Work Text:
When Johnny complains about his teeth for the second time in a week, that’s when Gheorghe gets nervous. Johnny’s always been a suffer-in-silence martyr type, so Gheorghe knows that if he’s this vocal about it then the pain is getting nearly unbearable.
“You need to go to a dentist,” Gheorghe finally says one night over dinner after watching Johnny slowly and painfully work his way through trying to chew the bread they were having.
“It’s nothing, really,” Johnny insists. “Nothing we need to be worrying about anyway.”
Gheorghe sighs. He’s usually very fond of Johnny’s rough exterior-- especially now that he knows the little ways in which Johnny shows love, like the way he always seems to put himself in Gheorghe’s space just so they can be near each other. Johnny’s a little like a barn cat that way. Drawn to the warm sunshine that is Gheorghe slanting through the broken beams of the barn’s run down ceiling, but too skittish to fully relax in it. Gheorghe has been coaxing him out slowly, finally getting his hands on him and teaching him that showing emotion is ok; that it is acceptable to feel content and loved or to be miserable and in pain. Johnny will let himself be loved and fussed over, but only on the good days. Never the bad ones, so Gheorghe should have expected the walls to go up as soon as he brought up any type of care or attention for Johnny’s clearly agonizing tooth problem.
It drives Gheorghe up the wall that Johnny will let himself drown in pain because he doesn’t want to inconvenience anyone for a life raft, even though if it was the other way around Johnny would have swam out in the sea himself to stop Gheorghe from sinking. Always fixing, never able to let himself be fixed. Gheorghe just wishes he didn’t have to watch Johnny suffer as they have this very polite battle over whether or not Johnny would let Gheorghe take him to a dentist.
When Johnny starts bleeding, though, Gheorghe finally snaps. He’ll let Johnny work through his generational inability to show pain at another time that doesn’t hinder his ability to eat. He’s already too skinny-- another common battle amongst the two men as they slowly learn how best to revolve around each other.
So he drags Johnny to the dentist, and again it reminds Gheorghe of the barnyard cats. His sister had found one all beat up and mangled one summer and she insisted that Gheorghe take it to the vet. The poor creature had yowled and screamed the whole trip over there even though it was in its best interest. Johnny doesn’t scream, but he pouts and hems and haws about the farm and leaving Deirdre for so long.
“It will be fine, Johnny,” Gheorghe reassures him for the hundredth time.
“We can’t be taking this much time off Gheorghe. Not with the calves about to come. It’s probably fine anyway, I’m sure you’re just overreacting is all,” Johnny resolutely does not look at him as he says this, just stares out the window of the car they had bought with the new money coming in from Gheorghe’s cheese.
Johnny’s protest makes Gheorghe even more sure that he’s doing the right thing. Johnny only ever is able to lie to Gheorghe when he’s not looking at him. Gheorghe smiles at his little barnyard cat and absently wonders if Johnny would swat at him if he tried to scratch behind his ears.
The dentist they end up seeing is a very energetic woman who conspires with Gheorghe to lovingly mock Johnny as he grumps around her room.
“My wife is the same way,” she whispers to Gheorghe as they watch Johnny take off his sweater to get comfortable in the warm room. She has a lovely lilting accent that Gheorghe is pretty sure is Indian. “I think it’s an english thing I’ve been trying to trick out of her. So stoic and cold up here in the cold and wet.”
Gheorghe laughs with her as Johnny glares at them.
“Are we gonna get on with this or what?” He demands.
The dentist-- Jessminda, call me Jess-- sits down in her chair. “We can start right now Johnny,” she replies, still laughing, “Now say ‘ah’ for me.”
It ends up being his wisdom teeth coming in. Jess, who luckily had an appointment cancelled for the afternoon, says she can take them out right then and there and promptly shoos Gheorghe out of the room. Gheorghe calls Deirdre to let her know the going-ons and tries to kill time by wandering about the little town the dentist office is in. He spots a soft, oversize blue and green sweater from a local shop and thinks about the worn out sweater that Johnny had stolen from him and stops in to buy it. Johnny’s going to be absolutely miserable for the next few days, and Gheorghe wants to make him as comfortable as possible for when the pain medication wears off.
Gheorghe gets back to the office just as Jess is stepping back into the main waiting room. She lights up when she sees him and waves him over.
“Johnny is just coming off the pain medication,” she informs him, “everything went perfectly well, but he is still a little out of it.”
Jess then smirks. “He’s also been asking for you. At least I assume it’s you, as he’s been asking for his hot man and describing in very vivid details what he and said man get up to when it’s lambing season in some old barn--”
“Yes of course,” Gheorghe cuts her off quickly, definitely not blushing. “I should go in to see him.”
Jess leads him down the hall to Johnny’s room who’s laying like a limp noodle in the chair, clearly still very out of it. He’s got this loopy grin on and glazed over eyes as he flicks his hands through the air like he’s conducting some grand, invisible orchestra.
“Johnny?” Gheorghe asks to get his attention.
Johnny lolls his head over in Gheorghe’s direction and it takes him a moment to get his eyes to focus on him in the doorway, but when he realizes it’s Gheorghe his face breaks into a huge smile. “Gheorghe!” he yells with absolutely no idea at what volume he’s talking at.
Gheorghe comes over to him and gently cups Johnny’s cheek intending to support his head up, but Johnny instead grabs his hand and begins to pepper it with tiny kisses.
“I missed you so much Gheorghe,” he slurs, “Been thinking about how much I love you and how much I love your hands and your eyes and your arms and your mind and your cock--”
“Yes! I love you too Johnny,” Gheorghe hurriedly interrupts him as Jess laughs at the two of them from the doorway. “I love you very much Johnny.”
“I don’t say it enough you know,” Johnny continues now sounding exceedingly morose. “I don’t know why I don’t say it. Don’t think I heard it enough you know? But I love you so much. Do anything for you Gheorghe even get me teeth pulled out for you.”
Johnny beams at him and then seemingly fades off back into a drug induced dream world. Gheorghe smiles softly at him as Jess takes the moment of quiet to rattle off the list of things Gheorghe and Deirdre are going to have to do to make sure Johnny’s mouth heals properly.
It’s not hard to load Johnny into the car to get him back to the house or get him into the house and situated in their room upstairs. Johnny whacked out on painkillers is pliant as can be and happy to be manhandled around the house. The problem only begins to arise when Gheorghe tries to leave Johnny in bed in order to run down to get him new gauze and medicine. The second Gheorghe tries to untangle Johnny’s arms from where they are wrapped around his neck Johnny starts to whine.
“Stay!” he pleads, “Such a good pillow. Don’t want you going anywhere that I’m not. I’ll miss you too much.” Johnny ponders what he just said and then adds on, “I wish everyday could be like this you know? Curled up in bed, us, and just together. Don’t even need the sex. I mean I love the sex and you’re so hot Gheorghe and the things you do to me, but some days I wish we could just do this and be together. I loved to be hugged. Want to be hugged. Not sure why I haven’t told you that. I think I was worried you’d laugh.”
“I’d never laugh Johnny,” Gheorghe reassures him in that same tone of voice he uses when he talks to the sheep that are skittish. “We can do this anytime you want.” Gheorge wonders how long Johnny’s been holding that tidbit of information in; Johnny Saxby is a cuddler at heart.
Gheorghe, though, now can’t find it in him to disentangle himself from Johnny so he has to call for Deirdre in what he hopes isn’t a particularly rude manor. Deirdre comes up the stairs with pills and gauze and some food and water for them both. She rolls her eyes at the way Johnny’s sat in Gheorghe’s lap with an iron grip on him and his face buried in Gheorghe’s neck, but at the last second before she leaves Gheorghe can see that she’s happy. He isn’t the only one around this farm that incessantly worries about how Johnny’s doing, and Deirdre was here back when it was so much worse.
Gheorghe has to pull Johnny’s face away from where it’s tucked against him in order to gently pull the gauze out of Johnny’s mouth, careful not to drip blood on the sheets. He replaces it and gets Johnny his second dose of medicine. He’s even able to get Johnny to sip some broth and drink water too by whispering just how happy it will make him if Johnny does all these things. Johnny smiles like a dope at him the whole time and his smile gets even bigger when Gheorghe pulls out the soft sweater he bought him. Gheorghe puts it on Johnny himself, unsure if Johnny still doesn’t have full motor control or he just likes the idea of being touched this much. Gheorghe is pretty sure it’s the latter. Dressed cozily Johnny borrows even deeper into Gheorghe.
By this point Johnny’s come out of the drug haze a little and finally looks more cognizant. Gheorghe expects Johnny to pull away now and lay down on his own, but if anything Johnny pulls himself closer to Gheorghe now that he has full control of his limbs.
“This is ok, right?” Johnny asks, a little nervous now that he knows what he’s doing.
“Of course it is ok,” Gheorghe rumbles, “It is always ok to want to be close.”
Johnny nods a little jerkily against Gheorghe’s chest. “Sorry I was so shite about not getting help. And that we don’t do this enough. I’m really trying, I swear.”
Gheorghe shushes him and presses kisses to the top of Johnny’s head. “I know you are, love. We will get better at talking together, yes?”
Johnny nods again this time a little slower, the new medicine setting in. “After this I’ll take care of you instead. Feed you and hold you and fuck you. I love you, you know? The only person that could ever convince me I could love and be loved.”
Gheorghe nearly breaks at that. He wishes he could just bundle Johnny up and whisk him away from the lonely and pitiful childhood he had stuck on this farm so different from everyone else. Instead though Gheorghe holds him close and tight as Johnny nods off to sleep again letting him know he has finally found a place in Gheorghe’s arms to be safe and loved.