"Ohhhhhhhh… Ah…! Agh!" Peepers groaned almost silently as he woke up with the most uncomfortable feeling coursing through his body, his eye glistened all over with sweat as he was filled with heat all over, his body ached to the point where even moving slightly invited pain, and he panted as he struggled to intake air in his lungs. Why? Why did he have to be so sick? "Ugh! No! Damnit! Not like this!"
With as much strength as he could muster in his tiny body, he pushed the covers on his bed off of him as much as he could, letting out slight groans with every move he made. When they could only go down to his knees, he could only kick the remainder off of him, doing his best to minimise his movements until his body, in sleepwear, was completely uncovered.
It wasn't enough, though. He still felt unbearable hot. Feeling the heat in his stomach bubble up made him want to puke, making his breathing harder than it already was. He lifted his top to expose his stomach, hoping that the air of the room would be of some aid to him. As freeing his stomach did help cool the top half of his body down, he unfortunately got too cold and moved his shirt back down. He groaned loudly as the heat returned to his stomach as quickly as it disappeared. He couldn't accept it, so much pain and discomfort no matter what he did. With breathing to be a problem too, tears almost formed in his eye as he realised that he couldn't do something so simple and necessary without feeling pain.
A loud bang from across the room startled him. He forced himself up to see his boss, Hater, with his hand still on the door he forced open, looking at his commander with a very vexed look on his face.
"Peepers!" He bellowed. "What are you doing in here when I was giving my planet conquering speech!? Are you trying to make me look bad!?"
Oh good. Stress. Peepers commented to himself mentally. At that moment, he felt something in his stomach rising up. Oh Grop, no! He forced himself off of his bed, landing hard on his stomach as he crawled over to the wastebasket over 50 centimetres to the right of his bed. No, no, no, please no! He knew what was going to happen and wasn't looking forward to it as he forced his eye into the wastebasket, filled with crumpled up papers of Peepers previous plans he wasn't satisfied with, and with a loud unsettling noise he released everything his stomach had, coating the inside with a sickly, sour smelling, yellow liquid. Not eating anything since he woke up, it was very worrisome as he filled the wastebasket with pure bile. The feeling of his stomach clenching and the slight tingle of his throat burning as the stomach acid passed made this all the more painful.
"No… No, please, no mo-" Peepers begged to himself to stop, but his body wouldn't let him. His retching became louder as his body tried to force out more than he could stomach; only mere drops were left. He retched loudly at least two more times before his body gave up, already milked dry of liquid in his body.
Hater watched with disgust as Peepers made those horrible noises followed by the sound of the basket being filled violently. The skeleton lord squinted and watched, completely unsure of what to do or what was happening. When the sounds ceased, his commander pulled himself out of the wastebasket, his eye didn't look so good and there was a tiny splash of the green-yellow liquid on the bottom half of the eye. Peepers noticed this and wiped it off with the back of his left arm.
"Medic…" Peepers begged in a hoarse voice. "Need… Medic- Oh Grop." Somehow, the room started spinning on its own and Peepers struggled to focus only to feel his eye strain from trying. He clamped his eye shut and tried to force himself to ward away the spinning sensations only to feel his own body struggle to balance on all fours. "Oh… My eye…"
Hater watched as Peepers struggled. What was going on? His commander was panting, sweating, and struggling to do the simplest things. Why couldn't he walk? As a reanimated skeleton the concept of illness is entirely new to him. He watched Peepers open his eye for a moment before shutting them tightly again, the watchdog was looking for his bed and did all he could to climb back on.
Peepers opened his eye again and fought against all aching and discomfort to search for his communication on the nightstand beside his bed. It stood upright, nestled inside a dock that charged it every night. Reaching for his communicator, separating it from his charger, he pushed a button before sending out his request.
"Commander… Peepers… Requesting… Medic…" Exhausted, Peepers dropped the communicator somewhere on the bed and only hoped that his message was heard and would receive medical attention soon. His body fell with the communicator, sprawled all over the bed with his eye covered by the mattress.
With a "brow" quirked, Hater walked over to the, presumably, unconscious body of his commander. He noticed the little watchdog didn't look too well; he looked less healthy than he normally was. Peepers' chest puffed in an unfamiliar rhythm and his body was covered in sweat and his pajamas had dark spots, drenched in the liquid. He placed a hand on the commander for a split second before he moved his hand back.
Is he supposed to be so hot!? Touching Peepers was like touching a burning element on a stove.
Seconds later, the sound of footsteps were heard from the hallway beyond the still open doorway. Hater looked behind him to see two watchdogs in nurse outfits, Sean and Andy, walk in with medical supplies. He stepped out of the way before they could run him over, the nurses flipped Peepers onto his back.
"Ow…" Peepers hadn't been unconscious. His eye squinted as he tried to bear the discomfort and pain throughout his body. "Why…?"
One of the nurses, Andy, turned to Hater while the other opened his first aid kit.
"Do you know what happened?" Hater looked confused at the nurse's question to him.
"No. I walked in here to scold my commander and then he did… things… to the can over there." Hater pointed to the wastebasket and the nurse walked over to examine the inside.
"Oh dear, he's been puking." The nurse then looked at Peepers. "Did you eat anything today?"
"Ah…" Peepers groaned slightly before responding. "No…"
"Glorn! That's not good."
"No shit… Ouch!"
"He's burning up!" Sean said as he examined Peepers. "We need to cool you down and you need something in your stomach." Peepers could feel his stomach jump in discomfort, as if the idea of eating would make it worse.
"Oh!" He groaned as the feeling passed through him. "No, no, no. I can't eat…"
"But you need to eat, commander." Andy said.
"I can't! Ow! Damnit!" The outburst didn't help Peepers as more pain shot through him. Sean pulled out a stethoscope from his first aid kit, putting the ear pieces on before lifting up Peepers shirt to press the metallic end of the device against his chest over his heart. He noticed that Peepers' breathing was erratic and was unable to get an accurate reading.
"Try to calm down and breathe."
"And I can't! It hurts to breathe." It hurts to breathe, it hurts to move, and it'll probably hurt to eat. What kind of sick joke was this to inflict on the commander?
As Sean put his stethoscope away, Andy walked up to Hater to speak to the lord.
"Lord Hater, he appears to be very ill. I don't think anyone has caught something as severe as Commander Peepers have. Did anything else happen before we came in here?"
"Uh…" Lord Hater looked up and tapped his chin with his right index finger, thinking about what happened before the two came in. "He was making more of those noises and complained about his eye as he tried to go back to bed." Both nurses looked at Peepers, silently asking for an explanation.
"The room… Spinning… It really hurt trying to focus…" Peepers mustered what courage he had to respond to the doctors.
"Oh glorp, dizzy spells." Sean said before looking back at Hater. "He needs food and rest. With something as severe as this, we don't know how long it's going to be before he gets better." Sean then looked at Andy. "Give him some medication, I'll go out and get something for the commander to eat."
Peepers' eye enlarged as he felt a sharp pain go through his stomach again from the mention of food. "Did you not hear me!?" He yelled to them in a very weak voice. "I can't eat!"
"And we can't let you starve." Andy replied as he turned to Peepers. "If anything, the medicine should help with your pain so you can eat." And with that, he set out to make something for the commander.
"Bring some ice, too. He feels like he's burning up." Sean said. The feeling that they still don't understand continued to linger within Peepers, but he was in too much pain to argue with them. He might as well just accept it and hope for the best.
"Fine… Do what you will…" Peepers' voice was almost unheard by all except the nurse tending him. The nurse smiled and gave his partner the thumbs up before reaching into his first aid kit, pulling out a bottle of medicine and some eye drops.
"Take this," Sean said as he filled the drops before putting it by Peepers' "lips." "It should help with the pain. It'll kick in a few minutes later, but if you swallow it quick enough the effects will start sooner." Peepers would do anything to be able to breathe without having to worry about it. Peepers nodded, silently signaling that the nurse had his permission. The nurse held Peepers' eye open as he squeezed drops of the medicine into it. When Peepers' eye widened, the nurse knew that he didn't swallow the medicine quick enough.
The disgusting taste made the commander jump from lying down to sitting up, his face turned green with the feeling of disgust. He already had the medicine in his stomach, spitting out only saliva in an attempt to get that medicine taste out of his tongue. Unfortunately it wasn't only his taste buds that disagreed with the medicine as he felt his stomach bubble up and cramping. His face turned green as he reached for the waste can beside the bed. "Wa-" Opening his mouth, he felt the contents of his stomach rise up, interrupting his request for the trashcan with a retch. He covered his "lips" with his left hand to prevent the chance of puking on his bed. "Wa- Wa- Wa-!"
Sean noticed his fit and looked at the waste can Peepers was pointing at. He practically dove to the can, grabbed it, and held it to Peepers' eye. Peepers leaned in to the trash can and puked in it for the second time. Peepers held on to the can as he released a disturbing sound; a mix of a cry and a retch as he felt the medicine flow back up through his "mouth," dripping down into the can.
"Ah! Ah! Ah!" Peepers could taste the grotesque mix of the medicine he forced himself to swallow and the sour flavour of his stomach acid. His retching grew louder after 3 times; his body, once again, tried to force more than it had inside. "No, no, no!" The pain in his stomach was sharper as it strained itself. Peepers yelled in agony, trying to stifle his stomach's spasms at it fought against him. It was almost as if his stomach was a living parasite, trying desperately to empty its host. He held a death grip against his urges, as much as he want to scream and beg his boss to end his life, he couldn't. Mostly because if he tried, his retches would shut him up.
It took a bit, but after a while his stomach finally gave up. He held the wastebasket for the nurse to receive before in exhaustion, his body fell on the bed, his body bounced slightly from the impact.
His boss just stood there, watching Peepers lying there after the witnessing a very intense vomit fit. Unsure of what to do, he gingerly walked to his commander's side. Hearing the footsteps and feeling the presence of the lord, the nurse turned around to speak to him.
"We should just let him rest. If he works now, he might die. Might." The nurse said before looking back at the commander. "This is very severe. His body rejected the medicine and tried to go beyond completely purging itself."
"Ha… Ha…" Peepers vocalised his panting as he felt more pain rise up in an attempt to suppress the pain, only working slightly as far as the sick watchdog knew.
The three heard the door to Peepers' room open. Only Hater and Sean looked to see Andy bringing in a tray of food in one hand, perfectly balanced, and in the other the requested bag of ice with him. The tray was simple, a reflective metallic tray with some bread that has a butter knife on top next to a block of butter with a glass lid on it, crackers beside a bowl of warm tomato soup, and two cups, one with water and the other with Grogan Ale.
"What happened while I was gone?" Andy asked. Hater looked from the nurse standing up to the one by Peepers' side. Hater watched as that nurse shook his head in response.
"Nothing good. I tried feeding him some pain relievers." Sean looked at Peepers before he spoke again. "He puked it all out and then he started retching loudly for a bit."
"No more…" Peepers slowly wriggles under the covers and hid his entire body in a fetal position; his body curled up like a ball with his arms hugging his legs. "I can smell the food. It's making me sick." Literally, it was making him sick again. He already puked a few minutes ago, he couldn't risk puking more.
Andy sighed as he set the tray on the dresser beside the door.
"I just made the soup, too." He walked over by the bed and opened his kit he left in the room.
"What are you doing?" Peepers heard Sean say through the blanket. Opening his eye, he could only see the silhouette of the three in the room.
"Commander Peepers," Andy only ignored the question and spoke to Peepers instead, saying his name to get his attention.
"What?" Peepers sounded annoyed, with the day he's had despite it only being an hour since he woke up, he was beyond annoyed.
"Are you able to sleep?" Peepers couldn't comprehend how ridiculous the question sounded. Even Hater wondered why he would ask that ask he stood there with a dumbfounded look.
"If I could, I wouldn't have to deal with this." Peepers couldn't handle his closed position any longer, his organs felt like they were being crushed under the pressure and the pain grew slowly by the second and he was starting to lose air. He panted harder than normal and desperately threw the blanket off of his large eye.
The moment Peepers felt the open air of the room he inhaled loudly. It was only after a second that his body convulsed in pain. He covered his eye with his elbow as he hacked into it. He almost sounded like he was going to puke again, the loud coughs were enough to disturb the two watchdog nurses and the skeleton as they watched and waited for him to stop coughing.
Peepers finally stopped after what felt like an eternity of hell. He really wanted to scream, his body flared up in a mix of illness and rage. The heat was unbearable, he was about to take off his shirt before remembering that he was in the company of the nurses and his lord. Feeling self conscious, he looked away until he saw the bag of ice from the corner of his eye in Andy's hand.
"Just put this on your eye for a bit, you look like you're burning up again." Peepers took the bag and refrained from just slapping it onto himself as he softly pressed it against the top of his eye. "How do you feel?"
"A…" Peepers was out of breath and he felt like he couldn't recover. A small idea formed as he took the ice from his head, closed his eye, placed the ice pack by his "nose," and inhaled. He could feel the frost massaging his lungs and opening up his air cavities. It was refreshing and he recovered quickly. "I'm a little better." Only a little. The cold was a temporary solution to his breathing problem. "I'll do anything to get some sleep…"
This was the thing Andy needed to hear.
"Anything?" Andy just needed to hear it again.
"Yes, anything, I just want the pain to stop." Peepers said in a slightly annoyed tone.
Consent and confirmation of consent. It was everything Andy needed as he looked through his med kit again.
"Commander Peepers, I'm going to have to request you to roll up one of your sleeves for us."
"My…?" Peepers didn't have to see the syringe and the bottle Andy took out of his kit to know where he was going with that. The sick commander's eye widened with slight fear as he gave the ice pack he held in his hand back to Andy before hesitantly rolling up the sleeve on his right arm.
"This medicine is known to boost the immune system and will help give you a good rest." Andy said as he pierced the thin lid of the bottle with the needle, pulling the plunger to fill the barrel with the dark green liquid. He removed the hypodermic needle from the empty bottle and flicked the glass tube a few times to force stray air bubbles to rise before pushing the plunger several centimetres in to force them out until the syringe contained only liquid.
Peepers held his arm out and looked away. The sight of the needle disturbed him, and just thinking about what's going to happen wasn't very pleasant. He held in a cringe as he thought about the needle piercing his skin and the liquid entering his body. The more he thought about it, the worse he felt.
"Uh… Commander Peepers? We can't help you if you're shaking like that." Wait, what? Peepers looked at his arm to see that it was actually shaking.
"Ah!" Damnit, why was he shaking? He raised his left arm to grab his right arm to stop it from shaking but even that arm was shaking. Was his entire body shaking? If it was, he couldn't feel it. He shut his eye and tried to will the shaking away with his mind. Whether it worked or not, he couldn't tell. But Andy, Sean, and Hater saw that Peepers' body was calming down slightly, a mild improvement.
"That's good, but we need you completely calm." Andy said with subtle impatience in his tone. "If you're unable to keep still, then we'll have to restrain you. We can't risk the needle dislodging in your body if you continue to do this."
Peepers didn't want this to take longer than it needed to be, but he was a little too squeamish with the idea of an injection. His shaking got worse as he inadvertently thought about the needle again.
Damn, damn, damn! No, no, no! Peepers mentally screamed as he watched his arm shaking intensely.
"Commander Peepers, if you can't stop in 30 seconds then we're going to have to restrain you." Andy pulled out his communicator from his pocket. "If you resist, I'm authorised to summon support. Do you understand?" Peepers rolled his eye at the question.
"Yes, I do."
"I'm also required to tell you that if we do have to restrain you, with or without support, then the medicine won't be administered into your arm."
Wait, what did he mean by that?
"What does that mean?"
"No one likes being restrained. A handful of our patients tend to try to break free and because of this the injection would have to be administered elsewhere."
"Define, 'elsewhere.'" Peepers didn't like where this was leading up to, but he needed to know. If not the arm, where else?
"There is no professional way to say this, but instead of the arm, it would have to be in the hindquarters." Peepers' breath stopped suddenly as he heard the final word.
"Hind…?" Peepers' voice squeaked a little as he repeated the first half of the word said to him. Andy nodded in response.
"Yes." Peepers' shaking got worse as he heard his fear confirmed from the nurse. The commander shook his head slowly, both mortified and afraid as he thought of hands invading his personal space to force his pyjamas to reveal skin he didn't want a bunch of nurses and his boss to see.
"No, no, no, no, no, no…" Peepers backed away from the two nurses on his bed slowly, his eye darting between the two in fear. He caught Andy raising his communicator to the side of his eye, a sight that made Peepers jump in place. "No, no, no! You don't have to do that!" Fuck! Shit! He knew the only thing he had to do was show he wasn't resisting as he hesitantly moved towards the nurses. "See…?" Peepers said in a frightened tone. "You don't have to get them here. I'm complying." He stated his actions, wanting to make sure that it was clear what he was doing. "Ugh!" He suddenly felt a sharp pain in his stomach as his adrenaline died down. He flopped on his bed faced down and, feeling unable to move, he waited and hoped that Andy wasn't going to send in more nurses.
Sean reached out and flipped Peepers' body so he'd face the ceiling. The commander's
"Uuuuuuuugh…" Peepers groaned weakly as he felt his body shift. His eye gestured to his now still arm, mustering the strength to move it only slightly towards Andy. "… Do it…" Peepers couldn't take it anymore. That rush he felt seconds before had finally died, zapping away almost all of his energy. He felt weaker than the start of the day, and the pain felt stronger. He laid there like a vegetable, unable to do anything but muster the strength to beg for it all to end.
Sean leaned over Peepers and looked into his eye. Unable to look away, Peepers could only uncomfortably stare back at the nurse. It was creepy, Sean wasn't blinking and his eye wasn't moving. All except the feeling of his gaze appeared lifeless, like he was a statue with a soul.
It felt like an eternity before Peepers collected the strength to speak again, "… What… Are you doing…?"
"Done." Peepers noticed the voice didn't come from the watchdog staring down at him, looking at Andy to see him roll the sick watchdog's sleeve back down. Peepers was wide eyed when he realised he already administered the medicine.
And he almost didn't feel a thing.
"Wha…? How…?" Sean started to crawl away from Peepers to the side off the bed opposite of Andy.
As Peepers tried to contemplate the events that happened, his eye lids started to feel heavy. He needed to stay awake; he couldn't help but wonder how they did it without him feeling it. Was it his illness preventing him from feeling anything other than pain? Did Sean somehow hypnotise him with his stare? He couldn't think anymore; his world turned black as his eye closed and fell asleep.
Andy and Sean left the bed when Peepers fell asleep and approach their Lord to speak.
"With an illness this severe, we can't let him work." Sean said.
"Sean and I agree that it's recommended to let him sleep for a bit, if he works under these conditions you might lose a commander." Hater nodded, half listening to what they were saying. He looked at his top subordinate one last time before the two nurses.
"So…" Hater didn't know what to do; he never lost a commander to illness before. "Which one of you two wants to be my commander for now?"
The two nurses raised their hands and shouted, "Me!" like very excited children. Hater then walked out of the room with the two following behind, never ceasing their excitability to such an honourable chance. In seconds, Peepers was left with peace as he slept in his bed.