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“I’m fine.”
If he’s said it once, he’s said it a million times. Mostly to Shiro, of course. He’s the only one who really cares enough to ask, and definitely the only one who notices that Keith isn’t exactly acting fine.
Maybe if he says it about a million more times, it’ll actually be true.
Of course he’s trying his best to be fine. Honestly, he should be over it by now. It’s not like this is the first time he’s come close to dying. There was the whole thing with the gladiator bot trying to kill him, and the druid, and a hundred other encounters with random Galra soldiers on foot or in Red. Not to mention the close calls out in the desert before they came to space.
Just…something about this time won’t leave him. It wasn’t just that a stray blast from an ion cannon had nearly taken Red down or someone had tried to take his head off with a sword, he’d actually been dying. Blood everywhere, slipping in and out of consciousness, carried back to his Lion by Hunk and to the infirmary by Allura, getting shoved into a pod in the nick of time…that kind of dying.
He’d never had anything that bad happen before. And he can’t seem to quite shake it off.
Part of it, he thinks, has to do with the whole weird healing magic thing. He was dying, and then…he wasn’t. It felt like only a few seconds had passed, but suddenly he was perfectly fine despite the fact that he woke with his heart racing, still looking around for the Galra that almost cut him in two.
Even now, several days later, he keeps wanting to lift his shirt and check for the gaping wound he knows isn’t going to be there, but feels like it still should be.
And unfortunately, it’s not just Shiro anymore. The rest of the team is starting to notice, too. They go to a team training session and Keith literally flinches away from the gladiator when it takes a swing at his previously injured side, throwing off the whole spar and causing it to end with him on the floor, Pidge having to step in for him, and Allura giving him a lecture about pulling his weight.
Lance, of course, isn’t going to let that go anytime soon. Keith screwed up, and that’s apparently his favorite thing in the universe. He finds every possible excuse to bring it up for the rest of that day and the next, sarcastic and goading in a way that Keith tries to ignore, though he can’t help eventually snapping back and causing yet another argument between them.
In some ways, he wishes that the others would see how much he’s struggling. Maybe then Lance would leave him alone. Probably not, though. The boy has made it clear that he hates his guts, he’d probably be happy to know that his ‘rival’ is suffering.
But it’s fine. He’s fine. It’ll all get better with time, he just has to keep pushing through and get over this.
Except that it seems to somehow be getting worse, not better. He keeps getting dreams about the fight that almost killed him, which means he’s sleeping even worse than usual. That results in him accidentally falling asleep in the lounge one evening, much to his horror. Sleeping lightly makes the nightmare even more vivid than usual. He wakes from it in a panic, chest heaving and fingers clutching at the imaginary injury on his stomach.
And of course, of all people, Lance is there. If he’d realized, Keith would have immediately braced himself for merciless mocking, but as it is he’s too wrapped up in remembering how to breathe to even notice he has company until the familiar voice interrupts.
“Hey, uh…you okay over there?”
Keith throws a glance his way. “I’m fine,” he bites back through his teeth.
“You don’t look fine.” It’s sarcastic, yet somehow lacks the usual level of snark. “Is it just a nightmare, or are you hurt?”
Like he’d ever admit either to Lance. Prying his fingers from his shirt, he forces himself to sit up. “I said I’m fine. Just got…startled, is all.”
Lance eyes the spot he’d been holding skeptically. “You know, if you’re having like, leftover pain or something, you should tell Shiro or Allura instead of doing your stupid Tough Guy thing.”
“I don’t have any -” No, that would be a lie. He does have…something like pain, though he knows it isn’t real. “I don’t have a ‘Tough Guy thing’. I’m not injured, nothing’s wrong.”
Dropping his voice, Lance gives a frankly insulting imitation of Keith, all with a scowl on his face. “Hi, I’m Mullet. You can call me Mr. Perfect, though, because I never do anything wrong and don’t ever need anyone’s help with anything.”
“I don’t do that!” Keith protests, anger quickly rising as it always does with Lance.
“Then why did you just wake up from a nightmare insisting that nothing is wrong with you?”
“Maybe because I don’t want you to make fun of me!” The truth is out his mouth before he fully realizes what he’s saying. Once it clicks, he presses his lips together and crosses his arms, ready to hear the next insult.
Lance is surprisingly slow to respond this time, though. When he finally does, it’s far quieter than before. “I’m not gonna make fun of you for having a nightmare, Mullet. I…get them, too.” He huffs a laugh, but there’s not a lot of humor behind it. “There are way too many better things to make fun of you for than something like that.”
Keith doesn’t have a response to that. It sounds so unlike Lance…at least so unlike how he ever talks to him. He can’t really trust that it isn’t going to turn right back into teasing at any second.
“Is this about…the fight last week?”
For a moment he just glares sideways at him, trying to figure out his motives, before giving in and answering with a curt, “Yeah.” It’s not like he hasn’t put the pieces together on his own, anyway.
Lance nods slowly. “I’ll be honest, it was pretty scary to watch. I’m sure it…wasn’t fun to go through. And those pods, man, they…” He makes a noise of discomfort. “They’re a weird experience.”
He chews on the inside of his lip. “Yeah. They are.”
Silence stretches out between them. Keith has no idea what to say, what to even think about this strange conversation. Lance is acting…like he actually cares about what Keith is going through, and that makes no sense whatsoever.
“Is that…what the whole flinching thing was about in training?”
With an exasperated sigh, Keith rubs his fingers across his forehead. “Yes, Lance, that’s what it was about.”
Lance throws his hands up. “I’m not trying to make fun of you for it!”
“You’ve been making fun of me for it…”
He flounders for a second. “Yeah but I didn’t know,” he finally counters. “I mean, you’re Mr. Perfect. You don’t get…bothered by things.” That gets him another sideways glare, which makes him frown and lean back against the couch. “Except…I guess you do,” he muses after a moment, then scoffs. “If you’d cool it with the Tough Guy thing then maybe we’d have realized it sooner.”
Yeah, well, if you’d cool it with the teasing then maybe I wouldn’t have to play Tough Guy so much. He doesn’t say it out loud, though, and he can almost see the same thought dawning on Lance. In all honesty, of course, it’s not just Lance. He’s only the latest in a long line of people to make Keith bury most of his emotions down deep.
“I didn’t know,” he repeats, softer this time. “But…I should have, I guess. There probably isn’t anybody who can go through something like that and just be…fine, like you keep claiming. Even Mr. Perfect.”
Flashes of pain and blood go through Keith’s mind again, but he forces them aside. “I’m not perfect,” he sighs. “I never even pretended to be.”
Lance rolls his eyes. “If you say so. But seriously…” Leaning forward, he props his arms across his knees. “You should talk to somebody. I doubt you want it to be me, but…if for some reason you don’t want it to be Shiro, either, Hunk’s a great listener.”
Turning to face him more fully, Keith studies him for a moment, completely thrown off by this new and improved Lance. He’s not going to trust that this will last. For now, though, it’s…kinda nice to actually have a real conversation with him for once.
“I…yeah. Thanks. I’ll…I’ll think about it.”