Green thumb
Written for Will Solace Week 2019, 22 of August - AU
Sorry I got it posted a day late.
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’Blondie’s here again!’
Nico’s head snapped up quicker than he would like to admit at his co-worker’s words. Jason went back out into the store and left Nico alone with his heating cheeks. He needed to calm down before he went back out.
Once Nico had gotten the color of his cheeks under control he walked as casually as he could out into the store and joined Jason behind the counter. The blond man was working on a bridal bouquet and silently humming a tune Nico couldn’t place but it was probably Justin Bieber.
Jason loved Justin Bieber.
The blondie Jason had been kind enough to alert Nico to entering the store was currently browsing the shelves with a not even slightly alive potted plant under his arm. After a little while he strolled up to the counter and placed the pot on it with a heavy sigh.
‘It happened again,’ he mumbled so quietly that Nico had to strain his ears to hear him. The Italian nodded and poked the dead plant.
‘I can see that. Which one is this in the order?’
‘The seventh.’ The blonde guy blushed and rubbed the back of his neck. Nico absolutely did not stare at the way the guy’s curls bounced as he shook his head. Because that would have been weird. Yup.
‘What happened this time?’
‘I don’t know!’ Blondie threw his hands up in the air. ‘I’ve been watering them like I should, hell I even looked it up online to see how often I should do it and I’ve been talking to them and everything but… I can’t seem to keep plants alive. Something is seriously wrong with me.’
Jason coughed over by the edge of the work counter. Nico sent him an annoyed look but Jason just kept humming to himself pretending not to see it. Instead, Nico turned back to Blondie.
‘I assume you want to return this one too?’
‘Yeah, well… it’s kind of starting to get embarrassing at this point,’ he grumbled. Nico smiled and shook his head.
‘Don’t worry. We have a two week return policy and even if you didn’t water it for the entire time it still shouldn’t have died like this. I’m sorry we have to go through this once a week.’
Jason coughed again, which had Nico turn his head and hiss:
‘Maybe you should go get yourself something for your throat, Sparky?’
Jason nodded, and made a point not to look at Blondie when he ducked into the back room.
‘Sorry about him,’ Nico said as he walked around the counter and into the room. ‘You’d think co-workers with colds should stay at home, but no. Now, have you seen anything you like?’
Blondie pointed to one which was similar to the plant he already had, the dead one, so Nico went to get a ladder to take it down from the shelf. He silently cursed his height-impairment while he climbed the ladder, but at the same time he made sure that Blondie had a good view of his ass as he climbed it. Nico knew to show off his best assets.
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‘I wish I’d never shown you that tattoo,’ Jason grumbled when Blondie had left and they were both back behind the counter. ‘If I knew you’d call me Sparky because of it, I’d never done it.’
‘Oh come on, it’s a nice tattoo, but still,’ Nico said and grinned. ‘Anyone who tattoos a lightning bolt deserves the nickname Sparky.’
‘I guess,’ Jason grumbled. ‘Anyway, I set the altar up. Figured you’d want to get this out of the way as soon as possible.’
‘Thanks,’ Nico said and gave his coworker and friend a smile.
In the back room, Jason had set up a tiny altar with some lit candles and other weird shit Nico wasn’t really comfortable thinking about what it was. Jason had told him it was nothing dead or weird, but Nico didn’t trust him. He sat down cross-legged on the floor and cleared his mind.
He remembered the first time Blondie had come into their tiny flower shop. Nico had been standing behind the counter with his back turned to the shop and when he turned around because he heard someone clear their throat for his attention he just froze and stared. Jason had to eventually step in and save Nico from the horrible situation.
Afterwards, once Blondie had left and Nico could do things like think and breathe again, he cursed himself for not asking for the guy’s phone number, or, at least his name. Nico could have worked with that. He was friends with Annabeth and she only really needed a partial name to find someone on Facebook.
‘What if I told you that there’s a way to get him to come back, or, at least try to?’ Jason had asked. Nico had frowned and thought that was impossible. He had lost his chance.
Jason had gone on to tell Nico about something his sister had taught him. Thalia was a witch, a well-practiced one, and a few years ago when Jason had complained to her about a specifically hot customer that he would like to see again she had said to him that plants has a purpose in the witch world.
They catch curses, you see.
When someone casts a curse on you, your plants pick them up for you. That’s why, sometimes, plants die seemingly without reason. They take one for the team, so to speak. It made some sense to Nico because Thalia’s small apartment was filled to the brim with plants. So, she had taught Jason some pretty harmless curses to put on the customer he wanted to see again, and since their shop had a two week return policy, of course the customer returned enough times for Jason to build up enough courage and ask him out.
Jason and Percy were happily married at this point.
Nico took out the twenty pound note that Blondie had first handed him when he paid for the first plant. For this to work, you needed something with the target’s DNA on. Anything they had touched. Nico had switched the note for one of his own and kept it in an envelope in his locker. Now he put it in a bowl and said some words in Latin that Jason had taught him, then he blew the candles out and went back out into the shop.
‘Done?’ Jason asked.
‘Done,’ Nico said. ‘Now we wait.’
‘Ya know, you’re gonna have to start talking to him soon, at least to ask his name or something because this is getting embarrassing to watch.’
Nico sighed.
‘Yeah, I know.’
The thing was, Nico had originally started cursing Blondie to get him to come back which would get Nico a chance to talk to him and get to know him. Only… only Nico hadn’t managed to build up that courage. He simply returned the flower Blondie came in with and then looked wistfully at Blondie’s ass as he left the shop.
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Four days later, Blondie came walking into the shop again. By now, Nico (with a lot of help from Jason) had developed a strategy. He knew what he was going to do. As Blondie entered, looking bashful with his dead plant, Nico came to the door to greet him.
‘Hi…’ Blondie said.
‘Dead?’ Nico asked.
Blondie nodded sadly.
‘Want a coffee and some grief-counselling?’ Nico asked.
Blondie’s head shot up, then he sighed.
‘…yeah. Sure.’
‘Come on.’
Nico steered Blondie out back and gave Jason a look that said: “watch the store and only disturb me if the place is either robbed or catches on fire.”
Jason seemed to understand because he winked at Nico and then finger-gunned him. Ugh, bisexuals, Nico thought.
He sat Blondie down on a chair in their little kitchen and made him a cup of coffee. The dead plant was placed on the table.
‘I don’t know what I keep doing wrong,’ Blondie said. ‘It’s embarrassing at this point.’
Nico sat down opposite of Blondie with a coffee of his own and poked the wilted leafs.
‘Hard to say,’ he mused. ‘Maybe you’re just not good with plants. Have you tried plastic?’
‘I’m gonna stop replacing them,’ he said. ‘I’m going to put you guys out of business.’
‘No worries,’ Nico smiled. ‘They seem important to you.’
‘They are. The first one I bought from you, I bought that with the money my grandmother left me. It wasn’t much, just the twenty pound note, but she gave it to me the morning she died and told me to buy a really nice plant for it because she had been to my place and seen that I didn’t have any. Plants, I mean.’
Nico felt like the shittiest person in the world when Blondie said that. He had bought that plant to mean something and Nico had ruined that. Nico had killed it. Just because… just because he wanted a date and was too chicken to ask.
‘You know what,’ Nico said. ‘I still have all your dead ones out back. If you want to, you can get all of them back for free. That way you will still have the one you bought for your grandmother’s money.’
‘But they’re dead.’
‘Exactly. That’s why I can give them back to you.’
‘I don’t… I don’t understand.’
’I’ll help you nurse them back to health and then once they’re feeling better you’ll have a house filled with lovely plants that only cost you twenty bucks. Your grandmother would be happy to know that.’
‘You’re right. She would. But… how am I gonna get them all home?’
‘I’ll drive you. We have a delivery van.’
‘Right now?’
‘Yup. Jason doesn’t mind watching the shop for a little while.’ Or the rest of the day, Nico thought.
‘Oh… okay.’
Nico grabbed Blondie by the hand and dragged him through the shop. They passed Jason making out with his husband against the counter.
‘Delivery. Be right back,’ Nico said in passing. Jason lifted a hand to acknowledge he had heard Nico but he was too busy making use of his mouth to give an oral answer.
Nico and Blondie put all the dead plants in the back of their deliver-van and Nico drove off. Blondie directed him to his building and Nico parked on the sidewalk. Whatever parking ticket he would get, their boss would have to pay for. This was an emergency, and he would hold onto that story until the day he died.
They each grabbed a box of wilted plants and Blondie showed Nico inside the building. Two stories up, the door to the right said “Solace”.
‘That’s your name?’ Nico asked, in a way that he hoped was flippant enough.
‘Yeah,’ Blondie said. He unlocked it and carried the box indoors. It was a tiny place with a kitchenette and a bed, not much more. A typical New York apartment.
Nico started placing out the dead plants in the windows and Blondie did the same, then he filled a bottle with tap water and watered them all. Nico took up a little bottle from his pocket and handed to Blondie.
‘Here. We don’t sell this to customers, but since I’m technically giving you this we can bend the rules a little.’
‘What is it?’
‘Fertilizer. The good stuff. Put it in the water and water them once every other day until they start looking alive again. When you run out, you can come back to the store to get more of it.’
‘Oh. Okay. Thank you so much…?’
‘Nico.’
‘Nico. I’m Will.’
Will extended his hand and they shook. Will smiled at him and that smile had Nico’s knees give in.
Almost.
He wiped his sweaty palm on his jeans when Will let him go. He fought hard to regain some kind of composure when he headed for the door.
‘Thank you again for the help,’ Will said when he opened the door for Nico to leave.
‘No problems,’ Nico smiled. ‘Do you have any questions?’
‘Only the one,’ Will admitted.
‘Yeah? What’s that?’
‘Can I buy you dinner tonight?’
Nico grinned widely.
‘Smooth move, Solace,’ he said.
‘I thought so, too.’
‘I get off in an hour. Come by the shop then and you can absolutely buy me dinner.’
‘Consider it a date,’ Will said and smiled widely, then he opened the door for Nico who most definitely did not do a happy-dance in the hallway.
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Also available on AO3
https://archiveofourown.org/works/20364811
