A/N: That love-bug trope became popular a couple months back, so I decided to put my own spin on it. The twist? In this one, everyone is affected. Warning - pure, unadulterated crack. LOTS of one-sided relationships. This is Lance/Pidge-centric, but there's also a lot of Sheith? You'll see. It's weird. This fic is weird. Save yourself.

The first thing Lance saw when he woke up was a flurry of stars bubbling up in front of his eyes—black and white spots that clouded his vision and left him feeling woozy. "Man, what happened?" he mumbled to himself, voice rough as it shot up his dry windpipe and past his chapped lips. He coughed into his hand, clearing his throat as he sat up, blinking away the blotches in front of his eyes as everything came into focus around him.

Now that his vision was clear, he could tell that he was on the main deck of the castle. He was sitting on the floor, Pidge less than a foot to his right and still unconscious. Fortunately, she seemed unharmed as Lance glanced her over. Her tawny hair framed her soft face, glasses askew on her freckled little nose, bangs falling lightly atop her closed eyes. She was drooling in her sleep just a bit, and Lance thought she looked as cute as always (although it was nice to see her look so relaxed for once).

But that wasn't important now. He needed to figure out what was going on.

Lance shook his head and turned to the left. Shiro was a couple yards over, also knocked out but decidedly less cute. His current location seemed to match up with where he remembered Shiro standing before, which might have been a good sign. That meant that, unless they'd moved after Lance had become incoherent, Keith and Allura would be a few feet to Lance's rear, where they had been looking over the controls earlier.

Last he remembered- well, Lance wasn't quite sure what had last happened. Everything was sort of fuzzy, and he still felt like his head was full of cotton balls. He knew that Coran had left on a solo mission. They'd been fine without him for a while, but then….

Someone had attacked. Lance didn't quite remember what the ship looked like (except that it wasn't Galra. They had been trying to figure out who it was, if not the Galra). Shiro, Keith, and Allura had been trying to figure out the origin of the ship with what few sources they could muster on the spot. Keith had become increasingly impatient, insisting that they'd run out of time if they didn't strike soon. Shiro had said… something else. Something that Keith had disagreed with.

Yelling. Arguing. Panicking. Then, complete silence. Lance distantly recalled the sound of alarms, fumes of chemical-pink gas, and the intoxicating smell of bubblegum.

And that was when he'd passed out.

"What was that?" Lance asked nobody, clutching his throbbing head as he finally found the will to stand up. He made his way over to Pidge first, tapping her lightly on the shoulder. She didn't stir, so Lance leaned overtop her to whisper in her ear. "Pidge?"

He got a slap in the face for his troubles. "What the hell?" Pidge shot back, glasses sliding precariously down to the tip of her small, upturned nose as she jerked away from him. He distantly thought about counting the freckles across the bridge of it, but Pidge smacked him again for good measure, bringing him staggering back to reality. "Lance, get off me!" she yelled, face flushed with embarrassment.

Lance recoiled immediately, rubbing the red mark on his cheek (though it really hadn't hurt all that much; she'd likely just been trying to knock some sense into him). "Sorry, sorry! You passed out, and I was just trying to wake you up. Do you remember what happened?"

"Of course I-" She cut herself off, eyes wide. "I don't. The last thing I remember is that pink fog."

Lance perked up at the memory of the sickly-sweet smoke. "The stuff that smelled like bubblegum?"

"Yes!" Pidge nodded vigorously, staring at him with wide-eyed enthusiasm. "You saw it too?" Pidge was probably the smartest person Lance knew (including Hunk, who was pretty damned smart). He'd bet that she was well on her way to figuring out what the weird fog had been, and she'd only been awake, like, for thirty seconds.

"Yeah, and I'm guessing the rest of them did as well," Lance pointed out, motioning toward Keith and Allura sleeping in the back. "They're all still passed out on the floor."

"I can see that," Pidge replied. Her voice was distant, and Lance watched as her gaze darted all across the room before landing on Hunk's controls. "Where's Hunk?"

That… was a very good question. "I don't know. I don't think he was here before, either. He said something about checking on something. I don't remember the details."

"He's gotta be somewhere else on the ship. We'll have to go find him once we wake the others up."

Lance was about to reply, still concerned for Hunk's safety (what if the aliens with the fog had kidnapped him?), but he was interrupted by Keith, who let out a pained groan behind him.

"God, what just-" Keith cut himself off with a gasp.

Lance and Pidge both swiveled around to see what had happened—was he hurt?—but Keith was just sitting there, jaw dropped, staring at Allura.

"Wow," Keith murmured, eyes wide and face flushed bright pink. Even from a distance, Lance could tell that Keith's pupils were dilated, gray-violet irises almost completely drowned in black. Last Lance checked, that was not something human eyes normally did without drugs. Maybe it was a Galra thing?

Pidge tapped Lance on the shoulder to get his attention, one eyebrow raised. She didn't say anything, but the look in her eyes clearly said something like what the heck was that?

Lance shrugged. I dunno, dude. Beats me. Realizing that Pidge probably wasn't going to speak up until she finished analyzing the situation, he called out to Keith. "Hey, man! What's going on?"

Keith barely regarded him, refusing to take his eyes off of Allura. "Lance," he replied, voice low and dreamy, cracking at the edges as if he was so in awe that he was about to cry. "She's beautiful."

Wow, okay, so. Uh. That wasn't what Lance had been expecting, and from another confused look, he could tell that Pidge was at a loss as well.

There were a bunch of ways Lance could've responded to Keith. He probably should have kept things casual, asked some more questions, maybe surreptitiously checked for a fever, but no. Instead, when he opened his big fat mouth, all that came out was, "I thought you liked Shiro."

"Wait, what?" Pidge snapped. "He likes who?!"

"Who cares about Shiro?" Keith mumbled, eyes still glued to Princess Allura, and that's when Lance knew that something was very, very wrong.

Luckily, Pidge finally decided to intervene, standing up and marching over to where Keith was sitting. "Alright, that's it!" she cried, grabbing onto Keith's arm and pulling him away from the Princess. "Let's get you away from Allura. C'mon, Keith, move it! You look like you're about to jump her. Lance, a little help here?"

"Oh! Right." Lance made his way over to help her as she struggled with Keith's overwhelming strength. Together, they were barely strong enough to keep Keith from trying to claw his way back to Allura. Lance grabbed his arms and Pidge kept him from kicking and honestly, Keith had never looked less human to Lance. He was still struggling when they got him across the room, and it became abundantly clear that he would run off the second they let go of him.

"What do we do?" Pidge shouted as Keith let out a grunt, jerking his arms in an attempt to make Lance lose his grip. "Tie him to a chair?"

Actually, Lance thought that was a pretty good idea. "Got any rope?"

"Nope!"

Lance couldn't shrug when he was grabbing Keith's arms like that, so he just deadpanned and replied, "then I vote we don't tie him to a chair."

Pidge glowered. "Gee, thanks, Lance."

Lance was about to make an amazing comeback, but someone roughly grabbed him by the shoulders and shoved him, making him lose his grip.

Shiro was standing over him, muscular arms crossed over his chest. "What the fuck are you doing to Keith."

It was the first time Lance had ever heard Shiro say the F-word, and honestly? If he hadn't been on the receiving end of it, it probably would've seemed pretty badass. As it was, however, he was terrified. "I, ah-"

Pidge let out a cry as Keith finally broke free, making to sprint back to Allura.

Shiro stopped him, though, pulling him back by the collar of his jacket. "Keith, where are you going?" he asked casually, shooting the other boy an easy smile.

Keith didn't even seem to hear him, letting out a frustrated groan as he made grabby hands in Allura's direction. "Princess," was the only word that left his lips as he gasped for breath to yell.

Inwardly, Lance thanked the lord that Shiro was there to keep Keith from running off. The boy was getting increasingly wild, and even with their combined strengths, Lance wasn't sure how much longer he and Pidge would have been able to keep Keith at bay. But even with whatever animal-instincts were making Keith punch and kick and hiss, he was no match for Shiro's sheer muscular force. Keeping his robotic arm firm around Keith's shoulders, he plucked Keith up at the knee and held him bridal-style.

"What about the princess?" Shiro shot back, brow furrowed in frustration and- was that jealousy Lance spied? The flicker of anger in Shiro's eyes as his pupils dilated seemed to suggest so.

Huh. He'd never seen that from Shiro before. It was almost like-

Wait. Shiro's frigging pupils. Again, they were dilated almost cartoonishly and Lance was pretty sure that this had to be a drug thing. He realized in that moment that Shiro's eyes had only left Keith's body once since Lance had noticed he'd woken up, and that was when Shiro had been trying to get Lance away from him.

Oh no.

"Allura? Why would you want Allura when you're right here in my arms," Shiro scoffed, and wow, drugged Shiro was a douchebag.

"No, I need her!" Keith shot back, struggling in vain against Shiro's hold. Again, this was especially trippy since usually, Keith would've killed to have this kind of attention from Shiro. Shiro had friend-zoned Keith years ago, and Lance was pretty sure that Shiro didn't even know how Keith really felt- or rather, how Keith had felt until he'd woken up obsessed with Allura.

Shiro shook his head, letting out a impatient sigh. "No, Keith, you don't need Allura. But, if you really want to, I can take you to her."

Keith's eyes went wide. "Please?" he begged.

"Fine. But I'll be right here next to you."

The two made their way to Allura, Shiro refusing to let go of Keith, who kept trying to shrug him off.

Lance, disgruntled, turned to Pidge. "Ummm…."

"Maybe we should-"

"Go look for Hunk?"

"Yes! Yep, let's go do that. Wow. Uh."


They found Hunk in the lounge, already awake and fiddling with some device. He was tapping on a touch screen, brow furrowed as he bit his lip in concentration. As far as Lance could tell, he wasn't madly in love with anyone, which was a good start.

"Hey guys," he said without looking up from the screen, "I'm just trying to figure out what happened to the ship. I'm running scans on that chemical that knocked us out—the pink stuff?—and it's not matching up with anything I can find. It looks like some kind of drug, though."

Lance let out a short laugh. "Yeah, that'd make sense. You should've seen what happened back on the deck, Keith was crazy about Allura!"

"He was?" Hunk asked. He turned to Lance, another question on the tip of his tongue, but the minute his eyes fell on Lance's face, Hunk's jaw dropped. His pupils dilated (just like Keith's and Shiro's had earlier) and he started stuttering out nonsense. "I… uh… you… wow."

"Aw, not you too!" Lance groaned.

Pidge stood on her tiptoes so she could wave a hand in front of Hunk's face, trying in vain to snap him out of it. When that didn't work, she snapped her fingers under his nose. "C'mon, Hunk! You've gotta focus. What kind of drug did it look like?"

"Lance," Hunk sighed, "your eyes. They're amazing. Wow, I- I can't believe I never noticed that before."

Though he was a bit flustered, Lance still managed to roll his eyes and groan in disdain. "Ughh, he's useless."

"And he seemed to have some information, too," Pidge added, swiping Hunk's device and starting to type frantically on the touch screen. "Wow, he was right. This doesn't match any sort of chemicals the castle is equipped to detect. Not only that, but it seems like it passed right under our radar. Usually, the castle is set to filter out any unfamiliar gases, but this didn't even register until it had already infiltrated the air system. The alarms went off, meaning that the castle's interior security detected a foreign substance, but the ship isn't equipped to process it. To the filtration system, that pink stuff might as well just be air."

"Weird pink bubblegum air?" Lance fired back, an eyebrow raised. "Looks like some kind of magic love potion to me. I mean, look at Hunk! We've been bros forever, and now he's smited. Uh, smitten. Smote. He's frickin' smote, man."

"Only because you're so amazing," Hunk interjected, still looking at Lance with figurative hearts in his eyes. "Dude, I can't believe I never noticed how great you are before. Do you wanna go out sometime?"

Lance spluttered. Pidge laughed. "Oh god, you gotta admit, though: this is pretty funny. You guys are the most platonic bros to ever bro. It's kinda nice to see this side of it."

"No, it's not!" Lance retorted. "It's fricking weird! Hunk, really? You know we're just friends, right?"

"So you don't want to go out with me?" Hunk asked with a pout. "Is it because I'm not flirty enough? Wait-wait-wait! I have some pickup lines I could use on you!"

"Oh no," Lance said.

"Oh yes," Pidge sassed back, smirking.

"Alright, alright, I think I've got one," Hunk announced. "Are you an asteroid, Lance? Because you rock my world."

Pidge snickered. "Aw, that was awful!"

Lance was too uncomfortable to even speak.

Hunk, however, looked troubled. "It was awful? Wait, I've got more! Lance, whenever I'm near you, I undergo anaerobic respiration because you take my breath away."

"Why are all your lines so science-y?" Lance asked, and Hunk frowned for a moment as he tried to come up with another line.

"Okay, how about this?" he continued. "My love for you is like a concave-up function because it's always increasing."

Lance looked at Pidge, who shrugged. "I mean, technically that's math, not science, so you can't really complain."

"Dude, I don't even know what that means," Lance cried out, frustrated. Of course Pidge would be impressed by calculus and science-y science stuff. Lance could never get a grasp of it, himself, and now he kinda wished he could. Sure, Pidge was making fun of them, but she really did seem impressed by all these weird lines that Hunk was spouting off.

Hunk started talking again, inching closer to Lance as he became more and more dazed by the drug. "Wait, is this better? If I could be a superhero, I wouldn't be Iron-Man, Batman, or Superman, I would be Your Man."

"Hunk that…" Lance trailed off for a minute, brain short-circuiting. "That was actually pretty smooth, man."

And had they been in any other situation, Lance would've been elated to see Hunk look so happy, smiling proudly as he looked right into Lance's eyes. "Really? You think so? Does that mean I can go out with you?"

"Um-"

Pidge interrupted. "Yeah, Hunk, Lance would love to go out with you!"

"What?! I don't wanna-" but before Lance could finish saying that no, he did not want to go out with Hunk, Pidge elbowed him in the ribs. "Ow! I mean, uh, yeah? I guess I'll go out with you." Lance wasn't quite sure where Pidge was going with this, but when he looked at her, she gave him a wink, so she must've had some sort of plan.

"That's great!" Hunk exclaimed. "What should we do?"

Lance had no idea what to say, but Pidge spoke up. "Hey Lance, aren't you hungry?"

"What? Why would I-" Pidge elbowed him again. "Ow! Stop that! I mean, yeah, I'm starving? Do you-" and then it hit him. "Oh! Yeah, do you think you could make me something while I wait here, Hunk?"

Hunk's eyes went wide, and he grabbed onto Lance's arms as if they were the only thing grounding him in reality as he replied, "of course I can! I'll go make some food right now. I'll be right back, okay?"

"You got it, man," Lance said, faking a smile as he gently removed Hunk's hands from his arms.

Hunk immediately ran across the room to the doorway. Just before he left, though, he turned back around. "Oh, and Lance? I wish I were Adenine because then I could get paired with U."

Lance face-palmed. "Ughh, just go!"

And with that, Hunk happily freaking skipped out of the room like a freaking seven-year-old, humming to himself and probably fantasizing about holding hands with Lance or something gross like that.

Lance immediately turned to Pidge. "We need to get out of here."

However, Pidge didn't seem to hear him, too busy scowling at the door. Her fists were clenched at her sides, as if she was ready to throw a punch at any moment. Which was weird, considering that she'd seemed totally smug a few seconds ago.

"Uhh, Pidge?" Lance prompted, unsure of how to react. He placed a hand on her shoulder. "Escaping? We finally got Hunk distracted, we probably need to leave pretty soon if we don't want him to catch up with us."

"Oh! Right, yeah," Pidge replied, shaking her head as her focus returned to the task at hand. Her eyes darted toward the door Hunk had left through one last time, then fell on another door on the opposite end of the lounge.

"Alright, my room's closer. Let's go!" she told Lance as she grabbed his hand, and half-dragged him out of the room. She didn't let go as they ran down the halls, Lance left dumbfounded as Pidge led him to her room. She didn't drop his hand until they were sitting on the bed in Pidge's messy room, door firmly shut and locked.

"Okay," Lance said, once he'd caught his breath (man, Pidge could run). "What the heck is going on?"