"Go," Keith urges the next morning even though part of him really wants Shiro to stay and chase the now-familiar pain away until he feels better. "I'll be fine on my own."

"Clearly," Shiro replies from two steps back, doubtless rolling his eyes at Keith's limp and sweaty form slumped over the toilet in his bedroom's ensuite. "You're the picture of health. In fact, we should head upstairs and go a few rounds on the training bot."

"Oh, shut up. Debrief's more important than this. You can take a break from watching me puke for half an hour. I really don't care."

He's not crying but the tracks streaming from his damn uncontrollably runny eyes and nose aren't giving that message, so he avoids turning away to look at Shiro even though his stomach feels settled enough for the time being.

"We can wait to debrief," Shiro argues. "It makes more sense to have you there anyway."

"No, it doesn't. I'm not talking about it. I told you everything, and now I'm done."

It was bad enough having to walk Shiro through most of what had happened with the Galra while he was too out of it to keep his usual guard up in the earlier stages of withdrawal, let alone to then hear him repeat some of it to Coran in the medbay last night. Medically necessary or not, he wasn't prepared to hear it spoken aloud or to not have a say in who heard about his experience.

He can't repeat what he went through in front of everyone else. He can't.

"I think you should…" Shiro trails off when Keith ignores the advice. "But let's not fight about it right now. How about I get someone to check in with Allura and see what she's thinking on this debriefing?"

"Just… ugh, do what you want. It doesn't matter."

Stay.

"You don't mean that."

"Yes, I do. Team's probably waiting on you right now."

I want you with me.

"Guess they'll have to keep waiting then. You wanna get back in bed?"

Keith shrugs, tired of fighting a battle Shiro's not going to let him win while his body is giving him enough to deal with.

Shiro must take it as a yes, judging by the hands swooping under his armpits to guide him to a stand that leaves him feeling like a walking corpse. They shuffle to the sink where Shiro turns on the faucet and tests the temperature before doling out hand soap into Keith's palm and guiding his hands toward the stream.

"You don't have to do that," Keith tries, but Shiro's still going, going so far as to clasp his hands and help him lather the soap.

"And you don't have to do everything alone. Here—" he adds, snagging a washcloth from nearby and intercepting the faucet's flow to wet it before swiping at Keith's face while Keith finishes with his hands. "We should probably work on getting that temperature down…"

But Keith's not worried about his temperature. Now that he's up and moving, bed is sounding more and more appealing. Maybe he can stay asleep a little longer this time…

"You wanna brush your teeth while you're up?"

Keith shakes his head, too focused on the comfort of his bed waiting in the next room to delay any longer.

He lets Shiro guide him, too exhausted to be anything but docile. The instant Shiro turns him around and nudges him into bed, Keith's eyes fall closed and he's out within the minute, barely noticing the hand holding the cool washcloth to the back of his neck or the scent of his own sweat probably permanently embedded in the sheets on his way there.

Keith comes to when he hears his door slide open, but he's not ready to be awake yet. This nap is not over if he has any say over it. Exhaustion still seals his eyelids in place and tries to tug his mind back to his dreams, nonsensical as they'd been. The pillow feels damp under his cheek, though, and that starts to nudge him in the direction of considering getting up.

"How's he doing?" Hunk asks. "Is he ready to try eating again? I set some stuff aside for soup."

"Better than last night, but still not there," Shiro answers. "Let's hold off a bit and try again at dinner, alright?"

"Sure thing, maybe we can all have dinner a little early if Keith's skipping lunch. He need anything else? You want someone to take over so you can rest?"

"I've got him. I don't think he's going to make it easy for anyone else to take care of him, and I got plenty of sleep while he was out last night. But if you could get someone to bring up some of those juice pouches the next time they're heading this way, that would help—he likes the pink ones if we have any of those. Did you or Coran get a chance to fill in everyone else?"

Keith tunes out as his stomach rumbles, and he's relieved to realize it finally seems to be in interest of food rather than in preparation to send him sprinting to the bathroom once more. He tables that thought for the moment; if Shiro says he shouldn't eat yet, then he won't eat.

He hadn't even noticed Shiro had fallen asleep last night, as trapped in his own spiraling thoughts as he'd been for the entirety of the night cycle. Keith hadn't managed to get much rest himself, but it makes sense that Shiro saw him frozen in place trying to will his bones to stop their attempt to twist themselves out of his skin and mistook the stillness for a deep sleep.

Now he doesn't know if his body wants food or sleep more, and he's groaning in indecision before he realizes it.

"Hey there," Shiro greets from his right. "Sleep okay?"

Keith finally opens his eyes to the overly bright room, wincing and squinting until they adjust.

"Yeah," he agrees even though that was not what he'd consider a good nap under normal circumstances. "'time's it?"

"Still morning. If you're up for it, we could move down to the rec room. Might be nice to get a change of scenery, yeah?"

He's always been an open book. Keith doesn't care about getting a change of scenery, but Shiro does.

"Okay," he agrees for that reason only.

Pain is pain, and he couldn't care less where in the castle he goes through it. It's not like it could hurt him to shift to another room for a while. He feels… well, not good, but better than before, certainly well enough to tolerate another round of bad Altean movies, maybe avoid rounding them off with a round of puking this time. More importantly, Shiro deserves a chance to focus on something besides Keith. AS best as Keith can tell, they haven't spent more than a couple minutes apart since freeing him.

His sweat-soaked t-shirt slides uncomfortably across his chest as he moves to sit up.

"After a shower," he corrects.

"I don't think—"

"Shiro, I need a shower. It'll be fine. I feel better."

His body has different ideas after a couple minutes standing under the stream of hot water that washes away the dried sweat but does little to chase away the chill that clings to him and suddenly, he does not feel better anymore, and it's not fine.

His vision and sense of balance blip out for less than a second but that's enough to send him falling to the floor before he can think to reach out and catch himself. One of his knees scrapes against the tile hard enough to rip through skin and send a stream of blood trickling toward the drain.

"Motherfucker!" he yells on impulse because it hurts, and because everything else already hurts and this is just one more hurt piled on top of the rest, he has even less impulse control than ever, so he yells again. "Fuck!"

Of course, that makes everything worse by sending Shiro bursting through the bathroom door and getting himself soaked as he shoves aside the shower curtain and dives under the stream to scan Keith for damage.

"I'm fine!" Keith shouts over the ongoing slap of water against the tile in an attempt to save his own dignity, but there's not much left to protect when his best friend is already witnessing him at his sickest and nudest and now one step short of throwing a tantrum over a tiny cut to boot.

He covers up his jiggly bits and tells himself to calm the hell down before remembering to reach up and turn off the water with his free hand.

Patience yields focus.

"I'm fine," he repeats when he can do so without yelling. "It's just a scrape."

"Sorry," Shiro says, averting his eyes. "Sorry, I'm just worried. That's all. I'll… I'll wait outside. Yell if you need me."

Not in the mood to push it again, Keith only turns the shower back on long enough to rinse the remaining shampoo suds out of his hair before cutting the water back off and huddling under the warmth of a towel hanging just outside the shower, taking care to keep it away from his sluggishly bleeding kneecap.

It's comfortable once he stops thinking about the wound, and he admittedly spends far too long wrapped in the towel and sitting on the lid of the closed toilet with his head as empty as could be, all his usual thoughts robbed by the ongoing fever that the hot shower probably hadn't helped in the slightest. Sitting down and doing nothing is a simple pleasure he hasn't indulged in since his time alone in the desert and hasn't had a chance to realize he'd missed before now. He eventually manages to pull himself out of it to scrub the towel through his hair, check that the scrape has scabbed over well enough, and pull on some fresh clothes.

He's stepping into his sweatpants when his vision starts to ebb away again, but this time he has the advantage of feeling it coming on more gradually and is able to lower himself to a sitting position before his sight completely fades out. He's aiming for the toilet but ends up on the floor, but that's fine because he can't afford to be picky right now. His boxers immediately soak up what feels like all of the water that had dripped from his body onto the floor earlier, which is an absolutely lovely sensory experience in combination with the pre-existing chills, but still better than falling and braining himself or passing out and alerting Shiro again.

He leans his head back against what he knows must be the vanity as he feels the hidden room slowly spin around him and quietly huffs in frustration, waiting for his vision to clear up.

He waits.

And waits.

And waits.

He doesn't know how long it's been, but the blackness still swirls too much to let him see enough to feel comfortable moving and the humidity from the shower has dissipated completely. He braces himself…

"Shiro?" he calls reluctantly. "Can you help?"

Damn his whole entire life.

At least he's not naked this time.

The door slides open, and he can hear Shiro taking a tentative step into the room.

"I… can't see again," he admits.

"Hey, okay, no big deal. Can I touch you?"

"Yeah."

Despite the warning, he still shivers when the freezing metal hand comes into contact with his calf while helping to pull his pants up where they belong.

"How long have you been like this?" Shiro asks.

"Umm… a couple minutes, maybe?"

"Too long," Shiro mutters as though Keith can't hear it before raising his voice. "You know, it's been a while since you've eaten, so you're probably running low on calories by now. Hunk brought up some of that juice you like while you were showering. Let me grab a pouch and we'll try that, see if it helps."

The warmth leaves the room with Shiro, leaving Keith to hug himself tightly to retain what he has.

And then a straw is being slipped between his lips.

"Small sips," Shiro warns. "Don't want to set your stomach off again."

So he sips, and slowly but surely the bathroom wall and Shiro's face come into focus to replace the near blackness.

"There we go," Shiro says, ruffling his hair like when he's teasing Keith on any other day. "At least you're not so pale now. Any better?"

"Yeah, yeah. Let's just get down to the rec room already."

"You're still up for that? We don't have to if you're feeling this bad."

"Doesn't matter. I'm gonna feel bad wherever I am. Let's just go watch a shitty movie."

"I'll do you one better. Hunk says the rest of the team's been waiting to see you. Sounds like they're planning a movie night. I heard Pidge is even sacrificing her laptop when you're ready to watch 'some real movies.' Though, knowing Matt…" And at that, Shiro's face falls into that sad look of his. "…well, you know Matt, so you won't be surprised if Pidge turns out to have the same awful taste he does."

"Can't be worse than Valkorion's Curse," Keith says.

"God, that one was terrible. You're right. Pidge can't possibly beat any of Allura's movies."

Pidge somehow proves him wrong.

"I know it's really old, but it's a classic," she claims after hearing that Keith has arrived in the rec room and skittering into the previously deserted space with her laptop in tow, clicking a file titled The without anyone else's input and maximizing it on the projector while Shiro insists on tucking Keith in under a hefty pile of throw blankets even though Keith is perfectly capable of covering himself up.

Seemingly deliberately summoned, all the castle's other inhabitants filter into the room soon after.

"Oh, I know this one!" Lance exclaims as he pushes his way into the bit of space left on the couch Keith is lounging on even though the other couches all have plenty of open spots still. "Good call, Pidge! This is going to instantly heal you, mullet—it's that good."

Coran lowers the lights and picks his way across the floor littered with spare pillows, blankets, and Hunk's nearly prone form to settle in between Shiro and Allura. Pidge throws herself down near Hunk on a makeshift bed made of the floor pillows and contorts her legs into an ungodly position that can't possibly be comfortable as the starting credits begin to roll.

The movie is not what Keith would call good based on what little he sees of it, but if he were feeling better, he thinks he would get a kick out of the absurdity of all the confusing inside jokes Lance and Pidge keep making during it. For the moment, he's just content that it's serving its purpose of distracting him a bit from the pain, and he drifts in and out, occasionally roused by someone or other's laughter or commentary.

The character voices he can hear have completely changed when he wakes up after one of his longer dozes, but he doesn't stay focused on that for long.

No, his attention is pretty immediately drawn to the fact that his head has somehow shifted off the sofa cushion and up onto Lance's lap at some point during his nap, and Lance isn't doing anything about it.

He doesn't know what to do, isn't sure which reaction is least likely to set Lance off. He's debating pretending he never woke up and hoping Lance takes the chance to move away while he falls back asleep when a hand falls onto his head and starts to play with his hair.

He can't stop himself.

He shivers and gasps softly, not expecting the sensation at all.

"Sorry," Lance leans down and whispers. "Is this okay?"

Everything still feels strange, achy, tingly, and cold, so he's still sick, right? He doesn't have to be himself again yet, right? Plus, his eyes are still fully closed, so maybe this is only a very realistic dream.

He nods and lets himself tumble back into the confusing world of more definite dreams again.

His head is clearer the next time he's awake, and the room is quieter. Someone is trying to shift him gently, but it's not gentle enough to let him stay asleep.

"Hmm?" comes out before he can think about it.

"Oh, you're up," Lance says. "It's dinner time. You coming?"

"'kay."

His voice is scratchy, so he clears his throat while he tries to get a look at the room and figure out why it got so quiet.

"Nope!" Shiro yells out of nowhere, and almost immediately an empty trash can is thrust under Keith's face.

Confused, Keith stares Shiro down… or up, maybe, because he's still strewn with his back on the couch and Lance's legs and Shiro is panic-hovering a foot or two above him. Semantics.

"…Was that not you getting ready to puke again?"

"…no," Keith says, voice coming out less scratchy and closer to normal this time.

Lance laughs and Keith relaxes into the sound.

"Oh. Well, sorry for being over-prepared after the past day and a half with you."

"You don't sound sorry," Keith accuses.

"And you wouldn't expect me to either if you remembered exactly how much vomit I've cleaned up recently. I'm done taking chances."

"Can we stop talking about puke?" Lance suggests, slowly guiding Keith up into a sitting position. "We're having dinner in literally one minute."

"Seconded," Keith agrees, working to convince his muscles to push through the current ache and near-month of minimal use instead of relying on Lance to get him upright.

Shiro jumps in and wraps an arm around his waist once he's standing. Keith wants to give Shiro shit about it as they slowly migrate to the dining room, but he suspects that arm is the only reason he's staying up and doesn't want to push Shiro to put that suspicion to the test.

Even though he's not tethered to Keith the way Shiro is, Lance matches their slow pace rather than leaving them behind. He sticks next to them until Shiro has lowered Keith into a free chair at the dining table, where Hunk is quick to present him with a bowl of soup while everyone else digs into something else that looks more substantial and smells wonderful. He tries to smother down the pang of jealousy at missing out on whatever it is and focus on being appreciative of the extra meal made just for his sake.

He's pleased to find upon his first spoonful that the soup tastes almost as amazing as the other food smells. Maybe he's not so left out after all.

He's decidedly less pleased to look up and catch all the others watching him eat. The spoon drops into his bowl with a small splash and he feels his face flush. The others seem to pick up on his discomfort, but not Shiro, never Shiro.

"Not hungry?" Shiro asks instead of pretending to ignore him like the others.

He doesn't answer, hoping Shiro will figure out he wants him to drop the worried brother routine while it's not the two of them alone in the room. Instead, he picks up his spoon and shovels more soup into his mouth, delighting at the taste once more.

It ends all too soon when Shiro denies Keith's right to seconds, which is deeply offensive coming from the same man who'd gone out of his way to always push extra servings on Keith at the garrison.

"Don't look at me like that. You'll thank me when you're not puking in twenty minutes."

"Dude!" Lance calls from across the table. "I thought we agreed no more talking about barf!"

Hunk pushes his own nearly-empty plate away, now looking squeamish.

"See what you did?" Lance jokes, pointing at Hunk, and suddenly it feels like a normal dinner with them all fucking around about something stupid.

"I'm okay, guys," Hunk tries to say. "Let's just change the topic, please."

"Lance, come on," Shiro begs. "Now is not the time for jokes. Keith's sick."

"I'm fine," Keith grumbles. "Starving, but fine."

"Oh, shush," Shiro says. "You know I wouldn't let you starve."

"You are, literally right now," Keith complains.

"In front of the whole team too!" Lance jumps back in, undeterred by the earlier chiding.

"I ate Galra prison chow for a month," Keith continues, teasing.

"Give the boy some soup!" Pidge adds, shaking a non-threatening fist in Shiro's direction.

"Enough!" Shiro shouts. "Keith, I'm glad to see you feeling better, but you are seriously going to hurl if you eat too much too soon after what you've been through, and it's going to make things worse again when we're trying to help you get better. I am not starving you, just asking you to wait an hour before you eat any more."

There's a difference between Shiro's 'I'm your current responsible adult, but I'm also not the adultiest adult and understand you're going to push your boundaries because you're a little shit' voice and his 'Holy shit, I'm about to strangle you if you don't take me seriously now' tone, and he has definitely shifted over to the latter during this conversation. His one particular angry forehead wrinkle has made an appearance too, so Keith is extra sure this is not his usual joking Shiro.

He doesn't feel good anymore, even knowing the rest of the team jumped to his side, no questions asked.

"Sorry, Shiro," he murmurs and turns to stare into his empty bowl to avoid potential eye contact.

The rest of dinner is awkward, probably all because of Keith. Unbidden, he wonders how many awkward silent dinners they had in his absence… but he doesn't want the answer, afraid to learn it was zero.

When the rest of the team clears their own plates from the table, Shiro pushes him back into his chair wordlessly and gathers up Keith's dirty dishes with his own, ruffling his hair before he has to use a second hand to finish grabbing the remaining dishes. From experience, it's about as close as they can get to a mutual apology once Keith has set Shiro off… which is probably also Keith's fault.

It's still unusually quiet when they all move back to the rec room afterward, but slowly they break into conversation in twos and threes and the noise picks up.

Keith sticks to himself in his previous spot on the sofa, still wrapped in most of the mound of blankets, but at least sitting upright and more awake this time. He hates to admit it even to himself, but his stomach is now definitely voicing its opposition to the idea of more food, shifting uncomfortably as he tries not to think about it.

He's still zoning out when something cold and squishy bumps against his forehead. He looks up to find a juice pouch, and when he pivots to look behind himself, it's Shiro pressing the drink against his skin.

"They're getting ready to play some games over there if you want to join."

Keith agrees more in interest of the company than the activity, grabbing the juice pouch and letting Shiro help pull him up from the couch to make their way across the room and join the circle of paladins and Alteans sitting in the floor.

"Oh, good! Keith can start," Pidge says. "Keith, would you rather only ever eat food goo or only ever drink plain water for the rest of your life?"

"Water, easy."

"Easy?" Lance questions. "You didn't even think about it! What about Mountain Dew? You're saying you'd give up Baja Blasts without even considering it?"

"Never had it," Keith says. "I guess I'd miss grape juice though."

"See? Should've thought this through!" Lance doubles down.

"Well, I'd still pick the water. There are way more foods I'd miss than drinks."

"Fine, at least that's a better explanation. Think harder about the rest of the questions before you answer, or else. Imagine you're really stuck with your first answer. Now, give someone else a 'would you rather.'"

"Okay, umm… Lance, would you rather give up your skincare routine or your lion?"

"What!? Don't ask me that! That's psychological torture, Keith!"

"You said to give a 'would you rather.' You didn't say there were conditions."

"Ugh, fine! Yes, I would sacrifice my skincare routine to keep Blue… Hunk, would you rather never be able to wear a left shoe or never be able to wear underwear?"

"Well, the shoe protects me more, so guess I'm giving up the underwear… Allura, would you rather have to fight a level ten training bot one-on-one every time you needed to pilot the castle or have to sing a really embarrassing song the whole time your hands are on the controls?"

Keith sips at his juice pouch as the game continues with the scenarios getting dumber the longer they go on until suddenly Keith's being shaken back awake and realizing he'd crashed against Shiro's side while the game had continued without him.

"We're wrapping up—just thought you'd want to wake up long enough to move somewhere comfier."

"Mmm, yeah. Thanks, Shiro."

Keith takes no small amount of pride in getting to his feet on his own—albeit not as steadily as he'd like—and he even manages to start the trek toward his room without assistance.

"Uh, excuse me! Are we ignoring the beautiful blanket nest Pidge and Hunk lovingly built for us right over there?" Lance asks.

Keith turns back around, confused.

"He's trying to invite us to stay down here for a sleepover," Shiro explains quietly.

"Oh," Keith says. "Yeah, okay."

Course adjusted, he throws himself into the nearby mass of pillows and blankets instead, not quite falling back into unconsciousness right away thanks to the noise of the others chatting and moving around.

One by one, they eventually settle in around Keith, and before he knows it, he's out again.

And if he wakes up in the middle of the night cycle feeling more like himself than he has for the past month while the rest of the team is sound asleep and then uses that unsupervised time to roll a little closer to Lance, no one has to know about that.