Archive of Our Own ^beta

Most of the time, Battat's migraines gave him the luxury of starting up about halfway through the workday, only settling into a nauseating pounding around the time he was getting off his shift anyway. Obnoxious, but better than the alternative.

This was not one of those times.

From the moment he awoke, his head had already decided to feel like it had a rod driven through it by some particularly malevolent incorporeal entity. There was a point in time, back when he was a simple janitor, where this might not have been a big deal. Of course, this was no longer the case, now that he'd functionally taken on the role of Tenna's executive producer for the sake of research.

Sometimes Battat wanted to grab his own shoulders and shake himself very hard.

Because on one hand, it made sense that this would happen. He'd been having migraines for months now. They weren't just going to stop when it wasn't convenient, or go away without complaint when he didn't want to deal with them before a busy day. On the other, he seemed to find himself stubbornly acting as if that would be the case. His plan for this happening had functionally just been, “hope it doesn't happen”.

And, unfortunately, since he didn't have any real means of contacting Jongler and Pluey when he wasn't wearing his costume, that meant he had to drag himself all the way to the Mike room to inform them of what was going on. And he sure as hell wouldn't want to walk all the way back to his room afterwards.

The little green die was hardly one to back down from a challenge, though, even if it sucked. He groaned as he sat up, head immediately revolting against his hubris. Every part of him was screaming at him to lay back down and face whatever consequences came with just not moving for a few hours. 

Naturally, he got up and threw his poncho on anyway. 

He certainly wasn't looking for conversation, so he didn't mind that people, particularly the other Pippinses, were avoiding him like the plague as he did his best to beeline to his destination. The fact that they were staring wasn't doing great things for his mood, though. If someone looked like crap, you at least owed them the courtesy of pretending not to notice, right?

The millisecond he entered the Mike Room, Jongler decided to refute that thought like they'd heard it somehow. “Woah. You'se look awful.”

“Thanks,” Battat croaked bitterly, only resisting the urge to slam the door because he knew it would probably be the equivalent of sonically torturing himself in the state he was in. Shoulders hunched, he headed straight for his chair, ignoring the fact that Pluey had started snickering at the brief exchange.

“Sorry, boss,” Jongler said, thankfully sounding pretty genuine. Battat sighed, giving no other external acknowledgement, but already deciding it was better put behind them. Jongler lightly punched Pluey's shoulder, trying to get him to stop giggling, before anxiously approaching Battat's desk. “Uh, everything good, though?”

Battat gave a huff, the question striking him as so obvious that he couldn’t find it in himself to take it seriously. “No,” he said, bluntly, smiling a little despite himself. “Head’s killing me. What else is new?”

Jongler couldn’t exactly frown, but something about the way they tilted their head at him made it feel like they were. “Oh.” They looked back at Pluey, who had since cleaned up his act. “Well, uh, we’se can switch up our Mike shifts, if ya want…” Pluey, already in costume, as expected, gave an enthusiastic nod.

A particularly harsh series of throbs coursed through Battat’s head, spurred on by something he couldn’t even name. God, why did this one have to be so bad, on top of its already atrocious timing? He could hardly think straight. “Mm…” He heard Jongler ask for clarity, so he forced a nod. “Yeah. Yeah, sounds good.”

He wouldn’t know it, as he’d buried his face in his desk upon the headache deciding to briefly worsen, but Jongler promptly shared a short, silent glance with Pluey that spoke more than enough words. Pluey would handle Mike duties for now – all day if need be – and Jongler would stay here with their boss.

Battat only became slightly aware of this plan when he felt someone touch his shoulder. He lifted his head, which was far too heavy, and looked up at his friend, not sure when exactly he had dozed off. He couldn’t figure out what to even begin to say, so he was grateful Jongler spoke up first. “You, uh, wanna heads back to your room, boss?”

The Pippins squinted at him, then, gathering his strength, braced himself against the desk and began to stand. “I’m not a charity case,” he complained lightly, no real venom to his tone. Despite his words, he did allow Jongler to keep close pace behind him as he made his way back to the living quarters. It wouldn’t occur to him until much later that this was the first time Battat had had one of the two actually inside of his apartment; they knew where he lived, but he had never been too keen on letting other people into his living space.

At the moment, Battat was taking stock of the worst side-effect migraines had to offer. 

Battat hated being nauseous. Who didn’t, really? Honestly, he didn’t even get why darkners were able to get nauseous, given their pure-magic diet. On the nature of general illnesses, he’d been told that they were mostly just to communicate that something was wrong, the same way lightner’s were, though their diseases tended to be a lot more complicated. But as it stood, Battat did not need liquid magic trying to crawl its way up his throat to be sufficiently informed that something in his body wasn’t working the way it was supposed to.

As it stood, Battat was trying to stay very focused on making sure he didn't throw up. Regardless of if it was true, he was fully convinced that he'd be able to accomplish this if there weren't somebody else in the room pestering him about if he needed anything. 

Any aggravated thoughts he might have had about even thinking about drinking water right now setting him over the edge quickly became a lot less morbidly humorous as his stomach proceeded to actually flip. Ignoring his coworker completely, he shoved himself out of bed, beelined for his trash can, and proceeded to casually puke up his own HP with all the calmness of a person who'd done this more times than he could count on his three-digit hands.

It only occurred to him, in his foggy headed haze, after the whole ordeal was over with that the whole thing probably looked a lot more concerning to Jongler. Indeed, as he looked up, more inconvenienced than anything, he saw the Zapper staring at him like they'd just watched him get hit by a truck.

For the first time since this all started, the irritation innate to being in such a miserable state receded a bit, and Battat was finally able to appreciate what his friend was trying to do for him. He sighed, giving them a patient half-smile. God, I'm such an asshole sometimes. Why does this guy even bother? “I'm fine. It happens.”

“O-okay. If you'se say so.” Jongler watched nervously as Battat slumped back onto his bed, a dramatic but genuine groan leaving his lips. As the Pippins glanced over at their friend yet again, it was obvious they were paralyzed with indecision. Hell, they were practically shaking from how badly they didn't know what to do. It happened sometimes with them in particular, something the other Zappers got on their case about. 

A lot of the time, Battat wasn't much better. He was a perfectionist, and any perfectionist could admit to it being their one allowed fault. When Jongler got stuck, Battat's first concern was usually how they didn't have time for it. 

They didn't deserve that, though. Not really. It wasn't their fault that these things didn't come naturally to them, and constantly being told that your way was the wrong way couldn't help. Battat winced as his head started to throb again. Bad time to be thinking about all this. “Uh,” he started, and Jongler immediately perked up. “I could use some water. If you still want to get it.”

The gentle direction, especially one that validated what they were already thinking, seemed to give Jongler a rush of confidence. “Sure thing, boss!” They said, and they were gone in a flash. Forgot to close the door, even.

Battat sighed, draping his arm over his bitterly complaining eyes. He really wasn't used to having friends. Looking back on it, he was sure some of the other Pippins had tried, back in the day, but apparently their kind was universally awful at communicating - Battat had always assumed they were just making fun of him. And now a lot of them were, constantly. It was probably a bad thing when the first person you ever considered a friend was your boss, who only ever interacted with you while you were in a costume, pretending to be someone else.

God, that was kind of pathetic, huh?

He tried to reroute his thoughts to how he'd need to clean up that trash can later. Gross.

“Here ya go, boss.” Battat lifted his arm to peep up at them, immediately confused when he was faced with two separate paper cups. Bluntly, Jongler elaborated, “I didn't knows what temp ya wanted.”

Battat stared blankly at them for a moment before completely failing to maintain his composure. The laugh that followed his snort was cut short by how generally miserable he felt, but a small smile remained on his face regardless. “Angel above, I'm a bad influence,” he said aloud to himself, taking both cups and setting the cold one on his nightstand. Jongler tilted their head.

The warm water felt nice on his throat, and felt like the first mercy he'd been spared all day. Thank god for water coolers. Or water warmers, in this case, he supposed. “Thanks,” he said finally, having nearly genuinely forgotten to say it.

Luckily, Jongler didn't seem to mind, practically beaming at Battat's appreciation. “No problem!”

Being that it was hard enough to focus on one thing at a time at the moment, Battat found himself subconsciously tuning out whatever Jongler was doing as he continued to sip on his water. He knew he shouldn't drink it fast, but he was coming to realize that he was so damn thirsty. Maybe the migraine was triggered by dehydration? Sounded like something he'd get himself into…

His thoughts, ever a speeding train, were halted by the feeling of Jongler's hand on the top of his head. Battat looked up at them, like he'd be able to parse anything from their “expression”. When that failed, he simply managed, “hi?”

“Hi,” Jongler responded in earnest. They tilted their head a little, then said, “it'd probably be a bad idea to's shake ya right now, yeah?”

What would be an absurd question to any lightner was pretty standard fair to a Pippins. Setting the water cup aside, he said, “Yeah, probably.” Normally it would improve his mood, but he was pretty sure he would die if someone did it to him right now. Jongler nodded, and did not remove their hand. In fact, they even began to run their thumb over his top-side.

Battat managed all of two seconds before cracking under his bewilderment. “Why are you petting me.”

Jongler paused for a moment, like they somehow hadn't expected that to be a question asked, before shrugging and returning to it. “Helps Plues feel better.”

Sometimes, like right now, watching Jongler fail to comprehend how weird that was, Battat genuinely could not comprehend the things going on in his coworkers' heads. Occasionally, he was fully convinced they were insane people. 

Right now, he was relenting to the fact that, fuck it, so was he.

“Yeah, alright,” he said. Jongler pulled back as Battat pulled his blanket over his legs and flopped onto his pillow, hoping to rest his eyes. “Go ahead. Knock yourself out.”

Evidently, they were happy to oblige. The bed creaked under their weight as they sat down beside him, and then quickly returned to the task at hand, silicon pawpads massaging the side of Battat's aching head.

He would never admit it in a million years, but Battat was kind of appreciative of it, much more so than he expected to be. He shouldn't have been surprised, if he looked back on it – back when the lightners still played with him, the small one would run their thumb over his pips to soothe themself. It always made him feel nice too. 

Comforted and nostalgic, Battat let his eyes drift shut. He really didn't deserve his friends. One day, ideally when his head wasn't trying to kill him, he'd have to make it up to them.