Hello! :D I read the two beautiful fics you wrote for the whump bingo! And if you're still doing that, I would LOVE to request the "Trying to be subtle while leaning against objects to stay upright" with our boy Lance! :D
Thank you so much for this prompt! I was really hoping someone would send it in~ I hope you enjoy! | My bingo card! | Read and Comment on AO3!
Okay, so, maybe heshouldn’t have drank that glass of… whatever it was.
Lance reallydidn’t know what possessed him to do it. A gut feeling, perhaps, or some otherinstinct screaming at the back of his mind wrong, wrong, so very w r o n g asthe glass had been handed to Shiro. Their fearless leader, who always preachedto them to never ingest anything they were given until they were sure of itseffects on them, had accepted the glass out of propriety more than anythingelse. Maybe it was the intense look their host cast Shiro when he thought noone was looking, the way he insisted Shiro drink up.
So he’d quicklysnatched the glass from Shiro, pressing his own insistently into Shiro’sother hand until he gripped it. “I don’t like mine, Shiro, can we trade?”he muttered, just loud enough for Shiro to hear and not offend their host. Andthen he downed the whole glass in one shot before Shiro could protest. Ittasted of cinnamon and cardamom and faintly of almonds.
He felt silly,then, especially when Shiro leveled him with a are you kidding me, Lance, really? type look. Especially when theothers followed Allura’s lead, drinking from their glasses demurely, and seemedto be fine. Oh well, he thought, maybe it was just him letting his imaginationget the better of him. He’d rather make a fool of himself than let anythinghappen to them. Better safe than sorry, right? Better him than anyone else.
But as thealliance negotiations dragged on, he felt that feeling of wrong magnify.
It started with adull throb in his head, quick bursts of vertigo when he turned his head tooquickly to follow the volley of dialogue that bounced about the room. Hisfingers tightened around the empty glass, thinking that he was just tired. Theywere going their eighth varga here, after all.
Yeah, just tired,he thought, when he started feeling his eyes droop and his chin sag. He wasn’treally contributing much to the conversation, anyway. Maybe if he just restedhis eyes, he’d be fine. He propped his head up on his hand, elbow on the tableas casually as he could muster, hoping that he looked like he was intentlyinterested in whatever was going on.
If intentlyinterested meant dozing like a schoolboy in first period, in any case.
“Lance!” Pidgehissed from his other side, nudging him sharply in the ribs. “Are you payingattention?”
“What? Yeah, ofcourse,” Lance said, snapping his eyes open and sitting up straighter.
“This isimportant,” Pidge continued under her breath. “We can’t afford to lose these guysas allies. I know it’s dry stuff, but can you please at least try not to act like you’re bored totears?”
“Aye, aye, Cap’n,”Lance whispered back with a wink. He smirked when Pidge rolled her eyes at himand turned back to the negotiations. His eyes still felt heavy, but he triedharder to stay focused on the task at hand.
But the strengthto even sit upright seemed to be seeping from him quicker and quicker with eachpassing minute. He leaned heavier against the table, the edge of it digginginto his ribs where the armor didn’t cover. Warmth burned up his cheeks, downhis neck and all over, and his chest felt tight, like his armor was suddenlysqueezing him in a vice grip that made it hard to draw in more than shallowbreaths. The thrum of his racing heart against his sternum hurt, like it might actually beat a hole right through him.
A quick glance toeither side—good, Shiro and Pidge were both focused on whatever point Allurahad just brought up—and Lance brought his glass to his nose and gave it a subtlewhiff. The last dregs swirling around in the bottom smelled just like theytasted, of spicy cinnamon and sweet cardamom and bitter almond.
His eyes widened,staring at the glass like it might jump up and bite him. Bitter almond. He knewcertain chemicals from Earth existed out in the vast universe. If this smellwas any indication, he’d just drank a glassful of cyanide.
He’d be deadbefore the hour was up if he didn’t do something.
The glassclattered to the ground as he jumped to his feet, slamming his hands on thetable as he directed a glare at their host. All heads snapped to face him,expressions ranging from bewildered to concerned to vaguely threatening.
“Lance, what inheaven’s name—”
He opened hismouth to demand an explanation, to ask them whydid you poison Shiro’s drink?! But he could drudge up no words. Instead,all that came out was a choked gurgle as his vision swam from standing tooquickly. He swayed once, twice, before collapsing sideways, Shiro’s quick reactionthe only thing keeping him from bashing his head against the table.
Gasping anddesperate for air, Lance tried to gesture to the cup where it lay on the floorbeside where he and Shiro had sunk to the ground. But his limbs weren’t cooperating;in fact, they were twitching and spastic, and distantly he recognized that hewas seizing. His breaths rattled out of him, and darkness edged in from thecorners of his eyes. Someone must have figured it out, though, because as theroar of his rapid pulse in his ears grew to a crescendo, he heard angryshouting.
His last thought,as he felt himself be lifted, his head lolling as the darkness consumed him,was better safe than sorry.