Chapter Text
Lance tastes blood in his mouth no matter how often he swallows. His throat clicks dryly and he wakes up through a fog. It feels like his head is stuffed full of cotton.
“Lance?”
Lance twitches, his bounds wrists pulling and he wakes with a cry.
“Hey, easy, easy!”
Fingers grip his forearms and Lance startles backwards, his eyes flying open. His mouth works, dry lips splitting, little red droplets floating in the zero g. It's hard to see through the swelling in his left eye.
“Keith?” His voice rasps, the name flaying the inside of his throat and Lance whines, gasping painfully.
“Hey,” Keith soothes, the red thread binding their arms together pulling as he tries to reach up and cradle Lance's cheek. “It's okay.”
Lance curls in on himself, inadvertently drawing Keith closer, their legs tangling. The red threads binding their arms are coiled all around them, several loops of them twisted around Lance's body. More of them fill the space around them, so many it's hard to see through. The few glances Keith gets through the wall of threads reveal the space they’re in to be something akin to an escape pod, everything pristine and white. There’s a sea of stars winking at them through the port window.
The red strings look like blood.
Lance shakes his head, tears blinding him, the movement drawing Keith's eyes back to him.
“Not here,” Lance whines, “not here, not here, not here.” His fingers curl around Keith's arms, painfully tight as he echoes the words over and over again, like a broken mantra, ducking his head low, eyes squeezed shut. He sounds so broken.
Keith hooks an ankle around Lance's to hold him still, the red threads spinning around them in the lack of gravity.
“Yes I am,” he coaxes. “It's me. I'm really here.”
Lance blinks and lifts his head, Keith getting his first real look at him.
Lance is beaten to a bloody, bruised pulp. His lips are split, one of his eyes practically swollen shut and there's blood matting his hair. The side of his face is deep purple, his jaw colored to match.
A ring of bruises new and old circle his throat like a morbid necklace and Keith's heart breaks.
“I'm getting you out of here.” Keith has never seen the blue paladin looks so small.
“But I need your help.” He lets his thumb stroke over Lance's arm, the only part of him he can reach. “Can you reach my knife?”
Lance blinks to clear his vision, his breath beginning to level. He twists to one side looking for the luxite knife Keith always has strapped to his lower back.
“...think so.” The words slur past his split and bleeding lips.
Keith hikes his leg up higher around Lance's, pinning it between his own to keep them from spinning.
Lance maneuvers their bound arms behind Keith, their chest nearly flush, his fingers fumbling to reach the hilt. There's not much space to move, the threads binding his wrist to Keith's forearm preventing him from getting a good angle.
Keith winces as his shoulder begins to cramp. He can feel Lance's fingers bumping against the knife but neither of them can see it and Lance's fingers are numb, clumsy through his glove. He can't tell what's the knife and what's Keith’s belt.
The tension in his body goes slack and he shakes his head, panting.
“I can't.”
“Lance please, you have to try.”
Lance's breathing is jagged. “Just a dream,” he cries, more tears blinding him. “Not even here.” He blinks up at Keith, more tears spilling off into the pod. “I miss you.” The confession tears out of him so raw and heartfelt and hurt Keith feels it like a physical blow.
He lets his forehead rest against Lance's, the hair floating about his face tickling.
“I know, I know and I miss you too. I promise I'm going to get you out but I need you to try. Please Lance, I need you to try; for me.” He doesn't know where that plea comes from but finds that he means it.
Lance chokes but nods.
“The gloves- can't feel through the gloves.”
Keith looks down at where Lance's hands are lying on top of his inner arms and flushes. His heart pounds.
“Okay, do you think you can turn your hand?”
Lance nods. It takes him a minute but eventually enough of his palm is facing inwards Keith thinks he can get to it.
“I'm going to try to pull it off alright?” Lance nods, his head lolling with exhaustion, eyes closing. Keith isn't sure if that makes what he's about to do better or worse.
“I need two of your fingers. Press them into my teeth okay? I'm going to try and pull the glove free.”
Lance blinks his eyes open and nods, holding his fingers firm as Keith lifts their arms. He picks at the material carefully with his teeth, trying not to pinch Lance's fingers through the fabric.
It takes several minutes and Keith only manages to get a small pocket in the tip of each finger. He groans in frustration before nosing Lance's fingers back and attacking the seam on Lance's wrist. He manages to get a slip of skin exposed, his heart racing. He's trying very hard not to think about what he's doing and how erotic it would be in a different context. It doesn't help when Lance groans as Keith’s tongue slides over the tender skin inside his wrist and Keith hears the panting in his ear in a whole new context.
His lips and tongue against Lance's palm have him trembling and Keith can taste the sweat on his skin. He presses harder, hooking the material on his teeth and pulling.
Between tugging on the tips of the glove at Lance's fingers and the seam around his hand Keith manages to tear the glove free, spitting it out and it spins off into the pod. That's when he sees the deep bruises and scabs marring Lance's wrist. He's trying not to think about it or what he was just doing but they're both vying for his attention and he’s caught somewhere between horror and arousal.
They're both flushed and breathing heavily and Keith can feel the heat radiating off Lance.
“Buy me dinner next time,” Lance rasps and Keith's face is burning.
“Shut up,” he snaps, heart pounding against his ribs so hard it hurts. “Can you reach the knife?” He doesn't look at Lance when he says it, acutely aware he still has Lance's leg pinned between his own.
To his credit Lance doesn't say anything, just moves their arms to try and reach the knife. The angle has Keith's back arching to relieve the pressure in his shoulder as Lance fumbles for the pommel. He finally manages to pull the knife free and better yet, not drop it from numb fingers.
“Now what?”
“Can you switch hands?”
Lance shakes his head. “Other arm is broken.”
“Shit. Okay, can you get enough of an angle with the blade to cut us loose?”
“I can barely hold onto it,” Lance says wryly and Keith huffs.
“Okay, press it into my teeth.” He shoots a scowl at Lance. “Preferably without commentary.”
Lance smiles before wincing as his lips starts bleeding again.
Turning the blade in his hand so it’s pointed inwards, Lance holds it out, Keith gingerly taking it between his teeth, careful not to cut himself.
Pulling Lance's arm up and towards him, he manages to press the pommel into his own hand. Moments later Keith's cutting through the red threads holding them together until he's free.
Lance hangs limply in the air for a moment, the threads dancing. The more Keith seems to cut through, freeing himself, the more seem to loop around Lance. He's free for a brief moment and they drift away from each other, and then Lance is suspended in the air. The threads warp and move like they're alive, binding his wrists in the air over his head like manacles. He looks terribly resigned, like somehow he was expecting this.
He smiles sadly, gravity beginning to pull him down.
“Told you,” he whispers, eyes unbearably sad. “Even in my dreams you can't get me out.” His head hangs low, chin against his chest. “You never can.” He sighs, long and slow and Keith sees the gash in his side gape open at the movement. He hadn't seen it before.
It hits him all at once that Lance is dying.
“Was a nice dream anyway,” he mumbles.
Keith catches his face in his hands, tipping his head up. “Lance, I am coming for you. I will find you. I swear, I will.”
Lance looks unphased by the promise and Keith's heart aches.
“Please believe me.” Dream or no dream, he means it. He just doesn't know how to prove it.
The terrible knowledge that Lance is dying consumes him with desperation and before he can second guess it, he kisses him. He feels more than hears Lance keen and tilts his head in response, pressing against him harder. He almost can't believe it when Lance opens his mouth against him, gasping with pain and want. Keith tastes blood.
One hand slides around Lance's waist, pulling him closer and he tastes it when Lance cries.
Pulling out of the kiss hurts.
“I will bring you back,” he rasps, feeling Lance's smile under his fingers. His forehead bumps against Keith's.
“Was a nice dream…”
~
He wakes up back in his cell, manacles biting into his wrists. He can still taste Keith’s tongue in his mouth.