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Martin was halfway through shucking his coat off when he stopped short at the sight before him. He froze at the start of the living room, his arms getting caught all tangled in the sleeves.
“What the hell is that?” he cried.
Jon sat there facing him on the sofa like he’d been waiting all day for him to come home. He didn’t even glance at the offending vase of rosy, salmon pink carnations, just stared straight on at Martin.
“Well, I’d have thought you’d seen flowers before. They’re quite common.”
“And where did they come from, exactly?” Martin demanded.
“I got them,” he answered, matter of fact. “For you.”
Martin, having been standing there like a fool with his arms contorted in his sleeves, finally wrestled himself out of his coat and let it fall to the floor. He took several threatening steps toward Jon and stopped just before the sofa, gawking wildly between him and the flowers on the coffee table. The small shit-eating grin on his boyfriend’s face grew ever so slightly.
“You little prick, you said--you said Valentine’s Day was stupid and--and, ‘Oh, Martin, why does there have to be a specific day dedicated to, to--that’s what anniversaries are for, and you better not get me flowers--’”
“That’s because I wanted to get you flowers,” Jon said with a shrug. “I didn’t think we needed two massive bouquets lying around.”
“And you didn’t think of just telling me that? Jon, you explicitly said you didn’t want to do anything for Valentine’s Day and--”
“Maybe I wanted to surprise you.”
“You--” Martin shook his head, feeling like his eyes would soon bulge out of his skull completely. “You can’t lie to me just so you can monopolize a holiday!”
“I don’t see why not.”
Jon’s indignant display was getting to be rather comical at this point, and Martin found it harder by the second to keep up his rage and resist breaking down in a fit of giggles.
“Isn’t lying the nature of a surprise?” Jon added.
“Jon, this is, this is--” He sighed and let his shoulders slump. “You realize how absurd this is, right?”
Jon stood from the sofa and closed the short distance between them, not unlike a cat hunting prey. Wordlessly, he stood right in Martin’s space and rested his hands on his hips, but the affectionate gesture was not about to put an end to his ranting.
“I didn’t even get you anything, not a thing! Because I thought I was respecting your wishes to not observe this holiday invented by capitalism to sell--”
Jon cut him off by grabbing Martin’s face and pulling him into a welcoming kiss, and it almost succeeded in distracting him for the barest second. Jon pulled back just enough to gaze up at him with that persistent smugness.
“A ‘happy Valentine’s Day’ would suffice.”
“No,” Martin said. “It wouldn’t! I would have picked something up from a bakery or, or--god, that’s it. I’m making dinner. What do you want? I’ll make you anything you--”
“You can make the rice if you want, but unfortunately, that’s already taken care of as well.”
Jon nodded toward the kitchen and Martin then saw the covered skillet on the stove, noticing for the first time since he came in the door the smell of homemade korma.
“Jon,” he whined. “How could you do this to me?”
Jon’s evil little smile curled into something even more satisfied and knowing. “Oh dear. Have I done something wrong?”
“I’m not even going to dignify that with an answer.”
Martin let himself be kissed again, fully aware Jon was trying to ply him with his lips into calming down and submitting to his duplicitous indulgence.
“I thought I was going to be showered with thanks and praise for all this,” Jon said. “But clearly I made a grave misstep somewhere along the way.”
Martin heaved a sigh through the reluctant grin he was tired of fighting off. “Shut up. It is sweet, in your own twisted way.”
“Thank you,” Jon said, overly pleased with himself.
“But,” Martin said, with a firm finger poked into his chest. “This is never happening again, Jonathan. You’ve shown your hand now. You like Valentine’s Day and we’re celebrating it together from here on out.”
“Look, I meant what I said about Valentine’s Day as a concept.”
“And yet,” Martin said, with a bitter flourish toward the flowers.
“And yet,” Jon said. “I love you terribly and I don’t necessarily mind a manufactured reason to celebrate that.”
Martin groaned, tossing his head back to avoid melting into an undignified mess. “Yeah, yeah, I love you, too.”
Jon pressed another kiss to his cheek and then moved into the kitchen, heading suspiciously close to the cabinet they kept the rice cooker in.
“Hey!” Martin called, quickly nudging him out of the way. “If I can’t do anything else, I will be making the rice, thank you very much.”
Jon backed up with his hands in the air. “Whatever makes you happy, darling.”
Somehow, it didn’t stop there. Before they sat down to eat, he lit a small jarred candle he’d gotten from M&S scented like jasmine because that was one of Martin’s favorite variants of green tea. He was also hiding a bottle of wine and a piece of decadent chocolate cake to share after they ate.
“The surprises had better stop here,” Martin threatened when they started in on the cake between them.
“I believe this is the end of it,” Jon assured him. “No more surprises.”
“Good,” Martin said with narrowed eyes.
Jon sighed, looking down at the table as his pleased expression morphed to something a bit more self-effacing.
“Martin, it really wasn’t much. It’s not as if I got very creative.”
He scoffed. “You pretended to have a strict moral stance against a holiday for this.”
“You could have thought of that,” Jon argued. “And executed it much better, I bet.”
“Jon, I just…” Martin found himself slumping back in his chair a bit. “No one has ever done something like this for me in my whole life.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Yeah, well… It’s true.”
He knew what Jon was getting at, the well-meaning surprise that he of all people was the first partner to ever treat Martin like he was something special, something worth celebrating.
Jon lifted his fork and brought it in toward him so Martin could reluctantly close his lips around a bit of cake.
“M’really going to lose it if you don’t cut it out,” he mumbled around his mouthful.
Jon just smiled, setting the fork down so he could brush off the bit of frosting he’d left on Martin’s mouth with his thumb.
After dinner, Martin retired to the sofa and beckoned for Jon to join him, but when he sat beside him, he nudged Jon over and drew his socked feet into his lap. He began to massage them, one of the many small gestures he had in mind to thank him for all he’d done.
Jon would surely tell anyone who asked that he wasn’t one for making big romantic gestures, but then he’d go and do something like this. Martin fully intended to hold it against him if he ever tried to claim otherwise. He wondered if Jon actually did see his little stunt today as purely practical, a way to make sure he didn’t get upstaged despite how deeply adorable and romantic it truly was.
Sometimes, Martin still was struck that this was even happening, and not just despite all the horror that tried to get in their way. He’d once equated crushes with universal impossibilities, as being interested in someone seemed for him the best way to ensure those feelings would never be reciprocated. But no, this was Jonathan Sims buying him flowers, his feet propped in his lap, Martin’s own jumper hanging off his bones, leaving him to wonder if Jon actually left the flat like that today in such obviously ill-fitting clothes.
God, it felt magical, like a fairytale ending though their story was just beginning, and all sorts of other trite, sickening things that made the poet in Martin cringe. He’d been in a bare handful of long-term relationships before, sure, but never one that felt so thoroughly permanent, so significant, so comfortable.
He’d always felt silly when he’d start imagining years down the road with previous boyfriends, thinking about what they’d be like to live with or if they’d get bored of Martin when he’d exhausted every way he could possibly think of to stay useful and desirable. But a future with Jon felt inordinately hopeful, like a lifetime of an epilogue to their awful past waiting to be written. God, there was another one. Martin wrinkled his nose on behalf of his inner-poet.
Years ago, back when he first felt that foolish, pleasant hope that came with each civil word and shared cup of tea, he’d find himself daydreaming at his desk about a world in which Jon was his boyfriend, as he was wont to do with a crush like that. It had felt utterly impossible then to imagine that Jonathan Sims would ever soften enough to so much as openly smile at Martin. He’d fantasize about sweet words and passionate confessions until he realized that wasn’t like Jon at all, and forced himself to be realistic instead. What resulted looked not unlike some 1950s loveless marriage, Jon the stoic, withholding workaholic, rarely home and always distant, and Martin, ever-warm, ever-doting, ever-present, giving everything he had just to keep a man by his side. It wasn’t exactly ideal. At the time, he’d been able to convince himself he just thought Jon was hot, not like he wanted to marry the guy. Then, the world turned upside down again and again, each time shaking Jon up and setting him down in some new configuration that Martin not only wanted, but loved more and more.
It was almost funny now to think back on that early imagining of what a life with Jon would be. Martin knew Jon would rather die than ever treat him like that again, and he believed it. At least, that’s how Jon felt now. It was only the beginning, Martin reminded himself. This was their first Valentine’s Day together, and who knows what came after this year of magical firsts, stretching on from the moment the world went right? There was still a lurking chance this could all wear off at some point, the way Jon saw him now and how compelled he felt to do such sweet things to make him happy. What if one day the vitriol crept back, fueled by monotony and complacency? Or once the charm of it all faded, what if they realized everything they’d loved about each other had only been projected after all, molded in each other’s minds to be what they needed and wanted, but not who they truly were…
Jon’s voice cut through the silence, soft and warm.
“Penny for your thoughts.”
“Oh, I--” Martin looked at him, gazing so very tenderly. It was hard to care about those perceived eventualities when Jon was sat there right now staring at him like that.
“I was just thinking about all these firsts, you know?” Martin said. It wasn’t a total twist of the truth, just an omission of the more dismal train of thought. “Like Christmas and New Years and now this, I just… It’s all been so unbelievably great, and I don’t know, maybe we’re still in a bit of a honeymoon phase--”
“I hear the honeymoon phase hits harder when you’ve ended and saved the world together.”
Martin laughed, giving his feet a playful squeeze.
“My point is, everything’s been so wonderful. You’re wonderful. It feels unreal.”
Jon huffed a laugh and then shifted, pulling his feet out of Martin’s lap and tucking his knees up to his chest.
“I have a lot of time to make up for.”
Martin snapped his eyes over to meet his. “Jon--”
“I don’t just mean all the time we lost, I mean well before that. All the times I was oblivious to how much you cared for me and didn’t listen to my own heart enough to understand I cared for you, too.”
Martin cocked his head in that pitying way he knew Jon hated, especially when it meant to excuse his own actions. “Jon… No one’s keeping score. At least, I’m not.”
His eyes darted away. “Right.”
“You are, though, a bit. Aren’t you?”
“Enough to know I’m still lagging far behind.”
Martin reached over and tugged at his knee. “Come here.”
Jon came easily towards him and slung his legs over Martin’s lap fully. This time, he burrowed in close to his side and they wrapped their arms around each other. Jon tucked his nose into Martin’s neck, pressing his lips gently to the soft skin there, and Martin couldn’t help but smile.
“You know, tomorrow on my way home, I’m totally picking up a bunch of discounted chocolates and the cashiers are going to think I’m the worst but I’ll just tell them, no, no, I didn’t forget Valentine’s Day, I was cruelly tricked by my boyfriend into ignoring it so he could have all the fun.”
He felt the vibration of Jon’s chuckle against his chest.
“You’re actually going to tell a cashier about this, aren’t you?” Jon said.
“Hell yes, I am, anyone who will listen!”
Jon sighed and pulled back to look at him, the laughter in his eyes fading into sincerity.
“I just--I just didn’t want you to lift a finger. I wanted to treat you like you deserve without any expectation of reciprocation.”
“Jon, you know I like doing things for--”
“Yes, yes, yes, but just this once, you didn’t have to. Just let yourself be loved.”
Martin looked at him, theatrically unimpressed. How many more times tonight could he withstand Jon melting him down to a puddle of goo? He shook his head. “I really love you.”
The corner of Jon’s mouth quirked up. “Present tense?”
Martin rolled his eyes with a snort. That turn of phrase had become a bit of a morbid joke between them, since Jon once pointed out the similarity to something Martin had once said in a fog-mired state.
“Present tense.”
He laid his head back on Martin’s shoulder. “Good.”