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Lance tosses and turns trying to get comfortable in his bed aboard the Atlas. It's just his luck to be deep in space and still end up with the flu somehow. Allura left early in the morning with Pidge to assist with the rebuilding effort on Olkarion, so he is all alone, trying to sleep in a pile of used tissues while he sweats through his pajamas.
There's a soft knock on his door and he thinks it must be Hunk with the soup he requested. "Come in," he says as loudly as his sore throat will allow.
"I… uh, I actually don't need to see what's going on in there. Hunk told me you were sick, but he's busy down in the engine room right now, so I brought some supplies to get you through it. I'll leave them outside your door," Keith says, slightly muffled through the heavy door.
Lance sighs, if Hunk is busy there’s probably no soup. Still, there might be something worthwhile out there, so he climbs out of bed and shuffles toward the door to retrieve the box from the hall.
The box is much bigger than he expected it to be. He pushes it into his room to take a closer look. On top are a few ration bars and water pouches, under that is a pile of towels, which is weird. Lance tosses them onto his desk chair to get them out of the way. Under the towels is a bunch of garrison labelled t-shirts in a variety of sizes that look and smell like they need to be washed.
He spots something purple sticking out from under the pile of laundry and picks it up, hoping for a bottle of cough syrup or something useful and quickly drops it in surprise at the sight of what it actually is. "That...that's a dildo. What the hell?" he thinks to himself. It comes as some comfort that it is at least still new in the package, but that is definitely an alien dildo.
"Well, that was a bust," he thinks as he climbs back into bed. Hopefully it won't be long before Allura comes back or Hunk finishes up with whatever he's doing in the engine room. Lance is definitely not going to ask Keith to make another supply run, who knows what he might come back with next.
When Lance wakes up again a couple hours later he is hungry. He glances at the ration bars Keith dropped off and decides he would rather walk to the cafeteria and see if he can find something less likely to irritate his scratchy throat.
He spots Hunk sitting at a table flipping through an engine manual and sits across the table from him. “You look like you’ve seen better days,” Hunk says as he looks up.
“Yeah, I’m just here for something to eat, then I’m going back to bed,” Lance says, pitifully.
Hunk produces a thermos of chicken noodle soup from his bag. “It should still be warm. I was gonna bring it to you once I was done but Keith just got this weird look on his face and said to leave you alone.”
“He was really weird about dropping that box off this afternoon too, I thought maybe he just didn’t want to get my germs until I opened the box and it was full of weird stuff like towels and laundry, and then at the bottom there was a…” Lance trails off not sure if he wants to continue thinking about the last thing he found in the box.
“Huh, he said he gets the flu twice a year like clockwork and one time it happened when he was with the blades and the care package they threw together helped a lot so he was going to make you one.”
Just then Keith steps around the corner into the cafeteria and walks over to where Lance and Hunk are sitting. “What are you doing out of your room, why aren’t you at least sitting on a towel?” he asks, sounding some combination of baffled and alarmed.
“I needed food, and why would I be sitting on a towel?” Lance asks, equally confused.
Keith blushes and his voice drops nearly to a whisper. “You know...leaking,” he says, glancing around the room to make sure nobody is listening in.
“Leaking WHAT!?” Lance asks in alarm.
“You know… the goop.” Keith says, red as a tomato as he continues to glance around the room.
“Goop,” Lance says, deadpan.
“Is this...is this your first flu?” Keith asks, showing unexpected concern. “The stuff I dropped off should help hold you over until Allura gets back. I can help you build a nest, but you’re on your own from there.”
“I don’t need a nest, I just need rest and soup, maybe some cough syrup.”
“I didn’t know about the nest for years, but it really does help. Just pile up all your blankets and all the sweaty clothes you can find in your bed and crawl in, trust me.” Keith says.
“Is that what the shirts were for?” Lance asks in confusion.
“Yeah, I got those from the laundry bin in the gym. I made sure there was at least one from each of us.”
Hunk looks up from his manual with raised eyebrows. “That’s the creepiest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“What? It’s comforting.”
“Oookay, well that explains the laundry, but what about the dildo?” Lance asks.
Hunk is fascinated by the turn this conversation has taken, his engine manual is now completely ignored as he listens in.
“You know exactly what it’s for. When I was with the blades, Kolivan wasn’t sure what kind I would need since I’m only half, so he dropped off a few different ones and I never opened that one.” Keith says defensively.
“You got sick on a blade mission, and they fixed it with dirty laundry and a box of assorted dildos,” Lance says in disbelief.
“It works, and you should really be sitting on a towel.” Keith says with a scowl.
“I’m not leaking!” Lance exclaims.
“You will be,” Keith states ominously before turning to walk away, pausing to greet Shiro with a quick peck on the cheek as he walks in before continuing down the hall away from the cafeteria.
“What was that about?” Shiro asks as he sits at the table.
“I have the flu, and Keith is trying to fix it with laundry and dildos,” Lance says, sipping his soup out of the thermos.
“Oh, yeah I can see that,” Shiro says thoughtfully, looking off into the distance. “I was with him for his last flu, it was intense.”
"Spare us the details, please. I'm already sick enough," says Lance.
"I'm just saying he had us both out of commission for several days. I think it's a galra thing, but he seemed to think it was normal and I didn't want to make him feel weird so I just went with it," Shiro says defensively.
"I'm sure that was such a hardship for you," Lance says, deadpan.
"It was two months ago and I still get worn out just thinking about it," Shiro says with a thousand yard stare.
"Okay, I'm out," Lance says, standing up from the table to make his way back to his room to crawl back into bed. His body is still achy, his entire head feels like it is full of snot, and he is sure he has a fever. The last thing he wants to hear about right now is the marathon sex Keith has to have to satisfy his weird snot fetish when he gets the flu.
After some tossing and turning, Lance manages to take another short nap, only waking when Allura comes back to their room after spending the day away.
“Do humans build nests for comfort?” she asks in confusion, lifting a sweaty t-shirt out of the pile.
“No, those are from Keith, apparently he gets weird galra flus and thought that would help,” Lance says.
Allura moves the shirts into the laundry bin and sees the packaged purple dildo that was buried under them. She picks it up with a laugh. “Is this also a gift from Keith?”
“Yeah, I tried not to think about that one too hard,” Lance says, burrowing further into the blankets as Allura sits on the edge of the bed.
“Someone should probably tell him it isn’t the flu before he gets more than he was counting on,” Allura says, fighting back another wave of laughter.
“What do you mean?” Lance asks, peeking out from under the covers curiously.
“I’m pretty sure what he thinks is the flu is actually his heat. It’s a galra biology thing, part of their reproductive cycle,” Allura says.
“Wait, so he thinks he needs to knock someone up when this happens? I don’t think he has much to worry about dating Shiro.”
“Not exactly, if he’s having heats he must be an omega. That’s the galra secondary sex that’s able to conceive,” Allura says.
“Wait, Keith could get knocked up, and he thinks that’s what’s happening to me?” Lance asks, half in amusement, half in alarm.
“If ‘knocked up’ is earth slang for get pregnant, then maybe. I doubt he realizes that if he’s treating your flu the same way he would want a friend to treat his heat,” Allura says, amusement evident even through her concern as she types out a quick message on her data pad.
“Who are you talking to?” Lance asks.
“I just sent a message to Krolia, she should probably be the one to tell him.”
“Is there any way you can arrange for me to be in the room when he finds out?” Lance asks with a grin.
Allura shakes her head. “Be nice.”
“Come on, you can’t just tell me this and expect me not to find it funny that Keith made it into his twenties without knowing where babies come from. Watching that conversation go down will make me feel better,” Lance says with a dramatic sniffle.
Allura playfully tosses the tissue box at him. “Get some rest, Lance. If you feel better later maybe we can try Keith’s cure for the flu,” she says, waggling her eyebrows.
Lance grins, “You know, I think I’m starting to feel better already.”