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“Goddamnit, Aerith,” Cloud cursed as he took in the sight of his bedridden girlfriend. Elmyra had texted him a few days after he’d recovered that Aerith was sick and she needed someone to look after her while she was at work. Elmyra didn’t point any fingers but it was obvious who she’d caught it from.
“She wasn’t… supposed to tell you,” Aerith said, sounding out of breath despite doing nothing more than lying in bed. Cloud might’ve been a little worse for wear when he’d had the cold but it had hit Aerith like a freight train. She couldn’t even manage to come to the door, he’d ended up letting himself in after knocking and getting no response.
“Thank Gaia, she told me.” Cloud ran his fingers across Aerith’s damp forehead, brushing the tendrils of hair sticking to the flushed skin out of her face. Her cheeks were so visibly pinker than usual, it would’ve been cute if she didn’t look like she was on the brink of consciousness. “I’m never letting you take care of me when I’m sick again.”
“Don’t say that…” Aerith fixed him with such a thoroughly heartbroken expression that Cloud assured her that he was kidding even though he really hadn’t been. That was a problem for another day though.
“Thought people who’re dating were supposed to dote on each other?”
Aerith wrinkled her nose. “No using my words… against me. I’m ill. Defenseless.”
Cloud chuckled. “I’ll let you off the hook just for today.” He glanced around the room. There was a water bottle with a straw (likely to decrease the chances of Aerith spilling it over herself when she went for a sip) but no plates or any remnants of food in sight. “Let’s get you something to eat. What do you feel like?”
“Ice cream.”
“How about some fruit? Or soup?”
“Ice cream.”
“I really don’t think eating a bunch of chilled cream and sugar is going to do you any favors,” Cloud argued. It sounded like a stomachache in the making.
“It will. It’ll be yummy. It’ll feel nice…against my throat. It’ll bring me joy. I want it.”
Cloud caved and left to raid the kitchen for a spoon and a tub of chocolate fudge brownie ice cream. Aerith reached out excitedly for the carton upon his return but Cloud hesitated to hand it over.
“Um… don’t you want me to feed you?” he asked, probably as pink in the face as Aerith was.
Aerith blinked.
“Since you can hardly sit up,” Cloud added hurriedly. “And you fed me last time. Even though I could sit up. So it’s only fair.”
If Aerith had been in full health, he would’ve had to brace himself for an onslaught of relentless teasing. Today, she simply opened her mouth.
Squashing the instinctual but illogical urge to blow on the cold spoonfuls of ice cream, Cloud fed Aerith a third of the carton’s contents.
Exhaling contently, Aerith sank down across her pillows. “My insides are… happier now.”
Although he was still debating the pros and cons of scarfing down far more than a serving size of ice cream when you were too feverish to get out of bed, there was an ease across Aerith’s features that hadn’t been there before. As if the dessert had helped alleviate some invisible symptom. If so, maybe the risk of a stomachache had been worth it. He still did need to get some real food in her though. “Now would you consider eating something with actual nutritional value?”
“Soup’s in the fridge.”
He wasn’t surprised to find that the soup waiting for him in the kitchen had similar ingredients to the one Aerith had delivered to his place, although this soup’s base had a distinctly reddish tint. Maybe Elmyra had added beet juice to the broth for an extra boost of vitamins. He set about reheating a bowl’s worth and since trying to gauge the temperature of the broth based on the warmth of the ceramic was a pain, Cloud helped himself to a spoonful.
He nearly choked.
It was offensively spicy, that kind of heat that blasted through the sinuses. Cloud quickly poured himself a glass of milk to wash away the capsaicin off of his tongue. He didn’t actually have all that bad of a spice tolerance, rarely suffering from a runny nose or upset stomach or watery eyes after consuming something of significant heat. The lack of physical symptoms didn’t mean that he found the sensations that spice induced in any way pleasant though.
Cloud abandoned the fiery broth and returned to his girlfriend’s room. “Who made the soup in the fridge?” he asked. He knew Aerith didn’t share his sentiment on spiciness and now he wondered if she’d maybe whipped up this batch instead of Elmyra before her fever had hit in full force.
“Mom.”
“Did she really?” Cloud couldn’t help being incredulous. Elmrya occasionally made dishes with a bit of a kick but she’d never tried to sear off his tastebuds.
“Yes. For me.”
“It’s ridiculously spicy, Aerith.”
“That’s the way…I like it.”
“I honestly think it might kill you.”
“It burns away…the sick,” Aerith insisted.
This seemed like another horrible dietary decision to Cloud but the ice cream hadn’t yielded any consequences as of yet and Elmyra probably wouldn’t have cooked something she genuinely didn't think Aerith could handle eating.
She ended up polishing off two bowls (and this time Cloud finally got to blow on the spoon) and although many tissues gave their lives for the sake of her leaking nose, not once did she gag or cough or (like Cloud feared) throw up.
“I’ve gained some newfound respect for you,” Cloud commented, dapping at her mouth with yet another tissue.
“Honestly I’m…too clogged up…to feel the burn,” Aerith admitted.
That certainly reversed a bit of the damage done to his ego after watching her casually slurp down a concoction that had him scrambling for dairy.
Aerith poked him. “Still…you should quit…underestimating me.”
“It’s only because I can’t help worrying about you,” Cloud said softly.
Aerith’s eyes flickered away from his for a moment but Cloud could still see the delighted smile on her face. He could feel a similar grin forming on his own.
“In that case,” Aerith said when her eyes were locked back on his, “I guess I…can allow it.”
“...Scoot over.”
“Huh?”
“Just do it,” Cloud urged.
Continuing to eye him curiously, Aerith wiggled to the far edge of her bed.
Lifting up Aerith’s assortment of blankets, Cloud slid underneath and slotted himself next to her. “C’mere,” he said, opening his arms up.
His girlfriend did not proceed to come there. “You’re gonna…get sick…all over again.”
“Don’t care.”
His lack of concern didn’t seem to impress Aerith but Cloud was getting impatient. All it required was one arm hooked under her waist to pull her into his chest.
“Hey!”
“Stop squirming, you’re just gonna tire yourself out,” Cloud said, wrapping his other arm around her to keep her close. “And stop worrying. Unlike you, I actually have a military-grade immune system. I only get sick like every other year. This just happened to be the year.”
Aerith made a huffy noise into his shirt but he could feel her relax against him, letting her limbs sink into his body. Her skin was so much warmer than usual, holding her felt like one of those stuffed teddy bears that was supposed to be heated up in the microwave and smelled like lavender.
Cloud pressed a kiss against the top of Aerith’s head. “Consider this my payment for playing nurse.” He waited for her, who never missed an opportunity to snap back, to inquire what her payment was for attending to him. Instead, he glanced down to find her peacefully snoozing across his chest.
There was dishes waiting to be cleared and tissues that needed to be thrown away but Cloud figured that he should remain as he was for now. After all, Aerith required rest and who was he to risk waking her up?