Nex🏳️‍🌈

∆ Rough outline:

Soap falls in love with Ghost during the Las Alamos mission, but knows it's unrequited because Ghost is already dating and engaged to Roach.

(Later on) Worse for Soap, he realized he fell in love with Roach as well.

∆ The AU:

Flowers represent the feelings for the person or their personality. If in love with more than 1 person, another flower type adds to the existing one. Even if they fall in love with another and don't get rejected, the sickness will not go away, and the flowers will stay the same. Although it noticeably prolongs victims' lives.

The sickness itself is rare but still common enough that people know the ins and outs of it. Symptoms and reason for these specific flowers are known. If rejected face to face, the person dies after a week, with beautiful flowers growing out of their body and on the soil (after they get buried). The flowers will continue to grow, until the person who rejected the patient forgets them. Huge respect is paid to those specific graves. Relatives leave a spider lily.

Newly affected leave an orchid on the altar to honor their deceased siblings. The graves of people who had it are located in a separate graveyard with an altar in the middle which is looked over by gardeners to ensure the long life of the orchids left and maintenance of the graves.

∆ Stages:

1 Stage: Petals, no blood. Lasts 1 month.

2 Stage: Petals, blood. Last 3 months

3 Stage: Groups of petals with occasional buds of flowers (closed), blood. Last 5 months

4 Stage: Buds both closed and blooming. Lasts 7 months. Problems with iron levels.

5 Stage: Flowers start to grow in and on the person. Most people ask to be unalived as living in these conditions is hell. Dead in 2 weeks upon reaching this stage.

∆ The military has strict rules about soldiers who have it:

1. The document about the affected are classified to everyone but their commander. In the document there's a date of the beginning, flower type and the love interest.

2. Soldiers are suggested to not confess their feelings so as to not waste valuable resources in the event of rejection.

3. Soldiers who still want to confess have to notify the commander. The commander will then assign a suicide mission to the person in case they get rejected. If not, the mission is off.

4. The sickness comes with an option to retire with an honor. If not, the soldier is honorably discharged on the 4th stage.

∆ Flowers:

Ghost - Purple lilac (symbolizes first love among other things)

Roach - Bird of Paradise (Symbolizes joyfulness and magnificence. It can also be used to indicate freedom and uniqueness)