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The sound of vomiting wakes Ivo Robotnik up.
He bleary blinks his eyes open, unsure at first of what had woken him up. But then he hears it again, the unmistakable sounds of retching. It carries across the Crab and slips through crack of his barely open bedroom door.
Someone's sick.
Ivo shakes his head at himself. Someone. There's only two people in this submersible. So, if he wasn't currently puking his guts out then it had to be Stone.
He considers rolling over and going back to sleep. Stone's a big boy. The agent didn't need him to hold back his hair and pat his back. He'd be fine.
But then a particularly painful sounding retch makes his own stomach cramp in sympathy.
With a disgruntled sigh, Ivo throws back his covers and starts the process of getting out of bed. No more springing up off the mattress for him, thanks, no thanks to a certain shall not be named hedgehog.
Now it takes arduously labored precious minutes to heave himself upright. Although, it is infinitely better than being bedridden in a full body cast, so he keeps the complaining down to only muttered curses.
He makes his way to the single bathroom in the metal crustacean that he and Stone have made their home. Some of the ported badniks perk up in question as he passes by them.
"It's alright, girls. Go back to bed." He quietly assures them with a wave of his hand, and they listen, settling back in the alcoves of the wall that serve as their beds.
The bathroom door is unlocked, which is as good as an open invitation for Ivo to come in. He opens the door and is immediately struck by the sight before him.
Stone is crouched, balanced on his hunches, in front of the toilet. He's unnaturally pale. A thin sheen of sweat on his forehead gleams in the too harsh light above them. He looks downright pitiful, nothing like the ever-composed agent with a spine of steel like Robotnik has gotten used to having around.
He has a fever of 102, Ivo estimates.
"You're sick." He accuses and Stone flinches.
"I'm fine, Doctor." He croaks. "You can go back to bed. I'm sorry if I woke you up."
"Where on Earth would you have even picked something up at? That last grocery trip must have done you in. Serves you right for insisting to go in person and rub shoulders with those mouth breathers. You're infected now. I'll be next."
"I'm not sick." Stone insists, pressing the heels of his shaking hands into his eyeballs. "It's just stress."
They both freeze as soon as the words fly out of Stone's mouth. Ivo first because his brain wasn't the one currently cooking. Stone isn't too far behind though.
Stone sucks in a shaky breath and presses his hands into his eye sockets even harder. "Forget I said that. You're right, I am sick."
An unpleasant feeling washes over Ivo. He tries his best to push it back, but just like the tide the Crab was floating in, it just rushes right back in and tries to anchor itself into his chest.
Guilt, he thinks it is. Guilt because the stress that his sycophant is referring to is Ivo's recovery. Stone's assistance been an unspoken thing. He never asked for it. But still one day, he drifted into consciousness and there was his trusty barnacle by his bedside. And he continued by Robotnik's side without complaint through the process of shedding off the body cast, the slings, the cane.
Stone's never mentioned being stressed. In fact, it's only been Ivo who's complained. Stone has just hovered in his usual spot, a step behind Robotnik's shoulder, business as usual.
Apparently not though, if he's so casually blaming this puking spell to it. The logical conclusion is that this must be a regular occurrence. The realization sits sharp in Ivo's throat. It's uncomfortable and he hates it.
Stone shakily stands. Ivo's hand makes an odd involuntary twitch, as if to reach out and help, but Stone doesn't need it. He steps over to the sink, a bit steadier already, and turns on the faucet.
"I'm fine, Doctor, really." He says as he grabs his toothbrush and puts toothpaste on the bristles. "Go back to bed."
Robotnik blinks. He knows well and good that wasn't just an order. Stone knows better than that. He waits for an apology from the sycophant. He doesn't get one. Stone just shoves his toothbrush in his mouth.
Go back to bed, Ivo thinks bitterly. Big fat chance. No, he's invested in this now, he decides.
What can he do to help?
Nothing comes to him right away. Not because of a lack of knowledge, mind you. Never that. No, more of this admittedly wasn't his area of expertise. This is what Stone excelled at.
All right then. What would Stone do if Ivo was the one trying his best to regurgitate up his small intestines with a 102-degree fever?
Correction.
What has Stone done before?
Ivo flashes to a memory of when he had a fever a few weeks ago. He steps around Stone in the cramped room and gets two washcloths out of a cabinet. He leaves, going into the kitchen and runs each one under lukewarm water.
Stone is stepping out of the bathroom just as Ivo comes back. He tries to step around the Doctor, but Ivo just clicks his tongue disapprovingly at him, cupping his elbow and turning him around in the opposite direction.
"Nope." He tuts. "This way, if you please."
"Doctor, no." Stone protests. It's weak though, worn down by fever and likely exhaustion if those bags under his eyes have any say in it. "I want to go lay down."
"And you will." Ivo tells him. He steers them into his own bedroom and parks Stone at the edge of the bed. "In you get." He prompts when Stone makes no move to climb in. Impossibly, his face loses even more of its color.
"Doctor, I --"
"Geez, Louise." Ivo grumbles then without much further ado, he pushes Stone into the bed. The agent lands in a gangly mess of limbs with a yelp and Ivo arranges him into a position that looks comfortable. Due to the years of conditioning, Stone lets himself be manhandled. Not entirely silently, however.
"This isn't necessary, Doctor." He says as Ivo pokes and prods at him until he curls up on his side, closing his eyes.
Ivo doesn't dignify his protests with a response. Instead, he lays one of the damp washcloths against Stone's neck. He gasps as soon as the cloth makes contact. His whole body tenses up, muscles seizing, before they all release at once.
Ivo doesn't bother hiding his smirk, pleased with himself. Maybe he wasn't half bad with this whole talking care of others business. "Better?"
"Yes." Stone answers weakly, the word cracking in the middle.
He drapes the second cloth across Stone's forehead. It sits there awkwardly, half on his skin and the other half wetting his hair on account of how Stone's laying. The patient doesn't complain though, so he doesn't bother fixing it.
Ivo walks around to the other side of the bed, flipping off the light as he goes. Then he hesitates when it fully dawns on him that dragging Stone into his bed meant that he wouldn't be alone in it for what remained of the night. He pulls up his big boy pants though and climbs in.
Once under the covers, he has a moment of unsureness -- not panic, thank you very much -- over how he should position himself. The least awkward way would be on his back, but he despises sleeping on his back. Another option is laying on his right side, with his back to Stone. But that would defeat the whole purpose of having him there to keep an eye on him.
That just left one last option.
Ivo turns slowly to his left side facing Stone, who's already watching him with glassy, half lidded eyes. He can't readily tell what, if anything, is going on in that boiling brain of his.
Damn. That reminds him that he'd meant to take his temperature before getting into bed. There was no way he was going to go through the rigmarole of getting up again just to go get the thermometer.
One touch of Stone's arm, however, tells him that the agent's fever is still too high. His skin burns underneath Ivo's fingertips.
When he looks up Stone is frowning deeply at him, as if he's trying to piece together what was happening. Ivo frowns fiercely right back. "Do not puke in my bed."
It's almost alarming how quickly Stone's frown flips in a bright smile that's only dimmed by his illness. "I'll try my best, Doctor."
Ivo has the belated thought that he should have put some kind of medication into Stone before laying down. Damn again. He'll just have to trust that Stone's immune system will do its thing while he's resting.
Stone's eyes close again and the silence that settles around them is comfortable, seemingly not any different from the quiet they fall into while working. And Ivo knows he should leave it be, let Stone get his much-needed rest, but still can't help but open up his big mouth and let out the nagging thought that's been pestering him since Stone spoke in the bathroom.
"I'm a lot better now, you know."
Stone's brow furrows, whether at his statement or getting pulled away from the sleep that he was so clearly close to, Ivo isn't sure. He shifts, adjusting his arm that Ivo now realizes that he's still touching.
He yanks back his hand as if Stone's skin burned him. If Stone notices he keeps any thoughts about it to himself.
"I know." He says quietly, eyes still closed. "And I'm proud of you, Doctor."
"And yet you're so stressed that you're having vomiting fits?"
Stone doesn't answer for a long moment. So long in fact, that Ivo thinks he's fallen back asleep. He even startles when Stone finally speaks.
"When I was a kid, I hardly got sick. Occasionally a snotty nose, that kind of thing, but I never puked. I used to try and use that as a selling point to new foster families. Don't you want to adopt a kid that doesn't puke?" He smiles, a bitter looking thing. It looks unnatural on his face. "It didn't work, believe it or not. When I aged out of foster care, I went straight into the military."
Ivo scowls at the thought. What a waste of talent, he thinks automatically. But it wasn't much different than what Robotnik himself had done, was it? And if Stone hadn't then he would have never been assigned as his assistant. Ivo would have survived without him, sure. He'd certainly had up until they'd met. But --
Well, Ivo never would have discovered how much he liked lattes with steamed Austrian goat milk, would he?
Stone continues, ignorant of Ivo's internal musings. "Everything was fine for the first week or so, but then I started getting sick. Every morning like clockwork, I'd wake up and run to the bathroom to puke. Everyone noticed. It was hard not to when you're all packed in together like sardines. It was so bad that my commanding office was convinced I was bulimic. After a few weeks though, it stopped."
"When your body stopped waiting for the rug to be pulled out from underneath you." Ivo hypothesizes and Stone smiles again, a real one, always pleased to be treated to Robotnik's genius at work.
"For the first time in years I didn't have to worry about where my next meal was coming from or if I'd have a roof over my head. I didn't have to look out for the little kids. I could just turn off my brain and follow orders. But it was like my system couldn't handle it. Like my body didn't know how to function without stress."
Stone pauses and Ivo waits. He isn't sure if the agent will continue his story or not. They didn't do this sort of thing. They didn't talk about icky emotions.
He distantly wonders if Stone's fever even stems from something he's picked up from the outside world or if it's just his body trying to burn up all this emotional buildup as if it would an invading virus.
Stone's breath hitches, his face screwing up, and for a second Ivo is very afraid that Stone will cry. He's fully prepared to dive out of the Crab and into the open sea if that happens.
"Doctor," Stone says, voice shaking. "after the accident, it was so touch and go. I even hated leaving for supply runs because I was so afraid when I got back, you'd be --" He cuts himself off with a harsh sniff. "And I had to kill that doctor in Mexico that threatened to blow our cover."
Oh. Ivo hadn't known that little nugget. That explained the lack of medical bills at least.
"I was fine though. I got the job done. I took care of you, helped get you better, and I'd do it again without a second thought."
All these icky, sticky, emotions make Ivo's skin crawl, but he still prompts, "But?"
Stone finally opens his eyes. "I can't sleep, Doctor. Every time I close my eyes, I picture you tangled up under some metal or falling off the mech. Or worse, that I can't find you at all. I sneak in your room most nights to check if you're still breathing. I can barely eat. Anything I manage to get down just comes right back up. It doesn't feel right. You're fine. We made it. I should be fine, but I'm not and I don't know what to do."
The fever is the only reason why he's confessing, Ivo knows, and he also knows that Stone will be embarrassed if he remembers any of this tomorrow. He's been suffering in silence during Ivo's recovery while still loyally attending to Ivo's every need.
But that isn't any different than what the agent's been doing for over half a decade at this point, is it? So why did it feel different now that they were out from under the government's thumb? Why did it feel different down here in the cocoon of the Crab? Why did it make something deep in Ivo's gut squirm?
"Stone," The agent's gaze shoots up to Ivo's, listening. "I'm not going anywhere. You've decided to hitch your horse to this wagon, and you're stuck with me. Besides, I don't plan on dying anytime soon. Or ever, in fact. You either, for that matter. I have some blueprints for some android bodies that we'll download our consciousness into. So there. Deal with it or get lost."
Stone's tired face breaks out into a grin so big that it threatens to split his face in half and Ivo rolls his eyes. He was always so easy to please.
"Wipe that smile off your face and go to sleep." Ivo orders. "Maybe if you stop puking then I'll let you help with the android bodies tomorrow."
"Thank you, Doctor." He chirps and attempts to smooth out his face but doesn't quite manage it. His shoulders lose some of their tension though and he does close his glazed eyes, so Ivo decides not to comment on it just this once. His breaths slow, evening out, and Ivo watches as he quickly drops off into sleep.
His own eyes grow heavy. It's disgusting how easily he tires now.
Before he lets himself fall asleep, he reaches out and presses a hand to Stone's arm again. He's still running hot, 101 now, he thinks. It's still too hot but it's progress.
Stone twitches suddenly, frowning at whatever his fever-added brain is cooking up. He reaches out in his sleep across the mattress and finds Ivo's hand. He quickly captures it. Ivo frowns down at it, gut squirming again, but ultimately leaves it before falling asleep himself.
It's easier to monitor Stone's pulse this way anyhow.