fandomtownies | Covent Garden Flowers, Sunday

Up all night traipsing through memory Hell and trying to shake it off, huh, Peter?

The management was very nearly actually sorry for this, then. Because Jono wasn't feeling the wrappings today, and he had errands to run, and if one of those errands happened to involve stopping here to see what sort of stock you carried, well...

//Huh. There really is a flower shop here again. Good to know.//

Peter looked up from his latest bouquet and blinked, freezing just a little at the memories the fire brought up.

He eyed the...man?...in the doorway a bit warily for a moment, but tried to relax when he realized no violence was forthcoming. Sparkle had said his ex-boss was a demon, too, after all.

And he'd been standing here not saying anything, which probably wasn't the right response. "Yeah. I...Um. Tried to clean it up and somehow bought it." What came next? "Can I help you?"

Yeah, standing there and saying nothing while staring at the man on fire was generally not the right response. That said, Jono was used to it. And fairly good at ignoring it, too. Or at least filing it away for later.

It was better than trying to kill him or put him out, after all.

//That,// he said easily, //depends in entirely on whether or not you do arrangements, and how quickly you can put an order together if you do.//

He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a list, holding it out toward the man.

//... I realize that this is short notice,// he added, a touch sheepishly. //If it isn't doable, I entirely understand. It's a touch ambitious for less than a week.//

A touch.

Peter came over and took the note. He was still a bit on his guard, but that was as much his current mood as anything. He frowned at it for a moment. "I think I can get most of these flowers. I'll have to check a few, though. My arrangements are..." he shrugged and gestured at the ones sitting around the shop. "You tell me?"

They probably weren't exactly traditional, being more about what Peter wanted at any particular time, and what mood they put him in. He wasn't exactly trained in all this. He thought they looked good, but what did he know?

//Ah...// Jono looked around the shop, and then shrugged his shoulders, too. //What I know about flower arranging could be written down in a matchbook. It was just my turn to get flowers for the next wedding, after the last two attempts went... not well.//

There was a whole lot of ranting in there, somewhere. He was just working up to it.

//Frankly, so long as the flowers are the right colours and haven't wilted, I'm not as inclined to care as I would've been back on attempt one. My fiance may or may not disagree, but isn't here talking to you at the moment, so...//

Shrug.

"Oh. I'm sorry?" It seemed the right thing to say. Peter went over to the computer and started trying to look up the flowers. "So the colors are white and...yellow?" He could figure out that much, at least.

//Right,// Jono agreed. //Though I suppose officially we're calling it 'saffron.'//

These were things he never used to care about. They were also things be was becoming less inclined to nitpick the more wedding attempts they made.

//And we're balancing it out with black and silver. If you have anything like that at all.//

Peter made a note about the saffron distinction.

"I can get a few..." Peter paused his search to look for the book he'd found them in and turned to the right page. "I don't think there are any natural silver ones, but I can put in a ribbon or some painted flowers if you want."

//Ribbon'll do,// Jono replied with a shrug. //Whatever's easiest. Like I said... short notice. We're aiming for, er, Thursday.//

Odd day for a wedding, but he and Hannibal had given up on trusting weekends.

//Hell, if I didn't think my partner would take exception to it, I'd suggest just bringing in silk flowers for the occasion. Just in case.//

Jonothon Starsmore: Pessimist.

Peter nodded. He looked up a few more flowers, then, awkward in the silence, offered, "I'm Peter, by the way. Peter Octavian."

//Good to meet you, Peter,// Jono replied, amiably. //I'm Jonothon Starsmore. Jono to my mates.//

... Mates in a British sense. Not a scientific one.

//I take it you're fairly new to the island?//

The staring had been his first clue.

"I've been here..." The exact dates were eluding him at the moment. "Since the cheese planet?"

Jono's nose wrinkled a little at the reminder of that place.

//Oh, lord. We fled the island for a week when it stopped at that one.// And for his birthday. //My sense of smell isn't what it used to be, but my partner makes up for that one in spades.//

Logan had competition in the freakishly honed sense of smell department, there.

//That would've been late July. So, nearly a month. Long enough to know first-hand that it's weird, not long enough to know first-hand that it's dangerous.//

"Dangerous?" Peter asked, frowning. "I've had people mention things. I wasn't sure how serious it was."

It was probably still better than Hell?

Jono shrugged.

//It varies,// he admitted. //People have been pulled from here into other realities or timelines, in the past. If you ever find yourself in a place called Silent Hill, for example, watch your bloody back when the sirens start.//

He shrugged.

//And if you ever see a woman in too much pink by the name of Dolores Umbridge... unless you get a clean shot right off the bat, get the hell off the island and don't look back. Still, I suppose her breaking time and imprisoning or brainwashing half the island's inhabitants wasn't all that serious compared to when reality itself started being devoured into nothingness...//

God, there were stories, here. Jono had been around the island for far too bloody long, apparently. He shrugged.

//Dangerous. We usually deal with it, though.//

"Usually?" Peter wasn't looking up flowers anymore. He was wondering how fast he could push himself to learn enough magic to leave. Being pulled somewhere else and imprisoned and brainwashed sounded a bit too close for comfort.

His hands were clenched into fists at his sides as he instinctively backed toward a wall. They were also sparking faintly green.

Oh, Jono caught that faint green sparkle, just as much as he caught that flare of anxiety spiking up from the man in front of him.

... Shite. Here he went, being bad for the newbies. He held up both hands in a placating gesture, and then, after a brief moment of hesitation, sent a soft pulse of reassurance his way. Nothing manipulative, nothing meant to actually mess with what was going on upstairs. Just understanding, and an offer of calm, like a reassuring hand on the shoulder.

//Usually. Sometimes, it gets dealt with for us,// he said, carefully. //But we always come out the other end. It's one of the reasons people who have the option choose to stay here. No matter how difficult things get, even if the odds are utterly stacked against us, we come out the other side intact.//

Peter felt that reassurance, and he didn't know quite what it was, but he grabbed onto it tightly. Coming out intact didn't sound so bad. He could handle that. Had handled it for a thousand years.

He forced his hands to unclench, forced the magic back down, and nodded jerkily. He wasn't sure what to say. He didn't want to go through that again? True, but it held the edge of panic he didn't want to give in to. He realized he'd stopped breathing and started again, forced himself to take in air, to breathe deeply.

He focused onto the one real difference he'd heard in that from Hell. "People stay? They want to?"

//I wanted to,// Jono agreed, giving Peter full access to whatever calm he needed to take, an open psionic reserve of peace and reassurance, if he felt like he needed it. //My fiance wanted to. No small number of the students at the school wanted to. For as dangerous as this place can be, there are... balances. There are things that make this place more of a home for us than home ever managed to be. And we have something we didn't have, where we came from.//

Ugh, he was going to sound like some kind of after school special, here. But what the hell.

//We have one another.//

Ugh. Just listen to him, here.

Cliche it might be, but it was genuinely reassuring, as was the...whatever Jono was letting him feel, Peter realized. He sank to the stool behind the counter, sighing. "Sorry."

Jono crossed his arms over his... gaping chest wound... and lifted his shoulders dismissively.

//For what? Being rightfully terrified when a man on fire tells you that reality turns itself inside-out here on occasion? Seems to me like I'm the one who ought to be giving apologies for that one, mate.//

Peter smiled weakly. "I'm...I have...experience. With some of that." He rubbed his hands on his jeans, centering himself. He'd have to get better at that if he didn't want to go mad again.

He took another deep breath, then deliberately stilled himself inside and out, not moving or breathing for a long moment.

Jono watched that with a faint bit of curiosity, sitting quietly, letting the man have his moment.

When that moment was through, he'd find Jono standing there with his head tilted a little, a slightly worried crease in his brow.

//Which parts? I might be able to help put you a little more at ease, if you like.//

"I spent a long time in Hell," Peter said, looking more at the pencil on the counter than Jono. "A portal nearly pulled me back there."

//Ah...// Jono glanced down at himself, and then winced a little. Right. That explained a fair bit, right there.

That was maybe the... third? Fourth strangest explanation for trauma that Jono had heard since coming to Fandom.

//For what it's worth, as far as I'm aware, we've never been pulled to Hell itself before. Other places entirely, or alternate versions of Fandom. But never anything so dire as Hell.//

Actually, Hades had done that. But that was years before Jono's time. Probably for the best that he wasn't aware, for this conversation.

"That's good." Peter nodded and offered Jono as much of a smile as he could. "You said...brainwashing and imprisoning?"

//Yes, but not at the same time.// He hiked his shoulders up in a shrug. //Umbridge really was an exception. She imprisoned anybody who wouldn't swear loyalty to her or who couldn't have their heads overwritten. Called it 'detention,' and ruled the island from the school as some sort of grand matriarch of insanity.//

He paused, and then added, //I believe she's dead now.//

Which was the most reassuring thing he could come up with, on that matter.

Edited 2016-08-22 02:45 (UTC)

"That's...good." Peter was pretty sure that if he hadn't caved in all his time in Hell, nobody else could brainwash him, but he'd make an effort to strengthen those defenses anyway.

The computer popped up a window asking if he was still there, and he clicked it absently.

"Can I ask..." Peter had thought Jono was some sort of demon or hybrid, but he'd said he was a man on fire. "Are you naturally like that, or were you injured? Did it happen here?" It'd be nice to know what he was in for.

//I...// Jono glanced down at himself again, and then shifted his weight from one foot to the other, restlessly. //It didn't happen here, no. This whole mess is something fairly unique to my home reality, I think. I'm human... more or less. This is natural to me, but it was an injury, too. It's, ah, a bit complicated.//

Peter nodded. He didn't really understand it all, but...Jono didn't seem worried by it, and it hadn't happened here, and that was about the best that he could hope for right now.

"Okay."

There was another awkward silence, which Peter ended by focusing on the flowers again. "The skeleton flowers are kind of rare, but the others should be okay. If I can't find those, I'll get something else lacy."

//Just so long as it isn't baby's breath,// Jono replied, thankful to be off the subject of his fire for the time being. //Neither of us are baby's breath people, I swear.//

Pureness and innocence? Really?

"No baby's breath." Peter made a note of it.

"Do you want to see a few first, or should I just deliver them somewhere?"

//Just deliver them along to the Boards,// Jono decided, trying to be as accommodating as possible, considering the heinously short notice. //I'll trust your judgment.//

A little smile crinkled his face at the corners of his eyes.

//No pressure, right?//

Peter huffed a laugh. "No pressure. Don't worry, I'll do my best."

Covent Garden Flowers, Sunday

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