Background: Your tattoo parlor is suddenly neighbored by a flower shop, owned by a boy with blue skin, who affects you more than you want to admit. (Flower Shop AU)
Rating: T
Warnings: mentions of self harm, tattoos, blueberry cinnamon roll
Words: 1,313
A/N:@mrspetermaximoff idk why you’d want to be tagged in one of my stories but ok u asked for it, and its terrible probably. I’m doing part 2 tomorrow or the next day bc im extremely lazy and pokemon go has taken all of my energy. It’s 1:00 am, and I’ll proofread it tomorrow, so if it’s bad, hopefully it won’t be by tomorrow. (IM ADDING IT TO MY MASTERLIST after I PROOFREAD IT)
You checked the log once more. There was still only one appointment left in the day, a spot reserved for 6:35. Even though this was most likely your thousandth tattoo, you still got worried you would mess it up. Everyone was always pleased with your work, but the way your hands would sweat and your gaze would shift to the clock never changed. You had gotten a couple of tattoos yourself, and while you were proud of them, they felt incomplete. You wondered if any of your customers felt this way. Maybe that’s what had driven you to ink your skin in the way you had. A flower resided on the top of your arm, swimming in color, drowning in shades. It was your favorite, the first one you had gotten.
You checked the clock once more, and it didn’t seem to care much about your anxieties, marching forward ever so slightly. It was 6:26 now, and while you normally would’ve resided to the parlor and awaited your client with worried eyes, something caught your attention. The street you worked on was always the same, you arrived mid-morning, just in time to have a cup of tea before work, and Jean, the welder who worked down the street, always waved to you before running inside her shop to make sure she hadn’t started a fire. You would tease her about it constantly, along with the fact that she had grown quite fond of the optician who worked across from her, Scott. He was the only guy you knew on the block other than Peter, the pizza delivery boy, Warren, who helped you around the shop, and Alex, the personal trainer who everyone worried had moved away, due to his sudden disappearance. This was the only place that was really familiar to you in town, other than the mall which was run by a Ms. Lee who seemed a bit young for her job. You had only been here six months, but it was long enough for you to know when something had changed.
The lot across from yours was always empty, never failed to be until now. A truck was unloading in front of it, little tables and chairs and display counters. Your curiosity got the best of you, leading you away from your deadline and appointment and out onto the weathered asphalt, looking for answers. They came in the form of a boy who looked no older than 19, carrying a tray. He wasn’t human, and it was made painfully obvious due to his blue complexion. He turned around to see you, leaning against the truck and raising an eyebrow, which caused him to trip over thin air and smack his head against the window of the shop. Silently cursing himself for acting like such a fool in front of you, he waved goodbye, “Excuse me, madam, I’m a bit busy.” You chuckled and saluted him, sauntering back to your tattoo parlor, happy to have encountered your new neighbor. That was the first time you saw the blue boy.
The first time you talked to the blue boy, it was only a week after the first incident. Business slowly but surely accelerated at the shop the mutant boy owned, which happened to be a flower shop. You had grown accustomed to watching him open in the mornings, smiling widely with his fangs peeking out of his mouth. It made you feel more at home. This morning, however, he hadn’t opened at his usual time, and instead paced inside his shop, appearing to be mulling something over. After a few minutes, he opened his door with soft ring and made his way across the road to your parlor, a bouquet in hand. It was composed of crisp white mayflowers and bright red amaryllises. When you opened your door with a confused expression, his face grew purple as he shoved the flowers in your direction. “M-my name is Ka-Kurt Wug-Wagner. Kurt Wagner,” he introduced, stuttering and eyes set intently on you as you brought the flowers to your face and sniffed them, smiling, “Thank you, Kurt Wagner.”
“Sorry, I should go.” he mumbled, disappearing in a dark, wispy smoke. You smirked at the sight of him slapping his forehead in frustration behind what he had forgotten were glass walls surrounding his shop. After placing the flowers in water, your assistant appeared behind you, his wings fluttering in a constant motion, “Who was that?”
“That was Kurt Wagner. He brought me flowers.” you smiled, gazing quite obviously at the boy with the indigo skin. You weren’t sure how deeply he had affected you yet, but you knew he had, and there was no escaping it.
The first time you touched the blue boy was when he was closing up his shop, late at night. You had just finished your last appointment, tugging your coat onto your back as you waved Warren a good night. You spotted him against the gray midnight shops, walking down the sidewalk. Running up behind him, you whispered into the chilly air, “Kurt.” No response, “Kurt!” He shifted and looking behind him, finding you, smiling and beckoning him to you. Shyly, he stepped forward. “I didn’t exactly get to talk to you the last time we met.”
“Oh, sorry, it’s mein fault.” he quickly apologized as you pursed your lips and stopped him from further cursing himself.
“Hey, it’s no problem,” you grinned as a silence seemed to stretch between you. You broke the quiet with a question, “Where’d you get them? They’re pretty.” You gestured to his markings, which you took to be inked.
“I, uh,” his yellow eyes fell darker as he hung his head and replied, “I put them there.”
“Oh, crap, oh my god, I’m so sorry,” you apologized, slapping yourself internally as you recognized them in the moon’s light. You couldn’t help but wonder why such a beautiful creature had decided to do that to themselves, but you continued nonetheless, “I still think you’re very attractive though, even without tattoos.”
At this comment, he was taken off guard, expecting you to either avoid the subject of his self-harm or to ridicule his appearance. The moonlight hid the purple tinge of his cheeks from your eyes, but it didn’t hide his obvious smile. “Thank you, but I am not anything compared to you.” he muttered, just loud enough for you to register.
You frowned, “You are just like me, I think. I don’t know you that well, but I know you love flowers and you’re a bit clumsy and you are insanely sweet and you feel like you’re strange probably because of how you look, but I’d swear it to anyone, we’re just the same.” You took one of his hands, intertwining your five fingers with his three. The air seemed to shift in that moment, flooding with tension. He had never been touched in such a loving and affectionate way, and you had never saw someone look at you like he did, like a goddess. He pulled away frantically at that moment, tripping backwards over a fire hydrant as you crouched beside him and rubbed his head, trying to ease the pain as you giggled.
“Ugh, fraulein, my apologies, I wasn’t so clumsy until I met you.”
“Well I never liked flowers so much until I got them from you.” you mumbled, stroking his hair. You carefully leaned forward, towards Kurt, who was now caught up in the curve of your lips. Just as your pink ones ghosted over his blue ones, you moved them to his ear, “Until tomorrow, Kurt Wagner.”
You stood up briskly, walking back into the dark night as he sat up, “I don’t even know your name!”
“You will!” you shouted back to him, turning back to the path towards your car and whispering quietly to yourself, grinning like an idiot, “You will.”
Toad's Cave 