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The first time Etho feels the tingle in his chest is when he and Pause and Beef are still young, and Etho turns where he stands at Pause's shoulder and watches Beef land a kick squarely in the chest of a zombie, sending it sprawling before he chops off its head.
The twinge he feels is something Etho immediately assigns as childish, stupid, and to be forgotten about, so he shoves it down and tries to forget.
But these are not things easily forgotten, and the first time Etho stumbles out of camp late at night expecting that what he feels is nausea, he falls to his knees in the bushes, yanks his mask down, and coughs until he spits something up. For a split second he can only stare down in shock as he thinks what he's seeing is blood, but when Etho reaches to touch it is solid and smooth. Blood-red flower petals.
Etho kicks them away into the underbrush and tries to forget. It takes a year and a half before he finds out from a pressed petal he keeps in the bottom of his enderchest that it's a red carnation. It doesn't get better, but it doesn't get worse, either.
It becomes routine to hack them up in privacy and Etho's about to flush them when he stops at the realization that the color is different. The petals are yellow, thin. He gazes down at them and as much as he wracks his brain, he has no idea what it means. When he steps back out of the bathroom, Doc calls him to come take at the circuit he's working on, and every breath comes as a crackle. Etho does what he does best, and runs away from it.
He wakes up in the middle of the night and wriggles free of Bdubs' koala-bear hold, the thing Etho puts up with whenever their sleep schedules finally align, and neither red nor yelllow treats him when he throws up the petals this time. Now they're moon lilies, pure as snow, and Etho sticks his fingers down his throat to make sure he gets them all out. (It does not work.)
For years, that's all it is, white and red and yellow, and Etho knows he does not deserve to be loved back because what he gives is never enough. That is never more true than when he's soul-bonded to another person unwillingly and Etho knows he will never deserve Joel. When Etho respawns after they die together in fire, the flowers are blue.
Somehow, Etho seems destined to get the whole goddamn rainbow, because all he does is want, and want, and want, but he can't bring himself to give. It's what he gets. He's lucky that wearing a mask means even if coughs something up at a bad time, he can hide. He's always been a private person, and everyone knows that, so no one ever has to know.
Cleo's flowers are purple iris, the kind of flowers you might put on the graves of loved ones, and Etho hates whatever power decides these things. Cleo is all crooked grins and harsh words and soft laughter and she elbows him in the side and drags him along by the arm. Etho can never stop looking at her and his chest growers tighter by the day. Gem's are magnolias, pink on the inside and fading into white, the petals coming with an almost-sticky texture and a scent that clogs up his nose and makes him choke. They meet swords again, and again, and again, she's always finding Etho right where he's at. He never has to ask; Gem always knows. her smile is like the sun and moon combined and she makes his hair into those neat tiny braids and even when Etho doesn't want to see the world at all, he's okay if Gem's if his corner.
It's been so many years now that Etho's sure he's only managed this long by virtue of just how good he is at pushing things down, pretending they don't exist, but he can't run as far anymore, gets fatigued quicker, struggles to take air into his lungs. They aren't petals anymore but entire flowers, magnolia and carnations and black-eyed susans and white moon lilies and blue windflowers and purple irises and Etho throws them out into the compost and buries them away and he doesn't remember the day he finally succumbs because he never really wakes up that morning.
When he does wake up next, he's laying somewhere soft and bright, feeling like something's freshly cut into his chest and yet breathing steadier than he has in years. Something warm is at his side and holding his hand. It takes awhile before his vision crystallizes and he realizes the familiar shape above him is Beef, watching him.
"Did you know," Beef asks, his voice sounding hoarse like he had been crying recently. "That Hanahkai can be psychosomatic?"
Etho just sort of blinks at him, not sure what to say, really not at all sure what's happening or where he is, but when he looks past Beef he sees vases sitting everywhere. Rows of them, full to bursting with flowers, in colors and shapes that Etho knows immediately, because he's been catergorizing and pressing their petals for years. Red carnations, black-eyed susans, moon lilies, blue windflowers, purple irises, pink magnolia, and Beef squeezes Etho's hand and says,
"Etho, you can be so stupid sometimes, you know that?"
It's unexpected enough that Etho barks out a laugh. There are tears in the corners of his eyes and he wipes them away fiercely.
"Someone's probably said it before," He manages, watery, and that's when the door swings open and the room is flooded. Bdubs is on the bed in a moment, grasping onto Etho for dear life, rambling a mile-a-minute words too muffled for Etho to hear. Doc joins Beef as sentinel at Etho's side, reachingn down to cradle Etho's face in his hand, a fond tilt to his head. Cleo tells Bdubs not to fucking suffocate Etho, they just got past that, and Gem helpfully scoots Bdubs over bodily so she can reach in and hug Etho herself, pressing a kiss to his cheek. Joel finds Etho's other hand and just holds it, for with a soulbond there really isn't much need of words.
And for the first time in perhaps forever, Etho believes that he is loved.