Chapter Text
LANCE
I am Lancelot and I have only one problem: I have a stupid name. My biggest secret is: I am named after an imaginary knight. You have no idea how hard it is to get dates when you're name is Lancelot. You can only imagine the bullying I suffered. When I look in the mirror I see a bitter boy over his own name.
Yup. Lancelot. My grandpa is a Lancelot, my father is a Lancelot, and every single male of this damn family was a Lancelot. And guess what, my full goddamn name is Lancelot "Lance" the fifth. My parents thought that I was gonna be a girl, pink room and all things girls shenanigans. But then I came out of Mother Hen a male.
Now, I am not clear on the details here, considering I was like 9 months old and all covered in goo, but this story has two different versions. My mom’s and my dad’s.
My mom said my dad chose to ignore the doctor when he said “It’s a boy” because he was in deep denial or something, and proceeded to sign the legal documentation for my name, Lancelot. My mom said she was exhausted and didn’t really check on my dad’s and tada! You have the fifth Lancelot in the same family.
Now, my dad said he was fully aware I was a proud owner of a penis. He said he asked my mom what to name me, little Lancelot, because Lancelot was a ridiculous name for anyone, especially since they had already named my older brother Lancelot. My mom, who was exhausted from pushing a kid out of her, proceeded to yell at my dad, and tell him to name me what they had agreed (by the way, I was supposed to be a Daisy. Can you believe how awful at naming offspring they are?). Dad said Mom probably didn’t know I was a boy.
I’m 20 and I still can’t tell who is lying.
I mean, it could be worse. I could be a starving boy named Lancelot in Africa, dying of Malaria. I could be named something ridiculous like Lancearella. But I actually lead a pretty normal life, to be honest.
I graduated High School pretty easily. Now, I’m a Botany major in Berkeley. I work at a cute flower shop. I love Berkeley, love that I can still live with my family, and the only thing I don’t love is this asshole.
You see, the flower shop business is savage. You don’t expect it to be, and neither did I when I started, but it is. My shop is right next to another flower shop, and the boy that works there has managed to get on my nerves and we have never talked. Ever. Stupid mullet asshole.
Once I spent the whole afternoon changing our window display from camelias to roses, in every different shade of pink and red for valentine's day. The moment I walk by his shop to get home, I see that he went from tulips to red roses as well, only twice as big and overwhelming. I never wanted to kill someone as bad - and my parents named me Lancelot the fifth.
But that was something ignorable, up until now. Now I’m just fucked.
KEITH
I am Keith and I have only one problem: I am not able to curse. My biggest "secret" is: I love to curse. Not really a secret, but you don’t know that yet. I am like this because of my bleeping, just to exemplify, parents. When I look in the mirror I see a hot piece of ass.
My mum used to curse like a sailor; dad says he only fell in love with her because he came up to her, asked her out on a date, and the first thing she said to him was “fuck, no.” They were so used to cursing that they didn’t realize that when I came along, they would have to stop. When I was a little child my parents cursed so much, my first word was "fuck."
My parents tried to do the swear jar method, but us three would get so much money in there, it was pointless. Because of that my life in school was a living hell; I would get in detention every single day, because apparently yelling "what the shit" at the teacher is considered impolite, especially when you’re seven. My smart mouth would get me in fights all the time - fights I couldn’t win, given how very gangly and lanky I am.
Even though shit happened quite often, I lead a pretty normal life. I used to live in Miami, until I graduated high school. My parents started getting depressed over the fact that their only baby was leaving the nest. Fucking disgusting, if you ask me. So they decided that it was time they got themselves another child.
My mom was almost forty, and she and my dad thought a risky pregnancy wasn't worth it. They could make a child somewhere really happy, without having to make one from scratch. So adoption was in the picture. That not being enough, they decided to move. Ironically - or not - to where I was going to college, California.
So, in Cali, half-way through the process of adoption, we sat down to brainstorm. We couldn’t have another foul-mouthed child on the family. Hell, we couldn’t let the social servers see us cursing like uncultured swines. If you ask me, we looked like junkies, in an AA meeting. Hence why each of us promised not to swear in the house anymore. My parents managed to stop the cursing, however I just couldn't. It was such a big part of my personality. That's why I came up with the amazing idea of censoring myself.
It sounds stupid, I know damn well it does, but it works. I literally censor myself - I don’t technically stop cursing, but I don’t offend anyone. Not really. I’m like a PG-13 movie: one f-bomb per day.
How does the bleeping work, you asked? Well, let me exemplify. Instead of saying: “Fuck your ancestors to the eighteenth generation, you fucking bitch.” I censor that, and say: “Bleep your ancestors to the eighteenth generation, you bleeping bleep.” The person knows I’m calling them something, but they don’t know what. I could be saying: “You sad dog, son of a guy!” They just don’t know and that’s the beauty of it.
Of course it’s not as satisfying as saying: “YA FUCKING CUMSLUT”, but eh, good enough.
Since moving and studying in another state is fucking expensive, I decided to live with my parents. And spending some time with my new sister. It’s not like we live in poverty, or we don’t have money to pay my tuition and everything, but I know how expensive college is. I knew that if I also got a job I could help my mom by paying for my own shit.
I got a job working in a damn flower shop. Out of all the things I could do with my free time, a flower shop. Yep, it's a fucking nightmare. All the flowers and shit, it's not like they aren't beautiful and all that crap, but I have allergies. The pay was good, and it didn’t take much effort to work there, so besides the allergies I almost didn’t hate it.
But, there's this boy. I hate the bitch, but annoying him became the best part of working in this damned flower shop. I came on this Earth for one purpose and one purpose only: pissing off as many people as I possibly can. And boy, did I get on that boy's nerves.
I would have even better opportunities now, because everything changed when I came back from Summer break.
LANCE
Coming back from vacation always sounds terrible, but my job is so pleasant and my major is so cool that I’m low-key excited. I can’t say that out loud though, ‘cause I’ve seen enough vines to know I will be murdered. Violently. Walking up to the flower shop feeling the cool morning breeze and listening to some tunes - that was absolute peace. The streets were completely empty except for the slight buzz of the stores being opened. That, my friends, is my heaven.
I grabbed my copy of the flower shop’s key to open the store up. The smell of flowers was concentrated and it was just awesome. It was a porno of roses, tulips and camellias exploding in colors on my eyelids.
Wait.
There are far too many flowers here. Why is the store suddenly so big? What is going on here?
“Allura?”
No reply. Okay Lance. Time to think what could have happen. My first thought was: “that fucker from the other store took his trolling to the next level.” Then my rational thoughts caught up with my sleepy brain and I remembered that Allura mentioned that we might get the store renovated. She didn’t mean doubling the size and eating that fucker’s store.
Do you know what that means?
I WON.
Wins don’t come often for a cuban boy named Lancelot the fifth.
I was going to have to work much harder because the store was so much bigger, but who cares? My day was awesome already.
I walked to the lounge to put on apron with the store’s logo and name, and I grabbed my name tag. I walked out and saw him.
That dumbass. From the old (ha!) store next door. He walked up, grabbed some flowers and reached for an inexistent shelf to put them on. He didn’t even realize I was in the room (HOW DARE HIM). He, after a few second looking at nothing, seemed to finally realize he was not in the same old store. I could see the imaginary light bulb turning on his head. He looked up and down a couple of times and finally whispered to himself:
“What the fu… bleep.”
KEITH
I could kill the person who decided mornings were for working. Especially after being on vacation for so long. My first stop before work was a coffee shop, because I needed caffeine. After that, walking to work wasn’t that unpleasant. The cool morning air was keeping me awake as I walked to the flower shop.
At the beginning this job was just for the money, but I ended up enjoy working with flowers. Making arrangements and studying flower’s meanings had become a hobby of mine. As usual, I opened the doors and went straight to put away my stuff. Getting my apron and all of the other shit I had to wear.
Leaving my cup in the counter, I started my auto-pilot mode and began arranging flowers. My job was basically arranging bouquets, creating a pretty display and placing pots in shelves.
It was during the last task that my mind finally caught up with my surroundings. I was getting ready to place a pot with a lily on one of the shelves, then I noticed the wall dividing this flower shop to the one next door was missing.
“Was the fu… bleep.” I whispered and almost wasted my curse of the day. It was too early for losing my precious curse.
I looked up, and I could almost see the tetris pieces forming a wall and disappearing. Where once was two flower shops, now there’s one. Fucking hell, when did that happen? Looking around I could notice the new size of the store, fuck, and the annoying boy next door. Lord, please tell me I’m not working with him now. I looked at him and he had his eyes on me.
“Oh damn!”
“What the fuck!? You're a southerner?” He screamed from across the room.
“No shit, Sherlock.” Yep, there goes my curse of the day.
“Don’t ‘no shit Sherlock’ me! Though I should have known; being an asshole like that you could not not be Southerner.”
“I can ‘no bleep Sherlock’ you as much as I want.” I said walking away from his stupid face. “Don’t give a bleep if you like it or not.”
“What is this?! Are you having a stroke?!”
“What do you mean?” I stopped dead in my tracks.
“Oh my God you’re having a stroke. Call an ambulance! Wait, I have to do that. Oh my God, where’s my phone?!” He was almost hyperventilating.
“What are you talking about, dude?” I walked back in his direction and put my hands on his shoulders. “Calm the bleep down.”
“Put this on your mouth! You’re gonna bite your tongue off any minute!” He started shoving his apron towards my mouth.
“I can’t tell if you’re mocking me or not.” I stared at him trying to understand what was happening.
“So you’re not having a stroke?”
“STOP BLEEPING SAYING THAT!”
“STOP SAYING BLEEP YOU MOTHERFUCKER.”
“Great, I see you guys met already.” An woman appeared out of fucking nowhere.
“Hi Allura, sorry for the swear words!” He blushed.
“Talk for yourself, I didn’t curse as much as you did.”
“It’s okay. Hi, you’re Keith, right? Nice to meet you, I’m Allura, I’m your new boss, I guess.” Allura smiled softly at me. Oh.
Allura was quite a nice person after all. She didn’t seem to care that me and sassy pants were arguing when she came in. She just took us to her office to start explaining what had happened to the shops and what our job would be.
That boy and I would take care of the store during the day, doing the same old jobs; organizing, creating bouquets and arrangements, and so on. Because the store was twice as big she now needed twice the staff - which was nice on one hand, because it meant I still had my job. However, on the other hand, it meant dealing with that crazy ass boy every single day.
LANCE
So, apparently, I was stuck here with this asshole. Allura was rambling on about the store and her story with flowers and botanics and so on, and I just tuned out. I’d heard that story at least a thousand times because she sounds like an old lady that would sometimes forget the stuff she would tell people and then proceed to say the same thing over and over again. Some stories I knew by heart - if I had to write a book about Allura, I’d be damn ready.
“I think that’s all. Do you have any questions?” Allura interrupted my daydream.
“I don’t think so, no.” He replied before I could say anything.
“Lance is quite acquainted with our store policies so if you have any questions, feel free to ask him. By the way, let me introduce you two: Keith, this is Lancelot, Lance this is Keith.”
“Nice to meet you.” I said with a smile, trying to make it up to the scene I’d made earlier. However, on the inside, I wanted to chop that stupid mullet off.
“Lancelot, really?"
“Uh, yeah.” I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. “My name is Lancelot. Get over it.”
“Okay..."
“You two have a lot of work to do. Chop-chop! I’ll need those files later, Keith.” Allura smiled and then waved her hands at us, politely telling us to leave. Keith, apparently that’s his name, and I walked out of the room. I tried to ignore his staring as I got started on my job but damn, he was not quitting. Did I have something on my teeth?
"So, Lancelot, that sounds like a interesting story. How did that happen?"
“Yeah, it’s a very funny one indeed. I’d tell you all about it, but you haven’t unlocked my tragic backstory. So, please gently go do your job, Keith.” I rolled my eyes as I organized the shelves.
"Who put you in charge?"
“Allura did.” I turned to wink at him. “Look, we clearly don’t like each other. We don’t need to talk. This is a job I really love so if you would so kindly leave me alone, that’d be great.”
“Chill dude, I was trying to be friendly. But don't worry, I'm leaving you the bleep alone then."
“What’s up with this bleep thing you keep saying? Is that something like OCD related? If you’re having a stroke, I’d love to be warned.”
"I’d tell you all about it, but you haven’t unlocked my tragic backstory. Please gently go do your job, dude." Keith pointed his way out of my sight and I sighed.
“Touché.” I whispered to myself.
As soon as I was done with that shelf I walked to the counter. I saw that Allura had installed more speakers around the shop, so she must have kept our stereo. The flower shop had days in which no one would come in and I was alone for hours, so I asked Allura to get us a radio or something. I needed some background noise or I’d go crazy. It made me like her a little bit more when she kept it after the renovations; that was really nice of her.
I plugged my phone in and pressed play on my flower shop playlist. It was mostly some chill indie songs, a little bit of folk and pop music. I added a bunch of guilty pleasures of mine - they always made people smile when they walked in, so I kept them.
The bell chimed, which could only mean a customer walked in. I tried to shake off all of this irritation that was crawling under my skin and greeted them with a smile.
I didn’t see Keith for a solid hour. I had no idea what he was doing on the back, but if he was organizing our inventory, I’d maybe forget about his assholeism behavior. I hated organizing inventory. It was so complicated and I needed to pay close attention to what I was doing or I’d slip up. I hated it.
The store was very dirty - there was dust everywhere, footprints of dirty mud and cement, an overall mess. I got myself a broom and started cleaning. Luckily, as soon as I started swiping, a really upbeat One Direction song started playing and it made me feel a little better about having to clean this mess up.
"I traveled across the bleeping country and I still can't get rid of these bleepers."
“They’re a musical herpes. You can’t get rid of them easily.” I smiled at my bad joke.
“I noticed. Oh, by the way you dance like a drunk drag queen."
“Sorry. I don’t understand Asshole. Can you translate that into American?” I teased and it made me a little happier when I saw him frown.
"Well you speak it fluently, but I guess you should study more."
“Sorry, I am only fluent in English and the language of love.”
"Aren't you like, Mexican?" He seemed even more annoyed. That hit a nerve in me. People never knew the differences between Latin people, and I got tired of being called every single ethnicity that exists but mine. It was even worse than being called Lancelot.
“I’m Cuban you illiterate fuck! You should study more!” I started yelling. I was about to drop my broom and beat the shit out of this white boy.
“How was it growing up without internet?"
“What do you mean?!” I furrowed my brows. He kept shooting questions.
"Was it hard to cross the border?"
“I’m American!”
"Did you have to run? Hide? Sell your body?"
“Oh that’s it!” I yelled as I dropped my broom to the floor. “Fight me! Right here, right now!”
"Do you know how to make nachos?!"
“That’s racist! I’m giving you the whooping ass of a lifetime!” I raised my fists, ready to land the first punch.
"Chill, you're going to get the flowers stressed. And I'm taller than you?"
“Shut up! I am taller than you, and I’m angrier!” I kept yelling.
"No, you're not!"
“You pasty white ass British descendant asshole. I’m pouring all of your fucking tea on the Harbor.” I don’t think someone had managed to get on my nerves so fast.
"You found the stash?" Keith actually looked panicked now; the color drained from his face and he just sat up straight. It make me giggle because it was the most ridiculous stereotype. “Look, don't touch my bleeping tea, I mean it."
“Ohh, we found a sore spot, did we?!” I smiled like the devil. Oh the things I was going to do with his stupid tea. I was arriving early tomorrow just to fuck with him.
“I mean it Ricky Martin."
“Fuck off Ronald McDonald.”
“You're lucky I wasted my curse of the day, because I was gonna make you cry.”
“Oh, it’s on.” I cracked my knuckles. I had to remember that I loved this job and Allura because otherwise I’d start punching the living shit out of him.
This was it.
This means war.