Author's Note: She's alive? We're not seeing things? Yes, after a lengthy hiatus, she's back, with more material in her favorite fandom to write for! And this time, it's another story where we look at what characters not appearing in a couple of Rugrats episodes, were doing, and a possible reason behind why they weren't in these episodes. Hope you enjoy!
The Worstest Case of Diapie Rash Ever
Summary: One day, Tommy awakens with a terrible case of diaper rash, and it's up to Chuckie, who just recently witnessed his daddy have an Asthma attack and be rushed off to the emergency room, try to calm his nerves by taking care of his bestest friend in his time of need. Takes place during season 3.
Disclaimer: I do not own the original Rugrats characters, they're the property of their original creaters. I do own any OC's you don't recognize, unless otherwise stated, though not planning to have any OC's appear in this story, and at most, only one who might appear would be Peter, who's owned by TCKing12.
"I've got diaper rash, and it doesn't bother me." Tommy said to Chuckie one hot summer day, when the kids were playing in the mud, trying to cool off, and soon learned about the power of dresses, but while this time, his diaper rash wasn't all that bad, that wasn't always the case.
Sometime prior to the events of that hot summer morning, Tommy awoke in his crib one day, with an excruciating pain in his bottom. Unsure what to think, the one-year-old toddler started balling his eyes out at the top of his lungs, hoping somebody would come running.
"Hey Champ." Stu called from the bedroom door, rushing in and grabbing up his son out of his crib.
Once his bottom was no longer making contact with the mattress, because Stu was rubbing Tommy's back and had him pressed up against his chest, the pain went away and Tommy instantly calmed down.
"Maybe it's nothing." Tommy thought to himself, as Stu carried him down to breakfast.
"Morning Stu, I heard Tommy crying over the baby monitor, is everything alright?" Didi asked, looking up from the stove where she had just flipped over some eggs to fry them on the other side.
"Yeah he's fine, probably just hungry. Come on champ." Stu said, placing Tommy down in his highchair and getting him all strapped in.
And, the pain came back, as Tommy tried to keep a straight face, seeing his bottle of milk and bowl of Reptar cereal placed down in front of him. Stu took over at the stove while Didi came over to attend to feeding her child breakfast. As Didi took a spoonful of cereal out of the bowl and inched it towards Tommy's mouth, he proceeded to squirm, knocking the spoon out of his mother's hand to the floor, trying to find a more comfortable position that didn't hurt, with tears of pain quietly streaming down his face.
"I'm worried about Tommy, he's not eating and he's not acting like himself this morning." Didi said to Stu, who had just removed the eggs from the frying pan on to a plate.
"I'll go call Drew and ask him not to bring Angelica over here for the day." Stu said, heading out of the room to go use the phone down in his workshop, not wishing to bring anything up from the past in front of his wife that might irritate her or worse, give her any ideas.
Worried about his son, Stu went down to his workshop, and gave his brother's house a call. After three rings, Charlotte answers to his surprise.
"Hello?" Charlotte said into the phone.
"Oh, hi Charlotte, I wasn't expecting you to answer. Is Drew there?" Stu asked.
Just then, Drew walked into the kitchen.
"Oh, hi there dear it's for you." Charlotte said, handing the phone to her husband upon noticing him walk into the room.
"Hello." Drew said.
"Hey Bro. Think you can find some other place for Angelica to spend the day? Something seems to be wrong with Tommy and we don't know what. Knowing my wife, we could be spending the day at the doctor. I mean, you do remember me telling you about that time she walked into his bedroom to find him drawing on the walls and the next thing I knew, we were spending our days at the office of a highly unqualified shrink, who badgered my past out of me." Stu muttered into the phone.
"No problem little bro, I hope my nephew's going to be okay." Drew said.
"Yeah me too." Stu said, seeing to ending the call, hanging up, and heading back upstairs.
Meanwhile, after overhearing Drew's conversation with Stu, Charlotte gave the Finsters a call, only for nobody to answer the phone. So she went to the next number in the list, the DeVilles.
"Hello?" Betty said into the phone upon answering it.
"Hello Betty, it's Charlotte. Mind watching Angelica today? Stu and Didi can't, and Drew and I have meetings all day." Charlotte said.
"Well, Howard is off today and we're planning to do some cleaning around the house, but why not? The pups could use a playmate to keep them out from under our feet." Betty said.
"Okay great, it's settled then. I'll be by to drop off Angelica in half an hour." Charlotte said, hanging up her cell phone and rushing off to get dressed and see how her daughter was doing at getting ready for the day. Luckily, Angelica was already planning to be spending the day at somebody's house, she just, had no idea it would be Phil and Lil's, until she arrived there in a short time.
Back at Tommy's, Didi is rummaging around for a thermometer to take Tommy's temperature, after he refused to eat his Reptar cereal and by this point, had knocked the bowl to the floor, only taking interest in his bottle of milk, when the all-too familiar sound of the doorbell buzzer rang.
"I'm coming!" Didi called, placing her First Aid kit down on the kitchen table and rushing off to answer it.
Upon answering the door, she spotted Peter standing there, holding the hand of a very traumatized Chuckie.
"I'm so sorry to bother you Didi, but Chas, barely able to speak, asked me to come pick up Chuckie. Good thing too, I arrived to their home, finding him on the floor, having an Asthma attack and Chuckie crying. While I've had some medical training, I advised him to head off to the emergency room, called the peremedics, who got there and took Charles away in an ambulance, and brought Chuckie over here, when I couldn't get a hold of anybody else. I'd watch him myself, but this weekend is a training weekend for my Confederate army, and I'm in charge of the drill training, and I can't be watching the kids and running that at the same time, as acrobatic as I can be sometimes." Peter said.
"We'd be happy to watch Chuckie, and who knows, maybe it will cheer him up. It's a bit, under the weather this morning." Didi said, taking Chuckie inside.
"I'll keep you posted if I should hear anything from Chas, as I gave the peremedics my number, since I was the one there at the scene of the Asthma attack. Anyway, would love to stay and talk, but I need to get back to training, so, gotta go." Peter said, rushing down the porch steps of the Pickles home and heading out of sight.
By this time, Stu had put Tommy down in the playpen, who was lying on his stomach, because it was the only position he found comfortable. Didi put Chuckie down in the playpen across from Tommy.
"Now, you play here with Tommy, and we'll be back later on to get you for lunch." Didi said, patting Chuckie on the head and heading off into the kitchen.
No sooner had she walked into the next room, when Chuckie blerted out frantically everything he saw happening that morning.
"Oh my gosh Tommy, I've had the scariest morning ever! I was just heading to the kitchen to have my Dummi Bears Sugar Lumps for breakfast after going potty, when I saw my daddy on the floor. He was holding his chest and his face was turning blue and he could barely talk. I did the onliest thing I could do, I started crying, hoping my daddy would stop being so scary, but things only got worser. Peter showed up, spoke to somebody on the phone, and nextest thing I knew, some big scary doctors walked in, putted my daddy on some stretchy thing, and putted him inside a truck and drove him away. I hope my daddy's gonna be okay Tommy, I…" Chuckie trailed off at this point, when he noticed something very odd.
Staring across at Tommy, he noticed he had hardly moved since he had sat down and started telling his story. He lay, nearly motionless on his tummy, a look of discomfort on his face.
"Tommy? Are you alright?" Chuckie asked worriedly.
"No Chuckie my bottom hurts. It's worser when I'm lying or sitting on it." Tommy answered.
At that moment, Chuckie completely forgot about his daddy, as he got up off of the floor and walked closer to his best friend, placing a comforting hand on his back, and accidentally, placing his other hand on the top of Tommy's diaper, right on the spot that hurt.
"Don't worry Tommy, you're gonna be…" Chuckie started to say, before Tommy interrupted him.
"Outch! Chuckie, that hurts!" Tommy yelled, scaring Chuckie, as he jumped a mile backwards, towards the glass doors at the back of the playpen.
"Gosh Tommy, you scared me." Chuckie said.
"Sorry." Tommy replied.
After catching his breath, Chuckie inched closer to Tommy, making sure not to touch him, for fear of hurting him again.
"Uh, Tommy, maybe you just, need a new diaper." Chuckie said.
"Good idea Chuckie, anything's worth a try." Tommy said.
"Okay Tommy, come on and open up the playpen and let's go in search for a new diaper before I try to talk you out of it like usual." Chuckie protested.
However, what happened next really took Chuckie by surprise, as Tommy slowly sat up on his knees, fetched his screwdriver out of the front of his diaper, and handed it to Chuckie.
"Here Chuckie, you go get me one. It hurts for me to move." Tommy said.
Chuckie stared at his best friend in shock. Obviously something was really wrong if Tommy was trusting him to do this task alone. Letting out a sigh and taking a deep breath, he walked over to the exit of the playpen with screwdriver in hand.
"Alright Tommy, I'll do it, I'll even do the icky part of changing it for you, but only because I'm your bestest best friend." Chuckie said, unlatching the playpen and heading up to Tommy's room.
Luckily, he was a few inches taller than Tommy, so he had an easier time, reaching the diapers and a bottle of powder that was sitting at the edge of the changing table. He grabbed up what he needed, and started to head back downstairs, when he unknowingly, stepped on Spike's tail, who was sleeping on the floor of Stu and Didi's bedroom, with his tail sticking out into the hallway. Spike yelped in pain, as he got up, Chuckie nearly toppling backwards on to Spike's back, losing his grip on the diaper and powder, as he threw them in opposite directions. The powder hit the wall, coming open and spraying powder everywhere, while the diaper landed on Spike's face, covering his eyes. The dog got up, wandering aimlessly all over the hall, stepping in the diaper powder, getting it everywhere as paw print powder spots got all over the carpet. Chuckie was grabbing on to Spike's tail for dear life, screaming at the top of his lungs, as Spike managed to shake the diaper off of his face and ran down the stairs, tracking powder everywhere. By the time Chuckie had returned to the playpen, the living room was covered in powder, and the frightened redhead, was completely out of breath.
"I'm back Tommy. Uh, Spike brought me back, but, uh, don't know what happened, I tripped and nextest thing I knew, he was carrying me downstairs. Okay, let's get this over with." Chuckie said, rushing over to his best friend and pulling at the tabs on his diaper.
Upon removing it, he saw why Tommy was in so much pain. Before him, was a huge red spot on his bottom.
"Oh my gosh Tommy, you've gots a bad case of diaper rash." Chuckie said.
"No wonder my bottom hurts, but, it's never hurted this bad before." Tommy said.
"Not to worry, I've just gots to get the powder and the new diaper and…" Chuckie started to say, just as he looked around the room and saw the splotches and doggy footprints of powder everywhere, and no clean diaper in sight.
"Uh oh." Chuckie muttered, just as Stu and Didi rushed into the room.
"Oh my goodness! What happened?" Didi cried, upon seeing the mess and her son diaperless.
"I don't know Deed." Stu said, as Didi rushed over to take a closer look at Tommy, noticing the diaper rash.
"Stu, did you remember to change Tommy's diaper this morning after waking him up?" Didi asked.
Stu's face turned red with embarrassment, with a look of disappointment spread across it.
"Woops." Stu muttered.
"Stu, you know Tommy needs a fresh diaper in the morning, and now, he's got his terrible rash. And how on earth Spike got into the baby powder, I'll never know, but we'd better get this mess cleaned up. Come on Stu, you clean up this mess while I see to giving the boys a bath. After all, Lipchitz says that a warm soak in the tub is a good cure for diaper rash." Didi said, picking up Tommy, grabbing Chuckie's hand, and leading them up to the bathroom, being careful not to step on any dog print powder spots, though a few times while walking up the stairs, she missed, making a few tracks of shoe print spots on the way up.
She put the boys down on the bathroom floor, saw to turning on the bathtub and putting some warm water and bubbles into the mix, and got Tommy and Chuckie into the tub. While Chuckie wasn't normally a fan of taking baths, he looked over at his best friend, relieved that he had a small smile on his face.
"You look better Tommy." Chuckie commented.
"Yeah, the warm water is really helping, my bottom don't hurt as much no mores. Come on Chuckie let's play." Tommy said, as the two of them played in the tub for a while, and Didi saw to cleaning the upstairs while Stu got the living room, entry hallway, and stairs cleaned up.
"Sorry you've gots diaper rash." Chuckie said.
"It's okay Chuckie, you don't gots to worry, everything's gonna be fine. Once the bath is over, I'll be back to normen." Tommy said.
"Well that's good, cuz I've kind of forgotted how diaper rash feels like." Chuckie said, splashing around in the water.
"Really?" Tommy replied.
"Yeah. In fact, it hadn't occurred to me before, but ever since I gotted potty trained, I don't get diaper rash no more. If only I'd knowed that when going through the potty training part, maybe I would have founded the whole process lots easier." Chuckie commented.
"Wow Chuckie, I didn't know that." Tommy said, placing some bubbles on top of his head.
"You wouldn't." Chuckie replied, as the two of them, played quietly in the tub for a few minutes, as Chuckie drifted off into thought.
"It's true, it's not like any of my friends would have knowed, seeing they all still wear diapers, and it's not like Angelica was going to ease my nerves, seeing she always likes to make me miserable. If only I had knowed Susie when getting potty trained. She might have been able to tell me I wouldn't get diaper rash no more. Oh well, guess, some things, I'm stuck learning on my own." Chuckie thought to himself, as he then drifted to thinking about his daddy, wondering if he was okay.
Tommy then looked up from playing with a toy boat in the water, when he saw a worried look on his best friend's face.
"You okay Chuckie?" Tommy asked.
Before Chuckie could reply, Didi came back into the bathroom, no longer tracking powder on the floor, with a wash cloth and some soap and baby shampoo, and saw to finishing up the boys' bath. A few minutes later, she had them dressed in clean clothes, as she took them downstairs and saw to feeding them lunch, relieved that Tommy was eating this time, but a bit worried when she saw Chuckie only nibbling on his fried bologna sandwich.
"Oh dear, I hope Chuckie's okay." Didi thought to herself, as she got their bottles ready for nap time.
"Aren't you gonna eat your sandwich Chuckie? My mommy fixed your favoritest." Tommy said.
"I don't know, I guess, I'm just, worried about my daddy is all. I mean, that was really scary." Chuckie said.
"Your daddy's gonna be fine. After all, didn't you say he was taken away by doctors?" Tommy asked in between bites of his sandwich.
"Chuckie nodded while taking another small nibble out of his sandwich.
"Well, he's probably at the hopsickle, where they make sick peoples, all better. I'm sure your daddy will be just fine." Tommy said, trying to make his friend feel better.
"Yeah Tommy, you're right." Chuckie said.
"By the way, thanks for trying to help me and for being so brave." Tommy said after finishing the last bite of his sandwich.
"You're welcome Tommy, after all, that's what bestest best friends do." Chuckie said, starting to take bigger bites of his sandwich.
"Time for your nap kids." Didi said, coming over to get Tommy and Chuckie cleaned up, after noticing the two boys had finished their lunch.
Once she had them cleaned up and upstairs in Tommy's crib, with Tommy at one end and Chuckie at the other, with their nap time bottles of milk, she turned out the lights and shut the door. While Tommy had nearly finished his bottle of milk and was starting to get comfortable, thankful his bottom wasn't hurting nearly as much anymore, Chuckie was squirming around, unable to get comfortable. Peering at Chuckie out of the corner of his eye, Tommy flashed his best friend a warm smile.
"I'm sure your daddy will be here after our nappy and everything will be back to normen." Tommy said.
"Yeah Tommy." Chuckie said, letting out a huge yawn, as sleep finally came.
Little did the redhead know that he wouldn't be seeing his daddy until the following day. While they were napping, Didi received a call from Peter.
"Hi Peter, how's Charles doing?" Didi asked.
"He's better, they've gotten his Asthma under control and prescribed him a higher dose of his medication and a new inhailor, but they'd like to keep him overnight for observations." Peter said.
"We'll keep Chuckie overnight then, thanks for letting us know, and good luck with your training." Didi said.
"Thank you. Chas will be by to pick up Chuckie in the morning, after he's released from the hospital." Peter said before a click was heard on the other end of the line.
Soon, naptime was over, and on top of Chuckie feeling disappointed that his daddy hadn't come to pick him up, like his best friend claimed would happen, Tommy started to notice his diaper rash again, as it wasn't completely gone, when his mommy changed his diaper and saw to applying some more antibiotic cream and baby powder to the rash on his bottom. Chuckie oversaw Tommy flinch in pain while Didi was changing him, and post putting him on the floor, he crawled over to his best friend.
"You okay Tommy?" Chuckie asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine." Tommy said in a weak voice, not convincing Chuckie one bit.
Chuckie leaned in and whispered in Tommy's ear.
"It's still bothering you, isn't it." Chuckie whispered.
Tommy slowly nodded.
"Well, I'm gonna go see if my daddy's here." Chuckie said, running out of Tommy's bedroom and down the stairs, grateful he didn't end up in another disaster on Spike's back of a roller coaster this time.
He peered out the large window in the front of the living room, disappointed to not see his daddy's car anywhere.
"Hey Chuckie, I bet you're wondering where your daddy is." He heard Stu say from behind him, feeling a comforting hand on his shoulder.
The redhead slowly turned around to look up at the face of his best friend's daddy.
"You're gonna get to spend the night with Tommy tonight." Stu said, ruffling Chuckie's hair and giving him a hug.
This helped Chuckie to cheer up a bit, as Didi brought Tommy downstairs and placed him on the floor next to Stu, the one-year-old toddler, stretching out on his stomach similarly to how he did so earlier that day.
"And have I got a surprise for you." Stu said, reaching over to a shelf by the TV and pulling out a video tape with Reptar's picture on the cover.
All Tommy really wanted to do at that moment, was take another nap or better yet, another bubble bath, but completely forgot about it when he saw his daddy present him with a new Reptar movie. Even Chuckie forgot about his daddy when Stu presented him with the Reptar video.
"We'll watch that tonight after dinner." Stu said.
However, the boys wanted to watch it now, as the two toddlers started crying. Stu knew that they had just awakened from their nap and Tommy had been changed into a fresh diaper, so he gave in, put on the video, and as soon as Reptar's picture appeared on the screen, they calmed down and watched the movie of Reptar versus the Giant Cockroaches in silence. After the movie concluded, Chuckie turned to Tommy.
"Wow, I bet ya Phil and Lil would have liked that movie, specially the cockroaches. I wonder what they did today." Chuckie said.
"I don't know." Tommy replied.
Little did the dynamic duo know that next-door, the DeVille twins were learning about favorites and rejects from none other, than Angelica, who in the end, admitted she was only making it up because she had nobody to play with, little did the blond know she'd soon get her karma handed to her, when her parents tried to feed her broccoli for dinner that evening.
In Tommy's house, the rest of the night was uneventful, as the toddlers played quietly, as Chuckie tried to think how he'd see his daddy the next day, and Tommy, tried avoiding sitting on his bottom at all cost. At dinner, they had some chicken alphabet soup, and were put to bed early, where both boys fell asleep instantly, after having a long tiring day. Things weren't so great across the neighborhood however, when Angelica refused to eat her broccoli at dinner, and disaster struck, which Stu and Didi would learn about the next morning.
Soon, the next day came, and while Tommy still had a tiny bit of his diaper rash, it hardly hurt anymore, so he could at least, lie on his back and sit, no longer feeling discomfort, and while eating breakfast, the doorbell rang and Didi went to answer it to find Chas standing there. He looked exhausted, but at least he was breathing normally again.
"I'm here to pick up Chuckie." Chas said upon being greeted by Didi at the door.
"Chuckie's eating his breakfast. You feeling any better?" Didi asked, leading Chas into the kitchen.
"Yeah, but I'm exhausted. Every time I got to sleep last night, a nurse would come in, wanting to take my blood pressure or check my oxygen levels. Chuckie and I are going to head home and take it easy today." Chas said.
"You sure you don't need us to watch Chuckie another day so you can go home and relax?" Didi asked.
"No Didi, I miss my little guy too much." Chas said, as a smiling Chuckie ran into his daddy's arms, and gave him a huge hug.
Chuckie turned his head over to Tommy, who was happily finishing the last few bites of Reptar cereal in his bowl.
"You were right Tommy, my daddy's all better." Chuckie said.
"I told ya, and sorry we didn't play as much as usual." Tommy said, taking one last bite of his cereal.
Chuckie jumped down from his daddy's arms and ran over to the highchair, where Tommy let himself out of the chair with his screwdriver and climbed down to the kitchen floor, similarly to what he did back on his first birthday.
"It's okay Tommy, you were hurting, but I didn't mind, having a quiet sleepover with my bestest best friend. After all, I think in the end, we both helped each other to feels better." Chuckie said.
"I think you're right Chuckie." Tommy said, as the two best friends gave one another a hug goodbye, before Chuckie ran off to his daddy and they saw to heading for the front door, while Tommy crawled off towards the living room.
Before they could leave though, the doorbell rang and Stu went to answer it, to find Drew and Angelica standing there. While Angelica flashed him a wide grin, Drew appeared to be overly exhausted, with circles under his eyes.
"Hey big bro you look exhausted!" Stu exclaimed.
"Yeah, I am. Upon picking Angelica up from Betty and Howard's yesterday, she was covered in dust, mold and ildew from playing in their basement with the twins, so Charlotte had to give her a bath, while I saw to preparing what turned into a disasterous dinner. I fixed broccoli to go along with dinner last night, much to my daughter's dismay, to the extend that we had a huge mess to clean up in our kitchen, after Angelica proceeded not to eat her broccoli, and did so, by throwing her plate at the wall, leaving us with food and splinters of glass to clean up off of the kitchen floor. It didn't help that after having an exhausting day of meetings at work and cleaning up Angelica's mess, I had a horrible nightmare." Drew explained.
"What happened in your nightmare?" Stu asked.
"I wish to not retell the tale. I'll just simply say, I was awake at three in the morning, and while I managed to make amends with my daughter and get back to sleep, three hours of sleep until the alarm went off at six wasn't quite enough. Thank goodness I have a day off today, but Charlotte's treating me to a day at the spa, so, mind watching Angelica?" Drew asked.
"No problem." Stu said, leading his niece into the living room, who sat down on the couch and watched the latest episode of Dummi Bears currently airing on the TV.
Chuckie headed for home with his daddy, and Tommy looked up from playing with a toy fire truck over at the couch where Angelica was sitting, thankful that she wasn't there yesterday, when his diaper rash was at its worstest.
The End
Author's Note: Episodes referenced in this story were, Mama Trauma from Season 1, Chuckie vs. the Potty from Season 2, Tommy's opening line at the start of the story was from Clan of the Duck from Season 4, and, the events of the story took place during the events of The Unfair Pair and Pickles vs. Pickles from Season 3, if you couldn't tell from Drew recounting the previous day and night's events to Stu towards the end of the story. I hope you all enjoyed it, despite the fact that I haven't written anything in a good while, as I'm thinking of possibly writing a story where we see what happens in between each episode, as if each episode was connected, like if we were watching the characters in real time, and once I have worked out the details for that story, I'll see to getting the first chapter posted. However, seeing that Tommy and Chuckie weren't in either, The Unfair Pair and Pickles vs. Pickles, and The Unfair Pair took place during the day, while Pickles vs. Pickles took place at night, with roughly 90% of the episode being a dream sequence, it's possible that both episodes, could have taken place the exact same day within the Rugrats universe. Anyway, if you made it this far, thanks for reading, and I hope to be back soon, with more stories, including the one I mentioned in this closing author's note. Take care everyone, and have a nice day!