The Hermitcraft Daycare AU

Chapter 24: If One's World Ever Ended

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It was an ongoing joke among the older hermits that Doc was the fortunate one of the group to end up with Bdubs as his 'kid'. And Doc couldn't help but jokingly agree to this statement. 

It's a silly reason really. He just so happened to end up with the kid with a better sleeping schedule. 

He swears to the holy goat mother himself- he could feel their envious stares every time he wakes up in the morning, fresh as a daisy. Heck- sometimes he would chat with them till 12 am in the morning due to the fact that they struggled to put those so called 'nocturnal beings' [the kids] back to sleep. 

But hey, it ended up being laughs and giggles instead of sleep deprived sulking. [Unless you count Zedaph, who's just sleep deprived in general for the past few months now.] 

Anyways, the point is that Doc mostly had 'calmer' nights with the kid, who immediately passes out the moment the clock strikes 7. He could have some quiet nights to himself, maybe think of plans for his own projects, or just sleep early like Bdubs. 

This time, he chose to sleep early like Bdubs. 

After another failed attempt to fix the machine, he and Beef decided to retire to their homes before Zedaph decided that pulling an 'all-nighter' was a good idea. He felt weirdly sick just looking at the machines over and over again. Doc found himself laying on top of his tidied up bed. He could not even bother to tuck himself inside the blanket anyway, he just passed out right then and there. 

He would've continued sleeping if it weren't for someone- or something , poking his arm. Honestly his head was too dumb to deal with this disturbance so chose to ignore it. The poking soon evolved to slaps, then the slaps turned into tugging, then the tugging turned into violent shaking that could scramble the organs in his body! 

" I'm up-I'm UP!!" Doc exclaims as he sat up with his hands surrendered in the air out of exasperation. "Geez.." It wasn't even considered early morning yet. He could tell. He could just see the bright moon through his window, reaching nearly halfway up the sky. 

".. Are you awake?" the young voice asks softly from the shadows. He could just barely see the kid's small figure, standing creepily by his side. 

" I think the answer's pretty obvious, Bdubs." 

Doc sighs as he rubs both of his sleepy eyes with his robotic hand, trying to bring his blurry sight back to reality. Now if you just continue squinting from your tiredness, you could just notice the weird expression on Bdubs' face. He looked exhausted and sick, that's all he could describe him. But he had a feeling that the darkness of this room was hiding something more. 

" 'Bdubs?.. Are you alright, buddy?" 

The kid shook his head. He immediately leans his small head on Doc's upper arm, letting out a soft grunt. 

".. Bdubs?" 

"Uncle Doc?" Bdubs softly spoke up, "I feel a little weird." 

And that was enough to fully bring Doc back to reality. Without warning, Bdubs was taken back by the warm hand, gently pressing on his forehead. He felt the temperature before pressing his own hand on his forehead. Doc found himself sighing in relief as he lowered his hand back on the mattress, looking back at the confused kid. "Sorry. Just checking if you were sick. Fortunately that's not the case." 

Bdubs too sighed in relief, but still had the worried frown on his face. " I don't feel sick. But my stomach feels a bit.. weird?" 

Weird?.. "Does your stomach hurt?" Doc asked, carefully pressing his hand between his stomach.