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Bob wasn’t frustrated when he heard the clap of thunder halfway on his walk back to the greenhouse after running errands. When the rain started pouring down before he could even cover his head with his arms he certainly wasn’t cursing under his breath about how he hated when his clothes got wet and clingy. And when he tripped over his feet trying to rush the rest of the way home, he wasn’t absolutely mortified when the new guy Helmut found him struggling to get up.
Well, he wasn’t exactly the new guy anymore; he’d been here a few weeks, maybe a month now? They’d hung out a few times by this point between their scientific work, and after the meetings Ford insisted everyone have at the end of every week. He was fun, he was nice, and at the moment he was standing above Bob with an umbrella held above the both of them.
“You good, man?” Helmut asked innocently, in a way that made Bob feel worse. He wanted to scoff that of course he wasn’t.
“Yeah,” Bob pushed himself up from the ground. Mud coated his pants and was already under his nails. “I’m fine.”
“Your clothes don’t seem to agree.”
Bob huffed, “Not much worse than any given day in the greenhouse.” It was a half-truth. There were some days where the greenhouse’s residents would get very fussy. Whether it was because of the weather or time of day or general plantish pettiness, they'd be kicking up dirt in Bob’s face if he’d even trimmed the wrong leaves, but at least then he was usually still dry.
Bob pushed the thoughts from his mind to ask “What’re you doing out here anyways?”
“I was just coming back from Cassie’s place. She’s been helping me write a new song!”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, gal’s got a thesaurus in her brain or somethin! This place has really got the juices flowing, so I wanted to dabble in something moooore nature-y I guess? Without using the same three words for green, y’know?” Helmut chuckled then continued on, passion for his craft evident in his voice.
Bob leaned in, if only because Helmut was the nearest source of warmth, and listened more intently than he meant to. The Psychodyssey, and Helmut’s thoughts on expanding it, had just a bit of a vice grip on his brain recently. Sometimes it was hard to keep up, Helmut had a way of motor-mouthing his way through a dozen thoughts in one sentence, but that was ok. Bob was surprised at how much he liked listening to that. It was… well it was a word that meant cute without actually saying so because that was an awkward word to describe a friend with. Either way, he was pretty sure he’d learned more music theory from Helmut in a month than from 4 years of high school guitar lessons.
Helmut slowed down after his second or third tangent about the artists he’d been inspired by recently and Bob blinked, confused why he was stopping.
He looked like he'd realized something and said, “Aw, dang, I’m sorry! Look at me running my mouth just standing here while you’re all soaked.”
“O-oh, s’fine.” Bob nodded as a shiver hit him - right, the rain. The rain that was bothering him and he’d definitely not lost awareness of it while standing so close to Helmut, who said another apology and why was he taking off his jacket?
“Here!” Helmut draped the big jacket he’d been wearing around Bob’s shoulders while still keeping the umbrella held up between them.
“You don’t have to, uh...” Bob trailed off. He was about to protest, but Helmut wore so many layers it wasn’t like he could argue that this would lead to Helmut catching cold or anything.
“Course I do, let’s get inside somewheres already. Your place is… where, again?”
“Over there.” He pointed over to where the trees obscured his cabin and greenhouse. Helmut nodded and led the way along the desire paths between everyone’s homes, leaving Bob to keep up as he clutched at the jacket, just to keep it from falling off his shoulders, of course. It was too big for him after all. It was big and warm and felt worn in from constant use and it kind of smelled nice and that was an especially weird thing to think and Helmut would think so too so Bob should just keep his mouth shut to keep the awkward energy bounding around in his head from escaping.
The walk was mercifully quick after that, though Bob couldn’t stand the quiet that had fallen between them and would rather have silence when he was by himself thank you very much. Helmut stood right behind him as Bob opened the front door with a frenzied energy that wasn’t fitting for him.
“T-thanks for the escort, big guy,” Bob stuttered, his teeth chattering. Big Guy? He’d tried so hard to keep his mouth shut and that’s the first thing to fall out? Christ.
“No Prob, Bob.” Helmut either didn’t catch or graciously ignored the faux pas and heartily patted Bob on the back. Bob hoped the burning sensation on his face was just from the cabin’s warm air as it hit him. He shyly waved goodbye to Helmut and closed the door behind him, sighing in relief to be out of the rain and out of Helmut’s hair.
It wasn’t until he was opening the bathroom door to grab a towel that he realized he still had Helmut’s jacket wrapped around himself. It took even longer for him to stop standing around under the doorway like an idiot and actually take the damn thing off. He’d hang it over the towel rack, he’d give it back tomorrow, this was fine.
What wasn’t fine was the way Bob felt the next morning. In fact, as he laid under the covers, thinking about his life and the choices he’s made, he decided that his entire body revolting with aches and congestion that made getting up sound like a herculean task… well that sucked extremely badly, actually. He whined to no one and turned from one side to the other, pulling his covers over himself.
He wouldn’t be able to make it to any of the gang’s planning in the Heptadome today, unless he managed to push himself out of bed later than the afternoon. Maybe he could do that, at least for a bit, he’d done it before , but the last time he did it ended with everyone chastizing him and ushering him right back to his house. He supposed the others hadn't wanted to catch whatever bug he’d had at the time. It would halt the march of scientific progress and all that jazz.
Fine. Stay at home it was then, just him and the sounds outside of gentle rain dying down from the night before. He faded in and out of sleep for the next he-didn’t-know hours that day, only finally getting up when he absolutely had to. He kept one of his blankets wrapped around himself as he shuffled slowly to the bathroom. Right afterward, as he was going to head back to his room, he glanced over and saw a foreign object draped over the towel rack.
Helmut’s jacket.
God Damn It.
He was going to bring that back over, wasn’t he? He debated whether it could wait another day, but thoughts drifted in his head toward Helmut: impatient, mad at Bob, regretting ever loaning his jacket to the dumb garderner. Bob then decided it was a short enough trip from his house to Helmut's van. The rain had stopped after all, a quick glance out the window revealed. Plus, Helmut hadn’t even been recruited yet the last time Bob had been sick. He didn’t even have to know anything was wrong! Just a quick walk, drop off the jacket, and back home before anyone had to worry about anything as unimportant as if they could survive the common cold.
Getting dressed took effort, but Bob had done this song and dance plenty of times before. He was no stranger to pushing through being ill. With the jacket folded up nicely under his arm, he briskly walked out the door and down the path to the van, or “Feel Mobile” as Helmut liked to call it. He smiled slightly at the thought, then his face quickly dropped back into a frown as he shivered and pulled his own patchy jacket closer around him. Walk over, drop it off, leave. Simple.
Helmut was inside his van when Bob arrived with his delivery. Bob was about to knock when he heard the low mumbling of half finished lyrics ambling out from the other side of the metal door. Helmut’s singing voice was so nice, even when he was just practicing. Bob didn’t want to interrupt him, but the frog in his throat had other plans. He tried to stifle his coughs into his elbow, which only made his eyes water. By the time the fit was over Helmut was done singing, and instead he slid the van door open with enthusiasm.
“Hey there, Bobby! Missed ya at the ol’ Dome earlier!” He was smiling brightly, though it faltered after taking more than a moment to examine Bob. “Damn, you don't look so hot.”
“S’nothing.” Bob could hear how his voice croaked, but ignored it best he could, “Brought cha this back.” He pushed Helmut’s jacket into unprepared arms and tried to turn on his heel and run. His back was to Helmut, but he didn’t manage to lift his feet an inch.
“Oh! Uh, thanks! But seriously, you sick or something dude?”
Bob turned back slowly, “What’d give ya that idea?”
“Well, you did just interrupt my jam session.”
“Sorry, my throat's just a bit dry.” Bob cleared his throat as if to prove his point, to no avail. Helmut quirked an eyebrow.
“C’mon man, I’m not dumb, you didn’t even bother to tame that gnarly bedhead.”
“... it’s really that obvious?” Bob cringed inwardly.
“Yeah, dude, seriously.” Helmut chuckled and Bob tensed up, face burning up again like yesterday. “Now that I think about it, I didn’t see you this morning for breakfast. You eat anything today?”
“Yyyyyyyes?” Bob lied.
Helmut smiled kindly, looking concerned, and Bob felt like his knees were going to give out and that was the last thing he wanted.
“You’re a bad liar. Here, I got room in the van, take a seat, I’ll drum up some grub.”
Scratch that, this was the last thing he wanted, to be held hostage with pity.
“I-I-I’m good! Really, y-you don’t have to.” Bob’s words tumbled out as Helmut retreated deeper into his van, unphased by his protesting, “I’m sure I’ll be able to get something to eat later back at my place, i-it’s no big deal! I’ve dealt with worse before, I’m not even that hungry and honestly it’s barely even a sniffle and - and I -” another coughing fit abruptly cut him off. He’d worked himself up too fast, and he had to reluctantly sit down on the floor of the van to catch his breath. He couldn’t see Helmut behind him, but he heard him rummaging through the boxes he kept his things in, muttering something about a hot plate and -
“There it is! You like soup? I got soup!”
Bob cleared his throat again, and meekly replied, “...I mean, sure, whatever, yeah.”
He wasn’t going to complain, but he didn't have to like how Helmut gently pulled him the rest of the way into the van and closed the door to shut the cold air out. He didn’t have to be amused by the colorful assortment of patterned and animal-emblazoned blankets Helmut seemed to have stashed in a pocket dimension beneath the van’s seats, nor feel any sort of way comforted by how warm they all felt wrapped up around him like a cacoon. And he especially didn’t have a smile on his face, concealed by the blankets of course, as he watched with tired eyes as Helmut cooked store bought soup over a dinky little hot plate with such genuine vigor that Bob could be convinced he was going to get something close to Compton’s skill level.
No, none of that made him feel any better whatsoever, not at all.
...Ok. Maybe a little.
But Helmut didn’t have to hear it from him.