A/N: I think there might have been a misunderstanding. I'm not putting pairings into this series of fics - I reinstated the pairings in ANOTHER fic - whooooole different story. I've never had the intent of putting any yaoi or anything of the sort into these one-shots and I never will. I'm working on possibly getting 'Of a Place Long Ago' back up, but I'm working around two missing chapters (12 & 17 if anyone happened to save them) and some heavy editing. Perhaps I can rebuild the chapters a bit, but I can't remember exactly what was in them, so it shoud be entertaining. (chuckles) This "first" was incredibly silly and poorly done, but I'm attached to it for some odd reason, so here it goes. I'm working on creating a brand new "first", so be on the look out - I may post it pretty soon.

Chapter 16: First Cold (Earth)

The first morning, it was just a headache. Nothing big there, he'd had headaches before. Though usually they were called 'brain freezes' and Sanzo said they only occurred when he inhaled his ice cream like a drowning man takes in air. Then again, the only other headaches Goku could remember having come from Sanzo having smacked him upside the head with his fan too many times. He pondered this for a while. Then he asked Sanzo. The monk, apparently annoyed at not only having been disturbed during an unusual moment of tranquility (due to Goku's many hours of trying to figure out why he had a headache; something that was only making it worse, though he had yet to figure that out either….) And since a huge run-on sentence was just created, let's try this again. Sanzo, apparently annoyed at not only having been disturbed during an unusual moments of tranquility AND that the boy had just accused him of hitting him upside the head while he was sleeping, did the only thing he could think of; he smacked Goku upside the head a few times and kicked him out of the study.

He banished the ideas still swimming about his head (after a series of fan-whacking while a headache was already firming in place, everything seemed to be swimming…) and decided to go play. It took a few less hours than usual to wear himself out and by the end of the day the headache had only grown. Goku truly tried to ignore it, and for the most part succeeded. Although it took an awfully long time to fall asleep that night with the constant pounding of his heartbeat seeming to drum into his ears…

The second morning, the headache was still firmly in place. Though it had brought friends along as well: a stuffy nose and a thick layer of brain-coating fogginess. Sanzo continued to ignore him, apparently still pissed off about Goku's 'night whacking' comment, so the boy was left to fend for himself. A fact greatly grieved by the remainder of the monk population.

If they didn't like the new happy faces that was their problem…

His stuffy nose though, quickly disappeared and was soon replaced with its counterpart: the running nose. He was thankful for his long sleeves at that point. Running back and forth from outside to the temple to get tissue was a real pain. Though his shirt wasn't faring very well in the aftermath and he was constantly switching sleeves. Most twelve year old hardly register this as 'gross', though several monks did. But it wasn't in Goku to care for their opinion and since he had no intention of walking around with a box of tissue all day, opting instead to have both his hands free (its easier to climb that way, you know) so his sleeves were the only alternative.

By the third morning the headache and fogginess had reached epidemic proportions. So much so that even breathing (if he could do that anyway, apparently runny nose and stuffy nose had switched in the night) caused tendrils of pain to swoop through his body. It seemed a party had decided to start and headache and stuffy nose had invited several new friends over to celebrate. A very nice itchy throat and rather strange wheezing sound had taken root, along with a sensation of freezing that quickly caused the young child to pile somewhere in the vicinity (he didn't bother counting, all he wanted was warmth, and as the saying goes, the more the merrier right?) of about fifteen blankets or so to join a top his own.

Which is how Sanzo found him later that afternoon.

Truly a look of sheer panic had never crossed the monk's face before. Actually, nothing close to panic had ever been there before so he wasn't really sure if the look he must have been giving when he found Goku was a look of panic.

Anyway…

Sanzo literally had to peel the blankets off the boy, who immediately began to shiver once the last of the cloths had been removed to expose his condition to the stoic monk. Sanzo, obviously realizing that the monkey is sick (and a pretty nasty shade of sick too…shade of sick…wonder if Crayola will ever come up with THAT crayon….)

I digress…Anyway…

Sanzo, not needing the death of a annoying, drooling monkey; and honestly not wanting to relieve his greatest stress ball (which is an oxymoron since Goku CAUSES most of his stress…) decided it best to send for a doctor. Most all doctors are quacks anyway…rich quacks…but quacks nonetheless…so it was no surprise when he was left with a short diagnosis (the flu), a handful of papers (instructions and prescriptions), and a bill (obviously a trumped-up one at that, seeing as monks don't have medical insurance and anyone without medical insurance must pay even more so for the privilege of being treated; which is ridiculous when you think about it since anyone with medical insurance obviously has a half-way decent paying job and would be the only ones capable of paying such high prices out of pocket anyway…)

I don't like doctors and insurance companies…can you tell?

But I digress again…no sleep will do that to you…(cough)

So, having filled the prescriptions…(which included some bubble-gum flavored cough syrup; which Sanzo wasn't sure he wanted to use…the artificial flavoring alone probably held more sugar than he allowed the boy to have on a normal day…)…and having hid the monstrous pile of blankets Goku was more than likely going to want back to cover the coldness of his fever-ridden body…AND having ordered a simple meal of broth to be brought to the boy's room…

Well Sanzo was tired.

Tired and pissed.

But then again, Sanzo's always pissed so that one doesn't really count.

Okay, so Sanzo was tired.

After receiving the broth…

Wait a minute…

After dealing with Goku all day, Sanzo's usually tired too.

Damn…that can't count either…

Okay okay okay…I think I've got this…

So Sanzo was MORE tired and pissed than usual…

There.

After receiving the broth from the kitchen and forcing Goku back into the world of the living and awake again (no easy task mind you. Imagine how you don't want to get up when you're sick then apply that to Goku-who needs atomic bombs for wake-up calls) Sanzo found himself reduced to having to spoon-feed the boy in order to get him to eat.

Okay now he's even more pissed.

Maybe he needs a good massage to calm him down, he's so tense.

Yeah, a nice relaxing and invigorating massage. Face down on a table with just a towel covering his rear end. All those smooth yet firm muscles dancing under that pale skin and…

Holy cow do I need sleep…..(shakes head)

Once the boy was fed, Sanzo found himself in the daunting task of forcing the newly purchased medications down his throat. The pills went quite easily; mostly due to the fact that you can't taste them unless you leave them in too long and they melt, then the melted bits get stuck around your gums and you end up spending several minutes working your tongue around trying in vain to dislodge them all until you finally remember that you have a glass of water and end up sloshing that around a couple of times until you finally work all the bits out…(gasp)

God, sleep sounds so good. I have the feeling I'm writing crap right now…but let's go on and see what else I can do…heheh

At any rate, the pills went down quite easily. It was the bubblegum cough syrup Sanzo had the most trouble with. By the time he'd finally gotten around to that, Goku was finally starting to resemble someone who was awake. Morse the pity, now he could see what was happening. Though he'd never been sick before, there was that one time when he'd told Sanzo he wasn't hungry. Sanzo, naturally, assumed the monkey was sick and ended up forcing a foul tasting liquid down his throat saying it was 'medicine'.

He never did tell Sanzo he wasn't hungry because he'd eaten half the peaches off the courtyard tree.

He didn't want to die after all.

So here was Goku, feeling like his very life was slowly being sucked out of him by an invisible vampire (though he couldn't recall exactly how he knew about vampires; perhaps from one of the perverse attempts of Sanzo's many reluctant 'bedtime stories') and here was Sanzo, holding a bottle that suspiciously resembled the foul tasting 'medicine' that he'd once had to endure to keep his head on his shoulders.

Naturally, though he was truly sick, there was NO WAY Goku was letting that nasty liquid anywhere near his mouth.

Not an easy task when your head feels like it's floating. (Though it wasn't, he'd checked. Several times.) Sanzo, not wanting to have to deal with an even SICKER monkey later, had no choice but to try to coax some of the syrup down the boy's throat.

He'd eventually had to resort to sitting on Goku with both the boy's hands squashed between his knees.

Getting his mouth open was a whole 'nother story though.

"Open up."

"…(shakes head)…."

"Open."

"…(shakes head)…"

"OPEN YOUR DAMN MOUTH!"

"…(shakes head)…."

"……"

"……"

"Would you like a meat bun?"

"Yeah! I (gulp)"

Sucker.

Thankfully the bubblegum flavoring overrode the true taste of the medicine and no such further 'incidents' had to be repeated.

It took days of this before the medicine started to kick in. Days of Sanzo feeding the boy, changing the cloth on his forehead, giving him his medicine…

Days of pure unadulterated hell.

In Sanzo's opinion.

Goku, however, was in heaven.

Not just any heaven either. Sanzo heaven.

The kind of heaven where your guardian, who is normally so stuffed up and mean towards you, treats you kindly and softly, helping you with every little thing you need in order to coax you back to health.

It was actually kind of easy to fake being sick a few extra days.

Although, when the bubblegum flavored cough syrup ran out and all Sanzo had left was the vile disgusting off-brand medicine Goku had taken before…

Well…then he made a complete and miraculous recovery.

Though the beating he'd received when Sanzo realized (to some extent, it was his own fault, he'd enjoyed babying the monkey…though he'd die before he ever admitted it)…when Sanzo realized he'd been faking it…Goku could have lived with out that.

But, so goes the world.

And this fic. Blah.

Time for sleep. (zzzzzzzz)