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Shiro's room came into bleary, fuzzy view. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dim lighting. Despite himself, he groaned when he tried to shift his sore, leaden limbs. Briefly the sensation made him lock up with memories from captivity.
The sound sparked off a flurry of dizzying movement as he tried to drag his aching head into some semblance of focus. Everything was cold. An attempt to sit up set off a wave of shivering and wracking coughs that flared hot pain through his throat, sending spots through his vision.
Strong arms propped something soft behind his back, helping him lean forward until the coughs subsided. As his vision cleared, he felt incredibly awkward to find everyone surrounding him, staring at him expectantly.
Pidge clambered up to his bedside. "Hey, Shiro, how are you feeling? Do you need something to drink?" Small hands grabbed a cup to press into his. It was warm.
The warm, thin broth was a blessed relief on his sore throat. "I think I might be sick." he heard himself say.
"Hunk made you a more hearty soup for if you're hungry! It's really good! And Coran made...something that's supposed to help you feel better. It smells just like Earth cough syrup, weird enough." Pidge made a face. "I guess it's hard to make some things worse."
"I. Okay." said Shiro.
"Stop crowding him." grumped Keith, leaning forward to settle a hand on Shiro's forehead.
"You're crowding him." Pidge shot back. "Anyway, it turns out that even the pods can't cure the common cold, so you're gonna have to wait this one out. I'm sorry."
"Should you be in here?" asked Shiro, croaky and concerned. "You should leave. I've got to be contagious."
"Yeah, no," piped up Lance, "I know it's embarrassing, but you gotta deal with being seen like this. We're not leaving."
"It's not that I'm embarrassed." Shiro fumbled to explain. "It'll be bad for the team if I get the rest of you sick."
"We figured out a vaccine, it should be fine." said Pidge absently.
"It hurt ." grumbled Hunk in the background.
"So yeah. We can give you space if you need it, if you want to be left alone. But we're not going to do it for us." said Pidge, shifting to a cross-legged position on the side of the bed. "Do you." Pidge paused. "Do you need me to leave?"
The small voice got to Shiro reflexively. "Please stay." he murmured, tired.
If he was being honest with himself, he really didn't want to be alone, anyway. He let his arm drift down to settle a little on Pidge, a little on Keith. It felt strange and overwhelming to be sick and in pain without being by himself-- how long had it been?-- but it was keeping him from feverishly falling into the past.
"Hey, guys, make way." said Hunk, shuffling forward with a tray. "You hungry? Gotta keep your strength up."
"I could eat." he said. It wasn't dishonesty-- he wasn't hungry, but he could keep it down, and knew the hard way to eat what he could when sick or injured. "Thanks, Hunk. It smells delicious."
"Okay. Weird space cough syrup before, or after?" Hunk asked.
"Before." Better to have the worst over with, and something to get the taste out of his mouth after.
The cup creaked and trembled in his prosthetic. Response times were off, he noted vaguely, managing to throw it back without getting it all over himself. Setting it back down was a labor in care with the coordination issue. It tasted like fake banana flavoring in a way that threw him off.
He nearly missed seeing the others trade a look. Hunk gave a decisive nod. "Alright. As Coran likes to say-- here comes the lion in for a landing!"
Making a face, he accepted the bite. Chewing was equally laborious-- not an unfamiliar sensation-- and he settled his flesh hand a little firmer on Pidge's knee to keep from freezing up. Swallowing hurt , even dampened by the fast-acting alien cough syrup, and he fought not to gag as it caught in his throat.
"No, no, okay, no, I'm taking over here." said Lance.
"Are you sure," Pidge chirped, "because I've seen you try to thread the needle, tailor ."
"I got this! Do you know how many sisters and cousins I've looked after?" He took the spoon from Hunk brusquely and waved it to punctuate his point. "Small bites, man. His throat's got to be raw right now."
Keith blinked. "Someone trusted you with children?"
Lance started to puff up, but was interrupted when Shiro gave another rattling cough, though not nearly as bad as the last. "Blah blah, I'll fight with you about how good I am with kids later. Right now it's time for the blue lion to come in for a landing instead."
He made a little flourishing motion before very ceremoniously scooping up a small amount of the soup and placing it delicately in Shiro's mouth, which was probably more embarrassing. It was a lot easier to deal with, though. Keith looked thoughtful. Or, well, thoughtful for Keith as Shiro knew him. His eyebrows had moved up incrementally.
They stared in bizarre fascination at the spectacle of the next few bites. Their leader being spoon-fed, competently, by Lance, was apparently a spectacle.
"Huh. You are good at this." said Keith. "Can you show me how to do that?"
"You're not all going to take turns." said Shiro, surprised at how sulky he sounded.
Keith just gave him a look. "It could come in handy to know. It's an important emergency skill for the team."
He didn't want to think about the team needing the skill to feed someone who might be too weak to feed themselves. But he wanted to think even less about them needing that skill and not having it. His first time trying to feed a fellow prisoner-- "I can't argue with that." he admitted.
For a moment he was in a different place, dark and dank, learning the hard way to tip the cup slower and more gently, tear strange-grained bread into smaller pieces yet for bruised mandibles.
"Shiro?" Pidge squeezed his hand, pulling him back from the return of another tiny missing piece. He refocused to find the spoon held level directly in front of his nose, Keith leaning forward with a comically intense and determined expression, and opened his mouth.
A little soup after, Keith gave a nod. "Okay. I think I have this down. Thanks." He passed the soup back to Lance and shifted on the bed to lean against the pillows, legs curled to allow Pidge room, shoulder brushing Shiro's.
He missed half of what passed after, eating on autopilot as he processed the memory. The stench, the fear, feeling the pain and desperation again. At the same time, a small comfort in another example that he hadn't turned into a total monster during the missing year, a relief that it hadn't been another horrifically bloody fight. The frustration at coming up against another blank trying to remember the name, why he was feeding someone else, what had happened to them.
"Wait, are your arms even long enough?" he heard Hunk ask.
"Hmm. That's a good point." said Pidge. "Maybe if I-- yeah, that'll work!"
He found himself with a lapful of teammate chipperly reaching for the spoon. "He's probably not that hungry anymore, but I might as well learn this while we're at it, too. If that's okay? Is this okay, Shiro?"
Shiro blinked at the glasses brushing his nose. "I can handle a little more." he said, feeling bemused and displaced. The weight was grounding, but a cottony feeling was settling into his head, everything a bit distant.
"Alright, let's do this. Say 'aah'."
"Aah." said Shiro with a little snicker, tipping a bit to the side.
"I'm in." said Pidge, deftly placing the now-cold soup. For some reason he snorted at that.
"Anyway," Pidge continued, "is there anything you need? More pillows? More blankets? I always want a cold washcloth when I'm sick, do you want a cold washcloth? A datapad with something to watch? It's got to be boring being laid up like--"
"He can't answer you with food in his mouth." interrupted Keith.
"Oh. Heh. Sorry."
Waiting for the last bite to go down, they all leaned forward expectantly.
Shiro's eyelids felt really heavy. "You're warm. 'S nice." he said, drifting a little further to the side. "You're all warm. It feels good to be warm."
"This is awkward. Is this going to turn into a cuddle pile?" asked Lance.
"Team cuddle pile!" cheered Hunk. "Here, let me move the tray. Make way for the best hugger!"
"Is this bed even big enough?" asked Keith dubiously, but he shuffled in to press against Shiro to make space.
Closed in by care and warmth and team , his , Shiro let himself drift off and away into what he'd wake to find was the best sleep he could remember.