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craigsonweek2024 · 11 months ago

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Day 2: Flower symbolism

Just something I wrote.

Craig’s feet slammed into the ground as he ran, eyes darted on the map sent to him by Jason. A sigh of relief only passed his lips as he finally reached the nursery and the sight of Jason standing in front of it.

Jason looked up and let out a sigh, “Took you long enough…” There was a testing tease in his tone, as if testing the limits to their new friendship. Jason was aware he was far from best friend territory but it was worth a short.

Craig gave a pant, “Sorry, couldn't figure out the map you showed me.”

“Aren't maps your whole thing?”

“This map is different.” Craig held up the map in order to back up his point, whether his point was convincing or Jason lacked the energy to argue, Jason just gave a laugh and opened the door for Craig to walk in.

Just six months ago Jason the Junior Forest Scout stayed over at Craig Williams’ house, a day later Craig had punched down the walls he built to keep Jason out his life and let him walk through. Three months ago, Craig finally apologized for the flowers he ruined in the backyard of Jason, and two days ago, Craig requested help from Jason to understand flowers, but more specifically their meaning.

Craig didn’t expect Jason to accept the request so enthusiastically, but before Craig knew it Jason texted him a map of a nursery they could go to.

At first Craig was confused over the location. Whenever Craig heard the word nursery, he imagined a place where you kept babies for whatever reason. But Craig kept himself from questioning it, he wanted to trust Jason for once in his life.

But when Craig walked into the nursery, his expectations were not met.

Jason took a step towards Craig, noticing the confused demeanor of the mapmaker. “What's wrong?”

“You took me to nursery, right?”

“Yeah, I told you it was going to be one.”

“I thought nurseries had babies.”

“Why would there be babies here?”

“Cause it's a nursery, it's where people keep babies! Or so that's what I thought…”

“You asked me to tell you about the meaning behind flowers so I took you to a place WITH FLOWERS. Why were you expecting babies?!”

“I thought a nursery was where people kept babies!”

“Why would I take you somewhere with babies?!.”

“I don't know, I wanted to trust you! You're the expert and I assumed you knew what you were doing and it would make sense once it played out!”

“Craig, you asked me about flowers so I'm taking you somewhere where you can learn about flowers…I thought it would have clicked after we agreed…”

“Well excuse me for wanting to build our friendship!”

“Is letting me take you somewhere you thought would have babies building our friendship?!”

“Well, yeah if I trust you to!”

“So if I took you here and if it actually had babies, would you trust me to just get one with you?!”

“Well you’ll have to take me out to dinner first!”

“Well what if I did just that, Craig?!”

“I don’t know, well what if you did, a-and I let you!”

“Fine, I will! Is Saturday good?!”

“Brilliant!”

“Good, I’ll see you after the dinner horn goes off!”

The boys hadn’t noticed the eyes drawing onto them, they had gotten ‘a little’ too engrossed into their argument turned totally-not-asking-out-a-boy-that’s-supposed-to-be-your-friend/former-enemy moment. But the interaction ended with a stiff hand shake, acting as if their faces weren’t heating up like a stove.

Jason took a step forward and guided Craig towards some of the flowers, “Alright, you said you wanted to know the meaning behind some flowers?”, “Yeah! Oh, these look nice! Aren’t these the flowers that used to be in your backyard?” Craig grabbed at a pot of rhododendrons amongst a few others. “They are, wait why do you want to know the meaning behind flowers, must people just buy flowers based on whatever looks nicest.” Jason asked. “Hmmm, I don’t know, maybe I want some flowers for when you take me out to dinner?” If Craig thought about it long enough it couldn’t be considered a lie, or if he did that at the last second when Saturday does come around.

Jason let his face turn red, “Didn’t think you’d take that seriously…”, “So, show me what you know, all-knowing-scout.”

“All-knowing scout, very funny…Anyways, rhododendrons actually mean danger, like when something bad will happen. Guess that’s why they were right above the notebooks you broke into my backyard for…”

“Hey, I said sorry!”

Jason ignored the exaggerated offense from Craig by taking the rhododendron from his hands and putting it back where it was, “You getting them?”.

Craig let out a sigh, “Not really, but I might change my mind.”

As the pair walked, another flower caught their attention. “Look, it’s you.” In Jason’s hands rested a pot of marigolds. “Jason, I’m not blond.”

“No, not the color, the meaning. They’re like you, they symbolize, you know, creativity, passion. Sounds like you, you’re always coming up with a new idea and you get all…Passionate about it, it doesn’t even need to be a cool idea, it could just be anything. Like Kelsey and Jp, your map, or that bug city your grandma told me about when she was over and you let me sleep at your place. Oh hey it’s you again, and you’re next to Kelsey.” Jason put the marigolds down and pointed to a pot of more marigolds next to a pot of Strelitzia, or “Bird of Paradise”, a name Kelsey would have liked better.

Craig felt his face heaten up just hearing Jason’s own opinion of him. He never imagined someone paying attention to any of his traits, small details or remembering moments in his life he felt embarrassed being recited by his grandmother to Jason.

The pair kept walking, the cycle repeated. Craig would pick up a pot of flowers and Jason would tell him about him, but one thing that kept happening was Jason pointing at a flower and saying they were someone they both knew. So far they ‘ran into’ Boris, Kelsey again, Jp, Tony and Eliza.

“Hey Craig, you should try and find me.”

“But you’re right in front of me.”

“No, find a flower with a meaning you think sounds like me.”

“Alright, I can do that.”

Craig walked the aisles of the large nursery, eyes darted on the flowers and the sign next to them stating their name, facts about them, how to take care of them and more. But the only thing Craig looked at on them besides their names were their symbolism, which was thrown in as an attention grabber to get a customer interested in buying them.

After looking some more, he stumbled upon daffodils shining pridefully in the sun, standing out the most to Craig.

“Found you.”

“Craig, daffodils mean new beginnings and stuff.”

“I know but…I feel like it suits you, mainly our friendship. We didn’t start out well, and at first we didn’t think well of each other. You thought I was some rule-breaker who couldn’t listen to anyone but myself if my life depended on it.”

“Still true.”

“Jason, I’m trying to be thoughtful!”

“Sorry, continue.”

“As I was saying before I was interrupted… I thought you were a bossy boots know-it-all who flaunted your badges as if it was a life line…But, I saw past that, I realized why you acted that way, you started changing how you acted and how I saw you changed too.”

Jason stayed silent for a moment, blinking as he took more steps towards the flower in Craig’s hands. “They’re even yellow like my hair.” Jason set a finger ever so lightly on one of the petals, as if testing if this scene was real. “But I asked about me, not our friendship…”

Craig placed the daffodils in Jason’s hands and picked up another flower. A gladiolus, perfectly trim, just the right height.

“Now I’ve found you.”

“Uh huh, and why do you think that’s me?”

“Well, it’s your whole scout thing. See, gladiolus means confidence, honor and loyalty. You always want to do the right thing, even though at first you weren’t that good at showing it, you still tried to. Oh and I almost forgot, I noticed you liked being all loyal and stuff! Boris told me you’d do almost anything for him and Tony, even though it’s usually Tony doing things for you…Fits you well if you ask me.”

Jason hung on every word Craig said like a noose(sorry), he blinked rapidly as his mind processed what was just said.

“Hey, Craig?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you mean all that?”

“Of course!”

“You weren’t just using the daffodil symbolism as a distraction to not say anything about me?”

“No! I may have gotten a bit side tracked, but why do you think I would lie to you?”

Jason fiddled with his thumbs and looked around, “Well…Before you never wanted to listen to me, you never paid attention to me and only saw me for what I was like. I don’t know, it’s weird knowing we couldn’t stand each other, but now we’re in a nursery saying nice things about each other, a-and I asked you to dinner when we got in here! Our first ‘argument’ as friends and I settled it by asking you out to a…I guess, date…?” Blood splashed up to Jason’s cheeks and ears just mentioned the dinner-date again.

Craig looked downwards and sighed, he looked down at the gladiolus again. He kissed one of its petals and set it down to take more steps towards Jason.

“It is weird, but that’s okay. If it makes you feel any better, I’m actually really looking forward to that dinner-date you asked me out on…”

“You mean that?”

“Why else would I be looking for flowers?”

Jason was taken aback and covered his face with his hands,

“I really wanna start again with you, Jason. I wanna make up for all the time I spent thinking badly of you, and not treating you well…”

“Don’t act like you were a demon before all this, I was a jerk too…Remember when I took your car? I even had the nerve to drive it at that ride Sailor Boy hosted!”

“But you gave it back and said sorry after I apologized for ruining your flowers.”

“Still doesn’t make it right…”

“True, but we can't move forward if we keep looking back on the past. I want to move forward with you Jason.”

“You sound so cheesy…Like the show you ranted about Omar and Jp watching behind your back…”

“Still better than what they’re watching.”

“You’re right, I watched one episode and saw what you meant…”

“And we’re going out together on Saturday, it’ll be just us and a nice dinner.”

“Are you sure this is what friends do?”

Craig took a minute to think, “Maybe…?”

“That sounds like something boyfriends do…”

“Would you want it to sound like that?”

Jason turned his head away from Craig, this time more desperate to hide his embarrassment.

Craig smirked, “I’ll let you think about that.”

“I-I will…”

“Good, hope to see you saturday!”

“Yeah yeah…Just don’t expect any babies this time…”

Saturday rolled around to the boys’ happiness, after the dinner horn, Jason waited in front of the place in which he was meant to take Craig to. He inhaled as he looked up to see if Craig had yet shown up.

When Jason looked up he spotted Craig running rapidly towards him with a bouquet of flowers in his hand, each other different from the other. Jason tried squinting to distinguish the flowers from one another as he felt a sort of familiarity in them. “Jason! Jason, hi! I *pant* got you some flowers…”

Craig thrust the bouquet into the unprepared hands of Jason, now Jason had a closer look at the contents of the bouquet more easily. “Craig, are these-”

“Yeah they are, see, it’s me and you, a-and here it’s our new beginning and stuff…I was actually going to get you flowers myself before today, that’s why I asked if you could tell me about flowers. Then you asked me out and thought right now was a good time.”

“Wait, why did you want to get me flowers?”

Craig swallowed and fiddled with his thumbs, “Well, what if I told you that I wanted to ask you out myself, as a date.”

“Y-You mean like boyfriends?”

“Yeah, except I’d ask if you wanted to first…”

Jason was taken aback as he looked at the flustered boy in front of him with a red face. He looked at the bouquet of flowers, the marigolds brushing up against the gladiolus happily while the daffodils sat behind them.

Jason kissed a petal of the marigolds and did the same to Craig’s cheek. “I’d like that.”

#craig of the creek #cotc #honeysaltweek24 #honeysalt #mapbadge #cotc craig #craig williams #jason cotc

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