Cloud very rarely got sick. But when he did, it was bad. Now was no exception.
"Cloud, you’re sick. You gotta get in bed and rest." Marlene grabbed his arm and incessantly tugged. Despite his weak protests that he was fine, Marlene managed to get him to his feet. She dragged him to his bedroom (well, as much as a six year old could forcibly drag a grown man; Cloud humored her, at least, and played along). She pestered him until he got into bed.
"Stay in bed, Cloud!" she ordered, as she trooped out of the room. She went on a scavenger hunt throughout the house, grabbing blankets, extra pillows, tissues, and anything else she thought he would need.
"I don’t know what medicine you need, but I think I got everything else," Marlene said, as she plopped her little armload on the end of the bed. She put more blankets over Cloud, propped him up with extra pillows, and shoved a thermometer in his mouth. She didn’t really know how to read a thermometer, but one was supposed to take a sick person’s temperature, right?
"Don’t worry, Cloud," she said, climbing up on the bed next to him and throwing her arms around his shoulders, "You’ll be feeling better in no time!"
The whole thing was, in Cloud’s opinion, demeaning.
Having Geostigma was one thing. It was an agonizing, life-threatening, uncurable disease. It was a sign of the return of Sephiroth, and it’d killed more people than any other disease since Shinra had figured out how to synthesize materia.
This, however, was not Geostigma. This was the common freaking cold. Cloud Strife had the sniffles.
It wasn’t exactly impairing him in any real way, but of course the litte one insisted on taking care of him. A grown man who punched walls, stuck in bed. This was no condition for even the lowliest SOLDIER, never mind the best, and a host of freaking Jenova.
Clearly, Marlene had learned far too much from Tifa.
He knew she meant well, but honestly, she was almost embarassing him. Probably would be, if it wasn’t just the two of them, and with her taking ti so well. But he grumbled something and hugged her back anyway.
