Chapter Text
“Is he any better?” Lance asks softly, the door sliding closed behind him. He shifts the bundle of extra blankets he’d gone to get.
“Well he’s not calling me ‘Matt’ anymore,” Pidge exhales wearily, ruffling their fingers through Shiro’s sweaty hair. “I’m not sure he knows where he is though…”
“He sure knows how to worry us when he wants to,” Hunk adds, sat at Shiro’s opposite side on the mattress and holding the designated vomit tub in his lap.
“And his temperature’s still through the roof,” Keith mutters, gaze dark with worry as he reviews the reading on this Altean symptom monitor.
Shiro blinks, groggily shifting his half-lidded gaze between the younger paladins. For a moment Lance hopes he might offer some input that actually sounds coherent, but he doesn’t say anything at all. He just closes his eyes again. He doesn’t look any better than when Lance left. If anything he looks worse, hue grayish under the crimson flush of fever scorching his cheeks.
Shiro’s been ill since this morning at least, though everybody seems to remember him being a tad sluggish yesterday. Keith checked on him when he didn’t show at the table and found him kneeled over a slurry puke pond in the corridor. Allura had carried him back to bed and helped assess his condition, but she still had to leave to the aquatic planet below to discuss an alliance with the tentacled folk who inhabited it.
She said she’d be back as soon as possible, worried crinkle creasing her forehead. She’d put it off if she could but this planet flourished with several important resources and its inhabitants, while willing to speak, were wary of outsiders. She had to placate them. There wasn’t much she could do for Shiro anyway. The pods weren’t designed to remedy viruses.
Coran had made some broth he suggested might help before accompanying her, but a very delirious Shiro hadn’t been interested or able. Now doesn’t seem any more likely, either…He’s still obviously out of it and he’s shivering nonstop.
Pidge reaches over to the nightstand to wring out the damp cloth again. They gently dab Shiro’s face, wiping the perspiration pooled in his upper lip. They rinse it again and sweep back his fringe, placing it on his broiling forehead.
“You guys wanna help me with these?” Lance asks, shifting to keep the bundle from slipping again. He’d grabbed both blankets from his bed and a thicker, plusher comforter Coran gave him.
Keith puts down the symptom monitor thing and sighs, taking a blanket. Pidge slides down from their post and takes another one. Keith goes to the end of the bed and throws it forward, smoothing the end of the blanket over the first cover while Hunk gently tucks the upper part around Shiro’s violently shaking frame.
Pidge follows suit and Lance splays the last one overtop. Hopefully Shiro won’t overheat under four layers. His fever’s already bordering on dangerous, but the chills are really doing their worst. His teeth are chattering, the clacking an unpleasant echo as his whole body trembles.
“Man, if we were back home, I’d take him to the hospital,” Lance admits, ducking his head and crawling on the mattress. He plops back next to Hunk.
“Yeah,” Hunk agrees. “That thing said he was dehydrated, right?” He turns to Keith.
“Yup,” Keith sighs, idly tinkering with said device that looks like some alien hot-glue gun. He sits on the edge of the bed next to Pidge and lays the back of his hand to Shiro’s cheek.
“We should try to get him to drink again,” says Hunk. “I know he’s really out of it but he’s not going to get better if we can’t get any fluids in him.”
“I don’t think it’s just the nausea,” Pidge hums thoughtfully. “It looked like he was having trouble swallowing, didn’t it?”
“Either way, he’s not keeping it down.” Lance tosses his hands up in defeat.
They share an uneasy silence, watching the rise and fall of Shiro’s chest. It does seem that the blankets have done something for the chills. He’s still shivering but it isn’t as violent. His teeth have stopped chattering.
“Maybe he will now,” Keith ventures tentatively. “It’s been a couple hours.”
The four paladins exchange looks and shrug. They might as well try. If Shiro’s already dehydrated they have to try sooner than later anyway. Pidge climbs off the bed to get a water pouch from the dresser.
“Shiro,” Hunk prompts clearly, gently jostling the ill man’s shoulder. “Shiro, can you get up for a minute?”
Shiro wakes up enough to startle, jerking his head with a confused sound. Hunk is quick to settle him with a soothing shush and Lance takes his hand with the faint hope it might help.
“You’re safe,” Hunk assures him. “We’re in the castle, remember?”
“Someone’s— Someone got captured,” Shiro slurs. His gaze darts wildly and he snaps up to a sit, nearly smashing skulls with hunk. The cloth drops to the bed. He sways immediately and nearly flops back before Keith offers a shoulder to keep him propped.
“Look, we’re all here,” Lance tells him in an unusually tender tone. “You’re just confused because you’re sick but everything’s okay.”
Shiro seems to process this, slumping tiredly. Pidge shifts back onto the bed with slow movements, careful not to do anything that might spook him. Shiro had been frantic in his delirium for a better part of the day and that wasn’t safe for anyone.
“Here’s some water,” they say, charily guiding the straw to his lips. “Try to have a few sips at least.”
Shiro pulls away and glowers blearily at the water pouch like it’s a puzzle he can’t quite piece together.
“You need it, Shiro,” Keith reinforces tiredly. “You haven’t kept any down in awhile.”
This seems to perk Shiro’s attention, for the better or worse. His gaze drifts around the room, brows slanting upward.
“What time’s it?”
“Time to drink water,” Pidge coaxes, wiggling the pouch in their hand.
For whatever reason, this sells. Shiro wraps his lips around the straw and takes several obliging sips, wincing when he swallows.
“Go back to your rooms,” he croaks when he’s finished. “S’just a cold. M’okay.”
The younger paladins trade looks.
“Uh…Hate to break it to you, but it’s definitely not a cold,” Hunk informs with a sympathetic pat on the shoulder.
“It’s more like a stomach bug…in space. Space bug,” Lance decides.
“Don’t call it that,” Pidge argues, shuddering as a recent memory runs through their mind’s eye. “When I think ‘space bug’, I think about that super creepy centipede alien on that moon we went to.”
“Space plague?” he rectifies.
“None of us have gotten it,” Keith cuts in. “It’s not contagious enough to be a plague.”
“Spaceicitis?” Hunk offers.
“That just sounds weird.” Lance’s nose wrinkles.
“Space flu?” suggests Pidge.
The discussion is abruptly put to rest as Shiro wrenches upright, gagging. Hunk hurriedly gets the tub under his chin. Eyes glistening, Shiro hacks up the nominal amount of water he’d managed and some bilious foam.
Nothing else comes up but he continues dry retching, painfully struggling as his body strains to bring up what isn’t there. Keith rinses the cloth again and holds it to the nape of his neck, wincing when his fingers come in contact with the searing heat of his skin.
Shiro’s shoulders hitch, brow furrowed tight with obvious discomfort. There isn’t anything they can do but wait out the episode. Eventually he gets over it, panting like an overworked draft animal.
“You okay?” Lance asks.
“Mm…Space virus?” Shiro questions dubiously. It’s unclear if he recalls what the suggestion is in reference to.
“Alright. We’ll call it that.” Lance pats his arm with a sympathetic smile.
Pidge takes the tub from Hunk and scampers off to wash it out. Keith dunks the cloth back into the bowl as Shiro sinks back down, still trembling like a naked baby bird. His glassy gaze flits around the room. He makes a thin sound as he swallows, features twitching.
Hunk places a hand on his shoulder. “Shiro? Can we get you anything?”
Shiro fixes him with a hazy look. He squints like he’s trying to focus but it doesn’t amount to anything. If he did register the question at all, he must lose it; he closes his eyes without giving a reply. Hunk sits back. Keith presses the cloth back to Shiro’s forehead and if he feels it, he doesn’t stir.
When Pidge returns, it’s not just with a clean tub but an Altean card game that’s essentially an alien combination of go-fish and charades. There isn’t really anything else they can do for Shiro for the time being. All there’s left in to do is to keep on eye on him and make sure he doesn’t get worse. And then proceed to be helpless to do much even if he does get worse because the pods won’t fix this and there’s no ambulance to call in space.
So the younger paladins gather on the floor, save for Keith who immediately declares he’s not playing. Lance taunts him about being scared to lose and he takes the bait, ending up on the floor anyway. Hunk wins the first round. Pidge wins the next three. Shiro sleeps fitfully all the while and they take turns getting up to rinse the cloth.
Lance is bound and determined to break Pidge’s streak round four. He lets out a pitchy, offended screech when it’s actually Keith who accomplishes this. It’s very likely that it’s the screech that propels Shiro into sudden alarm. He’s up all at once, flinging himself out of the bed with wild eyes.
Tangled in the blankets, he’s headed straight for the floor. Hunk scrambles up and awkwardly catches him, grunting as he takes the brunt of his weight.
“Shiro, calm down!”
Shiro struggles sloppily, legs quaking while he whips his head back and forth, feverish eyes bright with panic. The motion is not well received by his turbulent stomach. A gag slips thick between his lips and a weak stream of bile follows suit, splashing the back of Hunk’s vest. He sputters harshly, wobbling against the yellow paladin.
“Whoa, Shiro,” Keith gets up and puts a hand on his shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
“Druids,” Shiro babbles. “She’s dangerous. There’s druids.” He slumps further into Hunk, visibly spent.
“Right,” Hunk agrees, hoping to address Shiro’s delirious ramblings properly. “Okay. But you don’t have to worry about the druids right now. They’re not here.”
Keith helps steer him back to the bed. Shiro slides back to the mattress bonelessly, clearly down for the count no matter how urgent he’d been to get up and scramble off to…battle druids, possibly?
Pidge picks the blankets up from the floor and Lance helps smooth them out. Shiro is docile once more but he still seems uneasy, mouth lined taut and brows pinched together.
“You think you’re gonna be sick again, Shiro?” Lance asks, hovering ready over the tub.
“No, it’s not…” Shiro just shakes his head, eyelids fluttering shut.
“Are you ready for water?” Pidge tries hopefully.
“Probably not a good idea,” Keith cuts in, warily eyeing the wet stain on Hunk’s vest.
“He needs fluids,” Pidge stresses. “I sweat a lot, okay, I know sweat, and he’s sweating out a river. Not to mention he’s thrown up like half his body weight. if we can’t hydrate him he’s going to get worse.”
“But it’s not going to help when he just brings it right back up.” Keith sighs heavily, sounding far more apprehensive than argumentative.
“Why don’t we stick him in the cryopod?” Lance asks. “I know it won’t heal him but maybe it’ll bring his fever down.”
“Do any of us know how to work the pods?” Keith glances from face to face.
“I could probably figure it out,” Pidge says thoughtfully. “But I don’t know if I want to use him as a guinea pig when he’s this sick. What if it messes with his thermoregulation?”
“Alright. I have to get rid of this,” Hunk says, folding the soiled vest over his shoulder. “I could bring Coran’s broth when I come back. It’s supposed to be stomach-sensitive so maybe he’ll actually digest it.”
“Might as well try,” Lance says, casting a weary look back to the ill paladin. Hunk nods and slips out.
“I’m gonna get fresh water,” Pidge sighs out.
They take the bowl and follow Hunk. Keith sits on the edge of the mattress again, bowed forward like a wilted flower. Lance sits next to him and gives him a gentle nudge.
“You okay?”
“It’s scaring me,” Keith admits quietly. “He’s scaring me.”
“Yeah,” murmurs Lance. “Me too.” He’d seen his younger siblings down for the count with bad flus and nasty fevers multiple times but he’s never seen anyone quite this sick. It’s especially unsettling that it’s Shiro, who normally seems like the most capable person on the team.
Keith shifts his gaze to Shiro and touches his shoulder. “Hey. Hunk’s getting you food.”
Shiro stirs, blinking. “Don’t know, the tubes…”
“What?” Keith asks.
“What?” Shiro returns, confusion unfurling on his sweaty face.
Whether the broth helps or not it’s going to be a long, long night.