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One of the perks of space travel was that there were no space bugs and by “space bugs”, you aren’t talking about those awful and freakish swarms of True Stings. Rather, you meant simple viruses that went around spreading infections and illnesses.
It was an absolute dream, being able to walk around the spaceship wearing whatever you wanted with no regards whatsoever for the temperature and eating anything you could get your hands on with zero fucks given over whether it’s a smart decision to eat an entire tub of your favorite ice cream while butt-naked and dripping wet from the shower you’d just taken.
Even better was the fact that you never needed to worry about your travel companion ever carrying any diseases either. I mean, come on! Boothill’s a cyborg! Cyborgs can’t get sick unless you count malfunctions as illnesses… Although, to be fair, the guy certainly acted like he was on death’s door whenever suffering from an internal problem in his circuits.
“Oh darlin’.... Is that the pearly gates I see?,” Boothill moans dramatically while lying on your worktable with his metal abs removed, revealing the beautiful hardware underneath. He truly was a work of art with wires filled with icy blue fuel mimicking the veins and arteries of an organic being and making everything, even the tiniest little gear, tick as it should. Or… that would’ve been the case if it weren’t for the odd pieces of junk that had somehow wormed its way inside through the cracks and crevices.
“I don’t know what’s more surprising. The fact that your insides are like a garbage disposal right now or the fact that you think you even stand a chance of coming near the pearly gates,” you remark dryly. Was that a fucking mini tumbleweed stuck between two gears???
“Right. ‘Pologies fer havin’ ambitions.”
“They’re a bit too high, don’t’cha think?”
“Gee, y’really know how ta’ make a man feel better ‘bout his choices, darlin’.”
“Considering the fact that my hands are deep inside your guts, you’ve got a lot of nerve giving me attitude. I recommend keeping the sass to a minimum before I decide you’ll make a lovely smart fridge.”
At least that did the trick in getting Boothill to shut up. You loved Boothill, you really did, but aeons above did he have a wobbling jaw.
But oh, now you’re getting carried away, aren’t you? The point is, Boothill was the ideal travel companion, even if his snores sounded like a motorcycle being revved up and the two of you would have to play doctor quite a lot with you being the doc’ and him being the patient.
“My darlin’ doc’,” Boothill liked to call you and you could never object to the affectionate nickname. Not when he’d have the goofiest and most dazed smile on his lips after you’d fixed every little malfunction of his.
However, nobody’s ever really given some thought to what happens on the rare occasion the doc’ gets sick.
“Holy wubbaboo, was that the sound of Acheron obliteratin’ some poor soul with ‘er blade?” Boothill jumps, his hat nearly falling off upon hearing what sounded like thunder striking down the earth. For a brief second, his hand hovers above his six-shooter before he moves it away with a heavy exhale. There’s no danger. Not here in this little spaceship that you both call home now.
The cowboy was just about to investigate just what had caused such a noise when the answer revealed itself. You step out of the storage room, bleary eyed and sniffling audibly. Boothill raises an eyebrow and walks closer to you.
“Hot diggity fudge, sugar. I never knew yer sneeze was louder than the bombs that exploded on my home planet,” Boothill teases, giving you his signature toothy grin which immediately falters as his onyx eyes drink in the state of you. Normally, you’d have given him a fierce glare by now to let him know the jokes about his trauma were not funny at all (he himself believes they’re the epitome of comedy, thank you kindly). However, that wasn’t the case this time. This time, you looked- well- you looked like shit, for the lack of a better word.
Your nose was red due to how hard you were sniffling and blowing your nose into a tissue that quite frankly, should’ve been tossed ages ago and despite your best efforts, snot was still dripping from your nose. Your eyes were red and a bit puffy and if Boothill tuned his ears properly, he could hear your breathing was heavier than normal (perks of having augmented senses, if he may say so himself).
Well, none of those seemed like good signs. Not at all.
“Hey… y’alright, sugar?” Boothill asks, softening his voice to a low rumble when he catches you wincing at his original volume. He takes a tentative step closer and presses the back of his hand against your forehead, the metal refreshingly cool against your skin.
“ ‘M fine… think I might’ve caught something when we were in Talia,” you cough out, wanting nothing more than to just slump against Boothill’s body and let the cold metal soothe your burning flesh.
“Yeah? No kiddin’, yer burnin’ up!” He remarks, frowning when his temperature sensors inform him of your temperature. A whopping 38 degrees! Just the sight of the number had his mother hen instincts kicking into gear.
“Right, c’mon now. Tell me all yer symptoms an’ don’t miss a single thing,” Boothill instructs, almost interrogating really, while his hands rested on your shoulders to steer you towards your bedroom. You sigh internally, resigning yourself to your fate of watching him be the doc’ for once. Maybe it won’t be too bad, assuming he doesn’t forget you’re not a cyborg like him and have no need for reboots and software updates and absolutely will not feel better after chugging gasoline like it’s beer.
You list off your symptoms while Boothill makes you change into a pair of soft and fluffy pyjamas that you’d once bought when visiting Penacony, the latter nodding to himself with every word and already drawing up a mental list of everything he’d need to do to make sure you’d be in apple-pie order in no time at all. Let’s see… a cold compress, medicine, a fuckton of fruits, chicken noodle soup and of course, an abundance of love and affection.
Initially, you’d been a little wary of leaving things in Boothill’s hands. That’s not to say you don’t trust him, of course! No ma’am! You trust him with your life. But for all his virtues, you couldn’t deny he was a bit… reckless. He was prone to jumping the gun, no pun intended, and was a man who tended to act first before thinking things through. Better safe than sorry, he likes to say. But you really did have to give credit where it’s due.
When it came to you, Boothill was more than willing to slow down. Hell, he was treating you like you were made of glass! His boisterous personality transformed into something more softer, more quieter. It transformed into something he hid underneath that literal metal shell of his. He was no longer a weapon, ready to take justice into his own hands and mete out punishment the way his principles and beliefs say it should be given. Rather… he was now just a man, a man with so much love to give that it felt as if his heart may burst any moment now.
The cowboy was quick to scamper off to the nearest supply stop from the spaceship and buy enough medication to last several amber eras. You nearly jumped when he dumped the medication onto the bedside table before coaxing you to take a few pills and swallow it down with some water that he was quick to provide. He wasted absolutely no time in stripping you bare and wiping your feverish body down with a cool, wet rag, his every action careful and methodical.
“Fuck… the towel’s way too cold,” you curse, flinching as the cold and damp fabric brushes against your skin.
“I know, darlin’, I know. But, I swear on mah hat that you’ll be feelin’ a whole lot better after this,” Boothill shushes you gently. He presses kisses to your temple and reassures you that he’s almost done even if he was far from done. Regardless, he wasn’t fibbing when he told you that you’d be feeling a lot better afterwards. Your body felt almost rejuvenated each time he wiped it down with a damp towel.
He certainly wasn’t cutting any corners in making sure you’d recover from your sudden bout of sickness. He stayed by your side, either massaging your achy joints or cutting up fruits and feeding them to you affectionately.
“You do realize that I’m perfectly capable of feeding myself, right?” you sigh, opening your mouth when Boothill presses an apple slice to your lips. He sure knew how to buy his fruit though, you had to admit, biting into the crisp fruit and tasting the sweet juice. Must be due to being brought up on a farm. You could already envision a kind and gentle woman, peeling an apple and cutting it into pieces with a soft smile on her lips, the very same way Boothill was currently doing.
“Nonsense, darlin’. I ain’t havin’ you overexert yerself,” was Boothill’s easy reply, waiting for you to finish chewing before pressing another apple slice to your lips.
“Feeding myself does not come anywhere near overexerting myself.”
“Yeh, well, yer a bit too busy blowin’ yer nose, ain’t ya?”
“Shut up- oh eugh, this looks absolutely disgusting,” you grimace, peeking at the tissue you’d just cleaned your nose with.
“Lemme see. Huh…. kinda looks like you, don’t it?”
“You don’t say? I was gonna say it looks like your mom.”
“Jokes on you. I dunno who mah real mama is.”
“Fine then. It looks like whatever mother figure you had.”
“Y’know sugar, that joke really doesn’t hit the same when you say it like that.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
All things considered, Boothill was an absolute treasure of a partner to have, especially when you were sick. You didn’t have to worry about him catching whatever bug you had. He didn’t have an organic body anymore so there was nothing that could infect him. Or so you thought.
You see, while Boothill did his damndest to nurse you back to health, running back and forth between your room and the kitchen to bring you medicine, fruits, chicken noodle soup, the works, you couldn’t help but notice that he was a bit… overbearing. He was constantly checking up on you, peeking through the doorway to make sure you were fine and not coughing up a lung. On several occasions, you catch him stroking your hair and holding your hand as if you were on your deathbed.
It was true, he couldn’t get sick but perhaps it was a foolish mistake to assume it applied for everything.
Boothill could get sick. He was sick with worry and with fear. Dread coursed through the wires that mimicked veins, trepidation filled the hardware that felt like a cheap copy of a person’s organs and terror gripped every corner of his brain. His traitorous mind replayed the horrific screams and the explosions of cannonfire until he felt as if he could still feel the smoke clawing its way down his throat and feel the ashes from debris and corpses alike clinging to his clothes.
What if something happened to you? What if this wasn’t just a mere fever but something far more sinister? What if he’s gonna end up being too late once again? What if, what if, what if, what if-
“Boothill.”
Your voice cuts through his train of thought, saving him, albeit temporarily, from the downward spiral he was seconds away from falling into.
“Boothill? Are you…okay?”
Onyx eyes look up at you, no longer sharp and alert but tired and wary.
“I… yeah, sugar. I’m jus’ peachy.”
“Doesn’t seem like it to me. You realize this is the 5th time in an hour that you’ve tried to make me take more medicine?”
The cowboy winces at your words. Perhaps you were being a bit harsh and direct but for a man like him, that was the best medicine you could offer.
“What’s going on in that pretty head of yours?”
He sighs, sitting down on the edge of your bed.
“I- I’m jus’ worried, sweetheart. Man like me, havin’ seen the things I have, I… I get scared,” Boothill confesses. He felt embarrassed and more than a little silly once he voiced his fears out loud. He notices the way you raise an eyebrow and rushes to explain himself before he made an even bigger fool of himself.
“It ain’t like I think yer fragile, darlin’! Far from it! I know yer tough as nails an’ can hold yer own. I… I know I’m bein’ irrational. I can’t help it. Y’ain’t like me. Yer still human. All flesh an’ bones an’ so… mortal.”
“But it’s just a-”
“I know. I know it’s jus’ a fever but the IPC, once upon a time, were jus’ foreign men in black to me.”
Your expression softens as Boothill lays his heart bare before you. Behind the rowdy and reckless persona of Boothill was a man long forgotten, even by himself. A man terrified of losing more than what he’d already lost.
“C’mere, you big baby,” you finally sigh, lugging Boothill closer until he was nearly laying on top of you, his ear pressed against your chest. “Tell me: What do you hear?”
The cowboy is silent for a while before answering quietly: “I hear yer heart.”
“That’s right. You can hear my heart beating and pumping blood through my arteries and veins and all that jazz. What does it mean, that my heart is beating?”
“... It means yer alive an’ well.”
You smile softly and press a tender kiss to the crown of his head, fingers carding through the snowy tresses.
“Exactly. I’m alive and well and I promise- no, I swear that I will never leave you.”
“...Thank you, darlin’.”
…
“Have I ever told ya ‘bout the time I caught the flu?”
“You have not.”
“Well, buckle in, sweetheart. It’s a ride, f’sure. It’s also how I came ta’ learn to make mah famous chicken noodle soup.”
Some illnesses had no cure. Some left their marks, both mentally, and physically. But as you lay in bed, having Boothill regale you with tales of his childhood, you think to yourself that love can help alleviate even the severest of illnesses.