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It doesn’t take long for Hannah to realise something is very, very wrong when Garrett arrives at her apartment after practice.
Deep purple circles saddle the underside of his eyes, his sweatshirt and joggers draped over him despite the surprisingly warm weather in Boston for an October day.
“Hey G,” she greets softly, try to keep the concern out of her voice. “What’s up?”
He lips tug up into a half smile, uncharacteristic of his usual greetings as he allows his bag to slough off of his shoulder and onto the floor beside her bed.
Next, he falls forward, figure sinking into her bed and his head finding the perfect nook between where her thighs cross. She pushes her notes to the side, capping her highlighter and setting it atop the notebook still open beside her.
Her hands find his curls, and instead of making a comment about how if she continues to run her fingers along his scalp he’ll fall asleep— he just sinks into the warmth. A deep breath fills his lungs, chest expanding and his exhale filling the silent space between them.
“You feeling okay?” Her fingers brush over his forehead enough to make her wonder if the warmth that radiates off of him is residual from a tough practice or something much more.
He licks his lips, nodding softly and humming as if to agree with the nod, “peachy.”
And despite how sincere he sounds, she can’t help but think that’s just not the case at all.
“I’m kind of tired,” she murmurs, watching as he tries to flutter his eyes back open— to little avail. “Would you wanna take a nap?”
He doesn’t seem to notice the obvious fib, instead rolling to find the pillow he’s claimed as his in her bed— arms open to invite her to the place he always seems to hold for her— in sickness or health.
Instead, she settles down against the pillow, one hand wrapping around his bicep and the other returning to tangle in his soft locks of hair.
Garrett seems to catch on, allowing his nose to find its familiar place against her sternum. A sigh leaves his lips, arms wrapping around her waist— one wedged beneath the small of her back and the other between her shoulder blades.
It’s a familiar dance they do, finding comfort in the touch of each other’s skin.
Hannah’s hand slides down from the crown of his head, tracing a line along the nape of his neck until familiar circles begin to silhouette along his spine. The tightness releases from his shoulders, slowly and then all at once.
His breaths even out, lips parting to allow warm air to fan against her sternum. As his weight settles deeper against her chest, she kicks a knee up, finding her notes again as the minutes slip into hours.
When he wakes, the room is beginning to glow with soft sunlight slipping through blinds that are not his own. He feels like fucking shit warmed over in a mid range microwave— this, he knows for sure.
He lifts his face from where it’s buried in his girlfriend’s waist— wincing slightly when he sees the tell-tale puddle of his own drool seeping into the fabric beneath where his lips had just been.
His head is pounding, and he kind of feels like he’s dying— what time had he even fallen asleep last night? What time was it now?
He squints, trying to blink away the sleep before settling back where they always seem to wander to: Hannah.
They’d gotten tangled in sleep, her body rolled towards her left side as it often was— his head had nuzzled on the part of her waist where her obliques meet her stomach.
He can feel the faint sheen of sweat coating his skin, and he rises to sit to pull off his sweatshirt. He swings his legs over the edge of the bed, struck by a sudden wave of nausea as his fingers start to shake.
It’s a feeling Garrett Graham knows well, but one he’d most experienced when he was young and riddled with anxiety after hearing his mother’s cries from the next room.
The memory is enough to send him over the edge, and he rises to his feet tumbling over himself as he finds the bathroom down the hall.
The porcelain is cool against his forehead, the heaves racking his body as he fights for his life through his body trying to aspirate him.
And then there’s a hand on his back, running familiarly along his spine as he shakily finds the lever on the side. He coughs a few times, spitting before letting his body sink against the cool tile below.
And then, his girlfriend’s hands find his face— guiding his head to rest in her lap as he tries to find his breath.
“Baby—“ is the first real word she’s heard from him, broken and raspy as he fights the still rolling waves of nausea. “I’m going to get you sick.”
“I don’t care.” The earnestness in her voice is somewhat jarring. Enough to pry his eyes open to focus on hers above.
Her hair is falling in her face, eyes still tired as she traces her thumbs along his cheeks. His hand finds her wrist, giving it three soft squeezes before allowing it to fall limp against the floor once more.
She sits with him there for a few moments— the kind of moments that trickle into hours, and when her cool hands jostle him back to wakefulness she’s smiling down at him warmly, though concern still remains alight in her eyes, “do you want to go lay down in bed?”
With a sluggish nod, he’s back on his wobbly feet crossing the distance from Hannah’s bathroom and back to her bed. There, he lets himself fall back limp against her mattress. The material of his sweatshirt scratches against his skin, and he finally frees himself of the fabric allowing the air of her room to coat him— seeking out each bead of sweat and bridging goose bumps to the skin that still feels all too hot and somehow still freezing.
“I’m okay,” he mutters, trying to separate his sickly frame from Hannah’s. “I can go home, I really am feeling alright.”
“You are so full of shit, Garrett Graham.” There’s an amused quality to her voice as she slips under the covers herself, “roll over.”
He rolls to his right, and he can’t fight the sigh of contentment that escapes his lips as Hannah’s arms come around his torso.
There’s silence for a while, lapsing between them for what feels like an infinitesimal amount of time. Then, “if my dad could see me right now, I think he’d beat the shit out of me.”
If Hannah reacts, she either hides it well or he’s not coherent enough to notice a shift— outside of the slight tightening of her arms at first, “what?”
He nuzzles his face against her pillow, squeezing the hand of hers that has interlaced with his own. A lick of his lips completes the movement, before they part once more with his next explanation.
“I dunno. The lil fella wasn’t big on emotions other than anger. Especially not weakness.”
“This isn’t weakness.” Hannah replies immediately, reassuringly as she always is. A constant rock. A candle burning in the dark. “This is letting someone love you.”
He hums, a brief smile flickering across his lips before a soft sigh finds its way out again.
“Baby?”
“What’s up, G?”
A moment of silence lapses, a squeeze of her hand. He murmurs, “I love you.”
A soft laugh escapes her mouth, though it sounds weight like she’s been ruminating on something for too long. “I love you too.”
“And..” he adds, trying his best to not sound as fucking atrocious as he feels.
“And?” She prods.
“And I think I might be sick as shit, Wellsy.”
A real laugh escapes then, “I think so too, Graham.”
He groans dramatically, letting her tighten her arms around him a bit more as the sun begins to rise over the horizon, “fuck my immune system for this one. I’m gonna have some words with him later.”
“I’m sure you will, dear.”
When Garrett Graham returns to the land of the living, it’s to the sound of miscellaneous tapping from somewhere near him— God knows how long later.
He lets himself return to his body slowly— noticeably his fever seems to have broken and he’s no longer a risk of drowning in a puddle of his own sweat.
He’ll have to remember to wash Hannah’s sheets for her when he can stand without the risk of blacking out immediately.
His hands find his eyes, pressing into them hard as he sucks in a sharp breath. His eyes open to see Hannah’s sitting at her desk, wrapped in a blanket and a highlighter in her hand.
His head lulls to the side to find a can of ginger ale beside him, saltines on a plate with a bowl of soup steaming beside it.
He returns his attention to his girlfriend— her hair is wet and he can smell her shampoo from where he is. His sweatshirt is washed and folded on the arm chair in the corner of the room. A second set of his clothes sat beneath his hoodie, some that she must’ve been collecting over the duration of their relationship— a towel cast over the arm of the chair without a doubt for him.
Over the back of the chair, the extra set of sheets she always kept in her closet.
That’s the love of his life, he thinks fleetingly.
The tapping is surely coming from the eraser of her pencil hitting the familiar pattern against her desk as it always does when she’s lost in thought.
Slowly, he lets his legs come over the edge of the bed and finds that he is pleasantly oriented this time. He waits with bated breath for the nausea to come back, and when it doesn’t he hesitantly rises to his feet.
He begins the treacherous trek to the shower, swiping his clothes and the towel from the arm chair as his weaves through Hannah’s and Allie’s apartment.
His feet reach the cool tile of the floor beneath his frame— and he takes a long moment to look at himself in the mirror.
He definitely does kind of look like shit— but not as much as he had imagined. Just exhausted, and maybe a little bit disgusting and damp.
Pushing a hand through his hair, he pivots throwing a hand through the gap in the shower curtain to flick the shower head on.
Once he’s shed his clothing, and found a spot under the stream of shower water he lowers himself to sit on the floor of the shower. With half energy, he works Hannah’s shampoo and conditioner through his hair— rising to his feet as he regains some oomph to wash his the rest of his body.
He finds the towel in the fogged air— thinking that: shit, he definitely should’ve turned the fan on. He finds the toothbrush she keeps for him there, and for the first time in a while he finds himself taken aback by the domesticity of the situation.
The bachelor Garrett Graham out of the shower, smelling like cherries and unicorns while he brushes his teeth with the dinosaur toothbrush that Hannah had gotten for him half as a joke with her toothpaste and finishing off with a swish and spit of her mouthwash.
He shoves his clothes back on, crimping his curls dry with a handful of towel as he makes the short journey back to Hannah’s room.
She’s still sitting in that same spot, the eraser side of her pencil now placed between her teeth as she sits above the work on her desk.
He tosses the towel in her hamper with haphazard effort, arms finding the top of her breast bones and lips finding the area of the crown of her head not covered by her headphones.
She leans back into his touch, setting the headphones to the side and placing her lips against the fabric of his T-shirt covered bicep.
“Hi, pretty girl.” He greets— voice raspy from lack of use. The corners of her lips pull up, a soft squeeze to his forearms as she tilts her chin up.
“Hi, G.” She sounds tired— he sends a glance to the alarm clock on her bedside table. Nearly ten at night— he’d slept for almost an entire day. “How’re you feeling?”
“Way better.” He admits, pressing another kiss to her neck. A silent thank you for her care. “Sorry for spending an impromptu night at Hotel de Hannah.”
“Never apologise,” she says, bringing an affectionate hand up to ruffle his curls. “Go eat your soup and I’ll come join you once I finish these last few notes.”
An endeared chuckle slips past his lips, straightening his spine as he follows her orders— but not before stripping her bed and remaking it with the spare sheets. He does so at a snails pace, but full of love and care nonetheless.
He gets halfway through the bowl of soup, and a couple of sips of ginger ale in before he has to call it quits. He sinks back against the freshly changed pillows, thanking God that his luck found him ill on one of two weekends they didn’t have a Saturday game during the season.
“I texted Logan to let him know you were alive,” Hannah says from above him suddenly, and when he opens his eyes (he had closed them?) he finds he must have drifted off again. “You might want to text them though, I think they were about ready to send a search party when you didn’t show up to morning or evening lift today.”
“Oh my God. I forgot.” He mumbles, fumbling for his phone like an half decent gremlin under an unfamiliar bridge.
He never forgets.
He unlocks his phone just in time to see another call from Dean come in, sliding his thumb over the green bar until blonde locks come into view— familiar heads of raved hair to either side of him.
“Are you alive, brother?” Dean asks, tone teasing though the dent between his brows tells a story of concern.
“Yeah.” Garrett replies, admittedly sounding pathetic. “Just under the weather.”
“Yeah you sound like it, man.” Logan pokes his head into frame. “Look like it too. Get back to sleep.”
Garrett brings two fingers to his temple in a salute, before hitting the red ‘x’. He shoots a quick apology to his coach, and finally drops his phone to the side before rolling over and burying his face in the pillows.
When his favourite familiar warmth doesn’t find his side, he lifts an arm and cracks an eye open.
Hannah stands, arms crossed over her chest with an amused grin on her lips. She says nothing, dropping onto the bed and rolling into his arms.
Silence lapses, comfortable as it always is.
“Thank you.” He whispers, drawing his head back enough from where it hovered over her ear to see her face. “For taking care of me when I’m not at my best.”
She brings a hand up, running a thumb along his cheekbone, “anytime, G.”
His eyes find her lips, as they always seem to— and he dips down to press his to her own. The kiss lasts longer than intended, one peck turning into a few before she pulls away snorting at his expression.
“I love you, but we have plenty of time for that when you’re better rested.”
“My girl being responsible and shit.” He huffs, tightening his grip around her waist. “At least she’s letting me big spoon this time.”
His chin find the crown of her head, her nose finds the base of his throat, “careful, maybe I’ll make you be little spoon again with all of that ungrateful complaining.”
“Oh no!” He chirps, sarcasm dripping from his every syllable. “Don’t threaten me with a good time!”
She snorts again against his throat, shaking her head, “you are something, Graham.”
“The love of your life, mostly.”
“The love of my life, mostly.” She agrees, “and most definitely feeling better, huh?”
“How could I not?” He asks, a certain degree of earnestness slipping through enough to make her stomach warm. “My pretty girl is taking care of me.”