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The field of flowers blooming in every color of the rainbow (and some outside of it) swallowed Wander whole. Sometimes his hands would rise above the sea like the fins of a giggly shark as he chased a butterfly, and the flowers would tremble, but, for the most part, he was completely lost in there.
And Sylvia wasn't going after him. A haze of pollen he'd stirred up rose above the flowers. Unlike a certain furry orange lollipop, she had a nose to irritate, and it was already itching. With a snort to clear the air, Sylvia retreated a little further away on the path. It was an old road made of gray pavers that had been separated and eroded by time, leaving smaller flowers and soft moss to overtake them. Whoever’d laid them was long gone, which meant she was free to sprawl wherever she wanted.
The buzz of bees, Wander's chatter, and the rustling breeze created a quiet, soothing lullaby. After one final check that Wander was still running wild in the field, Sylvia gave a contented sigh and fell asleep.
Wander shrieked as he fell into a hole that had been hidden by a delicate screen of flower stems and leaves. The sound cut off quickly when he hit a thick, viscous surface. The stuff came about to his ankles, once he had the presence of mind to stand instead of flail pathetically in it.
He licked his lips and tasted honey, then looked around as his eyes adjusted to the dim light. Golden, oozing honey dripped down all around him. High above, he could see the hole he'd fallen through, flowers dangling down, bees drifting in and out. They glinted like little blue-toned jewels in the sunlight, and a collection of wayward flower petals fell on him like a light rain.
He cupped his hands around his mouth. "Hey, Sylvia! I fell down a hole!" When no response came, Wander returned his attention to his surroundings. Nothing led up to the hole, and even without the honey pulling at his feet, he wouldn't be able to jump that high. That left him to find another way out or something to help him get higher.
A few bees landed on Wander, licking at the honey he was coated with. He giggled. Their little legs tickled his guard hairs.
"Sorry, fellas," he said. "Didn't mean t' just drop in unannounced." They looked up at him, antennae twitching, eyes glittering. Wander shimmied to dislodge them. "I'll show myself out."
He moved further into the cavernous hive, wading through honey that soaked into his sneakers and kept pulling his socks down. A small collective of bees droned quietly behind him. Honeycombs covered the walls and in some parts seemed to stand in place of pillars, leaving the hive wide and open, if very warm and very dark.
The sounds of bees grew louder, but imperceptibly so, until Wander realized he was surrounded by a ubiquitous vibration that made his teeth tingle and his fur stand on end. When Wander turned around, he couldn't find the opening in the ceiling. The only light was a diffused, yellow glow that didn't seem to come from anywhere in particular.
The bees were floating like a thick cloud in front of him, and some came to land on him. He laughed nervously, afraid of hurting them if he knocked them off of his fur, but more and more were landing. "Hey, guys, no need t--" his words were cut off as one landed on his tongue, wings beating languidly and tickling the top of his mouth. "Hoo, hoo," he said, trying to get the bug to shoo without moving his mouth. It crawled further in, and Wander felt its little legs prickle at his throat. He coughed, inhaled, fell back against one of the honeycomb pillars. The bee went down his throat. Another landed before he could recover, and it followed the first.
Wander fought against the honey drizzling down his back, across his arms, mouth pursed closed after a third and fourth bee disappeared. More were gathered at his lips, trying to get in. Wander couldn't speak, but he couldn't get them to go away, either. Fear and an unexpected, sharp pain clenched his chest. All his struggling did was get him covered in more honey, which attracted more bees. They walked across his eyelashes, buzzed at the dense, orange fluff on his cheeks. He couldn't move. Any change in position would crush at least one bee.
He sat very, very still, forced his breathing to calm. Wander thought he could feel them inside of him, as well as outside, digging through his gutty works and buzzing. Which was silly, since the poor little guys weren’t made to be eaten. The fear hurt, though. It hurt, and he couldn't stop it. Tears prickled at the edges of his eyes. If he could just not focus on it. That’d be enough.
He heard Sylvia call him.
Wander's eyes shot open and a bee immediately flew into one, earning a yelp of pain and more coughing, more gagging. He couldn't do it. He couldn't just ignore this and wait for Sylvia to find him. He wanted out of here.
Wander peeled himself from the pillar and scrambled toward where he thought he heard Sylvia's voice, felt bees scattering -- none crunching, thank grop -- all around him. He tried to call for her, but couldn't get air into his lungs, only honey on his tongue and bees in his throat.
Wander stumbled, fell, crawled through grasping, fur-pulling honey toward the hole as soon as he saw it. Sylvia was out there, searching. Calling.
He collapsed just beneath the hole and barely had the presence of mind to roll onto his back. At least he could see blue sky and the swaying shadows of flowers. That was some comfort. Wander wanted to see Sylvia again, too, but didn't want her near -- whatever this was. The light above him splintered as tears pooled and trickled down his cheeks to be lapped up by the bees.
"You fall asleep out here, buddy?" Sylvia asked after almost stepping on Wander. He was curled up in a pile of flattened flowers, pollen all in his fur and petals dancing around him. A few bees drifted drunkenly about. She knelt down next to him to nudge him awake. "Hey, Wander. Wander."
His eyes fluttered open and slid around slowly, like he didn't know where he was, before focusing on Sylvia with some difficulty. "Syl?" he asked, voice almost inaudible.
She smiled down at him. "You tire yourself out playing with those bees?"
Wander's eyes shot open and he sat up, searching frantically. "Bees?" he asked when he didn't find any.
Sylvia glanced around. "I guess they got startled away. What's wrong?" Wander was checking himself, hands smoothing his fur, tongue licking his mouth. "Did something happen?"
"I... I guess not," he said somewhat bemusedly as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. "It must’ve just been a strange dream."
"Really strange, to have you spooked like that," Sylvia said conversationally. She pulled him to his feet and brushed him off. Instead of answering, Wander scanned the flowers around them, then climbed somewhat stiffly, fur crunching like he’d been dried improperly, into the saddle on her back.
He was quiet as they left the planet, enough so that Sylvia kept glancing back at him until Wander forced a smile, pulled out his banjo, and tried to feel normal.
Wander felt even worse the next day, and looked it, too. He was exhausted, with bags under his eyes and a grayish tint to his fur.
When Sylvia suggested they go to a doctor, he waved it away and put on a brave face. Just had to power through. This wasn't nearly so bad as the last time he was ill. It was just... strange. Wander swallowed down a tickling in his throat.
Two planets later, it was a good call that they hadn't gone to a doctor, because how else could Wander and Sylvia help evacuate Plexar 6 when Dominator decided to attack? Wander found his second wind at the cries for help because that was what he did. Help. He could ignore the ache and heaviness behind his eyes telling him to lay down somewhere nice and dark and cozy for others.
Wander loaded the last little bubble-shaped person into their adorable escape rocket, then told Sylvia he was going to check the few buildings still standing. She could handle those gigantic Dombots making target practice of the pods.
Wander ducked into the first building he hadn't helped clear, calling out for anyone left behind. His hat brushed the ceiling, but they liked their doors nice and big, comparatively, so it was easy for someone as wriggly as him to navigate. When nobody answered, he checked all the rooms before darting out the back and right into one of the smaller Dombots.
While he was caught off guard, it just turned and knocked him against the wall. Something popped, and a spike of pain had Wander doubled over, a hand to his belly, the other to his mouth.
The Dombot hit him against the wall again. Wander collapsed, muscles spasming as he threw up. Something blue and sticky-sweet spattered across the ground and dribbled from his mouth. The Dombot moved closer. Wander closed his eyes in anticipation of another hit or laser blast.
When it didn't come, he forced his eyes open again. The bot was just staring at him. He felt like he was drowning, unable to hear anything but a bone-deep drone and the rush of his own blood, unable to see anything through a hazy veil of agony.
When the Dombot wrapped a molten tendril around him, Wander tried to fight it off, but that was a losing battle on a good day. He scrabbled weakly at the Dombot's grip as he was taken across the destroyed city to a familiar, looming figure he could make out even with his blurring vision.
"H-hey, Dominator," he managed to say, voice thick and bubbly. Her gigantic, grimacing visor swam in his vision. The visor rose and disappeared into her helmet, revealing her pretty green face and tear-drop makeup. She blinked owlishly at him.
"Are you sick?"
Wander answered by coughing on her, then trying to cough his way through an apology for coughing on her.
"Ugh, grob." She wiped her face of more blue droplets. Dominator looked at them smeared across her glove for a moment, considering something then arriving at a decision that couldn’t bode well for Wander. She took him from the Dombot. "Can't have you running around when you're so sick. That's just not good for you," she said, false concern easy even for Wander to pick up on. Not that he could do anything about it, or her tightening grip on him. He clawed pathetically at her armored hand. Her visor lowered again, and she took him back to her ship.
"Sylvia," he said, voice reedy and breathless as he twisted in Dominator’s grip to look at the ground, trying to find her comforting, soft blue color in amid all the harsh fire and smoke.
"Don't worry, she saw me take you," Dominator assured him as she landed in the hanger of her ship. "But she can't have you back. Yet."
"What?"
Dominator's armor melted away as she shifted Wander to be cradled in the crook of her arm. He was panting hard, interspersed with wet hacking. She touched two fingers to his lips, pulling away with a string of the sticky blue substance, and rubbed it between her fingers, then licked it. Wander gagged at the sight. Gross.
"I've heard of this before. You don't know what it is, though, do you? Can't taste it, huh?" Dominator asked as she carried Wander through the ship. He shook his head and immediately regretted the action. "It’ll be a surprise, then. You like surprises, right?"
Dominator placed Wander in a room with nothing in it and latched him to the wall with molten cuffs around his wrists. He could still move, could still sit or sort of stand, but he was trapped, elsewise. Dominator backed out of the room and the door melted away, replaced by a window that Wander could see her standing behind. She watched him a moment longer, still licking at her fingers, then receded into the darkness.
Wander licked his lips, but couldn't taste anything except some undefined, stomach-churning sweetness like rot. He rested his head against the wall and closed his eyes.
Nothing hurt, but he felt constantly uncomfortable. Itchy, but that sort of itch beneath the skin, in the muscle and bone where you couldn't actually reach. Not that he could reach, anyway, as his hands were still pinned to the wall.
He was also sticky with fluid. It sparkled in the right light and shifted through holographic shades of green, purple, red. Wander had gotten very familiar with its strange colors because it never seemed to stop dripping from his gasping mouth to dribble into his lap and pool around him on the black floor. He'd tried swallowing it down or holding his breath, but eventually, he had to sleep, or his concentration slipped and he began to breathe again.
Wander slipped in and out of consciousness over the course of he didn't know how long, until he opened his eyes one day to find a blue gem of a bee sitting on his knee. "Hi, little guy," he mouthed, because getting air had gotten progressively harder over the days of his confinement. He held out hope that Sylvia would break through that window any moment now and save him, but it hadn't happened yet. It had only been Dominator every time, watching him, occasionally sending in a bot to take a sample, never speaking. Waiting. "What are you doing here?"
Another bee appeared. Wander's eyes widened. Another. He yanked on the manacles, memory overwhelmed by that cave -- that hive. He searched frantically for where they were coming from. More were appearing, but there didn't seem to be any source.
Dominator stood in the window. They stared at each other, then she reached forward and pressed a button.
"You figured it out, yet?" Wander mouthed for her to stop the bees. "I guess not. You are kind of stupid. I can't stop them because I'm not the one housing them. That's all you, buddy." She gestured at her toned stomach.
Fearfully, not sure what she meant, Wander squinted down at his belly, which was streaked with blue slime. He choked back a scream when he realized he wasn't looking at the slime sitting on his fur, but a thick sheet of it over his gutty works. Shapes moved inside, some slipping out of a hexagon-shaped hole built of matted fur and things Wander didn't want to think about. If he hadn't been steadily oozing -- he guessed it was honey -- for the past days, he would have been sick.
He lifted his gaze again to Dominator, mouthing why.
"Looks like your sugary sweet nature did you in," Dominator cackled. "Those bees are eating you alive. In fact, I'm surprised you are still alive -- oh, hang on." The window melted into a doorway, and Dominator walked over to Wander and knelt down. She caught one of the bees out of the air and held it up for him to look at.
"Space bees. They're really easy to treat if you catch them in time. Obviously, we're way past that stage now. These little guys are all inside of you. Crawling through your chest cavity, nibbling away at your innards. I bet you've felt them." She held up her hand and an image flickered to life, showing Wander, but translucent. Dominator zoomed in on the picture, bringing the little hive that had grown inside of him into view. She settled down beside him so he could see it easily. Her hand came up to Wander's head, slipping under his hat to grab the tufts of fur on his head and make him look.
He had been feeling them, he realized, though he hadn't realized what they were. Climbing up his throat, prickling along his skin, chewing away at his fluff and fur, creating a hive and breeding inside of him. His entire belly was a network of honeycombs. It hadn't hurt at all as they tore him apart from the inside.
Wander's gaze rolled limply to Dominator. If these were easy to treat -- she'd done this to him. She'd taken him from Sylvia, holed him up, let them eat through him without him even knowing.
"Why?" he tried again, the word barely even a burbling sound inside the honey drowning him.
"It can't all be planet destroying and fighting, you know. A girl's gotta find ways to entertain herself, and your slow, slow -- honestly, really slow -- death is just the solution. Doesn't it feel nice to be helpful? Keeping me from being bored, probably saving planets (for now) in the process, giving these bees a yummy new home. Giving me something for my toast in the morning."
Wander made a weak questioning noise, attention already drifting, head lolling now that Dominator had let him go. He was having trouble processing just what was happening. He wished Sylvia was here. She could explain it. She could help.
Dominator leaned over him, holding Wander in place as he tried to put any distance between the two of them. She pressed her mouth to Wander's, forcing his head back as she quickly deepened the kiss, tongue licking along his, ignoring his faint protests. When she finally pulled away a thick strand of honey connected the two. Dominator licked her honey-stained lips, breaking it. Her face was a little flushed, eyes wide. She spit out a bee that had tried to make its way from Wander to her.
"Whatever you're made of is delicious, Wander. It's like... It's like eating a star if I was high as hell," she said, trailing off thoughtfully, before waving away the entire attempt to describe his flavor. “Or something like that.”
Her hand came to Wander's cheek to pet him. After a moment’s consideration, she moved in for another kiss.
It was hard to think, over time. Words came slower, or not at all, and though Dominator took up the habit of hanging out with him, she mostly just talked at Wander and occasionally helped herself to the honey. He heard the buzzing of bees itching in his head, tickling the sensitive organs inside his ears, more than he heard whatever Dominator was saying. He'd squint at her mouth, trying to make out the words, but they just muddled together in strange, dark tangles before evaporating into the air.
Dominator let his arms down eventually, though Wander didn't have the energy to attempt even moving, much less escape. He just sat, slumped against the wall, feeling like he might become one with said wall given enough time.
Wander didn't even notice when he stopped being able to see out of his left eye. He could barely distinguish between reality and the murky dreams he swam through more and more, so when his vision got a little flatter, everything seemed shifted a little to the right, it wasn't anything worth noting. Until Dominator poked him in the eye, and he didn't even register it except as an interesting tidbit about someone else. Someone far away and unrelated to him.
That was when the room started getting smokey. It was a new taste on Wander's tongue. Burnt, woodsy. It quieted the humming in Wander's earholes, the tickle of movement in his belly. It gave him a chance to recover, at least a little. With enough time and the power of positive thinking, once he could figure out how to think.
He became more cognizant as Dominator worked around him, though he couldn't figure out what she was doing. Pinprick pains laced up his arms; a dull throb pulsed at his throat. He'd forgotten what pain was as the bees had worked their way through, numbing him while they picked him apart, but that was some small fragment Wander could latch onto. He was alive. He wasn't some brain-dead food supply like he'd felt for so long. He wanted Dominator to stay, whatever she was doing, to remind him of that. She did, for a while, an anchor in a sea of white noise and honey, still talking at him, still jabbing things into him that ached and stung.
But then Dominator stopped visiting him, and Wander started to forget more and more things. Like who had been with him until only recently, and who he kept wanting to come save him from… from something.
At least he had these nice little blue sparkles to keep him company. He didn’t like being alone.
Sylvia hated that she had to sleep when Wander was in Dominator's clutches, but exhaustion had driven her to the ground after days upon days of searching, fighting bots, getting lost in Dominator’s labyrinthine ship and never finding Wander. She’d even resorted to pleading with Hater for help. He’d been upset for all the wrong reasons, namely that Dominator and Wander were together, as opposed to that, well, Dominator and Wander were together. Peepers had understood the severity of the situation and Sylvia’s current distress, so gave her a spare bedroom on the Skullship and a promise to have a plan when she woke up.
She snapped awake at the knock on the door and called hoarsely for the person on the other side to enter. It was Peepers, and he had a breakfast tray. He set it on the bed but snatched the jar of some sort of spread off of it before Sylvia could grab it.
"Dominator delivered this. One of several jars, but this one had your name on it specifically."
Sylvia gulped down a cup of coffee before speaking. "Is she trying to poison us?"
Peepers shrugged and showed her the note tied around the neck. It had Dominator's stamp on it and 'Wanderful Honey®, for the Zbornak. If you like it, you know where to get more ♥' written in Dominator's scrawl.
"It is some kind of honey, despite what it looks like. Doesn't seem poisoned from the tests we ran, but it has some unidentifiable components."
Sylvia polished off the rest of the breakfast before contemplating the jar. "Honey, huh? Has anyone had any?"
Peepers didn't even try to hide the fact that yes, some of his men had tried the mysterious honey given to them by Dominator, even before testing it. They weren’t the brightest. "They said it was, ugh, wanderful. Like the label. Probably the best thing they'd tasted."
Sylvia unscrewed the lid and licked the inside of it. She made no comment on the taste. "So Dominator's... into beekeeping now?"
"Better that than destroying planets."
"Still, she has Wander. That can't be good." Sylvia remembered Wander's reaction to her mentioning bees what must have been weeks ago by now. Did he have some sort of fear of bees that Dominator was making use of? She had to assume this was some kind of taunt, but it was one Sylvia didn't understand. She held up the note. "This is clearly an invitation, though."
"Clearly. What are you going to do? Just waltz in there?"
"I don't know how to waltz," Sylvia said, giving a tired smirk. "But if I had some backup, I could blast my way back out."
Peepers nodded. “Dominator doesn't do security beyond her bots, which are easy enough to avoid. She doesn't need it. We can give you a commlink and have men on the ship ready to provide cover the instant you have Wander."
Sylvia's smile softened. She’d need some time to recover before going up against Dominator, and though she hated leaving Wander in her clutches any longer than necessary, this wasn’t something they could afford to mess up. It was good to know someone had her back. "Thanks, Peepers."
He huffed and mumbled some excuse about Lord Hater and nemeses and getting Sylvia off of his ship.
"You eaten yet?" Dominator asked as she walked in front of Sylvia, leading her deeper into the guts of her ship. She wasn't in her armor, instead wearing some exercise clothes with her hair up in a messy bun. A bot handed her a towel and water bottle.
"Yeah."
"Oh. Well, I haven't, so we're having lunch," Dominator said before patting her face and downing the entire bottle. A bot grabbed both as she chucked them carelessly to the side.
Sylvia examined the ship around them. None of this looked familiar. Wander knew his way around despite that everything shifted, melted, reformed. Sylvia, though, was completely lost already. She would never be able to find Wander on her own. She hadn't been able to before. She needed Dominator to show him to her, not have lunch.
"I just want Wander."
"Like I said." Dominator stopped at a blank expanse of wall as another bot came scrambling over, holding a platter of fruit, cheese, crackers, and more of that weird blue honey. She took it and held it out to Sylvia. "Sure you don't want any?"
Sylvia held her hand up at the offer and shook her head. Dominator shrugged. "Suit yourself. Wander's in here." A hole appeared in the wall, granting access to a darkened room that smelled different from the rest of the ship. Smokey, sugary. Sort of like caramel. Sylvia could see something glistening in the faint red light pouring in.
Warily, she stepped inside. The wall closed up behind them, plunging them into a near-black gloom filled with a low hum like they were close to the engine room. "Wander?" she called out, voice uncertain. "It's me, Sylvia."
There wasn't any response. If this was some trap, it was the strangest, most roundabout one possible. Beside her, she could hear Dominator eating.
"Oh, right," Dominator said like she'd forgotten. "The lights." She snapped her fingers and the room brightened.
Sylvia wasn't sure what she was staring at, but whatever it was was at complete odds with the rest of Dominator's ship. She blinked away the leftover dazzle at the sudden brightness and squinted at it. Blue, shimmery, with bits of orange peeking through and a familiar, green hat.
"Wander?"
Dominator continued eating.
“Wander!”
Sylvia sank to her knees in the honey that pooled around Wander, hands reaching uselessly for him, not sure what she could even do. Not sure what had happened to him.
Wander sat in some complex of honeycombs and dripping, starry honey. The combs crawled up his sides and sat in the hollow of his left eye, a constant stream like tears pouring out of them. Blue, glass-shard bees climbed in and out and floated lazily around, as though they'd been drugged.
His right eye was open, but unfocused, with that blue tint that seemed to stain everything on him. Aside from the frantic, hummingbird movements of his chest, Sylvia would have thought he was dead. He -- he should be dead, with this sort of damage, but Dominator had made sure he couldn't escape that way, with a black and red pipe trailing from a collar on his throat to the ground, thin black tubes like roots attached to his arms, feeding something into his veins.
"He says words, you know. Mostly gibberish. Sometimes singing. Occasionally your name. I think. Sylvia, right? I don't think he realizes he's talking, though," Dominator said, coming to kneel beside Sylvia. She reached forward and cupped his cheek, lifting his head gently. "Hey, honeypot. You've got company."
"Don't call him that!" Sylvia bit out at the pet name, knocking Dominator's hand away to hold his face herself. "Wander? Wander, can you hear me?"
Dominator drifted away, leaving Sylvia to try futilely to get some response from Wander. She batted the bees away, far more careless with them than Wander had been. When his eye rolled up to almost meet hers before sliding away, Sylvia rounded on Dominator.
She was scooping honey up onto her fruit and eating it. Any words on Sylvia's tongue vanished as she completely stalled. This was the source. She hadn’t even thought about it. Wanderful. Wander-full. Honeypot wasn't just a pet name. The taste of it she’d had earlier came unbidden into her throat.
"Wh-- what, no! Stop that!" Sylvia swatted the entire platter out of Dominator's hands, scattering the food across the floor. "What the flarp is wrong with you? How could you do this to Wander? All he ever wanted was to be your friend!"
Dominator looked genuinely surprised as her food was thrown across the room. "I didn't infect him with space bees. I mean, I didn't let him get treated for them, but he already had them bad when I got him. Who’s to say he didn’t do it to himself? Intentionally? He's making himself useful, after all. You like being useful, don't you, Wander?"
He burbled something that could have been anything from an agreement to commenting on the color of the sky.
"See?" Dominator ruffled the fur on Wander’s head.
Sylvia pushed Dominator away, and she easily stepped back, letting Sylvia pull at the cords and tubes. Sylvia winced at every wet, pained little noise that Wander made, and tried to be quick about it. "It's okay, Wander. It's okay," she assured him repeatedly, petting what fur wasn't sticky with honey as she loosened him from the walls. Sylvia just hoped she wasn’t lying to him. The bees went sluggishly to attack her but were easy to brush off with her tail, stingers unable to pierce her hide.
She hefted Wander into her arms. Long, thick strands of honey dripped from him like heavy chains. He was completely limp, body cold, bees dropping out of him to escape the sudden shifting of their hive. Sylvia swatted at several on her mouth. "I'm taking Wander."
Dominator sat back on the floor and crossing her legs. Several bees landed on her, and she watched them a moment before looking up at Sylvia. “Okay.”
"You can't -- okay?" Sylvia held Wander closer, expecting an attack.
"Okay. Go. Escape. Take him with you.” Dominator waved dismissively at the now open doorway. “I want to see if he can recover from this. Or if he dies. Or if he's, you know, going to be like that for the rest of his life. If he is, I’ll take him back. I can see this becoming a pretty lucrative side business. After this whole destroying the galaxy thing."
"I wouldn't -- he's --" Sylvia wasn't going to try to argue with Dominator. She backed out of the door, trailing that strange, color-shifting honey and bees. "We don't need backup," she said into the Watchdog-sized commlink, trusting that Peepers was holding up his end of the deal. "We need doctors. Wander's.... Wander's not doing well."
Wander didn't die, though nobody had been sure if he'd ever recover from the damage until he woke up. Sylvia, when she was thinking a little clearer, made sure the doctors were careful with the bees and didn't kill them as they and their hive were carved out of Wander's tiny body. He’d hate that, and she had to believe he’d survive this to care about it later. He was even tinier with them removed, entire chunks gone, what remained bandaged up tightly. Nobody really knew what to do beyond that. His entire physiology was baffling even without bees eating away at him.
Hater had tried to stay for the surgery, but disappeared early on with a green tint to his bones and couldn't bring himself to come back. Sylvia hadn't left Wander's side since he'd stabilized, though, and Watchdogs kept coming by to check on them and drop off little things they thought Wander’d like. His sleeping form was almost overwhelmed by masses of stuffed animals, handmade crafts, and flowers that had been delivered over the ensuing days.
Sylvia woke up one day to a soft, furry hand patting gently at her, as though trying to figure out what she was. She caught Wander's hand in her own. "Wander?" she asked quietly. "Buddy?"
He rolled his head toward her words, and Sylvia could make out a sliver of his eye. It still had a blueish tint to it, but he was looking at her. A faint smile curled the part of Wander's lips he could move.
"Sh, sh, don't talk," Sylvia said quickly, pressing her hand to Wander's mouth. She brought his clasped hand to her own mouth, stifling an ugly cry. "Oh thank grop you're awake."
Sylvia nuzzled up close against Wander while he resumed his silent, delicate exploration of the area just around him, letting the blankets and bandages absorb her tears. Soon he returned to her head, petting her gently.
After that, Wander's recovery sped up exponentially. All the care, consideration, and plenty of visits from everyone who'd heard of his predicament seemed to just wash away the evidence of what had happened. Soon he was sitting up and eating. Then talking and singing, what fingers they’d managed to save relearning the strings of his banjo. He seemed to forget all about what had happened to him as his body forgot and scars faded. Wander's fur was still a little sparse, but, fortunately, he had a plethora of lumpy, made-with-love-but-not-much-skill sweaters to ward away the medical bay’s chill. Sylvia even tried her own hand at sewing to give him a little star on his eyepatch and a patchwork sling that would have made her mother proud so he could ride around with her while he rebuilt his strength.
Sylvia carried him anywhere he wanted throughout the ship as he recovered, though he requested to see his bees almost daily. His bees, that was what he called them, which worried Sylvia to no end. She didn’t want them dead, but she didn’t want Wander around them, either, not after what’d been done to him. Peepers had put them in a glass terrarium the size of a small bedroom and kept them supplied with jelly and other sweets and building materials. Their honey began to look more like honey, adopting reddish-purple tones that didn't shift through a rainbow of colors, but still sparkled like it had stars ground up into it.
Sylvia couldn't look at them without seeing Wander entombed in their honeycombs, but Wander liked the way they nestled in his fur and walked along the brim of his hat whenever he came to visit. A little mask kept them from his mouth, though sometimes they would just cling to the vents there, soft hairs shivering in each exhalation Wander took that still tasted of sugar.
"I don't know how you can stand to be around them," Sylvia said when Wander stepped out of the decontamination room and hung up his mask.
"Well, they were inside my belly. It's like I'm their mama. Which I guess makes Dominator their other ma? Since without her they’d’ve not survived this long." He lapsed into silence, pondering the familial relationships of his bees, then shook his head. "'Sides, those scientists said that these bees aren't like the original ones, either. They can't go back to the hive. They won’t be accepted anymore because there's a bit of me in 'em."
"I wonder how that happened," Sylvia said dryly as she checked Wander over again for any bees that might try to get a bit more of him in them before they left the room. Assured that he was bee-free, she picked him up and tucked him into his little sling. Wander sighed and bundled his hands into the sleeves of his sweater. This one had what might have been abstract art or an attempt at knitting a spacescape.
"We should go travelin'," he said quietly, looking at the sweater. "I'm tired of stayin' in one place. Even if that place is here. I miss helpin’ folks."
Sylvia glanced back at the bees' room and shuddered. "Me too, buddy. Let's get back to wandering."
Wander giggled at the phrase and snuggled up against Sylvia. Soon his breathing slowed and evened out. It’d take a while before he was strong enough to travel like they’d used to, but Sylvia could still carry him anywhere in the galaxy. She watched him sleep, his happy sighs and murmurs comforting to hear, then decided to find the prettiest part of space for him to wake up in, far away from Dominator and bees alike.