Mr. Ackles' Flower Shop - Part 1
Mr. Ackles’ Flower Shop for Unusual, Extraordinary, and Peculiar Plants
~
Mr. Ackles’ Flower Shop was located on an unassuming side street tucked away at the far end of Howler’s Walk, a place that was beloved by its regulars and went unnoticed by just about everyone else. Even people who had been before occasionally had a hard time finding it again. Many of them found themselves so turned around by the rows upon rows of brick houses, lined up side by side in a silent guard of honor, that they eventually just gave up and returned home, and every once in a while, over dinner, brought up that flower shop on the outskirts of town, the amazing one, the one that had simply… disappeared.
It was bad for business, without a doubt, but Jensen liked it that way. He was the owner, manager and sole employee of his little shop, and despite the fact that he had not been able to afford so much as a new suit in quite some time, one of the things he enjoyed most about his shop was the fact that there was rarely more than one customer vying for his attention.
He had not, however, planned it that way. After his mother’s death, when Jensen could barely reach for the handle of their old store’s front door without the grief turning his stomach, there had been a single greenhouse for sale in the entire city, and Jensen had barely even hesitated. The fact that the nearest store was over a mile away, and another flower shop to boot, didn’t bother him. People would just have to go out of their way to visit him. Maybe that wasn’t the smartest decision financially, but Jensen was a florist, not a business man, and he remained firm in his belief that his customers recognized quality, and would return for more.
For a florist, Mr. Ackles’ Flower Shop had always done reasonably well. The shop and the two-bedroom apartment above it were Jensen’s property, and the money Jensen made every month had been enough to cover the upkeep and acquisition of his plants, food, bills, the occasional glass pane when drunken teenagers roaming the neighborhood decided it would be funny to throw rocks at his greenhouse, and even allowed him to set aside a little for presents for his extended family. Not that he saw them much, but he usually simply picked out plants for his friends, and his family tended to expect something a little more… extravagant.
Jensen didn’t see them much, and he suspected everyone involved liked it that way.
Recently, though, the paint had begun to flake from the door, and the little bell above it rang out less and less. And it was a recent development, because even at seventeen, when he had first gone about the tedious business of setting up a greenhouse as a flower shop, Jensen had had more customers than he did now.
In fact, for a while, he’d done remarkably well. Mr. Ackles’ Flower Shop had achieved local fame when Jensen, aged twenty-three at the time, created a flower that, sweet-smelling and beautiful as it was, filled the air around it with gentle pheromones. It wasn’t much, not really - just enough for the plant’s owners to wake up in the morning elated and refreshed, enough for them to stretch out on the sofa after a hard day and simply relax. The plant had, and continued to sell well even if nothing else in the shop did, and Jensen was well used to people trying to coax, pry, bribe or occasionally threaten his design plans for it out of him.
Jensen had yet to give in. He preferred his integrity to money, regardless of how tight it was at the moment. It was cold comfort, however, on days when the bell above the door rang once, or perhaps twice at most, and in recent months, Jensen had taken to seeking solace in his flowers even more so than usual. He loved them, and for the most part they loved him back, and Jensen had figured somewhere along the line that if he didn’t have customers to satisfy, then he could at least make his plants happy. He created the perfect environments for them, made sure they had all the nutrients they needed, showered them with affection and attention and always, always looked out for their safety.
Some of the ways he did things were subtle, others less so, but they were the reason why, in one of the window panes, there was a handwritten signs asking visitors to please close the door quickly upon entering and exiting the shop. It did not state why, but the twice-underlined ‘quickly’ did lend a sense of urgency to the request. Jensen tended not to ask for things, not really, but his plants were the one thing he was serious about.
It was just as well, since his plants were all he had.
~
On the particular Monday on which our story begins, Jensen, our reluctant protagonist, went about his morning routine just as he usually did. He cleaned up his store a little, tidied whatever mess his plants had created in the night, and took a good look around. The greenhouse was only a few paces wide, enough to set up two show tables side by side and still move around comfortably, but lengthwise it took up the entire building. The far ends were shielded by brick, not glass, which Jensen preferred. Not many people ventured that far, unless they had Jensen as their guide, which gave Jensen leave to store some of his more… eccentric flowers there. He kept a small assortment of decorations, as well; mechanical bugs that scuttled over their shelf, cogwheels whirring, brightly colored pinwheels, even the odd garden gnome with a mechanism that allowed it to tip its hat or lower its fishing rod, much as it pained Jensen to stock something so… inorganic. He had a small back room for soil and packaging materials, and if his selection maybe wasn’t as showy as, say, Pellegrino’s flower store on Lombard Street - well then, he preferred it that way.
Jensen very determinedly liked both his store, and his life. What he had was good. He refused to ask for anything more.
~
While not much of a morning person in general, getting the mail was officially turning into the worst part of Jensen’s pre-opening routine. It had never been particularly pleasant for him - he didn’t know anyone who’d travel to exotic places and might send him a postcard, and there just wasn’t anything particularly exciting about free advertisements. Lately, though, the take-out menus were being replaced by bills upon bills upon bills. There was the water and the heating and the deliveries, the broken windowpanes, soil and fertilizer, his license, his mortgage payments, his groceries.
Jensen closed the door firmly behind him, flipped the hand-painted sign to OPEN, and looked through the stack of letters on his way over to the counter, squinting a little through the lenses of his eyeglasses. Four of them were bills (one marked ‘late notice’), one a flyer advertising accounting classes for small-time business owners, and one a plain envelope addressed in an unfamiliar hand. He opened that one first, knowing what the others would say, and unfolded the plain sheet of paper tucked inside.
Jensen, it read, in an easy, flowing script. We should have a talk sometime. I daresay you know why.
It wasn’t signed, but Jensen nevertheless knew who it was from. And that, perhaps more than the presumption of the note itself, or even simply the note, made him so angry he had to grip the edge of his white-washed counter to keep from hitting anything.
He had yet to unclench his hands when the bell above the door rang out, signaling his first customer of the day - a short, squat gentleman in a thick coat. But he managed a smile, because professionalism was important, and said, as kindly as he could on a morning that had already turned sour, “Close the door, please.”
The man blinked but obeyed, pushing the door shut roughly, and took a few shuffling steps into the greenhouse.
“How do you do,” Jensen said. “Are you here for anything in particular?”
The man shook his head, huffing a little bit, and Jensen smiled again.
“Well, feel free to have a look around, and let me know if you have any questions. And try to stay away from the Birds of Paradise,” he warned. “They peck.”
The man cast a quick, panicky look over his shoulder, and then skittered further towards the counter when two or three of the stalks swayed closer in interest. “So,” he said. He shuffled closer. “You’re Ackles, right? The Ackles?”
Jensen, who had had similar conversations several times already, smiled tightly. “What can I do for you, sir?”
“Well.” The man took another step towards him. “Because I have to tell you, Ackles, you’ve really made a name for yourself, you know?”
So it was going to be that conversation. Well then. Jensen leaned his elbows onto the counter and raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?” he asked tiredly.
“Uh-huh. And I’ve gotta say, I’m really liking those happiness plants you’ve got by the window.”
“The crimson felicitas?” Jensen asked.
“Uh-huh, those.” The man waved a vague hand. “Now, you see, those plants of yours, I’ll admit they made me a bit curious. Like, how does an untrained florist like yourself come up with something as successful as that?”
“Trade secret, I’m afraid,” Jensen said, still smiling.
The man’s smile, if anything, grew in intensity. He leaned an elbow onto the counter and lowered his voice, as if there was anyone else in the shop to overhear them. “Now, Jensen,” he said. His tone seemed to imply that Jensen was nothing more than a particularly stubborn toddler, and Jensen had to struggle to keep his carefully pleasant expression in place.
“Jensen, Jensen, Jensen.” He waved a dismissive hand. “Go on, you can tell me.”
“I really can’t,” Jensen said.
“You can.”
“But I won’t.”
The man kept smiling, and Jensen kept smiling, and after a moment the man pushed himself off the counter and huffed his way out the door.
Jensen sighed. The worst part wasn’t even that they tried to pry his secrets out of him - it was that they didn’t even bother buying anything in apology when he called them on it.
To calm himself down, he went to water the few plants that actually needed it, and then spent another hour and a half organizing back issues of Strange and Exotic before the doorbell rang out again.
This time it was a woman, in a sleek black coat, who took a slow look around and frowned before Jensen so much as had the chance to say hello.
“Don’t you have any arrangements?” she asked, letting her disapproving gaze sweep over the rows of potted plants. “I can’t show up at my sister’s with an armful of dirt.”
Jensen swallowed back an angry retort. He managed to conjure up a polite smile instead. “I’m afraid not, Ma’am,” he said, and rubbed his hand over his eyes when she headed for the door without another word. Jensen wasn’t really the type to hate Mondays, but sometimes he understood why other people did. Sometimes he really understood.
He’d just decided to trim the Japanese bonsai - Jensen had been overfeeding it with the blowfish soup, judging from the way it had grown - and gone to fetch it from the leafy green jungle at the back of the greenhouse when the bell rang out for a third time.
“Jensen!” someone demanded. “Where are you? Come out here so I can tell you about the tragedy that is my life.”
“Coming!” Jensen called back, laughing. It felt good to laugh, and it was certainly a relief to find someone in his store that wasn’t about to berate or belittle him. “I’m on my way, Lindsey, just give me a minute.”
“Come faster!” Lindsey groused. “I don’t think I can stand it for another second.”
“Your date didn’t go well, I take it?” He picked up the little plant and hefted it in his arms. He tried to find solace in the fact that he was not the only one struggling with his existence at that moment, but it was cold comfort, especially considering Lindsey was one of his closest friends and not someone Jensen would wish ill, not under any circumstances.
Lindsey was, like most people Jensen considered friends, someone who had come into the shop as a customer and had then refused to leave. She was a receptionist at the Howler’s Glen Wildlife Clinic, Jensen had learned, just a few minutes up the road. She liked to stop by after work and soak up the atmosphere, even though she didn’t always buy something, and Jensen honestly looked forward to her visits.
Perhaps not everyone would have prided himself with being her friend, but Jensen liked to think that he was a reasonably open-minded character. Lindsey liked short sleeves and low-cut dresses - indecently so, perhaps, but it wasn’t as though Jensen had any interest in her dress and what lay underneath it, so he saw no reason to frown upon it.
When Jensen had fought his way back to the counter, he found Lindsey slumped in front of it, drooping from her lace-up boots and lacy hemline all the way up to her hair. She brightened when she caught sight of Jensen, but not by a lot. “It was a tragedy, Jensen,” she said. “A tragedy, I tell you.”
“Apparently so,” Jensen said. “Give me a moment and you can tell me all about it.”
He set the tree on the counter before he slid behind it, pulled two shears from a basket underneath it and set them down. He picked up one of them and went to work, leaving the other for Lindsey - sometimes she liked to help him out, but today, it seemed like her tragic tale of woe had her entirely preoccupied.
“I can’t believe I went out with him,” she muttered, more to herself than to Jensen. When she did look over at him, her eyes were the size of small flower pots. “Jensen, I can’t believe I actually went out with him!”
“He must have done something truly appalling,” Jensen said carefully. “Last time you came in, you could barely contain your excitement.”
“Oh!” Lindsey exclaimed, in the tone of voice she only adopted when she was truly working herself up about something. “Oh, Jensen, I don’t know how he ever managed to fool me.”
“That bad?”
“You don’t even know!” Lindsey exclaimed. “God, it was so awkward, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. And he brought me roses,” she groused. “Seriously. Who does that?”
Jensen shuddered in sympathy. Every once in a while, on the rare occasions that he went out to a family gathering, someone or other would remark that he did, after all, own a flower shop, and what did he think of the oh so lovingly arranged buckets of dead flowers by the door? They meant well, Jensen knew, but there were few things he could imagine that were worse than asking a florist’s opinion on carelessly slaughtered plants.
“That sounds fairly bad, I’ll admit,” Jensen said.
Lindsey shuddered again, dramatically, and mimed thrusting a bouquet of flowers at someone. “‘Here, I’ve brought some lovely murdered plants for you to enjoy.’ Ugh, he was such a prick.”
Jensen chuckled a little, and after a moment, Lindsey joined in.
“I might have overdone it a little, telling him off,” she admitted. She stood for a minute, then she picked up the shears on the counter and took careful hold of a leaf. “Anyway, that’s done with now. I’m not ever going to see him again.”
She said it haughtily, but Jensen had known her long enough to recognize the disappointment in her voice, and despite what she was saying now, he also knew she’d been looking forward to her date since the moment the unfortunate miscreant had finally managed to ask her.
Seeing her here, now, mouth flattened into an unhappy line, it only took him a moment to make up his mind. He raised a finger into the air. “I might have something to cheer you up,” he said, stepping around the flower beds and venturing deeper into the jungle at the far end of the greenhouse. Lindsey followed him, keeping a possessive hand on her purse when she had to edge past the long-fingered fern.
Jensen lead her to a shelf in the back where he kept his less popular, less space-consuming plants, and lightly felt across the top shelf until he found what he’d wanted to show her; a small, dry bundle of leaves, tightly curled together in a shade of unappealing olive-brown.
“Here she is,” Jensen said, and placed the plant in Lindsey’s outstretched hand.
Lindsey took a moment to inspect the plant resting on her palm. When she looked up again, her eyes were sparkling. “I’m upset about getting a dead plant as a present, so you decide to give me a mummified one to cheer me up?”
She didn’t seem particularly upset, despite the misunderstanding, so Jensen laughed before he hurried to explain. “It may look mummified,” he said, “but it’s actually perfectly alive and healthy. It only needs a little water to restore it to its full glory.”
Lindsey took another, closer look at the plant. “It lives without water?” she asked.
Jensen nodded. “The crusader’s rose is a desert plant,” he said. “It can survive for decades without water, but merely the slightest bit of moisture causes it to unfurl and blossom. As long as you store it in a dry place, it’s virtually unkillable.”
“And invincible plant,” Lindsey mused. She grinned. “I think I like it.”
“Wait ‘till you see it bloom,” Jensen told her, and gestured her back to the counter. “Don’t even think about it,” he said, when she made to dig for her wallet. “This is a pick-me-up. Those don’t get paid for.”
“Jensen,” she began, but she thankfully refrained from reminding him that he had enough debts to pay without giving away his wares. It wasn’t like Jensen didn’t know. It wasn’t like he could ever forget.
“I’ll just get this wrapped up for you,” Jensen said, overly cheerful perhaps, but she remained silent, watching him wrap up the flower with a tight-lipped smile. It softened into something more real when he waggled her new darling in front of her face, and she pushed - carefully - at his hands.
“Jensen,” she chided.
“Let me do this for you, alright?” Jensen asked quietly, and after a moment, she nodded and gave his fingers a light squeeze.
~
After Lindsey had left, Jensen was just about ready to declare the entirety of the day a complete wash. Pride insisted he keep the store open until his regular closing time, but that didn’t stop him from going into the back room to tidy up a little and check on the plants that preferred a less bright environment, and then dust off his equipment. He found a set of shears behind his work table that were covered in bright red, sticky sap and spent a good half an hour scrubbing at them, so engrossed in the task that he almost didn’t hear the doorbell ring.
He dropped the shears into the sink to soak for a while and then had to unstick his fingers, and then he slid back into the greenhouse, an apology already on his lips.
The customer was peering into the tanks of water plants Jensen kept against the wall just by the door. He was tall, and tan, with dark hair just curling around his ears where it wasn’t tucked underneath a newsboy cap. It reminded him a little of the Ross boy who came in sometimes, looking ‘for inspiration,’ or whatever it was he did between the flower beds. Jensen was a little afraid to ask.
Despite the hat, however, there was little similarity between the two. Ryan was of average height and so rail-thin Jensen had to remind himself sometimes that it was unprofessional to offer to feed his customers, and his sense of dress often crossed the line into the flamboyant. Jensen's current customer had broad shoulders and the frame to match. His shirt, vest and coat were held in subdued greens and greys that suited him well, and Jensen took a moment to appreciate the way the colors worked with his skin tone. Here was a man, he suspected, who liked straightforward plants with a little bit of spice. Nothing crazy, nothing high maintenance, but nothing boring, either. Perhaps some whistling grass - he looked like a fairly cheerful person, as far as Jensen could tell, one who would appreciate a little musical accompaniment in the morning, when the first light hit the blades just right.
Jensen bit his lip, considering. The customer had an easy-going air about him, that much he could see. He certainly didn’t seem upset when the aquatic mockingbird in the water tank moved suddenly, leaves tilting to imitate a frowning face. He jumped, yes, but then he laughed and flicked his finger against the glass in greeting. He looked over a moment later, startling - though not as badly as he did Jensen - and straightened quickly.
“Hi there,” he said, with a smile that just about melted Jensen’s heart in his ribcage. “Are you Mr. Ackles?” He gestured vaguely upwards, perhaps indicating the sign above the entrance, and Jensen nodded.
“Jensen,” he said.
“Right. Jensen.” The customer bit down on his lower lip. “I’m Jared.”
A first timer, then. Looking for flowers to impress someone with - a date, or perhaps a girlfriend’s mother. Jensen let his professional smile melt into something a little more honest, more reassuring, and leaned his elbows onto the edge of the counter.
“Jared,” he said. “What can I help you with?”
He wasn’t particularly surprised when Jared’s face flared a bright, hot red. He hemmed and hawed for a moment, not quite looking Jensen in the eyes, before he finally swallowed, cleared his throat. “Well, you see,” he said, tugging on the brim of his cap, “I’m going on a date tonight.”
“Oh,” Jensen said. He had been expecting it, of course, but perhaps he had been hoping that Jared had been looking for a flower to gift his mother on her birthday, or something similarly unlikely.
Jared nodded without meeting his eyes. “And, well, someone told me that this store - you, I suppose - is good at figuring out what to bring. You know, on an occasion like that.” He hesitated for a moment, and then said, “And, and also, I know it’s bad form to bring cut flowers, but I wasn’t really sure how to go about bringing someone an entire potted plant without it being, you know. Awkward.”
“It doesn’t have to be awkward at all,” Jensen assured him. “We can find you something tasteful, subtle.” At Jared’s jerky nod, he asked, “Are you looking for anything in particular? How well do you know this person?”
“Genevieve?” Jared shrugged. “Not that well.”
Something generic, then. “A midnight rose, perhaps?” Jensen offered. “Its blossoms open in dark surroundings. Very suitable for romantic restaurants.”
Jared chewed on his lip for a moment. “Yeah, that - that could work,” he said.
Jensen brought him a single-stemmed rose in the smallest pot he had, and Jared nodded at his offer to wrap it. He paid and took it carefully, large hands almost entirely engulfing the clay pot.
“Thank you,” he said quietly. He fidgeted with the plant for a moment. “Jensen.”
“Yes?” Jensen said, but Jared only shook his head quickly. Pre-date jitters, Jensen decided, and smiled at him. “Good luck with your date,” he said.
“Oh, yeah.” Jared’s returning smile was a little strained. “Yeah, thanks.”
“I hope I’ll see you again,” Jensen offered, which was the truth, and Jared’s eyes crinkled.
“I hope so too,” he said.
He smiled, and waved on his way out the door that he closed carefully behind him. Jensen waited until he was out of sight before dropping his head into his hands. It just wasn’t fair.
~
A few days after Jared’s visit, of which Jensen thought more often than he liked to admit, he was bent over his calculations when there was a knock on the back door.
“Jensen! Delivery!”
Jensen, welcoming the distraction, slid off his stool and opened the door to the storeroom. He didn’t keep many plants there, mostly just the dodder plant that burned in sunlight, but he liked having extra stock of wrapping papers and the occasional ribbons and decorations for special occasions. The storeroom also held another door leading to the back of the building, where Bernie from the plant delivery service parked every Tuesday morning when he came round to drop off whatever Jensen had asked for that week.
“Thanks, Bernie,” Jensen said once he’d unlocked the door, stepping back to let Bernie head for the work table with a crate full of fledgling plants. “How goes it?”
“Not bad, not bad,” Bernie huffed. “Although you have no idea how glad I am to be here.”
“Oh?” Jensen asked him when he was already on his way out the door again. He was vaguely flattered, he had to admit. “How so?”
He peered out the door, watching Bernie pull another crate from the back of the truck.
“I was just at Pellegrino’s,” Bernie confided. He laughed when Jensen pulled a face. “Exactly,” he said. “Man, I’ve never met anybody so picky in my life.” He grimaced. “The leaves are the wrong color, the blossoms aren’t big enough, bla bla bla. I mean, they’re living things, you know? They’re not gonna be picture perfect every damn day.
“Sign here please,” he said, and tipped his head while Jensen did.
“You have a good day, Jensen,” he said, and Jensen watched him carefully back his truck out of the driveway before he turned and shut the door.
~
Jensen was up to his ears in delivery forms when the door opened and an already-familiar figure stepped through.
“Jared,” he said, just barely concealing his surprise. “Another date?”
“Well." Jared touched the back of his neck, somehow managing to look up at Jensen, the way he ducked his head. “Sure. Yes. But that's not why I'm back."
"Oh." Jensen frowned. "Was the midnight rose not to your satisfaction?"
"No, it was fine," Jared was quick to reassure him. "It's just that - this is embarrassing, but it appears I've lost my wallet. I've already looked everywhere, and to be perfectly honest, this is the last place I remember having it." He smiled. "You wouldn't have found it, by any chance?"
“Right,” Jensen said, coloring again. “I think I have an idea what might have happened.” He gestured for Jared to follow him.
They didn’t go far, just past the first display table, where the long-fingered fern sat in a fat pot on the ground. Jensen made it a point to avoid Jared’s eyes as he crouched down in front of it, pushing a few of the bolder leaves away when they gently but insistently honed in on the pockets of his shirt. Reaching down, he bent the stems apart carefully at the bottom, and sure enough, there it was, laying in the pot’s soil - a plain brown leather wallet, along with an earring and Jensen’s spare basement key. Jensen tucked the jewelry and key into the pocket of his slacks before he rose to hand the wallet over to Jared.
“I’m terribly sorry,” he said. “I’m usually better at warning visitors about him, I don’t know what happened.”
Jared grinned and said “No problem,” even though Jensen was sure the lie was written all over his forehead. The truth was, Jensen had been so distracted by Jared’s sweet smile and his delighted laugh and his easy closeness that Jensen had let professionalism fly out the window and entirely forgotten how to do his job.
“I’m terribly sorry,” Jensen said again while Jared tucked his wallet away.
“It’s alright,” Jared said, waving him off. “Your store is amazing. It’s kind of worth coming back to for a closer look.”
“Oh.” Jensen’s smile was quick but real. He loved his shop, despite all the trouble it brought him, and it warmed him to the core whenever someone complimented it. “Do you have any questions about any of the plants?” he asked. There, that was almost smooth. “I’d be happy to answer them for you.”
“Well, since you asked.” Jared waved a hand at the many plants on display. “Do you think you could find something for me? My landlord doesn’t allow pets, but she never said anything about plants.”
Jensen tapped his forefinger against the side of his jaw, allowing himself to take in Jared’s appearance. He tended to recommend the Scandinavian pussy willow to customers looking for a pet substitute, because it was tactile and the purrs were enough to satisfy even the most dedicated cat person. With Jared, however, he found himself reluctant to resort to something so ordinary. And it wasn’t merely that all the rumbling could become impressively annoying at three in the morning - no, he wanted to (and could even admit it to himself) find Jared something special.
“Let’s have a walk around,” he suggested finally.
Jared seemed all too happy to, pausing here and there to look without touching anything. When they passed the yellow vanity cozied up to the greenhouse glass, he hesitated. “What about…?” he asked.
“No, no,” Jensen said, waving him away. “She’s far snooty, trust me. Unless you spend two hours in front of the mirror every morning, the two of you really aren’t going to get along.”
He started walking again, only realizing Jared wasn’t following when the other man laughed.
“You’re one of those people, aren’t you?”
Jensen froze, and blinked, and whatever was showing on his face made Jared laugh again, sheepishly this time.
“I mean, one of those people who try to match up their customers with their best fit, or whatever. Not just whatever’s most expensive.”
Jensen looked down at his hands. “It just feels wrong,” he said. “Selling someone a bad fit just because I’d make a little more money. The customer wouldn’t be happy, and the plant wouldn’t be happy, and,” here, he smiled a little bit, “as you can see, my plants are somewhat important to me.”
“I figured as much,” Jared said, and when Jensen looked up, Jared was smiling at him. “Don’t worry.” He winked at him from underneath the brim of his hat. “I like that in a man.”
Jensen looked away, flustered. “So,” he said quickly. “How did your date go? Well, I hope?”
“Oh.” Jared reached up to finger the back of his head. A flush spread over his cheekbones and quickly disappeared again. “Yeah, it went well.” He turned, and then hesitated, attention caught by the broad-leaved dracaena that had become a permanent staple in the shop when, in a time of gross negligence on Jensen’s part, it had grown too big to fit through the door.
“That is one big plant,” Jared said, awed, and gently stroked over a leaf that was easily twice as big as his hand. The leaf quickly, but gently, folded around his fingers, startling Jared into laughter.
“It likes you,” Jensen concluded. “It’s probably because you’re both so tall,” he said, and promptly blushed.
Jared thankfully didn’t draw attention to Jensen’s bumbling. Instead, he reached out with his free hand to pat the broad trunk, and his grin, when he flashed it at Jensen, was anything but pitying. “I’d adopt it if I thought I could move it,” he confided. He placed his hand on another leaf, grinning again when it achieved the same effect as the first.
“What’s special about this one?” he asked.
“The fact that it likes you,” Jensen said. “Dracaenas are notoriously bad-tempered. It’s had years to get used to me, and still…” He took a step closer, holding out a hand that the dracaena’s leaves instantly shied away from. “Imagine what it might be like if it didn’t.”
“I’m honored,” Jared said earnestly. He took a slow step back. “Wish I could take you, buddy,” he said, then turned away reluctantly. “Any chance you’ve got anything a little less - massive?”
Jensen tilted his head to the side, insight striking him unexpectedly. “How do you feel about books, Jared?”
“Uh.” Jared blinked. “They’re all right, I guess? Nice to read on long train rides.”
Jensen felt his lips curve into a smile. “Then I may just have the perfect plant for you.”
“Now I’m intrigued, I’ll admit it,” Jared said, trailing after Jensen when he beckoned the other man to follow him. He found the parchment sylvatica with ease, picking up the leather-bound book the plant had dug its roots into and holding it up for Jared to see.
“It lives off the paper?”
“And the ink, and the glue,” Jensen said. “It evolved in old libraries, to no one’s surprise. It’s not just bookworms you need to watch out for.”
“Cool,” Jared said happily. “You think we’d get along?”
“I could see it,” Jensen said. And he could - the sylvatica wasn’t particularly high-maintenance, but just peculiar enough to interest someone like Jared, and he’d love for the two of them to find each other.
Jared brushed his fingers across a velvety leaf. “So how does me liking books factor into this?” he asked.
“Well, you need to have some books around, obviously, or she’ll starve.” Jensen reached up to scratch at the back of his head. “But if you’re the kind of person who thinks books are sacred and should never even be taken out of their packaging, then I wouldn’t try to give you a plant that eats them. Naturally.”
“Naturally,” Jared agreed with a laugh.
“She’s a little greedy,” Jensen admitted. “She’s probably going to go through a book a week, although that may vary somewhat depending on how big the book is, and how interesting.”
“Interesting books get devoured faster?” Jared hazarded, and Jensen smiled approvingly at him.
“You got it,” he said.
“Alright,” Jared smiled. “I think you’ve found me a new friend, Mr. Ackles.”
He insisted on paying the full amount, waving off Jensen’s offer of a discount for the missing wallet and cradled both book and plant in the crook of one arm.
“Take care of yourself, Jensen,” he said, waving on his way out the door. He made certain to close it firmly behind him, and from his vantage point, Jensen could see the creeping parvifolium droop dejectedly underneath the display table by the door. The plant’s incessant attempts to escape made it fairly unpopular with the customers, for obvious reasons, so Jensen had had more than enough time to get used to its antics.
He pointed the end of a pen at it. “I’m keeping my eye on you,” he told it.
When he looked over again a few minutes later, halfway through marking down Jared’s purchase, it had slinked away, and Jensen allowed himself a grin before he returned his attention to his paperwork.
~
It seemed that after Jared’s visit, Jensen’s luck held, and the next day brought two of his favorite customers into the shop.
The first time William had come in, Jensen had mistaken him for an extraordinarily tall woman. William had been clinging to the arm of an even taller man in a headache-inducing suit, head turned towards the mockingbird’s shenanigans in the water tank, and it wasn’t until he’d said “Gabe, look!” in what was undoubtedly a man’s voice that Jensen had bitten off the “Sir, Ma’am,” hovering at the top of his tongue and said, “How can I help you, gentlemen?” instead.
He didn’t realize Gabe, the man in the horrific suit, had been making faces back at the mockingbird until he turned to Jensen mid-grimace, cheeks puffed up dramatically. He deflated after a moment.
“I think we’re alright for now,” he said. “Bill?”
“Hmm?” The not-woman turned a surprisingly young face towards Jensen when Gabe tugged him closer. “Oh.” He smiled. One long finger indicated the water tank. “Your plants are lovely,” he said.
“Thank you,” Jensen murmured, flushing. He nodded at the water tank. “It reacts to light,” he said. When William’s eyes widened a little, he smiled. “That’s its primary defense mechanism. It mimics the way the light falls onto your features, creating the illusion of expressions - yours, to be exact. So if it looks like it’s making faces at you, it’s really because you’re making faces at it.”
“That’s amazing,” William had said, and stuck out his tongue experimentally, and laughed in delight when the mockingbird returned the gesture. “Gabe,” he said over his shoulder. “Gabe, we should come back here all the time.”
William had smiled at him then, and Gabe had winked, and they had returned at least once a month since then - always together, always smiling, always utterly absorbed in each other without ever making Jensen feel as though he were intruding. They’d quickly climbed the ranks of Jensen’s favorite customers. He loved it when they came in, loved William’s sweetness and Gabe’s wry indulgence of the former, and he loved spending those quiet afternoons searching through books and magazines for a new friend for them to take home with them, even if he wasn’t sure where they managed to store them all.
They liked simple plants, the pair of them - they always bought them together, so Jensen assumed they also shared a house or an apartment, and they both clearly preferred the clean-cut plants: the somber lilacs, or perhaps the frozen clover, or sometimes the gorgeous mimicry with its clear, lovely voice. Jensen had seen both of them, on separate occasions, shy away from the sweet-smelling honeybell with its sugary leaves, and both frowned unanimously at the yellow vanity. Jensen could appreciate that. He loved all his plants, no matter what their peculiarities were, but he enjoyed people who knew what they wanted without having to resort to rudeness to get it.
Today, William was utterly entranced by the year-long bonsai, small trees existing in a state of all four seasons at once, constantly rotating so that they were simultaneously blossoming, carrying fruit, turning colorful and losing their leaves at any given time.
Gabe’s interest was mildly picqued, it seemed, but only mildly, and he turned away from the display the moment Jensen slid behind the counter.
“So,” he said. He set all ten fingertips onto the wooden surface. “Blow my mind, Jensen. I dare you.”
“I just might,” Jensen said, returning Gabe’s grin. He nodded into the greenhouse. “If you’ll follow me?”
“William?” Gabe asked, but the man in question waved him off.
“You go ahead,” he said. “I’m good here.”
Gabe rolled his eyes fondly, but gestured at Jensen nonetheless. “Lead the way, sir,” he said. “Show me what I’ve been missing.”
Jensen quickly found him the plant he’d stored on the lower level of one of the display tables, lest someone come and claim it for themselves before Gabe could get his hands on it. He set it down on the table’s surface, holding the wide bowl with both hands, and then quickly took a step back.
This particular plant was made up of several different stalks, each green-red in color. They had the appearance of snakes rising from the ground, tongues swirling and flickering in their direction, never hesitating, never settling.
As predicted, Gabe looked utterly delighted. “Oh my.” He lifted his hands up, clearly itching to touch. “And who is this exceptional beauty?”
“It’s a common snakehead,” Jensen said. He’d known it was the right one as soon as he’d seen it in the new Spring edition of Garden Plants for Temperate Regions - it was hard to miss the oversized gold ring shaped like the head of a cobra that sat on Gabe’s middle finger. “Also called Medusa’s grave. The flickering ‘tongues’ attract pollinators.”
Gabe carefully, after a quick glance to Jensen for permission, lifted the pot into the air for a closer look. “Oh man,” he said. “Jensen, this is possibly the greatest plant under the sun.”
“I assume you’ll take it?” Jensen asked, swallowing back a laugh.
“Yes, I’ll take it.” Gabe winked at him. “And I’ll be back for more once I convince William we need one in every room of the house.”
Jensen carried the plant to the counter with him and set about wrapping it up carefully while Gabe dug through his wallet and laid a few bills on the wooden surface.
“It’s been quiet here, hasn’t it?” Gabe asked, letting his gaze sweep over the empty shop.
“Yes, well.” Jensen shrugged. “Not a whole lot of people have been interested in buying flowers lately.”
“People aren’t buying much of anything, these days,” Gabe said, smiling a little.
“I suppose not,” Jensen said, finding himself smiling in return.
After a moment, Gabe added, “You know Pellegrino’s? On Lombard Street? He’s been having these crazy elaborate sales. Signs so big you can read them from a block away.”
Jensen tried to curve his lips into a smile, but it was hard. He just couldn’t compete with Marc’s prices. And if it was just a one-time shopper looking for a thoughtless dinner present, that was one thing, but losing customers he’d known for years - that hurt.
“I’m afraid my shop doesn’t do well enough to allow for those kinds of deals,” he finally said, when Gabe raised an expectant eyebrow. “Your change.”
Gabe pocketed the coins without so much as glancing at them. “Shops that are doing well generally don’t need to hold sales, you know.” He gestured at the snakehead plant in its newspaper wrapping. “Thank you, for this.”
“You’re welcome,” Jensen replied, while Gabe looked around for his companion, still preoccupied with the bonsai.
“William, are you ready to go?”
“In a minute,” William said absently, and Gabe sighed, loud and demonstrative.
“Don’t ever go and fall in love,” he counseled Jensen wisely, with a quick look over his shoulder. William was still poking at the trees, blissfully unaware.
Gabe shook his head mournfully. “It’s not worth it, take my word for it,” he said to Jensen. “You go and give your heart away, and then you rise and fall by someone else’s decree. It’s the world’s most cruel undertaking. Chinese water torture cannot even begin to compare.”
He pushed himself off the counter and raised his voice. “William, my love, are you ready now? Not worth it,” he insisted to Jensen, when William mournfully pulled himself away from the flowerbeds. “You mark my words.”
“Of course,” Jensen said, and handed over the plant wrapped in newspaper, but he privately thought the small smile hovering around Gabe’s mouth made him a liar.
~
In retrospect, Jensen supposed it had to happen. Things had been going well; sales had been good, if not exceptional, even if Jared had not been by again, so Jensen really should have been prepared for something to go wrong. Perhaps not for the hose he kept by his back door to break, or whatever else was to blame for the inches-deep puddle flooding his back room, but he should have at least been ready for some kind of disaster.
Still, disaster had struck, regardless of whether or not Jensen had been expecting it. His worktable and shelves were waterlogged and dark almost up to his knees, the bag of extra-fine soil he kept in the corner turning the liquid into slick, slimy mud. Sighing, Jensen tucked up his slacks at the knees, hoping that might be enough to keep the hems from soaking through, and edged towards the door opening into the drive.
It was the hose, of course it was, but instead of having become leaky like Jensen had expected, it was simply… on. It lay on the ground as if it’d fallen off its hook in the night, but the faucet had most definitely been turned on.
Jensen took a moment to cover his face with his hands, water soaking into his shoes and the socks inside. He was barely making ends meet as it was. A bill covering what could well be twelve hours of unstopping water flow would almost certainly mean cutting out a few meals here and there. Jensen could already hear his aunt’s voice in his head, scolding him for not taking care of himself as if he were still an awkward teenager, living on his own for the first time.
He sighed. There wasn’t really anything he could do about it now, so he reached over the threshold to firmly close the tap and coil the end of the hose carefully around the hook.
He went through the motions of opening the shop that day, mind reeling. He hadn’t even used the hose in days - how had it become undone? He couldn’t imagine it being a simple act of vandalism - yes, sometimes children threw rocks at his windows, but it was always from a safe distance. No one had ever even dared step foot on Jensen’s property, as far as he could tell.
It was just as well he had a delivery of new spider plants that morning to take his mind off of things, or he possibly would have wracked his brain for the rest of the day. He loaded his arms with the pots from the back room to take to the front, not remembering until it was already too late that the door to the shop was fairly heavy and just about impossible to open with both arms full of flowers.
He managed to get his foot into the gap and edged forward, twisting his body to squeeze through after it. He was hot and slightly sweaty and the pot in the crook of his elbow was dangerously close to sliding out of his hold when there was suddenly a hand on the door, pushing it open and allowing him to slip through without losing hold of anything.
His efforts were almost in vain when he finally looked up at his savior and nearly dropped his armful in surprise. “Jared,” he said. His glasses were sliding off his sweat-slick nose, of course, and he could barely see, because the laws of the universe dictated that Jensen look his absolute worst when an attractive man actually returned to his shop.
“Jared,” he said again, schooling his features into the semblance of a smile. “Another date?”
Jared’s smile stiffened somewhat, but Jensen didn’t have time to contemplate what that might mean - he could feel two of the pots slipping from his grasp, and he had to hastily sidestep Jared and let them all drop gently onto the counter before they shattered on the tiles after all. He righted the one that had tipped over onto its side, brushed the loose soil from his hands, and pushed his glasses back into position. Then he conjured up a smile and turned to face Jared, who was still standing by the open door to the storage room.
“Um. Sorry,” Jared said, gesturing at said door with his thumb. “I mean, I’m probably not supposed to be back here, but you looked like you could use some help.”
“It’s much appreciated,” Jensen assured him through the heat rising in his cheeks. “Is there - um. Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Yes, well.” Jared shuffled to the front of the counter, and Jensen noticed for the first time that he had a bundle, wrapped in some sort of fabric, held in the crook of one arm. “I think I might need some help.”
He pulled the cloth down, revealing the plant Jensen had sold him not so very long ago. The parchment sylvatica looked decidedly worse for wear than it had just days ago, long leaves not brown, exactly, but without a doubt limp and drooping.
“What did you do to it, for Heaven’s sake?” Jensen burst out before he could stop himself. He reached out to take it from Jared, which Jared allowed without protest.
“I don’t know,” he said plaintively once the sylvatica was safely cradled Jensen’s arms. “I gave it a book, I gave it water, I gave it sunlight, and somehow it turned into - this!”
He gestured at the sad affair on Jensen’s arm, clearly agitated, though it seemed to be out of frustration rather than anger.
Jensen forced himself to take a calming breath. Whatever it was, Jared was clearly not out to make Jensen’s plants miserable on purpose, which meant that the root of the problem was a misunderstanding, or some sort of accident. And, well, there was really only so much it could be.
“What book did you give her last?” Jensen asked, cradling the flower carefully. It wasn’t a particularly big book, and the roots obscured the tittle, and Jensen wasn’t sure he knew anything that was both short and depressing.
“Romeo and Juliet,” Jared whispered, like just saying the words might make the flower even worse.
When Jensen raised his eyebrows in disbelief, Jared’s shoulders settled into a defensive slouch.
“I thought she might like the language,” he said.
Jensen petted one of the drooping leaves. “It’s a good thought, but try to stay away from anything too depressing,” he warned. “Or too sappy, or you’re going to be vacuuming away flower petals for weeks.” He moved behind the counter and used his free hand to grope around on the top shelf for something neutral for the sylvatica to latch onto. “Hm,” he said, lifting up the biggest thing he could fit his fingers around. “Phone book?” he asked the plant. “How’s that sound? Something nice and factual after all that drama?”
One root twitched weakly towards the paper.
“Alright then.” Jensen let the book drop onto the counter with a thud and set the plant down next to it. He offered Jared a reassuring smile. “Would you like to help?” he asked.
Jared did, and though he had to ball his hands into fists to keep from intervening, Jensen let him do the majority of the work. He was going to have to learn to do it eventually, if he didn’t grow frustrated and return it. Which, Jensen had to admit, was not all that likely - Jared was obviously concerned enough to return for advice, and to his credit, he was more than careful in transferring the plant, movements slow and controlled.
“Just like that - good,” Jensen said.
Jared smiled up at him for a moment before he focused on the plant once more. It wasn’t long before the sylvatica had a new, less heart-wrenching new home, and Jensen gave the stem a light stroke.
“Go with adventure stories if you’ve got them,” he said to Jared. “Robert Louis Stevenson, maybe some Mark Twain. Make sure it has a happy ending.”
“Yes, sir,” Jared murmured, ducking his head again. He held out his arms for the flower, and Jensen gently deposited it into them. “I’ll take excellent care of her, I promise.”
“I’m sure you will,” Jensen said, a little surprised to find it was the truth. “Better luck next time.”
“Thank you kindly,” Jared said, shifting to tip his cap, the other arm tucked firmly around the flower and the phone book. “I’ll see you soon, Jensen.”
“Do come back,” Jensen said immediately. “I’ll look forward to it.”
“That’s what a guy likes to hear,” Jared said, grinning. He laughed when Jensen flushed, but not meanly - fondly, perhaps, friendly and warm. “Until next time.” He smiled brilliantly and turned to go, pausing to hold open the door for Lindsey, who was just on her way in. “Ma’am,” he said, and then he was gone, pulling the door firmly shut behind him.
Lindsey’s smile, when she turned to face Jensen, was wicked. “And who was that handsome gentleman?” she asked, expression promising all sorts of teasing to come in the future.
“Just a customer,” Jensen said, looking down.
“’Just’ customers never have you blushing like that,” Lindsey pointed out. “Admit it - you think he’s cute.”
“I don’t see what that has to do with anything.” Jensen crumpled the rest of the newspaper into a ball and turned stiffly away to drop it into the wastebasket. “He came in for help. Apparently I was neglectful in telling him everything he needed to know to properly care for his new plant.”
Lindsey laughed. “’Neglectful,’ huh?”
“Lindsey,” Jensen chided. “I would never let a plant suffer like that, you know that.”
That did not mean he hadn’t been hoping. It wasn’t uncommon for first-time owners of unusual plants to come in a second time, sometimes to ask for more information or - more often - to return them and request a refund. Many people underestimated how much work the proper care for a plant, especially ones as diverse as the ones for sale in Jensen’s shop, would actually be. Like children with a kitten or puppy, they focused on the flashy, impressive characteristics and entirely overlooked the fact that plants were living, functioning organisms and often needed dedicated care.
But he’d gotten his wish. Jared had returned to the shop, and even seemed open to the idea of coming back again, and that was really all Jensen could ask for.
Part 2
~
Mr. Ackles’ Flower Shop was located on an unassuming side street tucked away at the far end of Howler’s Walk, a place that was beloved by its regulars and went unnoticed by just about everyone else. Even people who had been before occasionally had a hard time finding it again. Many of them found themselves so turned around by the rows upon rows of brick houses, lined up side by side in a silent guard of honor, that they eventually just gave up and returned home, and every once in a while, over dinner, brought up that flower shop on the outskirts of town, the amazing one, the one that had simply… disappeared.
It was bad for business, without a doubt, but Jensen liked it that way. He was the owner, manager and sole employee of his little shop, and despite the fact that he had not been able to afford so much as a new suit in quite some time, one of the things he enjoyed most about his shop was the fact that there was rarely more than one customer vying for his attention.
He had not, however, planned it that way. After his mother’s death, when Jensen could barely reach for the handle of their old store’s front door without the grief turning his stomach, there had been a single greenhouse for sale in the entire city, and Jensen had barely even hesitated. The fact that the nearest store was over a mile away, and another flower shop to boot, didn’t bother him. People would just have to go out of their way to visit him. Maybe that wasn’t the smartest decision financially, but Jensen was a florist, not a business man, and he remained firm in his belief that his customers recognized quality, and would return for more.
For a florist, Mr. Ackles’ Flower Shop had always done reasonably well. The shop and the two-bedroom apartment above it were Jensen’s property, and the money Jensen made every month had been enough to cover the upkeep and acquisition of his plants, food, bills, the occasional glass pane when drunken teenagers roaming the neighborhood decided it would be funny to throw rocks at his greenhouse, and even allowed him to set aside a little for presents for his extended family. Not that he saw them much, but he usually simply picked out plants for his friends, and his family tended to expect something a little more… extravagant.
Jensen didn’t see them much, and he suspected everyone involved liked it that way.
Recently, though, the paint had begun to flake from the door, and the little bell above it rang out less and less. And it was a recent development, because even at seventeen, when he had first gone about the tedious business of setting up a greenhouse as a flower shop, Jensen had had more customers than he did now.
In fact, for a while, he’d done remarkably well. Mr. Ackles’ Flower Shop had achieved local fame when Jensen, aged twenty-three at the time, created a flower that, sweet-smelling and beautiful as it was, filled the air around it with gentle pheromones. It wasn’t much, not really - just enough for the plant’s owners to wake up in the morning elated and refreshed, enough for them to stretch out on the sofa after a hard day and simply relax. The plant had, and continued to sell well even if nothing else in the shop did, and Jensen was well used to people trying to coax, pry, bribe or occasionally threaten his design plans for it out of him.
Jensen had yet to give in. He preferred his integrity to money, regardless of how tight it was at the moment. It was cold comfort, however, on days when the bell above the door rang once, or perhaps twice at most, and in recent months, Jensen had taken to seeking solace in his flowers even more so than usual. He loved them, and for the most part they loved him back, and Jensen had figured somewhere along the line that if he didn’t have customers to satisfy, then he could at least make his plants happy. He created the perfect environments for them, made sure they had all the nutrients they needed, showered them with affection and attention and always, always looked out for their safety.
Some of the ways he did things were subtle, others less so, but they were the reason why, in one of the window panes, there was a handwritten signs asking visitors to please close the door quickly upon entering and exiting the shop. It did not state why, but the twice-underlined ‘quickly’ did lend a sense of urgency to the request. Jensen tended not to ask for things, not really, but his plants were the one thing he was serious about.
It was just as well, since his plants were all he had.
~
On the particular Monday on which our story begins, Jensen, our reluctant protagonist, went about his morning routine just as he usually did. He cleaned up his store a little, tidied whatever mess his plants had created in the night, and took a good look around. The greenhouse was only a few paces wide, enough to set up two show tables side by side and still move around comfortably, but lengthwise it took up the entire building. The far ends were shielded by brick, not glass, which Jensen preferred. Not many people ventured that far, unless they had Jensen as their guide, which gave Jensen leave to store some of his more… eccentric flowers there. He kept a small assortment of decorations, as well; mechanical bugs that scuttled over their shelf, cogwheels whirring, brightly colored pinwheels, even the odd garden gnome with a mechanism that allowed it to tip its hat or lower its fishing rod, much as it pained Jensen to stock something so… inorganic. He had a small back room for soil and packaging materials, and if his selection maybe wasn’t as showy as, say, Pellegrino’s flower store on Lombard Street - well then, he preferred it that way.
Jensen very determinedly liked both his store, and his life. What he had was good. He refused to ask for anything more.
~
While not much of a morning person in general, getting the mail was officially turning into the worst part of Jensen’s pre-opening routine. It had never been particularly pleasant for him - he didn’t know anyone who’d travel to exotic places and might send him a postcard, and there just wasn’t anything particularly exciting about free advertisements. Lately, though, the take-out menus were being replaced by bills upon bills upon bills. There was the water and the heating and the deliveries, the broken windowpanes, soil and fertilizer, his license, his mortgage payments, his groceries.
Jensen closed the door firmly behind him, flipped the hand-painted sign to OPEN, and looked through the stack of letters on his way over to the counter, squinting a little through the lenses of his eyeglasses. Four of them were bills (one marked ‘late notice’), one a flyer advertising accounting classes for small-time business owners, and one a plain envelope addressed in an unfamiliar hand. He opened that one first, knowing what the others would say, and unfolded the plain sheet of paper tucked inside.
Jensen, it read, in an easy, flowing script. We should have a talk sometime. I daresay you know why.
It wasn’t signed, but Jensen nevertheless knew who it was from. And that, perhaps more than the presumption of the note itself, or even simply the note, made him so angry he had to grip the edge of his white-washed counter to keep from hitting anything.
He had yet to unclench his hands when the bell above the door rang out, signaling his first customer of the day - a short, squat gentleman in a thick coat. But he managed a smile, because professionalism was important, and said, as kindly as he could on a morning that had already turned sour, “Close the door, please.”
The man blinked but obeyed, pushing the door shut roughly, and took a few shuffling steps into the greenhouse.
“How do you do,” Jensen said. “Are you here for anything in particular?”
The man shook his head, huffing a little bit, and Jensen smiled again.
“Well, feel free to have a look around, and let me know if you have any questions. And try to stay away from the Birds of Paradise,” he warned. “They peck.”
The man cast a quick, panicky look over his shoulder, and then skittered further towards the counter when two or three of the stalks swayed closer in interest. “So,” he said. He shuffled closer. “You’re Ackles, right? The Ackles?”
Jensen, who had had similar conversations several times already, smiled tightly. “What can I do for you, sir?”
“Well.” The man took another step towards him. “Because I have to tell you, Ackles, you’ve really made a name for yourself, you know?”
So it was going to be that conversation. Well then. Jensen leaned his elbows onto the counter and raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?” he asked tiredly.
“Uh-huh. And I’ve gotta say, I’m really liking those happiness plants you’ve got by the window.”
“The crimson felicitas?” Jensen asked.
“Uh-huh, those.” The man waved a vague hand. “Now, you see, those plants of yours, I’ll admit they made me a bit curious. Like, how does an untrained florist like yourself come up with something as successful as that?”
“Trade secret, I’m afraid,” Jensen said, still smiling.
The man’s smile, if anything, grew in intensity. He leaned an elbow onto the counter and lowered his voice, as if there was anyone else in the shop to overhear them. “Now, Jensen,” he said. His tone seemed to imply that Jensen was nothing more than a particularly stubborn toddler, and Jensen had to struggle to keep his carefully pleasant expression in place.
“Jensen, Jensen, Jensen.” He waved a dismissive hand. “Go on, you can tell me.”
“I really can’t,” Jensen said.
“You can.”
“But I won’t.”
The man kept smiling, and Jensen kept smiling, and after a moment the man pushed himself off the counter and huffed his way out the door.
Jensen sighed. The worst part wasn’t even that they tried to pry his secrets out of him - it was that they didn’t even bother buying anything in apology when he called them on it.
To calm himself down, he went to water the few plants that actually needed it, and then spent another hour and a half organizing back issues of Strange and Exotic before the doorbell rang out again.
This time it was a woman, in a sleek black coat, who took a slow look around and frowned before Jensen so much as had the chance to say hello.
“Don’t you have any arrangements?” she asked, letting her disapproving gaze sweep over the rows of potted plants. “I can’t show up at my sister’s with an armful of dirt.”
Jensen swallowed back an angry retort. He managed to conjure up a polite smile instead. “I’m afraid not, Ma’am,” he said, and rubbed his hand over his eyes when she headed for the door without another word. Jensen wasn’t really the type to hate Mondays, but sometimes he understood why other people did. Sometimes he really understood.
He’d just decided to trim the Japanese bonsai - Jensen had been overfeeding it with the blowfish soup, judging from the way it had grown - and gone to fetch it from the leafy green jungle at the back of the greenhouse when the bell rang out for a third time.
“Jensen!” someone demanded. “Where are you? Come out here so I can tell you about the tragedy that is my life.”
“Coming!” Jensen called back, laughing. It felt good to laugh, and it was certainly a relief to find someone in his store that wasn’t about to berate or belittle him. “I’m on my way, Lindsey, just give me a minute.”
“Come faster!” Lindsey groused. “I don’t think I can stand it for another second.”
“Your date didn’t go well, I take it?” He picked up the little plant and hefted it in his arms. He tried to find solace in the fact that he was not the only one struggling with his existence at that moment, but it was cold comfort, especially considering Lindsey was one of his closest friends and not someone Jensen would wish ill, not under any circumstances.
Lindsey was, like most people Jensen considered friends, someone who had come into the shop as a customer and had then refused to leave. She was a receptionist at the Howler’s Glen Wildlife Clinic, Jensen had learned, just a few minutes up the road. She liked to stop by after work and soak up the atmosphere, even though she didn’t always buy something, and Jensen honestly looked forward to her visits.
Perhaps not everyone would have prided himself with being her friend, but Jensen liked to think that he was a reasonably open-minded character. Lindsey liked short sleeves and low-cut dresses - indecently so, perhaps, but it wasn’t as though Jensen had any interest in her dress and what lay underneath it, so he saw no reason to frown upon it.
When Jensen had fought his way back to the counter, he found Lindsey slumped in front of it, drooping from her lace-up boots and lacy hemline all the way up to her hair. She brightened when she caught sight of Jensen, but not by a lot. “It was a tragedy, Jensen,” she said. “A tragedy, I tell you.”
“Apparently so,” Jensen said. “Give me a moment and you can tell me all about it.”
He set the tree on the counter before he slid behind it, pulled two shears from a basket underneath it and set them down. He picked up one of them and went to work, leaving the other for Lindsey - sometimes she liked to help him out, but today, it seemed like her tragic tale of woe had her entirely preoccupied.
“I can’t believe I went out with him,” she muttered, more to herself than to Jensen. When she did look over at him, her eyes were the size of small flower pots. “Jensen, I can’t believe I actually went out with him!”
“He must have done something truly appalling,” Jensen said carefully. “Last time you came in, you could barely contain your excitement.”
“Oh!” Lindsey exclaimed, in the tone of voice she only adopted when she was truly working herself up about something. “Oh, Jensen, I don’t know how he ever managed to fool me.”
“That bad?”
“You don’t even know!” Lindsey exclaimed. “God, it was so awkward, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. And he brought me roses,” she groused. “Seriously. Who does that?”
Jensen shuddered in sympathy. Every once in a while, on the rare occasions that he went out to a family gathering, someone or other would remark that he did, after all, own a flower shop, and what did he think of the oh so lovingly arranged buckets of dead flowers by the door? They meant well, Jensen knew, but there were few things he could imagine that were worse than asking a florist’s opinion on carelessly slaughtered plants.
“That sounds fairly bad, I’ll admit,” Jensen said.
Lindsey shuddered again, dramatically, and mimed thrusting a bouquet of flowers at someone. “‘Here, I’ve brought some lovely murdered plants for you to enjoy.’ Ugh, he was such a prick.”
Jensen chuckled a little, and after a moment, Lindsey joined in.
“I might have overdone it a little, telling him off,” she admitted. She stood for a minute, then she picked up the shears on the counter and took careful hold of a leaf. “Anyway, that’s done with now. I’m not ever going to see him again.”
She said it haughtily, but Jensen had known her long enough to recognize the disappointment in her voice, and despite what she was saying now, he also knew she’d been looking forward to her date since the moment the unfortunate miscreant had finally managed to ask her.
Seeing her here, now, mouth flattened into an unhappy line, it only took him a moment to make up his mind. He raised a finger into the air. “I might have something to cheer you up,” he said, stepping around the flower beds and venturing deeper into the jungle at the far end of the greenhouse. Lindsey followed him, keeping a possessive hand on her purse when she had to edge past the long-fingered fern.
Jensen lead her to a shelf in the back where he kept his less popular, less space-consuming plants, and lightly felt across the top shelf until he found what he’d wanted to show her; a small, dry bundle of leaves, tightly curled together in a shade of unappealing olive-brown.
“Here she is,” Jensen said, and placed the plant in Lindsey’s outstretched hand.
Lindsey took a moment to inspect the plant resting on her palm. When she looked up again, her eyes were sparkling. “I’m upset about getting a dead plant as a present, so you decide to give me a mummified one to cheer me up?”
She didn’t seem particularly upset, despite the misunderstanding, so Jensen laughed before he hurried to explain. “It may look mummified,” he said, “but it’s actually perfectly alive and healthy. It only needs a little water to restore it to its full glory.”
Lindsey took another, closer look at the plant. “It lives without water?” she asked.
Jensen nodded. “The crusader’s rose is a desert plant,” he said. “It can survive for decades without water, but merely the slightest bit of moisture causes it to unfurl and blossom. As long as you store it in a dry place, it’s virtually unkillable.”
“And invincible plant,” Lindsey mused. She grinned. “I think I like it.”
“Wait ‘till you see it bloom,” Jensen told her, and gestured her back to the counter. “Don’t even think about it,” he said, when she made to dig for her wallet. “This is a pick-me-up. Those don’t get paid for.”
“Jensen,” she began, but she thankfully refrained from reminding him that he had enough debts to pay without giving away his wares. It wasn’t like Jensen didn’t know. It wasn’t like he could ever forget.
“I’ll just get this wrapped up for you,” Jensen said, overly cheerful perhaps, but she remained silent, watching him wrap up the flower with a tight-lipped smile. It softened into something more real when he waggled her new darling in front of her face, and she pushed - carefully - at his hands.
“Jensen,” she chided.
“Let me do this for you, alright?” Jensen asked quietly, and after a moment, she nodded and gave his fingers a light squeeze.
~
After Lindsey had left, Jensen was just about ready to declare the entirety of the day a complete wash. Pride insisted he keep the store open until his regular closing time, but that didn’t stop him from going into the back room to tidy up a little and check on the plants that preferred a less bright environment, and then dust off his equipment. He found a set of shears behind his work table that were covered in bright red, sticky sap and spent a good half an hour scrubbing at them, so engrossed in the task that he almost didn’t hear the doorbell ring.
He dropped the shears into the sink to soak for a while and then had to unstick his fingers, and then he slid back into the greenhouse, an apology already on his lips.
The customer was peering into the tanks of water plants Jensen kept against the wall just by the door. He was tall, and tan, with dark hair just curling around his ears where it wasn’t tucked underneath a newsboy cap. It reminded him a little of the Ross boy who came in sometimes, looking ‘for inspiration,’ or whatever it was he did between the flower beds. Jensen was a little afraid to ask.
Despite the hat, however, there was little similarity between the two. Ryan was of average height and so rail-thin Jensen had to remind himself sometimes that it was unprofessional to offer to feed his customers, and his sense of dress often crossed the line into the flamboyant. Jensen's current customer had broad shoulders and the frame to match. His shirt, vest and coat were held in subdued greens and greys that suited him well, and Jensen took a moment to appreciate the way the colors worked with his skin tone. Here was a man, he suspected, who liked straightforward plants with a little bit of spice. Nothing crazy, nothing high maintenance, but nothing boring, either. Perhaps some whistling grass - he looked like a fairly cheerful person, as far as Jensen could tell, one who would appreciate a little musical accompaniment in the morning, when the first light hit the blades just right.
Jensen bit his lip, considering. The customer had an easy-going air about him, that much he could see. He certainly didn’t seem upset when the aquatic mockingbird in the water tank moved suddenly, leaves tilting to imitate a frowning face. He jumped, yes, but then he laughed and flicked his finger against the glass in greeting. He looked over a moment later, startling - though not as badly as he did Jensen - and straightened quickly.
“Hi there,” he said, with a smile that just about melted Jensen’s heart in his ribcage. “Are you Mr. Ackles?” He gestured vaguely upwards, perhaps indicating the sign above the entrance, and Jensen nodded.
“Jensen,” he said.
“Right. Jensen.” The customer bit down on his lower lip. “I’m Jared.”
A first timer, then. Looking for flowers to impress someone with - a date, or perhaps a girlfriend’s mother. Jensen let his professional smile melt into something a little more honest, more reassuring, and leaned his elbows onto the edge of the counter.
“Jared,” he said. “What can I help you with?”
He wasn’t particularly surprised when Jared’s face flared a bright, hot red. He hemmed and hawed for a moment, not quite looking Jensen in the eyes, before he finally swallowed, cleared his throat. “Well, you see,” he said, tugging on the brim of his cap, “I’m going on a date tonight.”
“Oh,” Jensen said. He had been expecting it, of course, but perhaps he had been hoping that Jared had been looking for a flower to gift his mother on her birthday, or something similarly unlikely.
Jared nodded without meeting his eyes. “And, well, someone told me that this store - you, I suppose - is good at figuring out what to bring. You know, on an occasion like that.” He hesitated for a moment, and then said, “And, and also, I know it’s bad form to bring cut flowers, but I wasn’t really sure how to go about bringing someone an entire potted plant without it being, you know. Awkward.”
“It doesn’t have to be awkward at all,” Jensen assured him. “We can find you something tasteful, subtle.” At Jared’s jerky nod, he asked, “Are you looking for anything in particular? How well do you know this person?”
“Genevieve?” Jared shrugged. “Not that well.”
Something generic, then. “A midnight rose, perhaps?” Jensen offered. “Its blossoms open in dark surroundings. Very suitable for romantic restaurants.”
Jared chewed on his lip for a moment. “Yeah, that - that could work,” he said.
Jensen brought him a single-stemmed rose in the smallest pot he had, and Jared nodded at his offer to wrap it. He paid and took it carefully, large hands almost entirely engulfing the clay pot.
“Thank you,” he said quietly. He fidgeted with the plant for a moment. “Jensen.”
“Yes?” Jensen said, but Jared only shook his head quickly. Pre-date jitters, Jensen decided, and smiled at him. “Good luck with your date,” he said.
“Oh, yeah.” Jared’s returning smile was a little strained. “Yeah, thanks.”
“I hope I’ll see you again,” Jensen offered, which was the truth, and Jared’s eyes crinkled.
“I hope so too,” he said.
He smiled, and waved on his way out the door that he closed carefully behind him. Jensen waited until he was out of sight before dropping his head into his hands. It just wasn’t fair.
~
A few days after Jared’s visit, of which Jensen thought more often than he liked to admit, he was bent over his calculations when there was a knock on the back door.
“Jensen! Delivery!”
Jensen, welcoming the distraction, slid off his stool and opened the door to the storeroom. He didn’t keep many plants there, mostly just the dodder plant that burned in sunlight, but he liked having extra stock of wrapping papers and the occasional ribbons and decorations for special occasions. The storeroom also held another door leading to the back of the building, where Bernie from the plant delivery service parked every Tuesday morning when he came round to drop off whatever Jensen had asked for that week.
“Thanks, Bernie,” Jensen said once he’d unlocked the door, stepping back to let Bernie head for the work table with a crate full of fledgling plants. “How goes it?”
“Not bad, not bad,” Bernie huffed. “Although you have no idea how glad I am to be here.”
“Oh?” Jensen asked him when he was already on his way out the door again. He was vaguely flattered, he had to admit. “How so?”
He peered out the door, watching Bernie pull another crate from the back of the truck.
“I was just at Pellegrino’s,” Bernie confided. He laughed when Jensen pulled a face. “Exactly,” he said. “Man, I’ve never met anybody so picky in my life.” He grimaced. “The leaves are the wrong color, the blossoms aren’t big enough, bla bla bla. I mean, they’re living things, you know? They’re not gonna be picture perfect every damn day.
“Sign here please,” he said, and tipped his head while Jensen did.
“You have a good day, Jensen,” he said, and Jensen watched him carefully back his truck out of the driveway before he turned and shut the door.
~
Jensen was up to his ears in delivery forms when the door opened and an already-familiar figure stepped through.
“Jared,” he said, just barely concealing his surprise. “Another date?”
“Well." Jared touched the back of his neck, somehow managing to look up at Jensen, the way he ducked his head. “Sure. Yes. But that's not why I'm back."
"Oh." Jensen frowned. "Was the midnight rose not to your satisfaction?"
"No, it was fine," Jared was quick to reassure him. "It's just that - this is embarrassing, but it appears I've lost my wallet. I've already looked everywhere, and to be perfectly honest, this is the last place I remember having it." He smiled. "You wouldn't have found it, by any chance?"
“Right,” Jensen said, coloring again. “I think I have an idea what might have happened.” He gestured for Jared to follow him.
They didn’t go far, just past the first display table, where the long-fingered fern sat in a fat pot on the ground. Jensen made it a point to avoid Jared’s eyes as he crouched down in front of it, pushing a few of the bolder leaves away when they gently but insistently honed in on the pockets of his shirt. Reaching down, he bent the stems apart carefully at the bottom, and sure enough, there it was, laying in the pot’s soil - a plain brown leather wallet, along with an earring and Jensen’s spare basement key. Jensen tucked the jewelry and key into the pocket of his slacks before he rose to hand the wallet over to Jared.
“I’m terribly sorry,” he said. “I’m usually better at warning visitors about him, I don’t know what happened.”
Jared grinned and said “No problem,” even though Jensen was sure the lie was written all over his forehead. The truth was, Jensen had been so distracted by Jared’s sweet smile and his delighted laugh and his easy closeness that Jensen had let professionalism fly out the window and entirely forgotten how to do his job.
“I’m terribly sorry,” Jensen said again while Jared tucked his wallet away.
“It’s alright,” Jared said, waving him off. “Your store is amazing. It’s kind of worth coming back to for a closer look.”
“Oh.” Jensen’s smile was quick but real. He loved his shop, despite all the trouble it brought him, and it warmed him to the core whenever someone complimented it. “Do you have any questions about any of the plants?” he asked. There, that was almost smooth. “I’d be happy to answer them for you.”
“Well, since you asked.” Jared waved a hand at the many plants on display. “Do you think you could find something for me? My landlord doesn’t allow pets, but she never said anything about plants.”
Jensen tapped his forefinger against the side of his jaw, allowing himself to take in Jared’s appearance. He tended to recommend the Scandinavian pussy willow to customers looking for a pet substitute, because it was tactile and the purrs were enough to satisfy even the most dedicated cat person. With Jared, however, he found himself reluctant to resort to something so ordinary. And it wasn’t merely that all the rumbling could become impressively annoying at three in the morning - no, he wanted to (and could even admit it to himself) find Jared something special.
“Let’s have a walk around,” he suggested finally.
Jared seemed all too happy to, pausing here and there to look without touching anything. When they passed the yellow vanity cozied up to the greenhouse glass, he hesitated. “What about…?” he asked.
“No, no,” Jensen said, waving him away. “She’s far snooty, trust me. Unless you spend two hours in front of the mirror every morning, the two of you really aren’t going to get along.”
He started walking again, only realizing Jared wasn’t following when the other man laughed.
“You’re one of those people, aren’t you?”
Jensen froze, and blinked, and whatever was showing on his face made Jared laugh again, sheepishly this time.
“I mean, one of those people who try to match up their customers with their best fit, or whatever. Not just whatever’s most expensive.”
Jensen looked down at his hands. “It just feels wrong,” he said. “Selling someone a bad fit just because I’d make a little more money. The customer wouldn’t be happy, and the plant wouldn’t be happy, and,” here, he smiled a little bit, “as you can see, my plants are somewhat important to me.”
“I figured as much,” Jared said, and when Jensen looked up, Jared was smiling at him. “Don’t worry.” He winked at him from underneath the brim of his hat. “I like that in a man.”
Jensen looked away, flustered. “So,” he said quickly. “How did your date go? Well, I hope?”
“Oh.” Jared reached up to finger the back of his head. A flush spread over his cheekbones and quickly disappeared again. “Yeah, it went well.” He turned, and then hesitated, attention caught by the broad-leaved dracaena that had become a permanent staple in the shop when, in a time of gross negligence on Jensen’s part, it had grown too big to fit through the door.
“That is one big plant,” Jared said, awed, and gently stroked over a leaf that was easily twice as big as his hand. The leaf quickly, but gently, folded around his fingers, startling Jared into laughter.
“It likes you,” Jensen concluded. “It’s probably because you’re both so tall,” he said, and promptly blushed.
Jared thankfully didn’t draw attention to Jensen’s bumbling. Instead, he reached out with his free hand to pat the broad trunk, and his grin, when he flashed it at Jensen, was anything but pitying. “I’d adopt it if I thought I could move it,” he confided. He placed his hand on another leaf, grinning again when it achieved the same effect as the first.
“What’s special about this one?” he asked.
“The fact that it likes you,” Jensen said. “Dracaenas are notoriously bad-tempered. It’s had years to get used to me, and still…” He took a step closer, holding out a hand that the dracaena’s leaves instantly shied away from. “Imagine what it might be like if it didn’t.”
“I’m honored,” Jared said earnestly. He took a slow step back. “Wish I could take you, buddy,” he said, then turned away reluctantly. “Any chance you’ve got anything a little less - massive?”
Jensen tilted his head to the side, insight striking him unexpectedly. “How do you feel about books, Jared?”
“Uh.” Jared blinked. “They’re all right, I guess? Nice to read on long train rides.”
Jensen felt his lips curve into a smile. “Then I may just have the perfect plant for you.”
“Now I’m intrigued, I’ll admit it,” Jared said, trailing after Jensen when he beckoned the other man to follow him. He found the parchment sylvatica with ease, picking up the leather-bound book the plant had dug its roots into and holding it up for Jared to see.
“It lives off the paper?”
“And the ink, and the glue,” Jensen said. “It evolved in old libraries, to no one’s surprise. It’s not just bookworms you need to watch out for.”
“Cool,” Jared said happily. “You think we’d get along?”
“I could see it,” Jensen said. And he could - the sylvatica wasn’t particularly high-maintenance, but just peculiar enough to interest someone like Jared, and he’d love for the two of them to find each other.
Jared brushed his fingers across a velvety leaf. “So how does me liking books factor into this?” he asked.
“Well, you need to have some books around, obviously, or she’ll starve.” Jensen reached up to scratch at the back of his head. “But if you’re the kind of person who thinks books are sacred and should never even be taken out of their packaging, then I wouldn’t try to give you a plant that eats them. Naturally.”
“Naturally,” Jared agreed with a laugh.
“She’s a little greedy,” Jensen admitted. “She’s probably going to go through a book a week, although that may vary somewhat depending on how big the book is, and how interesting.”
“Interesting books get devoured faster?” Jared hazarded, and Jensen smiled approvingly at him.
“You got it,” he said.
“Alright,” Jared smiled. “I think you’ve found me a new friend, Mr. Ackles.”
He insisted on paying the full amount, waving off Jensen’s offer of a discount for the missing wallet and cradled both book and plant in the crook of one arm.
“Take care of yourself, Jensen,” he said, waving on his way out the door. He made certain to close it firmly behind him, and from his vantage point, Jensen could see the creeping parvifolium droop dejectedly underneath the display table by the door. The plant’s incessant attempts to escape made it fairly unpopular with the customers, for obvious reasons, so Jensen had had more than enough time to get used to its antics.
He pointed the end of a pen at it. “I’m keeping my eye on you,” he told it.
When he looked over again a few minutes later, halfway through marking down Jared’s purchase, it had slinked away, and Jensen allowed himself a grin before he returned his attention to his paperwork.
~
It seemed that after Jared’s visit, Jensen’s luck held, and the next day brought two of his favorite customers into the shop.
The first time William had come in, Jensen had mistaken him for an extraordinarily tall woman. William had been clinging to the arm of an even taller man in a headache-inducing suit, head turned towards the mockingbird’s shenanigans in the water tank, and it wasn’t until he’d said “Gabe, look!” in what was undoubtedly a man’s voice that Jensen had bitten off the “Sir, Ma’am,” hovering at the top of his tongue and said, “How can I help you, gentlemen?” instead.
He didn’t realize Gabe, the man in the horrific suit, had been making faces back at the mockingbird until he turned to Jensen mid-grimace, cheeks puffed up dramatically. He deflated after a moment.
“I think we’re alright for now,” he said. “Bill?”
“Hmm?” The not-woman turned a surprisingly young face towards Jensen when Gabe tugged him closer. “Oh.” He smiled. One long finger indicated the water tank. “Your plants are lovely,” he said.
“Thank you,” Jensen murmured, flushing. He nodded at the water tank. “It reacts to light,” he said. When William’s eyes widened a little, he smiled. “That’s its primary defense mechanism. It mimics the way the light falls onto your features, creating the illusion of expressions - yours, to be exact. So if it looks like it’s making faces at you, it’s really because you’re making faces at it.”
“That’s amazing,” William had said, and stuck out his tongue experimentally, and laughed in delight when the mockingbird returned the gesture. “Gabe,” he said over his shoulder. “Gabe, we should come back here all the time.”
William had smiled at him then, and Gabe had winked, and they had returned at least once a month since then - always together, always smiling, always utterly absorbed in each other without ever making Jensen feel as though he were intruding. They’d quickly climbed the ranks of Jensen’s favorite customers. He loved it when they came in, loved William’s sweetness and Gabe’s wry indulgence of the former, and he loved spending those quiet afternoons searching through books and magazines for a new friend for them to take home with them, even if he wasn’t sure where they managed to store them all.
They liked simple plants, the pair of them - they always bought them together, so Jensen assumed they also shared a house or an apartment, and they both clearly preferred the clean-cut plants: the somber lilacs, or perhaps the frozen clover, or sometimes the gorgeous mimicry with its clear, lovely voice. Jensen had seen both of them, on separate occasions, shy away from the sweet-smelling honeybell with its sugary leaves, and both frowned unanimously at the yellow vanity. Jensen could appreciate that. He loved all his plants, no matter what their peculiarities were, but he enjoyed people who knew what they wanted without having to resort to rudeness to get it.
Today, William was utterly entranced by the year-long bonsai, small trees existing in a state of all four seasons at once, constantly rotating so that they were simultaneously blossoming, carrying fruit, turning colorful and losing their leaves at any given time.
Gabe’s interest was mildly picqued, it seemed, but only mildly, and he turned away from the display the moment Jensen slid behind the counter.
“So,” he said. He set all ten fingertips onto the wooden surface. “Blow my mind, Jensen. I dare you.”
“I just might,” Jensen said, returning Gabe’s grin. He nodded into the greenhouse. “If you’ll follow me?”
“William?” Gabe asked, but the man in question waved him off.
“You go ahead,” he said. “I’m good here.”
Gabe rolled his eyes fondly, but gestured at Jensen nonetheless. “Lead the way, sir,” he said. “Show me what I’ve been missing.”
Jensen quickly found him the plant he’d stored on the lower level of one of the display tables, lest someone come and claim it for themselves before Gabe could get his hands on it. He set it down on the table’s surface, holding the wide bowl with both hands, and then quickly took a step back.
This particular plant was made up of several different stalks, each green-red in color. They had the appearance of snakes rising from the ground, tongues swirling and flickering in their direction, never hesitating, never settling.
As predicted, Gabe looked utterly delighted. “Oh my.” He lifted his hands up, clearly itching to touch. “And who is this exceptional beauty?”
“It’s a common snakehead,” Jensen said. He’d known it was the right one as soon as he’d seen it in the new Spring edition of Garden Plants for Temperate Regions - it was hard to miss the oversized gold ring shaped like the head of a cobra that sat on Gabe’s middle finger. “Also called Medusa’s grave. The flickering ‘tongues’ attract pollinators.”
Gabe carefully, after a quick glance to Jensen for permission, lifted the pot into the air for a closer look. “Oh man,” he said. “Jensen, this is possibly the greatest plant under the sun.”
“I assume you’ll take it?” Jensen asked, swallowing back a laugh.
“Yes, I’ll take it.” Gabe winked at him. “And I’ll be back for more once I convince William we need one in every room of the house.”
Jensen carried the plant to the counter with him and set about wrapping it up carefully while Gabe dug through his wallet and laid a few bills on the wooden surface.
“It’s been quiet here, hasn’t it?” Gabe asked, letting his gaze sweep over the empty shop.
“Yes, well.” Jensen shrugged. “Not a whole lot of people have been interested in buying flowers lately.”
“People aren’t buying much of anything, these days,” Gabe said, smiling a little.
“I suppose not,” Jensen said, finding himself smiling in return.
After a moment, Gabe added, “You know Pellegrino’s? On Lombard Street? He’s been having these crazy elaborate sales. Signs so big you can read them from a block away.”
Jensen tried to curve his lips into a smile, but it was hard. He just couldn’t compete with Marc’s prices. And if it was just a one-time shopper looking for a thoughtless dinner present, that was one thing, but losing customers he’d known for years - that hurt.
“I’m afraid my shop doesn’t do well enough to allow for those kinds of deals,” he finally said, when Gabe raised an expectant eyebrow. “Your change.”
Gabe pocketed the coins without so much as glancing at them. “Shops that are doing well generally don’t need to hold sales, you know.” He gestured at the snakehead plant in its newspaper wrapping. “Thank you, for this.”
“You’re welcome,” Jensen replied, while Gabe looked around for his companion, still preoccupied with the bonsai.
“William, are you ready to go?”
“In a minute,” William said absently, and Gabe sighed, loud and demonstrative.
“Don’t ever go and fall in love,” he counseled Jensen wisely, with a quick look over his shoulder. William was still poking at the trees, blissfully unaware.
Gabe shook his head mournfully. “It’s not worth it, take my word for it,” he said to Jensen. “You go and give your heart away, and then you rise and fall by someone else’s decree. It’s the world’s most cruel undertaking. Chinese water torture cannot even begin to compare.”
He pushed himself off the counter and raised his voice. “William, my love, are you ready now? Not worth it,” he insisted to Jensen, when William mournfully pulled himself away from the flowerbeds. “You mark my words.”
“Of course,” Jensen said, and handed over the plant wrapped in newspaper, but he privately thought the small smile hovering around Gabe’s mouth made him a liar.
~
In retrospect, Jensen supposed it had to happen. Things had been going well; sales had been good, if not exceptional, even if Jared had not been by again, so Jensen really should have been prepared for something to go wrong. Perhaps not for the hose he kept by his back door to break, or whatever else was to blame for the inches-deep puddle flooding his back room, but he should have at least been ready for some kind of disaster.
Still, disaster had struck, regardless of whether or not Jensen had been expecting it. His worktable and shelves were waterlogged and dark almost up to his knees, the bag of extra-fine soil he kept in the corner turning the liquid into slick, slimy mud. Sighing, Jensen tucked up his slacks at the knees, hoping that might be enough to keep the hems from soaking through, and edged towards the door opening into the drive.
It was the hose, of course it was, but instead of having become leaky like Jensen had expected, it was simply… on. It lay on the ground as if it’d fallen off its hook in the night, but the faucet had most definitely been turned on.
Jensen took a moment to cover his face with his hands, water soaking into his shoes and the socks inside. He was barely making ends meet as it was. A bill covering what could well be twelve hours of unstopping water flow would almost certainly mean cutting out a few meals here and there. Jensen could already hear his aunt’s voice in his head, scolding him for not taking care of himself as if he were still an awkward teenager, living on his own for the first time.
He sighed. There wasn’t really anything he could do about it now, so he reached over the threshold to firmly close the tap and coil the end of the hose carefully around the hook.
He went through the motions of opening the shop that day, mind reeling. He hadn’t even used the hose in days - how had it become undone? He couldn’t imagine it being a simple act of vandalism - yes, sometimes children threw rocks at his windows, but it was always from a safe distance. No one had ever even dared step foot on Jensen’s property, as far as he could tell.
It was just as well he had a delivery of new spider plants that morning to take his mind off of things, or he possibly would have wracked his brain for the rest of the day. He loaded his arms with the pots from the back room to take to the front, not remembering until it was already too late that the door to the shop was fairly heavy and just about impossible to open with both arms full of flowers.
He managed to get his foot into the gap and edged forward, twisting his body to squeeze through after it. He was hot and slightly sweaty and the pot in the crook of his elbow was dangerously close to sliding out of his hold when there was suddenly a hand on the door, pushing it open and allowing him to slip through without losing hold of anything.
His efforts were almost in vain when he finally looked up at his savior and nearly dropped his armful in surprise. “Jared,” he said. His glasses were sliding off his sweat-slick nose, of course, and he could barely see, because the laws of the universe dictated that Jensen look his absolute worst when an attractive man actually returned to his shop.
“Jared,” he said again, schooling his features into the semblance of a smile. “Another date?”
Jared’s smile stiffened somewhat, but Jensen didn’t have time to contemplate what that might mean - he could feel two of the pots slipping from his grasp, and he had to hastily sidestep Jared and let them all drop gently onto the counter before they shattered on the tiles after all. He righted the one that had tipped over onto its side, brushed the loose soil from his hands, and pushed his glasses back into position. Then he conjured up a smile and turned to face Jared, who was still standing by the open door to the storage room.
“Um. Sorry,” Jared said, gesturing at said door with his thumb. “I mean, I’m probably not supposed to be back here, but you looked like you could use some help.”
“It’s much appreciated,” Jensen assured him through the heat rising in his cheeks. “Is there - um. Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Yes, well.” Jared shuffled to the front of the counter, and Jensen noticed for the first time that he had a bundle, wrapped in some sort of fabric, held in the crook of one arm. “I think I might need some help.”
He pulled the cloth down, revealing the plant Jensen had sold him not so very long ago. The parchment sylvatica looked decidedly worse for wear than it had just days ago, long leaves not brown, exactly, but without a doubt limp and drooping.
“What did you do to it, for Heaven’s sake?” Jensen burst out before he could stop himself. He reached out to take it from Jared, which Jared allowed without protest.
“I don’t know,” he said plaintively once the sylvatica was safely cradled Jensen’s arms. “I gave it a book, I gave it water, I gave it sunlight, and somehow it turned into - this!”
He gestured at the sad affair on Jensen’s arm, clearly agitated, though it seemed to be out of frustration rather than anger.
Jensen forced himself to take a calming breath. Whatever it was, Jared was clearly not out to make Jensen’s plants miserable on purpose, which meant that the root of the problem was a misunderstanding, or some sort of accident. And, well, there was really only so much it could be.
“What book did you give her last?” Jensen asked, cradling the flower carefully. It wasn’t a particularly big book, and the roots obscured the tittle, and Jensen wasn’t sure he knew anything that was both short and depressing.
“Romeo and Juliet,” Jared whispered, like just saying the words might make the flower even worse.
When Jensen raised his eyebrows in disbelief, Jared’s shoulders settled into a defensive slouch.
“I thought she might like the language,” he said.
Jensen petted one of the drooping leaves. “It’s a good thought, but try to stay away from anything too depressing,” he warned. “Or too sappy, or you’re going to be vacuuming away flower petals for weeks.” He moved behind the counter and used his free hand to grope around on the top shelf for something neutral for the sylvatica to latch onto. “Hm,” he said, lifting up the biggest thing he could fit his fingers around. “Phone book?” he asked the plant. “How’s that sound? Something nice and factual after all that drama?”
One root twitched weakly towards the paper.
“Alright then.” Jensen let the book drop onto the counter with a thud and set the plant down next to it. He offered Jared a reassuring smile. “Would you like to help?” he asked.
Jared did, and though he had to ball his hands into fists to keep from intervening, Jensen let him do the majority of the work. He was going to have to learn to do it eventually, if he didn’t grow frustrated and return it. Which, Jensen had to admit, was not all that likely - Jared was obviously concerned enough to return for advice, and to his credit, he was more than careful in transferring the plant, movements slow and controlled.
“Just like that - good,” Jensen said.
Jared smiled up at him for a moment before he focused on the plant once more. It wasn’t long before the sylvatica had a new, less heart-wrenching new home, and Jensen gave the stem a light stroke.
“Go with adventure stories if you’ve got them,” he said to Jared. “Robert Louis Stevenson, maybe some Mark Twain. Make sure it has a happy ending.”
“Yes, sir,” Jared murmured, ducking his head again. He held out his arms for the flower, and Jensen gently deposited it into them. “I’ll take excellent care of her, I promise.”
“I’m sure you will,” Jensen said, a little surprised to find it was the truth. “Better luck next time.”
“Thank you kindly,” Jared said, shifting to tip his cap, the other arm tucked firmly around the flower and the phone book. “I’ll see you soon, Jensen.”
“Do come back,” Jensen said immediately. “I’ll look forward to it.”
“That’s what a guy likes to hear,” Jared said, grinning. He laughed when Jensen flushed, but not meanly - fondly, perhaps, friendly and warm. “Until next time.” He smiled brilliantly and turned to go, pausing to hold open the door for Lindsey, who was just on her way in. “Ma’am,” he said, and then he was gone, pulling the door firmly shut behind him.
Lindsey’s smile, when she turned to face Jensen, was wicked. “And who was that handsome gentleman?” she asked, expression promising all sorts of teasing to come in the future.
“Just a customer,” Jensen said, looking down.
“’Just’ customers never have you blushing like that,” Lindsey pointed out. “Admit it - you think he’s cute.”
“I don’t see what that has to do with anything.” Jensen crumpled the rest of the newspaper into a ball and turned stiffly away to drop it into the wastebasket. “He came in for help. Apparently I was neglectful in telling him everything he needed to know to properly care for his new plant.”
Lindsey laughed. “’Neglectful,’ huh?”
“Lindsey,” Jensen chided. “I would never let a plant suffer like that, you know that.”
That did not mean he hadn’t been hoping. It wasn’t uncommon for first-time owners of unusual plants to come in a second time, sometimes to ask for more information or - more often - to return them and request a refund. Many people underestimated how much work the proper care for a plant, especially ones as diverse as the ones for sale in Jensen’s shop, would actually be. Like children with a kitten or puppy, they focused on the flashy, impressive characteristics and entirely overlooked the fact that plants were living, functioning organisms and often needed dedicated care.
But he’d gotten his wish. Jared had returned to the shop, and even seemed open to the idea of coming back again, and that was really all Jensen could ask for.
Part 2