(I'm still interested in the AU, but I'm slowing down on Snowflake requests just out of Very specific type of burnout. But if these two aren't the same Anon then they do have very similar tastes..)
Sammy felt cold, sluggish, exhausted, and just all around awful. It wasn't helped by the awful weather, awful heating system in the music department, and the awful, AWFUL pipes. He internally cursed his own body as well as the terrible timing it had on him. If he woke up feeling like this, he would have stayed home, but nope! Instead he felt just fine when he woke up and only felt this bad when he stepped in through the door.
"I swear if I didn't know any better I'd assume I was cursed..." the grumpy musician murmured under his breath as he wrapped the makeshift blanket around his shoulders, clicking his pen while trying to figure out the right notes for the newest song. "...Or maybe I was and I just didn't realize it-"
Connecting the dots, the musician bolted into the men's restroom just to double check in the mirror that there was no signs of spreading ink or magic doing magic things. But he was still on edge, just because it wasn't visible didn't mean he was safe...
"...Uh Sam? Are ya feeling okay?" The Janitor looked up from the sink he was scrubbing. "You're lookin' a little green around the gills there..."
"No."
"Regular sickness like the flu spreadin' around or Ink stuff?"
...Honestly it was a little concerning that they had to differentiate if it was ink or not, and what was slightly more concerning was the only answer he knew so far.
"I don't know yet, it's too early to tell which."
"Okay, well I've got a spare bucket just in case." Wally handed over the empty plastic bucket. "Hollar if ya need anything else."
"Thanks, either way yell at Joey for me."
"Will do." the Janitor half-chuckled. "But uh.. if its the former, do me a favor and keep da bucket close by. It's easier ta clean vomit outta a bucket than off da floor. Thanks!"
The musician nodded before leaving the janitor to finish his own work, he didn't feel *that* sick, but he also didn't feel sick at all when he was going to his job in the first place. Plus, he'd also rather not have to redo all his hard work thanks to a worsening stomach bug.
When he re-entered his office, he sat down and resumed comparing and contrasting the notes already on his desk, only turning away from them to scratch in a rough draft of a needed new theme. Only resting his eyes for a minute...
---
...A single, almost glowing white eye cracked open as the groggy monster peeled his inky body off of the floor. He cursed under his breath when he tried to wipe the sleep out of his eyes to be greeted with the irritably familiar slush that called itself ink while feeling more like a cold mud to the musician.
"Of course." He murmured bitterly to himself as he scraped up what was supposed to be his legs and managed to get them into the bucket. "It couldn't be just a damn cold, oh nooo. It had to be ink again. It's not like I'm running out of good clothes thanks to this nonsense." He scowled while trying to pull his sunken in shirt and pants out of his body. "Aaaaaand I can't dig my own clothes out of this gunk, great, lovely, EXACTLY what I needed today."
The ink man sighed as he set the makeshift blanket on the chair and sat down on his desk to inspect the damage. As he scanned his work for ink stains, he noticed someone left a box of band aids on his desk, alongside a freshly brewed cup of green tea, slice of chocolate cake on a plate, and a 'get well soon' card. He opened the card finding no signatures on it, no familiar handwriting, not even a doodle that could've hinted at who could've left these here. Just the cheesy yet well-meaning wishes already printed onto the card when it was made.
"Okay, there, we got him the stupid card too, happy?" Sammy overheard a gruff and grumpy sounding voice outside his office. "He's been out like that for at least thirty minutes already, he'll probably just sleep it off and continue like nothing happened after he changes back."
"...D-do you think we should also get him a real blanket?" replied the nervous, stuttering demon. "And dad recently mopped that floor too... s-so what what if he gets a burn from the ink remover if we leave him like that?"
Sammy slowly cracked open his office door. He still wasn't feeling ready to deal with anyone, but he figured he might as well confirm to the mechanic and the kid that he is in fact alive and not burning on the ground.
"Snowflake, he's a grown man and he's been through this song and dance more times than anyone here can count." The GENT worker rolled his eyes. "He's not one of those little toon rats who come to you with wide sad eyes and broken tails."
"H-HE'S A MELTED INK MAN, THOMAS!" Snowflake exclaimed with an urgency even the kid wasn't used to hearing in his voice. "This this isn't- isn't normal! I-it's not its not supposed to BE normal! I still really wanna a-ask Joey what to do... I wanna help him, I want to really help him, not just... just slap a band-aid box down on his desk and call it a day!"
"For Pete's sake! Whether it's 'supposed to' or not, it IS normal to the studio!" The man exclaimed back with slightly more irritation than usual. "And especially to Lawrence. That man is like a magical lightning rod! So can you stop wasting my time with this and let me go back to my damn job?!" The speckled imp shrank back as the man caught his breath. "Some of us have more important things to do than to play nurse to the studio's biggest butt monkey!"
"I-i'm sorry..." Snowflake sniffled. "I just wanted to help.."
"Well, next time, don't drag me into it! He. Is. Just. An. Ink. Creature. Not anything that's a danger to anyone els-GAaaAAH!!"
The sudden, cold and wet weight of a sheet of thick ink slapped itself on Thomas's back like a bucket full of slightly melted snow put precariously over a cracked-open door, startling both the imp and the GENT worker while the inky musician let out a few fake coughs before pulling himself free from the mechanic.
"Sorry *cough* *cough* about that I just have *cough* the worst luck today, having a TERRIBLE, *cough* POSSIBLY *cough* *cough* CONTAGAGIOUS cold *cough* on top of being turned into a toon... *cough*"
"W-wait, Mr. Lawrence, you're... you're a toon..?"
Snowflake blinked owlishly as he looked over the inky musician, taking note of his visible pie-cut eye, four-fingered hands, and altered, more distinctly recognizable silhouette. The prospect of a human being turned into a toon while being sick was a lot less horrifying to the kid than the notion that he was turned into a melting ink figure. But he still stepped back to give the man some space, while Snowflake experienced first-hand that toons melt when sick, Sammy must've been REALLY sick to be that melted.
"Yep, nothing *cough* too serious to worry about. It just looks worse than *cough* how it really is."
"W-well maybe I can ask Joey to let you go home and rest it off?" The timid imp offered. "We don't wan-want it to spread to everyone else..."
"Go ahead, but for *cough* now, I'll just quarantine myself in my office, okay?"
"Okay Sammy."
The ink man waved the kid off and shot the mechanic a glare once he was out of sight, which Thomas was quick to return.
"That was really goddamn low, Tom. That kid doesn't even have a single mean bone in his body. Treating him like that is like... yelling at a puppy that's afraid of everything."
"He has plenty of stupid ones in there and someone has to teach him because I know Wally wont."
"Teach him what, exactly?"
"To mind his own business and not drag other people into running all over the studio for a box of band aids and the other stuff! He wasted so much of my time with that stupid wild goose chase!"
"He didn't know what was going on and was trying to help how he could, you could have sat him down to explain what's going on to the kid for five minutes and then you'd be working on unclogging pipes that should've been unclogged months ago while Snowflake would be worrying less about the ink."
"Okay fine, in hindsight I should've knocked some sense into him, told him that the ink does that to you all the time, and to buzz off before he dragged me all over the place. Happy?! I learned my lesson."
Sammy gave him the most deadpan glare he could muster with only one eye and his other facial characteristics consumed by ink. "Hey, speaking of lessons, do you want to learn something about the Ink that we've learned through years of experience?"
"What?"
"It hates not having a spiteful asshole that it can throw magic at around. It only manages to last a full week at most before it will try to latch onto anyone who 'deserves to be the lightning rod'."
"...So?" the mechanic raised an eyebrow.
"Soooooo... *cough* *cough* With my TERRIBLE *cough* CONTAGIOUS disease, I think it's best for my health and the studio as a whole if I take two weeks of sick leave, *COUGH* maybe even three just to be safe." The ink creature gave the smuggest, most insufferable grin a somewhat humanoid glob of gunk could manage.
"You... You're making that up just to scare me, aren't you..?"
"Only one way for you to find out, Butt Monkey Junior."