Keith was in hell. There were no others words to describe it. It all started when the team was visiting a uninhabited planet, searching for a flower that supposedly helped heal burns. With how often the paladins found themselves involved with fire and explosions during battle, Pidge had suggested having some of this "magic" plant would be helpful.

As they had walked around a peach coloured forest everything seemed fine, they hadn't run into any sign of life or danger, much to their delight. That all ended when Lance announced he thought he found the plant and rushed off on his own.

Keith had tried to stop him, but as usual, Lance never listened to the red paladin. He charged off into the bushes. The paladins continued to look around for the flower, examining the many many plants around them until they heard a noise. Or more specifically, the sound of a certain paladin crashing through the bushes.

"I found it! I found it! This is it right?" He held what looked like one of those hawaiian flowers mixed with a lily, it was pale peach coloured, much like the rest of the planet. It did look a lot like the flower Pidge had shown them back at the castle.

"Hey! I think you're right, that looks just like it." Pidge replied. She took the flower from him, looking it over. "Where did you find this? We should collect more."

By the end of the day they had made it back to the castle, having collected a bundle of the magic fire healing plants. Pidge and Hunk were currently trying to make some sort of drink or potion out of them. Lance was going to test it, since he still had somewhat of a nasty burn on his shoulder from their last mission. At first Keith had protested the blue paladin drinking some random plant they weren't even sure worked, but after Pidge had done more research they found that it had no harmful traits or chemicals in it. He still wasn't happy about it but it wasn't like he could do anything.

He and Lance were sitting at the table waiting, Keith had his head resting in his hand. Lance was tapping his fingers on the surface, bored of waiting.

"You sure you want to try this thing? It could kill you." Lance stopped tapping his fingers and looked over at him.

"Oh stop worrying, Pidge already told us it won't do anything bad. And hey maybe it'll heal this stupid burn." Lance says, smirking when Keith turned away, glaring at the table again. "I didn't know you worried so much about me." He teases. Keith scoffs, but doesn't reply, luckily for him Hunk walked in at that moment.

"Alright, we don't know how this is going to taste - probably not very good - but here you go."

"Thank you kind sir." Lance took the glass out of his hand, and leaned back against the counter, "Well, here goes nothing." He tipped his head back and chugged the whole glass. grimacing at the clearly bad taste.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, staring at him, waiting for something to happen. He didn't really know what he was expecting, none of them had ever seen a magic plant in action before. But then suddenly Lance squeezed his eyes shut, raising a hand to his forehead and grunting.

Keith stood up in panic, rushing over to the blue paladin, "Hey, hey, woah what's happening?" He looked to Hunk, "What's wrong with him?"

"I-I don't know! Lance? Lance!"

Lance stumbled backwards, one hand gripping his forehead in pain and the other gripping the counter. Keith grabbed his shoulder, snapping a finger in front of the cuban boy's face. "Lance? Lance can you hear me?"

His blue eyes then shot open, staring at Keith in shock. That only made the red paladin's worry worse, what was wrong with him? Why was he staring at him like that? Lance's eyes seemed to almost have a pink tint to them. This was such a bad idea! He should've argued against it more.

"...Keith?" Lance breathed.

"Y-yeah?"

He didn't respond, he just kept staring at Keith like he had two heads.

"Lance? Are you okay? How do you feel?" Hunk grabbed Lance's other shoulder, looking concerned at him. Lance shook his head, blinking rapidly.

"O-oh! Yeah I'm.. I'm fine! Totally fine!" He backed away, hands flying up in defense. Keith took a step towards him.

"Are you sure?" He asked. He couldn't help the worry building up inside of him.

"Yes, yes I'm sure." Lance replied. "I-uh, I think I'm going to go lay down. I think I just have a bit of a headache." With that he turned and fled down the hall before any of them could protest. Leaving Hunk and Keith to stare after him.

...

For the rest of the day Lance had been acting weird and no one knew what to make of it. He was sure by now everyone had noticed. At dinner Lance slowly moved closer to Keith throughout the meal. Keith didn't say anything at the time, because it looked as though Lance didn't even know he had done it. When everyone got up to leave, Lance had stared at Keith in surprise. He must have finally noticed how close they were, and jumped back, apologizing before quickly exiting.

Later on, Keith was sitting on one of the couches, cleaning his bayard. He hadn't heard from Lance since dinner, he was starting to think maybe all the weirdness was over when he felt two hands on his shoulders and a weight on his head.

"Whatcha doin?" He heard Lance's voice above him. He had his chin resting on Keith's head and his hands lightly pressed against the red paladins shoulders. Looks like this wasn't over after all.

"I'm uh.. just cleaning my bayard. What are you doing?" He asked in return.

"Not much.." The boy above him responded. Keith expected him to have moved after that, but the blue paladin stayed where he was, watching as Keith continued to clean his bayard.

When the red paladin had finished he glanced upwards.

"You sure you're okay? You seem a little off today."

"I'm telling you, I'm fine."

"Whatever you say." He felt Lance tense, before the weight on his head and shoulders disappeared. Keith turned around to see the sharpshooter retreating to what he assumed his room for the third time that day.

They didn't see Lance at all the next day. Pidge and Hunk had tried going to his room twice to check on him, but to no prevail. They all sat down for dinner, however no one was talking except for Coran re-telling stories about Altea. Keith was pretty sure they all were worried for Lance. Pidge's research showed that he shouldn't have experienced any harm from drinking the potion, but could they really count on that? It was space after all. He didn't think it would surprise any of them if strange space plants didn't always work with their technology.

The next day it seemed Lance planned to stay in his room again. Shiro and Allura said it might be best to give him some space, after leaving him some food outside his door.

Keith wasn't having it though, this wasn't like Lance at all. After a few hours of waiting, him, Pidge and Hunk decided to say screw it and just go in. So here they were, standing outside the blue paladins door.

Hunk tried knocking, when no response came he tried again.

"Lance? Lance we're worried about you. We're coming in." They waited a few more moments to see if that would coax the boy out of his room. But they received no answer once again.

Keith narrowed his eyes and opened the door. The room was pitch black dark. Pidge found the light and flicked it on, but none of them had expected what they saw next.

Sitting with his knees pulled tightly to his chest, head in his knees, was their blue paladin. He seemed to be breathing somewhat heavily. The three of them rushed towards him.

"Lance? What's wrong?" Keith put a hand to his shoulder, trying to get him to look up. Was he sick? Was the flower actually poisonous? Surely Lance would've come to them if it was. The boy gasped as soon as Keith's hand came to his skin, flinching back like he had burned him.

Lance suddenly put a hand to his chest, breathing coming in shallower. He looked like he was in pain. Keith scowled and reached for the sharpshooter's shirt, ignoring Lance's protests. When it was off the three of them gasped, eyes widening as they laid their eyes on Lances bare skin.

The left side of his upper chest was tinted black, it looked crazy irritated. Keith couldn't tear his gaze away, the confusion and worry was now mixing with anger.

"What is this?! Why wouldn't you tell us!" He yelled, before Pidge shoved him aside to examine Lance. Keith was still reeling from everything he just saw, Lance had been hiding himself in his room to keep them from finding this.. this.. He didn't even know what to call it. While he was lost in his thoughts it seemed Hunk had gone to get the others. In what only felt like a few moments they had gotten him to the healing pods, while everyone was discussing what was wrong with him.

Allura was staring at Lances chest from behind the glass, narrowing her eyes, she turned back to the rest of them.

"I've seen this before, back on Altea, but only once." She started. "That flower was not the flower we thought it was. I can't believe I didn't recognize it before.." She turned her gaze to the ground, a look of guilt showing on her face. "It's not a type of poison, which is probably why it didn't show up for Pidge when she scanned it. It simply takes over a person's senses for a short time, you could say." She brought up an image of the flower. "I suppose you could refer to it as a love flower, on Altea they were banned. But I can recall once instance where someone snuck one in. They used it on one my relatives, she was very confused and tried to hide herself away from the rest of us, much like Lance did. When we found her she had the same black irritation on her chest.. where her heart was."

Keith stood frozen, trying to understand what the princess was saying. From his position he could still see the burn from their last mission on Lances torso, the plant had done nothing to heal it.

"The irritation comes from them staying away from the effect the flower is supposed to cause. From what I've learned it does not make one fall in love, but simply pains them if they are not near the person of interest." She turned her gaze on all of them. "Now, who did Lance lay his eyes on first after drinking the flower?"

Oh no.

His eyes widened in realization. He turned to his teammates to see Hunk looking at him. The rest seemed to catch on very soon.

"That's why he was so close to you during dinner!" Pidge exclaimed. Keith thought back to Lance's face after dinner, how surprised he looked with his own actions. Then later on when he laid his chin on Keith's head, and out his hands around his shoulders. He had run off after that too. Everything was starting to make sense, he must've caught on to what was happening, and decided to keep himself locked up in his room.

Allura turned her gaze on him. "Keith, I'm assigning you to stay by his side until the effect wears off, otherwise the infection will only get worse." She ordered. As much as he hated the thought of the princess basically telling him to supervise Lance for the next few days. He couldn't say he wasn't relieved the cure was so simple.

The all stood in there for a little while, watching as the infection seemed to lessen a little. Gradually the rest of them left, either to go make food, tinker around, ect. Keith sat beside the pod, looking down at the ground. All he had to do was stay near Lance for him to get better, how hard could that be?

End of Part 1! Thank you to all who read and enjoyed! Chapter 2 will be coming soon ;3