Work Text:
It’s not that George is in love. It’s just that every time Sapnap laughs he feels his heart flutter, and whenever Sapnap gives him that look he wants to melt, and even just spotting Sapnap through the storefront windows doing his job makes George’s knees weak. He cherishes every conversation he has with Sapnap, every moment they spend together, every glance they exchange, and alright. Maybe he’s a little bit in love.
But he’s not going to do anything about it. Because he’s a little bit of a coward, and he doesn’t know if Sapnap feels the same, so he shoves his feelings down to the point where even Dream and Karl and Quackity, their best friends, have no idea how George feels. He’ll keep his yearning to himself, thank you very much.
It’s been three years. Three years since he decided fuck it, he’s going to open a damn flower shop in the middle of a busy city, and he’s going to succeed. Three years since Sapnap had the same idea with his tattoo parlor, seeing the for lease sign on the building across the street from George. Three years since they met each other while they were first putting up their ‘open’ signs, three years since Sapnap introduced George to Dream and George introduced Sapnap to Karl and Quackity, three years since their little group of five became a group of five. Three of the best years of George’s life, in all honesty.
And, of course, two years since he realized he was a little in love with Sapnap. It’s not like it’s a big deal- love has never been a big deal to George, never been something he’s wanted to proclaim in loud declarations and shout from the rooftops. He loves in little ways, like how he brings arrangements to Sapnap once a week and makes sure to call Dream every night, how he buys energy drinks for Karl when he knows the other has long nights coming up and agrees to go along with all of Quackity’s dumb ideas.
Sapnap is the opposite- George knows Sapnap loves in extremes, to the point where he bought George an expensive pair of EnChroma glasses after finding out George was colorblind.
Which, it’s not like being colorblind is a big deal. It’s a slightly bigger deal when working in the floral industry, but George is good at what he does. He creates arrangements based on the feelings the flowers give him above anything else, and sometimes he gets the kid he hired to run the cash register to check to make sure they don’t look horrible. But the glasses were a huge help (not that he’d ever tell Sapnap that).
Sapnap, for his part, is terrified of needles. George made fun of him for it, at first, until Sapnap reminded him that you don’t need to be sticking the needles in your own arm to be a tattoo artist. You do need to see color to arrange flowers. George shut up fairly quickly after that.
George’s preconceived notions about tattoo artists were that they themselves had tattoos, but Sapnap doesn’t have any (visible ones, at least, and George will neither confirm nor deny whether he’s imagined otherwise). Sapnap has confessed that his preconceived notions about florists was that they’re all a bit fruity. Those were his exact words, which had made George laugh a bit harder than he normally would, and even harder at the look on Sapnap’s face.
Over the years, they’ve gotten closer than anything, all their friend group has. The go out on the weekends together, they spend time together on weeknights, and they do all the things a regular friend group would.
That also means, of course, that every moment George doesn’t spend with Sapnap, he spends thinking about Sapnap. He does his best to hide it around their mutual friends, but he thinks it’s started to show around the teenager that works his cash register.
“Are you guys dating?” Tommy had asked bluntly at one point, and George had nearly dropped the rose he was slipping into a bouquet.
“No,” George had replied, probably a little more forceful than necessary. “Don’t you have work to be doing, anyways?”
And now Tommy gives him looks every time he makes his way across the street with Sapnap’s weekly arrangement.
The weekly arrangement is a tradition that started a few months after they each opened, once they were firmly in the ‘friend’ territory of their relationship. What started much more recently was George putting more thought into which flowers he chose to put in the arrangement.
This week, it’s a few hours before the Friday rush, and George is just finishing up the arrangement. Tommy’s just gotten off of school and has kicked his feet up on the counter, chatting at George about his day. George isn’t really paying attention; he’s busy making sure everything looks perfect, glasses settled carefully on his nose, eyeing his creation scrutinizingly.
“And then Tubbo said- hang on, are those gardenias?”
George jerks up. Tommy is staring at him with wide eyes.
“He asked about flowers?” George says. He wasn’t listening very carefully, but he doesn’t think Tommy’s story had been centered around greenery.
“No, no,” Tommy says, lunging across the counter for a small book perched on the corner. He flips through it eagerly. “I was right! Gardenias!”
“Yes, Tommy,” George says. “I know they’re gardenias.” He’s not stupid.
“No, you bitch,” Tommy says, and George rolls his eyes. He’s long-since given up on trying to get Tommy to have appropriate language in the workplace. He shows off the book in his hand, and George groans.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he says, but Tommy is already reading.
“Gardenias: symbolizing secret love, giving the message ‘you’re lovely.’ That’s for Sapnap, isn’t it?”
George curses silently. He regrets getting Tommy into the whole language-of-flowers thing, but the kid was interested and George wanted to shut him up for a bit one rainy Sunday afternoon.
“Yes, Tommy,” he repeats in the same tone as before. “They’re for Sapnap.”
“Knew it,” Tommy says proudly, tossing the book back onto the counter. “I knew it.”
“Knew what?” George says sarcastically. “That I’m making an arrangement for Sapnap at the same time I always do? How clever.”
“Don’t sass me, young man,” Tommy says, pointing a finger at George. “Your mum and I are going to have a talk about this-”
“I’m going to give this to Sapnap,” George calls, picking up the vase and making his way toward the door. “Watch the store, yeah?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Tommy scowls good-naturedly. George slips out the door and across the street, being careful not to spill the vase or get hit by any cars. The bell to Sapnap’s shop jingles as he opens the door and steps inside.
“Hello, George!” Tubbo, Sapnap’s apprentice-slash-secretary, says brightly. “Ooh, those are nice!”
“I heard George!” Sapnap yells from somewhere in the back, and he comes sprinting out and skidding to a stop. He gasps with delight when he sees the vase and reaches out to take it. “Beautiful! Magnificent! Ten out of ten, you’ve outdone yourself, Georgie.”
“You say that every time,” George tells him, but he still feels a flash of pride. “I’ve gotta get back, enjoy.”
“You definitely don’t have to get back,” Sapnap says. “You want a tattoo?”
It’s the whole thing- Sapnap mentioned that he didn’t have any way to repay George for the arrangements, so he offers a free tattoo every time. George always refuses.
“No, thank you,” he says, and Sapnap fake-pouts. “See you tonight. Bye, Tubbo, I’ll tell Tommy you say hi.”
“Thank you!” Tubbo says cheerfully, glancing between George and the flowers like he knows something. George jogs back across the street and into his own shop, and he’s on Tommy immediately.
“What the hell did you tell Tubbo?” he asks. Tommy just grins at him, like the feral gremlin child he is.
“Nothing, nothing,” he says. “But we’ve both taken a fascination in flower meanings lately. If you know what I mean. It’d be a shame if he mentioned something to Sapnap.”
“No one is going to mention anything to Sapnap, because there is nothing to be mentioned,” George says firmly. “We’re friends.”
“Friends who want to bone, sure,” Tommy snorts. George yelps something unintelligible and thinks that if he was holding anything, he would’ve thrown it at Tommy. They continue bickering until the Friday-night rush starts, at which point they’re both too busy fulfilling orders to really argue with each other.
George closes up shop at the normal time, watches Tommy and Tubbo run across the street to meet each other for the walk home, and two minutes later meets Sapnap at the same spot. He’s grinning as he offers his arm to George, and George rolls his eyes and takes it.
“So, where are we going?” he asks. “Quackity said it was a surprise.”
“Some new bar, probably, we’re meeting at his apartment,” George answers.
It ends like most nights going out do- Dream is their designated driver, which means the other four of them can drink as much as they want. It’s not a new bar that Quackity takes them to, it’s an exclusive club that he manages to get them on the list for through some connections, or something. In the morning, if asked, George would distinctly recall dancing with each one of his friends, but only grinding down on Sapnap, which, he doesn’t think anyone would blame him.
Dream drops them off at Sapnap’s place- they both have separate apartments over their shops, but on nights like these, they’ll sit on the floor by the cash register of either one of the buildings and talk well into the early hours of the morning. Sapnap unlocks the front door of his tattoo parlor to let them in, and George nearly stumbles into the vase full of gardenias he brought over just that afternoon.
“They’re pretty,” Sapnap says quietly as George reaches out to straighten the vase. “What do they mean?”
“What?” George asks, certain he didn’t hear that right.
“What do they mean?” Sapnap repeats. “Tubbo said Tommy told him they mean something special, but he wouldn’t tell me what.”
George flushes. “Um-” he says, and Sapnap cuts him off before he can continue.
“No, wait, I’ll make you a deal,” he says. “If I guess what the flowers mean, you let me tattoo you. Whatever I want.”
“No fucking way,” George snorts. “I’m not letting you anywhere near me if you get to pick-”
“Nothing bad. I promise,” Sapnap says. He’s looking at George imploringly, and God, George could never say no to him.
“Fine,” he says. “But you only have one guess .”
“One guess,” Sapnap agrees. He looks George dead in the eyes and leans in a little bit. “Love.”
George feels his heart stutter. “What?” he says.
“Love,” Sapnap says, breaking into a grin. “Some kind of love.”
“That’s so open-ended,” George protests, because Sapnap’s right, in a way. “There’s no way-”
“Come on, Georgie,” Sapnap teases. “What do they mean, then?”
“Um,” George says, and he’s still a little drunk, and that’s what probably gets him to say, “You’re lovely.”
“I’m what?” Sapnap asks, blinking, the grin never leaving his face.
“You’re lovely,” George says, and he swallows down his fear. “That’s what they mean. Secret love. You’re lovely.”
“George,” Sapnap says, breath hushed, and George thinks this is it, this is the moment. And then he says, “I win the bet. Come on, we’re tattooing you.”
“Sapnap!” George protests, but he’s laughing, and he keeps laughing as Sapnap sticks him in the chair and he keeps laughing as Sapnap blindfolds him and promises he won’t do anything bad as he goes for George’s ankle.
“Okay,” Sapnap says some time later. “You can look now.” George removes the blindfold and peers at his ankle- his skin is red, but in clear black ink, there’s a small flower.
A gardenia.
Sapnap has put his tools away and he’s beaming at George, and there are tears in George’s eyes as he proudly says, “Secret love.”
“Secret love,” George echoes softly. Sapnap helps him out of the chair and then, almost without a second thought, presses his lips against George’s forehead. George giggles, then covers his mouth with one hand. “We’re going to talk about this in the morning,” he tells Sapnap. “But I am far too tired to walk all the way home.”
“I can sleep on the couch,” Sapnap offers.
“Nonsense,” George says. “Secret love, remember? If we don’t say anything about it, then no one needs to know.”
Needless to say, everyone finds out within a few days. Tommy whoops with joy when George tells him, saying how he knew his plan would work. Their friends just laugh and say it’s taken long enough (so maybe George wasn’t as discreet as he thought he was). George starts leaving cards with the arrangements he brings, little notes with what they mean.
Gardenias remain their favorite, even if their love is no longer secret.