this can't be happening

[stungs]

alby

when busy streets amass with people / would stop to hold their heads heavy / hide and seek / trains and sewing machines / all those years they were here first / oily marks appear on walls / where pleasure moments hung before/ the takeover, the sweeping insensitivity of this still life.

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[gimp]

[ apparently, the hale flower shoppe is starting to become famous. newt supposes it was bound to happen eventually, because it is blessed--literally so--and the flowers are always full of life, whether it's on season or off. colors are bright and constant, even in rare, near priceless combinations, and all in all, it's starting to cause a little bit of hubbub. supposedly, the flowers are magic, that they help people fix problems between them easier than they should, but newt wouldn't know anything about that.

then again, considering it's staffed by four angels, it makes a lot of sense.

either way, press has started to take notice, and derek gets an email about a reporter wanting to come and interview them to write a story. newt volunteers--scottie gets too energetic, might actually spill all of their secrets (bad), but derek terrifies anyone who walks in the door with any sort of intention that isn't just to buy flowers (also bad--so as the most diplomatic, he seemed like the natural choice to take on an interview for the shop. when the set time comes, newt's finishing up a bouquet on the counter, having cleaned the place down to the last corner. it's sort of relaxing, arranging flowers, and though scottie's left the ones on his head still in place from this morning, a series of white and orange daisies and carnations, he's paying far more attention to the bouquet, delicate, small fingers clipping stems and placing them just so in the vase.

until the bell rings, and newt looks up, and just like that, his whole world tips over on its axis.

he's not sure he can breathe for a moment, let alone speak professionally, becaues he just--he just knows, in the way every single angel does. that's him, that's his--that's him, that's alby. newt's seen alby in a sprinkling of lifetimes, fewer than many of his companions, but it never gets old. he realizes he should have known--albert, alby. dark skin, dark eyes, handsome, short, like every dream he's had. (for someone who wanted to die for so long, it's strange to imagine wanting to live again, but alby did that for him, he always did.)

newt has to force himself to stop looking like a deer caught in the headlights--he swallows the massive lump in his throat and starts: ] Hullo. You must be the reporter, yeah?

[ it's him it's him it's him. ]