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It was…strange. Lots of things are strange, of course, but. It was strange.
Ah, sorry. That phrasing was confusing, wasn’t it?
There was one— no—many things in one florist’s mind right then, but the main thought in their mind was ‘It’s strange. ’
Said strange thing may have been something like, ‘oh wow the floor is sure is wobbling around now isn’t it?’ Or,‘wow, is the walls wobbling too?’ Or,‘what was it Kamal said ag—oh right, Habit, Habit Habit Habit .’
It may have also been something like people made of paper laughing hysterically without really moving, outside of making sure they were always facing the single habitician in the building. Although, the ‘being made of paper’ part was pretty normal. So was the ‘always facing you’ thing, actually.
Everything was very dark, and it was...strange.
But that wasn’t the focus, was it? Yes, it was happening, yes it was important at some level, but what was really important right then was getting to a place. Place…roof? Carnival?
The office, that was it. But where was the office again? Flower Child had never been to the office, and their head felt…strange. They went to sigh, before slapping their Hand over their mouth. There’d be time for sighing later; right then, they had to breathe shallow and find the office.
There was a deep voice echoing around the habitat. Words came from a wordless unseeable origin, but whether that was the Carlas or some sort of hidden speaker, Flower Child wasn’t sure. The voice sounded kind of…angry. Maybe. Definitely intense in some way, but Flower Child’s head was too fuzzy to figure out words.
Oh wow, that sure felt like something wet they stood in! Was it the acid puddle? They stooped to stick their hand in but fell flat on their face. Definitely the acid puddle.
It tasted…spicy? Kind of. Definitely not great.
They got up, stepping out of it before pausing in their attempts to wipe their face dry on the un-soaked part of their sleeve. Was there something they were meant to be…?
The office!
They just fell in the acid puddle, it must be nearby! They clicked their tongue happily, blinking a bit to try to clear their vision before remembering they couldn’t see properly. For…some reason.
They decided to just accept their vision as a new fact of the world and hope it wouldn’t be too upsetting later. They could not handle a panic attack or a meltdown right now. Or, frankly, afford it.
Stumbling to the open door, they thumped against the side of the hallway that appeared in front of them and started walking down. Ah, the voice again… but it was fading away as they walked along. Interesting. Strange.
It was strange.
They reached an elevator, and got in. Strange, strange, strange.
They pressed the button to go up. Tapped their bouquet against their leg. Clicked their tongue again.
The door opened, and they walked out into a room. There were chairs lining the walls, as well as a big door and some very pretty art.
So pretty.
So...
Strange...
They blacked out.
Everything was dark, and fuzzy.
Flower Kid twitched their hand, or what felt like a cotton ball stuffed into fabric made of merino wool attached to a string of dandelion puffs. Probably their hand instead of the other thing.
There was the muffled voice from before, louder this time, that said some jumbled mess of sounds that were presumably words. It went quiet after a few seconds of noise, before saying something else, quieter. The quiet was appreciated. The florists mouth twitched as well, the slightest smile that would only be noticeable to someone looking very, very closely.
They mumbled wordlessly, their in-coherency almost an exact replica of the sounds they had heard before. As long as the sounds weren’t words. If they were words, then the florist’s near-silent mumbles were nothing like the sounds before.
The darkness was wavy. Kind of...bright? At times? As if there was a light source that was being blocked and unblocked randomly.
For some reason, they smelt something coppery, and maybe…sugar? Bubble gum? An interesting mix, to be sure. They clicked their tongue a bit, and suddenly the sounds from before started up again with a passion. Frowning, they tightened their eyes. Clicked their tongue again, then tapped their foot against the seat they were in.
Wait.
Seat?
They clicked again, a little louder, trying to collect their thoughts. Something else clinked against some sort of metal, and their hearing sharpened with a heaving intensity that caused their eyes to fly open.
Their head hurt.
Were they in the office?
What was-
Where was-
“Good Morning, you Drowzy Pants! :-) “
Habit.
Their eyes rushed all around the room around them, trying to—they had to—
“Look who it is!”
There was, where was he—
“ Why, it is You!! And ME!!”
There he was.
A shadow stood, not quite looming but definitely foreboding, almost-but-not-quite in front of them. He was standing in the dark of the room, only an outline and the soft yellow glow of his eyes marking his location.
“Have you guessed yet ‘whom’ I am?”
They stared at him, unmoving in their shock save for the sharp tapping of their finger against the armrest where their arm was restrained—there were restraints what was going on.
The eyes stared back, and there was a long, uncomfortable silence before they blinked and nodded in a jerky motion, nodding and nodding and nodding and why couldn’t they stop .
They stopped nodding.
There was another pause, as if Habit was trying to figure out how to respond. It seemed like he had some sort of script, but they weren’t following it quite right.
“Ah. Well—” he picked up energy again very quickly. “That’s right! :-) I’m no ordinary doctor… I’m a beautiful…glowing…”
He paused, almost dramatically, before stepping out of the shadows and turning the light on properly with a flourish.
“DENT’ST!”
Ah. That made a lot of sense.
“I sea that look in you’re eyes,.. are you STARSTRUCK???”
Was he serious?
The florist blinked at him slowly. Their finger tapped. Tap tap tap. Their eyes darted to stare at their finger for a second before darting back to the ‘dent’st’ in front of them. He seemed to really want an answer.
They hesitantly nodded, and he immediately jumped in place excitedly, mouth curling into a cat-like grin.
“Then get ready to be Blown-A-Way.”
He began to pace, grabbing tools of…some vaguely threatening sort as he spoke.
“This place has a ve-ry particular purpose Flower-Child. I want to make EVERYONE habby!”
But…hadn’t they helped everyone? Hadn’t they all left?
“Not just the Habitat, Silly Head! Not 5, 12 or even 20 folks. I’m going to bring joy to Everyone There Is.” Here he stopped his pacing, facing Flower Child with a… very enthusiastic expression.
“Listen up close: It all has to start with a Smile. ONE smile can turn in2 DOZENS or even HUNDREDS. And maybe, just Maybe…if you had a smile bbig enoughhh-”
He smiled. With his teeth.
There were too many teeth.
“-you could cheer up the Whole World.”
Why did he have so many teeth.
“I need More teeth, Flower Child. That’s the only way I can Get the Globe ‘2’ Grin”
Immediately, they started shaking their head. They had seen the pliers he picked up as he spoke. They could guess where this was going very well .
Habit was suddenly far, far too close. He gripped the side of their mouth tightly with one hand, forcing it open. They screwed their eyes shut tightly, trying to kick the dentist but failing. The pliers were in their mouth now. The metal radiated cold.
They felt pressure circling one of their molars, the pliers being adjusted around the tooth. There was a shift down, the faint squeak of rubber gloves on metal right by their ear, and the florist tightened their hands into fists. They felt the tooth shifting . Bone against bone, flesh twisting and disconnecting painfully as Boris loosened their tooth from their jaw. They heard him pick up a scalpel. Tried to bite his hand.
It didn’t work.
Tutting, he simply put the sharp blade to gum and started to cut, tiny incisions that were precise and well practiced. In between each cut he wiggled the tooth a little more. Eventually he hummed and set the scalpel down onto the table, then tightened his grip on the pliers.
They heard it before they felt it. A loud crack, and everything else was obscured by the overwhelming pain.
They tried to scream, but nothing but a pained whine came from their throat.
The taste of coppery blood, their blood , filled their mouth.
There was a quiet ‘clink’ beside them.
Slowly, they pried their eyes open, and looked to the side. Immediately, they paled and looked away. Their tooth lay on the metal table.
It was red. Blood. Gum. It glistened sickeningly in the strange light of the room.
Habit was humming, almost disturbingly happy as he cleaned the blood out of their mouth with a soft, soapy-tasting rag. The fabric brushed against the gap in their mouth, and they flinched.
He swapped the rag out for the pliers. The next tooth went a lot faster this time, one along from the first. More wiggling, cuts, another crack. Another ‘clink’, and so, so much pain.
The only thing they could really do was try counting, keeping track of each tooth and looping the steadily rising number through their mind like a refreshing online clock.
Nineteen times. Nineteen teeth.
There was a small pile of them laying on the metal table, shining a sickening red. The rag was completely soaked, and changed for a fresh one multiple times.
Throughout their pain, Habit had been talking, random sentences in between each tooth pulled. Their mind was too hazy to process the words in any logical way though. Whatever he had said would remain a mystery.
Suddenly, they became aware of the fact that Habit was standing up, pliers set down next to the…pile. They giggled silently for a few seconds, tried to lift their hand to wipe away some of the blood dripping down from their mouth before remembering that oh, wait, their hand! Oh that was hilarious their hand was held down, oh isn’t that a riot . They started shaking, the force of their inaudible laughter coming out in wheezes through their mouth, the rushing air irritating the open wounds.
Habit had stopped whatever he was saying, staring at them as if their laughter was the last thing he had expected. Which, fair. It probably wasn’t the appropriate response to the situation, but they were quite out of it thank-you-very-much, and they didn’t really want to have a breakdown right now so—laughing it was. Tears were streaming down their face, they were laughing so hard.
They were kind of—stuck. Laughing. They couldn’t stop; blood was filling up their mouth again and they had to spit it out but they just choked it out onto their hoodie (their favorite hoodie), and kept laughing, god it was just so funny . Eyes flickering between open and shut, they saw flashes of Habit’s office, and his…almost worried looking face?
Oh, wow wasn’t that ironic! The guy who had pulled all their teeth out was worried about them! Wasn’t that funny! That sent them into another fit of wheezes and giggles, heaving breaths interspersed randomly throughout.
There was a click, and the restraints around their wrists released them. All they did was lift their hands to their face, wiping at the tears dripping from their eyes. They attempted to wipe the blood off from under their mouth, but only succeeded in smearing it into the water on their cheeks.
A pair of hands, bigger hands, clasped them right under their armpits. Suddenly they were raised into the air, but they could do nothing except curl inwards and keep laughing, patting their face.
They jolted as they were set down onto something soft. A couch?
They took a big, wheezing breath, and choked on blood. Coughs started wracking their body instead of laughs. Pain swished around in their head like Putunia had started punching their skull. One of the same hands from before hit them on the back a few times before a cup was shoved into their hand. It felt cold, and as soon as they stopped coughing they immediately started chugging whatever was in the c—water, it was water. Some of it spilled down to mix with the blood on their chin.
Something else, a rag, was shoved into their other hand, and they started wiping away the blood dripping down onto their hoodie.
Blearily, they looked around and started trying to take stock. Their mouth was in immense pain, they were sitting on a couch holding a cup and some now-red cloth, and Habit stood almost…nervously? Off to the side, watching them.
Holding the rag to their mouth, they carefully prodded one of the spaces in their mouth with their tongue. Their vision immediately whited out in pain pain pain , and they quickly resolved not to do that again, ever.
They did it again.
Habit…wasn’t saying anything. Flower Child watched him nervously, and spat some more blood into the rag. He winced.
Shakily, they put the cup down. Most people knew at least the alphabet in sign, right? They started to spell out a word, and Habit jumped as if he wasn’t expecting them to move any more.
“B…oh, I know sign. You can…just…”
‘where’s my bouquet?’
Habit jolted, walking quickly to one of the shelves in the room to grab the bouquet from where it rested.
“You’re… free to leave, Flower Kid. I’m…is…” he froze. He stared down at the bouquet. Gently, oh so gently, he pulled something out of the collection of things. “Is this…an Erythronium flower?”
He lifted it up to smell it as they nodded, and his face twisted in shock. He rushed over to the florist, holding the tooth lily out like a prized relic of times gone by.
“Do you realize how difficult it is to grow a flower that pure?”
Looking to the side, Flower Kid nodded wearily. They spat into the rag. Habit stared at the flower, and then into the bouquet again. His face went pale as his eyes locked onto the crumpled papers carefully pressed and smoothed out, and he whipped around to stare at the florist.
“You must have read my diary…” Another nod, unnecessary this time. “you know all about me then…”
Habits face fell. “And…you came to see me anyway?”
Flower Kid did nothing but look up at him blankly, then down at their feet. After a few seconds, they put down the rag to sign: ‘well, yeah.' Their mouth twisted into a slight, closed-mouth smile. ‘you seemed like you needed some help. Some happiness.'
Habit was silent for a while, simply staring at the flower in his hand. Slowly, tears started dripping down his face. He sniffed, but did nothing to prevent his crying.
“That’s…so nice. How are you so nice?”
He seemed to actually want an answer, but all Flower Kid could do was shrug and wipe awkwardly at the edges of their mouth. All their sentence-making abilities were drained, used up in the few they had said before.
There was silence for a few more seconds before Habit jolted, causing Flower Child to flinch. He gently placed the flower back into the bouquet in his hands, and then held it out for the florist to take. Hesitantly, they did.
The two of them watched the pocket watch tick from its place hanging out the side of the bouquet. It ticked a few times, and then froze. Flower Child spat into the rag again and wiped their hand off on their trousers.
Just as gently as Habit had, they picked up the Erythronium flower and held it out to the tall man in front of them.
“You’re…giving that to me?”
They nodded. He took the lily.
And then, Boris Habit Smiled.