The next few hours seemed to pass by at a snail’s pace, with Beebee’s fever remaining obscenely high and the paste he was vomiting up continuing to come out in copious amounts. Fluttershy came back down not long after excusing herself with a sealed bag of frozen vegetables in hand, which they used as an ice pack to try and bring Beebee’s temperature down somewhat. It worked, albeit only slightly.
It was getting on towards evening when Beebee’s symptoms slowly began to lose some of their intensity. He was still sweating profusely and shivering uncontrollably, but the amount of puke was starting to decrease, and his fever was starting to drop back down. Eventide could now safely put his hand on Beebee without it burning from the heat, a fact for which he was very grateful. He capitalized on this to give his son many gentle pets on the back of the head, offering whatever comfort he could from his kneeling position by the bed.
After a while, Beebee managed to muster enough strength to lift his head up and lean into his father’s ministrations, a weak chirp coming from deep in his throat. His glowing eyes looked up at Eventide and shimmered softly with gratitude. “Thank you, Daddy…” he muttered before resting his head down and coughing a few times.
Eventide offered Beebee a small reassuring smile. “You’re welcome… how are you feeling now? Your fever’s gone down quite a bit,” he noted in a hushed tone, never once taking his hand away.
Beebee coughed again before speaking. “A little better…” he mumbled before closing his eyes and letting out a tired sigh. “I’m still hot and cold… and my stomach feels really sick, still…”
“Your fever was pretty high,” Fluttershy noted gently from her place by the stairs. She walked forward and sat down on the edge of the bed, looking down at the two with a soft smile. “You’re probably going to be okay. I think the worst has passed.”
Beebee nodded slowly, his face becoming partially obscured as he pulled his blankets a little closer to his body. He lay still for a while, trying to relax under Eventide’s hand, then let out a quiet sniffle. It was almost inaudible, but in the otherwise silent room, both Eventide and Fluttershy heard it. Eventide gently pulled his hand back and leaned down to look into Beebee’s face a little better. “Beebee?”
“Why did I get sick?” Beebee suddenly asked, his voice sounding guilty and reluctant. He opened his eyes slowly to reveal that they were starting to glisten with tears.
Eventide and Fluttershy shared an uneasy glance. The way he had said that was heart-wrenching. After a moment, Fluttershy cleared her throat and offered an answer. “Uh, well, while you were outside a couple of days ago, you probably caught some airborne virus. You had been inside this house for your whole life until then, so your body wasn't able to protect itself from the virus. So you got sick.”
Beebee blinked. Without raising his head, he voiced his next question. “What’s a virus?”
It was Eventide who answered him. “A virus is… well… they’re tiny, tiny creatures that live inside your body. So tiny, in fact, that millions of them could live on the tip of one of my pens upstairs, and you still couldn’t see them.”
Beebee was genuinely intrigued, as was evidenced by how his ears perked up, and his wings gave a weak buzz on his back. “Really? They’re that small?” he asked.
Fluttershy nodded and continued on with the explanation. “Yes, they are. And they are really bad for you. They are one of the things that can make you really sick by getting inside your body and attacking it.”
“That’s mean…” Beebee protested in a murmur, his eyes narrowing somewhat. “Why are they mean?”
“Well… it’s what they have to do to survive,” Eventide reluctantly explained. “When they get inside your body, though, it starts getting really hot with a fever to try and get rid of the sickness. It burns them out and makes them run away to find somewhere else to go,” he explained, glancing up at Fluttershy as if for approval. She gave him a small nod and a look that conveyed her message clearly.
Close enough.
Beebee’s eyes closed part way, and he curled even tighter into a ball. He sat there for several seconds, completely motionless, aside from his shivers. “I’m sorry I got sick…” he said softly, his eyes starting to shimmer even more. “Please don’t be upset at me…”
Eventide recoiled at that, his eyes widening in shock. For a few seconds, he just stared at Beebee in confusion before letting out an exasperated breath. “Wha… Beebee, why in the world would I be upset with you?”
“You’re scared,” Beebee protested weakly, sniffling. “And sad, and it’s all my fault. When daddy isn’t happy, I don’t get to eat...”
Fluttershy raised an eyebrow at that. “Uh… Beebee? What do you mean?” she asked softly, reaching her own hand down to give the quivering bug a few gentle pets through the blanket.
Beebee hiccuped, then burst into another violent coughing fit. A few specks of green paste splattered across his pillow, but nothing more came out of him, thankfully. Once he calmed down, he opened his eyes and tried to speak. “When daddy’s happy with me, and Aunt Shy is happy with me, I can eat. It tastes so good, and it makes me full… but when I do something wrong, you get mad or scared, and I can’t eat anymore. Everything turns red and black, it tastes horrible and it scares me…”
Eventide and Fluttershy shared a confused glance for a long moment while Beebee concluded his explanation. For a while, neither was really sure what to say or do. But when Beebee began to audibly cry, it brought their undivided attention back to the weeping basement bug. “I’m sorry, daddy… please don’t be upset with me…” he whimpered, starting to sob.
Eventide looked on with a blank expression, then gave his son a weak smile. “Hey… I’m not mad at you or upset with you, and you’ve done nothing wrong,” he assured in a whisper while reaching over and giving his son a reassuring pat. “You’re sick and I’m scared for you, yes, but that’s because I love you and I want you to get better. So stop thinking you did something wrong, okay?” to help punctuate his point, he then brought his thumb around and pushed it playfully into Beebee’s nose.
Beebee managed a tiny giggle at the nudge, then reached his little hooves out to grasp the small appendage and hold onto it. His grip didn’t last long, though, and he allowed Eventide’s hand to return to its owner after a mere three seconds. With his hooves uselessly falling back down into the blankets, Beebee stared up at Eventide for a few more minutes before closing his eyes. “I’m sleepy…” he murmured.
Fluttershy smiled softly upon hearing that. “Then you should go ahead and get some sleep,” she advised in a soft voice before standing up and lifting up the puke pan from the bedside table. The contents sloshed around a little, and she grimaced at it before offering Beebee a chirpy smile. “I’ll clean this out and bring it right back. Then…”
Beebee watched her, tilting his head as she went. This small motion caused the frozen vegetables to slide off of his head with the crunch of plastic. Fluttershy giggled at how he looked at the bag incredulously as if it had offended him somehow. “Heh. Then I’ll bring down another ice pack for you.”
“Okay,” Beebee called after her before resting his head on his pillow and slowly closing his eyes. The last thing he saw before sleep claimed him was the softly smiling face of his adoptive father looking back at him. In just a few minutes, he began to snore quietly, his shivers and groans growing quiet.
Eventide barely even noticed as Fluttershy did as she said she would. She eventually returned with a new bag of frozen veggies and without the pan. She placed the vegetables on Beebee’s forehead, then gave Eventide’s shoulder a shake. “We should probably let him be for a while,” she whispered to him.
Eventide nodded stiffly, his smile falling away. He slowly got back to his feet, and the two quietly made their way for the stairs to go back up.
Once they were back in the living room, Eventide made a beeline for the chair. Buddha quickly hopped down and off of it at his approach, slinking off to hide herself somewhere else. Fluttershy watched with a small smile as Eventide then turned on his heel and slumped down into his chair with a heavy sigh. Seeing the sight, despite their situation, was enough to make her chuckle under her breath. Eventide raised an eyebrow and shot her a skeptical look. “What’s so funny?” he asked indignantly.
“Oh, sorry,” Fluttershy waved off his question with another giggle. “It’s just… I’ve lost count of how many times you’ve slumped into that chair when something comes up with Beebee.”
Eventide glanced down at the chair, realized she was right, then gave Fluttershy his best pout. “Har Har. Laugh it up, Fluttercup,” he shot back before adding his own small chuckle to the mix. “I guess I do slump in it a lot, though. don’t I?”
“Fluttercup?” Fluttershy asked with a raised eyebrow. She then gave a shake of her head and began to approach him. “But yes, you do like that chair…” she said before her smile fell away. She sat down on the edge of the coffee table, clasped her hands in her lap and looked at Eventide with concern. It was painfully obvious just how stressed he was. His forehead was wrinkled, there were dark bags under his bloodshot eyes, and his hair had gone completely ungroomed for more or less the whole day after his shower. Still, she just had to ask... “How are you feeling?”
Eventide didn’t even miss a beat. “Like I just got done running a marathon, but all of the strain is in my head and heart and not my legs. I’m Stressed, I’m tired, I’m scared out of my mind for Beebee, I’m worried I might have caught whatever he has, and…” he leaned forward and hung his head. His hands clasped together in his lap, wringing themselves. “...and I’m really confused. Beebee said that when I’m happy with him, he gets fed, right?” he lifted his eyes to meet Fluttershy’s. “What does that mean?”
Fluttershy hummed, her brow furrowing as she mulled the question over for a minute. “Well… uhm… maybe he means that he ‘eats’ love and affection?” she tried with a small smile. “We already know he doesn’t eat physical food.”
Eventide’s brow furrowed, remembering how he had assumed early on that Beebee somehow fed off of affection. This was just more fuel to that fire. Now that he thought about it. He nodded, his expression turning more serious. “Yeah, you’re right about that. He doesn’t eat anything I give him, but whenever his stomach growls, he looks at me and reaches his legs out for a hug…”
“And he also mentioned that it makes him scared whenever you get angry with him…” Fluttershy noted, running a finger over her chin. “Do you get angry with him?”
“Not often, no,” Eventide answered. “Usually when he does something wrong, I tell him it was wrong, you know, typical scolding style, and he never does it again. He always looks…” he paused and puffed out a breath between tightly drawn lips. “...I dunno. He looks guilty, but scared at the same time…”
“Well,” Fluttershy began, her eyes narrowing with thought. “If he gets fed by us being happy with him, that would explain that. If he can’t eat whenever he does something wrong, then he has a very good reason to learn quickly and be good.”
“Ugh… being angry with my kid means he doesn’t get to eat?” Eventide groaned and ran a hand over his face, then flopped back into his chair even harder than before. He stared blankly up at the ceiling, closed his eyes and let his hands hang limply over the sides. “No pressure…”
Fluttershy watched him for a few minutes, allowing the silence to seep in and ease their minds. After a while, she stood up and slipped away, her shoes barely audible on his floor. She came back a moment later, took Eventide’s hand in hers, then put something in it. Eventide opened his eyes and looked to see the baby monitor was now secured in his hand, through which he could just hear the sound of his son’s shaking snores. He looked up at Fluttershy, and she smiled down at him.
“I need to get back home,” she said quietly before releasing his hand and stepping for the door. “I’ve been gone for a long time. My parents are bound to be getting worried about me.”
Eventide nodded and smiled gratefully. “Alright. Thank you for coming over, Fluttershy… I honestly don’t know what I’d do without you,” he said softly. He stood up from his chair, albeit on shaky legs, and walked over to Fluttershy to give her a warm hug.
She returned it happily with a quiet hum. “You’re welcome, Eventide. I’m happy to help. Give me a call if he starts getting worse again, alright?” she asked quietly before backing out of the embrace and heading for the door.
Eventide nodded and waved in farewell. “Of course. I’ll see you later, Fluttershy!”
“Bye,” she called back before stepping out of the house and closing the door behind her.
For a good few minutes after that, Eventide stood there, his mind wandering aimlessly. Beebee’s shaking breaths coming through the baby monitor provided white noise, but also helped keep him grounded in the here and now. Still, after almost five minutes of nothing, something damp shoved itself into the empty hand at his side. He looked down and smiled when he saw Buddha looking back up at him, her chocolate-colored eyes speaking her mind for her.
Is everything okay now?
“Hey girl,” Eventide said quietly while reaching down and giving Buddha a few pets behind the ears. “Beebee’s gonna be alright, I think. He may be small and skinny, but he’s tough.”
Buddha let out a few quiet whines before licking at his hand. Chuckling, Eventide pulled it away and made his way for the counter that he called his kitchen. “I’m starving. I haven’t had anything since breakfast. You want some food, too, girl?”
Buddha’s face lit up with excitement at the word ‘food.’
“Bark!”
“Heh… thought so.”