Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Keith thinks he’s being quite calm considering the situation he’s in.

After all, not everyone can claim to be able to stay rational while being trapped in an escape pod that’s sinking into an endless ocean of inky blue. Even if he’s starting to panic ever-so-slowly.

Because his oxygen will run out soon, and then he’ll be lost forever.

He can’t say that that doesn’t make him panic at least a bit.

Curling into a small ball in the pod’s corner, he has to hold his sobs back lest he use up too much air while heaving for breath. Determined, he ignores the pain in his side where a sentry’s shot had grazed him.

His ribs tighten around his lungs and heart painfully as he remembers how well the day had started.

He’d gotten up early and taken his time enjoying breakfast with the other paladins; after that, Lance had pulled Keith into a room far away from the lounge, where their friends had been, and Lance had whispered sugary sweet nothings, and promises that were heavy with implications to Keith, all while he’d made Keith scream. When they’d parted, Lance had kissed him, burning all the butterflies in Keith’s stomach with a single touch, and he’d promised to make Keith lose his mind after the mission– if it went well.

But it had gone terrifyingly wrong.

Keith had entered the empire’s spaceship alongside Hunk and Pidge on board of the green lion.

They’d been discovered while on the bridge, downloading the ship’s data. Hunk had stayed with Pidge to keep her safe while she worked, and Keith had gone to get rid of the sentries before they could reach the bridge.

Keith pushes his head further between his knees and almost cries in frustration and regret as he remembers how much he’d underestimated the sentries.

There had been so, so many of them.

And only one of Keith.

He’d been high off the thrill of cutting through sentry after sentry, rendering them useless while they only managed to deliver small cuts to his arms and legs, but never his torso.

He had to protect the heart that was Lance’s, after all.

And when he’d looked up to find that sentries had filled the hallways both sides of him, he’d almost dropped his bayard. They must have been standing, waiting, around the corners too, because no matter how many of them he cut down, new ones kept stepping up.

Even Keith, oh-so reckless Keith, had known that he’d been fighting a battle he couldn’t have won.

A shot he hadn’t managed to dodge – not completely – had sent him crashing into a small, tight space with a cry. He’d had approximately two and a half seconds to glance around himself and realise that he’d stumbled into an escape pod before he’d heard the sound of a weapon being powered up in the hallway.

Staring down the barrel of a blaster wasn’t something he’d ever expected to be doing.

He’d panicked. 

He’d pressed the pods eject button, and the shot had hit the metal of the pod’s hatch as it closed- not the glass, thankfully.

Why a part of the pod even consisted of glass was far beyond Keith’s imagination.

The pod had, unsurprisingly but unfortunately, shot away from the spaceship, and the pod spun and spun and spun, turning Keith’s view of the ship over and over and over again. The very second the ship had left his sight, leaving him alone in his tiny pod, lost in the endless depths of outer space, he’d regretted having pushed the button. He was now sure that he would have been able to get out of the situation some other way, without ejecting himself into nothing without a chance of getting back on his own.

At first, Keith had been positive that his team would find him and bring him back to the castle.

After some time, he hadn’t been so sure anymore.

The worst thing was that he wasn’t even aware of how much time had passed. It might have been minutes, it might have been hours, but he had no way of knowing. It had almost driven him insane.

He’d closed his eyes and leaned against the wall, thinking of strong hands holding him safe and tight, of being wrapped in soft blankets and warm arms in the early hours of the evening; he’d calmed down then, his heart rate slowing until he could think properly again.

A whimper had made its way out of him when the pod had rocked as it entered a planet’s atmosphere, soaring towards the planet’s surface, lighting up brilliantly yellow and orange and red, streaking across the pitch-black night sky like an angel set ablaze.

And- Keith was no religious man.

But he’d prayed then.

He’d prayed that Lance and the rest of his team would be fine; he’d prayed that he’d die a quick death once he crashed on the planet’s surface; he’d prayed that his friends wouldn’t see his remains, because he knew how dead bodies could haunt people.

But he hadn’t died, not yet.

He’d plunged into an ocean of which he could only guess how enormous it was, and he’d sunk and sunk and sunk.

And Keith’s still sinking, in his tiny, tiny pod, with its frighteningly small oxygen supply.

At least he thinks he’s sinking.

He can’t be sure.

The water is dark, and all he sees outside the glass panels is water, so dark he wonders if it’s clear at all, if it would let light shine through, if this half of the planet were turned towards the nearest star. He wouldn’t be surprised if the water were a murky blue, destined to swallow all light.

Keith no longer knows which way is up, so even if he could steer the pod in any way, he’d be lost.

He gives in, and lets tears run down his cheeks, even if he’s wasting water that way. Besides, he’d die of asphyxiation far before he’d die of lack of fluids. All he can do is keep himself from full-on sobbing.

Keith’s not sure when he started feeling dizzy.

He knows the reason he’s feeling dizzy is because he’s no longer getting enough oxygen.

But he doesn’t know what to do.

So he lets himself fall when his body tilts to the side.

And he sleeps.

When Keith wakes, he’s in a healing pod.

Murky memories of two huge yellow, glowing eyes and a blue jaw opening wide, engulfing the small pod, swim in his memory, as do a concerned voice, soft lips pressed to his temple, and the cold of the chest-piece of the armour his head had leaned against for an indefinite amount of time.

But Keith’s eyes are closed.

And with mounting horror, Keith realises that people in healing pods aren’t actually unconscious, they’re just immobile. His chest constricts in the way it does when he retches, but he’s not even allowed that privilege. His heart beats against his ribcage, demanding to be let free, and he wishes his bones would break so the pain would stop.

Usually, when Keith closes his eyes, what he sees is red and grey, some colour he’d detest if he saw it somewhere else.

Now, his eyes are closed, and all he sees is blue.

Blue.

Blue like the ocean. Blue like ink. Blue like the sky. Blue like the veins under his skin. Blue like-

Lance’s voice.

It’s muffled, but Keith would always, anywhere, recognize Lance’s voice. So many times, this voice has driven him insane, has made him crave things only Lance could give him.

And so many times, this voice has stitched him back together after he’s torn himself apart. Of course, Keith hasn’t been sown up the same way he’d been before, but he’s glad about that. He adores Lance for cording little parts of himself into Keith; he’s so, so relieved and grateful that Lance helped him grow away from the angry, aggressive desert boy he used to be.

A different voice, softer and higher than Lance’s, replies, and Keith’s still trying to figure out who it is when the healing pod beeps, signalling that he’ll be let out any moment now. Steps rush close to Keith, stopping just outside the pod, and Keith hopes that whoever it is will catch him once he inevitably stumbles out of the pod.

The pod’s glass front disappears, as does the bitingly cold gas that filled the inside up until now, and Keith’s falling forward before he can even open his eyes properly. As he’d hoped, a pair of arms wrap around him, pressing him against a broad chest before he can fall to the floor.

It’s only now that Keith realises how cold his body has become, and he presses against the body in front of him, needing to get rid of the cold that’s settled into everywhere in his body except his heart.

“Keith, you’re freezing”, a surprised voice claims, and Keith glances up to look Lance in the eye.

“Yeah, no shit”, he whispers hoarsely before he lets his head fall against Lance’s shoulder, reaching up with numb, stiff fingers to push Lance’s jacket open; he worms his cold hands under and holds onto Lance’s torso, relishing in the warmth that had accumulated under his jacket. Lance makes a pitying noise –Keith’s sure he must look quite pitiful, searching for warmth under someone else’s jacket and clinging to that person–  and pulls his jacket around Keith as far as it will go, resting his head on top of Keith’s.

And Keith might be pressed skin-to-skin with Lance regularly, but he still craves physical touch enough for it to hurt sometimes, so he holds still, because he knows that he needs this.

“I’ll go get a blanket”, someone says from the side, but Keith doesn’t want to dislodge Lance’s head, so he doesn’t turn to look.

“Thanks, Allura”, Lance replies, and Keith buries his face in Lance’s chest. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to let go of Lance, even if he gets a blanket and therefore wouldn’t have a need for Lance as a source of warmth anymore. He refuses to let go again.

He needs to know that he’s not lost anymore.

That he’s no longer drifting in space, alone.

Keith thinks Allura must’ve left the room, because there’s the sound of the doors sliding shut, and then Lance’s arms tighten around him.

“Oh, my Darling”, Lance whispers, clinging to Keith now as much as Keith does to him, “I was so worried about you. We-we thought you were dead when we couldn’t find you on the ship.” Lance pulls his head back a bit despite the desperate way Keith whimpers; he kisses the top of Keith’s head, and his chest hurts when Keith has to close his eyes. He knows that Keith usually closes his eyes when he tries to hide his tears, and he has a feeling that that’s what’s happening now.

“But…Pidge needed to know what actually happened. I think it’s because she couldn’t bear not to know what happened to you- not after she was left in the dark with what happened with her dad and Matt. She hacked into the system and looked at the video footage.”

Keith opens his eyes hesitantly when he hears Lance’s shaky breath.

“It’s only because of her that we went after the pod and even found you”, Lance admits quietly, and Keith almost cries.

Lance looks so, so hurt.

Keith’s heart feels like it’s going to rip into a million little pieces, destined to be lost in space, just like he’d been lost not so long ago.

“It’s alright”, Keith croaks, his voice rough from the cold.

But Lance shakes his head, eyes squeezed shut and lips pressed into a thin line.

“If it weren’t for Pidge, we wouldn’t have gone after you”, he insists. Lance’s voice breaks, and Keith thinks Lance wants to scream.

If it weren’t for Pidge, Keith would be dead.

“It’s alright, really”, Keith tries again, less sure this time. He’s under no illusion; there are lots of times where he could have died already, and there are lots of times in the future where he might die.

Lance looks down at Keith, and Keith’s suddenly unsure if Lance is glaring at him.

Lance wouldn’t glare at him, would he?

“You don’t understand”, Lance says, his voice shaking with both anger and fear, “I almost lost you! And-and what’s worse than that, I almost lost you simply because you weren’t where we expected you to be!”

Keith’s eyes widen as he looks at Lance, and he subconsciously leans back a small bit to look up at Lance properly.

Lance’s voice isn’t the only thing that shakes, now, and Keith allows his Galra instincts to take over, letting out a comforting croon as he rubs Lance’s back. Lance crumples around him, clutching at the thin white medical suit Keith is wearing. Clutches at Keith like he’s going to disappear without warning.

“I almost lost you”, he whispers, like it still hasn’t fully settled in. Keith’s heart tears, and he knows that Lance’s has too, so he can’t wait for Lance to get up and stitch their hearts back together.

“Bold of you to assume I’d ever let you lose me”, he replies quietly, forcing himself to give Lance a feeble smile.

Lance laughs weakly, and Keith’s glad he said something, even if he didn’t know if it would help.

The doors open, and both of them turn their heads just in time to see their friends sprinting towards them.

They’re almost knocked to the ground when the others barrel into them, several pairs of arms wrapping around Keith and Lance.

“How are you?”, Shiro asks Keith over Lance’s shoulder, obviously concerned.

“I’m- okay, I guess.”

Keith’s throat tightens up a bit- he might have almost died, but he’s okay. He has to be.

Pidge, who’s managed to worm her way between Keith and Lance, to the disdain of both of them, frowns. “No, really, Keith. How are you?”

Keith glances down at her, and he feels tears well up once again; he’s not sure why, but he has to break eye contact. His eyes are burning. “I’m okay”, he whispers again, but the alarmed noises the others make tell him that they don’t believe him.

“I’m okay.”

The group hug tightens, and Keith can’t hold back his sobs now.

“I’m okay.”

Keith’s not sure whose hand is rubbing his back, and whose is stroking his hair, and who it is who wrestles the blanket between him and the others to pull it around his shaking shoulders, but he takes comfort in each tiny little touch.

“You don’t have to be okay, you know?”

Keith looks up at Lance through his tears, and even though his vision is blurry, he can see that Lance’s eyes are glassy. He gives Lance a hesitant, choppy nod, and even though all he did was agree that maybe, it was okay not to be okay, he feels so, so much better.

Lance doensn’t smile, but he appears relieved that Keith seems to understand that he doesn’t always need to be strong and steadfast.

Keith leans his head against the nearest shoulder, and lets himself cry.

And he lets his friends take care of him.

(And he thinks he’s needed this for a long time coming.)

Chapter Text

Keith’s sleeping now, curled up into a tiny ball on Lance’s bed, trying not to take up too much of the space on the too-small one-person bed.

Lance’s enamoured.

He leans forward to tuck a strand of Keith’s hair behind his ear, his throat tightening up at the small noise of content that Keith lets out at the touch.

Keith almost died.

And Lance won’t ever be over that, not truly. He knows that he’ll always be shaken at the thought of losing Keith; because Keith’s a flame, flickering in captivating shades of red and yellow and blue, burning everything in his path that isn’t prepared for him, threatening to turn Lance’s heart to ashes the very moment he lets his guard down; and today, the life in him was almost snuffed out.

Lance can’t think.

Not when Keith, peacefully asleep Keith, lying next to him, had laid in a metal pod in an ocean only hours before, his face lifeless and blue as his body shut down slowly.

Lance curls around Keith’s sleeping form, and he pulls Keith against his chest, moving his hand over Keith’s heart to feel it beat. And Lance’s eyes stay open, because he cannot bear to see Keith’s limp body in his mind again.

“Keith, my darling”, Lance whispers, tracing the curve of Keith’s neck with his eyes, his lips wanting to taste the soft skin there. It’s the only way he usually knows to comfort Keith. “How do you seem so unbothered?”

The sleepy murmur that Keith lets out while he cuddles further into Lance’s arms is far from a proper reply.

“Pidge, c’mon! We gotta go, the sentries are gonna overwhelm us any moment now, we need to- “

“We can’t leave yet, please Hunk, I need to know what happened to Keith, I won’t leave not knowing where he is, don’t tell me you don’t want to know too- “

“Of course I want to know! I just-I just think we shouldn’t risk our own lives when we’re assuming that Keith’s- well, gone!”

Lance presses his eyes shut, seeing only darkness as he remembers hearing Hunk and Pidge’s voices over the helmet’s comm.

And he remembers seeing only darkness then.

“Pidge, I know this is important to you, but if you haven’t found anything in two minutes, we’re leaving!”

“I know, I know, Hunk, I promise, that’ll be enough time!”

He hates himself.

He should’ve known that Keith wouldn’t have died this easily.

“I found him!”

A triumphant cry that makes everyone but Pidge freeze.

“Where is he?”

A demand, one that’s at the tip of everyone’s tongues; Lance is just the first the voice it.

“Not on the ship anymore, he- “

“What?!”

“Let me finish, dammit! He was cornered in an escape pod and to keep from being shot, he-he used it.”

Lance peers down at Keith; he looks so calm, like he spent the day relaxing in the lounge. He doesn’t understand why Keith doesn’t seem at least a bit bothered.

But he’s glad about it, he really is.

Lance chases after Keith’s pod with his lion with Shiro and Allura in the cockpit, standing behind the pilot seat and staring forward; they’re almost as determined as Lance is to get Keith back. But Lance thinks that it would be quite difficult to be more determined than him when it comes to getting Keith back; Keith is his air; Keith is the warmth in his bed and in his smile, and most importantly, Keith is the fire that burns in Lance’s heart.

If Keith is snuffed out, so will Lance’s heart be.

Because Lance has gotten used to the burning in his chest. He doesn’t remember how cold it used to be, but he fears knowing again.

Finding the pod takes both longer and shorter than expected.

Lance knows that the universe is endless yet still expanding, a fact he can’t seem to fit in his head properly, and he knows Newton’s first law – an object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an outside force – so he knows that it might take them forever to find Keith.

But even if the red lion is faster, blue is fast too.

And he’d expect that a half-magical robot lion shouldn’t have a problem with catching up to a measly escape pod.

Keith squirms in Lance’s arms, mumbling something unintelligible, something distressed; it’s the first sign of unease that Lance sees in Keith since he’s dried his tears after crying and clinging to the paladins, Allura and Coran.

Lance shushes Keith softly, holding him tight and rubbing gentle circles into his side.

It’s the best he can do.

But he wants to do more.

Wants to do more for Keith.

Luckily, Keith calms and settles down again, letting Lance rub his back.

They find Keith.

And- Lance’ll be honest, he thinks that Keith is beautiful.

But the picture that Keith paints, lying there in the escape pod? It isn’t a pretty one.

One day, he will give Keith the universe.

He just has to be patient.

“Open the pod!”

“Patience, Lance! Allura and I are working on it- “

“We can’t get the hatch to open!”

Lance almost abandons the pilot seat; his heart beats so fast he’s not sure if there’s a beat at all, if his heart has stopped, or if the blood is just rushing through without any kind of rhythm.

“Then shatter the fucking glass! I don’t care, get him out! He’s dyingin there!”

Shiro and Allura stay quiet for a second following his outburst, and Lance almost screams at them to bloody do something when he hears a shot followed by glass shattering.

“He’s breathing again!”

The relief in Allura’s voice doesn’t even remotely measure up to the relief that Lance is feeling.

“Are you sure?”, Lance asks, frantic as he pilots the blue lion back to the castle, needing to know how Keith is as much as he needs oxygen – the same oxygen of which Keith had been unfairly deprived – but he can’t get up and check up on Keith himself, for who will pilot blue then?

Keith still seems calm, but Lance is paying attention to every tiny detail about Keith; now more so than usually.

Which is why he notices the tears gathering at Keith’s lash line.

“The hatch is almost open. Hunk’s working on it, and the pod is no match for him”, Shiro tells Lance. He’s the only one patient enough to deal with Lance now that he’s roaming around blue’s hangar, waiting for Keith to be freed.

“I wish the pod were less of a match”, Lance snaps- not at Shiro, of course, but rather at the universe; at fate, if there is something like fate. “It doesn’t matter if he can breathe but is trapped in there- he’s still passed out! And-and you’ve seen the blood on the pod’s floor, haven’t you? He’s bleeding!”

Lance lets out a groan and pulls at his hair while Shiro shoots him a sympathetic look.

“I know Lance- patience. He’ll be alright, you know that.”

Lance lets out an exasperated sound.

“That doesn’t stop me from worrying!”

Shiro sighs. “Patience”, he says again, more insistently this time.

Lance groans.

“How can I be patient when Keith could be bleeding out for all we know?”

Shiro sighs, but he still doesn’t sound annoyed, and that’s what makes Lance feel guilty.

How could it not, when Shiro is always patient with Lance and with the others- has been patient, so far.

Right now, it seems like Shiro’s patience is thinning.

“Go take a shower, Lance”, Shiro tells Lance, and it sounds like an order, even though Lance knows that Shiro would never order him around outside of battle. “I’m sure that Keith will be out of the escape pod and in a healing pod by the time you’re done. That way, you’ll be clean and freshly dressed when you continue worrying your hair white.”

Lance glances at Shiro’s hair subtly- it’s a good look, but he doesn’t think he could pull it off.

“Fine”, he murmurs, giving in suddenly and unexpectedly, reminding Shiro and even himself of a decayed wooden floor.

He knows that Shiro’s watching him as he leaves for the showers, the clanging from Pidge and Hunk working on the escape pod following him into the white, clean, too-bright, too-impersonal hallway.

Lance thinks that one of the reason he enjoys spending time with Keith is that Keith never seems cold or like he’s putting on a façade when they’re together- he’s far too much of a hothead to build façades. He might build walls around his heart, ones that were far too easy for Lance to break down, but he’s not patient enough to do anything except be honest and to-the-point.

And- Lance might be helping Keith be more patient, but he hopes, perhaps unfairly, that Keith will never be able to build façades.

Keith whimpers in his sleep and clings tighter to Lance.

Lance strokes Keith’s hair soothingly while he rubs his back, starting to hum the melody to a song of which he’s forgotten the lyrics of a long time ago.

It’s been a long time since they left Earth, after all.

He thinks slowly forgetting Earth’s songs, slowly forgetting about Earth’s culture, slowly forgetting about the pronunciation of some Spanish words –and it’s not like he can ask the others for help- is the worst thing about being stuck in space.

That, and seeing Keith suffer.

Lance can’t even help; Keith gets more and more uneasy as he sleeps, his eyes squeezing shut to hide invisible demons, the corners of his lips turning down and pulling thin, shadowed lines across Keith’s face; more lines appear between his dark eyebrows. For a second, Lance thinks that everything’s dark about Keith’s face right now, but he scolds himself just after he gets the thought.

The whine Keith lets out, his face contorting heartbreakingly, could be enough reason for Lance to run straight off a cliff if it meant that he’d never have to hear Keith making that sound again.

“Oh, my Darling”, he whispers, kissing the top of Keith’s head, “I wish I could help you.”

And he wishes that Keith would wake, because then he’d know how to help, but Keith’s usually a deep sleeper, and this time is no different.

So all Lance can do to help is whispering sweet promises to Keith that he won’t even remember come tomorrow morning, and he holds Keith close, pretending that the way Keith presses into him doesn’t make him at least a little bit happy.

Because he shouldn’t be happy that Keith presses into him to feel safe- not when Keith’s sleep is worsening as the night goes on, and not when Keith will wake in the morning, with enough sleep, but not nearly enough rest.

But he is, even if he won’t ever admit it to himself.

Chapter Text

All Keith sees is blue.

Well, not exactly. All is a bit overly dramatic.

But more than he’d like.

So much is blue now.

And- Keith likes blue. Liked it. Used to, at least.

But he’s going insane, because he can’t do anything, can’t do anything at all about it; he can’t even close his eyes to block the colour out, because then he sees blue too.

Nobody told him that this would be a side effect of sinking into an ocean of blue, beautiful blue- blue death.

Then again, his teammates weren’t aware.

They still aren’t now. Because Keith needs to be alright, he can’t let them know how frayed his mind has become. He’s too unused to being vulnerable with his emotions to start now.

They’re fighting a war; they have larger, more pressing problems.

So Keith copes by training more often and longer; early mornings before breakfast are now spent at the training deck. So are late evenings before Lance will find him and drag him off to bed, telling him that he won’t be let into the bed before he showers, and lecturing him about how sore his muscles are going to be. And so is all the time in between, save for when he and the team are needed to fight the empire.

It’s draining.

It’s what he needs most.

When he told Lance that he needs this, last night, when they cuddled close together and settled down for sleep, Lance had looked at him for a long few seconds and told him that he didn’t need it. He’d told Keith that it was the only way he knew how to deal with his almost-death, and that it, quite frankly, was not a good way of coping.

Keith, stubborn and headstrong – a trait for which he’s been both praised and scolded – didn’t acknowledge what Lance said and pretended to fall asleep shortly after.

And- it works.

The training room is a clinical white, no blue anywhere. Except for the blue on the training bots – turquoise, technically, but Keith doesn’t care about technicalities – and Keith can tolerate that because he’s more concerned with keeping his eyes on the bot’s weapons while he’s fighting them off and beating them to pulp. Except for the rare times when they beat him to pulp and leave him a bruised mess on the floor for Lance to find and fuss over.

Such as now- Lance hasn’t found him yet though. Judging by the time, it will still take a while until Lance will come looking for him, so that’s a relief.

Keith hates himself for thinking it.

But right here, right now, lying battered on the white, cold hard floor, he almost hopes Lance won’t come and take him to bed tonight, because he feels ill when he looks into Lance’s sickeningly beautiful blue eyes.

He’s drowning again.

And he can’t look away.

He stares up at the ceiling. Maybe, if he looks directly into the light long enough, he’ll go blind and will be unable to see what’s been haunting him for weeks now.

Then again, with his luck, seeing nothing would be blue too.

When he closes his eyes, he sees blue.

He wants to cry.

Why won’t he get better?

He wants to heal.

But Keith has always been the sword, just as Lance has always been the sharpshooter, and just as Shiro has always been the shield. He has only ever been capable of hurting and cutting and stabbing and killing. Healing, be it himself or others, is a foreign concept to him. He wishes it weren’t.

And oh- he feels so, so hurt, and the dully aching bruises aren’t even a part of what he feels, because the stinging and pulling in his chest and head are so, so much worse.

It has been getting worse, too; daggers have pushed further and further into his head while his heart and lungs have been trying to escape his chest more and more desperately the more time went by.

His eyes are burning. He’s not sure if it’s from looking into the light for too long, or from something else.

When will he heal?

Will he ever?

It takes some time for Lance to come get him, so Keith assumes that Lance either got caught up in something, or that he hoped that Keith would come on his own.

If it’s the second, Lance will have to wait a long time until he gets what he hopes for.

Keith doesn’t look at Lance when he hears his steps coming closer; he can’t, not yet. He can’t look at Lance, because what he’ll see is painfully, beautifully blue, and he’s not ready.

It hurts when Lance stands over him, blocking the light, and looks down at him in a way that is so neutral that Keith knows Lance is trying to hide his disappointment. Maybe it would hurt less if Lance simply showed his disappointment.

“My Darling?”, Lance asks, and Keith holds out his arms wordlessly. Lance gives him a sympathetic look and crouches down, pulling Keith into a sitting position and wrapping him into a warm, safe embrace.

Because Keith needs this.

Needs Lance’s affection, even if he’s almost physically unable to look at him without wanting to run.

“One of those days, huh?”, Lance continues while he counts the fresh bruises, and Keith nods into Lance’s chest. “Come on, let’s go back- it’s late, we both need the sleep. We’ll meet with the leaders of some planet tomorrow morning.” He pauses, and Keith tenses up during the few silent seconds. “You missed the meeting.”

There it is.

“I have you to catch me up, don’t I?”, Keith mumbles, tightening his arms around Lance.

Lance, however, won’t have his behaviour, it seems, because he puts his hands on Keith’s shoulders and pulls back, looking Keith in the eyes sternly.

“Keith, you can’t just let yourself be beaten into a bruised mess by the training robots and miss mealtimes and meetings and- well, everything.” Lance squeezes Keith’s shoulders seriously. “You need to take care of yourself, you can’t just starve yourself and your social life. It’s not good for you.”

Keith lets his head hang, feeling childish for avoiding the other paladins.

“I’m sorry”, he says, quiet but honest. “I just…I don’t feel like being around people at the moment.”

Lance sighs, but he doesn’t say anything else, so Keith takes it as a win. He lets Keith cuddle him again; he lets Keith close his eyes and press his face into Lance’s chest, hiding away from the bright lights.

They stay there, entangled on the training room floor, for another minute or two until Lance decides that they’ve spent enough time there and that their butts will be sore if they stay there any longer; he gets up and pulls Keith with him, his expression unreadable. To Keith, at least, which is somewhat to be expected, because Keith sucks at reading others’ expressions.

He lets Lance pull him along, out of the training room and down the hallways. Quite predictably, they’re moving towards the showers, and Keith knows the hot water will burn when it hits his bruises, and he looks forward to it. Maybe something’s fucked in his head that he does, but he can’t find it in himself to care, and he doesn’t see why he should.

“I’ll be in my room”, Lance tells him once they’re in front of the communal showers, “see you later.” Keith leans in to accept the kiss Lance presses to his cheek, closing his eyes because he knows Lance won’t, and Lance’s eyes would be far too close otherwise.

Too much blue.

Everywhere.

Idling around in the hallway outside of Lance’s room isn’t anything Keith used to do; he was way too eager to spend time with Lance, to hear his soothing voice as they talked and to feel his strong arms pulling Keith close.

But now, he’s trying to draw out the moment when he’ll have to go inside because Lance will come outside to look for him otherwise.

He takes a deep breath.

And he goes inside, and he realises, as soon as Lance’s eyes are on him, that he isn’t ready.

His hands tremble slightly as he makes his way over to Lance’s bed- over time, it has turned into their bed, but in theory, it still belongs to Lance. And tonight, it feels more like Lance’s bed than theirs.

Lance sets his phone aside as Keith comes closer, and in order to ignore Lance – and his pyjamas, soft, blue – Keith thinks about what Lance might have been doing on his phone. They don’t have internet here, even though Keith has heard Pidge and Hunk mutter about the possibility of setting up a castle-wide system that works the same way as the internet does.

Crawling into bed next to Lance feels almost formal, and wrong, but Keith hopes that it doesn’t show on his face, but Lance is frowning at Keith, so he fears that Lance notices something, at least. Probably his stiff limbs, or how there are the first traces of sweat gathering at the back of Keith’s neck even though he showered only minutes ago.

But Keith’s dreams have been getting worse, and he fears sleeping.

And now, Lance will probably start asking questions.

So before Lance can say something, Keith asks, “Are you tired?”

Lance purses his lips, quite obviously aware of what Keith’s trying to do. He nods, and Keith cuddles close against Lance’s chest. “We should probably sleep”, Keith says then, “you mentioned this diplomatic meeting tomorrow, didn’t you?”

Lance sighs. He’s been doing that more often lately, Keith notices.

“Fine”, Lance says, and Keith’s heart drops at how annoyed Lance sounds. “But you can’t just keep avoiding this. We really need to talk, Keith- don’t think I haven’t noticed that you’ve started to seem exhausted and worn out just after you get up.”

Keith bites his lower lip and looks away, guilty of what Lance accused him of.

If only it were easy, opening up to others.

He wishes he could talk to Lance, talk to Lance like he expects Keith to, but every time he thinks about doing so, opens his mouth to speak, his throat closes up and he gets too little air, to little oxygen.

He can’t breathe.

So he stops trying.

“I’m sorry”, Keith whispers into the fabric of Lance’s pyjamas, pressing his eyes shut because he doesn’t want to see the pretty blue shade.

Lance pulls Keith closer against his chest.

“Don’t be sorry, I don’t want you to feel bad”, Lance says, stroking Keith’s hair comfortingly even as his voice sounds torn, “I…” – a sigh – “I just want to help, but I feel like you’re taking three steps back every time I take one step closer to try and help you. It’s been weeks, and I no longer know what to do.”

Keith feels Lance’s lips pressing against the top of his head.

“Will you let me help you?”

Lance’s question is quiet, and hopeful, even if Keith knows that Lance is trying not to get his hopes up.

Keith nods.

“I-I’ll try”, he promises.

He can’t promise more than that he’ll try, and he prays that it’s enough.

Lance stays quiet, and after a while, Keith looks up to find Lance looking directly at him. “What?”, he asks, defensive and ready to bite if he doesn’t know how to react to what Lance will say.

Lance’s eyes are painfully blue as they bore into his own.

“You’ll talk to me, tomorrow?”, Lance asks instead of answering Keith’s question. “You don’t have to tell me everything, just…tell me why you’ve been avoiding me and the others, alright? Your distance is starting to affect the team dynamics.”

Keith looks down and presses his face into Lance’s chest again.

Of course Lance would worry because of the team.

“Sure, we’ll talk tomorrow”, he agrees, and feels tension leave Lance’s body from where they’re pressed together.

“Thank you”, Lance says, relieved. Keith hates that he can hear the smile in Lance’s voice. Strong arms squeeze him tight, and warm, and safe, and it’s so, so Lance that it hurts.

He turns to it’s his back that’s pressed against Lance’s chest instead, but Lance doesn’t let that deter him and pulls him close again so they’re flush against each other.

They turn off the light and the darkness is, for a change, bare of colour. It’s relieving.

And what Keith thinks of as he falls asleep is that Lance worries more about the team dynamics than about Keith.

It’s not true, of course.

But it feels like it, and Keith has always relied on his instincts; his emotions.

He takes comfort in the fact that Lance hasn’t flirted with any other team members, only him.

It helps, a bit.

He still has nightmares though. Even if Lance tries to calm him when he screams in the middle of the night, kicking thin air and feeling claustrophobic on the small bed.

And in the morning, he still wakes looking worse than when he fell asleep.

Chapter Text

The bright, poppy red rock is pleasantly warm under Keith and Lance’s feet.

“Where are we going, Lance?”, Keith asks for the third time; he’s impatient, and he wants to know where they’re going, because Lance has been keeping it secret from him all day.

It’s quite dark, and Keith no longer has an idea where they’re going- all he knows it that they’re still on Selj’ya, the planet they came to in order to discuss an alliance.

Keith felt at home as soon as they landed, because even though parts of the planet are covered in deep blue oceans – Keith remembers almost retching when he first saw – the part of the planet they went to is pleasantly dry and rocky and red.

Like the desert back on earth.

They did get their alliance, and to celebrate, the Selj’yaans threw a banquet, which included booze; not that Keith or Lance managed to drink any of it, far too busy with keeping Pidge from getting drunk.

She’s such a weasel, Keith thinks. A loveable one, but one nevertheless.

Later, after most of the others had gone to bed, Lance had told Keith to put on some light clothes for a midnight walk.

Keith grumbles as he thinks about it; foolish as he is, he thought they’d go someplace quiet and Lance would press him down into the dusty ground and leave him screaming and – hopefully – limping.

None of it seems like it’ll happen soon.

“When are we there?”, he asks, trailing after Lance. They’ve been walking for almost forty minutes, and slowly but surely, he’s tempted to pull his hand out of Lance’s and turn around to go back and go to sleep.

“Patience, my Darling.”

“Lance.”

“We’re almost there, I promise, it’s not much longer.”

Keith makes a show of sighing impatiently, and he’s thinking about the best way to tell Lance that he just wants to go back and cuddle in their shared bed.

The night sky is spilt ink with bright, glittering diamonds scattered into countless constellations.

Keith is drowning in it.

It’s too blue, too endless, to inescapable.

But before he can complain again, his feet sink into something, and he looks down, seeing purple sand instead of the red rock he’s gotten used to.

Slightly alarmed, he thinks he knows where Lance is leading him. His throat closes up, and he can’t breathe or talk.

They keep walking, and the sand beneath their feet goes from its bruised purple to a deep, deep violet that is almost blue.

Keith’s chest is burning, charring with the air he doesn’t have.

He wonders when he stopped breathing, only to realise that he hasn’t. His breathing is even.

It doesn’t feel like it.

Lance doesn’t seem to notice, but he must,mustn’t he? How can he not notice that Keith is burning up beside him, burning up, his throat and soul set on fire by cold, dark blue?

The static in his head gets louder the farther they walk, and he’s not sure if it’s because now there’s the crashing of waves too.

Is it just in his head? Or is it real?

Realis very likely, because the next thing Keith sees is the endless, blue, blue, blueocean.

A few small, shimmering white animals that look somewhat like crabs run off as Lance pulls Keith, numb and stiff, towards the water.

Thankfully, Lance stops a few feet before they walk into the water; he turns to Keith, his expression guilty when he sees the way Keith eyes the ocean.

“I know I shouldn’t bring you here without having asked you”, Lance apologises, and Keith doesn’t show that he heard him, but he agrees very much. “I just didn’t think you’d come here with me if I’d told you where we’re going.”

Keith looks up at Lance, squeezing his hand tightly. “Can we go?”, he whispers, tears and darkness, dreadfully blue, threatening to cloud his eyes.

“Will you try something for me first?”, Lance pleads, taking both of Keith’s hands and pressing small, gentle kisses to Keith’s knuckles. “If you truly can’t, then we’ll leave and go back and cuddle as long as you want, but I think I have an idea how I can help you.”

Keith can’t help the small whimper he lets out, but he squeezes his eyes shut and nods. Lance pulls Keith into a hug, and for a moment, Keith can only see the deep red of Lance’s shirt. He doesn’t have the focus to think about whether Lance might have not worn blue on purpose.

“You see, I hoped we could- I hoped we could go into the water for a bit, and you’d always be able to go out as soon as you want, but I thought it might help, because it could help you process what happened.”

Keith buries his head in Lance’s chest, feeling the slight rise and fall of Lance’s chest as he takes a deep breath.

“I hoped it might help against any feelings of…oh, I don’t know, feelings of helplessness or something.”

Lance looks down at Keith, but Keith doesn’t look up, not quite ready yet.

“If…if you feel up for it, we might even go for a swim.”

Keith latches onto that, because that is something he can work with. More or less, at least, and he wantsto try, for Lance, but more importantly, for himself. He pulls back a few inches hesitantly, hoping he won’t regret his next words.

“I-I can’t swim, Lance.”

That seems to stop Lance in his tracks. “What?”

Embarrassed, Keith looks down at the violet sand, burying his toes in it. “I can’t swim”, he repeats meekly, “I grew up in the desert, so I never learned how to swim.”

Keith can hear the sand crunching under Lance’s feet as he shifts his weight. It’s a nice distraction. “Look at me”, he says quietly, and Keith has always been weak for Lance, has always been weak for Lance’s voice, so he obeys. He looks up at Lance from under his lashes, his throat tightening. Lance’s eyes are so, so blue, and to Keith, they’re glowing in the dark, and he wants to shout, wants to scream, but he’s caught in the spell that Lance has over him.

“It’s okay.” Lance smiles down at Keith, warm and sweet and soft. “I’ll teach you.” Lance lets go of Keith and takes a few steps toward the ocean, Keith watching warily; Lance turns around just before he’s out of Keith’s reach, and that encouraging smile is still on his face.

And he holds out his hand, and Keith, who trusts Lance not only with his life but also his heart, puts his hand in Lance’s without thinking about it.

Lance leads him closer to the water; Keith feels discontent pooling in his stomach, spilling over into his veins and filling the rest of his body.

He can do this, can’t he?

He can’t.

As soon as his feet are in the water, his body freezes up, making a full stop, because he’s afraid, and he doesn’t want to be in the water, he doesn’t want tosinkagain, he can’t bear it, not even with Lance helping him, and everything’s blue again, blue, blue, blue-

“My Darling”, Lance whispers, and Keith looks up at him, and Lance looks so, so calm that Keith only now notices how fast his heart is beating.

Lance smiles as Keith’s breathing slows, and he stands still, giving Keith all the time he needs.

Because healing is not something forced, not something fast. That’s something that Keith is yet to learn. But he thinks he starts to understand.

Once Keith can breathe again, he squeezes Lance’s hand in thanks.

“You’re in control, Keith”, Lance says quietly, looking him in the eyes. The waves crash against the sand, and the mixture of water and dirt swirls around their feet.

For a few seconds, Keith frowns, because he does not feel in control, but- Lance is right.

Keithisin control.

If he just lets himself be in control.

It shifts something inside of Keith. When he looks out into the ocean again, he doesn’t feel like throwing up.

Sure, he feels like running.

But- oh, he needs to try.

He wants to.

He hesitantly takes one, two steps into the water, shivering when another wave splashes water up to his knees; the water is colder than he expected. His stomach twists, clenching around nothing.

“You’re doing well”, Lance smiles. Keith smiles back weakly before he can help himself, and it might be a tiny smile, one starved of the light that is usually in his smiles, but it’s the first in a long while. Keith needs to practice a bit, and that’s alright.

Keith knows that Lance will be there, by his side. And Lance will help him, if he asks.

Lance takes a few more steps, and Keith, who isn’t quite ready to go further into the water, is forced to let go of Lance’s hand.

“Lance, come back”, Keith complains, making grabby hands at Lance and reluctantly taking a small step further into the water. Blue, blue, blue- Keith pushes the thought aside. Lance is blue. And he wants, needsLance to touch him right now. He needs Lance.

Lance gives him a soft smile, now waist deep in the water. “I’m not disappearing”, he promises, “I’m just enjoying the water.” He holds his hand out, but even if Keith stretches, he’s a few inches too far away.

He grumbles, and his heart is beating too fast, but he lets Lance goad him into wading into the water, chasing after Lance’s hand. It’s a good thing, too; Keith, now focused on chasing after Lance’s hand, doesn’t pay too much mind to how far or where he’s walking.

At least until suddenly there’s something slimy wrapping around his left foot, causing him to screech and launch himself into Lance’s arms, shaking his leg desperately to try and get rid of what’s clinging to his foot; Lance stumbles further into the water, trying to keep them upright.

“There’s something touching my foot!”, Keith howls, disturbing the dark shore and sending a few of the small animals scattering off, “Take it off, take it off, take if off!”

Lance tries to hold onto Keith, who is now doing his best to clamber onto Lance’s broad shoulders, still shaking his left leg like he’ll die if he doesn’t. “Keith- Keith, hold still!”, Lance hisses, grunting as Keith’s knee digs into him; he grabs Keith’s left ankle and holds onto Keith’s leg with an iron grip despite Keith’s cry of protest, and looks at Keith’s foot, expecting to see a flesh-eating slug or something of the sort.

And he has to laugh.

“Keith, it’s just algae”, he grins, amused, plucking the plant away and throwing it into the water a few feet away from them. Keith whines from atop his shoulders, tugging on Lance’s hair slightly.

“How was I supposed to know that?”

Lance chuckles but pats Keith leg in apology.

“Come on down now”, Lance says, holding his hands up to support Keith.

Keith shakes his head vigorously, and then realises that Lance probably can’t see that. “No way”, he replies, bending over Lance’s head to look him in the face, “that was disgusting!I’d rather die before I ever have something touch my foot again.”

“You’re exaggerating, my Darling, it can’t have been that bad”, Lance smiles and squeezes his thigh, making Keith pout.

“But it was!”, Keith insists, pulling on Lance’s hair for emphasis.

Lance chuckles and squeezes Keith’s thigh a second time. “Well then- if you say so. You didreact really strongly.”

It’s an understatement, and Keith knows it.

He now completely understands Pidge’s dislike for plants. He does, however, like the fact that the plant managed to make the situation lose some of its tension.

“Will you come down now?”, Lance asks, tilting his head back to look Keith in the eyes, letting out a fond sigh as Keith shakes his head.

“Why would you even askthat?” Keith stares down at Lance like he declared himself a horse – and oh, he might be hung like one, but he’s human, thank you very much – because there’s absolutely no way he’ll go back into the water unless some unfortunate person removes all the water plants and animals nearby.

He is notgoing to step on something again, not if he can avoid it.

And he can avoid it.

Because he is in control of the situation.

He is in control of how close he is to the water, and for how long he is here, and- everything.

And everything is blue. The ocean. The sky. Lance.

And Keith can only see blue.

And his hands are trembling, but his heart is slowing, and with Lance, he feels safe amidst all the blue.

For a moment, he feels free, and he knows that right now, this is where he belongs. He’s not surprised that Lance knew what to do. He’s not healed yet, but he’s ready to heal, ready to let Lance stitch up the tears in his heart.

His limbs lighten with the knowledge, and when Keith takes a deep, quiet breath, he actually manages to get air into his lungs without choking on the past.

“Hey, Lance?”, he whispers, knowing that to Lance, and to the world, his voice screams of how at peace he is. How at peace he is going to be.

Lance looks up at him questioningly, and the stars reflect in his eyes. They look like they belong there.

“Thank you for bringing me here.”