Chapter Text
They work in relative silence, a quiet upset only by the snip of Keith's shears, the rasp of Hunk's soft lead pencils, and the occasional question.
"Hey, Keith," Hunk says several minutes after settling onto Shiro's stool. Keith looks up from his work—which he was struggling to focus on instead of Hunk—and tilts his head wordlessly. "Sorry to interrupt but, uhh, can I pick these up? I want to sketch them from different angles."
"Yeah," Keith replies. "Go ahead."
Hunk grins at him and gently picks up a stem. He holds it carefully as he examines it, sketching quickly and from several different angles.
"Do these come in different colors?" Hunk asks when the blue thistle is pinched between his fingers. "I mean, not this one, specifically, but all of them. My client was still trying to decide between grayscale and color, and I don't wanna make something yellow when it should only be red, you know?"
"Well, the thistle you're holding is always blue or purple, in any shade between the two," Keith answers. "The wax flowers—the tiny ones with the needle-like leaves—are commonly white or pink or magenta, though I have seen variants in pale green or red. As for the cabbage roses, those can be pretty much be any warm pastel color you want, like pink or peach, yellow or ivory."
Hunk writes down Keith's notes in the margin of his sketchbook, tongue between his teeth in concentration. He circles a few and draws arrows to some of his drawings; Keith recognizes the motions, but he is too far away to see any real detail.
"What about the filler?"
"There isn't any variation on those."
Hunk hums a thank you as he jots down a few more words at the bottom of the page, then flips the sketchbook over to a clean sheet.
"Okay, last one," Hunks says. "Do these flowers have any special or secret meaning?"
Keith snorts at the question. Hunk grins wryly at the derisive sound, as though to say, "That bad, huh?" It is very different from the sour frowns Keith usually receives from customers when he is impolite, but it is enough of a reminder for him to feel a tiny pinprick of guilt.
"Sorry," Keith murmurs, dropping his gaze to the echeveria, hydrangea, and dusty miller laid out before him. Sometimes he forgets that not everyone has been a florist since they were seventeen. "It's just—well, nobody really cares about flower language anymore."
"Really?" Hunk blinks. "What about, like, roses and stuff?"
"Those are an exception," Keith admits. "Red roses for love. Yellow roses for friendship. But those are mainstream enough that people buy them by the stem or by the dozen if they're trying to say something. Otherwise it's all about the recipient's personal taste."
"Do you get a lot of clients who ask about it?"
Keith shrugs. "Some. Shiro's the one who deals with most of the orders, and he always tells them that what's important is who it's for, not what it's for."
"I get that," Hunk says with a nod. "A good tattoo is the same way. It's how you feel about your tattoo, not how other people do."
Keith's eyes dart from Hunk's face to the intricate lines covering Hunk's skin. They're gorgeous, straight lines on an organic, curving canvas, and they manage to be both delicate and masculine. Surely the tattoos mean something—Hunk does not seem like the kind of person to do something without purpose, even if that purpose were for aesthetic—but by the time Keith gathers enough courage to ask, Hunk has returned to his sketchbook.
Briefly, Keith regrets his inability to make conversation. He wants to talk to Hunk and learn more about him. He even tries to think of something to say. Everything he comes up with sounds stilted though, and if it's awkward inside his own mind, Keith can't imagine how his thoughts would flounder off his tongue. So instead of speaking, he heaves a silent sigh, and returns to his arrangement.
.
Keith does not know how long Hunk sketches. There is no clock in the shop, and Keith's cellphone is plugged into the outlet by the register. He cannot gauge a time by his arrangement either, since his normal efficiency is hindered by the distraction of the man across from him. If Keith were to hazard a guess, however, he would say that Hunk spends an hour perched on Shiro's stool before he hops off and stretches.
The hem of Hunk's pale blue, pineapple-and-palm-tree print muscle tank rides up over the swell of his belly. Keith's gaze sweeps over Hunk's exposed skin, before his common sense reminds him that it's impolite to stare.
"Get everything you need?" Keith blurts in an attempt to act casual.
"I think I did!" Hunk beams in reply. "I have enough rough sketches to get the feel of the flowers. Now I just need to google the main flower. After I do that, I can start fitting it all together and make some concrete designs."
Keith takes a sprig of dusty miller from his arrangement, mumbles, "Sorry I don't have any king protea for you," then sticks the silver-green foliage right back where it was.
"Dude," Hunk interjects emphatically. "You have helped me so much, you don't even know. I'm not kidding when I say this is my first floral tattoo. I didn't even know where to start before I came over. I owe you big time, seriously."
"You don't owe me anything," Keith says, his shoulders tightening at Hunk's praise. He loves his job and he knows that he has a good eye, but compliments are difficult to accept when he hasn't really done anything. "It was fun."
"Pretty sure I still owe you," Hunk responds with a smile. "How about I buy you lunch at Xi's?"
The brittle tension in Keith's shoulders slips down his spine. While he cannot think of anything better than having lunch at Xi's Noodle Emporium, eating with and talking to the man he has been harboring a crush on for the better part of two months, he also cannot think of anything worse. The tables at Xi's are tiny; if Keith spends an hour knocking his knees against Hunk's legs, he is sure that his face will become hot enough to spontaneously combust.
So instead of accepting Hunk's offer, Keith shakes his head and lies.
"Sorry," he declines. "Shiro and Lance are going to be back soon, and they said they were going to pick up lunch. But—umm—thank you?"
"Oh." Hunk blinks. "Okay." He pauses, his eyes flickering over Keith's face. Briefly, Keith wonders if Hunk can tell that he isn't telling the truth; Shiro has always maintained that Keith is a terrible liar, but Keith doesn't know how accurate the statement is considering that Shiro is also his cousin. "What about some other time this week?"
At this point in their conversation, Keith's back is so tense that if anyone touches him, he may snap in half. He wants to say yes—he really, really does—but he also knows what would happen if he did. He is not good at maintaining conversation, only killing it, and he balks at the thought of their easy rapport dying an awkward but inevitable death.
"Sorry," Keith says again, though this apology sounds much more sincere and much less panicked. "I have a shipment tomorrow and a wedding on Sunday, so I'll be really busy until then."
This, at least, is not a lie. Keith will be consumed by work the moment he receives his awaited order.
"Oh." Hunk's smile dims a little and his gaze dips down. "I guess it is wedding season, isn't it?"
"Yeah," Keith affirms. "It is."
Silence descends and stretches into several very uncomfortable seconds. It is exactly what Keith had been trying to avoid with his first rejection, but he supposes that the presence of such discomfiture only confirms his previous surety of disaster.
"Well, uhh, you gotta do what you gotta do, I guess." Hunk tucks his notebook firmly between his bicep and his torso, then reaches up and scrubs a hand across the back of his neck. "I should get back to the shop and get started on some real sketches. Not that these aren't real, because they're obviously there on the paper, but like—more together? I—shit—I already told you that. About putting it into a single piece. Right?"
"Right," Keith says.
"Because I thought I did, but then I just blanked? Or whatever. But—uhh—thank you? No, that came out wrong." Hunk clears his throat. "I mean, thank you again. For the help. That I needed. For my… client." Hunk visibly winces as he stumbles over his own words, his wide, handsome face momentarily pinched. "Wow, okay, this is not how I imagined this going."
The last statement is muttered beneath Hunk's breath, giving Keith pause. He is a little perplexed by the devolution of Hunk's confidence into disjointed rambles, and this confusion makes him tilt his head and ask, "Imagine what going?"
"Nothing!" Hunk blurts. The hand on the back of his neck flies upwards into the space between them, his palm out and fingers splayed as though to physically deflect Keith's suspicion. "Nothing at all! I was just—just talking to myself! Ha! But seriously, this is me leaving. Right now. You're busy, I've taken up way too much of your time and—bye. Yes. Thank you very much for your time, I hope the rest of your afternoon is great, good luck with the wedding."
After this last sentiment falls out of his mouth, Hunk nods to himself, turns around jerkily, and all but speed-walks to the door with his shoulders squared stiffly and his head held unnaturally high. Then—when his free hand comes into contact with the exit's stainless steel push bar—he stops.
Pauses for the space of a heart beat.
Looks over his bare, tattooed shoulder and grins, small and sheepish and warm.
"Bye," Hunk says.
"Bye," Keith echoes.
Then the bell above the door rattles, and Hunk is outside, skin cast golden beneath the summer sun. Keith watches as he checks for traffic; as he briskly jaywalks across the undivided four lane street; as he approaches the tattoo parlor. He does not look back before he disappears, the door swinging shut behind him, and Keith mentally chides himself for the stab of disappointment he feels. Keith is the one with the inconvenient crush, not Hunk, and no matter how much Keith wants him to, Hunk isn't obligated to cast a final look at the floral shop…
Or ask Keith out to lunch for a third time.
"Stupid," Keith mutters to himself as he drags his gaze away from the tattoo parlor's closed door and back towards the table. He needs to finish his arrangement, not stand in the middle of the shop and overanalyze every word he and Hunk exchanged. "Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid…"
And with that mantra in his brain, Keith grabs his trimming scissors from his apron pocket, and gets back to work.
.