In Sickness And In Health
Anon's Attempts To Get Better Again™
Anon sniffled as he shuffled through Ponyville’s Clinic, a large blue blanket wrapped around him tightly. His shoes skirted against the tile floors of the place, almost like he had dragged his sickly green self all the way from his house on the other side of town just to scuff up their floors. Not that he intentionally did that; he simply felt cold and warm at the same time.
It had been the first time he had ever gotten sick in Equestria. Normally, on Earth, he’d go to his doctor (his name was more confusing to remember than his attire [who wears tie-dye doctor gowns?!]), get a check-up, get given some meds to help with symptoms, and he’d be on his way, shuffling into his car with whatever grogginess he had. Problem here is that he was in Ponyland, where magical, talking horses with a penchant for ‘friendship’ were the pseudo dominant species. Here, he was all alone, the only human. He was car-less, doctor-less, and feeling more gross than ever before. So where did he have to go to get some help with his grossness?
The Clinic? Probably.
Without saying a peep, Anon trudged his way up to the front desk. A mare sat there, flipping through a magazine with her magic. Her ice blue mane and round glasses were the most glaring things he noticed, but her out-of-sync humming drew the most ire from Anon. It was like she was tone deaf or something. Probably a Karaoke fanatic without music theory.
“Hello—ehke—miss?”
He coughed as he attempted to address the mare, who, upon hearing his voice, swiveled over to him with a forced smile on her face. She magicked the magazine out of his view. “Yes, sir? How may I help you?”
“I—ehke—need to see a doctor—ack!”
Anon gripped his chest as another cough wracked through him. He shivered, feeling absurdly cold even for this time of year. Whoever gave him this disease was going to see their maker earlier than expected, he swore it up and down the alleyway he lived on!
Unfortunately, the mare behind the counter didn’t share his mental enthusiasm on slaying ‘innocent’ ponies. She eyeballed him up and down, probably seeing his sweaty forehead in the light that dangled above them. She snorted and jotted down a couple notes on her notepad set to her side.
“Doctor Horse, patient…” Her muzzle scrunched up suddenly as she glared at Anon. “What is your name again?”
“Anon, ma’am.”
She tilted her head. “Aren’t you that long-legger that came into town recently?”
Even though he was down with the sickness, Anon could smell this pile of nonsense. “Pardon?”
“Long-legger it is!”
“No, I-I’m a human, ma’am—” Anon began, frantically waving his hands out toward the counter. He tried to say more but a cough wracked through his body, making him shake in his tightly tugged bundle of blankets.
“A hueman?”
“Close enough,” Anon murmured, shivering in place.
The two stared at each other uncomfortably before the mare turned to the door adjacent to her and shouted, “Hueman Anon here to see you, Doctor Horse!”
At first, nothing happened. Anon could only hear the obnoxious echo of her nasally tone tainting his eardrums. He wondered if she was going to look back at him and tell him to put his keister in a seat, but his imaginary alternate universe clip-clopped itself out the imaginary clinic he created out of spite, being pummeled by an equally loud clip-clopping noise behind the door to Anon’s immediate right.
Suddenly, the door swung open, and out stumbled Doctor Horse, who grunted as he bumped into that same door, before nearly crashing into Anon’s sickly self. Thankfully he regained his foot—err, hooves, digging into the carpet to repel his fall. With a bit of gumption, Anon watched as the stallion’s tangy-orange hoof fiddled with his white-collared button-up and adjusted his glasses, which had oval-shaped lenses for some reason. Did the madpony in front of Anon buy his prescriptions at Optimetrix? Looks like he could see Silent Hill in the goofball’s reflection!
Anon shook his head. Focus. Drug request first, then sit at home and wait for a certain somepony to chew him out for getting them in the first place.
See, technically, he wasn’t supposed to be here. His marefriend, Redheart, was his primary go-to for any health related conundrums he may have. Unfortunately, she was working and he didn’t want to bother anypony else because, well, he wasn’t sure if what he had was going to make them just as sick as him, and he wasn’t fond of getting his friends sick just like him! So, why not go bother another health professional who probably worked with his marefriend?
…
His train of thought was totally logical. He swore that on his non-existent horse parents.
“Seems that the only human in Equestria decided to drop in!”
“I wish I had dropped in. Would’ve been way—ehke—faster than d-dragging myself over here,” Anon struggled to pipe up, his cough wanting to get a word in edgewise.
Thankfully, Doctor Horse scampered a safer distance away from Anon before his cough infected him, which was apparently two steps further back than his previously close proximity. “Sounds like it. How long has this hubbub been bubbin’, bub?”
“I’m… sorry?” Anon verbally attempted to trot, only to raise a brow in his confused mind.
Doctor Horse cleared his throat. “How long has your voice been this hoarse?”
“Was that a pun, Doc?”
“Yes,” the stallion replied with a noncommittal shrug, which Anon asserted was like his metaphorical marriage— “But I digress. How long have you been feeling like this?”
“Couple days now. Red’s force fed broth and what not like I’m supposed to swim in it.”
“Red…?”
Doctor Horse’s furrowed brow and tilted head made Anon reconsider his words. “Y'know... Nurse Redheart. My marefrie—”
Suddenly, the door behind Doctor Horse swung open again—did Anon not notice it close before?—with a vengeance, slamming against the wall with reverb. It shook like it just experienced a demolition crew’s lack of care, before quivering to a halt from its recoil. What emerged from the door’s remains stood a panting white mare, one with a pink mane put up in a bun and a small little hat with a red cross on the front of it. Somehow, that hat had stayed on her head as she craned her head forward, her breaths gasping with each exhale. Anon could see her flushed face, which turned violent with her burning light blue eyes locking straight onto him.
Was he about to die in two ways now?
“Anon.”
Doctor Horse tilted his head. “Am I interrupting something?”
Redheart turned toward the stallion. “Can I talk to your patient in private?”
At first, Anon hoped his possibly new doctor had a pair to stand up to his marefriend. Unfortunately, the wavy-maned menace stepped away from them both and beckoned her with a hoof as if she was on Broadway and was given the red carpet treatment. This all but urged Redheart forth, taking another step toward Anon, a smile worming grotesquely on her face.
“Thank you,” Redheart replied. She tugged on one of Anon’s blanket-ensnared legs and guided him into the hallway that she had emerged from, leaving Anon to reach out to anypony who could save him from the nothing he was about to become.
“Saveeee meeeeee!”
His hoarse voice didn’t lead a horse to water, nor to his outstretched hand. All he could do was pick up his feet a bit so he didn’t scuff up the wood flooring below his feet. He was a victim to his marefriend’s antics, even if she was in her job attire.
“Michael, don’t leave me here! Michael, Mi—ack!”
“Are you having fun?”
Redheart’s droning tone made Anon’s ears tinge with unease. “Sort of. I’m sick, and I really need about 50cc’s of you, pronto.”
The red that bruised her floppy ears drew diabolical thoughts of fluffiness into Anon’s mind. “Only when you’re better are you getting that treatment.”
“So I’m not going to die. Glad—ehke—t-that’s going for me!”
He could imagine his mare’s eyeroll, how pronounced and unfathomably annoyed it would be. He could only imagine though, as he couldn’t see them pretty eyeballs of hers. She was still dragging him through the hall, which seemed to grow longer and longer as he drifted between cognition and coughing his brains out. Heck, he could’ve sworn one of the nurses they passed by waved, but he was too out of it to remember if that was their hoof or if they lost it and were given a pony hand instead, which sported a very hefty middle finger. Would be pretty unprofessional if it was the latter, but slightly amusing nonetheless in his sickly chaotic mind (thanks, mint-haired Wywaaaa!).
Without a warning, Anon was whipped into a nearby room, his legs nearly flailing into the doorframe. There, he was shoved into the room, his body being forced into a seat. Air exited his lungs as his back ricocheted against the back of the seat. A cough rushed out of him, spurting whatever droplets laid on his tongue and lips. He covered his mouth with his arm, hoping to stop more from making a muck of the room, but a patting on his lurched back made him stop to look up at her.
Yes, her. His marefriend, whose expression of the hunt turned soft. She patted him gently, a smile soft as can be gracing her face. Warm eyes darted across his face, and a stray hoof framed his cheek comfortably flush with it. The warmth it gave too made him succumb to the embrace, leaning into the hoof.
“Red…”
“I know it’s going to be dicey in the next couple of hours.”
The whispered status made Anon tilt his head toward her, his gaze searching her face. “Why do you say that?”
“Thanks to you, everypony will know that we’re together, Anon.”
His heart twinged and his leg ached. “Did you not want that?”
She sighed. “Not exactly.”
His gaze went south to the floor, presumably for the winter. The blizzard that wracked his mind now was unprovoked, seeing a whirlwind of emotions seizing the warpath in a brutal cold dance. Snow shaped in the form of broken hearts lazily drifted around him in his seat, while his marefriend looked on, a forlorn expression made privy to Anon’s shotgunned feelings.
“I… I’m sorry, R-Red.”
“It’s not a prob—”
“I should’ve just talked to Twilight or something. Maybe she could’ve—ehke—h-helped me.”
Redheart adjusted her cap and smiled. “She’s busy being a princess, Anon.”
“Yeah, but she’s a princess—” Anon cough-sniffled like the good sick little lad he was. “And princesses do princess stuff.”
“I see the fever’s reached the Broca’s area.”
Anon didn’t even respond to that. He didn’t even know someone named Broca! “Or maybe I could… could’ve said somethin’ to Rainbow Dash. She knows how to fly and stuff.”
Redheart stifled a giggle behind one of her forehooves. “H-How’s she going to help you?”
“I don’t know!” Anon exclaimed with an attempted thrust of his arms. They were promptly stuffed back into his Anonrito (his blankets had been tugged around himself again!), which made him thrash against the tyranny concocted by the evil mastermind known as his marefriend. "Flyin's like... a thing. And—ehke—thing can do things!"
“Now, now, be a good man and let me take your temperature.”
“A g-good man?”
A thermo-do-thingy, tiny as can be, was wiggled and waggled in front of Anon’s vision. Also Redheart’s coy smile was too, but he was really confused by how the thermo... thermo-shitck was moving at mach speed. Actually, now that he was looking at it. Was there more than one of them!?
Whatever it was, even though Redheart was evil right now, he had to abide. Otherwise, he’ll be put in a doghouse and that never led to anything good, per his experience.
“Aaaaah—emph!”
Thermo-thingy-ma-jiggy? Ate.
He looked at his mare. She was so pretty. Sparkling now, in the light, her eyes light blue. He thought of many other words to describe her, but all he could think about was how pretty she was. Yes, pretty. Very pretty.
Pretty…
His nose wrinkled. His eyebrows did too. Pretty somethin’. Pretty—“Yaouch!”
The thermo—OH, the thermometer was yoinked from his mouth, now in the pretty hooves of his pretty mare. “Sorry, you were starting to suck on it, and I was worried you thought it was a lollipop or something.”
“Eck!—how bad was my temperature?”
“Bad is probably not the right word to describe that,” Redheart remarked. Her pretty—stop it—frown was telling him he was not in a good state. “I... I'm not sure how to put this, but I guess this'll have to do." She let out a shaky exhale before continuing. "Do you want the good news or the bad news?”
“G-Good news,” Anon stuttered out.
He watched as Redheart took a deep breath. “You’ll live.”
“Thank Go—”
“But you’ll be bed-ridden for the next few days with me by your side.”
Anon blinked. “Wait, how is that—ehke—bad news again?”
“No more roaming around, mister. Giving you the freedom to choose was a mistake.”
A cough-sigh escaped Anon. “So no head?”
Redheart’s eyes widened, and that red hue painted her cheeks once again. “A-Anon!”
His smile (he hoped it was) metamorphosed into a cross between a smirk and a grin. “I’m kidding. I’m sick, I know...”
“You know?”
A nod. “Been aware this whole time. I was messin' with you t-this whole time!” Redheart’s muzzle scrunched up at this, which made Anon pause. “Red... why the long—”
“I… I don’t think you have.”
Her concerned eyes glistened in the light. “W-Why do you say that?”
“If you have been, then why are you still asleep?”
Anon’s eyes widened before he facepalmed. “Oh you have got to be kid—”
Anon woke up. In the room laid himself, groggy, stuck in his bed again. Sweaty and all gross, he pushed himself off the couch, his arms shaky like spaghetti. He looked around in the midst of a blur, wondering if there was anyone else in the room with him this time, but as he pushed off his couch, a force beyond him pushed him back down. He felt the pressure on his back, and his face met the drool-ridden pillow he was previously on.
“Mmmph?”
He flipped over and looked at who his assailant was.
It was her. Redheart. His mare. Her smile that she wore warmed the cockles of his… cockles. The blush that accompanied it blossomed on her face, like a rose in bloom. A spurring of giggles wracked her body. She even teased him with a flick of her mane shortly after.
The hat was gone. She nuzzled up against his cheek.
“Bad dream?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe. I was in the clinic and feeling sick like a dog and—”
“Oh, that all happened.”
His eyes widened. “Pardon?”
She kissed his cheek. “I gave you Equestria’s finest painkiller. Oh, and some sleep medicine too. All prescribed healthly by Doctor Horse, of course.”
Rhyming accidentally—he nuzzled her back. “Thanks, babe.”
“It’s all in a day's work, hun.” She scootched herself onto the couch, laying on top of her. She rested her chin on his chest. “Say, could you…?”
He read her mind. He flipped the blankets onto her too, along with his arms, wrapped firmly around her barrel.
She whispered a thank you. He whispered a welcome all the same.
A chaste kiss was shared and—
“Are you worried you’re going to get sick?”
She brought her face back up and looked at him like he was silly. “Sick? You’re already cured!”
“I am?”
"Of course. You've been asleep for couple days now, give or take." A raised brow worked its way on Redheart’s face. “Are you still feeling a bit hot?”
“Well, with you here…”
She bapped him on his shoulder with a hoof. “Flatterer.”
“Shameless as can be!” He gave her a smirk. “But no, I’m not. Just feel a bit gross—”
“That’s because you sleep with fifty blankets on while you’re still wearing a suit and tie—”
“Buh?”
He looked at himself. Yep. Still wearing a suit and tie. Was he really dressed to impress even in his lowest state? Was he really this warmth deprived that he needed to boil his organs with copious amounts of blankets?
“Can I…?”
“Yes, you can.”
He was about to hop off the couch when he stopped himself and smiled. “Wanna come with?”
She skirted a hoof on his chest. “It is later…”
Anon didn’t need any more words from her in that regard. He was going to get those 50ccs. He was going to get them now.
With a courageous heave and his lips smothering hers, he cradled her in his arms and walked her into their bedroom.
Author's Note
Do I need therapy?
Yes.
Did this help?
...
What do you think?
