#i realize that content warning is probably pretty unneeded but its one of those sort of things where id rather play it safe than sorry

[feverhalo]

(Hi Glass it's ya-nurse hello you totally don't have to do this I'm just throwing ideas at you) if you're looking for prompts, maybe some sick sleepy Keith? Like, Lance notices he keeps dozing off during the day and finds it weird but shrugs it off. Later when Lance goes to the bathroom during the night he finds Keith nearly collapsed in the hallway on a failed search for help. Keith has a super high fever and Lance is worried my dude

@ya-nurse prompted this last night. Its what I made that really excited “keith is the sleep police” post about. I hope its somewhere in the ballpark of what you were hoping for. I know some of it got stretched pretty far off the original mark. Thank you for sending one in!

I’m gonna give a mild content warning- so spoiler if you dont want to have the warning- keith is found unconscious with pills in his hand but he is okay and the fic is just as labeled on the can- he is sick and falls asleep everywhere.

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Sleep Police

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The paladins each had their own quirks that pissed the others off. Hunk, for example, would sing under his breath in high stress situations if his nervous stomach hadn’t overtaken him. Lance had his habit of trying to one-up everyone all the time; so you could do a hundred push ups? He could do a hundred and one. Pidge, Pidge did a lot of weird stuff the others were willing to forgive since they were the youngest, but the worst was leaving half made or half eaten food everywhere. Shiro liked to pull the ‘I’m the adult’ card a lot more lately. ‘You can’t eat that for breakfast. Because I said so, I’m the adult I know you’ll regret eating that for breakfast.’ And then he would eat it so you couldn’t.

Keith though. Keith was great at infuriating Lance, because Lance was competitive and like to read way too much in to things. But for the most part, like with everyone else, it was minor stuff they could overlook. Except for Keith being the sleep police. If he caught you sleeping somewhere outside of your room, the agreed upon campsite, or on some occasions the common area couch, you were going to be woken up. Didn’t matter how tired you were. It wasn’t where you were supposed to sleep.

Lance was just about going to have a field day when he walked in to breakfast one morning and Keith was dozing with his head propped in his hand at the table. He got all the way to the point he was crouched behind Keith’s chair, poised to jab him in the sides to startle him awake, when Keith snuffled and straightened up yawning for a second before picking up his fork. Lance’s face fell and he stomped off to get his own food.

A second chance came in mid-morning training just before their recon mission. Keith was standing propped in the corner with his arms crossed over his chest, head ducked down. It looked like he was sort of watching the demonstration, but Lance noticed his head nodding and tipping to lean on the wall. And there he was, Keith Kogane just sleeping standing up. Lance did a double take, stammering.

“Are you believing this? Am I the only one seeing this?” He gestured towards Keith. The demonstration stopped, Shiro raised his eyebrow. When he turned back, Keith was standing, leaning against the wall giving Lance a look.

“Yeah, no, I’m with him, Shiro. Theres something funky with this routine,” Hunk paused, “It feels kind of, off balance.”

Shiro and Hunk ran through the routine again, and Hunk was able to point out what he meant, and Lance’s outburst was forgotten. He glared at Keith, but he was back to leaning against the wall with his eyes half shut.

Post mission, Lance was sure Keith was asleep on the way back with Red on autopilot. He was so sure, actually, he was ready to go pull Keith out of the red lion. He was starting to think Keith was doing it on purpose to mess with him.

They all landed, and Lance hopped out of Blue so fast, he missed the landing entirely and ended up rolling on the floor for a second before he got up and ran over to Red. And there was Keith climbing out just as he got there.

“Dude!” Lance threw his arms up in the air and turned to walk off. Keith just stared after him in a bit of a daze. He shook his head slowly, trying to clear it. He quietly thanked Red for covering for him so he could rest his aching head for a while on the way back.

He walked past the rest of them and headed to his room. He felt awful and just wanted to sleep somewhere he belonged for sleeping. He wasn’t sure if he felt more disturbed by his lack of energy and how awful he felt for being in the void of space in a rather sterile castle most of the time, or that he kept falling asleep all day in the wrong places. He threw his helmet over away from him and managed to toe off one shoe before he gave up and just flopped face down onto his bed.

 Keith awoke with a start, feeling overheated and coughing. He felt vaguely nauseated when he pushed himself up and the room started spinning. He needed to get a drink, and some medicine. He had a pack of painkillers in here, it would work on his fever too. He grabbed one of the blister pack sheets and stumbled his way down the hall to the kitchen. He let his damp jacket fall off him and left it where it fell. He had a mission right now, and if he stopped for anything, he was going to fall over.

Keith made it to the kitchen, but he was so winded and dizzy by that time, he had to hold on to the counter to steady himself. He slid down and rested his back against the cabinets for a minute, just to get the world to stop swaying on him.

 Lance scrubbed his face as he brought his cup back to the kitchen. He went to flick the lights on, but found them already on when he paid attention. One of the chairs was knocked askew and there was another cup laying on its side beside the sink. Lance quirked his head, wondering who else came down for a refill and forgot their cup. He fixed the chair as he walked by, and nearly dropped his cup as he saw Keith on the floor.

“Keith!” He was fast asleep, breathing even, propped up against the counter. He was holding an unopened sheet of pills in his hand and his face was tilted forward, but Lance could still see the hot flush across his features.

“Hey, Keith,” Lance shook Keith’s shoulder gently. With his other hand he reached up to check Keith’s temperature as the other paladin stirred. He was definitely overly warm. “You’re sleeping in the wrong place. How could you not notice?” Lance joked, lightly as Keith blinked awake.

“Huh?”

“You’re sleeping in the kitchen, here let me help you out.” Lance made sure Keith wasn’t going to tip over before he stood up. He filled the cup with some water and crouched back down. He popped two of the familiar pills out of the blister pack before putting them in Keith’s palm and holding the water for him.

Keith stared at his palm and the two little red pills sitting there. Lance gave his hand a bump, and he remembered he needed to take the medicine because he was sick, and he felt hot and sick. He put one in his mouth and took several sips of water to try and swallow it down. He coughed and choked on it for a second before managing. He repeated the process with the second pill, and it wasn’t much easier. He hated pills and tried to avoid taking them if he could.

“Why don’t you try and sleep somewhere else, now? I’ll help you out.” Lance pulled Keith up and wrapped one feverish arm over his shoulders and tucked the swaying boy against his side as they staggered down the hall. Keith rubbed at his face and mumbled to himself a bit as they went.

“Hmm?”

“I can’t believe I fell asleep in the kitchen… How did that even happen.”

“Not the weirdest place I’ve seen you asleep today,” Lance took them both to his own room and laid Keith on his bed. He sat on the floor beside the bed after getting Keith situated. “This is a much better place to sleep.”

Keith nodded, and just like that, he was asleep again. Lance figured he should probably let someone else know, but it was still the middle of the night, and Keith took the medicine alright. He pressed his fingers to Keith’s cheek again for a second. He decided it would be okay, something was just assuring him things would be alright for a few more hours. He pulled an extra pillow down to the floor with him and rolled to face the bed and laid down too.