Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Mike room was normally pretty lively. Pluey's antics were adored by Jongler and Battat, though the latter would never admit it, until he missed them.

When Pluey was sick, the liveliness of the Mike room went away. Cheerful laughter from Jongler was replaced by dead silence. Battat became more irritable. And poor Pluey was nearly impossible to cheer up.

This particular bout of illness was especially hard on Pluey. He was so sore and fatigued. His nose was all clogged up, forcing him to breathe through his mouth. His throat felt like sandpaper, and mouth breathing made it worse. It was nearly impossible to get the gunk out of his sinuses. He shivered from feeling cold, but his hot, sweaty forehead indicated a fever. The sour notes he coughed up were noticeably harsh and wet.

Pluey's coughing was like a jackhammer on Battat's ears. He wanted to strangle him, to have Jongler turn his volume all the way down, to have any solace from that horrid noise. He hated a lot of noises: lip smacking, chewing, knuckle cracking; but Shadowguy coughs were by far the worst.

Which sucked, because Pluey's cough hadn't gone away even after almost everything else did.

≽^•⩊•^≼

He assumed it was just poor air quality: Battat had previously smoked, after all, and Pluey's nose was particularly sensitive. The smell would always make him cough, so it was hard to get intimate with Battat. Kissing Battat on the lips always left Pluey choking on the taste. He liked the aesthetic, though, so he chewed on lollipop sticks.

But Battat had quit smoking while Pluey was sick. He had seen how ill the poor Shadowguy was and didn't want to make it worse. He adopted Pluey's lollipop stick technique so his mouth would be busy, and it was working.

Pluey then assumed it was because of how hard he had coughed when sick. But every time he had been sick with a really nasty cough before, it had gone away within a week. He then remembered some of the effects of a particular strain of mold in Shadowguys.

Being hollow, plastic figurines, Shadowguys are particularly susceptible to mold. In the Dark World, this translates to a respiratory illness, though sometimes a Shadowguy would get sick in the Dark World but not in the Light World. There was a particularly nasty mold strain that emerged around five years prior. This strain was dubbed "Mold X".

A Shadowguy with Mold X would usually have cold or flu-like symptoms. In worst case scenarios, the sick Shadowguy would die. This was rare, but still a risk. Oftentimes, Mold X would disable the Shadowguy, a condition dubbed lingering mold.

Lingering mold increased the mortality rate of Mold X. The most common lingering mold symptoms were fatigue, brain fog, confusion, a persistent sore throat and/or cough, and heart palpitations. Pluey had the persistent sore throat and cough.

≽^•⩊•^≼

Jongler woke up to what could only be described as "saxophones shouldn't sounds like dat". They looked towards the source of the noise, and if they had a mouth, they would've been frowning.

Poor Pluey sounded like he was trying to get something out of his throat. Every cough jolted his body upright from his lying position. Hell, Jongler nearly coughed from how goddamn horrible Pluey sounded. Zappers don't even have respiratory systems. It was that bad.

They had a bit of misophonia, but unlike Battat, Jongler didn't get triggered by Pluey's coughing. This led to Pluey hugging them for support more often. They hugged him back and gave his back a heavy smack when needed. Even though Pluey had coughed into their buttons more than once, they were there for him.

"You's alright, buddy?"

Another miserable hack, and then a nod.

Jongler had to utilize their teleportation for Pluey more often, since he got out of breath faster. They had to use their mute button on Pluey before his Mike shifts, lest he cough up a saxophonic squeak and reveal the whole Mike operation.

≽^•⩊•^≼

Tenna noticed that Mike coughed more frequently, both in his short and fat form and in his cute cat form. Surprisingly, they were fine in their cowboy form. Fat Mike also smelled less like cigarettes, which, on the one hand, good, smoking is really unhealthy, but on the other hand...

The smell was nostalgic for Tenna. He liked the distinct smell of each of Mike's forms. Short, fat Mike smelled like cigarette smoke. An acquired taste, but very classy. Cat Mike used to smell like pretzels, but he's started to smell more glooby recently. And cowboy Mike smelled like battery acid, but they've started smelling like pretzels.

≽^•⩊•^≼

Pluey coughed himself awake one day. His throat was practically clogged with viscous phlegm. No matter how hard he coughed, it barely budged, and once he did cough it up, his throat was raw and it stung like hell. Was this how Battat felt when the tar in his lungs was particularly nasty?

("Damn, you'd think I was the one who smoked!") he joked, signing with a little smile.

"Very funny..." Battat muttered in annoyance.

Jongler felt bad for both of the other Mikes. Battat was more irritable without his nicotine fix, and Pluey was still hacking away.

Despite this, Pluey's joy and whimsy were back. When Battat coughed up the black gunk in his lungs, Pluey jokingly called him a fellow Shadowguy (the gunk that Pluey coughed up was also pitch-black). When Jongler told Pluey to keep a secret, he told them it would be hard to since he's so talkative.

≽^•⩊•^≼

It had been two months since Pluey recovered from the initial infection. Battat's smoker's cough had almost fully gone away. Pluey's chronic cough hadn't. He felt awful. He hadn't gotten moldy in the Light World, meaning he got infected, probably due to the fact that he was one of the only Shadowguys that still wore a mask.

Pluey was furious. So many Shadowguys coughed into the open air and walked about whilst ill. What happened to "cough and sneeze into your elbow" and "don't go out when you're sick"? It was like they forgot about Mold X.

≽^•⩊•^≼

Pluey doesn't remember the last time he coughed so hard, if ever. He was literally gagging. He started to understand why they were called sour notes as one particularly nasty cough brought a bit of his lunch back into his mouth. He swallowed thickly and hoped he wouldn't full-on vomit.

The acidity and rancid taste made Pluey cough even more. The taste of bile stung his already aching throat. He felt saliva pool in his mouth. He needed to find a trash can. Something. Anything. He grabbed a nearby trash can and...

An earsplitting, wet, squelching, broken saxophone honk left Pluey's mouth, along with his lunch. Why did it have to be one of the retches that tears your throat in half? Why couldn't he have had one that left him feeling better afterwards?

Pluey coughed and spat the residual inky black vomit into the trash can. He felt worse than he did before. He needed to drink something, not just to rehydrate, but also to get the burning taste out of his mouth and throat.

"Hey, go to–" Battat started to shout before realizing what he was saying. He looked at poor Pluey with an apologetic frown and walked over to him. "Sorry for yelling..."

Pluey sniffled, and... were those tears? Poor guy must've felt horrible. It put things into perspective for Battat. Sure, he hated hearing Pluey cough so much, and his nicotine withdrawal wasn't doing him any favors. But Battat wasn't the one who had just thrown up.

Pluey coughed a shaky note and looked towards the little Pippins. He knew Battat had bad misophonia. Poor guy must've felt horrible. It put things into perspective for Pluey. Sure, he had just coughed to the point of being sick. But Pluey wasn't the one who was quitting an addiction, nor was he the one whose nervous system went haywire whenever a Shadowguy coughed– okay, he also freaked out at that, but for different reasons.

≽^•⩊•^≼

Battat's misophonia regarding Shadowguy coughs was starting to go away. He had gotten unintended exposure therapy, and now he could be in the same room as Pluey without feeling as much immense distress whilst the latter had a sudden tickle in his throat. The fact that he didn't miss the sensation that nicotine gave him anymore probably helped.

Battat still felt immense distress when Pluey coughed, though that was because he was worried about him.

Pluey kissed Battat for the first time in months. And for the first time ever, Pluey didn't gag on the smoky taste of tobacco.

He was going to live. Life was going to be harder, but he was going to live.

Pluey smiled.

Chapter Text

The day that Pluey coughed himself awake was the day that he realized the Mike room would never be the same. He was devastated. He didn't know what he was going to do. From the noticeable irritation from Battat to the way it was harder for Pluey to think or stay awake, it felt like his life was crumbling.

He felt the lowest when he vomited and Battat yelled at him. In the moment, he was upset with the whole world: the other Shadowguys for getting him sick, Battat for yelling at him, but mostly himself for not fully recovering.

After that day, Pluey always carried a bag of cough drops so it wouldn't get that bad anymore. And it worked. He still coughed frequently, but it never got to that point again.

Pluey found himself zoning out a lot. Battat would ask him and Jongler if they had any questions, and he would have to tell Battat to repeat what he had said. He would place a cup of something on the shelf, then forget where it was. So he started taking notes and setting them where he couldn't miss them.

Pluey couldn't laugh as hard as before. But by God did he try. Even as he coughed up a mutilated symphony, he still found great joy as he laughed at this or that.

He was healing. Not physically or cognitively, but emotionally. Just as Battat was healing from his addiction, Pluey was healing from his distress.

Pluey had regained his confidence. He could do anything. Sure, he would have to take more breaks than before and expend more energy into focusing, but he was unstoppable.

He was filled with determination.