Work Text:
Johnny’d always seemed to collect sick days like baseball cards, an ever-growing album of twisted knees and broken bones most of the time, one on-duty mishap chasing the other, but it wasn’t too unusual to have him call in sick because he’d just… well, gotten sick. Generally speaking, nobody really thought about it that much - Johnny’s sick days were his own damn business, after all.
Until then, anyway.
It had only been a few months since the whole ordeal with that monkey virus - Roy assumed that was why Cap reacted like he did, coming into the locker room one day, a few minutes before the start of the shift, looking pensive.
“Hey Roy,” he’d said, “Johnny just called in sick, Dwyer volunteered to stay here and cover for him.”
“Oh, alright,” Roy’d replied and zipped up his pants - and, as far as he’d been concerned, that had been that… but Cap didn’t leave, just stood there, seeming a little lost.
“Is there anything else, Cap?” Roy finally asked, because this was getting a little weird.
“Ah, no… that is, maybe? Look, Roy, do you know if Johnny has any sort of… of family or friends or anything, someone who could maybe check in on him?”
“Nope,” Roy replied and closed his locker door. “He doesn’t really talk about his family, or about his social life... attempts at romance notwithstanding.” He smirked, then paused, considered the question. “I think he has an aunt somewhere, but she’s apparently not his emergency contact and I wouldn’t know how to reach her. And, you know, I’d hope he’s got a friend or two, but…”
“... nobody you’ve ever heard of, and nobody you’d know is close enough to Johnny to check in on him,” Cap completed the sentence.
“Yeah, that’s about it.”
Kinda bleak, now that Roy thought about it, and going by his expression, it looked like Cap was inclined to agree.
“So,” he continued, “you’d say that you’re probably the person closest to him? That we know of, anyway.”
“Yeah, probably,” Roy said. “Cap, you’re starting to worry me here…”
“Ah, shoot, sorry, pal. It’s just - it’s probably nothing, but Johnny sounded miserable when he called, really miserable, and… well, would you maybe drive over there if you have enough time between runs and see if he’s doing alright?”
“Yeah,” Roy said, without hesitation, “sure, Cap.”
They got a run straight after roll call, and another one right after that, but then the coast finally seemed clear enough, and Roy turned to Dwyer in the squad.
“Hey, Cap asked if we could stop by Johnny’s place and see how he’s doing, and I’d like to do that now if you don’t mind.”
“Fine by me,” Dwyer replied and then sat there with furrowed brow while Roy told Dispatch they’d be running an errand and gave them the address.
“Why does Cap want us to check in on him, anyway - is he that sick?”
Roy shrugged.
“Probably not,” he said, “but I think Cap’s still a bit rattled after that whole monkey virus thing.”
And so was Roy, if he was being completely honest, but he wasn’t about to admit that. He probably didn’t have to, anyway - Dwyer could be a wiseass sometimes, and he always had an obnoxious sense of humor, but he was no fool.
“Doesn’t Johnny have any family who can check on him?” he asked, and Roy was ready to get defensive about the whole thing, before he realized that it’d been an honest question - kinda worried, if anything.
Roy shrugged, again.
“I wouldn’t know - but nobody was informed when it looked like he was dying of that damned virus, so…”
“Oh. Huh.”
“Yeah.”
They drove in silence, then, until Roy pulled up in front of Johnny’s dingy old apartment building.
“You wanna stay in the squad and keep an eye on things here?” Roy asked. “I’ll take the HT and go check on Johnny.”
“Sure, sounds good,” the other paramedic replied, before giving Roy a somewhat quizzical look and patting his shoulder in a reassuring gesture that made Roy wonder just how worried he looked.
Probably not nearly as worried as he looked a minute later, when he rang the doorbell and got no reaction.
No reaction after he’d managed to get in and up the stairs and knocked at the door, either, and now he was really, really getting worried. He felt a bit shady about it, but Roy decided he had no other choice than to go get the second key Johnny’d hidden away for emergencies. In the hallway one floor up, behind a potted plant, about six ‘n a half feet up, wedged behind a loose corner of the ancient wallpaper, because Johnny was the kind of person who needed a second key, but he was also cautious and savvy.
The instant he unlocked the door, he was greeted by a barely-there voice, hoarse and cracking, croaking “who’s there?” in a tone that was probably supposed to be big and intimidating, but really just broke Roy’s heart with how feeble it sounded.
“It’s me,” he replied, “it’s Roy! You’re good, you’re fine, I’m just here to check on ya and you didn’t open the door-”
Silence, interrupted by a coughing fit.
It wasn’t like Roy ran into the bedroom or anything, but… he did hurry.
What he found was, honestly, a bit of a mess. Johnny, curled up on his bed, his pillow crumpled into some corner nowhere near his head, four different blankets hanging off the mattress without covering more than a third of him at best, and Johnny himself was shivering and clinging on to a crumpled paper tissue like a lifeline. None of this could’ve been in any way pleasant or comfortable. And as the final little touch, the air was stale enough to bother even Roy, whose respiratory system wasn’t currently throwing a hissy fit.
“Hey, Johnny,” he said while crossing the room and opening a window.
“What are you doing here?” his partner asked, his voice less like sandpaper and more like thousand-year-old parchment crumbling into dust. “You should be working.”
“I am,” Roy replied. “Cap asked us to see how you’re doing.”
“Cap did?” Johnny croaked, clearly shocked. “Why?”
“‘Cause you sound lousy, and last time Cap didn’t pay enough attention, you didn’t say a word until you passed out.”
“Oh man,” Johnny muttered, “is he still hung up on that?”
“He, and everybody else. How do you feel?”
An indistinct groan.
Roy looked at him, took in the strangely hollow expression and the feverishly bright eyes and gently put a hand on his forehead. Definitely too warm, but, as far as he could tell, not totally burning up.
“D’you have a thermometer around here somewhere?” Roy asked. “I think you’re running a fever.”
“Medicine cabinet. Bathroom.”
“Alright.”
Roy was back in barely more than a minute.
“Give that here,” Johnny grumbled as soon as Roy sat down on the edge of the mattress and hesitantly let go of the tissue so he could snatch the thermometer out of Roy’s hand, “I can take my own damn temperature.”
“Alright,” Roy said, but he didn’t move from his spot next to Johnny, and he kept a watchful eye on the thing even as Johnny glared at him, far from intimidating with the thermometer in his mouth.
“A bit over a hundred and one,” he finally concluded. “That’s a fever alright, but nothing concerning.”
Johnny rolled his eyes at him, and Roy knew that he wasn’t exactly giving his partner any news there, but he’d been worried, damn it, and saying it out loud made it more real. Johnny shivered again, weakly tugged at one of the blankets, just once, before apparently deciding that being warm wasn’t worth the effort.
“D’you want me to call anyone for you?” Roy asked. “Rampart? Your doctor?” He paused. “Do you even have a doctor?”
“Nope,” Johnny replied. “Everything serious always happens on duty anyway, and the rest I handle myself. “
“And check-ups and vaccines and stuff?”
“Brackett. Or Early, whoever’s faster.”
“Oh, brilliant. And I assume you don’t want to see either of them for this?”
“Nah,” Johnny said. “I’ll be-” he coughed. “-I’ll be fine. Promise.”
Roy looked at him as he was lying there, all crooked and without a pillow and half-tangled in his various blankets.
“Alright,” he conceded. “But let’s make you a bit more comfortable, yeah?”
“Huh?” Johnny asked, like he wasn’t even aware of the mess around him, all wide-eyed and a bit confused and genuinely looking like he had no idea what Roy was on about, with that damned paper tissue as his only concession to being sick.
“Can you sit up for a moment?” he asked softly.
Johnny nodded and dragged himself upright, digging his fingers into the mattress and leaning heavily on his arms. It hurt to watch, but it would have to do. Roy grabbed one of the thinner blankets, rolled it up and placed it against the headboard, before fluffing up Johnny’s pillow and putting it on top of the blanket, so that Johnny’d be lying a bit more upright.
“Okay,” Roy said after he was pleased with his work, “scoot back a bit and lay back down.”
Johnny did as he’d been told, and gave a shaky sigh as he sank into his pillow, his slightly labored breathing smoothing out immediately.
“Better?” Roy asked.
“Yeah,” came the quiet, breathy reply, so subdued in a way Johnny rarely was.
“Blankets?”
“Yeah.”
Roy grabbed the whole heap and untangled the nicest one, carefully spreading it across Johnny’s shivering form and tucking him in, and maybe he should’ve been more uncomfortable with the intimacy of the whole situation, with the way Johnny slowly blinked up at him like he was some sort of miraculous apparition, but all he felt was the same kind of protectiveness that’d been there right from the start, ever since Johnny’d found his way into his little makeshift office and Roy’d seen something beautiful in him that went far beyond the physical.
“‘m still cold,” Johnny mumbled quietly.
“You’re running a fever, you’ll probably feel like you’re burning up before long,” Roy noted.
“I know, I’ll just take the other blanket off, then,” Johnny replied. “I’m so cold it hurts.”
Roy knew that feeling, knew how nasty chills could be.
“Alright,” he finally said because what other option did he have when Johnny was looking at him like that, “alright. But seriously, be careful you don’t overheat.”
“I promise,” Johnny muttered, and somehow managed to melt even deeper into his mattress as the second blanket settled over him.
Roy didn’t want to leave him alone. He’d have to, though. Soon.
There was still something tense about Johnny’s expression, warring with the exhaustion; tense in a way that meant pain.
“Headache?” Roy asked.
“Yeah.”
“Want me to get you some aspirin and water?”
Roy wished Johnny would stop looking so surprised already.
“Would you?” he asked.
“Sure.”
“Aspirin’s in-”
“In the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. I know. I saw.”
“Yeah. And in the kitchen-”
“Johnny. Hush.”
“Sorry.”
Johnny was already half asleep by the time Roy returned, looking much more at ease than he had earlier, despite the headache.
“Hey, Johnny,” Roy said as he put a pitcher with water, a glass, and the aspirin on the nightstand.
“Hm?”
“Do you have anyone who can take care of you while you’re sick?”
Johnny opened his eyes, shot him a deeply weary look.
“I don’t need anyone,” he grumbled. “‘M fine.”
“I assume that’s a ‘no’.”
A long pause. Then, quietly: “It is.”
Roy’d been pretty sure about that before he’d asked, but hearing it hit him harder than he expected, anyway.
“I’ll be back after the shift is over, if I can,” Roy said.
Another one of those long, quiet looks, and Roy couldn’t quite decipher that one.
“Keep the extra key for now,” Johnny finally said, fighting to keep his eyes from drifting shut and losing. “Less of a hassle if you’ll be back anyway.”
Roy hadn’t expected that.
“What if anybody else needs to get in here?” he asked. “If you do get worse?”
“You’re the only one who knows where I keep the thing, anyway,” Johnny said. “It’ll be fine. Besides, I can still get up and open the door if I want to.”
“So when I knocked, why didn’t you-”
“Thought you were my upstairs neighbor.”
“Ah.”
Silence.
“Is there anything else I can do for you?” Roy asked finally.
“Nah. You’ve done a lot already.”
He felt like he’d done nothing at all.
“You sure, Johnny?”
“Yeah.”
“If something does come up, you call someone. Us, officially, if it’s serious, and the station if it’s not. Understood?”
“Yeah, understood.”
“Seriously, Cap’s gonna have your head if you don’t.”
“Right now,” Johnny muttered, “I wouldn’t wish this head on my worst enemy.”
That actually got a rueful chuckle out of Roy. “Alright, then,” he said, “see ya tomorrow. Take care, junior.”
“Alright, pally,” Johnny replied, so quiet it was barely audible.
When Roy finally made his way back to the squad, he found Dwyer, bored to tears, polishing every available surface in the squad’s cab with the sleeve of his jacket, and he fully expected some kind of smartass comment, if not an outright complaint, but Dwyer just gave him a surprisingly concerned look.
“How’s Johnny?” he asked the moment Roy slipped into the driver’s seat.
“Awful, but not in a way I can really do anything about,” Roy said. “I’ll go back after work and see if he needs anything.”
The rest of the shift dragged on at a snail’s pace, and Roy couldn’t help but feel guilty every time they didn’t get a run for a while. He called Joanne from the station in the morning, told her he wouldn’t be home just yet, didn’t have to justify that decision half as much as he’d expected, and drove straight over to Johnny. Like last time, there was no reaction to his ringing or his knocking - and when he let himself in, he found Johnny still fast asleep. For a moment, Roy almost wondered if his partner had moved at all since yesterday, but the window he’d opened was closed again, the extra blanket they’d argued over was actually at least semi-folded at the bottom of his bed, and he’d clearly refilled the water pitcher, so that was alright. The man himself didn’t look any better than he had yesterday, though - worse, if anything, a slight sheen of sweat covering his face, and a feverish flush high on those elegant cheekbones.
Roy gently slipped a hand onto Johnny’s forehead, but the fever didn’t seem higher than it had been the day before.
A quiet, weak voice interrupted his thoughts, barely more than a whisper.
“... Roy?”
“Yeah, Johnny, I’m here,” he replied.
“You… you came back?” The disbelief in Johnny’s barely-there, rasping voice actually hurt.
“Of course I came back,” Roy said, honestly surprised. “Told ya I would.”
Johnny didn’t reply, he just looked at Roy.
“How do you feel?” Roy asked. “Can I do anything for you?”
“Nah,” Johnny started to reply, “not really-”
He was interrupted by his stomach loudly growling.
“Right,” Roy said with a tight little smile, “when was the last time you ate something?”
“Uh…” was Johnny’s first reply, and that would’ve been all Roy needed to know that something was seriously fishy. “This morning?” Johnny continued, and, yeah, no way. Especially because it was barely ten o’ clock, and he’d been fast asleep when Roy’d come in.
“Johnny…” Roy sighed.
An indistinct mumble.
“What was that?”
“Day before yesterday…” Johnny repeated, sullen.
“Day before- what?” Roy repeated, his voice sharp enough to make Johnny flinch, then groan in pain at the sudden motion. “Ah, shit, sorry, Johnny,” Roy quickly said, put a calming hand on Johnny’s shoulder and left it there after he noticed the way his partner subtly chased the gentle touch, “but… but why?”
“Wasn’t really hungry until yesterday evening ‘n then I wanted to grab something to eat but the fridge was empty and then I figured I’d get some cereal but the milk had gone bad-”
“Don’t you have any canned stuff for emergencies?” Roy asked, baffled.
“Sure I do, but I was startin’ to get dizzy by then and I wanted to lie down more than I wanted to eat.”
“Yeah,” Roy said and there was a touch of anger in there, mostly at himself as he thought about his normally so vibrant, lively partner dragging himself to the kitchen, barely able to stay upright, looking for something to eat until he finally had to give up, all alone, without anyone there to help him. “Being sick and lying down all day and not eating anything would do that to ya.”
There was a flash of righteous indignation in those tired brown eyes, then.
“What should I have done?” he snapped, his voice cracking.
“You should have called me.”
“You were working!” Johnny exclaimed - tried to, anyway. Coughed pitifully.
Roy took a deep breath, unable to articulate just how much that would not have mattered. Johnny still had him fixed with that angry glare, but it didn’t look particularly intimidating, more starving kitten than king of the jungle. But that wasn’t really a fair assessment - and probably half the reason why Johnny hadn’t called, always so afraid that he wouldn’t be taken seriously. Ah, damn it.
“Alright,” Roy said, “but I’m here now, and I’m not gonna leave anytime soon either. At least not after I’m back from-” he paused as he started to plan, put together a mental list of things he’d need. “Alright, give me a few minutes, I gotta go out and do some shopping.”
He’d never forget Johnny’s expression, like the entire world had turned upside down and he’d just completely lost the plot. If it had been for any other reason, Roy would’ve laughed.
Half an hour later, Roy was handing Johnny a bowl of cut carrots - which finally got him a reaction he knew what to do with, a bewildered noise tinged with confused amusement.
“Thanks,” Johnny said. “But why carrots?”
“Because I’m making chicken noodle soup,” Roy stated, “and that’ll take a while, but you need something to eat now and carrots are always the first thing you start sneaking from the cutting board.”
A wry grin, and Johnny’s hands were shaking as he reached out and took the small bowl, but he sat upright, leaning against the headboard, and he seemed pretty alert, so that was alright.
Five minutes later, there was a mug of herbal tea on his nightstand.
Another half-hour later, Roy nearly jumped out of his skin when Johnny was suddenly right behind him in the kitchen, empty bowl and mug in hand, bare feet on cold tile.
“You’re really doing this, huh,” he said, eyeing the kitchen counter full of vegetables, seemingly not even noticing Roy’s startled noise.
“Yes, I am really doing this,” Roy grumbled, “and you don’t have to look so dubious, this is the one thing I know I can reliably cook. You should be in bed, anyway.”
“Alright, alright,” Johnny said, and there was something else in those fever-bright eyes now, this curious excitement at something new as he took in the sight of Roy in his kitchen, “I just wanted to ask if there’s more tea.”
“Not yet - but I can make you a whole pot of it if you want.”
“Yeah? Yeah!” It was a sight to behold, that bright grin across Johnny’s tired face even though he’d subtly made his way over to the fridge so he had something to lean against.
“Alright,” Roy said, and didn’t bother hiding the smirk that flitted across his face at his partner’s enthusiasm, “you’ll have your tea - and now back to bed with you and get those feet back under a blanket, or put some socks on at least, dangit.”
Johnny nodded, put the bowl and mug he was still holding on the small, rickety kitchen table and went back to the bedroom, while Roy carefully ignored the way he supported himself on the doorframe on the way.
At least he’d gotten up of his own volition, which was probably a good sign.
By the time Roy put the teapot on the nightstand, Johnny had nodded off again. Roy ended up inadvertently waking him up a while later as he stepped into the room with a bowl of soup and his partner practically snapped awake.
“Food?” he asked instantly.
“Food,” Roy confirmed, and handed him a bowl and spoon. “Careful, it’s still hot.”
“Yeah,” Johnny confirmed after nearly burning his mouth on the first spoonful, “but man, this is great!”
Roy would’ve preferred it if his voice hadn’t sounded like a rusty door while he said it, but he appreciated the sentiment nonetheless.
“What would you have done about the food situation if I hadn’t stopped by?” he asked after a few minutes, sitting at the foot of Johnny’s bed.
“Waited it out,” was the casual reply. “I woulda been alright enough to go out tomorrow maybe, or the day after. And in a real emergency, I could’ve eaten my cereal dry.”
Roy stared at him, barely able to comprehend that level of sheer idiocy.
“You do know what you’re saying, right? Three days without food?”
“I’ve had worse,” Johnny replied, looked between the now mostly empty soup bowl and Roy, shrugged, simply put the bowl to his lips and tipped the rest of the soup straight into his mouth, manners be damned.
“No offense, junior, but that’s a different ballpark than missing a few meals while on the job.”
Johnny shot him a long, long look over the edge of the bowl, until Roy almost started to get uneasy.
“For what it’s worth,” Johnny finally said, “I’m really glad you came back.”
Roy appreciated that sentiment, too, more than he’d expected.
“Why didn’t you think I would?” he asked.
“Cap can’t tell you what to do off-duty,” Johnny simply said, and whatever Roy had expected, that hadn’t been it, and it stung.
“Johnny…?” he said slowly. “I wasn’t here because Cap told me to.”
This was, technically, a lie, because he never would’ve considered that Johnny might need somebody to check in on him, couldn’t fathom that somebody might have nobody at all to turn to when they were sick, was so used to always having family around that he’d never fully grasped the implications of Johnny having none - but he didn’t feel like explaining all of that to his partner. What he’d said was close enough to the spirit of the truth, anyway.
“I mean, he did tell me to and I couldn’t have done it without his permission, but I also gladly checked up on you because you’re my friend and I wanted to know you were okay.”
Johnny didn’t look at him for a while, just stared at the empty soup bowl, intently studying it, until he finally nodded. “Well,” he simply said, “thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” Roy said, but his thoughts were running a hundred miles an hour because he’d thought Johnny had gotten over all those ridiculous insecurities in the - the what, one-and-a-half years they’d known each other? And yet here they were, and despite Johnny acting like the entire universe revolved around him sometimes, he couldn’t believe that his partner - his partner - would want to see him without a direct order.
Roy almost felt insulted by that, but he knew perfectly well that this wasn’t about him, and getting huffy about it wouldn’t help anyone.
“Is there any more of this?” Johnny asked a while later, gesturing with the empty bowl.
“Enough to feed a small army,” Roy confirmed, which got him a tired but very pleased grin.
“Perfect.”
“Do you want another bowl?”
“Not now,” Johnny said, “but later, definitely.”
“Alright,” Roy replied, then suddenly remembered his phone call to Joanne earlier. “Oh yeah, by the way, Joanne said you’re welcome to stay at our place if you don’t feel well enough to be on your own.”
“Huh,” Johnny said, then shook his head. “That’s very, very kind of her, but really, all I want is to stay here and sleep until this is over.”
“Yeah,” Roy said, “that’s what I thought, but I figured I’d ask, considering…” he shrugged. A pause, a grin. “I am gonna come back tomorrow, though,” he added.
“I’ll be fine now,” Johnny immediately insisted, “you don’t have to keep coming over here just because-”
“Johnny,” Roy repeated calmly, “I’ll stop by tomorrow and see how you’re doing, and I won’t leave until I’m convinced you’re doing as well as you could be.”
Finally, a sheepish grin.
“Alright, if you say so - you’ve got a key, just let yourself in.”
“Really?” Roy asked.
“Yeah, why not? That way I can ignore everyone who knocks or rings.”
“That happens a lot, huh?”
“More than you’d think,” Johnny replied wryly.
Two months later, Roy realized he still had Johnny’s key on his keyring - he’d put it on there for safekeeping, and somehow just… forgotten about it.
“Keep it,” Johnny’d said when Roy told him, barely even looked at him, so barely that it seemed deliberate.
“But Johnny,” Roy had tried to argue, “that’s a big deal-”
“Keep it.”
“Alright,” Roy replied, realizing that this meant something, even if he couldn’t quite put his finger on it, something warm and fluttery he’d have to take a closer look at at some point, but later, not now, definitely not now. “Alright.”