Tell me are the people strange?

Do they change?

Gamble Everything for Love, Ben Lee (ending song on the Director Pt1)

Changing the Dynamic

The hacking cough hadn't started until the night before, but it had kept him up all night long. It made focusing on what he needed to focus on nearly impossible. The way his head felt full of cotton and his nose just wouldn't stop, leaving him alternating between sneezing and coughing, put him behind the schedule he'd predicted for Cooper. At least all the footwork was done. Anything else could be researched from the tiny little apartment he had rented out when he'd finally admitted to himself that he wasn't going anywhere and that he all but worked as a contractor for the FBI. Not officially, of course, but this wasn't the first job Cooper had asked him to look into, but if he didn't pull himself together and get it done, it might be the last.

A sneeze nearly toppled him out of his chair and Jacob Phelps groaned loudly as he fell forward, his forehead thumping against the desk in front of him and the pressure deep in his ears immediately increased, making him dizzy even though he should have been fairly stable where he was. He had to pull himself together and get this done or he wouldn't have all the information by the time Cooper dropped by to get it.

Jacob jumped up suddenly at the sound of a loud knock at his front door, the room spinning dangerously as his equilibrium was thrown and he stumbled towards it, nearly finding himself with his nose pressed to the carpet. Somehow he made it though, and braced himself against the wall for a moment as he caught his breath, refusing to give into another coughing fit.

The second knock made him jump again and he glared at it, looking out the hole to see a face he wouldn't have expected. "Why do you know where I live?" he grumbled raspily as he tugged the door open.

Donald Ressler had a scowl fixed on his face. "Cooper said you had some intel for us this evening."

"Yeah, this evening, not this afternoon," Jacob snapped, turning back around and doing his best not to sway noticeably. How was he supposed to get anything done if Ressler decided to show up and interrupt him?

"It's nearly seven," the fed answered, causing Jacob to turn to look at the clock, the blurry numbers finally coming into focus as he squinted at them and he loosed a breath. When had that happened?

Ressler cleared his throat. "You okay?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Well you look like hell," the older man said bluntly, quirking an eyebrow.

"I'm fine, just… under the weather a little," Jacob answered as he sniffed, finally spotting his glasses on the counter. That's where he'd left them. The contacts had proven unbearable as soon as his eyes had started drying out. He set them back on his nose and shuffled back over to the computer.

"You look more than a little under the weather."

"What are you, my doctor?"

"You've got one of those?"

"No."

Ressler snorted and it might have been something like a laugh if the Boy Scout knew how to. Jacob tried to focus on the screen that was blurring dangerously even with the lenses correcting his vision. It shifted and it felt a little bit like the world was moving beneath him, threatening to topple him off the chair. The last thing he wanted was for Liz's partner to see him sick as a dog. Not that he was sick. Nope. This was just an allergy attack. That's it. He'd be fine as soon as he had some sleep, and he could do that as soon as he was done.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, steadying him, and he hadn't realized how close to toppling over he'd come. "You're burning up," Ressler murmured with a frown. "How sick are you?"

"'m not," Jacob argued. "Listen, I just need maybe an hour-"

"The world's not going to end if we don't get this in first thing in the morning. Trust me, we're working on half a dozen different threads in this case. Yours important, but not that important. Are you taking anything?"

"It makes my head fuzzy."

"Yeah, because it's not right now."

Jacob looked up from his place in his computer chair, doing his best to glare at Ressler, but the man seemed half amused and half… worried? Surely not. They had managed to get to a point that they weren't ready to shoot each other, but that hardly made him friends. Anyway, Jacob didn't have friends. He wasn't entirely sure he knew how to make real ones.

Ressler moved after a moment and Jacob heard him rummaging through his medicine cabinet. "Do you just not take anything ever?"

He opened his mouth to respond, but only a cough came out and by the end of the fit he was doubled over in the chair, holding on to the edge of the desk for support. He felt a hand straighten him out again and ease him to his feet. He wasn't sure exactly where they were going until he blinked and saw his bed come slowly into focus. "You good?" Ressler asked and he managed a nod before the shorter man helped ease him into the bed.

Jacob curled up on his side, shivering and coughing, and felt the covers come up over him. "If I tell you you should probably see a doctor-"

"I hate doctors," he managed.

"Yeah, of course you do." He heard a sigh and some movement, but he didn't dare shift to see what was happening. He needed to find a way to get up and to get back to tying the last pieces of the puzzle he'd promised to get Cooper together before he slept, but he just couldn't manage it. It was like his entire body was in full rebellion against him.

He heard Ressler grumbling from somewhere outside the room and finally he came back in and stuck a thermometer in his mouth that he wasn't even sure he remembered buying, threatening him if he spit it back out before the timer beeped off. He held it there until it made an obnoxious sound, and it was pulled away from him. "Damn," Ressler breathed and he felt his glasses leave his nose. He blinked his eyes back open, finding a blurry figure putting them on the nightstand. "Get some sleep."

Jacob tried to tell him that he had a job to do and that he'd sleep when it was finished, but he took one breath in and the cough took over. When he was done, he curled into his pillow and didn't have the energy to argue as he finally drifted off to sleep.

Ressler wasn't sure what he had expected in the way of living arrangements when Cooper had asked him to drop by Tom Keen's - no, he reminded himself, the man's real name was Jacob Phelps - apartment and pick up what he had of the intel they needed for the case. He hadn't expected the little one bedroom apartment that actually looked lived in. There was food in the kitchen, dishes stacked in the sink with the little dial on the washer moved over to clean, and books on the table next to the small couch. There wasn't a lot, but it certainly looked like Jacob planned to stay. He'd said he would, but Ressler distrusted most everything that came out of the man's mouth as a rule.

Finding him sick had certainly been a surprise, but one that he found that he couldn't just ignore. He'd gotten him into bed and had run down the street to the corner store to buy up what he did not have in his medicine cabinets, which was just about everything.

He had gotten Jacob roused just enough to take the pills - after an argument he only understood every third or so word of because of how raspy his speech was after all the coughing - before he flopped back down into the bed and was out again. It was strange seeing him like that. He'd known the man as the dorky, bespeckled husband of his partner that had taught fourth grade, as the man that had ripped Liz's life apart, and then finally as a man that had been willing to give up everything to help her get that life back. Now he just looked miserable, curled up under thin blankets and shivering like crazy, coughing and tossing and turning. Ressler hadn't seen him in a couple of weeks and Liz didn't make a habit of talking about him unless asked. He wasn't sure if that was because the two didn't see each other often or she felt she would be judged for seeing him too much. It really could have been either. She wasn't there that night, though, and Ressler thought that he had heard she and Samar talk about a much-needed girl's night out.

Jacob hadn't roused again after Ressler had all but forced the pills down his throat and the FBI agent had meant to head home. He didn't, though, and somehow found himself on a couch that wasn't overly comfortable, being woken every twenty minutes or so to the sounds of coughing from the other room.

By the time the sun rose, he didn't even want to know if he'd had a consecutive hour's sleep. He felt draggy and somewhat thick-headed himself, but managed to haul himself off the couch and to the kitchen to search cabinets and find something he could easily put together. He was halfway through heating up the oatmeal in the microwave when he heard shuffling from the room and a moment later Jacob came trudging out. He stopped halfway to the kitchen, blinked hard, squinted as if he remembered that he'd walked out without his glasses, and frowned. "What the hell are you still doing here?" he demanded.

"Making sure you didn't die in your sleep," Ressler answered evenly.

Jacob stared at him for a long moment, as if he were trying to get a read on him, but couldn't quite get his brain to work the way it should. Finally he offered a shrug. "Please tell me you've put coffee on already."

"I couldn't find it."

"That's because you didn't look," the younger man groused, shuffling past him and to a cabinet. He pulled a plastic box out with coffee grounds in it and started shoveling it into the machine.

When the oatmeal was done Ressler handed it over and started on a second bowl. Jacob looked at the offered food like it might bite him. "Why?"

"Why what?"

He crunched his nose up in a way that made him look twelve for half a moment and then turned his gaze back on him. "Wasn't that yours?"

"And then you woke up. Looking at these dishes, you haven't actually eaten anything in… days."

Jacob followed his gaze and frowned. "I haven't felt well."

"No kidding. Eat the damn oatmeal."

He watched the dark haired man take the offered food and move over to the table to sit and eat it. The second bowl finished up and he took it out, moving to take a seat as well as the coffee finished brewing. The two men sat in silence with only the occasional half-swallowed cough to interrupt it. Ressler stood once he'd finished, went into the bathroom and got the pills he'd forced down his partner's ex-husband's throat the night before, and set them on the table. "I have things that need to get done today. Take one of these now, one at dinner. You need to eat with it. Get some rest." He didn't wait for Jacob to respond, but put the bowl in the sink and left him to it.

When he came back, it was only to check to see if he'd finished his project. Not that he could have called or anything. Her certainly wasn't going back to his apartment to check on him.

Jacob looked a little better that afternoon and he handed Ressler the file almost immediately as he entered. "Should be everything," he rasped.

Ressler nodded, took it, and then watched the other man turn and shuffle immediately back to bed, crawling under the covers and pulling them nearly fully over him. Ressler shook his head. Well, at least he wasn't dead. "You need anything?"

The younger man shook his head and curled up even deeper into his space he had made for himself.

Ressler reached over, pressing the back of his hand to his forehead, and thought his fever had dropped at least a little. "Hey, there's some soup that Liz said you liked when you're sick. It's on the counter. She may drop by this evening to check on you. Stupid question, but you have my cell number, right? Will you call if you need anything?"

He heard a sound that might have been an affirmative and he shook his head. "You're more trouble than you're worth," he murmured, but his tone didn't quite match the words. He'd seen the man for so long as he'd wanted to be seen. The personas that he projected were defenses, but the more time he spent around his partner's ex-husband, the more he'd come to find that he was surprisingly reliable and strangely loyal when he chose to be. They were characteristics he would have respected in any other man, so why not Jacob Phelps?

He paused, risking one last look back. Despite everything that had happened, it looked like somehow the respect was already there. He hated to admit it, but Jacob was growing on him.

"Thanks."

He barely heard the word, but as Ressler stepped closer he found a pair of blurry blue eyes on him from where he was buried beneath everything. Liz's time on the run and the fight against the Cabal had changed the dynamic of their team and those that surrounded it so much, but he had never expected this. It might not be official yet, but the former operative was working his way closer and closer to a place on their team. Given time, Ressler thought Cooper might even make a formal offer, and wouldn't that be strange?

"For what?" he asked after a moment.

Jacob offered what might have been an intimidating glare any other time and Ressler smirked. "You're welcome."

End.

Notes: So, it was very odd getting out of my Everything Back to You-styled Tessler headspace to write this, but the idea struck and after Thursday's episode I really wanted to a bit of canon-based Tessler. I'm sure there will be more, and if there are, I may actually change this into a collection of canon-based Tessler one-shots. Would anyone be interested in that?