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Ronan was dying.
Okay, so he wasn’t dying dying, but he had a fever and a sore throat and he’d lost his voice so he couldn’t even bitch about it, so he was basically dying. He was, however, sick enough for Adam to call in a favor with one of the ENTs at the hospital to get Ronan seen before the weekend. It was also entirely possible that Adam’s decision wasn’t related to how sick Ronan was and more to how annoying he was.
“I know you don’t feel well, but please try not to be a dick, okay?” Adam had his arm around Ronan in the elevator, heads tilted to rest against each other. “I work with Dr. Wright a fair amount and I’d like to stay on good terms.”
Even though it was warm out, Ronan was bundled in Adam’s sweatshirt over his long-sleeved t-shirt; he pulled his phone out of the pouch and typed out, “Hard to be a dick when I have to text everything,” tilting the screen toward Adam after.
“And yet, you’ve managed.” There was a hint of a smirk on Adam’s lips, a reminder that Ronan had been forgiven for earlier transgressions. Two days ago, he’d been feeling particularly unwell and sent Adam a series of messages complaining about why Adam couldn’t just prescribe him something to make this go away, and he’d gone a little further than he should have. Later, he apologized with a post-it note drawing of the two of them holding hands with a little heart between them, ‘sorry I was an asshole’ arching over them like a rainbow.
Adam had forgiven Ronan, as he always did, and clearly taken pity on him--granted, Ronan had been a pretty pitiful sight, shivering under a mountain of blankets when Adam got home that evening--which was how they ended up with the appointment. While Ronan technically could have driven himself, Adam insisted on taking him; it was nice to be doted on, to be able to sleep on the ride over instead of trying to focus on the road. And besides--having someone with him made checking in at the front desk a lot easier, seeing as Ronan was only capable of making hissing noises by this point.
In the waiting area, Ronan sat in the back corner so that he could lean against the wall; his head was still killing him, even though his fever was down, and while Adam had been generous with massaging his temples when things got bad, it wasn’t something they could do in the clinic. He closed his eyes and laced fingers with Adam, who smoothed his thumb over Ronan’s in a small gesture of comfort. After a few minutes, Ronan drifted into half-sleep; there was no reason to fight it, since he was guaranteed to sleep for twelve hours again tonight, even if he managed to keep his fever down.
A woman’s voice nearby pulled him awake. “Adam?”
She was sitting opposite them, a young woman, maybe mid-twenties, with one of those carseat-slash-baby-carriers set on the floor by her feet and a three or four year old in the chair beside her. The kid was flipping through a picture book, and the baby was (mercifully) asleep--Ronan thought he might die if he had to be in the same room as a crying infant.
“Thelma--it’s been a while.” Adam had a polite tone of voice specifically reserved for interacting with patients in the real world. Every now and then, someone would come up to them in the grocery store and update Adam on how they were doing since he treated them in the ER; his responses would always be pleasantly vague and then he’d quickly wrap up the conversation. His tone now was warmer--still not quite his normal cadence, but not like he was trying to end the conversation as quickly and professionally as possible. “I guess that’s a good thing, though. How are you?”
Thelma smiled. “Yeah. We’ve been good. My sister was in town for a few weeks so she could help out with the kids while I studied for my CNA exam.”
“Did you already take it?”
“Yeah--I find out tomorrow if I passed.” As she smiled even broader, eyes gleaming, Ronan recognized her expression--it was something akin to when he’d finished his EMT program, a mix of excitement and apprehension. “Could you imagine if I worked here?” Not waiting for Adam’s reply, she waved her hand, brushing the idea aside. “Not in the ER, of course. Too many memories. But I could work up here on one of the floors. I’d love to work with kids, but Children’s is too far from Henrietta.”
Adam looked genuinely happy, the true smile that Ronan knew well on his lips. “Wherever you end up will be lucky to have you. Be sure to come say hello if you end up here.”
“Thanks.” The kid beside her had put her book down at this point and was eyeing Adam with obvious caution, then got up and started to climb onto Thelma’s lap. Lifting her up, Thelma smiled and spoke in a distinctly ‘talking to a child’ voice, “Annie, this is Doctor Adam--he takes care of Mommy sometimes. Can you say hi?” Annie did the opposite, burying her face into Thelma’s chest. “Okay, baby.”
Even so, Adam waved, leaning down to be a little closer to Annie’s level. “It’s nice to meet you, Annie,” he said in his ‘’talking to a grown-up’ voice, just as the door to the waiting area opened and the medical assistant called Ronan’s name. Ronan got to his feet, taking a moment to make sure he was steady, and Adam gently touched his arm. “Want me to come with you?” Ronan shook his head--they’d told him at the front desk that there would be a tablet for him to use to communicate--and squeezed Adam’s hand before following the MA into the office.
The visit went as expected, meaning that Ronan had a camera snaked up his nose and down the back of his throat to see what was wrong--he did get to see his own vocal folds, which was the only interesting thing to happen in days--before getting sent home with a prescription for antibiotics and steroids. It would be a few days before he started feeling better, but it was something.
Ronan left the exam room, got a copy of his after-visit summary to show Adam, and went back out to the waiting room, expecting to find Adam reading the book he’d brought with him. Instead, he was reading a picture book to Annie, who was perched on his thigh. The car seat holding the baby sat on the floor, close enough for him to rock it gently by the handle. He looked up, smiling at Ronan. “Hey, honey.” At Ronan’s visibly questioning expression, he went on, “Thought this was easier than having them all in the exam room.” Annie twisted around, visibly impatient. “Hang on, kiddo.” Adam shifted her on his lap and reached into his front pocket, taking out his keys and tossing them to Ronan. “Shouldn’t be too much longer.” Tilting his head in question, Ronan held up the keys. “Figured you might be more comfortable in the car--you can at least lie down while you’re waiting on me.”
Ronan shook his head, taking a seat in the chair two away from Adam. Truly, he was tired and the Tylenol he’d taken earlier was starting to wear off--he could feel his fever rising, the room colder than it was before--but the scene in front of him was too precious to skip out on.
Ronan had seen Adam interact with kids on the few occasions that his ambulance was the one doing a transfer from the ER in Henrietta to Children’s, but that was always with a goal in mind--keeping them calm, distracting them from something painful, but this was something else. Right now, Adam was doing voices for the different characters in the book, and when he finished, he started right over when Annie asked. At one point, about two and a half times through the book (and that was only since Ronan arrived), the baby stirred, and without pausing his narration, Adam swiftly reached down, letting them grab onto his finger.
Ronan tried not to doze off as he watched Adam with the two children, but he really didn’t feel well and keeping his eyes open was getting to be too much work, so he positioned himself against the wall in a way that he hoped would keep him from toppling over once he finally fell asleep. He continued to listen, though, as Adam read the same book over and over, getting a little more animated each time. Everything slipped away as he finally gave in to sleep, arms huddled in his sleeves for warmth and comfort.
“Thank you so much for doing this.” Thelma’s voice was bright enough to startle Ronan from sleep; he inhaled too sharply and ended up coughing into the elbow of his sweatshirt.
“My pleasure. They’re delightful.” While Ronan blinked awake, squinting in the fluorescent lighting, he saw Adam lifting Annie off his lap. “Hopefully the next time I see you, you’ll be on the job.”
Thelma smiled, taking Annie’s hand. “I hope so, too. Good to see you--thank you again.”
“It was. Take care, Thelma.” Once Thelma and her kids left the waiting area, Adam crouched beside Ronan, putting a hand on his thigh. “Let’s go home, honey.”
Waving off Adam’s help, Ronan got to his feet, and the two of them went to the elevator; again, Ronan used the brief pause to lean against Adam, head against head as he struggled to keep his eyes open. Adam led him by the hand the rest of the way, and while it felt a little pathetic, it was nice to be cared for, to not have to navigate the various hospital exits and the parking garage by himself.
He was feeling a little more awake by the time they reached the car, although he still let Adam open and close the door for him like the polite gentleman that he was. Once they were both inside, Adam took a moment and smiled to himself, staring off at the windshield.
“She tells me about her kids every time she’s in the ER,” he explained, “but this is the first time I’ve actually seen them.” Shaking his head, he looked at Ronan, still smiling. “Annie’s adorable, isn’t she?”
Something clicked into place in Ronan’s fever-hazy brain, overriding everything else. “Adam, I think—” Just those three words were barely understandable--he cleared his throat and tried again, but Adam interrupted him.
“Ro, stop--you’re just gonna make this worse.”
Taking out his phone, Ronan started texting Adam as quickly as his fingers would allow. From the time he lost his voice until now, he’d been just typing something and showing the screen to Adam, but Ronan didn’t have the patience for that; instead, he just sent message after message, texts bouncing up to a satellite somewhere only to come down two feet from him.
Before you say anything this isn't because I have a fever
I’m not just being smushy and delirious
I mean this
Ok?
Ronan waited for Adam to look up from his phone. He seemed apprehensive at best, worried at worst. “Okay…”
Seeing you with those kids
They loved you and they hadn’t even MET you before
He paused before sending the next message, holding his breath.
I want to have a baby with you
A second after the message went through, Adam beamed, leaning over and kissing Ronan’s cheek as he finally exhaled. “You couldn’t have waited until you could talk to ask me?” Ronan shook his head, making a firm gesture pointing down--he’d needed to do this now. Sitting back, Adam put his hand in the same place he’d kissed Ronan, the touch cool on his fevered skin. “Yes, Ronan,” he said, still smiling, with a little sigh and disbelieving shake of his head, “I’ll have a baby with you.”
Turning his head just a little, Ronan kissed Adam’s palm. ‘Love you,’ he mouthed, then curled Adam’s hand into a fist so that he could kiss along his knuckles.
“Love you, too.” Adam freed up his hand, cradling the back of Ronan’s head and drawing him in to kiss his forehead. “Let’s fill your prescription and go home, and we’ll talk about this once you can actually talk.”
Physically incapable of delaying gratification, Ronan buckled his seatbelt and started typing a note on his phone of things to talk about, adoption and surrogacy and parental leave policies and which room would be the best for a nursery. He managed to get twelve items on the list before his phone slipped from his fingers and tumbled to the ground; too tired to pick it up, Ronan rested his head against the window, daydreams slipping into regular dreams as he fell asleep.