Greenhouse || Xavier Thorpe x Male Reader

peace lily || chapter 25

 I look around and frown. Of course I fell asleep again. It's becoming a habit. I take my coat and exit. When I walk toward the school, I run into Xavier.

"Hey," I greet him.

"Fell asleep in the greenhouse again?" He asks, a hint of a smile on his face. "Why am I not surprised."

I roll my eyes playfully. "Yeah, yeah, I know. Let's go back upstairs, it's freezing."

"Well, I was actually out here to go on a walk. It's been a while since I've painted a landscape and I thought the school at night would be good. I brought a camera."

"Oh. Then, if it's okay with you, I'll stay."

He kisses my cheek. "When wouldn't it be okay for you to stay?"

"I don't know," I respond. "I just wanted to check."

"Well, come on. We won't get a good picture from our angle," he tells me.

We walk down, past the greenhouse, almost down to the lake. I sit down on a convenient bench while Xavier shuffles around to get a good view of the school. He positions the camera and repositions it until finally he gets an ange he likes. The shutter clicks a few times and then he lowers it.

"That was quick," I remark.

He shrugs. "Yeah. The setup is longer than the action, I guess."

"Mmm. Makes sense, kind of," I say. "Anything else, or should we go back inside?"

"We can go inside. It is getting colder again."

I nod and take his hand, and we begin to walk up to the school.

~=~

Light pours through the windows of my room, luring me out of my sleep. My eyes flick to my clock, and after deciding it's an okay time to get up, I head to the bathroom to change. Xavier has already left, so I leave as well and go to the greenhouse.

There's nothing for me to do there as I took care of everything last night. I wander around, looking for an empty pot to grow something new in. I finally find one in the corner of the greenhouse, so I pull it over to the table and focus on my emotions. It's been a while since I've grown emotion plants, and I think back to the days when my greenhouse was filled with them because I couldn't do anything else.

The surge of power, the release of my feelings into the form of a plant, it is strangely relieving. As if everything that's been inside of my head is gone, now inside a peace lily on my work table. When I see the plant, I smile. Peace lillies, according to Enid and her plant language obsession, symbolize healing. And as the world around me begins to recover from the stress of Vermont winter, I can't think of a better plant to grow.

But I, too, am healing. After the strain that Parent's Day put on Xavier and my relationship, we are moving on and recovering. Like the perennial plants re-growing after the brutal cold. I place the plant on a windowsill, happy with the outcome of my first emotion plant in a while.

"Peace lily, hmm?" I hear a warm voice ask from across the greenhouse.

"Technically a tropical perennial," I respond. "But that's not why I grew it. It was kind of a roulette of what plant I'd get."

Xavier steps closer to inspect the new flower. "It's a good one nonetheless."

"Thanks."

"Course. I was actually looking for you upstairs, but that was probably stupid. You're always down here."

"Why were you looking for me?" I ask him. He shrugs.

"I don't know. I tried to paint, but I couldn't, so I thought I'd come find you and do something before breakfast. Walk, maybe, or just hang out here," he tells me. "But you seem kind of busy."

I take his hand. "I'm not busy. Well, not anymore at least."

"Don't stop your plans for me, [Y/N]."

"I didn't have any plans aside from being in here. So, technically, I'm not stopping anything."

"Well, fine. Do you need help with any chores?" he asks.

"Nah. I took care of those yesterday," I respond. "Although I think some of the plants may need to be trimmed. You know, cut of the dead bits to save energy."

He nods and grabs a pair of garden scissors. "Which ones?"

"Have you ever done this before?"

"No."

"Give me the scissors. I'll show you how to and you can use the other pair."

~=~

My friends and I sit at our normal table for breakfast, discussing the upcoming and further away events. Beginning final studying, Community Day, the summer. Next year, we'll be in the upper half of Nevermore.

"We'll be upperclassmen!" Enid squeals.

"Enid, Cara mia, tone down your excitement. We are not even beginning finals season," Wednesday reminds her. "There is plenty of time throughout the summer to be nauseatingly happy about our next school year."

Enid pouts. "But you'll be in New Jersey and I'll be all the way across the country."

"So I'll visit. Westfield only has so many people to torture."

"Really? Oh, that'll be great!"

I tune out the discussion as it begins to turn to Enid excitedly rambling about Wednesday's eventual visit. The first bell tolls, freeing me from the endless waterfall of words, and I get up to walk to Botany.