Title: Wires and Pliers Approach

Disclaimers: Joe Macmillan doesn't belong to me. Sigh. Neither do the other characters but do I really care about those?

Genre: H/C. Traditional SICKFIC where the plot suffers for the sake of the genre. Grounded heavily in my stomach fetish.

Rating: M

Summary: Having had to give up on their computer's uniqueness and having been crushed by Cameron's words, Joe becomes miserable. Gordon sympathises.

Set: Middle of season finale, after Joe tells Gordon to 'ship it' (the Giant). AU after that.

Pairing: Eventual Joe/Cameron

Warning: Unless you like pure, unadulterated hurt/comfort for the sake of it, it's unlikely you will understand the point to this fic.

Chapter 1: Red Red Wine

Gordon Clark wasn't used to his position as co-chief company executive yet, but he was getting used to it fast. He was omitting getting clearance from Joe on a lot less issues already and after Joe's surprise giving up on further software development of the Giant, the engineer was pretty assertive he should deal with most of the remaining arising concerns by himself. He did forget to ask Joe however whether his partner wanted to employ new software developers right away for maybe their next project and how many, so he sauntered towards the other executive's office casually, like he always would these days. They had become very relaxed with each other lately, bordering what you would call friends and they certainly did not need formal arrangements to step into each other's office if they wanted to talk about something.

This time however, Gordon was stopped by Debbie, Joe's secretary, or Executive Assistant as they called it, before he could enter the closed door of the corner office his associate occupied. "I'm sorry Gordon, could you just leave him a bit. I think he's sleeping."

"Sleeping?!" The system builder was appalled. "He arrives after half past eleven and he simply goes to sleep two hours later?" Gordon asked dumbfounded, "how does that work?"

"Haven't you seen him when he got here?" Debbie spoke caringly, "he didn't look well at all and he was rather quiet too. I got him a chicken wrap, one of his usual preferences for lunch, but he made me take it out cause he said the smell was making him feel sick. I suggested he should lie down on the couch for a bit cause he looked very pale. I thought he would just wave me off but he actually just got over there and laid down. When I checked back in, it looked like he fell asleep." She frowned apologetically.

"Oh, ok. He must be ill then," Gordon concluded, "must be why he was late." Now that the woman brought it to his attention, he did remember being aware at some level that Joe was behaving fairly off in his office, subdued, slow, slouching and tired. He looked like he was going to fall over any minute.

"That's what I was assuming." Debbie concurred. "Okay, well, I'll come back later," the engineer settled.

It wasn't with the intention of speaking to Joe that he happened to be in that direction again about half an hour later, he was simply going past on the way back from the conference room where he allocated workloads to his subordinates , to do with arranging shipping of their new product. But since he was going past, Gordon called over to the secretary casually, "how is he?"

"He's up," Debbie confirmed, "I had to wake him up cause Mr. Cardiff had been phoning in constantly and I couldn't come up with any more excuses why he couldn't talk to Joe. He somehow got wind of our people disappearing and wanted assurances it won't affect projected figures. If he didn't actually own the company, one would think he wanted us to fail." The PA said apologetically. "Joe's just finished with him, you can go in," she encouraged.

Deviating from his original course, Gordon stepped into the spacious room to find the blinds half drawn and Joe still on the couch with the telephone on the floor next to him rather than by the desk. "Debbie says you're not feeling well?"

Joe acknowledged him with an affirmative "mmmm," but did not move or open his eyes. He wasn't feeling well, that was true and Gordon didn't have to know it was cause he didn't sleep one minute last night because of how upset he was by what Cameron had said or that he drank too much Grappa and Absinthe without eating anything to forget it, but it didn't work. He had made sure he had showered, used cologne and frequent bad breath lozenges not to smell of alcohol and he wanted to keep that appearance up if at all possible, depending on whether his stomach contents would cooperate staying where they were.

"Cardiff being difficult?" Gordon queried sympathetically.

"Mmmm," Joe granted him with the same answer, not in the mood to talk.

"Look, Joe," the shorter man regarded him with concern and consideration, "if you're feeling that bad, why don't you go home? And why did you even come in?"

"I thought I could function." He did at one point. He resigned to go through the motions, put the Giant to the market even though it was a poor reflection of what he would've liked his first computer to be. He thought he could ignore the smarting in his ribcage Cameron's words caused and leave it behind him. But it was sitting on his chest like a gigantic weight that crushed him and numbed his senses and will at the same time.

"Can you make it home?" Gordon queried, "or should I ask Debbie to take you?" He proposed.

"Can I just lie here for a while?" Joe solicited, "I feel quite dizzy right now." Everything felt all jumbled and crowded in his head. He couldn't think clearly, his thoughts always came full circle and arrived at him being a failure, just like Cameron reminded him.

"I'll let you rest then," the engineer turned.

"Is there anything you wanted? When you came in." The sales executive bade.

"Ah, no, it can wait till you feel better," Gordon pulled the door closed behind him, "Debbie. I think you should get him some water. And will you check on him every so often? I don't like his colour."

"Of course I would," the secretary offered, "I was worried too."

It was an article about building the Circuit Cellar Term-Mite ST Smart Terminal from a recent issue of Byte magazine that took Gordon's attention for the next hours as constructing a more intelligent video terminal had been something the engineer pondered. Thus he barely noticed when the few people who did come in to work that day had started filing out to get home at dinnertime, not till Debbie came knocking on his open door to attract his attention. "Hey. Sorry Gordon, I wouldn't mind going now if you don't mind cause I need to walk the dog but I don't know if I should leave Joe on his own. I asked if he wanted me to take him to a doctor but he's refusing. He says he just wants to sleep."

"Did he say what was wrong?" Gordon took interest.

"Not really, but he asked me for a hot compress for his belly so it's probably his stomach."

"Okay Debbie, no worries, I'll make sure he gets home," the bearded man promised, "just go."

"Thank you Gordon," the office assistant said gratefully.

Tbc