FF7 Prompt Fill: Insult to Injury (Cloud)

[ladykf]

[Tumblr post] From the Sickfic Prompts list, Insult to Injury - as if being injured wasn’t enough, (character) is getting sick too

While Cloud wasn’t by any means comfortable with the origin of his enhancements, it mostly had benefits. It boosted his strength, speed, magic and stamina - inhuman, but useful. After the mess with the Remnants, he was trying to find more ways to make that useful. A lot of it was clearing monsters, especially around Edge where his family was, but also along the pathways he was establishing as his own trade route, leaving it safe for others to begin to use as Reeve and the WRO got the economy moving again.

For a while, it had also had the benefit of making him seemingly immune to infections and illness, barring status effects and unfortunately not counting his motion sickness. After the Geostigma, though, it was like something had weakened a little. Maybe it was because he was run down too, or the lucky hit a Kalm Fang had gotten in when he’d been surrounded by a small pack. It wouldn’t have normally been a problem, but ever since Meteor had crushed the reactors there had been slow, steady leakage and radiation from them. Anything that wasn’t killed came out stronger, and it would take a little while for his healing to completely seal up the shallow slashes over his ribs and hip.

Cloud cleared his throat carefully, sipping from the canteen he kept tucked in one of Fenrir’s compartments, and sighed; it helped the uncomfortable burn that had settled there. He wasn’t sick enough to be worried, it was unlikely anything could get that deep a hold on his immune system even now, but it was inconvenient and it still hurt. His breathing wasn’t quite careful enough after, though, and his breath caught, a cough making him wince and brace his side as the movement pulled at his injury. He tensed against a second, breathing shallowly and trying to resist. The last thing anyone needed with an injury in the vicinity of their ribcage was to start coughing. So of course that was exactly the sort of thing he was dealing with. Ugh.

It calmed down after a minute and he lifted his shirt, checking to see if it had disturbed the bandages enough to merit a change. Apparently not, which was fortunate. He’d just have to be more careful until his healing kicked in. Maybe by then whatever illness was trying to creep up on him would give up, too.