#he probably coughs like he has 15 diseases and some kind of plague

[if-you-heart]

low effort heart doodle but I think it’s really funny. inspired by this picture of squidward

[newstfionline]

Tuesday, December 1, 2020

Merriam-Webster’s top word of 2020 not a shocker: pandemic (AP) If you were to choose a word that rose above most in 2020, which word would it be? Ding, ding, ding: Merriam-Webster on Monday announced “pandemic” as its 2020 word of the year. “That probably isn’t a big shock,” Peter Sokolowski, editor at large for Merriam-Webster, told The Associated Press. “Often the big news story has a technical word that’s associated with it and in this case, the word pandemic is not just technical but has become general. It’s probably the word by which we’ll refer to this period in the future,” he said. Pandemic, with roots in Latin and Greek, is a combination of “pan,” for all, and “demos,” for people or population. The latter is the same root of “democracy,” Sokolowski noted. The word pandemic dates to the mid-1600s, used broadly for “universal” and more specifically to disease in a medical text in the 1660s, he said. That was after the plagues of the Middle Ages, Sokolowski said.

Biden breaks foot while playing with dog, to wear a boot (AP) President-elect Joe Biden will likely wear a walking boot for the next several weeks as he recovers from breaking his right foot while playing with one of his dogs, his doctor said. Fractures are a concern generally as people age, but Biden’s appears to be a relatively mild one based on his doctor’s statement and the planned treatment. At 78 he will become the oldest president when he’s inaugurated in January.

Borrowing and debt bonanza (WSJ) Companies and governments have issued a record $9.7 trillion of bonds and other debt this year, as extraordinary support from the Federal Reserve and other central banks has fueled a borrowing bonanza. The total covers the year to Nov. 26 and includes nearly $5.1 trillion of corporate bonds, as well as some kinds of loans, including riskier leveraged loans, according to Refinitiv. Both figures already exceed those for any prior full year. More broadly, the Institute of International Finance recently said global debt had risen $15 trillion to $272 trillion in the first nine months of this year, and is set to hit $277 trillion by year-end—a record 365% of world gross domestic product. The IIF is an industry group representing hundreds of financial institutions. Its figures are broader, and include household debt.

Newsom says stay-at-home order likely if COVID-19 surge continues (SFGate) California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a Monday press conference the state is considering a new stay-at-home order in purple-tier counties if cases continue to surge. The state is experiencing the highest rate of increase in COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic. With 51 of the state's 58 counties in the most restrictive tier, 99% of the population could fall under a lockdown. The governor didn't outline the details of the potential new order, but when the state issued one in March it required people to stay indoors except for essential services and exercise.

The pandemic is forcing some men to realize they need deeper friendships (Washington Post) It took a global pandemic and a badly timed breakup for Manny Argueta to realize just how far he had grown apart from his guy friends. In the spring, after the 35-year-old had left the home he shared with his former girlfriend and moved into a studio in Falls Church, Va., on his own, he would go an entire week without saying a word. There were no more game days with the guys, no more Friday nights in D.C. bars, and Argueta was starved for social interaction. For more than a decade, psychologists have written about the “friendship crisis” facing many men. Male friendships are often rooted in “shoulder-to-shoulder” interactions, such as watching a football game or playing video games, while women’s interactions are more face-to-face, such as grabbing a coffee or getting together for a glass of wine. “The rules for guys pursuing other guys for friendships are not clear,” one man said. “Guys don’t want to seem too needy.” But the pandemic might be forcing this dynamic to change. In emails and interviews with The Washington Post, dozens of men shared stories about Zoom poker games, backyard cigar nights, and neighborhood-dad WhatsApp chains where casual chats about sports and politics have suddenly led to deep conversations. The moment feels heavier and so do the conversations. Some men said their friendships have begun to look more like those of their wives and girlfriends. “We are so used to finding a distraction to help us when we should be addressing what’s in front of us,” Argueta said. “The world needed to slow down … we should slow down, too.”

Another idyllic Italian village selling $1 houses (CNN) Italy’s €1 homes are back—and this time, what’s up for grabs is a collection of houses in the southern region of Molise. Castropignano—a village topped by a ruined medieval castle, 140 miles southeast of Rome—is the latest community to offer up its abandoned buildings to newcomers. It follows in the steps of Salemi in Sicily and Santo Stefano di Sessanio in Abruzzo, both of which have launched initiatives to encourage newcomers in the last month. So what’s the catch? There are, of course, conditions. Buyers must renovate the property within three years from the purchase and cough up a down payment guarantee of €2,000 ($2,378), which will be returned once the works are finished. And Castropignano isn’t exactly a lively place—it has just one restaurant, a bar, a pharmacy and a few B&Bs.

Pakistani nuclear program (New Scientist) Sleuthing with satellite images on Google Earth has revealed a substantial and undocumented expansion to a suspected nuclear processing plant in Pakistan. Researchers say it is a possible sign of the country boosting the capacity of its nuclear weapons program. Pakistan has possessed nuclear weapons since 1998, but isn’t a signatory to key international treaties on nuclear proliferation and tests. The country’s secretive nuclear weapons program is closely watched due to tensions with neighboring India, which also has a nuclear arsenal.

Turkey’s military campaign beyond its borders is powered by homemade armed drones (Washington Post) As Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wages a widening military campaign for influence from North Africa to the Caucasus, his forces have relied on a potent weapon to gain a battlefield edge while drumming up domestic support for foreign interventions: homemade armed drones. Their impact has been substantial. The drones played a central role in recent months in shifting Libya’s civil war in favor of the Turkish-backed government based in the capital, Tripoli, and they helped Azerbaijan, an ally of Turkey, prevail over Armenian forces in the fighting over the contested Nagorno-Karabakh region, according to military analysts. In northern Syria, Turkish drones played a major part this year in a series of devastating attacks on Syrian armored forces that caught some military observers by surprise and helped bring a Syrian government offensive against rebel areas to a halt. At home, the drones have become a symbol of Turkish technological innovation and self-sufficiency, boosting national confidence amid a severe economic downturn and friction with some other NATO countries. But the battlefield successes pose an urgent foreign policy challenge for the incoming Biden administration: what to do about Ankara’s expansionist policies, which have put Turkey in conflict with a range of other U.S. allies.

Thai protesters march to royal guard barracks in Bangkok (The Guardian) Thousands of protesters marched to a barracks belonging to Thailand’s royal guards in Bangkok on Sunday, demanding that King Maha Vajiralongkorn give up control of some army regiments, the latest show of defiance against the country’s powerful monarchy and the military. The protest came after days of rallies in the Thai capital, where a student-led pro-democracy movement that emerged in July has intensified pressure on the establishment. Over recent months, demonstrators have shaken the country by criticising the monarchy, an institution protected by a harsh defamation law, and demanding the king relinquish some of his vast power and wealth.

Brazen Killings Expose Iran’s Vulnerabilities as It Struggles to Respond (NYT) The raid alone was brazen enough. A team of Israeli commandos with high-powered torches blasted their way into a vault of a heavily guarded warehouse deep in Iran and made off before dawn with 5,000 pages of top secret papers on the country’s nuclear program. Then in a television broadcast a few weeks later, in April 2018, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel singled out the scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh as the captain of Iran’s covert attempts to assemble a nuclear weapon. Now Mr. Fakhrizadeh has become the latest casualty in a campaign of audacious covert attacks seemingly designed to torment Iranian leaders with reminders of their weakness. His killing was the latest in a decade-long pattern of mysterious poisonings, car bombings, shootings, thefts and sabotage that have afflicted the Islamic Republic. Most have hit largely anonymous scientists or secretive facilities believed to be linked to its nuclear program, and almost all have been attributed by both American and Iranian officials to Tehran’s great nemesis, Israel. Israeli officials—without formally acknowledging responsibility—have all but openly gloated over the repeated success of their spies. Never, however, has the Islamic Republic endured a spate of covert attacks quite like in 2020. In January, an American drone strike killed the revered general Qassim Suleimani as he was in a car leaving the Baghdad airport (an attack facilitated by Israel’s intelligence, officials say). And Iran was humiliated in August by an Israeli hit team’s fatal shooting of a senior Al Qaeda leader on the streets of Tehran (this time at the behest of the United States, its officials have said).

'Christmas will not be cancelled' says Bethlehem (Reuters) Bethlehem is shaping up for a dismal Christmas: most of the inns are closed, the shepherds are likely to be under lockdown and there are few visitors from the east, or anywhere else. Just 12 months ago, the Palestinian town was celebrating its busiest festive season for two decades, amid a sustained drop in violence and a corresponding surge in the number of pilgrims and tourists. But hotels that were adding new wings in 2019 are now shuttered because of the coronavirus pandemic. Nevertheless, town leaders say the traditional birthplace of Jesus will go ahead with its celebrations, aware that the world’s eyes are upon it at this time of year. “Bethlehem is going to celebrate Christmas. And Christmas will not be cancelled,” said Mayor Anton Salman, as workers behind him erected a huge Christmas tree in Manger Square. “This Christmas from Bethlehem there will be a message of hope to the whole world, that the world will recover from this pandemic.” The newly-appointed Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, on Monday said, “This Christmas will be less festive than usual as there will be restrictions, I suppose like any other part of the world, but none will stop us from expressing the true meaning of Christmas which is to make an act of love.”

At least 110 dead in Nigeria after suspected Boko Haram attack (The Guardian) At least 110 people have been killed in an attack on a village in north-east Nigeria blamed on the Boko Haram jihadist group, according to the UN humanitarian coordinator in the country. “At least 110 civilians were ruthlessly killed and many others were wounded in this attack,” Edward Kallon said in a statement after initial tolls indicated 43 and then at least 70 dead from the massacre on Saturday by suspected Boko Haram fighters. The attack took place in the village of Koshobe near the main city of Maiduguri, with assailants targeting farmers on rice fields.

Malaria death toll to exceed COVID-19’s in sub-Saharan Africa (Reuters) Deaths from malaria due to disruptions during the coronavirus pandemic to services designed to tackle the mosquito-borne disease will far exceed those killed by COVID-19 in sub-Saharan Africa, the World Health Organization warned. More than 409,000 people globally—most of them babies in the poorest parts of Africa—were killed by malaria last year, the WHO said, and COVID-19 will almost certainly push that toll higher in 2020.

[lady-divine-writes]

Klaine one-shot - “The Dangers of Self-Medicating” (Rated PG13)

Summary: Kurt gets sick on a business trip, and everything he does just to get home makes it worse. (2024 words)

Notes: So, I have been feeling a little blue and entirely unmotivated, so I started editing some old work and came across this one. It's the first thing I've laughed at in a couple of days, so I re-wrote it for Klaine (just in case it looks familiar, now you know).

Read on AO3.

“Sir?”

“Mmmrrr … hmmm?”

“Sir? We’re here.”

“Here?” Kurt’s eyelids flutter slightly, opening a sliver. But when the mid-morning sun hits their dry, red surface, he immediately shuts them again. “Where’s here?”

“15-22 Mulberry Place? It’s the address you gave me.”

“The address I … wha---?” Kurt pries open his eyes. The address sounds familiar, but the voice speaking to him doesn’t. There’s a lot of mud and fog cluttering his brain. The last thing he remembers is being in his hotel room, packing his bag. No, it was losing his breakfast, and lunch and dinner from the day before, in an airport toilet. No, no, it was waiting by the curb, clutching on to the handle of his carry-on for support while he waited for his Uber to arrive.

Uber! He’s in an Uber! Which means he must be …

“Home?” he says in a raw, grumbly voice.

“I guess.” The man puts his car into park. “Do you need any help with your bag?”

“Nah.” Kurt grabs the handle of the bag he’s been cuddling awkwardly since he fell asleep in this poor man’s back seat. At least he didn’t vomit in his car. As far as Kurt can remember, he’s baptized nearly every toilet and trash can from the airport, to Manhattan, to home. “I’ve got it.” I’ll just pour myself onto the pavement and slither up to my front door, he thinks. “Here …” Kurt fumbles a hand into his pocket and pulls out his wallet. Squinting, he fishes out three tens and clumsily hands them to the driver. “Thanks for everything.”

“Good luck,” the driver says, mentally snickering at the intoxicated man doing his best to exit his Prius. Ten sheets to the wind at barely eleven in the morning?

Well, it’s five o’clock somewhere.

Kurt backs out of the car butt-first, searching for the ground with his feet to make absolutely certain that it’s there. Once they make contact, he extricates the rest of his body, his Samsonite bag landing on the curb with a thunk when his arms fail to support its weight. It takes him longer to stand up straight, the compact blue Toyota gone before Kurt gets his head balanced on his shoulders.

He blinks his eyes and looks around, wondering why his husband isn’t there to meet him at the curb. Blaine and Tracy drove him to the airport, but he took an Uber home. And thank God he did. There’s no parking anywhere on the street this morning. Of course, he lives here and, hence, has a driveway to pull in to, but still. Strange, but Kurt doesn’t have the brain capacity to speculate about that just now.

Kurt has been traveling for most of the morning, voluntarily switching flights twice when a technical malfunction bumped travelers off their plane. He went from first class to coach, then back to first class again. He misses his family, but he came out of the deal with two travel vouchers, a slew of frequent flier miles, and a thousand dollar refund back to his credit card.

Not too shabby for a Sunday afternoon.

He’s a stone’s throw from home, but the way he’s feeling, it might take him the rest of the afternoon to get there.

Kurt turns, taking baby steps, one tiny shuffle at a time with breaths in between to keep the sidewalk underneath his feet. He does the same for the journey up his driveway – shuffle-shuffle pause, shuffle-shuffle pause, bending at the knees on occasion to ground himself and keep from collapsing.

The walk up his driveway to his front door on this beautiful Sunday afternoon is the most excruciating thing Kurt has done in ages.

Correction – pulling out his keys, listening to the God awful things jangle loudly, the noise ricocheting like bocce balls inside his skull, is the most excruciating. Walking up the driveway, and then up the front steps, each movement sending a dull ache searing from the soles of his feet to his forehead, was simply a precursor to this pain.

Kurt doesn’t understand how he could have gotten sick. He’d been on top of his Echinacea and his Vitamin C game for a week before he left. He kept his mouth and nose covered with a scarf on the plane, and no one he spent any significant time with looked particularly ill. Then again, he’s learned from having a child that sick people are often contagious way before they show any symptoms.

Plague-ridden bastards and their ninja germs bombarding him with their unseen illnesses! He did everything in his power to keep from catching anything, and now he’s standing at death’s door.

In reality, it’s probably from traveling back and forth between coasts after all these years of calm, suburban living. Living in the boonies, away from the dirt and the grime and the smog of the city has lowered his immune system, made him weak on a microbial level.

Clean air and sunshine – it will do you in every time.

His key ring raised to an inch from his eyes, he isolates his door key and pinches it between his thumb and index finger. He tries to stab it into the lock, but he keeps missing, his triple vision causing the end to veer away from the hole at the last minute and hit the door instead.

“Get … in … there,” Kurt snaps. “Get … in … that … hole … you stupid … little …” Kurt hears the door unlock and lets go of his key, assuming it made its way into the lock somehow. But the ring falls to the ground with a phenomenal bang. “Shoot!” he mutters, realizing he’ll need to bend over to pick it up.

If he does, he may never stand straight again.

The door swings open, the momentum of it almost dragging Kurt forward with it.

“Well, well. Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?” Blaine coos, his body blocking Kurt’s way, saving him from falling on his face.

“He-ey!” Kurt says, bright but slow, sounding as drunk as he looks.

“Hey, honey.” Blaine gives his husband an enthusiastic, lovesick once-over, but raises a brow at his wrinkled clothes, his unbuttoned collar, his flushed face, and his severely disheveled hair. “How was your trip?”

“Regrettable, to be honest. Ooo, I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Kurt throws a hand over his mouth, diverting Blaine’s kiss from his lips to his cheek. “I think I contracted bird flu somewhere between Broadway and 75th Street. Or maybe syphilis.”

“Is syphilis an airborne disease? Because, if it isn’t, I have some questions.” Blaine opens the door wider. Grabbing Kurt’s bag in one hand and his elbow with the other, he leads him inside.

“Hmm, so do I.”

Blaine walks his husband to the sofa and helps him onto a cushion. “So did you miss your plane and walk home?” he asks, retrieving Kurt’s keys and closing the front door.

“Very funny.”

“I don’t want to say you look awful but …” Blaine takes a few steps back to get a good long look at Kurt sinking into the sofa, his head finding the arm and leaning against it. He doesn’t look like himself at all – from the hair to the clothes, and beyond his flushed cheeks, his skin actually looks green “… you look awful.”

“It’s not my fault. I took an Ambien last night to help me sleep off this …” Kurt waves a hand in front of his nose “… whatever I caught, but it didn’t help. I was coughing and sneezing and tossing all night. By six a.m., I was afraid I’d crash before I made it to the airport, so I took some DayQuil to keep me alert. But I guess DayQuil and Ambien don’t play nice together.”

“I guess not.”

“To top it off, since my plane was delayed, I dropped into what I thought was a Dunkin’ Donuts. I mean, the banner over the door looked the same and everything. Turns out, it was some new boutique place called Drunkin’ Donuts. I ate two blackberry wine donuts before I realized I was feeling tipsy.”

“Uh, but wouldn’t the alcohol in the donuts cook away?” Blaine asks, digging his phone out of his pocket and logging on to WebMD to see how much trouble his husband might be in.

“Yeah, in the donut, but not the jam filling. I’m amazed I made it home. After that, everything was kind of a blur.”

“Like what?”

Kurt swallows. This was the part he was hoping he wouldn’t have to get into until he was better … or sober. “Okay, don’t get mad, but I may have tweeted David Beckham and told him he had, and I quote, a very bite-able bod?” Kurt admits, eyes begging his husband to please tell him that that was just a dream.

And even though Blaine is quietly panicking over the fact that his husband might need his stomach pumped, he can’t help laughing at his man’s expense.

“Alas, you did,” Blaine confirms. “But in case you didn’t see his reply tweet, he claims that you do, too. And his wife concurs, so there’s that. Of course, Isabelle jumped on the whole thread and posted it to every social media account Vogue owns. I think you may have raised your stock value with that snafu.”

“Thank God!” Kurt moans. He knew that tweet wouldn’t cost him his job or anything, and he was only mildly worried about what it might do for his home life. But more than that, he was afraid what might happen next time he and Victoria Beckham crossed paths.

She might be petite, but he’s heard she’s a hair puller.

“What else?” Blaine asks, keeping Kurt awake while he stalls for time.

“I may have ordered everything from pages 23, 24, and 25 of the SkyMall catalogue.”

“You do that even when you’re not under the influence. I mean, so do I, but ...”

“And I …” And this is the one that may have Kurt crawling beneath the sofa out of sheer embarrassment “… I may have emailed all of our friends and family … using your email account … and invited them here today for, and again I quote, a surprise party in honor of the wonder that is me?”

“Right again.” Blaine chuckles, laced with concern. “And by the time I checked my email, they had all RSVP’d. They’re in the kitchen waiting to yell surprise the second I open the door.”

Kurt’s eyes pop, his gaze shifting to the door beside him, terrified by this new knowledge that seventy or more people might be on the other side, ready to scream at him.

That alone makes his stomach flip.

That explains the lack of parking on the street.

“And you couldn’t just cancel?” Kurt groans, putting his hands over his ears in preparation for the cheer that’s about to run him over like a freight train.

“Of course not. I invited them. And I’m nothing if not a considerate host.” But Blaine doesn’t open the door. He hits send on a mass text and shoves his phone back in his pocket. From beyond the white-washed piece of wood, Kurt hears the muffled trickle of text alerts going off, accompanied by a rumble of voices muttering in confusion. Someone who could be Mercedes says, “Hey, Bun-Bun! How would you like to go play mini golf with me and your Uncle Sam?”

“Would I?” Tracy squeals, followed by the patter of her footsteps racing to her bedroom upstairs, presumably to get her coat and shoes.

“Wha---what are we doing?” Kurt mumbles as Blaine helps him off the couch, wondering if they’re going to go play mini golf with their daughter and her mom. He’d love to, but he’s not sure he’d be able to make it farther than the fourth hole. “Where are we going?”

“I thought it might be a good idea if we turned this welcome home celebration into a party of two. And we’re holding it at the emergency room.”

[sarah--writes-blog]

A Group Effort

Anon: I would love to see my boy Lance with a headcold!! Make him suffer :')

Anon: i'd like to see Lance with a headcold! and i dont care more than that. just as long as i can see my boy with a snuffly nose.

A/N: This is my first cold-based fic! I’m much more used to fever- and stomach-based things, so here we go with expanding horizons! Pray for me and spelling out sneezes. This had a lot of Lance and Keith still hating each other, it almost hurt my heart to write after all the Klance stuff.

It’s silent in space. It is a vacuum, there’s no medium for sound to travel through. Even while in their lions, practicing maneuvering through fodder the castleship threw at them, the paladins remained silent and focused. It didn’t last long. “Hh’ktCHhsx!” “Alright. That’s it. I’m done. I’m going back to the castle.” The other four paladins sounded off in Keith’s ear. “Wait, why?” “I don’t understand.” “What’s happening?” “What is it, Keith?” “I am done listening to Lance sneeze into the intercom.”

Lance ungracefully wiped his nose from under the helmet, “Listening to you is no walk in the park either.”

A green waveform popped up on Lance’s interface, “Keith’s right. You sound pretty awful. And...it is kind of gross to hear someone sneeze right in your ear.”

“It’s just the common cold, Pidge. Everyone gets them, I’ll be fine.”

A yellow waveform joined the green one, “Yeah, but you still sound pretty gross.”

And finally, a purple one, “Also, the ‘common cold’ doesn't exist in space. None of us had it that you could get it from. We should probably check this out more.”

When Shiro put it that way, Lance actually felt some concern. It didn’t feel any worse than a normal cold on Earth - one that everyone gets millions of times. He was still about to function like a normal person and only had to carry around some tissues and strange Altean cough drops. To the Alteans’ credit, their red and purple cough drops were way better than the ones on Earth. He could eat them like candy.

But Shiro’s comments planted worry in his head. It was just a head cold....right? It would pass in just a few more days...right?

Lance sighed and turned the Blue Lion around, “Alright, I’ll head back early. You guys finish the drill so Allura doesn’t tear us a new one.” “We’ll see you back there soon.”

When Lance docked his lion and stepped out, Coran was the first one to greet him.

“LANCE GET INTO THE HEALING POD!”

The Blue Paladin locked his joints, making a stiff barrier between him and the open healing pod. Coran was a lot stronger than he thought.

“I'm alright, Coran! It’s a just a head cold!”

“I don't care what it is, you're leaking brain fluid from your facial orifices! Get in the pod!”

“I told you, it's just snot! Mucus? And tears after sneezing so much? Stop it, I'm...hh... h’cckXTCHn! I’m fine!”

“There you go again! You’ll lose all your brain fluid! You didn’t tell me humans get diseases as drastic as this!”

“It’s not brain fluid!”

Coran wasn’t listening. In a final attempt to save the paladin from his early demise, he threw himself at Lance, toppling them both into the open healing pod. Before Coran could scramble up and hit the controls, Shiro stepped into the room.

“Lance, where did you-” he eyed the situation, “Um...”

Coran got to his feet, pinning Lance in the pod, “Shiro, hit the controls! We have to get Lance healing before his skull drains completely!”

Shiro made no movement towards the controls. Instead, he casually walked over to the Altean and tossed him to the side with little effort. 

“Coran, his skull isn’t draining. We think he just has a cold. It’s a human illness that’s very common and completely harmless,” Shiro offered a hand to help Lance up, “Were you able to use Pidge’s Diagnostic System, or whatever that thing is?”

Lance was hauled to his feet, and coughed a few times, “No, Coran got to me first.”

“And right I did! If you had actually been losing brain fluid, you would’ve perished by now!” Coran blushed a bit as he straightened his coat, “I may have been...a bit overhasty in my judgment, though.”

“Which is exactly why Pidge made that code. There are too many foreign space viruses to actually be sure of what we have.” Shiro said, leading the way to Pidge’s workshop.

Lance smiled at the Altean, “It’s alright, Coran. If I were actually leaking my brains out, you’d be the first person I’d go to.”

That seemed to make Coran stand a little taller.

Pidge’s device was something she made in her free time after what the team called “The Great Plague of Week 15”. After fifteen healthy weeks in space, they landed on a planet that showed them no mercy. Everyone seemed to catch some sort of alien virus, sending the team into a mass panic about what to do and if they were going to survive. Pidge was able to make her way through the castleship’s data logs, and find something of a Universal WebMD that the Altean doctors used as reference before the Galra attacked. Since the Alteans were a diplomatic race, they gathered information from other planets and species as well, creating the ultimate database of medical knowledge.

It was still a work in progress. The Altean files were, of course, in Altean, and Pidge had to upload what Earth knowledge she could. She was still working on a reasonable search engine, and the program still worked like WebMD, often citing space cancer as the cause to a simple twitch. But it was better than being completely in the dark about strange symptoms. Even though none of the diseases the paladins caught in Week 15 were fatal, they all claim that Pidge saved their lives. She didn’t say otherwise.

When Lance entered his data, a few options came up. One was the common cold, as everyone suspected. Another came up in a language Pidge hadn’t translated yet. The last one was the equivalent to Balmeran Sickle-Cell Disease, but Shiro immediately out ruled it. In earnest, there was a fraction of a chance that it was Balmeran Sickle-Cell, but the Black Paladin didn’t want to cause any more panic that already ensued. After his encounter with Slav, he didn’t want to waste any more time with minuscule percentages and alternate universes.

By then, the rest of the paladins caught up and joined the three in the workshop. Hunk burst in first, looking as if he was on the verge of tears.

“Is Lance gonna die?!”

Shiro frowned, “What? No, he’s perfectly fine. Why did-”

“Keith said something about a killer space flu.” Pidge sighed. She adjusted her glasses and looked at the lines of code on the screen, “Did it give you any kind of space cancer again?”

“Not this time. It’s just a head cold.”

Hunk ran up to the Blue Paladin and embraced him in a huge hug, “Oh thank God! I thought we were gonna have to find a new paladin! I’m so glad you just have a gross cold instead of something serious!” Hunk paused, then quickly peeled himself away from Lance, “Please don’t infect me.”

“I’m not going to-...to infect....ah-ktCHN!”

Everyone immediately took a step backward. At least he managed to cover his mouth this time.

“So now that we know it’s just a cold, how do we get him to stop sneezing?” Keith said, arms crossed as usual, “Or coughing? Or anything?”

“There’s not exactly a cure for the common cold, Keith,” Pidge replied from behind her computer, “That’s why we still have it. It keeps evolving different strands to resist our antibodies.”

“Bullshit, there's no cure!” Hunk took Lance by the hand and started dragging him to the kitchen, “My Mama used to make the best soup for colds, and me and my cousins would get over it within a day. C’mon, let's see what I can do.”

After hours of bowl clattering and scavenging, Hunk found what he deemed necessary. A half-hour after that, a bowl of steaming soup was placed before Lance. “Not exactly Mama Garrett’s recipe, but it's close enough for being in space if I do say so myself.” Hunk grinned. 

The other paladins looked on in awe. Despite all the Altean ingredients, the soup truly looked like something from Earth. Lance assumed that it smelled like home as well, but all sense of smell had been lost a long time ago. He hoped he could still taste it.

Because Hunk had made three pots of soup, he dished some up for everyone else. Shiro tried to reason with him, telling him only one pot of soup was probably enough for Lance, but no one wanted to step into Hunk’s kitchen and defy him. In the end, they were incredibly grateful Hunk made so much.

“Did you put cocaine in this?” Pidge asked between her second and third bowl, “I feel like I’ll go into withdrawal without it.”

Hunk seemed to actually consider it, “I’m pretty sure I didn’t, but all the ingredients are written in Altean.”

“You realize we can never go back to food goo again?” Keith had given up on using the spoon and settled for drinking it straight out of the bowl.

With all the compliments, Lance was disappointed that he couldn’t taste it. He could detect a hint of something, but couldn’t identify it from either his cloudy head or the fact that it was a completely foreign ingredient. Still, there was something about the way it soothed his throat and warmed his stomach that felt delicious.

Lance managed to eat an entire bowl without speaking or even looking up. He only paused to make sure he didn’t spit soup everywhere when he sneezed. When he finally did look up, he met Hunk’s eagerly awaiting eyes and grinned.

“This is the best soup I’ve ever had...”

Oh god. 

He sounded fine until that exact moment. Now his words were absolutely riddled with congestion as if he plugged his nose to speak. He couldn’t even take a full breath through his nose. Keith and Pidge’s giggles echoed in the distance as he tried to stifle a sneeze into his elbow.

“Ugh...I think it’s finally catching up to me...”

“It caught you two days ago when you started sneezing all the time!” Keith protested, still trying to hide his laughter.

“But now I actually feel sick...fuck....”

“The soup’s really good, Hunk. Your mother knew what she was doing,” Shiro smiled, “But it seems like Lance is really congested. Soup isn't very effective for a stuffed-up nose. I have an idea about something else.”

“...are you sure this works, Shiro?” Lance was staring down a bowl of almost boiling water, a large towel draped around his neck. Within the time it took for Shiro to heat the water and get a towel, Lance had completely ruined the sleeve of his jacket from wiping his nose. Pidge had absolutely none of it. She confiscated the jacket and replaced it with a large box of tissues, claiming they’d have to burn the jacket to get rid of all the germs. Lance may or may not have actually screeched at the idea.

The Black Paladin nodded to Lance’s skepticism about the steam bowl.

“It used to clear up my sinuses all the time in the Garrison. It's just like one of those sauna rooms, except just for your face. It can't hurt to try.”

A sauna sounded wonderful. Lance put that high on his mental list of what to do when they got home, next to showing Coran and Allura a museum. He sniffed and draped the town over his head, trapping the steam in a small bubble of warmth and humidity.

“So we're going to suffocate Lance instead?” Keith said. To Lance, his voice was muffled by the now-damp towel. Shiro was right - it felt like a hot sauna. If nothing else, this would at least open his pores up and help his skin.

“We're not suffocating him. The steam should open everything up in his nose and throat,” Shiro responded, “Doing alright under there?”

Lance gave a weak thumbs up.

“So we're going to make him produce more mucus? Which will make him sneeze more?” Hunk said through spoonfuls of soup.

“It doesn’t produce more, it just moves things around, I guess? It worked for me, I never questioned why.”

“I don’t think it’s working,” Lance muttered from under the towel, nose still completely clogged, “But it feels really good...”

“Uh-uh,” Keith pulled the towel off Lance’s head and took him by the arm, “If we’re going to solve this, we’re going to solve it with something I know will work.”

“You've got to be kidding me.”

“Do you want to stop sneezing or not?”

Lance eyed the contraption suspiciously.  He'd heard of this kind of treatment before but never saw himself doing it, much less Keith. He also never would’ve guessed Keith constructed a makeshift Neti Pot on the castleship.

When Keith explained how it worked, Hunk and Pidge decided that they didn’t need to see it in action. Shiro didn’t particularly want to see it either, but he figured he should stay to stop the two from strangling each other.

“Doesn't it...hurt? Like jumping into water the wrong way and it gets up your nose?” Lance asked. It was intimidating, to say the least. No one liked that feeling.

“No, the saline balances the pH in your sinuses. It just feels weird. Like water up your nose without the burning sensation.”

Lance looked at the Red Paladin with skepticism.

“What? It was really dusty out in the desert, this helped. I hate feeling like I can’t breathe.”

“This thing has your desert boogers on it?”

“You think I wouldn’t wash it?!” Keith took a breath, and tried not to facepalm, “It’ll work. Just keep your head down and don’t breathe in.”

It wasn’t exactly a traumatic experience, but it did leave Lance worse off than before. The warm solution did exactly what it was supposed to do, and cleared out most of Lance’s sinuses. Neither he nor Keith knew exactly what went wrong, but Lance was coughing and sputtering over the sink with fear in his eyes.

“You do this to yourself?!”

“No, I do it the right way! I told you not to breathe in!”

“I didn’t breathe in!”

Shiro stood from his seat and put a hand on Lance’s back, “Alright, that’s enough! Are you alright, Lance?”

“My nose was violated by the ocean! H’iKTsh!’tsh! H-’khSHt’NGsT! There’s water still up my fucking nose! N’gsCH!” 

Keith blinked slowly, sighed, and left the room. The thought that his fool-proof method made Lance worse had driven him to the brink. Lance didn’t see him until his cold had almost completely calmed down.

Shiro offered Lance a towel, “Try to blow it out of your nose. Does it hurt?”

Lance pressed the towel against his face and blew as hard as he could. It didn’t make a difference.

“It doesn’t hurt, but it feels really weird!” He even tried jumping up and down and shaking his head, as if to get water out of his ears. The Black Paladin sighed. At least Lance still had his energy.

“Okay. Whenever you feel...composed enough, we should see Pidge. She probably has something that’ll help you.”

“The others had good ideas for temporary relief of the symptoms. But they won't actually help get rid of the virus,” Pidge said, “Really, the best things that are gonna help are vitamins and sleep.”

Lance nodded. It was the most logical thing he had heard all day. The three were in Pidge’s workshop, watching her fiddle with codes on the computer and hand-translate Altean on a pad of paper at the same time. But she paused to pull out a bottle of pills and pour Lance a glass of water.

The sick paladin reached out for the glass but paused when he felt the familiar tickle in the back of his nose again.

“Ah'shkCH!“

Pidge responded without thinking about it, “Bless you,” and handed him the glass. She dropped the pills in his other hand and sat back at her desk.

“How did you get vitamins?” Shiro asked, “I was in charge of the second space mall trip, there weren’t any pills we bought.”

“Lance taught me a... creative way to get some money. I bought them myself. I figured they’d be good to have on hand.”

Lance smiled fondly at their fountain-diving adventures. He downed each pill with ease and chased them with water. Shiro ignored the comment about creative ways of obtaining money. They weren’t being hunted down, that was the only thing that mattered.

“I'm still wondering where this came from,” Pidge thought out loud, “It really is just the common cold. I'm pretty sure no one brought it on the Blue Lion when we first blasted off, but if someone did, no wonder you were the one to get it first.”

Lance put the glass back down on Pidge’s desk, “At this point, I don't care where the quiznak it came from. I want it gone.”

Shiro patted his back and stood up, “Well, you heard her. Go get some rest. I’ll wake you up before dinner.”

In the end, Lance wasn’t quite sure what cured him. All of his friends’ methods helped in their own way (excepting Coran). Or perhaps the cold just cleared up on its own. Regardless, Lance was happy he could breathe through his nose and not sneeze or cough up a lung every other sentence.

The other paladins were incredibly grateful too. It was a relief to hear Lance speak normally again and not have a wet sneeze in their intercom.

Until they tried to run the training again.

“hh’txCHH’uh!”

Lance immediately put his hands up in surrender, even though no one else could see him. “It wasn’t me! I’m sterile, I’m cured!”

For a few moments, there was silence in space again. Until a purple waveform popped up on everyone’s interface.

“Hunk...” Shiro sniffed, “You should probably make more soup...”

[hewn-city-couriers-den]

Day 14 (Avivan Gemstaff; trinket, writing day)

(A couple of rules added to the ‘Locke:

- Saving throws! Each dragon gets three throws across the life of the ‘Locke. Successes allow continued life/use, with a injury (gets more severe as you burn/lose saves). First save roll has to 10+ to succeed, second 15+, last has to be a natural 20. Failure on all three means out of the ‘Locke by death/exalt/whatever you can stomach. The point is you don’t use that dragon anymore.

- Since Pinkerton doesn’t like to give me familiars, familiar rooms in the Coli Will now allow me to purchase a random dragon per familiar drop rules. If Pink decides to be more consistent w these drops, this rule will be removed.

- In place of breeding, I can buy and hatch a random egg. Can only be done once a month. Otherwise flip a coin. Heads, 10 Coli matches, tails writing day

Onto the story!)

They touch down back in the Starwood Strand early in the dawnlight, Moralis and Quinton still on AGES’s back as Flower plods alongside the Guardian robot.

[[MORE]]

They travel until the Imperial begins to complain, and then break for camp. In the distance, Moralis can see bones of the Scarred Wasteland and the Wyrmmound. He pulls at the back of his hand’s skin with worry and then glances at Flower- this child not this form will make it in the plague lands. They will have to fly over it.

With Quinton and Flower’s help, they construct a lean-to of leaves and sticks, while AGES starts a campfire. The small imperial curls up into Moralis’s lap as he sits down at the fire with his back against a settled AGES’s side. Quinton, lying on his stomach in the shelter, idly rummages through his now much too small pack. He shakes his head at it.

“We’ll need something to eat soon,” he says.

“We can go one more day,” Moralis says as he pets Flower’s head. “We need to get past the Scarred Wasteland- can’t go there in this state. Plus...” He looks down at Flower.

Quinton tucks his pack away and tugs at his necklaces, blue eyes flicking from the horizon to Flower to back. “I know,” he says, “I know. I just don’t like it.”

“If we have to stop in there, we’ll find something to eat,” Moralis says. “You know what plants are edible, don’t you?”

“I know some,” says Quinton. “I haven’t ventured into the Wasteland much though. I’m not really a Green Cross member yet, so they were keeping me away from the real big cases...”

“It’ll be fine,” says Moralis.

“Survival probability is 63%,” rumbles AGES.

“Thanks for the note of confidence,” Quinton says with a huff as he rolls over and readjusts; when Moralis gently stands a while later, leaving Flower besides AGES (who drops a wing to cover her), the other is already snoring.

(He does not sleep.)

They are off a few hours later, Moralis with arms clutching his body to AGES, Quinton holding onto Moralis, and Flower by the scruff in the robot’s maw once again.

The rancid scent of the Wasteland rises off the soingey hills in the morning heat, stinking of decay and rotting meat and sulfur. Moralis glances over the Guardian’s shoulder down at the faintly red terrain below, eyes running over the landscape until they find the sickly green glow of the Wyrmmound; from AGES’s mouth, he hears Flower cry out excitedly.

“This the first time you’ve been out of the Armory?” Moralis yells to her.

“Yes! It’s very strange! Why is it like that?”

“The real question,” mumbles Quinton. “Ask the Plaugebringer.”

Moralis feels the other bury his face into the crook of his neck, and snorts.

“Nervous?” he asks the other.

“A little,” comes the mumbled words.

“Do not be afraid,” says AGES, from a speaker somewhere behind its ear fins. “I am a very capable flier.”

Quinton grumbles something in retort, but it’s lost to the bitter smelling winds. AGES looks around, and for a few moments flies with eyes in a direction not forward. “There is a swarm coming,” it intones.

“Swarm?” ask the two on its back.

“Similar to Dragonhome’s dust storms, these clouds are whip winds made of minuscule bits of the terrain, carrying along corpse rot and disease laden bugs,” AGES says. “Taking cover is advised.”

“Where? There’s hardly any place to avoid the sun here, no less a wind storm,” Quinton says.

“Accessing memory files...memory file founds. Altering course to destination.” The Guardian turns, and a few minutes later, drops down down down until paws hit the semi fleshy earth of the Wastelands.

“Do not dismount,” it says, keeping Flower in its jaws as it lopes across the spongey ground, coming up and then down a rise, passing pits of bubbling liquid and various bones of long dead embedded into the Wasteland. In the distance to the left, a strange ring rises, large veins as wide as the Guardian branching off it and burrowing down.

The movement of the robot lulls Moralis into a stupor, but he jerks back to wakefulness as Quinton shakes his shoulder. He blinks; they’ve come to a stop near one of the veins, where it splits and creates a small opening into the festering ring around the Wyrmmound.

It doesn’t go through, just makes a small indent, and the Guardian sets down Flower to prod at it experimentally— as Moralis dismounts and gets closer, he sees there’s bones around the structure of the veins, reinforcing them, and a trapdoor made of bones spread across the floor.

“What is it?” Quinton asks, coming behind Moralis to look. Flower comes over as well, butting Moralis’s arm gently with her head until he pats her.

“It looks like somebody’s lair entrance,” he says, and coughs. Quinton’s eyes widen.

“We need to get out of the elements,” he says. He looks to AGES. “Is this gonna do that?”

“Location is known to be habituated by friendlies; I visited it briefly when I was deployed here prior to this mission,” the robot says.

Moralis hesitates, and then knocks on the bones.

For a few moments it appears like no one will answer, and then a feathered paw moves the door, and a feathered head pops up, a richer red then the Wasteland around it.

The Coatl blinks at them; they blink back.

“Well,” he says, “you’re unexpected.”

“We’re from out of flight,” Moralis says. “We’re only passing through, but there’s a swarm coming-“

“5 minutes until swarm reaches our position,” says AGES.

“-and we need somewhere to go.”

The Coatl squints. “Pretty hold for a BeastClan, aren’t you?” he says.

Moralis coughs again, harder and harsher this time. “Magic mishap,” he says, and the Coatl rolls his eyes, but it’s good naturedly.

“Isn’t it always?” he says. He emerges from the doorway, and nods at them as he holds open the door. “Come in then, before the Wasteland claims you.”

Flower bounds forward, falling out of sight as she goes crashing to whatever floor lies below. Moralis thanks the Coatl as he descends the ladder of thick veins inset to the wall.

“Your robot gotta stay out here,” he says as he comes following Quinton down. “We don’t have room.”

“That’s fine,” says Moralis. “Tell him to guard.”

The message is passed onto AGES; Moralis reaches the end of the ladder and steps down off it, looking around. The walls and floor are coated in a opal sheen, sealing away the bacteria of the Wasteland out. Small, crude shelves line the sides of the room, and two pelt beds are tucked in one corner; a small red form sleeps bundled beneath extra furs.

“Your kid can use the other bed,” the Coatl says. “I can sleep on the floor.”

Flower gratefully hurries to the bed, which is much too small, but she doesn’t seem to mind. The Coatl invites Moralis and Quinton to sit down on the floor with him, and they do.

“Thank you,” says Moralis again, and introduces himself and the others.

The Coatl returns in kind, explaining his name is Calixte, and that the form in the furs is a orphaned Mirror he found and hatched, named Itura. “This bunker, he says, “was probably a Pearlcatcher’s once, but they’ve went out once and have never came back, and what you don’t use you lose here in the Wasteland.”

He leans back on his haunches, studying Moralis and Quinton. “What are you doing trying to cross the plague lands?” he asks.

“We’re looking for something,” says Moralis. “It’s classified, but the most I can tell you is it was stolen. By...I think the robot said it was a Skydancer?”

“Hmm,” says Calixte. “I don’t get many visitors, they all usually stay near the edges when traveling, so I don’t see everyone that passes through, but I did smell something weird a day or so ago.”

“Yeah?”

“A mirror, but something was off about it, and that’s something coming from a plague dragon,” Calixte says.

“You’re nature flight, though,” says Quinton, motioning at the Coatl’s eyes.

“I was born in Nature, sure,” says Calixte, “but I never really felt a connection there, to the Gladeskeeper. Plaugemother made me the colors of her land, and once I figured that out and stepped foot here, I knew I belonged.”

“About the Mirror,” says Moralis. “Tell us more about that.”

“Well, he -I know it was a he- smelled sorta like you guys do, whatever it is this magic of yours turned you into. But it wasn’t in him, not like I can smell with your blood.”

Quinton shudders; Moralis frowns at him.

“Be considerate,” he says.

“Smelling blood is kind of creepy,” says the other; Calixte smiles.

“Good,” he says. “I work hard to match the aura of my chosen flight’s native borns.” He looks toward Flower. “Who’s the kid?”

“She’s the daughter of a guy named Rei; does metalwork in a place called the Armory at the Focal Point,” Moralis says. “Sent her with us to escape when that place got attacked.”

The Coatl’s ear feathers perk. “Attacked?”

“We’re not sure by what,” Quinton says. “Weird shadowy creatures, insectiod like outsides and liquidy insides.”

“They don’t seem related to the Hive,” says Moralis, “since those only capture and assimilate dragons...”

Calixte hums. “I know of the Hive,” he says. “I’ve seen them darting about the membranes of the Rim. I think there’s one of their dens here, somewhere.” He shudders. “Weird buggy creatures. Almost worse then Fae.”

“Hey,” says Quinton, sounding hurt, “what’s wrong with Fae?”

The Coatl’s eyes sparkle with mirth. “Ahh, so that’s what you are. I was guessing either that or a Snapper, for you.”

“I’m a Nocturne,” says Moralis.

Calixte nods slowly. “Still not entirely sure you aren’t bluffing me, but you certainly smell draconic,” he says.

“I promise we aren’t,” says Moralis.

“We don’t take those very lightly here in the plague land,” Calixte says. “I’ll hold you to that promise; show me your scales one day, will you?”

“Sure,” says Moralis, and they laugh, and the bunker feels a little less stifling and a little more like home.