MC4A Winter Bingo
Prompt: 2D (Poinsettia)
Representations: Stiles Stilinski; flowers
Word count: 357
"I need help."
Stiles looked up at the haggard man who had just slammed his hands down on the counter. "Okay… Any particular kind of help you need? Are there bad guys chasing you that are going to burst in through the door any minute now, waving guns all over the place and threatening to kill me if I don't hand you over?"
"What? No." The man now looks more confused than stressed. "I meant that I need help finding a flower for someone who hates flowers but still wants some kind of flowery thing for a present."
"So you came to a florist?"
"Who could know flowers better than a florist?"
"But you don't want flowers. You want flowery things that aren't flowers. Why don't you go get plastic flowers? They're flowers that aren't flowers."
The man groaned and shook his head. "She hates fake flowers. She specifically told me never to buy any type of fake plants. Please, you have to help me."
Stiles hummed in thought, clicking through the catalogue of flowers they stocked on his computer. It wasn't every day that a customer came in to a florist and asked for a flower that wasn't a flower but was still real. The catalogue didn't help all that much; it just had the different flowers they stocked and didn't tell him whether the thing was actually a flower or whether it was something that was thought of to be a flower but wasn't actually a flower.
Then he remembered a research binge he had gone on a few months ago. "You know, poinsettias aren't actually flowers," he told the man. "People think they're flowers because of the red bits but the red is actually leaves that have changed colour. They're also known as the Christmas flower because of a Mexican boy took it to a priest and the priest declared it to be a sign of the Star of Bethlehem. There's also–"
The man held up a hand to stop Stiles' babbling, "I don't need to know the history of the thing. Is it a flower or not?"
"Not."
"I'll take it then."