Pairing: Chris Halliwell/Wyatt Halliwell
A/N: hurt no comfort, incest, hanahaki disease, @hanahaki4hanami prompt: cyclamen
Chris stares at Wyatt. Past Wyatt. Two year old Wyatt. He is pure, good still, and Chris knows it. He can feel it in the thrumming of the magic inside him, in the bond that doesnโt quite connect them yet but will once he is born. The bond that holds on stubbornly despite being twenty years in the past, grasping onto his wrists like iron shackles when once it was the weave of a dorky friendship bracelet. Chris breathes. Wyatt breathes, too, face peaceful as he sleeps. Tears burn behind Chrisโ eyes and roots twist in his lungs. He orbs with apologies falling like flower petals.
Cyclamen. Bianca helped him learn the name of the flower, months after they became friends, when she caught him coughing up a few of the petals. They researched it together, more for her curiosity than his. All he knew was that it would kill him one day, and that was all he needed. One way or another, Wyatt would be his death, whether his older brother wanted it or not. That didnโt satisfy Bianca. She wanted to know about the diseaseโ hanahaki, the magic books they could get their hands on called itโ and she wanted to know about the flowersโcyclamen, flowers that mean lasting feelings, deep affection, innocent and passionate love. Resignation. Devotion. Goodbyes.
Bianca made him talk about itโ his feelings for Wyatt, how he missed the big brother he grew up with, how he sometimes still saw him in flashes like echoes and how that almost hurt worseโ because thatโs the only solution the books offered that was available to them. He couldnโt tell Wyatt and if they used the removal potion he would forget Wyatt, and that wouldnโt be good for Wyatt. It wouldnโt be good for Chris, either. Chris couldnโt lose the last family he had, no matter how fucked. So he talked to Bianca through a clenched jaw until time loosened it, because it made Bianca feel better, and it made the roots in his lungs brittle; a plant with no water. Until he got better. Until they thought he could go to the past, where his Wyatt wasnโt, and the flowers would die fully as he saved his brother.
Except thatโs not what happened. Except young Wyatt and Piper and Phoebe and Paige remind him of the brother he grew up with, and the roots in his lungs swell with the influx of water until Chris feels petals tickling at his ribcage and crawling up his throat. He is in the past and Wyatt will kill him, whether his older brother wants to or not, but Chris will save him first.
