Chapter Text
Fry has stopped being surprised by whatever greets him at work for a long time, so when he walks in the door and is greeted with dozens of boxes of flowers filling nearly every corner of the meeting room, his only reaction is, “Ooh, flowers”. It’s more than he’s seen in any shop, and some of them don’t even seem to be in season (he’s pretty sure roses don’t bloom in February), but this is the future; he’s sure there’s some sort of weird bio-genetic engineering thing going on.
He’s examining one of the geraniums when Leela walks in. “What’s all this for?” She asks. “Did we turn into a garden center overnight or something?” Without waiting for an answer to her question, she wraps an arm around Fry’s waist and gives him a kiss on the cheek. “Good morning.”
“Morning.” The grin that spreads across his face is involuntary. “For you.” He presents her with the geranium that he was holding; it’s a dark blue color, almost purple, like her hair. She smiles back and puts it behind her ear.
“Why don’t you come back to my place tonight?” She asks. Her arm is still around his waist, her fingers brushing up and down his side.
Fry’s eyebrows raise. “Wow, I gave you one flower and you’re already asking me back to your place? I didn’t know this was all it took! I should give you flowers more often.”
Leela rolls her eye and tugs on his earlobe. “No, it’s not that. It’s just been a while, and I was thinking about it on the way to work. The flower is very sweet, though.”
“If I give you more, will I get lucky tonight?” He wiggles his eyebrows, for effect. He receives another ear tug in turn.
“If you say things like that, you won’t be getting anything.” Her tone is stern, but there’s a lightness to it, too, a knowledge that they’re just teasing each other.
“Alright, alright,” he replies, taking the hand that was tugging on his ear and pulling Leela to face him. “I will, by the way. Come home with you.”
“I figured.” Leela draws him in for a kiss, and they stay there for a few blissful moments, pressed up against the meeting table. It’s funny how kissing her never gets boring for him. With other girlfriends, after the initial excitement of being together wore off, kissing just felt like something he had to do, or a means to an end. With Leela, sometimes just looking at her fills him with such an intense need to kiss her that he can’t help himself. It’s a need that Leela seems to return, by the way she’s wrapping her arms around his neck and tilting her head a little more.
“You two!” Hermes says, popping whatever bubble they’ve encased themselves in. They didn’t even hear him come in. “What have I told you about defilin’ the meeting room!”
“We weren’t d-defailing anything!” Fry insists.
“The security camera footage I have from last week says otherwise.” Hermes shudders. “I’ve never seen so many HR violations in my life!”
“We don’t even have HR,” Leela murmurs under her breath. It goes mercifully unnoticed by Hermes. She gives Fry a sweet little smile and an affectionate squeeze on his butt before pulling herself away to make some coffee for the morning meeting.
Amy files in, typing away on her cellphone. She doesn’t look away from it for one moment as she situates herself in her usual chair, one leg hiked up. It’s only until she finishes her message and hits send that she notices all the flowers. “Spleesh, what happened in here?”
“Nothing! Leela and I were just--” he stops when he sees Amy’s weird look. He’s still focused on getting the blood to flow back to his head. “...Oh yeah, the flowers. I dunno. We just walked in and they were here.”
As the time inches closer to the start of the workday, the rest of the crew take their seats at the meeting table. Zoidberg has a stem hanging out of his mouth. Bender seems, as always, disaffected.
“Good news, everyone!” Farnsworth appears in the room as if he was waiting to hear his cue. “I’ve decided that for Valentine’s Day, Planet Express will deliver handmade bouquets!”
The Professor has said some firmly off-his-rocker things before, but judging by the look that everyone gives each other (excluding Hermes, who probably had a say in this), this is up there. Leela’s the first to speak. “Uh...what?”
“Yeah, aren’t there a few flower shops down the street?” Amy asks. She’s taken to picking the petals off one of the roses.
“But those flower shops don’t have what we have—employees that will work overtime for pitiful wages and a spaceship that can travel anywhere in the galaxy!” Farnsworth rubs his hands together, clearly proud of himself.
“You want us to work overtime on Valentine’s Day?! Some of us have dates, you know!” Amy says, flashing her phone screen—a picture of her and Kif—as if to prove a point.
“Just the week leading up to Valentine’s Day,” Hermes says, “And maybe two or three hours on Valentine’s Day itself.” Amy groans and puts her head in her hands.
“Ehh, Valentine’s Day is a crock, anyway. It’s just meant to manipulate the masses into spending lots of money on fancy dinners and candy hearts,” Bender muses, then puts his cigar in his mouth like he’s said something very profound.
“I don’t know how profitable this will be,” Leela says, crossing her arms. “Since I know that’s all some people are worried about.”
“It’ll be plenty profitable!” Hermes pulls out a chart with a quickness that only a bureaucrat could have. “If you look at our past Valentine’s Day profits...”
Fry lets himself zone out, as he always does when Hermes starts droning on like this. He doesn’t feel upset about the flowers, or having to make bouquets. It kind of sounds fun, actually. He thinks of his sad pot of marigolds that are sitting on the window above the kitchen sink in his apartment. They’ve died multiple times, some from accidental neglect, and some from Bender thinking it was a good idea to cut them up and put them in food. But he’s gotten better at taking care of them, and occasionally he’s rewarded with beautiful, bright orange blooms. He’s been wanting to give some to Leela, but just a few sad marigolds don’t seem like a good way to express his feelings. He needs something bigger, like a real bouquet, but none at the store seem quite right, either...
Fry realizes, when he feels Leela poke his cheek, that he’s been staring at her. He does that a lot during meetings, often without meaning to. She’s still got the geranium he gave her behind her ear. It suits her. He imagines her wearing a crown made of flowers, all different kinds, and smiles. She’d look beautiful. She smiles back, even though she doesn’t know what he’s thinking of.
He vaguely registers the meeting is over when everyone starts getting up; most likely to go sit on the couch and catch whatever is on TV. “Hey, Hermes,” he says, “Do we have any orders for bouquets yet?”
Hermes gives him a suspicious look over his glasses. “Not yet. What’s got you wantin’ to work of all sudden?”
Fry shrugs. “I like flowers.” No use in lying about it.
“You should see these yellow things he keeps in our house. He says they’re marigolds, but I think they just ugly up the place,” Bender says.
“Yes, because empty beer bottles are the height of interior design,” Leela says drily. She turns to Fry, her head tilted curiously. “I didn’t know you grew marigolds.” He shrugs again, unsure of what to say in reply. Embarrassment is starting to creep in now, like he’s admitted a deep and shameful secret.
There’s a crash and the sound of the professor yelling, “Get out of the flowers, you disgusting--!”. Zoidberg shuffles away, mouth full of stems and petals, claws clicking at high speed. The brief moment of chaos is enough for everyone to forget about Fry’s little moment, and they all wander off to the lounge like they were going to before.
Fry lingers for a bit, looking at the boxes that Zoidberg didn’t knock over. He can’t get the image of a bouquet out of his head—a big, beautiful, larger-than-life bouquet for Leela. Something that says “I love you”, even though he says that several times every day. Maybe even a stronger sentiment than that.
Something that says, “I want to marry you”.
His stomach flutters a little and he tries to put the thought out of his mind. If he starts daydreaming too hard about that, he’ll do something stupid, he just knows it.
“Yo, Meatbag! All My Circuits is on!” Bender calls from the lounge, and Fry is thankful for the distraction from his thoughts.