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Flowers pour from his lips as he accepts the offer, trading his own life for those of his friends. For they are still his friends, even though they don't act like it nowadays, and he would do anything to save them.
It won't change much, really. It's not like they spend much time together as it is, and at least this way he will know he is doing something to help them.
No, it won't change much. The thing that makes him hesitate, the thing that makes him beg and plead for there to be another option, is that by making this deal he must give up on the still figure in its hospital bed, accept that he is not coming back. The thought pulls at something deep inside him, twisting the vines around his heart.
Though apparently even those will go away once he makes his choice, so it is not all bad. He will live longer, at least, even if it is an empty life, and those he cares for that still live will do so longer as well. It is the second reason that makes up his mind, forcing him into a decision. He doesn't much care about his own lifespan, at this point.
"Goodbye, Jon," Martin says, petals drifting to the floor, and "Sleep well," and as he walks out the door he feels the vines loosen their grip inside his chest, and he breathes freely for the first time since Peter Lukas arrived at the Institute, bringing choking loneliness in his wake.
~~~~~
Jon wakes up.
He knows he has changed - feels it in the hollow spaces of his mind, the itching need to know burning in his consciousness. Still, he is more himself than not, and if turning into a monster means he can survive a building collapsing... well, it seems a fair trade.
Basira tells him a little of what has happened in his absence. It is not enough to sate his curiosity, but it is all she is willing to give, and he doesn't want to push his luck.
His throat is dry; she brings him water, and it helps a little. He can't help but feel tea would do more.
The Institute has changed as well, echoing and open in a way it never was before. People are missing, and those that remain are distant and disconnected. Jon spends most of his first day back alone, reorganizing an office that has been turned upside down in his absence.
The dust makes him cough, and there is a tightness in his chest that was never there before. Well, he wasn't breathing for six months - if he managed to escape with mild asthma, he'll consider himself lucky.
It is not asthma.
He figures this out in less than two days, when a particularly violent coughing fit leaves him half-collapsed in his desk chair, hand pressed against the pain in his chest and a small cascade of flower petals strewn down the front of his sweater.
There is no single type of flower in the mix: it is a varied bunch of colors and petals, pink and red and white, large and curved, small and pointed, something in between. He stares at it for a moment. Then, with a shaking hand, he grabs his phone to text Basira. He doesn't trust his voice to yell.
She doesn't know what it means either, though she is able to identify the small red petals as fragments of a chrysanthemum blossom. Further research on his part turns up pink camellia and jonquil for the others, though it hardly helps to throw any light on the situation.
It is Melanie who works it out, though Jon has to hear it secondhand from Basira.
"She says it's called Hanahaki Disease. It features in several myths and legends, but accounts of real-life occurrences are rare. Apparently your friend Ms. Barker did an episode of her podcast about it."
"Okay, but what is it? It doesn't seem to fit into any of the powers as we know them, unless... Corruption, maybe? Flesh?"
Basira gives him a pitying look. "Try the one that's in charge of this place at the moment. Hanahaki Disease, at least according to legend, strikes those afflicted with unrequited love."
"Oh." Oh. "The Lonely."
"Yeah."
"But I'm not-" he stops at Basira's raised eyebrow, and...okay, maybe he is, maybe he has been for a long time, but he really doesn't want to discuss it with her. "So why... this? Why chrysanthemum, or, or camellia? It doesn't make sense."
Basira shrugs. "Melanie suggested you look into the 'Victorian language of flowers.' If these things really are affected by human perceptions..."
"Then the meaning humans ascribe to them will hold true. Thanks, Basira."
"No problem. Good luck."
Jon looks into it. Jon finds the meanings of chrysanthemum, of jonquil, of camellia. Jon slams his laptop closed.
(Jon opens it again, a few minutes later, and by the end of the week he is fairly certain he will be able to identify the type and meaning of any flower that happens to cross his path.)
~~~~~
When he finally sees Martin, it is not at all like he had hoped. Martin is cold, and distant. Martin is busy, too busy to talk to him. Martin does not feel the way he once did.
If he ever did.
Jon hacks up daffodils and red roses afterwards, and he doesn't bother to tell Basira that there is blood among the petals, now. She's got other things on her mind than his own bleeding heart.
~~~~~
There are two ways Hanahaki Disease generally claims its victims. The first, and most common, is through blood loss: the flowers that characterize the disease grow on vines that wind their way into the afflicted's flesh, puncturing veins and arteries and feeding off the blood like a parasite. If a person manages to survive that, they die at a slightly later date by some form of asphyxiation. Whether they drown on their own blood pooling in their lungs or suffocate in the weight of plant life cutting of oxygen does not matter: either way, they are dead.
Jon does not think he needs to fear either of these fates. Blood and oxygen are not as necessary for him as they once were. Still, when the coughing overwhelms him and he cannot speak for the pain, he wonders what will happen if (when) he finds himself unable to read statements.
~~~~~
They save Melanie; the coffin is delivered; he talks, once again, to Martin.
"I worry," he says, and "I miss you," and the words draw lines of fire around his heart. By the time Martin leaves, shutting the door behind himself without a backward glance, Jon cannot muster more than a choked "W- wait!" before he feels the vines inside him shift and rise, and his words are cut off in a rattling gasp.
He manages to make his way to the bathroom before he collapses entirely. He cannot breath, cannot speak; reaching one hand into his mouth he can grasp the stem of the vine that has clawed its way up his throat.
He pulls. It hurts.
The room is swimming around him, tears blurring in his eyes, and he pulls, and he pulls, and it wrenches at something deep inside him as the vine comes free. It is long, and it is bloody, and it cannot kill him because he is no longer human but he retches into the toilet bowl anyway, spitting out blue violets and red azaleas and-
He sobs when he sees the forget-me-nots, because it is one thing to know how you feel and quite another to see it acknowledged by an extra-dimensional fear entity, and he has never loved anyone the way he loves Martin Blackwood and he will never love anyone like this again.
~~~~~
Martin stands in the middle of the office, hands balled into fists at his sides, and he cannot forget the soft choking sounds that came from Jon no matter how hard he tries.
"You promised it wouldn't take anyone else!" he shouts, and Peter laughs at him.
"I promised it wouldn't kill anyone else, Martin. And it's hardly my fault your Archivist went and fell in love, is it?"
"Make. It. Stop." His own heart is burning, and he doesn't know of it is fear or guilt or jealousy or love. He doesn't dare to guess who Jon might be pining over; he doesn't think he wants to know.
"I can't do that, I'm afraid. There's only three things in this world that will stop a case of Hanahaki Disease once it's started: falling out of love, having it requited, or, as I am sure you are aware, coming to work for my family." His voice is gentle, friendly. "Does it really seem likely that your Archivist will choose any of those? The ones that are his choice, at any rate. You really think he would want that?"
All Martin can do is shake his head, and Peter smiles at him like a proud parent.
~~~~~
When The Boneturner reaches into his chest, it is a pain the likes of which Jon has never known. Agony fires along every nerve end, and beneath it all there is the wrenching, tearing and wrongness that comes of having another's hand inside your chest. He feels his ribs break off with a snap, leaving a dull and hollow ache in their place - and when Hopworth pulls them from his chest they trail flowering vines behind them.
"That's yours," the Boneturner says, and Jon accepts the rib numbly, barely aware of the blood and the vines and the flowers brushing his spasmodically clutching fingers, barely aware of his own gasps of pain and the explanation spilling from his lips.
"This one's for me." Jon can't watch the rib go into The Boneturner's chest, the flesh and bones parting to give it way. He keeps his eyes on the floor instead, watching the soft fall of ash as the vines in Hopworth's hand combust and burn away. There is no loneliness in flesh.
Afterwards, as he lays on Basira's cot in the Archives, hand pressed to his chest, searching for the hollow places, he feels the vines inside him growing to fill the space.
The weak one legged it.
Something inside him burns at the words, and the vines grow faster under its fuel. He is not weak, Jon wants to shout at the world, but all the anger and futile desperation pile up in his throat and choke him.
He curls up on the cot, coughing, the pain and emptiness from his missing ribs a muted counterpoint to the ever-present sorrow that stalks his heart.
~~~~~
He tells Daisy about it, of course, bitter and broken over drinks one night.
"You know," he says, and she gets the look in her eye she always does when she knows he's about to go on a rant about Martin. "The stories always soften it. Give the hero a way out. They never take it, of course, never get the surgery to remove the vines, always think dying is worse than never being able to fall in love again." A fit of coughing takes him, and Daisy waits patiently for it to pass, for him to continue. "Bullshit. Loads of people never fall in love as it is. Dying over it... not worth it." His breathing is labored and heavy. "I've found some pretty reliable cases of people who actually went through with the surgery to try and save themselves. You know what it takes?"
She takes a sip of her beer, sighing. "I have a feeling you're going to tell me."
"Yeah." He laughs, painful. "Double lung transplant. There's no 'removing the vines,' all nice and clean. They're buried deep. And even if the surgery goes well... the feelings are still there. You buy yourself a few years, if you're lucky, of slow growth until the vines are choking you again. And then you're back where you were before, still drowning under beautiful, hopeless, deadly love."
She pats him on the back, and carefully moves the drink away from his hands. "Okay, I think that's enough for you for tonight. What do you say we get you to bed?"
He laughs, a hiccuping, hysterical sound, and a single freesia blossom falls from his lips. He stares at it for a second, bleary, before mumbling "Ought to be a thornapple, when you think about it."
Daisy rolls her eyes, slings an arm around his shoulders, and hauls him home.
~~~~~
He is quite successful at hiding the rhododendrons from them, for a while at least. He stops bothering after Floyd, after Manuella and the Dark Sun and the tape that Martin leaves as a silent accusation.
In the secrecy of his desk drawer, phlox and white columbine wind their way from bone to glass to paper to tapes, covering over everything he has concealed there, blooming in the dark.
~~~~~
"The Lonely's really got you, hasn't it?" he says, and feels the irony cut to his core as the vines twist deeper into his heart. He can barely speak, now, half his focus taken up with holding back the mass of flowers building in his chest with every word he utters.
He will not cough them up here. He will not let Martin see how far he has gone, because this is not Martin's fault but he will blame himself for it even so.
"You know, I think it always did."
Jon's fingers are shaking, his legs are shaking, his everything is shaking and he can't do this much longer, can't go on without Martin, can't go on with his last hope stolen away. "I'll be here," he promises, but he does not even know if that is true because he can barely get the words out past the grief in his throat and he cannot go on like this.
He is careful to shut the door quietly behind himself. Maybe, maybe if he is lucky, he will get back to the Archives before his body gives out on him entirely.
~~~~~
Martin stares at the closed door, at the sight of Jon disappearing from his life once more. He has no one to blame for it but himself, has only himself to blame for the past six months - but it hurts, even so.
He turns back to his computer, hoping to get back to work; coughs lightly at the slight tickle in his throat; remembers the look in Jon's eyes and the hope in his voice when he said you and me, together.
And suddenly- suddenly he cannot stop coughing, and he has not coughed like this since he joined with Peter Lukas, and there is something deep inside him getting torn away with each rasping breath he manages to catch.
Martin has always been a bit of a romantic. He knew what Hanahaki Disease was long before he spat out those first petals, read the meaning in the anemone and dark crimson roses the second he saw them.
Now his eyes are fixed on the mess of flowers in his desk, and a quiet and detached part of his brain calmly informs him what it means to see striped pink carnations, cyclamen, and a single rose in full bloom.
That's... that's not good. That's not good, because if he's hacking up flowers again, then he's lost any progress he's made in joining the Lonely, and if he's lost his progress, then he can't follow through with Peter's plan, and if he can't follow through with Peter's plan, then-
Then what? The world ends?
He doesn't believe that for a second. Martin Blackwood, the Chosen One, the only person capable of holding back the Extinction... no. Peter's been lying to him about that, he's sure of it. Then what?
It's not like Peter's been protecting the others. This, what he's doing, staying away from them... he's not saving anyone. Least of all Jon. Then what?
He doesn't know. It's a shocking revelation. He doesn't know why he's still going along with this. Inertia, maybe. Curiosity. A desperate hope that he'll be able to do something good, justify all the effort he's been putting into driving everyone away.
It's not like they need him to come back, anyway. They don't need him at all.
His thoughts are interrupted by a wheezing cough outside the office, and what sounds like the impact of someone falling into the wall. Martin is out of his chair in an instant, running to the door and wrenching it open. Outside he finds-
Jon. Slumped against the wall, slowly sliding down it to the floor, feet wreathed in the flowers that are still drifting from his mouth with every labored breath. Martin stares, mentally categorizing the falling petals: white violets and spider flowers, palest primrose... all the blooms that he was choking back with all the words he didn't say while Martin told him to leave.
As he watches, the colors change, and a cascade of red-orange marigold pours free, mixed with the light pink petals of... a tea rose. Interesting.
It is that which finally snaps him into action, and Martin lurches forward to wrap an arm around Jon's shoulders and haul him upright.
"Come on. It's alright, Jon, I've got you. Let's get you to your office, okay?"
Jon tries to talk, coughs up another shower. He grips Martin tightly, letting him take most of his weight as they start to walk.
~~~~~
Jon does not know what is happening, but he's not about to protest it. He's not sure he could, even if he wanted to, because the vines inside him have wound so tight he can barely breathe, let alone speak. But Martin's arm is warm around him, and he's here, and he's telling Jon that everything's going to be alright even though a minute ago he was telling him to leave forever. Jon is disinclined to do anything that might make Martin remember his former sentiment.
They get to his office, somehow. Martin guides him gently into a chair and pulls another up next to him, sitting down with one hand on Jon's shoulder to hold him steady as he gasps for air.
After a few minutes he feels slightly steadier. The growth inside him has halted for the moment, and there is still enough clear space in his throat to breathe. Speaking... less so. He grabs Martin's hand from his shoulder, squeezing it tight, and tries to convey an apology with his eyes alone. He shouldn't be making this Martin's problem.
Martin squeezes his hand right back, though he does not meet his eyes.
"Jon..." his voice is hoarse; his tongue darts out to wet his lips. "Is this... is this for me?"
Jon sighs as much as he can with the little air left to him, and nods. The floor at his feet is littered with blossoms, roses and primroses and marigolds and daffodils, and his heart has never been more on display with so few words available.
Martin's eyes widen, and he raises one hand to his mouth in horror. "Oh god..." His breath hitches, and his next exhale brings with it flowers of his own - small hyacinth blooms that catch against his lips as he whispers "Jon, I'm so sorry."
Jon shakes his head in fierce denial, trying to speak but only managing a harsh rattle. His eyes are fixed on the hyacinth, and he raises a hand to brush them away unthinkingly. Martin's eyes flutter when Jon's fingers touch his lips, and Jon freezes, realizing what he's done.
He drops his hand quickly.
There is paper on his desk, and a pen. He scrawls a quick word, passes it to Martin - who?
Martin frowns reading it, shakes his head a little. "Who else?"
Jon is about to grab the paper back, take a shot at guessing - the only person he can think of is Tim, though he'd never thought they had that kind of a relationship - but Martin sets it aside on the desk, grabs his hands, and now he is smiling, and the hyacinth is mixed with ambrosia.
"You, Jon. I love you."
Jon could swear his heart stops in his chest.
Me? He mouths, and his head is swimming again for more than just lack of oxygen.
"Yes," Martin says, and places one hand on his cheek. "I'm so sorry. I didn't think this -" his thumb brushes Jon's lips, and the petals clinging there "- was for me. I never should have left."
The tightness in Jon's chest releases with a suddenness that leaves him reeling. He pitches forward into Martin's arms, capturing the gasp that leaves the other man's mouth in his own, and tastes blood and ambrosia. Food of the gods, indeed: he only leaves off the kiss when his lungs begin to burn, and then he bends forward, over his knees, heaving sprigs of lavender onto the floor.
Martin runs a hand down his spine, unflinching as blood drips from Jon's lips to fleck his shoes. He pauses for a moment to lean over and delicately spit a few last flowers of his own into the trash, and then he is back by Jon's side, holding him as the fit subsides.
The first thing Jon says - the first thing he is able to say, as his breath returns to him - is "I love you, too."
Martin's arms wrap around him, tugging him up and out of his chair, across the space between them until they are pressed chest-to-chest, curling into each other with ragged breath gradually easing as the last of the flowers dies away. It soothes something deep inside Jon, a tense fear he had barely even noticed through the pain of the vines. Martin sags against him, tension draining from his shoulders as his hand finds the space above Jon's heart and presses against that steady beat.
Jon turns his head, kisses a spot just under Martin's ear, and whispers soft reassurances. "It's okay, Martin. I'm alive. I'm here. You don't have to be alone anymore."
Martin lets out a choked laugh. "You're the one who just almost died, Jon. Why are you comforting me?"
Jon shrugs. It seems, to him, as though the answer is absurdly simple. "Because I love you."
"I love you too." Martin's breath hitches again, and Jon can feel tears soaking through the material of his shirt. "I love you so much."
Jon tightens his arms around him.
It's not a solution, per say, to everything that is going wrong around them. And they still have a lot they need to talk about, a lot they need to figure out about where to go from here. But it is a step in the right direction. And, as Jon presses another kiss to Martin's neck, as Martin turns to press a proper kiss to his lips, as they trade those three words back and forth like a promise, like a prayer... he thinks it will be enough.
As long as they are together, they can handle anything the world throws their way.