Disclaimer: the characters and concepts in this story are the property of the Dino de Laurentiis Company and its related affiliates. This is an amateur writing effort meant for entertainment purposes only.
Summary: All Zeller wants is the names of people who purchase seeds for venomous plants; what he gets is some bonding with Price, the opportunity to grieve, and a buttload of flowers.
Spoilers: Takiawase, Futamono
Author's Notes: I wanted some levity after the finale. Obviously, this meant another Language of Flowers fic. You do not have to read the previous fics to understand this; however, they do account for the connections I've drawn here.
In the fic, Charlotte's reference to the fondue fork comes from Bryan Fuller's speculations at Comic Con last year.
The title comes from Plato's Phaedrus and, as far as my understanding goes, from Derrida's Disseminations. Pharmakon is a term that contradicts itself, being both poison and cure in the same instant.
Pharmakon
"Full Bloom Floral. Charlotte speaking, how may I help you?"
"Hi," Zeller can't believe he finally got through. The line has been busy for almost twenty minutes. "My name is Brian Zeller. I'm calling from the FBI Lab at Quantico. I need to know-"
She cold-clocks him midsentence: "Are you trying to solve a murder?!"
"Um, that's classified," he cold-clocks her right back. She pouts in deafening silence. "You work for one of the few florists in the area that sells seeds for venomous plants in D.C."
"So it is for a murder!"
"It…is for an open investigation," he allows.
"That involves murder."
Zeller tries to leave no room for argument, "That's irrelevant."
Charlotte makes some all on her own. Her voice takes on the same quality as a theatrical trailer. "Someone is poisoning people in the D.C. area using the spores from venomous plants!"
"Stop," he cannot handle this, "Stop it now."
Charlotte is past the point of stopping. In fact, Zeller is certain she does not know how to stop. "A murderer came and shopped here," she sounds so fascinated by that thought. "I might have sold them their means of ending lives. Oh, my gosh…" she is finally as horrified as she needs to be. "Oh, my gosh, am I an accessory to murder?"
Jesus, she's starting to cry. Zeller rolls his eyes, "No. No, you're only an accessory if you know what that the person is going to murder someone."
The joy returns to her voice: "So this is for a murder!"
Zeller makes a fist and drops it quietly against the slab. Damn it. "Yes, yes, fine: this is about a murder."
Price whips around from studying Tree-Man's abdominal cavity, eyes wide with shock. Zeller waves him off. He hasn't divulged anything pertinent, unless this girl is an accessory to murder. "The seeds I'm calling about," he gets back on track before she can divert his attentions again, "are for belladonna, oleander-"
"Why the seeds?"
"What?" he is getting nowhere. Briefly, Zeller considers hanging up and calling back when another employee can take his call.
"Why would a killer want the seeds? I mean talk about delayed gratification. If I were going to poison somebody – not that I am. Don't read into that. Is this call being recorded?"
"First of all, don't speculate about committing murder with a member of the Federal Bureau of Investigation."
Price whips around again at that, eyes wide. "Is that the Ripper?" he mouths soundlessly, pointing at the phone.
Zeller mouths back an impassioned, "NO!" before returning to Charlotte. "Second, no, this call is not being recorded."
"Oh, good!" and then, as if she hasn't heard a word he's just said, because she hasn't, "If I were going to poison somebody, I would just buy the plants. Oleander especially. It's hard to trace."
Zeller rolls his eyes "The killer didn't poison his victims."
"So then why the poisonous plants? Were they like decoration?"
He has to put a stop to this. He's going to spill his guts on all the details of the case if she keeps baiting him. "Look, is there a manager or a supervisor I can speak to?"
"No," Charlotte's smile has to be running from ear to ear at that.
"Well, I need access to your sales records," he makes his voice sound as undeterred as possible. "I need you to fax over the dates of all the transactions that involved these seeds."
She chuckles, "You're going to be sifting through the names and numbers of every neo-pagan on the east coast. Wanna guess how important belladonna is to modern witches?"
"Probably, like, really important," he says.
"Super important," she elongates her vowel sounds for emphasis, and then, because only Zeller's important contributions to the conversation slip past her, "Are you mocking me?"
"Super mocking you right now," he admits flatly.
"How super mature of you," not. Her eye roll lands on his end of the line like a punch to the gut.
"I could say the same to you," Zeller replies. "What are you: sixteen? Seventeen?"
"Yeah, I'm sixteen," she is not sixteen. She is also not happy. "I ditched high school because my fascist employers scheduled me to work on a Tuesday. Now I'm forced to get talked down to by the poster child for professional incompetency."
"I am not incompetent," Zeller snarls.
"You're the one who spilled your guts about a murder being committed. And that the murderer didn't use the poisonous seeds that you're so interested in. Is there a manager or supervisor I can speak to on your end?"
"Sure, I'll be glad to let him know that you speculated on the best way to poison people."
"Totally. You can also mention how you picked a fight with a sixteen-year-old labourer over her speech patterns instead of requisitioning materials pertinent to an open investigation. I'm sure that'll go over real well with your big, bad bossman."
"Maybe you can regale him with more of your murder fantasies."
"I'd much rather just tell him how much you suck at your job."
"Hey! I DO NOT SUCK AT MY JOB!"
If Price raises his eyebrows any further, they're going to be floating in the airspace above his head. Zeller fans at his colleague like he's extinguishing a fire, because his whole chest is hot and painful and he does suck at his job - HE DOES - and this flower girl figured it out in less than a minute. "I-" he forces his lungs to expand, "-do not suck at my job."
"I'm not convinced if you're not convinced," Charlotte scoffs him.
Zeller's heart crumples in his chest: he's not convinced. He used to be, but ever since Bev, he can't justify his ego. They are supposed to be protecting people, and they couldn't even protect one of their own.
As if listening in on Zeller's uncertainties, Price stage whispers to him a second later, "You do not suck at your job."
The band around his chest starts to loosen. Bev would have said the same thing if she was here, and Zeller has to smile at the caustic remark she would have included for his benefit.
Charlotte seems to have the same idea. "Did you call for backup?" she's shocked and disappointed in equal measure.
"I do not need backup to get records of sale. I'm with the FBI!"
Price smiles at him, impressed by the change in his tone. Zeller smiles back. He likes to think that Bev would have smiled too for his miniature display of badassery.
The other line has gone silent. Zeller takes that as a sign of victory, and then as a sign that Charlotte has hung up. "Hello?" he asks.
"Oh, I'm still here," she can't care any less about that though. Charlotte engages her apathy just as intensely as her creativity apparently. "Just getting ready for my uber-exciting day of printing off bills of sales." And then, because she hasn't communicated enough derision for her predicament, "Yay."
Zeller rolls his eyes. "If it makes you feel any better, you are helping us stop a murderer."
"A murderer who grows poisonous flowers and doesn't use them to actually poison his victims. You couldn't have called about some big name case? What about the Chesapeake Ripper or the sicko who framed Will Graham?"
"You don't really believe that somebody framed Will Graham."
"What? You don't?"
"Look, lady-"
"CHARLOTTE," she growls.
"-Charlotte," Zeller corrects himself, rolling his eyes as he does so, "My colleagues and I processed the scene. Will Graham was not framed for any of the five murders he's being charged with: he is a murderer."
"I admit the ear thing is pretty compelling stuff," Charlotte concedes, "not to mention horrifying, but there are plenty of explanations for how it got there besides him being a cannibal-psychopath."
"Oh, really? Name one." I triple dog dare you.
"Two words," she makes him wait for it, "Fondue fork."
Zeller does not. He cannot. Will Graham murdered five people and she is making a bad joke.
Charlotte could not care less. She's too busy thinking about ways to shove an ear down someone's throat, "Or, you know, a really long tube or something. I don't know. You're with the FBI. Why didn't you come up with an explanation?"
"Because he vomited a young girl's ear into his kitchen sink!" Zeller proclaims. "And then he got my friend murdered! That's why!"
The silence of the lab is deafening. Price doesn't look like he's even breathing at the moment. He's turned around, the blood drained completely from his face, like he had no idea Bev was dead until just now. Zeller stares into his colleague's wide eyes and mirrors his expression, his mouth slightly ajar, not bothering to breathe. No wonder they don't talk about Bev. Bad as Zeller wants to, every time they bring up her death, it's like she's being killed all over again.
They stand in mutual pain, disappointment, grief, and just plain missing-her desperately for what feels like an eternity. "I'm sorry," Zeller tries to say, but he can only mouth the words. Price's eyes are glossy with tears. "I'm sorry too," he mouths back, then returns shakily to his work.
As if she can see everything's that happened, Charlotte chimes in softly, "I'm sorry too. About your friend."
"Wasn't your fault," Zeller says. It's a lame statement of forgiveness, but he's feeling pretty lame at the moment.
"Yeah, well, I was a jerk for bringing it up."
"Yeah, yeah, you were, but uh…but you didn't know any better. Now you do. And I was a jerk for mocking the way you speak, even if it is pretty juvenile."
"Yeah, you were," Charlotte agrees, "but now you know better."
Zeller nods. He wants to get off the phone and retreat. Run off to the men's room so that he can lose his cool in peace. "So, about those sales records?"
"Yeah, yeah, I am all over those," he can hear them printing in the background. "Is there anything else I can do for you today, Agent Zeller? Bouquet of flowers? Special order?"
"No, no, just the sales records. I'll get you the fax number."
"Don't bother. You said Behavioural Science? I'll have them delivered."
Zeller can't figure out why he thinks he'll regret this, but he doesn't bother to ask. "Thank you," he says with just a hint of uncertainty.
Charlotte doesn't know what uncertainty is. "You're very welcome."
Zeller arrives at work the next day to discover a monument of flowers has been erected outside the lab. At first, he thinks Price is crying from the beauty of it all, but his colleague promptly sneezes and mutters something about anaphylaxis. "What exactly did you say to that person from Full Bloom Floral yesterday?" he demands, sneezing again.
"I didn't say anything about this," Zeller digs through the out pouring of fauna occupying the hallway. He is up to his elbows in leaves when he finally finds a cardboard box with the words "SALES RECORDS" scrawled across the top in black marker. "This is what I asked for."
"Well, these are definitely for you," Price says. He hands off a small card to his colleague and marches away, sneezing.
Zeller doesn't bother to open the card. He whips out his cell phone and calls the floral shop.
"Full Bloom Flor-"
"What is this?"
"A very confused floriographer. Oh, wait, you said 'what', not 'who'."
"I'm calling from the FBI. I just received a wall of flowers with the sales records I requested. My colleague is going into anaphylactic shock from the pollen."
"Well, excuse me for caring," Charlotte snaps. "Yesterday, you tell me that your colleague had been killed. I figured I would send some flowers to express my condolences."
"We don't need your condolences."
"Everybody needs condolences when somebody dies."
"Not me. I need the bastard who killed her."
"And I'm sure the flowers are totally going to get in the way of your investigation."
"They will if they kill my other colleague!"
"So give him a Benadryl! His anaphylaxis is on your hands now, not mine."
"You know, I think I will have you picked up on accessory to murder."
"I'm not the one letting my colleague cough up a lung right now."
"No – you're the one contributing to deforestation with gargantuan floral arrangements."
"I'm sorry about your friend getting killed!"
"So am I!"
"Fine!"
"Fine!"
Silence. Zeller has no idea how to end this ridiculous conversation. The obvious presents itself. "These had better not be billed to the FBI!" he declares.
"They sure are now!"
"You're a terrible florist!"
"I'M A FLORIOGRAPHER! And you're a real jerk of an FBI Agent!"
Zeller sees read. "I'M A SCIENTIST!"
"Well, you're a jerk of a scientist!"
"Oh, yeah? Well, why don't you come down here yourself and say that to my face, huh? You can pick up these flowers of yours while you're at it."
"MAYBE I WILL!"
"YOU SHOULD!"
"How about 7?" Charlotte challenges.
"How about 6?" Zeller counters.
"6 sounds great," she snaps, "Just in time for dinner."
"Yeah, perfect time for dinner," he agrees sharply before furrowing his brow in confusion. He can't remember what they were arguing about all of a sudden, only that Bev is gone and she would know what to say.
Charlotte doesn't miss a beat. "Maybe we'll have Chinese food!"
"Maybe!" he places all the emphasis on the second syllable for some reason.
She's chomping at the bit now. "I'll see you at 6 then."
Zeller is just as impatient. "6 it is."
He hangs up before the conversation can get any weirder no matter how bloody unlikely that is. For a long time, all Zeller can do is stare at his phone in awe at the trajectory of events.
When he looks up, Zeller finds Price has returned and that his eyebrows are retreating towards the ceiling again. "Did you just get a dinner date?"
"I just got a dinner fight," Zeller replies.
Price shrugs, "Same difference, really."
Happy reading!