Chapter Text
He didn’t feel it. Not really. Not as much as he thought he would.
Lance, of course, felt the initial slicing pain of a sword being thrust into his abdomen, and then he was staring up at the ceiling. The very air around him was pulsing, and yet so still. It squeezed Lance’s body ever so slightly, then let him go. Then it would repeat itself. Through all that, though, Lance felt as if he was stuck in a place without time. He felt like a mosquito in amber, frozen and suspended as if in the constant state of perpetual motion, or the lack thereof. Lance couldn’t really tell.
He could hear the screams. So far away, they seemed, and slower than usual.
“LAAAAAANNNNNCCCCCEEEEEEEEEEE!!!”
“Oh God, no. Guys, we have to-!”
“PALADINS!!-”
“LANCE!! Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh shit-”
They’d have to forgive him for not responding, but Lance’s mouth didn’t want to work. It was too busy splattering up some warm liquid. He was choking on it.
Lance remembered the time he went to swim in the ocean with his older siblings and their friends. He’d had to wear a swimming diaper, and he could recall choking on the water then too. The feeling of sinking, falling slowly, water filling his lungs. He’d been so terrified at the time, and yet it had been so peaceful. He’d never felt more whole before then, more connected to nature.
This was like water, like the ocean, but thicker. It didn’t sting, but it was so thick, so red.
Speaking of red, Keith was holding him now. When had that happened?
“Lance? Lance, you have to hold on. We’ve got air support now, I just need you to hold on until Black get here, okay? Then we can get you inside a pod and everything will be okay.”
Keith looked and sounded so concerned. He wasn’t angry, he was worried.
Just as Lance noted this, as he saw Keith’s brow wrinkling and his eyes tearing up ever so slightly, he noticed that his vision was fading. Keith was slowly slipping into darkness.
Lance was starting to become afraid now.
“Can’t…” Lance gasped, his voice gurgling slightly around the viscous liquid bubbling up his throat. “Can’t see… Keith.”
“It’s going to be okay, Lance.” Keith’s voice called to him in the darkness. “God, your eyes, they look so… You’re gonna be fine.”
Lance could feel his breathing become shallower, his chest almost vibrating with the speed at which his lungs were moving. Their effort was so honorable, considering the circumstances; like soldiers charging headfirst into a battle they know that they’re destined to lose.
Tick.
Lance couldn’t feel his hands or feet, he noticed.
Just like when he was a drowning child. He supposed that he still was, now.
He could feel the same sensations as before, and experienced the same visions, but with a twist.
Lance saw his earthen family for only a couple of moments, like a video without sound.
Mama heating up tortillas in the pan.
Lupita on the phone with her boyfriend.
Daniel playing video games with Jaime, trying to break as many laws as possible in their game before Papa caught them playing when they should be finishing their chores.
But then another family took hold.
Lance saw Pidge trying desperately to hook up her and Lance’s new gaming console from the mall.
He saw Hunk making food goo pancakes, and Coran applauding him for his great use of their current foods to make something ‘extraordinary’.
He saw Shiro sketching in the observatory late at night, and Allura drinking a cup of some warm drink as she sat with him in silence.
Lastly, Lance saw Keith.
Keith.
The man holding him now, reassuring him that everything would be fine when they both knew that Lance was slipping.
Keith,
The one that was petting his hair away from his face as he rocked them back and forth even while the tension in Lance’s body released itself at an alarming rate.
Keith.
Keith was the last on Lance’s mind, and that’s how he knew. However, he could not speak. Lance instead reached a hand up to find Keith’s shoulder, then slide up to hold the side of his face. Keith held his hand there with one of his own, the other staying where it had been pressing down on Lance’s abdomen this whole time. Huh. Lance hadn’t even noticed.
Lance was dying.
He knew this.
He accepted his fate, knowing full well that the others would be able to carry on without him. Keith would be in unbearable pain at first, Lance knew, but he’d eventually be able to power through and protect the whole universe. He had always been capable of it, but maybe he needed the extra push.
Lance had accepted the fact that he’d never see his family again long ago, and he had to accept now that he’d never see his paladinian family as well. Maybe in another life, or a life after life itself. The thought eased Lance even more, a soft smile turning one side of his mouth up ever so slightly, his lips parting to show Keith his bloody teeth.
Tick.
Lance wasn’t giving up, he was just giving in.
Wasn’t that in a song from earth? Lance couldn’t recall, but it felt so right in that moment.
Lance was no longer breathing, and his head had lolled back by this point, though the smile remained on his face as the ocean swallowed him up.
His small body was being pulled into the depths of the ocean and he was at peace. He was alone, yes, but he wasn’t lonely like he had been before. He wasn’t necessarily numb, he was fluid. He moved with the water. He wasn’t being dragged, he flowed through the light currents like he was a part of them himself.
He was alive.
He was alive.
He was alive.
Lance was alive.
He was alive for once in his life.
He felt so alive,
So very alive.
Tick.