Chapter Text
It had started on a rather unassuming night near the beginning of the year.
Mason had been under his covers, Lucas cross legged next to him, book in hand- their standard routine- when Mason had seen it.
Sprawled along two pages in the children’s picture book Lucas had been reading aloud to him was a grand artwork of a beautiful garden. Colors burst from the page like fireworks, setting off something in the 8 year old; his older brother’s voice became a mere hum in the background as his eyes danced around the page, along the lines and the greens and yellows and reds, around the beautiful girl in the blue dress that danced among the symphony in the middle of the page, and he knew immediately that he wanted this, so bad that it ached.
---
He had received the garden when he was 9. After a year of nonstop rambling to his older brother, of incessant begging to his parents for more books on the plants- the real ones, he insisted, not the cutesy picture books they had assumed he’d wanted- he’d been given permission to use the backyard area as he pleased.
And so he got to work. His small hands drowned in the gardening gloves he’d been given, and the shovel alone was twice his size. Lucas, ever the mother hen, was looming over him the whole time, a chorus of “be careful” ‘s and “let me do that” ‘s, but mason shooed him away. He’d wanted to do it himself, he’d insisted.
Lucas had sat on standby, watching his little brother lean on a shovel bigger than he was, using all his weight to force the thing into the ground, and mused silently to himself. It was only a matter of time, he had figured, until he would have the kid pattering over to his side, asking for help. It’d be shortly after that the shovel would once again regain its throne inside the shed, forgotten, as Mason moved onto the next thing in his little world. It wasn’t a negative thing, Lucas thought, not by any means. It was simply the way Mason was, the way he always had been. Always needing, always moving, never quiet and never still.
And yet, much to Lucas’ surprise, his little brother’s determination had never faltered. He still sat on standby, over time going from being there with the assumption he was needed, to being there simply to watch, to wonder what would happen next. Within a month, Mason had had all the seeds he’d wanted planted. Within a year, the backyard was bursting with life, and two brothers bursting with pride.
---
Mason was ten when he received his nickname. Dandelion.
It’d been a well known fact that he had a soft spot for the plant the moment they’d sprouted up among the other deliberately planted flowers in the garden. He’d thought they were pretty; their bright yellow was his favorite color, and he adored watching as they became puffs of white which he would then run excitedly to Lucas with, who always smiled at him with that warm smile of his and would whisper softly to him to make a wish as they blew on the puffs, sending the small seeds soaring into the sky.
Lucas had come home from school one particular day, exhausted, and had heard the telltale noise of his little brother’s cries as he walked into the hallway. This was not a strange development by any means- Mason, of the two of them, had always been more prone to emotion. More prone to outbursts when he was angry, to loud, shrieking laughter when he was happy; and to crying. Oh god, was he more prone to crying. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, Lucas supposed. It was a natural reaction after all, a healthy one, but gods, could the kid cry. He remembered clearly the boy’s first year in the house, the way he’d screamed and wailed for hours at a time, as though his world was somehow ending; how he spent the first few nights with his hands over his ears at night, unable to sleep, how on the mark of the first week he’d pattered into his parent’s room, asking them politely to make the kid just be quiet. How finally, after a few months, he’d gone into the baby’s room, begging the damn kid to just shut up, he couldn't sleep, and had decided on complete impulse to pick the boy up. How Mason had immediately stopped wailing, had curled his head to rest under Lucas’ chin (and it couldn’t be that easy, could it? That couldn’t have been all he’d wanted.) How in that moment, something had shifted.
There was no time to dwell on any of those thoughts, though, because Mason was very clearly crying in his room, and as always, their parents were….somewhere, and Lucas needed to do something, because just like all those years ago his little brother was sobbing like his world was ending and he needed his older brother to hold him. And he would, because what else would he do?
So Lucas took a deep breath and opened the door, and had sat next to Mason and slowly insisted that yes, he was there to listen, no, whatever Mason was about to say wouldn’t be stupid- and Mason had looked at him, so small, and relayed with tears in his eyes that their mother had torn up the dandelions from the garden.
“She said they were weeds,” he’d said, bitter, mournful.
And Lucas, tired, stupid, factual Lucas had confirmed their mother’s claim. “They are weeds, technically,” he’d said. And his little brother had exploded.
“They aren’t weeds!” he’d exclaimed. “They’re flowers, they’re not bad, or weird, or useless, or weeds, they’re flowers, and they deserve to grow in that garden just as much as anything else.”
Even at ten years old, huffing after he finished his rant, tears at the edges of his eyes, Mason held an understanding if only within himself that somewhere through that rant, it’d stopped being about the dandelions anymore. And judging by the look Lucas had given him, how he’d gone through the trash and put the flowers in a tiny vase for him, how he’d made him the small charm with the dried flowers a few weeks later, Lucas understood that too.
“My favorite thing about dandelions,” his older brother had said, soft, reassuring, as he arranged the flowers on Mason’s dresser, “Is how strong they are. No matter how hard it is, no matter how dark or cold or harsh their environment can be, they always find a way to grow.”
And when Lucas started calling him dandelion and insisting it wasn’t for any particular reason other than “You look like one, with that mop of hair”, they both had known what he’d meant.
---
Mason was 12 when Lucas had left.
The garden became his safe space. Those days when Lucas had gone, when the silence of the house was entirely too crushing to where he couldn’t stand to be inside, Mason found himself in the garden. No longer was his older brother sitting on the sideline, waiting to be asked for help- not that mason ever did- now he was alone. The dandelions remained untouched, no longer being thrown away or wished on like stars.
The garden absolutely thrived, those years that Lucas was away. It was ironic, in a way, that the garden was full of so much life in a time Mason had felt for all intents and purposes as if he was dying- or perhaps he was dead and gone already, buried under these very flowers, his ghost roaming the backyard.
But the sound of the shovel hitting dirt and the smell of the grass and the feeling of the dirt under his nails and on his face; when the loneliness weighed on his heart, threatening to crush him, to swallow him whole, those things kept him from falling under. And so he planted, and he gardened, and he grew.
And then he stood in that garden at 16 just hours before a ball that would change his life, blood dripping from his fingers from where he’d grasped a rose in his fist- and why had he, really, he knew better than to do that. He supposed he had just wanted to hear someone tell him not to, but why would they, when there wasn’t even anyone here- and for one moment he felt for all the world as though his heart would rip itself out of his chest and run away.
--
When Mason had come home, after those years with Haute, he didn’t even look in the garden for a good few months.
He wanted to, so bad it ached, but he couldn’t find it in himself to. He knew he’d left it unattended and-
That garden, gardening, planting- for all that had happened, it had remained the one safe thing. He never dealt with any plants when living with Haute, not that it was not allowed, or offered, but because they were his, they were safe, and after those first few months he knew if he tried to look after so much as a houseplant, he would never garden again.
And he’d lost so much. He felt like he’d lost so much, and if he walked into that garden to see the weeds and dried grass and rotted flowers, if that garden was dead- he felt with his whole heart he would die right with it.
And so he avoided it, because he just couldn’t, he couldn’t bear it, but that changed one morning when he’d woken up just a bit too early, when he’d gotten up to get something to drink. Because he heard a noise, a small clank, came from his right, and he knew what was in that backyard. He'd been avoiding it for months, and for the first time his curiosity outweighed his fear. And so he’d gone out to the backyard and- oh.
It was…. More than alive, it was thriving. Colorful flowers bursted from the ground, daffodils and hycaniths swaying just below his feet, and though he hadn’t noticed Mason yet, Lucas was in the corner, tending to what Mason instantly recognized as a small patch of dandelions, and he thought he might cry. His heart ached with an emotion he could not place, his throat closing up when he attempted to call out to his older brother- but there was no need, as Lucas turned around suddenly and lit up like the sun at the sight of his little brother standing in the doorway.
A blue iris began to bloom among the leaves.