fandomtownies | Covent Garden Flowers, Tuesday

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Covent Garden Flowers, Tuesday

Nathan's shift was actually going well today, for the most part. Sure, it was busy, but half the reason he worked here was in order to keep from going out of his mind doing nothing at all. He didn't care much about a little extra business around the holidays.

In fact, his way was going great until the customer who had called last week asking about sex toy bouquets came in with their... arsenal, really. Nathan couldn't think of a better word for it. It was an armload, full of things with functions he couldn't even begin to guess at. And he would have been happy to leave it at that, to set those things out of the way and leave the arranging to Peter, except that the customer was adamant on going over potential arrangements with him, right then and there.

Nathan was learning things. Things he had never actually been terribly interested in learning about this century in the first place.

"And then if you can somehow get the flogger behind it all, kind of framing the whole bouquet? Oh! And try to find extra thorny roses!"

Nathan smiled. And nodded. And took very thorough notes. All the while dying a little on the inside.

[OOC: Open!]

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Octavia wandered in during her walk. Then stopped at the door, raising an eyebrow.

Maybe having to work with the teddy bear last week wasn't so bad after all. Not because sex toys were worse than that - she couldn't have cared less about the distinction - but because this case seemed to involve actually interacting with a customer. Face-to-face, and at length. Ew.

But hey, maybe the appearance of a moderately surly person in warrior leathers would make this person get a little more concise with their instructions?

"So you want the... leather cuffs... around an entire bouquet of roses?"

"An entire bouquet of roses, each with one dild-- oh!"

The customer had just noticed the moderately surly person, yes. And was taking a moment to actually look over the warrior leathers appreciatively before clapping their hands together.

"Inspiration! Keep those notes, actually, but I'll be back with more!"

And with that, the customer ran back out the door, past Octavia, leaving Nathan standing there looking... perplexed. Perplexed was a good word for it.

"Oh thank god."

Octavia glanced after the leaving person, then gave a soft snort, before making her way into the store instead of just hanging in the doorway looking judgmental.

Idly eyeing the -- everything the customer had left behind, before looking up at Nathan again.

"What was that about?"

Nathan just barely resisted the urge to bury his face in his hand.

"A customer with very, uh, specific requirements for their Valentine's bouquet. Which I think at this point is more of a gift basket."

With a very particular sort of theme that his somewhat Victorian brain was having difficulty processing.

"Maybe they would've been better off at... what's that place called? 'Dites's?"

She shrugges, eyeing the pile. One eyebrow just barely raised.

"I'm definitely seeing more of their stuff than what's coming from here." She guessed. There were things here she wasn't that familiar with (okay, familiar was probably too strong a word for any of it), but enough ones that she remembered from that time Kathy had shown her around.

"I tried suggesting as much," Nathan sighed, "but they insisted that this was an art form, and that we probably had more experience in that area than they did over at Dite's."

And for some reason, this customer kept calling or showing up for his shift. God save him.

Octavia hoped they continued to stay away from hers, truth be told.

"Well, good luck with that," she said. On the dry side, but, what else would it have been? "I just had to deal with some stuffed children's toy last week."

"I could probably handle the stuffed toy," Nathan decided. "I think I'm actually jealous, right now."

And dreading whatever horrors people were going to dredge up on his shift next week, the day before the actual holiday.

"The stuffed toy didn't arrive with an overly-eager person attached to it," Octavia agreed. "I'd offer to trade assignments, but I really don't want to."

For a second there, she looked genuinely amused.

"Although I liked the talk about leather cuffs, that sounded promising." Probably not the way she would've preferred, though.

To Nathan's credit, he didn't make the rather strangled noise of protest that he very dearly wanted to.

"Promising?"

"If they'd been talking about leather cuffs as in armor," Octavia clarified. Because she was nice like that.

"I get the feeling they weren't, though." Just a hunch.

"They most certainly weren't," Nathan confirmed, grimacing. "There was a very detailed explanation about how the cuffs worked with nylon rope..."

And THAT was about all the detail he was going to give about that. If she was curious, he'd just hand her his notes.

Too bad Octavia was curious about a lot of things, just in general. Whether she chose to show it or not.

This time, she did. "Okay, I don't know what rope has to do with it."

And this, Nathan realized, was what it felt like to have one's soul die a little bit. Good to know.

"... With intimate relations?"

Look, that was about as close to just out and saying 'sex' as Nathan had worked himself up to, just yet.

Octavia had no such problem.

"I would've said sex, but yeah," she said, shrugging. "There wasn't much rope involved, where I'm from."

Although her experience was limited. And also there'd been so many more pressing issues to worry about.

Nathan sighed. He was stuck for this conversation, wasn't he?

"I suppose some people enjoy slightly more... creative methods of doing certain things than others," he offered. "And for some people, that involves... much of what's set out, here."

Including rope.

"That doesn't actually clear anything up," Octavia replied with a little shake of her head. Although at least she'd fashioned an assumption of her own - even if she couldn't really see the fun in it.

But shed already accepted the fact that a lot of things here in this time and place were just going to leave her with more questions.

Anyway. "Also, if it's uncomfortable to talk about, just say so." Because she was curious, not oblivious.

Edited 2018-02-06 18:03 (UTC)

Nathan blew out a little breath at that, looking vaguely relieved.

"Of course," he replied, and then paused and added, "thank you. It's not the sort of conversation I often find myself having."

Sure, he was familiar with sex. It wasn't as though he'd never had it before, after all. Hell, he enjoyed it. But a more modern concept of kink?

Well. That did weird things to his head that he couldn't quite translate into words.

Octavia shrugged once more.

"Is it a culture thing, or just personal preference?"

The not finding himself talking about it often. She'd definitely moved on from the rope. That was what the internet was for, anyway.

"A culture thing," Nathan supplied, because explaining his reasons why was far easier for him, yes. "Of course we acknoweldged and enjoyed," he gave his head a little nod of acknowledgment as he said, "sex, in my era. But a lot of how we approached the subject was a matter of propriety. It just wasn't spoken about, not without heavy metaphor."

He allowed himself a faint moment of wry amusement.

"Often involving flowers, actually. Adjusting to just how candid people are about the topic in this era has been something of a work in progress."

"I can't imagine that," Octavia admitted. "I don't know how it was up on the Ark --" Not that Nathan was likely to know what the Ark even was, in this case. "-- but down on the ground?"

She shrugged again.

"We had little time for talking about it. Even less for being weird or coy about it."

Nathan nodded a little.

"Even in this day and age, a lot of people are loathe to discuss it openly. But the ones who do talk about it..." He shrugged and looked faintly awkward as he looked back at the pile of... paraphernalia. "Well, they're quite vocal about it, apparently."

Octavia also glanced down. Without the awkward, even if that was a whol lot of stuff she didn't fully understand the uses of. Then she looked back up. "When's this holiday again?"

At some point, someone was going to give her a calendar.

"Soon, right? So they'll stop with the love and sex theme for a while." She was more of a fan of one than the other.

"Next week Wednesday," Nathan replied. "Eight days from now. And then, hopefully, that will be the end of it. No telling what the next holidays will bring, mind. There's Easter after that. That one is bound to involve quite a few lilies."

"I still don't want to know what Easter is." 'Still' because it had come up with Peter, too. "One unnecessary holiday at a time, thanks."

"Fair enough," Nathan replied, grinning a little. "We can cover Easter when Easter starts becoming relevant."

"Good." She should've sounded joking, maybe. But she didn't, so, severe it was. "We only had Unity Day, on the Ark. And I never liked that one, either."

Although there were some especially terrible circumstances at play, there.

"I'll deal with them as they come up."

"There are a few more minor ones along the way," Nathan noted, "though I don't think they're exactly occasion for flowers, so I doubt they'll be especially relevant. In the meantime, we can worry about getting through this one."

This. Damn. Holiday.

"I could come by next week, if you want," Octavia offered after a pause, lightly. For her. "In case that one person comes back. I don't really care what details people decide to tell me about their lives."

One of the few benefits of her weird upbringing.

"I could figure out the arrangement."

And yes, she'd said differently before, but... She'd reconsidered. So might as well offer.

Nathan paused for a moment, himself. He didn't know Octavia well, but he thought he knew well enough to be pleasantly surprised by that offer.

"I wouldn't say no," he admitted. "Especially because I'm certain I'll have my hands full with all of the other orders there will be to fill. The holiday is the very next day, after all."

Octavia shrugged. "Then I'll come over." And that was that.

She was nothing if not straightforward, after all.

And at that, Nathan smiled. He could appreciate straightforward.

"I appreciate it. Thank you."

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Covent Garden Flowers, Tuesday

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