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It’s a split second decision.
Lance doesn’t think when he shoves the Blue Lion out of the way, he just does, consequences be damned.
He’s not stupid. He knows that a blast like that is far more likely to kill him than to kill Allura. He knows the energy will hurt as it rips up his spine, into his skull, out through his extremities.
He pushes her anyway.
The universe needs her more than it needs him. It isn’t self-deprecating like it may have been a few months ago, just simple fact. The sky is blue, the grass is green, and Allura is more important than Lance in the grand scheme of things.
Keith can pilot the Red Lion in Lance’s absence. No one can fly the castle and open wormholes if Allura isn’t there. No one will be the face of the coalition, no one will provide the alchemic knowledge she holds.
And all this runs through Lance’s mind in a fraction of a second, before he can even truly process what it is he’s thinking. He shoves the controls of his lion forward so fast it’s practically reflex, an automatic reaction that’s been hardwired into him without Lance even noticing. He feels the impact of the Red Lion against the Blue, feels the whiplash that occurs when inertia jostles him–
Feels the white-hot pain that races up his body as the blast hits its target.
It’s terrible, more all-encompassing than anything he’s ever felt. He feels as if something inside him is bursting horribly at the seams, ripping at everything inside him as it goes. He’s screaming, he’s sure, he can feel it scratching in his throat.
There’s voices, somewhere, distant, coming through his helmet. Oh, god, the other paladins can hear him, can probably feel this to some extent, through the bond that connects them all. He feels Red, fiery and passionate as usual, shoving against his consciousness desperately.
He can’t bring himself to respond to any of it, the pain still coursing through him dragging him into exhaustion.
Lance tries, he really tries to stay awake, to keep his eyes open, to do anything but fall into the dark void that’s dragging him in. But it’s a losing battle. The pain doesn’t fade, even as he himself does, vision spotting with black until he can’t see anything around him, until he’s unaware of his surroundings, until everything,
everything
slows
and
stops.
There is a (theoretical) list of "Things Keith Kogane Thought He'd Do In His Lifetime."
An impromptu Survivor season with his long-lost alien mother on a whale was not on it.
And yet here he is, gathering water and food in a strange forest, because it's his turn to do so. Because his mother (his mother!) is waiting back at their campsite. Because this is the routine they have had for several weeks.
They've figured out how to deal with the flashes of past and present that plague them occasionally, and by "deal with" Keith means that they've learned to put down anything they're carrying and get on the ground, lest the flashes knock them off their feet as they're wont to do. They've gotten pretty great at making fires. They've figured out what in this little habitat is safe to consume.
All in all, they've done pretty damn well for themselves.
Keith balances the small tub of water he's filled in a nearby stream atop his head, steadying it with one hand and feeling remarkably like a village girl back on Earth. The bucket of food he's gathered sits on his hip as he makes his way carefully back to their campsite. It's not a terribly long walk from where he is; today has been extremely lucky when it came to the amount of edible plants and critters Keith has been able to find.
Krolia greets him with a wave when he returns, stepping forward to take the bucket of foodstuffs from him. She hefts it with far more ease than Keith can manage, a testament to how much his human DNA has diluted the Galran strength in his veins. She speaks to him as she begins to prepare some of the meat, about everything and nothing, just to fill the quiet between them as she skins and guts a creature similar to a hare back on Earth.
It's a habit that bothered him once, but he's grown rather grateful for it more recently. Deep down, no matter how much he insists to himself otherwise, he does truly wish to know more about his mother. The things he learned from listening to her are trivial more often than not, but Keith quickly finds that he's surprisingly more interested in the mundane than he is in the deep and life-changing when it comes to Krolia.
Something in his head starts to bother him. Keith sighs, pressing a palm to his temple, writing it off as his translator fritzing as it tries to keep up with Krolia’s speech in the presence of the terrible time drop-offs and signal disruptions around them. It wouldn’t be the first time the piece of technology induced a headache, so it’s easy to ignore.
But his head pounds steadily harder, feeling almost like a burning in the back of his mind. It grows, amplifies, until he can hardly pay attention to the words being said around him. He feels his hand tremble minutely, the carving he’s been working on going suddenly shaky.
The force in his head doesn’t let up, and before long it truly feels as if someone has taken a torch to the inside of his skull. It’s fiery, burning, invasive almost, in a way that only one thing in his life has ever been. And then it hits him, even as his vision blurs and his ears ring.
It’s Red.
It’s similar to the calling he’s felt from her before, when he ran away with Allura, when he was injured during the Blade’s trials. But it’s been multiplied, amplified, cranked to eleven to the point of pain. He’s not sure what could be happening for her to call to him like this.
He knows it has to be something bad.
A wave of dizziness hits him even as he sits, and he nearly folds in on himself. Krolia’s speech halts suddenly. Keith looks up to find her sharp eyes on him.
“Keith,” Krolia says, voice low and steady as always. “Is something wrong?” Keith breathes deeply, shakily, trying to blink the blur from his vision. He sets the water he's still holding down slowly. He forces himself to meet Krolia’s gaze.
“I’m gonna pass out,” he breathes, before doing just that.
Keith wakes in a different place from where he started.
A very different place.
He feels only partly real, as he usually does when in Red’s astral plane, with that tenuous grasp on reality that comes with being half-outside it. He can’t fathom why he’s here. The void is nothing but that – a void. Not even Red paces around his feet, twining between his legs like she sometimes does when he’s in her abyss.
And then he sees it. Something, away in the distance, floating as if the imaginative gravity of Red’s astral plane has no hold on its being. It must be the reason Red called him here.
And so Keith does what he does best.
He sets his jaw, and he runs.
The Blade suit he’d passed out in feels tight around him in this bridge between realities, suffocating in a way it’s never been in real life. There’s a panic stabbing at his gut, unbacked, and Keith tries to tap into Red’s stream of consciousness to figure out what’s wrong but she won’t speak to him. Keith just curses under his breath and keeps running.
He finally gets close enough to make out the figure, he feels his blood run cold. He stumbles, catching himself at the last moment, and then he’s off faster than ever, pushing his body as far as it can go.
Because it’s Lance there, floating lifelessly, and Keith doesn’t want to think about what that means.
Keith hardly manages to keep from slamming into Lance, grabbing him and pulling him down, sinking to his knees himself. He feels his hands shake as they hover over Lance’s shoulders, feels his eyes fill with an unfamiliar heat as he looks over Lance’s body.
But there’s nothing to be found. No wounds, no indications of anything wrong. Keith feels his breath stutter and catch horribly. There’s something wrong, obviously, he knows it. Red wouldn't have been so frantic in his mind if there wasn’t.
“Lance,” he manages, tapping at his shoulders, eyes searching those dark features with a sign of life. “Lance, what the hell, wake up, man.” Stars above, he’s never felt this kind of terrifying panic before, zero to a hundred in a matter of seconds. His hard breathing has nothing to do with his running mere moments ago. It’s terrible and all-encompassing and it sends him reeling in a way nothing ever has and–
“Keith?”
The sound he lets out is something between a tremulous sigh of relief and a desperate sob, something he’ll never admit to later. But by the gods, it doesn’t matter right now, because those brown eyes are staring up at him, confused and glassy.
“Holy shit,” Keith breathes, pulling Lance tight into his chest. Lance laughs, a breathy thing, hugging back. Before long, Keith pulls back, holding Lance by the shoulders and searching his face, trying to figure out what’s wrong because surely, judging by the pulsing still shooting through his head, there’s something wrong.
And, judging by the swear that leaves Lance’s lips and the look of fearful realisation that comes across his face, Lance knows just what it is.
“What?” Keith demands. “What happened, Lance, talk to me.” Lance’s eyes go a little unfocused as his lip trembles, looking remarkably like a kid for a moment. (Isn’t that what they are though? Children, shoved into the places of soldiers and forced to barrel through the trauma they see every day in hopes that they’ll come out the other side hand in hand?) It wrenches at Keith’s heart in a way that little does, even in the midst of war.
And then Lance speaks, voice shaking as his eyes pool with tears.
“Oh my god, I’m dead.”
Keith feels his eyes go wide, fingers clenching at the armour on Lance’s shoulders with an iron grip. He feels as if his lungs stop working for a long moment, heart stuttering dangerously.
“What are you talking about?” he tries, and is met with a gut-wrenching sob. Lance’s hands go up to his mouth, trying to stifle his crying, chest heaving. Keith feels like he’s drowning, pure, unadulterated terror crawling into his lungs.
“The-The blast,” Lance cries. “God, I sh–’ A long whistle, to which Lance slams his hand against the ink-black ground in frustration. “I shoved Allura out of the way, and– and holy shit, I knew it could happen but oh, my god, I’m dead, I’m fucking dead.”
No. No, no, no, no, there’s no way.
“You’re not,” Keith tries, feeling his fingernails dig into Lance’s arms, even as he knows it must be true. “Lance, no, you’re not,” even as Red keens, high and so, so hurt in his head. Stars, this must be why Red was so distressed, why she pounded at his mind until he had no choice other than to go to her, to Lance.
“But I am,” Lance sobs, palms pressing so hard into his eyes that Keith knows it has to hurt. Clicks, rapid and high, rise in his throat as he shakes his head. Keith pulls his hands into his, tucking them between his palms in hopes of providing some small comfort, even as Lance crumbles in anguish, gasping for air between sobs.
“My–” he starts, and promptly chokes on tears, folding forward in such a way that Keith just has to catch him, to drag him closer, to press Lance’s forehead into his shoulder and hold him tight because it’ll be the last time he does so. “My mama,” Lance manages. “I didn’t even think to write anything d-down for her and– and–”
He cuts himself off again, trying to drag in breath desperately. Keith threads his fingers through short brown curls. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he marvels silently that he’s been able to keep it together.
“I know,” Keith says, voice hardly a whisper, though he doesn’t. “It’ll be okay,” even though it won’t. And Lance just trembles against him, a boy coming to terms with the fact that he will never see his mother again, a child coming to terms with his own death.
It’s a long while before Lance finally calms enough to speak clearly. Keith can’t help but wonder how much time has passed in the real world – time is different, strange sometimes, inside the Lions’ consciousnesses. But he doesn’t care. He’ll stay here as long as he needs, as long as Lance needs. His and Krolia’s trek through the quantum abyss does even hold a candle to this.
“Do you want me to tell her?” Keith asks, even though he has no idea if he’ll survive the time drop offs and terrible gravity of his own journey. Lance looks up, sniffling, eyes red.
“What?”
“Do you want me to– to tell your mom something?” he clarifies. “I don’t know how long it’ll be until I’m back on Earth, and I’m on…” Keith trails off, knowing that if he speaks about the dangers of his own mission, it’ll worry Lance, and that’s not what either of them need right now.
“I’m not really in a spot to head off to Earth right now,” he finally settles on, “but I’ll remember. I swear I’ll remember, Lance, I’ll tell her everything and anything you want her or anyone else to know.” Lance takes a gasping breath, and for a moment Keith is worried he’ll start sobbing again.
Not that he’s against Lance getting out his emotions, because, fuck, if there was ever a time to cry this is it. But he doesn’t know how long Red’s going to hold them in here, how long they have before they’re both fading from this plane.
With an attempt at a smile, Lance says, “How much do you think you can remember?”
“As much as you need me to.”
Lance nods, shaky. He’s silent for a long moment, thinking.
“Tell my mama,” he starts, slow, almost hesitant, “what we did up here. Tell her about all the good we did, all the planets and people we saved, you know? Tell her I never stopped thinking about her and– and that I wish I’d made it home.”
And Lance keeps talking, for minutes or for hours, Keith has no idea. It doesn’t matter. Keith commits every word to memory, listens to Lance’s messages for his sister Veronica and his brother Marco and his young niece and nephew, Nadia and Sylvio. He repeats the messages back to Lance, making sure he’s getting everything right. Mentally, he tells himself to write everything down as soon as he’s back with Krolia by any means possible, even if he has to ink the words into his damn skin.
And then Lance gives a few words for each of the other paladins, for Coran, even for Lotor (though his request there is just for Keith to flip him the bird the next time Keith sees him).
It’s slow going. Lance is talking through tears most of the time, having to take moments to reign his breathing back in. Keith waits, a patience like never before flowing over him. These are likely their last moments together. Keith’s going to make them count.
There’s a moment of silence between them. Lance looks at Keith with something unreadable before giving one last request.
“And uh, there’s this guy,” Lance starts, trying for a laugh. “You might know him. Real dark hair, wears terrible clothes, kinda shit personality but I love him anyway.” Keith nudges Lance in half-hearted offence. Lance smiles sadly at him.
“I need you to tell him he was a great leader when he needed to be,” he says, serious, leaving no room for argument. “I need you to tell him that I love him so much and that I really looked up to him and– and that I hope I get to watch from here as he returns to the Red Lion.” Lance pauses to take a deep, shuddering breath. It shakes his whole body, and Lance takes Keith’s hands in his.
“Yeah, I hope I stay right here. Because then we’ll get to fly together again.”
“God, Lance,” Keith chokes out, eyIes burning. He can’t fight back tears any more, feels them spill over his eyelashes. “You can’t just say shit like that.” He leans forward, pressing their foreheads together. Lance’s arms come up to rest on his shoulders, pulling them closer together.
“When else am I gonna say it?” he whispers. “Keith, this is my last chance.”
“It shouldn’t be.”
“But it is.”
But it is.
“Anything else?” Keith asks after a long moment. Lance looks at him, brown eyes seeming deeper than ever before.
“What else is there?”
What else is there indeed.
And so they sit, and they exist.
Keith isn’t sure when Red is going to release them. He’s not got a clue how much time has passed in the real world, but he finds that he doesn’t care. He’ll sit here for years if he can, just so Lance doesn’t have to be alone.
And then,
a voice breaks through the nothingness.
Please, the voice begs, please, Lance, come back to me.
Allura.
Lance swears under his breath, eyes welling with tears again. They can both hear the anguish in her voice; the hardly-concealed sobs are terrible cracks in her usual composure. There’s a long string of Altean, and though neither of them know what she says, they can infer just fine.
Allura knows what has happened. It isn't long before the rest of the paladins know as well.
But then Lance's body starts glowing, and everything is suddenly that much more complex.
"What's going on?" Lance chokes out, panicked. He looks around, at Keith, and the void, at himself, trying frantically to figure out what's going on. Keith thinks he understands.
"Lance," he whispers, half disbelieving. "Lance, I think Allura is bringing you back."
"Wh-What?"
"Allura, with her alchemy!" Keith says, a hopeful grin splitting across his face. The thought feels like a hot shower on a cold day, an all-encompassing relief that washes over like a flood. He grabs Lance’s shoulders. "You have to help her."
Come on, Lance, Allura’s voice, echoing and ethereal, washes over them. Come back, please. You can do this.
"I–I–" Lance stammers. He takes a shaking breath, staring at his trembling hands. Finally, his gaze flicks back up to meet Keith’s. There's determination in those eyes, bright and plain as day. "I can do this."
Keith watches as Lance's eyes drift shut, as his brow furrows, as he worries at his lip. Almost there, says Allura's voice. You're almost back, Lance, come on, please.
And, with a start, Keith realises that Lance is fading.
His grasp on this plane is becoming tenuous; his shoulders under Keith’s fingers are becoming less and less solid. Lance is slipping from the void, is slipping through Keith's fingers like sand and for once, it's not a painful thing.
Lance, against all odds, is fading into life once more.
"What I said about you," Lance says, just before he truly slips back into the world, "it was true. It was real. Don't forget it, okay?"
"I won't," Keith swears. He won't, he really won't. He couldn't, even if he wanted to. How do you forget that someone loves you like Lance loves Keith? You don't. You can't. Keith swallows hard.
"I love you too, Lance."
And with that, Lance is gone.
《☆》
Keith comes to with Krolia beside him. She's sitting cross-legged on the ground, not having bothered to even drag a pelt or pillow over to cushion her. The drag of her knife against a sun-bleached bone halts as soon as she notices his eyes open.
"Keith," she breathes, worried and relieved all at once. She tosses both things in her hands aside like they're nothing, leaning closer to him. A pause as she searches his face.
"Are you okay?" she demands. "What happened?"
Keith remembers the panic, the shock, the sorrow of his time in the abyss. He remembers the way Lance trembled beneath his fingers, remembers all the things Lance told him only because he was dead and assumed fairly that he would remain dead.
He remembers Allura's voice, her magic, her power and sheer stubbornness dragging Lance back into the world of the living. Keith smiles.
"I saw a friend," he says. "I'm fine, Mom."
Krolia’s eyes widen nearly imperceptibly at the title. It's the first time he's called her anything but her name. She looks lost for a moment, the kind of lost that can't be explained in the words of any tongue.
But she smiles at him regardless. She trails a hesitant hand across his hair.
"Okay," she says, "I'm glad."
Red rumbles softly in the back of his mind.
And Keith can't help but smile.
《☆》
Blinking awake after quite literally rising from the dead is akin to finding out you're in the wrong classroom when the teacher starts speaking.
You're confused. You don't know what's going on. There's a profound sense of not being where you belong, or, rather, being in a place you don't.
This is how Lance feels when he pries his eyelids open in the physical plane.
Allura's touch goes from light brushes against his helmeted head to a bone-crushing hug that nearly sends him right back into the astral plane. There's desperation in her embrace, fingers scrabbling against the back of his chestplate, trying to pull him impossibly closer when there isn't an inch of space between them to begin with. Her shoulders hitch, and Lance belatedly realises that she's sobbing.
"By the stars!" Allura exclaims, half shouting and half crying. "Oh, my god! Oh, my god, I thought you were gone!" Lance raises his arms numbly to circle around her back. They feel heavy, almost foreign, as he settles them against her armour, resting against her more than truly doing any embracing.
"I was gone," he breathes. It hits him like a blast from a battleship. "I was– I was dead."
"I know," Allura says, and sounds like she wishes she didn't. She doesn't pull back from her vice grip, doesn't even loosen the hold she's got on him. It's something Lance is grateful for.
He feels a bit fragile. He feels almost like if Allura stops holding him together now, he just might shatter explosively into a million little pieces, and then even Allura's alchemy won't be enough to stitch him back together. He hasn't felt this way in a long, long time. He doesn't want to ever feel like this again.
But at least Allura is here right now. At least he has her strength to lean into.
Allura pulls back wordlessly, those sturdy hands still on hair shoulders as she twists him this way and that to check him over. She pulls off her helmet, then his, and takes his face in her hands ever so gently. Pulls him forward. Plants a lingering kiss at his hairline. Despite his terror mere minutes ago, warmth courses through him at that simple action. He melts into her touch, craving it like he's starved.
She lets go for a moment, and pulls off her shoulder pads, her vambraces, her breastplate. And then, without preamble, she tucks his head into the crook of her neck and just holds him there.
Lance wonders, silently, how it is that she seems to know just what he needs.
And with that he's sobbing again, clutching at Allura like a child. The terror is catching up to him, as is the true realisation that he nearly – no, not nearly, that he really did just die. He was horrified then, and he's horrified now. It wasn't even a battle, by the stars. It truly is a harsh reminder that any of them could die at any moment.
It's not something Lance dwells on.
Instead, he just curls further into the amazing girl before him, and she simply lets him, her own embrace just as tight as his. She needs this just as much as he does, he realises, needs to feel his breathing, warm body tucked close to hers. Needs to assure herself that he truly is alive in her arms.
"I'm here," he whispers, as much for himself as for Allura. She squeezes momentarily tighter.
"I know," she whispers back. And then, so softly he hardly hears it, so softly he questions whether he really heard it at all, she says, "Please don't do that again, Lance. I love you too much." Lance swallows hard. Something in his chest twists pleasantly.
"I love you, too."