Chapter Text
"You know," Armin whispered to one of his two husbands, in regards to his other one whom was sleeping in between them, "he is kind of cute when he's asleep."
"Yeah," Jean responded whilst keeping his voice down (it was a quarter after ten at night right now). "Hard to believe he's actually loaded up with painkillers right now."
Knowing that Marco still suffered great amounts of pain even a year after the crash made them all very sad. Were it not for his prescribed pills, the two of them figured he could be put on antidepressants. But there was no chance of that happening; too much of a health risk.
There wasn't a whole lot else they could do in regards to Marco's physically ravaged state, besides try to cheer him up as best they could. Both of them kept it all in mind while they settled in so as to get some shuteye themselves.
...
In the year Jean was in a coma, Marco had evidently taken to collecting various cutesy things from blind boxes and secondhand stores. Jean was astounded to learn that the rapidly growing collection of teddy bear figurines and Funko pop dolls (along with a lot of other cheesy and saccharine bric-a-brac) were not his mother's, but were in fact Marco's.
Then he apologized to Marco for mouthing off about them. Needless to say, however, that those were about the only idea he had for a birthday present (besides an antique shotgun he'd once found at a pawn shop, but that was more up his mother's alley, funnily enough).
"Maybe there's something he wants other than material goods," Armin suggested when he and Jean were browsing a shelf of aforementioned figurines (they weren't exactly cheap). "Like, say, spending time with the rest of us?"
"Nah, we do that all the time," Jean came back with while pointing at a figurine he wanted a closer look at. "He doesn't have that one yet, I don't think..."
Armin resisted the urge to roll his eyes (Jean was such a bonehead sometimes).
"I mean, we could go out and do something special together, like maybe go see a movie he's been wanting to watch. Or go out to dinner. Something like that." There was a pause, which prompted an answer when Armin didn't get one right away.
"Yeah, I guess that could work. I think I'll get that one for him..."