Chapter Text
Flowers are easy. They don’t complain, they don’t protest, they don’t fight against what you do with them. Just put a bunch of these… weird green roots… a few tulips, or roses, or whatever together, fluff it up, decorate it, decorate it some more, wrap it in paper or a net and voila! A bouquet’s ready!
Oh, his customers’ reactions were often interesting. They watched with a mix of disbelief and unhealthy fascination as he worked. He had heard uncountable times: “Why are the flowers burnt?” or “Are all those blades necessary?”, but usually one dour look shooed them away. Yet, all of them paid. His shifts were the busiest and made the biggest income. He hadn’t even been working at this place for two months when he started receiving piles upon piles of commissions. A wedding bouquet for a couple of knife nuts. Funeral wreaths with special requests for as many metal shards and blood stains on them as they could accommodate. And the last one: decorations for some asshat right-wing politician. Combination of red roses and bewilderingly realistic toy firearms. Hadn’t that guy’s note been so enraging, it would be a pleasant work. But the note was enclosed and he already felt the temperature rising around him.
He was even somewhat grateful when a customer interrupted him melting one of the plastic guns and sticking a stem into it. Any positive feelings evaporated as he started preparing his bouquet.
“Make it cold resistant” the customer said first. So he did.
“Can it be simpler? I don’t want anyone to cut themselves.” So he removed a dagger.
Still, the customer’s eyes grew bigger and bigger, brighter and brighter. Pretty noticeable when someone’s eyes blow bright blue, and the rest of their face is covered with a huge scarf and a hood. Even masked, the man vibrated with disgust. The scarf was draped on the man’s coat, letting the florist see only part of the writing crossing it. “Sub-Zero”. So Sub-Zero he would be.
“What’s so disgusting, huh?” the florist grumbled under his breath. The customer stood up a bit straighter, and his voice grew huskier.
“Nothing” he replied icily. “Just… uhm… can you remove that scorpion sting?”
“No.”
“For Elder Gods’ sake,” the customer snapped, “I want to woo that girl, not to poison her or stab her until she stops moving! Forget it, Scorpion!”. Next thing the florist registered, there was no Sub-Zero or Over-Thousand in the shop, just a solid ice statue of the ex-customer. The real man’s figure reflected in another building’s window, hurrying away.
The florist knocked the statue down and it immediately crumbled. He swore loudly. He hadn’t been that insulted since that morning.
When he sat down to finish the guns and roses deco for the campaign rally in that day’s evening, he reminded himself that note, attached by a the politician himself. “A good old rock’n’roll vibe, especially for my good American voters! Don’t try to get it, man, you’re too nip to get it!”. The only missing thing was a “hur-dur” written underneath, alongside with a signature. Oh, fuck you, Mr. Put-a-gun-in-my-ass-and-tell-me-you’re-Sonya-Blade. Fuck you, you Subby loser as well. Fuck this shit –
The florist built himself up so much that it was not the smoke or the flickering flames, but the fire alarm that woke him up. The interior was burning. He swore even more hideously than before and grabbed a fire extinguisher. Soon, the whole shop was covered with a thick layer of foam. The flames still danced around his arms, around his hands. He tried to call them out as he calculated the collateral damage.
Most of the flowers – both planted and cut – were at least singed. All wreaths and prepared bouquets– lost. The entire commission for the campaign rally – completely ruined. The shop’s interior - burned. Then he looked at the ceiling and said the longest set of curses he had ever thought up.
He was doomed.