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Fun Ghoul has been sick before, he’s probably been sick more often than is normal for a full grown adult. He somehow has either the worst luck or the weakest immune system of his entire crew since he finds that he gets sick proportionately more often than the others. If he was a more superstitious man he would assume that the others were somehow convincing the Phoenix Witch to give him all their illnesses instead of handling them on their own.
But he figured that the Phoenix Witch had bigger things to worry about than him, so this current headcold must be brought on by something else - probably just his usual bad luck. A headache burns behind his eyes and his throat burns from throwing up earlier in the day. He’s practically useless like this, he doesn’t know that he can hold his body up enough to do anything to help his team out of the diner.
But it’s the third day of being sick and the others had some work to attend to. He figured he was at least lucid enough to keep an eye on girlie while she stayed behind in the diner. He honestly just wanted to rest, but he could rest well enough with her in the same room. He just hoped that she didn’t expect him to constantly play with her. He was just hopeful that he could keep his eyes open the whole time he was supposed to be watching her.
Once the others left, Girlie lugged her toys and games into his room, setting them up on the floor next to his mattress.
“Just holler if you need me.” He said to her, “I’m not so sick that I can’t do anything.”
“You are pretty sick.” She said, in that little kid voice that she had now that she’d turned 5. “You get sick a lot.”
“I just have bad luck.” He sighed, “You’re lucky that it didn’t spread to you.”
“Yeah. I don’t like being sick.” she frowned, “Are you too sick to read to me?”
Ghoul shook his head. He didn’t really like reading, he’d been taught the basics in school but the books in the city never interested him much. Even in the Zones he didn’t find himself reading all that much, he left that activity for Kobra Kid. The most he’d do was swipe a magazine and read some short pieces that were published by others in the Zones. He’d been making an effort to get better at reading to Girlie though. Jet said it was good for her to have others read to her, especially now when she was just learning to read herself. Ghoul wasn’t quite as good at reading out loud to her as Jet or Party were, but he liked to think that he was good enough.
“Nah, I could read for days.” He said, forcing a smile onto his face. His head still hurt, and his vision swam in front of his eyes. But he was going to do what Girlie wanted, even if it hurt his sore body to sit up. “Come up here and sit with me.”
Girlie smiled, jumping up on the bed and stealing half of his covers to use for herself while she handed him a book. It was one of the handdrawn books that Jet collected for her when she was tiny, with bright watercolored pictures painted by one of the many artists in the zones. Ghoul knew the story of this one well - it was about a little black cat meeting friends while she grew up in the Zones. She met a grumpy Mechanic, a kind mother and a pair of androids. Ghoul had always thought to himself that it was like their team, and he wondered if Girlie thought the same thing.
“Once there was a little black cat.” He started, looking over the pictures and forcing his eyes to focus on the familiar words. He was pretty sure that he knew this book well enough that even if he wasn’t able to read them, he could improvise. “And she was very lonely.”
Girlie curled into his side, smiling softly as she looked at the pictures. Ghoul read through the book, getting to the part where the cat first met the “mother” character before his vision started to blur enough that it was hard to read the words.
“Then the Mechanic said ‘Screw that we’re good’” he said, trying to remember the mechanic’s exact words.
Girlie giggled, “That’s not right.” she said, “He said, we don’t have time to worry about that, we need to protect our friends.”
“Close enough.” Ghoul rolled his eyes, “If it wasn’t a kids book he would have said what I said.”
She giggled again, “Probably, but that’s not the story.”
“Fine, Fine. I’ll try to read the rest of the story for real.” He’s more careful from then on, but the words still blur in front of him. He muddles through the story until it gets to the part where the little cat finds a family in the rest of the characters, watching the happy look on his girl’s face as he closes the cover on the last watercolored page. “There we go, how was that?” he asks.
“You didn’t read it right.” She said, “But you still told the story, so I think that was good.”
“I did my best.” he protested, exaggerating a cough, “I’m sick, remember? You have to be nice to me.”
“I didn’t say it was bad, I just said that the words you were reading weren’t the words on the page.” she pointed out.
Ghoul smiled, her bossy attitude was so cute. He reached out to boop her on the nose, “Then next time, you can be the one to read to me.”
“I’m still learning.” She frowned, “But once I get good at reading I’ll read to you all the time.”
He smiled at her, pulling her into a tight bear hug, “I’m holding you to that.”