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When his lifeless, limp body hit the red-stained floor, the arena went wild.
The sound of their shrieks and screams rang in his ear, the lights from above flashing and blinding him.
His body felt heavy, his shoulders weighed down by the strange eyes of thousands. He lifts his aching head, his own blood pounding in his ears, as he meets the crowds gaze. There’s blood on his hands, the sword he clutches soaked in it. His clothes are battered, his skin is bruised, his brow shining with sweat. His heart is pounding in his chest as he struggles to catch his breath.
Craning his neck, Lance looks up.
When he smiled, cocky and arrogant, the crowd screamed.
The noise reverberated throughout the whole room, echoing off the high, rounded ceilings, in the shadows that lurk in every corner. It maked his bones shake, his heart speed up in his chest. A sick sense of bloody pride overtook him as he lifted up his hands, coated in red.
He can hear it, passing around on their voices. He can hear it chanted throughout the Galra. They shout his title like it’s a mantra.
The Prince’s Champion.
In the haze of fighting, of colosseums and arenas and pain, of Galra swords heavy in his hands and that now constant ache in his muscles, one thing will always stay the same. There is one thing he can always depend on.
From above, in an alcove looking over the seats full of people, the king sits. He watches, like a gargoyle from above. But beside him, the prince sits ready, always leaning forward on his elbows, always looking down at the champion. At his champion.
As Lance let the weapon in his hands drop to the floor, Galra soldiers rushing out into the arena to detain him, he looked up at the prince. He caught a flash of yellow eyes, a smirk that flashed pointed teeth, an interested, intrigued glance.
Even as soldiers take his hands behind his back, clasping them together, Lance smirked right back up at the prince.
As he walks away, back to his cell, he can feel the prince’s eyes on him.
It’s this game they play.
They only ever see each other in the arena, or when Lance is being dragged through damp, shadowed halls. They rarely speak in anything besides quick glances, slight bows, challenging smiles.
Sometimes, the prince will stand in front of him, a guard on either side.
He’ll always hold his head high, will always look down his nose at Lance-- but they way he smirks and tilts his head to the side shows something else than the judging looks Lance is used to.
“So,” he hummed, royal robes billowing around his body as he slowed to a stop. Lance looked at him with narrowed eyes, ducking into a slight bow at the feeling of one of the guards jabbing the barrel of a gun into his back.
The prince is stiff. Lance can see it in the tense line of his shoulders, the way he crossing his arms in front of him, the way he narrows his eyes at the soldiers behind Lance. “I see that… you haven’t died yet,” He tries to keep his voice level, even. But Lance can hear the amusement in his tone.
“No,” Lance clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth with a laugh-- he can still taste the faint tang of his own blood. “I haven’t, your highness. And I don’t plan to anytime soon.”
A pause, a moment to breathe, to think. The prince chewed on his words. His lips were twisted in a grin that would look almost sinister to anyone else, but to Lance, he could see how the light in his yellow eyes gave him away.
“Well that’s… good.”
You’ve made it this far. How much more do you have in you?
“Sometimes I doubt that, your highness.”
Much more than you think, prince Keith.
Then the prince is gone, turning away and walking down the halls. There are harsh hands on Lance’s back, shoving him towards the cells.
Lance risks a look over his shoulder, returning the challenging look that the prince is still smiling at him with.
Keith has one thing in common with his champion; it feels like there are eyes always watching him.
He’s been put up on a pedestal, set out to fill his father’s place one day, expected to be the same leader that Zarkon is. He’s expected to act a certain way, talk a certain way, like some puppet having its strings pulled.
His every actions are watched. By guards, by soldiers, by leaders, by the Druids, by Zarkon, by the entire empire, by the universe.
They're all expecting the same thing, they're all expecting him to fit his father’s shoes perfectly one day. They’re all watching, with bated breath and wide eyes, with anxious fear and a sick nervousness that makes Keith want to curl up and let the vast, endless vacuum of space consume him.
But, when he’s looking down on the arena, the roar of shouts and cheers echoing around him, he feels different.
When his champion looks up at him, yet another victorious fight leaving him sweating and battling to catch up with his own breath, Keith feels a swell of pride.
He sees his strength, sees the smirk on his lips and the shine in his eyes, and feels that Keith would be more than okay with being under his champion’s pressing gaze.
Keith leans forward in his chair, completely unaware of the edge of the balcony digging into his elbows, or the annoying royal cloak dragging off his shoulders, or the judging way Zarkon looks at him as he smiles down on the colosseum.
The champion cocks his head to the side. The prince mimics him.
His cell is lonely, empty, but he can’t deny there’s some warmth to it hidden away in the dark shadows and the cold metal bars.
Lance, sitting with his back to the wall and his knees pulled to his chest, looks out through the bars. He watches the guards making their rounds, walking past him with a tense, forced disinterest. It had been that way ever since the prince had heard about the abuse Lance had been subject to at one point.
It hadn’t always been this way, either. He once had been locked in a dark, windowless room, filled with other prisoners. He once had to get used to the constant chilling warmth of another person pressed to his shoulder, to the other fighters disappearing every few hours, to the soft, alien cries constantly echoing off the walls.
At some point, that had changed. Lance didn’t know how long ago it was, or if it had maybe been during his first fight, or his second, or his tenth. He hadn’t known why, at first.
But he could remember the day after a guard dragged him to an empty cell with old, rusted bars and chilling walls. He could remember being in the arena the day after that, hearing the crowds cheer and chant his new title as he looked up and caught knowing yellow eyes.
He could remember how, at that moment in time, he didn’t know what to think about the prince’s attention.
But now, as a guard walks past the gaps in the bars, Lance leans his head back against the wall, a cocky smirk on his face as they quickly disappear from his sight.
Now, Lance figures that he would win a million more fights as long as he knows that he has the prince’s eyes on him.
“You shouldn’t be so sentimental of a bloodthirsty brute.”
Keith’s heard it all before, almost every night after the champion fights in the arena, almost every night after Keith purposely crosses paths with him right after fights.
But, still, the way Zarkon paces back and forth in front of him, arms crossed behind his back and a familiar scowl on his face makes Keith’s blood boil in his veins.
Keith digs his teeth into his lip, harsh enough to pierce the skin. He keeps his hands still by his sides, his shoulders square under Zarkon’s pressing sideways glances. He bit down on his tongue, knowing what would happen to him if he spoke up, if he opposed the emperor.
“Do you know what this does to our image?” He growled out, the words catching in the air. “It was bad enough, moving him to a separate cell. But that was easy to cover up and hide from the public.”
The sound of his heels clicking against the floor as he paced and pivoted around sounded like nails on a chalkboard to Keith, making him grit his teeth together. His grating, jarring voice was even harsher on his ears. “But it has to stop,” he chewed out, not seeming to notice Keith’s eyes widen slightly as he stopped and stood still, a shadow towering over Keith.
“Your… affection towards this prisoner has already weakened the public’s thought of you,” Keith’s hands clenched into fists, pinned behind his back. Zarkon’s gaze burned, fiery and deadly, but Keith couldn’t look away, couldn’t back down.
“You’ll be the emperor one day,” he said it slowly, like he wanted the words to sink into Keith’s skin, ingrained into the back of his mind. “And the Galra empire can’t have a weak ruler.” With a low huff under his breath, Zarkon straightened his back, his shoulders squared off as he looked down at the prince through slitted eyes. Keith stared back at him, struggling to keep silent.
“Your games with this champion have to end here,” his head was tilted to the side, in a familiar way that made Keith suck in a breath and wonder just how much Zarkon saw, if he had noticing much more than Keith had thought. “You have to distance yourself if you want to save our reputation.”
Zarkon didn’t say a word, just stared down at Keith with that calculating look on his face, like he was searching for it. Keith wondered if he found it when a grim smirk cracked across his face, looking uncomfortable and unnatural. “I’m glad we’ve come to an agreement,” He hummed, stepping away, “son.”
Keith stared after him, unable to look away from the way his cloak trailed behind him as he walked, unable to focus on anything but the click click click of his heels against the ground and Keith’s heart pounding against his ribs.
“And what if I don’t?” Keith said in one quick gasp, like the air had been squeezed out of his lungs, dragging the words caught in his mind with it.
As Zarkon slowed to a stop in the doorway, purple fabric whispering behind him, Keith tensed up, afraid that he had said the wrong thing.
The emperor looked over his shoulder, yellow eyes glowing like stars. “That’s not an option.”
As Keith stood alone in the center of the dark, empty room, his heart felt like it was being compressed.
There’s something different about this fight.
There’s something strange, foreign in the air. Lance can feel it as the soldiers on either side of him walk him out into the open. He can hear it in the silent, aching hush of the crowd all around him as the soldiers take the shackles off his wrists.
Lance’s heart is in his throat, his arms are shaking as he pulls a dented and overused sword off of the racks by the walls.
Lance fidgets as he walks out of the small room, out into the open, where the eyes of thousands glare down on him. As he looks up, squinting through the bright lights bearing down on him, the silence breaks into the cheer, the screams he’s familiar with. But the chill in the air stays the same. It clings to his ragged clothes, pulls at his heart, seeps in under his skin.
He looks to where the royals sit, the alcove high up in the wall with the Galran banners hanging off the balcony, all too familiar. He sees the emperor, that constant scowl set into his features, weighing down his shoulders. He sees the guards, armed to the teeth, standing behind the emperor in the shadows.
But he doesn’t see the prince.
The sound of the gate on the other end of the arena slamming shut made him flinch, his heart caught in his throat as he twisted around. He felt exposed, fragile, alone in the center of the arena. The thousands of eyes staring down at him, waiting, watching, couldn’t replace the absent gaze of the prince.
The sword in his hands dragged against the ground as he turned to face the large, bulky figure heading his way. He gulped as they walked closer and closer.
“So,” a gruff voice growled out in an interested laugh. “You’re the royal pet, eh?” The figure stood in front of him, massive and bulky on two legs. He didn’t hold a weapon, but with arms like tree trunks and a face like a rhinoceros, Lance knew he didn’t need one.
Lance stood ready, his muscles tense and his grip tight on the sword as he stared up at the hulking alien with a suspicious scowl. They looked down at Lance, eyeing him with a laugh, like he was some sort of joke.
“Yeah,” Lance gulped, trying to inch away, hiding his nervousness with a smirk. He hoped they didn’t notice how Lance kept instinctively looking up into the crowd, for someone that wasn’t there. “Yeah, that’s me.”
The alien’s booming, thunderous laughter seems to echo off the walls and back to Lance, a powerful contrast to the hushed, anxious silence of the crowds. “How sad,” they huffed out, a lopsided smirk on their face. “That the prince would really fall for some skinny, weakling like you. I’m surprised you lasted this long.”
“You won’t be surprised a-anymore,” Lance bit into his cheek, his mouth feeling dry as he snarled. “When your lying face down in a pool of your own blood.”
The alien didn’t say anything, their expression narrowing into a scowl before they rolled their shoulders, cracking their neck.
“Well,” they opened their arms, like they were inviting Lance. “Prove it, then.”
Lance didn’t hesitate to lung forward, the sword aimed straight at the alien’s open, exposed stomach. He yelled out, his blood pumping through his veins, the adrenaline of the fight--
He didn't have any time to react when the alien grabbed the blade of his sword with it’s big, meaty hand like it was nothing. The sword was forcefully yanked from his grasp, his arm aching from the strain.
Pushed back, Lance struggled to keep his balance. Through his hair, he gasped, his hands shaking as the watch the alien.
They looked down at the sword in their hands, tilting it back and forth like Lance wasn’t even a threat, like he was nothing but a mouse they were toying with. Looking up, the alien grinned, something sinister and bloodthirsty in their eyes. Lance watched them throw the sword to the side, taking a step forward.
At some point, the stadium had burst into a flurry of cheers and screams and chants, but this time they weren’t yelling for Lance.
His heart felt like ice, lodged between his ribs.
Keith was getting more and more agitated with every passing second, with every person trying to waste his time.
He was late to the fight, he knew that and he hated it. He hated every guard or servant that tried to drag him away, to distract him with something mundane and boring that he wanted no part of. He hated how the two guards stuck trailing behind him kept trying to lead him down the wrong hall, tried to take him anywhere besides the colosseum.
Keith didn’t know if it was just his paranoia, scratching at the back of his skull with jagged claws, but something wasn't right.
There was something off in the wide eyes of people he passed, the hunched shoulders and hushed conversations he couldn’t hear. There’s was something about the way people couldn’t meet his eyes, would instantly duck their heads and look away when he walked past. There was something about the low, but desperate way that his soldiers talk to him.
Something wasn’t right. It made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.
“My prince,” Keith jolted to a stop at the guard suddenly standing in his way, in between him and the stairs leading up to the balcony overlooking the arena. “You shouldn’t go that way.”
“And why not?” Keith growled out, baring his teeth. The guard flinched back, casting a nervous glance to one of the soldiers standing behind Keith before he gulped. “Because… b-because the--”
“Emperor's orders, your highness,” a soldier spoke up from behind him, sounding sure of himself. Keith’s heart went cold. “Told all of us to keep you from--”
Keith spun on his heels, a flurry of red cloth and purple hair, his eyes narrowed dangerously and lips curled back in a snarl. “Why?” He snapped, his voice echoing off the walls and throughout the corridor, sounding much more steady than Keith actually felt.
“Tell me why,” he ground out between sharp teeth, even though he knew why. He knew why his father was trying to keep him away from the arena. He knew.
But the worried look on the soldier's face, grim and dark and so, so uncertain of what he should say, should do, only confirmed it.
Keith didn’t risk another moment, didn’t give anyone the chance to speak up or stop him before he was running down the hall.
He’s not going to make it this time, Keith's thoughts echoed in his head, a dark, empty reminder as he ran to the depths of the colosseum. Zarkon-- he made sure of it. He wanted this. He passed the dark, empty hall leading to the cells, running until he could hear the shrill hum of the crowd’s screams.
As he burst into the room, eyeing the weapons lining the walls and the large, iron gate leading to the arena, Keith barely gave himself a moment to catch his breath.
“W-wait.” He flicked his ears at the voice, gasping for breath as he turned to look at the started guard by the lever to lift the gate. “Y-you,” he stuttered, reaching for something on his belt. Keith tensed up. “You shouldn’t be here, your highness.”
Keith clenched his fists until he could feel his claws digging into his palms, standing tall and proud with a sense of authority he didn’t actually feel. “I don’t care,” Keith huffed out, glancing between the guard and the iron gate, hoping to see a sign of anything out in the arena. The screaming crowd was deafening. “Open the--”
His whole body went rigid at the sound of a pained, crushing scream ripped through the air, followed by maniacal laughter.
Keith didn’t think, his body moving on it’s own as he grabbed the wrist of the stunned guard, yanking him around and pushing him face first into the wall. The guard bit back on a cry as Keith pushing his arm between his shoulder blades.
“L-listen to me,” Keith gasped out, his voice shook, his hands quivering. “You’re not going to stop me, you’re not going to get in my way. Or I’ll send you to the farthest moon from here and abandon you there. Understood?” Keith huffed a nod when he whimpered, pulling back slightly.
“Now, open. The. Gate.”
“So, pet,” they growled out, stepping closer. Closer. A malicious grin slips across their face. “I expected more from you.”
Lance didn’t respond, couldn’t say a word with fear gripping his heart and the jarring, overdue realization that he could die here, in this arena. He kept glancing around the alien, to the sword lying on the ground so far away.
He needed to get to it. It was his only hope. Without a weapon or anything, Lance was as good as dead, he knew this. But the ice in his veins, embedded in his bones left him stepping backwards, the instinct to flee and run away too strong. He kept looking up, looking for the gaze of someone he knew wasn't there, only to see the knowing eyes of the Emperor starring--
Lance’s heart dropped to his feet when he felt the cold metal wall against his back. The alien sniggered. The crowd cheered.
“Heh, not so high and mighty now, eh?” They grinned, locking Lance into place with a hand, tears springing to Lance’s eyes as he used him back into the wall. He could feel his bones grinding, groaning, pain echoing.
“Honestly, I can’t imagine what that damn prince saw in you,” he huffed out with a snort. “You're useless! But, hey, I heard that prince o’ yours fancies anyone that opens their legs for em.” Lance’s eyes snapped open, looking up with shock. The alien revelled in the fire in Lance’s eyes.
“Is that what you did to get this far, champion?” They leaned so close their breath brushed against Lance’s face, wet and hot on his skin, rank like rotten meat. “Is that how you got this far? Is that how you got that pretty cell o’ yours and all this special treatment? I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“D-dont…” Lance sucked in a breath and the fingers tightening around his shoulder, his fingers clawing at the alien’s rough skin. It felt like his arm was going to pop right out of the socket.
“Hm?” They hummed, leaning even closer until Lace could only see two pairs of eyes blinking at him. “What was that, prince’s pet?”
Lance’s lifted his chin, narrowed his eyes, and spat in their face.
The alien recoiled slightly with a low growl as Lance huffed out. “Hey, asshole,” Lance said loudly, his voice booming. “I didn’t open my legs for anyone! So you better shut the fuck up, and stop talking about the prince like that!”
The alien didn’t say anything. Instead, they grabbed his arm, and lifted him high off of the floor.
“W-wait!” Lance gasped out, eyes wide. His feet dangling just above the floor. He looked up at the hand wrapped tight around his forearm, struggling to try and pull himself free, panic freezing his whole body. “W-w-wait, no--”
With a sudden crunch, the hand tightened into fist, like Lance’s arm was nothign but a twig to him. Lance let out a blood curdling scream, his vision blurring with tears at the white hot pain shooting down his arm, to his shoulder, leaving his bones hollow.
The alien let out a laugh at his cries, at the tears streaming down his face, at the panicked gasps for air. “Not so tough now,” they struggled to say over Lance’s screaming. “Without that prince of yours--”
“Lance!”
His eyes snapped open, the hand holding his broken, bleeding arm going rigid. He craned his neck to the side, breath caught in his throat, only to be squeezed out of his lungs when he saw the prince.
“...K-Keith?”
He stood in the open gate, hands clenched into fists at his sides and shoulders tense, his whole body frozen like a statue. He was looking straight at Lance, and when he locked eyes with Keith, Lance saw fear, panic, worry, and something else that shouldn’t be there, not in the eyes of a prince. And definitely not towards him.
But, he felt that he understood.
Lance risked it, kicking the alien in the gut suddenly. They wheezed, the bloody hand holding his broken arm letting go. As Lance dropped the the floor, another shock of pain running through him, he didn’t give himself any time to recovering.
On his feet, Lance dived out of the way of the alien’s arms, struggling to run towards the center of the arena, struggling to see through the pained tears clouding his vision.
His legs were weak, his bones unsteady. He couldn't stop himself from tumbling forward. He couldn’t stop his sob as he rolled on his broken, shattered arm.
on his back, he opened his eyes to the see the hulking alien charging towards him, all sense of thought lost as he scrambled back in a panic.
When he felt the cold, sharp blade jabbing into his back, his eyes widened.
“I swear,” they huffed out, voice a rumbling growl. They went to reach out, both hands going to grab Lance’s shoulders. “When I’m done with you--”
They didn’t expect Lance to lunge out, a sword in his hands. They didn’t expect the blade to pierce their stomach, sawing through bones, puncturing their words.
Blood sprayed, the alien tensing up, staring down at Lance with shocked, wide eyes before going blank, lifeless, glassy. Lance pushed the sword to the side and off of him with every ounce of strength he had left as he body went limp, falling to the floor beside him.
Lance gasped out, leaning his head back against the floor and squeezing his eyes shut. With shaking fingers, he held his injured arm to his chest. He didn’t care about the sticky sweat making his hair cling to his forehead, or the sickeningly warm blood coating his skin, dampening his clothes. He could barely hear the crowd's screams, the way they chanted his name-- his actual name.
He couldn't spare any thought to the sound of heels clicking against the floor as everything went black.
When Lance woke up again, he jolted awake.
With a ragged gasp, he pulled the air into his lungs as he sat up, fear and panic and leftover adrenaline making him glance around frantically. Even when he priced the familiar grey walls, the bars to the side of him, the emptiness of his lonely cell, he couldn’t calm down.
My arm, he thought rigidly. He looked down at his hand, his fingers digging into the skin of his forearm, the one that had been injured but now looked as good as before, with nothing but a dull ache and the feeling of pins and needles piercing his skin to remind him of the pain.
Lance didn’t want to question it, didn’t even want to consider how he bones could have gone from being shattered to mended like nothing had happened. But, the thought that they Druids had been anywhere near him, had any part in him miraculously healing, made his skin itch and his body shake.
“So--”
Lance sucked in a sharp breath, whipping around at the voice slicing through silence, making him realize he wasn’t as alone as he had thought.
But, when he saw the Galra prince sitting by the bars of his cell, looking in with wide yellow eyes, his shoulders finally, finally relaxed.
“O-oh,” Lance gulped, raking his fingers through his hair. “It’s.. it’s you.”
“Yeah… it’s me.”
The awkward, silent energy in the air so thick it hung like fog. The prince seemed to be waiting for Lance to say something, golden eyes staring through the bars at him with such unashamed interest Lance felt his face warm. But, he couldn’t think of a thing to say, didn’t want to say a word after what had happened.
Instead, in dead silence, Lance dragged himself to the wall, right beside Keith through the bars. Leaning back, he sighed at the cold seeping into his clothes through his blood stained rags. He bit his lip, staring at the far wall, the feeling of Keith’s gaze burning into his skin.
The prince dug his canines into his bottom lip, looking at the way Lance held his arm to his chest, clinging to it like he couldn’t believe it was still there. “I’m…” Keith spoke up, his stomach doing uncertain somersaults in his body. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t… get you new clothes. But --but your arm is okay, which is… good.”
Lance looked down at himself, at the dark stains and sighed. “Is it good, though?” He drawled, “how could it be could if I’m wearing rags like these?”
“O-oh, uhm,” Keith gulped, his ears flicking back and forth, eyes wide. “I-I, uh, could probably go-- go find you something to wear. B-but, I don’t know if--”
“Prince,” Lance spoke up tilting his head to shoot Keith a smirk. “That was a joke. Please don’t go running off now for some damn clothes.” Lance couldn’t help but feel his chest swell at the sight of a deep purple blush spreading across Keith’s face, at the sheepish and embarrassed why he frowned, even though it felt misplaced.
“O-oh,” Keith gulped, looking away. “Okay, then… uh…”
More silence fell on them, Keith going so still that the warmth radiating off of him and the purple out of the corner of Lance’s eye was the only sign he was even still their. There was something pressing, unspoken, grim in the air, in the way Keith’s ears drooped, Lance’s shoulders sagged.
They didn’t say it, but the fact that neither of them should be there was a heavy presence in the room.
“Prince…” Lance spoke up, trying to find the right words to say, but everything in his head was muddled. “What… what are you doing here? Really? Won’t your… the emperor, he doesn’t know you’re here, does he?”
Keith didn’t say a word, not at first. But when he did, he let the question dissolve in the air.
“I… I’m sorry.”
Lance blinked at him, forcing himself to stay silent, forcing himself to ignore the millions of things he finally wants to say. But he let Keith speak, waited as he sighed and didn’t meet his eyes. “I… I made this into a game,” he breath out, then in. “I made your… I made what you were going through a game, and… honestly? I sometimes forgot.”
“Forgot what?” Lance caught himself saying, the curiosity eating away at his mind.
He wasn’t ready for the raw emotion he saw in Keith’s eyes when he look at him, through the bars separating them. “I forgot that you were a prisoner,” he said, “and that I was a prince.”
He stopped there, letting the words saturate, letting the meaning sink in. Every time Lanc breathed in, the air felt cold, chilling in his lungs. Maybe it was the way Keith was looking at him with that barely hidden concern, or the warmth radiating off of him, or the empty, dark corners of his cell, but Lance felt like he was in the middle of a snowstorm.
“I’m…” His breath froze in front of his face. “I’m sorry.”
Keith blinked at him, raising a single eyebrow. “For what?” He laughed slightly.
“For getting captured.”
Keith clamped his mouth shut, quickly looking away to narrow his eyes at the far wall, his jaw clenched. This time, he could feel Lance’s gaze leaving burning, scarring marks on his skin.
When he felt Lance’s hand reaching through the bars, he didn’t react, didn’t look down, only interlaced their fingers together without a moment of hesitation.
In that space in time, between the planets and the stars, with Keith’s heart swelling in his chest with something both warm and chilling, he came to realize something.
“Lance,” he breathed out, “one day, I’m going to get you out of here.”
“Oh yeah?” Lance snorted, shaking his head back on forth. His tone was bitter, disbelieving, hopeless. “And when are you planning to do that? When you’re king?”
“Yes,” Keith answered right away, his tone the complete opposite of Lance’s. “When Zarkon is gone, and I’m in control, I’m going to get you out of there, okay? Don't you dare doubt that for a tick.”
Lance laughed lightly, shaking his head back and forth. But, he’d be lying if he said that the certainty in Keith’s voice didn’t fill him with some sort of hope, with some kind of blind faith that, deep down, he knew would only hurt him even more.
“Whatever you say, future king,” Lance teased, squeezing his hand. Keith clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, but otherwise said nothing. For once, he just wanted to sit there and enjoy the silence before the next guard would make his round, before someone would find him there, before he would be forced to leave and face Zarkon’s wrath.
The future king leaned his head against the bars. The champion mimicked him.