Kangst for the Soul

14

PART OF THIS IS PART OF ANOTHER ONE OF MY STORIES CALLED STARS ALIGNED

When Keith woke up he was comfortable, warm. He blinked sleepily and looked around, realising that Shiro was the reason. His adopted brother was wrapped around him, and apparently staring at him.

"You awake now?" The elder man asked, and Keith nodded in confusion. "Good, Hunk brought you some soup."

"He did? Why?" Keith asked as he struggled to sit up, why was it so hard?

"He thought you might be hungry when you woke up."

"Huh." He was ravenous actually. Keith allowed Shiro to help him sit up and pass him the bowl and spoon.

"How long was I asleep for? He asked between sips, narrowing his eyes when Shiro froze and sighed, running a hand through his hair.

"Three days."

Keith promptly spat his soup everywhere, turning and looking at Shiro with wide eyes.

"What?" He asked, shocked.

"Listen, you got pretty ill. Everyone was worried about you, and your fever broke about three hours ago. Coran wants to do a couple of tests later to see why you got so ill." Shiro explained. Now Keith actually thought about it, he realised he was shaking in exhaustion, which was weird considering how long he'd slept for. Not only that, his head was throbbing and he was still hungry.

"What was wrong with me?" He asked quietly, looking into the cyan mush he'd been eating a minute ago.

"Not much at first, you kept coughing and had a slight fever, but you wouldn't wake up when we tried to give you something to drink. Coran ran tests, but couldn't see anything wrong. He put you on an IV line thing and said he'd check on you during the night. He woke us up early hours next morning asking us to come look at something. You hadn't woken up, but had gotten worse, and Coran had noticed strange markings on your back. He said he'd monitor you, and alerted us if you got worse, which, you did. The marks kept spreading and your fever kept climbing. The second and last night we took shifts to keep checking on you. We were all worried." Shiro said. Oh, well shit. Keith took a deep breath, and hissed when his back and side flared lit up in pain, his head swam and he fell backwards. He was caught by two arms, one flesh and one metal. He tried to say something, get his vocal chords to work but the pain got worse, and the only noise he could make was a strangled cry of pain. He was dimly aware of Shiro calling his name but he couldn't say anything, couldn't do anything as his world went black.

___________________

Coran blinked when his communicator sparked to life, signalling that one of the paladin's were hailing him. He opened the message, blinking as Shiro's face sprang into view.

"Coran, I need you in Keith's room now, it's an emergency." He said, hanging up afterwards. Coran blinked at the small screen in shock before springing into action, tucking the communicator into his belt and running full speed to Keith's room,

He could hear the cries before he reached the door, and opening said door made them louder. Once inside he looked at the situation.

Keith was thrashing, and crying out repeatedly in pain. It was clear that the damn fever was back from how the red paladin was sweating yet shaking violently. Shiro was holding his shoulders down, and trying to get his attention, but it wasn't working. Coran darted forward, bringing the thin sheet down to Keith's waist and cursed when he saw that the black marks had started to spread again, and he quickly realised that every time they pulsed Keith would scream louder. He looked helplessly at Shiro, not knowing what to do, and wincing every time Keith screamed.

"What's going on!" Lance said, rushing into the room with the others, stopping with a gasp as he took the in the scene before him.

"I—I don't know!" Coran replied. Lance came forward, frowning as he thought.

"Could we put him in a pod or something?" The blue paladin asked and Coran shook his head.

"We've already tried that, it didn't work." He said, looking down. He brightened up again after a minute though, a new idea in his head. "The Nirrid berry and Jarkra water mixture helped though, and that is a powerful antitoxin! Maybe he's been poisoned!"

"But by what?" Pidge asked, moving as Allura ran to go prep the medbay for Keith, who was now muttering incoherently. Shiro had already picked him up and was carrying him, wincing at how warm the boy's skin was.

"Well there are nasty nippers in that lake he fell in, and, if one bit him it could be the venom from that. Worst case scenario is that a Ursilo is what attacked him." Coran said, now walking briskly to the infirmary.

"Why?" Hunk asked, and he sighed.

"Ursilo's are horrible fish that burrow into their victim's skin. They rip their way through skin and muscle, so they can lay eggs in the victim's bone marrow, stomach lining or, if they're really unlucky, a victim's daraking!"

"Uhhh.... Human's don't have a daraking..." Lance muttered quietly.

"Oh... Anyway, good news is that Keith probably doesn't have an Ursilo laying eggs in him, bad news is that I don't know what's wrong with him." Coran said, quickly moving into the infirmary, where Allura and Shiro had already set the IV line up and attached it to Keith. Keith was laying on a medical bed with his head on Shiro's lap and was finally in some semblance of peace.

The thin blanket was bunched around his waist, showing how much the black marks had spread. Once a small cluster, they were now long tendrils extending across his skin. The pale skin surrounding the tendrils was pale and inflamed. The black tendrils had wrapped around his waist and had started to move up his side.

"Princess, can you help me move him? I would like to look at his back." Coran requested, getting a muted nod from Allura. She, with Shiro's help, managed to get Keith to lay on his stomach, giving Coran access to his back. He froze when he saw the hard substance where the tendrils had originated from, wincing at the fact that Keith's skin seemed fused to it. He gently pressed his hand against the skin near it and Keith flinched, almost trying to get away from him. It took Shiro whispering soothing words to get him to calm down. Coran frowned and grabbed a clean syringe from the table near to him then quickly drew some blood so he could then test it later. For now, he helped the others turn Keith back over and lifted the blanket up higher, settling it around Keith's shoulders.

He then turned away from the sick boy and cracked his fingers. Time to see if Keith's blood could help figure out what was going on.