fandomtownies | Covent Garden Flowers; Tuesday [02/11].

Again, just like yesterday, Astrid had thought about just escaping with her own thoughts in the suspended reality that was just floating around the pool for hours and just skipping work, but then she figured....Valentine's Day as at the the end of the week, there were tons of orders, she would probably lose all the good credibility with her boss that she'd gained by being so compliant about the tea and the gloves by leaving them high and dry during one of their busiest times, and maybe working on the orders would be a good distraction.

And, again, just like yesterday, she'd regretted her choice. She supposed she could still back out, but she was already here, and so she might as well at least try to focus on some work so she didn't just lose her job or whatever over a week like this.

Try being the opperative word, because it was hard to make bouquets and arrangements of things like roses and carnations when almost all the flowers in the shop seemed to have transformed into clitoria, red calla lilies, hydnora Africana, and other such blooms.

And she knew...she just knew...working with them and trying to wrangle them into arrangements that didn't just look like a bouquet of private parts, she could already feel it, that this was going to lead her very much into what could only be considered her Georgia O'Keeffe phase as soon as she was out of here.

Covent Garden is open!

[[links are TECHNICALLY SFW, but, you know, nature's kind of a freak, y'all. ]]

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Sabine found it was better to not be cooped up too long, because that was when she tended to settle on drawing and... no. That was best not done right now.

So instead she was going to the warehouse to work things out relatively that way (not dirty) (probably?) (listen...) and decided, for some reason, to stop by with coffee.

"You look, um. Busy."

Astrid looked up from an arrangement that involved an unfortunate amount of small Titan arums in it at the sound of a voice.

"Sabine!"

And then almost immediately forgot, for a second, how words worked. It was bad enough to have her just come waltzing into the shop when she'd generally been trying to avoid getting in her way, but to have it when the was leaning all too heavily on a certain theme, and she could barely even get any sleep last night, impossible as it was to avoid thinking about the person on the other side of the room...

But instead of just staring gawkishly at her roommate, she tried to muster up something. Anything.

"Um."

Not a great start.

"Well," she then managed, "it is the week of Valentine's Day..."

"Seems like," Sabine said, trying not to look too closely at any of those flowers after that initial glance. "I, Uh, brought coffee."

In case anyone needed to be more jittery!

"Oh," said Astrid, who, for a moment, felt her brain doing a somersault over reasons why Sabine would bring coffee, none of which were making her feel any less discombobulated. "Uh, thanks..."

It sounded so off and stilted coming out of her mouth that she was pretty sure it just came off as rude or ungrateful, which she didn't mean, at all, and now there was a flurry to find something to make up for it.

"I guess you probably don't want tea, then," she said, with a smile that was too nervous to pull off the wryness she was going for, with a little gesture toward the teapot. An attempt at a joke.

A joke she realized that Sabine might not even get.

"We're....supposed to serve tea to customers," she offered, lamely.

"Do you have to if I don't buy anything?" Sabine checked, setting the other coffee down for her.

And not thinking she was cute when she was flustered.

"I mean," Astrid shrugged a little, her eyes lingering over at the teapot as if expecting to find the answer there, but, really, it was the only place she could think to look that wasn't Sabine or suggestive flowers, "if you don't buy anything, then you're not a customer, so I guess not."

But if she wasn't buying anything, why was she here? Just to bring her coffee? Why would she bring her coffee? She couldn't have come to actually see her, Sabine was probably sick of seeing her...

"Thanks, though," said Astrid, who then flinched slightly over the fact that she'd already said that, and went to reach for the coffee in hopes to cover it.

"For the coffee."

Obviously, Astrid, good job.

"No problem. I was just headed to the warehouse. Figured it was a good time to set off some small and controlled explosions."

Not dirty.

"I thought I'd stop by."

"Oh." Astrid's hands cupped around the coffee and she looked down at it, but it wasn't enough to make her hair fall over her face to cover what she was pretty sure was a blush. But she smiled a little, thinking maybe she'd been wrong, maybe this whole time Sabine had actually been glad she was back, maybe she...

She shook her head slightly against those thoughts, which would make tonight probably even worse than last night had been.

"That sounds like fun."

She almost wanted to ask if Sabine could set off one of those small and controlled explosions here in the flower shop, so that Astrid wouldn't have to be there and could maybe join her, but suggesting your roommate commit a potential felony on your behalf was a bit forward.

Yeah. Sabine knew too many pretty blondes.

"Do you want to come?" she said, regretting that choice of words immediately. ""For a break? It's cathartic."

Well. There was a solution that didn't involve blowing up her place of work. She could just come with Sabine.

Astrid was incredibly glad that she had always had a good control over keeping thoughts in the brain, and she gave a rueful look at all the flowers that looked like something alse and the very long stack of orders that needed to get done by Friday.

"God, yes," she said, in a way that sounded like all those thoughts she'd been keeping inside tried to rush out all at once. Because, in a way, they almost had.

That was the most enthusiastic Sabine had heard her sound about anything since she'd come back, and she found herself smiling even outside of all this.

"When can you get away?"

It was almost the most enthusiastic she'd felt about anything since she'd come back, even outside of all this, and, to her surprise, it wasn't swiftly followed by a reaction that filled her with a doubt so immense it immediately crushed it. So when Sabine responded with a smile like that, Astrid couldn't help smiling back.

"Probably whenever," she said, in an attempt to not sound too desperate. "I really don't think anyone would even notice."

Except maybe her coworkers left picking up her slack, but she didn't know any of them except the boss, so that wasn't much of a concern at all.

Covent Garden Flowers; Tuesday [02/11].

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