Work Text:
Cassian hasn't heard from Driver all day.
It's odd. He usually gets texts from the other man intermittently throughout the day even when there's no actual Vilzone business to be had. Not only that but Driver makes a point of either greeting or saying goodbye to Cassian in person when he arrives or leaves, but as Cassian finishes up for the day, he's nowhere to be found.
He could just leave. He should just leave, really. He needs to cook dinner and study and the days are steadily growing shorter as they leave summer behind.
Instead Cassian finds himself walking up the emergency stairwell of Driver’s building towards the floor the other man has commandeered entirely for himself. The building is technically Cassian’s now, but he only needs the basement training room, so he hasn’t changed anything.
It’s strangely quiet as Cassian elbows open the door to Driver’s floor. Crow is usually making a fuss in the kitchen and even in her absence he can usually hear the crackling audio of Driver’s various monitors overlapping with one another.
Is he even here? Cassian wonders as he makes his way towards the door of Driver’s work room. He’s never thought about it since Driver always seems to be present, but his civilian identity hasn’t been compromised in the least. He isn’t forced to live within the Vilzone, strange as it is to imagine him as anyone other than Driver.
“Driver?” He calls, the steel door handle cold under his fingers as he lets himself inside—he’s never knocked before and Driver has never told him to.
He squints, surprised by how dark it is inside. The room is always kept rather dim, with the monitors lining the wall providing the bulk of the room's light, but only one monitor seems to be on right now.
“Driver, are you in?” He raises his voice and is startled by the sound of a low groan from the floor beneath Driver’s desk.
“Cassian?” A familiar voice rasps out. Driver’s voice, but Cassian has never heard his voice thick with sleep or pain. Something cold snakes its way down the knobs of his spine as he steps forward and lowers himself to his knees.
No wonder Cassian hadn’t seen him when he entered; even this close, it’s hard to see Driver as his eyes adjust to the dark. The other man lay curled on his side beneath his desk, his jacket off and being used to soften the place where his head lay, his dark jumpsuit making him blend in with the shadows.
More than that, his goggles are off to the side, the upper half of his face covered with a facecloth that had probably been damp some hours ago.
“Are you sick?” Cassian asks, the chill in him settling. Of course nobody from outside had made their way in; even if they had, they surely would not have been able to lay Driver of all men low.
And yet, even though Driver has no injuries, there’s something unnerving about seeing him as he is now: vulnerable and weak, at least on the surface.
“No,” Driver answers, much quieter than Cassian has ever heard him speak. “It’s a migraine.”
“A headache…?” Cassian lowers his own voice, wincing as he recalls how he had nearly shouted Driver’s name moments ago. He’s had headaches, but he’s never had or seen one capable of bringing someone to this state.
“A migraine is different from a normal headache,” Moros says at his side, his own voice quiet despite the fact Driver can’t hear him. “Aside from debilitating levels of pain, they can cause nausea and affect your vision.”
Okay. Cassian hadn’t known that. Before he can think of anything to say, Driver shifts under the desk.
“It’s a chronic issue,” he says, voice less raspy but still barely audible. “It happens sometimes. I should have warned you.”
“I’d only need to be told if it was going to get in the way of a job,” Cassian has to remind himself to keep his own voice quiet as he speaks. “And it hasn’t so far. You don’t…” he doesn’t know how to say Driver doesn’t owe him anything, any personal information whatsoever, without it sounding like he cares. Ugh.
“I meant as a friend, not as my boss,” Driver says. He has no such qualms about implying that their relationship is anything other than business.
“I’m surprised Crow isn’t here to take care of you,” Cassian says instead of acknowledging, ew, they’re friends. Even though it’s an undeniable fact at this point.
Moros laughs at him.
“She was,” the smile in Driver’s voice makes it to his face, though it isn’t as bright as usual. “But her worry is…loud, even when she’s trying to be quiet, so.”
“So you decided to sleep on the floor.”
Driver winces. Whether because of the pain or the slight judgment in Cassian’s voice, he can’t be sure, but a pang of something like guilt strikes Cassian anyway.
“I shut everything down when the aura hit but the pain came too fast,” he mutters. Cassian mouths aura? at Moros, confident that Driver won’t see it through the cloth.
“Some people experience altered vision shortly before a migraine begins,” Moros tells him. “Spots of light and such things. They call it an aura. The pain probably kicked in before he could make it to his room, so he decided to lay down instead of risk falling and cracking his head open.”
Cassian cringes, shaking away the visions of Driver alone in his work room, collapsing and hitting the edge of a table and being left to lay in a pool of his own blood.
“Do you want to go to your bed now?” Cassian asks. He’s never been in Driver’s room but the door is a scant ten feet away; he can help the man there, no problem, but the thought of doing so is strange. Driver has never needed his help before, not like this.
“You’d have to carry me,” Driver says after a pause. It isn’t a no. If it were Cassian, he would resist such help, especially being picked up while in such an exposed and weak state. Is it Driver’s confidence in himself, even through his pain, that allows him to be vulnerable before Cassian?
Or maybe he just trusts you.
Cassian buries the thought alongside the fact the last friend who trusted him while weak had been brutally murdered in front of him and he had then been framed for the act.
“If I can carry Mujin I can carry you,” he says instead of vocalizing any of that. Driver’s sigh sounds almost like a laugh.
“Alright,” he relents, shifting out from under the desk. Cassian doesn’t offer his help; if Driver wants it, he’ll ask for it. He waits patiently while Driver slowly sits up, his jacket and goggles tucked under his arm, one hand keeping his facecloth over his eyes.
“Ready?” Cassian asks when Driver doesn’t move for a long moment. Driver nods, then grimaces, jaw clenching with pain.
Cassian is careful as he eases Driver into his arms, letting Driver lean into his chest to keep his head stable as Cassian gets his other arm behind the man’s knees and begins to stand.
“Mujin was heavier than you,” Cassian notes in an amused whisper, prompting a low groan of annoyance from Driver.
“You can’t compare me to them, man. I’m just a mechanic.”
Cassian’s shoulders shake a little as he tries not to laugh. Just a mechanic, he says…
Though it’s true that Mujin has trained himself since childhood. His body is that of a gymnast, all corded muscle and callouses from his swords. Driver isn’t physically weak but Cassian knows who he would bet on if there was an arm wrestling competition.
“Watch the floor,” Driver mumbles when Cassian nudges open his door. It’s almost pitch dark but soft pink lights spill out from several slowly rotating crow, hawk and duck shaped devices hanging from the ceiling.
“Do I want to ask about the lights?” He whispers as he cautiously feels around with each step he takes. Driver has an actually absurd amount of stuff laying around, boxes of wires and electronics and papers and books. Cassian nearly smashes his foot into a guitar amp.
“I was bored,” Driver says, his voice a bit muffled. His face is pressed to Cassian’s clavicle. They make it to the bed without any tripping, Cassian lowering Driver down to the surface slowly so as not to jostle his head.
Driver’s sigh of relief as he sinks into the bedding is so heavy that Cassian feels relieved too.
“Do you need another cold compress or anything?” He asks awkwardly. He’s not used to taking care of other people like this, not anymore; at the orphanage he used to help with the younger kids, but that was so long ago.
“Warm, not cold. Please.” Driver mumbles. “And water?”
“And water. Okay.” Cassian leaves the room as carefully as he’d entered, Moros still unusually quiet at his side.
Cassian points it out under his breath as he heads towards the kitchen.
“You’re weirdly quiet,” is what he mutters.
“I’m enjoying the rare sight of seeing you worried about someone,” Moros says, sounding far too amused.
“I’m not fucking worried,” he hisses between his teeth. Driver would have been fine; this is a chronic issue, apparently, which means it’s something he’s always prepared for. So what if he was on the floor. Driver has been living with this for longer than he’s known Cassian.
It’s nothing worth worrying about.
Moros gives a disbelieving hum but doesn’t press.
Cassian hasn’t made much use of Driver’s kitchen; it’s typically dominated by Crow and he’s had no reason to really slip in for anything except a bottle of water in the past. Now, he takes stock of the stack of soft looking face cloths that are the same pink as Driver’s goggles that are placed in reach of the sink, right next to several—also pink—reusable heating pads that are shaped like sleep masks.
He would have thought they were sleep masks at a glance if he hadn’t seen Driver in the throes of his migraine. Cassian has dealt with joint pain and lingering aches from injuries in the past, even if not in this body; he knows how to prepare them.
He microwaves one of the heating pads while getting water from the fridge and tries not to wonder how often this happens to Driver as he does.
When Cassian makes it back to Driver’s room, he’s surprised to see Driver sitting up against his pillows instead of laying down, one hand holding up the cloth over his face. He turns to the doorway as Cassian enters.
“I got water and I heated one of those sleep masks,” Cassian says, remembering to lower his voice as he approaches.
“Hand me the water first?” Driver asks as he holds out a hand. As Cassian passes the plastic bottle over, he realizes Driver has taken off his gloves.
He stares as Driver balances the bottle between his knees while holding the cloth to his face and using his free left hand to pop open a blister pack of what are probably painkillers. Driver is fully clothed—his jumpsuit is thick, the sleeves long, and yet without his jacket and gloves Cassian feels as if he’s seeing more of the man than he should.
Moros gives him an odd look and it makes Cassian drop his gaze from where he’d been staring at Driver’s hands—the nails filed down and painted with chipped pinks and purples, an electrical burn spreading down from the edge of his thumb to his wrist.
After the pill is swallowed back with a generous amount of water, Driver blindly reaches out to put the bottle on the table by his bed and nearly misses, so Cassian takes it from his hand and replaces it with the heated sleep mask.
“Ohhh, that’s warm,” Driver sighs with pleasure at the feeling of it in his hand. Cassian looks away entirely, eyes closing as Driver starts to lower the cloth over his face despite the fact Driver hadn’t told him it was necessary.
“You can look,” Driver says a moment later, sounding amused. He’s slumping back into the pillows, mask in place.
There are things Cassian wants to ask. How much pain are you in? How often does this happen? Do you always deal with it alone, or does Red Eye help you in Crow’s absence?
“Did you need anything else?” Cassian asks, because everything else isn’t any of his business.
“No, no. You did plenty,” Driver waves a hand and almost smacks it into the headboard as he sinks further down into the bedding. “Don’t let me keep you from your studies.”
Cassian hesitates. Driver can’t see him—surely, right?—but he gives Cassian an easy smile, as if to relax him.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Cassian. Okay?”
“Okay,” Cassian agrees. There’s nothing else he can do here, so he turns and leaves as carefully as he’d entered.
“And Cassian?” Driver calls out as he’s close to the door, despite the strain it must cause him to be raising his voice. Cassian freezes.
“What now?” He asks.
“Thanks.” Cassian doesn’t need to be looking to know Driver is still smiling. He can hear it in his voice. Embarrassed, Cassian leaves without another word.
Moros laughs at him. He laughs again when he peers over Cassian’s shoulder at the computer hours later and sees several tabs about migraine treatment, too.