A/N: this takes place somwhere at the beginning of season 3.

If Keith had a Gac for every time someone told him "stop pushing yourself or you'll get sick", he would have already been able to buy a whole space mall. Not that it made him stop pushing himself, of course; between training with the black lion and the rest of the paladins, fighting Lotor and trying to form alliances with all the planets they had liberated, Keith found himself easily giving up on luxuries such as regular meals or a sufficient number of sleep hours.

He knew it was only a matter of time until he collapsed; but as long as the Galra were out there, there was a bigger chance that the entire universe would collapse - and that was slightly more important.

So when Keith woke up one day with a killer flu he wasn't exactly surprised. Still, it wasn't the most pleasant experience, especially after his friends had to practically drag him back to his room after he tried - and failed miserably - to make it to the training deck in one piece.

"I d-don't have time for t-t-this," Keith protested sluggishly as Hunk (who all but carried him there) lowered him onto his bed and tucked the covers around his shivering body. "I need to... I need to..." what did he need to do, exactly? His thoughts were like jelly.

"You need to rest," Hunk ordered.

"The universe..." Keith slurred.

"Can wait," Hunk crossed his arms. "What, you honestly want to form Voltron when you're like this? Sorry, but I don't think Lotor will be too impressed if you simply puke all over his ship."

Keith considered to keep arguing, but he had to admit that Hunk had a point. Besides, at the mention of puking he felt his stomach getting all kinds of ideas, none of them was particularly appealing to him. So he sighed and curled into himself. "Fine. Can you get me more blankets? I'm freezing."

"Now you're making sense."

So this was pretty much how Keith spent his entire day. His friends came and went, bringing him water (food was out of the question for the time being) and medicine and asking if he needed anything, but honestly, all Keith wanted was to be alone. He wasn't a very social person to begin with and being sick only intensified his will to avoid people as much as possible. The others took the hint rather quickly, and left him to pity himself in private.

Well, all except for one person, of course.

It was somewhere around late afternoon - or so he thought, it was truly hard to track time when he felt so horrible - when the door to Keith's room opened and inside walked no other than Lance.

Keith gritted his teeth almost instinctively. He really didn't have the energy to deal with this guy now. It's not that he hated Lance, not at all; but Lance was... well, he was a really loud that was the last thing Keith needed right now.

"Hey man," Lance said, hands stuffed casually in his jacket pockets. "Just dropping by to check on you. Also, dinner's going to be ready soon, so you can come and join us if you're feeling up to it. Or someone will bring you a plate later, whatever you like."

The mere thought of food made Keith's stomach flip. "I'm not hungry," he rasped.

Lance frowned. "Well, you gotta eat something if you want to get better. No offence, but you look like shit."

"You look like shit," Keith muttered, not even caring about the lame comeback. Another shiver wrecked his body and he burrowed deeper under his cocoon of blankets.

He must have truly looked horrible though, as all traces of heat left Lance's face and his eyes softened in concern. "You're still cold under all these blankets? Man, you're really sick, aren't you?"

"Great diagnosis, you should consider becoming a doctor," Keith hissed. His head was pounding and all he wanted was for Lance to leave him alone.

However, the other boy showed no signs of leaving as he started to pace around the room, rubbing his chin in deep thought. Then, his face brightened. "Oh, I've got just the thing! Be right back," he called, and sprung out of the room before Keith had any chance to reply.

Keith groaned and plopped back to a lying position. From all the members of their team, why did it have to be the noisiest one who has decided to play nurse with him?

Said member burst back into the room a minute or two later, holding something which looked pretty much like a large pillow. "There," he panted. "Altean heat pouch. Coran once gave me one of these babies after we came back from an ice planet and since then I always have one in my room. It keeps its heat for at least twelve vargas, so I think it'll come in handy for you now." He stepped forward and placed the pouch on the bed next to Keith, grinning from ear to ear.

Keith took the pouch in trembling hands, flipping it over to examine it. It was soft and indeed very warm to the touch, and Keith knew it was probably good for him. Still, instead of feeling comfort, his chest burned with a sudden pang of loss he couldn't quite explain.

A distant memory crawled its way out from the back of his mind, but in his feverish and dazed state it was too hard for Keith to grasp what it was about. All he knew was that he suddenly felt more lonely and sick and miserable than ever.

Lance quirked an eyebrow, clearly not expecting this sort of reaction. "Dude, it's just a heat pouch, it won't bite you."

Keith scrunched his face at Lance's comment - he didn't even know why it upset him so much - and threw the pouch on the floor as if it was poisonous. "I don't want it," he said in a tight voice.

"What the quiznak is your problem?!" Lance called in exasperation and reached down to retrieve the pouch. "I'm just trying to help, you know! But if you prefer to keep freezing here and feel sorry for yourself just to prove some stupid point, well then, be my guest!"

"It's not like the one from home," Keith blurted out without thinking.

Lance's eyebrows shot up so high now they threatened to cross his hairline. "What?"

Keith felt his face grow hot regardless of his fever. He wished nothing more than to take his words back, but unfortunately that was impossible. Why did he say this? He didn't even mean to, the words simply left his mouth on their own.

Winter in the desert. It wasn't so horrible as long as the sun was up, but the nights were nearly unbearable. No matter what he did, he just couldn't make his shack warm enough. The cold was so intense it seemed to emanate from his own bones, and the only thing which prevented him from freezing to death was...

Keith turned around to face the wall, equally ashamed of his childishness and annoyed by Lance's presence. "Nevermind," he murmured. "Forget I said anything."

He heard steps approaching close and felt the edge of his bed sink down with a soft sigh, indicating that Lance had no meaning of going anywhere. Keith had to bite his lip to hold back a snarl. This guy just wouldn't give up, would he.

"Lance, I'm serious," he tried again, staring at the wall intently in hopes that Lance will take the hint. "I appreciate the help, but I'll be fine. Honestly."

"Sure you will," Lance said. Keith felt him lean back against the wall. "What did you mean, 'not like the one from home'?"

Keith sighed, closing his eyes in defeat. "Nothing. It's stupid."

"I don't care," Lance said. "And I'm not leaving until you tell me, so if you want to get some sleep you better start talking. I can be pretty annoying when I want to."

Keith released a raspy laugh in spite of himself. Lance was absolutely right about that.

"Back on Earth I had this hot water bottle," he said, not bothering to open his eyes. "I had it since I was little. It was one of the few things which survived all the houses I lived in, along with my knife. It was pretty useful."

"Where did you get it from?" Lance asked.

Keith thought for a moment before answering. "It was a gift from my dad," he said in a small voice. "He... bought it for me this one time I had a really bad cold. But I kept using it over the years, you know, whenever I was sick or just cold." Or lonely. He coughed weakly, curling a bit tighter into himself. "That's pretty much it. Told you it was stupid."

Lance didn't reply for a long minute, and Keith started to think he finally decided to drop the subject when he suddenly asked in an odd voice, "What did it look like?"

Keith's eyes flew open at once. "I'm sorry, what?"

"The bottle, what did it look like?" Lance persisted.

Keith swallowed, wincing as the action hurt his dry throat. "Um..." he said. "It-it was red. Pretty soft, because it had this fluffy cover, wool or fleece or something like that. And it had hippos on it."

"Hippos?" Lance repeated, surprise evident in his voice.

Keith felt all of his muscles tense up. Why the hell did he just tell Lance this? It didn't even matter what the bottle looked like, as it was long forgotten in his desert shack, galaxies and galaxies away from their current location.

It must have his illness. It messed up his better judgment and made all his inner walls collapse onto each other, leaving him exposed and vulnerable and way to talkative for his taste. He really needed Lance to stop interrogating him before he let out any more embarrassing facts.

However, Lance didn't bug him with additional questions. Keith felt his mattress rise up again as the other boy stood up. "Well, I'm sorry we can't fetch this particular hot water bottle for you," he said, his voice uncharacteristically solemn. "But you're still pretty sick and need to get warm, so the heat pouch will have to do. It will make you feel better, you'll see."

Keith huffed out another cough. He knew Lance was right, but the thought of holding a plain, alien pillow just to get warm made his eyes prickle with unexpected tears. He squeezed his eyes shut and hid his face against the pillow. Quiznak, he was such a pathetic mess.

If Lance noticed any of this, he was tactful enough not to mentioned it. "Get some rest. I'll bring you a dinner plate later, and another dose of Altean antibiotics," he said flatly and exited the room, the doors closing behind him with a soft whoosh.

Now that he was alone, Keith could finally growl in frustration and pull the covers over his head. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why did he have to open his damn mouth at all? Lance may leave it for now, but as soon as Keith was back to himself the blue paladin would never let him hear the end of it. He has probably already ran to tell Hunk and Pidge what a baby their new leader was.

Eventually he lost the battle to his fever and general fatigue and fell into a fitful sleep, the heat pouch left unused on the floor next to his bed.

-X-

A few week have passed since that day. Keith was back to himself long ago - the Altean medicine had worked its magic after two or three days - and they all quickly fell back to their old routine of training, fighting Galra and looking for Shiro. To Keith's surprise, Lance hadn't mentioned their conversation even once through all this time, and he started to wonder whether it even happened. Perhaps it was only a fever dream. In any case, they were all so busy with their different responsibilities that the incident was quickly pushed back to a distant corner of Keith's mind, no longer worth pondering.

Until he came back to his room one night after reviewing some charts and found on his bed an object which was not there before.

Keith picked it up slowly, running his palm over the soft, fluffy surface - a texture familiar to wool, but somewhat softer and less prickly - and felt his guts knotting in discomfort.

It was a hippo plushy. There was no mistake in it; the shape was pretty clear, albeit a little raw around the edges, indicating that it was hand-made. It was bright red and had two black buttons for eyes, and even a pair of large front teeth like cartoon hippos often had. It was actually kind of cute, but Keith was too agitated at the moment to appreciate it. There was only one person on the castle who could think of leaving something like this in Keith's room, and Keith was going to get some answers from him right now.

He stomped out of his room, the plushy clenched in his fist in a death grip, and made a beeline for Lance's room which was at the opposite end of the hall. He didn't even bother announcing his presence before he hit the opening button and stepped inside, finding the blue paladin in the middle of his usual nightly routine - which included applying a thick layer of something that looked like their food goo all over his face.

Lance jumped in his place when Keith walked in, accidently smearing some cream on his eye. "What the hell, Keith?! You can't just burst into people's rooms like - ahhh, quiznak it burns," he hissed and squeezed his cream-filled eye shut. "Hold on, I've got to wash this thing off..." he dipped a towel in a small bowl of water which rested on his nightstand - for god's sake, this guy's room looked like a beauty salon, Keith thought - and pressed it to his eye with a groan, dripping water all over his pajamas. "Damn it, Keith, look at what you've done..."

"Is this some kind of joke?" Keith said impatiently, waving the hippo plushy in front of Lance's face.

"What are you talking about, I've got cream in my eye, and it's your fault any way..." Lance whined.

"Not that, you idiot," Keith persisted. "What is this doll doing in my room? I know it was you, so out with it."

Lance finally looked at him with one eye, only now noticing what Keith was holding in his hand. "Oh good, you found it. You don't like it? Look, I tried to make a cover with hippo figures on it like the one you had at home, but it turned out pretty ugly because apparently I'm not very good at doing patterns and stuff... so I figured I'd just make it one big hippo. You can still cuddle it, you know, that's the whole point of plush dolls."

He said all of this in the most casual tone ever, and Keith was so dumbfounded that all of his previous agitation faded away at once. He stood frozen in his place and simply stared at Lance for a long minute, until he finally managed to croak, "You made this?"

Lance snorted. "Well of course, where the hell am I supposed to get a hippo doll in the middle of space?"

A wave of dizziness washed over Keith. This situation was getting weirder by the second and he had so many questions, but his tongue didn't seem to work anymore.

Lance must have noticed his distress, as he sighed and lowered the towel from his face, revealing a red and slightly swollen eye. "Look, it's just a gift, Keith. I'm sure you're familiar with the concept. I wasn't trying to make fun of you or anything, and if you don't like it you can throw it in the trash, for all I care."

Keith brought the doll to his chest, squeezing it unconsciously. "N-no, I do like it," he said awkwardly. "I just don't... I mean... why did you bother?"

Lance shrugged. "Well, you seemed pretty sad when you talked about that hot water bottle, so I figured it was probably very important to you for whatever reason and thought this would cheer you up. After all, we all miss home, so I think it's good to have stuff that remind us of it."

Keith walked to Lance's bed and sat cross-legged next to him, still unable to speak. All he could do was rub his thumb across the soft fur of the hippo, waiting for the circular movement to calm down his nerves. Lance remained silent as well, not trying to probe the red paladin with questions he wasn't ready to answer.

Still, the usually chatty boy could only stay silent for so long. "Oh, I almost forgot to show you!" he called and snatched the doll from Keith's hands. "You probably hadn't noticed it since you were so busy being grumpy..." he flipped the hippo over and exposed a small button on its belly. "I got Coran and Hunk to help me with this one," he said proudly and pushed the button, then handed the doll back to Keith. Keith took it and instantly felt waves of warmth spread through his hands.

"It's a hippo heat pouch!" Lance cheered. "It's not as durable as the Altean ones and you'll probably have to recharge it after a couple of hours, but it's better than nothing, I suppose."

Keith kept staring at the doll in his arms, feeling the soothing vibrations travel through his entire body, slowly releasing a knot in his chest he hadn't even known that was there.

A large, calloused palm pushed his sweaty bangs off his forehead. But he no longer felt so cold and miserable, now that he had his new bottle to warm him up.

"Go to sleep, Keith. You'll feel better when you wake up, I promise."

He had felt better that time and every other time he warmed up the bottle and thought of his father.

Keith cleared his throat to get rid of the lump that formed there without his permission. "This is really good," he said, turning the doll in his hands. "I mean, the sewing work, it's pretty solid. I didn't even know you could sew."

Lance shrugged again. "My abuela taught me when I was a kid," he said. "It actually came in handy because we were a lot of siblings and my parents didn't have enough money to buy everyone new toys all the time, so I made most of my brothers and sisters' dolls." He smiled fondly at the memory.

"Sounds like you were a really good brother," Keith said quietly.

"I sure hope I was," Lance said, his smile faltering a bit. "To be honest, sometimes I wish I had someone to make dolls for again."

Keith hummed. "Well, you've already made one for me, and you can make them for the rest of the paladins too. I'm sure they'll be thrilled. Like you said, we all need something to remind us of home."

Lance tilted his head in consideration. "You know, that's actually not a bad idea. Allura has tons of this wool-like fabric in her room, I'm sure she'll give me more if I ask for it."

"But first you need to figure out everyone's favorite animals," Keith pointed out.

"Well, I know Hunk is one hundred percent a dog person, but I truly have no idea what animals Pidge and Shiro like." His face twisted at the mention of their missing leader, and Keith instantly reached out a hand and squeezed his shoulder once, trying to comfort himself as well.

Lance shook his head as if to clear his mind. "I guess I'll have to make ones for Allura and Coran as well," he said, his tone as mild as before. "Although I don't really know any Altean animals..."

"We'll figure something out," Keith reassured.

They sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes. Lance took out a small mirror from one of the drawers and checked his eye carefully, while Keith hugged the hippo a little tighter, leaning into the warmth. His eyelids became heavy and he reckoned that he should probably get back to his room before he fell asleep on Lance's bed, but part of him didn't want to leave just yet. He didn't remember the last time he sat and simply relaxed like this.

"Um, Keith," Lance said all of a sudden, sounding hesitant. "Forgive me for asking but... why hippos, of all animals on Earth?"

Keith blushed deeply. "Oh, that... well, I actually don't know myself." He laughed nervously. "My dad took me to the store when he went to buy it because he couldn't really leave me at home by myself, and apparently I liked the one with the hippos the most. I don't even remember it because I was really small, but this is what he told me."

Lance's mouth twitched in a desperate attempt not to laugh and Keith only blushed harder. "Come on!" he protested. "I was a kid! Kids have weird preferences sometimes!"

"I know, I know," Lance giggled uncontrollably and Keith pouted, though there was no real heat in his expression. "Hey, I'm not judging you or anything; I had a pretty sick obsession with sharks when I was younger."

"Sharks?"

"Yeah," Lance leaned back on his pillows with his arms crossed behind his neck. "Not sure why, though. All I remember is that we went to the aquarium one day and I got really hyped about the sharks. Probably thought they looked cool or something."

"You mean they were the exact opposite of you," Keith teased, earning a clumsy kick to the shoulder.

"Seriously, since that day all I wanted was shark merchandise," Lance continued. "My mom once spent an entire day at all the clothing stores in town searching for a shark pajamas, because I threw a tantrum and screamed I wouldn't go to bed unless I got one."

"Did she found one?"

"You bet she did," Lance laughed. "I slept with it for years, even when it became way too short for me to wear."

Suddenly Keith had a very vivid image in his mind of Lance sleeping in a shark pajamas which was two or three sizes too small for him, and he released a snort of laughter, feeling more at peace than he had felt in weeks.

Lance smirked, then opened his mouth in a huge, loud yawn. "Okay Keith, sorry to kick you out and all that, but Lancey-Lance needs his beauty sleep. And to put a new face mask, since you destroyed the old one when you burst into my room like an angry hippo."

"Oh, cry me a river." Keith stood up, hugging the plushy against his chest. "Good night, Lance. And thank you. For the gift, and... for everything else."

Lance winked. "Any time, samurai." His face softened. "Hey, you know we're all here for you, right? Whenever you need us, and even when you don't."

Keith grinned. "I know. Thanks for reminding me."

As he walked back to his room, he swore he would find Lance a shark pajamas, even if it meant he had to search the entire universe.

If anyone wonders what's the deals with Keith loving hippos, that's from the paladin's handbook. :) I don't know whether it's considered canon or not, but it's a really cute fact and I just had to write something about it.