Chapter Text
Nie Huaisang’s books always treat the flower sickness as a curse. It’s something tragic, a herald of death unless the romance is assured, and then it’s rather boring. That’s why he doesn’t read those. Why read a book when you already know the ending? Why hope for an ending you won’t have?
The petals that spill from his lips only hurt a little. They’ve always been tiny white specks, sticky with spit and clinging to his fingers when he pulls them out of his mouth. Then, three years after the first shredded pieces, Nie Huaisang finally peels a whole petal off the back of his tongue. It looks like a plum blossom. He isn’t sure from just one petal, but the thought makes him want to laugh all the same. Strength, vitality, courage, hope…what better flower to represent the one whose love he pines for?
He presses the petal between the pages of one of his books before wrapping the whole thing in a zhongyi that his brother won’t bother unraveling. He’s long stopped searching Huaisang for contraband by now. Still, there’s no reason to tempt fate. Nie Mingjue already swore that this would be Huaisang’s last time at Cloud Recesses and threatened to abandon him on some mountaintop if he failed again.
(He wouldn’t, but that wasn’t the point.)
Months pass. The Wen sun rises and threatens to burn the world, and even Nie Mingjue can’t keep Huaisang away from them forever. He understands, at least. It’s a hard decision, so he makes it for his brother by going willingly.
Huaisang learns to subtly palm the petals behind his fan and hide his coughs between steps. It’s hard to fake a faint convincingly with them clinging to the back of his throat, but he manages, and the Wen soldiers leave his room just in time for him to retch. He coughs a spatter of white petals onto the black stone floor and feels all the more miserable for the reminder. Nie Huaisang loves his brother, they seem to say.
Right now, he’d settle for just seeing him.
When it’s over and they’ve won, and he finally gets that wish, Lan Xichen warns him to be careful. His brother is hurt, bruised and bloody, and that’s only the physical pains. Huaisang shouldn’t overwhelm him, no matter how pleased he is.
Nie Huaisang tries, but the minute the door opens and he sees his brother there, he can’t help himself. “Da-ge!” he shouts.
His brother has never been more beautiful than right now, in a borrowed robe and swathed in strips of bandages. Nie Mingjue smiles and lifts one arm in invitation.
Huaisang burrows into his side like he wishes to carve a space there, pressing a single, impulsive kiss to his brother’s jaw. “You’re okay,” he sighs. It feels like the calm after a storm, and he imagines his breath coming a little bit easier with each inhale of his brother’s scent.
Imagines, because he doesn’t really. Nie Huaisang coughs and feels a flower petal stick to his lips.
“Didi?” Mingjue says, voice full of concern. As if a cough could compare to broken ribs. He tries to lean back and pull away, but Huaisang clings tighter. “I’m just…a little sick, Da-ge. I’ll be fine,” he lies, before catching the petal with his teeth and swallowing it. “It’s already getting better.”
The petals grow in number as the years pass. One, two, three at a time. He gets his first complete set of five the night before his twenty-second birthday. They’re small, and at least Huaisang’s lucky in that. At this rate, he’ll have years.
He finally gets a full one, perfect but sticky, as the pair of them leave Sword Sacrifice Hall. He pretends it’s the dust and preemptively whines about Mingjue being heavy, shaking the bloom off behind them.
Mingjue takes a little more weight off. Huaisang scoffs and pulls his arm back down over his shoulders. “Joking, Da-ge…” he chides. Huaisang wants to help him. It’s the least he can do. He might not have as much time as he thought, after all.
There are three ways for the flower sickness to end.
The first is…well, it kills you. The flowers bloom in your lungs, coming out in greater number, size, and frequency as years pass. Eventually, you choke to death. Sometimes people are unlucky and it’s the thorny stems that kill you, or vines crawling up your throat, or the roots digging so deeply into your flesh that they become a knot around your heart. Huaisang expected this one. Hopefully, it wouldn’t hurt too much.
The next, romantic option was the return of your affections. Your blood sings, the flowers recede, and you live.
The third and perhaps the worst…the one you love dies, and for all that Nie Mingjue warned Huaisang that he probably won’t outlive him, he never expected that one. His brother’s death always seemed impossible.
But now he’s watching it happen. Nie Huaisang screams for his brother, fighting against Jin Guangyao’s embrace, and even if he were free, there would be nothing he could do. Nie Mingjue bellows and burns, raising Baxia toward them like a last warning, and being unrecognized by him actually hurts more than the agony in his lungs.
“Da-ge!” he cries again. Jin Guangyao holds him tighter, trying to reassure him. “Da-ge, it’s me! It’s me!” With a final shout that shakes the earth, Nie Mingjue dies. As if it weren’t enough to watch his blood spill, the universe cruelly gives Nie Huaisang one kindness. A petal falls from his lips. Then, no more. His last shout has more air behind it than he’s had in a decade. “Da-ge!”
Jin Guangyao lets him go then. Huaisang struggles to his feet and runs toward his brother. “Da-ge, da-ge…” he repeats, over and over, even if his throat feels like he’s swallowed glass. “Da-ge, please. It’s me, please.” The scent of blood fills the air around his brother’s body, seeming to stick to Huaisang’s tongue, and his hands come away stained as he presses on his chest, finding the saturated fabric stiff and hot but the body underneath too still. “Please don’t…don’t go…”
But it is already too late. He can breathe; the sickness has gone. He’ll never choke on a petal again, in the way he’ll never see his brother smile and never hear his voice again. This isn’t what he wanted.
Nie Huaisang kisses his brother in a final, desperate attempt to bring him back. That works in some of his books. It’s a child’s hope, and all it gives him is the taste of his brother’s blood on his tongue, and something sticking to his lip. He plucks it out and rolls it between two bloody fingertips.
Soft as silk, slender, and white, but…it’s entirely the wrong shape. It’s a petal, Huaisang realizes, and it isn’t his.