Chapter 10: Achoo!
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Credits for certain lines belong to RAWN89, SonicGirl4Ever and Chiisai Kitsune. Thanks and enjoy!
Sonic the Hedgehog was still asleep in bed; his mouth was agape over his nose being blocked from the fever and found it impossible to breathe through, for now.
Morning had arrived and for once, the sun was shining through the recovery room window and onto the blue hedgehog's face. Sonic stirred and groaned, then, opened one sleepy eye to see the bright sunlight reaching through the glass. Sonic was not a morning person when sick. He just wanted to sleep his sick days away in total darkness and shut out from the world. He moaned from feeling sick from the fever and rolled completely around, facing away from the window. "Hnggggh…"
"Morning." Eggman said with his head propped up by his arm and a smug look on his face. He was sitting on the chair beside the bed.
Sonic emerald eyes suddenly widened. "Gah!?" Was all Sonic could say through his fright, as he jumped from surprise and fell off the bed. "Ooff" He then slowly rose, joints creaking from stiffness, by grabbing the bed to support him. "Owwww!" He then looked at the doctor. "Sheesh, Eggman! Is that how you treat your patients to a wake-up call? Classic, very classic." He said through a nasally voice.
"What's the matter, Sonic? A doctor can't check up on his patients to make sure they're not dead?" The scientist replied.
"Well, aside from giving me a heart attack, what do you want?" Sonic asked curiously.
"I just wanted to see how you are. I was also hoping to examine you, in order to make sure that your fever is nothing more…lethal." Eggman replied while smirking at the last word. This made shivers go down Sonic's spiky back.
"Oh, alright." Sonic consented. "Let's just get this over with."
XXX
"Er… Eggman…" Sonic said nervously as they were walking down the hallway towards the "Clinic".
"Oh, for the love of -!" The scientist growled in irritation, while face palming. He then looked at the hedgehog. "For the hundredth time, Sonic…NO! It won't involve injections! How many times will I have to repeat my answer until it goes through your thick, blue, spiky head?!"
"Sheesh, no need to blow your top! Just wondering…"
"Well here we are, the clinic." Eggman responded after a few moments of silence through the long hallway. He then opened the door.
"And not a moment too soon…" Sonic replied and then dashed in for the nearest box of handkerchiefs he could find. At the way his cold was still progressing, his nose ran faster than he could run.
"Alright. First off, if you don't mind, I need you to sit on the bed. I'll be back in a second." He then departed from the room.
Sonic was still sceptical over the doctor's strange change in emotions over the past few days. But, nonetheless, still obeyed. He sat down on the flat bed with the headboard slightly higher on one side and looked around the room. It looked like any normal check-up room. It still made Sonic nervous, since he had to go to a lot of check-ups when he was a pup.
Eggman soon returned with a white doctor's coat on instead of the usual crimson. "Playing 'doctor games' are we, Doc?" Sonic asked with a cocked head and a smirk on his face.
If Sonic could see the doctor's eyes, they'd probably be rolling in annoyance over that question. "You can call it that if you want to." Eggman replied as he searched a drawer for some utensils. Sonic watched carefully at what Eggman was fishing out of the drawer.
Soon, the doctor left a bunch of utensils lying in a row on the desk. The line included a stethoscope, otoscope, a blood pressure cuff, painkillers, petroleum jelly, swabs, balls of cotton wool, and thermometers. 'Hmm…No needles so far…that's a relief.' Sonic thought as he was looking over Eggman's shoulder from the elevated bed.
"Let's get started." The doctor said as he came towards the blue hedgehog with a few thermometers in his hand. Sonic however gave him a weak snarl as he approached him with the foreign objects. "OK, Sonic…we can do this the easy way…or the hard way." Eggman suddenly smirked at that last part for some odd reason. "If I were you, I'd take the easy way; it'd be far less painful for you."
The doctor then took the thermometer and tried to place it in the blue hedgehog's ear, but Sonic swivelled his ears back to his skull, so the ears were out of the question. "Ok…let's try this." The scientist replied in an unusually calm manner. He then grabbed another thermometer. "Come on, Sonic. Open your mouth, please." Eggman asked kindly. But the blue hedgehog only kept his fawn-coloured muzzle shut, nervous about the whole situation. He then turned around and lay on his stomach on the bed.
The doctor then sighed and sounded a little bit annoyed. "Fine, Sonic…have it your way." Sonic then heard Eggman move to the other side of the room. The blue hedgehog just gave a sigh of relief, knowing that the examination was over.
Suddenly, two metallic cuffs came out from the bed and pinned Sonic's wrists down, before he could even blink. His arms were held down on either side of the pillow, as he desperately tried to yank them free.
Then all of a sudden, he felt a strong grip on his tail and then it was forcibly yanked upwards, forcing Sonic to stand on his legs. He looked like a dog or cat in a stretching position.
"I tried to warn you, Sonic." The hedgehog looked behind him to see that Eggman had grabbed onto his tail. "Looks like we're going for the hard way after all." He replied while holding up another thermometer.
Sonic's eyes widened in fear and his muzzle turned white as snow; he saw a thermometer that he hadn't seen since pup-hood. It brought uncomfortable memories back to the blue hedgehog. Compared to the other thermometers, this thermometer was going into the opposite end; where Sonic couldn't protect himself, since his tail was pulled upright and couldn't fold back.
"EGGMAN! This is highly NOT dignified!" Sonic shouted in a mixture of anger and embarrassment in his humiliating position. His ears were folded back and lay flat on his skull, as if they blended in. And just like his muzzle, both were glowing a deep red colour as the blood rushed into them.
"I gave you a choice, Sonic, and you refused to cooperate with me." Eggman replied with a stern voice. He then pinched Sonic's tail, preparing to insert the thermometer where the sun doesn't shine.
Sonic then looked back at the doctor with an unusual dark and very intimidating look. "If you shove that stick up my butt, then I'll thrust my quills up your own and make your life hell!" Sonic growled.
"A hollow threat, Sonic; those cuffs are reinforced and even you can't break through them. Brace yourself…this might hurt." The doctor then replied with an overconfident sneer. He then pinched and pulled on the blue blur's appendage.
"Gah!" The blue blur shouted out in a small amount of pain and surprise. He then suddenly felt something cold and thin sliding under his tongue; a regular thermometer. Sonic almost choked in reflex over feeling the strange object in his mouth. Sonic just scowled at the doctor and gave him a small glare. Realizing the blue hedgehog's source of annoyance, he gently lowered the blue blur's rump, by releasing his tail. After what felt like forever for the blue hedgehog, Eggman finally removed the annoying device. He then un-cuffed his wrists and Sonic sat up, while glaring at the doctor. His hands were attending to his abused and sore appendage. 'I won't be able to sit for a week.' Sonic thought to himself while wincing in slight pain.
"I take it that you've learned your lesson, Sonic…Don't mess with me, or else the consequences will be severe."
Sonic didn't say anything after that. He just wanted the examination to be over quickly. The doctor then picked up a stethoscope. "Hold still and take deep breaths." This was the last thing that an irritated Sonic had on his mind, but he still obeyed since he had learned his lesson the hard way. The doctor then used the otoscope to check Sonic's ears and found some wax build-up inside. He then took a small ball of cotton wool and began cleaning out the hedgehog's ears. It didn't surprise him, when the white cotton had turned yellow when it was removed; Sonic's ears were filthy. Eggman then used the blood pressure monitor on the blue hedgehog's fawn coloured arm; His pulse was still a little too fast and high for a normal, healthy hedgehog.
Sonic still didn't look very healthy; his ragged fur, like all Mobian species, was an indicator that he was still a bit under the weather and not fully over the fever. Eggman then walked over to the desk and brought back a painkiller pill.
"Eat this." Eggman commanded in a calm tone. "It'll make you better." He then reassured. The scientist then turned his back to Sonic and started to write notes on a clipboard.
Sonic just stared with malice at the pill and cup of water beside it; he had no way out of this and didn't want a humiliating repeat of what happened with the thermometer incident and he certainly wouldn't want that painkiller to be administered by a syringe. The thought of that made Sonic shiver.
He just took the pill, swallowed it and then gulped down the water straight after. He knew that Eggman was helping him, but at least this time, he managed to maintain his pride, as long as he listened and didn't try to make it harder.
"Well, Sonic. That's everything done. Now, get back to bed." The doctor commanded sternly. Sonic just sighed in annoyance and went back to his room.
XXX
The sick, blue hedgehog returned to his recovery room a few doors down. There wasn't anything in this room, except a bed, window and a small cupboard. Sonic was bored; there was nothing to do in his dorm. If he was at his own house, he would at least have, books to read, had a T.V to watch and friends to call. In here he had nothing to amuse himself and not even enough space to run. Sonic then vowed that once he was better, he'd run till he could take no more and that wasn't a bad idea for a cooped-up hedgehog.
Orbot and Cubot came by later with a bowl of chicken soup. Clearly this was to cure Sonic's fever faster. The blue hedgehog still enjoyed it however and drank it within a minute. He then curled up under the blanket and went to sleep.
XXX
It was day two of Sonic's fever and when he woke up, he felt terrible. Even though, the room had no mirror, Sonic was sure that he looked terrible also. He had already seen that his fur and quills were ruffled and out of place and his eyes felt blood shot. The blue hedgehog decided that he didn't want to be seen like this and curled up even tighter under the blanket. His ears perked up when he heard the door open and footsteps approaching the bed.
"Rise and shine, Sonic!" A familiar, awfully sarcastic and cheery voice said.
Sonic moaned. If he was back home and this was Tails, his response would have likely been "Just five more minutes, lil' bro."
Someone suddenly removed his blanket and he started to shiver. He just wanted to be left alone and somehow retrieve his warm quilt without moving. Sonic curled up into a ball to retain some warm body heat before it escaped.
"Not feeling so well, I take it?" Eggman asked his patient, with his hands behind his back and a smug look on his face, while looking down at the spiked, blue ball. Another moan was the hedgehog's answer; he was clearly in no mood for another check-up by the doctor.
The doctor guessed that Sonic wasn't going to take kindly to a repeat of yesterday's check-up. He decided to leave the poor sick hedgehog alone once he checked his temperature again, to see if his fever decreased overnight. He knew that sick people needed their space and miserable, sick, spiky, blue hedgehogs needed A LOT of it, especially one that was a little bad tempered at times.
"Sonic? I'm just going to check your temperature today. Can you please uncurl yourself?" The doctor asked kindly.
The blue blur did mind, however, but he didn't want a repeat of yesterday's embarrassing check-up. He uncurled himself, sat up and allowed the scientist to place the annoying instrument into his mouth.
After Eggman was finished examining Sonic, he removed the thermometer and found the hedgehog's temperature to be lower than the day before, but still high enough to be ill. Eggman left the room, while taking notes on how to make the blue blur better.
The blue hedgehog only responded to this by snuggling under the blanket again, grateful that the doctor hadn't bothered him for too long.
"Ah…ahh…ACHOO!" Sonic sneezed. He then grabbed a handkerchief from the bed-stand beside him and blew his nose. He then started to cough and wheeze. This was the usual routine for the past few days and the hedgehog resented being committed to bed-rest. His legs longed to run, but were still denied.
After fifteen minutes, a knock came from the door and then it opened. Eggman had returned. He was holding a small plastic cup, being careful not to spill the contents, which was a very suspicious red-pink coloured liquid and was fizzing.
The blue blur, just stared at the cup. 'No…not that…anything but that…' He hated medicine and when sick, he was easily agitated and ill-tempered. In short, he was a doctor's worst nightmare.
"Hey, Sonic, try this." He said encouragingly as he handed the hedgehog the cup.
Sonic however eyed the fizzy liquid with suspicion. 'What if it's poisoned or some kind of hallucinating drug…' His mind was telling him. Sonic, himself however, had another idea. "What is this, Eggman?" Sonic asked. He wanted to know what it was first before his mind got the better of him.
"It's only medicine; an interesting concoction I've made for killing fevers faster than before. It contains vitamins, minerals and gives a boost of energy to the immune system." Eggman explained.
The hedgehog then took the cup in one hand, raised it up towards the doctor in a polite gesture, moved it towards his lips and downed half of it. Sonic's reaction to the medicine was almost immediate; upon swallowing the bitter, foul tasting medicine, he started to shiver and shudder. He almost gagged on it when it was running down his throat; this wasn't what he expected. "Ugghh! That's nasty! It's a little bitter, too. And you could've done something about the colour." Sonic complained.
"Just keep drinking it." Eggman commanded, once again with that authority tone, and one that sounded slightly parental also.
Sonic whined, clearly not enjoying this and then sighed in defeat. He swallowed the remaining medicine in one gulp, relieved that it was over. "Yeuch! Bleech!" The sick hedgehog responded to the bitter taste. The taste didn't leave for a few minutes and Sonic resolved to sucking the bed sheets to get rid of the horrid, unpleasant taste.
"Stop acting like a baby, or do I have to force you to take more." Eggman replied with a cunning smirk.
"NO!" Sonic barked out immediately. "Uh…I mean…no thanks." Was the quick, polite and quieter reply that shortly followed.
"Oh, well…" Eggman replied with a false frown of disappointment. "If you want to come out from within the confines of the recovery room for a while, be my guest. I'll be in the lounge if you need me." Eggman mentioned before departing, leaving the door opened and unlocked.
Sonic just stood there for a few moments, surprised and confused. He suspected a trap and slowly walked out and looked around, taking everything in. He found no trap and decided to walk around the corridors, taking everything in. There was plenty of security to feel safe and lots of space inside the fortress; it was very easy to get lost. He walked through a large corridor with a massive window running down the entire length of it. It exhibited the large snowy mountains of the outside world.
After a few minutes of exploring, Sonic was starting to get tired again, possibly from staying awake longer than usual, over his fever and perhaps from the medicine starting to work. He had already forgotten which way his room was and was as good as lost. All he wanted to do was to return to his bed and sleep his sick days away.
He soon stumbled into a massive room. The main features were a large T.V. mounted on the wall above a fireplace and a large jade-coloured sofa facing it. Sonic noticed that the T.V was on and someone was chortling along to the comical jokes. The blue hedgehog's triangular ears suddenly pricked up-right in slight alertness; he recognised that laugh – Eggman.
The azure coloured hedgehog walked up to the opposite side of the couch and sat down for a while. "Ah, Sonic, come to join me for a while?" The doctor asked as he noticed Sonic sitting down.
"I guess you could say that…" Came the reply. "I'll find my room later." Sonic muttered to himself, too tired to care anymore on where he slept. He also didn't mind because he was starting to feel safe here, compared to a few weeks ago when he was dying in a dungeon. The blue hedgehog was also starting to trust the doctor; if it was a few months ago, Sonic would have never allowed Eggman to come within several meters of him without attacking in defence.
He then placed his elbow on the arm rest and used his hand to keep his head propped up, although soon enough, he found himself lying down, curled up on his side of the couch. His breathing started to slow as he was drifting off.
That was when he felt something familiar on his exposed side and was reminded of what happened the last time this had occurred. "Mmph…stop that…" Sonic muttered in a sleepily, half-hearted complaint at the doctor's hand stroking him. Eggman however smirks and doesn't stop, clearly enjoying every rare moment of this.
The blue hedgehog would have refused on the grounds of being recognised as a pet, which he clearly wasn't. But right now, he couldn't fight it; too tired to make the scientist cease.
Sonic then turned his face away. 'Still… it feels great…' Sonic thought with embarrassment.
"Glad you're enjoying it." Eggman replied.
Sonic's emerald eyes shot open; had Eggman just heard what he was thinking?
He decided to try again to confirm his suspicions. 'Hey, Eggman...'
"What is it, now?" The doctor asked.
Sonic however froze for a moment. He didn't want to ask if this was real yet, in case he was still dreaming or crazy. He decided to say something else. "I just wanted to say…thanks for everything, but why the sudden change? He then asked.
"To be honest, it was wrong of me to mistreat you like that. It was very wrong of me; you almost died from my mistakes and I don't want to do it again." Eggman answered.
'I also wanted to just have you as a friend, for company.' The doctor then thought to himself.
"I think that I can accept that." Sonic responded.
Eggman just stared blankly; Sonic just read his thoughts and answered them. He then decided to forget about it. "Let's not worry about this, for now; I'm sure we'll figure out what's going on." Eggman replied and then resumed stroking Sonic's side, as if attempting to calm himself over this and also the nervous hedgehog beside him. They then turned their attention back to the T.V.
After a few minutes, it was clear that he didn't need to read Sonic's mind to understand that the blue hedgehog was enjoying this; he looked more relaxed than before and was emitting small purrs of happiness, while only half-conscious.
Once the show had ended, Eggman only realised then that the purring sounds had stopped beside him. He then looked over towards the one who had been making it previously and saw that the blue blur had completely fallen asleep. The doctor smiled compassionately as he carefully picked Sonic up, being careful of the sharp quills. Sonic, however, didn't even budge, for he was really tired and fully knocked out.
The doctor then took him to a different room than the one that the hedgehog had been in previously. Reassured that Sonic's fever was almost gone, the recovery room would definitely not suit as a room to live in daily. Once Eggman reached the new room, he placed Sonic down carefully on the bed and left him alone.
XXX
Eggman's POV:
'Had Sonic really just read my mind?! Had he just fallen asleep beside me, exposing himself in that manner? Did he now trust me completely?'
These were just a few of the questions that were now racing through my head and all the answers eluded me. I'd placed Sonic in a guest room and was now heading towards a facility that could probably tell me the answers:
The laboratory.
Once I'd entered the lab, I decided to take a sample of my blood and test it with Sonic's.
Something was wrong with me, and it all started when Sonic bit me.
My emotions did a 180 turn after that and I even secretly started eating chilidogs, which I never liked before. I even had to laugh at it and joked that I was turning into Sonic.
I then analysed the samples results.
As I read the monitor that displayed the data, I reached up with my hand for my glasses and removed them shakily, in order to double check to see that I wasn't wrong.
"That's impossible!" I said to myself.
Sonic's blood was a complete match to my own.
Like the hedgehog, I was also infected with the serum that I'd used to save him.
Only time would tell if the side-effects would become harmful.
XXX
To be continued…