Work Text:
Veronica stopped in mid-yawn, interrupted by the vroom of a motorcycle pulling up to the shop. Customers this early? Can’t they wait till I’m actually set up? She quickly hung up the basket of petunias on a hook attached to the ceiling.
Truth be told, she usually stretched out the setup to fifteen minutes before the shop was set to open. She was 19, and this was her first time running a business rather than being employed at one. She needed something to distract herself from Lance’s trial. He’d been wrongly convicted of crashing a spaceship into a town near Montreal, when everyone knew that it had been Zarkon, the ex-liutenant turned Amazon executive.
Veronica ran to the front desk, the one only about ten feet away from the door, and rested her elbows on it, casual, as if she’d been there all morning.
The new customer put their hand on the doorknob, and the door started to open.
“Welcome to City Croci! Can I help y -“
A purple-haired girl in a biker jacket slammed open the door, marched to the counter, slapped a 20-dollar bill onto the table and looked up at Veronica. “How do I passive-aggressively say fuck you in flower?”
Veronica clamped her mouth shut to hold back the “uhh what” climbing up to her mouth, and resisted adjusting the vase of yellow pansies that were still rattling. “Come with me, and we’ll work out the specifics.” Watching the girl out of the corner of her eye, she walked to the side of the shop and slid open the glass case of cranesbills.
“There’s gonna be a lot of orange flowers in this. Are you going for more of an analogous or a complimentary color scheme?” Veronica’s heart was beating fast, and she inhaled the scent of the flowers to calm herself as she examined each.
“I’m not a quiznaking artist,” the purple-haired girl said from behind her. “Just get done with it.”. Well, some people are just rude. Veronica couldn’t see the girl's hands, but she heard the impatient tapping of metal rings on the worn wood of the desk.
“Come over here and take a look,” Veronica gestured as casually as she could to the display at her side. “It’s not far.”
“Suspicious,” the girl said. “Plotting to whip out the chloroform-fed flowers, are we? You working with…?” Working with who?
“Trust issues, huh?” Veronica said instead. Stupid! You’re not supposed to psychoanalyze your customers, and she’s already angry. Maybe the girl hadn’t heard.
It was quiet. Veronica noticed the girl had stopped tapping her ring on the countertop. Was she even still there? Veronica glanced back over her shoulder, raising her eyebrows.
“Purple.” the girl hissed. “Make it pretty.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Veronica said. Don’t push your luck. She picked out some geraniums, then walked further into the shop. She started rambling as she walked. “White meadowsweet, not pink, because that’d be ugly. Easy choice. I’m thinking some foxglove as well. C’mon and let’s pick some out.”
“Ugh,” the purple haired girl groaned. “No small talk. Get the job done.”
“So rude,” Veronica said. “I expect I won’t be getting good reviews.” Why am I teasing her? Why am I disregarding pretty much every rule of business in existence? Okay, now I’ll show you how good of a job I’m doing. Veronica turned around with a bright smile. “I’m guessing you know that all these flowers have meanings. Foxglove means insincerity, geraniums are for stupidity. That meadowsweet meant uselessness. The next have specific colors - yellow carnations for insincerity, and orange lilies for hatred. So basically, a letter of disgust in flower format.” I wonder who this is for.
The purple haired girl didn’t speak for a moment. She looked around at the flowers with wide eyes, and, Veronica hoped, newfound respect. When the girl next spoke, it was quieter.
“That gonna be more?” She indicated the money.
“I can cut down on the different species and make it 20.” Veronica said. “A full-size bouquet with all of these guys would be closer to 35.” Talking about flowers was starting to calm her down, and she hoped the effect would spread to this girl. She looked a little familiar, like someone Veronica had seen riding a motorcycle through her home block, but scary nonetheless.
The girl nodded, then dug out the remaining cash from the pockets of her leather jacket. Feeling a little calmer, Veronica collected the other flowers from their respective cases and brought them to the desk.
“Thanks for doing business with us,” Veronica said. She looked over the girl’s outfit, wondering if she’d really seen someone like that somewhere, and what grudge she’d had enough to pay thirty-five dollars to express it.
“Dispense with the formalities,” the girl said. “I know you know who I’m sending this to.”
“I do?” Veronica asked, taken aback.
The purple-haired girl glared at her. “He’s Zarkon’s lawyer!”
Oh my cheeze-it. What?!
“My… my brother is Lance McClain,” Veronica said. “So you mean… Lotor? And you’re Acxa, the girl who was part of his gang?! Veronica resisted the urge to step back.
“Yeah,” Acxa said. “He thinks I still kinda like him. I don’t.”
“Well,” Veronica said. “If you need support, come back here.” She held up the vase of yellow pansies. “ ‘Thinking of you.’”
For the first time, Acxa smiled. Just a little. Then, as quickly as she’d stomped in, she was gone.