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Johnny’d had it all planned out - had spent the last few weeks daydreaming about it. About how Roy would come back from his vacation with shining eyes and a grateful heart and would tell them all about the wonderful time he’d had with his family thanks to Johnny’s brilliant idea. “That’s what friends are for,” Johnny would’ve said, basking in Roy’s rare show of appreciation, really taking it all in, filing it away for those days when he couldn’t seem to do anything right.
He’d had it all planned out.
And then Roy got back from his vacation, looking more tired than before he’d left, scowling and complaining all the way to the coffee pot, and it felt like the floor beneath Johnny’s feet had dropped out from under him and he was falling. Heart in his throat and sinking all at the same time as he tried to crack a joke to hide his reaction, hoping that nobody would notice.
He knew it probably shouldn’t have been a big deal, but it sure felt like it. It often did when Roy disapproved of something he’d done, but this time stung more than it usually did – Roy’d thanked him for his suggestion, actually thanked him, and now that the vacation had gone sour, it felt like Johnny’d betrayed his trust somehow. Roy wasn’t really the type to voice his appreciation – and he didn’t have to, of course. It just didn’t seem to come naturally to him, and that was – that was alright. That was none of Johnny’s business even though he treasured every little “thank you” he did get, even though he would’ve done damn near everything to hear more of it – it just wasn’t something he could’ve asked for. And that… it really was alright.
Except this time Roy had thanked Johnny, with a hand on his shoulder and a smile, and it’d been so unexpected that Johnny hadn’t known how to react, and he’d been riding that high all the way through Roy’s vacation, through the shifts without his partner at his side, looking forward to–
Well.
He’d just have to make it up to Roy somehow, find some way to tell him that he hadn’t meant to ruin his vacation. Find some way to earn that “thank you” back. To prove that he really was a good friend to Roy.
Still feeling a little bit dazed, he looked around, trying to figure out how to go about this, his heartbeat still pounding in his chest.
It was gonna be alright, he told himself. It was all gonna be alright.
Roy
Originally, Roy hadn’t intended to talk about his vacation any more than necessary – he was just gonna give the guys some half-answers and forget about the whole thing. Maybe he’d wasted his vacation days on a lousy time, but at least he didn’t have to dwell on it.
And then, Johnny just had to ask, bounding up to him like an over-excited puppy and Roy didn’t really know what’d come over him…
Actually, that was a lie.
He knew precisely what had come over him – a sudden urge to knock Johnny down a peg, because his incessant grin bothered Roy, rubbed up against his own foul mood like the same poison ivy they’d encountered on that stupid farm.
So, yeah. He told Johnny precisely what had happened on his vacation, knowing that Johnny would be disappointed, and watched that goofy smile drop off his partner’s face. It was the most satisfying thing he’d seen all day, and he hated himself for it.
At least Johnny seemed to be bouncing back quickly enough if that lousy Grand Canyon crack was anything to go by.
Or… well, at least that was what he’d thought at the time. What he had to believe, maybe, because the alternative carried implications he didn’t even wanna think about.
At first, he enjoyed the ensuing silence. It was genuinely kinda nice after a week like that, to just be left alone with his thoughts for a while. In his defense, Johnny didn’t seem like he was pouting - not like he’d done once or twice when he’d been oh so determined to ignore Roy. No, Johnny didn’t demonstratively keep quiet or anything, he just seemed… deep in thought on the way to their next run, and Roy was thanking his lucky stars for whatever had captured his partner’s attention so thoroughly.
It was after that run that things started to get kinda weird, but even then Roy didn’t really think too much of it.
They’d needed to restock at Rampart, and Johnny had brought him a cup of coffee - which wasn’t terribly unusual, except Johnny normally didn’t make that much of a fuss about it, all nervous smiles and a demonstratively chipper “hey Roy, look, I got you some coffee”. Roy gratefully grabbed the cup, took a sip… and sputtered. The stuff was sweet, cloyingly sweet in a way that caught him off-guard. Sure, he preferred his coffee with some sugar, but not like that.
“What’d you do,” he asked, “dump the entire can of sugar into there? This is basically syrup!”
Johnny froze. Eyes wide, lips slightly parted, and absolutely, completely motionless until he took a shaky breath and cast a quick look over at Dix, who apparently hadn’t even noticed their exchange at all.
Once again, he caught himself quickly enough, and if he seemed flustered, well, when didn’t he.
“Alright,” he said, his tone clipped, snatching Roy’s cup from his hands and replacing it with his own, “alright, sure, whatever, let’s just trade.”
“Johnny, you hate sugar in your coffee,” Roy protested.
“It’s fine,” Johnny simply said, but given his pinched expression as he wordlessly chugged the stuff, it really, really wasn’t.
After that, it became more and more clear that something just wasn’t right about them this shift.
They still worked seamlessly during their runs, as they always did – but during their downtime, Johnny kept reaching for the same thing Roy was, bumping into him, and generally making a nuisance of himself. Things came to a head – quite literally – a few runs later. They were re-sorting the drug box, which had gotten a little shaken up on their last run, until they leaned over the thing at the same time and Johnny’s head knocked into his own with enough force to really hurt.
“Ow, shit!” Roy exclaimed. “Alright, that’s enough. Johnny, gimme some space already – take a big step back and stay there; I got things to do here.”
Roy didn’t quite know what he expected – indignant sputtering, probably – but Johnny just muttered “sorry”, turned on his heel, and vanished. Roy fully expected that this time he’d find Johnny sulking somewhere, but no – when he closed the freshly-sorted drug box and went off to look for his partner, he found him in the dorm, amidst freshly-made bunks.
“That was my job,” Roy said.
“Yeah, I, uh,” Johnny stammered, looking decidedly unhappy in a way that finally rang Roy’s alarm bells. “I’m, uh, I’m sorry for getting in your way ever since you got back, so I figured I’d… try to make it up to you, I guess.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” Roy replied. It wasn’t that he was unhappy about Johnny taking care of his chores for him, but Roy’d been mildly irritated at worst, and mostly just knocked off-balance by Johnny’s odd behavior – Johnny didn’t really have anything to make up for, as far as Roy was concerned. If anything, Johnny owed him an explanation.
He was about to explain that to his partner when the tones rang and they were called out on the next run.
And that was when it all completely went south.
It turned out to be a water rescue – somebody’d overshot a cliff with a hang glider and wedged it between two rocks a couple feet away from the shore, stuck in their harness, periodically being submerged by the waves. It was abundantly clear that one of them would have to get into the water to unbuckle their victim from his harness, even before they’d made their way down the steep incline leading to the rocky beach, and Roy dreaded every second of it. Water rescues were usually his purview, and that was fine, he didn’t mind, he was just a stronger swimmer than Johnny… but today, it was all just a bit too much, and he dreaded his inevitable dunk in the Pacific.
Some of it must’ve shown on his face, because he hadn’t even unzipped his jacket when Johnny took a good long look at him and put a skinny hand on his forearm, stalling him.
“I’ll get the harness undone and bring him over here,” he said, “you stay on the beach and help me get him out of the water.”
“Are you sure?” Roy asked.
“I’m sure,” Johnny replied. Held eye contact for a moment, like he was searching for something in Roy’s tired blue eyes, and shot him a quick smile before letting himself down into the waves.
The ocean was wild like it so often was around here, wild and devilishly cold, and Roy was selfishly glad that it was Johnny who’d volunteered, Johnny who was getting pummeled by the waves and tossed around like a little paper boat as he worked the closures of the hang glider’s harness with stiff fingers. He wasn’t far from the shore, barely more than ten, fifteen feet out, and once he’d freed the victim from his harness, it took only moments until Roy was dragging the unconscious man onto dry land.
Johnny joined him shortly after, shivering and soaking wet.
“H- how…” he stammered. Cleared his throat. “How’s he doing?”
“Not great,” Roy replied, and watched as Johnny set up the biophone, his hands still shaking from the cold and the exertion. Maybe he should get his partner a hamburger later, or a hotdog, or breakfast after the end of the shift. “Alright. Johnny, his pulse is 60, respiration 10 with slightly decreased breath sounds on the left; he might’ve aspirated seawater. Skin is very cold and clammy, the victim is cyanotic and likely hypothermic. The blood pressure is 70 over 30.”
Johnny dutifully relayed all of that to Rampart, and soon enough they were hauling their victim up the hill in the stokes towards the waiting ambulance.
“Do you want me to go in with him?” Roy asked as they watched the ambulance attendants move the man from the stokes to a stretcher.
Johnny shook his head. “I’ll do it,” he said, “Maybe I’ll forget about how cold I am if I’m busy enough.”
“Okay,” Roy replied. “Hey, Johnny?” he added in a sudden flash of genius, “thanks.”
A lopsided grin that seemed almost… startled.
“‘s alright,” Johnny said quietly, whispered almost - and then he climbed into the ambulance, and Roy was on his own.
He picked his partner up at Rampart a few minutes later - Johnny was dragging himself out of the treatment room like a wet sock, hunched over and with that tense, hollow look on his face that usually meant that he wasn’t doing so hot. Now, the question was if Johnny was just soaked and freezing, or if something had happened in the ambulance.
“How’s the vic?” Roy asked as he approached Johnny, who simply shrugged.
“Dunno, they’re running some tests right now – but it looks like he’s got a pretty good shot at making it.”
“Alright, good,” Roy replied. “Let’s go home and get you dried up, you look like a drowned rat.”
“I feel like one, too,” Johnny muttered grimly.
He didn’t say much else until they were halfway back to the station, looking like he was deep in thought.
“Hey, uh... hey, Roy?” he finally asked.
“Yeah?”
“You– you thanked me, earlier. Does that mean that, uh… does that mean that we’re even, now?”
“Even?” Roy asked back, genuinely confused. “Even for what?”
He could feel Johnny’s eyes on him, and a few seconds into the awkward silence that ensued, he knew exactly what kinda expression he’d find if he looked at his partner: that stark, guarded one that Johnny got whenever he didn’t know whether he was supposed to take something at face value.
“You know what I mean,” he finally said, but it came out sounding like a question.
“I don’t,” Roy replied patiently. “Even for what?”
“For ruining your vacation,” Johnny replied, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“Ruining my… what?” Roy echoed. “What on earth are you talking about?”
Johnny, in his inimitable way, looked at him like he’d absolutely lost it.
“Your. Vacation. I’m real sorry for that whole farm idea – I didn’t know you’d have such a lousy time with it, honest.”
And suddenly, it all started coming together. Johnny’s strange behavior. The way he just wouldn’t stop getting in the way, all too eager to make himself useful. The volunteering. He thought back to his awful mood that morning, to his urge to wipe that stupid grin off his partner’s face
God. Shit.
They’d been working together for six years – six years! – and yet he still kept underestimating Johnny’s ability to turn a molehill into a mountain. And this one – that was on him, he knew that. Nobody’d twisted his arm to be that petty, and now Johnny was sitting there next to him, shivering, with an uneasy kind of confusion written all over his pretty face. Roy had no idea how Johnny could still think that he had something to prove, how he could think that he had anything to make up for, as if their friendship had ever been that… transactional.
But he clearly did think that, and it would’ve been Roy’s responsibility to make up for it, and he’d blown it.
Damn it.
He was still trying to figure out how to clear all of this up when they pulled into the engine bay, and that was how Roy ended up following Johnny into the locker room when he went to put on dry clothes, wincing as he tried to wriggle out of his sodden jacket.
“Let me help you,” Roy said, looking for any way to show Johnny that he wasn’t mad at him, never really had been. Johnny didn’t protest as Roy slipped the wet fabric off of Johnny’s slim shoulders–
–and froze.
The back of Johnny’s shirt was stained a muted red.
Blood.
That was blood, and it looked like there was a lot of it.
But how? Roy didn’t understand–
“Uh, Roy?” Johnny asked into the silence. “What’s wrong?”
“You’re– you’re hurt,” Roy croaked, his voice breaking. He’d never been good with unexpected injuries, not like this, not in here, where they should’ve been safe.
Johnny craned his neck and twisted in front of the mirror, trying to get a glance at what Roy was talking about.
“Oh man,” he said when he spotted the blood stain covering entirely too much of his back, “I thought that was just a bruise. Damn it, that shirt was practically new.”
Roy couldn’t believe how blasé he was being about this, couldn’t take his eye off the red.
“Johnny, you’re bleeding. Bad,” he ground out.
His partner shot him a confused look.
“Roy,” he said. “Roy, I don’t think it’s gonna be that bad, I don’t know what you’re on about. I’ll just take this off and let you have a look at it, alright? This, uh.” His look turned a little sheepish. “This might need stitches, I guess.”
Roy’s thoughts were muddled, swimming, and he still couldn’t tear his eyes away from Johnny’s back. He knew Johnny was right, he knew Johnny was probably going to be fine, but the red on his back seemed to swallow him up, and Roy just couldn’t–
“I’m, uh. I’m gonna go get Cap and then I’m gonna call this in–” he stammered.
Johnny let his hands drop from his shirt buttons and whirled around to face Roy.
“Like hell you will!” he exclaimed. “I mean, heck, go get Cap if you wanna, but you’re not gonna call in a Code I for a scratch.”
The locker room door swung open before Roy could get to it, and Captain Stanley stepped into the room as if called, brows furrowed with concern.
“What is this I’m hearing about a Code I?” he asked, looking between Roy and Johnny. “John? Got anything to say, pal?”
Johnny hesitated for just a second, before sighing.
“Cap, Roy’s overreacting. I, uh…” he turned his back on Cap, who took a sharp breath when he spotted all the goddamn blood. “I kinda got a little banged up on the water rescue, and I swear it’s probably just a scrape, it’s just bleedin’ a bit more than it normally would because I’ve been moving around and because of all the water, but Roy’s actin’ as if I’m gonna keel over dead – and I just don’t get it, it’s not like I haven’t had worse and he’s never gotten like this.”
There was a long, awkward pause while Cap kept looking between the two of them.
“Alright,” he finally said. “John, how ‘bout you finish unbuttoning your shirt and let Roy have a look – and then we’ll see if we have to call it in, yeah?” He paused, his expression indecipherable, before he tilted his head and added: “And if you think Roy’s never been that worried, you didn’t see him after that rattlesnake got you – or that virus. Or… well, anyway, he’s gotten like this more often than I’d have liked.”
And it suddenly hit Roy that Johnny hadn’t seen him like that before – well, he’d known that, of course, it had been the entire point; Roy’d always been taught that men weren’t supposed to be… coddled like that. That they’d find it uncomfortable. That it just wasn’t done. But somehow he’d never… he’d never realized that this meant that Johnny might simply not know just how much he cared. That Johnny might’ve caught enough glimpses to suspect it, maybe, might’ve been pretty sure about it, even, but Roy hadn’t ever given him any kind of proof.
It made so much sense, now.
Johnny’s shirt fell open and dropped off his shoulders, the blood even starker on his white undershirt.
“I’ll just cut that, alright?” Roy asked, his voice soft.
“Yeah, sure,” Johnny replied. “Don’t think it’d be salvageable anyway.”
Roy’s scissors went through the thin cotton like butter, revealing familiar, faded scars, and suddenly Roy couldn’t help but wonder how many of these he was responsible for – how many of those Johnny’d picked up because he thought he’d had something to prove to Roy. Many of them were old, older than their friendship, but not all of them – and even one would’ve been too many.
There’d definitely be one too many now.
Roy carefully slid the shirt off of Johnny’s shoulders and inspected the damage. It was pretty much what Johnny’d suspected - a pretty nasty cut that probably should get a few stitches, but nothing that wouldn’t heal. Nothing genuinely dangerous. Just a cut, the kind Johnny ended up with all too often, while Roy pretended not to care.
“So, what’s your verdict?” Cap asked.
“That’s gonna need stitches – but he’ll live.”
“So, do we call it in?”
“I mean, the squad’ll be out of service for a while until Johnny’s patched up, and I dunno if whoever’s gonna handle this will let him work like this…”
“But we don’t need the whole nine yards.”
“Definitely not,” Johnny piped up. “Roy’s gonna stick a bandage on there and I’m gonna put on my jacket and then we’ll pop over to Rampart without making a big deal out of it, right?”
“Yeah,” Roy replied. “Yeah.”
“Alright,” Cap said. “ If you’ve got everything handled, I’m going to go and call dispatch. John, what do you say, do you think you’ll be able to finish the shift?”
“Yeah, sure,” Johnny replied, “I’m fine; if Rampart doesn’t tell me otherwise I’ll finish the shift alright.”
Roy shot the bloody heap of clothing on the bench a dirty look. Some kind of “fine” THAT was… not that saying it out loud would’ve done anything.
“Cap, can you get me the first aid stuff?” he said instead. “Gonna get this cut covered.”
“Sure, Roy.”
Cap was back with the bandages in the blink of an eye, putting the supplies down onto the bench next to Johnny and making eye contact with the younger paramedic, an unspoken “you okay, pal?”
Johnny shifted nervously, smiled tersely – always so eager for attention until he got it and remembered that he didn’t know how to deal with it. Cap seemed reassured enough though, and left to get their involuntary little break sorted out with dispatch, while Roy got to work cleaning the cut on Johnny’s back.
He’d thought he was going to be fine, now that he could actually help, now that he could really see that Johnny wasn’t actually badly injured, but all he could think about how this had been his fault, and Johnny taking a sharp, pained breath the moment Roy started to clean the wound didn’t help, either.
“Sorry, Johnny. Sorry,” he mumbled.
“Y’know how sometimes injuries don’t really hurt until you notice them?” Johnny asked, his voice tense. “Well, I’ve noticed this one now. Ah– shit.”
“I’m being as careful as I can…”
“I know,” Johnny said, his voice soft, much more gentle than Roy would’ve deserved. “I kno– ow.”
“There,” Roy finished up with the bandage, “all done. C’mon, let’s get you to Rampart to get this taken care of properly.”
Roy winced as Johnny pulled his jacket back on; now that he knew it was there, he could see the blood on the dark blue fabric, plain as day, a nasty reminder of what had happened, but neither of them commented on it as Johnny slipped into the passenger seat of the squad.
For a minute or two, they drove in silence, before Johnny spoke up.
“Hey, Roy – are you sure you aren’t mad at me?”
“Yeah, I’m sure,” Roy replied. “Why?”
“It’s just… this morning…” Johnny started, slowly, haltingly.
Ah, damn it.
“Johnny…” Roy began. Stopped. He had no idea how to put this. “Look, I’m not trying to make excuses, I just…” Another pause. A frustrated groan. “I was feeling lousy and incredibly tired, and I just… looked at you and… I know it’s wrong, but I guess some ugly, petty part of me decided that if I was gonna be miserable, I wasn’t gonna be miserable alone.”
“So you decided to take me down with you,” Johnny finished his train of thought, and Roy couldn’t tell what he was thinking – his voice and his face revealed nothing. If he had any sort of common sense, he was going to be furious, and Roy realized that he’d fucked up, badly.
This sense of dread, this fear of their friendship falling to pieces – was that what Johnny had to deal with every time Roy showed him the cold shoulder? He hoped not; he wouldn’t have wished this on anyone.
“You… could have just talked to me,” Johnny finally said, and there was something in his voice now, a kind of sadness that hit harder than any anger would have. “Properly, I mean, not throwing everything that went wrong in my face – I really thought you were sayin’ that I was responsible for your terrible vacation, and I believed it, too, and that…”
Johnny didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t have to; Roy had seen the effect of his words in Johnny’s expression, clear as anything. He just… hadn’t taken it seriously enough.
For a while, neither of them said a word, until the silence became too much to bear.
“So, uh.” Roy finally broke the silence. “Are we… are we still friends?”
“Yeah? At least that’s what I thought?” Johnny asked back. What on earth are you on about, said his look. Roy could feel the weight of Johnny’s gaze on him for a few long moments, and he knew that his doubt and his guilt was plain to see.
“That said…” Roy could hear Johnny’s forced grin in his words. “I think you owe me a hot dog on the way back…?”
“Yeah,” he replied without hesitation. “Yeah, I definitely do.”
Roy owed him so much more than a hot dog, but he could spot an olive twig when it was right in front of him, and he wasn’t about to pass up on the chance to make up for what he’d done, at least a little bit.
Johnny
Johnny felt utterly exhausted by the time they pulled up to the ER – physically and emotionally. Sure, he was more than glad that Roy wasn’t mad at him, really incredibly relieved that he’d done nothing wrong, but on the other hand he was shivering in his still-damp jacket with nothing underneath, and the stupid cut hurt like hell now that he knew it was there.
He was more than a little relieved when they ran into Doctor Brackett moments after they’d walked through the door. Brackett stopped in his tracks when he spotted them, his confusion eviden.
“What are you two doing back here again?” he asked, his brows furrowed. “You didn’t get another call already, did you?”
“No, uh… We’re here for me, Doc. Seems like I hit the rocks a bit harder than I thought during the last rescue,” Johnny explained, trying to make it short and simple. “Got a cut on my back; Roy said it probably needs stitches.”
One of Brackett’s patented grimaces.
“I’ll take a look, alright?” he asked, and Johnny nodded, more than happy that they wouldn’t have to wait. He absolutely hated needles, and the faster they’d get this over with, the faster he could go back to the station and get some rest. Maybe he was gonna turn in early; he was exhausted.
Brackett ushered them into an empty treatment room and waited until Johnny’d gotten settled on the treatment table before he carefully helped him with his jacket and took off the wound dressing. Winced when he got a good look at the cut.
“Yes,” he finally said, “It’s not too serious, but that is definitely going to need some stitches.”
Johnny made a displeased noise, while Brackett went and collected the necessary equipment.
“That’s what I thought,” Johnny muttered. “Can I work the rest of the shift?”
Brackett hummed in contemplation as he mulled it over. Considered the cut with furrowed brows.
“I’d say so, yes – if you feel up to it and make sure that you won’t tear your stitches.”
“Good deal!” Johnny grinned – a grin that dropped off his face when Brackett approached him with a syringe moments later. Sure, being stabbed with a topical anesthetic was preferable to the alternative, but he’d never been good with needles, and he couldn’t help but flinch.
“Hold still, this won’t hurt,” Brackett said, something between apologetic and mildly indignant, like Johnny was questioning his injecting skills. Nothing could’ve been further from the truth, really, it was just that – well, syringes had just always kinda freaked him out, he just couldn’t help it.
He squeezed his eyes shut before Brackett’s next attempt.
When he opened them again, he caught Roy’s gaze – and he could tell just by that short eye contact that Roy was still kicking himself over the whole thing, even more so now that Johnny was so clearly uncomfortable. Well, Johnny wasn’t going to hand him his ticket for his next ride on the merry-go-round of pointless self-flagellation, that was for sure.
As much as Johnny hated hospitals, he’d grown to trust the usual suspects at Rampart. Dix and Brackett and Joe Early and even Morton – they were alright. They wouldn’t judge him for letting his guard down sometimes. Maybe they didn’t always indulge him when he put on his best kicked puppy look over something barely worse than a schoolyard scrape, but they were still fundamentally safe to be vulnerable around, and that was actually kinda nice. It was nice to have Brackett be that gentle with him, it was nice how Dix knew exactly when he was being dramatic and usually gave him his two minutes of TLC anyway. But if Roy was going to feel bad about it – well, Johnny could suck it up. In the grand scheme of things, this was barely more than a scratch.
He schooled his face into a carefully neutral mask as Brackett threaded the surgical silk.
Kept his expression even as the doctor set to work, perfectly unflinching, perfectly focused on Roy’s sad blue eyes.
“Hey, Johnny?” Brackett’s voice interrupted his thoughts after a few long moments. “This would be a lot easier if you’d just relax a little bit.”
… oops.
A few minutes later they’d gotten it over with, and Johnny pulled his jacket back on while Brackett gave him the usual “keep your stitches dry, don’t tear anything, come back here if anything goes sideways”-spiel, and then he ‘n Roy were finally on their way back to the station… or so he thought.
“So,” Roy said as they climbed back into the squad, still seeming oddly subdued. “D’you want that hot dog now?”
What Johnny really wanted was to crawl into his bunk and sleep for a day or so – but a hot dog seemed like the next best thing, and the chance to just sit for a while and talk to Roy was going to be invaluable.
“Yeah,” he said after a long pause, “yeah, that’d be great.”
Roy shot him a look, one of those painfully guilt-stricken ones, and if Johnny hadn’t known already that they’d have to talk, he sure did now – but they were gonna talk with food if he had anything to say about it.
“Well?” he asked and gestured towards the parking lot’s exit, and Roy finally started the squad.
Roy didn’t say a thing until they pulled up to one of their favorite hot dog stands a few minutes later, still hadn’t said anything of note by the time they settled at one of the rickety tables with their food.
“Roy…”
“Don’t you wanna eat?” he interrupted Johnny, not unkindly, but making it pretty clear that he didn’t feel like talking. Well, if Johnny could sit through somebody sewing up his back, Roy could deal with an awkward conversation or two. Better get it over with now than letting him stew for the rest of the shift. Johnny hated seeing his friends unhappy, and it always hit him harder than usual when it was Roy, for reasons that he wasn’t gonna think about any time soon.
“Yeah,” Johnny finally said, “but more’n that, I want to know what’s got you all twisted up like this.”
“Nothing,” Roy replied, well-rehearsed and, of course, utterly bullshitting him. “I’m fine.”
Johnny really deserved a medal for not lovingly rolling his eyes at his partner.
“Cut it out, Roy. We both know you’re not. Is this just about me getting hurt?”
A tense silence. Johnny saw Roy swallowing heavily, and it had nothing to do with his untouched hot dog.
“No. Yes.” Roy sighed. “I… kind of?”
“Go on,” Johnny quietly encouraged him.
“It’s you getting hurt because you felt like you had something to make up for. You didn’t. You never do. You’re… you’re my friend. Closest one I’ve ever had, maybe. I don’t… I didn’t…” Roy took a deep breath, and Johnny could tell that he was struggling to put his thoughts into words, could see his nervousness and his pain in the way he kept tearing the flimsy paper napkin that’d come with the hot dog into frayed strips with shaking hands. Roy wasn’t used to this, to talking things through, and Johnny really felt for him, but they needed this.
He looked Johnny straight in the eyes and took another deep breath.
“I’ve been a terrible friend, and you got hurt because of that, and that’s… that’s inexcusable.”
And there it was.
If he was being completely honest, Johnny’d needed to hear that almost as much as Roy’d needed to say it, even though Roy was wrong about one thing.
“I’m gonna be honest,” Johnny said. “Yeah, your reaction this morning really hurt, and I felt terrible about the whole thing. But that’s not why I got injured. That’s not even really why I volunteered. Sure, it seemed like a handy way to apologize for your vacation, but I’d’ve done it anyway.”
Roy didn’t look like he believed him.
“But I almost always go first during water rescues,” he said. “You hate that kinda thing.”
Johnny nodded.
“Yeah, but you looked exhausted and completely miserable by the time we got down to that beach, and I wasn’t about to let you try ‘n do a rescue like that in that kinda condition.”
Roy looked decidedly conflicted at that, but Johnny wasn’t quite done yet.
“So, no, I didn’t get hurt because you made me feel like I had something to apologize for, I got hurt because the waves hit me at a weird angle and I got careless. It happens. It wasn’t a big deal. It’ll heal – and who’s to say that you wouldn’t have gotten hurt worse, and then what was I supposed to feel like?”
The napkin-tearing came to a shaky halt, even though Roy still looked doubtful. It was progress.
“Are you… are you sure about that?” Roy asked.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” Johnny replied, a faint grin ghosting across his face. “And, uh. For what it’s worth, I’m really glad you’re back from your vacation. I mean, don’t get me wrong, most paramedics are a pretty decent sort and I don’t mind working with them, but… well, it’s just not the same without you. I missed you, partner.”
Roy didn’t quite have it in him to reply, but Johnny hadn’t expected him to – his shaky half-smile was all the reply he really needed.
“You know what’s the kicker?” Roy finally asked, several long moments later.
Johnny, his mouth full of hot dog, tilted his head in a wordless question.
“The vacation wasn’t even that bad.” Roy grinned sheepishly. “I mean, yeah, we all got back more exhausted than we’d left and I felt like the world was ending when I had to get up and go to work in the morning, but… well, it wasn’t all bad.”
“Really?” Johnny asked around a mouthful of food, and, well, he really hadn’t been holding Roy’s behavior against him, he’d fully believed Roy when he’d blamed it all on his foul mood that morning, and he’d never been one to hold a grudge, but his relief was still palpable.
“Yeah, some parts were… actually kinda nice.”
“You’ll have to tell me all about it,” Johnny said, almost giddily, leaning over the table in excitement.
“You sure you want to hear about it, after… after everything?”
“Are you kiddin’ me? Of course I do! Go on, and don’t leave anything out! Didya take any photos?”
Johnny’s enthusiasm seemed to be catching, just as he’d hoped, and Roy’s eyes came alive with one of those rare sparks that Johnny would never get tired of seeing.
“Yeah! I’ll show you once they’re developed. You shoulda seen the view from the farm house! I mean, you will, I guess, but it was really somethin’ in person.”
Johnny propped up his chin on his hand and got comfortable while Roy launched into his story, content in the knowledge that they were both going to be alright.
The sky above them was gray with smog and featureless, flat clouds, the thin afternoon light doing absolutely nothing to make the grimy parking lot with its cracked asphalt and the faintly rusting hot dog stand any more appealing, and yet the day suddenly seemed so much brighter to Johnny than it had been, the only blue he cared about in his partner’s eyes across the table as he talked.
Yeah, they were going to be alright.