Author's Note: I thought of this short story while I was on vacation during the summer of 2008. I was starting to get into the character of Seymour and his sweet innocence, and began to think about how his desire to have attention and affection would lead to a little story of his own. The final version was relocated to this collection from being one of my independent shorts. Editing credit goes to my friend, DrumMajorPheonix who pointed out some plot and editing mistakes. Thank you, and enjoy!

*S. Snowflake

The Simplest Present

A Little Shop of Horrors midquel

by Laura L.

It had been a long night for poor Seymour Krelborn. His blood-eating plant, which he had named Audrey II, had been feeding from his fingertips all night long. He could barely get out of bed for work that October 23rd from fatigue and loss of blood, but when his alarm clock went off loudly, he staggered to the other side of his basement room to look at a worn out calendar hanging on the wall.

He adjusted his bulgy glasses to read something he remembered writing on it awhile ago. October 23rd, my Birthday, it said.

"It's my birthday?" he thought out loud, yawning. "I must've forgot. I just wonder how old I am; was it twenty three or twenty four?" He paused, looking to his exotic flytrap-like plant for emphasis. "Sure wish I knew, Twoey," he said, coming over to pet as if it were a puppy to him.

The plant started smacking its lips and making a sort of kissing sound in response to his presence, which meant that it was hungry for its favorite food again.

"Oh c'mon, I just fed ya Twoey! Give me a break for a day will ya?" he cried.

"Krelborn! You up yet?" a man's voice called from upstairs.

"Yes sir," Seymour replied to his boss Mr. Mushnik.

"Well then, get you and your little green money maker up here right now!" he yelled.

Seymour obediently prepared for work, and then grabbed the plant carefully by its pot to bring upstairs. He winced at its heavy weight, nearly dropping it at one point. The plant snickered and even tried to bite his arm, but he snapped its trap closed before it could do any damage or be noticed by anyone as he went upstairs.

Mr. Mushnik was busy setting up the shop for a small crowd of customers outside, all eager to see the now locally famous Audrey II. He frantically ran about, grabbing flowers, pots, and things of the like while muttering to himself. "There you are!" he exclaimed as Seymour came up to the main floor.

"Good morning, sir," Seymour said placing the plant in the front window. "Is Audrey here yet?"

"No, and we've got customers comin' in out a' nowhere!" he replied. "That girl's gonna' get rid of the best business we've got."

"Well, didn't she say she had a date last night?" Seymour asked. "You know what that means."

"Yeah, you're right about that Krelborn. She probably got tied up again," Mushnik replied shaking his head.

Audrey, Mr. Mushnik's other employee, had a sadistic boyfriend who beat her up and/or handcuffed her every time they were together. Despite numerous attempts to persuade her to find another boyfriend or simply dump him, nobody could convince her to leave the sadist. Mr. Mushnik was a bit worried about her, mainly because he was concerned for his business, but Seymour was furious that anyone would dare to hurt Audrey. She was his only real friend and he also secretly had feelings for her.

"What a creep," Seymour grumbled angrily to himself. "I'd like to give that guy a piece of my mind!" But then Seymour thought about what he had just said. I'm too weak to take on a guy like that. Oh, poor Audrey... he thought, shaking the idea off for now remembering what day it happened to be. "Sir, do ya' know what day it is?" he asked Mushnik.

Mr. Mushnik was confused by his question, but tried to answer using his only logic. "Yeah, it's Wednesday. That means half price on our begonias."

"No, that's not what I meant." Seymour replied, then tried to drop the hint. "It's someone's birthday today."

"Audrey's?" Mr. Mushnik guessed, baffled by his employee.

"No, think again," Seymour said smiling.

"Let me think… the twenty third, the twenty third… I got it! You're celebrating Audrey Two's birthday! Ya said you found it on September twenty third, the day of the total eclipse of the sun, which was exactly one month ago. Am I right or am I right?" he stated proudly.

Seymour's heart sank. Mr. Mushnik, his closest thing to a father he'd ever known, had forgotten his birthday. "That… that's right sir."

"Good. Now let the people come in and see the birthday girl," Mushnik said. "Mushnik's is now open!"

Mr. Mushnik barely had the door open for a second before a rush of people stormed the store, all coming in for a look at the Audrey II.

"It's bigger than last week!" a woman marveled.

"Twice as big!" a man added.

"Look at those leaves, they're gorgeous!" another woman said.

Seymour tried to take their complements to heart. After all, he had raised the plant, but could not put away the sad fact that Mr. Mushnik had forgotten his birthday.

* * *

By lunchtime, the crowds were mostly gone, and so Seymour took a break to eat. Across the street from where he sat on the shop stoop were Crystal, Ronnette, and Chiffon; three other Skid Row locals and his somewhat friends. They caught sight of him and whispered to each other, smiling rather suspiciously.

"Seymour!" Chiffon called out as she ran over to him, followed closely as always by Crystal and Ronnette.

"What is it girls?" he asked as they came up to greet him.

"We just thought we would say a special hello to somebody on this special day," Ronnette said warmly.

Seymour grinned. They remembered! he thought. "And what kind of special day is it?" he asked, waiting for them to spill the beans.

"It's yours of course!" Crystal squealed. "You've been keepin' Mushnik's in business so well, we just thought we should congratulate ya."

Seymour's smile quickly changed to a frown. They hadn't remembered his birthday either. "Thanks, ladies," he said, hanging his head.

"Hey Seymour, cheer up! You've got so many good things coming your way, you ought a' be havin' some fun now," Ronnette said reassuringly.

"I guess so," he answered with his head still turned away from them.

Ronnette shrugged and the girls moved on after saying their goodbyes, leaving poor Seymour all alone.

"I guess… nobody remembered." He thought aloud.

* * *

It was now five-forty five PM, or fifteen minutes until closing time for Mushnik's Skid Row Florists. A few customers were taking some last minute purchases to Mr. Mushnik at the counter while Seymour watered Audrey II for the third time that day.

"Boy, you've sure got one strange and interesting plant there!" the last customer of the day complemented Seymour before leaving with a bouquet in his hands.

"Thank you, sir," Seymour answered emotionlessly.

Mr. Mushnik flipped the shop sign from open to closed, then turned and said to Seymour, "I'm closin' early tonight. We've had a pretty good day, eh Krelborn?"

Seymour simply nodded in response.

Suddenly the shop bells rang from behind Seymour and he heard the faint sound of high-heeled shoes daintily hitting the linoleum. Without even turning around to look, he knew what that meant and said, "Audrey?"

The blonde shop hand stepped toward her co-worker with freshly bruised wrists and a black eye. "Hi Seymour," she said quietly, seemingly ashamed of herself.

"Audrey! You're so late that we've already closed!" Mushnik blared at her before he noticed her injuries. "Oh God, what happened to you this time?"

"Nothin' sir," she replied, turning away from both of them shortly. "I would a' called in sick, but I couldn't get my hands untied this time. I'm okay now though."

Mr. Mushnik shook his head. "So, why are you here then?" he asked.

"Oh, well, I couldn't forget how important today is," she answered, looking over at Seymour expectantly.

Seymour did not catch Audrey's kindness and was fed up with talking to people for that day, so he replied with sarcasm, "Yep, Audrey Two's a month old, and we've been makin' a truckload. Things couldn't be better."

"Seymour," Audrey said smiling sweetly. "Did you forget that today's your own birthday?"

"Y, y… you remembered?" he asked, shocked and overjoyed.

"Of course I did," she answered. "That's what I came here for. Here's a little somethin' I picked up for ya." She handed him a brown paper bag with ribbons on it.

"A present?" Seymour blurted while looking at the package. "Oh Audrey, you're the best!"

"What else are friends for?" she replied. "Now open it, silly!"

Seymour could barely hold the bundle in his hands without shaking. He took the ribbons off carefully, so as not to destroy the precious present, then reached inside and found a bow tie covered in tacky polka-dots. Mr. Mushnik clucked in his throat like a chicken at the present, but Seymour didn't care. After all, it was a gift from Audrey.

"Gee," Seymour breathed, smiling. Then he felt something else inside the bag and pulled out a box of bandages before staring at them confoundedly.

"Those are for you too," Audrey said. "You've been getting hurt so much lately, I just wanted to be sure you had enough band aides on hand. And by the way, happy birthday Seymour." She then did something nobody was expecting; she gave Seymour a tiny kiss on the cheek. Perhaps that had been the best gift of all, because Seymour felt so happy about getting that simple kiss that his face turned as red as a rose.

For a long time that night, Seymour said and did nothing but smile. One day he would have to tell Audrey the truth. That undeniable truth that he was crazy about her and wanted to be much more than just her friend would have to be known by the blonde one day, and one day soon, but not today. The present that she had given him was close enough to her love. He knew that life wasn't always great living on Skid Row, but with someone like Audrey as a friend, it couldn't be sweeter.

The End