Chapter Text
To Lance’s credit, he had made it through the mission. The fact he collapsed as soon as he stepped out of Blue back at the castle was another thing. Shiro caught him, and Lance made a crack about how everyone just wanted a bonding moment with him now, didn’t they? Shiro felt less guilty at that point for making Lance go even though he showed up to the briefing pale and shaking.
He assured everyone he was fine, just spent- and weren’t they all? They broke for showers and some rest before the debriefing and sharing more information.
When Pidge woke up before everyone else was even near considering it, they were bored and unamused with the lack of goings on. Running into Allura while wandering, and being offered extra lessons in Altean wasn’t quite the excitement they were looking for. So when Keith emerged from the training room after his cool-down, and almost trance-like training Pidge took the chance.
“Why don’t we do a group lesson, Allura?” Really, Pidge was hoping by making it a bigger deal it would be dropped, but Allura’s face lit up and she clapped her hands in excitement.
“What a wonderful idea! It could be an advance class, you two really seem to grasp more than everyone else so far- no doubt because of your natural preferences,” she winked, knowing Keith was teaching himself to unlock harder training modes and Pidge was learning it through snooping through the castle’s code. “The main recreation area would be best; the holoscreen and space will be good to have.”
Keith shot Pidge a look, why are you getting me dragged into this. Allura pushed them forward with a hand pressed to each of their backs. There was no escape, but even as Pidge sighed and Keith shoved his hands in his pockets, they were both pleased she seemed to be in good spirits despite everything.
The trio cleared the threshold to the rec-room, Allura outlining a plan trying to bridge the differences in what Keith and Pidge knew to find a good common topic to teach them on. She walked right into Keith as he stopped dead and Pidge turned to scoff at the clumsiness when Keith pointed to the couch.
“Lance is here,” He blinked for a second, absorbing the scene, “I thought he was sick. Why is he here?”
“Pfff, wait what?” Pidge stretched to the tip of their toes to see. Lance was indeed curled up on the couch, back pressed to the cushions and arms crossed loosely around himself holding on to a blanket that was usually balled up on one seat or another. “Oh wow, he really did just pass out here, huh.” Pidge nearly skipped forward, trying to keep quiet but all to excited to pry and be nosy.
“Passed out? Is he alright?” Allura’s brows knit together for a moment as Keith started walking forward. He walked with purpose, if Lance was sick enough to sleep somewhere so inappropriate for rest, Keith felt like he shouldn’t let Pidge bother him.
“Earth expression, really informal ‘He fell asleep’ or ‘He went to sleep’. Its not a big deal,” Pidge crouched directly in front of Lance to stare intently at him. Keith could see the cheeky smirk Pidge was holding back and shook his head. “Man, I can’t believe he went to sleep here.”
“We should probably move him. Who just sleeps on a couch? Well, besides this guy.”
“Is that… safe?” Allura had walked up behind them and Pidge jumped when she spoke. How could someone move so quietly, honestly. “If he’s ill…”
“Its just like, a cold. Suuuuuper common on Earth. You get tired and gross and snotty and sometimes get a little warm, but then after like a week and way too many tissues, you’re fine.” Pidge was rooting through their pockets now, distracted by some idea it seemed.
“Its really annoying, and not a problem unless you push yourself too much. But you do get really tired. That’s still no excuse to fall asleep wherever you want and germ up the place though,” Keith frowned.
“Human routines are so strange. So what do you do for things like this?”
“Sleep,” Keith answered since Pidge was oh so busy fiddling with their pockets and laughing under their breath, “Drink tea and soup and stuff. Try to take it easy.”
“When I was growing up, if Matt or I got a bad cold or like the flu or something, Mom and Dad would slap a fever sticker on us- it was like. There were some that had colors and stuff for fevers so when you have little kids you don’t have to wake them up all the time and check their temperatures as long as it wasn’t orange. And then there were the ones that were like a tiny icepack. We used those for really bad bruises too, but it was Matt’s idea and Dad really didn’t like when we did that, so he ended up putting them on a higher shelf.”
“I had those cold-pack stickers before. They were really weird, but came in handy a lot when you get stuck home alone and are too tired to deal with anything else.” Keith tilted his head as Pidge finally found whatever they were searching for.
“Wait, I thought you said it was common, why would you need something to change your core temperatures? That sounds- so invasive.”
“Its how humans evolved. Hunk would know more specifics I think, he kind of showed me the book I learned it from. But- well. Its not a big deal I guess. We’re built to change temperature in a pretty decent range for reasons. There’s just a lot of them, and I really want to just- I have an idea but we gotta act before Lance wakes up.”
“An idea? With a marker?”
“Keith. Please, you went to the Garrison too, there is no way I believe you don’t know what’s going on.”
“I don’t,” Allura whispered. She had crouched down conspiratorially beside Pidge and was looking on with confusion.
“He’s asleep,” Pidge explained as Keith dropped to his knee on their other side, “back on Earth, if someone fell asleep where they weren’t supposed to, you’d punish them like this.” Pidge uncapped the marker and started by making a round dot on the end of Lance’s nose.
“Oh,” Keith finally followed, “Right. Yeah, I’ve had this happen.” Pidge snickered and mumbled something that sounded like ‘of course’.
“Actually. I think-” Keith paused. Back before he had dropped out, one day around exams. He had been fighting with the school staff, dealing with all these weird energy signals and plotting them out all night, and was generally stretched pretty thin still digging about Kerebos at the time. He had passed out from exhaustion in the library, and nobody thought to wake him up. He ended up being woken up by someone laughing a little ways away, and he saw Lance and some girl with her hair pulled to the side in a pony tail the next desk over. That was right, Lance and he had that bit of a streak going then! Showing each other up and embarrassing each other in classes and the like.
Keith snatched the marker from Pidge’s hand as the memory fully formed. Pidge started to protest, but Allura hushed them.
“You said he had to be asleep,” Allura’s eyes were sparkling in a way the paladins never really got to appreciate before; crouched there with them, she almost seemed like another classmate from the Garrison. Keith had been filled with vengeance when he first grabbed the marker, but wasn’t sure what to do with it. When Lance drew on him in the library, however long ago that was now, it was crude rushed scribbles and nothing that he could really remember too well. Aside from the fact it took a good hour or more to scrub enough off before it was faded to almost nothing. It took days to wash off entirely.
“Keith draw something or give it back!” Pidge whispered harshly. Allura giggled, giddy with the prank. For a lack of a better idea, Keith drew whiskers branching off from where Pidge had drawn the nose and left some other dots. He passed the marker to Allura, who took it with a glowing smile. She shuffled a little closer and drew some mouse ears on Lance’s warm forehead, bracing her hand directly between his eyebrows to make sure the lines were clear.
Lance stirred slightly, moving toward Allura’s hand and she quickly pulled back as she finished the last ear. She covered her mouth to suppress an excited squeak, taking part in some of these human traditions was so much fun.
Pidge took the marker back and leaned in, squinting closely trying to think if anything else needed to be added to their masterpiece collaboration. Lance’s face scrunched and smoothed again under the scrutiny. Pidge decisively added a hastily drawn tongue with a feather-light touch of the marker tip- cautious to keep their hand from touching Lance. With a grin of satisfaction, they scooted back.
“Okay, that should be good.” Pidge gave a thumbs up and Keith reflexively flashed one back. Allura gave her own thumbs up as well, a job well done.
“Do we wake him now and tell him of the prank?” Allura swept herself up to standing as she asked in hushed tones.
“No! The real joy is in the person not knowing and walking around like a damned fool,” Pidge stuffed the marker away into one of the pockets of their cargo shorts. Keith felt a little bad, Lance said he wasn’t feeling well, but he felt like it was a deserved prank. They all joked around a lot, and Lance had been pestering them all with really crappy puns this past week. And as a bonus, he was finally going to get him back after that library thing- about damn time honestly.
“Well, should we keep our lesson plan then? Or do we… hide behind something like with the ‘bucket over the door’ prank?”
“We should probably leave,” Keith offered, “You don’t want to get caught at the scene of the crime.”
“I thought this was a prank-!” Allura looked startled.
“Another human phrase. Not a real crime, come on, move!” Pidge pushed Allura toward the door and Keith fell in step behind the two of them. They could work in the kitchen, that’s where everyone would end up when they woke up anyway.
--------------------
Shiro walked into the kitchen in a half-daze and waved at Allura, Keith, and Pidge where they were sitting at the table, leaning over books and practicing Altean pronunciation. He grabbed a water pouch and joined them, listening more than anything, as it was way more advanced sentence structure than he could follow at this point.
Hunk joined them in much the same way about half a varga later. He flopped into a seat between Keith and Shiro, yawning.
“Aw man, I feel like I got kicked around inside a tin can. How are you guys so awake already?”
“Been awake for a bit,” Keith answered, Pidge was too busy biting on a pen while Allura tried to explain a particular passage to them, and Shiro was leaning in too. He understood about half of that sentence and it seemed Pidge understood barely any. “Coran came by a few times, updating on where we are and stuff. Apparently, we’re pretty far away already. Plenty of space between us and there.”
“Cool. We doing the debrief soon? I could really use a good stretch, but I don’t want to get any routine started if we’re going to start soon”
“Lance is still asleep, somewhere. I checked his room on the way down,” Shiro shrugged. He leaned back as it seemed Pidge finally had the translation click.
“He’s in the rec-room. He didn’t even make it to bed, he decided it was okay to just sleep there, I guess.” Keith said.
“Yeah, he was pretty wiped. I’m glad he’s sleeping though, I thought he was for sure going to need a pod after he almost passed out there.” Hunk rubbed his face, starting to feel more alert.
“Aww, you guys just can’t keep ta-tal-TSCHUU“ Lance’s sneeze cut him off, “Talking about a guy like that. See look, you’re making me sneeze. I get it, I’m popular, but come on.” He laughed a shaky laugh that devolved into a brief coughing fit.
“Geeze you sound worse for we-“ Siro looked up at Lance and blinked in wide-eyed surprise. “Um. You look a little worse for wear too.” Hunk turned to look at Lance too. He snorted before pulling himself together. Pidge was grinning down into their work and Allura giggled, both of them avoiding eye contact.
“I definitely feel it,” Lance rolled his shoulders, “We have a thing though, so why not get it over with.” He scratched absentmindedly at his face, right under one of the whiskers Keith had drawn on.
“Oh man,” Hunk stifled a laugh with a soft exclamation, “I’m sorry, dude, you just- you look really adorable right now underneath the fact you kind of look like death warmed over.”
“Hunk, geeze,” Lance blushed to the tips of his ears. He stared at his feet for a second, Hunk was a friendly guy and said some really affectionate stuff sometimes, but it still caught him off guard when it came from him so sincerely.
“Why don’t you go, uh, wash your face and wake up a little more before we get into it, yeah?” Shiro offered. This was going to be a distraction and a half if it didn’t get dealt with.
“I’m fine to just get it over with. I’d really prefer to,” He wasn’t sure how honest to be. He felt like crap and really just wanted to sleep more. If he could get past the body aches, which woke him up. His skin felt tight, and after a cool shower and some of that really soothing moisturiser he had, he just wanted to curl up and listen to his voicemails again before conking out. He settled for a compromise. “The less time between now and sleeping this off, the better.”
“If you say so, ChuLance,” Allura sat up straighter, fighting with her own joke and smile. She continued with a playful waver to her voice, “So, we found…?”
“Bless you?” Lance took a seat and raised his eyebrow at Allura. “Um, do Alteans sneeze? Why do I feel like I don’t know right now?”
Shiro sighed, so they were doing this now, and poor Lance was going to be the butt of the joke for the whole meeting. He had a good idea who was the ringleader of the idea too, judging by the smug look on Pidge’s face as they leaned their head in their hand and stared at Lance across the table. Keith held his hands in front of his mouth to hide his own tugging grin, and Shiro pinched the bridge of his nose. Hunk was a lost cause for paying attention at this point, practically biting his nails to keep himself quiet and making little motions with his hands as he pictured Lance with mouse ears.
Coran coming in was the last nail in the coffin, and Shiro wondered what he did to have the universe punish him like this.
“Holy quiznak! Man the helm, something’s gone awry- some sort of magickery! A half-transformation spell taking hold!” Shiro slapped his hand to his face as Pidge broke down into ugly laughter, and Keith and Allura following suit with, at least an attempt, at hiding their enjoyment.
“What are you going on about?” Lance twisted in his seat to stare at Coran. His eyebrows drew together, tweaking the drawn mouse ears. Hunk made another noise to try and deal with the situation. “Oh for the love of- Guys what the hell.”
Lance groaned and swiped his hands over his face, his head was pounding and as bad as he felt earlier was only made worse by the mission and sleep, so he was really coming to the end of his patience quickly. He kneaded his forehead for a few seconds longer to try and ease the ache before bringing down the visual barrier between him and the madness that seemed to take hold of everyone else.
And then he saw the black smudges on his palms and finger tips.
“Keith! I swear to-“
“Hey,” Keith held his hands up, “You fell asleep somewhere you weren’t supposed to.”
“I’m going to kick your ass!”
“Oh my god, he finally clicked in,” Pidge smiled, “I’d run if I were you Keith.” Lance tried to launch himself over the table to throttle Keith, and he threw a glare at Pidge too.
“Here, let me fix that up, you smudged your whiskers… Ah!” Pidge teased, but then Lance switched targets and threw one of the, thankfully smaller, notebooks at Pidge. They flinched quickly enough that it just bounced off their shoulder, but the marker they held aloft fell to the table. Allura was sitting proudly and had her hands clasped in front of her, taking in the human ritual of ‘beating-your-goddamn-ass-for-messing-with-me’.
“Dude, chill,” Hunk was pulling ammunition away from Lance as he threw a few pens at Keith who had stood up and backed away from the table.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Lance groaned and pressed his face into the table. His words were distorted by how he pressed his face down. “Huuunnnkkkk, you’re my friend. You’re supposed to have my back, man.”
“I did, well, uh sort of,” Hunk poked his fingers together, “I’m sorry dude, it was just too cute, you had like a little mouse face and-“
Shiro pulled Lance up by his hood, getting the boy to standing even if it was wobbly. He looked winded from the brief activity, paler than even when he stumbled getting back from the mission. Shriro tucked Lance into his side and pressed his flesh hand to the boy’s cheek.
“Lance, you’re burning pretty hot there, come on. This can wait, you need to get that washed off and lay down, I think.” Lance leaned further into Shiro, letting his head lay against Shiro’s shoulder and nodded. He felt so much more drained after that. He gave a half-hearted glare at Keith and Pidge, who at least had the decency to look sorry for what they did now. He gave them both an ‘I’m waitching you’ motion with his hand before letting Shiro pull him away.
---------------------
“At least they used one that was washable,” Shiro was leaning against the doorframe as Lance scrubbed his face. The boy was so unsteady he didn’t feel comfortable leaving him alone until his was horizontal, preferably on a bed, but if the couch was as far as they would go, he’d accept that too. Lance, to give him credit, was holding it together really well. He shivered at the cold water, and was pretty quiet, but he was still going.
“Still, they knew-“ He pumped more soap out of the dispenser and went back to scrubbing at his face as violently as he could manage with his flagging energy, “I said! I said befo-“
Lance started coughing again, and Shiro couldn’t stand by idly. He walked over and rubbed Lance’s back, trying to help hold him steady.
“I said before we went out I felt sick.” He scooped up some more fresh water and splashed it over his face. He straightened and leaned in to look at the mirror, running a finger across his cheek. “Look at this, ugh. Its going to stain for days. Its already really dry.” Lance pouted. Honestly his skin was stinging, all over, but especially his face. He plucked the thermometer off the counter. Pidge and Hunk had figured out how to modify an Altean one- which to start looked a lot like one from Earth- so now it read in more familiar measurements. Now there was one in every bathroom, along with the rest of the less intense med-kit supplies.
Shiro kept rubbing Lance’s back. The boy kept leaning, or tipping, back into his hand when he tried to remove it, so he figured Lance needed the contact. He watched Lance place the thermometer under his tongue and waited with him for it to beep.
Time ticked on, and the tiny machine finally beeped. Lanced pulled it out and grimaced at the number shown. Shiro tipped it so he could read the screen too, feeling a lot like back when he had to help care for younger family members years ago.
“102.7,” Shiro read aloud with a low whistle, “How much worse is it?” He knew Lance would have checked before, especially if he got to the point he told the others he was sick.
“It was only 100-something this morning.” Lance sighed, “’Nd only 99.8 yesterday, all day.”
“Go get some rest, you really need it,” Shiro started to gently steer Lance to his room again, “Looks like you’re in for one hell of a bug.”