Chapter Text
Love was the flavor of the season it seemed…
Or at the very least, love was certainly in the air. Maybe it was just him though, considering his brothers were now all occupied with people over their jobs and the like.
Eclipse gave half-nods to coworkers passing by, already feeling the ache in his fingers from how long he’ll be looking over reports, taking calls, and addressing emails. There’s always that small nagging part of him that says take the day off, as if it would be so easy to leave everyone without their supervisor - especially when a crisis could happen at any moment.
It was early in the morning, just around eight and he already wished it was the evening… Or the weekend.
He’s almost at his office now, it feels like a death march in recent weeks. The final moments of freedom before he’s back in his cage, no matter how pleasant he’s tried to make that room that served as his personal headquarters, it still felt utterly stifling. Even if he gets commentary that it was far more comfortable than what someone in his position would typically need to serve others with.
It just wasn’t enough. Chairs couldn’t be soft enough, the colors couldn’t be warm enough, there will always be something missing.
Briefly, his eyes glance over the surrounding desks. Some occupied and some vacant but most of them have the similar decorum he otherwise lacked.
Photos of family, of beloved spouses and moments with their respective little ones.
Reminders of why they did the jobs they do.
Now of course he had the same of his family, maybe he had to wrestle Glitch into a few of them but they still had photos together - and that was typically enough for him.
But some days, like today, he just wanted to spy a different face across those photos. Even for a brief moment.
It seemed this day would be like any other, long and monotonous yet there was already a glaring difference this morning compared to others. Someone was leaving his office. Without him previously in it. An oddity to say the least.
“Ash?” He spoke up before taking a moment to analyze the scene, the receptionist visibly jumping at the sound of the animatronic’s voice before sheepishly turning around.
“He-hey…- Hey! Mr. Eclipse! I - I know this looks bad…” They floundered and stuttered, clearing their throat and tugging at their sleeves. “But you got a gift? I was asked to keep it anonymous and to place it in your office for you to find…”
The human trailed off as the chief detective’s face morphed into one of surprise, eyes going wide and brightening significantly.
“That so?”
“Yes sir! It was already screened for anything fishy but-”
Eclipse’s excitement was getting ahead of him, forgetting his manners as he cut off the poor coworker. “Could you at least tell me who it was that dropped it off?”
“Ah… It was mentioned you’d probably be able to guess so like I said… It’s anonymous - but there is a card!” They offered kindly and Eclipse would have to take what he could get it would appear, this was already turning out to be the highlight of his week.
“Alright, dismissed - thank you for the delivery.”
“Of course, sir!” With a salute, no matter how many times the detective asked to abandon the formalities and theatrics, it was no use. So he learned to live with it as he waved them off, not unkindly before entering his office and beholding what lay in wait for him.
A bright bouquet that practically stole his breath away - if he had it to begin with.
It was terribly yellow, dare he say an eye burner. Just about every flower present in it was yellow in some manner but even then it was a gorgeous piece that belonged at the center of an extravagant table - not oddly tucked on the corner of a desk just a few inches from the edge for the inevitable knockover.
The only flowers he actually recognized due to their iconic nature were the roses and a sunflower in their fullest bloom - were they freshly cut?
Oh this had cost money and it made him all the more curious as to who it could be from as he searched for the card eagerly and found it tied, tucked between the stems by a fine ribbon.
…His ribbon in fact. The bell had been lost but that’s alright.
With his work, he lost them often and it was never necessarily a chip off his shoulder when it occurred - but it was both endearing and unnerving for someone else to not only recognize this ribbon but to know it was his then to clean and repair it, judging by the little bit of stitch work present.
That was something he would dissect later, for now he looked over the card…
Printed, smart. He may have recognized their handwriting otherwise.
The sender knows him well.
Eclipse looks over the little bit of cardstock that serves as a masterlist to what’s in the bouquet; roses, daffodils, and lilies. With amusingly one sunflower smack dab at the top of the arrangement.
It reminded him of the optimism in a new day.
Turning over the card, an actual message awaited him and at this rate, he was being strung along a new mystery that had him eagerly searching for the next clue as the words were looked over.
You have what you need, you know how to hunt snakes in the grass. I await a response at the eldest willow tree.
The eldest willow tree…
Eclipse did not have a single damned clue where that could be or if it had a name - but that hardly mattered, it just meant more research for him to do in the free moments he could afford.
His time would finally be occupied by something other than his workaholic tendencies…
His phone goes off with a distinct ringtone and already this irregular day was shaping up to be his most shining yet as he fishes for the device and looks over the message from the unnamed number.
Yeah, he’d be busy sleuthing around for a bit. Looking for messages and people it would appear.
…
Your flower shop was painfully quiet in the early hours of morn and it was typically why you didn’t open until the afternoon - but you had to do this early if you wanted to be anonymous and kept as such.
Waking up just as dawn broke to get everything ready was a pain on your psyche it would seem as thoughts paced holes in your mind.
You hoped Eclipse enjoyed those flowers. Maybe they were too much of a reminder of his brother, Sun. Should you have picked flowers more his colors and style? Oh but the meaning would have then been lost most likely…
Should you have given him a time? Maybe a date? Would he feel rushed? Was the notecard too vague to be taken seriously? Oh you hoped the receptionist didn’t get in trouble for your request.
Oh gosh, maybe the snake comment would be threatening - you just wanted to be mysterious!
A groan of anguish escapes you before you can help yourself but it’s not like it matters much. You’re the only one in your own store with no customers milling about and no one outside to look into the flower shop from the large picture window at the front that puts you and your flowers on display easily.
You just didn’t want to have to put flowers outside and risk them being stolen.
Not like you couldn’t afford the loss, you didn’t exactly need the money from this store - you had plenty of money but you needed to keep yourself occupied so this is what you bunkered down with.
Longingly, you glance at a hung up picture of you and your parents. Both still alive thankfully but lived busybody lives and made a killing from it that then bled into you. Their business was your business but until you properly inherited it, you would have this in the meanwhile.
“Why can’t I just… Shower people with gifts?” You mutter thoughtlessly into the empty air, making a strangling motion at no one in particular. “This would be way easier but that makes people uncomfortable and-...”
Your love language was gift giving, you adored giving people the things they want! You noted so much, longing looks to heavy sighs and offhanded comments but there was just one thing…
You were too much of a coward to go and ask someone properly if they’d be okay with that. Just like how you were too much of a fraidy cat to go and befriend someone just because you could as an adult.
So you went the traditional courting method of flowers and pulled out the old tongues that they used to represent to establish your invitation of friendship.
Yes. Friendship.
Not that the animatronic wasn’t your friend already but it was safer to say that you were acquaintances, he has bought from you in the past and once lost a ribbon on a rose thorn. Something he wasn’t fussed about that you were very distressed over. Just one thorn! You missed one! If he were a person of flesh and blood he would have been bleeding most likely.
Eclipse was a detective, chief detective actually at the department he worked for and his quality of character ensnared you before you could so much as get his name at the time.
There was much fuss over his appearance and you’ve respectfully daydreamed about fixing his tie for him more times than you had fingers. Especially when you recognized the tick as a nervous one whenever he’d do it himself, wanting to just comfort him in the moment… but it was how he carried himself that got you hooked.
Just… Tall. Brave. Strong. Reliable with an aura of warmth and with four arms?
He had the best hugs. He surely must have.
Outside of you helping him with flower purchases, you’ve met outside the shop on errands and had coffee once or twice when the schedules aligned. Just chatting amicably outside on the sidewalk before going on your days.
You hadn’t even swapped full names, that’d have to change if you were serious about this - which you were. It was a very… Odd friendship you had with the animatronic.
One that distinctly felt like toeing lines and like you had known each other for years prior but not quite.
A part of you wonders if it was work as he spoke of that the most and was often caught up in it. Though really, you couldn’t begin to fathom what his holdback was, not that you’d judge regardless. You had your own reasons for your struggles…
A call brings you out of your thoughts with a sharp, startled inhale as you scramble for the phone that was unique to the shop - namely for your own sake in keeping your personal number comfortably private.
“Hello-”
“Will you finally consider being our backer?”
Ah. One of the reasons!
You scritch at the bridge of your nose some, wondering if you can get out of this discussion without being screamed at as the aggressive voice cuts you off on the line.
This was one of those people you were concerned about and this one had been particularly stubborn. Politicians are like that.
Being used for your money was not a foreign issue to you.
Blocking numbers didn’t work, you didn’t exactly have enough evidence for a restraining order… He was just a pest, wanting a hand in your wallet for their campaign that you didn’t agree with and neither did your parents.
Upper society was full of greedy rats with stingy hands and many of the circles were too toxic to even try and navigate.
It wasn’t exactly your cup of tea and it’s why you tried to keep your distance from that life, even if it followed you due to your indirect status from your parents. It was assumed due to your age you’d be easy to fool and you’ve made a number of perhaps enemies because you proved to be the opposite.
His values didn’t align with yours remotely. Being someone extremely along the far edge of wanting AI to be under the thumb of the human race than living beside it. Regardless, it wasn’t in your interests and it wasn’t even your call to be a backer, that’d be up to your parents and clearly they denied him too…
“I can hear you breathing - you picked up the phone dammit!”
Oh, right, you hadn’t hung up yet.
“No. I believe this is the eighth time this month alone that I have given you this answer and your letters and notices only serve as fuel for my fireplace.”
Instigative? A little. It bites you thoroughly at your heels when the roar makes you pull the phone away from your ear with a wince.
“Your days are numbered, you hear me? Numbered!”
The call ends there and you’re left massaging the side of your face with a huff.
“Because that’s not an active threat on my life at all now is it - I really should be recording these calls… Or… No. I’d have to look up the laws concerning all that now wouldn’t I?”
You run your hand down your face, smacking your forehead with a solid slap of skin against skin and let out a deep sigh that makes your soul ache in its heaviness.
At least you have a cute detective to look forward to. Maybe you’d catch him on his daily walk? Maybe you could join him…
Or Maybe you should get started on taking care of your shop as an hour has now passed in your anxious procrastinating and you had orders to fulfill that would be picked up today!
You certainly had some hours to kill before anyone would be strolling in anytime soon.
…
Eclipse had learned a lot these last few hours.
One, that one of the most prestigious companies in the world at this moment was started by two engineers who worked on cars before working collaboratively with his kin and making parts and what not for them to function and keep them functioning.
A passion and kindness burned between the couple that he yearned for himself.
Two, that there was an entire language written with flowers and he apparently knew someone fluent with them and that they were asking, essentially, for his hand in friendship.
Which, when he came to this realization, made his inner workings hum with an intensity he had not known in some time and he was sure a fan kicked on.
Very embarrassing and only soothed by the fact he was in his office.
And three? That money was a good way to have a target put on one’s back and some people want a hand of it by any means necessary, even getting hunters like him involved.
Gotta spend to gain after all.
An heir to a prestigious company would be a pretty menacing target and a part of him became twisted up with worry when he recognized the first name of the individual in the new contract - he had a friend he knew by it.
But they owned a simple little flower shop! So coincidences will remain as such, the photo didn’t even match up with his memory of them anyhow.
There was just one issue…
While the couple were quite public in their online whereabouts and contacts with photos galore - it was like they made a ghost of their heir. Interviews were purely text based, photos were years outdated and outright scant.
They kept themselves aggressively out of the public eye but there was one promising note.
The individual seemed to live in the city and while the city was large, there were only so many places for someone intent to hide themselves while being part of the high life.
For now though?
Eclipse leans back in his seat with a groan, flexing his fingers so the joints could readjust from their claw-like positions, he steals a look at the flowers on his desk.
“Suppose I got an answer for them, don’t I?” He asks to no one in particular, taking off one of his current ribbons - golden velvet with a dark embroidered trim. Soft to the touch and frankly, one of his favorites before taking up the repaired ribbon that he had lost at some point - now returned to him.
He glosses a thumb over the simple stitch work, chuckling some. So small and so insignificant yet it was done with such care. Even going as far as to match the wine red of the glossy satin the best they could so it’d be less noticeable.
It was quite sweet.
A yellow rose was plucked from the bouquet, twirled between his fingers for a moment before two more deft hands tied the traded accessory into a crisp bow just at the base of the bloom.
Now, all he had to do was utilize his lunch time into finding where the maybe ancient willow tree of the city is. Chances are it had a plaque, right? Things like that usually had plaques and there was a pretty flora-filled park nearby that could serve as the start of his investigation because searching proved to be fruitless online.
Eclipse stands himself from his desk, stretching tall and letting his hands automatically put things into place as needed. Chair tucked here, pens straightened there, even while he walks, he tidies things up.
Once he’s out the door of his office, waves are exchanged with pleasantries but it’s pretty clear the chief detective is on a mission. Uncharacteristically driven for something instead of the typical listlessness that seems to plague him around this hour.
Spring was just around the corner, winter was ebbing away - even if the corners of sidewalks still proved a little dangerous for walkers with their hidden iciness along the edges.
Valentines was soon and there was a little part of him that wondered if that silly little holiday was the spur of all this.
After all, flowers and Valentines went together hand in hand - but considering their thought into the bouquet and the chase they spurred him into taking? It was hard to say.
So many questions.
Not nearly enough answers.
“-Pardon!” He yelps after almost bulldozing someone over in his musings, waving in apology before hurrying along before another incident could take place. The park was in view now…
You looked between the clock on the wall and the window ahead of you an innumerable amount of times at this point.
Any minute now, right? Any minute now and he’d be strolling by your shop and into the park and you’d get to see his handsome self in his immaculate coat and oh-...
There he was with a yellow rose in his hand.
Wait there was a yellow rose in his hand. It takes everything in you to not go running out the store currently, your hands slamming themselves flush against the counter top as you watch him with eager eyes.
He’s accepted the friend request!
He’s returning it!
You shouldn’t be this happy about making friends with the apple of your eye but you are and you’ll be riding this high for a while.
You manage to school yourself long enough to watch him mosey about the park and find the tree you referenced in your note to him. The eldest in the city with a little park bench just in front of it.
It was right in front of your shop but it faced away, leaving you anonymous or at the very least, inconspicuous. It was often where you had coffee with the detective.
Maybe he’d be able to guess from that fact alone? If he regarded you as much as you did him…
When he begins to look around the area, perhaps surveying for a spy like yourself, you shrink behind your counter some and stifle your little squeal when he carefully puts the rose under the bench, at the base of the willow tree.
Now you just have to figure out how to ask him for his time. Maybe another bouquet tomorrow?
You’re already thinking of new flower arrangements. Maybe Canterbury bells for thanks - would yellow pansies be too racy?
The thought makes you snort abruptly. Flowers. Racy.
You really do need to get out more it seems.
Though your thoughts are broken by the sweet silvery bells of your door opening, the jingle making you perk up with an automatic note of greetings,
“Hello! Welcome to my indoor jungle, how can I-...”
The words die on your tongue as you realize it’s Eclipse that has entered your shop. You hadn’t even realized he was approaching to begin with and now you’re left stammering, floundering really.
“Oh, Eclipse! Here again, looking for another arrangement to spruce up the office?”
That is originally why he came here in the first place and every other month would get a new assortment. It’s been quite the little song and dance… Maybe you could have just waited for that instead of what you’ve performed.
“No, no… Actually I just had someone deliver flowers to my workspace this morning before I was even in the door. Can you believe it?” The animatronic speaks good naturedly, fondly even of the encounter. His upper set of hands gesturing here and there while his lower set are folded together and resting on the counter.
“I came here for something though… Would you be able to tell me if anyone made an order of yellow roses, daffodils, lilies, and a sunflower on top? Or if that arrangement has a specific name to it? It’s quite lovely, bright as it is. Like a… Like a new day.”
The smile you’re giving him is kind and patient but inside you’re rolling about, a distinct heat behind your ears as you try to push down how flustered you feel about his compliments towards your work.
“While I do have those flowers!” You gesture to the side where most of them are in their own clusters on display to be put together at a whim. “I’ve not had anyone ask me for that kind of arrangement as of recent - or at all really.”
Eclipse blinks owlishly at you and briefly looks at your hands that were interlaced with one another. A few band-aids covering your digits would suggest fresh or recent little injuries.
He seems none the wiser however, merely nodding to your words, “So it’s definitely custom…” The animatronic mutters, one of his hands holding his chin thoughtfully, “Would you be able to keep an eye on the tree just outside?” Eclipse makes a pass at it over his shoulder. “Apparently it’s the oldest in the city, did you know that? And we’ve been sitting at it casually without knowing the last few times.”
You play right along, leaning to the left some to view the tree you spend too much time looking at generally and bob your head once. “Sure can for you, any reason why?”
“Well the bouquet I got had a note attached to it saying to answer their calling at that willow tree so when - if someone picks it up today, could you note it? Tell me? We can meet up in a few days if ah… That’s alright?”
He’s terribly sheepish about asking you to hang out as if asking you on a date and the irony of it all isn’t lost on you.
Quickly, you’re scribbling on the calendar you keep beneath the workfront, “That’s more than okay, same time at the coffee shop?”
“Same time at the coffee shop.” Eclipse echoes with bright eyes and a sweet smile that has your heart soaring. That’s the smile in your dreams.
“Then I’ll be seeing you then, enjoy the flowers - keep sugar in the water for those flowers, alright?”
“Will do when I get back, thank you for the aid.” Eclipse offers a simple two-finger wave before turning on a heel, walking on out the door and barking a goodbye to your own call before the door shuts behind him.
Things will get much more interesting for you it seems…
Eclipse has no idea how to go forward with the hunt of his flowergiver.
This is the first thought.
The second thought?
How he doesn’t deserve the sparkle in your eyes when he first entered that shop, he hopes it hasn’t been there long.
Regardless, he’ll allow himself to be selfish, just this once. Or however many times he must meet up with you for updates about the flower situation. He definitely won't be looking forward to every visit.
Certainly not.
…He should get donuts for those at work on his way back.