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It had all started earlier that day, with a structure fire and a partial ceiling collapse and Roy trapped in a basement for an hour and -
No. Actually, all of this had started last year, after they’d gotten caught up in some lady’s ghost story. There hadn’t been a ghost - at least they were pretty sure there hadn’t been, just a woman overwhelmed by grief and superstition - but he’d been more than a little unsettled either way. Not by the ghost stuff, honestly, just the way the poor lady had lost her grip on reality. They’d both been unsettled, Johnny as much as he’d been. His partner had tried to make light of it, of course, and it had backfired spectacularly. Roy had been over the ghost thing by the end of the shift, but Johnny jokingly offering to hold his hand? Well, that still lingered. For both of them probably, given the way Johnny kept taking any opportunity to brush their hands together lately. Any other parts of them too, actually, but the hands particularly stuck out to Roy.
They’d probably have to talk about it eventually, this tension between them, and the way it refused to go away, this tension that’d been ramping up faster and faster lately. Roy was acutely aware of it, and he was almost perfectly certain that Johnny was, too, and yet neither of them dared to bring it up. They’d even kinda kissed a few weeks ago, and neither of them had said a word about it.
(Johnny had started it, and it had happened in such an adrenaline-fueled, sleep-deprived haze that only Johnny tiptoeing around him like he was a live bomb about to go off for two straight weeks convinced him that he hadn’t just imagined that split-second moment of Johnny’s dry, chapped lips against his in the dark and the smoke and the wildfire still burning in the background. Roy’d almost died before that, too, and he wouldn’t necessarily call the whole thing “worth it”, but...)
They’d talk about it, alright - but not now, not after a day like this, not when he was busy reveling in the feeling of Johnny’s warm, graceful fingers against his, linked across the gap between their bunks.
-----
The fire that had started the whole thing hadn’t been anything special, really. An old residential building had gone up in flames, an electrical fault probably, and the brittle, ancient wallpaper had allowed the fire to creep along the walls, feast on the old, dry doors and the wooden trims. It had been early in the day, and most of the residents had been out, at work or school or shopping for lunch or just enjoying the balmy autumn day, and they’d gotten the rest of them out without too many problems. A few cases of smoke inhalation, one stoned guy they’d found contemplating his shoelaces (“putting an entirely new spin on ‘smoke inhalation’,” Johnny had quipped as soon as they were out of earshot, and seemed entirely too proud of himself for that one), and an injured ankle and maybe-broken collarbone. Nothing they couldn’t handle.
And then, the janitor - one of their smoke inhalation victims - had said “did you check the basement as well?” and that was when it all went south.
“Basement?” Cap asked. “This place has a basement?”
“Yeah,” the man muttered around his oxygen mask, “stairs are towards the back on the left. It’s really small, but sometimes some of the… the youths hang out down there -”
Cap whirled around to face Johnny and Roy, and they’d already grabbed their gear by the time he said “Johnny, Roy, go check the basement.”
It didn’t take long to find the small staircase leading down into it now that they knew where to look - it was pretty well hidden, a plain door set into the back of the stairwell, covered in the same wallpaper as the rest of the hallway to make it blend in.
Johnny carefully put his hand against the door.
“No heat,” he concluded and turned the knob. The door swung open with a quiet creak, exposing a set of ancient, dusty wooden stairs leading into the darkness. Roy pulled out his flashlight, and sudden brightness pierced the dark.
“Hello?” Roy shouted into the room. No reply. He hesitated for just a moment, and then turned around to Johnny.
“I’ll go down there and have a look, just to be safe. Stay here, in case something happens to the stairs, yeah?”
A terse nod, and an equally terse “okay” as Johnny carefully eyed the space around them, and then Roy took a step forward and started feeling his way down the stairs. At least they seemed surprisingly solid, albeit covered in dust and cobwebs, and even a cursory glance around the basement revealed that they didn’t have anything to worry about where victims were concerned - the whole thing consisted of a single room, which was completely empty aside from a handful of ancient, rotting cleaning supplies, a handful of repurposed couch cushions and a stack of pretty fresh-looking empty pizza boxes, and Roy would’ve bet that the entire thing would smell faintly of weed if he’d take off his breathing apparatus.
“Everything clear down here,” Roy called up to Johnny.
“Great, let’s get out of here!” Johnny replied.
Roy couldn’t have agreed more, and he was already halfway up the stairs when he suddenly heard an awful cracking sound, and Johnny shouted “get back!”
And then, the door slammed shut and there was an almighty crashing sound that seemed to go on forever. And then, finally, silence.
Roy was bounding up the stairs frantically shouting “Johnny? Johnny!” before he’d even fully comprehended what the hell had just happened, but the only reply he got were the muffled noises of the fire raging outside. He threw himself against the door, but it didn’t budge at all - it seemed like the ceiling had collapsed and was now blocking the only way into the basement. After a moment of hesitation, he went back down the stairs, with some vague idea of finding another way out. It was utterly futile, of course, his earlier sweep had already revealed that there wasn’t a single other path in or out. No window, no ventilation shaft, no other doors or stairwells, no nothing. He was well and truly stuck, without a way out, without an HT, without any way to communicate.
Without a way to find out if Johnny was alright, if he’d made it out okay despite having had barely more of a warning than Roy. It depended on how much of the ceiling had collapsed, he figured, and where, and how long Johnny had hesitated about leaving Roy behind. Roy didn’t know how he’d live with himself if that was what did it in the end.
He wouldn’t know for a good long while - if he was lucky enough to get out of this alive at all. For now, he was well and truly stuck, and all he could do was to wait and hope that help would reach him before the flames did. At least the room seemed solid enough, surprisingly sturdy brickwork all around, and the door had turned out to be metal behind the wallpaper. He had air for now. He wasn’t hurt. He even had some questionable couch cushions to sit on if he dared. He’d probably be fine.
-----
Hank knew the second he heard the sound of falling rubble that something had just gone horribly wrong. He’d developed something of a sixth sense for that, especially where his favorite paramedics were concerned - he’d had practice. So much practice. And so, it didn’t entirely come as a surprise when a tall figure stumbled out of the burning building and ran at him at full tilt. It turned out to be Johnny, soot-streaked and wide-eyed and clearly terrified, shouting “Cap! Roy’s trapped in the basement!” before he’d even fully reached him.
Hank caught him by the shoulders, taken aback by his clear and obvious panic, but careful not to show it.
“Gage!” he snapped. “Calm down and tell me what happened.”
Johnny visibly pulled himself together, a thin veneer of composure stretched over a chasm of terror. Hank could feel his shoulders tremble even through the turnouts as hard brown eyes stared into his own, seemingly furious that he wanted to waste time on asking for details. Hank could emphasize, he’d been there before.
“We found the basement,” Johnny explained, clipped. “Only one room, nobody in there. Ceiling collapsed just outside the basement door while Roy was getting back out. The door’s completely blocked off. Tried to get through to him but it’s too damn hot. No way to get in or out, don’t think there’s any ventilation down there. We gotta get him out of there before his air runs out or he burns to death.”
“Got it,” Hank replied. “You stay out here, we got some more victims.” He turned around to see who was available, before digging out the HT. “98, we have a trapped firefighter behind a ceiling collapse on the first floor and need assistance.”
“10-4 51. Do you have another lineman available?”
“10-4 98, one.”
“That’ll do, 51.”
“Marco!” Hank hollered at his remaining available man, “You’re with 98's. Back of the hallway, left side.”
“Got it, Cap!”
As he turned back around to Johnny, he found his younger paramedic staring at him, shocked.
“Cap,” he said - shouted, really - “I’m going in there as well, we’ll need all available manpower to get to him in time-”
“Gage, you’re the only paramedic remaining on the scene right now, you’ll damn well stay out here and do your job,” Hank snapped at him.
“Cap!”
“You heard me. Chet’s hurt his shoulder, and one of 98’s has swallowed quite a bit of smoke. They need you. Go,” he finished with a slap on Johnny’s back for emphasis. He hadn’t expected the young man to yelp in pain and stumble forward.
“Johnny?” he asked, his stern command tone slipping.
“Got clipped by falling rubble, I’m fine, doesn’t even hurt,” Johnny muttered. “Cap…” he added plaintively, looking more lost than Hank had ever seen him out in the field, and he desperately wished he could do anything to help beyond the obvious. He gave Johnny a tight-lipped smile.
“We’ll get to Roy in time, Johnny. You understand? He’ll be fine. Leave it to me. Go do your thing.”
His toneless “yes, Cap” as he staggered off didn’t bode well.
-----
Only a few minutes had passed, and Roy was already bored out of his mind. And sure, boredom was better than actively burning to death, but it was a particularly nasty kind of boredom. The constant worry for his own safety and Johnny’s well-being was gnawing at him, had him flinching at every creak of the building, half-expecting the ceiling to cave in on him or the door to suddenly give way to all-consuming flames after all, and there was nothing, nothing at all he could do that’d help.
Time went on, slowly, stretching like stale gum. He had his watch with him, so at least he knew he hadn’t been down there for long, didn’t have to rely on vague guesses, but there was something incredibly distressing about watching the minute hand creep along ever-so-slowly, stuck sitting there doing nothing, feeling completely useless. He’d given in and gotten comfortable on one of the dubious couch cushions after all, and so far nothing had bitten him in the ass (as far as he could tell), so he had that going for him at least. He spent most of his time in the dark, trying to save his flashlight batteries, and switched between his breathing apparatus and the stale, weed-flavored basement air to stretch out his supply of breathable air as well. He’d thought about ditching the compressed air entirely, but he wasn’t entirely sure the stuff in the basement was safe to breathe, so he didn’t want to risk it.
And then, an eternity (an hour) later, he heard bumps against the door, but it took another endless half-hour until the door finally creaked open. Roy squinted into the dim light, trying to get a look at his rescuer, desperately hoping it was Johnny - but then the figure asked “Roy? You okay, pal?” and even if Roy hadn’t instantly recognized his captain’s voice, his choice of words would’ve done the trick.
“Hey, Cap,” he replied, “I’m fine, just really glad to see you. Where’s Johnny? Is he alright?”
A second of hesitation. Then: “He’s… fine. Let’s get you out of here before worrying about him, alright?”
Roy felt like the ground had just dropped out from under him. He was at the top of the stairs in an instant, staring up at Cap with a rising sense of panic, and not giving a damn about Cap noticing his terror.
“Cap,” he repeated, voice low, jaw tight, “what happened to Johnny.”
Cap looked like he was trying hard not to twist away under Roy’s icy stare, but he managed to hold his ground.
“He’s not injured, Roy,” he finally said. “He just. He’s convinced you’d burned to death down in that basement and he’s - well, he’s kinda out of it. One of 98’s swallowed some smoke and Chet took a falling wine bottle to the shoulder, they’re keeping him company - keeping him busy.”
Cap’s look turned almost sheepish, and it took Roy a second to understand why.
“He’s… he’s outside because you weren’t sure he wasn’t right?” he finally asked, suddenly feeling queasy.
Cap just took a shaky breath and patted Roy’s shoulder, leaving his hand there.
“It’s good to have you back, pal,” he simply said and led Roy out of the building, his hand still on Roy’s shoulder.
Outside, it took Roy a moment to spot his partner, and not just because the sunlight seemed blinding after spending so much time in near-darkness. Chet and the guy from 98’s were sitting on the back of the squad, and Johnny was on the ground before them - curled around the drug box by the looks of it, back hunched, head held low, hands moving aimlessly across its contents.
Chet spotted them first, and Roy could barely hear his excited “Hey, Johnny, look” over the sound of all the men and the equipment, but he hadn’t spoken quietly, and yet Johnny didn’t react at all. Chet clumsily patted his hair until the paramedic raised his head with a sluggish motion, and then pointed in Roy’s direction. Johnny looked over to him, and suddenly Roy understood why Cap had been so hesitant to call his partner ‘alright’ - he was deathly pale, his brown eyes enormous in his drawn, ashen face, looking as if he was either going to pass out, burst into tears or vomit and couldn’t quite decide what to start with. Roy had never seen him like that.
“You were gone for an awfully long time, pal,” Cap said quietly.
And then Johnny finally spotted them and threw a quick glance back at Chet, as if he needed confirmation that he was really seeing what he thought he was seeing. Chet muttered something to him, and then Johnny turned around, jumped to his feet and took off running, all in one fluid motion - until his feet slipped out from under him in his haste and he took a nosedive onto the wet asphalt. He didn’t even seem to notice he’d fallen, just jumped back up and crossed the rest of the street until he’d reached Roy. Cap stepped back, and then Johnny was next to him, an arm around his back, the other on his elbow, his bony fingers digging into Roy’s turnouts. Johnny was pressed right up against him, much closer than needed, and Roy could feel him tremble.
“Hey Roy,” he said, his voice as shaky as the rest of him, “you okay? Doing alright, there, buddy? Hm?”
Roy needed a second to gather himself, steel himself against that shaky, lost voice rambling through his standard paramedic phrases and the urge to grab Johnny and hug him tight and sink onto the asphalt in a tangle of limbs and stay like that for as long as they could, but Johnny threw him a queasy look and said “come on, Roy, talk to me,” so softly Roy almost thought he’d imagined it.
“I’m fine, Johnny,” he said. Cleared his throat when his voice came out all rough and hoarse.
“You’re fine?” Johnny repeated, “Ya sure? Let’s just get you to the squad so I can check you over real quick, yeah?”
“Yeah, okay,” Roy said, and if it was him who was supporting Johnny more than the other way ‘round… well, he’d just pretend not to notice. And then they stood before the footboard of the squad and Johnny was blankly staring at the two linemen occupying it, like he’d completely forgotten about them. Chet lovingly rolled his eyes at Johnny.
“Ya done with your oxygen, Hernandez?” he asked the other lineman, who nodded and gave him a cheeky thumbs-up. “Great, then let’s go and suffer somewhere more interesting.”
Roy watched them leave, ambling over towards Mike and his engine to watch the man work.
“Good to have you back, Roy,” Chet quietly said in passing and threw a meaningful glance at Johnny.
The younger paramedic, meanwhile, wasted no time getting Roy situated on the back of the squad and checking him over - thoroughly, breath sounds and all. His hands were still shaking and he refused to look Roy in the eyes, aside from a quick pupil check, not to mention that he still hadn’t said a word that wasn’t part of his usual paramedic script by the time he was done scrawling vitals and observations onto his notepad, his normally messy but confident handwriting now looking shaky and scattered. He grabbed the biophone and said “this is Squad 51, we have extracted the last victim.”
He almost managed to maintain his usual biophone cadence, but there was still an edge to it, and Roy idly wondered if they’d pick up on it at Rampart despite the garbled sound quality.
“Go ahead, 51,” somebody replied, though Roy couldn’t make out who.
“The last victim is our Code I. Male, 30 years old. Vitals are as follows: BP is 100 over 75, respirations are 18, pulse is 98. Pupils are equal and reactive, and there are no unusual breath sounds. Be advised that the victim has spent approximately 80 minutes in a very small, unventilated basement room beneath a burning residential building.”
“10-4, 51. What’s the victim’s skin like?”
Johnny threw him a quick look, then gently put the back of his hand against Roy’s cheek. He’d checked his skin temperature barely a minute ago, Roy knew he had, but he wisely kept quiet.
“Rampart, the victim’s skin temperature and color appears to be normal,” Johnny said, “and he is not diaphoretic.”
“51, are there any other signs of injury?”
“Rampart, there appears to be no further sign of injury, and the victim claims to be fine.”
“10-4, 51. Your victim seems stable, but we advise you bring him in anyway. Is there an ambulance at the scene?”
“10-4, Rampart.”
“51, transport at your convenience.”
“10-4, Rampart.”
Johnny carefully helped Roy up from the back of the squad - and again, Roy didn’t quite dare to protest, despite honestly feeling perfectly fine - and led him over to Cap.
“Hey, Cap,” he said, and there was still something subdued about him, “I’m taking Roy to Rampart. They wanna check him over just to be safe.”
Cap looked Johnny up and down before nodding. “Yeah. Remember to get your back checked out, too, while you’re there.”
“What’s wrong with your back?” Roy asked while Johnny dragged him steadily towards the ambulance.
“Nothing,” Johnny said before adding: “I got clipped by falling rubble when the ceiling collapsed, but it’s nothing, really. Doesn’t even hurt.”
Roy nodded, unconvinced, and let Johnny guide him into the back of the ambulance before the younger paramedic went to collect the biophone.
A few moments later, Johnny settled on the bench next to Roy, tantalizingly close, uncommonly quiet as they drove off. He couldn’t help but notice that Johnny kept moving closer still, until their knees were touching, knocking together with every pothole.
He stayed quiet, though, and that unsettled Roy more than he’d have expected. Johnny usually got chatty after close calls, a casual, small way to prove that they were both still alive, still here, and a good distraction as well. Johnny, silent… well. And Roy couldn’t help but notice that his partner kept looking at him, like he had to make sure that Roy was still there, that he was really sitting next to him, unharmed, and wasn’t suddenly lying on that gurney their knees were bumping against, dying or already dead. And yet, he still refused to make eye contact.
“Johnny?” Roy asked, tentatively, when the silence finally became too much to bear. “You sure you’re alright?”
“I’m not the one who-” Johnny replied sharply, his gaze still fixed somewhere around Roy’s knees. “Nevermind. Yeah, I’m fine, why wouldn’t I be.”
And that was the end of that, and the silence dragged on until they’d reached Rampart.
They walked into the ER side by side, Roy looking relaxed and at ease (or at least he was doing his best impression of somebody who was relaxed and at ease), Johnny with his jaw tight and his eyes still never quite leaving Roy - which was actually kinda starting to bother him, because he was fine, dangit, he was fine - and Roy could see the relief on the faces of Dix and Joe and Doctor Brackett as soon as they came into view of Dix’s desk.
Brackett was the first to talk.
“Hey, Roy,” he said, “your vitals sounded fine, but I’d like to examine you anyway, just in case you breathed in anything nasty down there.”
“Alright, Doc,” Roy replied. “Johnny’s supposed to get his back checked out, apparently he was hit by some falling rubble. And Chet’s probably gonna be in later with that shoulder of his.”
Brackett nodded. “Joe, got a minute to look at Johnny’s back?”
“Sure, Kel,” he said and motioned for Johnny to follow him. “Come along, then, let’s get you taken care of.”
For a moment, it looked like Johnny was going to protest, set on sticking with Roy no matter what, but then he just sighed.
“Alright, Doc,” he said, and let Joe direct him to one of the treatment rooms.
-----
Brackett's examination was, as per usual, swift but thorough, and thankfully didn’t reveal anything Roy hadn’t previously known - he really was perfectly fine, physically anyway. They were just about to wrap things up when Joe Early stepped into the room.
“How’s Johnny’s back?” Roy asked.
“Fine, Roy, just fine. Might bruise a little, but it shouldn’t bother him. Roy, how are you holding up?”
“I’m fine,” Roy replied, just a little bit too tersely, sick of people asking him that.
“Physically, maybe,” Kel added, “but you were stuck down there for quite a while. I can’t imagine that to be a very pleasant experience…”
Roy sighed, and barely resisted the impulse to roll his eyes.
“I’ll be honest, it wasn’t fun,” he admitted. “I never want to get stuck for that long again if I can help it, but it really wasn’t that bad. The room was solid brick, the door was metal, it wasn’t all that cramped… it didn’t even really get hot down there. As far as being trapped in a fire goes, I kinda hit the jackpot. Why do you ask?”
A long, heavy pause. Brackett and Early exchanging meaningful looks.
“I’m telling you this as a friend,” Brackett finally said, “and not as a doctor, but… well, if you’re really coping as well as you seem to be, it seems like Johnny had a much harder time with the whole thing than you did, Roy. He spent nearly an hour and a half thinking you were dead, boiled alive down there. From everything I’ve heard, you most likely would have been - I think it’s that door slamming shut that saved you, right?”
Roy swallowed. “Yeah,” he said as it slowly dawned on him just how close he really had come to dying, and he entertained some of the same thoughts that Johnny’d probably had to endure while Roy had been gone - a fiery inferno slowly creeping down the stairs, the flames sucking all the oxygen out of the small room as the air heated up and the wooden steps caught on fire, rubble crashing down through the door, and Roy in the middle of it, unable to save himself, helpless against the debris blocking his only way out with no other means of escape. He imagined how he’d feel if it had been Johnny down there, Johnny being stuck in that windowless room, Johnny slowly realizing that he was going to die down there, and decided that he actually really didn’t want to think about it. Not now, ideally not ever. Jesus fucking Christ.
Doctor Early patted his shoulder with a knowing nod.
“How’s Johnny dealing with it?” Roy finally asked. “And where is he?”
“He went to pick up more supplies. I think he’s hoping that Dix will have some words of advice for him without him having to admit that he needs them. And, well…” The older doctor sighed. “He’s been taking this whole thing pretty hard. You were gone for an awfully long time after all, and Johnny tends to worry about you just a bit more than usual anyway, I think.”
“He does?” Roy asked. “I mean, sure, we all look out for each other, but-”
Doctor Early didn’t actually say ‘oh god, you’re hopeless’ out loud, but with a look like that, he didn’t really have to.
“Would you have dragged Johnny in here with a sore throat?”
“Maybe, if he’d gotten it directly after a fire with noxious fumes- okay, I see what you mean.”
“Right. Look, I don’t know why Johnny fusses about you like that, and even if I did I probably wouldn’t be allowed to tell you, but… well. Do him a favor and don’t die, alright?”
One more person to add to that list. Joanne, the kids, his parents, Johnny. No pressure, right.
Unbidden, a conversation from ages ago came to mind. “If we die on the job, we won’t be the ones who are left behind”, or something like that. After Johnny’s friend had died and he’d had to stand by and do nothing. Ah, hell.
“I’ll do my best,” Roy finally just said, because honestly, what was he even supposed to reply to that?
Kel nodded, seemingly satisfied. “Right,” he said, “then let’s get you out of here and back to work. Roy, you’re officially cleared for duty; if you start feeling unwell after all, get back here on the double.”
Roy nodded, said goodbye, and left. He did indeed find his partner at Dix’s desk, messing with the drug box again, not looking at her while she calmly kept working right next to him, close enough that they were almost touching. She reached over his hunched back to grab a pen, and Roy could almost see her stifling the impulse to ruffle his hair. Maybe she should’ve, give him something to bluster about, allow him to mask his jumble of emotions with mock outrage, but they just quietly kept doing their thing until Roy finally came too close to ignore.
“Oh, hi, Roy,” Dix said, but her smile had a dangerous edge to it.
Johnny’s head snapped up as soon as he heard Roy’s name and he grinned at him, sincerely enough from the looks of it, but still kinda shaky, and Roy had to remind himself that he wasn’t at fault here, that he hadn’t chosen to get stuck in that damned basement, and he really had let Johnny down before, so many times, too many times, but this wasn’t one of them, no matter how subdued and hurt his partner seemed.
“How’s your back?” Roy asked.
“Huh? Oh, it’s fine, might not even bruise if I’m lucky. You?”
“Perfectly undamaged and in peak condition. Let’s get out of here?”
“Yeah,” Johnny replied and finally closed the drug box properly, “let’s get back to it.”
-----
The rest of the day was pretty uneventful, and even Johnny seemed to be back to his usual oddball self after a few hours, which Roy was immensely grateful for - until, that is, they’d finally gone to bed and tried to sleep.
Roy had no idea how long it’d been since they’d turned off the light, but he was pretty sure he’d been fast asleep already when a quiet but sudden noise ripped him from his slumber. He turned over and stared into the near-darkness until he finally spotted Johnny, sitting upright in his bunk and breathing heavily. A nightmare, Roy concluded after Johnny sank back onto his pillow after a moment or two and seemingly went right back to sleep.
It happened again a while later, and this time Johnny turned onto his side after startling awake, and Roy could feel his gaze on him. It took a few minutes until he realized that Johnny wasn’t going back to sleep any time soon, too worried about the next nightmare, too scared of what he’d see when he closed his eyes again, or maybe worried that this would turn out to be the dream and he’d wake up come morning to find Roy dead and gone after all. And that, Roy understood. He’d definitely been there, done that, all of them had, and Roy desperately wanted to help any way he could.
Johnny’s knee against his in the ambulance came to mind, Johnny’s hand on his shoulder during the rest of the shift, that maybe-not-quite-a-joke during that ghostly winter run so many weeks ago. And then, he made a decision.
“Hey, Johnny,” he said quietly.
“Hm?”
“Can’t sleep?”
“Hm.”
“If you’re - if you’re too scared to sleep, just say the word and I’ll hold your hand.”
Baffled silence, and sure, Roy probably could’ve done better than quoting Johnny’s own half-joke back at him, but he was rubbish at talking about stuff like that, so he figured he’d deserved some credit for trying at all.
“Not funny, Roy,” Johnny finally replied, his voice somehow cold as ice even though he didn’t raise it above a whisper.
“I know, I’m serious. I figured it might help.”
A quiet huff. Johnny clearly didn’t believe a word he was saying.
“It’ll make me feel better, too,” Roy said, and noticed, to his surprise, that he really meant it.
Johnny could probably tell - he shifted onto his elbow, and seemingly eyed the gap between their bunks for a few arduously long moments.
“You’re really serious?”
“Yeah, I’m absolutely serious.”
“Think we can reach?” he finally asked.
“Probably. Hopefully.”
Roy would have slept on the cold, hard floor without hesitation if it meant that they could make this work, but that would’ve been a bit difficult to explain away come morning, he figured. If they could just reach across the gap, though - well, gravity would have them slip apart the second they fell asleep anyway.
Johnny shuffled his way across to the edge of his bunk, as close as he could, and reached across towards Roy with one long, slender arm. Roy did the same, and their fingers really did meet in the middle. It was awkward and more than a little uncomfortable, balancing on the edges of their mattresses like that, but Johnny’s graceful fingers were warm and familiar against his own and that was more than worth the discomfort. It felt right, it felt so ridiculously right, and Roy really hadn’t expected to not want to let go again, and fuck, they really had to talk.
Johnny shuddered, sighed, gently dragged his thumb across Roy’s knuckles. Yeah, they were definitely in so much trouble. But they were also both alive and safe, and that was a pretty good start as far as Roy was concerned. Everything else, all those big, unsolved questions and looming insecurities and his steadily growing urge to pull Johnny against him and sleep with his partner wrapped safely in his arms instead of just barely touching like this, calloused fingertips gently brushing against the side of his hand, all that could wait until another day.
In the end, Johnny fell asleep before he did, and Roy could feel his fingers going slack in his grip. He held on for a while longer, not entirely sure if it was more because he needed that or because he wanted to make sure that Johnny was well and truly asleep, before he got up and very, very gently draped Johnny’s arm across his stomach so his hand wouldn’t hang off the edge of the bunk all night long, lingering for just a second longer, committing the feel of Johnny's hand in his to his memory, really etched it in there.
They'd talk alright.
And maybe, just maybe, if he was very lucky, this wouldn't be the last time he'd get to hold Johnny's hand.