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The first feeling he registered was blinking frost off his eyelashes. His skin was cold, and everything in front of him was a milky pale blue. His breath left him in a cloudy, hot puff- and then he heard a loud and insistent beep, like a microwave declaring a meal heated, and he was falling forward.
Oh, shit Lance McClain thought I was in a healing pod.
The room that housed the healing pods came into view slowly, blurry and overly bright. Lance stumbled, his brain not fully back online, his limbs still rubbery and too cold.
He couldn’t remember what happened, but even with the marvel medicine of the healing pod, his body did. It groaned in soreness and exhaustion as he took those few feeble steps, and right when he was sure he would succumb to gravity, a warm arm came to rest around his chest.
“Hey, dude. Welcome back.”
Hunk was looking down on him and smiling, his eyes wet with tears. They hugged, and not long after, Lance got tight hugs from every paladin and alien on the ship-with one notable exception.
“Where’s Keith?” Lance asked, and everyone’s face took on a grimm cast.
“He’s in his room.” Shiro offered, but concern clearly colored his voice. “He’s been there for the two days you’ve been in the pod- no one has seen him come out, but he won't let anyone in either. We’ve all tried.”
Lance chewed on his lip.
Him and Keith had only started dating a couple months ago, but even before that they had a deep knowledge of each other. Their competitive but singular friendship had led to Lance having a stockpile of Keith based intelligence, and Keith disappearing was a bad sign. If he had been training himself to death, it would have meant that he was upset, anxious, worried- all easily expected reactions to his boyfriend getting injured enough to need a pod. But going hermit mode meant something a little more sinister and unpinnable.
“What exactly happened?” Lance asked, looking over the rest of the team. “My memory pulls nothing but a blank.”
Pidge fidgeted. “We can conclude based on the footage we managed to pull off your helmet, that on our most recent scouting mission you and Keith got backed into a corner by some Galra goons. We know you got a lazer right through your guts -which was really bloody and gross by the way- and we know that Keith got you out and carried you here unconscious, but we don’t know exactly what happened because Keith never filed a report and I haven't been able to get the footage from his gear because he hasn’t left it out anywhere.”
Pidge sounded halfway to a pout, but a frustrated, worried tone underlined everything she said. Lance knew she was fretting over Keith and probably hated not knowing exactly what happened when it resulted in someone getting hurt.
“Keith not filing a report is really…out of character for him.” Lance decided to state the obvious, just to let some of the tension out of the air.
“We know.” Allura replied, her long brown finger twirling the ends of her hair. “I understand that the change in your relationship to each other and the graphic nature of your injury made this a harder experience for him, and he does have a tendency to isolate, but-”
“Seems strange, yeah.” Lance felt his exhaustion, the typical healing pod hangover, weighing him down as he thought about going to confront whatever it was that was going on with Keith. Then he shook it off- he was well, really, and he could always nap later after he made sure his boyfriend was alright. “Welp. I’ll go check on him.”
The looks of relief that rippled across his teammates' faces lifted his spirits considerably. Even Shiro, arguably one of the most important people in Keith’s life, knew that the relationship that Lance had with Keith was something special, something that could get past his walls and reach into whatever shadows laid in his heart, and that Lance was trusted enough to be allowed that.
With his own love guiding his footsteps and his team’s faith at his back, Lance set off on his quest.
*
Lance crosses the boundary of Keith’s closed bedroom door after barely a courtesy knock. Lance’s little transgressions like this were built into the tide of their relationship, the pull part of their push and pull dynamic. Social convention and polite expectation had always been tossed out the window, and they met each other in the raw, bluntly and edged in teeth. It was one of the things Lance loved about Keith.
“I’m coming in, mullet.” Lance called out as he stepped inside. “You better be decent.”
Instead of a snarling young man demanding he leave, Lance was met with a silent room, painted grey with the static fuzz of the untouched space.
“Hello?” Lance called softly into the room.
No response.
The bathroom cast a thin rectangle of pale yellow light that spilled across the floor like melted butter, and looking at where the door was half open, a knot of dread tightened in his chest right where his breathing happens. Lance moved quickly towards the door, and watched his own tan hand spread against the flat of it, watched himself push it open and the light flare in brightness all in slow motion, as if his life was a horror film.
His heart jumped painfully up into his throat and he almost startled back. The spike of fear lit up his blood before he could fully process what he was seeing.
Keith was sitting on the floor. In Lance’s initial dread boosted brain, he thought that Keith was dead. He sat so still, with his knees pulled up to his chest, and he barely reacted when Lance pushed open the door.
But then Keith's big eyes floated to him, and they looked so disoriented and lost, all the usual sharpness gone from his gaze. His eyes were always dark as velvet, but now that was gone, replaced with an emptiness that made those dark, pretty eyes take on the ache of the void.
Lance crouched in front of him and took his face in his hands. “Keith? Hey, Keith?”
Keith didn’t seem to be able to focus on him, and more concerning, he was covered in something. Lance took a moment to look him over, trying to assess what was wrong.
Keith was still in his armour. There was something dark brown encrusted all over him- it was all over the chest of his armour, staining his bare hands, clumped in his hair.
“What happened to you?” Lance asked him, and brushed a hand over the substance, trying to figure out what had happened- was it some poisonous space mold or something?
When he touched it, it flaked. As pieces of it fluttered to the ground like ash, it caught the light of the bathroom, and Lance saw that on the underside of those flakes, it leaned more rust colored then brown. With a jolt that made him feel sick, Lance realized Keith was covered in old, dried up blood.
His old, dried up blood.
“Lance?” Keith spoke in a voice unrecognizable to Lance, something small and broken and not fully there.
“Hey, baby, hey.” Lance brushed some of the clumped, nasty strands away from his face, trying to see what was going on in Keith’s head.
“I’m so sorry.” Keith told him in that too quiet voice. It disturbed Lance, how all the steel and fire and rough nasty edge that he associated with Keith seemed to just be sucked out of him, “You died.”
Lance felt a chill break down through his whole body.
“Hey, no I didn’t.” Lance said, and hugged Keith into his chest. He kissed the top of his stinky head. “I didn’t die. I’m right here. You saved me.”
God, had Keith been sitting on the bathroom floor for two days, in shock, convinced that Lance had died? How the fuck did that happen?
He felt Keith shudder in his arms. It was cold here on the floor, but the shuddering was definitely stemming from Keith’s emotional state. Lance looked around, wondering what the hell to do- he’d never been in a situation like this before, and Keith -
Lance had to admit, seeing Keith be this devastated at the belief that Lance had died- their relationship might still be fairly new, still dancing around things, the concept of love not one yet spoken and shared,but Lance knew in that moment that Keith loved him more then he had even dared to hope for.
“I felt it.” Keith spoke in haunted tones. “You died in my arms. I felt it.”
“I’m right here.” Lance hugged him tighter. “I’m alive.”
Lance could feel the way that Keith just wasn’t processing anything around him. He wasn’t hearing Lance, wasn’t truly there with him.
Lance made a decision.
“Okay, I’m gonna take care of you, alright?” Lance whispered soft against the shell of Keith’s ear. “Let’s clean you up.”
Lance was able to slip out from Keith’s slack hold with a concerning amount of ease. He went to the tub, and started the water running. It was hot almost instantly, the steam rising in fragrant clouds that spoke of life and body heat. Lance felt lucky that all the basic amenities came standard in all of their bathrooms- he might not have his super ultra luxury items, but he had the tools he needed to set Keith back to rights, and he went about the task with a kind of single minded devotion to the work of it that was only rivaled by the labour of a nun to her god.
He tested the water with a hand to make sure it wouldn’t scald. He found the compartment where the soap was kept and poured it in like an elixir. The sweet smell filled the room as glass fogged and mirrors misted. He turned to Keith, who was still staring into the middle distance. Lance tried to shake off how scary and foreign a Keith who was unaware of his surroundings was, and pulled him to his feet.
Keith was limp and accommodating in his hands. Lance stripped him of his armour, let it clatter to the floor and hoped it helped to shed the memories that were keeping Keith trapped in this dissociated state.
There was a necessary nakedness in this next step of getting Keith clean, and Lance hesitated in this. They had yet to be naked around each other, the physical side of their relationship being mostly contained to kissing and holding each other asleep.
“Okay, Keith. I gotta take your clothes off.” Lance told him, but Keith just looked at him. Lance really hated seeing Keith like this- he had fallen in love with a fighter, with a boy who loved like a herding dog loved its flock- with a maw full of wolf fur and hackles raised in warning. This Keith was a beaten, defeated thing. Lance hated it.
He took hold of the zipper at the back of Keith’s neck and peeled Keith free. His heart thud at the expanse of skin, the flesh of a fruit stripped clean. The contrast of Keith’s pale bare body to his blood covered hands gave him the illusion of a two toned creature, savage on one end and vulnerable on the other, and fully a sacred thing.
Lance guided Keith to sit in the warm water.Keith seemed to be operating on autopilot, moving sharp and jerky- raise one foot, plop, splash. Raise the other foot, plop, splash. His knees creaked as he finally plunked his naked body into the baptism of the tub, ripples dancing out from him in rocking displacement rhythms.The water took on the red-brown color of clay in Arizona, the earth something carried here in the blood of its creatures.
Lance thought it would be best to work from the top, and so he began.
He used his hands to cup water and smooth it over Keith’s head, down his hair, watching as the water dripped down a muted red. He used his fingers to scape dried clumps of his own blood out of the strands of Keith’s hair, and felt the moment that Keith began to shake. He kissed the crown of his head.
“It’s okay, baby.” Lance murmured to him. “Everything’s okay.”
Lance poured shampoo into his hand and sat on the edge of the tub. “Tilt your head back?”
Keith listened , and Lance took this as an encouraging sign. He lathered the soap into Keith’s hair, feeling the slickness of the bubbles beneath his fingers as his nails curled against the curve of Keith’s skull. The foam of the soap was the pale pink of cherry blossoms, and Lance rinsed and washed until the bubbles bloomed up white and clean.
Rinsing and massaging conditioner into Keith’s hair, Lance marveled at the silkyness of it slipping between his fingers. Leaving it to set, Lance crouched onto the floor. The entire front of his shirt was wet, and clinging, and there was dripping wetness down to his elbows, but he ignored it.
When he looked into Keith’s face, he found a confused perk of eyebrows, a mouth set into a twisted downwards frown. Lance smiled at him softly and held his hand open on the edge of the tub.
“Give me your hand, sweetheart.” Lance said softly, and Keith placed his hand into his.
Lance set to scrubbing away the caked on gore. He had a washcloth, and wiped away where his blood had formed into the grooves of Keith’s fingers, making every line of his palm vivid. No wonder palm reading was a thing- with every crinkle outlined in red like this, they really did look like the tapestry threads of fate, laying out a whole life.
“Is this real?” Keith whispered to Lance, where Lance had his head bowed over his hand. Lance brought his half clean hand up to his mouth and kissed the knuckles fiercely.
“Yes.” Lance told him. “Yes, this is real.”
Lance resumed cleaning his hand. There was blood caked under his nails. Lance used the blunt end of a metal nail clipper to gently carve it free, following the moon smile curve of Keith’s nerve bitten nails. Keith’s grip tightened and crushed Lance’s gentle ministrations, and Lance was compelled to look up into his face. He rippled with intensity.
“You lived?” Keith asked, desperate, like he was daring Lance to break his heart.
“I lived.” Lance reassured him, and watched the spark in his eyes reignite.
Water splashed everywhere as Keith lunged forward. It cascaded over the side of the tub as Keith grabbed Lance up and hugged him into his wet and heaving chest. There was a gasp that could have been a sob. His skin was slick against Lance’s ear, and Lance could feel the imprint of his hand where it curved along the side of Lance’s head, a five fingered print pressed damply into his hair. Lance snaked his arms around Keith’s back, and they held each other there in the murky water made holy by blood and care.
When they parted, Lance looked down at the flood on the bathroom floor, stained dark like a wine colored sea. His knees were soaked where he was kneeling, and Keith still gripped him like to not hold on was to lose him.
“Fuck it.” Lance said, and stood. Keith looked up at him, his face open and wide and exposed, his wet hair slicked back from his face. It made him look so young, his whole pale forehead and ears visible all at once for probably the first time in his life. Lance could feel the way his pulse thumped with the love and tenderness he felt in that moment, the same kind of ancient tenderness that worshippers have for their temple, that the temple has for the lamb, that the lamb has for the knife.
Lance stripped out of his soaking garments and let them slip to the ground. He stood naked and vulnerable and trembling before Keith.
“I’m gonna get in with you.” Lance told him. “If that’s alright.”
“It’s alright.” Keith replied in a voice that sounded like ‘come here’.
Lance stepped into the heat of the tub right between Keith’s knees. They both had to fold up their bodies to fit, and the water rose around them. Lance twisted and got some new water flowing in to replace what was lost. After, they stared at each other.
It felt not at all strange to be so starkly nude in front of each other. Lance had had daydreams where he had imagined himself as nervous and blushing to have Keith’s eyes looking over the scars on his chest, to not be able to hide the stick thinness if his body and all the insecure places his bones could be seen beneath his skin. He thought he would be in awe of Keith’s body, of the muscles he imagined him to have.
But all of those daydreams took place in a very different situation, and this wasn’t sexy at all. It was intimate in the same way that Keith holding Lance's guts in had been intimate. There was a currant of electricity between them and they were speaking to each other with no words, saying ‘here is the shape of my soul, and it intertwines with yours.’
“Let me clean your other hand.” Lance said, and reached for it.
“How long were you…” Keith started, and then cleared his throat. “How long was I out of it? I’m starving.”
“Two days.” Lance told him, and very careful to keep his eyes on the task of clearing away the evidence, he asked, “What happened?”
Keith licked his lips, and his eyebrows furrowed- a sign that he truly was coming back to himself.
“We got cornered.” Keith’s voice was rough from disuse, and it caught on his words like Velcro hooks catch on clothes. “Galra soldiers. But one of them was weird…he looked like he was experimented on by the Druids or something, all glowy and shit, y’know?”
Lance took Keith’s now clean hand in his and watched the hazy look of memory enter his eyes. He stayed quiet, and just let the heat of their hands clasped together stay.
“I don’t know what kind of power he had, or what he did, but he hurt you-“ Keith’s grip tightened and his jaw clenched, and for a moment his face was a mask of fury and sorrow swirled together, eyes wet, teeth bared. “-and I couldn’t get to you. You were bleeding out right in front of me, and everytime I managed to tear my way over to you, as soon as I picked you up, it was like time reversed in slow motion until I was back to being held by his lackeys and you were dying alone. It just kept happening, over and over. When I got to you the last time, I felt you-I felt you die. You shuddered and went empty, I could feel if.”
Keith looked at him with burning eyes, such an ocean of emotion behind them that Lance lost his breath.
“I think I screamed.” Keith said, and it was probably just his imagination but a memory-hazy like a half remembered nightmare- surfaced for just a moment-the sound of a howl loud and terrible enough to rip the inside of a throat.
“He laughed at me. I guess he didn’t think I was much of a threat at that point, but I cut his fucking head off.” Keith shrugged, but a sense of satisfaction lingered. Lance thought of the wolves in Princess Mononoke, how they still bit after being cleaved from their body. He thought Keith was a little like that. “Afterwards, I picked you up and brought you home, but you didn’t move at all and were so cold, I was so certain-“
Keith looked at him with his disbelief written in the soft round o of his mouth. “I was so certain you were gone.”
Lance tugged on Keith’s hand. “Not getting rid of me that easy, man. I don’t know how I survived, my memory is completely wiped. But I know it was because of you.”
Lance kissed his knuckles again.
“Can I wash your hair now?” Keith asked.
Lance was a little taken aback by this request. This was a bath for Keith, after all-but when he turned his back and felt the way Keith’s hands trembled as they traced the angle of Lance’s neck, the sweet way he ran his fingers through his hair and gently lathered him, Lance could see it for what it was. Keith was a tactile person, surprisingly so sometimes. When they had started dating, Lance had been shocked by how often Keith started touching him.
This was reassurance. It was devotion wrought through attention to detail. It was Keith convincing himself that Lance was really there, alive, in front of him.
“I’m in love with you.” Lance said, deciding just to say it. “I love you.”
Keith froze. Then, Lance was being pulled back against Keith’s chest, naked skin and naked souls pressed as close as could be and clean. Keith curved into him, his face a pressure in between Lance’s shoulder blades.
Keith cried, and hugged Lance tighter and longer than Lance had probably ever been hugged.
“I love you,too.”