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Morrison was never mushy. Never a lovey-dovey type of guy. Even in their past, they upheld the sort of reputation that, even if they wanted to, wouldn't allow them to act that way. They had jobs to do, people to boss around, and more than too much on their own respective plates to have personal, intimate moments often. Kisses behind closed doors or the gentle graze of their gloves against one another while on the clock didn't really count. At least not to him.
Jack had a terribly annoying way of getting around obstacles, though. In the most batshit, lunatic ways you could imagine.
Really, though, how were flowers on his desk supposed to be low-key in any sense of the word? Like none of the eighty-billion people that seemed to move and mingle throughout the building would ever notice the bright blue and purple flowers in their cream colored vase, front and center, a jarring burst of color in his carefully crafted dark office space.
What the hell was he supposed to do with them, anyway? They couldn't just, stay there. Cassidy had given him three looks too many because of them and their stupid vivid petals and the atrocious pottery they were dropped in, screwing up everything in the room with their cheeriness and pretty smells.
He couldn't stand them. He couldn't stand him. He couldn't stand any of it.
They had to go...
He never imagined he'd be sitting here now, what might as well be centuries later, losing sleep over some old blossom that fell from his pocket.
Sat at the edge of his bed, hunched over the little bluebell in his palm, pressed with care by a man long forgotten, a fluff of pocket tint hung onto one of it's darkened petals.
Only God knows what moved him to put in the time and patience to preserve it, to hold it between soft tissues and the pages of the abandoned planner he snatched off a shelf, stacking a textbook or two on top of it, and leaving it be for... until he remembered it was there.
It was only a bluebell. None of the heliotrope or forget-me-nots or pansies. Just one bluebell.
He hated them. Hated what they reminded him of. Hated who they reminded him of. Yet, he still saved it. Out of all the ones he destroyed, discarded, gave away. This one managed to stick around.
Now. Now, he can't help himself from remembering him. Can't help but not hate him. Not long for him again. Barely anything was there back then, so he thought. He never wanted to admit it. But he misses him, truly.
What has been done cannot be undone and they know it. Their relationship will never be the same, if what there is between them now could even be called a "relationship." They've broken each other too many times to trust themselves in the other's hands again. They've torn themselves apart, nearly died more times than they could both count, then set out to do it all again, a million times over.
Not sure this is what most meant by "acting like an old married couple." He assumes most of them don't shoot at each other as often as they do.
This little flower has been with him through countless horrors, and it's more intact than he can remember being. Letting the stream of tears hit and ruin it now would be a crime even he wouldn't commit. He can see the card among the flowers now, reading to him in Jack's shaky handwriting, listing the flowers and their supposed meaning. Funny enough, given his bad memory, he can remember the bluebell's short entry surprisingly well.
"My love is constant."
My love is constant.
His love was constant.
Fucking hell. What has he done.