Author's Note: Happy "Little Shop" Day, everyone! Since most of you will be reading this tomorrow on "the 23rd day of the month of September," it's fitting that I premiered this. I hope you all will be watching the movie, listening to the music, or just reading some fan fic here to support our small but strong community! This will be the last installment to my "Like Father Like Daughter" series, and probably one of the last Little Shop stories I write for a while. No, it's not because college is taking up a lot of my time. Currently I don't have a job (though I want one), and have a lot of time to work on projects. I just don't have the inspiration to write these stories anymore. Granted, I still have the Little Shop fan fic on my feed list and I'm still beta-ing, but I just can't find the words or plots these days. Well, I think I've made enough of an impact on one musical fandom anyway. :)

Dual fans of Little Shop and Jesus Christ Superstar will probably love this! And enjoy, my friends!

*With love, S. Snowflake

I Don't Know How to Love Him

"I don't know how to love him,

What to do, how to move him.

I've been changed, yes, really changed.

In these past few days when I see myself,

I seem like someone else…"

Audrey thought she had learned her lesson long ago. Love was something that she always dreamed about, but it was something she could never truly have. She did not deserve that perfect guy; the one that would love her no matter what she would ever be. She was trash, Skid Row trash.

Then there was simply the danger of trusting someone like that. She had been there before, believing in a boy and everything he said. It broke her heart when he left her. But his own conscience? Unscathed. Audrey never wanted to go through that nightmare again, though she had been there a few times now and the results were all depressing.

Despite all of her guard, distrust, and fears, Audrey could not help but let her heart do a little flip when she walked to work each day and her coworker Seymour smiled at her. All of those warnings would scream in her ear, but her heart fought them fervently.

"I don't know how to take this.

I don't see why he moves me.

He's a man, he's just a man.

And I've had so many men before,

In very many ways, he's just one more…"

She had not necessarily fallen for Seymour at first sight. From the day she began working at Mushnik's Skid Row Florists, Seymour had always been a friend. It had taken time for him to get past his shyness and talk to her, but when he did, she found herself connecting to him more strongly than she had to most people, and trusting him more than she ever should have. By now they were regular friends in the little shop, if not the best of friends, but there was more to their friendship, and Audrey could sense it.

It did not make sense why Seymour was so special to her. He wasn't strong or athletic; in fact, he was a veritable klutz. He certainly was not stupid (in fact he was a horticultural genius in her mind), but he hadn't even finished grade school. And Seymour was poor, not a good quality to look for in a man. She had her boyfriend Orin, a professional dentist who made good money (regardless of torturing her and his patients for pleasure), but Seymour was just a shop hand. He had always been just a shop hand.

With all of these faults, Audrey couldn't tell why she thought about Seymour all the time. Wasn't a strong, intelligent, and rich man what every woman wanted?

…And then every morning Seymour would look up at her with those childish blue-gray eyes of his and say lovingly, "Hi, Audrey," and she would remember everything she loved about him.

God, how she loved his sweet smiling face. She saw something great in that face of his, like a friend she had known so very long ago. Seymour's eyes were probably even more beautiful to her, since they stood out, magnified by his big black glasses. His kind voice somehow helped her feel safe even after a long night of abuse from Orin, and a part of her wanted nothing more than to sing out to that voice when she felt small. It was as if they matched.

Should I bring him down?

Should I scream and shout?

Should I speak of love,

Let my feelings out?

I never thought I'd come to this.

What's it all about?

Beyond the basic reasons for not falling in love with the horticulturist, Audrey was reluctant to tell him her feelings because she felt that she would bring him down. She was useless, undeserved. He deserved the perfect girl when she came along, not some Skid Row wretch like her. He would one day find the success he so desired, it would just take a rare twist of fate for it to happen. All the while she fantasized about living a heavenly suburban life with Seymour –only as a girlish, unreal fantasy, she told herself – she wanted him to find a life like that on his own. He did not need her. He would never need her. Surely he couldn't really love her back?

Sometimes when she was alone in her apartment, the blonde would sit on her bed and cry while rubbing a fresh ring of bruises left from the handcuffs or reading a Better Homes and Gardens magazine. She cried for not being happy (in fact, quite miserable) in her relationship. She cried for her fate to always be a poor girl. She cried for the fact that she could have tried harder to change her life as a kid but chose not to. She simply blubbered for both the physical and emotional pain she was going through while she was alone But most of all, she cried because she would never tell Seymour how she felt. She could not bring herself to do it.

Yet sometimes the dreams got the better of her. Blissfully engulfed in one of her fantasies about living in her green tract-home paradise with Seymour one evening, Audrey got up from her bed and walked back to the flower shop, far past closing time. She marched straight there, her heart racing with each step of her click-clacking heels, knowing that Seymour would be there, even now. This would be the perfect time to tell him with Orin out of town and no boss around. This was her only chance to finally say what she'd wanted to say for months now.

Yet, if he said he loved me,

I'd be lost, I'd be frightened.

I couldn't cope, just couldn't cope.

I'd turn my head, I'd back away.

I wouldn't want to know…

The three knocks on the back door went by quicker than Audrey thought, and when the nerd appeared in the doorway, she almost did not remember what the hell she was doing out there in the middle of the night for in the first place.

"Audrey?" he asked, "What are you doing here?"

Audrey opened her mouth to speak, but only a tiny choking sound came, aching almost as much as a new injury. She knew that she had too much she wanted to say. There were too many things to tell him and too many knots to be untied for one night, but they all could start with three simple words…

"I-I…" she began, then sighed and muttered, "I think I left my sweata' in the shop again. I'd really like t' get it back."

Seymour wondered if that was what Audrey really meant to say, but let her pass through the door to retrieve her sweater. The blonde quickly found the black sweater that she always left hanging in the back and opened the front door to leave.

"Goodnight, Audrey," Seymour called from below in his basement room.

She stopped and held the doorframe, turning to say, "Seymour?"

He reappeared at the sound of her voice. "Yeah, Audrey?"

Audrey smiled shyly, and exhaled a long breath, knowing that the three words were just not going to come from her mouth tonight. But maybe three others could. "Take care, Seymour."

And as puzzled as the nerd was at her visit in the middle of the night, he managed a smile and nodded to her, saying, "You too."

He never knew how much the broken girl loved him, not until much later.

I want him so,

I love him so.