Work Text:
Devo wasn’t about to tell anyone, but he kind of felt like shit. Like, absolute shit. They’d hauled a box full of old, rusty weaponry up through the moonpool earlier that day, just to see if there was anything potentially sellable in it. Unfortunately, pretty much all of it had been garbage. Also unfortunately, as Devo picked up the box to toss it back into the ocean, he felt a stabbing, burning pain in his right hand. He dropped the box with a yelp.
“Is everything okay?” Zoox asked concernedly. He was examining a few crossbow bolts that had been in the box to see if their tips could be salvaged.
“Fine, fine,” Devo replied. Clutching his hand to his chest (he could feel it bleeding, and he didn’t want to look at it), he crouched down to see what had cut him. The only thing on the box was a small-ish snail with a pretty pattern on its shell. It was glowing slightly green. Devo made a face and used his foot to push the box into the moonpool. It splashed into the ethersea and sank quickly, taking the offending snail along with it. “Good luck with the bolts,” he added as he left. He said nothing as he passed by the bridge, pretending not to hear Amber call and ask him what they’d found.
Once he had found a fairly isolated corner of the ship, he braced himself and unclenched his hand. Right on the squishy part of his palm at the base of his thumb, there was a jagged puncture wound. It was much smaller than he would have guessed judging by the pain alone, which was...significant. It was getting difficult to move his thumb. Deciding that it wasn’t worth wasting any prestige salt on unless it got worse, Devo wrapped a bandage around it as best as he could and tugged the edge of his sleeve down to hide it. No point in causing a fuss.
That had been a few hours ago. His hand kept going from feeling numb to feeling like it was on fire, and it would switch between the two sensations quite rapidly. Additionally, it was getting very swollen. He was pretty sure that the ship wasn’t actually sweltering hot, though it sure felt like it. It was taking more and more effort to act normally. Devo thought that maybe he should actually tell Amber and Zoox what had happened, but he still didn’t want to cause any inconvenience or make them worried, so he stayed quiet. The next chance he got to be alone, he’d use some prestige and try to heal himself.
“Hey, Devo?” Amber said. “What’s on your hand?”
Devo froze. He looked down to find that his sleeve had shifted and was no longer covering the bandage he’d put on. “Nothing.”
“Well, no, I can see that it’s something .” She reached out like she was going to take his hand, and he snatched it away instinctually, stumbling backwards.
“Don’t!” he exclaimed involuntarily.
She squinted at him.
“I--I just cut my hand, earlier, on one of the blades we pulled up,” Devo tried. “It is fine, I am fine.” The burst of panic when she’d reached for him faded, and suddenly he felt physically weak, like all of his energy had been drained. He had to stifle a gasp. His heart skipped a beat.
“Next time you get an ouchie, don’t try to hide it,” Amber chided him.
Zoox couldn’t exactly have a worried expression on his face, due to the fact that he didn’t have a face, but he turned to Devo and Amber with a sort of urgency that implied one. “Devo? You seem really... really uncomfortable. I think it’s…”
“Are you scanning my mind right now, because I do not appreciate--”
“Either you’re embarrassed or you have a fever,” Zoox interrupted, ignoring his protest. “I suppose it could be both, but whichever it is, please just sit down. I think you’re about to fai--”
Devo’s vision went white. Distantly, he felt his knees buckle. Through ringing ears, he heard Amber swear loudly as she grabbed him by the arms to keep him from falling. The sudden jolting of his injured hand sent a spike of agony through him, which kept him from passing out completely, and he screamed.
“What the fuck ?! What’s wrong with you?” cried Amber.
“Please do not shout at me!” Devo whimpered before he fully came back to his senses. “I-- ow --” His heart was skipping beats again, beating too slowly. Why couldn’t he focus his eyes on anything? Everything felt...blurry…
“Zoox, go get--we’ve got healing potions, right? You know where those are?” Amber said brusquely. She was lowering Devo to the ground now, leaning him up against the wall. Devo could barely move to help her.
“Yeah, I know where they--”
“Go get them,” snapped Amber, and Zoox rushed out of the bridge with surprising speed. “Devo, what actually happened?”
“I do not know,” whispered Devo. He winced and closed his eyes as she reached for his hand again. “Please, don’t…”
“Sorry,” Amber said, but she lifted his hand up anyway and unwrapped the bandage. “Holy fuck , that’s swollen bad. That ain’t a cut from a blade, Devo. What did this? We gotta know.”
“I don’t know ,” Devo repeated weakly. “I picked...up the box, and...there was nothing, just a...a shell, a snail shell…”
Amber sucked in a sharp breath.
“Amber, I feel terrible ,” confessed Devo. “Am...am I dying?”
“Hey, just focus on breathing, ‘kay?” she said, which did not make him feel any less scared. “You’ll probably be fine, but it’s gonna take more ‘n a healing potion to get ya back on your feet. Bet it hurts, though, huh?”
He nodded, which made him feel so dizzy that he decided not to nod again.
“Here, we’re gonna…” She placed his injured hand down on the ground and made him sit up a little straighter. “Gotta keep that as far below your heart as we can. Honestly, it’s probably too late for that or wrapping it to do any good, but might as well try. What else...right, I remember. You gonna be okay if I go get something?”
“No, don’t leave!” Devo blurted out without meaning to.
“Okay, okay. Yeah, you’re probably right. I’ll wait ‘til Zoox gets back.” She had hardly spoken when Zoox ran back into the bridge and came over to them, kneeling down and handing Amber two bottles of healing potions.
“Devo, are you going to be alright?” Zoox asked.
“I do not have any fucking idea,” said Devo.
“He’ll be fine,” Amber corrected. “He got stuck by a cone snail. Luckily not the kind that’ll kill ya before you hit the ground, but still not great .” She had finished uncapping the first of the healing potions and tried to put it in Devo’s uninjured hand, but he was shaking too much to hold it, so she just held it up to his lips so he could drink it. “Zoox, go get some hot water, ‘kay? Check to make sure it’s not so hot it’ll burn him--oh, fuck, you can’t tell, you don’t have skin . Just bring hot water, and some cold water to cool it down if it turns out to be too hot. Sorry to make you the gopher--unless you’d rather sit here and make sure he keeps breathing?”
“I’ll get the water,” Zoox replied quickly, and left again.
“Any better?” Amber asked after Devo had finished the first healing potion.
He blinked a few times. His hand hurt marginally less and his vision had cleared up, but it still felt like his heart wasn’t beating properly and he didn’t have the energy to move. “A little,” he said. Amber started to open the second bottle and Devo tried to protest. “Amber, no, it is a waste, those are expensive --”
Amber looked him in the eyes, deadly serious, and kept opening it. He didn’t argue again as she helped him drink it. The second potion made it significantly easier to breathe, and the pain faded a bit more. “Any better?” she repeated.
“Yes. More than a little that time.”
“Good.” Amber sat back, putting the empty bottles aside. “I don’t wanna scare you, is the thing. But--”
“Well, you have failed in that! I am definitely scared!”
“I know. That’s a fair reaction, honestly. You probably should be.”
“Truly curious, do you think that this is helping?” Devo sputtered.
Amber cracked a smile. “I never claimed to be a reassuring presence, did I?”
Devo tried to smile back, but he really was scared, and his face ended up crumpling. His chest felt tight, and he wasn’t sure if it was the panic or the illness that was causing it. “Amber, what is happening to me?” he said quietly, hoping he didn’t sound too much like a frightened child.
“I told you, you got stuck by a cone snail. Must’ve been. I’ve seen the kind of wounds they leave, the one on your hand is what it looks like when you get harpooned by one,” Amber explained. “They’re poisonous. Really fuckin’ toxic.”
“It was just a teeny-tiny snail!”
“You’re lucky it wasn't bigger,” she told him. “And that it clearly wasn’t one of the species that’s really nasty. If it was, you’d already be dead.”
“Oh,” Devo said in a small voice.
“Which is--ah, hell , Devo, why the fuck did you think it was a good idea not to tell us? And to fuckin’ lie to me when I asked?” Amber rubbed at her temple.
“Is this hot enough?” Zoox asked, approaching them with two bowls of water. He put them down on the ground on the side of Devo’s injured hand.
Amber dipped her finger into the steaming bowl experimentally, then snatched it out. “That’s nearly boiling, buddy. Good thing I checked.” She poured some of the cold water from the second bowl into the hot one.
“Sorry,” Zoox said sheepishly.
“Why do you have to check?” Devo wondered. “I would notice before it burned me, no?”
Amber snorted. “Nope!” She checked the temperature again and nodded, then picked up Devo’s wrist to put his hand in the water. He resisted the urge to pull away in discomfort again. The heat stung the wound for a second but then almost instantly made the excruciating pain dim to a bearable level, and he realized with the absence of the pain that he had almost gotten used to how bad it actually was.
“Oh, shit ,” he muttered.
“Yeah, that’s why I checked,” Amber said, sounding a little amused. “The poison hurts more than the burn would have. That should help for a while.”
Devo squeezed his eyes shut. He was fighting back tears for some reason. He hadn’t wanted to cry while it was hurting, why did he want to cry now when it had stopped?
“Devo? Hey, hey, eyes open. Look at me,” Amber told him.
He did so, reluctantly, and a few tears fell.
“Ah, okay,” she said. “You’re really gonna be fine. Don’t use your energy up crying now, alright?”
“Okay,” he agreed, and reached up with his shaky uninjured hand to wipe away the tears.
“But I gotta restate my point,” Amber said with a sigh. “You can’t lie about stuff like this, Devo. You know that now, yeah? Why did you lie?”
“I--” He broke off.
“Hold that thought. Zoox, turn us around, we gotta get back to the city. I think he’s stable but he needs actual healers.” Amber turned back to Devo. “You were saying?”
“I do not know why I lied,” Devo said softly, unable to look at her. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t know why you lied? What does that even mean?” she asked.
Devo’s lip trembled. “Amber, I do not know why I do most things. It felt like something I should not tell you. Clearly, I was being an idiot.”
“That’s a little harsh,” Zoox said from the helm. “Why would you know it was something you needed to tell us about? Have you ever been hurt like that before?”
“No,” Devo said. “I did not think it was serious at first, and I did not want to complain just because it hurt. When I started feeling...worse, I…” He concentrated, trying to remember exactly why he had lied to Amber when she’d asked about the bandage. “I thought I had waited too long, and that you would be angry that I had hidden it.”
Amber looked exasperated. “Why the hell would we be angry?”
More tears welled up in his eyes. Why wouldn’t you be? he wanted to ask, but he couldn’t.
Something shifted in Amber’s expression. There was anger there, but...Devo was at least pretty sure it wasn’t directed at him. He was more confident about that when she kind of nodded and said in a more gentle voice, “Nevermind, ya don’t have to answer that.” She paused. “But will you at least tell me you won’t hide somethin’ like this again?”
Devo flexed his hand in the bowl of hot water, reveling in the continued lack of pain. “I won’t,” he stated.
“And also that you won’t poke at any more unfamiliar snails?” she added with a teasing grin.
“I did not poke it!” Devo said indignantly, but had to smile as well as he diligently promised to stay far, far away from any unfamiliar snails that he might come across in the future.