Work Text:
Rocky doesn't let me work if I'm on painkillers. He's kind of right not to, they make me stupid, really stupid, slow and dumb. It's been over a week that I haven't taken any, and I've gotten used to it okay. During the day I'm fine, since working on our Taumoeba farms and other things in the lab is distraction enough. At night I sometimes catch myself wanting to ask the computer for a small dose just to get comfortable when I'm very uncomfortable, but in the end I still manage to sleep without them.
The only time I really want to take something is when the bandages on my burned arm and upper body need to be changed. I've gotten used to the sight, it only makes me a little queasy now. I wonder what Rocky thinks. Does it look still more disgusting to him? 'Not smooth' is all he ever said, and frankly I myself have been too scared now to ask again.
He's here, though, and doing what I think is looking. I know he can 'see' all around, but he hasn't turned his body away. I hear him whimper. An oddly quiet, quavering sound, that I think he's trying not to make at all, but just like I'm making noise, he can't help it either.
"You okay, question," he finally asks. "Uh-huh," I lie transparently, grunting.
The pain itself, that is still bad. I think it's actually gotten worse again over the past few days. My arm being held up and out makes my shoulder only ache. The bandages being unwound is where the whole procedure immediately and genuinely starts to hurt. I thought I prepared myself mentally today, but evidently I haven't. As much as I try to keep still, the computer admonishes me for moving around too much.
No matter what they've put on the one side of the gauze to supposedly make it not stick to the wound, I feel like it's pulling all the skin, that has made a slow but real effort of healing over the last 24 hours, back up and tearing it away from my body. I make my noise in a way more pronounced way. Now I can't help a yelp.
"You take something!" Rocky shrieks. "N...no. Makes me stupid, remember?" And being stupid is worse than being in pain, I think stupidly.
"Remember. But pain is bad bad bad now." Oh. Rocky has been watching and has come to the same conclusion I have, that this is the worst it's been in days. I imagine it was at least as bad when I got burned in the first place, but the computer gave me painkillers then and I felt okay. Now I don't.
The mix of pins and needles, tightness and throbbing hasn't eased up at all in the few seconds between, where even the robot arm kept still, seemingly shocked by my outburst too. I feel cold sweat cling to the front of my neck and my vision is starting to tunnel. I don't think I have time to tell Rocky how right he is, which he normally loves to hear.
Whoever said you can't faint while sitting down lied. Yup, that includes the school nurse. "Think I'm going to pah... pff..."
Lights out.
I don't remember falling in any direction at all, but I wake up lying mercifully flat in my bunk. A bunch of towels or blankets are stacked up at the foot to elevate my legs. I wonder if I explained unconsciousness to Rocky before. I must have, thinking it's much closer to Eridian sleep than human sleep is, and if not I will have to. Regardless, he knows this isn't anywhere near normal for humans to experience. He's alarmed and expressing his alarm by calling right into my ear at a higher octave than his normal speech.
I can't have been passed out long, though, coming back to my senses quickly only to notice that the old dressing has now been taken off completely, but a new one hasn't been put back on.
I try to lift my arm and my upper body at the same time. "You no move! No look," Rocky chides. I think, if he wasn't in his ball, he would personally strap me down, which the nanny-arm thankfully hasn't done. Okay, so I just turn my head slowly toward him.
"Sorry," I manage as I feel warmth creep back into my limbs. Not the hot, searing pain of my burns, but normal. My neck and my head, too. I'm not embarrassed but my face feels redder with blood flowing to my brain again. Fainting is weirdly exhausting so I find no actual fight within me.
Rocky accepts my apology. "You not well," he warbles at a much more moderate pitch and volume. I know where this is going to go, we've had this conversation about a dozen times in the last seven days. It was Erid's hot ammonia atmosphere that caused me these injuries in the first place and he feels bad for that, all the while I've told Rocky in no uncertain terms that there's no way I was just going to let him die. I suspect it's not going to be as easy for him to accept as it was meeting an alien, for another good, long while. In the end I hear him only tapping his claws together, as he knows I'm in no state to argue.
My arm still hurts bad, but I think I can manage if I stay lying down while it gets rebandaged. I end up closing my eyes a few times during that process, not entirely sure it's voluntary as I have black creep back in at the edge of my vision each time before I do. Thinking about needing to do this again tomorrow, my stomach clenches.
I'll come up with something, I tell myself, and Rocky tells me it's okay if I decide to do something that makes me stupid as long as it isn't stupid. I laugh breathily at that.