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He tilted his head back and exhaled slowly. There was a tingling feeling crawling up his back and he closed his eyes and ignored it. A static sensation. Nothing to worry about, nothing to harp on or torment himself over. Skin crawled when nothing was happening.
There wasn’t anything on him, no slick and slimy bug-like alien, trying to dip its feelers through his skin and into his spine, just so they could rip him open and eat him whole, bugged eyes and fluttering legs, creeping through his body and under his skin, twisting through-
His hands slapped at his back when he jerked up.
Breaths were hard, body flushed out with semi-heaving panic.
He shook his head, closed his eyes and laid back down.
Keith didn’t like being in shuddering quiet. It swirled in his head, grinning while his thoughts grew too loud and too big, trying to encompass a space that was normally filled with noise.
Trying to fill up the spaces that he normally kept blocked.
It just didn’t help that every thought was creepy, crawly, angry, loudly screaming at him until he couldn’t sleep.
And he couldn’t move because he had to rest. Couldn’t do anything because he had to recuperate. Or else Allura was going to shove him into the cryopod for the next ten hours, even though it wasn’t necessary. He was fine. Minor back pain but fine.
He cracked his jaw and tried to sleep again.
The door shliffed. He snapped open an eye.
Hunk waved gently at him from the closing doorway. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Keith replied, hoarsely.
Hunk settled down at the edge of Keith’s bed. “You doing okay?”
Keith made a vague affirming noise and shifted reflexively towards him. Hunk chuckled before rocking back. Landing with a soft pwsh beside him, Hunk crossed his arms behind his head. Keith curled close to him, not touching, not touching but close.
He liked being close to Hunk.
He was so warm, inviting.
Important.
Keith smiled low and titled his head up to watch Hunk who was watching him. All the biting feelings that had been sliming their way through his head vanished into metaphorical ashes. Hunk began sliding his fingers through Keith’s hair.
His hand was heavy and warm. Pressed deep into his skin and began shifting down to his neck, curving over Keith’s jaw. A finger slid down the crook of where his jaw met his throat.
A violent flash of being choked slammed into his head and Keith shoved himself back.
His heart beat, blood sounding like the passing of speeding train. Clunky and thumping.
Hunk crooked an eyebrow. “Bad thoughts?”
Keith covered his face and made a vague noise into his hands. Non-existent pressure built around his throat, throttling him from inside his head. He dragged his hands over his neck. Dusting his fingertips light and lighter over the skin, he breathed.
Nothing was happening. Hunk wasn’t choking, wouldn’t dream of it. Hunk was perfect, good, kind, loving, tough, thick, able of pinning down Keith and strangling him black and blue-
Keith choked, stumbled back and off the bed.
Hunk watched him carefully. “Keith?”
“Just-” He shook his head, bringing his head down in a protective move. His chin pressed along the fleshy softness of his neck. “Just need to breathe.”
Hunk pulled himself up, knees to his chest and jaw on his knees. “Okay.”
Keith was exposed. Pressure points, vital points. The inside of his wrists, the underside of his knees. Back of his ankles.
Breasts.
He shifted. His knife weighed heavy against his thigh. Bright and blood thoughts careened into him like a trainwreck. He fell to the ground, kept his chin low, bent inwards his hands to hide his wrists and squeezed his entire body inside himself as best he could.
Tried to breathe through it like normal.
A steady creak sounded and he shivered. Hunk came up close, but not too close. Stayed his distance and sat.
“Do you want to talk?”
Keith shook his head.
“Okay.” There was a thump and under his lashes, Keith could see Hunk splayed out on the ground, hands on his stomach. “You know, my younger sister, Lua, loves unicorns.” Keith closed his eyes again. “Like, loves-loves them. I mean, I’m confident she’s probably a furry, she loves them so much.”
There was a brief pause and then Hunk continued on, like nothing was happening. Like everything was normal and fine.
“We used to have to share the same room before Hana moved into the basement and everything was unicorns. I think, I had like one thing that was mine. Everything was either a unicorn toy or a unicorn poster or a drawing of a unicorn she made. It was really cute because when my mom got a job with the Garrison, she used to have bring us in if we were sick or something and all her co-workers adored Lua and they’d make her all kinds of unicorn based toys.”
Hunk laughed. “No, there was this one- I think Calgry made it? But anyway, it was, like, this five inch metal carving of a unicorn and it was really detailed and stuff and she loved it so much and it wasn’t until three weeks later that we all found out that it was actually a firework.
“I’d never seen my mom so livid before and she called Calgry up and yelled at him for two hours for not saying anything, which, you know, he forgot a lot but you think he’d remember giving a seven year old an explosive.”
Keith snorted, relaxing a little bit. The overwhelming fear of being split open at his most fleshy and open points was slowly working itself backwards into the deep recess of where Keith kept it normally shoved and locked up. “What did the fireworks look like?”
“Unicorns, of course,” Hunk grunted as he rolled over onto his stomach. “A whole bunch of unicorns and one pooped rainbows.”
Keith rolled his eyes. “Classy.”
“Extremely classy.” Hunk pushed off the ground. “It was actually really nice. And fucking lucky. I mean, she had that thing all the time everywhere so if I hadn’t set on fire outside by accident, it could’ve exploded inside the house.”
“How do you set something on fire by accident?”
Hunk bit his lip, running a flustered hand through his hair. “By setting the oven mitts you use to pull stuff out of the kiln on fire and flopping them off, in a panic, onto the ground where your sister has set out her toys for a tea party because you don’t want to burn your beautiful hands.”
Keith stood up, slowly, a little wobbly. He smirked. “How are you still alive?”
“Miracles?” Hunk suggested, laughing.
Keith grinned low and let himself fall forward into Hunk’s chest and warm embrace. “Definitely.”