Did You Order Flowers? (Ianthony AU)

Chapter One

Ian has never been good with directions- although he likes to say he is. He doesn't think he's very good at taking notes either. Because he's standing outside of a tattoo shop, and it definitely doesn't seem like the kind of place that would order an arrangement of roses and lilac for their mother's upcoming birthday. 

He looked down at the phone in his hand, checking the address, before looking back up at the building. It had the same address from his phone, but he was guessing he was mistaken. But, he's not going to rule it out. 

For all he knows, the tattoo artist inside may have ordered flowers for his mom sweetly. But, if he was wrong, he hoped he wouldn't get his ass beat for asking a huge buff guy if he'd ordered some pretty flowers. 

He shook off his apprehension about having to socialize with strangers, pushing open the door to the shop; the ding of a bell alerting whoever was inside to his arrival. 

The inside is dimly lit, most of it darkly toned with blacks and grays due to the tons upon tons of tattoo options pinned on the dull-painted walls; the only shade of brightness coming from the guy wearing a bright blue sweater behind the counter. 

"Did you order flowers?" Ian calls out, voice carrying across the shop.

The guy in the vibrant sweater looks up, eyes trained on Ian. "No, I didn't. Who are they for?"

Ian walked towards the counter, reading off of his phone as he went. "They're for Joan, from a loving son named Don." 

The man behind the counter frowned, creating a line between his eyebrows. "I don't know anyone by either of those names. Sorry dude." 

Ian sighed, throwing his head back in frustration. Dammit. This always happened. Now he'd have to call the person back and apologize. 

"Are you just the flower delivery person?" The man spoke up quietly, not seeming to be very sociable.

Ian shook his head. "Usually one of my workers does the deliveries, I just own the place and make the flower arrangements and whatnot. But I felt like I needed a little drive today."

The guy tilted his head, seemingly curious. "Wait. So you're an actual florist?" Ian nodded and the man took a second to lean over the counter and scan him up and down. "You don't look like the kind of guy who's all about hearts and flowers." 

Ian rolled his eyes, knowing people were surprised when they saw him. "Stereotyping isn't very nice, you know."

The guy smirked cheekily. "I'm sure that before you came in here you thought I would be some scary looking guy. Do I look scary to you? Or were you just stereotyping? Because that's not very nice, you know."

Ian resists the urge to stick his tongue out at the guy, knowing it would be seen as much too immature. "Yeah, well, whatever." Ian already felt more comfortable within the short minutes since he'd gotten here, but the other guy seemed even more reserved than before.

Ian decided to actually introduce himself properly. He walked closer to the counter, giving him a good view of the guy behind it. He was stunning, in his own specialized way. He had brown eyes, dark brown hair, tan skin, a double lip piercing that Ian believed was called snakebites. He  wasn't much taller than Ian himself, maybe a few inches. Ian shook himself from the sort of daze he'd been in, sticking his hand out for the other guy to shake. "I'm Ian."

The brown-eyed man accepted the shake, his hand soft and tentative while clutching Ian's for a few seconds. "I'm Anthony. Pleasure to meet you."

Ian was a good observer, he was good at reading people. And he'd already gathered some information from just this meeting. The guy- Anthony- seemed shy, quiet, polite. Ian considered himself to be pretty outgoing and even bold at times, so their personalities seemed like they could have a possible clash.