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Johnny’s head was leaning against Hank’s shoulder, his tousled hair tickling the side of Hank’s face as he shifted slightly in his sleep. Normally, Hank would’ve said something as soon as Johnny’d started nodding off, moments after he’d slumped onto the rec room couch. Normally he’d have nudged the young paramedic awake, and gently-but-firmly directed him towards the bunks. But this afternoon wasn’t exactly normal.
Johnny’d just spent the past hour and a half crawling around a crashed charter plane precariously balanced on the edge of a cliff. Eight passengers, two crew, ten varying degrees of injury and sheer bloody panic, and Johnny’d handled the whole thing largely on his own. Hadn’t helped that Roy’d slipped off the fuselage and twisted his ankle. It wasn’t too bad, all things considered, but he wouldn’t be working the rest of the shift. His wife’d had to come by and pick him up, even - Johnny’d taken one look at Roy’s pained expression and told him in no unclear terms that he was not going to drive. His worry had been obvious, his face almost haggard with it. Hank had seen his jaw muscles tense every time Roy as much as twitched.
They’d watched Joanne drive off with Roy together, and Hank couldn’t help but notice that Johnny stuck closer than he usually did, like he was still unmoored, floating, and needed someone at his side to anchor him. Hank could hardly blame him. It wasn’t just Roy that had Johnny so off-kilter, though that certainly hadn’t helped - the whole rescue had been an ordeal. They hadn’t been able to tie off the plane, and it’d been balanced so precariously that Johnny had to watch his every move, so precariously that they’d barely dared to point a hose at it to keep the fire contained that broke out halfway through the rescue.
So precariously that Johnny’d leapt to safety seconds before the whole thing finally slipped, careened down the cliff, and landed in a crumpled, burning heap a hundred feet below.
Hank couldn’t tell if Johnny’s trembling had been due to nerves or sheer bloody exhaustion as he picked himself up from the hose-soaked muddy ground and went to find something to wipe the blood off of his hands with. Hank definitely knew why his own hands were shaking, though, shamefully, as he stuffed them into his turnout pockets so nobody else would be witness to his weakness.
So, no, none of this was normal, and he could see the screams and the crying and the pain and the blood echo in Johnny’s mind even as Hank settled on the couch with the newspaper and the paramedic plopped down right next to him, pretending to read over his shoulder until exhaustion took over and he slumped against his captain. The others could see it too, Hank knew, and even Chet’s look was full of compassion and fondness, now that Johnny couldn’t see him. Nobody said a thing, but the conversation in the rec room became quiet, hushed. Somebody turned down the TV.
The hour grew later, and eventually everyone went to bed, until only Mike remained and threw Hank a quizzical look.
“Are you gonna be alright?” he finally asked.
Hank didn’t answer.
“Because you’re not.”
Hank sighed. “I sent him into this mess, and he still came to me for comfort. Dunno how he does that. And I know we both just did our job... but I don't like it.”
Mike put a warm, steady hand on his free shoulder, oddly comforting despite everything.
“He doesn’t seem to mind,” he said, nodded at Johnny. Took a deep breath. “Get some rest, too, Hank.”
“Yeah.”
Normally, Hank should’ve said something, but today, Johnny was alone and raw and fraying at the edges, and if he felt safe enough with his captain to fall asleep like that, well, Hank felt honored. Let Johnny have his comfort, he figured, it sure didn’t seem like he normally got a lot of it.
Johnny was barely awake enough to be aware of the leaden exhaustion pulling at his limbs, leaving him boneless. He couldn’t be bothered to wake up enough to remember where he was or why he was so goddamn tired, but that was fine - he knew he was safe. His cheek was resting on something warm and maybe not entirely comfortable, but oddly soothing nonetheless. Quiet, calm conversation was flowing by at the edges of his consciousness, familiar and comforting. Something was telling him that he probably should’ve been awake, but he just couldn’t be bothered, instead electing to drift off into a light slumber once more.
The next time he became aware of his surroundings, the conversation had faded to silence, and all that could be heard was the quiet rustling of cheap paper. Somebody had his arm around him, he could feel it shift with every turn of the page, and the fact that he had no idea whose arm that was probably should’ve been alarming, but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d just sat there with somebody touching him ‘n all… and, well, it was nice. Comforting, even though he couldn’t make sense of where he was or what was happening – he’d been at work, right? Coming home from a particularly grueling rescue, watching Roy get picked up by Joanne and trying hard to get it into his mind that Roy was fine, he was gonna be fine. And then– the rec room?
Johnny had to admit to himself that he was pretty firmly awake now, and, no matter how comfortable he felt, it was probably time to get up and inspect the damage. He just hoped it wasn’t Chet he was leaning against. Not even because he was worried that Chet would never let him live it down – more because he was worried that Chet wouldn’t say a thing.
He sighed. Shifted.
“Ah,” Cap’s voice softly rumbled right next to him, “welcome back.”
Cap’s-
Johnny’s eyes flew open and he snapped upright, startled.
On the couch next to him sat Hank Stanley, the newspaper folded on his lap, an arm on the back of the couch behind Johnny, looking at him with mild concern as he floundered and tried to get his bearings.
“Cap?” Johnny asked. “Did I-”
“Yeah. Nodded off halfway through the sports section. How do you feel?”
“And you just let me?” Johnny asked back instead of answering the question - he wasn’t sure he would’ve really known the answer, anyway.
“You needed the rest,” Cap replied, and there was something haunted about his expression, about his eyes.
“You could’ve died today,” he added after a long, heavy pause, and Johnny realized that maybe Cap wasn’t quite alright either.
He didn’t think he’d meant to say “I could die any day” out loud, but he didn’t have a filter even when he wasn’t half asleep, exhausted and still kinda shaky, so he did say it, and felt Cap shift uncomfortably next to him.
“Today was… a lot closer than most days,” Cap said, looking straight ahead instead of at him, an almost stubborn set to his jaw.
“Yeah,” Johnny replied quietly, tonelessly. “It was.”
He didn’t even wanna think about it, really, but there was just something kinda hard to forget about the feeling of that fuselage slipping out from underneath him before he’d even had an opportunity to properly jump off.
Johnny couldn’t help but wonder how that had looked from Cap’s point of view - did he know just how close Johnny had come to landing at the bottom of a cliff? He didn’t ask. Cap was clearly worried enough already; had been since Johnny’d set foot onto that plane alone, Johnny had been able to tell from his tense, clipped tone and the way his eyebrows had been drawn together like brewing storm clouds every time he’d seen his face over the next hour. He felt bad for making Cap worry - and there was something he’d never had to think about before Cap had transferred to 51’s. He was special, that one. Which was why they were sitting on the couch together now, Johnny figured, and why neither of them seemed to mind. He knew he should’ve been mortified, but damn it, it’d been nice in a way he’d never really gotten to enjoy, not since– not for so long that it might as well have been in another life.
“I didn’t mean to cut it that close,” he said apologetically, when Cap stayed silent and just kept looking worried. “I just… did what I had to do.”
“That’s precisely what I’m worried about,” Cap muttered, mostly to himself. He took a deep, shaky breath and looked over at Johnny. “You saved a lot of people’s lives today, pal,” he said. “And I’m proud of you. I just…” He paused. “Nevermind.”
“Proud of me, are ya?” Johnny teased, like Cap had revealed some sort of an embarrassing secret - that simple sentence had scratched an itch he’d never even known existed, and it was easier to gently poke fun at it instead of letting slip just how much that meant to him. It was kinda embarrassing, how much he’d latched on to his captain for validation.
“Of course I’m proud of you, you twit,” Cap shot back, “I’m not telling you anything new there–”
Silence. Cap looked at him, almost startled, and Johnny felt caught out – like Cap had come to a realization that was just a little bit too close to the truth.
“Well,” Cap added, finally, his voice a little hoarse, “I am proud of you. Not just for this rescue.”
And Johnny had known that, he thought, maybe, but it was different hearing it out loud. It wasn’t something he heard a lot, and… well, it was nice. Made him feel good about himself, and he couldn’t quite keep the smile off of his face even as he tried to play it cool and failed abysmally.
“Thanks, Cap,” he said quietly, trying hard to keep his tone even so he wouldn’t reveal too much.
“Yeah,” Cap simply replied, and Johnny had a hunch that he wasn’t fooling him for a second.
After a minute or so, Cap sighed. “Alright, it’s almost midnight; I’m going to bed,” he said and got up. Turned around in the doorway and looked back at him. “I know it’s not always your choice, but try not to push your luck, alright? This station wouldn’t be the same without you.”
And then he was gone, before Johnny had the chance to react.
Johnny wouldn’t have known how to react even if Cap hadn’t vanished so fast it was like he’d never even been there in the first place - whatever he’d expected, that hadn’t been it. He’d gotten the occasional comment about his antics, sure - “Gage, you can’t save people if you’re dead,” and all that. It made logical sense to take care of himself first, he’d been told. He’d be more useful that way.
But that wasn’t what Cap had said, was it?
Johnny didn’t know what to do with that.
In the end, he decided not to think about it at all and just followed Cap’s lead and went to bed, wrapping the thin blanket around his shoulders and wishing that he’d just stayed asleep on the rec room couch. It’d been nice. The closeness, the kind words, the comfort after that hellish day that’d gone through him like a lightning bolt; he needed more of that. He’d been doing fine on his own before he’d transferred to 51’s, or so he’d thought - but those little scraps of genuine affection he’d experienced here had been like a spark to the parched underbrush of his emotions and he didn’t know if things like this, like Cap gently telling him that he was proud of him, made things better or worse. Both, perhaps.
He should have been happy about it, he figured. After all, this was precisely what he’d been fishing for, what he just couldn’t help but chase once he started feeling comfortable no matter how often he told himself to knock it off, to keep his distance for once…
He’d rarely ever gotten this far before, and he knew he should have been happy, but mostly he was worried - that kind of thing was never unconditional, and Johnny’d always stumbled over the unspoken rules, crossed the lines he wasn’t supposed to, either too much or never enough.
Falling asleep with his head on his captain’s shoulder would have gotten him tossed off the couch at some stations he’d worked at, though, and he couldn’t help but wonder, if maybe, just maybe… he’d be alright this time? He hadn’t managed to scare off Roy so far, and Cap’s eyes in the rec room had been soft and kind and maybe just a little sad, with none of the judgemental harshness he’d grown accustomed to over the years.
He needed more of this.
He couldn’t risk it.
He tried to imagine what it’d look like if he messed up, if he took it too far, this foreign familialness. Cap with his expression cold and hard and his words cutting like knives. To his surprise, he found that he couldn’t do it, just kept coming up empty.
“Kinda like a family” - that was what Cap had called their shift a couple weeks ago.
And it hit Johnny all at once… that maybe he’d actually meant it.