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“Lance?” Keith steps into the observatory, Lance turning away from the big view screens that mimic windows without compromising the structural integrity of the ship. He doesn’t look at Keith, just half turns in his direction. It’s enough to acknowledge that he knows Keith is there but not far enough that Keith can actually see him. The room is dark save for the starlight spilling in.
“Hmm?”
Keith grips his cup of tea and steps further into the room. He feels like he’s intruding but he isn’t sure why, hesitant to leave.
“Hey, you okay?”
Lance turns back to the screen, arms still cradled around his chest, one hand stroking up and down his arm, motion slow and repetitive.
“No.”
That more than anything worries Keith. No deflection, no joke to distance Keith from whatever’s going on in his head, not even a casual ‘fuck off’. Just an honest answer. And that’s when Keith knows something is wrong.
He sets his tea on the floor and comes to stand next to Lance not sure if Lance would welcome his touch. So he stands next to him until Lance lets him know if he wants to be left alone, offering what little he can just by staying.
The stars and the nebula they’re traveling through cast flickers of pink and yellow light into the room, glancing off Lance’s features and warming his skin. Somehow it makes him look softer, more fragile. There’s a forlorn look on his face and he’s searching the stars like they have answers.
“What’s going on?”
Lance’s fingers flex around his own arm, nails scratching. “I’m just-” he says softly and it’s like he’s speaking from a million miles away. “Lonely I guess,” he admits. He takes a slow breath and seems to physically struggle to bring himself to the here and now. Keith struggles not to reach out and touch him. He doesn’t know how to help and he doesn’t want to make it worse. So he folds his hands behind his back and stands there.
“It’s isolating up here,” Lance says softly. “And I’ve never been good at that. I don’t know how to be alone.” He chews on his lower lip. “I miss touch,” he whispers, fingers fluttering. His eyes are still locked on the screen ahead of him. It’s almost like he’s forgotten Keith is there, that he’s just talking to himself.
“Not even in a romantic sense,” Lance says, “just, in general.” He rubs at his arms again. His words are slow and soft in the dark, like warm molasses and the vulnerability he’s showing Keith makes the moment strangely intimate.
“I miss touching people,” Lance confesses, want curling in his voice. “And being touched. Holding hands and cuddling; kissing, hugging someone; just being around large groups of people who love me.” He hugs himself and Keith can hear tears in his voice even though Lance still won’t look at him.
“I miss everyone always being up in each other’s space just for the sake of being near them and I miss all the noise.” He shrugs finally turning to look at Keith.
“It’s so quiet up here.” His eyes are deep and dark and so very hurt in a way Keith doesn’t know how to heal.
“I guess in a lot of ways I’m homesick,” Lance goes on. “I miss people. I miss touch.” Something deep and heavy with need seeps into his voice and Keith shifts closer, hand hovering in the space between them. He doesn’t know what to do or how to help so he asks.
“What do you need?” He searches Lance’s face, still half swathed in shadow. “I want to help, I just don’t know how.” He’s never been very good with people or offering comfort but Lance doesn’t deserve to look so heartbroken.
Lance swallows thickly, holding himself tighter. “I really need someone to hold me,” he admits, wiping a hand over his face. His breath stutters in his chest, caught on a sob.
Keith’s heart swoops, but he nods. “Okay.”
Before Lance can put together what that means Keith is stepping behind him, tentatively wrapping his arms around Lance, pulling him back against his chest in a loose hug. He tightens his grip when Lance bows over, his fingers clutching at Keith’s arms with a sob, like the sudden contact breaks down what barriers Lance had left, his pieces barely balancing one on top of the other.
“Okay,” Keith murmurs, taking more of Lance’s weight, holding him tighter, shuffling half a step into Lance. “Okay, I’ve got you.” He hefts Lance back against him until he’s practically draped across Keith's chest, their bodies touching from shoulder to ankle and Lance is crying,
his knees giving out. The tighter Keith holds him the weaker he seems to get, the more he seems to fall apart.
“It’s okay,” Keith whispers, his lips against Lance’s hair. “I’m here.”
Lance turns his face into Keith’s neck and shudders, seeking out the heat of his skin. Keith can’t help feeling like he’s the only thing keeping Lance from shattering in his arms, fragile as spun glass.
He’s never seen him like this. Lance has always been the optimist, the laughter echoing down the halls, the smiling boy made of stardust that never seemed to know pain. Maybe it’s silly but Keith is just now realizing how wrong that interpretation is. Lance is much more fragile than he’d ever expected. He just fakes and hides it better than he’d given him credit for, than maybe anyone has. Keith has no idea how deep the well of hurt in Lance goes and he can’t stand it. How could he have been so blind?
Keith loosens one arm and dips to swipe it beneath Lance’s knees, already crumpling, scooping him into his arms and heading for the couch, Lance cradled to his chest.
He whispers soft words of comfort into Lance’s ear, not sure what he’s saying but hoping it helps, that it’s better than silence. Keith pulls a blanket off the couch, wrapping it around them both and situates himself so Lance is in his lap, back against the couch, leaning into Keith’s shoulder. He knows without any support against his own back it’s going to start hurting but he can’t bring himself to care, not when Lance is curled against him, looking much younger than he is. Or maybe he looks exactly his age for once.
Keith tucks a curling lock of hair behind Lance’s ear and switches into Spanish almost on reflex. He hasn’t spoken it in years but he remembers the soft words his father used to whisper to him on the nights he woke with bad dreams.
“ Shh, estoy aquí. Está bien,” he whispers.
“You speak Spanish?” Lance’s voice comes out broken and halting, the surprise almost enough to overwhelm the strange brokenness he can’t shake and he blinks up at Keith.
Keith flushes. “I’m from Texas, Lance,” he says softly, running one hand down the other boy’s arm. He stares at the couch past Lance’s knees, still curled to his chest as if trying to make himself as small as possible.
“I don’t remember much,” Keith begins slowly, “and my fluency is shit.” He runs his fingers slowly up and down Lance’s bare arm, running over the back of his hand all the way to his fingers and up to his shoulder again.
“But my dad used to sing to me as a kid or talk me down out of a nightmare.” It feels strange, talking about this. He hasn’t talked about his father in years. But now it feels right.
“After he died...there was no one to talk to, so...” He shrugs awkwardly. “Sort of stopped using it.”
Lance’s fingers ghost along Keith’s skin. “ Do you want to?” he asks and it takes Keith a moment to piece together the Spanish in his brain, pleased when he finds he can.
He shrugs, still tracing patterns into Lance’s skin.
“Sometimes,” he admits. He hasn’t even told Shiro that. “But it just reminds me he’s gone.” He doesn’t know why he said that.
Lance slides his arms around Keith’s waist, tucking his face against his neck.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, voice muffled.
“It was a long time ago.” Keith lets his head tip into Lance’s, savoring the contact now almost as much as Lance.
“Doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt,” Lance whispers. Keith doesn’t quite flinch but the honest truth to Lance’s words hurts and hits home a little more than he’d expected. He holds him tighter, trying to chase away the ache in his heart that’s started throbbing.
“Yeah,” he rasps, the words lost in Lance’s hair.
Lance’s fingers flex in the fabric of Keith’s shirt, rolling it between his fingers.
“You never talk about him,” he ventures, leaving it open ended, not wanting to push. A quiet offer of Keith wants to talk.
He clears his throat, running a hand over Lance’s knee. “Yeah.”
Lance shifts in his lap, resting his head on Keith’s shoulder. “Do you want me to stop asking?”
Keith runs a hand through Lance’s hair, unable to keep his hands still and shrugs. “I don’t know.”
Lance runs a hand over Keith’s back, offering comfort more than taking it. “Okay. If you ever want to,” he says slowly, “I’d be willing to listen.”
Keith nods and squeezes him gently. “Thanks.”
Lance hugs him back, taking a deep breath. “And thank you, for this.” He presses his fingers into Keith’s back. “I really needed- this, I guess.”
Keith nods, playing with the fabric of Lance’s shirt. “Yeah, me too.”
They sit in silence for several minutes, hands wandering for the sake of touch before Lance speaks up.
“So, are we just going to sit here for a couple of hours or…?”
“You got somewhere else to be?” Keith asks.
Lance hides his smile against Keith’s shoulder, the last of the tension in his shoulders rolling away. “No.”
“Then yeah.” Keith lets his head tip sideways into Lance’s, the two of them wrapped around one another, watching the stars pass by.
~
The third time Lance takes a breath, like he’s about to say something and doesn’t, Keith calls him on it.
“What is it?”
Lance tenses in his lap, chewing on his lip. “It’s stupid,” he mutters, wishing Keith hadn’t asked. Because cuddling on the couch is one thing but asking Keith to spend the night is another.
“No it’s not.” He runs a hand down Lance’s waist, resting against his hip.
“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” Lance says softly, face still hidden against Keith’s neck.
“You won’t.”
Something in Lance’s chest squeezes at the conviction in Keith’s voice and he bolsters his courage.
“I don’t want to go back to an empty room,” he admits, swallowing thickly. “It makes it worse.” His arms tighten around Keith without meaning to, almost as if to keep him there.
“We can stay here if you want.”
Lance pulls back in surprise, startling Keith who lets go on reflex. “We?”
Keith immediately backpedals. “I mean, I can go get one of the others if…” He’s pulling away, unsure, and just like that the easy comfort between them turns awkward. Lance grapples for Keith’s arms still around him, trying to keep him there.
“No, no that’s not what I meant. I just-” He searches Keith’s eyes. “I didn’t expect you to stay.”
Keith frowns, his arms beginning to relax. “I’m already here.”
Lance’s brows furrow and he studies Keith’s face because he’s right. He is here. And Lance had never expected that.
“Yeah,” he breathes, searching Keith’s eyes, still trying to understand. Keith’s compassion and desire to help has blindsided him, hitting Lance like a slap now that he’s not drowning in emotion. His eyes flick between Keith’s, searching for answers.
“Why are you helping me?” he whispers.
Keith frowns. “Because I care about you, you dumbass.” He swipes a tangle of hair off Lance’s forehead, the gesture almost sarcastic. Somehow the blunt honesty in it makes Lance’s heart swoop.
“I know you don’t believe me,” Keith says and he sounds hurt, arm slipping back around Lance’s waist. “But I do.”
Lance ducks his head, hiding his face against Keith’s neck for a moment before pressing a careful kiss to his shoulder, testing the waters, not wanting to scare him away.
“Thank you.”
A moment later Keith’s hand finds the back of his head, fingers stroking through the lengthening curls of Lance’s hair.
“You’re welcome. I’m sorry I’m not better at it.”
Lance smiles against Keith’s shirt. “You’re doing fine.”
“I mean it though. We can stay here tonight. No one ever comes in here. It’s not like they’re going to stumble across us if you don’t want to go back to your room.”
Lance nods, eyes slipping closed. “I’d rather stay here.”
“Okay.” Keith pulls away just enough to rearrange the blanket around them, laying down and pulling Lance back against his chest, one arm looped around his waist.
“This okay?” Keith asks, trying to make them both comfortable.
Lance is flushed but lets his hands fall to where Keith has an arm draped over his waist, pulling him closer.
“Yeah.”
Keith shifts around, pressing further into the cushions at his back trying to make sure Lance has enough room.
“You have enough room? I don’t want to push you off the couch.”
Lance bites the inside of his cheek before turning around in Keith’s arms, starling him. Before he can say anything Lance is tucking himself under Keith’s chin, slipping a leg between hisknees, tangling them together and shuffling closer. His heart races for the few seconds it takes Keith to settle his arm back around Lance, afraid Keith will shove him away.
“Yeah,” Lance says softly, the words muffled in the soft fabric of Keith’s shirt. “But this is better.”
After a moment Keith’s fingers find his hair, running loosely over his scalp and Lance’s eyes slide closed.
“Okay.” Lance isn’t sure if he imagines the smile in Keith’s voice, but he falls asleep smiling himself and gets the best rest he’s had in years.