Chapter Text
Patrice can tell there is something off about the office from the moment he walks in.
On the surface everything seems normal. Sidney from IT is wearing bright yellow crocs under jeans again despite being told off at least a dozen of times for it, but he knows he is too good and too indispensable for anyone to take any real action. Anders looks about as confused as his usual about the fact that he seems to be working here and Jake and Charlie are setting up a dare on whether they can play an Atari game on a Bloomberg terminal which Patrice really doesn’t want to find out more on.
He swivels in his chair, and wonders if it’s sleep deprivation finally getting to him. Around him keyboards clack, phones ring and a voice trained to be always cordial says so good to hear from you John, how are the kids? and Patrice can’t stop tapping his foot on the floor because something is just off.
He looks around to see if someone has changed the lights, dimmed them or made them brighter somehow, but they are the same. He compares where everyone sits to the official seating chart in case first year analysts - spearheaded by Anders - convinced first year associates to switch places with them again but they haven’t and when he goes to Quadier to ask if he thinks something is out of place because it’s really getting to him by now, Quaider shrugs and says ‘same old same old’.
Then around noon, he closes his eyes to listen and that’s when it hits him. It’s Brad. Brad isn’t out today but Patrice hasn’t heard his voice or his laughter once since the morning.
See, there are many things you can say about Brad but quiet is not one of them. He has a voice and a laugh that can be heard from a one mile radius and he spends 90% of the time he is in the office talking to someone or other about one thing or another. Patrice has joked to Zee a couple of times it’s the secret foundation that holds the office together, something they miss when he is out.
He takes his laptop to sit next to Patrice and talks at him whenever he is working a late night too, says he can’t concentrate otherwise.
Patrice has had to tell him off a couple of times because he can’t concentrate if there is someone jabbering on about faceoff win percentages and favorite Excel functions non-stop next to him at 10pm, but-
But now - Patrice sits back and listens to confirm and nope - there is not even a chuckle drifting from Brad’s corner.
Intrigued, Patrice makes his way down there, finds Brad dead quiet and slumped in his chair. His fingers are curled around a mug of tea, he is coughing intermittently and he is fighting to keep his eyes open and focused on a Word document on his screen. He doesn’t see Patrice coming, and all but jumps in his chair when Patrice says hi.
“You look horrible,” Patrice says, taking in with concern the perspiration on Brad’s forehead, the dark circles under his eyes and just how pale his skin is.
“Thanks, man,” Brad retorts with an attempt at a grin, “you look perfect as always.”
“I told him to go home three times already,” Tuukka chimes from behind his own computer with something like disinterest.
“Can’t.” Brad shrugs. “I have too much work.”
Patrice reaches out a hand, and yep- “what you have is a fever. Christ, Brad-”
Brad tells him he is fine and even if he wasn’t Bruce wanted this report on his desk yesterday and he has a meeting with some end clients in the afternoon. Patrice tells him his health comes before all of that. He looks like death warmed over and he is burning up; what he needs is medication and fluids and rest.
“With all due respect, St. Patrice,” Brad replies, an edge of annoyance breaking through the humor, “unless you will do my work for me every minute we spend talking is an extra minute I’ll need to stay in tonight, so.”
He gives Patrice a pointed look, to say I gotcha, and then swivels back to type slowly in his document without waiting for a response.
“Deal,” Patrice says before marching away. Two can play at this game.
*
In twenty minutes he’s roped Torey into leading the afternoon meeting with the clients, dragged Charlie and Jake away from the poor Bloomberg terminal and put them in charge of drafting the remaining sections of the draft with express orders to follow up with him if they have questions, and talked to Bruce to push back the deadline for a final draft by a day so he can clean up whatever Charlie and Jake write tomorrow.
Brad sort of just looks at him with wide eyes.
“You did what now?” he asks slowly, still laboring under the misconception that he is the only one who can be stubborn.
“What you told me to. Now go home please.”
Brad blinks at him, runs a hand through his face like he is trying to comprehend, and says “but the report- Jake and Charlie-” like he can’t quite.
It takes Patrice another five minutes to walk through the details again, answering and anticipating Brad’s questions, but in the end he convinces him that he has all angles covered. He is Patrice Bergeron and he does not half ass a job.
“Okay okay Mr. Perfect, you got me,” Brad says with a chuckle. “If you losers are so eager to work in my place I might as well go get some sleep.” He winks. “Or watch porn or whatever.”
Patrice allows himself a private smile. If he has to stay a couple of hours longer to make sure this draft gets written he doesn’t mind if it means Brad isn’t killing himself at his desk for no reason.
But then Brad gets up, too quickly, and his legs almost give way under him. He reaches out to grasp at Patrice’s shoulder to keep his balance, eyes closed, and oh-.
He is fine after a moment, joking about how he “got” Patrice again, except he isn’t clearly. He doesn’t have anyone to go home to either, having recently broken up with his long term boyfriend, and if he won’t go to a hospital he should at least definitely not be alone right now. Just in case.
When Patrice voices his concern, Brad asks with his trademark smirk as he puts on his coat- “what you wanna come make me soup?”
*
“You know I meant that as a joke, right?” Brad asks from his side of the Uber. He looks like he is going to say more but a coughing fit gets there first and there are tears in his eyes by the time it passes. “God I hate the flu” he mutters weakly, wiping at them with the back of his hand.
Patrice wishes he remembered to take a bottle of water with them. If he let Brad be though, he has a sense Brad would have passed out before the day was over.
“Joke or no joke you are stuck with me,” he tells Brad. The Uber driver looks between the two of them from his rear view mirror with concern, not so much for their well being as for the sanitization of his car.
Brad turns halfway towards him, rests his head against the back of the seat like he doesn’t trust to hold it up on his own. He has pulled into himself as much as he can and his eyes are drooping despite his best efforts. It’s really a pitiable sight given how alive and energetic he is on any normal day and a sight that wants Patrice to unfasten his seatbelt, scoot over, and draw Brad in until he is safe and comfortable in his arms.
“You know,” Brad says warmly through eyes that are half closed, “sometimes I think I get you, and at other times I have no clue.”
Patrice chuckles and tells him he is like an open book but he isn’t sure Brad hears him.
“Like you crashed your bike, cracked a rib, decided to come to work instead of going to the hospital like a sane person, landed a major deal as if you weren’t in a world of pain and then Zee and I had to drag you to the E.R. by the collar in the evening because you couldn’t breathe but still didn’t want to go and then you tell me from your hospital bed, you’d do it all over again in a heartbeat.”
Ah.
That incident made Patrice a bit of a legend in the firm, almost certainly led to a promotion a couple of months later, and it is the reason HR and legal both hate him to this day, because they had to write a whole new clause in the firm policy to state that working while in poor health was not necessary, required, or encouraged by the company.
“But,” Brad finishes, “then you are leaving work early to make me soup?”
His eyes are closed now and Patrice looks past him, at the bright winter day outside- the sun shining on the barren trees and the hordes of hungry white collar workers fighting for a place in lunch lines that are spilling to the sidewalk.
He really did not mind coming into work that day, despite the pain. He likes his job, a little too much maybe, even though he was an associate at the time the clients trusted him; he needed to be there for the deal to go through and he was. He hasn’t thought about it in a while too, not until Brad brought it up, but Brad-
“Well, it’s not the same thing and it’s not like I’m taking the day off,” he says softly. “I will work remotely from your apartment and Torey can handle a regular monthly meeting.”
A fire truck goes past them, red and loud and urgent, drowning all sound until it’s disappeared.
It’s not the same thing because it was me in pain that day and not you.
That’s an odd thought.
Brad had shouted at him that day, after they reinflated his lung, told him he was impossible and thundered out of his room. He hadn’t visited him in the hospital either, not that Patrice expected him to- they were colleagues who got along well but Brad had no duty or obligation to him.
Patrice has never thought about what he would do if their roles were reversed, what that says about either of them.
“I thought you’d be proud of me for powering through it,” Brad murmurs with a smile that’s fading as sleep sinks its claws deeper and deeper into his skin.
Patrice remembers the ending of the new clause they put in the firm policy.
For example if you are in a car crash, please go to the nearest emergency room and seek medical help no matter how much you think your tasks cannot be put off or redistributed to others. We assure you that they can.
*
Brad throws it onto his bed with a groan as soon as they get to his apartment, still in his work clothes. Patrice takes off his shoes and spreads the comforter over him but that’s all he can do as Brad is out like a light before Patrice is even done.
The apartment is- it has a lot of light and it’s tidy and free of clutter, sleek and minimalist in a way that fits Brad. It feels empty but that’s just because Patrice is used to having a small terrier running around at all times in his place. Speaking of, if Brad ever came over to his unannounced he would probably have a heart attack from the sheer mess Patrice has lying around - from socks on the floor to old copies of the Economist sprawled over his coffee table - on any given day. Brad even tried to apologize for how untidy his apartment was in his half-asleep state and Patrice can only infer that he meant the one throw pillow that’s sitting slightly askew as everything else seems to be spotless and the place in better shape than his has been in at least six months.
He chuckles to himself at that as he makes his way to the kitchen to make good on his promise for soup.
Brad’s fridge has only a single magnet on it and a photo stuck under it - Brad by a lake with a woman who resembles him enough to be family - and it’s stocked. Patrice knows he likes to cook and knows that he is good at it from the few times he had Brad’s cooking at potlucks with their coworkers. That’s a lot more than what could be said for Patrice but he has enough to make a simple chicken soup recipe he found online.
*
The soup turns out both a little bland and too salty in the end.
“You really deserve better,” Patrice says to himself as he decides he has done all he can for this dish, doesn’t know if he means Brad or the soup.
Brad is still asleep when he goes to wake him. His mouth is open, and he is snoring lightly.
He looks- Patrice takes a moment to take in his sleeping figure. Objectively he looks kinda gross, the way all people sick with the flu are, but his gelled hair is falling to his forehead in strands and yeah-
The soup is getting cold.
Brad looks at him through his eyelashes, only part way through the veil of sleep, and gropes for his phone on the nightstand.
“Chances are you won’t throw up the Ibuprofen if you take it with some food.” Patrice reasons. “It will be good for your throat too. You can go back to sleep after.”
And then he notices the photo frame on the nightstand, next to where Brad is searching for his phone, notices what’s in it.
It’s a selfie of the two of them, taken in the office at 3am on that night.
They had finally finished a proposal that was kicking their ass the entire month, five hours before it was due. They are exhausted and all over the place and more than a little drunk in the selfie- Patrice has his tie tied around his forehead and Brad has lost his shirt entirely with his tongue sticking out where he has slotted himself so neatly under Patrice’s arm for the pose.
“What’s this?” he asks, reaching a hand to pick it up.
He wondered that night- Brad is always even more affectionate than his usual when he is drunk and he brought a bottle of whisky specifically as motivation for when they would finish, and he was flush against Patrice. And Patrice wondered- but Brad had a boyfriend, and even if he didn’t office romances-
And this grainy shaky selfie has been here on-
“Oh that?” Brad replies, sitting up and fully awake now. He looks panicked for a moment, staring at Patrice slack jawed before he starts to cough. Patrice passes him the water, rubs at his back but also sees what Brad’s doing for what it is, doesn’t miss the way Brad takes the frame from Patrice and slides it under a pillow in between his coughs.
*
“I thought you didn’t cook,” Brad says looking at Patrice as he takes a sip from the soup.
“I don’t. You might get poisoned as a legal disclaimer.”
Brad closes his eyes, bounces his head a little from side to side. Patrice feels like he is on Master Chef or some such thing waiting for a verdict as the cameras dramatically zoom in on the beads of sweat on his forehead.
Brad opens his eyes and smiles.
“There are worse ways to go, eh? I like it. Though to be fair everything tastes like hay at the moment.”
His meager, pitiable creation has passed the test. Patrice smiles too.
So we are not going to talk about that picture? he wants to ask, but doesn’t- doesn’t know what he would want to talk about exactly. Besides Brad is sick.
And yet there they are, previously on Brad’s nightstand and now under his pillow, the two of them frozen in time in this apartment that has no ornaments or sentimental pictures lining its walls, drunk and together and-
Happy would be too strong a word for when you just finished work at 3am after a couple of consecutive 70 hour weeks, but you know.
He will give Brad his Ibuprofen now and take his temperature again in an hour or so, make him ginger tea in the evening, he decides. He can go home, feed and walk Wilson, and get a change of clothes to stay here tonight too, just in case.
And once he’s had a chance to think, and once Brad is alright, well-