Chapter Text
Prince Lance of Altea, in his fine robed glory, was marched down the cold, dark hallway, veins of bright purple snaking along the walls and pulsing with power. Where his hair was once a combed chalk white, such a contrast to his brown skin, it was now dirty and ruffled, his golden crown missing. His pink, white, blue and gold dress robes were not at the peak of their glory either. The white trousers he wore underneath were saved from most of the damage, at least. The two guards gripping his arms tightly stopped, and Lance paused his struggling in fear. They had stopped in front of a black door with a glass middle. A cell. Trembling, Lance was shoved into the cell. His knees barked in pain. His palms were scratched. He pouted at his nails. They were dirty and jagged.
“Um, hello, excuse me?” Lance called out to the two leaving guards. “Wait, no, come back! Do you have anything for cuticle care? You know, nails? Helloooo?” He slumped to the wall and sighed. He wasn’t going to getting nail products anytime soon.
Keith, a Galran soldier, balked. “I’m sorry, Zarkon, could you please repeat that?” He said with as much politeness as he could muster. Surely he must have heard wrong.
But Zarkon just smiled. “You are one of my most trusted soldiers, you’re always on the front lines in the thick of the action. You’re respected even among the higher ranks.” Zarkon said. Keith stiffened and nodded his thanks. “Because of your low rank but high loyalty, I will be entrusting you to guard Lance’s cell.” That was fair, Keith supposed. With just a soldier rank, he was less likely to alliance with other generals.
Keith nodded. “Prince Lance of Altea, right?”
“No. ‘Prince Lance’ has no rank here. He is the same as any prisoner.” A slow smile crept up on Zarkon’s face. “We don’t discriminate.”
Keith thought it was funny, but his face remained passive as he nodded. “Of course, Zarkon.”
He stalked up the hallways, being led to Lance’s cell.
There was thudding on the cell door and Lance jolted up, awakening from whatever drowsy mood he was in.
“Hey, listen up buttercup!” A harsh voice yelled from outside. Lance looked up. Facing him was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. A male Galra soldier, with smooth lilac skin and a dark violet scar along his soft jawbone to his upper cheek. He had striking blue-grey eyes and hair the colour of a raven, his mullet like it’s feathers.
“Who are you?” Lance asked softly, the tone sounding like fear.
“You call me Keith and nothing else. Got it?” His voice was deep and sent chills through his bones. He continued after Lance nodded like a fool. “I will be guarding you. You listen to everything I say and you don’t step out of line. You will remain here until told otherwise. You eat, sleep and dispose here.”
Lance wrinkled his nose. “No bathroom at all?”
“You don’t get the luxury. There’s a tin can somewhere in there, I think.”
Lance gasped. “You think? ”
“Go have a look. See if I care.”
After finding the tin can in a corner, much to Lance’s relief, he surveyed the rest of the cell. It was just the same as any other, with it’s black-grey walls and veins of purple. Except it was secluded from the rest of the cells, and after at least a week of staying there, he noticed that he didn’t train in the barracks for Zarkon’s competitions, nor did he eat with the rest of the prisoners. Lance thought for a second before talking.
“Hey Keith,” he started, his voice hoarse from disuse. “Why don’t I converse with the rest of the prisoners?”
The bastard just looked at him like he was an idiot. “So they don’t try and get you out, of course. If they knew we had you here, they’d start a riot trying to free you.”
Oh. Right. He’d almost forgotten he was a prince, being treated this way. He sighed. To think, he, a royal, being treated like some lowly commoner!
“Why are you treating me like this? I’m a prince, after all.”
“You’re worth no more than toilet paper here.”
Lance gasped in outrage. “Not even a little bit more?”
Keith didn’t reply. Lance stalked to the back of his cell and sat cross legged, letting out a loud hmph! just to accentuate how much he disapproved.
Two months later, Keith was still guarding Lance, who was now in the shaggy scraps of purple galra prison-wear. He leaned against the opposite wall of the cell, watching Lance’s every move. He was sneaky, the former prince, inspecting every inch of the cell at every given chance, looking for even a slight difference. And slinky too, the way he could move around without Keith even noticing until a few seconds later.
It was silent until Lance gasped. “I’m breaking out!”
Keith growled. “Like hell you are!”
“I know, I know, it’s unbelievable. My skin hasn’t been this bad in ages!” Lance whined.
Keith opened his mouth to say something, like maybe ‘You idiot!’ or ‘Don’t say something like that!’ , but he decided against it.
Keith was watching Lance when suddenly, in one feline movement, Lance stood and walked to the door.
“Hey Keithy, how old are you?”
“23, same as you. Don’t call me Keithy.”
“Oh. Sorry.” Keith rolled his eyes.
There were a few moments of silence before Lance spoke again. “Hey, Keith, do you have any hobbies than just sitting there watching me?” Keith’s nostrils flared. “I mean, I know I’m stunning,” Oh, how right he was, Keith thought. “But do you do anything else for fun?” Keith blinked.
“I like reading…” Keith said, who, to his dismay, could feel the blush rising to his cheeks.
But Lance smiled a small smile and said, “Me too!”
“You do?”
“Yes! My favourite is probably… Strange the Dreamer!” Keith snapped to attention. “It’s really good, it’s an Earth novel abo-”
“You’re serious? I love that book! Have you read the sequel too?”
Lance gasped. “Yes! Oh my god, nobody on Altea had even heard of any Earth novels!” Lance paused and his breath hitched, and Keith remembered that Lance was a long way from home, and Keith was to be treating him as a prisoner.
“I shouldn’t be talking to you…” Keith sighed.
Lance looked up, sadness filling his eyes. “Please talk to me. I can’t stand this constant loneliness.” He paused and cocked his head. “How long have you been alone?”
“Enough.” Keith snapped, his mood souring. He didn’t want to talk about loneliness. He looked at the ground.
“I’m sorry if I talked a little too much…” Lance said. Keith didn’t reply. They remained in silence for the rest of the day, yet it felt sad and forced, their usual banter halted.
It was the middle of the night when Lance quietly said, “Goodnight Keith.”
Keith blinked, as much surprise as he’d show. It was the first time anyone had wished him goodnight since his brother died, almost ten years ago now.
Keith swallowed his pride and said “Goodnight, Lance.” He almost swore he could hear Lance’s smile.
Lance sat against the corner of his cell and put his face in his hands. Why did he talk too much? Why did he probe too deep? Still, he couldn’t help the small smile surfacing to his face when the lonely soldier bid him goodnight, nor could he stop his blush from staining his cheeks a deep mocha brown. He sighed and ran a hand through his dirty chalk white hair. What was happening to him? He knew this feeling, but… He’d only felt it with girls. Oh, and those girls had never been guarding his cell. It’d been months since he’d been trapped in the Galra ship, only having snippets of conversations with the purple-skinned beauty, Keith. After an hour of sitting like that, Lance decided to sleep on it. And when he awoke, there was a book. Lance picked it up and his breathing stilled. The Wonders of Altea , it read. Slowly, tears began to pour out of his eyes. Tiny sobs escaped his lips as he flipped through the pages, pictures of his home, Altea, warming his heart. He would’ve flipped through the page had the shackles on his wrists kept him from doing so. It was sooo tiring , having those things on all the time. But things would get better. He knew they would. And he smiled. He could hear Keith’s heavy breathing. Not as stealthy as he thought, huh?
Keith pretended not to hear Lance’s sobs. In fact, he pretended to not even be there , standing next to the cell door so Lance couldn’t see him. Every sob that ripped from Lance’s throat flooded Keith with the need to rush over and comfort him. But he felt like Lance wanted to be alone with the piece of home Keith had given him. Well, until--
“K-Keith…?” Lance said, sniffling. Any self-control Keith had splintered, and he barreled over to where Lance was knelt in front of the cell door.
“Yes?”
Lance smiled. “Thank you, Keith.”
Keith blushed furiously and Lance giggled. “You’re welcome…” Keith said gruffly.
Lance gave him another smile, one that melted Keith’s heart. Lance was beautiful and kind and suave and everything Keith wasn’t. Lance was pure flame, beautiful, warm, fierce… and he was trapped in the dark.
“Keith?” Lance cocked his head.
“I’m getting you out of here.” Keith said, no more than a rough whisper.
Lance gasped. “No way. You might hurt yourself.”
Keith looked up. “Please let me free you.”
Lance stared at Keith, slack-faced in horror. Keith might die trying to get him out! “No way. You might hurt yourself.”
And Lance’s heart stopped when Keith looked up, and with pleading eyes, eyes too old and sad to belong to a soldier only 23, he said, “Please let me free you.”
“But why?”
“Because I love you, Lance!” Keith blurted.
“You… what?”
Keith paused. “I love you.”
Lance was silent for a few seconds. “I love you too, Keith.”
“So will you let me save you, my love?”
Lance’s heart cried, and he gave in. “Fine. You better have a plan though.”
Keith let out a low chuckle that sent chills down Lance’s spine. “Awful bossy for a prisoner being freed by his own warden.”
“Well, I
am
technically a prince, soo…”
Keith stood up and looked down at him with a smirk, his cool grey eyes piercing into his soul. “Alright then, princeling. You listen to what I say. Our lives might depend on you focusing for once.”
Lance nodded, slightly intimidated.
“Here’s the plan…”
Literally an hour later, Keith had finished, and Lance… was confused. How in the world did Keith manage to stretch that into an hour long explanation? All Keith was doing was escorting Lance to the ship while pretending to be on duty. Oh, right. It was endless repeatings of--
“I want to make sure you’re safe, so don’t look at anyone.”
“If you speak you might get hurt.”
“Just to make sure you’re okay, bla bla bla-”
If Lance didn’t know any better, he’d say Keith was fussing. And oh, how it warmed his heart, but it was getting rather annoying. But he was going to escape with him, and that’s all Lance wanted, so he kept his mouth shut.
“You know what to do right?” Keith checked.
Lance snorted before saying, “No, remind me for the 50th time.”
Keith rolled his eyes and chuckled. “Be more grateful, you bastard of a prince.” Keith heaved Lance up after opening the cell door. The shackles were still on his wrists. Lance looked up in silent question.
“I know they hurt, but it won’t be too long before you’re out of them.” He whispered on his neck, his deep voice soothing, before pressing a quick kiss there, and Lance bit his lip. His entire body went molten like lava, even while chills racked his entire body. Keith’s solidness against his back was enough to distract him, in a hazy daydream, before he pushed him forward and barked, “Move, prisoner!”
Well. So much for their moment.
Keith marched Lance past other soldiers on guard, all of whom straightened around him. Nobody would question his authority. But damn, if the shackled prince before him wasn’t alluring. He wanted to stroke the soft golden skin on the nape of his neck, wanted to hold his waist and look into his eyes, wanted to hear Lance’s-
“Keith, where are you taking this prisoner?”
Keith turned to see his mother. “I’m under strict orders not to tell. Sorry, mother.”
Krolia just smiled. “Of course. Former-Prince Lance, right?” She crouched down to his level. “Look at him. He used to be the shit. And now he’s a prisoner. Get on your knees.”
Lance looked up. “Pardon me?”
Krolia kicked Lance’s shins and he collapsed. “I said , get on your knees! ” She yelled.
Lance got up onto his knees and looked up at her.
“Keith, c’mere.” She said. Keith walked to her and looked Lance in the eyes. But then, Krolia kicked his face. Lance wavered. There was a bruise on his cheekbone. Feral wrath blinded him for a second, with the need to protect him.
“What do you want me for, mother?”
“Give him a punch. Go on.” She said, smiling wickedly.
Keith’s eyes widened, and he shook with restraint. If he didn’t do it, his mother would know… Fine. If she wanted a punch, she’d get a punch. Keith lobbed a fist at his mother’s face, knocking her out stone-cold.
“Keith! Are you-”
“Come on, Lance.”
Keith hated his mother. She was corrupt and unjust, Zarkon’s left hand. He had received brutal training from her. She had deserved that punch.
They ran to the docks and boarded the smallest yet fastest ship. Keith put Lance in the back and stated that he was alone. They left and travelled for roughly a day, Keith driving the entire time.
Keith put autopilot on and went into the back. And that was when Keith realized, to his utter horror, that he had forgotten to uncuff Lance.
“Keith… please take them off.”
“OhmygodLance, I’m so sorry,” Keith started.
Lance looked up at him. “I spent too long with these on. Please. Take them off.” His eyes were filled with fear and sorrow.
Keith took a deep breath through his teeth. If he went back to those years before he met Lance, he mightn’t have cared what happened to the prisoners. But now that he saw what two months could do to a person, imagine the people who had been there for years … Keith walked over and unshackled Lance, and he inspected his bare wrists. He blinked at the thick lines around them, paler than the rest of his skin and marred with ugly scars.
Lance looked at them, the invisible shackles that would forever remain on his skin, a constant reminder of the time he served. Lance shook, sobbing silently. Keith cradled Lance in his arms.
“It’ll be okay, Lance…” he whispered softly, Lance’s head in his chest. “You’re safe now… you’re going home.”