Work Text:
What are you doing for Valentine’s Day?
Gabe ignores the text. He doesn’t need Ana to remind him about holidays when he can see a calendar just fine. So of course a couple hours later he gets another as he’s heading home. It simply says, Gabriel. A threat if he ever saw one.
Nothing, he texts back, though he knows he’s just looking for trouble. She’ll probably end up messaging Jesse next, and who the hell can guess what they’ll get up to then.
Just because it’s the first Valentine’s day with Jesse as- well, ‘a couple’ still doesn’t sound quite right. First Valentine’s day since they’d met, yes, or the first one since Jesse broke his lease and starting mooching off him to be even more accurate. Though perhaps it’s not counted as mooching if Gabe was the one who suggested it.
Either way, doesn’t matter what anyone calls it, he knows Ana will be ticked off if he doesn’t at least ask Jesse about whether he wants to do anything that day or not. Knowing Jesse he’d be perfectly happy with take-out and a blowjob, and it wouldn’t even matter if he was the one getting it or giving it.
And if Gabe went so far as to get him- what, chocolate? Did Jesse like chocolate? He likes cinnamon gum whenever he can’t have a cigarette, and those strawberry candies that grandmothers keep in their purses for decades, the ones that can only be found at the dollar store. Gabe knows that much.
But if he did get candy, or flowers, or whatever the fuck he’s supposed to get, Jesse would most likely coo over him all night and not get two words out in between all the ‘sugar’s and ‘sweetheart’s and ‘aw darlin’s. An actual dinner reservation at a place with tablecloths and candles might just send that sentimental fool over the moon.
Well, easy enough for one night. And there’s plenty of time to get that all arranged. He’ll ask Jesse if he wants to do something, and then he can tell Ana to shove it the next time she checks up on him.
Except later, when they’re in bed and he does ask, Jesse says, “Oh shit, honey, I forgot to tell you. They’ve got me workin’ that night.”
“That’s fine,” Gabe says.
Jesse scoots up and kisses at his cheek. “Sorry baby. We can still do something another day, if you want?”
“Doesn’t make a difference to me,” Gabe says.
“Alright,” Jesse says, nuzzling into his ear now. Then he murmurs, low and teasing, “Every day is special with you, anyhow.”
“Don’t start with that sappy shit,” Gabe mutters.
“Like you don’t love it,” Jesse croons, and just laughs and holds on tighter when Gabe tries to get an elbow into his ribs.
Two weeks later he does end up with a bag of hard candy from the dollar store, though, and it’s mostly so he can tell Ana he didn’t do nothing, since he knows she’s going to ask. But he won’t tell her that he already opened it and stole one first, before even getting back to his apartment.
The first thing he realizes when he opens the door, however, is that Jesse is home, making noise in the kitchen. The apartment smells like cooking. Gabe goes down the hall, rolling the too-sweet strawberry candy over his tongue, and looks in the doorway.
He finds Jesse poking at something in a pan on the stove. The table is set. There’s an unlit candle on it. “I thought you had work?” he asks.
Jesse turns back to see him, wide-eyed. “Shit. Aren’t you early?”
“No,” Gabe says. He’d made a stop on the way, after all; if anything he’s late. And even though it’s obvious, he asks, “What’s with this?”
“Oh,” Jesse says. “I made dinner?” He lifts the pan off the burner as evidence. “Well, this is just onions and stuff, but it’s almost done. I was gonna put the steaks on once you got home. There’s beer in the fridge if you want one now, though, and I uh, got dessert from that place over on Lincoln.”
“You have the night off,” Gabe says. “And you made dinner.”
“Yeah,” Jesse says, starting to grin. “Surprise?”
Gabe comes into the kitchen, eyeing the neatly arranged dishes and silverware, and the white box on the counter from the bakery he stops at to whenever he’s on that side of town. He goes over to where Jesse stands, drops the dollar store bag next to the sink, and takes him by the hip.
“Looks nice,” he says. “Good thing I didn’t make reservations.” He’d cancelled them, anyway.
Jesse’s smile spreads slow over his face, and he loops both arms around Gabe’s waist to squeeze him. “Happy Valentine’s day, baby,” he murmurs. When he comes in for a kiss it’s easy to pass the still mostly-intact piece of candy right into his mouth.
Jesse pulls away again to look at him, bewildered, lips pursed around it, then he seems to realize what it is.
“That’s your present,” Gabe says, smirking.
And Jesse snorts and cracks the candy between his teeth, tugging Gabe close for another, sweeter, kiss.