(Untitled)

[before_w]

June is a good month for roses.

V has set an armful of them on the table, and is carefully examining each one before setting it aside, gingerly, more for fear of hurting the rose than from being scratched by the thorns.

His gloves are thick, anyway.

Comments

[_to_the_bone]

"Red roses are supposed to mean true love" says Jack from a nearby booth, leaning over the back of the seat and smiling.

"Are you courting? Or are you a botanist?"

[before_w]

"I do have an interest in the sciences, but I grow these more for a lady."

Or three. One for someone he never met, one for a lady with bone white skin, and one for the lady with blind eyes.

[_to_the_bone]

"They are lovely."

He sets his chin on folded hands.

"She will appreciate them, I hope."

[before_w]

"She will never see them, in all probability," he says cheerfully from behind the mask, "but I grow them for her anyway. Those who will receive them--well, perhaps some will appreciate their beauty."

[bloody_awful]

"She loves me, she loves me not?" says the bloke in the rumpled trench coat at the end of the bar.

[before_w]

"She is fickle with her affections," V agrees, dropping one rose that bugs have gotten to apart from the others.

"But I intend to woo her back, if at all possible."

[bloody_awful]

"Luck to you, mate," he says, glancing over at the kohl-eyed girl at the end of the bar. "We all need all the luck we can get."

[before_w]

He glances--

and stops, for a moment.

"You know milady, then."

[last1out]

She sees him, and grins. And waves a bit.

[before_w]

The mask always smiles.

But V smiles now, and approaches, offering her one perfect rose with a slight bow.

"Milady Tomato."

[hands_unclean]

Thane of Fife had a wife... who is at present studying the fellow in the mask. And his roses. They are a lovely sort of flower, for what they're worth.

"How many are your blooms?" asks Lady Macbeth, trying to see behind the eye holes.

[_queue_]

"Another one-letter nom de guerre," comes a sardonic voice that hadn't been there a moment before.