Chapter Text
“Stay with me,” Keith begs. “Please.”
His left shoulder is pinned to the ground by an unseen weight, and he refuses to think about why he can’t feel it anymore. He reaches out with his right arm. It makes fire shoot up the length of his back, but he doesn’t stop straining to reach the unmoving hand just beyond his grasp.
Keith chokes on an agonized gasp when the pain somehow intensifies, and the noise resolves in a gurgle.
There’s fluid in my lungs, his brain supplies. Fuck.
“ Lance!” he calls when he can breathe again. His fingers scrabble for purchase, but he only manages to dislodge a few small stones. He’s so close. “ Please. You have to... have to stay awake!”
Keith gasps. He’s pretty sure he’s been run through with something, and he knows there’s some kind of internal bleeding.
The bridge collapse was so sudden that neither of them had time to react. They were crossing at leisure and joking about something or another with their linked hands swinging between them.
And then the world cracked into fragmented disarray.
Lance groans.
“C’mon,” Keith pants. “Say something. Please.”
When Keith woke up, he was buried in rubble, and everything was dark. Water dripped somewhere in the distance, and a few pockets of light managed to weakly illuminate the space in front of him.
It revealed a bloodied palm.
“Lance!” Keith cried. Anguish and desperation made his voice break. There was no response, and Keith’s heart stuttered in his chest. Fear coursed through him with stunning intensity. “No,” Keith whispered. “Lance! Please!”
Unfathomable, bleak, empty, Keith didn’t even realize that a sob was working its way out of him. He shuddered at the force, and it made every part of him throb. Biting his lip in response to the pain, Keith stretched in an effort to get to Lance.
But he was stuck.
And stuck they remained.
Dust and grime float around him, and he coughs wetly. A smatter of crimson coats the ground before him. Black spots cloud his vision, and the tug of unconsciousness is hard to ignore.
He can’t pass out though.
Stubbornly, Keith presses himself to stay alert. If Lance is out of commission, Keith is their only hope for survival.
He has to make sure Lance gets out alive.
Images from the last few phoebs flash through his mind.
And everything is out of focus and blurry save for grinning blue eyes.
For most of his life, Keith had been better off alone.
After his father passed away, Keith had been shuffled in and out of group homes and foster care. It hadn’t been a great experience. Keith had the scars to prove it. There were nice families, too, but somehow they left him feeling even more bitter than the ones who had slapped him around. In tandem, it drove home the message that some of the shittier places tried to instill in him.
No one wants you.
Which really meant no one loves you.
When he was in elementary school, he was hopeful. He’d be adopted and find his forever home. His second placement was with the Williams family, and he’d liked it there. They were nice, and there was always plenty to eat. Moreover, they had a dog named Kiki that Keith played with for hours on end.
When his social worker showed up on the doorstep one day and told him to pack his bag, he cried the whole way back to the group home. For weeks he believed that it was some kind of mistake, and they would come back for him. When one of the middle schoolers figured out what Keith was thinking, he laughed and shoved him down the stairs.
“No one’s coming for you,” the boy sneered, “Get it through your thick head.”
Keith had to spend two months with his arm in a cast.
He was hesitant with his next family. They were okay, but he was afraid to get too close. A part of him still felt like it had splintered when he imagined Mrs. William’s warm smile and Kiki’s cheerful bark. It hurt.
They didn’t want him.
Why didn’t they want him?
He was with the second family for a month when he overheard them telling his case worker that he was too closed off. She showed up two days later to take him to his next house.
The house looked all right, but Keith was more wary than ever.
Within a few hours of Ms. Kathy waving as she drove away, Keith learned that he was right to be concerned.
Keith had wondered if something was wrong with him, and the Donaldsons were more than happy to confirm this fear.
He dropped a glass his first night there. It shattered on impact, and all hell broke loose. With a smack to the face and words like burden and trouble , Keith was sent to bed without dinner. It was only the beginning of an unpleasant chain of events.
Years passed in this fashion.
He didn’t have a lot of possessions, but he left each home with souvenirs.
Some of them were visible. A lot of them weren’t.
Nightmares, a sense of otherness, a general mistrust of others, and aggression colored his days and nights. He wore lessons like leave before you are left and hurt before you are hurt like they were kevlar.
Everything was lonely and dark.
And then things changed when he turned twelve.
Shiro lit up the night sky like a comet, and Keith started to see more for himself.
A representative from the Garrison, Shiro brought the students in his class to practice the flight simulator, where he saw something in Keith.
Keith knew better though.
Resistant and unwilling, Keith met most of Shiro’s attempts to bridge the gap with contempt.
But Shiro kept coming back.
He was tenacious and persistent and he was always kind.
Shriro managed to convince him to join the Galaxy Garrison, where he could stay in his own dorm and really learn to fly.
Keith figured Shiro would move on from him when he’d succeeded in getting Keith to enroll. Some other future recruit would be the focus of his time.
Keith was wrong.
Shiro talked to him, checked on him, and ate lunch with him in the mess hall.
When Iverson was ready to throw him out on his ass, Shiro vouched for him.
Keith expected to be stuck in the barracks any time there was leave, but Shiro had other plans. Keith found himself sandwiched into a row of seats on an airplane next to Shiro and Adam. They spent the week with Shiro’s mother. It was the first house he’d been to in years that actually felt like a home.
Things looked good for awhile.
And then there was Kerberos and pilot error and Keith’s heart fractured into tiny slivers.
He lashed out with his mouth and his fists.
When he reached his final straw, Iverson reminded him that he was a ward of the state.
Keith bolted before the social worker could show up to take him away.
The desert was merciless, but Keith trekked through the sand with determination. He would find the shack from his youth, and he would survive on his own.
This time everything was on his terms.
It was a solitary year, but it was his choice.
It was better this way.
And then Shiro dropped back into his life with enough force to create a crater, and everything was upended.
He was glad Shiro was alive, but it was hard to reconcile at times.
Shiro, warm, breathing, here, stood before him, but Keith had stood beside Adam at Shiro’s funeral.
There wasn’t really time to process any of it during a space war.
They were all thrown together and expected to bond and protect the universe.
It wasn’t going to be a smooth transition, and Keith felt particularly like a round peg in a square hole. Allura urged them to be open and honest. She didn’t understand that Keith couldn’t and shouldn’t be those things. It wasn’t her fault. It was him.
Keith worked to keep everyone at arm’s length. A longstanding sense of preservation made it natural to hide his vulnerabilities. When asked to share, he revealed as little as possible. It was fine.
And then he’d fucked it all up.
One tough mission and a comfortable couch cracked his carefully crafted facade, and Lance was there to see it all. Their relationship started to shift. The rest of his walls crumbled a few weeks later when he crashed on Yxca. The dynamic transformed and started to unfold into something that Keith tried not to think on too much.
It proved impossible to ignore.
Lance chipped away at the ugliest parts of him with an unprecedented gentleness. He patched up rough places with care. He didn’t run when Keith rumbled like a threatening volcano. He stayed. Everyday Lance was there with a smile just for him.
It’s hard to believe they’d been kissing hours ago.
Lance kissed him like he was delicate, like he was something to be protected and treasured. When Keith relaxed into his arms, Lance deepened the kiss into something warm and firm that made heat pool in Keith’s stomach. Their mouths were hungry and insistent, but it was never rough.
It was perfect.
They’d kissed and whispered until they dropped off to sleep.
The alarm woke them a few hours later.
Now Keith felt cold.
What if he never got to hear Lance’s laugh again? What if he never got see his blue eyes light up with joy? What if he never got to feel the heat of his skin pressed against his own?
They never even got to talk about the previous evening.
Sure, they’d wandered off together after the debriefing, and Lance caught Keith’s hand in his own. But Keith wanted more. He wanted to nurture the hope that was blooming in his chest that he thought had withered away a long time ago.
“You’re going to get out of here,” Keith promises in a rough voice. Lance had given Keith so much; he had to survive. To punctuate his statement, Keith reaches out once more against his better judgment. It’s torture, but it’s worth it: He finally manages to brush their fingers together. Lance’s twitch in response. Keith exhales in shaky relief and smoothes the pad of his calloused thumb over Lance’s skin. He feels muscles twitch to life and fine bones flex.
“Hey,” he murmurs. “Hey.”
Finally, Lance answers, “K’th?”
“Hey,” Keith repeats. His eyes water and sting. Lance sounds dazed, but he’s alive .
“Wh’t h’p’n’d?” Lance slurs.
“The bridge collapsed,” Keith replies. The three words somehow wind him. “How... How bad are you hurt?” Lance doesn’t say anything. “Lance? Stay awake. Are you... hurt?”
“Hmm?” Lance mumbles. “Yeah. Head.”
Keith figures Lance was unconscious for around two minutes, which isn’t good. A nasty concussion could be a big problem. He hopes the others come for them soon.
Keith coaxes Lance’s into talking by asking for more stories about his family. Brokenly, Lance strings one together about his twin sister Rachel. When they were younger, Lance explains, he and Rachel were essentially identical. They had the same haircut, and they would trade clothes or dress in similar clothing to confuse people for their own amusement.
Lance pauses frequently and trails off three times, but Keith prompts him when he’s silent too long.
It works for awhile.
And then it doesn’t.
When Lance won’t answer even with Keith screaming himself hoarse, Keith panics.
He fights and claws at the space in front of him with single-minded focus.
Save Lance.
The pain of his injuries fades away in his fear and determination. He digs his nails into the grime and pulls while calling Lance’s name with increased urgency.
With an impressive roar, Keith gets his hand close enough to Lance’s to really brush their fingertips together. The difference in temperature is alarming. He threads them and rubs at the skin to warm it.
Everything centers on this touch.
Keith’s vision tunnels and his mind quiets.
Everything that matters in the universe comes to this one feeling.
And something inside of Keith breathes.
Everything is bright.
And then the world fades to black.
Lance stumbles directly from the cryopod into Hunk’s firm embrace. He makes a confused sound, and Hunk squeezes him more tightly.
“I’m so glad you’re okay. Quiznak. Please don’t ever do that again,” he implores.
Lance struggles to catch up to the moment. The chilly haze of the cryopod makes it difficult to think. He sorts through disjointed bits and pieces, but he can’t really place them. He remembers getting up with Keith in the middle of the night, and he remembers kissing and and kissing and kissing.
And then things get weird and fuzzy.
Lance swallows to clear his throat and asks, “What happened?”
Hunk puts his hands on Lance’s shoulders and pushes him away to study him, “What’s the last thing you remember?”
Lance hums in thought, “Negotiations with... the Tibbles?”
Hunk nods, “You had a pretty nasty concussion. I’m not surprised you lost a few things.”
“Concussion?”
“A bridge collapsed,” Hunk explains. “The rival clan on Bïtt rigged an explosive and used it as a diversion for an ambush.”
“ Mierda ,” Lance swore. “Is everyone okay? Did you take them out?”
Hunk looks away before he answers, which makes Lance’s stomach drop. “We managed. The Tibbles are safe... but Keith...”
“Keith? What happened to Keith? Was he attacked? Is he hurt?”
Hunk bites his bottom lip and takes a steadying breath, “Lance, Keith was with you when the bridge collapsed. He was trapped too.” Lance’s gut does something unpleasant. Hunk hurriedly continues, “He’s in pretty bad shape.”
Stepping out of Lance’s line of vision, Hunk gestures to an occupied healing pod. Lance’s eyes land on Shiro’s hunkered form. It looks like he’s taken up residence in the infirmary.
And then he sees Keith.
The soft green light washes out Keith’s already pale complexion, and Lance can tell that something isn’t right. His feet move without his conscious input. Suddenly he’s standing right in front of Keith’s suspended figure.
“Keith?” he whispers in disbelief. He turns back to Hunk and tries not to disturb Shiro, who’s fallen asleep at Keith’s side. “What’s wrong?”
Hunk sighs, but Coran steps into the room before he can answer. He claps Lance on the shoulder and tells him he’s glad he’s all right before he checks out the scanner. Coran picks up the thread of the conversation, “His injuries were serious. Internal bleeding, contusions, lacerations, broken ribs, a punctured lung, and a rod speared him through.”
Hunk clears his throat, and his eyes are misty as he recalls the instance they finally got to Keith and Lance.
“But...” Lance hedges, “The pod’s can fix all of that, right?”
“His vitals are atypical,” Coran says solemnly. “He’s healing, but it’s happening too slowly. We have a number of theories. The Princess is trying to find something in the database to back them up.”
Hunk can tell Lance is about to ask for more information, so he heads him off with his own account. Hunk explains that they got to them as fast as they were able, and Pidge scanned the debris to determine how to safely excavate them, but she got a lot of weird readings. They only discovered the source when they got closer.
“Keith was, like, glowing,” Hunk admits. “And you were too. When we moved you, it stopped.”
Lance blinks, “What? I don’t... Why would we be glowing?”
Hunk shrugs and continues. Lance’s injuries were life threatening, but they were mending. Broken bones were healing at an accelerated rate and organs were knitting themselves back together.
Lance was in stable condition.
But Keith wasn’t.
They rushed them back to the Castle, and it wasn’t until they were safely ensconced in the pods that they addressed the elephant in the room.
“Allura thinks Keith was healing you,” Hunk finishes.
Lance blinks, “What? Is that even possible?”
Coran responds to his question, “It’s extremely uncommon, but it’s possible. Princess Allura thinks Keith manipulated his own quintessence to your benefit.”
Lance doesn’t know what to make of this answer. It’s probably important, but he’s more worried about the teen floating in stasis. Lance exhales, “Okay. But what’s wrong with him now?”
“Keith’s own quintessence is severely depleted. It appears to be regenerating, but it’s an arduous process. Between his physical injuries and the fact that he essentially gave you his quintessence, his body is having difficulties repairing itself.”
Lance flattens his hand against the glass, “He’ll be okay, though, right?” His stomach turns to lead as the silence stretches out to encompass the entire room. “Hunk? Coran? He’ll be okay, right?”
“Lance, I’m afraid there have only been a handful of similar documented cases in the last aeon,” Coran admits. “The Princess is reading through different accounts as we speak.” Lance deflates and sags where he stands. Everything is heavy. Coran gives him a sympathetic look, “Don’t give up, my boy. Number 4 is a fighter.”
He’s right, Lance knows. From what Lance has learned in the last however many movements, most of Keith’s life has been one battle or obstacle or hardship or fight after another. And he’s come through.
But Lance wants him to know that he doesn’t have to fight alone anymore.
And he really, really wants to show him that there’s more to life than fighting.
The sound of his own name rouses him. Lance registers the warm hand cupped around his shoulder, and then someone shakes him gently and repeats, “Lance.”
Warm skin presses against the length of his body, and Lance’s fingers curl over a bony hip in a show of sleepy possessiveness. Lance drags the other figure closer and lets his thumb trace along the hollow dip, and he murmurs, “Hmm?”
A featherlight sigh ghosts over his collar, and Lance drifts in the embrace of the in-between. He’s not awake, but he isn’t asleep. A familiar scent envelopes him, and it smells like safety and home. The person in his arms is precious. Love , his consciousness says, and Lance concedes. This is the feeling that he didn’t want to look at too closely, and the one he didn’t want to sort out. It’s the one that’s been stirring and growing and flowering within him.
It’s love.
Lance buries his nose in a mop of dark hair and inhales deeply. Everything is muted and soft and peaceful, and Lance has nearly drifted off again when Keith whispers, “Lance? Are... Are you awake?”
Lance can hear the tremor in his voice, and it tugs at something within him. Shifting his arms to cradle him as he turns, Lance rolls onto side to face Keith. He brushes a lock of hair behind his year and murmurs, “Yeah, hey, you okay?” Keith shrugs and won’t meet his gaze, but Lance can feel the way he shakes in his grip. “Nightmare?”
Keith ducks his head and nods.
“Wanna talk about it?” Lance kneads Keith’s shoulders. He works his way down the plane of his back, where he can feel the uneven skin and puckered scars. Keith’s been out of the healing pod for a movement, but he’d been in there for nearly a phoeb. His injuries finally healed about halfway through the period, but Coran warned them it was inadvisable to take him out before his quintessence levels had returned to a safe, self-sustainable range.
Keith was given a few quintants to rest and recuperate outside of suspension before they questioned him about the chain of events that led up to their rescue, which they’d all decided to address that morning.
But Keith had little to offer. No, he didn’t know he could do it. No, he didn’t know how he did it. No, he didn’t consciously do it. Keith just wanted to save Lance, and he was prepared to die trying.
When he heard those words, Lance had found Keith’s hand under the table.
Clearly, the whole discussion brought up some unpleasant memories. To be fair, Lance expected as much.
“We were on Bïtt, and we... we were trapped, but nobody ever... came,” Keith admits in a barely audible voice. “And...and I knew, somehow, I knew that no one was going to come.” Keith shudders, “It was so dark.”
Lance understands. He has nightmares about it too. Sometimes he dreams that Keith is still in the pod, and the only thing that can calm him is Keith’s presence in their bed. After those sorts of dreams, Lance lays awake and watches Keith sleep. He studies the rise and fall of his chest, the way he draws his knees toward his ribs and curls over them, and the way he steals the blankets in small increments throughout the night.
It helps.
“I’m sorry,” Keith abruptly whispers.
“What? Why?”
“I shouldn’t have woken you up.”
Lance feels so many things so suddenly it’s hard to sort any of them out. Belatedly, he realizes that this is the first time Keith’s ever chosen to wake him after a nightmare. Lance thinks about the Keith who hid from them so no one would know about his nightmares. He remembers the Keith that ran from him after Lance had woken him on the couch, and the Keith who fought the rest he so clearly needed on Yxca. He pictures the Keith who tried to exhaust his nightmares into submission, and the Keith who wouldn’t talk about it, or tried to deal with everything by himself.
It’s a metamorphosis.
It’s incredible.
And its significance isn’t lost on him.
Unable to contain his feelings any longer, he peppers Keith’s face with kisses and pronounces, “You’re ridiculous.”
This isn’t what Keith expected, and his brow furrows in confusion, “What?”
Lance softens and intertwines their fingers, “You never need to apologize for waking me up.” He leans forward until his forehead comes to rest against Keith’s.
“I...Why?” Keith asks.
“Because I love you,” Lance confesses. Keith’s cheeks pink and his mouth rounds in surprise. A beatific smile tugs at Lance’s lips. “And as long as you want me, I want to be right here next to you.”