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Cristopuffle Berry Fever

Leon sneezed. Again. Which was followed by a coughing fit worse than anything he could remember.

Both Cid and Aerith were glaring at him, but Yuffie was the one who finally spoke up.

"If that's contagious and you give it to all of us, once I get better, I'm going to..."

"Yuffie!" Aerith exclaimed as she stood up and circled around the table that they had the map of the electrical grid sitting on. Cid was making slight alterations. Between the four of them, they'd made the entire thing 56% more stable and efficient. On paper.

Leon sneezed.

"Let me call Merlin," Aerith said with a slight sigh at the end. "I don't think you have a common cold."

"What do I have?" Leon asked. His eyes were watering. But really, he hadn't noticed he was sick. There were too many other things to do.

"That's why I need Merlin," Aerith said. "But don't worry, I don't think you're at all contagious."

"What do you think I have?" Leon didn't so much ask the question as manage to spit it out before another coughing fit struck.

"It's..."

"Cristopuffle Berry Fever," Merlin concluded. "Good work, Aerith."

Aerith smiled. "I read about it last year, when we were stuck in the castle library for a couple of days. There was a note that Cristopuffle Bushes had been spotted nearby that had been written in the margin. But they only cause Cristopuffle Berry Fever from quite frequent exposure..."

Leon sneezed. And winced.

"There are bushes over near transformer number eighty-seven," he said. He coughed twice. "I've had to re-check and re-measure in that area five times because Cid keeps changing his mind about what..."

He started coughing again.

Cid looked up.

"If we divert transformer eighty-seven to..." He trailed off once he realized the looks everyone was giving him.

"So he's not contagious?" Yuffie asked. "That's good. But how long with Leon have it?"

"Likely a few more days," Merlin said. "The more Leon coughs, the better he's getting. There's no official treatment, but there is something that will help with the coughing."

"What is it?" Leon asked.

Merlin shook his head and gestured for Leon to follow him over into the corner. Leon complied, but what Merlin whispered to him simply couldn't be correct.

"What?!"

Merlin nodded.

Leon stormed back over to the table, coughed a few times, and sat down.

"Let's get back to work," he grumbled.

"What's so bad?" Yuffie asked. "You don't need to wear women's clothing, do you? I'm sure Aerith has something..."

"Yuffie, how the fuck would that help?" Cid asked from across the table. "Probably just told him he had to..."

Cid laughed. Leon sneezed. Aerith giggled.

"What don't I know?" Yuffie cried as she looked over to Merlin. Who promptly waved and vanished. "Augh!"

"Well, one of the best ways to stop coughing involves exerting the entire body in other ways," Aerith said. "But unless you're volunteering..."

Yuffie's eyes were wide in shock. "No! Not me. Sorry Leon, I like you, but um, not like that. Get well soon."

"I would prefer to bow out as well," Aerith said. "I don't think you'd disagree with that."

"Wait a second," Leon said, before coughing. "I never asked anyone to..."

"What about Cloud?" Yuffie asked, tapping her fingers on the table. "I think Cloud likes boys and you two are friends."

"But Cloud has Sephiroth," Aerith said with a giggle. "Whether he'll ever admit to it or not."

"I'm okay suffering," Leon muttered. He did not want to hear another second of the conversation.

"If you're cough is worse tomorrow, Cid will do it," Aerith declared before smiling over in Cid's direction. "It's only fair, since you're the one who exposed Leon to the Cristopuffle Berry bushes."

Cid dropped his cigarette. Leon got up, pushed his chair away, and headed towards town. He'd had enough, for the day, of anyone trying to 'help' him.

After an hour in his own apartment, coughing worse than he had been and a little annoyed that apparently coughing to death was the key to making him better, Leon wondered if Merlin's awful solution would work, well, singularly.

The coughing was worse, Leon noticed the next day. He hadn't really slept and his attempt at taking care of things himself had been thwarted by being too busy coughing and sneezing.

Everyone looked up at him when he stumbled in to keep working on the electrical grid redesign. He raised a hand in greeting. And promptly started coughing.

"You look terrible," Aerith said. "Cid..."

"Oh no," Leon mumbled as Cid actually pushed his chair back and stood.

"We're going to get this over with," Cid said. "You don't want to know what Aerith has threatened me with."

"But..."

"No buts," Yuffie said with a smile as she waved goodbye as Cid dragged Leon right back out of the house.

"You're not really..." Leon stammered once they were halfway to Cid's place.

"Consider it medicinal," Cid grumbled. "Not because I want to."

He was coughing too hard by the time they arrived at Cid's to do anything other than be dragged inside. Truthfully, part of him was a little curious if it would work - and he was so tired of coughing. And tired from coughing.

"Cid..."

"Bedroom is at the end of the damned hall," Cid said as he gave Leon a shove in that direction. "Best if you take your own clothes off."

Leon froze. He was not going to do this. He was not... He couldn't even think while coughing. Maybe it would really help. Slowly he crept down the hallway, wondering if closing his eyes would help. With everything.

Cid hadn't returned from whatever he was doing by the time Leon found himself naked and staring at the bed. It was just a bed, after all. Harmless.

He dove under the blankets and promptly started coughing.

"Leon?" Cid sounded... nervous. Leon wanted to laugh. He coughed instead. Cid as nervous didn't quite go together. But then again, the situation was more than a little strange.

"It's... okay," Leon replied. No, it was not okay. Nothing was okay.

He coughed.

Okay, okay, it was okay.

Leon was on his stomach, not really looking at anything when he heard the rustle of clothing being removed.

"Roll over," Cid said. "Unless you want me to pretend you're a hooker with bad lungs."

Leon winced but complied. The room was fairly dark. He didn't have to really look at Cid, after all. But he did, and he couldn't help realizing that without his clothing, Cid actually was fairly attractive. Not entirely his type, but attractive. For Cid, he meant.

"You look like a scared virgin," Cid commented as he sat down on the edge of the bed and attempted to pry the blankets from Leon's chin. "You aren't, are you?"

"No," Leon replied. And coughed.

"Good," Cid said. "So let's just do this and maybe we can both get a little peace and quiet."

Leon nodded, wishing he'd thought to down a good bottle of hard liquor beforehand. Cid probably had some. But it was too late.

What he hadn't expected was for Cid to kiss him. Sure, Cristopuffle Berry Fever wasn't contagious, but Cid was his friend and friends... did everything they could for one another.

Amazingly, Cid's breath tasted of neither smoke nor booze, the two things Leon had expected. Obviously Cid had taken care of that - thoughtful of him. He hadn't expected Cid to be such a good kisser, not slobbering at all as their mouths met for a second time.

Cid groped at him through the sheets, startling Leon but not enough for him to pull away. Without meaning to, he actually reached up to pull Cid closer to him, something Cid didn't seem to have a problem with.

"Damn," Cid muttered once he'd broken the kiss and moved enough to slide under the edge of the blankets.

"What?" Leon asked.

"You haven't coughed in almost three minutes."

Leon frowned. Cid was right. And certainly he was doing better with his issue from the day before. Between the kisses and Cid's hand, his body was actually in the mood to handle more exertion.

"You've done this before?" Leon asked as Cid reached down to touch him without blankets between them.

"Plenty of times," Cid replied, an answer Leon wasn't expecting. Though if he remembered correctly, there had been rumors about Cid housing a particularly interesting man some years before.

"Then...ah..."

"Shut up," Cid said as gently as he could. Leon nodded, trying not to comment that Cid didn't need to be so thorough. The fingers on his nipples were merely a bonus. Cid sucking at his neck was simply overkill. He figured it just had to be fatigue when he reached to get a hand around Cid's erection, stroking gently and trying to gauge exactly what he was in for.

But he wasn't coughing. Not at all. Not as Cid spread his legs and began to far-too-gently prepare him.

"Not gonna break," he muttered, which made Cid laugh.

"Heard that line before," he replied, but didn't stop with the light touches that actually seemed to relax him enough for Cid to push a finger inside.

Leon let Cid kiss him again, distracting him fully, not that he wanted to be distracted. Cid did know what he was doing. Cid made it good.

"Do it," Leon whispered before he even realizing that it was his voice urging Cid onward. Cid nodded, pulling back a moment to spread a bit of lubricant on himself. Leon just tried to smile. He'd never paid much attention to Cid - not in that way. Cid was just always there, fixing things, making suggestions when they were all stuck for a solution. He was the perfect sort of balance, despite generally being obnoxious.

And friends did what they could for each other. Leon reminded himself that as Cid entered his body, pausing until Leon made some sort of moan-gasp-nod combination to continue. Relaxing wasn't difficult. He was dead tired but every nerve in his body seemed to be fully awake and raking in the sheer sensation that was coursing through him. He could feel each movement Cid made within him, inches slipping in until finally Cid paused again. Leon knew the wince on Cid's face. He probably had the same expression on his face the second Cid reached down to touch him. Cid wasted no time in pumping at his erection, which was quickly too much.

Wanting to laugh at himself, Leon didn't resist his body deciding that it needed to come. He wasn't even positive that his orgasm surprised Cid at all. Really, the way Cid was moving within him was rather obvious. And since the main objective had been taken care of...

Leon closed his eyes for the few rough thrusts that signaled Cid's climax. It wasn't anything personal. He was just so very tired. Tired enough that he barely noticed Cid settling beside him and certainly not Cid covering them back up...

"Cid?"

His coughing had woken him up.

"Not bad," Cid muttered from across the room, where he seemed to have blueprints and part of an engine taken apart on his dresser. "You slept for twelve damned hours without a peep."

"Twelve hours?" Leon asked. He coughed again.

"Don't worry," Cid said as he reached to unzip his pants. "I took a nap too."

Leon wasn't sure whether to laugh, cry, or make a note to take a torch to those damned bushes.