A Rose By Any Other Name
This modest flower shop isn't very large, but houses a wide variety of flowers and gardening accessories. The pink tiled floor and the terra cotta colored walls make this shop seem even cheerier than it already is. The shop is predictably lined wall to wall with flowers. There's not much leg room between aisles of fresh flowers, herbs, and gardening accessories. A rack near the wall next to the cash register displays a variety of vases and pots, some of them plain and cheap, others extravagant and pricy. There's also a small revolving rack with greeting cards near the cash register. A back room undoubtedly leads to where more flowers and supplies are stored. The large picture window in the front of the shop creates both a nice display area and lets the sunlight stream through into the shop, provided it's a sunny day. A neon sign is affixed to the front door, blinking 'OPEN' in green from eight AM to five PM on weekdays, ten AM to four PM on weekends. The shop's name is artfully painted onto the glass of one of the picture windows in neat red cursive.
The cozy flower shop offers some refuge from the cold to those who enter — for the most part. The climate controlled building is still chilly enough that those who are more delicate might require a coat. Hence why even though the day is sunny and bright, Hana can be found wearing a fur-lined parka as she reorganizes the flowers in one trough. A rather disruptive customer has been in with her three children, all of whom probably damaged the flowers — but Hana seems to be taking it in stride. She whistles an old Bible hymn cheerfully as she goes about fixing the flowers to look a little less… throttled. There's no one else in the shop but her for the moment. And as Hana works, the greeting card rack catches her eyes and she lets out an exhale of hot air that blows some hair away from her face. Greeting cards are in disarray, the birth cards in with the grief cards, and so on and so forth. "Heaven have mercy on me!"
As a being who's body temperature is always unnaturally high, Sloane doesn't find the colder weather all that uncomfortable. The sole purpose of her jacket is to identify herself to other people, and is something she's required to do. Or else, you know, her parents might fire her. By the wholly unimpressed expression on her face, that probably wouldn't be so bad to Sloane. She hates this part of her job, and that scowl makes it abundantly clear to anyone who gazes upon her. The DWPC baseball cap on top of her head is adjusted once she enters the flower shop, both hands in her pockets as they jingles the change around in there. She enters at just the right time to hear Hana's exclamation about the cards, and, naturally, her head turns to the side to regard the area of the store where she assumes something horrible has happened. She almost looks excited to see some commotion, but as her eyes fall on the rack of cards… she finds absolutely nothing wrong. Blankly, Sloane stares at the cards, scanning for some sort of misfortune that. Then, quizzically, she looks back to the blonde girl, her brows forming a crease between her eyes. "Uh…"
As a being who's body temperature is always unnaturally high, Sloane doesn't find the colder weather all that uncomfortable. The sole purpose of her jacket is to identify herself to other people, and is something she's required to do. Or else, you know, her parents might fire her. By the wholly unimpressed expression on her face, that probably wouldn't be so bad to Sloane. She hates this part of her job, and that scowl makes it abundantly clear to anyone who gazes upon her. The DWPC baseball cap on top of her head is adjusted once she enters the flower shop, both hands in her pockets as they jingles the change around in there. She enters at just the right time to hear Hana's exclamation about the cards, and, naturally, her head turns to the side to regard the area of the store where she assumes something horrible has happened. She almost looks excited to see some commotion, but as her eyes fall on the rack of cards… she finds absolutely nothing wrong. Blankly, Sloane stares at the cards, scanning for some sort of misfortune that. Then, quizzically, she looks back to the blonde girl, her brows forming a crease between her eyes. "Uh…"
The little bell on the door goes off as Sloane enters. Hana has a brilliant mega watt movie star smile for the other woman. "Welcome to A Rose By Any Other Name!" For a minute Hana pauses in place, looking at Sloane's baseball cap and jacket. A bit of recognition dawns on her face although it must have been rather minute, as she doesn't have anything to say about the DWPC logo. "How can I help you today?" When she notices Sloane's gaze traveling towards the rack of greeting cards, she lets out a small laugh and moves over to them, hand outstretched. "Some adorable little kids were in here just before you came in. They had their own ideas about organization, as you can see." Or not, judging by the look on Sloane's face. Hana starts to organize idly while waiting for a response from Sloane, beginning to hum the hymn that she was before the other woman had come in.
At the broad smile and enthusiastic welcome, Sloane seems taken aback rather than appreciative or equally as enthusiastic. Her brows simply raise, chin tilting upwards while her mouth draws into an awkward smile in return. Very awkward. Her hands come out of her pockets and the coins stop clinking together, then she undoes the zipper on her jacket, finding even the flower shop to be a bit too hot for her 'body type'. "Came to pick up some manure. Need to restock for the site," she says to Hana, taking a few steps towards the rack as the other begins organizing them. "And when I say 'some', I mean… about twenty bags, if you have it. I don't feel like driving across Dallas to the hardware store." She idly watches, snickering under her breath at Hana's explanation of the incident with the rowdy, boisterous children. "I'll never have kids," she says in response, as though the anecdote only reaffirms that to Sloane. "… How can you /wear/ that?" Sloane says, taking her cap off to fan her face with it. "It's too hot."
"Really?" Hana asks with some surprise as watches Sloane undoing the zipper of her jacket. The blonde woman gives a vague shrug of her shoulders before she smiles again. "Oh, well. Everyone's body temperatures run on different scales. I tend to be a little nippy in the shop, especially around this time of year. It's been a lot nicer the past few days than it has been the past few weeks though, don't you think?" She asks as she finishes getting the greeting cards reorganized and straightened. Hana runs a hand through her hair and raises a brow at Sloane's order before she smiles at the other woman. "Of course. It's in the back. That's an awful lot of fertilizer! It's in the back. We may need to use the wheelbarrow to get it all out to your car. You won't have to make two trips, will you?" Hana asks, sounding more worried that it'll inconvenience Sloane than it'll inconvenience her personally. The comment about children is met with a sly grin. "I used to think the same thing, but I grew out of that, you know. Children are a blessing."
Sloane doesn't particularly care about personal boundaries, evidently. Even with complete strangers, she can be embarrassingly (for the other person, at least) upfront. At the mention of Hana's coldness, she raises a hand and then presses the back of it to the other woman's cheek, as if punching her, though her touch is very slight and tender. Heat practically radiates off Sloane's skin. "Really," is all she remarks. "I wish it'd rain a bit more in Dallas. I feel dry," Sloane says, squinting her eyes at the greeting cards while trying to read them. Someone needs glasses. "My truck's big enough. We'll be fine," she assures Hana, while beginning to turn towards the back to go pick the fertilizer up. "Children are about as smelly as the manure," she muses over her shoulder, before halting in her tracks at the ringing of her cellphone. Hesitantly, she pulls the cell from her pocket and checks the number. When she sees the caller ID, her eyes roll, and she engages in the shortest phone call ever.
"What," Sloane snaps into the phone once she's flipped it open.
The resulting response is from a man on the other side, though he sounds effeminate at best. And very, very loud. "SWEETHEART, it's Cookie! Are you picking up the things your father and I asked for? Get him some flowers. You know how he ADORES those."
"Flowers are /fabulous/, dad. And expensive. You owe me twenty fuckin' dollars." Then, she promptly snaps the cell shut.
As Hana feels Sloane's touch to her cheek, she jumps back as though someone put searing hot lava on her cheek, rather than a fist. There's an almost rabid look in the blonde's eyes until she gets hold of herself and straightens out her parka, giving a slight smile to Sloane. "Some more rain for the plants would be nice, yes." Hana puts her hand into the pocket of her parka, pulling out a set of keys. She moves back behind the counter towards the door there and unlocks it, her hand quivering for a moment. "Out of curiosity, what's the fertilizer for?" She starts into the even colder store room as she hears Sloane's phone conversation. Needless to say, the whole thing is rather nicely echoed throughout the small store, as plants do not a good muffler make. Hana mutters something underneath her breath about sinners before she darts into the store room and leaves Sloane to her conversation.
After a moment or two she comes back out with a wheelbarrow barring two bags of fertilizer. She struggles a bit to move it, but forces a smile and seems rather determined. "It's been a while since I've actually sold any, because of winter and all. They used to be up front, but I moved them."
Sloane considers snapping her cellphone in half and using the shards to slit her own throat. The look of disgust that she has on her face isn't the same kind as Hana's, but more with underlying embarrassment and humiliation. Turning around and looking for where the store worker went, she lets out a great, big sigh. "Uh, yeah. Our lawn could use a bit of water," she replies to Hana's comment about needing rain, albeit belatedly. The cellphone, instead of being broken, is instead slipped into her pocket. She follows Hana over to the counter, doing a little one-handed kong-vault right over the blockade, landing nimbly on her feet on the other side. "The fertilizer is what I bury my murder victims under," she says to Hana, somehow managing to keep a straight face. For a second, it looks like she's not kidding. Of course eventually that crooked smirk of hers returns. "Here," she says, trying to take the wheelbarrow off Hana's hands by lifting one of the two handles, managing it well. "Whaetever. Doesn't matter to me, really. I can carry it all to the truck, but thanks, uh…" Then, she stares rather pointedly at Hana's chest. Not because she's being creepy, but briefly searching for a name tag.
The wheelbarrow is easily taken from Hana. She's not going to protest any help she can get. "It's times like these I wish I could hire a boy to help around here. Sometimes my younger brother does, but he's been busy with school lately." Hana pauses as she considers the kong-vault, smiling at Sloane. "Hey, you're pretty good. I'm a gymnast myself," she comments before sliding a piece of wood underneath the store room door to keep it open so they don't have to keep opening it every time they need another few bags of fertilizer. She does the same with the front door immediately afterward. For a long few moments, Hana doesn't seem to know how to take the comment about murder victims before she ends up giving something of a nervous laugh. "Kind of dark, aren't you?" She asks. When she catches Sloane staring at her chest, she looks vaguely affronted before she realizes what Sloane wants, causing her to let out another high-pitched, nervous laugh. "I'm sorry! I'm Hana Adams. You are…?"
"I'm stronger than any boy you'll ever convince to work here," Sloane says, her eyes rolling as she begins to wheel the fertilizer to the door. Once she's returned to the other side of the counter, she abandons the wheelbarrow entirely, opting to just carry the fertilizer with her hands as though they were shopping bags, with relative ease. The slow, unsteady walk causes the dogtag on her neck to jingle. "I'm a break dancer, and I do a bit of diving, too. I guess I'm all over the place as far as acrobatics go," she says, shrugging her shoulders as the bags of manure begin piling up infront of the door fpr later transfer to her truck. She keeps one behind at the counter for Hana to scan for a price, then multiply by twenty. At Hana's question, Sloane's wolfish smile broadens. "Yeah. I've got a weird sense of humour," she says to the other woman, her one brow raising at the nervous laughs. "Sloane Young," she replies, holding her hand out with her elbow is propped up on the counter, knowing that the last time they touched, Hana was startled by her heat.
Hana's jaw drops at Sloane. How can she be so strong? Hana looks down at her own hands and then back to Sloane as she follows the other woman through the store. Eventually she steps behind the counter and keys in the price of the fertilizer on the old timey cash register. "That's taken care of," she announces with a smile before she nods towards the store room. "Please, help yourself. I trust you not to disrupt anything back there. And since you have it all under control…" Hana grabs the wheelbarrow, walking past Sloane. When she notices Sloane's outstretched hand, she gently shakes it. "Pleased to meet you, Sloane. Diving, huh?" Hana asks as she moves back to the store room with the wheelbarrow. "My little brother is a swimmer. I was a cheerleader, personally. Never got much into the real 'sports', except for cheering them on."
Sloane's display of strength isn't inhuman, but rather, unnatural for someone of her size. She doesn't appear to be particularly muscular underneath all her clothes; no broad shoulders, to rippling thighs seen past her shorts, or veins on her forearms. As she speaks to Hana, she moves back and forth between the front and back storage room, taking out two bags of manure each time. "How much does it come to?" she wonders over her shoulder when the last bag has been placed by the door. "I used to do some, uh, skating, back in Minnesota. My parents wanted to make me fabulous, like them," she says, eyes rolling once more. Fabulous. Either she likes the word, or she's mocking the people who, though they didn't give birth to her, kept her alive for so long. "There aren't many skating rinks here, so I switched sports according to Particle Theory," she says while shaking Hana's hand. The heat likely isn't as much of a shock now that the other woman knows what's coming. "A lot of people would argue that cheerleading /is/ a sport, dollface." Judging from her tone, Sloane's not one of 'em.
Whatever the case may be, Sloane seems to be more physically equipped than the dainty Hana. Of course, it may just be in Hana's head. "Let's see. The fertilizer is ten fifty a bag, times ten…" Hana pushes the final transaction button on the cash register. "One hundred seven dollars and eighty nine cents, with taxes." Some cashiers would look a little ashamed at the steep price. Not Hana. It is her business, after all, and Sloane DID want twenty bags. She raises a brow as she looks Sloane over. "Ice skating, huh? I always wanted to try that. And I guess you can't blame your parents for wanting to make you like them. That's what they do, you know." Hana's hand is cold in stark comparison to Sloane's. Perhaps a bit of poor circulation mixed with the fact that the air is a little chilly in the shop. She lets out something of a laugh at Sloane's remark about cheerleading. "Well, it was more of a hobby for me. Our school never got to go to the big cheerleading competitions or anything, which suited me just fine. Now, gymnastics on the other hand…"
Sloane has her wallet out in time to hear the price. She's not very bothered by it, seeing as she's had to buy more expensive things for the site before. Plus, it's not even her money. "Okay. And, uh, can I get a bouquet, too?" she asks, nodding towards one of the simple sets of carnations off to the side. "For my faggots," she clarifies, pressing her lips into a line, only remembering to ask because of the rumble coming from her pocket, cellphone blaring 'Barbie Girl'. She ignores it. "I /can/ blame them, actually. Being like them isn't exactly a good thing…" she murmurs, while sliding a one hundred dollar bill over to Hana, then a twenty. In between the two bills is a business card for the DWPC, hidden, with Sloane's personal cell number written on the back. "Well, if you're sensitive to cold, then ice skating probably isn't for you. We're out there in skimpy skirts and crap, freezing," she says, letting Hana keep the change.
As soon as the word 'faggots' is said, you could hear a pin drop in the little store. Hana's jaw drops for the second time today and then she crosses herself, murmuring a quiet prayer beneath her breath. "You dear, sweet girl. May His holy light shine upon you." Hana seems more saddened than incensed by the fact that Sloane has said faggots. And that she even HAS faggots. "You're right, being like them isn't exactly a good thing. But He is great and He will see you through the hardships that you face when you struggle." Hana tosses the money into the cash register, not yet finding the business card. She will later when she's going through the till. The change is offered up to Sloane and Hana gives the faintest of smiles. "You're right, I probably wouldn't take too much to ice skating. And don't be offended, but you don't really seem the ice skating type. Pick out any bouquet you want."
Sloane's eye actually twitches when she hears Hana. She might as well pitch backwards, hissing, and then fall into the fiery pits of hell. She's never actually been blessed before, and given her nature, she assumes that it's rightfully so. "You some sort of homophobe?" she says, laughing out loud, though she doesn't catch on that Hana agrees with her primarily because of her prejudices. "Trust me, dollface, God wants nothing to do with me, but… Amen, and all that," she says, refusing the change and leaving it on the counter, even though it's a good four or five bucks leftover. Moving to the side, she pulls out one of the red bouquets without even considering her other options. "I'm not offended. To you, I probably seem like the type to… not be graceful," she says, as she meanders over to the large pile of manure bags, which she stupidly kicks right over. The bags fall right out the door, some sliding across the pavement a few feet. Luckily, she's parked her truck close by. "Anyway… I'll see you later. Thanks for the service. I'll be back, actually, tomorrow or the next day."
"You say homophobe, I say enlightened." Hana says simply, reaching for the change that Sloane won't take. She puts it into one of the donation jars that rests on the counter — apparently the kids with muscular dystrophy are getting five bucks today. "Of course God wants you. You just have to open up your heart and give Him a chance. Have you ever been to the Fellowship of the Sun?" Hana asks, her eyes growing rather wide as she gets ready to 'convert' another poor lost soul. "You should come some time. We're not as bad as everyone thinks, really. We're just… we want wants best for all of mankind." The living, breathing ones, anyhow. When Sloane mentions that she's coming back, Hana seems rather pleased. Another chance to preach the good word to Sloane! "Don't stay out too late after dark! Thank you for your business!" She cries out, before she moves to close the door. "What a nice girl. Too bad about the fags."
