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He had been feeling off for the entire previous day, but Ben had hoped it was nothing, that he could just sleep it off. But he knew before he even opened his eyes that he had come down with the flu his boss had earlier. His head was stuffy and his throat was sore, and he really just wanted to go back to sleep. But there was work to be done, and he didn’t want to let Mr. Drunce down. He forced his eyes open, to find Drunce and Sal were standing over him. Ben turned his head to cough away from the elderly Slig. “Guys…Sal…don’t wanna get you sick.”
“Pah,” Sal said with a wave of his hand. “I’ve lived longer than a lotta Sligs. If I’m weak enough to be killed by something too puny to even see then I deserve it.”
“Sal, no, that’s not-…”
“Besides,” said Drunce, interrupting him, “he’s filling in for you. You were coughing in your sleep, I had to let you rest.”
“Huh?” Ben pushed himself up, his head pounding. “What time is it? The paperwork, the mail-…”
“Relax,” Drunce said. “Ben, Sal can write and work with numbers, too. He can do the personal assistant thing while you’re sick, like he did before you were born. You went to all that trouble to try to help me, so let us help you. Okay?” He looked down at Sal. “Sal, isn’t it ready yet? It smells ready.”
“Is what ready? I can’t smell anything,” said Ben.
“Heh, I couldn’t either. Well, I got in touch with the Vykker you found when I got sick. I, uh…well, I bribed them to tell me what the medicine’s derived from. Turns out, some of the plant ingredients are pretty easy to buy! Thought we could try a tea made from some of the ones they marked as congestion relief, don’t know how much it’d help.”
Ben let out a small sigh, thick with the congestion in his throat. He’d gotten a Vykker to give up their research…that couldn’t come cheap. “How much did you bribe him with?”
“Eh…” Drunce glanced away a bit. “Don’t worry about it. You’ll be able to figure it out when you’re back to helping me with paperwork.”
“Would it have been cheaper to buy the medicine?”
“Well, yeah, but you were so worried about all the side effects you found when you looked it up…”
He’d lived with Drunce all his life, but he had seen enough of the outside world to know how a Glukkon was expected to behave. Even through his pounding headache, he understood the significance of the gesture - of spending so much more than he had to for something he couldn’t even be sure would work. All for a Mudokon.
“You did all this for me?”
“Of course I did. You went to all the trouble of looking it up for me, and then you and Sal went on that trip to the city for regular medicine when you didn’t like the cutting-edge stuff coming out of their labs. You looked after me and now I’m gonna look after you, alright?”
Sal returned with a mug of something steaming. Ben still couldn’t smell anything when he took it, but it made his throat tingle pleasantly when he inhaled the steam. He wondered if this was just like a weaker cough syrup, but…it was worth a try. And the hot liquid would be good for him, he knew that much.
“You know,” he said, looking down into the mug. “I don’t think other Glukkons would do this.”
“Yeah, well. You open my mail, Ben. You know other Glukkons are idiots.” Drunce grinned. “Now, you drink up, rest, and focus on getting better, got it? If the tea doesn’t work any better than regular medicine, we can do that instead.”
“Got it.” He looked down into his mug again. The steam was nice. He thought he could smell it now, herbal and minty as breathing it began to clear out the congestion. “It smells nice. I think it’s gonna work.” He smiled back up at Drunce. “Thank you, for not being like the others.”