Joe

He wasn't sure when he had developed the habit of speaking aloud to the plants.

His mother had spoken to the plants - claimed it helped them grow. She'd sung to them too. Dad still addressed the odd climber that wouldn't twine properly, snapping at them in that gruff voice that he remembered all too well from his own childhood.

But Joseph Molesley didn't just encourage the plants to grow or admonish them to climb. He monologued to them every morning as he drove the short miles from his cottage to the shop. He declaimed to them as he pottered around in the shop, hours earlier than he needed to be there, hours before his assistant would arrive. He waxed philosophic to them while preparing the same arrangements for the same house parties, funerals, weddings, hospital visits, dance recitals, graduations, and disgruntled spouses that he had been preparing for almost thirty years.

He didn't used to hate it. Or at least, he didn't used to hate it enough to complain to the plants. It was his life. It was all his life was. And he thought it better than most, not as good as many. The challenge of satisfying the particular customer kept his head high. And there were opportunities to try new things, to explore how to bring out what slept in every bloom and blossom.

There was beauty in it once; a beauty that made him happy to get out of bed and forget how lonely a bed it was, most of the time. There was a time when the art of what he did made his heart whole.

There was a time when he didn't spend ten minutes complaining to a poorly Madagascar Dragontree about the traffic by the grade school while curious upper school students stared at the potted plant strapped securely with seatbelt on the passenger side, then at him. He had to suppress the urge to crank down the window and yell at them to move on - hadn't they ever seen root rot before?

As a respected local businessman, he had to maintain an image of sanity, at the very least.

"Nosy little gits, don't you think?" he asked the Dragontree. The Dragontree drooped sympathetically, the light changed and Joe rolled sedately through the intersection. One more intersection and a right turn took him past his storefront, where he took a quick glance to see that the sign was still hanging straight off the chains.

Molesley and Son - Finest Flowers since 1925

"Granddad…Dad…now me. And here's where it ends," he muttered, as he did every time he looked at the sign.

He had to give it to Dad, though. He never tried to push him into settling down and producing another generation of florists. Oh, his mother had done a fair bit of that. She'd even tried to turn the screws on her deathbed. Every Sunday, when Dad was feeling under the weather, Joseph would faithfully take a new bouquet to his mother's grave, clean up the mess, arrange everything to its best advantage, and apologize for not being married.

"Sorry, Mom. I guess I just never met the right person." His mother's voice in his head, admonishing him that he had to get out there and put his best foot forward 'cause the girls aren't beating your door down Joe was getting easier to ignore every year. And when it wasn't, he would just talk louder to the plants.

Pulling around to the alley behind the stores, he slipped his cargo van into the small space at the shop's backdoor. It was a privilege of being the owner. His shop assistant had to find street parking, and good luck to him. He turned off the motor and just sat, squeezing the steering wheel and listening to the engine tick.

He sat for ten minutes, staring at the backdoor, wondering what it might look like if he plowed the fucking van straight through it. He turned over the geography of the shop in his mind, wondering if one good hard stomp on the accelerator would be enough to get him through the workshop and freezers and into the front of the shop. The browsers would panic and run for the front door, making the entry bell shake and ring frantically until it fell off. The older woman picking up her order would plaster herself against the wall and her jaw would jiggle and flap with outrage.

Jimmy, the shop assistant, would probably try to help by stepping in front of the van. Criminally negligent manslaughter carried a possible sentence of 5-7 years. He'd checked.

"Wouldn't do you any good either," he informed the Dragontree.

With one last sigh, he exited the van and went around to the passenger side to get the plant. Transferring the pot easily from one arm to the other, he searched his pockets for his keys, finally finding them in his jacket. With a satisfied grunt, he stuck the key into the lock and turned it, pushing the door open.

There was a moist chill in the air from the Amana, and an underlying, comfortable smell of moss and mould near the back entrance, where the condensation pipes drained. There were always lights on in the work shop - grow lights over the seedlings, heat lamps over the subtropicals. It still managed to seem dark and secret though, at least until he flipped on the fluorescents and broke the spell of rain forest floor and river's edge.

The sudden stab of light in his eyes made him wince and wish he could throw something. He considered heaving the Dragontree at the ceiling lights, but he knew he would miss chatting with it.

"I've got too much invested in you to give up now," he said firmly.

He settled the plant on a work bench, dribbled some water into the pot and felt like an idiot. Walking to the entrance of the front showroom, he stood with his hands in his pockets, wishing for a cup of coffee and watching the slow, sporadic traffic pass by the front window.

"There are things I should be doing," he announced to the display arrangements, "but it looks like it's going to be one of those days I mostly spend talking to plants and regretting the bulk of my life decisions."

When the display arrangements declined to respond, he plodded into his office and sat down at the table that served as a desk. He'd been intending to get some modern office furniture since Dad had turned over full operation of the business to him. But he was intimidated at the thought of combing through a decade's worth of invoices, orders, forms, and trade periodicals stacked strategically on the table, just as Dad had left them. By this point, his reluctance to disturb Dad's system and reorganize verged on superstitious.

"If it ain't broke, Joe, don't fix it. Am I right?" he muttered to the large, healthy Ficus in the corner. The one nod to modernity that he had made was to clear off a space just large enough for a computer. Switching it on, he heaved a sigh and prepared to spend a good hour deleting e-mails without reading most of them.

Jimmy was late, of course. Joe had to receive and stow the deliveries, get things swept up and the doors unlocked on his own. Not that customers were beating down the doors, but you could always count on a few early morning folks who wanted to get the best, freshest flowers of the day.

When Jimmy strolled in, eating a pastry as if he had all the time in the world, Joe was making desultory small talk with Mr. McAllen, who had dropped in to get the perfect bouquet to present to his perpetually enraged wife. It was a vicious cycle, he mused. The Missus gets cranky and the Mister spends too much time anywhere but home, which makes the Missus more cranky, so the Mister tries to fix it with a ritual sacrifice of floral offerings on the altar of his failed relationship, which makes the Missus feel patronized and makes her cranky.

It's the foundation of our business, Joe, me lad. Bad marriages, Dad used to say.

"And they wonder why I never bothered," he muttered under his breath.

"Eh? Didya say something, Mr. Molesley? Should I go with something bigger maybe?"

"You're the only bloke who knows that," he replied, thinking that Mr. McAllen could plant a flowering shrubbery every week and not stay in his wife's good graces.

Jimmy listened with interest as he tied his apron around his waist and tried to look busy. Joe winced as crumbs from Jimmy's pastry fell onto the recently swept floor. There was a time when he'd have fired Jimmy, and enjoyed it quit a bit. Now, he just couldn't be arsed.

Mr. McAllen must have really screwed up this time. He left with a bouquet including hot house orchids that cost nearly 50 quid. Joe couldn't bring himself to be happy about the sale. No one ever sends flowers during divorce proceedings.

The bell over the door rang to signal Mr. McAllen's departure, and for a moment, the only thing that could be heard was Jimmy masticating gamely at his breakfast.

"And just where the hell were you this morning?"

Jimmy's eyes went wide. "At the dentist," he replied, blowing more pastry crumbs onto the floor. "I told you last week I had a bad molar and they were able to work me in early this morning."

"You told me last week?" he asked, trying to remember before remembering that he usually didn't pay any attention at all to what Jimmy told him.

Jimmy nodded vigorously, swallowed the last of his pastry, and wiped his hands across his apron, leaving a greasy, buttery trail that caught Joe's eye every time he had the misfortune to glance at his assistant through the day.

Joe shook his head and began rounding the shop, pinching the dry ends off the hanging ferns and testing the soil ph with his meter. "If he wasn't so damn pretty and good with the female customers, I'd have him out," he muttered confidentially to the fern he was ministering to.

"What needs doing today, Mr. Molesley?" Jimmy called from across the counter. It made him nervous when Mr. Molesley began talking to the plants.

"Same as usual," he replied. "A couple of orders to have done before 2pm - you can do most of them. You know how by now."

Jimmy brightened up so much at Joe's half hearted commendation that he felt a little guilty.

"You do them, and I'll be getting the place settings ready for that big wedding up at the Abbey this weekend. They only want thirty-four bloody fig and eucalyptus based arrangements in those ghastly urns. And apparently, the bridesmaids dresses are what ties it all together. I ask you…"

To his horror, Joe suddenly felt as if he might start weeping, right there in front of God, Jimmy and the world in the front of his shop. Just break down and cry at the overwhelming bloody frustration and sadness of pissing and moaning about complementary arrangements for bridesmaids dresses two weeks from his 50th birthday while his Masters degree in Botany hung crookedly on the wall of his office and another rejection letter from Seed Science Research sat at the bottom of the bin. Feigning an overwhelming interested in the rootball of a Fiddle Leaf Tree, he tried to get his quivering lower lip under control.

"They took down some of the paper in the window of the shop next door," Jimmy said cheerfully as he cut ribbon. "What's going in, Mr. Molesley?"

"How the hell should I know?" Joe snapped, alarmed at the quiver in his voice and hoping Jimmy would chalk it up to irrational anger. It must have worked; Jimmy looked at him warily, then rolled his eyes and went back to his ribbons.

"Dunno," he muttered. "Guess I thought someone would have told you."

Joe grunted and blew out an exasperated breath. There really was no getting around the necessity of conversing with Jimmy. Swallowing the painful lump in his throat, Joe joined him behind the counter and lined up the orders, trying to ascertain which ones could be safely left in Jimmy's marginally competent but slowly improving hands.

"I saw a tall bloke out in front," Jimmy said suddenly. "He had some wicked tats. A whole sleeve on his right arm. Do you think he's the new owner?"

Joe looked at Jimmy blankly for a moment before realizing he was talking about the shop next door.

"And he was having a smoke," Jimmy went on. "I wonder if they're gonna sell food or something there. Isn't that what the new regs say? You can't smoke where you serve food?"

"I don't allow smoking in here, Jimmy, and it's got nothing to do with food. Some just don't want the nasty things in their place of business. Now if you'll look at this order—"

"Yeah, but if that bloke's the owner—"

"Will you shut up already about the shop next door, Jimmy, and maybe consider how much longer you're going to be employed in this one?" he snapped. He glared at a confused Jimmy, desperately wanting to hit something but unable to choose between the counter or his assistant. The bell rang cheerfully, forcing him to try to school his features into a pleasant, welcoming expression.

He knew he was unsuccessful by Mrs. Bryant's raised eyebrow. It nearly pierced her carefully coiffed apricot wash.

"Something wrong today, Mr. Molesley?"

"Nothing that won't be sorted once them next door finish up with all their renovations and open up," he replied, trying to sound, if not cheerful, at least not petulant.

He was unprepared for her eager nod. She beckoned him a little closer, as if that might prevent Jimmy from overhearing.

"I was never so shocked when that was approved, I can tell you. And this close to High Street."

"Er… I don't…"

"Oh I'm sure you did all you could to stop it, but that's what they say, eh? You can't fight the council; you can only vote them out."

The fact that Joe was staring blankly at her and Jimmy was listening so hard he was nearly folded over the counter did nothing to deter Mrs. Bryant once she got the bit between her teeth.

"I can't think who's going to utilize those…services. This has always been a respectable street with respectable businesses."

Joe's eyes flew frantically to the wall between his shop and the one next door, as if he could see through it by dint of sheer will and ascertain what had old Lady Bryant's knickers in a twist. True, she was fairly easily shocked, and had even tried to protest the local theater showing adult themed pictures. Her being this upset could mean anything from a massage parlor to a Hooter's franchise.

"I'm sure it won't hurt your lovely shop though, Mr. Molesley. You're a true man of integrity and everyone will simply ignore it…"

Joe looked at his assistant and saw his own utter confusion reflected back on Jimmy's face. What in God's name was going in next door? And why didn't he know?

"…so long as the clients don't pass out on the sidewalk or try to sell drugs, I can't see it impacting you badly at all." She gazed at him sympathetically.

"Ah…Mrs. Bryant? Was there anything we could do for you this morning?" Jimmy asked, when he could see that Joe's mouth simply wasn't working.

"Why yes, Jimmy. If you'd be so kind, I need two roses and a pot of violets. Mrs. Ruff is down in hospital again with pneumonia."

"One errand of mercy…coming right up," he replied with the dazzling smile that kept biddies like Mrs. Bryant finding sick friends all over the village.

"If you'll excuse me, Mrs. Ruff," Joe mumbled, suddenly forgetting who he was talking to and walking quickly for the entrance.

"Oh no, I'm… well, of course, Mr. Molesley," she huffed at his back before turning her attention back to Jimmy.

Joe threw open the door, making the bell ring loudly, and strode out onto the walk and over to the curb before turing to look directly at his neighbor's storefront. He felt his knees buckle as his eyes darted between the flashing neon signs.

Tattoos… Piercings… Modifications…

And over the door:

OUTSIDE THE LINES

Staring back at him from inside the window was a tall, dark haired man who watched him with amusement. A shorter, thin woman made her way towards the window, but by the time she got there, Joe had turned on his heel and was practically jogging towards the village centre.

The couple in the store watched him wobble and stumble down the block before looking at each other and shrugging.

An ill wind had blown through the office of the Village Council, and it's name was Joseph Molesley. Council Chair Tom Branson could hear Joe's voice raised in the outer office while the village clerk tried to calm him down. Curious as to why Joe sounded just a notch south of outright panic, Tom stuck his head out of his cubicle.

"What are you on about, Joe?" he asked jovially.

"What am I on about!? What am I bloody on about!? There's only a tattoo parlor opening next to my flower shop is all!" The agitated motions of his arms knocked a small candy dish off of the clerk's desk, sending boiled sweets skittering into her lap. She looked frantically at Tom.

Tom rubbed his forehead. He could already feel the headache.

"Why don't you come on in and we'll see what's what," he invited, if only to give Marilyn a break.

Joe stalked stiff legged through the office and into Tom's cubicle. He refused the offered folding chair and instead stood in the middle of the tiny space.

"You seem surprised by it all, Joe," Tom began.

"Why wouldn't I be surprised? Isn't this the sort of thing Council is supposed to tell businesses about?" Before Tom could open his mouth all the way to respond, Joe continued, "No. I take that back. Isn't this the sort of thing Council is supposed to prevent?!"

"Lord above, are you channeling Mrs. Bryant right here in my cubicle?" Tom said with a laugh. "Get away with that."

"Tom, Mrs. Bryant - irritating blue-nosed wowser that she is - is my customer base. If she's upset, they're all upset. A grubby tattoo parlor with filthy, drunk, felonious clients is going to adversely effect my business. And what the hell does Downton need with a bloody tattoo shop?!" Joe's voice had been rising and his chest was heaving. The wheeze that had vexed him since boyhood when he was agitated was hissing from his throat.

"Whoa, there, Joe," Tom said as soothingly as he could, "Take the kettle off the hob and slow down. When was the last time you were even in a tattoo parlor?"

"What?! What sort of question is that?"

"I'll take that as a 'never,' then. They've changed quite a bit, you know."

"It's a tattoo parlor. Are you trying to tell me they've become this generation's Young Men's Christian Organization?"

Tom look at him appraisingly. "You've not been to a YMCA lately either, have you?"

Joe shook his head and stared at the corner of the cubicle where a sad, drooping Rubber Tree eked out a miserable existence in the absence of natural light. Joe wanted to tuck it up under his arm and dash out the door with it.

"Alright," Tom said after a deep breath. "Tattoo parlors are a perfectly legitimate business and the proprietor of Outside the Lines had to go through the same approval process as any other business start-up. She submitted all the paperwork to make sure the zoning was clear, all of her health committee reports from her last place of business, and affidavits from her previous landlord attesting to her probity and —"

"Wait," Joe said, his eyes snapping back to Tom. "Her?"

"Yeah…" Tom rummaged through the mess on his desk. "Ms. Phyllis Baxter…"

"So…so the tall bloke isn't the owner?"

"Well, I can't say I've personally met Ms. Baxter yet, so she could be a tall bloke, I suppose…"

Joe was hardly listening to his old friend's teasing as he tried to remember what the woman in the shop had looked like. He shook his head in frustration.

"At any go," Tom went on, "She jumped through all the hoops and then some. I don't know why she wants to open a tattoo parlor in Downton, but Council couldn't find a reason to deny her a permit to operate."

"But why wasn't I at least told?" Joe wailed.

"Let me give you a little hint on how e-mails work, Joe. You have to actually read them." He gave Joe a stern look when he started to sputter. "You're on the same e-mail list as every other business in the village. Everyone else has known about it for weeks, and has had time to lodge all sorts of complaints. I'll admit, I was surprised when I heard nothing from you, since you'll be most directly effected, but…"

Joe's legs finally gave out from under him and he sat heavily in the folding chair.

"This could ruin me, Tom," he whispered.

Tom scoffed. "It'll be a six day wonder, then nothing untoward will happen, and everyone will go back to minding everyone else's business, just like usual." He looked curiously at Joe's glassy eyes. "Why don't you go meet her?

"Your Rubber Tree is dying, did you know that, Tom?" he asked sadly.

"No, I didn't," Tom replied through clenched teeth, "because I care fuck all about Rubber Trees, Joe. It's been there forever and I think it'll still be there when they carry me out feet first. Which might be today if you don't pull yourself together and get a grip!"

Tom glared at the pile of papers on his desk and asked himself again for the three thousandth time whatever had possessed him to run for Council. Joe looked as if someone had sucked out all his plasma and replaced it with treacle.

"Do you need a drink, Joe?"

"No, but that Rubber Tree could use—"

"Bugger the Rubber Tree. Why don't you rescue the Rubber Tree, if it'll set your mind at ease Joe?" Tom raised his eyes towards the ceiling as if begging strength. "I'll look down at my work here and won't see a thing. You just scarper off with that poor, abused houseplant and give it a new lease on life, alright?"

Joe stood slowly and looked at the top of Tom's head. He simply didn't know how to explain to his old friend that he was desperate for his life to have meaning and excitement again while at the same time being terrified of anything that might change. Rubber Trees were easier.

He bent over and hefted the Rubber Tree up, then walked out of Tom's cubicle and nodded at Marilyn on the way out of the village hall. Marilyn, wisely, said nothing about him absconding with the Rubber Tree.

"Marilyn…" came a weak voice from Tom's cubicle. "Could you be a good lass and fetch me three pharmecetol, a large brandy and a strong rope or large bore pistol please?"

No one batted an eye as Joe strode through town with a Rubber Tree in his arms, holding a one sided conversation in a low voice with it. He kept looking around furtively, checking to see if anyone was overhearing him describe the multitude of ways his new shop neighbor could destroy his business. But no one seemed to notice or care. Joe's relief quickly passed into resentment.

"I could probably whip off my jacket and shirt and begin to aggressively hump you right here in the church square, and no one would give a monkey's ass," he informed the Rubber Tree. It didn't seem alarmed at the possibility that he might carry through with this suggestion.

Just as Joe had no intention of actually engaging in shocking behavior with a houseplant next to the church yard, he also had no intention of trying to walk past the new tattoo parlor to wrestle the Rubber Tree through the front door. He scuttled around to the alley and made his way to the back entrance. As he passed the back of the neighboring shop, he noticed a scooter with a black helmet hanging from the yoke.

The woman who owned a tattoo parlor apparently didn't drive a car. Unless it was the tall bloke's scooter. He pulled his eyes away from the scooter and the pile of broken sheetrock stacked by the back door and looked at his nondescript, white cargo van with the shop logo stenciled on it. Somehow, he wouldn't have minded if it suddenly burst into flames.

"Bloody hell," he informed the Rubber Tree when it did no such thing. Wrestling the plant through the back door, he placed it on the workbench next to the Dragontree and introduced them. He could hear voices from the front — Jimmy's mainly, and then a low, velvety, unfamiliar voice. He took a deep breath and walked through to the front.

Jimmy was talking excitedly to the tall, dark haired man from the shop next door, who seemed to be amused by him. They both turned and looked at Joe when he clattered through.

"Where'd you go?" Jimmy asked breathlessly. "You missed three customers. Mrs. Ruff is going to have more African violets than she knows what to do with."

Joe felt his eye start to twitch. "I had to make an emergency call. Rubber Tree, you know." Both men looked at him blankly. "Can I help?"

"Jimmy's been taking care of me," the man drawled, almost suggestively.

"This is Thomas. He's one of the tattoo artists from next door," Jimmy offered, his eyes sweeping admiringly over the flames flowing over the knuckles of Thomas' left hand.

"I'm the only tattoo artist," he corrected dryly, "not counting the boss. She's the real artist." He grinned at Joe, who was resolutely trying not to stare at Thomas' tattoos. "There's just the two of us that you saw through the window."

Joe could feel his ears flush at the thought that this man and his "boss" had watched his frantic escape down the street.

"Ah. Well then, erm, Thomas. What can we help you with?"

"He's wanting some kind of flowers that'll kill the smell of the paint and plaster in the boss's office," Jimmy informed him.

Thomas smiled indulgently at Jimmy. "Yeah. Jimmy's been offering suggestions." He looked challengingly at Joe. "What do you think, Mr. Molesley?"

"Gardenias."

"That's just what I said," Jimmy piped up proudly. "Nuthin stinks like a bloody gardenia."

Joe trembled as he physically fought the urge to throttle Jimmy. Murder due to enflamed passions carried a possible sentence of 15 years to life. He'd checked.

Thomas' laugh rang through the shop. "Fine," he chuckled. "I'll take a bouquet or whatever of the stinky ones. She'll get a kick out of that."

Joe looked at Jimmy pointedly until Jimmy quit grinning at Thomas and made a noise that indicated enlightenment.

"Ohhhh. I'll get that ready then, right Mr. Molesley?"

"If you would be so kind," Joe gritted out through clenched teeth. With a nod in Thomas' direction, he returned to the work shop and slumped on a stool, staring at the carton holding the thirty-four hideous urns for the table centerpieces. The hum of the cold units, something he could usually block out with no trouble, filled his ears and made him feel like stuffing a trowel in each one. Having plenty of trowels at hand, he gave it a shot.

They turned out to be rubbish at blocking out the world. Frustrated, he hopped off the stool and gave the carton of urns an almighty kick. Conversation in the front of the store stopped at the din, then resumed momentarily. The bell over the door rang, hopefully signaling Thomas' departure. He braced himself for Jimmy to appear cautiously in the door of the workshop.

Twenty minutes later, after retrieving and stacking the urns neatly, Jimmy still hadn't appeared to see what had happened or to offer to help. Joe narrowed his eyes at the door and then deliberately knocked the urns over again. Leaving them scattered and rolling around the floor, he wandered wearily into his office and sat at the table with his head in his hands.

"You don't give a shit either, do you?" he accused the Ficus in the corner. Grim silence was his only answer.

"Jimmy!" he bellowed as loudly as he could. Jimmy shuffled into the doorway of the office warily. "Are you done with those orders?"

"The ones from this morning? Yeah."

"Go and stack up those urns in the workroom then. I'll listen for the bell." Pretending to be engrossed in a stack of invoices, he waved at Jimmy to send him on his way.

"I'll find a way to motivate myself to do those bloody centerpieces. Then, I'll watch the shop while Jimmy goes to lunch and hopefully gets trampled to death by a herd of goats." The Ficus, to whom this was addressed, shuddered in the slight breeze coming through the open door.

"I'll make some deliveries this afternoon and meet with a new wedding planner, the thought of which makes me want to impale myself on a Norfolk Pine. After that, I'll close up the shop, visit Dad, get beat at cribbage, grab a take away and go home to ponder the uselessness of my life." The Ficus stood tall and judgmental.

"I only wish I had your problems," he finished miserably.

"Are you talking to me, Mr. Molesley?" Jimmy bellowed from the workshop.

"No," he whispered. "I'm not talking to anyone at all."

The bell rang, and Joe got up with a sigh.

A/N- This is all uncharted ground for me and this ship. Let me know what you think of this start.