The States

language of flowers

floriography

(n.) a means of communication through the use or arrangement of flowers. also called the language of flowers.

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daisy- innocence, loyal love

He's still a colony and he doesn't understand the significance of the flowers blooming for him even when he does everything wrong.

All he knows is that Brooke laughs when he weaves the flowers into crowns for her to wear until they fall apart and he wants Adam to laugh too so he pulls up handfuls of daisies and turns them into crowns for him. 

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aster- love 

Brooke writes her letters across from him. 

He can see his own name on one of the envelopes, but he knows better than to ask. 

It's one of the unspoken rules. Don't ask another state about their death-letters. 

He's been attempting to write Adam's for an hour.

In the first one, he'd wrote I love you fifty-seven times before he ripped it up. 

------

In the end, he goes with simple. Writes i love you and seals an aster in the envelope.

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(Brooke dies. Comes back. He burns his letter over a candle. The aster had withered, anyway.)

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marigold- jealousy

Brooke and Adrien love and love until they get broken and then they just get back up and give their hearts away again. 

But for Nicky, it has always been Adam. Unrequited as it may be. 

He grits his teeth when Eddy gets the courage to ask Adam out before him. 

Never mind that he's been trying to do that for a century now. 

All that blooms that year are marigolds. 

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azalea- take care of yourself for me

(He's over at Brooke's when Adam shows up. Nicky immediately notices how Adam's hands shake, the smear of blood on his shirt. Brooke says secret and he backs off.)

Nicky glances at Adam every so often. Sam's chair is empty, but then so is Connie's and Caleb's and half the territory's.

Adam looks tired. Really tired. Exhausted, actually.

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"Hey, you okay?" Nicky leans on the table beside Adam.

Adam pokes at his lunch. He isn't hungry. Maybe Sam's lack of care for food is rubbing off on him. "Hey, Nicky." He doesn't look up.

"Adam, I think you need a nap."

"Hm." He pokes the food with his fork again. Connie had made it. Sam had just curled further into her blankets when they tried to make her eat.

Connie was getting desperate, he knew. Neither of them wanted to watch the slow death starvation provided.

Nicky stares. "Okay, now you're kind of freaking me out. Come on, you can sleep at my place." Nicky pulls Adam to his feet, pulling Adam's bag over his other shoulder.