#coc2018

Simon POV

I see him again as I'm packing up the flower pots we keep outside. A wave of unrestrained (and arguably unreasonable) anger washes over me.

It's not like I'm surprised, it happens nearly every day.

I'm packing up for the day as the sun starts to set and that bastard meanders on through smoking his cigarette and fucking up my air. He always looks at me and sneers or wrinkles his nose. I always meet his gaze because I'm not a coward and anything else feels like backing down.

He's a couple of inches taller than me but I'm pretty sure I could take him. He's thin, doesn't look like much.

I suppose vampires don't have to look like much, though, do they? What with super strength and hearing and what not.

I don't really think he's a vampire. But he only ever works evenings and he's got a widow’s peak and a strong aura of aristocratic conceit and he's unfairly pretty. So, I call him the vampire when me and Penny talk about him. Mainly because I don't actually know his name. We've never exchanged any words, just various glares as we pass each other.

He works at the tattoo shop next door, I think. I've never asked or been in, obviously. But he's there nearly every night and I can't see any ink on him.

He gives me one more disdainful look before snubbing his cigarette and tossing it in the bin.

I resist the urge to toss the cactus I'm carrying at him.

I don't because I'm on the clock and that would only damage Ebb's business, which I wouldn't do because she was kind enough to give me a job. That doesn't stop me vividly imagining throwing a cactus at his smug face, though.

I pack things up quick enough after that.

* * *

"You're home early. Vampire boy there today then?" Penny asks when I walk through the door to our flat.

I shrug. "Yeah, what's that got to do with anything?"

Penny hums to herself, flicking absently through a book that must be bigger than her head. "You just work much faster once you see him."

"Yeah, because he ruins my day and I don't want to be there anymore."

"Oh, so you don't work slowly because you're waiting to see him?"

I scowl at what Penny is insinuating but she doesn't look up to acknowledge it. "No, I take my time and enjoy my job before he comes and ruins it."

Penny gives a dubious hum and tilts her head to the side slightly, bright blue bun flopping around. "Whatever you say, Si."

* * *

"I'll take the most passive-aggressive bunch of flowers you have," a voice says, startling me from the Tetris I was playing on my phone.

If I were leaning back any further on my chair I'd have toppled over. Black hair, grey eyes, red-gold skin and a stupid widow's peak. "You," I basically hiss at him.

In hindsight, not how I should talk to a customer. But he shouldn't even be here, the sun's still up.

"Me?" he asks raising one stupidly well-defined eyebrow. He sounds exactly like I'd expected him to. Posh, stuck up, rude.

I bite my tongue and settle all four legs of my chair back on the ground.

Be polite, he's a customer. I repeat over and over in my head like some kind of mantra.

"How can I help you?" I try again.

If anything, he looks more confused, the corner of his lips pulling together in a harsh line as he observes me. "Passive-aggressive flowers, please," he repeats.

I frown. "What are they for?"

"I didn't know your services doubled as a therapist."

I roll my eyes. Yep, exactly as much of a prick as I'd imagined in my head. "If I know what they're for I can help tailor them to the occasion. Passive aggressive isn't much to go on."

He scrunches up his face further. "If you must know, my father is coming to visit."

I glance away from him for a moment. "Sorry."

I think I see him roll his eyes but I still refuse to look there so I can't be sure. "Don't worry about it, I just need a bouquet."

I nod to myself and waltz out from behind the counter and into the shop proper to join him. 'Well, obviously we don't make bouquets that say, 'fuck you' on the regular, but I can make one up.”

He follows me as we wander over to the corner of the store where the loose flowers are kept.

"Yellow carnations are for disdain," I say plucking one out of a bucket by the door, "Peonies sometimes mean anger, Rhododendron means danger, tansy is a declaration of war, or is that a bit much?"

"Bit much," he says and I put the tansy back.

I hold the other three up for him. "You can smell them if you want, see what you prefer."

He holds up a hand almost immediately and takes a step back. "No thank you. I've terribly hay fever, I had to take three anti-histamines before even coming in here."

Oh. Allergies.

Oh no.

Had I been imagining our feud this entire time? Was his crinkled nose always just because of the plants and not me?

I'm an idiot.

Penny's going to have a field day with this.

"Are you alright?" he questions, pulling me out of my momentary freakout.

"I thought you hated me," I say before I catch the words falling out my mouth.

His eyebrows shoot up in surprise again. "What?"

Oh well, I'm in deep already, it's not like anything I could say would make this worse. "Whenever you walked past you always looked so well, disdainful," I say holding up the carnation, "I thought you hated me."

"Why would I hate you? I don't know you."

I shrug again, a few petals falling off the handfuls of flowers I have at the violence of the gesture. "I hated you," I tell him, once again, not thinking.

"You did?" He actually looks a little offended at that.

"Yeah, but only because I thought you hated me."

He stares at me for a few seconds, staring me up and down as I turn red enough to rival the roses beside me.

"You're an idiot," he says eventually, like he's just come to some grand realisation.

In that moment I can't even think of anything to say but, "yeah."

He watches me a moment more before he starts laughing. I only manage to flush darker at that. Maybe I should go get Ebb and let her handle this.

He just shakes his head by the end of it. "To think, you never sent me any tansies."

"I -uh - I can have your order done by this afternoon if you want to come pick it up before work," I tell him because I desperately want to change the subject.

He raises an eyebrow ever higher. "Have you been stalking me as part of this imaginary war of yours?" He's just teasing, I think.

"Don't be a git, you work next door, right?"

He seems to take a pity on me, at least for a moment. "Yes, and thank you, that sounds great."

I gather up the flowers and head back behind the counter, too shaken up to actually say anything. He seems to get the message and follows anyway, leaning lazily against the counter top and I start putting his order into the system.

"That'll be about twenty quid, you can pay when you pick it up. Could I just grab a name for that order?"

I prepare a multitude of reasons because really, I don't need his name. I'll be here this afternoon when he comes to pick them up. I want to know it though, so I ask. I can't keep calling him the vampire forever. Mainly because now I've seen him in the sun and he neither burns nor sparkles.

"Basil," he says and this time it's my turn to start giggling.

I do my best to contain it but putting a hand over my mouth and pursing my lips does little to stop the sound escaping.

"Something funny?" He asks, still looking more amused than anything.

"Basil means hate."

A frown mars his features. "What?"

"We were talking about what plants mean. Basil; it means hate. You want me to put some in the bouquet?"

Apparently, he does find some amusement in it because I see the corner of his mouth twitch up. I guess he only laughs properly when it's at someone else. "No, do not."

"Have it your way. Is there anything else I can get for you?" I ask because I am a good employee, no matter how much I'm praying from him to just leave and let this mortification end.

"Your name."

"What?"

"You have my name now I want yours," he doesn't so much ask as demands.

I don't have it in me to deny him right now. "Uh, Simon Snow."

He basically snorts, he looks a little embarrassed by it but apparently I'm terrible at reading him so who really knows? "Well, Snow, I'll see you this afternoon."

"You can just call me, Simon," I yell after him as he leaves. I'm not sure if the door shuts before or after I say it but he gives no sign of having heard.

* * *

"So why do you work in a tattoo shop but not have any tatts?" I ask as soon as he walks through the door.

Basil actually looks a little taken aback by my words. "Do you always pry so deep into the lives of your customers?" He asks sauntering up to the counter. I'm not sure if he'd call it sauntering, but I definitely think it's sauntering.

"It's called small talk."

"My father insists I get some 'real world experience' and my aunt had connections so I got a job there. I have a steady hand and an eye for detail."

"You got the job your father wanted you to and now you're buying 'fuck you' flowers?"

"No. He loathes that I work there. He just wanted me to work, so I got the job he'd hate most."

"So why the flowers?"

He raises an eyebrow at me again but a smirk accompanies it this time. "Allergies run in the family."

I just nod. Seems like the kind of devious scheme this guy would be in on. What’s the point of a shitty gesture if people legitimately think you're being nice. "One moment, I'll grab your order."

"So, how's your relationship with your parents?" He calls after me as I disappear into the back.

I come back a moment later with his arrangement and lay it down on the counter. "None of your business," I tell him as I begin entering prices into the till.

"Now now, you pry into my life, I get to pry into yours. It's only fair."

I glance up at him and he's still looking unbearably smug, so I can't help myself, "No clue, I was raised in care."

His expression doesn't change. "And now we're even."

I roll my eyes. Maybe I was right to hate this guy, he is kind of a prick. It is kind of nice not to coddled and fawned over the moment people find that out, though.

I don't respond I just shrug and hand him the eftpos machine.

He pays and scoops up his flowers, tossing a quick, "Thank you, Snow." over his shoulders as he walks out.

"It's Simon," I remind him again.

And again, I get no response.

* * *

The next time I see Baz it's one of his regularly scheduled walks by the store on his way to work.

He gives me a nod in greeting, exhaling a puff of smoke from his lips as they're drawn into a half smile. "Snow," is all he says in greeting.

I'm halfway through putting a couple of pots of orchids back inside and I almost trip over myself placing them on the nearest table and darting back inside, shouting a quick, "stay there," over my shoulder at Baz.

When I come back outside, I almost wish he hadn't listened to me. But he did. He's still standing there, cigarette now blissfully extinguished.

I thrust the bouquet of flowers at him, not daring to actually look him in the eye.

He hesitates a moment, "Snow, I have allergies, we've been through this."

"They're fake," I feel the flowers lifted from my grasp and tentatively let go, "well, the basil isn't but I don't think that will mess you up."

I can see him raising an eyebrow over the flowers he's currently got his face buried in. "Which means hate? Are you trying to tell me something, Snow?"

"There's tansies too, so -"

"A declaration of war?" He cuts me off.

I nod. "I thought it was only fair that you knew about our rivalry this time."

"Is that so? And what does this one mean?" he asks, looking stupidly smug, as a draws a single rose from the centre.

"I think you know what it means." I brace myself for rejection, for him to throw the flowers back and laugh in my face.

He just gives a soft hum instead. "Do I? I'm not a florist. Enlighten me."

It sounds almost like a challenge and I never back down from a challenge. Still challenge or no, my voice wavers slightly when I respond. "It means that maybe I'd like to take you to dinner on Wednesday night? You don't work then right?"

When his eyebrow raises this time it's an over exaggerated gesture that makes my stomach drop with panic as I wait for him to taunt me. He does, of course.

"That's a very specific meaning."

I flush again and drag a hand through my hair. Why am I always so flustered around him?

His gaze softens some, "But yes, I'd like to go for dinner." If he questions why I know when he works, he doesn't voice it, which is probably for the best. "I'll meet you here at 6? That's when you finish right." Or maybe that's why he doesn't question my knowledge of his schedule.

"Uh, yeah," I nod vigorously.

He smiles at me once more over the top of the flowers, a proper smile this time. "I should get to work, thank you for the flowers, Simon."

I almost go to shout after him and correct my name. But I don't need to. He called me Simon.

* * *

"If you want to do this, you're going to need to get off me," Baz tells me.

I huff and unwillingly detach from his side as he flicks the lights on in the tattoo parlour. Apparently even his seemingly nocturnal working hours have a limit.

"Go sit down, I'll be with you in a moment," he calls as he rushes around grabbing various equipment.

I do sit down in the chair, waiting as patiently as I can for my boyfriend to gather what he needs. I'm surprisingly nervous. It's not like I've never gotten a tattoo before and it's not like I don't trust Baz. Somehow the combination of the two sets me on edge though.

"Right," he more announces than says as he takes a seat beside me, needle at the ready, "what are we doing and where?"

Nothing too complicated he'd said because of time and resources and costing the store money in ink.

"This," I unlock my phone and hand it to him, picture open, before shedding my shirt, "on my shoulder."

His gaze rakes over me for a moment but Baz has always had a fair bit of restraint and he just glances at the phone once more before firing up the tattoo gun.

He leans a bit closer but right before needle pierces skin he pulls back and switches it off, picking up my phone again, a scowl decorating his features.

"What's wrong?" I ask tentatively.

"Simon," he says slowly, turning the phone to face me, "is this basil?"

I turn as red as I did the day we first talked. "Maybe. Would that be a problem?"

"We've barely been together a year," he says like it means something.

"So?" I say like it means nothing.

He sighs and puts the needle down shaking his head. "You have no idea how many people I see in here getting a tattoo of their partner only to pop back in a few months later to get it changed into something else."

I frown at him, like maybe if I can just glare hard enough, I'll get a glimpse into that mind of his. "Are you planning on breaking up with me?"

"No," he says quickly, before settling and using his usual, calm measured tone, "but none of the other couples were either. I'm just saying when- if -we break up, you don't want that."

I take my own turn to sigh, folding my arms over my still bare chest as I glower at him, "I'm not saying you need to get one. I don't see why it matters."

He does have some tattoos, just ones that are usually covered by his clothes. I can confidently say I've seen all of them by this point.

He scoffs at me. "So, if I wanted to get your name scrawled across my lower back, you'd just let me do that?"

"That's not the same thing," I snap.

I'd expected this to end in a bit of embarrassment for me when Baz figured it out, not a fight.

"It is very much so the same thing."

I open my mouth to protest but he cuts me off.

"Do you trust me?"

I stare at him for a few moments. I do. I know I do. But I also don't particularly want him talking me out of this. I relent after a few moments, "yeah."

"Good," he says, picking the needle back up and flicking it on, "hold still."

And I do. Because I do trust him, even if it hurts like a bitch.

"Done," he says after what feels like eons but I'm sure has only been minutes.

I glance down at my shoulder, making out yellow and green but it's hard to tell exactly what from this angle. Baz passes me a mirror.

"Thought I'd make it official," he tells me as I angle the mirror.

A small bunch of tansies decorates my upper arm.