@deegeeak said: Gladio gets sick and hides it until he can’t?
this isn’t finished but i’m about to board the plane, so enjoy this teaser of sick!gladio and potentially gladnoct
Gladio doesn’t get sick.
Officially, anyway. What use is a Shield that can get sick, after all? Whenever Gladio does get sick, or injured, he hides away using ‘sudden camping’ trip as an excuse. When he was younger, his father or one of his relatives would help with the lie, but as he got older, he could carry it out himself.
It didn’t always work. Sometimes there were too many important obligations for him to even pretend he was going off on a sudden camping trip. His father and Ignis’ uncle would always come up with something that would excuse Gladio’s absence.
And Gladio didn’t mean to hide it from Noct, it was just always… so important, to keep up the face of strength publically.
There’s no reason not to be honest with Noctis about it. He’s grown up with Noct. He’s well aware that Gladio’s just human.
But when Gladio starts to feel that dreaded scratch in this throat, he gets a sinking feeling in his gut. Because while he could make his excuses in Insomnia, hole up for a few days, and none would be any wiser, he can’t get away with that sharing tents and motel rooms with three other men constantly. Ignis would be on him with soup and a blanket at the first sign of a sniffle.
He still tries, though. They go on a hunt and Gladio ignores what his body is telling him, and neither Prompto or Noctis notice, because they weren’t trained to see every weakness in a human body to exploit in a battle. And Gladio’s been trained to push through anything and everything until death.
Gladio’s still not surprised when back at the haven evening, when Prompto and Noctis are playing with the camera, Ignis takes the seat next to him, peers at him through his glasses, and asks pointedly, “Are you well?”
Gladio makes an obvious check towards the other two, and says, “Yeah, fine.”
Ignis pitches his voice lower, but presses on, “You look pale, Gladio.”
“Just a cold,” Gladio says. “I’ll be fine. I’ll power through it.”
“You will not,” Ignis says. “At best, you’ll get all of us sick. At worst, you’ll make a mistake and be slain in battle or get one of us killed.”
“I would never let one of you get killed,” Gladio says.