Chapter Text
Meeting up with Nuada in the BPRD’s sizable gym a few days each week in the very early morning so that they can work out together is definitely a treasured part of John’s post-New Years routine.
Today, however, on the 14th of February, he probably should have begged off of the pre-dawn run he and his insanely fit boyfriend had taken around the frozen grounds of the BPRD base, since he has an extra task to complete before heading in for his regular shift (and after a shower, of course).
Of course, time does not cooperate with his plans all too well, and he ends up in a bit of a rush by the time he’s leaving his quarters with his hands full.
Nerve-wrackingly, there’s only a fifteen or so minute gap in John’s usual pre-shift routine wherein he can feasibly attempt to spring any sort of surprise on his immortal, extremely canny boyfriend, and awkwardly glancing at his watch reveals that the actual amount of remaining free time is closer to ten or eleven minutes, at this point.
“Shi— ow!” he exclaims, as he readjusts his arm after checking the time, fumbling his grip on the squat, marbled clay pot containing a small succulent garden.
The card and envelope he’s been trying to keep hold of between his thumb and the lip of the large planter separate and skitter away from his feet. Exhaling in anguished exasperation, he stands there, at a loss as to how he’ll be able to retrieve the stationary items without having to lower the cumbersome vessel full of precisely arranged flora all the way to the hallway floor.
As he agonizes of his pitiable circumstance, he scooches his left hand to a better position, since one of the pricklier plants had managed to scratch up his knuckles when he’d instinctively secured his grip a few seconds ago.
In the next moment, though, St. Valentine himself must deign to finally smile down upon John, because the door across the hall opens up to reveal his sleep-rumpled across-the-way neighbor looking perplexedly at the bright pink envelope labeled ‘Nuada’ that had smoothly slid halfway into his quarters.
“John?” he half-yawns, picking up first the envelope that sits halfway over his room’s threshold and then the card that lays nearby. “These yours, man?”
Watching his coworker briefly squint blearily at the two items before sliding the card back into its brightly-coloured home, John feels his cheeks get a bit warm, more than a bit embarrassed about the cheesy, stereotypical heart-adorned designs all over the cardstock.
“Uh, yeah— trying to, y’know, hand these off before I clock in, but I think I bit off more than I can chew trying to do everything in one trip,” he says, chuckling sheepishly, flushing a bit brighter. “Anyway, could you maybe just… wedge that back in between my hand and this pot?”
Beginning to take in exactly how many varieties of plants are cohabitating in one place, the bespectacled younger man strategically uses one of his worn flip flops as a wedge to keep his door open (a practice he’s taken seriously ever since Myers had told him about his crazy Christmas lock-out story, several weeks back) and steps out fully into the corridor.
“Whoah, that’s a super nice bouquet— or, uh— pot full of plants, man. Guessing this’s all for your guy, right? The Nuada dude you’re seeing.”
Boy, John would love to see Nuada’s reaction to hearing this 20-year-old tech-genius call him ‘the Nuada dude’ that John is seeing. It would either result in a scathing diatribe about the lack of respect shown to those in the supernatural community, or it might startle a dark chuckle out of his lover, what with his tumultuous history as somewhat of a black sheep in Bethmoora’s royal line.
In any case, time is running down quickly, and John still has to make it all the way back down to said elvish prince’s quarters and report to the transpo room in time for rollcall and the morning rundown of the mission.
“Thanks, Jared— and yeah, they’re for Nuada. Sorry for the bother, but… oh, actually, yeah. That’s a better idea,” he says, pleasantly surprised. “Thanks again. I’ll see you around!”
Between two of the sturdier, plain green succulents, the vividly rose-hued envelope sits solidly wedged and perfectly upright, even as John pivots and power-walks along the well-known route to his lover’s rooms.
The two flights of stairs are a bit awkward to navigate, but he makes it without much incident, only having to slow down once, when he sees a dark red petal fall from one of the few plants that had serendipitously been in bloom when he’d picked everything up yesterday.
Blowing a breath out, John shakes off the odd tangle of nerves he’s inexplicably feeling the closer he draws to the familiar set of rooms down a blessedly empty hallway downstairs. Then, before he can work himself further into a tizzy wondering how exactly he’s supposed to announce his presence if he has no free hands with which to knock on the door, said door swings open without him having to actually do anything.
Dressed (if one could even label it as such) in nothing more than a low-slung towel about his hips is Nuada, hair and upper body still wet from a shower.
John’s planned little speech evaporates like the droplet of water he watches trail down from one shoulder to the ridges of a well-defined abdomen.
“John? Was my presence requested on your mission today, after all?”
Snapping back to a fully cogitative state, the BPRD agent lifts his traitorous eyes back to Nuada’s, utterly aware that his face is visibly red, what with how the tips of his ears feel hot.
“Wha-? Oh, no— everything’s fine for the mission. I just wanted to give you these and, uh, to wish you a happy Valentine’s Day before I get stuck working this extra-long shift and forget to do it later.”
One of Nuada’s eyebrows raises a miniscule amount as he spies the bright pink envelope wedged between two of the half-dozen little multicolored plants in the pot John is holding.
Embarrassingly for John’s ego, it turns out that Nuada is able to effortlessly hold and balance the sizeable planter in just one hand, still looking slightly confused (but very much pleased) to see John again so soon after they’d gone their separate ways, post weekday morning run.
“Valen-what’s Day?” the elf says, even as he leans forward to accept a very quick kiss from his younger lover. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
Brushing away bits of dry potting soil that had managed to accumulate on the cuffs of his black suit jacket, John determinedly does not lick his lips after the kiss he just shared with his very attractive, amazing-smelling (and tasting) boyfriend.
“Hm? Oh, it’s just a little romantic day for couples to do stuff, I guess. Don’t even worry about it— I’m just a bit of a cheeseball, so… yeah.”
Feeling his phone vibrate with the ‘you’re about to be late for work, idiot!’ alarm he’d set, the BPRD agent brushes an anxious hand down the pressed lines of his suit before leaning forward for one last, irresistible taste of his lover’s dark-stained mouth.
It’s pretty gratifying to see Nuada, then, lick his own lips as John regretfully steps back and fully into the outside hallway.
“I see,” the elf utters absently, watching John with a clear sort of fondness that sets the retreating human’s heart aflutter.
“Alright, I have to run— literally. I’ll see you later on if you’re still free for our usual Friday-night dinner.”
Forcing himself to leave the painfully tempting sight of his half-naked boyfriend, John turns and breaks into a jog that has him quickly reaching the stairwell at the opposite end of the corridor from where he’d entered.
Three minutes later, he arrives to the garage just in time to hear his name called by his team lead for roll call.
*
As it turns out, the ‘big bad’ terrorizing the rural Pennsylvania town they drive to is actually just looking for a Valentine’s date, herself. Or rather, the mini-van-sized, talking— well, telepathic— beetle had just woken up from a three-hundred-year-long nap a week ago and had immediately sought out a mate, as those of her species are apparently wont to do.
By the time the BPRD response team spreads out over the unkempt, abandoned farmland far enough to come across the giant insectoid, she is busy laying out a big circle made purely of free-grown wildflowers that encloses multiple other, concentric circles of different types of flora or found objects.
At its center is the wide, aged stump of what once must have been a majestic maple tree, and just next to that is a sizable hole in the ground that has been dug on a diagonal.
A quick chat with the scarlet red beetle-creature (‘beetle person’, Naomi from NHR would correct him) reveals that she is in the final stage of courting a mate and that as soon as the other, yet-unseen dire bug accepts her offer, the pair will depart the area.
At that declaration, the BPRD takes her name (a series of clicks that are made aloud with mouth parts that no present humanoid can accurately repeat, but which is recorded for posterity), and tries to help her figure out a nice place to go and have some children. Children which, themselves, will one day burrow deep into the ground for their own multi-century nap before beginning the cycle all over again.
By the time the lot of them are friendly enough with ‘Three Clicks-Chirp-Clack’ to be tossing personal suggestions of nice, remote places to have kids (so long as the place is out of the way of too much human development), John feels comfortable enough to throw out his uncle’s farmland out in West Illinois as a wildcard idea. (It’s not like anybody but John ever goes out to the multiple unused acres of family land, anyway— not since his uncle, the only guardian he’d ever known, had passed a few years back.)
The glossy wings on the beetle’s back shiver and buzz loudly for a moment as her focus shifts to John, and her wispy, gravelly voice fills his head again as she requests details about the land, eventually asking his freely given permission to ‘look it up’ herself.
A pleasant, gentle sort of tickling feeling runs through him, somewhere underneath his scalp and behind his eyes as the excitedly dancing (which is quite the sight for a six-legged creature) insect manages to successfully extract information about the Myers family farm.
Apparently, she’d managed to collect a bit more information about several other things, like the custom of human handshaking, as she holds out one bristly ped to John in a clear invitation to ‘shake on it’.
‘Thank you, Johnmyers,’ she says telepathically to the lot of BPRD agents, already turning back to her task of completing the perfect circle of flower bunches. ‘Your species’ kindness has been noted. If all goes well, we shall leave this place in two or less cycles of the sun.’
John’s fellow agents, nearly all of whom had placed their hands on their sidearms when the huge bug had suddenly swung a proportionately huge arm at Agent Myers, relax and pat him on the back as they usher him back to the two sets of ‘cable tv repair’ vans they had taken out to the site.
“You’re welcome!” He calls back, aloud, helpless again, to resist his overly genial Midwest upbringing. “Good luck, ma’am!”
‘And to you, too, with your Prince, little one…’ is whispered back to him alone, mentally, as they pull away down the long dirt path toward the main road, nearby.
‘Good luck, ma’am!’ is bandied about on the way home for almost 3 straight hours, until even he starts to find the humor in it, too.
Plus, on the upside, he gets back to headquarters a lot earlier than he’d expected, which means he might eventually end up with time to properly freshen up and go find Nuada again for some kind of proper Valentine’s Day date before dinner, later in the evening. Hopefully by the time he gets to the Bethmooran prince’s rooms, he’ll figure out the details of said prospective date…
*
After gently reminding his unit’s head, SSA Rosa Navarro, that he has not only caught up on his paperwork, but is actually ahead on it, John manages to beg off of work mid-afternoon instead of early evening.
“Good luck, ‘sir’!” she crows at him as he passes her desk, her glittering hazel eyes filled with mirth.
Ugh. Sometimes he regrets joining in on the shit-giving on his team, as close as they are, but hey, if he can dish it out to them…
Rolling his eyes, John raps his knuckles on the corner of her desk, turning sideways as he walks away.
“Thanks, ma’am— I’ll be sure to tell Nuada the chocolates are from you. Oh, and when Matthews gets back from lunch, tell him thanks for the gift… genuinely. He makes the best sugar cookies.”
Momentarily looking a bit like a deer in the headlights when John mentions that she’ll be inadvertently giving a visiting royal dignitary midgrade store-bought chocolate, SSA Navarro suddenly cackles loudly at the way John has all but admitted to having been the culprit behind the decimation of the team’s supply of Christmas cookies over the holiday break.
“Will do! And let me know if your valentine likes the truffles, Myers!” his team lead mischievously calls at him as he leaves the bullpen.
*
Judging by the way Nuada chases after John’s mouth even after he has to pull back to actually breathe, he apparently likes the taste of the chocolate a lot. Pressing a hand to the amorous elf’s chest, the younger of the two steps back with what he’s sure is a kiss-drunk smile.
“Well. I’ll tell my boss you like the chocolates from her, then.”
Slinging his jacket over the usual hook inside the entrance to Nuada’s apartment, John retrieves the only cellophane-wrapped truffle he’d managed to leave intact after polishing off the two others he’d been gifted.
“Mm,” Nuada murmurs behind him, his voice moving in the direction of the kitchen. “You taste delectable enough on your own, but true— there was a new and quite… moreish quality to your lips, today.”
At the veritable barrage of compliments, John feels the familiar fluttering rush of excitement in his nerves cause an unavoidable blush to spring up on his cheeks. Turning around after he toes off his shoes, he hears Nuada pulling a few items out of his very rarely utilized refrigerator.
When John rounds the corner to the rather basic, little kitchen, it is to see a grey-dyed, thick wicker basket on the countertop, its confines lined with a blood red, tasseled cloth.
“What…?” he starts, watching as Nuada begins layering a few, small wooden boxes and a set of simple, wooden serving platters into the basket.
From a cupboard underneath the sink, the preoccupied elf snags an ornate, dark glass bottle with a long neck and turns to hand it to John, who is a bit less bewildered, now, as he catches on.
“I made preparations for us to share a private meal on this Day of Saint Valentine,” Nuada says, snagging two stemless wine glasses from a shelf next to the fridge. “I visited Abraham upstairs, earlier, and he was gracious enough to explain the origins and traditions of this holiday in detail.
“From your tone and behavior this morning, it’s clear this day means a fair bit to you, whether or not you have had much cause to celebrate it in the past. Thus, I put together a small picnic after visiting the troll market, this morning.”
The confident Bethmooran prince tests the balance of the basket he has packed (which now includes two precisely placed glasses near the very top) before lifting it up by the sturdy handle and approaching John. Allowing his obviously slightly bewildered human to sort through his words, Nuada lays a proprietary hand on John’s lower back to gently lead him over to a door that the BPRD agent hasn’t paid much attention to before.
“I— oh. Well… yes. I, uh, I do kind of like the idea of a designated day to go all out on the romantic and couple-y stuff. Just… uh, I thought I’d come spend some time with you— maybe read or find a good documentary— and we might go out for dinner, later? Or something?”
John’s aware that only Nuala has the capability to read thoughts or emotions by touch or even very close proximity, but Nuada sometimes has a level of insight into his psyche that makes the mundane human question the veracity of that claim: he really, really like Valentine’s day, and has never really had a partner care about it at all, on the very few occasions in the past he’s had a partner to celebrate it with.
At his side, Nuada uses his elbow to ease open the door to what John imagines is an office-slash-workroom for the suite. Instead, what they walk into is a veritable greenhouse— or some kind of impossible indoor ‘garden’, with plants of all shapes and sizes growing to ridiculous size and climbing up the occasional wall, shelf, or forgotten stepstool.
Technically, they’re on the ‘bottom floor’ (except for the ‘restricted’ floor down one level), but it is still ground level, so two walls are taken up by fairly large sets of tall windows. Bright, afternoon sunlight beams all over the somewhat sizable room, leaving shafts of white-gold to illuminate a number of utterly unfamiliar— and in some cases, otherworldly— flora at every turn.
“Many of these plants are native to my homeland and have yet to be grown anywhere else in the world,” Nuada says, placing the full basket carefully down atop a large, dark red blanket that had been lain across the soil and grass-covered ‘floor’ of the repurposed office.
“Some are more common, and there, just next to you, are the exotic plants you gifted me; I have never cared for the likes of them myself, as their natural habitat is so different than that of Bethmoora and I could not keep anything permanently while estranged and traveling. Thank you for furthering a past time I have only recently begun to cultivate again for the first time in a very long time, Dearest.”
Thinking fast to avoid saying anything that’s too emotional or sentimental to a guy he’s only been dating for a month and a half, John takes a moment to sit down on the blanket, placing the big bottle of what he assumes is wine down on the corner of the gigantic square of fabric in the process.
“Course! Glad you like them,” he simply says, eyeballing the way that the majority of succulents and cacti that he’d dropped off earlier are not just arranged nicely in their own chosen little corner, but are thriving and have blown through a few months’ worth of growth just since this morning.
Green thumb doesn’t even begin to describe the other man’s affinity with nature— and with plants specifically.
After he’s satisfactorily arranged the wooden platters, the two glasses, and the small collection of glazed, wooden boxes along the finely made, red blanket, Nuada moves so he is seated much nearer to John.
“Abraham indicated that a time-tested activity for a romantic date is a picnic with one’s partner in a relaxing or interesting location, so I prepared this bit of a repast and chose my garden,” he explains, opening the handful of boxes to reveal a small selection of cheeses, preserved meats, and whole fruits.
The level of care and thoughtfulness that had gone into this date in just the half-day that John had been at work is mind-blowing to the young man who is more used to being ostracized than prioritized by others. To keep from getting mildly hysterical or any level of over-emotional and thereby embarrassing himself in front of the literal royalty that is his boyfriend, he grins and looks down for a moment, managing to stay outwardly even-keeled.
“I… this is great— beautiful, Nuada. Thanks.”
When John looks up to meet golden eyes, he finds that they’re strangely soft with whatever emotion is dancing along between them as they gaze stupidly at one another like lovesick fools.
“Ah. Of… of course, John,” Nuada says at length, seemingly shaking himself out of whatever state of distraction he’d been in. “Now let me introduce you to some items you have likely never tried before.”
With a looser smile and expression, John laces his fingers with Nuada’s and allows the elf to explain the origins of the foodstuffs laid out before them.
*