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usxuk Feb. 10th, 2012 10:53 pm)
dunya01.livejournal.com posting in usxuk Feb. 10th, 2012 10:53 pm)Title: Two Tulips
Genre: Humour/Romance
Pairing: US/UK, Netherlands/Canada
Word Count: 3141
Rating/Warnings: PG 15
Summary: The flower shop that Arthur and Lars owned used to be a peaceful place - until a pair of twins didn’t turn their world upside-down.
This is a collab between Me and the great Lost-hitsu! Art by Dunya, fic written by Lost-hitsu and Beta'd by qichi <3
---
---
They stood in front of the flower shop window, heads identically tilted to the side, and Arthur could tell, even with the glass and decorations obstructing his view, that they were twins.
It looked as if one of them was trying to persuade the other one to enter, and after a short tugging match the persistent brother won and they stepped in, looking a bit lost amidst the greenery.
“Can I help you?” Lars walked in from the side door just as Arthur wanted to ask the same question. He promptly obscured Arthur’s view – Lars tended to obscure the view to everything with his absurd height and even taller hairstyle. He heard him ask, “What should it be? A present for your mother. Of course. Does she like potted plants?”
With his colleague taking care of the only customers in the shop, Arthur returned his attention to the little carnation arrangement he had been working on earlier, successfully ignoring the noises around him. Which was why he nearly snapped a stem in half in surprise as one of the twins - the persistent brother, with the cheekier smile – suddenly stood in front of the counter, looking at Arthur's hands.
“Yes?”
“Haha, it's nothing.” He had the audacity to laugh. “You're just fun to watch, is all.”
“It's not intended as a performance; would you kindly step back?” Arthur hated few things more than nosy customers who made him nervous with their curiosity. “You’re blocking the sunlight.”
“Sorry!” he stepped back but kept staring at the counter. “That looks like fun. Can I try it out?”
Before Arthur could find his voice and explain that letting customers try their own arrangements definitely wasn’t part of their work policy, the other twin - the one that apparently stayed obscured by Lars’ shadow the whole time until now - called, “Al, they’re closing already. We’ll come tomorrow.”
“Coming, Mattie!”
The door bell rung one last time and they were gone, both co-workers watching their retreating forms through the shop window.
“Twins,” Lars said, the single word sounding distinctly fateful in the quickly darkening flower shop.
-
Same pub, same two counter seats, every Friday since they had met each other in a flower market three years ago and nearly had a fist-fight over the last bulbs of a rare black tulip sort. The whole idea to put together Lars' economist’s mind with Arthur's sense for detailed, pretty artwork and open a flower shop was drawn out and brought to fulfilment there in the pub, over beers and peanuts.
Even now, when the shop had been successfully running for over a year, the Friday pub meetings stayed as the place and time to discuss work matters as colleagues, together with less work-related topics they shared as good friends.
“I have a date tomorrow, with one of the twins.” Lars announced that Friday, thumb wiping the dampness on his beer glass.
“Nice.” Arthur commented. Lars hooking up with customers was nothing new. “I hope not with the loud one.”
Lars laughed his short, close-mouthed laugh. “Of course not. Matthew stopped by again yesterday during my shift, alone. And looked quite pleased as I asked him for his number.”
Silence followed, or as much as could happen in the loud pub. It was nice to just relax with someone who didn't need to talk all the time.
Then Lars spoke again, “and we are also probably getting a new employee.”
“What, you want to have your new bunny in the shop?”
“Not him.” Lars put his empty glass on the counter and waved for the bartender for a second round. “His brother. Matthew said he was looking for a job so I said we needed an assistant anyway.”
Arthur choked on his beer. “You said what?”
He switched to rum for the rest of the evening.
-
Arthur pulled Lars into the corner behind the bushes, tugging at his apron to make the man bend down to his level. “You can't be serious, what are we going to do with him?”
“Make him work here?” Lars looked from Arthur to the counter where Alfred was getting familiar with his new overall, watching his own reflection in the still dark window pane.
“He'll be good for carrying heavy things.” With that, Lars pulled his cigarette box from his pocket and disappeared through the backdoor to have his last morning nicotine dose before the opening.
Arthur stayed behind, silently scowling at what was supposed to be his new colleague. Alfred was now proudly pinning his own badge with their tulip logo on his chest, smiling as if he had a reason.
“I bet he can't tell hyacinths and hydrangeas from each other.” Arthur spat for himself through gritted teeth, and went to put on his own work apron.
-
„Hey, do that again.“
„Do what?“
„You just smiled at that flower. Why don't you do that, you know, at humans too?“
Arthur sighed a painful, you-make-my-life-so-hard sigh, and continued curling the ribbons for the rose bouquet in front of him.
“Because flowers aren't loud, obnoxious, and bothersome. I rarely meet a person worth smiling for.”
He knew it was a mistake to look up but he did it anyway. Alfred was doing something that by far surpassed the definition of a smile, grinning so broadly his gums were showing.
-
“And what are those called?” Alfred recently decided to demonstrate his undying enthusiasm with a little notebook he wore in the front pocket of his overall, and where he scribbled notes about their plant sorts.
“Buxus bushes. Evergreen, slow-growing, easily formed into hedges... why are you staring at me?” Arthur scowled, and to his shock, Alfred burst into laughter, mouth covered with the mini notebook.
“I'll be calling your eyebrows buxus bushes, okay? Come on, you must have noticed the similarity.”
Arthur felt how the tips of his ears heated up.
-
“I will need to relocate those flowerpots to the back garden, they’re taking up too much space.” Arthur announced nonchalantly, showing with his head to the left.
He saw from the corner of his eyes how Alfred looked over the left side of the shop, confused. “You don't mean...”
“Yes, the buxus bushes. All forty of them.” Arthur finally allowed his revenge smile to show. “Thanks in advance, Alfred, I hope you'll have it ready before lunch,” he added and walked out of the shop, head held high in victory.
-
“I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I can't help you if you won't tell me what, exactly, you want.” Even a complete stranger would have noticed that Arthur's voice was dripping with impatience.
The boy at the counter couldn't be older than fourteen, already blushing furiously and looking around the flower shop like a lost kitten. “I just... I hoped you would...”
“Maybe I could help?” Alfred set the bucket with sunflowers that he was carrying next to the counter and smiled at the boy.
“I... need flowers for my, for my friend and I don't know what to pick.” The last words were uttered almost in a whisper, but Alfred just nodded in understanding and leaned forward to the boy.
“Is the friend by any chance a girl?”
The boy backed up as if accused of theft and then slowly nodded, eyes set bashfully on the tile floor.
“Don't worry, we'll find her something she will like!” Alfred tapped the boy's shoulder and gently pushed him towards the racks with the cut flowers. “Do you happen to know her favourite color?”
-
“See, I said he'll be useful for more the carrying flowerpots.” Lars commented as Arthur described to him the incident later that evening in the pub.
Arthur ordered another pint.
-
“Woah! Wasn't this orchid the one Lars' sister brought? It looked completely dead three weeks ago.”
Arthur stopped sweeping the floor and looked to the windowsill where their flower hospital resided. “Is it blooming? I knew it just needed a different flowerpot.”
“How did you know?” Alfred hopped onto the shop counter, heels drumming on the solid wood. “Teach me.”
Arthur leaned his chin on the broom handle. “It's very simple once you know where the flower is from. Phalaenopsis orchid live in rainforests and twine around trees, which means they don't like direct sunlight since they are usually shaded by leaves, and also that some of their roots grow out of the soil. And that's basically all I did.”
“Wicked!” Alfred's voice was full of honest amazement.
Arthur smiled.
-
“What do you mean, you can’t come today? Lars! We've been drinking together every Friday night for three years, you don't just dismiss traditions... I don't care your if little boytoy has a hockey match, you don't just dump friends for... I am not acting like a spoiled child!”
Arthur nearly crushed the phone as he ended the call with an angry push of his finger, leaving dirt smudges all over the screen. He then looked up, to where Alfred was sorting out the newly delivered boxes.
“Hey, why aren’t you watching your brother's match?”
“Dunno. Gets repetitive after a while.” Alfred didn't even look up from the irises he was sorting. “Watching your brother beat people with a hockey stick, I mean. And I don't like hockey that much to begin with.”
“Hm...” Arthur was now trying to clean the smudge on his apron, but only making the mess bigger.
“Want to go out for a pint instead?”
-
“Did you know, Arthur, did you know, did I ever tell you?” Alfred's breath smelled of beer. Arthur never saw anybody becoming so annoyingly talkative with increased alcohol level.
“No, Alfred, what should I know.”
“I only started to work in your shop because I wanted to keep an eye on Mattie. I mean on his boyfriend. Lars. Lars is his name, right? Lars, Lars, Lars with the scar, Lars with the scary scar – it's scary, isn't it? Must have been a badass battle, was that a dagger or a knife?”
“He fell from his bicycle,” Arthur announced, in a feeble hope he would stop the torrent of words.
It didn't work.
-
Saturday morning wasn't pleasant.
Alfred didn't remember, when he got home, who had paid for the taxi, nor that he had confessed his motives for working in the flower shop to Arthur.
Arthur couldn't remember where he’d lost both his gloves, nor that Alfred was nuzzling his throat the whole time they were driving to his home.
-
“Poor flowers.”
Arthur turned around to see Alfred crouching next to the large waste bucket where they kept the flowers that had welted so much that they couldn't be used in arrangements any more.
He walked over and crouched next to him. “We hate the bucket too, me and Lars. It's our little graveyard.” Stretching out his arm, Arthur's fingertips ghosted over the dark red gerbera that rested on the top of the pile, a third of its petals missing. “But there’s nothing we can do with them. Nobody buys wilted flowers.”
“I know.”
“It's the price we pay for maintaining a high standard.”
Alfred too reached into the bucket, diving both hands into the damp, colourful heap with childish playfulness. “I just wish there was a way to still do something with them. It's so sad they die without a reason.”
“Well,” Arthur stood up, wiping his hands on the red apron. “If you ever find a good way to make use of them, they are all yours.”
-
“So first you get pissed that I miss one evening because I'm with my boyfriend, and then you bring him to our Friday night out?” Lars watched as Alfred disappeared into the crowd in his search for the bathroom. “I could have brought my own twin if I knew.”
“Shut up, Lars, I just felt bad for leaving him alone there.” Arthur was deliberately not looking at Alfred's retreating form, especially not at his jeans-clad backside. “And feel free to bring Matthew the next time, he can at least help Alfred get home safely.”
-
“Oh, right! Valentine’s Day is coming!” Alfred nearly knocked down the ladder Arthur was standing on with the door as he entered, and immediately recognized the pink and red garlands hanging now under the green ceiling of the flower shop.
Arthur fastened one last loose end and climbed down from the ladder. “Yes, unfortunately, it's that time of the year again.”
“Oh, Arthur, don't be so bitter just because you’re alone for it. Look, I'll be lonely too, maybe we could...”
“Lonely?” To Alfred's surprise, Arthur started laughing, long and bemused as if he knew a good joke and Alfred didn't.
-
What Arthur found so funny about the loneliness statement became clear on the afternoon of February 13th, when Alfred assured the fifth furious customer that the fresh delivery of red roses was indeed on the way. This was worse than any other holiday he experienced in the last five months combined.
“I hate Valentine’s Day.” Alfred announced on the evening of the 15th as he collapsed down next to Arthur onto the freshly swept floor.
“Here.” Arthur pulled a heart-shaped box of chocolates from under the counter. “They were already on sale. And we deserve them.”
-
“Girls? Come on, Alfred. I'm arranging flowers for a living.” Arthur turned on his counter stool, and Alfred followed his gaze. He was looking at Lars standing next to the exit door, or more like at Lars' right hand resting deep in the back pocket of Matthew's jeans. “We could have as well named the shop 'Two gay tulips.'”
“Three,” Alfred added, returning to his Budweiser. “Guess how big the chances are for both identical twins ending up queer.”
“Low?”
Arthur took a sip from his own pint and hoped this sort of information would stay in his head even on the next morning.
-
The door slammed shut with such power that Arthur feared for the safety of the glass filling.
“Alfred? Did something happen?”
Alfred proceeded to walk through the shop like a bulldozer, kicking in everything solid enough not to break.
“Nothing, just a fight with Dad.”
“Again?”
“Yeah, and it wasn't even my fault this time.” Alfred hopped on his favourite spot on the counter, right next to where Arthur was hand-painting green and yellow eggs for the upcoming Easter madness.
“I told him so many times already, I don't want to work in his boring office. Ever.”
“You know the pay would be much better than what we can give you.”
“But I like it here! The pay is enough for now and I enjoy this work, why should I change it?!” Alfred shouted out in his anger, and Arthur laid his hand on Alfred's thigh.
“Now, calm down and stop fidgeting, I can't work if the whole table trembles.”
-
“Get me a non-alcoholic one.” Arthur called, and Alfred stopped on his way to the bar and turned around, the gesture unnecessarily theatrical.
“What did you say?”
“I can't drink, I'm here with the car. Have to go back to the shop, Lars texted me that he forgot to switch on the burglar alarm.”
Alfred nodded and ordered a coke. “Can't let you be the only sober one.”
-
The sound of the doorbell as they entered echoed through the shop like a shot, but the silence that followed as the door clicked shut was far more overwhelming, the busy neighbourhood unusually quiet in the night. Arthur heard Alfred walk through the shop as he stood with his back to him, eyes narrowed in the dim light over the alarm box since they didn't bother with switching on the lights overhead.
“All set, we can go now.” Arthur said and startled as he turned and Alfred stood right in front of him.
“Are you sure? Wasn't it supposed to be blinking green when it's on?” Alfred was looking over Arthur's head at the alarm box, street light through the windows forming stripes on his cheeks, but Arthur didn't hear him over the sound of his own heartbeat thumping in his ears.
To this day Arthur swears it was the concentrated fragrance of the hundreds of flowers hovering in the damp air of the shop that made him lean forward and kiss Alfred – not a careful peck on the lips, but greedy and impatient and demanding.
For kissing back, or for his arms around Arthur's waist, or for the way he pushed him towards the counter, for that Alfred never needed an explanation.
-
The counter was hard and uncomfortable, but Alfred tried his best to hold Arthur so that he wouldn't get bruised; and Arthur would be grateful for that, later, on the next day when they would go for a walk to the park to have finally a proper non-pub date. But now he couldn't care less, biting and grasping and nails leaving grass-thin red marks over Alfred's backside.
-
“Where are you going?” Arthur shivered, most of his clothes laying haphazardly over the tile floor.
He wanted to sit up on the counter, but Alfred's voice stopped him. “Stay where you are, I want to try out something. Please?” And so he stayed, waiting and watching the green ceiling of his own flower shop.
Alfred returned, dragging a huge bucket behind him.
“What...”
“Shh, you said I could use them for whatever I want, didn't you?”
First were the lilies, white petals smeared yellow with pollen, threaded carefully through Arthur's hair like a tiara.
Then the daisies, most of them missing parts of their flowerheads, ordered in a row along the line of Arthur's sternum down to his solar plexus.
“Tickles.” Arthur said and Alfred smiled.
“I know.”
Chrysanthemums covering his groin, asters in two lines over thighs down to his knees, two tulips over nipples. And last were the rose petals, red, pink, yellow and white, piled up carefully into a small heap over Arthur's belly-button.
“And you keep saying I don’t have an eye for arrangements.” Alfred said, and Arthur laughed, so much that most of the rose petals slid from his belly on the floor.
---
Genre: Humour/Romance
Pairing: US/UK, Netherlands/Canada
Word Count: 3141
Rating/Warnings: PG 15
Summary: The flower shop that Arthur and Lars owned used to be a peaceful place - until a pair of twins didn’t turn their world upside-down.
This is a collab between Me and the great Lost-hitsu! Art by Dunya, fic written by Lost-hitsu and Beta'd by qichi <3
---
---
They stood in front of the flower shop window, heads identically tilted to the side, and Arthur could tell, even with the glass and decorations obstructing his view, that they were twins.
It looked as if one of them was trying to persuade the other one to enter, and after a short tugging match the persistent brother won and they stepped in, looking a bit lost amidst the greenery.
“Can I help you?” Lars walked in from the side door just as Arthur wanted to ask the same question. He promptly obscured Arthur’s view – Lars tended to obscure the view to everything with his absurd height and even taller hairstyle. He heard him ask, “What should it be? A present for your mother. Of course. Does she like potted plants?”
With his colleague taking care of the only customers in the shop, Arthur returned his attention to the little carnation arrangement he had been working on earlier, successfully ignoring the noises around him. Which was why he nearly snapped a stem in half in surprise as one of the twins - the persistent brother, with the cheekier smile – suddenly stood in front of the counter, looking at Arthur's hands.
“Yes?”
“Haha, it's nothing.” He had the audacity to laugh. “You're just fun to watch, is all.”
“It's not intended as a performance; would you kindly step back?” Arthur hated few things more than nosy customers who made him nervous with their curiosity. “You’re blocking the sunlight.”
“Sorry!” he stepped back but kept staring at the counter. “That looks like fun. Can I try it out?”
Before Arthur could find his voice and explain that letting customers try their own arrangements definitely wasn’t part of their work policy, the other twin - the one that apparently stayed obscured by Lars’ shadow the whole time until now - called, “Al, they’re closing already. We’ll come tomorrow.”
“Coming, Mattie!”
The door bell rung one last time and they were gone, both co-workers watching their retreating forms through the shop window.
“Twins,” Lars said, the single word sounding distinctly fateful in the quickly darkening flower shop.
-
Same pub, same two counter seats, every Friday since they had met each other in a flower market three years ago and nearly had a fist-fight over the last bulbs of a rare black tulip sort. The whole idea to put together Lars' economist’s mind with Arthur's sense for detailed, pretty artwork and open a flower shop was drawn out and brought to fulfilment there in the pub, over beers and peanuts.
Even now, when the shop had been successfully running for over a year, the Friday pub meetings stayed as the place and time to discuss work matters as colleagues, together with less work-related topics they shared as good friends.
“I have a date tomorrow, with one of the twins.” Lars announced that Friday, thumb wiping the dampness on his beer glass.
“Nice.” Arthur commented. Lars hooking up with customers was nothing new. “I hope not with the loud one.”
Lars laughed his short, close-mouthed laugh. “Of course not. Matthew stopped by again yesterday during my shift, alone. And looked quite pleased as I asked him for his number.”
Silence followed, or as much as could happen in the loud pub. It was nice to just relax with someone who didn't need to talk all the time.
Then Lars spoke again, “and we are also probably getting a new employee.”
“What, you want to have your new bunny in the shop?”
“Not him.” Lars put his empty glass on the counter and waved for the bartender for a second round. “His brother. Matthew said he was looking for a job so I said we needed an assistant anyway.”
Arthur choked on his beer. “You said what?”
He switched to rum for the rest of the evening.
-
Arthur pulled Lars into the corner behind the bushes, tugging at his apron to make the man bend down to his level. “You can't be serious, what are we going to do with him?”
“Make him work here?” Lars looked from Arthur to the counter where Alfred was getting familiar with his new overall, watching his own reflection in the still dark window pane.
“He'll be good for carrying heavy things.” With that, Lars pulled his cigarette box from his pocket and disappeared through the backdoor to have his last morning nicotine dose before the opening.
Arthur stayed behind, silently scowling at what was supposed to be his new colleague. Alfred was now proudly pinning his own badge with their tulip logo on his chest, smiling as if he had a reason.
“I bet he can't tell hyacinths and hydrangeas from each other.” Arthur spat for himself through gritted teeth, and went to put on his own work apron.
-
„Hey, do that again.“
„Do what?“
„You just smiled at that flower. Why don't you do that, you know, at humans too?“
Arthur sighed a painful, you-make-my-life-so-hard sigh, and continued curling the ribbons for the rose bouquet in front of him.
“Because flowers aren't loud, obnoxious, and bothersome. I rarely meet a person worth smiling for.”
He knew it was a mistake to look up but he did it anyway. Alfred was doing something that by far surpassed the definition of a smile, grinning so broadly his gums were showing.
-
“And what are those called?” Alfred recently decided to demonstrate his undying enthusiasm with a little notebook he wore in the front pocket of his overall, and where he scribbled notes about their plant sorts.
“Buxus bushes. Evergreen, slow-growing, easily formed into hedges... why are you staring at me?” Arthur scowled, and to his shock, Alfred burst into laughter, mouth covered with the mini notebook.
“I'll be calling your eyebrows buxus bushes, okay? Come on, you must have noticed the similarity.”
Arthur felt how the tips of his ears heated up.
-
“I will need to relocate those flowerpots to the back garden, they’re taking up too much space.” Arthur announced nonchalantly, showing with his head to the left.
He saw from the corner of his eyes how Alfred looked over the left side of the shop, confused. “You don't mean...”
“Yes, the buxus bushes. All forty of them.” Arthur finally allowed his revenge smile to show. “Thanks in advance, Alfred, I hope you'll have it ready before lunch,” he added and walked out of the shop, head held high in victory.
-
“I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I can't help you if you won't tell me what, exactly, you want.” Even a complete stranger would have noticed that Arthur's voice was dripping with impatience.
The boy at the counter couldn't be older than fourteen, already blushing furiously and looking around the flower shop like a lost kitten. “I just... I hoped you would...”
“Maybe I could help?” Alfred set the bucket with sunflowers that he was carrying next to the counter and smiled at the boy.
“I... need flowers for my, for my friend and I don't know what to pick.” The last words were uttered almost in a whisper, but Alfred just nodded in understanding and leaned forward to the boy.
“Is the friend by any chance a girl?”
The boy backed up as if accused of theft and then slowly nodded, eyes set bashfully on the tile floor.
“Don't worry, we'll find her something she will like!” Alfred tapped the boy's shoulder and gently pushed him towards the racks with the cut flowers. “Do you happen to know her favourite color?”
-
“See, I said he'll be useful for more the carrying flowerpots.” Lars commented as Arthur described to him the incident later that evening in the pub.
Arthur ordered another pint.
-
“Woah! Wasn't this orchid the one Lars' sister brought? It looked completely dead three weeks ago.”
Arthur stopped sweeping the floor and looked to the windowsill where their flower hospital resided. “Is it blooming? I knew it just needed a different flowerpot.”
“How did you know?” Alfred hopped onto the shop counter, heels drumming on the solid wood. “Teach me.”
Arthur leaned his chin on the broom handle. “It's very simple once you know where the flower is from. Phalaenopsis orchid live in rainforests and twine around trees, which means they don't like direct sunlight since they are usually shaded by leaves, and also that some of their roots grow out of the soil. And that's basically all I did.”
“Wicked!” Alfred's voice was full of honest amazement.
Arthur smiled.
-
“What do you mean, you can’t come today? Lars! We've been drinking together every Friday night for three years, you don't just dismiss traditions... I don't care your if little boytoy has a hockey match, you don't just dump friends for... I am not acting like a spoiled child!”
Arthur nearly crushed the phone as he ended the call with an angry push of his finger, leaving dirt smudges all over the screen. He then looked up, to where Alfred was sorting out the newly delivered boxes.
“Hey, why aren’t you watching your brother's match?”
“Dunno. Gets repetitive after a while.” Alfred didn't even look up from the irises he was sorting. “Watching your brother beat people with a hockey stick, I mean. And I don't like hockey that much to begin with.”
“Hm...” Arthur was now trying to clean the smudge on his apron, but only making the mess bigger.
“Want to go out for a pint instead?”
-
“Did you know, Arthur, did you know, did I ever tell you?” Alfred's breath smelled of beer. Arthur never saw anybody becoming so annoyingly talkative with increased alcohol level.
“No, Alfred, what should I know.”
“I only started to work in your shop because I wanted to keep an eye on Mattie. I mean on his boyfriend. Lars. Lars is his name, right? Lars, Lars, Lars with the scar, Lars with the scary scar – it's scary, isn't it? Must have been a badass battle, was that a dagger or a knife?”
“He fell from his bicycle,” Arthur announced, in a feeble hope he would stop the torrent of words.
It didn't work.
-
Saturday morning wasn't pleasant.
Alfred didn't remember, when he got home, who had paid for the taxi, nor that he had confessed his motives for working in the flower shop to Arthur.
Arthur couldn't remember where he’d lost both his gloves, nor that Alfred was nuzzling his throat the whole time they were driving to his home.
-
“Poor flowers.”
Arthur turned around to see Alfred crouching next to the large waste bucket where they kept the flowers that had welted so much that they couldn't be used in arrangements any more.
He walked over and crouched next to him. “We hate the bucket too, me and Lars. It's our little graveyard.” Stretching out his arm, Arthur's fingertips ghosted over the dark red gerbera that rested on the top of the pile, a third of its petals missing. “But there’s nothing we can do with them. Nobody buys wilted flowers.”
“I know.”
“It's the price we pay for maintaining a high standard.”
Alfred too reached into the bucket, diving both hands into the damp, colourful heap with childish playfulness. “I just wish there was a way to still do something with them. It's so sad they die without a reason.”
“Well,” Arthur stood up, wiping his hands on the red apron. “If you ever find a good way to make use of them, they are all yours.”
-
“So first you get pissed that I miss one evening because I'm with my boyfriend, and then you bring him to our Friday night out?” Lars watched as Alfred disappeared into the crowd in his search for the bathroom. “I could have brought my own twin if I knew.”
“Shut up, Lars, I just felt bad for leaving him alone there.” Arthur was deliberately not looking at Alfred's retreating form, especially not at his jeans-clad backside. “And feel free to bring Matthew the next time, he can at least help Alfred get home safely.”
-
“Oh, right! Valentine’s Day is coming!” Alfred nearly knocked down the ladder Arthur was standing on with the door as he entered, and immediately recognized the pink and red garlands hanging now under the green ceiling of the flower shop.
Arthur fastened one last loose end and climbed down from the ladder. “Yes, unfortunately, it's that time of the year again.”
“Oh, Arthur, don't be so bitter just because you’re alone for it. Look, I'll be lonely too, maybe we could...”
“Lonely?” To Alfred's surprise, Arthur started laughing, long and bemused as if he knew a good joke and Alfred didn't.
-
What Arthur found so funny about the loneliness statement became clear on the afternoon of February 13th, when Alfred assured the fifth furious customer that the fresh delivery of red roses was indeed on the way. This was worse than any other holiday he experienced in the last five months combined.
“I hate Valentine’s Day.” Alfred announced on the evening of the 15th as he collapsed down next to Arthur onto the freshly swept floor.
“Here.” Arthur pulled a heart-shaped box of chocolates from under the counter. “They were already on sale. And we deserve them.”
-
“Girls? Come on, Alfred. I'm arranging flowers for a living.” Arthur turned on his counter stool, and Alfred followed his gaze. He was looking at Lars standing next to the exit door, or more like at Lars' right hand resting deep in the back pocket of Matthew's jeans. “We could have as well named the shop 'Two gay tulips.'”
“Three,” Alfred added, returning to his Budweiser. “Guess how big the chances are for both identical twins ending up queer.”
“Low?”
Arthur took a sip from his own pint and hoped this sort of information would stay in his head even on the next morning.
-
The door slammed shut with such power that Arthur feared for the safety of the glass filling.
“Alfred? Did something happen?”
Alfred proceeded to walk through the shop like a bulldozer, kicking in everything solid enough not to break.
“Nothing, just a fight with Dad.”
“Again?”
“Yeah, and it wasn't even my fault this time.” Alfred hopped on his favourite spot on the counter, right next to where Arthur was hand-painting green and yellow eggs for the upcoming Easter madness.
“I told him so many times already, I don't want to work in his boring office. Ever.”
“You know the pay would be much better than what we can give you.”
“But I like it here! The pay is enough for now and I enjoy this work, why should I change it?!” Alfred shouted out in his anger, and Arthur laid his hand on Alfred's thigh.
“Now, calm down and stop fidgeting, I can't work if the whole table trembles.”
-
“Get me a non-alcoholic one.” Arthur called, and Alfred stopped on his way to the bar and turned around, the gesture unnecessarily theatrical.
“What did you say?”
“I can't drink, I'm here with the car. Have to go back to the shop, Lars texted me that he forgot to switch on the burglar alarm.”
Alfred nodded and ordered a coke. “Can't let you be the only sober one.”
-
The sound of the doorbell as they entered echoed through the shop like a shot, but the silence that followed as the door clicked shut was far more overwhelming, the busy neighbourhood unusually quiet in the night. Arthur heard Alfred walk through the shop as he stood with his back to him, eyes narrowed in the dim light over the alarm box since they didn't bother with switching on the lights overhead.
“All set, we can go now.” Arthur said and startled as he turned and Alfred stood right in front of him.
“Are you sure? Wasn't it supposed to be blinking green when it's on?” Alfred was looking over Arthur's head at the alarm box, street light through the windows forming stripes on his cheeks, but Arthur didn't hear him over the sound of his own heartbeat thumping in his ears.
To this day Arthur swears it was the concentrated fragrance of the hundreds of flowers hovering in the damp air of the shop that made him lean forward and kiss Alfred – not a careful peck on the lips, but greedy and impatient and demanding.
For kissing back, or for his arms around Arthur's waist, or for the way he pushed him towards the counter, for that Alfred never needed an explanation.
-
The counter was hard and uncomfortable, but Alfred tried his best to hold Arthur so that he wouldn't get bruised; and Arthur would be grateful for that, later, on the next day when they would go for a walk to the park to have finally a proper non-pub date. But now he couldn't care less, biting and grasping and nails leaving grass-thin red marks over Alfred's backside.
-
“Where are you going?” Arthur shivered, most of his clothes laying haphazardly over the tile floor.
He wanted to sit up on the counter, but Alfred's voice stopped him. “Stay where you are, I want to try out something. Please?” And so he stayed, waiting and watching the green ceiling of his own flower shop.
Alfred returned, dragging a huge bucket behind him.
“What...”
“Shh, you said I could use them for whatever I want, didn't you?”
First were the lilies, white petals smeared yellow with pollen, threaded carefully through Arthur's hair like a tiara.
Then the daisies, most of them missing parts of their flowerheads, ordered in a row along the line of Arthur's sternum down to his solar plexus.
“Tickles.” Arthur said and Alfred smiled.
“I know.”
Chrysanthemums covering his groin, asters in two lines over thighs down to his knees, two tulips over nipples. And last were the rose petals, red, pink, yellow and white, piled up carefully into a small heap over Arthur's belly-button.
“And you keep saying I don’t have an eye for arrangements.” Alfred said, and Arthur laughed, so much that most of the rose petals slid from his belly on the floor.
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