Chapter Text
UNDER RENOVATION.
The sign was finally gone. At first, I was eager. My coworkers and I had thought it would be a new restaurant after the art store had shut down, or at least we had hoped. We had loved that little art shop with its many colorful pens, tiny jars filled with crystal chips, and many sheets of tracing paper to help with some of our work. However, upon arriving in the afternoon, I deflated at the sight of a bright flower shop with many bouquets in the window on display. A flower shop was no good for us.
I opened the door to the parlor, buzzing continuing to echo through the room and briefly out onto the streets. Our front-end girl (she could be described as a secretary but that felt a bit overly professional in our line of work) perked up from her phone at the sound of the bell hanging above the doorway but settled again when she saw it was just me.
“Hey, Dave,” she greeted with a raspy voice that could make anyone cringe except those who knew her personally. She was a good friend of mine and the tone was a comfort.
“Hey, TZ,” I replied, going up to the counter and setting my backpack atop it for the moment. “You see the shop across the street? What the fuck?”
“Man,” she groaned and dramatically leaned back in her chair. “I was really hoping to be able to try some actually decent food around here! Flowers are no good for anybody!”
“I mean, I guess it’s nice to have a normal place around here. Everything is dark and desolate but it’s just so… unhelpful? Who fucking gives a shit about some flowers around here? You can just go to the grocery store up the street and get a dozen for, like, ten bucks.”
“I’ve heard that the guy running it has some pretty tropical ones that he probably shouldn’t be selling. Not sure if it’s true or not. It only opened up on Tuesday.”
“Why is it that everything interesting always happens on my days off?” I was the one to groan dramatically then. “Whatever. Do I have any new clients today?”
“I got you booked for a consultation at one and then you’ve got a repeat client coming in at four for a tattoo he said you two had discussed in the past but just never made an appointment for. Other than that, everyone else is someone you had already booked in the system.” She scrolled through and read the schedule as she spoke. I gave her a thumbs-up.
“Cool. I’ll head back and get ready then.”
“See ya, cool kid!”
I picked my bag up and slung it over one shoulder, heading to my workstation near the back of the tattoo parlor. Much like my personality, my space could only be described as organized chaos. Anyone who walked in would likely comment on it and be unsure of the whereabouts of virtually any object but I could pinpoint its location in seconds without a hitch. It was my mess and that much was clear.
My desk was a mess of various papers, some with paperclips and some without, along with a single clean space where my drawing tablet remained. Hung up in frames on the walls were my drawing samples, ideas anyone was welcome to point to and I would tattoo it for them. They all mostly consisted of birds, crows specifically, in various styles. It showed off variety and also different ways of shading that I was skilled in. Here and there was some calligraphy, line art of books, and there was one of a silhouette of a person, but it was mostly crows. My brother used to love the drawings of crows I made for him so I never stopped.
I opened up my schedule on my laptop just to have it within sight, scanning it over once to ensure I had the next couple of hours in my brain. Upon seeing I had an hour to kill before my consultation appointment with a new client, I turned on my tablet to work on some new designs. I barely opened up my drawing application before one of my coworkers peeked her head around the corner with a small smile. Her cat ears, something I found somewhat cringe-worthy at first but now found endearing, were perched atop a mess of black curls, slightly lopsided. Her black hoodie had a few stray cat hairs on it and while her skirt wasn’t all that short, her hoodie covered most of it due to its size. She was quite cute and today, she had a little pink flower in her hair, its stem pinned behind her ear. Just her name was pretty adorable. Nepeta. Rolls right off the tongue.
“Dave! You’re back!”
“You are correct.” I nodded once towards her, turning in my chair. I then gestured lamely to her hair. “What’s that? Your boyfriend give it to you or something?”
“Don’t be silly! I don’t have a boyfriend!” She giggled and stepped fully into my workspace, taking a seat on the chair meant for clients. I didn’t mind much. “I got it at that little flower shop! Isn’t it cute?”
“Yeah, Nep, color goes nice with your hair,” I mumbled, gently biting the end of my stylus. The paint was chipped and worn on it from the biting but remained unscarred.
“Not the flower. The store! The boy who owns it is purretty cute if you ask me.” Her eyes faded a little at the mention and I couldn’t help but smile with a roll of my eyes. Her hopeless romantics were entertaining in the very beginning. Rarely, if ever, did they really fall off the deep end.
“I wasn’t going to ask about him, but I’m glad you think so. I haven’t been inside the store. I just saw it was open, like, ten minutes ago.”
“You should check it out!” She rested her elbows on her knees and her chin in her palms. I leaned back further into my chair. “It’s really cute. He looks really grumpy on the outside but I can just tell that he’s a real sweetheart. There’s something special about him, I can see it! Also, his name is Karkat!”
“How fitting for you to immediately fall in love with him,” I teased gently, chuckling.
“It’s purrfect!” The trill of her tongue used to send chills down my spine but again, getting used to her and becoming good friends with her certainly helped. Her cat puns amused me now. “I want to ask him out to lunch, but I don’t think he’d be into someone like me.”
“Why not? You’ve got the looks and all that.”
“Oh, it isn’t that,” she shook her head. “I just kind of get the vibe that he may not be interested in women.”
“You can’t know that for sure. How fitting would that be, though? A gay flower shop owner.”
“You’re feeding into the stereotypes, Dave,” she warned. “Remember, you’re gay and a tattoo artist.”
“Right. Sorry. Still working on that shit.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “Whatever. Flowers aren’t my thing. I’m not really interested.”
“Whatever you say,” she chirped, hopping off the chair at the sound of Terezi calling her name in the distance. “I’ll leave you be. Sounds like my client is here. She wants a paw print on her hip! How cool is that?”
“You should go do it then before she changes her mind,” I teased gently. She giggled and nodded before taking off to the front, a bit of pep in her step. I ran a hand through my hair and sighed softly before returning to the sketch I had yet to begin.
One wonderful positive to working (mostly) on my own terms was being able to form my own schedule. Despite only working for five hours, I made over three hundred and that was without any tips. The tips I received added up to another hundred so I decided to treat myself with some take-out delivered to my apartment for the night. I was always too lazy to cook anyways and besides, I was more likely to burn the building down than to actually make something edible.
I gathered the few things I had taken out throughout the day, keys, wallet, phone, water bottle, a bag of grapes, sketchbook, and shoved them unceremoniously into my backpack that was worn at the corners. That wasn’t surprising considering I had been using it since high school. I made my way to the front where Terezi still sat, again leaning onto the counter with my phone held in both hands.
“Has Nepeta told you about her new love interest?” I didn’t look up but it was okay because she didn’t, either.
“Flower boy? Oh, yeah,” she muttered, grinning. “She wouldn’t shut up about him before you came in. You’re lucky her client came in before she could fully go off about him to you.”
“She tried telling me he wouldn’t be into her because she thinks he’s gay,” I noted, stifling a chuckle. “I don’t think gay guys would give a random girl a flower out of the blue like that.”
“You’re gay and you dated two girls.”
“I’m not gay. I’m bi. And one of those girls wasn’t using those pronouns at the time.”
“You mean Egbert?”
“Of course I mean Egbert. Jade isn’t trans so who else could I be talking about?”
Terezi laughed a little then and looked up at me finally. I returned the gesture.
“She is fine as hell, though.”
“Who? June or Jade?”
“June.”
“You’re biased because you’re dating her,” I mumbled, going right back to looking at my phone. I mindlessly scrolled through the menu at my favorite Chinese place. I knew what I wanted but I always forgot the numbers for each item. “But I definitely agree.”
“If there’s one thing you have, it’s a good taste in women.”
I hummed half-heartedly. She wasn’t wrong but there were too many things wracking my brain for me to focus on statements that didn’t matter that much. I still took pride in the comment.
“So, what did Nepeta say about this guy?”
“Apparently he has a cat which I think was the major turning point for her,” Terezi muttered, also with a half-hearted tone. “He showed her some pictures, I guess, and she said he’s grumpy.”
“Mhm,” I nodded. “She told me that one.”
“I wonder if he gave the flower to her just to be nice. I mean, he did just open up a shop and he’s in a pretty sketchy part of the city. Maybe he’s just looking for someone to put the word out.”
“If so, he picked the right gal.” I turned then, leaning back onto the counter to stare out of the window. I caught sight of the store, lights still on despite it being ten at night. “Nepeta will continue to gush about him until the end of time to anybody within earshot.”
“She went home already, right?”
“Yeah, she’s got dinner with her sister or something.” I saw movement in the shop and a desire lurched in my chest. “Look, I gotta get going. I just ordered some food to my apartment and I don’t want to get there only to have it stolen.”
“Alright, cool kid,” Terezi said affectionately, looking up once more from her phone. “I’ll see you tomorrow, right?”
“Yeah, I’ll see you.” I still never took my eyes off the store windows, only offering her a slight wave as I left. When the door fell shut behind me, I heard the lock click. Day over.
I made my way across the street where my car was parked and debated just going home but something about the store drew me in. Perhaps it was Nepeta’s insistent comments or maybe it was the fact that the store was still open past ten at night, one of the worst times for any store to be open in such a sketchy area. I even hesitated staying in the parlor past nine but I had gotten caught up with a drawing and lost track of time. It wasn’t the first time.
Upon arriving in front of the door, I noticed the open sign was off. When I reached for the handle and tugged however, it opened with ease. I huffed. Rookie mistake.
“Shit,” I heard a small whisper from behind a table of flowers. There was a tier so whoever it was couldn’t be seen. “We’re closed!”
“I know,” I mumbled, smiling a bit to myself. “I came to tell you that you should probably close up a lot earlier than whenever you did, though.”
The source of the voice finally peeked out from behind the bright leaves and petals, eyes more tired than I ever expected to see in someone running a shop of this nature. He looked like he could rip my soul out of my body even though he was… quite small compared to me. How cute.
He looked like the goth kid in high school who just got too tired to keep trying. Really, he looked so exhausted. He wore a thick black sweater and some navy blue jeans. The jeans were the most colorful part of him. Even his sneakers were gray and while I wore some pretty basic clothing myself, I always had something on that could catch someone’s eye. He clearly just wanted to blend in.
“I know how to run a shop, thank you very much,” he grumbled, voice rough and a bit scratchy. I could see why Nepeta liked this guy. He was definitely her type.
“This is a pretty sketchy part of the city,” I explained, looking to my side over at a red tulip and touching its smooth petals very gently. “If you aren’t closed by sundown, you’ll get robbed. Also, locking your door is a pretty crucial part of officially closing. Not sure if you’re aware.”
“I’m aware, asshole,” he growled. “I just forgot to lock it. I would’ve gotten around to it when I left anyway.”
Ooh, scary.
“I thought you said you knew how to run a shop,” I retaliated with a shit-eating grin. He looked pissed beyond belief which I took note of and quickly changed the subject. Not out of fear of him exploding on me but out of consideration for him and his already high-alert heart. “What made you want to open a flower shop here in this part of the city anyway?”
“A lot of foot traffic,” he mumbled, lowering his voice before he could raise it. “People walking by and thinking of grabbing something nice for their partner happens a lot more than you’d think, even in a place like this.”
“Yeah, I get that,” I agreed, nodding.
“If this part of town is so bad, what the hell are you doing out?”
“I work down the street at that tattoo parlor.” I gestured out the window where it was in plain sight, lights off but Terezi was still visible at the front desk. “Got caught up working on a new piece and didn’t leave when I wanted to.”
“I was wondering how the hell you could afford that many tattoos.” He then tilted his head to my arms. “Are those considered sleeves or just different designs?”
“Different designs,” I smiled. “I’m not a sleeve kind of guy.”
“I’ve always wanted a tattoo,” he then admitted. “I’ve never had the courage to get one. Needles scare me.”
“It doesn’t hurt if you get it somewhere with thicker skin, like your forearm or bicep. It just feels like a really intense vibration in your skin.”
“Still scares me. I don’t care about the pain. I just don’t like needles.”
“Well,” I grinned, finally letting go of the tulip that I had still been touching. “If you ever work up the courage, come on over. I can get you a discount and if you’re extra nice to me, I’ll do it for free.”
“I don’t even know your goddamn name and you’re offering me a tattoo?” He raised an eyebrow as if he didn’t believe I would actually do something like that for him. I rolled my eyes with a smile.
“Dave. And I’ve heard some good things about you from one of my coworkers. She’s got good judge of character so whatever she says goes.”
“Was it the cat girl?”
“Yeah, it was the cat girl.”
We both chuckled a little then and he finally came out from behind the tier of plants. I immediately noticed that he was short and just a little chubby which I immediately found pretty adorable. That was always one of my favorite things.
“I’m Karkat,” he then said.
“Well, nice to meet you, dude. Maybe I’ll see you around.” I turned on my heel to leave.
“Wait,” he then said and I paused. He approached me, taking the tulip out of its pot before handing it to me. “Take the damn thing. Just don’t tell the cat girl. She went crazy when I gave her one.”
I took it, though I was a bit surprised, and he returned to his work. I bit my lip and walked out the door before I could say anything stupid, refusing to look down at the small gift until I got to my car. The moment I did, staring at the tulip under shitty lighting, I felt a small leap in my chest. I started the car and began my short drive home, the flower laid gently in the passenger’s seat.
No one’s ever given me flowers before.