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Jon was sick.
She was always sick–chronically ill. Martin was too. This made their relationship easy, different, and so very them. Sweet nothings were useless to both of them–instead, as they lay in bed and cuddled, they would whisper ways to help with the pain, to feel somewhat better.
They didn’t go out on dates very often. They preferred to stay home, heat pillows on their backs and ring splints over their fingers, eating some easy microwaveable meal in bed. Why would they waste their money on gifts when helping each other through flare-ups was enough?
Jon liked their life–their new, comfortable, and domestic, life. It was such a large change from everything they had been through, everything they had seen, but it was not unwelcome in the slightest. Quite the opposite, it felt like they were finally normal when they never had been before. The first day Jon awoke to Martin bringing her breakfast and medicine in bed, she cried long and hard. They hugged tightly, and kissed sweetly, clinging to each other with love so big it was almost painful. They were finally safe.
Happy endings were something so rare, and Jon felt so lucky to share one with Martin.
Jon breathed in heavily through her nose, and turned over in bed, not facing Martin, but rather their window. She held softly onto her plush owl and teddy bear, and pulled her blankets over her shoulder. Martin moved his hand to go over her hip and stomach under her blankets, and Jon hummed at the cold touch.
Jon only had one sheet and one weighted blanket for herself, as she ran quite warm, and had a hard time regulating that, her body never giving her ways to get cooler. Martin was the opposite, always cold, yet always sweating. He had a sheet, two doonas, and a weighted blanket. Body’s are weird. They liked how they evened each other out.
Jon made a small hiss and shifted more onto her back to be off her aching hip. She started to become more aware of everything, though mostly her nagging pain. Her back, hips, knees. Laying in bed was hurting a lot, and even though she loved Martin very, very much, she thought it probably better to sit up and get some breakfast and medicine sorted.
She wiggled away from Martin—who pulled his arm away—and sat slumped over, legs dangling off her side of the bed. She sighed, her back aching and posture terrible. She felt comforted by the rest of her body being nice to be in—the rolls of her stomach and the fat of her thighs gave her a feeling she couldn’t describe, a feeling of pure joy at the knowing of physical evidence of healing—but she still grimaced at the jolt of pain that went from her knee to her hip as she stood up still for a moment to let her vision come back and the headache and dizziness subside, one hand on her dresser.
She placed her plush owl—the Doctor, both an ode to her enjoyment of animals with titles and her favourite show— and her teddy bear—the Wordsmith—on the bed, where she had lain, and smiled as Martin hugged them both.
“I’m going to start making morning tea,” She started in a hoarse whisper after looking to see which of Martin's ears were pressed to the pillow—his hard of hearing one, and started to pull a lace singlet on, “So you could maybe start to wrap your head around waking up, love?” Martin hummed in acknowledgement and opened his eyes slightly.
They smiled at each other while Jon adjusted the straps of her top. She leaned down carefully, resting her weight on the bed with her knee, and gave Martin a short kiss. His eyes fluttered shut again, and leaned up before falling back, and shuffling more into his blankets.
“Don’t forget to grab the panadol and the rest of our meds.” Martin reminded softly.
“I would never.” Jon said with a strangled sort of voice and she pushed her fists into her back to get the release of a satisfying cacophony of cracks and pops.
“That sounded good.”
“I’ve had better.” Jon ran a hand through her hair.
She was in a lot of pain, that was very true, but even so, she preferred to walk around the house without using her mobility aids. They hurt her arms, took up too much space, and she preferred having her hands free. This did mean that she spent most of her time walking on the outsides of her feet, trying to find the spots that didn't hurt to walk on—everywhere hurt to walk on—and just sitting down when she could.
Each step out of the bedroom was a spoon agonisingly spent. She would probably just end up on the couch doing nothing for the second half of the day, but this was nothing new. She had good books to read, if her brain decided to be able to work enough to let her read, or she could continue rewatching Doctor Who, if Martin didn’t mind. She was just grateful this bad day happened to fall in the time she had off work for the upcoming surgery.
She was getting rid of her ng tube, and getting the surgery to get a g tube. Better for the long term. She didn’t have any strong feelings about her feeding tubes, she was just a bit annoyed with her ng one, and having had it for so long. Since she was twenty eight, so around twenty years. She just never had the time or money for the surgery before now.
She was cold, but didn’t think she should deal with any more fabric touching her skin, so she turned on the heater in the living room on her way to the kitchen. Tea would warm her up nicely too. She thought about having a smoke, but if it was this cold inside of the house, then she could probably wait until she’d absorbed a bit more warmth before going out onto the patio.
The dim lights to the kitchen flickered on strangely, the orange hue of them illuminating the room. Jon first got a bland plastic cup from the cabinets above the stove, and had a nice drink of the cold tap water. She had two Panadols, popping them out of the medicine cabinet, and hoped her pain and headache would feel better soon.
Jon stared down at the sink full of dirty plates and cups, and looked longingly at her TARDIS mug. Both her and Martin had been very low on spoons, and hadn’t washed the sinks in the past few days. Their house was old, so there was no dishwasher, but there was a washer in the kitchen, and dryer in the backyard, so their clothes were always easy to do.
Jon twisted and played with her nose ring as she opened the biscuit tin and started to place ones she felt like in the tray she had gotten out. She stood with her knees bent back, comfortable until she bent them forward again.
When they got to this new house—this new life—Jon had decided she had enough with pleasing the able bodied folk. She was going to do as she pleased, and take care of her body in some ways, and not take care of it in others. She actually gave herself time to rest when she was in pain—even if it slowed others down—and she didn’t feel guilty about not ‘trying everything’. So what if she smoked, or was angry? She didn’t care about being the ‘good cripple’. She was not inspirational, and she didn’t want to be.
Some people would tell her how strong she was, and how they would never be able to live with these disabilities. She wanted to tell them where they could stick it, but just stared them down instead. She hated being able bodied people's inspiration porn.
She got out a strip of aluminium covered pills from its box, and an orange pill container, putting them with the biscuits in the tray. She looked over to her iv stand next to the fridge, and contemplated starting on her own breakfast. She sighed and frowned as a pain started to set into her abdomen, and she realised she probably had to go to the bathroom.
She pushed her toes to the ground, which resulted in their cracking, and then made her way to their small, dimly lit bathroom with peeling wallpaper. Her body hates giving her signs of what it needs—water, food, going to the bathroom—and she only ever realised when it started to hurt. She got into the habit of just eating when she was watching a show, since she tended to watch in regular eating hours, so that helped with that.
She flushed and washed her hands with nice, neutral citrus liquid soap. Bars of soap made her feel slimy, so she always used liquid soap and body wash.
Martin was digging through the fridge when Jon got back. He turned as he heard her footsteps, which showed he was getting out her pre-made breakfast. She smiled, and gave him a kiss on the cheek, holding the other with her hand, when she got close enough. He giggled and leaned more on his cane
“Your beard is so ticklish.” He laughed, scratching at her facial hair with his short nails.
“Yes, but you love how it looks.” She said, turning to fill up the kettle, lit the gas stove, and started to boil the water as Martin placed the feeding bag on the iv stand.
“I do,” Martin sighed, turning to quickly give Jon a kiss on the forehead, and whispered, “You’re so handsome, you know that?”
Jon smiled and placed his hand on Martin's shoulder to kiss him once more, chastely and lovingly.
“Thank you, Martin. You are very beautiful too.” Jon and Martin loved to kiss. Anywhere—lips, forehead, cheek, stomach, chest—, it didn’t matter. Just being able to show their love in that way, it meant so much to both of them.
Jon got out two plain white mugs, while Martin opened up the pump and laced the tube through it. Jon pushed down on all her fingers to crack them before pulling the drawer for their tea bags, her fingers feeling more relaxed and less stiff. She joked about being her own chiropractor sometimes, but it honestly wasn’t too far off. She cracked everything she could, which was most parts of her body. Her shoulders and elbows were just being stubborn.
Jon grabbed the roll of tape from next to the fridge, and carefully pulled off the strip currently on his face, replacing it. She sat down on the chair in front of the counter in the meantime, picking at her arm. She pinched at all the bumps she could see, and picked at the scabs. She grabbed a tissue to clean up the blood, and frowned at her now painful arm. She hated how it hurt afterwards, but it was so satisfying during.
Jon turned and lifted the kettle off the stove as it began to whistle loudly. She scratched at her shirt and scrunched up her eyes at the noise. She hates loud noises, but sometimes it was worth it for tea.
She poured the hot water into the mugs, placing it down as carefully as she could while trying to get rid of it quickly, the pain of her fingers, wrist and elbow starting to spread to her shoulder.
“Do you wanna work on this while I go grab my book?” Martin asked, motioning to the unconnected feeding tube,
“Yes, and thank you.” She replied, pulling the stand next to the chair so she could sit down while putting them together.
She made quick work of it, having done it every day, for almost half of her life now. Martin was just coming back with a purple-bound book in hand when she was finishing up.
She poured a dash of milk into their teas, placed them in the tray, and held it by the handles. Martin stood next to her, holding his book, and resting his cane on the cupboards. They looked at each other and smiled lovingly.
They walked to the living room, just next to the kitchen, Martin pulling the stand across the hardwood floor with them. They sat down on their couch—old, tattered, second hand–and rested their shoulders together. Martin sat at Jon’s left, so his hearing ear was towards her, as he didn’t tend to use his hearing aid unless they went out. Jon looked to his love–skin spattered brown and peach, with pink rashes and acne, hair greying brown and white, beard scratchy and soft–and leaned over to kiss his cheek sweetly, their beards brushing against one another.
They went deep into the morning, talking, reading, drinking tea, listening to music, having medicine–just being together and in such deep and emotional love, just being able to understand each other's struggles and put them aside for the day. Today may not have been the best day in relation to her pain, but being with Martin made it all worth it. She wouldn’t have their life any differently.