Bluey One-Shots!

Guitars at Night

Bandit woke up to an aching body. Everything seemed to hurt. As he sat up, his head spun, and he felt pukish.

Ugh, no, he thought. I'm not sick, I can't be.

Today, of all days; he had a gig tonight down at the beach. If he was sick, he'd be ill for a good week. No way could he perform now...

Unless he kept it a secret. But, there was no way he'd be able to pull it off, right?

He slowly got out of bed, and looked at himself in the mirror. Already, his face bore a sickly-green pallor, and he looked exhausted.

He walked out of the room, breathing deeply, and he sat at the dining table. Immediately, Rad gave him a look of concern.

"You okay, Bandit?" he asked. "You don't look too well."

"I'm just a bit tired. I stayed up too late last night."

"You look like you stayed up several nights."

"Look, I'll sleep a bit more after I..."

His sentence trailed off; looking at his plate of food now, he felt queasy. He couldn't bring himself to eat.

"You know what?" he said, standing up. "Sleep's more important right now, I'm gonna go."

He went back to his room, despite both Rad and their mum calling for him to come back. He laid in bed and covered himself with his blankets. He curled up into a ball.

You'll be alright...It's probably just a bad dream...You're not sick...You'll make it to that concert...

"Bandit, get up," he heard his mum say.

He stayed still and silent. Chris approached him and shook him gently.

"You're not fooling me, kid," she said. "I know you're still awake."

She pulled back the cover, and he winced; the lights were harsh compared to the near-total darkness of his blankets.

"You're feeling sick, aren't you?" she asked.

He nodded. The motion made his head hurt, and he was sent spinning.

Chris left the room and returned with medicine. She stuck a spoonful of the awful concoction into his mouth. The bitter taste made Bandit gag.

"You get some rest, okay?" she said.

"But..."

"But, what?"

"What about my concert tonight?"

"Concert?"

"Yeah, we're performing down by the beach for New Year's. We got everything set up, and...I need to be there."

"You don't need to be there. It'll be fine, they can always play without you."

"No, they can't. None of the others can really sing."

"They'll work it out, I'm sure. Just rest, Bandit."

He covered himself back up, and he was beginning to feel too hot. He pushed the covers back off and panted. He knew he was starting to get a bad fever, and he'd either feel too hot or too cold, and the sensations would teeter between the two.

Either way, his mind couldn't stop drifting back to the topic of tonight's concert. No way could any of his bandmates take over for him; Tim was awful at singing; Rascal had a hard time remembering the words to the songs; and he'd never actually heard Pat sing, so he assumed he couldn't. And none of them could play two instruments at once...