Good Reasons To Hate Chrysanthemums
Title: Good Reasons To Hate Chrysanthemums
Author: TalliW
Characters: James Lester, Lorraine Wickes, Nick Cutter and the rest of the field team
Rating: K
Disclaimer: Primeval is the property of Impossible Pictures. I write just for fun.
Acknowledgments: Thanks to Fredbassett for beta-reading.
AN: Written for Knitekat who I promised a birthday story months ago.
I think this story qualifies for the term crack!fick.;)
Once upon a time, James Lester had loved chrysanthemums. One of his earliest childhood memories involved his mother and a big bouquet of red chrysanthemums. Just seeing a similar red flower had given him a warm fuzzy feeling for years and so it had been a single chrysanthemum he had given his first love on Valentine's Day instead of a rose. Also his now-divorced wife’s wedding bouquet had contained a mix of roses, orchids and chrisanthemums.
For his grandmother, chrysanthemums had been a beautiful reminder that autumn had arrived and she had spent many hours just sitting on the patio and watching the delicate, spidery petals of their blossoms rippling in the breeze.
His mother saw chrysanthemums as a symbol of femininity and womanhood. Beautiful and delicate but strong enough to brave the adversity of life, yielding to the storm but never bending. To this day you always could find a bunch of chrysanthemums somewhere in his parent's house. And from late summer till the onset of winter, the red coloured blossoms of the 'Dark Red Mayford Perfection' turned the borders along the driveway to the manor into a red carpet.
Once upon a time, James Lester had loved chrysanthemums. Now he hated them. And he had good reason to do so.
"Pardon," Lester apologised after he'd sneezed for the fourth time in a row, earning him a disapproving look from his father.
"If you are sick you should see a doctor about it," Harold Lester said sternly.
"You don't want to infect everyone else, my dear, do you?" his mother chimed in.
"I'm not sick. It's an allergy to your dam...".
Lester stopped himself just in time to avoid a reproving look from his mother.
"It's an allergy to the pollen of your chrysanthemums."
"Are you sure?"
"I was tested by a specialist, mother."
"How can that be, James? You have grown up with chrysanthemums around you."
"If I've understood the doctor correctly, permanent exposure to the pollen has hypersensitised my immune system," Lester answered his father politely.
"But they are such beautiful flowers," his mother whined.
Lester groaned silently. Every time he came over he had the same discussion with his parents about his allergy. As they were lucky enough not to suffer from any allergy themselves, they just didn't understand the seriousness of his condition.
When he arrived a fresh bouquet of chrysanthemums had been standing in the parlour, spreading their pollen all over the manor.
His hope that his mother would at least put them away for the duration of his visit had been disappointed once again. So at the end of the day, he would look like an owl with sniffles again and feel just as miserable.
Despite taking his allergy medicine in advance, the swollen nose and the watery eyes would stay with him for at least another day. That was the reason why he'd scheduled his visits for Saturday since he'd developed the allergy. This way he had enough time to recover before Monday. Only this time, the disgruntled Prime Minister and an even more disgruntled Thescelosaurus had twarted his plans, forcing him to drive out to his parent's manor on Sunday afternoon.
When the Home Secretary on the monitor shuffled through the reports about the Thescelosaurus' destructive frenzy and Cutter's latest exploits in the area around the Spanish embassy, Lester turned his head and discreetly blew his nose.
Instead of biting his head off, as Lester had expected, the Home Secretary was astonishingly sympathetic.
"James, I'm aware of the increased difficulties you are facing in your position as head of the anomaly project," he said softly. "Working with free-thinkers like Professor Cutter can't be easy. But I have the upmost faith that you will master the situation. You always do. Maybe you just need a little break. Take the day off. And tomorrow you can start again, as lively as ever."
"That won't be neccessy," Lester replied stiffly and dabbed at his watery eyes with a new hanky.
"Well, in this case, there's a list of psychatrists with high security clearing. Make an appointment."
The Home Secretary forestalled Lester's protest with a raised hand.
"That's an order, not a request. There's no shame in seeking help in times of emotional turmoil, James. It can happen to all of us."
At the moment the Home Secretary cut the connection, there was a pinging sound from Lester's computer, announcing that an e-mail with attachment had arrived. It was a list of psychatrists with high security clearing, sent by the Home Secretary personally.
"I made you some tea. Melissas tea," Lorraine said.
Was he imagining things or was his secretary speaking to him in a much softer voice than usual?
Lester shrugged his shoulders and took a sip of the tea. His face lit up as he tasted the fine flavour of whisky. After the talk with the Home Secretary that was just the right thing to settle his nerves. Lorraine really was the best secretary ever.
However, his opinion on the matter changed quickly as Lorraine lingered in his office like she wanted to say something but didn't have the courage to actually do it.
"Yes?" Lester asked with raised eyebrow.
"I just wanted to ask if everything is all right."
"Everything is fine, Lorraine."
"With your family too?"
"What…oh yes, everything’s the same."
"That's good. Well, I'll just… get back to work, then."
"That would be the wisest course of action. And Lorraine..." Lester observed how Lorraine squared her shoulders in anticipation of a reprimand for her nosiness. "Thanks for the tea."
Lester was on the way back from the restroom as he heard them gossipping in the rec room. He hadn't intented to eavesdrop but their loud conversation had been impossible to ignore.
"He's still weeping," Lorraine declared.
"Must be bad. Maybe he has lost someone close," Jenny mused.
"He said everything is fine."
"As if Lester would ever openly admit if it wasn't," Abby scoffed.
"Well, something is apparantly not all right or he wouldn’t cry for hours," Jenny said.
"I bet it was Cutter," Finn chimed in. "Just look how he's treating Stephen these days and they used to be best friends."
"That might be, it" Lorraine agreed. "Cutter is so full of himself it’s a wonder his head can fit through doorways."
"I thought he and James got along now," Jenny mumbled.
"Only when they avoid each other. You should have heard the argument they had on Wednesday after Finn had to kill that Ceratosaurus."
"It's probably just a lover’s tiff," Lyle threw in.
Lester almost toppled over as he heard the lieutenant's offhand remark. The Special Forces team members clearly had too much time on their hands if they were coming up with such hilarious ideas. Lester made a mental note to rectify that before long.
"Lester and Cutter? No way," Abby protested.
Lester nodded involuntarily. At least the girl had enough common sense to see that he would never hook up with such an undisciplined, pigheaded individual like Nick Cutter.
"I never thought of this before, but on Thursday, Lester was watching Cutter walk down the ramp. If it had been anyone else but him I would have assumed he was checking out Cutter's arse."
Lester clenched his fingernails to his palm to keep himself from shouting, 'I was merely looking over the railing to ascertain how far you’d got with updating the ADD, you idiotic boy. If I had any interest in a man's arse I would check out Stephen's and not Cutter's."
Jenny and Lorraine giggled at Connor's declaration.
"Well, it's a very nice arse. I would have done the same in James’ place."
Lester sighed silently. There went his illusion that Jenny Lewis might fancy him. As if Cutter's arse was so much sexier than his.
"Well, the tension between them has increased lately. I just never considered that it might be sexual in nature," Lorraine admitted.
'Traitor!' Lester thought, peeved. Lorraine was supposed to be on his side and defend his virtue.
Jon Lyle, who was just setting himself up for more extra training, made a joke about the delights of make-up sex. Apparently the man didn't know when to keep his mouth shut. He surely would never make it to captain if Lester had anything to say about it.
"I think it’s great that they’re together," Connor voiced his opinion.
"Two enemies turning into lovers," Abby mused. "The world would be a better place if everyone followed this excample."
'Oh dear.' He had known that being subjected to Connor's idiocrazy on daily basis would affect the girl sooner or later. She should chuck the guy out of her flat before her brain got damaged permanently.
Lester was about to burst into the room like a storm cloud in the process of creating a lightning strike and put an end to their inane chatter when someone gave him a hearty slap on the back.
"Eavesdroppers never hear any good of themselves," an all too familiar voice mumbled into his ear.
Startled, Lester yelped and lost his balance, alarming the gossipers in the rec room with the noise. With flaring arms, Lester tried to get hold on the next reachable thing that unfortunately happened to be the other subject of the gossip, Nick Cutter.
The next moment, Lester got a healthy dose of garlicky breath blown into his face as Cutter tried to steady him and then a nose full of pollen from the bouquet of chrysanthemums in Cutter's hand.
"Oh my God!"
"Get a room, you two."
"Yay! Make-up sex!"
"Why is Lester crying again?"
"Shut up, Connor, that’s tears of joy."
Lester made it to his office without killing anyone and desperately groped for his EpiPen. He passed out before he could apply it.
The first thing Lester registered was that his eyes had stopped oozing saline secretions and he could breathe freely again. The next thing was the pale face of a young man in a white coat, only a foot away from his own face.
"He's awake," the guy announced and looked so pleased with himself that Lester started to ask himself if the idiot was actually expecting to be congratulated on his observation skills.
"About time," an older, and probably also more intelligent doctor, said from the end of the hospital bed whilst he scribbled something on a chart. "As your allergy symptoms have subsided, I see no reason to keep you here any longer than necessary," the older doctor said to Lester. "If things still look good on the round tomorrow, then we will discharge you in the afternoon. Just try to avoid any allergy-triggering substances in the future."
'That's easier said as done,' Lester thought dejectedly as the two doctors left. There was close to zero chance that his mother would abandon her beloved flowers or the flower shops stop selling chrysanthemums. And unless there was a law against growing them in parks and gardens, pollen-laden chrysanthemums would be everywhere for the next few weeks.
With a sigh, Lester closed his eyes and enjoyed the clean hospital air. At least here he was safe from the dangerous plant.
Lorraine looked rather guilty as she entered Lester's hospital room.
"I'm sorry, James. I didn't know about your allergy."
With nothing to do but wait, Lester was glad of any diversion. He probably would have welcomed even Cutter's company. That it was Lorraine who came visiting him instead was definitely a big plus. She wouldn't bore him with monologes about prehistoric animals, the danger of anomalies or start another discussion about the implemented shooting directive. Besides, Lorraine seemed to have brought a bag of grapes along.
"It was my fault. I should have told you," he said generously, his eyes darting hopefully to the bag in her hand. They were indeed grapes. The blue, seedless ones he loved as much. Lorraine was a real gem.
Lorraine gently placed the bag with grapes on the bedside cabinet and smiled indulgently as Lester immediately reached for it.
"I would have brought flowers too but after what happened today I deemed that unwise."
"I'm quite content with the grapes. Thanks for your thoughtfulness."
"Cutter is sorry too. He threw the chrysanthemums out immediately. Now the air conditioning is working full blast. The ARC should be clean by the time you are discharged.
"Dare I ask why Cutter marched into the ARC with a bouquet of flowers in the first place? I doubt he was planning to reconcile with Stephen."
"It was for Abby. Somehow Connor managed to make him feel guilty after what happened at the canal last week."
"Good. Maybe the next time he won't be so careless again. But couldn't he just have bought her a box of chocolates or a new lizard? It would have been less stressful for me."
Lorraine smiled softly and produced a small box of chocolates from her handbag.
"It seems he reserved the chocolates for you."
Lester didn't need to look in Lorraine's currently much too bright eyes to know what the rumour mill had made out of Cutter's gesture. The whole ARC probably thought by now he and Cutter were having some sort of Shakespearean love affair.
"Do I look like I might like chocolate?" he grumped after he had ascertained that the chocolates were a cheap brand. After all the trouble Cutter had caused him, the man could at least have got him the more expensive ones.
However, the box seemed to contain the mix of alcohol-filled chocolates he usually preferred, making him wonder if Cutter had selected the box randomly or if someone in particular had given him a tip.
"Don't eat them all at once," Lorraine said with an soft smile, proving once again how well she knew him.
"They aren't so good," Lester replied indignantly before he popped a chocolate into his mouth.
"But not bad either," Lorraine stated and picked a Champagne truffle from the proffered box.
Lester just grunted in agreement, already angling for the next chocolate, a truffle filled with cognac.
They had just polished off the box of chocolates and were about to start on the grapes when someone knocked on the door and a moment later barged in without waiting for an invitation.
"Oh, my poor baby," his mother gushed.
"Really, James, didn't I tell you to go and see a doctor about your flu," Harold Lester chided. "Now see where stalling has got you."
Lester caught one glimpse of the gigantic flower bouquet in his mother's arms and knew he had just landed in his own personal hell.
"The chrysanthemums," he croaked as he felt his throat, nose and eyes swelling.
"Yes, aren't they beautiful?"
"Now, now, son, I know you like them but that's no reason to get all teary-eyed."
The last Lester heard before he lost consciousness was his parents’ protest as Lorraine shoved them out of the room and called for a doctor.
Thanks to the alcohol in his blood that had increased the symptoms of his allergic reaction and reacted badly with the hastily admistered emergency drugs, Lester had to spent one and a half weeks in hospital.
After hearing about the new incident, Cutter showed up with grapes and more chocolates, but alcohol-free ones this time, awkwardly apologising for putting him in the hospital in the first place and for his blunder with the chocolates. Doped to his eyeballs with medicine and pacified by the peace offering in chocolate and grape form, Lester didn't find Cutter quite so annoying any more.
To Lester's astonishment, Lorraine brought his laptop to the hospital, although she had encrypted all of his working folders beforehand, he quickly realised. However, she helped him set up a website and a message board for chrysanthemums haters, mumbling somthing about anger management.
When Cutter came visiting him the next day again, and every day after, he didn't prattle about dinosaurs, anomalies or shooting directives. Instead he and Cutter had constructive discussions about the danger of garden flowers. Who would have thought that Cutter was a fellow sufferer, who was afflicted with a flower allergy too.
Within the first few days, Lester's message board had gained 5,687 new members and with every hour more people registered.
Lester's e-mail account was overflowing with supportive messages and rantings against chrysanthemums and chrysanthemum-loving spouses, parents, neighbours and bosses. It almost seemed as if chrysanthemums were the most hated flower in Great Britain.
So far, he'd only received eight adverse emails in which he was in essence called a crazy fucker. Two of those mails had come from his parents and one from his ex-wife.
Three weeks after his release from the hospital, over a dozen celebrities and several members of the House of Lords had already contacted him and offered to sponsor his endeavour, giving Lester hope that the petition to ban chrysanthemums from the island, that he'd drawn up in a still lightly drugged condition, might actually have a chance of success.
By now, Cutter was thinking about a similar campaign regarding daffodils. The last two days, he had talked about those plans until late into the night, keeping Lester from his refreshing sleep.
Mentally, Lester added this to the long list of things the chrysanthemums had to account for. Without them and their dangerous pollen he wouldn't have to put up with Cutter's annoying habits of snoring, hogging the covers and eating garlic-spiced dishes now.
Oh, yes, James Lester really had a good reason to hate chrysanthemums.
Author: TalliW
Characters: James Lester, Lorraine Wickes, Nick Cutter and the rest of the field team
Rating: K
Disclaimer: Primeval is the property of Impossible Pictures. I write just for fun.
Acknowledgments: Thanks to Fredbassett for beta-reading.
AN: Written for Knitekat who I promised a birthday story months ago.
I think this story qualifies for the term crack!fick.;)
Once upon a time, James Lester had loved chrysanthemums. One of his earliest childhood memories involved his mother and a big bouquet of red chrysanthemums. Just seeing a similar red flower had given him a warm fuzzy feeling for years and so it had been a single chrysanthemum he had given his first love on Valentine's Day instead of a rose. Also his now-divorced wife’s wedding bouquet had contained a mix of roses, orchids and chrisanthemums.
For his grandmother, chrysanthemums had been a beautiful reminder that autumn had arrived and she had spent many hours just sitting on the patio and watching the delicate, spidery petals of their blossoms rippling in the breeze.
His mother saw chrysanthemums as a symbol of femininity and womanhood. Beautiful and delicate but strong enough to brave the adversity of life, yielding to the storm but never bending. To this day you always could find a bunch of chrysanthemums somewhere in his parent's house. And from late summer till the onset of winter, the red coloured blossoms of the 'Dark Red Mayford Perfection' turned the borders along the driveway to the manor into a red carpet.
Once upon a time, James Lester had loved chrysanthemums. Now he hated them. And he had good reason to do so.
"Pardon," Lester apologised after he'd sneezed for the fourth time in a row, earning him a disapproving look from his father.
"If you are sick you should see a doctor about it," Harold Lester said sternly.
"You don't want to infect everyone else, my dear, do you?" his mother chimed in.
"I'm not sick. It's an allergy to your dam...".
Lester stopped himself just in time to avoid a reproving look from his mother.
"It's an allergy to the pollen of your chrysanthemums."
"Are you sure?"
"I was tested by a specialist, mother."
"How can that be, James? You have grown up with chrysanthemums around you."
"If I've understood the doctor correctly, permanent exposure to the pollen has hypersensitised my immune system," Lester answered his father politely.
"But they are such beautiful flowers," his mother whined.
Lester groaned silently. Every time he came over he had the same discussion with his parents about his allergy. As they were lucky enough not to suffer from any allergy themselves, they just didn't understand the seriousness of his condition.
When he arrived a fresh bouquet of chrysanthemums had been standing in the parlour, spreading their pollen all over the manor.
His hope that his mother would at least put them away for the duration of his visit had been disappointed once again. So at the end of the day, he would look like an owl with sniffles again and feel just as miserable.
Despite taking his allergy medicine in advance, the swollen nose and the watery eyes would stay with him for at least another day. That was the reason why he'd scheduled his visits for Saturday since he'd developed the allergy. This way he had enough time to recover before Monday. Only this time, the disgruntled Prime Minister and an even more disgruntled Thescelosaurus had twarted his plans, forcing him to drive out to his parent's manor on Sunday afternoon.
When the Home Secretary on the monitor shuffled through the reports about the Thescelosaurus' destructive frenzy and Cutter's latest exploits in the area around the Spanish embassy, Lester turned his head and discreetly blew his nose.
Instead of biting his head off, as Lester had expected, the Home Secretary was astonishingly sympathetic.
"James, I'm aware of the increased difficulties you are facing in your position as head of the anomaly project," he said softly. "Working with free-thinkers like Professor Cutter can't be easy. But I have the upmost faith that you will master the situation. You always do. Maybe you just need a little break. Take the day off. And tomorrow you can start again, as lively as ever."
"That won't be neccessy," Lester replied stiffly and dabbed at his watery eyes with a new hanky.
"Well, in this case, there's a list of psychatrists with high security clearing. Make an appointment."
The Home Secretary forestalled Lester's protest with a raised hand.
"That's an order, not a request. There's no shame in seeking help in times of emotional turmoil, James. It can happen to all of us."
At the moment the Home Secretary cut the connection, there was a pinging sound from Lester's computer, announcing that an e-mail with attachment had arrived. It was a list of psychatrists with high security clearing, sent by the Home Secretary personally.
"I made you some tea. Melissas tea," Lorraine said.
Was he imagining things or was his secretary speaking to him in a much softer voice than usual?
Lester shrugged his shoulders and took a sip of the tea. His face lit up as he tasted the fine flavour of whisky. After the talk with the Home Secretary that was just the right thing to settle his nerves. Lorraine really was the best secretary ever.
However, his opinion on the matter changed quickly as Lorraine lingered in his office like she wanted to say something but didn't have the courage to actually do it.
"Yes?" Lester asked with raised eyebrow.
"I just wanted to ask if everything is all right."
"Everything is fine, Lorraine."
"With your family too?"
"What…oh yes, everything’s the same."
"That's good. Well, I'll just… get back to work, then."
"That would be the wisest course of action. And Lorraine..." Lester observed how Lorraine squared her shoulders in anticipation of a reprimand for her nosiness. "Thanks for the tea."
Lester was on the way back from the restroom as he heard them gossipping in the rec room. He hadn't intented to eavesdrop but their loud conversation had been impossible to ignore.
"He's still weeping," Lorraine declared.
"Must be bad. Maybe he has lost someone close," Jenny mused.
"He said everything is fine."
"As if Lester would ever openly admit if it wasn't," Abby scoffed.
"Well, something is apparantly not all right or he wouldn’t cry for hours," Jenny said.
"I bet it was Cutter," Finn chimed in. "Just look how he's treating Stephen these days and they used to be best friends."
"That might be, it" Lorraine agreed. "Cutter is so full of himself it’s a wonder his head can fit through doorways."
"I thought he and James got along now," Jenny mumbled.
"Only when they avoid each other. You should have heard the argument they had on Wednesday after Finn had to kill that Ceratosaurus."
"It's probably just a lover’s tiff," Lyle threw in.
Lester almost toppled over as he heard the lieutenant's offhand remark. The Special Forces team members clearly had too much time on their hands if they were coming up with such hilarious ideas. Lester made a mental note to rectify that before long.
"Lester and Cutter? No way," Abby protested.
Lester nodded involuntarily. At least the girl had enough common sense to see that he would never hook up with such an undisciplined, pigheaded individual like Nick Cutter.
"I never thought of this before, but on Thursday, Lester was watching Cutter walk down the ramp. If it had been anyone else but him I would have assumed he was checking out Cutter's arse."
Lester clenched his fingernails to his palm to keep himself from shouting, 'I was merely looking over the railing to ascertain how far you’d got with updating the ADD, you idiotic boy. If I had any interest in a man's arse I would check out Stephen's and not Cutter's."
Jenny and Lorraine giggled at Connor's declaration.
"Well, it's a very nice arse. I would have done the same in James’ place."
Lester sighed silently. There went his illusion that Jenny Lewis might fancy him. As if Cutter's arse was so much sexier than his.
"Well, the tension between them has increased lately. I just never considered that it might be sexual in nature," Lorraine admitted.
'Traitor!' Lester thought, peeved. Lorraine was supposed to be on his side and defend his virtue.
Jon Lyle, who was just setting himself up for more extra training, made a joke about the delights of make-up sex. Apparently the man didn't know when to keep his mouth shut. He surely would never make it to captain if Lester had anything to say about it.
"I think it’s great that they’re together," Connor voiced his opinion.
"Two enemies turning into lovers," Abby mused. "The world would be a better place if everyone followed this excample."
'Oh dear.' He had known that being subjected to Connor's idiocrazy on daily basis would affect the girl sooner or later. She should chuck the guy out of her flat before her brain got damaged permanently.
Lester was about to burst into the room like a storm cloud in the process of creating a lightning strike and put an end to their inane chatter when someone gave him a hearty slap on the back.
"Eavesdroppers never hear any good of themselves," an all too familiar voice mumbled into his ear.
Startled, Lester yelped and lost his balance, alarming the gossipers in the rec room with the noise. With flaring arms, Lester tried to get hold on the next reachable thing that unfortunately happened to be the other subject of the gossip, Nick Cutter.
The next moment, Lester got a healthy dose of garlicky breath blown into his face as Cutter tried to steady him and then a nose full of pollen from the bouquet of chrysanthemums in Cutter's hand.
"Oh my God!"
"Get a room, you two."
"Yay! Make-up sex!"
"Why is Lester crying again?"
"Shut up, Connor, that’s tears of joy."
Lester made it to his office without killing anyone and desperately groped for his EpiPen. He passed out before he could apply it.
The first thing Lester registered was that his eyes had stopped oozing saline secretions and he could breathe freely again. The next thing was the pale face of a young man in a white coat, only a foot away from his own face.
"He's awake," the guy announced and looked so pleased with himself that Lester started to ask himself if the idiot was actually expecting to be congratulated on his observation skills.
"About time," an older, and probably also more intelligent doctor, said from the end of the hospital bed whilst he scribbled something on a chart. "As your allergy symptoms have subsided, I see no reason to keep you here any longer than necessary," the older doctor said to Lester. "If things still look good on the round tomorrow, then we will discharge you in the afternoon. Just try to avoid any allergy-triggering substances in the future."
'That's easier said as done,' Lester thought dejectedly as the two doctors left. There was close to zero chance that his mother would abandon her beloved flowers or the flower shops stop selling chrysanthemums. And unless there was a law against growing them in parks and gardens, pollen-laden chrysanthemums would be everywhere for the next few weeks.
With a sigh, Lester closed his eyes and enjoyed the clean hospital air. At least here he was safe from the dangerous plant.
Lorraine looked rather guilty as she entered Lester's hospital room.
"I'm sorry, James. I didn't know about your allergy."
With nothing to do but wait, Lester was glad of any diversion. He probably would have welcomed even Cutter's company. That it was Lorraine who came visiting him instead was definitely a big plus. She wouldn't bore him with monologes about prehistoric animals, the danger of anomalies or start another discussion about the implemented shooting directive. Besides, Lorraine seemed to have brought a bag of grapes along.
"It was my fault. I should have told you," he said generously, his eyes darting hopefully to the bag in her hand. They were indeed grapes. The blue, seedless ones he loved as much. Lorraine was a real gem.
Lorraine gently placed the bag with grapes on the bedside cabinet and smiled indulgently as Lester immediately reached for it.
"I would have brought flowers too but after what happened today I deemed that unwise."
"I'm quite content with the grapes. Thanks for your thoughtfulness."
"Cutter is sorry too. He threw the chrysanthemums out immediately. Now the air conditioning is working full blast. The ARC should be clean by the time you are discharged.
"Dare I ask why Cutter marched into the ARC with a bouquet of flowers in the first place? I doubt he was planning to reconcile with Stephen."
"It was for Abby. Somehow Connor managed to make him feel guilty after what happened at the canal last week."
"Good. Maybe the next time he won't be so careless again. But couldn't he just have bought her a box of chocolates or a new lizard? It would have been less stressful for me."
Lorraine smiled softly and produced a small box of chocolates from her handbag.
"It seems he reserved the chocolates for you."
Lester didn't need to look in Lorraine's currently much too bright eyes to know what the rumour mill had made out of Cutter's gesture. The whole ARC probably thought by now he and Cutter were having some sort of Shakespearean love affair.
"Do I look like I might like chocolate?" he grumped after he had ascertained that the chocolates were a cheap brand. After all the trouble Cutter had caused him, the man could at least have got him the more expensive ones.
However, the box seemed to contain the mix of alcohol-filled chocolates he usually preferred, making him wonder if Cutter had selected the box randomly or if someone in particular had given him a tip.
"Don't eat them all at once," Lorraine said with an soft smile, proving once again how well she knew him.
"They aren't so good," Lester replied indignantly before he popped a chocolate into his mouth.
"But not bad either," Lorraine stated and picked a Champagne truffle from the proffered box.
Lester just grunted in agreement, already angling for the next chocolate, a truffle filled with cognac.
They had just polished off the box of chocolates and were about to start on the grapes when someone knocked on the door and a moment later barged in without waiting for an invitation.
"Oh, my poor baby," his mother gushed.
"Really, James, didn't I tell you to go and see a doctor about your flu," Harold Lester chided. "Now see where stalling has got you."
Lester caught one glimpse of the gigantic flower bouquet in his mother's arms and knew he had just landed in his own personal hell.
"The chrysanthemums," he croaked as he felt his throat, nose and eyes swelling.
"Yes, aren't they beautiful?"
"Now, now, son, I know you like them but that's no reason to get all teary-eyed."
The last Lester heard before he lost consciousness was his parents’ protest as Lorraine shoved them out of the room and called for a doctor.
Thanks to the alcohol in his blood that had increased the symptoms of his allergic reaction and reacted badly with the hastily admistered emergency drugs, Lester had to spent one and a half weeks in hospital.
After hearing about the new incident, Cutter showed up with grapes and more chocolates, but alcohol-free ones this time, awkwardly apologising for putting him in the hospital in the first place and for his blunder with the chocolates. Doped to his eyeballs with medicine and pacified by the peace offering in chocolate and grape form, Lester didn't find Cutter quite so annoying any more.
To Lester's astonishment, Lorraine brought his laptop to the hospital, although she had encrypted all of his working folders beforehand, he quickly realised. However, she helped him set up a website and a message board for chrysanthemums haters, mumbling somthing about anger management.
When Cutter came visiting him the next day again, and every day after, he didn't prattle about dinosaurs, anomalies or shooting directives. Instead he and Cutter had constructive discussions about the danger of garden flowers. Who would have thought that Cutter was a fellow sufferer, who was afflicted with a flower allergy too.
Within the first few days, Lester's message board had gained 5,687 new members and with every hour more people registered.
Lester's e-mail account was overflowing with supportive messages and rantings against chrysanthemums and chrysanthemum-loving spouses, parents, neighbours and bosses. It almost seemed as if chrysanthemums were the most hated flower in Great Britain.
So far, he'd only received eight adverse emails in which he was in essence called a crazy fucker. Two of those mails had come from his parents and one from his ex-wife.
Three weeks after his release from the hospital, over a dozen celebrities and several members of the House of Lords had already contacted him and offered to sponsor his endeavour, giving Lester hope that the petition to ban chrysanthemums from the island, that he'd drawn up in a still lightly drugged condition, might actually have a chance of success.
By now, Cutter was thinking about a similar campaign regarding daffodils. The last two days, he had talked about those plans until late into the night, keeping Lester from his refreshing sleep.
Mentally, Lester added this to the long list of things the chrysanthemums had to account for. Without them and their dangerous pollen he wouldn't have to put up with Cutter's annoying habits of snoring, hogging the covers and eating garlic-spiced dishes now.
Oh, yes, James Lester really had a good reason to hate chrysanthemums.