I'll Bring Flowers

[Flame]

"I'll be fine," Aidan gasps, waving off Esprit's concern and gamely trying to put on a smile. "Just… just pushed too much." Leann would be fussing were she here, the way she always fusses when he gives himself an attack. But he's being a little disingenuous; this time, it came on much too suddenly. The rain has a large part in it, he's sure, though he isn't sure why. He can't remember if the rain has always bothered him this way or if it's a recent development like his nightmares.

Esprit crouching that way reminds him of the nightmares. Something gaunt, stark, watching him from the dark with gleaming predator's eyes. Hating him. He almost remembers bright colours, bright like tropical flowers, like poison, and low, low whispers. But that was the muggers, he thinks, and their patchwork car of ill-matched panels. Wasn't it?

"I'm sorry," he tells Esprit, clutching his head to ward off the stabbing pain behind his temples. It's like some awful thing he doesn't want to remember is clawing at the inside of his skull, clamoring for his attention, demanding that he recognise it. He starts shaking. "Please… come back tomorrow. I'll see to your order tomorrow."

[Spinister]

"You don't need me to call you an ambulance?" Esprit asks.

She draws herself up to her full height, and she is not short.

"All right." Esprit doesn't know how florists actually operate, so she simply accepts this as reasonable.

[Flame]

Aidan keeps his eyes firmly on the countertop, unwilling to look up lest his eyes start playing tricks with him. He muffles a particularly violent, racking cough in one hand and tries to force a smile to his face as he waves Esprit toward the door with the other hand.

"No, no, I'll be fine," he wheezes again. He feels fairly sure he won't pass out and largely, he's mortified at this happening in front of a customer. He makes a show of pulling in deep, rasping breaths that balloon his thin chest. He doesn't try to get up any time soon, however, whether or not Esprit actually takes her leave.

[Spinister]

Esprit does depart out the door to a spot where she can watch Aidan without being seen and later depart, so that she can covertly make sure that he isn't going to pass out on the floor. If he does pass out on the floor, she's calling 911.

Another thought strikes her, He's afraid of me, which is curious.

These humans really don't know any better yet. How did he know?

[Flame]

It's a few minutes more of wheezing for air before Aidan composes himself and stands unsteadily, leaning on the counter for support and wobbling the first few steps. He might look diminished to his hidden observer, as if that fit has drained a good deal of his reserves; he shakes and he's paler than before. Nevertheless, he goes about his work as best he can, movements slow and careful. He doesn't try to pick up as many flowerpots as he would at any ordinary time; he doesn't trust his twitching hands.

Aidan finds himself selecting flowers for Esprit's order almost automatically, taking refuge in the work lest his mind stray to those dark places. He doesn't make up the bouquet yet, but he marks the flowers he'll use with little coloured paper tags. He blinks when he realises he's using a garish bright pink and isn't sure why.

Then those whispers come to mind again, low, sinister, sending dread chills up his spine. He shivers even though it isn't cold in his shop at all and decides he'll close early. He needs rest, that's all – that must be it. He hurries through the closing duties and hand-writes a sign for the door: Sorry for the inconvenience. Open normal time tomorrow. Then he throws on his slicker, locks the doors, and bundles himself under the orange material as best he can – only his face and the thin hands clutching his yellow umbrella like a lifeline are visible – before venturing into the rain with a haunted look on his face, red rain boots squelching amid the puddles. He checks over his shoulders repeatedly as he walks, nagged by the awful sense that he's being watched from the shadowy places he can't quite see without knowing why.

---

OOC: Carry on a bit or timeskip to the next day, or option-I-can't-think-of?

[Spinister]

The next day...

Esprit returns at much the same time as yesterday. She is coolly expressionless and unreadable and very quiet as she enters the shop. It might even seem like she appeared out of nowhere.

[Flame]

Aidan is considerably improved since Esprit saw him last, though there's still the occasional tremor in his fingers as he works. He's mostly finished with her order, in fact, just fussing over the placement of the bramble amid the slipper orchids, and he smiles a sunny smile in spite of the way his heart leaps in his chest when he spies her from the corner of his eye. He could swear she wasn't there just a second ago.

"Ah! Welcome back!"

[Spinister]

Esprit gives Aidan her best approximation of a smile. Because it seems that humans value pointless greetings, she greets, "Good day."

The floral arrangement is a work of capricious beauty and remorse, Esprit thinks, or perhaps Hairsplitter is the one who thinks it. On the balance, it is appropriate.

He reacts to her like he knows her, and yet, Esprit is certain that she has never met this florist. He fears her like he knows her. Esprit has many other priorities, and yet, she is curious. She moves closer by one step.

[Flame]

On the one hand, it's considered good business practise to treat customers in a friendly and familiar way. On the other hand, Aidan is trying viciously to suppress the feeling that he needs to seek this stranger's approval by making her arrangement completely flawless. He tells himself it isn't that he's trying to appease her lest she get angry with him – he doesn't even know her, let alone why he should be afraid of her temper – so much as he's trying to make up for his near-collapse yesterday.

"It's very nearly done," he tells her proudly. "Simply putting the finishing touches on it." And he buries himself in that polish and primp so he doesn't have to think about her looming there, watching him, waiting for the smallest mistake.

[Spinister]

Esprit studies his reactions, and she can only come to one conclusion. She says bluntly, "You are afraid of me. Why?"

There are any number of possible reasons why. Esprit does not expect him to even tell the truth. Whatever he claims, however, will be interesting enough.

[Flame]

She does frighten him, Aidan realises, but he doesn't understand why. He assumes it's just her sudden appearance and utter silence.

"What? You startled me, that's all," he murmurs, anxious smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. "And… please allow me to apologise for yesterday. I'm sorry you had to see that."

[Spinister]

Esprit is startling? That is true, but she cannot help but feel that he is glossing over the issue. She says smoothly, with a slight hint of command, "Don't apologise. I'm just glad I was there. If you'd have passed out over the rain, I'd have called 911 for you."

The words and sentiments are foreign to her, but that is what a good little civil servant would say, is it not?

[Flame]

"No, no," Aidan says in spite of the niggling feeling that he's crossing some unknown line by his open refusal, "it wasn't the rain." The rain has never bothered him. He thinks it hasn't. It's good for his plants, and he can remember many nights when he was a much younger man that a nice rainstorm lulled him to sleep. Terrible things have happened to him in the rain, it's true, but yesterday was a freak occurrence. There was something different about yesterday. Something in the way it pattered across the pavement, the hiss of it in the air.

Boiling circuitry makes much the same sound.

Aidan freezes at the unbidden thought. What sort of thing is that to know? Why did that come to mind?

[Spinister]

"Then I do scare you," Esprit says softly. It was her, not the rain. She attempts humour, "When someone is afraid of me, I get to thinking - what has he done? But you haven't done anything, Mr. Flynn, have you? Nothing you'd admit to in front of me."

Yes, she attempts humour, but the words would be so much more natural if she delivered them flat, with her hand tight around the florist's neck.

[Flame]

"No, miss, no," Aidan insists, voice rising with his fear. He doesn't find this funny at all. "I'm not – it isn't you. No, no, it's the screams."

He goes still as he blurts that out. Screams? What screams? He doesn't remember anyone screaming – does he? He isn't sure and his head is ringing again; there's an awful pressure behind his eyes, like and yet unlike his worst headaches. He grimaces and sets aside his knife to pinch the bridge of his nose between thumb and middle finger, screwing his eyes shut against the pain.