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Here were a few examples of things John didn’t necessarily have a normal relationship with: gravity, academic validation, his own health. The list could go on. And to anyone who thought he was joking about that last one – ha, you wish. His own immune system hated him, which was a mutual feeling given his body seemed to be incompetent when it came to fighting off sickness. If there was even a slight sniff on campus, he’d catch it. So, given how frequently he was struck by colds, he’d gotten used to powering through them - give him a sachet of meds and he’d be good to go – and he didn’t expect his current bout of ill health to be any different.
Also, you know, he couldn’t afford to take time off right now. There were final papers due and assessed lab reports in only a few weeks and he had his entire schedule worked out right down to the last hour for the next month. He was genuinely quite proud of it. But if he missed a deadline or fell behind at all… Well, that just wasn’t an option. So, really, it didn’t matter how shitty he felt, because he couldn’t let it affect his timetable.
His resolve did waver slightly when he nearly passed out in his own bathroom that morning, but his vision soon cleared of spots and he was able to choke down half a plain bagel without upchucking his guts like the previous evening, so clearly he wasn’t that bad. Besides, he only had one lecture to sit through. He could manage two hours.
The perks of having his own apartment rather than suffering another year of student halls was that he could set an alarm on his phone and fall asleep with his head pillowed on his arms on the kitchen counter without fear. The downside was that there was no one to jolt him awake when he slept through that alarm and then was startled back into consciousness by a horn blaring outside. He bolted upright and nearly lost his balance, slamming a hand against the counter to catch himself before he could smash his tailbone against the unforgiving tiles of his kitchen floor.
Nausea swirled in time with the spots in his vision. He fumbled for his phone and tried to breathe normally as his heart attempted to do a somersault at the realisation that he was going to be late unless he sprinted, which was, of course, exactly what he did. And that was how he ended up halfway across campus in a mildly threadbare sweater without a coat and still wearing his glasses rather than his contacts. Goddammit. It wasn’t as if he had time to go back for them, so he bolted for his lecture and prayed the heating would be sufficient to mitigate the possible frostbite setting root in his hands.
The lecture hall was mostly packed already. As ever, the middle rows filled up first and spread outwards in both directions from there, leaving the front and rear seats available. Ordinarily John would have opted for the front row simply because this lecturer had a habit of speaking softly and quickly without a mic and he didn’t have the hearing capacity of a bat. Today, he stole a space at the very back and cranked open his laptop cautiously as if the bright light would literally sear him like some sort of vampire.
Instantly, he wanted to cringe into a black hole. Blue light scorched his eyes and bounced around his skull. He propped his chin in one palm and took deep breaths as the familiar murmurings started up from the podium at the front. It seemed overly hot all of a sudden. Maybe the heating was malfunctioning. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to read through the projected slides despite his swimming vision.
Was he forgetting something? He felt like he was forgetting something. Notes. That was it! Shit. He opened a new tab and blinked as the keypad seemed to blur in front of him. The alphabet became an incomprehensible mess of letters. He settled for the old-fashioned paper-and-pen format instead and prayed his handwriting would be legible, although given how much he was shaking that seemed doubtful.
The clock was ticking. Loudly. Like a war drum. He could feel it, not just hear it, louder than his own heartbeat which was roaring in his ears. He squinted at the digits and felt as if he’d plunged into the Atlantic in mid-winter. How had he missed that much time? What if he hadn’t noted crucial information because he’d been zoned out? What if he didn’t meet the top-grade boundary because he couldn’t make the necessary points all because he hadn’t been paying attention in this lecture?
God, why was it so cold?
That heating was definitely malfunctioning.
He was shivering – the full-body, exhausting kind. He tugged his sleeves over his hands and propped his chin up, using the soft fabric against his skin as a grounding anchor. Focus. Take notes. Just one more hour.
His phone lit up.
Huh. What did Virgil want?
John texted back some vague reply that he hoped made more sense than it seemed. Virgil was good at reading between the lines, anyway. He owed his brother a call actually – he’d missed over five calls from Virgil over the past three days – which, coincidentally, was when he’d first gotten ill. He vaguely recalled sending nonsensical texts while in the throes of a fever hot enough to have him stumbling into the shower at three in the morning because it had seemed at the time as if his very bones were melting.
Shit, his attention was wavering again.
“Hey,” someone whispered from his left, leaning closer so that he could hear them, “Are you okay? You don’t look so good.”
“Fine,” John ground out, suddenly registering that the room was emptying. “Wait, is it over already?”
The girl to his left winced. “Yeah. Um, do you have anyone on campus who could come pick you up? Or I could walk you back to your dorm if you’re okay with that? I just don’t think you should be alone right now. You kinda look like shit.”
“I’m fine,” John lied, aiming for reassuring only his voice came out slurred. He attempted to stand up, but gravity drained away and suddenly his vision was darkening at the edges, but it wasn’t dissipating this time and then he was pitching sideways and-
Awareness came to him in snatches split over an unknown length of time. White walls of the university infirmary, voices, a calming hand on his shoulder when the fever spiked again. The logical part of his mind whispered that he had seriously fucked up, because he had to be so far behind schedule now that it didn’t bear thinking about. The childlike, feverish part of his brain was simply too overwhelmed and sick to worry about that.
It hit him at one point that he was possibly a little bit scared. There wasn’t a single friendly face in the room and according to the snatches of conversation he overheard, none of his emergency contacts were picking up. This wasn’t a surprise to be brutally honest – Dad was overrun with TI meetings and had always been notoriously bad at answering his phone, Grandma was a wildcard and Scott was literally on another freaking continent.
Here was the basic summary: he’d collapsed in the lecture hall, been transferred to the infirmary (not the hospital initially because apparently he’d still been conscious which was mildly terrifying given he couldn’t remember any of the experience), then taken to hospital. None of his emergency contacts had picked up, but his next of kin had been around to make decisions on his behalf and he was allowed to leave once he had been signed into their care and his condition had improved sufficiently for him to go home.
John’s brain short-circuited at the next of kin comment because what the fuck? Or, more to the point, who the fuck?
Which was a dumb question, because he only knew one person who was willing to drive across multiple states to check on him simply because they’d been concerned by his fever texts and the fact he had stopped answering his phone.
In John’s very professional, totally unbiased opinion, the world did not deserve Virgil Tracy.
Virgil, who was currently making himself at home in John’s apartment and was somehow managing to blend concern with annoyance. Mostly concern though. Virgil was basically incapable of holding a grudge against anyone other than Gordon for any time longer than twenty-four hours. Ordinarily, John would have found those pointedly exasperated sighs somewhat amusing, but he was still feeling shaky and, embarrassingly enough, vulnerable and the idea of anyone being angry – or worse: disappointed – made him want to curl up in a ball and cease existing.
Virgil was watching him again.
John tugged the blanket higher. He was currently swamped under it – a weighted thing which was so fluffy and warm – whilst curled up on the couch. “What?”
“You wouldn’t have landed yourself in hospital if you’d given your body a chance to recover.” Virgil returned to his attention to the concoction he was cooking up, stirring a wooden spoon. It was some kind of soup, apparently, and it smelt great. “Why are you pushing yourself so hard?”
“I can’t fall behind schedule,” John protested, trying to ignore the jolt of panic as he recalled that he’d done exactly that – by an entire week.
Virgil just looked at him as if he were an idiot.
John tugged at his sleeves self-consciously. It was time for a subject change. Virgil was giving him that forlorn kicked puppy look, as was customary whenever he was deeply concerned about someone. Quick, think of a diversion!
“I can’t believe you drove all the way here just because I didn’t pick up the phone.”
“Your texts were…” Virgil was clearly having a struggle to think of better phrasing for the ramblings of a madman. “…out of character.”
“Oh God.” John attempted to shuffle upright. He had yet to shake that drained feeling, as if he’d run a marathon. He always forgot just how exhausting fevers were. “How bad was it?”
Virgil turned back to the saucepan to hide his smile. “It could’ve been worse. At least you didn’t text anyone else. Well, Scott’s got one missed call from you but apparently you didn’t leave a message, so I was the only one who received any fever ramblings.”
“Delete them.”
“Hell no, they’re entertaining. I didn’t know you had such strong opinions on dragons.”
John tipped his head back to glare at the ceiling. “Why dragons?”
“Hell if I know.” Virgil’s voice was dry with amusement. “Were you writing beforehand?”
“Possibly.” John recalled his secret notebook of short story ideas, and amended, “Probably.”
He must have drifted back to sleep again. The next thing he knew was Virgil encouraging him to sit up and pressing a bowl into his hands. John was still too groggy to remember that he was supposed to find this sort of fussing annoying, only then Virgil took it a step too far and tried to adjust the blanket around his shoulders, so John batted him away, only just stopping short of hissing like a cat.
Virgil sent him a stern look. “You’ve got to keep warm.”
“I am warm,” John grumbled, but obligingly pulled the blanket closer. He twirled the spoon around the bowl experimentally.
Virgil sank onto the end of the sofa. “Eat all of that.”
“Uh huh.”
“John.”
“What?”
“So help me, I will rat you out to Dad.”
John couldn’t quite keep the bitterness out of his laugh. “He never answers the phone, so good luck.”
Virgil filed away that particular remark for later consideration. “Then for my sake, take care of yourself. Please.”
“I’m behind schedule,” John muttered.
“So? Some things are more important.”
“If my grades slip, so does my average.”
“That’s not…” Virgil took a steadying breath. “Okay. I’m not going to argue with you when you’re still recovering. Besides…” His smile grew concerningly similar to Gordon’s. “I’m here for the next week, so we have plenty of time to catch up.”
John eyed him suspiciously. “What about your classes?”
Virgil shrugged. “I’ll attend them online. Besides, I told my professors that I had a family emergency, so they know I won’t be there for practical sessions.”
“I thought you hated liars?”
“It wasn’t a lie.”
“This hardly constitutes as an emergency.”
“John, you were in hospital!”
“Only for twenty-four hours.”
Virgil buried his face in his hands with a muffled scream. “Why are you like this? You concern me so much.”
“You don’t need to be concerned. I’m fine. I have everything under control.” John gestured vaguely towards the whiteboard on the fridge. “See? I even made a schedule.”
“That schedule,” Virgil informed him, “is literally insane. You’re headed for a complete burnout if you keep to it. No wonder you landed yourself in hospital.”
John wrestled with that sinking sense of having disappointed someone. He fixed his attention on the soup and tried to avoid Virgil’s searching gaze.
“We will be talking about this,” Virgil said, more gently this time, reaching across to take the empty bowl. “But not right now. You’re about to fall asleep upright.”
“M’fine,” John grumbled, as if he wasn’t listing sideways. Somehow he ended up with his head pillowed on Virgil’s shoulder. “I just need five minutes…”
“Uh huh.”
“Thanks, Virg.”
Virgil inhaled sharply. “Why?” He had his arm around John’s shoulders, drawing him close, and now his grip tightened. “John? What are you thanking me for?”
“Being here. It’s a long drive. So. Thanks for… you know…”
…caring.
Virgil didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then, softly, “Get some sleep, Johnny. I’ll still be here when you wake up.”