"Terry Heroically Saves The Neighbourhood From A Talking Trash Bag" Solar Opposites, Korvo, M, Cold (One-Shot)

[SleepingPhlox]

Korvo learns he can catch Earth diseases, logic be damned.  Sneezing and careless grossness ensues. Other stuff also happens.

I am so obsessed with Solar Opposites right now.  I wrote this to test out some possible headcanons I was thinking of regarding them getting sick and how that would even work.  And now I am posting it.  I am not sure if anyone is interested in cartoon aliens sneezing but here it is anyway!

Heads up for language because these aliens have foul mouths and that goes double for Korvo.

_____________________________________________________________________________

For Korvo, the first sign that there might be something wrong was when he woke up in the morning and was immediately slammed with the sensation that he was drying out and would die without emergency hydration. With the benefit of hindsight, he would later realise that the first signs had been yesterday when he had the headache he couldn't shake and the general feeling of exhaustion. But, he lived with Terry, so he was always exhausted and had a headache. It wasn't exactly anything out of the ordinary.

He sat up, swayed in place a little, and then dragged his heavy body out of bed to put on his traditional heavy long black robe. Proper presentation was everything for a good Shlorpian, after all. But, the boots could fuck off, at least for now. Right now he needed to get into the kitchen to guzzle a glass of cool water before he shriveled up into a dried lifeless husk and left his useless teammates alone on Earth to fend for themselves without his eminent guidance. Which they couldn't. Because they were useless without him.

When he got to the kitchen sink, he was nearly overcome by a wave of dizziness and he gripped the side of the counter until the feeling subsided into a dull groggy cloud in the back of his head. With no time to lose, he poured a glass of water straight from the faucet and gulped it down. The humans were always talking about not drinking the faucet water because it was full of chemicals or something, but the chemicals were what made it nutritious! Stupid humans. What did they know? Nutritious, metallic faucet water was one of the only decent things about this awful planet.

He still felt like shit, but no doubt once the water made its way through his body, he'd be fine. There was no time to wait for that, however. There was, as always, work to be done on the ship so that he and his team could escape this horrible, human-infested hellhole. Just to be on the safe side, he poured another glass of water he could drink while working. Then, gripping the glass as if he feared he might drop it, he made his way up the stairs of the suburban house, and then from there up the floating set of steps that led to the ship, nestled into the massive gaping hole in the roof it had created when they crash landed there.

But his head really hurt, and it made it hard to concentrate. He'd managed to disassemble the piece he was working on, but with the parts spread out on the table before him and the manuals sitting there, he couldn't get his eyes to focus. Maybe if he just put his head down for a minute? He drank the second glass of water and lowered his head until his pale blue skin made contact with the cool surface of the table.

**********

Korvo didn't remember closing his eyes, but the next thing he knew he was opening them to the sound of Terry's annoying goddamn voice.

“Hey, Korvo, there you are! I've been looking for you all over.”

“That was stupid. You should have looked here first,” Korvo grumbled. “Where the fuck else would I be? I'm repairing the ship, because I'm always repairing the ship. Alone. You know, it feels like I'm the only one who wants to get off this planet.”

“Well, you got that right, Korvs, my man,” Terry drawled, sitting on a display panel and putting his feet up onto a nearby chair. Korvo scowled at him, but it went obliviously unnoticed. “Nobody cares about this stupid ship but you. And you need a break. You were tossing and turning and swearing in your sleep all night last night. You're way too stressed.”

“I'm stressed because my team ignores me and runs around acting like Earth is all great instead of helping me complete our mission. If you all would just-”

“Yeah, yeah, mission, blah, blah. The replicants and I made a surprise for you downstairs. You're going to love it, and it's really going to help you get your relax on.”

That piqued Korvo's interest. Terry and the replicants had done something nice for him? Of their own free will? The expression of a man (well, alien) who was about to weep with joy flickered across his face, but it disappeared as quickly as it had appeared and he went back to look as dour as always.

“Fine, I'll humour you and go look at your little surprise.” He waved his hand dismissively. “But you guys are gonna owe me one for pretending to be interested in your shit.”

A dry cough escaped his throat, followed by a couple of its friends. He must have needed more water.

“Whatever you say, Korvo,” Terry said. “Hey, you're looking super rough. You really slept bad last night, huh? Don't worry, a little break is gonna do you good.”

Terry, as much as Korvo hated to admit such a thing, had a point. He was tired and groggy, and he was getting nowhere with his repairs as a result. A nice break would recharge him, and then he could get back to work. He stood up, as much as his body insisted that staying seated was the better option, and let Terry put his thin green arm around his shoulders to lead him downstairs.

*********

Korvo stared dumbfounded at the scene that unfolded before him. There was a Happy Birthday banner stretched across the wall with the “Birth” sloppily crossed out and “Korvo” written above it. Below it the wall was littered with sheets of paper with crude drawings of what he guessed was supposed to be him and slogans like “Yay, Korvo”, “We love Korvo (mostly)”, and “Korvo doesn't suck that bad, I guess” written on them.

“Yay, Korvo,” Terry and the two replicants shouted in unison. Terry and his replicant Jesse, shouted with joyful, sincere exuberance; while Yumyulack, Korvo's own replicant, rolled his eyes and muttered it reluctantly and almost sarcastically. What a little shit. Yumyulack took after his progenitor that way, which made Korvo proud and think the little asshole sucked, in equal measures.

And the table seemed to be covered in foods he liked. Huh. Surprisingly thoughtful behaviour from these guys. He wondered what they were buttering him up for. He narrowed his eyes and glared at them all suspiciously.

“You've been working really hard,” Jesse proclaimed with the cheerful innocence that could only come from someone who'd been grown out of chopped off bits of Terry. “And Terry said you're super stressed. So even though we think all the work you keep doing is pointless and dumb, it's important to you, so we decided to show you how much we appreciate you so you can relax.”

Korvo's mouth quivered. His eye twitched. He took in an almost imperceptible gasp of air.

“Oh, geez,” Yumyulack muttered. “Is he about to cry?”

“Probably,” Jesse shrugged.

When Korvo emitted a second, louder gasp of air, it solidified their not-unreasonable theory. But the next moment shattered those expectations to bits.

“hehhh-TCHUUU!”

Korvo rubbed the middle of his face, the smooth featureless place where his external nose would protrude, if he were a human, oblivious to Terry's minor freakout next to him. Exclamations of “Eew, Korvo! Some of it got on me! What the hell, man?” went unnoticed as Korvo pondered the fact that, now that he thought of it, his head had felt full of pressure all morning, and now it suddenly felt even worse.

Maybe he needed nourishment. There were many sugary treats on the table, and sugar was great for getting his cells all fired up and ready to work. He sat down on the armchair and tried one snack, then another, then another. Everything he picked up and attempted to eat was abandoned after a bite or two. Everything looked good, but it was all entirely devoid of taste, and he found that off-putting. He sank into the comforting embrace of the armchair. He hated to admit it, but relaxing felt really good.

*********

He didn't remember closing his eyes, once again, but he found himself groggily opening them and hearing snippets of conversation floating into his consciousness.

“We did all of this work and he just falls asleep.” That one was Yumyulack.

“Ssh, don't wake him up. He'll just be grumpy at us if we wake him up. Terry said Korvo was stressed because we don't appreciate him, but we just appreciated the hell out of that guy and he's still being all Korvo about everything.” That would be Jesse.

“He's such a dill-hole,” Yumyulack again.

“That's enough,” he could hear Terry chiming in. Oh, dear, sweet Terry swooping in to have his back. “He might be a dill-hole, but he's our dill-hole, and we're stuck with him. Now you two go upstairs, and let Korvo finish his nap.”

Never mind, fuck Terry. Terry was the worst.

He must have been glaring at them because Terry suddenly stopped and stared at him with a nervous smile.

“Heeeey, Korvotron. Didn't know you were awake. Did you have a good nap? Uh...how much of that did you hear?”

“Enough to hear you calling me a dill-hole.”

“Oh, thank goodness you didn't hear us-...you know what? Never mind. That's not important. The important thing is that you feel rested.”

“Well I-I don't. Maybe if you guys had let me sleep for-for longer than five minutes.”

“Korvs? You were out for over an hour.” Now Terry looked and sounded concerned.

“No, that's not...not...hehhh-TCHUU!...hehh...ehhhTCHUU!”

Now Terry looked and sounded even more concerned. Korvo felt a hand press up against his forehead and he felt the urge to wave it away, but lacked the energy to follow up on that urge.

“I think you might be getting sick,” Terry mused.

Korvo snorted. Or, he tried to, but found his breathing passages obstructed. He had to resort to rolling his eyes.

“How the fuck would that even be possible?” Korvo spat.

“Well, a lot of humans have been saying there's a cold going around. Maybe you picked that up?”

Korvo sighed as he attempted to summon the patience to even explain how stupid that was. Yes, on their home planet he might have been slightly more susceptible to illness than the average Shlorpian, but he'd gotten to kiss getting sick ever again goodbye when they fled their homeworld. The damn planet had blown up. No Shlorp, no Shlorpian diseases. Not a lot of viruses had the inclination to evolve to infect plant based lifeforms, given their relative rarity across the universe. The only way he could be infected with something capable of affecting his kind, was if one of them had brought it along with them and it had somehow lay dormant for a year and a half before deciding to take root in his system. Not likely. Or if another group of Shlorpians had landed on Earth in the last week and brought a virus with them. Also not likely.

Great. Thinking about his homeworld was making him feel homesick. Add that to feeling grouchy and tired and physically shitty, and he was just having a fucking fantastic day.

“Terry, for the last goddamn time, humans are meat bags. A virus that evolved to infect them would not have any effect on a vastly superior plant based species like us. Our physiology is j-just too different. It-it would be like a human catching root rot from their rose bush. It's not possible. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going back up to the ship.”

Korvo trudged heavily off, pretending not to hear it when Terry muttered “dill-hole” under his breath.

**********

Once back on the ship, Korvo did not head straight for the table where he'd been repairing ship components earlier, or rather, attempting to repair them. He flung open a cabinet and flailed around the various rays and scanners kept there until he found the one he wanted.

He scanned his body. Shaking his head at the result, he scanned once more. And again. And again. The only thing that changed was his growing temper flare. The readout on the scanner remained stubbornly the same.

How?!

His body was riddled with an obscene amount of rhinoviruses, making themselves at home, and reproducing like they were getting paid for it. There was a fucking germ orgy going on inside his body right now. Gross.

This was terrible for two reasons: first of all, Terry was right. And second of all, if he could catch Earth illnesses...so much for that healthy rest of his life he planned to look forward to. Damn it! He stomped his foot petulantly and slammed the scanner down. No, he simply would not accept this. He would go back downstairs, drink a buttload of water, eat plenty of revitalising sugar, and he'd be fine. He would not succumb to this “cold”, he would not stoop so low as to allow a human disease to get the better of his body.

“hehhh-TCHUUU!...gehhhh...HNGKtchuuu!”

That meant nothing.

**********

Guzzling a big bag of skittles didn't help him feel any better. In fact it made him feel significantly worse. He opened a second bag, but hesitated. He had the feeling that swallowing any more would have him tasting the rainbow in reverse. And his head still hurt. Stretching out on the couch was starting to look tempting, although stretching out on the couch like a lazy piece of shit was more of a Terry thing. He sighed.

At that exact moment, Terry decided to explode into the living room and dance. Obnoxious, flailing dances, circling the sofa. Oh, he wasn't just dancing. He was singing, too. Loudly. Korvo moaned and rubbed his temples.

“I was right. I was right,” Terry sang, jabbing his index fingers toward the ceiling while kicking up his feet gleefully. “I was right and you were wrong. I was smart, and Korvo was dumb. Oh, yeah!”

“ Goddamnit, Terry, wh-what are you talking about?”

“I went up into the ship to look for you again. Remember, because you said I should look for you there first because you're always there. But you weren't there. Which kinda contradicts what you said about always being there.”

“Uh-huh. Get to the point before I vaporise you.”

“You left the body scanner sitting there. But you didn't turn it off. And I thought, 'Korvo's always yelling at us to turn stuff off because it takes too much Earth electricity to charge our alien sci-fi shit'.”

“Terry. The point.”

“I saw what was on the screen,” Terry exclaimed. He put his hands on the sides of Korvo's head and squeezed, causing Korvo to groan in pain. “This baby right here is full of rhinoviruses. There are so many rhinoviruses all up in this bitch!” Terry released Korvo's head, which was great, but went right back to dancing, which was the worst. “You can catch human diseases. You're sick with a human cold, baby! I was right, and you were wrong. I was right, oh yeah! I was the smart one! This is a good day for Terry!”

“Well, it's not a good day for me!” Korvo protested weakly.

Terry stopped dancing. Korvo just looked dejected, with his shoulders all slumped and his face all droopy. Rubbing his victory in Korvo's face didn't feel fun anymore, it just felt kinda mean. Korvo might be a stick in the mud that'd had a stick jammed up it's ass, but he didn't want to see him really suffer! He sighed, sat down next to Korvo, and put an arm around his shoulders.

“Hey, Korvy, don't worry about it. All you have to do is go put on your jammies and go to bed and get some rest, and you'll be feeling better before you know it.”

“I-I'm not wearing pyjamas in the middle of the day! What d-what do you take me for?”

“I take you for a very sick alien who needs to get better,” Terry cooed, in a surprisingly nurturing tone, stroking the smooth skin of Korvo's head. That was probably why Terry was better with the replicants, he was good at empathising and listening to people and dumb shit like that. “Now, come on, lets get you into bed.”

“C-can I wear slipper socks?” Korvo pouted, starting to reluctantly come around to the idea.

“Of course you can wear slipper socks.”

“Okay. I'll-...hehhh...ehhhTCHUUU!”

“Oh! Aw, man!” Terry shouted, his nurturing tone disappearing. “Goddamnit, Korvo, now I have to change my shirt again! Oh, that's disgusting!”

**********

Korvo sat in the bed, draped in his dark blue striped flannel pyjamas and the promised slipper socks. The pyjamas were one of the few articles of human clothes he would deign to allow to adorn his body, preferring coarse traditional Shlorpian robes all the way. The humans got a lot of stuff wrong, but flannel pyjamas were one thing they got oh so right. The slipper socks were pretty sweet too, he thought, as he wiggled his two-toed feet in their cozy embrace. These ones were nearly brand new, too, and hadn't yet lost their fluffiness from too many washings.

He held a book in his lap, flicking through pages with the hand that wasn't holding a tissue. A couple dozen used tissues littered the floor beside the bed. The untidiness was decidedly un-Korvo-like, but he didn't have the energy to worry about that right now. He brought the tissue he was holding to his face to expel his face mucus into – well, as much as the flimsy thing could accommodate. He wasn't sure why humans insisted on creating these barely useful things. He could only imagine they all must produce far less face mucus than he did. Or, they were too stupid to design anything properly. Either one was possible. The used tissue was quickly added to the discarded pile, and he pulled out another one to dry his face with.

He had been appalled by the idea of tissues at first. A tree, ground up into pulp and then flattened out to be desecrated by being used for various bodily functions? It was monstrous! But then he learned that on Earth, trees are merely trees, and not the bodies of anyone's wise old ancestors who had passed on, so...tissues were okay, he supposed. The idea was still wasteful as hell, but hey, the whole planet would be devoured and rebuilt into the image of the Homeworld eventually, so why should he care? Humans didn't care, and they didn't even know about the whole impending destruction thing.

A few deep chesty coughs erupted from his mouth. They were starting to get noticeably wetter and more productive. He'd known to expect that, from the research he'd started doing on human diseases. He had never paid human ailments much attention before, but now that he actually had one, he felt it was prudent to give a shit about them. He had started reading about “the common cold” (Why did they call it common? That implied it wasn't rare. How common was it?!) on the internet, and read all the things he could expect to encounter. But then it started getting into some “Call your doctor if...” bullshit. He couldn't exactly call a doctor, could he, Dumbass Website? He didn't have one! No doctor on the planet knew what to do with Shlorpian physiology. Best he could do was the AI on his ship and the survival medicine books they'd brought with them. So, “Call your doctor if...” was useless to him. And he'd stopped reading that nonsense. Ship manuals were far more comforting anyway. He could let his mind wander to fantasies of working on the ship, finally fixing it, and getting far away from Earth, settling on a nice uninhabited planet with no rhinoviruses on it. Oh, that would be so freaking sweet.

All in all, being sick wasn't that bad. On Shlorp, allowing one's productivity to decrease due to illness or injury or any other reason was strictly forbidden. Sick days were illegal. Having to drag himself around to work while miserable sucked sometimes, but the rules were there for a reason and the rules were for everyone. Their beautiful, utopian society functioned because everyone followed the rules and did their part.

But, there were no such rules here on Earth. Earth society was no utopia, it barely functioned as it was, and humans didn't give a shit about following the rules and doing their part, so why the hell should he? Sitting here doing nothing productive but tending to his own physical needs was positively hedonistic. It gave him a little thrill to think about how forbidden sitting here tucked up in bed with his tissue box would be back home. And, even going so far as to drink 7-Up. He had no idea why this concoction of carbonation and sugar should be medicinal, but Terry said the humans swore by it's therapeutic properties.

“hehhh...ehhhTCHHHU!...hyyehhhTCHHU!”

Korvo sighed, and wiped the resultant mess from the pages of his book. It was time to expel his face mucus again. That was getting a little repetitive, and the skin around his nasal passages was starting to hurt from being tormented with tissues a few too many times. And, if he were honest, it was hard to enjoy his reading, or his comfortable socks, or indeed anything at all when he felt this shitty.

Maybe a little sleep was the answer.

**********

The next thing he knew, he was waking up to the sound of Terry's voice.

“Korvo? Psst. Hey, Korvo.”

Korvo opened his eyelids the bare minimum needed to allow him to see the blurry form of Terry poking his head through the slightly open door.

“Ghuh?” Korvo grunted.

“Hey, there. I just wanted to see if you were hungry. It's dinner time. I got some stuff that I heard is guaranteed to help you feel better.”

Korvo grunted, shifted in the bed, and then summoned all of his energy and dragged his body into a sitting position, groaning at the all consuming soreness the entire time. Terry winced at the sight. If he'd thought Korvo looked bad before, that was nothing compared to this.

“I'b dot hu'gry,” Korvo rasped. “But if id will help be feel bedder, I'll try it.”

“Geez, your head must be full of gunk. I can barely understand you.”

“hnnkgggh...HYEEEEHtchhu!”

“Gross. Clean your face before you come out. I'll get your food ready and meet you at the table.”

**********

“What is this stuff?” Korvo demanded as his painful and exhausting trudge to the table revealed to him that, while everyone else had pizza, laid out for him was a bowl of something and a glass of something else.

“That's chicken noodle soup,” Terry said, his mouth full of partially chewed pizza. Mercifully, he paused to swallow before continuing. “And that's orange juice. Brent at my spinning class said that's what humans consume when they have colds. He says he hopes you feel better, by the way.”

“Yeah, well you tell Brent I said go die in a fire. Don't go around telling people I'm sick,” Korvo grumbled, lowering himself into his chair. “It's embarrassing. And how come I don't get any pizza?”

“You have to eat your sick people food so you can get better.”

“I want pizza!”

“You can have pizza when you're better. Eat your soup.”

Korvo glared and glowered at Terry, but picked up his spoon and dipped it into the steaming bowl. He raised the spoon slowly to his lips, sulkily muttering under his breath “How dare you tell me what to do? I'm the team leader here. You're not the boss of me. I'm the-the boss of you,” until the hot liquid touched his lips. The heat felt nice – no, downright amazing – sliding down his throat. It went a good way toward alleviating the pain at the back of his throat. But, that lasted as long as it look for him to swallow, and then he was right back to feeling as terrible as he had before.

A few more spoonfuls helped him feel warmed up from the inside, and a little less shivery. And, he had to admit that he felt slightly improved in some sort of nebulous way he couldn't describe, just that having the food inside him made him feel slightly “better”. But when he had finished the bowl, he hadn't been fully healed as he'd expected to be. It had also conspicuously increased his production of face mucus, which he'd argue was the exact opposite of healed.

“I'm still sick,” he announced, pushing the bowl away from him in what appeared to be a signal that he had no intention of bringing it to the kitchen himself. “Clearly these human remedies are ineffective.”

“Give it some time,” Terry said. “I'm sure it's just like being sick with regular Shlorpian sicknesses. Time and rest.”

“Well, I dod't wadt to give it tibe,” he attempted to shout, his voice giving out in protest as every word scraped against his raw throat. “I feel like shit and I wadt to...you dow, dot feel like shit. I'm goi'g back to bed.”

“That is a very good place for you to be,” Terry agreed, in a voice that was much calmer than he felt on the inside. Korvo huffed and stood up, and turned to leave.

Then he stopped in his tracks.

“HehhTCHUU!...hehh...ehhhTCHUU! EhhhhTSHHU!”

Each blast shot impressive amounts of mess from his face. Thankfully he'd been facing away from the table when he did that. The visuals, however, had not been pleasant to witness, and Terry and the replicants found themselves not as enamoured with devouring their pizza as they had been. Korvo wiped at his face with the back of his hand, which did nothing but spread the mess around, and trudged off to bed.

**********

Korvo woke up from a dream he immediately could not remember, but that had left it's mark on him anyway. His hearts were racing, chattering and dancing gooblers – the tiny stress-creatures his body produced when upset – dotted the bed and floor. He couldn't remember the specifics of the dream, but he woke up feeling profoundly disturbed and with the intense need to validate his existence and be comforted. He looked at the other side of the bed, expecting to see Terry, but there was no Terry.

The clock said it was three o'clock so why was there no Terry? There should be a Terry! Oh, god. Terry abandoned him because he was a defective, bad team leader who got them all stranded on the worst planet ever, and also because he wasn't just a bad team leader, he was a bad Shlorpian. He knew he'd never measured up to all the good Shlorpians who just had everything come naturally to them! His workmates back home had merely tolerated him, he'd made no friends, let alone found anyone willing to even consider him as a potential lifemate. He'd always known he was defective and lesser and he'd tried so hard to measure up, but no, he sucked, and now his team had abandoned him.

He whimpered. Nothing left to do but go survey the empty shell of the home they had once shared. He wrapped his blanket around his shoulders and went downstairs to face his new, horrible, lonely fate.

Huh. The TV was on. The assholes could have at least turned it off before they ran off and abandoned him. Fucking jerks. Good riddance to them. He didn't need them.

Oh, wait. Terry was sitting on the sofa eating Doritos and watching TV. They hadn't abandoned him after all! Oh, his team-slash-family was still complete. They still accepted him!

Terry looked up from the screen when he saw Korvo's face looming above him ominously, with dark blue circles under his half lidded eyes and rivulets of mess running from his nasal passages. Terry's defenses shot up, assuming not unreasonably that Korvo was about to ride his ass about one thing or another yet again.

“You're not in bed,” Korvo whispered.

Of all the things for Korvo to say, Terry had not been expecting that.

“No. Why would I be? You're the sick one, not me.”

Korvo thought that was a strange and stupid answer. Even perfectly healthy people still needed to sleep at night! It was then that he noticed that it was very sunny. A little too sunny for 3 AM. Oh. Right. Every number occurred twice with that ridiculous 12 hour clock. Stupid 12 hour clocks.

“Terry...” Korvo began, his voice wavering. Terry looked up at him and his lower lip was quivering and his eyes were brimming with tears. “I need to tell you something.”

“Uh, Korvs, could we maybe not do this right now? I'm watching Real Housewives Of Lincoln, Nebraska, and it's getting real juicy.”

But the next thing Terry knew, Korvo was slithering onto the sofa with him, nestling himself up against Terry's side with his blanket pulled up around his shoulders.

“Okay,” Terry sighed. “I guess we're doing this right now.”

“I have a confession to make,” Korvo whimpered. “I'm defective. I know I seem like I'm a specimen of superiority on the outside.”

“Oh, trust me, you don't.”

“But, I'm defective, Terry. That's the terrible secret I've been hiding. I'm so sorry you got stuck with me as team leader. It's all my fault. All of it,” Korvo sobbed, making his nasal passages flow even worse than before. “I'm the one who should have maintained the ship better so it didn't fuck up on us. I'm the one who should have steered us to a better planet to crash on. I'm the one who should have double checked the scans to make sure Earth wasn't a human-infested hellhole. I'm so...so...sorry! You're all suffering because of me!”

“Ohhhh, yeah. You landed us on probably the only planet that has Harry Potter movies, jalapeno pretzel bites, and pina coladas. I don't know how I'll ever forgive you for alllll this suffering.” Terry snorted. When Korvo wailed loudly in response, Terry guessed his sarcasm had not landed as intended. He wriggled his arm free and put it around Korvo's heaving shoulders. “Oh, Korvo. Everything is fine. We all have each other. And the only one of us suffering on Earth is you, because you won't pull the massive stick out of your butt and let yourself enjoy things the way they are. Everything is okay.”

“A-a-and you won't abandon me because I'm defective?” Korvo hugged his knees tighter to his chest and pulled his head further into the folds of his blanket.

“Boy that fever is really doing a number on you, isn't it? Of course we're not going to abandon you. Why would we do that? You're the one who remembers to pay the bills on time." Terry drew circles on Korvo's head with his finger. "Plus we actually kind of like you, you big dummy.”

“You-you like me?”

“Yeah, most of the time. You might be annoying and really boring, I mean like soooo boring, I mean so boring I'd rather cover my eyeballs in mustard and let the Pupa suck on them than listen to you go on about the ship one more time, but you're my Korvy. Okay? And, hey, us defectives gotta stick together. Don't we?” He gave Korvo's shoulders a hefty squeeze. “Now, shush. Two of the Housewives have started selling the same pyramid scheme weight loss tea in the same neighbourhood. It's looking like there's gonna be a slap fight.”

Korvo did not stay awake long enough to find out if there was a slap fight or not.

Korvo did not wake up in time for dinner. Terry had to resign himself to being stuck under the lump of dead weight and asking the replicants to please bring him something to eat and drink. They might have taken advantage of their lack of supervision by indulging in ice cream for dinner, washing it down with super soakers filled with lemonade that they shot at each other from across the dining room. He couldn't blame them. He would have done the same in their position.

At around nine o'clock, Terry tried to shake Korvo awake to get him to go back into the bed. Korvo stirred, and groaned slightly, but did not wake. After that, Terry gave up trying to get off the couch for the night, but trying to escape without bothering Korvo seemed impossible. This was the quietest and soundest that Korvo had slept since he'd started getting sick, and it seemed cruel to disturb him. So Terry managed to wriggle his legs up onto the sofa, finding some room between Korvo's butt and the back cushions, and tugged at the sides of the blankets so that he could partake of it's cozy embrace.

**********

In the first blissful moments of waking up, Korvo felt pleasant. It was like being back in the warm, tightly packed soil under his heat lamp, when he was just a newly planted little sproutling. But that feeling did not last long before his body reminded him that he was still miserable. Everything ached, his head was pounding, his throat was on fire and his head was full of gunk. His body shuddered as he took a sudden, involuntary breath and he buried his face into the nearest possible barrier.

“Hehh....hehhhEHPTCHGKHHU!”

The sudden noise and accompanying sensation jolted Terry awake with a yelp. While coming to his senses, he tried to convince himself that Korvo had not just sneezed onto his stomach, with only the barrier of his t-shirt between his skin and Korvo's face mucus. But not only had that totally just happened, but even worse was in store. Korvo groggily grabbed a handful of Terry's shirt and heartily emptied his nasal passages into it. An entire nights worth of accumulated mucus. Right into Terry's shirt. While he was still wearing it.

“Gah! Korvo, what the fuck?” Terry screamed, wriggling to extricate himself from Korvo's gross embrace. Korvo turned his bleary gaze toward the source of the noise, trying to figure out what the fuss could be all about. Then in the next moment the replicants were rushing in, waving their arms and wailing about needing a ride to school, and Korvo assumed that must be the fuss. Didn't seem worth all that shouting, though. Terry really was so overdramatic. He closed his eyes again.

“Guys, just hold on,” Terry said frantically. “I need to go change my shirt real quick.”

“There's no time,” Jesse protested.

“Yeah,” Yumyulack chimed in. “You have no idea what they said they were going to do to us if we were late one more time. I don't even know if it's legal, but I don't want to find out the hard way.”

Terry sighed. Okay, rocking the shirtless look, it would be. Man, Korvo was going to owe him big time when this was over, for everything he was putting him through.

**********

The next time Korvo opened his eyes, there was stuff on the table. That would normally be annoying – really, could everyone else hold off on making an almighty mess of the house until he was well enough to yell at them for it? But then he really looked at all of it and...

Two boxes of tissues, a large pitcher of water with half-melted ice cubes floating around in it, a bag of something called “throat lozenges”. There was a pattern here. There was also a second blanket over his body and somehow someone had slipped a pillow under his head without him noticing.

He had no idea what day it was, or even what time it was. He looked around for some context clues. The sun was out, okay. The TV was off. He didn't hear the replicants running around getting on each other's nerves so perhaps they were still at school. Or upstairs. Wait...he could hear something going on...Terry, in the kitchen...singing? And some other somewhat familiar noises...was Terry in the kitchen doing dishes? As in, actual chores?

Great. He was in the fucking end times.

How long had he slept? A tickle in his nasal passages informed him that it had not been long enough to get rid of this damned cold.

“Hehh...gnnnhhhhehhh...gyehhhTCHUUU!...hehhTCHUUU!...oh fuck...hehhESSHHHU!” He followed it up with a hearty bout of coughing that allowed him precious little time to catch his breath.

With that effective announcement that Korvo was now awake, Terry came into the living room, still happily humming to himself.

“Hey, Korvy, you're awake. How are you feeling? Any better?”

“gyehhhh...TCHUUUU! No. Are you doi'g dishes? Is that ad aprod you're weari'g?”

“Yes it is, and don't you dare think about blowing your nose on it.”

“Terry, what the fuck are you talki'g about? You're dot baking addy sedse.”

“That's what the humans call expelling your face mucus. Kelly at the grocery story told me. She said saying 'expelling your face mucus' sounds weird and kind of gross and we should say 'blow your nose' instead. She said she hopes you feel better, by the way.”

“You tell Kelly to go die in a fire, too. I told you, stop telling people I'm sick. Does the whole town know?”

“No. Just the people in my spinning class, and in my gaming circle, and at the dog park, and in the supermarket, and everybody who was at the CVS this morning, and the ice cream truck guy, and the mailman, and everybody that lives on our street, and-.”

“Damn it, Terry!” Korvo groaned, then stopped himself. Terry was always bitching and whining about how Korvo only noticed the bad stuff he did and never pointed out the good stuff. And Terry had been doing some good stuff, by the looks of things. So he should probably point it out. “Have you been doing chores? Everything looks surprisingly clean.”

“Yeah. I mean, I wasn't gonna, but we ran out of spoons to eat ice cream with and I tried using a fork and it sucked. Anyway, long story short, nothing makes a good spoon like a spoon does. And I figured if you woke up to a dirty house you'd flip out on me so...I did some stuff.”

“Well, everything looks nice. Thank you. A-and thank you for all this stuff on the table here.”

Terry was dumbstruck for a moment. Did Korvo just...say thank you? Un-sarcastically? It felt so good he was almost going to cry like a little bitch. But he wouldn't. Not here. Not in front of Korvo. He'd save it for the shower later. If...if he could control himself that long.

Thankfully, the replicants chose that exact moment to burst in through the front door, shouting and flailing their arms wildly. That was kind of a pattern with those two, wasn't it?

“Korvo! We need Korvo!” Yumyulack shouted frantically.

“We fucked up,” Jesse wailed. “We fucked up real bad!”

“I told Jesse to hold the ray steady when she aimed it, but she didn't listen!”

“There was this cat who looked super sad and hungry so I wanted to shoot it with the make stuff alive ray so it could talk and I could ask it if it had a family but I missed and made a bag of garbage alive and it's really, really mad about that!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, what the fuck?” Terry said, attempting to process the situation as quickly as Jesse's stream of consciousness wailing could spit it out. “Okay, look. Korvo's in no position to help, but just let me grab my shoes and I'll fix it.”

“Uh, no offense, Terry,” Jesse said. “But this is more of a Korvo problem.”

“Yeah,” Yumyulack agreed. “We need someone who is going to help and not, you know, make it way worse.”

“Well, tough titties, because you're getting me. I think I can handle a talking bag of garbage. Now come on, lets take this somewhere else so Korvo can get his rest.”

They ran outside, and Korvo found himself staring up at the ceiling. Their arguing and shouting had been making his head throb with excruciating pain, but being here all by himself felt lonely. He usually liked being left alone, so that was weird.

“Hehhh...hehhhGHHKTCHUU!...hehhhESSHHHUUU!...oh god, dot agaid...hahhhGHHHTCHHU!...guh...”

He turned lazily toward the table to grab a tissue or two to sort out the mucus situation on his face.

He recoiled, startled, when he came face to face with a small creature staring at him.

It was small, and covered in long black fur. It had little pointy ears, and stared at him with bright yellow eyes. It was kind of cute, for an Earth animal. It flicked a little pink tongue out of it's mouth.

“Move,” it said, calmly. “So that I may sit there.”

“Fuck you,” Korvo retorted. “This is my house. Plus, I'm too sick to move.”

The creature laughed jovially. “I like your style. You're not like the other humans.”

“Because I'm not a human. Are you kidding me? I hate those things. I'm an alien. Wh-wh-what the fuck are you?”

“I'm a cat, dumbass. Who doesn't know what a cat is?”

“Uh, an alien. Which is what I am. I-I literally just said that.”

“You seem like fun. Want to hang out and talk shit about how dumb humans are?”

“Oh my god, yes. I have been wanting someone to talk shit about humans to for so long.”

“Very well,” the cat replied, nudging a tissue box with his paw until it fell on the floor.

“Hey, that was kind of a dick move,” Korvo grumbled.

“I'm a cat. It's kind of our whole thing. I am going to sit on you now.”

**********

“Oh, Mr. Cuddlebutt,” Korvo chortled, carefully so as not to aggravate his throat into another coughing fit. “That's hilarious!”

“That's nothing,” the cat replied. “After I stole their chicken, I took a piss on their clean laundry. While making eye contact with them the whole time.”

Terry and the replicants burst in through the front door.

“Jesse, you get the net guns,” Terry shouted. “Yumyulack, you keep eyes on the monster. Don't let it out of your sight. I'll get the bandages. Oh god, oh god, oh god, I'm losing so much blood.”

“Oh man, guys, hurry,” Yumyulack screamed. “It just assimilated a whole dumpster. It's getting freaking huge!”

“All right, guys,” Jesse yelled, bounding down the stairs. “Get ready to lock and load. It's go time.”

When the noise died down, the cat said “Are they always like that?”

“Yeah, pretty much. Listen, your stories about fucking with your humans are the best thing I've ever heard, but I feel like shit. I'm going to close my eyes for a little while.”

“Go for it. Sleeping's one of my favourite things.”

**********

The next time Korvo woke up, it was to Jesse's voice whispering his name and her hands attempting to shake him awake.

“Korvo. Hey, Korvo. I need to get Whiskers so I can turn him back to normal and get him back to his family. Come on, Korvo.”

Korvo opened his eyes groggily.

“Guh? Jesse? What the..?”

“Hey, man,” said the small black creature curled up on top of his blankets.

Korvo shrieked, and sat bolt upright.

“What the fuck? I thought I hallucinated that shit!”

“Nah, I'm real,” the cat said.

“He's very real and I need to turn him back to normal so he can go back home,” Jesse said.

“No way,” Korvo protested. “You can't take Mr. Cuddlebutt away from me. He's my new best friend. We understand each other, and how much humans suck.”

Mr. Cuddlebutt...or Whiskers...or whatever...put his paw on Korvo's chest and looked up at him with soulful yellow eyes.

“I enjoyed our time together,” Mr. Cuddlebutt/Whiskers said mournfully. “But I need to go back. I will always remember talking shit about humans with you. Until they turn me back to normal and my brain goes back to being a normal cat brain.  Then I will forget everything.”

Korvo's eyes began to water.

“Go outside, Jesse. I need to say goodbye to Mr. Cuddlebutt alone.”

“Okay, okay. But don't take too long. I want to get this over with and put this whole horrible mess behind me. I'm gonna need like 50 showers.”

Once they were alone, Korvo let a tear stream down his cheek.

“Oh, Mr. Cuddlebutt. I wish you didn't have to go. I'm going to miss you so much.”

“I'll miss you too. Until I get my regular cat brain back and forget everything. But, Korvo, remember this. If you ever see me walking around the neighbourhood, I really, really like having that little bit of my back right by my tail scratched. Do that if you ever want to feel close to me again. And also, don't pick me up. I hate that and I will scratch your shit up if you try it. I can't help it, it's just kind of instinct. Oh yeah, and don't try to touch my belly, or I'll scratch you. Or my chin. I'll scratch you for that too.”

“You sound like kind of a dick, to be honest.”

“I'm a cat. It's who I am. Good bye, Korvo.”

“Good bye, Mr. Cuddlebutt.”

Korvo squeezed his eyes shut to avoid having to watch his beloved new friend leave. He simply could not bear it. He felt Mr. Cuddlebutt/Whiskers jump off the sofa and heard him padding slowly away. Korvo whimpered. It felt like someone was squeezing all of his hearts at once. It hurt. It hurt so bad.

“Hey, could I get a little help over here?” came Mr. Cuddlebutt/Whiskers voice. Korvo opened his eyes to see the cat scratching at the front door with a dainty little black paw.

“Oh, right, sorry,” Korvo said. “Hold on a second.” He peeled himself from the couch and plodded heavily over to the door to open it.

Wow, outside looked like shit. Had there been a street party while he was asleep? There was trash everywhere. He knew humans were messy, but this was ridiculous. The homeowners association should do something about that instead of singling him out to nag about every little thing just because he happened to be an alien.

“Hey, Korvy, you're up,” came Terry's voice from behind him. Korvo turned around to see Terry coming down the stairs in a bathrobe and a towel around his head even though he didn't have any hair to wrap up and he was obviously only doing that to imitate the humans. “You must be feeling better.”

“You know, I...hehhhEHHHTCHUU!....hnnnghTCHHUUU!”

He was feeling a little better. Not completely, but enough to actually stand up without falling over. He was certainly heading in the right direction. But he didn't get a chance to tell Terry that because for some reason Terry paused on the stairs, sniffed his arm, exclaimed “Goddamnit, I can still smell the garbage water!” and ran back upstairs.

Man his team-slash-family were fucking weird.

But, hey, now that he could actually get up and move around, maybe he'd go back to sleeping in the bed tonight. He'd sleep better there, with the nice firm mattress and the option to “accidentally” wrap himself around Terry when he needed a little bit of extra comfort.

**********

He woke up a bit late the next morning, but still at the relatively normal time of 10. It was definitely 10 AM, he checked to make sure. His nasal passages were still a little stuffy, his throat was still sore, and he was still a little tired, but he noticed a significant improvement in how he felt. And that was good enough for him to get his ass back up to the ship and start working on it again.

Terry wasn't in the bed. He'd been there during the night, Korvo knew that, because he'd “accidentally” cuddled him kind of a lot. Korvo stood up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes and went in search of Terry to tell him the good news. He was feeling moderately better and work on the ship could recommence!

He found Terry in the dining room, sitting with his head resting on the table, a plate of barely touched pancakes next to him.

“Hey, Terry! Good news! I'm ready to start working on the ship again!”

Terry slowly lifted his head, revealing dark green bags under his bleary eyes and small trails of face mucus under his nasal passages.

“Huh? Oh, hey Korvs. Before you say addythi'g, I dow, there's chores to be dode. I'b od it. I just deed a seco'd.”

And then Terry let his head drop back to the table with a heavy thunk.

THE END

[SneezyHolmes]

Okay, I really need to watch this show because holy heck, Korvo has me WEAK! Non-humans being sick is already top notch in my book but sick aliens? HOT! 

Poor Terry though, being all nice only to get rewarded with germs! 😂

[SleepingPhlox]

6 hours ago, SneezyHolmes said:

Okay, I really need to watch this show because holy heck, Korvo has me WEAK! Non-humans being sick is already top notch in my book but sick aliens? HOT! 

Poor Terry though, being all nice only to get rewarded with germs! 😂

Sick non-humans will always be one of the best things ever.  Nothing will ever change my mind. EVER. (And Korvo freaking deserves it).

I highly recommend the show, it's weird and funny and I was surprised with how much I enjoyed it!