Archive of Our Own ^beta

Some people found it endearing. They were usually the ones who grew tiny daisies from their fingertips, or dandelions on their knees. Small and harmless injuries, that only served to remind you that your other half was out there, living, just like you. Sometimes it was concerning, like when dozens of cornflowers streamed from his classmate’s stomach one day at lunch. She was tense for weeks, until a small carnation bloomed on her lip.
There was a lot of pity for those who never had flowers. No one was that careful.

Nico used to think it was sweet, especially when forget-me-nots would gather around his nail beds, and he could only imagine his soulmate biting his nails, or when a single, bright red poppy uncurled on the tip of his nose and could laugh about how clumsy they would be.
But early on, the roses came. And he hated them.
It didn’t seem so bad at first, just a few yellow blossoms that crept out from under his shirt one evening. There was a single white one falling from his cheek a second later, and Nico only wondered if they had fallen.
But two days later there were pink petals under his collar, and more across his stomach. He lay in bed, unable to sleep, as rosebuds filled his mouth for almost half an hour. They always disappeared in minutes when it was over.
And they just kept coming.

Usually, the flowers were varied. Usually, the injuries were different each time. You learned to recognise the patterns, like the forget-me-nots for bitten fingers, and the carnations for bitten lips.
Nico knew the roses always came from the same thing. He just didn’t know what, and it drove him mad.
He spent years avoiding them, closing his eyes and ignoring the reds and pinks and soft petals. He hated roses. He hated real ones, he hated his ones.
He grew jealous of his classmates, smiling over what were probably skimmed knees or stubbed toes, while he had to watch the roses spill from all across his body every few days. There were other flowers, gentler ones, the forget-me-nots still blossomed, but they were bittersweet.

In some twisted way, he began to hate his soulmate almost as much as the roses. He hated them for making them, he hated them for getting hurt, for hurting him.
It was unfair. He knew that. But it didn’t really matter, did it?

Nico decided he didn’t want to meet his soulmate. Halfway through highschool, he decided he didn’t care if his boyfriend was his soulmate. He knew they usually didn’t feel the same.
He could see the pain in their eyes when Nico’s flowers came and they were fine. He felt the exact same, hollow pain when his boyfriends found their flowers, with someone else. He kept going, though. He almost felt he deserved it, for hating his soulmate.
He met Percy half way through his senior year. He simultaneously hoped Percy was and wasn’t his soulmate.
Percy was sweet. He didn’t seem to care about soulmates at all. He said they usually only made you miserable, waiting for them and then losing them and having to fill that hole in your heart when they’re gone. Nico wondered whether he was talking about someone he knew, or if Percy had already found and lost his flowers. He couldn’t even imagine that pain.
Sure, he hated the roses. But they did mean his soulmate was still there, even if they were hurting. God, it hurt that they were hurting.

Nico really, really liked Percy. He really, really, wanted Percy to stay with him. For all the talk of indifference, a part of him feared that once Percy didn’t get his flowers, he would think too long about Nico’s impermanence in his life, and leave him like the rest of them. So he was extra cautious, as cautious as he could possibly be, whenever Percy was around.

Percy never saw his flowers, and Nico never saw Percy’s either. They could almost pretend they didn’t exist, when they were alone.
They both existed in a space where the flowers weren’t prioritized. Nico’s sister had vowed never to chase her soulmate, never to let the flowers dictate her love. His father had found his flower, but she had died. But his flowers didn’t stop, and soon there was a new one.
Percy told him his mother’s soulmate also had two flowers. He didn’t speak about it often, but Nico guessed that his father had made a choice.

They pretended for so long, it made Nico ache to blossom again. He hated the roses more than ever, ripping them apart before they disappeared, trying desperately to rid himself of them as quickly as he could.
One night, bright orange petals covered his ribs, and Nico felt so unbearably terrible. He didn’t have the energy to hate, he was just so tired of them. He was just so tired of the hurt.
The next morning, he saw Percy, and the roses were like a fading dream. Like he stepped into a new world, a world where flowers only grew between the cracks in the sidewalk and in houseplant pots.
He pressed his arms around him, hugging tightly, as tight as he dared, like he was the only anchor Nico had to this world.
And Percy flinched.