Work Text:
Brad Bakshi doesn’t get sick. As he repeatedly told everyone in the office throughout the pandemic, it just doesn’t happen. So naturally, Jo was pretty surprised when he showed up to work with a cough and what seemed like a very high-quality handkerchief stuffed into his pocket. She wasn’t going to say anything, but he sneezed when they were in the hallway and with the looks people were giving him you would’ve thought he had just killed someone.
“Are you sick?”
“That’s ridiculous, Jo, I don’t get sick,” Brad replied, stuffing the handkerchief back into his pocket.
“No I know, it’s just that,” she trailed off, trying to choose her words carefully, “You seem a bit sick.”
“I’m not sick, Jo.”
“You could just take the day off, you won’t miss much—”
“I’m not sick, Jo,” he repeated, opening the door to his office, “There’s no need for me to take a day off.”
“Right, of course.”
It became clearer to Jo over the next couple hours that Brad was in fact sick and there was absolutely a need for him to take a day off. She went to get coffee around 11, like she usually did, and when she got back to his office all the blinds had been closed and he was lying down on the couch with his arm (rather dramatically) covering his face. Jo put the coffee down and grabbed a box of tissues off of David’s desk, setting it down on the arm of the couch.
“With all due respect, sir, I think you might be sick,” she said, taking a sip of her coffee.
“Jo, for the last time, I don’t get sick. It’s just allergies, go get me some Zyrtec or something.”
“I don’t think Zyrtec is going to help you—”
“Jo,” he cut her off, moving his arm away from his eyes so he could glare at her, “Just do it.”
“Right, sorry, I know what I can get you,” she grabbed her stuff and rushed towards the door, “I’ll be back.”
“Lock the door when you leave,” Brad said, moving his arm back to cover his eyes.
~
Jo got back to the building not long after she left, holding a container of soup and a small pouch. Had she returned 5 minutes earlier, she would have made it back to Brad’s office without any issues, but she happened to arrive right as most of the office was taking their lunch break and inconveniently ran into David and Rachel.
“Hey Jo, what’ve you got there?” David asked, gesturing to the soup.
“What does it look like, David? It’s soup,” she responded, hoping if she was rude enough he’d leave her alone. It probably would have worked if Rachel hadn’t been there as well.
“Why’d you have to leave in the middle of work to get soup?”
“It’s Brad’s lunch,” she said as she realized she hadn’t come up with any sort of cover story for why she suddenly needed chicken soup, “He asked me to pick it up for him.”
“You never got me lunch when you worked for me,” David sounded a bit hurt, but Jo honestly couldn’t care less, “Also, Brad doesn’t really eat lunch.”
“Well, he wanted soup today, David.”
“Jeez, you’re defensive,” Rachel said, “I just wanted to know why he needed soup.”
“Maybe he’s sick,” David said, as if it were some mind blowing revelation, “Sick people eat soup.”
“Mr. Bakshi doesn’t get sick,” Jo said, a little too quickly, “I’m done with this, everyone eats soup. It’s just soup.”
She walked away, muttering angrily to herself, and only stopped when she had to unlock Brad’s office door. She set the soup down on his desk and put a spoon on top of the lid.
“Did Zyrtec bottles get 10 times bigger since the last time I bought one?” Brad asked, sitting up slowly where he was on the couch.
“I got you some soup.”
“I can see that,” he said, cautiously getting up and moving to his desk, knocking over the tissue box in the process, “I mean, it’s not really what I asked for but I appreciate the effort.”
“Sick people need soup, not allergy medication.”
“I’m not—”
“Sure you aren’t,” Jo said, setting the pouch she had been carrying on the desk in front of him, “I also brought some essential oils.”
“Essential what?”
“Essential oils. My grandma used to give them to me when I was sick,” she opened the pouch and pulled out a small bottle to show him, “You put a drop on each hand, rub them together, and put it up to your face to just kind of inhale it. Or, you can rub it on your skin but I always thought that was bullshit.”
“I’m gonna be honest with you, that kind of all sounds like bullshit,” Brad said, eating a spoonful of the soup.
“You’re right, it was a dumb idea,” Jo grabbed the bag and started putting the bottle back in.
“Woah, I said they’re bullshit, I didn’t say I don’t want them,” they both paused and she handed him the pouch, “Great, which one of these am I using?”
“I’d go with thyme or eucalyptus.”
~
“Why is it so goddamn cold in this office?”
“You probably have chills,” Jo slid a thermometer across the desk to him, “You should check your temperature.”
“I’m not doing that,” he leaned back in his chair trying to come up with a solution, “I just need to go somewhere warmer.”
“Ian’s office,” Jo said after a few seconds of silence.
“What about it?”
“He’s got tons of blankets in there, that’s got to be warm.”
“Ian’s office, that’s perfect,” Brad said to himself, getting up to walk towards the door before stopping and turning back around, “You have to get everyone out of the building.”
“I have to do what?”
“Get everyone out. They can’t see me like this,” he sat back down at his desk, “If you can get them all to leave the building for a couple minutes, I can get to Ian’s office.”
“Right, get everyone out. I can do that,” Jo said, walking towards the door and picking up the tissue box on her way out, “I can do that.”
No more than 3 minutes later, the fire alarm was blaring and from his office Brad could hear everyone hurrying to get out of the building. When he was sure no one else was around, he grabbed a few of his things and headed to Ian’s office. A few minutes later Jo arrived too, extremely proud of herself for what she pulled off, and found Brad sitting in one of Ian’s chairs with blankets piled on top of him. It would almost look pathetic if she didn’t look up to him as much as she did.
“You pulled the fire alarm,” Brad said from under his blanket pile, “Smart.”
“Right,” she said slowly, thinking back to the box of tissues she had tossed in a trash can and lit on fire, and how much easier it would have been to just pull the fire alarm.
She sat down in another one of Ian’s chairs, and the two of them simply stayed there in silence for the rest of their work day. Spending that much time together without speaking probably should have been awkward, but they didn’t really need to talk, and in that time they almost found each other’s company to be comforting. They had already come to a sort of understanding of one another the previous year, and that understanding grew as they were working together, but they didn’t necessarily consider each other friends. Neither of them are really willing to have the kind of emotional vulnerability it takes to have a real friendship, so this is about as close as either of them have come to having an actual friend in the office (not that either of them would ever actually admit it).
“I could drive you home,” Jo said when she was getting ready to leave. They had stayed after everyone else left to make sure no one would see him, “You kind of look like shit, I don’t think driving is a great idea. Plus, I’m your assistant, so it’s probably part of my job to make sure you don’t accidentally drive yourself off the road or something”
“I don’t think you really have to assist me once work is over, and I can drive myself,” Brad said, right as he lost his balance as he was getting out of the chair.
“Can you, though?”
“That was just poor timing, it has nothing to do with being sick,” Jo just looked at him skeptically as he stood up, “Alright fine.”
The car ride was silent too, aside from Jo having some seriously concerning road rage when someone cut her off during a lane change. It didn’t take long for them to get to Brad’s place, and he only said one thing while he was getting out of the car.
“No one will ever know about this.”
“Understood.”
And with that, he closed the car door. For a moment Jo almost could have sworn that he said “Thank you,” and for a moment Brad almost thought he heard her say “You’re welcome,” but neither of them would ever bring it up or even admit that it had happened.