Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Morning,” Triangle greeted drily. Bright sunlight spilled through the open window along with a light breeze- almost perfect morning weather. “You’re up late today.”

Kong shrugged in response, and Triangle flicked his gaze back to the pan. Usually Kong loved the smell of breakfast being cooked, but today, for some reason, he just wasn’t hungry.

Ghidorah was leaning on the table, one head sipping a coffee and sketching something onto the house plans. Ni still looked half asleep, which was pretty normal for him. Ichi was the early riser, and Ni wasn’t usually fully awake or sociable until at least nine. It looked like one of the days Ichi forced the other head to get up with him so he could get a headstart on things for the day.

Triangle was almost always the first awake (if he even managed to sleep in the first place), so he’d sort of become the designated breakfast person. He’d stopped wearing the bandages around the stab wound (courtesy of Mowcuss) a week or so before, and the darkened skin from the scar stood out against his paler green scales.

The heat in the air from the stove, unaffected by the breeze, was almost stifling, and Kong privately wondered how his friend was able to tolerate it– then again, he remembered when Triangle had once zoned out with one of his talons on a hot element and didn’t seem to notice until Ghidorah practically yanked his arm off of it.

Today must’ve been a good day, because Triangle was doing some sort of sashay around the kitchen while wearing headphones, which told Kong that he’d found the iPod Noodle-Neck had (again, how Ghidorah got all his stuff he’d never know) and was playing a tune only he was privy to.

Triangle’s eyes narrowed when Ghidorah re-entered the kitchen to refill their coffee cup; their friend tended to be territorial when he was using the kitchen and didn’t like anyone else to be in proximity. Ni shot back a withering glare that could’ve shriveled an elephant, and the three went back to their respective tasks, keeping a wary eye on each other.

Kong would’ve snickered if he wasn’t feeling so awful and dizzy. He sat down at the table, resting his chin on his hand, and hoped at least one of the feelings would go away.

A few minutes later, Triangle wordlessly slid a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon at him over the table. Kong managed a few bites before pushing the plate away and laying his head down.

“You okay?” Ichi asked a few minutes later. Kong could hear him put his mug back down. 

He gave his friend a thumbs up. “Just tired,” he answered. 

Predictably, the morning only worsened from there. He couldn’t quite find the energy to get up, so he stayed put as the feeling that had followed him since waking up intensified.

Nope. He stubbornly kept swallowing back, resisting the urge to gag. He managed it for a little bit, but the nausea was increasing thanks to his churning stomach, and everything felt heavy and uncomfortable.

Then there was a rush of acrid burning rushing up his throat, and he leaned forward abruptly on instinct, gagging and wanting to be anywhere but there when he finally puked over the edge of the chair, shivering and even more miserable then he was before.

For a moment, there was only a stunned silence to which he could hear it dripping off the seat next to him disgustingly before Ni muttered a sassy, “I told you so.”

Then someone pulled him to his feet, looped one arm around Kong’s back so their palm was on his shoulder blade, put the opposite hand around his bicep, and roughly steered him towards the other end of the house.

“Do not puke on me,” Triangle ordered harshly when Kong gagged again. The reptile sat him down on the bathroom floor in front of the toilet. “Be right back.”

He didn’t return for a little while, long enough that Kong noticed his absence after the gagging paused for a moment. 

He swallowed back again.

“That can’t be very good for you,” Triangle’s voice remarked from somewhere to the right of him. 

Kong glanced over. His friend was sitting on the bathroom counter, flipping through something that looked like a recipe book and deliberately keeping his eyes off of Kong, feigning casualty.

When did he come back?

“Well, you’re not the one throwing up,” Kong fired back crossly. Triangle wasn’t the one who felt sick and awful right now.

The reptile shrugged. “True. You do you.”

The abrupt end to the argument before it even kicked off was more than a little disconcerting. 

“What, you’re not gonna make fun of me?” Kong asked, only half-joking.

“Well, this isn’t exactly funny to me right now,” Triangle pointed out. Then he wrinkled his snout in wry amusement. “Okay, Ichi’s face was funny,” he amended after a second, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him that uncomfortable in my life. I think they fled to go work on MechaG.”

Kong raised an eyebrow. “And you’re not?”

“Eh. I’ve seen way grosser things before, trust me.” The lizard flicked his tail. “There was this one time–”

“Stop,” Kong muttered, propping his head on the bathtub. He might be feeling low, but not low enough to lean against the toilet seat, thank you very much. “No gross-ness.” He was nauseous enough already and more than a little annoyed that he couldn’t trust himself to leave the stupid toilet.

“Coward,” Triangle remarked, but didn’t continue.

The silence stretched out uncomfortably long, but Kong couldn’t find the energy to try to mitigate it and Triangle wasn’t being conversational.

The acrid feeling reemerged, and Kong leaned back over the toilet, trying to breathe through it. After a few moments of dry heaving with nothing coming up, he lifted his head back up, a little frustrated at this point.

“You can tell us when you’re not feeling good, y’know,” Triangle told him quietly after a little bit.

Kong shrugged. “Didn’t really think of it,” he mumbled, “Thought I was fine.”

“Hm. Well, I would say all this disproves that, but I think you already know.”

“You suck,” Kong said, shooting a glare in his friend’s direction. 

Triangle just snickered. “And you sound like a dying kazoo.”

Kong couldn’t think of a good retort on the spot. 

“Well you look like one, so there.”

“That was terrible,” Triangle observed, “I can’t even take offense to that.”

Kong didn’t have to respond to that, because a second later the awful, horrible feeling returned with a vengeance. 

“I hate this,” he muttered after a minute of nothing happening.

“I’d say that’s pretty valid,” Triangle said, sliding off the counter to sit on the floor in front of it instead, knees to his chest and tail curled tightly in front of his feet. “Seems like it would really suck.”

“Do you know what’s wrong with me?” Kong asked.

Triangle snorted humorlessly. “Why would I know?” 

But the reptile sighed, scooted forward and raised a talon up, presumably to check his temperature.

Kong ducked away for a second. “Aren’t you worried about getting sick?”

Triangle tilted his head. “I’d say that’s touching, but you being nice to me is really weird. No, I won’t get sick. I have a good immune system, unlike you, thank you very much.”

With that, Triangle moved to rest the back of his hand against Kong’s forehead before he could protest again. The burningly cold touch was the coolest he’d actually felt that day, and he had to fight not to press into it, shivering again.

Triangle frowned, taking his hand away. “You might be a little warm. Do you feel feverish?”

“...What would that involve?”

Triangle shrugged unhelpfully. “I don’t know. Hot? Cold? Feeling like wrapping yourself in blankets? Gross in general?”

“How is literally all of that possible at the same time.”

The corners of Triangle’s mouth twitched downwards a little more. “I’ll take that as a yes, then. Headache? Stomachache?”

“Little bit.”

“To which?”

“Both. Stomachache’s been there since yesterday, though.”

“Hm, I dunno. Is it bad? Do you wanna go down to the city and try finding a doctor?”

Kong stuck his tongue out. “Ew. No and no. Not unless I puke up my own guts, thank you.”

No one in the Concepts Domain was really welcoming to them at all, which was kind of why they were living so far out in the outskirts of it. Besides, the species down there were so diverse that it was hard to believe anyone was capable of handling any of them with any semblance of grace.

The lines under Triangle’s eyes deepened for a second at Kong’s statement, maybe out of stress, but the expression was gone again in a second and Kong wasn’t keen on wasting his energy trying to decipher it. Instead, he lurched back over the toilet and coughed up the rest of his breakfast.

Kong wiped up his mouth with the back of his hand and looked up at his friend again, who had moved back to give him more space than strictly necessary, though Kong couldn’t really blame him.

“Why are you here?”

Triangle arched one eye. “Well, I kind of live here, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“No, G. I mean here. Right now,” Kong reiterated with an eye roll.

His friend crossed his arms, letting the quiet drag out for a few seconds before replying.

“I may feel slightly obligated to ensure you don’t die under my watch. Even though you’re gross.”

Kong gave him a weak grin. “You can just say you care, y’know. Might even get you out of the ‘emotionally stunted’ department.”

Triangle glared at him and pointedly retreated all the way back to his previous spot, but didn’t bother denying it. Instead, the lizard flipped his book back open and went back to memorizing recipes like the book would disappear before he could try making them.

Kong tilted his head back against the wall behind him and zoned out.

He wasn’t sure how long it was before either of them really moved. Triangle was the first, stretching out his limbs and cracking his back.

“If you’re done here, brush your teeth and shower. You smell.”

Kong glared at him, but didn’t bother arguing. He was probably right.

“And don’t waste all the hot water. It was a pain to get that stupid hot water heater out of Mowcuss’s base. Why robots even need hot water is still a mystery to me, though.”

Triangle stood and offered a talon (carefully grabbing Kong’s wrist instead of his hand), pulling Kong to his feet shockingly carefully instead of yanking him up like he usually would. Kong gritted his teeth at the pain the movement sent through his stomach, but didn’t protest.

When he was finished with a nice, long shower (because screw Triangle) and brushing his teeth (which took a lot of energy, he was oddly exhausted and moving hurt), Noodle-Neck was curled on their bed, tinkering with MechaG’s head. It would take a little bit to get all the stuff they needed for their so-called “Special Project”, so right now they were just working on making sure the android could communicate and pick things up by himself.

Kong settled on the bottom bunk carefully. Someone (probably Ghidorah) had decided to replace the sheets with fresh ones, so the blankets were cool to lie under for the time being. 

Sleep didn’t seem like a bad idea.

“Sorry,” someone was saying when he came to, which woke him up pretty quick, even though he didn’t remember falling asleep. No one in the house apologized easily.

He squinted at the brightness of the room to focus his vision on Ghidorah, MechaG, and Triangle, sitting in a circle on the floor around a game board.

Oh. It’s that ‘Sorry’ game. He still felt gross, shivery, and fatigued. And, if possible, the pain in his abdomen had worsened to a steady throb, so he decided to just listen for now.

“This is the fourth time in ten minutes. Are you rigging the cards???” Ichi whisper-shouted at the lizard, who didn’t bother to hide his triumphant grin.

“You’re just mad because I’m gonna win,” he whispered back tauntingly. 

MechaG clicked a protest.

Kong shifted slowly onto his side to get a better view of the game, and the motion drew all three’s? four’s? attention away from the board.

“Oh, cool, you’re awake!” Ni cheered, voice still low.

Kong hummed agreeably. 

“How you feeling?” Ichi asked, voice more serious than the other head’s.

Kong gave him a lazy thumbs down. If it was possible, he felt worse than when he’d woken up earlier. Instead of improving anything, sleep had made everything feel so much worse. The pain had moved from the center of his stomach to the lower right, and he had been hoping it would just go away completely with rest.

“Can I just watch you guys play for a little bit?” he mumbled.

MechaG chittered a yes.

Ghidorah rolled a water bottle towards him, then drew a card. 

They played quietly for a little bit, and it suddenly occurred to Kong that they hadn’t had to play in the bedroom and keep themselves at a whisper, but for some reason, they’d chosen to. The realization sent a rush of warmth to his chest, temporarily beating back the cold.

Triangle, as anticipated, ended up winning the game, and as always, was the sorest winner that ever existed. Noodle-Neck balanced it out by being the worst loser. 

MechaG caught Kong’s eyes, and they rolled them in sync.

Ghidorah, as the loser, had to pack up Sorry and choose the next game, so Triangle used the time to wander over and check on Kong. 

The reptile frowned again when he checked his temperature (how he could tell anything at all about that was beyond Kong) and bossily ordered him to drink the water Ghidorah gave him.

They drifted to other games, and Kong hazily watched as the hours went by without comment, barely paying attention to who won or lost each game or what they were even playing.

“No on Uno,” Kong croaked out when he saw Ghidorah bring in the deck of cards, the first time he’d chosen to speak for a couple hours. “You get violent over that dumb game, you can’t play without me.”

Ghidorah gave him matching identical frowns of disappointment, but put the game away. 

Around the time Kong guessed was about dinner time, the others dispersed around the house. He could smell something cooking in the kitchen, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. 

Ghidorah returned half an hour after they’d left with a piece of bland toast and set up a makeshift bedside table next to Kong to put the plate on.

“We figure it’s probably a stomach bug,” Ni told him as they worked, “You should be fine in a few days, but for now it’s toast, water, and tea. Easy enough on you.”

Kong wrapped his blankets tightly around his shoulders to keep warm and slowly sat up, careful not to move too fast for his own sake. “Not Triangle’s gross tea?”

“I’ll have you know my Sencha is awesome, but no,” Triangle said as he walked in, “You get ginger tea. Kanpai.”

“What.”

“Cheers.” 

He picked at the toast, still not hungry, but decided to give it a go. How bad could toast be?

Everything after that toast went downhill fast. As it turned out, Kong was not, in fact, ready to stomach toast. He threw it up about half an hour later into the bucket Ghidorah had had the foresight to put there, and kept throwing up until all that came up was yellow-green bile and his stomach twisted even more excruciatingly.

He let out a strained noise of pain at the intensity of it, loud enough to draw the dragon over, who didn’t even bother to hide their worried frowns.

 “Are you sure you don’t want to go down to the city and find a doctor?” Ichi checked when Kong curled around himself, still shivering.

“Just–just a stomach bug, remember?” Kong managed between pants. “I’ll be…fine.”

There was a moment of dubious silence before Ghidorah sighed and hesitantly patted his back. 

“Fine. Have it your way for now. But remember, we can’t exactly give you medicine until you stop puking.”

Kong gave them a thumbs up to show he understood, not even attempting to unwind his other arm from his midsection.

He wasn’t sure how long he was laying in that position before Triangle rested a talon on his forehead again.

“Have you tried drinking any more water?” he asked in a low voice. Kong wondered if he could hear concern there too, but it wasn’t really detectable enough for him to be sure.

He shook his head.

“Okay,” his friend murmured, and then a straw met his mouth. “Drink. And try and keep it down this time, maybe?”

“Hrmph.”

“That better be a yes,” Triangle said, and then something wet and cold was resting on his forehead.

He went to shove it away, spitting out the straw, but another hand easily batted away his own and held it there.

“Stop it,” his friend snapped tiredly, “In case you haven’t noticed, your temperature’s only gone up and I’m trying to bring it back down. Now drink something and go to sleep.”

Kong mutinously made to obey, making sure Triangle could hear him grumble about how unfair he was being before he dropped off back to sleep. 

He could hear voices outside the door when he woke to hurl the water back up.

“Are you hearing him right now?” Ni’s voice hissed, “He can’t even keep water down.”

“He doesn’t want to go,” Ichi said firmly, “And we can’t exactly force him to. We’re not his keepers.”

“Well, he’s not capable of making good decisions right now,” Triangle pointed out, “His fever makes him compromised.”

Ichi sighed. “He seems miserable, but he insisted he’d be okay. If we force him to go…”

“I get it. He won’t like it.” Triangle paused for a moment before coming to a decision. “Okay, we’ll give it one more day. We’ll try to bring the fever down as much as we can, and if what’s going on now continues or gets worse, we take him in Daniel Craig. Sound like a plan?”

“Okay,” Ni agreed.

“....I still hate that name,” Ichi muttered, but it seemed the debate was over.

Time passed in feverish flashes of awareness after that.

He knew when the others went to sleep from the telltale signs of each of their evening routines as they moved around the house.

Noodle-Neck settled into their bed, but it was a long time before they started snoring. Triangle never creeped up to the top bunk, so Kong wagered a guess that he was still awake, as per his usual insomnia.

He spent the night writhing in his sheets, tangled and sweaty and in constant agony from the pain in his midsection.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go to a hospital?” whispered Triangle at some point.

“Hospitals–” Kong gasped, “–hospitals are for sick people.”

“You are ‘sick people’ right now, tiny brain,” Triangle snapped impatiently. “Very ‘sick people’.”

“Meh.”

“Oh my–fine. Suffer if you like. I’m going to bed.”

Kong eventually passed out from exhaustion.

When he woke up, it was still dark, and it felt like someone set fire to his side. Or was stabbing him with a knife. Upon opening his eyes, he saw Ghidorah sitting next to him, Ichi’s eyes half closed and Ni still mostly asleep as well.

Kong whined and resisted the urge to hold his side with his hand. The last time he’d done that, it had hurt twice as much lifting it up as pressing it down.

“How ya feeling?” Ichi inquired.

He shook his head. “Not better.”

“We’re going to–”

“No. Hospitals.” Kong hissed through gritted teeth. 

The dragon threw their hands up. “Why?? You’re sick and obviously in pain! What in Hollow Earth’s name could you possibly have against hospitals???”

“We don’t exactly have money, Noodle-Neck,” he pointed out. “If they're not free and we can’t pay, they're gonna stick us in Concept jail!”

Ichi snorted. “We’ve escaped Concept jail. And we don’t know that first part. Chances are they’ll just be confused about your species.”

“So they’ll be… dumb and won’t know anything.”

“We didn’t say that!”

“Last. Resort. That’s final,” Kong insisted, “No strangers poking my insides.”

Ghidorah huffed exasperatedly. “Fine.”

“Still being a pain in the tail?” Triangle asked from the bunk above him.

Kong stuck his tongue out and found the energy to blow a raspberry at the bottom of the top bunk, and Triangle leaned upside down over the side to give him an unimpressed look. 

“You were complaining about a mild stomach ache like two days ago now. This is the third day and it’s only gotten worse. No improvement by the afternoon, it's hospital.” His friend met his eyes, and his tone pointedly didn’t invite argument. “Capiche?”

“Capiche,” Kong agreed reluctantly.

Triangle woke him up the next morning by snapping on the lights and switching out the damp, uncomfortable compress for something cooler. When Kong gave him an accusatory look for not warning him, Triangle just did the eye-rolling-but-not-actually-because-he-doesn’t-have-pupils eye roll.

“Your stomach still hurt?” he asked.

Kong nodded.

Without warning, his friend pressed his hands down on the side of Kong’s stomach. Kong yelped and slapped his hands away, but when his friend let go, it hurt bad enough for his vision to white out for a few seconds before settling back down.

“What was that for?” Kong demanded between gasps.

“You’ve been guarding your middle,” Triangle answered, eyes wide. “Ni was right. Monkey, if it hurts this bad, we really should go to the hospital.”

“You said ‘afternoon’,” Kong reminded, more out of spite than anything. Ni was right about what? When?

Triangle crossed his arms. “You heard- ugh, nevermind. Tiny brain, I’m being so serious right now. We’re actually concerned for your health.”

“And I say I’m fine.” Kong glared at him.

Triangle lashed his tail, probably just on the edge of verbally biting his head off, then changed his mind, growled furiously and stalked over to sit down, back to the long side of the bed facing the door.

“Have you ever noticed that your eyes aren’t really green or yellow?” Kong asked randomly some time later, not really sure why that was a subject he latched onto, but at least it temporarily distracted him from the pain. 

“What?”

“Yeah, they’re like green-yellow but kind of more yellow-y. They don’t make crayons that color.”

“Uh-huh,” Triangle replied slowly.

“Like, I could try mixing colors for a few hours but I don’t think I could get it. Maybe if they made like a really green gold…”

Triangle shifted to give him a look, so now Kong could see his face. He didn’t look like Kong had dropped a massive revelation on his head. He looked more bewildered than anything. “Okay?”

“You have inconvenient eyes. Also you don’t have pupils. Loser.”

Triangle frowned confusedly. “Is this an attempt at an insult?”

Is he mad at me? Kong buried his face in his pillow, hiccuping slightly.

“Woah, hey,” Triangle said, voice a little alarmed. Kong could hear his knees crack when he stood up, like he’d been sitting a while. “What’s wrong?”

“You’re mad at me!” Kong accused. 

He couldn’t see his friend’s face, but he did hear him sigh exasperatedly. “Monkey, I’m not mad. I didn’t even say anything. That’s ridiculous. And are you… are you seriously crying right now?”

Kong sniffled. “No.”

There was about thirty seconds of quiet, and then Triangle sat down directly on the bed, shoving Kong’s legs over, which sent a bolt of pain through Kong’s midsection and solidified his conclusion over the conversation. 

“I meant it. Not mad right now. Maybe I was earlier, but–”

“You hate me like you hate Mechakong!” Kong cut in.

There was a moment of tense silence. “I’m going to choose not to take that seriously and pretend you didn’t just say that,” Triangle said, tone scarily blank. “Because you’re sick and you don’t know what you’re saying. I’m getting Ghidorah. See you in a little bit.”

After a few minutes, Ghidorah came in and shut the door softly behind them, then flopped on their bed. Ichi turned his head to catch Kong’s eyes, his own white ones round with curiosity. “Wow, what did you say?”

Kong rolled back over, biting his tongue to refrain from making noise at how much the effort hurt in a refusal to answer. He wasn’t even sure why he’d snapped something like that, but it had made sense just a few minutes ago. 

“Okay. Be like that. Water?”

Kong shot him a thumbs down.

He spent the next couple hours staring at the wall and wishing the pain away. After a little bit, it finally seemed to work, the intense, pressurized pain slowly fading back down to a dull throb. Kong was just comfortable enough for a nap when Triangle came back in. The sun warming the pillow behind him told Kong it was about noon now.

He couldn’t see his friends, but he had a feeling they were having some sort of non-verbal conversation, ‘cause the room stayed quiet for longer than it should’ve before Triangle spoke.

“Stomach still hurt?” he checked briskly.

“No, it feels okay now,” Kong whispered, a strange calm settling over him. He rolled back over and opened his eyes to meet Triangle’s gaze, trying to prove he wasn’t lying.

Triangle gave him a suspicious look. “Really,” he said disbelievingly. “It doesn’t hurt when I do this?” he asked, pressing both talons down gently on Kong’s stomach.

Kong shrugged; it had only hurt a little. Nowhere near the agony of a few hours ago. “Feels fine.”

His friend’s eyes suddenly looked significantly less stressed. “Okay. You win, then. No hospital. Sleep.”

The next few hours were fine, even if Kong couldn’t find sleep when he closed his eyes. Calm, even. He felt a lot better. Ghidorah stayed to keep an eye on him for a couple hours and everything stayed fine. 

He didn’t feel like moving around much, but then again, he was pretty sure that was normal. Eventually he opened his eyes and gave the dragon a glare.

“Do you like sleeping under surveillance?” he whispered grumpily.

“I guess not.”

They stayed for a couple more minutes, but left after that.

He wasn’t sure how long after that it was before everything took a turn for the worse.

He was on fire. Fire, fire, fire. His pain, which had subsided just a few hours before, had increased tenfold and was everywhere across his midsection now. He was so hot and so cold at the same time. His teeth chattered so hard they sent pangs through his head like it was about to split right open.

He tried to get up- he needed to find the others, this time was worse, this time he needed-

Need what?

Apparently his body was in total rebellion trying to get up. The closest he could manage was falling out of the bed and onto the floor with an excruciating collision that drew a pained shout out of his mouth that hurt his throat. He lay there, panting, until someone was beside him.

“...burning up!” he could hear that someone faintly yelling, voice frantic.

They picked him up, leaving the blankets elsewhere, and he whimpered at the movement and pain before they shushed him. 

They shook his shoulder. “---with me–”

Things and words faded in and out of existence. “----nes shot-”

He did feel like he’d been shot again, yes. Several more times. All in the stomach. He nodded a bit at that. 

“----long?”

He was surrounded by cold. Cold was bad. Cold sucked. He pushed it away just for it to be pushed back. 

Then the world started swirling like he was on a roller coaster and everything around him moved so fast he couldn’t find his limbs and dizzy– 

The world moved faster, and then the cold was gone and the warmth returned and there was so much noise, a thousand voices all at the same time–a lot of beeping, then nothing at all.

Chapter Text

Godzilla hadn’t originally been concerned. Then again, it had been many, many years since he was last sick himself- a bite from the nasty mouth of a Skullcrawler was nothing that should’ve been taken lightly. It wasn’t even that he had a great immune system- most sicknesses just didn’t tend to affect his species like they did others. 

What Goji was not used to, however, was someone else being sick. He’d left the bathroom fairly quickly to gather his own thoughts on the matter and clean up the mess in the dining room and the dishes in the kitchen. Ghidorah wasn't actually there when he’d gotten back, but they’d obviously taken the time to do a quick clean up of both already, so there wasn’t much for Goji to do besides put away the clean dishes.

He huffed a quiet laugh to himself. Ghidorah was outside the natural order completely. There was no way they wanted to be anywhere near Monkey at the moment. Which meant that Goji needed to be the one to go handle this somehow.

He was sort of starting to miss living by himself.

Let’s see… Not having anything to do besides staring at the wall wouldn’t be comfortable for either himself or Monkey. Godzilla had absolutely no idea where to start with reassurance and doubted an effort would be appreciated, but leaving him completely alone seemed kind of cruel, and if things worsened Goji would like to know.

So he grabbed the book closest to him without looking at the title and quietly re-entered the bathroom, hopping up onto the counter and opening said book. 

Annnnd it’s a recipe book. Wonderful. So entertaining. Goji bit back a sigh. He had a feeling this was about to be a long day.

He did feel a pang of worry when he checked Monkey’s temperature a few minutes later (which was a little too warm to be normal) and the ape leaned into the touch instead of away, seemingly unaware he’d even done so.

Monkey slept through most of the afternoon, and Godzilla, Ghidorah, and MechaG spent it by playing whatever random games they had on hand. They went through an entire game of Monopoly (which MechaG won), three rounds of Guess Who, and half a round of Sorry before Monkey woke up.

He didn’t seem any better, and he didn’t want to join, which was more than a little off-color to Monkey’s usual competitive spirit. He still felt too warm for comfort, and seemed too groggy to participate in evening activities.

“Should we give him any dinner?” Ni asked, midway through their grilled cheese sandwiches. He had already finished his and was starting to eye the other half of Ichi’s.

Godzilla shrugged. “Probably not. Toast is probably fine though, right?”

Ichi lowered his sandwich and met Goji’s eyes.

Ni snapped the rest of the sandwich out of the other head’s hand. 

“We don’t know what we’re doing, do we?” Ichi said with an annoyed glare at Ni.

Goji shook his head. “No we do not.”

Ichi cracked an amused grin. “Think we’ll kill him?” 

“Ehhhh, it’s a possibility.” 

“Are we bad friends?” 

“Probably. Wanna bring him some toast, though?”

People drink tea when they’re sick, right? 

Goji made ginger tea while Ghidorah threw the bread in the toaster.

“Right,” Ichi said, nose scrunching up in thought. “So, shifts. We’re first shift, let’s go with shifts about an hour each, what else…”

“Bucket,” Godzilla supplied, steeping the tea. “I don’t want to do laundry, do you?”

Ghidorah shuddered. “No, we do not,” Ichi agreed. “We’re gonna bring him the toast now, do you wanna bring in the tea when it’s ready?”

Godzilla gave them a flat look. “No, I’m just gonna let it sit on the counter and get cold. Yes, I’ll bring the tea.”

Goji spent the next hour tidying up the kitchen and washing the dishes, then took a brief nap before the alarm went off to alert him of his upcoming shift.

“How is he?” he asked Ghidorah quietly outside their room.

Ni rubbed his eyes. “Couldn’t handle the toast,” he muttered. “Didn’t touch the tea. Fever’s still up and he’s really curling up around his stomach, and he’s still insisting we don’t need to find a doctor.”

“Yippee,” Godzilla said. “Alright. I’m gonna get him some water and try a damp cloth. And we’ll go from there, I guess?”

“We really don’t know what we’re doing, do we?”

Goji sighed. “No,” he admitted quietly, running a talon over his face. “We really don’t.”

The dragon wasn’t exaggerating. Monkey was literally curled up in a ball. The room spelled like sweat and sickness and not for the first time, Godzilla wished his senses were less sharp. He pulled the sheet over his friend’s head down a little and managed to convince him to get some water down.

Unfortunately, Monkey was not as compliant about Goji lowering his temperature. Which honestly, might’ve been just Monkey being stupid or stubborn and had nothing to do with him being sick.

Ghidorah knocked on the door maybe five minutes later to talk about their options. Ni and Goji were pushing to drag Monkey to the hospital kicking and screaming if they had to. Ichi, ever the negotiator, was insisting they couldn’t go over Monkey’s head.

It was an annoying argument and it didn’t help when Monkey woke up halfway through the debate to throw up the water Goji had gotten him to drink. And when Ghidorah tried later (and notably patiently) to convince Monkey the hospital was his best bet, his friend continued to refuse like the obstinate idiot he was.

—----------------------

Godzilla wasn’t sleeping. Normally, Ichi wouldn’t be concerned because Goji essentially never slept unless he was completely spent or he was napping. But the past couple days he’d been on his feet practically nonstop and Ghidorah had had enough of it.

He settled on the stool close to the kitchen counter, watching Goji steep his tea for a little bit. His movements were slower, somehow, and the dark rolls under his eyes hadn’t softened. 

Ichi bit back a sigh, mentally preparing for a verbal spat. “Goji,” he called. 

The lizard glanced up and simultaneously tugged off his headphones and grabbed a spoon off the counter to stir his tea with.

“Have you slept any time recently?”

A brief, almost guilty look flashed across Godzilla’s face, but was gone again in almost a second. “I only sleep peacefully after two or three days of not sleeping,” he said, carefully avoiding a real answer. “And I’ve had a few naps. You know that. I’m not a toddler, Noodle-Neck.”

Yeah, maybe you actually slept ten minutes, Ichi thought with a snort, but didn’t verbalize it.

“Goji-”

Yellow eyes flashed. “Look. I’ve tried, okay? But lately it’s just been nightmares and flashbacks.”

Ghidorah winced. Ni gave Ichi a look that read ‘leave it alone’, but Ichi ignored him. 

“You not sleeping isn’t helping. Usually I’d say it’s fine ‘cause nothing’s really going on. But that’s not the case right now. So just try, okay? That’s all I’m asking for. For everyone’s sake, because you have more experience than I do in the field we’re in right now.”

Goji stopped stirring his tea and wrinkled his snout. “Uh, not really.”

“Anguirus never got sick?” Ichi asked without thinking.

This time, the reptile’s face folded into a frown. “What?”

Abort! Ni’s voice whispered in his head. 

“Nevermind. Just promise to try, okay?”

Godzilla sighed. “Fine. I’ll go to bed. Happy?”

Not really. It’d be better if he didn’t feel pushed into it. Ghidorah suffered their own nightmares, so they understood a little bit, but Goji’s had always seemed to be more vivid than his own most of the time, maybe because they’d been repressed by Mechakong’s memory wipe for so long. There were times when Godzilla would awaken with a gasp and a few instances with a strangled scream that scared the living daylights out of both Ghidorah and Kong.

But if this was the best they would get, so be it. “Yes. Now, hand me that tea, I know it’s caffeinated. I’ll keep an eye on him tonight.”

Godzilla glared at him, but slid the mug across the counter and stalked off to the bedroom. Ghidorah followed after a few minutes. They’d stay up the rest of the night and Goji could take over in the morning.

Ichi had never been one to judge survival instincts- and honestly never put much thought into it. But Kong’s refusal to go to the hospital was grinding on Ichi’s last nerve. If they were that sick, Ghidorah would practically fly themselves to the hospital. 

And he couldn’t even get sick.

And so Godzilla took back over in the morning while Ghidorah worked on MechaG and tried not to worry.

—---------------------------------------

Monkey’s not getting better. That was kind of the ringing note in Goji’s head throughout the morning as his friend tossed and turned and his temperature climbed steadily higher. 

He spent half the morning practically delirious to a point where Godzilla wondered if he’d even notice if they dragged him down to the city to get looked at. 

It was about then that Goji decided to test Ni’s observation by directly applying pressure to Monkey’s midsection, and you’d have thought he’d stuck him with a knife. Monkey cried out and immediately smacked at Godzilla’s hands, but Goji was already pulling back, instantly unnerved by the reaction.

He’s really, really sick. There’s something wrong here. And not the type of wrong that Godzilla would’ve liked to push their luck at. He didn’t know much about illnesses. But he did know that a sickness that incapacitated someone as much as it was Monkey it had to be serious.

Who was currently glaring at him. “What was that for?!” he demanded, but he was panting heavily, and all Godzilla had done was press down. 

It shouldn’t’ve hurt him this much. What if I made it worse?

He didn’t say that part. Goji instead decided to try pushing one more time for Monkey to go to the hospital, and surprise, surprise, Monkey decided to be stupid about it.

So Godzilla was in the process of figuring out how to drag Monkey down to the city without him noticing when his friend started going on about his eyes, of all things.

He might’ve even been offended, if Monkey wasn’t half out of his mind with fever. Honestly, the whole conversation was funnier than anything, right up until Goji had brushed it off as fever-talk and Monkey started crying.

That little stunt made Goji sit bolt-upright with more than a little surprise, and definite concern.

It was very rare that Goji had ever seen his friend cry, and that hadn’t ever happened in all the time since they’d woken up in the prison biome. The last time had been- Godzilla cut off his train of thought. No need for that to derail right now.

Deal with the present, Godzilla. 

“Woah, hey. What’s wrong?”

There were a thousand more things that could’ve been wrong- from whatever pain was there getting worse to his friend just feeling bad in general.

“You’re mad at me!” Monkey accused with an overly dramatic sniffle.

It took Goji rolling the words around in his head a couple times to figure out how Monkey had come to that absurd conclusion, and when Godzilla realized it must’ve been something he had said in response to the whole eye thing, he had to resist the urge to laugh. This isn’t funny, Goji reminded himself. He really thinks you’re mad.

“Monkey, I’m not mad,” he assured. “I didn’t even say anything? That’s ridiculous. And are you… are you seriously crying right now?”

Over all the things to cry over, Goji getting mad was bamboozling. Monkey annoyed him on a daily basis, he should definitely be immune to Godzilla being pissed off at him.

Monkey sniffled again. “No,” he said unconvincingly.

Now Goji felt a little bad for feeling like laughing.

So he nudged Monkey's legs over and sat down on the bed. “I mean it. I’m not mad,” he repeated. “Okay, maybe I was earlier, but-”

Monkey opened his eyes to glare at him. “You hate me like you hate Mechakong!” 

The accusation was sharp and fast and cut like a knife. It took Goji a moment to wrap his head around the words, and then the hurt set in.

He’s sick, he reminded himself forcefully, biting his tongue when the hurt turned into some kind of defensive anger. He probably doesn’t mean it. Or at least didn’t understand the significance. But if Goji stayed in the room one more second he was going to explode.

He was pretty sure he said something about getting Ghidorah and stormed out of the room, almost colliding with the dragon in the hallway.

“Hey,” Ni greeted, catching themselves on the wall. “What’s the hurry?”

“Someone’s pissing me off, so I’m leaving before I decide to strangle him.”

“Uhh, what’d he do?”

Godzilla huffed and went to stalk off without answering, unwilling to get into it with Ghidorah, too. 

Then he stopped in his tracks and turned back towards the dragon. “Hey, Ghidorah.”

“What?” Ichi asked, swinging back towards him expectantly.

“What color are my eyes?”

Both heads frowned at him. “Yellow. Duh. Why?”

Goji shook his head. “Just double-checking.”

As was his usual method of avoidance, Godzilla sat with MechaG. MechaG didn’t ask questions Goji couldn’t find the answers to and he was easy to be around at pretty much all times. Not that the others were hard, just… sometimes the quiet was preferable. 

It took maybe an hour for Godzilla to get over himself, and by that time the day had hit noon. And that meant it was time to finally take Monkey down to the hospital and finally get this whole ordeal resolved.

Finally.

But shockingly, Monkey seemed to be feeling better. He didn’t squeeze his eyes shut in pain like he’d done the other time Godzilla had pressed down on his stomach, and even though he was still running a fever, he was relaxed enough for Godzilla to be sure whatever the bug was was finally dissipating, thank Hollow Earth.

—----------------------------------

Ni could only feel instant relief when Goji’s check on Kong cleared without the ape’s eyes flashing with pain. He finally seemed alright for the first time in days, so when Kong asked them to leave him be, no red flags went up in Ni’s mind. Which was their first mistake of the day.

Ghidorah joined Goji in the kitchen, where the lizard was fixing himself a cup of tea. He was probably still upset with Kong for whatever happened earlier, but honestly, everything could be so much worse.

So the two hung out in the kitchen and talked about basically nothing.

Then, maybe a half hour, hour later, there was a sudden thud of something hitting the floor from the bedroom, followed by a muffled cry of pain, and both Goji and Ghidorah jumped up in alarm. 

“What-” Ni started, but Goji was already halfway there. 

They followed him in, only briefly pausing at the door to get a handle on what was going on. Kong was writhing on the floor in obvious agony, half tangled in his sheets. Goji crouched down and rested a talon on his forehead, then yanked it back with a hiss of alarm.

“He’s burning up!”

Dread curled in Ghidorah’s gut. “Alright. We’re gonna start up Daniel Craig. Can you get him there?”

Goji nodded, already moving to pick up their friend.

The freaking ship wouldn’t start. 

This is a nightmare, Ni thought, switching on the ignition again.

“What’s going on?” Goji asked, voice filled with tension.

“It won’t start,” Ichi growled, tearing open the floor’s access to the engine. 

Ni turned his head to see Goji lay Kong down on the open cot and then move over to examine the engine cavity with them.

“Engines shot,” Ichi bit out frustratedly. Behind Goji, Ni saw Kong nod his head, like he was at least a little checked into what was going on.

Ni facepalmed, which didn’t feel nearly adequate for the situation they were in. Why didn’t we check it days ago?

Godzilla lashed his tail. “How long will it take for us to get to the city on foot?”

Ghidorah glanced over at Kong. “Our wing’s still not good enough to fly him over,” Ichi admitted. “It’ll take maybe two hours on foot normally, but with him in that condition it’ll be more like three or four, and it probably isn’t good to make him move too much, right?”

Godzilla nodded. “And to fix the engine?”

“At least- at least a couple hours, maybe. But it can get us there in ten minutes if we speed.”

Goji nodded again, thinking. “Alright,” he said after a minute. “We’ll stay here for now and try to fix the engine. We try to keep him as cool as possible. Then we floor it.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Ni murmured, already reaching for their toolbox in the compartment.

Godzilla disappeared, then came back a few minutes later with all the five ice packs they had in the house, arranging them neatly around Kong in an effort to lower his fever. Ni wasn’t exactly sure what would happen if their friend’s temperature got too high, but he wasn’t keen on finding out. The ape went to try to shove the ice packs away, but Goji resolutely put them back and pushed his hands to the side.

And Ni quietly hoped Ichi could fix the engine quickly.

—------------------

Goji watched Ghidorah work, keeping quiet so as not to interrupt their process. Ichi liked to mutter as he worked, explaining what he was doing to some non-existent listener. Ni was quiet, usually just there to point to something that stood out to him to Ichi or to soothe when the other head got frustrated.

This is taking too long. 

He looked to Monkey instead, noting the ice packs growing warm when he checked them. He rested the side of his hand on Monkey's forehead. Still burning up, he observed grimly, heat battling the (almost cool in comparison) warmth of his talons. The fever hadn’t gone down. Goji drew his hand back, shuddering a little at the slick sweat that clung to it.

At least two hours had passed since he’d made his call, and he was still unsure it was the correct one. We should’ve taken him to the hospital days ago. 

Goji inhaled deeply. Monkey would be fine. He’d spent years trying to kill him; the ape was made up of tough stuff. He’d be long dead by now if he wasn’t.

He was pretty sure he’d never seen anybody so sick, though. He had a dull memory of taking care of someone else a long time ago, but he was relatively sure whoever had been sick wasn’t dying. 

Not like this. 

I really, really hate being right sometimes.

“Got it!” Ichi shouted victoriously, so out of the blue it made Godzilla jump. “Now we just gotta start it.”

The dragon moved to the front of the ship. “Please please please start,” Ni breathed audibly, well past the point of hiding his concern. Goji held his breath.

And Daniel Craig roared to life.

“Yes!” Ichi cheered, maneuvering the controls to take off.

Godzilla sighed in relief and sat down on the other side of the cot as the dragon charted a course and set the ship on autopilot, fast enough to be almost dizzying. Goji leaned back against the wall behind him, keeping an eye on the landscape rapidly speeding past them as the ship neared its destination.

The hospital wasn’t busy, somehow. Ghidorah parked Daniel Craig while Goji got Monkey in, and by the time Ghidorah had caught up, Monkey was on a bed with wheels and they had rushed him into another room. Godzilla and the dragon followed, but were stopped by one of the nurses in scrubs.

“You can’t stay right now,” the nurse insisted, crossing their amphibious arms. “You may wait outside the operation room, but you can’t be in there.”

“Alright,” Goji said. “Let us know anything as soon as you can.”

They eyed them up and down. “You family?”

“Closest he’s got,” Ichi answered swiftly. 

They nodded and swept back in the room. 

The windows were glass. Godzilla wasn’t sure if he would’ve preferred a covering to them instead. They immediately hooked Monkey up to machines that beeped horribly fast, and it took Goji a moment to realize that the machine was measuring Monkey’s heartrate.

And even Goji knew it shouldn’t be beating as fast as the monitor showed.

The nurse they’d been talking to before came back out again, this time with questions.

“He ever been sick like this before?” they asked, voice grim.

I have no idea. Probably not, right? Or, if he had, neither Goji or Ghidorah would know, and Monkey wouldn’t, either.

“I don’t… think so?” Godzilla supplied.

“When did this start?”

“Three, maybe four days ago,” Ghidorah answered. “Stomach pain started around four days ago and got worse from there. He hasn’t been able to keep food or water down for the past two.”

They nodded. “We’ve already performed a physical examination, but we would like to do a scan called an ultrasound to confirm our diagnosis. There are no risks associated with an ultrasound, which is a tool used to see the organs inside a body. We do have papers for someone to sign…”

Ichi glanced at Goji, then grabbed the papers. “Pen?” he asked, and the nurse handed one over.

“What do you think it is?” Godzilla couldn’t help asking. “I’ve never seen this before.”

“Based on his physiology, we believe he has an organ called an ‘appendix’ that might be inflamed and causing damage, if it hasn’t ruptured already. Do you need an explanation of any of the terms I’ve used so far?”

Goji frowned. “So an ultrasound is like sonar? And what does an appendix do?”

They gave him an odd look he couldn’t read. “Yes, actually. It uses high frequency sound waves to give an image in the body live for the doctors to see. The appendix is a non-essential organ, but plays a mild role in the immune system.”

“Okay. And if your diagnosis is right?” Godzilla pushed.

“If it’s correct, we’ll decide a treatment from there,” they said vaguely, then ducked in the room to hand off the papers. Another, this time a medium sized machine was wheeled into the room. The nurse they’d been talking to stepped to the side, and the doctors used the machine to pull some sort of imaging thing on the screen, which various people pointed at and conferred, before someone brought out something sharp and silver and pressed it to Kong’s stomach.

Oh no you don’t. Not under my watch. Godzilla had taken Monkey here to be helped, not hurt. Maybe he was right about not going to the hospital, Goji thought as he slammed open the doors.

“Get the hell away from him,” he spat, smacking the knife out of the doctor’s hand. 

Another doctor raised her talons in surrender. “We’re not hurting him,” she said calmly. “His appendix has ruptured. If we don’t take it out, what’s happening now will get worse, and he’ll die. I know it looks harsh, but we need to cut him open to help him.”

Godzilla frowned. Ghidorah, who’d rushed in right after Goji, bared their teeth. “How do we know you won’t kill him?”

She shrugged. “He’s dying already. What’s the point?”

Godzilla glanced over at Monkey, still shivering from fever. He’d seen scientists back on their homeworld work what seemed like miracles before. And he and Ghidorah couldn’t do anything to help their friend at this point. 

And Goji was scared. He’d felt powerless before, but even in a fight, he had some control over the outcome. He couldn’t fight this enemy with Monkey, and his friend couldn’t beat a sickness like this on his own. 

He looked to Ichi and tilted his head. Do we let them do this?

Ghidorah frowned and glanced at Monkey, and then their faces softened into something more worried than angry, and Ichi tipped his head to indicate yes. For better or worse, it seemed they were willing to let the doctors do what they wanted,

“Okay,” Goji surrendered. “Okay. We’ll stay out of your way. But if he dies and I find out it was something you did-”

“-We’re not the monsters you should cross,” Ichi finished.

She nodded, then shooed them back out. 

After about an hour of watching and seeing way too much red, Godzilla slumped down against the door. “He’d be dead,” he realized aloud. Ghidorah sat down next to him.

“In our world?”

Goji nodded. “His family- they’d never even guess something like this. And even if they did, there’d be no way for them to save him.”

And I wouldn’t’ve cared. Maybe even considered it a quiet victory- one less nuisance to deal with. If this happened at home, he’d die.

“He’s tough,” Ni said. “Maybe…”

“She seemed really sure,” Ichi disagreed quietly.

Godzilla ran a talon down his face. “Let’s not talk about it anymore.”

And so they waited, for the most part, in silence, until Monkey came out of surgery.

He was too pale, there was a weird tiny tube in his arm and an oxygen mask over his face, but his temperature had receded to less alarming levels, and he didn’t look like he was in pain anymore, either.

And all that was left was to wait for him to wake up.

—----------------------------------------

The ceiling above him was white. Like, really white. Is it supposed to be that white? Isn’t it brown? 

“Oh, you’re awake,” a familiar voice murmured. “You feeling better?”

“There waszz something wrong with meee?” he asked. He felt great.

A huff of amusement. “Mhm. I’m gonna guess you’re pretty out of it. I’m gonna call the nurse in and wake Goji up, okay?”

“Who’s-”

“Triangle. We’re going to wake him up.”

“Whyy’s Tri- Triangle asphleep?”

“He’s a little tired, he’s been up for quite a while keeping an eye on you. Are you gonna keep staring at the ceiling?”

The ceiling was pretty neat. “Mmmmm.” 

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“-little while.”

“Thanks. So the zoning out is normal?”

“He’ll sober up in a little bit, but we don’t want him feeling anything any time soon.”

New voices. Neat. He blinked at the ceiling again. “Ghiiiidddy.”

“How long’s he been doing that?” another familiar voice said.

Ignoring me. Rude. Wait, where are my hands?

“Triiiiiiiianglllee. You let them ssteeall my hands?” he accused.

A tired sigh, then a shuffling and suddenly his hands are near his eyes. “Monkey, no one touched your hands. Go back to sleep, G.”

“I was asleep?”

He was back out before he got a real answer.

—------

“Where’m I?” Monkey mumbled.

“Hospital,” Goji answered for the fourth time in as many minutes. They kept cycling through the same snippets of information, and Monkey didn’t seem aware enough to be keeping track of what was said.

“Mmm. Why’m I im hophital?”

“You’re sick. They’re making you get better.”

Monkey blinked at him, eyes hazy. “‘M sick?”

“Mhm.”

“I feel ph’tumbly.”

“You’re not even standing up right now,” Godzilla pointed out.

Monkey’s eyes went wide. “They tuk m’legs??”

Goji snorted. “No one took your legs, Monkey.”

“Are’y sure?”

“Noodle-Neck was watching very carefully. Right, Ghidorah?” he prompted.

“Yup,” confirmed Ni. “We just helped them steal your toes.”

Monkey started crying.

Godzilla pursed his lips and covered his mouth. Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh. Do not laugh.

“Ni!” Ichi scolded. The right head had the grace to look at least a little bit guilty. 

“Your toes are still there,” Ichi assured Monkey. “That wasn’t what was removed.”

Luckily, Monkey didn’t seem to catch onto the implication. “Where’m I?” he asked again.

Yeah, he’s still checked out. 

Goji bit back a sigh. “Hospital, Monkey. I’m going to check with the nurse and see if you can have some apple juice.”

“Oh. M’mouth iz sahara.”

What does that mean?

Goji stood up and peeked outside the room, waving to the nurse at the desk. 

“Can he have apple juice?” he called over.

“The ruptured appendix, yes?”

“Yup.”

She tossed him a bottle from the mini-fridge next to her desk. “Start slow, don’t let him choke,” she ordered. “Only a little bit at a time.”

He gave her a thumbs up and ducked back in. “Good news, you’re allowed some apple juice.”

Monkey made a grabby motion in the air while Ichi adjusted the hospital bed so he was sitting up. “Gimme.”

“Bad news,” Goji continued pointedly, “I don’t trust monkeys on drugs. So let’s see if you can hold it up first.”

Godzilla handed over the bottle, and Monkey almost immediately dropped it. “Whoops,” he muttered, eyes still unfocused.

Goji exchanged a glance with Ichi. “Thought so.” 

He picked it back up and unscrewed the cap, bottle cool under his fingers, then held it up to Monkey’s face. Monkey glared at him.

“Can do it m’self,” he snapped mutinously. “Where are we?”

Godzilla very maturely didn’t glare back. “We’re in the hospital, tiny brain. And obviously you can’t. Now it’s your choice whether you drink it or not. Make a decision or I'll let Ni have it.”

“I don’t like apple juice,” Ni volunteered, “But Ichi does.”

Goji turned his head to give them a baffled look. “How does that work?” Then he pinched his temple. “Nevermind.”

“Apple juice,” Monkey decided. “Then we leave.”

Goji snorted. “Vetoing the second one, but yeah, you can have some apple juice.”

“Why?”

“You just- nevermind,” Godzilla muttered. He held the bottle up to Monkey’s mouth, taking it away whenever the ape tried to drink it too fast.

—-----------------------------------------

The lights were too bright, and Kong’s body felt heavy and achy. There was a sharper pain in his arm, and when Kong glanced to the side, there was a thin tube going out of it. He would’ve been alarmed, if he hadn’t looked further over to see Triangle quietly sitting in a chair next to the bed, absentmindedly picking at the stuffing coming out of the side of it.

“Triangle?” Kong mumbled. 

What happened?

His friend glanced up. “‘Sup,” he greeted cordially. He looked exhausted.

“Where are we?”

“Hospital,” answered Triangle flatly. “You’re sick, so we flew you over in Daniel Craig. You’re down one organ and up one scar. Congratulations.” He went back to picking at the chair.

That sounds serious. 

“What?”

“You’re in the hospital. Your appendix burst and had to be removed.”

“You said the hospital part already,” Kong pointed out.

Triangle’s eyes narrowed with interest, and he abandoned tearing apart the poor abused chair. “Oh cool, you’re with us a little bit. Want me to wake up Noodle-Neck?”

“He’s asleep?” Kong asked, a little put out.

“Well, they’ve been up with you all night,” Triangle told him, “I had to practically drag him back to the ship. Now I know how it feels.”

“How what feels?”

“Nevermind. How are you feeling, though? And be honest for once in your tiny brained life.”

“My-” Kong started heatedly.

“Answer the question, Monkey boy.”

Kong thought for a moment. “Stomach’s a bit sore,” he admitted after a minute. “Little nauseous.”

Triangle nodded, like that was the answer he’d expected. “They had to clean out your stomach,” he explained, “And the nausea is from all the stuff they have you on right now; antibiotics, IV, whatever painkiller they got going… a few other things I forgot.”

Kong rolled his eyes. “Aren’t you supposed to keep track of that?”

“Not ‘till you’re discharged. Which won’t be for a while yet, ‘cause you’re an idiot.”

“Mm. When are you gonna let this go?”

Triangle narrowed his eyes at him accusingly. “Well, you nearly died and freaked out Ghidorah, so let’s go with never.”

Oh. I’m in trouble. That probably shouldn’t’ve been a surprising revelation, giving the attitude Triangle was using in his tone at the moment.

Kong winced. “Am’I getting lectured right now?”

His friend shrugged. “Not yet. Do you want more apple juice?”

He blinked at Triangle, a little thrown off by the easy dismissal and the sudden subject change. He did have a very dim memory of someone holding up a bottle of something and encouraging him to drink it (or bullying him into it, he didn’t remember clearly enough to be sure).

“Sure?”

Triangle handed him a plastic apple juice bottle, a little warm from sitting out. It was about half full, not heavy, but Kong’s fingers felt oddly weak, and the bottle shook a little when he picked it up. Triangle eyed the bottle carefully, but uncharacteristically didn’t comment or make a jab.

Kong managed to unscrew the cap and sip at it.

“Slow,” Triangle warned. 

Kong glared at him and made to gulp down a mouthful, but Triangle must’ve had some sort of sixth sense, because he grabbed Kong’s wrist and held it in place. “If you really want to puke again, be my guest,” he challenged. “But I’m going to assume you don’t.”

His friend let go. Kong sighed and drank his juice slowly.

“You know I don’t hate you, right?” he asked quietly after a little while.

Kong blinked at him, brain short circuiting. “What?”

Triangle shrugged. “I don’t know. You just told me that, and I quote, ‘you hate me like you hate Mechakong’.”

Kong frowned, turning the cap over in his fingers. “I don’t remember that.”

“It was when you were making fun of my eyes,” Triangle informed him.

Pretty sure I would remember doing that. 

“Well, they are ugly. What’d you do?” Kong asked instead.

Triangle crossed his arms and looked away. “What do you think?”

Kong inhaled and looked out the window. “It’s alright,” he said quietly. “I know I look like him.”

He glanced back at his friend.

Triangle’s eyes had widened a bit, and he was staring at Kong like he had just attempted to drop an anvil on his own head. “What? No, that’s not the- that’s not the issue, Monkey. If anything anyways, he looks like you. There’s a key difference there.”

“So…”

“So the problem is that you thought I hated you. Like I hate him.”

Monkey stared at him, more than a little incredulous. “I really don’t, though. I don’t think that.”

Even if his friend tended to say it a lot, Kong had a feeling he hadn’t meant it in a while. 

Triangle nodded once, frown fading a little. “Good. ‘Cause I don’t like, actually hate you. I hope you don’t think that. Anyways, that being said, I’m going to chew you out for this stunt, though.”

“Aw, what?” Kong complained, taking another sip of the somewhat unappetizingly warm juice and finishing it off. “Isn’t the hospital lesson enough? How are we paying for this, anyways?”

Triangle shrugged and took the bottle away. “The city pays them, apparently. I didn’t ask that many questions and I don’t really care.”

“You-”

“Hey, stop changing the subject, Monkey. You’re not getting out of the lecture.”

“Really? I feel like-”

“No, shut up.” Triangle took a deep breath, closing his eyes for long enough for Kong to count to five. “Do you have any idea how stressful that was?!?” he shouted as soon as he opened them again. 

Kong winced. His friend must’ve been holding back for a while. He was starting to get tired already, even though he’d only been awake for a few minutes, and he didn’t really want to sit through a lecture.

“You almost died,” Triangle continued in a growl, poking Kong in the chest to ensure his attention. “You would have died if they couldn’t help you here! One of your organs literally ruptured and you were running a fever so high one of the nurses ran out to get ice! Your stupid tiny brain could’ve been irreversibly damaged, you could've had a seizure, you could’ve gotten a worse infection than the one you currently have, someone said something about blood poisoning-”

“Triangle-”

“Oh, I am not done yet,” Triangle hissed. “Monkey wa hontōni totemo byōkida. Boku to Ghidorah wa dō tasuketara ī ka wakaranai.” 

Kong stared at his friend, agape. Did- did he just switch languages? What is he even speaking?

“Bokuitachi wa kimi to wa chigau, otōto! Kibun ga warui toki ni oshiete. Bokutachi wa kimi no kimochi o shiru koto ga dekinaishi, tada shinkokuda to omou koto ni motodzuite kōdō suru shikanai.” Triangle shook his head, “Sorewa tarinai.”

“Triangle-” Monkey tried to interrupt, waving his hands to catch his attention.

His friend pointed at him accusingly. “Īe! Shinde ita kamo shinda! Wakaruka?!”

“Triangle!” Kong repeated louder, launching the bottle cap at his face. 

“Nani!?” Triangle snarled in a tone that probably would’ve been intimidating if Kong knew anything that just came out of his mouth. 

“I get you want to yell at me and all, but I don’t understand a word you’re saying!” Kong snapped.

Triangle  inhaled sharply as if he was about to go on another tangent, then abruptly shut his mouth. 

“Monkey, you could’ve died,” he said seriously instead of acknowledging the language swap. “And I don’t think I can take that,” Triangle finished quietly.

Kong stared at him. 

“Okay,” Kong murmured finally, reaching up to rub at his eyes. “Okay. I don’t know what I was thinking. I just- I didn’t want to have to run again,” he admitted. “I’m tired of running and jumping around.”

To his surprise, Triangle cracked a tired smile. “Well, you’re not the only one. But Mowcuss is gone. From what me and Ghidorah know, his militia was the main law around here anyways. If anyone ever comes after us, we can handle it. We wouldn’t run.”

“Okay,” Kong said agreeably, fighting back a yawn, “I won’t scare you guys again. Or make you start speaking other languages. Geez, give a guy a break, G.”

“Well, I never said you scared us,” Triangle scoffed. “But- are you seriously falling asleep right now?”

“No,” Kong denied, dropping his head back to the pillow and closing his eyes. 

“Oh, you suck,” Triangle said, but pulled the hospital sheet over Kong a few seconds later. “Noodle-Neck’ll be here when you wake up.”

“Will you stay?”

“No,” Triangle snapped. “These chairs are torture instruments, my poor spine is wrecked enough- annnd you’re about out so you don’t care. Fine. But you owe me. And not just for-”

Kong didn’t catch the rest.

—------------------------------------------

Goji woke up slowly. For once, his sleep had been dreamless, and the only reason he’d woken up so soon was the dull ache in his neck and lower back from the uncomfortable hospital visitor chairs. He opened his eyes a slit to determine what was going on.

The lights were still dim (which meant Monkey should definitely be asleep), but he could hear both Ghidorah and Monkey chattering over Ghidorah’s present they’d made. They’d shown Godzilla beforehand- it was a small, 3D printed bucket and appendix keychain.

Monkey was holding up the keychain and wrinkling his nose. “Okay, I get the bucket, but what’s this thing?” he asked, using his finger to lift up the other thing on the keychain, a small, pink, worm-shaped pendant, smaller than the bucket.

“That’s the thing that nearly killed you. It’s an appendix,” Ichi informed him.

Monkey nodded slowly. “Oookay, and why have it on a keychain?”

“To remind you that waving off an illness is a bad idea,” Ni told him harshly. “And refusing hospitalization. And trying to minimize your symptoms. And-” 

“Alright, I get it, you’re mad! Geez. I already got this from Triangle. In like two languages, I think. What am I supposed to do with it, though?”

“I don’t know, put it on a set of keys somewhere?”

Monkey gave them an incredulous look. “...thanks? So while they stole my organs you were 3D printing keychains.”

“Technically, your one non-vital organ that they removed was already gone by the time we started the keychains,” corrected Ichi snobbishly. “And what did you mean by two languages?”

“I don’t know! He was talking about blood poisoning, and then he just switched, I think? I don’t even know what he was saying…”

Goji frowned. He didn’t even notice until Monkey had forcefully pointed it out.

Ni gave Monkey a flat look. “Yeah, that’s typically what happens when someone swaps languages. Anyways, while you’re here, maybe we should get the other organs out of the way before they explode, too.”

Monkey stared at them. “Guys. I need organs to be alive.”

“No, no, obviously not the vital ones!” Ichi assured hurriedly, waving his talons. “There’s like, a whole list of organs you don’t really need. That can kill you if things go wrong with them. Like, I’m pretty sure we could take out your gallbladder and you’d be fine. The book we bought also said tonsils were unnecessary and you’d snore quieter.”

“We are not removing any more of my organs! Necessary or not! And I’m pretty sure removing those has consequences!”

Goji suppressed a laugh at the conversation and made some sort of undignified snorting noise. It was just so absurd. All the stress from the last few days and Monkey was wondering where he’d put the freaking keychains he’d gotten out of the experience and Ghidorah was flipping out and being overly dramatic in their own be all end all way. It really wasn’t that funny, but he’d also barely slept in literal days and he was pretty sure his sense of humor had been broken for a while now.

“Oops, did we wake Goji up?” Ni asked, but Ichi was already talking again.

“Anyways, you and Goji gotta stop having near death experiences that end with scars on your stomach. We’re starting to feel left out.”

“Triangle, this means we need to stab Noodle-Neck ASAP,” Monkey directed at him.

“Isn’t he still-”

Goji interrupted him by erupting into a fit of almost hysterical giggles that turned into full on laughter and fell off his chair.

He opened his eyes fully to see both Monkey and Ghidorah staring at him in utter astonishment.

“Um. I- I think you’ve finally actually broken Godzilla.”

Goji wheezed with one talon covering his snout and the other on his chest, unable to make a verbal noise anymore and unable to deny Ni’s comment.

“Triangle? Um. Should I press the button? Is this a medical emergency?”

He shook his head and inhaled deeply, trying to keep a straight face, then made the mistake of looking at their faces and immediately started cackling again.

Ghidorah crouched next to him, faces now worried. “I was joking, but this might be a mental breakdown. Hey, Goji, mind telling us what’s so funny?”

“‘We need to stab Noodle-Neck’,” Goji managed to gasp out, voice higher pitched than normal from the lack of oxygen. “Oh my stars-”

“Yeah, maybe you should press the button.”

Godzilla lifted his talon from his chest and made a ‘cut it out’ motion at them. 

“Goji, you need to breathe,” Ichi scolded, but they were starting to crack, too.

A few seconds later, they were both on the floor, Monkey staring at them with wide eyes. 

“I hate you,” Goji told Monkey, once he’d settled more into occasional giggles and was able to speak properly again. “Do not do that again.”

Their friend seemed too disturbed to ask what he was referring to.

“If you’re done making fun of me, how long do we gotta be here?”

Goji took a deep breath. “Well, you’re-”

“Don’t call me stupid again,” Monkey warned.

Touchy. 

“Fine. Since you’re hollow brained, and you need them to monitor your vitals ‘cause neither of us are gonna learn it, the surgeon said like three days.”

“I still can’t believe you let strangers cut me open,” Monkey muttered.

“Would you have preferred me or Ghidorah attempt it?” Godzilla asked genuinely. 

“I’ve seen your hands, I barely trust you with a knife in the kitchen.”

“Strong talk coming from the person in the hospital bed,” Ni said, and Goji high fived him. 

“Seriously, three days?” Monkey asked, this time genuine.

Ichi sighed. “Yup.”

“Are you guys… staying? I mean, I’d be fine if you wanted to.”

Yeah, right.

Godzilla shrugged. “On one condition.”

Monkey blinked. “Oh, we get to set conditions now?”

“Well, you don’t get to right now,” Ni told him. “Maybe when Goji does something dumb.”

“Alright, what’s the condition?” Monkey directed at Goji.

“If you ever get sick again, me and Ghidorah get to decide when you go to the hospital. And I don’t mean until you're unconscious and you can’t decide for yourself.”

”Oh, I thought you were gonna make me clean the windows or something.” Monkey seemed relieved, of anything. “Fine, deal.”

“Thanks for volunteering when we get home,” Ichi said winningly.

“But you’ll stay.” Monkey determined.

He’s really stuck on that. Well, it wasn’t like Goji and Ghidorah were just gonna up and ditch anyway.

“Yeah, we’ll stay.”