Work Text:
Their anniversary is soon, well as close to an anniversary as they can get. Jon prefers to set the date on their first day in the safehouse, even though they technically started their relationship in the lonely.
There are two reasons for this: Jon prefers to keep the lonely out of their lives as much as possible, and the weeks they spent in the cottage blur together, so much so that he can't exactly remember when or who said the first, 'I love you' ('I loved you' notwithstanding).
Except for the first day.
The day after pulling Martin out of the lonely, they didn't speak, they definitely didn't say I love you, but how they clung together in that dusty cramped bed, long into the morning, quiet and content, felt like a turning point.
There isn't much point to having an anniversary that close to the apocalypse, when time got weird, and then still keeping to the same date in a Somewhere Else that doesn't exactly line up time-wise with their original world. But Jon enjoys thinking about it regardless, just a little bit of needed normalcy.
It's this thought that has him taking a walk down to the florist, it's a long ways away from their apartment, and he isn't exactly in a state to be taking that long of a walk unaccompanied, but it's his anniversary, It's nice outside (it rained yesterday, the air is as clear as it can be, and the sky is sunny), he feels good, and he wants to get Martin flowers.
His first mistake is forgetting his cane. Well, he didn't forget it he just … doesn't use it around the house, and he knows he should use it when taking walks but … he doesn't use it around the house, and he's been fine he should be fine.
His left leg, the one that was already weak when he became the archivist (lowercase a) and got partially liquified by worms during Jane Prentiss' attack, aches all the way up to his hip once he gets to the shop.
He takes a moment to lean against the doorway and then on a table by the doorway under the guise of taking a look at the displays before bracing himself and limping-but-trying-not-to-look-like-he's-limping his way over to the counter.
The florist is very nice, and smiles when he says he's getting some flowers for his anniversary. If his pain addled mind accidentally makes him say husband rather than boyfriend, the only one who knows is him (and the florist). She helps him build an arrangement, explaining the meanings of the flowers as she goes, and he tries to listen if only so he can repeat the meanings back to Martin.
By the end of the whole ordeal, his leg and head pulse with pain in time with his heartbeat, and he barely makes it through the transaction before hobbling his way out of the store.
The way back is, understandably, worse. He keeps an iron grip on the bouquet, holding it in front of himself like he's balancing an egg on a spoon. He's so focused on keeping it unharmed, and on the pain, and how far he still has to go, that he doesn't notice the car before it's already run through a puddle and drenched him.
He takes a moment to just stand there, drenched, freezing cold, hurting, and subsequently overwhelmed before continuing on his way (what else is he supposed to do?), newly ruined bouquet clutched to his chest. He manages to make it back to the apartment in one piece, and takes a long time trying to puzzle out how to open the door one-handed before it opens for him.
It's Martin.
Jon looks up at him, dazed. He barely ekes out an "oh" before hands take hold of his shoulders.
"Where have you been!? Your— your cane was still here and the door was unlocked, and I was so worried that something had happened. I don't want to act like you can't take care of yourself, but for god's sake Jon, you're still healing and—," when he finally notices the state Jon is in his eyes widen, he looks bewildered.
A moment passes where they just stare at each other before Jon, doing the one thing he set out this morning to accomplish, holds out the flowers and croaks, "I got you flowers."
Martin looks at the flowers, drenched, ruined, and then back at Jon, also drenched and also ruined and also visibly in pain.
His face crumples into an exasperatedly fond look, he sighs out an "oh, Jon," and ushers him inside.