these flowers are for my boys /felix+poe

[gamemaker kelsier]

p o e .

"Blue eyes
Oh, they seem so easy to love
White lies
Always seem so easy to brush under the rug"

Poe leaned back, the rose perched perfectly between their lips. "Whaddya think Mr. Atkins, could I be Romeo?" they joked as the teacher set a little metal box full of money in front of them. The cafeteria was empty still, everyone was in class counting down the last five or so minutes before lunch break.

"Funny as ever Mr. Kelly," Atkins deadpanned as he taped a little poster to the front of the table. "Please keep in mind that you're here as a punishment."

Poe watched as he opened the cafeteria door to peer down the hall. There was meant to be another student helping him, probably someone from student council or something equally boring, hopefully chess club president. This school seemed to promise an endless stream of good-types. Poe saw straight through them, they used to be one of them. At their old school, they were in line for student body president. Poe had been breaking records and excelling in general.

People grow though. They wake up and realize that life can't be graded. Parents don't know everything and adults are liars, shitty ones. Maybe it made them a bit of a social outcast. It wasn't their fault if some kids couldn't see that the roses they were smelling were made of ash.

"Mr. Bergstromm, so kind of you to join us," said Mr. Atkins, emphasis on the word kind. Poe blinked, uncertain why the darling of the football team had been assigned such a low gig with a burn-out no less. The teacher moved the money container in front of Felix's seat and gave Poe a warning glance. They raised a brow back. Guess some rumours really do reach staff ears.

Kids were storming the lunch line already but for the most part, their table was ignored. Nobody bought roses on the first day of sales, everyone knew that. People had to organize first, find out who was buying who a rose and then figure out a way to make sure they got the most. They knew that song and dance all too well and it bored them.

"So, who'd you piss off to get yourself stuck with me?" Poe asked, "You rob a bank or two?"

elegant

[tick 12a / calla]

F   E   L   I   X

The bell's already gone by the time he gets his cleats untied.

"Meatloaf day, boys!" Carver had called while Felix was still fiddling with knotted laces, and then Mark had slapped him on the back and said something funny enough to make the rest of the team laugh so Felix ended up laughing too. Coach Nyman'd yelled at them to hurry up and the rest of the boys had taken that as a sign to slowly shuffle their way out of the locker room.

And Felix had followed them, bag slung over his shoulder, but he'd barely made it a foot out of the gym before he was getting called back in because Coach had wanted to remind him that District wide tryouts were coming up and he noticed that Felix hadn't signed up yet. Then he had to lie a little, had to smile and say he was still thinking about it because classes were tough and time was tight, but he'd try, he really would.

It was enough for Coach to nod him away and let him half speed-walk half sprint his way to the cafeteria.

"Sorry Mr. Atkins, I had a-" But the man's already gone, door swinging behind him, and that's fine. That's okay. He's probably got somewhere to be, after all.

And Felix does too, so he slides into his seat and adjusts the cashbox and starts when he notices who's sitting beside him. Or maybe, who isn't sitting beside him.

"Rob a bank?" But he smiles about it, laughs without being condescending and shrugs without even really thinking about it, "Broooo, I'd be like, in jail then. No way."

No way!

"It's Poe, right?"

And he'll be honest, all right, he doesn't know much about Poe. He's pretty sure that they have at least one class together, they must, but if Felix isn't with Camila during homeroom then he's with Prince and neither of them ever seem very keen on hanging out with the people on the other end of the class.

"I think it's a pretty good idea. There's nothing wrong with buying flowers for your homies." He points at the poster on their table, the result of a rushed all-nighter and copious amounts of printer paper, "Fundraiser for student council, I think? They didn't give me the details, I just made the poster."

He doesn't say that it's for extra credit. For Biology of all things. He doesn't say that he hadn't had time to study for the last test because Mama had gotten bad again and that meant that he'd spent the week following behind her to turn off the stove and sweep up the pieces of broken ceramic instead of going over dissection notes.

But Mrs. Reis likes him, enough to let him make up the marks by helping out the student council. It's better than retaking the test, honest, because trying to picture those frogs laid out on their tables again, all flayed and labeled, makes him want to throw up, so he just blinks down at his hands and thinks about something else instead.

Like roses!

"I kinda thought Prince would've been here, not that there's anything wrong with this - with you!" Hand on the back of his neck, he's always been all damage no control, bull in a china shop, earnest and genuine and permanently puppy-dog eyed, "I just didn't know you were so involved with committee stuff."

[gamemaker kelsier]

p o e .

"Blue eyes
Oh, they seem so easy to love
White lies
Always seem so easy to brush under the rug"

People write stories about the kind of beauty that Felix was. It was a thoughtless thing to process when looking at him. He would have been the hero in some old paperback, a shining prince atop a noble steed splashed across the cover. He had loving, proud parents and a promised romance waiting for him at the end of the story. Poe had never quite understood half the references in those fictions but the point had always been clear. People like Felix were the heroes. The protagonist of the story was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed honest to god knight in shining armour.

He was probably a bottle blonde, so that cut him from the running. It had to be chemicals that made his hair look so good under the harsh fluorescents of the cafeteria. No one was that perfect looking without at least a little bit of work. As far as Poe knew, Felix was just another stepford cookie cut-out of a kid. They assumed he was like the rest of the kids that he always hung around, privileged, beloved and not left wanting.

People like him rubbed Poe the wrong way in an odd, hypocritical fashion. Poe had been born with a silver spoon in their mouth as well. Two years ago they were him, maybe in another life they would have been on the football field beside Felix. They might have been friends or at least something like it. It would have just been more of the same though, just another person kept at arm's length and in the dark.

He took Poe's joke in earnest and for a moment, they couldn't tell if Felix was just terrible at sarcasm because he steamrolled the dig with an honest answer. Poe chose to ignore that and simply nodded when Felix asked their name, so what if it wasn't really? "And you're Felix?" they asked as if the whole school didn't know who he was.

"You're telling me that you made this?" Poe asked, surprised. He picked one of the flyers up and then looked over it at Felix. "I'm shocked you'd admit that," they said, tone genuine. Kids at their school weren't kind, people would be making fun of the poster for weeks. Then again, most found that it wasn't really worth it bullying Felix. He didn't always seem to get it. "Kinda funny," they murmered before letting it fall back on the table.

Of course, someone like Felix would sign-up to do a stupid job like selling roses at lunch for the student council. For their part, Mr. Atkins had caught them with a few rollies last week and was still holding it over Poe's head. He'd confiscated the weed and given detention with the promise that he wouldn't call their father.

It wouldn't have mattered. All that would have happened would be the library suddenly being renamed to 'Edwin Kelly II' or maybe a wing or something. Poe would have gotten a slap on the wrist and told to not do it again. Then they would have. Again and again and again until everyone was sick of it, of them.

A textbook call for attention.

They wanted to get a read on Felix. It was hard when his appearance didn't seem to match his speech. Poe had been expecting a football bro, insults or pointed words that practically begged for debate. If anything he'd only come across vaguely sweet, almost childish and far too trusting sentiment.

"Sorry, no prince here, just me" they said as they leaned back in their seat, "Atkins pulled his stupid strings, thought this would be better for me than detention." It kind of was in an offhand way. Kids wouldn't stop glancing over at their little set-up.

"I couldn't care less about this and I wouldn't be here if I didn't have to be. Frankly I don't get why you are," Poe said, "you must be a glutton for punishment." They picked the display rose up again and rolled it gently between their thumb and pointer finger. The thorns pressed against but didn't break their skin. It was close sharpness, wickedly beautiful. "Maybe you should hold this, it matches you better."

elegant

[tick 12a / calla]

F   E   L   I   X

"And you're Felix?" He shoots them a pair of finger-guns and leans back in his chair, easy as pie.

"The one and only!"

Because yeah, he's Felix - star player, golden boy, Mama's little infidel.

He watches Poe pick up a poster, looks at them looking at it, looks at them looking at him. There's an end of a jab between them, and it's not quite that Felix doesn't notice, he just doesn't mind. He's been the butt end of jokes before, been shoved and coddled and everything in between, but it's fine. It's natural. He has his way of coping and they have theirs.

He shrugs big and goofy to cut the tension, stretches his legs and rolls his shoulders, "I didn't take art this semester."

Poe's kinda a mystery, but that's not saying much. Felix is social, sure, he likes talking to people and he likes making them laugh, but between the guys on the team and the kids in Camila's circle, his hands are full more often then they're not

"Detention? Whoa man, what'd you do?" But then the common sense kicks in, curiosity killed the cat type vibes, and he puts his foot in his mouth before he ruins the fragile bit of peace between them, "Oh uh, sorry, you don't have to tell me, s'alright."

Everyone's got secrets, bro.

"You must be a glutton for punishment," Poe says, just enough teasing for it to hit right, just enough of a reminder for it to hit wrong.

Repentance, something in his head whispers, but he ignores it and smiles instead. It doesn't matter if it's a little more forced. It's a little like having a mouth full of cotton, a little bit like the beginning of a migraine. "Getting flowers is nice, makes people happy. It's nice to make people feel like that."

And it's not exactly what he means, but it's good enough. Because this is just how it is - he isn't great with words, he knows actions and he knows feelings and that's about it. This is how frustrating it is, to be good for no other reason, to walk with two arms out in front of you and not knowing whether its so you can pull someone in or push them away. His problems aren't Poe's problems, his problems are his own.

Suddenly there's a flower under his nose and he blinks at it, breaks whatever kind of introspective spell had started up. He lights up when he looks at the rose, takes it gently, "See? Now I'm happy."

And he thinks he is, he does. And he hears the undercurrent in Poe's words and sees the set of his spine, lets himself feel for a minute.

"Your turn." Felix reaches into one of the boxes under the table where the pruned roses are, the ones with the shorter stems, all smoothed down because the freshies were usually the ones that tucked them into their clothes or their hair, and so the thorns had been scraped off for the nurse's sake. He takes one of them out, a tiny little thing, and tucks it behind Poe's ear before he can remember boundaries, "Now you're happy too."

[gamemaker kelsier]

p o e .

"Blue eyes
Oh, they seem so easy to love
White lies
Always seem so easy to brush under the rug"

It was kind of cute the way that Felix had backtracked, like asking what they'd done to get in shit this time was a big deal. "Climbed up on the roof," they said with a shrug. Greer and them had wanted a better spot to smoke. Atkins had taken more offence to the weed than the climbing. At least he hadn't found the lawn chairs they'd set up last year.

Poe liked the roof, being so high up felt like being somewhere else. Sometimes they sat up there and watched the sunrise, then everyone arriving at school. They could hear the bell ring from their perch, see kids moving off to class as one mass. They could hear the moment the front door was locked and the building was abandoned at the end of the day. When they watched the world that way, sometimes it made them feel as if they were no longer in it.

As if they wouldn't be missed if they chose to never go back down.

Felix dropped honey-sweet words as if they belonged between them. It'd been so long since anyone had spoken so naturally to them that Poe couldn't help searching for bitterness in his tone. Felix only blinked at him, a sweet smile on his face. He seemed earnest, less the person that Poe had labelled him as, which didn't really make sense. He was friends with Camilla, they'd seen him sitting at her table at lunch.

It'd been easy to hand him the rose, it made sense to Poe, to deny themself beauty. They'd always loved giving things away as if losing more actually made them lighter. Poe liked the way it felt to give things to people. They'd spent their childhood always having more than everyone else and now they never had much of anything.

Felix's face seemed to light up when they'd given it to them. Oddly, they felt a twist in the pit of their stomach, a little stutter that proposed they give Felix a flower every single day just to see that warmth again. "Don't mention it," they said, almost shy, "It really does suit you.' Everything was always so grey lately, but the rose was red in front of blue, blue eyes.

"Your turn."

Poe tensed slightly, the quick movement near their face unexpected. Felix's fingers were warmer than they thought they'd be, rougher too. They weren't unwelcome though their fingers curled against their pants in their lap. It was an odd feeling, Poe was always the one who initiated touch. For a moment they didn't know what to do.

The stem of the rose curved well into their dreads. Poe was usually the one who gifted things. They'd grown up learning that tokens could be given for a soft affirmation and they'd carried that into their teens. It was done without knowing why, they just always had. It was nice to get something back, even something as easy as a rose stolen from a stupid fundraiser.

Maybe Poe was kind of happy for a second there too.

"Hey thanks," they said, a little half-smile slowly forming, "I didn't know it was that simple."

They didn't want to be mean, sarcasm was always just a good defence and the feeling in the pit of their stomach hadn't left yet. "So you do football yeah?" they said and pulled their gaze away. Their friends were sitting in the usual spot and Poe shot Lorna a face. "What else you do? Don't say more sports, they don't count."

elegant