Chapter Text
“Think of the life you have lived until now as over and, as a dead man, see what’s left as a bonus and live it according to Nature.
Love the hand that fate deals you and play it as your own, for what could be more fitting?”
Marcus Aurelius
The day was crisp, the morning air laced with whispers that eluded of spring.
It was a cold winter day, colder than the bright rays of the sun would suggest, with beams dancing freely amidst the light. White speckles of morning frost covered the turquoise grass, blending green and blue hues. The streets of Shelbyville slowly starting to bustle with their usual routine, unbothered by the changing seasons. One could perceive the engine of cars and buses, the chatter of schoolchildren, and the humdrum of early working lives trudging forward.
Amidst it all, nestled between an unremarkably bland bakery and a shuttered laundromat, stood his newest endeavour. He hadn't yet decided what the small store's name would be - the answer, he conceived, would come in its own time.
Bob stood inside his shop, a quiet satisfaction swelling within him as he surveyed the main sales area. Despite the dark circles under his eyes - formed after the countless sleepless nights that greatly helped to keep his mind from slipping into unwanted chambers - a flicker of light revealed the determination in his steadfast gaze.
His flower shop was a study in deliberate elegance, a space that radiated thoughtfulness, as though every detail had been touched by his meticulous hand.
The shop was narrow but inviting, its walls covered in beautiful dark mahogany wood. Sets of dark wooden shelves - decorated with elegant gold-painted details - rose to the ceiling, lined with vases and small decorative items. Everything was perfectly organized, the arrangement resembling a curated library more than a retail display.
In contrast, the ceiling and the farthest wall, which faced the counter, were painted in a deep, velvety crimson - a colour that seemed to both absorb and reflect light, giving the space a feeling of warmth and intimacy.
The ambiance worked in tandem, drawing visitors in and making them feel as though they’d stepped into another world, far removed from the mundane city streets.
Soft, diffused light filtered through tall arched windows that framed the view of the street outside. Velvet drapes flanked the windows, currently pulled back to let in the sunlight, which spilled golden rays across the dark slate wood floors, polished to a subtle sheen. Their golden glow cast gentle shadows, which danced across the tilted floor.
Various lamps hung from the ceiling, their intricate brass arms holding delicate bulbs that illuminated the shop in a way that felt almost sacred. The light pooled on surfaces below, highlighting the deliberate placement of each object and lending an almost theatrical quality to the room - paralleling the profundity of an opera house stage.
The floor space was divided by low wooden display tables and a register counter. Behind the counter, small cabinets and drawers housed ribbons, tools, and other necessities. Both the counter and the floral arranging table shared a similar style, with matching wooden frames and finishes.
The corners of the shop were filled with touches that reflected Bob’s interests. A small brass gramophone rested on one shelf, often playing soft classical music that blended seamlessly with the atmosphere. Various books were placed among the shelves, including a well-worn copy of The Winter’s Tale, its pages filled with handwritten notes.
He had purchased four tall oval mirrors, wrapped and leaning against the walls, two for each side of the room. They were intended to create the illusion of a larger, more luminous space - a simple but effective trick that plenty of stores employed. Despite everything else being set, Bob couldn’t bring himself to unwrap the mirrors and couldn’t quite articulate why.
The flower shop wasn’t just a business; it was a stage - a testament to his new life. He had spent weeks, months, designing the space with the same obsessive care he once dedicated to his grandiose plots of vengeance. Only now, his labour bore not the same marks nor purposes. He wanted his shop to be original. He took pride in crafting a space that was uniquely his - he desired to make things of his own that should be new and unthought of by others, and delighted in the praise of his skill.
The air smelled faintly of fresh paint, varnish and aged wood – touches of jasmine, or bergamot, from a small diffuser hidden discreetly. Running a hand over the polished mahogany counter, a shy smile tugged at his lips as he envisioned the shelves adorned with a display of freshly arranged bouquets: daffodils, tulips, and roses, each chosen intentionally.
"My haven.", he whispered inaudibly.
It held the promise of a fresh start, all the while it carried the weight of all he had been - and some of what he was still striving to leave behind.
Although, for all its beauty and precision, the shop couldn’t fully shield him from the shadowy ghosts of his past. Winter was the season for sought after endings and new beginnings, after all - and not a single flower had yet entered the small shop.
Each morning and afternoon, like clockwork, Bob would catch sight of him.
“What’s he doing here?” Bob wondered, his fingers tightening on the shears he was holding. “Is fate mocking me again?”. The - now - young man’s route seemed to take him directly past the shop, his lanky frame silhouetted against the store’s front window. The familiar lean facial features, his canary-blond hair - now longer and slightly disheveled - nearly covered his eyes. It gave him a pensive look, rather than the cool, nonchalant air he was probably aiming for.
Bob didn’t know why Bart was in the neighboring town. He had moved here to distance himself from the marks of his past and the shadow of his reputation. And Bob had no intention of keeping tabs on the boy; he’d sworn off such compulsive tendencies. And yet, there Bart was. Some days he would walk by himself, others with his childhood friend Milhouse. A haunting sight.
He wasn’t deliberately stalking Bart, of course. Or so he told himself.
Bob would watch from behind the glass, his eyes narrowing with an involuntary mixture of hurtful resentment and… something else. Something he could not name.
There was a time when the sight of Bart would ignite a conflagration within him. The boy had been his tormentor, his nemesis, his raison d’être. But now? Now, there was only a faint ember where the fire once raged - a curiosity, tinged with something approaching regret.
His prison therapist’s voice echoed in his mind, persistent and annoyingly clear: “What does that rage tell you, Robert?”
At first, he had refused to engage with such a line of questioning. The answer was obvious. The boy had ruined his life. Wasn’t that reason enough?
"Write it down, Robert. Not just the negative aspects but the positive ones as well. Keep it to yourself for later assessment. You are an academic, after all - draw your own conclusions.”
At the time, he had scoffed, dismissing the suggestion as trite psychobabble. But now, standing behind the safety of his shop window and watching Bart pass by, he found himself turning those words over like a puzzle piece, trying to make sense of them.
In the past, he had followed the boy closely. He had memorized Bart’s impudent tone, the lightness in his carefree steps, the childish ease with which he sailed free through life… infuriating. Bart had turned his world upside down and acted as if nothing changed. “Isn’t this enough reason to drive any serious man to consider murder?”, he growled to the counsellor through clenched teeth.“Bart, like every other Springfieldian, revels in a mindless, pleasure-driven life...”, Bob had convinced himself that his disdain was rational, that it stemmed from his higher moral stance.
But Bart wasn’t quite like any other in their town, and he knew that.
The boy had outsmarted him repeatedly, unraveling his schemes with a brilliance - or luck - that defied explanation. No matter how intricate or elaborate his plans - how carefully constructed each mosaic of murder - Bart always came out on top, leaving Bob to stew in the bitterness of his failures.
“The hand of fate truly has its favourites.”, Bob lamented.
And failure had worn him down. Over the years, through countless incarcerations, the flames of rage had cooled, replaced by exhaustion and numbness. What had that anger ever meant? Where had it propelled him? Bob’s knuckles turned white from the force of his grip on the shears. He remembered the grandiosity of his schemes, the theatrical monologues, the self-righteous conviction that his genius was wasted on a world that refused to recognize it. All of it, in hindsight, felt like the desperate thrashing of a man terrified of his own mediocrity.
It was Thursday afternoon. Bob was arranging a display of snowdrops and daphne shrub, the first seasonal flowers to arrive at the store, when he felt it: the heavy pull of a gaze. He turned, and there he was.
Bart Simpson, standing on the sidewalk, alone, staring directly at him through the glass.
For a split second, neither of them moved.
And then, Bob saw it - the flicker of recognition, the widening of Bart’s eyes, the subtle stiffening of his posture. Finally, like a shadow cast across the younger’s face, came the fear. It was in the way Bart’s shoulders hunched, the way his gaze hold his presence, expecting Bob’s next move and ready to dart away for the nearest escape route.
Bob’s breath caught in his throat.
He had planted that fear. He had cultivated it with every threat, every scheme, every manic declaration of vengeance. And now, seeing it reflected back at him, he felt… hollow.
It wasn’t the feeling he was accustomed to during his long, imaginary daydreams of Bart’s destiny under his thumb - pulling the strings, fully in control - feeding on the boy’s fear like a ravenous, insatiable hyena.
To say that losing to the brat and being forced to confront his own failures - time and time again - had been humbling would be an understatement. Reluctantly, and under the inescapable weight of a myriad of circumstances and events that had significantly contributed to the reduction of his sentence, he had poured out his frustrations to the prison counsellors. This humiliating experience grated mercilessly against his pride, yet it undeniably revealed a deeper truth.
Listening to himself spill the black bilious venom of his hatred over time had led him to the realisation: deep down, he held a begrudging respect for Bart.
It wasn’t just the boy’s tenacity that commanded admiration, though that alone was formidable. It was his untamed nature, his rebellious, self-sufficient spirit that refused to be broken. Bart was more than a mere adversary - more than a pebble blocking his path to be discarded and moved past. No. He was his sworn enemy, a long-standing rival, and most importantly, a truly worthy opponent. Bart Simpson had been his end goal.
Bart had earned that regard and, to Robert, the intertwine of their destinies felt inevitable.
A fugitive glimmer of golden light jolted him back to the present. He had been lost in thought, rapidly recalling all the ways he had once imagined breaking the boy, the elaborate schemes and cruel methods he had envisioned to finally crush him. Now, with a grown up Bart standing right in front of him like this, a strange dissonance crept in.
Was this young man really the same boy he had once despised so intensely? The same person who had occupied such a towering, almost mythic place in his mind that it had driven him to the brink of madness? He seemed… different.
At that instant, Bart no longer exuded the brash, defiant energy that had once defined him. Instead, there was something subdued in his demeanour - a tremble that betrayed an undercurrent of anxiety. It was as if he carried the weight of their history on his young frame, the scars of their battles left behind - on both of them. And for the first time, Bob wondered if his hatred had been as much a prison for himself as it had been a weapon against the boy.
Bob looked down at his hands. His wide palms and long fingers stained with the pollen of the flowers he had been arranging. These were the same hands that had once built traps, wielded weapons, and clutched at the edges of revenge.
Now, they sought to… arrange, to create, to nurture. And yet, could such hands ever truly atone?
He looked up, meeting Bart’s gaze once more. For a brief, shattering moment, he saw himself - not the larger-than-life persona he had once fashioned himself to be, but the broken man beneath it all. A man who had desperately sought meaning in destruction. For he had come to believe there was no other place to find it.
When Bart finally turned and walked away, his steps quick and uneven, Bob remained frozen. The weight of their encounter lingered, thick and suffocating.
He returned to his work, but his movements were slower now, his thoughts more deliberate. As he carefully placed a bouquet in the window display, his eyes caught his own reflection in the glass. He looked older, wearier, and sadder than he remembered. Perhaps this reluctance to confront his own image was what had kept him from unwrapping the mirrors in the shop.
But it didn’t matter now. His hand rose instinctively to rub his full beard, grounding himself, as he contemplatively recited a passage he had recently read:
Swear his thought over
By each particular star in heaven and
By all their influences, you may as well
Forbid the sea for to obey the moon
As or by oath remove or counsel shake
The fabric of his folly, whose foundation
Is piled upon his faith and will continue
The standing of his body.William Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale, 510.
The flowers in his shop would bloom, their beauty ephemeral but undeniably real. They were a reminder that growth and change were seasonal - and were constant. He could not erase the seeds he had planted in Bart over ten years, nor the vine-like scars they had left behind. And as the sun set over Shelbyville, casting a golden light over his little shop, Bob allowed himself a fragile hope. Perhaps, with time, he could sow something different - something new.