Popping in to say that I've not shuffled off the mortal coil. I'm doing a 50000 word novel in a month challenge, and it's totally kicking my butt. For now, I present to you this little number, which stemmed from a mental image of all the guys you see in the following story lying in a heap together, in various states of undress. Why were they lying there? This is why.
Enjoy, review, and note that I'm not gone and I haven't given up, I'm just busy.
Sephiroth admitted that, sometimes, there were perks to being so high on the company totem pole. One of these things was being able to live in his own apartment and to furnish it as he saw fit. This perk was coming in particularly handy at the moment- he was lying still and achy with Zack's pet cadet, Cloud, huddled against his chest in a bed that was big enough for several other people to join them if they wanted. No barracks bed could have done that.
It would have been a far more comfortable situation if he hadn't felt so horrible.
Flu season had arrived at ShinRa.
------------------------------------
Roughly six hours before, Sephiroth had given up. His head hurt, his throat hurt, he ached all over, and the simple act of telling his secretary to leave him alone was tiring. With a heavy sigh, he pulled himself out of his chair and headed for the door.
"I'm going home," he said hoarsely. "Do not forward my calls."
She nodded silently, having already learned that Sephiroth wouldn't take well to her saying anything, even if it was to send him on his way with well wishes.
-------------------------------------
Back at his apartment, Sephiroth stripped, throwing his clothes over the back of a chair, pulled on a pair of ratty sweat pants, and crawled into bed. He was just going to sleep this off. Give him twelve solid hours of sleep and he'd be just fine.
Zack woke him up several hours later, coming in loudly- to announce his presence; he wasn't about to spook the General and risk getting shish-kebabed- and depositing something small, hot, and trembling on the bed beside him.
"Hggn?" Sephiroth managed, opening one eyes. His vision was utterly obscured by the thick blonde hair in his face. Muttering, he pushed himself up on one arm and looked to see what had joined him in the bed.
Cloud lay, curled on his side, right up against him. He was flushed and shivering.
"Another casualty of the season," Zack explained. "The rest of his room's still alright, so I figured it was best to move him before he gets the rest of them sick. Your secretary said you were sick too, which made this a good place to put him. You don't mind, do you? I'd take him, but the paint's still wet in my bedroom."
Sephiroth nodded tiredly. At least Cloud was warm.
"It's fine," he said. "As long as he doesn't bother me."
Zack patted Cloud's shoulder. The little blonde mumbled incoherently and pushed closer to Sephiroth.
"He won't. I've got a meeting to get to, but I'll be back to take care of you two when it's over, 'kay?"
"Don't bother. We'll be fine."Sephiroth lay back down, fitting himself around the blonde space-heater that he had just been blessed with. Cloud might not have been his favorite person in the world, but he was small and warm and not moving, which was enough to earn him a temporary advancement up the list of people Sephiroth liked.
------------------------------------
The sun was low enough to send warm bars of rich gold light through the blinds when Sephiroth woke next. He shifted and coughed raggedly. Cloud mumbled sleepily beside him and rolled over.
Lying down wasn't helping his cough. He sat up and hacked, clutching at his chest. That hurt. It took a few more moments of coughing and wheezing before his breathing was settled again. By then, his throat burned with the force of his coughing, encouraging him to get up and stumble into the kitchen for a glass of water.
While he was slumped against the counter with his water, the phone rang.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Seph. How're you feeling?"
"Don't bother asking."
"That bad, huh?"
"Yes. What do you want?"
"You got room for one more in your bed?"
"You sound fine, Zack."
"Never said it was me. Listen."
The sound of someone throwing up crackled slightly over the phone. Sephiroth flinched.
"Just who are you sending over here?"
"Angeal."
"That was Angeal?"
"Yeah. As soon as he quits puking, I'm bringing him to you, okay? At least I know he won't get anyone else sick there."
"Alright. Bring him."
"Knew you'd say yes! We'll be over in a bit. Go back to bed, I can let myself in."
Sephiroth finished his water and slid back into bed with Cloud.
-------------------------------------
Zack and Angeal arrived half an hour later.
"I'm baaaack!" Zack called.
"Not so loud," Sephiroth groaned, shooting a glare at Zack from under the blankets. Beside Zack, using his arm as a support while he worked his boots off, was Angeal. He looked up and saw Sephiroth glaring.
"Hi," he said hoarsely.
"You look like shit," Sephiroth said shortly.
"I feel like it." He slid his belt and pants off, wobbling. Zack had to grab him to keep him from falling. "Scoot over."
"There's room on the other side."
Angeal stepped away from Zack and braced his hands on the side of the bed. "I doubt either one of us wants you between me and the bathroom right now. Move."
He had a point. Sephiroth grunted and climbed over Cloud, who didn't wake up. Angeal slid under the blankets and settled down with a sigh.
"Explain to me how you've stayed untouched so far, puppy."
Zack shrugged.
"Just lucky, I guess."
"Let's see how long your luck lasts," Angeal muttered, shifting to get a little closer to Cloud. "Leave us alone."
"I'll be back!"
There was near silence in the bedroom for awhile, broken only by Sephiroth's occasional coughing and the small noises Cloud made in his sleep. Then Angeal shifted, scooting up to look at Sephiroth over Cloud's head.
"Have you seen anyone….I don't know, feed Zack something recently?"
Sephiroth blinked.
"Not that I can think of. Why?"
"He's acting different."
Sephiroth cleared his throat and copied Angeal's position, virtually sandwiching Cloud between them so they could talk face to face.
"How so?"
"When he worries, it's never about things like people- with the exception of Cloud- or welfare. It's about what he's going to be doing next, if he's going to make it to mess on time, and whether or not he can find some company over the weekend when I'm out on assignment. Puppy things. And now he's fussing over us both."
"Do you seriously think it's not just natural development?"
"Over the space of less than a day?"
"He didn't have a reason," said a small voice in the general vicinity of Sephiroth's ribcage. Both men looked down to see that Cloud had finally woken up and was watching them with big, somewhat glassy blue eyes.
"What was that?" Angeal asked.
"He didn't have a reason," Cloud repeated. "You both take care of yourselves, and that means he doesn't have to do anything for you. Now he not only can, but he has a good reason." He yawned and curled up a little tighter. "We're his world."
Cloud went back to sleep. Sephiroth and Angeal stared at him, then at each other, and stayed that way until Angeal had to crawl out of bed and stagger to the bathroom to throw up. Sephiroth dozed off before he came back.
---------------------------------------
Zack returned after sundown, bearing well wishes for all and two days of leave for Cloud, who thanked Zack for submitting the report and then went back to sleep.
Sephiroth was content to stay put, curled around Cloud, but Zack had other ideas.
"C'mon, Seph, you need to eat!"
"Why am I the only one you're bothering?"
"Cloud's sound asleep and Angeal will just barf it back up."
"I'm too tired."
"Trust me, you need food. C'mere, I made soup!"
"Actually made it?"
"Sorta. I put it together."
"Meaning?"
"I didn't buy it in a can, if that's what you're asking. Get up and eat, it won't take long."
Sephiroth groaned and dragged himself out of bed, shuffling into the kitchen. Zack grinned blindingly at him and offered a steaming bowl of soup. Further inspection revealed that Zack had started with canned chicken broth and built upon it, making it a decent soup worth getting out of bed for. Too bad he wasn't very hungry. He ate half the bowl before deciding that was enough and getting up.
"Thank you."
Zack beamed.
"Any time!"
He shuffled back to the bedroom in time to see Angeal scrambling off the bed again, tripping over himself in his hurry to get to the bathroom. Sephiroth considered just crawling back into bed and letting Angeal handle himself, but a miserable moan from the bathroom prompted him to go see if there was anything he could do to help.
Angeal was on his knees when Sephiroth came in and sat beside him. When his stomach gave him a few minute's break, he sat back on his calves and leaned into Sephiroth's shoulder with a shaky sigh.
"I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone from the labs had something to do with this," he croaked.
"Hmm?"
"Since when does flu season hit the SOLDIER ranks this hard? When was the last time you came down with a case of the flu bad enough to make you leave work?"
Sephiroth considered this.
"I was fourteen," he admitted.
"Either it's simply the worst flu season in years, or the labs have been fiddling around with viruses again."
It was possible. The last time the labs has been playing around with viruses, he'd landed in hospital with fluid in his lungs. Sephiroth shuddered.
"That's hardly a pleasant thought."
"You're telling me. I don't understand why the- blugh!"
Angeal lurched forward and retched violently, leaving Sephiroth to awkwardly rub his back and wait for it to be over. It wasn't like what you did when Zack was sick; Zack either stretched out in bed and didn't move much except for pitiful requests for snuggles, or he alternately threw up and wrapped himself around the nearest 1st class SOLDIER and stayed there, whimpering. Angeal wasn't Zack. Angeal was Sephiroth's friend and teacher, not his rough-and-tumble sparring buddy. How was he supposed to help him?
"You can start…start by keeping me from falling over," Angeal coughed, apparently reading Sephiroth's mind.
Sephiroth obediently put an arm around Angeal's waist, assuming- rightly- that this would be the support he needed. He was shivering a little, and moved a touch closer to Angeal in response to it; Angeal was plenty warm enough, though more than a little sweaty.
---------------------------------
Eventually, they both returned to the bed, where Cloud had been sulking about the loss of his heat sources. They settled down to the sound of Zack talking to himself in the kitchen, and were just about to fall asleep when someone knocked on the door.
"I got it!"
Zack thundered into the entry. Sephiroth pulled a pillow over his head, not caring who was at the door, and sighed.
Someone pulled the pillow away.
"I hear you've still got vacancies, yo," Reno said tiredly. "Got space for me?"
Sephiroth scooted forward, leaving space at his back. Reno stripped- completely, but no one tried to stop him- and climbed into the space offered, plastering himself against Sephiroth's back.
"I feel gross," he moaned.
"Don't crawl over us if you're going to throw up," Angeal mumbled. "I'll throw you off the bed if you do."
"Don't think I'm actually going to barf. I just feel like it." Reno swept Sephiroth's hair out of his face and sighed, breath hot against the pale skin. "Tseng said he was gonna come by when I texted 'im."
"What for?"
"Dunno."
"If Tseng is sick, then the Apocalypse is right around the corner," Cloud mumbled.
"Only if he admits it, yo," Reno corrected.
"Whatever."
-----------------------------------------------
Zack came in a little later, moving around the bed to check temperatures and force feed medicine to everyone but Angeal. He managed to arrange the blankets to cover everyone without disturbing the warm huddle of bodies.
"Holler if you need anything," he murmured. "And be loud, I plan on being asleep."
"Mmph," Sephiroth said.
"G'way, Puppy," Angeal grunted.
"Zaaaaaackk," Cloud added.
Reno made a few anatomically impossible suggestions and pulled the blanket over his head.
Zack left with a cheery wave, turning the light off. The people pile settled in to sleep.
-------------------------------------------
The door whispered open later that night, admitting a single tall shadow. It crept into the bedroom and stood in the corner for a few minutes, then began to take its clothes off. Down to boxers, it slunk over to the bed.
"You didn't have to sneak," Angeal murmured softly.
Tseng jumped.
"If you think you woke me, you're wrong. It's hard to sleep with your stomach tying itself into knots." He yawned. "Sephiroth let Reno in, which means the bed's fair game."
"You never know with him," Tseng rasped. Angeal winced.
"Ow. That sounds painful."
Tseng coughed into his fist, and nodded.
"It is."
Angeal pushed himself up on his hands and offered the empty space between his chest and Cloud's side.
"There's room in here. You look cold."
"I thought I'd just-"
"You're shivering. I can see it. Get in here before I get up and drag you down."
Tseng huffed and climbed over Angeal's legs, neatly fitting himself into the space provided. Angeal settled back down, lying across Tseng's thighs and lower back.
"Is this normal?" Tseng asked, wriggling a bit to get more comfortable.
"What, the pile of bodies in Sephiroth's bed? No."
"Can I ask why, then?"
"Misery loves company."
Tseng smiled ruefully. Somewhere behind him, Reno shifted in his sleep and groaned.
"That's certainly true."
-----------------------------------------------
Zack entered the bedroom the following morning to find that, while his collection of patients had grown by one, he still had the same number in the bed; Reno was slumped against the bathtub, having begun his fight with the stomach bug he and Angeal were apparently sharing. After making sure he was actually asleep, Zack covered him with a couple of towels and let him stay where he was.
He was only somewhat surprised to find Tseng squeezed in between Angeal and Cloud. He'd maintained for some time that Tseng was a closet marshmallow who liked cuddling but wouldn't admit it.
Angeal stirred while Zack was flitting around the edge of the bed, checking up on his friends.
"Puppy?"
"Morning. D'you want breakfast?"
Angeal made a face.
"Just because I haven't thrown up in almost four hours doesn't mean I won't if I give myself something to throw up."
"That's a no, then."
"Exactly."
"Wake everyone else- they need to be fed."
"Your funeral," Angeal muttered, and started poking the nearest bodies. Zack grinned and left the room to make breakfast.
------------------------------
He was halfway through a batch of scrambled eggs when Cloud's yell made him drop the spatula.
"Zaaaaack!"
"What?"
"Bring a bucket!"
He didn't need prompting. He dove into the broom closet for the bucket Sephiroth kept there, then sprinted into the bedroom. Cloud snatched the bucket from him and shoved it under Angeal's chin. Almost immediately after, Angeal retched hard enough to make Zack flinch.
"Thought you didn't have anything left to puke up."
Angeal shuddered and gagged, not actually bringing much up but trying quite hard to do so.
"I think," Sephiroth said hoarsely, "that you might want to try giving him medicine anyway…simply bulldozing through something like that can't be good for him."
"Yeah, I think you're right. I'll get something for him in a bit."
"Your eggs are burning," Tseng rasped.
Zack yelped and ran for the kitchen.
-----------------------------------------------------------
When he returned, Angeal had retreated to the middle of the bed, where he was curled up around Cloud. Sephiroth was sitting on the edge of the bed, his back against Tseng's hip, hacking into his fist. Reno's gagging provided background noise. Apparently, he didn't approve of the smell of slightly singed eggs.
"Anyone who's gonna eat needs to get up," Zack announced.
"Please don't say that," Angeal moaned.
"Don't listen," Cloud suggested, wriggling free of Angeal's hold and scooting to the edge of the bed. "I'm hungry."
"I think you're the only one of us who is," Tseng muttered, sliding out from behind Sephiroth and reaching for the nearest pair of pants. As long as they weren't Cloud's, all he would have to do would be keep them from falling off his narrow hips. He could manage that.
As it turned out, he'd found Angeal's pants. They were far too big, to the point of being comical, but Tseng ignored this and the faintly musky, sweaty smell that he normally would have turned his nose up at. Once they were on, he shuffled for the kitchen, one hand keeping the pants from sliding straight off.
Behind him, Sephiroth and Cloud, both already as dressed as they were going to get, trailed along. Cloud looked more alert than Sephiroth did, but only because his fever caused a bright-eyed look that his companions lacked.
Zack, who was disgustingly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, served up toast, eggs, and orange juice, then went to see about getting Angeal to take two small pills to try and combat the nausea.
The three in the kitchen last no more than ten minutes before leaving the remains of breakfast in favor of returning to the warm nest of blankets and bodies in the bedroom.
-------------------------------------------
The day was spent in a massive heap of limbs on Sephiroth's bed. Depending on who was where when, there were anywhere from two to five bodies curled around each other under the covers. Zack went to work, submitted some reports, and called to let everyone know that their absence had been noted and they weren't supposed to come back until they were fully recovered. This news was greeted with some acceptance and some relief- Tseng in particular had been sure he was going to be called back regardless of his condition. A Turk didn't have to be capable of speaking to do his job, after all.
-----------------------------------
The following day, Genesis dragged himself in and joined the heap, nursing a migraine. Apparently, the current round of bugs was ignoring him, but a busy day could be just as disarming. He sought refuge in the warm, quiet nest of arms and legs, burrowing in between Tseng and Cloud and vanishing from sight for the better part of the afternoon, appearing only to make use of Angeal's bucket and to complain irritably about Sephiroth's hacking cough.
-------------------------------------------
The weekend was spent recovering. Cloud was out of bed and back in the barracks first. Then Reno reluctantly shuffled off to his apartment. Tseng left on Saturday night, his voice still scratchy but no longer suffering from such a nasty cough.
Sunday morning, Zack found Angeal perched on the kitchen counter with a cup of weak tea and a partially eaten slice of dry toast. By the middle of the afternoon, Sephiroth had joined him in trying to find out how much chaos had occurred while they were both out of commission. Zack excused himself and returned to his own little apartment, grinning like a loon and celebrating his medical skills.
---------------------------------------
Wednesday afternoon, Sephiroth returned to his office after a meeting. An irritating number of people insisted on asking how he was feeling, to which he answered "fine" in as curt a tone as possible.
He settled at his desk, ready to start on the inevitable stack of papers he had to go through, when someone knocked.
"Come in."
Angeal shuffled in.
"Look at this."
Sephiroth looked up into a pair of glassy purple eyes. Zack was huddled in Angeal's arms, shivering fitfully and looking utterly pathetic.
"Seeeeepppphhh," he whimpered. Clearly, he'd come down with whatever Cloud had had.
"You expect me to take him?" Sephiroth demanded.
"From what your secretary tells me, you're on desk duty for the rest of the afternoon. I'm supposed to be drilling Third Classes in twenty minutes. All you have to do is put him on or near something warm, force some fluids into him if you get a minute, and leave him alone. You haven't killed your house plants, which means you won't have any trouble with him. Here. Take him."
He hesitated, then got up and came out from behind his desk, reaching out to pull Zack from Angeal's hold. Zack resisted at first, trying to cling to Angeal's shirt, but them he realized that Sephiroth's open jacket offered a lot of warm, bare skin to snuggle against. He let go of Angeal and did his level best to burrow into Sephiroth's clothes with him.
"Have fun playing nurse," Angeal chuckled, and made for the door before Sephiroth could stop him.
Sephiroth looked down at the big, sweaty young man attached to his chest and sighed.
"You may sit in my lap, but only if you sit so I can write around you."
Zack nodded muzzily. Sephiroth shook his head and returned to his desk, sitting down carefully. Almost at once, Zack rearranged himself to assure both maximum contact with Sephiroth's bare chest and to keep all body parts out of the way of Sephiroth's left hand. Satisfied that this was a suitable position, he dozed off.
He snored, but Sephiroth found that he didn't mind so much.
An eye for an eye, after all. Who can sleep properly with something hacking up a lung in the next room over? It seemed reasonable that Zack would snore while Sephiroth was doing paperwork.
Sephiroth made a mental note to call Reno and dump Zack on him the first chance he got.