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If you were to walk into Hale's Corner Store, you would find that it wasn't your usual convenience store. The outside was painted a light purple, had beautiful shuttered windows with window boxes filled with flowers, and advertised their newest holiday decorations. The inside was laid out with dark hardwood floors, deep blue walls, and a wide, open layout interrupted by stacks of old books and random shelves of food.
It was safe to say that it wasn't your traditional corner store.
It was first opened by a Talia and Henry Hale, and currently operated under their daughter, Laura Hale. It was a family business, in fact. Their other daughter, Cora, and their son Derek worked and operated it as well, along with a few cousins and family friends.
While Laura and Cora were in charge of registers, the tiny little coffee cabin they had attached to the corner store, and pretty much anything to do with customer service, Derek had his own little section of the corner store just for his specialty: floral arrangements.
Connected to the corner store was his own personal greenhouse, where he kept his most delicate specimen, while the rest he had for display on tiny shelves he built himself just for his flowers and plants. He loved the way flowers could convey the most intricate, complex messages to people. With just a single bouquet, you could say I love you, or Get Well Soon, or You Are Everything, or—
"How do I passive-aggressively say 'fuck you' in flower?" Derek stared blankly at the harried guy standing in front of him, who was musing intently at the petunias. "Like, is there specific flower etiquette because I really can't leave a note that says anything, but I can totally give the bouquet to them and see if they get the message." Noticing Derek's silence, the guy looked up. "Do you think you can help a guy out?"
"Oh. Yeah." Derek said, mentally smacking himself. The guy was outstanding. He was colorful, loud, beautiful. Derek found that he was forcing himself to look away from the firecracker that was his current customer. He turned to his shelves and began to pick out flowers. "Did you want these in a basket, bushel, vase, or wrap?"
The guy pursed his lips. It was hard to look away from his lips, oh god. "Hmm. Which one looks tackiest, in your opinion?" He pointed a gunned finger at Derek.
"Uh, wrap, probably."
"Cool, go with that." The man went back to fluttering to and from the different types of flowers. "Can we use these?" He asked, pointing to some daisies. "They look, like, ironically angry."
Derek quirked his lips. "Ironically angry?" The guy shrugged, studying the daisies more. "Daisies symbolize innocence. I don't think you want that if you're going for the "fuck you" vibe."
"Hmm. Good point. What do you have there?" He pointed at the bouquet Derek had started arranging in the wrap.
Derek wrapped it up and held it in between his customer and himself. He pointed to the flowers as he spoke. "Geraniums for stupidity, foxglove for insincerity, meadowsweet is uselessness, a few yellow carnations mean 'You have disappointed me,' and four orange lilies for hatred."
The guy's smile grew wide until it looked like his face might split. "Dude, you are the best." He slapped a thirty on the counter—overpaying by about ten dollars—and said "Keep the change. God, I really hope Jackson looks up the meanings of these flowers." He cackled, taking the wrap gently. "Thank you so much...Derek," he said, reading Derek's hastily-scrawled name tag his sisters forced him to wear. The man smiled crookedly. "I'm Stiles. Hope I see you again." He winked, and with a final flourish of his long fingers, he was gone.
"Shit," Derek breathed, watching the space where Stiles had been standing. He sure was something else.
...
Three days later, Derek was involuntarily working the register on a Wednesday morning when a panicked Stiles came bursting through the front door. "Milk!" He said loudly. "I need milk! Do you have milk?" He looked around before his eyes settled on Derek, who was staring at him, mouth slightly agape.
"There," he finally pointed towards their dairy section, and Stiles disappeared only to come back minutes later with a basket and six gallons of milk.
"Are you a fast ringer-upper? Derek, if I ever needed you for anything this is it." Derek looked oddly at the wild-eyed man in front of him and rang up the six gallons by just scanning one of them six times. "Oh thank god!" Stiles yelled. "Hallelujah!" He slapped twenty bucks on the counter and lugged his milk from the corner store. "The children thank you!" He yelled over his shoulder, and once again he left Derek to gape after him.
...
Friday morning at 6am, Stiles came strolling through the door of the corner store, causing the bell to tinkle merrily.
He ignored everyone in the store (and by everyone, Derek meant him and Laura) and went straight back to the coffee machine. His hair was slightly disarrayed, and Derek was almost positive the man's shirt was on backwards. Stiles finished with his coffee and took it to the register, where Laura rang him up for that and a redbull that he had grabbed from a tiny cooler near the register. "It's been a long week," he explained.
After he finished paying, Derek and Laura watched with interest as Stiles cracked open the redbull and poured it into his coffee. "I'm going to die," he announced tiredly but grandly, then gulped the scalding cup right then and there. Derek was pretty sure Laura gasped. Stiles smiled ruefully at the siblings as he walked out, dropping the empty coffee cup and can into the trash as he went.
Laura turned to Derek. "Marry him so he doesn't kill himself. Be the voice of reason."
All Derek could do was shake his head. He was pretty sure Stiles wouldn't listen to reason until all that caffeine wore off, anyway.
...
The next time Derek saw Stiles, it was a week later and the man had paint all over his body. "Hi," Stiles smiled bashfully, playing coyly with the leaves of a germanium.
"What is it that you do?" Derek blurted, then immediately slapped a hand over his mouth. "I just...I meant..." He stared in horror as Stiles's face turned from blankness to joy.
"You meant why the hell did I come in the other week and buy six gallons of milk and why the hell did I come in that first time and ask for flowers that said 'Fuck You?'" His smile was secretive, as if he was letting Derek in on a joke. "I'm a fifth grade teacher. My kids were making a special recipe for chocolate pudding, but I quickly found out that we didn't have enough milk to make it all so I left them with a fellow teacher and came sprinting here." He stopped. "And uh, the flowers were for a co-worker I don't really get along with. He's one of my best friends' husband, and he's an absolute dick. I needed to let him know." Stiles was incredibly bashful about it, which Derek found adorable.
"Ah. I see," was all he said about it. "Well what can I do for you today?"
Stiles was full-on blushing now. "How do I say 'You're really hot and I'd like to date you' in flower?" He asked.
Derek visibly blanched. So much for subtlety.
He whirled around, picking out flowers, handing them to Stiles, and talking as he went. "Pink and white camellias. You're adorable and I'm longing for you." He picked out another. "White violet; let's take a chance on happiness." He turned again and handed two last flowers to Stiles. "Red tulip, declaration of love; jonquil...affections returned." When he finally looked up at Stiles, the man's face was positively glowing. He handed the bouquet back to Derek, a question in his eyes.
"Is that a yes?"
.........
On their first date, Derek brought a single flower for Stiles.
Gloxinia: love at first sight.