#omg my writing is so inconsistent bc this fic took me FOREVER and my writing changes every day...

[sickfics101]

ANOTHER KLANCE FIC. Take it. :V  Prompt from here!

Summary: Keith gets stranded in an unknown city on a cold day with no way to get home. He calls Lance to come pick him up, not knowing that Lance is already sick and should be resting instead.

Last bus: 10:45PM

Next bus: 6:15AM

Keith stares at the sign. His shoulders sag, his breath leaving him in a cloud of white.

He’s doomed. He’s stuck in a city miles away from his own house, and he’s just missed the last bus of the night.

Shivering, he brushes the snow off of a bench and sets his bags down on top of it. His fingers feel like they’re turning to ice, so he shoves his hands into his jacket pockets, trying to keep his body from shaking too badly.

This is all his fault. He’d been the one who had been insistent on coming all the way here. He’d taken a bus after lunch, travelling miles and miles from home just to reach this obscure city–it was the only one that happened to have motorbike parts he needed, and he’d planned his trip so he could navigate using his phone and get back before it got dark.

As it turned out, he’d ended up getting miserably lost in the city, and his phone had died on him due to the cold weather. After spending hours wandering around, he’d finally found his way back to a train station on the other side of the town.

And the last bus left half an hour ago. Just his luck.

He doesn’t know anything about this city, doesn’t have anywhere to stay for the night. It’s too far to walk back, and it’s too cold to sleep out here.

He glances up. The snow slants as it falls from the gaping sky, snowflakes turning gold in the sparse light of nearby streetlights. Shivering, he pulls his jacket closer around him, the spare change in his pocket rattling from the movement.

Change. There’s a payphone across the street.

Keith hates bothering people, especially when it’s this late at night. There are not that many people that he trusts enough to bother in the first place, and most of them are unavailable. Hunk is out of town, Shiro and Allura live too far away, Pidge doesn’t have her own car yet. But maybe if he asks nicely enough, he can convince Lance to drive him back.

He picks up his bags, wincing as his fingertips brush against the frigid bench railings, and starts off to cross the street. This is a bad idea, he’s sure, but he’s tired and cold and he can think of nothing better.

He just really, really wants to be home.

Lance has been feeling off all day.

He’d wakes up with a slight headache and a slight case of the sniffles, but he ignores it and goes about doing work like he always does. But apparently, this is the type of illness that hits really quickly – by noon, his head is pounding and the room is spinning.

Everything is too cold. He shivers, pulling the zipper up on his jacket. Who decided that this was an acceptable building temperature? It really isn’t.

He makes it through the morning–at least, until he runs into his section commander in the kitchen. He’s pouring himself a cup of coffee, but the exhaustion from the past few days is really getting to him: his hands are trembling and he can barely hold the cup still.

His commander takes one look at him and shakes her head. “Go home, Mcclain.”

But he really needs to get things done today. The work deadlines are coming up, and he can’t afford to fall behind. “No, Commander Smith,” he starts, before clearing his throat. “I assure you that can work through this. I promise–”

He’s cut off by a harsh fit of coughing, which lasts for longer than it should. When he finishes, he realizes he’s spilled some of the coffee in his cup, and Miss Smith’s disapproving frown has shifted to an outright scowl. “I wasn’t offering, it’s an order. Go home.”

“But deadlines–”

“This is not debatable. You look like you’re about to fall over, and I’m almost certain you’re contagious.”

Lance’s shoulders sag, and he nods, just once. He is feeling pretty bad, and he doesn’t want to get his coworkers sick. “I’ll clean up the spill and leave,” he concedes.

“Good.” The commander turns on her heels, starting out the door, before she comes to a halt again. “I don’t want to see you here tomorrow, got it? Get some proper rest.”

And so now he’s at home, six hours before his shift ends. He’s been trying to work at home, anyways, but the harsh lighting of his laptop screen is making his headache worse, and it’s almost impossible to concentrate when he’s feeling this shitty.

Sighing, he closes the device, plugging it into the charger, and makes his way over to the bed. It’s not a long walk, but he’s exhausted and dizzy, and the world is tilting in ways that makes the trip more difficult than he should be. When he finally gets there, he sprawls himself over the sheets face-first, but immediately starts shivering and has to sit up again to crawl into the covers.

His whole body feels off. Maybe he’s worse off than he’d thought.

He stifles a sneeze into a cupped hand, and then turns over onto to his side, letting his eyes drift closed. He’ll just sleep this off. Hopefully he’ll be better by the time he wakes up the next morning.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t wake up the next morning, but rather late into the night, to the sound of his phone ringing on the bedstand. He picks it up, staring blearily at the blinding screen. Unknown caller ID. He frowns, almost opting not to pick it up. Whatever stranger is calling him at this hour really needs to learn how timezones work.

He presses answer anyways. All of a sudden, a warm, familiar voice is flooding into his ears: “Lance?”

“Keith?” He’s more than a little surprised to hear his boyfriend on the line. “What’s up?” he manages, his voice still groggy from sleep.

“Thank god you picked up,” Keith rambles. He sounds frantic. “Can you come drive me home? I know it’s a lot to ask, but I’m stuck here and I don’t have enough change to call a taxi.”

“You what?” Lance pushes himself upright, blinking back exhaustion. “I… I thought you were taking public transportation home?”

“I got lost. I missed the last bus.”

“Keith, it’s almost midnight. You want me to mess up my sleep schedule and drive for an hour just to come get you?” Lance teases, smirking into the phone. He’s already out of bed, phone tucked in between his ear and his cheek while he searches the closet for his jacket.

“What? I didn’t… didn’t m-mean that...” Keith’s voice wavers on that note. He really sounds shaken up about this. “...but you’re right. Sorry for bothering you. I’ll, uh, f-find a way...”

“You’re lucky I’m the best boyfriend in the world,” Lance says. “Tell me your location and I’ll be there.”

A pause. “Thanks, Lance. Really,” Keith says, sounding better already. He relates the name of the station he’s at, and Lance listens, holding the phone at a distance away from him as he stifles sneezes and coughs as quietly as possible.

“I’m in the car. Be there in 45,” Lance says, “is it snowing where you are?”

“Uh… yeah. It’s… it’s snowing pretty hard.”

“Make sure you keep warm, okay? If there are any open shops nearby, go wait there.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t get lost again.”

“Okay.”

“I need to hang up now, alright? I’ll be there soon.”

“...Okay.”

Keith is asleep on a bench across from the station when Lance finds him. He’s surrounded by a mountain of bags, wearing only a light jacket that definitely isn’t meant for weather like this.

Lance stops his car at the curb, rolling down a window. “Keith?”

Keith stirs, his head tipping upwards at the sound of his name. A fresh layer of snow has settled on top of his jacket hood, but it slips off as he stands up, hastily brushing stray snowflakes from the folds of his clothing.

He moves all of his bags into the trunk, then slips into the passenger seat. Even in the warmth of the car, he’s still shivering, and Lance mentally curses himself for not bringing any extra clothing for him.

“Didn’t I tell you to keep yourself warm?” he asks, an eyebrow raised as he starts the car again. “You could’ve waited in a shop or something.”

“I didn’t want to get lost again,” Keith explains, zipping up his jacket with trembling hands.

“Oh my god,” Lance huffs. “you could’ve just printed out a map before you left home.”

Keith frowns, fishing his dead phone out of his pocket. He stays motionless for awhile, staring down at the unlit screen with an expression that looks like betrayal.

“I was going to use my phone, but it died on me.”

“That’s why you charge it before you leave–”

“I did! It died from the cold, not from low battery.”

“That’s unlikely.” Lance lifts one hand off the steering wheel to stifle a few coughs into his fist. “Was it really that cold outside?”

“Well... yeah.” Keith puts his phone away and leans back again, crossing his arms. “It snowed all day.”

“And you couldn’t have checked the weather?”

“That wouldn’t have–” Keith stops abruptly, his mouth slamming shut. Lance is about to ask him if something’s up, but Keith beats him to the chase: “Are you cold?”

That catches Lance off guard. “What makes you think that?” He scoffs, because yeah, he’s cold, but Keith doesn’t need to know that. “Are you changing the subject because you don’t want to talk about how much of an idiot you are–”

“No, it’s not that.” Keith cuts him off, sounding distracted. Lance takes advantage of a red light to steal a glance at him, only to realize that Keith is already scrutinizing him closely. “You’re shivering.”

Shit. Uh. “I’m not,” Lance lies, trying his best to stop his body from trembling. He hadn’t even realized until Keith pointed it out.

Keith raises an eyebrow. “You’re not?”

“Okay, maybe I am slightly cold,” Lance concedes, absently wiping his nose on the back of his hand. “Why? Aren’t you?”

“No.” Keith blinks, tugging at his scarf so that it unravels a bit, “it’s nice and warm in here. It’s a bit too warm, actually.”

“Yeah, well. Staying out in the snow for half a day probably messed up your sense of temperature.”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” Keith turns his head to stare out of the passenger window. Lance pinches the bridge of his nose, stifling two sneezes into his hand while his boyfriend isn’t looking.

The silence that follows is unexpected. Lance clears his throat quietly, ignoring the sharp pain that surfaces as a result. “Did you find the components you needed?”

Keith perks up at that. “Yeah, I actually did.” He’s usually a quiet person, but when he’s passionate about something, he can talk about it for hours. “I needed a particular set of brakes, right? It turned out that the shop I was at ran out of stock, so I had to go all the way to the northern end of the city…”

Lance just listens quietly, too tired to say a word. His head is pounding, and he can’t quite keep up with everything that Keith is saying, but he likes hearing the sound of his boyfriend’s voice. It’s nice.

He drives quietly for awhile, caught in the warm, comfortable haze of the words he hears but doesn’t process. Then, suddenly, he realizes that the Keith’s voice has turned a couple degrees sharper:

“–Lance? You still with me? Lance!”

His name turns from static to sound in his mind, and he blinks, snapping out of the trance. “Sorry, I zoned out. What’s up?” His voice sounds awful. He hadn’t realized how so much congestion had accumulated in such a short amount of time.

“I asked if you could pull over for a sec,” Keith reiterates. “I have something I need to get from the back trunk.”

“Oh. Sure.” Lance maneuvers the vehicle carefully to the side of the street. “Go ahead.”

Keith slips out of the car and shuts the door behind him. Lance leans back in his chair, his posture sagging, and waits as a particularly harsh coughing fit runs its course. No wonder he was sent home. He’s really feeling like shit right now. Driving isn’t exactly the most strenuous activity, but the 45 minute trip here has somehow sapped all of the energy from his body, and his headache from this morning hasn’t let up at all.

To his surprise, a few seconds later, his own car door is pulled open. “Keith, what are you–” he starts, but his sentence cuts off sharply when Keith sets a hand onto his forehead.

“You have a fever,” Keith states, as bluntly as ever.

Lance shrugs noncommittally, drawing away from his touch. “I thought you were getting something?”

“I wanted to check your temperature, but I knew you wouldn’t actually pull over if I phrased it that way.”

“Oh.” Lance blinks, slightly disoriented. “That’s... true.”

Keith is reaching out again, but this time, Lance doesn’t have the energy to move away. His fingers are cold, but not icy, and they feel inconveniently nice on Lance’s too-hot cheeks.

“You’re burning up.

“Or,” Lance counters, “maybe your hands are just too cold.”

Keith removes his hands, and Lance almost wants him to put them back again. “Did you go to work like this?”

“I got kicked out,” Lance admits sheepishly, looking down, “my section commander sent me home.”

“I can see why.”

He scowls. “Shut up.”

“Why did you drive here anyways?” Keith demands, changing the subject. “You should be resting.”

Lance rolls his eyes. “I went home early, I’ve been resting all day–”

“That isn’t enough. Don’t you always lecture me about how sleep debt is a thing? You’ve barely gotten any sleep all week.” Keith pauses, frowning, and Lance deflates a little. It’s true. He’s been so busy with work lately that he hasn’t really been getting proper rest.

“I’m… sorry?” he offers, before twisting away to cough a few times into his hand.

Keith huffs a sigh, resigned but affectionate. “Here, let’s switch seats. I’ll drive.” He takes Lance gently by the forearm and leads him out of the car. As soon as Lance is outside, he can’t stop his body from shivering anymore–it’s utterly frigid. How the hell did Keith manage to spend half a day in this weather?

Thankfully, they’re not outside for long. Keith lets Lance to get settled in the passenger seat, then slips into the other side of the vehicle. He sets the car into motion again, and Lance just stares blankly out of the windshield, wondering how this situation has managed to turn around so quickly.

He’s starting to drift off again when Keith’s voice breaks the silence, steady and warm. “I wouldn’t have called you to pick me up if I knew you were sick.”

“I still would’ve come,” Lance says.

Keith shoots him a glance, skeptical. “What?”

“I still would’ve come to get you,” he repeats, sniffling. His eyes are already halfway shut. He’s so tired.

“Why?” Does Keith really not get it yet?

“Because it’s for you,” Lance says, even though that much should be obvious.

For awhile, Keith doesn’t respond. But when Lance opens his again, he’s smiling.