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It wasn’t the first time he was lost in a desert, much less the first time he had been wandering in one. But all the first walks in the sand, all his first explorations by rock canyons, had been on Earth, in the wide dry desert near the home he grew up in, where he was raised by his father and he had learned about the survival from its quiet hostility. That one was a desert he knew even though it changed so much with the pass of stations, with its scarce of rains and powerful winds, that he remembered with so much ease that he could even say he knew it as good as the back of his hand.
However, the one where he was in that moment with no path was totally unknown. It was one that he had the terrible luck to fall in after he lost consciousness at the end of a battle. Fortunately, the small cabin of the jet in which he crashed was almost intact, saving his life from a catastrophic dead against the sand. But there wasn’t much he could use from its remains, only peeling off the light clothe in the seats to use it as protection from the three suns harassing the little planet, and a few containers where he could save the water that he filtered during the coldest nights he had ever lived in his whole living span.
The heat was affecting him, he knew because of the insistent pulse pressing against his head, as if it wanted to crush it like a paper ball and throw it away. He knew because of the sweat bathing his under armor in a vain try to refresh him. He knew because of the horrible thirst that rasped his throat and made his tongue in his mouth after every little swallow he took from the water he recollected the brief night before, each sip refreshing him and lasting less in his mouth until leaving the sickly taste of sand.
He was lost, thirsty, hungry and at the limit of his resistance. The only thing that made him go on was the hope that his friends, those that he first thought he didn’t belong to, keep searching for him even after a week or so he crashed down in the apparently inhabited planet. And even when one part of his mind stayed skeptical and negative, he tried to block it out to continue surviving.
He endured the heat of the sun and the cold of the nights with the hope that soon enough he will be feeling Shiro’s arms hug him protectively. He beared the deafening silence and the whispers of the dry wind thinking he would soon hear Hunk’s nervous mumbling and Pidge’s precise comments. He ignored the strenuous pains in his limbs and whole body by believing he will soon be cured by Coran’s weird first aid or by Allura’s healing pods in the castle. He resisted the aggressive yellow and orange color from his surroundings, with too much blinding light against his eyes, with the wish he could be able to see those deep blue eyes that refreshed him more than any gulp of filtered water.
He huffed, bewildered by his own thoughts and apparent motivation, and took another sip from the already lukewarm water, making him grimace in disgust, his mind going back again to want, and need, to splash into the dark blue that drowned Lance’s eyes.
How was it possible that after having to endure him, to tolerate him, now he craves more his presence?
He wiped his face from the sweat in his brow, and looked to where his steps were taking him with no aim planned, the sparkling reflections of inexistent water between dunes making him swallow dryly.
He wasn’t new in the delirium that caused the thirst and the heat, his mind deceiving him with a supposedly water puddle a few meters away, delusion himself when after some steps ahead he could see that in the sand there wasn’t any water nor life. That’s why he didn’t even tried to accelerate his walk, conserving his energy for when he really needed it.
But what was really new in the hallucinations that his imagination fabricated was the faraway silhouette that made a shadow in the horizon against the sun, the white and blue armor shining below the three suns, the short and curly brown hair crowning a tanned and blushed face, those blue eyes once again astonishing him to the point to almost stop walking just below the sunlight.
And with a sigh, the figure disappeared, the dry and hot wind hitting him in the face between the clothe around his head bringing him a mutter, and sometimes a laugh, too similar to his voice.
It was a delusion. He was delirious. But every time he opened his eyes again, the figure appeared beside him, sometimes staying for a few steps and walking by his side, some other times sitting in the sand as if the strength of the three suns was something to enjoy in situations that weren’t of life and death.
He was usually smiling at him, making him wince in a dull attempt to not answer with one of his own. And sometimes he stared at him attentively, his lower lip trapped between his teeth as if he wanted to avoid saying something that he thought too deeply.
He breathed deeply, shaking his head to get away from the sound of his voice whispering his name, and squinted at the horizon, the air suddenly fluttering wildly and going up to hit him in the face painfully. He coughed when he felt it invade his throat, and he covered his mouth with his hand, his eyes closed tightly while trying to get back his breath and the softness of his throat that felt so much like a distant dream.
He let go a breath slowly, his vocal cords trembling with the air and almost forming an exhausted sigh in his voice, and he looked away once again, focusing his sight in the path he had to continue, ignoring on purpose the worried muttering that the illusion by his side voiced out at his weary state. But his ears blocked automatically when his eyes could identify something kind of leafy that seemed to cause a shadow in the red rocks, and when his sight could focus better, he saw something very similar to short trees, the image waving in the edges because of the extreme heat.
He gasped, and his motivation changed course with his steps speeding up in the sand. He blinked a few times while he got near, and the relief fulfilled increasingly his chest when he saw that the orange trees didn’t disappear like the water reflections and Lance’s silhouette when it looked so real.
He fell to his knees in the edge of the shadow, throwing himself in it and almost hitting his head against the gray log, and he sighed heavily, feeling the freshness from the natural shadow bring back his senses and energies that he didn’t know he had lost until that very moment.
He closed his eyes for a minute, convincing himself that resting for a bit would revitalize him to continue surviving, to stop reviving all those hallucinations that dizzied him more than the heat itself, and he lost consciousness faster than he would’ve liked, waking up lazily at a little push to his shoulder and vaguely hearing the familiar voices of his friends.
Tightening his eye lids and growling beneath his breath, he didn’t want to open his eyes and let himself be delusion once again by the loneliness that the planet made him suffer for so long. But another push, more desperate and aggressive, and the voice of that person that he wanted so much to see calling his name with an alarmed tone, made his eyes open up heavily, blackness at the edges of his sight and framing beautifully blue eyes that seemed to bring back his life anytime he saw them in the distance.
For a moment he thought that his mind fabricated that because he was about to die and his brain was trying to make him get back, inviting him to move towards him, his hand slowly reaching up to his face and seeing him stop talking for a second.
His blue eyes, just like the sky, just like the sea, just like that color that the stars had in the edges of their light, got immediately back to look at his face, his voice murmuring his name warily.
“Keith?” he asked leaning over him, his hands pressing down his shoulders to the fresh sand because of the shadow and his mouth crooking in a smile that looked more in pain than in happiness, “Are you alright? Are you hurt?”
He sighed silently, his thumb tracing a line below one of his eyes, and almost tickling a pair of eyelashes in its wake.
“Lance...” he whispered, his voice too rough and his throat too sore. He tried again after wetting his lips, although there was not much difference because of the dryness of his mouth, “Lance.”
He heard him huff, his smile this time being more honest, and his hand holding his against his face.
“Yeah, Keith, I’m here” he said with a sigh, and he couldn’t help looking down to his lips when he felt it against his dried skin, ignoring the rest of his words, “We’re all here, actually. Hunk is calling Shiro. You’ll be fine soon.”
He blinked slowly, frowning and staring at his smile.
“I don’t have water right now, but I think Hunk has some in his lion,” he heard him vaguely, feeling enough strength in his arm to enclose his nape with his hand and pull him into his space, “I’ll call him and... what’re you...?”
“Lance...” he murmured a last time before pulling together their lips in a first kiss that he wished wasn’t with a hallucination, that he wished that both of them could feel, that he wished that wasn’t causing him the terrible pain in the lips nor the sharp one piercing his chest.
He supposed that after that he lost consciousness again, and he sincerely thought that he wouldn’t be able to open his eyes again.
But he opened them up, feeling Shiro’s arms wrapping him and carrying him in hurried steps to the castle, hearing the nervous mumbling from Hunk and the precise comments from Pidge, feeling Coran’s hands searching for wounds and Allura’s fingers checking his vitals in wrists and neck. And staring fixedly Lance’s deep blue eyes that revitalized his heart and refreshed his soul, finding a little gesture of nervousness when he saw him bite his lower lip in something really similar to hope.