It's so unprofessional. Aiden avoids eye contact when Nick passes by his desk to drop off a coffee, keeps his eyes on his computer screen so that he doesn't drift over to look at Nick's arms.
"Here you go, boss," Nick says, when he drifts past.
"Thanks, Nick."
"You look tired," he says. "You should go home soon."
"I'm fine," Aiden says, which is not exactly true- he is pretty tired, but he's planning on letting the coffee wake him up so he can drive home a little more refreshed. "I'll leave soon, Nick, thanks."
"Okay, whatever you say." Nick continues out of the office, and leaves Aiden alone with his computer and his coffee.
He takes a sip. It's really good, God damn it. It would be easier to ignore his crush if the guy didn't always bring him really good coffee.
And, y'know, look really good coming in after rock climbing. And have really nice arms, and dress like a skater in the workplace, ripped jeans and all. Fucking Christ.
Nick's at his desk when he sees Aiden leave. He looks cheerful and awake enough that Nick's not worried, waving goodbye to him when he leaves and not giving it much else thought.
About an hour later, Aiden calls him.
Nick picks up, cradling his phone in between his shoulder and his head and fumbling for a pen on his desk to write down whatever he's gonna say. It happens sometimes - Aiden just remembers something he meant to say earlier and calls Nick to have him write it down so he won't forget.
Except. It doesn't come. Nick sits in silence, and there's some wind on the other side.
"Aiden?" he tries, after a moment.
"Nick?" Aiden sounds confused, distressed, even. "I need help, I think."
"What's going on, dude?"
"I, uh. Crashed my car."
Nick immediately stands up, gathering his shit off his desk with one hand and using the other hand to hold his phone more securely. "Oh my God. Are you okay? Where are you? Did you call 911?"
Aiden falls silent for a moment, and when he replies he sounds distant and disoriented. "I don't know. No, I didn't call 911. I'm, uh..." Aiden sniffles. "I'll drop you a pin."
"Okay-" Nick pulls his phone away from his face, so he can see it when Aiden sends him his location. "Okay, I'll be there soon. Don't hang up."
Aiden's head feels wet. And his car is in the ditch, dashboard crumpled. He’s not sure how well that’ll fix.
At least he’s the only person who got hurt. He thinks. He doesn’t entirely remember the crash, but he thinks he just drifted off at the wheel.
So maybe he was a little more exhausted than he realized.
He can’t help but smile when he sees Nick’s car pull up along the side of the road. “There you are!”
“Yeah,” he hears Nick say, and he sees him get out of his car. “I’m here.”
It actually startles Aiden to hear him in person and through the phone at the same time. He jumps and pulls his phone away from his ear.
“Nick!”
Nick power-walks up to him, when he sees the side of his head that was covered by his phone. “Oh my God, Aiden. You’re bleeding.”
“I am?” Aiden turns to look at Nick, who uses his hand to turn his head back away so he can look at the injury again.
“Yeah, you’re kinda bleeding a lot. I’m gonna call 911.”
“Oh. Okay,” Aiden says, and then he feels bad, for some reason. “Sorry for dragging you out here this late.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Nick says, unlocking his phone to call emergency services. “I would’ve come if you weren’t hurt and just needed a ride, it’s fine.”
“Oh,” Aiden says. He still feels bad, but he smiles at that, that’s nice.
The conversation with the emergency responder is short, and Aiden and Nick aren’t stuck sitting around waiting for an ambulance to show up for long. Nick has Aiden sit down on the curb pretty quickly- something about, like, blood flow, Aiden thinks.
An ambulance pulls up quickly, and Aiden is starting to drift off again by the time he gets moved up into the back. The only thing he can think is that he doesn’t want to get dragged away from Nick, even though Nick is reassuring him that he’s gonna be following him to the hospital in his car-
“That's so far away.”
“I’m gonna be one car away at most, Aiden.”
“I know!”
And then Aiden passes out.
Shock is one hell of a drug, as they say. Nick watches it wear off on Aiden, sees the energy rush fade into the exhaustion he must have been feeling even before he crashed his car into a power line pole.
It looks bad. It’s not a massive head injury in terms of open wound, but head wounds bleed so much, and he might have hit his head pretty hard, and Nick doesn’t know a lot about medicine but he’s pretty sure concussions are bad.
As they sit on the curb, he notes this to Aiden, who shrugs when he does. “I know concussions aren’t good.”
Nick throws his hand up, frustrated. “Then why didn’t you call 911?”
“I always call you when I have a problem,” Aiden says, and then fumbles for his phone out of his pocket. “Look, your contact name has a heart in it and everything.”
“Oh my God,” Nick laughs, because how else is he meant to react?
Aiden is so sad and grabby when they load him into the ambulance. Nick would think it’s funny if he weren’t hurt.
He follows the ambulance as closely as he can on the way to the hospital, frustrated when they don’t let him in to keep an eye on Aiden. He sits in the waiting room anxiously, leg jackhammering away on the linoleum floor while he texts people who need to know Aiden might not be in tomorrow. Eventually, they come out to let Nick know that he can come back tomorrow to check on Aiden, but for now he’s just getting some rest and he’ll be fine, although he might need some help to get home.
Nick goes home and gets some good rest. Like, he wants to stick around and worry about him,maybe just grab some sleep in his car, but he’s just seen the results of exhaustion, just seen his boss/friend in a bad state - that honestly could have been a lot worse - because of sleep deprivation, so he’s not gonna toy around with it. So he goes home and sleeps pretty well.
Aiden wakes up feeling like dirt and shit, is displeased by the hospital breakfast offerings, and immediately throws up after he eats. So that’s not great.
Nick comes by at around two in the afternoon to pick him up. Aiden is still tired, feeling like ass, but the nurse says he’s pretty much good to go, and the concussion will heal on its own as long as he gets plenty of rest, and Nick grins and spins his keys around his finger when Aiden asks how he’s gonna get home.
“Hey,” he says, as they walk to the parking lot. “Can you try to take it slow on the way back? Maybe take side roads?”
“Yeah, sure. Why?”
Aiden sighs. “I’m pretty sure I’ll throw up if we go too fast.”
“God,” Nick says, face scrunching up. “If you throw up in my car I’ll have to kill you. Or myself.”
“I have a concussion,” Aiden says, sadly.
“And whose fault is that, Aiden?”
Aiden frowns and follows behind Nick. “I’ve already got a ticket I need to pay, you don’t need to make fun of me.”
Nick turns and looks up at him, smiling, and Aiden doesn’t actually mind that much. “I know. I will anyways.”
Nick does take the slow way back home, and they manage to avoid a vomit incident. Aiden gets out of the car and heads upstairs, and Nick follows closely behind to make sure he gets to his apartment without incident.
When Aiden gets to his door and fumbles for his keys, he turns to Nick. “Thanks for driving me home, dude, it’s really appreciated.”
“Of course,” Nick replies, leaning against the wall. “I’m not leaving, though, you’re absolutely stuck with me.”
“Huh?” Aiden asks, unlocking his door. “Oh, like. What, you’re gonna stick around to help?”
“Yeah,” Nick says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, because to him it is.
“Oh. That’s not,” Aiden laughs, quietly. “That’s not necessary, you don’t have to do that.”
Nick blinks and considers. “I mean. Yeah, if you don’t want me around, that’s fine, I’ll go.” He means that, but. He does want to stay and help.
“I didn’t say that,” Aiden replies, keeping his head pointed away from Nick as he opens the door and gestures for him to come in.
Aiden is admittedly a little nervous about Nick staying with him to help out while he recovers, but he can’t think of anybody he’d want around him more, and anyways he’s managed to go this long without blowing his cover and revealing his position as mildly creepy and unprofessional boss.
So Aiden drops down on his couch and turns on the TV, flicks through a few channels before humming and turning his attention away from it and to his phone to go through emails.
Nick busies himself with tidying Aiden’s apartment up a little bit, which is a little embarrassing, but. Aiden keeps reminding himself that it’s not as embarrassing as the other shit, so he’s good with it, he’s fine with it.
At one point, while Aiden struggles to write up a response to a really important email, Nick walks behind him, peers over his shoulder, and as he walks past ruffles Aiden’s hair and says “Don’t work too hard, boss.”
“Okay,” Aiden says, and definitely doesn’t scream.
Nick puts his headphones on and blasts music so he can’t hear Aiden throwing up, pays attention to the emails he’s been forwarded from Aiden, most of them ones he pretty much has a default answer to. There are a few he’s gonna have to ask Aiden about.
There’s something else he should probably also ask Aiden about, but he’s not really sure he knows how to ask, “Hey, about my name in your contacts?”
He wasn’t thinking about it until now, ‘cause at the time he was mostly just stressed about whether or not Aiden was seriously injured, but now he’s had a bit of time to cool off, and. What the fuck is up with that?
He flicks through his contacts quickly, thinking to himself if there are any people in there, work friends/coworkers who he’d give a nickname with a heart, and, like. No!
Well, okay, except for maybe Aiden, but that’s different. And definitely not, because Aiden’s his boss. His boss whose apartment he’s currently at, answering emails and tidying up for, who’s currently in the bathroom throwing up ugh augh stop thinking about it.
Nick keeps his music loud and continues firing off emails. That’s all a problem for when Aiden’s done dying in the bathroom.
Aiden stumbles out of the shower and scurries off to his bedroom in a towel to change into clean clothes, comes back out of the bedroom to see Nick relaxed in a chair, writing emails on his phone with his headphones on. Aiden considers tapping on his shoulder to startle him, but changes his mind when he remembers he has a concussion already and if he gets hit again who knows what’ll happen.
So he shuffles to the kitchen, hears it when Nick takes his headphones off because of the momentary blast of loud music.
“Hey,” Nick says, as he follows Aiden into the kitchen. “Got some stuff I need to ask you about, emails you sent me I need to know some stuff to answer.”
“Yeah,” Aiden says, roughly. Ow, his fucking throat. “Shoot.”
“Okay, so-”
Nick rambles off a few questions that Aiden has the answers for, a few that he doesn’t that he advises Nick email somebody else about, and a few that Nick should actually have the answer to already, although Aiden does appreciate being asked, since they’re to do with scheduling, which is at the moment a little fucked, given the head injury.
Aiden shoots off easy answers while he digs through the fridge. This is also pretty unprofessional, but the reminder that there’s more unprofessional stuff runs through his head again, and he keeps going, pulling out an old box of fast food.
Nick had another question, but he breaks off when he sees that. “How old is that?”
Aiden looks at the top of the box, looks at the fading date. “Uh, I dunno. Something like a week, maybe?”
Nick looks at it. “Dude, this says you got it three weeks ago.”
“Oh,” Aiden says. “Huh.” He leans over and digs through his silverware.
“Oh my God, do not eat that,” Nick says, reaching forward and taking the box out of Aiden’s hand. “You’re gonna make yourself sick.”
“I’m already sick,” Aiden says, ‘cause he is.
Nick looks at him like he’s a fucking idiot. “Come on, let me order something new.”
Aiden is kinda too tired to argue, so he follows Nick to the living room and peers over his shoulder to watch him open up DoorDash.
“What do you want?” Nick asks, turning to the side to look at Aiden.
“Um,” Aiden says. “Food,” he answers. God, he’s tired.
Nick hums. “Too bad, I was gonna order toilet paper.”
“Can you do that on DoorDash?” Aiden asks. He knows that Nick isn’t being serious, but he’s curious.
“I dunno,” Nick says. “Look. How does pizza sound?”
“Greasy,” Aiden says. His stomach lurches.
“Asian?”
“Uh, maybe,” he replies. “I know I’m not helping much right now.”
“You’re good,” Nick says. “I’ve dealt with you on worse days.”
God, that is true. Aiden’s had days where he cannot muster up any coherent thought, and Nick’s been by his side to translate his meaningless rambles into actionable plans. That’s something Aiden would so miss if and when Nick moves on to another job. He’s really not sure how easily he could develop that kind of rapport with another assistant.
Aiden mumbles something about being hungry and drops his head back on the couch. Nick rolls his eyes and orders noodles.
Nick swears to God he was gonna bring up the contact thing earlier, but he did kinda freak out when he realized Aiden was about to eat three-week old leftovers. He knows Aiden isn’t the kind of guy who pays the best attention to personal health - case in point, exhaustion-caused car accident - but he had hoped he wasn’t at home eating expired-ass food.
Apparently he is, though. God.
So when Aiden mumbles something about how he was fine with eating the leftovers, Nick has to be honest.
“You’re not eating month-old food while I’m here,” he starts. “It’s my job to keep you functioning, essentially, so. I’m putting an official ban on month-old food.”
“It wasn’t a month old,” Aiden says. “I’m already gonna throw up again for sure, it doesn’t matter what I eat.”
“That doesn’t mean start putting fucking- poison in your body, Aiden.” Nick holds an egg roll out to him. “You’re nearly done, man.”
“Huh? Oh. Yeah,” Aiden says, taking the egg roll. “Dude, I for sure am gonna throw up again. You’re gonna have to really play some loud music to cover that up.”
“Well,” Nick says. “Kinda knew that going in.”
He did already know that nausea and vomiting are pretty standard symptoms of concussion - he used to skate, so. Yeah. The vomiting always ended pretty fast for him, but Aiden seems to be different.
“Man, I’m sorry,” Aiden says. “I know you have a, like, thing.”
“A phobia?” Nick says.
“... Yeah.”
“Yeah, it’s. Whatever.” Nick hasn’t suddenly just… gotten over it, but he’s putting up with it as well as he can, ‘cause Aiden does seem to want him here.
Fucking. Speaking of.
“Hey, by the way, there was something I wanted to ask.”
Aiden straightens up, clearly expecting a business question, and shakes himself awake a bit. “Go ahead.”
“It’s about my contact name in your phone,” Nick says, and barely keeps himself from cackling when Aiden immediately blinks and shakes his head, face turning red, and grabs for his phone to make sure he still has it.
“What? Huh?”
“You showed it to me when I came to call 911 for you, dude,” Nick says, watching Aiden immediately look away from him to try to hide whatever expression he’s making.
Alright, Nick isn’t an idiot. That’s a fairly big tell. But he doesn’t exactly wanna make assumptions and freak Aiden out, so he leaves a pause for Aiden to respond.
Aiden sighs and drops his head into his hands. “Can I say I don’t wanna talk about it? Can I plead the fifth?”
“You can try, but you got, like, a week before you’re fully recovered, and I’m gonna be here for a lot of that, so.” Nick sips his drink, slightly obnoxiously.
“Oh my God. I’m your boss,” Aiden says, miserably.
“So true,” Nick says. “You’re fuckin’ weird.”
“Okay,” Aiden says, a little offended. Good, ‘cause Aiden is better at talking when he’s indignant rather than embarrassed. “It’s not, like, that weird. You’re older than me.”
Nick grins and turns to him. “Yeah? You thinkin’ about our age gap?”
“Oh my God, I’m gonna kill you,” Aiden says. “I cannot believe you’re making fun of me when I have a head injury. What if you made fun of me and then I never got better?”
“I’d stick around to help you,” Nick says. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
Aiden is really pretty when he’s blushing. Nick had accepted a while back that probably nothing was gonna come of that tiny little crush on his boss, and he was fine with that, which was mostly because he thinks it’s pretty funny to have a crush on your boss - but your boss also being interested in you and not doing anything about it because he’s your boss is funnier, so.
“Yeah, you’re here,” Aiden says, quietly, looking at Nick.
Ah. Yeah.
“Don’t worry, there’s more bullying to come.”
Aiden actually doesn’t throw up again. The food restored his energy, his mana, his spirit and all that shit, and he manages to power through a handful more important emails and a couple more episodes of How It’s Made before he crashes again.
“Nick, I’m tired,” he says.
“Then go to sleep.”
“Ugh,” Aiden says, and gets off the couch, before sitting back down. “You can take the bed if you want.”
“What?” You’re sick, you get the bed,” Nick says, easily. Aiden rolls his eyes. “Don’t roll your eyes at me. Go to bed.”
“I feel bad for having you over and giving you the couch. The couch sucks.” Aiden presses his fingers into the springs.
“Well, yeah,” Nick says. “But like I said, you’re the one with the head injury, so you get to sleep in your bed.” Aiden opens his mouth to argue, but Nick keeps talking. “If you keep arguing I’m gonna start to think you just want me in your bed.”
Aiden stammers and stands up to walk away before he fully dies from embarrassment.
“Night, Aiden!” Nick sing-songs after him.
Fuck this guy. Fuck him.
Aiden wakes up with his second alarm and 10:45 AM and wearily clambers out of bed to go to the bathroom, shuffling out afterwards to find something to eat.
He passes by the couch, where Nick is passed out, legs up on the armrest and glasses sitting beside him on the couch.
Aiden picks up Nick’s glasses and folds them up, puts them on the coffee table.
And he moves on to make coffee, cook himself an egg or two. It might be the Aleves he took when he woke up, but he actually feels surprisingly good.
Nick follows him in after a moment, hair messed up. “You made coffee?” His voice is low, kinda heavy from sleep.
“I do know how to do it,” Aiden replies. “Like, in principle.”
Nick pours himself a cup and sets it on the counter to cool. “Feeling better today?”
“I took some painkillers. I’m sure when they wear off I’ll feel miserable, but for now they’re doing their job!” Aiden slides his eggs off the pan and onto his plate. “Do you want anything for breakfast?”
“Domestic,” Nick rumbles, and Aiden pointedly does not look over at him, keeps his thoughts about that to himself. “I’d eat an egg.”
“Scrambled?” Aiden asks.
“Sure. Whatever’s fine.”
As Aiden cracks a couple more eggs, he turns to look at Nick, who’s blinking slowly. He raises his cup of coffee and winces when he sips it.
“That bad?”
“Oh, yeah,” Nick says. “I’ll pick up some better beans when I’m at the store later. Oh, speaking of,” he continues, and Aiden nods. “I got rock climbing later, so I’ll be gone in the afternoon.”
“Yeah, okay,” Aiden says, scraping eggs off onto a second plate for Nick. “I can take care of myself for an afternoon.”
“Yeah?” Nick takes his plate from Aiden. “You sure?”
“I’ve been taking care of myself for six years fine, so yeah.”
“You eat expired food,” Nick says, looking at him, watching his eyes. “You crashed your car ‘cause you didn’t sleep.”
“Okay, well.” Aiden shrugs. “Accidents happen.”
Nick sighs. “I’m never making you coffee past 4 PM again.”
-
The day nearly breezes by. Neither of them seem particularly pressed about talking about their little… cringey crush things on each other. Although, Nick supposes, he didn’t do much to telegraph that he was into it.
He thinks about that as he goes about his errands today. First, he’s gotta swing by his apartment to pick up a few changes of clothes, another phone charger, and his laptop. Second, he’s doing a quick grocery run so he can stop Aiden from eating garbage. Third, he’s stopping by the office to drop off some paperwork. Then, after all that shit, he’s certainly got more emails to go through for Aiden, which he will do back at Aiden’s place, with the assistance of his laptop.
Nick drums his fingers on his steering wheel, wonders to himself, and then decides against bringing it up again. Because Aiden’s nursing a head injury, okay, so it’d be weird. Whether or not he reciprocates, with or without the ethics of dating your boss, Aiden can’t really do the full conversation when his thinking is impaired. It’s not that bad, but it’s worth remembering. Worth taking into account.
Nick sighs as he slings his backpack over his shoulder and heads back into the apartment.
-
Aiden perks up from the couch when Nick comes back, grins when he sees him.
“Nick!” Aiden waves at him, loosely. “I got some stuff for you to do when you’re done with your errands.”
“Course you do,” Nick says. “That’s what I got my laptop for. Aiden, off the top of your head do you, like, know what’s in your fridge?”
“Um.” Aiden thinks, dropping his head back, blinking as he does. “There were leftovers you made me get rid of?”
“God,” Nick says. “Alright, so today I’m gonna be getting you basic fucking groceries, I guess.”
“Okay,” Aiden says, as he sits back up to type away at his laptop. “They know we’re not in for a bit, so work should slow down after today.” He turns to look at Nick, who’s got his phone out, typing away in a notes app. “Are you cataloging my fridge?”
“Yeah,” Nick says, closing the fridge door. “You don’t have much of anything, do you?”
“Well,” Aiden says. “I mean, I eat at work a lot.”
Nick walks up and leans in behind Aiden to look over his shoulder at his laptop. “Dude, you really need to eat fresh food occasionally. I’m not out here pretending I don’t order like four doordashes a week, but… mix in something fresh.”
“Yeah,” Aiden says, quietly, a little rattled by the unexpected closeness. Nick’s head right next to his, Nick’s hand on the couch right next to his shoulder, Nick’s voice in his ear, fuck off. “I mean, yeah. It’s just easier to order in, you know how it is.”
“Yeah, I get it,” Nick says, patting Aiden on the shoulder. “I’ll be back in, like, two hours after I pick up groceries, then I’ve got your paperwork to drop off-”
“There’s more of that,” Aiden interjects. “By the way.”
Nick sighs, soft and subtle. “Right. Then I’m off and I’ve got rock climbing, and then I’ll be back.”
“See you then,” Aiden says, not really bothering to look up from his laptop.
“Yeah, see you.” Nick slaps Aiden’s shoulder and Aiden just nods at the sound of the door opening, and then he’s back to How It’s Made and emails and coasting on Aleve.
-
Nick groans as he stretches, cooling off at the gym. His climbing buddy holds his water bottle out to him.
“Keep that hydration up,” he says, reminding him half-sarcastically - like, it’s said like it’s a joke, but it’s actually just a nice thought, a nice gesture.
“Thanks,” Nick says, taking his water bottle. “That’s it for today, right?”
“Yeah,” Ludwig says. “Got shit to do later.”
“Anime?” Nick guesses, turning to look at Ludwig.
“Noooo,” Ludwig, says, in a drawn out way that makes Nick around 73% sure he’s lying. “Totally not. I’ve got productive stuff to do.”
“Alright,” Nick says. “I’d love to run this bit where you pretend you do things and I don’t believe you, but I actually need to go and babysit my boss.”
Ludwig laughs. “Yeah, okay, sounds like a great time. Much better than what I’m doing.”
Nick rolls his eyes and takes another drink of water before waving goodbye and heading to his car.
On his way back, he starts running through the list of things he’s probably got to do when he gets back, and it’s been a few hours so the list might have piled up while he was out, which is maybe a little frustrating. This is meant to be sick leave, and Aiden’s still working, and of course because Aiden is working Nick is working, which he’s fine with except that he’s also in charge of making sure Aiden doesn’t die right now, and it’s a worrying amount of plates he’s spinning.
He’s thinking about letting rock climbing drop as he unlocks Aiden’s door, and he’s immediately sure that’s the right choice when he sees Aiden sitting on the kitchen floor surrounded by glass and water.
“Oh my God- Aiden, are you okay-?” Nick rushes from the door into the kitchen, glass crunching under his soles.
Aiden looks up at him, glassy-eyed. “Huh?”
“Did you fall?” Nick looks around at the glass, the glaze over Aiden’s eyes.
“I… um,” Aiden says. “Think I hit my head again.”
“Oh, that’s not great,” Nick says. “Okay, let’s get you-”
Off the floor, he wants to say, but when Aiden leans forward with Nick moving him he
Nick blinks back to awareness in the hallway with vomit on his jeans and his hand, hyperventilating and swallowing desperately to try to keep his stomach in check.
Puke. Oh his hand. And his jeans. A puddle of puke on the floor in front of Aiden. Aiden threw up. There’s vomit on Nick and it used to be inside Aiden. God.
He knows he needs to go help him. If Aiden hit his head again, if he’s throwing up on the floor-
Yeah, he needs help. Don’t think about it too much.
Nick gasps for air to calm himself down and walks into the kitchen. Aiden is still slumped forward.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Okay.
-
Aiden’s vision is so blurry when Nick comes back into focus, a shaking hand on his back, that he almost doesn’t see the face twitch, the vomit sprayed on his jeans.
Oh. Yeah, that fucking sucks. “Sorry,” he says, voice tight in his throat. “Sorry for throwing up on you.”
“Fuckin’...” Nick says, and doesn’t finish the thought. Aiden tries his best to stand up with Nick.
Aiden feels miserable. His head hurts so much. That Aleve must have been the only thing keeping him together today. What the fuck happened again?
There’s glass, water, and vomit on the floor. He remembers where the vomit came from, but the water and the glass…
Aleve. Right, he was gonna take more Aleve. He got the bottle out of the bathroom, and he was kinda wobbly when he stood up from the couch, but he figured it was ‘cause he hadn’t stood up in a while, so he ignored it, shuffled into the kitchen to get a glass of water.
Shit gets really blurry there. He remembers seeing the floor, he remembers seeing the back of his head like there’s a camera behind him, he remembers crawling over to the cabinets to sit up and lean against them…
“Sorry,” he says, again. “I thought I’d be fine on my own.”
Nick just- huffs and keeps walking him forward, and Aiden jolts when he realizes he’s sitting on the couch again.
“Really,” Aiden says. He’s not sure why he’s trying to convince Nick - or even what he’s trying to convince him of - but it feels important. “I’m sorry.”
Nick sighs as he walks away - says something too quiet for Aiden to hear, and then Aiden drifts off, falling asleep on the couch.
-
Nick washes his hands. Nick washes his hands several times over before his skin stops crawling, has to force himself to breathe as his throat closes up, when he wipes the vomit off of the ground and off of his jeans.
Once the puke and the large pieces of glass are off the ground, Nick shakes Aiden awake. If it were any other circumstance, Nick would laugh at the way Aiden mumbles as he blinks awake, but.
He slings Aiden’s arm over his shoulder, carries his boss to the car, and drops his head against the steering wheel to mentally let out a massive scream of frustration before he starts driving.
Aiden apologizes again. Like it’s his fault. Maybe it is his fault, he’s the one that fell asleep at the wheel. Maybe it’s Nick’s fault, he brought him the coffee. Maybe it’s fucking nobody’s fault that Nick is cleaning Aiden’s vomit with a washcloth and driving him to the hospital at 9 PM and shaking from stress.
The most annoying thing is that he wants to. Because that’s Aiden, right, that’s half asleep in his passenger seat ten minutes after he threw up on him in a kitchen full of glass and water and he wants him to know how sorry he is for it. Nick can practically see the fog between Aiden’s brain and eyes and he isn’t mad.
Nick helps Aiden into the emergency room and tries his best to catch his breath while they wait.
-
Aiden blinks awake in the hospital room when the sun is streaming in. He’s starting to get tired of waking up in the hospital.
He looks around desperately for anybody, raises his hand when he sees a nurse pass. She turns to him, leans into the room. “Your doctor’ll be here in a sec, okay?”
Aiden just nods, not knowing how bad it’s gonna be when he tries to talk. His throat hurts.
It’s not a long wait for his doctor to come in, explain to him what’s going on. Which is basically: Your concussion is worse than we thought. You’ll still recover at home, but you need to take it easy. Yes, easier than you were already taking it. Stay in bed if you can. Didn’t you have somebody staying with you to help out anyways? Where are they?
“Uh,” Aiden says. “Um. My… Nick,” he says, intelligently. “I mean. My assistant, Nick.”
The doctor leans out of the room for a second, gets a nurse’s attention, says something about letting him come back.
And: You’ve got some medicine to take while you’re recovering. You’ll only be on it for about three weeks. It’ll help with the nausea. It has some side effects like dizziness, lightheadedness, and drowsiness. Also, better pain pills. Stay in bed, keep the pills in there. Get help when you need anything, don’t try to get up and get a glass of water.
Ah. Aiden puts that part together. That makes sense. Of course he managed to crack his head open trying to get a drink.
Aiden starts to lean his head back, readying himself to get a little more rest before he has to leave, but then a nurse comes in with Nick trailing after her, and Nick is looking significantly worse than Aiden remembers him looking the last time he saw him.
“Nick,” Aiden says, quietly. “Sorry f-”
“If you apologize again,” Nick says, and then looks at the nurse. “I can’t say what I’ll do in front of these medical professionals.” The doctor does a little quiet chuckle.
And: Yeah, your assistant’s gonna have to do a lot of stuff for you for a bit. You probably shouldn’t be up and walking around on your own for at least a week. Make sure you’re eating whole meals while you’re on these medications. (Nick gives Aiden a look. Aiden resists the urge to say sorry again.) Again, do not get up to get yourself a glass of water while you’re still on bed rest. Stay in bed except when you need to use the restroom, and get help for that. (Aiden apologetically glances at Nick. Nick does not look back at him at first, and when he does he just shrugs.)
Nick helps him to the car again, his arm around Aiden’s back. Aiden’s legs feel weak and shaky already. He’s not psyched for how it’ll feel getting back on his feet after he’s mostly been in bed for a week.
“Did you stay all night?” Aiden asks, voice quiet in the car.
“They wouldn’t let me in. They thought you might not wanna see me.” Nick shrugs as he starts his car up. “I just waited until you woke up. Worked out.”
“That makes me feel worse about the time I left you at the ER,” Aiden says, and Nick laughs.
“Good, you should feel bad. Absolute betrayal.”
Aiden tries not to sulk. Nick reaches over to him and brushes his knuckles against his shoulder like it’s a gentler punch.
“Hey, I’m joking man. Don’t worry, Nick’s gonna take care of ya.”
Aiden drops his head back against the headrest and sighs. “Bad luck for me.”
-
Nick deposits Aiden in his bed and sees him fall asleep almost instantly.
Okay. Nick did emails at the hospital instead of sleeping, he delivered all of Aiden’s paperwork shit yesterday, and he’s good to take calls if that comes up, so today he’s gonna tidy up this fucking bedroom.
Aiden doesn’t even stir as Nick systematically removes Aiden debris from the floor - mostly dirty laundry, the odd plastic water bottle. Nick gets over to the little table Aiden’s using as a nightstand and organizes it, arranges the bottles of medicine so that he can find the right ones when he needs them. He’s just made it to picking through the pile of chair laundry when he hears-
“Nick,” Aiden mumbles. Nick turns to look at him.
“Yeah?”
“Thanks. That’s what… shoulda said. Thanks. Not sorry.”
Nick tries not to react too strongly and wake Aiden up more. “Yeah. No problem, Aiden. Don’t worry about it.”
Aiden settles back down into sleep.
Nick waits until he’s pretty sure Aiden's not gonna wake up again and then shuffles out of the room to laugh, the miserable state of being locked in an apartment taking care of his hot but injured boss hitting Nick all at once. God, he should not be reacting that strongly to a half-asleep ‘thanks’- and. Ah, yeah, that’s right.
Nick heads into the bathroom to look at himself in the mirror. He has trouble focusing on himself through the twitching, but his eyes are developing bags. He needs to sleep.
He heads back in, checks on Aiden, and then shuffles over to the couch to drop down on it and pass out.
-
Aiden wakes up to a shooting pain ripping its way through his head. He sits up in bed and looks around for the prescription painkillers, and is immediately lost in misery when he realizes he doesn’t know which of the bottles is the pain meds.
He needs help. Okay.
“Nick,” he says, soft and useless.
Nick’s not in the room, there’s no way he can hear him. Fuck, his head hurts.
He drops his head down into his hands and tries to catch his breath through the stabbing pain, tries again- “Nick!”
He hears a thump from the living room, and then footsteps to his door, and then it cracks open.
“Nick,” he says again. “Where’s the pain ones?” He wants to keep talking, but the sound of his own voice is making more pain jab its way into his temple.
“Oh,” Nick says, and walks in. While he’s opening the bottle up and taking a pill out, Aiden looks up at him.
“You look… you look tired,” Aiden says. “Did I wake you up?”
“Yeah,” Nick says, holding the pain pill out for Aiden. “It’s fine, that’s what I’m here for.”
Aiden feels bad, but he reminds himself not to keep apologizing, just takes the pill in one hand and waits while Nick goes to get him a bottle of water.
And he thinks. Tries to decide whether he wants Nick to have to be the one who takes care of him. Surely there’s somebody else he could ask. Somebody who isn’t Nick, because Nick doesn’t deserve to have to deal with Aiden. When Nick comes back into the room, Aiden opens his mouth to ask. “Are you actually-”
“Aiden, I want to be here to help you,” Nick says, pressing the water bottle into his hand and crouching down beside his bed. “I really wouldn’t be here if I weren’t. You could’ve stayed at the hospital.”
Aiden doesn’t know how to respond to that, to Nick’s tired matter-of-factness about wanting to help. He looks at Nick, as the pain continues to stab into his temple. Nick stares back.
After a moment, Nick clears his throat and gestures vaguely, looking away. “Take your pill.”
Aiden’s not sure, but he feels like something was just communicated. He takes his pill and tries not to focus on it, relaxing and finally getting back to sleep.