Archive of Our Own ^beta

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Waiting around for the action to finally start was usually almost as titillating as the action itself, but in this dilapidated flower shop it was downright boring. Not just because there would be little potential for Arthur to get dilapidated himself here without some serious creativity and determination; he had made do before. It was the contrast between the… floral arranger? something stupid and placid… flaccid… like that position he was applying for and his previous hard earned and appropriately hardening position of dental assistant. He had loved that job and tried so, so hard at it, but apparently that hadn’t been enough to make up for ‘being unprofessional’ and ‘too much of a team player’ and ‘moaning along with the customer’s screams.’ Not that there had been many… at least he had his Wednesday dental appointment to look forward to… and some of the flowers here would have thorns. His mood improved further as he remembered the existence of gardening shears and weedkiller (possibly good for putting on open wounds?) and the pretty but soft and gentle current employee of this establishment returned from getting the boss for him. Said boss was sturdy and stern looking in comparison, much more alluring… and possibly dominating… 

Arthur, now much more enthused, stood up to greet him… Mushnik? The store was called Mushnik’s Skid Row Florists after all… as he approached him. “So, Audrey tells me you want to work here… You know the position is being a floral arranger , right?” Arthur nodded enthusiastically, not finding that prospect quite as dreary now. “I’ll get into any position you want me to, sir!” There was a long pause before Mushnik responded, walking back to where he had come from as he did so. “...You can have the job as long as you promise to never say anything like that to me again…” He paused, standing in front of his other employee and addressing her before leaving the room while shaking his head exaggeratedly. “Audrey, show him the ropes.” Ropes! That’d be great, not that she’d know what to do with ‘em… Audrey reached him, tilting her head towards a different room to indicate it before guiding him there. “This is the room where you’ll make the floral arrangements…” She ducked her head as they entered the room. “I’m sorry, I could’ve tidied it up a little better…” Arthur barely heard her as he practically dove towards the table in the center of the room, picking up several roses that had been left there so that those oh so sweet thorns dug into his wrist. He hadn’t gotten a hit of pain for a full twenty minutes before this, and it felt so good… “...It’s fine, I can figure this out from here… thanks…” 

Relief shot through him as he heard the door close behind him, and he dug the thorns in further, slowly dragging them along his arm. Very annoyingly and rudely, Audrey opened the door again, and Arthur hesitated before frustratedly putting the roses back down and spinning around to face her. “...What is it…” Arthur trailed off, his breath catching in his throat as he saw it. Its sharp, piercing thorns put the ones he had been making do with just seconds ago to shame and completely disarmed him of his desire to once again feel them against his flesh, its alluring mouth was the perfect size to allow it to disarm him and his member in a much more complete and satisfying way, its… were those teeth ? Oh God… It got mercifully closer to him as Audrey approached him with it. “Do you like her? She’s so strange and interesting, right? I found her after the…” Arthur drowned out her weirdly high pitched voice as he eagerly ran a finger along those enchanting teeth, feeling the sweetest pain imaginable as it snagged on one of those pointed tips, drawing blood… the pain was cruelly taken from him and replaced with annoyance as Audrey took the plant away from him, placing it on the table. 

“Oh! You’re hurt… here, let me take care of that for you.” She exited the room, and he immediately turned back around to that glorious plant, forcing himself to turn back around as she reentered it with the worst buzzkill of all time: bandages. How had they managed to make binding of any kind a drag? “That’s okay, I like the…” Arthur changed his plan for that sentence halfway through as he remembered how he had gotten fired from his last job; he couldn’t let himself be separated from his amazing plant! “...bandages I have, just a sec…” He made a show of patting down his pockets for bandages that weren’t actually there. As if he’d ever willingly spend money on those things… “Damn it, I must have left them at home! Oh well. Yes, I really like this plant. It’s great.” They both blushed, Arthur because he had managed to get his hands back on the plant and Audrey because she had managed to get hers on him putting one of her stupid bandages on its mark on him. The first of many to come… “I’m glad you like her, I do too… Who knows, maybe she’ll be strange and interesting enough to attract more business for the shop!... I just hope I can figure out why she’s been sickly lately, I’d hate for something to happen to her…I’ve tried everything I’ve been able to think of so far and everything my books said to do. I haven’t been able to find her in them either, but I think she’s some kind of flytrap?” 

Arthur’s blood that the plant hadn’t yet gotten out of him ran cold at the thought of its suffering and his is something were to happen to it, and he quickly turned around to face her. “I’ll help, I’ll save it, where are those books?!” He waited impatiently through Audrey being surprised by his desperate request for some reason and agreeing to go get them and leaving. It took her a long time to get back, but at least Arthur had the silver lining of being able to obtain more amazingly painful cuts from the plant while he waited. In less obvious areas this time; he didn’t want to have to deal with them being covered up and forced to heal far too quickly this time. Not that any speed was ideal… Painfully and not in the good way, Arthur jerked the inside of his elbow away from the plant and quickly covered it with his sleeve as she entered the room, dread filling him as he saw how many books she had and realized how long it might take for him to find anything useful in them in this potential race against time. “Here.” She put the massive and intimidating… not qualities that usually went together for him… stack on the table, thankfully not disturbing the plant, before turning to him. “I also grabbed some of my books on flower symbolism and how to make floral arrangements, they might be helpful for you. They’re on the bottom here.” 

She pointed to the only books that wouldn’t be helpful for Arthur’s current extreme predicament before mercifully making her way to the door, pausing at it for some reason. “I have to leave for now, I… have a date… but I’ll be ready to help you with her tomorrow morning-afternoon. Thanks for helping her, I really appreciate it.” Arthur turned back towards the plant distractedly, waiting for the sound of the door closing behind her. “...Yeah, sure.” The sound finally came, and Arthur pulled the plant off the table by its head, hoping to use it to do the same before figuring out how to help it. Much to his surprise and delight, it bit down on him hard, drawing even more blood from the first mark it had bestowed upon him and loosening the bandage, eventually unsticking the adhesive on it and freeing him from it as it sucked blood from his finger. Not what he was planning on having it suck, but he certainly wasn’t complaining, and that and he could come later. Or maybe it wouldn’t be later… The plant’s healthy color that he hadn’t known it was missing until now oh so satisfyingly returning to it as it almost seemed to grow more erect and in general confirmed this. 

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Arthur had missed his Wednesday dentist appointment so long ago. Normally (if any aspect of his life approached normality), this would be cause for great alarm and dejection; he had only missed a dental appointment willingly once, and that had been to go to the home of one of the few dominatrixes who had ever accepted his advances. She’d been fun… but so was this plant, maybe… definitely even more so than her, than any of the others who had accepted or tolerated or temporarily failed to reject him and his unconventional desires. It didn’t just accept them, it thrived on them, gaining healthy, vibrant colors and growing several times larger than it had been when it had started sucking from his blood and glorious pain; the most growth he had seen before that was doubling at most and that had been his own! The vitality it was able to draw from him and the associated pain he was able to draw from it were intoxicating, feeding into each other and making each other stronger as they fed from each other… with the plant’s consumption of him being much less metaphorical… was this that ‘romantic love’ thing he had heard so much about? 

Usually the revolving door of dentists and tattoo artists and the occasional person he managed to pick up or get picked up by at a bar were largely interchangeable to him; as long as they could hit his thirst to be hurt and dominated just right he didn’t care who was doing the literal and metaphorical hitting. But this plant was different; it spread fire through his chest as well as his hands and arms and not just because it was a miracle his heart hadn’t run out of blood yet…. how had he not died by now? He kind of had if la petite mort counted… Arthur looked upwards as two Audreys… no, just one, he was just seeing double from his glorious blood loss… entered the shop, regretfully removing his hand from the plant’s mouth so that she wouldn’t get any wise ideas about doing this herself and weakening the rock hard connection that had formed between him and this unlikely but extremely welcome source. She looked over at the floral arranging (or whatever) room before quickly moving towards and entering it, staring at them in shock for a long moment before speaking. “...Woah… h-how did you do this? She looks like she’s doing so much better…” 

In spite of the combination of the plant’s increased weight and his decreased strength due to blood loss, Arthur managed to pull it away from her and onto his lap by its pot as she reached out for it, attempting to touch it. “Minerals, like the books said.” Her confusion increased at this. “...I already tried all the likely combinations and a lot of the unlikely ones… what minerals did you give her?” His mind turned to those bygone high school biology classes. “...Iron and calcium and a few other things, it’s not important, I can take care of it now.” It’s not a she, not that I’m opposed to those; they can be hot and bothering too. Not her, though, she seems like she takes it rather than giving it… Said she paused for a moment, tilting her head, before responding. “...Can you please tell me exactly which minerals you used and about what the ratios were? I really do appreciate your help, but I need to know how to take care of my plant.” Arthur stood up as she once again attempted to take his new love from him, feeling conflicting anger towards her for doing so and a growing attraction for her now that she was finally firmly putting her foot down about something, as well as… guilt?! for thinking she was hot now??? 

He had never felt guilty for finding two people… a person and a thing in this peculiar even for him case… arousing at the same time before, not even when he had happened to catch a glimpse of a picture of that dominatrix’s husband on her nightstand before she had slammed him against the bedframe… good times… oh, great, now it was even worse! As was his passion for this plant in his arms and his anger towards the person who was technically its rightful owner because of the ‘value of money’ or whatever. He had to defend it and their love against her wicked (and hot) machinations! “...No, I can’t. It chose me! You wouldn’t get it!” She was angry now (but seemed to be trying to hide it for some reason and was mostly succeeding?), maybe she’d punish him. Audrey started to say something and trailed off as the bell above the front door to the shop rang, which Arthur took as an opportunity to leave the room and take his plant with him despite his job in theory being confined to it, quickly regretting this decision as the man who had come in was immediately transfixed by his glorious plant. Of course he was, who wouldn’t be? 

“Wow, what a strange and interesting plant! What is it?” Arthur started to answer this question, trailing off as Audrey, suddenly next to him, assertively and authoritatively took it for him. “Well, I haven’t been able to find her in any of my books so far, but I think she’s some kind of flytrap.” This piqued the man’s interest further, because of course it did. “Where did you get it?” Arthur opened his mouth to answer this question, but nothing came out, and he panickedly remembered that he hadn’t been paying attention when Audrey had told him about how she had found it. His punishment for this wasn’t one of the good kinds, just listening to some dumb story about how she had found it in the wholesale flower district after the eclipse. Admittedly the story probably would’ve been interesting if the fact that it was her in it and not him didn’t cancel that out; he had to admit that he liked learning things about his love. The man seemed to think so too, moving dangerously close to the plant and the limits of Arthur’s patience. “Well, that's an unusual story, and a fascinating plant... Oh, while I'm here, l might as well take fifty dollars worth of roses.” They all looked behind them as Mushnik unexpectedly burst through a door, standing at its entrance excitedly. “Fifty dollars?!” 

The customer nodded before looking through his wallet and then back up at them. “Can you break a hundred?” Audrey and Mushnik deflated at this. “Uh… no.” Unperturbed, the man deftly and with a surprising lack of hesitation removed a crisp one hundred dollar bill from his wallet… Arthur hadn’t even known they came that big. “Then I'll just have to take twice as many, won't I?” Audrey moved slightly closer to him, amazed. “Twice as many?!” After Mushnik echoed this sentiment in a similar but even more exaggerated manner, Audrey rushed to get him his roses, and Arthur repeated it as well just for the hell of it. And partially because he did care about the shop, it was where the plant was after all, and its success was his success. After this transaction, which he had gathered was a rare occurrence at Mushnik’s Skid Row Florists, had concluded and the customer was sent on his way, more followed with even more questions and comments and concerns (not really that last one) about the plant, distracting him as he tried to figure out which one to answer first. 

Audrey, the sexy hussy that she was, took advantage of this and him and unceremoniously took his love from him before beginning to answer the customers’ questions. Arthur had never wanted to hit someone before, being hit instead was so much more fun, but he wanted both events to transpire between them almost equally in that moment… being hit still won out slightly though. Although it wouldn’t compare to the addictive bite of that plant… he hadn’t even tried it in a location other than his hand, that’s how caught up with it he had gotten. And he might not get to try it if that bitch succeeded in getting it away from him, he couldn’t let that happen! Arthur helplessly looked for glimpses of the plant, entrapped in Audrey’s arms and surrounded by a circle of customers thicker than her curves but not the blood bond between him and it… Hey, that’s it! It lives on blood! Just like Audrey has!... But it’s only had my blood so far… it’s literally made up of me and the bond and pleasure between us, and getting her involved might wreck the whole thing… our whole thing… my thing…  

He contemplated this unusual and quite hard conundrum for the rest of his shift, simultaneously juggling the difficulties of learning how to make the floral arrangements that were in demand all of a sudden on the fly and not being able to think quite as quickly or deeply as usual with most of his blood either in the plant or pooling in an extremity of his far away from his brain as he thought about it. And yet, in the end, all of that agonizing was unneeded: her fate was decided as she dared to walk out the door with his love at the end of her shift even as the effects it would have on him and it and the bond between them remained up in the air. Audrey would have the fortune of servicing his plant that she foolishly (but very commandingly…) thought was hers in a way that he might not ever be able to. She too would experience la petite mort, except in her case (and hopefully his eventually) it would be permanent. 

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His shift was over too now, he decided despite the mess that had been made of the floral arranging room in the unexpected chaos and Mushnik calling out his name right before he walked through the front door. Arthur never would’ve ignored his name when spoken so commandingly by a bear looking guy (possibly an actual bear, he did seem to be single after all) before he had started this job, but the plant seemed to be calling it even louder and more domineeringly from Audrey’s apartment, which was luckily right across from the shop, despite its lack of the power of speech. Even more luckily, he had managed to find a beautifully sharp ax before leaving; why a flower shop needed one save for his apparently predestined quest to save his love and their connection from that wench he didn’t know. Although the real luck had been in finding the plant in the first place; hopefully the universe would continue to smile down upon him within the confines of Audrey’s apartment. 

He looked through her window for a moment after reaching it, fuming as he saw her pouring what looked like iron shavings into a larger pot that she had transferred the plant into while pouring through one of her stupid botany books. At least she had gotten the plant an upgrade from its old coffee can and failed to figure out the blood thing from those books… Arthur knocked at the door, causing her to fearfully and unsexily jolt upwards and quickly turn around. She put the iron fillings she had thankfully gotten on the wrong track with down before moving to the door and answering it, and unease flickered through him as he shoved past her into her apartment and slammed the door behind him; he wasn’t used to taking charge like this and it did not sit well with him. Blinding, glorious pain as something connected hard with his head… the upper one, unfortunately, but still good… mostly snapped him out of this, especially in combination with it hitting the corner of a table of hers hard on the way down. Arthur couldn’t hear what the suddenly sexy and dominating again Audrey was saying exactly through the ringing in his ears and what little blood was left in his head rushing through them, something about what the hell he was doing there, nothing he hadn’t heard before. 

He almost hated to ruin the mood and destroy this exciting side of her by killing her… but the plant needed him! Arthur moved to swing the ax into her legs, realizing too late that it was no longer in his hands; it was in hers and pointed at his head. So close to it… so tantalizingly close… Just like the blood covered and broken lamp next to him as he realized with a thrill that that was his blood. And those were his moans as he moved so that the ax blade was pressed into his throat; Audrey despite her surprisingly excellent ability to take charge in this situation only stopped talking and looked at him in unsexily unnerved fear. Unlike the plant… which he unfortunately needed to finish these good times for even before he had finished. Out of his element, Arthur took advantage of this and her and unceremoniously took the ax from her before beginning to pin her to the ground. Jealousy and malaise coursed through him as her struggling slowly subsided and the blood pouring from her neck quickly intensified, with the latter seemingly taking the place of the former. 

Taking center stage in his quest to protect his beloved plant and their bond and to provide it with sustenance no matter the cost; even the cost of a potential dominatrix. And the potential… hopefully hypothetical cost of their bond weakening as it was tainted by blood that was not his own and the very uncharacteristic domineering that Arthur had just partaken in to protect it. With someone besides it no less. He briefly stood up, getting the plant off of the nearby table and putting it down next to her body before pulling her up to it so that it could draw strength from her and the potential of her body and thus his guilt being discovered away from him. Arthur immediately regretted picking her neck as the spot that he would bring to his love’s lips as it sucked from her jugular, looking away as his chest and loins were caught up in an envious fire at the thought of it doing that to him… maybe he’d try something like that after it was done, protect their bond that way. 

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Arthur raced to get back to Mushnik’s Skid Row Florists far before the start time of his shift; his trophy prize of the plant had grown too large for him to be able to take it back to his apartment after he had gotten it back to the shop, much to his annoyance and jealousy… it had still been pretty hot though… He thought that nothing would’ve been able to stop him from getting back to his love as soon as possible, but a forceful and hard and assertive series of knocks across the street at Audrey’s apartment gave him pause. Which gave him guilt, surprisingly; he was still getting used to this whole monogamy thing and its complicated trappings that it turned out people hadn’t been lying about. The man producing the knocks matched them in pure domineering energy, absolute uncompromising power and forcefulness dripping from him and inspiring corresponding and much less metaphorical fluids from Arthur. He felt himself fall against the front door, swooning further as the man looked over at him at the sound of it and started to strut towards him… from the looks of it that he was able to gather from his tight leather pants those long strides were matched by a long… 

As this potential otter of exactly his type… at least his former, non botanical type, reached him, he wished for the first time in his life that he could get his mind out of the gutter. Or at least out of his gutter… “Are you one a Audrey Ful… Audrey’s coworkers?” Fuck, he was hot… “Yessir! She’s not here today.” Anger, unfortunately not directed at him, flashed across the man’s rugged face. “Did that slut say why she thinks our dates are optional all of a sudden? Or her stupid job here; if she loses it I’m not paying for her fucking apartment…” Was the universe testing him… torturing him but in the bad way (how could there even be a bad way???) by dumping this assertive, potent hunk at his feet right as terms like ‘cheating’ and ‘affair’ had begun to have any personal meaning to him at all? Yes… but he could still choose the plant unhesitatingly… if their connection could withstand this prime cut of meat, it could withstand Audrey’s blood! Arthur stood up a little straighter, bringing his feet closer to the door and realizing (admittedly with a little bit of unease despite this epiphany) that he now stood taller than the man. 

“...She didn’t say anything about that, I’m sure she’ll be back soon!” The man opened his mouth to address him again, pausing as he looked through the window. In the direction of the plant, Arthur realized without even having to look. “...Hey, that’s the plant she told Wink Wilkinsen about on his show, right? That is incredible! Can I come in and see it?” Enraged, Arthur stood up to his full height, still leaning against the door to prevent this presumptuous, home wrecking dickweed from going through it and to his love. “Absolutely the fuck no-” Arthur’s defense of his plant was cut off and replaced by a shout of surprise followed by delighted pain as the door suddenly jerked open behind him, leaving him to hit the ground and what turned out to be his boss’s leg hard. Mushnik got his foot out from under his head after a pause before addressing him. “Get inside now, Denton.” He looked up at the man as Arthur scrambled upwards. “Could you come back during business hours, sir? That should give me plenty of time to do what I have to do.” Oooh, kinky… agh, no! The man looked back and forth between them for a long moment, bewildered, before nodding. “...Alright…” He turned away from them and started heading back to the motorcycle he had parked outside of Audrey’s apartment, muttering something about how she had better be there when he came back. 

Regrettably but still satisfyingly, Arthur swooned a little as he felt himself being forcefully pulled into the shop before Mushnik closed the door after him. “You love him madly, don’t you, schmuck? ” Arthur backed up slightly at the grave injustice of this accusation. “NO, I mean, I do love a man in leather, but…” After a moment of confusion, Mushnik interrupted him while shaking his head. “Not HIM, whoever you created that fakakta mess in the floral arranging room with, with the…” He paused, gagging, before continuing. “...little white dots all over the linoleum. I KNOW it couldn’t have been a woman, Audrey’s the only one with standards low enough to put up with… whatever you’ve got going on… and she would never dare to invoke Orin’s wrath like that.” Suddenly, his love started slowly lowering its head to the ground, opening its jaws to reveal those intoxicating teeth… he realized after swooning harder than he had for Orin, Audrey, Mushnik, and that dominatrix combined that it was wordlessly telling him to back his boss into him, protect his position at this shop and by its side from the hot but dangerous wrath that would descend upon him if he failed to do so. 

He didn’t want to endanger the connection between them further than Orin’s presence and Audrey’s blood had, but it was strong enough to withstand those threats and for the plant to help him with further threats to it… Arthur started slowly backing Mushnik towards the plant as he talked, luckily but disappointingly and unsettlingly getting him to move towards it quite easily. “Yes, I do, very much so! But it’s not a him.” Mushnik’s smoldering anger and bewilderment only increased at this, mostly being replaced with alarm as he accidentally backed into the plant and then shocked curiosity as he dared to derive fascination from his love’s mouth. “...What the hell is?” Despite his current inability to see him, Arthur sarcastically pretended to grab the brim of an imaginary hat on his head before dipping it with mock respect, adding a not at all subtly contemptuous farewell “Sir” into the mix right as the plant, right on cue as was appropriate for their bond, chomped down on this other man, which was not. He desperately and enviously watched him get the ride of his life, blood and screams pouring everywhere before he eventually went down into him, and stroked the plant’s head after it had lowered it back down, trying and partially succeeding in reassuring himself of the strength of their connection as his hand made its way to its glorious teeth. Especially with three major threats to it vanquished now… at least for now in Orin’s case…

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Arthur wasn’t complaining about the pain by any means, he never would, but… he had to admit the combination of severe long-term anemia and the pressures (not the good kind) of running an incredibly busy flower shop by himself while barely knowing the difference between dahlias and orchids had been making it harder (not in the good way) to care for the plant and himself. Especially when the former sometimes came with attractive and domineering customers asking him if he was okay and trying to help him and the latter always came with seething anger and jealousy towards the masses of customers who dared to show interest in his love. He refused to hire on any help for that reason, even though those weird teenagers who loitered outside the shop sometimes had applied to do so at one point a length of time ago that he could barely approximate through the blood loss induced haziness; he absolutely refused to let anyone else grow close to his plant. Not again. It wouldn’t even be getting blood from others again if he could help it; he’d try it out on meat from Skid Row’s only decent deli first. That seemed like less of a transgression of their connection somehow, not getting another sapient creature involved, although it and his failure to provide enough blood to avoid this outcome still stung (and not in the good way.) 

Arthur walked through the front door of the shop, Schmendricks’ bag in hand, and struggled to process the absolute horror of what he was seeing for a moment. His plant was attacking Orin, the crush he had abandoned for it, and he hadn’t been involved in this like with Mushnik! Suddenly regaining his ability to move from it (which was surprisingly not a travesty like it would normally be), Arthur charged towards them… it and him… as quickly as he could with so little blood in his body, aggressively pulling at Orin’s legs as hard as he could and eventually succeeding in freeing him from its clutches but not his heart from the dejection burning unsexily in his chest. More adrenaline than he had experienced since that first bite from his love allowed him to carry Orin out of the store, and he stared at him for a moment in slowly growing, agonizing (not in the good way) horror as he watched his head tilt back in death, in that la petite mort from his love that he craved, that had been stolen from him by it and this stupid otter ! Angrily, Arthur unceremoniously dumped him on the ground, rushing back into the shop and towards the plant and picking up his ax on the way. 

“How FUCKING dare you after we’re formed SUCH a bond and I haven’t cheated on YOU once! Not ONCE! ” He swung at the plant’s head with each especially emphasized word, failing to make any kind of headway into penetrating it much to his frustration, and was about to sink from it back into dejection when it happened. The plant wrapped a long, thick, hard tentacle around his arms, preventing him from hitting it again even if he had wanted to and causing him to drop the ax. It clattered against the floor, hard, as he hardened from his love slowly and oh so forcefully pulling him into its mouth and against those immensely pleasurable and sharp teeth. Blinding, glorious pain coursed through him as he surrendered to the plant’s penetration all along his body, leaning into it in sheer bliss, and he moaned harder than he ever had as they came together as one, their connection finally complete in the ecstasy of la petite mort at long last.