Disclaimer – I don't own FF8.

A/N – Much like for Eureka, I've got more than a few one-shot ideas running around in my head where FF8 is concerned. So here's the start of my story collection.

Main Pairing – Seifer/Squall

Seasonal

For all that Seifer Almasy was a brilliant gunblader and sharp minded tactician that many a general would kill to have on their staff, the blonde's immune system left a lot to be desired. Even when the weather was inscrutable, one could tell the season based on his current state of health.

At the start of Summer and Fall, as well as the start of January, Seifer would get nasty colds. These colds would lay him out for at least three or four days – the longest having been two weeks because he caught a virus while he had the cold – leaving him with screwed up sinuses, the inability to sleep properly, a dry scratchy throat, and the distinct impression that he'd been wrapped in invisible cotton. Fortunately Fujin had a tendency towards 'mother-henning' which got him through the majority of his teenage years without getting poked and prodded by Dr. Kadowaki overly much.

But colds weren't the only health-related issues Seifer had to deal with. He had allergies as well. When he turned sixteen, he finally found a combination of allergy meds that made his problems relatively unnoticeable, but before that he got hay-fever in the early Spring, bronchitis in the mid Spring, and a lingering, hacking cough for the rest of the season. Then, in the Fall when his cold was over with, the horrors of Spring would revisit him.

Oddly, though, Seifer rarely had the flu, never caught pneumonia, and managed to steer clear of strep throat even when two-thirds of Garden caught it. So even though Seifer's immune system sucked, it could have been worse.

Not that, when it was thirty degrees outside and Seifer was curled up in innumerable fuzzy blankets with a slowly growing fort made of empty tissue boxes beside him, the blonde gunblader was all that comforted by such a sentiment.

There was a stack of papers in front of him that he was supposed to be grading. Since no one really knew what to do with him – he couldn't be SeeD after what happened with the Sorceress, but he couldn't really go anywhere else – Seifer had been given the position of teaching assistant and assigned to one of the more crotchety instructors... who'd quit about halfway through the Fall semester because he didn't want to work with Seifer anymore. So, since there was a distinct lack of qualified instructors and Quistis flat out refused to try again so soon, Seifer found himself teaching a class full of fifteen-year-olds.

It wasn't that bad, really. There were other things Seifer would've rather been doing, but teaching the brats was amusing at times. They were all too scared of him to act out in class, which was nice but not expected to last. Their antics in the Training Center were priceless too. Seifer had thought only Zell Dincht could manage to cause immense amounts of trouble with the T-Rexaurs, but a diminutive little blonde girl name Luella Young had managed to actually cause a T-Rexaur stampede the week before winter break began.

Seifer had been very impressed... his other students, however, had been terrified. Luella wanted to try it again once the next semester started up and Seifer was seriously considering letting her.

"Those papers aren't going to grade themselves."

Seifer looked up and pinned Squall with a bleary-eyed glare. "I know that," he responded petulantly. He hadn't heard the brunet come in, which annoyed him about as much as the unevenness of his tissue-box fort. It would be lopsided until he managed to finish off another two boxes.

"Still not feeling any better, I take it," Squall sighed. He held up a thermos and unscrewed the cap. "I brought some chicken soup."

"I'm not hungry."

"You still need to eat." Squall produced a bowl from somewhere, along with a spoon, and began pouring the contents of the thermos into a more user friendly apparatus. Once there was an adequate amount of soup in the bowl, it was unceremoniously shoved into Seifer's hands. "You need to have at least half of that."

"Fine..." Seifer grumbled and curled his fingers around the warm bowl. "Have you had dinner already?"

"Yeah. My meeting went longer than we thought it would and Xu turned it into a dinner meeting. They're still going over things, but we finally finished everything involving my position. So I ducked out early," Squall explained as he wandered off in the direction of the bedroom.

As he listened to Squall poking around in the bathroom and the bedroom, Seifer somehow managed to finish the requisite half-a-bowl. He set it aside as Squall walked back in and mumbled a 'thank you' when the brunet took the bowl into the kitchen for him.

"Come on," Squall murmured, pressing a kiss to Seifer's forehead and then letting Seifer lean against his cheek for a moment. "I think your fever's gone down."

"Mmm... feels nice," Seifer mumbled, shedding his blankets so that he could reach out for Squall's touch.

"Time to get up so we can go to bed, okay?" Squall pulled Seifer to his feet.

"That sounds paradoxical..." Seifer let Squall guide him into the bedroom and beneath the covers of their bed.

Squall had propped up their pillows and tugged Seifer over until the blonde was curled up against his chest. "Love you," Squall said, running his fingers through Seifer's hair.

"Love you..." Seifer mumbled back, falling asleep to the sound of Squall's heartbeat.

A/N – Just a cute little something I thought of the last time I had a cold.