Chapter Text
When Lance woke up, Keith was mumbling and calling out, though still undeniably asleep. His words came slurred and ran into each other, tinted with a brand of emotion that Lance wasn't awake enough to identify. He felt the heavy arms of sleep reach for him again, and he saw Keith fade from his vision. He wouldn't remember it in the morning.
He woke up again to shouting. Keith was screaming and Lance bolted upright, still disoriented and in the process of waking up.He whipped over to see Keith next to him, crying out wordlessly like a wounded animal. His eyes were still screwed shut and he was shaking his head, but he didn't react when Lance tried to jolt him awake.
"Keith? Keith, can you hear me?" He didn't stir, but the scream in his throat died before it had finished at the sound of Lance's voice.
"No, no no no no." Keith was rambling and stammering but it was the first coherent word he had said so far. He locked into the verbal cycle, repeating the chorus of 'no' despite Lance's attempts to wake him. Some were desperate screams, but some sunk to a paralysing beg barely above a whisper.
Lance's panic rose as he flicked the bedside lamp on and tried again and again to wake Keith. Out of options and alternatives, he ran to the kitchen and grabbed the pitcher of water from the counter, holding it under the cold tap until it filled about a liter. He raced back to their room before dumping the water over Keith's head. Keith instantly bolted to sitting and flailed, nearly falling out of bed, wide awake, soaking wet, and pissed off. The water dripping steadily from his hair looked ready to boil.
"LANCE WHAT THE FUCK?!" He ran a hand through his hair and shook it out like a dog, spraying drops all across the room. Lance stood, heart rate gradually slowing and worry melting away. He stood there, dazed, with the pitcher in his hand.
"You were screaming, and I couldn't wake you up." He held the pitcher up, "So I panicked." Keith looked furious, but when Lance mentioned screaming, the anger cracked into shock.
"Screaming?" Lance nodded, and set the pitcher down on the floor, moving towards his boyfriend in the way you moved towards a lion, slow and unsure.
"I tried calling you and shaking you and nothing was working. You just kept rambling and screaming and crying." He tucked one strand of soaking hair behind Keith's ear and met his eye with a small smile to hide his relief that Keith was himself again, "It was creepy as fuck."
Keith broke the eye contact to check the clock on his nightstand. 4:47am. His eyes flicked over to the open window. Lance, noticing where his attention was, darted back to the desk that he was certain he had left the key on. It was still sat there, with the picture of them next to it lying face down. Keith tensed and went to grab the key and lock the window shut. Pondering the key in his hand, he undid the small metal chain around his neck, holding Coran's pendant, and hooked the key onto it, redoing the clasp around his neck. He turned back to Lance, his face severe.
"Did you leave the window open?" There was a cold intensity in the set of his eyes, and Lance reached across the feet between them and took Keith's hand to ease him. While Keith had been at the window, he had set the picture back upright. It was of the two of them, asleep on a couch just over three years back. They were at a party a few weeks after they had just started dating, and Pidge had thought it would make good blackmail material. Lance instead, absolutely loved it and printed it out to frame when they first moved in together.
"I thought I had locked it while you were out, but I probably didn't close it right." Keith's face contorted as his mind flew through the paranoia-fuelled possibilities. Lance put a hand to his cheek and drew him away from them.
"Hey, I can see you stressing about this. The wind probably just blew it open while we were asleep." He looked Keith up and down for a minute and barely managed to suppress a laugh. His head was soaked entirely, with the water slowly dripping down and dampening across his shoulders and chest. "You look like Shiro's wet cat."
"Yeah yeah, I'll go get changed. And we are going back to sleep because I am fucking exhausted." Now that Keith had relaxed somewhat, the corner of his mouth tugged up as he gently shoved Lance away in mock annoyance.
"I'll go get you a towel and some dry pillows." He crossed the hall from their bedroom into the bathroom and unhooked the two green towels from the radiator. He made a detour to the living room the grab the couch cushions and when he was back at their bed, threw one of the towels at Keith's head. He swapped out the wet pillows and laid the second, larger towel over the damp patches on the sheets, he would change them in the morning but he was too tired now. He put his own pillows over the towel and threw the cushions down on his side of the bed.
Keith finished towel drying his hair (well, finished it as much as Keith ever actually dried his hair), and flopped back down on his side next to Lance. He reached over him to flick the lamp off and lay down to face him. After a few minutes, Lance whispered to him,
"I'll admit, this isn't usually why we're up at 4am." Lance could feel more than see Keith's brow furrow and inward groan at the joke.
"Lance, I will smother you if you keep me up any longer." Lance laughed and wriggled closer to Keith, who opened his arms and wrapped them around him out of second nature.
"No you won't, you love me too much." He pressed his back against Keith's chest and the arms around his waist held him secure,
"Maybe I do, but don't go telling. I have a reputation." Lance smiled and hummed into Keith's hand. His voice had dropped to barely about a whisper, as tiredness restored its hold over the pair.
"Sure thing loverboy. Just don't wake me up again."
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Work was loud, as usual, and draining, as usual. It was Friday, just over a week after the sleep talking. In the days since then, Keith hadn't screamed again, but he had nightmares nearly every night. Lance once again told him to wake him up, but once again Keith refused to, telling him in the morning instead. He was dizzier a lot recently, like the night before the screaming. Keith would polarise between and handsy teenager to being terrified of physical contact in an instant, even though Lance had made a conscious effort to avoid his neck when they were close.
Wednesday usually wasn't as 'exciting' a day as the others, in his coworker Nyma's words. But when the excitement stems from hyped up elementary schoolers and large groups of high schoolers playing air hockey, it was impossible to be dull. Lance ran the ping pong tournament from noon and a few creative activities for the younger kids in the after-school club until their parents came to pick them up at 5 and Lance himself left an hour or so later.
When he got home he could hear Coran's shrill boom stemming from the spare room and ducked his head in. Papers, pictures, and open books were strewn across the floor, and Keith was sat at his laptop, typing furiously while Coran droned on and paced the room behind him.
"But if we find a way to connect the series directly to Lo- Lance my boy! Lovely to see you here!"
"I live here."
"Even better, it's a lovely place." Lance quirked an eyebrow and Keith's head shot round to see him. Lance dumped his bag on the floor and hung his jacket on the peg in the hall next to the doorway. He walked in and Keith stood to kiss his cheek hello.
"Hello then, Coran. What's all of this?" He gestured around the room and stooped to pick up a stray sheet of paper, flipping it from the blank side to see what it said. It was a printing of an old photograph, about 1950s by his guess. It was a tall, angular man with long, slicked-back grey hair, despite looking in his mid-twenties. Keith peeked around his arm to check what paper it was, and his eyes sparked when he saw it.
"That's for our case. City based urban legend, we just needed it for contextual purposes."
"Keeping it local this month then?" Lance smiled as the gleam in Keith's eye carried him away in his enthusiasm. Lance could listen to Keith get excited and talk about something for hours, even if it was how to clean a tortoise or some similar nonsense.
"Yes! There have been reported sightings of someone with his description going from the mid-1800s all the way to the last three months. And get this," He crouched down and rummaged around until he found the paper he was looking for. It was another picture, this time in faded colour. It was a similar looking man surrounded on both sides by four women.
The woman on the far right was tall and built like a monster truck, or like she could snap Lance in half. On the man's direct left stood a skinny girl with long blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail and her arm flung around the man's shoulders playfully. On his right, a woman was leaning back on the bridge railings, with dark lipstick and her arms crossed. At the end, the fourth woman stood with a buzzcut and almost regal elegance. She was wearing dark sunglasses, holding a folded up white cane in her hand. A cat was sitting at her feet, almost mimicking her posture.
"In most of his sighting this century, he's been accompanied by these women. There's not much detail on them, and there's way less evidence of then than there is of h-." He cut himself off by doubling over and coughing violently into the crook of his elbow. Lance bent down to rub his back and Coran left to get him some water from the kitchen. The coughing fits had started last Thursday, and were becoming more common since the weekend, but never serious enough to warrant a doctor. Not that Keith would visit a doctor unless physically dragged there, anyway. They tended to pass when Keith took a moment to calm down or drink something.
When Keith's coughing finally subsided, Coran drew something from his pocket and pressed it onto Keith's hand with a silent nod. He stuffed it into his pocket and the older man turned to Lance,
"I think we've done enough work on this for today." Lance nodded and helped him gather up the mess on the floor and stack it semi-neatly onto the shelves. Once the floor was visible again, Lance drew Keith from Coan's earshot and spoke to him in a low voice,
"Baby, are you sure everything's okay? You've been stressed out to the point of making you ill, and I hate seeing you like this." He put a hand on Keith's waist and laced their free fingers together.
"I know, and I'm sorry that you're worrying so much about me. But I'll be fine, and once I've written the article, everything's going back to normal, promise." He leaned in until his lips were brushing the shell of Lance's ear, "And maybe then we can find some ways to relax." He pressed his body flush against Lance, and Lance's eyes went wide and he sounded suspiciously like a 90s dial-up internet provider.
"You can't just do that, Coran is literally right next door!" Keith ducked his head and snorted,
"I'm convinced you're evil sometimes." Keith raised his head again and broke their fingers apart to wind his arms around Lance's neck.
"Maybe sometimes, but you love it." There was a tinge of a smirk buried in Keith's words, something Lance loved to draw out of him, in most situations. Not with Coran next door.
"I love you, I do not love it when you're evil."
"But you don't hate it." Keith leaned in closer until their lips were close enough to kiss, but just hovered there, barely touching.
"Not as much as I should do." he murmured against the other man's lips, Keith's breath warm against his skin.
"Right!" Coran sprang into the hall, oblivious to his interruption. Keith dropped his forehead onto Lance's chin in frustration, and Lance just chuckled.
"I think it's time I went back to my own quarters. After all, we need to be at Shiro and Allura's by 7 and as we can see," He gestured to himself, still in his teaching wear, "- I am not up to party standard. So I will bid you boys farewell and reunite with you later this evening!" With that, he left the apartment, shutting the door firmly behind him before either of them could move to escort him out. Keith stared at Lance, bewildered.
"Shit, that's tonight! I completely forgot the date." Lance ran a hand through his boyfriend's hair.
"It's fine, we have about two hours and we both already know what we're wearing. Besides," he added, "nobody except Coran gets to a party on time. Not even Hunk."
Lance groaned in frustration and turned, heading to their bedroom. Upon stepping through the door, he was hit with the overwhelming scent of plants. The entire bedroom was covered with various sticks and flowers, tied in bunches all about the room. The purple flowers from yesterday were still in their vase on Keith's side of the bed, but it was not joined by bundles of stalks, wildflowers, and was that holly?? It's April for Christ's sake. The window ledge was barely visible underneath the wreath of purple flowers, holly, and even a few roses, along with a load of other plants that Lance didn't recognise.
Keith followed him in a few moments later, with Lance still stood in the hallway, perplexed. Keith's arms wound around his middle and he dropped his chin on Lance's shoulder, gazing with amusement around their bedroom.
"So you've taken in our new garden then?"
"Babe, what the hell is all this?" he felt Keith shrug against him.
"Coran brought it over when he came round this morning. He put it up himself, some roses, some holly, some garlic flowers, wild stuff. Called it a late housewarming present."
"We've been living here for nearly two years." He stepped forward and Keith let go of him. He carried on further into the room, shifting thought bundles of flowers and plant covering every visible surface.
"A very late housewarming present. I've learnt to not question what he does, he's superstitious." Lance held out one of the purple flowers he couldn't name and leaned to tuck it behind his boyfriend's ear. But when he got close enough, he noticed two small, dark patches on Keith's skin, where his neck met his shoulder. His stomach dropped to Hell.
Stop. Think. What the fuck do you mean think, look at it. Don't get angry, do not get angry. How am I meant to not get angry if he fucking- He wouldn't. But it's right there. Calm down, don't get angry. I don't understand. He wouldn't. I'm gonna throw up. He wouldn't. I'm gonna fucking lose it. CALM DOWN. Talk.
"What the fuck is that?" He didn't yell, but his voice was unmistakably hard and his face was unnaturally severe. The grin fell from Keith's face and he stared up at him, confused.
"What the fuck is what?" Lance stepped away from him and swung his arm out to the door.
"Go see for yourself." Keith shot him a look but went anyway, crossing the hall to inspect himself in the bathroom mirror for whatever it was that Lance was talking about. The bruises caught his eye and his face went white. He met a seething Lance's eyes in the mirror and started to shake his head.
"I know what it looks like. And it's not."
"It's not?" Lance didn't believe him.
"They're bites." He whipped around to face Lance and started walking towards him.
"Yeah, no shit honey."
"No, Lance, insect bites. Give me your hand." He let Keith take his hand and lift his fingers up to the spots of purple. Sure enough, there were tiny lumps under the skin, like a mosquito bite. He knew (from much experience) that Keith didn't get bumps under his hickies, and his shoulders drooped. He pulled Keith into a vice-like hug and the other hugged him back.
"God I'm so sorry, I feel like such a dick." His head fell onto Keith's shoulder, but the other man drew back and tilted his chin back up to meet his eye.
"It's okay. I would've been way worse, if I thought you were cheating." He pecked Lance on the forehead and Lance let his eyes slip shut. "But I wouldn't do that to you, never. I love you more than anything."
"I love you too, and I wouldn't either. And I'm sorry again, for jumping to conclusions so quickly."
"Come on, we still need to get ready." He pulled Lance back into their room to get changed, they only had a few hours before they had to meet Pidge, Hunk, and Shay at Hunk and Shay's apartment.