Chapter Text
Cold. Sticky. Pungent.
Everywhere. All over his hands, all over the ground, coating the white of his armor, blending with the red of it, seeping into his black suit underneath.
Blood.
He looks down at his hands, can see them shaking, covered in red, dripping down. Beyond them he can see the blurry outline of a body, torn.
He crawls over to it, unseeing, his heart beating hard enough to hurt inside his chest, his gasping, struggling breathing loud in his own ears, drowning out everything else.
He hears himself calling out, gasping out a name as his hands reach out for the body on the ground. He feels like he’s looking at everything through a fisheye lens, seeing too much, too distorted; too much input, flesh too real under his hands when he touches a face too cold.
He bends over himself, pained, anguished, consumed by a sudden wave of grief.
He screams, screams, screams until he can hear his voice crack, until his throat’s gone dry. He digs fingers into the few pieces of armor that remain intact on the corpse and tears them away viciously, and then leans his ear against a still chest, waiting for some sort of insane miracle.
Miracles don’t come, and beneath him there’s only silence and death.
He stays there, curled into himself, holding on. He eventually turns his face so he can look at a face still, stained, bruised, suddenly serene in death, hardly recognizable with eyes closed and no smirks, nothing animated, nothing like him.
He’s dragged away. He tries to cling, fights to stay there, tries to shake hands off, to resist, but eventually someone tells him sorry, buddy and he’s off, like a light, arms falling limp by his side, eyes closing on the sight of Lance’s body getting maneuvered onto a stretcher, limbs twisted in unnatural angles, face unchanging.
He stumbles his way out of the cryopod and struggles against the arms that reach towards him. He’s weak and his mind’s a mess, but he knows he has to see Lance, has to, has to—
—he’s engulfed in Hunk’s arms. Hunk’s crying, he’s crying and shaking, and Keith’s arms hug him back of their own accord.
“Keith, he’s dead.”
“No,” he says, tiny, almost an exhale, even as his arms tighten around Hunk and start shaking.
“No, no, he’s— he isn’t dead, he—”
“Keith ,” Hunk whispers, broken. "C'mon, don't— this is—"
"No. You're lying. He's your friend , why are you— why would you—"
"He's my best friend, Keith. Not just my friend." His hold on Keith tightens, and Keith feels him trembling. "He's been my best friend forever. I can't— I can't remember my life before him, you know? It's been us two as far back as I can remember. And now he's—
"Now I'm gonna have to explain to his mom what happened. I'm gonna have to tell his family that he's not coming back. I don't— This is not what I wanted. This is not what we planned. This wasn't supposed to happen. None of this was supposed to happen."
Hunk's breathing is shallow as he vomits every single word out, panicked and loud and harsh. Keith is unable to do anything but watch as Hunk breaks down, now keeping him at arm's length, eyes snapped shut, tears sliding down his dark cheeks.
"We— I saw—”
"Hunk," Keith's own voice is shards of glass, brittle and hollow sounding. " I'm sorry ."
"You didn't do anything, Keith."
It's not an accusation. Keith knows it. Keith knows how kind Hunk is, down to his core and even now, broken and miserable (— like he is).
He knows. He knows, and yet all he can do is replay how it all happened, think about all the hundreds of ways this could've been avoided. All the different ways he could've saved Lance, if only he'd been faster, if only he'd been a better strategist, if only he'd listened more to Lance, if only—
"It doesn't matter, Keith." Hunk says, resigned and hurt. "What ifs don't matter, what ifs are— what ifs are useless. What if we had never followed you back on Earth? What if we had never gone to the Garrison? It’s useless. You beating yourself up over this isn't gonna bring him back. Beating ourselves up isn't gonna bring him back."
"What should we do then?" Keith asks, lost, eyes on the floor, unseeing. "What do we do now?"
"I don't know." Hunk tells him, and sniffles pitifully. Keith registers that the hold he has on his arms is a bit painful, too tight— it'll probably bruise.
Good.
He deserves it.
Lance's body is kept in a pod.
Allura tells Keith it's to preserve him as soon as she sees the look in his eyes— looks at him with kindness but speaks the words with firmness, making sure that Keith can't misunderstand, that Keith won't delude himself into thinking that maybe— that maybe Lance can be brought back.
He can't.
Pidge doesn't come out of her quarters all day. Keith only notices when Shiro says he'll take her something to eat later as he sits down for dinner.
He feels bad about that for a few seconds. Then his eyes end up fixed on the empty spot next to him, where Lance would be sitting if—
He can't touch his food after that. He can only play with his food as he has a quiet breakdown.
He's not the only one without an appetite, anyway.
He waits.
He lies on his bed and waits.
There's nothing much to listen to.
There are no cars, in space. No crickets. No wind. No sand.
He waits.
There's a ticker on his desk. He's learned to read it in the time he's spent in the castle. He can translate all its symbols, can convert into days, hours, minutes.
Humans' adaptive capacity is unparalleled.
He had a social studies teacher who used to say that when students asked certain questions.
Keith never got that until Voltron.
When the ticker tells him it's late enough, he goes to Lance.
He knows there's nothing in that pod other than flesh and bone. But Lance still looks the same. He looks like he'll stumble his way out of there at any minute, tousled and groggy and flirty.
He dreams about Lance.
They're back in the Garrison. It's orientation day.
Keith knows it's a dream because when he bumps into Lance this time— just the way it happened back then— Lance gives him a smile, and Keith says 'hi' instead of panicking and walking away.