Perennial Blossom
Notes: Find me on Tumblr at spoopercorp and on AO3 as Local_Asshole.
Summary: Someone keeps stealing flowers from Lena's quaint little shop.
But this time she catches the beautiful blonde - Kara - red-handed, demanding to follow to see if this "mystery person" is good enough to warrant for theft.
Meanwhile, Kara struggles with trying to figure out how to tell the gorgeous woman that they are walking towards the graveyard.
Lena tilted her head, straining her eyes to scrutinize the large box of flowers decorated near the front of her main desk.
There were a quarter more of those just ten minutes ago.
And that was how her last two weeks went - a quiet decrease in her products.
The first time she noticed was in the middle of March that a bouquet of a hundred white carnations had suddenly gone missing.
Well, not suddenly. It seemed as if they were plucked one by one, and she had not noticed since she had to tend to her greenhouse quite meticulously, and by the end of the day she was too exhausted to pay attention to anything other than sleep.
Until she realized after a bit over a week into the mysterious disappearances that the dwindling carnations added up to a significantly large bouquet.
That was well over sixty dollars worth of flowers and she found herself irked.
Then somewhere in the beginning of April two bouquets of blue and white hyacinths were the next victims, and it prompted Lena to purchase security cameras.
Not that it helped, much.
Her small building was housed with a great many number of flora and several customers were in and out so quickly she could hardly keep track, and the suspect she pinpointed in the videos was moving in such a blur in the already grainy quality that it was difficult to identify.
In the middle of the same month Lena took note that the thief became more rushed and negligent in covering his or her tracks.
It did not make it any easier to figure out who it was, the criminal just took larger and larger batches over time and at that point Lena was very frustrated.
She hired an assistant.
Jess. She was amazing at her job, but even her keen eyes were unable to catch sight of the thief.
It was now the advent of May and the two were prompted into discussion when they noticed the mixed bouquet of zinnias vanished; both of them were both at an impasse for what they should do to deal with the expensive flowers that were stolen.
It was now the advent of May.
Lena sighed at the empty space, mourning the recent bunch of chrysanthemums withdrawn from her box.
She estimated around fifty dollars were lost in the theft.
There was a silver lining in it all though.
She had a regular.
Well, she had a lot of regulars, but they were nothing like her.
She was a young woman, perhaps Lena's own age, with locks of honey blonde hair cascaded down past her shoulders, and she was often adorned with light or pastel colors; the khakis and argyle sweaters made frequent comebacks though. Then there were her eyes, an oceanic blue, framed with thick dark glasses and outlined with her long lashes. And her teeth, such a pearly white, a gate that held a melodic voice inside it.
The stranger often hummed and sang tiny songs when she browsed the shop and Lena could not help the way she leaned into the sound from her front desk, chasing the music and the divine inflections while Jess looked on with a roll of her eyes.
Each encounter was no different, Lena was smitten in every one of them and she refused to acknowledge she was smitten in every one of them, often eliciting bouts of laughter from her assistant.
Jess often snickered when she spectated their meetings, well, not really meetings - more her boss admiring the lovely woman from afar.
Lena, not that she would ever admit it in a million years, had a tendency to sigh a dreamy sigh when the blonde was out of earshot, resting her chin into her hands as she observed the woman.
Jess had to choke back and swallow a painful amount of cackling that drummed within her chest when the two first spoke to each other aside from anything pertaining to the purchases.
It was the hardest thing she had ever done as an assistant.
And she could recall the pleasant memory.
Lena, occupied in her own fond thoughts of this stranger short-circuited when her business vocal routine was broken.
It was always a mundane exchange to Jess, probably not to her boss though.
But the customer that Lena was so endeared with would always gently place some flora atop the desk.
Then her boss would ask with an incredibly smooth smirk, "Is that all?" despite how nervous she was if the trembling excitement was of any indication.
Then the blonde would reply with an enthusiastic and bashful nod, "Yeah."
Then Jess would prepare an eye roll for the moment her boss would melt at that angelic voice and clear her throat with an anxious smile before cashing the woman out, then gazing adoringly at her figure as she walked out.
Then there would be that sigh of disappointment once she left.
Then that question.
"Do you think she'll come back?"
Jess has learned to refrain from pulling her hair at the inquiry because of course she would, she always comes back.
And Jess usually failed to convince her boss to actually go and talk to her.
"You know, have a real conversation."
"That sounds ridiculous, besides, she's straight."
"How would you know that?"
Then Lena would ignore that statement and mutter a, "She just is."
Then she would return to the greenhouse and sulk all day brooding about it.
But no, today was different from the usual routine that she had almost dropped her jaw in shock.
"Hi, how are you?" the customer asked with a scintillating, toothy grin.
And Lena just froze, her mouth agape and as she searched for words she stuttered over them.
"Wh - I - uh - great."
Then there was a pause so awkward and so long that her assistant just had to cringe.
Lena inwardly sighed when she saw the roses the blonde was about to purchase - they were often given romantically.
She had someone.
And Lena frowned, could not help the next sentence that almost sounded like a growl.
"Um, what about you?"
Jess sighed quietly, shaking her head as she watched; her boss's voice was strained and sounded so forced in its friendliness, particularly with her pained emphasis on 'great', that the blonde fidgeted with her hands nervously and looked down in some form of guilt or shame.
"O-Oh - I...I'm fine."
The stranger tilted her head like a kicked puppy and pushed her glasses up, "I should get going."
Lena could only nod as beads of sweat ran down the nape of her neck.
Once the noise of the entrance bells faded, Jess pressed her hands to her face and ran them down, momentarily deforming and stretching her features in excruciating agony.
Lena heard the slap resonate from a few feet away from her and turned so her gaze landed upon her assistant hiding behind a bushel of plumerias.
"Were you eavesdropping?"
Jess groaned, "No offense, but it was so painful to watch that I literally wanted to gouge my eyes out at the sight."
Lena huffed, "I didn't do that bad, did I?"
"You kind of did," she replied, moving towards the door and setting the flowers in back in place.
"Do you think she'll come back?"
Jess glanced at her boss, a surge of sadness constricting her lungs at the sight of the woman's tearful emerald eyes staring holes into the ground.
She could only look for a moment before returning her vision towards rearranging the flora.
"She doesn't seem like she'd be intimidated too easily, I don't think you scared - hey."
Lena lifted her head up, "What is it?"
Jess frowned, "There was a bouquet of lilies her just a moment ago, what the hell happ-"
She cut herself off and shared an open-mouthed look of shock with her boss.
Lena's eyes narrowed, "Stay here."
And she bolted out the door, frantically looking left and right for a familiar head of blonde hair.
Luckily for her, it was a relatively slow day and there were very few pedestrians walking through the streets.
It was easy to spot her, and Lena sprinted wildly to catch up.
"Hey, you!"
The stranger startled, pivoting to see a very pissed looking flower shop owner stalking towards her.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?"
The blonde frowned, eyes widened in surprise, "W-What?"
Lena finally stood in front of her, heaving a breath before straightening herself up, pointing at the bouquet of stolen lilies.
"Are you the asshole responsible for so many missing flowers in my shop?"
The woman shuffled her feet, staring sheepishly into the ground.
"I - yeah..."
Lena folded her arms and exhaled angrily through her nose, "Fucking hell."
If it was someone else in the mystery blonde's position, she would have reported them and made them pay for all of the missing flowers.
But no, those goddamned shameful blue eyes became noticeably watery and Lena felt something inside her break and shift slightly.
She was still annoyed though.
And she kept her arms folded.
"So, who's the lucky person?" she asked in a strangely calm and collected voice, though the tone was frigid and her cold demeanor accentuated her vexation.
"What?"
She looked genuinely confused.
"Why are you aski-"
"'Cause," Lena interrupted, her brows furrowed in upset, "I'm curious if this special someone is great enough to warrant the theft of almost three-hundred dollars worth of flowers; I won't ask for you to pay it back, I only want you to stop stealing from my shop and I demand to come with you to meet this person."
"Oh, uh," a split second of hesitation before a small nod, "O-Okay... But, I actually, did pay for the...uh...flowers. I left them under the pots..."
Lena deadpanned, "Seriously? This entire time you just left three hundred dollars under one of my pots? Why didn't you just, you know, walk up and pay for them?"
She pressed her lips into a thin line and rubbed her neck, "Oh, I...didn't really...it's kind of awkward buying so many flowers from someone you..."
Like.
The raven-haired woman raised a brow.
She flushed, "I mean, I get distracted. Easily."
By your eyes.
"And I guess I usually remember the other flowers I want to get after the purchase and...um, yeah, okay, let's just get going now."
Lena shrugged it off and joined the stranger and they walked, side-by-side, towards the destination.
Meanwhile, Kara - the blonde - struggled with what to say, how to explain to the florist that they were walking towards the cemetery.
By the time they arrived at the graveyard, she noticed that the beautiful raven-haired woman's features became softer and forlorn at the realization that this special someone - or more accurately, these special people - were no longer alive.
Even if Lena was still irked, she did feel like a total bitch for being so hostile with her vulgar language earlier.
The thought only made her lips form a more intense frown.
Then they stopped at a pair of two simple headstones, and she watched as the stranger gently placed the flowers next to them, softly onto the grass - surrounded by what Lena recognized were all the previously stolen flowers from her shop, now wilted and shriveled up with time.
All of them had to do with meanings of love, friendship, death - and with the lilies to add on to it - new beginnings.
Lena startled from her inner thoughts at a ragged breath next to her, and a sniffle to accompany it.
Her expression let up into a sympathizing one.
"I'm adopted. My, uh..." a pause as the blonde pushed her glasses up, "Birth parents. They...they passed away a long time ago and recently I've been a little more...upset? Which explains all those missing flowers, but I mean, it doesn't excuse my actions-"
Before Lena could control her urge, she ended up blurting out, "Mine did too."
The woman furrowed her brows in confusion.
Well, there was no going back now.
She sighed, empathizing with the blonde, "I'm adopted as well. I guess I was spared the death of my birth parents - I don't remember them, only that they abandoned me and," she sighed, aggravated with her social ineptitude, "You're not alone."
Lena panicked at the sight of the thief's eyes spilling over with uncontrollable tears.
"Oh no, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to - I'm not great with this," she gestured wildly at the situation before her, "I'm not helping anything. Those weren't the right comfort words, were they? I'll just go n - oof."
She was tackled into a hug, the embrace tightening once she awkwardly reciprocated the action.
Lena found a smile twitching at her lips as she patted and rubbed the blonde's back in soothing circles, her heart fluttering in her chest.
Then a rumbling sound interrupted their tender moment and the stranger pulled back abruptly with a flustered blush on her face.
"I - oh no, I'm so-"
Lena chuckled at what happened, causing the blonde to pout slightly.
"Hungry?"
"Kind of..."
"Well, there's this new Chinese restaurant near my shop."
The stranger beamed, "Sounds lovely."
The florist hummed, then tilted her head, "I never got your name?"
"Kara," she answered, the wide ear-to-ear smile permanently etched onto her face.
"I'm Lena."
Just roll with it...
Notes: Constructive criticism appreciated.