Infected (Klance)

2

"Why do we need wood in the first place?" Lance whines for what seems like the hundredth time today. I swear, I'm this close to beating his skull in with the wood we've already gathered.

"The heating company stopped when the fifth wave started. We need fire if we don't want to freeze to death," I explain. "And to make fire, you need wood."

"Yeah, well that's what jackets are made for."

"Jackets get old and ripped, then you'll be freezing. We need fire."

Lance let's out a 'hmph' before shutting up and picking up wood. A groan sounds from behind us. I turn around as a zombie grabs at my hair at tugs. I elbow it in the stomach and yank its hand away from my hair. Lance comes up behind it and whacks it in the head with a log. The skull caves in and blood and weird brain goop splatters in Lance's face.

"How do brains taste? Think you could get used to them if you get turned?" I joke with a straight face.

"They're disgusting. And I'm hoping it never comes to me having to get used to them. How do they even get brains anyway? They bite people and leave."

"They only take people's brains who don't put up a fight. Panicking brains make good food apparently," I mumble as I push the body onto the ground. I take the log Lance used away from him and throw it. He looks offended. "Brain shit doesn't burn. Not in zombies anyway. Learned it the hard way."

"I worked hard for that wood!"

"By bending over and picking up the tiniest piece of wood you could find."

"Hey, at least I'm helping!"

"Only because Pidge and I forced you. Let's go, we need to get this shit prepped before the sun sets," I turn and walk back toward the shed with a big pile of uneven wood in my arms. Lance walks behind me with his significantly smaller pile of wood in his arms.

We walk around the shed and drop our piles against the wall. We walk into the shed and Pidge runs over to us. "Shiro's body isn't taking the cure well. He's puking up blood and if he keeps vomiting, eventually the cure will come out before it can reach the entirety of his body. Hunk and I are working on it but we aren't getting anywhere. He's complaining about his arm burning and the skin is getting paler and greener. We don't know what to do."

"Calm down. Lance, go help Pidge and Hunk, I'll find something to help. Worst case scenario, he vomits the cure and we try it again. If it doesn't work, we'll have to shoot him."

Lance nods and his face contorts into one of sorrow. Pidge runs off and he follows.

Now to find a way to help.

—

"There's nothing I can do to help. Just let him vomit and try to administer it again," I say with an air of passive-aggressiveness. I never really understood passive-aggressive as a concept. Either you're passive or aggressive, not both. They cancel each other out. Anyway, back to the topic at hand.

"But what if he vomits it up again?" Hunk asks.

"We'd have to kill him," Lance mutters.

"Look, I don't want to kill a teammate as much as the other guy but we have to keep everyone safe. Let's just, see how this goes."

Pidge pushes Shiro's head further over the bucket as he pukes. Soon he stops and just sits there, as if he's waiting for more to come. He screams out suddenly, startling all of us in the process. Pidge takes a jar of the cure out and makes him take it. Shiro pushes himself up but struggles standing. I take it upon myself to help him steady out and walk him to the couch, his arm over my shoulder and mine around his waist. When I sit him down, Lance and Hunk bombard him with questions.

"Are you okay?"

"You don't feel like you're gonna vomit again do you?"

"Yeah, don't pull a Hunk on us buddy," Lance jokes.

"Yeah, don't pull a- Lance!"

"Are you okay Shiro?" Pidge asks. She sits down next to him and smiles. I know that smile. It's the same smile she uses when she talks about her dad and brother. She uses that smile with me sometimes and I try my best to reciprocate it, to show her that I think of her as a sibling too. It's nice to know that she has a father figure now.

While looking at Shiro, a realization dawns on me. I've seen him before. I've talked to him before. He was my mentor at school. He was teaching me about fighting techniques when the first wave broke out before my dad died. He was the one who shot him. Around the time the third wave broke out, he left me to find a way to help people. I guess he found people to help. Why didn't he mention anything when we first saw each other?

"Keith, are you okay?" Pidge asks. She knows my tells when I'm about to go into a spiral. She knows what I look like when I'm thinking too much. I stare into space, first with a blank expression that grows into an expression full of fear. My hands start shaking and fidgeting so I subconsciously clench them into fists and unclench them. After a while, silent tears fall down my face and someone has to snap me out of it. After she got used to it, Pidge never let it get to the point of tears and she's not about to let me now.

"Uh, yeah, thanks," I mumble. I sit down next to her and she rubs circles into my back to keep me grounded.

"Shiro, do you feel okay? No more burning? No nausea?" She asks.

"I feel fine. A lot better than I did the first time. Thanks you guys," he answers.

"What about us? We helped too!" Lance screamed,along wild gestures to himself and Hunk.

"Yeah, by freaking out and going into shock," Pidge says with an air of sarcasm.

"Well- I- I would have helped!"

"Sure you would've," I cross my arms and lean back. I glance at Shiro out the corner of my eye. My vision redirects itself to the front when I see he's looking at me too.

What's his deal?

"Keith?" Oh look who decides to talk, the man, the myth, the legend, Shiro.

"What?"

"Is everything okay?"

"Yup. Totally."