I'm so excited you're writing! Maybe a prompt where Lance gets sick and goes into Keith's room to ask for help, but finds Keith havin' a crisis about the stress of maybe leading Voltron some day, or about a crush he has, or something. So Lance is helping him out and they're just sitting on his floor, chatting Keith through his feelings, and Lance gets progressively quieter and makes less sense until Keith finds out he's got a fever and was here for help and decided Keith was more important?
Yeeeeeees. Thank you so much for this prompt!
My first sickfic, y’all! This takes place after the end of season 2.
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Lance may not be confident about a lot of things in hislife, but he knew one thing for sure:
He was sick.
What began as a low throbbing headache a day or so prior hadsince escalated to a full-fledged migraine, accompanied with congestion, anddry clamminess of what he hoped wasn’tthe start of a fever. He had tried to brush it off, telling himself that it wasjust exhaustion from the back to back missions they’d been on, but the wayLance woke up that morning made him finally accept the fact that it was morethan just being tired. He pulled on his jacket with a bit more effort thannormal before he stifled a sneeze or two into the crook of his elbow as soon ashe got the jacket on. He groaned in pain as the throbbing in his head worsenedand he had to admit it: he needed help.
He crossed his arms, walking out of his room as the doorhissed open. Who could he go to? Allura and Coran were no doubt neck deep in plans fortheir next mission, he didn’t want to bother them. And Pidge and Hunk had beentalking about staying up all night to work on some tracking tech to find Shiro,so he assumed they were either still working or passed out by now. He walkedout of his room, his eyes half lidded as he looked down both ends of the chillyhallway. Man, what he wouldn’t give to be able to tell Shiro. He probably stillwouldn’t have, he hated to worry the team on his behalf, but his leader’s kindeyes and gentle actions were badly missed right about now. It had only been acouple weeks since his disappearance, and the loss still fell heavy on theteam. No one was resting easy, not until they found Shiro, but of course it hadto be Lance that fell ill from itall. He bit his lip glancing to his right as he walked down to the next door.
“Keith?”
Lance knocked weakly on his door, suppressing a couplecoughs under his breath as he waited for the door to slide open, or Keith’svoice to beckon him in. He heard neither. Lance frowned and glanced around, hadhe gone to the training deck? He seemed to be doing that a lot after Shiro’sdisappearance… well, even more thanhe had previously. Out of everyone, Keith had taken it the hardest. It madesense, him and Shiro had known each other before they became paladins, and nowwith him gone… well, Keith had voiced to everyone Shiro’s wishes of areplacement leader.
Lance was about to turn and go back to his room when heheard a noise come from inside the room. He frowned, so Keith was in there. Was he ignoring him? ‘Ass.’He thought to himself, his sour mood from being ill flaring even more with thethought that the one person he thought he could go to on this ship was ignoringhim and damn it, he was going to give Keith a piece of his mind. He reachedover and pressed on the button to open the door, the panel sliding open with ahiss. Lance already had his mouth open, ready to spew his thoughts on thematter before it all faltered. Keith was in his room, sitting on the groundwith his knees pulled up to his chest and his gloved hands rung and grippedinto his hair.
Lance’s eyes widened and any form of negativity flew out theairlock as he walked over hesitantly.
“Keith? Hey, buddy… you okay?”
“Leave me alone, Lance.” A muffled voice sounded from inbetween his knees. It was a little too shaky for Lance’s liking. He didn’t likehearing Keith like this.
“Hey, come on. If something’s bothering you, you know youcan talk to me, right?” Lance suggested as he sat down next to Keith, crossinghis legs as he put a hand on his head momentarily to try and stop the room fromspinning. He shook it off as he continued, “I know you think you have to gothrough all of this alone, but know that we’re all going through this too—“
Before Lance could finish his sentence he was cut off byKeith, who finally looked up at him, the threat of tears glistening in hisviolet eyes.
“You’re not allgoing through this too! You’re not the one Shiro put in charge to lead Voltron!You’re not the one who now has to make sure we all don’t die! You’re not the one who will be blamed if all of this goes tohell in a handbasket!” Keith was yelling, his breath erratic as he gripped hishair again, his voice softening if only in defeat, “I don’t know why Shirothought I could handle this… he should’ve given the command to Allura. Allurawould be an amazing leader! I… I’m just some damn dropout who relies too muchon instinct to even think aboutleading a team and—“
“Keith.” Lance interrupted, putting a hand on his fellowpaladin as he subtly cleared his throat, all thoughts of telling Keith how hewas feeling had disappeared, he needed Lance much more right now. “Calm down.Breathe.”
Keith looked down at the floor he sat on for another momentbefore taking a few breaths, his shoulders relaxing slightly as he leaned backagainst the side of his bed. “I can’t do this, Lance…”
“Nonsense.” Lance gave a grin, “I mean, obviously Shirochose you for a reason, right? I feel like we should give him the benefit ofthe doubt that he knew what he was doing.” He said in the most cheerful way hecould. “I mean, look! You basically lead us through our last two missions, andthey turned out fine! I think you’re doing fine.”
“Yeah?” Keith glanced over at Lance slightly, noting that itwas strange how pale the blue paladin seemed. But perhaps it was just the harshlighting of his room.
“Yeah! Like, holy quiznak, when you took down that droneright before it could fire at me, you saved me dude! That seems pretty leaderlyto me. And when—“ his peptalk was cut off by a string of wet, congested coughsthat he buried once again in the elbow of his jacket. “—And when—“ he triedagain. When had the room begun spinning again?
“Lance??”
He could hear Keith’s voice, but it sounded muffled. Like hewas underwater. He looked at Keith’s face, it took far too long for him toregister that the black haired boy was looking back at him with a wide eyedlook of concern. “—when—“ he tried to start once more before the room tiltedsharply, his body following along with it.
“LANCE!”
–
When Lance came to, he was in a bed. His bed, he concluded by the smell of his conditioner on thepillow. How had he gotten here? He opened his bleary eyes and brought the heelof his palm to his eye to try and rub the blurriness away when a shift from thebottom of the bed made him jump and look in that direction. At the end of thebed was the red paladin himself, his arms crossed and his head leaned backagainst the wall the bed stood against, his eyes closed. Keith opened his eyesslightly after a second, glancing at Lance like it was something he had beendoing regularly before he did a double take and sat up straight, “You’re awake.”He didn’t even try to mask the relief that coated his words.
“Y-yeah” Lance rasped, his sore voice not cooperating as hecoughed a few times into his pillow.
“No, no talking.” Keith scooted up closer, “you scared thehell out of me. Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t feeling well??”
Lance opened his mouth to speak before a warning look fromKeith made him close his mouth with a frown. “You want me to answer you ornot??” he choked out.
“I just—ugh.”Keith groaned as he exhaled, “Just try to go back to sleep, okay? I told Hunk,and he’s trying to make you the space equivalent of chicken noodle soup. So…” Keith’svoice softened, “just rest up until he figures that out.”
Lance simply gave a nod as he turned on his side glancing upat Keith as his tired eyes slowly began to shut.
Keith sighed pinching the bridge of his nose, and Lance’sfinal thoughts before dozing back off was that that was a habit Keith haddefinitely picked up from Shiro over the time being spent together.
He knows Keith is going to do just fine as leader.
