Work Text:
Calum was pissed, more than pissed. He was angry, because Michael is the worst best friend in the history of best friends. He’s not really, but Calum’s still pissed, and he wants to get back at Michael for sending him on the worst date of his life. Michael promised this last one would be good, but it was awful, and Calum doesn’t know if he’ll ever recover from the embarrassment he faced the other night.
So, Calum angrily storms into the closest florist shop he can find in his local area on a Saturday morning, a floral shop called ‘ Wild Roses ’ which sounds nice, and Calum almost feels a little bad that he’s about to walk into such a nice flower shop with his bad mood.
Calum storms right up to the counter, and he’s greeted by the prettiest man Calum has ever seen before.
“Hi, how can I-?”
“How do I say ‘fuck you’ in flowers?” Calum demands.
The man with blonde curls and pretty blue eyes stares at him with wide eyes. “I- what ?” He asks.
Calum sighs, and glances at the name tag on the man’s apron. Luke . Pretty name for a pretty boy. “Okay. Well look, Luke. I’m sure you’ve had a best friend before, correct?” Calum asks, and then he huffs when the man nods. He looks over when Luke points, and sees another man standing behind the counter. Calum slaps his hand on the counter, startling the younger florist. “Right. So you have a best friend. Well, my best friend is a complete dick and I hate him right now.”
“You’ve gone to the wrong person for fuck you flowers. Luke is a human embodiment of sunshine, and he doesn’t have a mean bone in his body,” the other man says. Ashton the name tag says.
“Ashton,” Luke whines, throwing his head back with a sigh. He looks back at Calum. “Ignore him. Look, I’ve never been in your situation because Ashton loves me-” He ignores the laugh that comes out of Ashton. “But, I’m sure we’ve got some ugly flowers around here somewhere.”
“I’ll take whatever you got,” Calum says. He watches as the florist turns to look at some of the flowers behind the counter. Calum sighs, and he glances over, seeing a mother with her young daughter staring at him with horror in her eyes. Calum scoffs. Normally he would feel bad, but right now, he’s got too much anger pent up inside of him to care that he probably just scarred this young girl with his rude language.
Calum only waits for about twenty minutes before Luke walks back over to him with a bouquet of flowers in his hands, and Calum thinks he’s fallen in love with the man, because he didn’t actually think a florist would be able to fulfill his wish in giving Michael flowers that represent his anger.
“What about these?” Luke asks, looking up at Calum hopefully. “There are black roses in here, which everyone knows means death. I threw in some Geranium flowers as well which can mean stupidity, and from the sound of it, your friend Michael fits that definition.”
Calum laughs with delight, because of course Luke nailed it. “These are perfect!”
Luke grins. “Really? Because I’ll be honest, I’ve never had someone request fuck you flowers before, so I wasn’t really sure that I had what you wanted. So, you want them?”
Calum nods. “Absolutely. How much are they?”
Luke hands the bouquet of flowers to Calum, and then he walks back behind the counter and quickly rings up his order. “It’ll be twenty dollars.” He looks up at Calum.
Calum nods, and pulls out his credit card, sliding it into the card reader to pay for the flowers. “Thank you. I- I know it sounds silly, but if you knew the situation, you’d understand why I needed these.”
“Hey, everybody’s got stupid best friends-”
“Excuse me!”
Luke smiles when he hears Ashton shout from the back. “Wait a second-” Luke reaches over and grabs one of the small cards from the bin, and quickly writes down his phone number, and hands it to Calum. “Text me. I wanna know what his reaction is to these flowers.”
“Hell yeah,” Calum says. “Thanks again.”
It’s an hour later when Luke is watering some of the plants around the flower shop while Ashton is manning the counter, when Luke hears his phone ding, alerting him of a text message.
unknown number :
*sent an attachment*
He absolutely hated them. Thank you.
Luke grins, immediately knowing that it’s from the costumer who requested the fuck you flowers.
Luke presses play on the video.
“ What do you think of the flowers I got you ?” It’s the customer from earlier speaking in the video.
“ What the fuck, Calum? ” The friend screeches, turning to glare at the customer filming. “Wait a second- Are you filming me? You’re absolutely dead, Hood! ”
Calum giggles, and quickly turns off the video.
Luke laughs, and shakes his head. Calum. Luke’s going to have to remember that.
luke :
dude, that’s awesome!!! i never thought i’d be happy to hear that someone hated my flowers, thanks.
Over the next few days, Luke constantly texts Calum. Whenever he has free time, when he’s not working, he’s talking to Calum. He hasn’t seen Calum in person since he stormed into Luke and Ashton’s shop, but Luke enjoys talking to him. They’ve only Facetime’d once, but Luke prefers texting.
It’s Wednesday when Luke is arranging a flower for someone’s anniversary, when he hears the door ding, alerting them that a customer just walked in. Ashton’s on break, so Luke is going to have to take this one. He turns to greet the customer. “Hi. How can I help you?”
“I messed up, so I kind of need flowers that say I’m sorry?” The blonde asks.
“Can I ask what the situation is? Just so I have more of an understanding of what to make?” Luke asks.
“My best friend is really mad at me right now, so mad that he actually bought me fuck you flowers. Can you believe that?” The blonde huffs. “I mean, I get it, which is why I want to buy flowers to apologize.”
Luke perks up at the mention of the fuck you flowers. “Are you Michael?”
The blonde freezes, and he looks up at Luke. “Don’t tell me you’re the one who made Calum’s flowers?”
Luke laughs. “Yeah, that’s me, the one and only,” he says. “But, I’ll be happy to make you flowers for Calum. It’s what he deserves after all. He told me all about what happened.”
Michael huffs. “Okay, it’s not like I purposefully sent him on a bad date. I thought the guy seemed okay, and I tried to apologize to him when he told me how horrible the date went. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Calum so mad when he came home that night after the date. I just hate when Calum is mad at me.”
Luke nods in understanding. “Yeah, I totally get that. I don’t know what I’d do if my best friend were mad at me. At least you’re trying to make it up to him, unlike most people. Let me see what I can make for you. What’s Calum’s favorite color?”
“He loves blue, but he really loves a baby blue kind of color,” Michael tells him.
Luke nods. “Give me like ten minutes. I’ll have something ready for you,” he says.
“Take your time. I’ve got no other plans today,” Michael says.
Luke turns, and glances around at all the different flowers, trying to think of something for Calum.
It takes Luke about ten minutes before he finally has something put together. He walks up to Michael, and shows him the assortment of various bright colors that represent happiness and friendship, while also throwing in a couple of blue thistle flowers for Calum’s favorite color. “What do you think?”
Michael’s eyes light up as soon as he sees the arrangement. “Wow, this is beautiful.”
Luke beams at the compliment. “Do you think Calum will like it?”
“I’m sure he’ll love it,” Michael says. “How much are they?”
“Twenty dollars,” Luke says, handing Michael the flowers, and walks around the counter to the register. “Thanks for stopping in today. I hope Calum likes the flowers.”
“Thank you. I hope so too,” Michael says after paying for the flowers. He starts to walk away, but stops, and turns to look at Luke. “You’re the one who Calum has been texting the past few days?”
Luke’s cheeks instantly turn bright red. “Uh, y- yeah. We’ve… uh, we’ve been texting?”
“Right. Calum really likes you. You should ask him on a date,” Michael says.
“Oh,” Luke squeaks. “I don’t… Calum hasn’t said anything about a date. We’ve just been talking.”
“Yes, well… I know Calum, and Calum obviously likes you a lot. Every time I look over at him, he’s texting on his phone with this big goofy smile on his face. It’s kind of annoying, actually.”
“I- I mean, I don’t know… I-”
“Come on, you should totally go on a date with him, or-!” Michael gasps. “Let me set you two up.”
Luke furrows his eyebrows. “Is that really such a good idea after your disastrous blind date last time?”
“No, because it’ll be you. So, obviously, it’ll work out just fine,” Michael says.
“Luke, I’m back from break.”
Luke looks over and sees Ashton walking out from the back. “Hey Ash.”
Ashton looks up and stops when he locks eyes with Michael, but he’s too frozen to say anything.
Luke looks at the two back and forth, before letting out a laugh, which startles Michael. “It looks like I’m not the one you should be worried about going on a date,” he says, grinning.
Michael scoffs. “Please, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he mumbles before walking out of the flower shop, but Luke swears that he sees Michael’s cheeks turn red.
Ashton blinks, before turning to look at Luke. “Who the hell was that guy?”
“You mean the guy that you just totally fell in love with? His name is Michael, he’s Calum’s best friend,” Luke says. “I can get your number for him if you’d like.
Ashton’s eyes light up. “Could you? Fuck, he was so hot, Luke!”
Luke laughs, and shakes his head fondly. He can’t believe how quickly his life has changed ever since meeting Calum a few days ago, but he’s certainly not complaining.
Calum is not happy when Michael offers a new “blind date” that very same night. There was a lot of yelling from Calum, but somehow Michael convinced him to go on another blind date.
Calum is not happy as he walks into the restaurant that he’s meeting his date. He doesn’t know why he’s allowed Michael to convince him to go on another one of his set-ups. It’s just going to end just as bad as the last date ended, and Calum just wants to get this date over with.
“Thank you,” Calum says as he takes the menus from the waitress.
“Can I get you something to drink while you wait?” The woman asks, and Calum desperately wants to ask for the strongest wine they have, but even he’s not that rude.
“Uhm, can I just have a glass of water, please?” Calum asks, giving her a small smile. “Thank you, ma’am.” He sighs as he watches her walk away, and he looks down at the menu in his hands.
A moment later, he hears someone clear their throat. His head snaps up, and his eyes widen when he sees Luke walking up to his table. “Luke?” Calum asks, standing up.
Luke chuckles. “Trust me, I can’t believe I’m here either. But, Michael-”
Calum groans as soon as Michael’s name leaves Luke’s mouth. “Shit, I’m sorry, Luke. Michael shouldn’t have dragged you into my messy dating life. You didn’t have to agree to come to this thing.”
Luke tilts his head. “What makes you think I didn’t want to come?”
Calum blinks as he stares at Luke. “I, uh-”
“Calum, I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t want to. I would have told Michael no. But, I- I like you. I mean, we’ve only been talking for a few days, but… I really like you. I was hoping to give this thing a try.”
“Yeah?” Calum breathes out. “Because, I wouldn’t mind trying either.”
“Brilliant,” and Luke flashes a shining smile at Calum. “Shall we sit?”
“Yeah, absolutely,” Calum says, and he walks over to pull the chair out for Luke, grinning when Luke blushes and shyly thanks him for doing so. Calum walks back over to his seat and sits down.
Maybe for once, one of Michael’s blind-date set-ups won’t be so bad after all.
