Chapter Text
Idia Shroud. What a great maybe.
Sometimes, you meet Riddle behind the Heartslabyul gardens at night and you kiss each other while pretending that you each are someone else. You even let each other say the wrong names when you two pause to catch your breaths. Trey likes girls, Idia isn’t single - you both are doomed to cry yourselves to sleep over your best friends.
It was even worse because you were the reason Idia wasn’t single. You supported them both, smiled and laughed and acted like your normal cryptic self surrounded in butterflies and rainbows. You passed notes for them, helped them meet up in secret. It was all Malleus had wanted. How could you deny him?
“Lilia, I have decided I want to engage in ‘dating’. There is a student of particular interest to me.”
How excited you were. How hard you cried in the shower that night.
It’s not like you kept it a secret. You weren’t the subtle type, let alone with all of your feelings.. You thought you were obvious. You reached out, you made jokes, invited him over. You talked about how much you enjoyed spending time with him, showered him with thinly-veiling romantic compliments. What else could you have done? He knew, he must have known, and he chose someone that wasn’t you. Someone taller, someone smarter, more powerful and cool and strong. Someone so obviously, so blatantly not you.
And you encouraged it. Because you’re a fucking masochist.
No, no, that’s not fully true. You encouraged it because Malleus was more to you than anyone else, as a friend and as family. Besides Silver, Malleus was one of the reasons you got up in the morning.You would make him as happy as you could. Because Malleus was your everything. Because you would do anything to give him what he wanted.
You would do anything but be honest with him.
You weren’t the type to be insecure like this. Idia had done something to your brain chemistry. He weakened you. Untold decades spent alive, and this was the first time you ever experienced real, bitter jealousy. Jealousy and insecurity. Fear. Burning, devouring fear - a complete loss of the stable ground you stood on for so long.
Idia had brought you to your knees.
Riddle would brush your hair and help paint your nails with steady hands. These are things Idia used to do, but you had found a replacement. You had to find a replacement, your joints were in rough shape and you had to replace him. You were lost without someone else to help you, because you spent all your time helping others. You helped Malleus, you helped Silver, you had no energy left for yourself anymore. So you found yourself needing Riddle.
When Riddle was caring for you, primping you like a show dog, he would ask you questions you didn’t have the answer to. It would end in you crying, doubled over and dry heaving over the wooden floor. “I need him, I need him, bring him back to me!”
But Riddle couldn’t fix that. So he would just brush your hair.
You watch them in the lunchroom.
You practically stalk them, honestly.
You see the way Malleus keeps his hand tight on Idia’s waist, and you see how red Idia gets when people comment on it. You see how close Malleus sits, the way he marks his territory. Spite is the only thing keeping your ancient heart beating when you have to watch that display. It runs on spite and a hope that one day it won’t hurt anymore. You could have a crush on him forever - this was never getting better. But it could, you supposed.
Maybe one day.
It was during one of your spite-staring sessions that you choked on a sip of water and hiccuped up a thin blue petal. You almost didn’t notice it at first, and you would have just swallowed it if it hadn’t gotten caught on one of your fangs. It was so small, so delicate, that you could almost forget about it. But you felt a need to keep it, felt a need to figure out what flower it belonged to.
It felt important. It felt dreadful.
The Internet had the answer to all your questions. It was an Egyptian water lily, and it was growing in your lungs.
You show up at Riddle’s door in the middle of the night, cupping the petal in your shaking palm. You couldn’t get your words out clearly, shivering like you were freezing and stuttering on the verge of a panic attack. Riddle brought you in, sat you down, took the petal, and stared at you with his pensive, housewarden-duty face.
“Lilia. This is serious.”
“I know.” Your voice is barely above a whisper. “Please help me.”
Riddle makes you spend as many nights with him as you can spare. He helps you with homework, you help him clean his dorm’s common room. You both cook together, read together, watch bad rom-coms together. But no matter how hard Riddle tries to distract you, it doesn’t work. It doesn’t matter what your eyes and hands are doing - your mind belongs to Idia.
Riddle makes an effort to do research while you roll around on his carpet. He’s a good friend like that. While he’s doing the serious side of things, you daydream for hours about Malleus being angry at you. It’s a self-punishment you allow yourself to partake in because what else can you do. It’s either Malleus’ wrath or Idia’s vacancy that burns your brain. Nothing in between.
Another petal shows up when you accidentally overhear a rumor from Ruggie and some freshman about Malleus asking Idia to spend winter break at his palace. It wasn’t true, you obviously knew it wasn’t true, but just the idea made your throat tighten and your eyes water.
You end up in the bathroom hunched over the toilet, spitting up a blue petal and a bit of blood.
The blood is new.
You wipe your mouth. You try not to panic. You find Riddle as fast as you can.
Time passes. Minutes into days, days into weeks. You’re practically isolating in Riddle’s suite, speaking to people on a need-to basis. It’s a quarantine, a self-imposed exile. It’s safer here, hidden away from the world, sleeping as long as you can in someone else’s bed.
Midnights become your mornings. You survive on leftovers and desserts.
People have noticed your distance. You can’t be arsed to care. Whenever asked about it, you blame some outside factor that no one can double check or doubt, and you’re left alone. The only person that can see through it is Malleus, though. You know he’s smarter than he lets on and he sees more than he says. It’s only a matter of time until he corners you.
Nothing gets better, but nothing gets worse. You find yourself flushing petals weekly, and your voice gets a bit deeper from how sore your throat is getting. It’s like you have a cold every day, no matter the weather. No teas help with the scratching, no cough drops have any effect. Every time you swallow and it feels weird, you feel your stomach drop.
You spend every day in longing and anticipation. But there is no climax, no relief, no moment of enlightenment. There is only a long tumble into the abyss.
It’s Halloween before you even realize it. It’s been six months since you and Idia last shared any kind of solo conversation that lasted longer than ten minutes. It feels like just yesterday that you were still close with him - it feels like centuries since you last felt the relief of being his best friend. The separation was unannounced, unplanned. It just happened when Malleus started to date Idia. It happened naturally, quietly. It wasn’t a fall out, it was a fizzle out. It’s even more nightmarish with no one to blame. If there was anger, maybe you could stop wanting.
You could have been fine if things had continued as they were. You would have been sick, but you would have been fine. It could have been tolerable. That’s what you tell yourself, at least. You insist to yourself that you could be fine .
But then Halloween came around. Malleus was one of the big stars that Night Raven College was betting on to make a buck, he couldn’t just be out doing customer service like any other boring housewarden. So you were paired with Idia to stand on the side of the path outside the greenhouse, to give directions to helpless passerbys in Malleus’ place.
Usually, you enjoyed this. Helping humans fulfilled the parental part of you that you loved so much. But Idia would be there. Idia would be there, torturing you with his beautiful pout that would never be yours to kiss away. You would be forced to stare at his profile - the pointed slope of his nose, the perpetual frown that creases his brows. And you wouldn’t be able to protect yourself at all.
The night was as stale and awkward as you could have predicted.
Small talk was the only way you would be able to pass the time. It was too slow for just the humans to hold your attention. And the pounding of the quiet was going to rip your heart apart.
You choke out the best silence-filler you can imagine. “The weather is nice.” Nailed it.
He glances over at you. You feel it, but don’t see it. You keep your eyes fixed straight ahead, only catching the flash of his yellow gaze out of your peripheral. You’re acting natural. You’re acting like you aren’t hurting.
“Yeah. Glad it isn’t too cold.” He speaks. You’re relieved. His tone is flat, neutral, but it’s something.
It returns to silence too quickly.
“Usually only housewardens do greeting work. Can I ask why you’re here instead?” Idia asks, still staring at you. You make a point not to look, especially since now you kind of want to cry.
“Why I’m here instead of Malleus?” The words don’t sound bitter, but they feel bitter. They feel so gross. He’s asking about Malleus. Not even this moment is safe from his influence. Idia is making it clear again that you are not his first choice to stand with at night, under the candlelight of the Halloween decor. You are not Idia’s first choice. “Because Malleus is our main attraction over at Ramshackle. I’m surprised he didn’t tell you about it.”
“Oh. Uh. I knew that. I was just wondering, I guess.” Idia sounds so distant.
You fix your eyes on a couple of campus visitors across the path. They’re holding hands. They’re leaning in to kiss. Their silhouettes are stark black against the orange lights, and they only focus on each other. The world could end right now and they wouldn’t even notice.
Survive this for Malleus. You could do it.
Your chest feels tight.
“I’m happy you two are so content together.” You say. And you do mean it, even if it makes your throat burn.
Malleus’ happiness is your happiness, Idia’s happiness is your happiness - it's your death sentence too, but you can’t blame either of them for that. How can you be hateful towards two people you love so much?
Idia nods. “Yeah. It’s…great.”
Your next breath is shattered by a horrible cough, one that racks your entire torso and makes you double over.
“Woah, are you okay? Do you need some water?” Idia leans closer to you. He’s concerned, he wants to help. But every inch he gets nearer, you know it’ll make you sicker.
You clear your throat. “I’m fine. I promise. The weather might be nice, but it’s getting to me. I’ve had a cold for a few weeks now.”
“Really?”
You nod and rub your chest with your palm. “Riddle has been a huge help in taking care of me.”
“Riddle? Really?” Idia backs away and covers his mouth. He must be scared of getting sick.
If only he knew.
You think about it for a second, and you dare to try to speak your mind. It can’t get worse, it can’t get any worse. You might as well risk it all. “But…You know, it doesn’t - “
“Lilia! Idia!” A booming voice interrupts you.
It doesn’t compare to you. The words die in your throat and you bury them. You won’t ever be digging them up to speak them again - not now that Malleus is heading over and standing in front of you all with a wide grin. His body blocks the light, and you literally are stuck in his shadow staring helplessly at Idia, staring at the way that Idia stares at Malleus.
Staring. So much staring. So much of your life now consists of staring instead of participating.
“My fire. And my most trusted companion.” Malleus looks so happy to see both of you that it makes you feel disgusted in yourself. “It makes me so happy to see both of you together.” He puts a hand on each of your shoulders. “We should find time for us all to eat a meal together. I want to see your faces in the same room more. Like I used to.”
You can’t suppress the coughs building in your throat for much longer. Burning claws scratch the inside of your lungs, your nose feels like it’s full of smoke. Malleus looks so loving, and Idia is smiling in that small sympathetic way he used to only smile at you and you feel like you’re going to pass out.
“Why are you down here?” Idia asks.
“We are closing up a bit early.” Malleus sighs. “Leona bit some foolish teen who would not stop messing with his tail. It was not a real bite but you know how dramatic teenagers are. Vil is ‘treating’ their wound now but we are going ahead and ending the event.”
You nod. “I see. I should go then.” You can’t say anything else, it hurts to open your mouth too much. You give Malleus a look, one you know he will understand from seeing you struggle before, and you wiggle out of his grasp and point towards the greenhouse bathrooms.
“Oh, yes! You have been out here for too long with no break. Go, go!” Malleus waves you off and you practically sprint away.
He’s so kind. He’s so nice to you, he loves you so much. You’re an evil person, a horrible caretaker, a traitorous vice housewarden, the worst friend in the world.
Malleus deserves better than you.
The bathroom door slams behind you. There’s a moment, brief and stupid, where you hope that maybe Idia has followed you. Maybe Idia saw the distress in your eyes, the swelling of your throat, the feverish pink of your cheeks - maybe he saw you dying, and felt the urge to help. What if he missed you like you missed him? What if he raced after you, held you close, and all the flowers you were choking on just suddenly died?
He didn’t follow you. Obviously.
You’re angry that the fantasy even had the audacity to enter your head.
Egyptian water lily flowers, one after the other. A full bundle, a full tangle of stems and roots and tall stocks with sharp petals and bright yellow centers dragging out of your throat. It takes gagging, sobbing, choking to even get them part of the way free. They keep getting stuck . You can’t get them out. Your forehead is pressed to the tiles of the bathroom, the idea of aiming for the toilet long gone. You’ve taken off the first layer of your costume to cushion your knees on the hard floor, and you just keep silently praying for it to be over.
At the end of the fit, you count five flowers.
If you look past the vomit and blood sticking to the petals, the flowers are beautiful. Fully in bloom. Soft blue with the sunshine yellow centers, like a perfectly warm afternoon. They’re smaller than you imagined, but they still hurt coming out. They are scattered on the floor, soaked through with bile. You scoop them up in your trembling hands and look down at them.
The roots have red tissue tangled in them, small and thin. Little pieces of your insides, strung out in your fingers.
You can’t ignore this anymore.
You flush the flowers down the toilet and the next thing you know, you’re being shaken awake by Cater and Riddle. You had fallen asleep on the floor next to your vomit, too tired to get up and too emotionally exhausted to think of anything else. Riddle had been searching for you for hours, and Cater was roped in because just he wasn’t Trey. But Cater doesn’t know anything. He minds his own business, in an admirable way and in an airheaded way.
“When did we become the types of people to never tell anyone anything?” You whisper to Riddle as him and Cater walk you through the maze of outdoor paths to the mirror hall.
“We’ve always been those people.” Riddle looks up at the sky. “Look. It’s a full moon.”
You do look. The navy sky, with the large silver moon, surrounded by scattered twinkling stars. Idia used to love nights like this. It was the rare times he would step out of his room willingly. You loved evening walks and would join him every single time.
“I can’t keep living like this.” You whisper.
“My fear is that you won’t keep living at all.” Riddle keeps looking at the sky.
You wake up the next day with a semblance of a plan.
Riddle and you head to the greenhouse. You find Leona, pushing around dirt in a bed of peonies. He takes off his gardening gloves when you two approach. “If this is about the bite, it’s being handled with Crowley. I don’t need you hall monitors on my case.”
“We don’t care about that.” Riddle says. “We’re here for a different reason.”
Leona stands. “And that is?”
You hand him a single blue petal.
He stares at it. Holds it with his claws.
You blink expectantly.
“The flower of the dead.” Leona’s cat-like vertical pupils narrow as he looks at the sunlight shining through the petal. “An ancient funeral flower. A rare type of blue lotus.” He turns back to you. “Where did you find this? We don’t grow these on campus.”
You shift around uncomfortably. “I made it. In here.” You hold a hand to your chest.
Leona does not move. Does not blink. “I’ve heard of people dying from gardens in their lungs. It happened once back home. But it’s so rare, our royal doctor couldn’t even suggest a cure.”
That’s great news.
“We’re aware of how rare it is. We were coming to you for help, since you’re in charge of gardening around here.” Riddle crosses his arms.
“I’m not a doctor. Gardeners aren’t doctors.”
“We can’t go to a doctor.” You say quickly. “No doctors.”
“Why not?” Leona scowls.
You consider not saying anything. But Riddle is glaring at you. “Because I can’t hide a doctor’s visit from my housewarden.”
It seems to click for Leona. His tail lashes as he starts to weigh his options. You chew on your bottom lip and plead with your eyes.
“I don’t do drama bullshit. I’m not playing telephone for you.” Leona says. “I don’t like Malleus or that introverted wimp enough for games like that.”
“That’s not what we want!” Riddle snaps. “Give us plant advice or we’ll find someone else.”
“This disease only exists because a person thinks they will yearn forever for someone they believe doesn’t love them back. It’s some old fae curse.” Leona tosses the petal to the ground. It flows down, down, down, and is crushed under his shoe. “I can tell you how to grow these flowers all day long. But I don’t know how to fix a curse.”
“If you know how to grow them, you know how to kill them.” You say. “Please. I don’t want to die.” Your voice is so small. So desperate.
Leona must take pity on you. He sighs, pushes his hair from his face and shakes his head. “We can try to make your body an unwelcoming environment. But it already should be, it’s your damn lungs. So this is a longshot. Got it?”
You glance at Riddle. He’s already looking at you. He nods. So you nod.
“Got it.” You say. “Try whatever.”
The next three days are grueling. You are kept in Riddle’s room, in near pitch-black darkness. The lotus needs sunlight to grow, so all light is gone. It needs acidic soil and warm water, so you drink milk and suck on ice cubes. You take freezing baths, so cold that your toes turn purple and your knees bruise. Leona checks on you every few hours and brainstorms ways to lower your body temperature even further. It’s hell, frozen-over hell, but it feels kind of great. Your lungs have never felt clearer.
There’s hope. Riddle sees the hope too. He even trusts you to be alone long enough for him to go on a date with Cater.
How amazing it must be to have the power to move on. You don’t have that power inside you. In all your centuries, you’ve never been good at letting go of anything. You could be stuck on Idia forever. You could be taking freezing baths forever.
It’s the little moments that trap you here. The times he would stand too close and press against your shoulder, even if there was space to scoot away. The way you two would look at each other after someone said a joke. Idia’s smile, Idia’s giggle, Idia’s tiny groans of frustration as he hunches over his gaming laptop. The tiniest things play on repeat in your mind. They’ve bored into your very bones, like termites.
The depth of your love is parasitic.
Your cellphone rings on day four.
Four days of being cold, four days of being in the dark, four days of being able to breathe.
All shattered when you answer the phone without looking.
“Vice Housewarden of Diasomnia speaking.”
“Hey.” The voice is like a bullet.
You freeze. “Idia?”
“I’m sorry for calling so late. I, uh. I didn’t think. Before doing it.” He says. “Didn’t check the time.”
The explosion is instant. Three days of the cold didn’t matter. You hear him, he’s speaking to you, he called you first. Your breaths are wheezes.
“Did you need something?” You will your voice to stay steady.
You hear something shift around on the other side of the phone. “No, no. I don’t need anything. I just…” He takes a deep breath. “How are you?”
“Fine.” You climb into Riddle’s empty bed. “What about you?”
“I’m great. Feeling really good actually.” He sounds different. A little tilted. “You know, I was calling because I was about to log in and play our favorite game. The one we used to play together like every week for two years? The one we haven’t played in forever? That one. Well, I was logging on for the first time since, like, May. And I realized you weren’t there to play with me. Because we haven’t hung out since May.”
“Yeah. I guess we haven’t.” You pull your knees up to your chest. “We’ve just been busy I guess.”
“Yeah. Busy. Listen, I wanted to talk to you about something.” Idia hiccups. You hear something get knocked over on the other side of the line. And his words are dragging together, and he’s louder than usual.
You frown. “Idia Shroud, are you drunk-dialing me right now?”
The line goes quiet.
“Idia, are you drunk?”
“Not drunk.” He sounds uncertain. “Just trying this thing that Vil gave me. He’s been, like, super helpful. A total team buff. But anyways, I was calling because - “
“No.” You shake your head. “No, no. I can’t. Idia, you can’t call me after all these months while drunk. We aren’t doing this.”
“I haven’t had any alcohol. I promise.” Idia sounds more insistent. “Just hear me out, okay? I need to get something off my chest.”
Stabbing chest pain makes you hunch over, laying down on your side on Riddle’s pillows. “I can’t do this right now, I’m not feeling well. We can talk tomorrow.”
“Just hear me out. I really need to tell you something.” He takes a deep breath. “Lilia, I - “
“I don’t want to talk to you.” The words sound foreign out of your mouth. You don’t mean them. You don’t mean it at all. But you can feel the pain getting worse, you know that this phone call will kill you.
Once during your travels, long before adopting Silver, you got pricked by a poison flower. You got so sick that your skin lost all its pigment, and your eyes were bloodshot and foggy. You couldn’t even hold down water. You were on the verge of death, and your pride was preventing you from admitting it. You were Lilia Vanrouge, second only to god, and you could not die.
But you came to your senses eventually. Right before your heart stopped, you found a doctor.
After a while, you just have to detox. You can’t deny it. You can’t act stronger than you are.
You have to drain the poison.
And you can feel your heart stopping now.
“What?” He sounds like he could cry.
You shake your head. “I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to tonight, and I don’t want to later.”
“Lilia, please.” He’s pleading. “I need to tell you that - “
“Goodbye, Idia. Don’t call me again.”
Humiliation doesn’t even begin to describe what you feel as you hunch over in the bathroom and claw flower after flower out of your throat. But it was okay. This was for Malleus. This was for you. This was for everything to be okay.
How much of this pain was based on a delusion you built in your head? How much of this was you torturing yourself? All of it, probably. But a desperate drunk call out of nowhere was enough to speak back everything you tried to push down. You needed to feel it to drain it. You needed to pull every last stem out.
How dare he. How dare you.
Maybe you didn’t actually know him anymore.
Somewhere in the middle of it all, when you’re retching over the toilet, you realize your vomit tastes surprisingly sweet. Almost like a blue raspberry slushie.
Riddle comes home at four in the morning. He finds you in a cold bath, the water cloudy with your own blood.
He calls a nurse.