John was absolutely certain that it's their anniversary. He actually remembered this year and everything. It helped that Sam had programmed his cell phone to go off every loudly to tell him how many days until the date. He'd have to thank Sam for that later. Or maybe his thanks would just be a lack of a blow up, because they had a fight every year on their anniversary.
Not this year, oh no. It only took 13 years. Now to be fair, it could be argued for 12 years. Lucifer liked to think of their anniversary as the day John saved him from the snow. John liked to think of their anniversary as the day he let Lucifer come back into his life. They'd spent the first eight years arguing about which date was correct. So, to be fair, since John always remembered the date he thought was important, he wasn't being forgetful. After that he just had trouble not mixing up the two dates.
But this year he was ready! He was on his way home for a week, and he had his gift all ready. He had a large collection of seeds for Lucifer's garden… okay, it didn't seem like much, but Lucifer liked plants and animals more than people. Their backyard was as wild as their neighborhood lawn Nazis would allow, but the front yard was where Lucifer kept his garden. John had spent a full year gathering seeds from the places he'd been, a lot of seeds he knew didn't come easily to Kansas.
He arrived promptly at 5pm, right when Sam told him to arrive. Lucifer, when in the right mood, could be a stickler for exactly on time (not late, not early). Sam had assured him that he and Dean were off at KU for the evening and they'd be back in the afternoon, but not before that.
John grabbed his box (a fancy hand-carved thing he'd never admit out loud to having commissioned because he thought Lucifer would like it better than gift wrap) and bound inside. He was not at all disappointed. It was hard to be disappointed when he suddenly found himself with a big armful of angel.
"You showed up," Lucifer said.
"I showed up last year," John pointed out.
"At 11:59," Lucifer pointed out, looking sour. His vessel was just a little bit shorter than John, something John always took satisfaction in. Compared to Lucifer's real form, John was probably just an insect.
"Can we not argue tonight?" John asked.
"You started it," Lucifer pointed out, but he hadn't pulled away. John smiled.
"Here, got you something," he said, holding out his box.
Lucifer's face turned curious and her let go of John to examine the box. He turned the box around in his hands, his eyes tracing the carvings before tracing them with his fingers. John smiled just a bit, but it made him angry at God all over again. Lucifer always looked surprised when he got gifts. Christmas the first year after they figured out who he was had been terribly awkward, but the completely useless tie Sam and Dean had saved up to buy Luce had broken all the tension.
John knew Lucifer still had it, and wore it whenever he had to go to a parent teacher conference. The 40-something with the tie with the rainbow and noah's ark on it.
Lucifer flipped open the latch before looking curiously inside. The seeds had little interchangeable labels on their drawers. Lucifer opened one and then shut it. He shut the box and set it aside. John had a moment where he wanted to say 'it's not much'. But he didn't. If Lucifer didn't like it… well, it was what it was.
"Thank you, John. I'll take good care of it."
John relaxed. He hadn't realized that he'd been holding in a breath that long. "Good. I don't know how many of those you can use here… but I thought…" he stopped trying to explain and just shrugged. Lucifer could conjure himself whatever he wanted. There really wasn't any point to what John had done, now that he thought about.
"No," Lucifer said, grabbing his arm and taking him to the kitchen. "No feeling worried. I, well I appreciate it very much."
"Is there something you'd like more?" John asked quickly. Picking stuff for Lucifer was so hard. John was easy to get gifts for. Get him something practical and he's good.
"I don't-" Lucifer stopped himself and looked back at John. John always wondered who Lucifer's vessel was. Lucifer said his name would have been Nick. Whoever Nick was, he had incredibly blue eyes. Lucifer placed his hands on John's face. "I don't know what I want half the time. I'm content here… I just didn't know I wanted your gift until you gave it to me."
John tugged him into a hug. "You're allowed to want things, you know."
"Yeah," Lucifer said noncommittally.
"Come on, you made dinner, let's eat," John said, pulling out the chair for Lucifer. Lucifer chuckled the same way Mary always had when John turned on the chivalry. It turned out not everything John's father had taught him had been useless.