Chapter Text
"Zedaph!”
Impulse called out, him and Tango having let themselves into their friend's lab.
“Hello! Anybody home!” Tango tried with no response.
“He did say to come today right?” Impulse asked, looking around with worry.
“Yeah I’m sure, besides, it’s not like he would mind us being in his base and all. Right?” Tango nodded to himself seeming set on the idea that his other best friend wouldn’t mind.
Now why were the other two hermits in Zed’s base in the first place? Well it started with Zedaph’s ‘testing on hermits.’ He had done it once already with Tango, and Impulse had been his second best in line for testing.
Tango had assured the other. “He doesn’t really test on you. Just a lot of fiddly and odd questions. Besides, it doesn’t hurt. Not much at least”
“I saw in chat that you died” Impulse dead panned.
“Uh, well, umm” Tango stuttered. “It will be fine, besides respon didn’t hurt that much at least.”
Impulse rolled his eyes (pretending like he hadn’t found the hermit on spawn island looking like he was going to cry) but agreed to it any ways.
So here they were, looking and waiting for Zedaph to show up.
“Maybe he’s in his lab already?” Impulse suggested and Tango had to agree, it was the most logical at least.
“If I recall” The demon hybrid started walking off. “It’s down over here.”
~~~~~
Zedaph giggled. He ran around his lab a small sheep plushie in his hands.
“Let’s do experiments!” He said to the plush, grabbing the first potion bottle he saw looking it over once before chucking it onto the ground.
He knew that big him would hate wasting precious materials and potions, but little him was just so curious. He wanted to know what all the potions did, yet he couldn’t remember and was too little to read the labels.
The potion took effect almost instantly and he felt a tingling sensation all over his body. He looked at his hands to find that they were gone.
“Cool!” He cried, turning to look at where his legs and feet should have been.
He was invisible. He took another three potions, grabbing them close to his plush.
“Wonder what these do?” He gasped “Maybe I’ll become a superhero with powers!”
One of them slipped in his excitement, landing to the floor with a crash. He winced a little. His hands came back into existence, only now he was glowing. He laughed.
“Look lamby! I’m a nighty night light!” He jumped up and down in excitement, forgetting that he was still holding glass bottles and that gravity was indeed an actual thing.
They came crashing to the ground. His vision swerved around him. He felt like throwing up as a nausea and weakness affect took ahold of him.
~~~~~
Impulse and Tango heard a crash coming from inside the lab.
“That didn’t sound good.” Impulse said, voicing what Tango was already thinking.
They looked at each other and without saying a word ran down the stairs. A faint outline of a person could be seen through the walls most likly from an earlier crash.
“Curse Zed and his insanely long flight of stairs and hallways.” Tango thought.
They finally made it to the experiment room. Looking into it Tango immediately turned out, “Nope! Nope! And nope again!” Impulse grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, nearly chocking him, but managed to get the other to stay.
“What the-?”
Zedaph was on the ground, glass shards and liquid all around him. He was clutching a stuffed animal in one hand and a pacifier dangled from a string clipped to his shirt. He was crying and his face was as white as a sheet.
“Zedaph!” Impulse said finally, walking over to him.
He cringed upon closer inspection. Zedaph’s hands were cut up from touching the glass on the floor. Impulse reached out to grab him and help him off of the sticky floor. Zedaph stood up, nearly toppling.
“O-oh okay, I got you.” Impulse said, realizing that the scientist wouldn’t be able to stand on his own.
“What happened?” Tango asked going over to try and pick up the glass before it cause further damage.
Zedaph opened his mouth to speak. Only managing a whimper before throwing up.
“Oh goodness! Alright then.” Impulse laughed, even though the situation wasn’t funny at all.
He rubbed Zedaph’s back whispering that he would be all right. There was nothing he could do.
When Zedaph finally emptied his stomach Impulse moved him to sit in a chair, cringing at the stinking mess on the floor.
“Well that wasn’t fun huh? Maybe next time make it to the bathroom before you throw up?” He said it as a joke, but it only caused Zed to get more upset.
He started crying, giant tears sliding down his face.
“I-I sowrry” he said, wiping at his mouth.
His was still dizzy, Impulse not seeming to stay in one spot in front of him.
“It’s fine, Tango can clean it up, just rest okay?”
“Hey! Why me?!” Impulse just shook his head at the demon hybrid.
Tango growled, tail thrashing back and forth although he did grab a bucket of water and start cleaning the floor.
“Mmm sowrry, I can do’s it.” Zedaph cried.
He was fiddling with the lambs paw, only managing to slip further into little space. He didn’t like when Tango growled. He sounded scary and mean. He didn’t mean to make his friends upset.
“He’s fine, where’s the first aid kit Zed? Don’t tell me that you don’t have one.”
Zedaph couldn’t remember, he probably did have one, somewhere. Impulse rummaged around.
“Aha!” Impulse shouted as he found what he was looking for, “Do you want me to bandage you, or are you fine to do it yourself?”
Zedaph had to stop himself from asking Impulse to do it.
He’s asking cause you threw up. He doesn’t know your little. He asked, not because you’re little, but because you’re dumb. You’re so dumb for slipping.’
He grabbed a bandage. The cuts hurt, and he was bleeding more than he remembered. He fumbled a bit with it, not being able to untie the bandage roll, not without putting down his stuffy, and he was not about to do that. He finally gave up with a shout, throwing down the bandage.
Impulse grabbed it before it could roll and get to far.
“Here…” He said undoing the bandage and handing it to him.
Impulse watched with confusion as Zed still struggled with it
In Zedaph's defense he felt too out of control of his hands, and he was slipping further. But he couldn’t do that, he had to be big, it wasn’t even that hard of a task to do, it was just a bandage. If he just wasn’t so dumb he’d be able to do it.
Impulse finally took the bandage from Zedaph’s hands. Zed whined. He could do it. He just needed more time!
“Zedaph are you okay? Did one of those potions make you like littler or something?” Tango guessed, as the scientist started to cry while Impulse patched him up. Zedaph shook his head.
“No?” Tango repeated and Zedaph nodded, looking away ashamed.
“Me a wittle” He muttered.
He didn’t want to explain himself to his friends. He still didn’t feel good, he wanted to go to his room, and snuggle with his teddys and forget that any of this ever even happened.
“You’re a what? I can’t hear you.”
“I a wittle!” Zedaph shouted kicking his legs. “I no wanna talk about it, I wanna go to bed.”
“Okay, we can go to your room.” Impulse said, shooting a look at Tango to tell him to drop the topic.
Tango sighed but went along with it.
“Can you walk?”
Zedaph was still dizzy, but he should be fine. He nodded frantically, which did nothing at all to help with the dizziness.
They walked back up the long stairways and up into Zedaph’s room. Zedaph ran to his bed, going under the covers.
“Maybe it’s better that you sleep off whatever this is any ways.” Tango said. “Clearly your mind is a bit messed up from it.”
Right. His mind was messed up. He wasn’t 3 years old he was 23. He shouldn’t be doing this, it wasn’t normal, and his friend’s words just proved the point entirely.
He whimpered and snuggled down deeper under the covers. Maybe if he slept he would wake up and find that this was all just a really bad dream. A really realistic, bad dream.