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Ted was dreaming, or at least he thought he was. Actually, was he? It was hard to tell, with him dipping in and out of consciousness. The sharp stabs of pain in his chest he had experienced mere minutes ago now felt more like dull aches.
While drifting around in his consciousness, he tried to put together memories of what happened in the last few days. His whole body felt sluggish, weighted. It was difficult to even formulate coherent thoughts with the way his brain felt like it was being crushed under a hydraulic press.
Let’s see, on Tuesday he pulled an all-nighter while scrambling to create a new prototype blueprint for the Bug because she was due for a makeover after the ungodly amount of abuse she had been subjected to. He fell asleep the following day midway through a call with Angie, nearly missing an important meeting that he was supposed to attend at Kord Industries if it weren’t for his alarm nearly blowing his eardrums out.
Later that same day, he was in the middle of installing some new devices in his lab while Booster sat around playing games on his phone. Ted had a bit of an issue with getting to the upper levels of his lab and so he asked Booster if he could carry him up to do something with the wires up there, but he refused, saying that he was too busy trying to complete the 600th level of Candy Crush.
Ted wondered why Booster was even there if he wasn’t going to do anything. He could’ve at least gotten Skeets to help out. Either way, he had decided on using the ladders to get himself up there on his own.
The last thing he remembered after that was losing his balance after something in his chest seized up while he was trying to open up one of the control manuals, and then everything flipped upside down. Midway through falling, he had lost consciousness.
Ted closed his eyes, having exhausted himself by thinking about rails regarding this situation. He’ll deal with this later when his brain doesn’t feel like it’s being flattened into a pancake.
—-
Ted opened his eyes and was immediately blinded by a white ceiling. There was a loud, incessant beeping coming from the heart monitor to his right, along with a small ache centered on his hand that hurt a little more whenever he tried moving his fingers. A glance down at his hand showed that there was an IV tube inserted there.
Great. He was in the hospital, again . With the number of times he’s been in one, he might as well start renting out a room for himself and move in.
Ted tried to get his body to sit up, and then he realized that wow , they must’ve given him some heavy drugs because his whole body feels like it’s been mummified. He heaved out a heavy sigh, relaxing his body and melting back into the mattress.
“Teddy? Oh shit, you’re awake!” The loudness of Booster’s voice made him flinch, along with kickstarting the post-sleep irritation.
“Boos, would it kill you to ever use your library voice? Do you even have one? You’re making my ears wanna bleed, dude.” Ted grumbled with no substantial amount of vitriol.
“Sorry man, just— fuck! I thought you were gonna die when you fell off and thank god I managed to catch you in time before you hit the floor.” Booster squawked. He looked like he hadn’t caught a wink of sleep in days because Christ those eyebags were not looking so good.
“I’m not gonna die from falling six feet, Booster, you know better than that. Anyway, uh, what happened?” Ted asked.
“Skeets did a quick scan over your vitals and you were undergoing a pretty severe heart attack. Because you were unconscious I had to give you CPR while emergency was being called over. They had to defib you n’ everything after you got put on the stretcher and once we got here you were fed a whole cesspool of meds.”
“Damn, that bad huh?” Ted said with nonchalance.
“Yeah... Fuck, I should’ve helped you when you asked me, sorry about that. How do you feel though? Does anything hurt?” Booster asked. Midway through the conversation, Booster had somehow slipped his hand under his. He gave the calloused palms of Ted’s hand a gentle squeeze before holding it up.
“It doesn’t hurt anymore, but it kind of feels like I got hit by a car but without the broken bones,” Ted answered.
“That’s probably because of the drugs, Teddy.”
“Probably,” Ted huffed out a small chuckle. “Anyway, did the doctors say anything?”
Booster’s worried face worsened into one of dread at the mention of that, but he stayed silent.
“Oh. Bad news, huh?” Ted spoke softly.
“…Yeah. Bad news. Um— they said that you're probably gonna have to schedule for some kind of heart surgery? They said somethin’ about your heart condition n’ that if nothings done about it in its current state, there’s the possibility… of… of heart failure .” Booster explained, his words coming to a stuttering, anxious stop once the subject of Ted’s heart potentially failing was brought up.
Oh. Surgery. Guess he had it coming since Ted wasn’t exactly good at taking care of himself. He tried to force himself to cut back on the work fervor, but sometimes he just couldn’t help it once he got particularly hyper-fixated on certain tasks. The most he’s done to accommodate his heart condition was hanging up the suit, but even then he’d sometimes push himself to help out whenever things were getting especially bad with the JLI, and he thought that they might need an extra hand.
Sometimes it got to the point where Booster of all people would scream at him about stressing his body out. He would threaten to lock Ted out of his labs which was honestly kind of stupid considering Ted could easily figure out a way around it if he was dedicated enough. Then he would camp out at Ted’s apartment for a few days to hound and nag at him like his ol’ granny used to do, or to power-wash the entire place whenever Ted was too busy to clean the messes he let buildup himself.
It was like the old days again, like the time when he phoned up Booster and temporarily moved in with him after screaming at the JLI for how they’ve been jerking him around too much. He was even worse then, flinging his underwear on the chandelier, and leaving dirty dishes all over the floor for Booster to begrudgingly put away.
Ted let out a small chuckle, finding himself amused by the domesticity between him and Booster. He wouldn’t give that up for anything.
“What’s so funny, Teddy? This is kind of serious, man.” Booster said with a serious tone.
“Sorry, Boos. It’s just— I don’t know, I was just thinking about how sometimes it feels like I’m reliving the old days again.” Ted apologized.
“The old days , where you gave Oscar Madison a run for his money? Yeah, it makes sense.” The corners of Booster’s lips curved up into a small, sheepish smirk.
Ted guffawed at the oddly accurate comparison.
“Was it that bad?” Ted asked, minorly aware of his best friend’s other hand reaching out to wrap over his own.
“ Yes Teddy, it was that bad. The electricity bills kept increasing every month because of how many times you left the lights on overnight.”
“Sorry about that,” Ted chuckled. “You know how I get when I’m upset at something.”
Booster responded with an amused snort before the room went silent. They stared at each other awkwardly for a few minutes before Booster opened his mouth again.
“Hey, Teddy.” Booster murmured as scooted himself a little closer to the bed.
“Hmm?”
“Can… Is it okay if I move in with you? I’m just— just worried sick whenever I think about what you’re doing all holed up by yourself there and I just want to be there in case something like this happens again because I don’t think I can live with myself if your heart gives up and I’m not there in time and–“
“Okay,” Ted said, interrupting Booster’s nervous rambling. Booster talked a lot, but he rarely ever got to the point where he would start word-vomiting run-on sentences.
“Wait- just like that? Just an ‘okay’?” Booster’s eyes were blown wide in disbelief.
“Yes Boos, just like that. You rarely ever stay over in your own place anymore anyway, so might as well hunker down with me for good, yeah?” Ted responded casually as he gave Booster’s hand a small squeeze of reassurance.
Ted couldn’t tell if the look on Booster’s face meant he was going to cry from happiness or from how much he hated the idea of sharing a space with his best friend.
“I– fuck, yeah, you’re right,” Booster took a deep breath. “Okay. Okay . We’ll talk more about this when you’re discharged. This isn’t the kind of conversation we should have when there’s nurses and doctors spying on you every few minutes.”
“Sure, Boos.”
The hospital room went silent once more. Compared to the awkward silence from earlier, this oddly felt more… content. Maybe it was because of the fond look in Booster’s eyes, or maybe it was because he was now massaging the palm of Ted’s palm with his fingers.
“…Alright. It’s time for me to go now, 'cause I gotta go talk to Bea about what happened to you, or else she’ll threaten to burn off my pubes. I think you’ll be let outta here in a day or two once the doctors think you’re okay.” Booster gently placed Ted’s hand onto the hospital bed before he stood up.
He then bent down, hovering over Ted as he brought his hand up to brush his best friend’s soft, brown curls to the side. Booster leaned down, kissing Ted tenderly on the forehead.
“Take care, Teddy. I’ll be back in a few hours.” Booster’s gaze lingered on Ted even as he detached himself from him and made his way toward the room exit. Once he was left alone, a smile crept up on his face as laid there.
Oh, they were so gonna have a talk beyond just moving in once he was discharged from the hospital.