lotus flower**

His words threw her off. Up until this point she had assumed his family unit’s life was good before the spread of the virus. Now, his words mixed with the frown, made her think otherwise. “Oh.” She let slip out, tempted to get some concrete answers, but unsure if she wanted to see that small little frown of his grow if she did. She left those thoughts alone for now. The return of his smiling made her grin as well. “Average non-florist seems just about right.” She agreed with a laugh. “Nothing wrong with being ‘over-fascinated’, if that’s even a thing. Which I don’t think it is. You just love flowers a whole lot. Probably made you great at your job. Speaking of jobs, though, what is it that you do now? Are you a farmer?” She guessed, assuming since he loved flowers and used to work with them, farming would be his best suited occupation. 

“Ah - don’t think anything of that,” he said, noticing her reaction to his mention of Mina’s departure. “Nothing major happened, we just...didn’t see eye to eye anymore.” He shrugged. Explaining the absence of his child’s mother was almost a habitual event, having been so since day one with Demi. He let the conversation take a turn for the better, nodding along as he listened to Sage speak. Her logic made perfectly enough sense for him, as it was one similar to his own. He just never applied his own to himself very often. The question caught him off guard. He hadn’t realized that, through their whole conversation, he hadn’t thought of asking anything like it. “I - no, actually. I gardened before, but never anything like growing anything edible. I just never had a talent for that,” he answered, pursing his lips as he thought iit over. “I’m a guard, mostly doing daily patrols on the inside. I don’t...like the job, exactly. But it’s what I ended up with when I got here.” He paused and furrowed his brow. “What about you? I...think I’ve seen you around medics before, but I can’t be sure. I know I would have remembered seeing you before.”

“Oh no!” She exclaimed playfully as her hand immediately rose to brush the imaginary cooties away. “We can’t have that. Don’t want ‘em scaring you off right when I’m really starting to like you!” She was grinning at this, her hand returning to her side once she spent enough time getting rid of the ‘cooties’. Returning back to the conversation, her shoulders shrugged in response to his words. “I don’t know.” Saying something like she did, she should have known a question like this was to come. She should have been more prepared, but alas, she wasn’t. Thus causing her to take some time to think this over in order to give something of a quality answer. “You’ve got this large build, what with these broad shoulders of yours.” She examined, her hands rising up into the air before her, equal level with his shoulder’s height as she spoke of them, hovering in the air as she motioned towards them. She shook her head as she thought, not coming up with much. She knew what she’d place him as in the town now: a guard or hunter. Maybe a mechanic, if she pushed it. But outside these walls, back to before, there were hundreds of occupations to choose from, and more than just a build can help her try to pinpoint what he did then. “But you’re really kind, and frankly incredibly cute. In more than just the looks department.” She added last minute, her smile more shy as this time around she didn’t come into this topic with the intention to flirt. “I have no idea what I had you pegged for, but a florist wasn’t the first to come to mind.” She concluded, shrugging once more. “Truth be told, I don’t know all that much about flowers. I don’t even have a favorite flower. Just know I like roses - they look and smell pretty nice.” After having heard herself say the words out loud, Sage huffed out a weak laugh, glancing down at the ground and then back up at the man as she ran a hand through her hair when she continued to speak. “Oh gosh. I must sound so lame and generic to you right now.” 

He faltered at the word ‘cute’. The only thing he found remotely cute about himself wasn’t even a trait of his own, but a connection. That connection was Demi. Otherwise, there was nothing Declan saw about himself that was even close to fitting the word. “Demi’s mom used to say I look like one of those construction workers in the movies, before little Button was born. Never said much to me after, but,” he shrugged, slight frown shifting back to a dismissive smile. Speaking of the abandonment never had been easy, though it wasn’t something he ever put off. If it was something he could deal with, knowing that it wouldn’t affect any others, he spoke of it. Though never while Demetria was around. As she spoke, he curiously nodded, watching her move before finishing. He never expected people to know very much about what he considered interesting. It was a selfish thing to do. “Nah, you have enough knowledge to be an average non-florist,” he teased, grinning at her as he rubbed his hand across his cheek. “I’m just...overly fascinated by them, I’ve been told.”

The minute he set down the bottle, Nora swiped it from him, the little grin on her face telling him that he was probably not getting it back any time soon. She took a long swig and hiccuped a little as she set the bottle back down. Now was about the time that she chugged a couple gallons of water and knocked out before the hangover started to come along, but this was fun and she had no intention of stopping her fun. She hiccuped again and giggled as she looked at him. “What are you doing?” she laughed. “You’re not doin’ anythin’.”

“What d’ya mean? It ain’t falling,” he laughed, turning his hand to set the bottle back down. “Magic.” He hiccuped and then chuckled, leaning back in his seat as he let the clouded feeling wash over himself. “What d’ya mean I was’t doin’ anything?”

I’m not… I can’t fall for anyone. My heart and soul died alongside her.

“Ah. ... At least they’re with her...?”

“You’d think people would’a looted all the booze by now, I’m surprised they’re still finding any.” Wanting to catch up, Carter took another swig before handing the bottle back to Declan. “Really? I played football in high school,” he said with a shrug. Settling back into the couch, Carter didn’t mind the closeness next to his friend. “I’m gonna build her a tree house or somethin’.”

I don’t enjoy it.

Well, whoever has to ask that question is either currently experiencing it or has experienced it and is reminiscing. Either way, sentimentality is what you’re going to get. It was just a guess, so there’s always room for being wrong.

Ugh, fuck me for feeling a little sentimental today.

“I don’t see anything wrong with it, Soraya.”

“And you think I do?” She called out after the girl, grinning to herself just a tiny bit. A very very tiny bit. She stood up and crossed her arms as she was back to being face to face with Declan. “Forget about it. Or better yet, work on your hand-eye coordination cause it must really suck if you missed that throw.” She paused for a second, frowning to herself. “How long have you two been here again? Just out of curiosity.”

“Demi may be my favourite, but you’re a pretty close second now.” At his question about his hair, she tilted her head slightly to the side looking closely at it to determine the level of messiness. “It’s not bad messy or anything. More of the whole I just woke up and only brushed my hair with my fingers kind of look. It works for you.”

“Oh man, really? Jeez, it’ll be pretty hard to even get remotely close to passing that cutie, huh?” 

Peyton chuckled and could feel himself getting his positive back, his zen. It must have been the aurora that Declan always gave off but it was peaceful, it was the most peaceful he had felt in months. “Can I see her?” He asked as he leaned down, picking up the bag that Declan had dropped. He froze for a second before fully standing up again, gripping onto the strap of the bag. “Don’t be. You had a little girl to look after, Dec. I’m not mad at you.”

Peyton let a smile come across his face as his older brother cupped his face. “Hey. No sad smiles. We did it, Dec. We really did it.” He looked at Declan’s face to check for any hidden emotions but he knew that Declan was never the kind of guy to hide things. “Is she still cute as ever?” He moved his hand to his older brothers shoulder and nodded his head. “You were going to see me again, man. I wasn’t going to break that promise.”

“We did it,” he mumbled, letting his hands lift off Peyton’s shoulders as he brought them back to run them over his own face. “She’s even cuter, if you believe it.” The initial shock of his brother’s return had passed, now replaced by a wave of weariness as the memory of abandoning Peyton came back to Declan. “I’m so sorry, kiddo.”

Sage laughed at Declan’s recounting of the young girl’s words. “Nice to know little child things like that haven’t changed as the world turned. No matter what, boys will always have cooties and vice versa.” She meant what she said. Knowing cooties to be a constant, regardless of the apocalypse, was a comforting thought. They no longer had access to the internet, traveling on another besides foot and a car every now and then was out of the question, and having a vast wardrobe was unheard of these days, but to near-five year old girls, boys still had cooties. She wanted to ask about both the shop and his brother at his next words, but decided to focus on one at a time. She chose the shop first. “A flower shop? Wow. I don’t think I would have pegged you as a florist.” She admitted, giving it another moment of thought. “Was it something you wanted to do since you were young, or just something you ended up liking later in life?” 

“Aw, Declan! I’m so flattered by your willingness to keep me.” She flashed him a smile as she said it, putting her hand over her heart for dramatic effect. One of the many things that attached her to Declan was his ability to make her feel like she actually mattered and was more than just somebody who hunted food for the community. For a girl who thought she had nothing left to live for, that kind of stuff was important. “Well apparently in an apocalypse emotions are a weakness. It’s so dumb but has unfortunately become our new reality. And also, you still have a couple of strands that don’t go into place so I can imagine what it was like before.” 

“Of course, Ainsley. I definitely don’t have any will to do anything else.” Declan sweetly smiled, green eyes lighting up with a gentler tone to them as he nodded. He subconsciously ran a hand through his already tousled blond locks as they were pointed out. “Yeah, I had a conversation about it earlier - ... Is my hair really messy?”

“Ah! Well if she’s five than you’ve already gone through the hard beginner stuff. Y’know, like changing diapers, feeding, talking, first steps, and all that good stuff. So that’s good. No real need for people with children experience then! Though if you’re lucky anyways, maybe the next group that comes by will be a family with kids her age, so she’d have more people to play with, and you can have more people to talk to about all the woes of parenthood.” She knew the camp wasn’t exactly littered with young ones, but she had noticed that there were a few here and there. Having more join them wouldn’t hurt one bit, she thought. It was safer for them here. “But speaking of past experiences, what exactly did you do before all of this?” She shifted the conversation, afraid speaking of the family would turn the conversation towards the subject to the now gone mother and probable-wife.

“I think more friends for her would be the best. There’s another little boy around here - Seamus. Though he’s, and I’m quoting Blondie on this, ‘too yucky’ for her tastes,” Delcan chuckled, shaking his head as he glanced down. While he had tried to convince his daughter that playing with Maeve’s boy would be fun, Demi had insisted that she didn’t want to catch any cooties. Even without the influence of other children, she experienced the known stage of disgust towards the other gender. Declan himself had gone through it, though it only lasted a day before he noticed the other boys treating the girls badly. “I ran a flower shop in Reno. ‘Main Street Florist’. Party planning services were offered - mainly decorating and things like that. I raised Demi, too, with my brother.” 

Immediately forgetting the cuss, Declan lifted his hand to cup the side of Peyton’s face. He gave a slight shake, patting his younger brother’s cheek as he sadly smiled. “Yeah, she’s here. She’s with a friend - one of the Farmers. We’ve been here a little over six months. I know because I’ve been counting the days so I know how long I waited to see you again.”

He frowned, pouting as he looked at the empty bottle. “Sad day,” he groaned. Wayne cradled the drink against his stomach with both hands. Brown eyes glanced toward Declan before he shrugged. “Alive and breathin’, so I guess I have nothin’ to complain about. How’re you and Demi?”

“Breathin’s aaaalways fun,” Declan mumbled, moving to sit back on his chair as he made a grab for his glass. “We’re, uh...doin’ fine, yeah. Juuust fine. She’s gettin’ so big...”, he trailed off, eyes focusing on a spot of the wall in front of him before he glanced back over to take a swig.

“You owned a flower shop,” Ezra repeated slowly. By this point, he was pretty convinced that the other man wasn’t a real person. “Where was this flower shop?”

“I did, yeah. Bought it from an old man who couldn’t run it anymore,” he replied, a grin forming on his face. There were few things he always spoke surely about, and his shop and flowers was one of them. “It was in Reno, a little corner shop on Main Street.”