Outdated Tech Rehearsal
Glisten shows up in the room Vee would regularly perform in, feeling like he was going to throw up. His teleporting usually made him nauseous, yes, but that teleport had just made his stomach pain so much worse…. The only thing that kept him from throwing up was the fact that the last thing he consumed was water from around midnight… God, he was probably so dehydrated. That could not be good for his body. Though, it was strange that he didn’t feel thirsty or hungry….
Vee had been on her stage practicing, when she was very out of the blue blinded by a flash, and there was Glisten. …Great. How many times has she told him to not show up unannounced. Her initial plan was to scold him or something because of this not being the first time she had ‘politely’ asked him to not appear like that, when she noticed something. Her scanners were telling her that something was wrong. Very wrong. She wasn’t a healer of any sort and she didn’t know shit when it came to Toon anatomy, but something told her that being hunched over and coughing up a black substance wasn’t exactly ‘normal’.
“Are you ok?”
…Of course not. Stupid questions that she was programmed to always ask. She could clearly see that he was not in fact, ok.
She gets down from the stage and runs over to Glisten. She wasn’t the fastest nor quietest toon ever because of the fact that she was made of metal, but it wasn’t like she was trying to sneak up on Glisten or something, so it was fine in this instance. Though, she probably should be a bit cautionary - after all, toons don’t generally cough up ichor (Or, at least, she assumed it was ichor). That was like a human coughing up blood. Not good.
Glisten manages to stop coughing and open his eyes, to see… Ichor…? What in the world…..
“Uh… Glisten..? You good?”
Oh, right. Vee.
Glisten turns to Vee, and what she sees confuses her even more. First, he shows up unannounced, then he coughs up… Whatever that stuff is, now she’s realizing he’s still not dressed for the day (which NEVER happens with Glisten), and on top of that he’s barely wearing any makeup…! …That last one may not seem like a big deal if it was anyone else who was not Glisiten, but for GLISTEN to not wear makeup, something isn’t right. …But on top of all that, he just looked… Unwell in general. Maybe Vee was overthinking this as well…? After all, she wasn’t the traditional type of Toon, for all she knew, maybe this was… Uh…. Typical for other Toons. Maybe they just… Never…. Did it around her….. …She was making excuses at this point. She didn’t like the idea that her friend could potentially not be ok…
“Y-yeah…. I’m good now…. ..Rough morning, and the teleporting did not help..”
“....It’s the afternoon.”
“..Rough afternoon then.”
Vee sighs, not really sure what she should do here. Should she… Take him to Cosmo and Sprout? Would Glisten let her take him to Cosmo and Sprout? She doubted it… Still, this wasn’t normal. ..She thinks. She’s not… Entirely sure, considering that she doesn’t work like them.
“Should you, uh…. Get that checked out…?”
They’re both staring at the ichor, concerned by this. Vee, doubtful of her concern, and Glisten, feeling like he’s going to die. Despite coughing up the ichor, Glisten still felt like he was being ripped apart from the inside out. ..Good to know that wasn’t the cause of it….
“It’s… ..Probably fine.”
There’s a long pause between the two. They both knew they should tell someone, but they’d had that song and dance before. The last time they tried to help the other through or with something it failed miserably. And the time before that. ..And the time before that….. That’s how they found out Vee was not, in fact, waterproof, and you should NOT use cold water to cool down an overheating machine. So they both agreed at some point to let the other handle it or get someone else who understood this more to handle it.
“..So….. I take it you don’t want me to tell Sprout.”
“...No. Please don’t.”
“..Got it……”
Vee didn’t entirely agree with the idea of not telling anyone, but they made an agreement that she wasn’t about to break. Glisten knew his body better than she did, so she would trust him. …That wasn’t always the best idea in certain situations, but as already previously mentioned, she really doesn’t know too much about how the other toons work.
Maybe they should talk about something else….
“Why are you here exactly?”
Reasonable question. If it wasn’t to talk to her about whatever was happening, then it must’ve been something else. She highly doubted that it was Glisten just wanting to hang out since he didn’t say anything ahead of time (though that’s not out of the realm of possibility…). If she had to guess…. He was either here to pester her, rant to her, or he was escaping another Toon; probably Boxten or Rodger. His interactions with those two made her wonder sometimes….. She’s sure she’s not the only one who’s thought about it.
“Oh, uh…..”
Glisten’s voice fades out, unsure of how to answer the question… He couldn’t just say he was hiding from Rodger, then she would ask questions about it. Why was he avoiding him exactly? There is no non-awkward answer he could give that would reveal too much information about something.
“...I was planning on asking you if you wanted to hang out yesterday, but uh…. I kind of slept in….”
“...Got it…… So. Since you want to hang out, what did you have in mind?”
…He hadn’t thought that far yet. The idea really only crossed his mind the other day, he didn’t really ever think about what exactly he wanted to do once he got that far. Normally he would go off of what the other Toon wanted to do. But with Vee, that was… Difficult. ..Normally Vee and him would practice their performances together, but he wasn’t exactly in the mood to do something like that right now… Occasionally Vee humored him with the makeup, but it was shockingly difficult to do that on a screen. Sooometimes they would talk about drama, but everything’s been pretty calm recently. Wait. The Cosmo and Sprout thing.
“..Actually, I know this is a bit of a strange question, but you’d be closer to him than I am. Have you noticed anything… Off about Sprout? Or Cosmo, if you’ve been paying attention….”
Vee hums, thinking back on their past interactions. Despite both of them being mains, they really don’t interact too often. Sure, Vee will make fun of him and he’ll rebuttal, occasionally they will catch up with each other, sometimes Vee will try and understand what food tastes like and Sprout will fail at explaining it, maybe Vee will give Sprout a random recipe she somehow stumbles across while writing her trivia questions…. ..Ok, maybe they interacted more than Vee thought. Still, she hadn’t talked to the duo in a while. Her screen buffers for a moment while she’s thinking (something not all too uncommon, but usually if something happens while she’s thinking it’s a loading screen), but it’s a bit different than usual. There was a quick blip of something else before going back to normal. It unnerved him. That wasn’t right…
“No, I don’t think so….. Why do you ask?”
Glisten almost tells her about the kitchen scene, but something in him told him that maybe that… ..Wouldn’t be a good idea. Not after whatever that was.
“Just was curious, don’t interact with them too often, just wanted to check in…!”
“Aaand…. You couldn’t ask them yourself.”
“Nope”
“Why…?”
“Didn’t want to.”
“What.”
“Didn’t want to.”
Vee stares at Glisten, both intrigued and weirded out by the thought process. Wouldn't it just be easier to ask the duo themselves? It would make more sense logically as well to ask the source as well… Or at the very least ask someone who knew the two more than her. Like Boxten! Boxten was getting close with Cosmo, and Glisten knew Boxten well. Wouldn’t Boxten make more sense to ask here? The other Toons confused her….
“Sooo…….. What are the chances that you’ll listen to me sing in the higher octaves again?”
“Not a chance.”
“Cmoooooonnn”
“No.”
“...”
“...”
“Bet 20 tapes I can't break a glass with my voice”
“Bet”