Who: Daniel and Ella What: A walk, and the purchase of one flowershop in disrepair. (aka: Daniel owns a flowershop) Where: R1, The block outside Bellum When: After self-defense lessons with Luther, but before Shane started going all nuts. Warnings: There's some glossy intimacy stuff, but nothing graphic. Status: Completed
There were things Ella knew.
She knew that she had to manage to get out of the building before she could ever get on with living. She knew that she was never going to be the same person she'd been before the attack. She knew that the attack was having as profound an effect on Daniel as it was on her.
She knew he needed her, and that he cared about her. She knew he panicked whenever she was out of his sight, and she knew he was talking less with every day that passed. She knew he wasn't writing, and she knew that he hadn't spoken to Boyd, Vlad or Rosalie in days.
She knew that he had no idea what he felt for her.
She knew that R1 was toxic, no matter how many windows she opened or walls she had painted. She knew that Daniel thought it was the only place in the world that offered safety. She knew that Daniel's world was small, a tiny thing that became foreign and unmanageable outside the confines of the rooftop.
She knew he needed to get out even more than she did.
Which is why, when she woke up one morning, she set the coffee on and laid out a pink dress, black tights and black shoes at the foot of the bed. She made enough noise so that Daniel would hear her, and then she made herself a cup of tea and went to take a very long bath.
The bathroom in the master bedroom had slowly stopped looking like it belonged to a man in the past few days, and there were oils and cremes and candles on the counter. She lit a scented candle (Lemon Verbena) and she propped her laptop on the sink as she filled the tub. Billie Holiday began playing very softly, just barely audible in the bedroom through the cracked bathroom door.
She soaked in the tub with the teacup on the ledge, and she hummed softly between sips. The mirrors fogged, and the scent of jasmine tea mixed with lemon verbena and rose bath oil filtered into the bedroom.
By the time she wrapped a towel around herself and began the process of drying her long hair, Frank Sinatra was singing, and she was endlessly calmer than she had been when she'd decided they were going outside.
Then the laptop went quiet, and she pulled her hair back loosely. The dark circles beneath her eyes were helpless, but she covered them a little; she didn't bother with hiding her freckles. She glossed her lips, and she looked young and nervous when she walked out to the bedroom. She slipped on the tights and dress, and then she stepped into the chunky black shoes and went in search of Daniel, who had certainly run hiding from the music, and the scents, and the early hour.
It was true. Daniel did not keep regular hours. He ate when he was hungry, slept when he was tired, and woke when it suited him. He had no pursuits, and though he read and made his little notes often, he did no hard writing, and since the apartment was bare of any other activity other than the laptops in various states of disrepair, he did little else but brood and watch his mirrors.
Ella's presence tended to impose a certain order on the chaos. While he did not necessary like it, there was no question that he enjoyed her presence--even when it was absolutely disruptive. The feminine scents, the frilly colorful clothes, the way she insisted on putting everything away, none of this was as annoying as the music. Daniel liked soft stringed music or soaring voices in incomprehensible tones. He liked music, not speech to notes. He put up with it, however, because her music made her happy, and he liked it when Ella was happy.
Daniel was hiding in the kitchen, brewing very thick coffee and reading Joyce without a shirt on. His hair was still sticking up in the back from the night's rest, and he looked distracted, but at least not tired. Ella's regular mealtimes helped him put on some healthy weight, and his bones didn't stand out from his skin the way they used to. He looked up when she came in. "Nice bath?"
She walked up behind him, and she slid her arms over his bare shoulders and nosed his curls, which smelled of warmth and musk and sleep and coffee. "Men are governed by lines of intellect - women: by curves of emotion," She quoted when she noticed what he was reading. Her hands slid to his chest, and she let her cheek rest against his hair. "A Portrait of the Artist was rejected on first submission, you know," she said, "and I had a lovely bath. What ran you out of bed? The music or the scents or the steam?"
There was a smile in her voice, as if she already knew the answer. Daniel was a bachelor, terribly set in his ways, and Ella knew it.
"You make too much noise," Daniel replied, though not at all as if he meant it. In fact, he sounded quite pleased at the embrace, actually. "Can't you bathe in silence like everyone else?" He brought his free hand up and ran his fingers over her forearm in lazy intimacy.
"If I bathed in silence, how would I get your attention?" she asked, the teasing evident in the cadence of her voice. Her fingers caressed lightly as she spoke, soft and leisurely with familiarity.
"You'd figure out something." He put book and cup down on the counter and turned around to take her waist in his arms and kiss her. "You smell nice." He kissed her cheek, and then her neck.
"Am I forgiven for my heinous infraction of listening to music with intelligible words in English?" she asked with a smile, leaning into him sinuously and without reserve, tipping her neck for him when he kissed. She was waiting to see if he seemed to notice she was dressed to actually leave R1, but she had already realized that Daniel was slow to make such observations, so she wasn't counting on it. She stretched, needing to even on the thick-heeled shoes, and she kissed his lower lip. "Plans for the day, Mr. Webster?"
"I was thinking about taking you back to bed," he said into her skin, smiling a little at her kiss and then bringing his mouth back to her neck, and then the curve of her ear. She did smell good, with the steam still clinging to her skin. Maybe long baths with smelly things was what made her skin so soft.
"After I went to so much trouble to look good on your arm?" she asked, a touch of seriousness in the teasing question. She would be lying if she didn't admit it was tempting; he would take her back to bed, and she'd have no interest in leaving. She liked the warm press of his skin against hers, the rough scrape of his jaw against heated and sensitized places, the sounds he made and the things he said to her after (when he wasn't thinking so much).
His palms went down the curves of the dress until they stopped at the hem and started come back up again--under it. "You look good everywhere." He traced her ear with his tongue and then pulled back again for a real kiss, no teasing implied.
She gave herself up to the kiss like she always did; no hesitation, no reserve, and her hands slid down along the planes of his stomach, fingers sure of where he liked to be touched and what made him lose control. "You could take me for a walk, and then we could spend the rest of the day naked in your bed," she said, voice going femininely husky at the words, because God, did she want to forget walks and determinations and stay in.
By this time he had the dress up around her waist and he was really cursing the moron that came up with tights as a fashion statement. What the hell was wrong with people, anyway? "Bed first. Walk later." He made a thick sound in the back of his throat under her hands and pressed her back toward the door of the kitchen.
"You're cheating, Daniel Webster," she said knowingly, though her own fingers were already tugging on the waistband of his pants, as if they refused to acquiesce to what her mind was trying so determinedly to insist was going to happen. Her fingers dragged through the dark, soft hair on his belly, and she kissed the rough stubble of his jaw and made a soft sound of want. "And I'm going to let you, but I'm going to get you out of that bed in the end," she assured, fingers slipping past the fabric he was wearing, "and we're going for a walk."
He was cheating, but he didn't care that much. There wasn't much in the way of talking but he did manage to distract her the best way he knew how, and enjoyed himself doing it. Afterward, he stretched out against the pillows of the bed (still rather sunken, since the new one hadn't been ordered yet) and said, sleepily, "I revoke your right to wear tights. They are in the way."
She wanted nothing more than to curl into his arms and against his warmth; to bask in the warm, safeness that came after intimacy. But she was determined, and she leaned up over him, and she kissed him once, slow, slow and lingering. "It's good for you to have to work for things occasionally," she said, pulling the top bedsheets with her as she moved away and crawled off the bed before he could rouse from his satiation enough to protest.
Daniel forced his eyes open through the glow and blinked heavily at her. "Where are you--mfgh, hey!" It was not exactly cold in the apartment, but when one doesn't have any clothes on, being abruptly deprived of sheets is bad enough.
She laughed softly, letting the sheets fall to the bedroom floor. She hadn't taken them out of any sense of modesty, but rather as a tactic to pull him from the sleepy lull he was in. She started getting dressed again (in the much beleaguered tights). "You promised me a walk," she said, even as she snapped her bra closed and turned to look at him. "I need to do this, Daniel," she said softly, almost pleading. She slipped the dress back over her head, and she stood at the foot of the ruined bed and just looked at him. "It'd be easier if you went with me?" she said softly; it was very much a request.
"But--" he saw the look on her face, and sighed. He rolled over and pressed his face into the pillow, endeavoring not to scream in frustration. "Do we have to?" But a moment later, he was extracting himself from the bedclothes. "Fine," he grumbled. "But I'm taking a shower first."
She nodded, and she went to the kitchen (where she'd been storing the items she'd been making from the plants and herbs she was growing on the balcony). She filled a bag with the small pots and tubs of items that were completed, and then she went and freshened up while he took his shower. Billie Holiday began playing again, and she hummed along quietly with the sound of the water as a backdrop.
Daniel presented himself a very short and grumpy fifteen minutes later. He looked very much like he always did, pale shirt, dark jeans, clear eyes, though his hair was darker and straighter when it was wet.
She couldn't resist tousling the dark, wet strands just a little, and she kissed his cheek. This close, it was obvious she was nervous, her skin fear-cool and fingers shaking. She held the bag out to him, and she looked at the door hesitantly and then back at him. "Ready?"
Daniel took what she held out, found a jacket and put his arm through hers. If they were going to go, then they were going to go. Daniel found that he disliked being out, but at least the constant paranoia of being watched wasn't as bad as thinking you might get jumped any second by a nutcase with a noose. He gave her a little sideways look that said, I'll protect you.
He went off toward the door. "What's in the bag?"
"There's a shop a few blocks down. I usually sell things there," she said, concentrating on the words and not the rapidly approaching door, or the space outside the safety of R1. "I use the money to support my father," she explained, talking to cover her nerves and saying more than she usually did in the process. "The salves and tinctures heal things, so they always sell out faster than I can make them." Admittedly, she made a very small profit on each item, selling them at almost cost to package them, but it added up at the end of the month.
She let him lead, and she held his arm tightly.
He looked down at her as they moved down the stairway. "You need money?" He didn't seem to find this a problem, just of significant interest. "You could just ask me." They descended to the Penthouse floor, and he gave the doors a distrustful look, but he didn't say anything before picking up his pace to get past them to the elevator. Everyone else in the building may avoid the damn thing, but not Daniel. He'd rather be in it than on the stairwell.
She hesitated at the bottom steps to the penthouses, but when she saw he was heading for the safety of the elevator, she hurried her step until she was inside. She looped her fingers in the front of his shirt, and she tugged him in quickly after her, wanting him inside now,now,now. She rubbed her cheek against his chest, and she breathed deeply. "It's bad enough I'm not paying you rent," she said honestly, looking up at him. "My father isn't your financial responsibility; he's mine. I make enough with these to pay for him normally, but I went to the hotel he was in here, and... and I just couldn't leave him there. I moved him somewhere nicer, which means I need to get back on my feet and return to work," she said with a stubborn tilt of her chin.
He put his arms around her. "Why can't you just stay with me and let me take care of it?" Daniel didn't have nor need much concept of money. Even when he'd had none, it was easily within his reach, like most material things. He lived on something like a monthly stipend--the bills were all paid by someone else, and the spending cash ended up in a drawer in the kitchen. He could probably get much more at need, by calling people who had advanced degrees and handled the money matters, but he never did.
She pushed the button for the first floor, and the smile she gave him as she rested her chin on his chest was utterly adoring. "I know you would take care of me and not feel the least bit put out or taken advantage of, but I don't want you to feel that sort of responsibility for me, Daniel, not out of necessity. If it was out of want and not need, I'd be sorely tempted, however," she told him truthfully.
It was ironic, she realized, because Daniel (she was starting to suspect) was precisely the type of man her mother had always wanted her to land; someone who could be forced to support the family in the long run. Ella, for her part, had no intention of telling either parent about Daniel's financial situation - even if she could hardly imagine wealth the level of his.
She slipped away from him when the elevator doors opened, and she very intentionally stepped out before he did, backing up against his chest almost immediately.
Daniel felt she was being needlessly circumspect. If he had money and she needed it and he didn't mind giving it to her, what was the problem? He had supported quite a few women, and spent quite a lot more than he suspected she needed on whims, but ultimately he decided it would be extremely stupid to say that.
He looked down at her when she bumped into him. "We can go back?"
She shook her head, but she didn't move yet. It was the first time she'd seen the lobby since she'd crawled through it. Her gaze was immediately drawn to the stairs down to the catacombs and then down the hall to 104. Vines circled their feet, but they didn't climb any higher than that; with Daniel at her back she felt safe. She just needed a minute. She reached for his hand, wound her fingers with his, and she waited for the panic to pass and for the vines to retract. Once she could look at the door to the catacombs without feeling like something had punched her in the gut, she took a step forward and then another, though she didn't let go of his hand throughout the entire, lengthy, process.
She didn't want to go back, and she didn't want to go forward, so they just stood there. For his part, Daniel just wished they could move, because he didn't like being so exposed, but judging from the vines, they weren't going to move until she wasn't afraid. So he would wait for her. His grip on her hand squeezed reassuringly, and, feeling helpless, he followed along.
She tugged his hand, leading him through the lobby quickly once she managed to remember herself enough to walk; she didn't want to linger in that space. Outside, the sun was high in the sky, and she was thankful for that (because it was so different than the night of the attack. She waited for him to step beside her, and she slipped her arm back through his casually, as if they walked outside every single day. She nodded in the direction of Yoruba's Closet, and she looked up at his face, knowing this had to be hard for him as well. "I have a friend who wants me to find her a job," she said in an attempt to focus on something other than all the unknown people around.
Daniel just tried to avoid getting too close to anyone, which, in this city, was practically impossible, but he tried it anyway. He also made sure they walked closer to the doors of buildings rather than the curb, disliking the open sky. He did better than he had last time they were out, though. "She can't find her own?" he asked, distractedly.
She noticed his distraction, and it made her focus her attention more on him than on her own fears. She slid her hand up his arm, in an effort to pull his attention to her as they walked. "It's Iris. The woman the doctor is in love with," she said, because any idiot could see that. "She's been through things, Daniel. I want to help her if I can, but I don't think I'm going to be able to go back to work," she admitted, though she didn't sound too put out at not returning to Bessa and Edmund and their vampire adventures. As she spoke, the sign in the window at Arcadia Flowers caught her eye.
Now Hiring.
She stopped, but she wasn't thinking about Iris as she looked at the sign. The flowers in black buckets outside the small shop turned toward her, and she smiled a little and looked up at Daniel.
When the conversation turned to Micah and Iris, Daniel's expression turned decidedly sour, but he well knew how much they both owed them, so he said no word against either. Daniel didn't trust Iris as far as he could throw her--a woman with such control over herself was not to be trusted--and Micah had made his life difficult from the moment he moved into the building.
Daniel stopped and blinked, turning to look where she looked (though he never entirely gave the road his back) and when the flowers turned he had to smile at them--and then at her. "You want to work in there?" he asked.
She reached a hand out, letting her fingers gently caress the petals of a tulip, and then she turned her head toward Bellum Letale. She could see the building entrance from here, and a glance upward let her see the edge of Daniel's balcony. It made her feel safer than thinking about having to take the subway into the city center to get to the Publishing House. She didn't think she could afford her apartment on what a flower shop paid, and she didn't think she could afford to help her father, but she could move down to one of the lower floors if it came to that. There had to be a substantial savings involved in that sort of a move.
"How much do you think a first or second floor apartment costs?" she asked him, though she didn't move toward the small shop's door yet. Inside, she could see a woman working, and she worried about what the woman would think of her, which was very unlike Ella. In the end, she slipped her arm from his, and she tipped her chin up (to make herself feel certain), and she pushed the door open to go inside.
"You don't need to move," he said, quickly, practically stepping on her heels to get in the door behind her, shoving it out of the way and resisting the urge to take her hand again. The urge was so strong he literally had his fingers outstretched behind her before he stopped himself. Daniel, who felt most flower shops looked exactly the same, let his eyes drift around the shop. It wasn't exactly overwhelming.
He was right about the shop not being overwhelming. It was small; no bigger than the kitchen in R1, and it was old and needed refurbishing badly. The woman behind the counter was as old as the shop, it seemed, and there was sign over her shoulder that proclaimed the shop 'For Sale.' Ella thought about asking how much, but she stopped herself from actually voicing the question. She looked over her shoulder, to ensure Daniel had followed her, and she approached the woman about the job.
"Do you know anything about flowers?" the old woman asked her, but she shook her leathered, wrinkled hand before Ella could answer. "No matter. It's getting hard to get up in the mornings," the woman told her, "and getting out of bed isn't as easy as it used to be. I need someone to open up and clean," she explained, and she went on to list off the other responsibilities of the job. The pay was, as Ella expected, minimum wage, and she started doing quick math in her head. She'd have to make more salves and tinctures to sell, but she could do that, and she knew there were open apartments on the lower flowers, even if she wanted very badly to stay with Daniel. She wasn't sure she could go so far-
She stopped that thought before it got too far along, and she looked over her shoulder again, reassuring herself that he was still there. He was. She didn't need to worry about her apartment today; today she was going to take this job. She bit her lip, and she gave him a questioning look. Do you think I can do this? the look asked, and it was a vulnerable, uncertain, hoping thing.
Daniel, for his part, did not want Ella to get a job. A job meant that she would be leaving the building regularly, in a routine that meant someone could follow her and hurt her in between or even at the shop if she was opening by herself. By the time she was halfway through the conversation with the owner, who reminded Daniel of a very distant relative that he didn't like very much, he'd resolved to just walk her there and back. It was going to be hell on his nerves but he certainly wasn't going to tell her that.
When she looked back at him he gave her a wan smile and nodded a little. Go ahead.
The owner had already seemingly taken it as a given that Ella was going to take the job. She'd stepped out from around the counter, and she'd handed her a faded apron with Arcadia Flowers stitched across the front in fading ink, and then she'd moved on to try to talk Daniel into buying some roses that had seen better days.
Ella looked around the shop, and she didn't see it as it was - something that this little old woman could no longer handle - but rather as what it could be. There was room for a tea stand and some books and chairs by the windows. She cleared her throat, and she asked the woman if she could use a manager of sorts, someone to handle the financials, figuring she might be able to get Iris a little more than minimum wage, though she knew that was being overly optimistic.
Daniel, who kept backing up while the shop owner kept advancing, finally agreed to buy a dozen roses which he immediately told her to give to Ella by pointing an imperial finger in her direction and leaving two fifty dollar bills on the counter to distract the woman while making an escape.
At least the woman was in a good mood, clucking to herself while she put the cash in the till. She didn't much like the sound of having to pay a second person, but Daniel mentioned off-hand that it might mean she didn't need to come in more than an hour or two a day, if that.
Ella edged closer to Daniel as the old woman counted the money and considered. "Do you think it could make money?" she asked in a whisper, eying the 'For Sale' sign again, though she didn't intend it to be obvious. How much could a flower shop that was a mess like this cost? Not much at all, right? 10,000? 15,000? She could get a loan. They offered those for small businesses. Then she could just hire Iris to do the books, and she could do whatever she wanted with the shop.
She bit her lip, and she tried to keep the hopeful look off her face.
"No," Daniel said, absolutely unthinking. He didn't think it could, really. Maybe the woman needed to work on her technique or her supplier or something. He was pretty sure that Ella could clean the place up a lot though, maybe get some real displays and stuff.
"Then maybe she's selling it cheap," she whispered, and she smiled when the woman finished wrapping the flowers for her. Ella took them, and they perked up as she sniffed them, and then she kissed Daniel's cheek in thanks, nosing his jaw a moment before turning her attention back to the old woman. "How much are you selling the shop for?"
The old woman stopped what she was doing immediately, and instead of looking at Ella she looked at Daniel, her eyes narrowing shrewdly. She pulled out a real estate breakdown the property, and she handed him the sheet, which proclaimed the current annual income for the shop to be $110,000 and the sale price to be almost $335,000.
Ella took the paper from his fingers, and she looked at it. She had no idea if a bank would guarantee a loan at that annual income, but she could ask around. But it was a far cry from the $10,000 she'd imagined. She smiled at the woman, and she folded up the paper. "I'll be in tomorrow at 6 am," she said, repeating the time the woman had told her to arrive, even though the woman seemed much more interested in negotiating than she did in talking scheduling.
Daniel looked at the woman, and then at Ella, and then at her. He really, really wanted to go home. "You want me to--" he stopped, remembering what she'd said about her father in the elevator. "You want me to... subsidize your investment?" Oh, God, he was starting to sound like his father. Hell was in the process of freezing over right now.
Ella had no idea what that meant, but it sounded like giving her money, and she shook her head. "I can call someone from a bank," she said with a slight tilt of her chin. The old woman, who could smell money in the air, cleared her throat and directed herself to Daniel. "I'll make it $300,000, if you agree before walking out the door," she offered.
Daniel narrowed his eyes at the woman. "I'll give you two-fifty for it, and you know I'm going to end up paying that over in taxes the first year just trying to get this place presentable." He took Ella's hand. "I'll buy you a different flower shop. Can we go?" Tug.
He got away with $275,000, after taxes. It was a Webster thing. He probably was going to have to talk to his father, too. Unless he could buy it and then claim to be legally dead or something.
When they started talking money, Ella was lost. She wasn't worried about him making deals with the woman, because she fully intended to take out a loan to pay him or her - one or the other of them, and she suspected the loan payments (which she was already figuring in her head) would be much less for $275,000 than $335,000.
That Ella was happy was obvious; every single flower in the place perked up in a way that made the old woman wonder if she had just been fleeced, because those flowers would sell for more than her substandard ones. Ella, for her part, ignored the old woman's presence altogether, however, and she stretched up and kissed Daniel slowly and unhurried. "Thank you, Daniel," she said with a soft smile. "I'll get a loan to pay you once I can get to the bank," she promised; she meant it.
She didn't bother carrying the items she had made to Yoruba's, not when she'd have her own store to sell them in soon. She leaned against Daniel's side as he and the woman discussed title transfers, taxes and inspections, and as they agreed on the following Monday to get all the papers signed. Ella, who didn't realize how much work was involved in selling a business, thought Monday was forever away, but then the old woman handed over the keys when Daniel signed a good-faith note.
She took the key from between his fingers, and she kissed him again. "Let's go home, Mr. Webster, so that I can thank you properly," she said with a smile that was full of warm, promising things.