll go back tomorrow; the bad thing I ate s-should clear by then.”
The rumble of Sylus’ chest makes the corners of your lips twitch, “Of course.”
He doesn’t believe me.
You know that tone he’s using. Know it well. From your sister, to your coworkers, to Caleb—all those in your life have given you it. Whenever you did or said something witless. Your cheeks sizzle for another reason, and that reason makes you drop Sylus’ hand as if he had burned you.
“I’m gonna change. Tired of heels and your expensive taste in clothing.”
Voice clipped, and hand scorching from his touch, you sprint to the farthest bathroom in Sylus’ base, not even bothering to look at him again. You’re too mortified to.
—
Sylus watches you leave with a bleeding heart. Guilt sets in as he pours himself a drink. You ripped yourself away from him. And he’s been so blind and selfish that he didn’t know how sick you were until now. Until he got slapped with proof right in the face—he’s supposed to be better than this.
It’s so obvious. And I claim to love her.
Your face drained of its usual vibrant color. Eyes dimmed and bags under them thicker. His original belief: nothing more than poor sleep from your research binges (still worrisome, but fixable). But the bit of blood he saw on the corner of your lips—beautiful things he’s had to stop himself more than once tonight from kissing, especially with how that dress made your allure stand out even more—tells him otherwise.
Makes him worry. He wants to lock you away from the world until you tell him what’s going on and let him help you. You’d hate him for that. For robbing you of your freedom.
At the same time, the more he notices you wither away, the more the terror of losing you that way begins to get crushed by a greater fear. Watching you lose yourself to illness, to something he could heal, is starting to be more unbearable than your hatred.
He tries to imagine that reality: you’re healthy, full of life and no longer fraught with the burdens of the world. You don’t shrink back from everyone around you. Your life no longer centers around your sister. Your eyes don’t dull when you think no one’s looking (he’s always looking).
They only do that when he’s around in this version of events he conjures. He’s no longer ‘Sylus’ to you; he’s your jailer. The man that stole you. The man you fear above all others. His mind shows the picture of the way your sister once addressed him and twists it to be you. It’s you with him in Philip’s workshop. It’s you that he says, “She’s afraid of you, or… disgusted by you” about.
His face falls. His hand gains a small tremor. And his Evol, wisps of red and black, curl around his finger tips. Even his drink becomes bland. Never has loneliness been so empty. Never has rejection dug so far into his chest.
Her sister stabbed me to death in one life. Yet, this time around, the idea of her fearing me is enough to bring me to my knees.
You have power beyond belief. No Evol. No immortality like your twin and him. Instead, your ability shows in how you bend him and her by existing. A little bomb and a fiend. Beings who can and have destroyed worlds.
Both would buckle with one word from you. Both would die for your smile, and annihilate entire nations over your tears. Sylus grips the wine bottle. The glass strains under his grip.
I could lose her because she gave her heart to the wrong person.
“You’re back earlier than expected, Boss-man,” Luke provides the perfect distraction.
Sylus kills his earlier train of though with precision. He has no proof of what's ailing you. Blood and bile can’t diagnose Hanahaki. No flowers means he can't be certain. He needs more information before he can act.
Would you even give it to him? If he begs and pleads at your feet for something, anything, so that he can help you, would you?
Talking about your problems has never been your strong suit. Will you change that for me? Just this once?
”Or do you not trust me?" he longs to ask of you.
“Where’s the missus?”
Kieran’s words pull a chuckle from Sylus, even as he circles the drain with his restraint to not teleport to you and demand answers.
They’ve been calling you that for who knows how long; and Sylus can still recall the first time you ‘confronted’ him to try and make them stop doing so with picture perfect clairty. How you squirmed, not in discomfort—if that was the case, he knows the twins would respect your wishes—but embarrassment laced with shock.
Shock at the place you hold in their lives. A close friend and maternal figure to the twins. Mephisto has labeled you to be his favorite. The rest of his henchmen that see you in passing have more or less made you out to be their boss' wife; you are to be given the same respect and your words hold equal power.
And to Sylus, of course, you’re his most precious treasure. Mousey, not one to say much, and oh so ravishing. A prize he’s unworthy of. He fears staining your delicate skin with his brutish hands that drip with the blood of countless victims.
Maybe that’s why he gives you flowers. Why he grows them for you with his own hands in his personal greenhouse. To show you—and others—that he’s capable of more than death and destruction. That if he can breathe life into a desolate place like the N109 Zone, one day, he might worthy of holding your heart in his hands. That these strong hands can be graceful enough to hold not just frail flowers, but you.
“She’s changing. Evidently, she doesn’t seem to like the outfits I pick out for her.”
Sylus’ tone is light, but both his boys pick up the pain that floats beneath the surface. Neither comment on it. They exchange some kind of silent conversation before Kieran leaves. Sylus keeps quiet as he does. He sips on his wine again, taking the time to analyze and digest its contents.
She’d like this flavor. I’ll offer it to her when she gets better.
—
Kieran drags you out the bathroom to play games with his twin and boss. Said boss keeps a close eye on you in the virtual world. Shadowing you. Quipping with less bite and more concern than usual. Amity and adoration swirl within you at each loving word.
It makes everything all the worse. As you have to leave—over and over again—in order to not throw up on yourself. Bile eviscerates your throat. Coats your mouth in its disgusting texture that no water or drink can fully drown out.
Bits of reprieve on your tongue come in the form of pink and purple tulips; a bitter candy enters your mouth when they appear. The entire time, your body acts like it’s building towards something.
You get the answer in no time. Not even an hour into the game, you can’t hold back the flood anymore. Sprinting to the bathroom without ceremony, your stomach and lungs go on the attack. It’s awful; the worst you’ve ever had.
Sylus exits his pod once you disappear. The twins follow him, concern in their eyes. None of them say anything. Worry sits in their throats. All itch to go after you, but it's clear to all that you don't want them to.
But Sylus can't stand erratic beat of his heart. How the dragon in him calls to go after you. Protect you.
She doesn’t want you, he chants while his feet slowly but surely take him to trail after you. She doesn’t want you.
Meanwhile, iron envelopes your tongue from the heaps of blood that spills from you. Your eyes are too blurry to tell if you hit your target. You make a mental note to scrub the bathroom before you leave this time. The last thing you need is to infect Sylus’ sensitive nose with the scent of your waste.
Said man hasn’t asked any questions. Strange. Off-putting. Do you like things being this way?
No questions. No concerns. Nothing.
Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Do I want him to worry, to fret over me, or do I want to die in peace?
Do you want him to cry over your body, mourn your passing and live with guilt piling on him like stones for his execution? Or do you want to become a blip in his life, one more fleeting human that crossed paths with the great dragon?
Another swell of flowers comes before you can decide. Obliterates your throat. Ruptures one of your arteries. How else could you explain there being this much blood?
What were those foods I read about that helped with blood loss? Poultry and beans sounds good. Maybe I can get Sylus to cook me some. I love his cooking.
More pools in your mouth. Trying to choke it back—to stop the tides, to stop your pain, or to foolishly try and get a grip—does nothing. Taste buds on the back of your tongue forget all other cuisine. You only know blood; they only know iron and fiber.
Eyes still filled with tears, you attempt to glare at the mountains of petals in the toilet. You need to channel your anger somewhere. Why not on the flush mechanism? Over and over again, you pull the handle. Screams well up alongside the garden that wants to push out of your neck.
Teardrops splash pathetically into the sea of your torment. They’re insignificant amongst the storm. Not adding anything helpful to your predicament. They land improperly on the edge of the seat to dilute the blood you managed to get on there. Another mistake for the books. Another error.
Another failure on top of all you’ve done. The knock at the bathroom door you thankfully locked signals that the universe hasn’t stopped messing with you.
Sylus arrives while you’re in this state. Blood and bile flood his nose the second he does. But it’s the floral scents that has anxiety clench a fist around his heart. That tinge isn’t part of your usual smell.
No. No, no, no, no…
Composure is something that comes easy to Sylus in tense moments. It dies when it involves you. Withers right now. He hopes that when he speaks, he doesn’t waver.
“Sweetie? You’ve been in there for quite sometime,” Sylus’ voice makes you sob all the harder.
You're desperate to open the door. Fall into Sylus' arms and confess your feelings and spend the rest of your days pampered by a man who drowns in remorse. The ghost of his strong arms are around your waist. Wonderful drinks that he’d brew for your sore throat linger in your oral cavity and the comfortable clothes he’d swaddle you in brush your skin.
Sylus is desperate for you. To comfort you. Shield you from the world and it's cruelty. Nurse you back to health from whatever is plaguing you.
It isn't Hanahaki, he attempts to persuade himself. It isn't. It can’t be. There’s an explanation to this.
And if it is, it’s treatable. Regardless of what the internet and doctors say.
”Blood is bad, but big is worse,” they say, meaning it’s better to have bloody petals than large ones.
Blood can come from a multitude of things: scratched throat, or a vein or artery being nicked. Not good; but it’s fixable.
Big means progression. Depth. Roots getting into the chest cavity. Long periods of growth time. Big means it’s harder to remove. Harder to treat.
Not that any of this is his problem. You don’t have Hanahaki. You can’t.
“Sweetie?”
He asks again. There's nothing else to do. He can only hope and pray and plead with the stars to not harm another person he loves. To not take away another treasure of his.
You're sick, though, when your love speaks. Your exhausted brain is aware enough to hear the falter in his words. Self-hatred slams into you for your thoughts, for the dreams you know better to even consider.
Idiot. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
You already made a vow to never tell him. Let yourself waste away, become fertilizer for the flowers, without anyone ever knowing. No one will grieve you for long. No one will miss you for long.
That’s okay; it’s how it’s supposed to be. You are your sister’s shadow. You don’t exist as a separate person. The world will go on without you. Sylus will go on without you.
It’s fine. It’s perfectly fine. It’s how things should be. It’s how—
“Sweetie? Answer me,” the tiny crack in his words breaks your heart.
His speech breaks you; your lack shatters him.
What is going behind there that you won't speak to me? How bad is it? Is too late? Are you dying? Are you dead?
His mind provides him a helpful image: you, aspirating silently on bodily fluids, while he stands mere feet away. You're gone before he can do anything. He's this close to breaking the door. His entire body shudders. When was the last time his blood ran this glacial?
The arenas? Finding his sorceress with her memories gone and a child? Or in his first life, when he found out he was all alone? When he almost killed his love?
I don't know. Isn't that frightening?
“I—I’m here,” you finally whimper and the universe inside Sylus holds itself together with duct tape.
Why do you sound so afraid? So broken?
“Because she’s dying,” a voice supplies in his head—is it the Aether Core or something else? “She’s dying and you can do nothing to fix it. You, who promised to protect her.”
Your life is slipping through his fingers, “I’m calling you a doctor.”
Panic shoves itself into your stomach and causes another brief round of vomiting. You try to talk between volleys. Reassure and trick a man you know can’t be fooled. A man, that while you can’t see, you know is alight with worry.
Normally, you’d be flattered. Joyous for the occasion of having all of Sylus attention on you. Right now, it makes the roots in the lobes of your lungs dig deeper and stir a spoon in your guts.
“No. Don’t waste Philip’s time, s-silly. I’ll… I’ll be fine. It’s just a bug.”
The laugh your love lets out is one entirely devoid of humor and bordering on insanity, “You must think me a fool if you expect me to believe that,” he pauses. “Just let me in. I’m begging you.”
He goes deathly quiet and you hear him thunk his head against the door. “You’re scaring me.”
Sylus is on the precipice of breaking all his rules and morales with you. The scent of copper and iron from you is too strong. The waver in your voice is too much.
I need to see you. Please. I need to see you alive before I go mad.
He presses his head on the door in an empty attempt to get closer to you. Sense you through to the other side. Tell you that he’s here and he’s not going anywhere. He can’t stop the sickness that knots in his stomach as he does. From his own hypocrisy.
Part of Sylus that doesn't want to come in. And that's why he keeps the door up. Doesn't want confirmation of his suspicions. Doesn't want to be sure that you love another.
Would he survive seeing such a thing? Would he survive if you lived with this person? Would he survive if you died?
No, he decides. Sylus has lost enough; he won't lose you. No matter the amount of fear inside of him.
But, of course, you none of this. And Sylus knows nothing of your own turmoil.
“You? S-scared? Of me,” you scoff, hacking a bit as blood slips into the wrong pipe. “Big bag Boss-man afraid of me? Doesn’t s-sound too believable. I think I’ll remain here.”
You stutter on every word after your choking bit. Discomforting warmth spreads in your cheeks. Your limbs are on fire.
Inept, stupid little girl.
“If only you knew the impossibilities and paradoxes you arise within me. Anything is possible when it comes to you, sweetie.”
It’s strange to be so flustered when you’re dying and standing in front of pool of your own blood. Watching the red liquid bubble and mix with your phlegm as your heart beats faster.
“Anything is possible when it comes to you, sweetie.”
Such sweet words from a man that causes you so much suffering.
“Flattery will get you nowhere,” your cadence is broken; it hurts to breathe, much less speak.
“It’s not flattery, Fenghuang,” he nearly voices.
“I don’t want it to get me anywhere but past this door,” is the better option, so he says it.
Sylus returns to normal to a degree. No longer does his voice shatter as he talks. No longer does it bleed trepidation, nor rumble with a tremor not unlike a thunderstorm. There’s still twinges of something. Something you’re not clear-minded enough to identify.
That unknown factor that keeps you pushing back against him, “There’s no need. Really. It’s just a—a bug and allergies. You know how weak my body is, remember? Always getting s-sick and failing on me.”
Heavy wheezes escape out your lips. Once more, you turn to the toilet bowl and hurl some petals. Once more does the flavor of rich chocolate mix with spice in your mouth. Once more, you note their sheer size and you have to take a breath in to try to process what that means.
“I’m out of options, Sylus,” you want to say. “Only surgery or your love will save me now. So, there’s no need for a doctor.”
“See, I want to believe you. I really do,” that empty chuckle from before echoes from outside the bathroom to jump around in your skull and heart; the flowers tighten around your internal organs in response to the pain your love hoists onto you. “But I can’t.”
“S-sounds l-like—“
You’re about to tease him. He talks again with a voice that tears into your soul before you can, “Let me see you.”
Sylus wants to cry. He’s about to. He will if it gets him to you.
“I look gross, Sy. L-let… let me clean up first.”
I don’t care, sweetie. I couldn’t care less how you look. Let me gaze upon you and put my mind at ease. Prove to me for both our sakes that you aren’t dying. That I have more time to be worthy of you.
“You sound ready to fall apart, sweetie,” you have no idea, my love. “I fear you’ll fall and I’ll never be able to gaze upon those eyes of yours again.”
I hope that’s the case. That I go gently into the night, disappear from everyone’s lives I’ve been mucking up. There one day, gone overnight. You never have to see these cursed eyes of mine again. I can die without ceremony; you and my sister don’t even have to give me a funeral.
At the same time, I hope to die here. Scar you for eternity as I fade away in your bathroom and you’re hopeless to stop me. You’ll miss me forever if that happens, right? No one will forget me. I’ll be the girl that died because of Hanahaki in the leader of Onychinus’ base rather than just my sister’s twin. You’ll remember out of the guilt for not saving me rather than the guilt of hurting my sister. You’ll remember my blood, my pain, my flowers I grew for you. Could you bare to wash my blood out of expensive tile? Will some of it remain in memory—
Stop it.
You’re a terrible person to wish those things on a someone you claim to love. And it’s for that shame—deep indignity that burrows into your viscera alongside the seeds on new tulips—that you can’t let Sylus in. Can’t let him cross that threshold.
“I’m gross,” you repeat, and you find it physically hard to speak now. “I’ll get my grossness all over you. If you come in, that is. Don’t and prevent that from happening.”
Laying your head against the cold porcelain throne to cool off a bit, you sniffle and strive to get out of this bathroom without Sylus knowing anything. To leave this place with your pride and spirit intact.
Nothing good can possibly come from him knowing. The truth will do no one any good.
My selfish need to be loved is what caused all this.
“I do not care how you look, sweetie. I do not care about what you may or may not do to my clothes; they’re just fabric and all their price tags combined don’t amount to how much I value you. I do not care if you’re gross—not that you could ever be so, but that’s not what this conversation is about,” you hear a tap on the door again, and he sounds closer when he speaks. “Just let me in. Please.”
The following silence is the worst of his life. You say nothing. But, if he strains his ears, he can pick up you shuffling about. Turning the water on to wash your face, he assumes. Pausing at the mirror to peer upon whatever it is that you believe he’d find gross about you.
He could never. Will never, find anything revolting that has to do with you. When he fell in love, he fell hard. Completely. Absolutely.
But you don’t think so. You’re frantic in cleaning. More so than before.
You can’t do much for your clothing. You try to scrub out the bits of food, bile, and blood you can find. Face burning with humiliation at what your stupid eyes can’t find but you know Sylus’ will, you creak open the entrance to the bathroom. Sylus only needs a glimpse; you’ll let him see you, but he won’t be let in.
Your plan falls apart immediately when you the leader of Onychinus is before you with a face twisted in agony. Eyebrows scrunched up, your mind supplies you with the dumb idea to smooth it out with your thumb. He’s within reach right now as he leans. You could do it—give the excuse later that your fever and food poisoning made you do something stupid.
You attempt to speak; it’s the only thing that chases your attention way from one loss of face to another (you’re always a mess when you try to articulate anything, let alone with the circumstances right now), “I—“
Your blooming buds decide to silence you. Blood spurts past your lips, and you aren’t fast enough to close the door as Sylus follows you the short distance to the toilet. A gasp tells you he sees what swims within the bowl.
Why didn’t I flush it? So focused on my grotesque appearance I forgot something so simple.
While you scold yourself, Sylus does the same. Admonishes his own behavior. His selfishness. His greed. How blind he’s become by silly lust and imagination.
Hope, that feeling that you make him hold stock in again, is murdered by what’s in the bowl. He crushes that useless emotion under his boot.
Tulips.
—
Josephine always said you’d lose your head if it wasn’t attached to your shoulders. Your sister and Caleb still say the same thing, but they say it humor. Josephine spat it at you—literally, the old woman would spray you with saliva sometimes—all the time. When you forgot school assignments. When you’d wait until the last minute to let her know about some event. When you’d get in trouble for not getting her signature on your agenda in elementary school (that, you recall, happened the most).
Always, she said those words to you with a smile. Caleb, your sister, and no one else would suspect there to be anything behind that grin. Imagining it even now gives way to a full-body shiver. A shiver that brings another torrent of illness out of you.
Wanting to forget that woman, you turn your head to the one person whose presence never failed to do that for you. But, when you do, a singular thought rings true:
Liar.
Sylus, evidently, does care how you look. His normal composure is gone. To the ordinary viewer, it isn’t; to you, it’s in pieces as he rubs your back. Eyes a bit wider than usual. They refuse to leave you, sticking to your being and scanning your body. They twitch every time he finds what you think must be blood or other fluids on your person.
His touch, hands caressing your back carefully and sometimes making circles in your taut muscles, quivers. Minuscule movements—you wouldn’t have noticed if you weren’t so intent on burying Sylus’ existence into your mind (it’s like you’re trying to kill yourself faster). His grip tightens on you every so often. As if he’s trying to force you to anchor yourself to life. To be the rope that tethers you to this world.
His breathing is off. Catches in his throat in audible sounds between your retches. And something in you dies when he does.
He lets you see. A twisted hope revives itself as he crouches beside you. Begs for you to see him and his concern and his love. Pleads for there to be another outcome.
The petals are large. Massive even. Almost as big as the ones I give her.
“She’s dying,” that strange but familiar voice rattles. ”She’s dying.”
Denial is a wave within Sylus. A crashing ocean that fizzles and foams before it reaches the shore of his conscious mind. Only fragments of his true thoughts are allowed on the coastline of his heart.
And as you cough more blood with more tulips, the gods stir a storm in that sea. Swirls of denial lace with the creatures of other emotions. They’re swept up. Dragged into the deeps of his heart.
It’s cold there. Will be freezing once you’re gone. Empty. Devoid of the populace you brought. Only riptides of anger and rains of grief will be left.
She’s dying.
This time, it’s in his voice. And he can’t deny it. Can’t ignore it.
It pains him. Digs claws and wrenches a blade through his chest. The sweetest of poisons laces his blood, envelops his heart as each drop of blood from you deepens his lack of faith. For if there’s a god in this world, why would they do this?
Curse you—intelligent, kind, sweet, beautiful, perfect, you—to be involved in a love like this? To be dragged down through the earth to choke on the selfish love of someone who doesn’t recognize what they have in you.
Especially when I’m right here.
—
Eventually, your flair up passes. Part of you hopes it’ll come back. That your flowers will devour you until nothing’s left and you don’t have to explain yourself. If you’re dying—air squeezed out of your lungs, leaves intertwining with your bronchi, roots sucking up the blood from your alveoli to make space for themselves, and tulip florets gathering in your trachea—Sylus will have the decency to ask nothing. He won’t be able to; not when your death-rattles fill the space between you two.
You will the buds to come back. Breach past your uvula and splat onto the scene with you and Sylus. Nothing. Heavy pants over the toilet is what you’re consigned to. The man responsible for your anguish rubs more tight circles into your back. You swear you can hear his teeth grind.
The pair of you stay like this for some time. How long, no one knows.
Sylus still doesn’t ask anything of you. He doesn’t do so when Luke and Kieran come looking for the two of you. He doesn’t do so when he helps you change—a mortifying endeavor that brings more coughing fits, but also a refreshing bath. He doesn’t do so when he hands you a cup of your favorite hot drink. It holds the perfect amount of honey for your taste.
While he gets it, you’re unaware of how his lips burns. Aches and spins alongside his head. Cotton in his mouth. All his skills, all his knowledge, are gone. Vanished. Stolen. Conquered by the veil of your blood and spit. He expects his hands to tremble as he hands the cup to you.
Am I disappointed that they don’t? That even now, I can’t truly show her what’s going in my mind?
Bars and cages surround his heart. Try to distance Sylus from his turmoil. What will he do when it breaks? When he crumbles? When he shows you more than glimpses and glitches and leaves his pride to plea at your feet?
It’s then that he asks his first question. And the one answer he seeks from you is the one you don’t want to provide to anyone.
“Who is it?”
Rage. Sylus toils with it. From your hysterics. The proof lies in how he squirms and can’t lock eyes with you.
He finds you foolish. Unfit to be his friend. A moron beyond any comparison. Because no one with even a modicum of intellect would be in your position: dying of a disease like Hanahaki when there’s so many options available to you to prevent that. Things didn’t have to get this far.
That’s not the truth. He finds your love foolish. Finds them unfit for your affection. A moron who can’t see the perfection that is you.
“What… what you—no, that’s not right,” you pause, taking a breath in while your cheeks scorch and you shrink back from where you sit on Sylus’ bed. “What are you going on about?”
Unable to face Sylus and your own uselessness, you sip at the drink.
“Don’t lie to me, Fenghuang. Not about this. Please.”
There’s that word again. There’s that tone, that look, that expression, that man and his hopeless care.
“I can’t tell you," your brain can't keep your mouth shut.
“Why?”
Because you and my sister would be shattered when I die. Or, you would forget and move on without me and I haven’t figured out which one is worse yet. I don’t know if I want you to go crying to my grave night after night, or pretend I never existed. I can’t tell you because then I would have to decide and I know I’ll pick the wrong one because right now, I want you to myself and never want you to move on and—
“You’ll tell her,” is the perfect excuse because it’s not entirely a lie. Partial truths, they’ll save you.
He knows who you mean immediately, “I would never—“
“I don’t believe you. I can’t.”
So much goes unsaid: “She’s your sorceress. I’m your little bird you sometimes like to hear sing. She’s your Hecate, your goddess of magic, that stands with you as an equal. I’m a symbol, given meaning for what I bring and not who I am. Of course you would tell her. Everyone tells her everything when it comes to me, whether I like it or not.”
Sylus wilts under your words. Your refusal. The arrival of your walls. His own inadequacies and failures.
One sister doesn’t remember me and the other can’t fully trust me even after all this time. Neither can nor will ever give me their heart.
There’s only one he wants. Only one love he craves.
“Maybe, prove me wrong. For once,” you joke with your last words, forcing a laugh that tears into the soft flesh of throat.
No coughs come out. You swallow them with your usual act. It wavers when Sylus—with sinew forearms that shudder from what must be disgust—brings you to his chest. His warmth is a blanket that surrounds you. You imagine yourself back in your old house, a child with her sister and two childhood friends that bicker due to their shared love of her, by a fireplace outside in the winter.
Sylus protects you from the elements like your sister, Caleb, and Zayne did during these nights. Cotton sweatshirt under your bunched fists. Seeking more comfort, you burrow your head into his neck as he brings your legs to lay across his lap.
He dwarfs you. Unlike when you’d snuggle into Zayne as a little girl (you two were once close in size, after all). Your dragon encircles you with his body. You can’t help but raise a hand to trace the tendon in his neck, a motion you’re astonished to get away with.
Goosebumps crawl on him where your finger ghosts. Sylus’ tightens his hold on, ignoring the siren call of your lips.
If I kiss you, take you, make you mine in every way here, will you love me instead?
Brainless. Oafish. A line of thinking not one with any sense would come up with. He’s desperate, though. Tittering on the edge of mania.
In that state, his Aether Core calls to him to claim you. Begin his addiction and kiss you. Show you that there’s people out there that love you above all else.
You mind is in a different state. Cloudy from memories and sickness, no rational thought can breach past it to your consciousness. Your fingertips soak up the heat of Sylus’ delectable skin, a real smile blossoming upon your face. Eyes are under the same spell, caught in the same rainstorm, you don’t notice when they drift to Sylus’ face.
There’s that face again.
Wrinkled brows. Eyes scanning your body. Chiseled jaw hard-set. Your hands make that your next target.
Sylus speaks before you can discolor more of his flawless nature with your damage, “I have a condition for my cooperation.”
His voice is hard to perceive. Low, as if him raising it any higher would cause you to scatter in the wind like when you and your sister would run around in the park and blow on dandelions. It’s endearing. It also comes with the caveat of bringing up a morbid memory.
After the explosion that killed Josephine, your sister became clingy to you. You, with no Evol and no Aether Core and slew of health problems no doctor’s ever been able to figure out. You, with your lack of assertiveness and willingness to bend over backwards for strangers. You, with your quiet and unassuming demeanor, that always lands you in the worst of situations.
You, who’s the reason Caleb ‘died’ because he shielded you as well as Josephine. Ever the protector. Ever the kind soul. Ever the perfect friend that wants the best for you. Now in the grasp of the Professor you vaguely remember from your past.
A past you, Caleb, and Josephine agreed to never speak of. Never acknowledge. It rears its ugly head in other ways. Festers different wounds. Caleb shows his remembrance in his protective and loyal nature. Josephine with her guilt and the way she spoils the three of you.
Your scars come in the form of death. It stalks you every day—you theorize that you’ve run out of lives and that’s why your health is the way it is. Every fever. Every aching bone. Every unstable gait. Every allergy test. Death longs to claim you. It’s the only thing in this world that truly wants you.
Truly craves and hungers for you.
Having death disrupt your little family made your sister spiral. Planning the funeral made her grief deepen. You swept yours away in favor of navigating the issues that arose. When the pair of you could finally breathe without the weight of twin coffins crushing your chests, you both decided you didn’t want any of your future loved ones or each other to go through all this.
You drafted wills together. Sloppy ones that would need some ironing out. But, they’re something. Something that you’re now in need of checking up on.
I hope they remember to spread my ashes. Maybe on that island with those pink dolphins I’ve heard some of my coworkers talk about?
Sylus talks as if he knows what’s going on inside your head. He holds you like you’ve already been cremated and his grip alone is keeping your form together. Like he won’t let the wind, the earth, the sky, or even the fire you dream of claim you. Like a dragon protecting his hoard and family.
“W-what?”
No attempt is made by you to redo your response and speak properly. Humiliation wades through the mud of your skin, of your being. You attempt to move away from Sylus to let it breathe through you. He doesn’t let you, an anomaly that makes your emotions all the more twisted and knotted.
“You let me help you get treatment,” he cranes his neck down, gently knocking his forehead to yours, and his breath fans your face. “Don’t make me watch you suffer when we both know I have the resources to assist you. Let me take care of you.”
“Let me hold you, love you. Let me show you how I cherish you,” goes unsaid by the man.
Keep it together. Be slow. Be gentle. Don’t scare her.
When your sister found out about his feelings, she told him to do so. To inch towards that kind of relationship with you. That you need time. That going all in will spook you.
“She’s never been good with attention from, well… anyone. Let alone romance. Never makes time for it and doesn’t want to start now.”
And given that you know his history with your sibling, things got complicated. All he can do is pray now. Hope he isn’t too late. Hope he can take care of you the right way and dig up the roots in your chest.
Give me a chance. I only need a few moments.
Every nerve fires on all cylinders for you. While Sylus ponders and presses a heavier weight on your back, you suddenly become aware of all things that touch your skin. Soft fibers from Sylus’ and your clothing. Textured hands on your spine. Your legs in comfy pants, feet clothed in fluffy socks; you still feel the shifts in Sylus’ thighs underneath it all. Still trace the firm mattress with your toes as a method of grounding.
Your mind’s on a high, and your ears barely pick up his next words, “The wonderful thing about technology and advancement, sweetie, is that your condition is no longer a death sentence. People can live relatively long lives without surgery or requited love these days.”
He pauses. A thought runs across his mind. Something he stupidly decides to give life and voice to, “You could even be given enough time to fall out of love with this miscreant that doesn’t deserve you.”
His usual cadence and confidence drains from him. Is there any proof of his emotions on his face? You don’t react if there is.
Do I want her to? To notice? To consider me?
It’s a stupid question with an obvious answer: yes. Sylus’ mouth dries, empties, in his moment of panic. It’s exacerbated by your silence. He’s left alone with only the wisps of the coziness your proximity stirs in him and his tongue that weighs like lead.
Misfired neurons short circuits your brain and your left with repeating the last thing you said, “W-what?”
Your stutter leaves cracks in his heart.
You won’t even consider such a thing, will you?
He can’t blame you. All other options disappeared once you made your way into his heart. No one could be an option with you around. Perhaps you’re the same with your mystery gardener?
He waits patiently for you to gather yourself. You’re unnerved by his quiet. He presses his forehead deeper into yours. A glimpse of his expression reveals his eyebrows scrunched and his eyes in pain. Hands find their way to the back of your head. And for some reason, you’re compelled to toss your legs to straddle his waist.
Both your breaths hitch at the movement. You’re too close. Too on edge. Sneaking towards crossing a forbidden line that neither you will return from.
Kiss me, Sylus beckons you internally. Do it. Take what’s yours. Be greedy and ruin me for eternity.
Sylus can’t cross the boundary. The invisible line that keeps his Core and fiendish side in check.
You can. You can have me. Even if it’s to fill the hole left behind by someone else. Even if it means nothing to you.
For a split second, you move your face closer to his and your noses brush. Sylus invades all of you: your nerves, your thighs, your breath, your hands that find their way around his neck. You invade him: his eyes, his Evol, his DNA, his soul, and every life he will ever live. Everything about you two intertwines.
It gives you the strength to speak, “You’re not going to pressure me to get the s-surgery?”
Sylus’ shoulder sag for a second. You blink and it’s gone. Twitch and he’s back to normal.
He finally allows you to hear that deep laugh of his you adore. This close, his chest rumble under your hands. Hands that he moves to his cheek to nuzzle. Part of you pleas with your eyes for him to kiss it as well, to push you over the edge so that you have an excuse to dive in for his lips.
You ache to. With your bodies almost melting into one another, him speaking to you with his baritone voice and touching your burning skin. One brush of his lips anywhere on you would break you. You lick your own at the thought.
Plump and plush petals of another kind against your mouth. Ones that bring the taste of blood on your tongue for a good reason. Ones that tears whimpers and sighs from your throat, sounds that bring you to your knees and ignite a new spark in your body.
One kiss. Just one is all it will take.
He hypnotizes you further with his words, “Would you consider it if I asked, my dear Fenghuang?”
The drug that is Sylus captures you, and you shake your head no without hesitation. Forgetting the love you have for him isn’t an option. Never has been, never will be.
“Thought so.”
He wouldn’t in your position. He can’t judge. Foolish heart be damned.
His other hand, now returned to the bottom of your back, pushes you further into him. Part of him weeps when he does.
The day I got this close to you in my bed went an entirely different way in my head.
You burn for another reason in that dream. Throat sore from his actions rather than someone else’s. And if you cried, well… it goes without saying that those tears wouldn’t put gaping wounds in his heart.
Not this. Not him cradling you, begging you to love and trust him while he’s too much of a coward to voice any of it to you. Too locked in remembering the parents that cast him aside, the villagers that called for his death, and the sorceress who peered at him with fear drenched in disgust.
He thought at least your sister’s love for him would never smear.
I won’t survive your rejection. Not even reincarnation could undo that.
For you are the first human—the first complete stranger—to never shy away from him. Any terror you’ve shown around him doesn’t come from you being fundamentally repulsed by him. Any reluctance to make eye contact is due to embarrassment or exhaustion; not wanting to distance yourself from him and his power (in fact, you’re rather intrigued by everything about him).
You accept Sylus. You care from him. Stay in his life despite your hatred of blood and violence. Losing you would be his final straw.
“And only extreme cases need that kind of intervention. Your condition isn’t that far along, correct?”
You nod. The roots of your conscience dig into your soul. They take to Sylus’ as well. For both of you are aware of how much of a dirty lie your words are.