The next time Shiro opened his eyes, the light in the room had changed greatly. It still had the yellowish cast of morning on Haptoxi, but it angled in the windows much more strongly. He squinted against the glare before he even cracked his eyelids, headache pounding behind his eyes. He wished Lance had thought to close the curtains before he left.
As if summoned by his thoughts, the door to the suite began to open, and Shiro blinked himself into awareness quickly enough to see Lance shove his way inside, burdened with several boxes and bundles.
"Lance?" Shiro hated how weak and raspy his voice was. He cleared his throat, but he could tell it wasn't going to make it any better, so he didn't try again.
Lance shot him a smile as he crossed over to the table in the lounge area and began to set down the things he was carrying. "Hi, Shiro! Did you sleep well?"
Lance didn't mean to be so loud, Shiro told himself. Still, his energy and brightness seemed to grate on Shiro's nerves like sandpaper. He grit his teeth and held it back. Lance didn't deserve his irritation. He was doing everything he could to help, and doing a fine job of it, too. "Sleep was good."
"Yeah?" Lance finished unburdening himself and crossed over to Shiro again. He frowned when he saw the untouched fruit and water on the bedside table, but didn't say anything. Shiro made no attempt to justify himself. He had slept the entire time Lance was gone, so it didn't matter.
Lance stood there for a moment, watching Shiro's face. Then his eyes widened. "Oh!" he hustled over to the windows and started pulling the shades. "The light is bothering you, right? Your forehead is all wrinkled up like your headache is worse. I'm sorry. I should have done this before I left."
Shiro gulped, fighting down a swirl of guilt for thinking the same thing before Lance arrived, silently blaming him for not foreseeing every little thing that could inconvenience Shiro. "It's fine," he said. "I slept the whole time you were gone. It didn't bother me."
"Still..." Lance moved over to stand next to the bed. His hands were twisting together again, which Shiro really did not enjoy seeing. It wasn't that he didn't like Lance worrying over him, since it had happened plenty of times in the past and Shiro had been forced to accept eventually that his team cared about him and were just as preoccupied with his well-being as he was with theirs. It was more that he didn't like Lance being worried at all, about anything. Their lives were hard enough. So of course Shiro had to get sick on top of it and make everything even worse. Stupid universe.
"Really, Lance," he said as gently as he could. "It's no big deal." He glanced at the shaded windows, the height of the sun still visible through the fabric. "Is it time for midday meal?" He fought down a grimace. He really wasn't looking forward to forcing himself to his feet and holding himself rigidly steady through another long session with their hosts.
"Oh, I talked us out of that one." Lance's voice went easier, now, and his hands fell down at his sides. He even managed a grin, something like that old cocky thing he used to pull out when he wanted to show how clever he was. The expression was deeper now, softer, more joking than anything else. "I told the Haptoxians that you were communicating with the Princess, so you wouldn't be able to make the meal. They were understanding."
"Ah." The Haptoxians, with their deep reverence for tradition, retained a respect for Altean culture that they had all assumed had long vanished out of the universe. It hadn't been hard at all to convince them to consider allying with Voltron, after all. They only insisted that everything be done "in the proper order in accordance with nature."
"Besides," Lance went on, "It's most important that you're prepared for tonight, for sunset. That's The Time of Great Change, when the Haptoxians can finally hitch their star to the Voltron wagon. That's the plan, anyway. So you just gotta rest up this afternoon, and get through the evening, and everything will be cool."
Lance sounded absolutely certain of this plan, enough that Shiro started to be too. Of course, this morning he had been the one trying to convince Lance that this was going to work out, but that was Lance for you. He had a way of accepting the most optimistic view of things and making it his own, even if he had initial misgivings. His crazy amount of faith and hopefulness had dragged the team out of a jam more than once, or even twice.
"That's right," Shiro said warmly. "Exactly."
Lance grinned broadly, then looked back at the mound of things he had purchased. "And I think I might have found something to help out with that."
He walked back to the table and started unpacking his boxes and bundles, and Shiro watched with interest. He expected to see a wide variety of things, remembering the shopping sprees Lance had gone on in the past, and he was not disappointed. Lance removed and set aside a large miscellanea of items that had no possible use to a sick person. A set of earthenware dishes with Haptoxian patterns, samples of finely woven cloth, a small potted plant, vials of bright pigment and a bundle of brushes, some rolled-up canvases. Then, last, two bunches of herbs.
Lance stood there for a moment, contemplating the plants in his hands, then walked back over to the bed and stood there looking down at Shiro with a serious expression on his face. "Like I said I would, I told the shopkeeper where I found this that I was looking for medical advances to share with my scientist friends back on the Altean castle-ship. Anything cool and interesting from their culture, stuff that would be good for healing sicknesses that other planets might not have. We went around the room for awhile, talking about various stuff, and then we lit on these two plants. I used Hunk's scanner on them to make sure they were safe before I touched them, no worries."
He held up the herb in his right hand, which had dusty gray leaves shaped like mint, but longer, scattered through with tiny blue blossoms. "This is called praxia. If I make a tea out of it, it will soothe your symptoms for a while. Hours, the shopkeepers said. Enough for you to get a restful sleep, at least. It's not a cure, because viruses like head colds don't really have a cure. But it will help you feel better. It can have side effects if it's used too much, though."
Shiro nodded. Now that he knew what it was, he could barely tear his eyes away from the praxia. His head really, really hurt, and his chest was heavy, and his whole body was sore and fatigued. Relief, even temporary relief, would be wonderful. More than he had dared to hope for. "That...that would be nice," he said, voice rough.
Lance nodded slowly, then held up the other herb, which was lank and yellow. "And this one...it's called scleret. It's not really a cure, either, but what it can do..." He paused, biting his lip, then went back to the table. He set the herbs aside and dug down in the thin cloth wraps that had held them. He came up with a tiny bottle of yellow-tinted powder and brought it back to the bed, holding it up between his thumb and forefinger.
"The herb itself doesn't do much. Apparently the tea just makes you feel kind of funny and floaty and have weird thoughts and images in your mind. Some artists use it for inspiration or whatever. A bit like marijuana back home, I guess. But when scleret is processed and refined into a powder, like this, it can have...weird effects. The shopkeeper said, and I really hope that my translator was working right, that this will. Um. Concentrate a sickness."
Shiro blinked. "What?"
Lance laughed, not a little nervously. "Yeah, I couldn't quite parse that one, either. But I think what she meant is that it will, like, speed things up. She kept emphasizing 'over and done.' The sickness would be 'over and done.' Within a few hours. What it would do, right, it would make you go through everything quickly. So you would suffer the entire normal course of the sickness, but in a few hours, and then it will be done. But I'm guessing that it will make you really, really sick before it makes you better. Like, way worse than it would be if we just left it alone."
"Okay." Shiro was starting to understand the choice here. "Can they be used together?" If he could get through the sickness quickly, but with the symptoms soothed...
"No way." Lance's reaction was almost violent, a harsh shake of his head and a frightened grimace. "The shopkeeper said that would be...poison. Didn't even want to let me buy them both at the same time, but I reassured her it was just for science, so my friends could study them. I didn't want to lie, but... You know. Diplomacy is at least sixty percent lying to make people feel better, right? Everyone knows that. So all's fair in peace and democracy."
Shiro lay still, contemplating this.
Lance shook his head. "So anyway." He went back to the table and set down the bottle of powder, then came back with the praxia. "I already asked the kitchen to heat up some water for us. Should be here soon. I'm thinking, you drink some minty blue tea, sleep for a few hours, and get through The Time of Great Change tonight. Make nice with the Haptoxians, sign a treaty, all's good. Then we go home, and Coran and Hunk can have fun geeking out over the weird plants."
"Lance." Shiro made his voice as gentle as he could. Lance stopped rambling and looked at him. "I think you already knew which herb I would choose."
Lance wrinkled up his nose. "I only told you about the scleret because I knew you would be mad if you found out later and I hadn't told you already. It's really not a good idea, Shiro. We don't even know if it will work for humans. Yeah, Haptoxian and human biology have been compatible so far, and Hunk's Is This Thing Tasty scanner hasn't failed us yet, but who knows if it applies to a weird yellow plant? You could be allergic or something. At least the praxia tea will be mild, and if has bad side effects we can probably flush it out. But taking a highly concentrated powder that will make you really, really sick? For hours? By design? Come on. That just has bad idea written all over it."
"Lance," Shiro said again, even more gently.
Lance's shoulders slumped, the hand holding the praxia falling limp to his side. "Yeah, I know," he said morosely. "I had to try."
"I appreciate it, buddy. I know you're just looking out for me. But it will be much, much better if I can face the ceremony tonight with a clear head and a strong body."
As much as Shiro wasn't looking forward to a few hours of a violent sickness, he was looking forward even less to another hours-long diplomatic event in which he would have to hold back every cough, every shake of his hands, every hint that he was anything less than well. All while his head was pounding and his stomach was churning and all he wanted to do was sleep. The mere prospect was exhausting, and he didn't want to do it anymore.
He would try, but he already knew that his mind was going to wander, and he was going to have trouble formulating his thoughts and comprehending complex ideas. He didn't want that. He wanted to give his absolute best work for Allura, for the Voltron Alliance, and he couldn't do that while he was sick with a cold.
If he could prevent that by choosing to suffer a few hours of horrible sickness instead... Well. It was the definition of no-brainer.
Lance gave him a longsuffering look, then heaved a full-body sigh that would have made any sullen teenager proud and went back to the table. He put down the praxia and picked up the bottle of scleret powder.
"Lance." Shiro's voice was a little stronger this time.
Lance looked back at him.
Shiro watched him seriously. "This affects you, too. I know...if I'm that sick, it'll be hard on you, trying to take care of me. If it's too much, say the word, and I'll drop it. Soothing the symptoms will be fine."
It wasn't manipulative, not really. But Shiro wasn't surprised at all when Lance smiled and stood straight, shiny-toothed and bright. The quickest way to get Lance on board with anything was to make it into a personal challenge. To ask him to stretch himself, even in the smallest way. Lance was always ready and willing to oblige.
"No sweat, man," Lance said, pride in his voice. "If you think I can't handle one sick, out-of-his-mind dude, you seriously underestimate my power. I've been through it with siblings and cousins, like, dozens of times."
"As the sole caretaker, though?" Shiro asked, skeptical at the last moment.
Lance hummed uncomfortably and glanced away. "Well, no." He shook his head and looked back to Shiro's face. "But there's a first time for everything, right? I'll be fine. You'll see."
"I believe you," Shiro said. And he did.